The Climate and Infrastructure Committee met on September 4, 2025, to review and vote on several infrastructure items, with a focus on two major protected bikeway projects. The committee approved the consent calendar unanimously and engaged in detailed discussions on the 9th and 10th Street Corridor Project and the Park and Portland Avenue Safety Improvement Project, ultimately approving both.
Good afternoon. Welcome to the regular meeting of the Climate and Infrastructure Committee for Thursday, September 4th. I'm Katie Cashman, chair of this committee. Before we call the meeting to order, I want to offer a friendly reminder to all the committee members and staff and the public that these meetings are broadcast live to enable greater public participation. Please be mindful of the rate of your speech so that our captioners can fully transcribe all the comments for the broadcast. Thank you. At this time, I'll ask the clerk to call the role to verify quorum. Councilmember Vita. Present. Osman present. Chavez? Present. Chowdry. Present. Vice Chair Koske is absent. Chair Cashman. Present. We have five present. Let the record reflect we have a quorum. And we had a previously noted absence from Vice Chair Koskey for today's meeting. All right. So we'll begin with the consent agenda, which I'll read for the record. Item one is approving appointments to the Shingle Creek Watershed Management Commission. Item two is approving appointments to the Bassett Creek Watershed Management Commission. Item three is a resolution adopting revisions to the snowbound cart policy. Item four is a resolution designating the location and improvements proposed in the Lowry Avenue Northeast reconstruction. Item five is approving the concept layout for the 18th Avenue South Bridge Project. Item six is setting up public hearing for October 16th, 2025 to consider water and sewer service line repair assessments. Item seven is approving the concept layout for the 9th and 10th Street Corridor Project. And I will move all items for approval, though I do understand that the protected bike late bikeway project 9th and 10th Street Corridor will have some questions too. So with that, is there any discussion? I see Councilmember Vita. I have some questions about item seven. Okay. So I will move items one through six for approval. And just a quick note I'm just really thankful and grateful to the sewer division, Angie Kraft and Liz Stout, in particular, for helping to fill the Shingle Creek Watershed Management Commission and the Bassett Creek Management Commission are going to have both commissioners and alternates filled for the first time in a very long time. And we always think about the Mississippi as we should, and we always think about the lakes as we should. But Shingle Creek and Bassett Creek are often forgotten, and they should not be because they're really important water sources to the north side, to Brynmarr, and the neighborhoods that they touch. So I'm really grateful for the folks who are stepping up to serve on those commissions and protect water access for all neighborhoods of the city. So move on the motion to move items one through six for approval. All those in favor say aye. Those opposed say nay. Any abstentions that motion carries. And we will now move on to item seven, which is approving the concept layout for 9th and 10th Street corridor project. Um this does impact ward seven and ward six. And there has been uh many, many years of work on this project. Uh there's federal funding involved. There has been a lot of stakeholder engagement and um in particular, we've had a lot of briefings and have also met with some of the stakeholders too. I believe Public Works has really done a great job in trying to manage all of the priorities here and to uh increase protected bikeway access for downtown while not sacrificing the traffic flows that are really important here too for the commuters who come in and out of downtown, especially now that a lot of people are back in the office and traffic is getting a lot busier. So I uh am supportive of the project, but I do understand that there's a lot of questions about uh what's what's to come with the different um aspects of the flex lanes, uh bump outs, and potential new developments that are slated to be developed along this stretch, including at 900 Marquette.