Too often I see evidence that the success of a democratic government depends on the stupidity of those being governed. In Kyle, however, it’s not so much stupidity as it is the laissez-faire attitude of the local populace. Look at the facts: Only 8.3 percent of Kyle’s registered voters bothered to cast a ballot in last year’s mayoral election. That means 91.7 percent simply don’t give a damn and when you have that many people who don’t give a damn you wind up with municipal policies that are stupid, illogical and potentially downright dangerous.
Take the city’s sidewalk policy, as an example. Because so many simply don’t give a damn, the minuscule minority that do has bludgeoned the city into adopting this masquerade, this Wizard-of-Oz form of tomfoolery that argues individual property owners shouldn’t have to foot the bill for sidewalk repairs; they should be paid for by the city, forgetting, for some reason, that the money the city has to spend on these repairs come from the taxes paid by those individual property owners. It’s worse than the oil filter commercial where the salesman says "You can pay me now or you can pay me later," this one is along the lines of "You can pay me now, next year, the year after that and on into forever and never get a thing in return." And because that 91.7 percent who don’t give a damn, that’s what happens around here.
How that manifests itself was made clear during last night’s City Council meeting when Public Works Director Harper Wilder outlined the results of the city’s sidewalk repair pilot program in which $20,000 of taxpayer funds was set aside in the budget to pay for the leveling of sidewalk sections. The current budget hikes that amount to $50,000. Harper told the council that because most of the city’s uneven sidewalks were located in Plum Creek, that’s where the $20,000 was spent. That’s right, all money put into this particular pot by all the property owners in all of Kyle was spent on repairing sidewalks in just one subdivision, which also happens to be the subdivision that sends the most voters to the polls each election cycle. Wilder said Plum Creek was chosen however, because "it’s the most condensed area" and then he added in typical municipal government double-talk Plum Creek was where "we had the largest number of sidewalks repairs in one place per volume."
Wilder did say that the city will be concentrating on subdivisions on the east side of I-35 during the next repair spree, although "spree" may not be the operative word here since the waiting list is long..
As Wilder described it, this sidewalk leveling process takes place when tree roots "next to the sidewalks are causing the sidewalks to heave at the joints and it raises the sidewalk joints causing a trip or fall hazard." I emphasized that last part of what Wilder said because it is really important. It illustrates the folly of this sidewalk program and the danger it poses to property owners. And don’t fret, I’ll eventually get around to explaining just how dangerous it is.
In addition to just picking out a politically strong problematic subdivision, the sidewalk repair folks, like disc jockeys of a by-gone era, take requests. "Typically we’ll get a call from a citizen that says we have a hazard there on the sidewalk," Wilder said in response to a question from Mayor Travis Mitchell, "Our staff will go and identify that and kind of give it a priority level and that depends on the elevation difference. We have a running list right now" of property owners requesting sidewalk repairs.
Here’s part of the problem with this. The contractor who actually performs the repair work told the council last night a typical repair takes "a day or two." So under the best of conditions, working every day, 365 days a year, that translates into about 240 repairs completed per year. But we also know these folks aren’t going to be working every day of the year. According to the Working Day Payroll Calendar as developed by University Human Resources at the University of Iowa, this calendar year contains 261 working days. So now we’re talking about 174 repairs made per annum. And, in a response to a question posed by council member Dex Ellison, the city’s staff said that "running list" Wilder refers to currently contains more than 400 requests from citizens for sidewalk repairs. That’s a backlog of two years and 3½ months.
This brings me right back to that dang "trip or fall hazard." If a person, let’s say for the sake of this argument, an elderly person is out for a walk during a nice spring-like afternoon and an uneven sidewalk causes that person to trip and fall, seriously injuring himself in the process, the property owner where that sidewalk is located can be held liable. In Kyle, the city cannot be held liable, only the property owner. Now, in order to collect damages, the person filing the lawsuit must prove negligence on the part of the property owner. The courts have held that any one of three factors can be considered by a jury when determining negligence and one of them is the property owner was "in a position where they reasonably should have known of the dangerous surface and failed to repair it." The operative word in that last sentence are "known" and "repair." Reporting it is simply not enough. And if you’re on a waiting list that takes more than two years for your number to be called, that tells a jury you knew for that long "of the dangerous surface and failed to repair it" all that time.
