April 8, 2008
The Board of Commissioners of the City of
RECOGNITION/PROCLAMATION/PRESENTATION:
Mayor Dever recognized the recipients of the Mayor’s Excellence in
Education Award.
With
Commission approval Mayor Dever proclaimed April 12 – 19, 2008 as “Week of the
Young Child”; and the month of April as “Parkinson’s Disease Awareness Month.”
CONSENT AGENDA
As part of the consent agenda, it was moved by Chestnut, seconded by Amyx, to approve the City Commission meeting minutes of March 25, 2008. Motion carried unanimously. As part of the consent agenda, it was moved by Chestnut, seconded by Amyx, to approve claims to 425 vendors in the amount of $2,001,109.78. Motion carried unanimously.
As part of
the consent agenda, it was moved by Chestnut, seconded by Amyx, to
approve Drinking Establishment Licenses for Vermont Street BBQ, 728
Massachusetts; Maceli’s, 1031 New Hampshire; the Caterer Licenses for Lawrence
Arts Center, 940 New Hampshire; Maceli’s, 1 Riverfront Plaza; and the Cereal
Malt Beverage License for Asian Star, 1520 Wakarusa, Ste: F. Motion carried unanimously.
As part of the consent agenda, it was moved by Chestnut, seconded by Amyx, to concur with the recommendation of the Mayor and
appoint Roy Chaney and Steve Burd to the Board of Plumbers and Pipe Fitters. Chaney’s term will expire April 30, 2011, and
Burd’s term will expire April 30, 2009.
Motion carried unanimously.
As part of the consent agenda, it was moved by Chestnut, seconded by
Amyx, to authorize the City Manager to execute a contract agreement and
purchase order with Mayer Specialty Service, LLC in the amount of $120,000 to
complete the 2008 Manhole Rehabilitation Manhole Program. Motion carried unanimously. (1)
As part of the consent agenda, it
was moved by Chestnut,
seconded by Amyx, to authorize payment in the amount of $26,000 to
Olsson & Associates for City initiated design costs related to optional
bidding configurations of Pump Station PS49 in the Douglas County Sanitary
Sewer Benefit Districts No’s 1, 2, and 3.
Motion carried unanimously. (2)
As part of the consent agenda, it
was moved by Chestnut,
seconded by Amyx, to place on first reading, a Joint City Ordinance No.
8255/County Resolution No. 08-14, incorporating by reference the “Subdivision
Regulations for Lawrence and the Unincorporated Areas of Douglas County. Motion carried unanimously. (3)
As part of the consent agenda, it
was moved by Chestnut,
seconded by Amyx, to place on first reading, Ordinance No. 8258,
providing for the deferral of special assessments for public improvements in
improvement districts established on property owned by a political
subdivision. Motion carried unanimously. (4)
As part of the consent agenda, it
was moved by Chestnut,
seconded by Amyx, to place on first reading, Ordinance No. 8259,
amending City Ordinance No. 6010 pertaining to the deferral period of certain
special assessments previously authorized by the City on lots, pieces and
parcels of
Ordinance
No. 8249, an ordinance providing for the amendment to various sections of
Chapter 20 Development Code related to the definition of family in RS
Districts, was read a second time. As part of the consent agenda, it was moved by Chestnut, seconded by Amyx,
to adopt the ordinance. Aye: Amyx, Dever, Chestnut, Hack, and
Highberger. Nay: None. Motion carried unanimously. (6)
Ordinance
No. 8253, adopting the Oread Redevelopment Project Plan, was read a second
time. As part of the consent
agenda, it was moved by Chestnut, seconded
by Amyx, to adopt the ordinance.
Aye: Amyx, Dever, Chestnut, Hack,
and Highberger. Nay: None. Motion carried unanimously. (7)
Ordinance
No. 8254, creating a Transportation Development District and levying a
Transportation Development District sales tax, was read a second time. As part of the consent agenda, it was moved by Chestnut, seconded by Amyx,
to adopt the ordinance. Aye: Amyx, Dever, Chestnut, Hack, and
Highberger. Nay: None. Motion carried unanimously. (8)
As part of the consent agenda, it was moved by Chestnut, seconded by Amyx, to approve
the extension of the parking agreement with Sunflower Broadband to use City Lot
16 at the monthly rate of $10 per metered space for 43 spaces, for a total of
$430 per month, until May 31, 2008.
Motion carried unanimously. (9)
As part of the consent agenda, it
was moved by Chestnut,
seconded by Amyx, to approve signs of community interest, a request from
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day-Saints, for a free Community Emergency
Preparedness Fair to place signs in the city right-of-way, median at 10th
and Kasold, north and southbound on Kasold Drive, beginning at 5 p.m., May 2,
and ending about 2 p.m., and ending about 2 p.m. on Saturday, May 3, 2008. Motion carried unanimously. (10)
As part of the consent agenda, it
was moved by Chestnut,
seconded by Amyx, to authorize the Mayor to sign a Release of Mortgage
for Lance and Amy Hoover,
As part of the consent agenda, it
was moved by Chestnut,
seconded by Amyx, to approve the temporary “Resident Parking Only” signs
on the 900 block of
As part of the consent agenda, it
was moved by Chestnut, seconded by Amyx, to approve a second amendment to
interlocal agreement pertaining to the deferral period of certain special
assessments previously authorized by the City on lots, pieces, and parcels of
CITY MANAGER’S REPORT:
During the
City Manager’s Report, David Corliss said staff provided the City Commission
with photographs following Saturday night’s celebration for the Jayhawk’s
National Basketball Championship. Staff
was sending thank you letters to a number of jurisdictions that helped
Also, staff
was monitoring sales tax distributions and had reason to believe the City was on
track in meeting projections and possibly the budget.
