July 10, 2007
The Board of Commissioners of the City of Lawrence met in regular session at 6:35 p.m., in the City Commission Chambers in City Hall with Mayor Hack presiding and members Amyx, Dever, Chestnut and Highberger present.
CONSENT AGENDA
As part of the consent agenda, it was moved by Amyx, seconded by Chestnut, to approve City Commission meeting minutes from June 26, 2007 and July 3, 2007. Motion carried unanimously.
As part of the consent agenda, it was moved by Amyx, seconded by Chestnut, to approve the Arts Commission meeting minutes of April 11, 2007; Sister Cities Advisory Board meeting minutes of April 11, 2007; Mechanical Code Board of Appeals meeting minutes of June 18, 2007; and the Convention & Visitors Bureau Board meeting minutes of May 15, 2007. Motion carried unanimously.
As part of the consent agenda, it was moved by Amyx, seconded by Chestnut, to approve claims to 465 vendors in the amount of $2,879,104.94 and payroll from June 24, 2007 to July 7, 2007, in the amount of $1,781,933.58. Motion carried unanimously.
As part of the consent agenda, it was moved by Amyx, seconded by Chestnut, to approve the Retail Liquor Licenses for Ray’s Wine & Spirits, 721 Wakarusa, and Ray’s Liquor Warehouse, 1215 West 6th Street. Motion carried unanimously.
As part of the consent agenda, it was moved by Amyx, seconded by Chestnut, to place on first reading, Ordinance No. 8126, providing for court costs for supervised probation, fingerprinting, and incarceration, amending Section 12-105 of the City Code. Motion carried unanimously. (1)
Ordinance No. 8123, amending Section 17-502 of the Code of the City of Lawrence, 2006 Edition and amendments thereto pertaining to the designation of Trafficway connections and repealing the existing section, was read a second time. As part of the consent agenda, it was moved by Amyx, seconded by Chestnut, to adopt the ordinance. Aye: Amyx, Dever, Chestnut, Hack, and Highberger. Nay: None. Motion carried unanimously. (2) Ordinance No. 8124, establishing “no parking” along the south side of University Drive between Brittany Place and Crestline Drive, was read a second time. As part of the consent agenda, it was moved by Amyx, seconded by Chestnut, to adopt the ordinance. Aye: Amyx, Dever, Chestnut, Hack, and Highberger. Nay: None. Motion carried unanimously. (3)
Ordinance No. 8122 establishing a “stop signs” at the intersection of 23rd Street and Noria Road, was read a second time. As part of the consent agenda, it was moved by Amyx, seconded by Chestnut, to adopt the ordinance. Aye: Amyx, Dever, Chestnut, Hack, and Highberger. Nay: None. Motion carried unanimously. (4)
As part of the consent agenda, it was moved by Amyx, seconded by Chestnut, to approve the site plan (SP-06-51-06) for construction of two, one-story office/warehouse structures located at 908 North Iowa Street, subject to the following conditions:
1. Submittal and approval of a Storm Water Pollution Prevention Plan;
2. Submittal and approval of Water Line Plans to the Fire Department and Utilities Department.
Motion carried unanimously. (5)
As part of the consent agenda, it was moved by Amyx, seconded by Chestnut, to authorize the Mayor to sign a Release of Mortgage for Manual Mendoza, 814 New Jersey Street. Motion carried unanimously. (6)
CITY MANAGER’S REPORT:
During the City Manager’s Report, David Corliss said in the report they had some interesting performance statistics for the Transit System.
He said Kasold Drive was now open to the motoring public, all full four lanes. He thanked Chuck Soules, Public Works Director, and the Public Works staff for their work on that project.
He said the other major project was one that was not as much in the public eye, which was Pump Station #48. It was now operational and was the large wastewater project on the northwest side of town. He said the project started about this time last year and it was now completed. He said Dave Wagner and a number of other people in the Utilities Department were involved in making sure Pump Station #48 was now part of the system.
Mayor Hack said they all owed Soules and his staff and Bartlett & West for working so hard on Kasold. She appreciated the fact that it was open sooner than anticipated and it did not seem that long ago that they were having neighborhood meetings. The neighbors continued to be complimentary toward the staff and the people who were working on the project. She knew Dave and Phil really stepped up when things happened in the northwest part of town. It was an emergency situation and they really appreciated all the staff’s ability to work through that. She said they were really important projects for the growth of this community.
