November 14, 2006
The Board of Commissioners of the City of Lawrence met in regular session at 6:35 p.m., in the City Commission Chambers in City Hall with Mayor Amyx presiding and members Highberger, Hack, Rundle, and Schauner present.
CONSENT AGENDA
With Commission approval Mayor Amyx proclaimed November 13 – 17, 2006 to be “U.S. International Education Week”; and Tuesday, November 28, 2006 to be “American Association of University Women Day.”
As part of the consent agenda, it was moved by Schauner, seconded by Hack, to receive the Board of Electrical Examiners and Appeals meeting minutes of October 10, 2006; the Convention & Visitors Bureau Advisory Board meeting minutes of September 26, 2006; the Board of Zoning Appeals meeting minutes of September 7, 2006; the Lawrence Alliance meeting minutes of September 13, 2006; and the Sister Cities Advisory Board meeting minutes of September 13, 2006 and October 11, 2006. Motion carried unanimously.As part of the consent agenda, it was moved by Schauner, seconded by Hack, to approve claims to 360 vendors in the amount of $1,699,186.34 and payroll from October 29, to November 11, 2006 in the amount of $1,634,519.84. Motion carried unanimously.As part of the consent agenda, it was moved by Schauner, seconded by Hack, to approve the Drinking Establishment License for Last Call, 729 New Hampshire. Motion carried unanimously.As part of the consent agenda, it was moved by Schauner, seconded by Hack, to authorize payment for temporary construction access and staging easements for the Pump Station 48 project to Westwood, L.L.C., in the amount of $2,253 and payment to Westwood Holdings, L.L.C. in the amount of $26,081 and to John & Klee Zaricky in the amount of $21,980 for temporary construction and permanent utility easements; and authorize payment to MCV limited in the amount of $50,000 for temporary construction access and staging areas and permanent utility easements. Motion carried unanimously. (1)As part of the consent agenda, it was moved by Schauner, seconded by Hack, to approve the Transit Department’s recommendation to acquire six (6) T-Lift paratransit vehicles, using the State of Kansas Comprehensive Transportation Program funding at a cost not to exceed $315,000. Motion carried unanimously. (2) As part of the consent agenda, it was moved by Schauner, seconded by Hack, to approve the Transit Department’s recommendation to prepare a change order to the current contract with MV Transportation, Inc., that allows the company to utilize two (2) replaced paratransit vehicles as Road Supervisor vehicles. Motion carried unanimously. (3) As part of the consent agenda, it was moved by Schauner, seconded by Hack, to approve the transfer of one (1) replaced paratransit vehicle to the Public Works Department to be utilized for special event transportation. Motion carried unanimously. (4)As part of the consent agenda, it was moved by Schauner, seconded by Hack, to place on first reading Ordinance No. 7929, rezoning (Z-06-36-05) 7.985 acres from M-1A (Light Industrial District) to RS7 (Single-dwelling Residential District); a portion of Lot 4, King Industrial Park; and, amend the zoning district map. Motion carried unanimously. (5) (5)As part of the consent agenda, it was moved by Schauner, seconded by Hack, to place on first reading Ordinance No. 7930, rezoning (Z-06-37-05) 1.873 acres from M-1A (Light Industrial District) to RS7 (Single-Family-dwelling Residential District); a portion of Lot 4, and adjoining West 31st Street right-of-way in King Industrial Park; and, amend the zoning district map. Motion carried unanimously. (6) As part of the consent agenda, it was moved by Schauner, seconded by Hack, to place on first reading Ordinance No. 7999, rezoning (Z-06-39-05) 12.329 acres from I-1 (Limited Industrial District) and A (Agricultural District) to RM24 (Multi-dwelling Residential District); located at the NW ¼ of 9-13-20E, amend the zoning district map. (7) As part of the consent agenda, it was moved by to place on first reading Ordinance No. 8045, rezoning (Z-05-13-06) 1.26 acres from RS7 (Single-dwelling Residential District) to RS5 (Single-dwelling Residential District), lots 1-10, a final plat of replat of Homewood Gardens Suburban Addition; and amend the rezoning district map. Motion carried unanimously. (8)
As part of the consent agenda, it was moved by Schauner, seconded by Hack, to place on first reading Ordinance No. 8049, regulating the sales of Christmas trees within the City of Lawrence. Motion carried unanimously. (9)
Ordinance No. 8047, adopting the codification of ordinances of the City of Lawrence as authorized by Ordinance No. 7879, was read a second time. As part of the consent agenda, it was moved by Schauner, seconded by Hack, to adopt the ordinance. Aye: Amyx, Hack, Highberger, Rundle, and Schauner. Nay: None. Motion carried unanimously. (10)
As part of the consent agenda, it was moved by Schauner, seconded by Hack, to approve and authorize the drafting of an ordinance for text amendment (TA-09-09A-06), considering amendments to Chapter 20, Development Code to correct inconsistencies since adopted. Motion carried unanimously. (11) As part of the consent agenda, it was moved by Schauner, seconded by Hack, to approve the unanimous recommendation from the Planning Commission to deny the rezoning (Z-07-21-06) request for 10.74 acres from RS7 to RM12, all of lots 1-4, block 1. Motion carried unanimously. (12) As part of the consent agenda, it was moved by Schauner, seconded by Hack, to authorize the Mayor to sign a Subordination Agreement for Sandra Reed, 1410 West 22nd Street. Motion carried unanimously. (13)
CITY MANAGER’S REPORT:
During the City Manager’s Report, David Corliss, City Manager, acknowledge the hard work of Frank Reeb, Administrative Service Director, and staff for making the LEAP Awards (Lawrence Excellence Awards Program) an important priority.
Also, he said Fire/Medical Department was downsizing vehicles as a way to drive efficiency through their organization.
Finally, he said Kevin Doyle, Infrastructure Coordinator, was concentrating on facility conservation. He said staff had looked at their organization systematically and had found and implemented energy conservation ideas. (14)
REGULAR AGENDA ITEMS:
Conduct public hearing to consider an application for the vacation of the south 10 ft. of 12th Street right-of-way north and abutting Lot 219, Fairfax Addition as requested by Jeffrey Clark and Larry Northrop.
Chuck Soules, Public Works Director, presented the staff report. He said the intent was to build a larger home on a vacant lot. The right-of-way, from the center line of Haskell, was 50 feet and 20 feet to the north. At some point, when the school was built, some of that right-of-way was also vacated and there was still 60 feet of right-of-way. He said there were people in the neighborhood who called with similar requests, so by approving this vacation, the City Commission might stimulate some additional requests for vacations. He said other than the inconsistency of the right-of-way which they had in other places, staff had no objections.
Mayor Amyx said concerning the stimulation of additional vacation request, he asked if Soules had looked at that entire road to make sure consistency remained.
Soules said he thought it would be alright, but along that area a water line, to the west, ran closer than on the east side which could be a factor concerning utilities. He said as far as right-of-way issues, it should be alright.
Mayor Amyx asked if he saw any future need for utility expansion.
Soules said not necessarily. He said staff contacted all the utilities and asked them to take a look at the areas. He said they would still have a lot of space.
Commissioner Highberger asked if there was 60 feet of right of way remaining.
Soules said yes.
Mayor Amyx called a public hearing to consider an application for the vacation of the south 10 ft. of 12th Street right-of-way north and abutting Lot 219, Fairfax Addition.
