PC Minutes 5/21/07 - DRAFT
ITEM NO. 4: 2008-2013 CIP
Approve projects to be included in the 2008-2013 Capital Improvement Plan (CIP) for the City of Lawrence.
Casey Liebst, the City Budget Manager stated projects were submitted by various departments, the public and private developers. The Administrative Review Committee was formed and was made up with various representatives from city departments, including Commissioner Finkeldei. She said projects were organized by the year they were proposed by the departments, a total of 251 projects in the plan for all six years, and if the projects were in conformance with the City’s comprehensive plan the CIP would be forwarded to the City Commission, if they decided it was appropriate, they would formally adopt the plan. Select projects from the first year of the plan were then used by the City Manager to make up part of his recommended operating and capital improvement budget. If they did not conform, the Planning Commission should submit a statement that indicated how the project was not in conformance with the comprehensive plan.
Commissioner Eichhorn thanked Commissioner Finkeldei for participation on the committee and asked how items that had gotten ranked last year ended up this year.
Ms. Liebst stated the departments spent time deciding what year each project would be submitted.
Commissioner Eichhorn asked if it was working.
Ms. Liebst answered yes.
Commissioner Erickson stated there was an error that read 4870 but should have been 48.70.
Ms. Liebst said the forms needed to be cleaned up and that not all departments have read through them.
Commissioner Harris stated there was a letter received from Mr. Mitchell regarding the work to be done on Iowa Street and asked how that project got into the plan when it had been denied by the City Commission.
Ms. Liebst stated the professional judgment of Staff was that something needed to be done to address the situation at some point, which was why it was pushed out to a later year.
Commissioner Finkeldei stated it was originally in the 2008 budget to be funded; but after the City Commission vote, it was pushed out to 2010 and it showed as a no score. The reason it was not completely eliminated was because the description was actually revised to state ‘work on Iowa Street’ not ‘left turn lane on Iowa’. The description now read ‘Iowa to University’.
Ms. Liebst asked if it needed to be changed.
Commissioner Finkeldei said yes.
Commissioner Harris asked what had been changed in the description.
Ms. Liebst stated it just read ‘improvements’.
Commissioner Finkeldei stated at some point Iowa may need to be six lanes.
Commissioner Harris asked if the committee was intent on targeting Harvard Road to University Drive.
Commissioner Finkeldei said the committee did not get that specific.
Commissioner Eichhorn stated this could be reviewed next year because it has a lot more time than Peterson Road.
Commissioner Burress commented that when the discussion of vacating the frontage road along Iowa Street for Home Depot was argued and approved, he did not think the land should have been given back.
Commissioner Harkins asked if a project was not on the list when the CIP was adopted, was there a way to amend the CIP or did that mean the project could not be constructed.
Commissioner Eichhorn said there was a certain budget threshold that projects have to be above to be included in the plan. Projects less than $50,000.00 were not typically reflected in the CIP.
Ms. Liebst indicated they could usually make it work and that smaller projects could usually be financed from the reserve funds.
Commissioner Burress asked if there had been consideration of bringing in an outside expert to review the CIP process.
Ms. Liebst indicated there has been discussion of purchasing and utilizing a software program to assist in the process.
Commissioner Burress stated, in his opinion, evaluation by an academic expert would be of more value than a standard product.
Ms. Liebst said there have been improvements to the process used in the last several years and that Staff had discussed a variety of options to continue to improve the process of developing the plan.
PUBLIC HEARING
Mr. Mitchell stated he misunderstood the proposed project when he mailed the letter, and that it appeared this project would not actually happen. He said the words that appeared in the letter did not seem to make any difference; the wording had changed in one place, made it more genuine and over ended. He stated Commissioner Harkins said the words did not have to be exactly right but it could be made to work. Mr. Mitchell said he had been closely associated with the Iowa Street two lane for a number of years and it was his observation that Chuck Soules was determined to get a left turn lane out there and he did not take comfort in it at all in the fact the project was ‘not scored’. Mr. Mitchell said he would take comfort in it, if it was off the CIP, and seems a little curious why that was not what happened when the City Commission voted it down, it seemed like it would have fallen off the CIP. Instead the wording had changed a little bit, and he feared he would be back before somebody next year dealing with the same issue again. Mr. Mitchell said he wanted assurance that the issue was dead.
Commissioner Burress asked Staff if it would do any damage if Staff added ‘not to be used for a left hand turn lane’ to the CIP. He asked Mr. Mitchell if there was such a phrase if it would satisfy him.
Mr. Mitchell stated in one sense yes, but that would allow something else, something that was not defined as a left turn lane, but something more creative, like a median for example, and his objection to the present, or the past, left turn lane was that it does not address the long term problem of access to the University, to or from, and in fact if a left turn lane or some other device was installed there it would only enhance the problem, the long term problem, which was the failure of the University to create an easy traffic flow, as stated in the letter written. He said he looked at the University making 15th and Iowa a genuine gateway to somewhere; it is not now, it is a gateway to a huge bottleneck. Most people use Stratford and University Drive. What he hoped to see was the City to put pressure on the University to clean up their act, because it is their traffic and they should be helping to fix the problem.
