Council reviews more road work, nuisance code changes

By John McCallum Current contributor Road work and other construction

At its April 4 meeting, the City Council set a Planning Commission hearing date of April 27 on an application requesting the city vacate the right of way at 22nd Avenue and Glenview Circle.

The Oaks Education Association is requesting the city vacate 6,970 square feet of the public right of way just south of the current intersection. The south portion of the intersection has never been developed, does not extend further south and according to a report to council, is no longer needed by the city.

At its April 11 meeting, council approved a $3.82 million contract with North Fork Enterprises, LLC, for a project reconstructing Sullivan Road from Sprague Avenue to 8th Avenue near Central Valley High School. The project — estimated at $5 million — involves a fulldepth reconstruction of the street pavement, installation of new sidewalk on the west side of Sullivan to fill in gaps where no sidewalk exists, along with an ITS system, stormwater and ADA improvements.

Project funding will come from federal, Transportation Improvement Board, Department of Ecology and city sources.

Council was provided updates on several neighborhood street projects at their April 25 meeting. Inland Asphalt is tentatively set to begin work May 8 on a $1.5 million pavement replacement along with stormwater and ADA improvements in the Hillview Estates neighborhood west of State Route 27 and north of 32nd Avenue.

City engineer Gloria Mantz said old pavement would be removed, surfaces graded and covered in three inches of asphalt. The project will improve about 54,000 square yards of roads.

Also coming up will be bid openings on the estimated $1.8 million similar project in the Summerfield Estates neighborhood around Trentwood Elementary School. Mantz said a contract award should be extended in May, and will improve about 37,000 square yards of roads.

Councilman Ben Wick said it will be interesting to compare the two since the Summerfield project employs a competitive-bid style of pricing while the Hillview project uses the city’s new “unit rate price” method.

City staff presented proposals for improving Spokane Valley’s chronic nuisance codes to make it more effective to abate properties in violations of the ordinances. Currently this is limited to criminal activity at a property that creates a public nuisance in the neighborhood, but at a December, 2022 meeting, council expressed a desire to go further.

Currently, the code identifies chronic nuisances as five instances of criminal activity within 12 months or four instances of criminal activity and one “regular nuisance” within 12 months.

The proposed ordinance would add a shorter time period of three nuisances within 60 days, one criminal, and five nuisances in 12 months, one criminal. It would also broaden nuisance instances to include abandoned properties, drug properties and a broader definition of nuisances to include criminal, regular and other civil violations.

Finally, instead of the current practice of boarding up the property for up to a year, the proposal would add the option of putting the property into receivership after a determination by a court that it is a chronic nuisance. Receivership would allow a court-appointed third party to sell the property, ensuring it does not return to a chronic nuisance condition and returns it to beneficial use.

Council gave its consensus to staff to bring forward ordinance language at a future meeting.

At the April 25 meeting, council agreed to authorize staff to contact the U.S. Department of Energy to notify them the city of Spokane Valley was interested in applying for an allocation of $154,350 available to it under the Energy Efficiency & Conservation Block Grant Program.

Director Bill Helbig said the funding carries a pre-award application deadline of April 28 and a project application deadline of Jan. 31, 2024.

Helbig said the city didn’t have any energy projects on the table for the funding, but suggested several areas the money could be used if received such as street light energy upgrades and traffic signal interconnection and coordination at certain intersections along Sprague.

The federal Bipartisan Infrastructure Law directed $550 million to the grant program. After pre-approval is submitted, Helbig said staff would identify projects the funding could be used for and

The following issues are tentatively set to be discussed at council meetings in May.

May 2 – First reading of amended ordinances for business and massage business licensing; bid awards for 8th Avenue sidewalk and preservation project, Park Road sidewalk project, Balfour Park change order.

May 9 – Second reading of business and massage business licensing; aquatics update, 2023 budget amendment report.

May 16 – First reading on 2023 budget amendment; bid awards for Broadway & Park intersection improvements, Barker Road at Union Pacific crossing project and Summerfield Estates street preservation project.

May 23 – second reading of 2023 budget amendment, bid award for Pines & Mission intersection improvements, Broadway Preservation Phase 1 bid award.

May 30 – Library building update

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