City Council - Regular Meeting

Okay.

You were in Alaska, I heard?

Yeah.

Did you go off like and do like a... Yeah, we flew, well, we flew up. We were with my brother-in-law and his wife. And he's got no high school, but he lives in... Yeah, yeah, yeah. He's sure he found a farm there. Yeah. And then we went down the interior of Denali Park and a bunch of stuff down there, rode a riverboat, rode a train, and then got on a cruise ship.

You guys ready? Oh, I'm so sorry. Yes, sir. All right. We're going to go ahead and call to order. City Council regular business meeting Thursday, July 16th, 2026. It is 6 p.m. Lindsay, would you call the roll, please?

Councilmember Borjan? Here. Brown? Oh, cool.

Here.

Meineke?

Here.

Porter? Here. Mayor Phillips?

I am here as well. We do have a quorum, so we'll move on. Item number two is Pledge of Allegiance. Would you please rise and say the Pledge of Allegiance.

Pledge of Allegiance. Okay, here's Brown now.

Okay, item three is approval of the agenda. Would anybody like to move any of the consent agenda items to the regular agenda? Hearing none, can I get a motion to approve the agenda? Motion.

Second.

All right, motion by Kuhl, second by Porter. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed, opposed, same. That motion carries. Item four, welcome guests and public comment. Thank you for being here tonight. We appreciate you participating in local government. At this point, we'll open up the dais for public comment for any non-agenda item. If you want to speak to an agenda item, we'd ask that you wait until then. We'll give you a three-minute time limit, but realize we can't take action on those items tonight since they aren't on the agenda, and taking action would be a violation of open meetings law. Also, if you'd like to comment on any item in the consent agenda now would be the time. Do we have any takers? They are. Would you state your name and address?

Arthur Prouty, 1034 Woodwood Drive. Every time it rains hard, water runs from the field down the street, my street, and it goes underground about three houses down, and it's washing out the dirt. And in one neighbor, it shoots out of the ground like a good foot, right out of the ground. And so he keeps plugging it up, and every time it rains, it washes it out.

Okay. All right. Thank you. Thank you. Yes. All right. Thanks, Art. Anybody else? Hearing none, we will move on to item number five is consent agenda. Can I get a motion to approve the consent agenda? Motion. Second. Motion by Borjan, seconded by Meineke. Lindsay, would you please call roll? Council Member Borjan? Yes.

Brown?

Yes.

Poole?

Yes.

Meineke? Yes. Porter? Yes.

All right. That motion carries. Item six. is old and new business for consideration, discussion, and possible action. Item A is a public hearing regarding an amendment to the Norwalk zoning ordinance to amend the legacy plan unit development by adding 0.7 acres to parcel 26 and 1.41 acres to parcel 24, all originally located in parcel 28. This public hearing has been canceled since we had published it in the newspaper. We needed to leave it on the agenda, but it's in account, so we're going to move on to item 6B. which is public hearing regarding an amendment to the Norwalk zoning ordinance regarding the reconstruction of non-conforming structures on residential lots. We'll go ahead and open up the public hearing at 6.03 p.m. So back in April, we had the final reading of a zoning amendment that addressed the replacement of structures. The situation that caused that amendment was residents weren't able to replace, like in the event of demolition, fire, or other damage, As an example, an unattached garage on its current footprint. The amendment change that was approved only addressed structures in Gordon Heights, Westwood Estates, Platts 1 and 2, and Norwalk Knolls, Platts 1, 2, and 3. We've now had another instance in another part of Norwalk where the same type of thing is happening. So this resolution, or well, this public hearing and the... The zoning ordinance is to change that and to allow it city-wide. Luke, I'll turn it over to you.

Yeah, so you're accurate in those statements. We did have some situations where in the past, this request to rebuild a garage wasn't allowed. And in the past, we had just amended our properties to the Founders District residential. It's kind of why that originally was created. And that's kind of how we were handling it. Hadn't had a lot of requests of those over the years, so it seemed like a good way to handle it. And then right after we approved the one in April, we got several requests for other areas around town, I think identifying that the problem was maybe a little more widespread than we thought. So we went ahead and did a deeper dive into our code and found a section that we could address this kind of issue. code or citywide, and that is within our non-conforming structures section. That section currently says that in a residential R1 and R2 district, any single family residential structure or two family residential structure can be rebuilt with its same building footprint if it's destroyed. So what this amendment simply does is adds a third option to that is that a detached garage in any one of those two districts can be rebuilt with that same building footprint if it's destroyed. And so in this instance, destroyed means, you know, accidental, some kind of accident or natural disaster or something. But the term destroyed also covers the willing demolition of your older property to then reconstruct it new. All right.

Lindsay, have we received any oral or written comment on this?

We have not.

Do we have any public comment?

I have a question. Yeah. The Founders District used to have that rule where it burnt down so much, the house was like 60% damaged or something to that effect. It had to be totally demolished. That's been corrected, I assume, by doing the campus district.

Right. So across the city, that's what we call these nonconformity rules. So there's like, if something gets built and then we change code, so now that thing no longer meets the code, in general, if it goes away, we want new things to meet the code. So a new industrial building, a new apartment building or something, we want those to meet the modern standards. Code right now gives two exceptions. In the R1 and R2 district, single family homes and duplexes can get rebuilt the way they were originally built. So they don't have to follow the new code. What this code amendment does is adds detached garages to that list of things that can be rebuilt as they originally were. Now, that's just spatially as far as zoning is concerned. Any building fire code things that have been updated, those have to be followed under the modern standard.

I think prior to just blanket being able to be allowed to be rebuilt, there were some occasions that were, I think there were a couple of these situations back then also, where... they picked a certain percentage. Like in case like, okay, if it's more than 60% destroyed, well, it's considered a rebuild and you cannot rebuild because it's a, because it's non-conforming. Whereas if it's only 40%, you could rebuild it because you're just more or less repairing the old structure, not creating a new structure. And I think it's, we've kind of gone away from that in the single families where as long as you're building on the same footprint, you can rebuild.

Thank you.

All right.

Anything else? Do you think that this will cover most of the situations you'll have come up with? I do believe so, yes. No flexibility? Yep.

Thank you. Anything else? We'll go ahead and close the public hearing at 6.08 p.m. Item 6C is the first reading of an ordinance amending the Norlock zoning ordinance regarding the reconstruction of non-performing structures on residential lots. So we just had a public hearing on this. Luke, you got anything else?

Nothing else.

All right. Discussion or questions from council? Motion. Motion. Okay. Second. Motion by Kuhl, seconded by Borjan. Any further discussion? Hearing none, Lindsay, would you call the roll?

Council Member Brown?

Yes.

Kuhl?

Yes.

Meineke? Yes. Porter? Yes. Borjong? Yes.

All right. Motion carries. Item 6D is resolution approving a 28-year agreement between the City of Norwalk, the City of Des Moines, and Warren County for the Southwest 28th Street Public Maintenance Project. So this is a weird situation, but here goes. So Southwest 28th Street is located in the northwest section of Norwalk. Half is owned by Warren County. The other half is owned by the City of Norwalk. Southwest 28th Street connects to Acorn Street, which is actually in the city of Des Moines. Recently, there's been some heavy truck traffic on those streets causing accelerated failure. This 28E has been created to get the street repaired and to share the cost of that repair between Des Moines, Warren County, and Norwalk. Just to get it on the record, Norwalk has no residences on that street. There's only one maintenance access for Echo Valley Golf Course. There have been conversations between Warren County and Norwalk to put an embargo on that street, which would establish a weight limit for the street. An embargo is a common tool for situations like this. The embargo will restrict heavy truck traffic, which seems appropriate given the established residential land uses served by that street. There is a clause in this resolution that indicates we won't start repairs until the embargo is in place. And we're going to address the embargo later in this meeting. For this agenda item, we're looking for council to approve a resolution establishing the 28E agreement to share costs and management of the street repair. Wayne, I'll turn it over to you.

Thank you, Mayor. As the Mayor mentioned, the north-south portion of Southwest 28 is half Norwalk, half Warren County. When it turns into Acorn Street, all of Des Moines, so Des Moines is paying all of the improvement cost on Acorn Street. The improvement cost on Southwest 28th is being split three ways. So Des Moines is not an owner of that right-of-way, but they are participating in that cost. Des Moines is, their corporate limits is real close to the right-of-way line. Those residents are Des Moines residents on the east side of the road. but the roadway is Warren County, so it's kind of complicated as the mayor indicated. But Des Moines is participating in the cause to split three ways. Since I've been here for eight, nine years, it's really been minimal efforts on that road. I really can't recall anything significant other than potholing. I did find a 28E from 2005, where City of Des Moines and Norwalk partnered on a chip seal improvement on that road. Probably nothing significant been done since then. Earlier this year, the road was improved really poor shape. We've partnered with Des Moines, but we've put about 200 tons of asphalt millings on the road, essentially made of gravel road, because it's so potholed and had a lot of bumps on it. There's a bunch of millings on it now, so it rides a little better, but it really needs something more substantial. It won't survive a winter or a spring. It'll get in the really poor condition again. So we're happy every, as I said, Des Moines, Horn County, Norwalk, everybody's been working together great. We're happy to partner together on improvement.

Special thanks to the Council.

this just addresses the agreement on rehabilitation yes okay yeah anything else i do have one point of clarification i just occurred to me on this map while this is indicating the right-of-way that is city and warren county with the green and blue the project you're talking about actually starts north of Prairie Rose Drive. Yeah. Because we already did some improvements on that portion of Southwest 28th. Sorry about that. You're right. Yeah, that's my fault because I popped together the map, but I just wanted to point that out. Other questions?

