HomeMy WebLinkAbout1992-01-07 MinutesMINUTES OF PUBLIC COMMENT SESSION
An Open Public Forum meeting was held with the Board of Directors
on January 7, 1992 at 7:00 p.m. in the Board of Directors Room,
City Administration Building, 113 West Mountain, Fayetteville,
Arkansas.
Mayor Vorsanger opened the Public Comment Session explaining the
purpose of this meeting was for citizen input on non -agenda items.
Mayor Vorsanger reminded those present that due to lack of public
attendance, the Public Comment Sessions would only be held on the
first Tuesday of the month prior to the regular Board meeting.
WORKERS' -COMPENSATION INSURANCE
Mayor Vorsanger reported receiving a letter from Bill Whitfield,
President of Whitfield -,ConstructionCompany of Fayetteville,
Arkansas, addressed to the•City Board stating that the majority of
local home builders do not -carry workers' compensation, public
liability and property damage insurance pursuant to state law with
coverage up to $20, 000, per injury or, damage to property, up to
$50,000 for injury to an individual including death, and up to
$100,000 coverage for 'injury or damage to more than one person due
to its high cost. Whitfield continued stating that the only way to
ensure that all builders purchase workers' compensation insurance
is for the Board of Directorstto pass a City ordinance similar to
that of Rogers, Arkansas, whereby permit requirements have been
implemented. Building permits are not issued in Rogers until
evidence of insurance coverage is provided.
.Alett Little stated that. the City of Fayetteville does not
presently have this type •of ordinance although plumbers and
electricians have such licensing procedures.
Director Nashrequestedto see a copy of ,the Rogers ordinance.
Nash further stated that the letter points out that this type of
ordinance does not apply to self-employed construction workers.
City Attorney Jerry Rose stated that he would obtain a copy of the
Rogers ordinance and provide it to the Board members.
ADJOURNMENT
With no other public comment, the Public Comment Session adjourned
at 7:10 p.m.
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MINUTES OF A MEETING OF TEE CIT! BOARD OF DIRECTORS
A regular meeting of the Fayetteville City Board of Directors was
held on Tuesday, January 7, 1992 at 7:30 p.m. in the Directors'
Room of the City Administration Building at 113 West Mountain
Street, Fayetteville, Arkansas.
PRESENT: Mayor Fred Vorsanger; Assistant Mayor Mike Green;
Directors Ann Henry, Dan Coody, Julie Nash, Shell
Spivey and Bob B1"ackston; City Manager Scott
Linebaugh; City Attorney Jerry Rose; City Clerk
Sherry Thomas; Director of Planning Alett Little;
Director of Public Works Kevin Crosson; Director of
Administrative' Services Ben Mayes; members of
Staff, press and audience.
CALL TO ORDER
The meeting was called to order by the Mayor, with seven Directors
present. The Mayor asked those present to stand and recite the
Pledge of Allegiance, and then asked that a brief moment of
respectful silence be observed.
The Mayor welcomed comments on any item on the Agenda. He further
stated that in order to allow equal attention to all items, the
Board requests that comments be limited to 3 minutes per person per
item. He explained that the Agenda for the Board Meeting was set
on the Wednesday before the meeting. Any item a citizen wishes to
be presented to the Board not on this Agenda must be presented at
the next Agenda session or brought up by a Director at that session
for discussion at the following meeting.
OLD BUSINESS
There was no old business to be discussed.
NEW BUSINESS
CONSENT AGENDA
Mayor Vorsanger introduced consideration of items which may be
approved by motion, or contracts and leases which can be approved
by resolution, and which may be grouped together and approved
simultaneously under a "Consent Agenda.„
A. Minutes of the December 17, 1991 regular Board meeting:
B. A resolution approving a change order to the Walton Arts
Center Contract in the amount of 5210,699.72 for theatre
seating in Baum Walker Hall to be funded totally by the Joy
Pratt Markham Fund (University funds):
January 7, 1992.
There is no cost to the City, and Staff recommends approving
the change order.
RESOLUTION 1-92 APPEARS ON PAGE OF ORDINANCE AND RESOLUTION
BOOK -
C. A resolution approving a lease modification with Trans State
Airlines to add 486 feet of exclusive space;
After a $10,000 credit against capitalization is amortized,
Trans State will make monthly payments of $642.33 to the City
in addition to the landing fee and non-exclusive space charges
that are currently billed. Staff recommends approving the
modification. -
s
RESOLUTION 2-92 APPEARS ON PAGE OF ORDINANCE AND RESOLUTION
BOOK
D. A resolution awarding a contract to the low bidder, Heckathorn
Construction, in the amount_of $122,178sfor the renovation of
the baggage claim area in the airport terminal, and approval
of a $18,840 budget. adjustment;
Staff recommends awarding the contract. The baggage space
will be rented to -the 5 air carriers at the current rate of
$7.88 per square foot. The renovation will add approximately
728 square feet to the'areajprovide a covered work area, and
provide an automated,baggage belt. The additional funds will
come from Airport Fund -undesignated fund balance.
RESOLUTION 3-92 APPEARS ON --PAGE OF ORDINANCE AND RESOLUTION
BOOK •
E. A resolution approving.Supplemental Agreement 12 to a Mobley
Contractors, Inc., construction contract for Federal Grant #14
which includes runway* safety Area 'Clearing and seeding,
fencing, access lighting, and an emergency generator in the
amount of $23,915.70;
Staff recommends approving the agreement which is within the
budgeted amount for the project. This $23,915.70 will be to
complete all additional clearing and seeding of 140 linear
feet of fencing which was omitted from the original estimate.
RESOLUTION 4-92 APPEARS ON PAGE OF ORDINANCE AND RESOLUTION
BOOK
F. A resolution approving the property purchase payment,
relocation benefit, and moving expenses for Mr. and Mrs. Leroy
Plante, owners of Tract 138 in the Federally Funded Land
Acquisition Project, in the amount of $58,577.79;
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4
January 7, 1992
Staff recommends approving the purchase of this property.
RESOLUTION 5-92 APPEARS ON PAGE OF ORDINANCE AND RESOLUTION
BOOK
G. Removed from the Agenda at the Board Agenda Session.
Blackston, seconded by Coody, made a motion to approve the Consent
Agenda. Upon roll call, the motion was passed by a vote of 7 to 0.
PUBLIC NEARING
VORSANGER: The next item on our agenda is a public hearing. This
public hearing regards the proposed widening of Township Road. I
know that there are many of you in the audience who want to speak
on this issue. Let me explain to you what we mean by a "public
hearing" so we don't upset too many people, and that is that
tonight we are setting aside time to hear from all of you who want
to comment regarding this widening project of Township Road. I
want to set your mind at ease and tell you that this Board will not
vote tonight on whether or not we are going to widen that project -
that road, or whether or not -- what we are going to do on that
project. Our purpose here tonight is for this Board to hear your
comments, to hear the comments from the Staff, for you to hear the
comments from the Staff, and then reply appropriately. One of the
problems that we foresee is that we'll have many people getting up
and saying the same thing, and I would like to request that either
you appoint a spokesman or if you don't have anything further to
add, we might have, by a show of hands, how many agree with the
person that's talking so we don't have to hear a lot of repeat
testimony. On the other hand, it has been our rule to limit every-
one who addresses the Board on any particular subject to three
minutes. We'd rather not do that this evening since it is a public
hearing and some of you might need more than three minutes - but I
would like to ask you since it will be a long evening, if you will
cooperate best you can and make your points and try to keep them
under some type of a time constraint. Now I understand we -we do
have the names of people who plan to speak and uh - every -one's
name is here, but some say "yes" and some say "no". What I'll do
if it's okay with you, we'll do the following: We will ask the
Staff to make the presentation so that we'll all know the
alternatives and see what we are looking at. And then, if it's
okay with you, I will call upon those who are listed here who would
like to speak and after I've gone through this list, if there is
anyone else in the audience who wishes to speak who did not sign
this list, I will see if you want to say anything. With that, I'd
like to ask the City Manager to make the presentation.
LINEBAUGH; Mayor, tonight we have a presentation by McClelland to
describe the project to both the public and the Board and go over
the different alternatives we have, and I believe Mr. Johnny Quinn
with McClelland will do the presentation.
5
t' January 7,,:.199.2;
QUINN: Thank you Mr. Linebaugh. Mayor and Board members, my name
is Johnny Quinn. I work with -McClelland Engineers here in
Fayetteville. I should also introduce other team members tonight
as I am starting here. First, also with McClelland, Greg Bone
seated in the back of the room and he'll be available during the
question and comment period to you. Greg has served as the civil
engineer on this project so far. Also, from Little Rock with us
tonight, Ernie Peters with Peters & Associates, specialist in
traffic engineering, and they serve as consultants from the traffic
standpoint on this project.
Let me begin by talking about the current status of the project.
When we were retained as the consultants on this project, a
schedule was set before us which would include a preliminary design
report, a preliminary engineering report to be finished, followed
by a public meeting to be held sometime late summer, early fall
191. Those items have been completed; thetpublic hearing or public
meeting was held, I believe sometime in September of 191, and now
the schedule calls for •a decision to be made after our
recommendations are presented and Staff makes its comments - a
decision to be made on the. scope of improvements actually to be
made and then the detailed design and construction to proceed in
1992 calendar year. So right now withthis meeting, we are on
schedule and we're heading toward meeting the prescribed schedule.
Basically, and I'm simplifying somewhat, McClelland was retained in
the preliminary engineering study phase of the project.to do three
things really - to answer three questions. The first question was:
"How many lanes should Township be improved to?" And we are
talking about the 4000 feet, plusor minus,, of Township Street west
of Old Wire Road, east of College'Avenue =okay? Right now, there
is about 4000 feet there asphalt surface. Width varies somewhat,
but basically averages about 27 feet in width. So we were asked,
based on the traffic analysis, traffic counts, projections for the
future, etc., what should the width - or how many lanes should we
plan for in a standard design life, and that life is typically for
consultants, a 20 -year design life. The;second question we were
asked to address - "Whether associated improvements should be made
while we're there?" You know, what else should we do in the way of
sidewalks, etc. And finally, "Based on`•your recommendation, how
much would you expect the construction to,cost to implement your
recommendation?" So, we provided the answers thus far to those
three questions and let me share those with you in the way of
summary. -
First of all, we will tell you that more than two lanes of traffic
need to be provided for in that section of Township Road based on
the traffic counts and the projected traffic counts. Specifically,
we would suggest to you that a 36 foot width of roadway be provided
there to allow to meet design requirements for a20 -year life.
Next, as far as associated improvements are concerned, we would
suggest that the City go ahead and finish obtaining a, minimum
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January 7, 1992
right-of-way width of 60 feet along that entire stretch of Township
Street. Right now, most of that right-of-way has been obtained to
that width, but there are some places where it still is lacking.
We would suggest that you widen the intersection of Township Street
where it meets College Avenue to four lanes. And I know that's
going to be tough - all of you know that's a congested area any-
way, but that would allow three western bound lanes coming down
Township, one for left turn to go south on College, one for right
turn north on College and one straight through. We would suggest
also that the City coordinate with the Arkansas Highway &
Transportation Department to program the lights - the traffic
lights at both the College Avenue and Old Wire Road intersections
for protected left hand turns. Some of the statistical counts to
do that have already been implemented by your Staff. We would
suggest that there is a steep part at the crest of Township where
sight distance is restricted below what we think is safe; it's
about 125 feet now and we think that sight distance should be
extended to about 300 feet, and that means we're going to have to
cut down if you choose to implement this - we're going to have to
cut down the steep part of that hill. In conjunction with these
improvements, we do basically the standard storm drainage
improvements to facilitate storm water handling, sidewalks are
recommended for both sides of Township by our recommended plan, and
again that will be difficult at the bottom close to College Avenue
because you're familiar with the existing building structures
there. And then finally with the associated improvements, we would
suggest that the City allocate a budget which will allow for
planting of trees and other minor landscaping along both sides of
the improvements to mitigate some of the removal of trees that will
be necessary if the street is widened. Finally, the last answer to
the third question about how much you could expect the recommended
plan to cost you to implement - about $880,000.00 for the 4000 feet
there.
Now, I recognize having presented the preliminary study to the City
Staff and listening to their comments and questions and going
through a public hearing held back in the fall; I know that this is
an issue that has received a lot of attention, particularly from
the residents up and down Township. I know that it has the
capability to be an emotional issue and I recognize that and I'm
empathetic to that. Some of the considerations brought up - the
comments at the public meeting, I would ask the City Staff to
respond to. I know that there are some things that relate to
perhaps recommendations from the Visions Project, things that
relate to general policy with implementing the street program,
scheduling and budget for other street projects that have to be
considered when you talk about this project, so, I trust that the
Staff will speak to those things. I would leave you with just a
couple considerations from an engineering standpoint in summary.
