City Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Start with roll call. Sure. Tom Sberg here. Bill Foyer here. Joe man here. Jim Bonker, DG Garcia, Charlie Jensen, Jean Husel here, Abby Sprag here, and Troy Molnik. Thank you. Joe, would you lead us in the pledge, please? Yes.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Uh before we move on, I'd like to um hear a motion to excuse Jim uh Baler. He's in the hospital. So moved. Second. Sorry. Any discussion? All in favor? I.

Okay. Uh and reviewing the agenda. And does anybody have any changes to the agenda or Amy, do we need to change anything for today? We're good. Anybody have any changes in the agenda they want to write? I'll take a motion on approving the agenda. Move to approve. Thank you, Charlie. And all uh all in favor? I. And the minutes from our last meeting. Move to approve the minutes as written. Second. All in favor? I I Me

too. Thank you. We can move on with business now. Um, if we do hear something about Jim, I'll we'll let you know. Okay. And thank you, Phil. Good to see you again. I've been absent. I'm sorry. You are not with that smile on your face. We have a sidewalk master plan. Yes. So, we should have um our consultant online to Sharifa is going to walk us from SCJ. Yep. Sharifa with SJ is gonna walk us through where we have been and where we're going and what the next steps are with the sidewalk master plan. Great.

So, I will stop sharing my screen and let Sherifa share hers.

Hi everyone. Hi Sha. Nice to see you all. I was just getting the prompt to join as a panelist. So, let me share my screen with you all and we'll start. Can you all see my screen? Looks good. Yep.

All right. Okay. So, we'll be talking about the sidewalk master plan, which is uh a document that we've been working on with the city for several months right now. We started back in early December and you just cut out

city. We put together a focus group to act as Oh, sorry. Um I was saying with the city we put together a focus group to act as an advisory committee for our work in the sidewalk master plan. So what we want to cover with you all today is what is the scope of this sidewalk master plan that we're working on. Uh we'll go over the sidewalk conditions in the city as uh observed by city staff. Then we'll go into an exercise of repair criteria and prioritization that we did with the focus group. And then we'll go into potential repair and funding mechanisms or approaches that we're considering to advance forward to the city council. And then lastly, we'll cover our um public engagement plan and the timeline for the remainder of the sidewalk master plan. And throughout this presentation, please feel free to stop me at any point if you have any questions and I'll be happy to answer those for you. So, starting with the scope of the sidewalk master plan, um the idea is to first identify the concerns and desired outcomes like why is it important to create a sidewalk master plan? What are conditions in the city that is driving the need for such a plan? And then as I mentioned a little bit earlier, we wanted to develop a rating criteria to aid the city in deciding which areas are more important to prioritize fixing as opposed to the other. There are sidewalk distresses all across the city. So we wanted to know uh to have like a um technical process for us to prioritize certain areas over others. So to do that we needed to review data and based on that identify priority areas within the city and then based on all of this we'll put together a memo that summarizes

strategies implementation approaches as I mentioned we have the repair approaches and funding mechanisms all of those will be summarized into the memo that would be the sidewalk master plan itself and then we'll go out to the community engage them and incorporate their feedback if it drives any changes in the plan as we have it. So, let's look a little bit at the existing sidewalk conditions within the city. The city conducted a sidewalk condition assessment last year. Um, and you can see this map here. So, the red sidewalks are in very poor conditions up here. And you have a little bit of the yellows and oranges. These are fair to poor. And then the greens are generally good or excellent. So it you can see that primarily the concentration of the redder or more orange tones are in the older neighborhoods and most of those um distresses are caused by street trees. Not always but in most cases they are caused by street trees and street roots busting up sidewalk panels. So there are different degrees of sidewalk distresses when we're talking about them and the city categorizes them between minor, moderate, and severe. Minor distresses are typically you have like a slight rising in one panel over the other, but usually it's minimal enough that the city can just grind it down. So in those conditions, you just grind the sidewalk panels so they're level. and the city has a grind program in house. And then you have moderates where maybe the uh displacement is a little higher or you start having some cracks. Those cracks can typically be sealed. Once your uh elevation point or the difference uh between the panels is greater than 2 in, now you're getting into a problem of needing to replace a

panel as opposed to grind it. you can only grind a panel a like a couple of times before you actually need to change it. And then the severe conditions is as you can see in the image on the right hand side is where you absolutely need to replace the panel. It's just completely cracked down the middle or the rise um is too high. So in those conditions, you definitely need a full replacement. The city did a full assessment of where those different distresses are across the city. And in this table, you can see that 68 almost 70% of the distresses along the city uh along city streets are considered minor. And you have 10% that are severe and those are measured for across almost 8,000 distress points all across the city that you can see them here on this map. So the yellow are the moderates, the greens are the minor, and the red are severe. And you may not think that there is about almost 8,000 dots on this image, but because those dots often overlap, so it's difficult to see them on one map, but they're all mapped here across the city. And we'll talk a little bit about the concentration of those different dots as we move forward. So we came in and took all this data that the city had gathered already and started putting together a sidewalk repair criteria. But before we started putting that together, we looked at a lot of precedent, what cities across the state are doing and really what other cities across the country are doing as well. We looked at different states, different um sidewalk master plans from other cities and what rating criteria they used to evaluate their sidewalks. and we wanted to put something comprehensive for the city of Liberty Lake. So what we did is is that we broke down the rating criteria into five

different categories. We have the safety category, we have equity, we have proximity, we have connectivity, and then lastly we have cost benefit. And I'll walk you through what each uh those contain. So, in our safety criteria, we looked at several, including the degree of sidewalk distress, which was that map that we were looking at with the green, yellow, and red dots. So, the redder the dots, obviously, you get a higher score. The greener the dot gives you a lower score. Uh, we also had the concentration of those sidewalk distress points. So, if you have a lot of red dots concentrated in one area, that puts that area at a higher priority. We looked at proximity to ADA ramps. When you're having ADA ramps, you're trying to accommodate ADA accessibility, strollers, etc., you also want to ensure that your sidewalks are safe for those um on wheels. And then we we also looked at historically, has there been pedestrian injuries in the vicinity? And we understand that pedestrian injuries usually refer to ped pedestrians and vehicular collision, but we want to make sure that the sidewalk condition in that area still lends itself to a saf safer pedestrian activities where pedestrians don't feel the need to walk on the street to avoid certain sidewalk distresses. And then lastly, in the safety criteria, we looked at the speed limits on the adjacent street along a specific sidewalk segment. For the equity criteria, we looked at areas or census trackcts with a higher presence of children and seniors. So, we looked at the census data where you have schools where you have a lot of children living in those areas and where where you have senior housing. So, those areas

