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1988 01 25CH RE J~ Ma' · Da. APPi sec~ incl Saf. Cou fay CON~ app; Man. All CON~ OF Coul que~ %NHASSEN CITY COUNCIL ~ULAR MEETING ~UARY 25, 1988 ,or Hamilton called the meeting to orde~r.. The meeting was ~op. ened ._ h the Pledge to the Flag. " ; "' '~'~ t. ;. 1' · BERS PRESENT: Councilman Boyt, Councilman Horn, Councilma~ Ge'vin9~ councilman Johnson FF PRESENT: Don Ashworth, Roger Knutson, Gary Warren, Barbara :y, Jo Ann Olsen, Jim Chaffee, Larry Brown and Todd Gerhardt ~OVAL OF AGENDA: Councilman Johnson moved, Councilman Geving )nded to approve the agenda as amended by Councilman Johnson to .ude an update on the U.S. Army Engineering Report and Public ~ty; Councilman Geving wanted to discuss the Postal Zip Codes and tcilman Boyt wanted to discuss attendance records. All voted in and motion carried. ENT AGENDA: Councilman Horn moved, Councilman Johnson seconded to eve the following Consent Agenda items pursuant to the City ger's recommendations: a. Final Plat Approval, Hawks Hill, Mike Klingelhutz b · Conditional Use Permit for the Public Works Building Expansion, City of'Chanhassen d · ee · . . Resolution 988-06: Set 1988 Liquor License Fees. .. . Resolution #88-07: Resolution Adopting the 1988 Budg.et ang. Establishing Tax Levies for 1988 h. Accounts Payable dated January 25, 1988 i · City Council Minutes dated January 11, 1988 Planning Commission Minutes dated January 6, 1988 voted in favor and motion carried. ENT AGENDA: (G) ESTABLISHING RULES OF PROCEDURE FOR THE CONDUCT ITY COUNCIL BUSINESS, CITY ATTORNEY'S MODIFICATION. cilman Johnson: On Section 8, this is the same section I tioned last time and it's on voting and the effect of abstention. Roger looked into this and I think he missed the jest of what I was trying to get him to look at. Given you have it, if you abstain from a vot~, it is a no vote on an item. Now I read, a man from the State Attorney General's office recently sent me some information stating that a recent Minnesota Supreme Court ruling said that an abstention is a vdte in favor along with the majority. So if it goes down without you, then you voted for it to go down. I'f it passes without you, you City Council Meeting - January 25, 1988 voted for it to pass. This way your vote has no effect. In here we're saying that your vote is a negative vote and it will have an effect upon that issue. If you're abstaining from a vote, I don't believe y.ou should have any effect upon that issue. Roger Knutson: I finished going through a bunch of examples but for example, if you're passing an ordinance, it takes three positive vo~es. to pass an ordinance excluding certain types of ordinances. It takes three positive votes so the effect of abstaining is not voting,., you_'~eo not part of the majority so you're effectively voting, the effect is a no vote. Now there are Supreme Court decisions, not from Minnesota, from other states that I'm aware of and I have researched it, where they have said, the effect of abstaining because of a conflict of interest has the effect of decreasing the size of the Council by that one vote. To the best of my knowledge, the Minnesota Supreme Court has never said that. It's a bit of an open question. Under Robert's as I understand it, it does not have that effect. You could take that position. The only time you're going to run into problems, potential serious problems are with zoning ordinance amendments and that would probably be the most likely situation. Councilman Johnson: What I'm looking at is when something does affect a councilman, if they're doing something on my block so I decide not to vote for it. If I'm actually against it, by abstaining, under these rules, I'm doing exactly what I want. I'm casting a no vote. Roger Knutson: It has that effect. And the reason it has that effect is because the Statutes are written in terms of a majority of all the councilmembers have to vote for something or in some cases, two-thirds and if you're not voting aye. We can reword this but it will have .that effect. It will have a no effect. Councilman Johnson: Here it says that we will be counted as having a no vote. I would like it noted that he did not vote. That he was considered absent. -. Mayor Hamilton: It says, noted in the Minutes as an abstention. Councilman Johnson: Right, an abstention and above it it says. Mayor Hamilton: It be considered as having voted against the motion. Councilman Johnson: Right. So it says here that you're going to be considered voting it. It would be easier to say that the councilmember who elects not to vote shall be considered as being absent at the time of the vote. Mayor Hamilton: I guess I'm not sure what the problem is. Roger Knutson: It will have the same effect. Councilman Johnson: It will have the same effect yes. Roger Knutson: If you wanted to put that in there. The reason it was in the abst vote take want Council Meeting - January 25, 1988 179 his draft and in your earlier draft is to make clear to members of Council what the actual effect is. So you understand when you .ain what's going to happen, effectively happen. It's not a no · It's an abstention, but effectively it works as a-no because it s a certain number of positive votes to pass something. But if you ed to change it to it just said, councilmember who abstains, it sha that Maya been you Cou~ Coun rule be noted in the record that he abstains. If you wanted to say that's fine too just so you all understand what the effect is. Hamilton: I can't see where it's going to have an effect. I've here 8 years and it hasn't any effect yet. I don't know, Dale did ~ver encounter anything? :ilman Geving: No. An abstention is just a non-vote. ilman Johnson: You're saying an abstention is a non-vote and our say an abstention is a no vote. What I want to do is what you wan to s~ t is an abstention to be a non-vote and that's what I want the rules y so our rules will match what we think it is in our heads. Mayo' acco! does: Reco] midd Hamilton: If you read this and agree with it, then it would plish the same thing also. It doesn't make. any difference. It 't have any major effect on it. Under 10.~7, Motions to sider, that says starting with the fourth line down about the .e, ~nly be made at the council meeting at which the original moti.,n was voted upon· Motions to reconsider contracts, written agreiments, claims for payment, ordinances, permits, zoning and subd vision approvals and public improvement projects may only be made at t~.e Council meeting at which the original motion was voted upon. That doesn't make any sense. You can't make a motion to reconsider at a mel~ting that's already taken place a month ago. Roge Knutson: That's what this says. What this says, if someone moves, I don't know if you have claims on here tonight or not, you do, you move to approve claims right now. It's been done and then later on in tie meeting, for whatever reason, someone says'there's a mistake therE, I'd like to move to reconsider the payment of the claims. You can ~ it at this meeting but. you can't come back here in two weeks and do it The reason I have it in there is because the'check's already'in' the m~il. It's too late. Mayor Hamilton: But even the zoning and subdivision approval? Roger: Knutson: What it says is, once those are by ordinance, once you have igned that ordinance and after this meeting or simultaneously, it's .oo late because they've been signed. When you sign a contract, you c n't reconsider it a month later because it's gone out. Counc Roger' could- ha ye just lman Horn: That's fine but what about ordinances? Knutson: You would just take it up as another agenda item. You pass an ordinance tonight to do something and next week you could new ordinance. It wouldn't be a motion to reconsider. It would ,e a brand spanking new agenda item. City Council Meeting - January 25, 1988 Councilman Johnson: So the case of the T Bar K, we had a final plat that we approved, then we did a reconsideration on it. That was a subdivision matter. Under this, how would we have made that change to the final plat? Brought it up as a change to a final plat? Roger Knutson: It'd be too late. Councilman Johnson: Once a plat's a plat it's always a plat? - You can't change a plat? Roger Knutson: Once it's signed, you've lost control of it. It's history. Councilman Johnson: Even if the people come in and want it changed? Mayor Hamilton: That's a different story. We can't change it. Councilman Johnson: So we didn't need to vote to reconsider that plat? They can petition to have a plat reconsidered. Roger Knutson: That has to be put on the agenda as an agenda item. Mayor Hamilton: I don't have any other questions on that 10.07. Are you satisfied with Section 8, voting? Councilman Johnson: I'd like to get that changed. Roger Knutson: If you wanted, you could just delete the second sentence. Councilman Geving: Let's just say, the coucilmember who abstains shall be considered as not having voted. Roger Knutson: That's fine. ' : Councilman Boyt: That's the way it reads in my amended Robert's Rules. The only reason I didn't comment was Roger clearly pointed out to me it doesn't make any difference. Councilman Johnson: But as long as that's what we all feel, we ought to have our rules say what we agree so somebody can't come back and say well, you voted against that. Councilman Horn: But Roger's point, it says in doing this, so you recognize that you are in effect voting against it when a certain number of votes is required to pass something and I think it's perfectly clear. Mayor Hamilton: It can stay that way. It doesn't have to change. Resolution #88-08: Councilman Johnson moved, Councilman Geving seconded to approve establishing Rules of Procedure for the conduct of City Council Business, City Attorney's Modifications with the change Ci' noti absi the. vot~ May~ · CONI Pnai Cou~, dis thil wel. May~ the eno' wori Cou Feb Cou' Cou to and of the homi the wou Mayt haw Don and. tri we alt '.y Council Meeting - January 25, 1988 :d by Councilman Geving suggesting that the councilmember who '.ains shall be considered as not having voted and will strike after word voted against the motion in the talleying of the votes. That will be duly noted as an abstention. All voted in favor except r Hamilton and Councilman Horn who opposed and motion carried. ENT AGENDA: J. RESOLUTION ESTABLISHING THE DATE, TIME, POLLING IES FOR THE SPECIAL REFERENDUM, FEBRUARY 24, 1988. ~cilman Boyt: I was out of town when I gather you had the ussion about February 24th. I feel that's too early. I don't see gs coming together to tell me that the community is going to be informed about the referendum by February 24th. r Hamilton: After a lot of discussion that evening, everybody e felt that we needed to do it in February and that we would have gh time. All those present thought we had adequate time to get the out to everybody. I guess I agree with that. cilman Johnson: Mr Mayor, I was present and I staunchly opposed :uary 24th at that time. ~cilman Geving: I didn't hear that Jay. ~cilman Johnson: Because I said there's not enough time. We've got et it out. In looking at this, I've been going over the tactics whatever and how we're going to inform the people and I think what ~ave to do is get into the homeowners associations. There's a list or 8 meetings and I think that would get to maybe 10% or 15% of people. We really have to get out there and hit all these ~owners associations. If we can do it, we may be able to get out e and hit quite a few of them in the. next month but I personally .d like to see it held off a little while too. r Hamilton: Don, would you please comment on..why you would like to it done in February .... .. : Ashworth: At this point in time I think there are enough groups people, brochures, ect. that do have the February 24th date. We id to have it as early as possible. It could be changed but again lave several pieces of the information for the referendum are ~ady done. The other part of it dealt with, we attempted to look at the timing associated with each of the community groups and to insure tha~ we picked a point in time that closely approximated when they wou%d be meeting. As Jay noted, we do hit most of the groups, or all of ~he groups that I'm aware of, before the February 24th deadline and mos~ of those are within the last week or 10 days before that reft~rendum. Lori does have a list of all of the homeowners associations so if the Council would like to supplement the other mee lng schedule with homeowners, we could do that as well. Cou .cilman Boyt: I guess my concern, and maybe this is going to come City Council Meeting - January 25, 1988 out in the way the referendum is worded, is that part of what I had hoped to have happen when we went out to community groups was that we would learn something from them about what do they really want. We're making a proposal but I don't consider that proposal to be something that's absolutely the way it has to be built. I would gather that there's really no time to modify our position so are we in fact saying that what we're asking for is the ability to spend a certain amount of money on different projects with a conceptual plan? Mayor Hamilton: That's right. Councilman Boyt: Okay, so that we can take this feedback that we're' getting and incorporate as much of that as possible into the final plan. Don Ashworth: That's correct. Councilman Boyt: And you're comfortable that we can reach the people then by the 24th? Enough time so that they know the issues. Don Ashworth: I would hope so Bill. Again, the Task Force spent a lot of time looking at each of the groups we should go to. The types of information we should be getting out to them and they felt comfortable. In fact, they were looking to February 16th and we moved it back from the 16th to the 24th. The date set by the Task Force was the 16th. Councilman Boyt: I think this is a situation in which it's an expensive referendum to run. We're asking people to make a decision over the next five years and I'm wary that a month from now people are going to be prepared but I understand that you've got the material printed and it looks to me like the majority of the Council is going to agree to support so I'm not going to delay this longer. Councilman Horn: What's the referendum Task Force that Don was referring to? Don Ashworth: The Community Center Task Force. They have taken the lead role as far as coordinating between the three different groups because they are composed of all groups. Councilman Horn: Is it finalized what the structure of the referendum will be? They were going to go back, each group and talk amongst themselves and decide on how the final structuring should be before it went out. Has that been done? Don Ashworth: The five questions were set by the City Council. I will meet with the approving attorney the day after tomorrow to try to reduce the size of the question down to the shorter form that I had given to the City Council versus the more elaborate form that I had distributed from his office. Resolution 988-09: Mayor Hamilton moved, Councilman Geving seconded to approve the Resolution Establishing the date, time and polling places Ci for excE VIS May¢ ite~ Jay ca me pro] dist her that fro] Brae Kro~ gar~- our~ it. bec. loc~ sig~ pro~ tha' strl go no thi Bus dis eve'. for the andi hav, ore pre grit and" the We ' a 1 the. now; co[li is, her it?. Pos wou y Council Meeting - January 25, 1988 the Special Referendum, February 24, 1988. Ail voted in favor pt Councilman Boyt who opposed and motion carried. TORS PRESENTATION: r Hamilton: Brad Johnson is here this evening and I know he has an . to discuss with us just briefly. If you remember a short time ago Kroenick who has a restaurant in Washington D.C. and he was idering putting a garden center within the City of Chanhassen. He before us asking about the Natural Green facility, Dave Luce's .erty, and we encouraged him to consider property in the downtown rict area. By the old Hanus garage facility and I think Brad is tonight to just pass some additional information on to us about project. Perhaps he's looking for an approval or some feedback us. Johnson: Feedback. You recall that about six months ago Mr. nick came before you to see if in fact he could put his lawn and .eh center out on the Natural Green site. At the time we told him lelves, we didn't think it would fly but he wanted the chance to try He also asked us where else in the community he felt he could go use he had originally inquired through us about a site that's ted behind the AMOCO building adjacent to it. There's a for sale called the Morehouse Signs to purchase property. One of the lems in trying to locate a lawn and garden center in the community a practical point of view. Currently there is no really no site you