MACON-BIBB COUNTY ROAD IMPROVEMENT PROGRAM

STAKEHOLDERS MEETING

        HELD ON: APRIL 14, 2005   
                  HELD AT: NORTH MACON PARK

                  PROJECT: FOREST HILL ROAD      
                           LIGHTING AND LANDSCAPING

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Reported By:  Patricia C. Ussery, CCR B-1238

CLAUDE JOINER REPORTING SERVICE, INC.
P. O. BOX 94 - 410 AMERICAN FEDERAL BUILDING
MACON, GEORGIA 31202-0094
TELEPHONE:  912/742-6611 OR 912/746-7804

MODERATOR:		If I can get your attention, please, we want to go ahead and get started.  If I can get your attention, please.  I’ll give everybody a moment to get settled down a little bit.  We appreciate it.
Good evening.
UNISON:		 Good evening.
MODERATOR:		 My name is Keith Barker, and I’ve been retained by the Macon-Bibb County Road Improvement Program and the Georgia Department of Transportation to serve as the moderator for tonight’s meeting with the stakeholders concerning the landscaping and lighting of the Forest Hill corridor.  I want to thank each of you for coming this evening.
I would like to start off the meeting with some background on the project.  About ten years ago Macon and Bibb County put together a road improvement program covering approximately sixty-four projects at an estimated cost of three hundred and fifteen million dollars.  A local option sales tax referendum was then placed on a ballot and passed by the voters of Bibb County to fund the local match of one hundred and fifteen million dollars of the road program.  

The Forest Hill corridor is part of the referendum.  The Macon-Bibb County Road Improvement Program is partnering with the Georgia Department of Transportation and the Federal Highway Administration on the Forest Hill Road project expenditures.  Design and planning work started back in 1995.  The concept of the project was approved in 1998.  
The first public hearing showing the approved concept was held in June 2001 at Springdale Elementary School.  Approximately three hundred and fifteen citizens attended this meeting and a total of two hundred and thirty-two comments were received concerning the project.
The Federal Highway Administration requested that a stakeholders meeting be held in May of 2002 to clarify the elements of the project design.  Tonight we have the same stakeholders who are meeting again to provide input on the project lighting and landscaping.  This meeting was directed by the environmental assessment findings of no significant impact, otherwise known as FONSI, which was approved by the Federal Highway Administration and the Georgia Department of Labor last year.

That concludes the brief history of the project, so I’d like to start tonight’s meeting.  And I’d like to start tonight’s meeting with introductions.  And, first, I would like the principals of the project design team to stand and identify yourself and give the group some indication of what aspect of the project you are responsible for.  Let’s start over here.
MR. WHITE:		 I’m Dale White with Technicon Engineering, and I’m representing the lighting portion of the project this evening.
MS. STINSON:		 I’m Kristin Stinson.  I’m a civil engineer with Stantec.  And Stantec was responsible for the road design of the corridor.
MS. WYNNE:		 I’m Julie Wynne.  I work with T. Lake Environmental Design and we will be working on the landscape aspect of this project.
MR. LAKE:		 I’m Tim Lake.  I’m a landscape architect and president of T. Lake Environmental Design, and we are writing the design program development for the landscape portion of the project.
MR. WOOD:		 I’m Joe Wood.  I work with Moreland-Altobelli and the Road Improvement Program.
MR. ETHERIDGE:		 I’m Van Etheridge.  I’m the Road Program manager on the program and I work for Moreland Altobelli and Associates.
MODERATOR:		 Those are the principals of the design team.  You will get a chance to hear from them and to engage them in informal conversation later on in the meeting.  

At this point, I’d like for the stakeholders to introduce themselves.  And give us some idea, I know a lot of the stakeholders, you all are representing a larger entity sometimes, a church or a school, so give us some indication of who you may be representing.  And, Mr. Smith, can we start with you, please.
MR. SMITH:		 I’m Raymond Smith.  I’m president of Smith, Brown and Groover on the corner of Vineville and Forest Hill.  I also own the house directly behind me, or next door.  That’s 164 Forest Hill.  It’s currently Employ America.
MALE VOICE:		 We can’t hear you.
MODERATOR:		 Can you speak up a little bit.
MR. SMITH:		 I’m Raymond Smith.  I’m president of Smith, Brown and Groover that’s on the corner of Forest Hill and Vineville.  I own that building as well as I own the building next door that has Employ America in it currently.  It was a run-down house that I refurbished.  It’s 164 Forest Hill.  I don’t represent anybody in particular except that particular corner.
MODERATOR:		 Thank you, Mr. Smith.
MR. ISRAEL:		 I’m George Israel.  I live at 242 Albermarle.  I grew up on Forest Hill Road, and we were impacted by the closing of The Prado and Overlook initially.  So that’s how I ended up here.

MODERATOR:		 Thank you.
MS. BLAKE:		 I’m Lou Ann Blake.  I’m the assistant administrator of Macon-Northside Hospital and I represent the hospital.
MS. HANBERRY-MARTIN:	 I’m Susan Hanberry-Martin.  I’m representing CAUTION Macon, a citizens group.  I also serve as the chair of the Citizens Advisory Committee for the Macon Area Transportation Study.
MR. THORNTON:		 I’m Tim Thornton.  I live on Forest Hill Terrace just a couple of doors off Forest Hill Road, about midway of the project.  I’m also a member of the Citizens Advisory Committee.
MR. SKALKO:		 I’m Steve Skalko.  I’m here on behalf of Forest Hill United Methodist Church.  I am a member of their Board of Trustees.
DR. HOLLIDAY:		 I’m Lindsay Holliday, sitting in for Ms. Patsy Fried.  I was born and raised on Forest Hill Road.  My parents still live there.  They’ve been there since ‘47, ‘49.  And I own property on Forest Hill Road.
 		MODERATOR:		 Thank you.
MR. THOMPSON:		 I’m Don Thompson from St. Francis Church, and we’ve been involved with discussions about the median in the middle of the road that cut off our exits and entrances to the church.
MODERATOR:		 Thank you.

MR. FISHER:		 My name is Paul Fisher, and I’m here because I’m concerned about the affect of the lighting, street lighting, on the Museum observatory.
MR. PATTERSON:		 I’m Joe Patterson, Jr.  I live at 3862 The Prado.  Why I’m here, I reckon, is to cause trouble.
MODERATOR:		 Mr. Patterson, we’re glad that you’re here.  
We have quite a few people in the audience.
MR. ISRAEL:		 He’s still Judge to most of us.
MODERATOR:		 Judge.  I think I recognize some Macon-Bibb County elected officials.  Are there any Macon-Bibb County elected officials in the audience?  (No response).  Some of you all bear a striking resemblance.  That may be good or bad.
All right.  Part of my role is just to make sure that we have an effective meeting.  The purpose of this meeting is to capture as much feedback and suggestions, as well as respond to questions, as we can regarding some of the design options that you will see tonight.  And, so, we’ve got to do that in sort of an organized fashion.

We have a court reporter here and that makes it even more important that we conduct this meeting with some ground rules.  The first ground rule that I’d like to bring to your attention is that for this meeting we want to capture everybody’s input but for formal questions we would like to limit that to the stakeholders at this table only, please, okay, for the presentation, Q and A portion of the meeting.  There will be an opportunity at the end of the meeting today for everyone in the room to have some informal conversation with members of the design team.  And I’ll also mention some methods by which we will try to capture as much feedback as possible in a moment.  
As I mentioned, we do have a court reporter, so it may be a little cumbersome but if you would please wait to be recognized to speak, not that we’re in school, it’s just that we need to speak one at a time because the court reporter can only type one conversation at the time.  We’re not trying to be overly-strict with this, but just for practicality purposes, just wait to be recognized.  
Once you are recognized, please state your name so the court reporter can get that clearly in her report.  That would be great.  So, identify yourself when you are speaking or asking a question if you don’t mind.

This is meant to be somewhat informal; and, so, it’s okay, stakeholders, if you have questions during the presentation, it’s okay to ask questions.  Just let me say that we want those to be somewhat brief.  I will use my judgment.  If I see that we’re getting unnecessarily bogged down in one particular area, then I may move you along a little bit.  However, you will have an opportunity after the presentation to ask additional questions.  But during the presentations we want to encourage short and brief questions, but we want to guard against getting bogged down in any one particular area.
I have comment cards here.  Let me tell you what we’re going to do with the comment cards.  Do we have the comment cards before I say that?  Good.  Great.  
During the presentation or directly after the presentation, stakeholders, please, if there are comments or questions that you want some additional clarification regarding, you can utilize that form to present that to the appropriate member of the design team.  

Also, we realize that many of you are representing larger groups, and so we think it makes sense that you have an opportunity, and I think the design team encourages you to take this information that’s presented today back to the folks that are concerned about this project as well, maybe if the people that you represent, the design team is going to allow a two-week or fourteen-day period for additional comments to come forth.  And how that is going to work, as a stakeholder you have your comment sheets.  If you’d like to get additional comments from other individuals who are concerned, that’s fine.  We just ask that all of those be funneled through you as the named stakeholder.  As a matter of fact, we would like for you to just somehow put your name at the top there just so we know that this is valid feedback for comments from the named stakeholders.
We’ll also, the plan is to have this information, the presentation, the power point presentation, as well as graphic depictions of some of the computer renderings on a Web site.  So during that fourteen-day period shortly after the meeting, maybe a day after the meeting, you’ll have an opportunity as stakeholders to direct individuals to that Web site.  At that Web site they’ll have an opportunity to look at the presentation, look at the renderings, and hopefully that will generate some questions or feedback.  And, so, you can also take the handout with you but we thought we would give an additional opportunity or method by which other interested parties could see the presentation.  
All right.  That being said, I’d like to ask Tim to come up and begin the presentation about the landscaping.  And then he’ll be followed with the lighting.

MR. LAKE:		Thank you.  Will it bother anybody, or would it help you if we’d get these front lights?  Thank you, Van.  Is that a little better?
I want to clarify one thing Keith said.  That green comment card, that’s for presentation comments.  Don’t put anything on there about my hairline.  It’s not fair game.  I did a presentation to some high schoolers once and one of the comments came back and said I needed to enroll in the hair club for men, and that kind of hurt.  I didn’t realize I was that bald.  
I do appreciate each of you being here tonight.  I appreciate you being active in your community and giving of your time.  I know that’s a large commitment, and I do know or have come to know that there has been quite a bit of conversation about this in the past.  
I also understand the feeling of change.  As a child, I-16 came down the middle of our farm and took tall oak trees that my cousins and I had played in most of our lives.  And I hated DOT then.  Later in life they started writing checks to me once in a while, so I started liking them.  But I understand that feeling.  
And tonight I want to hear from you on our section of this.  We’re here to ask questions.
MR. ISRAEL:		 So you were the one pulling up the right-of-way stakes.

MR. LAKE:		 It was me.  Back then, well, no, I won’t confess to anything.  I’ll take immunity on that.
So we do want to get your input.  Again, this presentation is regarding the landscape and lighting portion of Forest Hill Road.  And what we’re doing at T. Lake Environmental Design along with Technicon and Moreland-Altobelli right now is design program development.  And that means we’re not designing at this stage, we’re developing the guidelines for design that may be followed by others or by us if we’re fortunate enough to do that part of the project.  And to develop that, we want your input because you live here, work here, travel through this.  We want to make sure that we’re responding in a way that works for everyone.
The purpose of our meeting, as Keith said, is to develop design criteria to guide the landscape and lighting plan development.  Tonight we want to hold a design conversation.  This is a two-way thing.  I want to hear from you as you would want to hear from us and we’ll have lots to talk about.  

We want to talk about and look at other successful projects.  We want to discuss preliminary landscape and lighting design team observations and recommendations.  We’ve given this some thought.  There’s conversation generators from our experience with other projects.  We want to throw these things about so that we can have a point to start from.  We want to listen to your thoughts and discuss feasible design options.  GDOT has been accused of not listening sometimes.  Has anybody in here ever thought that? 
We want to all get on the same page, and we want to work together to achieve an acceptable project design.
Now, here’s the part for the lawyers, the photo disclaimer.  There are images in here, and what this basically says is the images, the computerized images and things that we’re showing you, are ideas at this point.  They may change.  Hopefully they will have changes based on your comments tonight.  And there’s no guarantee that what we’re showing from other areas and our renderings will be exactly what will be built.

The guiding principles of our work will be that what is done in the design program in the end will be context sensitive.  In other words, it will respect the natural and cultural qualities of the corridor.  It will be sustainable.  We’ll use native and naturalized plants where possible and minimized maintenance.  We know that the most beautiful of projects and the most well designed can fall apart if they’re not properly maintained.  We know that maintenance costs money and we know that there are limited resources for maintenance.  So that’s very very critically important.  And we also know that we are held to a stewardship ethic, and we don’t want to leave our children and grandchildren with something that they can’t maintain either.
We want to protect public safety, health and welfare and be sure that we comply with all Federal, state and local standards.
We certainly want to be sure that this is aesthetically pleasing and that’s it’s reasonable.  There have been some pretty wacky things done in the world in the name of design.  We don’t want to perpetrate that on Forest Hill.  
And we really do want to promote pedestrian use.  I know everybody has been to the gas pump in the past few weeks, so, you know, it’s important that we begin to wean somewhat, and we’ll talk more about those things and ask you what you think.  
The way we set this up is we have made observations, and I’m going to list the observations and then we’ll talk about our very preliminary recommendations going toward the design program.  
The first observation is that the Forest Hill corridor presents three major sections with a distinctly different character.  Those three, and you may have different names for these, but we’ve sort of divided this as they appeared to us based on a number of factors.

