April 8, 2008

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 Dever presiding and members Amyx, Chestnut, Hack, and Highberger present.

RECOGNITION/PROCLAMATION/PRESENTATION:

Mayor Dever recognized the recipients of the Mayor’s Excellence in Education Award.

With Commission approval Mayor Dever proclaimed April 12 – 19, 2008 as “Week of the Young Child”; and the month of April as “Parkinson’s Disease Awareness Month.”

CONSENT AGENDA

 As part of the consent agenda, it was moved by Chestnut, seconded by Amyx, to approve the City Commission meeting minutes of March 25, 2008. Motion carried unanimously.
 As part of the consent agenda, it was moved by Chestnut, seconded by Amyx, to approve claims to 425 vendors in the amount of $2,001,109.78. Motion carried unanimously.

As part of the consent agenda, it was moved by Chestnut, seconded by Amyx, to approve Drinking Establishment Licenses for Vermont Street BBQ, 728 Massachusetts; Maceli’s, 1031 New Hampshire; the Caterer Licenses for Lawrence Arts Center, 940 New Hampshire; Maceli’s, 1 Riverfront Plaza; and the Cereal Malt Beverage License for Asian Star, 1520 Wakarusa, Ste: F. Motion carried unanimously.

As part of the consent agenda, it was moved by Chestnut, seconded by Amyx, to concur with the recommendation of the Mayor and appoint Roy Chaney and Steve Burd to the Board of Plumbers and Pipe Fitters. Chaney’s term will expire April 30, 2011, and Burd’s term will expire April 30, 2009. Motion carried unanimously.

As part of the consent agenda, it was moved by Chestnut, seconded by Amyx, to authorize the City Manager to execute a contract agreement and purchase order with Mayer Specialty Service, LLC in the amount of $120,000 to complete the 2008 Manhole Rehabilitation Manhole Program. Motion carried unanimously. (1)

As part of the consent agenda, it was moved by Chestnut, seconded by Amyx, to authorize payment in the amount of $26,000 to Olsson & Associates for City initiated design costs related to optional bidding configurations of Pump Station PS49 in the Douglas County Sanitary Sewer Benefit Districts No’s 1, 2, and 3. Motion carried unanimously. (2)

As part of the consent agenda, it was moved by Chestnut, seconded by Amyx, to place on first reading, a Joint City Ordinance No. 8255/County Resolution No. 08-14, incorporating by reference the “Subdivision Regulations for Lawrence and the Unincorporated Areas of Douglas County. Motion carried unanimously. (3)

As part of the consent agenda, it was moved by Chestnut, seconded by Amyx, to place on first reading, Ordinance No. 8258, providing for the deferral of special assessments for public improvements in improvement districts established on property owned by a political subdivision. Motion carried unanimously. (4)

As part of the consent agenda, it was moved by Chestnut, seconded by Amyx, to place on first reading, Ordinance No. 8259, amending City Ordinance No. 6010 pertaining to the deferral period of certain special assessments previously authorized by the City on lots, pieces and parcels of East Hills Business Park. Motion carried unanimously. (5)

Ordinance No. 8249, an ordinance providing for the amendment to various sections of Chapter 20 Development Code related to the definition of family in RS Districts, was read a second time. As part of the consent agenda, it was moved by Chestnut, seconded by Amyx, to adopt the ordinance. Aye: Amyx, Dever, Chestnut, Hack, and Highberger. Nay: None. Motion carried unanimously. (6)

Ordinance No. 8253, adopting the Oread Redevelopment Project Plan, was read a second time. As part of the consent agenda, it was moved by Chestnut, seconded by Amyx, to adopt the ordinance. Aye: Amyx, Dever, Chestnut, Hack, and Highberger. Nay: None. Motion carried unanimously. (7)

Ordinance No. 8254, creating a Transportation Development District and levying a Transportation Development District sales tax, was read a second time. As part of the consent agenda, it was moved by Chestnut, seconded by Amyx, to adopt the ordinance. Aye: Amyx, Dever, Chestnut, Hack, and Highberger. Nay: None. Motion carried unanimously. (8)

As part of the consent agenda, it was moved by Chestnut, seconded by Amyx, to approve the extension of the parking agreement with Sunflower Broadband to use City Lot 16 at the monthly rate of $10 per metered space for 43 spaces, for a total of $430 per month, until May 31, 2008. Motion carried unanimously. (9)

As part of the consent agenda, it was moved by Chestnut, seconded by Amyx, to approve signs of community interest, a request from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day-Saints, for a free Community Emergency Preparedness Fair to place signs in the city right-of-way, median at 10^th and Kasold, north and southbound on Kasold Drive, beginning at 5 p.m., May 2, and ending about 2 p.m., and ending about 2 p.m. on Saturday, May 3, 2008. Motion carried unanimously. (10)

