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CC 2008 01 14 CHANHASSEN CITY COUNCIL REGULAR MEETING JANUARY 14, 2008 Mayor Furlong called the meeting to order at 7:05 p.m. The meeting was opened with the Pledge to the Flag. COUNCIL MEMBERS PRESENT: Mayor Furlong, Councilman Litsey, Councilwoman Ernst, and Councilwoman Tjornhom STAFF PRESENT: Todd Gerhardt, Roger Knutson, Laurie Hokkanen, Paul Oehme, Kate Aanenson, and Todd Hoffman PUBLIC ANNOUNCEMENTS: Mayor Furlong: Thank you and welcome to everybody here in the council chambers and those watching at home. We're glad that you joined us. You may see those watching at home, we have upgraded our television system and our broadcast system for our council meetings and future commission meetings as well so our intention there is to provide with a better picture and audio quality of our meetings so if you have any thoughts or comments and would like to contact Laurie Hokkanen at City Hall if you have any thoughts or comments or, positive or negative on the new system, we would certainly appreciate that. With that we'll welcome everybody back to a new year of the City of Chanhassen City Council meetings and move forward with our agenda. Are there any modifications or changes to the agenda from any council members? If not, without objection we'll proceed with the agenda as published. ORGANIZATIONAL ITEMS: Mayor Furlong: Tonight, since it is the first council meeting of the calendar year, we will have some organizational items that we'll want to address and we'll deal with those first. The first item is to designate an official newspaper for the city. Based upon information provided by staff and staff's recommendation, the Chanhassen Villager is the newspaper, the publication that meets the criteria for our official newspaper so at this time I would ask if there's any discussion or if there's a motion to designate the Chanhassen Villager as the official newspaper. Todd Gerhardt: Mayor, may I just clarify one issue?. Mayor Furlong: Oh yes, please. Todd Gerhardt: That we did receive notice from the Villager and Lakeshore Weekly. Under State Statute the Villager is the only one that would qualify to be the city's official newspaper because they have an office within the city limits of Chanhassen. Mayor Furlong: Okay. City Council Meeting - January 14, 2008 Todd Gerhardt: The Lakeshore Weekly News does not. They provide hand distribution of their newspaper at several locations in the community but they do not have offices here so that's why they do not qualify. Mayor Furlong: That's the differentiation. Todd Gerhardt: Yep. Mayor Furlong: Thank you for that clarification. Any questions for staff on that? If not, is there a motion? Councilman Litsey: I'll make a motion that the Chanhassen Villager be appointed as the city's official newspaper. Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Is there a second? Councilwoman Ernst: Second. Mayor Furlong: It's been moved and seconded. Is there any discussion? Councilman Litsey moved, Councilwoman Ernst seconded to appoint the Chanhassen Villager as the City's official newspaper. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 4 to 0. Mayor Furlong: Next item is to designate an Acting Mayor. This is a person, a member of the City Council who will stand in my stead if I'm unable to execute the duties of my office, which doesn't sound right. Councilman Litsey: Carry out. Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Thank you. However. Todd Gerhardt: When you're out of town Mayor. Mayor Furlong: When I'm out of town. Alright, thank you very much. Councilwoman Tjornhom filled this position last year. I guess I'll open it up to thoughts or discussions. Councilwoman Tjornhom: Ah yeah, I was privileged to do it last year Mayor… I really enjoyed that position. I'm willing to do it again this year. Councilman Litsey: I would support Councilwoman Tjornhom continuing for another year in that position. You did a good job at the two functions. Mayor Furlong: Very good. So that's a nomination. Councilman Litsey: Yes, that would be a nomination. 2 City Council Meeting - January 14, 2008 Mayor Furlong: Very good. Is there a second? Councilwoman Ernst: Second. Mayor Furlong: Made and seconded. Councilman Litsey moved, Councilwoman Ernst seconded to appoint Councilwoman Tjornhom as Acting Mayor. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 4 to 0. Mayor Furlong: Next item is appointment to, a member of the council to the Southwest Transit Commission. This is a position that was held by Councilman Craig Peterson. We'll get into that later. He resigned earlier so we need to appoint one member of our council there. I am certainly interested in serving that position. If somebody else is, we can talk about that as well. Any thoughts or comments or discussion? No? Councilwoman Tjornhom: No, Mr. Mayor. I would support and second that… Mayor Furlong: Alright. We'll have you be the nominator. Councilwoman Tjornhom: I'd like to nominate you. Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Is there a second? Councilwoman Ernst: I would second that. Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Any discussion or comments? Councilman Litsey: Sounds good. Mayor Furlong: Just jump to it. Councilman Litsey: I actually think you'd be a great representative for it. Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Councilwoman Tjornhom moved, Councilwoman Ernst seconded to appoint Mayor Furlong as the city's representative on the Southwest Transit Commission. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 4 to 0. Mayor Furlong: Also we need to confirm the appointment of the Fire Chief. In December the Fire Department re-elected Gregg Geske as their Fire Chief for another two year term. Staff recommends that the council reaffirm his appointment. I would certainly make that nomination as well. Is there a second? 3 City Council Meeting - January 14, 2008 Councilwoman Ernst: Second. Mayor Furlong: It's been made and seconded. Any discussion on this? Mayor Furlong moved, Councilwoman Ernst seconded to reaffirm the appointment of Gregg Geske as Fire Chief. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 4 to 0. Mayor Furlong: I believe that completes the organizational items for the City Council. Todd Gerhardt: That's correct. CONSENT AGENDA: Councilman Litsey moved, Councilwoman Tjornhom seconded to approve the following consent agenda items pursuant to the City Manager's recommendations: a. Approval of Minutes: -City Council Work Session Minutes dated December 10, 2007 -City Council Verbatim and Summary Minutes dated December 10, 2007 Receive Commission Minutes: -Planning Commission Verbatim and Summary Minutes dated December 4, 2007 -Park and Recreation Commission Verbatim and Summary Minutes dated November 27, 2007 -Park and Recreation Commission Verbatim and Summary Minutes dated December 11, 2007 b. Lift Station No. 3, Project 07-03: Approve Quote for Generator. Resolution #2008-01: c. 2008 Sealcoat Project 08-06: Approval of Plans and Specifications and Authorize Advertising for Bids. d. Accept Resignation of Councilman Craig Peterson. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 4 to 0. 1(E). APPROVAL OF MPCA GRANT APPLICATION RESOLUTION. Councilwoman Ernst: Basically, if I remember correct, this is for the grant? Mayor Furlong: Yes. Councilwoman Ernst: So Paul maybe, I think you're the person this question should be directed to. When you were talking about the City matching the dollars, is that part of the request? I mean is that a requirement as part of the request to, I think it was $28,000 was the cost of the project. 4 City Council Meeting - January 14, 2008 Paul Oehme: Councilwoman Ernst, the PCA grant application, there has to be matching dollars from the city or in kind dollars associated with the grant application. They want you to match those dollar amounts and what the grant application, what we put together is in kind monies so basically our staff time would be considered matching dollars. You know postage. Seminars that we're planning to give. Those type of times and materials. Those would go to our matching dollars for the grant so out of pocket expenditures for the grant from the city's perspective would be, we anticipate would be very minimal but we do need to show those in kind, those matching dollars. Councilwoman Ernst: Okay. And the amount that we could possibly get from that grant is $40,000 or if we got the grant it would be $40,000. Paul Oehme: Right. Councilwoman Ernst: That was a little bit unclear to me. Paul Oehme: Yeah, the amount, the maximum amount that you can request from the PCA under this grant application I think was right around $40,000. We're only requesting the $28,000 dollar amount at this time so. Councilwoman Ernst: Okay. Thank you. Todd Gerhardt: Mayor and Council, just to clarify that. Of the 28, 25% would have to be in kind or matching dollars and that would equate down to about $7,000. We're looking at postage to do some mailings and things in the $3,000 to $4,000 range and the rest of our budget would be in kind staff time. Detailed distribution of services for this would come back to council. Kind of explain how we would promote this program and that was one of our strategies for the year. Councilwoman Ernst: Okay. Thank you. Mayor Furlong: Okay, thank you. Any other questions or discussion on this item? If not, is there a motion? Councilwoman Ernst: So moved. Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Motion's been made to approve staff's recommendation on 1(e). Is there a second? Councilwoman Tjornhom: Second. Mayor Furlong: Made and seconded. Any discussion? Resolution #2008-02:Councilwoman Ernst moved, Councilwoman Tjornhom seconded to approve the MPCA Grant Application Resolution. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 4 to 0. 