The average age of myself, Brian Higgins and Ryan Conrad is 35. This will bring the average of the Lower Macungie Board of Commissioners to around 45 along with Doug Brown, 55 and Jim Lancsek who will be the elder statesmen at 60.

The previous composition of the board averaged nearly 60 in age. Ron Eichenberg and Roger Reis the outgoing incumbents were 67 and 70.

There are at least 4 township volunteers serving on the EAC, Parks and Public safety boards under 40 who have applied and were appointed over the last year or so.

I think this is great and I’m excited to be a part of a young forward thinking board. The current age composition is much more in line with our demographics where the median age is 41. It would be nice to have a little more diversity on the board. I know one woman I hope runs in two years. The best person for the job regardless of gender, age or race should win elections but diversity is never a bad thing.

A resident submitted a request to explore the speed limit on Willow Lane/East Texas Rd. a few months ago. Since Willow Ln otherwise known by Penndot as “State Rt. 3003” is a state road even though local Commissioners agreed in theory to a speed limit reduction the request had to go through the Ultimate Bureaucracy (tm) of PENNDOT.

Now bear in mind this section of Willow Lane goes through the Village of East Texas. It’s a long time residential neighborhood. In some cases homes are 20 feet away from the roadway. It’s an area that’s been a residential community for almost a century. The area of study encompassed East Texas Rd. at Brookside through East Texas to just beyond the Willows Restaurant.

Fast forward. I was wondering what was up so I emailed Bruce our Township Manager for an update. I rec’d the following letter from Penndot that was sent to LMT.

Here is everything wrong with Penndot in a nutshell.

Follow me here. Residents submitted a petition signed by nearly the entire neighborhood requesting a speed limit reduction since they felt the speed didn’t match up with the residential character of the Village of East Texas. The township supported the request. In fact they even identify East Texas as a traditional town center area. In other words all interested parties who actually understand the context of the road agree.

But based on one sized fits all engineering guidelines, Penndot’s answer is….. wait for it. . .

To actually increase the design speed of the road!!!

Let that sink in. This my friends is insanity. Penndot’s answer is increasing design speed by widening the street, flattening the street, removing all trees so cars can drive faster, THEN posting a speed limit so they slow down?

Penndot completely ignores the context and character of the roadway with it’s one sized fits all application of the 85th percentile speed. It applies standards blindly as if every road was a connector street.
85% speed followup post.

This letter reflects everything parodied in this wildly popular strongtowns.org youtube video entitled “Conversation with an Engineer”. Everything wrong with the “Ultimate Bureaucracy” ™ of Penndot. If you have never seen this take a moment and watch it. I can’t wait til we come up with a community serving plan for Hamilton Blvd. and Penndot just completely torpedoes it. Can’t wait….

NOTE: I’ve contacted the offices of Rep. Schlossberg (serves on transportation committee), Rep Mackenzie who represents LMT and State Senator Pat Browne. I wish to have them walk this neighborhood and see the situation on the ground. I will report back when I get replies. 

1PM: ADDED SOME PHOTOS FOR CONTEXT for those not familiar with the neighborhood.

Speeding problems? Cut down the trees so it’s safer for cars to drive faster!!!

Residential character that the “one sized fits all” Penndot design standards completely ignore.

The gentleman who first circulated the petition lives in this area. He was absolutely correct to request a speed reduction. Turns out almost 100% of his neighbors agree.

FYI – This is a practice I started and will continue as a member of the BOC. With these previews while I may indicate a voting inclination, it in no way means my mind is made up on any issue. Back during a critical hearing for the Jaindl issue, a Commissioner once spoke before public comment outlining he was voting to move forward the project regardless of what people said during public comment. That was wrong.

My hope is this opens the door for conversations before public meetings. One of my biggest issues with the Jaindl debacle was people didn’t truly understand what was happening until it was “too late”. I plan on doing everything I can to make sure residents have background information and my thoughts on issues before they come to a vote  in front of the board. This is one mechanism to do that.

Executive session – Clerical union contract review – I believe Bruce Fosselman and Ryan Conrad (chair of budget and finance committee) are the designees to negotiate. I think this is a strength of Conrad’s and I’m happy he has this responsibility.

Hearings and Approvals

Shepherds Corner – Development project on the corner of Krocks and Hamilton Corridor. At this stage I would vote to approve this project. However, had I sat on the planning and zoning committee when this plan came in as a sketch at that point I would have encouraged the developer to consider swapping the storm water features to the front of the building and moving the parking to the rear.

If you ever drove past the medical office on Walnut St. in East Macungie near the Buckeye tavern it’s a similar look with attractive storm water features in the front. I think that a landscaped storm water basin with split rail fencing presents a very pleasant street scape. This would be something more in line with our vision for a “world class boulevard”. Something less “strippy”. To achieve this we need to encourage developers to pay attention to curb appeal. The time to do this is very early in the process.

One of the biggest things that makes a strip development a strip is locating the parking in the front so it becomes the dominant feature.  It is important to shield the parking from boulevard. Thats the difference between a “Boulevard” and Macarthur Rd. or any other strip. We have Commissioners who talk about the world class boulevard and that’s wonderful yet they keep approving strip (or strippy) projects. Shepherds Corner is not a terrible project. (I reserve that label for plan approvals like the “American Kitchens” approved plan) It could be alot better but at this point it is what it is. And that is what we need to shoot for design wise if we want to have a “World Class Boulevard” in our township. Main Street design. Not strip design with some bells and whistles.

