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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2003 07-08 Pre Meridian City Pre-Council Meeting July 8, 2003 The Pre-Council Meeting of the Meridian City Council was called to order at 6:00 P.M. on Tuesday, July 8, 2003, by Mayor Robert D. Corrie. Members Present: Mayor Robert Corrie, Cherie McCandless, Keith Bird, and Tammy de Weerd. Members Absent: Bill Nary. Others Present: Gary Smith, Anna Powell, Leslie Howard, Nick Wollen and Will Berg. Item 1. Roll Call Attendance: X Tammy de Weerd O Bill Nary X Cherie McCandless X Keith Bird X Mayor Robert Corrie th Corrie: I will open the Pre-Council Meeting Tuesday, July the 8, 2003 at 6:00 P.M. We will have roll-call attendance by the City Clerk please. Item2. Adoption of the Agenda: Corrie: Item number two on the agenda is adoption of the agenda, which is two things. The discussion of the one-way street petition that John Forsberg and the discussion of the water bill by Kimberly Knowlton. So Council. Bird: Mr. Mayor. Corrie: Mr. Bird. Bird: I move that we approve the adoption of the agenda as published. De Weerd: Second. Corrie: Okay. Motion has been made and second to adopt the agenda as published. Any further discussion? Hearing none. All those in favor of the motion say aye. All ayes. Motion Carried. MOTION CARRIED: THREE AYES; ONE ABSENT Item 3. Discussion of One-Way Street Petition: Corrie: At this time we will have the discussion on the one-way street petition. John if you could come up the floor is yours. Meridian City Pre-Council Meeting July 8, 2003 Page 2 of 13 Forsberg: Thanks Mr. Mayor, Council members. I appreciate your time here. Basically what I’ve done is written the petition and walked it up and down Main Street and spoken with many of the business owners here in town on Main Street. The overwhelming majority of them are in favor of a one-way street. So basically what I would like to do at this time is to maybe get the Council to consider some discussions in the direction of one-way streets and maybe see about adopting it. Obviously there’s other people that are going to have input and they should be heard naturally. Some against, mostly for. But either way I really think that it needs to be looked at. I have people come into my businesses every single day and tell me that the only reason they came into town was to come to my business and they absolutely avoid the downtown corridor with every inch of their body, they just hate driving down here because it is so congested and such a pain and its dangerous as it is. There’s people moving in two directions. You can’t quite figure out whether somebody’s going to hit you from one direction or the next when you cross the street and basically everybody is looking to do something about it. I know that the study that was done on it last was back in 97. The study, I read it, I gave the study to Tammy for her to look at. Basically it said if we don’t do something we are going to lose several, two generations of investment in the downtown corridor. And I guess if you were to take a look at the downtown corridor right now, just take a drive you’ll see probably five, six businesses that have gone out of business recently. Properties that are either for sale, for lease, for rent what have you. In my mind from a retailer’s point of view, it’s due to lack of traffic. People don’t like coming down here so they avoid it with all means and if we had one way streets then people would start coming down through here again and use it as they should. I think it’s vital for downtown life to get the traffic situation taken care of one way or the th other. I’ve looked at the studies that talk about second and a half and 4 street for one ways and they honestly to me look pretty far-fetched and I don’t think that they really address the problems that are needed and the access to those points would be extremely expensive to require the property to make it all happen. So I really believe that the one-way street is the way to move at this time. Thank you. Corrie: Stay there John I’m sure we are going to have some questions for you here. Council do you have any questions? Bird: I don’t. I think I know where I stand on it. Corrie: Okay I have a couple John. Which way would the one way go on Main Street? South or north? Forsberg: On Main Street it would go north. Corrie: Go north. Forsberg: That’s what the ACHD has – Meridian City Pre-Council Meeting July 8, 2003 Page 3 of 13 Corrie: Then Meridian Road would be the one going south. Forsberg: Correct. Corrie: So all the traffic that’s on Meridian Road would be transferred to Main Street is that correct? It would have to if they wanted to go north. Forsberg: Right. Corrie: So all the traffic going south would have to go on Meridian Road. Forsberg: Correct. Corrie: Okay. Do you think that the congestion would be more or less if it’s one- way. Since all the traffic is going on Meridian now will have to go on Main Street. Would that be more congestion or less? Forsberg: Well I think that probably it would be less because everybody would be traveling in the same direction and when you get everybody in one direction then you don’t have people trying to make a turn