He said staff
drafted a decision-making matrix for the development process, which was helpful
and would be sharing that matrix with the development community which indicated
all the different roles each party played in that process.
The other
major item was Memorial Park Cemetery. Staff
would inform the City Commission when the City was able to declare victory for
that cemetery and had reason to believe the City would be successful in receiving
the money from the trust.
Commissioner
Amyx said regarding the merchandise fund, the Attorney General asked the City
Commission to accept responsibility of that money and asked if the Attorney General
would be contacting individuals.
Corliss
said he did not know, but the Attorney General’s Office had the information. He said staff spent a lot of money working
with the records that were provided, and the records were not in particularly
good shape. Staff sent that information
to the Attorney General’s Office and did not know if that office was going to
respond to inquiries or make an attempt to contact the different contract
holders. It was a substantial task
because in many cases, for example, someone who had bought services, a vault or
a marker 10 years ago, it was unlikely those contract holders were in the same location
as when they signed the contract, but contacting the contract holders would be
a worthwhile effort. (13)
REGULAR AGENDA ITEMS:
Receive 2007 annual report from the Convention and
Visitors Bureau.
Judy
Billings, Director, Convention and Visitors Bureau (CVB), said as a marketer of
this community, she was proud to live in this type of City that could handle a
celebration of 40,000 people in the downtown area. She said in past years of celebrations in
other cities, it did not turn out as well as it turned out for the City of
She said
this was her first opportunity to formally report to the City Commission as
President and CEO of the new organization Destination Management, Inc. For the public, she wanted to clarify this was
a brand new not-for-profit organization that had a contract with the City to
manage the Convention and Visitors Bureau with the bed tax that was collected
through the City annually which was a five percent bed tax on hotel rooms in
the community.
She said
direct spending in 2007 was a little over $49 million, which translated to
almost $1 million in sales tax and the advertising effectiveness number was a
study performed for the 2006 advertising that showed for every $1 spent in
advertising, it brought $59.00 back to the community.
Destination
Management had three goals which were a marketing goal, service goal, and development
goal. They focused on leisure, media,
sports, convention needs, and film to a lesser extent. Advertising went into magazines like Midwest
Living and AAA Publications which often times, cost approximately $3,000 each. Therefore, they did not do a lot of that type
of advertising, but that advertising was successful and they received a lot of
requests for information. Other
advertising was newspapers in drive markets, online advertising, and in 2007
radio advertising. Also, they partnered
with other communities and the state office to do some television
advertising.
She said Destination
Management did a lot of electronic marketing and encouraged people to go to their
website and look for more information.
The average daily number of visits on their site was 1,500 which was an
11% increase. They encouraged people to
visit their website to make hotel reservations which was increasing. A green box on their website allowed people
to download Eye-Tours of Downtown Lawrence and Quantrill’s Raid.
They printed
80,000 Visitors Guides and mailed those guides directly to KU season ticket
holders which were done by partnering with the KU Athletic Department and also mailed
guides to all new KU and Haskell student parents.
She said media
relations were a little more difficult for people to understand. They partnered
with the state office and hosted a number of qualified travel writers and when
they experienced
She said
sports events were a little more invisible.
They were responsible for bringing in and coordinating five sporting
events last year. There was a cycling
event and more recently the December cross country track and field event that
brought thousands of people to town. During
that time, 4,500 total rooms were booked and created $3.2 million in direct
spending by direct sports events which did not include KU events or anything
other than what the CVB was responsible for.
There were
193 convention meetings reported to the CVB which equated to 20,000 people
coming in to town. A lot of those people
were driving in to town from surrounding areas and the CVB was working to increase
the number of rooms that were occupied by conventions. There was $2.2 million in economic impact for
those conferences such as materials on hand and those costs which was
approximately $21,000 in paper, pads, pencils and everything else given to visitors
when coming to town.
They
hosted about 10,000 people in the Visitor’s
She said
she would report, at another time, more detailed information about Freedoms
Frontier. The City had been supportive
financially and also in terms of supporting her work with The Heritage Area
which was a 501(c)(3) and managed the Heritage Area out of their office. They were taking the lead for the 41 county
area.
There were
a number of events in the works such as the Iron Man Race in which they were
not hosting or coordinating the event, but coordinating the ancillary activities
that were happening downtown as a result of that event, the nightly events in
South Park which was being coordinated and promoted by their office, a softball
tournament, conventions, American College of Theatre Festival, just to name a
few.
Again, direct
spending by visitors was $49 million compared to $46 million in 2006. In 2007, $808,933 was actually
collected. The percentage of day trips
was based on the advertising effectiveness study which was done about every
third year which told them how many people were coming to
Mayor
Dever said they were excited to get the National Heritage Area up and running and
was hoping Destination Management could drive up the revenues from bed tax by
having more hotel space in the community.
He looked forward to more events.
