Complete Document - City of Auburn

Budget Message (continued) May 28, 2002In exchange for the building site, the Water Board will construct a road through the propertyto connect to Alabama Street, thereby creating access to several industrial lots for the IDB.The sources of funding for the project are the Water Board and the proceeds of the sale ofthe City-owned property at the corner of West Glenn Avenue and Donahue Drive. There isconsiderable interest in this property because of its proximity to the University. The Waterand Sewer Department is landlocked at that location and needs a larger lot toaccommodate its storage of equipment, pipe, and other supplies.For the Fire service, we have included the purchase of a ladder truck to provide amore modern and dependable piece of equipment. The current ladder truck is 31 years oldand was overhauled in the mid-1980s. Because of our contract for fire services withAuburn University, we need to have a dependable ladder truck to fight fires on campus withits larger buildings. We have also included funding for a fifth fire station in the SouthCollege Street area, probably at the entrance to the Auburn Technology Park. Theadditional student firefighters needed to man the station will be hired in late FY 04 and beon staff in FY 05.With our success in industrial recruitment, we expect that the Technology ParkNorth will be filled within the next several years. The first Technology Park was built in1994 and all lots were sold or committed by 2002. Therefore, we will have to consider thepurchase of approximately three hundred acres west of the current technology parks nearthe new Beehive Road interchange now under option by the IDB. The CapitalImprovements Program has the purchase of the property listed in FY 03 and theconstruction of the improvements in FY 05. This property is located where the Outer LoopRoad will eventually be extended so we will be able to address two major infrastructureneeds with this one project.Included in the budget for downtown improvements are the continuation of the newstreet lights on Tichenor Avenue from North College Street to Gay Street and the upgradingof the crosswalks, as proposed by the Downtown Task Force. We also have stormdrainage projects planned for Pumphrey Drive and Burton Street to replace old pipes sothat we do not have future drainage problems in those areas. Matching funds are also inthe budget for continued improvements to the airport. Lastly, we propose the purchase ofequipment that you will see itemized in the Summary of Capital Outlay in Section 2 of thebudget document.Issues and Initiatives for the BienniumDuring the upcoming biennium, there will be major issues and projects for us toaddress:Joint Jail Facility- For the past several years, we have pursued the cooperationof Lee County and the City of Opelika to build an addition to the County jail that will providecapacity to handle the prisoners from both cities. During the past year, we were able tosecure an agreement with the Sheriff to take the City’s prisoners in the County jail. Thiscontract for services has saved the City money and has eliminated potential liability by nothaving to operate our own jail. Of course, the Sheriff was willing to work with us on thecontract for services because of the Council’s commitment to the addition to the County jailto accommodate prisoners for both cities and growth in the County’s prisoner population.29