If you were at the town hall meeting a couple of weeks ago, it would be worth your while to to read the attached files. They're the council's rememberances of what you said during the meeting. In addition to sidewalks and about how the city is going to invest money in a post nuclear free world, they're going to talk about what they remembered about the town hall meeting.

1. On the town hall meeting redux end of things, the city council will recap the discussions. Did anyone know the overall theme was "Keeping Focused to Make Good Things Happen"? I didn't.

Here are what's in the comments by group (these are all pdf files):
Downtown Group 1 (TJ Johnson and Gary Michel)
Downtown Group 2 (Doug Mah and Steve Hall; notes by Anna Schlecht and Jennifer Kenny)
Downtown Group 3 (Karen Messmer and Cathy Raymond)
Zero Waste Group
Olympia as a Capital City
Effectiveness of Government
Written comments (Meta Heller, in particular, has some interesting pages in this one).

While we're at it, there are only two topics suggested so far for the next town hall meeting in January. I know a lot of you hated the last one, why not try to make the next one worth it?

This is my some what weekly rundown of the city council packet and what you can expect the city to deal with in the coming week. Download the entire packet here.

2. Last year the city launched a pilot program to help property owners repair sidewalks out in front of their homes. So far this year, the city repaired 64 of the 75 projects they thought they'd get to for a price tag of $76K. They thought they'd spend more that $100K.

Here are the options:

Option 1. Continue the Sidewalk Repair Program by extending the pilot from September 2006 to June 2007. Review the pilot in June 2007, and consider initiating a new Sidewalk Repair Program in 2008.

• Continue with a repair program for an additional 9 months from September 2006 to June 2007 with a budget of $46,934. The funds for an additional year of the pilot would come from the remaining budget of $27,934, and the anticipated $19,000 in the 2007 operating budget dedicated to sidewalk repair.

• Consider a new permanent program in 2008 funded at $75,000 per year: $19,000 in operating funds and $51,000 in new funds.
Pros:

1. The City can be responsive to trip hazards and complaints from the public.

2. The City is efficient at fixing sidewalks and sidewalk repair falls within the role and intent of the Street and Right-of-Way Maintenance Program in Public Works.

3. An additional year of the pilot will provide more experience and useful data about the level of repair work the City can sustain.

Cons:

1. The intent of the code is not entirely upheld (that property owners take responsibility for their sidewalks).

2. There is less incentive for an owner to minimize damage to their sidewalk.

Option 2. Do not repair sidewalks. Require property owners to repair.

Pros:

1. The intent of the code is upheld; that property owners take responsibility for their sidewalks.

2. There is incentive for an owner to minimize damage to their sidewalk.

Cons:

1. Trip hazards and complaints from the public may not be addressed in a timely manner.

2. It costs approximately $3,000 per site for code enforcement to work with property owners to get them to make repairs. These funds could be spent directly on repairs.

3. The additional steps for property owners to rebuild a sidewalk to City specifications (potentially to a hire contractor) may reduce the likelihood of completing repairs.

3. When the city passed the nuclear free ordinance, they had to consider where they invest their money, not just who they spend it with. This week, the city will go over their investment policy to see if they can scrub out any nuke tainted bonds and such.

Part of the repor to the council:

The current investment policy describes the type of securities in which the City may invest. In general, they include U.S. Treasury securities, federal agencies and sponsored agencies, repurchase agreements of the proceeding items, Washington State and political subdivision debt, State of Washington local government investment pool, certificates of deposit with qualified public depositaries and banker acceptances. Other investments which may be made with the approval of the City Manager include commercial paper and limited types of mutual funds. The City has not made investment within these other options.

Categories where potentially an investment could be made with an industry or institution involved with nuclear weapons include the “other” category, banker acceptances, which are financing the shipment of goods of an industry or institution involved with nuclear weapons and investment with the federal government or its direct agencies.

The staff has proposed changes to the current investment policy to comply with “The City of Olympia Nuclear Free Zone Act”, see attached policy. The investment policy calls for an exemption of the federal government and its agencies consistent with other exemptions provided in the Nuclear Free Zone Act. The exemption would not include federal sponsored agencies such as the Federal Home Loan Bank (FHLB) or Federal National Mortgage Association (FNMA) as these are agencies separate from the federal government.

Attachment	Size
OB_Sept28TownHallMtgDiscussionsSTF.pdf	29.53 KB
OB_Sept28TownHallMtgDiscussionsATT1.pdf	384.66 KB
OB_Sept28TownHallMtgDiscussionsATT2.pdf	356.3 KB
OB_Sept28TownHallMtgDiscussionsATT3.pdf	396.62 KB
OB_Sept28TownHallMtgDiscussionsATT4.pdf	350.59 KB
OB_Sept28TownHallMtgDiscussionsATT5.pdf	251.98 KB
OB_Sept28TownHallMtgDiscussionsATT6.pdf	245.56 KB
OB_Sept28TownHallMtgDiscussionsATT7.pdf	3.37 MB