One is please recognize that according to our projections and those
of Mr. Peters, who I believe will speak in just a moment, that if
you choose to maintain a 2 -lane width, or let's say maintain the
frJanuary 7,..,199.2
existing 27 foot wide thoroughfare, or even if you widen to the
standard residential width of 31 feet, that you will probably have
a project that will reach its capacity in something less than 20
years. Given the rates ofgrowth we're seeing in Northwest
Arkansas, it could be something around 15 or between 15 and 20
years; it will reach an unacceptable level of service. The other
thing I would say to you is that if you choose to maintain a 2 -lane
width for that thoroughfare, which according to the planning
document that the City uses currently as a master planning guide
for streets, that document calls for this section of Township to be
a minor arterial. If you choose to stay with the 2 -lane width and
not follow through with making this section a minor arterial, then
I would strongly encourage you - please, give some thought to
where you will develop a minor arterial to move that east/west
traffic in and out of the City on that side of townin that
specific part of town, because we have every reason to expect that
the traffic will grow and that section will,become overloaded in
the near future. In visiting with the Highway Department as we did
the study, we understand and it depends on who you talk with down
there, that there are tentative plans on their part to eventually
make Highway 265 out east an eastern loop around the City. As you
know, Township Street has'already been improved between Highway 265
and Old Wire Road, which feeds the section under consideration
tonight. And then finally, again depending on who you speak to at
the Highway Department, we;are told that their tentative plans are
to widen that part of Township, on the western side of College,
which coincidentally is State Highway 180; that their plans are to
widen that to either four or five lanes somewhere between two and
four years from now. .So given those considerations, I would submit
to you that from an engineering .standpoint strictly, it appears
that this section of Township Road should be developed as a minor
arterial in accordance with the planning document that the City
has. Thank you. t --
VORSANGER: Ask questions now, or shouldIwe,-
LINEBAUGH: Maybe we should have Don Bunn make a few statements..
•
BUNN: The report that McClelland put together used a term, "level
of service", and I would like for Ernie Peters who is a
subcontractor - a traffic consultant out of Little Rock, to just
spend a couple of minutes explaining what is meant by "level of
service" and what an "A" 'level of service .is compared to a "C"
compared t� an "F" level of service.
PETERS: Ladies and gentlemen, my name is Ernie Peters and I have
had the pleasure of working with the City Staff and the McClelland
Engineers on this project to help develop information beneficial to
make a decision. To specifically address the issue of "level of
service" that Don mentioned, let me explain fairly briefly without
getting into a lot of technical detail, what is involved in
analysis and how we express from a traffic engineering stand -point
January 7, 1992
the results. The analysis involves the numerical values associated
with the current and projected traffic volumes; this is ordinarily
done for the worse case situations - that is the a.m. peak hour and
p.m. peak hour. For those periods of time, the operating
conditions that will result as a result of the traffic volumes that
are there, are expressed in terms of "level of service". Levels of
service range from "A" to "F" - "A" being the best, "F" being a
failed condition. Engineers ordinarily design for a "C" level of
service - it is ordinarily "C" that is considered by motorists to
be a fairly acceptable and convenient level of traffic service, one
which doesn't cause them to experience excessive delays or hazard
or extreme inconvenience in traveling a particular route or going
through a particular intersection. Upward from "C" - "B" and "A"
levels of service are ordinarily the levels that are experienced
when a new facility is first opened and before the volumes begin to
increase to what might be the design conditions. Certainly during
those early years, the "A" and "B" levels of service are better
than what we intend to design for, but then as traffic volumes
continue to grow as both myself and the Highway Department have
projected they will on this street, traffic conditions can progress
to worse conditions if the facilities are not designed adequately.
Now, what I did in the process of the analysis was to determine
what type of roadway - what type of cross-section would be needed
in order to assure during the 20 -year life of the physical
structure of the roadway - what type of cross-section in terms of
number of lanes would be necessary to assure that "C" level of
service, and that is where the recommendation for the 36 foot, 3 -
lane section came from. The 3 -lane section - in case you didn't
understand what Johnny Quinn conveyed - would be one lane in each
direction and than a continuous left turn lane through the center
of the roadway to provide an exclusive lane for the storage and
turning of left -turn vehicles, both east and west, either onto
intersecting City streets, or into intersecting driveways. Does
that adequately explain the "level of service" concept? I'll be
available for any other questions.
GREEN: This "C" level of service would be actually assumed at the
end of the 20 -year life, right? Or, would it be assumed at the
three-fourths point, or where do you reach that "C" level in your
design?
PETERS: The design as we've set it out would be such that the "C"
level of service would not be exceeded during that 20 -year useful
life of the roadway structure.
GREEN: Okay.
HENRY: Or in
descending to a
level -
other words, an "A" level at the beginning,
"B" level, and then at the end of 20 years a "C"
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9
January 7, 1992,.
PETERS: That's correct.
HENRY: - (inaudible) your design. So you've designed it for the
very peak and the very highest.
PETERS: Yes. Now I might point out relative to that during the
non -peak times of the day, conditions even at the end of the 20 -
year period, would be better than a "C" level of service, which is
desirable. Thank you.
VORSANGER: Thank you.
BUNN: Mr. Quinn described the recommended plan which is a 36 foot
section. Ernie mentioned one lane in each direction and a third
turning lane. Probably the way that would be implemented is
initially we would stripe most of Township into two lanes, and then
at critical intersections, ,the intersections such as Juneway
Terrace and Jenny Street, a third center .lane would be striped
there .for turning, but we would not stripe the entire street as
three lanes initially. That might happen as we go further into the
design period. - a
The recommended plan as Johnny mentioned was $830,000.00 to
$880,000.00, included .sidewalks, included some extensive
landscaping, cutting downtthe top of the'curve toward the west
side. We have listed some alternatives'in.the memorandum that was
sent to the Board. I guess our second alternative - or I guess our
second alternative, second .preferred alternative, alternative
number one - the cost is, would be $350,000.00 to $400,000.00, and
essentially it would be, as far as the intersections are concerned,
the same as the recommended plan.
f
VORSANGER: That's alternate one?
BUNN: Alternative number one -
VORSANGER: Yeah, well explain to everyone what that would include.
BUNN: Okay. It would include the widening to'four lanes of the
intersection of Township andiCollege; it would include the same
intersection improvements as the recommended plan. It would also
include some uh -:I guess what it amounts to;is reprogramming of
the traffic .signal on Old Wire Road and' Township to include
protected left turns at that point. It would include storm
drainage improvements; it would include cutting off the crest of
the hill to provide the additional sight:distance, and it would
include within the budget, included about 25% of the entire length
of Township to be - to have a surface improved. But, we would not
include widening of Township at all; it would'remain basically the
27 foot width, except for the west intersection with College.
•= 10
January 7, 1992
Alternative number two would really be identical to the recommended
plan except the width would be 31 foot instead of the 36 foot
section. And that cost is $720,000 to $770,000.
And this is alternative number three which we don't recommend under
any circumstances, which is just to leave Township alone for a
little while longer and take another look at it in another five
years or so.
We believe that the recommended plan does include some of the
comments that were given at our first public meeting. We have
included extra money in there for landscaping, we have included -
that includes the planting of shrubbery and the replanting of trees
and the planting of new trees. It does include a sidewalk on both
sides. There were some other public comments that uh - about the
increase in traffic and the noise, which we feel that we couldn't
really address. We do think the noise would be helped by the
landscaping that we would be planning to do. The increase in
traffic is something that comes along with the widening. Township
is a minor arterial, the plan is to have traffic on that road, and
that's what we're planning for We feel like the traffic is going
to increase regardless of whether we widen it; we recognize that
the widening and improving of Township will produce traffic that
would not ordinarily travel on Township. The 36 foot section is
planned for a 20 -year period; we know that when it first goes in,
that it will be overdesigned for a certain period of time. How
long the 36 foot section lasts without going to a four -lane section
is going to depend on how accurate our projections are on traffic
growth. We assumed a 3% increase over the 20 years. If the actual
increase is 1'%, then the road section that we've recommended is
going to last that much longer. If the increase is 4% or 5%, then
we would be looking at doing something else in a shorter period of
time than 20 years.
That concludes our presentation. If there are any questions at
this point, we would be glad to answer them.
VORBANGER: Do we have any questions?
HENRY: I have a couple of questions, Don. The uh - your report
states that Fayetteville was designated - the master plan
designated this street in 1970 -
BUNN: Yes, ma'am.
HENRY: - as a minor arterial. But we do not have anything in
our definitions that really state what a "minor arterial" is,
right?
BUNN: A minor arterial - no, there's no width specified for a
minor arterial.
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*January 7, 1992.
HENRY: - there's no width specified. You use Little Rock and
Arkansas State Highway plan standards for a "minor arterial" -
BUNN: We have included those as a comparison. We know that within
different towns, a minor arterial may be uh - may be defined as one
street section in Little Rock and another differently in another
town, so we put those in there for comparison. The uh - tomorrow
there is a meeting in Springdale concerning the "2010
Transportation Plan" for Springdale and Fayetteville. That is
sponsored by the Arkansas Highway Department and the Northwest
Arkansas Regional Planning Commission. They define a "minor
arterial" in their report as a four lane section carrying uh - I
think -
HENRY: It's in the report, I believe.
BUNN: - well, I'm not - I don't know whether this included it or
not - but, somewhere around 14,000 cars per day. So there are
different definitions of a minor arterial.
HENRY: Okay. My question is then I have some other things -
what are the other streets in Fayetteville on the master street
plan that are listed as aminor arterial on the master street plan,
that have also followed that and have been expanded to three lane?
BUNN: I think probably Joyce Street uh -'although I can't really
uh -
HENRY: Joyce - I believe Joyce is and uh - probably Gregg Street.
BUNN: Probably, although.I
HENRY: Gregg would be a north/south and,Joyce Street, so really
we're looking at new streets in that sense of_planning, where we're
not really disrupting. . Uh - Garland is a state highway, is that
correct? •
BUNN: That's correct.
HENRY: And it is a two-lane with the exception of the North and
Garland intersections, where it has been -expanded, but it is two-
lane all the way out to the bypass.- Would you not state that
Garland would be a minor arterial and should -be - I mean, Garland
Street under that definition should be -
BUNN: It probably should be, yes.
HENRY: Okay, and North Street between Highway 45 and Highway 71
and Highway 112 and it goes on out to the bypass - so that would be
a minor arterial and the - where is North Street a two or three-
lane? I mean, where is it a three -lane?
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January 7, 1992
BUNN: North Street of course extends on out past 71 and it - out
past Garland, it becomes Wedington. The Highway Department has a
project right now to five -lane that part of Wedington.
HENRY: Between -
BONN: Between the bypass and Garland -
HENRY: Between the bypass and Garland - that is going to be
widened after -
BONN: We have four-laned North Street from Garland back to the
railroad tracks just west of Gregg Street. The Highway Department
has entered plans to complete that four -lane up to Gregg Street.
We have in our plans to complete the four-laning of North Street at
least to College within our Capital Improvement Program.
HENRY: Okay, and Highway 45 - what do you think the traffic would
be on that?
BUNN: It's going to be pretty high.
HENRY: Be pretty high, but it's basically a two-lane street. It's
really not much wider than 27 feet, is it?
BONN: You're right, yes. It should be four -lane.
HENRY: Alright, and you say we're looking at an arterial which
brings us from the bypass - all those streets that bring in from
the bypass which are major highways - are basically two-lane
streets, even if they are a highway or whether they are a City
street.
BUNN: I think with the exception of -
HENRY: So we have one east/west arterial and that is Joyce at this
point?
BUNN: Yes.
HENRY: So what we're proposing to do is finally make a (inaudible)
street a three -lane or a four -lane to carry all of the east/west
traffic through that particular place - is that the plan? Connect
it up with 71 and then Gregg Street and then carry it out to the
bypass.
BUNN: Yes. I think it would be classified as the primary
east/west route.
HENRY: The primary east/west route - so, the plan is to take it
all there on Township then? Because you have been unable to get
other east/west routes because of uh -
I 13
January 7, .1992:.
BUNN: No, I believe North Street would still be considered an
east/west route.
HENRY: Is North Street on the plan to be widened? Is it
designated minor arterial from Highway 45 to 71 in that
residential area?
BUNN: Not that entire area at this particular time - (inaudible)
It is a projected project though.
HENRY: Okay. Those are the questions that I had. But it has been
designated as an arterial for 22 years on our plan?
BUNN: (Inaudible)
HENRY: Thank you.
VORSANGER: Any other questions? At this time, uh - well, I guess
I've got one question, Mr. Bunn. You were part of an earlier
public hearing and I wondered if you could - for the benefit
certainly of this Board and for the audience - if you could
briefly, although I know you've touched on some of it, if you could
briefly review for us the..questions that were asked at that meeting
and your responses to those questions. I know you've done a lot of
work to prepare some of these answers, yet I've never heard the
questions. I know it's, in the material we have, but I just
wondered if for the sake of uh - refreshing everyone's memory. I
know there were some questions asked and you were asked to get the
answers, and I wonder if we've covered all of those.
