HomeMy WebLinkAboutMinutes_GTEC_08.17.2005Minutes of the Meeting of
Georgetown Transportation Enhancement Corporation
and the Governing Body of the
City of Georgetown, Texas
Wednesday, August 17, 2005
The Georgetown Transportation Enhancement Corporation of the City of Georgetown, Texas, met on
Wednesday, August 17, 2005.
Board Members Present:
Henry Carr- President, Joe Savage – Vice President, Farley Snell – Secretary, Paul Brandenburg –
General Manager, Micki Rundell – Finance Manager, Henry Boecker, Ricki Salazar, John Kirby
Board Members Absent:
Gabe Sansing
Staff Present:
Jim Briggs, Jana Kern, Joel Weaver, Tom Benz, Mark Miller, Laurie Brewer, Ed Polasek, Mike Stasny,
George Gomez
OTHERS PRESENT:
Ben Trollinger - Williamson County Sun, Residents: Keith Brainard Joe Pondrom, Kenneth Olson, Karen
Smith, Royce Lindsey, Susan Hogan, Patti Pondrom, Linda Olson, Brian Andrusin, Don Padfield,
Joseph Aubin - OPC Right of Way
Minutes
Regular Meeting
Regular meeting called to order by Mr. Henry Carr @ 2:00 p.m.
Board may, at any time, recess the Regular Session to convene in Executive Session at
the request of the President, a Board Member, the City Manager in his capacity as
General Manager of the GTEC Corporation , the Assistant City Manager, or legal
counsel for any purpose authorized by the Open Meetings Act, Texas Government
Code Chapter 551, and are subject to action in the Regular Session that follows.
PUBLIC HEARING
PUBLIC HEARING WAS OPENED @ 2:01 P.M.
A. Public hearing by the Georgetown Transportation Enhancement Corporation
(GTEC) regarding the expenditure of 4B sales taxes for the proposed 2005/06
GTEC transportation improvement plan. Micki Rundell/Paul Brandenburg/
Jim Briggs
Mr. Briggs opened this item with a power point presentation (See Attachment
"A"). Copies of the presentation were passed out to the audience & the Board
members After the presentation the meeting was opened up to the public
wishing to speak.
1. Karen Smith - River Ridge III Neighborhood & Pickett Elementary PTA
President/Tippit Middle School PTA Executive Board Member:
I am a mother of two children, both who enjoy, not with my blessing,
walking and riding bikes to & from those schools - Leander Road is a
dangerous road. My sole concern regarding the construction of the first
leg of the Southwest Bypass 14B - is safety. As many of you are aware
one of our students was hit by a large rock truck last year. He sustained
major injuries, he is still alive, currently he is home schooled. That
incident
occurred in the school zone. The large truck was unable to see the school
crossing guard because of another large vehicle. So there already is
enough truck & commercial traffic on our road as it is. I heard that your
model will reduce the traffic perhaps by a 1000 trips. That is discussing
the northern development. I'm concerned also about these trucks going
down to Chandler Road & Westinghouse Road - building malls and
hospitals. That means there is going to be an increase number of truck
and commercial traffic. So with those 1000 reduced trips, I think there is
going to be quite a few more increased trips. I have been told numerous
times that TxDOT has been studying and analyzing our Leander Road
safety concerns and school zones. School starts tomorrow and nothing
has been done. I think there are other issues that need to be take care of
prior to having Southwest Bypass first leg without a definite date on the
second leg.
2. Royce Lindsey - 706 River Down Road: I appreciate the Board giving
us this opportunity. I can't really add to what Karen has already said
about the safety concerns. I have communicated some of those to
some of you. I would like to emphasize my concern about the open-
ended ness of the completion of the project. I heard what Mr. Briggs said
and I appreciate that. I have given reports before on projects I'm
planning and I usually get the most optimistic date and if everything
goes well maybe 2011. I just file that away given the complexity of it
I am concerned that it will be 2021 or 2031, at which point I am no longer
interested, it doesn't seem to be very reassuring words, about how to get
over all of the hurdles of doing Phase II of this project. So, we are kind of
building the first leg here, it is kind of like building all of the access roads
and the on ramps for an interstate highway, before we start figuring out
how we are going to build the highway itself. So I want to put my
emphasis on that concern that we are just doing part one and part two,
in my mind is pretty vague.