The City
Commission received the annual report. (14)
Receive request from David McLaughlin, to include
roofing contractors under the
The
licensing program would provide the following:
1. A consumer
protection mechanism for people who received the service from contractors;
2. A quality
issue for building in the City as continuing education was an element of
licensing in the City; and,
3. A
level playing field as a business tool for contractors in terms of meeting
insurance requirements, and education requirements.
He said
staff provided an honest assessment of development services resources in terms
of providing the ability to be included under the contractor licensing
provisions and supported the concept and expansion of the program. Staff noted the inadequacies of resources to
provide the services and reviewed it in the framework as program improvement
and would like to discuss with the City Commission in upcoming budget sessions.
Commissioner
Amyx said in reviewing the staff memo it talked about how it was not feasible
at this point. He said just because the
number of inspections that were done with new construction, there was not much
new construction at this time. He asked
if it could be incorporated as the need arises.
McCullough
said staff anticipated an additional 1,000 permits annually for roofing and
re-roofing. There were decisions that
needed to be made in the type of permits.
Typically, with licensed contractors, that licensing was included in the
permitting and inspection processes. He
said at the permit level, staff was able to handle those increased inspections
at this time, but expanding the permitting program needed consideration since
staff viewed staffing levels just adequate at this time.
Vice Mayor
Chestnut said the memo mentioned that a license for roofing was not needed for owner/occupied
residents. He said consumer protection
was mentioned. He asked if staff had
experienced any type of complaints on contractors and would licensing apply to
new home construction.
Mayor Dever
asked where staff received the numbers for calculating re-roofs projects within
the City.
Pinnick
said a survey of other communities was conducted and the number was an average
based on the community of this size.
Mayor
Dever called for public comment.
David
McLaughlin, McLaughlin Roofing, said he was the elected representative of seven
roofing companies in
He said
Commissioner
Amyx said the letter sent to the Commission indicated the vast majority of
roofing contractors wanted these licensing requirements. There were approximately 30 roofing
contractors right now in
McLaughlin
said customers would call a roofer to repair their roof after a storm, the roof
would be repaired, but there would be no follow up as far as leaks and other things. It also would help new companies in giving
them a guideline to follow to be a respectable and responsible company. It held everyone accountable for having a
business in the community.
Commissioner
Highberger asked if McLaughlin worked in other jurisdictions that had licensing
requirements.
McLaughlin
said yes, in
Commissioner
Highberger asked if it would be a burden to meet both licensing requirements
for both jurisdictions.
McLaughlin
said no.
Mayor Dever
asked about the number of roofing contractors for
Darin Lutz,
Alpha Roofing, said pertaining to the individual jurisdictions,
He said
the best scenario in
Mayor
Dever said if there was a delay because 100 roofs needed inspections and there
were only two inspectors, he asked how that impacted the homeowner, the
completion of the job, and the cost of the project to the homeowner.
Lutz said
he had never run into a delay in that County.
He said, for instance, the City of
Commissioner
Hack said she would like to receive information on the costs. She said the benefits to the consumers would
be large as well as to the City’s local companies.
Mayor Dever
said he would like to identify the true costs to see if the City could afford
that type of licensing, and if so, identify a budget. He said he would also like to identify the
amount to be paid both for licensing and permits. The worst case scenario would
be unintended consequences of the regulation because
Commissioner
Hack asked if staff would include this in their department’s program
improvement.
McCullough
said staff would be providing some budget information and it was an issue
identified to include under their program improvement narrative. He said staff could keep working on some of
the details of this type of licensing and look for ways to get their arms
around this issue in terms of impacts to staffing and resources. He said staff was proposing to do the
inspections at the end of the project and even if the inspections took place a
day later, it was not something that would impact the contractors.
Mayor Dever
asked if the primary issue was quality control as opposed to the contractor
leaving the site and moving on to the next project.
McCullough
said for roofing contracting, it was more for consumer protection, quality, and
education.
The City
Commission received the report regarding roofing contractor licensing and
directed staff to provide further information on the costs and benefits of
roofing contractor licensing. (15)
Consider authorizing the Mayor to sign the
“Authority to Award Contract and Commitment of City Funds” and the Construction
Engineering Agreement with KDOT for construction of Project No. 61-GI2-1104(C)
for the improvements of 19th Street from Ohio Street to Alabama
Street and adopt Resolution No. 6762, authorizing the issuance of General
Obligation Bonds for a principal maximum amount of $250,000.
Chuck
Soules, Director of Public Works, presented the staff report. He said this project included widening the
street to the south to extend the center turn lane from
Staff met
with the School District and discussed a bus turn off lane and as a result, the
He said
bids were received for this project and LRM Industries was low bidder.
He said staff
was asking the City to approve three actions which were:
1. Authorize the Mayor to sign the
Construction Engineering Agreement with KDOT for construction for the
improvement of
2. Approve Resolution 6762 authorizing the
issuance of General Obligations Bonds for a principal maximum amount of
$250,000.00; and
3. Authorize the Mayor to sign the
“Authority to Award Contract and Commitment Of City Funds”.
He said
there would be detours for this project.
Mayor Dever
asked about the bicycle lane issue raised in Michael Almon’s letter.
