Palmer residents to have say on local issues

June 13, 2006

By DAWN DE BUSK/Frontiersman

PALMER - Two issues going before the Palmer City Council tonight at 7 will be open to public testimony.

One would expand the residency requirement for department heads as well as the candidate pool for a recently vacated Public Works Director position, according to City Clerk Janette Bower.

Currently, all city department heads must live within a 10-mile radius from Palmer's boundary lines, Bower said. The proposed ordinance would lift the residency requirement completely.

The second public hearing would set aside the Palmer Depot parking lot as a public parking lot, which downtown businesses and developers could use in lieu of required parking spaces. This is one step toward the city's parking ordinance, which has been designed to create a compact downtown, according to Community Development Coordinator Sara Jansen.

&#8220The idea is to create a pocket of public parking in downtown, to allow businesses to be closer together - which they already are, for the most part,” Jansen said.

&#8220The idea is to give as many options to the developer and business owner as possible, and to have some flexibility,” Jansen said.

The arrangement would allow businesses that don't have the required number of parking spaces on site to put money into a fund to construct future parking spaces. For the time being, the arrangement would allow customers or employees to use Palmer Depot's parking lot - if it is designated as a public parking area.

In other business:

€ The council will decide whether to change the 2006 budget, adding $20,000 for landscaping at the Palmer Ice Arena.

€ Council members will ponder purchasing an 8.4 cubic-yard sander box as a joint purchase arrangement with the city's Public Works Department and the state and Bob's Services Inc.

€ The council will consider whether to join into a Memorandum of Under-standing with the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation to monitor the city's air quality.

€ In unfinished business, an ordinance has been introduced that will create a written process for getting action memoranda on the agenda.

Sometimes, people come to a meeting and then suggest to a council member that something needs to be changed, or a council member wants to add something to the code or modify it, but an explanation of how to introduce the new item isn't addressed, Bower said. This ordinance would simply create for the council written instructions for introducing action memorandums, she said.

Contact Dawn De Busk at 352-2252, or dawn.debusk@ frontiersman.com.