Video Description:
Neighborhood Meeting: 3rd Avenue Updates
Note: The following is the output of transcribing from a video recording. Although the transcription, which was done with software, is largely accurate, in some cases it is incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or [software] transcription errors. It is posted as an aid to understanding the proceedings at the meeting, but should not be treated as an authoritative record.
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Unknown Speaker 1:24
Folks, we’re gonna get started now. Kevin signed him, please do so. At the tables is a index card, so you can write down questions
Unknown Speaker 1:42
Okay Good evening,
Unknown Speaker 1:49
my name is come and help facilitate. I’m going to help facilitate the meeting tonight or try to. So we’re going to go through and we’re going to get started Third Avenue neighborhood meeting. want to welcome everyone and thank you for taking the time, I have to tell you that the only monitors that are working are this one that’s right in front of us. And this one back here, the other two monitors are not working. Okay. So if you want to adjust yourself, so you can see clearly, that’s what we need to do. It’ll be this one and that one. So tonight, what we’re going to do is, then the welcome mean, we’re going to go over some ground rules. My name is Carmen tremedous. Then our city manager, Harold is going to give us some background on the issue and decisions. Then Sergeant Eric Lewis is going to talk about voluntary compliance. Jim Angstadt is going to talk about future projects. We’re going to talk about next steps, we’re going to have a bit of a q&a, we’re going to start with the index cards. We know that this is an important topic to a lot of folks. So we’re going to get started on on some of this. Okay. So I want to honor the start and end of time. So we said this was a one hour meeting. Usually I’ll ask for permission if we need to go a little bit longer. Okay. We ask that everyone be respectful in their communication and respect for all. Sometimes it’s a little hard to listen to understand what the other side is saying, especially when we already have an answer formed, right? So listen to understand, assume, assume the best of intentions. We’re looking at the issue and not the individual. So no personal attacks, allow full participation. We’re going to ask please, if one person could speak at a time, no talking over other folks. Be brief into the point, fully participate, participate, silence your cell phones. So if everybody wants to take out their cell phone, put it on vibrate and limit your calls or texting, and then we’ll close it out with a thank you. And review of next steps. Okay, sound good? Are we good? Okay, so I’m going to turn it over to Harold and our city manager and he’s also going to do some introductions of folks that are here some other city stuff, so.
Unknown Speaker 4:37
Good afternoon, everyone. So I’m trying to look and see who I’m going to introduce. So first, I want to introduce the current city council members they were invited to this meeting. Mayor Pro Tem Aaron Rodriguez, Mayor Joan Peck, Councilmember Marcia Martin, and Councilmember Susie Hidalgo, fairing and then from staff we have Jim Angstadt who is the city engineer? Eric Lewis is the sergeant over the traffic division. Jeff sadder. What’s your title now, Jeff? Deputy Chief and unchanged yet. James Brown commander, Zack Ardis. If you haven’t met Zach Zach is our new public safety chief. I’m seeing Robin Erickson, Marika Unger, Becky Skoll, Wayne Tomek, Sarah, Arnie, Dave Kennedy, Michelle Goldman, I think Oh, Councilmember waters is in the back. And then Dane from code enforcement. Sorry. Sorry, Tim, I missed you there. So why are city Stat wise, steady staff talking about this, and this is because this is an operational issue. And so when we look at these issues, the way this was his outlined is that we have ordinances in play, that create the structure that we have in terms of what we use. And so the ordinances come in and create the process that we utilize as we’re looking at this, that then refers to our immune TCD standards to traffic standards that we use throughout the community. So that’s why this is a Strat staff presentation at this point. What I wanted to start off with, and I’m a walker. So I’m going to move around and hopefully the camera can go to the next slide. So I’ve had a few conversations about this. And, and a few coffees with council. Many of you may have heard this, many of you may not have heard this. But how did this come about? It actually started at a coffee with council that was held at the lodge in Hearthstone off of 17th and hoever. And there were some residents that attended that coffee with counsel and talked about the traffic and parking issues that were in play at that location. I’m looking at account. Mayor Pro Tem I think he was there at that event. And I don’t know, is it. Councilmember waters or I think it was Brian is the mayor is Mayor Bagley that was at that event. And so this issue came up. Some things that actually came up in that conversation, when we were talking to the residents in that there were a number of things that they asked for. They asked for a residential parking permit only. They talked about handicapped parking in front of other residences. And there were a few more issues that they talked about, of which we said no to the majority of those issues. Because we don’t, that’s not what we do. That’s not what we have in our code of ordinances. And so there were a lot of noes. In that conversation relatively quick. The one thing that we said that we would look at, based on the conversation was the safety issues that they brought to our attention in terms of line of sight. And so that’s really the start of this in August of 2021. Really, from August until December, I will say we had a number of people constantly reaching out to us to say what is the city done? What are you doing on this? How are you moving through this and we were moving through the process that we move through across the community when we have these types of issues brought to our attention. The first thing I want to say in this and I’ve heard a lot of these comments. And I actually had to answer this comment two weeks ago at coffee with council, or last week. Two weeks ago, I coffee with council about the council’s involvement in this process. I want to be very clear on this. The city council members were not involved in this process. There was not a council member that brought this to our attention. There was not a council member that said we need to do anything in this because it was the it was the information that was brought forward. And I can say any number of occasions, I have a very hard line in terms of these issues that I deal with based on my professional ethics. And I say no a lot. And we say no a lot to council members when there’s that operational policy divisiveness. And so I will just tell you, this has been an engineering approach from the very beginning. Some key points that have come out on this conversation on both sides of it.
Unknown Speaker 9:26
I know a lot of the complaints that came forward were about people parking in front of households in different deeper into the neighborhood. Here’s the key piece of this. Parking on public streets is open to anyone. Anyone can park in public streets. That is not something that goes with your home or anything else. It is open to anyone in the public. One of the examples that I talked about. It was staff is I live near a park and when they have a lot of activity He’s at the park, they run out of parking spaces, and they end up going into our neighborhood and parking in our neighborhood, I had to deal with the same issue with my Hoa, and I had to tell my Hoa, they can park here, it’s a public street, they can park here. And I think that’s an important piece for everyone to really understand when we’re talking about that issue. We personally don’t own the parking in front of our homes. The second piece of that is because of that the city does control our public streets, and we routinely get these types of requests coming to us. This is not a new type of request that comes into our system. On average per year, we get 10 plus or minus two of these requests throughout our community to look at in terms of parking issues. And we go through the same process that we’re going through in this conversation, some examples, and we’ll talk about him in a little bit. We also get about two to five of these requests that come to the city’s attention for landscaping type issues. So it is not uncommon for us to go to someone who has taken a fence down rebuilt a fence, and then all of a sudden the fence creates a sightline issue. And we go, you need to take the fence down and reconstruct it because you’ve created an issue. It is not uncommon for us to go in and tell people they have to remove landscaping, when we get these types of things brought to our attention, we do not proactively go out and look for these, we just don’t have the staff to do that on a regular basis. These are brought to us through members of the community, our sanitation folks, our code enforcement folks, those types of issues. It really is a complaint based approach. And we deal with parking issues. So when we went through this, let me back up. The other thing I want to talk about is I think, folks in terms of land use, and parking, connect those two things, and they’re not connecting, land use is connected to the property. We don’t in our process, attach off street parking to the land use component of that. There’s maybe a handful of where that may have been done in the past. But that’s not something we do. Again, going back into public street parking is for the public, at any location. So we went out, they took some time to evaluate it. They saw the sideline issues specifically on Sherman and third. Right across from the west side tavern where we saw the parking issues. They also went out and looked at some of the other intersections that were brought to our attention. And there’s something within the design standards, the 3050 rule that Jim can talk about a little bit. And that’s really what started adjusting the parking on Sherman Street, as it went north and south. Part of it that’s in play in this too. There’s always been a 30 foot restriction in parking from the stop sign and parking from the intersection, that rule actually exists everywhere in the city. Many people probably don’t know that. You also have a five foot parking issue from driveways. So you have a five foot area that you can’t park in. And then if there’s a fire hydrant, you have 15 feet from the fire hydrant. And I think that’s part of the issue here.