would have um a higher score. We looked at proximity to manufactured housing. Typically that is driven by that uh folks who live in manufactured housing sometimes don't necessarily rely on a personal vehicle so they walk to a bus stop and tend to use the sidewalks more often. And then as I mentioned earlier proximity to senior housing um those all fall under the equity criteria. For proximity criteria, we looked at other areas that generally activities that drive a lot of pedestrian activity. So, we looked at school zones. We looked at bus stops, areas near bus stops. We looked at areas near public services and city services. We looked at areas near parks and trails where people tend to walk to those. And we looked at other activity centers, the areas that are within a mixeduse district where we want to activate walkability and encourage people to walk in those areas. For our connectivity criteria, we looked at areas where we have um areas where these sidewalks could lead you to uh trails or bike trails and things like that where you move people away from a ride of way

and onto a uh mixeduse trail. We looked at sidewalks where you only have a sidewalk on one side of the street and the other side of the street does not have a sidewalk at all. So those may be we prioritize fixing the sidewalk to ensure that people have a good alternative. Uh we looked at areas where sidewalks are completely missing and introducing a sidewalk in those areas would close a gap in the sidewalk network. and we look at areas where you can extend a sidewalk into a new area that currently does not have sidewalks. Lastly, the cost benefit analysis. That is something that's a little more nuanced. It's not fed directly from just data as it is. This would require the city's review a little bit. So, they would look at the benefit first. For example, if it's close to a high pedestrian area, maybe even if it's moderate or low, it's worth spending the time and effort to go and look and just clean up that entire sidewalk segment, even if those distresses are considered minor, just to get ahead of it before they get into a moderate or severe condition. Um, and with the cost relative to the cost of benefit, they'll look, you know, is there a tree that needs to be removed? Is there um are there utilities that need to be rerouted? So if the cost is low and the benefit is high, even if the distress is low, this could be a driver for the city to go and tackle those areas first. So this was our complex baseline for scoring the different criteria across the city. So if we go back to that map that we were looking at earlier with the different dots, what we did here, obviously this feeds into one point of our safety criteria, but what we also did is that we looked at the concentration as I mentioned of the different colors of

dots. So if we look only at the severe distress points, these are the areas where those severe distress points are most concentrated. So you can see them here. there's a higher concentration of severe distress points. There's a little bit on um the western edge of the city as well. So these are areas where we have a high concentration of severe distress points. Similarly, this is a map where we have a high concentration of moderate distress points. So you can definitely see it here along the street along Malter Road. Um and then we have the minor distress points are sort of all across the city. They don't get a higher score. They do get one point, but we can cover that a little later. We mapped all the ADA ramps because that was a criteria that we talked about and we wanted to ensure that areas, especially around ADA ramps, lends themselves to good walkability. We looked at all the sidewalk gaps within the city. So, you can see here the blue is where you have public sidewalks. The green is where you have private sidewalks and those are cared for and maintained by HOAs and then the red is where you have missing sidewalks. So we focused on the areas where you have red that relates to public sidewalks and not private sidewalks and this fed into our scoring. We also looked at um the areas of pedestrian injuries reported in the past 10 years. So all of those areas and mostly you can see them around intersections where you have an opportunity for pedestrian and vehicular collisions. We looked at the different speed limits across the city. So the higher the speed limit where you have the yellow streets and the green streets, those would get higher scores than the blue street which are internal neighborhood streets where

cars tend to drive at slower speeds. We also looked at proximity to senior housing and other facilities. I won't show you all the maps that we've done, but just to give you an idea of the different mapping that we've done across the city. We also for our um proximity criteria, we did buffers. So you can see the parks here, city parks are in green. And we looked at the darker shades of blue where we have an eighth of a mile and a quarter mile. So a quarter mile is a five minute walk. In urban design and planning that's typically a comfortable walking distance. So anything within a quarter mile got a point and anything within an eighth of a mile which we consider is immediate vicinity got double the score as well. So all of this would feed into our criteria. But before we start ranking those and creating priority areas, we consulted our focus group to start scoring these. So what we did is that we prepared the matrix that you're seeing here on the screen. And what this matrix does is it lists all the criteria here on the left hand side. And then the same criteria is listed at the top. And what the participants would have to do is look at the rows horizontally and start comparing each criteria to all the other criteria. So the first one here is speed limit. And you can see it's blacked out when it crosses with speed limit again. But then you get to compare speed limit compared to the degree of sidewalk distress. Which is more important? And you give it a score of either one or zero. And then speed limit relative to the next criteria, which is more important. and you give it a score of 1 to zero and then at the end of this you'll get the score for speed limit and then you do the same for all the rest of the criteria.

So we did this exercise we distributed to our focus group and from the results if an item gets a score that's less than seven we gave it a weight of one point when we move forward. If an item got a score between seven and nine we gave it a weight of two points. If an item got a score of higher than nine, so like people deemed it more important than a lot of items, it would get a weight of three points. So this was the general structure for us to get into to get to a prioritization structure of all these different criteria that we're looking at. So we collected all the results from the focus group and these are the general results that were received from the different weights. So you can see up here all of those are the scores that got the high like the ones in green got the higher scores which is the weight of three. And then you have the moderate score which got the weight of two and then you have the low scores which got the weight of one. And just to check these and ensure that we didn't, you know, at the end of the day, we're running this by community members and we want this to be led by community members, but we also want to make sure that folks in the city who have experience in dealing with these things do check these and ensure that these align with practicality, something pragmatic, something that actually fits what the city's experience reflects. So, we ran a similar exercise with city staff and they gave us their results. And if you can see all of the arrows here are the green arrows are items that the focus group deemed as high priority and the orange arrows are items that the focus group deemed as moderate priority. So you can see almost everything that

the focus group deemed as high was also high in the city's uh matrix which is a good reference for us that we make sure that all our work is um on track with what the city believes. The one outlier is that the focus group put a high weight for the ADA ramp proximity. The city staff didn't necessarily but we still carried forward. We moved forward with what the focus group recommended. This was just to check and ensure that we didn't miss anything that would be important to the city, but maybe the focus group would miss it. And luckily, that wasn't the case with our focus group. So, we took all those results, structured them into three buckets of high priority criteria. And you can see that they fell into several of the five categories that we started with. So, we have safety, we have connectivity, we have equity, we have economic, which is the cost benefit. Um so we have a good collection and variety of different criteria that were in the high priority and then we have the moderate and low priority criteria. We developed those with the city into a scoring sheet and this would be the tool that the city will have in their back pocket every time they want to do re a re-evaluation reassessment of okay like let's look at the sidewalk conditions again do an assessment apply all the scoring so they have this tool to continue using over and over and potentially even modify in the future. So you have the weights, you have the qualifiers, the maximum score, and the percentage of the total score adding up to 100. So what we did right now as a result of this exercise is that we took this scoring sheet and we took the map of all the different dots, the almost 8,000 dots that we received from the city, and we applied all these scores based on the scoring criteria sheet to those different dots. And the result we got

was this next mouth that you see here. So these are the same dots, but now they have different shades and colors. The redder they are, it means the higher the weight that they received. So the denser the points that they collected based on the our scoring sheet. And then the greener are you know again they have distresses but generally they scored low in terms of priority of that importance that the this needs to be addressed as soon as possible. So generally you can see a higher concentration on this portion of the city and maybe a little bit here closer to a school and there's a public park in this area as well and there's quite a concentration of severe distress points if you remember from the map that we looked at earlier. But this is generally the result of the prioritization exercise that we did together with the city and the focus group. Any question on that?

