2021-08-24_PWETC_Minutes - Laserfiche WebLink

Home

Public Works Director Culver explained the PWETC held a joint meeting with the City Council at the July 191' City Council work session. There was a significant amount of conversation between the Commission and City Council about some of the upcoming topics that the Commission may take up in the next calendar year. Chair Wozniak indicated he was interested in how COVID is going to affect the workplace which in turn will affect transit because they may not be designing the system for what is going to be normal. Mr. Culver asked for Commission thoughts from the evening or topics to prioritize. He noted they usually select a few topics that they can start planning for over the upcoming months. Member Ficek thought the review was very well done. He would be interested in the speed limits topic. He did not think the City was ready to take any action and he was not advocating for any action, but he would like to see some education on that. He thought the other topic would be transit and traffic as well as interest in seeing what happens with businesses and COVID and trying to bring people back to work. Member Spencer explained the only concern on his mind, whether it is on the Master Plan or included in the bike network, would be addressing some of the electric scooters around and he did not know how these would be classified and where would these be addressed if the City were to address them. Mr. Culver thought this would be a really good conversation to have to see if the City even wants them in the community and how to regulate them. Chair Wozniak thought it would be a good thing to look at because it affects many things in the City such as speed limits, pathways, and other things. Member Misra explained she would like to review the speed limit topic within the next year as well. She thought having someone come in from St. Paul might be a good start. She would also like to see someone from Parks and Recreation to discuss green space in the City. She thought a lot of green space has been lost recently with developments. Mr. Culver discussed the City Tree Ordinance with the Commission. Chair Wozniak indicated he would like to look back at what the Tree Task Force did a couple of years ago and what roadblocks they ran into, what were they able to accomplish and what was left on the table. He thought as a part of what he would like the Commission to look at is breaking down the silos, which is one thing that a number of Councilmembers talked about and experiment with a task force approach to multi -sector topics that are shared among the other advisory commissions. Page 4 of 5