The Northside Drive neighborhood is very suburban and it joins emerging commercial.  The road itself is straighter.  There’s less topography.  The time line is different for most of the construction there.
The Wimbish Road, the center section of this is very rural in character with hills and curves and steeper side slopes which may have some affect and impact on roadside design.  There are mixed building types framing very broad time periods and architectural styles in there.  You have almost a feeling of getting into the foothills.
In the Vineville end of the neighborhood, it’s urban.  It’s a traditional neighborhood adjoining an established commercial district.  It is more pedestrian oriented than any other section of the entire corridor at this point.

The recommendation is that individual landscape themes be developed for each of the three sections as opposed to a cookie cutter approach from one end to the other.  In other words, the median areas and roadside plantings all would be varied depending on the section that they’re in.  And I don’t mean a hodge-podge.  I mean there would be a gradual and subtle shift in design to accommodate the factors that occur in these areas. Roadside plantings would be native and naturalized where possible, low maintenance, curbing to meet codes and ordinances and to provide seasonal interests.  
And as you see looking at these, suburban to somewhat urban to more rural.  In many other projects, there’s been a variation of treatment there.  It’s sort of inappropriate to get into a hilly rural section and provide a street tree planting and provide a street tree planting of gingkos or cherries or something in a one-hundred-foot spacing.  
The next observation is that the corridor has a number of significant landmarks and that there is a document that’s called the Section 106 document that deals with the archeological and environmental impact.  Recommendations are that these be identified, all historic and culturally significant sites. Some of those that we already know about that have been identified previously under the CE106 are the Coleman House, the Nesbitt House, The Prado gates, the Overlook Avenue gates, and the Davison House.  

There are other areas that will be of interest to you all who have lived there for years that may not have Secretary of the Interior significance as far as the Section 106 but they may have community significance.  So those things, especially local history.  You know, if it’s known that Great-Grampa Dr. Smith had to shoot his mule here because she hobbled a leg stepping on a gold coin, that may be significant and bears bringing out and somehow being identified along the way.
There may be opportunities to install interpretive signage where appropriate.  Now, that’s not part of the DOT’s normal work, but that’s something that there are other monies out there, grants.  There are things that the local community, garden clubs and so forth may be interested in developing in this area.  Because all of these things tend to get lost as generations pass and our children may not know about very interesting and significant things that impact who they are.
We want to develop the history as well as to encourage the level of tourism and cultural appreciation.  That’s one of the sort of mandates at the state level now, working on Georgia’s tourism both locally and from outside, and so we want to take advantage of that if possible.
Next observation.  You all, if I’m screaming along, throw your hand up if there are any comments or questions as we go.  And if the glare off the back of my head is a problem, we’ll try to do something about that, too.  Rub some dirt on it or something.  

The next observation is that the corridor lacks pedestrian facilities currently.  The preliminary recommendation is, this is really not a recommendation.  It was until we found out sidewalks are already included in the project currently.  To include sidewalks to create a walking corridor to begin to provide connectivity where children can go from house to house without having to be bused or walking on the roadside or in a ditch.
(Hand raised).  Yes, ma’am.
FEMALE VOICE:		 Is that on the first section or the second one?
MR. LAKE:		 The sidewalks are included in the entire corridor currently is my understanding.  Now, if anybody --
MR. SMITH:		 Both sides?
MR. LAKE:		 Both sides; yes, sir.  Both sides sidewalks at 5 feet so two people can walk side-by-side.  So you can save hundreds of thousands of dollars in fitness center fees hopefully by having sidewalks.
(Hand raised).  Yes, ma’am.
MS. HANBERRY-MARTIN:	 Are the sidewalks planned to abut the roadway or is there going to be a grassy strip or something that separates the sidewalk from the road?

MR. LAKE:		 The current design has a separation for safety.  And I believe that is three feet.  We’ve had some very preliminary discussions about whether there’s room or whether, and this will be later in the design phase, whether it can meander at points to provide some interest and other options.
(Hand raised).  Yes, sir.
MR. THOMPSON:		 Who would be required to maintain that three feet?
MR. LAKE:		 We wanted to ask you all who you think should.  No, that’s a very good question.  And that is sort of out there, you know.  The premise is always that the Parks Department or Public Works will be maintaining that.  One of the questions that I have later on that has come up in my mind is what do you all who live in that neighborhood think about how many people would mow their own front, how many would not want to touch it, and what level of maintenance you feel is appropriate.  
In other words, as we design, we want to design for the level of maintenance that can happen reasonably.  We sure don’t want to put something high maintenance in if it’s not going to happen. 
So that’s still out there a little bit.  But it’s the assumption that it will be maintained by municipal forces.  

MALE VOICE:		I must have missed a couple of meetings, but I don’t understand.  We’re designing to what we’re going to do with the lighting and all of that.  Have we already decided what we’re going to do with the road?
MR. LAKE:		  You asked that, and that’s something we wanted to be sure tonight that we’re doing landscaping and lighting.  I’m not really a student of the corridor.  It is my understanding that that has been set.  And there will be time after this to discuss that with some of the other consultants.
MODERATOR:		 Let me just jump in here real quickly.  Let me please remind you of two things.  One is at the end of the presentation we’re going to have an opportunity for questions and answers.  We felt that that would be a good time for the non-stakeholders to get some of their questions answered.  We want to for the purposes of this presentation, while the presentation is in place, to limit questions coming from the stakeholders.  Would you please, also, stakeholders remember to identify yourselves for the purposes of the court reporter.  I know it’s kind of difficult, but if you could try and remember those questions or jot them down, we will definitely try to get to them at the end of the presentation.  But we want to make sure that we have enough time for the stakeholders to get their portion done.  Thank you.

DR. HOLLIDAY:		 This is Lindsay Holliday speaking, and I will address that.  I was at the last stakeholders meeting, and to the best of my knowledge the citizens asked for the road design to come back up.  They weren’t happy with it.  So that will come up in depth after they get through with their presentation.  
MR. LAKE:		 Any others before we move forward on this section?
FEMALE VOICE:		 I wanted to ask about the trees that were planted in the median.  I didn’t know there was to be a median. 
MR. LAKE:		 Can we hold that or do you want to go ahead and address that or do we hold that until the --
MODERATOR:		 Go ahead and address that, but I would ask that you hold those questions from the audience until they finish the presentation if you don’t mind.
MR. LAKE:		 And is your question about types or whether they’ll be there or not?
FEMALE VOICE:		 Where are the medians?
MR. LAKE:		 Where is the median?
FEMALE VOICE:		 Yeah, where is the median?
MR. LAKE:		 Oh, okay.  Kristin, would you like to address that?

MS. STINSON:		 Kristin STINSON from Stantec.  There will be medians from the Vineville to Wimbish sections of the Forest Hill corridor.
MALE VOICE:		 Is that a done deal, the medians?
FEMALE VOICE:		 Yes.
MS. STINSON:		 I’ll direct that question to the Macon-Bibb County Road Improvement Program.
MR. ETHERIDGE:	 Right now it is.  Of course we’re working on the preliminary plans, but right now we plan to have the median there.
FEMALE VOICE:		 Doesn’t a median just take that much more acreage away from people and that we already have nice trees along the side that we would like to keep?

MODERATOR:		 I hate to be the bad guy, but that’s what I’m here for.  Let me just remind you all we have a limited time but we want your input.  But this meeting is really for these people at this table.  You all are here as guests.  We will at the end of the meeting give you an opportunity to informally speak with the design folks to ask those questions.  But if we just open the floor, we’ll never get through.  And, so, please, you all please bear with me, during the presentation please allow only the people at this table to ask questions if you could do that.  And at the end of the meeting everyone in the audience will have an opportunity to get your questions answered informally by the design team.  If you all would please remember that, I would appreciate it.
MR. THOMPSON:		 Question from Don Thompson of St. Francis Church.  How many crossovers do we have between Wimbish and Vineville?
MALE VOICE:		 Pedestrian crossovers?
MR. THOMPSON:		 No, I’m talking about vehicle.
MR. LAKE:		 Vehicular.  And, Mr. Thompson, as the landscape architect I don’t have the answer to that, and I don’t know if Kristin or the engineering side has that answer off the cuff.
MS. STINSON:		 I don’t have it off the cuff.  I apologize.
MR. LAKE:		 Could you all talk maybe after this --
MS. STINSON:		 Yes.
MR. LAKE:		 -- and discuss that?
MS. STINSON:		 Yes, definitely.
MR. THOMPSON:		 Well, I think that some of these other people are interested in these questions.
MR. LAKE:		 That’s true.

MR. THOMPSON:		 And they may not be available to stay until nine o’clock or whatever.  So I think if there are some questions, I’ll ask them.
MR. LAKE:		 And that’s what you guys are here for is to ask questions for others.
MR. ETHERIDGE:		 I think there’s four crossovers.
MR. THOMPSON:		 Between Wimbish and Vineville?
MR. ETHERIDGE:		 Yes. 
MR. LAKE:		 I just simply don’t, I’m on the landscape side and can’t answer that.  
(Hand raised).  Yes, ma’am.
MS. HANBERRY-MARTIN:	 Mr. Lake, you may be getting a little bit of heat because, and you may not understand this, but no one in this room has seen this plan.  And that map is about useless.  So the questions that some of us may have and the public may have are truly coming because we hadn’t seen any of this.  We were told we would see it beforehand.  So for a lot of us this seems like it’s putting the cart before the horse.  When you haven’t even seen anything and you don’t know what the design is hard to comment on what the landscaping needs to be.  So I think, I just want to explain.  And I know you don’t have the answers.

MR. LAKE:		 Don’t shoot the messenger.
MS. HANBERRY-MARTIN:	 You’re taking the heat for someone else not informing the public.
MR. LAKE:		 And I appreciate that, and I have come to realize some of the history here.  And I think our conversations about landscape and lighting are still valid because at some point some things are going to happen.  So we would really like your genuine comment concerning it.  
And I’m going to ask you again, I’m going to try to move on through this quickly so that you guys will have time to be sure to ask the questions that you want to ask.

The recommendations regarding the sidewalks and connections are that you create a walking corridor with the sidewalks and then we embrace the history and create a pedestrian friendly design by supporting possibly some pedestrian amenities, cross-walks, pedestrian stops along the sidewalk at places that may facilitate community gathering or people who want to walk and exercise and so forth to be able to sort of pull out the realm of regular traffic and lighting, and Dale White from Technicon is going to address lighting in much more detail.  And some of the things we’ve already discussed are dark skies and light trespass and appropriateness to the scale of the project so that you guys don’t wind up with overheads that you often see in a rural section because watts, DOT codes and so forth that need to be met.
And a very important thing, too, on the pedestrian side is that everything be ADA compatible.  We want people with any type of handicap, and we’re all handicapped at some point in life, whether you’re carrying two sacks of groceries or a satchel on your back or have any type of handicap or impairment, you’re handicapped for periods so we want to be sure that everyone is able to walk.  So some of the things we’ve talked about early on are safe havens, very visible crosswalks, possibly change of materials denoting crosswalks at some point.  Things that will also blend with the character of the neighborhood.
The next observation is that corridor lacks unity and connectivity.  It is very distinct from end to end.  And, so, the recommendations there are to utilize street trees, street lighting, site amenities, which there will probably be very few, but if there’s a bench used here and there it should be the same bench along the way.  Pedestrian stops and gateways at critical points to tie those together.  

Among the site amenities, possibly benches and waste receptacles.  The style should not cross time lines or be time specific.  There shouldn’t be overtly contemporary, nor overtly Victorian or prairie or anything in between.  That’s not to say that they have to be generic and without flare, but they should not denote one period or another.  There should be simple lines, versatility, compatibility.
Lighting should be inviting to pedestrians and should avoid light trespass and address dark sky concerns.  Possibly the use of community banners at certain points is another option, and that’s something that may be community directed versus, certainly DOT does not provide banners.  But certainly there will be many opportunity for the community to do things there to enhance. 
Gateways would be helpful, and when we say “gateway”, we don’t mean the arch in St. Louis or anything like that or coming into Paris, the Arch de Triumph.  But we mean something to identify that you’re coming into a different portion of this area.  So the major intersections are Northside, Wimbish Road and Vineville.  Those are opportunities that exist to provide a little heavier landscape or maybe a slight change in lighting and so forth to bring that out and to basically say you’re entering a special area, that this is the Forest Hill neighborhood and we have our own identity.

Now, we’ve done some computer images to help give a little bit of an idea of actually what some of the widened areas are going to look like.  This is a section along Wimbish Road, the center portion, that would receive two travel lanes and one turning lane, sidewalks on each side, lighting standards for the roadway and some pedestrian scale lighting possibly for the walkway.  
Now, nothing here, remember my photo disclaimer, nothing here is exact.  The light fixtures certainly have not been chosen.  Dale I think may have some ideas of various styles of fixtures that are dark sky that do not trespass back into your homes or avoid views to the heavens.  
Any question or comment along here?
MR. SKALKO:		 Steve Skalko.  I have one question just for curiosity.  I realize that this thing is not to scale, but would you say those sidewalks are representative of the five feet that you all suggested in at least the preliminary stages of what you think is going to be the sidewalk width?

MR. LAKE:		 And I’ll tell you the way these things work.  When we construct these things, they’re done off the actual CAD drawing and photographs placed together.  There’s a whole bunch of smoke and mirrors that I can’t really fully explain.  And I can’t do this personally by the way.  But I can tell you that they were put in off the CAD drawing at five feet.  But when you skew these things to create a 2-D perspective in a truly one dimensional plane, it looks awfully skinny.  But if we looked at it in plain view they would be.
MR. SKALKO:		 No.  You answered what I asked.  I just wanted to ask if you all at least had tried to indicate through your process that that’s a five foot sidewalk.  I’m not questioning it.  I just wanted to ask that question.
MR. LAKE:		 Yes.  And as we go farther into this and take your comments, we’ll create some sections so that you can see it in a cut section to look at truly what would be a lane width and sidewalk relationship to that.  And that probably would help you maybe more than this.  
Any other?  (No response).
In the Vineville area, going toward the end of Vineville, this is, which was this?
MALE VOICE:		 Overlook.