All right. Hearing none will shif when I asked you asked Charlie's I just took a deep breath so you might have a good question here but um they asked what uh in the group um how to present this to the planning commission and Sharief I think you did an excellent job now Charlie may have a different opinion on that but thank you if you guys have any questions it was make it as visual and as what opinions are worth right and as summarys yes I do any questions yeah I just have a few. Um I I went I read through the the state requirements for comprehensive plans

and I'm just curious, Amy, if you can tell me where in the state requirements it talks about doing a sidewalk analysis for a comprehensive plan. It is not a specific requirement. It is something that we felt would be important in our transportation chapter and our capital facilities chapter. So it was kind of foundational information to inform those but it is not in and of itself a requirement of the compound.

This you know I read through the study looked at all the information. My first thought was this would be something that I would think a city engineer would do because he would be ultimately or she would be ultimately responsible for making sure that as as discussed in the summary, we've paid out between 2021 and 2024 about $100,000 a year in claims. Now, that's a lot of money that comes that's taxpayer money and it affects insurance rates and it affects everybody and and the city itself isn't immune from this. In Legacy Ridge, we also paid out an enormous sum of money because somebody stubbed their toe on a sidewalk. Um, it's your fault.

I just it just seems to me that this is a fine study and somebody spent a lot of time and energy on it. I'm just not sure if I look at what a comprehensive plan is, and it's a plan for a a city or a local, a county from about 20,000 ft. It's a comprehensive plan. It's a vision, if you will, for the future. I just don't I'm not sure that it's the place for this. This is fine and it's well done, but like I say, I think this is more appropriately given to the city engineer and saying, "Here, deal with it. We did the homework for you. Now you figure it out how you're going to pay for it." That's just my my comment, Mr. Chair.

Oh, that good comment, Amy or Ben. Maybe my opinion as well. this the guy in the back row there that's now sl uh slouching, he he's uh he's the one that did an awful lot of this, too. So, and and and who does he work for? Uh you he works for the city? He's our city engineer. Okay. I thought he was going to be like a civil engineer that's working for a private actually speaks English, too. Okay, that's good. Yeah. conversation.

I I I initially thought felt the same way when I read through this the first time. Sorry. I initially felt I initially felt the same way when I read through this. Man, some whoever looks at that chart better have been paying attention in math class in high school, right? There's a lot of information there and somebody took a lot of time to really try to dissect something that's you can't measure very easily at all. Um, however, there's another side of this that um uh I think it's all a safety issue no matter where it is within the city. It's how do you prioritize? How do you minimize the risk that you said about the 100,000 a year liability? Right. So, you're not obviously I've heard it in previous meetings that the city has no way nor the funds to address all of these overnight, but you you have to in the eyes of the city's insurance company, I'm guessing you have to make an attempt to have a way something you can point to that says here's our method meth methodology on something that you it's almost impractical impractical to measure. So that for me that's where this would come in is when when the city's focused on some of these higher priority areas and something happens in a lower priority area at least you can say turn turn to the insurance company and say we tried is that

that would be the benefit of the chart

I I hear you loud and clear Mr. Sure. I I understand what Phil is saying. Again, I don't think it's in the right place. The more direct approach, clearly we have an issue. I mean, if if if one is sit sits here and believes what's in this report that this fine young man developed for us, um we have an issue. the I guess the solution isn't putting it in a comprehensive plan which again is as as envisioned by our friends in Olympia is supposed to be something that's a vision for the city from 20,000 ft. This isn't the PL like it's needed. we got to do it and the sooner the better find ways to pay for it and wholesale I don't

you got AA requirements you got a whole bunch of layers it's just that I just don't think in the comprehensive plan this is the right place for me okay Ben's going to discuss why why we're not talking about the financial part Joe and then TJ

yeah I just want to address that I beg to differ uh strongly because comprehensive means everything and our plan. One of the things that we got feedback on the most as we surveyed getting ready for the comprehensive plan was the outdoor living in Liberty Lake and the walkability. Walkability means sidewalks, nothing else. Sidewalks. That's why it's in the plan. That's why it needs to be there. And we can't ignore it. We cannot ignore it. It does belong in the comprehensive plan. Digi

and Joe, I I agree also. And the main reason I agree, not just because it's sidewalks, is that it's a preventative measure uh being taken up front. Is it not on? Am I not on? It's a preventative measure being taken up front that says throughout the comprehensive plan as we build and as sidewalks are part of the building, we look at a financial obligation we've already had to face. And so to prevent any more of that, there may be a different type of structuring and out and the buildout that addresses that uh just to ensure that we've taken care of all the nuts and the bolts before we get there. So not to have done that, not to have visited it and then later not to have seen what we can do can result on in more money, in more premiums, in more, you know, once people hear about it, somebody's going to just try to do it so they can slip and fall, right? And so we're taking away that opportunity as well.

Great points. Mr. Chair, I just have a question. Hang on just one sec. Go ahead. Is it working?

Yeah. I don't think you hit it long enough. It's a delayed response. These microphones are um I think Liberty Lake is an A++ community. Try to do things to be the standard. And I think when we talk about a comprehensive plan, I envision our comprehensive plan being the standard that's measured by all other cities throughout the state. That said, this is a perfect example of something that is A++ type quality. How many cities take a look at the sidewalks? How many have the assets to take a look and fix those? Don't know. I have six questions that popped into my mind as I saw this. First of all, my question initially was why are we even doing it? The city there's very few sidewalks that I not the case. The city have a lot of stuff.

Gene, you'll have to speak up. We don't even count the HOA sidewalks that are out there. Um there you go. Does the city have an arborist? Yes. Was the arborist consulted for this plan? Yes. Yeah. He was actually one of the survey um he provided input for the priority survey. So yeah, perfect. Another example of A++ type operation. Um, is there a standard for a sidewalk? In other words, is a is a is a contractor, they have a, you know, a a block or a, you know, 3 foot by 3 foot or something or are the sidewalks always poured? Just the city would identify the size of the sidewalk and the thickness of it and it varies per location or

go ahead and let Ben. So yeah, I mean our development code goes into if it's a 4ft sidewalk or a six six foot sidewalk and it's a requirement if as part of new residential development to provide that. That's why you see in some of those areas kind of in the Meadowwood area there aren't sidewalks on both sides of the street. That's a requirement now. That wasn't the case when those neighborhoods were built. Do we have a supply of sidewalks? We have about 78 miles of sidewalks and asphalt. I mean I mean do we have a stack of little sidewalks? We do not. Do we envision doing something like that? No. Typically sidewalks are cast in place. So we'd have the equipment to go out and

that takes care of that. Next question. Um snow removal. Who's responsible for snow removal of sidewalks? Typically be the property owner if it's a residential property. Is that published anywhere?