can go on that are zoned. The zoning has to be BG. If you go ctly by the rules, follow that a lawn and garden center could only .nto those designated areas, lawn and garden, then there really is ~roperty from a practical point of view available for that type of ~g at the present time. Within the BH district, which is the ness Highway District, you do allow retail and you do allow outdoor .lay. We originally read that to mean that retail is retail and :ybody knows restrictions in outdoor displays is a conditional use varied and practical reasons. You want to somewhat control what outdoor display is and looking at Frank's or someplace like that or ~rson's new place over there, they do have outdoor display and you to be somewhat cautious as to how that will happen. Jay called me Christmas time and said he would like to come on this site at the ent time if I could possibly arrange it. There was some nitty :ty, we've got to close on the land and all kinds of nitty gritty we have to make sure, as you know, or may not know, that we are in process of purchasing and then redoing this whole Hanus property. ~e been working on that for a couple years and probably be at it for [ttle while longer but we were going to attempt to relocate one of tenants from downtown into that site and I think we're close enough to commit to Jay, which we were not a year ago, that we can in fact :rol the site and allow him to move in around the 1st. His problem he's got to buy inventory and buy a home here. Relocate his family ~ and his question to me on the phone last night is, Brad can I do I said sure you can do it probably within the existing zoning. ibly but I don't know and the formal process, which is what we d start right away, is to go through the Planning Commission and City Council Meeting - January 25, 1988 through the formal presentation as to what the place would look like and everything like that. But in concept, what we were wondering about, becuase either do it or put it off. He says, I'll have to wait another year or two before he does it, was the question, is there any great opposition given reasonable site planning and everything, to a lawn garden center located in that area. Councilman Geving: Which specific area now? Brad Johnson: The area would be, the building that he would be located in, is what we call Building B, which is the Point Building on the Hanus Building. This is the AMOCO station approximately right here. He needs about 3,600 square feet and it's a building that sits out and it's a good location from traffic. Councilman Geving: That's where we had the vans there for a while? Brad Johnson: Possibly. Our feeling, anything is an improvement there. That's what we've been working under but we also want to make sure we do it correctly. Building A doesn't exist anymore yet that would another plan. Mayor Hamilton: He would have outside storage between B and A right? Brad Johnson: Between B and A and possibly in this area here. He'd come back for approval of what we're trying to accomplish. It's landscaping so whatever you're displaying is basically trees and things like that that we're normally trying to get into the community but he wouldn't have to display some of that outdoors. He'd have a greenhouse area ultimately. Councilman Geving: Does he need the Kurver's property? Brad Johnson: Yes. Mayor Hamilton: That whole piece is the Kurver's property. Councilman Geving: Right up to that V? I have no problem with it. Councilman Horn: Would he have dirt piles stored outside? Brad Johnson: Minimal I suppose. I still keep thinking about Frank's. We've got to figure out' how to do it. We are as concerned as you would be on the ultimate but we may have one year transition but we're going to have to throw them in there right away this fall and we will come back with a proposal for the site plan. Councilman Geving: Is he going to get enough exposure there? Brad Johnson: That's the highest exposure point in the whole city based on all of our studies. Other than the AMOCO corner. 17,000 cars and all projections show that that will be the highest point. Councilman Geving: We've still got that chainlinked fence there. Cily Council Meeting - January 25, 1988 I89 ext haw ele' are~ we int and to uti mor~ Als( eas ia efforts to do that. As with any of our utilities, we like to a redundancy if possible and a good access. A water tower, an ated tank being the only elevated reservoir in the upper service in this area is obviously very important to us. The access that ,ould like to put into the property basically is, and I called it ~ntionally a driveway access. We are not looking to come in here tear up the neighborhood and put in a complete city section street ~rban section. We're looking to put in a driveway access for our ity pickup trucks so we can get in from the east side which is much protected from the snows and a much more certain access for us. legal access, since at this time we do not have a driveway ment to access over school property. The issue also relates to the tral. 1 situation and that the development contract for Pleasant Hill cal~.ed for the developer to provide an access, a trail access, across Lot~ 5, 4 and 3 to get over to the school property here. This has not bee~ provided as of yet and alternatives that have been kicked around andlvolunteered by the developer, Mr. Ostrom, and at this point he is proposing to give us a trail access over Lot 6 in this fashion which without the through access to the school, basically that ends the trail at ~hat point. So basically from my standpoint, we want to see a much mot% certain access, legal access provided to the water tower. We are loo~ing to be as little disrupted as possible. There are a series of' pin~ trees along this whole road, as I'm sure many of you are familiar witg. I've been in contact with the DNR forester who wasn't able to visit the site as of yet but just my own naive look at the trees out the'. res' nea'. cou tre, tha the May. Curt Bil pro] May. red sum 'e, I'm sure he'll back us up. Their spacing themselves is kind of ricting the growth of those trees and there is a tree in fact right the City's fire hydrant on the south end of the property that d be utilized as an access. Otherwise, there is space between ~s that we could get our trucks through. About 15 feet in one case we're looking at. We're looking for your review of this. I know neighbors are here and would like to voice theirs. Hamilton: Mr. Ostrom, do you have any comments? is Ostrom: I think Mr. Kreiberg does. . Kreiberg: I'd like to comment about the various letters and the ,osal up here . Hamilton: Before you get started, a lot of this may be [ndant. What we've gotten from you in the past, maybe you can just ~ari ze. Bil~ Kreiberg: I'd just like to comment on some of the points he made and~not to press the issue. First, in terms of the snow issue. My lot is ~he southern lot right next'door and went out and measured the snow conditions yesterday and there's 24 inches of snow in the area where you~want to put the road and 16 inches adjoining the road where you cur ~ently are. My drive parallels the exact the way the road with the win, and the drifting was extremely heavy yesterday against my garage. It ould be just as heavy on this road as it is on the one that you cur]'ently have. A verbal agreement with the school, I'm not sure you don t have a common law relationship with them after 15 years but I City Council Meeting - January 25, 1988 don't know whether or not it may be possible to work out an access with the school district in that regards. In terms of the issue of the school, the school does not allow any of the children up in that area of the field. We discussed that with them. They do not. It is not an area that they utilize possibly because your road is there but it's not something that they currently are utilizing there. Of course, if this is a determination that this is planned, I spoke to Mr. Ostrom and he said that this was never discussed at the time that he came before this body to get approval for his plans otherwise he would have had that issue resolved at that time. I'm not sure if this drawing goes back to whatever the land was acquired which I'm not sure as to what the date was. I guess another issue that we see here is that, we don't see any fundamental improvement to the servicing of that tower. We see something which I understand you feel you can do without taking the pines down. I measured every one of them, the widest spread is 11 feet and you need a 12 foot road and you've got a lot bigger than just pickup trucks going in there. I've seen your plow everytime it snows and it's a lot bigger than a pickup truck. I just don't think you can do it without disrupting the physiogomy of this particular area and I guess from a fudiciary standpoint, I question whether or not this is the best utilization of the funds on the part of the City. I guess that basically covers the concerns we have. As far as we're concerned, we would appreciate your sensitivity in reviewing this. Possibly there is a way you can gain permanent access from the school district and make some accomodations on that road. It may cost you less. I know Mr. Warren suggested possibly selling the piece of property that you have there that's not being utilized and use those proceeds to do it. I'm not sure we would object to that. I personally would buy the property from you if it was a fair market value. I think there's just a way to get around this and we feel, as I mentioned in the letter and I do want to bring this point up again, that there are a lot more children playing and active in the area where the trucks would now have to come in and service than there are on that part of the field where they currently go. I guess I'm just looking for reasonable fundamental argument to support it. We certainly would not object to you putting a trailway through there. We have no argument with the City's decision. If you'd like to do that, we'll accomodate that. The issue of the trail, I think in a sense confuses the issue of why we're here. I believe that's something Mr. Ostrom is already talking to the City or County Attorney about. Mayor Hamilton: Why you're there, I just have to ask and I feel like there must be a hidden agenda here someplace because I can't for the life of me understand a neighborhood objecting to the City accessing one of it's utilities off a street when we're going to have perhaps 3 trucks a week driving in there and they don't go ramming through the neighborhood. They probably go slower than what your own residential traffic goes. They go in and come out and leave the area. It's not as if they're sitting there for hours on end or driving in there fast where they would be a hazard. I think I feel we haven't gotten to the bottom of this and I really don't understand where the neighborhood is coming from. Bill Kreiberg: First, I see very blatantly, you've got a viable 15 City Council Meeting - January 25, 1988 yea is Mayo Bil arg' ser~ sec( that of for~ arno mak. sat successful access to the tower. The issue of snow blowing to me elf serving if that's a problem for these guys once in a while. r Hamilton: That's not an issue. Kreiberg: If that's not an issue than I don't see any fundamental ment and you have an existing road service which has satisfactorily iced the tower for 15 years that it becomes necessary to put a nd access in in which you would disturb the visual appearance of area which is basically residential. Whether you buy the argument he safety to the children in the area or not. Just straight ard, I can't see where I can justify some fiduciary spending that .nt. Period. If you can tell me why a second access road would sense and one is perfectly satisfactory or at least 95% sfactory, then maybe we have something... May~r Hamilton: Because the access road that we're proposing would be owned by the City and it would give us legal access to our facility tha~ we do not have at the present time. Bil Kreiberg: And I'm saying, maybe there's another way being that you have utilized something, whether you have legal access, the¢iretically or not and I defer to the City Attorney in that regard. Tha may be something that you could obtain, avoid having to spend the mon~y and avoid disturbing those people who pay the taxes and live in tha neighborhood. I don't think that's an unreasonable request Mr. May¢~r. May~.r Hamilton: It seems to be to me but then I guess... , Gar~ Warren: How long have you lived there? Bil~ Kreiberg: I moved in in October of this past year. Councilman Johnson: I've gone out there three times over the last couple weeks to look at it and watch the snowfall. I didn't get out and.~measure the snow depth. It was deep enough that I decided not to try~and climb the barbwire fence. Whatever we do, that lot needs to be cleaned up. Barbed wire removed, etc., that's out in that nei~hborhood. I'm sure in the summer it might look like more of a mess because there seems to be a lot of old fence rolls and stuff in there. It ~eeds basic cleaning up no matter what happens. On the other side of ~t, I think at that one point, next to the fire hydrant where the tre~ is all but dead, in fact most the trees have got some severe problems to them. If you look, the green is not until you get a good 3~ .~.oot up until you have a significant amount of green. They seem to be, iagain I'm a civil engineer, I'm not a forester but to me it looks lik~ they just basically are maturing or about we're going to lose tho~e pretty soon anyway. Maybe our forester will say we need to thin the] don our wou owr~ out in the first place and that will keep some of them longer. t know. There are several of them that are dead but only one on property. If this was anybody but the City coming in here, we .d have no voice at all in t-his matter. If that was a privately ~d, like the telephone company having a facility in there. They City Council Meeting - January 25, 1988 owned that property. I don't think the City Council would have any authority to say anything, to tell you the truth. But this is our own property so we do have a choice. I think for the reasons that we are trying to serve the entire city of Chanhassen and improve access to that water tower in case of emergencies, which in emergencies is most often predicted is wintertime. The route from the school has a rather steep-grade coming up to it and can get very slippery. This is, to me a much more logical route to get to it. There's almost no hills coming into it. It's all flat from Melody Hill on in. Where the other side of Melody Hill is a nice, steep little grade that could cause some problems. If that water tower stops functioning, there's going to be a lot of people very upset without water during the winter. I'm for the access I'm afraid in this case because it's for the better good of everybody and I do not think it will be a significant public safety hazard or by removing the dead tree it might even improve some of the problems there in cleaning up that lot, that I'm glad it got pointed out to us now. There's going to be some improvement made there. Councilman Geving: I have several questions that I'd like to ask Mr. Warren. Is the school being used at this time, do you know Gary? I see children there? Is the water tower servicing the school at this time? Gary Warren: Sure. Councilman Geving: So the school district really has a very important interest in us maintaining that water tower for their benefit, is that correct? Gary Warren: Like the rest of the citizens. Councilman Geving: What is the estimated cost that you would place on building this road from Murray Hill on over? Gary Warren: The current access? Councilman Geving: The new access that you're planning on building. What's the anticipated cost that you placed on this? Even if you used city crews to do it. Gary Warren: If it's $2,000.00, it's a lot. Ail we'd be doing is, we're not looking to reshape or grade anything other than just maybe hitting so it would hit the bottom of the chasis if that and if necessary, to put in some gravel as a roadbed but that's all we're looking to do. Councilman Geving: Mr. Kreiberg mentioned that he has measured those trees. Is he correct or is your earlier statement more correct? In terms of the width of the area that could be used for the road. Gary Warren: If he's actually measured them, I've been out eyeballing it from the side there and pacing it on the street so it's easy to be off a couple feet here and there. Ci y Council Meeting - January 25, 1988 Cou! and abol iss~ sav~ was eve, att~ agr~ Gar] Boui wit] Coul any acr~ goi icilman Geving: When this issue first came up and I read about it I read the interesting letters from the residents here, we have ~t 2~ some residents who are objecting to this so it's kind of a hot le up in the Murray Hill area. I originally thought that we might some time if we could contact the school district and see if there a possibility of getting that legal access formalized. Have we done this in the past do you know or does Don know? Was any mpt ever made to meet with school officials and formalize this ~ement that we've got to go across their school land? ' Warren: All I can relate to is the discussion I had with Jerry ~heaux our utility superintendent, who has the working relationship the school. It's never gone on any further. cilman Geving: I just can't imagine in my view that there would be difficulty with the school board granting the city to have access ,ss school properties to get to this tower, especially since they're ~g to benefit from it to get water to the school. My own particular ide~ on this is that we already have an access. I don't believe we nee~ to go into a nice neighborhood such as they have up in Murray Hil~, and I'm familiar with that development. Just what's been done in the~last 1~ years while I've been sitting here and I remember though tha% we did ask for that access for the school kids to cross the lots the~.e in the back so they could walk across to the school. I'd still lik~ to see us pursue that. I'm surprised that hasn't been done but Mr..Ostrom, if you're out there, I definitely want to see that happen. · Cur{is Ostrom: It's in place at the moment. The City was supposed to tak~ care of it. Cou.