MR. LAKE:		 Overlook, yes.  This is where Overlook comes in.  There is a median there designed at this particular time.  Two travel lanes per side.  Sidewalks on each side, and again the light posts.  And there are opportunities here to do anything from grass to blooming flowers to small trees.  
Now, any trees that would happen in the median have to be of the size and type that will be safe because they are in what’s the clear zone.  You can’t plant a mighty live oak there because somebody may some day jump that curb and hit it.  It needs to be a tree that can be sheared off by a car in case of an accident.
DR. HOLLIDAY:		 I’m glad you brought that up because I was looking at this and it looks like an interstate.  Already people are going 50 miles an hour plus and I’m wondering how much faster they’ll go when they have, when it looks like a landing strip.  And, of course, it looks like you’re planning for them to lose control.
MR. LAKE:		 No, but it happens.  Somebody plowed through the parking lot in front of the Federal Courthouse in Dublin yesterday after we had just finished that project, and it’s a 20-mile-an-hour zone so it’s hard to understand.

But that is one thing, in the design that is one thing that would come out in the end in our document as far as design program recommendations is that plantings be used in every way possible to help slow traffic.  You know, research over the years has proven that in America we do some weird things.  We lower speed limits but widen roads, and people are psychologically affected by that. So when you use a lot of canopy trees that grow up taller and begin to overhang the road people typically slow down by 20 to 30 percent.  
So our design program recommendations will be that plantings be used and lighting be used to influence speed because we all know and we all have done this at this times, that we don’t all obey the speed limits.  And it’s really easy when you get on wide roads to put the hammer down.  But with this type of arrangement, actually the median with two parallel travel lanes often does help slow things down a bit.
(Hand raised).  Yes.
MR. FISHER:		 Paul Fisher.  I was just reading a book on lighting, human factors in lighting, that said that people when they light straight roads and they, there have been studies done to show people speed up 70 percent when a road is lighted.  That’s one study, one number.  So how is lighting going to be applied to slow people down.

MR. LAKE:		 Well, Dale can address that a lot better than I can.  He is the lighting engineer.  And maybe I should just leave that alone.  But there are things that work both ways.  And you’re right, when you get what I call the great white way, you can just see farther.  You can anticipate more.  At the same time, for safety we need to be able to anticipate more to a degree as well.  So, Dale --
MR. WHITE:		 We’ll cover that some more, but I don’t know that we will necessarily, that lighting is going to slow people down other than more is going to give you a safety factor when the roadway is lit better.  And I’ll cover that when we get into our discussion.
MR. FISHER:		 Okay. 
MR. WHITE:		 I’ll ask you another question then.  I’ll wait a few minutes.
MR. LAKE:		 And let me clarify, too.  I didn’t mean by putting lights you’ll slow people down.  I meant that the proper lighting, tasteful lighting, appropriate lighting versus over lighting does have an affect on how fast people go.
MS. HANBERRY-MARTIN:	 Susan Hanberry.  Just an observation.  If we’re worried about pedestrian safety, we ought to have big trees between the cars and the people.  And truly I don’t think it’s too much to expect that we can keep our cars on the road.  And I know DOT won’t allow it, but it’s absurd.  We protect cars and we don’t protect humans.  

And every single sidewalk that we have built in this city is used, and it’s used a lot.  And if we really are serious about creating a comprehensive transportation plan, and pedestrian traffic is certainly a part of that, then we ought to be looking at pedestrian safety.  Georgia has one of the worst records in the nation.  
And it’s just an observation, but we ought to think of that.
MR. LAKE:		 Thank you.  And those are valid input, things we do want to talk about.  And there are some standards that we’ll talk about later that we’re sometimes hung with, but there’s flexibility here and there as well.
Steve, do you have a question?
MR. SKALKO:		Steve Skalko.  Just one other question.  I’m looking at that picture.  Does the road standards permit not having to do the grass between the curbing and the shrubbery in center, instead do it all shrubbery the full width of those medians?
MR. LAKE:		 It does.  And I have to say that Ms. Julia Wynn had no grass in there because from a maintenance standpoint often grass helps keep from getting mulch out into the area.  But, again, this isn’t the design.  This is just conversation.  So tell me what your thoughts are.

MR. SKALKO:		 My thought was that sometimes if you, and I don’t, I’m just thinking the fact that the more low aspect that you give the ground next  to a lane it allows folks feeling more freedom in terms of traveling versus things that visually cause them to feel like they’re constrained.  If they feel like they’re constrained, they’ll actually slow down a little bit.
MR. LAKE:		 That’s a great thought.  And a though there is that then instead of grass, we could use ground covers that may still allow for visibility issues but be somewhat higher and remove the mowing component.  And as that ground cover grows in it will remove that mulching component then once they’re grown in.  So, good point.
MR. SMITH:		 Raymond Smith.  I will tell you you’re also going to have pedestrians walking down the middle of it if you make it too pretty like that.  Including the shrubbery in there makes it where it’s not a corridor for people.
MR. LAKE:		 Right.  It needs to be more of a barrier planting.  And that also helps with oncoming headlight glare.  Dale can talk about that more from the lighting standpoint, but when you get enough height with the shrubs you can help with glare as well.
(Hand raised).  Yes, sir.

MR. PATTERSON:		 This section here, is that from Vineville out?
MR. LAKE:		 Yes, sir.  This is Overlook coming in right there.  I don’t know if you can see that line --
MR. PATTERSON:		 Oh, yes, I see it.
MR. LAKE:		 -- right along in there if that helps you know where you are there.
Any other questions or comments?
MR. PATTERSON:		 Who is going to keep up all that beautiful work there?  The City of Macon --
MR. SMITH:		 C. Jack.
MR. PATTERSON:		 -- is not going to keep it up.  We’ve got something out there now and they only send them out there once a year.
MR. LAKE:		 Well, I know that there are limited resources and that’s an ongoing discussion of who would and how.  You know, Reginald --
MR. PATTERSON:		 We hear the same thing out of the City of Macon.
MR. LAKE:		 -- does Parks want to comment on that?
MALE VOICE:		 It’s actually Public Works.
MALE VOICE:		 That’s the right-of-way.

MR. SKALKO:		 Do you do the medians downtown?
MALE VOICE:		 Yes, sir.
MR. LAKE:		 So Public Works.  And I am sure that any garden club or volunteer that would want to be a part of that would be welcome with open arms as well.  But that’s the initial premise, Judge Patterson.  If you’d like to comment on that, we’d like to --
MR. PATTERSON:		 No.  The only thing, from past experience, you know, I live on The Prado.  And the City of Macon, the weeds grow up.  Of course, I can understand the financial problems, too, you know.  The point I’m trying to make is it’s not going to be as pretty as you’ve got it there.  Anyone that thinks that, they’ve got another thought coming.  But the financial circumstances, I understand that.
MR. LAKE:		 How often would a median like this be serviced or be maintained?  Would it get a weekly service or every two weeks?
MR. ANTHONY:		 We maintain the medians downtown on a 10-day cycle.  And then, of course, in the winter is when we do our pruning of the bushes and things like that.  I would assume that Public Works would have something similar to that.

DR. THORNTON:		 I would disagree with all due respect.  It seems the City has a very difficult time maintaining what they already have.  They do a great job, Parks and Recreation, downtown, but outside the immediate downtown, they seem to really struggle.  I would encourage you to think about very low maintenance, drought resistant, hardy type stuff.
MR. LAKE:		 Right.  We’ve discussed irrigation and, you know, we want to be cautious here, and I’ve got you marked Susan.  I’ll be right to you.  
Tim, would you say without malice in any way here, do you think, a ten-day cycle should be adequate to keep things looking good, great.  Do you think that it’s not happening or is it an issue of employee training, or is it something that we could all work with to overcome?
MR. THORNTON:		 I don’t think they’ve got the resources to do it.
MR. ISRAEL:		 I think you heard from, George Israel, Judge Patterson it is not getting a ten-day cycle on The Prado.

MR. THORNTON:		 Just to give you an example right in our immediate area, there’s some wide strips of right-of-way near the intersection of Wimbish and Forest Hill that’s buffered from some apartments and a medical complex.  It’s not like it’s in front of someone’s house.  It gets mowed maybe once or twice a year.  It’s also at a traffic light and gets a lot of litter and trash, and they’re hitting that once or twice a year.
MR. LAKE:		 Those are things that I hope you’ll take time to put on here.  And I know we’re getting those here as well, but we’d like to capture those.  We can talk about any recommendations that the landscape architect in the end needs to provide a day- long class on site with the maintenance personnel, not with their managers but with the maintenance personnel.  	One of the things we like to do in our office is to provide a very comprehensive manual with pictures and says here is exactly what you do.  Because it’s really hard for a manager often to get down to the field worker the way it really should happen.  So really setting that up well and having them trained and having something these guys can carry with them and say, you know, I’ve got to, this week I’ve should be doing this and this and this.  And there are other things that we can do as far as recommendations of using ways to maintain.

MR. SMITH:		 Raymond Smith.  Mr. Lake, I think what everybody is trying to say is it doesn’t matter how much training you give these folks, they ain’t got the money or the resources to maintain it.  So you better structure it where it doesn’t take maintenance or it takes once every six months maintenance because you’re not going to get the maintenance you want.  
MR. LAKE:		 You all will have to fix that, but I understand what you mean.  
Susan, I’m sorry, did I skip you?
MS. HANBERRY-MARTIN:	 That’s all right.  I mean it’s -- whenever.
MR. LAKE:		 Lindsay?
DR. HOLLIDAY:		 The photos bother me a little bit.  I know, because I know that magnolia on the right won’t survive and the house on Overlook there, their buffer is going to be completely gone.  And so I know you’ve already given us the disclaimer but the more I look at them I’m just having a lot of dissidence here because I know it isn’t going to end up looking like that.
MR. LAKE:		 And it won’t for a few years.
DR. HOLLIDAY:		 About fifty.
MR. LAKE:		 And, again, it’s, one of the limitations is it’s next to impossible to take that stuff out on this type of rendering.  But at the same time, one of the things that we wanted to recommend is some varied plantings that will restore that and begin to get that canopy growth back on the sides.  

In this neighborhood I’m not going to personally be a big advocate for a big area of Bahia grass with trees along the way here because I don’t think that would work.  So we’d really like to have the plantings put back so that in a few years time that would make a difference.
But you’re right, and I understand what you’re saying.  It won’t look like that a year after it’s completed, that’s for sure.  That’s for sure.
Susan?
MS. HANBERRY-MARTIN:	 Well, I would agree it won’t look like that in fifty years either.  But, nevertheless, we do have a City arborist who is in the back of the room, and I would suggest that whatever you do that you coordinate with him.  We’ve had some landscape disasters in the past.
MR. LAKE:		 Right.
MS. HANBERRY-MARTIN:	 And inappropriate material was chosen.  Trees were planted too close together.  And  Macon is not Atlanta.  We’re in a completely different plant zone.  And, so, whatever we pick ought to be cleared through the City arborist and coordinated with him.

MR. LAKE:		 Exactly.  And that will occur.  And Reginald Taylor has been at these meetings and we’ve talked about that, that we want his thoughts.  We want Public Works.  We want utilities.  We want the arborist on board.  
And, you know, we are in the Fall Line region.  You’re right on the border here and in Dublin we’re just below it.  But we’re in a Piedmont Coastal Plains transition, and I can tell you as a Dublin, Georgia, landscape architect that has been around the world, nothing hacks me off more than an Atlanta landscape architect who thinks that red maples are great in parking lots.  It just doesn’t work for us down here.  They cook real well in the summer.
So, exactly.  Well put.  And I can promise you that T. Lake would never specify a Bradford Pear on anything in the whole world.
Is there anybody else that has a question or comment while we’re here?

MR. ISRAEL:		 George Israel.  The only other thing that I was going to suggest, I know on one widening project we did, which would have been Pio Nono Avenue, years ago when we did the re-plantings we did step up from the normal smaller tree to get something more substantial.  And if you go there today, instead of it looking denuded, and I think that’s been probably twenty years since that was finished, fifteen or twenty, it has somewhat recovered.  But the plantings, the oaks that we planted back in there were of a rather substantial size.
MR. LAKE:		 Getting a head start is important.  Irrigation is important.  And we realize that it will not be financially feasible to irrigate everything out here.  But one of the conversations we’ve had early on is the use of drip irrigation, using, of course, the nearest properties’ drip that can be abandoned after about a three-year establishment period.  So it’s a low cost way to get water there to get roots established fast.  
And the use of quality plants, as your arborist can tell you, a twenty-foot pin oak with a four-inch to six-inch caliper from one nursery is not the same as a twenty-foot pin oak with a four- to six-inch caliper from another.  And that’s been proven out over time.  So trees that have been properly grown and root pruned and handled well will go in and do an awful lot better and faster than ones that don’t.  So some hand tagging and quality specifications are important.

And I can tell you, and I hope I don’t offend anybody by saying this, but the project that went in at Riverside North, we looked at that years ago, what was specified versus what went in there, you got the height and width, but there were Magnolias there that had three limbs on them.  The landscape architect should not have allowed that.  He should have refused those plants.  The contractor should have put them back on the truck and taken them home.  
So quality control is very important.  And that’s where our role, or the role of the landscape architect that does the design on this were to have that control, it would make a big difference.
  		MR. PATTERSON:		 Let me ask something.  I’m going to get a call probably.  We had meetings some years ago on this same project.  At that particular time and individual called me and said, Mr. Patterson, the roadway is going to go within fifteen feet of my front door.  Now, assuming this is the project here, is this going to be within fifteen feet of somebody’s front door on Forest Hill Road?
MR. LAKE:		 And, again, I’m not dealing with the roadway alignment, but from what I’ve looked at in the plans I sure haven’t seen it that close.  I don’t think --
MS. STINSON:		 Can we just delay that question until the end of the meeting, please.
MR. PATTERSON:		 What did she say, I’m sorry?