It is. Yeah. It's usually reminded at the beginning of the season, too. We also own the trees in front of their home and the sidewalk. So, right now, our city ordinances require that the property owner have full responsibility for repairing the vast majority of those. And if somebody was hurt in front of that said property because there was a big gap in the sidewalk, that property owner would be liable and more than likely the city would as well. And that's kind of why we're talking about this because if anybody wants to sue, we're going to be included. You got the deep pockets, right? Okay. Question on that. You said residential. Is it commercial, too? Commercial property owners are responsible as well. So, yeah.

Huh. Might be an issue for some kind of a spring outreach to for individuals. I think Sha talked a little bit about that in her presentation. It's kind of the next step. Okay. um who repairs uh these issues that we see in the sidewalks who that's coming up as well. Yeah, that'd be the property owner. And that's kind of what we're talking about is right now it's cost prohibitive for an individual property owner to spend three to four three to $5,000 for a one panel in front of their their house. And that's figures we've received from residents.

And so we've got I think later in the brief it kind of talks to kind of the process and what we're looking at what we need to go to talk to council about because this is definitely a a difference in level of service that the than the city currently provides. Yeah. So that's going to require some discussion. I I might have misunderstood what you said. The property owner is responsible for the repair of the sidewalk. Yeah. Why are we even talking about it then? because we could be included in in future lawsuits because it's on it's within the city right of way even though we don't own it. So, has the city attorney been involved in this?

Not yet. We've done a lot of research from, you know, other municipalities in Washington and and it it's pretty common for the cities to the municipalities be included in those suits. Wow. Thank you. That's all I have, Mr. Chairman. Yeah. Um, yeah. Looking at a couple of the maps, one of the maps showed um making sure we have sidewalks on both sides of a road. Is that new city policy that there will be sidewalks on both sides of a new rideway?

I don't believe so. At this point, those those particular sp uh parts of the city are grandfathered in. We're not going to go back and make somebody put a sidewalk in front of their house.

Okay. And the other question I have is we were just talking about the responsibility to repair or remove and replace a sidewalk panel in front of a private residence where I live. And my plat map says that someone else is responsible for the sidewalks. It says it on my plot map which is what I bought which is guaranteed by the title company. So in that instance what does if the sidewalk goes bad what does the city do? Are you on a public or private street? Private street. Yes. Ha. So that's the HOA.

Okay. So what does what does the city do say? Just HOA. It's your problem. You deal with it on private streets. Yes. Okay. Thank you. Any other and none of the private streets were included in the survey either. That's why you just don't see any dots on Legacy Rich. Troy, go ahead. All right. To make sure that uh Ben was all done with whatever he said before I asked more questions, but Oh, are you good? He may be answering those questions.

Possibly. Um, so, uh, Commissioner Garcia brought up a good point about being in the comprehensive plan because of planning for the future and buildout and all that. So, that kind of goes into a couple questions I had. Um, and maybe this is a Ben or an Amy question. Is there an overlay tree map um that goes along with these sidewalks? Cuz I believe there has been a tree inventory done, right?

So, we attempted to do a tree inventory at the at with the same company that we did the sidewalk inventory as well as the street inventory. And I didn't go to I didn't bring you the pavement master plan to the planning commission because Charlie, you make a great point. it that the management of pavement isn't really a planning commission thing or a comprehensive plan thing. It is included u like the exact summary is included in there but uh so we started and it was cost prohibitive uh to continue doing an entire tree inventory. So the our city arburist is actually looking for a more economical solution to get that tree inventory but we will have it and have a map overlay at some point. Um, and so the reason that I ask is all of the comprehensive data that went into here and all of the different categories and everything, I didn't see anything in there about potential future hazards because I see that we're running into that um with the trees and back when a lot of those trees were planted. I believe the city did not have an arborist.

Oh no. at that time. And so what we're finding now is a lot of those roots are getting bigger and some of those trees maybe should not have been planted in those places. Um that is what it is. But my main concern is that has there been on top of everything else that's been done an analysis on are there other areas that are going to run into the same problem or the areas that we're fixing are they going to run into the same problem so that we're not doing this twice. um because we talk about later on then Sharifa hasn't gotten to it yet potential funding sources for fixing. Um but I think that the trees or the reasons that are causing the the current hazards now if they're not being looked at it's it's only going to continue.

So one of the things that Dan Moss, our city arborist, is working with Amy's staff is is looking at that code to make sure that when we do get new developments, we're doing street trees correctly. we're putting in the right species, things like that. And so that's something that hasn't been done yet, but I think that's part of the development code update that's going to happen after the plan. Um, but you're right. I mean, you can kind of see, we didn't, we don't have a tree inventory, but you can easily sort all these little dots that say uplift tree, and most of them are uplift trees because they're they were planted shallow. They were planted, you know, they don't have root bears, things like that. So, that's kind of the thing we're looking at for the future. And you're right, we're looking for different funding sources to see because as we replace sidewalk panels, more than likely on many cases, those trees are going to be removed as well and at some point put back. Um, so that's the other thing we're considering.

Yeah, I know that was a huge concern with the trees along Sprag. Um, where did our beautiful trees go? And I I understand it. I live right there. But just making sure that you know a lot of these fixes that are going to be happening if those trees are still there and you talked about removing them when they fix it. So that's great, but just to make sure that we're not making a homeowner or the taxpayer have to replace these panels only for those tree roots to continue to grow and those trees to continue to mess up the sidewalks, even two, three panels down from where the one that was just fixed is.

Jane, you look like you're wiggling. I have another question on what does uplift tree mean? That means the tree is basically currently growing next to the sidewalk and the roots have kind of gone in and as they grow that it basically uplifts the sidewalk panel. That's why you see those gaps between panels because that root is growing underneath the sidewalk panel. Okay. Um it doesn't really mean that we're going to take the tree out if we don't have to. But in some cases that may be a requirement to otherwise you're just like Troy was saying you're just going to have the same issue over and over again if you put a panel right back on a tree that continues to grow and continues to uplift. So now so then uplift tree is a technical term.

I wouldn't say that it's something you made up right I mean somebody tried to facilitate explaining what's going on and so they said that's correct tree simple terms. Um I boy I I told him just keep it simple. I could try and figure out some three syllable words. We can do something different but okay. Mr. Chair, if I may go ahead. Have you considered I would assume a lot of the problems we have with the worst sidewalk conditions are from root lift.

That's that's these joints or it breaks up the sidewalk. In some jurisdictions, what they've decided to do is shift the the sidewalk location.