in front of you or its all trying to flow in one path. Corrie: How would they do it on the Meridian Road meets Main Street on the south side if we all have the traffic coming in that way and they are going to redo that central area there that five way coming in together. How would we do that? Forsberg: Down there, that Home Depot area? Corrie: Yeah, right. Forsberg: What they have is basically a straight through shot that completely avoids the signal for Meridian Road going south. So it would basically go to the right side of the signal and just keep on moving past. And then the signal itself would have two turn lanes that would go into the existing road. Corrie: Okay and then one way north on Main Street. What about the T there at Fairview? They would have to go on past and go south to Meridian Road and they are going north on Main Street all that traffic has to go either left or right. Is that correct? Forsberg: That’s correct. Bird: Mr. Mayor. Corrie: Mr. Bird Meridian City Pre-Council Meeting July 8, 2003 Page 4 of 13 Bird: Now Main is going north. Meridian is going south. I understood it that Corporate was where we were going – when we discussed that big developer idea for the deal down there. We were going to do our switching at Corporate if we went this way. I’ve seen your petition that ACHD – I don’t know who you talked to at ACHD but this is the first time and I’ve been on since 98 – this is the first time I’ve seen them have an opinion that they would give before we evidently give an opinion. Forsberg: It was Joe Rosenlund that we spoke to. Bird: Okay and I agree wholeheartedly that this is the way we need to get it through and I think retail would have three lanes going north and three lanes coming south and we’ll still have on street parking, right? Forsberg: Right. Bird: Thank you very much. De Weerd: Mr. Mayor. Corrie: Mrs. de Weerd. De Weerd: I know in talking earlier with ACHD with the commissioners and their staff and I’ve discussed this with John, is they have been kind of waiting to hear from the city and the Meridian Development Corporation on what the vision for the downtown area is and a lot of that correlates with how traffic should move, how we should really look to enhance the circulation. I know we’ve had the conversation with the Meridian development Corporation and the chairman is here and he could bring us up to date on the discussions of that board. But there’s still some things I think ACHD is waiting for and I think it needs discussion. I agree with you it needs discussion. I don’t know if it needs to be totally focused on one-way streets I don’t believe that that would be conducive to a good healthy discussion. I think we need to find out what the goal is, what we want downtown to be and Main Street is certainly the whole center and soul of that and see what the options are. And look at the pros and cons on each of those options and see if it fits within the goal of what we want to do in downtown Meridian and we have had this discussion. I think when I reviewed the document you showed me I was unaware of its existence and I had told you John that at the time. I think that that document came out before any of the current Council members came into office. So I would like to see if we could all get a copy of that so we can even see and read in detail what that is suggesting. And maybe even Joe can speak to that today as well if we can do that. Also maybe a copy you can get to the Meridian Development Corporation Board for their pursual and you’ll see a little bit more why that would be helpful because they are talking about doing a circulation study in their parking and market feasibility studies that they are doing. Because they are all hand and glove on how to promote this Meridian City Pre-Council Meeting July 8, 2003 Page 5 of 13 area and show that investment is worth the investment and you as a business I think really realizes that. But when Council - and again Council made the vote on the one-way streets before any of us were sitting up here. They voted that they did not want to go the one-way route but I guess where I see the – the paradox is we never took it the next step. We never decided then what the short and long term solutions were and we didn’t have that consensus direction to move forward on. So I would like to see the dialog open up and that we can put some of the dissension that seems to always come up when this conversation mentioned that we can have a good healthy discussion and come to a decision and move forward. Forsberg: Sure. We’ve seen six years go by and traffic just seems to get worse. It’s gotten worse since I’ve been in town only five years so. I see a lot of development going in north of here and I don’t see enough provisions immediately to take care of that growth that’s coming up right now. De Weerd: Well and this does need to be taken care of in a timely manner and I know until we come with that kind of direction ACHD is not going to put any money towards any of these improvements because they are not aware of what the city is looking and asking for. So not discussing it is not getting us anywhere other then nothing being done and just living with what we have today. Forsberg: Right. De Weerd: Which may be the answer. I don’t know. Corrie: With all do respect to ACHD. They like to move traffic and we like to have traffic moved too and we’ve got a real problem here in Meridian. We have two entrances into Meridian, Meridian Road and Eagle. Forsberg: Right. Corrie: Unless you come down Fairview or Overland, which that makes it rather unique in the fact that you only have the two coming in. Now if and when we get the Ten Mile Interchange in we will have three. We got a rather unique situation for Meridian. I don’t think Meridian realized that they were going to be eventually 140 or 150,000 people and like I said with all do respect to ACHD they want to move traffic and I would too. I just have a personal feeling that if we make Meridian one-way north you are going to get traffic in there. There’s plenty of traffic but they are not going to be stopping they are going to go home. And so that’s just a personal opinion and – everybody else, they have the say here too. But I would if Council will bare with me I would like to have ACHD and also MDC just give us a little background. This isn’t a public hearing but if they could give us some background if the Council would like to hear that I would and then if we get some of this information we can have a public hearing where everybody can have a say but you brought the petition and I did respect you for that and we can Meridian City Pre-Council Meeting July 8, 2003 Page 6 of 13 look at that and go with it. So if you don’t have any more questions I will ask the ACHD representative Joe if you could come up and give us a prospect on the ACHD and also if you can that new interchange that’s going in there Whitman Lane is kind of messing things up to for a one-way as it comes in. Maybe my verbiage isn’t correct but we’ve been through this a lot of times. Rosenlund: We spent the summer of 97 doing this study and what the – several alternatives you know that basically do nothing a couple of different couplets where one couplet ended at Franklin and the other went all the way to the freeway. And we looked at widening Meridian Road and looked at widening Main and then a thing called an unbalanced couplet where you have like two lanes north bound and one lane south bound on Main and the opposite. So you’re basically kind of giving a directional slant to each road but not take the two lanes off. We went through quite a bit of that and also had an economic analysis done. That request came out of the public input that we received has we were going through it. Basically what we found was that it does move traffic you know the couplet moves it better at the least cost it would have the least impact to adjacent you know at least having to buy right of way and those kinds of things. Most of the other options because of having to deal with turning traffic at intersections you have to make the intersections a lot bigger which can have a pretty big impact. Particularly the one we were the Fairview intersections and the two at Pine to handle the amount of traffic that is going to be coming in on Pine. You know that (inaudible) sooner then whatever you know they are getting ready to build that new segment between the Junior High and Eagle Road now. So it’s coming and once that goes all the way through you are going to see a lot more traffic coming on Pine and quite a bit more congestion there at those intersections. In relation to other projects and looking along – we did look at analyze the options with both the Locust Grove Overpass and the Ten Mile Interchange already assumed as being built in the numbers we have in the study were for 2015 and it still showed a heavy volume of traffic going down Meridian and it did distribute traffic a bit better but it didn’t get rid of the problem basically is what are analysis should. There’s – kind of what happened as I recall is at the end of this study was that there wasn’t really a clear consensus. I mean everybody was 50/50. I think the City Council was 50/50 on the idea the public was 50/50 and if you read the economic analysis it basically says until Meridian decides what they want, how they want their downtown to develop you probably shouldn’t make a decision. So Tammy is right we need to, the city has to decide okay what do we want to happen downtown and then lets design the transportation system to meet that need and so you know I think we do have to do quite a bit more work and I know we’ve been involved in your plan to develop your downtown and come up with your downtown plan and at this point because no decisions have been made on the couplet we are still assuming two-ways streets but – I mean part of it is we are here to help serve you as well and help your city grow so we are not going to come in and force this down anyone’s throat. Its kind of what the city wants and how they want their city to look in the long term. So anyway when I get you the study I’ll get these copies of the Meridian City Pre-Council Meeting July 8, 2003 Page 7 of 13 studies to you. You have to realize these numbers are seven years old and the traffic numbers and the dollar numbers everything is higher. And we can probably do some update to those but it would take a little bit