[MissoulaGov] Fwd: Committee Update 7-9-08

[Lynn Ascher]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Lynn Ascher <lascher01 at bresnan.net>
Date: July 10, 2008 2:41:05 PM MDT
To: "Jason Wiener" <JWiener at ci.missoula.mt.us>
Subject: Re: [MissoulaGov] Committee Update 7-9-08

This roundabout has been in process for literally years.  There's  
never going to be a "perfect" time for its construction so let's get  
it done as soon as we can, i.e., fall '08.  Any more delays and I can  
see the project  becoming increasingly problematic and finally  
vanishing altogether as more and more people suddenly discover they  
have issues with it.  I'm sure that drivers will find alternate  
routes to use during the 6-8 weeks of construction, and that crossing  
guards will be on hand to help kids and pedestrians navigate crossing  
Higgins on one side or the other of the construction.
-- lynn


On Jul 10, 2008, at 12:45 AM, Jason Wiener wrote:

Bob is on vacation this week so I wrote up the committee meetings today.

J.



*****



When I was a kid, Nickelodeon ran this show called “You Can’t Do That  
On Television.” In addition to dropping green slime on people when  
they said “I don’t know” and sporting a regular skit with a line- 
order cook named Booger, the show featured a recurring bit called  
opposite sketches where the normal order of things would be turned on  
its head—the stingy would become generous, the refined uncouth. This  
morning turned out to be opposite-sketch time at 140 W. Pine.



Dave Strohmaier was out for work and Ed Childers and Bob Jaffe were  
both on vacation which meant Pam Walzer, John Hendrickson, Jon  
Wilkins, Lyn Hellegaard, Dick Haines, Renee Mitchell and I made up  
the Public Safety & Health Committee. With the self-style  
conservative minority firmly in control of the votes, I’d venture to  
guess we got a taste of their governing style.

Police Chief Mark Muir and Chief Administrative Officer Bruce Bender  
presented the first item: an $18,000 contract for cost estimating  
with MacArthur Means and Wells (MMW) as the lead architect and police  
station specialists Wilson Estes providing specialty support. MMW was  
given the contract by the administration, following on preliminary  
work they did on the downtown site that everyone seems to prefer.



John Hendrickson raised an issue with the selection of MMW, asking if  
the project was bid. Dick Haines asserted that the entire project  
would face an uphill battle because MMW has "zero credibility"  
because of their work on the aquatics project. They didn’t seem  
bothered by the fact that the job wasn’t advertised with an RFP since  
its size didn’t merit that. They just flatly objected to MMW. The  
principal architect is different and the subcontractors, too, but  
merely the letters MMW were enough to precipitate some ensuring  
shenanigans. There was a motion to approve the contract and a call  
for a show of hands on it. Pam and I voted in favor.  Jon W., Lyn and  
Renee voted against it while John H. and Dick abstained. Pam tried to  
call the count 2-3-2 but John H. told Jon W. to change his vote to  
yes and Jon W. obeyed, making the vote 3-2-2. Then John H. changed  
his vote from abstain to no so the vote would be 3-3-1. The objective  
was to tie the vote because, under a poorly constructed Council rule,  
a tie in committee is the only way to keep an item from moving to the  
Council floor. Of course, we can just take it up next week unless the  
administration decides to pick another architect for this $18,000  
piece of a likely $40 million project. I got frustrated with all the  
puppeteering and offered to change my vote as well, which prompted  
John H. to offer to change his back. It finally stopped when City  
Clerk Marty Rehbein pointed out that minute-taker Lesley Wills had no  
idea how anyone was voting. We eventually moved on to the other item,  
a towing contract extension sent back to committee because it the  
extension was offered without an RFP. The Police agreed to advertise  
the RFP and asked for an extension with the existing company in the  
interim, which the committee agreed to. We came back to the vote on  
the police station but stand-in chair Pam ended up continuing the  
item to another meeting because of the obstruction and irresolution.



