CC 2008 05 27
CHANHASSEN CITY COUNCIL
REGULAR MEETING
MAY 27, 2008
Mayor Furlong called the meeting to order at 7:10 p.m. The meeting was opened with the
Pledge to the Flag.
COUNCIL MEMBERS PRESENT:
Mayor Furlong, Councilman Litsey, Councilwoman
Ernst, Councilwoman Tjornhom, and Councilman McDonald
STAFF PRESENT:
Todd Gerhardt, Elliott Knetsch, Laurie Hokkanen, Paul Oehme, Kate
Aanenson, Todd Hoffman and Terry Jeffery
PUBLIC ANNOUNCEMENTS:
None.
CONSENT AGENDA:Councilman Litsey moved, Councilwoman Ernst 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 May 12, 2008
-City Council Verbatim and Summary Minutes dated May 12, 2008
Receive Commission Minutes:
-Park and Recreation Commission Summary Minutes dated April 22, 2008
b. Accept $750 Donation from Minnetonka Lacrosse for Field Usage.
c. Lyman Boulevard Improvement Project:
1) Approval of Wetland Alteration Permit, Planning Case 08-12.
Resolution #2008-37:
2) Award of Bid, Improvement Project 06-03.
Resolution #2008-38:
d. Lifetime Fitness, Project 04-15: Accept Public Improvements.
All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 5 to 0.
VISITOR PRESENTATIONS:
Tommy Scanlon: Hello. I’m Tommy Scanlon from Chanhassen Dinner Theater. We’re down
there. I don’t know the address. Thank you for giving me this opportunity to address you. I
think you’re all aware of why I came tonight. It’s my father’s theater. I’m just acting as
spokesman. He had a stroke a number of years ago and is unable to get around very well. A
week ago on Saturday we were notified that language was inserted into legislation in a tax bill
that covered the Mall of America essentially targeting us and knocking us out of, since we were
the only theater that could have gone in at that point in time. And we took great exception to
City Council Meeting - May 27, 2008
that, particularly since it was somebody from Chanhassen, Representative Hoppe. And I voiced
my displeasure and I’m going to continue to voice my displeasure with it, but what I came to the
City Council for is to say that I want to invite the City Council to come over to the Chanhassen
to learn personally the obstacles that we have to staying in Chanhassen. The building. Problems
with the proposed developments. The developments that haven’t taken place, and potential
future developments. I don’t think you all are aware of the obstacles we have and why, as it
stands now, developing in Chanhassen is one of the most difficult things we have to do. We’ve
never come here and asked for subsidy. We’ve never been subsidized. We’ll never be
subsidized. But I also came here to ask that the council direct the staff members, or anybody
speaking for Chanhassen, quit implying that we’re receiving and being lured by a subsidy. That
we were in fact getting subsidy from the Mall of America to move. In fact we didn’t move
because we aren’t. We’ve never been offered. We’d be a standard lessee. This is a misleading
statement. It’s not fair to us. It’s just part of the ongoing, the ongoing plot to you know keep us
out of the mall. We have an opportunity at the mall. We have a great opportunity at the mall.
We have no opportunity here because there’s no development here. There is one there. There’s
nothing here. We have worked 3 years here to try and be part of a development. None has come
to pass. Now there’s work going on right at this moment to try, with other developers to try and
see if something can happen, and we’re always open to looking at it. Right now the best interest
of our theater and the best interest of our 300 employees lie over at the Mall of America. We’re
open to talking to you, but I really wish you’d come over to our theater to see the obstacles that
we are facing. I’m not blaming anyone. A lot of them are just the way things are. Tax problems
that an estate faces. You know a bad market for development right now. But we do have these
issues. I want to commend Councilman McDonald for asking me and extending outreaching to
me to try and reach some accord with you or get some sort of repoire with you. I don’t know any
of you. I’ve talked to some of you on the phone. I can say honestly right now that your staff has
no credibility with me and you know I’d like to work with you people. I’d like to do it in a
collegial manner, but right now we still have some significant scars, and we’re going to continue
to be scarred if this subsidy thing keeps getting thrown at us. We have not received any subsidy.
We have not been offered any subsidy and we are not going to get any subsidy so I would
implore you to instruct the people who work for the city of Chanhassen to just knock that off,
because it’s disingenuous. It’s not true. And that’s my statement.
Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Any thoughts or comments at this point?
Councilman McDonald: Well I guess Mr. Mayor, seeing as how I kind of inserted myself into
all this, first of all I’d like to say that I don’t think it’s in the city’s best interest for the dinner
theater to leave and I really feel that what had happened here was there were a number of things
where the dinner theater and some of staff got put in the middle between bigger things that were
going on. The whole issue about subsidies I feel is between cities. I think that comments that
were made about that were probably correct from a city to city standpoint. I’m not sure in
reading in the press that you know anything was directly attributed to the dinner theater maybe
getting money. Maybe there’s some miscommunication there but it’s pretty clear from reading
the record that what had happened was, there were a number of things going on between the City
of Minneapolis and the City of St. Paul, and that they were looking to protect their individual turf
against the City of Bloomington, and so because of that they put some language in there that I
think we as a city would find very offensive and we did because again from our perspective,
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from the City’s perspective, from the community, it is not in our best interest for the dinner
theater to be leaving. And I think that you know if it does, and we have said so many times, that
if it leaves as a business, we’re not going to stand in it’s way. I think that we should try as a
community to try to do something to help it if there’s something that we can do, and I really
applaud Mr. Scanlon for coming in and actually extending the offer to sit down and talk with us
because in all the time I’ve been involved with the city, from the planning commission all the
way up, I don’t think anyone’s ever come to us to talk about plans for the dinner theater. I
understand in talking with Mr. Scanlon here that again, he’s a third party involved on a piece of
property that he doesn’t own. He’s depending upon other people to do something and I don’t
think anyone’s really talking to us, the city, really know what anybody wants to do. I don’t
know if subsidies are involved or if we have to do anything at all. You know as far to my
knowledge, no one’s ever approached us about doing something, and I think until that happens, I
don’t know what the city can really do so I would encourage that we need to have this dialogue.