5 City Council Meeting - January 14, 2008 1(F). WELLS 12 & 13 IMPROVEMENT PROJECTS 08-04 & 08-05: APPROVE BID AND AWARD CONTRACT. Councilwoman Ernst: So the actual bid came in at a $1,261,000 and our estimate was, if I recall correctly, $20,000 under that? Paul Oehme: Yeah, approximately. I think it was $13,000. Councilwoman Ernst: So with the proposed rate, cpg that we were , cost per gallon, that we were talking about before, does that impact that cost? In other words, I forget what the, and this may be unrelated, and if so you can just let me know that, but when we're talking about the cost of the wells. Right, that's what we're talking about here. In order to cover that cost, there was a cost per gallon that we were going to propose to our residents, and I don't recall what that number was. Todd Gerhardt: Mayor, Council, I believe the bid was over by about $20,000. There is another segment that we're going to have to build out the fresh, what is it called Paul? Paul Oehme: The raw watermain. Todd Gerhardt: Raw watermain, and that's about $850,000. We believe that with this slight overage we'll be able to absorb that into the overall budget and still keep the rates we were proposing back in December. Councilwoman Ernst: Okay. Okay. Todd Gerhardt: So the rates will not have to change because of this overage if that's the question… Councilwoman Ernst: Yep. That answers it. Thank you. Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Anything else? Any other questions for staff on this item? Appreciate their moving it forward so expeditiously. With that is there a motion to adopt item 1(f)? Councilwoman Ernst: So moved. Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Is there a second? Councilwoman Tjornhom: Second. Mayor Furlong: Made and seconded. Any discussion on that motion? Resolution #2008-03: Councilwoman Ernst moved, Councilwoman Tjornhom seconded to award a construction contract for the Well Numbers 12 and 13 Improvement Project 6 City Council Meeting - January 14, 2008 Numbers 08-04 and 08-05 to Mark J. Traut Wells in the amount of $1,261,950.00. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 4 to 0. VISITOR PRESENTATIONS: Mayor Furlong: I'd now like to, I'm going to now recognize our City Engineer, Mr. Paul Oehme to introduce the gentleman from Barr Engineering. Paul Oehme: Thank you Mayor, City Council members. Tonight we'd like to give the council and the viewing public just a brief update on where we stand with our well projects. As you know we're expeditiously trying to get two new wells drilled this winter, spring and so we can bring them into production this summer. Tonight you have awarded a contract for the drilling of the two wells. There's another associated well watermain project that need to go along with that project that we anticipate letting out in February but at this time I'd like just to have Brian Lemont from Barr Engineering. He's, Barr is the contractor or the engineers working with the city and putting the plans and specs together and helping us out with some construction administration work as well so. Brian Lemont: Thank you very much Paul and thank you for having me here Mayor and Council. I'll just go through real quickly the projects that we're working on for you right now. You can see back into your watering, the schedules that I put in there are for a number of projects. The first listed up there is Wells 12 and 13, which are the actual replacements for Wells 5 and 6 which as you know had problems last summer. There are two parts to the project. As you can see the first part being the wells themselves. The contract that was just awarded and that is scheduled for starting construction in February and the wells are planned to be in operation around mid-May. The plans for all of these is to have all of the bugs worked out of everything st by June 1 so you guys are back in full, back into watering the way you were the last year prior to losing wells 5 and 6. The second part of the project is, the second part under here is the watermain. That's connecting the wells to your new treatment plant. The projects were bid separately to allow for the well construction to occur right away while the watermain, the design of the watermain takes a little bit longer so we're working on that right now. Several other well projects that are associated with the work that we're doing for you, including the school well at Minnetonka Middle School, which is being converted from a back-up well, used as kind of an emergency lift, to a primary well that is going to be your school well number 14. We’re currently working on the design for that right now. You can see on there we have a number of th items listed on there. The neighborhood meeting is planned for January 30. That's going to happen after we discuss the project with the school board themselves so that they understand what's going to be happening to their property and to the well. We don't want to be having neighborhood meetings and promising what we can do prior to talking to them about what we're going to be doing so we're going to do that first. We're planning for a bid opening at the end of February. That's essentially, that's construction and the drilling of the new wells which is Wells 12 and 13. It's simply modifications made to the existing well. The