August 7, 2007

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 Hack presiding and members Amyx, Dever, Chestnut and Highberger present.

CONSENT AGENDA

As part of the consent agenda, it was moved by Amyx, seconded by Dever, to approve the City Commission meeting minutes of July 24, 2007.  Motion carried unanimously.

As part of the consent agenda, it was moved by Amyx, seconded by Dever, to receive the Convention & Visitors Bureau Advisory Board meeting minutes of July 3, 2007; the Planning Commission meeting minutes of June 25-27, 2007; the Aviation Advisory Board meeting of May 17, 2007; the Board of Plumbers and Pipe Fitters meeting of May 2, 2007; and the Mechanical Code Board of Appeals meeting of July 16, 2007.  Motion carried unanimously.

As part of the consent agenda, it was moved by Amyx, seconded by Dever, to approve claims to 827 vendors in the amount of $6,432,016.94 and payroll from July 22, 2007 – August 4, 2007 in the amount of $1,742,404.21.  Motion carried unanimously.

As part of the consent agenda, it was moved by Amyx, seconded by Dever, to approve the Drinking Establishment License for Plum Tree, 2620 Iowa; Jefferson’s Restaurant, 743 Massachusetts Street; Ingredient, 947 Massachusetts Street; and the Retail Liquor License to University Liquor, 3300 Bob Billings Parkway No. 3.  Motion carried unanimously.

As part of the consent agenda, it was moved by Amyx, seconded by Dever, to concur with the recommendation of the Mayor and appoint Sean Williams to the Historic Resources Commission, to a vacant position which expires March 1, 2009.  Motion carried unanimously.

The City Commission reviewed the bids for comprehensive housing rehabilitation for 1100 Highland Drive.  The bids were:

BIDDER                      956 Lawrence Ave      1100 Highland Dr        224 E 17^th St. Terrace

Old Home Store, Inc.            $31,825.00      $26,260.00                  $29,575.00

T & J Holdings, Inc.              $29,500.00      $29,265.00                  No Bid

Staff Estimate                        $24,859.00      $24,632.25                  $24,479.00

As part of the consent agenda, it was moved by Amyx, seconded by Dever, to award the bid to Old Home Store, Inc., in the amount of $26,260.00 for 1100 Highland Drive; the bid decision for 956 Lawrence Avenue is pending; and reject the bids for 224 E 17 ^th Street Terrace because those bids exceeded the program limits of $25,000.  Motion carried unanimously.     (1)

As part of the consent agenda, it was moved by Amyx, seconded by Dever, to approve final construction contract Change Order No. 2 in the amount of $144,507.43, for Kasold Drive, West 22^nd Street to bob Billings Parkway, Street, Storm Sewer and Waterline Improvements.  Motion carried unanimously.                                                                              (2)

As part of the consent agenda, it was moved by Amyx, seconded by Dever, to adopt Resolution No. 6731, authorizing the issuance of bonds for the 2^nd and Locust Street project in the amount of $210,000.  Motion carried unanimously.                                                          (3)

As part of the consent agenda, it was moved by Amyx, seconded by Dever, to adopt Resolution 6732, setting a public hearing date of October 2, 2007.  The purpose of the hearing will be to discuss the condition of structure at 1230 New York Street and to consider declaring the structures unsafe and dangerous and ordering the unsafe condition to be removed.  Motion carried unanimously.                                                                                                                            (4)

 As part of the consent agenda, it was moved by Amyx, seconded by Dever, to adopt Resolution No. 6733, authorizing the issuance of general obligation bonds for additional traffic control, pavement marking and signal loop replacement on Kasold Drive between 22^nd and Clinton Parkway. Motion carried unanimously.                                                                           (5)

As part of the consent agenda, it was moved by Amyx, seconded by Dever, to adopt Comprehensive Plan Amendment (CPA-2007-01) to Chapter 14, Specific Plans of Horizon 2020 to incorporate existing and future specific plans as comprehensive plan policy, with the inclusion of the East Lawrence Plan and adopt on first reading Ordinance No. 8132 and County Resolution No. ________, to add Chapter 14, Specific Plans to Horizon 2020, CPA-2007-01. Motion carried unanimously.                                                                                                          (6) As part of the consent agenda, it was moved by Amyx, seconded by Dever, to approve License Agreement for Voelker property at North 6^th Street and Walnut to construct a driveway in public right-of-way. Motion carried unanimously.                                              (7)

As part of the consent agenda, it was moved by Amyx, seconded by Dever, to authorize the mayor to sign Subordination Agreements for Tammie Sue Powers, 1069 Home Circle and Trent and Wendi Georgie, 1206 West 29^th Court.  Motion carried unanimously.       (8)

As part of the consent agenda, it was moved by Amyx, seconded by Dever, to receive Second Quarter Case Management Report from Bert Nash Mental Health Center.  Motion carried unanimously.                                                                                                                       (9)

As part of the consent agenda, it was moved by Amyx, seconded by Dever, to approve as signs of community interest, Meals on Wheels Garage Sale signs in various locations on August 11, 2007.  Motion carried unanimously.                                           (10)

As part of the consent agenda, it was moved by Amyx, seconded by Dever, to approve variance request (City Code Section 19-214B and 19-214C) for Lots 1 and 2 of Golf Club No. 2 Subdivision allowing existing private sanitary sewer lines to remain in the public right-of-way for a length greater than 15 feet and allowing the two private service lines to combine prior to connection to the public sewer main.  Motion carried unanimously.              (11)

CITY MANAGER’S REPORT:

During the City Manager’s Report, David Corliss said regarding the 25^th Street Terrace project from O’Connell Road to Franklin Road, a public meeting was conducted in the neighborhood.  The project would be 100% funded by a special assessment benefit district and staff was proceeding with final design work and hoped the project would be bid in September; also, Parks and Recreation applied for an Integrated Pest Management grant through the Kansas State Extension Service.           

Finally, Corliss welcomed Scott McCullough as the new Planning and Development Services Director; he also wanted to publicly acknowledge that he regretfully accepted Debbie Van Saun’s, Assistant City Manager’s, resignation, but he was sure staff was excited in congratulating Van Saun on her new career move.  He said he was not only personally indebted to the work from Van Saun since he became City Manager, but he knew the City Commission was indebted to her for her hard work as well as the community; and finally, Johnathan Douglas, Management Analyst, was a happy new father.        

Mayor Hack said on behalf of the Commission and staff, they welcomed McCullough and she said the City was fortunate to have someone of McCullough’s caliber on board.  She also extended thanks to Sheila Stogsdill, Assistant Planning Director, and the entire planning staff for the dual amount of work performed; and finally, she said the Commission was proud of Van Saun because it was a great opportunity.                                                                                     (12)

REGULAR AGENDA ITEMS: 

Conduct public hearing to establish the maximum assessments for the development of Oregon Trial Park, approximately 4.3 acres which will contain a recreation path/trail, playground area, and a pond which will also serve for stormwater detention.  An additional improvement includes an open channel for drainage..

Mayor Hack called a public hearing to establish the maximum assessments for the development of Oregon Trial Park, approximately 4.3 acres which will contain a recreation path/trail, playground area, and a pond which will also serve for stormwater detention. 

Shoeb Uddin, City Engineer, presented the staff report.  He said construction plans were completed and construction should be starting soon.  The total cost of the project was $811,000 and would be funded 100% by the benefit district with 0% participation by the City-at-large.  The method of assessment would be based on square footage for each lot and the entire benefit district was owned by one person.           

He said the Commission’s action was to hold a public hearing and if desired, approve Ordinance No. 8129 setting out maximum assessments for each tract of land within the benefit district.     

Mayor Hack called for public comment.   

Upon receiving no public comment, it was moved by Amyx, seconded by Highberger, to close the public hearing.  Motion carried unanimously.                                   

Moved by Amyx, seconded by Chestnut, to place on first reading, Ordinance No. 8129, establishing the maximum assessments for the development of Oregon Trail Park.  Motion carried unanimously.                                                                                                      (13) 

Conduct the public hearing on the proposed 2008 City budget.

a) Receive staff memo regarding 2008 budget consideration.

b) Conduct public hearing

c) Commission discussion and direction on the 2008 budget.

Mayor Hack called a public hearing on the 2008 City budget.

Dave Corliss, City Manager, presented the staff report.  He said two weeks ago, the City Commission directed staff to publish a budget summary which set the maximum dollar amount and the maximum mill levy the City would levy for the 2008 budget and would be reflected in property tax statements that property owners would pay in Lawrence next year.  The Commission did not have the ability to increase the property tax mill levy at this hearing because the Commission already set the maximum.  Since that time staff drafted a memo outlining the major issues staff saw relevant for City Commission consideration and adoption of the City budget.

Staff’s recommenced budget adjustments were as follows:

 ●    the mill levy supporting the Public Transit budget for 2008 has been set at 1.171 mills, an increase by .425 mills over this year’s levy

●      the mill levy supporting the General Fund budget for 2008 has been set at 14.869, no increase over this year’s levy; the General Fund budget was reduced by $250,000 with the understanding that the City Commission was looking to fund a portion of existing police officer salaries from the Alcohol Fund; this action is possible if the WRAP program is not funded in 2008

He said there were other items in the budget that followed up direction that the City Commission previously indicated.  He pointed out that State law required the City Commission to adopt an ordinance that indicated the City would be spending more property tax revenue in 2008 then what was budgeted in 2007.

The Utility rate ordinance had been discussed since April of this year, when the Clinton Water Plant Expansion Project was approved on the water side and talked extensively about the wastewater rates along with a System Development Charge Ordinance.  He said for sanitation services, the City Commission had previously gave staff direction regarding pool fees which the Commission needed to confirm that action at this time.  There was a fund policy staff was recommending to be changed regarding how transient guest tax revenue was spent.  Also, waiving utility fees was discussed in certain instances, but it was staff’s recommendation, those fees should not be waived unless they were going to appropriate general fund money in order to accomplish the waiving of those fees.

There was discussion about perhaps reducing the mill levy increase.  Essentially, the City would be spending down reserve funds which would decrease the fund balance, but the City might want to avoid that because they were at the lower end of the City’s policy which was to have a fund balance between 15% and 30%.  He said this budget provided a fund balance of 16.5%.  There were opportunities to reduce the mill levy if spending reserve funds or by reducing other expenditures.  He said in the memorandum was a suggestion from Commissioner Amyx regarding both a short and long term issue.   If the Commission wanted to increase the level of service for a particular program or function, in this case street maintenance, the street maintenance level was not up to a level they wanted to get at eventually.  If the Commission wanted to accomplish that level, a new revenue source was needed and it could not be expected to be a property tax burden.  The street maintenance issue was of a magnitude that staff needed direction to significantly reduce the function provided in the budget or they would need new revenue sources.

As an alternative to the street maintenance item, the City had $800,000 in the equipment reserve fund.  He said that money was transferred several years back when the City had more revenue than expenditures in the Transit Fund.  That money was placed in the Equipment Reserve Fund with the knowledge that eventually, the bus fleet would need to be replaced.  State law allowed the City Commission to adopt a resolution and transfer money from a reserve fund back into the operating fund of origin.  The Commission could either transfer the money in the total amount of .425 mills or levy the .425 mills which were discussed and still provide for the Transit system at its status quo operation, and levy the property taxes to reduce that transfer from the Equipment Reserve Fund.

He saw part of staff’s role was to advise the City Commission of the consequences to help the Commission understand the legal framework and give the best advice and direction on where that was going, but ultimately, it was the baton toss from the City Manager’s recommended budget to the City Commission’s adopted budget.  Once a decision was made, then he had the direction to help staff implement it.   He said adoption of the budget was needed once everything was finalized, then staff would prepare the final budget document, an appropriate number of City Commissioners needed to sign the budget; and the budget would be brought to the County Clerk for certification.  

Commissioner Highberger said after the last budget discussion, the Commission raised the possibility of raising a half cent sales tax for street and sidewalk repair, and possibly economic development.  As a result, he thought about how that sales tax might affect individual people in Lawrence.  He said he did some number crunching and summarized that information on a chart thinking the numbers were accurate. The chart was based on the assumption a half cent sales tax would bring in $5.5 million and if it was more like $6 million then those sales tax numbers should be somewhat higher.  He said in his findings, everyone was going to pay more in sales tax and the main reason was that sales tax generated 15 times more revenue.  He said sales tax hit some people harder than others.  He said talking about the sales tax, the magnitude of sales tax increase needed to be thought about.  A $36,000 income family living in a $150,000 home, a .25 mill increase would represent about $7.00 a year. 

            He said he did some research on what people were actually paying now, but the information he did not have was how many people would fall in each of those categories.  Concerning the next chart, the purpose was to show how the City’s tax structure affected different people in different income brackets.  The chart showed how regressive the sales tax structure was and thought they needed to find a revenue source that made the local tax structure less regressive.  He said if adding in the fees to the City and County taxes, the chart would be even more dramatically shifted between one taxing group and the other. 

Mayor Hack called for public comment.

Mike McAtee, Chairman Lawrence Police Officers Association, said he was representing the 110 members of the Lawrence Police Officers Association.  The LPOA was comprised of all the patrol officers and detectives hired by the Lawrence, Kansas Police Department.  The membership asked that he present to the City Commission their ideas regarding compensation and the wage adjustment  in reference to the 2008 Budget. 

In 2006, the LPOA and the City of Lawrence engaged in negotiations in reference to their Memorandum of Understanding that encompassed the year 2007 and 2008.  During those discussions, the City of Lawrence assured the LPOA as employees of this City their wages would be based upon comparative cities and their wages and benefits would be based upon not being the highest paid City employees, based upon the comparative cities, not the lowest, but the average.  The City told the LPOA they would be reaching that average payments or benefits based upon merit increases and wage adjustments and the LPOA took the City at its word.  They agreed, as City employees, that even though they were only going to be in the middle, that they would strive to provide the citizens of Lawrence the highest possible services they could provide.  They believed the citizens were the Police Department’s customers and deserved the best services possible. 

In the business world, profits were looked at when things were tight and employees were the first ones looked at to make adjustments or sacrifices.  As City employees, police officers and detectives, they were not making widgets, but producing services and believed they were upholding their end of the Memorandum of Understanding by providing the highest and the best possible services.  If they looked at the latest City survey, 84% of the citizens of Lawrence believed the City employees were providing the services and were happy with those types of services.

He said the LPOA understood that when looking at a spreadsheet seeing $250,000, it might be thought that eliminating that part of the budget would have a major impact on the Citizens of Lawrence and not affect a lot of people, but he respectfully disagreed with that mentality.  He said in the short term, $250,000 could be saved if there was no wage adjustment.  The short term of that loss would affect the morale of not only the 110 officers and detectives, but the other 800 city employees.  The long term effects of taking away a wage adjustment would have a serious impact on the trust between employees and management; would affect the recruitment of quality employees in the future; affect the retaining of current quality employees, and affect punishing employees that were about ready to retire because their retirement was based upon their last 5 annual salaries.  It would have a major impact. 

They understood sales taxes were flat and property taxes were down and understood as City employees it was their job to tighten their belts along with the City and believed they were doing that, but also believed the citizens of Lawrence expected core services be provided and believed the citizens wanted the people providing those services were supported by the City Commission and Management and were paid a fair wage. 

The LPOA strongly urged the City Commission’s support in supporting the employees of the City of Lawrence, and humbly requested and urged the City Commission to strongly support the 2% wage adjustment for City employees.     

David Kingsley, Grassroots Action and member of the Alcohol Tax Advisory Committee, said he was a little blindsided to see Commissioner Highberger’s tax information on the City’s website because he had trouble figuring that information out.  He said according to his tax information, if looking at a $48,000 annual income, with income spent on taxable sales was $16,320.  He said what was happening was the impact of sales tax was being minimized along with user fees, and other types of regressive taxes. 