Soules
said when staff looked at the project there was a certain amount of
right-of-way. Staff was able to place a
sidewalk on the north side where there was no sidewalk. Because of the width of the sidewalk,
easements had to be bought due to being outside the right-of-way. On the south side of the road, a sidewalk was
being replaced. There was some separation
between the back of the curb and the sidewalk.
He said behind that sidewalk were Westar utility poles, which needed to
be moved back. There was no room to
place a bicycle lane within the right-of-way.
Additional property could have been acquired, but the property was
expensive in that area. The houses to the
north were already crowded and staff was concerned about how close they were
getting to the houses and the trees in the yards that might be impacted. To the south side was the school with the large
electric lines and just south of the electric line was a sanitary sewer main and
easement. The electric lines could not
go into that sewer easement because of the sewer line. He said staff could not find a good way to come
up with another 6 foot out of the road without taking or buying more
property. Staff looked at doing other
improvements when that road was closed. He
said
He said cyclists
would use a lane from Mass to 19th, and when they arrived at
Commissioner
Highberger asked if Soules was suggesting pavement markers similar to Naismith. On Naismith rather than a specifically marked
lane, he suggested bike signs be placed to mark the area.
Soules
said on 19th from
Vice Mayor
Chestnut said Soules mentioned specifically the south side of 19th where
the sidewalks were currently 2 feet wide that went right up to the curbing and
asked if there would be separation at that location as those sidewalks were
being redone.
Jason
Hoskinson, BG Consultants, said the sidewalk Vice Mayor Chestnut was talking
about in particular was east of
Vice Mayor
Chestnut asked if the narrow path up to the road was going to continue.
Hoskinson
said yes.
Soules
said the new sidewalk on the north had to be on the back of the curb and the
city was receiving easements for sidewalks.
He said they were trying to make those sidewalks wider in order for
people to walk further away from the curb.
There were always challenges to fitting sidewalks into existing
areas.
Mayor
Dever asked what the standard width required for new installations of
sidewalks.
Soules
said new installations were 6 foot and on a residential street it was 5
feet.
Commissioner
Amyx asked if there was a 6 foot space from the length of the curb. He asked if that would not be enough room or
if that was a policy issue.
Soules
said they tried to get 6 foot separation.
Commissioner
Amyx said to accommodate a bicycle lane 3 feet was needed.
Soules
said three feet from the curb line.
Mayor
Dever called for public comment.
Michael
Almon,
About two
years ago
Commissioner
Hack said she did not have a clear picture of what it would look like and how
much space was at that location.
Commissioner
Highberger thanked Almon for bringing this to the Commission’s attention. He said he was not sure there was a feasible
alternative in this case. He was not
sure the solution that would put the sidewalk meets the curb except for the
bike lane was a better option. He was
concerned about the expense and the delay and trying to move the sidewalk to
the other side of the utility poles.
That option would put the utility poles right on the street and some studies
showed that trees along the street reduced accidents, but wide spaced utility
poles might not have the same affect and there could be some danger. He appreciated Almon bringing this forward
but could not support Almon’s request because of financial reasons.
Almon said
he thought it could be located south of Westar’s poles, not immediately
adjacent to the curb. The short option was
to have the sidewalks south of the poles and move the cross section to have
bicycle lanes on the pavement, and then those poles would not be next to
traffic lanes, but next to a bicycle lane.
He said the multiuse path would be a workable option as opposed to the
bicycle lanes, which would be the ideal option.
The only problem he had with the multiuse path was wherever it might be
located south of the street, when it reached the area at Alabama where it would
narrow down, to the west, Soules said in the future there would be plenty of
room for the bicycle lanes and bicycle lanes would probably be placed in that
area, but he asked how would bicyclists moving both east and west on the south
side of the street, get over to the north side and similarly on the east end at
Louisiana, the issue of how bicyclists on the lane or side path could get to
the intersection was not really relevant because federal guidelines generally
have the bicycle lanes and that was how that was done in this instance some 100
feet before the intersection. Whatever was
done on the segments between intersections west of
Vice Mayor
Chestnut said regarding the option of the multi use path, not only what Almon
brought up as far as someone going westbound and needing to cross over when getting
to the west side of where the work was being done, but again getting back to
the four foot sidewalk, it had some visibility obstruction when getting to residential
on the west side. He did not think that
could be converted to any multiuse because there was no way to widen that
sidewalk. He was not sure that would
work for the stretch south of 19th Street through the property
around Lawrence High, but once getting to the west end, it narrowed. He agreed with Commissioner Highberger that
there was a lot to balance and one thing they had not talked about was they
were talking about bicyclists and people operating vehicles, but they also had
a lot of pedestrians, so the sidewalk considerations it was hard to accommodate
it. He wanted to note that because he
thought there was a lot of pedestrian traffic on
Mayor Dever
said there were a lot of things to consider with this project because it was
near a high school. It was a tough
situation because of the right-of-way.
He appreciated Almon’s thinking and trying to utilize some of the space
on the south side and made perfect sense except that the road would meander
slightly more than the engineers would like.
He wondered if they had done that they might have alleviated having to
purchase some of the right-of-way on the north side of the street and wondered
if they could have done this better.
They needed to balance the high volume of traffic, new drivers, and lots
of people moving out of a very small area.
The work they had done did a good job of doing that. It was unfortunate they left out the bicycle
lanes and it was a perfect opportunity and it was a matter of not enough space,
time and money.
