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HomeMy WebLinkAbout11/20/2017 Work Session City of Springfield Work Session Meeting MINUTES OF THE WORK SESSION MEETING OF THE SPRINGFIELD CITY COUNCIL HELD MONDAY,NOVEMBER 20, 2017 The City of Springfield Council met in a work session in the Jesse Maine Meeting Room, 225 Fifth Street, Springfield,Oregon,on Monday, November 20,2017 at 6:00 p m., with Mayor Lundberg presiding ATTENDANCE Present were Mayor Lundberg and Councilors VanGordon, Wylie.Moore, Stoehr, Woodrow and Pishionen Also present were City Manager Gino Grimaldi, Assistant City Attorney Kristina Kraaz, City Recorder Amy Sowa and members of the staff 1. Main Street Safety Project Update. Senior Planner Molly Markarian presented the staff report on this item. She introduced Bill Johnston, Oregon Department of Transportation(ODOT) Project Manager and Kelly Hale,Lane Transit District (LTD)Project Lead. Ms. Markarian presented a power point and reviewed the process to date. In 2011, staff received Council direction to improve safety on Main Street. ODOT and the City worked over the next year to conduct a Main Street Safety Study for pedestrian safety From that came recommendations for crossing improvements which have been installed through the city and collaboration with ODO f over the last six years. In 2016,ODOT through its All Roads Transportation Safety(ARTS)program awarded the City $3 9M to construct a raised center safety median on Main Street At that same time, ODOT pledged to support the planning process leading up to that project Since then. staff and ODOT have been working on project coordination and scope development with our partners Ms. Markarian said the City and ODO r are sharing the cost of the planning phase, with ODOT covering the consultant cost and a share of the project. Staffing on the project includes a combination of a large consultant team(City and ODO f) and project management team including Ms Markarian, Mr.Johnston from ODOT, and the consultant. Supporting the City is a team of engineers,planners and coordinators. There are 8 consulting firms tackling different components of this project They will also have a technical advisory committee with additional staff from the City, LTD, ODOT, Springfield Utility Board(SUB). Springfield School District and Department of Land Consen anon and Development(DLCD). Ms. Markarian referred to the timeline and discussed each task for the project. She noted that the Main McVay Transit Study has done a lot of work that will be used for tasks 4, 5 and 6.as well as tasks 7 and 8. They will he working with the project teams and committees to des elop goals and objectives. Key Principles and Methodology come from SB408 legislation and will be addressed frequenth through this project. The last few tasks will need Council input. One of the early steps is to develop the citizen engagement plan, which will be approved by the Planning Commission in their capacity as the Citizen Involvement Committee They anticipate there will be advisory bodies, Planning Commission, City Council,corridor stakeholder's advisory committee,and governance team That plan will outline actio[ties to facilitate public participation of stakeholders on the corridor and the general public. They tried to keep this process as short as possible,hut it is a three-year process. City of Springfield Council Work Session Minutes November 20,2017 Page 2 Ms. Markarian said the next steps vv ould include finalizing the scope of work with ODOT and the consultant,finalizing the Intergovernmental agreement(IGA) w ith ODOT,ODOT finalizing its procurement process with the consultant team, and launching the project in 2018 Councilor Woodrow said since 2011 she has worked with staff and ODOT on getting the crosswalks in on Main Street. Now they are looking at a three-year study w ith nothing being done It will have been more than 10)ears, with only 3 or 4 years of actually doing something practical for safety She needs to know what to tell constituents who want something done now There are a lot of people on Main Street and businesses are concerned about the median She is not comfortable w ith the long timeline. Mr. Boyatt said staff shares her frustrations. There is a lot at stake for the property and business owners who will want to be Involved in a process that will work. There are also a lot of safety concerns. It's about a four mile corridor and a eery complex planning project,trying to balance everyone's interests, especially business and safety. The team has worked hard to keep the planning process from expanding even more. ODOT and city staff have learned over time that sometimes what looks like slow going on the front end, could actual!) work better in the long tenn. It's important to be out in the corridor respecting everyone's interest. Mr Grimaldi said if issues are identified by staff that can he resolved Immediately,the City can look into addressing those. Councilor Pishioneri said tasks 5 and 6 identify land use He asked if