As part of the consent agenda, it was moved by Chestnut, seconded by Amyx, to authorize the Mayor to sign a Release of Mortgage for Lance and Amy Hoover, 1511 Davis Road. Motion carried unanimously. (11)

As part of the consent agenda, it was moved by Chestnut, seconded by Amyx, to approve the temporary “Resident Parking Only” signs on the 900 block of Rhode Island on May 14, 2008. Motion carried unanimously. (12)

As part of the consent agenda, it was moved by Chestnut, seconded by Amyx, to approve a second amendment to interlocal agreement pertaining to the deferral period of certain special assessments previously authorized by the City on lots, pieces, and parcels of East Hills Business Park. Motion carried unanimously.

CITY MANAGER’S REPORT:

During the City Manager’s Report, David Corliss said staff provided the City Commission with photographs following Saturday night’s celebration for the Jayhawk’s National Basketball Championship. Staff was sending thank you letters to a number of jurisdictions that helped Lawrence with its celebrations. The reports received from the Police Department showed the celebration was relatively safe.

Also, staff was monitoring sales tax distributions and had reason to believe the City was on track in meeting projections and possibly the budget.

He said staff drafted a decision-making matrix for the development process, which was helpful and would be sharing that matrix with the development community which indicated all the different roles each party played in that process.

The other major item was Memorial Park Cemetery. Staff would inform the City Commission when the City was able to declare victory for that cemetery and had reason to believe the City would be successful in receiving the money from the trust.

Commissioner Amyx said regarding the merchandise fund, the Attorney General asked the City Commission to accept responsibility of that money and asked if the Attorney General would be contacting individuals.

Corliss said he did not know, but the Attorney General’s Office had the information. He said staff spent a lot of money working with the records that were provided, and the records were not in particularly good shape. Staff sent that information to the Attorney General’s Office and did not know if that office was going to respond to inquiries or make an attempt to contact the different contract holders. It was a substantial task because in many cases, for example, someone who had bought services, a vault or a marker 10 years ago, it was unlikely those contract holders were in the same location as when they signed the contract, but contacting the contract holders would be a worthwhile effort. (13)

REGULAR AGENDA ITEMS:

Receive 2007 annual report from the Convention and Visitors Bureau.

Judy Billings, Director, Convention and Visitors Bureau (CVB), said as a marketer of this community, she was proud to live in this type of City that could handle a celebration of 40,000 people in the downtown area. She said in past years of celebrations in other cities, it did not turn out as well as it turned out for the City of Lawrence and it was a tribute to City staff that the celebration was a success. The publicity gained from this event, either bad or good, was really important and the City could not buy this type of positive publicity. Also, the success from the Orange Bowl was a tribute to this City.

She said this was her first opportunity to formally report to the City Commission as President and CEO of the new organization Destination Management, Inc. For the public, she wanted to clarify this was a brand new not-for-profit organization that had a contract with the City to manage the Convention and Visitors Bureau with the bed tax that was collected through the City annually which was a five percent bed tax on hotel rooms in the community.

She said direct spending in 2007 was a little over $49 million, which translated to almost $1 million in sales tax and the advertising effectiveness number was a study performed for the 2006 advertising that showed for every $1 spent in advertising, it brought $59.00 back to the community.

Destination Management had three goals which were a marketing goal, service goal, and development goal. They focused on leisure, media, sports, convention needs, and film to a lesser extent. Advertising went into magazines like Midwest Living and AAA Publications which often times, cost approximately $3,000 each. Therefore, they did not do a lot of that type of advertising, but that advertising was successful and they received a lot of requests for information. Other advertising was newspapers in drive markets, online advertising, and in 2007 radio advertising. Also, they partnered with other communities and the state office to do some television advertising.

She said Destination Management did a lot of electronic marketing and encouraged people to go to their website and look for more information. The average daily number of visits on their site was 1,500 which was an 11% increase. They encouraged people to visit their website to make hotel reservations which was increasing. A green box on their website allowed people to download Eye-Tours of Downtown Lawrence and Quantrill’s Raid.

They printed 80,000 Visitors Guides and mailed those guides directly to KU season ticket holders which were done by partnering with the KU Athletic Department and also mailed guides to all new KU and Haskell student parents.

She said media relations were a little more difficult for people to understand. They partnered with the state office and hosted a number of qualified travel writers and when they experienced Lawrence first hand, they had good information to write about Lawrence. The way that was measured was by calculating how much it would cost to purchase advertising that equated to the amount of space that was used in that editorial. It was about half a million dollars in 2007.

