City of Minneapolis, MN 2021 Minneapolis City Council and Committee Meetings, 29 Sep 2021

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From YouTube: September 29, 2021 Transportation & Public Works Committee

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A

The regular meeting of the minneapolis transportation and public works committee will now begin.

B

Good afternoon, this is the transportation public works committee. uh This day september, 29 2021, I'm council, member kevin reich, and I chair this committee. Before we begin, I will note for the record that this meeting has remote participation by members of the city staff as authorized under minnesota statute. Section 13d .021 due to the declared local public health emergency.

B

The city will be recorded and be posting this meeting on the city's website and youtube channel as a means of increasing public access and transparency. This meeting is public and subject to the minnesota open meeting law clerk. Could you please call the roll to confirm a quorum.

C

Council member gordon.

D

C

Fletcher here johnson, here palmisano present vendor.

C

Here to your right present, there are six members present.

B

We have a quorum and we'll proceed with today's agenda on the agenda. We do have 11 items 3 through 10 are consent. I will go through those items. Any committee member can pull them for further deliberation as they wish item. 3 is the contract with srf consulting group incorporated for design and construction management of ada pedestrian rams.

B

Four is the contract member with michael's corporation for pump station number five north flood wall rehabilitation project? Five? Is the contract amendment with lunda construction company for the 10th avenue southeast river bridge rehabilitation project six is designating the bryan avenue south from lake street west 250th street west street reconstruction project and setting that public hearing for november 10th 2021 in this committee, seven is designating the franklin avenue west project reconstruction project, setting that public hearing also for november 10th in this committee.

B

Eight is the cancellation of assessment for hennepin, avenue, theatre, trust, district street lighting project and annual operation maintenance costs.

B

Nine is referring to staff the subject matter of an ordinance amending traffic code regulations in order to motor modernize and enhance current traffic conditions, and situations and 10 is the bid for the 11th and marquette ramp for epoxy overlay of the helixes. And is there anyone who wishes to pull an item for further deliberation.

B

If not, I will move the items and ask the clerk to call the role.

C

Council, member gordon, I fletcher, I johnson aye homicidal.

E

C

Bender I chair rake right. There are six eyes.

B

Those items carry and proceed to full council. I will now go to item number one, which is a public hearing and give the floor to our director.

F

Thank you, chair reich and committee members. I am brett shelley interim director of public works and our first item is sanitary sewer, service availability charges and kelly moriarty professional engineer in surface water and sewers will introduce this item.

A

Thank you good afternoon, chair right committee members, I'm kelly, moriarty, a principal engineer with surface water and sewer division of public works. I will provide some background on the item before you and introduce the public hearing for the assessment of sanitary sewer service availability charges, also known as sac.

A

The metropolitan council environmental services collects and treats wastewater at its seven regional treatment plants. Mces is responsible for ensuring that sufficient sewer capacity exists to serve plant development and for providing regional wastewater collection and treatment services. Funds to operate mtes systems are collected in two ways. Municipal wastewater charges and sac. Useful wastewater charges are paid by municipalities for treatment of wastewater generated within their jurisdiction.

A

In minneapolis, municipal wastewater charges are passed on to individual property owners via utility bills. Bac is the fee to reserve to our capacity for new or increased discharges into the mces collection system. Stack is charged based on the estimated maximum potential daily wastewater flow, which is directly linked to the usage of individual properties.

A

Stack is owed when a property first connects to the regional wastewater system, and stack may also be charged when a business grows or property changes use in a way that creates more demand on the wastewater system.

A

Stock is charged by mces to local governments, which in turn, pass the charge onto property owners. Minneapolis pays tax fees to mcas and builds property owners to recoup the upfront tax payments.

A

Minneapolis also participates in mces stack deferral program which allows businesses to defer some tax payment obligations.

A

63 businesses are currently enrolled in this program at least once every three years mcs performs an audit-like process of local government stack records, called a community review as a result of the 2014 and 2019 community reviews. Mces identified accounts that had outstanding tax fees due as of today, three of those properties identified in the audit still have outstanding taxes due in addition, seven properties have outstanding tax fees. Within the deferral program.

A

There is a total of thirteen thousand six hundred and forty seven dollars and eleven cents in unpaid charges between the deferral and community review program.

A

All property taxpayers were mailed a notice of public hearing letter with the amount to be assessed. The entire amount of the unpaid taxes would be assessed to these properties as a part of their 2022 real estate tax statements.

A

Customers have the option to prepay the entire assessment through the end of this year and avoid any interest charges.

A

At this time we request approval of a resolution to adopt the assessments as listed on file in the city engineers, special assessments office and the total amount of 13 647.11 and transmission of site assessments to the hennepin county auditor.

