Ordinance No. 20257 - Laserfiche WebLink

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not asked to pay an assessment for these improvements. Therefore, whether they are satisfactory to them is nc~ ~ measUre of the benefit provided by the improvements which they are being assessed for. Des ire the su estio ~ ~ P ~ g~ ns from today s opponents that all of the requests for special design e~ements came t~om persons who do not reside within the local improvement districts there were from the beginning several residents who expressed concern that improvements would lead to increased traffic S~eeds and therefore requested a design that woutd ~low the traffic~ These opinions Should not be overlooked. There is, however~ a larger point. The question of design st~ould not be debated in th~s comext not only because it does nc~t relate to what the residents are being assessed for. The particular design of a road is not generally something that the public has a veto over~ Allowing the residents to debate the value of a particular turn lane or other design element~ and then t~ this into a debate over the propriety of an assessment defeats the purpose of the assessment process. Ayers Road was in very bad condition. The City designed a set of W°rthwtfile }mprovem~nts and the residents of Ayers Road are better off tl~ they would have been if the RO~d had not been improved. Their r~lUCtance to pay assessments is t~mderstandable. Their attempt to transform the question from whether they should be assessed into a larger question of ~vhether the design ;f the Road is satisfactor~ is certainly understandable a~ ~vell, but it does not have a place in the Cit3?s assessment policy. The Hearings Official is no better able to comment on individual design elements of a particular road than ~e the residents or others living in the vicinity of the Local Improvement District. Persons intimately £hmiliar with the Road in question certainly have a better sense of how they thir~k the Road should have been designed. The Hearings Official's contact with the CSty Engineering Department suggests that there is no perfect design for a road because there is no place perfectly designed to put a road. The Engineering Department must make compromises ~md ~mcult ~hoices~ balancing the terrain, the ievet o~ ~tse Dy locals and outsiders~ a~d the desires of the locals. The Engineering Department ~s revisiting some of the finer details of the design of Ayers Road because of the contractor's poor performance. It may be that in that process some of the individual issues raised at the hearing rnay be addressed. It does not seem~ however~ that these are the kind of issues that the Council should wish to examine. Even within :,he ov~alt ~ssue of the Council s assessment pohcy~ the issues raised by the opponents of the Ayers l(oad project only relate if the Council should choose to revisit the enti~ assessment process again. FinaIly~ several persons asked the City Council to alter its established policy and hold a public hearkig On the assesSments~ That is i matter fo,r the Council. The Co~cil ;sta,blished ~ process of inf°mation gathering that saves the Council s time. It is within the Council s prerogative to make such a ch0ice, but this particular assessment is not significantly different from otl~er assessments of the recent past, and it is unlikely to be significantly different from other local improvement prqiects ~n the futUre. The peopl~ requesting to spe~rk to the Council want to speak PAVING, CURBS AND GUTTERS, SIDEWALKS, AND STORM SEWERS ON AYERS ROAD AND GILI-LAM ROAD FROM AYERS ROAD TO HONEyWOOD STREET FINAL ASSESSMENT Page 6