We need to find out what are the problems that the dinner theater has got. We need to see if
there is something that we can do within the balance of what we could do as a city, and try to
encourage that the dinner theater stays here. I don’t know what that’s going to take because
again no one’s come forward with any kind of solid plans. I don’t know if it’s going to cost us
money or if it’s just going to cost us support to say yeah, we’re in support of this. We need to
have something firmer I think on the table and I think that maybe this could be an opportunity for
the two sides to really start to get together and kind of mend our, you know the bad feelings that
are between us and to do something to help the community. That’s in the dinner theater’s best
interest and it’s in the community’s best interest. So again my feeling is that we should accept
the offer to maybe talk to the dinner theater and find out what their problems are, and then to
take it from there if there’s something going forward that we could do but I just, I did not think
that it was very productive to get this down to a position of accusing people of doing things when
I think everyone on both sides had their own best interests at heart. And in any business
situation, they don’t always line up completely so I think that we should just move forward and
try to do what we can to help each other out here.
Mayor Furlong: Thank you Councilman McDonald. I think, as Mr. Scanlon talked about from
the work that’s been done over the years to try to look at some development and redevelopment
in this part of our downtown, there have been quite a few efforts, quite a few meetings to do that
and the challenge is I think, as you mentioned sir, there are a lot of parties in place. And you’re a
tenant to the building so obviously there’s a landlord. Southwest Transit, which is located as a
park and ride facility right next door to the property to the dinner theater is looking to construct a
parking ramp with a transit station there in the city and Southwest Transit and Bloomberg
Companies, I believe your own company, has had various conversations over the years, and I
think we have to redouble our efforts there to see what we can do in that area. I agree with you
that having the Chanhassen Dinner Theater in Chanhassen is certainly preference but having
them be successful in Chanhassen is the key. Not just being here and that’s true for all our
businesses, and so how we can work together with our businesses, especially in the downtown
area to continue to grow and build the local economy so that all businesses can be successful is
clearly an interest for us as a council and for all the residents in town too so I think you know I
know that there’s been work done prior or meetings held and I think we have to find a way to
perhaps redouble our efforts there, but to find a way that, as you said, not everybody’s interest
always align but what we need to do is find perhaps through a combination and compromise are
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ways to find a solution that works for the majority and helps, meets their needs and so that is
clearly something that we have been working on and I think we’ll continue to work on so that we
can try to find a solution for all concerned. So thank you for coming this evening. We
appreciate your comments. Anyone else from a visitor presentations standpoint? If not we’ll
move onto the next item on our agenda.
LAW ENFORCEMENT/FIRE DEPARTMENT UPDATE.
Sgt. Peter Anderley: Good evening Mayor, council. Again you have the monthly numbers. If
there’s any questions, anything you’d like answered, I certainly can do that. Warm weather’s
coming out. People are starting to be a little more active. We did see some thefts from vehicles
last week so we again remind everybody to make sure you’re securing your valuables. The other
thing is there’s a lot more kids out running around. Like to remind the parents and stuff, now
with summer coming and school’s out, the curfew. 16 and 17 year olds, 11:00 during the week.
On Friday’s and Saturday’s at midnight. Under 15, make sure it’s 10:00 during the week and
11:00 on the weekends and we are going to try to really crack down on the curfew. That seems
to be some of the problem areas we’ve experienced in the past is with the kids out you know
1:00-2:00 in the morning and you know we’ll be sending them home and calling some parents if
we are finding the kids out that time of night. Again and even during the day with the younger
kids, you know start watching for the bicycles. The little kids at the playgrounds and just
remember so everybody can have a safe summer away from school so.
Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Any questions for the sergeant?
Councilman Litsey: Just a quick question. How’s the investigator position working out so far?
Sgt. Peter Anderley: You know it’s going really well. I kind of, it was a little slow last month.
You know there was kind of a lull in the action but again now we’ve had some thefts from
vehicles and things like that and I know today he got a couple of more cases on his desk so he’s
working those pretty hard and, we’re actually getting some good results and allowing the
deputies a lot more time out on the street. So far it’s coming together quite well and hope to
have some numbers from the first quarter here shortly for you.
Councilman Litsey: Is it a good resource for the patrol deputies to have in terms of someone to
go to to kind of bounce ideas and things off of too or?
