District 5 Advisory Board

Page |1 District V Advisory Board Minutes April 1, 2019 www.wichita.gov The District V Advisory Board meeting was held at 6:30 p.m. at Fire Station #21, located at 2110 N. 135th St. W., Wichita, KS 67235. ATTENDANCE Members Present Staff Present Nancy Duling Capt. Ken Ast, Wichita Fire Department Jose Gutierrez Officer Mike Johnson, Wichita Police JV Johnston Department Rachel Murphy-Thomas Reggie Davidson, Park & Recreation Roman Rodriguez Department Ben Kittrell Tracie Partridge, Senior Librarian Jill Kerschen Philip Zevenbergen, Associate Planner, MAPD Angela Breer Gary Janzen, Public Works and Utilities Troy Palmer Cory Buchta, Community Services Trevor Kurth Representative Alissa Unruh Trey Rios, Youth Member Guests Council Member Bryan Frye Carolyn Gaughan Marylin M. Sharp Members Absent Alan Kailer Gary Krenek Tonya Krenek Geraldine Falkenberg ORDER OF BUSINESS Call to Order: The meeting was called to order by Bryan Frye Approval of April 1, 2019 Agenda: Motion PASSED 10-0-0 Approval of Minutes from March 4, 2019: Motion PASSED 10-0-0 PUBLIC AGENDA This portion of the agenda provides an opportunity for citizens to present issues that are not part of the regular agenda for the meeting. There is a five minute time limit for each speaker. 1. Scheduled Items None 2. Off-agenda Items Any individual present that did not request to speak on the public agenda prior to the meeting may speak at this time: Carolyn Gaughan 1232 N Shefford – Executive VP of Kanas Academy of Family Physicians – representing Tobacco Free Wichita. Initiative regarding tobacco free parks and trails. Would like an ordinance to prohibit use of tobacco on park properties – includes cigarettes, e-cigs, smokeless cigars, and more. Bad for people, bad for pets. Signal to young people that we care about people and pets. Tobacco free, not just smoke free. I’m a walker. Everyone who likes to enjoy the parks would benefit from a tobacco free environment. Showed visual aid: Red flag at one park in each district. Each red flag showed a piece of tobacco related litter at the park. 1  Page |2 Q (DAB) –Would this apply to golf courses? A – I do not know. Recommended Action: Receive and file BOARD AGENDA 3. Updates, Issues and Reports Baseball – Passed unanimously. Phase 2 of stadium build. Next phase about $24mill. $2 mill under budget right now. New renderings will show artistic flair that make it more unique. Passed union FOP contract with law enforcement. 3 year deal. Merit increase and performance increase. Keeps it an attractive pay scale to continue to recruit quality officers. We have 60 more police personnel on the force right now than this time last year. We’ve added new positions. Made annual trip to DC. Met with electeds – Roberts, Moran, Marshall. Met with several agencies to get our fair share of federal dollars. We’ve seen some dollars come to Wichita that we haven’t seen before. Last week had a workshop on public art. Starting to dedicate 1% of capital projects to art and design at the beginning of the project instead of an afterthought. Above ground projects. Like public fire stations, police stations, libraries, etc. Other cities our size have been doing it for a while. Plan ahead so as we get to these 1% of entire CIP dedicated to aesthetic design, art. Trying to fine tune how that ordinance would work. We’d like your feedback on that. STAFF REPORTS 4. Fire Department Report Captain Ken Ast reported:  Fire invest unit – 3 fire alarms in D 5 31 service. 199 medical, total 233 incidents. No location on fire or loss or dates.  News to share – April burn ban.  Citizen fire academy – starts Thursday.  Station 21 – firefighter that had brain cancer, he’s been released for full duty.  Capt Pavelski got promoted to battalion chief job downtown.  Communication Command vehicle went to scout ranch last week. Was able to hear all communications from here 96 miles away. Q (DAB) – The burn ban is happening? A – Yes it is. Q (DAB) – What is the reason for that? A – It’s usually so dry. Also for the ozone. We get a fine when we exceed certain limits. Some of these things are out of our control. This is why we do those things. 5. Community Police Report Officer Mike Johnson reported:  Burglary to residence is down.  Auto theft has been up.  Larceny has decreased.  Close your garage door when you do yard work. It’s very easy for people to steal from your open garage.  