November 30, 2004
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 Rundle presiding and members, Dunfield, Hack, Highberger and present. Commissioner Schauner was absent. Student Commissioner Justin Isbell was present.
RECOGNITION/PROCLAMATION/PRESENTATION: None
CONSENT AGENDA
As part of the consent agenda, it was moved by Hack, seconded by Dunfield, Highberger to approve the Traffic Safety Commission meeting minutes of November 8, 2004. Motion carried unanimously.
As part of the consent agenda, it was moved by Hack, seconded by Dunfield, to approve claims to 272 vendors in the amount of $1,123,256.73; payroll from November 14, 2004 to November 27, 2004 in the amount of $1,452,075.66; and longevity payments in the amount of $333,903.96. Motion carried unanimously.
As part of the consent agenda, it was moved by Hack, seconded by Dunfield, to approve the Drinking Establishment Licenses for the Yacht Club, 530 Wisconsin; and Quinton’s Bar & Deli, 615 Massachusetts. Motion carried unanimously.
As part of the consent agenda, it was moved by Hack, seconded by Dunfield, to set a bid date of December 14, 2004 for the pavement reconstruction of the alley, 8th to 9th Streets, Vermont to Kentucky Streets. Motion carried unanimously. (1)
As part of the consent agenda, it was moved by Hack, seconded by Dunfield, to approve adding Federal grant procedures to the present purchasing policy. Motion carried unanimously. (2)
The City Commission reviewed the bid for ITC Mechanical Renovations, Phase 3 for the Police Department. The bid was:
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VENDOR |
TOTAL BID |
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Huxtable L.T. Services Inc.
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$29,780 |
As part of the consent agenda, it was moved by Hack, seconded by Dunfield, to approve the sole bid to Huxtable L.T. Services Inc., in the amount of $29,780. Motion carried unanimously. (3)
As part of the consent agenda, it was moved by Hack, seconded by Dunfield, to place on first reading, Ordinance No. 7847, establishing “no parking” along the south side of Kresge Road along the entire frontage of 601 North Iowa Street. Motion carried unanimously. (4)
Ordinance No. 7845, authorizing the condemnation of property interests (Wright tract) for the improvement of Folks Road, was read a second time. As part of the consent agenda, it was moved by Hack, seconded by Dunfield, to adopt the ordinance. Aye: Dunfield, Hack, Highberger, and Rundle. Nay: None. Motion carried unanimously. (5)
As part of the consent agenda it was moved by Hack, seconded by Dunfield, to approve a Temporary Use Permit Upon Review (TUPR-11-37-04) to permit temporary overflow parking at St. Margaret’s Episcopal Church, 5700 West 6th Street. The applicant proposes to pave the first lift of an approve parking lot expansion to provide an additional parking area while the West 6th Street Improvement Project and the next phase of the church expansion are under construction, subject to the following conditions:
1 Provision of a revised site plan to show the specific parking lot layout/striping for the temporary pavement surface and placement of perimeter bumper blocks;
2. Notation on the plan that this temporary parking area/staging area is permitted through December 2005; and
3. Execution of a site plan performance agreement.
Motion carried unanimously. (6)
As part of the consent agenda, it was moved by Hack, seconded by Dunfield, to concur with the Traffic Safety Commission’s recommendation to establish “no parking” along the south side of Kresge Road along the entire frontage of 601 North Iowa Street and direct staff to prepare the appropriate ordinance. Motion carried unanimously. (7)
As part of the consent agenda, it was moved by Hack, seconded by Dunfield, to concur with the Traffic Safety Commission’s recommendation to establish “yield” signs on 29th Street at Kensington Drive. Motion carried unanimously. (8)
As part of the consent agenda, it was moved by Hack, seconded by Dunfield, to concur with the Traffic Safety Commission’s recommendation to deny “no parking” along one side of Morning Dove Circle, Eagle Pass Drive, Field Stone Drive, Gunnison Drive and Hill Song Circle. Motion carried unanimously. (9)
As part of the consent agenda, it was moved by Hack, seconded by Dunfield, to establish “reserved parking for persons’ with disabilities” space in front of 1505 Vermont Street. Motion carried unanimously. (10)
As part of the consent agenda, it was moved by Hack, seconded by Dunfield, to authorize the Mayor to sign a Release of Mortgage for B. Gordon Fitzsimmons, 812 Indiana Street. Motion carried unanimously. (11)
The appointments recommended by the Mayor were pulled from the consent agenda for separate discussion.
Jere McElhaney, Douglas County Commissioner, said he had spoken with 45-55 people regarding the Mayor’s nomination of Dr. Marguerite Ermeling to the Planning Commission. There was a concern about Planning Commissioner Haase’s contribution of $2,000 to Dr. Ermeling’s campaign in running for County Commissioner in the 3rd District. He said he was happy that Haase and Ermeling had become involved in the political process in Douglas County, but there was an appearance that might not be ethical. He said the issue regarding the contribution from Haase to Dr. Ermeling should have been brought up.
He said a survey that he had seen indicated that the Planning Commission was not receiving a high grading. There was a great consensus concerning the level of services and respect from the Planning Commission.
He said his job as a Commissioner was to ensure boards and operations run smoothly and also that the citizens of this community had faith and confidence in the City’s and County Commission’s decisions. He said the City and County Commissions should make sure there was no clear evidence of impropriety or misgivings when appointing members to boards and commissions and suggested that the process be reviewed.
Mayor Rundle said some of the public might have that opinion of the Planning Commission, but there were other people who thought the Planning Commission was working very hard in studying various issues.
McElhaney said he thought there had been some disrespect from the Planning Commission and it was the City and County Commissioners’ job, as elected officials, to make sure the public was served well.
Mayor Rundle said the City Commission always welcomed the opportunity to discuss issues with colleagues on the County Commission. He called for public comment.
Marion Lynn, Lawrence business owner, said the appointment of Dr. Marguerite Ermeling to the Planning Commission would serve only to further politicize that body and ensure that it became a political battleground rather than the productive and effective body that it should be. One that would represent the overall interests of the community in a fair and balanced manner. He said he further believed that this proposed appointment typified the worst of political cronyism and that the appointment of Dr. Ermeling would be inconsistent with the clearly expressed wishes of the voters in Douglas County and was a mere subterfuge to usurp control of the Planning Commission by a well funded, well organized, and single minded self interest group and such an appointment would be detrimental to the community as a whole, its standards, and ethics
Grant Eichhorn, member of Planning Commission, said in discussing this matter with other people concerning the newspaper article, one clear common thread came out which was a minimum threshold of requirements that would come forward. He said should something be necessary in that event it should certainly always be broadly based, but as part of the “broken board”, which was debatable by many different factions, it did seem that they had a broad based group.
He said he did not know Dr. Ermeling and she might have great ideas, but the common idea was minimum threshold requirements or some type of background in the planning process or working with the City somehow.
Mayor Rundle asked if Eichhorn would be more specific when he mentioned planning background or working with the City. He also asked about minimum threshold or background requirements for appointments.
Eichhorn said the requirements were certainly broad based. He said even someone with a banking background would have the ability to look at a project when working with a client, be presented with the ideas of a project, and place a cost basis to that project. He said that banking person would have a reasonable standing in the planning process from that front.
Also, a builder might have standing because they would be working with the City to meet the City’s requirements. Again, very broad based, but essentially something that had to do with planning.
Mayor Rundle asked if there was any chance that some of the City Commissioners might not meet those minimum thresholds.
Eichhorn said he would leave that question to the Mayor’s wisdom to come up with whatever broadly based needs that were necessary.