If they
had planned for this initially, maybe they could have reduced the cost, the 10%
increase to maybe 5% because they would not have had to redesign the
intersection. He was in favor of trying
to encourage implementing these types of lanes, especially when they had a lot of
kids, bikes and pedestrians. He felt
like having that center turn line might help a little bit because there would
be a little bit more room and hopefully there would not be so many sudden
stops. The geometric improvements at the
intersection would help traffic flow in general. He would be hesitant to delay this any
further because it was a hot spot for the community and thought it had been
planned and did a good job to get that resolved in the shortest time period and
delay. He liked Almon’s ideas and wished
they had come up with those ideas before the 11th hour.
Commissioner
Hack said it was interesting to think about the time the bonds were issued for
the high school and the thought that this school was so far out of town people
were so worried that it was an invaluable asset to be that far away. It was never envisioned as a facility that
would house as many students and cars that come with them. That was what made this so hard. Time was of the essence and knew they were a
year ahead of schedule, but for the people who lived in that area, they were
about 7 years behind schedule. The very
first neighborhood meeting she attended would have been in the fall of 2000 and
was at the high school talking about what to do about 19th and
Commissioner
Amyx asked if there was a way to either do signage or designation for the ways
to accommodate bicycles were going to be used on the street.
Soules
said that would be the intent to sign that share of the road from
Mayor Dever
said he was not sure they wanted to talk about widening that sidewalk or
not. He thought it would be confusing if
they were directing people to this multi-use path and direct people across the
street. Adding width to the lane was
good, but that was where a lot of accidents happened because there was such a
narrow line of site. Sometimes he
thought bikes were better off in the street from a line of site as long as it
was marked properly. He thought that was
the best solution.
Soules
said he thought the cyclists would prefer to be with the traffic on the same
side if they had a direct path or multiuse path on one side. Typically when they did the multiuse paths,
they had a network that they would tie into so they would not have to keep
crossing streets to get back to a multiuse path.
Moved by Hack, seconded by Chestnut, to
authorize the Mayor to sign the “Authority to Award Contract and Commitment of
City Funds” and the Construction Engineering Agreement with KDOT for
construction of Project No. 61-GI2-1104(C) for the improvements of 19th
Street from Ohio Street to Alabama Street. Motion carried unanimously.
Moved by Chestnut, seconded by Hack, to adopt
Resolution No. 6762, authorizing the issuance of General Obligation Bonds for a
principal maximum amount of $250,000.
Motion carried unanimously. (16)
Receive
draft Federal Legislative Statement.
David
Corliss, City Manager, presented the draft statement. He
said the document highlighted a number of issues and requests to the federal
legislators and their staffs. A number
of the items dealt with funding requests, surface transportation, aviation,
transit, and highlighted the importance of the National Heritage Area. Judy Billings had been blogging the federal
legislative delegation for appropriations to support the National Heritage Area
programs. CDBG and HOME programs have
not been receiving increases in fact there had been reductions in some of the
City’s allocations and that would be highlighted with the delegation. He also wanted to indicate the importance of KU
and
He thought
the document was in good shape as far as what the City’s requests would
be. There was an additional item related
to this. They would talk about Lawrence
Community Shelter’s request for a letter of support. They could take that letter of support as
well. These items were related to what
they wanted to communicate with the federal delegation.
Commissioner
Hack said she had a question about the possibility of discussing the
improvements to the Carnegie and what they talked about the possibility of
using some grant money for that. She
asked if there was a possibility for asking for more money for that historic
building. It could be incorporated to
the National Heritage Area.
Corliss
said he thought it was likely that the National Heritage Area would want to
coordinate with Judy Billings as far as their funding. One of the funding items right now was to get
their management plan in place, which was like a comprehensive plan for a
national park. It was the guiding
document for the National Heritage Area and
Commissioner
Highberger said he appreciated the addition of the
The City
Commission direct staff to place the statement on next week’s consent agenda
for adoption. (17)
Receive request from
Loring
Henderson, Director, Lawrence Community Shelter, said the Lawrence Community
Shelter had submitted an earmark request for HUD appropriation through Senator
Brownback’s office for $600,000 to help with relocation and construction
renovation of a new shelter. He understood
that for an earmark to be considered, it needed to show a connection to federal
interest and local support. The
connection to the federal interest was that HUD had a clearly stated mandate to
reduce homelessness in the
In the
application submitted to Senator Brownback’s staff, he said he mentioned a
specific building and talked about the cost of that building. It was an example and was appropriate, but
they were not restricted to that building.
He spoke to congressional staff and there were certain considerations that
needed to be met, but those considerations were very general because they were a
not-for-profit entity and they were not asking for water or sewage projects,
reimbursement for operations, or program expenses.
He said he
had met with neighborhood associations, which was not related to the earmark
process, over the last couple of months and was on-going. He met twice with the officers of the East
Lawrence Neighborhood Association; twice with the general membership, once
directly and once indirectly; once with the membership of Brookcreek
Neighborhood Association; and once with the Lawrence Association of
Neighborhoods. In listening to the neighborhoods, their board needed to
continue to be aggressive to find a site.