Commissioner Burress asked Mr. Mitchell if it would help if the phrase ‘not to be used for a left hand turn lane’ was added.
Mr. Mitchell stated fine, there would not be a left turn lane but might be a median, next year when Public Works decides this is a good way to get some KDOT money.
PUBLIC HEARING CLOSED
Commissioner Krebs asked Ms. Liebst about the additional letter received from the North Lawrence Improvement Association.
Ms. Liebst stated she had already received a copy of the letter earlier in the process when the projects had been submitted.
Commissioner Krebs opened for discussion.
Commissioner Burress stated he would vote against this like he did every year. He said the ideal would be to be consistent with the comprehensive plan and there needed to be a plan that showed step by step on how to get from here to there. He said the procedure says it is perfectly ok to approve things that were not consistent with the comprehensive plan.
Commissioner Harkins stated he looked at it to satisfy his curiosity of how the comprehensive plan dealt with the purchase of Engine No. 6 and Ladder No. 2 and stated it was his guess it was quite a stretch.
Ms. Stogsdill stated there was a chapter on community facilities which included the fire/med response, so having equipment that allows us to continue to respond and keep the ratings would be part of all that.
Commissioner Harkins stated he agreed with the criticism of the process but had no suggestion on how to improve it and it is a challenge to put one of these together. He said he had some degree of discomfort in voting on this tonight, but will vote in favor of it, because he thinks it is the best effort the City could make at this point.
Commissioner Haase said there was a process in place at KDOT that instructed how to do this well and how to allocate funds to competing projects, a process that was mandated by the legislature over 20 years ago. He said the State of Kansas hired the RAND Corporation and they put together a process that depoliticized the allocation of road funds and recommended the City of Lawrence pick up a copy of the document and use it to guide the Capital Improvement Plan process.
Commissioner Finkeldei stated the comprehensive plan said a lot of things, but to grade each one and bring them together was a real struggle, there had been improvements in the process but there was still more to be made.
Commissioner Haase said the KDOT process involved peer review and developed criteria based on their expertise.
Commissioner Harris motioned to recommend approval of the CIP, with changes to the spreadsheet item about the Iowa Street work, to change it to ‘Iowa Street improvements’, description to ‘possible widening and sidewalk, no left turn lane’.
Commissioner Finkeldei seconds.
Commissioner Harkins stated it was his understanding that based on the materials in front of the Commission, they were to make the determination as to whether the projects are consistent with the comprehensive plan and that was the limit to their review.
Ms. Stogsdill stated it was her opinion the Commissioner’s responsibility was to decide if projects were consistent or not consistent with the comprehensive plan. She said the Commission had the advisory authority to recommend that the City consider making that change, but not sure the Commission had the authority to suggest that it only be approved with that change.
Commissioner Burress said the Commissioners had the power to say ‘we will approve it with a change’, or ‘we will not approve it with a change’.
Commissioner Harris said she was basing her change on the comprehensive plan saying cut through traffic was not desirable.
Ms. Stogsdill stated that was important to put in the motion.
Commissioner Harris stated the suggested change to the project description for the Iowa Street item was due to the fact that cut through traffic was discouraged by the comprehensive plan.
Commissioner Finkeldei stated he did not think Commissioner Harris was changing the document, only adding a clarification.
Commissioner Finkeldei seconded, with clarification.
Ms. Stogsdill read the motion to recommend approval of the CIP, with the following changes to the spreadsheet to say ‘Iowa Street improvements’ rather than ‘Iowa Street between University and Harvard’, to change the project page title to ‘Iowa Street improvements’, and the description to ‘possible widening and sidewalk improvements and no left turn’. She said to include the rationale that the clarification was due to the fact that cut thru traffic was discouraged in Horizon 2020.
Commissioner Burress wanted to clarify the vote was on the recommendation that the issue be held to be consistent with the comprehensive plan but was not the final determination.
Ms. Liebst stated that each project in the plan was in conformance with the comprehensive plan.
Commissioner Burress asked if a project was voted down does the Commission have the power to kill it by saying it was not consistent.
Ms. Liebst said he would have the power to put it in writing, forward it to the City Commission, and they have the power to decide.
ACTION TAKEN
Motioned by Commissioner Harris, seconded by Commissioner Finkeldei to approve projects to be included in the 2008-2013 Capital Improvement Plan (CIP) for the City of Lawrence.
Motion carried 8-2, with Commissioners Harkins and Burress in opposition. Student Commissioner Robb also voting in the affirmative.
Commissioner Harkins said he wanted to explain his ‘No’ vote. He stated he risked his family’s lives many times by making this turn on Iowa Street, something needed to be done to improve safety at this location and he strongly opposed doing nothing.