MODERATOR:		 If you could ask Kristin here that question at the end of the presentation, she will talk to you about that.
MR. PATTERSON:		 Oh, sure.  All right.
MODERATOR:		 Kristin --
MS. STINSON:		 Stinson.
MODERATOR:		 -- Stinson.
MR. LAKE:		 I can tell you if I’m putting a tree there, but I’m not sure about the width.
MR. PATTERSON:		 That’s quite all right.
MR. LAKE:		 Yes, sir.  That’s what we’re here for.  You said you were here to make trouble, and when I walked in and saw the piano, I was relieved.  I said, oh, they’re going to ask me to sing, not deal with this highway. So if you’ll find a brown jug, we’ll get things going.
The last image here is in the Northside area back up on that end of the project where you have two travel lanes and a center turning lane that works along in there.  And, again, there are trees that are along here that will be in the back slope grade area that will disappear.  And, again, that’s a limitation of how we can do this.  But that gives you an idea of what your width would be like and how this would work.  
Susan.

MS. HANBERRY-MARTIN:	 Susan Hanberry.  Are the lights, if they’re there, going to be in between the sidewalk and the road, or are they going to be as shown there on the other side of the sidewalk?
MR. WHITE:		 Susan, we would prefer to bring those lights back behind the sidewalk from a maintenance, from a obstruction point of view.  Taking into account your comment about protecting the pedestrians, that’s something we can look at. 
MS. HANBERRY-MARTIN:	 Okay.
MR. WHITE:		 There is a clear zone issue with getting it away from --
MR. SKALKO:		 Steve Skalko again.  Just for me to understand visually, if that was taken off the plans, what was the sense of lane widths so that we’ll have some sense of what we’re talking about in terms visually of that road?
(Several people talking at once).
FEMALE VOICE:		 Eleven.
MR. WOOD:		 Those are twelve-foot lanes and a fourteen-foot center turn lane.
MR. SKALKO:		 That’s a fourteen-foot center turn lane and twelve-foot lanes.  Is that twelve feet to the face of the curb or to the front of the curb?
MR. WOOD:		 That is twelve feet to the lip of the curb.
MR. SKALKO:		 Okay.  

MR. LAKE:		 Now, here is the important part, your feedback.  As Keith brought out earlier, all comments pertaining to landscape and lighting must be submitted in writing within fourteen days to Moreland-Altobelli using the comment card supplied.  
That’s formal feedback.  We want to listen to everything you do have to say, and all of us will be here for a good while to talk to you further.  
And I do appreciate it.  I appreciate you bearing with me here.  
There are some discussion points that we want to --  Do you want to hold those for later?
MODERATOR:		 Yeah, why don’t we hold those until after Dale gives his presentation.
MR. LAKE:		 Right.
MODERATOR:		 What we have here, you know, you all have asked some very good questions.  You’ve had some very good comments.  There are some very definite discussion points that the landscape design team needs to have some responses to.  So when Dale White finishes his presentation about the lighting, we’re going to come back to those discussion points because they really need some feedback.  Your feedback we want on these specific discussion points.  So we’ll come back to that when Dale White finishes.

Dale, are you ready?
MR. WHITE:		 As soon as that projector catches up with us, we’ll be ready.
MODERATOR:		 All right. 
MR. WHITE:		 And as soon as I find my little remote here.  Again, my name is Dale White with Technicon Engineering.  And we’re going to be talking about strictly the lighting.  I’ll preface it with I don’t know anything about anything other than the lighting.  
All right.  Again this is the design program development with relationship to the lighting.  And we’re Technicon International.  We are an IDA member, the International Dark Sky Alliance.  
And we’re going to cover the purpose of our roadway lighting.  And it provides us a quick and accurate visibility at night is one point.
The proper use of roadway lighting as an operative tool provides us with an economical and social benefit to the public that include reduction in night accidents, the related human misery and economic loss.  It aids police protection and an enhanced sense of security.  It facilitates traffic flow.  And the promotion of business and the use of public facilities during the night hours.

And we have a night and day accident relationship.  Darkness brings an increased hazard to the users of streets because it reduces the distance they can see.  The nighttime fatal accident rate is about three times that of the daytime rate.  
Proper fixed lighting will reveal the environment beyond the range of headlights, vehicle headlights, and it improves the oncoming headlight glare, and thus reduces the nighttime accident rate.  And it costs the community less.  Accidents caused by inadequate visibility would cost us quite a bit more.  
It is economically practical in the opinion of the International, the Illumination Engineering Society of North America Roadway Lighting Committee.  
Our design criteria that limits what we do is the Macon Area Code of Street Lighting and the referenced, the American National Standard of Practice for Roadway Lighting, or ANSI-RP-8 (1977) in the case of Macon, and the National Electrical Safety Code in relationship to electricity.
Our observations with regards to the lighting, the Forest Hill corridor lighting consists of single cobra head fixtures on wooden poles located at each intersection, which is a standard Macon -- they do not meet the current codes of recommended roadway lighting.
(Hand raised).  Yes, sir.

MR. FISHER:		 Paul Fisher.  How do they not meet the, I’m just curious generally.  How do they not meet the codes?
MR. WHITE:		 These lights apparently, if we go back to the Macon City Code, okay, and it gives us the, for these roadways, we’re a collector and a local road in an urban environment.  So we’re at .9 to .6 foot candles, okay.  And these lights only occur at intersections.  Now, the Macon City Code also requires us to put a little more emphasis around an intersection, okay?
MR. FISHER:		 Okay.
MR. WHITE:		 Does that answer your question?
MR. FISHER:		 It does.
MR. WHITE:		 Okay.  The overhead lighting circuit is susceptible to weather interruptions and everything.  Of course we’re probably more concerned with that with the power to our house than with the street lights.
And the existing fixtures are leased and maintained from Georgia Power, which is not a bad thing.  That is actually in the benefit of the taxpayers there.  
We recommend the installation of full cut-off high pressure sodium roadway lighting fixtures.  

MR. FISHER:		 What does full cut-off mean to you?
MR. WHITE:		 Full cut-off means that there is no light beyond ninety degrees, okay, beyond the edge of that fixture.  All the light is ninety degrees or down.  
MR. FISHER:		 So how would you feel about, I think there’s another kind of lighting that’s called fully shielded, at least that’s the term I hear, where there’s an eighty degree --
MR. WHITE:		 We’ll control the light trespass using shielding --
MR. FISHER:		 Okay.
MR. WHITE:		 -- to provide further cut-off than the ninety degrees.
MR. FISHER:		 So you’ll like attach shielding to each individual luminary?
MR. WHITE:		 We would recommend shielding that’s integrated in the manufacture of the fixture.
MR. FISHER:		 Okay.
MR. WHITE:		 Not a can attached to the outside of the fixture.
MR. FISHER:		 Let me start over then.
MR. WHITE:		 Okay.

MR. FISHER:		 So you’re recommending ninety degrees or eighty degrees?
MR. WHITE:		 It depends.
MR. FISHER:		 Okay.
MR. WHITE:		 It depends on where we are.
MR. FISHER:		 Okay.
MR. WHITE:		 With respect to light trespass on the property, we want to shield it.  We want to cut it off.  We don’t want to see light coming in through our bedroom window.
MR. FISHER:		 Right.
MR. WHITE:		 I wouldn’t, okay.  The ninety-degree full cut-off, we want to maintain, like the dark sky, we want to follow the dark sky recommendations.  We believe in being able to see the stars.  I live out in the country and I love for my kids to see the stars, okay.  And we don’t want a lot of stray light getting up in the sky and just obliterating, you know, what God has given us to look at.  So that’s --
MR. FISHER:		 Okay.
MR. WHITE:		 So the shielding is going to vary here.

MR. FISHER:		 I’ve got another question.  Driving around town, and apparently you’re not a designer who does this kind of thing, but there seems to be a lot of light pointing directly in my eyes.  There are a lot of lights that have a forty-five degree angle in order to cast a large footprint, I assume, and there’s a lot of light going up in the sky.  And that’s how I became interesting in lighting.
But as lights have become brighter since I was a kid, now I’m finding more and more that the glare annoys me.
MR. ISRAEL:		 That’s because you’re getting older.
MR. FISHER:		 I know.  So, and I’m wondering are there any, you, when I read the specifications for, to be applied to lighting systems, I don’t see anyone worrying about the eye of the driver.  They’re worried about how many, about how much light gets on the road, but they don’t seem to be worried about how much light they’re shining in my eyes.  How does that enter into your design process?
MR. WHITE:		 Okay.  First of all, if a lighting designer, of which I have been involved in lighting design for nearly thirty-two years, if a lighting designer is not concerned with the glare, or the direct glare into your eyes, then he is doing a poor lighting design.  Okay?

MR. FISHER:		 I agree.
MR. WHITE:		 There’s several factors we have to take into account.  When a recommendation comes up with a foot candle recommendation, that’s an average maintained foot candle, okay.  That doesn’t necessarily mean that I’ve got to give you .9 foot candles at every inch of the road range, okay.  
Now, there’s several things with regard to the height, the shielding, the type fixture we specify that can keep that glare.  We want to keep the light source out of sight.  Basically we want to control it.  We cannot completely eliminate it, but we can certainly control it.  We will not put any floodlights up there.
Now, you may like the downtown lighting, but a post top, that’s not going to work, you know.  We want to light the roadway.  We want to light the sidewalks.  And  we don’t necessarily want to light the trees and your windshield as much as possible.
MR. FISHER:		 How tall are the poles?
MR. WHITE:		 There again, it will vary.
MR. FISHER:		 And how many watts?

MR. WHITE:		 If we did, say, a thirty-foot pole, you would be able to control it a little more than one that’s closer down.  The lower it gets, the more light you have, okay.  The lower we bring it, okay, which will take that light source more out of your line of sight, the more poles you’re going to get.  Okay?
MR. FISHER:		 Right.
MR. WHITE:		 So there’s a variable.
MR. FISHER:		 This assumes you believe that there should be exactly even lighting along roadways.
MR. WHITE:		 Yes, that’s true.
MR. FISHER:		 I’m not sure I believe that.
MR. WHITE:		 And then, again, the trees and everything else play a factor in this.  Okay?
MR. FISHER:		 And how many watts?
MR. WHITE:		 The wattage is also going to vary.  We’re going to, we’re trying to keep the wattage of lamps into the maintenance spectrum, okay.  We’re anywhere from four hundred watts to a hundred and fifty watts.  The higher the wattage, the higher they go.
MR. FISHER:		 So you want big lights that are common to the city so that they can be maintained?
MR. WHITE:		 We want to keep maintenance costs under control.
MR. FISHER:		 Got ‘ya.

MR. WHITE:		 Okay.  As you’ll see in another recommendation here, we, it’s kind of ahead of me here, but the recommendation is going to be that we work toward Georgia Power maintaining these lights, okay.  For the benefit of the citizens, it will work out.
If I may, can I move on?  
(Hand raised).  Yes, Susan?
MS. HANBERRY-MARTIN:	 Well, if Georgia Power maintains them, just another economic point, we still have to pay the electric bill.
MR. WHITE:		 That’s true.
MS. HANBERRY-MARTIN:	 And the more lights you put in and the higher the wattage, the higher the cost is going to be to the citizens.  And I just think we ought to keep that in mind.
MR. WHITE:		 That is definitely in mind.  We do keep the rate schedules in mind.  
Now, with respect to lighting, the initial cost is supplemented by the Department of Transportation recommending that we lease and maintain these lights from Georgia Power.  Now, I do have a rate schedule that answers those costs questions and everything.  And we will probably make that available on the Web site so that you can kind of get a feel for what the City pays for lighting to Georgia Power.  

We’re recommending on these lighting circuits that they go underground.  And that’s pretty much the general direction this project is heading, that all the utilities will be underground.
We will design to meet all current codes.
MR. SKALKO:		 Steve Skalko.  Before we leave that slide, I guess I want to understand leased and maintained by Georgia Power, so these light fixtures are going to be Georgia Power’s light fixtures?
MR. WHITE:		 Not necessarily.  There’s several variables, Steve, in the ownership and maintenance of these light fixtures.  And in this rate schedule that we’ll post on the Web site that we’ll give you a link to, you’ll see the, that choice kind of goes back to you guys.  It depends on how fancy we get or how much money we want to spend initially with those fixtures.
If you want to stick with cobra heads on wooden poles, then they’re all Georgia Power’s.  Okay?  If we get to some fancy ornamental fixtures, then the Department of Transportation is going to help us, but it moves into a different rate schedule.  Okay?
MR. SKALKO:		 Okay.  Thank you.
MR. WHITE:		 And, again, this --
MODERATOR:		 Excuse me.  Mr. Israel, you had a question?

MR. ISRAEL:		 Just go ahead.
MR. WHITE:		 I don’t have near as much to present as the trees. I am hungry for your questions though.
Okay.  I’ve thrown a couple of ideas up here for the presentation, and they’re just various choices that fit within our design parameters that I discussed.  And they’ll be, they’re on the handout that you have there.  They’re just styles, not final selections.  The final fixture selections depend a lot on the GDOT, the County and the City’s financial contributions and acceptance by the City.  
On your comments when you folks go out and talk, if you’ll indicate those comments and feedback on the styles of fixtures.  Some of those, like these Columbia poles and Boston Harbor arms, these fixtures are not the fixtures we’re looking at.  One of the fixtures we’re looking at is that same fixture but with a full cut-off shield on it.  Okay.  That would be the only what that fixture would be acceptable.  

