CC 2008 07 28
CHANHASSEN CITY COUNCIL
REGULAR MEETING
JULY 28, 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, Councilwoman Tjornhom, and Councilman McDonald.
STAFF PRESENT:
Todd Gerhardt, Roger Knutson, Laurie Hokkanen, Kate Aanenson, Paul
Oehme, and Todd Hoffman
PUBLIC ANNOUNCEMENTS:
Mayor Furlong: Very good, thank you and welcome to everyone here in the council chambers,
as well as those watching at home. We’re glad that you joined us this evening. At this time I
would ask members of the council if there are any modifications to our agenda. Without
objection, we’ll proceed with the agenda as published. So ordered. We’ll move now. We have
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two public announcements. The first is an item coming up this Friday, August 1 at the
Minnesota Landscape Arboretum. In partnership with the City of Chanhassen I’d like to invite
all Chanhassen residents to come to the Chanhassen Day at the Arboretum. It’s a free day to
explore the 2008 exhibit Treeology and other permanent gardens that the Arboretum has to offer
for us. The Arboretum admission will be waived throughout the day from 8:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m.
for all residents with valid identification. This is a fun event. There’s a lot going on and I would
encourage everyone to invite their friends and family and to take advantage of what the
Arboretum has to offer. The program will begin 9:00 in the morning with a free nature walk.
Guided nature walk with the Arboretum’s naturalist at 10:00 a.m. Interim Arboretum Director,
Dr. Mary Meyer and I will give a brief welcome to those visitors at the Great Hall. There’ll be
complimentary bagels and coffee. Members of our Environmental Commission and Park and
Rec Commission are often in attendance as well. This year the Treeology is a summer exhibit
including Art in the Trees. It provides a very interesting, I’ve been out there, very interesting
way to enjoy nature. There’s a guided walking tour, as I mentioned, of the Arboretum’s most
popular displays at 10:30 as well. The Trumpet Creeper Tram is a motorized guided tour. Also
there will be activities going on at the Marion Andrus Learning Center from 2:00 to 4:00. This is
just a fun event and again I’ll encourage everybody. I think this is the fourth or fifth year that
we’ve had Chanhassen Day at the Arboretum. It is our version of the Statute of Liberty. New
Yorkers never go there, but visitors always do and I would encourage Chanhassen residents to
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take advantage of the Arboretum this coming Friday, August 1. Next item, next, a week from
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tomorrow, Tuesday, August 5 is National Night Out. The City of Chanhassen will again be
celebrating activities with National Night Out. This event is designed to encourage citizens to
get out of their homes. Get to know their neighbors and re-acquaint themselves with friends and
others and promote crime prevention and awareness. It also provides an opportunity for public
safety representatives to visit our residents and talk about issues of concern and also to provide
them with good information. Chanhassen is a very safe place to live. Our activities with
National Night Out help keep it that way. The City of Chanhassen takes great pride in keeping
City Council Meeting - July 28, 2008
our city a great place to live and work, and it requires a partnership between our citizens and
those who service it to get this done. National Night Out supports this effort by reminding
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citizens that their involvement is vital to maintain the safety in our city. August 5,
representatives from the Carver County Sheriff’s office, the Chanhassen Fire Department, as
well as the Carver County Posse will be visiting a variety of Chanhassen block parties. If you’re
interested in hosting an event, or finding about an event near your home, please contact city hall,
Beth Hoiseth at 227-1610. Looking forward to seeing a lot of people involved in that as well.
Thank you.
CONSENT AGENDA:
Mayor Furlong: Before I get into that though I would like to take item 1(b) and move that to
Unfinished Business. Are there any other items that other members of the council or the public
present would like to discuss separately?
Councilwoman Ernst: 1(d).
Mayor Furlong: D as in David? Okay. Thank you. Is that long or?
Councilwoman Ernst: Probably not.
Mayor Furlong: Okay. What I’d like to do is bring that up after visitor presentations, before
some of the other activities that we have on our agenda because I think there are others here
interested in that. Without objection we’ll take 1(d) after visitor presentations. Any other items?
Okay? No? Yes?
Councilman Litsey: No. I was just going to make a motion.
Mayor Furlong: Okay. Anyone from the gallery here? If not, then is there a motion to adopt
items 1(a) through (k), excluding (b) and (d)?
Councilman Litsey: So moved.
Councilwoman Ernst: Second.
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 July 14, 2008
-City Council Verbatim and Summary Minutes dated July 14, 2008
Receive Commission Minutes:
-Planning Commission Verbatim and Summary Minutes dated July 1, 2008
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City Council Meeting - July 28, 2008
c. Approve Amendment to Chapter 19 to Clarify Chanhassen City Code Concerning Lawn
Sprinkling.
Resolution #2008-42:
f. Approval of Quotes for Annual Sanitary Lift Station
Rehabilitation Program.
g. Approve Extension of Development Contract and Final Plat for Boulder Cove.
h. Approve Utility Easement on Lyman Boulevard for Minnesota Valley Electric Co.
Resolution #2008-43:
i. Accept Street and Utility Improvements for Liberty at Bluff
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Creek 2 Addition.
k. Crossroads of Chanhassen: Approve Amendment to Development Contract.
All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 5 to 0.
VISITOR PRESENTATIONS:
Mayor Furlong: If you’re interested, please come forward to the council, or to the podium. State
your name and address.
Todd Gerhardt: Mayor if I could.
Mayor Furlong: Yes.
Todd Gerhardt: Just item 1(b) is the firearms and that’s getting moved to the Unfinished
Business. And then also 1(d), the Master Agreement between the City of Chanhassen and
School District 112 on facility usage has been placed after visitor presentations.
Mayor Furlong: Thank you very much. I would also, if you haven’t picked it up, there are
agendas on the table over there to try to follow. Sometimes I get going too fast so thank you. So
other than those two items, if there’s anyone else here that wishes to address the council on any
matter, I invite them forward at this time. Okay. Seeing nobody then, let’s go ahead and take up
item 1(d).
1(D). APPROVE MASTER AGREEMENT BETWEEN THE CITY OF CHANHASSEN
AND INDEPENDENT SCHOOL DISTRICT 112 REGARDING USE OF
ATHLETIC FIELDS AT CHANHASSEN HIGH SCHOOL.
Public Present:
Name Address
Janet Lash 7001 Tecumseh Lane
Todd Neils 990 Saddlebrook Curve
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City Council Meeting - July 28, 2008
Lyndell Frey 1822 Valley Ridge Trail North
Dick Mingo 7601 Great Plains Boulevard
Rod Franks 7669 Ridgeview Way
Councilwoman Ernst: Well you know we had our work session and I’ve heard what everyone
has to say and I’ve looked at the information and the emails that have come to me and I really
don’t see that spending $600,000 is really giving us, with the data that I’ve received, is really
giving us the access to the fields at the times that we need them. And even if they did, does it
really justify the $600,000? And another question I had regarding this is, just recently I’ve heard
this. I didn’t know it. Do taxpayers, do the City of Chanhassen citizens taxpayers already have
the rights to use these fields without spending $600,000? And quite frankly with the state that
the economy is in today, in my mind for doing what is right for the city, I look at this as a nice to
have versus do we really need it and therefore I cannot support this proposal.
Todd Gerhardt: Mayor, council members. To answer the question, you know would our
residents get to utilize those facilities if we did not enter into this agreement. Probably the best
way to answer that is, we would be in the pool of competition with Victoria, Carver, East Union,
and even Chaska because they’ve also contributed money to the construction of this new high
school. Us partnering with the school district and developing the stadium, the softball complex,
the baseball fields, also utilizing the soccer complex, the practice baseball and softball, the track
and football stadium, that gives us a first priority over scheduling on those fields. Very similar
agreements that the City of Chaska entered into with School District 112 when they donated
parkland to the development of the new high school in Chaska. They entered into an agreement
getting the same priorities over utilization of that high school outdoor activities. The one thing
that I believe we have that they didn’t have was a 30 year agreement for this to be in place.
There’s some questions that, did Chaska get a 30 year agreement or not for their contribution of
that land towards the high school. As to these fields meeting our needs when we need them. I
don’t think we’ll ever have enough fields to meet the needs of CAA and our other associations in
the area, but I believe this is definitely going to help us. It’s not going to alleviate our needs for
constantly looking for other opportunities to meet those.
Councilwoman Ernst: Some of the, the requests that have come to me are, can we upgrade our
existing fields to meet our needs versus going to the route of the partnership.
Todd Gerhardt: There’s been talk of upgrading Lake Susan Park to a town baseball field. Todd
Hoffman, the Park and Rec Director and myself have looked at that option. There’s no question
it could be done there. Parking might be a little bit of a question. You’re going to have conflict
with people utilizing the park shelter and the playground equipment. Also the boat access. You
would definitely have to eliminate the utilization of the tennis courts for that to happen and you
definitely would be maxing out the parking demands in that area. Upgrading our other facilities
in the area, you know I’m sure the Park and Rec Commission are going to look at the only thing
that we could upgrade is to add additional lights probably at Bandimere and Lake Susan, to get
the maximum usage out of those facilities. And I’m sure that’s something we’ll be looking at
down the line.
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City Council Meeting - July 28, 2008
Councilwoman Ernst: And we’ve also talked about using this not only for an athletic field but
also as a town team field, and the use of, potentially the use of alcohol. Like 3.2 I think.
Audience: Excuse me, could you use the mic. It’s very difficult to hear you back here when
you’re a little deaf like I am.
Councilwoman Ernst: Sorry. Thank you. The other question that’s been brought to my
attention is that we would be using it as an athletic field but as a town team field. It was my
understanding that potentially they were going to have 3.2 beer. And I have also received emails
on that saying, no alcohol at the school athletic fields, or at the school in general. I know that by
state law we can’t have smoking there but in terms of alcohol, it’s my understanding that that is
an option.
Todd Gerhardt: Yes. Let’s see the best way to answer this. The school district this last
Thursday did approve the Joint Powers Agreement that’s before you this evening, and
Superintendent Jennings told me that at that meeting there was a lot of discussion regarding the
alcohol, and in the joint powers agreement it calls for a case by case basis to review the
utilization of alcohol at that facility. Under state statute school districts have the right to decide
if alcohol can be served on school premises or not. The only option, which Councilwoman Ernst
talked about, was tobacco is where the state tells school districts they can’t have tobacco on
school facilities. As it comes to alcohol, the school district would look at that on a case to case
basis. The same thing with the City Council. Anybody that would want to serve alcohol at the
high school would have to come in and get a permit from the City Council. There’s nothing in
the agreement that talks about 3.2. That definitely is an option for anybody, but you could have
a full liquor at that facility if the school board and City Council would decide to do that.
Councilwoman Ernst: Okay, thank you.
Mayor Furlong: Okay. I guess you raise some questions. I don’t know if there are other
members of the council that have questions on this right now. We do have Mr. Franks is here on
the school board. I don’t know if there’s anything you’d like to add at this time or comment on.
Anybody else from the council that has?
Councilwoman Tjornhom: If I could, if it’s appropriate to ask Mr. Hoffman some questions.
Mayor Furlong: Certainly.
Councilwoman Tjornhom: Okay. Todd. And I’ve already asked him some of these in our work
session so this is kind of just a review for all those people who weren’t at the work session so
they understand at least my mind set and where I’m coming from. At the work session I asked
you about our ballfield usage and our potential for adding more ballfields and the cost of what
that would be, so if you could just go into a little bit about how much you need for a ballfield and
what it’s really going to cost.
Todd Hoffman: Thank you. The situation that the City of Chanhassen is faced with adding
additional athletic facilities, it’s either, like we’ve talked about tonight, improve or enhance our
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City Council Meeting - July 28, 2008
existing facilities or go out and purchase new real estate to add new fields. These are new fields
at the high school and that’s one reason they’re so attractive. If we would not take this
opportunity to enhance these fields and to gain access to them by making this contribution, we
would be faced with going out and purchasing additional property within the city and then
developing a ballfield complex. Currently for a reasonable sized athletic complex we think that
would take $7 to $10 million in acquisition and development costs. And so faced with those
kind of future costs, if you would want to do that, this seems like a much more reasonable
approach to meeting some of our demands for athletic and ballfield space.
Councilwoman Tjornhom: And the complex that you’re describing, how many ballfields would
you have?
Todd Hoffman: Somewhere between 6 and 8 fields in that type of facility.
Councilwoman Tjornhom: And maybe, I don’t know if maybe you want to address it but you
know what is the demand? Obviously as parents we all know what the demand is when we bring
our kids to CAA for softball or soccer, but you know I think the Met Council has kind of told us
that we should be expecting a population increase within the next 20 years, 25 years, and so if
you could address that maybe a little bit too.
Todd Hoffman: Sure. As Todd had alluded to, demand is always greater than what you have,
but how we manage our ballfield space is that we use a meet and confer basis. Process. We get
all of our users together and we try to assign space during season or peak season times. And so
do we have enough space? We certainly do have enough space. Would they like more? Yes
they would like more, those associations but if you compare our current facilities based on our
population to other cities around us, we’re either comparable or above other cities in the
provision of ballfield space right now. So we need more. This will allow us to put more kids on
the fields and it helps on the fields by making this contribution at the high school.
Councilwoman Tjornhom: There was some talk about funding and that this was going to be
costing the taxpayers a lot of money and so could you explain to everybody the source of the
funding and how it’s allocated and kind of go into that. Maybe a brief history of that.
Todd Hoffman: Sure. The fund that will be used to make this contribution, if it’s approved, is
the park dedication fund. Park dedication dollars are collected at the time of either platting or
building permit activity within our community. The basic premise is that if you bring a business
to our community, or a family to our community, you’re placing demands on our parks and
recreation facilities throughout the city and those fees are collected and put into a fund, the park
dedication fund that we collect about a half a million to a million dollars a year during this
current development cycle that we’re in. There’s about 3 ½ million dollars in the bank, or in that
fund currently right now. And those fees are then used to develop, purchase and develop athletic
space and recreation space within our community and so those are, that’s the source for the
contribution.
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City Council Meeting - July 28, 2008
Councilwoman Tjornhom: Okay. So hopefully everyone at home is listening to that. That these
funds are there. It’s not something we’re taking out of our city’s budget, the general fund or
anything like that.