of time. Corrie: Okay. Any questions? McCandless: Mr. Mayor. Bird: Mr. Mayor I just got one question. Corrie: Yes. Bird: Joe was that done by Washington Group? Rosenlund: No that was done by Earth Tech. Bird: Okay thank you. I think I got one of those at home and I’ll look through it and if I do I’ll get enough to the people. Corrie: Mrs. McCandless. McCandless: Wouldn’t you have to at least add another lane on Meridian Road or rebuild that road in order to take that volume of traffic going south? Rosenlund: Right now Meridian Road is I believe it’s in our five year work program. Or at least within the next 10 years as expected to widen to three lanes anyway. You could get three lanes on there right now if you took off parking through some of those segments. There is enough pavement there. Some of it would have to be reworked because there is a couple sections that have a real heavy crown on it, we would like to level that out a little bit before we do something like that but really isn’t that much more work to do to Meridian Road to actually get the lanes on there but what we would propose if we were going to go through we would want to go in and redo Meridian Road get the curb, gutter and sidewalks on and get it leveled out a little bit. Corrie: Thank you. Slocum: Good evening Mayor, members of the Council. I’m Creg Slocum, Chairman of the Meridian Development Corporation. I guess to give a little history although I’ve only been involved with the group for about a year and a half. The committee and the Corporation have been meeting for three and a half years I believe. Through that process there have been many public workshops and its certainly is evident that traffic circulation is an issue in our group being successful at what our mission is which is to enhance the downtown, to incentivise development coming downtown and as well as keep those businesses that are already here vibrant. I can certainly state that we have Meridian City Pre-Council Meeting July 8, 2003 Page 8 of 13 heard many different opinions and I think even the board shares differing opinions on the one-way couplet versus retaining the two-way streets. I don’t believe we have a stance, one way or the other we have concerns with both. We do have and are in the process right now of establishing our budget for fiscal year 2004. In that budget we have tentatively set aside some funds for traffic and parking studies. There’s been discussion amongst our group whether the traffic circulation issue is one we want to bite off and deal with or whether that’s something that the city should deal with I think we are open to teaming with the city if that was necessary. We know we need to deal with it or it needs to be dealt with in order for our – as I mentioned our mission to be successful. In regards to the specifics of some of what’s been discussed and I think the ACHD representative maybe able to address this. I don’t believe that the right of way that exists on Main Street is adequate to serve three lanes of traffic and parking. And I can tell you that I think our group as a whole is adamant that on street parking be provided on both streets. Its just a necessity for the businesses that are here now or any business that is to come in the future to have that while we are going to address parking in some other ways, we’ve got to still have that on street parking. We are also I think in general consensus that there’s a concern over three lanes of one-way traffic and what that feels like. We certainly want to have a pedestrian friendly downtown core. And it can be from a pedestrian standpoint three lanes of traffic is a long ways to cross. It’s a safety concern. I’m not saying it can’t be done but I think it’s just a concern from our viewpoint. There are long term issues that are going to help the traffic circulation as mentioned Ten Mile, Locust Grove but I guess I’m in agreement with some of what some of the other Council members have indicated that – I do believe has our Corporation believes that there needs to be some studies in to the short term solution. We are seeing businesses leave downtown and that’s scary for us as residents, its scary for us a urban renewal agency. I think that’s all I can really share with you this evening. If you have any questions - Bird: Mr. Mayor. Corrie: Mr. Bird. Bird: Creg you know everybody is looking at the long term and when we get Ten Mile and when we get this and when we get that. But the traffic flow in my opinion is to first get people down here to shop. Now MDC and the city needs to be getting shops down here so that they can shop. But your traffic flow regardless is to get people down to the retail outlets and if you’re jammed up you’re not going to stop I don’t care who you are. Its 90 degrees out there and your jammed up at the stoplight or you are trying to turn left on a street out here and then you can’t turn. You are going to drive on by and go home. So our first concern is traffic for our retail and business outlets down here. I realize we haven’t got the businesses down here yet but that’s the thing we need to work on big time and we are working on it. So I don’t want a short term. Boise’s one-way streets have been successful for how