At one point during the meeting, Mitchell wanted to know "how difficult it might be to put some kind of time line (presumably on the city’s web page) for when polylevel (the sidewalk repair function) will be in a particular subdivision" so residents can see that they "are on the schedule for March, or on the schedule for the fall." Mitchell said he wanted to "be able to give residents an answer when they ask when is their sidewalk going to be repaired."
Council member Daphne Tenorio took Mitchell’s suggestion a step further. She wanted the city’s web page to (1) have a place where residents could apply for the sidewalk repair and (2) publish that so-called "running list" so they could see about where they stood in the pecking order, given the caveat they could at any time be bumped even lower down the list if the city received a request it deemed was of a higher priority. Which is all well and good but it’s like a doctor giving a cancer patient a slice of apple pie. True, the pie, especially if it came from our own hometown pie company, could make the patient feel better but it’s not going to do anything to treat the cancer.
The simple fact is the city should not be in the sidewalk business in the first place. It’s simply not fair, it defies logic, for someone on a rural piece of property with no sidewalks at all to be forced to pay for the repair of Plum Creek’s sidewalks. And what good is it to know where you stand on a two-year waiting list when that gives you no liability protection against someone who gets injured by sidewalks on your property?
But, then, since I’ve already established that most people in Kyle simply don’t give a damn, it only illustrates once again that the government functions essentially on the stupidity of those being governed.
All the voting items on last night’s agenda were approved 6-0 (council member Alex Villalobos did not attend) except for one — the minutes of the last meeting. And the lone person voting against those minutes was the only council member who did not attend that meeting. Go figure.
I am not a big fan of episodic TV. I will watch a series via streaming or on disc after it has completed its first-run telecast if one is recommended to me by fellow members of the Writers Guild whose opinion I respect. I don’t "binge watch" as a lot of folks apparently do. Usually I watch a little less than episode per week. One of those series I’m currently watching — I’m about two-thirds of the way through Season 3 — is Dexter.
And, frankly, I am beginning to wonder why this one came with such a strong recommendation. It is a tad melodramatic for my tastes and it lays on the angst of the story’s titular character way too thickly. I will admit to admiring the audacity of creating a television series around a despicable human being — in this case, a serial killer — but Dexter is not the first TV series based on that premise: both The Sopranos and Breaking Bad handled that concept far more successfully than Dexter.
But the real problem I’m having with the program is that I am rapidly coming to the conclusion that the show actually believes its main character is a "hero," a "good guy." It seems they are buying into their own false premise that it’s OK to murder your fellow human beings if, in the opinion of the murderer, the victims "deserved:" to be murdered because of some heinous crime they may have committed but escaped justice for. I have no idea how the series ends — and I don’t want anyone to spoil it by trying to tell me how it ends — but I’m going to be furious if this guy doesn’t get the punishment he deserves, i.e., a gruesome demise.
I mention this only because I want to pose the argument that it is inherently wrong for a city government to use public, taxpayers funds to repair private property. Stated like that, I think most people would agree with me. The City of Kyle, however, appears set to go all Dexter on that argument. Just as Dexter seems to be arguing its OK to diabolically, gruesomely murder another human being if the murderer feels the crime is justified , the city is prepared to make a similar exception to the "using taxpayer money to repair private property" rule when it applies to sidewalks.
It’s a dangerous precedent that simply doesn’t stand up to the arguments against it. However, of the six council members who attended last night’s City Council meeting (Mayor Pro Tem Damon Fogley missed last night’s meeting due to a death in his family), the only one who agrees with me on this is Shane Arabie.
I don’t have enough time or the energy to enumerate and elucidate on all the problems with this notion ventured during last night’s City Council meeting, but I will mention a few of them.
