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NEWPORT — Two Newport business owners shared their concerns about city infrastructure with the Newport City Council at its Monday, June 2 meeting.
They were Kristin Yake and Troy Moody, co-owners of My Sidewalk Cafe at 300 S. Washington Ave. Moody is also a Planning Commissioner.
Yake was concerned about the Rectangular Rapid Flashing Beacons — solar- powered crosswalk lights — that the city is soon to install at four intersections along Washington Avenue: Walnut Street, First Street, Second Street and Fourth Street.
While Yake thanked the council for securing the RRFBs, adding that they were “something that Newport has needed for a very long time,” she disagreed with the exclusion of one intersection: Third Street and Washington Avenue. Yake said Third and Washington was “by far” the busiest intersection in the city, with WaFd Bank, three restaurants, Country Lane, Number 1 Driving School and now a dance studio driving vehicle and pedestrian traffic.
“With all the children and all the people walking through, not to mention the farmers market that’s there every Saturday, that overflow parking lot is usually packed with people during the week because street parking is full,” Yake said. “So, you’ve got all those people traveling along the sidewalks, trying to cross the street.”
Additional vehicle traffic comes from southeastern Newport, Yake said. Vehicles crossing from Oldtown to Newport on Union Avenue turn onto Third Street, before turning again onto Highway 2 heading toward Spokane.
Since My Sidewalk Cafe is on a corner of Third and Washington, Yake herself has “multiple times” seen pedestrians almost get hit by vehicles while crossing the street at that intersection, she said. She urged the council to consider relocating the RRFB on Second and Washington to Third and Washington, especially as pedestrian and vehicle traffic increase over the summer.
City administrator Abby Gribi clarified that the city cannot relocate the RRFBs due to its agreement with the Washington Department of Transportation, but it can ask for more of them. Gribi and others at Newport City Hall have seen at least two pedestrians get hit by vehicles on Washington Avenue between First and Second Streets, hence the RRFBs on those intersections.
“We can always ask,” Mayor Keith Campbell said to Yake. “You made a great argument, I agree.”
Moody had two concerns, also centered on downtown Newport: business storefronts and sidewalk trip hazards.
He requested that the city pass a municipal code requiring businesses to maintain their storefronts to a certain standard. Doing so would encourage customers to visit businesses downtown, which could prevent more businesses from closing and help grow the business district overall.
“One of the things that occurs to me is the apparent dilapidation that we see. We’ve got buildings that have peeling paint. We’ve got buildings that haven’t been painted for years,” Moody said. “We’ve got a deterioration of the image that we’re portraying to people coming through.”
The city plans to remove a few dead trees in a 3-foot-by-3-foot plot on Newport City Hall’s block and replace them with gravel. Instead of gravel, Moody suggested using the plot as an advertising podium, adding that he as a My Sidewalk Cafe co-owner would pay for an advertising spot there. Gravel can “get spread and scuffed across the concrete,” he said, becoming trip hazards for Newport’s aging community.
Planters with flowers could be added to the plot to make up for the trees, Moody said.
“It’s a liability for us as a city,” Moody said. “And I really think that we need to get a better plan for those spots, along with trying to beautify everything else.”
Council member Nathan Longly asked Gribi about state highway requirements related to signage that could affect the installation of an advertising podium on the plot. Gribi responded that the city could look into incorporating off-site signage on a smaller scale for pedestrians, such as a planter with advertisement windows on its sides. However, she did not know if the city would have the staff allocation to maintain planters until it implements its comprehensive plan.
Regarding the standardization of business storefronts, Longly said it was a “viable option of opportunity” for coordination between Newport business owners, the Newport Creative District and the Greater Newport Area Chamber of Commerce. But rather than pass a municipal code, council member Mark Zorica said the city could collaborate with the Chamber, which already has a storefront improvement incentive program — the last of which Moody said only had one participant.
“Maybe their approach to talking to businesses, especially since all these businesses come back to the Chamber, maybe that’s the approach that we need to take,” Zorica said. “Work with those guys first and get it just trying to move on that way.”
In other business, Gribi will write an amendment exempting nonprofits from requiring a city endorsement on a state business license to fundraise and collect donations in Newport. Though the state does not require state business licenses to do that from some nonprofits, Newport’s city endorsement requirement forces nonprofits to pay for state business licenses anyway.
After Gribi’s comments as city administrator, the council approved on-call and professional services agreements with Kimley-Horn for the implementation of the city’s comprehensive plan, a resolution authorizing city clerk-treasurer Nickole North to request federal reimbursement for the ADA sidewalk project in Newport City Park and an agreement to install, operate and maintain the RRFBs.
