[MissoulaGov] committee update 5-13-09

[Bob Jaffe]

If you considered what I said to be disparaging attorneys you must not know very many lawyer jokes.

________________________________

From: Ryan Morton [mailto:ryan at buildmissoula.com]
Sent: Thu 5/14/2009 1:26 PM
To: Bob Jaffe; missoulagov at cmslists.com
Subject: RE: [MissoulaGov] committee update 5-13-09


Bob:
 
On Chickasaw and the various attorneys...
 
You have your attorney at EVERY Monday Night CC meeting and PAZ meeting.  Why would you poke fun at citizens bringing their attorneys on decisions that affect them?  Just because it's quasi-judicial doesn't mean it's non-judicial.  People have a right to an attorney and for protection against decisions you make that may be in error.  
 
In the end, disparaging attorneys by name on your listserve doesn't change the rightness or wrongness of what you do in Council Chambers.
 
Good luck with Chickasaw on Monday.
 
Cheers,
 
Ryan Morton
Government Affairs Director
Missoula Building Industry Association
406.543.4423 or 406.546.0902 (cell)
ryan at buildmissoula.com
 

________________________________

From: missoulagov-bounces at cmslists.com [mailto:missoulagov-bounces at cmslists.com] On Behalf Of Bob Jaffe
Sent: Wednesday, May 13, 2009 10:34 PM
To: missoulagov at cmslists.com
Subject: [MissoulaGov] committee update 5-13-09



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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