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Friday, August 18, 2023
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-Zack Cinek
City gov’t
What else happened?
Willits City Council, August 9, 2023
Supporting Materials: Meeting Agenda
Streets
The city’s planning effort on the East Commercial Street Corridor is moving into the final planning stages.
Council members approved a $42,360 contract with Oregon-based Terrain Landscape Architects to produce a master plan document for the project.
CITY OF WILLITS: This effort refines the concepts described in the Outreach and Program Development Document and builds on its community engagement work. The proposal lists the project will provide the following deliverables: (1) An overview of the planning context, process, and public input; (2) Design guidelines; (3) Diagrams of key areas; (4) A phasing strategy; (5) City Council Presentation; and (6) A master plan.
The proposal’s expense of $42,360 covers the work to compose comprehensive design diagrams of the following key subareas: (1) The northwest corner between Main and Commercial Streets; (2) Bud Snyder Park; (3) City Hall and adjacent streetscapes; (4) Athletic fields; and (5) Frontages and public spaces at the Library/Museum/Roots of Power. The Outreach and Program Development Document identified these subareas for subsequent in-depth analysis.
The northwest corner between Main and Commercial Streets refers to the dirt lot opposite the Van Hotel.
The city’s previous document in this process proposed construction of a new city hall and police station.
STUDY: The civic infrastructure of Willits, comprised of its departments and council, has a home inside the repurposed Purity Grocery Store. This space is shared with the Community Center and does not provide a sense of destination or actual "seat" for the municipality.
Utilize the vacant lot at the corner of Commercial and Main to create a civic campus to house all of the departments of the City of Willits, as well as the police department and its fleet yard. This would increase the productivity of the City and free up the Community Center for other civic functions.
Funding for Terrain Landscape Architects’ contract comes from non-potable water sales at the Park Well on Commercial Street, the city’s written report stated.
Last week’s “Civic engagement toolbox” email examined the city’s goals.
From the agenda last week:
MEETING AGENDA: 2021 Adopted Goals: This item helps to achieve Goal #2 for Public Works…Increase public use of facilities over the next three years to foster civic pride, improve health, and support recreation efforts for greater involvement in local government, dependent on financing.
On the periphery of the city council’s purview, California Department of Transportation held a meeting at the firehouse earlier this month about reworking the southern half of Willits.
What we call Main Street, from Highway 20 south, is technically a state highway and not a city street like the northern portion through downtown.
What’s all the fuss? Think bicycle lanes.
A flyer for Caltrans’ meeting discussed putting southern Willits on a “road diet.”
Caltrans is saying that this project takes direction from a 2017 city study called the Main Street Corridor Enhancement Plan.
CALTRANS: Caltrans has secured funds to improve the safety of State Route (SR) 20 (Old Highway 101) from Oak Street to Manor Way in Willits. The project will implement a “road diet” by modifying the striping to add bike lanes. The concept for the project is based on the 2017 Willits Main Street Corridor Enhancement Plan and allows for future enhancements.