He said Commissioner Highberger received his information from the Bureau of Labor Statistics website.  Basically, when discussing any of those categories of household income, they were discussing units of consumption.  The median income unit of consumption the BLS dealt with was $48,000.  He looked at all the categories the BLS had in terms of what they considered consumer areas and when adding up all of those items that would be subject to some sort of a sales tax user fee, those items came to $26,683 which was almost twice what Commissioner Highberger had indicated.  He said a consumption unit was one person living in a house or four people living in a house, but thought the Bureau of Labor Statistics pretty much low balled what people were spending. 

He said he wanted to speak to the budget process as a whole because it had not been  transparent and had not been a very democratic process.  The public seemed to be getting different information which was puzzling.   He said this morning he read in the newspaper, the City Manager found another $600,000 to be used to keep the City’s transit system going. 

He said a number of items in the budget had not been looked at closely.  He said the LPOA spoke regarding the employees’ wage adjustment and Grassroots Action was very much in favor of City employees receiving their pay raise.  He said what was being discussed was a city government system with a fragile transportation system that was going to be cut. The City had a group of very good and valuable employees that were a precious resource to this city.  He said the City was planning on cutting or holding the line on non-profit service agencies or cut employee pay or not give City employees a pay increase.  On the other hand, when looking through the budget, there were areas with major increases such as the Lawrence Chamber of Commerce with a $50,000 increase which amounted to a 35% increase.  He said he was not sure about the rationale for that increase and why in a year when everyone was supposed to suffer a little pain, why things could not be fair and let the Chamber do the same thing.  He said Downtown Lawrence had been cut somewhat and their financials showed a net revenue in 2005 of $40,000.  He said bioscience stayed the same and ECO² was cut somewhat which were Chamber programs.  He said the Convention and Visitors Bureau had a 3.9% increase which was a big number because they had an $820,000 recommended budget by the City Manager.  There was $150,000 appearing in a reserve fund, which would give them about a 207% increase in that guest tax fund, which in his opinion, reading the Charter Ordinance, could be used to help the Police Department because a lot of the Convention and Visitors Bureau business was Police policing the downtown bars.  The police officers were a very important resource in the community.  He said he found $185,000 in the budget that was an increase in what he considered pro business, Chamber oriented programs. 

Kingsley said Wall Street loves the sales tax.  He said credit on credit cards was being taxed at 7.5% in this community which was a lot of money.  It was one way to funneling money from the poor to the rich in this country and why there was a 15% capital gains tax.  Another person he heard loved the Lawrence sales tax increase was a Topeka Commissioner because people could pay that less than a half cent sales tax in Topeka buying cars.  He said tonight this community was going to hear they were going to get another Wal-Mart, but were talking about downtown small business and could not see how a sales tax was going to the small businesses any good. 

This year there was a sales tax crisis and for some reason the City budgeted 4% for sales tax.  He said when looking at the City’s increases since 2000, there was a 2.7% increase which was supposed to be done in a 5 year moving average, but how the City received that forecast, he did not know.   He said sales tax was going to suffer from things like consumer behavior.  The City did not know what the sales tax was going to be this year because there had only been the July distribution that came in, but the tax looked pretty flat.  Finally, he said the University Athletic Department decided to move a football game to Kansas City.  That was going to cost the City sales tax and hotel/motel taxes.  He said the City had to consider those things when looking at this budget.  He said the sales tax was unfair, most regressive, and the most insidious thing that was going on in taxation in this country because it was being put on the poorest people, who were carrying the burden of taxes and was true in this City. 

He said if looking at the proportion of revenue, he asked who carried the burden for financing the City.  The City had $21,733,000 in sales tax revenue and $12,850,552 in ad valorem property taxes and mortgage interest deduction did benefit the wealthiest people in this society.  He said when placing sales tax money into infrastructure, they were improving property.

Anthony Duran, Lawrence Transit Driver, said he had much concern because of the rampant rumors.  The cuts to the “T” would not only affect him and the other drivers, but their customers and friends.  The Commission was talking about cutting service to people that needed the service.  The people they were looking to sit off to the side and forget about were the people that ran and worked in this town.  The City Commission needed to start thinking as one of them, not one of those people on the hill.

He said with the recommended cuts, it would drop his hours, put him at part-time, and he would lose $100 a paycheck which is $200 a month.  He would need another job because his wife did not work.  He was willing to brunt that impact because he believed the system could work.  The Commission needed to look into the budget and find the money somewhere to keep the system going for the people because they were the ones that voted the Commission into office and the ones who could change it.  He said if a person was not a part of KU, they would not have any say in this town and that needed to change. 

Chris Burger, President Downtown Lawrence, Inc., said everyone would tell the City Commission the importance of their individual organizations which was meritorious.  They were hearing about police powers, taxation structures, and other things to consider, but DLI was a non-profit asking for some support and asked if that was important.  He said Downtown Lawrence was the heart of the City and DLI, over the last many years, had kept downtown that way and made it that way.  It used funding from the City to encourage participation by the vendors and merchants to match those funds, to promote downtown, to bring businesses downtown, bring customers downtown, events downtown, to keep downtown Lawrence as the focal point for the City of Lawrence.  All of that eventually equated into revenue for the City and downtown Lawrence was doing fabulously.  It had a vacancy rate below the rest of Lawrence.  If taking out properties that were not available for occupancy, it was less than half of the vacancy rates for the rest of Lawrence.  Sales tax revenue in downtown was nearly double the increase and percentage than the rest of Lawrence.  Downtown Lawrence was doing very well as a location and that was in part due to the City, the citizens of Lawrence, the customers that come down, and DLI played a part, too.  He said they were asking for support in that regard to promote downtown.

Bob Suderman, Douglas County Community Corrections Advisory Board, said he knew the task ahead of the Commission was difficult.  In the City there were a number of areas of need and needs that were obvious and apparent, and needs that were not as visible to the community.  He said what went on with community corrections was relatively invisible to most of the people in the City; only the people affected seemed to be aware of the issues.  He said their goal was to raise the question of extending the hours of the “T” or at least keeping the same hours because it had a tremendous impact on their clientele and the people who worked in the corrections program and those who were able to maintain themselves and become productive members of the community.  He said the basis of their comment was probation condition violations that could occur and the availability of transportation was the key.  Lack of it could be a barrier and having transportation was everything in being able to help those people not get involved in the probation condition violations.  He said in Douglas County 26% of the people who go to prison who had been on probation did so only because they had violated some condition set by the court.  Across the state, the number was higher and there were some counties that were as high as 50%.  Those were people who did their time, came out, and were on probation and go back because they could not make it to work, their doctor, mental health counselor, etc.  He said the State Legislature asked all counties to drop that number by 20% because the prisons were full and they did not want to build anymore.  For people to make it to the night shift to work, their jobs in the service industries, it was essential to have this transportation because they did not have money.  He said out of the Community Corrections Budget, over 2,000 passes were purchased for people who had no money and most of the time people take care of this on their own. 

Kathy Elkins, President International Association of Firefighters, Local 1596, said there had been some talk about lack of citizen participation.  She was proud of her Executive Board.  She said she was present during the study sessions and listened to every Director’s budget proposals.  The IAFF tried to stay very informed of what was going on so they could inform their membership.    She said she appreciated Mike McAtee with the LPOA being present along with other members of the Police Department.  There were other City employees present and others watching this matter on TV and the City Commission would not hear from them, but her organization were employees that would speak.  She said they could be fired for any reason so those employees would not be able to come up and speak. 

She agreed with McAtee’s comments on the wage adjustment.  She said in the 2008 budget there were program improvements and none of those program improvements made it to the City Manager’s budget.  That included no increase in personnel, no technical rescue training they needed desperately, and one of the most pressing issues within their department was Chief Bradford told the City Commission that they had 20% of the fire fighters with bunker gear that was not safe.  Bunker gear was their coats, pants and helmets.  They had to take care of the people that would take care of the community.  No one could expect those men and women to go into burning buildings and risk their safety and their lives.  She said they were her brothers and sisters and she would stand up there and protect them with everything she had.  She asked the City Commission to think about the City employee, the fire fighters, and her brothers and sisters at the Police Department.  They had a hard decision and appreciated what the Commission was doing because it was a tough place to be in and they appreciated the Commission. 

David Smith, Grassroots Actions, spoke in support of the “T”.  He said several dozen of their group held a rally outside City Hall that evening which they called a “T Party”.  At that rally, he asked people to perform a small thought experiment that he would like the City Commission to perform as well.  He said they should imagine a day just like today.  It was Tuesday, a work day, the temperature was over 100 degrees, it was humid and a few minutes past 6.  If they had just gotten off of work and depending on the City bus service and were stranded and might have miles to walk in stifling heat.  He said if a person was disabled and depended on the “T” to get medications at the pharmacy or if a person did not own a car or could not afford the expensive gasoline, a person would be stranded at 6:00 p.m.  He said 8:00 p.m. was a much more rational time for a bus system to halt if it had to halt at all.  He spoke to people who did swing shift work who said they could not get back to work because the bus stopped at 8:00.  They learned from the public hearing on July 24^th that 12% of all “T” riders ride between 6:00 and 8:00 p.m. which was about 50,000 rides per year.  If they assumed a good percentage of those people who were riding between 6:00 and 8:00 also came to work earlier in the day, it was clear they were not talking about a small part of the total “T” ridership.  The “T” was an enormous Lawrence success story and it was sad they were talking about cutting the hours of the “T” after it had grown steadily in ridership year after year, more than doubling since the time it was founded.  Revenues from ridership had gone up steadily, including this year.  He said they were impressed on the 24^th by the eloquence and seriousness of concerns that people raised.  Grassroots Action thought they would do a practical experiment and have set up tables in Lawrence and asked a petition they asked people to circulate.  Their sense was the community was deeply concerned and many people were up in arms over the prospect over a serious cutback in this important City service.  Over the course of 7 or 8 hours sitting at tables in a few places, they collected 400 signatures.  If they had done 10 times that much tabling, they would have 10 times the number of signatures.  He said he had yet to meet a member of the community who thought that cutting the “T” back to 6:00 p.m. on weekdays made sense. 

He said their petition read as follows: “On July 24^th the City Commission cast a tentative vote to stop City bus services at 6:00 p.m. instead of 8:00 p.m. that would strand many riders, people who work later than 5:00 or overtime.  Disabled riders and senior riders with no other means of transportation, people with late appointments, people without cars or unable to afford gas, people who need to fill prescriptions at pharmacy, shop for groceries, or run basic errands.”  They called on the City Commission to restore full evening bus service and the vote on the 24^th was preliminary and it was time to do the right thing.  They were hopeful on this issue and other issues heard that affected working people, poor people, the disabled, elderly and others that the City Commission would not make a decision that would balance the budget on the backs of those least able to bear the burden.  The City had a lot of money in a lot of places and it was a temporary and relative budget pinch, but there were solutions that did not entail harming the City bus service or poor working people. 

Carrie Lindsey, Director, Resident Services, Lawrence-Douglas County Housing Authority, said successful employment and reliable transportation went hand in hand and the Lawrence Transit System served as a silent partner in helping the residents served by the Lawrence-Douglas County Housing Authority to become more self-sufficient.  She said the Lawrence-Douglas County Housing Authority operated a moving to work demonstration program and MTW was a special program approved by the Federal Government to move families to work, create more housing choice, and reduce federal subsidy for housing assistance.  The Lawrence program was designed to provide greater housing benefits for working families than traditional subsidized housing programs.  There were two main components to the MTW program.  First, the MTW project featured a new rent structure and established annual minimum and maximum rents.  Second, and important to this discussion, it required all able bodied adults to work or be enrolled in an educational or training program at least 15 hours per week.  Adults not currently working or otherwise meeting the work requirement might participate in the Lawrence-Douglas County Housing Authority’s Families Self Sufficiency Program through her office.  Her office was a resource center for participants in this project and provided residents with skills and support services necessary to obtain meaningful employments and overcome deeply rooted and chronicle obstacles to self sufficiency.  Many of the families served by the City-County Housing Authority relied on the Lawrence Transit System as a source of transportation.  As a part of their support services, the resident services office provided a 10 punch ride ticket to their family self sufficiency services that were looking for work or employed.  A resident was eligible to receive one bus punch pass per month.  Since the Lawrence Transit System began serving Lawrence community, they spent approximately $4,500 on ride tickets for the families they served.  She said she just signed off on the purchase order since the rate increase and would continue to purchase the tickets despite the rate increase.  However, a cut in the service hours would be very detrimental to those residents who relied on the bus as their primary source of transportation.  Because they were requiring families to work, sometimes the hours they have available to them to do things like go to doctors appointments, medical appointments, and grocery shopping, was a crucial time between 5:00 and 8:00 when the bus was running.  The current hours were already challenging to some of their families, further decreasing the hours might make it more difficult for the bus system to be considered a viable transportation option. 

She said as the Commissioners considered the fate of the Lawrence Transit System, they needed to keep in mind the mission of the Housing Authority’s Moving to Work Program and the opportunity to keep supporting the silent partnership with the Housing Authority residents and their advancement towards self sufficiency. 

She said speaking as a citizen, they lived in such a great community and it was not the battles that were won or lost, but the fact they generated enough interest to have a fight about it at all.  She said as they moved forward and make this decision, the Commission needed to realize it was the fight that provided the balance that kept Lawrence the great community it was.  She said her husband was teaching in a community where a college was close and considered like Lawrence and like KU.  She said that city was nothing compared to Lawrence and thought people who did not get out of the city very often realized what they had in Lawrence.  One of the things they had that made them a better place was the bus system and those fights that made them the great community they were. 

Laura Routh, Lawrence, said she wanted to share some of her concerns for the proposed budget and the planning efforts that had gone into the decisions that were being made tonight. 

She said in 2005 a resource plan for the Lawrence Police Department was completed to assist with key considerations for resource decision making by the City of Lawrence.  In the 2008 budget, there was no mention of this resource plan or the stated objectives.  She quoted from the plan; “Success in using this model depends not only on the actions of any one leader, but also on the willingness of each of the three decision making bodies, in this case the City Commission, the City Manager’s Office and the Chief’s Office, to use the model provided and hold each other accountable to it.  Accountable resource decision making should always be based on the potential results deliverable in the community, not on the amount of effort that was expended.” 

She said she thought the purpose of the resource planning effort was to ensure that future police budgets were to be tied directly to community outcomes.  For 2008, this did not seem to be the case.  They apparently had reverted back to old ways of thinking.  One of the five year objectives committed to by the Lawrence Police Department in the resource plan was that the clearance rate for major crimes in the City of Lawrence would be maintained at baseline.  She asked where in the 2008 budget request was this achievement described.  She said it was not there. 

Since 2005 the citizens of this community have been asked to foot a nearly $3 million increase in the Police Department budget.  They continued to buy more squad cars and this year alone Chief Olin was asking for nearly $600,000 for 10 more cars.  The irony of this was not lost on her as they were discussing cutting the public transportation system for the same amount of money they could buy 10 police cars.  She said the Police Department’s accountability to measurable community outcomes did not seem to be addressed in the budget process.  This year they had seen a market increase in robbery, home invasion, theft and violent crime.  What they seemed to be paying for were new cars and police officers that spend most of their time manning speed traps and generating revenue in the form of traffic citations.  She said someone earlier referenced $2.4 million in revenue in fines alone.  What they did not seem to be getting was a police force that was actively engaged in community policing, criminal investigation and crime prevention.  She asked where in the Police Department budget were the measurements and objectives outlined in the resource plan and in what way did the department’s budget request tie to measurable community outcomes.  She said in her opinion, the Police Department’s priorities and thus their funding continued to be misguided.  She said this year she asked to whom was the Police Department accountable and what assurance do the citizens and taxpayers of this community have that the money they continued to invest was resulting in tangible improvements and community safety and beneficial Police Department priorities.  She said if they could not answer those questions, the Commission should not fund an increase in the Police Department’s budget. 