First of all, the council is lying. Well, perhaps, not really, but based on last night’s conversation most observers are going to walk away thinking the city is now willing to accept responsibility for the maintenance and upkeep of all sidewalks in Kyle. And, going forward, if this hair-brained scheme is approved, that’s the message that the public will her and absorb. But that doesn’t appear to be what the city is planning on doing. What the council discussed last night was strictly a relatively inexpensive way to fix a sidewalk in certain situations, specifically one in which a crack in the sidewalk has caused the walkway on one side of the crack to be lower than the walkway on the other side. That’s it. If you’ve got a hole in the sidewalk, forget about it. It doesn’t appear the city is going to repair that. If a tree root has busted through the sidewalk, effectively splitting it in two with a space between the two sections, I don’t think the city plans on coming to your rescue there either. What the city is actually planning, according to council member David Wilson, is contracting with a private company that will inject a polymer under one side of a sidewalk to elevate that side and make it even with the other side. That’s it. The cost will depend on the number of inches one side needs to be raised, i.e., how much polymer is required.
Now Wilson said the city has identified 270 instances in Kyle that could use this type of repair and the decision the council needs to make at some future date is whether to budget the money needed to make these 270 repairs over a five-year period. Which raises even more concerns that I will address momentarily.
But let’s get back to my original problem. The public is going to perceive that the city is going to be repairing and maintaining all sidewalks and that doesn’t appear to be true: it only plans on leveling those 270 sidewalk locations and even that will take place at what appears to me to be the incredibly slow pace of one sidewalk leveling repair per week over a five-year period. So what happens when some homeowner sees the city repairing a sidewalk across the street, but then learns the sidewalk repairs he needs are not leveling, but, say replacing? How is that homeowner going to react?
Like I said, it’s a slippery slope, a dangerous precedent.
If a homeowner carefully examines the deed for his/her property, that homeowner will see the front of the property line extends to, at least, the curb of the street on which the property fronts. That means the sidewalk is on private property and thus is the responsibility of the owner of that private property. "But," council member Travis Mitchell argued after last night’s meeting," that sidewalk is a public right-of-way and the homeowner doesn’t have the right to remove it," True, but neither does the homeowner have the right to remove all the landscaping from the property and just pave it all over to avoid landscaping time and costs. However, under the city’s new sidewalk rule, if the fact that a homeowner can’t remove a sidewalk is to be used as justification for the city to make and pay for (certain) repairs to that sidewalk, doesn’t that mean the city can he held responsible for maintaining the property’s landscaping as well? If Code Compliance can cite a homeowner for, say, overgrown weeds, and order that homeowner to fix the problem, why not simply have Code Compliance site the homeowner for needed sidewalk repairs as well?
Now the city will claim that the reason it is getting this great price break for the repairs is because of the amount of such repairs that is required in the city is such a high number and individually those numbers would not work for the contractor at that reduced price. Bull-pucky. If the city cited a homeowner and the citation noted that the homeowner had one year to repair the deficiency or would be subject to a fine greater than the actual cost of the repair, the homeowner would most likely not only contract to get the job done but possibly even thank the city for finding a company that could make the repair at such a reasonable price. Not only that, the repair could be made within a year and the homeowner wouldn’t have to gamble on whether his address in the city’s lottery would be at the beginning or at the end of a five-year period. That means the company gets five times the volume of business in one year than it would under the city’s plan.
The reality here is the city wants to Dexter the sidewalk issue: "Yes," the city will argue, "it is wrong to use taxpayers funds to pay for repairs on private property, but when it comes to sidewalks we’re going to find a way to justify it." It’s not right, but it’s politically expedient (until the public finds out it isn’t entirely true).
