Monday, June 23, 2008

Frisco City Council notes — June 17, 2008

By Jeff Cheney of Blogging Frisco

FRISCO — First, I apologize for the delay in posting this update. Last week was a very busy week for City Council. We had a late Council Meeting on Tuesday and then left Wednesday morning to go on our 3.5 day work session. This is an annual event where we discuss as a Council our priorities for the next year. We had a very productive work session as we welcomed a new Mayor and two new Council members. We are blessed as a Council to have a group that works well with one another, respects each other’s differing opinions, and all who have the best interest of Frisco in mind. This meeting kicks off our busy season for City Council as we now roll into Board interviews and appointments followed by our budget work.

Our meeting started with saying farewell to our City Secretary, Nan Parker. Nan has served as our City Secretary for 23 years. When she began in 1985 Frisco had a population of 3,000. Nan will certainly be missed by all of us who consider her family. However, we are happy for her opportunity to move closer to family. Thank you Nan for all of your dedication to the City of Frisco!

Amy Hardin, President of the Frisco Association of the Arts, gave us their annual presentation. Through the first six months of 2008, they have had 169 events that have been attended by 1,979 attendees. They operate as an umbrella organization to coordinate with the various arts groups in Frisco. Visit their website to learn more

We reviewed a transit study prepared by a consulting firm we had hired to discuss our demand for these services. Public transportation needs will be a priority topic for us as a Council for the next few years. This includes bus service as well as the discussion on commuter rail. This study focused primarily on the local bus demand. Their recommendation was to implement a “crawl, walk, run” approach. This essentially means to start small and as demand grows, then further expand services. The plan looked at a five-year approach to fully ramp up service. The route indicated included a continuous loop from the mall, through Frisco Square and downtown, and then to the community college. They proposed funding from local funds as well as federal funding and grants, etc. We will continue to evaluate the need and budget for this service as we go through the budget process.

The audience was packed from residents from Chapel Creek to discuss an issue effecting their neighborhood. The developer, LandPlan, originally planned to gate the final phases of the community. However, the community preferred to gate the entire neighborhood so that it was not divided as well as to prevent cut-through traffic through the neighborhood. Unfortunately, the developer felt it was cost-prohibitive to gate the entire neighborhood. They proposed a single gate along Preston Vineyards Drive to restrict public access through the neighborhood. As proposed, this would be the first time a gate had been used to restrict access along public streets. In gated communities, the streets are private streets that are built and maintained by the neighborhood. Although it is difficult to disappoint a room full of residents, I was concerned this would have set a precedent for many other neighborhoods to request gates to block private access. For instance, my neighborhood has the same problem with cut-through traffic and our residents have asked me several times about gates as well. I know 4-5 other neighborhoods that would also request gates if this precedent were set. Of course, when you gate public streets, that has far reaching impacts on traffic throughout the entire City. Our traffic engineers have designed our transportation needs based on the current design of neighborhood public streets. Therefore, I found that I could not support this proposal. Council Member Scott Johnson made a motion to approve their request but it failed due to no “seconds” to the motion. Council then voted 5-0 (Jim Joyner was out of town) to deny the request. We will monitor the cut-through traffic when this street is built, just as we do in other communities.

A few other noteworthy items include:

Our next meeting is July 1 at which we will officially welcome our newest Council Member, Bart Crowder. We will also say farewell to Council Member Jim Joyner, who has reached term limits. I hope we have a large turnout at this meeting!

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