Corliss said the credit also went to the engineers and contractors. R.D. Johnson Contractor on Kasold and PEC and CAS was the design/build team for Pump Station #48. (7)
REGULAR AGENDA ITEMS:
Consider adopting on first reading, joint City Ordinance No. 8097, and County Resolution No. , to replace Chapter Seven – Industrial and Employment Related Land Use, in Horizon 2020 with a revised Chapter 7 entitled “Chapter 7 – Industrial Employment Related Land Use in Horizon 2020, CPA-2004-02 Edition”, and repealing the existing chapter.
Amy Miller, Long-Range Planner, presented the staff report. She said the major changes that were associated with this revision include separating industrial employment related land use into two distinct categories and adding a work/live campus center to both land uses. In addition, certain goals and policies were modified, clarified and expanded. Those goals and policies provide for more clarification related to the orientation of buildings, site layout, building design, vehicular circulation and site access as well as pedestrian circulation. The Comprehensive Plan Amendment associated with this ordinance was developed through work with the Comprehensive Plans Committee. She said the Planning Commission approved the Comprehensive Plan Amendment unanimously on November 16, 2005. In addition, the City Commission approved this Comprehensive Plan Amendment on December 6, 2005 and the Board of County Commissioners approved it on January 8, 2007. All approvals were unanimous. The adoption of the ordinance before the City Commission this evening was part of the technical process of amending the Comprehensive Plan and the action this evening was to consider adoption on first reading of Ordinance No. 8097.
Mayor Hack called for public comment.
Mark Andersen, Lawrence, said over the past couple of years he has closely followed the City Commission when it came to the adoption of a new development code and the revision process that had been occurring. A few months ago he e-mailed the Mayor and pointed out in particular one section of the provision, which was the provision on page 12 under the heading Lawrence New Employment Related Areas, but it was bullet pointed, not numbered or alphabetized. There was an opening paragraph followed by a bullet point, then the word “office”. He read the first paragraph that appeared under the word “office”. He said two sentences in that paragraph portray someone’s subjective opinion. He encouraged the Commission to delete the entire paragraph (beginning with “Office”) or at a minimum deleting sentences two and three, leaving the first and last sentences of that paragraph.
Laverne Squier, CEO Lawrence Chamber of Commerce, echoed Andersen’s concerns. He said as they were predicating policy, whether it was in this section in this particular issue of Horizon 2020 or in others, it was interesting to think they would take a statement that was time sensitive and memorialize it going forward and make it endure, because things change. He said they should remove the current phraseology.
Mayor Hack asked staff what options were available to remove language.
Corliss said the Commission could send it back to the Planning Commission by a simple majority, or by a supermajority, the City Commission could overrule the Planning Commission’s recommendation and make a change, but then they would also have to have that change approved by the County Commission. He said they could also by a simple majority vote to approve the document. One alternative also was to approve the document as it was and then have the entire document and have some language and substantive issues to certain locations in the community that deserve additional analysis. He also said they could direct staff to take the comments and to amend the document to reflect the concerns that arose. He said it was not uncommon for the current situation to be in a planning document.
Commissioner Amyx said at the time the Planning Commission adopted the document in 2005, whether or not the economic climate was the same today as it was in 2005 was irrelevant; was it going to be the same in 2009 as it was today was what was relevant. He said he would like to consider the issues raised and the communication received about further consideration of other sites and how once a plan was adopted, it seems like they must follow that plan to the T. He said he would hate to think they had not given other areas in this community or even something that may exist outside the community the opportunity to be a part of this document. He would rather have the planners look at the additional sites and other language changes in this document.
Mayor Hack said there appeared to be two issues: the language issues addressed by Andersen and the issues brought up regarding economic development along I-70 as identified by Jane Eldredge. She said she would echo Commissioner Amyx’s comments that current in 2005 was not current in 2007 and that type of reference was something that changes from time to time. Making it time sensitive was wrong for a comprehensive plan. The second one was the issue brought up for economic development areas along I-70 by Ms. Eldredge. She asked whether Commissioner Amyx’s preference was to send it back to the Planning Commission with those two suggestions.