BUNN: One of the first".questions' was;the detail for the
recommended plan, and I think we've. already gone through our
recommended plan. Another question was,,the street section and
traffic on Township east of Old Wire' Road; we did have our
consultant look briefly at the traffic on Township east of Old Wire
Road, between Old Wire Road and 265,tand'-he felt that existing
section would probably handle the. traffic through the 20 -year
planning period. The "existing traffic volume on that part of
Township is 4,800 vehicles per day and the projected volume for
2001 is around 10,000 vehicles per day.' The Arkansas Highway
Department plans and clarification of the state versus city
projects — this was in reference to State Highway 180 - the Highway
Department-- that is a state highway. Their plans are to widen to
four to five lanes in the next two to'five years. Of course, the
section of Township that we are proposing to widen now is 100%
funded by the City. The grade and sight distance question - about
sight distance on that west slope or on the western crest of the
hill - we did take a look at that. Existing sight distance is 125
feet and the safe speed is'recommended to be 20 miles per hour. We
plan to lower that sectionr of Township,, increasing the sight
distance to around 300 feet.which would allow for a 30 mile per
hour speed limit there. There was a question about noise abatement
14
January 7, 1992
and what we could do there - we did look at lowering or elevating
the highway or the street at that point. That's one of the common
ways to abate sound. We just felt like either one of those would
be too expensive to implement.. The landscaping I think is the one
way that we felt like the noise could be somewhat abated. Right-
of-way requirements - the existing right-of-way varies from 40 to
80 feet. We are proposing that we acquire a minimum of 60 foot of
right-of-way, and whether we acquire the 60 foot or something
greater than that will depend on the design of the road at each
individual section of the road. In some areas of course, we do
have all of the existing right-of-way and we won't be acquiring any
more. Sidewalks - in response to comments, we have included a
sidewalk on both sides. There was a question about where we went
from here as far as our decisions. We indicated that there would
be another public hearing, probably at a Board meeting which we are
having tonight. There was a question about drainage - we indicated
that drainage was a part of the project. There was a question
about restoration of fences and driveways - that will be included
in the construction contract. There was a question about whether
utilities could be put underground or not and we have contacted the
various utilities involved. To go underground with the utilities
would probably add $200,000.00 to their relocation costs; they will
not pick up that additional expense; they would plan to relocate
above ground just as they are now - I'm talking about the power
lines and telephone lines that are above ground. If the City chose
to go underground with utilities, then it would be up to the City
to pay that extra, and we didn't feel that - it certainly was not
within the budget - and we didn't plan that in our budgeting.
There was question about truck traffic. In response to that we
have posted Township as far as trucks are concerned, indicating
that truck traffic is not allowed. This is in accordance with
existing City ordinances which restrict truck traffic to numbered
highways. We realize that there is truck traffic off of numbered
highways; they are supposed to be attending business in the
immediate neighborhood of where they're going when they get off of
numbered highways. But the truck traffic is a matter of
enforcement and not necessarily within the scope of this project.
There was a question about property values. This maybe considered
somewhat in the right-of-way acquisition process, but I don't think
we are qualified to adequately judge or estimate the effects of
property values due to the widening. There was a question of the
neighborhood integrity. We feel that Township Road has been
functioning as an arterial for sometime; we realize that the
widening of the road is going to effect the neighborhood; we feel
that it is necessary for the City as a whole for the widening to
take place, and we recognize that the neighborhood integrity will
be effected by this project. There was a question about zoning,
whether the widening - the eventual widening to four lanes would
effect the zoning in the area. We have no control over that - that
is controlled by the Planning Commission and by the Board of
Directors. The enforcement of speed limits is just that - it's a
;,,January 7, 1992.r
matter of enforcement of the speed limits, and I guess on every
improved street there is a problem with the enforcement of speed
limits, but it will be something that will have to be taken care of
through the Police Department. Bikeways was mentioned - we
mentioned in our memorandum to the Board that we did not include
bikeways within this project. We have budgeted funds for 1992 for
bikeways; we felt two things, that the grades on Township
discourage the placement of bikeways on Township, although we
recognize that there are bikers presently on Township. The uh -
unless a special section is striped within the street, that means
an additional right-of-way would be required for the construction
of bikeways. Probably a bikeway would be 6 to 8 feet wide; a cost
somewhere in the neighborhood of $10 to $15 a foot for bikeways.
That's probably around $50,000.00 for the entire length of
Township. The need for other east/west streets - we do recognize
the need for other east/west streets; we're not proposing that
Township take all of the east/west traffic. We do have North
Street which is in our plans to widen. Joyce Boulevard will be
uh - is in our plans to widen on over to Highway 265. Zion Road is
in some future plans, although it's not in our Capital Improvement
Program; it's on a potential list. So we have been looking at some
other east/west streets, but Township - I guess the nearest
east/west street from Township is about three-quarters of a mile
north to Rolling Hills Drive, and about three-quarters of a mile
south to North Street. Someone mentioned about the Fisher
property; whether we ought to be buying it.and taking down that
building. The asking price for the Fisher property, as I
understand it, is around $900,000.00, and we don't feel like we can
afford to buy that property. All the widening, at least the way
we're proposing it right now, all the widening on the west end of
Township will be to the north. There was a question about trees -
there will be trees that will have to be taken out if the widening
is accomplished. We do plan to replace trees, transplant trees
where we can and to plant additional landscaping to try to mitigate
the loss of trees. And that completes my list of questions and our
responses.
VORSANGER: Thank you. That was very helpful. Director Nash has
a question.
NASH: Don - it's true isn't it that the grade of the land affects
the expense of the: street., For instance, if - the hillier a street
is, the more expensive it's going to be to widen or to pave?
BUNN: Within limits, yes....
NASH: Okay, do you have any guess about the grade of township - uh
- let's say from Sherwood down?
BUNN: I think it's around seventeen percent.
NASH: Seventeen.
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16
January 7, 1992
BUNN: It's shown over there. The steepest point is around fifteen
to seventeen percent.
NASH: Okay. Did you consider maybe some streets that were a
little bit flatter, to be an arterial? There's not a whole lot of
choice in Fayetteville.
BUNN: In that area, there's really not a lot of choice. If you go
North and South from Township, you'll see that the grades are
comparable to what Township is.
NASH: Okay, one thing I've noticed is a lot of people make their
own east/west arterials. For instance, let's see if you're on
Garland - Sycamore to Ash to Old Wire; is getting a lot of traffic
now strictly because North Street is so crowded. And the same with
Rolling Hills to Appleby behind Fiesta Square over to Gregg.
BUNN: That's correct.
NASH: Is there any chance that maybe some of these that are
already being used unofficially?
BUNN: well, there would be a possibility of improving Sycamore
Street. Of course Sycamore is four lane from Gregg Street on west
to Leverett; we have in our plans to complete that four lane over
to Garland Street, and certainly at some point, we need to look at
the four laning of - or improvement at least - of Sycamore on to
the east, so that is a possibility, yes.
NASH: In this five year capital budget?
BUNN: It's not in the five year capital. The four laning from
Leverett Street west is in the Capital Improvement Program; the
balance of the improvement of Sycamore is not in our program.
NASH: Thank you.
VORSANGER: Okay. Thank you, Mr. Bunn. I think we're ready to
hear from the public at this time and as I said, I'll go down and
call on those of you who have indicated you wish to speak, and
after we go through that list of course, then I will call on anyone
else who would like to speak. Our first speaker - Tony Hickerson.
HICEERSON: My name is Tony Hickerson. I live at 1398 East
Township Road. As you've heard tonight, the Township project is
mostly about traffic congestion or perceived traffic congestion.
I think we all have to accept that traffic congestion that was
unacceptable in the past has to be acceptable today. We heard Mr.
Quinn, I believe it was, or Mr. Peters talk about grading the road
and the convenience of a road. I think we're going to have to
accept some inconvenience today as a price of living in an urban
1
7' 17
January 7, 1992,.
environment. We can't have a road like Township that is free of
inconvenience in the traffic routing.
The key to the management of traffic congestion is to do I think
what is necessary for the tolerability of contemporary community
standards in Fayetteville. I was told and I think it was mentioned
tonight, that the goal of Township project is to have completely
unimpeded flow along Township without having to stop for anybody
turning left. I was also told that the traffic count indicated
that left turns were surprisingly few off of Township Road. I
think it's evident if anybody drives along College from North
Street all the way up to Stearns, that by our contemporary
community standards, we're willing to put up with a lot of
inconvenience in traffic. At any one of the intersections between
College and Stearns, we stand for several minutes at the end of a
long line of cars at just about any time of the day. The other day
I was down on the Square, and I saw people standing in the middle
of the street waiting for a parking space for a longer time than it
would take them to drive the full length of Township waiting for
cars to turn left in front of them. So I think that expecting
unimpeded traffic flow on Township is beyond what we consider
contemporary community standards in Fayetteville.
I think we all know that building new roads and widening existing
roads are just temporary measures for traffic congestion. This
plan is only lasting 20 years or so. I think we need to find
methods of reducing congestion, reducing traffic without widening
roads continually and building new ones, so we know that at some
point down the road, you can't widen Township anymore, you can't
build new roads in Fayetteville. So I think the point is to try to
figure out how we're going to resolve the congestion now without
building roads that we know are going to be obsolete in a few
years. -
w
Uh - the traffic count is -°the Township project is projected to
last for 20 years and the traffic count: is at that time is
projected to be 16,000 cars per day. But yet, we've been told that
one of the goals of the Township project is to direct traffic along
Township; is to draw it from other east/west corridors. It seems
to me that this traffic..count then would be a self-fulfilling
prophecy, without the three lanes or four,lanes of Township; I
don't think we can expect that amount of.,, traffic going on that
road.
The cost was mentioned tonight of being somewhere between $830,000
and $880,000, which amortized over the 20 -year life of the project
would be somewhere between $41,000 andl$44,000 a year.
We heard about alternate plan - the so called "Improve Do Nothing
Plan" which would cost between $350,000;and $400,000. The analysis
that was given out by the City shows that this plan is not
appreciably different from the plan alternate two, widening the
street to 31 feet. That plan is expected to have a life of ten to
lb
18
January 7, 1992
fifteen years. So if it's not appreciably different, then
alternate one - we could expect alternate one to have a life spent
somewhere around ten to fifteen years, and that was even mentioned
tonight as well. That cost however is considerably less at uh - I
believe the plan was $350,000 to $400,000; if amortized, that over
ten years, we're talking between $35,000 and $40,000 a year which
is less than the proposed plan. If you take it lasting for fifteen
years, it's some $17,000 cheaper a year then the proposed plan.
No one knows in Fayetteville or anyplace what the traffic is going
to be in ten or fifteen or twenty years. But we do know that all
over the country, small towns and large cities are dealing with
congestion without building new streets and widening existing
streets and encroaching on neighborhoods. And I would suggest that
we come to terms with this now rather than twenty years down the
road, or fifteen years down the road, and see what we can do to
relieve the congestion without encroaching on neighborhoods, and in
the meantime, take the money we would save by not building that
project and putting it to use elsewhere in Fayetteville. Thank
you
VORBANGER: Mr. Hickerson - uh - what is your recommendation then?
If I asked you which plan - what is your recommendation? Alternate
one?
HICEERBON:
standpoint,
VORBANGER:
Well, speaking obviously
yes, I would go with alternate
from a non -injuring
one.
I just wanted to get some indication of - Thank you.
Next I have Mr. J.E. Springborn.
SPRINGBORN: Members of the City Board, I have uh - let's see if I
can get this to work (inaudible). Sometime back when I first got
involved with some of the City projects, why I was asked where I
stood with respect to the City and the City's growth and I said I
was for growth with perspective. I'm still trying to be objective
and I uh - in my views and what I want to do is put a little
perspective on this with emphasis on safety. The hand out I give
you - if we can just run quickly through the first page and uh - I
have important additional data - this is data that I did not find
in a report with respect to the proposed widening. The additional
data - let me first say that my reference for this data is the
U.S.G.S. Fayetteville Quadrangle and a text I borrowed from the
University called Roadway Design, commonly known as A.A.S.H.O., the
American Association of State Highway People. The important
additional data - it was mentioned that the length of the proposed
widening was some 4,000 feet; I measure it out to be eight -tenths
of a mile. The posted speed on that street is 35 miles per hour.
I found from this text that the posted speed is generally about 85%
of what has been prone to be the running speed; that would put the
running speed at about 40 miles an hour. My experience in driving
over that street is that is about right. Now the travel time at
January 7, 1992t.;
various speeds - 25 miles an hour is 1.8; if you get up to 35, it's
1.4, at 40 it's 1.2. The difference in speed between 25 and 40 and
the total time required to cover this distance is just a fraction
of a minute.
Stopping sight distance that I list here is to a stationary object
on wet pavement; this is extracted again from that text. At 25
miles an hour reaction time is 2.5 seconds and you will travel 92
feet in that time; the breaking distance would be 55 feet
additional, for a total of 150 feet. You can follow that on down
and the totals show to be 200 for 30, 250 for 35, 325 for 40. Now
the stopping sight distance for vehicles approaching head-on - that
is if somebody got in the wrong lane so that you faced a car coming
directly at you, at 25 feet the reaction time - or the reaction
distance is 184 feet, the total required distance is 300. You get
to 35 and you're looking at 256 feet from reaction time for a total
required time of 500 feet. I'1.1 get into that a little bit further
on.
Elevations at North College are 1,290 feet, Sherwood Lane 1,500
feet, Old Wire Road 1,380 feet - that represents a gain from west
to east of 210 feet, a gain from east to west of 120 feet. Now the
data excerpts that I have here I took directly from the reports
that I have. The stopping sight distance on Township for a safe
speed is 30 miles per hour, at Sherwood it's over the entire
distance was found to be 30 miles per hour. At Sherwood and Jimmy,
it's down to 20 miles per hour and 125 feet sight distance. With
a three foot reduction in the hill crest at Sherwood and Jimmy, 300
feet and going back up to the list above, 30 comes in at 200 from
the text - they say that conservatively it's safe for 30 miles per
hour.
The projected left -turn frequency from the,data gathered was 2.5%
and they state that a left -turn lane is not justified on this
basis. Calculations based on traffic count yield 1.1 lanes in each
direction. -
Finally, on the next page there is a comment that one solution to
the noise was to limit or restrict the route to passenger or light
truck traffic only. This would be a cost effective solution to
truck noise. I would like -to add at this point - it would also be
a very effective solution to minimize congestion and improve hazard
condition for left turns., -
like to -make a few points.
Mr.'Springborn?
4
Now, with that for background, I'd
CROSSON: May I ask you a question
SPRINGBORN: Surely.
s
•
19
20
CROSSON: Did you use
calculations, or what
calculations?
