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Recording, in progress.

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Mayor Padden, it is 5 o'clock when you're ready.

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Thank you. So the Spokane Valley City Council Special Council meeting of Tuesday, September 1st,

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2026 is now called the order. If you will stand for the pledge.

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And if the clerk would like to call the roll please?

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Mayor Patent, Deputy Mayor Hattenberg, Councilmember Yaker, Councilmember Haley,

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Councilmember Kelly, President, Councilmember Wick, Councilmember Merkel, here.

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Thank you.

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And so we have the approval of agenda.

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We'll do a preview, agenda.

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A quick question.

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I've got a couple questions from the members of the public who didn't really understand why this is a special meeting as opposed to a regular council meeting.

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They were especially concerned about the time change and the fact that there's no public comments.

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I just wanted to see if you could comment on it a little bit.

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Well, this isn't the first time we've done this.

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So I'm not sure why they would be surprised.

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This is kind of a roundtable discussion.

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Yeah, workshop format and we've done it before, so

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we'll have a agenda, do we have the...

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All in favor?

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All right.

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All right.

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Opposed.

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All right.

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Our first non-action item is an admin report on the center-place discussion with John

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Patelie and Nicole Olmer.

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And before they jump into that, this has been an ongoing subject that the Council has had many

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discussions on over the years.

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And so part of having a workshop format is so that we, you, all, can have a more informal meeting

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tonight that you can sit around this table and have a discussion about very important topics.

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And for tonight, we have center place, the data first.

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And then we're going to talk about the active transportation plan.

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we've been talking about having a workshop format discussion

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for quite some time on the active transportation plan

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and then we'll get into the comprehensive plan,

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which you know, we've had multiple round table

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conversations on the comprehensive plan.

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But I did want to make a few comments

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about why are we talking about center place tonight.

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So this has been going on for quite a while

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is discussions about center place

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And there's, it's been a work in progress, a number of years ago we hired a consultant

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to do an evaluation for us.

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We've been implementing some of those key findings from the Johnson Study.

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We are working on coming forward with a fee discussion.

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And I think that will be discussed later tonight.

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But before we get to that point, we do have a new member on the Council, Council Member Kelly,

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and thought it would be a good opportunity to go back to provide you some background and

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history of where did center place come from, how did we end up owning it? What's the mission

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as originally conceived? And really what we'd like to see is a council discussion on what

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your viewpoint of center place is we want you to have a discussion about what's valuable

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for this particular property because then it'll help us moving forward on the fee analysis

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and that compares and bringing it forward and we do have a slide about what does the council

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see this as? Is there a profit center? Is there a community center? Is it? What is it? So that's what

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We're hoping to have tonight and we'll turn it over to John and Nicole, who do an excellent job with very little resources of keeping this thing open and it's open.

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Open quite a bit every day for many, many hours and more of way more than city hall. So it's a very big challenge for staff to keep this event center operational, but also in the excellent condition that it's in. And a lot of that is thanks to the city council for supporting a lot of the capital increases over the years, or a capital allocations over the years to replace the carpet.

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replace the flooring to keep it with fresh paint.

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The video wall from a number of years ago.

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This particular year maybe you can give us an update,

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it's on point on the sound system going in.

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I know we hope to get that for the state of the city,

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but we're really improving this to be more desirable

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from whoever may want a book events there.

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So with that, I'll shut up and turn it over to John and the coal

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and let you provide the background for what this facility is.

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All right, thanks very much, John.

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Good evening, Council Mayor.

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John Battelle, Partial Recreation Director,

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and I'm thrilled to have Nicole Olmer with me today,

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and Nicole is our center-place court.

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And looking forward to walking through a presentation,

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and then an opportunity for Council discussion.

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So just an overview, we'll talk a little bit

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about the history of center-place.

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What is center place?

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How was the original voter approved financing?

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What is the current center place activities

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that we have going on there today?

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As John mentioned, we completed the Johnson

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study a couple of years ago.

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So just single slide reminder of some of the takeaways

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and then an update on where we are implementing some

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of those recommendations.

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Most of you will remember we had a discussion

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April a year ago about that.

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and we've been carrying out some of that work and then we'll tee it up for a discussion.

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So, with that we'll get started.

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So, a little bit of history, although back in 1996,

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a nonprofit organization formed in the community, this was about six years prior to the

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Valley incorporating. So, the community-based nonprofit organization, Miraboo Point, Inc.

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operated to spearhead planning and fundraising and development of the Mirbu Point multi use campus in

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Spoken Valley. So this is before the city was an entity on Spoken County was the jurisdiction

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here in this area. The nonprofit envisioned a multi use community hub that would combine public

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recreation, education, trails and cultural events at the former site of the walk in the wild zoo.

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So some of you might remember the walk in the wild zoo.

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The screw held a series of public meetings.

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They met with local businesses

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to really discuss and vet what type of facility

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was needed out in the valley area.

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And so Inland Empire, paper company was the land owner,

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and they donated over 50 acres of land

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for what would become today's Mirabu Point Park.

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The nonprofit partnered with Spooking County

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and a visit to put in the early infrastructure

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that included roads and utilities.

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And then planning for center place, which was just part of the master plan for this larger area, occurred in the early 2000s under the nonprofit.

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And the construction was finalized by the city's book in Valley after incorporation.

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So in May of 2002, there was a county-wide bond measure that actually included three projects.

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So part of it was money for the arena downtown,

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but then two projects out in the valley area,

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I think help drive countywide support.

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So one was for improvements that the fairgrounds

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and the other was for center place.

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So that bond measure was approved by the voters,

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and it included a $7 million allocation

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for the center place project.

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So again, the city kind of inherited the project

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from Miribu Point non-profit

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that had spent the years planning and raising money to build centerplace.

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Early in the city's history, this spoken Valley City Council approved moving forward with the centerplace project in August of 2003.

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So at that time, the plan called for pretty much what you see there today, a three-winged center,

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to house a two-story senior center, a 400-person capacity-grade room, and a conference center with classrooms and high-tech lecture hall.

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The estimated cost of the project was approximately $10 million with $7 million of that paid for

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from the proceeds of those voter approved bonds, and then $3 million paid with grant funds

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and private donations that have been raised, and they were used primarily for the senior

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center portion of the project.

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Interesting I was going through the council meeting materials, and they show at the time.

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And part of that presentation that night did advise council to expect an operating cost of about $400,000 a year for the center.

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So a little bit about the bonds. Finance was very helpful in digging up this information and confirming so we can have a snapshot of where we are today.

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So the original bond paper work, this is dated from October 29th in 2003, this is the city

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issued general obligation bonds to raise the money for that had been approved by the

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voters.

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So the purpose as described in there was to construct a regional community center in the

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city and also construct and install various road improvements.

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So the description of the Center Police project was a new regional and community center

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that would have a large regional meeting conference room and for a variety of community and cultural events.

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And then, specifically, reference that the center will also have a senior citizen center, which will be largely paid for with funds other than the proceeds of the bonds.

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So, as mentioned, there was about $7 million for center place, another approximately 2.5 for road and street improvements.

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So a total of about $9.5 million in bonds were issued at that time.

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Currently there's $2 million, $145,000 outstanding on the bonds.

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The final payment is scheduled to occur in 233.

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And then just a note, through an interlocal agreement with the Public Facilities District,

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the PFD actually provides a money to the city to make the annual payments each year.

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You have a question?

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Yeah, if I use that, a couple of quick questions.

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So first, I know that we've refinances.

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Do you know what the current interest rate in these bonds are?

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Roughly?

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Chelsea, do you know?

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That's Chelsea R Finance Director to come up.

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All right, I'm not off the top of my head,

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but if you give me a few minutes, I can look

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in our financial statements and find that.

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OK, that'd be great.

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And then I guess my other question is,

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does the PFD paying for both parts, both uses?

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I mean, so the entire amount of the bonds?

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No, no, we, so the road bonds,

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That portion is paid off, and that was paid for through REAT funds, real estate exercise tax.

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Okay, so there was issued somehow separately, so that part was retired?

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Yes, so the way that the issuances were matured as they matured,

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somewhere allocated for the roads and some of the rest were allocated for the facility.

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Thank you.

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Thank you, Chelsea.

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And as Chelsea's looking up the actual interest rate, it was during the time when the interest rates were very, very low.

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So I think that's what made it attractive from, I can't remember if Mark Alhum was the finance director at the time or the city manager, it doesn't, I can't place it.

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I believe he transitioned during that transition during that period.

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Yeah. So that was something he led you

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for the question.

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So now I'd like to talk about center-place uses that occur over there.

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So we'll talk a little bit about the senior center as that's baked into the building and the original project.

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Then Nicole will talk about our business events and other rentals.

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I'll talk about various city uses that take place in there.

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And then there's a few special agreements and contracts that will review as well

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that relate to uses in the facility.

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So, the Spoken Valley Senior Center is actually operated by the Spoken Valley Senior Citizen

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Association.

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So, that's an independent non-profit, and the city has an MOU with the Senior Citizen Association.

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That was first executed in September of 2005 when the facility opened.

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It was updated in 2016.

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Essentially, the MOU is fairly straightforward.

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It provides use of the Senior Wing to the Senior Citizen Association Monday through Friday.

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from 8 to 4 p.m. Important to note is the city receives no revenue from this use or the

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agreement. So the senior citizen association can charge a yearly membership fee. They do

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offer a membership. Although membership is not required to participate in activities at the

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senior center or go to the senior center. So they use that to help with their own budgeting and

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fundraising and some buy-in, but again it's not required to pay to take advantage of the

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So currently, the Association has over 600 paying members.

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The Senior Center programs right now, I believe,

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39 different activities throughout the week.

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These include things such as billiards, table tennis,

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bingo, there's a variety of card games,

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line-dancing, and more.

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SVSCA provides space for exercise classes

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that are put on by SCC and then finally.

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Very important, meals on wheels is in the building every day from 11 to 12, 30, and they operate

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out of the fireside lounge, the silver cafe, and so folks are able to come in and get meals

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there during the day.

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And JBI do have an answer, so it's approximately 3.5 percent.

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They range depending on which maturity, but that's the average.

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1.5 percent?

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Thanks, Chelsea.

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Okay, so for our business uses and other rentals, we track these into

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So the following nine categories, just for tracking purposes, so when event comes in, it usually

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fits into one or another of these categories, and I'm going to turn it over to Nicole

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to tell us a little bit more about each one.

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All right, so exactly like John said, we take our events and we categorize them for a reporting.

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And first of all, we have community events.

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So community events can be anything from a belly fast, it could be open to the public,

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free to the public, or it could also be a ticketed event,

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like a holistic festival that we have annually.

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So anything that the public can attend,

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whether free or ticketed is categorized as a community event.

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We have business events, which are all day multi-use,

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could be multi-day trainings, conferences.

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So if they're here all day, whether they're having a meal

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or just a meeting, we categorize them in that spot there.

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And then private parties, those are our birthday parties,

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graduations, anniversary parties, holiday parties, baby showers. Those will be categorized

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there. Our banquet events are any group that's coming in for a shorter amount of time,

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just for a meal period. So if they're coming in for a dinner event and they're only here during

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that time, we'll put them in a banquet category. Fundraisers are exactly that, anything that's coming

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into race funds for a local school booster club,

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nonprofit organization or another community partner.

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We have dances, we do host multiple proms every year

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for our local high schools.

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We also have some churches that are used

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to dances that are facility as well, weddings

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that can be anything from a 40-person wedding

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to 350 to even 600-person wedding out on the west lawn.

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we have ceremonies and receptions.

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We also have worship, so that category are church services,

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so we do have a lot of churches that kind of start at centerplace.

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If they're growing or they're looking for a permanent location,

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we've had church services that have been with us for six months to a year,

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and then they grow, or sometimes they have a special service

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where they'll come use our facility for a larger group around a holiday.

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And then we also have a lot of memorials.

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We are in extremely accommodating venue for memorials

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because we can accommodate larger groups,

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which is kind of frayer to find in the valley.

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So we do hold a lot of memorials in the facility

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and then recreation activities,

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which John will get to a little bit more,

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but those are our decamps, our adult dance,

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therapeutic recreation, bread making,

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and other seasonal classes as well.

248
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So with those events,

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we have a lot of repeat customers that come to us multiple times a year, so we have we are

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remote service center for the elections office, so anytime there's elections going on they will

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set up kind of a remote office in our facility and so valley members that don't want to drive

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downtown can come in and get a new envelope, can register and can get services at center place.

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We have Spoken Valley High Schools, Proms, Fundraising Events that come back every year.

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Spoken Valley Fire Department has testing with us, graduation celebrations and award ceremonies as well.

255
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We watchers this with us twice a week, so every Monday and Friday I believe.

256
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We have a local hospital that has a new higher orientation every other week on Mondays.

257
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We have the holistic festival that comes twice a week, which is open to the public, but tick it in.

258
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or twice a start, I apologize twice a year,

259
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they come in the spring and in the fall.

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And then we have an event pretty princess parties

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that comes annually, that's a ticket event,

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but open to the public, really fun for families

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to attend K-12 home school testing.

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So we're a home school testing site.

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So Washington State will bring in all their laptops

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and we'll have all the families coming in and testing.

267
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They're here about two weeks twice a year.

268
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And then we also have other nonprofit fundraising events that come back every year with us.

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Spoken Valley business holiday parties, so we have a lot of holiday parties that come in celebrated centerplace.

270
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And then other local business trainings as well.

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And I just want to clarify that all of these uses are examples of paid rentals, which all of

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these groups pay the fees that are in our master fee schedule for these,

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including the

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spoken ballet elections office, spoken county elections office.

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Okay, so then I'll talk about some

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of the city uses that also occur at center place for one that's the location for the parks

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Recreation Department offices. So through the Parks Department, we provide city services

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where open Monday through Friday from 8 to 5 p.m. And we operate out of the facility.

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As Nicole alluded to, there's also recreation programming that takes place in the building.

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So you guys enjoy a presentation each year from Kendall about our various offerings.

281
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Summer gate campus very popular. We also have some adult dance classes that are popular and other offerings.

282
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those take place in center place.

283
00:21:01,200 --> 00:21:03,440
We don't charge ourselves for that, but at the same time,

284
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we don't pay to be able to put on those programs

285
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at an alternate location.

286
00:21:10,400 --> 00:21:12,820
City meetings, so we might have open houses,

287
00:21:13,160 --> 00:21:15,820
whether there's a comprehensive plan, open house needed,

288
00:21:16,800 --> 00:21:19,340
or the planning commission might need a meeting,

289
00:21:20,300 --> 00:21:23,200
department trainings, regional government meetings,

290
00:21:23,360 --> 00:21:24,540
where the city is participating,

291
00:21:24,540 --> 00:21:30,120
So, you might have been at a Council of Governments event there at Center Place, we're able to host those.

292
00:21:31,260 --> 00:21:33,620
And then we're also a backup space for City Hall.

293
00:21:34,060 --> 00:21:39,880
Sure, most of you will remember holding Council meetings in the Great Room for better than a year, maybe more than a year.

294
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We also have some network redundancy over there at Center Place for the City.

295
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And then, of course, the facility is incorporated into our emergency response plan.

296
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So there's a variety of cities that benefit from having that facility.

297
00:21:57,320 --> 00:22:00,620
And then I mentioned that there are a few special agreements in contracts.

298
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So these are kind of one-offs, but Valley Fest is an example of a community event.

299
00:22:05,440 --> 00:22:10,140
Many of the community events pay to rent center place and hold their events there.

300
00:22:10,500 --> 00:22:17,860
Valley Fest we have a unique agreement between the city and Valley Fest that was put in place several years ago.

301
00:22:17,860 --> 00:22:22,920
And so Valley Fest enjoys the benefit of holding planning meetings at the facility.

302
00:22:23,480 --> 00:22:29,840
It's a packet pick-up location for the annual cycle celebration, which is a large bicycle event out in the community.

303
00:22:30,800 --> 00:22:36,660
And then of course for the Valley Fest weekend itself, there's use of center place as well as Mayor Boop Point Park.

304
00:22:36,700 --> 00:22:38,820
And that place is pretty much filled up.

305
00:22:39,000 --> 00:22:43,260
It's also an event space for them to hold one fundraising event each year.

306
00:22:43,260 --> 00:22:51,240
And so an exchange for providing the community event that the city's desired does are the benefits to Valley Fest and that agreement.

307
00:22:51,640 --> 00:22:55,480
There's a second standalone agreement, which is with the Spoken Valley Arts Council.

308
00:22:56,000 --> 00:23:01,160
And I know many of you are familiar with the art donations that the city has received and sculptures around town.

309
00:23:01,600 --> 00:23:12,460
We do have an agreement with the Arts Council, where they have waived rental for a board meeting once per month, as well as for one fundraising event per year, similar to Valley Fest.

310
00:23:12,460 --> 00:23:18,280
And then they also use the center place front lobby and fill those with art.

311
00:23:18,400 --> 00:23:20,240
So it's very nice when you come into center place.

312
00:23:20,460 --> 00:23:21,640
There are four art cases.

313
00:23:22,320 --> 00:23:27,340
If you are there frequently enough, you'll notice that the inventory changes four times a year.

314
00:23:27,500 --> 00:23:30,840
And that is provided by the Arts Council and part of that agreement.

315
00:23:31,960 --> 00:23:37,360
And then finally the Spoken Valley Chamber of Commerce also has a contract with the economic development department.

316
00:23:37,360 --> 00:23:44,600
And through that contract, they have the opportunity to put on eight events per year without paying the rental fee.

317
00:23:44,860 --> 00:23:50,540
And those are events that are generally related to economic development and furthering our city objectives.

318
00:23:51,440 --> 00:23:57,300
Also, the state of the city event takes place in center place, and that's the chambers heavily involved in that event.

319
00:23:59,660 --> 00:24:03,220
And that's so separate from those special agreements. There is at least a waiver process.

320
00:24:03,220 --> 00:24:08,240
So I mentioned that there might be a government use that also relates to city business, but

321
00:24:08,240 --> 00:24:11,020
we don't just do that in a vacuum.

322
00:24:11,140 --> 00:24:16,600
We have a paper process, and so there's a special request form that the applicant will fill

323
00:24:16,600 --> 00:24:16,940
out.

324
00:24:17,000 --> 00:24:22,960
So if there's a request to use center place for no fee, we have the applicant work with

325
00:24:22,960 --> 00:24:27,580
their staff, just like they would, with any other organizer to plan their event, and then fill

326
00:24:27,580 --> 00:24:32,620
out and submit a request form so that we can review that, and it's approved document

327
00:24:32,620 --> 00:24:38,440
that and include that in the paperwork. Important to note anyone who does receive a rental waiver

328
00:24:38,440 --> 00:24:43,660
if they want to work with the caterer or have food, there's no waiver for that. And so typically

329
00:24:43,660 --> 00:24:50,340
those groups will enjoy free use of a rental space, but there's still revenue to the city and

330
00:24:50,340 --> 00:24:55,520
the caterer if they choose to have food. So, did you have anything you wanted to add about the rental

331
00:24:55,520 --> 00:24:56,940
Okay.

332
00:25:00,400 --> 00:25:06,780
Okay, so really interesting here, I think we talked about the categories that we try to break all of our activity into.

333
00:25:07,060 --> 00:25:14,700
And so this is a pie chart that would just encapsulate all the activities that occur, whether it's a city event or or not.

334
00:25:14,940 --> 00:25:27,080
And so you can see that really about half of our overall activity fits into that business meeting, seminar conference type category, a little bit less than a quarter recreation activities.

335
00:25:27,080 --> 00:25:30,260
and then all the others filling up the rest of the pie.

336
00:25:30,620 --> 00:25:36,680
So over 75% of the activity is a variety of those different types of events.

337
00:25:37,220 --> 00:25:38,840
Councilmember Merkel, do you have a question?

338
00:25:39,520 --> 00:25:42,900
Just really quick to the city events fall under the community event label.

339
00:25:43,520 --> 00:25:44,880
No, so not necessarily.

340
00:25:45,100 --> 00:25:47,960
So a city event would depending on what it is.

341
00:25:48,040 --> 00:25:50,840
It would be in that recreation category, for example,

342
00:25:51,060 --> 00:25:54,440
but it would be business meeting seminar as well.

343
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Some of the city events, if you consider, for example, value fest with that unique agreement to be a community event, that's where it would fit.

344
00:26:02,320 --> 00:26:16,040
So as I mentioned, whether these are revenue producing events or that very small portion of events that for whatever reason we don't collect a fee, there's simply all rolled up in this pie to paint a picture of overall activity at the center.

345
00:26:19,430 --> 00:26:23,830
So what I think is really interesting here to cold it a great job of putting together some

346
00:26:23,830 --> 00:26:24,330
information.

347
00:26:24,750 --> 00:26:29,130
We've looked at the types of events and here we're kind of looking at the impact by event

348
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types.

349
00:26:29,570 --> 00:26:34,590
So the column on the left would just be basically the information seen on the previous slide

350
00:26:34,590 --> 00:26:35,450
in the pie chart.

351
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So a number of reservations, the amount of the activity.

352
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And you can see that beatings in seminar category comprising about half of it.

353
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The second column, Total Revenue, shows us which of these event categories contribute how much to the Total Revenue that we bring in each year.

354
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What's interesting is you can see, for example, that while weddings may be comprised 5% of the overall reservations, they contribute 17% of the Total Revenue.

355
00:27:05,270 --> 00:27:08,710
are there a higher revenue generating type of event.

356
00:27:09,430 --> 00:27:14,950
And that's really what that middle column, the column 3 is about, is how much revenue

357
00:27:15,570 --> 00:27:20,710
does an individual event generate compared to other events in scattergories.

358
00:27:20,870 --> 00:27:26,270
You can see that weddings and fundraisers are really our highest revenue generating types of

359
00:27:26,270 --> 00:27:31,530
events while meetings and seminars, because we have so much activity there, they contribute

360
00:27:31,530 --> 00:27:37,830
the line share of the overall revenue, but they're not as a high-egenerator revenue on a case-by-case basis.

361
00:27:39,370 --> 00:27:44,850
Attendees, so that's just basically how many people are in centerplace by each category, and then finally,

362
00:27:45,070 --> 00:27:48,200
out-of-town attendees, so we do it. We make an effort to try to track

363
00:27:48,870 --> 00:27:54,530
working with each event organizer, how many people are visiting from out-of-town, and so you can see, for example,

364
00:27:54,730 --> 00:28:01,250
a few stick-out weddings and the community events are far and away the biggest in terms of bringing

365
00:28:01,250 --> 00:28:06,610
at a town visitors to center place. So, a couple different ways to look at that activity there.

366
00:28:10,730 --> 00:28:16,210
Okay, and then finally, some recent highlights in terms of our activity at center place.

367
00:28:17,290 --> 00:28:25,070
In 2025, the Great Room hosted 208 events and looking at the available days in the year,

368
00:28:25,250 --> 00:28:30,090
taking up for holidays and about two weeks that we have to schedule. We have to block out the room

369
00:28:30,090 --> 00:28:31,450
for maintenance or improvements.

370
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That's about 61% of the available great room capacity

371
00:28:36,470 --> 00:28:37,350
on the calendar.

372
00:28:38,350 --> 00:28:40,810
We increased that this year, we already

373
00:28:40,810 --> 00:28:45,890
have had 221 reservations either contracted or already done

374
00:28:45,890 --> 00:28:48,110
with potentially more before the end of the year.

375
00:28:48,210 --> 00:28:50,970
So that's up to about 65% of that capacity.

376
00:28:51,890 --> 00:28:54,070
And then we have quite a few reservations booked

377
00:28:54,070 --> 00:28:55,830
in advance for 2027 already.

378
00:28:55,830 --> 00:28:59,410
I think 120 events are already booked for pre booked for 2027.

379
00:29:00,970 --> 00:29:04,470
Looking at that out of town travel, last year in 2025,

380
00:29:05,390 --> 00:29:09,850
a center-based reservation brought in an estimated 2,000 out of town guests.

381
00:29:10,950 --> 00:29:13,730
Year to date from January through July so far,

382
00:29:13,870 --> 00:29:15,450
we've already surpassed that amount,

383
00:29:15,690 --> 00:29:17,870
we've estimated to be a little over 2,000 already.

384
00:29:19,450 --> 00:29:23,430
And then finally, weddings in 2025, we hosted 40 weddings.

385
00:29:23,430 --> 00:29:28,870
that was up a little bit from historical years, but working from the Johnson Study recommendations

386
00:29:29,430 --> 00:29:34,010
leaning in on simplifying our pricing to call came up with some wedding packages that

387
00:29:34,010 --> 00:29:38,390
are built out of the component pieces in the fee schedule, and then we worked with economic

388
00:29:38,390 --> 00:29:44,070
development and our marketing budget to do a photo shoot and publish all that on the new

389
00:29:44,070 --> 00:29:50,250
website. And that effort has launched us to 60 weddings already for this year with potentially

390
00:29:50,250 --> 00:29:56,090
some more to go. So, and as we mentioned, those are big revenue generators and they're also generators of

391
00:29:56,090 --> 00:29:59,950
out of town gas. So that's been a nice trend. Yeah, cancel them every year.

392
00:30:00,000 --> 00:30:13,700
You have a question? Thank you, so you were talking about, and I believe you said 61% in the great room is booked. Do you have a listing of where we also have opportunity in all the other rooms and where we could maybe grow that?

393
00:30:14,440 --> 00:30:26,300
Yeah, I don't have that available with me today, but that's certainly something that we can bring back and something we want to dive in a little deeper with you guys when we talk about potential fee adjustments and our approach moving forward.

394
00:30:26,300 --> 00:30:31,560
So yeah, you bad, but you have a follow up, you do go ahead.