He said
they were present to ask for City Commission support. He said a creative effort towards fundraising
was being taken, but he did not know what to do to raise $3 million that was
arbitrarily set. At the same time,
during the time of the Mayor’s Task Force on Homeless Services, there was a number
used based on industry standards from Sabatini Architects that projected a cost
of $2.75 million for a shelter, whether renovating or constructing because the
cost ended up the same, once buying the land.
He said their board was striving to be as creative as possible with their
fundraising efforts.
Mayor
Dever said everyone understood this effort was to seek federal funding
assistance for potential acquisition of a shelter building and not a specific
shelter building.
Mayor
Dever called for public comment.
Katherine
Dinsdale, Co-Chair of the Homelessness Commission, said the Homelessness Commission
voted unanimously that morning to support that request and strongly hoped the
City Commission would write a letter supporting the request as well. The Shelter put together a presentation
asking that they be designated as the emergency shelter in
Eileen
Shards, Lawrence Community Shelter board member and chair of the fundraising
committee, said fundraising for this endeavor was a challenge. The City
Commission asked the shelter to start looking for a new site and they had been
looking very hard. This endeavor was
similar to the “chicken before the egg” because if finding a place, they would
not have the funding or permission to operate the center at that location and
the place would sell and they would need to start over again. She said it was hard to get a loan from a
bank for a location that did not exist, at this time, or for a shelter that
could not operate for more than a year. She
said they were trying to be creative and were looking to individuals who
indicated an interest in helping the shelter.
Also, they were looking at private and government foundations and
federal funding. This was the first request
for federal funding and they were excited about the outcome. She said she was asking for City Commission
support as they worked together to fund this necessary shelter for the
community.
KT Walsh,
East Lawrence Neighborhood Association officer, but speaking as a private
citizen, said she would go on record for supporting the federal earmark request
because the shelter had been mandated
and were in a very difficult position. She
said the shelter was looking for a site in an industrial area in
She said
because of the mortgage crisis and the ripple effect, they were already seeing
foreclosures in her neighborhood.
Everyone was moving closer to the financial edge in
She said when
discussing this issue in east
Some
cities offered incentives to neighborhoods who welcomed the shelter, which
included sidewalk and street improvements, alley improvements, purchase of park
land, and was being done in other cities as a tradeoff.
She said
the building that was being looked at on the east side of
Michael
Almon, speaking as a representative from the Brookcreek Neighborhood
Association, said the shelter came to their general membership meeting a month
ago. It was a very frank and cordial
discussion with an exchange of ideas. As
Walsh pointed out, these were desperate times and desperation was spreading
into a lot of different areas. The
recession was official now because it had been 6 months and part of that
recession meant food prices had increased by 12% in the last 12 months. Food stamps were at a record high. Even $900,000 homes in
He said
Rich Minder stated in a letter when this issue first came forward which Minder
regretted that this society had failed to muster the political will to address
the underlying problems that led to a need of homeless shelters.
In this
community, part of the problem he found was that everyone wanted to address
those underlying issues and provide rehabilitation and job training programs, opportunities
and means for homeless people to not be homeless anymore, yet on the other side
of that coin everybody stated, “not in my backyard.” One of the residents in his neighborhood
coined a slightly different version, which was “not in my downtown.” That was one of the main driving forces for
this and had been mandated to move out of downtown. This was a result from Downtown Lawrence
Inc., officially opposing the many Downtown Lawrence merchants speaking many
times publicly opposing the Lawrence Salvation Army and the Lawrence Community
Shelter being downtown. Every time this
issue was addressed by their association, they elected to point out that
homeless shelters were not what pulled homeless people to downtown. Downtown was what pulled homeless people to
downtown. Wherever the shelters were
moved, the homeless would still go downtown.
The effort for all the downtown merchants to get the homeless out of downtown
was futile. Moving the problem was just
moving the problem and would spread it around more and he did not think it was
the proper solution. They needed to get
to the point of this particular request tonight.
He said
In the shelter’s
response, an 18,000 square foot building constructed in 2001 had been
identified and similarly a March 11th letter to his neighborhood stated
the shelter had located a building that met the physical and program
requirements and was working to resolve zoning issues. He was also told in their neighborhood the
location of that building. They did not
see this particular $600,000 request was severed from that particular
building. The letter to Senator
Brownback actually identified it not by address, but by other elements that
identified that building. He said they
needed to tread carefully on how this letter of support was worded or whether
this was locked in because once the endorsement was given, that money being
earmarked had to be spent on that particular use. If that use was that building, the rest of
the public planning process, particularly public input for the public hearing
was moot. He did not think they needed
to proceed under this particular format and it needed to be seriously looked at
and all references to that particular building deleted, explicitly and
implicitly.
Brookcreek
Neighborhood had publicly taken a vote that they were opposed to that building
and that industrial use. They were also
opposed to the request to allow homeless shelters by use right in any
industrial zone as the request that first came up to the City Commission on
February 21st. He said more
appropriately was a letter on the agenda tonight as a future agenda item for
Free State Development and Ray Brown and Associates. It was much more appropriate the way they
were requesting that text amendment, which was for a specific industrial zone,
IPB, which was a research park basically and their request that it be subject
to a special use permit. That would be
far more appropriate and the reason they said was to prevent a blanket policy
that might allow such uses by right in the IPB district. The way the Lawrence Community Shelter had
requested a text amendment was way too broad, had major implications for all
industrial zones in all neighborhoods all over
Mayor
Dever asked what action would preclude the public options.
