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1987 08 17201 CHANHASSEN CITY COUNCIL REGULAR MEETING AUGUST 17, 1987 Mayor Hamilton called the meeting to order. Tn, meeting was opened with the Pledge to tt~ Flag. MEMBERS PRESENT: Councilman Boyt, Councilman Horn, Councilman Geving and Councilman Johnson STAFF PRESENT: Don Ashworth, Gary Warren, Barbara Dacy, Jo Ann Olsen, Lori Sietsema, Todd Gerhardt, Larry Brown, Jim Chaffee and Roger Knutson APPROVAL OF AGENDA: Councilman Geving moved, Councilman ~ohnson seconded to approve the agenda with the following additions: Councilman Johnson wanted to discuss boat trailer parking in the City, Councilman Horn wanted to discuss citizen complaints ar~ council direction ar~ Councilman Boyt wanted to discuss the Lotus Lake Boat Access. All voted in favor of the agenda as amended and motion carried. CONSENT AGENDA: Councilman Horn moved, Mayor Hamilton seconded to approve the followin~ consent agenda items pursuant to the City Manager's recomuendations: a· Resolution %87-82: Change street name in Carver Beach Estates from Nez Pert. to Lake Lucy Road. C. d· Approve Development Contract Amendment, Rime Property. Resolution %87-83: Approve Plans and Specifications for Tennis Courts at Meadow Green Park. e. Resolution ~87-84: Acceptance of Utilities, Near Mountain Phase I. f· Resolution %87-85: Approval of Change Order No. 2, Park One Addition. i. Approval of Accounts dated August 17, 1987 j · Resolution %87-86: Special Assessment Accounting Services, Voto, Tautges, Redpath and Company. k· City Council Minutes dated July 20, 1987 Park and Recreation Cc~mission Minutes dated August 4, 1987 Park and Recreation Omm~ission Minutes dated August 11, 1987 All voted in favor and motion carried. VISITOR PRESENTATIONS: ~C. Burdick: I have an objection to the Minutes if that would be appropriate at this time and I want to go on record of an obvious error· Monday, July 20, 1987, (f) was a final plat approval, B.C. Burdick. ~hat's final plat approval, B.C. Burdick. The Minutes that have c~me out still under (f), extension of preliminary plat approval, Burdick 2r~ Addition, B.C. Burdick. I City Council Meeting - August 17, 1987 didn't ask for an extension. Tb~ final plat was approved at that meeting unanimously which I attended that night with Brian and Mr. Kelly were here. We also have a transcript which shows that. There was no discussion of it whatsoever so that part of the Minutes should be corrected. Mayor Hamilton: I think as we had pointed out to you at the last meeting that there was an error in the way the item appeared on the Consent Agenda and the item, if you read it as it was presented to the Council, was in fact an extension of the time for the plat itself. Had we not taken action on the extension of the plat that evening, you would have had to have gone back to the Planning Commission and gone through the whole process again. Because your year's time would have expired. That is why we took the action that evening to extend that time, 6 months for you, because we were not ready to approve it at that time. B.C. Burdick: That is not t_he action taken that night. Mayor Hamilton: Yes it is. B.C. Burdick: Tne action taken was final plat approval. Mayor Hamilton: I appreciate your comment Jim and we will have that on the record but the Minutes have been approved and I suspect they will remain. B.C. Burdick: And the Minutes of tonight's meeting show that I made this objection to these Minutes. Jeremy Jensen: I recently finished by Eagle project in Chanhassen Ponds Park. You approved it a couple months back and I just wanted to show you some of the results. We had to extend the bridge quite a ways so it's 40 feet long now because we had to move it over because of the problems we've had and that's pretty much the major change that had to be made. Are there any questions? Councilman Geving: How many Chanhassen troop members did you have working on this project? Jeremy Jensen: We had 19 people out on July llth and it was pretty much a one day shot except for all the prefitting that I did and the digging of the holes and putting in the footings and then building the bridge we did in one day. We worked from 8:00 in tbs morning until 6:00 at night and some of us stayed a couple hours later. Mayor Hamilton: It looks like an excellent project Jeremy and certainly one that you can be proud of having participated in and actually a~lished. Councilman Johnson: I walked across that just after they finished and it's an excellent job. Mayor Hamilton: Are those pictures that we can have or that you are going to keep? 2O3 City Council Meeting - August 17, 1987 Jet,my Jensen: I need those back. Mayor Hamilton: I would like to get a couple of those anyway for our records so we can have those framed ar~ put up ar~ have Jeremy's name put under them and say that that was your Eagle. I would like to start like a bookcase thing where we can put projects in there because it's a beck of a project. Councilman Geving: I would like to have the Carver County Herald and maybe the South Shore News, one of those papers, pick up a picture of Jeremy down at the bridge. Good job Jeremy. REQUEST FOR A SHOOTING PERMIT IN A NO SHOOTING AREA, MICHARr. GORRA, 1680 ARBORETUM BLVD. Jim Chaffee: To put Mr. Gorra's request in a nutshell, this area north of TH 5 is designate~ as a no shooting ar~ He c~me in ar~ requested a shooting permit to shoot geese and Mr. Gorra you correct me if I'm wrong here but it's in this area here? Michael Gorra: Yes. Jim Chaffee: And I told him I was not comfortable in issuing that permit to him in the shaded areas that has ~_--n designated by Council to be no shooting areas. I told him alternative was to come to City Council and present his case before the Council which he is doing now. This will probably dovetail an it~ later on. Now, did you ~nt to get into that at all? Don Ashworth: I don't believe so. I think the other item can stand on it's own. Jim Chaffee: Let me ask you Mr. Gorra, you said you lease this property to an individual? Michael Gorra: For farming purposes. Jim Chaffee: Is that individual' s name Dimler? Michael Gorra: Right. Jim Chaffee: And your request now is for this entire portion? Michael Gorra: Yes. Jim Chaffee: And that' s it in a nutshell. Michael Gorra: I've got about 150 acres there and no neighbors to speak of. The closest neighbor, Natural Green in here, Mr. Kerber lives here and then there's another house way up in here but there is really nobody that I could endanger or bother by staying on my own property within the boundaries here. I realize that this is a no shooting area but I guess I really never understood, I can nc why you wouldn't want it public. Wouldn't want the public coming north of TH 5 in Chanhassen but I guess I never understood why City Council Meeting - August 17, 1987 you wouldn't under a permit basis, allow an individual landowner to hunt his own property as lor~3 as there weren't any neighbors close by or anyone in danger or bothered. Mayor Hamilton: Does your property border on Prince's property? Michael Gorra: Yes. I think this would be the line up here but that house is way back. A lot of trees. Tnere's no way he would be bothered by any noise or anything else. Councilman Geving: Is your request for the fall season or for a particular period of time? It's not for the special goose hunting season. Michael Gorra: I would like to encompass that for the entire hunting season. Fall of '87. Councilman Horn: All I have a question of staff is how they decided the boundaries of the northern area. How did we decide that it would go up on this side of his property line rather than the other side when we designated the no hunting area. Jim Chaffee: ~nose lines in there I think are something else. Anything north of TH 5. Mayor Hamilton: It's been that way for quite a few years. Councilman Horn: I know how long it's bc-~n~ but I wonder what the criteria was. Jim Chaffee: Tnat I couldn't answer. Don Ashworth: Staff is not making a recommendation this evening. It is being presented as a visitor presentation item and I guess we would appreciate putting it back on and doing some research regarding previous committee, their work, why they picked out north of TH 5 versus south of TH 5, a property description, etc.. Councilman Boyt: Given that interest, I know this is a time sensitive matter, especially when it comes to the special goose season that's bc~n~ declared. I would like to see it, if we approve it, limited to the special goose season. I think that actually serves a reasonable community function. Given that we've been paying people money to get rid of geese off Lake Ann. On the one hand, one of my questions was also what makes a non shooting area. Clearly a residential area would make it non-shooting but how did we get that area encompassed in it. I think Mr. Gorra's request is in many ways reasonable given the amount of property but it's a very sensitive area. Sitting right next to a park. Councilman Johnson: For this 100 and whatever acres here, are you looking for your own self and your family only for shooting here? Michael Gorra: ~nat' s correct. 