PAZ followed, albeit starting late because of PS&H’s pile-up. We  
talked about the Office of Planning & Grants Urban Initiatives task  
list for the next fiscal year, which lays out the non-project  
priorities of the department. The biggest tasks (with hours  
allocated) were as follows: zoning revision (2400 hrs), application  
of UFDA work including a plan for Orchard Homes (2000 hrs with the  
county collaborating), Mayor's Housing Initiative (1000 hrs). The  
whole list is here: ftp://www.ci.missoula.mt.us/Packets/Council/ 
2008/2008-07-07/UITaskList.pdf



Everything in the plan was funded except for a revision to the  
Rattlesnake Comprehensive Plan. Partly in response to some  
development pressure on unzoned land, a group from the Rattlesnake,  
including people from both Neighborhood Councils has been working to  
update its 1995 plan to create tools that would inform resource  
decisions on specific land-use matters and highlight missing  
infrastructure. The item was assigned 2000 hours by a scope of work  
drawn up this year. Pretty much everyone agrees that’s too much time  
but right now none of it is funded anyway. The people in that area  
are looking for money outside government. I’d like to see a fraction  
of the money and staff time made available by the city so the  
community can leverage it. Otherwise, the community people working on  
this will have wasted many hours and, after having their hopes raised  
by OPG drawing up a scope of work, their cynicism will simply be  
stoked by the lack of any movement on it. Other areas of the city are  
under greater development pressure, of course, and I recognize the  
need to prioritize based on need. I think desire, expressed with  
genuine grassroots effort, should also merit support.



About an hour was left for a discussion of stacking lots. Roger  
Millar from OPG made a presentation about the practice, which allows  
the redrawing of lot lines in established subdivisions without  
undergoing subdivision review as long as the number of lots after the  
redrawing is no greater than before and the parcels, buildings,  
setbacks, etc. conform to zoning. If the stacking results in lots  
arranged under a PNC, the requirement that the redrawn parcel  
conforms to zoning doesn’t mean that they have to meet minimum lot  
size, setback and the like for the existing zoning because the PNC is  
a zoning regulation. At least that’s what I took away. If you are  
interested in the intricacies, you can download the presentation  
(over 3 MB) at www.jasonwienerforcouncil.org/stacking.ppt



Most of the Council questions, and all the public comment, centered  
on the Lincoln School, a historic school that’s being converted to  
what looks a lot like a 13-lot subdivision using the planned  
neighborhood cluster tool. Very quickly, familiar sounding complaints  
about PNCs, zoning overlays, and neighborhood protest filled the  
committee room. None of it had much to do with Roger’s suggestion on  
how Council could rewrite local subdivision regulations so future  
attempts at stacking would have to go through subdivision review.  
Even if we did adopt his suggestion, there are a number of other  
loopholes in state law that would probably still allow such projects  
to be exempt from subdivision review, like condominium ownership.  
Some of the rhetoric got overheated; at one point the Lincoln School  
project was compared to murder, at another a puss-oozing blight. So I  
was surprised when we ended early. During public testimony, which  
stand-in chair Marilyn Marler limited to three minutes so everyone  
could speak, Lee Clemensen took more than twice her allotted time,  
ignoring four-minute and six-minute warning and ultimately refusing  
to yield the microphone. Without a sergeant-at-arms to enforce the  
chair’s ruling, Marilyn adjourned the meeting at that point. It was  
the right move, in my opinion, but, regrettably, two people who  
wanted to testify were not allowed. Odds are good that they wouldn't  
have gotten to anyway because of the filibustering.



I was glad lunch time had arrived. We accomplished precious little  
during the morning but expended plenty of energy.



After lunch, A&F met briefly to set a public hearing on park  
maintenance districts. There are two on the south side of town and  
the assessments fund the improvements instead of the general fund. It  
is an unusual arrangement but no one had an issue with it. I guess  
someone could voice one at the public hearing though.



In Public Works, we approved a pair of purchases for sewer and  
streets. We also approved an encroachment permit for an alley skywalk  
between the current Garlington Lohn and Robinson building at 199 W.  
Pine St. and their new building, planned for 138 W. Broadway, where  
Scooterville currently is. (Someone in a position to know tells me  
Scooterville is eyeing the proposed green mall as a new location.  
They were offered ground-floor retail in Garlington’s new building  
but need to locate somewhere during the year that will take to build  
anyway.) The skyway plans call for more than just a connection  
between buildings, with the skyway to contain a conference room and  
break room. We talked about the criteria for approving the request  
since there is only one skywalk in Missoula, between the Palace  
Apartments and Central Park. Basically, there is no entitlement to  
encroach so the decision is discretionary. We aren’t setting a  
binding precedent by saying yes. The vote in favor of the permit was  
unanimous but the architect will be available Monday if there are  
questions. Some plans are visible at ftp://www.ci.missoula.mt.us/ 
packets/council/2008/2008-07-07/Referrals/ROWEncroachSkywlkPlan.pdf