Dave Strano, Lawrence, said this was a very contentious budget issue the Commission was facing.  The budget was very ripe with things that favored certain sectors of the population of the City at the expense of other sectors of the population of the City.  There was the cutting the WRAP program that effected high school students and public school students across the City.  They saw cuts in the “T” and public access to public transportation that affected people all across the board, but mostly working and poor people in this city.  He said they saw pool access with the increase in the rate people would have to pay for public pools also increasing which would affect poor and working class people in the City. 

He said on the other side they saw an increase in the Chamber funding for the Chamber of Commerce, an increase in the police budget, and probably see a request from Wal-Mart for infrastructure improvements if the item would be passed that would also come out of the City budget.  He said they saw a favoring for a certain sector of the population at the expense of another.  He said in normal terms it was called a “class war” and what they were facing right now.  He said that was what the budget would declare to people in his neighborhood, to people who were in the lower class neighborhoods of the city that they, the working poor people of the city were expendable and were not needed and the people who are needed are the Chamber of Commerce.  He said the supposed reason the Commission would fund the Chamber of Commerce was to bring more jobs and a better economy to Lawrence.  He said if that was really the intent of the City, they would be seeing an increase of social services to the poor and working class, an increase in T service, and would be seeing things that did not affect the workers of this City.   He said they were in a breaking point in the City and the country where poor and working people were giving and giving while people on the other side were taking and taking, and it would reach a breaking point.  There were counties all across the United States that had to cut their workers, cut their budgets, and everyone was losing right now.  He said the question was what was going to happen when working people and poor people have no more to give.  He said it was not meant to be a threat, but the question was how they were going to hold the City accountable who put their citizens in that position. 

Michael Pomes, Lawrence, said he was going to make comments that would address the increase in pool fees and the WRAP program.  He said there were not many alternatives for public pools in Lawrence, Kansas.  Increasing the pool fees to $3 for kids was going to make it hard for most families to attend and would deprive those families of a recreational source.  He asked if other options were considered such as cutting back on pool hours.  Currently, the outdoor pool was open to 8:45 and asked if someone checked to see how many people were in the pool at 8:45 and if there were not many people during those hours then perhaps work cuts that way rather than increasing the amount of money people had to pay. 

He said regarding the WRAP program, the school district should not be willing to abandon the program because they were the ones that would benefit the most.  He said even if funding was hard to come by, how much were they willing to pay if there was going to be a Columbine style incident at one of their Lawrence schools.  He asked if they were willing to pay for the emergency response and aftermath and was something that should be considered. 

He said other things to consider was Eagle Bend Golf Course which still had not made money and perhaps look at other activities that did not generate user fees for the parks.  The City constructed a skateboarding park, but did not charge the skateboarders user fees to use that resource.  

Carlie Bittel, University of Kansas Student, commented on the Hawk Nights portion of the alcohol tax funds grant that had been zeroed out in the budget.  She said in the past, this grant had come to them for the past 3 years for Student Union Activities, which was the programming board on campus.  They programmed with Hawk Nights money, late night events that were alternatives to drinking.  They kept the KU population from drinking illegally or drinking irresponsibly and thought it was a very important mission.  She said they were present to fight for that money to do what they believed to be an honorable task to their organization.  She said Hawk Nights came to their organization a few years ago and were coming up on three coordinators and committee members, a group of students that had seen this thing through and had a lot of passion what they did with this money.  They came to believe it was really important.  She said they hit around 25% of the KU student body every year and had shown through data and surveys that with most of their events they did make a difference.  They had kept over 1/3 of the students who came to the events from drinking who would have otherwise that night.  She said they program one event per month that had at least 400 students come.  It was at least 8 programs a year that they have the outcome.  She said they have been good stewards of this money.  Last year, they asked for $25,000 and two years previous to that they asked for $20,000.  She said they would appreciate any financial compensation that would fulfill a purpose they hold in high regard and that also pertained to the City’s duty in some ways.  She said this was worth fighting for, even though it was not a lot.  She asked the City Commission to reconsider pulling that fund from the KU students.

Kelly Barth, speaking on behalf of Carey Maynard Moody who could not be present, said she wanted to share Angel’s story with them in hopes that it would convey the magnitude of the decision of funding the “T”.  She said she met Angel at the community building downtown and she used the public facilities there because her 24 year old son and two granddaughters had not yet found a place to live in Lawrence.  They moved to Lawrence a few weeks ago from Oklahoma so her son could attend Haskell Indian Nations University.  She said Angel’s plate was very full and her resources were very limited.  Her 27 year old daughter was killed in an automobile accident last year leaving 2 daughters, ages 7 and 11.  Several years prior to losing her daughter, she lost the lower half of her right leg due to complications from her diabetes.  Her prosthesis fits poorly so she was confined to a wheelchair until she can secure fitting and rehab services in Lawrence.  She said Angel told her that she wanted to be as strong and independent as possible to do her share of household tasks and to free up her son from providing her transportation.  Her son needed to focus on his studies and did not want him to use his study time to drive her around, but she had to get places to get the services she needed to help her become stronger and more independent.

She said she told Angel about the “T” and ADA Paratransit Services.  She got her a map, a schedule and helped her to learn to read it.  She said because of the “T”, independently, Angel will be able to get to her case manager at Independence Inc., her doctor at Haskell Indian Health Services, her physical therapy appointments at the hospital, and her early evening religious and social meetings.  She said Angel was just one of many people who had fuller lives because in the past, decision makers like the City Commission, decided it was fit to provide a road to independence for all people in the guise of a public transportation system.  She asked the City Commission not to take public transportation away. 

Sharla True, Lawrence, said many people relied on the “T” and currently it was her only form of transportation.  She said she had been without a vehicle for a while and spent a lot of time riding buses and walking to bus stops.  She said one who was riding the T for their only form of transportation because their transmission gave out or because they did not own a vehicle would not like to think of themselves as poor or be labeled as such.  She said if you owned a car, you were richer than the one that did not or if you owned two cars.  She said there were several cuts that needed to be discussed and was not aware of a pay raise that was being considered for the Police Department.  She said she believed firmly, because she carried a CDL, that if the accommodations on the “T” were expanded, they would grow ridership immensely.  Not only for the price of gas of people that own cars, but because of the needs of the patrons. 

She said after a 2005 wreck, she was without a car and begged the drivers to let her off at the store because she had walking, carrying, breathing, swallowing, and choking problems.  She was told by one bus driver, at a bus stop, to dump her drink on the sidewalk before she was allowed aboard, but argued with the driver letting the drive know that she had a swallowing problem and had to sip water every so often. 

She said she had 6 ideas that would increase ridership.  Those issues were:

1. Design the new map that would be more readable for the visually impaired;

2.         Allow water and food on the bus;

3.         Pickup and drop off people at their particular locations;

4.         Do not censor what people want to discuss on the bus, such as what they did for a living;

5.         Increase bike racks; and,

6.         Increase evening hours of operation. 

She said regarding her water bill, she paid $30 for 1,000 gallons of water.  She said people who used thousands of gallons of water paid less per gallon.  She suggested taking the total dollar spent last year along with the number of gallons and divide that amount and price that much per gallon so that people who did not make that much money were not bearing the brunt for three person households where there were two adults and one child. 

Joe Douglas, Lawrence, said he did not envy the Commission’s work or decisions because everyone expected the City Commission to make fiscally responsible decisions and also expected them to make morally responsible decisions, decisions that looked at the value of what was going on and take a position on what was important and what was less important.  He said he was a psychiatrist at the Bert Nash Mental Health Center and was not at all representing the center.  He said the center served a remarkable variety of people.  They serve a lot of people who were financially struggling.  Some had fallen off the financial edge and many who were on the edge and were getting by only by the skin of their teeth.  Many people get by, by getting help when needed from a variety of sources, including a variety of the non-profit social service agencies in town.  Also, many people got by because they did not have transportation and needed the “T” to survive.  He said morally the budget could not be balanced by taking things away from the people who needed them the most; people who were on the edge of collapse and having that financial stress added to the mental health issues as well. 

Mayor Hack asked for City Commission discussion on the three utility rate related ordinances.

Commissioner Highberger said he was really glad they were able to lower the wastewater rate below what they had projected it was going to be.  He said to address True’s comment, he said there were more than just charges for water on the water bill.  The City charged a flat rate for water, but he would like the Commission, at some point, to consider an inclining rate for people who use more pay higher fees because the peak water capacity drove a lot of the City’s system costs. He said there were increases and given the additional capacity, new requirements from the EPA needed to be added along with the system maintenance.  He thought the rates were reasonable.

Commissioner Amyx asked if it was better using the flat rate approach for water rate increases versus paying for actual water usage.

Corliss said people pay for what they used.  The question was when someone used additional gallons and whether or not that rate was going to decline as it did in the past per certain gallons. Regarding the flat rate, no matter how much water was used, the fee was the same amount.  He said there could be an inclining rate for gallons that exceeded a certain amount and it would be even higher and that was discussed earlier.  What was discussed earlier this year was using current data to get a better grasp as to whether or not it was having any conservation impact or any other type of impact.  When going to next year’s water rates, actual data could be available in experiencing the flat rate and take the Commission’s direction on what to do.

Commissioner Amyx said as he read through the information, it appeared to be the fairest way, to the consumer, based on the current information.

            Corliss said staff thought so, but there were a number of different values.  One of the values Commissioner Highberger was getting at was building for peak demand and the peak demand was the summer irrigation system.  The question was should the customers that required that peak demand, in addition to paying more because they were using more water, should they pay at a higher rate, an inclining rate.  He said when that was discussed a few years back, a decision was made to move away from the declining block rate, which essentially provided a break on the gallons and moved to a flat rate.  He said moving toward a different structure needed to be determined for the future, but they needed more data for that determination.  He said this recovered the cost that was necessary to operate the Utility Department.  The users paid for the water rates and sewer rates. 

Commissioner Chestnut said they had this discussion and in principle he agreed with Commissioner Highberger that they ought to at least review it.  He thought Ed Mullins made an appropriate comment in regard to this that they had to make sure they maintain stability in their revenue stream with the large amount of bond issue debt they were going to take on with the wastewater project.  It could get problematic if they could not predict what that change would be.  He said he was not completely against it, but they had to keep it in mind. 

            Corliss said it was a good cautionary reminder.

Moved by Dever, seconded by Chestnut, to place on first reading, Ordinance No. 8131, establishing solid waste service rates for 2008.  Motion carried unanimously.       (16)

Moved by Dever, seconded by Chestnut, to place on first reading, Ordinance No. 8133, establishing water service and sewage disposal rates for 2008.  Motion carried unanimously.                                                                                                                                (17)

Moved by Dever, seconded by Chestnut, to approve the wholesale water rate for 2008.  Motion carried unanimously.                                                                                            (18)

Moved by Dever, seconded by Chestnut, to place on first reading, Ordinance No. 8134, establishing system development charges for water utility and wastewater utility connections for 2008.  Motion carried unanimously.                                                                    (19)

Mayor Hack asked for discussion on the proposed pool fees increases.

Commissioner Amyx said they looked at the time of 8:45 p.m. and had an extensive report from the Parks and Recreation Department about the usage of the pool and the effects it would have on the rates and money collected.  He said they started out at a recommendation of $4.00 for the fees and had it down to $3.00 by transferring things.

            Corliss said they were deferring some expenses for the Parks & Recreation Department next year.

            Commissioner Amyx said unless they were down to transferring money from somewhere he was not sure they had right now, he did not see any other way to do it right now other than to increase the fees.

Commissioner Highberger said he would rather see it at $2.50 and was willing to compromise.  He said he would rather find another source for the $47,000 difference and would rather see it come out of the General Fund and was concerned about the pressure putting on Parks and Recreation maintenance. 

Mayor Hack said they could see what they could do to see that happen as they moved through, but it did not take official action to do that.

Corliss said they were going to show the City Commission what the Parks and Recreation maintenance items were.  The City Commission’s decision two weeks ago was not to increase the mill levy in the General Fund.  He said unless they were going to change resources in the General Fund or they were going to spend down the fund balance or reserve, the set dollar amount for the General Fund.

Commissioner Amyx said something he would have rather seen was a scale where they had the opportunity to start at $2.50 or $2.00 and being able over a two or three year period have the opportunity to increase those fees.  He said he would love to see it come from somewhere else, but where they were right now, he did not think they had the ability to make those kinds of movements and thought they were going to be at $3.00.

Moved by Chestnut, seconded by Amyx, to approve pool fees of $3.00 for children, teens, and seniors and $4.00 for adults, effective January 1, 2008. 

Motion carried unanimously.                                                                                            (20)

Moved by Amyx, seconded by Dever, to approve Administrative Policy AP-55, establishing a policy that governs allocation of the Transient Guest Tax.  Motion carried unanimously.                                                                                                                                       (21)

Commissioner Highberger said he already thought they set the precedent in a vote earlier in the year, but would like to see this program continue to give it another year to see how it worked.  He realized there was some cost shifting here, but the services provided by the organizations were worthy of support and helped people in housing to assist with that.

Vice Mayor Dever said he was in favor of some sort of opportunity to consider a rebate or some sort of funding that could be given to the organizations in lieu of abating the fees, perhaps returning the fee or in kind service.  He believed it was a good cause and wanted to ask the City to look at whatever they could do within statute to try and help the organizations thrive. 

Commissioner Chestnut said he echoed Dever’s comments.  He said he would like to make sure they support the organizations that were very important, especially in the affordable housing category.  He said one of the things was it was a process issue in that he liked the idea of making it visible, part of the outside services budget or whatever in just making the revenue disappear.  It was a matter of it became more difficult to measure and lost visibility to it.  He said it was important for them to understand when they started to look at allocations, especially outside services and agencies that they know what they were committing to.  His concern was when they talked about abating the fees, that did not happen.  For him it was not if they wanted to make the commitment from the financial standpoint, but more of the way they did it.

Mayor Hack said she could not support the waiver policy as it was; however, she believed that they needed to work on it.  She knew Commissioner Highberger was working on the affordable housing component and believed that was something they needed to have serious conversations about as they moved forward.  She said this may be a jump start that to get them some kind of creative solutions to what they could do, like costs they could forgive that did not work with this and on a broader scale, not with just these two organizations.

            Commissioner Amyx asked if the agency had the money in hand they could ask for those payments and rebate the money back.

Corliss said they already paid the fees and were seeking reimbursement. 

Commissioner Amyx said his suggestion was to place it as an agenda item and make that decision. 

Mayor Hack asked if it needed to be part of the budget conversation specifically tonight.

Corliss said staff’s recommendation was that they not pursue a fee waiver in the utility function and if they wanted to do this, they look at general fund money to do this.  He said it was a philosophical discussion about who paid for these things.  They looked for ways to try and help these organizations and affordable housing.  There was some policy discussion but not much case law as to what way to go.  He said he thought they could talk about it during another City Commission meeting.

Commissioner Amyx asked if they would be making a same type of waiver in a project like 8^th and Pennsylvania. 

            Commissioner Highberger said it would be more complicated in a condo situation like that.  He said they would have to draft the policy to address the situation.

            Commissioner Amyx said those were some of the things they needed to take into consideration because that would be something that happened next.  They would have individuals come forward with affordable housing units or components of large projects, and would ask for the same waiver. 

Moved by Amyx, seconded by Chestnut, to direct staff to schedule the Utility Fee Waiver Policy item for a future study session for further review.  Motion carried unanimously.

