By STEPHANIE FARLEY

sfarley@gctelegram.com

The Garden City Commission directed staff on Tuesday to proceed with the process of selling bonds to finance various road and building projects for this year, including tentatively approving $700,000 as the maximum cost for a new animal shelter.

According to City Engineer Steve Cottrell, the selling of bonds is the city's way of borrowing money -- bonds set to be sold would cover $2,172,000 worth of capital improvement projects the city planned for in this year's budget but knew it wouldn't have the cash on hand to cover. The city won't have to start paying back the money until 2009.

The projects, authorized in the 2008 budget and included in the city's Capital Improvements Program, require debt financing. Separated out, the city's looking at about $998,000 for major trafficway bonding, $824,000 in public building bonds and $350,000 for discretionary bonding, including an overlay project for the airport industrial area access road and a parking lot that's part of the Spruce Park Master Plan.

After approving staff to move forward with drafting a resolution to sell the bonds, Commissioner Nancy Harness said she felt most of the projects were in the next phase of ongoing projects and that they needed to move forward. She said she considered what the projects were, where they're located in the community and what stage they're at, adding one of the challenges is how to continue improving the city with limited resources.

As "painful" as it is spending the kind of money as the roughly $2.2 million, Harness said, she feels the commission took steps toward continuing to make the city look good and work well.

"We see that all around us," Harness said of improvements to the city.

Tuesday's issue, she said, was how the city can keep moving forward with improvements "without breaking the bank." Harness said there's the question of whether it's feasible to spend a lot of money on improvements when the city's not necessarily growing as fast as it could be -- but if the money's not spent, does the community grow, Harness asked.

Cottrell explained Tuesday to the commission he listed the new animal shelter at $700,000 for bonding to allow for rising construction costs and because negotiations of the building's actual cost to construct is still up in the air. Negotiations are ongoing between the city and Mid-America Millwright Service Inc. to attempt to bring project costs closer to the $500,000 shelter cost approved by the city and county commissions.

The county's currently obligated $250,000 for the project -- the city's matching with another $250,000. But Mid-America's initial proposal for a 7,200-square-foot shelter came in at $563,666.98 -- add $30,000 not included in the price for architect fees and dirt work and an estimated $110,000 for kennels and cages, and the project's about $200,000 over budget.

On Tuesday, commissioners agreed to proceed with the higher figure of $700,000, being prepared to cover the difference if the price tag doesn't decrease and the Finney County Humane Society is unable to raise enough in donations for the cost of kennels and cages.

Harness said there'd been a lot of discussion on the shelter and support by the community of a new facility, adding she believes the project's far enough along that the commission's committed to it.

Commissioner David Crase said he hoped the price could come down on the shelter and that road maintenance was needed, adding the majority of projects included in the bonding were quality of life issues. But just because the commission approved Tuesday for staff to proceed with drafting a resolution to bond the projects, he said, it's not the final say yet.

Mayor Reynaldo Mesa said that as the commission starts looking to the 2009 budget, they need remember that the city's tax base and economic activity aren't growing as much as they could be at the present time, and make sure the projects considered make sense at the time.

Mesa said Sunflower Electric Power Corp.'s proposed expansion is an "easy one to point out" that could create a lot of growth in the community. While it will be good to see IHOP, Hampton Inn and Sam's Club up and running, he said the area needs growth in the manufacturing industry.

Mesa said his concern is bonding a little more than $2 million when the city's current economic environment and growth is uncertain.

Interim City Manager Matt Allen said the city tries to maintain a rolling debt, which helps eliminate the "peaks and valleys" major capital improvement projects can bring. That works until there's a year when not much falls off in way of debt, which is the scenario the city's looking at a couple of years from now. In that case, Allen said, one of the options is reducing the number of projects.

He said this year's bond issuance was one of the city's most aggressive years. The 1998 bond of about $2.13 million is comparable, he said -- that bond is set to drop off this year.

Projects include:

n Mary Street reconstruction -- from Taylor to Zerr, $200,500

n Fulton Street curb and gutter repair, $75,000

n West Kansas Avenue KLINK Project, $400,000

n Five-Points traffic signal replacement, $35,000

n Main and Fulton intersection reconstruction, $152,200

n South Main Street pathway and landscaping, $104,000

n ARFF station and vehicle, $98,000

n Animal shelter, $700,000

n Airport industrial area access road overlay, $136,500

n Spruce Park parking lot, $200,000

n Issuance costs total $70,800