schedule is a little bit shorter. You can see awarding of the project will occur in March and substantial completion again is slated for May. As a part of that project there will also be a watermain running the water from that well down to Well 7 and then on down to Galpin where it will be fed into your low system. You actually have a high system… The work for Well 14 will also include some 7 City Council Meeting - January 14, 2008 rehabilitation work on Well 7 so that it will be completely up and ready to go. That will also be th done by May 15. These are all going to be scheduled so that you're not going to have any fallout of water at any given time. We can schedule them appropriately. Anyway there's some work with Wells 2 and 3 that is related to drilling of Wells 12 and 13. Because of the new wells that are going to be going in here, these well fields are the same aquifer as those wells. There will be a slight reduction of the water level at the existing wells so we will be going in and actually dropping the pump levels in those two existing wells to make sure that the addition of the new wells does not interfere with and cause a reduction in capacity of those existing wells. And so that's what's shown on the bottom of redevelopment of Wells 2 and 3. Both of those wells recently had, as you may recall, had some work done on them. Well 2 I believe was repaired last summer I believe you said had some work and Well 3 was redeveloped I think you said 2 years ago. And so it's only, it's a very simple project. It is not going to get a whole lot of work on the well itself as much as just lowering them down to make sure that the impact of adding new wells doesn't reduce your water capacity. Any questions? Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Any questions for Mr. Lemont? With regard to the Well 14. The school well. So that's going to, the supply line there is going to be incorporated with Well 7? Which I believe is right along Lake Lucy Road there. Is that correct? Brian Lemont: Correct. We're going to be bringing the water down from the school down the hill. The City owns the property, owns the, I don't know enough of the landmarks in the area but there's a wooded lot that runs between the school and Well 7. We'll be running down that area, the city owns that lot and we'll be directional drilling so you won't lose any trees in that area. And then we'll be running it right next to Well 7 where chemical additions will be added to treat the water and then from that point, if you're going to be routing it into your high system, there'll be valving that will allow the well to distribute water into the high system right at Well 7. And if it's going to be routed into the low, and that will be a choice of the operator to make, then it will be run down to Galpin in an existing well watermain that is set up for the west treatment plant and we'll be making as a part of this project a small connection to your existing low system down at the intersection with Galpin and I'm not even sure of the cross road there. Paul Oehme: Lake Harrison Drive. Right in front of the proposed west treatment plant. Do you have the other drawing showing the? Brian Lemont: I do. Mayor Furlong: While you're doing that, is the, Well 7's currently in the high zone, is that correct? Paul Oehme: That's correct. Mayor Furlong: Is this going to create an opportunity for 7 to contribute to the low zone as well or is that not anticipated? 8 City Council Meeting - January 14, 2008 Paul Oehme: That's not anticipated at this time. We do have another valving system at the intersection of Galpin and Lake Lucy Road where we do have the opportunity right there to bring water from the high zone down to the low at this point in time. Mayor Furlong: Okay, regardless of which well is in the high zone is generating the water. Paul Oehme: That's correct. 8 or 7. Mayor Furlong: Alright. Okay. Brian Lemont: I just had a quick question on the school well. What kind of dialogue has taken place with the school district on that? Is there an agreement existing already or is it just? Paul Oehme: Well the school well has some history. When the school was put in that well was drilled to facilitate the high school at that time but since then city water has been provided to the school. The school did not need that well for any use anymore so it was donated back to the city. Ever since then, I think it was the mid 70's, it's been on the city's books and we really haven't used it much. It pumps maybe 250 gallons at the maximum right now which on a municipal producing well rarely ever have we used it for any purposes other than to just keep it operational so at this point in time we just thought it'd be a cost effective option to replace the well or the pump at this time and actually make it into a municipal producing well so. Brian Lemont: So the dialogue that's going to take place with the school, you don't anticipate that holding up the project? Paul Oehme: No, actually we have done the ground work at the staff level with the school district