January 7, 1992
the City's traffic counts to come to your
traffic counts did you use to make these
SPRINGBORN: The data that I put down here came directly from the
Roadway Design A.A.S.H.O.
CROSSON: The traffic counts on Township in this particular
project.
SPRINGBORN: Pardon?
CROSSON: The last two data excerpts you have here -
HENRY: - came from the report
that -
CROSSON: The City's report?
HENRY: Uh-huh
SPRINGBORN: T
CROSSON: Oh -
HENRY: They
extremely low
turns.
his.
I'm sorry.
I believe, where the report states
stated that the amount of left turn turns are
and could not be justified on the basis of left
SPRINOBORN: I got one report in today and I picked up another one
down here. Now, if you'll turn to the (inaudible) diagram I have -
it says Township Road and two lanes - this is strictly schematic.
I don t have the luxury of being able to go out and survey and make
fancy drawings such as the one up here. But uh - this illustrates
that at 35 miles per hour in the vicinity of Sherwood and Jimmy and
Juneway, a projected improvement in the grade to 300 foot sight
distance does really give you adequate sight distance to look for
oncoming traffic so that you can judge when it's safe to make a
left turn. The time required to cross fifteen to eighteen feet of
one -lane in a traffic situation is not that much more than a car
coming up on a stationary object, so I think that the reference put
in the report is absolutely right; 300 feet is a good figure for
two lanes. Now, if you'll go to the next diagram - this is
Township Road with three lanes, a left turn lane in the middle.
Now you're looking at a car having entered the center lane to make
a left turn either into a private drive or the same situation would
exist further down into Juneway or another driveway that exists in
between them. At the same time a car is coming up and then there's
this 300 foot of sight distance to make a left turn into Sherwood.
This puts two cars approaching each other in the same lane on a
collision course. The stopping distance for the reaction distance
for these two cars alone is 256 feet. That means that there would
1
1
2I
January 7, 1992,,r
be a good chance that they could meet before they ever got their
foot on the brake. I actually saw this happen at the top of
Township a couple of years ago - a car topped at something near 60
miles an hour; there was a car turning left into the same lane; he
was exceeding the speed limit, but this illustrates - he hit it
hard enough that it froze the speedometer at 60 and there was no
evidence of rubber on the road; he didn't have time to hit the
brake. Now cars approaching each other in this circumstance are
closing at the rate of 70 miles an hour. That means that if they
collide at 35 miles an hour, and there's a good chance in this 300
feet - suppose they're going 40 - they wouldn't even have time to
get on the brake.. It would be the same as if each of them drove
head on into a concrete wall at 70 miles an hour. Now with
reference to the eight -tenths of a mile distance and a 210
elevation gain at the west end and 120 gain at the east - the sight
distance over the entire eight -tenths of a mile ought to become
apparent - it should be no surprise.
Now if you refer to another excerpt - 2.5 percent left turns at
peak traffic hour do not justify a third left turn lane, this is
from the City's report. I'd also like to -refer to the
justification based on 1.1 lanes calculated and projected, and in
addition, refer to the additional data on travel time. If you take
all of this together, we're looking at a fraction of a lane to
justify going to three or four lanes, and the fraction of a lane is
only one-tenth. The travel time improvement has got to be in the
order of a fraction of a minute.
The hazard comes in trying to deal with a minor arterial in the
terms of the definition put on it here tonight, with the grades
that we're looking at over eight -tenths of a mile. • Now before I
leave this safety situation, I'd also like to point out that while
major truck traffic is supposed to take bypasses, there is a
substantial amount of truck traffic on Sherwood at the present
time. We have heavily loaded lumber trucks; we have heavily loaded
ready -mix concrete trucks. A ready -mix concrete truck - it just
occurred to me now, I don't know what one weighs, but I'd speculate
it's on the order of 15 to 20 ton - if you visualize this kind of
a vehicle going up that kind.of a grade, 'what would happen if the
brakes failed or if the drive train broke? There is absolutely
nothing in the way of - for that kind of truck - for those kinds of
trucks to save getting into a very serious accident. The uh - in
fact, looking at it from that standpoint, the accident that
occurred down in Van Buren not too long ago might become minor by
comparison. I uh - I don't know whether I have underestimated what
the consulting engineer. did with respect to the safety aspects
here, but I didn't find them covered in any of the reports that I
looked at. This occurred to me very recently, in fact, over the
holidays I had trouble getting a hold of reference books, but I did
put this data together. I don't know what,you paid for the studies
that you got - you can have the benefit of this for my concern for
22
January 7, 1992
the City and an effort to be objective and put some perspective on
it.
VORSANGER: Thank you. Do you have a recommendation?
SPRINGBORN: My recommendation I think that comes out of all of
this is if you look at the travel time that we're dealing with
here, certainly less than 2 minutes even if you get down to 20
miles an hour. The safety circumstances uh - I think that the City
report points out something when they don't with the uh - limiting
the use of Township Road to light traffic - or passenger cars and
light trucks. If you do that, you will also substantially improve
the congestion situation on it over a long period of time. I think
that limiting it to passenger vehicles and light trucks will put
the heavy truck traffic in a position of finding alternate routes.
Passenger traffic and vehicular traffic has a knack for finding
alternate routes and I think they'll do so in this circumstance and
I think that you will actually be doing the companies that own them
a favor, because the energy saved in not hauling 15 to 20 tons over
that grade would be far in excess of what would be required to move
that same load over 5 to 10 miles on level. My recommendation is
that instead of selecting something - one of these and say it's got
to be alternative one, two or three, that you look at preserving
the present width. I don't think that we ought to encourage speed
on Township, because the uh - hazards up there. Going to a wider
two lane road would actually encourage running speeds probably in
excess 40 miles an hour. The current one - if the current road is
good enough for running speeds of 40 and a posted speed limit of
35, I think that the present width is probably adequate and will
probably remain adequate for a long period of time. So my
recommendation would be - take care of the intersections at Old
Wire and College, leave the present width where it is, but by all
means, take at least three feet off the top. And in addition to
that, there's a blind spot down at the bottom of the hill as you
approach College, and if you go east, there's a blind spot as you
go over a little rise there. I think that some additional money
ought to be spent to level those grades out and approve the safety
there.
VORBANGER: Okay. Thank you.
NASH: Jack, this isn't a question, but it is a comment. I think
that the facts that you put together are a very good example of
what some of us have been talking about - about the vast array of
experience and talent that we have in our citizens here in
Fayetteville, and I appreciate the work you've done for us.
SPRINGBORN: Thank you.
VORBANGER: The next speaker is Sid Norbash.
1
a= r
IA wi
January 7, 1992,a
NORBASH: Mr. Mayor, as some of you folks know, I work for the City
of Fayetteville, but this evening I would like to address the Board
as a private citizen uh - and my comments will be personal and not
any reflection from the Staff. I. would like to speak for the
project and this is a difficult situation because I have many
friends on Township - at least as of tonight anyway - or I used to
have a lot of friends.
HENRY: Past tense.
NORBASH: Yeah, past tense. I appreciate the opportunity. What I
would like to just briefly address here is uh - the safety is
extremely important on Township, particularly in adverse weather.
We have situations where in snow and ice, cars coming downhill -
and believe me, when you're going downhill and your car is rotating
360 degrees - two lanes is somehow not quite sufficient. You would
like all the room you can get and uh - particularly at this point
that we have developed the other end of Township and we're getting
quite a bit of traffic.
We've been talking a lot about projection - what it will look like
in a few years. I would like to share with you my experience as I
used Township today. We have on occasions, beginning from the
intersection of North College, the traffic is backed up during the
rush hour - and this is not all the time - during the rush hour,
particularly in the morning when everybody wants to get on North
College, we have traffic backed up from North College all the way
to Sherwood Lane. As a matter of fact, some courteous drivers have
been kind enough to let me in on Township - I live on Jimmy as I
come in. So even as we speak in 1992 there is definitely a need.
Again, I understand as far as the property owners are concerned -
I really share their concern, and I've listened to a lot of folks
talk about that, but I really don't know what the solution might be
other than the fact that we are really building this road for the
next 20 years, and it would be a shame to go back after about 5
years or 10 years and say, "Well folks, sorry you know, we made
this a two lane, but we really need more." And the folks that are
there will have to go through all the hassle of construction and
everything else to actually put up with another construction
because we want to widen it again. So there:is a concern there.
And another point that I would like to bring up is the development
of Gulley -Park. It's a beautiful park, ,it's going to be much
nicer, a lot of people are going,to be using it. And believe me,
it's an asset to our community and.I personally want to thank you
all for really making that project. possible. A lot of people are
going to be using that park, and believe me that's going to be
another focal point there and there's going to be a lot of traffic
there.
As far as three lanes again; I would like to ask you to consider
what we are going through today in 1992 and pave the road for the
•
23
24
January 7, 1992
future generation that is going to be using this road over and over
and over. Thank you very much.
NOR/ANGER: Thank you. Any questions? Uh - the next one I have
that wishes to speak is Jim Hill.
HILL: I'm Jim Hill. I live uh - one block off of Township. If
you would, I'd like to take this opportunity to thank the City
management, Staff, department heads, employees and the Board
members for your help with the trees for Township volunteer tree
planting project. I guess I'm speaking somewhat for them at this
point. The donations have allowed for the purchase of 250 trees
and volunteers have planted 106 of those along the Township
extension. Uh - without the help of everyone and the help of the
other 200 volunteers there's no way that this, what I consider very
successful City beautification project could have been
accomplished. I think the City needs to be commended for their
foresight in this.
My concern is - has anyone studied how this widening project is
going to impact this tree planting project? I'd hate to see us cut
down the oaks and dogwoods and maples that we're planting now in 20
or 30 or 40 years. Are we being consistent? I'd just ask you to
address this question now rather than down the road.
VORSANGER: Anyone want to uh - and you're talking about the tree
planting project between Old Wire Road and 265?
HILL: Right. I'm saying if we widen this -
VORSANGER: - (inaudible) but that's what he's talking about.
HENRY: And the point is that the trees have been planted, and yet
the projections are also that at some point in another 15 or 20
years, they will need to widen that portion which means cutting
down all the trees that we've just planted in there at 20 year
growth periods. I mean, it's just doesn't - does not compute.
HILL: You know - if we're going to, let's stop before we plant the
other 140 trees. My back -
SPIVEY: I believe we'll post an armed guard - (inaudible)
HILL: Exactly. There you go Shell. Thank you.
VORSANGER: Thank you Mr. Hill. Uh - the next one I have is Janice
Rushing.
RUSHING: (inaudible)
VORSANGER: Thank you. How about Thomas France.
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January 7, 1992
FRANCE: I'm Thomas France and I live at 2400 Common Drive; that's
a cul-de-sac that borders Township. May I begin with a question?
You said earlier that you would not be voting on this project
tonight. Could you give the residents just a rough time table as
to what you're thinking about when your decision will be made, so
we can sort of have a feel of it?
VORSANGER: That's a good question. Anyone care to comment before
I - I did?
HENRY: We were just told the other night that we weren't going to
vote on it - (inaudible)
VORSANGER: To tell. you the truth, I don't have it set. .I'd
thought what we would do is have another public hearing tonight,
which we're doing, and then out of this public hearing will come
not only some more questions, but hopefully some ideas, and some
sense to this Board from the community how they honestly feel about
this project and the pros and the cons. And then, I would expect
that we would take it to a City Board meeting uh - at which time
again there would be discussion, but we hope some conclusion would
come about. Now, I would have to ask the Staff when they could
even have this sort of thing ready for us?
LINEBAUGH: We'd like to - I believe in February is what we
discussed. We could have it ready as early as then.
(inaudible)
LINESAUGH: Oh, is that right? Okay -
VORSANGER: It's what?
LINEBAUGH: Forty-five to sixty days.
VORSANGER: Forty-five to sixty days - the Staff would have
something ready for us which would reflect - I hope would reflect -
the sense of our public hearings and input from our citizens.
FRANCE: Okay.
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COODY: I hope - I don't know how long it would take for us to uh -
find out what's going to happen with our.'capital improvements
lawsuit, but I would hope we wouldn't vote on this until we get a
clear idea of what the Judge is going to tell us, because I believe
money for this would be coming out of:•that CIP funding, and we may
be uh - approving something that weldon!t have the money for, so it
seems that we should wait to vote oh this until after the Judge
makes a decision on if we're going to have the money or not.
e �
•. Absolutely.`.- That's exactly what - (inaudible)
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January 7, 1992
VORSA$GERz And if you say 45 or 60 days, that ought to cover it
because the hearing is on January the 24th.
HENRY: But all residents who appeared for this would get
notification that it -
VORSAEGER: Oh, absolutely. Sure - sure. And again, it would
happen in a public forum where - at a public meeting. Uh - did you
have something further?
FRANCE: Sure, that's helpful. I just wanted some sort of
parameters, not a particular date, just so I had some idea. I
guess I'm here to try to cancel somebody else out at the polls here
- the person who spoke for. I'd like to speak against this
project. I'd like to raise only two issues. As you heard earlier
tonight, many concerns were raised at the September meeting, and
those concerns were addressed in the memorandum that some of - I
guess all of you have in front of you. Let me reiterate the two
that I brought up at that September meeting, and I thought it might
be instructive to read the engineer's report response.
The first had to do with noise pollution. Those of us who live on
Common or near it know that the noise pollution already is
prohibitive. It gets in over 200 yards at least during the rush
hour such that you can't hear or do any type of mental activity in
your home. We were assured at the September meeting that this
would only get worse, so it was reasonable I thought to ask what
solutions might be posed to this increased noise pollution problem.