The standard is a standard fiberglass pole and a, like a full cut-off fixture along these lines.  These are available from Georgia Power, a mongoose.  These are not the most attractive but sometimes we can hide these things to where they’re not a prominent thing if that’s what the community wants.  When you get into ornamentals, you get a little more ornamental pole in there with the arms like we had previously.  So these are some of the ideas I’m throwing out for you, and I will try to get more fixture types.  And I’m hoping for suggestions.
(Hand raised).  Yes, sir.
DR. HOLLIDAY:		 Dale, this is Lindsay Holliday.  The only reason I’m not going to comment on this is that the citizens that I represent, ninety percent of three hundred citizens that wrote about this, they haven’t bought into the road design yet.  
MR. WHITE:		 I understand.
DR. HOLLIDAY:		 And it’s, you know, for me to talk about this I think is dishonoring the people who are not even happy with the concrete.  And that’s why I’m not commenting --
MR. WHITE:		 I completely understand, and I can feel for what you’re up against there.  But this is my end of the deal here.  This is why I prefaced my opening statements with this is all I know about.
(Hand raised).  Yes, Susan.
MS. HANBERRY-MARTIN:	 Susan Hanberry.  I would just, there’s a real disconnect to me, too, listening to this and just listening to the description of the roadway.  We’re talking about a neighborhood.

MR. WHITE:		 That’s correct.
MS. HANBERRY-MARTIN:	 And the road will be very close if built as planned, which I’m not going to concede that it ought to be.  It will be right in their front yard.  
With lighting all along the roadway, that’s not a neighborhood.  And I think whatever happens, you know, there are already lights at intersections, and intersection safety is important, but you don’t have to have a light in front of everybody’s driveway.
MR. WHITE:		 I agree with that.
MS. HANBERRY-MARTIN:	 And, really, truly when we limit comment on this sort of thing to the stakeholders sitting at the table, and I hope you will take comment from absolutely everybody in writing on this.  The people who are living on that road really need to have priority in talking about what happens with lighting because that has everything to do with their quality of life right there.
MR. WHITE:		 It absolutely does.  Susan, thank you for that.  And one of the things we do want to do is we want to get everybody’s opinion, but we do want to funnel those opinions through you folks so we can somewhat has some --

MS. HANBERRY-MARTIN:	 Well, I will say this, too.  You really need to take comment from them.  There has been in this project, once again not your part of it, but there has been a lack of authentic public participation.  And when we heard about the history of this, two hundred and thirty-two comments, I will tell you probably two hundred and fifteen of them were against the project as designed.
So when you really do just limit it to the people at the table, some of them may not know how to get in touch with us.  You need to listen to all of them.  However you do it, you really need to allow the public to comment.
MR. WHITE:		 We are, I’m really wanting to hear from everybody, okay.  But we do have to control somewhat how those comments come in.  And --
MS. HANBERRY-MARTIN:	 Well, I’m, you know --
MR. WHITE:		 -- we need to funnel them down to us so we --
MS. HANBERRY-MARTIN:	 -- if you set it up for the Web site and you can put it on the Web site --
MR. WHITE:		 -- can manage those comments.

MS. HANBERRY-MARTIN:	 -- and let them all comment.  I just, I mean we really don’t need to minimize public input.  We do not have a history in this community of having open and transparent government.  And, by golly, we’ve got to start somewhere.  And, you know, you brought a whole bunch of folks here so let’s listen to them.
MR. WHITE:		 Okay.  
(Hand raised).  Steve.
MR. SKALKO:		 Steve Skalko.  I have a two-part question.  My first one, did you say you will end up putting on the Web site other lighting fixture options that you all maybe are going to be considering?
MR. WHITE:		 Absolutely.  During the next fourteen days I am wanting to find more and more choices.  If you’ve got some ideas, okay.  We’ve got tons of things out there available to us, and we do work within economic restraints and, you know, budget restraints, but I do want to give you more, these fixtures shown here is just to get the discussion started, okay.
MR. SKALKO:		 The second thing, I mean what is the Web site, or is that going to be told later?
MODERATOR:		 We’ll provide that to you at the end of the meeting.
MR. SKALKO:		 All right.  Thank you.
MR. WHITE:		 Any other questions?  (No response).

And I, too, thank you very much.  And as Steve has indicated, we will be around on an individual basis.  We will take your comments.  We will try to capture them as best we can.  I can only write so fast, but we will be available.  
MODERATOR:		 Why don’t we do this.  Why don’t we come back to Tim Lake, and if we could put your discussion points back on the screen.  This design team definitely needs to get some feedback from the stakeholders regarding some very specific points.  And, so, I thought it would be a good idea that we make sure that if those questions didn’t come up that the design team would identify the very specific discussion points in which they needed some guidance from you.  And, so, I’m going to turn it over to Tim.  He’s going to go over these questions.  And we just want to get some informal input from you today.  You still have an opportunity via the comment cards to give input over the next two weeks.  So is that fired up and ready to go?
MR. LAKE:		 It is.
MODERATOR:		 Tim, you want to go ahead and go over some of those questions?  And I think Julie will be taking some notes.

MR. LAKE:		 Well, I refuse to get bifocals so I’m going to have to do this a different way.  Just some of the things that we thought might help seed discussion and would help us, distinct things that I want to know from my office, for my portion, up on the screen here.
The first one is do you think it is appropriate to vary the landscape along the three identified sections of the corridor to respond to the character of each, or do you prefer the same treatment from end to end, or do you all not care at this point.
(Hand raised).  Lindsay?
DR. HOLLIDAY:		 This is Lindsay Holliday.  I’m going to recommend that we cease discussion on this and go back to the road design.  I know that’s not in your field, but that would require another meeting.  And that would require that we end this meeting and set up a date to have citizens, neighbors, talk about how much concrete they want.  I hope that the rest of the stakeholders will consider that because the more we talk about these ideas, it validates that they’ve skipped a step about the road design, and they’ve definitely skipped it.

The last meeting I was at, May 30th, 2002, I’ve got some notes here from it, and the consensus of the stakeholders at that meeting was they wanted more options about Forest Hill Road.  They wanted to consider just improving the intersections and leaving the neighborhood alone.  And that has not been done.  
So we’ve skipped a step.  And the more we talk about this step, it assumes we’ve already passed the other step, and we haven’t.
MODERATOR:		 I think that’s really out of Tim’s purview to really address that comment.  I’m the moderator, and I certainly, you know, was not around in 1995 when this was first presented, but my reading of all the documentation, and maybe someone from the design team can help me here, was that designs were presented, public hearings were held, comments were received, those were taken into consideration and the project is moving forward.  
The place we’re at now is attempting to address some of the suggestions from the Department of Transportation, which was to include landscaping and lighting to enhance the project.  And maybe someone else from the design team can help me with --
DR. HOLLIDAY:		 Steve, as a point of order, you’ve been misinformed because the citizens have not bought into this.  You were misinformed.
MODERATOR:		 I didn’t say they had bought into it, but I understand that the public hearing process has occurred.
MR. LAKE:		 (Hand raised).  Susan  

Hanberry?
MS. HANBERRY-MARTIN:	 Susan Hanberry.  Once again I’ll say this.  We have not seen the plan.  It is really difficult to even get an idea about what kind of landscaping might be appropriate when we have never seen the plan.  And I’m sure that Mr. Etheridge has a plan at Moreland-Altobelli that he could roll out along this whole table that we could look at exactly where it’s going to go, where the right-of-way is, where the construction easement is.  And it’s really almost impossible to have any kind of meaningful discussion unless we know what’s going on.  
And, no, we haven’t seen it.  Yes, it was promised that it would come back.  There has been a huge amount of public opposition to this.  We haven’t really had a compromise.  We need to discuss it some more.  And we don’t know where the median is, we don’t know how wide it is, we don’t know where it starts, we don’t know where it stops.  
And without having a decent kind of map, I think you’re doing a great job, and it sounds like you’re an extremely competent landscape architect.  And if you’ve done the work down in Dublin, I’m going to give you --
(**Reporter’s Note:  Several people talking at once.  Inaudible.**)

MS. HANBERRY-MARTIN:	 I mean if you do the work down in Dublin, it’s great.  And I truly appreciate your honest assessment of the way road design affects traffic and the way that the character and quality of the road affects traffic because we are not hearing that from Moreland-Altobelli or the designers that have been working with them until now.  And it’s very refreshing to hear that somebody does understand that.
And I would love to talk about it, but I don’t really have a clue what this road looks like.  And until we get something, you know, how can we talk about lighting and whether it’s appropriate until we know where the road is going to go in front of somebody’s house.  We need to have a plan that we can look at, and we haven’t seen it.
MR. LAKE:		 And I appreciate your comments.  And I know you understand that I’m powerless at this stage.  And I will say this.  We were very flattered to be brought into this process.  Of course later I heard in the bathroom that somebody was going to put a bull’s eye on my back and stand me up here.  We were very flattered that we were brought into this, and I think that it is to the credit of GDOT and Moreland that they are now seeking people who want to listen and to work to do this right.

So, you know, some of us here don’t have the whole history.  I can say this.  I’m a true believer, along with Calder and others, that whatever the problems are, a compromise can be had somewhere down the line.  Things can be worked out.  So, somebody is not going to be happy, but maybe most people can.  But I just cannot address your roadway concerns.
(Hand raised).  Raymond?
MR. SMITH:		 This is Raymond Smith.  And, Lindsay, I very much appreciate the concerns that you and Susan in particular are having.  If we could answer one or two basic questions before we go forward.  It sounds like whether or not we’ve seen it or not that the road design is basically in place, and it doesn’t really matter at this point what community feedback is on the actual design of the road itself.  Is that fair?
MR. ETHERIDGE:		 That’s a fair statement.
MR. SMITH:		 Because they’ve taken some feedback.  I know that Overlook was going to be dead-ended, now it’s not.  There was some other feedback from some other communities.  

What I’m concerned about, Lindsay, is if we shut this down and kind of stop participating, the way this system seems to work is they give us a couple of opportunities to provide feedback and then the road gets planned.  
And they do listen apparently some because I know there was a plan design that had Overlook dead-ended at one point.  And I know that somehow through some efforts with George and some of the people on the other side of that community, it got opened back up.  So there is some feedback taking place.
MR. ISRAEL:		 George Israel.  It also is not all five lanes.  And I mean the lanes have been cut down as far as the number substantially.
MR. SMITH:		 And I guess what I’m saying to you guys, as well as myself and the other people on this board, is that if we don’t give them some feedback, this shit is going to happen whether you want it to or not.  So, you better, you know, the lighting side of it and the landscape side of it, if you want to give them feedback, now is the time to try to do it because I’ve got the feeling we’re on the highway and the train is not stopping.

DR. HOLLIDAY:		 Let me tell you again what the feedback is, and let me tell you who I’m speaking for.  There was a man on Forest Hill Road who lives there right now, and I said, you know, the treatment here, as far as that, I said, you know, that big pine is going to be gone.  He said, no, it isn’t.  They told me it isn’t.  I said, and I’ve got the blueprint.  I’ve actually got all the road digitized.  It’s in my computer.  I can bring up every tree that’s downed.  And he said, I don’t want to get involved.  My son is in Iraq.  I’m doing everything I can.  Don’t ask me to get involved.
That’s, we’re dealing with a silent majority that are desperate people that aren’t, people that aren’t, there’s a lot of people here that aren’t, they’re too scared to even show up in the background because you’re right, Raymond.  Because Raymond is right.  Because they have bulldozed us totally.  And you think that you can play and get a little bit of, but, no, they control all the cards.  It’s our road. 
And this is what I suggest.  And I specifically suggested this because we can, within one month we can improve those intersections and re-pave Forest Hill Road and get that thing moving.  We can add a left turn lane at Wimbish, a left turn lane at Ridge, and a couple of  left turn lanes at a couple of these other places where traffic stops.  And that will solve the traffic problem, and it will save the neighborhood.  And it’s on the Web.  This stuff has been given to them before and they just continue to ignore it like they’ve ignored, this meeting is held with ignoring these three hundred comments that I’ve got.  I’ve got a book this thick (indicating).

And, so, I’m not willing to compromise --
MR. SMITH:		 I understand that, Lindsay.  Raymond Smith again.  You know, I hear you and I love you.  The problem is it’s going to happen anyway, so if you don’t give them lighting feedback --
FEMALE VOICE:		 It hasn’t got to happen.
DR. HOLLIDAY:		 Nothing is inevitable.
MODERATOR:		 Okay.  It’s time for the moderator to jump in.  A good moderator keeps a meeting going without standing up and speaking as little as possible. But sometimes you’ve got to come and get it going.  
Good comments from everybody.  You know, Raymond, very insightful.  You know, from my perspective, the purpose of this meeting is to get feedback regarding the landscaping and the lighting.  
You know, I realize that there may still be some, you know, uncomfortableness about the project itself.  Raymond’s right.  I think those opportunities have been presented, comments have been taken into consideration, and some of the project design has been changed.

My job is to get this meeting conducted while getting the proper feedback.  So I’m going to have to jump in.  I appreciate what you’re saying, but I’m going to have to try to push this process along because I’m aware of time.  
And, so, if we could still, per the ground rules, keep our questions and comments, right now what we’re trying to accomplish is getting your feedback regarding these very specific discussion points.  So, please, let’s see if we can contain those to these discussion points.
(Hand raised).  Yes.
MR. SKALKO:		 Steve Skalko.  Are you looking for us to comment on all four at the time or are you trying to do these separately?
MR. LAKE:		 Separately, however we can get your comments.  And as has been mentioned, we have volunteered in my office to put this presentation on the Web site, and we can put the questions there, too.  
MR. SKALKO:		 That’s fine.  But you didn’t really answer my question.  I’ll just offer my comment at this time on number one.  It does make sense to me from the standpoint of the characteristics of the road from Vineville to Northside Drive, that it does, you can reasonably characterize three distinct characteristic sections.  And because of that, I think you ought to look at the landscaping and what you do with that aspect in mine.  So I do agree with that.  That seems to be the appropriate approach.
MR. LAKE:		 Thank you.  