3. Keith Brainard - River Ridge III HOA - Do to a faulty tape scriber/tape
we do not have the beginning of Mr. Brainard's comments.
.......I am not a traffic expert but looking at the map here, I can envision
any number of scenarios that would increase not decrease the amount of
traffic on Leander Road - mainly truck traffic resulting from this project.
The study, done by staff, indicating that there would be a reduction of
1000 vehicles per day, doesn't quantify whether these vehicles are
trucks or cars. I seem to get the indication that a lot of the reduction
would be due to cars that are using the by-pass rather than the freeway
to get back to HWY 29. I don't know if you have ridden 2243 recently,
particularly, during normal business hours. But, starting around 6:00 a.m.,
lasting until about 6:00 p.m.,Mon - Fri., there are an incredible number of
very large trucks, weighted down with rock and aggregate, following and
in front of, an awful lot of Mom's carrying children to school and other
activities. To me this is a recipe for disaster. I think we have a sense of the
potential disaster, relating to the event that Karen Smith sited a few
moments ago. I am glad to hear that we had a study conducted, but in my
view there still is an awful lot of unknowns with regards to this project.
One of the unknowns, as well as land issues, is at what cost it will take to
complete the southern section of this Southwest By-Pass. If it will only
take a couple of years, as Mr. Snell has suggested, then why don't we
wait to do the whole project as it was originally envisioned? The road was
intended to connect HWY 29, not to 2243, but to IH35. Here we are only
looking at half the road. I do not understand the logic behind that.
Councilman Doug Smith has indicated that he will introduce an
amendment to the City, if and when this issue comes before the City
Council, that would express the will of the City Council that the City
will never divert trucks from HWY 29 to 2243. I would ask that if it is
truly the intent of this group to not increase the truck traffic on 2243 that
you send with your recommendation, should you recommend it all, that
the City Council do the same - that is to insure the citizens of Georgetown,
particularly this part of town that you will not use 2243 as an official
alternative.
Finally, we have collected a little more that 100 signatures, which have
signed this petition that states "We request that the Georgetown City
Council not approve financing to construct the segment of the Southwest
Bypass from HWY 29 to Leander Road until or unless the Southwest
Bypass segment from Leander Road to I-35 is also completed". See
attachment "B".
4. Joe Pondrom - 306 River Ridge: I am confused and that is kind of unusual
when Jim (Briggs) talks. I can usually follow him pretty well, but I don't
understand what Jim was saying about the connection of this segment
to 29. Is it going to be a 90 degree turn, with a lighted intersection to
go along with the segment that is going north, or is there going to be
a sweeping curve for the trucks to use to move down this segment of
the bypass to go to 2243. I am in complete agreement with Jim, there is
not a trucker in the world, especially a trailer trucker that wants to make
a turn that he does not have to make. But if an east bound trucker on
29 is coming out of the Syntex Quarry, which is going to be a major
quarry when parts of Texas Crushed Stone & Weir Quarry close down,
if his choice is to make a sweeping right hand turn or go down there to
miss an intersection, I think he will make the turn to miss the intersection.
You have been told what our problems are on this road, you have heard
from Smith, & Keith, this is an overworked road that is not big enough for
the traffic that it carries right now. We have spoken with TxDOT, they
have plans, unfortunately their plans are as long range at the GTEC
plans for this bypass. We like the idea that, what Councilman Smith
is going to bring up. But quite frankly, the intent from the beginning,
and Mr. Kirby, you and I sat on the same committee when we talked
about this almost eight years ago, was that if we build this bypass, it
was to be a complete bypass at one time. It was never the intention
of anybody in this town that this bypass would be built in segments,
where you would have one segment sit there for years. You may be able
to build the segment in three years, I don't doubt it, as long as you have
the right of ways and you know where you are going. But this segment
from 2243 to IH 35 will not be built by 2011, and you know it. You
don't have a plan where it goes through there. You have the biggest hole
in the ground that you have every seen. You have to cross Texas Crushed
Stone property that they own, to get over to the highway, and I don't
think they are going to give it up as quickly as you think they are. We
have talked with the TxDOT folks. TxDOT is basically shaking their
heads saying - we have no idea what the city is doing here. They haven't
talked to us about any specific plans. We don't know where the route
is going to cross the road, or where it is going to go when it gets to the
east side of the road. This either needs to be postponed, until you can
build the whole thing, or let’s put the quaggas on any trucks using
this piece of road from 29 to 2243. Because if you make a sweeping
right hand turn off of 29 they will use it.