Let me read you the responses from the memorandum, for those of you
who have it with you, I'm on page 11. Noise abatement and sound
walls the report concludes (refer also to the engineering report,
page 8 and the appendix) - I have not done that, but perhaps there
is some insight there that I have missed - (b) reads, "The
construction of sound walls, tunnels or to elevate the existing
street is considered to be too expensive and unsightly." We also
learned tonight that trees or some type of landscaping would be
done. I can not speak for the Board members of course, or for any
other residents, but this response does little more than reiterate
the problem, it offers no solution.
I next raised the issue of property values. I was concerned, as
were many of the residents who attended that September meeting,
that not only the construction, but the resulting increase of
traffic flow would seriously decrease property values of residents
on or around Township. We raised that as a problem to be
addressed. Let me again read you the response of this project
report, and I'm now reading from page 13. "(a) Property Values -
this report can not adequately judge or estimate the effects due to
the recommended plan to property values. (b) This issue may also
be considered in the r.o.w. acquisition process." I'm not familiar
with that and perhaps someone would want to address that. I see
that again as a willfully inadequate statement that there is a
January 7, 1992
problem that they are unable to solve. We also heard tonight that
it is a problem that is perhaps even outside of the jurisdiction of
this report, and I will admit that, but it is not outside of my own
jurisdiction. I do pay property taxes and I am concerned with the
value of that property.
I think these two are symptomatic of the project report's
inadequacy in dealing with the problems that were raised. No
solutions - at least adequate solutions - in my mind were proposed.
And for that reason, I would ask the Board after deliberations not
to accept any of the alternatives in this project. And to
anticipate a question.- "Well then, what should we do?" Let me
suggest that you would do well to pick up on some implications from
the questions and comments of Ms. Nash and Ms. Henry. For if I
heard their questions earlier and their comments, they were
suggesting to you that what we need is not an increased
concentration of traffic flow in a single arterial, but a
dispersion of traffic across numerous arterials. That would
preserve property values, it would decrease noise pollution. It
would mean a different report, it would mean going back to the
drawing board, but I think it's worth going back to the drawing
board. Please don't confuse this project with progress - it isn't.
Thank you. -
VORSANGER: Thank you. Are there
speaker - and you'll have to bear
my name is hard to pronounce, but
DRAZSNZAK:
VORSANGER:
DRAZSNZAK:
VORSANGER:
any questions? If not, the next
with me, this is not the, I know
I've - it's what?
Drazsnzak.
It's what?
Drazsnzak. I already knew which one -
Beth and Steve Drazsnzak.
DRAZSNZAK: Thank you sir. At this
to the microphone, I'll just become
that the other speakers I think
opposition to the project.
point, I feel that if I come up
emotional. I would like to say
have fairly well covered our
VORSANGER: Do you have any recommendations?
DRAZSNZAK: -Uh - at the absolute worst, the alternative number one.
VORSANGER: Thank you. Okay, I think I've gone through everyone
who has indicated they would like to speak; and uh - at this time,
I would ask those of you who want to-speakv but didn't indicate,
just - ,
(inaudible)
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January 7, 1992
NAEE: Some of you didn't put "yes" or "no", you just signed.
VOREANGER: Yeah - Oh yes, go ahead. Well, (inaudible) -
: (inaudible) - thought I was on one of the three lists.
VOREANGER: But - yeah - which one? Yeah, this - It says - you
were supposed to put down "yes" or "no" if you planned to speak
and you didn't do either, so I just assumed you weren't.
COVEY: Well my name is, excuse me, my name is Carl Covey and of
course this is a very distinguished and articulate group of
neighbors that I am following, I'm afraid that my discussion will
be very short - very short on data, very heavy on intuition and
opinion. I live at 1060 E. Township. I've lived there for four
years and owned property there for going on seven. It's
interesting to note that when I describe - well, or when I try to
describe where I live on Township, I'm abruptly cut-off as people
say, "Well, I know where Township is because I drive that at least
two or three times every day." So Township is very commonly driven
by many people that you talk to. I attended the first public forum
at what I still call, the Holiday Inn on North College, which is
across Township from Fisher Buick or is it the Mercedes place or is
it Don's Wholesale - I mean things are changing very rapidly in
that area business -wise. The meeting I found to be very polite,
very informative, and very at times amusing. I actually had a good
time at that meeting - it was very enjoyable I did receive the
mailing from the City that I thought was very carefully put
together and very thoughtful. In fact, I was flattered that what
I considered to be a flippant comment at the first meeting, was
actually included. I think I had spoke about Tune Concrete & Mix
Lumber putting new mufflers on their vehicles, again addressing
noise pollution.
I want to say from the outset that I support the City's plan with
some caveats that I'll mention here in just a minute. I think it's
real sad and almost melancholy to see Township turned from a
country lane to a major thoroughfare. It's also very sad to see
trees sacrificed, the neighborhood character sacrificed, which I
think are problems to some degree that will happen. I hope the
City will minimize that. Some of the issues that have been brought
up - I think there is no argument. Township is not safe at the top
of the hill, it is dangerous and especially in inclement weather.
The intersection at College is very inadequate. And there is also
- and I believe one of the neighbors mentioned - two blind spots.
I know of one that is unsafe traveling east on Township at the new
stoplight on Old Wire, if you are turning left onto Old Wire, it is
blind, and I do believe the City should - they're going to cut the
hill on Township at the very steep point. They should - somebody
should drive and try to turn left against traffic coming from the
east on the new part of Township. It is - my wife has about been
hit there twice; it is unsafe.
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January 7, 1992
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'COODY: Excuse me, may I butt in right now? '
COVEY: Yes sir.
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COODY: Mr. Bunn, what would•it take to try.to address this.problem
immediately? Because - what,,it would doi-on-this other road - it
would be good to take carerof a problem like that as quickly as
possible. What do you think:that would take?
BUNN: Well, I'm sure (inaudible)
COODY: Alright. If you would, I'd appreciate it. I'm sorry - go
ahead.
•
COVEY: Well, thank you. I have - especially at the first meeting
- I didn't hear very many people who spoke sort of not in favor and
not really against - but talking about, assuming the project was
done, not wanting the City to spend less. There were actually
comments about - brought up such as burying utilities, putting in
lots of trees, lots of landscaping, beautification type parkway if
you will, something the City could be proud of.
There were two comments I just wanted to make real quickly. One is
that the underground utilities - I'm not sure, I believe this is
correct - that both Swepco and Ozarks have utility poles running
up. Swepco is on one side, Ozark's on the. other, it would sure be
nice to at least —maybe they will all hang their wires on one set
of poles. I don't know if that is possible - it's just a thought.
And the other is a good friend of mine who lives on Common, Morris
Henry mentioned the three lane concept —that a lot of people feel
like making Township three lane allthe way over the hill is
unjustified because of the turning traffic. One thing that I might
comment here that - that whether it's legal or not, a lot of people
use the center lane as an on-ramp as opposed to a turn lane. And
one of our biggest problems now in getting on Township is we live
on the north and many times of the day, coming out of our drive
trying to turn left onto Township is quite impossible, because you
have to have two lanes of traffic free, as opposed to just one. So
that's just food for thought. I would love to see this streetdone
absolutely beautifully - something we can be proud of. But I think
the directors and the street planners are trying to be good
stewards of our money here, and I can appreciate the limitation to
an $800 some odd thousand dollars. My only concern is that the
City may not be doing enough to this street. I would respectfully
disagree with the idea that traffic flow will increase with
improvement more than it would increase anyway, because I think one
of the comments made, is people are making their own short-cuts and
Township is just what people are using andthey'reusing it more
and they're going to use it: I like some'of the ideas, but I
really think that this street will become very heavily used and
yes, there will be some increase in use with. improvement. But the
park that Mr. Norbash mentioned will increase flow, especially if
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January 7, 1992
rumors of a pool come true and there's a pool put out there at
Gulley Park. There is more development on 265.
In summary, I would just have to say, I support the improvements
because improvements need to be made for safety, the sidewalks.
And I just hate to see the City spend money on improving the street
without doing something that is going to be beneficial, such as for
the 20 -year plan. Thank you.
V0RfAEGER: Thank you.
11EITE: My name is A.O. White and I don't live close to this
street. I live down the street on Center and University Street.
I built the Beverly Manor Apartments and (inaudible) Apartments in
1961. I keep my place manicured because I like to have it look
good for people coming in at the University. My little speech here
won't last three minutes - it's all priorities. I've been
wondering for a long time what's happening to this 1% sales tax
money, when we've got streets like Center Street and Dickson Street
to drive over. When I walked in here, there's a big hole right in
front of this one outside. To stay with the agenda, I'm firmly
against this project because to spend $900,000 or $1,000,000 on
that short stretch of road and the rest of our City looks like a
junkyard, I'm very highly opposed to it. I come from Magazine,
Arkansas, 700 population, and I went down the other day to Magazine
and do you know that they've got all new blacktop streets all over
that little old town of 700 population. And I had to stop and
think about what I drive over to go right down Center Street here
to our college. Then to know that we've got the fine arts building
coming in with streets like going down Dickson Street and going
down Center Street. And then the new basketball thing over there
is ridiculous. This money should be spent in some other - instead
of big quantities like that and a short distance on a street,
that's uphill so steep you can't get over it. I'd start in the
center of town first to make our City look like something, blacktop
these streets around here to make them look good. So I said I
wouldn't say much, but I was at home with my feet up in the air,
watching this program and this brought me out. And I'll tell you
another thing - I listened to the City Engineer talk about tonight
about other streets, so I'm not completely out of line here. I
never heard Center Street mentioned and I never heard Dickson
Street mentioned or this street out front - right in front of this
office here, that ought to look good. Ought to be when you drive
up it's level with no holes in it. Please excuse me, but this did
bring me out. I couldn't figure out - I been trying ever since we
voted that tax in, to figure out where it's going. Somebody to get
up and say, well, I can't see a bit of it being spent - course I
live down here in this part of town. Please excuse me, but I'd
like to see us take right down in here around and make these
streets look like streets that they ought to look like. Thank you.
VORSAEGER: Thank you.
January ,7,1992
SWEETSER: That's a hard act to follow.
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NASH: But you can try. +.
SWEETSER: (inaudible) - been friends for .many, many years and I
have to say that -
VORSANGER: Would you mind giving us your name?
SWEETSER: My name is Jerry.'Sweetser and.I.live on the corner of
Primrose Lane and Township Road -
VORSANGER: Thank you.
.. .
SWEETSER: - on the new section of it. We do have an overall
maintenance problem probably with all the streets as far as
overlay, and I.feel sure that you all have a plan to take care of
that. But getting back to the Township Road thing - I think it's
very rare that we have an opportunity to do a street and do it
correctly. We've uh - I was involved in Joyce Street, which. I
consider to be the number one street improvement of the decade for
Fayetteville. The next best project that's been for traffic flow.
has been for Township Road, the section between Old Wire Road and
265. The worst section of that - and this would be created by
doing the new section the same as the section in front of the golf
course on Joyce Street - this should be looked at very carefully
about widening that street. But Township Road now, when I leave my
house and come over, the traffic is always backed up more than up
to Jimmy Street, maybe up to Sherwood Street. And right now, we're
in the process of building a new subdivision at the end of Jimmy
Street. We're taking it on in and it goes parallel to Sherwood
Street - I assume that you all are aware of this, the public may
not be. This is going to increase the problem that uh - that
exists there now. I'm a very uh - I really can't say enough about
this project.
I think it's a very good project. I think the thing that we have
to get beyond is that this street does not belong to me because I
live -on Township Road. I'm going to be affected by it and I was
affected by this, and I don't know whether my property value is
greater or less, but I have property now behind the Holiday Inn -
the old Holiday Inn —with Mr. (inaudible) . And there's many,
many timesyoucan't get out of there because the traffic is backed
up three blocks up the hill from that street if I happen to be in
there trying to get out. If this is widened, I think this would
help that problem all the way up the hill. And just remember,: this
street belongs to the people that live on 45, it belongs - helps
anyone going across town. Let's get this street fixed across town,
let's fix Joyce Street in front of the golf course, let's extend it
onto Johnson Road, and let's do some things and implement some of
the plans for long range and understand that•we-can't all live on
a cul -da -sac. I mean, it -would be nice if everyone of us lived on
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January 7, 1992
a cul -da -sac with over 300 feet and no cars passed in front of our
house. But, they will pass in front of our house. Let's make it
safe, let's get a beautification program like we did on the east
end. This is going to be the entry to our City - one of the main
entrances to the City is going to be Township Road whether we like
it or not. Let's get a tree planting program going, let's get it
looking nice, patrol the street, keep the trucks off, slow the
traffic down. This is a control problem, not a - not the street
itself. And granted, a nice level street might encourage you go
a little faster, but I know some people that sit in my driveway
every once in awhile with a little blinking light that slows
traffic down better than the design of a street and so. That's all
I had to say and just to sum up - I'm all for the project myself,
I'm not speaking for anyone other than myself and I would like to
see you go forward with this street. Thank you.
V0RBANGER: Thank you. Any questions of Mr. Sweetser?
McCLINTON: Mr. Mayor, you pointed and I thought you pointed at me.
VORBANGER: I did.
MOCLINTOX: I did put my "X" out there on that, but somebody signed
by the "X" before I could get Johnny Quinn to put my name down, so
that's the reason you didn't have me on the list. I come to you
not to talk either for or against it, but to explain a few things.