205 City Gouncil Meeting - August 17, 1987 Councilman Johnson: Later on we have an item 9 coming up P~re that seems to be talking about the same acreage or is this a difference acreage? Don Ashworth: Part of it is overlapping. Michael Gorra: I guess part of it. Councilman Johnson: That didn't seem to be more of a family type deal but more of a, I know in Nebraska we would go out ar~ lease goose blir~s and stuff and it was a little extra money for the local farmer to do that. It doesn't sound like yours is a for profit, you're a private sportsman. I don't have a lot of problem as long as there is a set distance away from TH 5 and away from Lake Anru You've got a large area there but Lake Ar~ being a recreational lake, I think we've got to make sure, you're plan shows it bordering the lake. You're not going to be shooting geese off of Lake Anru That's not going to be there. I think we' 11 cover item 9 when 9 gets here. Mayor Hamilton: My only comments are I would not be in favor of it since it's next to a park and I think that the Public Safety Oommission ought to review it ar~ make recommendation back to the Council and if it were, I think there are a lot of things you r~ to look at. Staying away from the park as everybody has said. Staying away from the highway and if we can work those things out, then I think we ~ to look at it but I'm very sensitive to being near a park where people, if it's a nice fall you get people on the lake fishing and boating and perhaps even using the beach. I would suggest that we have the Public Safety Commission look at it and make recommendation back to the Council. You had sc~e more comments. Michael Gorra: I would agree to stay away from the park. I don't inter~ to hunt next to the park. I wouldn't want to stay too far away from the lake, that probably defeats the lmzrpose of hunting there and I would like it for tt~ entire season. I don't see any reason why it should be restricted to special goose seasoru I've lived there for 10 years and I've own this property for a long time and I would like to use it for something. We all know about the sewer line interceptor which downzoned this property and it makes it tough for me to develop. Impossible for me to develop. I would like to use it for something. I don't know of too many fisherman who have ~_n shot by goose hunters in Chanhassen so I wouldn't worry about that. Mayor Hamilton: I wouldn't want to be the first community, believe me. Accidents happen. Michael Gorra: Then you might as well outlaw everything if you don't want to be the first but like I said, I would agree to stay away from the park ar~ possibly the lakeshore but I do feel as though I have rights to use my property for scm~ething as long as I'm not endangering anybody else. Mayor Hamilton: (kay. The Public Safety (bmmission meets Thursday night. This hasn't ~_n an item on our agenda but perhaps we could discuss it at that meeting. We've got a lot of things to go over. We'll try to address it Thursday night at the Public Safety Commission ar~ if need be we can call a City Council Meeting - August 17, 1987 special meeting to discuss it further and get recommendations as quickly as possible. PARTIAL VACATION OF WEST 78TH STREET. Public Present: B.C. Burdick Charlie James Jo Ann Olsen: The site is West 78th Street. Tne approximate location is on the corner of West 78th Street and Powers Blvd.. The applicant is requesting a partial vacation of West 78th Street so that he can start construction on the site plan that was approved just recently by the City Council. Partial vacation would allow for parking and landscaping to be provided. It will still maintain the existing right-of-way for the existing street there so that would still be under the control of the City. We tabled action on August 3rd until the Carver County Board could revoke the control of West 78th Street and they did do that this past Tuesday so now the City can act on the vacation. Also, MnDot who controls the right-of-way in this corner has sent the applicant a letter stating that they do not have any objection to returning the control of that right-of-way over to the applicant. Although it is a long process, it could take up to a year, but they have initiated that and they have also let the applicant know that he can construct his parking area into that right-of-way prior to the officially turning it back over. Staff is recommending approval of the partial vacation with the conditions that the utilities be preserved by an easement and that the remaining right-of-way of West 78th Street, where the street exists, shall not be vacated until the realignment of West 78th Street to the north is accomplished. We are recomnending approval of the partial vacation. B.C. Burdick: I most certainly have comments on this gentlemen because it directly affects me. Vacating that portion of the entirity of West 78th Street is perhaps okay. I keep an open mind on that but this is what I object to. I object to the partial vacating. This piece meal approach. That never works as well whether it's on this or something else. That's number one. Number two, that directly affects me, cuttin~ off that piece up there at an angle reduces the visibility of my property from the north so there, I believe there is damages established. I also question procedure. I talked briefly nicely with Jo Ann this morning and she stated that it had been published but I questioned whether it was posted as is required. Jo Ann did not believe it had been posted and it is a requirement that vacating must be posted and this has not ~n done so the procedure was not followed. Also, I've got questions about the publication too. Was there a petition? That's another procedure that was not followed. There was not a petition and it's also my understanding that a petition needs a majority of t_he property owners. Well, there are two persons. One person can not be a majority because it's not a majority. I believe that's it. I'll keep an open mind at this date in time if this was all planned and at the time they start on the new street and doing it properly. 