A

I will stand for any questions and also present today to help with questions our staff from cped's development review office, which manages and administers the sac program for the city of minneapolis.

B

Thank you for the presentation. Do any of the committee members have questions for staff per the presentation.

B

I'm not seeing any indication of that. I will then open the public hearing and no speakers for public hearing 1 in the queue if anyone is online push star 6 to make your comments per this item.

B

Not seeing any indication of that, I will close the public hearing, move the item as submitted by staff and ask if there's any further deliberation from the committee at cne. I will thank staff for the presentation, it's always good, to explain where these charges come from their purpose and our particular role as a city in them. So thank you for those clarifications uh and with that I'll have the clerk call the role.

C

Council member gordon aye fletcher hi johnson, aye omazano bye under.

C

I chair rake all right. There are six eyes.

B

That carries, and we can now go to the next item on the agenda, which is a public hearing, and that is item number. Two and again I will yield the floor to interim director jelly.

F

Thank you, chair reich. The second item on the agenda is a public hearing on water and sewer service line, repair assessments, and I will invite jeff, handland engineering, transportation, engineering and design to introduce this item.

D

Good afternoon, mr chair members of the council committee, my name is jeff handland, I'm the principal professional engineer who oversees the office of utility connections permitting and the office of public works special assessments.

D

This is the public hearing on water and sewer service line, repairs.

D

City ordinance enables procedures for the city to repair or replace private service lines upon the request from a property owner to do so or for us to do so, or the failure of the property owner to do so themselves, such that, if the bill for this work is not paid, the cost is recovered through a special assessment to the property owner.

D

The process includes an administrative hearing where a hearing officer considers any assessment objections and makes decisions prior to this public hearing at your committee today, the administrative hearing was held on september 9th and one property owner attended.

D

The hearing officer considered the facts of that case and decided to reduce their assessment from five thousand eight hundred and fifty dollars to five thousand four hundred and fifty dollars.

D

My staff have adjusted the amount to levy to the county. Accordingly, public works recommendation is to pass a resolution to adopt and levy the special assessments. I will stay nearby in case there are any questions.

B

Are there any questions for the staff regarding this presentation not seen any indication of that? I will open the public hearing on item two and we have no registered speakers. According to the clerk for this item, if anyone's online uh press star six to unmute and proceed with comments calling one more time, I've seen an indication, I will close the public hearing and move this item and see if there's any further discussion from the committee, I haven't seen any indication of that um clerk. Please call the role.

C

Councilmember gordon aye fletcher.

C

Councilmember fletcher johnson aye homicidal.

C

There are six eyes.

B

That carries and we can now go to the last item on our agenda, which is discussion, item item number 11, the draft neighborhood traffic calling process. Again I will give the floor to interim director daily.

F

Thank you, chair reich. Our final item is a receive and file presentation, as you stated on draft neighborhood traffic homing process, and I would like to introduce jennifer lowry, a principal professional engineer, with traffic and parking services to introduce this item.

B

Yeah the reason that I yeah.

G

Thank you. um um Like brett said we have been working on a draft calming traffic coming process that we want to present to you today. I work closely with juan veranda, who leads our traffic safety team of four amazing individuals. Next slide, please.

G

So this is just a short presentation to explain the topic, um which is just to provide more information on the graph process. We have come up with and I'll cover the who. What when, where? Why and how next slide is these? It's the only slide I'll read to you um next one.

G

There we go um traffic on calming is the combination of mainly physical measures that reduce the negative effects of motor vehicle use, altered, driver behavior and improved conditions for non-motorized users, so for the process that we're proposing that translates to some safety improvements such as street pavement markings like the white lines at the edge stuff, help make the road feel narrower speed. Bumps raise pedestrian craftings, curb extensions pinch points, traffic circles or one-way street conversions.

G

So note like in the bottom photo on the slide, then I'm talking about temporary bump outs or improvements that are with bollards, not the concrete, curb bump outs that typically would require storm, sewer and drainage reconstruction.

G

Although we're asking the public to focus on the safety issues in their requests for traffic calming and not the tool or solution they wish to see implemented, it is important to note that, right now we don't intend for this process to replace the existing processes to request speed wagons, stop signs nor alley, speed bumps next slide, please so public works receives roughly 2 500 concerns about safety and requests for traffic calming annually through both freeware 311 emails phone calls.

G

The ward offices etc. Now each concern or request is evaluated and action is taken if the issue is valid and mitigatable, given the tools and resources available so who requested and who implements it, anyone can voice concerns about safety or request traffic calming the public state or public works. Traffic safety group is the one who evaluates everything that comes in and if they're clickable, we have various public works groups that will implement improvements in the field next slide. Please.