395
00:30:32,120 --> 00:30:36,460
And then you're talking about revenue generating events such as weddings, is there

396
00:30:36,460 --> 00:30:42,620
something that we could do more of to like make a bride's room out of that that

397
00:30:42,620 --> 00:30:48,320
we could set up for them that would encourage more people to come if they were to

398
00:30:48,320 --> 00:30:50,280
be able to use more of that space?

399
00:30:50,980 --> 00:30:54,860
Yeah, I'll let Nicole describe a little bit, but Nicole has done some wonderful

400
00:30:54,860 --> 00:30:59,040
improvements just like that. In fact, taking advantage of some underutilized spaces to make

401
00:30:59,040 --> 00:31:04,040
sure that there's a bridal reddy room, a groom's reddy room. The upstairs fireside

402
00:31:04,040 --> 00:31:09,540
lounges and alternative venue for weddings, but some improvements can certainly help us.

403
00:31:09,700 --> 00:31:12,060
But do you want to talk about some of what you've done there?

404
00:31:12,820 --> 00:31:17,840
Absolutely. So we did include a lot of our outdoor spaces as well. So the North Metto location,

405
00:31:18,360 --> 00:31:24,840
I think in 2023 we started utilizing that for ceremonies that really increased our bride

406
00:31:24,840 --> 00:31:31,820
that wanted to come have an event with us, we did convert three spaces into a more appealing

407
00:31:31,820 --> 00:31:37,940
ready rooms, both bridle and groom, and then we do have a flex space upstairs that can

408
00:31:37,940 --> 00:31:43,600
be utilized as well for a groom's ready room so that we have two available to them. We also

409
00:31:43,600 --> 00:31:51,220
attend wedding shows every January, we're actually hosting one in November, and so anything I

410
00:31:51,220 --> 00:31:59,000
for those wedding shows, I like to utilize for couples to have to offer, so we have a photo

411
00:31:59,000 --> 00:32:04,360
backdrop, we have arborers, we have a lot of different decor that can enhance their rental,

412
00:32:04,820 --> 00:32:09,740
and so those are built into those packages and have been very appealing to the brides that

413
00:32:09,740 --> 00:32:11,480
are wanting to rip with us.

414
00:32:12,440 --> 00:32:12,600
Yeah.

415
00:32:12,700 --> 00:32:13,460
You have a question?

416
00:32:13,580 --> 00:32:14,600
Yeah, I do, actually.

417
00:32:14,900 --> 00:32:15,700
Thank you.

418
00:32:16,660 --> 00:32:21,200
So as far as percent utilization, I mean, you have like the great room where whatever

419
00:32:21,200 --> 00:32:28,480
do we have a number of what percentage of the total utilizeable room and that doesn't count

420
00:32:28,480 --> 00:32:35,020
the senior center but of the other stuff is actually we're actually using in 24 we used in 25

421
00:32:35,020 --> 00:32:41,020
and where we're on pace for 26. Well we'd have to look at that for 25 and 26 but if you look

422
00:32:41,020 --> 00:32:46,960
in the Johnson Study there are some detailed descriptions of that one of the interesting nuances

423
00:32:46,960 --> 00:32:54,140
of the facility, however, is that we can be at capacity without necessarily using all of the

424
00:32:54,140 --> 00:32:54,460
rooms.

425
00:32:55,060 --> 00:32:59,400
We can have an event that books the center with the intent to use all the rooms, for example,

426
00:32:59,500 --> 00:33:03,600
like a conference where maybe there's, there are breakout sessions in all of the classrooms.

427
00:33:04,280 --> 00:33:09,600
But if Nicole has the great room booked and 600 people in the building and the senior centers

428
00:33:09,600 --> 00:33:13,880
going and maybe one other event, there's really no room to bring in others.

429
00:33:13,880 --> 00:33:16,380
And so sometimes rooms are empty.

430
00:33:16,500 --> 00:33:18,380
And if you look at that data throughout the year,

431
00:33:18,480 --> 00:33:22,280
you might look like we're not taking advantage of a room,

432
00:33:22,360 --> 00:33:24,620
but it's really because we're already at capacity.

433
00:33:24,800 --> 00:33:26,440
So there are some physical limitations

434
00:33:26,960 --> 00:33:30,700
that prevent us from being able to offer every room every day.

435
00:33:31,060 --> 00:33:33,240
A big one of them is parking, frankly.

436
00:33:34,140 --> 00:33:36,860
So, you know, can't remember a miracle?

437
00:33:38,380 --> 00:33:38,500
Thanks.

438
00:33:39,220 --> 00:33:41,080
Can we go back very quickly to the slide

439
00:33:41,080 --> 00:33:42,340
where you had all the regulars?

440
00:33:42,340 --> 00:33:45,680
I'm just trying to understand some of these numbers because I remember

441
00:33:45,680 --> 00:33:47,240
one or two back.

442
00:33:47,520 --> 00:33:48,240
Two back, I think.

443
00:33:48,540 --> 00:33:50,000
This one or, nope.

444
00:33:50,600 --> 00:33:51,200
One more.

445
00:33:51,600 --> 00:33:52,980
One more back.

446
00:33:54,000 --> 00:33:54,460
One more.

447
00:33:56,940 --> 00:33:57,880
One more.

448
00:33:58,620 --> 00:33:59,980
That's the one recurring rental.

449
00:34:00,100 --> 00:34:00,940
recurring rental together.

450
00:34:01,300 --> 00:34:04,020
Yeah, because some of these are like twice weekly.

451
00:34:04,860 --> 00:34:08,300
So that would be like 100 events a year.

452
00:34:08,800 --> 00:34:19,460
So, is that when we said 200 and 6, is out of that 206, 100 of them, these twice-weekly

453
00:34:19,460 --> 00:34:19,900
way watching.

454
00:34:19,900 --> 00:34:20,280
No.

455
00:34:20,340 --> 00:34:23,340
That's where we were highlighting the great room.

456
00:34:23,660 --> 00:34:27,580
So a lot of these are taking place in our large classrooms, small classrooms, or other

457
00:34:27,580 --> 00:34:28,560
spaces in the building.

458
00:34:29,160 --> 00:34:29,280
Gotcha.

459
00:34:29,680 --> 00:34:31,840
So these aren't necessarily all a great room activities.

460
00:34:34,240 --> 00:34:34,920
That's my vocabulary.

461
00:34:36,420 --> 00:34:36,740
Yes.

462
00:34:36,740 --> 00:34:42,360
I was curious, when you say out of town visitors, does this mean people from Spokane or

463
00:34:42,360 --> 00:34:46,940
these people who most likely spent the night here?

464
00:34:47,660 --> 00:34:52,100
So more likely, from out of town it would be spending the night and you found something

465
00:34:52,100 --> 00:34:55,640
interesting in our survey responses we were talking about today.

466
00:34:56,140 --> 00:34:56,260
Correct.

467
00:34:56,480 --> 00:34:59,860
Yeah, so we have a couple of different ways that we track that through our booking.

468
00:35:00,540 --> 00:35:13,360
We have an application and on that application we have them fill out the percentage of out of town attendees. So that would be someone that would need a hotel room or would need to stay with a friend or something like that, depending on what they choose.

469
00:35:13,940 --> 00:35:18,340
And so we truck that and then as well as our surveys, we have tracked.

470
00:35:19,060 --> 00:35:26,600
If they're shopping in the valley or staying in the valley. And so with our surveys that we have, let me just pull this up for you.

471
00:35:30,500 --> 00:35:45,360
So, out of our 163 responses, we had 26% say that they did need overnight accommodations, and then we also asked them where did their attendees stay out of those.

472
00:35:45,580 --> 00:35:53,580
And so, we have about 65 to 72% said that they stayed in a local smoking belly hotel.

473
00:35:54,540 --> 00:36:00,100
And do you have a number of nights that that may have resulted in from that survey?

474
00:36:01,080 --> 00:36:05,060
We don't have that information, but I would be interested if our hotel operators might

475
00:36:05,060 --> 00:36:10,900
be able to inform us, or be aware of center place guests who are there guests in their hotel.

476
00:36:11,820 --> 00:36:14,760
Okay, but just to clarify, so when we're looking at these numbers and you say out of town,

477
00:36:15,140 --> 00:36:17,460
that's typically going to be someone who need accommodations.

478
00:36:18,040 --> 00:36:18,280
Right.

479
00:36:18,580 --> 00:36:20,280
Thank you.

480
00:36:20,780 --> 00:36:21,540
Thanks for the question.

481
00:36:21,540 --> 00:36:24,140
And yeah, not from Spokane, not from the region.

482
00:36:26,000 --> 00:36:27,740
Okay, all right.

483
00:36:28,060 --> 00:36:32,920
And so just a reminder, like we talked about about a year ago,

484
00:36:33,140 --> 00:36:35,180
we had the Johnson study.

485
00:36:35,240 --> 00:36:37,260
We had a nice discussion with Council

486
00:36:37,260 --> 00:36:40,420
and went through some of the details of that.

487
00:36:40,440 --> 00:36:43,420
Major takeaways from that study included

488
00:36:43,420 --> 00:36:46,220
that they concluded that center plays operates both

489
00:36:46,220 --> 00:36:48,260
as a tourism and a community asset.

490
00:36:48,260 --> 00:36:55,780
They highlighted the community uses play a key role in community identity when addressing

491
00:36:55,780 --> 00:36:58,700
the question about tourism related events.

492
00:36:58,860 --> 00:37:03,120
They did say that size is a bit of a limitation there at center place.

493
00:37:03,760 --> 00:37:08,320
We have seen a number of events outgrow our facility as they become larger.

494
00:37:08,620 --> 00:37:10,580
So there's a physical limitation.

495
00:37:10,580 --> 00:37:17,300
I think they referenced a recommendation to consider capital improvements over time and investment

496
00:37:17,300 --> 00:37:21,100
in a larger facility or some other characteristics could help with that.

497
00:37:21,200 --> 00:37:25,300
For example, we don't really have any back-of-house support space that really aren't

498
00:37:25,300 --> 00:37:27,620
hallways to help service events.

499
00:37:27,820 --> 00:37:31,460
So for example, if we have the caterer of servicing a large event in the

500
00:37:31,460 --> 00:37:34,120
great room and this gets a little bit to your question there.

501
00:37:34,920 --> 00:37:38,120
And somebody's upstairs in a large classroom and they want catering at the same

502
00:37:38,120 --> 00:37:38,880
time.

503
00:37:39,160 --> 00:37:42,980
There's no hallway or alternate way for the caterer to get the food to them.

504
00:37:42,980 --> 00:37:45,580
So there are some physical characteristics of the facility

505
00:37:45,580 --> 00:37:47,220
that provides some limitations.

506
00:37:48,380 --> 00:37:52,160
And then finally, that 2023 saw record-breaking attendance

507
00:37:52,160 --> 00:37:56,380
and revenue with net operating losses at an eight-year low.

508
00:37:56,900 --> 00:37:59,760
I do know that we were just under 600,000, I think,

509
00:37:59,820 --> 00:38:01,320
in revenue that year in 2023.

510
00:38:01,600 --> 00:38:05,120
And we did exceed that 600 mark in 2024,

511
00:38:05,280 --> 00:38:07,700
and then increased it again in 2025.

512
00:38:07,700 --> 00:38:21,480
So, and then we identified several strategic recommendations out of that Johnson study, so on the left we have things that are ongoing, coordinating the economic development, updating our marketing materials.

513
00:38:21,880 --> 00:38:24,580
We talked about that with the wedding improvements.

514
00:38:26,360 --> 00:38:34,520
Now here we find ourselves in the middle column, the near term, so two recommendations are, since we last met, have already been accomplished.

515
00:38:34,520 --> 00:38:41,180
So one of those was rolling out a new reservation platform that was more tailored and appropriate

516
00:38:41,180 --> 00:38:46,160
and a helpful for us to follow up with customers and track leads and we're operating with

517
00:38:46,160 --> 00:38:51,260
that new platform and then updating the catering contract and you guys will all recall that we have

518
00:38:51,260 --> 00:38:56,780
a new caterer and a new catering agreement with more favorable rates for the city, so we're seeing

519
00:38:56,780 --> 00:39:02,340
that function very well. We've also integrated the booking process, so it's less confusing

520
00:39:02,340 --> 00:39:07,340
for the customer, so the catering and the event rental is all paid to the city,

521
00:39:08,580 --> 00:39:12,980
invoice through our office, and then we pass on those revenues to our contractor.

522
00:39:14,460 --> 00:39:17,880
And then the next strong recommendations were to take a look at our rates rates.

523
00:39:18,060 --> 00:39:21,060
It's center place haven't really been updated since 2008.

524
00:39:21,780 --> 00:39:25,000
There have been incidental changes as we brought new services online,

525
00:39:25,560 --> 00:39:30,840
or had new facilities, for example, the great lawn, or the west lawn, excuse me, great lawn.

526
00:39:31,720 --> 00:39:38,740
with new and so we have rental rates for that and some other minor changes, but we haven't taken a look at rates for some time.

527
00:39:39,640 --> 00:39:46,560
And we've engaged a contractor to do that rate study, so we'll be coming back with that information soon.

528
00:39:47,260 --> 00:39:58,120
Part of the Johnson Study recommendations were also making staffing adjustments that essentially center place for the amount of activity appear to them to be understaffed.

529
00:39:58,240 --> 00:39:59,960
So it's a big lift for us to get the work done.

530
00:40:00,000 --> 00:40:29,940
So tied in with those rates would be discussions about right-sizing staffing. And then finally, based kind of on our philosophy and where council is in terms of what the objectives are for center place. We would want to formalize and implement some booking policies to help accomplish whatever the desired outcomes are from council. So that's where we find ourselves today. And that takes us to our discussion point where we really want to hear from you.

531
00:40:30,000 --> 00:40:33,260
what is the Council's vision for center place?

532
00:40:33,260 --> 00:40:35,740
There's a few prompts here, but I think this is intended

533
00:40:35,740 --> 00:40:39,000
to be an open discussion, and are there any other comments

534
00:40:39,000 --> 00:40:41,720
or thoughts from John or Eric before we turn it over?

535
00:40:42,680 --> 00:40:45,140
I would just say we don't need an answer tonight.

536
00:40:45,600 --> 00:40:47,660
We're looking for discussion to get you thinking

537
00:40:49,340 --> 00:40:52,020
as City Manager home and indicated at the beginning.

538
00:40:53,820 --> 00:40:57,040
This will help guide us as we analyze those rates

539
00:40:57,040 --> 00:40:59,220
and come back with rate options.

540
00:40:59,220 --> 00:41:09,280
and that rate discussion, and then is our Parks and Rec director, Batelli said, I can also help with the booking policy.

541
00:41:09,400 --> 00:41:16,200
Do we want to focus on tourism generation, so we get priority booking there, or do you want to focus on community, or what do you want?

542
00:41:16,860 --> 00:41:26,980
So it's really intended to be a starter for the discussion, and we are going to be coming back to discuss rates, discussion tonight certainly helps, but this isn't the last discussion.

543
00:41:26,980 --> 00:41:31,240
this is just a round table and so no right or wrong answers tonight.

544
00:41:31,680 --> 00:41:37,360
It's really just opening it up to you as we continue our work getting input from Council is

545
00:41:37,360 --> 00:41:37,840
very important.

546
00:41:38,740 --> 00:41:45,900
And before we turn it over, I just wanted to add one thing to that when we talk about future

547
00:41:45,900 --> 00:41:50,940
capital improvements to the building, one of the areas I'd like to try your attention

548
00:41:50,940 --> 00:41:54,820
to is the safety of the employees there as well.

549
00:41:54,820 --> 00:42:02,460
And so we have, as you know, implemented some measures of safety improvements to the city hall,

550
00:42:03,260 --> 00:42:09,900
part of the difficulty that we've known for a long time is, as you enter into the building,

551
00:42:11,000 --> 00:42:17,120
the way that the entry is configured, staff cannot see anybody as they command.

552
00:42:17,120 --> 00:42:25,680
And so there may need to be some improvements to that visibility for staff to know what's happening

553
00:42:25,680 --> 00:42:27,040
at any given time.

554
00:42:27,500 --> 00:42:30,640
And that area is actually really wide open.

555
00:42:30,860 --> 00:42:34,380
And so I think there's some concern there from our standpoint.

556
00:42:34,760 --> 00:42:41,980
We have work with staff over the last year, so to keep certain doors locked within the building.

557
00:42:43,760 --> 00:42:59,000
So we've gone through that, but I think there's some more conversations, some more ideas that need to be worked out through that, but I just want to introduce that subject to you all because it's something that we'll be working on in the near future as well.

558
00:43:02,520 --> 00:43:04,320
Okay, thoughts, Councilmember Yager.

559
00:43:04,660 --> 00:43:09,800
I just have a quick question. Can someone remind me what we lost on that last year in our budget?

560
00:43:09,800 --> 00:43:15,980
And we're going to come forward with kind of more of a historical, maybe over the last five or six years.

561
00:43:16,500 --> 00:43:18,080
We're working on that.

562
00:43:18,200 --> 00:43:22,760
I know we talked about being in the neighborhood of about $100,000 a lot.

563
00:43:23,720 --> 00:43:25,060
We're going to verify that.

564
00:43:25,860 --> 00:43:31,240
There may also be some capital expenditures in there that may increase that number a little bit,

565
00:43:31,320 --> 00:43:33,040
but I think we want to tie that down.

566
00:43:33,340 --> 00:43:38,580
We'll have a table for you when we bring back the rate pieces.

567
00:43:38,580 --> 00:43:42,280
And then we can talk a lot more about where we're out with it.

568
00:43:42,280 --> 00:43:43,400
Thank you.

569
00:43:43,520 --> 00:43:44,800
Which I would say is a great improvement.

570
00:43:45,540 --> 00:43:46,960
It's a very big improvement.

571
00:43:47,100 --> 00:43:53,880
I think, you know, typically if the original council was looking at a $400,000 loss.

572
00:43:53,960 --> 00:44:02,760
And that was kind of our, for many, many years, kind of our, you know, off the, off the cuff estimate.

573
00:44:03,240 --> 00:44:08,220
I think the staff has done a really good job over the last couple of years trying to

574
00:44:08,220 --> 00:44:10,660
increase the utilization rate of the building.

575
00:44:11,700 --> 00:44:16,600
And, you know, from that perspective, one thing that we didn't talk about that's in the Johnson

576
00:44:16,600 --> 00:44:16,980
study.

577
00:44:17,180 --> 00:44:23,400
And we'll make sure we send out copies of a link to all of you for that to refresher, your

578
00:44:23,400 --> 00:44:25,400
memory on that particular thing.

579
00:44:26,000 --> 00:44:31,960
But part of what was really analyzed in that was whether to keep it in-house or to look

580
00:44:31,960 --> 00:44:35,340
for a third-party management company.

581
00:44:35,340 --> 00:44:45,160
And the consultant came back and did not recommend a third party to manage the building because of the size of the facility and the cost associated with it.

582
00:44:45,160 --> 00:44:56,260
And that was something that how those those contracts are typically set up is that you pay them and so they'd never lose money.

583
00:44:56,920 --> 00:44:59,960
They're always paid for their managing.

584
00:45:00,000 --> 00:45:06,140
Management of the facility, and you may be able to work in profit sharing, depending on what,

585
00:45:06,160 --> 00:45:11,800
how well they do to encourage them to do better. But they just didn't recommend for this

586
00:45:11,800 --> 00:45:19,120
size facility that that was something we should look at. So I did want to say that's covered in the report,

587
00:45:19,440 --> 00:45:24,820
and we'll get that out to you. And if there's any questions on that piece, we could talk more later about it.

588
00:45:26,840 --> 00:45:34,960
Council Member Kelly. Yeah, well first off, I want to thank the staff for their work on this presentation.

589
00:45:34,980 --> 00:45:40,680
This is exactly the type of discussion that I was looking forward to when I got elected

590
00:45:40,680 --> 00:45:45,120
that we could sit down and share some ideas and visions for different things here in the city.

591
00:45:45,380 --> 00:45:50,840
So thank you for this opportunity. I also want to thank Mr. Lamb and Mr. Rattelli for

592
00:45:50,840 --> 00:45:57,080
I'm escorting me earlier today on a personal tour of center place, and so I was able to

593
00:45:57,080 --> 00:46:00,800
ask a lot of questions and get a lot of things answered then, so that's very helpful.

594
00:46:01,800 --> 00:46:08,200
One of the things I came away from that is I think that we should, for me, that center place

595
00:46:08,200 --> 00:46:12,740
will always be first a community center, something for the citizens here in the valley.

596
00:46:13,520 --> 00:46:18,600
I don't think that should stand in our way though of trying to make this a revenue-neutral

597
00:46:19,240 --> 00:46:25,020
operation, and so if there's an opportunity to figure out a way to basically be self-sustaining

598
00:46:25,020 --> 00:46:30,940
that we should pursue that, whether or not we have a realistic path to that goal kind of depends

599
00:46:30,940 --> 00:46:36,120
on some of the metrics that we've already asked about in terms of utilization, where are we in terms

600
00:46:36,120 --> 00:46:43,240
of its maximum reasonable uses, and how much what it would take to improve that.

601
00:46:43,240 --> 00:46:52,800
But I am curious, I noticed that it seems like some types of events do bring in more revenue

602
00:46:52,800 --> 00:46:56,540
than others, I don't know per capita basis.

603
00:46:57,320 --> 00:46:59,620
And so obviously those are the things that we should pursue.

604
00:47:00,120 --> 00:47:04,380
And as I understand, we have some very excellent staff over there that where many hats,

605
00:47:04,760 --> 00:47:08,260
including sales, but we don't have any full-time sales person.

606
00:47:08,980 --> 00:47:12,420
And so I suppose that might be something that we might need to look at.

607
00:47:12,420 --> 00:47:21,880
as we continue to look at the potential for the facility and as part of that we probably

608
00:47:21,880 --> 00:47:28,080
would want to increase our marketing to outside this region and encourage people to come in

609
00:47:28,080 --> 00:47:32,720
because that's going to have quite a bit of knock on effect and I know that for other projects that

610
00:47:32,720 --> 00:47:37,500
we've considered that that's been a big, you know, kind of a big consideration is how many people

611
00:47:37,500 --> 00:47:39,700
from outside the area that we can bring in.

612
00:47:40,700 --> 00:47:45,000
So just kind of sharing some thoughts from what I observed and maybe giving us a foundation

613
00:47:45,000 --> 00:47:52,240
to work off of in terms of a vision, I would envision a facility that's one resident revenue

614
00:47:52,240 --> 00:48:01,460
neutral to that has sort of a goal is saying, hey, we have all the events that we can hold

615
00:48:01,460 --> 00:48:08,140
here we should make sure that 20% just throughout a number remains community oriented.

616
00:48:08,560 --> 00:48:15,060
So free events continue to have the ability for different organizations to use it and to further

617
00:48:15,060 --> 00:48:20,540
the interests of the community and then maybe the other percent is our attempt to monetize

618
00:48:20,540 --> 00:48:26,640
the property and to pay for itself, including allowing the seniors to continue to use that

619
00:48:27,220 --> 00:48:28,680
for their various activities,

620
00:48:28,780 --> 00:48:31,540
which I understand are numerous and very well-attended.

621
00:48:32,760 --> 00:48:35,220
And then from that, we might, from all those events,

622
00:48:35,380 --> 00:48:36,420
we might also have a goal of saying,

623
00:48:36,520 --> 00:48:38,960
we'd like to attract maybe just again

624
00:48:38,960 --> 00:48:41,460
to throw out some number of 60% from outside the area,

625
00:48:41,460 --> 00:48:43,400
and 40% from within the area.

626
00:48:45,220 --> 00:48:49,400
And so that's just maybe some ideas to work with.

627
00:48:49,520 --> 00:48:51,640
I know that there's a lot of questions to be answered

628
00:48:51,640 --> 00:48:53,880
or whether or not we can achieve that,

629
00:48:55,180 --> 00:49:00,600
But there's also the opportunity, and I know that the council is aware of the opportunity

630
00:49:00,600 --> 00:49:06,100
to maybe partners in local businesses and the whole tellers to offer some package situations.

631
00:49:07,360 --> 00:49:11,500
And I don't know if that includes discounts from them or what have you, but something to

632
00:49:11,500 --> 00:49:15,600
attract people and make it more, again more attractive for them to come here.

633
00:49:16,420 --> 00:49:17,740
So those are my thoughts.

634
00:49:19,320 --> 00:49:23,860
I did have one thing that I was hoping maybe Nicole could address, and that is that I

635
00:49:23,860 --> 00:49:28,480
from asking questions. I got the impression that our rates at Centerplace are relatively

636
00:49:28,480 --> 00:49:34,100
on below market, but has also talked to individuals who have, you know, tried to utilize

637
00:49:34,100 --> 00:49:39,980
it and their impression was that maybe we were not as competitive as, say, with Meribu Park,

638
00:49:39,980 --> 00:49:45,420
the Meribu Park hotels, conference facilities, or something like that. So do we have a sense

639
00:49:45,420 --> 00:49:51,460
of where we stand in terms of that? We do have a fee study that we'll be bringing forward to share

640
00:49:51,460 --> 00:49:59,900
Within that study you do see that we are extremely below market things like Maribou they do have negotiation ability

641
00:50:00,000 --> 00:50:05,800
Please, this center place does not have this city own facility, so that might be where they see fluctuation

642
00:50:05,800 --> 00:50:06,420
of rates.

643
00:50:06,680 --> 00:50:11,160
So if you have overnight guest rooms, that might affect your room rental, as well as through

644
00:50:11,160 --> 00:50:16,580
in beverage needs, those also can decrease your room rental based on those uses.

