UHills Streets Committee Meeting Minutes, 6/6/05

 

Next Meeting: July 11th at First Presbyterian church at 7pm

 

Attendees:

Committee Members:

        Tom Sontag

        John DeHart

        Henry Moglia

        Adele Tuchler

        Claud Eley

        Rob Klahr

        Tom Keating

        Jason Gottlieb

        Chuck Goldfarb

        Karen Woodward

        Bob Boland

 

Trustees:

        Larry Connor

        Scott Wilson

 

University City:

        Tim Moffitt (Department of Public Works)

 

Review and Approval of minutes from committee meeting of 5/2/05:

Minutes approved without any changes.

 

Allan Morby has left the Streets committee. He is taking a job

in Chicago and moving.

 

REPORT of the Communications Subcommittee:

John DeHart was the primary spokesperson for the subcommittee with all members in attendance making contributions.

Activities since last meeting:

• Met with John Douglas, web site manager.
• Worked out plan for delivery of documents to be posted on web site. John DeHart will be focal point for committee for any documents to go on the web site.
• Arranged for a Yahoo forum for a discussion group for residents to air their opinions. So far it has been silent.
• Set up a Yahoo email address for residents to contact to get added to an email list to get a notice when updates have been made to the web site. About 31 email addresses have been collected.
• Sent USMail letter to neighborhood residents with an update on the committee's activities.
• Hand delivered an update to above letter with corrections. 238 updates were hand delivered.
• Started  planning for flow of documents from other subcommittees destined for web site. This includes ideas on how to reformat the web site to better organize the information.
• Started discussing how to put together a final report of the committee.

 

There was some discussion about the use of Yahoo for email and discussion forums.

 

REPORT of the Finance/Legal Subcommittee:

Chuck Goldfarb and Rob Klahr were the primary spokespersons for the subcommittee with all members in attendance making contributions. A printout of a spread-sheet giving results for 5 different cost scenarios using 4 different assessment scenarios was distributed to the committee. Each scenario included the total share for each household and the annual payment assuming a 10 year, 8% loan.

 

The 5 cost scenarios were: $500K, $1M, $1.5M, $2M and $3.4M.

 

The 4 assessment scenarios were:

• by lot size
• by assessed valuation
• by frontage feet (same as our yearly assessment)
• by lot count (evenly divided per lot)

 

The subcommittee emphasized that all data used for their calculations came from publicly available information.

 

The subcommittee expressed the opinion that doing the assessment by lot size or by assessed valuation did not make much sense. The subcommittee expressed the opinion that doing the assessment by frontage feet or by per lot made the most sense.

 

There are some areas for special consideration including but not necessarily limited to: UCity, Flynn Park and Flynn Park School, Condominiums on Pershing, house at north eastern end of Kingsbury and the First Presbyterian Church.

 

There was much discussion about all the options and what their advantages and disadvantages might be including:

• Using frontage feet:

+ same as right now

- Largest discrepancies, may cause contention

- how to treat corner lots and lots with long sweeping frontage.

• Using lot size:

- difficult to measure all lots accurately.

• Using assessed valuation:

- U. City's share may be too low

 

There was some discussion about possible ways to combine two or more of the methods of assessment. The subcommittee expressed a strong desire to "Keep It Simple"  and just chose one.

 

REPORT of the Engineering Subcommittee:

Henry Moglia was the primary spokesperson for the subcommittee with all members in attendance making contributions. A printed summary of the subcommittee's activities, findings, proposed options and plan for next tasks was distributed to all.

 

A summary of the written and oral reports:

The subcommittee presented a "Rough Order of Magnitude" (ROM) estimate for a streets renovation project. Their general assumptions for this ROM estimate were:

1. This represents a "first pass" or "rough order of magnitude" estimate.
2. Functionality was the key criterion for the estimate.
3. Warren & Kingsbury were used as representative samples to estimate the curb/gutter repair cost.
4. Curb/gutter repairs were classed as "Acceptable" or "Needs Repair".
5. Replacement of driveway aprons and re-landscaping were excluded from estimates.
6. Err on side of making a repair if something looked questionable.

 

ROM Estimate
Item	Quantity	Unit Price	Total Cost	Notes
Curb/Gutter Repair	7500 ft (33%)	$20/ft	$150,000
Asphalt Patching of Streets (includes street/gutter interface)			$  10,000
Inlet Repair	23	$1950	$  45,000	1
Chip Seal			$  65,000	2
Selected Street Repairs (Kingsbury and Greenway)	250 cu yds	$60/cu. yd	$  15,000	3
New Inlet Installation (4 required per R&J report)	4	$4750/inlet	$  15,000
Subtotal			$300,000
Contingency	15%		$  45,000
Total			$345,000	4

 

 

NOTES:

1. Per R&J report; cost will probably be less because MSG will repair some defective inlets.
2. NB West estimate
3. MSD may pick up cost if it is determined defective mains are causing undermining of our streets.
4. Cost per home approximately $1400

 

Some aspects of a construction schedule were also reported:

• asphalt patch requires 60 days to cure.
• Chip Seal can only be done between Memorial Day and Labor Day.

 

There was considerable discussion on all aspects of the proposal. Of particular interest to the committee were:

• Aprons not being included (they will be added, see task list)
• Whether crown on streets would be affected (it would not)
• How long a solution this would be.

 

The length of the solution was the most discussed topic. The general consensus of the subcommittee was that what they were proposing was a 7-10 year solution. This caused a lot of debate. To some committee members and trustees this seemed closer to a "bandaid" solution than a "long term" solution. Larry and Tom reminded the committee that they had been given the task of recommending a long term solution. A major point of confusion was what would happen after the 7-10 year lifetime of the solution. Would the whole process need to be repeated or was there some increased maintenance that would be needed? Would two back to back 7-10 year solutions comprise a 15-20 year solution? A lot of these questions fed into the task list for the subcommittee. As part of this discussion it was noted that the last chip and seal was done in 1993 and cost about $80,000.

 

After much back and forth there seemed to be some agreement from many committee members that this proposal was probably on the right track but needed to be expanded and refined.

 

TASK LIST for Communications subcommittee:

1. Collect documents from other subcommittees and post on website. Based on what we get, reformat web site.
2. Refine Evaluation Criteria and start to fill in informationfor options.
3. Begin work on Final Report.
4. Investigate how to get website URL to come up on search engines such as google.
5. Investigate putting signs up at various places in the neighborhood reminding residents about the web site.

 

TASK LIST for Legal/Finance subcommittee:

1. Follow up with city to get data on what it would cost to get streets up to city standards.
2. Consider other alternatives for paying for project if total is as low as $500K. UCity might have a better option than a 10-year/8% NID.
3. Check raw data used for spread-sheet to verify accuracy.
4. Produce single page spread-sheets of valuations for project costs of $500K, $1.5M and $3.4M.
5. Summarize spread-sheet with Range and Mean for each of the 4 assessment options and for one $ value. $500K and $1M were two suggested values to use but there was no general consensus.

 

TASK LIST for Engineering Subcommittee

1. Look at current proposal and estimate on going maintenance going out to 20 years.
2. Estimate additional curbs and gutters that may need replacing over 20 years.
3. Do a detailed walk through of all streets to establish real quantities. Add aprons as a part of this. Mark a sample section with temporary paint for other committee members and trustees to view.
4. Establish new specifications and estimates based on all of the above.

 

Next Meeting: July 11th at First Presbyterian church at 7pm