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HomeMy WebLinkAbout1994-11-01 Work Session Minutes - Council Retreat: Fire Station #51Council Retreat November 1, 1994 Fire Station #51 Present: Steve Mullet, Council President; Joe Duffle, Dorothy DeRodas, Joan Hernandez, Joyce Craft, Dennis Robertson, Allan Ekberg (arr.6:00), Mayor Wally Rants (left 6:45), Bill Arthur (left 7:10), Alan Doerschel, Lucy Lauterbach The meeting began at 5:30 p.m. with a flag salute. Steve Mullet started by explaining he was concerned with the report which showed Tukwila has the lowest cost housing in the region. He asked whether the City needed to do something to attract stable, responsible residents who would not be a drain on the City's resources. He said he was concerned the noise from Sea-Tac airport, as well as from Boeing Field, plus the noise and pollution from two freeways, and the possible rail on Highway 99 all working to drive down home values further and drive away the very citizens. we'd like to increase. He asked whether the Council wanted to put something together to get on a united front, tie eve hing together, and make this a more attractive city to live in. Joyce voiced her agreement with all Steve had said, and added that noise from police and fire sirens was onemore indication all was not well in the City; she also noted concern over packs of teens who can be intimidating. Joe also agreed, and noted how parents are pulling tL eir kids out of the school system. Steve said school problems are indications of the kinds of people who are living here. Dennis said that he, too, agreed with Steve, and that most Tukwila apartments house people who are only here for a short time. Things are changing all over, he said, and told of how the,Safeway nearby in Sea-Tac has crime now when it didn't a short time ago. He thought businesses are doing o.k., and neither the airport nor the RTA line will hurt them. If the city's population does triple as predicted by staff, it could be scary Steve said Tukwila and its mall can't have crime like the Tacoma Mali has. Dorothy added that substandard apartments and trailer courts are another burden in the city. Dennis suggested the City could offer temporary relocation for tenants who lose housing because of redevelopment. Joan said the City needs to provide incentives to make people want to move here. People don't want higher densities, she said, and asked why the City can't designate areas for home ownership rather than rental apartments. Moving to the agenda, Wally said .ians are going ahead to include landscaping around 1 the community center so there's not a sea of mud arou d the building. The staff is trying to get the consultants' fee down. Wally also informed the Council the Mukleshoot tribe wants to be involved in the community center. The Corps of Engineers wants to rip rap the bank and the tribe wants to plant trees instead. The tribe does not have a direct legal right to impose their will on the City, but they apparently moved around a lot when they were a strong tribe and may have used the Duwamish River. On sidewalks, Dennis said the Council had agreed on a plan for doing sidewalks through LIDs and trees with the grant. The plan's been in effect for a year, but nothing has been done to move toward an LID. Dennis argued for either making sidewalks happe or giving up on the whole plan. Wally said the whole CBD has been developed by businesses (except for Minkler). He said developers have put i more sidewalks than the elan called for this year. Steve said areas that won't redevelop soon and put in sidewalks on their own need to be identified, which will take staff work. Wally brought up the issue of businesses that already have trees that have grown big on their property. Joan and Steve both said they have a problem taking out healthy trees. Dennis said the plan called for all trees being the same on streets, and the grant can be used to fund the trees. Dennis supported .sidewalks. Joan said to use the sidewalk/tree plan as a guide. Joyce said she did not support an LID„ and wanted to work the issue as we develop, and not be forced. Allan had the idea of planting the intersections with trees according to the tree plan, and to LID only where there will be no redevelopment. Joe supported lettin developers put sidewalks in as development happens. Steve liked doing the intersections. Everyone agreed to do the intersectio s identified in the plan for tree planting where street improvements or developments have been done already. 1 Wally asked what would happen if someone wouldn't agree to let trees be put in. Allan said in that case the City would need to sell the idea better. Steve said in that case to do other intersections. Dennis repeated his concern about the safety of walking in the streets when there are no sidewalks. Steve asked about connecting parking lots between retail strip malls for walking and parking. Wally said two projects have done that lately. Steve asked how we can communicate better with our businesses. He's never heard anything more than general comments. Bill Arthur commented the tree plan went through the Chamber, and no one protested at the presentation. Joe, Steve and Dennis wante, to pursue sidewalks, but there was not a majority opinion to do so. 41, On the airport issue, Wally said there is no money budgeted for ACC, but money could be fo nd for that. He said the City needs to approach the issue with the attitude we're going to win. Allan asked why that was true. e said the City should cut their losses, quit fighting and try to get mitigation from the Port. Joyce noted the decision on the airport was a political one. She said there is a citizen who feels there is a state law that prevents the government givin money to a for -profit corporation. Everyone wanted to know if that was true. She asked if the fight is political, what good it does to fight it legally? Joe said he's always been against fighting the airport because he thinks the City can't stop the third runway. Wally then turned to animal control, and said with the City being less than 4 miles square, a full time person isn't justifiable. He's gotten extra service of 22 hours/week from King County for S34,000 for a year. The County now has 2 people answering their phones. Allan said people need immediate attention with anima! problems. Joe commended Pam's work. Joyce said she was disappointed the King County Animal Control directors said they wanted to educate people, and not to take animals from their owners. She questioned where the "control" in animal control was. Dennis said the phone is how you get to animal control, and it's atrocious. Dorothy said she thought the City should take action on this since it affects average citizens so directly. Steve