645
00:50:18,220 --> 00:50:18,920
Thank you for that.

646
00:50:18,920 --> 00:50:27,080
And then just as a final thought, I know that some other jurisdictions use what we've recently

647
00:50:27,080 --> 00:50:32,520
created with this opportunity fund, and so that that's also maybe something that we can integrate

648
00:50:32,520 --> 00:50:37,320
into our overall vision to attract outside areas that we could, I guess we're like the

649
00:50:37,320 --> 00:50:41,400
better words subsidized, their attendance here, so that they can get a sense to just how great

650
00:50:41,400 --> 00:50:46,900
Spokane Valley is and that that would be useful for their future utilization of our facilities.

651
00:50:48,840 --> 00:50:49,680
That's member Merkel.

652
00:50:50,700 --> 00:50:55,880
Yeah, thanks. I agree with much of what Councilmember Kelly brought up.

653
00:50:55,880 --> 00:50:59,040
I also think that the facility should be rather neutral.

654
00:51:00,960 --> 00:51:06,460
For me, I still advocate that we seek an outside operator for that facility.

655
00:51:07,140 --> 00:51:15,520
I appreciate that in other circumstances, operators ask for deals as described by the city manager.

656
00:51:16,140 --> 00:51:20,660
But for my perspective, I think we should put out a solicitation and open solicitation to the community,

657
00:51:20,660 --> 00:51:28,460
asking to see if there's anybody who wants to operate the facility on a fixed fee basis.

658
00:51:28,500 --> 00:51:32,200
In other words, they pay us a fixed fee that we say this is the annual fee.

659
00:51:32,680 --> 00:51:37,300
And then they're fully in charge of rate setting and advertising and everything else.

660
00:51:37,760 --> 00:51:41,180
We just get our annual fee and we'll walk away and that covers our costs.

661
00:51:41,720 --> 00:51:42,960
They have the use of the facility.

662
00:51:43,780 --> 00:51:46,140
I would obviously want to continue with the senior center.

663
00:51:46,140 --> 00:51:52,900
that was part of the bond issue so that that wouldn't be negotiable, but I think that

664
00:51:52,900 --> 00:51:58,300
a private organization, I mean, you know, some examples were just given about why a private

665
00:51:58,300 --> 00:52:02,900
organization is more flexible about these kinds of things, they can negotiate rates, they

666
00:52:02,900 --> 00:52:10,440
can be open at hours that are beyond what the city might be able to be open to, you

667
00:52:10,440 --> 00:52:14,700
know, and I think that that would be a better utilization of the facility.

668
00:52:16,720 --> 00:52:18,160
Thank you.

669
00:52:18,340 --> 00:52:24,800
So I would agree with a lot of what Councilmember Kelly had said to include getting someone

670
00:52:24,800 --> 00:52:33,940
in marketing who's, that's their niche to do the job of pulling people into this community

671
00:52:33,940 --> 00:52:46,120
to be able to get maybe larger events, maybe someone who's on the road a little bit in

672
00:52:46,120 --> 00:52:51,560
what the hours are, what they could be if they, if it wasn't government rotten, if you will,

673
00:52:51,700 --> 00:52:57,480
you know, are they closed on, I don't know what the hours are or what they could be if we were to open

674
00:52:57,480 --> 00:53:02,000
those a little bit more for additional revenue. Just to answer your question about the hours,

675
00:53:02,220 --> 00:53:08,680
we are with the exception of some holidays, we're open all year long, seven days a week,

676
00:53:08,920 --> 00:53:15,060
approximately six a.m. to midnight, just depending on new schedules. Yeah, I don't think there's any room

677
00:53:15,060 --> 00:53:16,420
to increase that anymore.

678
00:53:16,780 --> 00:53:17,260
Yeah.

679
00:53:17,680 --> 00:53:20,400
Whether it's privately owned or publicly owned.

680
00:53:20,640 --> 00:53:22,000
It didn't have a chance to look it up.

681
00:53:23,200 --> 00:53:23,980
Sounds remember, Wick?

682
00:53:26,270 --> 00:53:28,790
So I agree in the part.

683
00:53:29,450 --> 00:53:31,990
I agree that it should be a community center in my mind.

684
00:53:32,050 --> 00:53:34,410
I feel like centerplace was always kind of envisioned.

685
00:53:35,250 --> 00:53:37,850
As a community center, I think we're doing a really good job.

686
00:53:38,670 --> 00:53:39,890
Doing that kind of that balance.

687
00:53:39,910 --> 00:53:41,790
So I feel like it's kind of a hybrid.

688
00:53:41,990 --> 00:53:43,930
Trying to bring in events where we can,

689
00:53:43,930 --> 00:53:47,950
but also not pricing our community out of being able to use the facility.

690
00:53:48,810 --> 00:53:55,210
I think they're all you've done a tremendous job of keeping it down to 100,000 or whatever.

691
00:53:55,890 --> 00:53:58,010
And I know that we call it a loss.

692
00:53:58,250 --> 00:53:59,570
It's not really a loss.

693
00:54:00,250 --> 00:54:04,830
It's the general funds allocation for these other things, right?

694
00:54:05,110 --> 00:54:12,190
It's important to us from a council perspective of my opinion of what we use it for.

695
00:54:12,190 --> 00:54:14,110
It's our disaster recovery center.

696
00:54:14,490 --> 00:54:17,530
It's our off-site city hall if anything happens.

697
00:54:18,690 --> 00:54:20,750
It's not only that, but it's the senior center.

698
00:54:21,130 --> 00:54:22,250
It's our recreation center.

699
00:54:22,510 --> 00:54:26,290
There's uses that we get in benefits that we get out of

700
00:54:26,290 --> 00:54:29,690
that we don't charge ourselves for that.

701
00:54:30,130 --> 00:54:32,570
Yes, and one hand, it's a loss, but it's technically

702
00:54:33,090 --> 00:54:35,930
it's what we pay ourselves to use that facility.

703
00:54:37,190 --> 00:54:40,090
I want to think about it or reframe that.

704
00:54:40,090 --> 00:54:42,050
It's not really a loss.

705
00:54:42,290 --> 00:54:43,530
It's not really an enterprise fund.

706
00:54:43,890 --> 00:54:49,410
It's what we pay to have those advantages that we try to recover as much as we can.

707
00:54:49,890 --> 00:54:55,170
But at the same time, there's value in those amenities that are going on there.

708
00:54:55,670 --> 00:54:59,970
And so whether it's a council government, whether it's a, I know the film.

709
00:55:00,000 --> 00:55:20,040
So board when I travel around the state, we've had those there, we've had string committee of elected officials, we've had, we get to show off a little bit to our fellow counterparts in other cities that don't have a facility like that, that gives them ability to come to spoken and valent kind of puts us a little higher in the stage for our region and state.

710
00:55:21,020 --> 00:55:29,060
And so I think those are all things that are valuable for us, that we don't really charge ourselves and we don't really, I don't really want to get us into the habit of, oh, well,

711
00:55:29,060 --> 00:55:33,620
need to start allocating money towards that and kind of putting it in the offset, it's just

712
00:55:33,620 --> 00:55:37,780
a part of the deal for center place and so I think there's a tremendous of value for that

713
00:55:37,780 --> 00:55:43,500
as well. And I didn't really think about it until we started this conversation around, you know,

714
00:55:43,600 --> 00:55:47,500
events are getting bigger. Our community is getting bigger. There are events that are now

715
00:55:47,500 --> 00:55:53,180
outgoing center place. Do we need to start thinking about that as a capital facilities plan of

716
00:55:53,180 --> 00:56:05,420
Is there a way to make it so that we can do a 300-person event or what is it that we need to do to continue to support our community and maybe enable us to do more things there?

717
00:56:06,820 --> 00:56:15,040
But as far as outside salesperson, I kind of feel like that's a double-edged sword. Yes, you get outside sales, but then you have more expense because you're bringing on our employees.

718
00:56:15,040 --> 00:56:19,600
and I feel like we're kind of getting a good netchist to where we're at right now with

719
00:56:19,600 --> 00:56:27,920
cost versus utilization, but it'll be in our snazzy utilization score, I know I don't feel

720
00:56:27,920 --> 00:56:32,380
like from my limited experience with renting the facility, I don't feel like we're really out

721
00:56:32,380 --> 00:56:37,780
of whack with some of the other options from a community perspective. Now whether it's a convention,

722
00:56:37,980 --> 00:56:41,800
maybe that's something different and hopefully that opportunity fund can help us with that

723
00:56:41,800 --> 00:56:47,360
somewhat, but from a community perspective, it's hard, like just putting my

724
00:56:47,360 --> 00:56:51,780
corners have on, probably not able to pay $50 a week to have a meeting

725
00:56:51,780 --> 00:56:56,560
there for a community meeting, but if you're a convention, that it's a little

726
00:56:56,560 --> 00:57:00,400
bit different. So how do we, how do we do both? How do we figure that hybrid

727
00:57:00,400 --> 00:57:06,620
mix out? It's my my desire, but what do you imagine? I just wanted to comment on

728
00:57:06,620 --> 00:57:09,700
and Councilmember Wix discussion there.

729
00:57:10,580 --> 00:57:16,180
We are going to get a lot into the details of the staffing, what staffing is happening

730
00:57:16,180 --> 00:57:21,360
right now, what have we had to do over the last couple years to keep that moving?

731
00:57:22,280 --> 00:57:26,020
It's very challenging from a staffing standpoint because of the hours.

732
00:57:26,300 --> 00:57:32,280
I mean, that's open a lot and so you're talking about multiple shifts of people you're

733
00:57:32,280 --> 00:57:37,860
talking about a lot of temporary limited term, seasonal folks.

734
00:57:39,080 --> 00:57:45,420
It's a variety of things for us city staffers that have been around for a while.

735
00:57:46,520 --> 00:57:51,320
One of the things that you'll have seen over the history is that there's a lot of children

736
00:57:51,320 --> 00:57:56,440
of the employees that end up working there for a little bit of time and then as they're in

737
00:57:56,440 --> 00:57:58,080
college or doing something else.

738
00:57:58,080 --> 00:58:04,680
So there's a bit of a family approach too, but we will get into that and a lot more details.

739
00:58:05,920 --> 00:58:12,700
As the next part of the discussion comes on once the fee study is completed, but when

740
00:58:12,700 --> 00:58:18,660
you talk about, I appreciate the comments on the Capitol piece, because that has been

741
00:58:18,660 --> 00:58:24,020
talked about over the years about maybe expanding the great room or expanding the footprint

742
00:58:24,020 --> 00:58:46,700
and somewhere another, but one thing I want to talk to the council about as well is the parking lot itself is a landscape architect's vision of, you know, a statement to their career, but from a standpoint of efficiency and honestly at this stage safety as well.

743
00:58:46,700 --> 00:58:52,660
and I know we need to talk about pruning and cleaning up a lot of that vegetation that's now

744
00:58:52,660 --> 00:58:57,980
20 something years old that tends to block a lot of the sidewalks and that type of stuff,

745
00:58:58,480 --> 00:59:04,080
but that layout in the parking lot is horrible and maybe that's something at some point we'll have

746
00:59:04,080 --> 00:59:13,000
to look at as is reconfiguring the stormwater swales and the parking in a way to make a lot more

747
00:59:13,000 --> 00:59:17,520
capacity and I think the way it's all curved and it's beautiful,

748
00:59:19,720 --> 00:59:21,660
but it's not functioning very

749
00:59:21,660 --> 00:59:28,860
well. So that's something that holds us back as well as the parking limited parking out there.

750
00:59:29,160 --> 00:59:33,560
And so I just wanted to leave you with that. That's a whole other discussion we'll have to get into.

751
00:59:34,820 --> 00:59:40,520
That's a member, Haley. I thank you very much. Yeah, I agree with a lot of what councilmember

752
00:59:40,520 --> 00:59:44,640
and what our city manager just said, I would like to

753
00:59:44,640 --> 00:59:48,460
underline where we were before and where we are now

754
00:59:48,460 --> 00:59:52,540
is amazing. And so I appreciate all the hard work

755
00:59:52,540 --> 00:59:55,760
you guys had to put in to get here because it's great.

756
00:59:56,960 --> 00:59:59,400
However, I do think we should stick with the hybrid model.

757
01:00:00,000 --> 01:00:11,120
I think we should go with a private party. First of all, that you've got too many things that we need to use it for ourselves to make it profitable for somebody.

758
01:00:11,200 --> 01:00:21,300
And if I remember right, that was part of what they said too, is that it's not really a big enough venue for a private person to come in and make enough money to be interested in doing it.

759
01:00:22,260 --> 01:00:28,440
And again, I think you're doing a great job. So I know complaints there. You are so right that parking is terrible.

760
01:00:30,100 --> 01:00:43,680
And I have wondered since I first walked in there about that entryway, because you can sneak in there so easy, and it's dark, and there's an empty hallway, and so anything we can do to make that safer, I'm all for.

761
01:00:44,960 --> 01:00:56,200
And the other thing that I have said before, and I'd like to say again, if we're going to bring conventions in which I think we should, then it's size conventions, we're going to have to fix our sound system because it's terrible.

762
01:00:56,200 --> 01:01:02,100
I've been to so many fundraisers where you can't even tell what's going on because the

763
01:01:02,100 --> 01:01:08,160
sound system feeds back and there's echoes and it's I realized it's a big gym so I don't

764
01:01:08,160 --> 01:01:12,160
know if it's possible to fix it but if we can we should really look at that.

765
01:01:13,360 --> 01:01:18,560
I'm going to make it coming on then just ask John and where are you with the sound system

766
01:01:18,560 --> 01:01:25,260
because it actually recently completed the sound system improvements and seen some good new

767
01:01:25,260 --> 01:01:25,920
functionality.

768
01:01:28,270 --> 01:01:28,450
Correct.

769
01:01:28,670 --> 01:01:28,750
Yeah.

770
01:01:28,750 --> 01:01:33,830
So we have gotten all new equipment for the sound system, the speakers themselves are the

771
01:01:33,830 --> 01:01:34,470
same speakers.

772
01:01:35,090 --> 01:01:37,070
They've just been calibrated and adjusted.

773
01:01:38,390 --> 01:01:40,790
Chad can probably speak to that a lot more than I can.

774
01:01:41,470 --> 01:01:42,410
But we do.

775
01:01:42,630 --> 01:01:47,710
We did have a fundraising event recently that did struggle with their grouping loud and still

776
01:01:47,710 --> 01:01:48,870
being able to hear.

777
01:01:49,670 --> 01:01:53,670
So even though it has been completed we're still tweaking and working with the vendor to make

778
01:01:53,670 --> 01:01:55,310
sure that we get it where it needs to be.

779
01:01:55,310 --> 01:02:00,470
So that our events can enjoy the space and hear each other and raise more money for nonprofits

780
01:02:00,470 --> 01:02:01,270
in our community.

781
01:02:02,090 --> 01:02:07,190
But you're absolutely correct that the system has been terrible over the previous years.

782
01:02:08,430 --> 01:02:08,990
I don't remember much.

783
01:02:08,990 --> 01:02:09,510
Thank you.

784
01:02:10,310 --> 01:02:10,730
Oops, sorry.

785
01:02:11,730 --> 01:02:13,850
Yeah, just a quick question and then I have a comment.

786
01:02:15,010 --> 01:02:18,810
What times are staff available for booking questions?

787
01:02:19,270 --> 01:02:24,490
I appreciate that we've moved to an online system so can people fully book through the

788
01:02:24,490 --> 01:02:29,230
the online system without speaking to staff and then what times are staff available for those questions?

789
01:02:30,150 --> 01:02:34,450
I mean, we're open 8 to 5 with staff to be responsible for during business hours,

790
01:02:35,310 --> 01:02:36,590
but I'll let you talk a little bit more.

791
01:02:36,630 --> 01:02:40,290
People can book online, but there's really always that customer for this follow-up.

792
01:02:40,390 --> 01:02:41,490
Do you want to talk about that?

793
01:02:41,630 --> 01:02:46,390
Yeah, so we're still trying to roll out the center-place side of booking online.

794
01:02:46,990 --> 01:02:48,410
Our spaces are unique.

795
01:02:48,910 --> 01:02:53,070
Our set-up styles are unique, so we are wanting to make sure that we have the information out there

796
01:02:53,070 --> 01:02:55,210
to make a reservation successful online.

797
01:02:55,750 --> 01:02:58,730
So we still do have an application that is emailed

798
01:02:58,730 --> 01:03:01,510
and infillible form, and then we build that for them.

799
01:03:01,630 --> 01:03:03,210
So we are working through transitioning

800
01:03:03,210 --> 01:03:06,210
and getting that information on our website

801
01:03:06,210 --> 01:03:09,750
that they could submit the application online,

802
01:03:09,750 --> 01:03:11,790
and then it would go through approval process

803
01:03:11,790 --> 01:03:13,650
before it was fully booked.

804
01:03:14,250 --> 01:03:14,630
Gotcha.

805
01:03:14,890 --> 01:03:17,590
I do think that that's one of the challenges

806
01:03:17,590 --> 01:03:20,450
that people have is a lot of people are booking events

807
01:03:20,450 --> 01:03:25,930
at that six o'clock seven o'clock hour after work with private facilities and be nice if we could

808
01:03:25,930 --> 01:03:33,950
do something about that. In terms of the parking, we've kind of already established an idea over here

809
01:03:33,950 --> 01:03:38,710
at the cross course where we're busing people in from other parking lots just right around the corner

810
01:03:38,710 --> 01:03:45,830
is that STA park and ride that has something like 260 empty spots. Maybe we should consider just

811
01:03:45,830 --> 01:03:50,670
getting a bus and figuring out a way to transport people for a larger event.

812
01:03:53,450 --> 01:03:54,470
That's a bummerie, I guess.

813
01:03:55,130 --> 01:04:00,450
I can't remember how you had said the word Jim and it's what I actually had written down here too as well.

814
01:04:00,710 --> 01:04:12,130
And I'm wondering if we ever were to redo that floor in there if we would consider a different color because it does kind of come off as a basketball gym in the great room.

815
01:04:12,130 --> 01:04:16,410
something a little bit darker and more elegant, I don't know, or I don't know the carpet would

816
01:04:16,410 --> 01:04:21,170
be recommended, but if we were to ever do anything with that floor, I think that could

817
01:04:22,150 --> 01:04:28,910
just the difference in the look and feel of a different color would maybe be appreciated.

818
01:04:32,730 --> 01:04:37,730
Deputy Mayor. Thank you. I appreciate comments by everyone and I agree with almost all of them.

819
01:04:37,830 --> 01:04:43,810
I just have a fun story of it. Is Vingol still in Wednesdays? Is it Vingol's on Tuesday?

820
01:04:43,810 --> 01:04:48,470
Tuesday. So if somebody really wants to see how this senior citizen is feeling about their senior

821
01:04:48,470 --> 01:04:53,710
center, visit on Tuesday, Bingo, and I'll guarantee you there's the ladies that they

822
01:04:53,710 --> 01:04:59,030
were teasing me playing Bingo. It's like you don't touch your Bingo term, or else. And they're playing

823
01:04:59,030 --> 01:04:59,870
five, six guards.

824
01:05:00,000 --> 01:05:02,600
So I used to be challenged to play one, but I thought that was kind of cute.

825
01:05:03,980 --> 01:05:07,460
And I appreciate you guys going to be with Kelly Glitch, who the facility had given it.

826
01:05:09,570 --> 01:05:12,250
You didn't quite get to see the bingo. It was the afternoon.

827
01:05:18,570 --> 01:05:20,730
Anything else? Council member Kelly?

828
01:05:21,390 --> 01:05:29,890
Yes, I guess just to follow up, as I finally understand your numbers correctly, you said, about 26% of events spring in out of town attendees.

829
01:05:29,890 --> 01:05:36,550
And of that, you said about, let's call it 70% of those attendees are from out of town.

830
01:05:37,550 --> 01:05:40,370
So that means of all attendees to events.

831
01:05:41,150 --> 01:05:45,330
And are we talking, I guess I should back up and ask on your survey, first off,

832
01:05:45,450 --> 01:05:48,410
for these just events in the great room or with these all events.

833
01:05:48,730 --> 01:05:49,270
All events.

834
01:05:49,410 --> 01:05:52,530
And these were paying customers, not anything local.

835
01:05:52,610 --> 01:05:58,290
It's a combination of all of them from Valley Fest to Craven 2025 to a Christmas party.

836
01:05:58,290 --> 01:06:01,250
Okay, so this would be all different events.

837
01:06:02,230 --> 01:06:04,350
I'm just trying to get a sense of how much room

838
01:06:04,350 --> 01:06:05,950
for improvement, so to speak,

839
01:06:05,950 --> 01:06:10,030
how much additional outside attendees

840
01:06:10,030 --> 01:06:12,590
that we could possibly attract.

841
01:06:13,310 --> 01:06:15,670
If we're at about 20% right now,

842
01:06:15,690 --> 01:06:18,010
70% of 26% you know,

843
01:06:18,050 --> 01:06:20,570
maybe this call that 20% or you know,

844
01:06:21,330 --> 01:06:21,850
18%.

845
01:06:21,850 --> 01:06:24,330
Then seems like there's a lot of room for improvement

846
01:06:25,770 --> 01:06:27,230
for attracting people

847
01:06:27,230 --> 01:06:30,130
from outside the region, so I just wanted to establish that

848
01:06:30,130 --> 01:06:32,390
why we were having this discussion and make sure I'm

849
01:06:32,390 --> 01:06:33,410
along the cent, correct?

850
01:06:33,910 --> 01:06:34,610
Well, that's good.

851
01:06:34,610 --> 01:06:36,110
And I appreciate you asking about the numbers.

852
01:06:36,530 --> 01:06:40,370
Because it's 23% of survey respondents for one.

853
01:06:40,530 --> 01:06:43,350
So however many people chose to go ahead and fill out the survey.

854
01:06:45,150 --> 01:06:48,650
And then of those survey respondents, 70% said they chose

855
01:06:48,650 --> 01:06:50,630
a value, a student of spoken ballet hotel.

856
01:06:51,350 --> 01:06:55,490
But we track that out of town visitation another way, which is

857
01:06:55,490 --> 01:07:00,390
directly by communicating with the event organizers as part of their application process.

858
01:07:00,770 --> 01:07:06,250
And that's where the 2000 out of town of visitors last year came from and the number

859
01:07:06,250 --> 01:07:10,470
that we've surpassed that 2000 mark by July of this year so far.

860
01:07:10,690 --> 01:07:13,790
So a couple of different ways that we're looking at that.

861
01:07:14,110 --> 01:07:15,250
It's like an interject.

862
01:07:15,850 --> 01:07:18,430
I think Council member Kelly, you're absolutely correct.

863
01:07:18,970 --> 01:07:22,870
And I think one of the things that we really need to do and we have been coordinating

864
01:07:22,870 --> 01:07:23,950
what the hotel years.

865
01:07:23,950 --> 01:07:27,230
But I think there's some room there to look at that

866
01:07:27,230 --> 01:07:30,450
and talk about the booking policies.

867
01:07:30,950 --> 01:07:33,230
That was on the list of things to do,

868
01:07:33,250 --> 01:07:35,950
and I think that'll be something we can work on

869
01:07:35,950 --> 01:07:39,610
and bring back to you in the near term is,

870
01:07:39,670 --> 01:07:44,630
how do we work with the two nearby,

871
01:07:45,050 --> 01:07:47,910
but also all the other hotels as well,

872
01:07:48,250 --> 01:07:51,130
to really make that connection and try to drive

873
01:07:51,130 --> 01:07:57,390
those out of town visitors are out of the region visitors and get those numbers up.

874
01:07:57,390 --> 01:07:58,490
That's when we're younger.

875
01:07:59,090 --> 01:07:59,410
Thank you.

876
01:08:00,490 --> 01:08:06,550
So, going along with Council Member Kelly, you know, when we look at our revenues growing

877
01:08:06,550 --> 01:08:13,930
for sales tax and whatnot, I think bringing the tourism to our area out here is really important.

878
01:08:14,430 --> 01:08:20,570
You know, we've got two amazing venues between the course and ice rink coming and so I think

879
01:08:20,570 --> 01:08:27,470
center places really poised within a very central area, or that sports tourism can bring people

880
01:08:27,470 --> 01:08:35,110
to our hospitality areas, you know, dining the sports, the shopping at the mall, and great hotels,

881
01:08:35,450 --> 01:08:40,870
and so I really would like to see more people coming into the valley for those things from just

882
01:08:40,870 --> 01:08:47,610
this to six that we have seen. Because I think it's a win when, everywhere we go, with the room

883
01:08:47,610 --> 01:08:51,070
rights and what we get out of the TPA and all that stuff.

884
01:08:51,690 --> 01:08:57,750
So I think it can just compound on itself, obviously leaving space for community events.

885
01:08:58,010 --> 01:09:05,670
But I think that we can work on that hierarchy of booking whether it be tourism and focusing

886
01:09:06,270 --> 01:09:13,210
on how do we bring in that tourism dollar while still maintaining availability for not

887
01:09:13,210 --> 01:09:21,110
We're not messing with senior center where senior center is hands off, but any other venues that are being utilized just make sure that

888
01:09:21,110 --> 01:09:27,850
We're utilizing it to the maximum capacity for that to a risen dollar, I think that's what we're working

889
01:09:28,770 --> 01:09:34,610
Yeah, you know, I said earlier. I'm more in favor of giving this over to a third party and that's still true

890
01:09:34,610 --> 01:09:37,930
But that being said doesn't sound like the rest of the council's going that way

891
01:09:37,930 --> 01:09:44,890
So, one other suggestion I would have, you guys said that it's 60% occupied right now, give or take?