207 .City ~ouncil Meeting - August 17, 1987 Mayor Hamilton: We're not goir~ to start the new street until this one is vacated so if we ~ant to hold off I guess we can do that. Charlie James: I'm Charlie James frc~ the T.F. James Co~npany ~ I had brought along some exhibits that I have colored up that may make this whole thir~ a little more understandable. First, briefly I would like to give a little background into what has happened out there as far as the surveying and where ~ original road right-of-way was out there. Where we purchased the property we had a boundary survey done and the area that is shown in yellow here and in pink is tb~ right-of-way, the edge of this pink line would be the center line of the right-of-way as it was originally recorded and described. You can see that that does not relate to tt~ sectiom line where it was intended and the yellow line shows an emcroachment onto my property of where the road right-of-way was described ar~ subsequently wh~ we bought the property there was quit claim ~s that were exchanged and reported to the County. The right-of-way has now ~ restored or currently exists as a line described approximately 75 feet north of the section line. Sometime prior to this, because of the description for where the road should be turning in a northwesterly direction and when it was intended to be on the section line, because of that, originally this was 150 foot right-of-way that was intended to be 75 feet on either side of the section line down here and because the road was built, or the description was givem in a northwesterly trend ar~ based on an inaccurate survey, at some point then the paths, they went along on Mr. Burdick's side of the road and they reduced the right-of-way on his side from 75 feet to 40 but they left the right-of-way on our side as being 75 feet so he's already ~_n quit claimed back 35 feet of lar~t on his side of the section line. What we are asking for now here, then when the road was built, I forgot one other point here, where the road was built, the mat, the actual West 78th Street as traveled here, the mat was placed in somewhat of a southwesterly trer~t so you have the road easement as being described on a northwest basis askew from the section line and then the road was built askew on a southwesterly basis ar~ that resulted, as we leave the section corner here, the blacktop mat is pretty much in the center over the section line. As we approach the section line which forms the center line of Powers Blvd. the mat is placed so it approximately, it's 44 feet wide at that point and approximately 16 feet of it is north of the section line and the balance of it is south of the section line. On this exhibit here, the yellow indicates the right-of-way that would exist after this partial vacation that we are requesting. I'm sorry, the yellow shows the mat that will exist after we vacate, if our vacation is requested here. The pink shows the remaining right-of-way so you can ~ that even after our vacation request here there will be right-of-way left on both sides of the blacktop ev~ though the blacktop is somewhat askew of the section line. Then blowing this up in a little better detail her~ This orange line here represents the right-of-way as it's described and finalized in the quit claim documents that were exchanged betw.~-----~n the County and myself so this is the right-of-way, where it should be, as it is today, the orange line. The green line down here, the border betweem the green and the yellow, this line here, represents that portion that we would like vacated. All of that land will be used for green space and for parking. There will be no building on that area. The yellow here then represents the remaining right-of-way that will be left in this area here and tke orar~e line through here represents a center line of tbs blacktop City Council Meeting - August 17, 1987 so I brought these exhibits this evening so that number one, I could demonstrate that even after this vacation there will be ample shoulder or green space on the road and that on Mr. Burdick's side of the road 35 feet has already been vacated back a long time ago and I don't think any property owners came in at that time and complained that that was going to obstruct any use of the north. Tnis vacation, at this point in time, is occurring entirely withon our property and this vacation is contemplated because of the fact that I'm willing to donate and have agreed to do so in writing, the entire 80 foot strip of lar~t for the new West 78th Street so I'm willing to give up 80 feet, I would like to get this approximately 45 feet back. I guess that's the end of my comments. B.C. Burdick: I have spoken with Bill Engelhardt about this and what that does to me and his directions and angles here go just the opposite of what Charlie James has presented here. Tnis is Bill Engelhardt. Tnis just isn't correct at all. I just wish he was here tonight but I didn't know it would get into this. Councilman Geving moved, Councilman Horn seconded to close public hearing. All voted in favor and motion carried. Councilman Johnson: I don't really think I have anything other than, I remember that in the subdivision ordinances when I was researching this for a different project, coming up and complaining to the City Council at that time about not posting the subdivision change. There is a little paragralmh right next to that that says this will not be grounds for dismissing the procedure in my memory as of about a year ago. I believe that if we look at our subdivision ordinance we'll find that posting is in the ordinance and should be done but is not grounds to dismiss a subdivision procedure. Vacation procedures may be slightly different. Councilman Geving: If all of the comments, your comments relate to what Roger may come up with in terms of procedure, then I don't have any questions but the comment that Mr. Burdick brought up is a very important one and that is, is there a need for a petition by both property owners in an area and we need to have that resolved. If in fact one property owner can make petition to the Council representing 50% of the property owners in that particular area, I don't know. Councilman Johnson: His petition was to vacate half the street that's on his property. Councilman Geving: But it also affects the other properties in the area. That's the procedural question. Then of course the requirements that were brought out in terms of staff. Your response Barbara will probably be what Roger comes up with in terms of t_he posting. Barbara Dacy: I'll wait until the City Attorney. Councilman Geving: I just don't really have a lot of questions because we've been at this project for a long time. We've got to start a part of this project before the other pieces can fall in line and sometimes it's necessary City Council Meeting - August 17, 1987 to do a piece meal approach. Mayor Hamilton: Roger is back and may have an answer to our questions. Roger, can you respor~ to th~ questions that Mr. Burdick raised about the posting and the petition and the partial vacation of the' street? Roger K~utson: Partial vacation is fine, legally. A petition is not required. The City can do it on it's own motion. Mayor Hamilton: There was a petitio~ however. I believe Mr. James has petitioned, is that correct? Charlie James: There was a letter. I was just looking for a copy of that and there has b~_ a constructive petitio~ in tt~ sense that we've ~ under discussion since October. I have a letter going back to October, 1986 when this whole thing was before the Carver County Highway Department. Roger Knutson: ~he only significance of a petition, there is no petition required. It requires a four-fifths vote of this body to vacate. If there is a petition by majority, and that m_~_ns something more than half, then that is reduced to a simple majority. Mayor Hamilton: ~hat about the posting? Roger Knutson: It's required. Mayor Hamilton: It is required. Can you tell us anything? Roger Knutson: The Statute is silent o~ that. Whatever is the custom practice of the City. They can posted in City Hall, on your bullentin hoard, at the Post Office, at prominent places in the City. That's based upon your Statues which unfortunately are about five years out of date. My recollection is that several places, and I don't have these memorized, several places where these requirements existed, the legislature has gone through and eliminated them so what I would suggest, if you desire to vacate, you can vacate it subject to my checking to see whether that posting one, in fact has taken place. Maybe it's taken place, I don't know. In just talking to Don, Don doesn't know if it's been posted. If it's been posted, there's no problem or if that provision has b~- eliminated from the Statutes you have no problem. So if you want to approve it then you can do it subject to checking those two things out. Councilman (~eving: The posting is required? Roger Knutson: If posting is required ar~ posting did not take place, the~ we will just go through the posting. Councilman (~eving: And for what period of time is that? Roger Knutson: I believe it's 10 days. It will postpone this about 2 weeks. 