<head><style>body{font-family: Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:9pt;background-color: #ffffff;color: black;}p{margin:0px}</style></head><body id="compText">Bob,<br>
<br>
I'd prefer that you stick to reporting on the meat and potato issues
from the committees which 99% of the time you do very well. Comments
such as those made at the beginning of today's post directed at the
council people you obviously don't like, do nothing but make you appear
petty and childish. I suppose if one of the functions of this listserv
is to keep your political base mobilized in an election year, the
comments make sense. If so, I'd prefer you make another mailing list
dedicated to bashing your opponents and leave me off of it. Paul S.<br><br><br><blockquote style="border-left: 2px solid rgb(0, 0, 255); padding-left: 5px; margin-left: 0px;">-----Original Message-----
<br>From: Bob Jaffe <bjaffe@ci.missoula.mt.us>
<br>Sent: Aug 26, 2009 10:10 PM
<br>To: "missoulagov@cmslists.com" <missoulagov@cmslists.com>
<br>Subject: [MissoulaGov] committee update 8/26/09
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<p class="MsoNormal">Greetings,<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">First I want to thank the folks who covered for me while I
was out of town. I really enjoyed reading the updates from afar.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">This morning before we got started I heard Hendrickson
commenting to Wilkins about his quote in the paper on his statements at the
Republican central committee forum. I threw in something about him becoming the
new champion of the Republican party that wasn’t well received. He said
something about at least not being too far on the left. I suppose that would be
the left of labor unions and safety nets and the like. Jason got involved and then
Dave had to break it up to get his committee started. All this before 8 AM
while the coffee was still brewing. It’s good to be back.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">In Public Safety we revisited the Pedestrian Interference
ordinance. Dave did a great job as chair preparing talking points and
motions with options that reflected the discussion of the previous meeting. But
we didn’t quite get that far. There were still some general purpose
questions that needed to be resolved before we could get into the details of
the specific language. My two main questions had to do with what was the goal
of this ordinance and what did it provide that we didn’t already have.
There has been much talk suggesting that this somehow has something to do with
helping our homeless problem. There has also been some suggestion that there is
some authority the police are lacking in dealing with the homeless people
downtown.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Police Chief Muir and I had an exchange that I found very
helpful. Mark clarified that the police are limited in their ability to engage
citizens. If no obvious crime is being committed they are limited to the duty
of care doctrine. This means that if someone is sleeping outside in 5 below
weather they have a duty of care to engage that person. If someone is in some
kind of obvious medical distress, they can engage the person. But if they are
simply asleep or laying on the sidewalk, maybe not. Especially if they check on
the person and the person says they are not in any distress and do not wish to
be bothered. At that point the police really have no business harassing that
person.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">So that is one reason to have this ordinance. To give the
police the legal authority to engage someone who is sitting or laying on the
sidewalk.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">So that raises the question of why do the police need to be
engaging people who are sitting or laying on the sidewalk? I am
paraphrasing here but Mark’s answer was that the downtown serves a lot of
people. The vast majority of those people do not really want to step over
people who are sleeping on the sidewalk. In fact, they have a right to
unobstructed passage on our downtown sidewalks. I agree with this. I can vote
for the ordinance if it is directly tied to interfering with the use of the
sidewalk. The language proposed was something like no sitting or lying on the
sidewalk if it leaves less than six feet of passage downtown or 50% of the
sidewalk elsewhere. I could support that. Of course some would like us to
outlaw lying or sleeping on the sidewalk period. I’m not willing to go
that far. We will continue the discussion next week.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">In Conservation we discussed the greenhouse gas committee
again. We added a couple of more seats and made some appointments.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">In PAZ we got back into the zoning rewrite again. We first
dispensed with R3. This is a small lot development zone. For some reason it has
been singled out as the ruination of all that is holy. There is a great
fear that somehow someone will insert this zone into the middle of a nice
neighborhood and all will be lost. Now I don’t disagree that it
would be a contentious issue if someone wanted to rezone a couple of lots in
the middle of an 5.4 neighborhood to R3. But the process would be identical if
they wanted to also rezone it to industrial or commercial. I’m just not
really sure what is so special about R3. All the same, John Hendrickson finally
presented his solution to the dilemma. He moved that the minimum area in which
the zoning district could be applied would be changed from 15,000 feet to 30,000
feet. The argument being that this would make it less likely to be used as an
infill tactic in an R5.4 neighborhood and only be used in new development.