and they're comfortable with, we've shown them the drawings of what we're planning already so, they did not see any stumbling blocks at this time. We should meet with the school district though and make sure that they will support the project as well. We would like to get a permanent easement from them due to the fact that we need to extend some watermains across their property so just some agreements associated with that. Brian Lemont: Good, thanks. Mayor Furlong: Is the, you show on there an existing 20 inch pipe that extends from Well 7 down towards the future site of the second water treatment plant. Is that going to be sufficient to handle both Well 1 and Well 7? Paul Oehme: That will be sufficient to handle both the school well, 7, 8 in the future too. That will be. Mayor Furlong: 7, 8 and. Paul Oehme: And the school well, and potentially another well too. That pipe was put in with the development of Lake Harrison so the future improvements for the west water treatment plant. We planned for that pipe to be used as a water line in the future for that plant. Right now 9 City Council Meeting - January 14, 2008 with the anticipated, with the school well we were anticipating to use that right now for distribution and then easily convert it back into a watermain in the future when the future water treatment plant is built. Mayor Furlong: Okay, very good. Thank you. Any other questions at this time on any of the other issues brought up? Councilwoman Ernst. Councilwoman Ernst: Can you tell me if there are any risks associated with this project as you continue to work on it? Brian Lemont: There are always some risks. Councilwoman Ernst: Okay, can you tell me what those are? I'm just more curious to know if we, you know as we're doing this what, are there any potential risks of losing water period in those areas? Brian Lemont: Now are you speaking specifically with the school well or any of the project? Councilwoman Ernst: Any of the project. Brian Lemont: The drilling of the new wells, there's always a risk in that, as I think you've learned in a couple of your other wells, the geology of the area can vary from what you expect it to be. The geology if always based on essentially the nearest well that has already been drilled that looks that deep and so whenever you start drilling into a new area, you could find a different geology. We're drilling down into one of the safer, more reliable aquifers in the area so if we should find the aquifer there, which we thoroughly expect to find it there, it will be a very productive aquifer and should not have problems. We've done a significant amount of modeling and work in that aquifer over the years so we feel very comfortable with it. So the risks are reasonably low that we'll find the aquifer. The problems that we've had in the past, or we do have in the area are whether or not another bedrock formation is present over the top of the aquifer. You might notice that we had an alternate in the bid and that alternate is to account for the possibility that that specific bedrock unit might be absent. If it is absent and we cannot construct what's called an open hole well, and those are slightly cheaper to build and so we have an option that allows for the construction of a screen well and by having it in a bid situation we got you a good, fair prices on that option so that if you should need to go to that due to changing conditions, we already have prices for that. So that's one of the types of risks. There are other kinds of risks but in wells, drilling down, finding the conditions that you would like are the greatest. Another potential risk is an open hole well. The Jordan Aquifer can become kind of soft sometimes and so it can start to run. What I mean by run is the hole can get larger than you actually intend for it to be and it can take longer to complete the well. I don't anticipate those things to get to be a problem here and again if that were to be too much of a problem, the screen can be installed to prevent that as well so while there are risks, I don't think that any of them are too significant. On the school property, depending on what you find, what is down there. I know we've already been televising and we've done some test pumping on it, it seems like a very productive well and a very good well. One of the risks on that might be in that it's such an old well and it's been in place for such a long time and not used, there's some potential for the cavern 10 City Council Meeting - January 14, 2008 to collapse. During this project that we're going to be bidding, we're going to have some test pumping and some analysis then to try to analyze that potential and go with it. Collapsing caverns by the way doesn't mean that you're going to have a big hole, sink hole forming at the surface. It's just something that affects the well production but we don't believe that that's going to be a significant problem and if it is, we'll have the item to allow the contractor to deal with the issue and… Councilwoman Ernst: So if any of those conditions should happen to occur, you have a plan as to how to recover from those quickly? Brian Lemont: The ones that we have anticipated, yes. There's always the possibility of the unanticipated ones but the ones that we think, based on the data we have at this time, we believe we've addressed the ones that we think are most likely to occur and we don't feel that any of them are significant issues. We believe in most cases the well should go in just fine. Councilwoman Ernst: Thank you. Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Any other questions? Councilman Litsey: Appreciate the update. Mayor Furlong: Yes, thank you. Mr. Oehme, we appreciate it. Seeing nobody else for visitor presentations, we'll move on. PUBLIC HEARING: REQUEST FOR ON-SALE INTOXICATING LIQUOR LICENSE, APPLEBEE'S RESTAURANTS NORTH, INC. DBA APPLEBEE'S NEIGHBORHOOD TH GRILL & BAR, 590 WEST 79 STREET. Laurie Hokkanen: The Applebee's…they're not planning any changes to the operation but they have changed ownership and that requires an application for a new intoxicating liquor license. Law enforcement conducted a criminal background check and found no comments that would impede them from…and staff is recommending approval of the on-sale intoxicating liquor license. Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Any questions for staff? Sometimes we get these where there's some outstanding items that haven't come in but it looks like their application is complete. Is that correct? Laurie Hokkanen: Right. We haven't received any comments. Mayor Furlong: Okay, thank you. Any other questions for staff? Then at this time I would open up the public hearing and invite all interested parties to come forward and address the council on this matter. Nobody? Last call. Without objection then we'll close the public hearing and bring it back to council for discussion and a vote. Any discussion on this or is there a motion to approve? 11 City Council Meeting - January 14, 2008 Councilwoman Ernst: I make a motion to approve. Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Is there a second? Councilwoman Tjornhom: Second. Mayor Furlong: Made and seconded. Any discussion on the motion? Councilwoman Ernst moved, Councilwoman Tjornhom seconded to approve the request for an on-sale intoxicating liquor license for Applebee's Restaurants North, LLC dba th Applebee's Neighborhood Grill & Bar at 590 West 79 Street. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 4 to 0. DISCUSS CITY COUNCIL VACANCY. Mayor Furlong: In December Governor Pawlenty appointed a member of our City Council, Craig Peterson to serve as our district representative for the Met Council. As such, Councilman Peterson sent an email to the city resigning his position on the City Council effective December th 26 of last year. Earlier tonight as part of our consent agenda the council accepted his resignation and effectively creating a vacancy on our council. Earlier in the work session this evening we discussed for the first time as a council what we wanted to do in terms of filling that position. Our options, based upon state statute are to leave the position open, appoint somebody, and if we choose to appoint somebody, to choose the process that we want to follow in terms of appointing that replacement. We were all in agreement that we wanted to go through an open process and to seek applications from interested residents in that position. And so what we discussed tonight, at least on a preliminary time schedule, was to start seeking applications. Indeed beginning by the end of the day tomorrow put the information on the city's web site with regard to the application information and such like that for those individuals interested in serving on the City Council. We're interested in hearing from anybody who has an interest. If you have questions on it, you're certainly encouraged to contact myself, any member of the City Council. The City Manager, Todd Gerhardt. His phone number will be there. You can send us emails. We'd be happy to talk to you. Answer any questions. A tentative schedule, or schedule at this point that we're moving forward with is we're going to advertise the opening in the Chanhassen thth Villager both this coming Thursday, the 17 as well as the following week on the 24 and setting st an application deadline as of the 31 of this month. The last day of this month. That gives just over 2 weeks. I know that the Villager has done a good job of keeping residents up to date on this but it will give us a couple weeks for those folks who do have an interest to inquire about it. Submit a letter of interest and application. Following that the City Council will meet in a work th session to review the applications and develop a plan of going forward on Monday, the 4 of February. That's our schedule at this point. We're anticipating at that meeting to identify those candidates that we'd like to interview for the position. We're hoping to conduct those interviews later that week and try to move forward diligently in terms of filling this open seat. So at this point