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HomeMy WebLinkAboutemail Gould Day on draft ordinanceDay, Bryan From: Ken Gould <ksgould@ualr.edu> Sent: Tuesday, September 24, 2013 11:28 PM To: Day, Bryan Subject: Follow-up on phone conversation earlier today; BFCC (City) Complete Streets Policy Attachments: Complete Streets 9-24-13.pdf Bryan, My apologies for the length of this message. However, since some time has passed since the events surrounding the move to adopt a Complete Streets policy has transpired, I thought a review of the history of the issue might be helpful. That is what follows. Attached is the Complete Streets policy as unanimously adopted by the BFCC & forwarded to the city on, I believe, August 1 of 2012 & then subsequently slightly revised by the city. You forwarded the city's revision (again, that's what is attached) to Ed Levy, Gene Pfeifer, Jess Askew, & Coreen Frasier on September 26, 2012. Your forwarding e-mail indicates that you were hiking in Wyoming at the time. Your e-mail also suggested scheduling "a working meeting with city staff and those of you who are interested in this ordinance and sit down and figure out how best to finalize it. As an aside, an ordinance will give the City regulatory authority which something I think this committee is advocating for. The big challenge is to make sure all ordinances that this particular ordinance will impact are amended accordingly (landscape, master street plan, boundary street, etc.)." That meeting was held on Oct. 16, 2012 in the Public Works Conference Room. The group involved in that meeting decided that rather than immediately asking the City Board to adopt the BFCC's Complete Streets policy (again, as slightly revised by the city), the better approach would be to acquaint the Board with the Complete Streets concept by asking them to adopt a resolution expressing their intention to adopt a Complete Streets policy & give then allow city staff a limited period of time (turned out to be one year per the resolution) to consider the impact the policy could have on other city policies & ordinances. That led to the passage on April 16, 2013 of the "Intent to Adopt Complete Streets Resolution" that Cindy Dawson & I drafted. The final draft of the "Intent to Adopt" resolution included a provision requiring the city to adopt & implement a Complete Streets Checklist during the one year period while staff was to be incorporating the Complete Streets proposal into the various city ordinances. By mistake the city gave to the board members an earlier draft of the resolution that did not contain the checklist requirement. Shortly before the board meeting, I discovered that the wrong file had been delivered to the board members, but too late for a substitution to be made. As a result, the resolution passed without the checklist requirement, but I was assured that a checklist would be adopted & employed & was asked to draft the checklist. As you know, the checklist was subsequently submitted to the city. In regard to the city's revision of the BFCC's August 1, 2012, policy - The only item with which I disagree is the addition of the words "Where possible" at the beginning of section 3. My concern is that without definition "where possible" could be used to simply conclude without explanation that complete streets accommodations could not be because they simply "weren't possible" under the circumstances. The checklist is the most important component of an effective Complete Streets policy because it requires a written (albeit in checklist form) explanation of why complete streets accommodations could not be made (assuming they couldn't). Otherwise, the community has no way of knowing the extent to which complete streets accommodations were or were not considered in connection with the various city street projects. I understand that the city has been working on incorporating the interests of a broader community of users into the checklist. I did not do that in my draft because I thought that during the one year interim period the city could experiment with using the checklist in the limited circumstances of accommodations for bicyclists. I also thought that limiting the checklist to one group of users would let city staff become accustomed to using a checklist before having to deal with a broader based checklist that applied to those other user areas. As I suggested today during our phone conversation, I hope that the city immediately could begin using the checklist on an experimental basis in connection with all coming street projects. After you review the attached policy (again, as initially adopted by the BFCC & presented to the city & then subsequently slightly revised by the city), I would appreciate your advising whether you think that policy could be used as the base from which the Complete Streets Committee would focus its work. Thank you. Ken Ken Gould I Emeritus Professor of Law University of Arkansas at Little Rock Bowen School of Law 0- 501.3324-9952 1 H- 501.225.5343 1 ksgould@ualr.edu I www.law.ualr.edu