~cilman Geving: My comment still holds though. I'd like to see us put lue the trail easement that we had and I want to see us get that fro] you and I'd like to also see us move ahead on formalizing any kind of ~greement that might be necessary, depending on the vote tonight of course, with the school district because I think it's a lot easier to do ~hat we've been doing for 15 years than to go in there and tear up a fairly nice neighborhood and put another road in there. I personally do ~ot see the reason for another access. That's the end of my corn ~ents. Coul~cilman Horn: I'd like to ask Roger on the liklihood of getting a per!lanent easement through school property. · Roger Knutson: It'd be up to the school district if they want to give it ~o us. COU] use, Bil was rea. Cou~ ~cilman Horn: Yes, but he was talking about the fact that we had it for 15 years and there being some legal right that we have. Kreiberg: I did not know. When I was referring to common law, I referring to sometimes long standing relationships in terms of the fry of having to get approval from school. ~cilman Horn: So that really has no validity? B ~~y Council Meeting - January 25, 1988 Roger Knutson: When you talk about that, we could talk about adverse possession being one. Just driving a truck from here to there once or twice or three times a week under these circumstances wouldn't do it for you. You'd have to acquire an easement. Mayor Hamilton: It has to be continuous use. It has to be adverse. It has to be open. It has to be for 15 years. Councilman Horn: So in effect, there really is no, the school district has no reason other than the goodness of their heart to give us that on a permanent basis? . Roger Knutson: That's correct. Councilman Horn: I guess then my real concern on this issue was the trees. I would like to hear from the forester about what a road through there would do to the trees before I could agree to allow them to access that way. Councilman Boyt: Gary, what's the cost of doing a similar treatment to our current access road? You said $2,000.00 would be a ballpark on the new one. Gary Warren: I don't know. I haven't put the calculator to it but not knowing what the cost of the easement would be but we're probably talking $10,000.00 to $15,000.00 maybe. Councilman Boyt: Do you know how much property is there? If we came out a similar distance to our setback from the school lot line, out from the water tower, how much property is in that remaining piece? Gary Warren: If the City would take 100 foot on the property, there's sort of a cross rough cedar fence out on the east side of the tower, pretty much along this line which is 100 feet in. It pretty much surrounds the water tower. If the rest of this, and the lot is 315 feet I believe so it would be 215 feet and 110 feet of frontage which is almost exactly a half acre. If that's your question. Councilman Boyt: Yes, it is. Thank you Gary. I went out there this Saturday and I guess I would agree with you that a tree is going to come out. We're going to put a road in there. It's just reasonable to me to take one out if a road goes in. I think that it's real important here that, as a Council we try to be supportive of a group of people when they come in and say this is a concern. And I think Mr. Ostrom would like to see this issue cleared up quickly but I don't think buying my logic of wanting to support your concern until we get it cleared up, it seems to me like this is an issue that needs a little more time. I'd like to see us acquire the land from the school board and surface that road and the only way I can see us doing that is if the value of that half acre piece of property is approximately $17,000.00 or $18,000.00, maybe more, depending upon what the school board would want for their property. I think another issue that I would like to see cleared up here is, I guess if it's a half an acre, City Council Meeting - January 25, 1988 tha' lot tra~ WOUJ Bil Cou bui Bil, jut . means it a buildable lot. As Jay mentioned, if it's a buildable and someone puts a house on it, they're going to generate more ~fic than the City is proposing. So I don't understand how that d be an improvement. Krieberg: I'll buy it from you and not build on it. How's that? ~cilman Boyt: Well, if you're willing to agree that it's not a dable lot. ~ Krieberg: I'd be willing to do that. I'd be willing to have it as a buffer. Cou%cilman Boyt: We can put it in the deed. Bil tha' 1 to Coul to 1 abi exp. Cou] for~ bett for~ tre~ Krieberg: I'd be willing to allow you to put that in the Covenant upon selling my home that whoever purchases that would not be able uild on that property unless you, this body, were to de9m it okay o so. Otherwise, absolutely not. cilman Boyt: Personally, I think there is some information we need urn up yet and that's in regards to the school board and our ity to have permanent access. If we could have that and cover our inses, I would support us doing that. ~cilman Johnson: Also, I'd like, like Clark said, hear from the !stet about that row of trees. It almost looks like it may be a .er idea to thin those out now anyway but I'd like a professional Ister to look at that and find out what should be done to save those }s and maintain those trees as long as we can. i. ;' May~r Hamilton: Gary, perhaps we could have the forester come out and loo~ at those trees and determine if there would be a problem if you too~ one out or perhaps he'd have all kinds of suggestions about how to preserve and to make those trees flourish for a longer period of time. Andlperhaps you should pursue determining costs of the lot that we have or ~ind out what it could sell for and also what it would cost us to putlla road in across the school property and if the school would even allow us to do that. You need to do this next week I presume to get thi~ access to the water tower but I assume that as long as this is accomplished within the next month or so, so by spring you can put the roa~ in or do whatever you're going to do on the other property is acceptable to your project. , Councilman Horn: What is the difference in driving distance between the~two routes? Gar~ Warren: Basically, you go up into Shorewood and double back and intercept Chaska Road If it's a half a mile, it's a lot. The dis':ance isn't the real problem, it's more the slopes of Melody Hill Roai as Jay pointed out. While we say looking at the snowfall here thi year and comparing to it, I can go back and talk to Mr. Boucheaux and others who have lived through some of more of the severe storms we' ?e had where we've had quite substantial snowfall. City Council Meeting - January 25, 1988 Mayor Hamilton moved, Councilman Geving seconded to table access to the Water Tower off Murray Hill Road until the City Engineer can come back with additional information. All voted in favor and motion carried. Bill Kreiberg: In talking about those trees, when you go to cut one tree down to plow a space, you usually take out the roots of the trees on either side so probably taking one tree for a driveway is probably equivalent to clearing about a 30 foot path. I'm sure within 2 to 3 years, the others will die. Mayor Hamilton: I'm sure our forester would be quick to point that out and that's why we have him on our list of experts to help us with these types of issues. So he can take a look at that and if a roadbed were to be put in there, he would certainly tell us, if we did do that if it would kill trees or not. Murray Hill Resident: A very quick question. Not having seen this before, particularly the issue of the trail path behind Lots 3, 4 and 5, this issue I believe, I'm on 5. This has issue has been resolved and discussed with Mr. Ostrom and discussed with Bill Monk at that the time prior to putting in the landscaping across the back of Lot 5. I was advised at that time that the trail path would not be going around Lot 5, 4 and 3. It's at the city's expense that it would have to be put in and that would be disturbing three lots as opposed to one lot. I guess I'd like to know where that stands. I've been told one thing and acted accordingly and I'd like not to be ripping out landscaping that I invested in the back side of my lot, to allow a trail to go across the back of that lot. Mayor Hamilton: That's perhaps something Gary is going to have to clarify also, if you can. Maybe you'll have to talk to Bill and find out if he remembers anything about this. Gary Warren: The written record as it stands is the development contract. Nothing else in writing that says anything other than there was a letter left from Monk with a comment about a few loose ends and this was one of them. There's a memo left from Bill Monk who commented in general terms that this was an easement that had to be acquired as of yet but he was not specific. He talked about the options but he didn't get to the point where he was saying one or the other. Curtis Ostrom: I talked to a Lisa or Elsie or someone here at the City who had a copy of a memo from Bill Monk that said that the Lots 5, 4 and 3 had been abandoned. Pursuant to that, she thought at that time going between 3 and 5... Mayor Hamilton: We haven't anybody here working by that name or close to it so we'll have Gary look into that and see... Curtis Ostrom: Who knows who will be here 5 years from now so we have to get it resolved. city Counc contr to be going Curti momen to th Attor Council Meeting - January 25, 1988 ilman Geving: I think the resolution lies in the development mct. That's a piece of documentation that stands. It's not going changed by an employee telling you over the telephone that he's to abandon that trail. It has to be done here. s Ostrom: You're right. 3, 4 and 5 is where it stands at the t. Your City Planner called me and asked if we could just change is side of 6 so we're negotiating with, I don't know if it's your aey. Some legal representing... Mayori Hamilton: Well, the plot thickens so we'll see if we can't get to tb~ bottom of it. Curtis Ostrom: I'm just trying to protect one of the nicer areas of Chan~assen. I agree that 6 is the better thing. You're disturbing just ~ne lot. I happen to live there now so if we could get it resolved before I sell the house, we're home free. , :. Mayo~i Hamilton: It just doesn't go anywhere. Then there's no sense of havir~ it at all. If it goes on 6, then there's no sense of having it at al.~. .. Curtis Ostrom: What, the trail? I Mayor~' Hamilton: Yes. It doesn't go anywhere. CouncJilman Johnson: But then go through the City property then. .I Mayor:: Hamilton: But then we're going to sell the city property. Curtfi~ Ostrom: Mr. Kreiberg said he could run the trail across what you'r~ city owns. Mayo~ Hamilton: Then we'll have to buy another easement. · Counclilman Boyt: I'm sure we'll work this out. It has enough things going, just give us a little time. Curti~ Ostrom: I took the faith of an employee of Chanhassen in good faithl as I would expect someone to take something I said in good faith. I: i Mayor! Hamilton: I'm sure we'll get to the bottom of this. We'll find out ~hat's going on. APPR0~AL OF 1988 POSITION CLASSIFICATION AND PAY COMPENSATION. , Don ;~shworth: This item had been on the Consent Agenda two weeks ago. It w~s deleted to allow two councilmembers to potentially review certain portions of it. I have talked with both the Mayor and Councilman Geving. Although we have some fine tuning to do during the cour .~e of 1988, I guess I would like to move forward with that plan, get ~t into effect as it does, any type of fine tuning we may do, affects such a small percentage of the overall employees in comparison · City Council Meeting - January 25, 1988 to potentially tabling it further which, again, would affect all employees. So, accordingly, I would ask that the City Council act to approve the amended Pay Compensation Plan. Councilman Geving: I will not hold this up for a long time but I think it's very important that we understand that this document, the pay classification system is the very heart of what every employee looks at and knows what's going to happen to his paycheck. There is a lot of things in here in terms of goal setting, performance standards and classifications and the thing that bothers me the most is that this item appeared on our last City Council agenda as a Consent Agenda item. As far as I'm concerned, it's the most important thing that we do every year. It kind of bothered me a lot that we were taking such light of a very important document that we would put it on the consent agenda. Especially when we had two new council members who hadn't seen this document or hadn't had the opportunity of going through the formulation process and understanding the cube and knowing what the performance standards were and how the classification was arrived at so that bothered me a lot. Some of the things that I didn't see in here, and I'd like to have answers to, are these kinds of questions. What does the 1988 Pay Classification document cost the City over and above the 1987 Pay Classification document? I don't see that dollar figure anywhere and I'd like to know what that is. Number 2, what is the total percentage increase of the 1988 Pay Classification document over 19877 Thirdly, what is the average increase for each employee? I want to know whether it's 3%, 4%, 5% or something else? I think we need to know that because this gives us a gauge of what's happening in our City. There's never any bottom lines in this document. There's no bottom line here. There's no dollar figures in here that will tell you that and as a council person, we need to know that. I would like to see a chart just for our own confidential purposes, as council people, of all the positions in the city and where they are in relation to their midpoints. That's not in there either. There may be a good reason for not having it in there so that the staff doesn't see it before we approve the document but I think as councilmen we need to see this. I think we have a right to see it. Then fifthly, I think there's a better way of doing this whole pay classification system. I don't know what it is. It's been a number of years since we've reviewed this document and a number of years since we developed the classification system and I know that it's quite difficult this year because we had to melt a whole bunch of new items into this. Particularly, this compensation plan. The comparable worth thing that had to be developed and I understand that and we did develop this based on the big 10 cities that we selected but I have real problems with pages 92 and 93 and further on 95 where we identify certain salaried grades by position in 1988 as being semi-skilled, skilled, equipment operators, and technical, etc.. I really have no problem with the salaried grades with positions in the first four categories. Semi-skilled through technical. I have a lot of problems however in the designation of some of our people, positions, I'm not going to say people, I'm going to say positions, in the areas that I consider to be upper management. On page 92, this is broken out by a job match worksheet. We have areas where people are considered to be semi-skilled, skilled, equipment operators are very understandable and Cit~ Council Meeting - January 25, 1988 down ~hrough technical I can identify with all four of those classications but in the professional category, the next fifth category, I really believe that there are certain jobs, certain functions and positions such as the Park Forman, the Shop Forman and the ~uilding Inspector, in my view belong in the technical area. I believe that in the next category, the Street Superintendent and the Utility Superintendent are not middle management and should be considered professionals. They should be moved back one whole classification. This document shows two positions in a category called uppe~ management. I do not consider, this is my personal opinion now, I do inot consider the Planner and the Building and Zoning Official in upper, management. My personal opinion. The next category is the department heads and finally the manager. Now when you look at what has ~appened when you classify in matching these positions, in several case~ we are moving the midpoint, particularly for the Administrative AssiStant, almost $6,000.00 to $7,~00.00. I can't believe that that's comparable worth. Or when I see several other positions in the upper management area that have moved from $31,000.00 to $38,000.00. Is that comparable worth? My question is, are we really classifying our people properly and that's my whole comment and question regarding this document. I think we have some positions that are inappropriately classified and as a result, moved the midpoint up very, very substantially and I picked out three here that I believe are way Off base'~ I'll give them to you once more. The Administrative Assistant's position has moved up nearly $6,~.