Todd Gerhardt: Yeah Mayor and Council, it’s a dedicated fund. It is not something we are
going to be levying as a part of a tax increase. As Todd said it comes through commercial
developments. It also comes through residential as a per lot basis, and this is a trend that is used
throughout the Twin Cities area and surrounding suburbs to help develop their park systems and
trail systems. And that’s what we try to utilize that money for. We try to stay away from using
those funds for maintenance. You know we try to use it to develop the new trail along Lyman
Boulevard. The new trails out in the 2005 MUSA area. The trail going in right now in the
Arboretum Business Park and the lights that we used at Lake Ann in expanding our utilization of
time out there for athletic events. The park shelter building. It’s not just for athletic events. It
was used for the park shelter construction at Lake Ann.
Mayor Furlong: Anything else at this time?
Councilwoman Tjornhom: I think, not at this moment.
Councilwoman Ernst: A couple more questions when you’re ready.
Mayor Furlong: Okay. Do you have something?
Councilman Litsey: Well, I thought those were good questions to ask and have answered
because I think there’s some misinformation, misnomers out there about the intended use of this
money. Where it comes from and so forth so I appreciate those responses.
Mayor Furlong: Can I ask a qualifying question or an additional question off of Councilwoman
Tjornhom’s? You mentioned Mr. Hoffman, the costs with acquisition and development for the
athletic fields. That’s only one part of what’s being included in the facilities here as part of the
agreement. The other part is the baseball/softball complex and I think there was an estimate or a
discussion that we had earlier about if we converted, I think you mentioned converting Lake
Susan’s ballfield into a comparable ballfield, what would be the estimated cost to do that? Do
you have some estimates on that?
Todd Hoffman: Yeah. At that time, depending on the level of detail and, about a million and a
half to 2 million dollars to do that.
Mayor Furlong: Okay.
Todd Hoffman: Including parking improvements, access improvements, the structure itself.
Lighting.
Mayor Furlong: Okay. To get it to, depending on the level but to approximate comparability as
to what this complex in the baseball and also there’s a softball complex there as well.
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City Council Meeting - July 28, 2008
Todd Hoffman: And that’s based on siting at Lake Susan Park.
Mayor Furlong: Alright. And on the park dedication funds, we have a CIP, long term CIP
which is our capital investment plan where we plan out, how we think those funds are going to
be spent over time. Is there availability in that fund to include all the things we have planned in
our current CIP within the fund?
Todd Hoffman: Yes.
Mayor Furlong: Okay.
Councilman McDonald: Excuse me Mr. Mayor.
Mayor Furlong: Yes.
Councilman McDonald: If I could just follow up on a couple questions there too and get a little
bit more clarification. On Lake Susan if you, if we were to upgrade Lake Susan and make that
into a kind of a town ballfield, if I heard you correctly, in order to do that we lose facilities in the
process of that happening. We would lose field space, is that correct?
Todd Hoffman: We’d lose tennis courts and then access to the group picnic pavilion based on
scheduling.
Councilman McDonald: Okay. And then all of that we would have to look at relocating that
someplace or at least replacing the lost facilities, especially tennis courts. And then as far as the
park fund is concerned. I mean I also received a lot of emails concerning that this was coming
out of tax funds, but I think you made it very clear that what this is, it was a fund set up, as I
understand from I believe she was the director of the park commission, I think it was back in the
early 90’s, and that’s when this fund was supposedly set up. Is that correct?
Todd Hoffman: It was operating during that time and even before as well, yes.
Councilman McDonald: Okay. And it’s sole purpose has been to take care of facilities within
the community for parks and recreations and those types of activities.
Todd Hoffman: Correct.
Councilman McDonald: So the use of this money for this joint venture with the school fits right
in with what the purpose of that fund is and what the vision has been for many years within the
community.
Todd Hoffman: That’s my belief, yes.
Councilman McDonald: Okay. And I guess the only other thing as far as the alcohol Mr.
Mayor, I guess that’s a case by case basis. I don’t think that that’s something that we’re either
endorsing, or the school board has endorsed at this point. That there may be special occasions
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City Council Meeting - July 28, 2008
that may need to be looked at and we’ll look at it, but that’s not part of a blanket approval just
because we agree with this, that we’re condoning that also. Thank you.
Mayor Furlong: Okay. Other questions. Councilwoman Ernst? You said you had some more.
Councilwoman Ernst: Yeah, we talked about the park funds being allocated for park and trail
improvement, so the money is there but that doesn’t necessarily mean that we have to spend it in
a partnership such as this that we have in front of us today.
Todd Hoffman: Correct.
Councilwoman Ernst: It was intended for park and trail improvement, correct?
Todd Hoffman: Yes.
Councilwoman Ernst: So Councilwoman Tjornhom asked the, what the demand was for
additional parks, or additional fields in the city so I’m not sure that I really heard the answer to
that. How is that determined? How is the demand determined? We can project what it is going
to be based on our population but today as it is, what is our demand today and how is that
determined?
Todd Hoffman: It’s not, we don’t have a quantified number. I can’t tell you today that we
should build another 12 baseball fields or combination of baseball/softball. What we can tell you
is that on an annual basis we go through a fairly sophisticated field allocated system and so in
our department we understand the demands that are placed on our existing facilities. How many
requests are not being met and you know where we need additional fields, and we know we need
additional fields at just about all levels. Youth levels and the adult levels. Lacrosse is a new
sport that is taking up field space within our community. We have a single football field
currently available in our community that’s also jointly used as a soccer field and so as a
community the last fields we constructed were Bandimere Community Park, and that was back
in 1998 and so 10 years ago was the last baseball/softball fields so we’ve gone 10 years through
growth in our community without adding another facility or baseball facility or softball facility.
Councilwoman Ernst: And really what I’m struggling with is not having that data. If it’s there,
you know I’m not seeing it. So, thank you.
Mayor Furlong: Any other questions for staff at this time? I know this isn’t a public hearing. A
couple people expressed interest in talking to the council. If there are some people here that wish
to provide some public comment on this matter, unless there’s an objection, be happy to invite
them forward at this time. To the podium. If you could come forward. State your name and
address. If anybody was going to speak at visitor presentations but were asked to hold now. So
sure, please sir.
Lyndell Frey: Council, Lyndell Frey. 1822 Valley Ridge Trail North. I’ve been a Chanhassen
resident here about 12 years. Love baseball. Played baseball my whole life. Have a son that
plays. 8 year old through the Chanhassen Athletic Association. Great program. Hope someday
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City Council Meeting - July 28, 2008
that he plays on this field that we’re talking about. I addressed, I went to a work session with the
parks commission and one of my concerns about this field is the fact that I feel like we’re putting
frosting on the cake before we have hotdogs for younger kids. As a 7 and 8 year old I coached,
we had shared fields. We had hour practices, and I just think of $600,000, which if we had
everything else that we had, it’s the best deal around. I mean it would be honestly in my opinion,
fantastic because I’ve worked with a lot of fields and been around athletic complexes and things
like that, and for what the school district is offering for $600,000-$650,000 is wonderful. My
concern is, in regards to travel program, the athletic complex that we’re looking at for both
baseball and softball, primarily that funding helping with that, would be for a very few, limited
number of people. Adults for a town team, which there isn’t one currently. And for a high
school/legion team. You know a beautiful lit facility, which at some point we’re going to need.
I questioned District 112. We’ve got the beautiful field at Carver that currently Chaska is using,
and so I wonder about that. My second concern is, I understand the joint powers agreement with
the use of land for the Chaska high school but I wonder about Chaska middle school. I had a
daughter that went through the Chaska area volleyball program. Volleyball, basketball, softball.
I was a field scheduler for the volleyball program for 3 years, and I know that Chaska residents
had priority. And I wonder about if Chaska as a joint powers agreement in regards to use of high
school fields after the high school program, then how about the middle school? The ninth grade
center. The elementary schools. And would Chanhassen residents have an equal access to those
types of things? Or when it comes to the basketball season, are we going to be spending
$500,000 to have access to the gymnasium and $200,000 to have access to the wrestling room
and $20,000 to use the restrooms. You know I just, I’m not following that through and what
I’ve read in the paper and I’ve only been to one work session because I didn’t, I either missed a
council meeting or didn’t hear when it was open discussion to the public. I didn’t get that
information so if I could be enlighted on that, again it’s in my back yard. That’s another thing
that we looked at. We knew the high school football stadium was coming in and we think well,
that’s August, September, October. We know lights are going to be needed for a high school
football stadium and that’s one thing. Now we’re looking at April, May, June, and July. Have a
lit facility, and I guess I can offset that with the fact that I hope my kid’s out there playing at
some point. Maybe, maybe not. Maybe he’ll just stay in the in-house program but then I go
back to okay, for $600,000 I’m very convinced for example at Bluff Creek there are 6 fields
there. It costs about $100,000 to light an adult softball field, because I’ve lit 3 of them in the last
few years. I know that we could light 6 youth baseball fields for that same $600,000. And I
think okay, if we can do that, and we still should have access as Chanhassen residents to that
school property anyway, we’re giving money up that maybe we don’t have to so that’s all I’d
like to.
Mayor Furlong: Thank you. I guess a couple questions, and Mr. Hoffman I’ll have you respond
to one and maybe Mr. Franks, if I could invite you up to respond too. His second question, if
you could wait just a second. On the first one as far as the specific benefit to some people and
the baseball complex. My sense is that at the park and rec commission, to your point sir, that is
what was being discussed at that time. That the investment would be for basically access to the
baseball/softball complex. And then Mr. Hoffman or Mr. Gerhardt, what’s before us tonight has
expanded beyond that so I just want to clarify that, or maybe one or both of you could comment
on where this started. What was discussed at the Park and Rec Commission and then how that
has expanded to where we are tonight, and then Mr. Franks I’ll get to you. Sorry about that.
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City Council Meeting - July 28, 2008
Rod Franks: No problem.
Todd Hoffman: The agreement or the discussion started on the use of a baseball stadium and so
that was a single, baseball/softball stadium. That was a single point of conversation. And since
that time it’s expanded and the intent, our intent and our agreement with the district is that we
will have second access after the school district to the entire menu of facilities, outdoor facilities
on the property for the entire community to use for the programming of our choice. So if it’s
kids lacrosse, if it’s adult baseball, adult softball, all the different activities that we coordinate
through sporting associations within our community will be welcome on that campus.
Mayor Furlong: Okay. Thank you. Anything to add to that Mr. Gerhardt?
Todd Gerhardt: I can talk to the joint powers agreement as today. It encompasses all the
outdoor activities that exist at the high school, including the football stadium. It does not include
any access to any indoor facilities in Chanhassen or Chaska or any of the other schools. We
have agreements right now on Bluff Creek Elementary with the school district. That was a
partnership with the Rec Center, and the outdoor activities there. And we have kind of a verbal
agreement on Chan Elementary, but there’s no additional agreements for indoor facilities or
outdoor facilities outside of our community.
Mayor Furlong: Mr. Franks, Chair of the School Board. There were some questions that
probably you could address better, or comments that he made with regard to, as Mr. Gerhardt
was just talking about, access to facilities in District 112.
Rod Franks: Well thank you Mayor Furlong and members of the council. It’s certainly my
privilege to be up here discussing this agreement today. There’s, I don’t know if there’s a whole
lot more detail that I can specifically add that hasn’t already been discussed today. The
discussion’s been accurate and a lot of detail. The district has already engaged in a number of
agreements of this nature. Not quite of this scale, but as you mentioned Mr. Gerhardt, at Bluff
Creek Elementary and Chanhassen Elementary. The agreement has expanded from the original
discussion point of just the stadium ballfields to encompass the entire athletic, outdoor athletic
complex which would give the residents of Chanhassen, of both school districts, a first priority
after district scheduled events. Very similar, as you mentioned, to the agreements that are in
place currently with the City of Chaska where they have a similar scheduling preference. We
certainly look forward to enhancing the ballfield in our partnership with the City of Chanhassen
and attempting to create the highest level amenity for the residents of our district and our city as
we possibly can. To provide the highest quality athletic experience for both those younger kids
coming up and potentially those adult boys of summer who may one day want to have a town
team here so I’d be certainly willing to accept any questions.
Mayor Furlong: Any other questions at this time?
Councilman McDonald: Well I think one of the things that kind of gets lost in all of this that
I’ve had people come up and talk to me about is, you know we keep talking about baseball and a
boy’s team and everything but there’s another facility here also and it’s set up mainly for
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softball. Girls fast pitch softball which hasn’t been mentioned and as I am, I believe I’m correct,
we don’t really have a facility right now within the community set up for that. Is that right Mr.
Hoffman?
Todd Hoffman: Not, yeah. Bandimere 1, yeah. But not to that extent.
Councilman McDonald: But this would be a step above that and it would provide an opportunity
that we currently are not able to meet, and again all of that’s included within the package, is that
correct?
Rod Franks: It is. What we’re attempting to do is really create a well rounded experience for all
of our student athletes. Both for baseball and for softball, and I didn’t mean to step on your
thunder with Bandimere but I happened to be on the park commission at the time that we were
developing the park at Bandimere and I remember our discussions about creating an equal
amenity softball field so. But that value still carries through.
Councilman McDonald: And there was another thing I wanted to bring up too was also lacrosse
which was just barely mentioned here but that’s also now a sport that has begin to take off and
we again don’t have a lot of facilities where lacrosse can be played. That’s another facility that
we do pick up from the high school.
Rod Franks: That’s correct, as well as the soccer green areas that can be configured for lacrosse
or soccer. Any of the other field sports as well. You know lacrosse has now become a varsity
sport at Chanhassen/Chaska high school in our district and we certainly look forward to
increased participation in those field sports as well.
Councilman McDonald: Okay. I just wanted to get it out there that this is more than just
baseball or just a baseball field. That this is really, we’re gaining quite a bit as far as facilities
and additional usage to the community.
Mayor Furlong: Okay.
Rod Franks: And one of the things to continue to add, as you mentioned, the stadium football
field which will really become a full season amenity due to the placement of the turf on the field
as opposed to grass turf. Artificial turf. We’ll be able to use that early in the spring into way late
into the fall.
Mayor Furlong: And Mr. Franks on the issue of turf. It’s not just the football field that will have
the artificial turf, is that correct? Or is it strictly on the football field?
Rod Franks: It’s my understanding that for both of the stadium football fields, at the current
Chaska High School and the Chanhassen High School will have the artificial turf. The rest of the
fields will be natural turf, including the stadium ballfields.
Mayor Furlong: Alright. Thank you.
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City Council Meeting - July 28, 2008
Rod Franks: Thank you.