Tim Herndon, LandPlan Engineering said he did not have anything new to present other than stating to bear in mind this corner lot, like other lots in the area, was 40 feet wide. He said there was a 10 foot side yard setback on one side and a 5 foot side yard setback on the other, which left 25 feet in width to build a home. He said that was a tough prospect under any circumstance. The additional 10 feet opened the door for something that resembled the interior lots on those blocks that had between a 30 and 35 foot wide building envelope.
Moved by Hack, seconded by Schauner, to close the public hearing. Motion carried unanimously.
Moved by Hack, seconded by Schauner, to approve the Order of Vacation of the south 10 feet of 12th Street right-of-way north and abutting Lot 219, Fairfax Addition. Motion carried unanimously. (15)
Receive report from Matrix Consultants concerning the City’s development process.
Allen Pennington, Matrix Consulting Group, said his firm only worked with local government for cities and counties throughout the nation. In the development review field, their firm undertook about 10 projects in the last couple of years specifically focused on development review. He said some of the communities included Gwinnett County outside of Atlanta, Lee’s Summit, Missouri, several in California such as, Napa, Santa Monica, Tiburon, as well as Hillsboro County in Florida, and a Development Fee Study in Peoria, Arizona.
He said they had the pleasure of working with a project steering committee that was made up of members of the City administration, members of the affected departments, two members of the City Commission, and representation from the Planning Commission. He said it was a large group and very beneficial group that gave his firm an opportunity to talk through issues as they went through the process to review documents, discuss some of the implementations of their recommendations before they concluded with a final document.
Regarding their report, the first section was an executive summary which listed over 60 recommendations. The report also had a suggested timeframe for implementation and that timeframe was not necessarily in order of most importance, but some of those recommendations were time based on the need for certain things to occur before others could occur. Finally, there was an estimated cost associated with those recommendations if it was other than, staff time. The report consisted of:
Project Scope of Work:
● Document current workload and service demands;
● Evaluate service levels;
● Evaluate the role of the various departments, current practices and activities, and emerging issues;
● Evaluate the organization of the departments and the staffing requirements; and
● Comparison of existing services to “best practices” and to comparable communities.
Project Methodologies:
● All staff involved in the development review process were interviewed;
● Existing development review services were documented;
● Focus group meeting were held with customers
● Services provided were compared to ‘best management practices’ and to comparable communities
● The project team reviewed interim findings and results with the project steering committee consisting of representatives of the: (Affected Departments, City Commission, Planning Commission, and County)
Strength of Development Review Process in Lawrence:
● Utilization of an inter-departmental review committee;
● Concurrent plan review of planning permits;
● Use of case managers to coordinate permit applications and projects;
● Utilization of Planner of the Day; and
● Utilization of application handouts for the public outlining submittal requirements.
Commissioner Schauner asked about the concurrent review process. He said one of the concerns he heard expressed was that a plan would go through a review and somehow ended up getting approved at one level and ended up having a concern raised by another department later as if there had not been a concurrent review of planning permit. He asked if that was not something he heard.
Pennington said it was something he heard and looked at. He said there were some recommendations to enhance the consistency and quality of comments that were raised. He said in every study they had done, they heard that concern. He said sometimes it was valid and sometimes it was not.
Commissioner Schauner asked about Pennington’s assessment of that concern in this case.
Pennington said their assessment of the way the current process worked was those plans were submitted out to all of the departments; the comments were pulled back together and as a committee they could look at them. He said there was an attempt to make sure that any inconsistencies were resolved before those comments were sent out to the applicant. He said what they also heard at times was on a second review because most applications go through more than one review an issue might come up on a second look that was not addressed on the first. He said it was not a frequent concern that was raised, but it was one that they heard. He said there were recommendations in the report about the use of check lists, training, standard conditions of approval that were designed to ensure the first review was as comprehensive as possible, and that subsequent reviews hopefully would not raise new issues. He said sometimes things get missed, but in the normal circumstance, that list of issues should be dropping after each review as the applicant corrected them and new issues should not be arising in the process.
Other strengths of Development Review Process in Lawrence were:
● The utilization of combination Building Inspectors (for residential);
● Utilization of the internet for application material and guides, regulations, and ordinances; and
● Ability for contractors to utilize the internet and IVR (interactive voice response) systems to schedule inspections and receive inspection results.
Recent Improvements in the Development Review Process:
● Several changes have been implemented recently to improve the process including:
→ Addition of a new planner position (Planning Department)
→ Changes in duty assignments for development review staff in Public
Works.
→ Addition of position in Utilities for development review.
→ Implementation of IVR (interactive voice response) system (Neighborhood Resources)
→ Implementation of Permit Technician position and dedicated Plans Examiner position (Neighborhood Resources)
Improvement Opportunities: Automated Permit Info System:
● Upgrade the automated permit information system to enable all departments involved in development review to track and manage work activities.
→ Develop RFP and seek proposals to evaluate all automated permit information systems that are available.
→ Make decisions whether to implement a new system or upgrade existing THE software (implementing the Planning and Engineering modules, and expanded use of Click2Gov module to provide services over the internet.
He said before making a decision to implement the planning and engineering modules of HTE, which might be the decision they ended up making, he suggested they take a look of everything that was out there. He said all that was at risk was a little bit of time to go out and do the RFP and see what they could get. If there was nothing better, then they had a list of recommendations such as modifications or enhancements to the HTE system. He said what they would like to see the City end up with was one software used from concept through Certificate of Occupancy so that an application was tracked the entire way through in terms of permitting activity, review comments, attachment of digital records, so it was all contained in one location.
Commissioner Schauner asked if it was Pennington’s inference that there was something better than the HTE systems.
Pennington said he thought there were several dedicated systems that were comparable with some features that were better. He said he was not saying that HTE was not good or that it was not appropriate for Lawrence because many communities, including two other communities they surveyed as comparables, utilize the HTE System. He said before investing what would probably be in excess of $100,000 or so to add on to the current system, it would be beneficial to look what was out there. He said they were going to be making a long term commitment hopefully with a software system for this process and the City would want to have something they would be comfortable with for the next 8-10 years, if not longer. He said also, the departments that were not currently utilizing HTE had not been necessarily involved in evaluating if those modules were appropriate for them. He said it was very beneficial to have all the affected departments involved in making that decision in terms of what software would be utilized.
Commissioner Schauner asked if Pennington’s report contained a matrix of things to look at in evaluating this system versus others.
Pennington said yes, they outlined the type of things the City should be looking at in a software system. He said they could use that on an evaluation of an RFP for what was out there as well as looking at what their current capabilities were with the HTE system. He said he shared with staff that other communities that had recently been through RFP process in this region and staff could utilize those other communities as a resource for looking at RFP’s to see the responses of other communities to speed up the time it might take this City to go through that process.
Vice Mayor Hack said she thought Pennington also indicated, in their meetings, that they had to take into account the amount of training that had already taken place with the HTE system.
Pennington said absolutely. He said Neighborhood Resources was utilizing HTE very extensively. He said any decision they made on software had to take into account if they move to something else, was it worth the trade off for what they already invested and the staff that was already utilizing it. He said a large number of staff would have to be trained in any system and he thought it was important to see what was out there and shop around before the City made a decision because when committing to something it should fulfill the needs of the City and needed to be something the City could stay with over the long term.
Commissioner Schauner asked if Microsoft Project one of the competing software projects.