~ to $7,~.~0 in midpoint. The Park.and Rec Coordinator has moved up $5,000.00 to a new midpoint, or thereabouts. Reasonably close. And again the last one is .the one that I re~erred to as the upper management level of Planner and Building and Zoning Officials have moved up nearly $7,~0~.00 to a new midpoint. I thin~ there's something wrong because that does not represent to me a 3%, ~% or 5% increase which I consider to be reasonable. So I have a lot ~f problems with the pay classification document but I'm most concerned about two things. One, that in all future presentations of this"document to the City Council, that we have sufficient time in the montB of December to work as work groups going over this document and thoroughly understanding it before it becomes an agenda item and that it n~t become a consent agenda item but one in which we can discuss and understand. Secondly, I would like to see us do a very good analysis of omr positions one more time and make sure that they do fall into categories that are appropriate. I have no further comments. I do want"to have my questions answered. Mayo~ Hamilton: They will be. Councilman Horn: I have a question of Dale. Were you able to get those specfic details out of this document? Councilman Geving: Most of them, yes. Councilman Horn: My concern is that they were so well hidden in this document that you couldn't get any specifics of what effect we had with comparable worth. The Manager gave us all kinds of indications of what areas would be affected but it was so well hidden as to what the actual affect is, that it was very difficult for us to make any type of City Council Meeting - January 25, 1988 opinion on this and I think that we need greater detail than that because just by reading through this all I see is generalities on what affect comparable worth had. I think we need specifics on that. Councilman Boyt: I would assume that Don used the Hey Point System in determining the level of those jobs. Is that correct Don? Don Ashworth: The original was based on the Hey System. That still and does compare very favorably with the joint study carried out by the 50 cities as a part of which was incorporated into this document as well, yes. Councilman Boyt: So my understanding then is that a blend of your working through the positions and their responsibilities to set a standard, it was comparable to what the other 50 cities used and then working backwards into what a city of our size would pay for those positions? Don Ashworth: That's correct. Councilman Boyt: I agree with Dale that there would certainly be a value in having the figures that Dale asked for. I think that those allow us to know the direction that the city staff expenses are taking. I read your cover memo and in there I thought you referenced a percentage of increase, general for the city staff. It seemed to me to be appropriate and as we went over in the budget, I support Dale in your asking to have time to review this information and I'm glad you're willing to take the time to do it. My perspetive on it is that I want those general figures that you asked for but when I read it, I felt that we were moving in the right direction to balance things and we were indeed biting the bullet. I did not pull out of there the dollar figures of 6, 5 and 7 that you mentioned but I thought it was a reasonable budget. I liked the format although I support you in saying that we want it clearly stated what those are, I think the position content summaries were well done and that it's a document that basically says what it needs to say. Maybe we need another page that identifies what you're looking for. Mayor Hamilton: I guess I have a few comments. I began the process of asking for some of this information about the time the budget started and began talking to Don about some of these things, the very things that Dale was asking about, and didn't ever receive them. Don and I had several conversations and we disagreed in several areas about how they should be accomplished and I was most interested in having a layout of all employees. What their position grade is and the job that they do because I think we need to review all the employees from top to bottom to determine if we have the correct staff or not. I never did get that and I know that we're all busy and we have a lot of things to do but this is, I agree, a very important document. A very important thing to do and to leave it to the very last thing and then to have to ram it through and jam it down everybody's throat I don't think is the best way to accomplish what we're trying to do. I think part of that is the Manager takes on too much responsibility himself. I've been trying to get some support for that and to this point, still don't and Ci .~y Council Meeting - January 25, 1988 Don ~oesn't agree with me on that. We'll continue to argue about this I suppose as long as either one of us are still here but I think there should be not just an Administrative Assistant. Someone who can .take Don's place when he's gone who's called a community development director, whatever you like. Assistant Manager, something to that effect, that can alleviate him of some of his day to day- res~bnsibilities so he can accomplish some of these things. Whether it'~meeting with me or other council members, it doesn't make any diff~rence but I have told Don and he and I were the ones that put together this whole pay thing previously and I have interest in that and4_~i did some work in that in previous jobs. I still have some interest in it and I would like to be able to help but we talked and tal~ed and talked about trying to get together to do this and nothing eve~ happened and I think perhaps if Don had a less busy schedule we could find some time to do it. That's both criticism and to Don's good als~i because he's always here. He's always working. He's in every dan~ meeting that goes on but that shouldn't be the case all the time. You'~e got to have time to deal with other issues and other people and the ~citizens of the community. But that's really all I had to. say. I guesS I agree with Bill, I think the Hey System is a good system. It wor~s in trying to come up with a comparable worth combined with the Hey i!System. Maybe we had a few glitches in there but I think basically it'~ a good system. Perhaps we just need to consider having an outside consultant come in to refine the system a little bit for us. Someone who iiis more up to date and more current with pay schedules and job cla~ifications and take a look at ours and say you're in the ballpark or ~ou're out of the ballpark and refine it from that standpoint. I als~i still feel very strongly that we need to look at our total staff overall and determine whether or not we have the correct people working for.Us in the correct positions. If we don't, we need to make some cha .~es. We've added some staff in the past year or two. Have we added the right people? I don't believe we have in all cases. I look at ~r list of paychecks going out each month or every two weeks, and the ~arn list keeps growing and growing and I'm wondering if those people are really the ones we need to have to get the job done or if we shouldn't be considering other positions. I guess I won't be happy until I feel that that's been done. Perhaps for right now I realize we hav~ to get on with paying for 1988 and doing some salary increases and I g~ess I would relunctantly approve this with the proviso that we do contlinue and go on with future review of this and if necessary, bring in ~n outside consultant to help us. Cour~ilman Horn: I'd like to see this, I'm always skeptical of a come, arable worth thing that only deals in the public sector. I would lik~ to see the comparable worth put together with equal jobs in the pri~ate sector and I think you can find that out based on educational level and experience levels and I can tell you, knowing what goes on in the'~rivate sector, experience levels and educational levels don't demand the salaries that we're giving in this, if Dale's figures are correct and I was not able to weed those numbers out from the data I had~ if that's correct and it doesn't match up. If the public sector pays' like that, I'm missing something. I'm in the wrong sector. Councilman Geving: I think what happens., and I think we always have to City Council Meeting - January 25, 1988 be on guard as councilpeople, is that the City is kind of an unusual type of government. It's governed by a Council, a board that replaces itself over a couple of years and turns over. It's very difficult to put into place long term, long standing procedures of pay for whatever purposes and about the time that someone gets really excited and interested in developing these kinds of interest, they move on into another sphere of government or they leave government entirely so your Council turns over and you never have a consistent body of people that are being the people that will assist the City Manager in developing the kind of long term procedure that I'm speaking of. It's kind of different than a Board of Directors in the sense that you have a commitment to make a profit and dividends to your shareholders. In this business, about the time we get a real good councilmember that's very interested in the finances of the city and the welfare of the employees, they move on and that's an unfortunate thing because we all invest a lot of our own personal time in this and just about the time we get up to speed, we finally say oh heck, I just don't have the energy to fight this anymore. So we turn the whole thing over to management and to the Manager and that's when we get a document that on any given night is on the consent agenda and if nobody objects, it slides through. So I think as councilpeople you have to be a little bit diligent in wanting to learn about how these things develop and our own interest in being here as City Councilmen anyway is to protect the citizens in how this city develops. That's all I wanted to say. Councilman Horn: I think that as long as we go along with the same type of procedure that we've done in the past, maybe we can get by with less data. In other years, we've always had the data that Dale is asking for and I think that's especially critical at a time when we're going through a major change or policy change with this comparable worth. It's even more critical that everybody knows how that compares with what we've done in the past and that's the data we're missing. And we saw some Hey number differences but that doesn't equate to dollars as Dale is requesting. Councilman Boyt: I think if you're really serious about going through this document with the prospects of changing ~.t, that we should not approve it tonight because you can always make salary increases retroactive. So I think either we've stirred up a lot of things here to no ado or you vote it down. I don't see going through what we've just gone through the last 15 minutes, and if you seriously think this document's not appropriate, then you need to vote against it. Don Ashworth: I'm not aware of any additional information that was given in previous years that's not present this year. The information that has been requested Dale, I have available. I think we can sit down and go through that. The major changes that have been noted by Councilman Geving, in every case represent salary areas where the incumbant is at a 65% to 70% of salary to midpoint grade. That means that if, in going through with an outside consultant, Tom's idea, adjustments would be required. In other words, if that consultant would say Mr. Ashworth has erred and this position should therefore fall into a 6 versus a 5, I feel very comfortable that that adjustment could be made without in any way affecting the salary for that CitN Council Meeting - January 25, 1988 indi look are posi sign posi ;idual for the current year. Realize that any employee potentially ng to the $7,000.00 increase as a part of the midpoint, what we saying is that either in the original establishment of that tion or through factors in the outside marketplace, there's been a ificant change in that position or at least what is paid to that tion in the outside area. That does not mean that we are going to taka an immediate change to that. The Change occurs solely through the cub~ and the salaries that are given are solely within the cube so you'ke talking about an average of 3% to 4%. The only effect that wou.~d have for that individual is it allows them the potential of in a six ~onth period of time having a secondary review. At that point in tim~..' being able to look to again, a potential 3% to 4% increase. The net ~effect over a one year period of time for that secondary review is approximately 1 1/2%. So if you want to take an average of what comparable worth or what some of these things are doing, over and above where we were before, you're talking about 1% to 2% is maximum. I can pre,are statistics as far as the cost of the this plan in comparisons to I987 but remember some of my comments during the budgetary process. Specifically I noted that the 1988 budget did not see a significant increase in overall positions because the primary increases had occurred during the course of 1987. That the real monetary impact of tha~ budget, or that group of decisions we had made. With the mid-year employment of various people such as Code Enforcement Officer, Mec~anic, right on down the line. When you then make a salary comparison between 1987 and 1988, you will see those types of things in the~e because you're picking up a half of year back of an employee's salary versus one full year and that's the type of thing I was trying to ~ring out as a part of the budgetary process. I can give you the statistics and I can give you the overall increase and potentially you would look at it and say, my god Don, you have $15~,000.00 increase in salaries from 1987 to 1988. Again, somehow in that process you need to. factor out those new employees. With the computers and with everything ont~ computer systems, I sincerely believe that any questions that Councilman Geving may, or any councilmember may have, can reasonably be responded to. In the questions as to how to knock out this position so tha~ we don't have it make a weird type of a statistic for 1988, we can figure that out as well but I need some of your help in that whole process. I sincerely would ask that you approve this document this evehing. If you want to establish $1,~00.00 to $2,~00.