[MissoulaGov] committee update 1-28-09

[Jim McGrath]

I would like to NOT weigh in on the dogs question. :-)

 

Your reference to the pocket park at Holmes and Phillips is an
interesting case. Only a small fraction of it is parkland. Most of it is
unvacated right of way - where Holmes street is platted to continue
south. Also, the county had some land (maybe they had the park) and
probably MRL right of way, too. And a piece was an unusable fraction of
a lot privately owned.

 

The neighborhood people basically took over the un-used space and
developed the little park area. When the greenway went through (the
blacktop trail alongside the MRL) it became more useful as park and was
developed more.

 

I'm sure I'm leaving out or getting wrong some of the subtle details of
this history. But my point (if any) is that it represents a creative
approach to creating these parks. It made use of a variety of tenures,
ownerships and rights. It did not involve exactions from landowners
(though in the end one or two relinquished rights voluntarily), nor did
it call for much city funds. While it's a fairly unique situation, there
are lessons that can be learned. 

 

For example, in places where we feel parkland is short, is there road
right of way (even paved) that can become parkland? 

 

I don't recall was is happening on the triangle at Railroad/Spruce/Nora
- the vacant lot across from the Darigold. There was some interest in
making a park there. Part of that triangle -used to park milk trucks
on-was Nora street right-of-way. The actual lot was much smaller and
impossible to use for much of anything.

 

How many other places can we find those opportunities?

 

By the way, in the case of Holmes street, one the most challenging
players to deal with to make the park happen was the parks department.

 

________________________________

From: missoulagov-bounces at cmslists.com
[mailto:missoulagov-bounces at cmslists.com] On Behalf Of Bob Jaffe
Sent: Wednesday, January 28, 2009 11:01 PM
To: missoulagov at cmslists.com
Subject: [MissoulaGov] committee update 1-28-09

 

Greetings,

Dogs were on the agenda again this morning.  This time we were
considering a proposal from the parks department to allow for the
conservation lands to be designated as "voice restraint" areas.  Among
the arguments for this change are this is already the common practice;
most problems for staff revolve around human conflicts associated with
enforcement rather than actual problems with dogs; dogs need places to
run; the population likes walking with dogs off leash on conservation
lands.

Some of the arguments against the change are that dogs are ill-mannered
beasts no matter how much the owner claims they are under control; they
chase and sometimes kill wildlife; they fight; they harass other people;
some dog owners are irresponsible.

There were a few other clean up items in the proposal but the
conservation land leash law was the meat of the discussion. We moved to
set a public hearing to let the public weigh in again before making a
decision. Based on the tone of the discussion the council will vote
against allowing dogs off leash on the conservation lands. 

I am in support of the staff proposal that they should be allowed off
leash except in particularly sensitive areas or for temporary periods
when needed due to wildlife movement. I guess I see the conservation
lands like the north hills and Mount Sentinel as part of the human
environment. Like the "mixing zone" in the river below the sewage plant.
It is sort of natural but the human impact is acknowledged and accepted
to a limited degree.

I imagine Marilyn, who is our Lorax of Mt. Sentinel, may be horrified by
that statement. But I think this human (and our dogs) impact on the
conservation lands is part of the reason we need to keep up such a
sustained effort to preserve and maintain their natural condition. It
may sound like a contradiction but we don't want conservation lands just
to look at.  Clearly the best thing we could do to protect those lands
is to close them to people. But we paid all that money for them because
we want to walk around up there. So it's not ideal from a conservation
perspective, but as a community asset I think we need to put up with the
dogs. 

 

In conservation committee we discussed the update to the master parks
plan. I confess to being a bit distracted today so some of the events
from the day are faded now.  My comments had to do with pocket parks and
Ward six parks. These last few years the parks department has frowned
upon small parks. They are more expensive to maintain. They would rather
just get money from developers that can go toward enhancing the larger
neighborhood parks.  But I like pocket parks. There are all sorts of
places you can make them happen and they can be really nice.  So I was
asking for some reconsideration of that policy. On some subdivisions
they could make sense if they are to be maintained by the home owners
association instead of the City. Pam brought up the example of little
Mccormick park along railroad street. I was actually thinking more like
the little thing at the end of Holmes street by the greenway trail.  

