Loading...
HomeMy WebLinkAboutCity Council Committees - Public Works/Planning - 03/01/1999 (3) PUBLIC WORKS/PLANNING COMMITTEE MINUTES March 1, 1999 • COMMITTEE MEMBERS PRESENT: Chair Tim Clark, Tom Brotherton,Rico Yingling STAFF PRESENT: Bill Wolinski, Phil Noppe, Tom Brubaker, Don Wickstrom, Gary Gill, Dea Drake, Dena Laurent, Jackie Bicknell, Paul Scott PUBLIC PRESENT: Elsy & Jim Rust, John Santana, Merry Hayes UPRR Toys `R Us Spur Franchise—Ordinance Tom Brubaker, Assistant City Attorney, presented the Union Pacific Railroad Toys `R Us Spur Franchise which relates to the 196`h Street Corridor improvement project. An existing railroad track spur which crosses 1961h Street serves the Toys `R Us warehouse, the only customer on the south of 196`h Street. An extensive dispute resolution process with Toys `R Us and Union Pacific Railroad on this spur franchise has been ongoing in trying to get UPRR to fulfill its obligation to realign the spur to the same grade of the new road alignment. Part of resolving the dispute is to get a new spur franchise ordnance, which would be a 20 year franchise for UPRR to operate their spur track across 1961h Street. Mr. Brubaker asked for Committee approval and then forwarding to Council for in i troduction at the March 16`' meeting. Under state law an ordinance cannot be passed within 5 days of its introduction. Committee Member Tom Brotherton moved that the Public Works/Planning Committee recommend introduction and passage of a franchise ordinance that would allow the Union Pacific Railroad Company to construct, maintain, and operate a railroad spur track upon and across South 196`h Street. The motion was seconded and carried 3-0. • TCI Negotiations with Seattle—Report Tom Brubaker said TCI is regulated primarily by the Federal Communications Commission,however the City of Kent has gained some regulatory authority over TCI because TCI uses its streets in order to string their cable throughout the City to service various customers. TCI came to the City about six years ago for a franchise to operate within its streets. When that franchise was established, the City imposed some contractual terms on the issuance of the franchise which gave limited authority to the City that grows directly out of the use of the streets. The City cannot regulate except on the very most basic level of service. Chair Tim Clark asked if it would be appropriate for customers to forward any complaints to the City. Mr. Brubaker said it would be appropriate to let the City know any time there is a problem with TCI within the limits of the City of Kent. The City has a consultant, Cable Communications Consultants, that handles service complaints. Customers may call them at 253-833-8380 to file a complaint. If the response is not satisfactory from the consultant, they may call the City of Kent's Information Services or the City Attorney's Office. The City of Seattle was expecting by January 1, 1999 to have TCI complete an extensive rebuild of its infrastructure cable system within the City of Seattle. The purpose of this rebuild was to provide expanded levels of service, more channels, improved Internet access, and fiber optic capability. TCI announced late last year that they weren't going to make that deadline, and that precipitated controversy between the City of Seattle and TCL A lot of issues were put on the table and discussed and out of that grew a series of three ordinances and one resolution issued by the City of Seattle,most • of which have been passed. These resolutions and new agreements with TCI were passed as a condition extending TCI's time to complete their fiber optic rebuild which is now due to occur in nine months on October 1, 1999. The Rebuild Ordinance grants TCI the extension of nine months to finalize the rebuild with an additional two months to activate those customers who are served. The activation will be done on a rolling window of 11% of their customer base per month to stay on track. Another ordinance authorizes the transfer of control of TCI to AT&T, as TCI was recently purchased by AT&T. The third ordinance is called the Cable Customer Bill of Rights, which establishes stricter standards on customer compliance and customer service requirements for TCI. That bill has not yet been passed by the City of Seattle. The Resolution is to study telecommunications infrastructure options as people have complained to the City of Seattle, asking them to get a new provider or go into business on their own. The study will analyze various options available and is due by September 1, 1999. Most likely Seattle is not looking to terminate its franchise with TCI. TCI is paying Seattle $110,000 for their failure to handle customer service as promised in their franchise agreement. They've also agreed to a $10,000 per month penalty for failing to get the rebuild done on time and have agreed to give their customers rebates of$5.00 or more per month for those not receiving the new level of service. Tim Clark asked if it would be possible to duplicate the Cable Customer Bill of Rights Ordinance on a minor scale in the City of