Mayor Furlong: Councilman Litsey has a conflict, needs to leave, so I’m going to take
additional public comment but before he does he asked permission just to provide his comments
in case he’s not here for the vote.
Councilman Litsey: Yeah, I apologize for jumping in here. I’ve been you know an advocate of
this all along. I think it’s a great partnership. Good relationship between the school district and
the city. I think it’s even gotten better thanks to the work of Todd Hoffman and Todd Gerhardt
and Mayor Furlong and I know others as well have worked hard to strengthen our position in
terms of having some priority on the fields and making it a more expanded type of an agreement.
I think it’s just a great opportunity for us to get what, provide some much needed athletic fields
for the city through this partnership and save some money in the process over what it would cost
us to do it on our own. I think the points that have been brought up here tonight are good. I
think they’re deserving of dialogue but I very much support this. Wish I could stay and cast my
vote for it. I guess I can’t do it ahead of time so. So anyway I just wanted to make those brief
comments and I am very much in support of it and hope it will pass tonight so.
Mayor Furlong: Okay, thank you. Thank you Mr. Litsey. Let’s go back, if there’s any
additional or others of the public, from the gallery wish to comment to the council on this.
Jan Lash: Mayor Furlong, council members. Thanks for your rich discussion on this topic
tonight. Looks like you’ve put a lot of hard work into it. Oh my name is Jan Lash. Sorry, I
forgot.
Mayor Furlong: You should have known.
Jan Lash: I should know. I live at 7001 Tecumseh Lane in Chanhassen. I did email the entire
council earlier yesterday and I appreciate the responses that I received. They were very prompt
but I’m here to support publicly, or voice my support for this. I was on the Park and Rec
Commission for many years, for 13 years, and so I feel like I have some background knowledge
in how these issues come before you and we worked for many, many years at trying to come up
with joint agreements and to be very financially responsible to our community in how we
allocated and made our recommendations to the council. How to allocate the funds to best meet
the needs of our citizens, and I just really feel strongly that anytime that we can get an
opportunity like this, that we can get the huge bang for the buck, and that’s what this is. If we
had to start from scratch, if you had to start from scratch on a project like this it would cost
millions of dollars so I really appreciate your diligence to this issue. It sounds like there’s some
support already so I’m not going to preach to the choir anymore but I think it’s a win/win
situation for the school district as well as the residents and I highly encourage you to support this
proposal. Thank you.
Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Anybody else that wanted to comment this evening to the council?
Dick Mingo: Here he is again. My name is Dick Mingo. 7601 Great Plains Boulevard. 52 year
resident of Chanhassen. Also a former member of a couple of our town baseball teams. The
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City Council Meeting - July 28, 2008
Chanhassen Red Birds and then a team that I promoted and changed the name of to Chanhassen
Mavericks. I fully endorse this. At first I was against it. I wanted it down by the lake down here
but when I had a chance to look at the plans and the layout of this, I just think we’d be just
foolish to ever turn that down. $600,000 and we’re worried about that. If we go and wait and do
it later on and build it ourselves, as was mentioned, it’s going to cost us a couple million dollars.
Having been a school teacher for 30 years I’ve seen some bond issues go down. We don’t want
a swimming pool. Going to cost us a little more. 3 years later everybody’s screaming, why
didn’t we put a swimming pool in? You go ahead and vote for it and now it costs them twice as
much as it would have the first go around and I see some indications that this is what could
happen here so I really endorse this. The town baseball team, I would have no trouble getting a
ball club together within a year’s time and getting us on that field. But it also will be there for
our legion team. I’m a 55 year member of the legion and we surely will be endorsing and
backing our own kids for a legion team. The Babe Ruth teams will play there and I just think we
would be really missing the boat on this type of deal that is being offered to us. Thank you.
Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Anyone else from the public that wish to provide public comment
on this? Good evening.
Todd Neils: My name is Todd Neils, 990 Saddlebrook Curve. I’m the current President of the
Chanhassen Little League, and we support this on all counts. As much because it’s going to
expand the facilities, but it, and while I would only slightly disagree with Mr. Hoffman’s
assessment, we don’t have enough facilities in this area for, by my calculation approximately 5
to 10 percent of the cost of a new facility in addition to expanding the Lake Susan Park area. We
can expand our facilities by 56 slots with a 2 a night game play schedule over the course of a
season. The season in Minnesota, as we all know, is rather short. Was shorten even this year
with the cold weather, but I would suggest that the use of this facility and being first on the list
that the city, because I’ve had the opportunity to go through the allocation process for 3 years
now, and we definitely need the additional facility at the new high school. And if
Councilwoman Ernst has any other questions about the process, I’m there to answer them.
Mayor Furlong: The process of field allocation?
Councilwoman Ernst: Okay, thank you.
Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Anyone else? Alright we’ll, I’m sorry.
Rod Franks: …just one more. Just listening to the comments from the public here today Mayor,
members of the council. Just makes me proud that last Thursday the school board voted
unanimously to endorse this agreement, but just really hearing from the perspectives from the,
our youngest athletes to our older athletes and everyone engaged in a city where people are
utilizing the facilities and engaging in family oriented activities and fitness, it is just sitting there
thinking about that and the vision that comes through my mind, it makes me proud to also be a
resident of the city of Chanhassen. And you know it’s one of those partnerships that certainly
builds good will and better friendships between the partners involved, and it’s certainly one that
benefits all of the residents, not only of the district but of the city as well. So I appreciate you
taking the time to thoughtfully consider this agreement and really talk about it so that no matter
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City Council Meeting - July 28, 2008
what decision is made, it’s really one that has had that thoughtful consideration so those know
that it was not a snap decision that was made, but is one that was truly made in the best interest
of those that you are called upon to look out for so thank you again.
Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Any other public comment? Very good. Thank you everyone that
participated this evening, as well as those that contacted us, the council members. I know we
received a number of emails and phone calls as well on this so we appreciate everyone’s
involvement. Any follow up questions at this point for staff? If not then why don’t we go ahead
to council comments on this. Councilwoman Ernst, want to start?
Councilwoman Ernst: Well, and I actually said this from the very beginning in a work session.
My mother always taught me spend your money wisely. Plan strategically and when you’ve
established your budget, you live, you really commit to it. And thinking strategically, I want
everybody in this room to know that I think that it would be a beautiful thing if we could do this.
But on the other hand $600,000, as I’ve said all along, is a lot of money and I know we’ve talked
about several different options. I don’t have the data to support $600,000 and because I’m not
comfortable spending money where I can’t justify it, again I have to say I can’t support the
proposal.
Mayor Furlong: Okay. Alright, thank you. Other thoughts. Councilwoman Tjornhom.
Councilwoman Tjornhom: Sure. I’ve had 3 children that have grown up and been in the
Minnetonka School District 276 and they have all gone through CAA and I understand the stress
and demand that this community has on field space. You’ve got girls and boys and you’ve got
them starting from when they’re 6 years old up until when they’re seniors in high school. That’s
a lot of playing time. That’s a lot of field space. That’s a lot of kids that you want to get through
and make sure they have that experience of really being able to play ball. And so I want to make
sure that I representing those families, make sure their kids have that experience. I think that
we’re getting I think 56 slots. These are just 7 fields. I don’t know, for me it’s do I want to
spend $10 million or do I want to spend $600,000 and get the same, probably even better usage
out of it and for me I guess I’m going to go with the later because it makes more sense to me
from a fiscal point of view. And also there’s that dream of a town team and we have those
loyalists who have never given up on that dream and that’s just one of those small town
gathering spots that we need in this town. I mean we all, in the surveys, if you read the surveys,
everyone says they like Chanhassen because of that small town feeling and what a better way to
sit with your neighbors on a Sunday afternoon eating peanuts and watching or supporting your
home town team. So you know there are a lot of positives to this. You know in a perfect world
would it cost a lot less? In a perfect world you know could we go out and buy I don’t know, how
many acres we said. 10 acres, whatever it is, of flat, perfect land and or someone donated that.
That would be perfect but we don’t live in that perfect world so we need to play the cards that
were dealt and for me I feel positive and I feel, I’m excited. I’m excited to see hopefully my son
play for the town team at some point. He’s playing in a wooden bat tournament tonight with all
his friends and so I think it’s a positive thing and I’m going to support it.
Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Mr. McDonald.
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City Council Meeting - July 28, 2008
Councilman McDonald: Well in the beginning I was a little hesitant to support this, only from
the standpoint I wasn’t sure what we were doing. It was pretty much focused on a town baseball
team and what I was really hesitant about was where is the support. And I have to say I was a
little disappointed in the very beginning because I didn’t think the support came out. What I’ve
kind of found out afterwards, everybody thought it was a slam dunk. Why show up. So I think a
lot of people who would supported it, you know again you need to participate in government to
get the government you want. Everybody put their heads together and what the, you know to the
school district’s credit, I think they came back with an even better deal because at that point they
did begin to address the problems that our own parks commission told us we needed to be
concerned about, and that was you know we need additional field space, and we need other
things besides just baseball and to keep the focus of this on baseball is probably not the correct
place to put it. So then we began to look at it from the standpoint of okay, what are we getting
from a recreational standpoint and we ended up getting quite a bit. We end up getting, we get a
very good deal. I mean as Councilwoman Tjornhom pointed out, in a perfect world yeah it’d be
nice to get about 10 acres of flat land but I don’t know where you’re going to get that in the city
anymore. The only land really left is to the south and that’s all rolling hills. So we’re faced with
a little bit of a problem as to where to put this. The only solution is, you know we have to start
eating up on ourselves which means we take away facilities, and that’s not a good idea either and
I’m sure that you know the people who play soccer and lacrosse and all these other sports would
then get upset with the people who play baseball who are taking away their field space. So from
that standpoint it became a real good deal. The next thing that I really kind of looked at, that I’m
very sensitive to, is okay tax money. You talk about spending money of the city. Yes, we have
to be stewards of that. We just went through a situation that in my view was very critical, I mean
to the people who were involved. We do street assessments all the time but you know in this
particular case, yeah it hurts people to do that. Where does that money come from? That money
comes from taxes. They’re assessed for that. There are no separate funds set up for street
assessments and those types of things. We have a unique situation here in the fact that with the
parks, we had enough foresight I think to set up certain funds and to say it’s off limits for
everything else. What we’re going to spend it for is again the improvement of our quality of life.
We just won two big awards because of that. You know we’ve been cited in Money Magazine
and a few others for the fact that this is a good community to live in. We have park facilities.
Trail facilities. I mean all those things are listed right up there toward the top so again, the
school district comes in with a plan that begins to meet those objectives that we have. And I
think the other thing that makes it kind of icing on the cake is the additional recreational
opportunities it presents to other people of lesser sports, and I don’t mean that in a bad way but
what I mean is that, yeah the sports that get all the publicity and a lot of people signing up are the
softball and the baseball. In softball in particular, as I said, I’ve had people talk to me about girls
softball. They can play through high school and then all of a sudden you fall off a cliff. There’s
no place to play. There are not leagues. There’s a lot of you know young women in this
community who would love to continue to play so I think there’s an opportunity there. This
facility presents that opportunity and I think it gives them a very good facility. Again the
baseball is just to me icing on the cake. It really is. It will be a good facility. I guess I’m
convinced now that there is enough support that we will have a town team and I really kind of
look forward to that so you know it meets all the criteria. I think I go through all of this. I look
at justifying it and I really would not have any trouble justifying this to any citizen within the
city of Chanhassen and anyone that would want to ask me about it on the street corner. I’ll be
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City Council Meeting - July 28, 2008
glad to go into why I did this and why I do not think that it’s going to affect your pocket book.
So I would support it.
Mayor Furlong: Thank you. I think my thoughts are somewhat similar to what’s been expressed
earlier. When this, as we talked earlier, when this proposal for the city, making an investment
with the school district first came forward a number of months ago, there was a tight timeframe
but the proposal was, as we explained and what went to the park commission, an investment to
expand a town ball team. The park commission said you know that doesn’t meet our strategic
needs. Our strategic planning process which really are expanded athletic fields within the city.
Addressing the needs that we’ve heard from residents and they’ve heard from residents, that
while our facilities are top notch, there’s a demand for more. The proposal as it first came to our
City Council work session, there wasn’t support there and there shouldn’t have been support
because it didn’t align with what we were looking for. The town team facility would have been
nice, but that didn’t meet the justification. Subsequent to that though I think I speak for others, it
was a sense that there seems to be an opportunity here with the new high school, with
Chanhassen High School coming in for the city to partner with the school district as we’ve done
time and time again. And how can we find a way to create a relationship that really meets the
needs of both, and that is where, in working with Chairman Franks and Superintendent Jennings
and others, we said you know really the need that we have from a strategic standpoint is
additional athletic fields, and that’s how this agreement evolved and grew from investing into a
baseball stadium into really gaining a priority position in the use of acres and acres and acres of
athletic fields. To Mr. McDonald’s point, that’s going to benefit not just baseball players, but
it’s going to benefit soccer plays and lacrosse players and softball players, and whatever other
sport that’s going to be generated that isn’t currently popular but needs a field to practice on and
put two goals at one end and let the children run around and play. That’s really what our needs
are and as I said, this is not going to solve all our needs but boy it’s going to expand our
available athletic space tremendously and that is going to benefit from a scheduling standpoint,
all of our residents regardless of which school district one resides. That is an added space that
our residents can enjoy their favorite sport. Financially the source of the funds here, as was
mentioned, they’re in our long term capital investment plans. Those funds are available. I don’t
think we have an extra $10 million sitting around in that fund that would be available if we had
to buy the facility, acquire and develop the land. So from a financial planning, financial
standpoint, it’s very prudent for us to proceed with this. We’ve got a good partner. The school
district and the city have worked together in the past. We work together well and I expect we’ll
continue to do that and so this agreement has evolved and I think there’s where, with what was
first discussed didn’t make sense for the city and that’s why there wasn’t support for it, to Mr.
McDonald’s standpoint, just as that. But it has evolved beyond that to something much bigger
and better and much more in line with where our strategic needs are. Where we see our needs
for our residents and indeed where the school district sees their desires as well so I do support
this. I think we should go forward with the agreement that staff has worked out with the school
district and, I understand some of the concerns. I’m not dismissing those. I’m simply saying
that all things considered, this is a, this makes sense to do it and makes sense to do it now. It’s
an opportunity that’s here for us now and when we look back I think the general consensus will
be that it was an opportunity well taken. Any other comments or discussions? If not, is there a
motion?
