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CC 2007 11 13 CHANHASSEN CITY COUNCIL REGULAR MEETING NOVEMBER 13, 2007 Mayor Furlong called the meeting to order at 7:05 p.m. The meeting was opened with the Pledge to the Flag. COUNCIL MEMBERS PRESENT: Mayor Furlong, Councilman Litsey, Councilwoman Ernst, Councilwoman Tjornhom, and Councilman Peterson STAFF PRESENT: Todd Gerhardt, Elliott Knetsch, Laurie Hokkanen, Greg Sticha, Paul Oehme, and Todd Hoffman PUBLIC PRESENT FOR ALL ITEMS: Morgan Ische 2383 Manuela Drive JoAnne Lewellen 6340 Murray Hill Road John Deluca 6484 Murray Hill Road Ken Wencl 8412 Waters Edge Drive PUBLIC ANNOUNCEMENTS: Mayor Furlong: Thank you and welcome to everybody. Appreciate those of you that joined us here in the council chambers, as well as those watching at home. At this time I would just like to make a quick announcement. I think a number of people knew this with regard to our agenda th tonight. At the applicant's request, item number 2 will be tabled until our November 26 meeting, so we'll not be addressing that this evening. If anybody's here for that, we apologize. We just wanted to let you know that we will be picking that up at our next meeting again at the applicant's request. With that, unless there are any other changes or modifications to the agenda, we'll just proceed. First up tonight are consent agenda items. CONSENT AGENDA: Councilman Litsey moved, Councilwoman Ernst seconded that the City Council approve the following consent agenda items pursuant to the City Manager's recommendations: a. Approval of Minutes: -City Council Work Session Minutes dated October 22, 2007 -City Council Verbatim and Summary Minutes dated October 22, 2007 Receive Commission Minutes: -Planning Commission Verbatim and Summary Minutes dated October 16, 2007 -Park and Recreation Commission Verbatim and Summary Minutes dated October 23, 2007 Resolution #2007-66: c. Lake Riley Woods Channel Stabilization Project, SWMP 12- 035B: Award Contract. City Council Meeting - November 13, 2007 Resolution #2007-67: d. Approval of Acquisition of Tax Forfeited Property on Powers Boulevard. Resolution #2007-68: e. SCBA Equipment (Breathing Apparatus) for the Fire Department: Award of Bid. Resolution #2007-69: f. Final Plat Approval, Life Time Fitness Second Addition. nd Resolution #2007-70: g. Accept Street & Utility Improvements in Walnut Grove 2 Addition, Project 04-09. h. Accept $1,000 Donation to the Fire Department from Spartan Chassis, Inc. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 5 to 0. VISITOR PRESENTATIONS: Ken Wencl: Ken Wencl, Chanhassen from the watershed. Some of you know but some of you may not know that we've had a so called common carp study going on in our three lakes, Riley, Little Lake or Rice Lake Marsh and Lake Susan and they're coming up with some very th interesting things. But anyway on November 27 at 7:00 at the American Legion Hall right over here the two doctors are going to be there. Mr. Sorenson, Dr. Sorenson and Dr. Pajanak and they're going to give us a review as to what's going on in our community, in our area as far as carp fish barriers and what we can do in order to control them to the best of our ability. There's lots of things very interesting such as the carp will go through 200 pounds of cracked corn in Lake Susan in one evening. Some of the carp in Lake Riley are 52 years old. Various things that these gentlemen will explain. I don't want to take any of their thunder but please mark your calendars and please come. We need the support to keep this going. It's being sponsored by the Legislature. By the Legislature Citizen Committee. The watershed is going to help out and the lake association members in and around our lakes are very high on this thing and working very hard. You should be very proud. Councilman Peterson: Are there cocktails? Ken Wencl: Cocktails. That's good. There's a chip in there for each of you to have a refreshment. Not really. Councilman Litsey: This isn't a carp fry now is it? Councilwoman Tjornhom: And what time was that? th Ken Wencl: At 7:00. On November 27. It will be enlightening and we're going to try to make it a fun evening so put everything aside and come. Thank you very much. 2 City Council Meeting - November 13, 2007 Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Thank you. Anyone else wish to address the council? If not I'd like to introduce Jim Keeler, the new Carver County Attorney who's here this evening. Good evening. Congratulations. Jim Keeler: Thank you. Good evening Mr. Mayor. Members of the Chanhassen City Council. My name is Jim Keeler. I am your newly appointed Carver County Attorney. As many of you are aware, Mike Fahey, the long time Carver County Attorney was appointed to the District Court Bench this past spring creating a vacancy in the office of Carver County Attorney and after a search and interview process, had the good fortune of being appointed by the Carver County Board of Commissioners to serve the remainder of Mr. Fahey's term through November, 2010. th And was sworn in on September 14 so I've been on the job for just around 2 months. Still like it. Still showing up for the job. This truly is a homecoming for me. Chanhassen has been my home for over 17 years. In fact when I first went