Sgt. Peter Anderley: Yeah, it’s been real helpful. You know one case, an example, we had a
credit card theft that the person was up in Plymouth using it at a convenience store and I think a
Target store up there. They had video footage. Sometimes that can take a while to go up and get
the video footage. The deputy has a hard time leaving his patrol area. He’s responsible for calls
also. The investigator was able just to jump in his car that afternoon. Go up there and was able
to obtain a copy and get it back here and we were able to identify the suspect that afternoon,
where that might have taken you know a few days, if not weeks to get an investigator or a deputy
time enough away from his patrol duties to go up and get that. So that’s very helpful when
there’s stuff outside the city that we can afford to get somebody out of the city to investigate this
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type of thing when before we had a hard time you know leaving the city unprotected you know
for any amount of time.
Councilman Litsey: That’s good to hear. Thanks.
Mayor Furlong: Thank you. And I guess to follow up, you said numbers. I assume you’re
going to try to track case loads and.
Sgt. Peter Anderley: Yep. We’re looking at the case load that he has. The amount of open
cases. Closed cases. And then closing those you know with the way they were cleared. Were
they exceptionally cleared? Were they charged out? Arrested. That type of stuff.
Mayor Furlong: What’s the coordination between the inspector position and on the prosecution
side with the attorney in terms of coordinating that. We’ve got the advantage here tonight with
Elliott here. It’s a good discussion point in terms of making sure that what your group does, with
the deputies and the inspector do will actually turn into useful information. Quality information
from a prosecution standpoint, and that’s I guess to both of you as well from a question
standpoint.
Sgt. Peter Anderley: You know it’s the same process right now the deputies use. They complete
the reports. Do the investigation. If something that warrants charges, it gets forwarded up to the
City Attorney’s office. They look at it you know and decide what, review all the reports and
decide what’s chargeable and what should be the appropriate charges.
Councilman Litsey: Is it helpful in terms of a, you know having kind of a go to guy there to, as a
prosecutor, if you need some additional follow up or something?
Elliott Knetsch: I think it is helpful and you know I think we’ve found in a very high percentage
of cases that the reports when they come to us have already been reviewed by a supervisor and
they’re in pretty good shape. It’s a fairly rare occurrence that we would review reports and need
additional investigation, but I think you know the quality when it gets to us will be enhanced by
having this additional person here. It’s just another experienced person who can have the time to
devote to produce a quality product that leads to charges and leads to convictions.
Mayor Furlong: Very good, thank you. Any other questions? Councilwoman Ernst.
Councilwoman Ernst: Sergeant Anderley, some time ago we talked about the investigator
coming on board and possibly getting some of the open cases that were actually there before he
transitioned into the current position, excuse me, and I’m wondering if that, the transition in
some of those open cases occurred or is that something that he’s just going to start with fresh,
new cases and how that works.
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Sgt. Peter Anderley: No when Detective Zydowsky actually took over, I believe January 1 as
Chanhassen as his area of coverage, where he investigated and was assigned all open cases
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through the first part of the year. When March 1 came along we brought him into city hall as
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the contract investigator and then we also brought Deputy Stranberg then took over March 1
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handling baseline from the county standpoint. So the cases that some of those that were open,
yes. Were brought in with Deputy Zydowsky who was able to continue to work those. He didn’t
just I guess get you know a zero case load when he first started. He had some that were open and
brought in. Those since I believe most of them have closed. If they haven’t, some of them might
have got transferred over to Detective Stranberg depending on what type of area he was working
at.
Councilwoman Ernst: And will those numbers come in the report when you bring those back as
well?
Sgt. Peter Anderley: Yeah, some of those will, and that’s kind of the numbers that I kind of
looked at to first you know pull some numbers and look, it’s kind of a little confusing because he
may have more cases closed than he was assigned. For that simple fact is we weren’t keeping
track of you know what cases really got assigned to him, or I didn’t start looking at them until
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March 1. Well he came with a bunch of open reports and so when those get closed, so right
now he’s got more closures than he does reports assigned to him so the numbers, that’s why I
said the first quarter’s going to be maybe a little confusing but you know I’d certainly be more
than happy to sit down once I get those together and explain and break it down and then it should
get easier to understand as we go on and be able to show some more trends.
Councilwoman Ernst: Great, thank you.
Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Any other questions for Sergeant Anderley? No? Very good.
Thank you. Chief Geske is here this evening. Good evening Chief.
Chief Gregg Geske: Good evening. In reviewing the council update, or the information that was
in your packet, apparently they’re checking to see if you’re reading that or not because parts of it
were from March and a couple of you saw that. Apparently have issue there but so I’ll just go
over the current numbers. As of today we’re at 210 calls for the year compared to 220 for last
year so we’re down 10 calls. Our building fires have been up slightly. We’re at 8 for the year as
compared to 5 at the same time last year so. Fire training, or training this month consisted of
water rescue training. Boat operations. We got our boat out with everybody and got that out and
running. Doing some ladders training and then live fire training out at the west metro training
facility so. We’ve got 3 probationary members we’ve taken on here at the end of the month, or
the first part of June. Came from a selection process. We started out with 11 and basically got
down to 3 now so we’ll be starting a new class and that’s, as the probationary process is about a
year long. We had one that’s got quite a bit of training already done, but the other ones it’s about
a year process before we take them on full time so to speak and they’ll be taking their Fire
Fighter I, Fire Fighter II, Hazardous Materials and First Responder training so. We did respond
to mutual aid on Sunday to a structure fire down in Chaska and much as we saw in the tornadoes
up in the northern suburbs, a lot of the fire departments over the holiday weekends, just like any
other thing, we have a lot of people that out of town. Pretty short staffed on the weekends so
Chaska called mutual aid from quite a few departments and like I say up north in Hugo, they
depended upon other departments in the area to call in. There was a pretty good response and we
take that advantage to call the other departments and get mutual aid in when we’re all short
staffed, whether it be daytime calls or on a weekend call like that when we are short staffed so.