She said sports events were a little more invisible. They were responsible for bringing in and coordinating five sporting events last year. There was a cycling event and more recently the December cross country track and field event that brought thousands of people to town. During that time, 4,500 total rooms were booked and created $3.2 million in direct spending by direct sports events which did not include KU events or anything other than what the CVB was responsible for.

There were 193 convention meetings reported to the CVB which equated to 20,000 people coming in to town. A lot of those people were driving in to town from surrounding areas and the CVB was working to increase the number of rooms that were occupied by conventions. There was $2.2 million in economic impact for those conferences such as materials on hand and those costs which was approximately $21,000 in paper, pads, pencils and everything else given to visitors when coming to town.

They hosted about 10,000 people in the Visitor’s Information Center which were those people who signed the register and not local people that attended events. The Visitors Center was open 7 days a week for the community. They also staffed approximately 450 uses of the building that were not related to visitors coming and going. Those were events scheduled by Parks and Recreation. They supported local events especially those they thought would bring folks from out of town, but not always.

She said she would report, at another time, more detailed information about Freedoms Frontier. The City had been supportive financially and also in terms of supporting her work with The Heritage Area which was a 501(c)(3) and managed the Heritage Area out of their office. They were taking the lead for the 41 county area.

There were a number of events in the works such as the Iron Man Race in which they were not hosting or coordinating the event, but coordinating the ancillary activities that were happening downtown as a result of that event, the nightly events in South Park which was being coordinated and promoted by their office, a softball tournament, conventions, American College of Theatre Festival, just to name a few.

Again, direct spending by visitors was $49 million compared to $46 million in 2006. In 2007, $808,933 was actually collected. The percentage of day trips was based on the advertising effectiveness study which was done about every third year which told them how many people were coming to Lawrence for the day and not spending the night. She said the CVB made a great effort in keeping track of their efforts and wanted to be accountable for the money the City entrusted to the CVB.

Mayor Dever said they were excited to get the National Heritage Area up and running and was hoping Destination Management could drive up the revenues from bed tax by having more hotel space in the community. He looked forward to more events.

Billings said they were proud to market the community.

The City Commission received the annual report. (14)

Receive request from David McLaughlin, to include roofing contractors under the Lawrence licensing requirements.

Scott McCullough, Director of Planning and Development, introduced the item. He said there had been a request by a group of contractors to be included within the City’s licensing program for contractors. It was a trade group that was not currently included with the contractor licensing program. The group cited respect for the trade, quality to residents, and those kinds of issues being included within the umbrella.

The licensing program would provide the following:

1. A consumer protection mechanism for people who received the service from contractors;

2. A quality issue for building in the City as continuing education was an element of licensing in the City; and,

3. A level playing field as a business tool for contractors in terms of meeting insurance requirements, and education requirements.

He said staff provided an honest assessment of development services resources in terms of providing the ability to be included under the contractor licensing provisions and supported the concept and expansion of the program. Staff noted the inadequacies of resources to provide the services and reviewed it in the framework as program improvement and would like to discuss with the City Commission in upcoming budget sessions.

Commissioner Amyx said in reviewing the staff memo it talked about how it was not feasible at this point. He said just because the number of inspections that were done with new construction, there was not much new construction at this time. He asked if it could be incorporated as the need arises.

McCullough said staff anticipated an additional 1,000 permits annually for roofing and re-roofing. There were decisions that needed to be made in the type of permits. Typically, with licensed contractors, that licensing was included in the permitting and inspection processes. He said at the permit level, staff was able to handle those increased inspections at this time, but expanding the permitting program needed consideration since staff viewed staffing levels just adequate at this time.

Vice Mayor Chestnut said the memo mentioned that a license for roofing was not needed for owner/occupied residents. He said consumer protection was mentioned. He asked if staff had experienced any type of complaints on contractors and would licensing apply to new home construction.

Tim Pinnick, Development Services, said staff received complaints on new construction and infrequent complaints on roofing. New construction permits covered roof installation at this time, so staff was looking at re-roofs. He said presently, staff had no control over a company or individual for re-roofing. Staff would look at an entire package that would require licensing, permits, and inspections. Again, licensing would level the playing field for the contractors.

Mayor Dever asked where staff received the numbers for calculating re-roofs projects within the City.

Pinnick said a survey of other communities was conducted and the number was an average based on the community of this size.

Mayor Dever called for public comment.