Pennington said no. He said there were several other competing software companies and other smaller companies that might or might not be suitable. He said other improvement opportunities for Automated Permit Info Systems were:
● Enhance the utilization of the automated permit information systems in the following areas:
→ All departments involved in processing, commenting on, and approving development review applications should utilize the system;
→ Tracking of critical dates to enable monitoring of the service levels being provided; and,
→ Storing all plan check comments, annotations, and comments digitally attached to the database record for that application.
Improvements Opportunities: Neighborhood Resources
● Establish plan check targets tied to the complexity of the project:
→ Large Projects: 4 weeks
→ Small Projects: 3 weeks
→ Tenant Finish, Minor Additions: 1-2 weeks
→ Misc. Small Permits: Over the counter
● Increase the time in the field for Building Inspectors by relieving them of some office or administrative functions (such as plan checking) through the addition of two Plan Examiner positions.
Mayor Amyx asked Pennington if their recommendations would save the City adding additional employees.
Pennington said no, they were making some recommendations for additional employees. However, he thought it would improve the efficiency of the employees in terms of tracking and the control over the process. He said without an automated permit system, they would typically see more staff than what they were recommending because their calculations took into account how long it took to process certain applications and that was based on their review of time here as well as experience with other communities. He said in all the other communities, they had a permit system from beginning to end.
Commissioner Schauner asked if any of the software would check the building permit application against the applicable code for consistency and/or the development process for the same thing. He asked if there was a way for the building permit information, once it was input into the system, to check against the code language in building or development codes.
Pennington said no, the development and building codes would still be reviewed by employees.
Other improvement opportunities for Neighborhood Resources were:
● Utilize the Internet to issue single trade building permits on the Internet (target 10%);
● Adopt the most current ICC building codes;
● Develop a codes interpretation manual to provide information to customers and increase inspection consistency. Publish this manual on the internet;
● Publish plan check checklist and common plan check corrections on the internet; and
● Expand the use of the combination Building Inspector approach.
● Expand the number of building permits issued over-the-counter to include single-family additions and interior work; outdoor spas; new roof framing; interior finishes for minor office and retail project (Target: 50%)
Pennington said a benefit of bringing everyone into one location that were involved in the process was if someone needed to discuss the process with more than one individual from different departments, the question would be addressed, at that point, and hopefully serve the applicant and complete their application at that time. He said what they would like to see was an increase in the number of permits they could issue over the counter. The department making a change to add a permit technician, had started down that road by dedicating someone to look at applications as those applications came in and review those applications for completeness, which started them towards that goal.
Commissioner Schauner asked if it also required the internal coordination of vacation days off so the department always had someone available from both sides of the equation.
Pennington said yes. He said City staff needed to have someone trained as a backup where there was only one person who was performing a function. He said if there were multiple persons, it required coordination of time off.
He said improvement opportunities for Planning were:
● Establishment and publication of timeframes for review of permit plans submitted such as:
→ Design Review 30 days
→ Variance 45 days
→ Use Permit 45 days
→ Conditional Use Permit 120 days
→ Development Review 120 days
→ Preliminary/Final Plan 120 days
Mayor Amyx said when timeframes were placed on review of permit plans and the idea of not comparing the development code to the other communities’ development codes because that was not in the scope of services, he asked with some of the recommendations for reviewing those plans, were those the number of days other communities were following and were staff’s numbers falling into those numbers at this time. He also asked if the City had too many codes.
Pennington said the number of days listed were not inconsistent with what had been seen in other places. In terms of the question of too many codes, he said the City’s codes were much in line with what was typically seen in other cities. The turnaround times were in reasonable limits and he thought they made a few minor suggestions for differences, but it was mainly the communication measurement. They heard a lot of comments from the development community and did not know how long it took. He said part of it was making sure the development community understood what it took and making sure they were only measuring it from the time the application was complete. He said it was for both the Planning Department which currently did a completeness review, as well as for the Neighborhood Resources Department where if the application was not completed, they recommended that staff not accept the application. He said once the application was in the City’s hands, the time clock started to run. Any time it took then, was going to be seen as time the City had used in making their review, even it was not completed and the City could not begin their review. He said he did not think their review times were out of line with what was typically seen.
He said one thing they measured in the review times in Planning, because there was no system in place, was hand checking those applications in order to gather the received and processed dates which were reasonable. He said if staff found they were consistently meeting those dates and times, then staff could make a decision whether they wanted to commit to a lower level or if they were not consistently meeting those times or dates, it was an indication they needed to address the problem of procedure, staffing, training, or something else that needed to be addressed.
He said other improvement opportunities for Planning were:
● Establish standard conditions of approval for all departments to enhance consistency and publish these to the Internet;
● Add two Planner positions to enable the department to handle workload and consistently meet timeframes;
● Develop an interpretations manual for the new Zoning ordinance published to the Internet; and
● Clarify the role and responsibility of the Planning Commission;
He said the Planning Commission needed to discuss how it would operate and how would handle its work such as making better use of the consent agenda where issues were not routinely pulled for discussion. He said from the public’s perspective, that was one of the most troubling aspects of the process was coming to speak on an issue and sitting there for four or five hours and then the item might be delayed. He said they needed to see how they could speed up that process while still doing a thorough job. He said they discussed in the Steering Committee, resources for Planning Commissions in terms of training. He said it was positive to see that many Commissioners attending training at the American Planning Association. He said there was also training that was designed specifically for Commissioners in terms of handling workload and how to run a meeting.
He said as part of the improvement opportunities for Planning they also recommended the upgrade of two existing positions to Senior Planner to enhance supervision of advanced and current planning, and enable two management positions to focus on policy issues and management of the department.
He said a couple reasons for the recommendation were they felt there was a need to provide some more individuals who were looking at the day to day work activities and managing that process, freeing up the assistant and director to focus on the bigger issues, the policy issues, the performance measurement, rather than spending time on the day to day issues. He said it also could assist in retention of staff where there were growth opportunities. He said the organization was relatively flat and provided extra opportunities. He said they were not adding two positions, but just reclassifying in their recommendation.
He said improvements to the Utilities Department included:
● Consolidate responsibility for plan review functions in one position to streamline the process and eliminate four different staff plan checking the plans; and
● Locate the position in the One-Stop Shop.
Improvement opportunities in the Public Works Department included:
● Consolidate plan review functions with one position to streamline the process and eliminate multiple staff plan checking the plans;
● Locate this position in the One-Stop Shop;
● Consolidate traffic plan checking performed by both the Traffic Planner and Traffic Engineer in Planning with the Traffic Planner.
He said bigger issues regarding the plan of organization included:
● Locate all staff involved in development review in a One-Stop Shop. This would include:
→ Planning
→ Neighborhood Resources
→ Fire (currently co-located with Neighborhood Resources)
→ Utilities
→ Public Works
● Consolidate Planning and Neighborhood Resources Departments into one department – a Community Development Department – with one department head responsible for managing the entire development review process.
● Discuss with Douglas County the co-location of its Building and Zoning Enforcement staff in the City’s One-Stop Shop; and
● Discuss with Douglas County the provision of additional services cooperatively (such as Building Inspection)
He said in the project conclusion:
● The City is currently providing a good level of service to the public and development community; and
● Recommendations are focused on enhancing that level of service, simplifying and streamlining the process, expanding services provided over the Internet, and ensuring consistency and transparency in the process.
● The major opportunities for improvement included:
→ Expanded use of automated permit information system by all departments involved in development review function;
→ Upgrading the automated permit information system;
→ Enhance accountability for service delivery;
→ Co-location of development review services in a One-Stop Shop
→ Increase and reorganized levels of staffing;
→ Discussions with County regarding co-location and possible increase in the cooperative provision of services.
