Sure, the biggest items in a big week for the Eureka City Council are the two special meetings that will be held Wednesday and Thursday to hammer out details of what looks to be a very grim 2015-2016 budget. Wednesday’s meeting will focus on impacts to the police, fire and public works departments; Thursday’s will tackle parks, planning and other matters. Both will begin at 4 p.m. Blood will be spilled.

But Tuesday’s regular meeting is intriguing as well, as it has the potential to signal how the new council – and its relatively new top staff – hope to build the look and feel of the town, to update it for the 21st century. There have already been a few feints in this direction – the gateway project, most notably – but none so impactful on day-to-day life as will be heard tomorrow evening.

One of three such items on the agenda is scheduled for the consent calendar, and so there is not likely to be much discussion. It is the award of a $30,000 contract to Arcata architect Kash Boodjeh to lead a design charette that will lead to a master plan for the development of the Eureka waterfront in Old Town. The project encompasses the mostly vacant parcels between the Fisherman’s Terminal at the foot of C Street and the Bayfront One building at the foot of F – a key strip of land that has been moribund for years. Comically so, at this point – the North Coast Journal was bemoaning the lack of progress on waterfront redevelopment back in 1997.

“SFParklet” by Mark Hogan from San Francisco. Licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons.

The other two items on the agenda are much more in the line of “new business,” and they’re both being brought forward by development services director Rob Holmlund. In the first, which the council could conceivably approve tomorrow night, Holmlund proposes that the city initiate the construction of several “parklets” – small public spaces, about the size of one parking place and probably developed in conjunction with local businesses, designed to make commercial areas of the city more attractive.

The staff report notes that parklets were first developed in San Francisco in 2010, and have since spread throughout the country. Holmlund is recommending that Eureka approve a pilot program that would allow for the construction of three such spaces over the next 18 months, at which point the benefits and detriments of the program would be weighed.

See the full staff report here.

Finally, Holmlund will give the council an oral presentation on “vibrant commercial districts” that will run down planning techniques that could boost the livablity and commercial activity in the city’s retail neighborhoods. These include allowing outdoor seating, building pedestrian plazas and – the holy grail for downtown wage slaves – “mobile food vendors.” That’s right: The city of Eureka is finally going to take a look at hopping aboard the food cart explosion. The Outpost doesn’t take many editorial stands, but at this we scream “hallelujah.” Put that in your charette, please, Mr. Boodjeh.

Tomorrow’s meeting will be held at 6 p.m. in council chambers at Eureka City Hall – 531 K St.

DOCUMENTS