892
01:09:45,210 --> 01:09:48,250
Well, we were looking at the great room with that.

893
01:09:48,410 --> 01:09:52,710
We're more like over 65 at this point in a year, but anyway.

894
01:09:53,150 --> 01:09:56,290
Yeah, so we have about 35% excess capacity.

895
01:09:57,010 --> 01:09:59,970
I hope that when we're doing the right study, we allow for...

896
01:10:00,900 --> 01:10:19,900
This counted rates are even free rates to local community organizations as a loss leader, you know, you find that if you put out for a local community organization to let them come three or four times, the next year you charge them, they might be like, wow, this is a really great place, maybe we'll show up more.

897
01:10:24,460 --> 01:10:37,460
So one comment on that is that from a perspective of managing the facility and moving forward.

898
01:10:37,980 --> 01:10:48,220
I think it would be, I don't think we could do a loss leader type set up there because it would be in violation of the fee schedule.

899
01:10:48,220 --> 01:10:53,060
And I think that would be problematic,

900
01:10:55,280 --> 01:10:57,920
yeah, I just don't know how that would work.

901
01:10:58,260 --> 01:11:05,500
From a standpoint of, again, maximizing the usage of the facility, it's never going to be at a hundred percent.

902
01:11:05,620 --> 01:11:11,440
I think we'll get, because you do have change over as well, right? So you'll have certain days that are booked,

903
01:11:11,780 --> 01:11:15,160
but you have to set up, you have to break down and change.

904
01:11:15,160 --> 01:11:21,260
So I think it would be helpful when we bring it back to have some, I think it might even

905
01:11:21,260 --> 01:11:25,140
be in some of the case studies from the Johnson study about utilization rates.

906
01:11:25,140 --> 01:11:26,660
But I think we can bring that forward.

907
01:11:27,620 --> 01:11:32,040
I just want to caution the council on thinking that it'll all, you could get to a point

908
01:11:32,040 --> 01:11:35,540
where it's 100% utilized, because that's not possible.

909
01:11:37,100 --> 01:11:38,840
Johnson study does call that out.

910
01:11:38,940 --> 01:11:43,340
And you could really never book your room at 100% because it doesn't leave time

911
01:11:43,340 --> 01:11:44,900
you'd end up wearing it out.

912
01:11:45,060 --> 01:11:48,340
So I think maybe 80 might be an advisable target.

913
01:11:49,200 --> 01:11:51,600
So thank you for the comment and for the suggestions.

914
01:11:52,400 --> 01:11:53,040
Councillor Meprewick?

915
01:11:54,060 --> 01:11:56,160
I just kind of sparked another thought in my mind,

916
01:11:56,320 --> 01:11:59,220
which was around the memorials.

917
01:11:59,560 --> 01:12:02,800
And I know we have a policy for kind of waving

918
01:12:02,800 --> 01:12:05,360
reservation fees if it's a city council usage

919
01:12:05,360 --> 01:12:06,560
or a city government usage.

920
01:12:07,280 --> 01:12:09,440
But one of the things that's always kind of been on my mind

921
01:12:09,440 --> 01:12:12,900
which is to win a city council mover or form mayor passes away.

922
01:12:13,520 --> 01:12:18,040
We still charge them full rates for their service that happens at center place.

923
01:12:19,040 --> 01:12:23,000
And I know, I think one time, I think a lot of the city staff, and I came together when

924
01:12:23,000 --> 01:12:27,960
he paid for that to kind of offset that for the family for a former mayor that's passed,

925
01:12:28,160 --> 01:12:32,540
but something that I think that we should really consider is if you've served your time

926
01:12:32,540 --> 01:12:38,360
as a council member or even maybe a senior staff member or something at the city where you've

927
01:12:38,360 --> 01:12:42,980
a long connection with the city, maybe we should do something for the family on the past.

928
01:12:44,260 --> 01:12:45,500
Something for us to consider.

929
01:12:48,350 --> 01:12:48,810
All right.

930
01:12:49,430 --> 01:12:51,510
Well, I think that's a really good discussion.

931
01:12:52,170 --> 01:12:55,990
We can conclude it now and move on to the next topic.

932
01:12:57,610 --> 01:12:58,410
Thank you so much.

933
01:12:58,490 --> 01:12:59,910
Thank you.

934
01:13:01,470 --> 01:13:03,730
Donna Nicole, that was a great presentation.

935
01:13:08,060 --> 01:13:11,820
Next we have the active transportation plan discussion with Adam Jackson.

936
01:13:11,820 --> 01:13:12,920
Thank

937
01:13:19,480 --> 01:13:20,700
you Mayor members of Council.

938
01:13:21,040 --> 01:13:25,700
I'm joined by our traffic engineering manager, Jeremy Clark, and

939
01:13:25,700 --> 01:13:27,060
Kylie Jones.

940
01:13:27,500 --> 01:13:28,260
Can we horn?

941
01:13:28,380 --> 01:13:30,480
The consultant that helped us prepare the ATP.

942
01:13:35,120 --> 01:13:41,780
So tonight's discussion we've had quite a bit of time.

943
01:13:42,500 --> 01:13:47,100
The last year and a half this project, this planning effort has been going on.

944
01:13:47,100 --> 01:13:50,640
And we had a public hearing of short while ago,

945
01:13:51,100 --> 01:13:56,160
and pre-seated by administrative report to staff.

946
01:13:57,460 --> 01:14:00,620
And right before we get into this,

947
01:14:00,980 --> 01:14:03,300
I thought I'd just give a little bit of contextual history

948
01:14:03,900 --> 01:14:06,260
for active transportation in the city.

949
01:14:07,360 --> 01:14:10,240
And so back in, and I think that's why Mike's joining

950
01:14:10,240 --> 01:14:13,580
because he's a part of the creation of these efforts.

951
01:14:13,580 --> 01:14:22,600
So, background 2010, the city had a federal grant to develop a bike and pedestrian network.

952
01:14:23,980 --> 01:14:28,900
And when in doing that, that helped the city designate our safe routes to school,

953
01:14:29,600 --> 01:14:35,640
that helped us identify the lines on our maps that we see today for bike routes,

954
01:14:35,920 --> 01:14:41,620
the bike lanes we have on our streets where the sidewalks are, where our sidewalk priorities are.

955
01:14:41,620 --> 01:14:56,520
And around 2010, that came to fruition with the development of the installation of sidewalk projects funded by CDBG community, community development block grant funds,

956
01:14:58,600 --> 01:14:59,760
fast forward a few years.

957
01:15:00,000 --> 01:15:19,700
In 2016, when we were updating the comprehensive plan, the city made the decision to absorb that bike in pedestrian master plan, that was created in 2010, into the compliance transportation element, to acknowledge the vision of that master plan.

958
01:15:19,700 --> 01:15:23,880
Then, as we work down the line, subsequent

959
01:15:23,880 --> 01:15:25,760
compliant updates included that,

960
01:15:25,760 --> 01:15:28,280
continue to include active transportation

961
01:15:28,280 --> 01:15:31,940
abilities in the transportation element.

962
01:15:33,440 --> 01:15:37,340
In 2025, the DOT reached out to the city and said,

963
01:15:37,540 --> 01:15:40,600
hey, we have this funding opportunity to develop

964
01:15:40,600 --> 01:15:43,840
the active transportation plan for reasons

965
01:15:43,840 --> 01:15:44,800
that we'll get into.

966
01:15:45,240 --> 01:15:49,600
And then, here we are in 26 with a comprehensive plan

967
01:15:49,600 --> 01:15:56,320
update that we're in the midst of that also includes the requirement for a multi-modal level

968
01:15:56,320 --> 01:16:02,440
of service standard. And I'll let Jeremy describe that more as we get through the discussion

969
01:16:02,440 --> 01:16:10,520
if if worth it. Historically, John Mike, am I missing any high points or other items worth

970
01:16:10,520 --> 01:16:18,860
discussing? I think Adam you covered it pretty well, but if there's any other questions about the

971
01:16:18,860 --> 01:16:23,220
original 2010 Bike and Pedestrian Master Plan happy to chime in.

972
01:16:25,830 --> 01:16:34,250
And I would just add that that was really interesting time here at the city with a relatively new council that came on.

973
01:16:34,530 --> 01:16:45,130
Actually it was brand new council in 2010 and some of them were the council members had maybe an alternate viewpoint to

974
01:16:46,230 --> 01:16:51,030
pedestrian use and bicycle use within the right of

975
01:16:51,030 --> 01:16:54,950
ways. But it was a really interesting process. The

976
01:16:54,950 --> 01:17:01,270
public was very well represented very well. They came out a

977
01:17:01,270 --> 01:17:06,270
lot more so than they have at this point in time in the

978
01:17:06,270 --> 01:17:09,810
discussions. And so that really changed the council's

979
01:17:09,810 --> 01:17:13,410
perspective and allowed us to move forward and they adopted the

980
01:17:13,410 --> 01:17:18,790
And that's been kind of the basis of what we've had moving forward.

981
01:17:19,550 --> 01:17:27,770
Now at this stage, it gets a little mudier in the sense of you have this community involvement

982
01:17:27,770 --> 01:17:37,710
and the input from the community that looks at what do they want to see from opening up opportunities for

983
01:17:37,710 --> 01:17:40,490
where alternates to using vehicles.

984
01:17:41,350 --> 01:17:45,310
But at the same time, you have some requirements coming down

985
01:17:45,310 --> 01:17:46,550
from Olympia as well.

986
01:17:46,810 --> 01:17:49,570
And so what this document tries to do

987
01:17:49,570 --> 01:17:55,090
is to blend that together, not losing sight of the local input,

988
01:17:55,550 --> 01:17:58,410
but also being consistent with what some of the requirements

989
01:17:58,410 --> 01:17:59,850
are coming down from the state.

990
01:17:59,910 --> 01:18:03,170
Because this piece of a port, parts of this piece,

991
01:18:03,170 --> 01:18:09,070
get connected or incorporated into comprehensive plan moving forward.

992
01:18:09,350 --> 01:18:11,410
And so, we can talk about that.

993
01:18:11,830 --> 01:18:12,930
What does that look like?

994
01:18:13,090 --> 01:18:19,950
I know we had a pretty robust discussion yesterday at the agenda meeting about this particular topic.

995
01:18:20,550 --> 01:18:22,190
And I might have some good suggestions.

996
01:18:23,130 --> 01:18:26,950
The one thing I do want to lead you with is we don't.

997
01:18:27,210 --> 01:18:30,690
We want you to be comfortable with the plan.

998
01:18:30,690 --> 01:18:36,530
this is a policy document, so that's within your purview, the setting that policy.

999
01:18:37,850 --> 01:18:46,370
We don't want you to get to caught up in the order of things in this document because I think we're

1000
01:18:46,370 --> 01:18:53,450
going to come forward with some exercises for you to put priorities on the different projects

1001
01:18:53,450 --> 01:18:58,810
that are in here, and then those priorities will be incorporated directly into the comprehensive plant.

1002
01:18:58,810 --> 01:19:04,070
That's some of the suggestions that that might prop forward yesterday.

1003
01:19:04,790 --> 01:19:09,670
But as we roll through this, we'll tell you where those opportunities are and we'll bring that back.

1004
01:19:09,810 --> 01:19:11,730
And we'll look at how to structure that.

1005
01:19:11,870 --> 01:19:16,790
What we'll probably do is either at a upcoming council member or a council meeting,

1006
01:19:17,270 --> 01:19:24,570
or even we would provide a spreadsheet to you via email and then have you get back to us with,

1007
01:19:24,570 --> 01:19:27,130
How do you want to rank all these projects?

1008
01:19:27,610 --> 01:19:29,530
They're ranked here in a certain manner,

1009
01:19:29,630 --> 01:19:32,090
but that doesn't mean that that's reflective

1010
01:19:32,090 --> 01:19:34,430
of what your policy direction is.

1011
01:19:34,610 --> 01:19:36,490
It probably isn't, so that's something

1012
01:19:37,090 --> 01:19:40,470
that we need to incorporate moving forward.

1013
01:19:40,870 --> 01:19:43,870
But that incorporation can really be done

1014
01:19:43,870 --> 01:19:46,450
in a better manner through the comprehensive plan.

1015
01:19:47,190 --> 01:19:49,170
So is there anything else I missed on that, Mike?

1016
01:19:49,710 --> 01:19:53,190
Well, I guess thinking about this since yesterday,

1017
01:19:55,870 --> 01:19:59,390
I thought about the conference of plan and it being a policy document.

1018
01:20:00,000 --> 01:20:11,840
I think that there's ways that we could structure and goals and policies that could help strengthen what the interests are for shared use pass, bike lanes, sidewalks, etc.

1019
01:20:12,940 --> 01:20:27,120
But I think that the document, the active transportation plan document is a good place for the prioritization of what you would like to see along with the prioritization based on metrics.

1020
01:20:27,120 --> 01:20:33,700
because the metrics exist, right, and they're going to talk about that more, but those metrics mean something when you're going for grants.

1021
01:20:34,480 --> 01:20:50,400
Doesn't mean you necessarily are, let's just say there's a shared use path on Trent that ranks extremely high, but you have an interest in having a shared use path from Apple Way Trail to our northern trail over by our cross country course.

1022
01:20:50,400 --> 01:20:54,440
Well, I think you could articulate that in the same document

1023
01:20:54,440 --> 01:20:58,580
that that is a community priority, and we would like to see that happen,

1024
01:20:59,040 --> 01:21:03,160
and still have the metrics associated with what has been done,

1025
01:21:03,440 --> 01:21:05,960
that meets, I believe, Department of Transportation

1026
01:21:05,960 --> 01:21:07,660
and some of the federal grant standards.

1027
01:21:08,360 --> 01:21:10,420
So that's the way I was looking at it.

1028
01:21:10,560 --> 01:21:14,400
So when we go through goals and policies, we can think a little bit more

1029
01:21:14,400 --> 01:21:17,720
about how we might want to strengthen some of that language

1030
01:21:17,720 --> 01:21:23,620
to support what you're trying to accomplish because it's a high-level document and we've been

1031
01:21:23,620 --> 01:21:30,080
trying to reference more of our documents like the Transportation Improvement Program, the active

1032
01:21:30,080 --> 01:21:35,100
Transportation Plan. And you remember when we didn't, we used to incorporate those in our

1033
01:21:35,100 --> 01:21:47,700
component really led it to every year we had to make amendments to our comprehensive plan so it

1034
01:21:47,700 --> 01:21:54,960
You know, the information within those and those will help when you have those discussions to determine what where you'd like to go with

1035
01:21:54,960 --> 01:21:57,720
Your priorities. So I hope that's not too confusing.

1036
01:21:59,000 --> 01:22:03,140
Dawn, I think we'll the mic and I have talked and we've thought about this quite a bit today.

1037
01:22:03,600 --> 01:22:08,500
We'll get into it and I think there'll be some more clarity by the end of this figure's crossed.

1038
01:22:11,300 --> 01:22:12,420
A brief timeline.

1039
01:22:12,420 --> 01:22:19,340
I mentioned about 18 months ago, that's around numbers, so in February, the DOT contacted us.

1040
01:22:21,040 --> 01:22:27,340
We decided with Council support to enter into a contract with the state to develop the ATP.

1041
01:22:28,500 --> 01:22:35,560
And then here, coming into 2026, we shared the first draft, which is the same draft that we have tonight,

1042
01:22:35,860 --> 01:22:38,420
that we've had for the last month or so.

1043
01:22:38,420 --> 01:22:45,620
We shared the first draft and then shared it with the public for a public hearing, received

1044
01:22:45,620 --> 01:22:51,740
zero comments, one written letter from Central Valley School District, subsequently a second

1045
01:22:51,740 --> 01:22:56,540
letter from West Valley School District, and I believe that there may very well be a letter

1046
01:22:56,540 --> 01:23:02,840
from STA in my inbox, but other than that, those and all three of those members were part of

1047
01:23:02,840 --> 01:23:08,400
or all three of those letters were from members on our stakeholder working group, which was a

1048
01:23:08,420 --> 01:23:11,460
mechanism we used in the community outreach effort.

1049
01:23:13,300 --> 01:23:17,840
And here we are tonight to talk about the bones of the report.

1050
01:23:19,940 --> 01:23:23,280
So John mentioned that the policy document

1051
01:23:24,140 --> 01:23:26,940
in practice at the staff level,

1052
01:23:28,000 --> 01:23:32,420
this plan aims to improve the transportation safety.

1053
01:23:32,800 --> 01:23:35,720
Increase our competitiveness and satisfy

1054
01:23:35,720 --> 01:23:39,440
comprehensive plan requirement for the multimodal level of service.

1055
01:23:41,180 --> 01:23:47,480
That these transportation safety grant competitiveness elements play into the grant

1056
01:23:47,480 --> 01:23:51,420
game, the funding programs, and what they look for.

1057
01:23:51,620 --> 01:23:54,100
And that's part of what we'll see.

1058
01:23:54,580 --> 01:24:02,140
That's part of why the need score shows up in our tables and the need score projects.

1059
01:24:03,040 --> 01:24:09,620
but the need score to John and Mike's discussion, the need score is not necessarily the

1060
01:24:09,620 --> 01:24:14,280
Council prioritization and that's where for the discussion tonight we really want to

1061
01:24:14,280 --> 01:24:20,720
get insight on how to prioritize. The need score can be an element of a project but

1062
01:24:20,720 --> 01:24:24,540
it's not the defining element for our council priority.

1063
01:24:27,050 --> 01:24:28,650
The act of transportation plan is

1064
01:24:28,650 --> 01:24:31,090
broken into six chapters,

1065
01:24:33,190 --> 01:24:37,090
there are four appendices. One that gets into the weeds related

1066
01:24:37,090 --> 01:24:41,570
to the existing conditions, another that gets into the weeds of our community engagement,

1067
01:24:42,990 --> 01:24:49,390
another that gets into the weeds of the network development, and then the last appendix,

1068
01:24:49,730 --> 01:24:53,230
which is a compilation of all the project summary pages.

1069
01:24:55,990 --> 01:24:58,230
In the front end of the plan, there is

1070
01:24:58,230 --> 01:24:59,770
the vision statement and goals.

1071
01:25:00,370 --> 01:25:12,230
These are fairly consistent with existing comprehensive plan goals and likely to be in the complaint today, or the draft complaint that we're working through now.

1072
01:25:12,690 --> 01:25:22,330
We envision a spoken valley where people of all ages and abilities can walk, bike, and roll using safe connected routes to reach everyday destinations.

1073
01:25:22,330 --> 01:25:38,310
We work with our stakeholder group and engage the public through different touchpoints on the validity or accuracy of the statement and of these goals and they were supported and have maintained in the plan.

1074
01:25:41,100 --> 01:25:49,680
Working through all the chapters, we come to the project lists which are mapped here,

1075
01:25:51,880 --> 01:25:55,180
judging by the size of the council packet that I see here.

1076
01:25:55,180 --> 01:26:00,240
It doesn't look like the actual full report is in the council packet.

1077
01:26:00,960 --> 01:26:07,820
We have the full report available to look at tables, the project tables, of the top 20

1078
01:26:07,820 --> 01:26:13,880
sidewalk projects, and the top 20 bike or shared use path projects.

1079
01:26:14,000 --> 01:26:16,380
And those are top 20 based on the need score.

1080
01:26:16,980 --> 01:26:20,420
The map here shows projects based on the need score.

1081
01:26:20,420 --> 01:26:28,400
And the goal would be to discuss the process to date, the projects shown.

1082
01:26:29,000 --> 01:26:33,480
We also have what the next slide is, is some policy and funding information.

1083
01:26:37,090 --> 01:26:41,750
Generally, the blue boxes are the five E's engineering education,

1084
01:26:42,730 --> 01:26:47,110
encouragement enforcement and evaluation, and then the green boxes are the various funding

1085
01:26:47,110 --> 01:26:49,930
programs and tools that we have at our disposal.

1086
01:26:50,950 --> 01:26:58,330
I expect to flip through this screen back and forth a few times and maybe ask Johnny to pull

1087
01:26:58,330 --> 01:27:05,310
up the report if warranted, but with that, the presentation side is complete, so I guess

1088
01:27:05,310 --> 01:27:11,150
I'd just like to open the floor before I do actually maybe Jeremy or Kylie anything to

1089
01:27:11,150 --> 01:27:11,410
add.

1090
01:27:14,400 --> 01:27:21,120
I think you did a great job, Adam, it's this document to date identifies existing network, the metrics

1091
01:27:21,120 --> 01:27:28,080
that are out there to measure how the system rates with what needs improvements are needed based

1092
01:27:28,600 --> 01:27:32,380
on speed, volume, safety, crashes, all those elements.

1093
01:27:32,680 --> 01:27:35,380
And where we are today is to prioritize that for the city.

1094
01:27:36,060 --> 01:27:39,900
And so, which we know what the needs are, we know what they are just on a basic level.

1095
01:27:40,320 --> 01:27:45,080
Now we start adding in the wants and where should these projects go, how soon should they go?

1096
01:27:45,420 --> 01:27:49,200
We know where they might find well, where others may not find well, but what's our priority

1097
01:27:51,960 --> 01:28:04,100
And maybe you can explain how the funding part works, because, sure, there might be some confusion between, is this going to compete with an overlay project?

1098
01:28:05,160 --> 01:28:15,840
Sure, so generally so, for active transportation by pedestrian type projects, there's very few programs available.

1099
01:28:15,840 --> 01:28:22,140
The state DOT has a couple of them. One of them is the CFRF School program. Another is the

1100
01:28:22,620 --> 01:28:30,260
pedestrian bicycle program. The state's transportation improvement board also has some multi-modal

1101
01:28:30,260 --> 01:28:36,520
programs that make money available. It used to be called the sidewalk program. Now it's a more holistic

1102
01:28:36,520 --> 01:28:45,320
active transportation program. And then SRTC has federal funds that come through the region that are

1103
01:28:45,840 --> 01:28:48,540
committed to active transportation modes.

1104
01:28:49,200 --> 01:28:54,380
And so when these programs want to fund a project,

1105
01:28:55,710 --> 01:28:56,910
pause that.

1106
01:28:57,570 --> 01:29:01,190
All these funding agencies, the DOT, the TIV, SRTC,

1107
01:29:01,250 --> 01:29:03,870
they all have other parts of money that

1108
01:29:03,870 --> 01:29:06,630
fund that overlay project or a street reconstruction

1109
01:29:06,630 --> 01:29:11,730
or around about those few that I identified

1110
01:29:11,730 --> 01:29:15,150
are targeted for these active transportation facilities.

1111
01:29:16,010 --> 01:29:23,350
There's an opportunity for some of the programs to overlap, but generally what we have been

1112
01:29:23,350 --> 01:29:29,250
doing very successfully is identifying our city needs for our transportation system,

1113
01:29:29,370 --> 01:29:38,470
whether that street signals, pavement, sidewalk, and aligning our identified goals as a city,

1114
01:29:38,470 --> 01:29:44,550
for it's street network, best aligning those in a competitive manner with the funding agencies

1115
01:29:44,550 --> 01:29:52,390
to receive the grant funds, and doing that objectively puts us in a competitive space with

1116
01:29:52,390 --> 01:29:55,790
this act of transportation plan, because we did follow this process.

1117
01:29:56,490 --> 01:29:59,970
That was Sheparded by one of these the DOTC.

1118
01:30:00,000 --> 01:30:08,340
By one of these funding programs, and so by doing this process, we're effectively identifying

1119
01:30:09,800 --> 01:30:16,880
a top tier list of competitive projects. These projects wouldn't necessarily be competing with

1120
01:30:16,880 --> 01:30:23,160
our grind and overlay payment preservation funds. There's a different part of money. Does that

1121
01:30:23,160 --> 01:30:24,140
answer your question, John?

1122
01:30:26,460 --> 01:30:28,000
Correct me if I'm wrong.

1123
01:30:28,520 --> 01:30:34,280
But my understanding is while there are different pots of money, there's still city

1124
01:30:34,280 --> 01:30:36,600
matching funds required for these grants.

1125
01:30:37,300 --> 01:30:41,200
And so we have a finite amount of money for matching.

1126
01:30:42,140 --> 01:30:43,300
So we have to prioritize.

1127
01:30:43,760 --> 01:30:50,860
So in that sense, there is a competitive, you know, an impact, whether we funds some of the

1128
01:30:50,860 --> 01:30:58,080
road projects more or some of these active transportation more. We only have one pot of money to correct.

1129
01:30:58,780 --> 01:31:08,720
Yeah. And so, you know, the vast, I think, I want to say about COVID 2020, a handful of the

1130
01:31:09,960 --> 01:31:17,520
active transportation programs went from Fed non-fed match to a hundred percent. The DOT program

1131
01:31:17,520 --> 01:31:22,720
safe routes and pet bike. Those last few cycles have been 100% grant funded with no local

1132
01:31:22,720 --> 01:31:33,640
match. T.I.B. 20% non T.I.B. match. And then the S.R.I.T.C. Dollars do have a 3.5-13.5% minimum

1133
01:31:33,640 --> 01:31:40,020
match, which generally comes out of rate for those improvements. So yeah, we do internally

1134
01:31:40,020 --> 01:31:45,860
have that competing. Do those rate dollars go to those modalities or to the the paving

1135
01:31:45,860 --> 01:31:51,520
project, but which leads into the prioritization where we need to have your input.

1136
01:31:52,400 --> 01:31:53,220
What do you want to see?

1137
01:31:54,380 --> 01:31:55,280
Councilmember Merkel.