I've heard quite a bit tonight about that being an arterial street
and that was based on that in the zoning ordinance, I believe about
1969 to '70, and I happened to be on the Planning Commission at
that time. One of the big problems we've always had in
Fayetteville, Arkansas is trying to get, in the last number of
years, trying to find east/west streets, and we searched and we
searched back then. And now one of the big causes of comment
during the Vision hearings of more east/west streets. And I can
tell you and assure you that there are very few places you can get
an east/west street in Fayetteville, none is level with the
exception of Joyce Street and Joyce was put as an arterial street
back there on that uh - in 1970 on that zoning ordinance. We
recognized that this Township was not ideal as an arterial street,
but it was the only one available, and it's still really the only
one available. We talk about Sycamore. We talk about Ash. Well,
going from Ash to Sycamore is very hard to get - to navigate that
road at any time. So we have to realize what we have and try to
work with it.
I don't blame anybody on living on Township Road not wanting it
widened. And it won't bother me - I've got 50 foot frontage on it
and I live 500 feet off the road. But if I lived out on one of the
houses on the street and going to have to take a big row of trees
that's been there for a number of years, I wouldn't like it either.
But we have to do whatever is the best that we can do. I agree
with my neighbor, Jack Springborn, and others have expressed it,
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January 7, '1992
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that the top of .that hill needs torbe"cut off, but anybody that
drives as much as I do -.and it's a! (inaudible) area and the
others. If you want to get out on College Avenue without being
backed up to Jimmy Street. or. Sherwood, just get out before 7:30 -
that's what I do (inaudible) But uh".- the .top of that hill does
need to be cut down to give some better.. sight distance. And I
think what you as the Board are going to have to decide whether it
would be in the best interest of the City.to go ahead and take the
plan that you have. Frankly I thought when'we said an arterial
street back in 1970, we were talking about•four lane street - I
didn't know. But either leave it as it is and then immediately try
to find - to extend Joyce Street,. widen it°from Old Missouri Road
over to 265, finish out what'Blaine Nelsonrhas started there west
of 71 - and I'd leave that Stearns Street there. And take it on
over to Gregg and you'd be dumping that traffic then into a two-
lane road, but at least it would be getting some of it away from
Township Road. You're going to have to worry within yourselves
whether it is best to leave Township Road at about the width that
it is, do some improvements on it so that it will handle the
traffic better, namely cutting the top of the hill down .and some
how or other getting four lanes down at College Avenue. Three
stacking lanes for eastbound traffic - I mean westbound traffic at
College Avenue would make a lot of difference on how far they stack
- traffic would be stacked up there. And I think that's what the
plans were on the (inaudible).
I would urge you to, instead of leaving it at the present width, to
seriously consider if you are going to do that, widening it to 31
feet. Twenty-seven feet might be adequate, but then - and I, you
know there's nothing mandatory about these suggestions. If they
were, I'd be sitting up right where you are and say, "Go on and do
it, or not do it,". one or the other. But I feel that you've got to
make that decision yourself of whether you want to disrupt some
yards and trees and people's plans and things to get a three -lane
street, or whether you want to leave it basically what it is,
hopefully at 31 feet, take down the top of the hill, widen it some
so they get better access. I didn't realize that it was as bad on
265 as it is because I travel that road all the time, because I
travel that road all the time and.I never really had any problem.
But, I'm sure that it is. And - but, if you do leave it at a two
lane street, let me urge you to complete Joyce and Stearns from 265
over to Gregg as soon as you can get it into your plans to do so,
because that would help to take traffic off of Township Road in my
opinion. Thank you very much for allowing me to speak.
VORSANGER: Uh -
Clark McClinton.
program realized
McClinton. Uh -
for the record, we know who that was. That was
I wanted to make sure everyone watching the
it was the elder statesman of Fayetteville, Clark
who else would like to address us?
BRANDON: My name is Bob Brandon. I also do not live on Township,
but I'd like to point out to you that this project is inseparable
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January 7, 1992
from and has a direct bearing on the north/south traffic flow,
in particular on Gregg Street, into which Township dead ends to the
west. We have no current, active project for preventing the north/
south traffic on Gregg Street from dumping directly into a
residential neighborhood in the Wilson Park area onto residential
streets, which by the way, do not have either coves or gutters or
sidewalks.
And I agree with the other gentleman that pointed out that we have
existing, pressing needs with existing neighborhoods and existing
streets, which have never been brought up to standards, which have
existed for years, which we can't seem to maintain or bring up to
standard. And I think that it would be important to consider
whether or not we're going to continue to pursue large scale,
expensive, elaborate projects which have adverse impact on
neighborhoods in spite of the fact that they may accommodate
increasing traffic generated by such projects as Mr. Sweetser's
subdivision which empties onto Township Road, without the benefit
of any previous planning for where that traffic was going to go,
rather than to a problem area. And bringing these other problems
into the ring of consideration and spend some of the money on those
rather than going on trying to accommodate new neighborhoods and
traffic flow resulting from those. And I have not heard any
discussion in any of this project discussion having to do with the
impact of spreading this traffic out into other neighborhoods. We
talk about additional widening projects spotted willy-nilly across
the City on North Street out toward the bypass on Wedington Drive,
and Gregg Street to the north, and Joyce Street, which is way out
at the edge of the City, which is not really an east/west corridor
for anything other than proposed new development to the northeast
and to the north and west of the mall area, which ends up dumping
onto Johnson Road down onto Gregg Street and down into the
residential neighbor -hoods. And I would like to hear those
problems addressed in this plan if we're going to pursue it.
VORBANGER: Mr. Brandon, have you seen a marked increase in traffic
around Wilson Park?
BRANDON: Absolutely, it has increased dramatically, in spite of
the fact that when Mayor Martin was the Mayor here, the Staff was
directed to propose some alternatives to the traffic flow going
through that neighborhood. None of that has ever surfaced in any
of these discussions. Mt - it was noted that when the traffic
signal went in there - which we discussed all of this again - but
that traffic signal would be timed so that the traffic would be
directed out of that neighborhood. It has not done that, it has
increased the traffic. The traffic goes faster than it did because
the average speed out on Gregg Street now that it is an interstate
highway is drastically increased, and I challenge you to do this -
provide me with one single copy of a citation issued to a truck in
this City on a residential neighborhood for using a street marked
for no trucks. I guarantee you that element is not enforced, not
January 7; 1992,..
one iota. I'd like to see one citationsbecause they do not enforce
it in the Wilson Park area,s.they.will not enforce it on Township
regardless. So it is not a question of enforcement, that is not,
can not and will not be done. But I would like to see in this
discussion, what other proposal the City.is,going to provide to
eliminate that traffic from the'residentialneighborhoods that are
directly being impacted lby the, development of these widened
east/west corridors onto _these north/south corridors that run
through the residential neighborhoods.
NASH: That was kind of what 'was running through my mind. When you
close Township to do this widening project, even if you just do the
widening at the four lanes you know to deal%with the stacking, the
question would be that it would be interesting to track where all
these cars that are using .---'the 600 to 700 -cars a day - how are
they going to - where are they going to gar Well, I mean they're
going to find an alternative way to go because it's going to be
closed. Just like all the people who live on Township are going to
have a hard time leaving their houses.
BRANDON: That's something - (inaudible)
VORSANGER: Thank you, Mr. Brandon. Anyone else? Okay. .If
there's - does anyone on the Board want to make any closing
comments?
HENRY: Can I speak as a public hearing person?
VORSANGER: Yes. Announce that.
HENRY:. Okay. Can I stay up here?
VORSANGER: Yes, but announce that you are.
HENRY: My home is not directly impacted like Dr. Covey - he's many
feet off the - he's on Township, but many hundred .feet away. And,
uh, all the sentiments that have been expressed tonight., I have
felt that we are asking. I mean, I don't think that anybody in
this whole area wants to impede progress, they recognize that some
things need to be done. And the ones - the people that I've talked
with - are all basically very much in favor of the widening. They
definitely see the back-up uh.- from College back, that there needs
to be four lanes there to provide for a turning lane, right and
left and to be able to take care of that, and the right-of-way
already exists there and I don't think that is a problem. Mr.
Coody mentioned that the sales tax is proposed to fund this
project. The estimated cost originally was $680,000, but right
now, we're already told it's $880,000, and that does not include
even one of the utility relocation, and that would be another
$200,000. So that's a million dollar project for eight -tenths of
a mile. My feeling is that a lot of people have the same feelings
about this and it is feelings that we're acknowledging, that we
16
January 7, 1992
don't want to be greedy and spend that amount of money on one
project, especially one that is going to - you know, benefit a
number of people, but at the same time impact neighborhoods that
have been there for a long period of time. You may not perceive -
some people may not perceive and it's said, "Well, it's really not
a neighborhood." But people across Township do visit back and
forth; i see them when I drive back and forth. The sidewalk issue
- I mean maybe there can even be a cost savings there - whether we
have two or one sidewalk. But you're still looking at the idea
that when you spend taxpayers money, it is a trust and a cost
analysis there basically looks that although you're planning for 20
years, to go with the 36 foot street, that's still quite an
expensive project. Given the alternative of the widening and
sidewalks and remaining at the 27 foot, if that's what it is,
that's really a good bargain when you're looking at a 10 year
period of time because that allows you to still have the
neighborhood integrity. I think one of the things that we need -
that a lot of us have in that area - that we support policies which
put in sidewalks. You mentioned Gully Park. One of the problems
and you talk about, oh well, more people are driving - if we had
sidewalks, if we continue to make that a priority and spend more
money there, sidewalks encourage children to be self-sufficient,
they encourage healthy lifestyles, they encourage friendliness in
neighborhoods because people get out and walk. The lack of
sidewalks is - that is one way of releasing congestion - it reduces
reliance upon driving everywhere. I believe that most of the
people in our area would be willing to forego $500,000 of this
project that is allocated in order to help other people in the City
be able to get some sidewalks on their streets, or to get some
repairs done, in order for it to be a more equitable distribution.
To try to encourage the same kinds of behavior that we see that has
gone on the other side of Township, where the sidewalks have been
put in, where neighbors get out and meet each other and talk and
visit that have not been out of their houses in years. You see
whole families going. I think plans are just that - they're plans,
and the City Board is a policy making body. Our group is not -
we're not interested in trying to spend money for things that
aren't budgeted. We're trying to offer back to the City money to
be reprioritized for use elsewhere in the City. We have many needs
and wants; we can not afford all of them. But we must look at
smaller overall goals rather than looking at a project which may
generate a speedway and greatly impact on many individuals' lives.
That's my comment for the public record.
VORBANGERs Okay. I would like to mention - just to show some
diversity among our citizens - I would like to mention that I have
received several calls from citizens regarding this. They could
not be here tonight and asked me to report for them, and I shall do
that. A Mr. Dick Cottrell who lives on Juneway called me and said
that he was for whatever would be the best to handle the traffic on
Township. I have a letter here from a Ruth Ostmeier. She lives at
1140 E. Township Road. She says, "As I cannot attend the meeting
January 7, 1992 '
..: ,z.
on the widening of east Township Road, .I'rn writing my opinions to
you." And I am going to give these to the City Staff. Her
opinions are pretty well in line' withythe earlier comments we've
heard; she hoped the road would not'beyidened and so forth. But
to show the diversity, she does.Mrite4- and Director Henry, I'm
kind of chiding you on this - "As for sidewalks, I say no.' We need
the green space, not cement." .And she.goes onto say why she
doesn't want sidewalks. I_bring that up only-to show that there is
a great diversity ofopinion on,.anything "we might talk about in
this City. And uh.- that's'-
HENRY: Do you think that we need to be reminded about it?
VORSANGER: Well, I.think,we do becauseall is not peaches and
cream. Anybody on this side.want to make any comments?
SPIVEY: Yeah, I'd like to: make two orthree comments. One
question - I guess I don't understand what -.obviously there's not
alarge demand for the left-hand turn - what that center lane and
how will that center lane keep traffic backing up from 71? Now I
can see where the four -lane would work. But the center lane itself
- I don't see how that's going to keep traffic from backing up.
You know - unless you just make it a left-hand turn lane way back
up the hill. I just don't see how that's going to benefit a whole
lot for the cost that it's going to take to make that going from 31
feet up to the wider roadway.
BUNN: The center turn lane would not have any affect on the
traffic in the intersection (inaudible) -
SPIVEY: Okay, I didn't think - I didn't see how it would. I
travel that road everyday and I'm kind of like Clark, I travel it
before 7:30 and I don't see those problems, so you know, we just
maybe all ought to get up a little bit earlier. But uh - and I
agree with Dr. Covey about what he said about the blind turn. I
travel that too and it's blind, it's a real problem. But it would
seem to me, you know, the uh - to move it to 31 feet - I travel it
- it is pretty narrow for the volume that goes through there- to
widen it to 31 feet would probably be my choice personally. I
think to leave it as narrow as it is would probably not be my first
choice, let's put it that way. But I don't really see the need for
the center lane. I'm in favor of the sidewalks - or definitely on
one side of it at least and probably the side that.I would
personally want it on is to continue right on up from the Township
extension that exists right now - so keep it on that same side of
the road. I would also like to say that uh - you know, safety is
a concern. To cut that grade down is essential, you know, is
essential. I've come over that hill in the wintertime and boy, if
you get it on an icy morning, your whole life will flash in front
of you as you're going over that hill, when you're spinning or you
think you're going to go out of control. But uh - you know, that's
a lot of money to spend on that road. I'm conscious of that
3"
36
January 7, 1992
although we did have CIP hearings and public input was invited from
all over the City and uh - so I - And as far as tax dollars at
work, you can look all over town and we got these signs up where
tax dollars are at work. The money is being spent and a lot of the
priorities were determined by public input. So it's not a question
that these dollars aren't being infused and a lot of the real
problem areas around town corrected. And I'm not saying we don't
have some potholes and I agree with Mr. White - I'd like to see
more done than what's being done. Dickson Street - I think one of
the things that we've talked about recently is correcting some
drainage and resurfacing down in that area, so there's just a whole
host of projects. I will say this - that as far as anyone's safety
hazard up and down Township, and I'm probably more aware of this
because my parents live at this intersection, but at the
intersection of 265 and Township is an absolute death trap at
certain times of day. And somebody is probably going to be killed
there before we get a traffic control signal there. But uh - I'm
very much sensitive to the people that live directly on Township
and what the wider road would do to them, you know, and I think you
can make an argument too that probably traffic - if you had a lane
down the middle of that - probably traffic speeds would increase.