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City Council Meeting - July 28, 2008
Councilwoman Tjornhom: I’ll go ahead and make that motion Mr. Mayor. I make a motion the
City Council approves the attached Master Agreement between the City of Chanhassen and
Independent School District 112 regarding use of athletic fields at Chanhassen High School.
Councilman McDonald: I’ll second the motion.
Mayor Furlong: Made and seconded. Any additional discussion?
Councilwoman Tjornhom moved, Councilman McDonald seconded that the City Council
approves the attached Master Agreement between the City of Chanhassen and
Independent School District 112 regarding use of athletic fields at Chanhassen High
School. All voted in favor, except for Councilwoman Ernst who opposed, and the motion
carried with a vote of 3 to 1.
LAW ENFORCEMENT/FIRE DEPARTMENT UPDATES.
Mayor Furlong: We have Chief Geske here this evening so thank you Chief for your patience as
we move some things around on the agenda to help.
Chief Gregg Geske: Not a problem. It’s good to see the pass. You know one thing that nobody
else brought up but many times I’ve thought about bringing my kids over to Victoria or Chaska
for the town team so that addition, having a place to play but actually bringing kids to go see the
games so look forward to that. We have, we’ve, as you mentioned before, we are involved in the
National Night Out and we’re getting some volunteers. We usually bring at least 3 trucks around
to several different locations during that night so we’re gearing up for that. Beth does a good job
of scheduling us to different locations. We’re also during this month we’re involved in the
Miracles of Mitch Marathon. We generally are out there in the course for first aide for the cut
knees and stuff as they run around the corners and blocking off streets and such. And we’re also,
we’ll be involved with the Carver County Fair where we take our turn as a county fire
department hosting. We’re sitting in in the Education Building where they have fire department
and fire department safety and also we usually send a few people out to cover things like the
truck pull and stuff for fire activities so. With that I did have the council update. We did have a
couple houses that were struck by lightning with one of the thunder storms that come through.
We were rather lucky that they weren’t made out to be more of, you know more of the lightning
strike that came down in several spots in the house and weren’t involved in more of a fire but we
did get two calls that night there so we’ve been busy with fires this year and luckily those were
kept to just lucky strikes and not further fire incidents. That’s all I have to report.
Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Any questions for the Chief? No? I guess one thing, if you have
fun, you mention a couple of events coming up. Miracles for Mitch Triathlon. Do you have the
date for that?
ththth
Chief Gregg Geske: I think it’s the 18? 18 or 16? That Saturday.
th
Todd Hoffman: It’s August 16.
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City Council Meeting - July 28, 2008
th
Mayor Furlong: 16 so that will be out at Lake Ann and then they’ll be on the roads around the
lake I assume you do.
Todd Hoffman: As we always do, yep.
Mayor Furlong: Will go on Powers so that’s an event coming up. You also mentioned Carver
County Fair and that’s coming up next week, is that correct?
Todd Hoffman: Starting on Wednesday.
Mayor Furlong: I’m sorry.
Todd Hoffman: Starting on Wednesday.
th
Mayor Furlong: Wednesday through Saturday next week. That would be the 6 is the
beginning. That’s out in Waconia. I mention those not in case people are interested in going,
but also I do appreciate just the fact that our fire fighters participate in these events and that
they’re not just responding when called but also giving of their time and services to these events
in Chanhassen as well as within Carver County so. I know I speak for the council and we thank
you and please extend our thanks to your department as well for all that they do.
Chief Gregg Geske: You’re welcome, thank you.
Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Because of scheduling conflicts we do not have a representative
from the sheriff’s office here this evening. We did have a detailed report in our council packet.
Were there any questions that members of the council had for the sheriff’s department that Mr.
Gerhardt can relay and get back to us? Based on the questions from the packet. Okay. No?
Okay. Very good.
PUBLIC HEARING: REQUEST FOR ON-SALE INTOXICATING LIQUOR LICENSE,
SCHOOL OF THE WISE CHAN, 600 MARKET STREET, SUITE 170.
Laurie Hokkanen: This is the site that you’re formerly probably familiar with as CJ’s Wine Bar
and Maggie Moos. They’re proposing to open it as the second location of School of the Wise.
All the relevant background checks were conducted by law enforcement and no negative
comments were found. A public hearing is required to consider the license and then a simple
majority of the council.
Mayor Furlong: Okay. Thank you. Any questions for staff at this point? I see the applicant is
here. Is there anything you’d like to provide at this time before we go to a public hearing?
Ann Clifford: …questions, we’d be happy to.
Mayor Furlong: Okay. Want to tell us just a little bit about your business and use it as an
opportunity to let people know what you’re planning to do.
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City Council Meeting - July 28, 2008
Ann Clifford: My name’s Ann Clifford and I live at 7608 Debbie Lane in Eden Prairie so I’m
right over the line, so if you could move your lines just a little bit I’d be in Chan.
Mayor Furlong: Be happy to. Mr. Gerhardt, could you get on that annexation process.
Todd Gerhardt: Have it done before the end of the week Mayor.
Mayor Furlong: Excellent.
Ann Clifford: My son is also part of your work force and he’s one of the firemen on the fire
department so. We own School of the Wise in Victoria. We’ve been in business for 3 years. A
pretty successful business I might add. There’s no foot traffic in Victoria and there’s a lot of foot
traffic in Chanhassen. I have seen this site every single day for 4 years and unfortunately it
didn’t make it and so I got the lease about a month ago for what was the CJ’s spot. I was just
accepted into the lease into the Maggie Moos spot. We are going to open it about 6:00 or 6:30 in
the morning, starting with breakfast, quiche, pastries, etc. Work my way into a light lunch
through about 2:00 in the afternoon and then we have a wine bar. My hope and my plan is to do
a wine spectator wine list that is pretty extensive. A lot of wine education, but I’ve been in the
wine business for many years and there’s a lot of over pricing in the business and so what we
plan on doing is you will be able to buy a bottle of wine at my table for exactly what you can buy
it for at Byerly’s. I think in this economy and this day and age and this situation, that people
can’t always afford to go out and when they do, it would be nice if they could enjoy the whole
bottle of wine rather than one glass so. That’s who we are. I will have music 3, maybe 5 nights
a week. We do a lot of blues and a lot of jazz. I’m hoping to be able to bring in national music,
national acts. I have a small recording label so I can also bring in out of the country, the UK and
Ireland. We can bring in Celtic so I don’t know if anybody, if I can add anything.
Mayor Furlong: Okay. Any questions up to this point?
Councilwoman Ernst: Sounds like fun.
Councilman McDonald: Can I just ask, what kind of food are you going to serve? I see where
you talk about breakfast and then is it sandwiches and stuff at lunch or?
Ann Clifford: We do, at the other restaurant we do Panini’s and home made soups. All of our
pastries and home made. I didn’t feed my kids cookies out of packages so I wouldn’t feed them
to you. And then we’ll go into small platings of food. We do small platings of olives and nuts
and then they call them tapas and so we’ll be doing tapas and switching those up. Little
appetizers. We’ll also be doing some pastas and hopefully some bigger meals. We don’t have,
and we never will have. It was never my expectation that I wanted to be able to do steaks or fries
or anything like that so hopefully everything we do is fresh and good color and pretty healthy.
Councilman McDonald: And then are you going to be building a stage for the music for…
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City Council Meeting - July 28, 2008
Ann Clifford: No. I don’t stage my music. We’re not that kind of a room. We’ll, have you ever
been in the space?
Councilman McDonald: Yes, I’ve been in the old space, yes.
Ann Clifford: Okay. The two bathrooms, there’s a door and so the first, there’s a little alcove
right here and I brought in members of the community in music and we’ve decided to put it in
that first area when you come in. So it would be in front of the guy’s bathroom I guess. And
we’ll fly speakers from the ceiling and stage our music right there but we don’t, I don’t stage
music as far as a stage and.
Councilman McDonald: Okay. Thank you.
Mayor Furlong: Good. Thank you for taking that time. I can tell you that people in the council
chambers as well as those watching at home are very excited for what’s happening. With
regards to your Victoria business, you’ve said it’s been successful. Have you had any challenges
at all with the liquor license there or, from a serving standpoint? Have you had any problems?
Ann Clifford: If I what? I’m sorry.
Mayor Furlong: If you’ve had any problems on the liquor side in terms of.
Ann Clifford: No, you know what because we aren’t a bar.
Mayor Furlong: Right.
Ann Clifford: We don’t, and part of the reason I wanted a full liquor license wasn’t, Captain
Morgan won’t be visiting my restaurant so, but part of the reason is that people enjoy Kaluha or
Port. Those are called fortified alcohols, meaning that even though they don’t have a very high
alcohol content in them, to be able to serve it I need the full license. But we’ve never in Victoria
encountered ever a problem. So that’s the kind of business we run. I just, we had a bigger
restaurant in Shakopee. We had the Arizona’s and that was hard core and I’m just too old for a
bar so.
Mayor Furlong: Very good.
Ann Clifford: Okay?
Mayor Furlong: Any other questions? Thank you very much.
Ann Clifford: Yep, thank you very much for consideration.
Mayor Furlong: You’re welcome. Let’s go ahead and open up the public hearing and invite any
interested party to come forward and address the council on the request tonight for adopting, or
providing the on-sale liquor license. No one this evening? Without objection then I’ll go ahead
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and close the public hearing. Bring it back to council for discussion and comments. Thoughts.
Comments.
Councilwoman Tjornhom: My thoughts were, I have to admit when I first read what was on the
agenda I thought, intoxicating liquor and School of the Wise. How those two come together but
now, further reading I understood what it all meant and so I just want to welcome you to
Chanhassen and I look forward to that space being open again. It was a real gap and that was
another community gathering spot for everybody and so I’m thrilled that you’re going to be here,
so thank you.
Mayor Furlong: Okay, thank you. Any other thoughts or comments?
Councilman McDonald: Just welcome to the community.
Mayor Furlong: Okay, indeed. Thank you and welcome. We look forward to it. Always
disappointed when we see a business leave but that creates an opportunity obviously. Here’s a
good example of how that creates another example for someone else so we look forward to your
business and wish you every success.
Todd Gerhardt: Mayor?
Mayor Furlong: Yes, Mr. Gerhardt.
Todd Gerhardt: If we could have the applicant just kind of give the background on what the
School of the Wise really means. It’s kind of a different name and I know you put a lot of
thought and energy behind it. Maybe you.
Ann Clifford: I wasn’t involved in the name.
Todd Gerhardt: Okay.
Ann Clifford: My son Brandon actually did the build out in the Victoria restaurant. He, and my
son Cory and his wife Jamie, everybody kind of got together and put ideas together. Hundreds
of years ago coffee was illegal. It was almost like a drug because of the way people behaved
when in fact they drank coffee. And it was also very, very expensive and so only the wealthy
could in fact afford coffee. So it became a place where people got together that would discuss
day’s events that could afford to be there, and it became a learning experience. So from that it
became School of the Wise. So we might change our’s up a little bit because our’s is going to be
a little different and we might refer to our’s as the School Too, rather than confusion between
Victoria and Chan. Because my space is a little bit bigger than Brandon’s space, I don’t want
people to go out there and go well there’s no real wine room or there’s no bar area for wine and
so we might just refer to it as the School Too so there’s not a confusion between the spaces.
Mayor Furlong: Okay, thank you. Anything else? There’s a recommended motion before us
this evening from staff to approve the request. Is everybody set to motion? Councilwoman
Ernst.
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Councilwoman Ernst: I’ll make the motion. I make a motion that we approve the request from
CM Chann, LLC for an on-sale intoxicating liquor license for School of the Wise Chan at 600
Market Street, Suite 170. The licensed premises shall also include the outdoor patio area.
Approval of the license shall be contingent upon receipt of liquor liability insurance and the
license fee, which will be calculated once the square footage of the location has been determined.
Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Is there a second?
Councilman McDonald: I’ll second.
Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Any discussion?
Councilwoman Ernst moved, Councilman McDonald seconded that the City Council
approve the request from CM Chann, LLC for an on-sale intoxicating liquor license for
School of the Wise Chan at 600 Market Street, Suite 170. The licensed premises shall also
include the outdoor patio area. Approval of the license shall be contingent upon receipt of
liquor liability insurance and the license fee, which will be calculated once the square
footage of the location has been determined.
1(B). APPROVE AMENDMENT TO CHAPTER 11 OF THE CHANHASSEN CITY
CODE CONCERNING FIREARMS.
Public Present:
Name Address
Sever Peterson 159900 Flying Cloud Drive
Bert Notermann 812 E. Co. Rd. 78, Shakopee
Mark ? 1827 Valley Ridge Trail South
Michael S. 823 East Bluff Avenue, Shakopee
Mayor Furlong: Let’s go to a staff report. This item was tabled at an earlier council meeting so I
thought it’d be appropriate to bring it back under unfinished business because there were
different questions that the council had that we wanted answered, as well as an opportunity I
think for additional discussion so, Mr. Hoffman why don’t you start please.
Todd Hoffman: Thank you Mayor, members of the council. Similar to the baseball discussion,
this conversation is rooted in growth in our community and decisions about things that are
affected by that growth. Hunting in our community, firearm discharge by permit for the purpose
of hunting has been a long tradition and the community has grown up as a farming community
into a suburban area. We’ve always had a hunting map which permitted landowners, their guests
to continue hunting on their property. Highway 212 and it’s completion, which took out a major
portion of the fields that were traditionally used for firearm hunting and bow hunting in our
community, really prompted this conversation. We also review this on an annual basis, our
hunting map so we thought it appropriate to discuss with the council potential changes. First
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time we brought this back to the council we were recommending and proposing the elimination
of all firearms or gun hunting in the community be considered and that bow hunting be expanded
for the purpose primarily of controlling the deer herd in our community as we continue to
urbanized or suburbanize deer are very capable at adapting to that type of community and
they’ve become a nuisance for some property owners and so control of that herd is a good thing.
At that point in the conversation we did hear from landowners that would like to continue to
utilize gun hunting in the community, and so we went back at our last meeting and had a
conversation about what’s appropriate for gun hunting in the community. Is it appropriate to use
slugs that are a single projectile for hunting deer? Is it appropriate to use firearm shot or small
shot for water fowl and duck hunting? The purpose of those, in the audience I think it would be
fair to overview a map which is the current shooting map. There we go. So the cross dash area
generally represents or specifically in this case represents the current shooting areas in the city.