Here’s another fallacy in Mitchell’s "public right-of-way" argument. Suppose a water pipe located beneath the foundation of my house breaks resulting in a major water leak. Whose responsibility is it to fix this? Technically, that water is not my property. It haven’t "purchased" it from the city until it flows into my hot water heater or I turn on the faucet or flush the toilet and it actually enters my home. The answer, however, is obviously it’s the homeowner’s responsibility to pay for the excavation, perhaps though the home’s foundation, and repair of that water line. But if the city is now going to assume responsibility for maintaining certain items of private property, what’s to prevent some hotshot legal mind from deducing it sets a precedent that covers all such repairs, including those that involve the delivery of any city service, i.e. water? Certain responsible city governments do assume a limited amount of liability in matters such as these. I realized I faced a potential major water leek under my home in Dallas when, for two straight months, my monthly water bill, which normally averaged a little more than $100 a month, was close to $500. After I arranged for and paid for the needed repairs (which resulted in a major hole having to be drilled and later refilled in my kitchen floor), the City of Dallas had a plan which allowed me to take the two $500 water invoices (which I had also paid — I didn’t want my water turned off) along with invoices from those same two months the year before, to Dallas Water Utilities which then credited me with the difference. I didn’t have to pay for water again for almost a year. But it didn’t assume responsibility for fixing the leak. In fact, Dallas, like the overwhelming majority of city governments in this country, doesn’t use taxpayer funds to pay for any repairs on private property, including sidewalk repairs.
To his credit, Arabie disagreed with this entire Dexter approach on both a practical and a philosophical level. But, unfortunately, he was the only one with the courage to do the right thing and not to bend in the political winds.
On the practical side he questioned "What is the life span of the poly-fill? What is the longevity of the poly-fill? What’s the weight-load capacity of poly-fill? What are we going to do if we have problems later on. I have a problem with all of those." And then he asked the pertinent question I addressed earlier: "What are the percentages of the sidewalks that will be fixed with the poly-fill.?" And if the city decides it needs to fulfill the promise it appears, on the surface, to be making and that is to assume all responsibility for sidewalk maintenance and repair, Arabie wanted to know "What are the percentage of sidewalks that will be fixed with conventional methods? How many miles are we going to fix? How much tax dollars are we going to appropriate towards this?"
Then he made what I believed is the concluding argument: "If we’re going to consider this, then it’s going to be a policy that we’re going to fix the sidewalks. So what’s the policy standard we’re going to fix them to? The reality is, this idea doesn’t fix all of our (sidewalk) issues. The soil will still flex and still move. We’re still going to have problems with sidewalks. The policy decision that needs to be made is whether we’re going to assume responsibility to fix the sidewalks. That’s the policy decision, not what we’re going to pay for. So I don’t necessarily agree with the way we’re moving forward right now."
After the meeting, I posed the more philosophical side of the question is Arabie and he replied "I vehemently oppose using taxpayer funds to repair any private property."
So there’s that, as well.
In other matters worth noting from last night’s City Council meeting:
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The city appeared to be leaning in favor of spreading over a 30-year period, not 20 years. Kyle’s $60.1 million share of the total cost of the Hayes Caldwell Public Utility Agency’s project to transport water from the Carrizo aquifer to local customers, even though Mitchell, noting a 20-year option would save taxpayers $21.3 million in interest payments, argued for the shorter time span. The reason given for the longer period is that would allow for additional customers moving into the area during years 21-30 to share in the pain of having to repay the note. City Finance Director Perwez Moheet estimated the average water customer could see as much as a 42 to 50 percent water bill increase under the 30-year plan, although Mayer Todd Webster said some of the debt could be repaid from available moneys in the General Fund. "There was a time not that long ago when the city hadn’t adequately planned for water" and the result was "we didn’t have water," Webster noted. "I went through the experience of trying to turn the faucet on and the water didn’t work. A number of times. And that was one of the two things that prompted me to get involved and be part of the solution. That solution grew into and became a regional collaborative to try to bring water to the region and that’ has evolved into the HCPUA And Kyle was actually the prime mover and the ones that initiated the thing." Webster acknowledged residents will suffer sticker shock when they see the effects the three proposed bond sales ($8.99 million this year, $24.19 million two years from now and $26.92 million in 2021) will have on their water bills "but I can assure you the cost of not doing something is far more than this." The city did not officially make any decisions on this issue — it really didn’t even give city staff a clear direction on how to pursue the matter — but the overall impression I got was the majority of the council is leaning in favor of financing the project over 30, not 20, years.
- The council voted to create a PID in the Blanco River Ranch Development project, a decision that was little more than a formality since the PID had already been part of a previously negotiated Development Agreement.
