[MissoulaGov] committee update 5-13-09

[Bob Jaffe]

Greetings,

The main item this morning was the driving with cell phone discussion in
Public Safety.  In the end it got held over in committee to hash out a
few more of the details. The proposal calls for making it a primary
offense to drive while talking on a cell phone. Exceptions are if you
use a hands free device, it is an emergency, or you are a police officer
or other public safety person. The hands free exception does not apply
if you have a learners permit.

Where I ended up on the issue is to get rid of the hands free exception
but make the whole thing a secondary offense. That means you can't be
pulled over for talking on your phone. But if you get pulled over for
something else while you are talking on your phone you can get an
additional ticket.

My thinking is that we already have all sorts of laws addressing just
about every kind of driving error a person can make. If your phone
conversation is the cause of your failure to yield, illegal lane change,
running a stop sign or light, driving too fast, driving too slow,
inappropriate response to an emergency vehicle, lane change in an
intersection, reckless driving,  or any of the dozens of other
infractions I can't think of or have never even heard of, you can be
ticketed for your phone use. I know there are laboratory studies that
show that talking on a phone (hands free included) reduces your driving
skills as much as a blood alcohol level of 0.08. But in the field we see
that half of the injury automobile accidents are alcohol related. Cell
phone incidents for the most part remain anecdotal. 

During the meeting it was suggested that if it was a secondary offense
it could never be enforced. I don't see why that would be the case. If
an officer observes you making any of the illegal moves mentioned above
they most likely will also be able to observe that you have a phone to
your head. It's not really any different than the way the seatbelt law
is enforced. Everyone knows that it is illegal to drive without a
seatbelt and just about everyone has developed the habit of wearing them
when they drive. Cell phone use and driving will eventually gain the
same momentum. 

My secondary offense amendment failed in committee but I will probably
make another attempt at it on the floor when we get there. I'm not
really sure how this vote will go when the whole council is there. I
think it will be one of the more unusual splits. The mayor may want to
start thinking about how he will break a tie.

 

The other enjoyable discussion of the morning was the wrap up of the
Chickasaw subdivision. Pretty much every issue was rehashed in the hour.
Some of the neighbors even brought in a suggestion for a completely
redesigned plat. For the last couple of meetings the neighbors have had
their attorney present. This time we were all pleased to note that the
developer had also decided to lawyer up with our buddy Alan McCormick. I
suppose there isn't any limit on how many simultaneous lawsuits an
attorney can have against us. In the end we did approve the project and
sent it to the floor. I expect there will still be significant
discussion and amendments made when we take it up on Monday. I had one
small change I was hoping to make regarding traffic calming at the
entrance of the subdivision and there were still a few questions about
the sewer ramifications to the neighbors.

 

After lunch in A&F we doled out a bunch more Home and CDBG grant money
to an assortment of organizations. We did the original grants assuming
our allocation would go down as it always does. But it turns out that
our allocation actually went up this year. I assume this is one of the
side effects of having a few more Democrats in Washington. 

We also reviewed the Public Works projects in the CIP. Most of the
discussion focused on how impact fee money would be dispersed. It can
only be applied to the portion of a project that can be attributed to
growth. There is some sort of formula for doing this but what it means
is that impact money can only be a contributing funding source to a
larger project.

Some work planned for FY2010:

Rebuild lower miller creek near Linda Vista (phase 1 of a larger
project)

Major work on third between Russell and Reserve

Sidewalks on Rattlesnake drive near the school

Higgins Hill Beckwith roundabout

Slant street sidewalk project

 

There were a few interesting items in Public Works. We took another go
at the idea of lowering the sewer connection fee for existing homes. The
whole thing got mired up in all these fussy details of state law on how
we assess sewer fees. The attorney and administration seem to be taking
an extremely narrow view on the whole thing. In the end the committee
voted to kill the idea. It too may come back on the floor though.

 

We revisited and approved the Johnson Controls $50,000 proposal to do an
energy audit of sorts. The deal is set up so they do an assessment of
how we can save money on energy. They bring back a list of projects with
the estimated savings. They charge us $20,000 for that part. If they
don't find any projects that save enough money to pay the financing on
getting them done we don't have to pay them for the work. Then if we
select any projects to go forward with, they charge us another $30,000
to do everything needed to get the projects to the point of bidding them
out. If we follow this whole procedure it opens up some additional
funding mechanisms for us to use to pay for the projects.

  

We finished with a discussion about the Rattlesnake sewer project. There
is a little slack created by stimulus money and all the low bids we are
getting. The extra money creates an opportunity to offer a unique
program where people can opt out of the sewer installation SID. In the
end, when their septic fails or they sell their homes, they will have to
pay the bill. And it will definitely be a lot more then than it is now.
Getting in on the larger project, the 3.5% financing, and the low
bidding environment is probably as good a deal as there will ever be.
But there are a lot of folks who really don't want to be part of this
SID so with this program they will be able to simply opt out.

 

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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