4B Sales Tax Corporation Minutes - 09/14/2015 MINUTES OF THE
WICHITA FALLS 4B SALES TAX CORPORATION (4BSTC)
September 1.4, 2015
PRESENT:
Jim Ginnings, President § Members
Dustin Nimz, Vice President/Sec. Treasurer §
Rick Hatcher §
Darron Leiker §
Tim Ingle, District 4 § City Council.
Tom Quintero, District 5 §
Jim Dockery,Assistant City Manager/CFO § City Staff
Kinley Hegglund, City Attorney §
James McKechnie, Assistant City Attorney lI §
Scott McGee, Recreation Services Administrator §
Bob Sullivan, Director of MPEC §
Lindsay Greer, Director of CVB §
Linda Merrill, Recording Secretary §
Henry Florsheim, President& CEO § Chamber of Commerce and Industry
ABSENT:
Dave Clark § Members
Tony Fidelie §
1. CALL TO ORDER
Jim Ginnings called the meeting to order at 3:15 p.m.
2. APPROVAL OF MINUTES(FEBRUARY 2, 2015)
Subject to two corrections, Rick Hatcher moved for approval. Seconded by Dustin
Nimz,the motion carried.
Board member Casey O'Donnell has resigned. The City Council will appoint a
replacement once there are enough qualified applicants from which to choose.
3. PUBLIC HEARING AND APPROVAL OF BUDGET
Mr. Ginnings opened the public hearing at 3:18 p.m.
Jim Dockery provided a summary memo and line item budget in the meeting packet, and
a power point presentation during the meeting.
Projected revenues are at $4.221 million, with projected expenditures at a little over $4
million, leaving a balance of$182,51.1 of revenues minus expenditures.
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WFEDC—Minutes of September 14,2015 2
There is a beginning cash balance of $2.35 million, with $3 8,000 encumbered. The
biggest share of that encumbrance is for the MSU baseball field that has not materialized., That
contract terminated April 1, 2015, but Kinley I-legglund said it is necessary to do a notice of
termination to unencu ber those funds.
The Board has an unreserved fund balance of$2.14 million. There is no policy as to what
that fund balance needs to be, but there is no need for that much in reserve other than for an
unanticipated project for which the Board would want flexibility..
Revenues include sales tax, interest, TIF #2 reimbursements, and reimbursements from
the Travel Center. Expenditures include debt service obligations, as well as maintenance on the
CAD and records management software system.
Street repairs in the downtown area have become an annual expenditure of$400,000, as
have administrative charges of$10000 to partially cover the expenses of City staff.
There are other items that are not officially annual commitments, but are becoming
regular expenditures for the 4BSTC.
CVB incentive assistance of $35,000. The CVB offers incentives to get certain
conventions to come to Wichita halls. The CVB puts $40,000 of its own funds into
this project. Ms. Cheer said they have spent approximately $20,000 of the allotted 4
funds from this fiscal year.
The Downtown Improvement Grant, budgeted at $50,000, was implemented last year
and is very popular. It is a 50% matching grant up to $5,000 per project. The
guidelines were approved by the 4B Board and are administered by staff.
Other requests include:
• hotel Consultant: The City has been trying to get a full-service convention hotel near
MEC. It is difficult to attract certain conventions without such a hotel. The City paid
through the general fund to have a consultant evaluate the feasibility of a large full-
service hotel in the downtown area, That study came back favorable,suggesting that a
$40 million project would be successful with public/private financing, The 4BSTC is
being asked to budget $35,000 to assist with continuing the use of that consultant in
putting out and evaluating requests for proposals,
• Softball complex lighting: This request is again being brought to the 413 TC, it was
presented at the same time as the tennis center facility lighting project last year, but
the Board thought it was too large of an investment to do both at the same time. The
complex is 26 years old with original lighting. Numerous tournaments are held there
that would be negatively impacted if the fields are not available at night, and it is
reaching the point that it is dangerous to play at night, as players are not able to easily
see a fly ball, The new lights would cost $640,000, They would also have lower
operating electricity costs and would be maintenance free for 25 years under the
WFEDC—Minutes of September 14,2015 3
extended warranty. Eleven tournaments were held in 2014,and the CVB estimates the
economic impact at $1.4 million per year. The light fixtures are beyond their useful
life and staff can no longer obtain parts for this system, There are no City funds
available to pay for this project, Councilor Quintero said that once the lights are
replaced, tournaments coup be held 2417, and increase the economic impact to
perhaps $3 million per year. Mr. Leiker said lie is a big advocate for this project. The
CVB estimate is conservative, This could open the door to more tournaments and
more hotel bookings and help with sales tax revenues. Bob Sullivan added that it
would utilize the City's current limited-service hotel model,
r. Ginnings asked whether the price for the warranty could be separated from the
cost for the lights. Mr. McGee said the price is inclusive; they have bought from
another company for the second complex at a cost of a little over half the price of
Musco,but the warranty was for 7 years and it has not been dependable. Mr. Dockery
said it is difficult for the City to come up with money for maintenance, so he is in
favor of purchasing the inclusive warranty.