to work for Carver County as an Assistant County Attorney under Mike Fahey in 1990, I was newly married and my wife and I specifically chose Chanhassen to make our home and we've continued to live in the same house all these years. And even after I left the Carver County Attorney's office in 1996 to work for the Hennepin County Attorney's office, we've continued to make Carver County and Chanhassen our home. So to have the opportunity to continue my career of public service, particularly as a prosecutor in my own back yard, I jumped at it and I'm thrilled to be back. I'm happy to announce that one of my major goals, that is identifying and hiring a new Chief Deputy County Attorney. I've done that. In fact Allison O'Toole started today as the new Chief Deputy. Allison and I worked closely together in the Hennepin County Attorney's office. I think she's going to be a great addition to the office. I have also, one of my second goals was to identify and hire a new head of our office's civil division and I'm happy to report that Jennifer Tichy, currently with the Bloomington City Attorney's office has accepted that position and will be starting at the end of the month. So once Ms. Tichy is on board I'll have a full compliment of lawyers on staff and throughout this time I've been trying to get up to speed with some of the issues that the County board and the various departments are facing. So there's a fair amount of bed time reading that I take home with me every night but I love the work. I'm thrilled to be back and I'm aware of the fact that I've been appointed, not elected so I indicated to the board when I was interviewing for the position that I would make every effort to go out and visit personally with each of the city councils and the township boards and the school boards, and even though this is my home city, Chanhassen is actually I think, I have Norwood-Young America next week and I'm pretty much finished just in these 2 months making it to all of the city councils and most of the school boards. And next round are the township boards, but I wanted to stop by and introduce myself personally. Some of you, I know Chief Litsey and I worked together when I was an Assistant in Hennepin County Attorney's office. Some of you I'm meeting for the first time so I wanted to stop by and introduce myself. And to also let you know that at any time if you have any questions or if there are concerns, issues facing the city of Chanhassen, by all means call me. Let me know. I certainly will be more than happy to meet with you. Either individually or if you wish, I'd be more than happy to return before the council at any time. Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Any questions for Mr. Keeler? Councilman Litsey: I'd just like to say, I've had a chance to see your work first hand and I think we're very fortunate to have you as county attorney and I appreciate you applying for and 3 City Council Meeting - November 13, 2007 accepting the role. I think we're going to be well served by you in that position so, welcome aboard. Jim Keeler: Thank you. Thank you very much. Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Jim Keeler: Thank you Mr. Mayor. Mayor Furlong: Anyone else for visitor presentations this evening? Okay, very good. There are no other items to come before us this evening and we've got a short agenda with the one other item being tabled, as I mentioned earlier so we'll move on to council presentations. COUNCIL PRESENTATIONS: Mayor Furlong: I guess I'd like to share, since we have until about 9:30. No, it will only go to 8:30. It won't take me that long. No. Last week I had the pleasure of joining some other mayors for a mayor's summit in the City of Madison, Mississippi. Madison, Mississippi, along with the City of Chanhassen and 8 other cities were all named by Family Circle Magazine as the best towns in America to raise a family this last summer, and at the invitation of the Mayor of Madison, Mississippi the other 9 of us traveled there last week and met and it was a very, very worth while 3 day summit. We covered a variety of topics, from leadership and leadership development, strategic planning, emergency preparedness, economic development was a big part of our discussions, and we talked about best practices and what we do and how we do it. Each of us had an opportunity to present a brief presentation about our city. I want to thank Laurie Hokkanen for assisting me in putting together just a great presentation that really shared with all of them just who we are and why this is such a great place to live. It was a good exchange of ideas too. Very, very pleased with the time spent together. It was a chance for us to get to know each other. What we found out is that there were a lot of common themes coming out of these presentations about quality of life and great place to live and work and play. Cities that provide great recreational resources and good public safety and I think those were some of the things that people mentioned to me. Other mayors mentioned to me after our presentation about the, some of the things that they thought it was very nice and really made our city stand out, our park and trail system. The fact that we have a policy that says every home will be within a half