I’ve never seen anything like this before, and I’ve been watching Council meetings since the mid-1990s. And I’m sure, I can’t do this justice.
#40 – TOCORA BIKE LANE
TESTIMONY BY REGISTRANTS
3 people spoke against and gave the following reasons for their opposition. They said there is no need, its a path through green space they want preserved, Research Park promised a buffer zone, there are already bike lanes in the area down Tokay, already bike paths into the park, Tokay being resurfaced at the moment and since it is a bike route they should put the lanes there, they say Research Park should pay for it, they said it was a safety issue, that neighbors signed petition, immediate neighbor says its a safety issue because it will increase traffic that will produce litter, it will attract dogs and the things they leave behind, that there have been cars congregating in the parking lots already and that they are concerned about future illegal behavior. One neighbor wants a fence built.
3 people spoke in support and reasons cited for support include that it is needed, people who work in Research Park (at least 7 people in one building) want it, one person shoveled a path for 5 years in the winter and people are already using it, bikes shouldn’t ride on sidewalks because bike are too fast and not compatible with pedestrians, when no designated route people do cut across the yard and cause other problems, this is consistent with city plans, its hard to get to UW Research Park, they say it is a safety issue, no good bike route, especially at night when going east. You can’t just simply go around and alternative options include going the wrong way on Tokay or using Whitney Way (6 lanes, no bike lane), cut through parking lot where drivers are not looking for bikes, ride on sidewalk, bike across a greenway if not muddy or snowy and have a bike that can handle terrain. They say this will prevent people from driving, doesn’t cost that much compared to what we spend on large projects in the city and its good economic development because these amenities to bike and walk to work are good to attract businesses. Midvale Heights Community Association is in support and they read letter they submitted in support.
[Note, there were 3 in favor, 3 against. 50/50 support and opposition.]
QUESTIONS OF REGISTRANTS
Kerr asked Community Association representative if this was in their area. She confirmed it is.
[And now, the fun begins, just so you know, this next diatribe goes on for over 40 minutes according to folks who timed it . . . ]
Pham-Remmele asks Denise Lamb, President of the neighborhood association about the letter she read and if she is president. Um, yes, she is. She asks how long she lived there, Lamb says 7 years. Pham-Remmele asks how many people are members of the group. Lamb says there are approximately 1700 households in neighborhood and about 3 -4K people, but 600 – 700 households or 1400 people are members of the group. Pham-Remmele asks he why she doesn’t have exact numbers. Lamb explains the treasurer has those records but they are not here. Pham-Remmele points out it is part of the neighborhood plan, Lamb explains that Midvale Heights and Westmoorland are doing a joint neighborhood plan and that they are working on better access from neighborhood to Research Park and Westgate shopping center. Pham Remmele confirms that the plan hasn’t been approved. Lamb agrees.
Pham-Remmele asks Mr. Lincoln about the petition. He says he walked the neighborhood. Pham-Remmele clarifies that the signatures are from “real people” living there. He says there are 50 plus signatures from “real people” and they want to preserve the buffer zone. She asks him again to verify that these are real people because she says she cannot read the signatures. He offers to print the names from the petition for her. He explains again that he went door to door and talked to people. He says the survey was conducted 2 months ago. Pham-Remmele asks him if he knocked on a specific door of a 90 year old lady. He says he knocked on every door, not every one answered. She asks about another person who opposed and he says that they have several elderly in their neighborhood but he doesn’t know if he talked to a specific person. [I don’t think anyone doubted this guy and I have no idea why she was grilling him about the petition. And apparently, she had asked the same question about the elderly lady at the Board of Public Works and he gave the same answers. This is the same tactic she used when questioning another person who circulated a petition. I can’t tell why she is doing it except to point out that she got phone calls from people in her district and she wants the council to know that? Her questions just didn’t seem to have a point and didn’t make a difference to any of the alders, as they had no reason and no one alledged that there was anything wrong with the petition.]
