[MissoulaGov] committee update 7-16-08

[Jim Sayer]

Re:public works discussion

I am baffled by the perception that including bike and sidewalk improvements in  gas tax allocations would be electorally harmful. The city's quality of life survey in March came up with the following results:

Total support for a 2 c gas tax = 40%

On the follow-up question -- would you be more or less likely to support a gas tax if it included bike lanes, sidewalks and bus stops -- 50% said more likely and 45% less likely (and of the less likely, 11% were "somewhat less likely").

This was taken in March before the big run-up in gas prices. I would guess that support is even softer for a gas tax (even though people are still pulling up to the pump to pay for far more than a 2c/gallon tax increase, and which gets sent primarily to overseas oil producers instead of to local transportation projects). Also, I wouldn't be surprised to see a slight uptick in support for bike/walk/bus facilities as anecdotal evidence indicates major increases in bike riding, walking and bus riding over the last 2-3 months.

--- On Wed, 7/16/08, Bob Jaffe <bjaffe at ci.missoula.mt.us> wrote:
From: Bob Jaffe <bjaffe at ci.missoula.mt.us>
Subject: [MissoulaGov] committee update 7-16-08
To: missoulagov at cmslists.com
Date: Wednesday, July 16, 2008, 8:22 PM




 
 






Greetings, 

This morning we opened with a Public Safety update from
Police Chief Mark Muir regarding the upcoming visit from the Hell’s
Angels. 

The police will be working to keep the community informed
and avoid the problems from the past visit. 

After all the trouble that happened last time there was a
review committee set up. They found that the police acted accordingly but did
have nine recommendations. All nine have been addressed in one way or another.
Mark did not elaborate on what those were.  

There are three jurisdictions involved that will be working
together. The state, the county, and the city. The state will be in charge of
intelligence. Since 9/11 there is a whole state/federal intelligence
infrastructure that has been developed. The locals will make use of
intelligence provided but will not focus on gathering it. 

The Hell’s Angels visit coincides with the Testicle
Festival out at Rock Creek this year.  The sheriff’s department will
have a field operation set up out there.  They will have a lot of their
resources focused on that event. Twenty officers from other Montana communities
will be brought in to assist the City. No out of state police will be used this
time. The highway patrol helicopter will be in use in the area again but will
be limited to traffic related operations. 

We are expecting a 30% decrease in the original overtime
budget (about $15,000 saving) due to some shifting of schedules. They will also
be doing a lot of mandatory training with the officers instead of just having
them standing around waiting for trouble. This way we can have a lot of
officers in uniform and on duty ready to respond but they can be doing
something productive. Since these are mandatory training hours that we would
have to pay for anyway we will see some savings down the road.  Thank you
to chief Muir for finding some creative savings in staff time expenses. 

A question was asked about whether it is unusual for the
Hell’s Angels to return to the same community.  Mark cited a few
other examples and also indicated that the Angels thought things went well
here. He noted that the perception that there was an excessive police presence
is very subjective. For the Hell’s Angels a high police presence would be
something like one to one. For Missoulians it is a lot different. If we see
four officers on a block we think martial law has been declared. 

   

We then had an early session of A&F to discuss the city
portfolio.  After resolving some technical difficulties we had our
specialist from Wells Capital on the speaker phone. He rattled on for about a half
an hour with what could have been a recorded presentation on the US economy. He
sounded very much like a radio or TV personality. It didn’t really have
much to do with our portfolio or the City’s investments but it was one of
the better presentations I’ve heard on the state of the economy. When we
did get to the part about our portfolio it looked like we were seeing some
pretty healthy returns since we have been working with these guys. We sit on
about $13 million that can be invested. Except for the last quarter we have
been seeing returns between 2.5% and 5% per quarter (10%-20%/year). 

   

In PAZ we started with a discussion on Linda Vista Estates. I
know I’ve been over this one on the list a few times. The developer
wanted to get some sense from the council if he should move forward or if we
had no interest in approving his project. It pretty much came down to an
interpretation of a part of the growth policy that calls for a certain
percentage of build out in Miller Creek before anyone could develop over the
back of the hill. We had a unanimous straw vote that we could get on board with
the interpretation that would allow development.  Mr. Twite will now start
over again on his project at element review. 

   

For the rest of PAZ we had a discussion about the future
direction for Orchard Homes.  We had a presentation from Roger Millar
about the history of planning in the area. We then had a presentation from
Steve King on the infrastructure improvements.  Then folks from the
neighborhood spoke and Josh Slotnick and Paul Hubbard from CFAC gave a
presentation.  We also heard from a few developers and Nick Kaufman. 
It was a very cordial discussion. I thought it was productive. No decisions
were made but all the issues were put out on the table and different
perspectives were aired. Some of the problem is that there are pretty
significant mixed messages coming from the City right now. We are in the
process of putting in sewer and water. But we are also starting to worry about
the loss of agriculture land.  Some people have voted against projects for
being too dense while others have objected because the projects are not dense
enough. The folks who want to develop out there are not sure which way to go. 

Essentially we are going through a period of shifting
community values and our ordinances and policies have not really caught up. In
fact, we are still trying to settle on what those values really are so we can
make the appropriate changes to our ordinance. The planning department is
taking a systematic approach to trying to establish that community vision. The
urban fringe effort will establish some growth and density targets. This Fall
they will begin a formal neighborhood planning process in Orchard Homes to
create an updated vision for the area. In the interim there will be some
uncertainty for anyone trying to subdivide out there.    In the
upcoming weeks we will start seeing some actual projects in that neighborhood
come before the council. 

   

After lunch we discussed the Memorial Rose Park plan in
Conservation.  Where it pretty much ended up was that they moved the
bathroom over to Franklin street where it isn’t in front of anyone’s
house. They made a few other minor changes. The groups that are complaining
about the design are mostly saying that it is too much. They don’t want
additional structures. We will take it up one more time next week. Ed was
working on a motion to approve the plan with a few items scaled back. 

   

In Public works we discussed a proposal to request that the
county commissioners put a 2 cent per gallon fuel tax on the ballot. There was
substantial agreement that this was a good thing. There was disagreement over
how the money should be allocated. Some folks were not happy about the idea
that some of it may go to bike and ped improvements. In the end it was agreed
that specific allocations to bike and ped improvements would probably kill the thing
in the county so it won’t go forward that way. Ed was going to try to
revise the wording of his proposal for consideration next week.  We are
hoping the commissioners will be supportive of putting this on the ballot for
the voters to decide.  We have substantial unfunded infrastructure
improvements to address and we are not expecting to see more state and federal
money come in. We have to find a local source of financing if we are going to
take care of the roads. 

   

In Budget committee we worked to get an understanding of the
plan to finance the CIP heavy equipment expenses. We have some substantial
expenses coming up like million dollar ladder trucks. If we spread the cost
over a number of years we can keep buying all the stuff we need without digging
so far into our savings that we start to hurt our bond rating.  Personally
I’m not sure why a fire truck only lasts twenty years. Up until pretty
recently I never even owned a vehicle less than twenty years old. My cars were
low end consumer grade equipment with little to no maintenance. Fire trucks are
high end pieces of equipment with Jack Stucky keeping them in tip top shape. It
seems like they should last a lot longer.   

   

Thanks for your interest, 

   

Bob
Jaffe 

Missoula
City Council, Ward 3 

bjaffe at ci.missoula.mt.us 

406-728-1052 



 

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