~0, I think Wal~y would probably stand ready to take and re-review the whole entire Heyilsystem as it was developed in here and being fully aware of the private sector's salaries, could make some comparisons to you .and I sta~d ready to be corrected on any errors I may have made as a part of preparing this document. I do not believe that if errors are found by an ~utside consultant, that that in anyway would again effect salaries tha~ may go into place effective back to January 1,.or even as they may occur for July 1 of 1988. councilman Geving: I guess I wasn't as concern about any errors Don. I w~s concerned about the procedure. The procedure was that we failed to have a work meeting in December and this presented to us on the Con~ent Agenda. That's what bothered me and you did not include some ver~ basic dollar figures so that we all understood what the bottom City Council Meeting - January 25, 1988 line was in your preamble and if you had done that, if you would have clarified your 2 or 3 page introduction to this better, I think this would have absolved all of my questions. Don Ashworth: I agree and I will state for future years that we'll put this back on track. Not having a second meeting in December definitely hurt us this year as far as being able to have a little more work session opportunity, especially for this item because it has typically been your second meeting in December where we have done the type of work that you are talking about. Mayor Hamilton moved, Councilman Geving seconded to approve the 1988 Position Classification and Pay Compensation with the proviso of having continued and future review of the it and if necessary, bringing in an outside consultant. All voted in favor and motion carried. VACATION OF UTILITY EASEMENT ON LOT 2, BUCHHEIT ADDITION, LOCATED ON CEDAR CREST COURT, ARNIE HED. Resolution 988-10: Councilman Horn moved, Mayor Hamilton seconded to approve the vacation of the utility easement located along the internal lot line of Lots 5 and 6, Cedar Crest. All voted in favor and motion carried. WETLAND ALTERATION PERMIT TO CONSTRUCT A CHANNEL AND BOAT TURNAROUND IN A CLASS A WETLAND OF LAKE LUCY ON PROPERTY ZONED RR, RURAL RESIDENTIAL AND LOCATED ON LOT 5, BLOCK 2, LAKE LUCY HIGHLANDS, ERIC RIVKIN, APPLICANT. Mayor Hamilton: I think we've probably all read the Planning Commisison's Minutes and comments and all this so if we could, after Jo Ann's presentation, confine our comments somewhat so we don't spend the rest of the night talking about it which I suspect we could. Jo Ann Olsen: The property is located on Lake Lucy in Lake Lucy Highlands. A majority of the site is a Class A wetlands. The applicant is proposing a wetland alteration permit to construct a channel through the Class A wetlands for a canoe access from his property. Staff reviewed this site with the proposal last year. We had the DNR, the Fish and Wildlife Service and several other services review this site. Dr. Rockwell, who we've used in the past for wetland review, and she felt strongly that a boardwalk would be preferred over a channel with the impact to the wetland from a channel. Therefore, staff also in interpretting the ordinance felt that a boardwalk would be of less impact to the wetland. We therefore recommended denial. The Planning Commission also recommended denial of the channel. They did not act on the boardwalk option because the applicant did not feel that that was a feasible alternative. We then visited the site again with Mr. Jim Leech from the Fish and Wildlife Service. Dr. Rockwell received another job out east. His feeling was quite the opposite. That a channel would be preferred over the boardwalk. He felt that both of them had the same amount of impact to the wetland but he felt Ci~ Council Meeting - January 25, 1988 tha~ a channel might be somewhat more beneficial because of the 6p~n water. There is purple loosestrife in the wetland and it is a noxious wee~ so it has to be transported elsewhere. It has to be pulled so we are~dding a condition. If the channel is approved that he must comply wit~ any conditions of the Department of Agriculture. I .did speak with a p~rson from the Department of Agriculture' Mr. Rivkin will have to receive a permit from the Department of Agriculture to transport or. to proI~erly dispose of fill because it will have purple loosestrife in it. We ~ave provided 11 conditions.should the City Council recommend app~oval of the channel. · , May~r Hamilton: I'll just make one comment and that is, it seems to me, Based on everybody's input into this thing. People who are supposed to be supposed experts, and know more about it than those of us ~itting here, that they don't know anymore about it than we do and tha~ their opinions seem to be based on nothing more than what we know. I g~ess, I have a hard time with that. Elizabeth Rockwell doesn't want it and her replacement comes in and says it's just fine. It's not going to hurt anything. I think that's kind of ludicrous. When you have~ one agency says they think a channel would be fine and the next agency says it wouldn't be fine. The advice that we get from outside agencies are supposed to know what they're talking about, virtually doe~ us absolutely no good. I think it's rather ironic. So we're down to t~he basics of deciding what we like or don't like personally. The pro~essional input really hasn't lent itself to help us at all I don't thi~k. . Cou~cilman Boyt: Sort of distilling down the many pages that we had to readl, I think that for me the heart of it was, we're going to be setting a precedence that I don't want to set without input from the come, unity. More input than we got. I think, the community spent a gre~t deal of time and. effort in coming up with a wetlands preservation ordinance and I see us about to torpedo a major section of that when we all'ow people to dredge through a Class A wetland. I don't happen to thi~k a Class A wetland is in need of improvement so, if we do propose to pass this, that before we pass it, we should go back and review the ordi:nance itself and amend that ordinance. I think that's basical-ly wha~ we would doing and I would anticipate that a good many other people who are currently locked in by wetlands would come and ask for some sort of channel. I can like of Lotus Lake for example that has several people who are locked out right now by a wetland. Then, the other item. So my intention would be, unless swayed by other members of ~he Council, to vote against this item. If we propose to vote for it, !that we should consider the size of it. I understand that the residents have some concern about a boardwalk. I too have some conderns about a boardwalk. They mentioned it crossing a deer trail and '!how that would certainly provide some difficulties for the deer. I consider 16 feet of open water 4 feet deep, providing some difficulties for '!the deer. I am amazed that the DNR would approve a 40~ foot long cha~nel, 16 feet wide and 4 feet deep. We might as well dig the Erie Canal. That's all I've got. . Cou~ilman Horn: I'm as disturbed as you are Mr. Mayor, about this and this isn't the only agency or the first time that this has happened to , City Council Meeting - January 25, 1988 us. I guess it comes down to we have to try to the best we can with common sense and I think that we would have a much better chance of not disturbing the area with a type of boardwalk, dock than what we would by dredging a channel. We've all heard horror stories of what dredging can do. In fact, we changed our boat access on Lotus Lake because of the fear of dredging and I don't think we know enough about the impact of that at this point to allow this channel to be dredged and I would be for some alternate method. Councilman Geving: I happen to work with Dr. Rockwell for about 8 years now and I really respected Elizabeth in a lot of the decisions that she's helped us with over the last 8 or 10 years that she's been around this area. When I first read her report I said that's pretty much how I feel about this particular project and I know Jim Leech quite well. I've worked with him for the last 10 years as well. I was very surprised that our service would do a flip flop to that magnitude although I do recall some instances where the DNR has done some similar things to us. Where we'd get a memorandum in one case totally opposed to this particular item and a week later, or two weeks later, we'd meet on it and find that they had completely changed their mind. Maybe through pressure or whatever means, so I'm a little bit disturbed by the vacilating by the Fish and Wildlife Service, the agency that I've worked with for 14 years. I find Lake Lucy to be a very nice, small lake. I think there's only a couple really good sized boats on it. I've been fishing there a couple times. It's a nice quiet lake and I'm afraid of what a channel might do to that lake on the northwest side of the lake. That bothers me a lot. That's an awful long channel and I understand it's just for a canoe access. Is that correct? It seems to me, if I was really an environmentalist and conservationist, I think I'd almost carry my carnoe to the lake somehow. This seems like an awful lot of disturbance to the lake just for that kind of an access and I really don't think that we have all the cards played yet. I don't think they're all showing on the table as to what this is going to do to Lake Lucy. I'm afraid that the opinions of the various experts don't mean a whole lot because I look at the lake as being something kind of different than what an expert might. I'd like to preserve Lake Lucy. As far as I'm concerned, I would vote no for this proposal. That's all I have. Councilman Johnson: I'm also, again concerned but I'm not surprised that two experts in any one field disagree with each other at 100% opposite ends of the spectrum. That happens in every field. I tend to agree more towards Dr. Rockwell. I can not see how a 4 foot wide dock is going to have as much disturbance to a wetland as a 16 foot wide canal. That, to me, makes very little sense. However, I can not see 400 and some feet of dock going through there. That would be horrible. I can not see 40 foot by 40 foot, and I think it may have been recommended by DNR, 40 foot by 40 foot. Jo Ann Olsen: That's the maximum. Councilman Johnson: That's the max, okay. Now I personally think I could turn around a canoe in a 40 foot by 40 foot area. As a matter of fact, somehow I think I could get in a little smaller area and I'd like 2O9 cit to 8 yOU dir~ see main have Council Meeting - January 25, 1988 ee this get smaller because the canoes that I've usually been in, basically turn around in the seat and you're going the other ~tion. I think I could manage it in a 2~ by 20 area. I'd like to that pond reduced considerably. I'd also like to see the wetlands ~ained. The pond not be brought right up to the shore. That we a compromise here where we have some dock going out, not 4~ feet. We Nave to be somewhat reasonable here. I don't want to see a canal goi~ all the way to the shore that will allow short circuiting of pollutants from the shore all the way out to the lake without having any ~iltration by the wetland area. So I don't want to totally destroy the ~etland area. I'd like to see a dock going out and I don"t know how ~ar. Maybe 50 feet to the point and have this at such a point that the ~neighboring adjoining lot can bring a dock out to that same 2~ foot tur~round and they can put their canoe in. I think that the 4 foot of dep .~h is more than a canoe needs but I think that's also so vegetation doesn't come back. You get much shallower than that, and we'll have vegetation to grow back. I'd also like to see something in here about loo~estrife control. I understand one of the methods of loosestrife control is when it very first starts coming up that you hand pull it. I'd :~like to see some kind of stipulation in here that the canal is policed for loosestrife and that.that loosestrffe is properly disposed of..' I'm not ready to see a canal all the way to the shore. I think ther~e is some room to compromise. What I really wished had happened is tha~ this lot didn't go all the way to the lake. If at the platting of thi~ lot, which is past and gone, that the end of it' should have been an ~utlot that the City could have had it. Then there would be no rip&rian rights to this lot but this is a riparian lot because it goes all Jthe way out to the lake. We have to provide some reasonable, as he sai~, reasonable access. I'd also like to hear from the City Attorney on ~he points made in the various Planning Commission meetings on reasonable access. Is reasonable access, if we decide that 40~ feet of doc~ at $8,~.~0 is access, whether that's reasonable access or the appliicant's contention that a canal all the way to the shore is the only reasonable access, which I don't personally see. What's reasonable access and is there a State Law that says that he has the right to access Lake Lucy from his property? May~r Hamilton: I have just a couple of comments. There are some things that I didn't see, some information that I didn't see us getting here and one of the things is, I think Mr. Rivkin eluded to how big an are~, it was in the Planning Commission notes or Minutes about the amount of wetland area. That was wetland area or did that include other non-wetland area in your calculations? Eri~ Rivkin: That was designated area on Lake Lucy. May~r Hamilton: That's good. That was a considerable amount of wet~and and I think the thing that I would need to find out then is how.~uch wetland is needed to keep that lake in a healthy condition. We do need some wetland area for some filtration but we don't certainly need to have every piece of shoreland to be wetland in order to filter outiwhat we don't need to have in there. I think Bill's comment that perhaps other people on other lakes will be coming back for permits on their lake. I think this is a key point because if we've got, I don't City Council Meeting - January 25, 1988 remember the number right off hand but do you remember what the number was, the total amount of wetland? Eric Rivkin: 50 to 60 acres. Mayor Hamilton: We've got 50 to 60 acres of wetland on Lake Lucy, there may be 1 acre left on Lotus and that was 1 acre that we protected. There's a significant difference there. That's where I guess I don't have a problem with any precedence. We get into this very often about precedent on issues and I don't have as much hang-up on it as most of you I guess because I like to look at each item, issue by issue. To say that if we grant a digging of a channel on Lake Lucy, which is rather insignificant when you look at the amount of wetland that there is on that lake, and then if someone came in and asked for the same type of permit for Lotus Lake, it's a totally different issue because they don't have the same amount of wetland. It's nearly all gone on that lake. So I think it's a totally different issue and it's not a precedent setting item. Unless it's exactly the same issue. I think another thing I don't know is how good is the wetland that's on Lake Lucy? Wetlands do tend to fill up, deteriorate, it's just a normal growth cycle for a wetland so what condition is that wetland in at the present time? I'm also not convinced that you can't improve on a wetland. Just because it's a Class A doesn't mean that with the technology available to us today, that that can't be improved upon and if by digging a channel in there it allows some of that material that's in there to spread out, loosen up and to grow and to have a longer life, perhaps that better for the wetland than leaving as it is currently. But those are things that I don't have answers to and I think those are things that I'd like to see if we can't find answers to and try to find two people that can agree on the same type of issue. I would feel a lot more comfortable with it. Personally I don't have any problem with putting the channel in. I don't think it's going to hurt the lake and I don't think it's going to hurt the wetland. I don't think it's going to cause any deterioration whatsoever. To allow a resident or two to have access to the lake and enjoy the lake and it may even open it up for some other wildlife to come in there and use part of that lake and that wetland that they can't use today. Those are my comments and those are some issues that I'd like to have answers to before I'd be ready to vote on this. Mr. Rivkin, maybe you'd like to add a few comments. We've read all your comments to the Planning Commission so if you wanted to maybe summarize them or add something new that you haven't presented in the past, why we would be happy to have that. Eric Rivkin: It hasn't been easy to being the first to test your new law. I can tell you, I've been through hell and back and it's not fun seeing agencies go back and forth on this but I think I can shed a lot of light on the comments that you made about the flip flop that the U.S. Fish people made. First of all, there are two people in the U.S. Fish that do agree. That's Mr. Leech and his boss and they said that in writing in a letter that's in the report so there are two people that do agree, okay. They both reviewed it and Mr. Leech was out to see the site. There are some comments that I had made to the Planning Commission the last time about the arguments that Ms. Rockwell put Cit~ Council Meeting - January 25, i988 211 forth and it seems to me that it doesn't make a lot more sense on the impaDt of the wetland, the comments that Mr. Leech made rather than the comm.