21G City Council Meeting - August 17, 1987 Councilman Horn: It appears to me that we would have a difficulty in setting a partial vacation unless we know the exact plot lines of the highway and that appears to be a question also. I think we need staff to clarify that for us. Where the lines are in this thing otherwise I don't know how we can get a reasonable description for a partial dedication. Gary Warren: We obviously haven't looked at it. At this point, surveys are done by a registered land surveyor. Bill Engelhardt has not expressed any comments to me. I don't know if he has to Planning about the fact that the vacation was not consistent with what has been shown on the James plat. ~hose plats have been around. We can certainly look into it. Barbara Dacy: The display boards that Mr. James has presented tonight are consistent with the submittals that we've worked on for the past year. Again, Mr. fhgelhardt has not alerted as to any discrepency. As a matter of fact, we specifically directed Mr. James to have his engineer prepare these types of submittals so they can clarify this issue. I think staff is confident that we know what the City is vacating. Charlie James: One thing that Jim said about not being accurate, part of the information that was used in locating things out there was Mr. Burdick's survey that was done for the Burdick Park 2nd Addition by Schoell and Madsen and that's on there and they located they shoulders of the road and the section line and they determined the mat as being 44 feet wide and that's where, when we did our survey, we tied into some of that information and cross checked it and then Hanson-Pellom did my survey. As far as not having a description, the description is simple. The description would be the north 45 feet of the south 75 feet of the west 467.20. Councilman Boyt: I think Roger has cleared it up in terms of saying that we can vote on this subject to the condition he mentioned. We've been working on this for a year. I'm a little surprised to see so much contention at the last moment about this and I feel like it's time to take action. Resolution #87-87: Councilman Johnson moved, Councilman Geving seconded to approve the partial vacation as shown on the site plan dated August 13, 1987 with the following conditions: 0 Any existing utilities within the West 78th Street right-of-way proposed to be vacated shall be preserved by easements. . The remaining right-of-way of West 78th Street shall not be vacated until the realignment of West 78th Street to the north is completed. . The City Attorney review the current law pertainng to posting criteria. Ail voted in favor and motion carried. Charlie James: If I could just add one word. Tnere was a petition that was sent to Gary Warren on February 17, 1987. 10 211 City Council Meeting - August 17, 1987 Mayor Hamilton: Perhaps you could also make Gary your boards available for whatever research w~ may need to do. Is that possible? Charlie James: Sure. I'll just leave these here. I'll leave them right now. STREET VACATION REQUF~T FOR VALHAr.rA AVENUE. Mayor Hamilton: ~his item has be~n before us more than once previously. It's ~ recommended that the property be vacated and returned to the property owners. Staff continues to make that recommendation. Park and Bec did not make recommer~ation of this item when they reviewed it just recently and it se~ms to me to be a very straight forward issue. Any cc~m~nts? Councilman Geving: I think the only discussion item for the people who are present here tonight is the comment from the City Attorney. I would like to have written into the record your comments Roger. Could you restate those briefly. Rsger Knutson: Yes, I was asked to take a look at this issue and determine if this platted street could be one, used for non-street purposes. A beachlot or swimming or docks or anything other than a street and the answer to that is no. Lar~ was dedicated in a plat dated 1910 as a street and our Supreme Court has said that when land is dedicated to a city for a specific purpose we can only use it for that purpose ar~ none other. I was also asked if the City could somehow sell the proprty to someone, anyone, and the answer is no. Ail we have is again the right to use it as a street. We have an easement on it. We don't have the fee title. We c~__n't use it for anything else. We have nothirg to sell. We can either leave it as it is or vacate it or use it as a street. Councilman Horn: I just had one question about reviewing the Minutes. There was a question about the fact that there were three property owners and we speculated at that time that it would go to the one that would own the adjacent lot. Now as I saw the plot, there were three people who owned the adjacent lot. I think the speculation was that it would go to the nearest one to that even though the lot was not subdivided. Barbara Dacy: Right. What I represented at the last meeting is that the owner of portion of Lot 58 immediately abuttirg the proposed vacated right-of- way w~uld receive that land. Councilman Horn: Even though there w~re three owners on that total lot. Barbara Dacy: Right. There are three meets ar~ bounds descriptions existing on Lot 58 that have ~_..n existing for a number of years. Councilman Boyt: I would like to thank the neighbors for putting in an effort to try to ~ if they couldn't constructively use the property but I think the legal issues is pretty clear. We just don't have that option. 11 City Council Meeting - August 17, 1987 Resolution ~87-88: Councilman Johnson moved, Mayor Hamilton seconded to vacate tl~e portioh of Valhalla Drive as outlined in the Planning Staff report dated July 6, 1987. All voted in favor and motion carried. SHADOWMERE SUBDIVISION NORTH OF FRONTIER TRAIL ON LOTUS LAKE: a. T~REM~LPLAN. FINAL PLAT APPROVAL. Barbara Dacy: The first item is submitted the tree removal plan. What the applicant is requesting is permission to remove tbs trees within the proposed street right-of-way for the extension of Bighorn Drive and Shadowmere Court and for removal of trees in the area of the northeast corner of the site for a proposed storm water detention pond. We had anticipated considering this item in conjunction with the grading ar~ final plat. However, the applicant did not publish that for tonight. ~ne third item on the agenda is the final plat. Since preliminary plat approval we have ~,~n, the staff and developer, have been working with the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources Forester out of the Waconia office to address s~me of the tree removal issues not only with the proposed request of removing the trees and the location of the street but also with the future as to what will occur on each individual house pad as far as tree removal is concerned. Mr. Mayor I would like to have Mr. Olson speak with the Council ar~ make a presentation about his findings on his visits out to the site and timber management plan that is included in your report. We are very happy to have him here so I would like to introduce Alan Olson. Alan Olson: Basically in going out to the site with Barb, what I found out there, maybe I should start with a description of what I was looking at out there was predominantly maple stand, sugar maple trees. Very few large trees. Mostly small, 4 inch, 5 inch diameter trees and smaller. The question was put to me, what would the development do to those trees? What would you be looking at in terms of removing trees in order to establish homes, driveways and so on. What I tried to address was that question. How many trees would we need to remove from these areas? I came up with a figure in my plan of maybe looking at having trees approximately every 25 feet. What I base that on was timber managment plan for production of commercial trees with the end product would be trees of approximately 25 foot spacing. About 70 trees per acre. What that does is provide