OVER THE NEXT FIVE YEARS …
PROJECTING $9 MILLION
IN CAPITAL EXPENDITURES AND EXPECTATIONS
At a special workshop on the evening of May 22nd Victoria city councilmem-bers received a "Christmas Wish List" from city staff in the form of a five-year Capital Improvement Plan, 2003-2007.  Said Administrator Steve Sarvi, "This is our best guess as to what our future needs are going to be."

He hopes for council approval of a five-year plan before budget time, "hope-fully in July."
As presented, the plan included some projected new salary and maintenance items.  Stated Mayor Jerry Bohn, "Capital improvement means buying things, buy-ing new equipment.  It's not maintenance and salaries.  It's stuff you can bond for."  He added, however, that those salary numbers do give good information for the council.
Total capital dollars for proposed expenditures from all the various city departments, over the five-year period, amounted to over $9 million -- including over $5 million in 2004 for a water treatment plant and new municipal well.
Discussion of projected expenditures in the various categories consumed over an hour of workshop time with city de-partment heads.
Said Mayor Bohn about items in the Mayor and Council category, "I think we ought to scratch laptop computers and internet e-mail."
From the Finance Department, Director Jylan Johnson advised that the Banyon Financial Accounting System is being stretched to the limit.  "It will be necessary to look at other systems as we grow," she said.  "It's for cities smaller than ours."
Regarding Election expense, Ad-ministrator Sarvi said, "We're considering precincts for 2004.  The auditor is sug-gesting we go to precincts, and it's not just a matter of voting space at the Hall.  We can also go to wards.  We'll be inves-tigating this."
Planning and Zoning will also grow in size and cost.  Said Steve, "A lot of cities, as they get bigger, have a Com-munity Development Department or an Economic Development Department.  We are starting to find that we're doing well with Maggie and Doc up front, but the filing and other office work is falling behind."
Maggie Gaitley and Doc Schmieg are the up front city office workers currently responding to many resident and devel-oper requests for information, among other things.
"We're looking at another shared in-dividual, an administrative assistant, for the various departments," said Steve.  "This could be accomplished with two part-timers, as early as next year, to meet the needs of the folks coming in."
Projected Police expenditures could include a Community Service Officer for the City of Victoria.  Said Steve, "We'd basically subcontract through the Sheriff's Department.  Chanhassen has a CSO and he's busy all the time."  He said a CSO would be hired at a rate reduced from county salaries, and that the next meeting of police and cities will be focusing on the subject.
Fire Protection is projected to con-sume over $1.5 million over the next five years.  Administrator Sarvi reported on conversation with Victoria Fire Chief Gary Sohns about the upcoming annexa-tion of over 1,000 acres of Laketown Township property.
"He said a second city fire station will be needed out further west, maybe near Laketown Road.  His suggestion now is for a new bay.  He feels the current station will always be our main station."
Regarding the high cost of a hook and ladder truck to fight fires in tall and big buildings, Steve said, "As we get addi-tions to the church, and we've got the field house, we almost need a ladder truck to keep our insurance rates down.  The council has always said we're surrounded by underutilized ladder trucks in Waconia, Chanhassen, Chaska, Mound ... The city will demand our own internal response."
Stated Tom Gray, Victoria's Building Official, "Their biggest concern is a lightning strike.  The new condominium project [on Stieger Lake] will be four stories tall."
Steve also referred to the cost of adding a sprinkler system at the existing fire station.  "We don't want our fire station to burn down," he said.
Regarding the Building Inspection category of the five-year plan, Tom Gray said, "We're getting to the point where a fire inspector is needed.  My job as the city grows becomes more administrative.  Plans for houses are coming in at a pretty fast pace."
In responding to the mayor's state-ment that the number of houses being constructed on an annual basis in Victoria remains rather consistent, Tom said, "There are more styles of houses being built today and more custom homes."  This requires more inspection time than when homebuilders put several similar or identical floor plans into a development.
Added Tom, a city employee for three years, "We've added 450 new houses since I've been here so there are also 450 new decks that now go along with those houses ... plus the number is growing."  Regarding projected five-year expenditures in the building category he said, "Hopefully the list is prudent."
The separation of Public Works and Parks categories is not easy.  Said Steve, "We have to decide where we're going to put our maintenance and mow-ing.  We've got an awful lot of property to maintain."
"Should we be providing equipment to do all that mowing?" questioned Mayor Bohn.  "Mowing and mowers are a huge expenditure.  I'm not sure what the expectation should be."
Public Works Superintendent Bruce Osborn defended the proposed purchase of a $15,000 zero-turn lawnmower.  "Right now a zero-turn mower is the hot-test item on the market," he said.  "It does twice the work of others."
Bruce said the council has to decide if it wants "the golf-course look all the way through town." 
About truck replacement expendi-tures, he said, "After seven years our pickups show a lot of wear.  We're see-ing they need to be replaced more timely.  There's also more trade value if you don't drive them to the dump."

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