many years? I realize for the first 20 years Meridian City Pre-Council Meeting July 8, 2003 Page 9 of 13 it was a ghost town. But from 83 on it became a pretty viable downtown and they’ve been successful in one way. That’s what we need to determine. We don’t need to determine what’s good for six months or for a year until we get Ten Mile because it could be 20 years before we get Ten Mile. We need to have something down here that we can get the traffic through in a way the people are wanting to stop. We’ve already through the city have got two nice or will have two nice off street parking places. Well we are quite a ways from having a parking garage, we all know that. But we can get some of this off street parking and help people. But that is my concern is not short but how long. I mean we got to be viable down here with traffic to get the businesses down here. I mean we don’t have a lady’s dress shop down there, we don’t have a men’s dress shop here. (Inaudible) a bad downtown that’s been hurt a lot like Nampa has that. That is my concern Creg. Slocum: Mayor and Councilman Bird. I believe that your concern is our concern as well and I guess maybe I was a little, maybe I stated it wrong. What we hear I think a lot is that lets just wait, Ten Mile will come and the solution will be there. Maybe short term isn’t the correct terminology, we need to look at other solutions. Bird: When Ten Mile comes we still want traffic down here because we want a viable downtown. I mean if we don’t have a viable downtown we have no community. We are already getting businesses and I’m thankful for it out on Overland and stuff off of that interchange. But we have got to encourage down town shops and we’ve got to make it pedestrian friendly. And we’ve got to get the traffic through it. That’s my only deal and I think that’s something that – and MDC has talked about this, we know it, you’ve heard this song and dance before. But you know I don’t want to look at short term I want to look at long term and in same time encourage businesses to come down here and locate and make it so they can make a profit and stay here. I’m like the gentleman that brought the petition forward. I am sick that the businesses went out of business right along Main Street here, I mean that hurts. Slocum: One other point that our group is very involved in is the downtown design standards and although its being worked through the Planning and Zoning side we are very involved in it and there’s been many many committee meetings and public workshops and we are – while we’ve come through the core district and have come up with some draft design standards for that. We are now at a point where we the committee needs to establish what the street sections are going to be. And they have – there was some preliminary street sections put together and they were sent to ACHD for their input and so I think we are at that point where those studies need to take place. We need to define what we are going to do. If we don’t I think its going to hinder us moving forward on some of the other goals and ordinances that we have in mind to help enhance our downtown and the districts from Fairview all the way to the freeway. So I think it is imperative that we do band together. The MDC is certainly willing and I’ve Meridian City Pre-Council Meeting July 8, 2003 Page 10 of 13 heard a lot of input and willing to help in anyway that we can. Whether that’s through manpower or from a financial standpoint. Bird: Thank you. Corrie: Thanks Creg. Well I guess we all agree that we want the downtown to be places that people want to come down and shop. There is no question about that. Got to have a happy medium of pedestrians and cars and then have businesses that people want to shop down here and like to shop and maybe some things that we have to do cosmetically I don’t know. I think that’s what MDC is thinking about. So we are aware of the situation it’s just a matter of coming up with the right formula and its tough, it’s hard. If you have a business down here, it’s tough to have a business I know but hopefully we can have other meetings and get it going again. So anything from the Council. Bird: Mr. Mayor. I’d like to and I don’t think we have to do this in the next month or so but I think we need to have a public hearing and have a night where this is the only thing on the deal. Have the people come and just listen to the input of both – like you say we are positive here. I’ve been at meetings where everything was negative on one-way. I think it would be something that would be very helpful to the Council and keep in mind that everybody’s working for what they think is best for the community of Meridian. And get that done but you know I think that’s something we could – maybe if you and Tammy could put this on in September or something after we get our budget all put to bed and everything and go like that and the MDC puts their budget to bed and then we could have a public hearing and go from that. De Weerd: Mr. Mayor. Corrie: Mrs. de Weerd. De Weerd: I agree at some point we need to do that I don’t want to put the cart before the horse where we don’t know the pros and cons or what the different options are and again it gets