- On a 3-3 vote on a motion to approve it, council members initially failed to OK the rezoning of a subdivision in far east Kyle that would have increased its density to the maximum allowable. However, Mitchell, who not only voted against the motion, but forced a change in the mid-term update to the city’s Comprehensive Plan because of his opposition to high-density projects on the city’s borders, sought and won a reconsideration of the vote. His subsequent motion to table discussion on the issue due to Fogley’s absence last night was approved 4-2 with Arabie and council member Daphne Tenorio, who both joined Mitchell in opposition of the original motion, voting against the delay.
- On another zoning issue, the council affirmed its decision last month to defy the Planning & Zoning Commission’s recommendation and voted to rezone a half-acre of land at 1408 W. Center Street from Construction Manufacturing to Community Commercial. P&Z had recommended a more restrictive zoning.
- The council passed on a 5-1 vote the final reading the mid-term amendments to that 2010 Comprehensive Plan. Tenorio cast the one opposing vote. She failed to give a reason for voting no, but, according to last week’s edition of the Hays Free Press she opposed its passage because she felt there had not been enough public input into the plan, which, in true Tenorio fashion, is her way of blaming others for her own shortcomings. She (and the rest of her colleagues on the council as well) needs to realize that the main, direct link between the voters and the city are the members of the City Council, not the city staff. Voters don’t elect the city manager, or the city’s chief of staff or the communications director; only the mayor and the council members. It is the council members’ responsibility to absorb the wishes of their constituents into their service and decisions on the council. During the almost two-year period this update was in the works Tenorio failed to schedule even one town hall meeting on the subject. Admittedly, none of her other colleagues did either, but they also did not achieve Tenorio’s level of duplicity by voting against the document, supposedly because of lack of public input, a situation she had the power and the authority to rectify if she really wanted to, if it really was that important for her. But once again Tenorio proved she is not interest in substance, only in posturing. I will have more to say on this subject in a later post.
- The council held a 52-minute executive session which was incredibly brief since the session’s agenda called for engaging in negotiations on eight different economic development projects. After the session, I asked the mayor if he could tell me, without divulging confidential information, if any of these projects were major job creators. "I think so," he replied. "Certainly by our standards. Any of them individually and all of them together will have a substantial economic impact. Without getting into details, which I can’t obviously, I will say I am very excited about these opportunities and they are just opportunities — nothing’s done. What the volume of these opportunities means is that all of our investment in infrastructure and capacity building and getting things straightened out here are starting to pay off now. Regardless of whether any of these come through there’s going to be dozens more. Regardless of the outcome of these negotiations, I feel optimistic. It affirms all the work that’s gone into the city’s increasing the ability to accommodate these kinds of things. It hasn’t paid off yet because we haven’t got there, but it’s a sign that the corner’s been turned."
City council member Travis Mitchell is seeking to amend the city’s animal control ordinances so that individuals no longer will be required to keep "hens, other fowl and rabbits" on their property confined in a cage. However, the critters will be required, under Mitchell’s proposal he plans to recommend at Tuesday’s City Council meeting, to remain confined to property owners’ fenced-in property or tethered in some fashion.
At the same meeting, the Kyle Area Youth Advisory Committee (KAYAC) will release the details of its Sidewalk Master Plan study which recommends increased pedestrian connectivity, more lighting for sidewalks and a funding system for sidewalk repairs that appears to be in conflict with current city policies.
The current animal control ordinance Mitchell seeks to amend requires these animals to be kept in a pen, coop or hutch designed to "securely confine" the animals. Mitchell is seeking to change the ordinance to remove the confinement requirement and only require that a pen, coop or hutch be "available" and located somewhere on the property that’s "at least 20 feet from neighboring residences and at least 10 feet from the owner’s residence." It also states the animals "must remain on owners property behind a fence, on a leash, or on a tether."
"I didn't think it made sense to require chickens to be kept in a coop at all times," Mitchell said today. "We don't require dogs to be kept in kennels at all times, after all. So I modeled the chicken ordinance after the section on dogs and cats with a few obvious alterations."