Unknown Speaker 13:37
When they looked at the 3050 foot turning radius on Sherman, that then ultimately led to the sign placement that you all are probably here to talk about in the no parking components of this. What I also wanted to say is we’ve been listening, and we’ve been evaluating, Jim, we’ll talk about something else that we just did, many of you Friday, may have seen a fire truck in the neighborhood. And the fire truck doing different turning radiuses on Sherman specifically, what they realized in that and Jim will talk about it is the fire truck can actually make that turn with just the 30 foot sign that’s in place on the corner. And so Jim made the recommendation today to remove those signs that are further back within the neighborhood and just go to the 30 foot signs that are off of the intersection because technically, the fire trucks can make that turn. And you’ll talk about that. And that was part of the conversations that we were having with all of you in terms of what we were looking at. And again, it’s a very pragmatic approach that we’re going to take we’re going to look at the engineering. If we have to, we’re going to take a fire truck out there, and we’re going to make the turns with the fire truck. Third, we still have the sightline issues. And but there’s a big buck on this. And here’s the big buck that comes into play. Typically, when these things come into account into play, we also will look at structural changes that we can make on a street. And you will see these at certain places within the community where you’ll see ball bouts that come out of intersections and do other things. They did not, we, we couldn’t look at it in this case. And here’s why we couldn’t look at it. We know that in the very near future, and Jim will talk about this, when he talks about projects is that we’re gonna have a water replacement program project come through. We’re going to have a water, we’re going to have a water line replacement come through Third Street. And that’s part of what we wanted to talk about. We’re going to have a stormwater project occur right in that location. And so we knew if we did anything now, if you put it in literally within months, we’re gonna have to rip it out again. And then we have a repaving project that’s going to occur on that street. In these conversations, There has even been staff members point to other parking problems if you go further toward Francis Street and what we’re seeing in that area. So what the engineers are going to be doing, and this is why I said there’s a but when we get in and we look at either different areas, we see things, we have to deal with it, they’re going to be looking at a lot of design components on Third Street to really deal with the sightline issues that we’re seeing. And that’s going to be the long term fix. And it is really likely that when we go in and we deal with those long term issues, there is going to be parking that’s going to be recreated as a result of the work that we’re going to do from a structural component. And, and it’s probably something Jim, we’re gonna have to do maybe from sunset, or close to sunset, wouldn’t you think we’re gonna have to look at all of it. But we didn’t want to invest money, and then have to rip it out and do all of these issues. So that was a big component for us.
Unknown Speaker 17:07
We start the project, and we’ll get to that in question and answer so. But Well, Jim will probably answer some of that we’re asking to kind of compress it to just because of the broader neighborhood impact, because you also don’t want a construction program project going on for years as well. But they are pretty in depth projects.
Unknown Speaker 17:30
Making sure I hit all my points. So I think I covered all of this. A couple of things that I did want to address. So what happened early on.
Unknown Speaker 17:48
In October, engineering staff made recommendations for safety improvements. What happened in that one is when we make those recommendations, they sent the order to our operations group, our operations group put out right in their headlights and put the signs up. We wanted to have this type of meeting before we had that conversation. Now there’s some components of this that’s very practical and pragmatic and engineering related, where it would have been more of an informed here’s what we have to do. Because of the standards. The signs were put up early, we made that mistake as a city, I will own that mistake as the organization, we have put things in place to ensure that that doesn’t happen again. But but you know, that’s what kicked us off in this direction. I know folks wanted to present tonight and do different things, my commitment is to the entire neighborhood is that if we have to have additional meetings to have this conversation, we will do that. But we also knew we also knew in this that there’s a lot of emotions on both sides of both sides of the discussion. And so we wanted to be mindful of that too. And make sure that everyone would have an adequate opportunity to share information with me. So if we need to have another meeting and people to share information, we’ll get it figured out. But I wanted you to hear that from me. This is a situation some folks asked me do you care about businesses we do. But at the end of the day, when we get into these these evaluations, we’re very pragmatic on what we’re seeing. From an engineering perspective, the thing that we have to do is to ensure that whether its location X, Y, or Z, we’re following the same process on location XY and Z. Because I don’t want to be put in a position where I have to look at this location and say, here’s what we need you to do. And they go Why didn’t you make this location do it? And there’s not an answer. So we’re pretty pragmatic when we move through these not pretty. We’re pragmatic when we do this based on engineering principles, so that we can ensure that we can look at any neighborhood in the community when issues brought to our attention. And we can say we do the same thing every time we have to look at these issues. So that’s what I’m going to talk about at this point. And we’ll go to Eric and then Jim, and then we’ll get into q&a.
Unknown Speaker 20:16
too, before we go to Sergeant Lewis, if you’ve got a question on one of your cards, if you’ll just raise the card and someone will come by and pick it up. So if you wrote out a question on one of your cards, we’ve got some folks staff that will come pick it up.
Unknown Speaker 20:43
All right. Good evening, everybody. Can everybody hear me okay? All right. I’m not going to walk around because I don’t have a fancy microphone attached to me. But first of all, I’d like to welcome members of the community city staff and city council appreciate everybody’s time here tonight. My name is Eric Lewis. I’m a sergeant with the Longmont Police Department. And I’m the supervisor for our traffic unit. Our The reason why I was asked to come out here today is it sounded like there was some potential misinformation or misunderstanding of what Public Safety’s role was in the community. So that’s kind of what I want to talk to you guys about tonight. So Longmont police services is actually the enforcement arm of the Longmont city government. Our main mission is to protect and serve in partnership with our community members. Part of our job is also to enforce criminal and traffic laws and conduct investigations related both criminal and traffic incidents. What we are not as part of the legislation making or adopting laws or ordinances. I think some people believe that the police department has the authority to make laws and change laws. And that’s just that’s not the case. The police department is also not the authority with regard to traffic signals, signal timing, crosswalk placement, lane markings, or official signage throughout the city. We do advise on those but it is not ultimately our decision. Why do I bring this to everybody’s attention, because ultimately, voluntary compliance to the law is our goal. Right? We want people we encourage citizens in the community. If you have all walks of life, people who live here, work here or visit our community to voluntarily follow the law. By doing so this keeps everyone in this community safe. We accomplish this through education, engineering, and enforcement action lever and enforcement is part of an education. Unfortunately, as someone chooses not to follow the laws, they should not be surprised if enforcement action is taken when a violation is either reported or witnessed. I don’t have a whole lot else to say other than that, I thank you guys for your time. And I’m sure I’ll be answering questions here later on. So thank you.