It’s not really that big a deal but I didn’t vote for it because I
think it is much more likely that if it is used for infill it will be in areas
of higher density and there is no reason to create an additional impediment.
But the motion to increase the size passed.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The other issue we got into was building heights on the
hillside. This has proven to be an incredibly difficult topic for the
committee. Today we didn’t even get into whether we would use the
table top or envelope method to measure height. We just talked about where the
bottom of the measurement should start from. The planning board draft says
existing grade or finished grade whichever is lower. Ed moved that it
should just say existing grade. The consequence here is that in the planning board
version, if someone digs a daylight basement, that becomes the base to measure
the maximum height from. In Ed’s version the builder is not penalized for
digging in a basement below existing grade. But as usual we got into all sorts
of conversation irrelevant to the motion. I find that if I try to direct the
conversation too much people cry foul. I think we had four calls for the
question fail before we finally got to vote on this thing. It’s just shocking
to me how much trouble folks are having with this. It’s true that there
is some geometry involved. It requires some skills in spatial visualization. Haines
and Hendrickson are saying that we are not qualified to make this decision and need
to refer it back to some kind of special task force of builders to tell us what
to do. I wholeheartedly disagree with this. For one thing, this isn’t
that hard. For another, this essentially has already happened. The
professionals have spent considerable time on this and we are now presented
with a couple of clearly defined options to choose from. And finally, this is a
policy decision and that is what we are elected for. If these guys don’t
think they are qualified to make these decisions I’m not sure why they
are running for office again.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">In the end Ed’s motion passed and next time we will
start off with the discussion of tabletop or envelop method of measuring
heights. Hopefully folks will take the week to do some research and be ready to
make some decisions when we meet again.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">After lunch in A&F we set a public hearing to approve
the Tourism Business Improvement District. This is a taxing authority granted
by the state a few years back. A whole bunch of cities jumped on board once it
was available but Missoula has taken a while to get it organized. It requires
60% of the hotels to sign on before it can be authorized. There was a lot of
concern that the money would end up just getting sucked up by the state legislature
like the way they stole the bed tax from the cities. But the TBID rules
have some protections that require the money to only be used by the local
convention and visitors bureau for the promotion of local tourism. They
will charge a $0.75 surcharge for each room night in a hotel. It is projected
to raise about $500,000 per year. Billings started at 75 cents and recently
raised it to $1.50. I’m not sure why we are not just starting at $1.50 or
even $2.00. No one is going to choose to leave the city and find another hotel
to avoid the charge. The 7% bed tax and 75 cent TBID fee is pretty small
compared to the taxes applied to rooms everywhere else in the country. I’m
not sure why we are walking away from all that free money but apparently this
was a big deal for getting that 60% sign on from the hoteliers. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">In Public Works we took care of some miscellaneous business
and learned that the grand opening of the Higgins Hill Beckwith roundabout will
be at 11:00 on Thursday the 3<sup>rd</sup>. We also talked about the leaf
collection program and how it could maybe be more efficient this year. The best
we can probably do is get more strict about when we are coming and not coming
back again later because someone didn’t move their car. I think the
council would like to see the public works department take a harder line and do
something like put the cones and signs out the day before saying the street
will be cleaned tomorrow. Show up the next day and tow anything that is in the
street. Clean the leaves and don’t come back. If someone rakes the leaves
out after that day then too bad. This program costs a fortune and people need
to cooperate if we want to save money. If people really want us to come back
after their pickup date we should charge them for the service. I don’t
think it is asking too much as long as there is very clear communication about
exactly when the pickup will happen. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Thanks for your interest, <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Bob Jaffe<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Missoula City Council, Ward 3<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">1225 South 2nd West<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Missoula, MT 59801<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">(406) 728-1052<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
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