Commissioner Amyx said he would make those two suggestions and any others anyone else has. It was important to make sure these items were in current day form. He thought they would be better sending it back and to look at the suggested language change and to consider whether we have a complete document.
Commissioner Highberger said the process would be cleaner to adopt the document and then initiate changes. It had been through unanimous approvals through three bodies already and at this stage they were talking about changing it on the basis of e-mails received this week by the City Commission. He did not like the process and thought Mr. Andersen’s point was pretty well taken and obviously Commissioner Amyx was right that what was current two years ago, was not necessarily current now. He thought there was a political overtone to this more than just taking out a statement.
Corliss asked Planning staff whether there were any projects that would be impacted by this document at this time.
Miller said there were projects that were coming through now that could be impacted. Whether the revisions in the chapter were substantive enough that they would impact the projects, she could not say. They did have projects that would be impacted through this chapter whether the chapter revisions actually made a difference with approval of the project either way, she could not say.
Mayor Hack said she was concerned about passing it on with disregard to the changes they were talking about, but would go with the will of the City Commission. If they felt it was best to go ahead and pass it and initiate changes right away with the understanding that they want these things done or they feel more comfortable looking at perhaps not. She said she appreciated Commissioner Highberger’s comments about a cleaner process, but on the other hand she did not appreciate the other part. These two things really concerned her and e-mails today were follow ups to other communications that have occurred for a while and finally got on.
Commissioner Amyx said he wanted to apologize to Commissioner Highberger and had no right to lose his cool for a minute, but as Mayor Hack just said, during his term as Mayor after the original approval of this item, there were communications that were received.
Commissioner Highberger said he probably did not phrase things as well as they should have been. He said to the best of his knowledge this was the first communication he had about this item and as far as the political aspect of it, he was not referring to Commissioner Amyx.
Commissioner Chestnut said he concurred with the Mayor and was not one to hold up process. He said another point that had to be made was that they were on the cusp of going through Transportation 2030, probably within a couple of months. Transportation 2030 certainly had a big impact on consideration, especially if they were looking at industrial sites and talking about possible locations. Secondly, he had concerns about projects that might be impacted, but projects could be impacted one way or the other. They were talking about projects that were with the blue dots, but what about projects that might be considered that were not blue dots. He asked if the projects that were not represented were going to be precluded from consideration because they had not been integrated into this. He said they would never be able to locate all the sites and thought the question was if they should integrate something into the language that talked about the fact while this was as comprehensive as they could get, it should not be considered a document that was essentially the be all and end all locations that would be considered for particular zoning. He thought that was a concern that was valid because Transportation 2030 was going to come through and they were going to see a lot of possibilities down Highway 59 as it widened. There were a lot of things that were going to happen over the next 5 – 10 years that could put other sites into consideration and it was hard to know at this point but it was valid to say how they could create some language that it was their best recommendation but understood that there may be other projects that would want industrial zoning that would be considered and should not be precluded because they have not been identified at this point.
Vice Mayor Dever said he agreed with Commissioner Chestnut. He said when they put specific language into an ordinance and by not including them and generally excluding them, they end up with having to approve uses and go through the process of trying to approve uses that they all may have intended to include, but they just forgot or did not really know there was a possibility because of new road ways or new transportation options, and of course new plans like Transportation 2030. When he read this document, to him to specify land uses in a document like this was not a bad thing, as long as there were referencing something by example was acceptable, he agreed they should also include language that would allow other types of land uses to be considered and rigorously considered and not put aside because they were not specified by this document. He said he also had the problem of discussing temporal language and they were speaking of what happened two years ago. He agreed with the City Manager in that it was common to have that kind of language because he thought it framed the intent of the document so the person reading the document understood the intention. The language in there was fairly strong and one could draw the conclusion that they were not open to new ideas, new office, or new activities in other areas because they approved this document. He said by approving it, they were opening a can of worms and would have to go through rigorous process to allow other types of land uses that were not included in the document when they all may agree they are suitable uses in the area. His goal would be to try and amend it so that there was an option for other types of land uses to be considered and easily inserted into the language or not be so specific with the language for a specific corner in the community.