Almon said
if the letter to Senator Brownback and the letter that was endorsing that
letter to Senator Brownback at least implicitly identified that particular
building, that money had to be spent on whatever was endorsed and what earmarked
money was for, was that building. Whether
the Delaware Street Commons who were the immediate adjoining property owner
that was opposed to it or if Brookcreek was opposed to it, it would be
irrelevant and their neighborhoods would not be able to oppose the spending of
that money on that building because that money would be legally required to be
spent on that building. This was the
enabler of their whole financing.
Commissioner
Amyx asked if city staff had the opportunity to review the application.
David Corliss,
City Manager, said staff reviewed everything that was posted on the
agenda. He said like any earmark, if it
successfully became law, then an application was needed. None of this funding issue took away land use
authority. He said he did not know if
this was competing with the City’s earmarks because it was a totally separate
appropriations bill.
He said
the other issue was that Price Banks, representing the Lawrence Community
Shelter, was interested in coming back with a land use request with a possible
text amendment which he wanted to make clear.
Commissioner
Amyx said because of the City Commission’s responsibility of dealing with the
land use separately he wanted to make sure this was not site specific. He did not want to sign a letter in support if
it was site specific and it could be looked at as a financial decision.
Corliss
said in the letter the Mayor signed it could be made clear, it was not site
specific.
Mayor Dever
said the City Commission asked for a better, more appropriate building for the
shelter because they needed to take action.
Commissioner Chestnut had kept the costs on task and focused. He thought by virtue of being involved, he
thought the shelter had stayed focused on moving and finding a more appropriate
option. If they were going to make an
investment, they should go through this process instead of private sector. He said the City Commission needed to get the
ball rolling and he was in favor of signing the letter in that it would not be
tied to a specific location or building.
They needed to try to get federal funds available if they were available
for solving this homeless crisis.
Vice Mayor
Chestnut said when reviewing the one year Special Use Permit a year ago, there
was a lot of discussion at that point.
It was important to clarify the milestones became part of what they
created with the application and that was he believed they all agreed the location
at 944
Commissioner
Highberger said he encouraged
Commissioner
Hack said the City Commission had continued to ask
Moved by Chestnut, seconded by Highberger, to
authorize the Mayor to sign a letter of support for the Lawrence Community
Shelter federal earmark request. Motion
carried unanimously. (18)
Receive draft Tax Increment Financing and
Transportation Development District Policies.
There was
a variety of information related to other communities and in developing those
drafts they utilized the policies of other cities as a guide. Both the TIF and TDD were creatures of
statute and there were very specific statutory processes associated with
establishing either types of district.
Rather than reiterating those statutory requirements, they knew those
were given, but the idea with these drafts were to focus on other policy issues
or refinements of some of those steps in the state statutory process that might
be important to the community.
In the TIF
district policy draft, on the process requirements there would be a proposal
received for the applicant, following the statutory process, and it would
require a redevelopment agreement at the conclusion of the establishment of the
district that would lay out all the responsibilities by the City and by the
developer’s part of that. The criterion
was probably the most important part which was the policy matters on how a TIF
might be established and under what condition.
In the draft they had indicated the City would judiciously utilize TIF
as a tool for projects that demonstrated a significant and substantial public
benefit to the community. The project
would achieve various economic development goals of the community which were
set forth in the variety of means like creating jobs or retaining jobs. It would be a project of community wide
importance and also have a comprehensive plan.
The draft
also included a but/for principle which was basically that without the use of
TIF, the project would not happen. The
City Commission had discussed that as part of the analysis for the Oread
project recently.
Additionally,
indicating the projects that would involve debt issuance must provide a cover
for that, about 1.5 times of the projected debt service and those were the
cases that the City might be involved initially in debt for the project. The amount of the TIF assistance would be
based on economic significance to the community and would be one of the things
seen in the required feasibility study as part of the TIF analysis. The TIF proposals would provide for
redevelopment and stabilization of residential, commercial or industrial areas
would be favored. They were trying to
encourage redevelopment opportunities in the community.
She said
as far as the developer requirements, the draft stated that the developer must
be able to demonstrate the financial ability to complete and operate the
project. The projects that had at least
50% developer cost share would be more favored than those that had less. Again, a redevelopment agreement would be
required and might require the developer to front certain costs associated with
the review of the proposal. Those were
things like the feasibility study.
She said
regarding the process of the TDD policy draft, there would be a petition that
would be submitted and would follow the state statute process regarding the
actual creation of the district. The
criteria would be that it could be used to reimburse the City for certain
public infrastructure costs that they front by issuing debt and then having
revenues associated with the TDD come back to retire that debt or it could be
pay as you go. The developer would front
the funds to do the improvements and then the developer was paid over time as
revenue came in. The policy indicated
that the use of TDD should not enable a development to skirt the City’s basic
development policy. It was meant for
things that were above and beyond what the development policy would call
for. It also stated that one of the following
should be met: promoting and supporting
efforts to redevelop sites, looking at unique retail attraction opportunities
or mixed use opportunities that would help the economic base, and also projects
that would result in transportation infrastructure beyond what the City would
require and what they would otherwise build.