Unknown Speaker 23:09
Good evening. My name is Jim Angstadt. I’m the director of engineering services, or the city engineer. Tonight, we want to provide a little more information on the upcoming projects that are soon to be coming to this area. Want to start off real quick by this is the diagram that was established by our traffic engineer in laying out the parking. As Harold indicated at the two intersections of Sherman street with Third Avenue, we did lay out a turn and put a turning template on the plan to establish that larger trucks and fire vehicles would would interfere with any of the parked cars there. So that was why we established no parking areas on on the south side of third on Sherman on that east side and then on the north side of third and Sherman on the west side. Last week, we did go out and do some field tests to establish whether our design was accurate and thank the public safety for running a couple of fire trucks out there. They had plenty of level of clearance. So we will be adjusting those signs based on our our fieldwork out there. When likely it appears that there will be three more spaces established on Sherman Street, two on the south side and one on the north. There you go. So some of the upcoming projects. These are asset management projects that the city undertakes throughout the city every year and so first one that is currently going on is our water line replacement projects that is currently working on Gay Street from Third Avenue Up to a beliefs Long’s peak, the RB will be working on the diagram kind of lays out where those projects are occurring. There will be one on Third Street from west of Main Street, all the way to just past I believe Francis in the area that goes from Francis that goes north and then over to the reservoir that is section is an abandonment, but the main portion of work on third will be an invasive construction where we will have to actually excavate and then replace the line and then do all the connections. So it will be for the most part through most of summer of this year. And then we will also be working on Kaufmann Street from first avenue to ninth. So you can expect lane closures in that area, traffic delays and there will as the contractor works in that way. establish some detours notices prior to that work for the residents who live along the corridor will be provided via door hangers. And then there will be contact information within those door hangers, where you can reach out to engineering with any questions. The second level of projects is the sanitary sewer rehab. This project is less invasive in that we are only lining portions of our sanitary sewer system. So we won’t be digging up the whole street we’ll be working from manhole to manhole. So that duration in these areas for basically from March to October, there will be some lane closures. But for the most part traffic will continue to move. As Harold mentioned, one other project we’re working on is a storm drainage improvement project. This will be on third from Sherman to Francis Street. current plan is for the north side of the roadway. It’ll be involved in inlet manhole and some pipe installation was scheduled for spring of 2023. Harold has asked us to try to push that up. So we are are working with our designer to get that out so we can get a contractor in there. And that work will probably close partion portions of Elaine while the contractor is working. Then the last asset management is component is our street improvement project. This is our yearly Asset Management for asphalt rehab, that will involve a resurfacing of Third Avenue from Main Street all the way to sunset. Part of our asset management for asphalt is prior to going in we go in and inspect all the curbs and curb ramps and sidewalk and if there’s any, any work that needs to be done, if they are not meeting our standards, we will go in prior to the paving and re and do rehab on those why that’s important is that would be when we would be looking at curb extensions in this area to try to do some some traffic calming or traffic mitigation.
Unknown Speaker 28:06
We would also be looking at prior to that we’d have to be studying to see if there are any, any speed tables, we may be able to install or other traffic mitigation to slow traffic down. We’ve also been asked to look at the lighting in the in this area as well. So we would coordinating with LPC on any improvements that would happen. That is pretty much a summary of those projects in that area. One thing I do want to note as part of that any traffic mitigation or prior to our work going in, we will be needing a designer to come on board and do that. So once we have some of those designs set up, we would be coming out to the public again with another engagement session to share that information so people are aware of what’s happening. And then we will prior to construction we’ll get try to get comments from people if there’s anything else we’re missing or we need to undertake. With that, I’ll turn it back to Carmen.
Unknown Speaker 29:08
Okay, so I’ve got some cards here. We’re gonna start with that. We’ll see how we get through this. And depending on the question, it may need different staff to respond to that question. Okay.
Unknown Speaker 29:28
And I apologize if I’m moving around, I tweaked my back the other day, so I can only sit for so long. So that’s why I’m moving around.
Unknown Speaker 29:36
So we’ve got a question regarding safety. And regarding installing a crosswalk and stop signs at Sherman crossing is dangerous. People are speeding. So I think a crosswalk would be a gym question.
Unknown Speaker 29:52
So I’m going to lead it off. That was actually a suggestion from a meet a few conversations I’ve had The key piece of the crosswalk is to build a crosswalk, you have to make sure that it’s ADA compliant. And, and so that a, you can’t just stripe across walk in the intersection, you have to make sure that it’s compliant. And so that’s associated and Jim can talk about the details but on in terms of the curb ramps and the things that we have to do. If we were to do that, and it’s not ADA compliant, then we have other issues we need to deal with.
Unknown Speaker 30:28
Yeah, so as part of, of our design, we’ll be looking at areas along third where we can provide safe crosswalks.
Unknown Speaker 30:41
Okay, all right. So there’s a question here about Will you apply the same rules slash approach all the way along third, including around the church further towards Maine, which has a lot of cars on the street when meeting? So did you get that?
Unknown Speaker 31:02
Yeah. So I don’t know if you all can hear us now. So So if if there’s issues, actually, what I will tell you is, in this conversation, I actually gave a very similar issue that impacts this building here. So when you drive out of our parking lot, and you try to leave, you can’t see because of the angled parking, and that’s on their list to look at in this building. So the answer is, if these things are brought to our attention, we will go through the same process. There are different components to this. And Jim can talk about it, if you all and I’ve paid a lot of attention to this lately. So if you look between Emory and Kimbark, basically from probably from third, to six or close to it, you will see a lot of no parking signs in that area. It’s the same issue that was brought to our attention by the Eastside neighborhood with people parking. So there you see a lot of the 30 foot signs because of the issues that they were having the same kind of situation that we’re dealing with the big difference, and Jim can talk about the engineering on this. The biggest difference in that is the width of the road. So the width of the road also adjust the sightlines in what you can and can’t do. So we look at that, but wider roads tend to have more tolerances based on your sightline approach. And Jim, what did I mess up?
Unknown Speaker 32:32
Okay, well, there’s there’s actually two, there’s actually two standards that we follow. For local roads versus collectors and arterioles. Collectors arterials have a higher standard with based on the fact that they’re usually at higher speeds and or higher traffic. So
Unknown Speaker 32:55
sorry about that. So, as I said, city in our standards, design standards has two standards for clear sight, clear lines of sight in sight distances at intersections. One is for local roads, and one is for roads that are have either higher traveled or have a higher volume of traffic. Basically, that’s the collectors and arterials that we have in our roadway system versus our local city streets.
Unknown Speaker 33:27
Okay, so the next question is why is the intersection of grant and third not part of the conversation but is granted third?
Unknown Speaker 33:40
Grand third was not brought to our attention by the residents at the at the August meetings. If based on that question, if people feel it’s an issue, we’ll we’ll certainly take a look at it.
Unknown Speaker 33:53
Well, and kind of, you know, I said this before you see what you see, frankly, in a staff meeting, there was video presented to us at another location there. And we’re, you know, I literally said to him, we need to look at that one too. And the you know, but I think the the piece that we’re hoping to do is in the work that we’re going to do on third to alleviate many of these issues.
Unknown Speaker 34:21
So the next question, I think we’ve addressed it, but I’m gonna let Jim repeat the response. What other options will the city explore to improve driver and pedestrian safety on Third Avenue around Westside tavern, while minimizing negative impacts on the neighborhood? Small Business So Jim, I think you answered about the few sure projects.
Unknown Speaker 34:44
Yeah, as part of our as part of or prior to going in and repaving the road we’ll be looking at a number of options. As we indicated curb extensions are one manner which we can we can utilize to push the the area of the line of sight closer to the roadway. So we may be able to buy more parking, or obtain more parking in that area, we may actually shift the road in the lanes in the in the road further to the north or to the south, we’re still looking at that may not allow parking on one side, but may buy us a lot more parking on the south side is an example. So basically, we’ll try to look at as much as we can, in order to, you know, make the corridor much better for all users.
Unknown Speaker 35:29
The other component on 33rd streets in issue, alright, and we know third streets an issue, we see a different locations. The other thing that they’re working on, and this is a much this is longer term in some ways, but they’re working with the PUC that is tangential to the Third Street conversation is working to submit an application. So we can actually get Boston to do an on grade crossing. So we can connect Boston all the way through. And we have to go through that work. And a big part of that project is actually to alleviate the traffic flow on Third Street. Because we know that’s one of the few cross streets that we have. It’s not going to be an easy run. Just to be frank with everyone. We have to deal with the Public Utilities Commission, obviously, Burlington Northern Santa Fe, but that’s something that the council has acted on, and we’re moving forward with that. Oh, Third Avenue. Yeah, sorry.
Unknown Speaker 36:31
Okay, so we have two questions regarding safety and the sight line from Francis and third. So Francis and third sight line, two questions around safety.
