[E-minutes] June 24, 2003 City Commission meeting minutes
Lisa Patterson
lpatterson@ci.lawrence.ks.us
Mon, 30 Jun 2003 08:15:53 -0500
June 24, 2003
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 Dunfield presiding and members Hack, Highberger, Rundle, and Schauner
present.
With Commission approval Mayor Dunfield proclaimed Saturday, June 28,
2003, as "Disabled American Veterans Forget-Me-Not Day."
As part of the consent agenda, it was moved by Rundle, seconded by
Hack, to approve the City Commission meeting minutes of June 10, 2003 and
June 17, 2003. Motion carried unanimously.
As part of the consent agenda, it was moved by Rundle, seconded by
Hack, to approve the Action Summary from Historic Resources Commission
meeting minutes of May 29, 2003; the Mechanical Board Appeals meeting
minutes of May 23, 2003; the Aviation Advisory Board meeting minutes of May
8, 2003; the Public Library Board meeting minutes of May 19, 2003; the
Sister Cities Advisory Board meeting minutes of May 14, 2003; and, the
Public Health Board meeting minutes of April 21, 2003. Motion carried
unanimously.
As part of the consent agenda, it was moved by Rundle, seconded by
Hack, to approve claims to 375 vendors in the amount of $1,428,430.45.
Motion carried unanimously.
As part of the consent agenda, it was moved by Rundle, seconded by
Hack, to approve the Drinking Establishment Licenses for Red Lyon Tavern,
944 Massachusetts; and Kokoro Japanese Sushi & Steakhouse, 601 Kasold Drive,
No. D-102 & 103. Motion carried unanimously.
As part of the consent agenda, it was moved by Rundle, seconded by
Hack, to approve an additional engineering services agreement with Bartlett
& West Engineers in the total amount of $51,820 for 21st Street and Barker
Avenue Storm Sewer Improvements. Motion carried unanimously.
(1)
As part of the consent agenda, it was moved by Rundle, seconded by
Hack, to approve an extension of Sanitary Sewer Root Control Program
Contract in the amount of $50,027.67. Motion carried unanimously.
(2)
As part of the consent agenda, it was moved by Rundle, seconded by
Hack, to approve and office copier lease agreement with Century United
Companies for the Police Department, five units at an annual cost of
$19,772.29. Motion carried unanimously.
(3)
The City Commission reviewed the bids Oread Center (16th Street and
Research Park Drive), Street, Storm Sewer, and Waterline Improvements for
the Public Works Department. The bids were:
BIDDER BID AMOUNT
Engineer's Estimate $915,385.00
King's Construction $539,156.50
R.D. Johnson Excavating Co. $591,297.80
LRM Industries, Inc. $605,281.30
Razorback Contractors $724,729.60
As part of the consent agenda, it was moved by Rundle, seconded by
Hack, to approve the bid from King's Construction, in the amount of
$539,156.50. Motion carried unanimously.
(4)
Ordinance No. 7656, establishing "no parking" in the 700 block of
Lake Street, was read a second time. As part of the consent agenda, it was
moved by Rundle, seconded by Hack, to adopt the ordinance. Aye: Dunfield,
Hack, Highberger, Rundle, and Schauner. Nay: None. Motion carried
unanimously. (5)
Ordinance No. 7657, establishing a "35 mph speed limit" on 27th
Street between Crossgate Drive and Wakarusa Drive and on Crossgate Drive
between Clinton Parkway and 27th Street, was read a second time. As part of
the consent agenda, it was moved by Rundle, seconded by Hack, to adopt the
ordinance. Aye: Dunfield, Hack, Highberger, Rundle, and Schauner. Nay:
None. Motion carried unanimously. (6)
As part of the consent agenda, it was moved by Rundle, seconded by
Hack, to approve the site plan (SP-05-29-03) for a service center for Farm
Service Agency/Resource District/Natural Resources and Conservation Service,
located at Biltmore Drive and Legends Drive, subject to the following
conditions:
1. Provision of a revised site plan to include the following changes:
a. Submit an exterior lighting photometric plan per Section 20-14A01;
b. Specify the type of landscape grass and ground cover to the east and west
of the building and in the perimeter landscape, per Sections 20-1431(1)(k)
and 20-14A041; and
2. Execution of a site plan performance agreement per Section 20-1433.
Motion carried unanimously.
(7)
As part of the consent agenda, it was moved by Rundle, seconded by
Hack, to approve the site plan (SP-05-31-03) for the addition of three
temporary classroom trailers located at Veritas Christian School, 256 North
Michigan, subject to the following conditions:
1. Execution of a site plan performance agreement per Section 20-1433;
2. Provision of a revised site plan to include the following changes:
a. Removed the internal lot line and revise legal description per the
recordation of the approved Final Plat;
b. Exterior lighting should be provided for the parking lot/drop-off/pick-up
area and for the new classrooms. Provide an exterior lighting photometric
plan, per Section 20-14A01.
c. Show location of bicycle parking per Section 20-1221;
d. Show the landscape ground cover/grass areas per Sections 20-14A04 and
20-1214;
e. Show the proposed trash enclosure height and screening material per
Section 20-14A04.8(a);
f. Show proposed contours in affected areas to the approval of the City
Stormwater Engineer;
g. Provide a silt fence along the tow of fill slope along the proposed
driveway;
3. Provision of a revised site plan to include the following note of the
face of the site plan:
a. Per Ordinance No. 7542, "All traffic control signs placed on private
property open to the general public shall comply with the "Manual on
Uniforms Traffic Control Devices" and "Standard Highway Signs," published by
the Federal Highway Administration, with respect to size, shape, color,
retroreflectivity, and position."
b. Remove notes No. 8 and No. 10;
4. A floodplain development permit and flood elevation certificate for the
three new classroom buildings will need to be provided per Section 20-9A;
and
5. Site plan will not be released for building permit until the approved
Final Plat is filed.
Motion carried unanimously.
(8)
As part of the consent agenda, it was moved by Rundle, seconded by
Hack, to authorize the Administration Services Department to: renew the
City's Building/Property coverage with Traveler's Insurance for $135,985 for
the period July 1, 2003 to July 1, 2004; and bind the package coverage
offered by Volunteer Fireman's Insurance Service for emergency vehicles,
general liability, and management liability for the Fire/Medical Department
for $73,397 for the period of July 1, 2003 to July 1, 2004. Motion carried
unanimously.
(9)
As part of the consent agenda, it was moved by Rundle, seconded by
Hack, to approve a walk-on item and adopt Resolution No. 6476 concerning the
benefit district for Research Park Drive amending the legal description of
Parcel G and including the replatting of Lots 3 and 4. Motion carried
unanimously. (10)
During the City Manager's Report, Mike Wildgen said staff was
proposing to consider both the International Code Council Code and the
National Fire Protection Association Code because the Uniform Codes from
ICBO were not being published and staff would no longer be able to adopt the
next edition of those codes in order to stay up to date in building code
enforcement.