Commissioner Schauner asked, in Pennington’s experience, was there an industry standard for the number of square feet per employee in a one stop shop.
Pennington said he was not a facility’s planner so he was not sure he could give a direct answer on what it was going to take, but in looking at the Planning Department, that was not the standard because those employees were basically on top of each other. He said the City needed to find some place to accommodate everyone. He said the City needed an employee available from each appropriate department.
Commissioner Highberger asked if merging Planning and Neighborhood Resources was a trend across the country and what type of credentials were needed for a Director to manage both departments if combined.
Pennington said he would not say it was a trend, because some cities might or might not combine those departments. He said the benefit from that combined approach was they were a development focus from beginning to end, not pro or con. He said that was a recommendation before they moved to a co-location. He said it was having someone who could work across department lines because there would be none, to be sure from the applicant’s perspective things moved smoothly.
In terms of credentials, it was a hard task to find someone with both a Planning and Building Inspections background. He said they would find people out there in the marketplace who worked in development services, department community, development departments, but they needed to understand the planning process, the permitting process, which were the most critical. He said they did not have to be necessarily able to do every building inspection because they had staff. He said they would need someone who had the bigger picture look at the process. He said it was the service focused to the applicant. He said they were not saying it was going to make it easier to develop in Lawrence or make it harder; they were going to make it clearer and more understandable in what those requirements were and going to commit to a timeframe and a turnaround time.
Mayor Amyx said when looking at the recommendations and the estimated costs, he asked if there was an estimate on how much additional money it would cost to go through the process such as building permits because there had to be costs transferred to that building permit.
Pennington said he did not know if he could give estimation. He said he understood the City had a policy on cost recovery for the building permits as well as a policy for the County for co-sharing of costs. He said what could be found was a system that covered the entire process that would make it easier for staff to identify time they were spending on different activities so they could better differentiate between City work versus County work and better differentiate how much time was put into processing a permit so staff could set those fees. He said they had recommendation for staffing and software.
Commissioner Schauner said he assumed time was money.
Pennington said time was money and in every focus group with developers they never complained too long about the standard, but about not knowing what the standard was or not knowing what the turnaround time was. He said developers were good at planning and meeting what those requirements were when they needed to and know what they were. He said their first job was making sure it was clearly understood what the requirements were and the timeframe. He said if that could be accomplished, the developers happiness with the process would be greater than if they did not know how long it would take or exactly what to do to get an approval.
Commissioner Schauner said one of the most important pieces was the ability to put complete information about the permitting process on the Internet so an applicant could do as much homework as possible before coming to the one stop or multiple stop shops and make their application complete the first time rather than having to come back two or three times.
Pennington said an applicant would be back more than once. He said very few people were able to get an application put together, even people who worked with a community for years, on the first go around. He said what they wanted to do was reduce the need to come back from three, four or five reviews down to as few as possible.
The other benefit of the communication of information over the Internet was for the public. He said they also heard comments from the public that they did not know what was going on the community. He said most of those permitting software’s worked with mapping software where an address could be entered to see all the development activities or permits that were within a radius of that address so they could push a lot of information out to the public. He said applicants could go in and look at the status of their application to see where it was in the process, which was another benefit to the applicant.
Commissioner Schauner asked to what extent of Pennington’s recommendation include an expansion of or an alteration of the GIS product.
Pennington said nothing. He said their software recommendations were simply focusing on the permitting side of the software. All of the major development review permitting softwares was capable of working with the standard GIS systems. He said staff should not have any problem, but it was one of the requirements that should be placed in the RFP, which was something that could interact with in place GIS systems.
Mayor Amyx asked, if Pennington’s recommendation was to meet with the City and County elective bodies and discuss the appropriate role of the Planning Commission, was it the Lawrence City Commission and Douglas County Commission’s job to discuss what they thought the appropriate role was or was it the Planning Commission’s recommendation back to this body.
Pennington asked who made the appointments to the Planning Commission. He said he thought it was the City Commission’s role to outline what the Planning Commission’s role was. He said it was the issue of did the City Commission want the Planning Commission to be a review board where they were reviewing staff’s recommendations and actions to ensure they were in compliance with the regulations and rules, or did the City Commission want the Planning Commission to play more of a policy role where they were helping set policies that would be implemented and recommending those back to the City Commission. He said what they heard was it might be unclear and there might be different expectations between the City Commission and County Commission. He said it was really important before they say the Planning Commission needed to change, the Planning Commission needed to clearly know their role and expectation. He said they had feedback that at times the Planning Commission meetings took longer than they should and they needed to work on that to reduce the amount of time it took to get through items. He said if there were things missing, for example information they needed in a staff report, it needed to be clearly requested so staff could provide that information up front.
Commissioner Schauner said it seemed those two questions were simply reviewers or were those questions, a policy function. He said they were not easily segregated and no bright line between those two functions. He asked if that would be consistent with his experience in the field.
Pennington said most Planning Commissions play, to some extent, both of those roles. He said it depended on the enabling legislation, how they were setup and what they were directed to do. It really took that discussion to find out where they wanted the Planning Commission to be. He said it was important for the Planning Commission to understand because it was hard to do a job that was very difficult, took a lot of time, created a lot of animosity, if they were not really sure what was expected of them. He said it was something he thought was very beneficial for the process because they heard so much from people in the focus groups as well as others in terms of the impact it had and the frustration level it raised.
Mayor Amyx said the City had a great group of dedicated people on the Planning Commission and they appreciated their efforts. He said to be clear, it was the City and Douglas County Commission’s responsibility to make sure the Planning Commission understood their expectations of the Planning Commission’s role through the planning process.
Pennington said the Commission that appointed the members was setting the mission for the Planning Commission and directing what their roles and responsibilities would be.
Vice Mayor Hack asked if Pennington could elaborate a little bit more on what he meant by enabling legislation.
Pennington said typically a community would have an ordinance that would establish a Planning Commission and outlined the duties they were delegating to that Planning Commission. He said perhaps a review to see what the City and Douglas County Commissions were outlining as rules and responsibilities for the Planning Commission. He said the Planning Commission was one of the toughest commissions to serve on making decisions on use of land, reuse of land, competing interests, but it was one they could only do well if they knew what was expected of them.
Commissioner Schauner asked if the three examples given were policy questions. He said they were not counting a number of square units per square foot available because that was something the Planner would do. He said it seemed three examples used were clearly edging toward that policy side of the equation.
Pennington said to the extent there were no clear guidelines, but clear guidelines in terms of the comprehensive plan on how they wanted to see property used then, in many cases, it became more of having met the criteria for that use. He said it depended on the degree and amount of flexibility given to the Planning Commission to make decisions. He said the more the City and County granted to the Planning Commission, the more leeway they had to make decisions and less ability the City and County had to fault the Planning Commission for those decisions if they were exercising what was available to them.
Mayor Amyx asked if the new development code had all the information in establishing the Planning Commission.
David Corliss, City Manager, said the new development code established the Planning Commission. He said when Pennington talked about enabling legislation, there was both the State enabling statute that set out the roles of Planning Commissions and the City could not deviate from that statute and they had both a regulatory and comprehensive plan responsibility there as well. He said the City had the local ordinance which continued to mirror the 1966 ordinance as far as establishing the Planning Commission. He said what Pennington was trying to say was the importance of communication as far as expectations and that line between policy and time. He said the Planning Commission only had so much time to devote to their roles as Commissioners and how much of that time was going to be checking the regulatory work and how much was for planning recommendations to the appropriate governing bodies.