The final item was a discussion of the interminable Higgins-Hill- 
Beckwith construction project. Delays in acquiring right-of-way in  
front of the Grizzly Grocery have pushed the project to a schedule  
where construction could not begin until late fall. That’s  
frustrating, of course, because this project has been going on for a  
long time. It also means the project should probably wait until  
spring. If construction doesn’t begin until the fall, the 45-day  
schedule could be interrupted by winter weather, which is highly  
undesirable since the finished product is a bit of a prototype in  
Missoula. Steve King and Kevin Slovarp from Public Works said MDT  
wants the project to be built first thing in the spring, April 15.  
This will mean closing the intersection for over six weeks while  
school is in session and detouring the traffic associated with the  
street and Paxson School through the neighborhood. The alternative is  
waiting until school lets out to start construction, which adds  
uncertainty to the cost of the project because the bigger the gap  
between bidding and construction, the greater contingency a  
contractor is likely to insist on for changes in material costs.  
Stacy expressed a preference for waiting until school is out but  
there was no vote on the matter as it is an administrative decision.  
I’m inclined to defer to the ward reps but would like to hear from  
people in the area about their preferences for construction: fall 08,  
spring 09 or summer 09.



We looked at the BID budget in Budget Committee of the Whole. They  
are enjoying a lot of success, winning over even people who thought  
the district—funded assessments on downtown property owners—was a bad  
idea when it was created. The clean team and downtown ambassadors  
have done a lot to help with that. Success with Downtown Master Plan  
is likely the linchpin of renewing the BID when it comes up for  
renewal, which will be in the next 12-18 months if I am not mistaken.



We also finished up Parks. Marilyn asked that we come back later to  
an item funding various management plans, beginning with Conservation  
Lands, continuing on through Turf Management, which is probably as  
far through the list as Parks can expect to get in one year. The  
Conservation Plan came in as the top priority because turf has good  
science associated with it and public buy-in for the techniques  
indicated. Conservation lands management needs more original work and  
includes a public process to determine how to balance tolerance for  
pesticide and antipathy toward noxious weeds or the desires of  
recreational users with the health of the land. A half-dozen new  
requests were turned down – the list of funded and unfunded new  
requests in the budget is at ftp://www.ci.missoula.mt.us//Documents/ 
Council_Review_Budget_FY09/New%20Requests%20From%20All%20Departments% 
20FY%2009-ForCouncil.xls – including one to keep good behaviors at  
the skate park by hiring some young people to be good role models by  
wearing helmets, doing awesome tricks, and living clean. Apparently,  
this was a strategy that historically succeeded in roller rinks.  
Marilyn remembered the people in the roller rink of her youth who fit  
this profile and was shocked to learn they were likely planted. It  
seems like a good idea and not too expensive. It would be nice to  
fund but there’s unlikely to be enough money this year since the item  
is currently unfunded. That wrapped up Parks although we will be  
returning for Marilyn’s conservation lands discussion and Stacy’s  
request that we revisit the Park Maintenance budget, which was  
reduced by over half, meaning that improvements at several existing  
parks will not be funded id the status quo prevails.



Finally, we considered non-departmental budget items, including the  
legislative agenda ($27,500 for a lobbyist, intern and expenses).  
There was money for a legislative reception in there; Mayor Engen  
estimated about half the delegation comes down to hear from Council  
and administration. I hope we rate better than 50% attendance next  
time. How the state behaves or doesn’t is critical to how well the  
city serves its constituents. We also discussed the city’s pay  
structure for non-union employees, including how cost-of-living  
adjustments (3%) and step increases (2%) for employees making below  
the midpoint for their pay grade, which reflects pay in similar  
cities, combine to keep city employees interested in working with us.  
There was also some discussion about a plan to add skill/competency- 
based pay. It was ensconced in a bunch of bureaucratese that  
translates the sensible substantive goal of paying people for adding  
skills into a neutral procedure for figuring out when that has  
happened. We also talked about taking a look at the distribution of  
salaries again down the line, since the last salary survey was  
completed in 2004. Probably, there will be a referral on that when  
budget season winds down.



There will be a special budget hearing Thursday night from 7-9 p.m.  
in City Council Chambers. We will be discussing the remainder of the  
non-departmental items, everything from the Missoula Cultural Council  
to the Missoula Area Economic Development Corporation to the Missoula  
Ravalli Transportation Management Association.



Thanks for your interest.



*******

Jason Wiener, Alderman, Ward One

1238 Jackson St.

Missoula, MT 59802

(406) 542-3232

jwiener at ci.missoula.mt.us



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