They would proceed with the development of the committee and staff
was inviting a member of the City Commission to participate in the code
review and recommendation process.
Mayor Dunfield said Vice Mayor Rundle had indicated that he would
like to serve on the board that would review building code enforcement.
Wildgen also reported that a comprehensive calendar has been added to
the City's web site which addressed information on scheduled meetings and
meeting details.
(11)
At the request of the applicant, the discussion of the rezoning of
two lots at 1520 Sigma Nu Place from RD, Residential Dormitory zoning to
RM-D, Duplex residential zoning was deferred for one week until after the
Sigma Nu Place site plan was addressed by the City Commission.
(12)
Frank Reeb, Administrative Services Director/City Clerk, presented
the staff report on the City Employee Compensation Study. He said last
October staff set out to begin reviewing the City's employee classification
and compensation system. At that time, staff had a good idea that the this
system in general was working okay, but had a sense that it needed to be
reviewed and updated because it had been since 1995 that the last review of
the compensation and classification program. He said there were also issues
out there if left unaddressed could potentially become larger problems down
the line.
In the last 6 months an employee committee made up of 23 employees
representing every City department from all levels of the organization had
met and provided the consultant with information and feedback on the
information that was given to City staff. He said staff had identified some
hot spots and based on that information, the consultant had made some
recommendations.
The action for the City Commission was to receive the report and if
appropriate, schedule a study session.
Paul Van Dyne, FBD Consultants, said the compensation review of the
City's plans were reviewed to do two things, review the existing
compensation plans and look at recommendations for updating of the current
plans. The specific items that were to be addressed were a look at
developing philosophy's for the organization in terms of compensation,
completing an external market survey, attempting to align compensation
programs with objectives and providing a review with the executive team and
City Commission to present the data. He said they had accomplished those
objectives and a brief overview of key observations from the study.
The first key observation was that in general, the City paid
competitive market rates. If you look at most of the pay grades, they were
in line with market. Secondly, the City's job evaluation plan was
fundamentally sound. Some positions needed to be repositioned from a market
perspective since the last market study was done because the relative
relationships between jobs and the market had changed since then.
The Police Department had some salary compression issues which
existed when the earnings of one level of the organization were
inappropriate placed with respect to the level above it or the level below
it. He said there were a couple of issues to address in the Police
Department.
He said some of the Fire/Medical ranges topped out at too low of a
level. The start rates were competitive however, the top rates were not
particularly competitive in the market for two positions.
Some of the current compensation practices needed to be revised.
There were some practices that had been in place for several years which
were not particularly congruent either with the new objectives or with the
systems that were being used.
Finally, his overall observation for the City of Lawrence was that
the City paid a fair wage to employees. He said there should be a few minor
changes to be recommended.
He said if you look at how compensation of City employees broke out,
seventy-nine percent of all compensation dollars was regular pay for time
worked. Fourteen percent was other pay which included vacation, holiday,
sick leave, emergency leave and disability time. Overtime, including any
double time that was paid was four percent and the skilled based paid
program which provided for employees who had certain additional skills to be
paid over and above their base rate accounted for three percent of the
compensation dollars of the City.
If you look at the five largest departments in order of size which
were the Police, Public Works, Fire/Medical, Utilities, and Parks &
Recreation, those five departments accounted for eighty-five percent of all
of the employees or roughly seven out of eight employees were in those five
departments. Those five departments accounted for ninety-five percent of
all of the overtime, eighty-nine percent of all of the paid leave time, and
ninety-six percent of skilled pay. When you look at those five departments
you were fundamentally seeing the bulk of all of the special programs for
the City. He presented a chart to the City Commission depicting those
percentages of the different departments of the total base pay, overtime,
other pay, and skill pay. He said if you look at the Fire/Medical area you
would see that they provided a significant portion of the City's skill pay
because the differential for the emergency medical personnel was considered
a skilled pay addition. He said when they designed this program they
focused on those areas because it was the bulk of the employees for the
organization.
He said they attempted to look and compare markets around the area
which were Topeka, Wyandotte County, Kansas City, Johnson County
communities, Olathe, Overland Park, Shawnee, and Lenexa. He said they
attempted to validate that those would be comparable cities to Lawrence from
a cost of living standpoint. He said they used Economic Research Institutes
models of cost of living for both renters and homeowners. He said the
renter cost of Lawrence was relatively lower in the group and the homeowner
was relatively higher, but in no case was Lawrence either the highest or
lowest. This validated the use of the particular primary markets and
indicated in general that Lawrence would be in the middle of the cost of
living perspective when compared to those other communities.
He addressed the job evaluation plan. A job evaluation plan was a
plan that was designed to look at each particular position on certain
factors such as education, experience and training. It attempted to give
points for each one of those jobs. He said what they then did to validate
that system was to look at the points that were given and the market rate
for those positions. In essence, it gave them a way to compare how did the
systems that governed the internal pay structure and the job evaluation
plan, related to the overall market and in general the better that the
internal and external market related together, the more sound of a pay
program. He said they used a Pearson's correlation to determine the
relationship. He said in this case, eighty-two percent of the variance or
differences in market pay rates were explained by factors in the job
evaluation system. Twenty percent of the difference in pay rates for the
City was explained by other factors such as tenure with the organization,
performance, level of the individual and other factors. In general, there
was a strong relationship between the internal relationships between
positions in the City and what they found with those positions in the
external market, given the validity or credibility to the organizations pay
program.
In terms of key recommendations, as they developed their compensation
objectives, there were five areas that they made recommendations for. The
first was the market positioning which they talked about where the positions
would be in the market place. There were three recommendations:
1. Review of market data should occur on an annual basis;
2. They encouraged the Lawrence Community to develop its own salary survey
because there was a low level of participation among Lawrence's businesses
in a survey they attempted to conduct of those positions with the City. He
said having that data would be beneficial both to the City as well as the
community; and
3. Recommendations with positioning of salary ranges in the general market.
He said the basis of job value went to the job evaluation system. He
said one comment was that an employee committee should be established to
perform those job evaluations. Historically, they had been performed in the
Personnel and Administration area. He said they recommended that a
committee be formed and that those jobs be revisited tri-annually so that as
jobs change over time, they would take into account of those changes in the
pay program as it existed on an on-going basis.
He said they talked about pay-mix which was base and benefits. He
said the City needed to further clarify some of its skilled based pay
programs and come up with tighter definitions of eligibility. The option
for pay-mix was to investigate opportunities for productivity incentives.
There was a growing trend related to enterprise funds to use productivity
initiatives where employees would share in the value of the productivity
improvements with the users of those services. He said this was growing in
effort around the country, particularly, for enterprise funds and would it
would be worth continuing to investigate. He said there were some cities
that were starting to take it beyond the enterprise funds into general funds
types of productivity initiatives.
