CMBA Meeting Notes - February 2008 meeting
The February 12 meeting was the Association’s Annual Meeting for the purpose of electing a new Executive Committee and Board of Directors. For 2008-2009, the presidency will be shared between Ryan Egge of Bales/Findley Property Management and Lauren McCabe of Cedar Mill Chiropractic. The Vice President is Mike Irinaga, a local Farmers’ Insurance agent. Attorney Dean Shade continues on the board as Secretary, and Diane Sandefur of Elliott Bookkeeping School is the new Treasurer. Additional Board Members are photographer Sandy Sahagian and Becky Jarvis of Electronics Unlimited. We will be profiling these board members in upcoming issues of the News. Thanks to all of you for giving your time to help our business community grow and thrive!
We also received an update on the Saltzman Road improvement project from Project Focus Group member John Tornblad. (See "Saltzman Open House," for more info.) The Focus Group has been discussing several thorny problems and wanted to get feedback from the business community as well as the Citizens’ Participation Group (CPO 1) where he also gave the presentation in early February. A letter has been sent to the group on behalf of the CMBA:
“At our request, John Tornblad, a member of your group, gave us a presentation on the Saltzman project at our February 12 meeting. We were asked to express our opinions on several issues. These responses represent the views of the membership:
1. 10-foot-wide sidewalks—As a general standard for a Town Center, 10-foot sidewalks would be ideal. But conditions “on the ground” in Cedar Mill make them less-than-desirable where they would impact existing structures, including the historic Grange building, or cut existing parking facilities to a level below the recommended rate for commerce. When any of the Town Center properties are redeveloped, sidewalk widening could be achieved. But it seems unnecessary for the county to spend extra money on right-of-way acquisition, when there are other actions that would add significantly to improved pedestrian movement around the Town Center, such as a crossing light at NW Dogwood St.
2. Pedestrian access near the library—we recommend a pedestrian crossing facility be installed at NW Dogwood St. to allow safer crossing of NW Saltzman Road. We recommend that the county investigate the possibility of an on-demand light that could be coordinated with the northbound signal at Saltzman and Cornell, to cut down on the potential for stacking and blockage of the intersection.
The current recommended placement of a crosswalk far to the north of the library is ridiculous. Nobody will walk that far out of direction to cross the street. We feel that placing a signalized on-demand crossing light at Dogwood would do more to encourage pedestrian use of the area than anything.
3. Trees to the west of the library—CMBA is in favor of saving trees where practical but only if they can be saved without sacrificing a viable pedestrian environment and only if the trees themselves are not put at risk by such actions as covering their roots with a sidewalk or placing the sidewalk such that tree roots would destroy it as they grow (they are Sequoias—the largest trees in the world).
4. Street Lighting—CMBA recommends the use of “dark sky friendly” street lights on NW Saltzman Road even if they do not match the street lights on NW Cornell Road/Barnes Road. The lights used on Cornell/Barnes are highly light polluting and we do not want them used on Saltzman.
5. Relocating utilities underground—CMBA strongly recommends the underground relocation of utilities in the entire Town Center area.”
The next meeting of the Saltzman Project Focus Group is scheduled for Tuesday April 1, 5-7:30 pm in the St Pius X Community Center. The public may attend and there is a limited comment period at the beginning of the meeting.
See index for information on the March 11 CMBA meeting.
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