Hack said her preference would be to act on Ordinance 8097. She thought she was getting a sense of four votes and she was not excluding Commissioner Highberger but did not know how he would vote on the current abundance of comments, since he did not make specific comments about that change. She said if they sent the rest of it back, it would send an odd message and maybe the conversation was if it was denied, they make the suggestions what they want the Planning Commission to look at. She asked if that was the proper procedure if it was the will of the City Commission.
Corliss said yes, it was.
Sheila Stogsdill, Interim Director of Planning, said in response to Dave’s question, she had time to look at the old chapter and one of the differences was they did not have an industrial sites land use map in the existing Chapter 7. The maps that were in there were developed in coordination with the ECO2 committee in terms of trying to identify sites throughout Douglas County. She thought there was more specific language that really spoke to the goals this City Commission had already identified; they want more economic development opportunities out there. When the question was asked, would it affect things that you might see in the near future, quite frankly she thought there was supporting language in the proposed Chapter 7 that was probably not in the existing Chapter 7 that made it easier to support economic development proposals in general. She thought there was more specific language and yes, there may not be specific enough language in some areas, but thought there were areas that were identified as potential places that ECO2 had identified and had since used the foundation of this map in developing the Transportation 2030 future land use map so they could move forward. There were things that have been moving in a progression and this one keeps getting stuck, so they were further and further behind on that update. They could certainly send it all back to the Planning Commission and have them look at it; they had a new Planning Commission and this City Commission was new from the one that acted on it the first time. There was a lot of work that had been done and they were back to the Chapter that was written in the mid 1990’s.
Commissioner Amyx asked if they needed an action taken by the City Commission fairly quickly for the new language to be put in place so that they could allow a number of things to continue to progress.
Corliss said his point was as the Planning staff and as the Planning Commission reviewed, for example, the Airport Industrial Development that was being proposed this month or next month, it would be using what was adopted in the Comprehensive Plan. It was the City Commission and Planning Commission’s will as to what that document said and how they wanted to interpret it. If it was not adopted, then they would be using the existing industrial chapter to analyze that development.
Mayor Hack said that could conceivably open up a can of worms they did not want to see, either.
Corliss said Comprehensive Plans were not dispositive, they were guidelines and how they have interpreted them.
Chestnut said that was the key language. Many people believe the Comprehensive Plan was dispositive and if they could quickly get some language in there to clarify that statement, he was a lot more comfortable moving forward. He agreed there was no doubt they want a revision and want it fairly quickly. He thought what they were saying was the same issue they were talking about with the Chapter 7 they would have to use for ones that were right in the pipeline now, they should roll the camera forward two or three years they would be in the same position and thought if they did not deal with this appropriately where that was not specified and if they went through a whole thing saying it was not part of the Comprehensive Revised Plan in Chapter 7 and there were obviously some issues where he did not know if they could be comprehensive and try to identify every one. He thought they got close, but if they could get language that said it was not the be all and end all, it was a guideline, and have that it would be great.
Corliss said they could do that, but it was staff’s use of the document as well and Stogsdill and her staff use the Comprehensive Plan in that way and have interpreted as a guideline as reflecting the policy wishes that was why they saw policy statements in there that had a generality to them that was important. They could work on that as well. He said he was trying to ask the pipeline question because he did not know the reliance on this document that had been out there for two years.
Commissioner Amyx asked Corliss to provide the City Commission with information as to what decisions are going to be made with this document as compared to what currently existed, the transportation plans and everything that was there.
Corliss said the list of projects that were in their pipeline was pretty thin right now so it did not take a lot of listing of projects. The primary value in this was not site planning of a particular industrial site that was already zoned industrial, but the primary value of this was where do they want employment centers within the community and what kind of values did they want it to reflect as far as transportation and some of those things. He was not aware of too many other existing requests that were currently in and there was a lot of discussion and other properties as well. They had a recent discussion with the ECO2 Commission about how to facilitate their involvement in this process and this document really did not reflect any of those statements and it probably should reflect those statements. He thought there was room for improvement on the wording and clearly if it said “currently”, it should say what year they were talking about, even if they were going to use that type of language.