Jeannette Funk, Dr. Ermeling’s neighbor, said she was thankful that Ermeling had been extended this opportunity. She said Ermeling was a concerned citizen, a business owner, and has offered to serve this community. She said Ermeling was a professional, intelligent, and well versed on issues of this City and County and would not make decisions based on emotion.
She said Ermeling was a veterinarian and had a practice that required analytical decision making. Ermeling also had balanced many things when working with clients such as their emotions, financial needs, and the needs of the animal care. Funk said Ermeling had many talents and she hoped the City Commission would take that into consideration.
Alan Cowles, West Lawrence Neighborhood Association, encouraged the City Commission to endorse the Mayor’s nomination of Marguerite Ermeling for the Planning Commission. He said Ermeling had an interest in long-term planning for the community, she was intelligent, had studied issues, and would represent the community as a whole. He said people of this caliber were hard to find.
Mayor Rundle said the Planning Commission was not an elected office, but appointed positions. He hoped the actual election would have a more gracious winner. He said this was a political appointment and he did not think that politics was a dirty word. The Mayor changed every year in the Lawrence City Commission and there were some different Mayors who had the privilege of putting names forward for the City Commission to vote on. The County Commission could change every year as well. Those 5 appointments from the County could come from a different constituency. He said whoever served as Mayor was serving because they had received the most votes. He said the people who elect the City Commission expect them to reflect the citizens concerns and values.
He said it was interesting when people talked about trying to be broad based and more concerned about how they worked together that was at the heart of his basis for appointing Ermeling. He said he spoke to Ermeling after the campaign and Ermeling indicated that as she walked in the rural parts of her district and in the community of Lecompton, she found that Lawrence was not well thought of in terms of how they managed growth and impact on the rural areas and small communities. He said Ermeling did well in her election in those areas and he felt this was a gesture to those constituencies to have someone from that area. He said it also had a context of the current work that the Planning, City, and County Commissioners were all about. He said there were some rural development regulations that were going to have a positive impact on all the areas involved. He said he thought there was something in it for the rural water districts. The tax payers in the City would benefit the rural areas and those smaller towns would have something to gain. He said there were problems in the County from the way it had been developed over the last 20 or 30 years. This was not going to fix those problems, but it was going to, in small increments, ensure that the community was growing in a more healthy manner. He said it was his hope that Ermeling would be part of that cooperation and collaboration that was essential as residents all grow in Douglas County.
Vice Mayor Highberger said he was surprised about this discussion. He said he could not imagine going to the County Commission and trying to talk the Chair of the County Commissioners out of an appointment made during his term. He said McElhaney made allegations of ethical impropriety. He said it was his understanding that the Planning Commission members were subject to the Standards of the Governmental Ethics Commission. He said if McElhaney thought there was an ethical violation; McElhaney could report that violation to the State of Kansas Governmental Ethics Commission. He said it might not be a bad idea to talk about higher standards for everyone. He said he did not think there was any basis for allegation of ethical impropriety.
He said appointment power was one of the very few powers that the Mayor had different from a Commissioner or that the Chair of the County Commission had for a regular Commissioner. He said he was surprised that this was being challenged. He said the Mayor’s reasoning seemed sound.
He said he did not know Dr. Ermeling well, but from what he knew, she had worked hard. He said by the end of a political campaign a person running for office would know the issues as well as anyone. He suspected that Dr. Ermeling would perform well.
Commissioner Hack said she was not centering her comments on the qualifications of Dr. Ermeling as a Planning Commissioner. She said she had great admiration for Dr. Ermeling, her willingness to take on that job, and spend an incredible amount of time that it took to be a Planning Commissioner. Dr. Ermeling’s record would be judged by her votes and everyone that followed the Planning Commission would decide how they felt about what Dr. Ermeling felt about particular issues.
She did not feel that there should be a discussion about the Mayor’s appointment prerogative.
She said she would like this issue to be evolved into a broader conversation of their relationship with the County. She said the City Commission had worked hard to bring the City, County, and School District together and hoped that could be extended to the University of Kansas and Haskell Indian Nations University. She said this could be an opportunity to look at an important function in the community which was the Planning Commission and look how the Commissions wanted it to function and operate. The Planning Commission had many masters and the City was always throwing issues back to the Planning Commission along with other items on the Planning Commission agenda. She said perhaps it was time to continue to work on that bond with the County and use this as the impetus to do that. She would like to be proactive and work toward some positive result.
Commissioner Dunfield said if this conversation led to how they could better coordinate between the County and the City in the formation of those boards, this conversation could have a positive outcome. Making an appointment to the Planning Commission was one of the most difficult issues that a Mayor had to do. He said the City Commission was asking people to donate a tremendous amount of time to put themselves in a position where they would be criticized no matter what they do and they would be involved in intense, emotional, and difficult debates over many issues. He said when they asked someone to take on that role, the City Commission was asking a lot of those people. He said when a person such as Dr. Ermeling stepped forward and agreed to the nomination, and from what he knew about her background and saw of her work during the recent campaign, she was a person not only capable intellectually of understanding the Planning Commission issues, but also capable emotionally of holding up under the stress that she would feel during her three years on the Planning Commission.
He said frankly, he heard nothing from anyone that suggested that Dr. Ermeling would be anything less than a stellar Planning Commissioner and for that reason, he move that the City Commission accept the Mayors appointments.
As part of the consent agenda, it was moved by Dunfield, seconded by Highberger, to concur with the recommendation of the Mayor and appoint Becky McClure, to the Bicycle Advisory Committee to a term which will expire December 31, 2007; reappoint Richard Heckler and William Jeltz, to additional terms which will expire December 31, 2007; reappoint Barbara Carswell, Mark Gonzales, and Paul Davis to additional terms which will expire December 31, 2004 and also appoint Ernie Eck which will expire December 31, 2004, Eck will be appointed to a first full term which will expire December 31, 2007; appoint Marguerite Ermeling to the Lawrence-Douglas County Metropolitan Planning Commission which will expire May 31, 2006; appoint Blake Huff and Richard Heckler to the Public Transit Advisory Committee which both terms will expire December 31, 2004, Huff and Hecker will be appointed to their first full terms which will expire December 31, 2007; appoint John Craft to the Recycling and Resources Conservation Advisory Board which will expire December 31, 2004, Craft will be appointed to a first full term that will expire December 31, 2007; and reappoint Graham Kreicker, Jon Josserand, Karen Swisher, Kathleen Hodge, and Nancy Bjorge, to additional terms which will expire December 31, 2007. Motion carried unanimously.
(12)
Maria Martin, Downtown Lawrence Inc., asked that the UPR (UPR-01-01-03) for a five-year extension to operate the Lawrence Open Shelter at 944 Kentucky Street be pulled from the consent agenda for separate discussion.
Sheila Stogsdill, Assistant Director, Planning Department, said there had been a request to extend the UPR for the Lawrence Open Shelter and to expand the occupancy into another portion of that building should that space become available to the organization.
She said the City Commission had previously permitted a one year approval for the Lawrence Open Shelter and that was based on the one year being a year from the occupancy permit being granted for that facility. There were some substantial fire safety improvements that had to be made to the space before occupancy was granted and that occupancy occurred last December. She said this was now up to that 12 month approval time and staff had recommended that the City Commission grant a 5 year extension to the UPR. She said the 5 year extension had been a fairly standard time period for both City and County special use permits and they had several individuals express some concern about the 5 years and asked that it only be a 1 year permit. She said from staff’s prospective the development code that existed today and the proposed development code provided assurance and the opportunity to review a special use permit at any point in time. The City Commission, Planning Commission, or staff could initiate that review and provide the opportunity to monitor that permit throughout the life of the permit. She said staff believed that a 5 year permit would provide the organization with a longer horizon in terms of making their organizational planning decisions and choices.