Don’t leave purses or bags in your vehicle – especially when you’re getting gas. 6. Park & Recreation Department Report Reggie Davidson reported:  Busy planning for summer camps. 2  Page |3  Different approach this year. Using a lot of social media to speak with parents about programs. Rewarded people who signed dup early with a free week of summer camp. Already doubled registration from this time last year.  Licensed child care facility – requires FBI fingerprints and background checks on everyone involved with summer camps.  Camps start May 28  Renovations at several facilities – Watson park concession stand.  Pawnee Prairie 27th of April – grand opening.  Refresh to website to make it more user friendly. Take a look and give us some feedback. 7. Wichita Public Library Report Tracie Partridge reported:  Technology Impact Survey goes through April 19 – purpose to find out if libraries are meeting your technology needs – but it is currently not working because it is having technical difficulties. Check back on our website.  Advanced Learning Library at 1pm, combined Library Board/City Council workshop. Purpose is to look at a recommendation for a master plan for branches. Open to the public.  Story time ends this week. It will start again the week of June 3rd.  Spring gardening series. Started in March. Going through April 18. Rockwell on Tuesday, Evergreen on Thursday. Basic Tomato Gardening this week, Planning Your Successful Vegetable Garden next week. Perennials after that.  Harvey Girls presentation Saturday, April 06  Wednesday, April 10 – Library Giving Day. People are able to make donations to Wichita Public Library Foundation. Money is used to support the library. We received $1,000 to purchase children graphic novels and fiction books.  Saturday, April 27 – book sale from 10 a.m. – 5 p.m. at Advanced Learning Library.  Reader’s Theater, Batman’s 80th Birthday. History of Batman.  Teen volunteer program. Still accepting applications. Have to be entering grades 8-12 in the fall. One, 2-hour shift a week. Program runs May 28th through July 26th. Volunteers will run the reading incentive programs. Sign kids up and distribute prizes. Q (Public) – Will there be additional parking at the Advanced Learning Library? A (CM Frye) – There will be. It’s taking a while to get it going, but there will be. 8. Public Works & Utilities Report Gary Janzen shared the following:  Winding down pavement preservation project.  City Council approved 2019 plan. Next month I’ll give you a map with a plan for D5 on that.  Hoover Bike Path – presenting that project to city council tomorrow to get approval for design concept. Bike and Ped Board approved it unanimously. There’s a path that’s been built near there, we need to connect it down to Sedgwick County Park. Needs a traffic signal at Zoo and Hoover.  Winding down design for improvements on 13th from Cowskin Creek to 135th. Flood waters cross 13th street in that area. We have a plan in place to reduce the amount of water that goes over roads in that area. Trying to make a deal with a property owner to get work started.  29th and Maize intersection under design. Trying to get funding moved up.  Paving of Wheatland. Developer agreed to take on additional cost. Came in under budget and is under construction now. Q (CM Frye) – Did the neighborhood to the west decide to pave as well? A – They did not. 3  Page |4 Q (DAB) – Is the easement for 13th on the north side of 13th? A – It is. Q (Public) – Does that include the intersection at 135th. A – Yes, we are planning on expanding and improving that intersection. Action Taken: Motion made to receive and file all Staff Reports. Motion PASSED 11-0-0. NEW BUSINESS 9. Central and I-235 Gary Janzen, presented an update on the project. September of 2018 put up traffic counters. Right now there is a right turn lane at Gilda. You can make a right on red. You would think from a practical standpoint most people would want to do that. Concern from property owners that people are trying to cut through. I don’t think it’s out of the question people in Quik Trip are coming down and cutting through. There’s little we can do to stop it. We have some signs we think might deter this. These counts are still inconclusive. There’s just no way to tell if people are cutting through. Numbers might suggest people are cutting through on Eisenhower. Residential areas, you can figure out an average of 10 trips per day – based on national statistics. Over the course of a week. South bound on Gilda – if you eliminate that, the trip