The next area they focused on was rewards. One would be
strengthening the performance management process. He did not see any
significant deficiencies in the process, however he believed that some
effort to strengthen that with supervisors would be beneficial for the City.
He said a second idea was to change the way salaries were determined at the
time of promotion and to take more factors into account. He said the length
of service pay programs that existed should continue.
He said the last area was the structure of the pay programs. He said
there were three primary recommendations. He said three distinct pay
programs needed to evolve which was a primary employee program, a program
for police, and a program for fire. Within each of those departments there
were some specific recommendations related to that. He referred the
Commission to those reports for those specific pieces.
In terms of next steps, pay policy and procedures would need to be
developed to implement some of those recommendations. The Job Evaluation
Committee was scheduled to have meeting later in the month of July. The
development of the community salary survey might be appropriately placed on
community agendas at the appropriate time. He said they wanted to further
develop the performance management process and develop implementation
strategies for specific recommendations through the normal budget process.
Typically, the way a compensation study was implemented was not by
and adoption of the study, but by using those recommendations in the
development of budgets that the Commission would then approve to fund the
implementation of those recommendations. He said those recommendations
would further bring the compensation programs in line with the objectives
that were laid out as part of the study.
Mayor Dunfield said there might be a number of items that could stand
a more in depth discussion and study.
Mayor Dunfield called for public comment.
After receiving no public comment, Mayor Dunfield suggested that a
study session would be appropriate.
Vice Mayor Rundle concurred with Mayor Dunfield. He said it would
take time to digest that information.
Commissioner Highberger said there were some things that would be
nice to implement this year, especially the recommendation to raise the
bottom five or six pay grades by five percent.
Vice Mayor Rundle said the cost of those recommendations were listed
and seemed fairly modest.
Van Dyne said they used conservative assumptions to estimate those
cost so that they would be the maximum possible cost, depending upon the
implementation. (13)
Karin Rexroad, Public Transit Administrator, presented the issue of
approval of MV Transportation for transit provider services. She said
federal regulations and protest procedures stated that staff needed to wait
two weeks after the award of a contract to authorize the signing of that
contract with the provider. In that two week period, they did not receive
any protest and the other vendor did not intend to protest.
She said the Commission had requested further clarification and
details about the five year contract. She provided the City Commission with
the FTA regulations and MV provided their exact breakdown of five year
contracts. She said the FTA did not keep any statistics on contracts and
they rarely see contracts unless there was a request for technical
assistance. Getting that information would be a matter of calling every
transit agency.
She provided the section of the RFP outlining what staff wanted for
maintenance and MV Transportation's response. She also provided the City
Commission with information concerning the tri-annual review and the one
issue in regards to maintenance was record keeping. It was recognized that
their records weren't in order and they now have an excellent maintenance
manager. She did quarterly random checks on that preventative maintenance
and assured that it was done.
Another clarification was the road calls. She said to date they had
15,888 miles in between road calls. In 2001 road calls were rough, but that
was when they had new buses and they had warranty issues.
She would work with the data she received on a monthly basis and make
the data in a more workable format in the future.
Another issue was the employee turnover. She said their rate was
high, but they were working on that. Part of that turnover was because of a
new startup and people learning about transit and what was involved. She
said another factor was that MV was currently in negotiations with their
employees to deal with certain issues. She provided comparison data between
the two vendors.
Vice Mayor Rundle asked about the wage and benefit comparison.
Rexroad said that was from the two bidders proposals. She did a
comparison of those two.
Vice Mayor Rundle asked if those were the wages being paid now.
Rexroad said no. Those wages were proposed for the new contract.
Commissioner Highberger asked if the RFP specify in terms of salary
requirements, a minimum.
Rexroad said nine dollars an hour. She said staff tried not to set
too may specifics and left it up to the vendors to make a judgment.
Commissioner Schauner asked what the status of negotiations was
currently with the employees of MV Transportation.
Jon Monson, CEO, MV Transportation, said they were currently in
negotiations with Amalgamated Transit Union and they believed they were
close to finishing up their non-economic matters such as safety and
attendance polices. In the staff report, they proposed, in terms of
economics, a significant increase over the current wage structure in
Lawrence. Given the large percentage of increase, they would be able to get
to an agreement on the economics of the contract once they completed the
non-economic discussions. He said they had many labor contracts across the
US which included many with the Amalgamated Transit Union which was a good
union to work with.
Commissioner Schauner asked how long this bargaining process had been
going on with this union.
Monson said they had been bargaining for approximately five months.
There was an election for the employees that took a period of time to be
certified by the National Labor Relations Board. There was challenge in
getting the bargaining going because the bargaining committee wanted to have
several people on that committee, such that they could not be relieved
during the day because some of the buses would not run due to lack of staff.
He said they had been meeting in the evenings on a regular basis.
Mayor Dunfield called for public comment.
After receiving no public comment, Commissioner Schauner did not have
any particular issues with MV Transportation, but he had a concern about the
length of time for this proposal. His experience was that the longer the
contract, even though there were some ways of getting out of the contract as
matters progressed, he thought it became a difficult. He preferred to see
this contract with a range of three years as the length of the agreement.
Again, he did not have issues with MV Transportation. He would have the
same concerns with any other transportation provider. He suggested to the
Commission to shorten the length of the agreement with MV Transportation.
Commissioner Highberger's preference was that the RFP would have
specified a $9.53 an hour living wage as a minimum driver's salary, but
since that took place before he took office and the current proposal met the
RFP, he was satisfied. He was not concerned about the five year limit
because of the extremely generous termination clause which allowed the City
to get out of the contract.
Vice Mayor Rundle felt comfortable with a three year contract. He
appreciated the progress that had been made with addressing turnover. He
understood that the maintenance information had not been tracked in a way
that the Commission could make some analysis. For an organization that had
a lot of active contracts for transit services, it seemed they would have a
better tracking system. He said with a three year contract, it would give
the Commission a chance to revisit this issue in spite of that generous
guarantee.
Rexroad said the lack of information concerning road calls was not MV
Transportation's issue, but her issue. She did not want that issue to
reflect on MV Transportation. She said that was her fault in not keeping
that information in a manner that would give the City Commission better
information. She wanted to caution the City Commission that if they changed
the term of the agreement, they would probably be setting themselves up for
protest because staff set the RFP out with certain guidelines and to change
them at this stage, they would have some FTA and protest issues.
Vice Mayor Rundle asked Rexroad to elaborate on those issues.
Rexroad said MV Transportation would not be happy because they had
based their contract on five years and they could protest that change. She
said the Commission might want to start the process over, but the RFP was
written in good faith and they would be changing MV Transportation's
parameters midstream.
David Corliss, Assistant City Manager/Legal Services Director, said
before the Commission made a definitive decision to go from five years to
three year, staff needed to talk with the FTA to determine if that was
something they allowed under their rules. He said staff set out the bids
with certain specifications and now it was possible that those
specifications might be changed and it could invite protest or concerns from
the FTA. Staff could explore that suggestion if the Commission desired.