Corliss said what the City Commission did in setting the hearing was they provided for a transit and levy increase of .4 mills for transit that provided for the resources that allowed for continued transit operations with the transit administrator’s recommendation because the resources would be less than necessary to operate the system next year and close the hours from 6:00 to 8:00.  The recommended budget had the 0.7 mill increase that had the full ability to continue the operation of the system.  He said if they did the 0.4 mill levy increase and directed staff to reduce money they had in the Equipment Reserve Fund, they would need $232,000 of Equipment Reserve Fund money to transfer to the Transit Fund, which would allow them to have the resources to operate the Transit at status quo levels.  He said what the City Commission did two weeks ago on the general fund side, was they directed there would be no mill levy increase and published a budget that included a 2% wage adjustment for all city employees.  They also took $250,000 of expenditures from the Police Department with the understanding that it was unlikely the school district would fund WRAP and they would not fund WRAP out of the alcohol funds and fund law enforcement out of the alcohol funds for $250,000.  He said that was what was in the budget that was published.  He said he wanted to make it clear that the wage adjustment would cost more than $250,000 and the wage adjustment was just shy of $700,000.  They were spending down fund balance.  He said his recommendation was to try and keep things at a status quo and provide a wage adjustment for City employees.  The City Commission’s action two weeks ago was to not increase the mill levy in the General Fund, which meant in his opinion they needed to look for some level of reductions in General Fund expenditures.  He said they did not have to and could spend the fund balance down and may have serious consequences in the future due to reduced money.  He said at 16.45% he had some comfort level they could achieve that.  The reason they had this money was to provide public services.  They needed the fund balance for a number of purposes so his recommendation was if the City Commission wanted to sustain the T system at its status quo level, they increase the mill levy by 0.4 and provide $232,000 in the Equipment Reserve Fund that was dedicated toward busses, transfer that to the T, and will be able to operate it at a status quo level.  If they did not want to raise the mill levy for the Transit system but wanted to maintain it at status quo level, they had to reduce the reserve.  They could always debt finance bus purchases or lease them to spread the costs out over future years.  He said if they did not do a mill levy increase at all for transit, then they needed $584,000.

            Hack asked if that would maintain it to 6:00 p.m.

            Corliss said it maintained it to 8:00 p.m.  He said Commissioner Amyx suggested that one item to look at was street maintenance and another way to look at it was to draw down further the Equipment Reserve Fund for Transit with the understanding they would have to make that up in the future.  He said if they did not decrease WRAP funding, his recommendation was to spend down the fund balance.  He said he could not recommend they reduce expenditures in the Police Department.

Commissioner Amyx said he had the opportunity to ask the questions that Mr. Kingsley and Mr. Smith brought up tonight about sales tax.  He said when he started the budget process along with the rest of the City Commission this year he started looking at a multiple year budget system they may be in to.  When they looked at the revenues, they had to look at property valuation and talked to the county over increased property valuations.

  He said his idea of sales tax was the same movie but a different song.  They started it out a year ago at 1 cent and had it down to ½ cent.  He said if they could have a ½ cent sales tax that would be able to generate the amount of money that was predicted and it was in the $6 million range, one of the things it would do a year from now as they got ready for budget hearings a year from now that he thought were going to be terrible, it would be able to free up money in the General Fund they were currently spending on street maintenance.  It would give them the opportunity to go through a comprehensive look at the way that they were going to be able to fund the T system, fund the services to outside agencies, give staff the opportunity to put together a program that they would be able to hit one of their goals which would be to be able to balance revenues against expenditures.  It would give them a five year period and he asked to pull the street improvements and sidewalk improvements that they all said were important to them as a community.  They have to be able to make this decision.  It was not about 2008, but it was about 2008, 2009 and the next five years.  They had to have a revenue stream.  He said he did not want to raise anyone’s taxes, whether it be sales tax or property tax.  He did not know where they were going to get the funding unless they were willing to sit back and say no to the services they were currently providing because they would not be able to pay for them a year from now.  He said they should not hide behind it because it would happen.

            He said he knew along with the rest of the City Commission they would do everything they could to support a pay increase for City employees.  There was no way that they could do the jobs they do without the valued employees they had and he challenged anyone who had anything they could find that the employees do not do well.  He said he was proud of each and every one of them. 

            He said two weeks ago one of the three agreed they would do away with the 6 – 8 time frame and another would support the .425 mill increase to fund the T.  He said one of the things he had done was he had the opportunity to visit with a lot of people over the last two weeks. He said one of the things he found was that he believed they had to through staff and PTAC figure out a program that worked.  He talked to a lot of people who remembered the transportation system they had in the 1940s and 1950s, when the City was a lot smaller.  They were able to put together a program where they would see people on those busses.  They may not be able to serve every square inch of the community and may have to shrink the service down, but they needed to be able to figure out a way to pay for the hours they committed to.  He thought the staff and the people in the committee would figure out ways to do it.  He said what they must do was to figure out a way to come up with money either through the street department or equipment reserves they had to fund the .425 mill increase, to have a zero increase for the mill levy for 2008.  He thought they needed to pay for the extension of time on the T system and give an order to figure out a way to come up with a better T system, whether it would be to incorporate KU on Wheels, but they had to come up with a plan that would take care of the transportation needs in the community for people that need this service.  He said they needed to have a discussion and plan on how they would be able to fund the next several years. 

Commissioner Chestnut said in some ways he agreed with Commissioner Amyx.  He thought that infrastructure was important and knew that sales tax had been talked about.  He thought one of the things that was important was they had to remind themselves and one of the reasons why he did not want to reduce funding on street maintenance at this point was they just finished the survey results on the community wide survey and one of three most important downsides of that was the street maintenance and east/west traffic flow.  He thought to back off that now was going to set them back.  He agreed that they needed another revenue stream to move past climbing up a hill.  He said right now he agreed with the revenue sources they had right now and would not overcome the street maintenance issue. 

            He said as far as the General Fund and T service, he supported the .425 mill levy increase.  He said one of the things that was a perspective that needed to be understood was the T service had been under funded in its own fund for the last 3 or 4 years.  They were talking about close to $1 million in property tax that they would put into the fund for 2008.  They put $625,000 this year, $500,000 last year and basically spent down $1.7 million worth of the reserve funds out of the T service over the last two years.  He said it seemed like there was a reluctance to fund it and agreed they had to look at a better way.  One of his concerns was not about 2008.  He had a concern that the end of the contract was the end of 2008 and knew they had a very beneficial fuel contract and was looking at 1.1 mills next year and maybe 2 mills or 2.5 mills over the next two to three years as a stand alone system.  For the ridership, he did not know and it was all about balancing priorities.  It was an absolutely critical need for the people that were transit dependent, but as they talked about public comment, they had the police, firefighters, all the other outside agencies that came and spoke.  He said to put the T service in perspective, he thought it was David Smith that commented that about 15% of the rides are after 6:00, which was proportional to the rest of the day.  It was 50,000 rides, which amounted to 100 people.  It was critical to those 100 people but they were in a position that a General Fund would have a deficit of $1.4 million and a T service; even with the mill levy increase at .425 was going to have no reserve balance at the end of 2008.  He said he was having a difficult time of seeing where this was going in the future and could become one of the largest budget items.  They were funding it close to what they fund the library in property tax.  It was something that he was concerned about and at this point was in support of maintaining a reduction of the service to 6:00.

            He said with the WRAP program, he thought again it was a great program and he was very surprised it would appear by all indications they had that the school district would not fund that next year.  He could not support funding it with the City when the school district was not going to fund it at all.  They did not have the room to make up the difference but it was something the school district had to do.  They talked about the three legged stool, but it was the most important leg of those three legs and if that leg was not there anymore, he did not think they could support it.  He said the .425 in the transit system, General Fund stayed at zero, they transfer $250,000 to the Special Alcohol Fund and thought they would spend a little more fund balance down which was essentially where they were at 2 weeks ago.  He said he appreciated the run out to 2009 and agreed with Commissioner Amyx about finding another revenue stream.  If they looked at 2009 and were projecting a 5% increase in assessed valuation, which he thought was aggressive, and a 3.5% increase in sales tax which might or might not be 5% on assessed valuation might be the more aggressive one of those two.  Even with that and a 4% growth in the expenditures, they would have a $1.9 million deficit in the General Fund.  They were getting down to a critical point and there was a lot of work that needed to be done.  He said he appreciated that and thought they had to look beyond.  He said he would like to entertain what they could do to relieve some of the street maintenance issues because it was not surmountable in the General Fund.

Commissioner Highberger asked if Commissioner Chestnut was supporting leaving the transportation mill levy at .25 increase and General Fund zero.

Commissioner Chestnut said yes, but not doing the transfers and ending at 6:00.

Commissioner Highberger said once again he agreed with Commissioner Chestnut.  He said nobody liked to raise taxes and thought circumstances required them to make hard decisions.  He said they probably should have gone more, but thought they needed to keep the .425 property tax increase they budgeted at this point.  He thought they would be irresponsible to cut the evening service for the T.  A lot of people worked very hard to build the system and a lot of people depended on it.  It had infrastructure and economic development benefits.  He said they read the letter from the President of what used to be NCR Pearson and he was still asking them to keep the service because so many of his employees depended on it.  He thought it would be a step in the wrong direction to cut T hours at this point and he supported keeping the .425 mill levy increase and transferring the additional monies needed to that fund to keep service going.  He shared concerns about the future, but thought they needed to address that and needed to look at possibility of running the system themselves to see if they could generate cost savings there, but it was a crucial City service. 

He said he thought the WRAP program was another essential program and a program where they got back more in community benefit, not only in just cost savings but the quality of life.  He thought the WRAP program should be something that was funded entirely by the school district since it was a school based delivery system.  He thought it was too early to know for sure if the school district would come through.  Even if they did not do the right thing to fund the program, he thought it was not an excuse for them to do what they could to do the right thing.  He said so many children in the community benefited from it. 

            He said he thought the salary increase for employees had been said well by his fellow commissioners.  He said the City staff worked hard and did a great job.  With the budget cutbacks they had been experiencing this year, they were asking them to work harder and did not think they could ask people to work harder and not give them compensation. 

            He said even if his fellow commissioners do not agree with the programs he was recommending, he would urge them to agree with Commissioner Chestnut and keep the .425 increase in the mill levy and put it in the reserve fund.  He was concerned about this budget and was depending on a fairly high sales tax projection.  They were looking at a 16.5% ending fund balance.  He agreed with Commissioner Amyx that next year was going to be hard.  The cost of living increase for employees, keep the evening T hours, keep WRAP and would concur with the City Manager’s suggestion of cutting any deficit out of the T equipment reserve other than street maintenance.  He said at this point he was moving forward with that proposal because he did not see any other way to get the funds and address the backlog of infrastructure of streets and sidewalks.  He thought it would be wrong to gamble with that and taking money out of the street maintenance budget only cost them more money in the long term.

Vice Mayor Dever said the thing he thought they saw from all the discussions was everyone wanted to keep the level of service the same as it was.  He had a hard time figuring out how they could provide all the incredible services to everyone but not raise any taxes or ask people for money to fund it.  He said it was a terrible situation when they had so many great ideas and services, but did not have the money to pay for them all given the economic statuses they were at with the City and economy.  He said trying to decide which ones stay and which ones go in the short term were difficult because they could not forecast too far down the road and when they do forecast people criticize them for being too aggressive, they were not spending money wisely or being too aggressive in doing the right thing.  He said part of him thought it was difficult to do the right thing when people thought the facts were different.  He said they had to decide what levels of service they wanted to provide in the City and what level of service they could afford to provide in the City and then figure out how to dole the money out the best way they could.  He had been trying to be fiscally responsible and conservative and not spend money they did not have, and clearly there were people in the room wanted them to spend money on things they could not afford.  They had not funded the T adequately over the last few years and would double the funding from a two year level and to him that was aggressive and fiscally responsible.  It was responsible to the community they were doing those things.  He believed it was only fair they gave the community the opportunity to figure out how they would get to their jobs and part of that was to keep the T service as best as they could.  He said he was in favor of trying to reduce that level based on what they were asking for tax payers, but for him it was the opportunity to keep the .425 level and perhaps find the rest of the money from the General Fund to keep the T service for 2008 at the current level if that was possible.  He said for him it boiled down to they had the $800,000 in the budget for equipment yet they have to pay for the services they have now and for him the obvious thing to do was if they were going to try and serve the community at the same level, that was the only place they could go because they were asking the taxpayers to front some of that bill, yet they were drawing down from the money they put aside.  He aid he would be in favor of trying to keep the level the same using the equipment reserve money they had and using the .425, but not spending down the street maintenance budget because he was afraid they would get further down in a hole.  He said they had a lot of needs and requests, but needed the money to come from somewhere, and was in favor of doing whatever they could to increase the financial status and concerned the fund balance would be below 16% by the time they were done with the borrowing this year and was in favor of doing what was fiscally conservative but what did not impact those in the community that needed the service the most.

            He said he felt if the school district could not afford the funding of the WRAP program, he knew the City was in equally dire straits and was not sure they could afford WRAP either.

            Mayor Hack said they looked at decisions they make based on their priorities and some of the fundamental core values, which was why number one she would support the employee wage increase.  They had a citizen survey that showed such high level of satisfaction of what was going on in the community and those services were not provided by the City Commissioners, but were provided by the people on the streets.  She said they asked more from their employees and get more on an annual basis.  She said in supporting that, she made a lot of difficult decisions being a commissioner but the most painful was to support the transfer of the alcohol fund money to the School Resource Officers within the Lawrence Police Department which would discontinue the funding of WRAP.  She said it killed her to do that because she knew it was a valuable program.  She worked with some great WRAP counselors and wonderful people from Bert Nash and saw the benefits, but had to look at it through a different set of lenses right now.   

            She said as far as the T, it had also been a decision that had been brought about with a lot of angst and her feeling had not changed from what it was a couple of weeks ago.  She originally supported the .7 mill levy to keep it to 8:00, but moved to support the .425 and would continue that along with the transfer of the reserve equipment for the purpose of retaining the service to 8:00.  She said what was fundamental to the conversation was they had a wonderful transit staff that were devoted to the system and wanted to see it successful.  They needed to make sure they had the tools to do that, which may not be just financial support but also the encouragement and enthusiasm for providing them with options for service which truly did meet the needs of those that were using it the most.  It did not just mean the transit dependent, but Cliff Galante was the master at this and she had great faith he would figure out a way so that it was not such a drain.  She thought that they needed to be in a good position in a negotiation position with KU on Wheels because if they had come into that saying they really love the system but cut the hours and cut the service, she thought that put them in a bad position.

Moved by Highberger, seconded by Amyx, to raise the transit mill levy 0.425 mills and transfer $250,000 from the equipment reserve fund to keep the T service hours.  Motion carried 4-1 (Chestnut voted no).

Moved by Amyx, seconded by Chestnut, to not increase the general fund mill levy for 2008, fund a portion of existing police officer salaries from the Special Alcohol Fund; and not fund the WRAP program in 2008.  Motion carried 3-2 (Dever and Highberger voted no).           