G

So, in addition to updating the traffic calming toolbox with the traffic, how many strategies I mentioned two slides ago- this process also seeks to provide a better way to consider the overall network.

G

So, instead of the first-come, first-served kind of spot improvements that we do today, it also um seeks to provide a data driven and transparent process, so that the magnitude of the requests that are coming in and how we're prioritizing our limited resources into addressing those requests is better understood and also that the process is more equitable.

G

Next slide. Please.

G

So how the annual process is proposed to work? We have the five general boxes here that I'll talk through so first we have. The applications, um like I said, requests or applications can be initiated by anyone and submitted at any time.

G

But currently we have a deadline shown of september 1st for those applications for consideration for an improvement implemented the following year. We want to make sure that the applications are supported by more than a few people. So, right now, the naval court organization is asked to vote to approve those applications.

G

Now the role of the neighborhood organization still needs to be fleshed out, which is why we intend to start engagement with those organizations, in addition to business organizations and the advisory committees to the council.

G

Next, we'll take all the applications that, at this point, have um endorsement or approval by the neighborhood association and we'll go through some screening and preliminary scoring of those so applying data criteria um and assigning points so we're trying to narrow down the potential projects. We want to include the traffic data and community demographic information in that scoring. That will allow us to make more database decisions and also apply that equity lens and, ultimately to focus our resources um on those projects that come to the top.

G

In those scores. The number of projects that come to the top and move into implementation each year will depend on the scope of those projects and on the resources available right now. We're anticipating, like 10 to 20 projects or applications, would move into implementation after screening and preliminary scoring will go on a data collection. So we intend to hold the community meeting and gather more information on the concerns out there in addition to gathering some more data in the field.

G

So, for example, do speed studies or more traffic accounts in that area and we're hoping to do that before the snow flies. Hence the deadline in september. So we have some time to do that. um Then that will get us to a recommendation on which traffic calming tool or tools. We recommend we'll meet again with the community to discuss that recommendation and the priority and timing of when um that recommended solution could be implemented in the field.

G

And if you look at kind of the timeline, um those final meetings will happen in the spring so that by may, where we've come to an agreement on what can be done and when we can implement it and then we'll start implementation in june of through october. So application is due in september and then implementation of improvements the following year next slide. Please.

G

So our goal is to apply um this process to our local neighborhood streets, where a majority of our traffic homing requests come from. So this map shown here has green streets, um which is our draft map right now. The green streets are the eligible streets, so the streets which this process would be applied to.

G

So all city streets are eligible, but for a few things, so we have the high injury network removed from the eligible list, and that's because the high entry network is associated with the vision, zero program, which already has resources and um efforts being put to improving the safety on those streets.

G

The next is municipal state aid funded roads and, unlike a lot of our local streets identified as eligible for this process, the um the municipal state aid streets have other resources available to them to meet those safety improvements and the bottom on the list. There is streets that are under active construction or cut through traffic on neighboring streets due to construction.

G

Those would not be put into this process and scored um for implementation or addressing the following year. Those would be sent directly to a project manager associated with exact construction for mitigation.

G

So this is not to say, we don't feel concerns or complaints on other streets, but we're proposing that concerns or complaints on other streets not follow this process and not be scored against the requests that fall on those eligible streets um with the that are focused more on neighborhood streets.

G

Next, please so a quick schedule. After today's overview um to the tpw meeting or committee, we intend to engage the community over the next few months on this draft.

G

We'll start, like I said, with neighborhood and business organizations and advisory committees to the city, we'll finalize the process and return to council in the first quarter of 22 and then in 2022 we will transition to a new process the new process in preparation for accepting applications.

G

So the new process will begin with review of those applications in september of 22, for implementation of traffic, homing measures in 2023 and then in subsequent years, we'll repeat that process of applications in september review and implementation development year next slide.

G

So this is brief. This concludes the presentation. um So thank you, but if you have any questions we'll be happy to answer any you may have.

B

Are there any questions for staff regarding this presentation, uh councilmember bender.

H

Thanks mr chair, I mostly just have rave reviews and I'm so excited to see this process um laid out like this available. Right now I mean ward 10. Our office receives so many constituent calls and complaints about traffic safety for many years. It was the number one thing that people called about and the process never felt good. It was us calling public works and saying hey. We have a constituent concerned about this safety issue. There's I mean hundreds of safety issues just in my ward um and it just felt very ad hoc.

H

um You know it was almost like we were asking public works like hey. Can you take a look at this? You know without a real system, to do that, um and you know, as responsive as staff has been over the years just having this clear system laid out with deadlines.