Mitchell’s proposal also removes a section that restricts the ownership of these animals to persons living in single family residences zoned R-1-1. He is recommending those changes, he said, due to new state laws pending legislative passage.
"The state Senate recently passed SB 1620 which will allow the keeping of up to six hens in political subdivisions," Mitchell said. "That bill is expected to be passed by the House in the coming weeks. While our current ordinance does allow the keeping of up to six hens, it restricts that use based on ‘qualified zones,’ which is defined only as R-1-1. I am proposing to use a setback rule instead of a particular zone. This will bring our ordinance into compliance with the new state law and will make the ordinance based on distance from residences instead of the illogical restriction of only R-1-1. I call it illogical because the vestigial R-1 zone has the same basic setback rules but technically isn't considered a ‘qualified zone.’ Also, subdivisions like Quail Ridge have very large lots but also aren't considered ‘qualified’ under the current ordinance."
Mitchell did add that "if your HOA doesn't allow chickens, that policy will be unchanged with this minor text revision."
Noting that sidewalks provide environmental, economic and health benefits KAYAC’s Master Plan on this subject calls for more and better maintained sidewalks in Kyle, but does not make any recommendations on exactly where new sidewalks should be located.
"Kyle’s sidewalks currently have a number of flaws," KAYAC’s Master Plan states. "The first is absence, meaning that sidewalks simply are not present in areas where they are needed, including around schools. The second issue is discontinuity, where a sidewalk exists, but features gaps in pavement. Discontinuity is common in downtown Kyle, and becomes more apparent as one moves north or south of Center Street. A third issue with Kyle’s existing sidewalks is the condition of disrepair; that is, sections of certain sidewalks are cracked, uneven, penetrated by vegetation, or too narrow, making them more difficult to pass over."
Specifically, KAYAC called for more sidewalks connecting schools to the residential areas the school serves. It specifically cited the neighborhoods around Lehman High School, especially those living within the two mile radius of the school who are not eligible for bus service. The report cited Lehman Road’s "total lack of sidewalks" and the fact that it crosses Plum Creek requires student/pedestrians to either walk through running water or across a bridge and risk being hit by a motor vehicle.
"The lack of sidewalks around Lehman High School incentivizes parents and students on Lehman Road to drive to school, which increases traffic and indirectly the risk of collision," KAYAC’s Master Plan says. It also added the situation "leads to more pollution from idling cars." The report says similar conditions can be found in the vicinities of Hays High School and Barton and Wallace middle schools.
"It is with regard to the safety of Kyle’s youth that KAYAC recommends prioritizing repairs for and construction of sidewalks around Kyle’s public schools," the Master Plan states.
KAYAC’s report found that "poor lighting was a problematic for Kyle’s sidewalks. This is a valid concern because poor lighting increases the risk of car-pedestrian collisions, even if a sidewalk is present. Additionally, good lighting is important to increasing the safety of sidewalks at night, since good lighting makes it easier for one pedestrian to see when another approaches."
One recommendation that seems in conflict with current policies is one which KAYAC suggests "the city encourages private property owners in addition to housing developers to maintain and/or expand their surrounding sidewalks and paths by offering subsidies. These subsidies can be anything from tax breaks to partial reimbursement depending on the level of expansion or maintenance deemed appropriate by the city to help finance initial expansion and improvement."
Actually, it is Kyle’s policy, as it is the policy of every municipality I’ve been associated with, that it’s the sole responsibility of a property owner to maintain the good condition of the sidewalks on that owner’s property. The only difference among various cities is the methods employed to make this happen. Council member David Wilson recently announced a plan for Kyle property owners to effectively put a sidewalk repair company on retainer so that it could afford to offer property owners a lower-than-average rate for sidewalk repairs.
Most municipalities invoke a petition requirement before undertaking new or expanded sidewalks in residential areas to make sure more than a simple majority of the affected property owners agree to the additional costs for which they will be responsible.