Commissioner Schauner said one of his issues was that MV
Transportation has been in negotiations for five months with its employees.
Those employees, though they were not City employees, were in fact the face
of the City. He suspected that the typical bus rider believed that MV bus
drivers were employees of the City of Lawrence.
He did not have a sense of what morale was like in the system.
However, combining the apparent difficulty in getting an agreement with
Amalgamated and combining that with the provision in the contract where the
City could stop the arrangement with MV. He said from a political
standpoint, actually exercising that option, would be difficult. He said
there would need to be an extraordinary set of circumstances for the
Commission to move forward in that manner. He would rather move more
cautiously and he would like to know the FTA's view of shortening the
proposal. If that issue created a protest opportunity, he would be willing
to revisit that proposal. He said before the City entered into a five year
agreement, the Commission should seriously consider a shorter period of
time, unless there was some reason to believe that it would affect service
to the City or cost of delivery of the service to the City. He said
thirty-five percent of their contracts were less than five years.
Mayor Dunfield concurred with Commissioner Highberger in terms of the
termination clause which gave the City the option of doing whatever they
wanted over the course of the five year contract.
He said as someone who has been on the other side and responded to
RFP's to cities and other private organizations, that to put together a
proposal to go through the process of working through those numbers and
issues and putting the proposal out and having it publicly open, read and
considered, to have those rules change at that point was extraordinarily
unusual and unfair to those who had put the bids together. He thought
either of the bidders would have every reason to be upset with the City
Commission, if not to file a formal protest if the Commission behaved in
that manner.
Vice Mayor Rundle heard Rexroad's caution and it made him think twice
about shortening the contract, but on the other hand, he read between the
lines that perhaps if people would protest, that maybe they would have had
more bidders with a three year contract. In the future, it would be good to
go into this type of RFP in a way that could be ensured to get the maximum
number of bidders. He said a five year contract did not give them a broad
choice of vendors.
Commissioner Schauner asked about the projected life of the City's
rolling stock.
Rexroad said twelve years.
Commissioner Schauner asked if was a practice to replace all of that
rolling stock all at once or part of it.
Rexroad said that was a plan that staff was working on and they would
bring that plan back to the City Commission for discussion. She said staff
needed to look at different avenues for saving money for those buses. She
said staff probably would be looking at a plan of rotating in new vehicles.
Commissioner Schauner asked if there was a connection between an
increase level of maintenance and being able to extend the predicted life of
this rolling stock.
Rexroad said maintenance was critical. She would be looking at some
independent review of the vehicles because it seemed important to the City
Commission. She would be researching the costs and what was involved in
maintenance and would bring that issue back to the City Commission for
discussion.
Commissioner Hack echoed Mayor Dunfield's issue of fairness and
consistency. To change the rules at this point was a difficult pill to
swallow for the Commission. She appreciated the work they did to reduce
turnover because it was critical for the consistent increase use of our
transportation system. If the Commission were able to renegotiate as
necessary, it did not seem it was worth the costs, potential protest, and
delay in time. She supported the contract as it existed.
Commissioner Schauner asked for regular reports from the Public
Transit Office about maintenance review so the Commission could have a
regular update on status of maintenance by MV Transportation and perhaps
independently audited.
Wildgen asked if those reports should be quarterly.
Commission Schauner said semi-annually was appropriate.
Moved by Hack, seconded by Highberger, to approve the contract for
transit provider services with MV Transportation. Aye: Dunfield, Hack,
Highberger, and Rundle. Nay: Schauner. Motion carried
(14)
Vice Mayor Rundle asked that an analysis to whatever benchmarks were
found be included in the report.
Mayor Dunfield suggested that the next two items concerning rezoning
of property on Rockledge Road should be considered together.
Bryan Dyer, Planner, presented the requests to rezone a tract of
land approximately .51 acres from RS-1 (Single-Family Residence District) to
RO-1A (Residence-Office District) which was located at 501 Rockledge Road;
and the rezoning of approximately 1.81 acres from RS-1 (Single-Family
Residence District) to RO-2 (Residence-Office District) which was located at
505 and 515 Rockledge Road. He said this request was a little different in
that it was zoned RS-1 to RO-2 which was residential office. He said RO-2
was less intensive of a zoning classification than RO-1A. The main
difference was that RO-2 only allowed up to duplexes and RO-1A did allow for
the potential for multi-family if density requirements could be met.
Staff provided the Commission with a memo that walked through the
different zoning requests. He said the Commission needed to note that 501
Rockledge Road (Z-12-43-02) was a request that was tabled by the City
Commission at an earlier time. That request also received recommendation
for denial from both Planning Staff and Planning Commission.
Staff had been in discussions with the applicant and staff stated
that a single parcel being rezoned did not fit the purpose of providing any
buffer or transition zones. Staff encouraged the applicant to bring in
additional properties. However, at the time the first request was
considered, there had not been any additional application for additional
properties.
He said the same applicant put in another application for rezoning
(Z-04-09-03) which was for some additional properties. Both Staff and the
Planning Commission felt that with this additional area of property, that
both of those requests were recommended for approval.
He said if the City Commission decided to approve the first request
it would take a super majority to override the Planning Commission's request
which was a 4-1 vote.
Mayor Dunfield called for public comment.
Paul Werner, applicant for both rezonings, said the important part of
this issue was the Planning Commission's vote on the second zoning. He said
the only reason those other two properties were brought in was because of
the recommendation for denial on the first rezoning request. He said it was
obvious that the reason the other rezoning was there was to go along with
the first piece of property, the RO-1A at 501 Rockledge. He asked the City
Commission to consider those rezonings.
Vice Mayor Rundle asked if the City Commission was to deny those
rezonings, would the applicant need to wait a year to bring back a similar
proposal. If the City Commission sent those rezonings back to ask the
Planning Commission to reconsider, they could vote on those rezonings and
send them back to the City Commission.
Sheila Stogsdill, Assistant Planning Director, said the Planning
Commission was meeting tomorrow and if the City Commission desired, the
Planning Commission could reconsider those rezonings.
Mayor Dunfield said the City Commission could send those rezonings
back to the Planning Commission with a simple majority and when it came back
to the City Commission it would again require a simple majority.
Vice Mayor Rundle said those zoning designations were slightly
different. He asked if there were still concerns that the small parcel
could possibly invite multi-family use.
Dyer said the applicant's major concern was that RO-2 had a more
excessive rear setback and RO-1A did not have such large setback. He said
the applicant wanted RO-1A to avoid having to go to the Board of Zoning
Appeals. This area had a large amount of right-of-way and the road itself
was not centered in the right-of-way. Those front yards were excessively
large and there was not much they could do with those front yards because
those property lines weren't that close to the road. He said the intent by
the applicant for RO-1A was simply to avoid overly excessive setbacks in the
rear yard. He said RO-1A allowed the possibility of more intense than a
duplex providing the density requirements were met.