that meant land use for today or in the future Ms. Markarian said land use is subject to change, but it is the land use and environmental constraints that will help determine constraints for the environmental process. Councilor Pishioneri referred to task 6 regarding the"Future Baseline Travel Forecasts&Conditions Analysis' He asked how future uses would he identified by the team if land use is subject to change. Mr. Boyatt said the no-build future is the background population and employment projection with no project That growth allocates by zoning and plan designation what is in place today There could be plan amendments and zone changes, so they w ill flag that for the consultants. Councilor Pishioneri said they hay en't seen much growth along Main Street,but he wants a mechanism in place to allow a big change if something comes along Mr. Boyatt said they would have to adapt. Most of the data would be gathered, models built,and traffic analysis done. It would be crucial to he able to adapt to development of that scale. The best guarantee for this to happen is that the Council directs the work of the City. Councilor Pishioneri said his concern is that ODOT would also be Involved and the City has no authority over ODOT on the roadway. Mr. Bo)att said they could include language in the IGA with ODOT to address that h pe of situation Councilor Stoehr asked if there had been any stud) on the impact of lowering the speed limit. Traffic Engineer Brian Barnett said the reduced speed limit has reduced actual travel speeds about 2 or 3 miles per hour. There is no data available about accidents and the relationship between when the City of Springfield Council Work Session Minutes November 20,2017 Page 3 reduced speed limit was implemented. More time would need to pass to gather meaningful information. He explained further. Councilor Stoehr asked if there had been any study done on the high risk intersections on Main Street that could help control costs and minimize impacts of this project on businesses Ms. Markarian said that is included in the anal>sis piece Councilor Stoehr asked if the medians correspond with high risk areas Mr. Barnett said that would be part of the planning and analysis as the project rolls out Councilor Stoehr said he would like to leave the road as is in lower risk locations. Mr. Barnett said there is no one place along the corridor that is lower risk. ODOT has determined the whole corridor is high risk. Councilor Stoehr asked if they had studied the impact of limiting through-trucks or tractor trailers. Mr. Barnett said Main Street is designated as a truck route. Mr.Johnston said there are mechanisms to change truck routes, but it is not simple. National routes are complicated and require congressional legislation. Councilor VanGordon said he would like to have crash data from ODOT as soon as possible while it is still somewhat new Mr.Johnston said there is a process they must go through. They collect data which is then processed and analyzed. Councilor VanGordon said it is always helpful to get the information sooner rather than later. Ile has the same concerns about the timeline. He would like to look for opportunities to shorten the timeline, but also wants to make sure they balance the needs of the property owners and businesses. He doesn't want to install something that does not work.As they get into the project,they may find some things go faster than expected. It is good to have the room to hay e conversations with property owners At the end of this,they'have the opportunity to do great things and make a noticeable difference. Councilor Moore asked about LTD and how public transportation fit into this project Ms. Markarian said staff has been working with LTD to identify the best ways to coordinate and align the LTD and ODOT projects. Through the facility planning process,they are able to include LTD on the Technical Advisory Committee. By the end of the facility planning process,the transit project and safety project w ill be aligned and ready to delve into detail design. Councilor Moore asked about the stakeholder involvement. It is very important to get input from the public to get buy-in, and they haven't heard much about it in a while She asked if a mailer was going to go out to stakeholders on a regular basis It is important for them to be heard through this process. Ms. Markarian said task 2 includes the approach to involve the public. It is one of the largest tasks, and will include people on the corridor and the general public who use the corridor. Staff will be City of Springfield Council Work Session Minutes November 20,2017 Paye 4 coming back to the Planning Commission and City Council once the public involvement plan is developed to get their feedback. May or Lundberg said this is a lot of extra work She likes ODOT at the local level She wants to make sure citizens don't think we started all over again and have three more years before we even do anything else. She wants to make sure the public knows we are going