Council tables park-and-ride plan; trims pay increases
At times, the Rochester City Council’s first meeting of the decade felt as if it may take another full decade before final decisions could be reached. The meeting went five and a half hours, the longest such meeting since 2016.
Assuming you did not stay up until the wee hours of Tuesday morning following along, here are the two big discussions you missed out on.
Kmart park-and-ride tabled
After hours of fervent testimony over the proposed Kmart site park-and-ride, the council opted to send the plan back to the drawing board.
The 5-2 decision to table the topic followed a failed motion in which the council narrowly rejected a five-year agreement with the property owner that would have allowed the company to lease out the site for parking.
“There is a situation in which I can approve a contract to allow a park-and-ride in this location,” said Council Member Nick Campion, who cast one of the deciding nay votes on the original motion. “This is not that contract, and it has aspects that make me feel we’re a ways from getting there.”
The parking proposal had been aggressively promoted by Mayo Clinic as an interim solution to alleviate its shortage of employee parking downtown. The lot, according to Mayo, would be used to move staff — most of whom are on 12-hour shifts — from the east side of downtown to St. Marys.
Neighbors, however, have raised concerns about the potential negative impacts the nearly 1,400-space lot could have on road congestion, neighborhood safety, and the environment. On Monday, about two dozen of those residents went before the council to reiterate their opposition.
“Park-and-rides, conceptually, are supposed to be located on the outskirts of the city, not bringing additional traffic into downtown,” said Meghan Kozub, a resident of the Slatterly Park Neighborhood.
“This seems like a Band-Aid by the Mayo Clinic,” added Sameer Sharma, who lives nearby. “And I can’t begin to imagine any physician at Mayo Clinic wanting to put a Band-Aid on any kind of problem for five years.”
In an effort to mitigate some of the concerns from neighbors, the owner of the site, Camegaran LLC, had worked with the city and Mayo on a so-called “Concept B+” alternative. The updated proposal calls for adding 20-foot setbacks around the site along with enhanced landscaping.
It also stipulates that the property would only be used for parking in the interim. (The property owner/Mayo had requested 10 years, though the Planning and Zoning Commission recommended a five-year lease.)
On Monday, representatives from Mayo and Destination Medical Center took that commitment a step further by introducing a proposal to invest thousands of dollars into a long-term plan for the Kmart site, as well as the adjacent AMPI property, which is set to go on the market.
“This is proposed as a temporary solution,” said Patrick Seeb, the director of economic development and placemaking for DMC. “It is not the best long-term use of this land, and there are efforts we are all undertaking to ensure there are other options for people to get into our downtown.”
Patrick O. Regan, who was on hand Monday to represent Camegaran, added that “we will all be proud of what happens here long-term.” His firm purchased the Ninth Street site last year for $7 million.
“This is a multi-generational development opportunity by somebody who’s invested in this neighborhood for a hundred years,” said Regan. “We are not going anywhere. We promise to work with you.”
Council President Randy Staver joined Council Members Shaun Palmer and Patrick Keane in voting in favor of the proposed five-year lease (though Keane indicated he had reservations around the volume of stalls). Staver said he agreed with the sentiment that the site has a higher and better use down the road, but noted there is a need for parking in the short-term.
“This is going to take some time,” said Staver. “We know that we want to develop the East Transit Hub [Seneca/Graham site] to be a gem in our transit system… but we need some time for that to unfold.”
Though the initial vote failed Monday, there will be another opportunity for the applicant to bring forward a revised lease agreement. Council Members Campion and Michael Wojcik signaled they would be open to reconsidering their positions if some of the details in the contract were reworked. (Only Council Member Mark Bilderback, who has lived in the neighborhood since 1988, stated a firm opposition to the idea of a park-and-ride.)
Notably, Campion called for providing greater opportunities for the public to use the lot, given that the city would act as one of the leasees/operators of the site. That could mean providing short-term (metered) parking and/or more affordable contracted rates. The current proposal lists the going rate for stalls at $135/month for members of the public. “I would need to see some meaningful approach to making this public parking,” he said.
Pay increases tweaked
Like with the park-and-ride debate, the discussion around the council’s controversial pay increases started off with a bang — with several speakers stepping up to the podium to take a swing at their elected leaders.
“How can we trust the city council’s judgement from now on,” questioned Rochester resident Steve Yaggy, “on anything we have trusted you to do? How can we think you have credibility to negotiate contracts on the city’s and the taxpayer’s behalf, when you did not even attempt to negotiate your own salary in a rational manner?”
Ultimately, the council opted to walk back — if only a few inches — on the considerable pay raises it approved in December.
A motion by Council Member Annalissa Johnson to slash the previously-approved increases by 20 percentage points each passed 5-2.
The revised figures — which came on a second reading of the original ordinance — means the mayor would stand to make 100 percent of the area median income in 2020 (which is about $65,700 for a single-person household); the council president would earn 72 percent AMI; all other council members would take home 60 percent AMI.
Here is how that breaks down:
Mayor
2019 salary: $37,657
New (estimated) 2020 salary: $65,700
Would have been $78,840 as initially approved
Council President
2019 salary: $27,743
New (estimated) 2020 salary: $47,304
Would have been $60,444 as initially approved
Ward Representatives
2019 salary: $21,712
New (estimated) 2020 salary: $39,420
Would have been $52,560 as initially approved
Palmer and Staver changed their original positions to vote nay on the new set of increases. Keane switched from nay to aye.
Prior to Monday night’s vote, Staver had unsuccessfully attempted to introduce a pay system of his own that would have set wages at half of the initial proposal (60 percent AMI for mayor, 46 for council president, etc.)
“This is a compromise,” he said. “I think the percentages would be far more palatable. But yet it does move us downstream from some of our prior years, where we went several years with zero percent.”
As part of the approved motion, the council also made an amendment to put the 2021 salaries at the previously-agreed-upon pay scale (i.e. 120 percent for mayor, 92 percent for council president). Those salaries, which still need to be voted on as part of next year’s budget process, would take effect following an election cycle in which four seats are on the ballot.
“Here’s the beautiful thing,” said Wojcik, who is on the ballot this November. “Some people say, ‘well, there’s four of you up for re-election.’ I think that’s a great thing because the community can respond to it.”
Sean Baker is a Rochester journalist and the founder of Med City Beat.
