Laconia CIP gets final committee approval

Last night, the city's Capital Improvement Program (CIP) Committee reviewed its rankings of the 44 projects requested by city departments and agencies for fiscal year 2009-2010, assigned each a potential funding source, and recommended the dozen or so highest ranked to the Planning Board for its review. Topping the list were $1.35-million for a variety of street reconstructions and repairs and the $1.45-million Weirs boardwalk upgrade and reconstruction.

Other projects making the top 12 list include playground revitalization, a thermal imaging camera for the fire department, drainage improvements to Anthony Drive, from North Main Street to Elm Street, fence and guardrail improvements across the city, additional city-wide drainage improvements, and emergency generators for The Weirs.

Also recommended were sidewalk repair and construction across the city, a security camera system for the public library, the revaluation of assessments throughout the city, and new traffic signals for the controversial Oak and North Main Streets intersection.

Just missing the top 12 were a comprehensive study of the major drainage systems throughout the city and central fire station improvements.

All told, the dozen making it to the top of the list will, if they are all undertaken, cost approximately, $3.568-million. But he amount of this tab is far from finalized.

For example, the city’s cost of reconstructing and restoring the Weirs Beach board walk will be reduced, perhaps significantly, if City Manager Eileen Cabanel is successful in her quest for additional funds from the Federal Emergency Finance Agency or other federal sources. Other projects may end up costing less than the preliminary figures as a result of competitive bidding.

The CIP Committee is a group of ten citizens along with three city councilors — Brenda Baer (Ward 4), Robert Hamel (Ward 5) and Henry Lipman (Ward 3). The committee, legally an offshoot of the Planning Board, is chaired by Don Richards from The Weirs. It reviews all of the departmental project requests each year. The review starts with the department heads making recommendations that are supported by their reasons for the requests. After hearing about all of the projects, each committee member ranks each proposed project on a scale of one to 25, with 25 being the highest. The rankings assigned to each project by each member are added together to make up the committee’s recommended ranking.

The last step in the process involves the committee members assigning a funding source for each proposal. Those funding sources include bonding (borrowing), capital outlay funding (cash), enterprise funding (from fees), and internal or departmental service budgeting.

Capital outlay funding can involve the City Council setting aside or saving the money for the project in a special fund. In some cases the special fund is specifically earmarked for the project. In others, the money goes into a fund that is set aside for a variety of projects.

All of the top 12 projects, except for the Weirs boardwalk reconstruction, are capital outlay projects. The committee recommended bond financing for the boardwalk project. The most significant project requiring borrowing not making the top 12 was the central fire station modernization.

When one of the city’s activities is financed with user charges — the Laconia Water Works or the sewer division in the Public Works Department, for example — the capital outlay projects are assigned enterprise funding. Projects or purchases are assigned internal service funding when they are included in a city department’s annual budget.

The significant enterprise fund projects involve expenditures by the water works for replacement of the water treatment plant filter bed and the Weirs water tank. Enterprise sewer improvements include upgrades to some gravity sewers.

Internal service expenditures reviewed by the committee included replacement police cruisers, department of public works vehicle replacement, and fire department deputy command and response vehicles.

Throughout last nights discussion, Chairman Richards stressed that the committee’s work represents recommendations to the Planning Board. That board can change the priorities before it recommends the list to the city manager and City Council, the body with the final say on which projects are undertaken and how much is appropriated to fund the endeavors.

Committee members Bob Dassatti and Jerry Mailloux urged City Planner Shanna Saunders to recommend to the Planning Board and city manager that city department heads and school district officials begin planning now for possible federal funding of public works and school projects under an economic stimulus program.

Richards also recommended that the committee urge the city manager and council create a facilities engineer position. “We have enough new building construction, particularly in the school district, to justify having a person whose responsibility is to make sure that we take good care of the properties that house our services. I don’t believe the city and the school district need separate people. One person could do the job for both,” Richards said.

There was consensus support for his recommendation but the same could be said for each of the last several years and each time the recommendation has been ignored.