Mirroring
the TIF draft, this required evidence that the developer could do the
project. It indicated that the equity or
private financing contributions from the developer in excess of 15% would be
viewed more favorably. The development
agreement would be required and the applicant might be required to pay for
analysis fees that might be necessary for the City Commission to review the
proposal.
She said
the action this evening would be to provide feedback the City Commission had at
this point and the intention was to solicit public input regarding this item
and then have the City Commission consider it at a future meeting.
Mayor Dever
asked how the draft policies were created.
Stoddard
said these key elements were similar in other City policies and it was looking
at what a lot of other cities had done previously. Staff visited with Gary Anderson, the City’s
Bond Counsel, and had him look at both of them.
Commissioner
Amyx said it was clear they needed to have a policy in place that would meet
requests in the future and thought this was a good way to start. His recommendation would be to start this
process with the 30 day period in being able to get feedback.
Commissioner
Highberger said he appreciated the work and did not see anything left out or
anything they ought to change.
Mayor
Dever called for public comment.
After
receiving no public comment, Commissioner Hack said what she liked about the
policy was that it was tight in the areas that it needed to be tight in, in
terms of percentages and how much the developer would pay up front and how the
cost benefit worked. It also allowed for
some flexibility to have the opportunities to look at the created projects and
would enhance what they tried to accomplish in the community. It was a great balance on both of those policies.
Vice Mayor
Chestnut said when talking about demonstrating the but/for, he thought the
Springsted study was a great process to go through and would encourage the
Commission to have a little bit more robust language about how they saw
that. He thought the way it was
presented when they went through the Oread project, it was enlightening about
market expectations. He wanted to get
more meat behind that because in the tax abatement policy, the statement was
there but not well clarified.
He would
also encourage the City Commission to make sure they had robust language in
regard to the proposals and opportunities for redevelopment, particularly infill. It was clear with the Oread project that it
was clear there were some costs to address because infill projects tended to be
more expensive and more difficult. They
needed to clarify what their intention was because they would take that over
something less dense. Also, they would
all appreciate the list of people this would be sent out to for public comment
because his guess was they would get quite a bit of dialogue with those
individuals. He knew there were certain
people they wanted to specifically contact and once it was distributed it would
be good for the City Commission to know.
Corliss
said staff was working on a list of people that participated. He asked if the Commission wanted staff to
respond to any of the amendments at this point or should staff keep track of
those amendments and use the document that came back with draft language.
Mayor
Dever said it would be good to add some third party declaration.
Corliss
said the statutes require a feasibility study and a feasibility study for a TIF
said that incremental revenue would be enough to pay for the required public
projects. They took the additional step of asking whether or not the project
would provide a rate of return the marketplace would normally accept, which got
to the but/for question in one way of phrasing it. They could find a way to put it in a
paragraph that put it at that issue because it was an additional question. They could devise a feasibility study that
would show the project would conservatively bring in revenue and bring in that
amount of public improvements to make the project feasible. Another public policy question would be if
the project would be likely to proceed if they did or did not have the
incentive. That was an additional level
they thought was good and needed to find a way to write it in the policy.
Commissioner
Highberger asked if PIRC would have an opportunity to review this at the April
17th meeting.
Corliss
said they could ask that they look at that.
They may not get much of a chance to review it between now and next
week. One of the items that was
important was the fiscal consequences for the school district and
Moved by Hack, seconded by Amyx, to
receive draft policies and solicit public comment for a period of at least 30
days. Motion carried unanimously. (19)
PUBLIC
COMMENT:
There was no public comment.
FUTURE AGENDA
ITEMS:
COMMISSION ITEMS:
Moved by Amyx, seconded by Chestnut, to
adjourn at 9:25 p.m. Motion carried
unanimously.
APPROVED:
_____________________________
Michael Dever,
Mayor
ATTEST:
___________________________________
Frank S. Reeb, City Clerk
1.
Contract Agreement – 2008 Manhole Rehab Program to Mayer Specialty Svc
for $120,000.
2. Payment
Authorization – Pump Station PS49 to Olsson & Assoc for $26,000.
3. Ordinance No. 8255/
4. Ordinance No. 8258 – 1st Read, defer special
assessment for political subdivision.
5. Ordinance No. 8259 – 1st Read, amend Ordinance
No. 6010, defer period for certain special assessments, E Hills Business Park.
6. Ordinance No. 8249 – 2nd Read
and Text Amendment – (TA-12-25-07) Definition of family in RS Districts.
7. Ordinance No. 8253 – 2nd
Read, Oread Redevelopment Project Plan.
8. Ordinance No. 8254 – 2nd
Read, Transportation Development District & levy sales tax.
9. Parking Agreement – Sunflower Broadband
use of City Lot 16, $10 per metered space.
10. Signs of Community Interest – The Church
of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day-Saints, free Community Emergency Preparedness
Fair.
11. Mortgage Release -
12. Temporary Sign - “Resident Parking Only,
Violators will be Towed”, 900 Blk of
13. City Manager’s report
14. 2007 Annual Report from Convention &
Visitors Bureau.
15. Roofing Contractors Licensing.
16. Resolution No. 6762 – GOB for $250,000 and
contract & agreement
17. Federal Legislative Statement.
18. Letter of Support – Lawrence Community
Shelter, federal earmark request.
19. TIF & TDD Polices – draft polices
& public comment.