Last night the Council discussed several significant items:
- We discussed the draft Clayton Local Roadway Safety Plan. This plan is necessary in order to seek certain federal funds for traffic and pedestrian safety improvements. There was detailed discussion around the history of traffic related incidents and injuries, mapped out in an overlay across the city over the last 5 years.
Our City Engineer is seeking feedback from residents regarding any area of concern as it relates to traffic. This could be areas where visibility is impacted, where any potential dangerous condition exists, etc. This information will be collected and assembled in order to guide future potential projects. If you have thoughts or idea that should be incorporated into the final version, please let me know or contact our City Engineer directly at cityengineer@claytonca.gov
- We approved acquiring the Granicus 311 reporting application. This is a SaaS cloud offering that creates a portal where residents can report maintenance related incidents. Incidents are tracked and routed to appropriate City staff. Folks will have the ability to add images, messages, etc. to assist in determining the location and severity of any incident. By allowing residents to report incidents from their phone in a convenient manner, we hope to get a better handle on actual service demand, as well as provide a more timely response.
- We discussed adding an all way stop sign at the intersection of N. El Camino Dr at Southbrook Dr. Currently that intersection is controlled only by a 2 way stop sign in the East/West bound directions. While on a quantitative basis the fact pattern did not support the addition of a stop signs, based on the topography and lack of sidewalks in the neighborhood where residents are often walking in the street, the Council thought it prudent to add the stop signs to mitigate the risk of serious injury in that area.
- We discussed the City Sponsored Special Events Policy. At our 9.19.23 meeting, we formed an ad hoc committee, consisting of myself and Councilmember Trupiano, to draft revisions to the policy as originally presented. After meeting with Councilmember Trupiano, her and I addressed several areas within the policy draft. Originally there was quite a bit of non-policy language included - things like why events are special, historical background on volunteerism, identification of a lack of historical processes, etc. While these things may be true, they are not necessary to writing good public policy.
Policy documents should be both clear and concise. So much so that anything unnecessary to the goal of the policy should not be included. The ad hoc committee kept that in mind when drafting the revision. An additional stated goal of staff and the Council was to reduce the burden on staff time as it relates to Special Events. It contemplated appropriating a small portion of the budget to support these activities, and forming a standing Special Events Committee that would provide oversight to all City Sponsored Special Events within that allotted budget. This would reduce the need for staff time as the Committee would handle much of the logistics of events, either directly or with third parties.
There was disagreement on whether the Committee was needed. While this year the Concerts in the Grove Committee functioned expertly in doing exactly what is being contemplated here - creating operational manuals, organizing events, engaging in fundraising and working with sponsors, etc. with very limited staff involvement, Staff felt they should be on point for making these policy decisions and that having an oversight committee was not a productive use of time.
We did generally agree that going forward the Concerts, 4th of July Parade, Classic Car Shows, and a one time 60th Anniversary Event would be City Sponsored Events. The policy discussion was tabled to a later date so it could be given additional consideration.