You see we have a small area here. The Erhart property. The Klingelhutz property. The
Seminary Fen, which included a large, about 100 acres at this location, has now been restricted
to just it’s western parcel. So at the last point in the conversation, these were the properties that
had firearm permits still on the records in the past years and so we thought we were getting down
to a minimal amount of property owners that were continuing to use firearms. Tonight we’ll
hear that’s not the case. There are still a variety of property owners utilizing firearms in the
Minnesota River Valley as well. What has also entered into the topic is that currently we have
the Reggae Wildlife Management Area, which is this property. This is open to the public.
Managed by the DNR for deer hunting by bow. Those properties, deer hunting by bow and
arrow only and then small game hunting with fine shot. It may be expanded with the addition of
this small parcel here at the future as a part of the Seminary Fen. And so the State manages that
property. You don’t need a permit. You can just walk on. Park in their parking area and
participate in the activities that they have at that location. So again came back this evening with
a proposal to continue gun hunting where appropriate based on the map, but restrict it to fine shot
only. But you’re going to hear some testimony this evening that people would like to continue
slug hunting for the purpose of the deer season which is in typically the first week in November
of each year. Be happy to answer any questions.
Mayor Furlong: Can you leave that map up?
Todd Hoffman: Sure.
Mayor Furlong: I’m guessing we might need to refer back to it. If we need to. Thank you Mr.
Hoffman. Any questions for Mr. Hoffman on the information brought back? Okay. Alright.
Again I know that I received some requests from some individuals that would like to comment.
Provide comment to the council this evening so at this time I’d invite you forward to the podium.
Please state your name and address.
Bert Notermann: Hi. My name is Bert Notermann and I live at 812 East County Road 78 in
Shakopee. I used to have a business, the old Tri Y Drive Inn in Chanhassen so I’m familiar with
Chanhassen and I used to fish Riley Lake and Susan a lot so I have some connections and family
connections with Chanhassen. First of all I’d like to thank the mayor and council people and the
staff for letting me have the opportunity to express some of my views. And I’ve got them
written down here so I don’t forget anything. First of all I’d like to say though is I just found out
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about this just like Aaron Peterson called me up I think it was like Friday or Saturday so I’m a
little disappointed that I wouldn’t have found out or somebody would have notified us you know
because we are probably one of the more major areas for deer hunting in Chanhassen. Being
down over across from the Seminary.
Mayor Furlong: Excuse me, if I could interrupt Mr. Notermann.
Bert Notermann: Sure.
Mayor Furlong: Do you own property in the city, is that correct?
Bert Notermann: Yes.
Mayor Furlong: Okay. Could you show us on the map where your property is? If you want,
without moving it because it’s on the. Just point it out.
Bert Notermann: Okay. It’s right over in here. In this area here. Quite a bit of area. Goes right
to the river. A few hundred acres is what it is.
Mayor Furlong: Okay. Thank you. That helps us with perspective.
Bert Notermann: So anyway I own that property with Sever Peterson and it’s the former Ted
Paul property. I’ve hunted in the river bottoms, on both sides of the river, Shakopee and
Chanhassen and Eden Prairie for over 50 years. I’m aging myself but I have hunted for 50 years.
In that area. I’ve never heard of an injury or a death in this area as a result of shot gun slug
hunting, to my knowledge. I think that slug hunting is safe in the right conditions in the river
bottom area. I’ve been a gun safety instructor for the Department of Natural Resources for 25
years so I’m very safety conscience and so are all the people that hunt, the families that hunt with
us. As far as slugs, reality is, and you can talk to the DNR. Minnesota DNR about this. Most
shot gun slugs are used for under 75 yard shots and the reality is that possibly they could go up to
100 to 200 yards, but most good, safe hunters, and in our situation, we are up in stands. We’re
shooting down so they’re going, wherever the deer is, that’s where they’re going so it’s under 75
yards. Or it could be 25 yards. Now I don’t doubt that there’s some statistics that say that oh
yeah, it could ricochet and go 1,000 feet or whatever. The reality is, yeah you could have an
astronaut take a shot gun up to the moon and shoot it and it might, it will go quite a few miles.
But the reality is, they don’t go more than 100, 200 yards at maximum. The river bottoms area
that we hunt in basically there’s less houses. It’s less urbanized than it was 50 years ago so I feel
that it’s a pretty safe area to be hunting. The wildlife area to the east of us, which you already
talked about, does not allow slug hunting and the reason for that is because they would not be
able to control the amount of people in there and they would not have the ability to know who
the responsible safe hunters are. In fact I don’t believe that you require a permit in that area,
even though it is in the city of Chanhassen. I don’t believe you require a permit.
Todd Hoffman: Correct.
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City Council Meeting - July 28, 2008
Bert Notermann: Is that correct? So you can have anybody and everybody coming in there and
there are you know so. We have not had permits to hunt for many years. We had received them
for a few years and then I don’t know, I think it was maybe 10-15 years ago they said there
wasn’t a need for it because we were landowners. Maybe it was because of the fact that they
were not requiring permits for that area. For the wildlife management. I’m not sure what the
case was but. Any activity can be dangerous. A drunk can kill. A car can kill. Also a shot gun
slug can kill, but society isn’t going to take away guns. They’re not going to take away cars.
And you know, they’re not going to take away alcohol, and I surely don’t want to see you take
away the rights of the hunter. The only reason frankly that I bought the property with Sever, not
because, because I’m not a farmer but I bought it specifically for hunting for my family. My
family, I have my wife and my 2 children. We hunt. And my son in law hunts so that’s the only
reason we really bought the property and we are safe hunters and we wish to continue our
hunting heritage. Our family does a good job of controlling the deer population. Sharp shooters
are expensive. Now I know that you’ve got a new law coming in on bow hunters. I’ve been a
bow hunter for 50 years, believe it or not, and I love bow hunting but the reality is bow hunters
cannot do the job that a slug can or a sharp shooter, and we have point in case in many places
around Chanhassen where they’ve hired sharp shooters because bow hunters just couldn’t handle
the amount of deer that need to be killed. So we are able to control the population pretty good I
think down in that area. Someday this area down here, which we own, will be an economic
resource for my family, and I want to make sure that I’m paying taxes on it. I want to make sure
that I have the privilege of continuing to hunt and also that at some point in time, if the DNR
decides to buy it or the wildlife area decides to buy it, that I’ll get my value that it is. Now if I’m
restricted taking hunting away, it’s going to depreciate the value of my property so I wouldn’t be
too happy about that. And I really don’t want to see the city restrict my rights and I would like to
use the property until such time that the DNR or the wildlife decided they wanted to buy it.
There can be a balance between hunting rights and safety and your concerns and I think that, I
think that if we allow us to continue to do our hunting there, to have you monitor us, the safety
aspect of it, and to know who’s hunting down there, I think that it will be a safe environment and
that it will not affect any safety problems. Thank you very much.
Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Mr. Notermann, if I may.
Bert Notermann: Excuse me, you have some questions I’m sure.
Mayor Furlong: Very possibly and I’ll ask the council first if anybody has any questions.
Councilman McDonald: Well actually I have some questions but can I wait until after
everybody that’s involved down in that area speaks?
Mayor Furlong: Sure.
Councilman McDonald: Then we can select one person and we can ask questions but you may
cover everything as part of their presentation.
Bert Notermann: Okay, thank you for the opportunity.
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Mayor Furlong: Thank you.
Sever Peterson: Mr. Mayor and council members, City Manager and council. Staff. My name
is Sever Peterson. I live at 15900 Flying Cloud Drive and lived there all my life. My dad before
me and my granddad before him. And we farm property in Chanhassen/Eden Prairie area and as
I said for over 100 years and a couple of the properties that we have in Chanhassen area, are I
think very, what would I say? Very different and I think that they personify or they are good
example of what the city is wanting to address in this, in these slug shooting area and issue. And
I think they’re right on to address that and that’s public safety and public concerns and I think
it’s up to you folks to address that and it’s up to us as landowners and citizens of the community
to be respectful of that and of course work toward that. I mean there’s just no compromising
public safety. And one of our properties is actually here in the river valley over here and then
Bert addressed some of the other property over here, and then another one is a property up here
just north of Pioneer Trail. I’ve got to look at where I’m pointing here but in that area in there.
In Chanhassen and there. There you go. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks Kate and the property
in that area, in former times we could hunt there with slugs. I have never hunting that property
with slugs. I just didn’t feel that it was a safe environment. I didn’t think it was the right thing
to be doing in the area and the neighborhood and I didn’t, and I’m not aware of anybody that did
hunt on our property there with slugs. The river valley however is a different situation and that
is that we have properties that go on over into Eden Prairie and we have, we’re vegetable
farmers. We have pumpkins down there. Tomatoes. Sweet corn and the deer, they’re not a
nuisance to me. They may be a nuisance in our garden with our hostas but they are a hardship
for us, and we hunt for a number of different reasons but one of the reasons we hunt is we enjoy
venison of course, but we hunt to help keep this population of the deer down. And in addition to
that we feel that there’s a public safety issue. I had an acquaintance and a friend that had been
killed in vehicle deer accidents in the last 15 years. One of them just a couple years ago in river
valley in Belle Plain. A Carver County man. Melcher. And unfortunately, and another
acquaintance of mine on Highway 35W. Again in the Minnesota River valley, and as Mr.
Notermann said that we feel that the deer that we can legally take there and safely. Most
importantly. Only importantly, is safety. That we can safely harvest there is real important to
us, and again for our crops. We hunt, and I’ve hunted there with 4 generations. 3 of the families
of the 4 families are in the room here with me tonight, and we are very careful about our hunting,
as Mr. Notermann again said. We have certain areas that we hunt. We always hunt from a
stand. We do not ever shoot from the ground. We have a hunt master. We have a hunt master.
We think it’s just critical to our hunts, and he knows where our stands are and places people in
them and we have corridors in which we can shoot, and only certain distances. Those are
flagged off. And I say this just to say that I think leading up to another important aspect is that
we would be very happy. We want to have a safe hunt, not only for our family but for the
community, and we want the community to know that we’re safe hunters so that they’re
comfortable with that and they understand our situation and they’re supportive of that, but they
have to know and understand that or the unknown is what we’re afraid of, and we’re very happy
to work with the community in public safety and how to best do that because we want to do that,
not only for our self but safety of all the citizens of the community. As Mr. Notermann again
pointed out, you know I mean I know of 2 deaths related to deer vehicle crashes, but there’s been
no deaths that I’m aware of related to slugs, and that doesn’t mean that they’re not, that there
isn’t a safety concern or issue about it. Absolutely not. There is. We want to address it. We
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want to handle it properly and we want to hunt safely. For practical reasons and also for the
pleasure of our families and the camaraderie of that and what it has meant to us over these 4
generations. You know just maybe a suggestion is, if there could be a committee that could
include the landowners and what we are doing so that you’re aware of what we’re doing, and that
we are aware of what the community needs for us to do to hunt safely for the community sake. I
would suggest that and you know, I also didn’t know about this meeting tonight and Todd,
you’ve called me and asked for permission to hunt on my property for deer with bow and arrows,
is that correct? In the past.
Todd Hoffman: Once I stopped in your farm field about 15 years ago and you declined to give
me permission.
Sever Peterson: Oh is that right? Maybe, okay. Well, I thought Todd was the only one. I
thought Todd was the only one. Well, anyway. But and I wouldn’t give 2 people permission
because, unless they’re hunting together and coordinating that. It’s a safety issue as far as I’m
concerned, and we feel that we have to, we hunt with a hunt master. If I’m not with him, I think
there’s a safety issue. Or if a hunt master’s not with them, I think it’s a safety issue, but my point
was Todd, and not to put you on the spot with that.
Todd Hoffman: No, and I want to help you out on that one. You declined but you said if I didn’t
have a spot that you would welcome me on your farm.
Sever Peterson: Okay. Okay. And, but I believe in hunters and I believe in you know helping to
control the herd and I believe in it as a family sport and so on, but my point was that Todd, even
after having that connection with me, I didn’t get a phone call about this going on, and Todd
forgot so that’s why I suggest it would help you know if we would have a committee where the
landowners were involved and so that you knew what we were doing and we knew what you
wanted us to do and that we could work together to do it the best way possible. And I guess that
you know pretty much sums up my interest. My concern on this. My granddad had a home in
the river valley. He had neighbors in the river valley. None of, there was commercial business
down there. Slaughter house down there. There’s no longer any of that down there. The growth
in the valley is decreasing. I mean there is no growth in the valley and now it’s protected as a
flood plain. We can’t build down there so I think that there are some opportunities for us to
continue to hunt safely and to hunt wisely in the community, but I think it should be something
that we work together on and review and that you folks in the city know what we’re doing and
that we’re on top of it and so that the citizens of this community are also comfortable with it.
Thank you very much.
Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Anybody else that would wish to provide comment to the council
on this matter? Okay. Any questions for either staff or for some of the individuals that spoke
this evening? Mr. McDonald.
Councilman McDonald: Well I guess you know the big thing that we were looking at was
definitely safety and the biggest concern is, with slugs again, where it goes is not always where
you aim it and what, I guess I’ve heard from you and I just want to verify is that again, this is
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mainly used for your family. This is not a place where you just allow anyone to walk on and
start firing and hunting, is that correct?
Sever Peterson: Absolutely correct.
Councilman McDonald: Okay. And again as I understood from listening to you and also you
always, you’re shooting down. You’re not you know shooting parallel to the ground or you’re
not shooting up a hill towards something where again if you were to miss, a slug could continue
on for a great distance. It sounds as though you’re very organized in what your hunt is and you
know safety is probably right at the forefront of anything that goes on down there.
Sever Peterson: That is also absolutely correct Councilman McDonald and, our average shot is
less than 40 yards. That doesn’t mean there’s not a 70 yard shot, but we don’t have corridors
that go out that far. You know we, they’re marked. We know where the markings are. We
know what our distances are, and we want that shot to hit the ground.
Councilman McDonald: Okay. Now I know that to the east there really isn’t anyone down there
except for the Golf Zone I think is in one of those corners, but over towards the west and I guess
across the north, who lives down there?
Sever Peterson: Nobody lives in the valley. Nobody lives, let me think about that. I was going
to say nobody lives south of Highway 212 but that’s not true. In fact Mark, you folks bought a
home there. And it’s south of Highway 212. It’s up out of the valley. Out of the flood plain but
nobody lives down in the valley. Nobody lives in the flood plain.