She said the City Commission had before them a recommendation to approve the extension for 5 years and to approve the potential expansion and that expansion would be contingent upon inspection by Fire/Medical and Neighborhood Resources Department for any improvements that were required before occupancy could take place.
Maria Martin, Downtown Lawrence Inc., said the City had continued to make investments in the Downtown area in order to preserve it as the center of this City’s community, protect its historic significance, and its social and economic vitality. The City’s investments and commitment to the business owners was worth protecting and could be in jeopardy if they did not fully address what could help the homeless population.
Downtown Lawrence supported a comprehensive plan that utilized social services and community service providers that would help achieve independent living. She said they would want the City to address this problem so that assistance and services could be offered to those individuals. If a comprehensive plan was developed and executed with everyone’s cooperation then it would become a win/win situation for everyone.
She said DLI was requesting the deferral of this decision for the 5 year extension of the Lawrence Open Shelter until the results of the Mayor’s Task Force on Homeless Services were at least heard by the stakeholders and that the public had an opportunity to hear what this committee had spent the last 16 to 18 months working on. She said it was important that this issue be heard and understood by the community before a decision was made on a 5 year extension. She said at the same time, the Community Drop-In Center was loosing its Director and the new Director should have some input on this issue.
Peter Zacharias, downtown property owner, requested more input on this issue. The problem had gotten much worse the last year and he would like some better solution other than permanently enabling the homeless to live on the streets of downtown.
He said downtown paid a significant amount of property taxes and it would be nice if the downtown merchants received help to keep their customers in the downtown area. He said merchants had noticed customers not coming into their stores because they had to run the gauntlet of the homeless. He said he realized it was a nationwide problem and they would not find a solution, but there were better solutions available.
He said he was working with Downtown Lawrence and was looking at other cities for solutions in this matter. He said they would like more time to prepare a better plan to present to the City.
He would like to see some members of Downtown Lawrence, either property owners or business operators included in the Task Force. He said none of them were included in the Task Force on the Homeless, yet they had the biggest stake and the most to loose.
Phil Hemphill, Lawrence, was against the Lawrence Open Shelter when it was formed and he had the same complaints as he did now. He gave two examples that had happened this last year concerning the homeless population and public drunkenness.
He said when the LOS originally applied for their permit they promised they would work with the neighborhood to address neighborhood concerns. He said LOS had done absolutely nothing to address those concerns.
He said he asked a police officer how many calls per day were received by the police to the LOS, Drop-In Center or its environs. He said the officer indicated 2 to 5 calls per day which did not take into account ambulance calls, fire trucks, or life flights.
Between the fact that the LOS had not addressed any of the neighborhoods’ concerns and their business plan was such that they were not changing the behavior of their clients or guests, he did not see any reason that a 5 year permit should be issued. He suggested that the LOS receive a 1 year permit, work with the neighborhood to address their concerns and at the end of this year, if those concerns had been properly addressed, then the LOS could talk about having a longer permit. He said they had not earned that permit.
Phil Dyer, D & D Tire, ask that the City Commission not grant the permit based on what he had seen on a daily basis. He said dealing with this issue was a tremendous waste of the City’s resources. He said that corner was impossible to run a business and he was glad to see more support coming from the downtown area regarding those issues.
He said he was raised on that corner in his parents business and he did not want his kids down at that location whether it was night or day.
Loring Henderson, Director, Lawrence Open Shelter, said he had submitted a letter of the number of people that they had helped and the efforts that they had made during the past year to operate the Shelter in a responsible way. He said it was important to respond to some of the remarks because they liked to think that they had tried to be a good neighbor. The Lawrence Open Shelter had officially joined the Oread Neighborhood Association and he had attended all the meetings of the Oread Neighborhood Association.
He said he respected Hemphill and he certainly had a case, but Hemphill had never expressed any concern. He said he did not have any idea Hemphill felt that the LOS was not cooperating. He said this issue needed a two way communication. He said they tried hard to restrict people to the property and they operated under the same rules that Hemphill did regarding calling the police. He said it would be interesting to note the number of police calls if the LOS or the Drop-In Center had not been at that location.
He said the LOS had kept a record of police calls. He said the first month, there were 13 calls and in more recent months, they were down to 4 and he was not sure where that number of 2 to 5 police calls a day came from. He said there was a critical mass of organizations and people at that location and they all shared the responsibility for what went on.
He said they had worked to keep people off the Kentucky side of the building which was one of the agreements they made with the neighborhood last year and they had worked in various ways to be a good neighbor.
He said as far as going downtown and being afraid at night, judging from stories in the newspaper, there were as many or more problems with college students then there was with homeless people as far as being downtown at night.
He said the LOS had tried hard to be a good neighbor and they would continue to be a good neighbor. He said having a 5 year permit simply gave the LOS time to plan. He said the LOS did not have any problem communicating with the City or neighborhood on what they were doing at any time.
Mayor Rundle said this was not the Mayor’s Task Force. He said this Task Force was started by Commissioner Dunfield and he chaired the committee. He said his point for making that statement was related to the stakeholder meeting that they were planning to hold in January. He said they wanted this issue to be a community solution. He said the Task Force was going to have one general public stakeholder meeting, but they were going to have 7 others that were targeted to specific groups. He said the Task Force wanted to hear, not just their approval or disapproval of their plan, but the issues that might come up. He said the Task Force recognized that they had a limited focus and they wanted to draw out the input from the community so that that became part of their final plan and report.
He said he made a pledge when the City Commission approved the first UPR that he would do anything to make that as short of a term as possible. He said he had heard stories of behaviors that needed to be addressed now rather than wait until recommendations from the Task Force. He said he was able to come up with proposal for having that happen, but he did not want to denigrate any concerns about the behaviors that needed to be dealt with.
He said he inquired about a one year extension and it was pointed out that the City Commission could revisit this issue at any time during that 5 year period. He also asked Henderson to keep the City Commission apprised with status reports and be effective in meeting neighborhood concerns in which Henderson agreed.
The Task Force might have some recommendations and they might be able to implement some solution that would address the population served by the Open Shelter. He said Henderson indicated that the LOS would be happy to move in a heartbeat if viable alternatives were available.
He said his final point was the costs of ambulance, life flight, police, fire, and emergency room which were costs to the City for services to the homeless population. He said the City needed to allocate funds so there was an effective solution. Other communities had already invented this wheel and those communities found that funding effective programs was far substantially less expensive then all of those indirect costs. He said he was sorry that he could not pledge a rapid solution, but he took the neighbors concerns seriously and hoped they could keep moving as rapidly as possible. He said this issue was delayed by the holiday season and annual inventory of businesses, but the Task Force was trying to stay on a very ambitious timeline to come up with a final report for the City Commission early in the next year.
Vice Mayor Highberger said he understood the concerns that were raised. He said he was looking forward to the report from the Task Force so the City Commission could move toward a comprehensive solution to the homeless problems. He said this issue needed to be a treatment based model.
He said he was also concerned about police practices. He hoped the police resources survey report would have some suggestions for practices that might help address some of those situations. He said there were some serious concerns raised and he was not sure those concerns had been addressed to his satisfaction. He suggested supporting a shorter term than 5 years.
Commissioner Dunfield proposed a compromise which was that the City Commission approved this request, but at the same time, set a date or a limit on the amount of time the City Commission would allow to pass before a review of this permit. He said the City Commission could approve the 5 year permit with the condition that within one year or following on the recommendations of the Homeless Task Force, that the City Commission could review the permit to see what progress had been made and whether the Task Force would be proposing any changes in direction.
Commissioner Hack said she appreciated the compromise. She said when thinking about this issue and discussing this issue over the last several days, there were some issues in terms of the resignation of the Director, and the Task Force that was in operation. She said this issue was and example of the overlapping services that the City Commission hoped that the Task Force’s product would eliminate.