Pham-Remmele asks Mrs. Lincoln about the covenant. Lincoln explains there is a 100 foot buffer zone. Pham-Remmele asks if she has the paper. Lincoln says she assumes that the Council would have that. Lincoln explained she has cancer and she is staying at home often and that she hasn’t seen anyone wanting to use the bike path. Pham-Remmele asks if she has interaction with employees or staff of UW Research Park. Lincoln says she knows 15 people who work there, and the ones that she has contact has not been positive. Lincoln says she chases them out of her yard and that they pick her flowers and they create excessive noise. Lincoln talked about a stolen bike in the neighborhood and said she just let it lay there cuz she didn’t want to call the police. [I think her point was that if people don’t respect her property, she won’t respect theirs.] She also talks about the noise created by the fans on the buildings at Research Park needing to be quieter. [Somehow, I’m having a hard time thinking about the people who work at University Research Park as noise making hooligans running around the neighborhood and making people feel unsafe.]
Pham-Remmele asks “Mr. Cieslewicz” [she purposefully mispronounces his name and doesn’t call him Mayor, which she often does. She used to address him differently, the mispronunciation and lack of using his title is new.] what the procedure is. Says she doesn’t know the procedure but she wants to ask questions of staff. [Seriously, after being on the council for two years, she doesn’t understand the procedure? She was a Fulbright scholar, right?]
There are no other questions for registrants, so the Mayor allows her to ask questions of staff.
QUESTIONS OF STAFF
Pham-Remmele says this is a new issue to her [NEW? As of when?], and she doesn’t have the history, so she asks what a plat restriction is. Tony Fernandez from City Engineering explains that the covenant is between the developer and the future users of the property. [The future users of University Park, not the neighbors of University Park.] Fernandez says a bike path in a landscaped zone is not unusual. He says that there will need to be an exception to the covenant for the bike path. Fernandez clarifies that it is an agreement between the Research Park and the new owners in the park that would buy parcels, not with the neighborhood or adjacent property owners.
Pham-Remmele asks who can change the restriction and staff explains that Research Park and the future owners of the parcels can make the change. Staff says the UW needs to make two changes to make the bike path happen, the Research Park will provide the easement to the city to build the path, but is in support. Second they need to amend the covenant and the restriction on the plat will need to be lifted. Since the city required the restriction in the 80’s to prevent a street, there should be no problem lifting the restriction on the plat. Fernandez explains that the restriction was there to prevent a road from being built and cars driving on it. He says since then state law changed and that now bikes are considered vehicles which was not the intent of the original restriction and that the city would like it to be restricted to cars. He says the new plat restriction would limit the restriction to “motor vehicles”.
Pham-Remmele asked why the restriction was originally requested [Pay attention, he just explained!] So he explains again.
Pham-Remmele asks if the 3rd parties have any rights in the convenant. Engineering staff is struggling to understand her likely because they have already explained. Mayor says it is a question for attorney not engineer. Pham-Remmele says she doesn’t understand who to ask [again, after two years??] Roger Allen is sitting in for the City Attorney and explains that that the two parties can change the agreement and while the interests of third parties might be impacted and even tho they benefitted, they don’t have any rights to enforce the covenant because they aren’t parties to the agreement. [Seems pretty basic and seems to be what Fernandez explained earlier] Allen or the Mayor even remark that in this case the engineers and lawyers agree. Pham-Remmele says that clears that up for her. [But, apparently, it doesn’t, because she asks the same question again!]
Pham-Remmele asks again about the covenant that can be unilaterally changed by one party. Allen again explains that both parties to the covenant have to agree.
Pham-Remmele asks if she should put “her dirty hand” in there to change the agreement. She rambles and I have no idea what she says. She repeats herself. Urges people to just vote. [But she goes on!]
Pham-Remmele asks if they are violating any laws and if they are “doing the right thing”. City attorney explains that there are no violations of the law. He says it is a policy decision about if they are “doing the right thing”.
Pham-Remmele seems confused and states/asks how doing the legal thing is not the right thing. [Silence, so she goes on.]
Pham-Remmele asks about if there are any restrictions on plat to keep it green space. Staff explain the only restriction on the plat is about the vehicular traffic. She asks again about the buffer zone and asks if University Research Park could just build in the buffer zone if they wanted. Fernandez says he thinks so, but he isn’t an attorney. So Allen agrees.
Pham-Remmele jumps back in and asks if the covenant can be changed, why would they enter it in the first place. Allen goes back and describes the planning process to Pham-Remmele and the checks and balances that are in place. He explains the difference between a covenant and a plat restriction. He explains that covenants are private law, not a matter for the council.