Mayor Dunfield asked if this was a half acre site.
Dyer said yes.
Werner said the RO-1A was picked because of the rear yard setback.
It was a half acre site that was steep and did not have a lot of room. He
said the RO-2 had a thirty foot rear yard setback and killed the property.
The RO-2 was selected to avoid the density issues that come with RO-1B and
RO-1A on the bigger parcels. It was selected to avoid the apartment like
conditions that exist on the other side of Rockledge. Together, they
thought the two zonings work well together.
Commissioner Hack appreciated Werner's explanation of the reason for
the two zonings. The setback issues certainly made sense, particularly
because of that steep grade in the back. She said the conditions of item
number four had been taken away by the addition of the two lots in the
second rezoning request. She said the concerns that were of issue at first,
no longer existed and probably would not result in the same Planning
Commission recommendation. She said those two requests made a lot of sense
and she supported both rezoning requests.
Vice Mayor Rundle asked because of the shape of that lot and size,
was it likely that the recommendation to a BZA hearing would be because of
the unique difficulties? He asked what that site would accommodate.
Dyer said it would be a good argument for a variance on that lot.
The largest issue would be a timing factor. He said in regards to what that
lot could support, he said to put multi-families on that lot would be
greatly constrained by parking requirements. He did not see a possibility
of that being intensely developed.
Commissioner Highberger said 20-1809, Zoning Code, sets up the
criteria for rezoning. He was not sure that either rezonings met those
criteria to his satisfaction. Both of those lots were currently
single-family lots in a borderline single-family neighborhood. He did not
see what would be gained by rezoning and this would have a negative impact
on the surrounding neighborhoods. He voted to deny both requests.
Mayor Dunfield saw those properties differently. He said they did
border single-family, but they also bordered commercial zonings. He said in
fact they face commercial zoning and a street which was arguably not an
appropriate type of street for a single-family driveway to take access to
whereas they do back up onto single-family. He said this was a typical case
of a transitional zoning situation where you go from less density to a more
density as they approach that type of a street situation. He was in favor
of both rezonings.
Commissioner Hack said it was similar what the Commission had said
before in those situations where someone was always on the edge and this
edge, between the single-family and this, was quite a typographical
demarcation with the hillside.
Commissioner Schauner said this issue reminded him of the AGD
discussion about transition or lack of transition. He said there was a
significant difference between this particular request and the AGD request
and that was the general nature of the neighborhood, but he reluctantly
supported the rezoning applications.
Moved by Hack, seconded by Rundle, to approve the request for
rezoning (Z-12-43-02) of approximately .51 from RS-1 (Single-Family
Residence District) to RO-1A (Residence-Office District). The property is
located at 501 Rockledge Road. Aye: Dunfield, Hack, Rundle, and Schauner.
Nay: Highberger. Motion carried. (14)
Moved by Hack, seconded by Dunfield, to concur with the Planning
Commission's recommendations to adopt the findings of fact and approve the
request for rezoning (Z-04-09-03) of approximately 1.81 acres from RS-1
(Single-Family Residence District) to RO-2 (Residence-Office District). The
properties are located at 505 Rockledge Road and 515 Rockledge Road. Aye:
Dunfield, Hack, Rundle, and Schauner. Nay: Highberger. Motion carried.
(15)
Mayor Dunfield requested time to study the Comprehensive Plan
Amendment.
Commissioner Hack concurred with Mayor Dunfield.
Bryan Dyer, Planner, presented the staff report concerning the
amendment of the Comprehensive Plan Amendment (CPA-2003-2). An amendment to
Chapter 6, the Commercial Land Use Chapter of Horizon 2020, updating the
review criteria and establishing new standards for commercial land use
(development and redevelopment) in Lawrence and the unincorporated areas of
Douglas County.
He said this plan took approximately two years of work by the
Comprehensive Plans Subcommittee, a subcommittee of the Planning Commission.
He said there had been opportunities to take comments from both developers
and property owners and other folks had an interest in this plan. The
public comment meeting on this issue was attended by the Downtown Lawrence
folks. He said this was a detailed plan and this was not normal to see in a
Comprehensive Plan. He said the reason for the detail was because there
had always been a concern that the plan was too general and did not provide
enough concrete direction. He said the committee tried to set the box
within which commercial development could occur.
He said this plan was forwarded to the Planning Commission and they
recommended a couple of changes which were included in the copies that were
provided to the City Commission. The Planning Commission then forwarded the
plan with their recommendation for approval.
Kirk McClure, Lawrence, said there was much that was good in that
revised chapter and the details should be retained in a revised version of
Horizon 2020. However, there were some features in this revised chapter
that were prohibitive to those revisions.
He said blight in a growing community was optional and timing was
everything. There was no need to have any significant amount of blighted
commercial space in a growing community like Lawrence. To let that happen
meant we had simply built more space than we needed.
He said concerning timing, it was everything. Right now Horizon
2020, as all community plans, provided for the regulation of height, bulk,
and use. He said we could regulate where we wanted retail space, but only
if we provided a specific mechanism could we regulate the timing of that
space. The last APA report on this subject said in the United States we had
eleven and one-half times the amount of commercial zoning we needed in this
country. Lawrence was no exception. All communities try to anticipate
where they were going to have commercial zoning in the future, but we needed
a mechanism that helped time that commercial growth so that it fit the
growth of the community. He said we provided in Horizon 2020 a mechanism to
help them do just that. He said we wanted to monitor the growth of retail
spending and use that as a mechanism that would guide them and the amount of
retail space we could absorb.
Over the years the Planning Commission was pro-growth, let anything
be built at any time they wanted. He said the Planning Commission tried to
institutionalize this by changing policy 1.7 of the Chapter that provided
for a simple mechanism of monitoring the capacity of the community to absorb
new space by monitoring the demand which was assessed carefully by the
amount of retail taxation.
The revised plan before the City Commission worked on vacancy rates.
He said vacancy rates were a lagging indicator. If vacancy rates go high,
it would show that there was a mistake. It took a long time before being
overbuilt filters through into the system into high vacancy rates. However,
if we monitor retail sales, we could know down to a finite amount of time,
exactly how much space we could absorb. He said it was fiction that we
could believe that we could absorb more space than our retail spending. He
urged the City Commission to go back to the original policy 1.7 which would
regulate the flow of new commercial space and keep it in balance with the
amount of retail spending.
Commissioner Schauner asked McClure, using the vacancy rate as an
indicator, there was a lag giving you more commercial space built then you
could absorb. He asked was there also a lag if he used his model of sales
tax. For instance, if sales tax revenue went up five percent, would there
be a lag between knowing those numbers and the ability to build commercial
space to satisfy that increased demand.
McClure said there was always going to be some time lags. The trick
was to monitor it over time and try to take out the type of fluctuation that
occurred. For example, he said some years ago there was discussion about a
leakage issue meaning to what extent were they seeing a reduction in
commercial spending because Lawrence did not have a home improvement center.