adequate light and adequate spacing for the development of the crowns and the development of the trunks and so on. I want to put some overheads up to try and illustrate tbs point that we're talking about here. I have drawn up quite often in the past 6 years I've worked out of Waconia and I've looked at a lot of housing developments. It's very interesting to me that I was invited to this Council meeting for this particular development because usually my end of it has been on the other end after the development has gone in. Tne houses have been established and so on and the trees are dying and the homeowners are calling me up two years after the fact and saying what's wrong with our trees. Quite often we're not dealing with an insect or disease problem, at least no primarily. What we're dealing with is construction damage. This particular drawing is showing us removal of material either away from the root section or filling on top of tbs existing roots. It's a fact t_hat trees establish a relationship with the 12 21'3 City Council Meeting - August 17, 1987 surface of the ground in the development of their roots throughout their growing cycle. If that relationship is disturbed by even as much as a foot of fill, either added or taken away, tt~ tree can either suffer damage, severe damage or ultimately in mortality. Establishing wells or retaining walls around trees is very important. A situation like this we're lookirg at removing the original grade and trying to establish a wall here to retain the grade around the root system. The point I want to make here is, rule of thumb that we use obviously it's rather difficult to take a look at the root system from above ground but a fairly accurate rule of thumb is that a majority of your root system, approximately 75% of it, is located within the drip line of tt~ tree which is a line drawn vertically down from the outside edge of the crown. What I like to tell people who are going to he working around trees therefore is stay out from under the drip line of the trees as a general rule of thumb to minimize damage to their root system. A~ain, either adding more or taking away soil. To illustrate a root system cross section here and some of the damage that can occur, not only from removal of soil, we've got a small cat here that is perhaps made several trips over that root system or this could be any other type of earth moving equipment, a dump truck obviously, any piece of equipment, making several repeate~ trips over the trees where the tree is going to severely damage the root system and I have seen trees that have died as a result in my estimation of construction damage which the landowner told me, yes but they never really removed any dirt from around the tree. They never even piled anything on it. How did they get in ar~ out of here to establish a driveway, so on and so forth? Well, they drove right through here. T~ had trucks going back and forth here for 5 weeks. Quite often you will see the damage show up at maybe even later in that growing season if we hay a tree that is damaged in the early spring. I would expect to start ~---cing the damage show up on the side of the tree where most of the traffic occurred. In other words, direct relationship of most trees for the root system and the crown, I would expect these branches to start dying for example later on in the growing season or tt~ following growing season the leaves would either not come out, come out smaller or come out off color and perhaps have early leave drop ar~ eventually would not refoliate. This is a overhead that we have put tog~ in conjunction with some of the insect and disease specialists that I work with in the DNR. A question I posed to them was what kind of a well system would you ~ to establish arour~ a tree in order to save it. Quite often we ask that questioru We have to, because of landscaping requirements and so on, we have to fill in this tree but I really want to save it. What can we do about that? This is what tt~y came up with as an example of a type of well system that could work in keeping that root system aliv~ The problem again is oxl~eru The trees would literally suffocate if they are buried. We've got coarse rock on the bottom. Smaller rock, sand, finally top soil. This could he anything from 2 feet d~ to 6 feet dcc-p. It's the same principle. Build a well around the trunk, close into the trunk system ar~ then put these satellite wells out around. This is the top view looking down right here. I was making a comment earlier that I don't know where I would want to use this in terms of the expenditure of money to establish this around a tree unless it was the only sugar maple left in Chanhasen or s~nething like that because this is really an elaborate system to go to. That's the kind of thing where if you want to be guaranteed that this tree would survive, it's the kind of thing you might have to go to. So in other words, what I'm saying with this is that if you do any establishing a 13 City Council Meeting - August 17~ 1987 well, don't put the satellite wells out here to oxygenate the outside roots. Just have the narrow wells down around the tree here like I've seen done. It's a slow death of the tree. It may take 5 years, 6 years but it's going to slowly push the tree down. The tree is goir~3 to be under stress. The problem I run into with that is then I come in, there's a disease problem on the tree. The disease problem probably wouldn't have been there or would not have so severe if the tree hadn't been under stress in the first place. It's a big component .in construction the stress that's caused. Lastly, this overhead, coming up with a rough sketch, again a rule of thumb idea, on what would you remove. Establishin~ the driveway, garage and the house and these trees located in this location in this pattern, removing the trees that are going to be affected by that construction, in other words, the driveway is going under the drip line of the tree, under the crown. Tne basement established here, the slab, whatever it is and so on. These trees would need to be removed so we would end up with an actual line or an imaginary line arour~ the tree in this woods, around this house established that would look like this and this would be the trees we would need to remove. Tne problem that I've seen quite often is the attempt to try and save too many trees. I've ~ a forester for 11 years. I enjoy trees a great deal. I talk to them. I go out in the woods with them all the time and I don't like to see trees cut, particularly for no good reason. On the other hand, I also see a lot, like I say working in the metro area, I've worked both Hennepin and Carver County and I also go into Scott County out of Waconia, and quite often I see the problem of trees that too many trees are left 3 feet from the foundation, big oak trees, driveway right over the root system so on and so forth, the trees don't make it. A couple years later I'm called in and I'm suppose to diagnose what's wrong with it. What's wrong with it is that it was injured during construction. It shouldn't have been there in the first place or it should have ~n removed shortly after. What I have indicated to Barb, in the two trips that I have made to Shadowmere, their proposed development, was would I be interested and willing to mark the trees, designat the trees that should be removed based on where the houses will be ar~ driveways are going to end up. My interest in it, as I say, is to get in in the beginning of development and try to remove some of the problems, the trees before they become problems. Ones that I know aren't going to make it. The secondarily, I just finished an insect and disease seminar up at Cloquet last week, one of our major concerns, in Minnesota particularly in the 7 county metro area, is oak wilt. It's becoming a real problem. One of our more sensitive trees to construction development that I have personally seen is the red oak which also happens to be very sensitive to oak wilt. You put those two together and we have real problems in our own forests and areas that