David McLaughlin, McLaughlin Roofing, said he was the elected representative of seven roofing companies in Lawrence including his business. He said when speaking to other roofing contractors, they felt there was a minimum of 1,000 re-roofs on existing structures that were constructed in Lawrence each year. He said they were primarily interested in those re-roofs because the building trade was somewhat self regulated. He said contractors would hire subcontractors and hopefully those subcontractors were being watched. Routinely, they ran into complaints as they were bidding roofs regarding roofers receiving money up front and not returning to do the work or doing work at a substandard level. Those were some of the major concerns they were trying to address.

He said Lawrence was their work place and received respect as roofers as a whole. Individuals that were not licensed did not have the experience level to complete work in a timely and correct fashion, had no insurance or were underinsured and the consumer took the brunt. He said they wanted to make the community a better place as far as construction on homes.

Commissioner Amyx said the letter sent to the Commission indicated the vast majority of roofing contractors wanted these licensing requirements. There were approximately 30 roofing contractors right now in Lawrence. He asked if McLaughlin heard most of the complaints after a hail storm.

McLaughlin said customers would call a roofer to repair their roof after a storm, the roof would be repaired, but there would be no follow up as far as leaks and other things. It also would help new companies in giving them a guideline to follow to be a respectable and responsible company. It held everyone accountable for having a business in the community.

Commissioner Highberger asked if McLaughlin worked in other jurisdictions that had licensing requirements.

McLaughlin said yes, in Johnson County which had licensing requirements.

Commissioner Highberger asked if it would be a burden to meet both licensing requirements for both jurisdictions.

McLaughlin said no.

Mayor Dever asked about the number of roofing contractors for Johnson County. He said if there was a catastrophic event, how many people did inspections, and if it was a burden to wait for approval of their work or certification and sign off on the project.

Darin Lutz, Alpha Roofing, said pertaining to the individual jurisdictions, Johnson County’s General Contractor License covered a number of other cities, and most of those cities only required a Johnson County license to do business in those locations and individual cities required other types of licensing. Some cities require a general inspection at the time of completion which was after pulling a permit. He said Johnson County required a midpoint inspection in which they would look at the types of materials to make sure the criteria was met on their approved list of materials, and also required a final inspection. The City of Leawood was strict about that process.

He said the best scenario in Lawrence would be an initial license to pull a permit and a final inspection on completion based on meeting the certain criteria for Lawrence.

Mayor Dever said if there was a delay because 100 roofs needed inspections and there were only two inspectors, he asked how that impacted the homeowner, the completion of the job, and the cost of the project to the homeowner.

Lutz said he had never run into a delay in that County. He said, for instance, the City of Leawood had a hotline to call for an afternoon inspection. Their inspectors would inspect and leave the results of the inspection and sometimes the contractor did not need to be present and the inspector would leave the results in a designated spot. He said he did not know the number of inspectors Leawood had, but there had not been any problems so far.

Commissioner Hack said she would like to receive information on the costs. She said the benefits to the consumers would be large as well as to the City’s local companies.

Mayor Dever said he would like to identify the true costs to see if the City could afford that type of licensing, and if so, identify a budget. He said he would also like to identify the amount to be paid both for licensing and permits. The worst case scenario would be unintended consequences of the regulation because Lawrence was not Johnson County and might not have ten extra inspectors when there was a greater demand for inspections and the quality of service to the community would diminish under times of high need.

Commissioner Hack asked if staff would include this in their department’s program improvement.

McCullough said staff would be providing some budget information and it was an issue identified to include under their program improvement narrative. He said staff could keep working on some of the details of this type of licensing and look for ways to get their arms around this issue in terms of impacts to staffing and resources. He said staff was proposing to do the inspections at the end of the project and even if the inspections took place a day later, it was not something that would impact the contractors.

Mayor Dever asked if the primary issue was quality control as opposed to the contractor leaving the site and moving on to the next project.

McCullough said for roofing contracting, it was more for consumer protection, quality, and education.

The City Commission received the report regarding roofing contractor licensing and directed staff to provide further information on the costs and benefits of roofing contractor licensing. (15)

Consider authorizing the Mayor to sign the “Authority to Award Contract and Commitment of City Funds” and the Construction Engineering Agreement with KDOT for construction of Project No. 61-GI2-1104(C) for the improvements of 19^th Street from Ohio Street to Alabama Street and adopt Resolution No. 6762, authorizing the issuance of General Obligation Bonds for a principal maximum amount of $250,000.

Chuck Soules, Director of Public Works, presented the staff report. He said this project included widening the street to the south to extend the center turn lane from Louisiana, west toward Alabama and replacement and relocation of an old 1930’s water main and sanitary sewer.