back to the vision that we want for Meridian. I think that will be further defined with the help and certainly we would like to get a diverse group involved in the MDC and what they are trying to do with circulation and parking and the vision part of what we want to do with the Old Town. And I’d like to see this done and given a high priority. And that’s just because we can’t afford to spend a lot of study time and prolong this too much longer if the traffic circulation is the cause for these business close downs and I think economy has something to do with it. But it is an item that needs to have some conclusion and a consensus direction as to where we are going with it. So I would like to maybe have MDC discuss it at their meeting tomorrow as well and bring back a discussion to Council on a proposed direction. Maybe with our planning staff. I know our planning staff definitely has some opinions on this as well and so we Meridian City Pre-Council Meeting July 8, 2003 Page 11 of 13 could probably bring it back and I don’t Mr. Mayor maybe Steve has – did you have a comment from a staff perspective? Corrie: Steve do you have a comment? I mean we better wrap this up we’ve got another one right behind us so. Siddoway: I have several things that I could say but I will just say this. That we could do a staff report on this issue and try to analyze some of the pros and cons and make a recommendation for a course of action as to how to proceed on this. De Weerd: In a timely fashion. That is great. Corrie: What is a timely fashion? Okay. De Weerd: Mr. Mayor could we ask that maybe those comments be brought back next – what is a reasonable time frame? Powell: Mr. Mayor members of the Council. All we could provide you of course is just some empirical information from perhaps cross countries it won’t be anything specific to here other then what ACHD can provide us as far as traffic flows. But just the kind of general pro and con debate. We could probably have something for you within a month. If that is not too untimely? De Weerd: Mr. Mayor. Corrie: Mrs. de Weerd. De Weerd: I guess my concern of having a public hearing before we know what the options are what the pros and cons are seems it would just fuel whatever fires are going out there and I would like to get good information on what the vision is, what the options are and how to get to that point if we don’t already have enough information by just updating what ACHD has and what the MDC has done. So I would look for your recommendation as to the course of action from your perspective. I know what I would like to do but – Corrie: I would suggest not before September because we got the budget yet to do and a public hearing on that one too. So that will give you plenty of time. Powell: Mr. Mayor, members of the Council. What we could do is we will do some of the original research and get a memo out to the council and perhaps meet with Council member De Weerd on where to go from there. I’m not sure what the research is going to lead and I don’t know that I’ll be able to give the kind of course of action you are recommending without in depth studies of the area is what I suspect. I believe we can do the initial research and then work with you to come up with some ideas on where to go from there. Meridian City Pre-Council Meeting July 8, 2003 Page 12 of 13 De Weerd: Mr. Mayor. Corrie: Mrs. de Weerd. De Weerd: Would that give ACHD some time to update your figures maybe todays and you can work with Anna on that. Give us at least the starting point where we can start and then we know how much we have to go from there. So we are shooting for September Mr. Mayor? Corrie: I would suggest to give everybody a chance to think about it and get the reports done and then if anybody has a public hearing its going to give them enough time to get their things together on both sides. So lets do it probably the nd second week in September. We got a meeting on the 2 and Will can you see – the ninth. I can’t hear you. th De Weerd: He’s just making a comment. He said September 9 sounds great. Well at least have the initial conversation to maybe set that public hearing. Bird: That’ll give you something to shoot for and if we have two months around that time. Corrie: Okay. Good enough. All right we have it set for tentatively for September th the 9 and see what we got there and maybe we can fluctuate. Item4. Discussion of water bill of Kimberly Knowlton: Corrie: The next item on the agenda is the discussion of the water bill with Kimberly Knowlton. Is she here tonight? Maybe she wants to come another night. Okay well since she is not here I guess we can recess then and come back at 7:00. So I entertain a motion to close the Pre-Council meeting. De Weerd: Mr. Mayor I move we adjourn. Bird: Second. Corrie: Okay all in favor of the motion say aye. Three ayes motion is approved. Meeting is adjourned for Pre-Council and then come back at 7:00 for the regular Council meeting. Thank you. MOTION CARRIED: THREE AYES; ONE ABSENT MEETING ADJOURNED AT 6:43 P.M. (TAPE ON FILE OF THESE PROCEEDINGS) Meridian City Pre-Council Meeting July 8, 2003 Page 13 of 13 APPROVED: / / ROBERT D. CORRIE, MAYOR DATE ATTESTED: WILLIAM G. BERG, JR., CITY CLERK