through a full process before putting in medians. Each location will be carefully considered to accomplish safety and business access. It's critical that those who were on the committee and attended open houses know that this project is moving forward The projects should look seamless to the public as we coordinate. If possible, she would like to shorten the timeline and use the public outreach that was already done through this process which should match this process as well. She wants to see how it is being tightened up and shortened each time it comes to Council. Many businesses aren't sure when things are going to happen so v.c need to give them a sense of when things will happen Mr. Boy att said they would message that to the public. In the first look at the corridor,a pizza franchise came in and made adjustments to their site to accommodate the new plan. People have a right to develop and staff will manage those on a case-by-case basis and stat as coordinated as possible Mayor Lundberg said she is fine with some changes as long as the outcome is addressing safety and hay ing the most efficient corridor for business and residential access. She asked who the consulting company was for this project. Mr. Bovatt said Jean Lawson is the sub-consultant to DKS for public involvement and is committed to doing face to face facilitation. Mayor Lundberg said she would like Ms. Lawson to be involved because the public involvement will be very sensitive She appreciated that SB408 forces us to be responsive to businesses along the corridor 2. Travel Lane County(TLC) Annual Report. City Manager Gino Grimaldi introduced Karr Westlund, Executive Director of Tray el Lane County. Ms Westlund thanked the Council for the opportunity to present this report to the Council She introduced Andy Vobora, Vice President of Stakeholder Relations She referred to the comprehensiy e report in the Council packet. There are two takeaways from the annual report. First,this is a county- wide report so includes all communities in Lane County. Visitors bring$672M dollars into the county economy Those who live here also spent almost a quarter of a billion dollars, bringing the total to nearly$1 B The second thing is the work being done around targeted industry sectors. rLC has been meeting with economic development agencies in the county to focus on high tech,advanced wood products. food and beverage, and medical She explained some of the work done in that area For the last three y ears, TLC has worked at the community level to bring to life community identities,and tying trip motivators to locales. She explained how they tied in activities to local communities. That campaign has been very effective,but they wanted to serve Springfield. Eugene and Junction City specifically. They have created print ads.digital ads and a video. Also in the rest areas.they have hackl its, some of which feature Springfield. The two videos include the Go campaign video and also a ideo to encourage conferences to come to Springfield. Links to both videos will be sent to the Council. City of Springfield Council Work Session Minutes November 20.2017 Page 5 Mr Vobora referred to the Springfield page from the website Total page views over the last twelve months have been just under 20,000 views and people are spending a little over 2 minutes on the page. There is an Events page and an About Springfield page. They refresh the content all the time to keep it updated, and want to hear feedback on the city's page so they can continue to add more information if needed. Ms Westlund said last)year hospitality revenue vastly exceeded the growth indicators for the state and nationally Last year was record v ear due to two main factors: Eugene hosted an Olympic Trials; and in December, the ice storms drove a lot of local people to hotels. She wouldn't expect to exceed that amount this year so the percentages are much smaller. When new product opens, the market follows new product. Eugene has significant meeting space as well as several new hotels The accommodations revenue has quite a bell curve based on seasons. Willamalane does a great job to feed sports related business into Springfield hotels which can help in the winter She is happy to meet with anyone one-on-one or in a future meeting. Councilor Stoehr said it must he difficult promoting conventions with no conference center in Springfield Ms. Westlund said they would love to see a conference center in Springfield. Councilor Moore said has heard a lot about the 2021 event. She asked if TLC could come up with an informational sheet for the Councilors about that event. Ms. Westlund said she would get a one page document to the Council. Mayor Lundberg said TLC's reports are great and easy to read. It is helpful to track our transient room lax(TRT)because it is a revenue source ADJOURNMENT The meeting was adjourned at 7:00 p.m. Minutes Recorder—Amy Sowa 4•141 .4" - -hr.istine-L-Lundberg- Sean VanGordon --Me 4c.- Council President Attest. ��,,^,^�� >I7 Am} Sow City Recorder