They have typically used to have a parkway. They put the tree in the parkway and then you have curb lift and you have sidewalk lift. Eventually, they shift the sidewalk to the edge of the curb face, inside curb face, and then they put the tree on the property side of the sidewalk so that they eliminate to a large degree the root lift and then the the landowner that buys that property is responsible for the tree, not the sidewalk. Have you thought about that? I mean we have but at this point majority of the city is developed in a certain way and to be able to shift to that now. So would that be something you would consider?

That would be something that Amy's staff could would could consider obviously. Okay. Go ahead, Phil. Thank you. Yeah. And that's exactly what the city of Spokane does as a builder. They make you put a 2-in caliber tree clearly inside the rightway. Uh nowhere's near any of these issues that we're experiencing. But you're right. That what's that old ter saying the the the dog or somebody's out of the gate or out of the pan or that long gone whatever. Yeah,

I forget the term. Um, one thing I I I heard you talk about uplift uplift trees. I like the term as it relates to sidewalks or concrete, but nowhere in this uh I'm assuming this matrix um was was it's well thought out and and well planned so you can uh update that matrix as you make improvements or as new issues arise. Is that the purpose of it? That's correct. So a lot of this is and I've already taken the prioritization results that Sharief's team put together and inputed that all into our our database easily updated.

Yep. So as we go in and remove a panel, we can go in there and and change remove that distress which would adjust everything. So, the one question I have related to that is, unless I missed it, and I as I look at the examples of sidewalk conditions right here, minor, moderate, and severe, I I didn't see anywhere in your matrix where uh the cause of the damage is identified. Um, and what I'm hearing today is the majority of it is uplifting uplift trees. That's correct. But as I look at this picture, the one that says moderate and the way that concrete is cracked, I can tell you right now from a builder's perspective, a heavy load drove over that sidewalk. Sure. Yeah.

It's not from a tree. It's not from erosion. It's not from freeze f thaw. It's abuse by somebody, whether it's the owner, the business owner, the adj the adjacent to use proper terms, owner of the property. Right. So, how how do you think uh in the first picture is is it looks like it's just ground down and that's clearly a freeze thaw issue. It'll settle back down. It's only a minor amount, something you can grind out, right? So, every one of these issues across this matrix has different reasons why it's happened. So, how is there a way any way to capture that because some of this is going to be abuse by the Jason owner? So that I mean there may be a code enforcement issue some there when it comes to things that aren't uplift that aren't easily identifiable obviously

it's it's a you got to go look at it make yeah we we have the cause or the or the proposed cause in all 8,000 in our database. It's just not on here because it's I think this is just for summary purposes to kind of show you a good example. I mean, in some of these older neighborhoods, you can drive through and you can just see the the when the house was built 30 years ago, they drove a concrete truck over the drive over the sidewalk. It's clear. I mean, those tires on those trucks are so far apart and that's exactly where the concrete's broken. So, if only we had the survey done 30 years ago.

Not a chance. But I'm just saying is there you you may as you go forward with this conversation some adjacent owners may take advantage of they're not calling out that I purposely or directed somebody to drive over something they shouldn't. That's all I'm saying. We talked about that in the group, too, because we do have current construction over there by the gas station across from True Legends. And all of those trucks that have been going in and out of there have already started to distress and sometimes break that sidewalk.

It's probably less likely to happen now with the current codes and the current building department. And when they go for their final, they're looking for that stuff if it's public roads, but if it's private roads, yeah, they're not required to look for that stuff and they're they're not going to call it out. So yeah, that's part of the pre and post inspection. Now, I understand. Good. GG.

And it also could be a poor issue um when they're pouring that concrete as we see in the um HOAs, the um big box, what I call the big box communities. Many of the common areas are rife with um forgotten installation, forgotten piping, all sorts of things that happened back in the day when it wasn't when the inspector didn't have have time to inspect all of them. So, they looked at one and said that was okay and didn't look at the rest. So you actually would have and when that time comes as they're building, we actually have inspectors that go around to see the uh process of the pores and the sidewalks and not the end result, but the process as they begin.

Oh yes. Yeah. And and just to speak on pre and post inspections, we have photos of every single driveway in the city that Ziply Fiber is working on. So we know in case the boring under the driveway caused some uplift. So we have documentation of that now. I just can't speak to it, you know, 5 10 15 years ago. It doesn't exist, but yes, we do. Thank you. Okay, good discussion. Any any other questions?

I do have Go ahead. Yeah. Uh just about consistency. I think when basing a future plan that the city may have uh to fix sidewalks, I see on East Country Vista that it shows there's a sidewalk on both roads, but on the west side of the road, it is a trail. And so I'm just wondering if is it the same process to fix both? Are there different funding sources for either? Is it important to differentiate the two moving forward?

So, they are um noted differently in our database. One says asphalt, one says concrete. They do have different repair methods. Asphalt's typically a little cheaper to take care of. Uh for the most part, all the asphalt is multimodal trails. It's a little wider, too. So, we have all that documented in the database and but it's for financial purposes, it's included. Um there might be a few more of those trails that are cityowned per se like the Liberty Lake Road trail. There's no property owner for that. The city maintains that. Same thing with the Country Vista Trail. So it that one there wouldn't be any private owner that would be responsible for. The city would have sole responsibility. Good question. Yeah, Tom.

I have an ancillary question relative to golf carts. What's the rule relative to golf carts on sidewalks? So that's a little bit different question. Let's we're not we're not dealing with that right now. Great question to ask at our upcoming town hall. That's right. Well, I think in April sometime. April. Yep. Okay. Yeah. Technically, you're not supposed to drive on. Actually, the police department's going to help write that, too. Okay. Sharifa, you asked for it. Told you that it would be good questions. It was great discussion. That's great. And I'm so glad Ben is here. Yeah, me too. Me, too.

All right. Okay. So, we'll get into the sidewalk repair and funding approaches, and we touched on a few items that we're going to cover here in this discussion. Uh, but just going back to the why this is so important. It's because there are a lot of settlements and even though the state allows cities to put the responsibility on property owners just because the cities have the responsibility to enforce it that when it does not get fixed the city does become liable as well. So there have been several settlements all across the city. In 2024, the city of Spokane had to pay $100,000 for someone who tripped and got hurt. In 2021, there was a $200,000 um settlement in Spokane. So, it's just generally the insurance has reported a lot of rise in claims uh for settlement amount that are that relate directly to sidewalk hazards. And you all are very aware of this and noticing it in Liberty Lake. So this is why this was very important for the city to tackle and include despite it not being a requirement uh for the comprehensive plan. It's just good sense at this point. So we looked at options for repairing the sidewalks, how to tackle that and then options for funding the sidewalk. So we'll start with the repair approaches. Generally those can be looked at from from three different points of view. It could be led by the property owner, which is currently the assumption in Liberty Lake, or it could be led by by the city, or it could be some sort of a partnership between the city and the adjacent property owner. So, we'll go into each one of these repair approaches.