Ideal form of Hamilton Boulevard Buildings. This emulates a classic Main St.

This would be the ideal form of commercial/office development on Hamilton Boulevard. I believe we need to start proposing a unified vision. One way to do this is to present photographs of desired “look” to developers early in the process. This would be a model I would encourage.

*Note this project is tied to (because of shared stormwater) Hamilton Crossings. It’s unlikely it would happen without Hamilton Crossings being built.

Plan approval for Millbrook farms – This is another project that has been in the “pipeline” for awhile and I would likely vote in support of. Millbrook farms is a great subdivision with a very active HOA who is currently working with the township to utilize tree-vitalize grants to enhance their public realm.

Engineering – Acceptance of roadways for Liquid Fuels Reimbursement.

What is the Liquid Fuels Tax 
A tax of 12 cents per gallon is imposed on all liquid fuels (primarily gasoline) used or sold and delivered in Pennsylvania. The tax is imposed on the ultimate consumer, but the distributor is liable for collecting and remitting the tax.

 

Portions of this tax are then distributed to municipalities. The amount we receive is based on miles of roadways and population. There is a very specific list of items the township can use this state money for.  Primarily it consists of repair and maintenance of roads.

Authorization to advertise Act 537 ordinance – See last months meeting agenda preview for an overview of Act 537.

Township Manager’s Report – Last meeting the board instructed the the manager to continue with the process to subdivide and sell the Kratzer farm house. As you might recall, I and others including the Parks board, EAC and Planning commission formally expressed concern with a previous plan to subdivide the house, barn and driveway. More information here. 

We were successful in convincing the board to explore the value of the access (driveway) and the barn for a potential future greenway trailhead. The discussion at the time was to hold off on any subdividing until the results of the parks and recreation comprehensive plan were completed and presented. At least that was mine and others understanding.

At some point the discussion shifted and the process moved forward with the house. At last weeks meeting I would have voted against an authorization to instruct the manager to move forward with an appraisal and I would have honored the previous discussions to stop the subdivision process entirely until the park plan addressed the issue.

General Admin – One item on the Gen Ad agenda is the creation of the TreeTenders AD-Hoc committee. I support this in lieu of a shadetree commission. I attended the tree-tender training and think it’s an excellent program.

As a Republican I’m often frustrated with the notion that one party owns “smart growth”.

Republicans fall into certain traps regarding “smart growth” and the big picture behind it. The big picture in my opinion can be boiled down to one sentence. Smart Growth is about making growth pay it’s own way. It’s about rolling back gov’t subsidies for suburban sprawl and leveling the playing field. Charles Marohn and the strongtowns organization is dedicated to raising awareness of the fiscal issues with sprawl. Sprawl is a by-product of decades of gov’t meddling with the market.

It all comes down to the “growth ponzi scheme“.
The ponzi scheme is:

When a local unit of government benefits from the enhanced revenues associated with new growth, it also assumes the long-term liability for maintaining the new infrastructure. This exchange — a near-term cash advantage for a long-term financial obligation — is one element of a Ponzi scheme. – Strongtowns.org

There is a problem out there among certain conservative circles because there is a total misunderstanding of what smart growth is and means. Again for me it’s based on the paragraph above. And I can’t think of anything more conservative. Think about it, I want growth to pay it’s own way. I want to eliminate the subsidies so the playing field is even. I want to save taxpayers the burdens of the 2nd and 3rd lifecycle of greenfield development so we can keep tax rates predictable, stable and low.

So why don’t conservatives flock to “smart growth”?

I think you can chock some of it to blatant mis-information. Misinformation that is perpetuated by the extreme right wing crowd. I’m talking about the kind of folks that carry around ridiculous “agenda 21” pamphlets to public meetings. Smart growth is an easy target because as Bacon points out in the interview linked to below “planners use terms with political baggage meaning half of America tunes it out as white noise“. When you use terms that only other planners understand it becomes easy to mislabel a movement. This is a problem with the planning community and their refusal to be “jargon conscious”.

Nobody makes the case that conservatives should be smart growth champions better then James Bacon:

Political conservatives should be smart growth champions, with James Bacon

If you walk into a Republican-sponsored function and boast about supporting “smart growth” people will assume you hate liberty, you promote centralized planning, you oppose family values, and you think trees are more important than humans.

Smart Growth for Conservatives

Smart growth is too important to leave to liberals. Conservatives must articulate their own vision for creating prosperous, livable and fiscally sustainable communities.

The most important historical aspect one must understand to “get” why a conservative would be so passionate about smart growth is the fact that throughout the last 30 or so years gov’t entities including local, state and federal have been in the business of subsidizing sprawl.

Here is a post full of examples:

Conservative pols hate gov’t subsidies, unless they subsidize sprawl.

How do conservative voters and politicians square their hatred for government subsidies with their city-shunning sprawl patterns that suck the lifeblood out of local governments – and taxpayers? Outward sprawl forces jurisdictions to keep building new roads and schools and to extend emergency services farther and farther afield. Sprawl induces driving and leads to more public pressure to expand roads — a vicious circle of new development and new roads. Even in rural areas, one lane mile of new road can cost up to $9 million