Moved by Chestnut, seconded by Amyx, to place on first reading, Ordinance No. 8139, adopting and appropriating by fund the 2008 City of Lawrence budget.  Motion carried unanimously.                                                                                                                                    (14)

Moved by Highberger, seconded by Amyx, to place on first reading, Ordinance No. 8140, noting the necessity of appropriating/budgeting property tax revenues for 2008 in excess of that which was appropriated/budgeted for 2007.  Motion carried unanimously.                          (15)

    (22)

Consider the following items related to proposed development at the northwest corner of 6^th Street and Wakarusa.

a) PDP-06-02-07:  Consider approving, subject to conditions and use restrictions, PDP-06-02-07, a Preliminary Development Plan for 6^th & Wakarusa, located at the NW corner of 6^th Street & Wakarusa Drive, North side of Highway 40.

b)  Consider approving rezoning and direct staff to draft an ordinance for first reading on the August 14^th agenda, for Z-09-25-06, a request to rezone a tract of land approximately 1.623 acres, from PRD-2 (Planned Residential Development) to OS (Open Space), located on the SE corner of Congressional and Overland.

c) Reconsider the approval of rezoning which was tabled on October 24^th, 2006 and direct staff to draft an ordinance for first reading on the August 14^th agenda, for Z-06-16A-06, a request to rezone a tract of land approximately 2.21 acres, from PRD-2 (Planned Residential Development) to PCD-2 (Planned Commercial Development with revised use restrictions), located at the intersection of 6^th Street and Wakarusa Drive, North side of Highway 40.

d) Reconsider the approval of rezoning which was tabled on October 24, 2006 and direct staff to draft an ordinance for first reading on the August 14^th agenda, for Z-06-16B-06, a request to rezone a tract of land approximately 15.8 acres from PCD-2 (Planned Commercial Development with limited uses) to PCD-2 (Planned Commercial Development with revised use restrictions) located at intersection of 6^th Street and Wakarusa, North side of Highway 40.

Lisa Pool, Planner, presented the staff report.  She gave a brief summary of the preliminary development plan.  On October 26, 2006 the City Commission denied a previous preliminary development application for this site.  On June 25, 2007 the Planning Commission determined that the subject preliminary development plan demonstrated a substantial change in project scope from the previously denied preliminary development plan.  The subject plan included one feature building and four pad site buildings.  The total pad site building square footage was about 21,000 square feet.  This project was reviewed for conformance with the commercial design standards as had the previous development plan.  She showed where the pad site buildings and feature buildings were located. 

She said the subject intersection was designated appropriate for commercial and retail uses in their plans.  It included the Northwest Plan, the intersection plan as well as Horizon 2020.  On July 23^rd the Planning Commission recommended approval of the development plan with an 8-0 vote subject to conditions.  These conditions have since been met, although staff was requesting an additional note be added to the preliminary development plan, which included some specific language regarding the funding of the signal at Congressional and 6^th Street, stating that Wal-Mart and the developer would pay for 2/3 of that.

She showed a map of the area of rezoning for the PCD-2 rezonings, which was the bulk of the site.  The existing PRD zoned property was requested for PCD-2 with commercial space limitations.  She said that particular site was the loading zone for the Wal-Mart store.  The remainder of the 15.8 acres was requested for PCD-2 with revised commercial space limitations, where the four pad site buildings sat.  The commercial space was limited to those square footages and the permitted uses had not been altered from the current list of allowable PCD-2 uses.  The total commercial retail space requested was 26,000 square feet less than allowed for the existing PCD-2 zoning.  On October 26, 2006 the City Commission tabled these two rezoning requests until an alternate preliminary development plan was brought forward.  She said these rezoning requests would need to be removed from the table prior to a vote.  The Planning Commission recommended approval of both PCD-2s on August 30, 2006 with 6-4 vote. 

She said since Planning Commission consideration of these rezonings last year, one condition of approval had been met, which was related to the revision of the retail market study and the revised conditions were the same conditions without the retail market study because it had been met.  She showed a map of the OS rezoning location, which was on the southeast corner of Congressional and Overland.  She said right now that property was currently zoned PRD-2 and was proposed for an open air detention serving the Wal-Mart site as well as the pad site buildings and properties abutting the west side of Congressional.  On July 23^rd the Planning Commission recommended approval of the OS rezoning with an 8-0 vote subject to one condition related to a site plan application for that site.

Bill Newsome, 6Wak Land Investments, LLC, property owner said he and Doug Compton started working on this land in the summer of 2000 and owned it since November of 2001.  He said it had been a long road and what was important tonight was not how long the road had been, but what was in front of them.  What was in front of them was a very good land use plan and met every standard laid out by the City for such plans.  The staff report was clean, it carried a staff recommendation for approval, and they have submitted another traffic study which had been approved.  Over and above that, staff and KDOT have done an independent study; 6^th Street/Highway 40 functioned satisfactory.  He said he thought they all wanted Lawrence to be a place where if they follow the rules, they would be given an opportunity and that opportunity extended to Wal-Mart and other large corporations just as it extended to mom and pop operations and start up entrepreneurs.

Angie Stoner, Wal-Mart Public Affairs Manager in the State of Kansas, said Wal-Mart had been a member of the Lawrence community since 1983 and they were proud of the economic impact they had on Lawrence and the communities they served across the country.  Wal-Mart provided good, quality jobs to their associates and gave them a number of job opportunities.  Wal-Mart also generated tax revenue which provided basic services such as police and schools.  They also believed in supporting the local community they served.  They gave 90% of their charitable giving was done at the local level which meant that every Wal-Mart Supercenter gave $30,000 - $50,000 per year to local charitable organizations.  The one thing that Wal-Mart did focus on was saving working families money so they could live better.  They currently had over 1,900 associates in the State of Kansas and 400 of those lived and worked in Lawrence.  The proposed Wal-Mart Supercenter at 6^th and Wakarusa would provide approximately 250 new jobs to the Lawrence community.  Wal-Mart was committed to being a good neighbor.  They believed in taking care of their customers and associates, and worked hard on the site to implement some things that were truly important to this community as far as the elevations of the store, some environmental initiatives that were taking place across the country in Wal-Mart stores would be implemented in this proposed location.  She said they were present to ask the City Commission for their approval on the plan before them.  She said they looked forward to serving Lawrence in the future and appreciated the City Commission consideration.

Todd Thompson, on behalf of the Wal-Mart Corporation, said these series of items got to the City Commission in a rather unique set of circumstances.  The City Commission invited them to come and talk about the situation at 6^th and Wakarusa which had been embroiled in litigation for several years.  Wal-Mart had submitted in good faith the plan before them, submitted the rezoning over a year ago that was tabled, and at the outset he asked the City Commission to remove the tabled items and take them up for active consideration along with the new plan and the open space zoning on the northwest corner of the subject quadrant.  He said it was important to note that this area had always been going to be commercial.  This corner of this intersection was identified in the Northwest Area Plan adopted in 1996 as being appropriate for commercial zoning.  When USD 497 purchased the property where Free State was built, they were aware of the designation of this corner to be commercial property.  It was commercially zoned right now and was zoned commercial with slightly different restrictions, but only very slightly different restrictions in terms of building size by the prior City Commission.  He said he would agree with one of the opponents’ letters sent it a month ago in which it stated that 6^th and Wakarusa was commercial; we all acknowledge that.  He said that was Ms. Klingenberg’s letter to the City.  He said what they had was a situation where they knew the corner was commercial, should be commercial and has been planned commercial for well over 10 years. 

He said a lot of the citizens present did not like one of the proposed users of this corner; the biggest proposed user, Wal-Mart.  The issue tonight that was before the City Commission was not about Wal-Mart.  The appropriate determination for the City Commission was not as they have been asked to do was give the people a chance to find a business that they would like for this location.  The issue was whether it was appropriate for PCD zoning and whether the plan that was submitted to the City Commission was an appropriate plan under the City guidelines.  The reality was this plan that was before the City Commission exceeded the guidelines that were in effect when it was filed.  He said they had made attempts to go the extra mile to resolve the litigation, get this behind them and to get this property generating both property taxes and sales taxes and not consuming dollars for litigation so maybe some of the discussion they had earlier could be avoided in the years to come.

He said the plan was probably as clean of a plan they would ever have before them.  They have worked very closely with staff to resolve every possible issue and eliminate issues.  They had a recommendation for approval by staff, had a unanimous vote by the Planning Commission for approval of the plan, and that was what was before them tonight along with the various rezoning requests.  The only item that was left was there was not a condition put on the plan for payment of a share of the stop light at Congressional and 6^th Street.  They received a request with some proposed language that afternoon to add a note to the plan to that effect.  That was an item that Wal-Mart and the owners had agreed to last year, which was to pay for 2/3 of the cost of that particular light.  He said from the neighborhood meeting at Free State High School, a significant number of the people who came over who lived in the housing immediately to the west of the HH Bar & Grill, commented on how excited they were about the prospect of having a light at that intersection.  He said this development alone, although it was a light that would serve an immense part of the community on a monthly and annual basis, agreed to pay for 2/3 of that light.  He said they traded some language with staff for that condition and were amenable for the language they sent in agreeing to pay for 2/3 of that light.  He asked the City Commission to approve all of the rezoning after taken off the table and the open space rezoning and approval this plan. 

Ray Frankenberg, Site Engineer, showed where the Wal-Mart store would be located and the pad sites.  He said the access to the site was through several locations.  There was a right in, right out access on Wakarusa so traffic coming south on Wakarusa could make a right turn in and traffic coming out could make a right turn out and head towards 6^th Street.  Traffic could come down Wakarusa and turn into Overland and come in this way at a full intersection making rights or lefts and possibly someday straight to another development across the street.  He showed the proposed OS zoning area.  He said at the roundabout at Congressional and Overland, traffic could go into the only service entrance to the site to get to the service area behind the Wal-Mart store.  There was another entrance to Congressional that has full right in, right out, left and possibly one day a through depending on the development across the street.  He said their truck traffic would come off of 6^th Street, either east or west bound, come down Congressional and turn into the service and dock area.  Around the service area was a 13 foot tall retaining wall and on the truck side it was an earth and berm all the way to the top of the retaining wall. 

            He said the traffic flow once in the site for customer traffic; the main entrance would be off of Congressional and did not go in front of the store.  It was a key factor on this site that the Planning Department asked for many years ago and kept it in place.  The current approved plan on this site showed an entrance where traffic could come along the front of the store.  It was much more pedestrian friendly with the traffic leaving their parking spaces and going somewhere other than the front of the store to leave.  He said they felt due to the minimum amount of parking, they could put in pervious pavers or grass blocks in that area to use it as a test site to see how it held up in Lawrence.  They have combined a lot of the islands they would typically see scattered out among a parking field and grouped them into large landscaped areas.  He said they had oversized islands and islands along the front of the store.  He said the traffic could come to the central intersection on the site and go to any of the pad sites or future office development.

He said there were sidewalks that permitted pedestrian access to all of the pad sites and also a marked paver area.  The pedestrians that leave their cars and go up to the store many times find themselves in a situation where they have to cross the road right-of-way and in this case they would be able to come down the landscaped islands until they got to the protected pedestrian crossing and come in. 

He said the area along behind the store and the OS area was going to be planted with Kansas native grasses.  He said everything would be irrigated to start with but were hoping by using natives they could turn off the irrigation and conserve the water use throughout the life of the project as the years go by using grasses that were native to Kansas.  The area in the detention basin would be a permanent wetland area with a meandering stream in the bottom.  He said what it did well was provide areas where animals could land in that water.  The storm water would go into a rock berm area which would filter the storm water into the wetland area so they had some natural acting scrubbing characteristics to the stormwater handling. 

He showed the area of the currently zoned PRD-2 that they were asking to be rezoned to PCD-2.  By separate request, it was residential and they were asking it to be rezoned to open space.  He asked the commercial area to be rezoned to PCD-2 with the added restrictions.

Mayor Hack said public comment would be limited to one hour.

Gwen Klingenberg, spoke in opposition to the proposed development items.  She said the property owners at the northwest corner of 6^th and Wakarusa had presented a similar plan to all the past plans and have failed to follow the Comprehensive Plan, the Nodal Plan, and the old codes.  She asked why staff accepted a 100,000 square foot building when the Nodal Plan clearly said the largest footprint would be no more than 80,000 square feet.  She said it was page 18 of the area plan for the intersection area of West 6^th Street and Wakarusa Drive.  She said Horizon 2020 clearly stated on page 62 and policy 36d of a general merchandising store including discount store.  She said she understood there was an abeyance agreement that allowed these changes to override the codes.  However, this year’s submittal did not have the interference of an abeyance agreement and therefore the property owners shall follow the codes.

She said this was a zoning for a planned commercial development and the code specifically stated, 20-1004.1, “The City Commission may designate by ordinance or as a note on the face of the development plan any specific uses, structures or building types which shall be restricted and excluded as part of the planned unit development zoning district.”  She said the City Commission had the right under the PCD to say no to Wal-Mart.  She said this would not be the first time the City had turned down a property owner who had the zoning right to build.  A second hospital, submitted a few years ago, was a prime example of the City Commission having that right and did create a precedent to deny the property owner.  A PCD actually stated that they have that right to deny. 

She said 6^th and Wakarusa was a CC200 and at present it had 442,409 square feet proposed with the addition of the 10,000 square feet by Bauer Farms, which was approved at the Planning Commission.  She said page 6-2 Horizon 2020 and under community commercial centers or CC200s of the commercial design chapter said, “The Nodal Development concept encompasses all corners of a CC200 center intersection but should not be devoted to commercial uses and that no single store front dominates a CC200 center.”  She said 65,000 square feet for a discount or general merchandising store shall not be exceeded.  Paragraph 2 on the same page stated, “Secondary access points were intended only for neighborhood traffic.  The surrounding streets designed shall be done in a manner to discourage access to the commercial center by non neighborhood traffic.”  She said the traffic pattern shown in the new VISSIM showed non neighborhood traffic leaving and entering the site through neighborhoods.  She said KDOT did not include traffic north of Overland, west of the high school as they did include traffic north of Overland, east of the high school for Folks Road.  Traffic west of the high school had to move on 6^th to continue travel where east of the high school they did not have to immediately move to 6^th Street.  She said the numbers on Congressional and 6^th west of the high school did not receive equal consideration of traffic numbers and flow and the traffic numbers west of 6^th Street were actually limited instead of equal. 

She said 6-3, human scale relationship, this plan as all other plans left easy movement from building to building, non existent.  They talked about pedestrian moving from if they parked in front of Wal-Mart and wanted to go to one of the other pad sites trying to get to and from without having to go through parking were impossible. 

She said 6-11 of Horizon 2020, West 6^th and Wakarusa, while this intersection was designated as CC200 center, there already existed more commercial gross square footage at the intersection than was recommended by CC200.  Therefore, the following codes as written and not allowing the extra 20,000 square feet was required by the Comprehensive Plan.  Under the old codes, Article 3 zoning regulations, 20-302a, implementation of the land use portion of the Comprehensive Plan that was Horizon 2020.  She said she specifically asked under the old code which plan they were referring to; Plan 95 or Horizon 2020.  She said she was informed it was Horizon 2020 because that was the comprehensive plan in place.  She said 2302b promote the health, safety, morals and general welfare of the City of Lawrence and its citizens.  There were many that were applicably demonstrate that Wal-Mart did not comply with this purpose.  Most of all that Wal-Mart was a land use and this was not an appropriate place.  The VISSIM was not accurate because it did not take all facts into consideration.  She said 201809C, suitable of the subject property for the use to which it had been restricted.  A Wal-Mart was not a suitable land use at 6^th and Wakarusa based on the lack of compliance with the 6^th and Wakarusa nodal plan and Horizon 2020.  She said F, relative gain to health to the public safety and welfare.  The damage that the traffic and effects that Wal-Mart had created all over this country showed that surrounding neighborhoods would be negatively impacted by the land use that Wal-Mart represented.  She said G, conformance with the comprehensive plan Horizon 2020.  Goal 1 of Horizon 2020, Policy 1.3, encourages new development to consider horizontal and vertical proportions shall conform to the applicable adopted design guidelines.  This plan may be submitted under the old codes, however Horizon 2020 was the comprehensive plan and the other pad sites did not conform to the design standards now in place.  She said policy 1.70 they would also be talking about.  She said Goal 2, policy 2.1c-1b, pedestrian access shall be designed to provide internal and external circulation from adjacent neighborhoods.  She said as they would note with the plan, trying to even get to the area via a neighborhood was practically impossible.  Once they were in there, they would have to travel through the parking lot to get anywhere.  She said one would have to park in front of the building and then walk to that building to have any pedestrian safety.  She said policy 2.1c-2d; vehicular access to commercial activities should be separated by pedestrian access and policy 3.6d, 65,000 square feet only for general merchandising.