5. Patti Pondrom - 306 River Ridge: Good Afternoon. I was here at the previous
GTEC meeting that was held in June 2005, I will say that some of
what I heard today seems quite different than what I heard there. I
also was hearing about a spur that would assist trucks getting onto the
bypass easily. Which was something that created great concern in our
neighborhoods minds, about you wanting to divert truck traffic onto the
Southwest Bypass and to move it off of Old Town, in the center of town. It
was also talked about by Mr. Carr, relieving some traffic on Williams
Drive, which of course would move it down our way. We like Council-
man Smith's idea, as long as this road can not be connected to IH-35
we would like the limiting of truck traffic on that road. We don't want
you to divert anymore truck traffic our way. We have all the truck
traffic we can handle. We also like the idea of the road, in that it will
allow us to get up and down, but I was concerned on what you showed
on the overhead about commercial traffic and divert commercial traffic
down the bypass. I don't know what kind of commercial traffic you are
talking about, but that sounds like trucks, to me. It always sounds like
trucks when you are talking commercial. We don't want any more trucks.
We don't want any trucks diverted our way. If you want to take them
down 29, to the new side road that is going to be running from 29 on the
west side of the interstate, down to Leander Road, I understand that this
is going to be a three to five lane service road, and that it should be able to
handle truck traffic. That would be great. You can send them that way.
But we would like truck traffic prohibited from coming down the bypass,
until you can connect it to the direction that it wants to go. That would be
Inner Loop, 130, down 35 or north on 35. But none of those trucks want
to come through our neighborhoods and we don't want them in our
neighborhoods. I think the simple solution here, is to keep the trucks off
the bypass, send them down the new service road and keep them out of
our neighborhoods. That way you will keep our neighbors safe, we'll be
happy and you won't have to hear from us again. We are asking that your
primary concern here be the safety of the residents in our neighborhoods
and the school children that attend our schools. We expect that to be a
primary consideration in any traffic diversions or re-routing that you do
into our neighborhoods. I do think at first, that, that was not considered.
I do like better what I have been hearing, we also hear that TxDOT is
planning to improve part of our road, 2243, with shoulders, which would
help us immensely, and if we can control the truck traffic, then I think this
will work for all of us. But I do think that you have a very clear
responsibility to our neighbors, we don't want any dead neighbors and
we don't want any dead school children. So if you keep the trucks off the
bypass, you will help us out a lot.
6. Brian Andrusin - River Ridge Neighborhood: I just wanted to voice my
concerns and some comments that were brought up today. I appreciated
that fact that we are doing an industrial engineering study. As some
engineers would know as well as study on endangered species, also run
off from the EPA. As you know, in Travis County, as well as Williamson
County, it is very important to study the effects of run off, especially into
the rivers, as well as endangered species, that may be down there, plants,
animals, etc., etc. One of the things that we didn't bring up, the safety of
our citizens, especially the safety of our children. That child was in a cross
walk. Very demoralizing to see a child, in a cross walk, with a crossing
guard, get hit by a truck. Force equals mass acceleration - very difficult to
stop a truck. As we all know there is a light - 3 or 4 lights on SH 29, not
FM 2243. So the only thing that I wanted to bring up was the fact, with
four lights on a state highway, as we all know, truck drivers generally
don't want to stop, start up and stop, start up and stop again. So with
those lights on SH 29, a bypass may in fact be a better option, which we
don't want to have inside our neighborhood. School is in session 5 days a
week. There are no schools on SH 29, there is a school downtown, there
are some churches that operate on Sunday, but there are two to three
schools, don't forget about Carver, and the Post Office, which is off
FM 2243. My primary concern is the safety of our children. The fact that
we only have one Post Office in town, which is accessible from that
intersection as well as the fact that we have three schools that are
accessible from that neighborhood. Just like to make sure that the board,
looks at that, when they focus on the fact that when we divert truck traffic
off that lane we are jeopardizing the safety of our citizens, we are
jeopardizing the traffic through put to the post office, as well as the school
systems, and at the end of the day, understand the fact that, that road
patrolled today by police. It is not patrolled today by the state troopers.