are going to be developed in the houses because we start with the damage from the construction stressing the trees, oak wilt moves in, stresses them further and we start having mortality all over the place. As a preventative measure this is what I 'm proposing. Mayor Hamilton: Are you available Alan? Alan Olson: I have three counties that I work by myself. I don't have a tree problem, I have people management problem. I'm available. Barbara Dacy: I just wanted to follow-up. Through the proposed process, the developer has indicated that they will wire off the proposed tree removal area 14 215 City Council Meeting - August 17, 1987 and after the construction would be completed of the street and installation of t3~ pond, the forester has agreed to come out ar~ inspect the border of that grading area to address the problems that Mr. Olson has just talked about. Secondly we will be using Mr. Olson's recommendations about 1 tree per 25 feet and the recomme~ation about staying out of the drip line of the tree when we reviewe the individual building permit applications for each of those lots. Because I wanted the Council to be aware that we're going to have to be addressing those issues of how do we balance, how many trees are going to be removed versus those homeowr~rs wanting to establish lawns, especially for those lots down to the lake so we will be using Mr. Olson extensively in that process. Finally, staff's recommendation on the tree removal plan is unfortunately we were unable to consummate the review of the grading ar~ utility plan and the developer has been very cooperative in this whole.effort, looking at standards for tree removal. However, we are recommer~]ing that the Council not take action on the proposed tree removal until the grading plan review can be completed. The developer is here tonight. I%n sure he would want to speak to that. Mayor Hamilton: As the streets are being put in, shouldn't the trees be reviewed at that time also? I would think that you would have some trees, based on what you're saying there, that are going to be close to the road that may have to be removed at a later time anyway so I would like to see Mr. Olson work with the developer right from the start with the road and the whole works. Might just as well start at the beginning and make sure it's done right. That's a heavily treed area and certainly a good test for us to do it. Councilman Johnson: Do you have any publications that we can distribute to bullets and homebuilders and stuff like that who have bought lots witin treed areas that would be helpful in explaining this? I know the Department of Agriculture and Soil Conservation both have all kinds of publications. Mayor Hamilton: Do you have booklets similar to what you just showed us? Alan Olson: We have a relatively recent one on construction damage and landscaping. It's a little booklet about that big, it's 15 pages long ar~ kind of gives a brief overview. Councilman Johnson: I think a lot of people here in Chanhassen come to this city for the environment and the trees and meadows and everything we've got and they're very concerned with this I've found. I think they would appreciate having access to it. Barbara Dacy: As a matter of fact we discussed this out on the site a~d the developer indicated that he would distribute that as part of his private Covenants and Restrictions. Councilman Johnson: Now back to this specific one, instead of taking up more time her~ As I understand this, on the tree removal plan, the tree removal plan is to remove the trees where we think we're going to do the grading but we haven't approved the grading plan yet ar~ there may be, are we afraid that there might be some shifts to where we're removing trees that don't ~ to be and we have to come back and remove some other trees later. What is the 15 City Council Meeting - August 17, 1987 concern with doing the grading plans simultaneously? Gary Warren: Until we have a thorough review of the grading and utility plan, I guess we don't know exactly, I don't envision that we're going to have any problems with placement of the road because we're not talking about an intricate roadway system but I guess it's just recognizing the fact that we haven't had a chance to look at the detail plans and that is the point where we really take a hard look at how the utilities and such are going in. Councilman Johnson: In your estimation, how soon will we see this? I realize the developer wants to get in and do some cutting this year so he can get ready to go, what's the chances that we create a problem by going ahead with where the plans now show that the, I~n trying to say what are the risks? How big of a rish are we trying to prevent here by saying let's delay this, what would it be 3 weeks until our next meeting? Gary Warren: September 14th. Councilman Johnson: ALmost a month so what's the risk to the City, to the environment? If we approve this tonight, what is the risk that we're facing by making this approved? You must think there's some or you wouldn't say don' t approve it. Gary Warren: I guess it's hard to say without looking at it, that's why we cautioned the comment there. I don't know exactly and maybe Mr. Fenning would want to address his timing, I don't know exactly what his intentions are on the timing. If September 14th is a problem or not. In any good approach to this, the plans and specifications will look at the details of the project and we may want to make a smaller cul-de-sac on the end of the road for example which would mean less trees would have to be removed. I guess we would be looking more specifically at consequences. It's maybe just fewer trees to be r~noved if we made some changes. Mayor Hamilton: Does he need watershed approval yet too? Gary Warren: You have it? Mayor Hamilton: I thought normally they didn't do that until after the City had acted? Barbara Dacy: ~ney did act on it after preliminary plat approval. Mayor Hamilton: Isn't that unusual? Gary Warren: Because on Saddlebrook for example we had to ask them specifically for review. Mayor Hamilton: I think we should correspond with the Watershed District and ask them, I just want to clarify that point because I thought that was part of the process here. We need to approve it first before the Watershed would approve it. If that changes their procedures I would like to know that. 16 217 City Council Meeting - August 17, 1987 Gary Warren: The other two items I guess is the development contract amd financial sureties which we don't have. We have concern on that, the develolmuent contract in particular. Mayor Hamilton: It seems like those are all things that we required in the past to have prior to approval. Councilman Johnson: Now I would like to l~mar from the developer why they want the tree removal plan knowing that grading won't get approved, if it gets approved, on September 14th? Jim Fenning: I live at 2440 Burns Road, Minnetonka. In our conversation with the staff, they gave us the deadlines for submit~ to make this ager~a. We submitted the grading plan, the utility plan, the final plat but not the specifications for the utilities. Last week we talked to Barb and Barb said we can get the final plat on. Staff is just jammed up with too much work, they haven't had time to do it and so I guess what Ibm askirg for is that, for you to leave it up to the staff and forester. If we can agree, if I will incorporate the charges he wants in the grading plan, he just says okay, go ahead and take the trees down, fine, then I go ahead. It's going to take two weeks, 2 1/2 weeks to take the trees out ar~ that's why I thought I was getting approval on tonight. That's what I'm asking for. I'm not asking for any permits. For grading permits or any installation of sewer and water but I think I have the right no matter what to take the trees down. Councilman Johnson: What method do you plan on for tree removal? Are you talking big bulldozers or what are you going to do with them after you remove them? Jim Fenning: We're going to have small bulldozer. Number one, we're going to put up wires and a