Unknown Speaker 36:45
So Francis, in third heralded refer to that intersection, not specifically, but that a staff member brought it up earlier this week. So again, similar to grant will, will be out there, we’ll take a look and measure the sightlines and establish what we might be what we need to do. But from France,
Unknown Speaker 37:10
all the way to Francis, but only on one side of the street. It goes
Unknown Speaker 37:18
entirely on
Unknown Speaker 37:20
all the way to Francis. Francis, to the west side, Francis all
Unknown Speaker 37:30
because the basically the line of sight on the south side of the road is from the Western leg of Sherman of Sherman street. So the sight line on the northern side doesn’t extend as far down. So when we measure if we measured Francis and look at it, which we didn’t measure, but that graphic we have up there should show it. I can talk to you about talking with you offline. But it’s kind of difficult actually. There’s a graphic in the back I’m sorry, we didn’t put it in the slideshow.
Unknown Speaker 38:23
Because you’re looking at you’re looking at at the the Eastbound traffic, so you don’t need to. And I don’t understand what your concern is because we measured it from the on the south side looking towards oncoming traffic that is eastbound. So it’s only the one lane you’re looking at. And you only lost a few spaces because there are there’s a driveway, there’s an alley. So in reality, we took I think three spaces out in that area for the clear line of sight. There were several spaces that were already where you couldn’t legally Park.
Unknown Speaker 39:04
So I just want to remind folks, we did talk about the need for future meetings to talk about individual’s situations or to get more clarity. So that’s an option. So let me go through a few more questions. Well, I’ve got a gentleman back here that was before you. So I want to be fair to folks. And we said that we were going to do a few by index cards. So do you want to have that gentleman and then have her
Unknown Speaker 39:33
anymore index card?
Unknown Speaker 39:34
We’ve got quite a few or a few more. So we’re gonna go through a few cards, and then we’ll get to folks if you could hang on. I appreciate it. Thank you. So there was a question regarding putting cones out in front of your house to block the parking. Is that legal? This was Ansel Sherman. But that question actually goes to any street parking so Who wants to
Unknown Speaker 40:02
that is not legal
Unknown Speaker 40:06
doesn’t matter what street
Unknown Speaker 40:09
no but public streets have access to public vehicles. So you don’t have a right to block off an area in front of your home
Unknown Speaker 40:20
so the next question is regarding ADA compliance factored into the decision to eliminate parking neighbors with disability will have difficulty with the new setup. So Ada parking Do you want to
Unknown Speaker 40:35
so the ATA parking is actually the responsibility of the business owner when you look at these locations that so when we have folks go through the development review process those are requirements that we put in place in terms of the number of spaces and that’s correct Dane my planning determines that but that’s in the development process and that’s that’s the the business owners and so I can use this building for example so when we
Unknown Speaker 41:14
that’s the second question so there’s two
Unknown Speaker 41:16
so so when I talked about earlier about someone wanting ADA access in front of their home the issue there is if you have an ADA designated spot you have to make sure that the grades and everything else are appropriate based on the ADA standards
Unknown Speaker 41:38
so the second question about that is it possible to get an assigned parking spot so I can safely park for myself and my disabled son? So is that do you want code or do you want to
Unknown Speaker 41:53
I’d love code answer that one but there there there is no code that allows us to reserve parking spaces in the city nor is there a national standard we can we can follow or apply to for handicap spaces for on street parking.
Unknown Speaker 42:28
Not aware of that.
Unknown Speaker 42:32
Jane Do you want to come up front?
Unknown Speaker 42:48
So I think there were two different questions one is about whether you can create a handicap space on a residential street in front of a house which you can and the other was whether you could create a designated space for a specific resident which you cannot any any street parking is for any resident that can legally parked there, legally drive so.
Unknown Speaker 43:10
Okay, so here’s another question and I think Jim answered it, but we’ll go ahead and repeat it. What can I do to get a minor adjustment to the no parking sign location the sign in front of my house is beyond the number of feet for clear view of the intersection and that’s on Sherman street.
Unknown Speaker 43:32
So I think we answered that already. We’ll be adjusting those signs to be 30 feet from the stop signs on Sherman.
Unknown Speaker 43:41
So this question is about the issue of biggest issue in the neighborhood is patrons parking illegally, too close and over the intersection? Can lines be painted on the curb to eight enforcement of safe parking.
Unknown Speaker 44:00
So as a as a standard practice, our operations group has never painted curbs. Harold has given us direction to alter that practice and so paint is on order and when the weather breaks gets a little warmer, drier will be out as a test case or a pilot program we’ll be working in in that that neighborhood along third to paint some of the curbs to clearly define where where everybody could park
Unknown Speaker 44:33
so this one’s a repeat. This is signage on the east side 200 block of Sherman seems excessive. Also no signage in the west side near the fire hydrant on Sherman. Jim.
Unknown Speaker 44:51
Well, I think we on the east side we address that the west side will I think if we paint curbs will will be noting that you have to maintain a 15 foot distance on either side of a fire hydrant is also in code.
Unknown Speaker 45:06
And I will say just generally, I think that’s the thing that’s probably hit us. And something we’re going to work on from a communication standpoint is I think, you know, when we talk about 30 feet from a stop sign and things like that, what we’ve realized in this conversation is I think people don’t reconcile that. So we’re going to have a focus on communications to make sure that the that we put something out there, so individuals understand it, because we get these issues all the time. And we need to do more communication. So people understand those distances and what we have in play, because that’s a given no matter where you are, you can’t park within 30 feet in those areas. And we just need to do more.
Unknown Speaker 45:51
This next question, or there’s a couple for Sergeant Lewis. So how is the voluntary compliance working so far? Is that the only enforcement? Is there any plan to actually enforce it?
Unknown Speaker 46:09
I believe after the no parking signs went up, we had a few staff members go through there and site a few violators. Mainly for my staff, they’ve tried to make contact with people in violation of the law, and educate them. We’ve talked with the residents and business owner in that area to kind of help facilitate that. To that question, yes, there has been enforcement taken specific to the no parking signs. I understand we’ve gotten a few more complaints were recently about speeding. I myself has written two speeding tickets in there in the last week. So we get out there as much as we can, as much as I’d like to have an officer there. 24/7, that’s just not practical to do. So. At the end of the meeting, I’ll give you all some information on how to report ongoing problems or who to contact if you see something in progress.
Unknown Speaker 47:06
So the speeding issue that Eric brought up is interesting. And Jim did mention this, because we are going in a street reconstruction phase on this one, I have asked them to look at temporary speed tables on the street. And so that we can evaluate speeding and what’s going on. What we also know is that once we begin construction, that that’s probably not going to be an issue. So we’re looking at something more of a short term to see how they work and see what we can do. It’s actually something I did in the last community that I was in, where we had temporary speed tables. And we would use them when we get complaints to really assess a does it slow speed down, also understand how it moves traffic into different neighborhoods, because anytime you do anything, it’s going to shift. And it’s more of a strategy that I think we can look at long term it was pretty successful in the last community.
Unknown Speaker 48:01
Just another point on the voluntary compliance, ultimately, again, that’s our goal. We don’t want to go out there and just hammer people with tickets. That’s not our intent. However, if we have repeat offenders, and people aren’t just aren’t getting the message. And sometimes enforcement is what we have to do to educate the public. And then by word of mouth that gets out and attempt to change people’s behavior. So we would like for people to do it on the front end. So we don’t have to be called out there to conduct enforcement. But if we’re not getting compliance, and that’s why police are important.
Unknown Speaker 48:36
So there’s a question regarding the ownership of the driveways. And so I think Harold made that point. In regards to street parking. I don’t know if you want to repeat that.
Unknown Speaker 48:51
Well, it depends what the question is.
Unknown Speaker 48:54
Do we own our own driveways? If so, at what point?
Unknown Speaker 49:00
That’s actually a hard question. Because depending on where you are in the city, it can change so for example, my dream driveway at my house goes into the easement. And so the lawn area, it’s interesting. I think you own your driveway and you have five feet on each side by the parking requirements, correct Jim?