Other items of interest on Tuesday’s agenda include:
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The only public hearing scheduled for the meeting involves an item that probably won’t even be dealt with — revisions to the city’s Comprehensive Plan. A last minute monkey wrench was tossed into the discussions on the plan at last Tuesday’s Planning & Zoning Commission when a directive relayed to the commissioners from the city’s staff said, in effect, elements of various development agreements had to be included in the revised plan. As far as I’m concerned (1) a development agreement binds the property owner, the city and their respective successors-in-interest for the term of the agreement regardless of any wording contained in a Comprehensive Plan and (2) trying to incorporate the terms of development agreements into the Comp Plan at this stage in the discussion is an unnecessary delaying tactic. However, a motion made during the P&Z meeting to move the proposed plan on to the council failed on a 3-3 vote. At the same time it should be noted that the official published minutes of the January joint council-planning commission workshop shows that the council specifically instructed commissioners to alter the zoning requirements in and the descriptions of two specifically named land use districts in order that they more accurately reflect the development agreements that existed in those districts. Up until last week, the commission had, for whatever reasons, completely ignored those instructions so Tuesday’s vote to postpone consideration of the updated Comp Plan until such changes could be added and approved might simply be seen as a last minute attempt to follow those original instructions. (NOTE: The author of this blog is currently a member of Kyle's Planning & Zoning Commission.)
- Plans to annex and then de-annex property located on the Blanco River Ranch. It isn’t clear from the wording attached to the agenda item whether the 242.12 acres of the 592.91-acre ranch that is being de-annexed includes the 119.2 acres that is being annexed by the same agenda item. (A map accompanying this item would have been helpful.) Nor is any reason being given for the maneuver, but I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if it didn’t have something to do with the location of the new RR 150 that could be going through the property. Perhaps we’ll get some clarity during a discussion of the item.
- The first reading of an amendment to the city’s fire code that would reduce required pavement widths in Kyle for certain newly constructed streets from 24 feet of unobstructed pavement width to 20 feet unobstructed.
- A possible agreement with BioDAF Water Technologies of Golden, Col., to conduct a pilot program to ascertain whether it has the ability to transform the wastewater treated at the city’s wastewater treatment plan into water that could be reused for irrigation of green areas, cooling towers, industrial cleaning, and the like. You can learn more about what the company will be attempting to achieve here.
- Following an executive session, presumably so that council members can learn what legal recourse, if any, the city has involving the delays surrounding wastewater pipeline repairs along Center Street that took 81 days longer than expected, and thus cost $35,803.36 more than anticipated, because of its proximity to Wallace Middle School, the city will be asked to approve a pair of change orders that will pay the contractor, Guerra Underground of Austin, a total of $48,406.36 more than the originally agreed upon cost of the project.
- The purchase of a Ford F450 bucket truck designed to help the Public Works Department expedite the repair of broken street and traffic lights.
- The purchase of a dual thermoplastic premelter at a cost of $61,605 and I think we can all agree that no self-respecting city should be without its own dual thermoplastic premelter. To be honest, I have absolutely no clue as to what this is, but I think it may have something to do with pavement markings.
- Although city leaders usually like to make a big deal over honorary designations recognizing the likes of veterans, scouts, orphans, etc., for some reason a proclamation declaring May as Fair Housing Month in the city and urging "all the citizens of this locality to become aware of and support the Fair Housing law" is being buried as part of the Consent Agenda, I guess this is a clue to how little emphasis the city will place on efforts toward providing fair housing in Kyle.
- On April 17, Hays County Justice of the Peace Andrew Cable awarded $2,970.05 held as either forfeited, found or unclaimed money held by the Kyle Police Department to the City of Kyle, Another item on Tuesday’s consent agenda seeks to allow the KPD to spend $2,529.99 of this money on such items as surveillance cameras, a $900 scanner, a $330 six-foot stainless work table, a $399 digital measuring kit, a $340 thermal label printer and other gadgets presumably needed in the constant battle against the criminal element.