kind of fence. One thing I found, as the forester mentioned, whenever you have vehicles running around they're very careful of trees the first day and after that they just encroach, encroach and pretty soon thel~re all over. I'm thinking that if we do this, maybe we can keep the contracters within the limits ar~ so we're looking at some kind of forklift, we'll have trucks to move them out. Looking at a dozer for dragging them around or pushing ths~ around, then we'll be coming in and grinding up the stumps o Councilman Johnson: Are you going to harvest? Are we talking a harvest l~_re where you're going to actually do something with the wood? A lot of the subdivisions come in, pile ths~ up ar~ make a big bonfire. Jim Fenning: It's not goirg to be burned on site. That didn't even oocur to me. Another reason why it won't happen is because you just can't do it within, number or~ you need a permit and n,~ber two, you just kill all kinds of trees around like that. The wood will be harvested. It will probably he given away or whatever they do with it. Dry it for a year ar~ sell it as firewood, whatever. Councilman Johnson: I'm actually a bit impressed with the amount of care the developer is taking here ~ I believe that his request ~s a bit logical 17 City Council Meeting - August 17, 1987 and I think the modification is saying to work with staff on it, prior to our approval of the grading plan, I think is reasonable. I think they've gone a long ways out of their way so far and they're trying very hard to make a good subdivision here. I like the way you worded that, it fails me as I come back on it as far as working with our staff to establish as they review the grading plan before it comes back to us in almost four weeks. That's a long time to wait. Tnat's all I've got. Councilman Geving: I would have to say this, this is the first time I've seen a forest management plan in the city and I would encourage our staff to continue using that resource. I guess my problem with the applicant is, I just don't see any reason for us to hold up the applicant in this process for another three weeks so we can get a look at the grading plan, even longer. My personal view is the recommendations seem to be in order. If the applicant can work with staff and with Alan and they can come up with a cut plan, I don't have any problems with going down there and cutting out the road. I think the road is fairly well defined. We're not going to shift that road a whole lot whs~ we extend Big Horn. It's not that big of an area so I don't have any problem with the recommendation and approval tonight to proceed with this process. Councilman Horn: The only question I have is of the forester and that is, are the guidelines you gave us the same for all trees? I notice your example showed maple trees. Are oak trees still have the drip line as a maple tree? Alan Olson: Some trees are more shallowly rooted than other trees. Silver maple for example has, you can actually see a lot of the anchor roots right in around the crown, right at the' surface of your grass or your lawn. Oaks and walnuts are two species that have a pretty extensive and deep tap root. As far as the tap root is concerned, the main use of that of the tree is an anchor. About 60% of the main feeder roots which are hair like roots that the tree has that come up from the side lateral root system are located within 12 inches of top soil regardless of the species. While some species seem to be a little bit better able to take some damage, bare oak for example seems to be able to take a little more disturbance than red oaks do. By and large their structure, root structure, is very similar. Councilman Horn: The other question I had is, your recommended spacing the 1 tree for 25 feet for property crown growth, I think you talked about this is used in forest management where the trees are raised for lumber. My question is, is that appropriate for development where trees are ornamental and used for screening? Alan Olson: I think it is and the reason why is because I've seen a lot of problems where too many trees have been set either too close together with other trees and shrubs or too close to houses. Tne question was put to me out in the field by Barb, what's basic? It would be nice to have a number. What can we use? I use 25 feet because as I said earlier that is what approximately the spacing would be if I was looking at a commercial timber sale. The reason I use that example obviously is the trees out there aren't going to be raised for lumber but the reasons why you space ~ to get lumber is because you want fast growth and you want bigger trees, you want trees that 18 219 City Council Meeting - August 17, 1987 are going to have big spreading crowns and therefore be healthy. All those factors are goirg to help cover anything with these problems. Th~ spacing seems rather wide. Looking at it from the standpoint of what is there now for example, a lot of people like to see in a dense forest, tb~ problem is that in a real dense forest more of what is occurring out there now is the trees are too close together. A lot of t?~ trees in the understory are suppressed and are suffering stunted growth right now and they should be thinned. I would thin that stand, I made that comment to Barb, whether it was a housing development or not, I would go in and recommend thinning of that stand. Besides doing urban forestry work, my other life is also involved in private forest managment program the DNR has which is working one on one with landowners. Quite often farmers or large lot lar~ owners that have forested land and want to have it for sale or thinning or pruning or plant several acres. If I had a landowner that came to me and said I've got these sugar maples, what should I do with ~, then... Jim Fennirg: His recommendations to me when we were o~ site, you start out with every 10 to 15 feet, see how they look and then a few years later thin them out every 20 to 25 feet. It is not my intention to those lots,, to take any of the trees down because if I did that I may be taking out a wrong tree so when somebody puts a house in. Councilman Boyt: It seems like it's two points of interest to me. One of them is the staff is saying don't do this. I5~ inclinced to not do it, at least not at this time. The other part of it is, those trees are serving a pretty vital functi~ in the screening sense. It may not be the healthiest for the tree but it's the healthiest for the neighborhood to have some screening. I would suggest that one way around this problem would be if you put some, as hard as this is to believe given the density of that current forest, you might be able to thin some of that out if you would establish some border plantings that would give some of these people some of what the privacy that they now have ar~ particularly off of, I think it's Shadowmere cul-de-sac there which is the one area in development where your lots really loose depth ar~ they're backing onto lots that have ~ there for an awfully long time off of Frontier that have substantial depth. I think Dale mentioned the first time this came through that we need to be sensitive when we're backing up to establish lots. That we do it with roughly comparable size so I see a screening problem in that particular area of your development. I'm pleased that the forester is involved in this. I think it's an awfully good sign for our future. I'm pleased that you're as interested as we are in savings trees. I would recommend that we go with the staff recommendation on timing and overall I would encourage you to somehow deal with the screening problems that we're being faced with. Mayor Hamilton: I think that in the past, if my memory is correct, we have dealt with issue such as this and passed them with conditions that the staff work with the developer, accomplish the ~ed results and then the item comes back to us on a consent item for our review agairu Since the developer has been to the Watershed District, received approval, I see no reason why it shouldn't move ahead as long as we can be assured that we