[MissoulaGov] Committee Update 2-10-10

[Bob Jaffe]

Greetings,
This morning in conservation we authorized a $38,000 grant from the DNRC to implement a GIS based street tree inventory and do some kind of ecosystem analysis.  The city did an inventory back in 2003 but the data has not been maintained. This grant will allow us to get updated software and start the process of building the inventory. We also discussed the urban forest in general.  Currently we only budget enough for a pruning cycle of about 45 years. The ideal cycle for the health of the trees would be seven years.  We talked about activating the tree board and ideas for getting citizens more involved in the care of the urban forest. We hope to get interns and other students involved in the GIS inventory of the trees. There are lots of opportunities in the urban forest for citizen science and citizen stewardship.

In PAZ we finished up the historic preservation ordinance. The document was reorganized to move the procedures into the general procedures chapter of title 20 but there were no more substantive changes. There were a few interesting debates but no successful motions. One of the discussions had to do with expanding the scope to include properties eligible for listing on the register. Currently there are two such properties in Missoula. The Moon Randolph homestead owned by the City and the Catholic block buildings other than the church. To be eligible means that the lengthy process to get listed has been completed but the owner hasn't signed the paper.
Jason made the motion to include eligible properties and argued that the resource is historic whether the owner wants it to be or not.  We don't tell owners of property along the river that they have land that qualifies as a riparian resource but since they haven't registered it as such they don't need to protect it. This pretty well gets to the essence of the issue. Do we consider cultural and historic resources to be community assets to the degree that they deserve protecting, potentially against the will of the owner? We regularly apply this standard for environmental resources. All the same the motion failed. I think it was me, Jason, Dave, and Pam in favor and everyone else against.
The ordinance will go to our next council meeting and hopefully get approved. Next I expect there to be an effort to identify a neighborhood that wants to explore establishing a historic district. Until then, please no more posts about historic anything. I'm kind of sick of the subject.

In A&F we approved the collective bargaining agreement with the parking commission. It is a one year contract with 3.5% increases.

In Public Works we finished up the revisions to title 12.22 related to parking. There were tons of edits but the one we spent the most time on had to do with parking in the setbacks.  The final language reads like this:

A.     Parking in within the setbacks per (C) above shall be removed when the use adjacent parking spaces are removed from located within outside the required building  setback is discontinued.  A curb cut and driveway approach, if existing, shall be removed and the previous parking area shall be landscaped.   The driveway may be retained if it meets all the following conditions:

1.      The driveway shall be a minimum of 20 (20') feet long as measured from the property line

2.      The driveway and apron must be paved

3.      The maximum width of the driveway within the setback cannot exceed 20 (20') feet

We also talked about sewers in Linda Vista.  It's hard to describe this without the map but a deal had been worked out for the sewer line to run down into that open land northwest of Linda Vista Blvd. It would go to a lift station and then be pumped up to the area of the new roundabout. Instead, a deal was worked with Lloyd Twite to put the lift station in the parking lot of the golf course. The net savings to the city to build it this way is about $130,000.  We also learned that the bids for the roundabout came in substantially below estimates and the project would for sure be built this summer.

The last meeting of the day was COW for the goals discussion. Besides Ed's best efforts it went really well. Nothing actionable was accomplished but it was good to hear people just talk about what was important to them.  I was most interested to hear from the conservative corner as I already know what the folks on the left have to say.  Renee was hoping we could get some kind of inventory of city services so we could prioritize them and identify possible duplications of service. I think this would be a good idea too. I think people will be impressed to see the list of services they receive for an average price of $60/month/household.

Jon's highest priority goal is to keep small homes on small lots and multifamily housing out of the Lewis and Clark neighborhood. His other goal was to see more people elected to city council who can think for themselves. I'm not sure why he found it necessary to lob an attack like that since he appeared to be enjoying the conversation and stated as much.  No one opted to take the bait and challenge him on the attack. Sometimes you just have to shake your head and move on even if it is bad for your heart.

Dick talked about how we appear to misunderstand the conservatives sometimes during the budget discussions. They aren't just about cutting everything. They want to see many of the same projects and programs we do move forward. But they think the funding for these things should come from clamping down on waste in other areas. He also talked about the businesses being the primary source of tax revenue and how we need to do more to promote them. At the end Lyn criticized Pam's suggestions that we look at things holistically and focus on the big picture. Lyn thinks we should be more pragmatic and just hope to survive. She said we need more high paying jobs and the city needs to be more business friendly. As an example of how anti-business we are she offered a rumor that a Texas firm wanted to come to Missoula and create 200 jobs paying $12/hour. But they were told by the city that we didn't want them. She didn't offer any additional details to the rumor and so far I haven't found anyone who knows what she is talking about. She pointed out that Billings is #1 on the list of business friendly cities the mayor was bragging about us being number ten on.  We should look at Billings to see what regulations they don't have that make them so much better for business.

The other day, Jon Wilkins got applause from the crowd of builders when he chastised Roger for comparing Missoula to other cities. Apparently we are only supposed to learn from the experience of other cities when it serves one's argument. But I do think Jon had a point. You can only go so far comparing us to other cities. We are not Billings (thank God). To name a few things we have a different industry base, different location, and we are a different size.  In the end we will need to find solutions that are right for Missoula.

Thank you for your interest,

Bob Jaffe
Missoula City Council, Ward Three
1225 South 2nd West
Missoula, MT 59801
(406) 880-2052


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