1138
01:31:56,320 --> 01:31:56,460
Yeah.

1139
01:31:56,520 --> 01:31:56,940
Thanks so much.

1140
01:31:57,340 --> 01:32:04,000
I have a great many questions, but the first one I would probably start with, in this plan

1141
01:32:04,000 --> 01:32:12,800
it identifies .15% of the city bikes and about 1.39% of the city walks.

1142
01:32:14,040 --> 01:32:26,640
You know, I know that since I was a kid, you know, and the founding of the city, there has been millions upon millions of dollars invested inside walking and bike paths and all the other stuff.

1143
01:32:27,440 --> 01:32:30,020
So what was that rate 10 years ago?

1144
01:32:31,580 --> 01:32:36,680
I'm not familiar with the rate that you described, but also I guess I don't know that rate 10 years ago either.

1145
01:32:39,660 --> 01:32:43,200
Okay, yeah, it's in the plan

1146
01:32:47,070 --> 01:32:49,650
page 37 or so is what I wrote down.

1147
01:32:55,740 --> 01:32:56,740
I think you're

1148
01:32:58,320 --> 01:33:03,560
Why don't we don't know the numbers from 10 years ago. I wasn't involved there and then there may be some of that hidden deep inside.

1149
01:33:03,560 --> 01:33:06,620
I think DKS to this study for that original one back in 2010

1150
01:33:08,080 --> 01:33:15,940
And right, it's the the number of trips that are completed. That's what those percentages were based on the number of ships completed that percentage was walking and biking.

1151
01:33:16,740 --> 01:33:25,500
So, we really probably haven't seen large increases that coincide with the multi-million dollar

1152
01:33:25,500 --> 01:33:29,180
investment in these types of facilities in the city.

1153
01:33:30,620 --> 01:33:35,800
So I guess to me, the first place I would like to start, one of the goals that's stated

1154
01:33:35,800 --> 01:33:42,220
in the plan, I think it's goal five, says that one of our goals is to reduce the number

1155
01:33:42,220 --> 01:33:50,040
of single-occupant vehicle trips and I guess what I'm saying is I think our city is kind

1156
01:33:50,040 --> 01:33:55,480
of telling us that that's not what they want. So I don't know why we're imposing that goal.

1157
01:33:55,720 --> 01:34:01,620
I mean we've given them ample opportunity to start doing that on their own. So I don't

1158
01:34:01,620 --> 01:34:07,520
understand why we would impose that as a goal to say, hey you people you need to start sharing

1159
01:34:07,520 --> 01:34:12,160
your vehicles or not have your own vehicle or, you know, that'll be better for you.

1160
01:34:13,060 --> 01:34:18,620
Well, I would say that's more Olympia's goal than our goal and we get mandates from that.

1161
01:34:19,340 --> 01:34:27,560
So, I would like to be really intentional about our decisions and according to this 96% of us

1162
01:34:27,560 --> 01:34:35,180
use our personal vehicles daily to get back and forth to work and local government, the streets

1163
01:34:35,180 --> 01:34:41,800
are, you know, the top priority, and the, which doesn't exclude, you know, sidewalks and

1164
01:34:41,800 --> 01:34:46,820
bikes and that kind of stuff too, but they do add a significant amount of costs to

1165
01:34:46,820 --> 01:34:55,380
the projects, according to these, these papers, but, you know, really my priority would be

1166
01:34:55,380 --> 01:34:59,740
and fill on the sidewalks and save routes to school.

1167
01:35:00,000 --> 01:35:12,800
And I think even just that is a huge accomplishment in a city like ours to work on those two areas and get, you know, those things completed.

1168
01:35:13,620 --> 01:35:18,400
Because we're talking about arterials, basically, that's where the grant monies from.

1169
01:35:18,800 --> 01:35:29,300
Well, except the safe routes to school wouldn't be. But, and so that's very important to use, you know, to focus on too. But I would say for me, those are the two real top priorities.

1170
01:35:29,300 --> 01:35:35,780
And I have some thoughts about trails and those kinds of things to what we can talk about that later.

1171
01:35:36,140 --> 01:35:36,680
Deputy Mayor.

1172
01:35:37,040 --> 01:35:38,720
Yeah, I'd like to agree with those comments.

1173
01:35:39,060 --> 01:35:44,660
Just for example, that I use personally that I've been involved with a community since I've been on the council.

1174
01:35:45,080 --> 01:35:53,240
And previous two is the floor floor of road corridor from the spread to mission and be and further north of possible.

1175
01:35:53,980 --> 01:35:58,680
That has not had any improvements at all getting back to what you mentioned comes from a miracle.

1176
01:35:59,940 --> 01:36:05,000
no sidewalks, hardly any shoulder, since I actually lived on the corner for a

1177
01:36:05,000 --> 01:36:09,300
valleyway when I was 12 years old. And so that's what I think of the

1178
01:36:09,300 --> 01:36:13,640
mayor of Turins. I'm sure that's not the only, well, well, it's not that many. But

1179
01:36:13,640 --> 01:36:16,820
that's what we, we, one of my goals, we have to look at that. That's, that's

1180
01:36:16,820 --> 01:36:21,400
used a lot. You get the mission area going around the roundabout, those apartments

1181
01:36:21,400 --> 01:36:25,760
have been going in just for the last years. It's phenomenal amount. Medical facilities

1182
01:36:25,760 --> 01:36:30,820
that we're going in there and it's just going to be more and more challenging. So I think that's what we need it.

1183
01:36:30,820 --> 01:36:36,700
My opinion focus of those corridors to get where we need to go and then with the sidewalks and anything I don't disagree with that.

1184
01:36:38,780 --> 01:36:40,760
And those heavily used corridors.

1185
01:36:43,120 --> 01:36:43,980
That's Mary Wick.

1186
01:36:46,080 --> 01:36:53,280
So in my mind there's a couple things just when I try and cover a little bit of ground, but there's nothing more frustrating to me to see

1187
01:36:53,280 --> 01:36:59,960
One guy person that develops let's say they put in I'm just going to use this one because I drive by all the time

1188
01:36:59,960 --> 01:37:03,940
They put in a new zips on trend and we require them to put a sidewalk in

1189
01:37:04,880 --> 01:37:11,380
So now you have a sidewalk across one business and it goes nowhere now the business is frustrated the communities

1190
01:37:11,380 --> 01:37:15,780
Frustrated eggs are like oh, what a waste the city were the state or

1191
01:37:15,780 --> 01:37:17,880
Whoever required this one

1192
01:37:17,880 --> 01:37:20,220
Business owner to put in a sidewalk and it doesn't go anywhere

1193
01:37:20,220 --> 01:37:27,000
So I totally get the need for sidewalk in fill to try and connect these because they're not doing

1194
01:37:27,000 --> 01:37:31,080
us any good, nor deteriorating, and then we need to maintain them and they're getting very

1195
01:37:31,080 --> 01:37:37,860
little usage because they don't go anywhere. So that, again, I feel like for me it's a higher

1196
01:37:37,860 --> 01:37:44,240
priority around the freight movements or the hills kind of where that safety, because as we see

1197
01:37:44,240 --> 01:37:48,960
and we're doing a lot more economic development and so you're seeing more freight going through

1198
01:37:49,700 --> 01:38:06,740
the areas, so I think that's even more of an important, especially around, and some of this has been incorporated in the scoring for some of these projects around the elementary schools or some of that area, but I think kind of our freight environments are kind of important and some of those arterials.

1199
01:38:07,460 --> 01:38:14,020
I think hills are another one, and I'm thinking of like McDonald between Trent and Wellesley.

1200
01:38:14,020 --> 01:38:21,160
I cringe, I live for full discrepancy, I live on McDonald's, North of Welsley, but if I'm driving on McDonald's,

1201
01:38:21,200 --> 01:38:27,580
south of Welsley towards Tranthers, two big hills, and every day I cross my fingers and pray that there's

1202
01:38:27,580 --> 01:38:31,800
nobody that's walking up the one side of the hill is I'm driving up the other side of the hill,

1203
01:38:32,200 --> 01:38:38,800
because you can't see, and the road is very narrow, and so I could see those as being parties for

1204
01:38:38,800 --> 01:38:46,320
sidewalk in film, shared use paths, I think, or a different story. In my mind, there's a

1205
01:38:46,320 --> 01:38:52,840
lot of economic value in those, as we talk about the bank trail around the river, or some

1206
01:38:52,840 --> 01:38:57,120
of those, the halfway trail. We went after them and kind of prioritized them a little bit

1207
01:38:57,120 --> 01:39:01,520
differently than a sidewalk in film. I feel like anything that's got some sort of economic

1208
01:39:01,520 --> 01:39:06,830
development or tourism or something that feeds into our destination connectivity, I think,

1209
01:39:07,490 --> 01:39:10,250
is big, and I think that should be a different,

1210
01:39:10,250 --> 01:39:12,630
also in a different platform, we're a higher priority,

1211
01:39:12,790 --> 01:39:16,730
to me than the rest, because that's kind of our core mission

1212
01:39:16,730 --> 01:39:18,790
is to try and push on economic development.

1213
01:39:21,130 --> 01:39:23,550
But yeah, I don't know if that makes sense or not.

1214
01:39:27,320 --> 01:39:28,180
But that's my memory, Kelly.

1215
01:39:31,220 --> 01:39:35,380
Well, again, admit that I don't have the background that most

1216
01:39:35,380 --> 01:39:39,620
of you do with regards to the history of the development of this type

1217
01:39:39,620 --> 01:39:45,720
plan within Spokane Valley. But probably the first time I ever tested I had a public comment

1218
01:39:45,720 --> 01:39:53,320
in front of the council. I indicated that I have experience with the general Portland

1219
01:39:53,320 --> 01:39:59,920
in other larger metropolitan areas that over time have made.

1220
01:40:00,820 --> 01:40:15,680
I have clearly demonstrated their desire to impede the ability for people to drive their cars, and, you know, I expressed a hope that Spokane Valley wouldn't take a similar path.

1221
01:40:16,480 --> 01:40:28,580
So I'm not suggesting that we are, but until I understand this a little more fully, I will say that, you know, my default position is that anything that tends to make it harder for the traveling public to get around

1222
01:40:28,580 --> 01:40:34,740
is going to be looked at quite skeptically by me, I suppose, to the degree that I have

1223
01:40:34,740 --> 01:40:35,320
any influence.

1224
01:40:36,860 --> 01:40:42,340
So I would like to share that because I think that keeping in mind that, you know, like

1225
01:40:42,340 --> 01:40:48,440
you said, 96% of people, you know, take a trip, and I want to continue to make it easy to

1226
01:40:48,440 --> 01:40:51,080
navigate the city of Spokane.

1227
01:40:51,220 --> 01:40:56,800
Now having said that, I certainly respect those people who bike and walk and we should continue

1228
01:40:56,800 --> 01:41:02,860
to develop that and I would agree that sidewalks will probably be the number one thing that

1229
01:41:02,860 --> 01:41:08,920
would get us the best return or best value because it's hard to walk down a sidewalk and then

1230
01:41:08,920 --> 01:41:15,000
suddenly come to an impossible area. So that's what I'd walk to nowhere. Yeah it seems kind of like

1231
01:41:15,000 --> 01:41:21,440
a no-brainer and as far as I don't see a whole lot of bikers when I'm out and about so I don't know

1232
01:41:21,440 --> 01:41:27,900
who want to agree the public has a way higher to have additional bike access, especially

1233
01:41:27,900 --> 01:41:34,980
backpads along our terials. I can see that those being useful, but again, so long as they're

1234
01:41:34,980 --> 01:41:41,900
not too much of a negative impact on those people who pay for those roads, which would

1235
01:41:41,900 --> 01:41:45,860
be those people who'd buy gas, that's my remarkable.

1236
01:41:46,620 --> 01:41:49,960
Yeah, I appreciate some of those comments from Council Member Kelly.

1237
01:41:50,520 --> 01:41:57,980
I would note that in the survey we had approximately 9% of respondents were bicyclists

1238
01:41:57,980 --> 01:42:04,820
which completely dwarfs the 0.015 or 0.15% of the city that actually rides bikes.

1239
01:42:05,160 --> 01:42:08,900
So they had a little bit of an extra thumb on the scale I think.

1240
01:42:09,120 --> 01:42:13,620
I would seriously depriorize almost everything in this plan.

1241
01:42:13,620 --> 01:42:19,820
I think really we should be looking at maybe our elementary schools, a couple miles around

1242
01:42:19,820 --> 01:42:24,000
those elementary schools, you know, potentially the middle schools.

1243
01:42:24,540 --> 01:42:28,280
But beyond that, I mean, I'm looking at these numbers and these numbers are just, so we're

1244
01:42:28,280 --> 01:42:32,320
talking about $100 million of sidewalks in this plan.

1245
01:42:33,040 --> 01:42:39,340
And even if we got that all granted, this plan also mentions that the maintenance cost on

1246
01:42:39,340 --> 01:42:47,500
That $100 million is $5 to 10% per year, so that's a $5 to 10 million cost that's coming

1247
01:42:47,500 --> 01:42:53,220
onto the city for a bunch of sidewalks that our numbers say, almost nobody uses.

1248
01:42:54,100 --> 01:42:57,620
And again, it's not just, you know, I know that they're going to be that argument that

1249
01:42:57,620 --> 01:43:02,300
people don't use them because they're not there, but we have seen such an increase in the

1250
01:43:02,300 --> 01:43:05,700
city of this infill, but we're not seeing an increase in numbers.

1251
01:43:05,700 --> 01:43:10,580
So I would really, I think we should remove a lot from this plan and really kind of

1252
01:43:10,580 --> 01:43:15,760
pare it down to just looking at the schools that, you know, where we would have a lot of

1253
01:43:15,760 --> 01:43:20,380
impact and, you know, thinking about where we are with inflation and all this other stuff

1254
01:43:20,380 --> 01:43:22,760
because all this money just comes from inflation.

1255
01:43:23,900 --> 01:43:24,780
That's a member of a week.

1256
01:43:25,980 --> 01:43:31,140
So, I think back to the number of respondents, where the number of people that say they're

1257
01:43:31,140 --> 01:43:37,140
bicycle and I think back in my own history on one hand and I go, I had a job in the industrial

1258
01:43:37,140 --> 01:43:40,740
park and I still do occasionally work out there and I don't live that far from the industrial

1259
01:43:40,740 --> 01:43:41,260
park.

1260
01:43:41,700 --> 01:43:46,640
When I first got my job in the industrial park, I might live a mile, maybe two miles away from

1261
01:43:46,640 --> 01:43:47,860
the industrial park.

1262
01:43:48,120 --> 01:43:52,480
I go, everybody joked with me saying, well, dang, you should just walk to work or bike,

1263
01:43:52,480 --> 01:43:58,940
ride your bike to work and I probably should have to be a better person but I didn't because

1264
01:43:58,940 --> 01:44:05,880
didn't feel safe, right? I mean there's no safe way to really cross Trent to get to the industrial

1265
01:44:05,880 --> 01:44:11,720
part from our neighborhood and there. So I give both sides a little bit because it's like on one

1266
01:44:11,720 --> 01:44:18,520
hand not many people are biking. I probably would have been a more apt to bike to work if I

1267
01:44:18,520 --> 01:44:27,080
felt safe enough to have a pass to do it. So I see little bit of both sides on that. Then alternatively

1268
01:44:27,080 --> 01:44:29,900
And I think about, okay, who are the major bike people

1269
01:44:29,900 --> 01:44:32,800
that I see on my road and my road?

1270
01:44:33,020 --> 01:44:35,120
And I think of it as well as my kids.

1271
01:44:35,500 --> 01:44:36,080
It's the kids.

1272
01:44:36,200 --> 01:44:37,780
They're not gonna fill out a survey response

1273
01:44:37,780 --> 01:44:40,140
to say that they write their bicycles.

1274
01:44:40,460 --> 01:44:42,440
I mean, there's six, eight, 10.

1275
01:44:42,820 --> 01:44:44,360
They're not filling in an emergency survey,

1276
01:44:44,480 --> 01:44:46,040
but they're the ones that are on the roads,

1277
01:44:46,260 --> 01:44:46,900
right in the bikes.

1278
01:44:47,360 --> 01:44:49,380
And where do I want them to write their bikes on?

1279
01:44:49,500 --> 01:44:50,640
I don't want them to write.

1280
01:44:50,640 --> 01:44:53,140
I tell my kids they can't go south of Walsley,

1281
01:44:53,240 --> 01:44:55,820
or even go on Walsley around my neighborhood

1282
01:44:55,820 --> 01:44:59,500
because it's not safe in my mind, and so.

1283
01:45:00,000 --> 01:45:29,180
Just thinking through where who is the people in my opinion of who I want to watch out for, which is skits, and how do we make it safe enough that they would write their bikes, because if you've had a kid, you know, they're going to want to write their bike, where they're going to write their bike, they're going to leave the house, and they're going to go over their friends are, wherever the park is, or the school, or whatever, so it's kind of designing these things to kind of come up with, how do we keep kids safe?

1284
01:45:29,180 --> 01:45:32,900
because they're not just come school, they're going to their friends' house, they're going,

1285
01:45:33,040 --> 01:45:36,620
I swear to God, my kids will go wherever, I let them go.

1286
01:45:37,900 --> 01:45:40,700
And so, and probably a lot of times, where I wouldn't let them go.

1287
01:45:41,560 --> 01:45:46,900
Well, I think, unfortunately, these plan is more for our chair, right?

1288
01:45:47,060 --> 01:45:52,240
I mean, you're talking about residential areas where your kids would get on, and my kids

1289
01:45:52,240 --> 01:45:58,640
going up to, and this is not going to address that, right? Am I right? We're not.

1290
01:46:00,590 --> 01:46:06,370
This plan is for the general active transportation in the city. It's not to prioritize active

1291
01:46:06,370 --> 01:46:11,750
overcars. It's not to do any of that. It's not only focused on our materials. The metrics

1292
01:46:11,750 --> 01:46:16,890
that we have, so that the state has adopted the level of traffic stress as its metric for

1293
01:46:16,890 --> 01:46:18,390
or multimodal level of service.

1294
01:46:19,050 --> 01:46:21,170
And so the level of traffic stress measures

1295
01:46:21,690 --> 01:46:25,210
vehicular volume speeds with the roadway,

1296
01:46:25,270 --> 01:46:27,710
whether there's facility and tells us

1297
01:46:27,710 --> 01:46:30,250
what their expected level of stress is.

1298
01:46:30,570 --> 01:46:32,770
For local streets, the volumes are low.

1299
01:46:32,890 --> 01:46:35,430
The speeds are low, and so the stress is low.

1300
01:46:35,690 --> 01:46:38,370
And so those would just qualify under the metric

1301
01:46:38,970 --> 01:46:42,050
of that piece of the equation is,

1302
01:46:42,050 --> 01:46:43,990
is that where the local streets would fall

1303
01:46:43,990 --> 01:46:45,390
for the majority of them.

1304
01:46:45,390 --> 01:46:50,310
the arterioles are the focus of this, they appear to be the focus of this plan because those

1305
01:46:50,310 --> 01:46:56,950
were the higher speeds and higher volumes occur. And so that focus leads to how can, how can

1306
01:46:56,950 --> 01:47:03,610
the city provide both the required multimodal level of service but also where those priorities

1307
01:47:03,610 --> 01:47:10,090
come in not to take people out of cars to provide an option so that they don't have to own a vehicle

1308
01:47:10,090 --> 01:47:11,450
to go somewhere.

1309
01:47:12,130 --> 01:47:16,270
Yeah, but the metrics preclude or basically enliven it,

1310
01:47:16,310 --> 01:47:18,010
because the grants are based on the metrics.

1311
01:47:20,150 --> 01:47:21,590
I saw a hedge ache, no.

1312
01:47:24,340 --> 01:47:25,360
Maybe I misunderstood.

1313
01:47:25,620 --> 01:47:28,560
Were you saying that the metrics,

1314
01:47:28,980 --> 01:47:31,560
so the metrics are a lot of data combined.

1315
01:47:32,040 --> 01:47:35,280
And so we have aligned that with funding,

1316
01:47:35,480 --> 01:47:38,400
but we haven't precluded anything based on the funding.

1317
01:47:39,140 --> 01:47:41,740
So we've looked at all the data sets first,

1318
01:47:41,740 --> 01:47:47,060
made the assessment and then we're aligning funding later, so not in reverse. We haven't taken anything

1319
01:47:47,060 --> 01:47:52,040
out or changed anything based on funding eligibility requirements.

1320
01:47:53,700 --> 01:48:00,840
Okay, but the list is basically, and your maps is basically our, and that's because the

1321
01:48:00,840 --> 01:48:08,280
level of traffic stress is a three or four, which is not satisfactory. And so the granting agencies

1322
01:48:08,280 --> 01:48:15,300
would see that in a project, improving that. So another element to this that we haven't discussed

1323
01:48:15,300 --> 01:48:26,000
in our past meetings when we prioritized in this planning effort, we automatically at the staff

1324
01:48:26,000 --> 01:48:34,260
side, we said if it's an existing LTS-1 or 2, it doesn't need an improvement. So why would we

1325
01:48:34,260 --> 01:48:41,960
prioritize a sidewalk on an LTS-2 street to get sidewalk in film when there's streets out there

1326
01:48:41,960 --> 01:48:45,840
with more stressful conditions so we took those out.

1327
01:48:46,260 --> 01:48:52,480
That doesn't mean that we have to and I bring that up because the community has said this

1328
01:48:52,480 --> 01:48:58,380
and it's the topic here right now where serving schools and parks, I know parks haven't

1329
01:48:58,380 --> 01:49:03,420
been discussed tonight but when schools are discussed in the kids access to schools often

1330
01:49:03,420 --> 01:49:06,880
we had heard that similar access to parks is equally important.

1331
01:49:07,620 --> 01:49:10,160
We could re-evaluate this and say,

1332
01:49:10,460 --> 01:49:14,120
within a certain buffer distance of a school or park,

1333
01:49:14,960 --> 01:49:17,180
a level of stress 2 is not acceptable.

1334
01:49:17,600 --> 01:49:18,760
We wanted to be a 1.

1335
01:49:19,360 --> 01:49:22,440
And what we would see, we would see projects pop up

1336
01:49:22,440 --> 01:49:26,760
because now they're going from a 2, which is OK.

1337
01:49:26,920 --> 01:49:29,060
Now they're at a 2 today, but that's not OK,

1338
01:49:29,100 --> 01:49:30,460
because we wanted them to be a 1.

1339
01:49:30,460 --> 01:49:33,300
So our project list could be morphed just a little.

1340
01:49:33,880 --> 01:49:37,480
And with those projects, you start to see those come up.

1341
01:49:37,500 --> 01:49:40,260
Or it could be it's an entirely separate list

1342
01:49:40,260 --> 01:49:43,340
that just shows, hey, here's a list that dedicates

1343
01:49:43,340 --> 01:49:46,440
a commitment to safe routes to school or parks.

1344
01:49:47,320 --> 01:49:49,860
Local access streets would then be more visible

1345
01:49:49,860 --> 01:49:53,420
because we made that decision to take it from a requirement

1346
01:49:53,420 --> 01:49:55,320
to a requirement one.

1347
01:49:55,940 --> 01:49:58,100
Well, they'd be more visible, but with the grant,

1348
01:49:58,100 --> 01:49:59,960
Be more likely to.

1349
01:50:00,110 --> 01:50:09,790
To overlook that because. Quite frankly, no, because kids aren't getting hit at any of them. And that's that's a huge metric when it comes to the grant programs.

1350
01:50:10,990 --> 01:50:22,510
And so, and that happens on busier streets. We are very fortunate when we look at crash data that there are very, very few child involved crashes related to schools or parks.

1351
01:50:23,490 --> 01:50:25,710
We are very fortunate with that regard.

1352
01:50:32,580 --> 01:50:39,840
I guess from my perspective, you know, again, frankly, I don't care about what the grants will

1353
01:50:39,840 --> 01:50:40,020
fund.

1354
01:50:40,220 --> 01:50:42,580
I care about what our community priorities are.

1355
01:50:43,540 --> 01:50:48,920
And I do want school, I mean, you know, coming from what Council Member Wixead, what I care

1356
01:50:48,920 --> 01:50:53,740
about is kids abilities to buy, you can to walk and to do those things.

1357
01:50:53,740 --> 01:50:56,700
I'm not seeing any justification in these numbers.

1358
01:50:56,820 --> 01:51:01,040
They're represent that we should be further improving

1359
01:51:01,040 --> 01:51:03,620
arterials where the kids just aren't.

1360
01:51:03,760 --> 01:51:05,340
I mean, maybe there's a few people commuting.

1361
01:51:05,540 --> 01:51:08,500
There's maybe a few people biking to work or whatever.

1362
01:51:09,020 --> 01:51:10,600
But the numbers just don't speak to it.

1363
01:51:10,600 --> 01:51:12,520
And we've seen such an increase there.

1364
01:51:13,560 --> 01:51:18,980
I just encourage my fellow council members to think about

1365
01:51:18,980 --> 01:51:23,360
how bad inflation has gotten and how much we keep taking

1366
01:51:23,360 --> 01:51:27,220
on these new things, and we're building new sidewalks and building this and building that.

1367
01:51:27,500 --> 01:51:31,440
We have to take on the maintenance costs for those things, and I just don't see how

1368
01:51:31,440 --> 01:51:36,280
this is going to work out in favor of the public, especially when the numbers don't show that

1369
01:51:36,280 --> 01:51:37,680
the public is going that direction.

1370
01:51:40,050 --> 01:51:45,550
I think it might be helpful to talk about council member Merkel brings up the numbers.