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Along with that Sunday was one of the first hot, humid days, albeit it cooled off in a hurry and
Sunday night and Monday was pretty cool but it’s pretty taxing, especially at a structure fire with
the personnel coming out so it’s good to rotate people. That’s about all I have to report.
Mayor Furlong: Okay. Quick question. You brought up the holiday weekend and such. How
do you, within the department, try to manage and have an idea of who’s going to be in town?
Who isn’t and to make sure people know that it might be a little more motivation to respond to a
call. Obviously they want to respond when they can but.
Chief Gregg Geske: Sure, and we do have a board that people do post when they’re going to be
out of town so if we do notice that there’s unusually large number of people but with a volunteer
paid per call department, you know we have enough members that usually there’s enough in
town and for the bigger calls, the non-medical type calls or fire calls, that’s when we do depend
on mutual aid. But we take notice if there is a lot of names on the board before it starts getting
full that we make sure that we do, the other people that are in town are able to respond.
Sometimes whether it be bad weather or something, we may put a duty crew on where we have 3
people definitely you know that are at the station on duty at the time so we’ll take note of that.
Mayor Furlong: Very good. Any other questions for the chief? No? Very good. Thank you.
Chief Gregg Geske: Thank you.
PUBLIC HEARING: STORMWATER POLLUTION PREVENTION PROGRAM
(NPDES), PHASE II MS4 PERMIT.
Terry Jeffery: Mr. Mayor, council members. Again I appreciate the opportunity to be before
you tonight. I am here tonight to discuss the MS4 permit and specifically the 2007 Annual
Report to receive public comment on that document so that it can be incorporated into our permit
and then to approve the distribution of the 2007 Annual Report. I just want to give a quick
background. How we got here. Where we’re moving from and touch on the highlights on
what’s been done. As most of you are aware, the Minnesota Citizen Environmental Advocacy
Organization filed suit against the PCA several years back about the non-degradation, which
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prompted the re-issuance of the permit. So on May 30, 2006 the City of Chanhassen
resubmitted their NPDES permit. In February of this last year we went through the non-
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degradation process, which is part of the NPDES permit. That was submitted on April 11 of
this year we submitted Part 4 of that permit, which is our impaired waters. And so ultimately
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what I’m getting at is that on April 22 our coverage was extended for this permit. Why we’re
doing this again. It’s just the water resources in this town. Prior to this last few decades it was
always into pipe sources. That resulted in water quality problems. Now we’re finding storm
water to be the biggest source. So what I’d like to do is I have this whole laundry list in the staff
report of highlights. I would like to tie it back to the SWPPP and how it really fits into the
SWPPP. There are 6 minimum control measures in our Storm Water Pollution Prevention Plan.
So these, the list that you have in your report comes from these 6 minimum control measures.
The first one being public education and outreach. I guess I need to, I really want to emphasize
Jill Sinclair, Krista Spreiter and Lori Haak prior to me being here did an exceptional job with
this. Between publications in the Chanhassen Connection, newspaper articles, the web site and
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others, they have done a very good job of public education. As always there’s always things we
can improve on. I would like to look to the other cities to see what they are doing to see if there
are ways that we can collaborate with them. Trying to avoid some of the redundancies and be a
little more efficient. Public involvement is just what we’re doing today, and then we also have
the non-degradation public hearing. We have the hotline. We had the Arbor Day meeting. I
want to continue to find ways that we can solicit more comments as we move forward. Perhaps
it’s online commenting or things of that…but overall we are fully implementing this portion of
our permit. The third one is the illicit discharge protection elimination. Chanhassen was
actually well ahead of the curve on this. If I’m not mistaken it was around 1986 that you first
implemented some type of a regulatory program regarding illicit discharge in the stormwater
system. Chapter 19. But between the volunteer work and the boy scouts and the recycling, the
citizens of this city have been diligent about seeking out and utilizing Carver County
Environmental Services that are available. And then public works themselves have been doing
their own in-house. That is spelled out in the SWPPP and they have been implementing that. As
we move forward I would just like to review Articles IV and VI of Chapter 19. Make sure we
are in compliance. Make sure that our I and I program that Joe Shamla and Paul Oehme are
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working on is incorporated into this. We will finish up the storm sewer mapping on June 30 of
this year, and then finally Jerry Mohn in inspections will be reviewing the rule changes for the
individual sewage treatment system that took place in 2008. And making sure that we are in
compliance with that. Four. Minimum control measure 4 is the one we’re all most familiar with.
