Water, PD projects looked at by council

In their meeting of Jan. 9, the Boulder City Council voted to approve both a five-year financial plan for the city as well as a separate five-year plan for spending on capital projects.

The top-line news continues to be that projected costs for projects of all kinds continue to go in one direction. Up.

As a result of updated quotes on several projects, costs are projected to increase by $623,682.

Three of those projects are related to water conservation. When the initial capital spending plan was distributed, quotes for those projects were not available, so they were put into the plan at a level of $1. The actual cost of those projects will be $260,000. The other $380,000 and change is accounted for by new quotes for three police projects as well as new quotes for golf course equipment.

The police budget was initially set to cover just two projects, both of which have been covered in recent months in these pages. One of those was the purchase of crowd protection barriers for $185,000 and the other replacing the software the PD uses, at a cost of $400,000. The plan had been to also upgrade the radios used by the department but that was slated to come out of general operating expenses. However, the quote came back higher than expected, so the radios have moved to the general capital improvement pot at a cost of $120,000.

The water conservation projects at Boulder Creek that had been previously listed at $1 each were construction of a tournament staging area behind the current clubhouse, rehabilitation of three ponds that had been drained for water conservation and converting current 360-degree sprinkler heads with 180-degree models. The combined cost of those three items went from $3 to $260,000.

It was noted that the pond rehabilitation cost is only meant to address deciding what to do with the drained ponds in the future and not refilling them. It was pointed out that, depending 0n how it was decided to deal with the former ponds, that amount may have to be revisited.

The final $120,000 comes as a result of updated bids for various pieces of equipment at the two city-run golf courses. In addition to updating the amounts of each purchase to the current bid, a cushion of 5% was added over the next four years to account for inflation.

As has been the case in past meetings on multiple subjects including general spending, as well as a proposed luxury RV park, Mayor Joe Hardy zeroed in on restrooms for the pavilion at Boulder Creek, a large tent-like structure that is used to host various city functions, including the upcoming State of the City address scheduled for Jan. 18.

Hardy asked if the fact that there is a budget line of $250,000 identified as “pavilion restrooms” meant that there would be restrooms added to the current facility. He was told that they are in the early planning stages for that. The $250,000 budget is intended to cover planning, design and construction, but it was noted that this is a planning number and it may need to be revisited.

—In Other Actions: An agenda item had been published indicating that the council intended to discuss the potential for changing city code to mandate microchipping of pets in Boulder City, a move already undertaken in other municipalities in Clark County. However, per City Clerk Tami McKay, some members of support staff were unable to attend this meeting. As a result, the council voted to remove the item from the agenda and bring it forward again for a future meeting.