And, it is not patrolled today by the sheriff's office. If in fact there was a
possible solution, not saying that it is a bad idea to have the intersection,
but what I am saying, is if we do have to go forward with it, that there is a
little more time studying the overall concept of the operation. To
understand the fact that if trucks have to go through there, we need to
slow them down. We need to make sure that they understand the fact that
it is hard to stop when you don't slow down. There was a woman that
almost died by the post office the other day, because of a truck that ran
over her car. The truck could not stop. So you have had two fatalities in
the last year alone of Georgetown citizens on that road, by trucks.
Something that I just wanted to make sure everyone new today, as well as
the fact that if in fact it is the decision by the board to move forward, just
come up with some creative solutions on how to slow down the traffic
and
make it feasible for not only the commercial traffic, but also the citizens of
the earth.
Public Hearing closed @ 2:54 p.m.
2:54 p.m. -- recessed
3:02 p.m. -- resumed
REGULAR MEETING CALLED TO ORDER
Regular meeting called to order by Mr. Carr @ 3:02 p.m.
Mr. Snell absent after break
B. Consideration and approval of the minutes from the regular meeting held
July 20, 2005. Paul Brandenburg
Discussion: None
Action: Motion by Savage, seconded by Salazar to approve the minutes as
written.
Approved: 5-0 (Gabe Sansing absent, Snell absent for this item)
Mr. Snell arrived at 3:03 p.m.
C. Discussion and possible action regarding the Project Progress Report and
timelines(including but not limited to items listed). Joel Weaver/Tom Benz
Discussion: Weaver presented the reports:
Industrial Park Cr. - 5QD: This connects the new northeast portion of Inner
Loop from CR 151 to Austin Ave. The county is currently under construction
on it. We will connect that to the Industrial Park. We have received bids.
Southeast Arterial 1 - 12: Ready to set date for public meeting. Right of Way
property research is about 75% complete.
SH29 to Rivery - 13: Engineering is about complete. Right of Way acquisition
is about 80% complete.
Southwest Bypass - 14B: All field work is complete. Final draft of the documents
will be ready for submittal in September, 2005.
South Frontage Rd. SH29 to Leander Rd. - 3: Archeological finds have slowed
the engineering phase.
SH 29 Rehab - Wolf Ranch - 2: Work is continuing on the north side of SH 29.
Completion of the north side and traffic detour to new section is now scheduled
for the third week of September.
Action: None
D. Presentation of Georgetown Transportation Enhancement Corporation monthly
financial report for July 2005. Micki Rundell
Discussion: Rundell presented the monthly financial report. Sales tax was at
20.7%. We feel that this is related to the construction industry in the area.
Action: None
E. Consideration and possible action to award bid for the construction
of Sudduth Drive to Chasco Contracting for $186,338.68 and a project
budget of $205,000.00. Mark Miller
Discussion: Miller presented the item. I would like to change the
project budget from $205,000.00 to $192,000.00. This is the connecting
Inner Loop to Industrial Park Circle.
Action: Motion by Snell, seconded by Kirby, to award the bid for construction of
Sudduth Drive to Chasco Contracting for $186,338.68 and set a project budget of
$192,000.00.
Approved: 6-0 (Sansing absent)
F. Discussion and possible action to form a subcommittee of the Board and Staff to
consider and possibly make recommendations to modify the Board's process for
selecting and funding GTEC projects for the 2006-2007 fiscal year.
Henry Carr
Discussion: Carr introduced the item. The GTEC process for identifying,
prioritizing, selecting, approving and funding projects to be budgeted for
4B Sales Tax revenue has evolved since the inception of the Corporation. I
am suggesting that the Board form a subcommittee of three Board members
and two staff members, and authorize this subcommittee to study the
opportunities available at this time for process improvements. The subcommittee
should meet and deliberate for up to 60 days and then report its findings and
recommendations to the full Board. I am recommending the subcommittee have
the following members:
Paul Brandenburg - Chair
Trish Carls - City Attorney
Henry Boecker - GTEC Board Member
John Kirby - GTEC Board Member
Farley Snell, GTEC Board Member
Action: Motion by Savage, seconded by Kirby, to form this subcommittee.
Approved: 6-0 (Sansing absent)
Motion by Snell, seconded by Salazar to adjourn
Approved: 6-0 (Sansing absent)
Adjournment
The meeting was adjourned at 03:30 PM.
Approved : Attest:
_______________________ ________________________
Henry Carr - President Farley Snell - Secretary