MR. THORNTON:		 I would second that.  Tim Thornton.
MR. LAKE:		 Thank you.
MR. THOMPSON:		 I agree.
MR. ISRAEL:		 Agree.
MR. LAKE:		 Thank you.  Now, moving to number two.  Do you favor a naturalized or traditional planting approach?
MR. SMITH:		 Define that.  I thought they were the same.
MR. LAKE:		 Well, when we say traditional, that is often considered in roadside plantings in suburban and urban areas to be very much the same tree planted at an even spacing down the entire corridor.  A naturalized takes a more varied approach and really looks at the flora and fauna of the area, the micro-climate it encompasses, and uses some of those plants.  There are some native plants that you just can’t work with.  But there are lots of naturalized and other species that are low maintenance that will work well there.  And, Raymond, it’s a little looser, you know, more grasses, more deciduous what we call color type plants as opposed to camellias, azaleas and hollies and boxwoods, that sort of thing.  So that is the question there.

MR. FISHER:		 Are there lighting discussion points coming up or are they all related to --
MR. LAKE:		 Mine are landscape.
MR. WHITE:		 We will take any lighting discussion points that you --
MR. FISHER:		 I’ll just make my comment, which is, and the reason I want to make it publicly is because it’s something that really you all ought to think about I think, which is that street lights were invented back when we were still using kerosene lamps.  So they don’t, and even since the 1960's there have been a lot of improvements in headlights.  There’s halogen headlights, high intensity discharge headlights.  And street lights themselves have gotten a lot brighter.  
So, and I do wonder how someone could preserve the character of my home, the character of my yard would be preserved if I had a street light right on my property line that’s thirty feet tall, you know.  The only thing you can do, you’ve got to put a guard on it to keep the light off my land.  There’s got to be something beyond just a fully shielded or else you’re going to be lighting everybody’s front yards.  

I don’t, so, my comment is that I noticed that you have three different documents you’re working to, who are putting requirements on you, design requirements, the State, the City.  And I would say we need to remember that these documents, there have been, there’s constant technological changes, and I think you need to be using human factors.  You have to moderate what you’re required to do with human factor considerations.  
And, so, and I would say that it, you should follow Susan’s suggestion and light as little as possible, and then light a little less and see if anybody complains.  And I think that you’ll find that people will be much happier with that.  And that really should be your goal so when they’re done they can say, well, those SOB’s put this road through here but, boy, they sure did light it nicely. 
And, so, you know, they at least listened to us.  Otherwise people are going to feel bulldozed.  That’s all.  That’s my comment.
MR. LAKE:		 I may be really overstepping my bounds, and, Dale, you can throw a brick at me if you want to.  But it may help to know that, and this is poor drawing by the way, if this is the lamp post and this is the house, and here is the lighting fixture itself.  When Dale starts talking about full cut-off and shielding, you can control distribution so that you don’t light back here.  Yes, there will be some ambient and reflective light which is going to happen from here.  

But I can tell you something about Mr. Dale White.  He is, can graph for you probably every square foot of that little arrow that shows how many are coming back at you and how many are going down.  So that is really the premise of what is called -- 
MR. FISHER:		 If you are going to do that, then that’s typically a feature above and beyond what is fully shielded, if you’re going to block this.  That’s not an eighty-degree cone or a ninety-degree cone.
MR. LAKE:		 And he can --
MR. WHITE:		 Now, when I’m talking about shielding, I’m talking about outside shield.
MR. LAKE:		 Right.  The shielding is here.
MR. WHITE:		 Additional shielding to keep it off of your property.
MR. FISHER:		 Okay.  Great.  
MR. WHITE:		 When I’m talking about light trespass, that’s what I’m talking about.
MR. FISHER:		 Right.

MR. WHITE:		 I’m talking about as much as possible keeping it off the houses, off the properties.  I’m talking about what’s reasonable, okay.  And, like I said, when we open this up to personal discussion, we’ll, you can feel free to talk to me and we’ll share comments or whatever.
MR. FISHER:		 I will do that.  Thanks.
MR. LAKE:		 Does it make sense?
MR. FISHER:		 Yeah.
MR. LAKE:		 Good.  (Hand raised).  Susan?
MS. HANBERRY-MARTIN:	 One more comment.  Again, beating a dead horse.  We don’t have a map.  We don’t know how close they are.  I’m, from what we’ve seen in the past, they’re going to be close.
Not only do we need to worry about just light spilling back, but if you live on that road and you look out your front window, it’s not really very attractive to see a lighted roadway with cars going down it.  It’s, you might just want to forget it’s out there, at least from a visual standpoint.  So you’re going to really affect the way people look outside of the windows in their house.  And, you know, that’s another consideration.  
So, if you don’t want light.  If you want to look out your front window and you want it to be dark at night when you go to bed, by golly, don’t put street lights in front of people’s houses.  

MR. WHITE:		 I can understand your feeling there.  But we had also earlier in the discussion when we were talking about how heavily pedestrian traveled it is and what-not, we want to give the pedestrian -- 
MALE VOICE:		 Whoa.  Whoa.  Whoa.  You said pedestrian travel?
MR. WHITE:		 In some areas; yes, sir.
MALE VOICE:		 Okay.  Then put street lights in the pedestrian areas.  But there’s one area that I guarantee you you won’t walk.
MS. HANBERRY-MARTIN:	 If you have areas that you want to light for pedestrians, you can put small poles that just light the sidewalk.
MR. WHITE:		 Pedestrian lighting.
MS. HANBERRY-MARTIN:	 But I really think that, you know, there is a real disconnect in thinking about looking at these streetscapes and talking about this being an urban section, we are going through a neighborhood.  And these people don’t want to look at cars all night long.
MR. LAKE:		 I’d like to focus us back here, and, Raymond, I’ll take your question.  I’d like to focus us back on this quickly, and then Raymond and Steve.

And one thing, and this may be out of context from my side of this, but as a landscape architect we’re often involved in these kind of discussions.  And oftentimes it’s really in on the tail end with people who are not happy about what has been done.  Sometimes we’re not happy about what’s been done.  We wish we had been called five years ago.  But it may help to say this.  
And I don’t want to upset you.  But this was a statement that was made to me once years ago in Florida by a gentleman from the Florida Department of Transportation.  We were dealing with an issue and in that case I was an advocate for the neighborhood.  We were trying to reshape the corridor completely.  And he reminded me very succinctly that roads in the United States of America, other than private roads, are designed for, are maintained for the people that go through the neighborhoods.  They’re designed for and engineered for everyone who drives on them, and that’s hard, but that’s, I’m trying to help talk about the mentality and the guidelines and how we get there.  Because Forest Hill Road is paid for by the citizens who live two hundred miles from her possibly, and, you know, they travel that way.  
And, so, if somebody from that, from the engineering  side would rather address that to help, they may.  But that’s hard, but that, what I really want to do is focus on this and then you guys can have that.  You can have Van up here if you want to.

MR. ETHERIDGE:		 Let me ask a question about what Susan was talking about.  Susan, were you advocating not lighting the whole corridor?
MS. HANBERRY-MARTIN:	 That’s correct.  And if we need pedestrian lighting, and I will say this, too, this city is not built for cars.  People live here.  And when we’re talking about the quality and character of our roadway, the first people we ought to think about are the people that live there, not the people in the car.  We are not going to engineer our community for cars.  People live here.
And, yes, I am saying don’t light the entire corridor.
MR. ETHERIDGE:		 But do you remember, though, where that lighting came from?  It came from the stakeholders and the comments that we got.
MS. HANBERRY-MARTIN:	 There, I think that that is another reason why Mr. Barker said it at the beginning, GDOT has been accused of not listening.  And, once again, I think some of those discussions came out when we were discussing what the road ought to look like.  GDOT did not listen to the community about this road.  We don’t want it.

And, you know, Mr. Etheridge, we’ve been through this for many years, and we can change the design still.  I’m not willing to concede that we can’t.  And you all can do this with political pressure.  It’s been done before and we can do it again.
But some of those lighting requirements you’ve got to listen to what people were expecting.  I don’t believe that they’re expecting to have a brightly lit corridor all the way down Forest Hill Road.  And that’s one of the problems.  If people say we want some lighting, they probably mean they want it at the intersection.  But until you let them speak, and speaking just through the stakeholders, it’s not going to happen.
MR. ETHERIDGE:		 Well, let’s just talk about the stakeholders that’s here tonight.  How many of you all think we ought to light the corridor?  Maybe we’re on the wrong track here.

MR. WHITE:		 May I say something, Van, first of all, before we -- Let’s not get the idea that this is a brightly lit, okay.  Because the City code, the City of Macon’s lighting code has modified the ANSI documents that specify foot candle levels, okay.  And we’re in a corridor that goes from urban to almost rural, okay.  So the light levels are not, they are not on any level compared with what you’re going to see driving through downtown Macon, okay.  Please understand that.  You’ve got to have a concept or a feel for what .6 foot candles means.
MS. HANBERRY-MARTIN:	 It’s hard to do that.
MR. WHITE:		 Okay.  To give you an idea, a parking lot at a Wal-Mart is generally about two foot candles, okay.  And it’s also a harsh, bright, white light, okay.  
So, remember, when we’re talking .6 foot candles, that’s not floodlight level, okay.  I just wanted to make that point so that we understand that it’s not brightly lit.
MR. FISHER:		 I do hope you’ll ask your question now because I’d like to know if everybody does agree that we don’t need --
MR. ISRAEL:		 Well, it’s lighted now.
MS. HANBERRY-MARTIN:	 Not the whole way.
MR. ISRAEL:		 Well, every intersection is.
MR. ETHERIDGE:		 It’s lighted at the intersections.
MS. HANBERRY-MARTIN:	 At the intersections.
MR. ISRAEL:		 And intermittently in between.
MR. SMITH:		 Before you get that --
MR. ISRAEL:		 And those lights are --

MR. SMITH:		 This is Raymond Smith.  Before you get that show of hands of whether it should be lit or not, can you share, is there a possibility that just the, you know, a nice pedestrian lamp post type very aesthetically pleasing light and then we do the lighting as necessary for intersections, but the rest of the corridor is lit more from a pedestrian standpoint instead of a traffic standpoint?  Is that a possibility?
MR. ETHERIDGE:		 Well, I think it is.  And these are the guys that we need to --
MR. WHITE:		 Right, Raymond, and that’s exactly what we’re looking for, okay.  There are, we are, as lighting designers, as lighting designers I am in no way interested in just floodlighting the corridor, okay.  I am interested in public safety.  I am interested in the pedestrian safety all the way from the trees to where we place the light and to the light levels.  But none of this in regard to lighting, nothing is set.  This is, you’re at the grass roots of the lighting design.

MR. SMITH:		 Well, then, let me say that I’ve lived in three different neighborhoods and one was well lit and two were very poorly lit, just at an intersection, and I’m talking neighborhoods.  And the one that had, you know, black posts, nice little lights, there were people out at night.  You walked your dog.  You walked your children.  There was a completely different feel to that neighborhood than there was the one that was dark.  You don’t feel good when you’re walking around in a dark neighborhood.  
I would tell you, if you can get this panel to let you all have pedestrian type lighting except at the intersections and have whatever is necessary for safety at the intersections, it would be a significant improvement.
MR. WHITE:		 And I will say, Ray, if I may, you have a lot of opportunity because the State, the GDOT, is assisting in the funding of these lights.  So it opens up a lot more avenues than if it was strictly coming from the City of Macon.  Do you understand what I’m saying?
MR. SMITH:		 Right.
MR. WHITE:		 So, there’s opportunities there, and I am wide open to discussions because this discussion that we have sets the design parameters.  So that when this thing goes to construction documents, you folks have the input as to what gets put on those construction documents.  
(Hand raised).  Yes, sir.
MR. ISRAEL:		 Well, the part that’s really more pedestrian is that, you all call it Vineville part.  I wouldn’t carry it maybe quite that far.  

MR. WHITE:		 Probably right in that area?
MR. ISRAEL:		 That lighting there I think needs to be more in tune historically because it is a historic area.  There are already lights on The Prado and some limited lighting on Overlook.  I would think maybe some of the Overlook needs to be integrated into that because it’s not anywhere near as well lighted as The Prado.  But I think that needs to be more the pedestrian.
Now, coming back to where the Fountains live, I’ve never seen, I don’t think I’ve ever seen anybody walking down there.  
MALE VOICE:		 Now, if you were walking, you wouldn’t have anywhere to go.  I mean I do walk, but I cannot walk on a major thoroughfare anyway.  It’s not, it’s not the safest place to walk even with your five-foot sidewalk, it’s not safe to walk.  So what you do is you walk in the neighborhood where it’s safe.
Now, if you all want to get in there and improve the lighting and put some sidewalks in there, that would be great.  But we don’t need to run more down Forest Hill.
(**Reporter’s Note:  Several people talking and applauding at once.  Inaudible.**)

MR. ETHERIDGE:		 First, let’s see if the stakeholders think we need lighting.  Then we’ll talk about second the levels of lighting.
MR. SMITH:		 Yeah.  One little bitty comment before you do that.  Zebulon Road, no one walked down Zebulon Road before they did the widening.  I mean you couldn’t.  You’d die.  I actually drive to Rivoli Bank and jog down Zebulon Road to Wesleyan College and back, and it’s one of the more pleasurable things I do.  And, yeah, it’s on the middle of a thoroughfare, but it’s, you know, wide open, safe, well-lit, etc.  So I’m going to tell you, you will find that people will start walking and bicycling and doing these things down Forest Hill with this kind of sidewalk, and you better light it a little bit or you’re going to end up with a nightmare.
MR. ETHERIDGE:		 Who thinks we ought to have lighting on the stakeholders?  
MS. HANBERRY-MARTIN:	 Let’s define it.
MR. ETHERIDGE:		 Well, let’s define it later.
MS. HANBERRY-MARTIN:	 I think if we do intersections with pedestrian lighting, I’m fine with that.  I don’t think we need to, as you put it, have a great white way.  
MR. ETHERIDGE:		 Let’s define it later.  Let’s see if we want it to start with.