[At this point many alders are out of the seats, talking to each other, making jokes, including some suggesting that she should, in her own words, “Quit hogging the microphone”]
Pham-Remmele has gone into discussion instead of asking staff questions and is rambling about history, and tries to get the answer she wants. She tries to compare this buffer zone covenant to the peace treaties with the Native Americans. And asks Allen to opine. Allen says he could talk all night about the atrocities that Native Americans have suffered but they were a direct party to the contract, and the neighbors here are not. [It was beautifully delivered, I wish I had captured it better.]
Pham-Remmele says she inherited this issue and she asks if this is the first opposition to this bike path. Fernandez says can’t speak authoritatively, says that this project was not proposed in the last 9 years he was here, has heard that neighborhood folks have raised that issue, but he is not aware of any similar proposals in the past.
Pham-Remmele asks if anyone one here older than Mr. Fernandez? [How does one respond to that? Mayor makes some jokes to lighten the growing tension in the room and let the staff off the hook. The staff must have been very uncomfortable by this point, trying to answer questions that largely were answered or made no sense.]
Pham-Remmele says that she was told that this was rejected and rejected again and that it started when Bauman was in office. And Bauman did not support it then because controversial. She asks anyone here to “please have mercy on me”. [At this point, council has completely lost all decorum, and despite my post yesterday, I don’t blame them one bit. At least 4 or 5 have been standing in the back of the room joking with the reporters and pointing out how inappropriate this is. And slowly . . . people are disappearing from the room. I think they leave to go to the restroom and just don’t come back.]
As Pham-Remmele is asking for mercy, the people in opposition are visibly anxious to answer her questions.
BACK TO QUESTIONS OF REGISTRANTS
Mayor suggests that someone from the neighborhood try to answer the history question. Lamb says that Bauman surveyed people in the neighborhood and 60% supported, 32% opposed and they didn’t move forward. [People are just laughing out loud now, barely concealing their frustration and openly joking about how bad this all is. 5 or 6 alders are wandering around the room, probably afraid to be caught on camera. As Lamb is explaining the survey, Pham-Remmele exclaims “Bauman was an Alder?”. And the room is just nutty at this point.] Mrs. Lincoln also comes up to the mic and explains that 60% were against it and that she lived there when the survey was done. [I suspect she said more, but at this point, it was very hard to pay attention with all the stuff going on in the room. At this point, I was losing my ability to focus.]
BACK TO QUESTIONS OF STAFF
At this point, various staff people are explaining [again!] history to Pham-Remmele, what the Research Park position is and various other items . . .and even they are saying that they already said these things at this meeting. They explain again that they didn’t want a STREET and that is why there were these restrictions. Staff explained bike paths depend upon willingness of property owners, Research Park wasn’t interested back then, they are now and the intent remains the same, no motor vehicle access, city was always was interested in bike path.
Pham-Remmele asks about traffic calming surveys. [Why? I have no freaking clue as it has nothing to do with this.] She asks how many people are surveyed. Engineer explains the Neighborhood Traffic Management Program (NTMP) process but says that they did much more than the traffic calming process and surveyed 500 people in the area, had a public hearing at Board of Public Works and 500 notices went out for that meeting as well. He explains that they felt they did extensive outreach. Staff explains that they had an unusual level of public involvement on what the staff sees as a relatively “benign” project.
Pham-Remmele asks if motorized vehicle restrictions will limit motorized wheel chairs. [Seriously, she did.] They explain that motorized wheel chairs are considered pedestrians.
Pham-Remmele asks if electric vehicles would be allowed. Staff explained no, that is a motor vehicle. [I don’t know how they did it, but major props to Phillips, Allen, Fernandez and Arthur Ross who joined the fray somewhere along the way for answering these questions. They deserve additional pay for going above and beyond and enduring and handling this with the professionalism that many others in the room could not maintain!]
Pham-Remmele says she has sat through public hearings, says this “is her worst nightmare” [seriously, worse than what is going on in her “emerging neighborhood”?]. Asks what is going on. Asks why are people impacted not happy, says she wants to represent people and be a good neighbor and a friend. She rambles about what to do about when something gets volitile, what does she expect as a result if they keep moving in a negative route, and on and on and I’m sure I missed something here.
