Mid-Hillside and Hillside East Community Councils
Meeting Minutes
September 20, 2001

Call to order:

The meeting was called to order by Vice President Jeff Clarke at 7 pm. Approximately 10 were in attendance. Board Members present were Jeff Clarke and John Weddleton.

Introductions:

Minutes of the previous meeting: The minutes were approved.

Federation of Community Councils Report: John Weddleton reported on the FCC meeting of September 19 , 2001.

FEATURE PRESENTATIONS:

Ballfields in Bicentennial Park.

There was a general discussion of the issue of building a community park consisting primarily of ball fields for the Simonian Little League on approximately 30 acres in the southwest corner of Bicentennial Park.

A presentation on this issue was made at our April meeting when Dwight Adams presented the results of the Land Design North report evaluating alternative locations for the ball fields. Jeff Clarke presented a review of the alternatives.

It was the unanimous opinion of the council members present that the fields should not be built in Bicentennial Park. The reasons for this varied, but most seemed to agree that since there are very good alternatives that are not in the Park, those alternatives should be pursued.

We did not feel we had a proper quorum for a formal resolution supporting building the ball fields outside of the park.

Hillside Roads

Anne Brooks answered questions relating to road issues in out area. The following are her answers. (Ms. Brooks, of Brooks and Associates, is a Public Participation Coordinator for numerous road projects throughout Anchorage.).

1. Will there be 3 lanes as far as Rockridge for access to O'Malley School and the Fire Station? I responded by summarizing the alternatives currently in the environmental document which show two options--one 2 lane with turn pockets and one 3 lane with a two way left turn lane.

2. Will there be additional stop lights? No -- none are included in the current plans.

3. Where will the street lights (luminaires) be? I let them know the current thought was to provide continuous lighting from New Seward Highway to Lake Otis and keep the lighting from Lake Otis to Hillside Drive as it currently exists. I did let them know that during design the lighting would be reviewed to make sure it was up to current standards and that the project team would be taking additional input during design.

4. Will there be berms to block noise? I let them know that this was still being discussed and that the noise modeling did show some increased noise.

5. What will the speed limit be? -- It will remain the same.

6. Any traffic calming measures? My response was no.

7. Will there be adjacent trails? My response was yes, a trail is in the current plan for the full length of the project--New Seward Highway to Hillside Drive.

8. Is the quick repave going to happen this year? I was unable to answer this question. I have a call into Chris Kepler @ DOT and promised to follow up with him to get an answer. (John Weddleton's note: The repave started a week after the meeting.)

9. Is the project on schedule? I let them know, per my conversation with Diana Rigg, that the design moneys were not obligated in 2001 and this would push all the dates back one year. This would make the construction happen in 2006.

10. What's the status of the East Anchorage Study? I let them know that DOT/MOA is awaiting approval of a funding strategy and that the project was sent by the AMATS Policy Committee to the Technical Advisory Committee for review next Thursday, September 27th. I gave them a summary of the boundaries for the study and the study objectives.

11. Why aren't they extending Huffman to Hillside? I let them know that this project had been discussed before, had been ranked by AMATS and scored very low. (See additional comments below)

12. Do any of the roads projects include bike trails? Specifically, O'Malley road desperately needs a bike path as does Hillside north. I reiterated the fact that the O'Malley Road project does include a trail.

The group had another question on the MOA routing for the water line. Al Tamagni from Abbott Loop Community Council and a Mayor's Task force member fielded this question and explained the rationale for the recommendation forwarded to the mayor.
After my responses to their questions, the following additional concerns/points were raised.

O'Malley Road -- At Rockridge intersection across from the Fire Station. Concern was raised that because of the alignment of the driveways and congestion during am and pm pupil drop off times, that emergency response would be compromised. The woman commented that this portion of the O'Malley Road project should be expedited, that it was too long to wait until 2006 for something to be done with left and right turn channelization. She felt that something needed to be done to remove the turning vehicles from the through lanes and allow for through movement of traffic. She felt this was a safety issue requiring more immediate attention.

O'Malley Road -- at the Alaska Zoo. A gentleman expressed a desire to add the turn channelization (left turn lane/eastbound) at the Zoo. He said he witnessed many "near misses" at this location during the summer.

Chuck Davis (346-3874) a property owner at the southeast corner of O'Malley and Rockridge would like to understand what the O'Malley Road impacts will be to his property. I forwarded his request to Loren Becia, Lounsbury and Loren promised to follow up.

John Weddleton indicated that he had walked his neighborhood with flyers on the meeting. Many had conflicts and he talked to lots of folks who still had concerns about what the DOT is going to do with noise on O'Malley Road. He wanted to know if we were looking at berms, fencing, etc., He noted that this was a big concern. I indicated that we (the project team) would be meeting on the issue with the state next week and may have more answers. He ask what the options were and I mentioned fencing, berms, etc., but indicated that I didn't know what the policy was. We discussed the different impacts due to fencing--visual, wildlife barriers, and right of way needs for berms. (John Weddleton note: Click here to see a manual with information on ways to decrease road noise.)

John also asked if we ever considered running the trails through neighborhoods instead of putting them along busy noisy streets with lots of driveways. I told him we worked with the adopted trails plan as a guide. If he thought this was a valid idea he should contact the Planning and Parks and Rec Departments and have them consider it in the next trails plan update.

I shared the schedules for Abbott Road, Huffman Road and Dearmoun Road projects. The Abbott Road schedule raised some concerns. Several members felt that another segment of the roadway that should receive immediate attention was the section from Abbott Loop Road to Birch. They felt that the reconstruction of this segment couldn't wait until after 2006--something should be done because of the schools/buses, etc.

Re Huffman to Hillside extension. I think this has come up at every meeting on the Hillside. The feeling is that if you extend Huffman to Hillside you would provide an alternate route and reduce the traffic on O'Malley Road. I told the group that this would be an appropriate link to evaluate in the EAST study.

The final concern was with Rockridge Drive itself. It is under construction at this time. According to Vince Mee with the Municipality of Anchorage's Street Maintenance Department, the project (and monies received from Juneau) was turned over to the Upper O'Malley LRSA and that he didn't know what their plans were. The contact for the LRSA is Bill Wuestenfeld who can be reached at 346-3832 or 276-6363.

AWWU Water Pipe to the tank at Service High

This topic came up in the course of the discussion of roads. We were fortunate to have Al Tamagni available to discuss this. Al was on the Mayor's waterline task force. The route chosen follows Tudor Road west to Bragaw, then south to Abbott Loop to connect with the existing line near the corner of Abbott and Abbott Loop roads.

Al said that despite the current estimate that the alternative route along the BLM airstrip in the Campbell Tract would be $7 million cheaper, there are lots of unknowns with that route. There is already a water pipe on the route that was chosen so the costs are more certain.

Community Council Boundaries

Al Tamagni, member of the Federation of Community Councils' Boundary Task Force presented some options for revising the boundaries of our Community Councils.

The goals for setting boundaries include:

Nominations for the Boards of the Mid-Hillside and Hillside East Community Councils

Jeff Clarke made it known that board members are needed and that the procedure for getting on the board is a simple phone call to the current President. Call Chris Birch at 346-3265 (h) chrisbirch@gci.net

Meeting Adjourned at 9:00 pm

This site was last updated on October 12, 2002

john@weddleton.com
907-349-8370