Do we have any public input?

Yeah, come on up.

Please state your name and address.

Kelly Corbin. I own a Around 10 acres at 9047 Southwest 28. And I bought it back in January. It is zoned ag, which is kind of the type of use that I've been doing. And I know that I'm definitely adding some heavy truck traffic there. And I think some of the complaints have been coming from, but I guess the road was in pretty darn bad shape, you know, forever. And I, just like Wayne said, I don't think anybody's done much to it. Um, You know, when they're proposing a 5-ton limit, it's pretty much cutting me completely out of anything. People don't realize what a 5-ton is. I mean, anything with dual wheels, period, is going to be over 5-ton. Now, I drive a pickup, a 3.4-ton pickup that's 1,000 pounds. So, you know, it's limited. I looked at the ordinance. And it's limited and clear down to no farm tractors or nothing. The guy right next to me has got livestock there. He's in the hospital, I think, right now. So he's not here to speak. And the other ground next to him is, I think, in the Lamar Cothie estate. So I look at it, it's going to be developed or something here. But the chip seal that they're proposing is, I feel like, a very bad idea. And I haven't seen chip seal done in You know, I'm kind of in this construction world, and chip seal, I can't unless you said I've seen it in 35 years. It's just kind of a tar with B gravel on it, kind of like a dust control thing, so there's no strength there. I'm proposing that, you know, either make it a good road, And it is in bad shape, but I would say, you know, you can go north of where the driveway I'm going in and it's just as bad. And I haven't been north of there. You know, either make it good, like it is, but when you limit it to a five ton, it's cutting myself and pretty much anybody else that's, you know, south of there out. Or, you know, maybe... I think one time when I had somebody complained about us and we got a call from somebody at the city, it might have been Tony Boise or something, called me and asked me about it. He said, hey, you know, there might be a time somebody's going to hit you up to, you know, put a heavier duty approach or something in there. And I said, yeah, I'm all ears about that. I understand that, you know, I'm putting a little heavier trucks on that. But I guess right now I feel like I bought it. and was planning on, you know, using it. But anything but the 510 limit, it gets me off from anything I'm doing. I don't care if I'm selling it and a developer puts, you know, apartments or anything in there. You can't do anything on 510.

All right. Thank you. Thanks. Anybody else?

I am I've reviewed the zoning there. I don't think there's anything ag-zoned there. I thought one was large lot residential, the research I've done.

No, I brought the zoning up. I didn't brought the map up. I've got it highlighted.

Is it N2A?

Just the five or six houses there is the only thing that's residential.

I just got this off the website today.

If you guys want to put it on there. And I will say he's going to get ahead.

Yeah, that's not the research I had, but Kelly's right. I mean, if it is an egg or a heavier used roadway, that chip steel wouldn't be appropriate for residential. It would be for low traffic roadways. It's going to be harder on that. And our goal is to not expend a ton of money on this project. Right does not serve a large concerning Norwalk residents. We definitely can improve the road. I don't know if there's value to the city of Norwalk that could make it great.

To have this agreement voted through does that restrict how you might do the road repair. This agreement will restrict that or will it make it possible for people to later on take a look and see what would be the smartest way to

I would say the agreement is putting in motion the plan for the chip seal.

In essence, we'd be voting for this type of repair.

No, that's exactly what we're doing. We're voting for a specific repair and a specific dollar amount and nothing regarding future repairs.

Just asking a question, I guess. If we would delay this for you to research it more or come back with a recommendation of what you think would be the better way to go. Maybe visiting with a county chief. Is that going to be a really bad thing?

I will tell you my impression, Warren County's position has been so desperate, it does not serve Warren County residents. I think their goal is to not have to spend a bunch of money to improve a rule that doesn't serve Warren County residents. They know they have some burden to improve it or to maintain it. I don't think they would have any interest in making it better, paving it, making the pole thickness, anything like that. I don't think they would be on board with it.

I think right now I've been told by Wayne that for Warren County's half, they've already put the weight restriction in place. And I already placed signs on there for the weight restriction also. And then we're kind of bleeding into the next subject on the agenda, but that's okay. I mean, it's still on the agenda, so it can be discussed now. But I think Warren County has already put the embargo on there regarding weight.

I was reading this. It looked to me like, unless I misunderstood, that farmers could still drive tractors on there.

And the embargo wording that we've got in our ordinance does have allowed uses. And part of that is exceptions like that. Let's see. Let me pull it up there.

And it looked like it mostly dealt more than five times, just like you said.

Well, the two that I'm, so I'm doing, very quick review of the Des Moines zoning map and it appears to be I believe this N2A or that looks like the closest one an N2A zoning in Des Moines is neighborhood district yeah they have an interactive map that you can zoom in it is on the map I was on I don't know that

But Kelly was looking at the map. I was on indicators and to a which was large lot residential And what was the brown just to the north of that then I think I pulled it off. Browns pod in a pod do it.

The exceptions, there are exceptions for emergency vehicles, for school buses, for governmental vehicles like snow removal, utility inspections, things like that. Collection of solid waste, recycling, septic service, mail delivery, parcel delivery, or residential services. But it is limited to those type of residential uses. I think right now... Lots there, even if they're zoned ag, there's no ag uses on them, except for maybe gazelle might have a horse on there or something like that. And I'm not sure, Kelly, is your truck traffic agricultural?

Well, I guess I look at it, I'm farming moisture out of dirt is what we're kind of doing up there. So we're laying out the dirt, till it, and get moisture out of it. I break it down into back trucks and I just have to side with facts are reused you know so you ship you ship it in and the back yeah well like you know come to the back truck like the back truck like uh no i just you know there's like you know five or six like every day that i've come in and you know not every day but uh you know and then i just basically i'm trying to find a place and you know it's perfectly good there they just you know when they're a lot of people don't know what back trucks are anymore what really what they're used for like like badger used to have some it's kind of like what badger does yeah okay really located utilities you know because there's getting to be so many utility strikes in the ground uh so that's kind of the new way and sometimes they just use it for excavating if there's too many utilities and that's the only way to do it um but you know it gets it gets kind of a little bit difficult to find a traditional farming, but I think it's new enough that we're not going to be able to see it in some kind of a warden's thing or something that we know the description. But, you know, we're basically doing the same thing as what farmers are doing. I'm out there just tilling the ground to dry it out. And then, you know, contaminated. The DNR actually came down and looked at my site and gave me a thumbs up. One of the neighbors had turned me in on that, but You know, I guess I'm just saying, like, you know, when you say there's, you know, somebody having a horse or something there, there's a guy bringing a hay trailer in that's got 12 bales of hay down there, you know. And what makes it any different for, you know, that guy than me? You know, I'm, you know, not homework, but a landowner. You know, it's... Hey, Kelly. No issue.

Can you come up to the mic?

You know, Ryan, I read the ordinance. It just talks about the government-owned vehicles that can be overweight are welcome to come down there and do whatever they need to do. And I kind of feel like, hey, what's the difference of a government-owned vehicle coming down there? And I'm paying taxes here, and I'm told I can't come down the road that I own. I don't own the road, but I own the property. Garbage trucks, they're tearing up. There's not even a place to turn around down there. It's a dead-end road. Yeah, I think the problem that's running into those, like you say, is taxes are going to Des Moines, not to Norwalk, and Norwalk's being asked to do the... Yeah, and that's kind of a new one to me, that the Acorn is where really Des Moines stops, and I'm down a ways from there. I mean, I'm...

HAB-Jacques Juilland, I'm like halfway between well doing actually stop see the little black line to the right of the blue line when they annexed and they annexed right up, but not to the road. HAB-Jacques Juilland, So that means all the all the structures or anything that you would build on your lot or the houses or anything like that. I mean, all those citizens are Des Moines citizen right they just fell short of the road. I'm not going to say for the purpose of avoiding road maintenance, but I don't know why you would not go to the center of the road.

It doesn't seem quite right, does it? It seems a little.

Yes. Yeah.

And I didn't realize that, you know, you guys, but, you know, on the Norwalk side, I think it's zone commercial on that side, kind of where the Echo Valley and the golf course, some of that is. And the other side is where I'm reading. Everything I read is all ag, you know, pretty much all the way to the very first house.

Yeah, on Beacon it says the class is agriculture, but that doesn't necessarily mean what it's sold. It's tax classification.

Have you had any communication with Des Moines? Are they okay with this being an ag use and everything?

They reached out to me. I've had one meeting with them. They've asked me for some clarification on some of the stuff that I'm doing there, and heard back i just actually sent that off a couple days ago the meeting actually that i went to them at first i think they were unfortunately being told that i'm dumping something hazardous down there so the guy gets there and you know starts talking to me and when i you know went down to city hall with them and you know told them like hey i'm yeah i'm here to talk about anything And they were a little more agreeable after I explained what we were doing and how we were doing it. He gave me pictures and they took a few pictures. They haven't been, he indicated that he doesn't really know how to classify the use of it, you know, because it's kind of a newer thing and it doesn't fit in with him.

We have had communication with Echo Valley to explain what this topic is, what kind of need they have for use of the road. And they indicated it was very minimal at one point in time. They said there was some kind of an access drive that they would go down to periodically, but they couldn't really identify the last time they used that access point. So it seemed like they had very minimal need for use of that road.

I just feel like that there's five, possibly six houses there that are just trying to isolate themselves into a bubble. And, you know, I think it's inevitable that, you know, all that ground around there will be, you know, especially with the LaMarco, these stuff, he owns a bunch of that right there, I think. You know, but there's still, there's farming going on with that. The other guy has, I don't know, maybe 10 horses down there. And I meet a hay trailer almost every day. Going up and down, you know, sometimes just a single one with a tractor, but there's a hay trailer sitting there right now. Livestock trailers.