Staff met with the School District and discussed a bus turn off lane and as a result, the School District was financially supportive and asked the City to proceed. A grant in the amount of $294,000 was also received from KDOT.

He said bids were received for this project and LRM Industries was low bidder.

He said staff was asking the City to approve three actions which were:

1. Authorize the Mayor to sign the Construction Engineering Agreement with KDOT for construction for the improvement of 19^th Street from Ohio Street to Alabama Street;

2. Approve Resolution 6762 authorizing the issuance of General Obligations Bonds for a principal maximum amount of $250,000.00; and

3. Authorize the Mayor to sign the “Authority to Award Contract and Commitment Of City Funds”.

He said there would be detours for this project.

Mayor Dever asked about the bicycle lane issue raised in Michael Almon’s letter.

Soules said when staff looked at the project there was a certain amount of right-of-way. Staff was able to place a sidewalk on the north side where there was no sidewalk. Because of the width of the sidewalk, easements had to be bought due to being outside the right-of-way. On the south side of the road, a sidewalk was being replaced. There was some separation between the back of the curb and the sidewalk. He said behind that sidewalk were Westar utility poles, which needed to be moved back. There was no room to place a bicycle lane within the right-of-way. Additional property could have been acquired, but the property was expensive in that area. The houses to the north were already crowded and staff was concerned about how close they were getting to the houses and the trees in the yards that might be impacted. To the south side was the school with the large electric lines and just south of the electric line was a sanitary sewer main and easement. The electric lines could not go into that sewer easement because of the sewer line. He said staff could not find a good way to come up with another 6 foot out of the road without taking or buying more property. Staff looked at doing other improvements when that road was closed. He said 19^th Street from Alabama to Naismith and Tennessee to Massachusetts would be milled and overlaid.

He said cyclists would use a lane from Mass to 19^th, and when they arrived at Alabama, a bike lane would be available. If they were going back to the east, the cyclist would take that lane and continue on.

Commissioner Highberger asked if Soules was suggesting pavement markers similar to Naismith. On Naismith rather than a specifically marked lane, he suggested bike signs be placed to mark the area.

Soules said on 19^th from Alabama to Naismith staff would mark a bike lane in the pavement. There would be a 3.5 to 4 foot area that would be sectioned off.

Vice Mayor Chestnut said Soules mentioned specifically the south side of 19^th where the sidewalks were currently 2 feet wide that went right up to the curbing and asked if there would be separation at that location as those sidewalks were being redone.

Jason Hoskinson, BG Consultants, said the sidewalk Vice Mayor Chestnut was talking about in particular was east of Louisiana on the south side. There was a section where work was not needed for the curb or sidewalk. They were planning on keeping the existing sidewalk to minimize costs. There were some widening improvements on the Ohio Street on the intersection on the south side. They would be widening the sidewalks and would continue with ADA sidewalk ramps at the intersections.

Vice Mayor Chestnut asked if the narrow path up to the road was going to continue.

Hoskinson said yes.

Soules said the new sidewalk on the north had to be on the back of the curb and the city was receiving easements for sidewalks. He said they were trying to make those sidewalks wider in order for people to walk further away from the curb. There were always challenges to fitting sidewalks into existing areas.

Mayor Dever asked what the standard width required for new installations of sidewalks.

Soules said new installations were 6 foot and on a residential street it was 5 feet.

Commissioner Amyx asked if there was a 6 foot space from the length of the curb. He asked if that would not be enough room or if that was a policy issue.

Soules said they tried to get 6 foot separation.

Commissioner Amyx said to accommodate a bicycle lane 3 feet was needed.

Soules said three feet from the curb line.

Mayor Dever called for public comment.

Michael Almon, Lawrence, said in typical fashion, Public Works had done an excellent job in attending to so many details in a very complicated engineering fashion. Also, in typical fashion, they pretty much had bicycles on the forefront of their agenda. It was not until three or four years ago that bicycles were addressed in the City with the Parks and Recreation Department, which most were bike paths through parks and things like that. He said for some 20–25 years he among others has said bicycles should not be thought of as toys but as transportation. He was glad that now Public Works was handling this whole process in the area of transportation. It was gratifying to know that bicycles were being addressed but when the whole process evolved from the Pedal Plan, the compatibility with the Public Works program to the bicycle plan they had now, it became apparent for practical reasons, budgetary reasons, logistics reasons or what have you, they would not be able to build all the bicycle facilities they were short on to fill all the gaps and make all the connectivity at one time. It was a protocol adopted by the City Commission or by staff what they would do was address these issues piece by piece, project by project, so that any given time when a certain street was designated by the bicycle plan to have bicycle lanes or a use path that when that road was being rebuilt, reconfigured or mill and overlaid, that segment would be upgraded to accommodate the bicycle. It would be done a segment at a time. 19^th Street was one of those first 11 streets that was identified by the Bicycle Compatibility Study as being high priority and the Bicycle Plan adopted in 2004 also showed bicycle lanes on 19^th Street from the east City Limits all the way to Naismith.