Councilman McDonald: Okay. And then you said you’ve got a hunt master and you flag out
corridors. Can you explain out what you’re doing there?
Sever Peterson: Well a hunt master would determine where the stands are going to be that we
could safely hunt and if we do have people on the ground, without weapons. Not firing weapons,
that are let’s say driving the deer or moving the deer, whatever, however you’d like to describe
it, that those people are safe and that they know where the shooters and the shooters know where
they are and most important they all know where the shooter could be shooting. Only in the
corridor and only to certain distances.
Councilman McDonald: Okay. And then across the valley, you know across the river as you get
into Shakopee, is there anything on the other side to the south of you that?
Sever Peterson: In our case there’s open land. It doesn’t show on this map here but there’s open
land at the bend of this river on this particular property it’s open land down here going up into
Shakopee. Not into the city of Shakopee but the Shakopee property there. But we don’t shoot
across the river. We don’t ever shoot across the river.
Councilman McDonald: Okay. That’s all the questions I have.
Mayor Furlong: Okay. Thank you. Any other questions? Either for staff or for.
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Councilwoman Tjornhom: I have, I don’t, I have comments but not any questions.
Mayor Furlong: Okay. Alright. Concerns?
Councilwoman Ernst: For staff. This will be for Todd. Is there a way, if in fact we go forward
with this, is there a way we could make this work and not infringe on other people’s property
rights in terms of having a comparable type of scenario? Is that clear?
Todd Hoffman: No.
Councilwoman Ernst: So do we, I’m sure that within the city we have other people that have a
comparable type, whether it’s acres. Whether it’s the same type of property. I mean not exactly
the same but very comparable. So if we go forward with this for this specific area, would we be
infringing on someone else that may not be able to do that?
Todd Hoffman: Well again, if you refer back to the map we’ve got 3 other parcels that are in the
current firearm map so you have the parcel down near the Seminary Fen. The Klingelhutz parcel
and the Erhart parcel and those as council and a community we can decide if slug hunting’s
appropriate or not. On those particular parcels.
Councilwoman Ernst: Hypothetically though could we leave the other parcel the way that we
talked about and then have this area just be slugs?
Todd Hoffman: Sure. Sure.
Councilwoman Ernst: And I don’t know whether that’s you know feasible or not but just a
question.
Kate Aanenson: I just want to make one point for clarification. Because we’re looking at a map
in a very small vacuum, there are houses to the west, and I’m not saying that this property isn’t
big enough to hunt on. I just want to make sure, and we do eventually intend to provide urban
services, what we’ve talked about on the golf course site. I’m talking about certainly the short
range if you choose to do but just what we’re considering long term wise that and as you go to
the east of the Y, there’s development potential on some of those properties that are too we
modeled with the comprehensive plan that we can provide some sewer and water. And it’s going
to be quite a number of years before we get down there but there is development potential, and
there is houses when you get over here and where there’s horses and such as you get down
towards Stoughton…so they’re quite a ways from this property but there are.
Councilwoman Ernst: But at that time we could re-evaluate.
Kate Aanenson: Yeah, yeah. I just want to make sure that there’s, when we say there’s nothing
down there, there is some businesses down there and some houses on that far side. Yeah.
Mayor Furlong: Over on the Chaska side or?
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Kate Aanenson: No, as you get towards.
Mayor Furlong: Oh, you’re right. You’re in Chanhassen.
Kate Aanenson: They’re in Chanhassen, yes. And they’ve got horses as you go down towards
the flood plain.
Mayor Furlong: You’re right.
Kate Aanenson: Yeah. But they are quite a ways from this property but I just want to make sure
that somebody doesn’t think there’s nothing down there. Yes. So yeah, and they’re larger
properties down there too.
Mayor Furlong: Okay. Other questions at this point? Because I have a couple if everybody else
is.
Councilwoman Tjornhom: No, go ahead. I was going to piggy back on what Vicki said that you
know, I think we should, and this is to staff, re-visit this and start looking at it maybe on a year to
year basis. For these areas where it is pretty open. I’m getting a funny look.
Mayor Furlong: I’m just thinking you know year to year. This has just gone so smoothly this
year.
Councilwoman Tjornhom: Can’t get enough of these conversations.
Mayor Furlong: Exactly. Exactly. Let me ask some questions and Mr. Notermann, you had
made the comment I think wrote it down correctly, that slug hunting is safe in the right
conditions. And then you went on I think to explain but when you think, when you say slug
hunting is safe in the right conditions, what are those conditions that you’re describing in your
opinion?
Bert Notermann: Okay. From my perspective as a safety instructor, it’s making sure that your.
Mayor Furlong: Excuse me, are you a firearm safety instructor?
Bert Notermann: I am a retired firearm safety instructor. 25 years.
Mayor Furlong: Okay, thank you.
Bert Notermann: For the DNR. Right. In my opinion, and the DNR’s opinion, safe hunting
with a slug is about ability to make sure you know where the target is and then make sure you
know the back stop area. In other words you know that you’re not shooting you know in an open
area where the slug’s going to travel 100-200 yards. So that’s basically it, and you know as an
instructor we always, we always promoted deer hunting as far as making sure you’re in an
elevated stand from a safety standpoint.
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City Council Meeting - July 28, 2008
Mayor Furlong: Okay, and that’s the second question because I think that was mentioned too.
The stand hunting. Being in an elevated stand is an element of safety, is that your opinion or the
DNR’s opinion?
Bert Notermann: Yes. Yes. You’re shooting down. The target’s going down and if you miss
the deer, it hits the ground. Yeah. It’s the same principle as like I think Moon Valley was in
Chanhassen, right? You know for, I mean as a kid I used to ski there of course but I did a lot of
shooting.
Mayor Furlong: Now you are dating yourself.
Bert Notermann: I know. Did a lot of shooting there and you know they had a great background
you know. A hill so, and I think Sever had made the comment JoAnne Griepentraug said well
yeah, a shot gun. She said I could stand out there what, 150 yards and I could probably catch
slugs with my hand and not hurt myself so, the velocity really goes down after about 100-150
yards.
Mayor Furlong: Alright.
Bert Notermann: Okay, thank you.
Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Mr. Hoffman, you had mentioned the few properties to the north of
old 212. And I know Mr. Erhart is one of those 3 properties. I believe he made the comment
that he doesn’t allow slug hunting or he does allow shotgun and water and small game hunting
and recreational shooting as well. Do we know what the preferences are of the other two
property owners north of Flying Cloud Drive?
Todd Hoffman: Both would prefer to continue slug hunting.
Mayor Furlong: Okay. And do you know whether or not they hunt from stands or if they also
hunt from the ground?
Todd Hoffman: They probably practice both methods. Hunting from stands and hunting from
driven hunts or driven deer, yeah.
Mayor Furlong: Okay.
Todd Hoffman: And a point of context. For example the Klingelhutz property, they sign about
15, well between 15 and 20 permits for gun hunting and again, I’m an advocate of this activity in
our community but I was unaware that there was this much gun hunting activity in the valley
because those particular hunting owners had not been coming in and so we’ve not been tracking
that activity through our permit based process. We may have been having those conversations
all these years along. Do I think it’s a reasonable activity? Yeah, it’s a reasonable activity down
there in the valley under the right conditions so you know I appreciate the property owners are
coming in and, but at some point you have to have these conversations in your community’s
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City Council Meeting - July 28, 2008
growth. We have people that see people in orange and with guns and they hear gun fire and
they’re also part of our community and they wonder what is going on in our city and why would
we allow such a thing to go on. You know in our neighborhoods or in our particular area but in
that river valley, if you study, I’ve only walked it once in my years here but it’s very expansive
and a large area.
Mayor Furlong: With permission.
Todd Hoffman: Yes, with permission. I think that day I asked. He said I could at least walk the
property.
Sever Peterson: And you did.
Todd Hoffman: I took you up on it. And took a look at the farm so, and the WMA but it’s a
large area and that’s one of the things that we’ve said all the way along, is we’ve had a difficult
time with our snowmobile situation as well and we understand that residents that came here for
that activity, feel very strongly that they should continue it. The same goes for firearm gun
hunting and bow hunting, but there’s emotion and other things that go along with these activities
as well so you have to make sure it’s discussed and you’re proceeding it properly.
Mayor Furlong: Okay. Thank you. The other thing we discussed, I think at the last meeting we
didn’t reach any conclusion at the last meeting because there was more information we wanted at
the time we tabled it, but it was the timing of the implementation of some of these, and we talked
about, I think there was general consensus on expanding the bow hunting opportunities across
the city among the council. I think we were all in agreement on that, and the desire to go ahead
and move forward with that immediately so if there’s a desire by sportsmen to partake in bow
hunting, they’d be able to do it for the coming season. But we also I think talked about maybe
deferring, if we go forward on some restrictions, deferring the implementation of that. Is that
something that, I think the current owners kind of speaks strictly to everything has changed upon
approval so is that still something that seems, did you think any more about that from staff or did
you talk any more about that? Is that still a workable thing to try to separate the timing?
Todd Hoffman: Yeah.
Mayor Furlong: If we decide to go forward with some additional restrictions, to not make it
effective immediately.
Todd Hoffman: Yes. And if we take no action, we’ll continue as is and then you would have to
decide whether or not you want to expand bow hunting.
Mayor Furlong: Okay.
Todd Hoffman: Up to 10 acre parcels. And again, point of context. In talking to Mr. Peterson
today and referencing Eden Prairie. Eden Prairie has a 40 acre, right Don?
Sever Peterson: Yes.
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City Council Meeting - July 28, 2008
Todd Hoffman: 40 acres so Eden Prairie and the valley, or I guess on the other side, if you have
40 acres.
Sever Peterson: Excuse me, I think it’s now eliminated in all of Eden Prairie except in the river
valley. Except in the river valley is the only exception for slugs I believe.
Todd Hoffman: Yeah, 40 acre parcels. And then you get a permit to hunt on that parcel so they
still continue that practice in Eden Prairie, although they do not hunt anywhere else in the
community.
Mayor Furlong: Mr. Notermann, sure. Why don’t you come to the microphone so we can hear
you.
Bert Notermann: One thing I want to say is, I had mentioned about the sharp shooter. You
know they allow us in Eden Prairie to hunt. I own some property down there and I hunt with
Sever down there and they allow us to hunt because they know there is a problem with deer
down there and I can tell you it would be a problem if we weren’t down there hunting. There
would be you know some accidents and maybe serious injuries or deaths if we were not hunting
there so I think it’s important that we continue to do this and from a sharp shooting perspective
you might want to ask Eden Prairie what kind of money they spend a year on killing the deer.
Having sharp shooters come in and kill the deer because of that, so I think it’s a great idea to let
us continue to try to keep the population down. I think it’s a great idea your 10 acre bow and
arrow. Thank you.
Mayor Furlong: Okay. Any other questions at this point? Otherwise I’d be interested in
thoughts and comments from members of the council.
Councilwoman Ernst: For me, well first off I’d like to thank you for coming in and expressing
your opinion and getting involved. But I’m wondering if what we could do is ask Todd at this
point to work with those in that area, and see if there’s something that can be worked out.
Mayor Furlong: Very possibly. Let’s see where kind of we are and maybe we can figure, rather
than deferring. I guess I’m. Well, let me ask you this Councilwoman Ernst, because we really
didn’t a chance to talk significantly about the proposal at our last meeting because we tabled it. I
think in terms of the bow hunting, I think you had said you were in favor of.
Councilwoman Ernst: Expanding.
Mayor Furlong: Of expanding that is being proposed.
Councilwoman Ernst: Yep.
Mayor Furlong: And so then the question is on the adding restrictions to the firearm, you’re
saying at this point maybe there’s, work it out with the property owners south of the.
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City Council Meeting - July 28, 2008
Councilwoman Ernst: Right.
Mayor Furlong: South of the Flying Cloud Drive.
Councilwoman Ernst: Yep.
Mayor Furlong: Okay. Alright. Anything else? Councilwoman Tjornhom, thoughts?
Councilwoman Tjornhom: Yeah I think, at our last meeting I think I recall saying that I wasn’t
even sure I liked the timeline of just stopping something at a certain point. I think development
will kind of take care of a lot of the problems we’re talking about tonight and so I hate to restrict
someone’s use of their property until that time, if it’s a reasonable request, and it seems to me
that it is. Hunting in the river valley seems to be a spot that isn’t populated with a lot of people
obviously as the owners were saying. And also I think it is a matter of public safety. You’ve got
the highways right there and so if you can eliminate some of those deer that are jumping over
fences and onto highways, I think that’s an asset and a value to our community also. So I would
be in favor of either reviewing it yearly to see where we are, or leaving it the way it is. We have
many options because obviously Mr. Erhart said he didn’t hunt with slugs and so he was not
opposed to eliminating that so. I think that we can all come to some sort of reasonable idea of
how to handle this so everyone’s happy.
Mayor Furlong: Okay. Thank you. Councilman McDonald, thoughts. Comments.
Councilman McDonald: Yeah, the big thing that you know when this was brought to us I
recognized the public safety aspect of it, and you know I kind of agreed. I didn’t want to go just
cold turkey and say no more hunting but at the same time.
Mayor Furlong: No pun intended.
Councilman McDonald: But you know the thing was, I did think we all pretty much agreed no
slug hunting and I think that was because I was unaware of this land down at the river bottom. I
actually thought all of that belonged to DNR and that the DNR controlled it and you know it was
not our problem but I think that from what I’ve since learned about all of this, that you know that
probably is the only area within the city that you could safely hunt. So what I would rather see
is, I mean I was prepared to say okay, you can keep shotguns in the areas that we talked about
and we were looking at phasing those out. Again it’s based upon development and pretty soon
you’re not going to be able to hunt up there because there’s going to be people living all around
it. But down in the river bottom area, if Eden Prairie’s already said that that area they will allow
slug hunting, I don’t see why we wouldn’t carve out the same kind of restriction. Or it’s not
even a restriction but allow the same thing down in that area because it’s conducive to it. So you
know I really appreciate you all bringing this forward because again I did think all that land was
owned by the DNR and you know bow hunting was all that was allowed down there so I’m glad
that we found this out but that’s kind of where I was at. I was prepared to say you know in those
areas, you know just do the shotguns and fine shot. I’m still good with that. Everything north of
basically Flying Cloud Drive, you know to say that but to allow the river bottom area to
continue hunting the way they have. And again if I could just add one thing. The other thing
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City Council Meeting - July 28, 2008
that makes we feel better about this is again, this is not as though they allow just anybody to
walk in there. You have to meet certain criteria.