She moved on to the commercial design standards.  She said they needed to ensure that parking areas provided safe and sufficient access to buildings, but do not dominate the overall site.  She said 20% of the existing trees should be preserved or transplanted.  She said 60% of the street frontage should be occupied by a minimum 25% of that 60% shall be building frontage on streets.  She said the three pad sites do not make 25%.  Pad sites shall cluster together and even dispersal of pad sites and a widely spaced pattern within a development even along the street edges was discouraged.  Discourage large amounts of parking between the front door and adjacent streets, parking from rear and side encouraged.

She said based on the above information, these applicants do not even try to conform with their codes and comprehensive plans and therefore the City Commission, as representatives of the citizens of Lawrence, must deny this application as the citizens of Lawrence want and as the codes give them the right and require them to do so.

Kirk McClure said the City Commissioners received information tonight, some of which is correct and some of which was not correct.  He said they have been told it was not about Wal-Mart and that was true.  He said any predatory retailer who would operate in this way; he would come up and give the exact same news.  It did not matter to him whether it was a Wal-Mart or Target Supercenter.  He said his purpose was to talk to them about the capacity of Lawrence, Kansas to absorb this new growth.  He said when they looked at some of the numbers, it was not terribly complex.  They would see very clearly that Lawrence was in a frenzy of overbuilding; a situation that was bad now and becoming very much worse.  They heard comments from the applicant that the planning met every standard and follows the rules.  He said it did not and did not meet every standard.  One of the most important standards was it had to be beneficial to the community.  He said what was in the best interest of the developer was not necessarily in the best interest of the community.  Even if it was a good development plan, the sum of all the good development plans did not necessarily come out to be beneficial to the community.  If they had developers proposing more stuff than they could absorb, it was bad for the community.  He asked the City Commission to look at a diagram provided that showed growth and demand for retail space. He said they have been growing from 1995 to 2007 at better than three times the pace they could sustain.  He said it was possible the numbers got off a little bit.  In 1995 to the present retail spending was lagging behind population growth.  It was a strong indication of a weak economy and weak wage growth in the community.  He said they ought to be making more money and wages ought to be going up faster.  If the dollars were leaking out it would have to be true the retail pull factor would be declining dramatically.  They were still a community with a retail pull factor greater than 1.  He said two other major indicators of demand they could look at were only from 2001-present.  The number of retail vendors was going down about ½ a percent a year.  The number of retail jobs had gone down rather dramatically.  He said they had a quote from the Wal-Mart representative that it would create new jobs, which he said was false.  He said they were going to have a net loss of jobs.  They did not have the new spending the support the amount of space that was being built.  He said they have heard the phrase that it would generate new tax revenue.  It would generate a little bit of property tax revenue and generate no new sales tax revenue.  If that were true and space was creating new sales tax revenue, it would be pulled up by the supply.  He said it was not a short term trend but from 1995 to the present.  It was a long term trend and very good, hard information. 

He said he wanted to give the City Commission a sense of what the harm was and what was going on.  They were generating an awful lot of vacant space.  North Lawrence now had vacant space at 42% of the stock, not counting the space occupied by offices.  He said that should be counted as empty space as well because it was wrecking the office market and why they have brand new office buildings sitting empty for years.  They have overbuilt so much retail space they have not only wrecked the retail market but wrecked the office market.  He said the only places where they find 42% vacancy rates were ghost towns in Western Kansas and the slums of inner city Kansas City, Kansas.  He said they were replicating all the mistakes of Kansas City, Kansas.  He said zero vacancy was a bad number because there was no capacity to adjust.  A town Lawrence’s size they should have around a quarter of a million square feet of vacant space.  They have 540,000 vacant square feet of retail space in Lawrence.  If they had 300,000 surplus square feet over and above what they should have and could only absorb 50,000 square feet per year, they had a six year supply of surplus space right now if they built nothing more from today on.  He said Mercato, Northgate, Bauer Farms, Wal-Mart, 800,000 square feet they had in the pipeline.  At 50,000 square feet a year, it would be 16 years.  Adding it to the 6 years of surplus was 22 years of surplus space they had in the pipeline and in the ground right now.  He said it was a formula for disaster and the City could not absorb this new space.  He said if they approve it, Wal-Mart will build and that space would be occupied.  He said Kroger would close Dillon’s, other hardware stores and fabric stores would close.  They would see the continued decline of that number of vendors, the number of retail jobs and see no pull on the retail sales numbers.  They would see a continued blighting effect on the properties that were in those neighborhoods surrounding the empty retail space.  It was a formula for creating a very disastrous community.  He said he would be back in two or three years to report where they were and hoped at that point he would be able to say they had the good sense to reign in the pace of growth, could not absorb that space, did the right thing, did what was best for the community and said no to this proposal.

Susan Winter, Lawrence, said she had been following this for four or five years.  She said she attended the last Planning Commission meeting where they did the traffic study to get a better understanding because that was her biggest concern.  She was concerned about what a big box store brought to this intersection.  During the Planning Commission meeting they talked about the problems that existed today along that corridor.  They pointed out there was an F status currently at the Folks Road intersection and 6^th Street.  They pointed out that was a problem today without the additional traffic that would come without a big box being present.  They also pointed out that with the type of traffic study they did some analysis and focused on the traffic along 6^th Street between K-10 and Folks Road.  They did not talk about that much traffic that was going through the other intersections and the impact it would have from a left hand turn.  She was hoping to make sure that the City Commission was doing the due diligence that needed to be taken into account when they started talking about infrastructure changes.  She said she was making assumptions because she was not sure she had been able to get answers based on conversations she had with the City Engineer.  She said she was looking for some additional information.  She said she was very pro business and very much buy local.  She worked in Kansas City but tried to shop and do everything locally.  She wanted to promote the local businesses but wanted to make sure what was happening at this intersection was not going to have any implications to the existing businesses that were in place today.  She asked if they were doing any type of modifications to those businesses on the south side of Wakarusa and going to be doing anything to interfere with the type of traffic that would allow them to access those to patronize them to turn left in or out of those intersections because she had not seen anyone address those type of concerns they had before.  There were a lot of left hand turns going in and out of that southwest corner as well as the southeast corner.  She asked if they were putting lights there.  She was looking to see what the additional traffic coming through and what type of considerations the City had and if they had it in the budget.  She asked if they had it in the budget to be able to support this type of an infrastructure.  The infrastructures in question were the Wakarusa and Overland Drive intersection primarily because they still had a lot of high school kids turning in there and there was no way high school traffic could avoid 6^th Street at all.  They would either have to come through Wakarusa or Folks Road.  She said the traffic that came through Overland right now if one headed west on Overland and turned left onto Wakarusa, you could not see the traffic heading south on Wakarusa.  As they incur more, additional traffic going back that way to get into a big box store, she was really concerned what kind of tragedy they were going to be experiencing at Wakarusa and Overland Drive.  The 6^th and Congressional was going to be funded partially by this project.  She asked if they were going to put another stop light at the DeVilbiss Place and Wakarusa intersection which was where the Kentucky Fried Chicken, McDonald’s and Marisco’s behind that Kwik Shop.  There were a lot of people that used that intersection and it was difficult during a certain time of day to turn left.  She asked if they were considering putting a stop light by the entrance to Arby’s and Dillon’s to be able to cross 6^th Street because now they would have additional traffic coming back and forth on 6^th.  She said she had seen some plans about Harvard and Wakarusa, but had not seen anything else to address that additional traffic that was going to be required. 

She said why there was so much discussion in the community about this was because it was a primarily residential area.  If they would try to compare it to anything else in Lawrence it would be like the 31^st and Iowa intersection.  6^th and Wakarusa was very pedestrian friendly unlike 31^st and Iowa.  She said if it was their intent to create that type of intersection there that was what they would base their decision on.  If they were trying to make it stay a residential area, then she thought they had to rethink what that meant.

She said the other point she wanted to make was the 31^st and Iowa intersection the closest school was 1.44 miles.  The closest school to 6^th and Wakarusa was .35 miles which was quite a big difference.  She said the Planning Commission did the traffic study with KDOT because the type of traffic they were looking at, they were making recommendations because they realized there were problems along 6^th Street and Folks Road and suggested that the traffic would have to be diverted onto some of the residential streets because it would not be able to handle it right away.  She said before the City Commission made a decision, they needed to understand the traffic study that KDOT had and be sure they have not just analyzed the traffic heading east and west on 6^th but took into account the traffic on that corridor.  She said when they tried to compare what was going on with Lawrence High and the 23^rd Street connection and Free State and 6^th Street connection; they were talking apples and oranges.  The only way to get to Free State was to get through the corridor of traffic on 6^th Street.  Lawrence High had many connections.  She said Free State knew it was zoned commercial but never knew it was going to be big box.  The game plan changed after they built that school.  She said some Commission must have approved that high school going in there.  She said they needed to protect the businesses on the south side of 6^th Street that she patronized now.  If they started making her access to those businesses very difficult as well as all the other people in the neighborhood not being able to access it, they were going to go out of business. 

Barbara Pashke, Lawrence, asked the Commission to reject the proposed development.  She said many Lawrence citizens did not want another Wal-Mart store.  The Grassroots Alliance survey, which seemed methodologically sound, showed that 53% of the people living in Lawrence opposed a second Wal-Mart store and only 27% favor it and only 20% having no real opinion.  Second, she saw no convincing evidence that a second store was in the public’s interest.  She saw the zeal of Wal-Mart Corporation and the developers at that property to build a store that would serve their private interests, which may be why earlier they tried to define the issue very narrowly.  She said given concerns about the City budget, she asked if they had credible evidence that low wage jobs and dressing up a big box store with tall trees, native grasses and forbs and happy ducks would offset the City’s short and long term costs attributable to this development.  She asked if the City Commission had a plan to track the long and short term costs and benefits of this development over time.  She said if they have or would produce this type of information, would they publish it so they could see it and see the real effects of the development on this community.  She said in her view the development of the 2^nd Wal-Mart store at 6^th and Wakarusa would represent another failure of the citizens and Commissioners of Lawrence to protect their public interests.  They would have yielded again to powerful private interests and exposed their inability to apply their land use plans, policies and procedures that would lead to the kind of community they really wanted.  She asked if a second Wal-Mart store was something the City Commission really believed was good for this community and if they were helpless to present this from happening.  She said they did not need another Wal-Mart or businesses with drive thru windows.  She asked for something they could be proud of or at least something they would be pleased to have in their community.

Bob Bechtel, Lawrence, said this was not about Wal-Mart but about big boxes in this space.  He said the key question was if they were duplicating services that were available elsewhere here in Lawrence.  He said Professor McClure made a good presentation and part of it was what he was going to talk about.  There was a certain amount of money citizens had to spend and where would they spend it.  It was all the character of Lawrence and all the positive aspects that made them love Lawrence.  It was not just downtown but many things and if they started finding more and more empty spaces and got to a pattern of blight in Lawrence, it was not going to help the character of the city at all.  He said he did not want to see the blight he saw in Overland Park in Lawrence.  He felt there were a pattern of decisions that could lead them to something like that.  He said he wanted to give an example.  Ten or eleven years ago Columbia HCA came to town to build a second hospital.  Over years of discussion, it came to a final City Commission hearing.  After hearing hours of opinion, the City Commission decided to say no to HCA.  There were of course lawsuits, money was spent and the City finally won.  He said today they had Lawrence Memorial Hospital that was one of the assets and part of the character of the City.  It was in danger of being lost and truly believed at that time the Lawrence hospital did not have the strength to stand up to a corporate hospital coming into town.  They were not a big hospital at that time and did not have the resources.  He said he would ask them two questions as the City Commission.  He asked if this project was something that Lawrence really needed to maintain its uniqueness.  Secondly, what would be the consequences of the decision not tomorrow, next year or four or five years down the road as to the character of Lawrence.

David Smith, Grassroots Action, said he was not going to discuss the wisdom of the issue or the specifics of all Wal-Marts.  He said his personal feeling was the previous speakers have made conclusive objections.  He had not heard anyone refute Kirk McClure’s argument.  He said he would be interested to see someone try because McClure had the facts.  He thought Gwen Klingenberg’s objections, Barbara Paschke’s, and Bob Bechtel’s arguments were irrefutable.  He said what he wanted to focus on was how the public felt and thought about Wal-Mart.  He said he referred earlier about the poll of the T that the Grassroots Action conducted.  One of the first things they learned while conducting that poll was there was a great demand for a poll on Wal-Mart.  They took it under advisement and provide a Wal-Mart petition.  They decided not to do a stale, stereotyped yes or no petition.  Grassroots Action opposed the 2^nd Wal-Mart at 6^th and Wakarusa but their feeling was the public had not been heard properly and the debate had been going on for years and years.  Many people have weighed in behind microphones and counters, but the public had not been given a chance to speak and be heard on this important issue that could have major consequences.  The petition they circulated for 5 or 6 hours total generating 300 signatures was a petition for a public referendum on the Wal-Mart issue.  It was not something that happened often in the City of Lawrence but was a standard of a practice for highly contentious issues.  Earlier in the meeting Commissioner Amyx was proposing a referendum on a sales tax hike and knew the City was seriously contemplating holding such a referendum.  It would cost pennies, if that, to have a second question on a City referendum.  If the City was going to face the tough question of the sales tax, in which Grassroots Action opposed, but it was appropriate for public vote.  If the City was going to be facing the tough question of the sales tax, they should ask the citizens how they felt about Wal-Mart as well because a lot of people felt very strongly.  He said they collected 300 signatures on a petition calling for a referendum.  He was calling upon the City Commission to take that request seriously to let the public be heard on this important issue.  Grassroots Action also conducted a phone call which they made every effort to be conducted by scientific means, tried to be as neutral as possible and had randomly generated lists of voters in all 49 of the City’s precincts, identified a proportional number of Democrats, Republicans, and Independents and called them until they had obtained 205 responses.  He said they did not know how the poll was going to turn out and made every effort not to influence the outcome and be as neutral and objective as possible.  What they found that should be a grave cause for concern for anyone who was inclined to favor Wal-Mart’s new, slightly modified proposal was that nearly 53% said they opposed building a second Wal-Mart and nearly 27% said they would favor it; a ratio almost exactly 2:1.  He said if the poll was closely accurate and a 2:1 ratio opposed building a second Wal-Mart, reflected the same kind of thinking other speakers had put forward.  If that kind of majority opposed a second Wal-Mart, he thought it behooved the City Commission to take seriously the request to poll the public in the best and most effective way, by referendum to let the public decide. 

Joleen Bechtel, Lawrence, said she wanted to speak on behalf of a colleague, Jennifer Smith, who could not make the meeting.  Smith sent a letter that she wanted to paraphrase.  She said Smith commented on many of the same things that McClure, Klingenberg, Smith, and Bechtel had in terms of the retail space they did not need, the number of codes that would be broken if this was permitted.  All of the parts were very important, especially the empty spaces.  Smith brought up in her letter the Hallmark store right across the street from where Wal-Mart was going to go was empty and was not able to maintain itself at that point.  She said it was another example of the City having so many empty spaces and all the retail involved.  She urged the City Commission to have the bravery the previous City Commission had when they turned down Columbia HCA and had the right to do that.  They had the courage to do that and for those who were not in Lawrence at the time, the meeting was moved to the Holidome because of the large amount of interest involved and there were probably 200 – 300 people there at the time.  She said they had a candlelight ceremony and the City Commission made the right choice.  They had a wonderful hospital that served the community well and definitely would not have had if Columbia HCA would have gone in.  She urged the City Commission to turn the project down. 