Kent. Mr. Brubaker said it may be possible. However, TCI was in breach of its franchise with the City of Seattle which basically acted as a reopener for their existing franchise agreement and gave Seattle an opportunity to tighten down some of their franchise language and expectations and understandings. Kent does not have a situation right now where TCI is in breach with the City so there is not the angle to reopen the franchise. They do have an upcoming deadline on August 1, 1999 to provide the City with a fiber optic buildout and to provide a public access studio. If they fail either of those measures, they will be in breach. At that time the City can broker out a • resolution to that breach, possibly instituting something similar to Seattle's proposed ordinance. It's also possible TCI may be willing to enter into whatever bill of rights is approved by Seattle as a good faith effort to the community. Tim Clark asked Tor a motion to direct administration to explore the possibility of creating a TCI Bill of Rights similar to Seattle's franchise. Tom Brotherton so moved and the motion was seconded and carried 3-0. Mr. Clark clarified that the impact behind that direction would be to look at the possibilities for the August deadline and what Seattle has come up with in terms of providing better service for the consumers here in this local area. Meridian Stormwater CIP Don Wickstrom, Director of Public Works, said the City is unique in terms of its rate structure for its drainage utility. The City has a basic rate which covers maintenance and operation costs and then on top of that, if a basin needs specific capital improvements, that basin is charged for those improvements. When the Meridian Valley was annexed, that added six square miles to the City. The County rate was dropped, which was $7.09 per month or$85 per year, and the City established the standard maintenance and operation rate at $2.36 per month. That rate just covers those costs. In order to do a capital improvement, an analysis of the basin was needed. The Public Works Department had to do significant studies to learn what the problems were. The studies were done and it was determined that about $10,000,000 worth of improvements in that basin were needed. Some improvements have citywide significance and the costs should be distributed • citywide,but the bulk are basin specific. Tim Clark asked what the timeline was. Mr. Wickstrom replied that this CIP is strictly an introduction at this time. A cashflow would fund up to six years and then the rest of the money would come from a bond. Rico Yingling asked what the general life expectancy of the drainage improvements would be. Mr. Wickstrom said the design is for a 100 year storm event,but the life of each individual improvement would be 30-40 years. Tom Brotherton stated that some of the costs were due to overt actions by King County before the area was annexed into the City and asked if there was a plan to seek cost recovery from the County. Don S Wickstrom said that as part of the annexation, two agreements were executed with the County. The County said they would continue to build 240`h and pay their share and not protest the annexation. As part of the 240`h street construction, they've done major culvert work crossing 240`h at the shoppingh center at the northeast corner of 132"d and 240`h. Subsequent to that, when they were building 208` they wanted the City to reimburse them for cost expenses after annexation. They committed to paying for half of the flume replacement on 256`h Street past Soos Creek. That's about a thousand feet of flume and is a high priority regarding the fisheries issue. At that time the County said that if the City wanted to see capacity improvements on streets within its PAA, it had to commit to paying the County back upon annexing it. They have subsequently changed that policy and Kent would no longer have to pay them back after annexation. Bill Wolinski, Public Works Environmental Engineer Supervisor, gave an overview of the Capital Improvement Program for the Meridian area. When the City annexed the Meridian Valley area and the Meridian area, it added 6.6 square miles to the City. The watershed is in excess of 8.2 square miles of sub-tributary of the Soos Creek Watershed. The Soos Creek Watershed is considered one of the premier sub-watersheds in the lower Green River system in the standpoint of a fisheries resource. It is heavily utilized by the Chinook and Coho salmon, even though it's one of the heavily developed areas in King County. Big Soos Creek is the principle stream of the whole system and most is not within the City limits itself. There are three major tributaries—the Meridian Valley creek, which originates outside the City limits and flows through the Meridian Valley Golf Course and down to 256`h Street and enters the Big Soos Creek system at the Kent/Covington boundary. Another major sub-drainage • area is called the Lake Meridian sub-drainage area and about half of that area is the lake itself. It outlets and crosses Kent Kangley Road and flows down 152"d and enters into the Big Soos Creek