Councilwoman Tjornhom: Obviously.
Councilman McDonald: Yes. Yeah, and Todd if I owned land I’d definitely allow you to come
hunt on it but I mean, I just feel very confident that a lot of our public safety issues are not a big
concern down there so that’s the other reason why I’d say let’s continue to allow them to hunt
down there.
Mayor Furlong: Based on these comments, I mean Mr. Hoffman and Mr. Gerhardt, what are
your thoughts about what basically Mr. McDonald suggested. It would be continue to allow our
current ordinances to exist in place south of Flying Cloud Drive. Is that area materially
significantly different in your opinion than the area north of the bluff? Still in southern
Chanhassen but north of the river bluff. What are your thoughts there from a public safety, from
a public concerns, public nuisances and other factors?
Todd Gerhardt: Well I think Todd and I would agree, it’s definitely different than being on top
of the bluff where you have the residential. You know my only concern really in that area is the
driving range. I don’t know when the slug season is but you have individuals out at that driving
range and what is the distance? You know it looks like the DNR owns some land inbetween
there. Is that appropriate? Odds are you probably got 300 yards before you’re up against the
building. You’ve got one of the property owners in the residential homes on the westerly side
here this evening and I think he’s a proponent to try to keep the hunting so he’s aware of what’s
going on. Residents are going to hear the fine shot shotguns versus the slug. I definitely would
say that you, anybody hunting in this area needs to be in a tree, would be one of the requirements
I would ask that somebody place on them. And that that would only allow the ricochet to occur
from the shot. So hearing the council and the direction you want to go, those are my concerns.
Mayor Furlong: Okay.
Todd Gerhardt: Todd, you want to add anything to that?
Todd Hoffman: Each property is different as you’re moving north. You know the Klingelhutz
property’s in a fairly deep ravine but again you could safely slug hunt on each of them but
they’re closer to town so.
Mayor Furlong: Yeah, and I think that’s what I’m hearing here tonight from a, in terms of the
slugs to, if we, you know it seems like it’s more safe and from a public safety standpoint if
they’re hunting from an elevated position. From a stand. Whether it’s a tree or a stand alone
structure or whatever.
Todd Hoffman: Yeah again, I caution you if, as a community we try to put that, these drivers, if
a buck jumps up in front of those drivers, they’re going to shoot it so, you know you put undue
restrictions on, continuing to allow hunting, it’s something to consider but is it going to be
followed in real life? Probably not.
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City Council Meeting - July 28, 2008
Mayor Furlong: Okay. That’s fair enough.
Todd Hoffman: They could tell me different but I think it’s going to happen.
Sever Peterson: It’s not safe so we wouldn’t, we couldn’t do that. We absolutely would not do
that because I mean.
Todd Hoffman: Alright, there’s your answer.
Sever Peterson: Todd, there was a time that we did hunt as drivers. We no longer do that. We
no longer do that because it could be tempting for the buck, and in the spur of the moment,
where that corridor goes so we don’t. We hunt only from tree stands in corridors.
Mayor Furlong: Okay. Alright.
Todd Gerhardt: Mayor, council.
Mayor Furlong: Yep.
Todd Gerhardt: We’ve kind of bantered this around. I like the gentleman’s comments about
maybe getting down and talking about some safety guidelines that we could put in this area.
Allow Todd and I to sit down. Maybe bring Roger in to help draft some language that can work
for everybody.
Mayor Furlong: And I guess my thought would be, I think that makes some sense. I think, but
at the same time to, you know I think there could be safety guidelines that could be suggested but
you know if somebody’s being allowed to hunt, and Mr. Peterson I don’t question at all your
comments about what you would or would not do, I think there might be other property owners
that you know, to Todd’s point, may indeed take the shot if the buck jumps up while they’re
driving and ultimately it’s up to each individual hunter to practice safe hunting habits. I mean
that is really where the reliance is always so. It seems to me that there is a difference, a dividing
line if you will of Flying Cloud Drive generally runs along the lower level of the river bluff. The
upper level bluff and I think the deer population down there, and throughout the city can be
enjoyable at times as an amenity, but can also be a nuisance or a safety hazard themselves and
we’ve seen that along Highway 5 and other areas as well so I think continuing to allow
recreational hunting for those who choose to partake in it, as well as from a safety and public
safety factor, I’d like to see it continue where we can, and perhaps if the thought of the council is
either to make no changes on the firearms or to, if we believe that the balance is appropriate to
look at Flying Cloud Drive as a northerly most, and allow slug hunting south of Flying Cloud
Drive. We’re affecting a couple property owners that would prefer to continue but I think
development and such is occurring at basically above the bluff. It seems to me that there is a
significant difference in terms of our urbanization of the city. Does that seem to make sense to
members of the council?
Councilwoman Tjornhom: It does to me.
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City Council Meeting - July 28, 2008
Mayor Furlong: To go forward with the expanded bow hunting throughout the city, but then to,
and to allow continued use of shotgun with fine shot for water fowl and small game in those
areas north of Flying Cloud Drive, as are currently permitted, which is what is proposed here this
evening anyway, correct Mr. Hoffman?
Todd Hoffman: Correct.
Mayor Furlong: There was no added restriction to that. But then to allow the shot south of
Flying Cloud Drive. And I would suggest you know that Mr. Gerhardt and Mr. Hoffman meet
and try to, along with public safety office, and try to come up with some safety guidelines that,
whether it becomes part of the ordinance or is simply a recommendation from the city, to further
enhance the training that the hunters already have. I guess we can decide on whether we want to
make that part of the ordinance or at least work with them. I would think that we would want to
be clear that all hunting within the city would be done by permit so if in the past there was this
you know, you don’t need that because of whatever reason, I think we should do with all
property within the city to a permit for firearms. All firearms. Not for hunting purposes and that
way there will be better communication between the property owners and the city, public safety
so that as the situation changes, as it continues to change, there’ll be a better understanding on
everyone’s part of what’s happening. Does that make sense for everybody? Councilwoman
Ernst, would you agree?
Councilwoman Ernst: Yes I do.
Mayor Furlong: Okay.
Councilwoman Ernst: I just question, Todd do you know for sure that the other property owners
on the other parcels are only hunting, they’re not hunting with slugs, any of them. Is that
correct?
Todd Hoffman: No, they are and.
Mayor Furlong: They are.
Councilwoman Ernst: They are?
Todd Hoffman: Yeah they are.
Councilwoman Ernst: Oh.
Todd Hoffman: Mr. Klingelhutz signed 15 or 20 gun permits primarily for slug hunting on his
property last year. And he could not be here tonight but he said his, he would like to continue
that practice on his property. That’s also an option is just to take no action on our current
firearms and let it continue for the fall season. I would like to move this off the council agenda.
This is the time of year when hunters start to make plans and purchasing licenses and other
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City Council Meeting - July 28, 2008
things so we’d like to allow them to do that. And then take the winter months to sit down and
have a conversation with our group of landowners that are left.
Councilwoman Ernst: That’s a good idea.
Mayor Furlong: I think that makes sense, including the owners throughout the city and see if
there’s something that can be recommended by both staff and the property owners. Even though
I think you’ll be able to share with them the sense of council. I would like to move forward on
the bow and deer. Or bow hunting expansion this evening. And I guess I’d like to make clear
too the need for permits throughout the city for all firearms and.
Todd Hoffman: And that is currently on the books.
Mayor Furlong: Oh that is currently on the books?
Todd Hoffman: Yeah.
Mayor Furlong: Then we’ll just reinforce that. Maybe we could somehow notify property
owners of record for all those areas that are currently, since there aren’t that many, we could
notify them and remind them, and at the same time invite them to participate in the discussions
going forward. Does that make sense? Anything else that we want to move forward with
tonight? Are people comfortable with Mr. Hoffman’s recommendation? That we leave the
ordinance in place with regard to firearms for this season. I’d want to do that anyway, even if
we’re going to add restrictions, I wouldn’t want to make those effective prior to January 1, ’09
anyway.
Councilman McDonald: Well you know I think everything we heard about the properties that
we’re most concerned about, they probably only have about 1 or 2 years at most left to do this so
I don’t see where this year really presents that big of a problem and it would give us a chance to
get something in place for next year and give everybody plenty of notice and warning and I think
everyone’s on notice now that we’re definitely considering some restrictions on hunting so I
guess the communications can take place between the staff and we can come up with something.
Mayor Furlong: I think the staff and the property owners and let’s see what can worked on over
the winter months. With that, normally what we want to do, are we comfortable making a
motion here this evening? Under Section 11-2, item (c). Deals with the bow and arrow by
permit. Should that section be adopted this evening? I’m assuming by our comments that item
(b), (a) and (b) would not be changed from our current ordinance. Correct?
Todd Hoffman: (yes).
Mayor Furlong: Item (c) would be adopted under, because that is expanding, is it not? Yes?
Todd Gerhardt: Owners written permission carried on his or her person to hunt out there.
Roger Knutson: You can do that now.
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City Council Meeting - July 28, 2008
Todd Gerhardt: This is item (c) under 11-2. I thought there was an expansion to.
Todd Hoffman: Yeah, it’s an expansion. Item 2 expands.
Mayor Furlong: (c)(2).
Todd Hoffman: Yep.
Mayor Furlong: Okay. So we could adopt item 11-2(c) in it’s entirety and even if, and that
would include all that we had discussed. Is that correct Mr. Hoffman?
Todd Hoffman: Correct.
Mayor Furlong: Okay. And then (d), is there any change to that?
Todd Hoffman: It would not be, you would not act on it because it is, (d) restricts it to fine shot.
Mayor Furlong: I see. Okay. So we’d not act on that this evening. (e)? Or (f)?
Todd Hoffman: No. Just simply.
Mayor Furlong: Are those already in place?
Todd Hoffman: Yep. Yep, simply (c)(2) you would be amending.
Mayor Furlong: Okay. So at this point we could accept a motion to adopt. I just want to make
sure that we adopt the right thing this evening and.
Councilman McDonald: Okay, are we ready?
Mayor Furlong: I think I have the sense of the council but I want to double check.
Councilwoman Ernst: Does (c)(2) include the expansion of the bow, where is that?
Mayor Furlong: The expansion of the bow and arrow permit?
Councilwoman Ernst: Yeah.
Councilman McDonald: 89 on your thumbnail.
Roger Knutson: Mayor, I think if you adopted the ordinance presented, just taking out on page
2, (d), using only fine shot, you accomplished everything except making that distinction between
fine shot area and the slug area.
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City Council Meeting - July 28, 2008
Mayor Furlong: So (d) which says a person may discharge a shotgun pursuant to a permit issued
by the city and property designated on the city’s firearm shooting map, adopted by the City
Council. This is the existing map and so if we take out, strike the words using only fine shot,
that’s the only changes there.
Todd Gerhardt: Yep.
Mayor Furlong: Other than that we could adopt the entire section?
Roger Knutson: Entire ordinance.
Mayor Furlong: Some of which would already be in place in others are.
Roger Knutson: That’s correct.
Todd Hoffman: This would then supersede the current ordinance and would not make any
changes.
Mayor Furlong: Okay. And this would be what we’ve talked about this evening?
Roger Knutson: Right. You would not make the Flying Cloud area. You wouldn’t make that
distinction.
Mayor Furlong: There is no distinction there at this point.
Roger Knutson: Is that what we noticed? You could use shotguns or whatever on either side.
Mayor Furlong: Right. Okay.
Todd Gerhardt: And it doesn’t talk about being a stand or anything like that.
Mayor Furlong: Right.
Todd Gerhardt: Something we can talk about over the next year.
Mayor Furlong: I think that’s what we do. I think that’s what we do and work with the property
owners and come up with methods that work for all. Recognizing the public safety and nuisance
factors and other public concerns. So are we comfortable as a council? I think the
recommendation here, based on what we’ve talked about this evening, would be to adopt the
recommended motion with the only change being under item (d) as in David, to strike the words,
using only fine shot.
Councilwoman Ernst: So I’m still not clear on where the expansion piece is. Is that all the
above?
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City Council Meeting - July 28, 2008
Mayor Furlong: If I’m not mistaken the item under (c), which is the bow and arrow, is different
language than our current ordinance…
Todd Hoffman: Yes, it would expand the hunting area to any parcel that is generally 10 acres of
larger.
Councilwoman Ernst: Got it. Okay.
Mayor Furlong: Okay? Is that everyone’s understanding? Everyone understand where we are
and what we’re doing? Mr. McDonald, yes?
Councilman McDonald: Yes. So we would go ahead and adopt it and (d) we would just strike
out, using only fine shot. The rest of that would stay in then.
Mayor Furlong: That’s my understanding, yes.
Councilman McDonald: Okay.
Mayor Furlong: Would somebody like to make that motion?
Councilman McDonald: Yeah, I’ll make the motion. Okay Mr. Mayor I’d like to make a motion
that the Chanhassen City Council amend Chapter 11 of the city code concerning firearms,
restricting the use of firearms, of a firearm by permit to bow and arrow on properties of 10 acres
and larger, and shotguns as defined with the, and shotguns on properties. Now wait a minute.
That doesn’t make sense. Okay, and shotguns. And amend Chapter 4 by striking out the phrase,
with fine shot only in Section (d) regarding, and amend Chapter 4 regarding fines to establish the
permit fee to discharge a bow and arrow or to discharge a firearm to $20 each.
Mayor Furlong: Okay. Thank you. Does that work? Thank you. Is there a second?
Councilwoman Tjornhom: Second.
Mayor Furlong: Made and seconded. Any other discussion?
Councilman McDonald moved, Councilwoman Tjornhom seconded that the Chanhassen
City Council amends Chapter 11 of the City Code concerning firearms, restricting the use
of a firearm by permit to bow and arrow on properties ten acres and larger, and shotguns
on properties designated by a firearm shooting area map, and amends Chapter 4 regarding
fees to establish the permit fee to discharge a bow and arrow or to discharge a firearm to
$20 each. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 4 to 0.
Mayor Furlong: Very good, thank you everyone. Appreciate your help. Looking forward to
having you involved with this process over the winter months as well. Thank you staff.
Appreciate all your time and effort.