originations equals out to the averages for this neighborhood. That does not mean there isn’t cut through. We could put cameras out, but that’s a huge cost. Even if we see it happening, it’s a challenge to deal with it. Can we enforce it in court? These are streets people are allowed to drive on. We still do everything we can to limit that. Showed comparable neighborhood. The numbers show cut through there. Show the comparables because on any one of those streets, those numbers aren’t far off. There’s a sign. Without enforcement over time, people aren’t going to stop cutting through. Southbound 235 at Central. There was enough concern that cars were cutting through that someone put up a barricade and a sign. We’ve been asked why we don’t do that on Boyd. If we do that, they will all cut down Eisenhower. Traffic counts will go up. If we do that, people who live near Boyd would have to go down Gilda to get home. We want to use a much bigger sign. It is specific to the cause that people can’t cut through. We recommend putting them up on Boyd and Eisenhower. We will still do counts to see if cut throughs decrease. We would ask residents as well. Again, we are not saying there is not cut through traffic, are number show it’s not significant, but we have nothing to prove that. Q (DAB) – Curious to know with traffic counts if you can tell time of day. A – We can and I’ll tell you the counts that we had was a pretty even distribution. We look at the morning, people going to work would cut through. If you look at south bound Boyd, the most counts we had at any one hour was 10 vehicles. At 7am there were 31 going north bound. The most counts we had was 10 and 12 counts at any 1 hour going south. Doesn’t mean that isn’t cut through. People going north bound 3-5 pm. C (DAB) – I’ve been at that intersection at the 5pm hour, and traffic is backed up and you can’t turn right because you can’t get to it. My thought is people would cut through at that time. Q (Public) – Charles Glover – Norman cosmetic studio diagonally across from store. That street, that area, between 235 and the ditch, I have noticed traveling to our store the volume of people that I see quickly cutting across other traffic and creating near accidents is coming out of Quik trip, they’ll get into that middle lane and turn this way. It’s a very very dangerous area of Central. I presume this is a case where the residents in this quadrant are being impacted by a lot of people cutting through their area. I can see a way of making the whole thing easier, some place west of big ditch create a place for people to take a ramp to get onto 235 south before they ever get to this quadrant. The other place is Maple. There is no access off of Maple to get out west. You have a lot of people going right through that neighborhood there. These are things the planning needs to happen to get some access off of Maple or rerouting ramps to avoid these problems. 4  Page |5 A – Access from 235 to Maple and vice versa, it’s been a conversation for years and years. But the way everything was designed there, it’s just not possible. On Central, this planning has been done, it’s just a matter of money. Kellogg and 235 is now done. Final phase rebuild this Central and 235 interchange. Makes more of a diamond interchange. Takes up property and widens things out. It would eliminate possibility to cut through. Planning is done. Concept and design is done. We just need the money to do it. But you bring up a great point. This could be better. It took a lot to get first phase of Kellogg and 235 done so I don’t see this getting done anytime soon. Q (Public – Tonya Krenek – Corner of Boyd and Lender) – Eisenhower and Boyd are both concerns. I don’t have a problem with the signs. I understand the concerns of putting it a one way. I’m not optimistic that won’t change anything. I know your counts show 10-12. I live there and I see it every day. I can count 20-25 cars there. There was a serious accident Gilda and Central. 