Friday, March 29, 2024

Property, parking and permit - city council plans ahead

City Council meeting recap

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    Wrapping up the Waste Management contract, weighing in on future parking possibilities and winter music festival permits - the Tuesday, Oct. 23 City Council meeting had a packed agenda. The meeting included three public hearings and a crucial debate over the adoption of the 2018 parking study.
    After the public hearings were wrapped up, the meeting launched into resolutions, ordinances and orders. The first action was passing the motion to direct staff to begin the subdivision process and at a future time to consider the new parcels as surplus.
    The second action taken regarded the Waste Management contract. Again, this contract has been reiterated several times over the course of a few months. This was the second reading and the sequence of events was posed as City Council would adopt the finding facts of why they supported the contract with Waste Management providing residential solid waste service. This contract offers city residents more options with container size and additional services and also it's financially beneficial to city residents, according to Walinski.
    "This was an issue that was brought up by the residential advisory committee that they thought it would be great for the city to look into outsourcing garbage for more options and possibly reduce cost, really up-sizing the options," said council member Mia Bretz. "And here we are, it's come all the way to the point. And I think a lot of times citizens come with their ideas and their thoughts and it's kind of hard because it's a slow process. So I just kind of want to highlight this is one of those things the locals brought up and said I want this and here we go."
    Mayor Farivar followed this comment up to ensure that the public is aware that the council actually followed through with a request and stressed the need for Bretz' dialogue to make the paper. She found it imperative that the citizens know that council is doing their job and responding to citizen feedback.
    The third action taken stirred some debate amongst council members - the acceptance and adoption of the Downtown Strategic Parking Management 2018 parking study. Parking availability is a prominent staple of concern in Leavenworth, therefore the Chamber of Commerce and the city partnered up to complete a parking study and assessment in their priorities for 2017. The parking study was meant to serve as a way for the city to evaluate the results and identify parking options, allocation of future parking resources and management for current and future vehicle parking locations.
    Suggestions of parking garages have been at the top of this particular discussion, however most of the city council members dismissed this due to it not being an immediate fix to the parking problem. While Larsen agreed to accept the parking study, he was the sole member to eye the study with more hesitation to adopt the study.
    "I just don't like the idea of we adopting these and we got to live by them. I'm afraid we're going to get into that mode because we formalized the study and now we're trapped. Obviously it can changed, but there will be reluctance," said Larsen.
    The council adopting the study would be setting the guiding principles for parking management as policy guidelines to manage the parking. Larsen seemed worried about timeliness and expense of focusing on employee parking with hotels and businesses. He also expressed interest in the parking garage option and wanting to see a focus on adding capacity.  
    "Everybody has pretty much agreed that the guiding principles set forth in the parking study are all the things we need to do in a relatively close succession of time," said Mayor Farivar.
    The motion to accept the study passed unanimously. The motion to adopt the study passed, however Larsen did vote against, making it clear his stance on the subject.
    "The thing about the parking garage is that I was looking for a trip wire to get us started with that. If we can get the business community, LAP and the city to agree then you divert the lodging tax money specifically to increase parking - that would be a trip wire. Otherwise we sit here and beat these things to death," said Larsen. "I've been apart of about five of these studies and its frustrating because we'll beat it to death."
    The following action taken was regarding a Special Use Permit request for the sixth annual Timbrrr! Winter Music Festival. The permit would allow the live music event to have increased noise levels than what is normally permitted and extended time period. It will occur on Friday, January 25 and Saturday, January 26 from 5 p.m. until 12:30 a.m. The permit would only allow sound levels to be permitted to a level not exceeding 95 dB.
    "What we have learned from having this festival the last few years is that we haven't received any complaints," said City Administrator, Joel Walinski.
    After this motion passed unanimously, the council moved onto the final scheduled action. The council was asked to approve the 2019 Chelan County Prosecution Service Agreement. The Chelan County Prosecution Services charges the city on a per case basis and there was an increase in fees for the upcoming year. The last two years the fee was $225 per case and they increased that to $250. It's decided based on taking the number of cases the previous and the per case fee multiplied and that's how much the city is charged for the year. 2019 was proposed to have a contract amount of $19,750.
    Council member, Sharon Waters, asked if this was a negotiation and was informed that it was not. She ended up being the sole vote no while the others passed the motion.

Other various business that occurred during the meeting:
    •    Rhona Baron reported on the Leavenworth Fall Wine Walk due to it being the first year the city funding one of their events. She shared numbers, general feedback and gratitude to the council.
    •    Mayor Farivar declared Oct. 24 as World Polio Day in Leavenworth and applauded Rotary International for their ongoing fight for a polio free world.
    •    Sharon Waters reported that every time individuals call 911, Rivercom charges the city $40. This racks up  to be quite a hefty chunk of change, so don't dial too fast. Waters encouraged citizens, if it's not an emergency, to call the sheriff's number directly.
    •    Mia Bretz stated that the Housing Committee is still working with the logistics of defining the term "workforce housing". She stated that the concept is not the super low income that is eligible for government funding, but one notch above that. The next level that doesn't qualify for government funding, but still struggles to afford housing in Leavenworth.
    •    Mayor Farivar announced that City Administrator, Joel Walinski, is resigning and expected to leave at some point in January. The Mayor plans to start looking for a new City Administrator promptly and wants to include both the city council members and the community in that process.
 

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