said the City should try to work through the current system, but that if it doesn't work we should get our own number through police or fire. He asked what level of service the City wanted. As the County fails, the City should step in, he said. Alia said to put $100,000 in the 1995 budget, and send the monitoring issue regarding the County's service to Finance and Safety. There was consensus on those points. Back on the airport issue, Steve said the City's impacted by Sea- Tac, and the third runway will make it worse. Joyce asked what the City should do in response, and Steve said the CAA has done noise monitoring, whici resulted .i the State corning in to measure noise. ACC is dealing with it o another level. De nis asked if the City Council was opposed to the third runway, and if so, whether they should fight it and what else they should do. Dorothy asked how to get the State i volved, and Steve replied that's what RCAA and ACC will do. He noted the Boeing Field is also a problem for the City. In California, he said, planes go straight up on takeoffs and straight down on landings. It costs fuel but saves on noise impacts. Allan agreed airport noise plus RTA noise, plus Boeing Field impacts will make people leave Tukwila. Steve asked whether the City should fund fighting the airport or RT'A's plan to go down 99. He noted the City can't fight every proposal that affects them negatively. Dennis said their neighborhood group had beaten back apartments in their neighborhood by fighting on several different levels. He said you never know which tactic will win the fight for you. Joe said Tukwila citizens have never been vocal about the airpo Allan pointed out when Tukwila had a public hearing 29 of 34 people who testified opposed the third runway. Dennis said someone would have to raise a fight to get citizens angry. Steve spoke again about the future, saying if elevated rail on Martin Luther King drives up property values there, those displaced people will move to Tukwila with its low cost housing. Even with the third runway, he said, by 2010 it won't be enough and the Port'll want a fourth runway, and this time it'll be on the east side of the airport. If the City doesn't keep on fighting, he said, the Port will just roll over us. Dorothy said Matt Rosenburg can raise a ruckus, but that ACC seemed to be too conventional and have too many attorney costs. Dennis said the city has to hit from a broad base, not knowing what will win. He thought you have to try a lot of things. Allan asked how the City will know if we'll get anything from fighting? At least on this last round with PSRC, he said, we knew the decision makers and it didn't do any good. The problem now is the opponents on this issue are so big and well funded. Alan ioerschei said there's no money budgeted, but it can be made available if t e Council wishes. On residential streets, Allan said the mayor had said off-line that they could develop 42nd/S.124th according to residential, not commercial standards. The Mayor hopes that overlay would last 5 years. The Council agreed the design was o.k for S. 124th, and that PS&E could go ahead. However, they wanted a sidewalk on the community center side, and not on the north side of the street. Dennis then argued for a sidewalk on the north side of the street. Allan said he was o.k. with engineering but not building it. Dennis thought the street should be built for trucks, since that is what will be driving on it. Steve noted if the City did the whole street they'd have to do undergrounding, too. e suggested the Council might want to change the undergrounding requirement. Dennis raised an objection, saying there are many in the City who were promised undergrounding if they o ly waited for their street to be done. 42nd is taking all the money for now, he said, making it a frustrating wait. In response to a question where the 32nd Ave. street came from, Allan said it's a development driven street. Dennis said there is o data that says that should be the street that should be done. Alan D. said the Mayor had said the Council needs to discuss 32nd, and he won't be against trying to do something else. Allan said Transportation has looked at residential street ratings, and because streets had ped paths they were dropped to the bottom of the list. The committee has asked for a rating without regard for whether ped paths are in or not. Steve said he wants to underground, but doesn't want to stop a project because it too much to underground. Dennis made a request that the City engineer residential streets differently .so that the driveways' double angles don't slope so precipitously toward the street. He said pedestrians with wheelchairs or baby strollers have to fig t not to roll into the street, which is dangerous. Alan seconded his concern. Dennis also spoke of wanting to have a residential street program with some streets in it. Alan Doerschel said that 3-4 years ago street prioritizations were unrealistic, but now there's enough money to do streets, plus things like ACC or another residential street. Council had consensus to improve another residential street. Steve liked how Phil Fraser had figured out the what needed to be done in Cascade View for drainage. He said he thought the City could sometimes build a street for how much consultants charged for PS&E, and that it could pay for our engineers to engineer some things themselves. On the issue of surface water, Dennis said there will be a new rate increase, but there are no proposals to deal with the policy issue of what people have to do to control their surface water. He said he does 't want development proposals that deal with surface water by putting it off their property directly into the already taxed current system. He wa ts to get guidelines for the whole issue, with a project plan with schedules and assignments to show how to get to having a good policy plan. Alan Doerschel said with the new b dget process of using program goals as specific and realistic plans, that can be inserted as a soal Steve returned to the theme that the City needs to encourage home improvements and the building of new homes.That gets to improving neighborhoods and the quality of life in the city, he said. The Council agreed to get any issues brought up at the January Council retreat and not yet resolved, into the budget. The final issue discussed was unsewered areas. Dennis said that Seattle's refusal to turn over East Marginal Way water and sewer is hurting our expected revenues which could jump start this program. The only question, he said, was how fast to pay for sewer installation. Allan suggested putting a note against the tile to ensure people paid to hook up when their house sold or changed ownership. The meeting adjourned at 9:05.