That is the construction site. Making sure that there is no discharge from a construction site of 1
acre in size or better. We are working with the Soil and Water Conservation District to do most
of our inspections. We do some of them in-house and then we have a small area that is in
Minnehaha Creek watershed district where they do inspections. We as a staff will also inspect
those sites. We have 36 inspections were done last year and on top of the individual permit
holders, those that are 1 acre in size or greater, we also as a staff, between the inspections
department and water resources department will inspect the individual building permits to make
sure that they are in compliance with our erosion control ordinance. Currently we are developing
a GIS database and that will be linked to a GPS data logger so that we can, that we can on the
right side look at create a database of those sites that are in non-compliance. Create a database
of inspections that we have done so we can always draw from that. And then again on the right
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side, Minnehaha Creek watershed district, as I mentioned, has a small area of town. Per the 2
Generation Surface Water Management Plan, they’re asking for, it was part of their request that
we enter into a memorandum of understanding with them. I’ll be coming forward to you with
that in future meetings to discuss that. Minimum control measure 5. After it’s built, what are we
doing? Last year you updated both the woodland protection and the wetland protection
ordinances. We only have got 4 pond clean out’s done, which you know isn’t so good.
However, we’re doing 3 more starting this week actually and then I have identified at least 7
more to look at this fall to do as well. And then there were the projects that year done with
Riley-Purgatory, including the ponds by Rice Marsh Lake as well as the expansion of that pond
on Highway 5 and Market Boulevard. As we move forward, according to our permit, I will need
to develop training for staff. That will need to be fully implemented by next year, and then
ordinance review. Structural best management practices versus non-structural best management
practices. Structural best management practices are what we think of as pipe to pond. Sump
manholes. Environmental manholes. But the non-structural again is the thing we’ve always
been struggling with. How do we look at other options like buffers or tree preservation and
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incorporate that into site design so that we can have that and apply it towards our impaired
waters or our non-degradation assessments so we’ll be looking at that. And the last thing there I
have is notice of termination and that applies to when a site takes out their individual permit to
do construction, they’re required at the end of it to file a notice of termination with the PCA.
Well if you drive around most developments you’ll always see a line of silt fence maybe adjacent
to a wetland or sitting on an easement somewhere that was never removed and that’s because
there is no mechanism for getting that contractor or that developer to remove that because the
notice of termination that they’re supposed to file with the PCA, there’s no, there’s nothing
associated with it. So if they never filed it, it’s just an open case but nobody can come after them
for anything so I want to look at a way to, because this is something I’ve actually gotten a lot of
calls on from residents. We still have this silt fence. What can we do about it? So just to close
out that permit. And then the last one is the manual control measures. And this is the city’s
operations and maintenance and what we do with our structures to reduce storm water pollution
to our surface water. Again our sump manholes, the inspection and maintenance has been
fantastic. The street sweeping program has been working very well. The one I’d like to draw
your attention to is the 3% of pond and outfall inspections that were performed which is well
below the 20% we were supposed to have done. I’d like to add a caveat to that. The preceding
year 100% of that were inspected so we have had full inspection. We are currently, as I said,
developing a database so that we can continue to do that, and to make sure we stay on that cycle
so every fifth year we have assessed 100% of them. Upcoming needs are, I looked at
development criteria for maintaining or replacing the structural best management practices. The
outfalls. The sump manholes. Right now it tends to be more subjective and certainly we don’t
have the finances or the resources to go and just replace one because somebody’s complained or
we think there may be an issue so I would like to develop a more objective way to look at it and
say based on this criteria, this one would fit for replacement. Then the other is re-looking at our
public works. The storage area there and how can we, there’s some certain limitations with that
site. We make sure that we use it and still continue to protect our surface waters from that site.
And then the road salt calibration will be an ongoing every year, as we look at that. So the
challenges that we’ve been having at this point are coordination between departments, and I
don’t want to say that there isn’t conversation. There isn’t dialogue between departments. There
are just certain things that logistically create problems. For instance, street sweeping and hydrant
flushing. Hydrant flushing has to begin and finish by a certain time. Street sweeping can’t start
until a certain time. For instance if there’s ice in the gutters. It’s not effective to sweep the
streets at that time. But the street sweeping should take place before the hydrant flushing takes
place so how do we coordinate that and make that happen? So those are some of the challenges
we’ve been getting. The 3% inspections that was brought up earlier. I’ll guarantee you we’ve
inspected far more than 3% of the ponds and the outfalls over the last year. Just a public works
streets department alone has exceeded that number. What happens is, so say a resident calls and
says, there’s a dead animal in the outlet. Streets department goes out there. Looks at it. Cleans
out that area. At the same time they’ve inspected it, but that doesn’t go in the inspection log so I
want to find a way to make sure that we have some type of a resident concern log and
inspections log that we can merge those because I’m certain our numbers would be considerably
higher had we done that, which brings it into the database management and maintenance. And
then finally, you know some of my frustration has been with, so we get the NPDES Phase II
permit done and we get this SWPPP for that. Storm Water Pollution Prevention Plan. And we
get the non-degradation done. Then we have to revisit our SWPPP and look at, do we need to
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City Council Meeting - May 27, 2008
change any of the best management practices we have, and then we do the Part IV of Appendix
C and then we have to revisit our BMP’s. So it’s a stop and start method. We finally have them
all done so hopefully that means we can move forward without this turkey jerky method. That’s
all I have. I thank you for your time and if you have any questions I’d be happy to answer them.
Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Any questions for staff at this time?
Councilwoman Tjornhom: Just a real quick one. I think rain gardens is something you know
new that we’ve been implementing. Do we have any ideas of how successful they are or?
Terry Jeffery: Councilwoman Tjornhom, Mayor. One of them, you know we have the Lake
Ann one and we’re also looking at the one along Kerber Pond. What I’d like to do there is
actually draft some baseline data beforehand and do some end of pipe grab sampling so we can
start looking at that and see for that very reason. I mean if it turns out that we aren’t getting
infiltration that is anticipated, yeah then we may need to start looking at other BMP’s. There’s
certainly no reason chasing after an ineffective method. The studies I’ve read have shown them
to be quite effective. However having said that, it would be nice to have data that is from
Chanhassen. So yes, we will continue to pursue that and as we, as was discussed in the non-
degradation I’d also start to look at a larger SWPPP. Something that would give more options to
the developer. Give them a little more control of how they’re going to look at their site and
design it to meet some of these, rather than saying you will put in a rain garden here or you will
put a pond in here. Maybe through some site design, a number of different practices, they can
come up with something that would meet the same objectives and meet their objectives as well at
the same time. So yes, we will be starting…
Councilwoman Tjornhom: Thanks.
Mayor Furlong: Good. Any other questions at this time?
Councilman Litsey: I just got to compliment you. Good job on pulling this all together and I
like the ideas and suggestions that you kind of have surfaced to the top here and you can work on
so I think it’s going to make a difference. So thanks.
Mayor Furlong: Councilwoman Ernst.
Councilwoman Ernst: I think I zoned out when you were talking about this so if you could
clarify for me. When you were talking about the GPS concept, can you explain that a little
more?
Terry Jeffery: Yeah. Councilwoman Ernst, Mayor. As we go out and let’s say I go into Section
1 and I want to look at every outfall that goes into a pond or into the lake, I can go out with the
GIS, or rather, excuse me. With my GPS and it will actually have pull down menus so I’ll stand
on the outfall and I’ll have the pull down menu of what’s the size of pipe. What’s the condition
of the pipe? Is there a delta visible? Depth of pond. Things of that nature. And then that can be
taken back to the office and put into a database where I can have all of that located, you know so
I can pull up map. Pull up a point on a map and know everything about it. What day was it
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City Council Meeting - May 27, 2008
inspected? Who inspected it and what were the conditions there and that way when we need to
generate a report for the PCA or the EPA or just for my own what ponds need to be cleaned this
fall, it’s right there and I can just retrieve it.
Councilwoman Ernst: Okay. Okay, thank you.
Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Any other questions? No? If not then we show a public hearing, is
that correct?
Terry Jeffery: Yes.
Mayor Furlong: Okay. So without objection we’ll open the public hearing and invite any
interested parties to come forward and speak to the council on this issue. Seeing nobody then,
without objection we’ll close the public hearing and bring it back to council. Any other thoughts
or comments on this? There’s a request for a motion that’s included on the first page of the staff
report. Would anybody like to move adoption of the recommended motion?
Councilman McDonald: I’ll move to, for the motion Mr. Mayor.
Mayor Furlong: Thank you.
Councilman McDonald: I would move that the Chanhassen City Council authorize the Mayor to
sign the City’s National Pollution Discharge Elimination System (NPDES), Phase II, annual
report as attached to this report and authorizes the distribution of the annual report to the
Minnesota Pollution Control Agency.
Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Is there a second?
Councilwoman Ernst: Second.
Mayor Furlong: Any discussion on the motion? Clarify for me, when is that due?
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Terry Jeffery: June 30.
Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Any other discussion?
Councilman McDonald moved, Councilwoman Ernst seconded that the Chanhassen City
Council authorize the mayor to sign the City’s National Pollution Discharge Elimination
System (NPDES) Phase II Annual Report, as attached, and authorize the distribution of the
Annual Report to the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency. All voted in favor and the
motion carried unanimously with a vote of 5 to 0.
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City Council Meeting - May 27, 2008
CONSIDER APPROVAL OF RESOLUTION AUTHORIZING SUBMITTAL OF THE
2030 COMPREHENSIVE PLAN TO THE METROPOLITAN COUNCIL.
Kate Aanenson: Thank you Mayor, members of the City Council. I’m pleased to bring forward
to you the first reading of the, approval of the first reading of the 2030 draft comprehensive plan.
What we’re looking for tonight with the approval of this first reading. Again this would then go
up to the Met Council and they have another 120 days to review this. We don’t anticipate that
timeframe because we did get some pretty thorough comments on our draft so we anticipate a
shorter review period. Just to give you some background again. This is our vision statement. It
is not the implementation but it’s our vision that we want to tie back to the implementation
which is the city code, which we’ve talked about also doing the first part of the year that will
come back and make some changes to. We’re creating a couple new zoning districts, so we’ll be
sharing that with you. We did have the public hearings this fall with the Planning Commission,
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which cumulated into a recommendation to you on January 15. Our comment period closed the
first part of April and through April and May then we went chapter by chapter again, reviewing
the changes and the comments that were received. Whether they were jurisdictional comments.