system at the Kent/Black Diamond Road outside the City limits. There is a proposed alternative realignment of that system which would take the outflow in an easterly direction and connect into the Big Soos Creek. The other major sub-drainage is the Soosette Creek drainage area that crosses Kent Kangley Road and is a large wetland system associated with the south part of Kent Kangley. It goes through the Springwood Apartments and ultimately is confluent to the Big Soos Creek outside the City limits to the south. When the City inherited this area as part of the Meridian annexation, all available information was researched that had been developed by the County. This entire area was managed by King County's Surface Water Management program. Before staff undertook any additional work, they evaluated the available information and as a result determined that there was insufficient information available on the sub-watershed to base a comprehensive CIP. The County had done some studies in the area but they weren't comprehensive enough. The need was identified to do a comprehensive modeling to characterize the flows under existing and future conditions and also the capacity of the stream channels and the associated culverts. The scope of the study was to stay mainly within the main stream systems. There are a lot of sub-drainage areas in the individual developments,but staff didn't have the resources for that level of investigation. So a fairly comprehensive assessment of the entire watershed was undertaken by looking at the capacities and adequacies of the culverts based on the existing and future • conditions. Because the area is considered a high fisheries resource, there is an upcoming federal action under the Endangered Species Act to list the Puget Sound Chinook as endangered. Staff is very sensitive to characterize existing conditions of the fisheries habitat of the entire sub-watershed in determining whether or not there would be any problems that would have to be addressed under the Endangered Species Act and also to look at any potential problems associated with fish passage. i Tom Brotherton remarked that an area immediately east of the Lake Meridian watershed between the watershed and the Big Soos Creek was within the City boundaries but not included in the study. Mr. Wolinski said the area actually drains directly into the Big Soos Creek system. Mr. Brotherton stipulated that there was some development potential along 256`h Street even though most of that area is within the King County Parks system and would probably not be sold. Mr. Wolinski said that area wasn't included in the hydrologic analysis because the City was looking at main stream drainage and the drainage from this area drains into the Big Soos Creek. He said there may be small scale local problems associated with that,but the City has small drainage funding programs set up to address those problems. Mr. Wolinski related that staff undertook the fisheries evaluation of the entire system and characterized any problems because of the extent of development that is taking place. There were problems identified with regard to lack of vegetation along the stream and fish passage. Because of the requirements that are going to be imposed upon the City, the fisheries needs were integrated into the overall CIP for the drainage area. Basically, the results of the study identified numerous culvert deficiencies. Culverts were undersized, inadequately passing existing flows, and there was intersection flooding occurring throughout the entire drainage area. Areas were identified where vegetation was lacking along the streams and there were fish blockage problems. As a result of the problem identification, staff came up with about $10,300,000 in CIP needs throughout the entire watershed. 82% of the $10,300,000 would be associated strictly with flood control needs of the area and about 18%with fisheries needs. With that figure, a funding analysis was done to identify a funding mechanism to implement the program in a reasonable period of time,taking into consideration the City's existing bonding capacity. A six year funding program was identified that i would initially take the rate that is imposed now covering operations and maintenance of$2.36 per month. In January 2000, the rate would be raised to $4.89 per month and one year later in January 2001 it would be raised to $7.25 per month. There is money committed from the general drainage fund and some monies from King County to complete projects that the County had initiated. Tim Clark asked what information was used for prioritization criteria. Bill Wolinski answered that the main thrust was the severity of impact whether or not it would potentially cause any property or safety issues as far as the depth of the water over roadways, and from the fisheries standpoint, limiting conditions which most impacted the fisheries. Several areas within the watershed had actual physical blockages that prevented the fish from utilizing major stretches of the creek. One thing that concerns residences within the Lake Meridian area is the water level within the