Kothi's is tillable.

Tillable ground. Yeah, they're tillable there.

They're going to have big foot come down that road.

Probably my property and the other guys is I wouldn't say they're really great for fillable. It's probably a bit overgrown with trees down on the... I'm clear kind of to the back, kind of where I'm... I think I'm like 1,100 foot to the nearest house, too, so...

Questions? This is an agreement with... Obviously, you can't change the agreement because it's Warren County giving it to us. for this particular part?

Well, it's... And City of New Orleans. And City of New Orleans. I mean, you can change it, but I don't think I'd say vote for it with a change. I'd say that if there's changes that we want to make on it or have discussions, I mean, it's more like we don't pass it tonight and you instruct us to renegotiate the agreement if there's certain terms that you would like to see in it or, you know, say yes or no to it.

Existing uses? Okay. And I know that maybe leads to a wide open window, which can narrow it down like what Kelly's used and then what Barney used.

But if you do that, should we table this then? The road's going to degrade pretty quickly again. So we'd just be back in the same position.

I think we got two issues. One is the agreement. The agreement really doesn't talk about uses on it. The agreement is just saying, is the agreement to share the costs of the specific repair.

It's all about a particular type of repair.

Yes, I mean, it's a specific repair. I think there's probably already a bid in place. That has a valid amount. as a dollar amount, and we know what's going to be done, and apparently you call it a chip seal. And so that's what the agreement's for. The next item on the agenda is the embargo, and that's the one where we are placing a use restriction on our side of the road, and Warren County's already done it on theirs, as far as the weight restriction and what can be driven on there. And they kind of go hand in hand. And So I think that's why we're talking about both at the same time because I've heard some people say we're not going to spend the money on even doing this fix if we can't have an embargo because it's going to get ripped apart right away. You know, I've had other people, I don't know, there's many different opinions. I guess that's the council's job to decide how they want to handle it.

I think even Kelly being specialized in his business, I think he's even recognizing that the chip seal won't stand up to significant traffic.

It won't even, it's not going to withstand maybe a year, possibly two with just normal driving. So it's just kind of a band-aid. But yeah, I didn't even know that Warren County had done that. I haven't seen a sign up there, but it doesn't mean I, I don't know, I was just out there yesterday, but I didn't see a sign.

I just drove out there this evening and they had, there was two

There was new signs up. Looked pretty clean to me.

It looked kind of fresh.

Let's put it up.

And interesting, they've got to enforce that for the east side of the road. And we have to enforce it for the west side of the road. Because that's where our jurisdiction line is.

So if we don't enforce it, we can come back, but you can't get there.

Yeah, and if they didn't enforce it, you could get there, but you couldn't get out.

So we don't want to drive them away.

Yeah. I think the intent was, as far as from staff, to always be hand-in-hand to have the same restrictions before the money was spent for, you know, not our citizens.

It feels like we need to have further research because I know there's donkeys and horses and trailers and other things back there. The truck is pulling this. We're just wasting money if we do this, it feels like. I would make a motion that we send back to try to see if we can get a different arrangement in place because the chip seal isn't going to last. I don't want to have this conversation in two more years when the roads are degraded again. Yeah.

That's a table. Is there any input regarding willingness to do a different but obviously much more expensive project?

It doesn't seem like Kelly's right here is a human being, so it's good to do these with real human beings. Thanks, Kelly. Yeah. However, when we represent like all of the people of Norwalk, you know, it's like the thought of spending a lot of money on making that road really great. You know, that's odd. You know, as much as we'd love just to be generous all over the place. And, you know, like, You got a human being in front of us who's using the road in this way. You know, that's meaningful. But it would be, you know, it's not exactly the same, but it's no Norwalk residents. So it's like cloning a million dollars to any county saying, hey, here's some help in rebuilding a road that would be helpful for some of your people.

I know they do that with us. Sometimes we share this, you know, one of the roads. I guess I was wondering in my mind, though, I just couldn't get gravel road, really nice gravel.

That's what I was gonna I was one of us in the gravel road, and it was plenty fine.

I mean, until something starts to develop there. Right? I mean, if something starts to develop there, then I could see the point going back to us and say an eight. Good.

Usually if we table something there, it's some sort of direction we're going to get further research or we're going to do something else. So I guess if we table it, I wouldn't mind having some pretty specific direction on what we're going to do because I just know that we're going to walk away from it saying, well, when would we bring it back and for what purpose?

So I have a question for Wayne then. Sure. Is it viable to make it into a gravel road and that gravel road last longer than this chip seal idea we're doing? Like it sure seems like there's plenty of farm roads. I grew up on a kid that were gravel roads where we had more than five ton vehicles that were driving on it. If it's not that many houses, is that a better solution? Is that something we could research to figure out?

It's an option. I don't know if it'd be better if the road was residential traffic. I think the chips will be fine. It's the heavy traffic that hurts it. And heavy traffic is hard on gravel roads. They're not maintenance-free. Even if you have heavy traffic on it, you're on that maintaining that. The issues you're going to have is the spring, usually it's spring on gravel roads. That's where you got your problem. The road lasted a long time. I mean, it wasn't great. It lasted a long time with a chip seal on it. It lasted 21 years before we came back. I know it's not great. It's a band-aid. That's the level of effort we thought we would want to put in at this time. If you want to make it gravel, it's probably going to take some effort as well. We can look into that. You're probably going to have just probably more Des Moines residents coming to the next meeting when we talk about that option.

Possibly ship seal it north of the ag places, you know, for the residents. That might possibly make everyone happy for the moment. I mean, I know it's not a fix to go up the hill there, but There is a construction project right now that's on the back of Echo Valley there. If you've driven it, I mean, it's still going on, but they put a temporary deal in there. They're doing a bunch of damage to it as they come in and out. They've got mixture trucks and all that stuff. And it's a resident right here on the Norwalk side. It's somebody's... Denny and Sarah Bolt.

An addition on their house.

Yeah.

But that's, yeah, that access is very temporary. Yeah. But I'm just saying if it was chip sealed, it would be gone. And so if there's another person that does that or, you know, the tractor and the guy that's going to continue to, you know, down feed his horses and take his hay or, you know, whatever, there's going to be damage there.

Without an embargo in place and ability to limit the loads, I probably wouldn't recommend this. I've said that from the get-go. If without the embargo, this project would be a no-go. And that's one of the counties in the same boat. I think that's why they've acted first on a weight limit on it before they have this on their agenda next week.

Yes, sir. You know, we've done other projects with Des Moines. They were a participant in the traffic signal that we did on Highway 28. If some of you may recall, that's been a while ago. So they've been good partners. Wayne, do you think maybe with Des Moines, with this primarily being residents, property taxpayers that are impacted by this road that are in Des Moines, do you think we could offer up for them to make a proposal?

The people we've been dealing with have been good and open-minded about it.

How long would you need for such a consideration, you think? It's reasonable to look at before you come back and revisit it.

Wheels move slower when we deal with other entities. I'll say that. It's going to take, I mean, it's taken three months to get this brought forward. So everything goes to one county and then it goes to City of Des Moines.

So it'll be a little bit of delay. Can we table this without a due date, Jim? Let's say pending, you know, another proposal or pending a presentation? additional information.

You can you can table it, we could say that this, I mean, if we're certain that this agreement is not acceptable. I mean, it could just fail for lack of emotion.

And you know, whether the agreement comes back with a change of one paragraph and come back on as a new item.

But you can't table to I mean, it's John Gerstle, It's John Gerstle, It's John Gerstle, Different ways to do the same thing. John Gerstle, I just, I don't see it sometimes. Oh, Lindsay worries about getting something table that is permanently on the table.

John Gerstle, We don't clear off table. So we let it die. And then some point at the direction the staff would research this and

This specific contract could just die from lack of emotion with the understanding that staff isn't letting an item drop. It's just going back to figure out new items for the contract. And at that point in time, we just write it back. But then we have also the embargo question for the next one. For some clarification.

My sense is that I feel like if Kelly were to have good communication with Des Moines, where there's some understanding between those two entities on how the road can be used, how the land can be used, that's good. And there's a proposal on the condition of the region that matches up with whatever our financial input would be. If that were to come forward, addressing all those items, I feel like that's about the only way that gets this over the finish line.

I think I'd also like to see a consideration for if there actually are people that farm up there. I remember going through there before, and I did see a farmer up there. He had a lot of other things around the place, but.

John Gerstle, And there's one guy that has some livestock us the same individual who's on the south side of beardsley street up about two or three properties that has all the chickens and horses and. John Gerstle, Adelaide get out on beardsley. John Gerstle, He owns that same property. John Gerstle, Then you got kelly's open lot there. John Gerstle, Next to that, and it looks like you do have the kofi ground. which is more of the yellow color that probably does get farmed some. Then you've got the church ground south of there. But everything north of that are all houses.

Anyway, from my point, that's what I'd like to see. I'd like to see something that addresses those things. And then where the houses are, you know, fine.

Andy, do you want to retract your motion? Sure. Okay. So that motion is retracted. Can I get a motion to approve the resolution to present it? Hearing nothing, it dies. All right. Moving on. Item 6E. If I can get that. Item 6C is a resolution endorsing an application to the Iowa Department of Transportation for funding through the revitalized Iowa Sound Economy Program for the Delaware Street Extension Project. So part of our agreement with TRACT is to pave Delaware from right around Michael Foods, heading west for about a mile. TRACT has agreed to pay for half of this, and this rice grant will pay for the other half. Holly, I'll turn it over to you.