=nts that Ms. Rockwell made. I know they are both highly respected · and I'm sure she's quite knowledgeable as a wetlands expert but I want to d-=monstrate for you, show you again the overhead that I saw which will! shed light on that argument because it's real important to under, stand what it is she's arguing against. This map, you should have a co~y of it in your report. The green areas are the designated wetl.Rnds on Lake Lucy. I superimposed the lot lines on the lake. All the Nhore around here and here, even though this isn't developed yet, all .have lake access currently. As far as a precedent or impact is concerned, my one little channel here would take up approximately 3/l~t~ h's of 1% of solid material away from this wetland. If everybody on t~is lake who could qualify for access through dredging, if they opti~ned that, it would only go up to 8/10th's of 1% so this is not, and ~Ms. Rockwell said that it's going to have a major and significant impact. Those were key words in her statements. This is not major and it's not significant and Mr. Leech and his boss agree with that. I asked them point blank, Jo Ann was there with me, will this have an adverse affect upon this wetland as it sits and he said no. Now, you do b~ve two people that agree on that. The criteria for acceptance by the :DNR was that it somehow be shared with the lot next door. The people next door I know pretty well. It was meant to be a private agreement because legally we just could not have this really set in concrete. It was not feasible. There were too many if's and bur's aboqt this but the point is that the DNR was making, in order to reduce it ~.'nd make it minimal, they wanted it shared somehow legally with a guarantee that if this lot owner wanted access, this guarantee is that thi~.' is public waters. That they will not have to dig a channel all the .~way from their high water mark all the way out to the open water which is longer than mine, by the way. If they were to apply for it, they requested to go this way. Follow it across parallel with mine. We c~idn't want that so I want it minimal too. And they can't dredge here because in order to get dredging equipment across to that site, the~ have to go across two property owner's to get there so eventually I'm igoing to restore this bogland to prairie. I'm not going to let thew do it so they can put in a dock, which is very minimal. They wou~d only have 50 to 100 feet to go here. So again, that is minimal. Did ii shed some light on that? Okay. I don't want to see the wetland hurt either and it is designed to have minimum impact on the wetland. It is the minimum size required in order to support the slope that will not :.want to fill back in. All the experts, the wetland experts and all the ..agencies that I talked to that knew anything about hydraulogy and wet~ands, said that the 4 foot depth would not encourage regrowth for man~, many, many years, in this kind of wetland and they all visited the :site. It's the minimum required to keep the channel from sluffing in.. This slope is designed to do that. I've been around and around with the hydraulogy experts. I talked to Clifford Reed, a shoreline conmultant. I talked to the people, the vice president at Braun Engineering who excavates channels and big time stuff as well as little stuff and he recommended that I go with a 3 to 1 slope but that meant tha~ I'd have a 24 to 30 foot wide top surface and I said no way, that's not minimal. I said, what can I cut it down to so we agreed at a c~.mpromise at 16 foot top width and 4 foot deep with a 2 to 1 slope City Council Meeting - January 25, 1988 so it is the minimum required, engineering wise. Hydraulogy wise2 I hope that puts you at ease about the big dredging project here. This is not a big dredging project. It does not take away a significant amount of wetland area. The experts that do agree, agree that it won't have an adverse affect upon the wetland. It will also be constructed in a manner not to harm the wetland and the surrounding vegetation. Provisions of the DNR permit pretty well spell that out and the loosestrife issue, I did get verbal approval from the Department of Agriculture about the wetland, about the loosestrife disposal. They basically recommended that I take the spoils, they agree with the provisions of the DNR, to put them in one place and at such a time when you spread them out, is to mix them up with clay around there and seed it with grasses, not with the prairie grass mixture that I wanted to but to seed it to sod and maintain it with water and make sure it grows very strongly so the loosestrife does not have a chance to establish itself. So you keep mowing it and these provisions are going to be in their permit. I wrote a letter to them, and I didn't make copies of it but I can give it to you here. It basically says, thank you for the information on the verbal approval of the permit on the loosestrife disposal for my channel project. I sent them a copy of the plan. This was Mr. Chuck Hale from the DOA. The reason this permit is late is because I didn't hear about this until one business day ago, that I had to get approval from the DOA on the loosestrife issue so he did give me verbal approval on that. As far as the dock is concerned, none of the members of the Planning Commission were in favor the dock. They agreed with my arguments that it was not a favorable thing. It would have a worse impact on the wetlands than a channel would. The design of the channel is like a meandering creek that goes through that area. The dock is so long and so big that it will deteriorate over time. It can not be maintained reasonably by any homeowner that lives there. It will fall apart. Whether it's a floating dock or an elevated type and it's not feasible to engineer it and install it. By law I do have rights to reasonable access to the lake because I'm a riparian homeowner. I have to have access from the high water mark. That's the law. From the high water mark, that the DNR has established and that is on the plan. The end of the channel comes right to the high water mark and I went minimal. When it comes to the dangers imposed by the dock itself, there's a letter in there about one of the homeowners who has witnessed a deer getting his antlers caught, being chased by a dog and it is an obstacle in the way. There are snowmobilers that do cross the path all the time. They trespass. Can't help it. They will do that and they'll just run right over that dock and when it's cold, plastic will just shatter so if I put a floating dock out there, bam, it's gone in one shot. $19,000.00 out the window with one snowmobile. If I put a wooden dock out there, which costs more than a floating dock, it will end up like the dock that's out there now. That went out to the island, that the Wildlife Heritage Foundation put in. It's just a mess. You can't walk on it. It's broken apart. Being left to the elements, it will just become a big eyesore and a hazard as well as a liability. An extreme liability. As far as the deer getting caught in the channel, I know and Jo Ann and the people who have visited the site have witnessed deer tracks. The deer trail goes right through here along the upland. The deer have been witnessed by all the residents who live there now in the whole wetland area around here. This is not Ci~ Council Meeting - January 25, 1988 a m ~a~jor path in the summertime for the deer. This is 1 to 2 feet Of wate~ as it is and the natural path they take, there's a bog down to the~outheast of this location about 1,~00 feet and they bed down there in t~e wintertime. When they move around they move around just along the~igh water mark around here. That's where we witnessed foot prints whe~ we went out there 2 weeks ago. I've been out there for 3 years now ~nd every single time I've gone out, there are footprints every single day right along this path. If you go there right now, you'll see ~ beaten path right here. This is eye witness accounts and real lif~ and that's where the deer go. In addition to the comments that you'~e seen from the Department of the Interior, Fish and Wildlife SerVice, let me summarize what they said here about the impact. ConSidering that I have agreed to, as a part of the disposable excavated material from channel construction, adverse fill and related impa~ts to the associated wetland and habitat would be neglible. As far ~s the erosion control plans and everything, I plan to meet any engiDeering requirements on that. We're going to use hay bales staked wit~ snow fence around the spoils area. We're going to be bringing the~ upland so there's no disposal in the wetlands of that. Since I will compile the provisions identified in the DNR permit and given the general design of the channel, he liked meandering on the adjacent pro~e, rty line, we believe the channel can be accomplish in an environmentally acceptable manner. In addition to these comments, which I did not write down but I did take notes, and Mr. Leech said to the '.following here. I asked him if the channel would create a pro .~ected open water habitat for nesting sights of migrating water fowl and ~e said, yes it will. It's open water. They come in and land, them like adjacent nesting sights. There's wetland there. They will come in and nest. He said it's more natural and aesthetically pleasing than a dock would be. He said that.a dock versus a channel, if ~e were doing it or if he had the decision to decide one or the othex, he said he would prefer a channel. We asked him, what about a com~ination dock and channel and he said, absolutely not. If you're goi .Ng to do it, do one or the other. You can't complicate things or complicate the impact on the wetland-by having two methods out there. As ~ar as the overall impact, it's kind of a toss up but it's more in favor of the channel. The construction is feasible and acceptable to go ~akeward to the land rather than the opposite way the DNR recc~mended. I called Judy Boudreau of the DNR and asked her, what do you ireally mean by this because in order to get out to the wetland, to dredge it, you have to put mats down on the ice and you have to follow it along and you can't go from the land out because then you're crossing over water so you can't do that. She said, well that's fine, all ~we were concerned about is the siltation into the lake. As long as you iprovide a manner in which prevents that or minimize that, it's okay. Now, it's pretty frozen solid out there and when we dig the first time, make the first dig, if it's solid ice, there's not going to be any silt going through yet if there is a little bit of water that starts coming in, we throw some haybales and take them out when the who~e thing is done and melts away in the spring. In addition to his comments, I have some of my own that have to do with whether, having a positive impact on the wetland. First of all I want to say that anything you do. I have rights to access and I want to do the most mini~al impact solution there is. Reasonably. Now we seek the advice City Council Meeting - January 25, 1988 of others, of experts, to get hopefully help us on this. He agreed that the amount of material removed is minimal and he said that it won't have any percent impact on it looking at the map. In it's own small way, the extra water in the channel will increase the water holding capacity of the lake by approximately 105,000 gallons. That's positive. Anything we do here is not going to have, seemingly is always going to be negative so you've got to lay something down so a riparian homeowner has access to the open water. So what has less impact here? Another positive thing is that the channel will increase access by fish to eat mosquito larvae in the adjacent wetland. It will also provide a drinking spot along the shore where there is the deer trail. The people along Lot 4 saw a fox there last week and I found the fox holes on my property. There's rabbits and pheasants in there and it will provide them with a convenient place to stop and drink too. The channel in itself will not pollute the water. It's a gently winding design and the long boardwalk over time, shifting ice and vandalism, weather associated, will deteriorate and become a piece of pollution in the wetland. Yet, the channel will always stay a part of the natural landscape. Other things about the dock, in this wetland in Roseville, environmentalists like docks and I'm and environmentalist I belong to about 15 organizations. This is a floating dock in Roseville and as you can see, it's a floating type. You can't just lay this down through 3 feet high of cattails and expect to walk by. You have to side cut 3 feet to either side of this so you've got this big ribbon of plastic plus 6 feet of cut out cattails that you have to maintain throughout the entire summer which I believe is an alteration of the wetland. You might even have to get a permit to go cut down some cattails which is unreasonable. So to make it passable, you have to do something like this. It's not pretty. I already mentioned that a 430 foot dock is too big. Maintenance costs are prohibitive. Replacement costs are also going to be prohibitive. We talked about the liability. Because the dock is a privately owned structure accessible by the public and creates conditions highly susceptible to personal injury which the owner is liable for whereas a channel is legally considered a public waterway. Those who suffer injury by water alone will not likely sue. If huge dock systems are put on this property and others, they can not be shared by adjacent landowners because they're private. Therefore, if the owners on Lot 4 and others who want lake access, put a half dozen or more or so of these huge and natural scars on this small lake where this problem exists, the cumlative effect of all these things on the west end is going to become an abonimal eyesore. So that's the precedent if you say, let everybody have docks on the west end of Lake Lucy. All the problems of liability associated with huge dock systems are kind of multiplied and none of the residents on the lakeshore community that have submitted written comments, feel a dock is the right solution either. So there is positive effect on the wetland. Mayor Hamilton: I guess on Mr. Rivkin's behalf, I would like to ask councilmembers what it would take for him to receive approval of this or if there is nothing that could be done to gain approval. I think to his benefit, so he would know he's either going to be able to continue and perhaps get approval or he can just stop the process right now and quit dragging this thing on forever. -. Cit~ Council Meeting - January 25, 1988 Cou~ilman Boyt: Briefly I can state that first, I am impressed with the~mount of homework you've done. I think the Planning Commission was~lso impressed from reading their notes. For me,. your individual logi~ is not the particular issue for me. Whether I agree or disagree with~ that, my real concern is our wetlands ordinance overall. I suspect that however we go on this, we need to be prepared to defend it. vuln thin you' grou comp dred ordi see I do dock~ a c1. wetl deal know the Mayor and I have a bit of a disagreement about how ~rable we become should we approve this but personally, I don't that this is something that you need to do more work on. I think ;e done more than enough already. I would like to see maybe the that initially put the wetlands ordinance together or a ~rable group, make a detailed investigation of the issue of ~ing through our wetlands. They talk about it in the wetlands ~ance but they don't really provide any kind of guidelines that I ~orkable. You clearly have a difficult situation. I can see that. ~'t like the doqk either. I'll tell you, if you came in with a I'd vote against it. So for me to vote for this, what I need is ~ar examination by the community of the issue of how do people with 'snds in front of them get to open water. I need the larger issue with. CounCilman Horn: My position is always that you don't bend the rules to g~ along with a situation. You modify your ordinances to update new issues that you hadn't addressed before. I think the proper way to handle this would be to go through an ordinance revision that would allow this sort of thing. I have trouble, since we lack information from'our experts, I have trouble believing that there is a safe way to dredge a channel through a wetland. I know all the issues we went through when we looked at dredging for a boat access on Lotus Lake and all the concerns and I quite frankly don't believe that there is enough good~ technical data available to give us a good answer on that. You raised the issue that you needed certain questions answered and I agree with'that. My question back would say, who is qualified to give us those answers? I don't think even our experts are. I don't deny that we h~ve to give Mr. Rivkin riparian rights. He obviously has those but in m~ opinion, that doesn't give anyone the right to cut a channel in a public body of water and I have a real problem with that. The other problem I have is with some of the logic that's applied. In one case, the Channel is such a small percentage of the overall wetland but in the 9ther case a dock becomes a major issue. I fail to see where if you take areawise for areawise, it's that much different. It might be what~.appeals to somebody's sense of aesthetics but to me the logic is reveZsed in those two things. I have trouble with that. 