1371
01:51:46,190 --> 01:51:53,210
Maybe talk about how did you generate that, where did it come from, how often do we check for

1372
01:51:53,210 --> 01:51:58,270
usage of sidewalk and shared use path, that type of thing.

1373
01:51:58,510 --> 01:52:03,290
I think it would be helpful because I'm not sure, I give where

1374
01:52:03,290 --> 01:52:06,190
Council member Merkel's coming from, but I don't know.

1375
01:52:06,690 --> 01:52:10,610
It seems like a generalization to me, so maybe more specific

1376
01:52:10,610 --> 01:52:15,730
discussion on the actual measurement, how did it come to be.

1377
01:52:16,170 --> 01:52:19,550
We already referred to the fact that we don't have any historical

1378
01:52:19,550 --> 01:52:22,230
information so to say that nobody's using it.

1379
01:52:22,230 --> 01:52:26,010
I don't think is that accurate because we have nothing to compare it to.

1380
01:52:26,130 --> 01:52:28,330
Maybe right, maybe not be right, I don't know.

1381
01:52:28,650 --> 01:52:32,550
So maybe some more information on how did you generate these numbers?

1382
01:52:33,410 --> 01:52:38,610
So those are the numbers that we're in there with the 1% and 3% to roughly what those were.

1383
01:52:38,970 --> 01:52:42,030
Those I believe are from SRTC's household travel survey.

1384
01:52:43,330 --> 01:52:46,510
Those are the numbers of the percentage of people that are commuting.

1385
01:52:46,650 --> 01:52:49,050
So those are commute trips that are using those different modes.

1386
01:52:49,050 --> 01:52:57,590
Those aren't a summary or an estimate of the overall city people taking a trip from their home to the grocery store or any like those are the commute trips

1387
01:52:57,590 --> 01:53:05,390
These guy those are the numbers that we're referring to but we haven't put a counter on any of our trails

1388
01:53:05,390 --> 01:53:12,850
I mean, I know there was an effort on the Centennial Trail years ago that there was a counter over by Barker road

1389
01:53:15,170 --> 01:53:18,290
None of those numbers are incorporated into this plan

1390
01:53:26,200 --> 01:53:34,840
So, yeah, you're right. We have some data that we received from the city that is input into the plan.

1391
01:53:35,220 --> 01:53:40,700
That includes crash data, that includes, you know, other layers.

1392
01:53:42,160 --> 01:53:49,320
For example, like speed limits, those types of data sets are in the plan, built into the plan.

1393
01:53:49,320 --> 01:53:52,420
We do supplement with big data sources as well.

1394
01:53:52,780 --> 01:53:57,100
So for bike and pedestrian volume projections,

1395
01:53:57,520 --> 01:53:59,980
we use what's called replica data.

1396
01:54:00,060 --> 01:54:04,340
It's very well known source of data used in plans all over the US.

1397
01:54:05,040 --> 01:54:09,340
So that gives you sort of like an estimated volume of how

1398
01:54:09,340 --> 01:54:13,000
that facility is being used based on like cell phone GPS,

1399
01:54:13,560 --> 01:54:16,820
like that that pings and it's big data sets source.

1400
01:54:16,820 --> 01:54:25,120
So that's used a lot of times in place if it's generally, it's tough to see, but it's generally

1401
01:54:25,120 --> 01:54:26,060
a heat map.

1402
01:54:26,400 --> 01:54:33,800
That's going to follow our material network because lots of our users on foot by vehicle.

1403
01:54:33,920 --> 01:54:37,920
Yeah, and you'll see the origins and destinations pop up, right?

1404
01:54:38,620 --> 01:54:42,360
So like, you know, commercial centers, you'll start to see those sort of pop up in the heat

1405
01:54:42,360 --> 01:54:48,740
as places that people are traveling to on foot and on bike as well.

1406
01:54:49,000 --> 01:54:54,620
But I think it may be helpful for the council and this is not something we would

1407
01:54:54,620 --> 01:54:58,580
solve today, but it's something that maybe staff needs to get together

1408
01:54:58,580 --> 01:54:59,980
or talk about how to...

1409
01:55:00,000 --> 01:55:07,440
We'd better provide local data for this usage. It seems to be a big issue with council. I want

1410
01:55:07,440 --> 01:55:13,840
to make sure that it's accurate as best as we can get, because I don't want the council to

1411
01:55:16,040 --> 01:55:22,820
short-change members of the community that are looking for these types of improvements just

1412
01:55:22,820 --> 01:55:27,080
because we weren't able to give the council the correct data.

1413
01:55:27,920 --> 01:55:31,840
Yeah, and if I may just follow up to that point,

1414
01:55:33,240 --> 01:55:36,480
we do have a process that we look at,

1415
01:55:36,500 --> 01:55:40,480
and without going down a deep rabbit hole on the technical side.

1416
01:55:41,100 --> 01:55:44,540
We do, you know, for facilities that don't exist right now,

1417
01:55:44,720 --> 01:55:47,060
we can't, you know, there's no data that you could provide

1418
01:55:47,060 --> 01:55:49,060
to supplement this plan.

1419
01:55:49,060 --> 01:55:55,100
one of the recommendations out of the plan, you know, could be setting up permanent bike

1420
01:55:55,100 --> 01:56:02,560
pet counters, right? Like a program so that you can understand before and after usage and volumes.

1421
01:56:03,900 --> 01:56:15,100
But in place of that, there's a NCHRP, a process that we follow to project out how a new facility

1422
01:56:15,100 --> 01:56:21,220
will be utilized and so that is in the workbook and it's basically, you know, depending

1423
01:56:21,220 --> 01:56:28,180
on the facility type if it's a shared use path or a bike lane or a sidewalk there is a number

1424
01:56:28,180 --> 01:56:35,820
of people and for this particular planning effort, it's separated, you know, 500 and under

1425
01:56:36,460 --> 01:56:44,480
500 to 1,000, 1,500 or greater than 1,500. So that's built into this model of the needs score

1426
01:56:44,480 --> 01:56:49,400
And so essentially what that needs score is going to tell you is that if you put a facility

1427
01:56:49,400 --> 01:56:54,140
here, it is going to impact the most people for the least amount of money.

1428
01:56:54,560 --> 01:56:56,260
And that's what the need score is.

1429
01:56:57,480 --> 01:56:59,820
So mixed up prioritization and need score.

1430
01:56:59,940 --> 01:57:06,360
The need score is really just telling you where that facility is and the money is best spent

1431
01:57:06,360 --> 01:57:11,040
in the city based on safety data, based on all of the data combined.

1432
01:57:11,040 --> 01:57:13,860
So I hope that clears up that.

1433
01:57:14,420 --> 01:57:16,600
Also, I want to share the recommendations

1434
01:57:16,600 --> 01:57:19,680
of projects came out into three bins.

1435
01:57:19,900 --> 01:57:24,400
There's corridor studies because Sylvan, Spreg, Pines,

1436
01:57:25,720 --> 01:57:28,740
you can see the heat maps from some of the tech memos.

1437
01:57:29,600 --> 01:57:32,940
They are massive undertakings.

1438
01:57:33,540 --> 01:57:35,080
They need a little bit more attention

1439
01:57:35,080 --> 01:57:37,340
than we could give them here in this planning effort.

1440
01:57:38,420 --> 01:57:40,600
Having grown up in the valley.

1441
01:57:40,600 --> 01:57:47,080
I know that to be true and I totally as well, you know, as a pedestrian on a sidewalk right next to

1442
01:57:47,080 --> 01:57:47,360
pines.

1443
01:57:47,540 --> 01:57:48,160
It's not comfortable.

1444
01:57:49,540 --> 01:57:51,660
So, we just needed a little bit more of a dedicated.

1445
01:57:52,180 --> 01:57:55,760
So that's where you'll see in the recommendation to court or studies in one bucket.

1446
01:57:56,060 --> 01:57:59,240
You'll see another bike and share these path improvements.

1447
01:58:00,700 --> 01:58:06,760
We left a little bit of variability for funding for your guys' priorities, like, do we

1448
01:58:06,760 --> 01:58:11,480
on a bike lane on the street or do we want a separated path?

1449
01:58:11,720 --> 01:58:19,620
You know, we tried to connect as many routes to destinations using existing pathways such

1450
01:58:19,620 --> 01:58:24,740
as the Centennial Trail, such as the Apple Way Trail, because they exist now and if we can

1451
01:58:24,740 --> 01:58:30,380
get people to those separated paths, that is, you know, ultimately the lowest stress and so

1452
01:58:30,380 --> 01:58:32,160
people are more likely to use it.

1453
01:58:32,160 --> 01:58:43,500
And then third, we have a list of pedestrian like sidewalk gap projects, which has been mentioned, and there's over 1,300 different gaps in the valley, right?

1454
01:58:44,460 --> 01:58:49,600
So, you know, and I think Adam was mentioning, you could turn up the dial and just focus on the ones.

1455
01:58:49,920 --> 01:58:58,360
We prioritize based on, not prioritize the needs. We sorted them in a spreadsheet based on proximity to school parks and transit.

1456
01:58:58,360 --> 01:59:07,780
So you can re-sort those sidewalk gap projects and just focus on ones that are closer to schools or closer to parks.

1457
01:59:08,400 --> 01:59:09,820
But there are quite a few.

1458
01:59:10,380 --> 01:59:12,540
And those are the smallest segments we could get them in.

1459
01:59:13,780 --> 01:59:18,440
So there might be like a half block or a corner that doesn't exist.

1460
01:59:18,460 --> 01:59:19,920
That's not reflected in the plan.

1461
01:59:20,720 --> 01:59:22,360
But I hope that.

1462
01:59:22,440 --> 01:59:23,880
Yeah, I don't remember with.

1463
01:59:25,140 --> 01:59:25,720
Oh, I'm sorry.

1464
01:59:25,720 --> 01:59:32,040
I think back to the John's original question as far as the data that we had as far as the

1465
01:59:32,040 --> 01:59:35,880
commute trips and then the actual volumes out there, that's not, it's not something we

1466
01:59:35,880 --> 01:59:41,280
have as a hard count, the metric, the mandate for what we use for our old comprehensive

1467
01:59:41,280 --> 01:59:46,240
plan and level of service requirements as we move forward to meet those criteria for funding

1468
01:59:46,240 --> 01:59:49,420
and concurrency is all based on the vehicle.

1469
01:59:49,780 --> 01:59:55,200
So we count cars, everywhere we count cars in intersection, we count peds in bikes, anywhere

1470
01:59:55,200 --> 01:59:57,940
So we calcars on those tubes that are on the street.

1471
01:59:58,840 --> 01:59:59,960
We kind of catch bike.

1472
02:00:00,000 --> 02:00:06,180
Sometimes, if they're traveling in the lane, but we don't catch any pedestrians and very, very regularly at bikes, so we just don't have that data.

1473
02:00:06,660 --> 02:00:15,020
There hasn't been a requirement to meet our concurrency and collect bikes and peds throughout the city, so we just don't have that information.

1474
02:00:16,180 --> 02:00:26,500
It also be curious, see we have that, see we work in a choir that what's a number that's

1475
02:00:26,500 --> 02:00:30,680
sufficient to make a decision based on, like what numbers do we need a hundred pedestrians

1476
02:00:30,680 --> 02:00:36,520
walking in this block to make it okay for a sidewalk, do we need a thousand, ten, like

1477
02:00:36,520 --> 02:00:44,600
it's just, it's so interesting because you can pick a street anywhere through the city and

1478
02:00:44,600 --> 02:00:50,380
find a different scenario, but to Jeremy's point, the requirement for a facility isn't based

1479
02:00:50,380 --> 02:00:55,440
on the number of APA. It's based on the draft of the vehicle and the makeup of how

1480
02:00:55,440 --> 02:00:58,700
the vehicle interacts with a potential non-vehicle.

1481
02:01:00,240 --> 02:01:07,780
So I'm trying to process how those numbers provide value and to your point of helping validate

1482
02:01:07,780 --> 02:01:14,340
future decisions to not ignore input from community members, but I guess how many numbers

1483
02:01:14,340 --> 02:01:16,980
would we need, and that's kind of what I'm struggling with.

1484
02:01:17,520 --> 02:01:21,720
Well, that was my own concern, as listening to the discussion, which I think is great,

1485
02:01:21,780 --> 02:01:27,720
and the input's very important to help shape this plan moving forward, but I don't want

1486
02:01:27,720 --> 02:01:32,540
to leave a council in the community where the feeling like nobody uses these, it's not worth

1487
02:01:32,540 --> 02:01:34,400
the money, and that's what I was hearing.

1488
02:01:35,040 --> 02:01:40,480
I don't think we have the data to show one way or the other, so you can make a general

1489
02:01:40,480 --> 02:01:47,720
organization, it doesn't mean it's true. I think it's the type of discussion, what type

1490
02:01:47,720 --> 02:01:53,460
of infrastructure do you want to provide for the community. And I think also don't lose

1491
02:01:53,460 --> 02:02:01,460
track of the public input that has been received on this and what people want to see and use.

1492
02:02:02,400 --> 02:02:07,920
So I think there's still quite a bit of work. I think that needs to be done on this plan

1493
02:02:07,920 --> 02:02:12,600
before it would come forward for any type of further action,

1494
02:02:13,320 --> 02:02:16,680
but we do appreciate the input

1495
02:02:17,440 --> 02:02:20,420
and the discussion on this particular item

1496
02:02:21,160 --> 02:02:22,880
because I think it's very helpful.

1497
02:02:23,740 --> 02:02:24,360
We're hailing.

1498
02:02:24,780 --> 02:02:26,420
Oh wait, no, I had called on you earlier.

1499
02:02:27,400 --> 02:02:30,800
So, you know, I was just gonna kind of go the next step

1500
02:02:30,800 --> 02:02:32,920
and I blame the state for this,

1501
02:02:32,980 --> 02:02:35,360
but just thinking of where developments go in

1502
02:02:35,360 --> 02:02:38,380
and how dense they're forcing our hand to be.

1503
02:02:39,020 --> 02:02:41,080
And I look at the houses, they're going to go in,

1504
02:02:41,160 --> 02:02:43,720
there are five or six homes where there was one.

1505
02:02:44,300 --> 02:02:47,860
There is no guard, there is no place for kids to play.

1506
02:02:48,020 --> 02:02:51,460
It's going to force people onto the streets and infrastructure.

1507
02:02:52,360 --> 02:02:55,120
So as we start to think about what we want our community to do

1508
02:02:55,120 --> 02:03:00,240
or the needs that are coming, a household that has a five-foot buffer

1509
02:03:00,240 --> 02:03:03,760
for a backyard is going to need more than a house

1510
02:03:03,760 --> 02:03:07,140
it has a half an acre free yard in my opinion.

1511
02:03:07,600 --> 02:03:09,780
And no parking requirements, too, right?

1512
02:03:09,980 --> 02:03:11,500
So, and then what do you do?

1513
02:03:11,760 --> 02:03:14,500
So, I feel like not only does it who's here now,

1514
02:03:15,280 --> 02:03:18,000
but let's look up the horizon here a little bit and go,

1515
02:03:18,040 --> 02:03:20,600
oh my God, this is what's coming down our pike,

1516
02:03:20,780 --> 02:03:22,380
because we talk about comprehensive plan

1517
02:03:22,380 --> 02:03:24,080
and what the state's doing to us.

1518
02:03:25,500 --> 02:03:28,100
The needs are gonna be changing, too.

1519
02:03:28,760 --> 02:03:29,320
That's number, Haley.

1520
02:03:29,780 --> 02:03:30,440
Thank you.

1521
02:03:31,500 --> 02:03:33,520
Yeah, and anecdotally, which I realized

1522
02:03:33,520 --> 02:03:37,320
This is not a lot of data, but everybody in my neighborhood

1523
02:03:37,320 --> 02:03:38,900
red spikes, everybody.

1524
02:03:39,440 --> 02:03:42,020
They don't go to work on their bike, but they

1525
02:03:42,020 --> 02:03:43,800
recreate on their bikes.

1526
02:03:44,020 --> 02:03:45,680
They go to the school, they go to parks.

1527
02:03:46,200 --> 02:03:48,240
They leave in the morning and don't come back to

1528
02:03:48,240 --> 02:03:48,580
afternoon.

1529
02:03:48,760 --> 02:03:49,840
I have no idea where they go.

1530
02:03:50,340 --> 02:03:53,680
But entire families are biking and they're going downpines

1531
02:03:53,680 --> 02:03:56,240
and they're going downboutish because those are two

1532
02:03:56,240 --> 02:03:58,620
streets that are right by me and they're kind of fun streets

1533
02:03:58,620 --> 02:04:00,320
to write a bike down if you're a kid.

1534
02:04:00,660 --> 02:04:01,840
But they're also kind of dangerous.

1535
02:04:01,840 --> 02:04:09,460
So, I don't, I don't believe this, that commuting is the only way you use a bike, right?

1536
02:04:09,580 --> 02:04:18,080
You use bikes for lots of things, most people use bikes for fun and for exercise, not necessarily to go downtown to work.

1537
02:04:18,440 --> 02:04:27,220
It just isn't something that's so, I just wanted to make my statement known that I don't necessarily agree with everything you're hearing tonight about numbers and things.

1538
02:04:27,220 --> 02:04:30,120
I understand why you make the priorities you do.

1539
02:04:30,700 --> 02:04:33,280
I don't think that the numbers are necessarily accurate.

1540
02:04:33,540 --> 02:04:36,680
Maybe they're a best guess, but I don't know.

1541
02:04:36,840 --> 02:04:42,750
I just wanted to be clear that I'm not in this like that.

1542
02:04:42,750 --> 02:04:44,350
Councilwoman Rieger, did you have your hand in?

1543
02:04:44,350 --> 02:04:44,790
Thank you.

1544
02:04:45,130 --> 02:04:45,210
Yes.

1545
02:04:45,990 --> 02:04:48,530
So when Council Member Witt was talking about these neighborhoods,

1546
02:04:49,430 --> 02:04:53,490
you know, because of the construction at 30 second in pines,

1547
02:04:53,730 --> 02:04:56,190
I have gotten to know my neighborhoods very well lately.

1548
02:04:56,970 --> 02:04:59,950
Because I have nowhere to go at this point to get out.

1549
02:05:00,050 --> 02:05:17,210
But you know, the neighborhood behind the 30 second in Pine's highway cemetery is exactly that. It is crammed in and that neighborhood, I believe it's an HOA, I think it's going to have to be.

1550
02:05:17,210 --> 02:05:22,030
But they do have sidewalks, they do have community use spaces.

1551
02:05:22,370 --> 02:05:26,590
And so I'm wondering if those are the kind of neighborhoods that are going to go in.

1552
02:05:26,690 --> 02:05:35,150
Can we mandate that they put in their own sidewalks that they do have a certain amount of green space or community yard space, I guess.

1553
02:05:35,610 --> 02:05:36,670
Maybe we already do.

1554
02:05:37,350 --> 02:05:47,030
But I don't know how these people are going to survive with that five foot patch of grass and a postage stamp of a

1555
02:05:47,030 --> 02:05:53,830
patio and still be able to have family times. So I do see that the need is going to grow that

1556
02:05:53,830 --> 02:06:01,270
people go beyond their homes for recreating in that kind of a space. But also I think that as a

1557
02:06:01,270 --> 02:06:05,790
neighborhood group you should put in some of that infrastructure as well.

1558
02:06:09,320 --> 02:06:11,540
Yeah, I guess I'm a little bit

1559
02:06:12,500 --> 02:06:19,060
puzzled that we're saying that the numbers in our own plan that we produced ourselves might not be accurate

1560
02:06:20,100 --> 02:06:21,840
that's a little scary to me.

1561
02:06:22,280 --> 02:06:24,560
It's also a little scary to me, you know,

1562
02:06:24,580 --> 02:06:26,400
what Council Member Haley was bringing up,

1563
02:06:26,700 --> 02:06:28,740
which is that there's all these kids that are out there

1564
02:06:28,740 --> 02:06:30,580
byking, which I don't disagree with.

1565
02:06:30,600 --> 02:06:32,660
That's why I said that, you know, we should focus on schools,

1566
02:06:33,040 --> 02:06:34,920
but we're not thinking about that at all

1567
02:06:34,920 --> 02:06:37,280
because this plan is using the numbers

1568
02:06:37,280 --> 02:06:40,120
that were captured in this plan to decide on the priorities

1569
02:06:40,120 --> 02:06:41,440
for this plan.

1570
02:06:41,940 --> 02:06:44,820
And so if there's all these kids that are riding their bikes

1571
02:06:44,820 --> 02:06:46,740
next to schools and they're not being captured

1572
02:06:46,740 --> 02:06:49,820
and that's really where we should be prioritizing the funding.

1573
02:06:49,820 --> 02:06:57,880
I mean, the plan doesn't speak to that so to me it's like this isn't like a state plan or somebody else made this thing and we're commenting on doesn't make sense

1574
02:06:57,880 --> 02:07:01,680
I mean, this is ours. So if it's not accurate, what are we doing here?

1575
02:07:03,300 --> 02:07:12,040
I would I would disagree with that and one aspect is the way this plan addresses that or accounts for kids and how they're gonna get to and from the location

1576
02:07:12,040 --> 02:07:19,220
Is that level of traffic stress the level LTS level traffic stress one or two is the is the what is the terminology?

1577
02:07:19,220 --> 02:07:25,240
There's lower uses, it's not a safe and competent rider, it's not someone who's going to go on on the arterial on the shoulder.

1578
02:07:26,000 --> 02:07:32,620
So those metrics that say how stressful a road might be, that is pointed directly at novices and children

1579
02:07:32,620 --> 02:07:34,040
and being able to get on the street.

1580
02:07:35,000 --> 02:07:41,260
As an example, when I do bike to work sometimes and I live in Idaho, I'll come all the way down,

1581
02:07:41,260 --> 02:07:43,560
with out of concern, I don't care.

1582
02:07:44,680 --> 02:07:48,800
As soon as I have a child with me, that mentality is 100% different.

1583
02:07:49,300 --> 02:07:50,700
I'm on the trail the whole way.

1584
02:07:51,120 --> 02:07:53,460
And it totally, when I started the city in 2020,

1585
02:07:54,140 --> 02:07:56,960
I could go along the trail and maybe see two or three other people.

1586
02:07:57,420 --> 02:08:00,000
Now I have to slow down and get out of the way,

1587
02:08:00,140 --> 02:08:01,960
because there's so many people in the summertime.

1588
02:08:02,320 --> 02:08:05,380
But I say that with a lot of sarcasm built in,

1589
02:08:05,540 --> 02:08:07,460
because that's how many people are using the facilities,

1590
02:08:07,540 --> 02:08:09,840
and that's because it's an LTS-1.

1591
02:08:09,840 --> 02:08:14,760
any child can go out there and not worry about a car or some other thing, any

1592
02:08:14,760 --> 02:08:18,580
parent can let their child go out there. The vehicular concerns are out there.

1593
02:08:18,620 --> 02:08:23,360
There's other concerns that may have, but that's how these metrics, and I don't

1594
02:08:23,360 --> 02:08:27,100
like to use the word metrics that's all we have. We have to find some way to

1595
02:08:27,100 --> 02:08:31,300
estimate and measure it. That's how these account for the lower level users that

1596
02:08:31,300 --> 02:08:35,220
don't have the ability to sense these other situations that have a lower level

1597
02:08:35,220 --> 02:08:36,480
of stress as they do that.

1598
02:08:36,480 --> 02:08:40,840
I guess I would just respond to that by saying maybe they shouldn't be on our

1599
02:08:40,840 --> 02:08:41,320
materials.

1600
02:08:42,000 --> 02:08:45,340
Maybe there's no amount of things that we can do to fix those arterials to make

1601
02:08:45,340 --> 02:08:47,740
them rideable and they should stay by schools.

1602
02:08:48,580 --> 02:08:52,680
I also just very quickly wanted to respond to Adam's question.

1603
02:08:53,200 --> 02:08:57,900
For me, I think that what we should be looking at is a percent of our maintenance budget that

1604
02:08:57,900 --> 02:09:03,600
corresponds relatively closely to the percent of the population that's using these things.

1605
02:09:03,900 --> 02:09:05,320
That's how I would answer the question.

1606
02:09:05,320 --> 02:09:07,380
So it's not about how many people ask for something.

1607
02:09:07,580 --> 02:09:09,500
It's about how many people are going to use this.

1608
02:09:09,560 --> 02:09:11,760
What is our maintenance budget going to be going forward?

1609
02:09:12,340 --> 02:09:14,440
What can we reasonably maintain that would,

1610
02:09:14,500 --> 02:09:17,180
that would be commensurate with that number of uses?

1611
02:09:18,780 --> 02:09:20,720
Any manager, did you have?

1612
02:09:21,300 --> 02:09:21,860
Are you thinking?

1613
02:09:23,360 --> 02:09:25,360
Well, I think Jeremy answered the question.

1614
02:09:25,620 --> 02:09:26,960
I think from my perspective,

1615
02:09:28,080 --> 02:09:30,320
bringing up the shortages of data,

1616
02:09:30,320 --> 02:09:36,380
So, Council Member Merkel seems certain that nobody ever uses sidewalks and bike paths,

1617
02:09:36,580 --> 02:09:44,160
and I think there's something to be careful of making generalizations like that.

1618
02:09:44,160 --> 02:09:53,720
So that was my point, and looking into more of the data is how do we know that we're

1619
02:09:53,720 --> 02:09:58,460
heading in the right direction here, because I think if you follow where Council Member

1620
02:09:58,460 --> 02:09:59,960
I want to go basically through...