(**REPORTER’S NOTE:  Several people talking at one time.  Inaudible.**)
MODERATOR:		 Let’s call time out.  I think where Mr. Etheridge is going is trying to get a sense from the stakeholders here.  You all have brought up something that’s given the design team some very good feedback.  But what I’m hearing is that lighting is appropriate but there needs to be some further discussion regarding the --
MR. ISRAEL:		 How much.
MODERATOR:		 How much lighting where.
MR. ISRAEL:		 Type of lighting.
MODERATOR:		 Type of lighting, type of decorative poles, how much, you know, illumination is appropriate in the pedestrian areas versus the intersections.  And, so, let me try this.  I think I’m hearing from the stakeholders sort of a consensus, maybe with some dissension, that lighting is a positive thing and it should be appropriate as long as we’re not talking about a big great white way.
Am I hearing that correctly?  Lighting, appropriate lighting, may be greater illumination in the intersections with more appropriate less illuminated lighting for pedestrian ways, is that something you all would like to work toward?

MR. FISHER:		 You know, I like to live with my fellow citizens, but I don’t think we need any light at all so I would not agree.  But, you know, what the majority thinks is also important.  It is possible to believe that no lighting need be installed.
MODERATOR:		 Let’s do this because we need to move forward because there are some other discussion points.  Let’s take a quick straw pole.  Now, let me preface this.  We also still want to get your comments, okay.  But I think where Van is, where Mr. Etheridge is going with this is from the stakeholders around this table, let’s see a show of hands.  Are there people who feel like on this corridor no lighting absolutely.
MS. HANBERRY-MARTIN:	 I want to know what the people who live there think.
MODERATOR:		 No, no, no, no, no.
MS. HANBERRY-MARTIN:	 I really, if I’m supposed to be representing --
MODERATOR:		 That’s why we’re allowing fourteen days for you to get that input and for that to come --
MS. HANBERRY-MARTIN:	 Let them talk while they’re here.

MODERATOR:		 -- from you.  We’ve got a time schedule we need to keep here.  
MS. HANBERRY-MARTIN:	 How many of you want lights?  
MODERATOR:		 Ms. Martin --
(**Reporter’s Note:  Several people talking at once.  Inaudible.**)
MS. HANBERRY-MARTIN:	 Okay.  And, see, that’s another consideration.
MODERATOR:		 Ms. Martin, if you would, Ms. Martin, if you would, please, let me, please,  moderate the meeting.  Here is the question.  Show of hands from the stakeholders at this table that feel that no lighting is desired in the corridor at all, just a show of hands from the stakeholders.  (Hand raised).
MS. HANBERRY-MARTIN:	 What do you all think?
MODERATOR:		 Just from the stakeholders.
MS. HANBERRY-MARTIN:	 You all raise your hands.
MODERATOR:		 Ms. Martin, if your vote is yes, raise your hand.
MS. HANBERRY-MARTIN:	 I will raise my hand because --

MODERATOR:		 That’s two.  Stakeholders at the table who think lighting is appropriate but there needs to be further discussion about type of lighting, how much lighting is appropriate where, by a show of hands, please.  (Hands raised).  Okay.  Does that give you -- Then we can go forward with additional comments.
DR. HOLLIDAY:		 Lindsay Holliday abstained.
MODERATOR:		 Tim, could you please, we need to finish going through these discussion points.  They really need feedback in this particular area.  Go ahead, Tim.
MR. SKALKO:		 Steve Skalko.  Let me, since you’re having to do them one at a time, I’ll just comment on number two.  It seems to me rather than following the traditional methods of design, I think you ought to try to do it from a naturalized point of view in terms of what you do for landscaping.

I would comment that I think you ought to give a lot of attention to a lot of low maintenance type aspects.  I think you’re going to find, as you may have expected, some people who live along the road will do things to maintain their part and some people may not.  They may say that’s the City’s responsibility.  And, admittedly, you turn to the City and, you know, that may be like, well, it may be difficult to get some maintenance done.  So, I think that you should give consideration to things that keep the requirements and the demand on maintenance pretty low.
MR. LAKE:		 Thanks.  Usually we assume worse than we’ll, than the expectation is because worse may come in a period of economic hardship.
(Hand raised).  Susan?
MS. HANBERRY-MARTIN:	 I was delighted to hear you say no Bradford pears.  I would also say that I think we should, I would agree that you need to use natural things.  I think we need to look at color that’s natural, red buds.  And I know we are cherry tree city, but cherry trees are not native, and they don’t do well next to roads.  And we ought to look at other things.  Dogwoods, red buds, trees that belong here.  
And I really do think that whatever happens here, we need to restore the tree canopy.  And whatever we do, we clear construction easements that don’t need to be cleared.  Whatever roadway happens here, we just need to be aware of that.  There is absolutely no reason to have a scorched earth policy when you construct a road.  And let’s leave what’s there and put back what was, and use native stuff, absolutely.  

MR. LAKE:		 That’s one of the things that we discussed early on.  I asked was there a tree survey, and a tree inventory, and I don’t think that’s been completed yet.  But Mr. Etheridge commented that that would be done later on, or typically was done, and hopefully we can do that.
You know, there have been corridors done where we’re able to go out and flag certain trees that may be of great significance so that sometimes other measures than just back slope are used.  Some are retaining walls and so forth.  So, that may or may not apply here.  But I can tell you that certainly we’re going to recommend to the design program that sensitivity be employed in looking at canopy trees and especially some species that are along this thing that we’ve already seen.
MR. PATTERSON:		 Can I make a comment on that?
MR. LAKE:		 Yes, sir.
MR. PATTERSON:		 When you’re talking about trees next to a roadway, you never know when the City of Macon or somebody is going to be involved in a lawsuit.  I reckon about five years ago, a tree at Wesleyan College fell across the road and fell on a car and there was a serious lawsuit.  So that’s the disadvantage of having a tree in close proximity to a roadway.
MODERATOR:		 It was a pine tree.  Oak trees don’t do that.
MR. LAKE:		 Raymond Smith.

MR. SMITH:		 I recognized the Cherry Blossom slam, and I appreciate it.  I did also live at Wesleyan Woods --
MS. HANBERRY-MARTIN:	 I lived there, too.
MR. SMITH:		 -- in one of the more beautiful neighborhoods in the city.  And I was about eleven when I moved there and we shortly thereafter planted those trees.  I’m forty-six.  That’s a thirty-five year life.  
I don’t care what the trees are, but my comment is it would be very nice, this is a very community oriented street.  The folks that live there typically have lived there a long time.  I’d like to see something that even though we’re doing a three division type cut up of this, maybe it’s every five hundred feet magnolias, or just something that goes, that kind of ties this thing together even though you’re looking at it as three separate sections.
Every time I go into a neighborhood or a city that they’ve done some unified plan that you can get a sense of it without even really looking at it that you can tell, I just find that it’s more aesthetically pleasing.

MR. LAKE:		 And that is one of the seven principles of design is employing that unity.  And a good point about the liability.  And that’s an issue of sometimes we do want to have barriers to protect the pedestrians from cars on the sides of the road.  At the same time, those very barriers can become an item for litigation at some point.  And, you know, large trees in the median are often that.  So there are a number of factors that come into play and the recommendations will be to make sure that all those things are considered so that somebody doesn’t come in and cookie cutter this thing.
(Hand raised).  Tim.  Tim’s one of those voices that’s not been heard very much.
MR. THORNTON:		 A couple of practical comments.  On number two, on your cultural history and landmarks, there may be an opportunity left around the Wimbish Road intersection, George Israel might know more about it, but there’s an old abandoned monastery down in the woods that’s not visible from the road.  It’s not really accessible from the road.  There’s also, I guess, and old Wimbish Estates property that was there before the apartments.  And I think there’s still an old well, artesian well down there.  I think there’s one structure near the road that’s still there that was maybe an old well house or something.

I don’t know if it’s even back there.  It’s so thick, it’s probably less than thirty feet from the right-of-way, but it’s so thick there and overburdened you can’t even see it from the road.
MR. LAKE:		 That’s on private property currently?
MR. SMITH:		 It is.
MR. ISRAEL:		 Yes.
MR. THORNTON:		 It is, yes, but very, within twenty or thirty feet of the right-of-way.  
DR. HOLLIDAY:		 That belongs to, this is Lindsay Holliday.  I think that belongs to the Hogans who lost their son on 9/11 in the Pentagon.
MS. HANBERRY-MARTIN:	 That was also in the green space --
FEMALE VOICE:		 It was a Catholic --
MALE VOICE:		 Monastery.
(**REPORTER’S NOTE:  Several people talking at once.  Inaudible.**)
MR. THORNTON:		 There might be, assuming you could acquire a piece of that, there might be an opportunity to wrap a sidewalk in there, put a park bench, maybe a little historical marker.  You might tie it to item number four.  It may be something you can incorporate into maybe a pedestrian safe haven area.

MR. LAKE:		 And then this was actually supposed to be number three.  We just missed that.  That’s an excellent point.  And that’s an area that, where some community action would be great to get people to possibly form a trust or speak to that landowner.  There’s two very significant things there. There’s the historical aspect and then there’s this human tie of the Hogans having lost their son on 9/11.  There’s several things there I think from a community coherence standpoint.  I didn’t know about that.  That’s good stuff.
MR. THOMPSON:		 Don Thompson.  I would hope that when you go to put the landscaping in that there will be some individual out there from some of us.  Like we’re a church.  Obviously we’re going to be a little bit different than maybe, we don’t want, for instance, we’ve got two old Appleton gates there, that we don’t want obscured behind a tree.  And we also don’t want our sign obscured by having any foliage that might make someone in one of the lanes not being able to see that the church is there.  We’ve got enough problems with letting people know that we’re there anyhow.  So we don’t want to go ahead and hide it anymore than it is at this time.

MR. LAKE:		 Thank you.  And I do believe, and that would be something that we would recommend from our office in the design program is that the design team, the landscape architectural team, would take the time to travel the corridor, to walk the corridor, and take the time to visit with people as much as possible in order to do that.  
And I even believe in that in downtown streetscape, although, you know, in Dublin we wound up with Council really wanting more on the standard approach, but we liked the idea of varying the plantings so that we could cover some historic sites.  And we did in the end accomplish both the best that we could.  
So, I agree with that.  I think that’s an excellent design recommendation.  Because, again, if it’s done from an office somewhere far away and people don’t visit the site, how do you know if you’re doing that. 
I believe, Steve, you were next?  I thought I saw another hand back that way.  Susan?
MS. HANBERRY-MARTIN:	 Oh.
MR. SKALKO:		 No, I --
MS. HANBERRY-MARTIN:	 Oh, okay.  Just a couple of things.  Just FYI everybody in here from Macon.  The property that we’re talking about where the well head is was on the list to be acquired by the Green Space Committee, but heaven only knows what’s happened with that committee.  They haven’t met in several years.  If there is still money there, that would be a great thing to purchase with it.  

So, you know, you all might speak to your City and County representatives about that.  
Once again, without a map we don’t know if it’s curb and gutter.  If we put swales instead of curb and gutter, we can grow trees prettier and faster than if we have curb and gutter.  If we are going to put up retaining walls, we don’t need to have a blank space of just plain old concrete.  There are lots of beautiful things that we can do.  We’ve just never done one of them in Macon.  And, by golly, it’s time to start.
Once again, without a map it is absolutely impossible to see that.  And I just don’t understand why we don’t have one here.  And that’s Moreland-Altobelli’s downfall, not yours.
But if we do swales, we really can get some interesting things and the plants will do much better and it’s going to be a much prettier road than if we have curb and gutter the whole way.  There’s reason to do that.

MS. STINSON:		Let me interject, and correct me if I’m wrong, but we have been asked to have, not to have, to have structurally sound retaining walls that have some decorative facades on them within the confines of GDOT’s financial limitations and design limitations.  And Joe or Van can correct me if I’m wrong on that.  But my understanding is that we are to make the retaining walls aesthetically pleasing.  
MS. HANBERRY-MARTIN:	 Maybe we could see them before they are too far along.  That would be a really neat thing.  
MR. WHITE:		 This is your opportunity for that.
MS. HANBERRY-MARTIN:	 Well, we can’t see them, you know, if you’re just saying it’s aesthetically pleasing, we were told on Douglas Avenue that with the expanses of concrete that the retaining wall was aesthetically pleasing with a metal bar at the top.  So, you know, one person’s art is another person’s garbage.  So, without really seeing a picture of it, how do you know?
MR. LAKE:		 And along those lines, once again, it gets somewhat out of the lines of what we would be dealing with, but there will be another meeting, at least in landscape and lighting so that we can, you can see here’s what we came up with based on what we talked about.  Do we want to heave-ho it or is it good.  So I think that even with maybe from our standpoint we could get images from Kristin or work together, I’d be glad to show images of any of that.
(Hand raised).  Lindsay.