'I have a real problem with dredging in general and I would much more go along with some-~alternate proposal that didn't require dredging. CounCilman Geving: I don't want to be personal with you Mr. Rivkin because this is not a personal matter. I think it's one where we have to j~dge the facts of the situation regardless of where it happens to be im the City of Chanhassen and quite frankly, to answer the Mayor's question on what it would take for us to have you move along with this prop@sal or to forget it, in my view I can not bend on this issue. I can'~ even bend a little bit. I'm very much not in favor of you dredging or anyone else dredging through a wetland area. It's in an City Council Meeting - January 25, 1988 area that we haven't spent a lot of time on. I don't believe we!ve got a single case where we've done this before. At least not that I'm aware of. So in that respect, I don't want to start by doing the first one on Lake Lucy. Eric Rivkin: But you can learn by doing it. Councilman Geving: It's possible but we could also have a disaster as well. I'm afraid that sometimes the disasters are irreversable. Once they're done, they're done and when you destroy a piece of wetland, it just doesn't come back. Not in your lifetime so I guess to answer the Mayor's question positively, I would say that no amount of further work on your part would help me to make this decision because my decision's already been made. I would request that we deny this. Councilman Johnson: I'd first like to say, that the Planning Commission in their meetings did not say that a dock was a worse impact on the wetlands. I sat through the Planning Commission twice last year and then again this year when they went through and discussed this with you and there was no way that they ever made that comment. One Planning Commissioner may have stumbled across something that may have sounded similar to that but in general they never came to that conclusion. Several things that have been said I don't think 100% agree with fact. Therefore, when I hear somebody quoting somebody from another meeting, I'd rather hear that from Mr. Leech. I have in writing here that the Service typically encourages the use of removable floating docks and in this case, they didn't like it because of the length. I still think that there is some room to compromise. I don't like cutting into a wetlands. I know Hennepin County Parks puts floating docks into wetlands. Some of them quite lengthy and they maintain the cattails at the edge of the docks. I never saw this 3 foot separation that they do and I go out and walk Carver Park all the time, walking on these floating docks and it's just not done. I don't know where that's coming from. Maybe it is, the picture you even showed us, I believe the cattails are right up close to the edge. Mayor Hamilton: No, they're cut. Councilman Johnson: They're cut...Carver County does not do that. I don't know why these people are. Eric Rivkin: Where do they have floating docks at Carver Park? Councilman Johnson: There are several series of floating docks at Carver Park if you walk the trails out there. Cutting through several wetlands. I'm not going to show you a map or anything but I'll guarantee you there, my feet are wet from walking on them. I feel that this is probably a very, very unusual situation. I don't know where else in the city we're going to find 400 feet of wetlands. It's one of the largest wetlands in our city. Before we go changing the ordinance we'd better find out how many more of these wetlands there are and if this turns out to really be the only one that we've got this magnitude, I don't think we need to change our ordinance for one situation. This is what a variance is all about. Is when you have one situation that City Council Meeting - January 25, 1988 is ~nique within for which you don't want to write an ordinance for one sit~ation. I did ask a series of questions of the City Attorney, I hop~ at some time he gets to answer those. I'm still pretty close to Dal~ except for probably not as adamant. I think if we can get a flo~ting dock going out 100 foot, as you see as we go here. I also never heard anybody say anything about the 4~ foot by 40 foot turgaround for a canoe. No justification for that. If I see a canal in ~ere that's going to be 16 feet wide and it's never going to be wider than 16 foot. May~r Hamilton: I'll just reiterate what I said previously. I think the~e are some unanswered questions and that is, what is the health of thellwetland at the present time? Would cutting into the wetland improve that situation or would it deter from it? The amount of wet~and that is required to do the basic filtration job on a lake this size? If removing this amount of wetland would seriously detract from thel. ability of the wetland to function as a screening device for the lake, which I can't believe since all the other lakes have virtually no wet~and and they seem to survive alright. So those questions I think nee~ to be answered but I am in favor of a channel. I think it's a more natural way of doing it. We're going to encourage wildlife and wildlife habitat in there and I just can't believe that it's going to hur~ the wetland or the lake itself. Roger, I'd like to have you respond to some of the questions that Jay asked previously. Did you jot'those down? Roger Knutson: I think I can remember them. First, I've not been out to ~his site. I'm not sure it abuts public water. I don't know. I have not seen that information to satisfy myself one way or the other on Ghat. Assuming it doesn't, and you can apply your ordinance and tur~ him down for anything you want. You can reject the dredging or you~.can reject the dock. Assuming you think there's good credible evidence that it will damage the wetland. That's a judgment you'll , have to make based upon the evidence you have. ': Councilman Johnson: I believe the plat shows this is a riparian lot tha~ goes out to the lake. May~r Hamilton: That's correct. Councilman Boyt: The question is, where does the lake start. Does it start at the end of the cattails or does it start at the high water mar~. I think that's the question. Couacilman Horn: The-high water mark. Roger Knutson: Where does the official public waters start? I don't know. Councilman Horn: At the high water mark. Roggr Knutson: Where does this lot sit in relation to that? Does it- abu~ the high water mark? City Council Meeting - January 25, 1988 Mayor Hamilton: That's true, it goes down to the high water mark and beyond actually. Eric Rivkin: The plot says it's over 2 acres, 10.1 acres and there's only 2 1/2 acres. 8 of that is wetland. From what the DNR told me, once a channel is dug to open water, the channel then becomes public waterway by State Law. Roger Knutson: That's the issue that I was trying to get at. Is it public waters right now? Through the wetland to the land. Is that part of public waters now or is it now? Eric Rivkin: The County or whatever. Councilman Horn: Not if it's below the ordinary high water mark. Eric Rivkin: Then why are lots platted to include wetlands as a part of the lot? I pay taxes on it don't forget. Roger Knutson: That goes into a whole new subject of why counties do. Counties go in cycles as to where they want lots to go. For a long period we had all sorts of pie shaped lots going out to the middle of the lakes. Then we went through a long period of time where that wasn't done. Now that's coming back in vogue with folks and why they do it, I guess they're concerned about fluctuating water lines and marks and meandering streams and things. Councilman Johnson: I believe, looking at the plats here, that his lot ends at where they believe the lake was. Eric Rivkin: Is. Is there too. The plat was drawn a couple years ago. Councilman Johnson: Yes, these wetlands in another 5 years will probably march out into the lake. This lake is constantly getting smaller so at this point, his lot ends probably where they thought the wetlands ended and the lake began. Roger Knutson: Does he have to cut through the wetland to get to public water? Mayor Hamilton: Yes. Roger Knutson: Is all that wetland part of public water? Mayor Hamilton: From the plat, all the wetland is a part of his property. Roger Knutson: It's not a part of public water? Mayor Hamilton: Right. That probably needs to be clarified with the County as to where that lot really is. If he owns the wetland and purchased it and is paying taxes on that land, it's his and why can't he cut a channel through it? r City Council Meeting - January 25, 1988 219 Rog~ in ~ if t oug~. Cou£ wats it d r Knutson: If this is public water, where he wants to dredge, only ublic water, then the DNR has exclusive jurisdiction over dredging hat's strictly public water. I don't know the answer. I think we t to look into that and get it clarified. cilman Horn: So the question then is, you don't know if the public r starts at the ordinary high water mark? My understanding is that oes. Rog~ir Knutson: I think that's right. Cour. cilman Horn: If that's the case, and you say your channel ends at the ordinary high water mark, then everything you're dealing with is publ~i c water. Eri~' Rivkin: Then why am I here? If I went through all of this, why didn't one of these agencies speak up and say State law says that you have.' no right to do anything? State law says that I'm a riparian homeowner and I do have the right to .open water access. Whatever is there. . Roger. Knutson: I'm not familiar with any State law that says that myself. Erid Rivkin: The DNR has moved it along this way with assumptions that these laws are still in effect. I'm paying taxes on that land. · Roge%r.. Knutson: People pay taxes, that's another issue. Councilman Horn: I think in addition to the questions you asked, I thi~k this is a key issue for us. Whether we even have jurisdiction here.. Mayo~ Hamilton: Can you determine that Roger? Roger.~ Knutson: Yes. Mayo~ Hamilton: I think you've heard the flavor from the Council. We've probably got three that would possibly be in favor and two. who probably are not. So I think you need to go from there. One is a complete no, apparently closed minded and the other one is possible to convince. . Eric;I Rivkin: I agree with the fact that maybe Jim Leech should have been!' here to testify but I found when I asked someone to come in and testify about the channel access, they back off real adamantly when I say the DNR is involved, I don't want any part of that. Even Attorney's say that. But he may come. He seemed to be a nice guy. The guidelines do need to be changed. The process, the laws not perfect. No new law ever is and it's not within my means to find out all ~he answers to the technical questions raised either. Let's say I do have right to access, if Mr. Knutson finds out that I do and the technical questions still come back, who answers them? Well, it's me City Council Meeting - January 25, 1988 to find that out and I really feel that I should not have to do that~ I also don't feel that I should be put off years more to wait until we find out whether dredging this wetland, or any wetland, is going to hurt it. If knew that now, we wouldn't have laws that permit dredging or maybe you wouldn't have an ordinance that does permit dredging. As far as the 40 foot by 40 foot canoe turnaround, I think I could compromise and reduce that. A canoe, you do not simply turn around and paddle the other way because the seats are not designed that way. You have to turn around and this is minimum DNR standard they allow. Councilman Johnson: It's maximum DNR standards. Not minimum. Eric Rivkin: Right. It's the maximum for a boat turnaround. Motor boats are going to come in there. You can't enforce that. It's public waterway. I can put a sign up there and it says restricted access...that says restricted to non-motorized traffic, they're going to come in there and they've got to turn around. So it's logical for me, you don't want them stuck in there. Councilman Johnson: If they're stuck in there, you call the cops. If it's posted as non-motorized and they're motorized. Eric Rivkin: I don't think it's reasonable to wait. I think this is a major thing. It's not reasonable, even though I'm the first, it's still not reasonable to make me wait more years until you guys come up with an answer to whether the technical issues are right or wrong. You do learn by doing and the experts do say, do concur that there's not going to be an adverse effect on this wetland. If you go back to them another time, ask them again, really grill them with a blue ribbon committee or whatever, fine. I agree with that. Mayor Hamilton: I think we're going back over things that have been discussed and I guess my thought was, my view is not to put this off for years or even months but to accomplish it as quickly as possible. If that's something you don't want to do, I'm trying to get this passed for you because I think it's something that you should hay and I'd like to see done there and have a channel in 'there. I think it's the fair thing to do and the best thing for the environment. If you're not willing to do that,.to wait to have the answers to some of these questions we can take a vote on the issue tonight as it stands before us and I'll guarantee you that it will be defeated. That's your choice. Eric Rivkin: I'd rather you table it pending some of these decisions about the legal issues and some more advice. Mayor Hamilton: That's all I'm trying to accomplish. We're not going to put it off for years. We are going to try and accomplish this as quickly as possible. Councilman Johnson: What you're asking for, Mr. Mayor is basically an environmental assessment worksheet which any RGU, Regulating Governmental Unit can have what's called a discretionary environmental assessment worksheet requested by anybody doing anything that may have cit~ Council Meeting - January 25, 1988 221 an e cate subd gov~ wit~ a n~ pro~ Mayo beca that we'l that ~fect upon the environment. It does not have to meet. all the ~orical requirements of the State law that requires EAW's. Certain ivisions, etc. require that they have to have it by law. But any ~nmental unit can request that an EAW be performed in' accordance State standards to decide upon the environmental, whether there is ~d for an environmental impact statement. We have some unknown lems here that seem to have some... · k Hamilton: I'm not asking an environmental assessment to be done ase I think it's too lengthy and I have some specific questions I asked to be answered and I think if we receive answers to those, [ be able to make a better decision. Rather than going through whole lengthy process. Cou~:ilman Horn: I think where the ownership ends and the ordinary high. water mark issue may make this all moot to this body. We need to find~- that out too. Mayo~ Hamilton: Jo Ann can clarify that with the County and be specific with them. Find out exactly on this specific piece of property how ~hey're assessing it. Where the line is and maybe on the whole lake!, I suppose you have to determine that. · . Eric Rivkin: I want to know what my rights are. What are my rights? Coumpilman Horn: Would the County determine it or Roger who would determine that? Councilman Boyt: DNR assessed. Roge~ Knutson: We'll get the job done. Larry Brown: I talked with Ted Kim, the County Surveyor about this and I th~nk it's going to boil down to what Roger finds out. Councilman Geving: I think the motion is obvious. If we stay with what's before us, we have a proposal here to construct a channel and boat~' turnaround in a Class A wetland. That's the proposal. If we vote on that proposal, that's what we have to vote on. Either to approve that channel or not to. No other variations. Mayo~ Hamilton moved, Councilman Geving seconded to table the Wetland Alteration Request to construct a channel and boat turnaround in a Class A wetland on Lake Lucy for Eric Rivkin until the questions raised at the meeting are answered. All voted in favor except Councilman JohnSon who opposed and motion carried. COUNCIL PRESENTATIONS: Coun~ilman Johnson: As you all may have noticed, I've had some comments on