She was extremely concerned about the efforts to balance helping individuals versus enabling individuals and agreed with Vice Mayor Highberger that the treatment model was a solution that she would support.
She said she was concerned about the downtown area. She suggested a one year extension so that there was a mandatory review at the end of one year. She said she was not in favor of an expansion to LOS at this point.
Mayor Rundle said one proposal was a deferral. He said it seemed that they would at least, after a short-term extension, end when the deferral of this item.
Stogsdill said the one year time period expires December 8th and there was not another meeting until December 14th. She said if the City Commissions choice was to permit the organization to continue for some period of time, she believed that the City Commission would need to act at this time to extend that period so that on December 9th 2004, there was no problem.
Mayor Rundle said Commissioner Dunfield offered a proposal of a scheduling of a review at one year. He asked how that review was triggered.
Stogsdill said the new development code had language which said that the City Commission, Planning Commission, or staff could initiate a review. Typically, staff’s advice to property owners or neighbors would be to write a letter to the City Commission because the City Commission met more regularly and therefore there was a quicker response. In effect, any neighborhood organization or property owners would have that ability to request that the City Commission initiate that review and that would be based on specific information that they would want reviewed as opposed to just a request.
Commissioner Hack said a one year extension automatically generated that review regardless of the circumstances that might or might have not happened.
Stogsdill said correct. She said staff had conversations this summer knowing that this December deadline was approaching in terms of timing and information that needed to be provided. If the City Commission chose to extend it for one more year, then staff would calendar that date and make sure the organization was aware that they needed to again, next September or October, be preparing the information to submit to staff for that review.
Mayor Rundle said he would agree to that compromise which was approving the 5 year extension with a scheduled review of one year. He said Stogsdill had explained how to trigger that review at an earlier interval.
Vice Mayor Highberger said he supported the Mayor’s suggestion.
Henderson said Downtown Lawrence was talking about a 90 day extension so they had time to present a unified plan because one issue that they wanted to propose was merging all those care giving organizations together under one unit and a one year permit could bypass problems in unifying all those groups together. He suggested a 90 day extension.
Mayor Rundle said if they came to the City Commission in 90 days to ask the City Commission to reconsider, the Commission would comply. He said the 5 year extension was the cleanest knowing that the City Commission could reopen that issue.
Commissioner Hack said she could not get a handle on what would actually trigger a review. She suggested a one year extension because that triggered an automatic review.
Stogsdill said she didn’t mean to lightly portray the review process. The revocation of a permit or review of a permit would be reviewed in terms of if the use of the property was still in compliance with the original conditions that were set. She said activity levels that were different from what was originally portrayed in the application would be a factor that could be used. The compromises that had been offered provided some semblance of assurance to the organization and also provided the people who had concerns with an alternative. She said staff was certainly not married to the 5 year extension if the City Commission thought there were broader issues that the City Commission might be considering with the Task Force’s recommendations. She said the City Commission might not want to commit to 5 years at this property at this time. She said the City Commission might want to revisit this issue after the recommendations were presented
Commissioner Hack asked Stogsdill to outline those conditions.
Stogsdill said this would be based on the original request which were reflected on the site plan. She said the occupancy was posted at 23 which allowed for staff and the hours were 8 p.m. to 8 a.m. The primary entrance was on the east side of the building and not the west.
She said the recommendations that were included, at this time, provided an annual report of the statistics that were presented with this application inspection. The original approval had the installation of the fire suppression equipment.
Commissioner Hack was struggling with the fact that if all of those conditions were met within that 5 year period, but there were still concerns, was there a rationale to take away or deny the UPR.
Stogsdill said it would be related to the organizations efforts at trying to mitigate whatever that adverse activity was that was happening around the site. She said the application originally included that pledge to do what was possible to not have negative neighborhood issues.
Linda Finger, Planning Director, read the language of the City Commission’s authority.
The City Commission shall make one or more of the following findings if it seeks to amend, suspend, or revoke the special use.
1. A condition of the special use had been violated; and
2. Violation of City Code provisions governing zoning regulations, building, housing, or environmental codes or violation of any other applicable City Code provision or State or Federal Law or regulation by landowner or agents thereof providing that those regulations relate to the activity authorized by the special use or the qualification of the landowners or agents who were engaged in that.
Commissioner Dunfield said he would like to see the City Commission go forward because it was important that as they worked towards the end of the Task Force’s work, it was going to be important to have a unified City effort being made on this issue.
He said 90 days did not give this organization the stability that it needed to be able to operate with any type of confidence. He said he was glad that Downtown Lawrence wanted to get involved in solutions to those issues. He suggested before making proposals, there was a lot of catch up work that needed to be done on the work that the Task Force had been involved in over the last year or so.
He said in the hopes that the Task Force was going to have some concrete recommendations ready within the next year’s timeframe, he would be willing to go ahead with a one year extension of the UPR.
As part of the consent agenda, it was moved by Dunfield, seconded by Hack, to approve the UPR (UPR-01-01-03) for a one-year extension to operate the Lawrence Open Shelter at 944 Kentucky Street. This request includes the potential to expand into a portion of the building to increase the maximum occupancy from 20 to 30 persons nightly, subject to the following conditions:
1. Provision of a revised site plan to include the following changes:
2. Completion of an inspection by the Fire/Medical & Neighborhood Resources Departments prior to occupancy of the proposed expansion area; and
3. Execution of a site plan performance agreement.
Motion carried unanimously. (13)
Commissioner Hack added that if there were concerns among the neighbors to this situation then the only way that they could be corrected was for notification on both sides. She hoped this would be a spring board to start her idea.
Mayor Rundle said he was inviting people to contact the Task Force to see what could be done immediately in terms of addressing those difficult behaviors.
Mike Wildgen, City Manager, said he wanted to make clear that the original request considered an extension and expansion. He said he did not want the City Commission to vote on the extension without declaring the City Commission’s status on that extension and expansion.
Mayor Rundle said his sense of those available spaces was someone inadequate for serving the people that were already using this service.
Vice Mayor Highberger said he presumed the City Commission’s vote included the expansion.
Commissioner Hack said her vote did not include the expansion, but she could go along with that expansion as part of the compromise and perhaps that was the temporary solution that needed to be worked through.
Mayor Rundle said that expansion could be looked at if looking at the compliance with the temporary use permit.
Commissioner Dunfield said the intent of the motion was that the only changes were to the time length.
Michael Pomace, Parkhill Neighborhood Association, asked that the item, establishing “no left turn”, from 4 p.m. – 6 p.m., Monday – Friday, on 23rd Street at Ohio Street, Tennessee Street, Vermont Street, New Hampshire Street, Rhode Island Street, and Learnard Avenue be pulled from the consent agenda for separate discussion. He presented a map of their neighborhood to the City Commission showing a limited amount of access points.
He said Parkhill Neighborhood was not opposed to limiting left hand turns between 4 p.m. – 6 p.m., but one issue to consider about that stretch of 23rd Street was that making left hand turns was not easy. The lane marking were not conducive in making those types of turns. He said it might be a good idea to adjust lane markings to make left hand turns easier.
He said one area the Parkhill Neighborhood Association was interested in was going from 23rd Street to Vermont Street. However, their Association cautioned against the adoption of the 23rd Street Plan which called for a total abolishment of left hand turns along that stretch of 23rd Street. He said that would cut-off one of their access points and it would be limited to entering their neighborhood from Dakota, Utah, or Parkhill Terrace. If approaching Vermont Street from the west, it could not be done. He said their neighborhood was not interested in anything that would limit their access.