Commissioner Rundle asked if there were federal regulations particularly in respect to transportation planning that also entered into this.
Corliss said yes. He said the Planning Commission had the federal responsibility because of their designation as a Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO).
Pennington said what the City Commission had direct control over was local issues, which was a discussion they needed to have with the Planning Commission.
Mayor Amyx said they could have a discussion about the Planning Commission and their responsibility, along with the City Commission and Douglas County Commission, but there was a lot more into this report. He said he was impressed with a number of things the City was doing correctly. He said it was a good idea to establish those times so people understood how long the review would take.
He said he appreciated the recommendations about the software. He asked how important the recommendation for the ICC code was.
Pennington said he thought it was important if the City Commission wanted to make their process as understandable, consistent, and predictable as other communities in the greater region. The more this City’s code deviated from the industry norms and what the competitors in the region were doing, the harder it was for someone to come in to do business because they had to modify plans to meet the City’s codes, which was time and money.
He said that was where to the extent they lose nothing in terms of building safety, the more they could mirror what everyone in the region was doing, the more transparent and easier the process was without giving up anything. He said he thought it was important because it was something they talked to staff about, the value of that. He said they saw it in many other communities and states. He said some states had moved to adopt state building code so they could not deviate from what the state had, which made it easier statewide.
Mayor Amyx said at the final gathering of the SDAT, one of the things they discussed was the need to look at adopting one code.
Commissioner Schauner said the ICC might be the flavor of the month with respect to codes, but it was not in itself, the “end all/be all” for the code world. He said there were other parts of other codes which might well serve the community if added to the ICC that better met the local needs.
Pennington said if they made that decision then they would not want to do something different. He said the ICC was pretty much the industry standard and sometimes there were deviations when they get to the Plumbing Code.
Commissioner Rundle said he thought he heard recently from the Mechanical Board who was asking to take a second look at the International Code. He said he wanted to point out that both the International Code and the family of Uniform Mechanical Codes were minimum standards for public safety and integrity. He said those codes differed somewhat and one code might be safer than the other if looking from that side of the coin. He said he had not anticipated the need to increasing permit costs, but he saw that was possibly on the horizon. He said what his focus had been on the increase in the clarity, consistency, timeliness, efficiency and effectiveness of staff, and was a tremendous value that was added to this process. He said he thought it established a tone in the community that could be very different and hoped for hearing less about business unfriendly and obstacles and more of a clear partnership. He said whether people believe it or not, the City Commission wanted to take this issue seriously and this was one of the long series of examples of efforts the City Commission made to try and identify, bring into focus issues, figure out what standards they wanted to set, and what resources they needed to apply to it. He said he thought it had been a very good process and would bear a lot of fruit.
Mayor Amyx said the other item on the agenda was to receive the report, but the City Commission was not going to be taking action on individual parts of this issue. He suggested during the City Commission’s Study Session, to look at various parts of the report regarding priority. He asked Corliss to look at various parts of the report and identify things that should be a priority and things that would help the process along in becoming more streamlined.
Corliss said this report was something staff and others had been working with over a number of weeks and months. He appreciated Commissioner Rundle’s and Vice Mayor Hack’s participation in the process because he thought they had a better document and thought it was a challenging document for staff to respond to and staff was ready to meet that challenge. He said one of the things that he was ready to begin pursuing was the one stop shop, the consolidation of the Building Inspection Division and the Planning Department. He said they were at a standstill in their search for a Planning Director and he was ready to proceed to reinvigorate that search, but it made sense, in his mind, to do it with an understanding that Director would likely be a Director of a Department of Development Services or Community Development, whatever term the City Commission wanted to land on that reflected the fact they were going to have a one stop shop that included building inspection and planning services. He said there were a number of issues that went with that and one of the other things he would ask for if they wanted to begin that discussion about where they were going to physically place that department. He said as they looked at the recommendations there were some items that had cost implications that staff did not have budgeted in 2007 and there were other cost that they did budget for. He said staff allocated about $125,000 in the 2007 budget to respond to this report. He said the vast bulk of that was personnel which included some transition costs, computers, equipment, and those kinds of things in anticipation of hiring two additional staff people, but they received a recommendation of hiring more staff. He said they would need to talk about priorities and what else they could do in 2007 and how they could accommodate those needs. He said they had recommendations for software and they might want to spend a healthy part of 2007 not buying and implementing the software, but studying the software to make sure the choice the City made would carry them through for all their different needs. He said he was ready to proceed with the general recommendations in this report providing them with implementation memorandums as appropriate, but this was not something that was coming to them brand new; staff was familiar with those recommendations. He said Pennington had a number in the time frame in the first quarter or second quarter and would talk a little bit about how they could achieve some of those goals, but he knew that improving the City’s development process was a priority of this Commission and his job was to make their priorities his priorities.
Commissioner Schauner said it seemed as if there was a consensus of this body for that Development Department, the hiring of that person was an order of first magnitude because that person ought to be directly involved in the creation of everything that person would be responsible for. Rather than going forward and hiring or arranging things prior to that person being on board, it seemed a bit out of sequence and he would very much like to have more discussion about what came first. He said he was very supportive of the recommendations as he heard them, but he thought they should have that person who was going to be responsible for one stop shopping in a managerial sort of way other than the City Management. He said they ought to be deeply involved in creating that product and implementing whatever parts of this report were ultimately adopted.
Corliss said he agreed with the general tenure of that thinking and he knew there was a sense of importance to this issue that if he made too many of those things consecutive as opposed to concurrent, by the time they would get someone hired for that position and then start the search for the space, they might miss opportunities for a space. He said he did not know that just landing the space would allow staff to move in. He said they had space issues now that if they added planners in the future, he would find a space for those planners because it was not the City Commission’s job, but it was his job. He said he thought it would be beneficial to try and run some of those things concurrently leaving some of the bulk of the issues such as how they make sure the software had all the functionality that was going to work for a department, something that new Department Director would be involved in.
Commissioner Schauner said he thought there were practical things that required concurrency and he did not disagree with that. He said he thought there were some policy questions about staff relationships and so forth that ought to be in the purview of the new department director.
Corliss said there was a sense of urgency on his part that they needed that assistance because the workload shared by Sheila Stogsdill was tremendous and he respected the fact that she took on an additional burden this past year and the community owed her a lot of gratitude and he could not tell her there was a light at the end of the tunnel.
Commissioner Schauner said he was not hearing anyone say this ought to wait and thought this Commission also shared that sense of urgency and yesterday would not be too soon to begin making those major decisions and moving forward with it. He said the question in his mind was where the chicken was and where the egg was and what needed to be done now without respect to whom that person might be and things that would need to wait as a value piece.
Corliss said what he would ask for at the end of their discussion this evening on this agenda item was whether there was a consensus among the Commission to pursue the two items which were talking with County Commissioners because it was a joint City/County Planning Department and how they were going to structure that department. He said they needed to begin discussions on the one stop shop that was both the Director and the physical location and report back to the City Commission on where he was on those issues. He said that was what he would like direction on and also take the rest of the report and do as the Mayor had asked which was give them an implementation report and tell them what could come first, tell them costs, tell them priorities and begin that dialogue.
Vice Mayor Hack said she thought anything they did in terms of hiring an individual or finding a spot, those were going to take time and thought they needed to be done in concert because time was of the essence in both. She said they had been hurting in terms of their personnel. She said Shelia Stogsdill, Acting Planning Director, was incredible in doing all of her work and everyone else’s as well in terms of Planning Director duties. She said sometimes the space need decisions needed to be made immediately. She said from her perspective she would say pursue away on both issues.