Pretty good deal. We have used the same program through the DOT a couple times in the past for various projects. When we had the certified site established where Michael Foods and Windsor Windows are located, we did a raise grant on that section of Delaware that was paved. And we always had it in our future plan to continue the paving of Delaware West as development occurred. And so now we're kind of at that phase. And Snyder Engineering is doing the engineering services for us for that section of Delaware, as well as applying for the RISE grant for us. So they're putting all of that information together. And this is just endorsing that application. It will get sent in here in the next couple of weeks.

Thank you. Questions, discussion, council?

It's a pretty good deal, really.

Yeah.

Any public input?

Hearing none, can I get a motion to approve the resolution as presented? So moved. Second. Motion by Kuhl, seconded by Porter. Any further discussion? Lindsay, would you call roll?

Council Member Meineke?

Yes.

Porter? Yes. Borjan? Yes. Brown?

Yes.

Kuhl?

Yes. All right. That motion carries. Item 6F, we do our ordinances after resolution. So it's the first read of an ordinance amending Chapter 66 of the Norlock Code to establish a vehicle weight restriction on Southwest 28th Street. So this ordinance is about the embargo that we've been talking about. Assess the weight restriction on Southwest 28. For the western half, for our half, C. If this dies because of lack of motion, can it come back within a year? It can come back any time, right?

It can come back, but it's not a zoning one, so there isn't that restriction on it. Okay. Yeah, so we can do that.

John Potter, Right, you know, do that. All right, anybody want to make a motion to approve the first reading as presented.

John Potter, Hearing none that John Potter, That item dies.

Okay. Item six G. Before we get to that, I'm going to ask that we take a five minute recess, please. John Potter, So, because it's going to be a long. John Potter, Five minute recess. It's at 645 be back to 650

And it's not fun.

Ready, Lindsay?

Yep.

All right. So we're going to get back into open session or, well, back into session at 6.51 p.m. Item 6G is the second reading of an ordinance to amend Chapter 76 Norwalk Municipal Code regarding bicycle regulations to update the ordinance to include regulation of personal transportation devices. So there's been a lot of discussion across the entire metro area about e-bikes, e-scooters, e-motos, and minibikes whose use has exploded over the past year or two. What you see before you is Norwalk's ordinance. I'll acknowledge this has taken us a while to get this to the council table, but as other communities brought it forward, there's been significant input from various bicycle and trail organizations, so we've been monitoring that and adjusting so we get it close to correct the first time. As with any ordinance, we need to realize that we may see some unintended consequences to the ordinance. We may need to quickly adjust it. but that's part of getting something decent in place. If we wait to get it perfect, we may never see anything inactive. I'll also say, I think over the past week, we've gotten some good input from residents about their concerns and we've added and changed some of the wording in the ordinance, which we'll go over tonight. We're gonna take these one at a time. So let's talk about an item and then we'll move to the next. Council, if you have something that hasn't been discussed I'll ask that you wait until the end to bring it up. Okay. I'll ask for public comments after council has addressed each item as well as any of their own concerns. This may take some time, so we appreciate everyone's patience. Jim, I'm likely to call on you a lot as we go through each item. Okay. Be ready. So let's start with the age restriction that was set at the first reading. The ordinance was amended to say that anyone under the age of 12 could not operate a motorized device. I think you'll see some additional wording in that section that indicates an exception in the case of a child that is being closely monitored by a parent, guardian, or responsible adult that is 21 years of age or older. I was originally of the opinion that the age should be set to 14. Andy gave a good argument on why to set it to 12, that being when a child enters middle school, that this will be a good time to start allowing usage. Just to throw a wrench into this, though, the school district is planning on moving sixth grade back to the elementary school in about six to eight years. I'd like to make a suggestion to change the age to 13. It could be one of those milestones you get when you become a teenager. What are you guys' thoughts?

that point why not 14 so that there's some type of identification if they do get pulled over by an officer just because they're 14 doesn't mean you have a have id though right correct i think but at least you're not likely possible if you have if you have your school percent yeah yeah does the state make this distinction at the age of 14.

Has anybody sort of like socialized the age limit with people since we last met? And is part of the 13, Tom, because you've had some conversations with people at all? Or I'm curious about that.

No, I haven't really had too many conversations. I know that 14 seemed like a decent age to me. Dave Kuntz, After andy's comments I realized that might be a little old, especially when they as as Andy indicated, you know 14 year old with a school permit could be driving a three quarter truck to school. Dave Kuntz, 12 just seems too young to me. Dave Kuntz, that's why I kind of met in the middle set 13.

Dave Kuntz, Compromise it to. You would think, though, 14, unless they're directly supervised by a parent or guardian. That's how it would turn out, wouldn't it?

Say again?

If we changed it from 12 to 14 years of age, it would be, you have to be 14 years old, unless you're directly supervised by a parent or guardian.

Yes. Regardless of the age, you can use a device if you are directly being parented or monitored by a parent-guardian.

So it doesn't completely exclude 12-year-old kids.

Or 10-year-olds or 8-year-olds. Right.

It just takes into consideration the maturity level.

Of them being on their own.

Which living in a neighborhood full of children, that's the majority of this issue at hand is the lack of parental supervision with children on motorized vehicles. So that's where I see that.

What about the situation though, where like mom and dad work, they have a nanny or some responsible party that might not be 18 and they're watching the children. Like, do we care about that situation at all?

That might fit under the, well, it depends on how we get it worded, but it could fit under the direction.

How likely is a nanny being 21 years old?

But if the nanny is under 18, though, you have children watching children.

Agreed.

Right.

And so I was going to ask a question differently. Where did the 21 year age come from? Right. But like, at what point does you become an adult? I don't know. 21 is a good question.

As far as where 21 came from, I put 21 in there. I mean, certainly it is a matter for council to discuss if they like the wording, but it is ultimately them, you know, the council deciding what they want.

You know, I go to the rec center and I see my son there. There'll be younger kids there being supervised by other maybe quote children, right? But the parents are entrusting and expecting that, right? And so, I don't know. That's a hard one for me, I guess. I totally understand. I think it's a good provision to have if somebody's watching it. Younger children can do that, but what's that limit to? I think that's hard.

I guess I'd feel better if it was someone a little more mature that's controlling the situation.

Agreed.

I'm not saying that they've got to be 21. I'm not saying that. They could be 18, I suppose, or whatever. You had a good question you asked earlier, though, when you said You know, when do they mature? You know, I've dealt with 49-year-olds that are immature. So, I mean, it's pretty ambiguous, but we're just trying to make the best guess we can to kind of shoot a friend in the middle.

The other communities, Tom, that have passed some legislation ordinance, do they have age restrictions?

I think we're unique on that. But I've had some feedback on that saying that that was interesting and that they were going to seriously consider that.

Because maybe what they've passed hasn't solved every issue.

I think there was not a lot of data and science behind my agreeing with the 12-year-old thing. The data was, I was just thinking as a dad in terms of my own kids and at what age would I have trusted them to kind of be responsible using one of these things on their own? Or at what age would I have, yeah, like, I mean, like being concerned for their safety primarily. Right. And, you know, what I was thinking, and it's very arbitrary, was like, I think at 12 years old, I would have been okay with some limited, but yeah, you know, you can go, it's like a mile from our house to the legacy pool. Like, sure, go ahead. Yeah, do that on your own. Wear a helmet. I would have been that guy. And like, you know, it's a privilege, honor it. That was all that was going through my head. And so like, that's not, we're not talking like a lot of like academic level research. And you know what I'm saying?

And we're not saying that if it is 12 and a 12 year old is riding one and they're acting recklessly that they can't, can we still cite them? Yeah. Yes. So. Yes.

Which I would, I would have been all for. Like if my kid was being reckless. And they got cited being an awesome opportunity to have a good conversation with them. Yep.

My issue with that is that they don't have anything to lose, though. When you get tickets, you have something to lose. Yeah, their parents do. Right. But... I don't. That almost seems more like entrapping.

I think our ordinance as far as citing that type used to be more the citation would be against with the parents.

Yeah.

And those parental citations, if those occur, it's not going to be first of that because really you're not You can't cite a parent for the bad acts of the child. So it's going to be bad acts of the parent. What the bad acts of the parent is lack of supervision, lack of proper instruction, negligently performing that duty. So the first off time, I don't see myself ever being able to prosecute a case where a kid goes out for the first time, violates the law, parents aren't going to get a ticket. The parents who I get talking to, I picture this to be the habitual offender in town where you've got a 10-year-old that even though he's been delivered home to the parents four times in a row, he's out there the next day doing it again. And at that point in time, it's pretty easy to prove that the parents are being negligent in their responsibilities.

And it's kind of a thing to think about in the regard that if we have it in the ordinance that direct supervision, if they're under certain age, right, and they're not under direct supervision, then the parent is at fault. Could be, yeah.

And they could be silent, right?

Right.

It's all just a measure of failure to properly supervise.

You wouldn't have to feel bad about it. You know what I'm saying? Because that's the law. You're going to let this kid under a certain age.

That would be another aspect of proving it.

You're responsible to make sure they're supervised as to not being stupid. That's hard sometimes. Not be stupid? It's the nature of a kid left alone Let's just see what they can do. It just is. That's the nature of a child. Because they're learning. They're experimenting. It's an adventure. Nothing bad is ever going to happen. Never mind.

What bothers me most about this is that this isn't saying that children under the age of 14 can't leave the house. Like there are other modes of transportation that are arguably even healthier to build muscles and get some physical activity. Human power. A kick-push scooter. A bicycle. That's what bothers me about we're weighing safety versus convenience and that doesn't make sense to me. So I think pushing that age needle to the older rather than to the younger makes logical sense to me.