The 4BSTC is being asked to fund $100,000 toward Phase 2 of the Wayfinding
signage program, Phase 1 included $850,000 trorn general funds and$250,000 of
funds. Pedestrian signage has not been done, and there are still facilities that need to
be identified, as well as-si nage in the downtown area. The WF"EDC will be asked to
fund approximately $3 5,000 of Phase 2. It will not finish the project, but they will
prioritize the remaining areas for the most impact, Mr. Leiker said there may be a
multi-pronged approach to 4A and 4B in future budget years to finish the project.
Rick Hatcher said the 4BSTC appears to be viewed as the maintenance arm of a lot of
projects. Mr. Dockery said when the 4B was first contemplated back in 1997, it was the City's
capital improvement program., intended for replacement and: improvement of equipment. It has
been relied on heavily for those things, In addition to new projects, it has helped with streets,
park lighting, and circle trail improvements.
r.Ginnings closed the public hearing at 4:07 p.m.
Darron Leiker moved, seconded by Rick Hatcher,that the budget be approved.The
motion carried.
. DISCUSSION OF POTENTIAL USE OF WF4BSTCFUNDS FOR DOWNTOWN
PROJECTS As PROMOTIONAT, EXPENSESAT PROMOTE NEW ANDEXPANDED
BUSINESS OPPORTUNITIES
Mr. Ginnings said this item would be somewhat like the :Downtown Improvement Grant
expenditure of$50,000, except these matching hands would be in the forril of a loan. He, along
with Kinley Hegglund and Henry'Flor heim, met with Chuck White and Rick Graham to see
what some of the developers are doing.
wF D —Minutes of September 14,2015 4
HenryFlorsheini said that meeting was requested to determine whether themini-grant
program could work on a larger scale, specifically for residential purposes. There are at least four
potential downtown residential projects in the works. To push this community forward, industrial
development and downtown residences aught to be incentivied. Creating more residences
downtown would motivate business people to open more restaurants, bars and retail downtown.
The biggest weakness downtown are the tall vacant buildings. It takes private capital to renovate
them, not municipalities. Mr. Dockery said the major obstacle for developers wanting to use
older buildings is to bring them up to code for fire safety. It is often cheaper to build from
scratch. There may be a potential to incentivize through a grant or loan program for residential
development to help with some of those codes. Mr. Leiker said Grapevine slid a sprinkler
suppression grant program to help defray the cost to meet code for their downtown because they
wanted to redevelop it.Mr. Ginnin s said there may be value in Wichita Falls doing the same.
Mr. Hegglund said the requests to the 4BSTC would probably be about $100,000 based
on a $1 million investment. Mr. Dockery said WFEDC provides Forgivable grants, and the
413STC might want to do the same. He suggested that if$100,000 is granted and that facility is
used as a residence for a period of years, then the grant could be forgiven; otherwise,there would
be a claw back provision written in the loan to protect the Board's investment.
5. EXECUTIVE SESSION
Mr. Ginnings adjourned the meeting into executive session at 4.25 p.m. pursuant to
TEXAS (30VERNME T CODE 5 1 0 7. He closed the executive session and announced the
meeting back into regular session at 4:46 p.m. He declared that the subjects described in the
certified agenda were deliberated and no further action was taken.
6. A-DiouRN
Darron Leiker moved for adjournment. Seconded by Rick Hatcher, the meeting
was adjourned at 4:46 p.m.
im G' i resident