Mayor Amyx called for public comment.
Bobbie Flory, Lawrence Homebuilders Association, said she had not had the report long enough to become familiar it, but in the initial review, she was excited to hear the doable suggestions in that report. She said she was relieved to hear the thought about taking 2007 and spending some time in reviewing the software because she really hated to see them jump into a big software change, especially when she saw the potential price tag with the new software. She said it was a little scary because she knew that someone had to pay for that. She said she was glad to hear that was the direction they were going. She said in general she was pleased with the report and thought there were a lot of things they could accomplish efficiently with the report. Lastly, she urged the City Commission to adopt a single set of family codes and the International Code would be their choice. She said she thought it was the right thing to do.
Tim Herndon, Lawrence, said he was excited about the prospects as many of his professional allies were. The one comment he wanted to emphasize was that the identification of funding sources and revenue sources in this City to enable them to pursue the lofty ideas and lofty hard decisions and very involved facilities, staffing, and policy programs they hoped to adopt, was of paramount importance and as a citizen, he was very eager to hear the strategy the City Commissioners could help formulate to tackle this one singularly most important issue in his mind.
Mayor Amyx said he shared Corliss’ concern about space. He said he thought it was important to proceed to look at space at the current time. He said he thought that being able to have the Director in place to assist in making procedural decisions on running that department was also important, but thought that if Corliss was ready to move at this time and start looking at making recommendations back to the City Commission on where that space might be, he was more than happy to hear about that space.
Commissioner Schauner said the space location would be less important to a future manager than the internal guts of the program. He said if there was space staff had an interest in looking at, there was no reason that should not be done and they ought to put that on the front burner the hiring of the master of community development or whatever they were going to call that person. He said he thought that was not going to be an easy position to fill and did not think those people were out there begging to go anywhere, so he thought it was going to be a tough look because it was a specialized set of skills.
Commissioner Highberger said he was very impressed with the report and concurred with the recommendations and would like to move forward as soon as they could. He said he thought it was important they manage the development process by not making the process cumbersome, but by being clear about what they wanted their built environment to be like and this was a great step in that direction.
Commissioner Rundle said to get some yardstick on space needs, Commissioner Schauner was looking for a standard to visit anywhere nearby in the area and get a sense from them, compare their level of development, and it seemed to be Lenexa was on that one stop shop, but he was sure Pennington could tell the City Commission any number of others that were good models and comparable to this community and should not be hard to get some sort of rough yard stick.
Vice Mayor Hack thanked Pennington on his excellent work. She said she would agree with Commissioner Highberger this was an excellent report and exactly what she was looking for in terms of not only the personnel issues, but some strategic planning to go forward and make the development process efficient and transparent. She said, as she shared with Journal-World, she did not want anyone to think they were going to give people a free pass because this was not what it was about. She said what it had been about was concerns with inconsistency and that was not to criticize, but the way it had been and they knew there were things they could do to improve it and pull it all together.
She said she would also like to thank Debbie Van Saun, Assistant City Manager, because she was a big driver behind this issue and the work getting the group together, continuing to keep the City Commission updated, and all the people from Planning, Public Works, Neighborhood Resources, Fire/Medical, and Utilities did a great job and it was a great opportunity to get together and say they were doing something really well and they had some areas they needed to work on. She said she was excited about the opportunity and thought they had Planning Directors and Community Development Department people out there waiting to work for Lawrence, Kansas and places to put them.
Commissioner Rundle said he wanted to echo Vice Mayor Hack’s comments about Pennington and working with his firm. He said they had every confidence from the beginning and right through to the end with the report.
Commissioner Highberger said he would like to add thanks to Vice Mayor Hack and Commissioner Rundle for their efforts on the committee.
Mayor Amyx said he knew both Vice Mayor Hack and Commissioner Rundle reflected his concerns and appreciated the report.
Corliss said he did not need specific action because he thought he understood the consensus of the City Commission to go ahead and proceed with those two items with the understanding the City Commission would see both of those items as they proceeded with the Director position as well as the space issues and drafting an implementation report to the City Commission. He said they would also be discussing the 2007 budget items and coming to the City Commission with some recommendations.
Commissioner Schauner said if staff needed more space whether they bought or rented that space if they added more people or if they raised the status of current employees in terms of their salary, he suspected there would be a fairly significant fiscal note to implementing this project. He said, put aside the costs of the report, the physical space component was not going to be inexpensive. He said he looked forward to some discussion about how they were going to finance this project whether they financed gradually or implement the project in terms of the additional costs all at once or phase that cost in on the permit holders.
Corliss said the City’s building permit fees were set. On the development side, the City Commission would be seeing some recommendations that responded to some of the 2007 budget needs. He said the City was not going to raise development fees to a true cost recovery because that amount would be very sizable, but staff did want to get more in tune with what that number should be and then look at what the appropriate practice was.
Mayor Amyx said as part of the discussion with the County Administrator and County Commission was to look at different scenarios or different levels of participation especially looking at the development of subdivision regulations and more development in the rural part of the County.
Commissioner Rundle said concerning the space cost, it needed to be recognized that they would be offsetting and not continue using all that space. He said there would be some additional space needs, but he hoped they would be talking about reallocating assets and supplementing.
Moved by Schauner, seconded by Hack, to receive the report from Matrix Consultants. (16)
Receive draft outside agency agreements for City 2007 funds.
David Corliss, City Manager, said one of their discussion points as they created the 2007 budget was the City Commission’s interest in enhancing the City’s contracts with outside agencies that received city funds. He said Casey Liebst, Budget Manager, Toni Wheeler, Interim Legal Services Director, Debbie Van Saun, Assistant City Manager and he had worked on a revised agreement which they believed responded to that request and included a number of reporting items that would make it clear what information they were seeking and then it would also involve them in doing a different and more rigorous tracking of that information as it came in. He said staff wanted to move ahead and send the agreements out and execute those agreements according to the dollar amounts the City Commission approved in the budget.
Vice Mayor Hack said they always wanted to make sure they were addressing the actual performance of that particular agency and what they actually did and what their needs were and all those kinds of things. She asked if they would be willing to have a discussion with directors of various agencies that receive money to make sure they were asking the right questions of them and vice versa.
Casey Liebst, Budget Manager, said she would be happy to have discussion with directors of various agencies. She said their thought this year was to start at the end of the process in modifying the agreement and throughout the rest of the winter changing their application for the 2008 budget process to ask some of those questions up front so that when they get to the 2008 agreements, they were be able to incorporate more the kinds of information the City Commission wanted to see in those agreements.
Vice Mayor Hack said this represented a small part of their budget; however, it was an enormous part for budgets of those agencies that receive the money. She said the City Commission wanted to make sure they were doing the best job they could of allocating the funds so they could use them to their greatest advantage and continue to do so.
Commissioner Schauner said one of the conversations the City Commission had a few months ago dealt with coordinating delivery of those types of services across the community and avoiding as much duplication as possible. At some point, when staff did a year end review of what a particular agency said it was going to do and check it against what they did do, he did not see it as part of this agreement. He said this agreement talked more about sending their tax number and they were going to follow up with County standards and so forth. He asked if there would be another discussion down the line to talk about that broader look at those independent agency operations.