Unknown Speaker 49:23
Yes, five feet either side but driveways other responsibilities property owner. If the city does come through with the project, then you need to make corrections we normally will fund that through our transportation street fund. An example would be there’s a sidewalk it’s not driveway necessarily but a sidewalk just to the side of the Western tavern. They had installed a flagstone sidewalk years ago that was not nada. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. My apologies. But it’s the side of the tavern. On third, as part of our miscellaneous concrete rehab, we just replaced it. So it was not at the expense of the property owner, but driveways are very similar. They are, if it cracks or breaks, it is the responsibility of the property owner.
Unknown Speaker 50:15
Wherever an easement through there in some cases, right. depends,
Unknown Speaker 50:19
depends on the drive ins. Yeah.
Unknown Speaker 50:22
Okay, there’s a question because regarding the no parking signs were installed before public input on city and city council consideration, why not remove the no parking until affiliated? Discussions can be worked through? So the question is no parking signs were installed before public input do you want to?
Unknown Speaker 50:47
Yeah, so I think when we talk about those issues, we talked about the engineering processes that we go through and what we review and within the existing ordinance structure on traffic control devices, that that is in the operational realm. So we do not take those to City Council, as I indicated before, we do this on a fairly regular basis. And that is assigned to the city engineer in his department, or their department to do that kind of work. Part of it is when you have safety issues that come into play. It it it is in many cases and informed to say here’s the safety issue that we’re seeing, here’s what we need to do to address the safety issue. And some cases, it depends on the nature of the situation we’re doing where we can have some conversations. I think part of it is why we wanted to have the meeting is we probably would have seen some things earlier in this had we had the public meeting, even if there is an informed component to that.
Unknown Speaker 51:53
Okay, so why is parking blocked off on the south side of third from the west side tavern to Francis but not the north side? Why is parking blocked off on the south side of third from Westside tavern to Francis which is the question that he had asked earlier but not Northside.
Unknown Speaker 52:16
So that is in if you if you look at the site diagram that’s in the back and in the outer area. That is the sight triangle. For South Sherman, for drivers who are trying to access Third Avenue to either turn either east or west. It’s 250 measure 250 feet in either direction, which is why we restricted parking in that area. It’s measured 15 feet back from the traveling.
Unknown Speaker 52:49
There’s another question as to why was this no parking put in as soon as possible while I’ve been requesting from the traffic department to put in a few crosswalks across Third Avenue for yours? Is this a case of who you know?
Unknown Speaker 53:07
So I think part of the issue that we’ve talked about with the crosswalks is is really just the the the work that Jim talked about that we’re going to be looking at, as we were redesigned the street in terms of the curb ramps and what you need to do you all may have seen us where we do curb ramp work across the city. And you can see us doing that work. That’s typically if I’m correct jam associated with our street rehab projects. Yes. And part of that is to there was a Supreme Court case that said you had to make reasonable progress in terms of putting in curb ramps. And so that’s part of our street rehab prog program in terms of what we’re doing. And so to the point of just placing a crosswalk, you have to make sure that it’s also accessible. Is that correct? When you build a new one?
Unknown Speaker 53:58
Yes. One of the other factors is we don’t just put in crosswalks wherever we get requests, they have to meet a certain level of service very similar to a traffic signal or a stop sign traffic signals a stop sign up to meet warrants, we have a certain level of service for people who you actually would utilize that crosswalk. So an example would be if we get a request, we go out and we do traffic and pedestrian counts to see if they’re within a certain threshold off the top of my head, I’d have to look at a manual. But if it doesn’t meet that threshold, that’s a are an approved manual standard through counsel so we basically do not someone my staff should have responded back and explained it if if you’ve requested it. So if you anywhere ask the question would want to come chat with me after the meeting and be happy to find out the locations and we will we can get that information to you.
Unknown Speaker 54:56
This one might be for Sergeant Lewis how many traffic acts have happened in the, in this location in the last five years, how many pedestrians have been hit? How does this compare to Main Street?
Unknown Speaker 55:11
Almost sounds like a loaded question. I actually looked at some crash data specific to Third Avenue in Sherman Street. I don’t have the specific details of that. But since 2016, we’ve had five reported crashes at that intersection. I can follow up with the city manager’s office on specifics, unfortunately, do not have that at this time. On whether or not those were auto pedestrian crossing, apologize for that.
Unknown Speaker 55:41
And this question might be for Sergeant Lewis or for Dane with code enforcement. So if a vehicle is parked in front of in front of a building, and it’s parked on the sidewalk, so is that something
Unknown Speaker 55:56
dead? So that’s actually in violation of the parking code? Under subsection A, you cannot park on a sidewalk. So that actually dovetails into the previous question on Do you own your driveway? If your driveway extends into an easement, and there’s a sidewalk that crosses You can’t park over the sidewalk? On your driveway? Did you hear that? Yeah. On the apron.
Unknown Speaker 56:34
Yeah, like the tree line is what you’re talking about, where sometimes you’ll have a driveway, like, there’s a piece of public property between the street and the sidewalk, and then the driveway starts on the other side of the sidewalk. As long as you’re not creating a sight distance issue. We don’t have a problem with people parking on the apron, typically, as long as it is paved, and is actually part of a driveway, I’m sorry.
Unknown Speaker 57:00
It wouldn’t matter to us, as long as it’s not on the street, and you’re not creating a sight distance issue, we wouldn’t wouldn’t be bothered, you just have to make sure you’re also not blocking the sidewalk. So we
Unknown Speaker 57:23
we wouldn’t look at least and Eric might be able to chime in too. But I know when we’re looking at those we would not consider the tree lawn to be the same as the street. If the signs are to saying no parking on the street, we would still be okay with people parking in that part of the driveway that runs through the tree line.
Unknown Speaker 57:40
With the caveat that the vehicles not extending into the roadway where there’s no parking or blocking any portion of the sidewalk.
Unknown Speaker 57:50
Yeah, so we have a few questions regarding zoning. It says what is the zoning for West for the Westside tavern. The city map states residential single family? Pardon? Yeah. And so yes, and here’s here’s the distinction here. And this is when I talked about land use and I talked about those other issues. In Joanie and I’ve talked about this, it’s a legally non conforming use, because it has been in use consistently over time. And unless that use goes away in excess, I believe it’s 12 months, I’m looking to think it’s a year. There’s no planning people here legally notice it a year. Okay, so there’s a time period where if it’s not in that use, it’s there. And so it’s an allowed use and that because it’s legally non conforming? What is the occupancy inside and outside? I don’t know what the occupancy numbers are off the top of my head. Well, less on tavern be allowed to use the expanded seating within the parking spaces. That’s really I believe that staff has informed me that there’s been a request to look at that it’s got to go through the the processes just like any other requests would come in for that to be to be clear. And Wes and I’ve had this conversation. When we went into COVID There were some parameters that were changed in terms of liquor licensing at the state level, where you could look at expanded outdoor areas that’s the process they went through, which is not unlike the process that we went through along Main Street. Obviously those parameters are not in play anymore. So you have to go in and and go through the formal process. In that we have a review process when people do this anyone does it it goes to planning. It goes all to the relevant review departments in terms of what can and can’t be done. The design standards do not allow for a side entry the banner Signs do not line up with the city guidelines. I’m not sure what that question is, specifically, if you ask that question, I’ll be happy to talk to you afterwards and get more specifics. But I think you also go through the same legally non conforming use that’s in play that I talked about earlier, in terms of that, is that I’m looking at Michelle, that sound, right? And what it was built for before and what it’s utilized. Right, so if it didn’t have a change of use, it continues as that use and what’s there.
Unknown Speaker 1:00:39
Okay, here’s one from a cyclist who needs to use Third Avenue or uses it routinely routinely, I find the existing curb build outs create a hazard by forcing me out into the high speed traffic, what consideration is being given to safety of cyclists when considering redesign of features on Third Avenue?
