Greetings,We got off to a comfortable start at 9:30 this morning with PublicSafety committee. The discussion was about prohibiting the riding of bicycles on the sidewalks downtown. The city currently has anordinance that dates back a number of decades that prohibits riding onthe sidewalk downtown. But sometime not as long ago the legislaturepassed the following rule regarding bikes on sidewalks: (1) Section 61-8-608 MCA provides:a. “61-8-608. BICYCLES ON SIDEWALKS. (1) A PERSON OPERATINGA BICYCLE UPON AND ALONG A SIDEWALK or across a roadway UPONAND ALONG A SIDEWALK SHALL YIELD THE RIGHT OF WAY TO ANYPEDESTRIAN AND SHALL GIVE AUDIBLE SIGNAL BEFORE OVERTAKINGAND PASSING ANY PEDESTRIAN. (2) A person may not ride a bicycleupon and along a sidewalk or across a roadway upon or along acrosswalk WHERE THE USE OF THE BICYCLE IS PROHIBITED BY OFFICIAL TRAFFIC CONTROL DEVICES. (3) Except as provided in subsections (1)and (2), a person operating a vehicle by human power UPON ANDALONG A SIDEWALK OR ACROSS A ROADWAY UPON AND ALONG ACROSSWALK HAS ALL THE RIGHTS AND DUTIES APPLICABLE TO APEDESTRIAN under the same circumstances. (emphasis added) And also: (1) Subsection 7-1-112(1) MCA of Montana’s general localgovernment statutory provisions states:a. “7-1-113 CONSISTENCY WITH STATE REGULATION REQUIRED. (1)A local government with self government powers IS PROHIBITED THEEXERCISE OF ANY POWER IN A MANNER INCONSISTENT WITH STATELAW or administrative regulation IN ANY AREA AFFIRMATIVELYSUBJECTED BY LAW TO STATE REGULATION AND CONTROL.” (emphasisadded) So that means that our ordinance is invalid and needs to be repealedor seriously amended. It also means that the only way to prohibit bikeriding on the sidewalks would be to put up signage at all entrancepoints to the sidewalk. Dave reported to us that Bozeman has actuallydone that in their downtown. My take on it is that riding on the sidewalk downtown is OK if you do itslow enough. The rule on campus is that you can ride on the paths if you stay within twice the walking speed. I think that is still too fast for

downtown where people can be popping out of doorways. I also thinkthe sidewalks aren’t the place for cycle through traffic. The fifty feetbetween the corner and the bike rack makes sense to coast in at awalking pace. Maybe if you are riding with young children the road is alittle too scary but then you really need to move very slow. I think whatwe already have in the MCA cited above about yielding to pedestriansmay be adequate. Maybe we could revise our ordinance to addresssidewalk speed limits and still be within the confines of the state law.Next in PAZ we had a pre-public hearing on the Clark Fork Terrace #1subdivision. This is the partner subdivision to the one out in EastMissoula that we are being sued over regarding the trail connectionsboth along the river and connecting the Kim Williams trail to the newstate park. There are similar disputed issues regarding the trail in thissubdivision. We first considered the proposal a year ago and tabled itbecause we were waiting for the outcome of the law suit on the firstproject. It matters because the disposition of the trails on the one aredirectly related to what will need to happen on the other. We are stillwaiting for the outcome of the law suit and our one year deadline iscoming up to make a decision on the request. So we have to move it tothe floor and say yes or no. Then we took up the zoning rewrite. Dave had thankfully dropped theidea of revisiting the sign chapter. He had a pile of other minor editsthat passed without objection. Jason offered an amendment to thesection that establishes density in multifamily zones. Currently thedensity ranges from 1000-2500 feet of lot per unit depending on thenumber of bedrooms. The number of parking spaces is also based onthe number of bedrooms. The new rule attempts to simplify by justsetting a base square feet of lot per unit and the parking is calculatedoff of the square feet of the unit instead of bedrooms. At the verybeginning of the committee review a million years ago, we pegged thatbase amount at 1500 feet. Jason proposed changing that to 1000 feet. The motion passed. So in a multifamily zone, like the current B, aperson can build at one unit per thousand feet of lot size as long asthey meet the parking, setback, and other requirements. Then Jason restated the main motion to repeal title 19 and pass title20. We had some discussion about whether it was appropriate to moveforward while there was pending litigation. Some thought not, themajority of us thought yes. Jon Wilkins spoke about how he is worriedthat maybe there is something here that we are doing wrong, ormaybe there is something hiding in the new code we don’t understand.He also suggested that there is no time sensitivity to this and we mayas well wait as long as it takes to get every question answered toeveryone’s satisfaction. I’m pretty sure there will always be folks out

there planting seeds of doubt and universal satisfaction is notattainable. During the subsequent public comment, Joe Easton pointed out that hehad two projects on hold waiting for the new code. He is also the boardpresident for homeWORD and they have a project on hold waiting forthe new code. Jon Wilkins responded by warning us all that Joe had afinancial interest in all of this so we should discount his testimony. I’mreally baffled by that perspective. When we were discussing thebuilding height issue we were told we should defer to the architects totell us what to do. Don’t they all have a financial interest in theoutcome of that decision? When we were considering electronic signswe were told to defer to the business owners and sign companies.Don’t they all have a financial interest that is motivating theircomments? This would also go for west broadway business ownerswho don’t like the diet and at least half of the people who give uspublic comment on any given issue. I also see a contradiction insaying you support good jobs in the construction industry, but don’tbelieve the interests or opinions of a developer should be considered.Without developers there isn’t a whole lot of construction. These wereall things I would have loved to discuss on the floor but it was off topicand we didn’t have time. In the end we voted to approve the new zoning code and send it to thefloor on October 5th. The vote was 7 to 4 with Renee, Lyn, Jon, and John voting against. Dick had left to get to another meeting before wegot to the vote. After lunch we started with Public Works. We approved a deal to buyback 62.5 sewer loading units at $900 each from T&T developmentcompany up in the rattlesnake. Back when the original sewer went inup there, the big land owners put the money up in advance to pay forthe system in trade for sewer connection rights to be used in thefuture. The owners of the loading units have determined that theycan’t use them on their land but they are transferable and can be sold.It is in the interest of the sewer fund to buy these back and get themoff the market all in a batch. We took care of a few other items and then considered a request toorder in boulevard improvements at 401 and 417 Rollins. Back in 1986there was a project that put in curbs on this block. The public worksdepartment put in topsoil and seed in the boulevard. The property wasowned by then city council president Al Sampson and he ordered thepublic works director Steve King to take out the topsoil and put in roadbase to turn it back into a parking lot in violation of city ordinance. It’sbeen that way since. Over the years the neighbors have complained on