Corliss said he met with the Local Funders’ Council and there was discussion generally about they were with a number of different issues and he specifically raised the issue of the social service needs assessment and the desire the City Commission had to begin a community discussion about coordination, possible consolidation, performance accountability, and those types of issues were raised. He said there was general interest from the Council in following through. He said the ball was in his court to begin some of the initial discussions. He said he hoped to have something that could be thoroughly underway with the 2008 budget. He said he did not know if the City Commission would have the complete fruits of that discussion. He said it would probably be an ongoing issue, and one they would need to continue to address.
Mayor Amyx called for public comment.
After receiving no public comment, it was moved by Highberger, seconded by Hack, to authorize staff to distribute agreements to outside agencies. Motion carried unanimously.
(17)
Receive draft ordinance concerning the concealed carry law and restrictions on City property.
Scott Miller, Staff Attorney, presented the staff report. He said Ordinance 8048 dealt with the City Manager’s authority to impose certain restrictions or conditions on property the City owned or leased and was open to the public. The main impetus for addressing this ordinance at this point was Senate Bill 418 and the succeeding House Cleanup Bill, House Bill 2118 which both dealt with the topic of concealed carry of handguns in Kansas. He said as of January 1, 2007, there would be individuals who were licensed to carry handguns within the State of Kansas in all the areas that were not posted with limited exception of approximately 22 different facilities where the carrying of concealed handguns even with a permit would still be illegal. He said some of those facilities were City Hall, court facilities, or any place where the City Commission met. He said with that in mind, they thought it was an appropriate time to address the issue of City Manager’s control over property.
He said there were two ways the idea of posting some of the City’s property as a place where handguns were not allowed could be addressed. He said one way was to address it by passing an ordinance listing each piece of property and debating the merits of that individually. He said perhaps a saner approach from the perspective of publication costs and administrative overhead was allowing the City Manager to designate the properties where the concealed carrying of handguns would not be allowed. The department heads in the city were polled and generally all of them were in favor of posting their buildings as areas where handguns would not be allowed even with a concealed carry permit. On the other hand, as far as the City’s outdoor facilities, the only main concerns that were raised were places like the Sewer and Water Treatment Plants where the public normally was not allowed or did not spent a lot of time anyway. He said some areas like some of the organized athletic fields that the Parks and Recreation Department owned or managed just because tempers could sometimes get a little heated during athletic competition and would not want to see anything unfortunate happen. He said even if the City Commission disagreed with the idea those were appropriate places to post, perhaps the initial threshold question was if it was appropriate to give the City Manager permission to maintain a list of properties where it would be inappropriate to carry a weapon and staff’s recommendation, at this point, was that it would be appropriate and it was reflected in the ordinance.
He said the other thing reflected in the ordinance was a provision that allowed the City Manager or his or her designee to invite an individual to leave property, ban someone from City property, tell them not to return to City property. He said he thought it was an inherent part of the City Manager’s duties, but by listing it in ordinance, there was no question when it came time to pursue a criminal trespass proceeding or to pursue some sort of civil trespass proceeding that the people who were involved had the authority to do what the City Commission was asking them to do which was included in the ordinance as well.
David Corliss, City Manager, said he received a phone call from the President/CEO of the Lawrence Memorial Hospital, and he was reminded the property the hospital sat on was titled to the City and they wanted to participate as well. He said it was the intent that all buildings post or do otherwise as required by law that there would be no concealed carry weapons which included the hospital as well. He said it would make it a misdemeanor offense for anyone to violate that law.
Commission Rundle said he did not want to add to staff’s work, but he had at least one agency call wanting information on what would be the signage requirements if they wanted to establish a policy and was there any kind of language they had to use.
Corliss said staff would be happy to talk to those individuals. He said staff fully expected to receive some of those communications.
Corliss said individual property owners did not need to pass an ordinance, but needed to follow the law that stated that if the property owner did not want someone to carry a handgun under the premises of the law they would need to post signage. He said the City needed to follow through and make it an ordinance violation, not because they were trying to catch people, but trying to make sure they had the means of enforcing that prohibition.
Mayor Amyx called for public comment.
Richard Dyer, Lawrence, said he had not seen the ordinance, but wanted to point out that to receive a concealed gun license, a background check was needed as well as a mental health check, and training. He said by definition, they were law abiding, peaceful citizens. He said by definition being a law abiding peaceful citizen, they had absolutely no threat to anyone in the City. He said they were no threat to any government agency and for public officials to stand up and say they believed the law abiding peaceful citizens was a threat and a danger, he questioned public officials because the only thing public officials were seeking was to control the activities of law abiding, peaceful citizens. State law had absolutely nothing to do with the criminal element. The criminal element by definition did not obey laws, ordinances, and signs on the windows would not stop those criminals. In fact, a sign on the window told a criminal this was a great place for criminal activity because they could be assured that no one in this facility was going to be able to stop them. He said that was what their sign and ordinance stated was to let the criminals run rampant because they were stopping the law abiding peaceful citizens of the City of Lawrence of the State of Kansas. He said that was the only thing the ordinance was for was to restrict the rights and privileges of law abiding peaceful citizens.
Mayor Amyx said he appreciated Dyer’s comments and would never debate him on the merits of the concealed weapons law because Dyer had more knowledge about that law. He said he had discussions with individuals that shared a lot of the same concerns that Dyer did about any ordinance that might be directly in conflict of state law, but he did not believe this law was in conflict. He said the ordinance would give the City Manager the authority to designate any publicly owned building the opportunity to not allow concealed weapons in City owned property.
Dryer said the question that should be asked of the City Manager was, “Why would you want to stop a law abiding peaceful citizen when you could not stop a criminal?”
Corliss said he fully respected Dryer’s opinion and he wanted to fight to make sure he always had the privilege to come here and raise that opinion. He said the only thing he would point out was for years they had law on the books that prohibited concealed weapons within any number of different facilities in buildings and this was essentially status quo and keeping it the same. He said they would not allow individuals to carry firearms within City buildings. He said that was his understanding of what he thought the City Commission wanted and how he would do it. He said one of staff’s challenges was that they had an empire of buildings and did not even know if he had a complete list of all of those buildings, but staff would come up with a list. If the City Commission adopted the ordinance, that was the regulation that he would adopt and the sign would say that concealed weapons were not allowed and also Parks and Recreation Department believed that it would not be appropriate to have concealed weapons on certain athletic fields. He said other than those changes, he was not planning on making any other changes, but staff had to identify those buildings on some level of specificity and had to work on the signage. He said Miller did a comprehensive review of the item and they thought the best way to tackle the problem was to have some type of regulation so that when they find facilities and locations they would amend it accordingly.
Commissioner Highberger asked if someone with an unconcealed weapon could carry it in City Hall.
Miller said in the majority of City facilities that would be correct. He said there was a specific statute that dealt with places like County courthouses and the Statehouse, but was not certain if it extended to City Hall or not. He said that was something that could be addressed by ordinance as well if that was the City Commissions desire.
Commissioner Rundle said he wanted to point out that this item would come back for second reading for further comment.
Commissioner Highberger said he wanted to point out the City Commission was not restricting people’s rights to carry weapons, but asking law abiding citizens if they had a weapon in a public building, that they show that weapon. He said most people would be mortified if they saw a person walking in most of those facilities with an exposed weapon. He said it baffled him why they would be interested in allowing concealed weapons even if they were law abiding citizens. He said he supported the ordinance the way it was drafted. He said he thought giving the City Manager the authority was the proper way to go about this issue.