Comments from the Met Council or comments received from property owners or interested
parties, so we’ve gone through all those. The changes have been made to date. That does not
mean that we cannot make a change or the Met Council may have some final tweaks. Certainly
minor changes can be made again through this, but we believe that we have met compliance with
all the requirements from the Met Council, and I did put in your staff report a summary of the
chapters to date. I’m not going to go through those now. If there was any specific questions I’d
be happy to answer those but I would like again to thank all the city staff for helping put this
together with all the department effort, and we’re really pleased with the process that we had and
the comments that we did receive and I appreciate your participation in reviewing. Taking the
time to go through all that. So with that I would recommend approval of the first reading. Now
when it comes back for second reading, you actually approve a resolution adopting it, but again
this is just forwarding it up to the Met Council.
Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Any questions for staff? In terms of some of the comments that
came out of the work session. I noticed there were a couple specifically highlighted, but most of
those and other comments that you received have been, generally have been incorporated.
Kate Aanenson: Yes. They have been incorporated. When we, all the goals and policies were
moved to the front of the document. There were some changes here to make it more current. I
think since we put it together almost a year ago, we refreshed some of those data points and
made those to date. Whether it was bond rating or debt capacity. Some of those things were all
current. Since we, one of the issues we did have was the population projections. We just
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received last week, we moved 2/10 of a point forward in our favor on the next iteration but they
are reviewing their policy regarding population projections but that is still one point of
contention between the city and the Met Council, but other than that I think we, I know the last
issue we had was still just make some minor tweaks on the water and those have all been
completed so we should be in good shape to go forward with the review with the Met Council.
Mayor Furlong: Very good. Thank you. Any other questions?
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City Council Meeting - May 27, 2008
Councilman McDonald: Well I’m not sure if this is the time, I really don’t have any questions
but I just have really a comment. You know I’ve been involved with this for over a year now I
guess and I have to say that I was a little bit worried about it because of the size of everything
but all throughout this entire process I think it has been very well run. It’s been, you know the
way that we addressed it was very well I think handed, when I was on the Planning Commission
it was easy to understand. To grasp. Make comments back to, and I just think a lot of that credit
goes back to Kate and her staff because again this is a very complex and complicated document
because of everything that is taken into account but the way that the information flowed, both on
the Planning Commission and also on City Council, I think makes it easy for us to understand
and make decisions about whether or not this goes forward. And I just can’t say enough about
Kate and her staff because I think they made this a very easy process compared to what it
definitely could have been and what I’ve heard about from other cities and communities so with
that I just want to say thank you.
Kate Aanenson: Thank you.
Councilman Litsey: Yeah, I’d like to echo the same feelings. You’ve done an incredible job.
All staff members that have been involved in this process. You know being on now my second
year on the council you know and getting this task to work through and really set vision for the
future of the city, having such an incredibly talented group of people to work with on this, and it
includes the council too and the time that was spent on this and just working through it and
having a process in place that we can take it step by step and really get it to understand it and get
our arms around it. Good work by the Planning Commission too setting the ground work for
this. It was really kind as I said an enjoyable experience getting really to know the city and
having a chance to set a vision for the future so thank you very much for all your good work.
This took a lot of staff time so thank you.
Mayor Furlong: Any other council comments?
Councilwoman Tjornhom: …better than I would have stated it but one also thing that’s
important is that it was a public process. You know citizens had their input and their thoughts
also which I think makes it a good process and a fair process and so thank you to all the public
and the staff for what they did.
Mayor Furlong: Councilwoman Ernst.
Councilwoman Ernst: I concur with everything else that everyone has said, and thank you Kate,
Todd, city staff. Did a great job.
Mayor Furlong: Obviously there’s no more questions on this. The other thing that came to me
through this process was a stronger realization that this is a living document as well. It’s not a
final document. It’s not a set in stone document. It is a comprehensive plan and comprehensive
is a very appropriate adjective, but it is still a plan and it’s where we see things going at this time.
It was a very open and public process. The open houses were well attended. The public hearing
was well attended. The process was I think very appropriately and all cities can’t say this but we
were fortunate that we had the ability and the time in-house to get this done. It was clearly a
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City Council Meeting - May 27, 2008
cooperative effort among the departments to really try to represent what the residents and
businesses in Chanhassen see going forward and how we see we will continue to develop. We
are still a growing city and there’s been a lot of emphasis on quality of life. There’s been a lot of
emphasis on economic development and how we see our city continuing to grow and prosper and
so I won’t go down the list. Everybody’s been thanked appropriately and, but just to say that, try
to summarize a little bit. Very pleased with the process. The fact that we are going through this
as we are says that the process worked very well here and that it, that the questions were
addressed and answered. Maybe not to everyone’s complete satisfaction. I recognize that but
still as part of the public process it is one that has worked well here and it is a living document.
There’s work to be done. There are code amendments to take place and I assume we’re going to
be working on those here during this period so we can keep it moving forward, and that’s going
to show everybody I think at the Planning Commission, residents, businesses, and council, staff
as well, kind of how we see starting to implement some of the changes that are in this plan from
the prior plan so thank you to everyone involved. It’s an excellent job. Job well done and
appreciate everyone’s efforts getting it there. With that there is a motion to approve the first
reading of the comprehensive plan as listed in the staff report. Is someone willing to adopt that
motion?