Dever said part of his concern with adopting this document with the current language was specifying particular land uses at a specific location. He asked if it was the intent to try to encourage that type of development because it seemed the most appropriate at the time or was it because of, geographically speaking, that tract of land, that location, was most suitable for that use.
Stogsdill said the areas that were identified in the maps and the new chapter really were trying to provide more guidance in the growth areas. The current Horizon 2020 only showed a future land use for the service area one part of the urban growth area, which was the most immediate to the City. The remainder of the urban growth area was out there and they could pull together some of the land use from the policies that say they should have these types of land uses at the intersections of these kinds of roads, but there was not a lot of specificity to support a particular use. In the existing Chapter 7 under Lawrence, New, Industrial and Employment Related Areas, it said it “recommended development of new employment areas. These may include East 23rd Street, South Iowa Street at the SLT, and the southeast corner of the intersection of US 24-40 and North 3rd Street.” She said that was all that was identified in the chapter which meant what they did about all the other wonderful places that have been identified since 1995 when this was written. She thought that was what the new chapter was trying to do and it was not trying to exclude specific areas, but was trying to identify the areas that were in the urban growth area or that were areas near Baldwin. The areas in those growth areas were most likely to have the components of major roads and certain land features.
Mayor Hack said it seems staff direction for the best plan was to go ahead and adopt the ordinance and the minutes will reflect our concerns about the language and potential additional uses perhaps along I-70 were some things that were referenced in some of the materials received. She asked Commissioner Amyx if he was comfortable with that or would he like another week to talk about it.
Commissioner Amyx said he would give it a week.
Vice Mayor Dever suggested deferring the item for one week and directing staff to draft specific language, inclusionary language, that would allow or be open to suggestions that would include other land uses that would be open and secondarily change the language talking about whether or not if they have too much office space or not. He said then as supermajority it would only have to be approved by the County Commission and not the Planning Commission.
Corliss said that was correct and they may want to talk about if they wanted to exclude the Planning Commission from that discussion. He said if they had a supermajority vote, they could change anything they wanted in this document. Because it was a joint, comprehensive plan, it would then go to the County Commission with the City Commission meeting minutes, the City Commission changes, and see what the County Commission wished to do which would require a supermajority vote of the County Commission, which were three County Commissioners. It was his understanding that Ms. Eldredge suggested new areas, which he urged the Planning Commission to also consider those other areas as well. He said the document would probably come back to the Planning Commission one way or another and from the planning standpoint they would want the Planning Commission to talk about new areas. There were other stakeholders that would be interested in those areas being designated as opposed to it just being decided at a governing body level. He said if their will was not to adopt the document now, he suggested sending it back to the Planning Commission.
Moved by Amyx, seconded by Chestnut, to defer for two weeks further consideration of whether to approve on first reading, joint City Ordinance No. 8097, and County Resolution No. ____, to replace Chapter Seven – Industrial and Employment Related Land Use, in Horizon 2020 with a revised Chapter 7 entitled “Chapter 7 – Industrial Employment Related Land Use in Horizon 2020, CPA-2004-02 Edition”, and repealing the existing chapter and directed staff to draft alternate language as reflected in the minutes of the meeting. Motion carried 4-1 (Highberger voted no). (8)
Consider recommendation from the Traffic Safety Commission to remove the YIELD signs on Ponderosa Drive at 24th Street and install STOP signs, and adopt on first reading, Ordinance 8127, to remove the YIELD signs on Ponderosa Drive at 24th Street and install STOP signs.
Chuck Soules, Director of Public Works presented the staff report. He said they had a request to the Traffic Safety Commission to replace the yield signs on Ponderosa with stop signs. Staff looked at the intersection and the intersection has had five accidents within the last three years; three of them were injury accidents. The Traffic Safety Commission voted to approve this recommendation, but because it was not unanimous, it came to the City Commission for consideration. One of the two votes against the recommendation was because no one was at the meeting to support it and the other was that a the TSC Commissioner thought that 5 crashes were not significant. Soules said staff felt three injuries were significant. Staff recommended approval and thought the City Commission received a letter from a local business that used that intersection fairly regularly and felt it was also a concern of theirs.