He said Lawrence would have those types of fluctuations and they needed to
be factored in, but that was what Planners were there for.
He said they could get down to almost monthly report necessary, but
he said an annual report would be adequate. He said they could get down to a
fine timeline in terms of seeing the trends in retail spending.
Commissioner Highberger asked if the original policy 1.7 that he had
mentioned was an earlier draft of this proposal.
McClure said that was currently in Horizon 2020, but the Planning
Commission had essentially neglected to implement it.
Commissioner Schauner asked McClure about the statement he made
regarding "neglected to implement." He asked McClure if he meant that the
Planning Commission in their revised commercial land use chapter had failed
to bring it forward into their recommended version of this proposal.
McClure said the Planning Commission had ignored that part of the
policy since 1999. He said a resolution was passed effectively directing
staff to no longer monitor sales tax receipts. Since 1999 they had ignored
that part of the policy and that was how so much space was built, more than
could be absorbed. He said in this proposed chapter, it actually scuttles
that original resolution and brings about a resolution that would not be
effective and it would measure only vacancy rates.
Commissioner Schauner said since 1999 there had been no use of sales
tax numbers and in this amended proposal, it would substitute it for a
vacancy rate monitor.
McClure said that was correct.
Commission Schauner asked if the City had access to those sales tax
numbers on a regular basis.
McClure said only the City staff had access to those numbers. The
developers and consultants could not have those numbers because of
confidentiality rules. Those were numbers Commissioner Schauner needed to
ask for, from City staff.
Vice Mayor Rundle said if you have more sales tax capacity and if you
had vacant land zoned to fill that capacity, did that fulfill the need. He
said you might have capacity that was in undeveloped commercially zoned
land.
McClure said at any given time they were likely to have surplus
capacity in terms of commercially zoned land. He said currently they were
looking at an area plan for 6th and the South Lawrence Trafficway. He said
as soon as it was zoned, it did not mean that at that time they could absorb
the amount of space that land would carry. He said they needed further
indication that the City had that capacity to absorb, even if the land was
zoned, it might be many years before they could absorb the capacity.
Vice Mayor Rundle said if the City had a spike in sales tax because
the economy was at an upturn and someone wanted to rezone land for
commercial development and they already had that access capacity in zoned
land, the City would not necessarily support a new commercial rezoning.
McClure said that was correct. He said right now Lawrence had
surplus space. He said the City had in the order of 450,000 square feet of
retail space. He said it would take a long time to absorb that kind of
surplus.
Vice Mayor Rundle campaigned on a more meaningful application of that
type of analysis. It seemed that some of the other policies if you had that
requirement to a more rigorous meaningful monitoring there were some of
those other polices such as specifying that there was going to be a certain
size commercial center at a given intersection. He said those policies
would not be automatic and you would need to wait until you had that
capacity. He said this related to some of the other policies.
McClure said it was only one of multiple things the Planners should
look at. The phase in the profession was "development queuing." The idea
was that you line up proposals and when you have capacity, you absorb a
proposal and move the other proposals ahead.
Commissioner Hack said the policy in the new chapter 1.7 talked about
the matrix and vacancy rates, but it also indicated "Planning Staff would
provide an annual sales tax per square foot ratio." She asked how that
differentiated from what McClure was saying.
McClure said it had been relegated to an after thought. In fact, the
original policy 1.7 was in fact the way the policy should read. He said
following vacancy rates was likely to be wasted time. A building could be
occupied in office space because it was forced conversion of retail space
and it would not show up as vacant. A building could be vacant, but it was
under lease. He said there were only a small number of commercial brokers
in this town and they would not be anxious to release their data. It would
not be easy for the City to get accurate vacancy data, but in fact the City,
and only the City, was in possession of the information that all the
developers would like to see and that was to know how much spending was
going on, in what stores, and in what locations. He said that was what
really drove the retail market. More stores did not make more spending.
The amount of spending was out there. Either we fit the market to that
amount of spending or we would fall into the situation we were in now.
Commissioner Schauner asked if the Planning Commission would be
required, if they were to go back to the original policy 1.7, to give
deference to those numbers as a condition of approving commercial buildings
in otherwise appropriately zoned parts of town.
McClure said that was correct, but there was no flat rule. For
example, we all know that we would continue to have subdivisions and we
would continue to build neighborhood centers to support those new
subdivisions, so we might be over built in the community as a whole, but it
might be the Planning Commission's recommendation that we go ahead and build
a neighborhood center because there were now sufficient roof tops to support
that neighborhood center. In another circumstance, we might not, we might
simply appear to be adequate, but the proposal before the community would
have detrimental effect on other existing shopping centers, so it was a
guiding point.
He said we needed to ration out that amount of space to fit the
growth and we needed to monitor that on an on-going basis.
Commissioner Schauner asked what were the objective rules used by a
Planning Commission in rationing square footage allocation.
McClure said if the trend in retail spending said we could absorb
three percent more space in a given period of time, that three percent
translated into 160,000 square feet. He said what they then tried to do was
to say, to what extent we could do that. Multiple development proposals
were likely be before the community at any given time. If you approve a
quarter of a million square feet at 6th and the SLT, you know your consuming
all of this year's and well into next year's amount of space. Equally, if
you say were going to have this neighborhood center, even though already
over built, you know effectively that you were borrowing against our own
future. He said we needed to keep our total amount of space in concert with
the amount of spending.
Commissioner Schauner asked if it was a race to the Planning
Commission to see who gets to build the allocated space, based on some sales
tax projection.
McClure said that was why we try to have area plans so we could have
a sense of what was in the offing.
Jeanne Klein, speaking on behalf of the Lawrence Association of
Neighborhoods, wished to express LAN's concerns about two of the items in
the proposed revision to Chapter 6 of the Comprehensive Plan. LAN believed
it was imperative that our Comprehensive Plan continued to protect Downtown
as the Regional Commercial Center for Lawrence. Proposed designation for
community commercial CC500 centers would create new commercial centers that
would function on a regional, not a community scale and compete directly
with Downtown Lawrence.
Lawrence was already allowed a commercial center of regional scale to
be developed along South Iowa street by our inability to follow the
guidelines set out in our Comprehensive Plan. She said it was clear from
the Commercial Land Use Map that, should we now allow community commercial
CC500 centers, the same fate was in store for West 6th Street, with the
placement of two such commercial centers within a mile of each other.
She said our Downtown had suffered considerably from competition
located on South Iowa. It seemed likely that creation of yet another
defacto regional commercial center would kill it outright. Equally alarming
was the proposal to allow individual retail outlets within those community
commercial centers to occupy up to one-seventy five thousand square feet of
space. Community commercial centers should serve adjacent neighborhoods.
It was not true that they now required enough space to accommodate "big box"
stores, nor was it necessarily true that they needed that much space in the
future.