He said perhaps the City Commission and Traffic Safety Commission could consider placing similar limitations and left hand turns, for example, Iowa Street between 15th Street and 9th Street because that was also a very high traffic area.
Vice Mayor Highberger said he thought there would be some neighborhood concern about left turns off of 23rd Street onto Vermont Street. He said he talked with the Traffic Division about this issue, but he had not made any progress. He asked if the neighborhood was not opposed to those “no left turns.”
Pomace said correct, the neighborhood was not opposed to those “no left turns.”
Mayor Rundle said certainly there wasn’t any intention of abolishing left turns, but the problem was during the rush hour where there was a higher volume of traffic and more chances for people to be rear ended. He said he was willing to consider that left turn not be allowed during those time frames on a temporary basis and refer that issue back to staff and the Traffic Safety Commission rather than act on that issue at this time. He said it was his intentions to use this issue as an experiment because there were places like University Drive off of Iowa Street and those streets between Tennessee and Mississippi on 6th Street. He said this would give staff the opportunity to see if this was a way to keep traffic moving in those busy times, and if it would cut down on accidents.
Mayor Rundle said this was something that staff had the power to implement on a 90 day basis without an ordinance. Without an ordinance, he would assume that staff would try to work out something before it became permanent.
Mike Wildgen, City Manager, said the traffic engineer could eliminate “no left turns” on a temporary basis.
As part of the consent agenda, it was moved by Hack, seconded by Dunfield, to recommend to City staff to implement the Traffic Safety Commission’s recommendation to establish “no left turn”, from 4 p.m. – 6 p.m., Monday – Friday, on 23rd Street at Ohio Street, Tennessee Street, Vermont Street, New Hampshire Street, Rhode Island Street, and Learnard Avenue on a temporary basis only and for the Traffic Safety Commission to report back to the City Commission on this issue. Motion carried unanimously. (14)
Wildgen suggested that staff update the City Commission on the status of the temporary no left turns in 3 or 4 months.
Mayor Rundle asked if it would be proper to send that “left turn proposal” for Vermont Street back to staff for a report.
Chuck Soules, Director of Public Works, asked if the City Commission was taking Vermont Street out of the “no left turn” proposal.
Mayor Rundle said no. The specific proposal was to add striping for an extra holding left turn lane.
Wildgen said staff would need to evaluate that idea because there were some design issues.
Soules said that was the original recommendation that came from the road safety audit. He said one issue was the roadway width
Commissioner Dunfield said that particular intersection was going to have some issues with the stacking distance on the left turn onto Massachusetts.
CITY MANAGER’S REPORT:
During the City Manager’s report, Mike Wildgen said the snow removal project had started. He said seven people had signed up to volunteer to help remove snow and there were 5 applicants at this time. If a person needed help shoveling snow, the phone number is 832-3338. (15)
REGULAR AGENDA ITEMS:
Consider authorizing the City Manager to enter into a contract with Stephen Johnson for the Grassy Verge sculpture.
Michael Tubbs, Management Analyst, City Liaison, Lawrence Arts Commission, presented the staff report. He said the Arts Commission recommended approval of an art project for the Grassy Verge site in celebration of the Sesquicentennial for the City of Lawrence. Last year in 2003, the City Commission approved the site which was located at the southwest corner of 6th and Massachusetts.
He said this proposal came from among 62 proposals. In addition, a public unveiling for this sculpture was planned April 30th 2005. The project had a budget of approximately $53,000.
Dick Holtzmiester said the artist had taken the word “free” and had twisted that word into the form of a flame. The process for this sculpture started in November. The Arts Commission appointed a subcommittee and they had sent out Requests for Proposals to a number of artists all over the State of Kansas. Fifty letters were sent to 50 sculptors throughout the country. There were approximately 50 submissions from all over the Country. He said the subcommittee selected four finalists. He said one issue that surprised them was the quality of all of the submissions. He said their final selection was the Stephen Johnson submission. He said the Arts Commission recommended that the City Commission submit a contract to Johnson in the amount of $50,000 for the Grassy Verge sculpture.
Moved by Dunfield, seconded by Hack, to authorize the City Manager to enter into a contract with Stephen Johnson for the Grassy Verges sculpture. Motion carried unanimously. (16)
Receive updates from the Economic Development Department regarding the following items;
• Results of Biosciences Impact Study – presentation by Lynn Parman, Chamber of Commerce and Joshua Rosenbloom, KU Policy Research Institute;
• 2004 Business Retention Report – presentation by Lynn Parman and Heather Ackerly, Chamber of Commerce; and,
• Economic Development Activity Update – presented by Lynn Parman, Chamber of Commerce.
Lynn Parman, Vice President, Economic Development, Chamber of Commerce, said there were three items that they wanted to present to the City Commission which were the results of the Biosciences Impact Study; the 2004 Business Retention Report; and update the City Commission on activity.
The first topic was the Biosciences Impact Study, back in April 2004 the City of Lawrence, Douglas County, Kansas University, and the Chamber of Commerce commissioned a biosciences impact study. She said they contracted with K.U. Policy Research Institute and that particular study took approximately 5 months to complete.
She explained why they did that type of study and what they would be doing with that information. The most important goal in performing that study was to truly understand the impacts, events, and activities that were occurring in the biosciences industry in Douglas County at this time. Everything from Kansas University research and the biosciences impact as well as the private sector biosciences companies that had located here in Douglas County and what their impacts were to the economy.
The second goal was to look into the future and if current trends continued, what could they anticipate might be the impacts ten years from now of the biosciences industry in Douglas County.
Lastly there had been some good information in the study of surveys with the existing biosciences companies that were in this area and why they located in Douglas County along with opportunities and challenges they might have in retaining those companies.
The key was how this information was going to be utilized. She said there was a biosciences task force that had been meeting for the last year. It was a very broad based task force and this group had varying levels of interests in biosciences from K.U. Faculty to elected officials to private sector biosciences companies. She said they were in the process of developing a strategic plan for biosciences. She said this was the road map for the future to cultivate the bioscience industry whether it was growing their own companies locally or attracting more bioscience companies to the area. She said they were utilizing the results of this survey as very good information and the development of the strategic plan. She said they had been meeting with subcommittees for the last 6 to 7 months in developing strategies for that strategic plan of biosciences or that roadmap. She said they would complete the strategic plan the first quarter of 2005. There was a ton of strategies that needed to be explored to maximize their opportunities in Douglas County for the bioscience industry. She said this impact study had been incredibly valuable in that process.
Joshua Rosenbloom – Kansas University Economics Department, said he worked with several other people at the Policy Research Institute on this study. He said this study had three broad goals. The first goal was to describe what was here to present an accurate picture of the state of the biosciences industry in Douglas County to describe the historical trends that had characterized that industry and to identify positive and negative factors that bioscience firms perceived and were responding to in their decisions to locate in Douglas County. He said they also measured the current economic impact which grew out of knowing what was in Douglas County and finally analyze a variety of potential future developments.
The bioscience industry was a nebulous term because it was not something that showed up in any of the government statistics. The Kansas Economic Growth Act contained two definitions. One definition was a verbal definition and the other definition was an industry based definition. He said they did not look at that whole laundry list of industries, but focused on what they perceived to be the central interest in economic development which was the research and manufacturing parts of the biosciences industry rather than things like veterinarian services.
He said they made use of a variety of different types of source of information, officially collected government statistics, interviews with biosciences companies in the area with university officials. He said the current status of this industry employed 2,400 people in Douglas County and it accounted for a total payroll of $68,000,000 and in turn generated additional jobs both through spending by employers and by spending of their employees. He said their analysis suggested that that effect resulted in another 1,300 non bioscience jobs in Douglas County and approximately $38,000,000 in wages and salaries associated with those jobs.