Unknown Speaker 1:01:06
Well, as we look at the redesign, Third Avenue is not listed in our multimodal plan as a location for bike lanes. So that would not be consideration. More than likely, we would be looking at sheroes on the road. So most cyclists would have to be riding with traffic. There’s just not enough room on the on the along the road. So we’ll we’ll add it to our list to see if we can look at it as we lay out the the new alignment, but I don’t know that other than having sheroes on it. It is the roadway for the most parts 25 miles per hour. So it’s not necessarily a high speed Road, although we have do have counts that show significant number of drivers driving over 25 Which is why we would be looking at some type of mitigation for the road.
Unknown Speaker 1:02:03
So there’s a couple of questions regarding safety and putting in a three way stop. At third and Frances and a crosswalk for pedestrians. Moving parking away from third only puts parking congestion in residents streets. And there’s another question again asking about a three way stop at Francis and third. Traffic being backed up during hours when school and work led up, Jim.
Unknown Speaker 1:02:35
So it’s part of any adjustments we’ll look at at the warrants to see if it does meet those four freeway stops. We looked at Sherman street it does not. But we’ll look at Francis. One other item to note is that if we do any form of crosswalks, we would be looking at some type of visual system, flashers of some kind that will make sure that as people cross, it would be noticeable rather than some of our standard signing. So we’ve started using some flashers, we just installed some on ninth. But a year half ago, they’ve been pretty successful. So we will continue that practice. But again, it just depends on where we we establish them and and how we’re going to design it.
Unknown Speaker 1:03:31
Yeah, so there’s a question said, If Council persons were not involved in the decision, why are they engaging with people on the west side tavern page? What are what is the role in the process? What I can tell you is we have provided city council members with information regarding what we’re doing and why we’re doing it. That once again, I will say that the council has not directed on this, nor is that their purview and the way that the ordinances are structured now. And so we have informed them. But they have not been involved in the decision making process at all.
Unknown Speaker 1:04:14
So I just want to make sure. So we’re at seven o’clock. We said we were going to honor folks times peril. Do you want to go to a couple of questions. Yeah.
Unknown Speaker 1:04:25
I’ll be happy to take questions.
Unknown Speaker 1:04:27
So I just want to honor folks and their time. And if you’ll also give me some time I saw that Wes. And then
Unknown Speaker 1:04:33
there was a guy back here that question earlier. Yeah. And then
Unknown Speaker 1:04:37
you had a question. So we probably won’t get to everybody. So please make sure. As you heard from Harold, that if we need to meet separately if we need to do another meeting. That’s something that we can address. I also want to remind folks that out in the lobby are the foam core boards show you the future projects. If you want to take a look Look at that. So I want to honor people’s times, if you have to leave. Thank you and those that want to stick around, we’re gonna answer a few questions that’d be great.
Unknown Speaker 1:05:18
I have been outed on Facebook, on the page, but my address was given false information was given as to the frequency of all alleged harassment, stalking. Right, and maybe threatening of the patrons. And I would like the officer to explain to the Patriots, how they may verify these false claims. Because they’re affecting me and my family, perhaps intimidating the neighborhood? Can you? Can you please explain how what we what those who have heard these claims can do to them?
Unknown Speaker 1:06:04
So without getting more detailed information from a law enforcement perspective, we would have to initiate an investigation before any official action was taken on the part of the police department. And who was with the accused?
Unknown Speaker 1:06:37
Right, so have an allegation of a criminal offense. Okay, so we’re not gonna do
Unknown Speaker 1:06:44
please don’t speak over. Let’s listen to the question. And we’ve got a response.
Unknown Speaker 1:06:48
So if an allegation of a crime was made, that could be brought to the police department’s attention and investigation would then be conducted, if probable cause was determined that that violation actually occurred, then enforcement action could be taken if it was determined that we did not reach the threshold and probable cause that no official action from the police department would be
Unknown Speaker 1:07:11
on that page responding to previous information says, oh, number two, called the police five tickets were issued? How can they verify that with you, rather than me just standing here now saying that? How can they verify?
Unknown Speaker 1:07:32
Yeah, I was gonna actually say, I think I think that’s a conversation based on on the complaint, we probably got some public safety folks here, they can talk about that. And we can give you information in terms of what can and how, what we can share. And
Unknown Speaker 1:07:53
so what we’re going to do is we’re going to move on, and have you talked to one of the officers after this, and then we’re gonna move on to the next question. Okay.
Unknown Speaker 1:08:02
Before we do that, I think there was a, there was also another question. There was a question that we missed, and I just knew it because Carmen asked me about this. And it says, What is the city doing to mediate the antagonism between Westside Tavern and the neighbors that are complaining about the the parking? One of the things in the information that we send out to the to the city council is we do have a mediation service within our organization. And we deal with issues like this. Part of why we said, the parameters are
Unknown Speaker 1:08:49
part of why we set the parameters in terms of asking questions and doing the notecards is because we know that this is a significant topic for people who live in the neighborhood. We know people are passionate on both sides of the issues. And we wanted to do the best that we could to convey information. We would love to find a way to bring people together and go through our mediation process that we use for everyone, and use different neighbors that we use in different neighborhoods. I’ve been part of that, and we would love to get there. I think what we need is a commitment from everyone to say we’re willing to go into that process and really move through this. Unfortunately, we see this a lot in what we do. When we get issues and it comes in and we look at code issues. It creates challenges. And and so yes, we do need a mediation process. We do need to have this conversation. And that’s probably going to be something that we’re going to continue doing. If you look at an email that I sent to the city council and that we sent to the staff that are involved in this. What I said in that is we hope to get the situation to the point to where we can facilitate a mediation process. And so yeah, that that is our goal. If we can find a way to do it and bring people together, we would love to do it. And but we need everybody to participate in that and like you would in any mediation process. And so we will go to questions now. So got the
Unknown Speaker 1:10:20
gentleman over here. Do you had a question? Then we’re gonna go to Wes, then you had a question. No question. And then you had a question sir.
Unknown Speaker 1:10:44
Sherman? Because we’re unable to see coming that direction. So thank you.
Unknown Speaker 1:11:13
Yeah. And part of it is just, you know, on that many of you may or may not know this, one of my assistant city managers actually lived in a house in the area. And so we’ve seen the sightline issues. Just to say, again, it’s very pragmatic, and what we move through this, but we know there’s a larger solution on third. When you look at the way the width of third and how it’s constructed, you look at the curves that are in Third Street in those things. That’s actually what the engineers are going to be looking at when we go into the larger redesign of that. Well, not redesign, but do what you can within the width that you have to minimize issues.
Unknown Speaker 1:11:50
Before we go to West Marika, do you want to mention engage Longmont? Do you have the mic?
Unknown Speaker 1:11:58
I do. Thank you. And if you could advance the slide to the last one, I wanted to remind folks that you can also ask questions and add your ideas on Engage Longmont so at the very end, you’ll see a link for engage long my I think the previous one. There you go.
Unknown Speaker 1:12:18
Yep. Try to resolve this, I’ve sent emails and emails. Second, I want to address that the we received or we have a copy of an email from the city engineers staff saying that a public meeting should have happened prior to this. So even the staff recommended this should have happened and it didn’t. And that’s what we all shouldn’t be here today. If we had done that, okay, my question is this. Your your line of sight map out there? If you’re on South Sherman, looking to the east looks through fences, bushes and structures to stop the parking that’s directly in front of the tavern. I’m sorry, we don’t have X ray vision. You cannot look through the houses to call that the sight line to stop the truck for you the rationale in front of the tavern it makes no sense. I mean, there’s buildings there big trees I mean your sight line draws it right through the building. Please explain
Unknown Speaker 1:13:35
well, I can I can walk you through that it doesn’t run it through the building, drawing it right through the building. No, I don’t believe it does. We measure the sight distance that the sight triangle starts 15 foot from the edge of the travel lane which puts it right in the intersection of north side of Sherman and that
Unknown Speaker 1:13:57
is why you blocked it directly in front which should be that handicap space we’re talking about right through right through the building
Unknown Speaker 1:14:18
so here’s what we did. We physically went out and measured it 15 feet back from the edge of travel lane. We’re looking at a graphic from 500 feet up. Okay. So and, and and either way, okay, you cannot have parking along that frontage. It just it’s within the sight triangle. Okay.