Commissioner Amyx said this was a straightforward kind of consideration. He said he was out there Saturday afternoon when he had gotten off of work and it needed to happen.
Commissioner Chestnut said he had a good friend that lived on Home Circle and it was a raceway and a problem.
Mayor Hack called for public comment.
Steve Glass, LRM Industries, said the City Commission received a letter that he wrote to the Traffic Safety Commission. He said he was present to encourage the City Commission’s support and what they could not measure was the number of near misses. Given his use of the intersection, he could tell them that the number of near misses were substantial. He came to the conclusion that the yield sign was no longer taught in driver’s education.
Moved by Amyx, seconded by Dever, to place on first reading, Ordinance No. 8127, removing the yield signs on Ponderosa Drive at 24th Street and installing stop signs. Motion carried unanimously. (9)
Consider request to waive bidding requirements for Oregon Park Benefit District improvements.
Chuck Soules, Public Works Director, presented the staff report. He said Oregon Trail Park was part of the Oregon Trail Addition. Oregon Trail Addition had provided to the City approximately 4.3 acres to be developed as a park. It would have a storm water detention feature, a wet pond, playground equipment, drainage work, and a recreational path. The improvements were being funded 100% by the benefit district and there was no cost to the City at large. The method of assessment was based on the square footage for all the people within the benefit district. Benefit districts were typically financed and bonded through the City and special assessments were placed on all properties in the benefit district which included all costs for engineering, construction, inspection, financing, all bonding costs, and temporary note costs. On June 12th the City Commission received a request by the owners of the Oregon Trail development to waive the bidding requirements. One of the members, partners of the Oregon Trail partnership was very capable of doing this work and did a lot of that work within the community. The City asked R.D. Johnson, one of the owners in the partnership, for a quote to do the bid and staff reviewed that quote. He said that quote was reasonable as compared to what they would typically see against an openly bid project. Pending City Commission direction, if the City Commission desired to waive the bidding requirements, they would bring their bid back to the City Commission next week for award and still maintain a contract, like any other contract with a contractor; they would have bonds, warranties, and charge all the costs back to the benefit district.
Mayor Hack called for public comment. There was none.
Commissioner Amyx asked if the City had ever done this in the past.
Soules said yes.
Corliss said they did it for a construction of a street off of Kasold, south of Clinton Parkway for some office buildings where they were the sole benefit district; they had the construction company that would be able to do most of the work and had some sub contractors out. He said one of the issues with waiving the bidding requirements in a benefit district is that one of the things they had a responsibility for was the future property owners and current property owners. In this case, the current property owner was requesting they do the work and waive the bidding requirements. The harm was greatly reduced because Soules was checking the dollar amount and had a comfort level with it; they thought it was negligible so that the property owner and future property owners that would be in Oregon Trail Park were getting the fair benefit of the bargain for the work. That special assessment benefit district, there were multiple properties benefiting from the cul-de-sac bulb extension behind LMH South and a deceleration lane there which was part of the benefit district and how it was paid for. They waive bidding requirements when they do design/build projects. They traditionally do not do it in benefit districts but in this case it appeared to be appropriate.
Moved by Chestnut, seconded by Amyx, to direct staff to waive the bidding requirements. Motion carried unanimously. (10)
Conduct public hearing to consider Ordinance No. 8121, establishing the maximum assessments for the improvements at K-10 and O’Connell Road, specifically the construction of a left-turn lane for westbound and right-turn lane for eastbound K-10 traffic at O’Connell Road.
Mayor Hack called a public hearing on establishing the maximum assessments for the improvements at K-10 and O’Connell Road.