So, as we mentioned, the state law allows the city to place the responsibility of repairing or replacing damaged sidewalk panels on the adjacent property owners. So, that is the case. That is the assumption. Right now in Liberty Lake, it is assumed that a property owner would fix the panel in front of their property, but when they're not doing it, then it's causing injury and potentially liability for the city. So, the pros of leaving the responsibility with property owners is that it can offer flexibility and scheduling. A property owner can look at a contractor and just do a bunch of other work for their property as they're also fixing this. So, it could save them a little bit if they're doing the work in bulk. But generally, as Ben mentioned, replacing a single slab could cost $3,000 or more. And a lot of people don't have that kind of money set aside for them to fix a sidewalk panel. So, it really puts a lot of financial burden on uh property owners, leading us to the cons. Additionally, the city currently doesn't have a mechanism to enforce the repair of the sidewalks, which is causing a lot of sidewalks to remain in poor condition and potentially worsen over time. Um, and then it may be difficult for a property owner to find a contractor that's willing to come out and do all that work for a single panel, which is why it ends up being very costly when they try to get a quote for that. Um, and then if you add to it that like a tree removal or trimming roots or doing something like that, that can exponentially um add to the cost burden that a property owner needs to front and it just becomes more burdensome and likely to delay this more and more. Um, and then all the contractors that they have

to hire, they need to be licensed and bonded by the city of Liberty Lakes business license. So, it just makes it a little more complicated for property owners. So in our discussion with the focus group almost everyone was in agreement of let's move away from relying on a property owner to lead fixing the sidewalk panels and let's look at the other models that we have in place. So alternatively we can have an approach where the city leads fixing the sidewalk. So the city would go and repair the sidewalk panel, whether in-house, they'd have a team to go and replace the panel or to go and hire an outside contractor and make the repairs. The benefit of having this is because we're putting together, for example, that exercise that shows us priority areas, the city can go and target larger stretches of sidewalks, longer stretches of sidewalks. And this could lead to an economy of scale because you're contracting a larger amount of work, so you can get a better cost for replacing a larger amount of panels. Um, also it could be a timelier way to address sidewalk conditions that are more severe because now the city has a highle overview of which areas in the city require more urgent fixes as opposed to others. So it could be a little more strategic in selecting and prioritizing areas over others. Um, so the cons of that is that for example, if the city doesn't currently does not have enough staff, so they might need to hire staff if that is something that the city wants to tackle in-house and the city will still whether it's tackled in-house or out or hiring an outside uh contractor, the city would need to put together a program for that, implement it, track it, and do all that.

So, it just adds to the work um that city staff needs to do. Um and every time the city goes out and wants to fix a stretch of sidewalks, because now it's a city project, the city needs to put out a request for bids, which could make it a lengthier process and also a costlier process for the city to have to go through that process. Um, and then at the end of the day, the cost would still fall on the property owner. So, the city would need to put together a mechanism for billing and attempting to collect funds from property owners and if they fail to do that, they might have to lean in or write off unpaid bills. So, these are some of the pros and cons for if the city takes leadership. We also looked at partnership models. So we looked at what other cities are doing um across the state and the city actually led a lot of this research of the different examples from the other cities. So some cities do a 5050 cost share program. So the city could do a portion of the work or like there's a sidewalk panel that's busted, the property owner would remove it, put gravel and then the city would hire a contractor to come and fill it. So they would share the work itself. Uh or it could be city-led. So there's an agreement the city would go and repair the sidewalk and then just build the property owner and there could be programs that would help the billing to be at a reduced cost or it could be a rebates program. So the property owner would fix the sidewalk panel and then submit paperwork to the city and then the city provides a rebate to the property owner. So with these different models depends on which one you utilize,

you could reduce the direct cost for the property owner and reduce the burden of responsibility to the property owner. At the end of the day, city staff will still need to develop, implement, and track a program because now they're sharing the responsibility of fixing sidewalk panels. And similar to the option where the city is taking the leadership, they will still need to there there may still need to be billing and attempting to collect funds from property owners. And if they fail to get to do that, they may have to lean in or write off unpaid bills. So these are generally three different approaches. We want to move some of those to city council, get their feedback as well. But the general consensus that we got from the focus group is waiting for property owners to take the lead is not the right way of doing it if we want to ensure that these panels do get fixed. So in all cases whether it's a shared responsibility or the city leads on its own we always want the city in the leadership position for these fixing approaches. Anything on on these approaches before we move to funding?

Uh we've got one question Troy

Sharifa on this partnership idea um which I am not opposed to. Um, my question is, and maybe you have or have not seen this in other areas with the property owner, if I'm a property owner and there's a giant tree in my right of way that's making the sidewalk buckle. And now the city comes to me and says, "You need to replace that. We'll work with you to replace it or or share the cost." I would argue that that tree was planted based on city code back whenever, and that tree is the cause of the sidewalk buckling. And now we have a disagreement between the property owner and the city who's actually responsible for that even though the property owner is technically responsible.

It was due to the city code that that tree was put there that's causing the issue with the sidewalk. So I could see that being a point of contention whether or not they go with the partnership. Um, have you seen that? And are there um ideas maybe to help facilitate that so that these things can get repaired and not turn into a big ugly mess?

Um, not in the work that I've done directly because again a lot of this research was actually done in-house by the city. However, when the city puts together a program, ideally it would have all these terms laid out. So there's a structure there is clear expectations on behalf of the property owner and the city of where the rely like the responsibility financially and in terms of like who is responsible to fix what. Um if it's a shared model I would anticipate that it would be outlined clearly in the city's program. So, in other words, and maybe Amy, you would know more about this, you could put in there, if the cause of the sidewalk that needs to be repaired was due to prior code, then the city will take on a larger percentage of the the amount that's going to cost to fix that. Is that how I'm understanding this as a potential?

I suppose the details of that kind of thing would kind of come out as we walk through this with council and how council wants to approach this. A lot of these are kind of councilled decisions as far as how we want to structure the program and how we want to talk about those things and and whatever comes out of those discussions there would then need to be a public education piece where we go out and we tell people what this is and what those responsibilities are so that there isn't a surprise at the end. Yeah, absolutely. Okay. All right. Sharifa, when you move on to the next ones, I think you can kind of go gloss over them a little more quickly because I think you've gotten through the the meat of this.