1621
02:10:00,000 --> 02:10:07,320
The plan away, and nobody does anything anymore to help improve the infrastructure within the city.

1622
02:10:07,520 --> 02:10:12,720
And I don't believe that's the public input that we've received on this particular program.

1623
02:10:12,940 --> 02:10:19,500
So I think you'd be missing the mark again on this particular issue.

1624
02:10:19,500 --> 02:10:28,340
And so, for my perspective, I think our point in coming tonight was to have this type of discussion.

1625
02:10:29,420 --> 02:10:31,400
It is a draft plan.

1626
02:10:31,840 --> 02:10:34,200
We did do a public hearing.

1627
02:10:34,720 --> 02:10:38,940
Unfortunately, you didn't have a lot of input from that, but I think this has been very helpful

1628
02:10:38,940 --> 02:10:42,460
to hear Council's input and the comments received.

1629
02:10:42,740 --> 02:10:49,480
I think I would like to have more direct discussion with the team and talk about

1630
02:10:49,480 --> 02:10:56,420
what we heard tonight and how do we incorporate those comments into the plan to make this

1631
02:10:56,420 --> 02:11:02,360
more of a spoken Valley-centric plan? Because I do feel that that's needed on this particular

1632
02:11:02,360 --> 02:11:07,660
piece and how do you balance what the council and the community want to see versus what the

1633
02:11:07,660 --> 02:11:13,580
states mandating is a requirement? I think there needs to be a lot more discussion and input on that.

1634
02:11:13,580 --> 02:11:19,520
So I think if what the mayor's concurrence that we would wrap up this portion of the meeting.

1635
02:11:20,040 --> 02:11:28,860
Yeah, I would prove that, but we were going to have, we talked about just to want to do the prioritizing.

1636
02:11:29,340 --> 02:11:39,240
I think at this stage, the team needs to talk about it and then we would come forward with an exercise, as I mentioned, to begin with not to do tonight,

1637
02:11:39,240 --> 02:11:46,540
But one that we would then come forward and have you talk about the different elements and what do you see as important and what do you not see as important?

1638
02:11:46,980 --> 02:11:55,570
Okay, and I'd like to kind of close with I guess my own another comment or consideration I guess so we talk a lot about

1639
02:11:56,280 --> 02:12:05,480
You know the metrics and you know who's using it and then in the fear factor and all that kind of stuff but like on some of these things and I guess mostly on the trails I guess

1640
02:12:06,840 --> 02:12:11,120
There are other things that I think we need to take into consideration, and I would just

1641
02:12:11,120 --> 02:12:15,060
like to give one example, and that is the Apple Way Trail.

1642
02:12:16,060 --> 02:12:21,340
And yes, there are more people using it, because I've been using it too, and I see people

1643
02:12:21,340 --> 02:12:21,900
come and go.

1644
02:12:22,000 --> 02:12:29,060
But there are other issues with certain segments of that trail that have nothing to do with traffic

1645
02:12:29,060 --> 02:12:29,840
or whatever.

1646
02:12:29,840 --> 02:12:48,820
And there's a lot of businesses that I think that trail has cost them a lot in terms of lack of security and so they build fences, but they're barbed wire, they still get break-ins, there's drug use on their property, that kind of stuff, which is something we need to also consider and think about.

1647
02:12:48,820 --> 02:12:53,560
And so, I don't know, I mean, oh, and I just got a,

1648
02:12:53,560 --> 02:12:57,540
actually I just got a request last week from somebody who said,

1649
02:12:57,860 --> 02:13:03,500
would the city please build a fence on the trail to keep everybody out of their area?

1650
02:13:03,900 --> 02:13:07,840
And I'm going like, well, normally that's, you know, the business builds the fence, right?

1651
02:13:08,860 --> 02:13:13,860
But anyway, so that was out, and then I cancel my Breaker shared with me today,

1652
02:13:13,960 --> 02:13:16,520
some stuff on Facebook or people who had concerns.

1653
02:13:16,520 --> 02:13:22,400
So it's not just metrics, there's other things that need to be kind of wrapped up into these decisions.

1654
02:13:22,700 --> 02:13:25,620
And so I would hope that that could also be considered.

1655
02:13:27,160 --> 02:13:30,640
And just because you did point out some things tonight,

1656
02:13:30,820 --> 02:13:35,960
and I heard it collectively from Council on more of a high level goal policy oriented.

1657
02:13:36,860 --> 02:13:43,840
I would be happy to review some of the things that we were said tonight and incorporate those into the goals and policies of the component.

1658
02:13:43,840 --> 02:13:45,240
That's just a high level.

1659
02:13:46,140 --> 02:13:48,380
We're interested in sidewalks around schools.

1660
02:13:49,240 --> 02:13:50,240
Those types of things.

1661
02:13:50,420 --> 02:13:51,640
I'd be happy to put those in there.

1662
02:13:51,640 --> 02:13:54,940
Help sky conversations in the future, so.

1663
02:13:56,580 --> 02:13:57,620
Is that more?

1664
02:13:59,400 --> 02:13:59,800
Well, great.

1665
02:13:59,900 --> 02:14:03,400
Then we'll wrap it up and look forward to the follow-up from staff.

1666
02:14:04,720 --> 02:14:07,040
And yeah, I continue the discussion, because it is an important

1667
02:14:07,040 --> 02:14:07,560
discussion.

1668
02:14:08,800 --> 02:14:10,380
So thank you very much.

1669
02:14:10,440 --> 02:14:11,320
Appreciate that.

1670
02:14:14,270 --> 02:14:15,470
Oh, do we need a break?

1671
02:14:15,470 --> 02:14:18,070
Okay, 10 minute break.

1672
02:14:20,380 --> 02:14:21,800
Let's see that.

1673
02:14:24,640 --> 02:14:25,360
725.

1674
02:14:50,040 --> 02:14:52,580
Oh, like as soon as there's things to get to that.

1675
02:14:53,020 --> 02:14:54,300
I'll hear that.

1676
02:14:55,620 --> 02:14:56,580
Thank you.

1677
02:14:57,300 --> 02:14:59,960
We are ready now for our next item.

1678
02:15:00,000 --> 02:15:05,320
Which is the Comprehensive Plan Discussion with Steve Robertge and Mike Basinger.

1679
02:15:07,240 --> 02:15:12,260
Good evening, Mayor Council, Mike Basinger, Community and Economic Development Director.

1680
02:15:13,920 --> 02:15:22,960
One thing I wanted to start up before Steve actually got into his presentation was just to talk about what we did with the goals and policies since the last time we met.

1681
02:15:24,380 --> 02:15:28,800
One of the things we took all of the goals and policies that were put together,

1682
02:15:28,800 --> 02:15:34,820
of which, you know, the consultants derived a lot of them for us to be consistent with state

1683
02:15:34,820 --> 02:15:41,380
requirements, but we went through there and took some out that we didn't really feel like

1684
02:15:41,380 --> 02:15:48,060
made sense based on council's conversations with us. Of course, being wise about what needs

1685
02:15:48,060 --> 02:15:58,160
to stay in the plan to stay in compliance, but we also looked at the policies and where they

1686
02:15:58,160 --> 02:16:04,920
looked at kind of analyzing that and trying to make sure that things like protecting property

1687
02:16:04,920 --> 02:16:10,220
rights, maintaining neighborhood character and supporting a flexible business climate.

1688
02:16:10,300 --> 02:16:14,460
Those types of things that those were in there, because that's been the spirit of our

1689
02:16:14,460 --> 02:16:14,920
plan.

1690
02:16:15,480 --> 02:16:19,920
We've always wanted to support businesses, we've always wanted to protect property rights, and

1691
02:16:19,920 --> 02:16:22,200
we especially wanted to protect neighborhood character.

1692
02:16:22,200 --> 02:16:28,760
So, try to put that in there, but also do so through a valley centric lens.

1693
02:16:29,140 --> 02:16:33,320
So, hopefully you can see that with these goals and policies when we go through them tonight.

1694
02:16:33,680 --> 02:16:35,540
But with that, I'll let Steve take it away.

1695
02:16:37,500 --> 02:16:37,880
Oh, I can't.

1696
02:16:39,420 --> 02:16:39,980
Well, good evening.

1697
02:16:40,780 --> 02:16:46,720
So, I have just a short presentation for you tonight, but I want to start off with talking about

1698
02:16:46,720 --> 02:16:50,340
and right now we're in the PRIC update process

1699
02:16:50,340 --> 02:16:51,980
we're entering that final stage.

1700
02:16:52,680 --> 02:16:54,860
So we wanted to provide to you just another look

1701
02:16:54,860 --> 02:16:55,900
at these goals and policies.

1702
02:16:56,800 --> 02:16:59,900
You've seen these all before, but they've been as Microsoft

1703
02:16:59,900 --> 02:17:02,300
and they've been refined to include your comments

1704
02:17:02,300 --> 02:17:04,800
at some clarity, reduced redundancy,

1705
02:17:04,980 --> 02:17:06,860
and further align with the city's overall vision.

1706
02:17:07,940 --> 02:17:10,800
The goals and policies from the foundation,

1707
02:17:12,060 --> 02:17:13,880
for the complain and development regulations,

1708
02:17:13,880 --> 02:17:19,000
and further help to define and execute the city's vision, which you see up here.

1709
02:17:22,540 --> 02:17:26,180
This image shows the relationship between the growth management act, the county-way

1710
02:17:26,180 --> 02:17:30,420
planning policies, components of plan and development code, and how those feed-in to actual

1711
02:17:30,420 --> 02:17:31,880
development onto the ground.

1712
02:17:36,480 --> 02:17:39,960
As a message of removing into the final phase, we'll soon have the full draft, complex of

1713
02:17:39,960 --> 02:17:43,620
plan available for a review, and we'll be conducting an additional public outreach and

1714
02:17:43,620 --> 02:17:44,100
participation.

1715
02:17:44,420 --> 02:17:50,200
You can see where entering here into phase phase three, we've got the draft together, and, like

1716
02:17:50,200 --> 02:17:50,480
for.

1717
02:17:55,920 --> 02:18:00,920
During earlier phases, we conducted stakeholder interviews. We put together a project

1718
02:18:00,920 --> 02:18:06,820
website with central hub for all of our updates where you can still find all the

1719
02:18:06,820 --> 02:18:11,880
compliant pieces that you've seen as well as the planning commission as well as additional

1720
02:18:11,880 --> 02:18:16,740
information on some of the environmental review, the draft, environmental impact statement and

1721
02:18:16,740 --> 02:18:23,860
other things. We provided information in the city newsletter, social media, we did some public

1722
02:18:23,860 --> 02:18:27,280
meetings and open house, surveys, and many polls.

1723
02:18:28,140 --> 02:18:32,120
We conducted, we had a booth at community events,

1724
02:18:32,120 --> 02:18:34,420
including this Valley Library,

1725
02:18:34,640 --> 02:18:36,340
partners in the Northwest Valley Fest,

1726
02:18:36,340 --> 02:18:37,400
and community conversations.

1727
02:18:41,600 --> 02:18:42,820
So now into the goals and policies.

1728
02:18:42,940 --> 02:18:44,500
Here's a list of the goals and policies

1729
02:18:44,500 --> 02:18:46,260
and each of the conference upon elements.

1730
02:18:46,800 --> 02:18:48,580
When I talk about elements, I'm also talking

1731
02:18:48,580 --> 02:18:50,120
about chapters in the comp plan.

1732
02:18:50,240 --> 02:18:51,860
I'm using those terms interchangeably.

1733
02:18:52,460 --> 02:18:55,520
So each one of these elements is a chapter in the comp plan.

1734
02:18:57,060 --> 02:19:07,220
You'll notice there are 42 goals. I'm a planner. So I just am adding. So I think I got this right there are 42 goals in the in the new

1735
02:19:07,220 --> 02:19:19,960
Complan. There were 33 in the old. There are 162 policies. There were 123. So as we talked about before many of these policies were reworded combined.

1736
02:19:20,460 --> 02:19:25,180
It even separated in some cases to better reflect the vision and direction of the city.

1737
02:19:25,600 --> 02:19:30,320
The increasing goals and policies is largely due to the addition of a new requirement

1738
02:19:31,280 --> 02:19:34,780
for a climate and resiliency element or chapter.

1739
02:19:35,180 --> 02:19:40,860
You'll see at the very bottom there were seven goals and 17 policies added in relation to that.

1740
02:19:42,580 --> 02:19:46,960
I'm not going to go through the goals and policies, but I do want to draw your attention to a few of them.

1741
02:19:47,920 --> 02:19:50,960
And I'm just going to roll through a few of them really quick here.

1742
02:19:51,920 --> 02:19:53,740
Economic development policy 18.

1743
02:19:53,940 --> 02:19:56,860
Talks about positioning in the city and promoting sports tourism.

1744
02:19:57,820 --> 02:19:59,460
Economic development policy 19.

1745
02:20:00,000 --> 02:20:05,040
Go proactively ensuring industrial land is used to further the city's vision and add that can

1746
02:20:05,040 --> 02:20:12,360
make value without over burning resources and infrastructure. Land use policy 17 talks about addressing

1747
02:20:12,360 --> 02:20:20,020
emerging technologies such as battery energy storage and data centers. Transportation

1748
02:20:20,020 --> 02:20:29,620
goal 5 talks about optimizing the roadway network to ensure efficient movement of people,

1749
02:20:29,620 --> 02:20:32,260
continuing to pursue funding at federal and state levels

1750
02:20:32,260 --> 02:20:35,280
for transportation infrastructure to foster economic

1751
02:20:35,280 --> 02:20:37,600
development and improve quality of life.

1752
02:20:38,360 --> 02:20:40,540
And housing goal number one talks about removing

1753
02:20:40,540 --> 02:20:43,500
regulatory barriers to meet the needs of the community

1754
02:20:43,500 --> 02:20:45,060
in alignment with community vision.

1755
02:20:45,860 --> 02:20:47,360
So I just wanted to touch on those because there

1756
02:20:47,360 --> 02:20:50,120
are ones that have been either added or amended

1757
02:20:50,120 --> 02:20:51,780
through this update.

1758
02:20:52,100 --> 02:20:56,180
I think reflect on the city's vision and help to further that.

1759
02:20:56,340 --> 02:20:58,080
But with that, I'm happy to take any questions

1760
02:20:58,080 --> 02:21:01,600
or we can walk through any of the goals and policies you'd like to.

1761
02:21:02,020 --> 02:21:04,980
Well, I'd like to make a comment first.

1762
02:21:05,080 --> 02:21:08,460
First of all, I really liked the way you presented this.

1763
02:21:08,720 --> 02:21:10,600
And so I congratulate you on that.

1764
02:21:10,900 --> 02:21:13,880
For me, it was very clear to have the goals

1765
02:21:13,880 --> 02:21:16,200
and then the policies that support that goal.

1766
02:21:16,940 --> 02:21:19,740
I'd like the language you use quite often using

1767
02:21:19,740 --> 02:21:21,960
Valley Centric terminology.

1768
02:21:23,260 --> 02:21:27,220
And just as an example of a couple things that I particularly liked.

1769
02:21:28,540 --> 02:21:35,260
on the economic development you talked about a catalytic development projects, which is I had

1770
02:21:35,260 --> 02:21:43,160
to look it up because I think in catalytic converters, and that didn't quite match. But it's

1771
02:21:43,160 --> 02:21:52,840
a very interesting thing because it has three basic properties. So first the developer has

1772
02:21:52,840 --> 02:21:58,520
realized that it's not one and done and I get my money as soon as the construction is done.

1773
02:21:58,640 --> 02:22:00,320
They're in it for the long haul.

1774
02:22:00,940 --> 02:22:04,520
Secondly, they talk about integrated development, all different kinds of housing, different

1775
02:22:04,520 --> 02:22:06,460
businesses, and that kind of stuff.

1776
02:22:06,820 --> 02:22:14,820
But thirdly, more interesting to me was that it needed the existing central employment or

1777
02:22:15,520 --> 02:22:20,060
early employment in the development, so those jobs have to be there too.

1778
02:22:20,060 --> 02:22:38,300
So I thought that was really a good process, and then you have things like, you know, you're consistent within it, so like you have one of the policies prior or ties public investment necessary to support catalytic economic development and redevelopment processes.

1779
02:22:38,780 --> 02:22:45,740
You also talk about continued provision of natural gas services reliable energy source, which we've always supported.

1780
02:22:45,740 --> 02:22:53,360
And talk about things like support of voluntary inclusion of common open space and public art in the new development.

1781
02:22:53,600 --> 02:22:57,880
I mean you're not mandating it, you're encouraging it, which is something also that we want.

1782
02:22:58,220 --> 02:23:04,260
So I found a great deal of it very positive and things that I could get behind.

1783
02:23:04,720 --> 02:23:09,840
So I want to congratulate you on how you redid that and I really appreciate it.

1784
02:23:13,700 --> 02:23:16,620
Other comments? Questions? Discussion?

1785
02:23:23,210 --> 02:23:29,750
So I'm looking at the goals and policies and I really like your new versions as well, especially

1786
02:23:29,750 --> 02:23:33,710
all the ones that you kind of highlighted there about sports tourism and the economic

1787
02:23:33,710 --> 02:23:35,090
development and things of that nature.

1788
02:23:35,930 --> 02:23:40,750
But I don't see a goal around tourism and economic development.

1789
02:23:41,730 --> 02:23:42,550
Is that important?

1790
02:23:42,730 --> 02:23:47,930
I think you've got some great policies in there, but I don't see the tourism side being kind

1791
02:23:47,930 --> 02:23:53,330
goal and I don't I don't know if it's completely imperative for that, but it was just something

1792
02:23:53,330 --> 02:23:57,510
that kind of highlighted to me that you had some great policy statements around economic

1793
02:23:57,510 --> 02:24:02,650
development, but I didn't know if it would be important to have a goal around kind of

1794
02:24:02,650 --> 02:24:11,410
that tourism or even we're so focused on, I mean our main rowing sources that retail and

1795
02:24:11,410 --> 02:24:16,970
that retail engine that we have and it's almost like how do we, because tourism is a part

1796
02:24:16,970 --> 02:24:21,390
of that retail engine so maybe it's something that kind of talks about how we, we also

1797
02:24:21,390 --> 02:24:24,990
prioritize or want to protect and encourage the retail development,

1798
02:24:28,640 --> 02:24:29,480
but I do really

1799
02:24:29,480 --> 02:24:33,280
like what you've, how you've changed these goals for sure.

1800
02:24:42,240 --> 02:24:42,240
Hey,

1801
02:24:44,970 --> 02:24:51,470
you know, I asked to be excused from a council meeting or two to sit at my desk and

1802
02:24:51,470 --> 02:24:58,770
recraft the goals and policies and so I felt like my years of experience here at the city

1803
02:24:58,770 --> 02:24:59,090
would.

1804
02:24:59,610 --> 02:24:59,970
Bow me well.

1805
02:25:00,000 --> 02:25:03,660
Well, I'm making sure that these were a voice that you guys could appreciate.

1806
02:25:05,020 --> 02:25:09,180
So I put quite a bit of time into that. I think the consultants appreciated it.

1807
02:25:10,060 --> 02:25:14,980
But my main thing with them was just to make sure that we have a compliant plan at the end of the day,

1808
02:25:15,120 --> 02:25:20,000
but this needs to have a tone that speaks for the city. So that was our objective for sure.

1809
02:25:21,140 --> 02:25:21,860
That's my room, Merkel.

1810
02:25:23,380 --> 02:25:27,320
I found the revisions very good. I appreciate that you did that.

1811
02:25:27,320 --> 02:25:33,980
There are a lot of, there's a lot of strange language in the original version that you have taken out.

1812
02:25:34,600 --> 02:25:41,320
The only one I'm still kind of stuck on is the CRG6 reduced per capita vehicle miles traveled

1813
02:25:41,880 --> 02:25:47,320
through transportation improvements and neighborhood planning that minimizes

1814
02:25:48,380 --> 02:25:51,860
that minimize traffic and enhanced local air quality.

1815
02:25:52,500 --> 02:25:57,520
I think that this one is better than what we have in the active transportation plan by far

1816
02:25:57,520 --> 02:26:01,280
because what we're talking about here is reducing traffic, which I think is important.

1817
02:26:03,940 --> 02:26:08,680
Again, I just want to be careful that it's not one of our goals to tell our citizens

1818
02:26:09,820 --> 02:26:10,920
how to travel.

1819
02:26:17,820 --> 02:26:25,120
Yeah, I will just say that these were probably some of the more difficult goals and policies

1820
02:26:25,120 --> 02:26:28,700
given some of the new state requirements.

1821
02:26:32,980 --> 02:26:33,600
Why I'm a Kelly?

1822
02:26:34,620 --> 02:26:35,980
Yeah, along that same vein,

1823
02:26:36,440 --> 02:26:37,920
I'm going to see our G4,

1824
02:26:38,180 --> 02:26:41,040
promote the transition to renewable energy sources.

1825
02:26:41,540 --> 02:26:44,860
So I don't know how we would go about that necessarily,

1826
02:26:46,820 --> 02:26:50,540
but I think that like you said,

1827
02:26:50,980 --> 02:26:52,660
it's kind of hard to fulfill the state mandate

1828
02:26:52,660 --> 02:26:57,580
and not basically have these principles there,

1829
02:26:57,580 --> 02:27:03,180
these goals, but I just don't know that, you

1830
02:27:05,360 --> 02:27:12,920
know, to what degree that we, it is a policy statement, and I just don't know if it's a policy statement that I'm 100% behind.

1831
02:27:20,720 --> 02:27:26,540
These were actual goals and policies that had to get some kickback from our consultants on.

1832
02:27:26,540 --> 02:27:28,800
So, that's the agenda there.

1833
02:27:29,100 --> 02:27:34,980
They wanted to make sure that we were in compliance with some of the state's requirements.

1834
02:27:35,700 --> 02:27:38,760
So, some of these are definitely coming straight down the pipeline.

1835
02:27:43,250 --> 02:27:43,490
Thank you, Mayor.

1836
02:27:44,030 --> 02:27:45,530
I just like to make a general comment.

1837
02:27:45,990 --> 02:27:50,630
Council member, where could I hear I'm the CEO committee that deals most with growth management.

1838
02:27:51,350 --> 02:27:54,450
These two individuals that we've set it out standing in job and they're staff.

1839
02:27:55,130 --> 02:28:00,010
As Mike just mentioned, the compliance issue, we're not saying, okay, the state's get

1840
02:28:00,010 --> 02:28:04,250
what to do, where we want to be in compliance, but as they've stated, continually, you know,

1841
02:28:04,470 --> 02:28:11,810
it's documented in various ways. It's going to be our two-bar community, our city. It's

1842
02:28:11,810 --> 02:28:14,890
how we're trying to do this. We don't want to put any roadblocks ahead, we're going to say,

1843
02:28:15,090 --> 02:28:18,070
well, we're challenging them that we're not going to get to it that way. And I'm not going

1844
02:28:18,070 --> 02:28:21,770
to be in the cases where I say that, we're not saying that at all. So I think they've really

1845
02:28:21,770 --> 02:28:25,890
worked hard with the consultants, it's really good. Have some of this late, we do in there.

1846
02:28:26,150 --> 02:28:29,730
We're going to stay, can't question that well. You're not going to be in compliance because

1847
02:28:29,730 --> 02:28:39,790
I don't care if I'm saying this effectively as I could be, but we mean in compliance with us as having local control and they've done an outstanding job of this.

1848
02:28:39,910 --> 02:28:45,350
I've heard feedback from other cities on the committee that we sit on, which represents the whole county area.

1849
02:28:45,530 --> 02:28:48,790
The council member is working on, and it's all positive feedback.

1850
02:28:49,030 --> 02:28:50,410
I just want to make sure that with everyone.

1851
02:28:52,630 --> 02:28:53,690
Council Member Wait.

1852
02:28:55,250 --> 02:28:56,790
Looking at the transportation goal.

1853
02:28:56,790 --> 02:29:03,210
I know you have one policy around bridging the valley concepts, but I would really like to

1854
02:29:03,210 --> 02:29:08,790
see us push a little harder on the Great Separations slash railroad consolidation.

1855
02:29:09,770 --> 02:29:14,370
I think that that phrase railroad consolidation should be in here somewhere.

1856
02:29:19,500 --> 02:29:26,500
I don't see the railroad consolidation, but the bridging the valley one is T-P20, but I just

1857
02:29:26,500 --> 02:29:32,500
I think it should be a little more prominent around a elimination of those great separation projects and

1858
02:29:33,480 --> 02:29:35,320
or elimination of the road rail conflicts.

1859
02:29:35,780 --> 02:29:36,620
However, how do we want to say that?

1860
02:29:36,880 --> 02:29:41,440
But I think it also needs to include the consolidation of the railroads as well.

1861
02:29:41,640 --> 02:29:44,200
We're possible or however you want to phrase it,

1862
02:29:44,340 --> 02:29:48,580
but I think as we transition a little bit more into pushing on the railroad

1863
02:29:48,580 --> 02:29:52,550
in that direction, it would be good to put that language in our comprehensive plan.

1864
02:29:55,750 --> 02:29:56,230
That's my memorial.

1865
02:29:58,390 --> 02:29:59,970
Yeah, just as a quick aside, if you can send...

1866
02:30:00,000 --> 02:30:07,820
May those state requirements on why those goals are required. I'd like to at least have that so that I can tell people.

1867
02:30:23,510 --> 02:30:27,390
Okay. Anything else? No, what you need?

1868
02:30:28,110 --> 02:30:32,830
Yeah. I appreciate it. I'll incorporate those things that council requested.

1869
02:30:34,870 --> 02:30:36,010
We did have one more topic.