About two years ago east 19^th Street was mill and overlaid and at that time Public Works put bicycle lanes there because they fit and rolled it all in the project for efficiency and cost effectiveness. When this project came up, it evolved out of the effort to resolve the intersection problem with the roundabout and traffic circle which for various reasons did not go anywhere. This was the second next best option and thought it was a good option because Public Works did a great job resolving that intersection problem. They improved the safety for the driving public. It would make an intersection much more functional. However, in that process, this important protocol of looking at bicycles and rolling it into the project and using that opportunity to fill in that segment was overlooked. He said staff met with him and realized that was the situation, but given all the balls they had in the air and the elements they were trying to balance, the limits of the right-of-way, the intersection was a high priority and the bicycle element was on the backburner and could not include it. Some of the rationale he could not agree with because a lot of driveways and alleys on 19^th Street conflict with bicycles and was not recommended putting in bike lanes. It was 180 degrees opposite of why provide bike lanes on pavement. Bicyclists on sidewalks were the conflict of driveways, alleys and streets. They were removed from the line of vision of drivers of automobiles, turning automobiles coming out, particularly backing out of driveways, did not see bicyclists as well as if they were on the street where the driving motorist was looking. He said it was a poor rationale. To improve the safety of the driving public was minimal, but one of the main problems with not having bicycle lanes clearly define space for bicyclists that both the motorist and bicyclist identify and recognize readily was confusing; confusing to the motorist and confusing to the bicyclist. When there were snap decisions made by bicyclists, it could turn very quickly not knowing where they were going to go to avoid something. That confusion was what caused accidents. The design they had now did not provide for bicycle safety. In a sense, it also caused confusion for the motorist, too. It was not accomplishing anything what the memo said anything for the sake of bicyclists. He found it very unfortunate that a $1.25 million project had gotten to this stage of near completion of approval with a timeline already penciled in with construction being done in the summer and done before school opened, that if they were to re-look at this and redo it, this would delay it for a year. He did not know if it was true or not, but the City Commission needed to be aware of that. He found it unfortunate that they were already this far along and that the issue he thought would be dealt with equally in these kinds of segments as an ongoing projects was precluded from happening and he found quite late in the process that it was the case. He tried to follow a lot of the agenda items and did not follow them all. He did not know this process was taking place. As far as the geometrics of that particular stretch, they were not really thinking in terms of the implications east of Louisiana Street moving curbs, what happens west of Alabama Street alignment or anything like that. Those were segments that at a later time when those parts of the roadway were being dealt with, would be dealt with. They were hoping to do in protocol was do this segment, and get to the other segments later. If they were locked in with this configuration in this segment, the rest of the segments were going to be questionable. At this point, it was kind of like a keystone, and the whole section of 19^th Street did a lot of meandering as lanes move and there were more lanes, fewer lanes, and turn lanes, and he did not think moving the cross section of 19^th Street 6 feet to the south was going to make much difference. Many of the streets, because of intersection upgrades or where things were added, there was a lot of meandering back and forth, but drivers had no problem with it. When he talked with City staff that afternoon, one of the things they tried to avoid in any of the projects was conflicts with existing structures. They did not want to try to take anymore easement from the road or expand sidewalks on the north side, however, this particular segment was almost ideal in that the south side was wide open and was USD 497 property. There was no structure there or anywhere there and definitely had room if they wanted to move the road to the south. The only obstacle there on the south side was a chain link fence. A chain link fence was on the right-of-way line and beyond that right-of-way line was a 6 foot utility easement that was part of USD 497 property that the City had an easement. Utilities like to keep their easements for only their own use, but the easement was there and used by the City. Rather than the options that they considered, he thought one of the best options would be to negotiate with the school district to move their chain link fence to the easement line and get the 6 feet plus the 6 feet of separation between curb and sidewalk. Then they could move the cross section of the street. One of the obstacles on the south side they were already working around were the Westar High Tension Transmission poles. Those poles in either scenario would still be left alone and could move the sidewalk to the south of those poles on the USD 497 easement. They could move the cross section of the street, widened, to where the 4 foot sidewalk was now and put a bicycle lane there. They would have additional space on the north side for a bicycle lane. To him, that seemed like a plausible scenario. On the west end of Alabama there was a little bit more of an offset, that they would have to turn back north a bit, but would seriously like them to consider that as an option. There were probably more numbers he did not know of, but was told by staff that afternoon if they were to have bicycle lanes, it would add $30,000 to the project cost. Moving curbs and gutters was already part of the project and re-engineering the drawings would be about $80,000 more. He did no think that was a lot more money to add to $1.25 million project. Delaying it for a year was a serious concern, but if the Commission was weighing their options, he would like them to consider that option.