Yeah. Yeah. And so for the potential funding approaches, this is a piece that we did not intend to go into too much detail because this is definitely one where we need guidance from council on. Uh but we're looking at several approaches closely with the city and we plan on presenting these to council very soon. So, there's transportation benefit districts, local improvement districts, the voter approved tax levies, grants, uh, bonds, utility taxes, and existing revenue streams. We're looking at all of these, and we plan on going to council with a little more detail to get their feedback on these. But just to show you what other cities across the state are doing in order to prevent to uh provide funding for repairing sidewalks, the city of Yelm has a dedicated funding through the city's road and street con construction fund. So they just that's their allocated fund within the city budget. So they repair and replace the uh failing sidewalk panels throughout the city. City of both passed Proposition uh one levy for safe streets and sidewalks. So this is a 9-year tax um which expired at 2025, but I think they probably uh renewed it. So they have it's just 50 cents per $1,000 of the assessed value. So they collect that and then they use that funding directly to repair sidewalk panels. Um the city of Shoreline created a transportation benefit district which is one of the options we're looking at for the city of Liberty Lake. Um and in 2018 alone that authorized they authorized an additional uh $20 in vehicle license uh fees to add to the funding of their sidewalk repair. So there's a lot of mechanisms and we plan to do a more comprehensive

presentation to city council to get their feedback. um on this and I don't know Amy if you want to add anything to this and the need for council to um inform this decision or if you want us to just move on. I think you covered it. I there's definitely a lot of we need to have some back and forth with council to have them kind of help us understand what their priorities and what they're willing to entertain and then go out and do a second round of public public engagement on the things that they're can they're willing to consider. Mr. Sure. Um, do we have an estimate of what the total repair cost would be at this point?

That is something that we are working on. Um, I know that we were kind of in a situation where we were waiting for the weather to turn for us to repair a couple sidewalks oursel to get a a scale of what it would cost us. And we've heard some reports from residents that have done this and what it cost them. And it it varies widely. So yeah, like when you have 8,000 Thanks.

when you have 8,000 findings, and obviously we're not going to tackle all 8,000 because some of those aren't severe. They're just little cracks in the sidewalk. Um we've got to do some more math on that. I mean, you you look at it and and at this point, we've we've incorporated some allocations in the capital facilities plan of roughly $75,000 a year. And maybe that tackles 10% of the problem a year. So it could take us 10 years. So, a lot of it depends on how fast it needs to get done and how we can get it done, whether it's in house or through contract, things like that. But if you're looking for a rough order of magnitude, probably looking somewhere between, I hate to give you an exact number, somewhere between over half a million dollars over 10 years or something like that. And that would have to continue for several years for us to

is it to your knowledge is the city fully ADA compliant with regard to ramps and whatnot? No, we have we have we also did an ADA ramp survey which Sharifa used in this report and a lot of the ADA ramp requirements change every year and so outside the developments that have been done within the last few years we have several ADA ramps within the residential areas that don't have the truncated domes for an example. Those are all required. That's a lot of the failures that we have on ADA ramps and plus just the areas that just don't have them at all. So there are that's that's part of that half a million dollars over 10 years. We also need to take care of that as well while we're replacing sidewalks. Thank you. Thanks, man.

Real quick, I I just I think there's it's very clear there's not an answer in here that is going to make both the city and the taxpayers happy. There's not an answer because some it's got to be paid for by someone and the taxpayer pays for city expenses. So eventually it's going to come back to uh the taxpayer anyway. Whoever does the repair, the taxpayer is going to pay for it. So there's not a way I think to satisfy both the needs of the city and the needs of the the citizens. Everybody's going to be a little bit unhappy. Phil,

thank you. I'm getting the sense the tone of the discussion is the city's going to take on the financial responsibility for all of this is what I'm vibe I'm getting at least the start. Yeah.

Uh I just would say uh just my my my own personal opinion. Right or wrong, take it for what it's worth. Being a homeowner means maintaining your home and the sidewalk is part of it. no different than a faucet in the house or your water heater or your windows or the paint on the outside of your house. The sidewalk's no different. So, if you're going to step up to be a homeowner, you got to be responsible about it, including the irrigation and the grass and the trees and the sidewalk. Roger. Roger. So, with that, um, how do you how do you what what was brought up earlier, how do you get past the argument of who's responsible? Uh, as I read the RCW, um, it says the city has the right to require the property owner to construct the improvement at the owner's cost. And right now, we don't have a way to enforce that, but the next paragraph says no such improvements shall be undertaken or required except pursuant to a resolution of the council.

So, they could easily do a resolution and identify who's responsible for fixing these sidewalks. Right? So, that would check that box. And what what I would suggest to the council is rather than coming out of the gates with how are we going to be equitable and fair and who's responsible and who's not and is it our tree or is it theirs? I would almost say start with a a resolution statement that says if you're a homeowner, you're responsible for the sidewalk. Period. And then identify some exceptions. And the exceptions would include the things we've discussed today. For instance, if you've got trees that were planted because they had to be and all the rest of those. Yeah.

Because that now now you have a playbook to go by for whoever code enforcement or or whoever is going to go and determine right. It's not you're not going to get this. There's a tree in the front yard that is the wrong type of tree, but it's clearly on the owner's property and it's it's damaging the sidewalk. You can clearly say as a homeowner, our resolution says boom, you're responsible. Period. Yeah, good point. So, DG cannot see your name from across there. I know it's adding. What is your last name? Bike the road.

Commissioner Drake said something very important. It was just one word and it was consistency. Y that lends credibility to who's going to do it, which company has been chosen to do it, and will it be consistent with the sidewalk done in another area or in an adjacent area. So therefore, the idea that the city council always of course has the last say that would pull it together. Did you?

Gosh, these mics, I hate mics. um what what the consistency is the most important part and when the city council has the um responsibility to make the determination on who does what when it happens. I think one major goal would be that it's one consistent contracting corporation that comes in to do the work because the same problem will be evident down the road if you've got DG doing her own sidewalk using someone who may have a lesser quality than what's been approved at the city level and then it's 5 years later and someone's complaining about that and I say well it was done the city allowed me so that that is the most important part of all of that discussion is whatever it is whoever takes care of it that it's permitted through the city that the uh company may be approved corporation may be approved by the city standards because this it's the standard and I think um master plans always talk about what's what's the standard what's the go-to so thank you for adding that

even in our subcommittee we had that come up because we did have people that were there that and did what Phil eloquently expressed and that's the responsibility of this does fall on the homeowners but the city is also trying to help the homeowners and some of them don't have the funds to do that and some of the cause is from requirements that that were went put on the builders when they came in. So yeah, another question if I can and I know we have some smart people in the room so I'm going to ask it. Uh would if the city's going to take the lead on a task like this, would they not be would it not be uh would the city not be eligible to ask for tiff or lift funds for this project?

And the reason I asked that question is those funds come from the county, right? And it's taxpayer funded and it's to be used for the municipality. Now the the tiff part of it might I mean transportation you say well I guess we walk on the sidewalk so it would apply. What I'm suggesting is if it does if the county would consider that then if you go to your 50/50 split program then maybe you could be homeowner we're going to cover it 50% with tiff and lift funds you cover the other 50%.

We would have to check on the details of the eligibility. Typically uh certainly from a TIF perspective uh TIFF funds are available on a but for basis meaning that but for that funding stream the repair or the not the repair but the improvement would not occur and so I'm not sure if that would be eligible. We can certainly check on that and find out what that option may look like. I realize they won't cover all of the project but shoot even a third of it. Yeah we we we can clarify that and get some I mean just part of the conversation. Yeah. From consideration. Absolutely. Thanks, Mark.