- Yield signs are currently in place at four intersections located just south of downtown in the vicinity of the Kyle Fire Department station — South Nance Street/Miller Street, South Nance Street/West South Street, South Burleson Street/West South Street and South Main Street/West South Street. According to City Engineer Leon Barba the intent of these signs was to facilitate the free flow of traffic in an east-west direction on Miller and South streets because north-south traffic on Nance, Burleson and Main would be forced to yield. "After receiving a complaint, staff from the Kyle Police Department, the Public Works Department and the Engineering Department visited the subject intersections to observe the existing conditions," Barba wrote in a memo to City Manager Scott Sellers. "Based on our observations, it appears the yield signs are not effective enough to slow down the vehicles going in the northbound/southbound directions, In fact, some vehicles do not even slow down as they go through the intersections." Hence, Item 9 on Tuesday’s consent agenda is the first reading of an ordinance to replace those yield signs with stop signs.
I attended my first, but probably not my last, Kyle Area Youth Advisory Committee (KAYAC) meeting last evening hoping to get some sort of preview of tonight’s KAYAC sponsored sidewalk "charette."
I attended, not so much because it was KAYAC, but because it involved sidewalks and while the rest of the county, the state and the country seems obsessed with roads, I’m much more concerned with sidewalks. Perhaps it stems from my childhood growing up on Manhattan’s Lower East Side, where everyone walked everywhere — to the grocer’s, to work, to the park, to school and to schul — but I firmly believe a stronger community is one that is more walkable not more drive-able, a liveable community is one that is more pedestrian friendly and less automobile friendly. By definition, this sort of emphasis reduces traffic congestion, keeps the air cleaner, reduces the need to spend tax money on constant road repairs, and, on an individual level, reduces all kinds of transportation expenses, from fuel purchases to repairs. What right-thinking person can be on the other side of those subjects? So when I heard KAYAC was sponsoring this workshop in order to obtain citizen input on sidewalks it naturally drew more than my casual interest.
The most common definition of "charette" is "a meeting in which all stakeholders in a project attempt to resolve conflicts and map solutions." And that’s exactly what’s going to take place this evening starting at 6:30 p.m. in the council chambers at City Hall. In this case, "map" should be taken literally.
There will be munchies available in the anteroom area — I’m thinking deli-style sandwiches, chips, non-alcoholic (of course) drinks, even some cookies. After what I expect will be some sort of schmoozing as well as munching opportunities in the anteroom and perhaps inside the chamber itself, attendees will, at least by 6:45 p.m., be asked to sit wherever they choose at one of probably four tables in the chambers. City Planning Director Howard Koontz told the KAYAC members last night they should like on the entire affair as "a little like a dinner party."
A pair of KAYAC members (and for those who are not familiar with who comprises KAYAC, they are local high school students and they are sharp) will be at each table, one to act as a discussion facilitator and the other to act as a form of court reporter, making notes on whatever is discussed at that table. A large map of the city, which reveals where sidewalks are currently located and those neighborhood without this kind of an amenity, will be placed on each table and what’s going to happen is this, in its very simplest form: Participants will be asked to mark on these maps where in the city should the installation of sidewalks be a major priority, where they should be a secondary priority and where, perhaps, sidewalks might be nice but right now are not absolutely necessary. And the facilitator will prod participants to explain why they feel the way they do about sidewalks.
Those might not, in fact they are probably not, the specific questions the facilitators are going to ask, but that’s the information participants who take the time and the effort to make Kyle a stronger, more liveable community and therefore decide to participate in this effort should be prepared to impart.
At the end of all this, the facilitators and the note takers might be able to find the opportunity to quickly huddle and arrive at some form of consensus which they can then impart to those who attended the charette. But, to be perfectly honest, I could care less if the KAYAC folks provide some sort of conclusionary report tonight. In fact, I wouldn’t mind it one bit if the KAYAC members involved in this effort huddled for a couple of days or even weeks with some of our city planners to produce a comprehensive sidewalk plan that could be forwarded to the City Council for debate and discussion and to the city’s management for possible incorporation in the CIP portion of next year’s budget.
But, regardless of the outcome, the process itself is an admirable one and deserves citizen participation. I would really like to see 40 Kyle residents, at the very least, who are willing to show up at City Hall at 6:30 tonight take part in this worthwhile effort, to offer their opinions on where the city needs sidewalks, to impart how they want to make this city more walkable and how to strengthen this community we have chosen to call home.