Shoeb Uddin, City Engineer, presented the staff report. He said Ordinance 8121 was intended to establish maximum assessments for the improvements at K-10 and O’Connell Road. He said they had two projects, one being a left turn lane for west bound traffic, and the other being a right turn lane for the east bound traffic. The intention was to allow traffic to go into O’Connell Road. Originally they started in 2004 the left turn lane project as one benefit district and in 2005 new information came in so the right turn lane became another project. He said since they were so close together and serving the same district, it was decided it would be better if the two were combined. There were two distinctively separate projects, but their intention was to bid them together with the hope that it would get them a better construction price. The status of the project right now was design. The construction for the left turn lane was complete at this time and the construction plans for the right turn lane was in the final review of K-DOT and based on his conversation with the consultant last week, they were expecting it to be done by the end of July. The combined cost of the two projects was $794,585. One hundred percent would be paid for by the benefit district and the City would have zero participation. There were 11 tracts in the district so staff used a ratio of area for each tract to the total area of the district to figure out how much assessment would be for each of the tracts. He said for example, if tract 9 had an area of 10 and the total area was 100, the cost assessed to tract 9 was 10%.
Commissioner Highberger asked if all the property owners had been contacted and if there were any objections.
Uddin said all the property owners had been contacted and he has not received any objections so far. He said Bill Newsome came to his office earlier and said he would not be at the City Commission meeting. Out of the 11 tracts, he believed there were three owners and had not heard anything from the other owners.
Corliss said before Uddin came on staff, as the land use approvals went through on the development of the east and west side of O’Connell, they have signed agreements not to protest special assessment benefit districts for these projects. Bill Newsome, one of the primary property owners there, knew about the project and the completion of these lanes was one of the requirements.
Uddin said the only concern Mr. Newsome had was if the estimate was high enough.
Commissioner Highberger asked Corliss if the agreements not to protest extended to not to contest the method of assessment.
Corliss said it did not but they did not usually get into that level of detail. The benefit district had already been established so it was too late for the property owner to contest that. What the public hearing did was after they adopt the ordinance and after 30 days had ran, no property owner could file a lawsuit challenging any of the proceedings. They were locked in on the ability to assess the property, the maximum assessments of the ordinance.
Mayor Hack called for public comment.
Upon receiving no public comment, it was moved by Amyx, seconded by Dever, to close the public hearing. Motion carried unanimously.
Moved by Amyx, seconded by Highberger, to place on first reading, Ordinance No. 8121, levying the maximum assessments on lots, pieces and parcels of land in the City of Lawrence, Kansas, to pay the costs for the construction of a left turn lane, west bound on Kansas Highway 10 (K-10) at the intersection of E 1600 Road (O’Connell Road), and an east bound deceleration lane on Kansas Highway 10 (K-10), at the intersection of East 1600 Road (O’Connell Road) including property acquisition, intersection improvements, subgrade stabilization, and other necessary and appropriate improvements, as authorized by Resolution No. 6686. Motion carried unanimously. (11)
Consider motion to recess into executive session for approximately 30 minutes to discuss matters deemed privileged in the attorney-client relationship. The justification is to keep matters confidential at this time. The regular meeting will resume in the City Commission meeting room.
Moved by Chestnut, seconded by Dever, to recess into executive session at 7:40 for 30 minutes to discuss matters deemed privileged under the attorney-client relationship. Motion carried unanimously.
The Commission returned to regular session at 8:20 p.m.
Moved by Amyx, seconded by Dever, to adjourn at 8:25 p.m. Motion carried unanimously.
APPROVED _____________________________
Sue Hack, Mayor
ATTEST:
___________________________________
Frank S. Reeb, City Clerk
1. Ordinance No. 8126 – 1st Read, Court costs for supervised probation, fingerprinting, & incarceration.
2. Ordinance No. 8123 – 2nd Read, amend 17-502, designation of trafficway connections.
3. Ordinance No. 8124 – 2nd Read, “no parking” S side of University Dr between Brittany Pl & Crestline Dr.
4. Ordinance No. 8122 – 2nd Read, “stop signs” intersection of 23rd & Noria.
5. Site Plan – (SP-06-51-06) two, 1 story office/warehouses, 908 N Iowa.
6. Mortgage Release – 814 NJ, Manual Mendoza.
7. City Manager’s report.
8. Ordinance No. 8097 – 1st Read, City/County, Chpt 7, Industrial & Employment Related Land Use.
9. Ordinance No. 8127 – 1st Read, remove yield signs on Ponderosa & replace with stop signs.
10. Bid requirements waiving discussion – Oregon Park Benefit District.
11. Ordinance No. 8121 – 1st Read, Max assess for KS Hwy 10 intersection of E 1600 Rd (O’Connell)