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Home My WebLink About07-26-06 Parking Commission Minutes Bozeman Parking Commission Meeting July 27, 2006 Parking Commissioners in Attendance: Paul Burns Chris Pope Larry Bowman Pam Bryan City Staff in Attendance: James Goehrung Paul Luwe Anna Rosenberry Rich McLane Laurae Clark Guests in Attendance: Thomas Mosser Chris Pope called the meeting to order. Rich McLane reported on the Parking Control Officer. He interviewed one person who he is very excited about and has made her a conditional officer. She will be focusing on just downtown. He will continue to work on getting the second position hired. He asked about whether the Parking Commission would like to have enforcement on Saturdays. The commission discussed the pros and cons of enforcing on Saturday. Commissioners were in favor of Saturday enforcement as long as Monday through Friday coverage was not jeopardized by doing so. Paul Luwe discussed the process for going forward to establish parking as a Municipal Infractions. He recommended that all parking citations in Chapter 10.32 of the Bozeman Municipal Code except for Handicapped Parking and those in the parking district such as altering the parking permit become Municipal Infractions. A municipal infraction is a civil penalty not a criminal penalty. Pam asked for more clarification on the differences between the two. Paul explained how Kalispell and Helena use this process. The proof is different, the defendant is not entitled to a lawyer, and the Judge makes the decision. A civil citation must be physically served or by certified mail. He briefly described how he sees this process working through the system. Pam asked if a civilian officer could serve these citations or if it still needs to be a hire through the police dept. Paul responded that yes, a civilian officer could do this. Rich McLane stated that parking officers are not sworn officers. Handicap citations were discussed. Rich sees the officer as being an all-encompassing person for the better of the city, and eliminates more complaints to the sworn police officers. Rich recommended that all parking offenses be under this ordinance. Anna reminded that this change would affect all handicap citations throughout town. She suggested running this by the City Commissioners. The public perception may be swayed by de-criminalizing some parking citations. Paul is also working on the Boot Program and hopes to have a draft of the ordinance by September. A motion was made by Pam to accept the draft ordinance presented by Paul with the changes to include all parking offenses. The motion was seconded by Paul and the motion was approved. James reported on the Garage Project. One option was to route the four busses onto Mendenhall and lose two feet of retail space, which would also require a redesign of the sidewalk area. This would also probably require the need to make some parking nd restrictions across the street The 2 option would be to route them onto Main and then onto Tracy. Tracy would have to be made a one-way going north bound. This option would put two bus lanes for busses two deep and would eliminate one driving lane. There would be an island in between the lanes to load & unload. Either of these changes and minor modification of the retail would not create a major redesign of the Garage. Chris suggested that having the busses closer to main could be good PR and more visible to the downtown. James would bring back those two options on paper to visibly see the options in the next few weeks. Anna reported on the need to try and accelerate the schedule of the Garage due to the TIF funding issues. The tentative award, the environmental assessment and being placed on the State’s list for the step schedule are the first three hurdles to cross. James will make sure we are on that schedule and it is approved by the State. The question is whether that tentative award will make us comfortable for selling the bonds? We need to move the schedule up about a month in order to do this. Final public hearing with the environmental assessment must be completed prior to submission. This was not on the original timeline. The traffic study is part of the environmental assessment. Bond council, Mae Nan Ellingson, will make the call if the tentative award is enough to sell bonds. James asked about the control issues for the Garage to confirm with Graelic so they can move ahead. It was confirmed that the higher end system with credit cards etc. was what was approved. Anna reported on the TIF funding meeting. It is believed that legislation will be coming out of the Governors office which would strip 75 mils out of our TIF district. We would lose 20% of TIF funds. If this happens it could cut about a million of bonding capacity out of the Garage project. We need to sell bonds prior to this being presented by the legislature in order to be able to bond for the 4 million we need for the Garage. We would need an end of October or early November bond sale. She stated that doing this does pose some risk. We could end up with 4 million for parking improvements and no approval of the final funding of the Garage. So, we need to have a plan B in case this happens. We would have about 3 years to spend that money on some type of parking improvements. Anna also reported that the resolution has been drafted to expand the board and hopes to have this passed by September. Thomas Mosser stated that he does not have a good feeling of the redesign of the Garage. He mentioned an idea about a Greyhound bus station as part of this project. He thinks re- routing to main seems like an unnecessary interruption to main traffic flow. He also stated that in regards to the re-development of the two parking lots for his development proposal, Chris Saunders suggested that he go to the City Commission to find out if they wish to redevelop those lots. He then met with Chris Kukulski and seemed to get the direction from him that the Parking Commission should make that recommendation. So, he is confused by the process and who holds the authority to make these decisions. Chris Pope said no, it is the Planning Departments call for the majority of the development, not the Parking Commission. The Parking Commission sees no problems with these proposals from the parking aspect. Larry suggested we get some clarification from Chris Kukulski to get his opinion on our authority. Paul asked about how the information we decide gets to the Planning office or Commission? There is currently no process in place. Each parking lot development will have to be on a case by case basis. Thomas Mosser stated that because of the uncertainty of this project he is inclined to add a basement level of parking and then supplement with cash-in-lieu. Paul asked if anyone attended the Walker meeting. No one was able to attend. He will be attending a parking conference in Vancouver, WA in the coming week and he hopes to get some good ideas that he can bring back and share with the other commissioners about downtown development and parking issues. th Pam & Larry both spoke up that they could not attend a meeting on the 10 of August. th There was some discussion about moving the meeting to the 17. At the next meeting the commissioners would like to discuss operations of the Garage. The meeting adjourned at 8:50. Respectfully Submitted, Laurae Clark, Treasurer