He said the K.U. contribution was very large and almost all of the current biosciences employment in the County was K.U. faculty and academic staff. Professionals made up approximately 20% of the total K.U. contribution. There were about 4 to 5 additional employees per biosciences faculty position at K.U. K.U.’s employment grew by about 1/5 between 2000 and 2003. K.U. expected to add approximately 60 new faculty positions in bioscience areas during the next 5 to 10 years.
Funded research at K.U. had accelerated even more rapidly. The number of funded projects at K.U. grew by 50% over the last 5 years and the expenditures had increased by about 220%. This funding had been one of the major factors in the employment growth in biosciences at K.U.
He said it was hard to project how this issue would play out in the future. Additional faculty would certainly attract more funding. The long-run funding picture depended, on part, on what would happen with national institutes of health, funding which was a national political issue and how much faculty grant productivity would continue to rise in the future. Obviously there had been some potential for growth.
When turning to the private sector there were 8 bioscience firms in the area which included two recent additions. Based on a variety of different sources, they were able to measure employment in 2003 which was approximately 100 employees. Based on interviews with those 8 companies they anticipated that in 2004 there would be approximately 170 employees in the private sector in biosciences.
The past decade had seen some booms and busts because 100 employees were low compared to where they had been. He said this instability was a consequence of the relatively small number of private sector employers in the County at the moment. He said what happened between 1 or 2 companies in whether they stay or leave had a big impact on those numbers. Future prospects were very hard to forecast. He said new growth would come from new companies coming in.
He said they asked each of those companies about what they perceived the benefits of being in Douglas County and what those companies might be concerned about. He said the high quality workforce was dominating and all of those companies agreed that the Kindergarten through 12th grade school system was high quality. He said 5 of those companies answered questions about shipping costs and 4 said that Douglas County offered good options for shipping their products and all of them handle national markets and they needed access to good transportation. He said attracting top level managers to Lawrence was not a problem and many of those managers viewed K.U.’s intellectual capital as an important draw for the industry.
On the down side, a number of those companies sited the fact there was not a critical mass of companies in the area. Few of those companies mentioned property taxes and many of those companies were critical about handling of intellectual property policy.
He said concerning future growth scenarios, they did not make forecasts, but they did look at past experience both in the U.S. as a whole and in a variety of other communities and offered a variety of possible scenarios. One basis for making projections about the future would be experience in other places. The most successful bioscience centers experience employment growth of approximately 2.2 percent in the 1990’s. He said for the U.S. as a whole, employment grew by approximately 1 ½ percent in the 1990’s.
He said the lowest growth assumptions were that employment grew approximately 1 percent per year over 10 years. The medium growth projection was anticipated approximately 1.5 percent per year. The high growth estimate was approximately 2 to 2.2 percent. The last growth estimate which was taken from the growth assumptions that underlie the Economic Growth Act was based on 9 percent growth in revenues in bioscience on an annual basis. He said they used 8 ½ percent growth in employment over the next ten years for an upper bound limits.
The impacts that would be seen depended on the scenarios. He said they were projecting between 300 and 2,700 new bioscience jobs going from the lowest and highest, between 500 and 5,000 total new jobs, and total incomes growing between $30 million and $230 million dollars in real terms based on those assumptions and some additional modeling.
He said in conclusion, they thought that cautious optimism was justified. The presence of K.U. in the community was a big plus for attracting bioscience and stimulating bioscience based on economic growth. Community amenities and workforce quality was attractive. The private sector was dynamic, but quite small. Developing private critical mass was a crucial concern to being successful and more discussion about the K.U. private sector relationship would be justified in the future.
Mayor Rundle asked if this issue had a larger context in terms of the major initiatives that had taken place in the last decade in Kansas City area. He asked if there was anything other than applying those broad issues to the whole area. He asked if the Lawrence experience could be related to part of that larger issue.
Rosenbloom said there was certainly a relationship and benefits were down to researchers at K.U. to being in proximity to what was going on in the Kansas City area. He said that would clearly generate benefit and stimulate the level of activity in the area that was probably beneficial.
He said another issue might help with attracting venture capital. One of the concerns was the lack of critical mass. He said when looking for venture capital the problem was that all the venture capital was on the coasts and the people who were seeking that venture capital could talk to 4 companies in a day in the bay area, but if they wanted to talk with someone in this area, it would take them 2 days to make that one visit so they were reluctant to travel this way unless there was some compelling reason. He said to the extent that might generate some spillover benefit that would be good too. He said Parman was the better person to talk about a business recruitment strategy or a business cultivations strategy and how Lawrence would want to relate in the Kansas City area. He said he was guessing that the types of businesses that would chose to locate in this area would be different from those in a metropolitan area.
Commissioner Hack hoped that Parman would not interpret the City Commission’s lack of questions, to lack of interest because sometimes the City Commission needed time to digest this information.
Parman said they had been plugged into the Kansas City area and what was going on with that initiative. There were several people in the Lawrence community that served on hot teams of the Kansas City Area Life Sciences Institute and the work that they were doing to develop a strategic plan for the biosciences. The State of Kansas, through K-Tech and the Kansas Biosciences Association had also been developing a road map. She said it might seem that everyone was developing separate road maps, but the good thing was that they were coordinating and complementing each other. She said in Lawrence, they were focusing on what needed to be done in Lawrence and Douglas County to pave the way to maximize the opportunity for biosciences. The good thing was that they were plugged into what was going in at a State wide level and the Kansas City area. She said this data was somewhat unique because there were no other communities in the State of Kansas that had done something similar to the Biosciences Impact Study. She said this study would give them a better footing to understand what the impacts were now and to anticipate the future impacts of the bioscience industry.
Mayor Rundle recognized that with the K.U. Medical Center Campus in Kansas City, Kansas University did have a presence and a role and by extension, the City of Lawrence.
Parman spoke about business retention. She said in 2002 the Chamber of Commerce purchased a business retention software system. She said at that time, this was the only Kansas community that had a business retention assessment system and now since then there had been a couple of other communities that had come on line with their system. She said this software system produced a survey. She said existing businesses were surveyed and they found out a lot about those companies. She said they brought to the City Commission the 2003 Business Retention Report and as a result of the Chamber visiting with those business owners, one on one, they learned a lot about how those companies were doing as businesses and how those companies could be worked with as a County to create a better environment for them to succeed.
She said because of the surveys performed in the 2003 timeframe, there had been two key issues as a result of the Chamber’s first report. The first issue was a Business Retention Task Force was formed to study enhancements that might need to be made to policies and procedures governing, planning, and permitting processes. That task force had been meeting and performing surveys and further analysis and that was a direct result of the first report.
The second direct result of the first report was U.S.D. 497 forming the Administrative Task Force on Technical Education. There were over 45 people on that task force representing all of the school districts in Douglas County, higher education, community colleges in the region, and a number of businesses. She said they had been meeting and working diligently on a recommendation to City, County, and School Districts about how technical training could be enhanced for the local businesses as well as for opportunities for youth in the area.
She said those were two highlights from the last report and there had been a lot of momentum created. She said the second report had been created and this would be the opportunity to see if there were some issues that they might want to tackle or validate the work that was currently being pursued.
She said in the 2003 report there were 53 businesses that were surveyed and in 2004 there were 72 businesses surveyed. She said there was a 47 percent increase in the number of companies surveyed. She said there were quite a few agricultural businesses as well as smaller businesses and technology companies that were added. She said those surveys were done one on one with the highest ranking official at that company. That same person conducted every single survey which resulted in consistent information.
Heather Ackerly, Lawrence Chamber of Commerce, reported on the 2004 Business Retention Report. She said the results of the report were from surveys that were conducted throughout Douglas County.