I mean, I'm fine if we want to move it to 13. I'm not. It's, yeah.

Well, six or seven. Pick up another vote for 14. That's a discussion.

Yeah, it could change next year, right?

Yeah.

Because we're just trying to get our best. Trying to get it rolling.

Yeah, because we will. We will get parents who bought their kids scooters who are, you know what I mean, under 14, and they were going to be mad.

It's better than a $14,000 golf course.

Which is fine. We can look forward to this. That's okay. And, you know.

Well, it's fine.

All right, fine.

Because there are other modes like all of us used to do. We used to ride our bike before that. Right.

I will say I warned them in a mayor's moment in November. Don't buy this for Chris.

I was gone the last week. The state didn't pass anything.

They did not. We were hoping the state was going to pass something. I know they made some changes to the definitions of class 1, class 2, class 3. And I think they changed the wattage from less than 750 watts to 750 watts or less.

I believe you are correct. The point that I wanted to add is that just today we received an update from the League of Cities and they said that e-bikes, e-motos is likely to be a key topic for the next legislative session.

I had heard that at MAC on Tuesday that yes, it's going to be right up at the top. But let's get something in. And if it's working for us, let's take that to our legislators and say, this is really working for us. So yeah, you were missing. We had a discussion about, do we restrict based on age and using motors? And the idea is that, OK, under a particular age, you can still have a human powered device. That's not a problem. it's it's the it's the responsibility of having a motorized device that maybe maybe kids under a certain age uh shouldn't shouldn't be privileged to right uh i originally suggested 14 andy then came in and and like i said he said uh You know, kids are going, let's make it 12. Kids are going into sixth grade and into middle school. Those are usually 12 years old or around that. And so that's a kind of a rite of passage into middle school. They get to use those.

But it can't be a rite of passage because they're just a few years old. Well, except mopeds, yes. which had somebody talked to me about a moped. They said they had to take class on mopeds. That is true.

Yeah.

Maybe the Oakley school training, not putting anything on the school, but maybe they would have a PE class to train kids or teach them safety on motorized scooters or something like that.

Interesting. Holly Johanson and I were having that conversation just a little bit ago that maybe at our next city school meeting, we should bring it up to the school that maybe if the kids aren't wearing a helmet, they don't let them in. They can't use it or something like that. And maybe...

There was a girl who looks like her sister on a motorized, electrical motorbike and bike. I couldn't tell you her age, but 10, maybe. And the little kid was probably five. The little kid had a helmet on. The other one didn't.

Yeah, that's just not... Tom, is there any wisdom in asking the school their perspective on an age restriction?

They would probably have a good insight of when it starts to happen, it feels like, when they're writing the school stuff.

I'll send it to him right now.

We could keep it at 12 for the moment. And then we know we're going to have another reading.

Correct.

Yeah. How about for the age of the responsible adult?

Do you want to leave that at 21 or change it to 18 or 19 or 16 or 14?

let's just change that to a bunch of 12 year olds so we're gonna train each other what do you think it's i think 21 is too i think the example i brought up like you're gonna have we're gonna have a situation where the mom and dad are working right and somebody's going to be watching and they're probably not going to be 21. Right. And so I don't know what it should be, but 15, 16, 18.

And I just don't think 21 is the right age.

I would probably tend to be 15 or 16 in my opinion.

It's been quite a while since I've gone through all this. What is the age where you can have more than one person in your car?

At 14 and a half, you actually can. Yeah.

Yeah, the sibling. Just sibling going. Just one non-related person. That's 16 if you don't have any violations. You can go from the... Isn't that right?

I think it's 14 and a half. Because my son could pick up someone that's right next to us and take him to school that's non-related. Only two indirectly.

Yeah, but not another person.

It's just one.

I know this because my best friend's with me. So, quite hairy. Um... I just, why, where does the years and decades and generations of studies come that allow a 14-year-old to have a learner's permit and 16 is when you get your license and 18 is when you're considered a legal adult and 21 is when you can purchase alcohol, 25 is when you can rent a hotel room or whatever it is. There's got to be, that's where I'm coming from with these numbers. There's got to be research and cognitive development and adulthood and adolescence. Those numbers are there for a reason.

I would say the 14 is there primarily for the farm community so that kids could, those farm kids could do chores. And by the time they're done with chores, the bus has already gone by. So they have to have a way to get to school. So that's why the school permit exists.

So then why is 16? So then what would be the theory we think 16 is when you get your license?

16 is when you enter high school. and so and there's some responsibility there and it's it's as you get into activities is getting to school before activities staying after school for activities and then getting home because the bus wasn't there that's what i'm so in iowa's minor restriction school permit you can have one non-related rider but only one at a time when driving with it out without adult supervision

At $14,500, you could have a non-related passenger.

It's just an interesting way to think about this.

What do you think? Leave it at $21,000, change to $18,000?

I don't think 15- or 16-year-olds want to hang out with 12-year-olds unless they probably get paid, is my opinion. So I would be in the preference to put it to $15,000 or $16,000.

I would think a 16-year-old.

I like 16.

At 16, I was picking my brother up in preschool and kindergarten.

Okay. So can I get a motion to change the responsible adult age to six?

It's not an adult responsible. We'll change the responsible individual.

Responsible individual of 16 years or older. Motion. Second. Okay. So motion by Brown, seconded by Meineke. All those in favor say aye. Aye. All those opposed say aye. Okay, so that motion carries. We're going to change to... Can I have one more question?

Sure. So if we're going to then cite someone and they're watching them, it's cited. The parents that place the permission or the person that's actually watching?

That's a great question. What do you think? I think it's who's responsible for them at the time. So if it's a nanny, the nanny would give. I think we got to call that out. People have to understand that, right?

Which just then puts more pressure on the responsible person that's taking ownership of the situation.

And Jim's earlier point, probably not going to be like first fence immediately, right? Yeah. Right.

Okay, that was a great question. Anything else about that? Okay, so there was also clarification change that will allow usage on sidewalks and trails within parks and public property. This is only for sidewalks and trails, not on the grass. Jim, anything additional on this point?

Okay.

HAB-Masyn Moyer- Are we leaving it at 12 yeah for now.

HAB-Masyn Moyer- Okay, with regards to the with with operations in the park. What I did there was I changed the definition of trail and sidewalk to include those items that are in parks also, they're not public property. So that way, whatever applies to all the trails that are traditional trails, it would apply to this also and allow that in parks. Then also there's an amendment that I placed in the in the ordinance that allows for the use of basically all the non-motorized um type of transportation whether it's a stroller or a wagon or pedal bike to go anywhere safe within the park although it authorizes them to go off the trails and sidewalks be operated within the park um You know, wherever that may be. And I can read that to you. What we did was pedestrian conveyances, which is basically most of the conveyances that can only be powered by human power, a bicycle that can only be powered by human power, or an OPDMD may be operated within a public park in a careful and prudent manner, except where signs explicitly prohibit riding. So that would accommodate them going off trails and being able to pedal their bike or push their stroller down to the playground and actually get off the trail or sidewalk.

Any signs? Discussion from council?

Yes, that's what those OP DMDs are.

Any public input on that item? On usage in parks? No. Okay. Thank you.

My name is Melanie Carpenter. I live at 302 Street, Middle Rock. Just something to be aware of. We had our grandkids last week. We went to the park over there by the Catholic Church. Kids were playing, running around on the playground. And a young kid came on his motorized scooter. rode down into the area with the picnic tables and then proceeded to ride his bike through the playground several times.

So this would prohibit that.

Okay. And I didn't know if there was some, like if we could put signs up that state that, that you can't ride

through that I mean that should be a given yeah right now the ordinance is default that it cannot be done okay because it's difficult to have an ordinance that puts signs up every place you can ride because you'd end up having thousands of signs every place you know so it's uh so right now it permits it unless it's you know it does permit signs to be placed saying no no riding here right uh of the manual pedal ones and the push thing. But as far as the electric ones, it's just prohibited.

Yeah. It was just a little concerning for me with a lot of kids playing in the park and this kid riding his scooter around.

There's going to be a learning curve. I think we're going to have to recognize that because we adopt an ordinance doesn't mean that 10-year-old who's unsupervised is going to stop doing that.

All right.

Thank you. Any other public input on that item?

I'm Kevin Carpenter, 302 Spruce Street. A quick question. Say somebody's on a scooter, like myself, bad knees, bad heart. Does that mean the scooter cannot come off the trail in order to get to the

That's where I was talking about when I read and I gave those letters, the OPMD, I think is what it is. That's mobility devices that are used for disabilities or people that need assistance, whether those would be a temporary disability like broken leg or whether it be a permanent disability, they would allow that.

You're going to have that versus other stuff.

Yeah. That is definitely allowed. Except for you.

Anybody else? All right. We're going to move on. Last meeting council asked that the issue of how it used to be looked into. Jim, what do you think?

Well, I guess my legal input is that the city, I believe, has the legal ability to do that. That doesn't mean I'm recommending doing it because I searched for other jurisdictions and I couldn't find a helmet requirement someplace else. Personally, I certainly am not willing to recommend that, but it is a council discretion item on whether you want to require that or not.

Can we do it? We put an age.

I think you can. I think you could.

I'm just going to put out there, I think helmet usage is a parent decision.

Because I'd like to see them. I'd like to just see their requirement.

Would you put an age restriction on it?

No.

So no matter what the age, you have to have a helmet on?

Yeah. Okay.

What's everybody else think?

I hop on my bike and occasionally ride about five blocks without the help of a helicopter.

That's where I think the age restriction is meeting halfway.