H

I love the fact that it's engaged you know it's got the community engagement pieces that are really gathering input from um a lot. You know from the community. I love that it has a race equity lens and the prioritization for low-income communities in line with our stated goals. So I just really think you hit the mark here of creating a process that will be a lot easier for folks to use that over time I think, will be more efficient in making sure our resources are being well used and prioritized along with our goals.

H

um So just thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for doing this. um You know. The one thing I think of is that you know they'll likely be a huge amount of interest, and so I think just I want to offer. I mean I guess I.

C

Won't be here but like.

H

In future years, you know, I do think the partnership of the council offices can be important to um keep. You know just like keep momentum going, so people don't feel discouraged if their project isn't picked um right out of the gate. You know. Over the years I've tried to work with neighborhood organizations.

H

Just to you know, do some prioritization exercises and things, so I just think that this process will um again make all of that so much more streamlined. Thank you.

B

Thank you, uh council member fletcher,.

I

Well, I want to echo that phrase. First of all, I think this is a great idea. I think it really does solve a lot of problems.

I

I know people sometimes feel very frustrated feeling like they don't understand why their request, uh you know, is or isn't getting responded to, and does that mean that uh you know somehow uh they're getting less attention from politicians, or does it mean that they're, somehow you know some sort of other prioritization going on with it getting left out, and I actually think that that having a transparent process where we're applying an equity lens, applying a lens about where it's really going to make the most impact based on data, to really show our work and show why we're doing the projects we're doing in the order that we're doing them um so that everybody can see it is gonna, be really important.

I

I think the you know the the potential, the ways that this is gonna be most successful I'll, just echo, you know our briefing on this earlier uh are going to be. If you know to the extent that we can create a real, uh you know, input system that doesn't expect uh people to know whether they live on a state aid road or not or or you know that really makes helps people make sure that their requests are getting to the right place.

I

um You know whether or not this program is a good fit for them, and and and really it becomes a good entry point and and create some visibility for people about how their requests are being received. I think you know we. We have the opportunity to really get this right, because you really mapped out a good length of time to really look at the process and look at the ways we can create transparency and tools around.

I

uh You know really showing our work on this and I I think it's uh incredibly promising and I really appreciate uh everything that you're bringing forward. I know the places that we're getting the traffic calming work done. People so appreciate it, and we know that it is uh making our streets safer all over the city and improving our process. So people understand how we're prioritizing and how we're getting that work done is going to make it even better. So thank you.

B

Thank you for those comments. Council, member palmisano.

E

Thank you, mr chair. um I don't think I'm saying anything new. I just wanted to echo the sentiments of my colleagues and especially work to reiterate council member fletcher's point on how we show our work and show our transparency and how these decisions get made will take so much stress and frustration. I think out of the process like, like he said, being able to show what we are doing in different parts of the city and why, um through the race, equity lens is just incredibly important. There are countless- and I know I'm not alone.

E

I know it's rather typical for people to be calling council member offices to think that if we only had the will to implement such a thing- and of course that's never the case ever of course, we're trying to put it into a process, and I think that one of the benefits of this is not just a more consistent work flow, but really being able to show the public how we're doing this work.

E

I especially like the neighborhood engagement, because it helps neighborhoods to have conversations with many members of the public that are experts of that area. To help um help a group of people, a group of the public to help prioritize different kinds of traffic calming or other kinds of safety measures within a neighborhood itself. So thank you so much. I greatly appreciate you and your staff and everything that you have been doing.

B

Thank you for those comments, any other comments or questions.

B

If not, um I would uh resoundly echo and and confirm what my colleagues just um outlined in so many different ways. I agree, um and it's really not surprising in some sense, you know the comments that councilmember paul osano just mentioned in terms of the active neighborhood partnership.

B

You know, given the level of engagement um that that is well known in certain parts of the city, and it's also very good to hear that how meaningful this could be from a couple of the council members who represent areas of the most intensely used right-of-way, um and so the fact that this is a meaningful uh framework and tool moving forward in the ways described, I think, is a real resounding affirmation of this work, and I too want to extend my thanks to staff, who put it together, um I'll comment that as a really thoughtful and well laid out presentation for something.

B

I think that will be very, very important moving forward. I think the comments could be gleaned to suggest that you don't become a council member in the city of minneapolis, no matter what ward and not have to deal with this situation. So I think this will be universally appreciated and utilized framework and tool. So thank you for that and if there is no further conversation, I will move this item and in a receive and file manner and ask the clerk to call a role.

C

Council member gordon.

C

Councilmember gordon council member fletcher.

I

C

Johnson hi paul masano, I bender.

C

Hi councilmember gordon.

C

Chair reich hi, there are five eyes.

B

Let the record deflect. We um have confirmed that with the majority and see no further business before us uh and if there's no objection from committee members, I will call this meeting adjourned and thank staff for their work for all the items in this agenda today.

B