Vice Mayor Highberger asked about the 1 percent employee owned company. He asked what firm that was.
Ackerly said she did not know at this time, but she would get that information for Vice Mayor Highberger.
Commissioner Hack asked the question about the 22% not available on the size of firms.
Ackerly said those were companies that did not want to produce that information or did not have that information available.
Vice Mayor Highberger asked about property tax assessment. He asked if it was valuation or tax rate problems.
Ackerly said concerning property tax assessment responses, 50 percent surveyed said taxes were too high and 50 percent said taxes were not fair and equitable.
Ackerly talked about community planning response breakdown. She said business unfriendly environment was 60 percent, poor community planning was 35 percent, and community university relations were at 5 percent.
Mayor Rundle asked if that meant relationships between the university and community.
Ackerly said she would get those specific complaints to the Mayor.
Ackerly discussed reasons why companies would choose not to expand in Douglas County. She said 22 percent of those companies said because of the business unfriendly climate and 22 percent said that Douglas County was too expensive of a place to do business.
Wildgen said according to the graph in the report concerning businesses not choosing to expand in Douglas County, 32 percent in the “other” category was a high percentage not to have any specific reason.
Ackerly said she had broken down some barriers to growth and those barriers had landed in the same area along with community weakness which crossed over in those categories. She said some other comments that were brought up was education funding, stifled growth, lack of infrastructure for bioscience companies, and biosciences initiatives needed to focus on for profit businesses. She said this issue was industry specific or specific comment that did not necessarily fall into the other categories.
She said to go into the business unfriendly climate with specific comments those comments included issues such as planning; the community would like to only receive from the large employers and not reciprocate; systems needed to help technology companies; anti-business climate; and poor planning.
She said the 2003 Report identified needs when it came to workforce development specifically on the training side and those were reflected in the 2004 results. She said those needs also showed up in areas identified as problem recruitment areas.
She pointed out the ratings for workforce productivity. She said 73 percent of area employers ranked workforce productivity as good or excellent. Workforce quality was ranked as good or excellent by 53 percent of those responses.
Parman presented a full copy of the report and she said the report would also be available on the Chamber’s website at www.lawrencechamber.com.
Commissioner Hack said it might be a good opportunity to fill in the blanks on the Business Retention Task Force survey. She said there was objective and subjective material in that report. The committee would get back together before or after the holidays to look at the data along with the report from the Chamber and look at where this community was and what this community could do to improve.
Parman said an issue that had came up on the survey for the first time this year in the category of weakness was the cost of living. She said 13 percent of the people that responded said that cost of living was a factor, but cost of living was not a factor last year. She said those people had specifically said they were concerned because of their employee’s ability to afford to live in Lawrence specifically. She said she did not know if that idea was because of the recent heightened sensitivity to that issue.
Vice Mayor Highberger asked if that weakness was directly toward housing costs.
Parman said yes.
Parman said the City Commission received a quarterly activity report from Douglas County Economic Development in advance. She said it was important for the City Commission to be aware of the activity levels that they were experiencing in their Economic Development Department. She said their department was busy because the economy was very strong. She said there was 122 percent increase over the last year this time in existing business expansions. She said there had been a marketing confidence from existing businesses in investing capital and adding jobs.
There was also a 120 percent increase in the number of new jobs that had been created from either businesses locating here or existing businesses expanding. If looking at the October 31st data, 426 new jobs were created in 2004 and that data compared to last year, at that time, was 193 new jobs.
She said there had been 5 new companies locate to the area which compared to only 1 company last year. One of the items that had happened in the 3rd Quarter was the Golf Course Superintendents Association and their decision to stay in Lawrence because retaining existing businesses was important.
As far as programmatic highlights this year, they had launched their new website. She said August and September had all time highs in the number of visitors that came to the economic development portion of the website. Specifically, at their sites and buildings database and their demographic information which was always a good sign because typically those were prospects that were looking to see if they could fit within this community.
She said there were also a couple of key initiatives that was working behind the scenes. One of those initiatives was the Business Retention Task Force. The Chamber had also been working diligently with the ECO2 Commission and their efforts to identify future business parks in Douglas County with consideration for open space and environmental stewardship. She said she had been pleased with the progress of the ECO2 Commission and their efforts.
Parman said the Biosciences Taskforce had taken a lot of energy and efforts and it was a collaborative process. She said one item that she was most excited about that would have a tremendous impact on the future was the USD 497 Administrative Taskforce on Technical Education.
Vice Mayor Highberger said it was clear that the Chamber’s business retention efforts were paying off. He thanked Parman for her hard work.
He said the number of new jobs year to date was dramatically high and new investment level was flat.
Parman said that issue was par for 2003. She said there were a couple of announcements that had larger job growth. For instance, Affinitas, which added 100 jobs. She said the capital investment had been in bits and pieces. She said it had been a varied year, but they had more investment in November in which they added 8 million. They were up to 28 million year to date.
Mayor Rundle echoed Vice Mayor Highberger’s comments. He said staff at the Chamber was behind the community’s success over the last few years.
Commissioner Hack said she appreciated the partnership between the City, County, and the Chamber in terms of economic development.
Vice Mayor Highberger looked forward receiving the report from the Business Retention Task Force to give the City Commission some ideas to work on. (17)
Receive recommendation from the selection committee concerning consultant services for Cost of Growth Study.
David Corliss, Assistant City Manager/Legal Services Director, presented the staff report. He said earlier this year the City Commission sent out a Request for Proposals to seek consulting services to perform a Cost of Growth Study for the community. The Commission received 5 proposals and the selection committee interviewed 2 firms. As a result of those interviews, the selection committee was recommending the retention of Tischler and Associates, a firm out of Maryland.
He said Tischler and Associates was a nationally recognized firm as far as analysis of growth issues and that the firm had provided a contract for review so while that contract was not on the City Commission agenda for approval at this time, if the City Commission selected Tischler and Associates, the contract would be placed on the December 14th consent agenda.
Commissioner Dunfield said that in reviewing the responses and in the course of the interviews, he thought everyone felt that Tischler projected tremendous knowledge of fiscal impact studies. He said in Tischler’s response, they anticipated a lot of elements and issues that staff did not address in the RFP which were essential in producing a good product. He said Tischler’s level of experience was such that they could guide staff through the rest of this process to get to a good outcome.
Mayor Rundle was very confident with Tischler and Associates.
Corliss indicated that he had talked with Tischler today and if they were to proceed with the contract on December 14th, staff would be working with the City Commission and that firm in a meeting in January for the first phase (Feasibility Study). He said staff also talked about the Commission’s interest and whether there was clear direction as to whether or not they wanted to discuss water and wastewater services in the City and also school issues.
He said the way this issue was structured with the Feasibility Study Analysis, those two issues (water & wastewater) could be discussed at that time so that the City Commission could decide whether or not they wanted to proceed to include those two issues or go with the original scope. He said in phases 2 and 3 of the study, staff would be coming back with actual numbers in the contract and a further defined scope. He said Tischler indicated that the cost estimates should be the same as those in the original proposal, but there might be some tweaking as far as the elements in phases 2 and 3.
Mayor Rundle called for public comment.
After receiving no public comment, Commission Hack said in terms of looking at the Cost of Growth Study and the contract there was some mention of costs in terms of additional growth in the community. Anytime a survey was performed, the Commission might want to come in to it with the anticipation that it was going to be as unbiased as possible. She said she was confident in looking at those companies and their responses to the RFP. She had some concern if it was labeled the Cost of Growth Study without at least mentioning costs versus benefit as they did with any analysis,
Commission Dunfield said in the discussion at the interview the phrase that kept coming back that captured that idea was fiscal impact analysis which seemed to be a much less loaded type of term and Tischler was clearly interested in that type of objective approach.