Unknown Speaker 1:14:45
And what we’ll be willing to do on this
Unknown Speaker 1:14:49
and we stand there and see that and you’re
Unknown Speaker 1:14:54
so can can we So we’re gonna let the city manager dresses, please.
Unknown Speaker 1:15:07
So obviously, when I looked at this and taking it from this to this, what I’m willing to do is go out and measure, just kind of like what we did on Friday. And so to show you what they saw, and so I’ll work with with staff on that one and to answer that question.
Unknown Speaker 1:15:23
Okay, so we had a question over here
Unknown Speaker 1:15:33
graphic with the Thank you. Could you put up the graphic with all the no parking signs please? Okay, thank you. I, I have 40 years experience in the construction business. And I’ve dealt with a few of these. And it’s, it’s complicated. And it sounds like failings have already, you know, been raw on both sides. And I think the city would do well to drop back and they have a redesign coming out of speaking to your superintendent on the Gay Street project where I live. And your men have been very nice, Harold and accommodating. They told me they were coming down third with the water project soon next year, whatever. But I would suggest that you drop back and have a workshop or something and have more time, that one hour when when the presentations of the city staff took 35 minutes was another totally inadequate format for this problem to be solved. The second point I’d like to make, and I don’t want to get into all the construction stuff, because it’s the engineers will figure it out. There’s a lot of ways to solve this problem. But if we applied the parking, no parking rationales that you have up here, which would be nice, it would be the ultimate perfect safety situation. We would have done something over at the school where I have the same complaint about parking and about safety, little kids safety. And I see that nothing’s been done at Central Elementary. And I know there’s a project going on there. Maybe there was work coming up. But this one’s gotten into a really touchy situation. And I’ve been happy to wait and, and work together. And it’s a concern of safety of the residents. So think about resetting and you can’t apply these standards everywhere throughout the city, you’re going to need to order 10,000 No parking signs. And you look like the places that a lot of us have left because we don’t want to live there. Thank you.
Unknown Speaker 1:17:45
Yeah. And I in and I appreciate that comment. I think that’s the part of what we’re looking at, too. And this, and that’s part of the communication in terms of the the 30 feet from the intersections and things like that. What I what I will say, in terms of the school, I know that that’s in the hopper somewhere because I’ve seen emails on it in terms of what they’re looking at, again, similar process, but we can figure out where we are. Yeah,
Unknown Speaker 1:18:12
you might need some immediate relief.
Unknown Speaker 1:18:29
Yeah, I wonder, I want to be clear. I want to be clear on that. Even if we would have had the meeting, there would have been certain areas where we go, here’s the issue that we’re seeing. And that was that was the mistake that was made in that we didn’t have the opportunity to do that. And so yeah, right.
Unknown Speaker 1:18:53
Yep. Right. I came in late this may have already been addressed, possibly not. So. I also have a state and I’ll start with the question. How many accidents have taken place in front of or surrounding the tavern within the last four years?
Unknown Speaker 1:19:19
I think they said five since 2016.
Unknown Speaker 1:19:23
And how does that compare with other intersections in the city?
Unknown Speaker 1:19:27
I don’t know. Different for
Unknown Speaker 1:19:31
so free COVID. We were averaging about 2600 crashes a year. And those can be spread out throughout the entire community. For various reasons. Most of our crashes, probably about 46% of them are were in collisions. So those could happen on any roadway at any given time of the day. And doing a lot a lot of that has to go towards distracted driving.
Unknown Speaker 1:19:52
And do we know the nature of the accidents surrounding that area third and Sherman
Unknown Speaker 1:19:58
I did not get the specific about that, but I’ll report that back to staff in the next week.
Unknown Speaker 1:20:03
Okay? Secondly, I have obeyed the no parking signs whenever I’ve been there. And I’ve gone down Sherman to try to find a place to park and there was someone with a orange cone in front of their house. My comment would be, whoever that may be, you do not own the street parking. Well, should there not be a sign stating that since we’re so big on signs? Yeah, really
Unknown Speaker 1:20:41
gonna ask? That question was already answered. I know, you said you came in late. Yeah, we’re not gonna do the back and
Unknown Speaker 1:20:52
forth. I’m not doing a back and forth. I’m making an observation. That was answered earlier. Okay.
Unknown Speaker 1:21:00
I will be happy to give give you the answer. Once we’re done. We’re done. In case you have more questions, but okay, generally, public streets are for the public to park in.
Unknown Speaker 1:21:09
Okay, third comment, and then I’m done. I owned a restaurant for eight years in another city, I can tell you that the biggest way to destroy a restaurant business is to make it appear that there is no business in that restaurant when people are driving by. So that’s my comment to you on the kind of impact you as a city may be having on that business.
Unknown Speaker 1:21:40
Lady here, then the gentleman there, then we’re gonna go over there. And then we’re probably gonna We’re almost at 730.
Unknown Speaker 1:21:51
Yep, I have a few questions. So first off, thanks for holding this meeting. Um, so for sure. Thank you all for being here. And everyone for being here. It’s important. This is how we build community. I would like I do believe if the process was not followed. I do think that that you must do that. I spent a lot of time on boards and other cities I’ve lived in. And I mean, if you really want to achieve a good solution here, it sounds like that must happen. So I was just curious. So is that a correct statement that there was not a public workshop about this, too? And is this amending? So that’s one question.
Unknown Speaker 1:22:27
So what we wanted to do in this is to have a public meeting to inform everyone and what we’re doing. I don’t know that we don’t on the traffic signs, that’s not a practice, share what we normally do when we do it in all areas of the community, we just knew how much engagement there was worth more in this issue. And we wanted to do it because of that. But I don’t think we hold community meetings when we in all occasions when we put signs
Unknown Speaker 1:22:54
up. Alright, well, there is an excellent lesson for the the folks who are in administration now that that probably would be in a fabulous place to go and probably really productive. I do have a question. Is this did this go through the city transportation board? Or did this come directly as a recommendation to from the staff?
Unknown Speaker 1:23:12
This is a staff driven process. This does not go to the transportation board, when we deal with these issues,
Unknown Speaker 1:23:17
the transportation board doesn’t have authority or can’t express a recommendation to city council about this?
Unknown Speaker 1:23:23
No, this is an operational issue that stays within that
Unknown Speaker 1:23:26
budget. So if I look at the transportation master plan, it won’t say that the that the transport that the transportation advisory board can offer a recommendation to city council being appointed as they’re experts on transportation, because generally it does. So do you know for a fact that it does not,
Unknown Speaker 1:23:42
as Harold indicated this as an operational issue. And we can take items like this to the transportation advisory board for recommendation, but it is not necessarily required.
Unknown Speaker 1:23:54
Okay, and do you think that that might be a good thing to get buy in from I mean, I’m a neighbor here. I mean, I live here, I’m not just some somebody who comes to the restaurant to you know, which would be also fine and fabulous, but I am a neighbor here. And so I’m I mean, I’m, I’m represented by the transportation advisory board and not necessarily the staff, perhaps by the staff. So if that hasn’t happened, I mean, I’m going to ask that, that that happened. So I don’t know why you wouldn’t want that to happen, because that’s how you get the best, you know, response here. Okay, so fine. So then my next question is taking a staffs recommendation on something that has had no, you know, you know, exceptional injury rate for staff to introduce that and, you know, and democracy such as ours, with this much public, you know, uproar, it seems really not a good decision personally. And I just think that that happened one time and, you know, on a board I was in, the staff recommended the removal of the diving board of a pool that’s out there for 65 years beautiful pool, and they removed the pool because the staff and they then they went back and they realized they hadn’t done the proper procedure. So I mean, I would just ask that if that is actually correct. And please, you know, there’s other background there. And then also, the, the thing, the only thing I saw that was, you know, as for rationale for this project was around, and neighbors complained around sightline. And so I would ask, you know, how does that balance with the need to have put up the new speed limit sign there just passed, just west of the restaurant, that speed, that’s that flashing speed sign there is new, you know, in the past whatever year perhaps. And so that says to me, and I know for a fact that that says people are flying down that street. So if you’re going to, and to me, it would seem that the way it is now actually slows down the traffic. So can you comment on that? Because that, to me, seems there seems opposite. You don’t need to slow down sign if people are going slow, because they’re slowed down because they can’t see. So I guess just to me, I’m a little confused by how can you do opposite things to solve for an issue on that intersection. So anyhow, thanks, again for being here.