Why do I do that? I've never crashed in my life. No, why I do that is because I've got my hat on and I'm going to go hang out with my group of guy friends. And it's just convenient. You know, it doesn't make sense. I mean, why don't I just throw on my helmet and throw on my hat? It's just convenience. Because when I go out and I like officially ride my bike, I always wear a helmet.

You're going faster on the trail.

Yeah, like if I'm, yeah. Or if I'm going on a, like for a workout or something, I always wear a helmet. So, you know, I used to hear that about seatbelts. Oh, gosh, right?

So that's where we struggle with not requiring helmets at all or feeling like we can't require helmets at any age or anyone. Because we do require seatbelts. I mean, not at the city level, but we're not the ones that say you have to.

Right. Correct.

But you don't have 10-year-olds running around on the other side to see it. Well, now you're wrong. Now you do. I would say, I agree with you on the parenting thing. I would say, I would not. Whatever that means. But you have to.

Same age.

Same age. Just to make it simple. you're 12 and under, is that the element on it? I was going to say it should be the same age as well, whether it's 12 or 14 or whatever it might be.

But somebody 12 and under, they aren't going to be operating a motorized device. So why would they?

Supervised they are.

Why would they say they aren't going to be? They shouldn't be. They shouldn't be. And supervised they would be, yes. But if you're supervised, then your supervisor should tell them to wear a helmet.

But the helmet issue is not an issue of, it's not really an issue of reckless endangerment of other people on the streets and sidewalks. It's safety for the rider.

But isn't that up to the person that's watching them? Yeah.

Good second, people.

I agree with that. I think it's I mean, I think it's motorcycle.

You know, you can always, you can always be the first. Great. But it's interesting that so like, there's no way my kids have ever gone anywhere on a bike without me telling them to wear a helmet. Right.

Albany, Ohio has an 18 page requirement for evac. Like it was really Yeah.

So

If you're under 18, you can't ride an e-bike. Just passed a law requiring anyone under 18 to wear a helmet when riding an e-bike, powered scooter, or bicycles.

And I do kind of wonder, like, below the age of 18, you're mandated. And then over 18, you could be stupid. Because you're an adult. Yeah.

They protect you though. I wiped out, broke my shoulder and I'm sure glad I had a helmet on because the helmet was cracked.

They do. They do. I almost wonder if it's better us not saying anybody about it or what we say is it's up to the discretion of the supervising person. So then, yeah, that would mean nothing to me regarding helmets. I think it's a good idea, but I just don't know if it's in best interest for us to say it.

Jim can find another place that had a, you have to wear a helmet code.

I could not. Now, I didn't go around and open up everybody's code, but I did a search for helmet requirements You know, Central Iowa, I couldn't find one.

Yeah, it's pretty wide open. Yeah. Worked in that arena. Yeah.

So pros of wearing, of mandating some type of age or something that you have to wear a helmet is you're safer. Not doing anything and allowing people to not wear a helmet.

is a safety risk.

The only con to mandating it would be complaints and people. Well, there could be upset that we're making you now wear a helmet, which is a positive.

There'll be complaints. There may be some enforcement complaints. I mean, uh, are we expecting our police to pull over every time we see a 12 year old on a bicycle? Um, and track down the parents to cite them for. Yeah. To cite them for lack of help.

He's over there. He's hoping that we're doing that.

You know, and I also asked me, I've always considered, I wanted to make sure that we didn't take into group like, you know, the little Jeeps driven by my two-year-old niece or granddaughter, two-year-old granddaughter. She wears a helmet, but they're, You know, it's a remote control thing, but she's still riding it. And that's why the direct supervision, I think, is important, because there are little things like that that would fall under these definitions. But for the direct supervision. So I think, you know, the helmets, we'd have to be pretty careful to figure out what we're doing, whether we're just talking electric, you know, the electric type bicycles or anything electrical powered. Or are we talking all pedal vehicles? Are we talking everything? so that the baby in the stroller has to be wearing a helmet. No, we don't want to wear a helmet and stroller, but it's going to be, if the council came to the determination of, yeah, I want helmets, I'm going to start asking those types of questions because we need to figure out how to succinctly write this so that there isn't gray areas in it.

I do want to make the comment that wearing a helmet on one of these vehicles, modes of transportation isn't just a safety thing or a parenting thing. It's also affecting those of us that are on the road who have no tie to that person at all, right? Like I hit George with my car and he's on a bike and the worst thing that comes from it is a broken scapula or whatever happened to you and a cracked helmet is a hell of a lot better for me and everyone involved but also me than you not having a helmet and Now he has brain damage. So it is affecting outside of whether or not the kid wants to look cool without a helmet and the parent on whether or not they feel like they need to avoid that.

It's going to happen. There's going to be a vehicle accident with a motorized scooter.

I see those kids flying down the sidewalk with scooters and there's no helmet on them. And that's stupid. I mean, that's just flat stupid. And so we should be able to have something in there that's reasonable, though, that certain uses that require helmets. I don't see anything wrong with saying if you're riding a bike, if you're an electric scooter, if you're, you know, that way that you're wearing a helmet. I don't see what's wrong with it.

You started asking the questions. I'm okay with that. You know, well, let's go. Are you leaning for or against illness?

I'd be leaning for it. That's more of a parent. I mean, I get what you're saying, too. It's a parental decision. But I'm thinking, well, some kids don't have parents that are quite frank.

Or they get around the corner from said parent and take it off.

They turn into little beasts. I hate that. They get away from mom and dad.

I follow them, though, actually. Are you leaning for or against homeless? I think, you know, I don't... My con is the policing of it. Honestly, that's probably my only con under a certain age. I think most parents who are thinking about the safety of their kids, even though the kid may take it off, are now saying wear a helmet. I think most people even who are going on extended bike rides are wearing helmets nowadays. So what we're adjusting for are those kids who might not have adequate supervision. Yes. And And we, I think, effectively, and what they're saying is, well, we've made a decision for you. But so then we're going to cite them? Yeah.

I mean, that's what we would be signing up for. But if they're over 16, or actually over 14, we're going to cite the kid, right? Yeah.

This to be clear, we'll be having fundraisers by helmets, which is fine.

All right. Start asking your question.

Okay. What do we want this to apply to? What about traditional bikes?

Yeah, that probably should have been passed a long time ago, in my opinion.

So I would.

Again, if we don't want to enforce it with adults. going from one neighbor's house to another.

And I'm saying underneath a certain age.

An age.

OK, let's start with the age. What age do we want? 16, 18, 14, 12?

You got me in a corner. Because I would say just a regular bicycle. Not when a helmet is goofy. But I don't think it's not a law. You have to wear it. And I don't know if you can get a little kid to get the bicycle going really fast too. So I don't know.

I don't kind of corn. I go back to I just I don't think we want to have them have to enforce it.

But they're already enforcing all these other things.

Like, there's going to be plenty of kids that are riding not recklessly with no helmet on. And do we want our police force taking time to cite those kids?

We don't want them taking time to cite people riding golf carts around city streets either, but here we are.

And you can make an, yeah.

With licenses.

It's tough. It's tough. But it's better for the police department to cite them than for the ambulance crew to pick them up.

I think a lot of our officers, if it's a first offender, they're going to give them a warning sometimes even on the second offense. So getting them to write a lot of citations is going to be difficult in itself. And with helmets not being a state law, that's kind of difficult too. I'm in agreement with the mayor that it's kind of a parental decision. I think most of our officers will be in agreement with that. So that'd be my position on it.

Yeah. Maybe leave it out for the moment.

And I feel like if we do that, like we're at second reading and third, it's done. I feel like we'd need some more communication to the city that we're going to do this besides just one more meeting. That makes sense.

Yeah, I know it's been in, it's been on KCCI, WHO radio is listening in now, but it's gonna be in the media. So I think that communication's gonna happen. So leave it out for now.

I leave it up to the parent and he says we're how much of it. But at the same time, the let freedom ring person says, I've got parents that aren't you knowing some kids don't have it, you know, maybe that parenting I would want to give my kid.

Right.

But you can learn from your friends. They put on a helmet. For provided helmets, we'll go with them. That goes back to fundraising for helmets. Have a free helmet, wear your helmet, get it.

I know there has been times in the past where there has been helmet giveaways where the police would have that, was it a ride to Ovi and back or whatever it was.

Like safety day for kids, little kids, they have thank you boy helmets.

Every year.

And that's the first weekend of May? Correct. Second weekend of May? somewhere out of there.

I think training the kids is important. I had a kid shoot in front of me, and I probably told you a story before, but I was making a right on red. The scooter was over by come and go. It had to be 80 feet or more. Your brain just says, there's no way that kid can get here. It was one of those motorized ones. And I start making my movement right in front of me. And I'm like, oh, it wasn't lowly. And my brain now is gauged into looking behind me on the side and very all sorts of other places looking for scooters that I know they can come up quicker than you think. So it's dangerous. Not their fault.

I'm still team helmet. I can't go for anything that doesn't fit a helmet. My husband almost died on a scooter. He's the most careful human being I've ever met in my life. I hope he's watching this right now. He's the most careful, safe, boring human being you've ever met when it comes to fun and extracurriculars.

Adam, he is very boring.

No, he's very safe. No, he is. He's in the wild. He's great. He's very safe, and he almost died on a scooter. Yeah, it's his substantial wounds.

Let's hope W.H. O'Reilly does it.

Yeah. To be fair, was there an incident in Washington, D.C. where you were jogging?

Yeah. Well, yeah. Maybe I should start wearing a helmet jogging. It's dangerous to jog.

