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HomeMy WebLinkAbout08-23-22 Public Comment - T. Wookey - Public Involvement process with the City of Bozeman and the Fowler ProjectFrom:Trisha Wookey To:Agenda Cc:Sky Sterry Subject:Public involvement process with the City of Bozeman and the Fowler project Date:Tuesday, August 23, 2022 3:47:20 PM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Do not click links or open attachments unless you recognize the sender and know the content is safe. Hello Jeff Mihelich and the Bozeman City Commissioners, My Name is Trisha Wookey at 4979 Durston. I just wanted to let you all know how theFowler process actually took place and how the city could do better with public involvement in the future. I understand that the more public that is involved in the process of citydevelopment, the more it can complicate things, but if the process is done well it will improve how development takes place in Bozeman. The public was only briefly involved for the limited Fowler meetings for a total of 4 months -March 2022 - June 2022- Much of what came out of the small meetings was not incorporated in the Sanderson designs presented at the open house meetings. NOTICES TO RENTERS AND PROPERTY OWNERS ABOUT MAJOR ROAD ANDINFRASTRUCTURE PROJECTS: As an aside from the Fowler project my husband and I also own property on E. Peach St. and it was very frustrating that the water, sewer, and gasinfrastructure was upgraded around 2018 and none of the property owners were notified that that work would be done. I knocked on doors and talked to neighbors and no one received anotice of street work to be done. Peach was torn up for around 6 months or more, and if we would have know the schedule and when that was happening we would have replaced ourwater and sewer lines going to the street. That is an old house and it would have saved alot of money and trouble for us and the city for a street cut. Someday we will need to replace thesewer lines and there will have to be a street cut to do it. Please get a process in place that lets property owners know when street work will be done, so we property owners can coordinate,with the city, necessary upgrades, if possible. Since contractors are not very reliable, (we were told the first contractors were fired and a second set of contractors had to redo the Peach Street work), the City of Bozeman should beresponsible for mailing fliers to the address of the taxpayers, of property, and the physical address of the property, so that the owners and renters have proper notice. FOWLER PUBLIC INVOLVEMENT PROCESS: The public involvement of the Fowlerproject was very limited and did not include a large amount of people in the beginning stages of the process. The fact that that the property owners, (that will be affected by this projectwere not notified early in the process by Sanderson Stewart), is a great example of why the City of Bozeman should be required to notify property owners and renters of major projectsthat will affect them. Please see the time line and process that took place for the Fowler project below: - October 2016 - Began the discussion of selling the sidewalk easement to the city ofBozeman. We told Tony Gaddo to take the Fowler acquisition off of the offer we would only agree to the sidewalk easement. Tony Gaddo of Dowl negotiated the offer. - December 2017 - Finalized the sidewalk easement with the City of Bozeman through Dowl. We told Tony to tell the engineers and city officials, in charge of the Fowler project, to redesign the Fowler road to a smaller footprint and that we would not sell 300 ft x 50 ft of ourproperty to the city or allow the city to cut down half of our 600+ ft line of cottonwoods bordering our East side of the property. We were told Fowler was not on the city’s agendaand they had no idea when it may be considered. - October 2021 - Tony Gaddo- now working for Sanderson Stewart- knocked on our door and said the Fowler project had been moved up on the timeline and was slated to begin in 2024. He wanted permission for Sanderson Stewart to start surveying. We were told Sanderson Stewart would contact us about any further Fowler action. - February 15, 2022 - Sanderson Stewart: Special Presentation: Fowler Avenue ConnectionProject Overview - February 27, 2022 - Left comments on the Engage Bozeman website for Fowler. - March 3, 2022 - A neighbor forwarded an email invitation from Sanderson Stewart for the first of 8 Fowler focus groups “Neighbors Focus Group Meeting”. It is only because theneighbor asked Chris Naumann, (Sanderson Stewart) to let me take the place of one of the 6 people, (one person could not attend), that I was invited to this meeting. I do not know howSanderson Stewart chose the 6 attendees for our group or the attendees for the 7 other groups. - March 10 -April 27 - Eight group meetings were conducted. The list below does not include the attendees from Sanderson Stewart. - a Neighborhood group - 6 attendees- the InterNeighborhood Council - 12 attendees - a Community Services group - 2 attendees- a Schools group - 3 attendees - a Natural Resources group - 6 attendees- an HOA group - 11 attendees - a Transportation group - 4 attendees- the Transportation Board -6 attendees My opinion is that anyone should have been able to listen to these above meetings. - May 5, May 10, May 17, 2022 - 3 field trips only 15 people per field trip. If we were in any other meetings we were asked not to attend the field trips. I have no idea where the field tripswere, who attended, or what was discussed. Where City Commissioners there? In my opinion the field trips should have been open to anyone who wanted to join. - June 14 and June 29, 2022 - Two Open house meetings. We were not able to attend the first open house but we did attend the second and I spoke with Nick from the transportation boardabout the ridiculously wide lanes and roundabouts and that were presented by Sanderson Stewart and pointed out to him that citizens had been asking for a 2 lane option from thebeginning of the group meetings and he said he had never heard this 2 lane option request before the 6/29 open house meeting. The 2 lane option is requested many times in the March and April meetings and can be read inthe minutes on the Engage website. In conclusion: Since 2016 I have seen the initial plans for Fowler and not much has changed on the current engineering plans. If the city of Bozeman is really trying to make an effort toinclude citizens, they should direct the engineering firm to take the feedback to heart and really try to create a better unique solution to each issue. Allow unlimited people to listen tomeetings but not necessarily verbally comment. Give the listeners a website or an email to comment on the specific meetings. Trisha Wookey Wookey Design Studio406-551-2000 4979 Durston Rd.Bozeman, MT 59718 USA www.wookey.net