Reduced parking in store for middle school

The Washington City Council saw a drawing of proposed changes to the streets around the future middle school building at its meeting Tuesday. The most significant change is that the parking spots along Fourth Avenue would become a parent ?drop off? zone.

The land on the northwest corner of the block would cease to be a parking lot and would instead become a green space. The east-west alley would be one-way going east until it ends in the middle of the block, where it would turn south because the north-south alley would be closed north of that point.

Washington engineering technician Keith Henkel said the parent-drop off area could be used for regular parking at night, although it will not be diagonally striped parking. It will be striped to reflect the parent drop off zone.

Washington Schools Superintendent Mike Jorgensen said less parking will be needed at that building because it won?t have to accommodate the high school students who drive.

Henkel expects the future green space to be leveled and seeded with grass so that P.E. classes can use it for games.

?The only concern they had with the green space was that they didn?t want kids crossing an alley to get there,? Henkel said. ?From the engineering side, I definitely agreed with that.?

The portion of the alley between the school and the green space would be closed.

Jorgensen said the land needs fill to make it level. He said that project to turn that into a green space is not going to happen this fall.

The city and school also talked about turning East Madison Street into a two-way street. It is currently a one-way street going west for a few blocks south of the school. Henkel said that portion of the street will probably stay one-way this year.

? The council approved a resolution which will make streets in the southwest part of town eligible for federal grants. The resolution upgrades Buchanan, South E and Sitler Drive to ?minor arterial? roads. At the same time, it downgrades South Ninth from a ?minor arterial? to a ?collector.?

The city received federal money to repave South Ninth. The city has also recently paved Fillmore Street, which is where trucks have been instructed to travel instead of Ninth.

The city can only have so many roads eligible for federal funds. Henkel said Buchanan is more likely to need federal funds in the future because of a possible industrial park there, so it was upgraded while Ninth was downgraded.   

? The council approved the first reading of an ordinance which would allow property owners to receive a tax break if they improved their property by more than 10 percent of its value. The first $75,000 in residential improvements would be tax-free for three years under the plan. Commercial and industrial property do not receive a full tax abatement on the improved portion. The amount of abatement on those two kinds of property changes after each year.

For the first year after the improvements, 75 percent of the taxes on the improved portion are abated. After that, the percent of taxes abated goes from 60 percent for the second year, 45 percent for the third year, 30 percent for the fourth year and 15 percent for the fifth year.

? The council discussed how much it should charge to make copies of public records. Hinson suggested that the city shouldn?t charge someone if they only wanted a few copies, but to begin charging after five copies. At the same time, he said the public should know the city is not a copy service.

?If someone says, ?I want every billing record over the last five years,? that?s going to take a little time,? he said.

The councilors agreed to charge 25 cents per page and $20 an hour for staff time dedicated to retrieving and copying records.

? Hinson said the wastewater plant is nearly complete. He suggested the city give guided tours of the facility around Labor Day weekend.

? The council passed a resolution authorizing $10,000 to Main Street Washington. It also approved Main Street?s request to sell liquor downtown and close a few streets around Central Park during ?Celebrate Washington? Saturday, Aug. 4.