Would would this be part of permitting and require inspections and those kind of things? Because I can see homeowners doing it themselves. Yeah, there would be there would be a permitting process. They have they have to pull a permit and have it inspected. Okay. Good. Good. Yeah. But whether or not they have to to pay for that or whether the city would assist with that, that's part of it. Understand that. Sure. In the weeds. Yeah. Okay. I

can I know we we extended this quite a long time. Um my homeowners insurance covers my sidewalk and I would imagine many other homeowners insurance cover their sidewalk as well. I would be very cautious about causing the homeowner not to pay or not to be responsible for that piece of property because here you have in in the in the rules and the titles of property that includes the sidewalk and includes the trees and includes all these other things. And if we're to go out and say no, you don't really have to do it here in Liberty Lake. We're going to take care of it. I think that's the wrong road to go. Um, and so if there is a way that yes, when we're repairing these things, you have to use a city contractor. The city contractor will take care of it. Here's the bid price. Can you make the payment? Yes or no? They can't make the payment. We put a lean on the property and then we go solves the problem.

Yeah, that's that's one possible solution. I know. Thank you. Okay. Okay. Sharifa, is there anything else I

Yeah, it's just final steps. We do want once we have everything presented to city council, we do want to go out to public and collect their feedback and we're going to be presenting a lot of things that seemingly are finished uh product. But the purpose of that is to one inform the public of the process, inform the public of the responsibility of the property owner for those who are not aware and just inform them of everything that we've done and the outcome and the direction based on the recommendations that we received from the focus group, from you all and from city council. And then we'll share the maps, the tables, all the results with the general public. and we'll share with them the approaches, the recommended approaches for funding and repairing the sidewalk in terms of who's responsible or who takes the leadership. And the idea is to collect some informal feedback even though that's at the latter end of the process and see if it drives any needed change to the plan that we put together or if we proceed as is. And lastly, just to give you a highle overview of our uh schedule, again, we started this in early December. We held our first kickoff meeting with the focus group in December. We also held a couple of focus group meetings earlier this year just reviewing the analysis, doing the uh prioritization exercise, discussing the funding and repair mechanisms. We do have one more focus group meeting scheduled for later in the month and then we'll during that meeting we'll present our draft report and findings of that summarizes everything we have we'll wrap up the report by early spring present it to council once they give us the okay then we'll go out and push it to the public and with that that wraps up our um sidewalks master plan conversation appreciate the great discussion.

Yeah. Thank you all. Thank you, Shar. Thank you. Thanks, Rachel. Good job.

Thanks, Ben. Okay. So, I'm going to give an update on the parks and rec master plan. So, they are wrapping up. They are getting very close. Um they are going to go over the final draft at the parks and arts commission meeting on April 6th. Um and then they will um they will provide a recommendation and then that recommendation will go to council. They will present the report to council um in um in April and then look for them to take action on it in um in May. Um they are also working to get um RCO certification. That is the main funding mechanism for grants. Um is the RCO um RCO is the main organization that issues park grants. And so eligibility for their grant was a big part of the the the reason that we did this in the first place. And so that is what they're look they're working on that right now is getting that certified for that. Um, so you guys have the executive summary in your packet. The actual plan itself is looking to be close to about 200 pages. So I did not include it in this packet.

Let's go through page for page.

So that will be at the April that will be the April 6 meeting of the parks and arts commission that you're looking for for that level of detail. Um but just to kind of give you a scope of what we what was going on, you know, they started working on this in March of last year and they're just starting to wrap up. Um and so that is there we are all looking forward to that. Um so what I wanted to really touch on for this group was how what that work is doing will interplay with the comprehensive plan. So right now what you see on your screen that chapter 13 that is the chapter the parks chapter in our current comp plan. it is adopted by reference and it has this as the placeholder. Um, this is the strategy moving forward as well. This is how I anticipate it to look, although we'll update the cover with the new cover. Um, but what this does is number one, it helps manage the overall length of our comprehensive plan to make it so it's not, you know, 6,000 pages long. Um, but it also ensures consistency between the two documents. So if the park plan for whatever reason needs an update or needs edits, we don't also have to do a comprehensive plan update to make sure that the the documents are consistent. So this is twofold, but this is essentially what it's going to look like when it comes to you in the full draft form is going to look very similar to this. Do you guys have any questions about that?

Well done. Thank you. Great. Love it. Okay. So, moving on in our agenda. Okay. That's a record, Amy. Thank you. That's why I said I love it. Exactly. Are there any citizens on on uh online? Okay. Go right to secretary's report, Amy. Phil.

Okay. So, I just have two things for you. We are um staff is diligently still working on the sign code. I know we haven't brought that back to you guys in a while, but we are working on it. It is it is um an arduous process. Um eventually we hope to have something that staff is comfortable with, our stakeholders are comfortable with and then what we would look for from you guys is maybe to have this group form a sign code subcommittee so that we can go through a lot of the details that are are associated with it. There is a lot of nuance to a sign code. It's well if you do this then what about this and this and if you do it that way then what about all these other scenarios and it's a lot of detail to go through in a meeting like this. So, at a future meeting, we will ask this body to kind of consider doing a subcommittee so that we can meet outside of this this regular meeting and and really get into the details. So, if anybody is interested in that, that is that is in the future.

I'm confused. I thought we already had these discussions on the sign code. Oh, we've had them at least three times that you and I have been involved in this one. Yeah. Yes, we did. And so the end product that we received from the consultant um after you know staff really dug into into what was happening um it was it would be very difficult to enforce and it would be very difficult to implement and it was extraordinarily long and um a little bit overly complicated. So, we are looking to kind of reform what they gave us into something that Sue, our code enforcement person, feels comfortable that she can enforce and Lance can um can actually administer when people come in for a signed permit.

So, staff took a look at what we had done before and we had gone through that even just this group here and you know how ownorous it was. So, yeah. So, it's simplifying future endeavors will be more simple. Yes. Yes. That is that is the goal. That's the goal. Simpler. Um so I have that and we'll do it again, Phil.

Yes. But it will be simpler. I promise. Um and I also just just for everybody to know um as part of the climate planning stuff, we had talked a lot about having a um a firewise town hall or an energy conservation town hall. That was some um some things that came out of our CPAT, our climate policy advisory team. So, we are actually planning what we're calling a community safety and resiliency fair um on April 30th. It is going to kind of bring both the energy conservation and the firewise and all of those kind of things that we heard from our focus group that were important to the community and try and bring some resources out. Do we know where? Um trail head over at the Rotary Group. And that is the end of my report. That's it.

That's it. Lovely. Any commissioner reports? None. Hearing none. No, no report. Just uh we meeting on March May, March 25th. Yes, as of right now. If something comes up again, Amy had asked and and I thought that it'd be a good time to break. We've been meeting every two weeks. Okay. I'll entertain a motion to adjurnn. Move to adjourn. Second. All in favor? I. Good night. Good night. Thank you, Tom. Thank you.