I'm thinking you should just wear a helmet. Oh, my last comment was I've

officer i really respect your opinion on um and what you said um but none of this is state regulated right now so i just wanted to remind everybody of that like so i don't want us to hyper fixate on the fact that helmets aren't state regulated so we shouldn't do anything about it because if we had that mindset none of this would be we wouldn't be doing anything about any of this what would your proposal be that kelsey i would say somewhere in that 14 to 16 range. If you're under one of those ages, whatever we would decide is the age that you should be expected. That's what I would prefer. Okay.

And would that be for All ridden items?

I think that would probably make the most sense, yeah. Because if we're saying kids can get on a pedaled bike and go just as fast as any of these scooters, in my opinion, that's just as dangerous.

Include trikes, big wheels?

I don't really think those can go very fast.

No, they can't, but it would fall under the definition. So I just, you know, and I would think that we'd probably exempt that out. I think we'd exempt out a big wheel or a trike or something like that, but do we? I mean, it's the council's discretion here, so I don't want to presume something. Strollers. Technically, I don't think we want helmets for strollers. You're really digging now. I'm just thinking drafting the ordinance. When I go back and draft this paragraph, I'm going to have to exempt out these things. I'm okay with that. It's very easy to do, but I don't want to just presume that this is what the council needs. I know you're not going to say strollers. Clearly not. I mean, that's one end of the spectrum. The other end of the spectrum is, you know, the class three bikes with a 10 year old, right? I mean, uh, but someplace in between there, that's where we stopped saying, yeah, almost neat. And I would assume that it's probably, um, you know, where everything with a pedal, uh, everything electric or where to pedal.

Well, uh,

I think home scooters. They don't have any pedals. Yeah, that's it. That's why I said everything electric.

Well, those are going to be banned, right? The e-motors.

Yeah, the electric motorcycles. Yeah, that's...

They need to be written on the street. They need to be registered as... That's right. It's just like a motorcycle. Just like a motorcycle.

Yeah. There are the high-speed, electric, or like mopeds, which are covered by the start.

In a world where we passed something like this, where we would require people under 16 to wear a helmet, whatever. If it doesn't go well, so I mean, it's more safe than what we're saying the alternative would be, correct? If that doesn't, do we start with more safe rather than not safe enough, and then reel in from there if we have to? Or do we do the opposite?

So let's do this. In the interest of moving on, can you email everybody? I can carbon copy everybody so they can't.

What I can do is if you guys give me the age, maybe if you give me a little bit of leash to author it where I think is reasonable. I mean, like with the supervision, we added that without the council saying at the last meeting, you know, the direct supervision for allowing, you know, families to be able to ride together. I'll just try to, I'll put something together that I think sounds good. And then you can give input on that when you see it come out in your next packet.

Okay.

I do like taking an age where we can keep it all consistent.

Yeah.

Right, like if it's 12, it's 13, it's 14, it's like, okay, that's the age where you don't have to have supervision. You're older than that. You do have to work at home. You know what I mean? It's easier to remember and enforce.

So 14 and younger or under 14? Under 14 would be 13. 14 and younger would be 14. And I don't care. I'm not recommending one way or the other. I just want to know what to do.

I'd go with 14. Yeah, we have 14.

14. Is that a motion?

I'll make a motion.

Second.

Yeah. Motion for 14, seconded by Heineke, seconded by Porter. All those in favor, say aye. This motion. That's derived.

So this motion is you have to wear a helmet if you're under the age of 14. What are we talking about? 14 and under.

14 and under. 14 and under.

12, 13, 14, you're going to have to wear a helmet. Well, no.

Zero, too.

Zero, too. Right. Okay. Because it's all bikes. Right. So I would vote yes. Okay. All those opposed? Okay. So that passed. Anything else on helmets for now?

Mayor, can you remind me who made that motion, please?

George made the motion.

Thank you.

All right. Okay, so let's start going over some of the suggestions that we've heard. First was the need for clarity. Well, let's back up. Any public input on the helmet issue? Hearing none, we'll go ahead.

Mayor, sorry, just a second. I noticed that Sharon Manning online had unmuted herself, but I was hearing some sound before you asked for input. Okay. So maybe just say again to see if Sharon, cause she's muted right now and she'll need to unmute if she has comments.

Yeah. Any public comment online? No, that's great.

Thanks for seeing that.

Okay. Uh, first was the need for clarity of our Emoto definition. Uh, I believe this has been corrected. Jim.

Yes. Under, um, Under definition of Emoto, I didn't make that change. Because after looking at it as a result of some public input in an email, what I did was I took that out of the definition of a high speed. Under 7.6.02. I took that out of the definition instead of having it be exactly the same. It was 76.026. We did have high-speed pedestrian conveyance or e-moto. I took e-moto out of there and added at the end of that, that e-moto is a type of high-speed pedestrian conveyance, but it's not the same thing.

Discussion from council? Okay. Any public input?

That's on page two of the orders if you want to look at it in yellow.

Just to jump back so that happens quickly. So we're saying it's still 12, and I don't know if we have the other age, but it's 14 for helmets.

14 and under for helmets, yes.

12 for, that hasn't officially changed.

Correct, yeah. Right now, what we have is that doesn't change. Responsible adults is going to be 16 years or older.

Yeah.

My side comment was that it would be easy if we picked one age and stuff with that for multiple rules like that.

But that's just where we're at. I would be game for that. Right.

Okay, so is everybody okay with the clarification on e-motos? Or would you like to see a change? Okay, good with that. Next, specify that high-speed pedestrian conveyances that cannot be licensed and registered are prohibited from public roads and lands. Jim?

That was another suggestion we received. And I haven't made any changes as a result of that. I mean, that's already clear in the Iowa Code. And it doesn't really add anything by putting it in the local code.

TODD BANDUCCI- Discussion from council?

Any public input? OK, so no changes from council is OK with all that. Next one is avoid blanket speed limits. I know that Chief Staples would like to keep the speed limits in place. Jim, what are your thoughts?

Yeah, that's addressed under 76.072 with speed. Basically, we do have a reasonable speed requirement, but then in the end, it's also on trails and sidewalks. We have a maximum speed limit of 20 miles per hour. That's definitely something, once again, that's within the council's discretion to decide. I certainly don't think it's unreasonable to

So the complaint I've heard is that bikes, oh, I mean, any bike that I know of doesn't have a speedometer. And we do have some hills on our trails.

Yep. And that's what I've heard. And I think that is certainly something to be taken into consideration. But I also like that, you know, semi-trucks, they hit over on the interstate. So sometimes they like to get up to 85 to be able, you know, coast to 85 so they can make the next hill that goes up.

Yeah.

There's an exceptions there, but it's council discretion certainly on it.

Because I have a question that I think speed is probably one of the big concerns that we've got, right? I mean, because we're looking at the different types of bikes, that sort of thing. We're talking about the bike path primarily, but sidewalk too, I guess. And I was wondering, I was thinking about it. Today, when I was working around the place, and we have two class three electric bikes. And, you know, when we regulate automobiles, we don't say you can't have more than 250 cubic inches. But we do regulate the speed, right? Because we don't care what size engine you got. We care how fast you're driving. And I guess, you know, I was thinking about that because of the number of emails that we've probably all received in regards to that topic. Now, whatever the council decides, I'll abide by, obviously. I mean, right? If you can't ride a Class 3 on the bike trail, we'll probably ride them in the street. It's okay. I'll live. But my question is... With the helmet.

With the helmet on.

Well, I would.

Matter of fact, we've already got helmets. I bet you do.

We do. I can see my wife tearing off at 28 miles an hour with no helmet. I don't think that would happen. But I guess my point is, are we focused on the right thing?

That's my point. Yeah. And I think you kind of predicted the next thing I was going to say, because in these emails that I've reviewed, On one hand, they might suggest getting rid of the speed limit, but then they're also advocating allowing the Class 3 low-speed electric bicycles to go on the trails and sidewalks. And by definition, that can go up to 29 miles per hour. So I don't see eliminating the speed limit and saying Class 3, because then you're basically saying, okay, you can go 30 miles per hour on a trail where there's people walking and pedaling and... The very nature of those electric bicycles is you're going to be going 29 miles per hour uphill when all the regular manual bicycles are struggling 10 miles per hour to get up the hill. Not the one time ride. Just kidding. I think those two suggestions are inconsistent. If I heard the council say, Boy, we'd like to allow class three. That would be, I think, more of a reason to keep the speed limit in place because you're automatically authorizing, you know, greater speeds.

Well, and if we're looking at the enforcement side of it, right, God forbid, but, you know, we got to do that, I think, as part of it.

Yeah.

Okay, so if I'm an officer out on patrol, right, I mean, am I going to stop every vehicle, see if it's class two, class three, Or am I going to be watching for somebody being stupid? I'm going to be watching for somebody being stupid, right? That's what's going to key me. Otherwise, why am I getting out of the car? I mean, right? That's what draws my attention. Somebody driving too fast or being stupid somewhere on the street or on the bike path. Just seems like it'd be easier to enforce. To me, it seems fairer.

What would be easier to enforce that?

The speed limit.

rather than scoping out as they drive by. I'm going to pull them over.

That makes more sense.

I think it's going to be one of those where they see you being stupid, and then when they pull you over because you're being stupid, they're going to look and they're going to see what class the bike is. That could be. And then you're not going to get a warning.

You're going to get a ticket instead, right? Yeah, exactly. Yep. Yep.

Now, what about the adults that have class threes like not something cool in his life that.

And riding on the bike trail, let's talk about class threes a little bit.

OK, all right, so.

Any other thoughts on speed limit? I've yet. We'll get there, so I'm a does anybody want to change? But eliminate the speed limit, or do you want to keep it in?

Keep it in.

Keep it in? It's more important. Yeah, I'd say leave it in. All right. OK, great. Public input. Come on up. State your name and address.

