District 6 Advisory Board

January 7, 2019 District VI Advisory Board Minutes www.wichita.gov Monday Evergreen Branch Library Jan 7, 2019 2601 N. Arkansas, Wichita, KS 67204 6:30 p.m. Conference Room The District VI Advisory Board meeting was held at 6:30 p.m. at the Evergreen Branch Library conference room, 2601 N. Arkansas, Wichita, KS 67204. There were eight District Advisory Board members, the Council Member, seven staff members and seven members of the public in attendance. Members Present Staff Present Denise O’Leary-Seimer Officer Nate Schweithale WPD Angela Martinez Officer Steve Jerrell, WPD Lorenza Snyder F. Tejeda, WPD Gregory Boyajian Carlos Rodriguez WFD Shaun Rojas Brandon Findley, Office of Community Services Bill Longnecker Matt Brown Joel Weihe Carrington Thom (Youth member) Council Member Cindy Claycomb Members Absent Guests Linda Matney Alan Kailer Cheryl Taskien Gisela Peña Mary Cole Bob Gress James Deckhard Mistie Sifford Jennifer Figg Pat Brown Barbara Coats Jeff Janousek Susie Cunningham Marcia Schroeder Mark Baker Terry Miller Alan Trenary Ernie Graves Tim Welch Larry Weber Makayla Welch Terrel Benton Kathy Landwehr Ellen Quintez Call to Order Council Member Cindy Claycomb called the meeting to order. Approval of Minutes The minutes for October 17, 2018 were approved. Motion passed (8-0) Recommended Action: Receive and file.  January, 7 2019 Public Agenda 1. Scheduled Items: Cheryl Taskinen – Friends of Feral Felines - discussed the proposed Trap-Neuter Return (T.N.R) ordinance and why it is needed. She stated that when done properly, a T.N.R ordinance will “reduce the animal shelter’s euthanasia rate, allow animal control to spend more time on more pressing matters and provide a very cost-effective, efficient, socially acceptable and humane solution to controlling the population of feral cats.” She would further explain that T.N.R programs do not establish cat colonies and wait for people to come to them for assistance with feral cat needs. She stated that T.N.R provides spay, neuter and vaccinations services for the feral cats before returning them to their neighborhood colonies and that these services effectively stop the growth of the colony. She also explained that T.N.R marks the cats in the colony for identification by clipping the tip of their left ears. She stated that caregivers give food and shelter to the cats and many cities and professional organizations have endorsed the practice of T.N.R, so she would urge the District Advisory Board to recommend the approval of a T.N.R ordinance. DAB Member - Is this something be considered at the Council level? Cheryl Taskinen - It will be yes. Opal Barnes - I’m a cat person and I love cats. When my cats died I began feeding a feral cat and it’s like a pet to me. However when I feed that cat several of the neighbor’s feral cats come and steal the food. Why should I be responsible for their cats? All I want is for people to take accountability for every cat they feed. Why should I be responsible for their cats? Mary Cole - I’ve been caring for feral cats since 2005. The most I have ever cared for at once was 12 cats but I am down to 1 now. I am a member of Friends of Feral Felines and I’m here to say that T.N.R works. Last year I believe we treated around 1000 cats. The Humane Society charges us $60 for they spay / neuter and the rabies shots. We ask that people who apply for our help pay the fee but we also have donors who help for those who cannot afford the costs. It would also be nice if we could spend some of the money being used to euthanize cats and put some of those funds towards spaying and neutering cats in Wichita. Susie Cunningham - I have had both cats and dogs and I currently have a dog. All of my pets have been confined to my property and at no time were my neighbors inconvenienced or exposed to the consequences of my desire to have cats. I think before considering T.N.R colonies the City of Wichita should require licensing, mandatory spay and neutering, tagging or microchipping, vaccinations and educating the public regarding the responsibility of all allowable pets in the City of Wichita. Unfortunately I live next to a cat colony. I can tell you that the place they want to be when they eat, is in the yard of somebody that doesn’t have any pets. Also when these cats are spayed and neutered after the age of sexual maturity, they will continue to spray and they spray everything including your BBQ grill, your outdoor furniture and your grandkid’s toys. You can’t have anything nice outside when you live next to a cat colony. I’m really tired of it. Bob Gress - I am the former Director of the Great Plains Nature Center here in the City of Wichita. I spent my career as City of Wichita employee promoting nature, wildlife education and conservation. You might think that my primary concern with the T.N.R ordinance would be associated with wildlife, but that is not my primary concern. I am well aware that this ordinance has been approved by the Animal Control and Advisory Board but I also know that it only passed by one vote so that decision was in no way unanimous. I am supporter of urban natural areas but I think this is more of a neighborhood issue. If this ordinance was to pass and I found myself living next to a cat colony I would fight it to the very top of City government. I keep thinking about the neighbors to a cat colony. As proposed they have no input into accepting a cat colony as a neighbor. Their only recourse if they don’t like it is to file a complaint and begin fighting with their neighbors after the colony is already approved and adopted. If this is adopted, it will cease to be a cat problem and will instead be a neighbor problem. Why would we do this for cats and not for other feral animals? It’s not a good idea for any animals to run feral in an urban area. As a wildlife professional, thinking about the impact on wildlife seems minor when compared to the impact on neighbors and neighborhoods. Would you rent or buy a property next door to a cat colony? Would any City Council Member approve of a cat colony next door to  January, 7 2019 them? I hope elected council members will keep in perspective whether this is going to be a good idea for the City of Wichita, I don’t believe it is. DAB Member - What would you suggest then if not this? We have a problem with cats that are feral so what should we do? Bob Gress - I must admit that I have not had a lot of time to research alternatives, but I don’t think legalizing a problem because it is difficult to deal with is a good solution. Tightening up regulations so that people will pay attention to them might help but I’m not sure there is an easy answer. If there were this would have been handled a long time ago. As of now it has been a cat problem and it’s dealt with as a cat issue. What I am afraid will happen is once it is legal for a person to have a cat colony, it will no longer be a cat issue and will instead be a neighbor vs. neighbor issue, which I think holds greater consequences. Ellen Querner - I am not in your district but I am a member of the Animal Control Advisory Board. We did pass an ordinance on a 3 to 4 vote but I feel we left some issues unaddressed that are very important and cause a very negative effect to neighborhoods, people and wildlife. There were 4 things that we asked to be put into this ordinance. These include feeding guidelines, how to keep cats from defecating on neighbor’s properties, preventing wildlife and cat interactions and a plan for having the Police Department regulate cat colony issues amongst neighbors once a colony is established. DAB Member – Did you happen to see a study done 2 or 3 years ago where one of our DAB members had a colony of cats and in cooperation within animal control did a study that found that the number of cats had gone down? Ellen Querner – I have not heard of that study, but I can tell you that I have been on the Animal Control Advisory Board for 2 years and there is no peer reviewed study that has determined that a T.N.R ordinance will work in a city of our size. Action Taken: Receive and file. 2. Off-agenda items: None Action Taken: Receive and file. Staff Reports 3. Fire Department Report: Captain Chris Orloske Fire Station 3 – Fire Report In December in District 6 we had 28 fire alarms 45 service alarms and 373 medical calls for a total of 446 incidents. There were 4 fire investigation unit reports in your district. The first was on 12/2 at 642 N. Sheridan. There was a $30,000 loss in a vacant home with squatters seen going to and from the residence. On 12/12 at 1315 N. Perry, there was $40,000 dollars in damage after a stove was left on with common combustibles nearby. On 12/20 at 806 N. Clara, there was $40,000 dollars of damage when a dryer vent caught in fire and spread to structural space. On 12/24 at 420 W. 19th St. there was $95,000 in damage when a rechargeable battery malfunctioned and caught a couch on fire. Cathy Landwehr – Did you have any calls for gunfire over New Year’s Eve or Christmas Day? Capt. Orloske – None that I know of.  January, 7 2019 4. Community Police Report: Officer Nate Schweithale Patrol South – Police Report Officer Scweithale shared some recent statistics about Beat 21, a beat that represents a large portion of both Downtown and Old town. Between 2017 and 2018, Beat 21 saw an 8.7% increase in aggravate assaults, a 1.7. % increase in non-residence burglaries, a 5.7% increase in auto thefts and 38% increase in firearms being discharged. These are some of the things that Community Police track and try to address if staffing levels allow. He also spoke about the Homeless Outreach Team’s efforts to regulate homeless campsites in a way that takes into account the situation of the person at that site and how they can get them in touch with needed resources. Mikayla Welch – We’ve recently seen a rash of graffiti both in the neighborhoods and on Minisa Bridge. Our neighborhood has been tagged 18 times in the last month. So my question is are we seeing an increase in gang activity or are we just seeing kids out being brats with spray paint? Officer Schweithale – That isn’t my beat so I will let Officer Jerrell answer that for you, but in my beat most of the time it tends to be skater graffiti and not gang related. Officer Francisco Tejeda – 12 Beat Delano We have a new Delano Board and they have a Meet and Greet next Tuesday night. Illuminations is now over but it was busy as usual. We did have a handful of auto larcenies during the event, but nothing statistically above average. These thefts are largely due to the number of cars and lack of lighting in the area. We have seen a drop in after-hours teen activity at Exploration Place, largely due to them hiring after hours security to help us patrol the area. Officer Williams with Patrol West wanted me to share with you that for the 6th year Patrol West has collected presents for the city’s domestic violence shelters and with the help of the community they were able to provide gifts for over 350 children. Officer Windor on 14 Beat wanted me to share that property thefts in cars are up and that people should be careful about leaving their property in their vehicle overnight. Officer Steve Jerrell - Patrol North Officer Jerrell stated that Patrol West graffiti is generally up at this time of year when school has been out for an extended amount of time. Spring Break is another time we generally see an increase in graffiti activity. Public Works counted 78 tags on and beneath the Minisa Bridge. Of those 78 taggings we only found one that might be tied to a gang. It is dark under the Minisa Bridge and young kids tend to see it as a safe place to tag. We know that the graffiti is frustrating and very concerning but we do not think the majority of the graffiti at Minisa is gang related. If you spot graffiti you can report it to keepwichitaclean.gov and that is a direct link to Public Works to get it removed. We are also seeing an increase in auto thefts. We are asking that you call 911 if you see suspicious activity. On Monday January 21st I will be attending the North Riverside meeting, which is held at the Woodland United Methodist Church at 7:00 p.m. They have asked me to come in and speak about video cameras. I will be talking about the different types of video cameras and how you should be placed in and around your house. If you are interested in that topic please come out and join us. New Business 5. Century II Update and Discussion: Jennifer Rygg and Larry Weber, Century II Citizens Committee presented on how they worked for the past year to understand the needs, aspirations and options for performing arts in the city of Wichita. They spoke about how they were tasked with researching the functionality and viability of the Century II Performing Arts Center. The committee has been researching studies on the structure to understand the differences between recommending to renovate vs. build new and whether or not to preserve the round building vs provide more community gathering space etc. They described how the 50 year old Century II building has a variety of structural problems, worker safety issues and functional concerns that are causing it to annually lose out on nearly 400 different shows that would like to come to Wichita but cannot due to the building not being capable of supporting their modern performance needs. They also explained how Wichita is struggling to remain a premier location for teaching music-theater as it once was, due to the structural deficiencies of the performing arts building. They went on to mention that you can contact them by emailing them at Centuryiicitizenscommitte.com and they will read and consider all emails.  January, 7 2019 DAB Member - Have you been looking at other structures like the one in Ft. Worth to see about trying to renovate the structure up to the standards you’re looking at? Larry Weber – It’s difficult to find an apples to apples renovation comparison when you are dealing with a round structure. Jennifer Rygg – Austin had a round building that was around 50 years old and they didn’t renovate it as a performing arts center but did renovate it to be an outdoor atrium/music space. However we have had 5 separate professional performing arts specialists groups that have given us financial breakdowns on what it would take to renovate the performing arts center vs. build new and that is what we are researching and weeding through. Larry Weber – I also want to point out that our committee was not charged with deciding what to do with Century II, but that we were meant to be more focused on what the needs of the performing arts center would be. So for instance if the performing arts center was to be built somewhere new, there could be a lot of different things that could be done with Century II and that wasn’t really our focus. DAB Member - Are you researching options for grants and federal money to help fund the project? Larry Weber – Again we are familiar with some of that research but that was not one of our charges as a committee. Mary Cole – Where did you find where we could put a new performing arts center? Larry Weber - At 185,000 square feet it could several places including south of the Hyatt on city owned property, between Century II and the river, where the former library is or even at the old Alice hotel site. There are 3 parking garages near the old Alice hotel, so there are several different options. Mikayla Welch – A big concern with my friends is the loss of the building as an iconic piece of our skyline. This is the first time that we are hearing that we may be able to re-purpose Century II and build a new performing arts center elsewhere. Are you saying that is a possibility? Larry Weber - That is part of what we ae charged with determining as part of our recommendation. Alan Trenary – I would rather see a significant artistic transformation. Make it bigger and better and still keep the baby blue. Pat Brown - Has anybody considered turning the building into an aquarium or a museum? Larry Weber – I’m not sure but every proposal we’ve seen to make it a new performing arts center is 30% to 50% more than it would cost to build new. Another thing we feel strongly about is that none of the users of Century II can go dark. The renovation of the building would take 2 years and we believe if you shut down the building for 2 years the current users wouldn’t be able to stay here, so they cannot go dark. DAB Member – Does the city have a way of knowing when to make repairs on its buildings? Council Member Claycomb – The City actually has a fairly new decision support tool that looks at all of the facilities that are owned by the City of Wichita and helps us determine when repairs need to be done and how they should be slotted within the C.I.P. 6. Broadway Safety Corridor Plan Scott Wadle, Transit Department- gave a follow up presentation about the Broadway Safety Corridor Plan with new findings related to parking. The DAB had previously selected design concepts but had asked for additional information about parking needs. Mr. Wadle reminded the audience that the purpose of the project is to make Broadway safer. Broadway has a high incidence of accidents involving pedestrians and cyclists and although there is  January, 7 2019 no funding for the project to be constructed currently, there has been grant funding to research the options for redesigning the corridor to be safer. DAB Member - Does Concept I provide as much on street parking as Concept K? Scott Wadle - No it does not and the reason why is because in Concept I there is parking on both sides of the street and in Concept K there is parking on only one side of the street. Staff’s recommendation was Concept I. DAB Member - I there a chance for cyclists to get sandwiched riding between moving traffic and parking cars? Scott Wadle - Yes Concept I does put bicycles in the door lane which does create a hazard, however we are meeting the needs of bringing the lanes down to 3 and facilitating bicycle travel. The challenge is whether to remove parking on one side and there is also a balance between safety and parking that we have to consider and I think that is why we are really meeting tonight. Terrell Benton – I am the Branch Executive Director at the Downtown YMCA located at 402 N. Market and we are advocating for Concept I. We are advocating for this out of the safety of our members. We have about 2,000 – 2,200 members check in per day. Many of these people check in after dark and they have to navigate to get to and from our facility. This becomes more difficult if they are forced to park farther away. We have the second busiest bike share station in the city at our location so we obviously want to encourage bicycling but we also have to encourage the safety of our members. We have taken a lot of steps to adjust our parking and losing any more parking would be detrimental. This is why we are endorsing Concept I. DAB Member - Has there been any thought to putting a crosswalk light going across Broadway? Scott Wadle - That is part of the detail that can be worked out as part of the conceptual designs. DAB Member – I guess I’m just having a hard time justifying putting cyclists in a dangerous position to accommodate the saving of roughly 12 parking spots on the west side of Broadway. Terrell Benton – Again I would say that if we are considering citizen safety by volume, the number of people that are going to have to navigate the crossing of Broadway outweighs the number of cyclists that would be using the street and that might be at risk. Charlie Claycomb – Have there been any accidents on 1st street where the bike lane is similar to what is being proposed here? Scott Wadle – Well I’m not completely sure but I can say that the 1st street set up is a little bit different because 1st street has a buffer that Broadway would not have under the current concepts. However I do not believe there have been a significant number of accidents on 1st street under those conditions. Father Adam Keiter – On behalf of the Diocese I would advocate as well for Concept I. The reason being is that I think it makes a lot of sense to do what we can to cut down on the possibility of accidents that may take place with people crossing 4 lanes of traffic. My concern is that if we cut off parking spaces on the east side of the street, any time we have masses we have people parked on that east side. These are usually families with children. It seems to me that on all of these concepts, including option K, people are going to need to be actively watching for cyclists. So the position of the Diocese would be that we are all for trying to make the area safer, but without making it difficult for people to use the currently available parking spaces on a regular basis. Mikayla Welch – Has it been considered how this plan will be affected when all of the apartments downtown are filled? Also I have been a part of similar planning phases where we did all this preliminary work and then the plan went nowhere due to lack of funding etc. So what are we really looking at here?  January, 7 2019 Scott Wadle – To answer your first question, in many of the different planning initiatives associated with growth and development such as the Bicycle Master Plan, The Wichita Community survey, Visioneering Wichita, Project Wichita and the Young Professionals of Wichita survey is that there is a desire for more transportation options. So this project helps to address that as well as the safety issue. As far as where this plan is going I have no solid answers for you. What I can tell you is that by getting a dialogue going and seeing what everyone’s perspective is, hopefully we can come up with a plan for a general direction we want to explore. There is money in the C.I.P for bicycle pathways, so it comes down to a question of how we want to prioritize those dollars. Council Member Claycomb - I would like to point out that we have a really strong Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Board that also helps to prioritize these projects. Alan Kailer - I am with Bike Walk Wichita and I spoke about this at last month’s DAB as well. I first want to say that I have every respect for City staff that have worked on this project but wanted to again point out that the focus of this plan is to focus on safety and Concept K has the higher safety rating of the 2 proposed concepts. Having cyclists in the door zone is a definite risk as cyclists can be caught by the front wheel of a vehicle and be thrown into traffic. This iswhy we are endorsing Concept K. DAB Member – Just out of curiosity, would you prefer Concept I as opposed to no bike lane at all? Alan Kailer – Absolutely. However if we had our choice we would prefer Concept K. The DAB did not change their original endorsement of Concept K. Recommended Action: Receive and file. In Issues of Concern None Recommended Action: Receive and file. Neighborhood Reports DAB Member - I would like to share an update. The Benjamin Hills / Pleasant Valley Neighborhood Association will be moving its meetings from the 1st Tuesday of the month to the 3rd Tuesday of the month. ADJOURN Matt Brown motioned to adjourn, Denise O’Leary Seimer seconded the motion. Meeting was adjourned. 8-0 Respectfully Submitted, Brandon Findley District VI Community Service Representative Office of Community Services