Regarding ward six, we know where the large land areas are that could
someday become a park. In particular there is the forest service
property. This is seriously underutilized property in the middle of
town. Eventually they are going to sell it.  We should be making plans
for how to obtain it.

 

There was no PAZ today since it was time for our quarterly joint meeting
with the county commissioners to discuss the interlocal agreement for
the office of planning and grants. We graciously give up our time slot
for this meeting every three months.  

We heard another pitch from the crime victim advocates office. They were
in a fiscal crisis last year when some funding did not renew. They
managed to pull out of it this year but have tapped pretty much every
resource available. In a year or two they will be in trouble again. They
want us to start thinking about it now while it is not an emergency.
Maybe Obama will save us with new money from on high.

We also discussed the update to the growth policy. We have run into a
problem with all the plans we have developed. They are supposed to get
updated regularly. If we were going to do them all on a five year cycle
it would require OPG to update ten plans per year.  That would require
at least a few more FTE's. So we need a new approach.

In regards to the growth policy Roger suggested we consider a whole
different model. In some communities they have the thing down to a
single poster. It succinctly states the goals, objectives and policies.
Then they have electronic data with all the supporting material. The
electronic data is constantly updated. 

The way we do it is we publish a big book that represents the way things
are at a certain moment in time and then it is instantly outdated.

 

In A&F we appointed a couple of more people to the public art board. We
also accepted a grant from FWP to build a trail connection up in the
south hills that Jeff Stevens had worked hard to secure.  

 

In public works we bought a couple of vehicles. Just to make sure we
didn't fuss about the big pickup truck they combined it with the
purchase of a Prius.  The Prius is for the fire department for when the
go on road trips to training and conferences and the truck is for
parking maintenance.

 

We finished the day with Committee of the Whole.  We had the
administration's legislative update. Ross Best came to the Monday
meeting and he was  here today to complain about the public notice and
involvement for the City's lobbying efforts.  He heard that a SharePoint
system had been developed for us to track bills, get updates from the
lobbyist and comment.  He lamented over how this is all private and
should be open to the public.  He complained that all the public knows
is the two words on the agenda "Legislative Update." There is no other
additional info to know what is going on. Up until a couple of days ago
this is the way it was for us too. We would see the two words on the
agenda and the Mayor would come and give a verbal report. Other than
whatever notes we took we would have nothing.

 

The new system is a little better but it is still pretty clunky. The way
SharePoint has been implemented it is kind of like a really low end
blogging platform. Each bill is like a discussion thread and then there
are some comments. They are working on a way to make it all publicly
accessible. All that is really needed is the list of bills the City is
taking a position on. I haven't really seen a whole lot in the comments
that are valuable. The stuff from the lobbyist is generally comments
like "I met with so and so today to discuss this." Not really any useful
insight into the status or process. I'm hoping there is actually
something going on there for all the money we paid.

 

The other issue we discussed was the notification to the public for the
zoning rewrite.  State law requires we run a legal ad and have a meeting
that is open to the public.  Of course that does not meet Missoula
standards for transparent government.  The planning office has held
endless public meetings and this whole zoning rewrite process has had
tons of press but there is a faction that believes that if only the
community knew what was going on they would come unglued.  So in the
tireless effort to provide opportunity to become civically engaged we
discussed what kind of mailing could be sent to every property owner in
Missoula.  The idea is that we could compose something on a half page
size post card that would outline all the substantive changes and let
folks know how to participate. It will probably cost around $15,000.
Next week OPG will come back with a sample of the mailing. There is some
concern about the content. Some of the folks are convinced the sky is
falling and the fact that we are not ringing the alarm bells is all the
more evidence that we are complicate with the conspiracy. Some of us
disagree with that opinion. So it is important how this thing gets
written.

 

Once again I thank you for your interest and your indulgence of my rant.
I apologize in advance to those I have offended and for any inaccuracies
or omissions. 

 

 

Bob Jaffe

Missoula City Council, Ward 3

bjaffe at ci.missoula.mt.us

406-728-1052

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