[MissoulaGov] committee update 7-16-08

[Jason Wiener]

Some analysis of the poll results based on the cross-tabs:

 

41% of respondents supported the gas tax. Of those supporters, 13% said they were less likely to support the tax if it includes bike/ped set asides. 

 

59% of respondents opposes the gas tax. Of those opponents, 28% said they were more likely to support the tax if it includes bike/ped set asides.

 

People who support except with set asides: 13% of 41% is 6 %.

People who oppose unless there are set asides: 28% of 59% is 16%.

 

If all those people switch sides, the whole measure seems to pick up 10% support.

 

So even with the set asides, the measure is not a slam dunk. And that is just the city. The LRTP phone survey revealed more apathy toward bike/ped beyond the city limits and the measure needs a majority in the county. Renee Mitchell also made a good point in looking at the language of the statute: "MCA 7-14-302. Use of local motor fuel excise tax revenue. (1) A county or municipality receiving revenue from the tax authorized by 7-14-301 may use the revenue derived only for the construction, reconstruction, maintenance, and repair of public streets and roads." Roads includes the entire right-of-way and that phrasing is bound to limit some options.

 

But we don't build anything besides complete streets in the city of Missoula and that won't change if this passes. I expect that the tax, if passed, will be used to improve arterials and collectors used by all modes to the benefit of all modes. I expect it won't be used for constructing trails or subsidizing sidewalk improvements. It will allow us to do projects that badly need doing: South Third Street, Van Buren Street, Hillview Way. Pedestrians, motorists and cyclists should all plainly see the needs on those streets that could be remediated.

 

Conveying the dire state of transportation funding is required to make this pass in any event. State and federal gas taxes have not gone up since 1993. They are levied per gallon so they are not indexed to inflation. The price of the things they are supposed to buy has gone up substantially. In real terms, the gas tax has been going down every year, and it shows in what we can do with it. How well we communicate that case to voters will determine whether the measure passes. But we're a long way from that campaign too.

 

Thanks.

J.

 

*******

Jason Wiener, Alderman, Ward One

1238 Jackson St.

Missoula, MT 59802

(406) 542-3232

jwiener at ci.missoula.mt.us

 

From: missoulagov-bounces at cmslists.com [mailto:missoulagov-bounces at cmslists.com] On Behalf Of Jim Sayer
Sent: Thursday, July 17, 2008 8:21 AM
To: missoulagov at cmslists.com
Subject: Re: [MissoulaGov] committee update 7-16-08

 

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

406-728-1052

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