So I think it's going to wind-up being a major artery through there
and people are going to go where it's the shortest distance. But
I think that to control some of the heavy traffic, the heavier
trucks and limit it to light trucks and have some control in that
nature. And I know it's difficult to control, but to enforce that
on that road will help, so - those are just a synopsis of my
feelings on it. I would not be in favor of having that a three -
lane road through there. Also, one other thing is that I think -
I really appreciate the work that Jim Hill and his wife have done
in coordinating that effort of planting those trees down through
there. They spent a tremendous amount of time. There have been
a lot of volunteers. I've spent a little bit of time, but it's a
drop in the bucket to what they've done. In a few years from now,
that's going to be a beautiful drive. It already is, but as those
trees grow, it's going to be one of the scenic drives down through
there and I would hope that in five or ten years, we're not
widening that and cutting those trees down.
VORBANGER: Any other comments?
GREEN: well, I - the only thing that I would say is that my mind
certainly is not made up at this point in time. I'm looking at
this as a public hearing where we're getting public input and then
whenever we get some of these inputs and some of the other answers
to gel a little bit further, whenever this Board takes this up for
consideration, I will of course have some statements at that time.
But, I'm just glad that we're getting this much public input and I
feel that we are getting a very good representation of a cross-
section of opinion out there.
VORBANGER: Thank you. Anyone else?
January 7, 1992»
BLACRSTON: Yes. I think it istfairly obvious to all of us that
Fayetteville is going to grow and as it grows, our traffic is going
to increase. We could have sidewalks on every street, but we're
still going to have an increase in traffic. We must have some good
arterial flows from east to west'and perhaps Township is not the
only one that should be considered, -but the fact remains, we must
have them and that is'onetofttheaconsiderations. Thetraffic is
going to increase on that street .whether we do anything to it or
not. It's going to increase tremendously. So that's something we
need to consider - how we, feel'. about this. And if I lived on
Township, I can assure you -`those -of you who live there and made
your comments - I would feel just,exactly like you do. But, I also
must look at it from the standpoint of what I feel is best for the
City, most important for the majority'of' citizens,' and like
Director Green, I'm saying that I've made:up�my mind, but I will
tell you that uh - I am in -a situation where I can not get overly
emotional about this and I have to look at it from what I feel is
best for this City. I also want to make,alcomment on what Mr.
Brandon said, and that we -must look at the bigger picture because
we are dumping this trafficrinto the City — into the center of the
City - and uh - I travel the street that he talked about, Gregg
Street, which just sort of comes to almost a dead-end. Not really,
but it just dumps out and fragments into all sorts of little
streets, and it's a tremendous problem. So we need to look at it
on a much broader scope. But this is one thing that is - that we
must look at now and it is important that we make that decision.
And I also appreciate the input from the citizens and I'm looking
forward to reaching a final conclusion on this. And Mr. McClinton,
your idea was great about 7:30, but if everyone takes that to
heart, you're going to lose your ease out onto the City - out onto
the street and everyone is going to be there and you're just going
to move the traffic jam up to 7:30.
McCLINTON: (Inaudible)
AIRPORT PHASE I PROPERTY ACQUISITION
Mayor Vorsanger introduced an ordinance authorising the City
Manager or his designated representative to act as the City's Agent
for Phase I of the Property Acquisition Federal Grant Project.
The estimated total expenditure for Phase I is $743,432. There are
a total of. 17 parcels to be purchased in this phase (one is
included in the consent agenda above - Leroy Plante). Staff is
requesting a 10% variance on the estimated cost of each parcel.
This process will alleviate delays in closings and relocations that
would be created by the normal agenda scheduling process and
facilitate relocations for the property owners and tenants.
City Attorney Rose stated that he has decided that this does not
require an ordinance; it is the normal procedure to approve
40
January 7, 1992
contracts by resolution, which has been prepared and presented to
the Board members. Rose read the resolution.
Mayor Vorsanger explained that in essence the Mayor and the City
Clerk will continue to execute Offers and Acceptances, but the City
Manager or his designee are authorized to handle the closing
matters regarding all those properties.
Green, seconded by Blackston, made a motion to approve the
resolution.
Upon roll call, the resolution passed by a vote of 7 to 0.
RESOLUTION 6-92 APPEARS ON PAGE OF ORDINANCE AND RESOLUTION
BOOR
AIRLINE LEASE MODIFICATION
Mayor Vorsanger introduced a resolution approving lease
modifications for the five air carriers for their 1992 rates and
charges.
City Manager Linebaugh explained that Staff recommends the rate
schedule of $15.86 per sq. ft. for exclusive space, $7.88 per
square ft. for non-exclusive space, and $.45 per 1,000 pounds of
landed weight. These are the same rates as the 1992 charges. The
additional square footage of non-exclusive space will be added to
the carrier charges upon completion of the baggage claim area
construction project which will generate an additional $19,920
annually. All five carriers have agreed to the 1992 rates. In
addition, the janitorial services provided in the past behind the
ticket counters and in that area have been ceased. Due to the
economy and the circumstances that the airlines are in, this is the
best that can be done at this time.
Blackston, seconded by Green, made a motion to approve the
resolution.
Upon roll call, the resolution passed by a vote of 7 to 0.
RESOLUTION 7-92 APPEARS ON PAGE OF ORDINANCE AND RESOLUTION
BOOK
BOARD OF SIGN APPEALS
Mayor Vorsanger introduced an ordinance amending the Sign Ordinance
Section 15S.68(b)(4) to allow passage of a variance by a concurring
vote of a majority of the members present at a meeting rather than
by a majority of the members on the Board.
City Manager Linebaugh explained that this will allow the Board of
Sign Appeals to operate in the same manner as the Board of
41
•
January 7, 1992
Adjustments. The requirement for a quorum (four (4) members) will
continue in force. Staff recommends this amendment and feels that
it is a fair way to transact business. '
s ;
The ordinance was read forthefirst time. ,Blackston, seconded by
Coody, made -a motion to suspend the.rules and place the ordinance
on its second reading. Upon roll call, the.motion passed by a vote
of 7 to 0. The ordinance was read for the second time. Blackston,
seconded by Coody, made a motion to further suspend the rules and
place the ordinance on its third and final reading. Upon roll
call, the motion passed by. a ,vote! of 7: to ,0. The ordinance was
read for the third and final•time."' '
Director Coody stated that- he thought 'it would take a unanimous
decision of the quorum to make a decision, and that they all worked
by the same rules. Coody.referred to#page•34 in the Municipal
League Handbook and requested verification from City Attorney Rose.
City Attorney Rose read from the Municipal League Handbook, "Except
where otherwise provided: by law, the concurring vote of the
majority of those attending, a meeting, :providing a quorum is
present, shall represent the action of the.Board." He further read
Statute 14-55-201, "To pass any by-law, ordinance, resolution, or
order, a concurrence of a majority of a whole number of members
elected to the counsel shall be required."
-Director Nash inquired whether the actions of the Board of Sign
Appeals are considered law and whether "the majority as a whole"
would apply to them.
City Attorney Rose responded that they do orders, set requirements,
make decisions and determinations, but they don't make anything
that could be construed as a law. He knows of no requirement under
the law that limits their ability or the Board of Adjustment's
ability to make their own by-laws with the Board's approval,
regarding their quorum or voting requirements, and they aren't
governed by either one of these statutes just discussed.
Director Coody inquired as to how often it occurs that there aren't
enough votes at the meetings to make a quorum
Marion Orton, representing the Board of Adjustment, addressed the
Board stating. that the attendance has been very good on the Board
of Sign Appeals and Board of Adjustments, who are the same seven
people. However, if there is a vacancy and then someone is absent,
problems have arisen in the past. Orton further stated that as
long as the Board of Directors keeps these two Boards filled, they
have no problems, and providing that there is a quorum present,
that a majority of those present will be required.
Director Coody stated his concern that he would rather see good
attendance rather than only a few out of the total Board being able
42
January 7, 1992
to make these decisions. At the same time, a consistent policy is
needed between the various Boards.
Upon roll call, the ordinance passed by a vote of 7 to 0.
ORDINANCE 3587 APPEARS ON PAGE 2/ OF ORDINANCE AND RESOLUTION
BOO! X X V I
PAY PLAN
Mayor vorsanger introduced a resolution approving a revision to the
City's pay plan developed by Hay Management Consultants effective
January 1, 1992, and approving a revised salary merit increase
guide.
City Manager Linebaugh explained that the purpose of this update is
to keep the City's plan in line with the market. The current plan
was made effective January 1, 1990. Costs of the increases have
been factored into the 1992 Budget. Both Staff and the Hay
Consultants recommend the revision to the pay plan.
Don Bailey, Personnel Director, addressed the Board explaining that
in January 1990, the current Pay Plan was adopted by the Board.
The Pay Plan does the following for the City:
1) It is used to maintain an internal pay equity by
establishing relative job levels set by a point factor
evaluation system. Three dimensions of the point factor
evaluation system are know how, problem solving and
accountability, translating into a raw score and ranges
to a grade level. This allows for a precise way to
measure the level of difficulty of jobs.
2) It then establishes pay levels which correlate to the
levels of difficulty of jobs.
3) Within the Pay Plan there is also established a
performance based pay increase system, which compensates
employees based on the level of performance that is
measured annually in a review process.
4) The Pay Plan, through salary studies, sets pay ranges
which is competitive to jobs with similar levels of
difficulty within the market (i.e. internal pay equity).
5) The objective is to give the City the ability to attract
and retain competent employees.
Bailey further stated that the pay agenda item before the Board is
central to the operation of the Pay Plan. The market must be
periodically surveyed; it is a judgment factor based on a number of
i
January 7, 1992
economic factors. A survey was done on 28 cities for police and
fire and evaluated by Hay, 15 cities for the public sector, 40
employers in Northwest Arkansas for the salary and hourly employee
line. Bailey further explained that Hay evaluates the computations
made and determine the adequacy and accuracy of the data, and Hay
has recommended that the City adopt ,the proposed changes detailed
in the agenda. The monies for funding these increases have been
incorporated as contingency;irthe budget. '+'.
. •
Mayor Vorsanger inquired as to the average salary increase that is
being given to the City"employees,,,to which Bailey responded that
measured in terms of gross pay level, the increase would be 4-5%.
Director Coody stated that.he wanted the public to understand that
this action is playing "catchup!!, and not a big pay raise for City
employees, when other people are just thankful to have a job. In
addition, there are other facets of.the'Hay Plan that are not being
adhered to, and he would request that they take a look at the
entire recommendation of that Plan. `
7
Director Green stated that the Hay Plan, which•is very detailed and
justifies that the City needs to make these type of decisions.
Green further stated his 'concern regarding putting' too much
emphasis on using pay as the main motivation for retaining quality
employees, and reiterated that other areas of motivation need to be
considered. Surveys of other municipalities and other like
industries in our area although important to compete in the
market, if everyone is using this as a guide, it becomes a
competition to increase wages. Green warned against putting too
much stock in surveys, employee retention rates, turn -over rates,
etc. also need to be considered.
Mayor Vorsanger commended Don Bailey for his work in updating the
Hay Study.
Blackston, seconded by Coody, made a motion to approve the
resolution.
Upon roll call, the resolution passed by a vote of 7 to 0.
RESOLUTION 8-92 APPEARS ON PAGE OF ORDINANCE AND RESOLUTION
BOOK
ARTS CENTER -PARKING
Mayor Vorsanger introduced a resolution awarding a bid for the
construction of the Arts Center Parking Lot on West Avenue.
City Manager Linebaugh explained that three bids were received on
January 6, ranging from $612,000.00 up to $773,000.00, with
McClinton -Anchor presenting the lowest bid of $612,000.00.
Linebaugh reported that this contract provides for everything from
43
44
January 7, 1992
driveways and entrances to curbs, gutters, drainage, etc. The
completion date is specified as April 21, which is the date that
the Arts Center is due to be opened. Other areas of parking
construction to be completed in the future will be brought to the
Board at a later date. Linebaugh reported that McClinton's bid of
$612,000.00 is $77,486.00 less than the engineer's estimate on the
completed cost. Linebaugh further reported that bids will be
opened on January 30th for the parking lots on School Avenue and
the 400 block of Dickson.
Director Coody asked whether this is the same parking lot design
cost previously estimated at $1.75 million and subsequently re -
estimated at $2.439 million, to which David Cox responded that the
1991 budget on the project was $1.75 million, the budget for this
project was increased in the 1992 Budget to $2,439,000.00.
Director Coody responded that although they came in $77,000 under
budget this year, this exceeded the 1991 budget by one-half
million.
Director Coody asked for verification that these funds were coming
out of the Capital Improvement Project funds, to which City Manager
Linebaugh responded that it is a combination, with the majority
coming from the Capital Improvement funds.