Sharla True, Lawrence, said the main point she wanted to make tonight was live and let live.  She said she did not care whether it was a hospital or a retail store, who was she to tell someone what to do with their land.  As long as they were safe, have safe driveways, sidewalks, who was she to tell Wal-Mart what profit margin they could have.  She said she was for the Wal-Mart because she felt like it would take care of the needs of the people on that end of town but it would also spread the traffic north and south in Lawrence.  She said she did not agree with everything they did, but that would be true of most retail stores as far as a 90 day return policy.  She said she was not there to discuss that, but who wanted to buy something that was only going to last 90 days.  She said it was true of downtown, too, and most places downtown only gave 30 days.  She felt that something that would correct the traffic problem would be to reduce the speed on 6^th Street and Wakarusa to 35 mph, lengthen the crossing times, putting buttons on the corners, and let the straight aways cross first with the pedestrians, the blind people, the wheel chairs and bicycles happening second.  She said there was a quote that said let your eyes look straight on, and she felt that the straight aways should go first at all the lights because in all kinds of weather, they were admitted in every light.  She showed drawings on how she thought the sidewalks should be. 

            She asked what PCD stood for.

            Mayor Hack said Planned Commercial Development.

            True said straight, level, and no curved sidewalks would be her suggestion.  She said as far as the health and safety, she did not know any major health hazards that had been reported for Wal-Mart and would throw that argument out.  She said as far as access, she would like a bus stop there.  She commended Wal-Mart for their community participation, not only for the $30,000 given to charity but for being the only major retail store other than Dillon’s that allowed Salvation Army to allow their bell ringers and not turned them away.  She commended Wal-Mart for letting clubs, churches, non profits, youth and senior groups do limited fundraising on their grounds, which was over and beyond the $30,000 they contributed to the community.  She said as far as size, who were they to tell Wal-Mart what to do with their property size.  She believed some of the requirements on their trees, such as number of trees, were a little bit astringent and needed to be careful in regulating numbers of trees because they could block the view from 6^th Street to Wal-Mart, which was part of their advertisement.  She noticed that Dillon’s and other stores on 6^th Street now have a median with trees which not only blocked views to their retail establishments, but also was blind spots to drivers to seeing pedestrians.  She said trees could be set back further or put in such a way that it would not block that.  She said she disagreed that the empty space in Lawrence was caused by Wal-Mart.  She said she thought that empty space was the cause of poor management by the owners; people have gotten up and moved out of town or over regulation.  She asked what Wal-Mart did not carry and where could you go on that end of town after 9:00 to get something if you need something in an emergency.  It was a tremendous service to the community. 

Jim Turrentine, Lawrence, said he wanted to talk about safety.  More people die in traffic accidents in this country than in war.  The 6^th Street intersections will fail from all the traffic that will be generated from the regional shopping center approved at the traffic way.  He asked the City Commission to not approve a huge traffic generator at 6^th and Wakarusa.  It would be like adding a roadside bomb at this intersection by adding levels of traffic at this location that could not be designed to accommodate this load.  He said he took his disabled wife to the Aquatic Center three times a week for therapy.  If they approved killer construction, they needed to add a condition that the owners pay a funeral expenses of students and seniors killed in traffic accidents at this part of Lawrence.  He said they should not make this location in Lawrence more dangerous.  The traffic reports of this project created a requirement for an interchange at K-10, Bob Billings, and a new road north of 6^th Street to be constructed to ensure the safety operation of the west 6^th Street corridor.  This proposal would not provide the funds for their construction.  Other intersections in Lawrence of this type start to fail at 200,000 square feet of development.  This type of development the City Commission was being asked to approve had been known to generate as many as 3 times as many trips as other types of commercial development.  It would make this location so dangerous that large numbers of users at the traffic way would be forced to go out of their way to go south to avoid this area.  He said he almost lost his son when he was hit by a car when he was on his moped.  He was trying to cross Iowa at 27^th Street.  This occurred 15 years ago when this area was being developed.  They experienced how dangerous development can make intersections.  He asked the City Commission to resist the urge to create problems so big that all future Commissions would have to throw money at supporters of overdevelopment to fix this problem every time it took the life of another person.  He said they should not approve overdevelopment that killed people and businesses. 

Mark O’Lear, Lawrence, said the three things that the applicant themselves said would benefit Lawrence were charitable contributions, save people money and the jobs provided.  He said charitable contributions was a nice, noble thing but did not think that would make or break a project or what they should be determining of who went into places if they had charitable contributions or not.  You could argue if they save people money or not.  A second Wal-Mart were they going to save twice as much money or how much extra money would they save with the second Wal-Mart.  He did not think the second Wal-Mart was going to save them even more money and did not think by allowing the second Wal-Mart it was going to help Lawrence at all.  They mentioned 250 new jobs and wondered if they would be willing to say the full time equivalent.  Those were not full time jobs, 40 hours per week, with all benefits and retirement.  40 hours a week would come out to much less jobs than that.  The 250, while it sounded good, was really much more like 50 full time employees with 6 or 7 getting benefits.  Those three things were the only things they could come up with which was why Lawrence should allow Wal-Mart into the community and the benefits Lawrence was going to get.  They already heard from very knowledgeable people that it would not bring new tax money in and people were not going to raid their retirement accounts because a second Wal-Mart was there and were not going to spend extra money.  No one was going to spend extra money on something that duplicated products.  He said with all the detriments to this, all the people opposed to it, he wanted to know the City Commission’s rationale and the big picture on what Lawrence would gain by this that was so good they could override the vast majority of people that did not want this.  All the code violations and the entire thing that were going to harm the community, he did not know how they could justify as a benefit to Lawrence while they were discounting everything else.

Paula Pepin, Lawrence, said she had been involved with this for the past five years.  She said Susan covered much of the concern with pinpoint accuracy with intersections and such.  She said her children went to Langston Hughes and lived behind the Hereford House area, the greatest concern was traffic and getting their kids, adults and dogs safely throughout the area.  Wakarusa was the biggest concern people had because you could not avoid it and there were turns they had to make.  They also went through the process to get a traffic calming plan for Congressional and Harvard.  They met the requirements and but did not have any funding for it because the budget was tight.  She said her feeling tonight was she would love to see if they were going to approve this, they guarantee to the neighbors that they will at least fix Wakarusa to make sure it was safe before the store opened.  She said she did not know how it could be funded and knew the budget was tight, but would hate to go back through the process again in five years, have the neighbors come back, work with Mr. Woosley again to go through another Traffic Safety Commission and try to rearrange where the light was.  She said she would like a commitment those things could be in place before it was approved. 

David Strano, Lawrence, said he was a board member of the East Lawrence Neighborhood Association, even though he was not representing that body tonight.  He said all the arguments he was going to make were made before.  He said if they voted in favor of this plan, even though it went against the zoning codes and the fact that the City did not have any money to fund the infrastructure for this plan, how much money was Wal-Mart going to ask for infrastructure improvements not just for the stoplights but everything else normal business developments ask the City for to fund for infrastructure developments.  He said they could not fund for mental health for kids in the public schools, but they could subsidize Wal-Mart.  They were sending a clear message to the working people of the city on class warfare. 

Joe Douglas, Lawrence, said he wanted to speak to the issue that since one of the factors that had to be considered in this project was the benefit to the community, one factor in that was healthcare.  It was something he had personal experience with.  He read over the country they spend around $1 - $1.5 billion in federal, state and local tax money to provide medical care for Wal-Mart associates.  He said he could not verify the exact number.  He treated a woman in Lawrence who was a full time employee of Wal-Mart and had her healthcare paid by Healthwave, which was an SRS program paid for by tax money.  He treated a man who was an employee at Wal-Mart that needed a medication to make him able to work that cost about $35 a month which he could not afford on his wages and did not have health insurance.  They were able to get it through a program for indigent people.  That program was not free and paid for it by adding on profits on their medication for people who do pay for it.  He said in this tiny instance, the people of the communities were subsidizing Wal-Mart’s low prices and high profits.  He said if they multiplied that by Wal-Marts all over the country and probably came up to a billion or billion and a half.  He said the City Commission had advocated bringing high quality jobs to Lawrence and he supported that, but did not think Wal-Mart was the kind of business envisioned when talking about high quality jobs.

Mike Treanor said he represented the developers for the northeast corner, the Bauer Farm development, which would be a mixed use, residential and commercial with office space.  It would have about 300 housing units with a traditional neighborhood development.  He said what they wanted to see happen in Lawrence reflected a lot of the provisions in smart growth.  They talked about making walkable neighborhoods and the kinds of areas where people could get their services and live within the neighborhood.  He thought Commissioner Jennings at the Planning Commission stated it correctly that it was not a Wal-Mart issue; it was a land use issue on the northwest corner.  Whether Wal-Mart changed or became the most sustainable company or changed their healthcare, it was not the issue.  The issue was providing that kind of comparison shopping at that intersection.  He said they supported that and thought it was critical to the rest of the shopping area in that corner that there had not been a major anchor where you could do that kind of shopping along with what his development would have.  They thought those two things had a synergy.  Intuitively, it seemed they were losing some of their retail sales back to places like The Legends which provided both kinds of opportunities; the specialty kinds of shopping, entertainment, places to eat, and very soon a Wal-Mart and other kinds of things those unique places offer also.  He said they had a need at that location for the comparison shopping that Wal-Mart would offer and the lifestyle type of shopping they would have.  They thought it would be very successful project.

Hack asked Shoeb Uddin, City Engineer, if he could elaborate on the Folks Road intersection

Uddin said it was a misunderstanding.  What they studied and presented to the Planning Commission were 3 scenarios.  The first scenario was existed plus committed, which meant they considered everything that was there right now, and considered all the developments in that corridor that have been proposed and approved.  They called that scenario as an existing and committed.  The second scenario was future, 2030.  The third was future 2030 but for a different combination of traffic volume and road geometry.  The problem they talked about at the intersection of 6^th and Folks was not related to the existing plus committed.  It was for the future scenario.  He said it was a plain misunderstanding.  He said in his memo he laid out the results and for existing plus committed scenario, the study did not show any problem.  In terms of travel time it was about 5 minutes from Folks to K-10 and in terms of level of service of the intersections, it was 10 – 55 second delay.  He said everything was laid out in his memo and thought it was available on the internet. 

            He said about the traffic volume, they reconsidered ideally the traffic volume they used they would have gotten that traffic volume from the long range transportation planning they were working on.  In this case, the long range transportation planning project was a little bit behind schedule so they did not have that volume for this quarter.  They looked at other sources, worked with KDOT and came up with the traffic volume for this quarter on each leg of the intersections from Folks to K-10 and to the south and north.  When they found out that the long range transportation planning was working on it again and it would be done soon, there was the thought that once if that volume became available it would be a good tool to check the traffic volume they came up with and the traffic volume of the long range transportation planning.  They did not do a thorough comparison between the two but did few spot checks.  Based on few of the checks, they found the traffic volume used on the recent model was higher in every instance about 20 – 30% and in some cases it was about 3 times higher, specifically the north leg of Folks Road.  The long range transportation planning showed a traffic volume of about 850, which was a peak hour volume.  The traffic volume they used was about 2400.  He said in his presentation to the Planning Commission he pointed out the facts they thought the traffic volume being shown on Folks Road was high so they thought they needed to go back and look at it to verify if it was realistic, practical or not.  In a long range transportation planning, the volume used could be wrong; they were way too low and the Planning Department’s was way too high.  He said the real traffic volume was somewhere in the middle.  All the traffic volumes were estimates and did not know for sure if that was going to be a case or not.  He said based on what they knew, this was the best estimate they could come up with.  He said when they studied this one of their objectives was to be realistic and conservative, but not necessarily excessively high or low.  He said it was a collaboration of the City of Lawrence and KDOT.  The results he laid out in his memo he sent to KDOT for their approval, and they cleared it.  The results were supported by the KDOT report, with documents attached also available on the internet.

Commissioner Chestnut asked if Uddin could elaborate on all the traffic lights that were a member of the public believed was necessary.  He asked if he could elaborate if they would truly help and if it would be something that would be necessary.

Uddin said he could not go into every single possible traffic light.  He could illustrate the point with one example.  The intersection of Overland Drive and Wakarusa Drive would need a traffic light and the traffic study showed that, but that traffic light would not be necessary for the next 5 – 10 years based on the study.  It would be necessary in the next 20 years. The traffic lights they used in their study were part of the road geometry.  He said the study had two components, one was a traffic volume and the other was the road geometry.  Traffic lights fell into the road geometry.  In the future scenario, every place or every intersection where there was a traffic light recommended or warranted they put a traffic light there.  They did the study based on the presence off a traffic signal at that intersection. 

Mayor Hack asked Thompson what percentage of total retail at 6^th and Wakarusa was represented by the Wal-Mart store earlier percentage.  She said the concern had been that it was the driver of traffic in that intersection. 

Thompson said it would be less than 25%, probably close to 20%.

Mayor Hack asked Thompson to answer the question about how much financial help Wal-Mart was seeking from the City.

Thompson said he intended to address that.  They were seeking none.  He said it was a misconception that retail developers get some kind of assistance similar to tax breaks that were sometimes given to new industries that came to town.  He said it was a misunderstanding.  The owners of the property paid for these streets to be built, paid for sidewalks that have never been used and many other infrastructure improvements in the area.  They paid for the roundabout at Overland and Congressional.  Wal-Mart committed to pay for 2/3 of the stop light to be added at 6^th and Congressional.  Contrary to the comments that were made earlier, there would be no City dollars flowing to Wal-Mart in the way of subsidies of any kind.  Also, a substantial right-of-way was dedicated for all the streets, but in particular for the improvements on 6^th Street.  That land was given to the City and KDOT for those traffic improvements. 

He said the City Commission needed to bring off of the table the items tabled last year and he asked the City Commission to do that right away.  He said people could have differences of opinion and obviously they had differences of opinion about this particular project, but the City’s professional staff reviewed this project in great detail over the past couple of years and recommended both last year and this year that this project be approved.  The Planning Commission looked at it a few weeks ago and voted 8-0 to recommend approval.  KDOT looked at the traffic issue and indicated the street improvements were there and it would handle the traffic.  All professional recommendations were that it should be approved and asked the City Commission to untable the items and approve all the pending rezoning and approve the preliminary development plan. 

Commissioner Highberger asked staff about interactions between the old code, the nodal plan and Horizon 2020 about maximum square footage size. 

Pool said the old code reference, the comp plan, she said it would be Horizon 2020 because it was the applicable comprehensive plan.  The preliminary development plan, once reviewed under prior zoning regulations because the PCD-2 zoning were reviewed and tabled under the prior regulations.  They were still reviewed against the commercial design guidelines.

            Commissioner Highberger asked if the nodal plan called for 80,000 square feet for a maximum size for a box store.

Pool said the restriction on the corner was 154,000 square feet.

            Commissioner Highberger asked if that was on a single building.

            Pool said it did say that additional restrictions on a building foot print should not exceed 80,000 square feet.

            Commissioner Highberger said there was a clause in Horizon 2020 that suggested a maximum box size should not be more than 65,000 square feet.

            Pool said she did not bring her copy on that.

Commissioner Chestnut said traffic was his big issue and being a resident in that area in particular he was concerned about the flow of traffic on Wakarusa between 6^th Street and Harvard because as of right now it was a problematic intersection.  He asked if whether a light was a possibility, even though it was close to the intersection of 6^th and Wakarusa or would there be restrictions of a right in, right out, which he did not think the retailers would go for.  He said he understood the light structure going out to the SLT and down Folks Road and the intersection at Folks would have to be addressed, but that was the one section he saw as being problematic. 