Unknown Speaker 1:26:04
So there’s a lot there to unpack. So the we have years of traffic data on Third Avenue. And so the reason for the sign installation was basically as a traffic mitigation measure, we saw in our numbers that while it is posted a 25 significant number of higher than what we measure is the 85 percentile is driving greater than 25 miles per hour. So we undertook some mitigation. There’s another flashing sign for there to the west. Some of the curb extensions, were another method of mitigation. We haven’t done any, we saw a significant drop in traffic counts through COVID. So we don’t really have the last year and a half accurate numbers. But the sight distance that we use to measure the criteria is based on the posted speed limit. So we posted a 25, if we actually you’d have utilized it with the actual speeds that people are driving, it would be the site triangles would be greater, which would require more parking ticket and we choose. That’s not how the manual Uniform Traffic Control Devices and national standards, which is what our city standards are based on. So
Unknown Speaker 1:27:29
you better in writing because of that
Unknown Speaker 1:27:32
actually didn’t make sense.
Unknown Speaker 1:27:34
Excellent. You can point us to the engineering, that traffic study, we have a lot of data. On the Engage website. Sure.
Unknown Speaker 1:27:47
Yeah. So we will we will talk about that. I would say look to the Ashta standards and the mean. I call it M UTC D which is a Manual of Uniform Traffic Control. Okay. Right. And so that’s how we basically did the design.
Unknown Speaker 1:28:07
Yes. I was wondering for those of us who are respectful enough to do where you finish reading all of the questions that were given to you on the cards first before we take just
Unknown Speaker 1:28:29
Yeah, I don’t know what’s left.
Unknown Speaker 1:28:30
So what we had was some of the questions were about the same subject. So I combined those questions. Was there a specific question that you had?
Unknown Speaker 1:28:39
Well, I’m not the only one, or perhaps I did not hear my question addressed.
Unknown Speaker 1:28:44
Why don’t you ask your question right now?
Unknown Speaker 1:28:46
Well, I was hoping to do it, just through a card, but Okay, fine. My question is, is there any way that the liquor license can be taken from that property? Why? Because it’s a liquor license of a neighborhood. Now, there was, there was a time I went around the corner from this, I can in my house for almost 34 years now. I’ve seen at least three businesses in that location started out as a little sub shop. It was wonderful. The neighborhood came in there to get a sub sandwich. After that, Richard took the place over and he went a little more upscale and decided that he was going to petition for a liquor license, because I heard the man say this, so people may want to have a glass of wine or a glass of beer with their meal. I was fine with it. I know there was quite a bit of pushback from that, but he got the liquor license. Now, that property has a liquor license.
Unknown Speaker 1:29:58
So guys, Does so let me Yeah, so there’s a there’s a there’s a process for that but what I would say is it’s gone through the process that it needs to do for that and it’s complied in just like Richard did they went through the same process and it’s allowed and that’s the land use the deals with it and it talks about the legal non conforming land use it was there why they’re able to do
Unknown Speaker 1:30:31
that so we have one more question Who was it? The lady right here and I saw I think Phil
Unknown Speaker 1:30:53
Hello, my name is Alice will be where to 245 Sherman Street and English no good I can American 19 years and we bought a house 15 years ago and I absolutely children my children is a special needs artist and ADHD sleep problem. That’s behavior therapy. He went to the Lord. He went to the school, went to the Kodansha the Firestone school ministries, Tamar learn the school he have lots of rehab apartment. This is why I put the coat for my friend and I just want to come here apologize to you. Sorry a political friend. Because my son after school have special needs swimming for license in the rec center rec center ever it is after four o’clock. Softball have the speech. You have a syrup you have have ot teacher ever they have many things he needs to go out if we don’t go out just spank people you know? So this is why and I’m I’m cutting the house and the cost five sorry. I’m going to do best for my children. And so sometimes winter time clean the outside the snow. I leave the people just packing and so I don’t know what we can do every day. I come back because of our after four o’clock you know that the swimming lessons is finished. forcer 530 to 630 you know have the boat artisan group we have our things he need to go outside. He can’t just stay at home and every time I go come back home, I don’t have parking. I need a round rah rah rah rah. Panamanians have to find a room parking. What can I do? You know, and my son is more fast than me. So if we hit costume, maybe he died. You know, we just corners Er, what can I do? Are you married? Say Tell Mama they say they can have so cook. I need a spot my children I need to help him you not he’s a fast. I mean, whoa. So what can I do?
Unknown Speaker 1:33:19
Stay a little bit, and we’re gonna work with folks. Okay. Sorry. That’s okay.
Unknown Speaker 1:33:41
Don’t need a mic either, like you. So I live on Grand Street about a little over a block. And I think everybody in this room wants to same thing. Thank you, by the way for all the work that you guys have done on safety. We all want we all want safety. But I would ask you to do that. While absolutely minimizing negative impact on the Westside tavern. It’s it’s important place to many of us in the neighborhood. And I’ve been continually impressed with Wes his accomplishment. Getting through COVID Creative means like putting out those tents when some other businesses have failed. It’s a really important gathering place for us. And I really appreciate us being able to see this long term plan. And I ask you that between now two years from now, between now and with this great long term safety plans fully designed fully in effect that you try to be also creative within Safety parameters that you have to meet to minimize the impact on the business of this place. Maybe not for everybody, but for most people in the neighborhood is, is a jam. We love to see it continues.
Unknown Speaker 1:35:26
Appreciate your comment. You know, when when staff and I said this at the beginning, when staff looks at these issues, and I think I said it when we met, we have to look at these issues in the same way throughout the community, I have to be able to look at business owner X neighbor y and say we’re following the same process that we’re going to go through and any in any location. Because you know, that that’s my responsibility. And I, that I’ve been very clear with him. I don’t want to ever have to go, why did you do this here and not this here based on the information that you’re seeing? And that’s why I talked about the pragmatic approach in that, you know, we don’t enjoy this. I mean, we really don’t. And, and we understand the issues, and we, you know, unfortunately, it’s different issues, different places. And that’s why I wanted to say, well, we’ve tried to here, we’ve gone back, we’ve evaluated, we are going to make some changes, we’re going to deal with this issue. And we have to look for a long term solution, because what we’ve seen is that there are issues, you know, from sunset to, to Main Street, we know there are, and if you go down just beyond this location, there’s no parking signs all over the place because of similar issues. And and we’ve got to take a long term, look at this in terms of what that what that’s going to look like, to the benefit of everyone, to the benefit of the residents that live there that need parking spaces to the benefit of the business. That’s what we have to do. And when we say long term, I think it’s a couple of months, the waterline starting. And then I’ve asked Jim to accelerate it into because I don’t want to keep the neighborhood in a state of construction for years. And so Jim’s working on that as we move through this process. And so, but I just wanted to be clear where we sit and we have these processes for a reason. I think we’ll end it now. We’ll be available for comments and conversations, to talk through this issue. And if anybody wants to talk to me, I’ll be around for a little bit longer. Ma’am, we do want to have you get with us pretty quick so we can figure out what’s going on.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai