Monday, September 24
3:00 pm - Transportation Committee Meeting, Room 280. AGENDA: Right of Way (ROW) Ordinance Recommendations
5:00 pm - Council-Manager Dinner Briefing, Room 267
6:30 pm - Citizens' Forum, Meeting Chamber
7:00 pm - Council Meeting, Meeting Chamber
Wednesday, September 26
12:00 pm - Housing & Neighborhood Development Committee Meeting, CH-14. AGENDA: Housing Charlotte 2007 Affordable Housing Policy Review; Chronic Homelessness Report
5:30 pm - MTC Meeting, room 267
Thursday, September 27
10:00 am - Cultural Facilities Groundbreaking, corner of First St. and Church St.
12:00 pm - Community Safety Committee Meeting, Room 280. AGENDA:Clean Streets - Littering; Homicide Task Force Update
Friday, September 28
7:45am - Planning Liaison Committee Meeting, 8th Floor
Agenda Notes:
As described in Wednesday's Council-Manager memo, staff will present the Urban Street Design Guidelines (USDG) to Council for action on September 24th. The Council agenda packet for the September 24th meeting includes: 1) the USDG Policy Recommendations Summary and 2) a list of revisions to the full USDG document. Council members previously received a full copy of the USDG document.
In Wednesday's Council-Manager memo packet, you received four hard copy attachments of public comments about the USDG (that the Transportation Committee had previously reviewed). One of those attachments was not provided electronically, so it is included below.
As was also mentioned in Wednesday's memo, staff has received and responded to additional public comments since the public involvement packets were provided to the Transportation Committee. The attachment below includes the public comments received and/or responded to since September 10.
The Mayor has added a closed session at the conclusion of the Business Meeting on Monday, September 24, 2007 in order for the Mayor and City Council to complete the annual performance review for the City Attorney.
Airport Hybrid Bus Purchase and Clean Fuel Technology Grant, (Item 38, page 42) has been pulled from the September 24th City Council agenda by Aviation Department staff.
The original intent for acquisition of these high-tech proprietary buses was to purchase them under the CATS contract award to DesignLine approved by City Council on August 27, 2007. CATS Purchasing Director John Trunk, and lawyers at CATS said their contract will not cover the size and type of bus we are purchasing. In addition, our buses for evaluation do not have to be made in America and do not have or need a lot of FTA required equipment. The buses will meet all applicable federal safety requirements. Discussions with DesignLine and a preliminary review of the technology began well before their response to the CATS Request for Proposal.
This item will be resubmitted to Council on the October 8th agenda as a sole source acquisition of a proprietary technology.
Information Items:
With water supplies that continue to slip and no rain on the way to provide significant drought relief, Charlotte-Mecklenburg Utilities continues preparing for tougher water use restrictions that seem inevitable.
We are communicating daily with the Catawba River Drought Management Advisory Group, local news media and customer groups in preparation for changes in the existing water use restrictions.
An announcement is being scheduled for Monday afternoon. Please stay tuned for details.
Post Construction Controls Ordinance Stakeholders Meeting Staff Resource: Daryl Hammock, 704-336-2167, dhammock@ci.charlotte.nc.us
The first of three planned Post Construction Controls stakeholders meetings, as requested by City Council, was conducted on Tuesday, September 18, 2007. The meeting consisted of an overview of the major issues debated during the original stakeholder process and the process for reaching consensus on the issues. The stakeholders were also given direction to begin preparing a report to the Environment Committee describing any dissenting views of the stakeholder-recommended ordinance along with suggested changes. The recent cost analysis prepared by LandDesign, Inc. will be discussed at the next meeting, with additional discussion about dissenting views and proposed ordinance changes.
The next stakeholder meeting will be held on Thursday, October 4, 2007, at 6:00 pm at the Hal Marshall Center at 700 N. Tryon Street. The final meeting has been tentatively scheduled for the week of October 14, 2007 with the specific day to be determined at a later date.
Recently we communicated a request from the Eastway/Sheffield Neighborhood to waive an easement fee for neighborhood identification signs. This request was associated with a Neighborhood Matching Grant submission on the part of the neighborhood. We stated that this is a policy issue and would place it on the September 24 meeting agenda.
Currently, staff is still working with the neighborhood on this issue and other concerns regarding the application. Therefore, the item will not be on the September 24th Council agenda. This will not jeopardize the neighborhood's timetable for applying for the grant. We will keep the Council informed of the progress that is made with the neighborhood, and future Council action.
Neighborhood Development's Code Enforcement Division has received the 2007 North Carolina Association of Housing Code Officials (NCAHCO) highest award for program excellence. The 2007 award highlighted the accomplishments of the Code Enforcement Division Training Program and its training team members.
In receiving this recognition, the NCAHCO Board of Directors pointed to the cross-training complexities and challenges faced by Charlotte in nuisance abatement, housing enforcement and zoning. Also noteworthy was Charlotte's efforts to support inspection staff in the acquisition of their Building Level I certification. The development of a simulated intranet testing site, creating mock testing scenarios, ongoing field training and the implementation of a daily inspector training curriculum was acknowledged as unique and proactive in providing the best possible code enforcement services.
The Code Enforcement Training Program has been in place since July 2003. Inspector and trainers are assigned to each of the five Code site locations. The current training team members are Don Duncan, Donald Moore, Charles Frye, Gina Nickerson and George (Trey) Jenkins.
During FY07, Code Enforcement brought 2,761 houses into code compliance and 42,732 properties into nuisance code compliance. This represented an increase of 11% for housing and 20% for nuisance from the previous year. More than 10,000 zoning inspections were also made during FY07.
CMPD Teams Up with Danger Rangers® to Help Keep Kids Safe
Staff Resource: Julie Hill, 704-336-4098, jhill@cmpd.org
The CMPD has teamed up with Kitty, Sully, Burble and the whole group of Danger Rangers® to help children learn important lessons about safety. All of the Danger Rangers are featured in a new coloring and activity book CMPD officers will distribute to help teach children about safety issues. The information is presented in both English and Spanish. It is attached.
According to Safe Kids Worldwide, unintentional injuries are the leading cause of death among children under the age of 14. Ninety percent of these injuries are preventable through better education. For more than 20 years, "Officer Friendly" helped the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department to educate the community on personal safety and improve the overall well-being of children. Officer Friendly will now retire and turn over the job to the Danger Rangers® team.
"The new partnership with the Danger Rangers® will bring more fun and excitement to the safety messages that are so important for children to learn," said Police Chief Darrel Stephens.
"The earlier we can teach kids safe practices, the better chance we have of keeping them safe." The Goodrich Corporation donated $5,000 to help print the coloring books.
Danger Rangers® is the flagship brand of Charlotte, N.C. based Educational Adventures LLC. With offices in New York and Los Angeles, Educational Adventures is a multi-media edutainment company committed to the production of premium content that entertains, educates, and empowers children in all areas of safety and well-being.
The Danger Rangers® brand has won numerous awards for family friendly content and production excellence. The Danger Rangers is the first NY Emmy® nominated, animated television series that blends educational safety messaging with positive character role models, action-adventure storylines, comedy and fantastic music. The unique combination of these elements empowers children with potentially life-saving problem solving skills, helping them to avoid or know how to reduce their most common safety risks. The acclaimed series currently airs on public television stations and leading cable Video on Demand systems across the country.
It is important to remember as you review this process that the City is not required by law to bid this service. We could use any process, or no process, and be in full compliance with the law. However, the policy of the City of Charlotte is to voluntarily competitively bid many services that the law does not require that level of process for. Staff used the thorough process of Request For Proposals (RFP), review and recommendation in this case in an effort to produce a recommendation to Council that will provide the highest quality of services to our citizens, the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department, CDOT and the Neighborhood Development Code Enforcement Division.
The Division Wrecker Service contract awards initially scheduled for the September 24 Council agenda will be deferred until the October 8th agenda due to a broad and voluminous public records request made by Eastway Wrecker for all records related to the current zone wrecker companies from October 31, 2001 through the present and for any records dealing with the procurement process on this latest wrecker service RFP. This 2-week deferral will allow staff more time to provide Eastway Wrecker with the records it has requested, while also affording Eastway Wrecker the opportunity to review the requested documents.
Several Council members have received phone calls with complaints from the president of Eastway Wrecker Service, Inc. and Eastway Wrecker II, Inc. regarding the impending award of the Division Wrecker Services contracts. Attachment 1 contains the complaints made by Eastway Wrecker and City staff responses. Attachment 2 contains the City's Notification of Disqualification to Eastway Wrecker.
