[MissoulaGov] committee update 12-10-08

[Bob Jaffe]

Greetings,

This morning I found out we have a cat ordinance.  We were amending it
to limit the number of cats a person can own to 5. If you want more you
are supposed to get a cat breeders license. We also considered revisions
to the dog ordinance. The only one I really wanted to see more
discussion on was the part about doggy day care facilities. In the past
these types of businesses were not addressed by any of our ordinances.
The zoning office had made the interpretation that they were the
equivalent of vet clinics. The new ordinance defines doggy day care and
exempts it from the nuisance barking rule. I'm not so sure I am in favor
of this.  We have one down the street from us on second. It is in a D
zone along the tracks but is very close to a number of homes and other
businesses. I have received complaints about the barking but they have
been exempt from the rule that says you can't let your dogs bark all
day. That may be changing soon. The public hearing will be on 12/22.

 

In Conservation we covered a few items. We approved an agreement where
the County pays us about $65,000 per year to maintain fort Missoula
park. Once you subtract out all the fees we collect for use of the park
it ends up costing the city about an additional $35,000 to run that
park.

We also approved an easement for Northwest Energy to put in a Cathodic
Well along a pipe line in the north hills.  That is a deal to help the
steel pipe from rusting by changing the way electrolysis would naturally
work against the pipe.

We also approved the new parks fee schedule. Everything is going up a
few percent.

 

In PAZ we took up the Clark Fork Terrace number one subdivision. CFT #2
is the one where we are being sued for asking the developer to put in
trails.  There were two issues that came up in the discussion. The trail
easement and the SID waiver for off-site improvements. Parks would like
to assure that we will secure a trail easement along the southern edge
of the property that parallels the Milwaukee trail. If we can't get an
easement on the actual old rail line we want to at least get something
parallel to it. Considering the likelihood of  litigation I probably
shouldn't say any more about the project outside of the public meeting.

We were also planning to have an update on the zoning rewrite but our
consultant got stuck somewhere do to the weather.

 

In A&F we made a modification to our agreement on the repayment of the
brownfield revolving loan fund for the millsite project. The $1.25
million loan is supposed to be paid back from tax increment from the
project over a number of years. During the interim period while the
clean up is happening MRA has been paying interest only on the loan.
There was a clause in the agreement that said that if the property isn't
closed on by 1/1/09 then principal payments need to start. It was
assumed that if the deal didn't go down by then that the options to
purchase would expire and the deal would be dead. But as we have it we
are still waiting for DEQ signoff on the clean up. The property can not
be financed and purchased until this is done. The Millsite people have
negotiated another extension on the option and DEQ approval is expected
this winter.  So we took out the 1/1/09 deadline from the agreement.

 

We also had an interesting discussion about our bike license ordinance.
We did some housekeeping on the language and then discussed how we could
make the bike license program effective. Phil Smith, our bike ped
coordinator was extremely pessimistic about the possibility that
licensing bikes would ever be embraced by the community and the whole
thing was a big waste of time. It was tried 10 or 15 years ago and was a
lot of work and never really took off.  I'm a little more hopeful that
folks can get behind the idea of paying a small fee that would go
towards supporting bicycle programs in the city. The current fee is $10
for four years. $15 for families and $5 for children. Bikes with wheels
under 24" do not need to be registered. I'm thinking the cycling
community in Missoula has a high level of civic engagement and would
eventually be supportive of this program. There could also be incentives
thrown in to get it going. We will also want to work with the retailers
to find a way to make the program work for them.

 

The other A&F item we discussed was the sewer rate increase. The general
consensus was that we wanted to wait to approve any rate increase until
the study on flow based billing was complete. I will be more comfortable
voting for the rate increase if it is combined with the new billing
based on usage. That way the low users of the system will hopefully see
a rate decrease. It is possible we will have the information needed some
time this spring.

 

In Public Works we approved the request to make changes to our rules on
deicer. We removed the restrictions on corrosiveness and we now allow
solid products.  The argument was that our streets department will do
everything possible to find the best solutions and we shouldn't tie his
hands. Stacy and I voted for an amendment that would make the change
sunset next fall but that failed. 

   

Thank you for your interest,

 

Bob Jaffe

Missoula City Council, Ward 3

bjaffe at ci.missoula.mt.us <mailto:bjaffe at ci.missoula.mt.us> 

406-728-1052

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