Commissioner Hack said if this issue could be looked at as a fiscal impact of growth, it was a much more neutral term. If they wanted this issue to be accepted after all the work and expense, it would be by a multitude of stakeholders with a neutral stance.
Mayor Rundle appreciated that point being raised. He said the whole point of this issue was so that any of the actions that the City Commission took was fair and equitable.
Wildgen said that issue would be properly noted at the December 14th meeting.
Corliss said in the contract it was called a fiscal impact analysis.
Moved by Highberger, seconded by Dunfield, to direct staff to prepare an agreement with Tischler & Associates. Motion carried unanimously. (18)
Conduct public hearings on proposed maximum special assessment ordinances for the following public improvements:
a) Lake Pointe Drive, north of Clinton Parkway; and
b) 3rd Street, Alabama Street to Illinois Street.
Rundle called for public comment.
Moved by Hack, seconded by Dunfield, to close the public hearing. Motion carried unanimously.
Mayor Rundle noted that at the lack of presence from the applicant, the applicant was in concurrence.
Corliss said he had a conversation with Mr. Harold Shephard in regards to the 3rd Street project and following earlier City Commission direction, there would be deferral agreements with Shephard on the special assessments for the parcels owned by Shephard on the 3rd and Alabama project.
Mayor Rundle said those assessments on those parcels owned by Shephard would be paid by the public at large. If the property was redeveloped or sold, then the assessments would take place.
Corliss said what the City Commission’s direction was only if the property was redeveloped. If the property was transferred the deferral would still stay.
Moved by Hack, seconded by Highberger, to place on first reading, Ordinance No. 7843, establishing maximum special assessments for the improvement of Lake Point Drive. Motion carried unanimously. (19)
Moved by Hack, seconded by Highberger, to place on first reading, Ordinance No. 7848, establishing maximum special assessments for the improvement of 3rd Street, Alabama Street to Illinois Street, if appropriate. Motion carried unanimously. (20)
Receive staff report concerning 2005 state legislative priorities.
David Corliss, Assistant City Manager/Legal Services Director, presented the staff report. He said the 2005 Kansas Legislature would convene on January 10th, 2005. It was City Commission practice to establish a priority statement that staff would share with the local delegation. He said it was helpful to staff when communicating with the Legislators during the Legislative Session to be able to point back to that priority statement.
He said Vice Mayor Highberger at the agenda meeting mentioned the proposal from Mid-America Regional Council regarding their interest in regional transportation initiatives and would work to include that topic. He said now was the time to start giving staff ideas and/or changes on additional priorities provided that the league statement on some legislative issues that might be seen as likely concerns next year. He said the League indicated that they would be in a very defensive posture fending off State mandates, particularly in the area of taxation and perhaps spending at the local level.
Mayor Rundle asked if this issue could be placed in a time frame. He asked if staff would bring those issues back for approval in December.
Corliss said yes.
Mayor Rundle suggested getting comments back to Corliss within the next meeting.
Vice Mayor Highberger mentioned that the Mid-America Regional Council was going to Kansas and Missouri with these transportation studies. Those Legislatures would be asking this year for the authority to conduct a referendum for a quarter cent sales tax to fund the Smart Moves Program which was a very impressive comprehensive, intercity bus and light rail program. If they were to receive that authority, there would be no tax increase in this community, but it would create an excellent system for a commuter bus from this community to tie into Johnson County. He said if this community was interested in regional transportation, supporting their request for that authority would be beneficial.
Commission Hack said strong statements were made in support of public education. She said higher education and public education were looked at as competing for the same dollars and perhaps the community should consider not only the issue of public K-12 education, but also higher education as the economic development tool, not only for the State of Kansas, but more specifically to this community rather than not having this issue in the Legislative priorities.
Mayor Rundle said that issue was an important idea.
Commissioner Dunfield said he noticed when looking through the Leagues information, it seemed that the State might be making changes in local public employee retirement system.
Corliss mentioned that staff had a briefing on this issue by the KPERS Director. It was indicated that one of the proposals that might be entertained by the 2005 Legislature would be a new KPERS benefit level for new employees that the State and employers might find more palatable as far as being able to afford. He said there was a tremendous gap between what the government employers, state and local employees were paying into KPERS system and what the actuaries were telling them was needed in order to fund KPERS. He said one of the issues that the Legislature might consider was a reduced benefit program for new employees and that was a concern to local government employers. He said funding the gap as well had been a historic concern.
Commission Dunfield said the relationship to that whole issue to their ability to attract and retain quality City employees was something that staff might want to consider as a new area of concern.
Mayor Rundle suggested that staff communicate with Commissioner Schauner in regards to those deadlines.
Jason Boots, Community Affairs Director for Students, University of Kansas, said when looking at the report from the Board of Regents, they had a lot of similar ideas as far as funding and education. He said they were looking at a K-12 mentality. He said that idea had a lot of merit considering the number of in state students that stayed in the Kansas Higher Education System whether it be technical colleges, community colleges, or higher level education.
It was interesting to point out the positive impact K.U had on the community. He said it was important as they continued to improve relations between the City and K.U., that the City stepped up on the side of K.U. and help attempt to get the University its due funding. He said they supported any legislative mandates as far as supporting higher education and it would benefit the Lawrence community as well.
Mayor Rundle said it was unfortunate that we were facing possible shortfalls. He said the State had studies over the years that identified higher education as one of the under pinning or our economic development program in the State. (21)
PUBLIC COMMENT – NONE.
Moved by Highberger, second by Hack, to adjourn at 9:07. Motion carried unanimously.
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Mike Rundle, Mayor
ATTEST:
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Frank S. Reeb, City Clerk
CITY COMMISSION MEETING OF NOVEMBER 30, 2004
1. Bid Date – Pavement reconstruction of alley, 8th to 9th, Vermont to Kentucky, Dec 14, 2004.
2. Purchasing Policy – Add Federal grant procedures.
3. Bid – ITC Mechanical Renovations, Phase 3 to Huxtable for $29,780.
4. Ordinance No. 7847 – 1st Read, “No Parking” S side of Kresge along entire frontage of 601 N Iowa.
5. Ordinance No. 7845 – 2nd Read, condemnation of Wright tract for Folks Rd.
6. TUPR – (TUPR-11-37-04) temp overflow parking at St. Margaret’s Episcopal Church, 5700 W 6th .
7. TSC – “No Parking” S side of Kresge along entire frontage of 601 N Iowa.
8. TSC – “Yield” signs on 29th at Kensington Dr.
9. TSC – “No Parking” one side of Morning Dove Circle, Eagle Pass, Field Stone, Gunnison and Hill Song Circle.
10. TSC – “Reserved parking for persons with disabilities” 1505 Vermont.
11. Mortgage Release – 812 Indiana, B. Gordon Fitzsimmons.
12. Mayor Appointments – Marguerite Ermeling to City/County Planning Commission
13. UPR – (UPR-01-01-03) – 5 year extension to operate Lawrence Open Shelter, 944 Kentucky.
14. TSC – “No Left Turn” 4 – 6 pm, Mon-Fri, 23 at Ohio, Tenn, Vermont, New Hamp, Rhode Island & Learnard
15. City Manager’s Report – Snow removal.
16. Contract – Stephen Johnson for Grassy Verges sculpture.
17. Economic Development – Biosciences Impact Study, 204 Business Retention Report, Economic Development Activity Update.
18. Cost of Study Growth.
19. Ordinance No. 7843 – 1st Read, max assess, Lake Point Drive.
20. Ordinance No. 7848 – 1st Read, max assess, 3rd, Alabama to Illinois.
21. 2005 State Legislative Priorities.