Commissioner Hack said she did not have a clear picture of what it would look like and how much space was at that location.

Shoeb Uddin, City Engineer, said the issue that had to be addressed was if it was feasible to put in a bike path as Almon suggested, redesigning the road, the biggest issue would be the timeline and cost. If the road had to be redesigned, the project could not move ahead this year. The project cost was just under budget and had about $25,000 pushing it into budget. If they had any contingency come up during construction then staff would need to ask for additional money. The original project schedule was for 2009 construction, but staff wanted to get the project completed a year ahead, between May 23^rd and August 12^th was the timeline to complete the project.

Commissioner Highberger thanked Almon for bringing this to the Commission’s attention. He said he was not sure there was a feasible alternative in this case. He was not sure the solution that would put the sidewalk meets the curb except for the bike lane was a better option. He was concerned about the expense and the delay and trying to move the sidewalk to the other side of the utility poles. That option would put the utility poles right on the street and some studies showed that trees along the street reduced accidents, but wide spaced utility poles might not have the same affect and there could be some danger. He appreciated Almon bringing this forward but could not support Almon’s request because of financial reasons.

Almon said he thought it could be located south of Westar’s poles, not immediately adjacent to the curb. The short option was to have the sidewalks south of the poles and move the cross section to have bicycle lanes on the pavement, and then those poles would not be next to traffic lanes, but next to a bicycle lane. He said the multiuse path would be a workable option as opposed to the bicycle lanes, which would be the ideal option. The only problem he had with the multiuse path was wherever it might be located south of the street, when it reached the area at Alabama where it would narrow down, to the west, Soules said in the future there would be plenty of room for the bicycle lanes and bicycle lanes would probably be placed in that area, but he asked how would bicyclists moving both east and west on the south side of the street, get over to the north side and similarly on the east end at Louisiana, the issue of how bicyclists on the lane or side path could get to the intersection was not really relevant because federal guidelines generally have the bicycle lanes and that was how that was done in this instance some 100 feet before the intersection. Whatever was done on the segments between intersections west of Louisiana near Alabama, was its own configuration judged on its own merits. If the City Commission wanted to go ahead and build that configuration and cross section and put in a multiuse path, he thought that would be workable if it was south of the poles. They could put it on the curb, but south of the poles would be best. Also, they were already one year ahead of schedule.

Vice Mayor Chestnut said regarding the option of the multi use path, not only what Almon brought up as far as someone going westbound and needing to cross over when getting to the west side of where the work was being done, but again getting back to the four foot sidewalk, it had some visibility obstruction when getting to residential on the west side. He did not think that could be converted to any multiuse because there was no way to widen that sidewalk. He was not sure that would work for the stretch south of 19^th Street through the property around Lawrence High, but once getting to the west end, it narrowed. He agreed with Commissioner Highberger that there was a lot to balance and one thing they had not talked about was they were talking about bicyclists and people operating vehicles, but they also had a lot of pedestrians, so the sidewalk considerations it was hard to accommodate it. He wanted to note that because he thought there was a lot of pedestrian traffic on 19^th Street and anything they could do they had to keep the design elements in mind, and especially adding something on the north side would be beneficial. It was so narrow he saw a lot of people on the north side and the south side on that stretch.

Mayor Dever said there were a lot of things to consider with this project because it was near a high school. It was a tough situation because of the right-of-way. He appreciated Almon’s thinking and trying to utilize some of the space on the south side and made perfect sense except that the road would meander slightly more than the engineers would like. He wondered if they had done that they might have alleviated having to purchase some of the right-of-way on the north side of the street and wondered if they could have done this better. They needed to balance the high volume of traffic, new drivers, and lots of people moving out of a very small area. The work they had done did a good job of doing that. It was unfortunate they left out the bicycle lanes and it was a perfect opportunity and it was a matter of not enough space, time and money.