lake. The Public Works Department is starting to do some improvement in the outlet of the lake by reestablishing the capacity of the channel to convey flows out of the lake. Further into the implementation period, staff will be concurrently evaluating two different long-term options of improving conveyance, one of which would be an alternate route from the lake where a natural stream channel is created that would take a large portion of the flow and connect it into the Big Soos Creek. Another alternative involves improving the conveyance system along 152"d Street and creating an improved channel to alleviate problems. Most of the culverts along 15fd are of inadequate capacity for even minor storms. Work would depend on cost and whether the permitting agencies would allow the construction of a new channel • Another project is along 2561h Street where there is about 1400 feet of concrete channel that runs along the road. This project originated in the County and has been cost shared between the City and the County. The project is being pursued with Federal funding under the Corp of Engineers program and the City has potential funding from the Salmon Bill to bring some money into the project. It is a S: r. highly productive fishery in this Meridian Valley stream system. Any future attempts to widen the road at 2561h would require relocation of the flume, so the County felt in order to be proactive it would take this flume and convert it into a more natural stream channel by building it away from the roadway and connecting into Big Soos Creek. Don Wickstrom said this project is very important to the regional permitting agency of fisheries. The concrete channel is not fish friendly. It has excessively high velocity and the fish have a hard time moving through the channel during the wet season. There are also a lot of potential problems with regard to hot conditions as there's virtually little shading along a major part of the channel and the water temperature warms close to lethal levels for the fish. A lot of small salmon stay in the channel throughout the summer. One series of projects is in the Soosette Creek system which has a series of culverts that are undersized. The channel has been heavily impacted by the removal of vegetation and, in addition to improving the culverts, the Department plans to do some vegetation work along these stream channels. Tom Brotherton remarked about a comment in the hydrologic analysis that said because of lack of data the model itself was calibrated but not verified. He said that means the City is basing a lot of money on an unverified model. Mr. Brotherton asked what could be done to verify some of the key parameters like total system flow, etc. Bill Wolinski replied that staff does have a certain amount of data in some of the watersheds. There were three years of lake level data for Lake Meridian and the County had a gauging station near the confluence of the system near Big Soos Creek. A network of gauges throughout the entire watershed was set up before the onset of wet weather this current season and measurements are being taken to look at the validity of the models. Some of the problems are flooding problems and there are deficiencies with regard to the needs of the conveyance system. The plan is to continue to collect data throughout the implementation period and refine the models and make the best use of all the information available. Phil Noppe, Public Works Department Engineer, said the model simulates the entire hydrologic cycle and there is a calibration stage that is performed to make sure the model accurately simulates the existing conditions. A number of years of calibration data were used for Lake Meridian. When the various parameters are calibrated that represent a hydrologic cycle in one watershed, staff feels they have a pretty good match on simulating hydrologic conditions of the soil types and infiltration rates in the area. One report shows observed lake levels and simulated lake levels and they match quite well, so staff feels confident with the model itself. Mr.Noppe said lake levels, stream flows, and actual flows of water past a certain point are really the only types of data that can be observed which represent calibration data time series. Tim Clark was concerned about impact fees to mitigate new development. Don Wickstrom said there are no impact fees in the drainage areas,but there are some impact fees in the Valley. There were some area charges attached to the first bond issues but subsequent to that there haven't been any system development charges for drainage. Mr. Clark asked if it would be appropriate to explore something for the new development specifically affecting the Soos Creek basin. Mr. Wickstrom said it would be hard to dictate how much revenue would be generated or whether there would be a reduction in the drainage rate. Mr. Clark asked for a motion to direct administration to explore the possibility of mitigation fees to offset some of the development costs. Tom Brotherton so moved and the motion was seconded and carried 3-0. The meeting was adjourned at 4:42 p.m.