Chuck Soules said he did not know if they had solutions to that issue because it was not really an intersection but was a driveway to those developments.  It was a little bit different than an intersection like over by Dillon’s and Arby’s.  He said the driveway intersection proposed a lot of challenges.  The right-of-way there started narrowing so they had the driving lanes coming off of 6^th Street.  It was difficult and had not looked at that in detail to see what they could do to improve that situation.  He knew a median would not be welcomed but it would prohibit the left turn and it was the conflicting movement that everyone would have trouble with.  He said they would need to take a look at that.

Commissioner Chestnut asked whether Champion’s Way, which was the curb cut that went down 6^th, at some point would be signaled.

Soules said it was planned to be signaled when all that development happened.

Commissioner Chestnut said to some extent it would possibly be the exit point versus the snarl.  He said there had been many people on staff working with the neighborhood of Stoneridge and Branchwood.  He said there was an important part that they needed to remain committed to designing those roads going up to 6^th Street to make sure they discourage cut through traffic. 

Soules said on Stoneridge they have a long island and significant narrowing of the lanes to discourage or alert them they was entering a different area.  Queens Road, that goes to the south, they have not started but anticipated some sort of entrance treatment there.  They talked about something along with the signalization project on Congressional.  On George Williams Way they talked about the roundabout at Ken Ridge.

Commissioner Chestnut said on Branchwood they would do a similar design to Stoneridge.

Commissioner Amyx said the parking that was required for standard vehicles was 429 and they were providing 493 and 152 and 196 for 689 spaces total.  He asked because of that additional parking that was being required, was it possible for expansion or was it the ultimate size the building could ever be built to. 

Thompson said that question had to do with the restriction on the PCD-2 zoning than the parking spaces.  The PCD-2 zoning had a size limit on the feature building as well as the pad site building attached to the zoning.

            Commissioner Amyx said the additional parking could not be considered as a holding place for additional expansion on that side.

            Thompson said they did not have to provide the 493, they only had to provide the 429 so they were providing more per Wal-Mart standards for how many parking spaces they need for a store of that size.

            Commissioner Highberger said any limitation on the plan could be changed by 3 votes.

            Corliss said there was not a land use vehicle to bind a future governing body.  Any future governing body could change the zoning and development plan. 

            Commissioner Amyx said as far as the traffic and some of the questions and the Hallmark store that opened and closed, during the time of the construction of 6^th Street and the island in front of that center cut off a lot of access to that center and had a pretty good effect on their business.  One of the limits they had to business was if they limited access far enough no one could get to you.  The traffic in the area as Commissioner Chestnut said he had a lot of concern about that and asked staff to present that West Lawrence Neighborhood Plan that showed the traffic calming that was in there.  He thought the further away you get from the traffic generator, it was probably not the responsibility of the developer in this case.  He said there was a responsibility in and around that area.  He asked David Woosley to respond to some of the comments.

            David Woosley, Traffic Engineer, said he tried to show traffic could legitimately use portions of Congressional, portions of Harvard and some of the other streets in the area to get to this site, but it would be traffic that was coming from that neighborhood.  They would not expect traffic from the southeast side of town to wind their way through that neighborhood to get there.  It would be residents that lived south and west of 6^th and Wakarusa that would wind through their neighborhood to get to that location.  He said the further away you get, the less impact that would be just because the density of the residents going would be less.  That would be a legitimate route for the people that live in that area to get to commercial property on the northwest corner.

            Commissioner Highberger said it seemed like if traffic backed up in an intersection in the neighborhood, people looked to the nearest way to take a right or left to get to their destination.

            Woosley said if the main streets and arterials were not taken care of to handle the traffic, it would impact the traffic on neighborhood streets but 6^th Street had been constructed to handle the traffic into the future.  At some point and time Wakarusa would need some improvements.  As long as they maintain the arterials, they should not have much of a problem of traffic having to cut through other areas. 

Vice Mayor Dever said there was a precedent and it would be the design much like when Folks went towards Harvard.  He knew they designed that and there was a lot of concern that would become a cut through.  He said that turned out not to be the case and primarily thought that some of it was the design.  He knew he was not talking about specifically that, but that type of design that said it was not a place to go to get someplace fast.  It was not so much people accessing 6^th and Wakarusa from the neighborhood, but if they were coming eastbound on 6^th Street and found traffic backing up, they were liable to get off someplace else.

Commissioner Highberger said this rezoning came out of the abeyance agreement they entered into a year ago.  He was in support of that at that time, since then because of what it did and collective effect of rezonings was to reduce the total amount of square footage from 150 to 28,000 but changed the maximum building size from 80,000 square foot to just shy of 100,000 square feet.  He said given the way they have violated the Master Plan by allocating far more commercial space at that corner, that intersection was contemplated in the plan he thought it might be an improvement, but since then he had come into information suggesting the projected use, i.e. a Wal-Mart store, could potentially generate 3 -5 times more traffic per square foot than comparable big box department stores.  He said given that, by the rezoning they would be creating a situation that would be generating more traffic than the existing zoning.  As a result, he said he no longer supported the proposed rezoning.

Commissioner Amyx said he was willing to remove the items from the table, to consider them, and ultimately support them.  He said a year ago he was involved in putting together the abeyance agreement on behalf of the City and City Commission.  He said he looked at the entire process and that the responsibility and the decision made would by made by the City Commission and should not be determined by a court of law on this matter, where they were headed.  Ultimately they could end up with 154,000 square feet and someone else would be making arrangements of the buildings and how development should occur on that site.  He believed that responsibility should be here.  He said he still had concerns about the traffic in the neighborhood.  He wanted to correct what he thought would ultimately happen with that traffic going through that neighborhood.  He said he was ready to move on as long as they could talk about the traffic.

Vice Mayor Dever said he reviewed all the previous City Commission meeting minutes, evaluated all the information staff provided and saw no reason why they should not remove it from the table and discuss it further.

Moved by Amyx, seconded by Chestnut, to remove from the table for further consideration Z-06-16A-06 and Z-06-16B-06.  Motion carried 4-1 (Highberger voted no).

Moved by Amyx, seconded by Dever, to concur with the Planning Commission’s recommendations to adopt the findings of fact for a request to rezone (Z-06-16A-06), a tract of land approximately 2.21 acres, from PRD-2 (Planned Residential Development) to PCD-2 (Planned Commercial Development with revised use restrictions) (the property is located at the intersection of 6^th Street and Wakarusa, North side of Highway 40); and directed staff to prepare the appropriate ordinance, subject to the following conditions:

1.   The total commercial retail space on the subject property shall not exceed 128,000 gross square feet.

2. The garden center shall not exceed 6,500 square feet.

3. No one single commercial retail use shall occupy more than 99,990 gross square feet of space.

4. Only the permitted uses listed on the attached “Permitted Uses” sheet will be allowed.

5. Filing of a Final Development Plan at the Register of Deeds’ Office.

6. Filing of a Final Plat at the Register of Deeds’ Office.

Motion carried 4-1 (Highberger voted no).                                                                     (25)

Moved by Amyx, seconded by Hack, to concur with the Planning Commission’s recommendations to adopt the findings of fact for a request to rezone (Z-06-16B-06), a tract of land approximately 15.8 acres, from PCD-2 (Planned Commercial Development with limited uses) to PCD-2 (Planned Commercial Development with revised use restrictions).  The property is located at the intersection of 6^th Street and Wakarusa, North side of Highway 40; and direct staff to prepare the appropriate ordinance, subject to the following conditions:

1.   The total commercial retail space on the subject property shall not exceed 128,000 gross square feet.

2. The garden center shall not exceed 6,500 square feet.

3. No one single commercial retail use shall occupy more than 99,990 gross square feet of space.

4. Only the permitted uses listed on the attached “Permitted Uses” sheet will be allowed.

5. Filing of a Final Development Plan at the Register of Deeds’ Office.

6. Filing of a Final Plat at the Register of Deeds’ Office.

Motion carried 4-1 (Highberger voted no).                                                                     (26)

Mayor Hack said this was a project she supported in October and she was supportive of the agreement they had in April of 2006.  She thought this plan was even better than the one presented with the configuration of the open space.  She said she would support the preliminary development plan.  She asked if the conversation about traffic calming would be placed on a final development plan.  She said she would like to move forward and work with staff on options to make modifications on Congressional so that people would know immediately they were entering a neighborhood.

Corliss said they could say the final development plan was conditioned upon an executed agreement and applicant for funding for the west Lawrence traffic calming.  He said they would decide the level of reasonableness and the applicant would get a chance to speak to that.

Vice Mayor Dever said in fairness they had to keep in mind they had two other projects that were going in at the SLT at Mercato and Northgate that would also have an impact on that whole corridor.  He was not sure if it was reasonable to tie it to one development plan, but was reasonable they keep it as a high priority as they began to see density between the SLT and Wakarusa along that corridor.  He thought the whole intersection design on how to keep the traffic flow out was reasonable.

Mayor Hack asked Dever if his preference would be not to attach the condition on the final development plan.

Vice Mayor Dever said not on the specific plan because they had two or three others that would be contributors to that.

Mayor Hack said they could ask staff to bring back some suggestions on what the ultimate build out was going to be to see where they would be traffic wise.

Commissioner Amyx said if they did not have the language in now, they would not have the opportunity to make the arrangement.

Mayor Hack said they did not have it contractually out west and did not mean they would have it later.

Commissioner Amyx said it was a different set of circumstances.  If they looked to the areas north and south of Wakarusa Drive compared to George Williams Way and 6^th Street, the area along that intersection was controlled because they did not have the driveways coming out of no where.

Commissioner Chestnut said he thought they could talk about it but if they were talking about traffic calming down Harvard between George Williams Way, he said when they looked at traffic calming discussed on Harvard between George Williams Way and Wakarusa, there were going to be many other factors other than this development plan that were going to potentially contribute to that issue. 

Vice Mayor Dever said it was difficult for them to attach unnamed intersections and roads to this kind of plan.  He wanted to point out that the known traffic issue on the south side of 6^th Street and felt like they could not ignore that if they were to approve any kind of development in the northwest corner because that intersection had been unchanged over the last 7 years.  They were talking about making a substantial change to that corner and believed it was one of the areas they could have concerns for people accessing both shopping centers.

Commissioner Highberger said there were a few things about the preliminary development plan he liked.  He liked the permeable pavement and if this project was approved he hoped it became a model for future development.  He said there were other things about the plan he did not like.  He thought there was excessive parking and did not like the berming in front.  The berm was contrary to the commercial design guidelines.  There was some improvement in the placing of pad sites.  It still was not in compliance with the commercial guidelines the way he read them.  He said Ms. Klingenberg raised some good points and thought it would be a mistake to approve it now to make sure they were not violating their own code by adopting it.  He said his biggest concern was raised by the information presented by Professor McClure.  He was really considering with the other retail space that had been approved in the last year or two, they had the potential to damage the retail areas in the rest of the town and thought they had the power and authority to refuse the request based on that and that was the proper course to take at this point.  He said if the other Commissioners in favor of this wanted to make sure the applicant provided more of the cost for the traffic devices and traffic improvements necessary, it might be better to table it to work something out. 

Moved by Hack, seconded by Dever, to concur with the Planning Commission’s recommendation to approve a Preliminary Development Plan (PDP-06-02-07) for 6^th & Wakarusa, located at the NW corner of 6^th Street & Wakarusa Drive, North side of Highway 40, subject to the following conditions:

1. Revision of the plan to include the following:

a. Inclusion of details regarding the site’s proposed sanitary sewer main connection to the existing sanitary sewer stub under Congressional Drive.

b. City Engineer approval of the curb cut radius for the northernmost curb cut along Congressional Drive.

c. Remove reference to the existing Block and Lot numbers and include only the proposed Block and Lot numbers on the relevant pages.

d. Note the existing zoning of PRD [Wakarusa Place] (formerly PRD-2) for Lot 2A, Block 2.

e. Show at least one 8-foot wide van accessible access aisle within each grouping of ADA spaces.

Motion carried 4-1 (Highberger voted no).                                                                                  (23)

Moved by Chestnut, seconded by Dever, to concur with the Planning Commission’s recommendations to adopt the findings of fact and approve the request for rezoning (Z-09-25-06) a tract of land approximately 1.623 acres, from PRD-2 (Planned Residential Development) to OS (Open Space), located on the SE corner of Congressional and Overland; and, directed staff to prepare the appropriate ordinance, subject to the following condition:

1.   Filing of a replat at the Register of Deeds’ Office or filing of a new drainage easement and vacation of existing easements via separate instrument with the site plan application.

Motion carried unanimously.                                                                                          (24)

PUBLIC COMMENT:            None                                                                                          (27)

FUTURE AGENDA ITEMS:                                                                                          (28)

8/14/07

· Special Use Permit information for Alcohol Establishments and Entertainment Venue Ordinance

Moved by Amyx, seconded by Dever, to adjourn at 12:05 a.m.  Motion carried unanimously.                                                                                                                                                                

APPROVED:                          

_____________________________

Sue Hack, Mayor

ATTEST:

___________________________________

Frank S. Reeb, City Clerk

CITY COMMISSION MEETING OF AUGUST 7, 2007

1. Bid- Housing rehabilitation, 1100 Highland Dr., to Old Home Store, Inc. for $26,260.

2. Change Order No. 2- Proj. No. 15-CP4-404(C), Kasold Dr., W. 22^nd St. to Bob Billings Parkway, Street, Storm Sewer & Waterline Impvts, for $144,507.43

3. Resolution No. 6731- Issuance of bonds for 2^nd & Locust St. Proj. for $210,000.

4. Resolution No. 6732– Public hearing Date, October 2, 2007 for the condition for structures at 1230 New York.

5. Resolution No. 6733- Issuance of general obligation bonds for traffic control, pavement marking, & signal loop replacement for Kasold Dr. between 22^nd & Clinton Pkwy

6. Ordinance No. 8132 – 1^st Read, (CPA-2007-01) to Ch. 14-Specific plans of Horizon 2020.

7. License Agreement- Voelker property N. 6^th St. & Walnut, driveway in public right-of-way.

8. Subordination Agreements - Tammie Sue Powers, 1069 Home Circle & Trent & Wendi     Georgie, 1206 W. 29^th Ct.

9. 2^nd Quarter Case Management Report, Bert Nash Mental Health Center.

10. Meals on Wheels Garage Sale signs, various locations on August 11, 2007.

11. Variance Request- Lots 1 & 2, Golf Club No. 2 Subdivision, sanitary sewer lines.

12. City Manager’s Report.

13. Ordinance No. 8129 – 1^st Read, Public Hearing- Maximum assessments for development of Oregon Tail Park.

14. Ordinance No. 8139 – 1^st Read, 2008 City of Lawrence budget.

15. Ordinance No. 8140 – 1^st Read, property tax revenues for 2008.

16. Ordinance No. 8131 – 1^st Read, Solid Waste rates for 2008.

17. Ordinance No. 8133 –  1^st Read, Water service & sewage disposal rates for 2008.

18. Wholesale water rates for 2008.

19. Ordinance No. 8134 – 1^st Read, System Development Charges for water utility &

wastewater utility connections. 

20. Pool Fees - $3 for children, teens & seniors; and adults $4.00 

21. Administrative Policy – AP-55, allocation of Transient Guest Tax.

22. Utility Fee Waiver Policy.

23. Prelim Dev Plan (PDP-06-02-07) 6^th & Wakarusa, NW corner, N side of Hwy 40.

24. Rezone  - (Z-09-25-06) 1.623 acres, from PRD-2 to OS, SE corner of Congressional &

Overland.

25. Rezone – (Z-06-16A-06), 2.21 acres, from PRD-2 to PCD-2, intersection of 6^th &

Wakarusa, N side of Hwy 40.

26. Rezone - (Z-06-16B-06) 15.8 acres, from PCD-2 to PCD-2, intersection of 6^th &

Wakarusa, N side of Hwy 40.

27. Public Comment.

28. Future Agenda Items