Lawrence had an enviable history of rejecting the prevalent views on
and passing fads in commercial development. As we consider whether or not
we would allow more "big box" development to occur, we should remember our
wise decision to prevent a cornfield mall from coming to town.
She said LAN's second concern was that the original intent of Horizon
2020, policy 1.7, had been subverted by the mere requirement that Planning
Staff track amount and condition of vacant commercial space as suggested in
the proposed revision. Such a method would succeed only informing us that
Lawrence's lease commercial space already exceeded demand and would
inevitably lead to increased vacancies and blight in commercial districts
throughout the City. Rather than allowing this to occur, they urged the
City to adopt a pro-active method of monitoring commercial growth, one that
would inform staff of the actual need for additional commercial space. One
such method employed successfully in Lawrence during the mid 1990's examined
retail spending per square foot of retail space. Returning to the use of
this technique would allow Planning Staff as well as future Planning and
City Commissions an accurate and timely assessment of how much additional
commercial space we reasonably expected to support ensuring that new growth
did not come at the expense of existing commercial space. On behalf of LAN,
she urged the City Commission to return the proposed revision to the
Planning Commission with instruction to revise the plan.
Elizabeth Banks, League of Women's Voters, said their concerns had
been addressed at this meeting. She said they had written a letter to the
Planning Commission of their concerns and they were not addressed.
One of their concerns was the change in designation of Downtown
Lawrence from primary regional commercial center to regional commercial
center. She said they thought that was premature and not well thought out.
If you were going to change the designation of what the Downtown commercial
center was, there should be a reconsideration of the Downtown plan.
She said they also objected to the creation of community commercial
center CC500 centers because you get into the "big box" development and if
you go with this concept, you would be creating defacto regional commercial
centers at nodes that were designed to serve adjacent neighborhoods which
would be come a South Iowa situation. There should be no zoning for
community commercial designation along the peripheral of the Urban Growth
Area. Those commercial centers should be planned for undeveloped in
locations central to the neighborhood they were intended to serve. If you
put them all around the peripheral, that would encourage growth out beyond
them and their purposes would not be served. She said no community
commercial centers should be planned for intersections whose construction
was still in doubt.
She said policy 1.7 proposed in the plan was not appropriate and was
not in the best interest of the community.
Gwen Klingenberg, Lawrence, said, the new amendments to the
commercial land use chapter had a lot of wonderful additions which were
prohibiting direct traffic from commercial to residential, discouraging
non-residential traffic, considerations for a reasonable safe method for
pedestrians across major intersections, and the change to adding the
downgrade of the recommended size, and reviewing the effects on the
neighborhoods.
However, the commercial center square footages in this revised
document were too large. A CC200 at 6th and Wakarusa was a more acceptable
size considering the direct access to residential areas from the commercial
center and non-residential traffic goes up as large regional type stores
moved in. The CC200, if that large, should be the acceptable size and
should not allow added square feet. The 380,000 square feet proposed at 6th
and Wakarusa has been shown with figures from KDOT to be too big for this
intersection.
If thoe two commercial centers at 6th and Wakarusa and 6th and the
SLT were accepted, we were looking at 880,000 square feet within one mile
and all of the 880,000 square feet would affect one neighborhood. Thoe were
regional center numbers within this one mile. As was pointed out in March,
the traffic would be looking for short-cuts through this neighborhood from
those two commercial centers. The Wakarusa Place Traffic Study on September
24, 2001 was done by KDOT. In that study it read: "It is observed, however,
that the potential for generated traffic is much higher to the south of the
intersection than to the north because the majority of the Lawrence
Metropolitan areas exist to the South of 6th street. Thus, the assumption
of greater demand on the south side of the intersection than on the north
seems reasonable." It also read: "It is likely that, even if traffic
projections and assignments in this study prove somewhat conservative, the
intersection will experience significant operational challenges under future
developed conditions if arterial flow is not preserved." Since those two
commercial centers were adjacent to one neighborhood the previous
assumptions for 6th and Wakarusa could be applied to the whole mile from SLT
to Wakarusa. The 880,000 square feet of commercial business in one mile
would decimate the arterial flow on 6th street. At the May Planning
Commission meeting Commissioner Schachter said the point of the
Comprehensive Plan was to regulate how the City wanted to grow and develop,
not to make the City fit for what developers wanted to build there.
Commissioner Haase said his independent studies had shown that the national
trend was headed away from the crowded, large scale shopping experience. He
believed 300-350 thousand square feet was more realistic based on our per
capita and population growth estimates instead of a CC500.
She said in the Comprehensive Plan it read: "Pedestrian access shall
be designed to provide internal and external circulation from adjacent
neighborhoods. 880,000 square feet of commercial traffic added to 6th
street will make crossing 6th to get to the High School or any function
there, not be a reasonable safe method for pedestrians across major
intersections." She said a lot of kids going to Free State next year would
be walking, bike riding or driving through the intersection at least twice a
day. A commercial center of only 200,000 square feet or less at 6th and
Wakarusa and 300,000 square feet at 6th and the SLT would be safer and
conform to all the wonderful additions that were provided in this plan. The
city had the obligation to change zoning classifications, before further
commercial development progresses, particularly when the surrounding
demographics of the area in question were in place, in order to protect the
surrounding neighborhoods. With this in mind, she believed that the added
wording for 6th and Wakarusa for the additional square feet over 200,000
square feet be removed from this plan.
Alan Cowles, Lawrence, said there were five stipulations that needed
to take place:
1. There should be a reduction from CC500 to CC350;
2. Stipulate in a CC350 only one store could exceed 80,000 square feet in
size and this should be limited to 175,000 square feet maximum;
3. Reduce the size limit on neighborhood commercial centers from 120,000
square feet to 100,000 square feet;
4. Limit the size of development at 6th and Wakarusa to existing space;
5. Fully implement the monitoring of commercial growth (Policy 1.7).
Greg Divilbiss, Lawrence, said it was determined through the study
of Horizon 2020 that the 6th and Wakarusa intersection had 450,000 square
feet applicable at that point. He was in favor of a revision to Horizon
2020, but there were concerns regarding the 6th and Wakarusa intersection.
His primary concern was for other property owners who fully anticipated,
based on Horizon 2020's original planning, that they would have a reasonable
expectation to be able to build commercial at that site. The neighborhoods
that were built in the area were developed after Horizon 2020 was
implemented. He said the school district realized that there was going to
be 450,000 square feet of retail, so the Commission needed to be careful
when expectations were created for developers and residential property
owners. He asked the Commission to make changes with care and consideration
and allow the neighbors and commercial property owners to be involved this
process.
Melinda Henderson, Lawrence, said policy 1.7 needed additional work.
She was concerned about downtown losing its primary regional center
designation. Those issues that LAN and League of Women's Voters addressed
regarding CC500 and the 850,000 square feet in a mile was a big eye opener.