it, that I wrote a letter to the Army requesting that we get ~ome consideration from them, from their engineers to do some work in opt parks and trail issue and specifically the Lake Ann expansion. : City Council Meeting - January 25, 1988 Try to cut some of our costs there for a lot of dirt moving. Their response, which the City received a while back and somehow or another didn't get to me too quickly, but is that they are already booked in 1988 and they would love to work with us in 1989. It says, this type of project supports our training efforts and develops a better relationship with the community. They are really looking forward to it and what I'd like to do is proceed with looking at 1989 and the sooner you can get on their training schedules, I'd like to work the City Engineer and Park and Rec, and look at where can, they have the basic earth moving equipment to cut trails and flatten out for ballfields and parking lots and things like that. I don't want any building foundation work or this type of stuff. I think it's a different than what Roger served with in Viet Nam. So it's good news but it's too bad they can't do anything this year. On Public Safety, I'm getting more and more responses from people at various meetings and whatever on public safety issues. I really thing that we need to replace some of the positions that we lost this last year, as far as we lost our one officer. It looks like we're down to less than half time on the CSO side of it. Our CSO is also our fire marshall most of the time so now we're down to even our basic animal control is limited. Is that correct, Don? Don Ashworth: That's correct. Councilman Johnson: We're getting into what I consider a very uncomfortable position for public safety. I thought last year we did a very good job of park patrolling. We went out there and were visible. We had our vehicle driving around to the parks in the evenings. We did a very good job of maintaining our parks clear of beer parties and everything that we didn't want to see in our parks. Now we're talking this year of opening Greenwood Shores back up and we don't have the patrol anymore. This is a basic required service that I think that if we have to delay our City Hall expansion, that's one of my first ideas to do this. Let's not expand City Hall, let's provide public service. Mayor Hamilton: I encourage you then to take this item to the Public Safety Commission meeting and present your ideas to them so they can review it and make recommendations back to the Council. Councilman Johnson: Okay. Mayor Hamilton: That's through Jim Chaffee. That's a good idea. think we always need to, continually need to review that. Councilman Johnson: I'd like to hear from the rest of the councilmen to see if they all agree with that. Take this to Public Safety. Councilman Geving: I agree. Councilman Boyt: Yes. Councilman Geving: Yesterday afternoon Jay and I met with the homeowners from Red Cedar Point at the fire station 92 at Minnewashta City Council Meeting - January 25, 1988 223 and ~e had about 15 to 20 people there. Pretty good turnout con~idering. It was late in the afternoon, the snow was blowing but we sti~l had cookies and coffee and I think the important thing when we mee~with these people is that we not only talk about the zip codes situation, and that issue, but more importantly this is-the first time I've. really had a chance to meet with citizens in an environment like tha~where we can just sit and talk about more than public safety, Mor~ than their own concerns. They are interested in street lighting. The~'re interested in dog control, animal control. Overall, they're jus~ really i~terested in being a part of the city and I found the Red Cedar Point group probably the most receptive of any of the zip code meetiings that we had. We've had a numnber of them now but this was a goo~ group and I think we're going to get a good return on those p~o~le. But the purpose for having this on the agenda is to have Todd glv~ us a quick rundown on the meeting on Wednesday. What we're-going to .~.~alk about. Hopefully you can all be here. If you can't that's unfortunate. I know you mentioned something Tom that you can't but I encourage all of the councilmembers to be here. Tod~ Gerhardt: The meeting is scheduled for 7:00. It's in your adm~nistrative packet and it's an informative meeting just to update any~citizens. All citizens in Chaska and Excelsior mailing districts wet9 invited to the meeting. It is to update those residents on the City's proposal and why we feel it's important. Jim and myself will be pre~ent at the meeting and I've also asked A1 Nelson to be present at this meeting and he has said he would to answer any questions on con~usion if the change should occur on your addresses and that's all A1 laid he would comment on. Cou~cilman Geving: Would you comment just briefly, as long as we're tal~ing about zip codes, what are the next couple of things that we're going to do? The schedule of events. Tod~ Gerhardt: We will be going out with a mass mailing on Friday which will have the survey cards in there requesting each citizen to respond to our survey. We are requesting that everybody who was asked to ~o out and meet with certain people in the neighborhoods, to get me tha~ information before Friday so I can get that into our computers so we ~on't double up on those areas. Then after that, we are giving them approximately 2 weeks to respond from that survey and then after that, if ~e haven't hit our 70%, we will come in with our committee and go through our phone survey here at City Hall to hit that 70%. Right now we'ge probably received close to 100 people in the Chaska area and I wou~d say about 35 to 50 people in the Excelsior area. We're looking at ~50 people from Chaska and 789 in Excelsior so don't see a large number but I haven't heard back from Roger Dowling and he has really covered the Red Cedar Point area heavily and I expect him to come back witB his results. May~r Hamilton: Then Bill wanted to discuss an item with us that our teachers are always concerned about. He wants to talk about attendance. City Council Meeting - January 25, 1988 Councilman Boyt: We talked about this last summer and I was told, let's do it at the beginning of the year. Well, it's around the beginning of the year so we have the attendance records, incomplete though they are, of Park and Rec Commission, Planning Commission, Public Safety Commisison and HRA. I think that we have a standard. We have a public that is saying that they would really like to serve on these commissions. I am really trouble when people who are on the commissions fall below the 75%. I know that there are people who are on the commissions who are making valuable contributions that are below 75% but I think they're not fulfilling their responsibility to the public when they are over the course of a year, below that figure. T don't know what it takes to get these changes. I wrote a memo. Don tells me that he talked to the people who are the liasons with these commissions. That they were to draw up a plans with the people who were having attendance problems and yet I see continued attendance problems. Maybe these things are simply out of the individual's control but I think they should seriously consider giving someone else an opportunity to serve on those commissions. That's my point. Councilman Johnson: I tend to agree with that. There are several at 67%, 62.5%, a 50%. Mayor Hamilton: I guess we can all read those and I guess what I would like to do is, I think we mentioned it before. It would seem to me that it's up to the individual chairman of those commissions to say, listen, we've got Carol Watson here who's at 62 1/2% for the year and we feel that the city would be well off to replace that person. And I'm just picking on her because I just happened to see her name and then make a recommendation to us so we can act on it. If their body agrees that they feel they would be served better by having a different person on there, than I would feel much more comfortable than writing a letter to that person saying because your attendance does not meet the city standards, we would like to have you resign so we can replace you. Either that or guarantee us or something that you're going to be there for 75% of the meetings and they are on notice that if they don't perform during the coming period of time, that they are going to be gone. Does that seem reasonable. Don Ashworth: Bill had contacted me. I did state that I would make sure that all of the attendance records were brought up to date. I also sent a note to each of the chairmans or heads through our staff. Make it known that anyone who was below the 50% be sent a letter by that chairman and that copies of those be included in the packets. We now have the attendance records up to date. I would assume that those letters are in the process of being done. The commission then should be informed that here's where people stood. I don't think that the Planning Commission has seen this updated attendance record. I doubt very much that the Park Commission has. I'm sure that each of the chairmans have been notified and the necessity for them to send out the letter. Anyway, I'm concurring with the process that you laid out. That is the course of action that we are following and you're seeing the first results of that in tonight's packet. Councilman Horn: I have a quick question. This 75%, is that for all 225 com~ Plat that Council Meeting - January 25, 1988 issions? My concern is that, and I understand we did this on the ning Commission when Tom and I were on it, the chairman did take role, but I guess I'm questioning that now. As I understand it, all,these commissions serve the Council or ~id they? Cou~ilman Geving: We did. Court enf¢ thi~ Cour wou] thai and we established the 75% rule Pilman Horn: It would seem to me then that we should be the rcement for that since it's our rule and the commissions do serve body. bilman Johnson: If we had such a rule for city staff, we still not directly go to city staff, we would directly go to Don and would go down through the department heads and I think following the ~hain of command through the head of the commissions as the first time~ through, I think is more appropriate. In the case where it is the hea~. of the commissions, then it is appropriate that it come from the Council. Cou.r~ ilman Horn: I don't think going to the chairman of a group is following the chain of command. It's not like those other people repc~rt to him. He merely is the coordinator for that group. It's different when you talk about staff than when you talk about a com~/ssion. Don hires and fires people on the staff. The chairman does~n't hire and fire people on his commission. . Cour~=ilman Johnson: Agreed. May~r Hamilton: I guess if the council wants, we can write a letter. I'd .be happy to sign it with my name and say it's a group decision and I'll~. sign it. You are expected to maintain a 75%. So that or resign. Cour~ilman Horn: Especially now that we have a lot more applicants, we can .~o that. Cour~cilman Geving: In the case of, if you want to get real personal, which we should do because we are looking at numbers, in the case of Mr. Whitehill, we did make an exception on at least one previous year where he had a similar type of percentage. Some of the commission members said, well when he's there, he's extremely productive and he's ver~ valuable. We were able to overlook his absence for business puri~gses or whatever. I think Cliff we've already passed several times on ~hat basis. But if it's becoming a problem for the HRA, then I woul~ say we should step in but I assume that you take over as the acting chairman? Cour~=ilman Horn: Yes. Cour~c.~ ilman Geving: Does it bother the commission quite a bit? Coun~ilman Horn: Well it is a concern when he's not there. He is such a valuable member that when he isn't there, it makes quite a hole. I recall the case on the Planning Commission with Jack Bell, a similar City Council Meeting - January 25, 1988 situation. He was very much of a contributor to the Planning Commission but he had an attendance record similar to this and we finally asked him to step down which he did. But it's a similar type thing. There it wasn't quite as bad because we had a 7 member group. The HRA only has 5 members. The reason it's so good to have Cliff there is because he is an attorney and we deal in so many legal issues. If we had a City Attorney at the HRA meetings, it wouldn't make quite the hole as it does now because really Cliff fulfills that role for us. Roger Knutson: Just point out, the HRA is also a different situation from the fact that the HRA is not a city commission or committee. It's there for a term of five years and they don't serve for pleasure, they have a term. Mayor Hamilton: They're appointed by the Council. Roger Knutson: You can't take them off. Don Ashworth: There may be some confusion for this year because my memorandum did go out to each of the departments but I hope there potentially may be some chairman letters that have already been prepared and sent out. CONSIDER RESOLUTION FOR NORTHERN STATES POWER COMPANY TO SERVICE LAKE SUSAN HILLS WEST PUD, MAYOR HAMILTON. Mayor Hamilton: It was a resolution that NSP had asked us to review. Lake Susan subdivision, if everything remained as it is today, that would be divided in half with NSP serving the northern half and the REA or whatever. Don Ashworth: Minnesota Valley. Mayor Hamilton: Minnesota Valley serving the southern half so NSP was merely asking that we pass a resolution stating that we would support NSP serving that entire subdivision so there's not a conflict there. He said because otherwise you're going to have a storm and half the people will be out of power. The guy across the street's still going to have it. It's just a bad thing. Plus, he said the really bad thing is that NSP's rates are lower than Minnesota Valley so you're going to have people next door to each other paying different rates and higher electric bills and he said it's really going to cause some problems. He had drawn up a sample thing to bring and I couldn't find it. Councilman Geving: Does it have to be passed tonight Tom? Mayor Hamilton: Well, they would like to get it passed so they can just get on it. What I'd like to do, is have Don perhaps draw one up, a resolution. Maybe work with Marlo. I couldn't find the one he gave me. It was just a resolution. It's not like we're passing a law or anything. All we're saying is we would support their position to service the whole subdivision. City Council Meeting - January 25, 1988 Cou .cilman Johnson: Should we hear the other side? Should we listen to ne side and pass a resolution before talking to the other people? Mayer Hamilton: The other people haven't asked. Cou~cilman Geving: Who are they? Councilman Johnson: Minnesota Valley. They service a large portion of our~town. May~r Hamilton: If you want a resident to pay higher rates, I suppose. Councilman Johnson: Are they getting service for the higher rates? I donmt know. : Gar~ Warren: The difference in rates is based on the upfront costs and Minnesota Valley, there's more than just the monthly charges. The way tha~ they charge for the installation of the wiring of street lights ...~o a longer term cost difference to the monthly rate difference. The~e is more than just the monthly charges. '; May~r Hamilton: All the resolution does is say that we would support NSP~s position. That starts the fight between those two because Min~esota Valley is not going to give up without a fight so it just mea~s they're aware of NSP's position and we would like to have a combined one so they can start arguing about it. Gar~ Warren: Maybe the Council should choose that we want one service in ~he area, whether it's Minnesota Valley or NSP. CouNcilman Johnson: I'd like to see both arguments before I join a sid~. .. · Don ~Ashworth: The first concern of mine would be that, if we go to Mindesota Valley and they end up winning on it, does that mean we're going to end up with another transmission line coming into serve that who~e area? I wouldn't think too much about that idea. Councilman Johnson: I think we need to look at the pros and cons and if ~t does say that Minnesota Valley has to bring in another big tra~smission line, then I'll be ready to support NSP but until I see tha~. Resdlution ~88-11: Mayor Hamilton moved, Councilman Horn seconded for a r~solution stating that the City will support one utility supplying power to the Lake Susan Hills PUD. All voted in favor and motion carried. Councilman Geving moved, Mayor Hamilton seconded to adjourn the meeting. All voted in favor and motion carried. The meeting was adjourned at 10:4~ p.m.. .. Submitted by Don Ashworth Cit~ Manager Prepared by Nann Opheim