Pham-Remmele now, somewhat rhetorically asks/says that says she was told this project was a “no go” if the alder doesn’t support it. If Bauman didn’t support it, then if she doesn’t support it, shouldn’t the project stop? She asks if that privilege is still there. She asks if in the end if the alder doesn’t support the project, is it a no go – please tell her.
No one quite knows what to say, so the Mayor bravely steps in. He explains that the 20 alders vote and they are the ones that decide.
[At this point, I’m told that there are alders gathering in the hallway, actively trying to break quorum. Pham-Remmele marches on!]
Pham-Remmele asks if she should trust the person who told her that if she opposed it, the project was dead.
Mayor again explains that is not a formal rule.
Pham-Remmele asks how she got that information from staff if she can’t rely on it. She says she was assured that was the case and this is a “very scary thing”.
[And with that, Pham-Remmele finally cedes the microphone, close to an hour later.]
Mayor asks if there are any other questions
King moves to call the question.
The Mayor and Clerk are realizing that is a 2/3 vote and there likely isn’t even quorum in the room.
Kerr goes out in the hallway and brings back in some of the “lost” alders. They get quorum in the room.
Mayor explains that the vote to call the question is not debatable
ROLL CALL
AYE: Bidar-Sielaff, Clausius, Cnare, Compton, Eagon, Kerr, King, Maniaci, Palm, Schmidt, Skidmore
NO: Clear, Pham-Remmele [Oh, but wait, there is more! She asks, yet again, what it means to call the question. And the Mayor explains, AGAIN, what it means.] Rhodes-Conway, Rummel, Sanborn, Schumacher, Solomon, Verveer.
ABSENT: Bruer
The motion fails, they needed 14 votes and only had 11. [Several alders asked me what I would have done. On principle, I never voted to call the question if someone had something that they wanted to say. But I gotta tell you, I don’t blame the Aye votes one bit and that would have been quite the test to have to vote on that!]
Palm asks Fernandez about the public process and when this all started. Staff explains that it started in 2008, explains the process and public input and how everyone was involved. [I apologize, I stepped out of the room at this point for a moment.]
DISCUSSION
Pham-Remmele says she knows this is such a small thing and it has escalated to a huge thing and pits neighbor against neighbor and makes them feel like they are being trampled over. She asks [again rhetorically] if we are working in good faith and trying to improve life for people in the city, or are we just considering special interest group [UW Research Park and the business community?] or people with power or access against people who don’t have that advantage. She says [ok, this is going to get rambly, but its the best I can do.] maybe I am not talking legal or political, when I took the job because I respond to the appeal to be the voice and to listen so it is very difficult for her to see the voice and pretend that it doesn’t exist. She doesn’t know how much of a benefit to the city there will be and as she said before, she doesn’t live there, she doesn’t have to put up with what is happening there but has responsibility to be honest and faithful to the people there who asked her to represent them. She asks people, when we run for office, we are not facing the real people. Heard about alder courtesy, other alders step aside and don’t get in the way, but we pick and choose when we want to get in and do things, this might be great benefits or progress, she knows people have different priorities, this is a lowly office where we work face to face with the people who choose us to speak for them. She implores them to do the right thing. Apologizes for taking so much time. Speak from your heart.
[In all that, she never asked for a referral to continue to working on the issue, suggested an alternative solution, asked the other council members to vote against it, said she was going to vote against it, acknowledged that the neighborhood was split, acknowledged that the public testimony was evenly split, acknowledged the issues with those who live closest to a project being opposed (classic NIMBY) and the broader neighborhood and community being in favor. Or many, many other things an alder probably would have done.]
Motion to is to adopt.
ROLL CALL
ABSENT: Bruer
NO: Pham-Remmele
AYE: Everyone else.
At this point, its 8:55.
[After the meeting, people were all standing around talking about the train wreck and snarking about it and the Mayor walks up to me and says “I think we finally found something we can agree on.” I could do nothing but laugh and appreciate his comment.]
I think before Dean Mosiman wrote that fluff piece on Pham-Remmele, he and his editors should have been forced to sit through one of these meetings. And maybe her supporters! I think the piece would have turned out quite differently.
I should have mentioned, this project was in Pham-Remmele’s district!