If they had planned for this initially, maybe they could have reduced the cost, the 10% increase to maybe 5% because they would not have had to redesign the intersection. He was in favor of trying to encourage implementing these types of lanes, especially when they had a lot of kids, bikes and pedestrians. He felt like having that center turn line might help a little bit because there would be a little bit more room and hopefully there would not be so many sudden stops. The geometric improvements at the intersection would help traffic flow in general. He would be hesitant to delay this any further because it was a hot spot for the community and thought it had been planned and did a good job to get that resolved in the shortest time period and delay. He liked Almon’s ideas and wished they had come up with those ideas before the 11^th hour.

Commissioner Hack said it was interesting to think about the time the bonds were issued for the high school and the thought that this school was so far out of town people were so worried that it was an invaluable asset to be that far away. It was never envisioned as a facility that would house as many students and cars that come with them. That was what made this so hard. Time was of the essence and knew they were a year ahead of schedule, but for the people who lived in that area, they were about 7 years behind schedule. The very first neighborhood meeting she attended would have been in the fall of 2000 and was at the high school talking about what to do about 19^th and Louisiana. For a lot of folks this was a long time coming and was a combination of the automobile, the pedestrians and bicyclists and trying to find something that fit for everyone. She agreed with her fellow Commissioners for Almon bringing this to them and wished there was some magic way they could get additional right-of-way or additional ways to pay for it if they decided it was the way to go. The design was as good as it could get given the constraints of the intersections and what they had to work with space wise. She said she would support moving forward at this time.

Commissioner Amyx asked if there was a way to either do signage or designation for the ways to accommodate bicycles were going to be used on the street.

Soules said that would be the intent to sign that share of the road from Massachusetts to Alabama and the bike lane would open up.

Mayor Dever said he was not sure they wanted to talk about widening that sidewalk or not. He thought it would be confusing if they were directing people to this multi-use path and direct people across the street. Adding width to the lane was good, but that was where a lot of accidents happened because there was such a narrow line of site. Sometimes he thought bikes were better off in the street from a line of site as long as it was marked properly. He thought that was the best solution.

Soules said he thought the cyclists would prefer to be with the traffic on the same side if they had a direct path or multiuse path on one side. Typically when they did the multiuse paths, they had a network that they would tie into so they would not have to keep crossing streets to get back to a multiuse path.

Moved by Hack, seconded by Chestnut, to authorize the Mayor to sign the “Authority to Award Contract and Commitment of City Funds” and the Construction Engineering Agreement with KDOT for construction of Project No. 61-GI2-1104(C) for the improvements of 19^th Street from Ohio Street to Alabama Street. Motion carried unanimously.

Moved by Chestnut, seconded by Hack, to adopt Resolution No. 6762, authorizing the issuance of General Obligation Bonds for a principal maximum amount of $250,000. Motion carried unanimously. (16)

Receive draft Federal Legislative Statement.

David Corliss, City Manager, presented the draft statement. He said the document highlighted a number of issues and requests to the federal legislators and their staffs. A number of the items dealt with funding requests, surface transportation, aviation, transit, and highlighted the importance of the National Heritage Area. Judy Billings had been blogging the federal legislative delegation for appropriations to support the National Heritage Area programs. CDBG and HOME programs have not been receiving increases in fact there had been reductions in some of the City’s allocations and that would be highlighted with the delegation. He also wanted to indicate the importance of KU and Haskell Indian Nations University to the community. Also, have some discussions about Economic Development including biosciences. A couple of new items which included the Northern Flyer Alliance. They were also following federal responsibility regarding the management of the federal reservoirs and sanitation issues. That would be an issue they would need in the coming years from the federal legislation delegation.

He thought the document was in good shape as far as what the City’s requests would be. There was an additional item related to this. They would talk about Lawrence Community Shelter’s request for a letter of support. They could take that letter of support as well. These items were related to what they wanted to communicate with the federal delegation.

Commissioner Hack said she had a question about the possibility of discussing the improvements to the Carnegie and what they talked about the possibility of using some grant money for that. She asked if there was a possibility for asking for more money for that historic building. It could be incorporated to the National Heritage Area.

Corliss said he thought it was likely that the National Heritage Area would want to coordinate with Judy Billings as far as their funding. One of the funding items right now was to get their management plan in place, which was like a comprehensive plan for a national park. It was the guiding document for the National Heritage Area and Billings was anticipating needing funding for that and the items that come off of that. If they were successful in bidding that project and proceeding with it, they would probably not be in line with additional federal appropriations for that project and there might be opportunities to pay for things on the interior and would want to change that sometime in the future. As he understood, Billings’ request in that area have been management plan funding and getting the appropriations in place so that the management plan said it would be an appropriated item in the Lawrence/Douglas County area and would have funding for that.

Commissioner Highberger said he ap