Councilman Litsey: I’ll make the motion. Make a motion that the City Council approves the
first reading of the 2030 comprehensive plan and authorizes submittal to the Metropolitan
Council for review pursuant to Minnesota Statutes 473.175, 473.851, 473.866.
Mayor Furlong: Did you have those statutes memorized?
Councilman Litsey: I do. Did you want me to. It is my job.
Mayor Furlong: Is there a second?
Councilman McDonald: I’ll second.
Mayor Furlong: Motion’s been made and seconded. Any discussion? If not, this vote does
require 2/3 or 4 votes of the council.
Councilman Litsey moved, Councilman McDonald seconded that the City Council
approves the first reading of the 2030 comprehensive plan and authorizes submittal to the
Metropolitan Council for review pursuant to Minnesota Statutes 473.175, 473.851, 473.866.
All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 5 to 0.
COUNCIL PRESENTATIONS:
Councilwoman Tjornhom: I just want to say we all I guess attended the Veteran’s.
Mayor Furlong: Everybody was there, yes.
Todd Gerhardt: You know our names…
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City Council Meeting - May 27, 2008
Councilwoman Tjornhom: And I’m pleased to announce the mayor did not break his shovel. It
was someone else. But it was really a heart felt dedication I thought. It’s a long time coming for
something like this in our town, and it’s something well deserved for all those people who have
served and so I’m just, it was, the weather turned out to be cooperating yesterday, which was
good, and it was I think just one of those events that kind of brings our town together and the
turnout was amazing and so I just want to say how pleased I was and how touched I was by
yesterday.
Councilman Litsey: Well said. I thought the same thing. I mean it was nice to see the turnout.
The community spirit. The commitment to getting this done and it was nice to have the lunch
afterwards. Or the dinner I guess it was at that point. Just people sitting around and having a
chance to talk. It was a great community event and Mayor, you did a good job of representing
the city and what it means to the community so thank you.
Mayor Furlong: Thank you and glad you bring that up. Clearly the turnout I think was beyond
most people’s expectations that were involved. The American Legion and the citizen committee
did a great job organizing it. Thank you to the staff for their work and working at the park and
really for, and the Legion for working on the dinner. It was great but I think the turnout
especially you know as I see that, that really supported the interest in this project that I think we
all thought was there but now it’s been confirmed from a city standpoint, we need to move this
forward. It’s important that we get this done and get it done timely so I know we’ve made some
great progress on fund raising. We need to do more there and I’m confident that this committee
with the energy generated yesterday is going to see that that gets done so. Again for the record,
it was good to see the entire council at the event and that would include Vicki Ernst and Bethany
Tjornhom and Bryan Litsey, as well as Jerry McDonald. My apologies to all of you. As my son
asked afterwards, if we were going to put names on the monument. I said no, based on personal
experience as soon as you mention somebody, you’re going to miss somebody so there will be
no names on the monument. But no, it was a great event and thank you all for being there and
for everybody that made it happen. It was a lot of fun. Other thoughts and comments. Council
presentations. If not, administrative presentations Mr. Gerhardt.
ADMINISTRATIVE PRESENTATIONS:
Todd Gerhardt: I just want to recognize the mayor again for his efforts. He had breakfast with
the Chamber members about 2 weeks ago and I think we had about 45 people attend that event.
It was the State of the City address and Tom did another great job in representing the city and
talking about our accomplishments and future projects so you did a great job there. And then
we turned around and had breakfast with the seniors the following week and you know they
weren’t without their questions and challenging questions some of them were but they were also
very appreciative of the city and what services we provide to the seniors so just wanted to extend
those thoughts for those people that did attend that event. Then one last thing, update on wells.
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We did get a little delay on our well installation. Now the deadline is June 9. We thought we
had some arrangements with Xcel to put the transformers inside the vault. Unfortunately their
policy did not allow that to occur so we had to order a transformer to the outside so that gave us
a week and a half delay in that process so Paul has assured me as long as there isn’t any other
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events that occur, we should be up and running by June 9.
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City Council Meeting - May 27, 2008
Mayor Furlong: Wait a minute, assured you as long as there are no other events.
Todd Gerhardt: Just like a good engineer…recommendations.
Mayor Furlong: Just as long as the work is acceptable we’ll be fine.
Todd Gerhardt: Yes. And that’s, you know it’s unfortunate but due to cooler weather I think
we’ve been monitoring our well activity and it’s been around that 4 ½ million gallon and we can
handle that with our current situation so you know if the cool weather stays, I think we’ll be fine.
Additional rain would be good but we’re okay right now. That’s all I have.
Mayor Furlong: Very good. Any questions for Mr. Gerhardt? No? Okay, very good.
CORRESPONDENCE DISCUSSION.
None.
Mayor Furlong: We will be continuing our work session items immediately following the
council meeting, so if nothing else is to come before the council this evening, is there a motion to
adjourn?
Councilwoman Ernst moved, Councilman McDonald seconded to adjourn the meeting. All
voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 5 to 0. The City Council
meeting was adjourned at 8:05 p.m.
Submitted by Todd Gerhardt
City Manager
Prepared by Nann Opheim
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