Director Coody expressed his concern that if this contract is
approved and it is discovered that the CIP is not valid when they
go to trial on January 23-24, then they will be liable for the $2.2
million contract. Coody asked if they had an alternative funding
source to cover the contract if CIP money can not be used.
City Manager Linebaugh stated that there is other funding which
would mean canceling other projects that are planned. Linebaugh
further stated that they don't anticipate a decision on this case
on January 23-24.
City Attorney Rose added that it is unlikely that the Judge will
rule on something so complicated from the bench, that he would take
time to deliberate, and the projection of 4 to 6 weeks for a
decision is probably accurate.
Director Coody made the suggestion to table approving this contract
until they know the status of the CIP money, and asked for further
comment on the same.
Director Green stated that the main reason for proceeding with the
award of this contract is that it is based on the April 21
completion date, the date that the Center opens. In addition, from
a philosophical standpoint, Green stated that it isn't necessary
nor prudent to shut -down the operations of the City and operations
of the Capital Improvement Program pending the outcome of a
lawsuit. If the City does not prevail in their lawsuit, at that
1
1
January 7, 1992
_point they will need to regroup and-see.what .projects can be
canceled.
City Manager Linebaugh reported that fromdiscussions held recently
between the attorneys involved in the lawsuit, it is a strong
belief that the final decision of this will be determined in the
Supreme Court; therefore,.:'it could be a real long time before -.they
have a decision. In addition,• ,Linebaugh stated that a lot of
planning has gone into this,and Staff has held up on all projects
that can be postponed without creating major problems. Finally,
Linebaugh reported that although-there+aie,no guarantees, on this
portion of the lawsuit, the"City has about a 90% chance of winning;
With those odds, it is `felt that it would be,'best to proceed.
Director Blackston statedrthat although he understands Director
Coody'sconcerns, he agrees with Director Green that with the
completion of the Arts Center, •one way or the other, they will
complete this parking. j,In addition, with the 90% odds of
prevailing in the lawsuit; they shouldaproceed with the contract.
% 1 t d , ..
Director Coody stated that".the odds were with them on the F.O.I.
lawsuit, too, and reiterated his previous question regarding
alternative funds available. ..4
City Manager Linebaugh responded that without going -.into a detailed
study, he could not speculate at this time which projects would
have ,to be cut to accommodate the Artsr.Center parking lot.
However, Linebaugh stated that there are,:funds planned for street
construction projects that could be cut back.
Director Coody asked if they would be personally liable if they
vote on this contract with the possibility that it may be illegal,
to.which City Attorney Rose responded that he can't think of any
way the Board members would be individually liable as long as they_
were acting in good faith. In addition, Rose stated that it is his
understanding that no one on the Board that voted for the method,by
which they were funding schools, sales tax, or placement of the
bond issue on the ballot, in any way thought at the time that they
were acting illegally. .
Mayor Vorsanger addressed City Manager Linebaugh stating that the
.contract is a little less than the amount of money that they have
in undesignated balances of the General Fund. In addition,
Linebaugh has proposed that approximately $800,000.00 could be used
for the infrastructure on Dickson Street. Vorsanger asked
,Linebaugh if need be, .could they use that money to cover this
contract.
City Manager Linebaugh responded that they can legally use those
funds for this project, as well'as other funds allocated for street
projects.
46
January 7, 1992
Green, seconded by Blackstone made a motion to approve the
contract.
Upon roll call, the resolution passed by a vote of 7 to 0.
RESOLUTION 9-92 APPEARS ON PAGE OP ORDINANCE AND RESOLUTION
BOOK
OTHER BUSINESS
CITY MANAGEMENT REORGANIZATION
City Manager Linebaugh reported that following an Agenda Session on
Wednesday, January 8, there will be discussion about the
reorganization of the City management form and a discussion of the
solid waste situation with collection and disposal.
HOUSE NUMBER ORDINANCE
Director Coody reported that he had been contacted by a gentleman
concerned about compliance with the house number ordinance. Coody
further stated that the Water Department has displayed numbers
which are the incorrect size, and this needs to be corrected to
reflect the 33/4 inch requirement, as well as enforcing the new
ordinance.
Crosson asked Director Coody for specific areas of violation, to
which he responded the Oaks Additions.
BOARD OF ADJUSTMENT RULING
Director Coody reported that a decision was made regarding the
Planning Director's interpretation of a ruling at the January 6
Board of Adjustments/Board of Appeal's meeting. Coody stated that
there were people present in the audience who wished to discuss the
same.
Mayor Vorsanger asked if City Attorney Jerry Rose has had a chance
to look at this ruling, and if he has, give the Board his best
advice on their status with this situation
City Attorney Rose stated that he reviewed the ordinance, reading
the duties on matters of appeal, Section 160.176, and reported that
the intent of this chapter that all questions of interpretation and
enforcement shall be first presented to the Planning Administrator,
followed by presentation to the Board of Adjustments on appeal from
the previous decision, and that recourse from that decision from
the Board of Adjustments shall be to the Courts. Rose stated that
he interprets this to mean that the Board of Directors is excluded
by this ordinance from the interpretation of this ordinance. Rose
further read from the section, that it is further the intent of
this chapter that duties of the senior Board of Directors in
January 7, 1992
connection with this chapter shall not include hearing and deciding
questions of interpretation. In other wordsthe ordinance states
that the Board of Directors' is not to be 'involved in matters of
interpretation, that is left to the Planning Administrator, with an
appeal to the Board of Adjustment, and then an appeal to the
Courts.
City Attorney Rose continued stating that what appears to have
occurred is something that was obviously not envisioned by all of
this. What is obviously% envisioned is,;that the Planning
Administrator makes a decision, that'decision is studied by people
who may or may not agree with.it,° and if they don't agree with it,
they have 60 days or a reasonable ,time in'which to appeal to the
Board of Adjustments. Thereafter, the Board -of Adjustments would
rule, after which the decision is taken'to,the Board of Directors.
Rose further explained'that,the situation it issue does not apply
to this interpretation. The literal interpretation is that the
vote taken by the Board on advice of the Planning Administrator
does not change one way or another; however, the effect of the vote
varies on interpretation. Said interpretation first given by the
Planning Administrator which was .sufficient for the Board of
Directors to pass the rezoning, which was subsequently appealed by
the Board of Adjustments at the January 6 meeting, thereby
initiating their interpretation. This has .the affect of making the
Board of Directors' vote which is the same vote taken before, to
not have a rezoning. In closing, Rose stated that his literal
interpretation is that the Board's vote, by the interpretation of
the statute, was not sufficient to rezone the property, and the
property is not rezoned. ... �.
Director Green asked if another entity that is part of the City has
the authority to remove an ordinance which is already on the books,
and CityAttorney Rose responded that he would be concerned if
there were individuals who relied upon the Board's action and upon
their reliance on the filing of that rezoning document. However,
Rose reported that the parties were all notified that the ordinance
would not take affect until 30 days of its passage; the ordinance
is clear that an appeal stays all proceedings in furtherance of the
action appealed from.
Director Green asked who becomes the plaintiff and defendant in
this case,- to. which City Attorney Rose responded that the Parsons
would have the right to appeal the Board of Adjustment's decision
to Circuit Court and may attempt a reverse condemnation suit
against the City, and could be capable of receiving damages. In
addition, the City has the right to appeal the decision to the
Circuit Court as well.
Director Nash stated that if they start suing each other whenever
there isn't a unanimous vote and not all parties involved agree;
they would be in Court all the time.
48
January 7, 1992
Director Coody stated that the large ramifications for the Planning
Director's decision to rule that an alleyway does away with
adjacent property owner rights, means that anyone that has an alley
in the back of their property has been taken out of the due
process. Coody further stated that it's not just this one incident
that they're looking at; it's a total new interpretation to all
planning in Fayetteville from now on.
Director Spivey stated his concern that they will end up buying
this property, to which Mayor Vorsanger responded that they won't
own it only pay damages on it.
Mayor Vorsanger stated that in essence, even if it comes back to
the City Board for another vote, the only recourse the Parsons have
is to go to the Circuit Court. Left as it is, the Parsons will
probably go directly to the Circuit Court. Therefore, at this
point is there anything the City Board needs to do, or regardless
of what they do it will still end up it Court, so why waste any
more time?
City Attorney Rose responded that there is something to be said for
that; however, the attorney for the Parsons was available to answer
those questions.
Pete Estes, attorney for the Parsons, addressed the Board stating
that this is a highly unusual case and one that he has never seen
before. Estes stated that he was there to argue that what has
taken place is not a timely appeal to the Board of Adjustments, and
as a result their decision does not affect the Board of Directors'
vote on December 3, 1990, passing the ordinance.
Mr. Estes proceeded to give a review of the occurrences in this
case. He suggested that in order to get this ordinance off of the
record, that a vote to repeal Ordinance 3582 should be taken by the
Board of Directors. As it is right now, if someone is aggrieved by
that ordinance and wishes to allege and state that the Board should
have voted by the three-fourths rule, then let them appeal it to
the Chancery Court of Washington County. If there is a motion made
to repeal Ordinance 3582, Estes requested that the City Board, by
a majority vote, defeat that motion and stand on the actions they
took on December 3 whether right or wrong.
Attorney Estes responded to the previous question that if the City
Board repeals its December 3 action and forces the petitioner to
seek judicial review, the risk to the City Board is not only a
possibility of reversal, but also damages will be sought for the
adverse condemnation of this property. In addition, Estes stated
that the City Board does not need to start getting itself in a
position of relying on the City Administrator to vote on the issue
and then allow an untimely appeal to affect what they have done.
49
January 7, 1992.
Director Nash stated that they are for fortunate to live in a
country with an appeals process. Nash further stated that
in addition to Mr. Estes' quote of her statements at the December
3 meeting, the interpretation seemed to her like a way to get
around the ordinance. Nash questioned whether no action is the
same as a "no" vote. According to the City. Staff and. Attorney,
there is no need to repeal...the ordinance.as it is not valid.
Mr. Estes responded that he knows of no way to remove an ordinance
that has been filed with the,. Washington County Circuit Clerk's
Office, other than by some type of affirmative action on the
Board's part to remove it: In reply to Director Nash's statement
that a no action or silence is a "no" vote, stated that individuals
can lose their. right to appeal{_by,,their'silence or inaction or
failure to object, and he submitted that is'a possibility in this
instance. 4. 4 '
Director Coody asked City Attorney Rose whether the appellants went
by the book in their appeal to Which'.Rose,responded by reading the
statute regarding timeliness of ..appeal which states that such
appeals shall be taken within a reasonable time, not to exceed
sixty days or such lesser period as maybe provided by the rules of
the Board. i
•
In response to DirectorCoody's question,' City Attorney Rose
reiterated his previous explanationregarding his theory that the
ordinance never became law."`1Attorney Rose 'continued stating that
Mr. Estes has a good argument and it may be wise for them to file
a document putting all parties on notice of -the Board of Adjustment
decision. '_ • •
Director Nash asked City Attorney Rose whether after they pass an
ordinance, it becomes law -tin -30 days, to'which he responded that
generally this is true, with some exceptions. Nash further asked
why the ordinance was filed prior to that 30 day period, to which
City Attorney Rose could not answer.
City Clerk Sherry Thomas explained the process that all ordinances
after approved by the Board of Directors and signed by the Mayor
and City Clerk are sent to. the County Courthouse for filing, and
even though filed, they do not become law until after 30 days.
Attorney Estes responded that his interpretation is that an
ordinance becomes law as soon as the Mayor signs it.
City Attorney Rose concluded stating that he would prefer to have
direction from the Mayor and City Board on how to proceed on this
matter; otherwise, he intends to file a document with the Court
notifying that the Board of Adjustment's decision overruled the
Planning Director and the effect of the Board's vote has been
changed.
50
January
Director Nash requested that City
Attorney Butler regarding the
ordinances and whether he can
ordinances.
7, 1992
Attorney Rose confer with County
correct procedure for filing
give some insight on staying
Director Green stated that the issue that needs to be challenged is
that a member of the Staff or the City's Board of Adjustment can
overrule an ordinance passed by the Board. Whichever way this
goes, it will end up in Court, and Green suggested that the safest,
least exposed position for the Board is to do nothing and let the
other side challenge the validity of that ordinance if they so
desire.
Director Coody asked Don Mills, member of the Board of Adjustment,
why this issue is important, to which she responded that the Board
of Adjustment has only one question - do they agree with Ms.
Little's interpretation? They are not concerned with the legality,
the ordinances, the percentage of votes, etc., but only to grant or
deny variances and are further empowered to rule on the
interpretations of the City Planner.
Mayor Vorsanger responded that the interpretation was on the word
"immediate", and requested further explanation of what the Board of
Adjustment's problem was with the interpretation of the law.
Don Mills responded that the interpretation first made several
years ago by John Merrell as City Planner, he interpreted that
immediately adjacent owners are not necessarily those properties
that touch. Mills continued to explain that the City has for many
years used the interpretation of "immediate" to mean those people
who are close, across the street, touching, separated by an alley,
etc. In this particular case, a new interpretation evolved, and
the Board of Adjustment voted that it was not correct.
Mayor Vorsanger responded that the change was made with the change
in the Planning Director who has a different opinion.
City Manager Linebaugh stated that this is the only section in the
ordinance that they are aware of that deals with "immediately"
adjacent, and they stand by their interpretation.
Director Nash requested that some previous records be located
wherein Bobbie Jones of the Planning Commission gave her opinion of
adjoining immediacy to which Director Green responded that they
should not be trying this issue
ADJOURNMENT
The meeting adjourned at 11:18 p.m.