In the Planning Commission meeting minutes there was a lot of
discussion about revision of the CC500 down to CC350 or CC400, but none of
those motions passed. She said County Commissioner Durflinger said allowing
up to 500,000 square feet would eliminate the need for extensive debate over
when and how much more space to allow when new projects requested larger
space, for example, 6th and Wakarusa and Home Depot. She said Durflinger
felt that those types of debates were time consuming and destructive. She
found that to be the most ridiculous reason to change a designation in the
Comprehensive Plan, to avoid extensive debate that some people felt was time
consuming and potentially destructive. She said there would not have been a
lot of debate, had they followed the Comprehensive Plan and not made the
assumption that because a community commercial center could go up to 450,000
square feet that it would or should. She said that was the big concern with
creating a CC500. She encouraged the City Commission to think long and hard
about how we should deal with community commercial centers.
Mayor Dunfield asked if the Commissioners would like to set a study
session date under the Calendar Items.
Commissioner Highberger said the study session would be appropriate.
Commissioner Hack agreed. She said there was a lot of information
to digest.
Commissioner Schauner said a study session would be in order because
this was one of the most important issues that the Commission would address
regarding the City's future development. He said the downtown area has been
designated the City's primary shopping center. He said the reality of it
was, during the past 20 years, downtown has lost 50% of the retail
establishments. That trend was a concern. He would like to know during
the study session, what the likely impact of CC500, CC350, CC400, would be
upon the primary downtown shopping area. It was appropriate to schedule a
study session.
Vice Mayor Rundle asked if there was a way to structure the study
session so that it was not a rehash and how could the solicit input from
Commissioners.
Mayor Dunfield said a series of issues had been heard and repeated.
He would like the study session to focus on those items of difference and
conflict rather than issues that people seemed to general agree on.
Dyer made a clarification regarding current policy 1.7. He said
policy 1.7 was specific in that it said, the City would "monitor" growth,
and it did not say "how" it would monitor growth.
Commissioner Hack would appreciate knowing some information
regarding what alternatives were available as well as what other communities
do. (16)
Mayor Dunfield explained that the adoption of the City Commission's
Goals was on the Regular Agenda as a result of a goal setting session the
City Commission held and they discussed essential elements.
Mayor Dunfield called for public comment.
After hearing no public comment, it was moved by Schauner, seconded
by Hack, to adopt the City Commission goals. Motion carried unanimously.
(17)
During the Public Comment portion of the City Commission meeting,
there was no public comment.
During the Commission Items portion of the City Commission meeting,
Vice Mayor Rundle requested that the City Commission reconsider the transit
services contract provided by MV Transportation so that he could vote in
opposition to the contact. He wanted to send a strong signal to MV
Transportation to deliver as much as they pledged to deliver.
Moved by Rundle, seconded by Schauner, to reconsider the transit
services contract with MV Transportation. Motion carried unanimously.
Moved by Highberger, seconded by Hack, to approve the contact for
transit services with MV Transportation. Aye: Dunfield, Hack, and
Highberger. Nay: Rundle and Schauner. Motion carried.
(18)
Commissioner Schauner raised the issue that there would soon be
Commission discussion concerning Sunday sales of alcohol. He asked if the
Commission were to approve a Charter Ordinance permitting Sunday liquor
sales, if it would not permit cereal malt beverage sales in other non liquor
establishments.
Corliss said that is correct.
Commissioner Schauner asked if it was possible to consider a Charter
Ordinance permitting the sale of cereal malt beverages in grocery stores and
gas stations.
Corliss said when looking at the statutes, the statutes that
regulated cereal malt beverages were uniform. He said that was also the
opinion of the attorneys at the League of Municipalities and other
attorneys. He did not believe that the statute that prohibited CMB
retailers from selling on Sunday was non-uniform, therefore it was not
subject to a Charter Ordinance. He said given the lack of direction, he
had not pursued that issue.
Mayor Dunfield said additional research on that item would be in
order for the discussion next week.
Corliss would provide information at that time.
Vice Mayor Rundle asked who could contest the passing of that type
of Charter Ordinance.
Corliss said it could be the State Attorney General. The State
Attorney General currently had an appeal pending regarding the Wyandotte,
KCK Ordinance that allowed for Sunday sales. He said some communities, in
addition to addressing the Sunday sales issue, were also addressing Holiday
sales. (18)
Commissioner Hack addressed the decision about the school funding
because she did not attend that City Commission meeting. She appreciated
staff and the Commission for seriously considering that funding. She
thought it was good to bring this suggestion to the table for discussion,
but not at the expense of our City employees. She thought it was a
community responsibility and she appreciated the dialogue being opened.
Moved by Rundle, seconded by Hack, to adjourn at 8:40 p.m.
Motion carried unanimously.
APPROVED:
_____________________________
David M Dunfield, Mayor
ATTEST:
___________________________________
Frank S. Reeb, City Clerk
CITY COMMISSION MEETING MINUTES - JUNE 24, 2003
1. Agreement - Engineering Services with Bartlett & West Engineers for
$51,820 for 21st & Barker Storm Sewer.
2. Contract Extension - Sanitary Sewer Root Control Program for $50,027.67.
3. Lease Agreement - Office Copier for Police Dept. from Century United for
$19,772.29.
4. Bid - Oread Center (16th & Research Park) improvements to King's
Construction for $539,156.50.
5. Ordinance No. 7656 - 2nd Reading, "no parking" 700 blk of Lake St.
6. Ordinance No. 7657 - 2nd Reading, "35 mph speed limit" between Crossgate
& Wakarusa and on Crossgate between Clinton Pkwy & 27th.
7. Site Plan - (SP-05-29-03) service center for Farm Service Agency,
Biltmore & Legends Dr.
8. Site Plan - (SP-05-31-03) 3 temporary classroom trailers, Veritas
Christian School, 256 N Mich.
9. Insurance - City's Bldg/Property coverage with Traveler's Insurance for
$135,985 for July 1, 2003 to July 1, 2004.
10. Benefit District - Amendment to legal description for Research Park Dr.
11. City Manager's Report.
12. Rezone - 2 lots at 1520 Sigma Nu Pl, from RD to RM-D.
13. City Employee Compensation Study.
14. Transit provider services - MV Transportation.
15. Rezone (Z-12-43-02) .51 acres, RS-1 to RO-1A. 5-1 Rockledge.
16. Rezone (Z-04-09-03) 1.81 acres, RS-1 to RO-2, 505 & 545 Rockledge.
17. Comprehensive Plan Amendment (CPA-2003-2), update review criteria &
establish new standards for commercial land use.
18. Transit Services - MV Transportation, change in vote.
19. Sunday Liquor Sales.
June 24, 2003
City Commission Minutes
Page 37
_____________________________
Lisa K. Patterson
Communications Coordinator
City of Lawrence
PO Box 708
Lawrence, KS 66044
(785) 832-3406
fax (785) 832-3405
lpatterson@ci.lawrence.ks.us
http://www.lawrenceks.org