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Portsmouth manager previews $30M in carryover, public hearings and a new small-business loan program
Summary
City manager outlined 19 items in the city-manager report including two public hearings (Chesapeake Preservation Area overlay amendment and a Fairview use-permit for a proposed treatment facility), listed budget amendment requests totaling tens of millions, and council liaison reported a new EDA small-business loan program seeded with $250,000.
City Manager Carter used the Nov. 25 work session to preview items the council will consider under the city manager's report, including two public hearings and a large set of ordinances and resolutions.
Carter said the proposed Chesapeake Preservation Area overlay district amendment would align local ordinance with state requirements by incorporating climate-change and sea-level-rise assessments into reviews of projects in resource-protection areas; the planning commission recommended approval. He also announced a use-permit public hearing in the Fairview neighborhood for a proposed drug-and-alcohol treatment facility on Royal Street; the planning commission recommended denial for that application and the public hearing offers the council and community an opportunity for input.
The city-manager report contains 19 items (15 ordinances and four resolutions) that span appropriations, grants and policy approvals across social services, courts, public utilities, fire-rescue and behavioral-health services. Carter said the actions include a grant for dam-safety engineering at Lake Kilby, reimbursements for hazmat responses, peer-services funding for behavioral health and re-appropriation of previously approved FY'75 funds into FY'76. He described the combined carryover re-appropriations at approximately $30,000,000 for use in the current fiscal year.
The report also lists six budget amendment requests highlighted earlier in the legislative presentation (Prentiss Street transmission phases 1 and 2; a new housing resource center; sanitary-sewer pump-station rehabilitation; Portsmouth courthouse security infrastructure; lead-service-line inventory and replacement; and an amendment to reimbursement language for the city-jail renovation project).
Councilman Hugo proposed bundling the city manager's report items into a single consent vote. The clerk outlined the procedure: a motion to change the order of business to consider the city manager's items as one vote, a reading of the items, and then a separate motion to adopt the bundle. The clerk said there were no registered speakers asking to speak to the city-manager items at the time of the meeting.
In liaison reports, the Economic Development Authority (EDA) approved a small-business loan program offering $10,000 to $50,000 low-interest loans and seeded the program with $250,000 as start-up capital. The Planning, Parking and Infrastructure Committee (PPIC) reported a tour with American Cruise Lines at High Street Landing and recommended exploring water-and-sewer hookups to make Portsmouth an embarkation point for cruises rather than solely a stop, which could attract visitor lodging and local shore-excursion spending.
No final votes on these city-manager items are recorded in the work-session transcript; council scheduled the formal adoption of managerial items and the legislative-package resolutions later in the meeting calendar.