I guess, I don't know that we need necessarily any motions or council action but I think we're all in agreement with the schedule, in terms of the deadline and trying to move forward quickly so unless again, the one thing that was pretty clear to me as a council, we were very interested in anybody that's interested in serving. And if you have an interest, it's a good 12 City Council Meeting - January 14, 2008 opportunity call us. Learn about some of the issues coming up in the coming year. I should mention that this term, the term of this seat does expire at the end of this year so it's effectively one year remaining on Councilman Peterson's term but to that end, we have a number of issues coming up this year and we're certainly interested in hearing from people that would like to serve. Any other thoughts or comments in summary or additions? Okay. Very good. We look forward to hearing from people and I know, I expect anyway that it will be a difficult choice because we will, I'm sure we'll have some very, very, very good, qualified candidates. COUNCIL PRESENTATIONS: None. ADMINISTRATIVE PRESENTATIONS: Todd Gerhardt: Just a couple of things Mayor, council members. Lifetime Fitness has opened it's corporate headquarters in Chanhassen. I had the opportunity with Kate and a few staff members to tour their new facility. It's very nice inside and how they fit 400 employees in there is unbelievable. It's just going to be a great asset to our community and to our businesses to have 400 new people coming to Chanhassen to shop and nice just to have them here to support that industrial park and area businesses so we welcome them. If you've been over there and noticed that their parking lot is full. They haven't utilized the underground parking yet. They're still doing work and sealing concrete and finishing up some of the work inside there so you will see some relief in the parking situation in the next couple weeks. Second thing, we had Congressman Klein here a couple weeks ago to talk about some issues and road projects that we see going on in Chanhassen. We also had a nice discussion with him regarding our accomplishments. You were all in attendance. I think that was good feedback. I think the public would be interested in knowing that we meet with our representatives. I'm still working with Representative Hoppe and Senator Ortman in trying to set up a similar meeting with them and would expect to do that in the next couple weeks or so. Some other exciting news that's happened is one of our legislative issues for the past couple of years, this is to try to find funding for the pedestrian underpass under Highway 41. We received notice that the TAC Board, Technical Advisory Commission to Met Council's TAB Board, has selected Chanhassen as a funded project for that pedestrian underpass so that's exciting news. That's about a million dollars that would come to the City of Chanhassen and Carver County, we're co-applicants in that application, to build an underpass underneath Highway 41 to allow access to the Carver Regional Park. So our staff, city staff, Todd Hoffman will be working on, with Carver County on that project and completing the trail along Highway 41 that would take basically from the middle school down to that pedestrian underpass and figuring out how to get a trail along that roadway. And if anybody's driven by there, there's a little pond and some access issues there but we'll figure out a way to get that accomplished so that's a legislative issues we've had going for a couple of years. Exciting news. There is a local match of about $250,000 that we'll have to be putting toward that project but still, it's nice to get that access. The neighborhoods in and around that area are going to really appreciate the barrier free access into the regional park so we're excited about that. Snow plowing has been limited here so far in the new year. We did send trucks out once here, this past weekend so, to clean off the streets. We got a slight dusting there but it was slippery and we thought it was important to get that cleaned off so that's it for my update. 13 City Council Meeting - January 14, 2008 Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Any questions for Mr. Gerhardt? Councilman Litsey: That's a great project. That's good news. Todd Gerhardt: Yeah. We're excited. The TAB Board has to confirm that yet. That's usually they go along with the TAC Board's recommendation but it sounds good. Mayor Furlong: Good work. Very good. Thank you. We'll look forward to future updates. CORRESPONDENCE DISCUSSION. None. Mayor Furlong: With that, if there's nothing else to come before the council this evening, we will convene immediately after the meeting as the EDA and then complete items, unfinished items on our work session following that. Councilwoman Ernst moved, Councilman Litsey seconded to adjourn the meeting. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 4 to 0. The City Council meeting was adjourned at 7:40 p.m. Submitted by Todd Gerhardt City Manager Prepared by Nann Opheim 14