37 cars cut through when there was an accident. There are numerous wrecks on that intersection. We can always tell when there’s an accident because of the traffic flow. It is horrendous from 3:30 on. It’s terrible in the morning. The counts baffle me. A – I appreciate that. The process we use to count is reliable. We’ve done this twice and counts were similar. C (Public) – The dust is so unbearable. We’ve gone through this with the board. Q (Public) – Paving? A – We’ve got 90 miles of dirt streets in the core of the city. Those streets get paved by petition. The city doesn’t pay to pave them. I know you don’t want to hear that. C (Public) – If all the folks put petition to pave and pay part of it. City of Wichita could pay some. A – City would do it but residents would have to agree to pay for all of it. It can be assessed over 20 years. C (DAB) – It’s actually pretty reasonable with bond rates now. A (Janzen) – I’m not here to try and sell you on that. C (Public) – Not sure if signs make a difference, I hope it does – would appreciate more thought put into something being done at Newell and Gilda. As far as the neighborhood, there are plenty of other access points into the neighborhood. A – When we look at something like that, other people will be upset. I don’t tell you that to tell you no. It’s just a challenge. C (Public) – When they do cut through, they speed on the curve. It’s a race track. – We’ve gone over this with the board several times. I was unaware of the trouble at Newell and Eisenhower. A – I appreciate that. I don’t mind looking at that area again. Q (Public) – Since the ramp comes from 13th onto 235 and traffic onto 235 exiting on Central there is a crossover. Has there been any increase in accidents where those two points meet? A (DAB) – I actually use that quite a bit and since that’s such a long span, I haven’t noticed anything. A (Janzen) – We’ve kept an eye on that as well and we haven’t noticed anything. Q (Frye) – How quickly can you get those signs up? A – About two weeks. Q (Frye) – And after you get those up, can you take a count? A – Yes. Q (DAB) – also, she said she put the cones up – is there something more permanent? A- I’m going to look at us doing something there. It’s a matter of resources. If nobody is ticketing cars for parking there, then they’ll park there. Q (Public) – Is Quik Trip supposed to be taking care of that property there? I tried to talk to them and they said it’s not their property. A – I can look into that. 5  Page |6 Action Taken: Motion made to Receive and File. MOTION PASSED 11-0-0 10. ZON2019-00006 Philip Zevenbergen, Metropolitan Area Planning Department, on an application to amend Protective Overlay #300 on the subject property zoned NR Neighborhood Retail. The subject property is located at 7330 West Maple Street, on the north side of West Maple Street, approximately 415 feet west of South Ridge Road. With this request, the applicant would like to amend the Protective Overlay to allow for limited restaurant use. MAPC has already approved this. But there is still time for a protest petition before it goes to City Council. Extensive case history. Retail building was built in 2016. Has 1 or 2 tenants in it right now. All conditions have been met for fencing and landscaping. Owner wanted to purchase house at north of property and owner wanted to put in huge sit-down restaurant. That was shot down. What new owners want to do is within allowed use. Planning approved language to not allow frying operation. Q (DAB) – What type of restaurant? Levi Bon – Kaw Valley Engineering – Agent – 1800 square foot restaurant – edible cookie dough, ice cream, one convection oven for baked goods. Not fast food. Just looking to fill out entirety of retail restaurant. We think it would be a good use. C (DAB) – Would love to hear from tenant what kinds of desserts they will sell. A (Cliff Bragg) – I’m the owner of Milkfloat in Delano. Doing new concept. Much smaller. Edible and safe to eat cookie dough. Super premium ice cream. Milk shakes and cake batter cookies. Old fashioned brownies. Good for kids. Add tremendous value. Great place for families. Q (DAB) – Have you heard any concerns from anyone in the area? A (Zevenbergen) – Got a phone call from HOA board – we work with Kaw Valley quite a bit – had wrong applicant on notice that went out. They thought a bar was going in. Haven’t heard back when I told them it was an ice cream store. It’s been really quiet considering the case history. Petition period goes through April 4th. Individuals can apply or get petitions from the City Clerk or from our website. It could affect how city council can decide this. Action Taken: Motion made by Roman Rodriguez to ACCEPT the application with the Staff Report conditions. Seconded by DAB member. Motion PASSED 11-0-0. Meeting was adjourned at 7:51 p.m. The next DAB V meeting will be held at 6:30 p.m., Monday, May 6, 2019, Fire Station #21, 2110 N. 135th St., Wichita, KS 67235. 6