Moved by Highberger, seconded by Hack , to place on first reading, Ordinance No. 8048, granting the City Manager explicit authority to make certain decisions regarding property the City owns or leases. Motion carried unanimously. (18)
Receive staff report concerning City participation in Kansas Department of Transportation meeting concerning future transportation needs.
David Corliss, City Manager, presented the staff report. He said staff received a letter indicating the Department of Transportation was going to be conducting a number of regional meetings to discuss the state’s long range transportation plan and needs. He said staff was seeking to establish an effective, successful vision for the City’s transportation future. He said it not only included surface transportation, but transit, airport, pedestrian, and hike and bike activities as well.
He said he was going to participate in those sessions at the end of the month and he wanted the Commission’s views on the type of transmittal letter presentation they would like to provide. He said it was staff’s understanding that this was not the last time to speak to KDOT because KDOT might seek to successfully build a new transportation plan, but this was probably one of the first times to let them know of their general needs. He said KDOT was probably interested in a large, un-prioritized list of needs. He said what staff wanted to eventually do was to “wow” them with the City’s ability to have the best, prioritized focused list of projects that span the different modes of transportation that were feasible, have the consensus of the community as far as something that should be built, and provide the largest cost benefit to the use of transportation dollars.
He said what staff wanted to place this item on an agenda, indicate staff thought it was appropriate to participate, and let the City Commission see the draft communication staff had with a list of projects. He said he did not think it was particularly helpful to say this was the top project, but this was the list. He said arriving of what that top project was should be something staff wanted to focus on which was surface transportation needs and other needs and honing those priorities.
Commissioner Rundle said it would seem reasonable to receive feedback only informally from people on the MPO, just how this issue related to the City’s transportation planning so it was seamless and coordinated.
Corliss asked if they wanted feedback from the Planning Commission. He said staff had the item from the Planning Commission to include.
Commissioner Highberger said he wanted to emphasize the future need for an eastern bridge. He said it was becoming clearer as he looked at the traffic patterns and development prospects that they were going to have a meltdown on the eastern side if they did not do something at some point. He said it might alleviate some of the need the SLT was designed to fill.
Mayor Amyx said when they looked at Leavenworth County and their involvement in County Route 1 and the new Turnpike interchange in the Tonganoxie area, he thought some of that discussion needed to be included in that entire corridor because as much as he agreed that an eastern bridge might make sense, when discussing with KDOT, he thought a transportation network in the eastern part of Lawrence would be appropriate. He said there were a lot of big things happening to the southeastern part of Douglas County and across the line into Johnson County that was going to force a lot of traffic in this City’s way in getting back to the turnpike and to US 59. He said as they looked at the need of that bridge, they needed to look at the entire picture. He said this Commission decided to look at different location of the SLT which was fine. He said he thought they needed an interior roadway now and thought they would need a bigger loop to the south across the river in the future and those roadways needed to be planned now. He said with the intersection of East Hills, he asked how they would use infrastructure. He said there was a lot of infrastructure and right-of-way already in place and a lot of things they could be using today that would take care of safety needs.
He said he and Commissioner Schauner discussed concerns with people from East Lawrence neighborhoods about a roadway that was going to be too close to Lawrence and the traffic that would be generated. He said there were a lot of those types of concerns and suggested looking at the big picture rather than discussing a single bridge location.
Commissioner Rundle said he supported picking up that discussion they left off with the larger group. He said he thought the resources were not going to be unlimited and thought it was going to be critical for the City to work together regionally with Johnson County rather than everyone just competing for limited funds. He said if they did not make sure those major regional expenditures addressed this City’s needs as well as other communities, this City would be losing out.
Corliss said those comments were all good to proceed with as they honed this issue. He said what they really needed was a sustained commitment because those projects had such a tremendous lead time. He said they had to find a way not to let the tremendous amount of those needs paralyze them into inaction because it was such a long list and they needed to focus on top priorities. He said it would be the projects where there was a community consensus and plans to be able to accommodate and a sustained push from community leaders that would get funded. He said it would not be ones that an engineer draws and says this was going to solve a particular problem, but it was going to take a lot of small people to will to get these things done.
Mayor Amyx said he believed the City Commission was supportive of staff being involved with KDOT in helping put this program together to include the concerns and comments of the Planning Commission. He said any help they could receive, they should go for it.
Corliss said the direction staff would like was to prepare a letter that included Planning Commission comments and other comments that listed those needs and their importance of the values they attributed and allow staff to attend the meetings.
Commissioner Schauner said one of the things he did not think was in the letter that might be worth discussing was the substantial increase in the community to the City’s local road network over the past couple of years and he thought they would probably continue to do that. He said it seemed they were demonstrating more than a little bit of faith in terms of putting their money where their mouth was, to the extent that would help the argument.
Corliss said that was a good advocacy point. The City had 300 miles of streets they were maintaining and they stepped up to the plate and asked local taxpayers to put additional resources into that.
Moved by Schauner, seconded by Highberger, to direct staff to proceed with the letter incorporating the discussion in this evening’s meeting and Planning Commission comments. Motion carried unanimously. (19)
PUBLIC COMMENT: None.
FUTURE AGENDA ITEMS.
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TBD |
Future land use items include: · The 800 Penn. Block; · Salvation Army site plan and rezoning; and · The unincorporated subdivision regulations
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TBD |
Train Horn Quiet Zone |
COMMISSION ITEMS:
Moved by Hack, seconded by Rundle, to adjourn at 9:05 p.m. Motion carried unanimously.
APPROVED:
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Mike Amyx, Mayor
ATTEST:
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Frank S. Reeb, City Clerk
1. Temporary Construction Access – Pump Station 48 to Westwood LLC for $2,253; Westwood Holdings LLC for $26,081; and John & Klee Zaricky for $21,980.
2. Transportation – 6 T-Lift paratransit vehicles not to exceed $315,000.
3. Transportation – Replace 2 paratransit vehicles as Road Supervisor vehicles, MV Transportation.
4. Transportation – Transfer 1 paratransit vehicle to PW Dept.
5. Ordinance No. 7929 – 1st Read, rezone (Z-06-36-05) 7.985 acres, M-1A to RS7, portion of lt 4, King Industrial Park.
6. Ordinance No. 7930 – 1st Read, rezone (Z-06-37-05) 1.873 acres, M-1A to RS7, portion of lt 4 & adjoining W 31st R-OW in King Industrial Park.
7. Ordinance No. 7999 – 1st Read, rezone (Z-06-39-05) 12.329 acres, I-1 to RM24, NW ¼ 9-13-20E.
8. Ordinance No. 8045 – 1st Read, rezoned (Z-05-13-06) 1.26 acres, RS7 to RS5, lts 1-10, Homewood Gardens Suburban Add.
9. Ordinance No. 8049 – 1st Read, Regulate sales of Christmas Trees.
10. Ordinance No. 8047 – 2nd Read, Codify City ordinances.
11. Text Amendment – (TA-09-09A-06), Development Code to correct inconsistencies.
12. Rezone – (Z-07-21-06) denied, 10.74 acres, RS7 to RM12, lts 1-4, blk 1.
13. Subordination Agreement – 1410 W 22nd, Sandra Reed.
14. City Manager’s Report.
15. Vacation – Public Hearing, S 10’ of 12th R-OW & abutting lt 219, Fairfax Add.
16. Outside Agency Agreements – 7007 funds.
17. Ordinance No. 8048 – 1st Read, City Manager authority to make decisions on City owned property or leases.
18. Transportation needs - KDOT