mile of a park. There was one of the city's there, a city in California is about double our size, has about 80 acres of parks. We have close to 400 acres of parks, plus our open space, which is about equivalent so you know the fact that that as a policy has been stated for a number of years, that we continue to follow, was something that they were impressed with. They were also impressed with our planning, our financial planning. Some of the policies that we've done with finances recently, as well as our public safety and what we're doing there with Carver County Sheriff's Office, so it was a great exchange of ideas. It was very worth while. Brought back some new ideas with Todd. We could sit down and start talking about some of those. But, and above all it was something at the end that everybody, everybody agreed with the quality and the worth while time that we had spent together and the desire to continue to work together so I expect that these other cities, and they range from Franklin, Massachusetts to a city in Georgia. Cooper City, Florida. Cities in Texas. Derby, Kansas. I mean across the country, and yet as much as we're 4 City Council Meeting - November 13, 2007 doing things here and sometimes we don't realize all the good things that we do do to sit down with mayors from across the country and really hone in on the good things we do and to get ideas on how we can do some things better so I wanted to share that with all of you. It was, like I said, very worth while and just a very enjoyable 3 day experience. Southern hospitality was, went overboard and they really laid out the red carpet for us, which was kind of neat so. Lot of fun. Anything else from council presentations? If not, Mr. Gerhardt. ADMINISTRATIVE PRESENTATIONS: Todd Gerhardt: Well to keep that quality of life standard higher in Chanhassen, Paul has assured me that our road projects this year will have final lift of blacktop or first lift of blacktop go down by the end of this week so, weather permitting… That's your biggest concern when you get into these road projects that you get that first lift down before you get substantial snow or frost starts to build up so we've been fortunate here the last couple of weeks to let the contractors get their work done and we did finish the Yosemite and Koehnen area so first lift is down there. In June of 2008 you'll see the final lift go down and have that project finaled out. The Dogwood and Tanadoona area is the concern right now and curb went down last week so blacktop should go down this week and so the residents in that area will have a paved surfaced and Paul's crews will have a paved surface to plow snow and not have to drive them in gravel or mud. Although the Tanadoona people are probably used to that because that's the surface they had for many years, but their quality of life definitely will increase once that surface goes down. So good job with the contractor and Paul's crew and inspection crew did a great job this year on all those projects. And that's all I had. Mayor Furlong: Okay, thank you. Any questions for Mr. Gerhardt? No? Okay. CORRESPONDENCE DISCUSSION. None. Mayor Furlong: We do have some items to finish in our work session so we'll reconvene in our Fountain Conference room. Is there anything else to come before us this evening? Councilman Peterson: The only thing maybe, Elliott to put you on the spot and get some value out of you this evening. Any thoughts, I know that we have the new Carver County Attorney here. We've had some challenges with the system before and that's one question. The second, how's it been going the past year? Elliott Knetsch: I would say things have gone well. We're very pleased to provide that service for you. Carver County has a new court administrator named Vicky Carlson. I've been working with her regarding any, the court is reviewing all it's scheduling mostly due to the fact that they have a new judgeship was created and the Governor, I believe the appointment hasn't been made yet. It's due any time so there's going to be a new judgeship for Carver County and the chambers for that judge will be Chaska. So they're going to have another judge to help deal with their calendar so, because of that they're reviewing all their current calendars. I've known Vicky Carlson since, I think she was about 19. She was straight out of high school when she started as a court clerk in Dakota County and that's about 1985. So I have a good working relationship with her and we were discussing the Chanhassen calendar, whether there's a need for a separate 5 City Council Meeting - November 13, 2007 calendar. Those sorts of issues. But basically you've had the same calendar now for I think maybe 18 months to 2 years. The system is working pretty well. Sufficient for the number of cases you have. I saw in our correspondence packet we had a quarterly report was in there. So. Councilman Peterson: It's going well. Elliott Knetsch: I think things are going fine, yes. Councilman Peterson: Good. Glad to hear it. Mayor Furlong: Good. Anything else? Councilman Peterson moved, Councilwoman Ernst seconded to adjourn the meeting. All voted in favor and the motion carried. The meeting was adjourned at 7:20 p.m. Submitted by Todd Gerhardt City Manager Prepared by Nann Opheim 6