DR. HOLLIDAY:		 Thank you.  The grassy swale, when the TMDL, the TMDL is the total maximum daily load on a stream.  I understand the streams there, my parents, my dad who left early, would like to consider only one sidewalk.  His stream, his driveway goes across the stream, and I understand it’s already exceeding the total maximum daily load of pollutants coming down that stream.  
And right now, you know, Forest Hill has got these grassy swales, and grassy swales are the grassy gutters.  You know, I’ve got some video from the rainstorm two weeks ago that shows where there’s a lot of erosion happening up where that construction site is.  It’s still bleeding soil down the streams.  And the grassy swales were red.  And then, you know, as you got a quarter of a mile on down the mud was filtered out.  

So, if you get rid of those grassy swales, which I didn’t see any grassy swales on this, these streams that are already exceeding pollution will get even worse.  And, of course, that water goes down to the Ocmulgee which is where we get our drinking water.  So, if we put more load in the Ocmulgee, we’ve got to pay more to clean it up.  I mean this is a serious problem.  If the design that I’ve seen up here on the screen is going to make the water quality here, the stuff we drink, a lot worse, and if it’s going to come from the landscaping, you know, you can design the roads with these grassy swales so that they filter out these pollutants before they get to the stream, and I didn’t see that.  But that’s what I’d like to see.  
MR. LAKE:		 And I don’t know how storm water discharge is being directed or if it’s redirected discharge or how that’s happening.  But we’re glad to do anything with plants and artscape that we can.  But that’s something that I think they’re talking about.
DR. HOLLIDAY:		 While we’re on that topic, let me just say in a nutshell that the way storm water is being handled right now is Macon is under, we’re so far behind the eight ball we’ve been fined by the State.  And the State of Georgia is really slack.  If you don’t meet their recommendations, if you don’t meet their specifications, you’re probably number fifty in the United States.
MR. LAKE:		 The state has been held to a federal standard, and all that I can say.  And the engineers can comment better on this.  Those are beginning to get more and more rigorous, and I do know there’s going to be a low tolerance.

MODERATOR:		 Tim, before you do that, let me give a time check if you please.  It’s eight twenty.  The plan is to continue this Q&A until 8:30.  At that time we will officially close the formal portion of this meeting.  But the design team has agreed to stay around until at least nine o’clock to field, you know, informal questions and comments from the group.
And, so, we need to make sure that we finish up the discussion points, and we need to limit those to the stakeholders.  We need to close out the official portion of the meeting at eight thirty.  And then we will have a maximum of thirty minutes to have informal conversations with members of the design team.  We also have members of the Macon and Bibb County staff available as well.  
So, just a time check.
MR. LAKE:		 What I’d like to do is we’ll hit these real quickly.  Calder Clay has had a vested interest in this thing for a lot of years from the City and County standpoint, but with your history, you raised your hand.
MR. CLAY:		 Thank you, Tim.  And I want to bring up a couple of points that perhaps might not have been brought up.  I live, I’m Calder Clay.  I live at 3882 Overlook Avenue, one house off of Forest Hill Road in the four-lane section.  And my comments are regarding landscaping.

In my opinion, I think the prettiest street we have in Macon is Mulberry Street with the large medians and the way it’s designed.  One of the second prettiest roads that we have is The Prado, the way it’s designed with the median and maintained with azaleas.  It is a beautiful area.  And it is my hope that the third prettiest road will be this median area along the Forest Hill Road at Overlook, The Prado and on down through.  And it can be done that way.  
My concerns, as the Overlook Avenue residents and perhaps others, whether it would be commercial or residential, are barriers.  And I mean a sight barrier in the median.  If we can have as large of a sight barrier as possible, it protects those folks looking onto a road, and maybe they see two lanes, but they don’t see four lanes.  So the Overlook folks would like to see as large of as legal and as beautiful that you can do within your budget to help affect that sight barrier.
The second is a sound barrier.  And when you landscape on the sides, if you would keep the sound, and I don’t know if it’s possible to do in landscaping, it might be giant trees, I don’t know.  But if you could consider the sound barriers that would affect those folks, especially in the most intrusive area, in the highly traveled area, the four-lane. 

And the third would be the light barrier.  If there are concerns with lights, lighting.  And if the lighting comes along, however it’s decided to do, landscaping on the back side of those lighting, of those lights, can help eliminate that as well.  
So, those are my comments, and I would hope the committee would take those into consideration.  
MR. LAKE:		 Thank you.  Good input.  And lighting is the thing, oncoming traffic and turning cars that tend to have lights going into the bedroom windows.  And there is some noise attenuation.
(Hand raised).  Raymond.
MR. SMITH:		 Raymond Smith.  I just wanted to hear from the lighting experts a little bit about if you did do just pedestrian lighting and didn’t do the heavy lighting except at the intersections, you know, how well does that cut down on the intrusion of lighting to the residents, you know, basically ignoring the fact that you’re not trying to light the road anymore, you’re merely trying to periodically light the sidewalk.

MR. WHITE:		 If we move toward a straight pedestrian lighting method, then the light source becomes much lower and much more concentrated, and you’re not washing as big an area, okay.  I mean that’s the biggest, that’s the best answer I can give you as far as how it affects the...
MR. SMITH:		 The poles, how frequently do you have to do it to be effective in the lighting?
MR. WHITE:		 We’re getting into a different, that’s not a, when we start, if the community influences the lighting design to move toward a more pedestrian lighting, then it, and I say the community because there’s ordinances, Macon City ordinances, that we have to work with.  So if the community moves that towards more of a just sidewalk lighting then we have several variables.  It could be all the way from a post top lamp down to a sidewalk bollard, okay.  
And then it’s going to the Illumination Engineers Society recommendations for safe sidewalk lighting to put out there.  Does that help answer your question?
MR. SMITH:		 It does.  Because, I mean I hadn’t considered that really low lighting that just is for the sidewalk, but I think that would be beautiful going down through there personally.
MR. FISHER:		 I would agree.
MR. LAKE:		 And the shorter they are, the more of them you would have.

MR. SMITH:		 But I mean if they’re down at the foot level to truly light the sidewalk, it ends up both promoting the activity on the sidewalk as well as just not filtering light anywhere except right there.
MR. LAKE:		 Right.
MS. HANBERRY-MARTIN:	 And I think that would be fine.  And I will tell you why I did not say yes for lighting.  Number one, it came from the people that live there.  Calder had some comments about lighting.  I think we need to listen to what the people who live on the road have to say.  
Number two, anytime we say yes to something here, we get what we don’t want.  And I think we need to absolutely talk about it and know what we’re saying as to it because what we said yes to in this community for road improvements, nobody knew they were getting what they were getting.  
And I’m just telling you the history.  So there isn’t a whole heck of a lot of trust between the community and the consultants.  So if we’re going to have another meeting, please do.  Let’s listen to everybody who’s here and then take those comments and come back with a plan that we can all live with.

MR. WHITE:		 Okay.  Some of the things that I’m going to try to do with Tim is these ordinances and things that are guiding our design, we’ll make those more available to you so you can see what we’re working against.  And we have to move that into your hands to, if that’s the direction you want to go.  Then this is your opening to do that.
DR. HOLLIDAY:		 Tim -- Lindsay Holliday -- I want to know how you all are going to handle the detention ponds that I guess are going to be built to handle the run-off?  Do you know where they’re going to be or where they’re going to be planted?
MR. LAKE:		 Lindsay, we haven’t moved into that.  We haven’t gone that far because we’re very preliminary.  We wanted very early here to sit down with you guys so it’s a little early to answer that question.  And certainly stabilization, and that’s, from there we need to get together all the components here and talk about it.
DR. HOLLIDAY:		 Okay.  Well, while they’re here, Van and Kristin and the City Engineer, who is handling this run-off?  Who knows how it’s going to be handled?
MR. ETHERIDGE:		 I didn’t understand your question.  Are you talking about run-off from the proposed project?
DR. HOLLIDAY:		 Yes. All this run-off that used to be filtered in grassy swales that is now going to be pumped I presume into detention ponds.

MR. ETHERIDGE:		 Well, the project has curb and gutter on it which underneath that has a drainage system of pipes.  Of course that carries the flow down to the creeks where it’s normally going now.  It would be discharged in the same place.
DR. HOLLIDAY:		 Are you going to treat it before you discharge it?
MR. ETHERIDGE:		 No.
DR. HOLLIDAY:		 Oooh.
MR. ETHERIDGE:		 There’s nothing to treat.  It’s water falling on concrete running in a pipe.
DR. HOLLIDAY:		 It has oil.
MR. ETHERIDGE:		 Well, some oil probably.
DR. HOLLIDAY:		 Lead, that kind of stuff.
MR. ETHERIDGE:		 It won’t be treated, no.
DR. HOLLIDAY:		 Okay.  I’d like to know how the City is going to handle that when they’re already in trouble for too much pollution in the creeks.  
MALE VOICE:		 I haven’t seen anybody require storm water be treated.  It may come one day.  And, no, we have not defined where the storm water is going to go (inaudible).  We are back on track with the EPA.  
MALE VOICE:		 Why is it private citizens have to control the run-off but the highway department doesn’t?

MODERATOR:		 You know, I think we’re getting into questions that are outside the purview of the speakers that are up here.  You know, by my watch it’s eight thirty.  I promised you a little time so at this point I think we’ve got the questions that, the discussion points we definitely needed to get responses to.  
Let me remind you of a couple of things.  One is that, stakeholders here, you have stakeholder comment sheets.  We will take those tonight if you want to give those to us tonight.  However, you can still continue to forward these to the design team.  We probably need to, well, you can feel free to make copies.
What the design team talked about was that feel free to go out into the community, people that you know or represent or have interest in this project, certainly this is a method that you can capture their feedback.  We just ask that it all come from this stakeholder group.  So that will require a little work on your part.
MALE VOICE:		 Excuse me, do you have a list of the stakeholders and all their contact information then?
MODERATOR:		 Say again.
MALE VOICE:		 Do you have a list of everybody who is a stakeholder --

MODERATOR:		 Yes.
MALE VOICE:		 -- with their contact information that I can get tonight.
MODERATOR:		 There isn’t a list tonight but there is a list available.
MALE VOICE:		 I have a list at the office but it does not have contact information on it, and it’s not current to the people that were here tonight.
MALE VOICE:		 We did have to sign in.
MALE VOICE:		 Okay.
MODERATOR:		 In addition to that, I think Tim has put his Web site on the flip chart there.  That’s www.tlake.com.  Tim, when do you participate the presentation of these images and those questions will be available on the Web site?

MR. LAKE:		 Ben says early next week.  So I don’t trust Web guys too much but certainly by the end of next week, maybe by the middle of next week, that we’ll put it up there on a very simple sort of page where you can go there and do that.  And as time goes, we may be able to add some kind of interaction to it, and we’ll be glad to do that as long as we can.  We’re doing it at our own expense and I really don’t know how much expense there will be.  But it will be up there next week.  It will be there.  
MODERATOR:		 This message for the stakeholders.  If you would, I think Moreland-Altobelli is going to be the collection point for these.  So if you could make sure that there are additional feedback, please send that to Moreland-Altobelli.
MALE VOICE:		 Can we get some --
MS. HANBERRY-MARTIN:	 I want an E-mail address that we can submit it to.  And I would also like to ask when we can get back together again and see a map of this project.  That’s not an unreasonable request.  Because all of this has been really pretty difficult without seeing a map of the project.  I imagine you have one, don’t you, Van?
MR. ETHERIDGE:		 Well, apparently so.  Lindsay’s got it on his computer.
MS. HANBERRY-MARTIN:	 Well, why wasn’t there one here today?  I mean we’re working on something.  Why wasn’t there a map here today?
MR. ETHERIDGE:		 Well, we wasn’t talking about the road today.  We were talking about this.
MS. HANBERRY-MARTIN:	 But we can’t talk about lighting without knowing --
MR. ETHERIDGE:		 We did.

MS. HANBERRY-MARTIN:	 -- how close it is to the house.
MR. ETHERIDGE:		 We did.
MS. HANBERRY-MARTIN:	 But we really didn’t get....
(**REPORTER’S NOTE:  Several people talking at one time.  Inaudible.**)
MS. HANBERRY-MARTIN:	And it seems to me that this was a way of deliberately keeping comment from being about this project specifically.  And I would also like to know, if people want to E-mail me, any of you all, I will be glad to take it and forward it to them. But where do we E-mail the information to?  Let’s get into the real world.  We have a mailing address.  What is the E-mail address we can send it to?
MODERATOR:		 Feedback will, official feedback needs to come through the stakeholders.
MS. HANBERRY-MARTIN:	 And where do the stakeholders E-mail it to?  I want to E-mail my information.
MODERATOR:		 You need to take that up with Moreland-Altobelli.  We have provided a method to provide your feedback and this is all I can tell you.
(**REPORTER’S NOTE:  Several people talking at once.  Inaudible.**)

MR. LAKE:		 I think that will be forthcoming, some way to do that on my side.  We’re not in control of the whole project so --
(**REPORTER’S NOTE:  Several people talking at once.  Inaudible.**)
MODERATOR:		 Hold on.  Hold on.  We’re going to close the formal portion of the meeting now.  I thank all of you all for coming.  I thank the stakeholders for providing the feedback.  As we indicated earlier, the part that you missed, was that the design team was going to hang around for thirty minutes, until nine o’clock.  Interested parties other than the stakeholders at this table have an opportunity to come and view the renderings that are here and engage the design team in informal conversation if you have questions or comments with an opportunity for invited guests to provide those comments or ask questions.  
(MEETING ADJOURNED)

	

CERTIFICATE OF REPORTER
STATE OF GEORGIA
COUNTY OF BIBB.
I hereby certify that the within and foregoing record is a true, complete and correct transcript of the proceeding taken by me on the 14th day of April, 2005.
     This 25th day of May, 2005.  

                               
       Certificate No. B-1238