1870
02:30:38,270 --> 02:30:39,390
We do.

1871
02:30:40,790 --> 02:30:44,050
So, the Spokane County's UGA expansion proposal.

1872
02:30:51,180 --> 02:31:07,940
So, as you know, the county does have quite a bit of control during this process when we're going to the update of our comprehensive plans and one of the things that the county has is the authority to adjust the urban growth areas.

1873
02:31:07,940 --> 02:31:17,500
Now, the thing is is there's a very strong statement that they need to be coordinating with the cities as they look to adjust the urban growth areas.

1874
02:31:19,380 --> 02:31:28,980
What I did here is this is the meeting that I listened to and I don't know if other council members had an opportunity to listen to it, but I just wanted to see what was said.

1875
02:31:29,540 --> 02:31:35,820
And so, basically, on August 24th, the planning director Scott Chesney met with the Board

1876
02:31:35,820 --> 02:31:42,360
of County Commissioners, and he was working through their environmental impacts team and

1877
02:31:42,360 --> 02:31:44,880
getting comments from them on alternatives.

1878
02:31:45,720 --> 02:31:50,960
They do have two alternatives, and I'll just kind of see if this kind of helps.

1879
02:31:51,080 --> 02:31:53,480
So, alternative one was an infill focus.

1880
02:31:53,780 --> 02:31:57,960
This is very typical when you're doing planning efforts, you'll have like a no action.

1881
02:31:57,960 --> 02:32:00,560
and we had sort of a no-action, right,

1882
02:32:00,560 --> 02:32:03,000
where essentially we were looking for in-fill.

1883
02:32:04,060 --> 02:32:05,360
They have one as well.

1884
02:32:06,100 --> 02:32:08,540
And so, I'll skip past this one a little bit.

1885
02:32:08,580 --> 02:32:12,020
I think it's pretty, and in less counsel as questions,

1886
02:32:12,240 --> 02:32:13,620
I mean, in-fill really just focuses

1887
02:32:13,620 --> 02:32:16,580
on changing your zoning, up in your densities

1888
02:32:16,580 --> 02:32:20,840
to get the population allocation that you need.

1889
02:32:21,660 --> 02:32:24,900
So alternative two looks at UGA modifications

1890
02:32:24,900 --> 02:32:28,260
and they're focusing on swaps.

1891
02:32:29,280 --> 02:32:30,880
And so that said, right there at the top.

1892
02:32:32,060 --> 02:32:34,140
And I think where we got concerned

1893
02:32:34,140 --> 02:32:36,780
is we had a particular request.

1894
02:32:37,520 --> 02:32:40,360
Centennial properties had that request as well.

1895
02:32:40,720 --> 02:32:44,060
As council knows, we are very successful in the Northeast

1896
02:32:44,060 --> 02:32:46,460
industrial area with our planned action ordinance.

1897
02:32:46,640 --> 02:32:49,340
And we have built that entire area out.

1898
02:32:50,000 --> 02:32:52,760
And so as we went through the planning exercise

1899
02:32:52,760 --> 02:32:58,980
with Spokane County and the other jurisdictions, it became apparent that we did not have enough

1900
02:32:58,980 --> 02:33:06,200
property for commercial and industrial growth. And so working and talking with Doug Yost,

1901
02:33:06,580 --> 02:33:12,800
who represents Centennial Properties, this was our proposal to bring these properties into a

1902
02:33:12,800 --> 02:33:19,460
accommodate our need for commercial and industrial growth. I believe Centennial Properties

1903
02:33:19,460 --> 02:33:26,580
spoke to it more around mixed use in their proposal, but essentially what we ended up seeing

1904
02:33:26,580 --> 02:33:32,960
through their presentation was this. And as you can see, right, we're missing a pretty substantial

1905
02:33:32,960 --> 02:33:40,440
chunk here mainly along the river. And what's really interesting is they have a little tiny piece

1906
02:33:40,440 --> 02:33:46,860
down there that says that they removed it. Yet I don't understand, I mean, it's not the whole piece,

1907
02:33:46,860 --> 02:33:55,960
So, was that the, it just doesn't make any sense, this is the bottom line, and so we're very concerned about that.

1908
02:33:56,400 --> 02:34:07,020
And I think another thing that we're concerned about, and we've seen the impacts of this, is they have proposals to expand the urban growth area on the southern and northern borders of our city.

1909
02:34:07,020 --> 02:34:13,100
The Southern border, we've seen the impacts of the growth that's occurred there and what

1910
02:34:13,100 --> 02:34:17,320
it's done to our transportation network, so that's very concerning.

1911
02:34:19,000 --> 02:34:21,540
Essentially, right, they took this chunk out.

1912
02:34:24,010 --> 02:34:27,630
And then these are the Southern portions that they're proposing to add.

1913
02:34:29,620 --> 02:34:33,420
And this is the Northern portion that they're proposing to add one of them.

1914
02:34:33,980 --> 02:34:36,060
And I think that might be all we had here.

1915
02:34:36,060 --> 02:34:42,500
I did, if I remember correctly, we might be missing one that it's over by Jack Costell.

1916
02:34:43,220 --> 02:34:44,140
Did you see it?

1917
02:34:44,360 --> 02:34:44,740
Right there.

1918
02:34:44,980 --> 02:34:45,520
Oh, sorry.

1919
02:34:46,100 --> 02:34:46,500
There we go.

1920
02:34:46,660 --> 02:34:47,280
There it is.

1921
02:34:47,900 --> 02:34:48,380
Delray.

1922
02:34:49,280 --> 02:34:50,860
And so they're proposing to add there.

1923
02:34:50,980 --> 02:34:54,740
It's all kinds of transportation issues, all kinds of issues there.

1924
02:34:56,040 --> 02:34:59,480
So I think what we were wanting to do.

1925
02:35:00,000 --> 02:35:10,360
We did craft a letter for the mayor, but then we did share that letter with legal and legal bolstered up a little bit.

1926
02:35:10,700 --> 02:35:16,780
I don't think we're quite prepared to have the mayor sign that letter right now just from a strategy standpoint.

1927
02:35:16,780 --> 02:35:24,240
I wanted to talk with John and Eric about how we approach our comments to the county strategically.

1928
02:35:24,900 --> 02:35:39,420
I think we're putting everything out there, right off the bat and I just want to be careful that we're being somewhat respectful and how we request that they add our peace back in and take these other pieces out for various reasons.

1929
02:35:40,520 --> 02:35:54,120
But I think tonight and I'll let John speak to this. I think what we're wondering is in fact as Council want us to continue to craft that letter get it finalized for the mayor's signature and if so, we'll continue to work on that.

1930
02:35:54,120 --> 02:35:58,000
Well, I think probably a higher level question is,

1931
02:35:59,760 --> 02:36:03,560
it's the council interested in pursuing this.

1932
02:36:04,180 --> 02:36:05,880
And before you see anything,

1933
02:36:06,640 --> 02:36:09,320
I do need to provide you some background on this.

1934
02:36:09,760 --> 02:36:13,760
So staff, as Mike said, were very diligently

1935
02:36:15,240 --> 02:36:16,660
with our partners.

1936
02:36:17,880 --> 02:36:19,920
So from colds real estate,

1937
02:36:20,360 --> 02:36:23,940
spoken in county, environmental services on the sewer,

1938
02:36:23,940 --> 02:36:41,040
It's all a day to water and building out the Northeast Industrial Area and setting up really just a model process for how to take 400 plus acres and develop them in the most efficient way possible.

1939
02:36:42,200 --> 02:36:47,090
We had visions of continuing that to the east. We saw how popular this area is.

1940
02:36:47,090 --> 02:36:54,210
is, frankly, for a lot of reasons, one, you're not out way out on the West Plane somewhere,

1941
02:36:54,570 --> 02:37:00,270
you're central to this larger metropolitan area, which includes North Idaho.

1942
02:37:02,150 --> 02:37:09,910
You have I90 to the south, you have SR-290, Trent to the north, you've got railroads running

1943
02:37:09,910 --> 02:37:10,910
right through.

1944
02:37:10,910 --> 02:37:17,550
a lot of access at the Industrial Park and a lot of existing companies, both Indian

1945
02:37:17,550 --> 02:37:21,130
Industrial Park and actually West of the Industrial Park. You think about

1946
02:37:21,950 --> 02:37:29,010
Solstice and Kaiser and the type of products that they produce and how they need

1947
02:37:29,010 --> 02:37:34,810
to have supporting companies surrounding them that really feed into how

1948
02:37:34,810 --> 02:37:40,890
everything is made in this area. We really do need to keep expanding and

1949
02:37:40,890 --> 02:37:42,910
And from our perspective,

1950
02:37:45,050 --> 02:37:51,110
the county's being very short-sighted on this particular area and

1951
02:37:51,110 --> 02:37:55,110
trying to shift too much attention to the West Plains.

1952
02:37:56,150 --> 02:38:02,630
So once we were finished with the existing area within the urban growth area, within our

1953
02:38:02,630 --> 02:38:10,770
city limits, we did work on how to best set this up from a growth standpoint, from a planning

1954
02:38:10,770 --> 02:38:17,790
standpoint. So for the last couple of years we've been working with DOT, we've been working

1955
02:38:17,790 --> 02:38:24,650
with the city of Libri Lake on studying the transportation needs and the impacts to a variety

1956
02:38:24,650 --> 02:38:31,850
of different areas out here, one of them being the ultimate development of these pieces of property.

1957
02:38:32,450 --> 02:38:38,850
In addition to others within Libri Lake and see how that all functions. So we have a very good idea

1958
02:38:38,850 --> 02:38:45,070
for what transportation improvement projects need to be done, we know what cost those are,

1959
02:38:45,210 --> 02:38:52,990
we know how to allocate development fees, impact fees on those, and we're working through

1960
02:38:52,990 --> 02:38:58,110
finalizing that with the City of the Liberty Lake and DOT, but we've also worked

1961
02:38:58,110 --> 02:39:04,230
with county's environmental services on providing sewer to this area as well, and that seems

1962
02:39:04,230 --> 02:39:10,250
to be an area of question, or at least the planning director from Spokane brought up,

1963
02:39:10,410 --> 02:39:15,110
is this going to be served from the county or from Liberty Lake Water and sewer district,

1964
02:39:15,690 --> 02:39:24,470
from our historical discussions with the county, they felt that they would serve this area

1965
02:39:24,470 --> 02:39:34,210
at least a Harvard road. So therefore, we recommended that the city invests some of the

1966
02:39:34,210 --> 02:39:40,470
sewer line all the way to the sea limits on Buckeye Avenue, which we did a number of years ago.

1967
02:39:41,030 --> 02:39:46,670
So there's been a lot of pre-planning on this and I just want to make sure you all understand

1968
02:39:46,670 --> 02:39:58,410
that this unlike, I'll pick on the area to the north that says NR2 up there, so this is the

1969
02:39:58,410 --> 02:39:59,170
Don't worry.

1970
02:40:00,000 --> 02:40:10,140
Project, Highland Estates, a very old development in the county. They're looking to expand the portion of it.

1971
02:40:10,520 --> 02:40:21,620
I have had one on one conversations with Mr. Chesney about the development of that piece of property and one of the big issues out there.

1972
02:40:21,620 --> 02:40:27,840
And we fought this on the Barker Great Separation Projects with the fourth leg and everybody

1973
02:40:27,840 --> 02:40:33,220
talking about, you know, adding a segment onto the roundabout to serve this neighborhood

1974
02:40:34,320 --> 02:40:39,340
and get people safer approach into the neighborhood.

1975
02:40:40,320 --> 02:40:46,360
That's part of the solution, but it doesn't meet the fire departments requirements

1976
02:40:46,360 --> 02:40:47,800
for secondary access.

1977
02:40:47,800 --> 02:41:01,800
And so when you look back through the historical record of that development, there needs to be another way in, but from the north, and that is going to be extremely problematic to do.

1978
02:41:02,180 --> 02:41:12,720
And then therefore, this is already a fatal flaw in the county bringing this into the UGA. And then if we don't have it on the map,

1979
02:41:12,720 --> 02:41:20,880
that if we were to show you a map of the existing urban growth areas along SR27, and Mike

1980
02:41:20,880 --> 02:41:25,100
may be jumped to the piece that you did have to south right here.

1981
02:41:25,260 --> 02:41:30,640
So the areas in blue, that's existing UGA, the green would be expansion areas.

1982
02:41:31,740 --> 02:41:33,780
And on the face of it, maybe that makes sense.

1983
02:41:34,720 --> 02:41:39,940
But one of the things that was interesting last week when Council Member Wick and I met

1984
02:41:39,940 --> 02:41:47,560
with Commissioner Brooks, who's the chair of the county commissioners, she didn't understand

1985
02:41:47,560 --> 02:41:51,260
that we were not interested in annexing any of this stuff.

1986
02:41:52,220 --> 02:41:55,720
It is hillside development very difficult to maintain.

1987
02:41:56,660 --> 02:42:06,640
The infrastructure is very questionable from a standpoint of how it was put in and who

1988
02:42:06,640 --> 02:42:13,580
on the stormwater side of things, there are springs all over the place here that tend to

1989
02:42:13,580 --> 02:42:19,240
undermine the infrastructure, which then leads to a lot of expense for us.

1990
02:42:19,780 --> 02:42:24,980
So, from my perspective, I would never recommend to the Council to annex any of this

1991
02:42:24,980 --> 02:42:29,440
information or any of this area, plus along SR27,

1992
02:42:31,560 --> 02:42:33,360
especially crossing over and

1993
02:42:33,360 --> 02:42:41,680
painted hills and all that area there. This is not urban area. When I think about building

1994
02:42:42,780 --> 02:42:50,080
an area that is easy to get in and out of development is easier to do, hillside development

1995
02:42:50,080 --> 02:42:58,760
is not something that I think is easy to develop. I think there's areas here if the county

1996
02:42:58,760 --> 02:43:06,820
really interested in doing swaps will remove some of this stuff and focus it on areas that

1997
02:43:06,820 --> 02:43:12,180
really could be developed and really could benefit. And this is where I think the county's being a

1998
02:43:12,180 --> 02:43:20,840
bit short-sighted here is anything that is developed here or where we want it to be on the cold's

1999
02:43:20,840 --> 02:43:28,720
real estate properties that really benefits us and the county because they get quite a bit of revenue

2000
02:43:28,720 --> 02:43:35,780
offer that as well. And so I wanted to kind of give you that context but I think first

2001
02:43:35,780 --> 02:43:44,100
we really need to know is this where the council views growth at as our expansion area.

2002
02:43:51,340 --> 02:43:51,740
I'm sorry.

2003
02:43:54,060 --> 02:43:58,440
I wholeheartedly believe that that's the future for growth for us.

2004
02:44:00,360 --> 02:44:04,140
However, I feel like there's also a process flaw.

2005
02:44:05,220 --> 02:44:11,080
Scott Chesney has presented this to the commissioners and in my opinion, completely bypassed

2006
02:44:11,080 --> 02:44:16,600
the process of getting any input from any city around the county by not having a going to

2007
02:44:16,600 --> 02:44:18,140
the steering community of elected officials.

2008
02:44:19,240 --> 02:44:27,340
So if we are interested in not showing our cards right away on demanding what properties we want

2009
02:44:27,340 --> 02:44:29,980
and we at least need to send them a letter

2010
02:44:30,500 --> 02:44:32,580
objecting to the fact that they even had

2011
02:44:32,580 --> 02:44:34,700
a commissioner discussion or presentation

2012
02:44:35,320 --> 02:44:37,560
without any input from any of the cities.

2013
02:44:38,640 --> 02:44:40,360
And so I feel like that should be,

2014
02:44:40,700 --> 02:44:42,620
because also in our discussion with Commissioner Brooks,

2015
02:44:42,760 --> 02:44:45,220
she didn't realize that none of the cities had any input

2016
02:44:45,220 --> 02:44:48,300
or that we hadn't even seen it before it went to them.

2017
02:44:48,560 --> 02:44:50,040
So I think they need to be aware

2018
02:44:50,040 --> 02:44:53,040
that their planning department didn't run

2019
02:44:53,040 --> 02:44:55,660
through the process that it should have gone through.

2020
02:44:57,520 --> 02:44:59,980
I also think that one of the things that I remember.

2021
02:45:00,000 --> 02:45:14,800
Governor's urban reserve designation. And this property is designated as urban reserve. So, in my opinion, the first step that should be read in is the property that you designated as the reserve property that was supposed to be first in the next round.

2022
02:45:15,400 --> 02:45:29,980
And there's no mention of that anywhere throughout the county's proposal. So, I think that could be another key thing that we should really push on them to say, hey, you need to focus on the urban reserve areas before you go to non reserve area.

2023
02:45:30,000 --> 02:45:35,740
is, but then be able to encourage us to even go further than what we've highlighted here

2024
02:45:35,740 --> 02:45:41,960
to say, here's where you should be looking at beyond this tenure, in a highlighted area

2025
02:45:41,960 --> 02:45:47,420
that we should be saying that should be the next urban reserve kind of a phase two for

2026
02:45:47,420 --> 02:45:52,780
the future for when this builds out, which was hit triggers that expand that area without

2027
02:45:52,780 --> 02:45:59,060
having to wait 10 years. So kind of preplanning that and also encouraging, because a lot of

2028
02:45:59,060 --> 02:46:05,580
cities have joint planning areas. We do not have a joint planning area with the county. Maybe this

2029
02:46:05,580 --> 02:46:10,780
area should be designated as a joint planning area moving forwards. That way we can start to plan

2030
02:46:10,780 --> 02:46:19,240
these more before the tenure part period is up. So I think those are kind of some of the main ones

2031
02:46:19,240 --> 02:46:27,140
for me. But I also, I don't think there should be a hole. I mean, if this does give about in which I

2032
02:46:27,140 --> 02:46:33,240
think that it should be. I don't know that you would leave a little neighborhood area outside the

2033
02:46:33,240 --> 02:46:39,480
UGA that's completely surrounded on all four sides. So I would make sure that we kind of talk about

2034
02:46:39,480 --> 02:46:41,300
as a contiguous area.

2035
02:46:43,380 --> 02:46:49,180
Happy to hear. I can go ahead and tell some of our work 100%. I'm still

2036
02:46:49,180 --> 02:46:58,880
don't mind me for nominating me for the chair of that committee. You're welcome. And it's very

2037
02:46:58,880 --> 02:47:03,860
the process carried forward and have side-step committee. We're not the only one that has

2038
02:47:03,860 --> 02:47:09,680
frustration. There's other small towns and cities. And when you just leave that process

2039
02:47:09,680 --> 02:47:13,780
behind and say we're going to do it this way, that's absolutely got the proper way to do it.

2040
02:47:14,920 --> 02:47:20,040
And I would say more, but I feel strongly about that. And it affects the whole county, not just us,

2041
02:47:20,140 --> 02:47:25,840
but especially all the work we put into it. And they knew at a time when it goes where it's not like

2042
02:47:25,840 --> 02:47:28,280
we haven't talked about it as city manager,

2043
02:47:28,500 --> 02:47:30,160
oh, I'm gonna set for a couple of years.

2044
02:47:30,460 --> 02:47:32,940
It wasn't a surprise to them that we have our map,

2045
02:47:33,000 --> 02:47:34,060
and they've seen it.

2046
02:47:34,360 --> 02:47:35,860
So I really disappointed in that,

2047
02:47:35,880 --> 02:47:38,500
and I knew we would hold our duty to send the letter,

2048
02:47:38,840 --> 02:47:40,200
and I knew it could tell some of our work's comments.

2049
02:47:44,540 --> 02:47:45,580
Are you looking for it?

2050
02:47:45,840 --> 02:47:47,540
I think this is very helpful,

2051
02:47:48,660 --> 02:47:53,620
and from a perspective to council members that sit

2052
02:47:53,620 --> 02:47:55,400
on the steering committee,

2053
02:47:55,400 --> 02:48:00,300
I think that's, we can craft a letter starting with the process

2054
02:48:00,300 --> 02:48:01,120
objections.

2055
02:48:02,280 --> 02:48:08,560
Starting with our disappointment that they didn't include the entire area,

2056
02:48:10,100 --> 02:48:12,060
and we're towards that piece.

2057
02:48:12,940 --> 02:48:18,440
And then we can have a draft ready for you to review on Tuesday night's next week's meeting.

2058
02:48:19,080 --> 02:48:19,620
That's remember?

2059
02:48:20,280 --> 02:48:25,180
I completely agree that the process thing is the first thing that we should look at.

2060
02:48:25,180 --> 02:48:30,460
I mean, it's a very obvious thing, plus it'll be standing up for a lot of our, you know,

2061
02:48:30,600 --> 02:48:35,040
sister and brother cities out there to stand on their own two feet about their own issues.

2062
02:48:35,260 --> 02:48:39,580
I just wanted to clarify for people who might be watching from home.

2063
02:48:39,880 --> 02:48:43,680
I don't think we really, I know we've talked about it before, but I don't think we really

2064
02:48:43,680 --> 02:48:48,140
specified what this means to us because it's not like this is immediately going to become part

2065
02:48:51,140 --> 02:48:58,160
of

2066
02:48:58,160 --> 02:48:59,800
annex into the city or not?

2067
02:49:00,060 --> 02:49:05,800
Right, so this is like, it's just we, we want to prepare this area for growth and development

2068
02:49:05,800 --> 02:49:10,960
and it's in our interest because it's right on the border of our cities, so this isn't, that's

2069
02:49:10,960 --> 02:49:16,960
kind of what we're talking about here, we're not saying that we're telling the county that we're

2070
02:49:16,960 --> 02:49:20,720
annexing this tomorrow, that's not the issue.

2071
02:49:21,200 --> 02:49:24,760
That property is not able to be annexed unless it's in the urban growth area.

2072
02:49:25,360 --> 02:49:27,660
Right, so this is like the first step, but again,

2073
02:49:27,660 --> 02:49:35,520
It's a step in the development direction and then we'll make those decisions later if it's something that needs to happen, but it's common sense that

2074
02:49:35,520 --> 02:49:42,900
we would want such development to exist in this area. I also agree with Council Member Wake that

2075
02:49:42,900 --> 02:49:50,680
leaving a strange x-clay of above the river is probably a bad idea. It's just going to cause headaches.

2076
02:49:55,960 --> 02:49:58,300
Are we done? No, I have one more. Sorry.

2077
02:49:58,300 --> 02:49:58,940
Okay.

2078
02:49:59,660 --> 02:49:59,980
So just...

2079
02:50:00,000 --> 02:50:06,780
Two other thoughts. So there's other parcels that are not being talked about adding into this year's plan.

2080
02:50:07,440 --> 02:50:14,160
But there are already in the UGA boundaries. So there are talk about swaps which should probably take out some of the areas that are already in there.

2081
02:50:14,880 --> 02:50:18,900
And so I can think of one kind of north of Welsley even long for us.

2082
02:50:19,100 --> 02:50:26,060
So not the cassette property that's talked about being expanded, but there's one house that was added in there. It doesn't make sense to that.

2083
02:50:26,060 --> 02:50:29,700
So I would also include some of those to come out.

2084
02:50:30,620 --> 02:50:34,920
I would also as if we do start to think about a future urban reserve.

2085
02:50:35,900 --> 02:50:39,760
This school district has property there that is not on any of the county maps.

2086
02:50:40,400 --> 02:50:45,780
And a school district, if we do start to develop a lot in that district, can't build a school

2087
02:50:45,780 --> 02:50:50,180
unless their properties inside the UGA do do a new wonderful state law.

2088
02:50:50,180 --> 02:50:57,160
So it might be wise to encourage the county to really think about that because that parcel won't get activated

2089
02:50:57,840 --> 02:51:03,560
It'll be another parcel that just gets left out because they can't build it unless it's in the UGA boundaries

2090
02:51:04,740 --> 02:51:10,660
And then I would also consider plants fairy now that it's going to be something that will be developed

2091
02:51:11,680 --> 02:51:19,820
But it makes a weird anomaly for everything north of south of Welsley on the other side of plants fairy is in the UGA

2092
02:51:20,180 --> 02:51:23,960
and everything east of plants for South of Aussies in the UGA.

2093
02:51:24,480 --> 02:51:29,620
But you have this kind of hole in plants for you that really should be designated

2094
02:51:29,620 --> 02:51:31,560
part of the UGA as well.

2095
02:51:31,840 --> 02:51:35,280
Even though there's probably some sort of category that you can say it's not developed

2096
02:51:35,280 --> 02:51:40,240
but we'll land, so it shouldn't count towards an analysis, but if there's a way,

2097
02:51:40,440 --> 02:51:42,820
I think it should be included as well.

2098
02:51:42,820 --> 02:51:52,970
But, you know, to Councilmember Wood's point, on this particular map, we see kind of that

2099
02:51:52,970 --> 02:51:54,990
purple rectangle going up.

2100
02:51:55,670 --> 02:51:59,830
So what Councilmember Wood could's talking about is East Valley School District has.

2101
02:51:59,910 --> 02:52:08,030
I think 30 plus acres is in it's just adjoining that, between the purple and Campbell Road.

2102
02:52:16,600 --> 02:52:17,500
We can adjourn.

2103
02:52:18,420 --> 02:52:19,660
Move to adjourn.

2104
02:52:20,460 --> 02:52:21,180
All those in favor?

2105
02:52:21,180 --> 02:52:22,020
Hi.

2106
02:52:22,700 --> 02:52:22,880
Opposed?

2107
02:52:23,340 --> 02:52:24,580
We are adjourned.

2108
02:52:26,960 --> 02:52:27,460
Good comments.

2109
02:52:28,840 --> 02:52:29,800
Full of opinions on that.