12/13/1999 Meeting Minutes (2) - Laserfiche WebLink

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Regular Council Meeting 12-13-99 Page 13 essence of most of the letters that I got. I know it had been stated eazlier, but I made a lot of last minute, 11~' hour phone calls to double-check with people and it kind of came out why put the landscaping in the middle of the road so that you see the bike path and two lanes of traffic, if we could just give that same landscaping to each resident along S.O.M. Center Road, you could retain your property and put the landscaping on your property as you see fit. I won't get too detailed, but in our wazd, you were given a selection of different kinds of trees and bushes to choose from. So, that's my comment. Council President Mazquazdt asked if there were any further comments. Mayor Rinker said what I am really trying to convey to everyone is that I want us to have a chance to do it right and I mean that. Let's just take a look at procedural issues involved, legally. I talked eazlier about the power of eminent domain. First of all, for the widening of S.O.M. Center Road, we will be exercising our power of eminent domain. Period. It's not a question of whether we exercise it, it's a question of to what extent, how we go about doing it. So no one should have any misunderstanding about that fact. That's why this is such an awesome responsibility. That's why we have been trying to get the information where we understand and to convey it to people to understand it in the community. I appreciate the comments from Mr. Buckholtz and I would agree. I would say without question most of the people that I have heard from, and that's not just people that I seek out, more of these are people that I run into in the store, at the meetings that I've been able to attend and hear the comments of people, and we come up and we have discussions during breaks and at the close of the meeting. By faz and away, the theme of all of this is everyone wants to maintain as much as possible the attributes of Village life. That is exactly what I am trying to accomplish here. Mrs. Shields, I think your husband would agree that if S.O.M. Center Road were pushed to the west in front of your house to allow a greater area to landscape where the bike path is, you'd have two lanes of travel and a median and two more lanes of travel, that it gives you - physically, much more opportunity to create the kind of buffering techniques. I would take the mound that you have next to your house as a prime example. Given the limited space that is there, and apazt from the mounding effect and the planting, that is the type of design technique that can be used in landscaping. Mr. Christian talked about putting mounds on the sides. I would certainly be a. proponent where we can do that, as many places as we can go vertically as well through mounding, through landscaping, that's exactly what we want to do. We're not going to make that decision tonight. But, I am telling Council and everyone in this community, if you shortchange us, you take away the chance for us to nail this thing down. People should not be so panicked or be so fearful. I don't expect everyone in the community to endorse the policies, but I would be willing to say that most of us would agree that we have been very successful, we have been very responsible and responsive in this administration, to be creative, to be sensible, to plan for the long-term, to do the kinds of things we can do to maintain services and to increase them Having the opportunity to have that space on S.O.M. is part of that whole game plan. Until the municipality files a petition in the Court of Law with a specific surveyed plat, which shows the specific azea of land that is taken, it is not a closed issue. Council can make the decision tonight to enable our engineer to make the drawings, decide where the path is going to go and then we come back and make the decision whether or not to do it. It is easier, and I believe smarter, to allow that opportunity to go forward tonight. If you stop it no_w in the name of minimizing, I feaz that what you will accomplish is