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City Council Meeting - July 28, 2008
CW-III: REQUEST FOR SITE PLAN REVIEW FOR A 30,480 SQUARE FOOT
OFFICE/WAREHOUSE BUILDING; AND PUD AMENDMENT TO INCREASE THE
OVERALL SQUARE FOOTAGE OF BUILDINGS WITHIN CHANHASSEN WEST
BUSINESS PARK ON PROPERTY LOCATED AT 2451 GALPIN COURT (LOT 3,
BLOCK 2, CHANHASSEN WEST BUSINESS PARK). APPLICANT: EDEN TRACE
CORP.
Public Present:
Name Address
JoEllen Radermacher 2479 Bridle Creek Trail
Kate Aanenson: Thank you. As you noted, there’s two application requests. The PUD
amendment and site plan approval. The Chan West Business Park is located at the intersection
of Lyman Boulevard and Galpin. Kind of kitty corner to the new high school. The proposal for
the PUD amendment involves the fact that when the Waytek building went in, the mezzanine
was put in place so that added 15,000 square feet. So the threshold for this PUD amendment,
which we’re still under, increases the maximum square footage to 15,000 square feet. So if you
look at the breakdown of the 15,000 square feet from office, we went up slightly and then the
warehouse space. If you look at the requirement as stated in the staff report, or PUD amendment
or excuse me, an amendment to the environmental assessment, it doesn’t trip that threshold. So
I’m looking at that, the potential space. We’ll show that in another quantified, quantitative table
because there’s still one vacant lot which we estimate about 30,000, and I’ll show you where that
lot is in a minute. So the lot that we’re talking about tonight is approximately 2, almost 3 acres.
We’re looking at a 30,000 square foot building, so staff did support the PUD amendment again
with the minor change. There was a question when this appeared at the Planning Commission
for the public hearing regarding traffic. The Planning Commission did recommend approval of
st
the project on their July 1 meeting. The PUD amendment and the project itself. We did attach
in there the concern regarding traffic and speed. On page 2 of the staff report we did put the
speed trailer out there and looked at that. Again that was a determination of the sheriff’s office
that it didn’t seem to exceed that amount. It’s a little bit difficult to measure some of that now
with the Lyman construction. We have a little bit of an anomaly out there right now so we did
address that issue. This is the project itself. Chan West Business Park. The site that is being
proposed is, where there was an existing building, Lot 3. The lot, let’s see you can see it. Lot 1,
Block 2, just in front of the Waytek is that little narrow piece. That’s the one that’s not built on
yet. You can see what lot that is. That little triangle piece.
Todd Gerhardt: That’s what I’m here for Kate.
Kate Aanenson: Thank you. There you go. I appreciate your assistance. So that little piece
there, we’re estimating the 30,000 so it may come under. If you look at what’s out there right
now for office industrial, it’s a little bit unique. Probably more an office or kind of a unique
situated building because of the space, so again we estimated that so the actual total threshold
when we looked at that might come slightly under that but we wanted to make sure we’re
treating it in a reasonable format. So with that the project itself is a very nice articulated
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City Council Meeting - July 28, 2008
building. This would be not condominiunized but actually each would be leased or rented, so the
individual lots, which we’d have the office in the back, and then bays forward, if you wanted the
warehouse storage in the back. Landscaping plan. Two entrance points. The building itself, the
staff looked at potentially putting architectural element on the top of the building on the bottom
one, but felt that was kind of a duplication of the future, and we did decide to leave that off.
Again it’s a 30,500 square foot building. It has a lot of articulation and rhythm. I do have,
Laurie just stepped out, the building itself here. Material samples but it consists of the rock face
and the burnish concrete block with a variety of colors, including the eggshell hickory and
Mohave. So we think again that the look’s highly articulated. It’s in the center. You know we
talked about industrial so it’s not the most visible building out there, but it matches really well
with the other buildings that are out there. Just a note too, the Snap Fitness building is under
construction right now too on the corner, so then with this building, then there’ll just be that one
pad that I showed you that the city manager kind of pointed to so with that. There is an
extraction with the park fees that comes with this lot. Will get paid at the time of the
development itself. Again I do have the material sample board if anybody’s interested in looking
at that. Again the Planning Commission did recommend approval of the project, as did staff and
there are conditions in the staff report recommending approval of the two motions. The PUD
amendment for the square footage and then the site plan for the building itself. So with that I’d
recommend approval with the conditions in the staff report.
Mayor Furlong: Okay, thank you. Any questions for staff? Public hearing at the Planning
Commission. Any issues other than traffic?
Kate Aanenson: No. I think that was just the main thing was the traffic issue, and then just
talking about the architecture. The architect is here if there’s any questions.
Mayor Furlong: Okay. Alright, thank you. Any other questions for staff on any of these issues?
The applicant or their representatives here this evening. I assume anything that you’d like to
provide to the council.
Applicant: No I’m, if you’re ready to go, I am.
Mayor Furlong: Very good. Thank you. Any questions for the applicant? No? Anyone else
that is wishing to comment to the council on this matter this evening? Good evening.
JoEllen Radermacher: Good evening Mayor, Council members. My name is JoEllen
Radermacher. I live at 2479 Bridle Creek Trail. Very simple comment but I think it’s really
important. There is, where this lot is located, behind it there’s a very, very nice row of stately
oak trees. I hope the intent is for those to be preserved during this construction. Yeah, see it’s
between Lot 4 and then where the Lot 3 is. They’ve got it shown.
Kate Aanenson: Those are intended to be saved, yes.
JoEllen Radermacher: Those are.
Kate Aanenson: Yep. And…
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City Council Meeting - July 28, 2008
Mayor Furlong: Can you, or Mr. Gerhardt, can you make sure that we’re all looking at the same
thing. You’re talking about that area right there?
JoEllen Radermacher: Right, all the way down.
Mayor Furlong: Okay, and that triangle piece to the north of Lot 3?
JoEllen Radermacher: Yeah. We’ve lost quite a few oak trees in this development so it’s, they
are very nice and if at all possible it would be really nice if they could be preserved.
Kate Aanenson: And just for point of clarification. Before construction begins, the applicant or
the developer’s required to put the silt fence, erosion, and then put up all the tree preservation
areas. Fence all that off. And then they’re authorized to proceed, but we have to check that first
before they begin.
JoEllen Radermacher: Okay.
Mayor Furlong: And someone from city staff will be on site to verify the location of those
markings?
Kate Aanenson: Yes. Yes. Yes, before they begin, correct.
JoEllen Radermacher: Thank you.
Mayor Furlong: And you raise a good point. The entire area, Outlot C up there obviously on the
north part of this parcel is one of the things that has a tremendous oak tree stand and other trees
and that was all preserved as part of the site. Original PUD so it’s nice to see that we’re
preserving other trees as well in there, so thank you.
JoEllen Radermacher: Okay, thank you.
Mayor Furlong: Appreciate you raising the comments and staff will be sure to take note of that
during the process. Thank you. Any other questions or comments? Thank you. Bring it back to
council. Any thoughts or comments? On either the requested PUD amendment or the site plan.
Councilwoman Tjornhom: Seems pretty cut and dry. I think it’s been a good development so far
and it looks like it’s staying on track with quality architecture and just overall hopefully being
neighborhood friendly for all those neighbors that are living around the construction and
everything else.
Mayor Furlong: Okay, thank you. Any other comments? If not, is there a motion to adopt the
two proposed requests?
Councilwoman Ernst: I’ll do it. I make a motion that City Council approves the amendment to
the Planned Unit Development design standards for Chanhassen West Business Park to permit a
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City Council Meeting - July 28, 2008
total development building square footage of 365,000. And the Chanhassen, that City Council
approve the Site Plan for Planning Case #08-14 for a 30,500 square foot, one-story office/
warehouse building, plans prepared by Houwman Architects and McCombs Frank Roos
Associates, Incorporated dated 5/23/08, subject to conditions 1 through 22 on page 11 through 13
of the staff report dated July 1, 2008. And that City Council also adopt the attached Findings of
Fact.
Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Is there a second?
Councilman McDonald: I’ll second.
Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Any further discussion on the motion? We’ve just taken away one
of Roger’s jobs. Todd has a new one and Roger needs one. Alright, we’ll find something else
for you to keep you busy. Very good. Is there, a motion’s been made and seconded. Is there
any further discussion on the motion?
Councilwoman Ernst moved, Councilman McDonald seconded that the Chanhassen City
Council approves the amendment to the Planned Unit Development design standards for
Chanhassen West Business Park to permit a total development building square footage of
365,000. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 4 to 0.
Councilwoman Ernst moved, Councilman McDonald seconded that the Chanhassen City
Council approve the Site Plan for Planning Case #08-14 for a 30,500 square foot, one-story
office/ warehouse building, plans prepared by Houwman Architects and McCombs Frank
Roos Associates, Incorporated dated 5/23/08, and adopt the attached Findings of Fact,
subject to the following conditions:
1.The applicant shall enter into a site plan agreement with the City and provide the necessary
security to guarantee erosion control, site restoration and landscaping.
2.The developer shall provide exterior benches and/or tables.
3.One additional parking stall shall be provided.
4.At least six of the parking stalls located east of the building shall be relocated to the side of
the building.
5.The developer shall provide a pedestrian connection from the site to the sidewalk on Galpin
Court. Pedestrian ramps shall be installed at all curbs along this pathway.
6.The plan specifications shall be revised to incorporate high pressure sodium vapor lamps instead
of the metal halide lamps
7.
A three-foot clear space around fire hydrants shall be provided. Fire Code sec. 508.5
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City Council Meeting - July 28, 2008
8.Nothing shall be placed near fire hydrants or fire department inlet connections that would
deter or hinder from gaining immediate access. Fire Code sec. 508.5.4.
9.No PIV (post indicator valve) will be required.
”
10.Contact Fire Marshal for location of “No Parking Fire Lane signs, and curbing to be painted
yellow.
11.Park fees in the amount of $31,387.67 shall be paid at the time of building permit issuance.
12.The buildings are required to have an automatic fire extinguishing system.
13.The plans must be prepared and signed by design professionals licensed in the State of
Minnesota.
14.Retaining walls four feet high or higher require a building permit and must be designed by a
structural engineer registered in the State of Minnesota.
15.The applicant shall increase the inside width of all islands and/or peninsulas to 10 feet or
greater.
16.Tree preservation fencing is required to be installed prior to any construction along the north
and west property lines.
17.On the Grading plan:
a.Show the existing contours on the east side of the site. Provide spot elevations of the
driveway connections.
b.Show NWL and HWL on the pond.
c.Add benchmark.
d.Reduce slope on the southern drive.
18.Encroachment agreements will be needed prior to building permit issuance for any driveway
or retaining wall in the drainage and utility easement.
19.On the Utility plan:
a.Provide details of each utility crossing.
b.Add cleanout to the sanitary sewer service.
c.Add note to notify City of Chanhassen Utility Department 48 hours prior to connecting to
the watermain (952-227-1300).
d.Watermain must be looped around the building. This watermain shall be privately owned
and maintained.
20.Show location of heavy duty versus light duty pavement sections.
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City Council Meeting - July 28, 2008
21.Add Detail Plates 3107 and 5215.
22.The northern driveway must be either shifted to the south to remain on the site being
developed or secure a private drive easement from the property to the north.”
All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 4 to 0.
COUNCIL PRESENTATIONS:
Councilwoman Tjornhom: Mr. Mayor I actually did something for the first time this summer
that I’ve been wanting to do for a long time and Sophie and I biked from our home on Saturday
morning to the farmers market. I’ve been meaning to check it out and what a fun thing it was so
for those people who haven’t been there yet, take advantage of it as the summer goes on. I’m
sure more and more produce is going to be available and it’s another one of those community
events that should be happening every Saturday, so another good thing to do in Chanhassen on a
Saturday morning.
Mayor Furlong: Very good.
Todd Gerhardt: What kind of bread sample did you have?
Councilwoman Tjornhom: They just, what did they have? Cinnamon chips.
Mayor Furlong: Very good. Thank you. Any other comments? Thoughts? I will just share that
I had an opportunity with our busy schedule, our first opportunity to attend the evening concert
in the park. Part of the Lunchtime Lyrics/Twilight Tunes a couple weeks ago. About a week or
so ago, and very enjoyable. Great turnout. The city staff was there. Did a good job as well as
the Klein Bank who’s sponsoring it this year, was very active and if again, if people haven’t had
an opportunity to take in those concerts, I think there’s one this week and perhaps next week are
the final two. So try to make one and next year when the opportunity comes up, try to make
those. It’s a great way to spend the evening with family and friends so. Thank you Mr. Hoffman
and please extend our thanks to your staff for all the work they do in organizing those. I heard a
lot of good comments while I was there from just people stopping me and saying how much they
enjoy it and so, please extend that gratitude back to your staff as well.
Todd Hoffman: I will.
Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Anything else.
ADMINISTRATIVE PRESENTATIONS:
Todd Gerhardt: Just a couple of things. Laredo project is moving along nicely. We did allow
them to extend a few extra hours each day to get the school area up and running. We’re down to
basically 4 to 5 weeks before school starts here so we want to make sure we get that area
wrapped up. And second thing, I want to thank the Mayor and city staff for helping with the
Chamber picnic. The Chamber event last Tuesday. The City grilled hamburgers and we had
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City Council Meeting - July 28, 2008
potato salad for all the Chamber members that attended the monthly meeting and Jerry was there
also, so it was a good event. I got a little nervous there in getting our coals hot enough but we
got them going.
Mayor Furlong: Nobody noticed.
Councilman McDonald: Well at least until he brought it up again.
Todd Gerhardt: Yeah. But you know everything turned out well. Everybody got a hamburger
in a timely manner so we were, Laurie keeps reminding me, we were ahead of the game of when
we were supposed to serve so. So maybe I shouldn’t even have brought it up right? But thank
you for everybody that helped in that. That was a fun event and I think the Chamber members
appreciated it and we kind of broke in the new park shelter. It was at the new park shelter at
Lake Ann so it was a nice venue. Nice, it was a nice day. That’s all I have.
Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Any questions for Mr. Gerhardt or staff? No?
CORRESPONDENCE DISCUSSION.
None.
Mayor Furlong: We will continue our items of unfinished business in the work session
immediately following. If there is nothing else 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 with a vote of 4 to 0. The City Council meetingwas
adjourned at 9:30 p.m.
Submitted by Todd Gerhardt
City Manager
Prepared by Nann Opheim
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