I'm Alex Rice. I live at 211-148th Street in Des Moines, but I'm here as the Executive Director of the Street Collective, and we represent the entire Metro. I was kind of burning up here in my seat wanting to speak because I heard a few things that weren't accurate. Well, one just small technical detail.

Did you hear some things that were accurate?

I heard some things.

Thank you.

Thank you.

So class three e-bikes can only go up to 28 miles per hour, not 29. They're only pedal assist. I know at the last council meeting, you were told that they can run on motor power alone. That's not true. It's only pedal assist that's defined in the state code. And also defined in state code, they automatically have a 20 mile per hour speed limit on trails. So the concern that I heard raised was, well, if we allow class three e-bikes on trails, they're going to be going 28 miles per hour. That's not the case. They already have a 20 mile per hour speed limit. So it really addresses, I think, that big issue that I heard from you all. And I'll say I was out here last week with my... I was out here last week with my bike club, biking on your hills here in Norwalk. And I don't have a speedometer on my bike. I don't know what speed I was going, knowing these hills. Could well have been going over 20. And so that's part of what bothers me to have a speed limit. And I don't even know, and other cyclists aren't even gonna know if they're violating that. So knowing that we already have in place for Class 3 e-bikes, and by the way, state code says they must have a speedometer. That's the only class of e-bike that must have a speedometer. But Class 3 e-bikes do have a speedometer. They can monitor their speed. They're already required to be 20 miles per hour, whereas all the rest of your categories of bikes aren't going to have a speedometer unless someone made an additional purchase. And the nature of a bicycle too is that when you're going down a hill, that speed is momentum helping you get up that next hill as well. So it's really tricky for me if you pass an ordinance like this and you say there's a 20 miles per hour speed limit. I don't even know when I've hit 20 miles per hour. I know I've gotten uphill ahead. So I don't want to break to 10 miles per hour out of precaution. So that's where I'd ask that you not have the speed limit in place knowing that we have limits on who can be on trails. You're not allowing the motorized bicycles on trails. You're not allowing the e-motorcycles on trails either. And your class three electric bikes can't go over 20 miles per hour.

Thank you. Can you change mine? Okay. All right. Next one. Expand yielding language, which effectively means that foot track What traffic needs to yield to the bikes? I personally think this is backwards because cars have to yield to pedestrians. Bicycles should have to yield to pedestrians as well. But what are your thoughts, Jim?

Yeah, the current language is just basically that bicycles have to yield to pedestrians and bikes have to yield to manual bikes and pedestrian. I think the email asked that we put in some rule for pedestrians that they stay to the right on the trails. And I don't think we put rules on pedestrians. I think it's the bicyclists and the e-bikes' responsibility to yield to them.

I totally agree. Right. A family of three walking down the sidewalk, they want to walk next to each other. That's their prerogative. Right.

That's when you say on your left. That's really an etiquette thing.

Yeah.

Coming from Cleveland, Ohio, where the metro parks there are an expansive trail system. I can personally say that the trail etiquette there after generations, people grew up with trails like that. They're much older than our trails here. That's just an etiquette thing. Everyone knows that that's what you do.

Yeah. I just think it's more an etiquette, personal conduct thing. I wouldn't want a situation where an e-bike's coming in at 19 or 29 miles per hour and screams on your left and the pedestrian's going to get over. Suddenly it's the pedestrian's fault because they're walking to the left.

Or the bike should be yielding to the pedestrian anyway.

Yeah.

Right.

Mm-hmm.

So why worry about it?

Any other discussion from council?

Any public input?

All right. Any changes you guys want to make to that one? All right. Here we go. Changed language regarding place of writing and the roadway. Jim?

Well, the current provision just has them saying you've got to be reasonably close to the curb. businesses say right or left but reasonably close to the curb and i think frankly i'm happy with that wording too it's reasonable you take into account if if there is a dead animal on the curb you're going to go out around it if you've got a turn it's reasonable that's you know there's a reasonableness standard uh you know the other uh there may have been some other jurisdictions that have adopted language that basically because you have the same rights as a car uh so if if you know, I just, there, there have been some bicycles that I've observed that, you know, it's quite, are quite capable of going all the way to the left just because they can. And, uh, there isn't any reason to create those extra dangers. You know, I think a reasonableness standard is fine. I think reasonable standards.

I agree.

Uh, accommodate turns. It accommodates, you know, obstacles that are in the way. Uh,

I'd agree with that. Discussion from council?

Any public input? All right, moving on. We've kind of already gone through this, but I'm going to go through it anyway because it's on my script.

Allow wheelchairs and strollers on public land.

Yep, that's been done. Okay. And I had a question about wagons, but Jim's already addressed that as well.

That was a good suggestion. I'm happy we got that. That's a good change. Yes.

Anything else from council on that one? Cool. Next one is avoid blanket ban on personal transportation devices on sidewalks in business districts. Jim?

Once again, I think there needs to be some restrictions on this. When I think of business districts, I think of the business district up the hill. And then for years I was frequenting that area and I'd seen, I've seen an individual really get hit by a bicycle walking out a commercial door because you know, when they, but the commercial building, their bicycles come along that there's inevitable, that's going to happen. I've seen lots of near misses. Uh, and I just don't think it's appropriate to have a regular bicycle on a passage like that. or an e-bike on a passage like that. And that's the way it's written right now. There could be some flexibility there for trails or sidewalks that are in a business district that aren't necessarily abutting a building. And we don't necessarily have an accommodation for that in the ordinance because I could also, as commercial areas in Norwalk expands, there could be situations where our trails and sidewalks that are in a business district that don't necessarily abut buildings. But then again, commercial districts, do you want them on sidewalks at all? So I don't know. It's a matter of discretion for the council.

Mercury. A bike trail in a business district in North Central. Yes. And that trail is designed so it doesn't abut a building. So I mean, you could say they operate I would think one knows, but you might not want to run down the sidewalk in front of those businesses either, you know. So I guess I wouldn't have a problem if it wasn't awarded somehow that way to try to keep from having people have an access. I mean, they can access those areas through that trail that we're putting in. Right. Right. And into the parking lots.

was the feedback or the struggle there knowing where those business districts are that we don't want them on the sidewalk is that by fairway franks or is that by the old fairway or like see what when i think this is not that initially authored it but when i first read it that's what i had in mind very franks the bank uh in that area where you got you know six foot wide sidewalk There's just no way that that is compatible with bike riders and people walking out those doors. It's just there isn't enough reaction time for the best, safest bicycler to avoid that. But there are probably some areas. I don't think that we would ever want them shooting up and down sidewalks. Keep in mind we're talking about public sidewalks, not private sidewalks. So, you know, we're thinking about public areas that are public sidewalks that are budding building. That's about the only area I could think of that would even fit under these that we would have jurisdiction over. So you could have private trails or private sidewalks where You know, if this doesn't cover, it certainly wouldn't be appropriate to have someone shooting down in front of mullets up there, shooting across their sidewalk, but that's not public necessarily.

The 10 high, that's not, that'd be private sidewalk there?

Yeah, that's privately owned.

they could be just in the parking lot of our rec facility right yeah yep okay i'm just trying to think of where those areas are right so yeah so and that's the same kind of it's really weird you're talking about a situation in which there's a sidewalk right next to a building that people are going to go in and out of yeah exactly any one of those situations where there's a sidewalk up against Yeah, and it's, again, it's just weird because it's like, I just naturally think, oh, right out on the street.

Mm-hmm.

You know, for that reason, like, I don't want to run into somebody.

Yeah, but it's... Why have somebody open a door? Right.

Why open a door or whatever? So, yeah, we're like, we're prohibiting the use of these whatever languages.

Mm-hmm.

You make it welcome. But we're prohibiting the use of the writing of those things. Wherever there's a site like a door that opens to a sidewalk.

They probably use something like the immediate. Yeah. Right.

So on the square in Winterset, there's big painted things on the sidewalk. That's a picture of a bicycle with a big circle around it with an A. Yeah. And that's because an old lady got hit. So my dad claims it was his fault.

But, you know, that would be, but that would, that whole circle on, you know, traditional town square would be situations where the sidewalks are budding the business.

Just like a Fairway Franks situation. Yeah.

Yeah.

Yep.

Whatever you need to do to write that, Jim, great.

Okay, I'll do that.

All right.

Any public input on that? Hearing none, we'll go on. All right. This could generate some discussion. Allow Class 3 low-speed electric bicycles to operate wherever other human-powered bicycles and low-speed electrical bicycles are allowed to operate. So I'm struggling with this one. I see the point of view that if I'm a responsible and safe rider, why not allow the class three on trails? I also see the other side that says you bought a bike that has a larger motor, so you can go faster, which potentially puts other people at risk. Jim, your thoughts?

JIM MCAFEE I struggle with this one. legally we could do either way. I guess that's the first thing. It's certainly another council discretion item. I think that if we prohibit them on our trails, that's inconsistent with the rest of the metro area. I think those are allowed in the rest of the metro area.

And did we just learn that there is a speed limit on those from a state anyway? Yeah, 20 miles an hour.

And if we keep the speed limit on there... which the council did. We kept the speed limit on the trails. That's written in the ordinance. It's just a matter of whether they're, even though they're capable of going faster, do we rely solely on the speed limit to moderate the behavior of the I-3 bicycles?

So what if we made class three usage okay, on trails if the rider has a valid driver's license. They would have gone through driver's ed at that point in time. They know the rules.

If I hadn't thought about that.

They could still be ticketed if caught riding in an unsafe manner. Yeah. That way you could ride it Just, you just got to be safe.

Yeah.