can see the results or the grading plans come back to us on a consent item once the staff is satisfied that all conditions have ~ met. Would that be adequate for you 19 City Council Meeting - August 17, 1987 Gary or would you prefer that the Council review the entire thing? Gary Warren: I don't want to hold up the developer anymore than anyone else does here I think. I'm just trying to not necessarily keep myself out of a box here but I want to be able to give the plan the proper review. Mayor Hamilton: And what I'm saying is that you should do that. Gary Warren: On the September 14th meeting that the plans would come through. I think that the Council is comfortable with the tree removal plan as presented, that if you're comfortable with it then I would recommend that you go ahead and approve it and we'll deal with the grading plan and utility plan as we would on a separate issue. The only other question I have is typically we have a development contract and financial sureties that should be in place also to guarantee the property execution of this. Mayor Hamilton: I think those have been conditions in the past also. We've passed items with the condition that all those conditions are met to staff's satisfaction. Gary Warren: We will have to negotiate something here before the September 14th meeting. Mayor Hamilton: ~/~at's correct. As long as the developer is satisfied with it. Jim Fenning: When you want to sit down and talk, I'm ready. Taere's only 3 or 4 changes and as far as the financial sureties, I can't draw a permit until the funds are in place. Barbara Dacy: Just to make it clear, if the Council is going to recommend approval of the tree removal for the street and the ponding area that maybe as the developer has indicated, if they could go ahead and complete the wiring off of the area that removal is going to occur and have that verified by the engineer's office prior to beginning and verified by the forester. Gary Warren: That would be a minimal condition I guess. Bill Loebl, Frontier Trail: I would like to know which road he's going to use to get his tree cutting equipment in and the trees out? Jim Fenning: We will be using t_he existing driveway. ~ne existing driveway will be taking it through Carver Beach. Some of t~. Some of them will go to through Big Horn once we get up that far but I anticipate, we're going to start probably in the middle and work both ways. We aren't even grading... Bill Loebl: And the same for construction, is that right? Jim Fennings: That will be through Big Horn. Bill Loebl: I would like to request that they don't use Frontier Trail because it's in such bad shape, the road is. 20 22]_ City Council Meeting - August 17, 1987 Mayor Hamilton: We wouldn't allow them-to because that's barricaded and they would not be allowed to use it. Councilman Johnson: You say you're going to start utilizing Carver Beach Road. There's no tree removal anywhere near Carver Beach Roa~L Is there an existing road coming through here scmepla~? Jim Fenning: ~he neighbor asked about access. Where will the trucks be running? Tt~y will be going out Carver Beach Road because it's too steep up Big Horn. Councilman Johnson: At this time. Barbara Dacy: That's where the current driveway is. Jim Fenning: ~he current driveway ccmes off Carver Beach Road. Councilman Johnson: It doesn't show on the plans we have here so I don't know where, so there's a driveway going into this property somehow or another and we'll be starting up there. Mayor Hamilton: I think the engineer should inspect that road to make sure that it can handle that kind of traffic. Gary Warren: I've got a note here that one of the conditions of the development contract will be to see if there is . ..served by the developer. Mayor Hamilton: Or that it be improved at this time so it doesn't totally fall apart because there are going to be s(a~e heavy trucks going on there. Councilman Johnson: Is there a method that you can utilize to where we can get to Big Horn sooner with out grading? Jim Fenning: I can build a driveway on my property for that matter. Councilman Johnson: Would you be along tt~ route where the road is going? Jim Fenning: Yes. Councilman Johnson: Where you'll have to pull the trees anyway so if that action is taken first, we will be utilizing Big Horn quicker ar~ less going through that rather more dense residential area of Carver Beach. ~bere's only a few residents now already moved into Big Horn. Mayor Hamilton: Those are small streets there also. Gary Warren: It's probably going to be, of course people up there to take a look at that. We have not accepted the roadway for the Chan Vista 2nd Addition with the present developer. It depends on the equipment that Mr. Fenning would be bringing in. We may have some concerns as to the resilency of the work of the base course also. 21 222 City Council Meeting - August 17, 1987 Councilman Johnson: I think those are the types of issues that should also be worked out between the developer and staff as a condition of your motion. Mayor Hamilton: It will just be a condition of the motion. Councilman Johnson: That's what I mean. The condition of the motion will be that they work these out. I don't know if that was in your motion. Mayor Hamilton: It wasn't but it's going to be. Councilman Horn: You're including the tree removal plan only for the road and grading areas or road, grading areas, housing pads or road drainage area, housing pads and all of the rest of the trees? What's included in the motion? Barbara Dacy: The proposal is just for the street and the drainage pond. Mayor Hamilton: That's correct. Councilman Boyt: I would like to call everyone's attention to the JUne 1st Minutes, point number 4. I'm not prepared to see that changed where it says, however any size hardwood trees must be excluded from any typical grubbing activity unless approved by the City Er~ineer prior to removal. That may not be dramatically different from what we've been talking about earlier that I want to remind everyone that that still needs to be part of the development contract. Mayor Hamilton: But the forester now is going to mark the trees that can be taken out and should be taken out. Councilman Horn: Let me clarify that, it's my understanding and I supported that position, was that was where trees outside the road which is not part of the motion right now. Councilman Boyt: I'm just reminding him. I don't want you going out there now and saying alright, let's thin the trees out. Councilman Geving: He doesn't even want to do that. Jim Fenning: I don't want to do that ever. Ail of that will be done with each individual house plan, where that is worked out between staff and the builder. Councilman Boyt: We don't have a disagreement then. Jim Fenning: There's one thing I want to say, I don't want to be argumentive or anything else, but it is fully my intention if I can not agree with staff on one of their conditions, I fully intend to start taking trees down. I don't think I need a permit for that. Mayor Hamilton: You mayhave the Sheriff out there stopping you, just so you're aware of that. 22 223 City Council Meeting - August 17, 1987 Jim Fenning: Right, I understand that also. Mayor Hamilton moved, Councilman Geving seconded to approve the tree removal plan for Shadowmere Subdivision consistent with the staff's recommendation with the following conditions: lo The applicant work with the DNR Forester, Alan Olson, on all tree r~oval. e The roads be looked at, Big Horn as early as possible in the process if not right at the .beginning, as soon as can be determined that that road is useable for construction traffic and as a part of that, make sure that Carver Beach Road can sustain the construction traffic. 3. The construction traffic must not use Frontier Trail. All voted in favor and motion carried. Councilman Geving moved, Mayor Hamilton seconded to approve the final plat for the Shadowmere Subdivision subject to the plan stamped "Received August 7, 1987" and subject to the following conditions: 1. Execution of the develoIa~ent contract and suk~ission of the necessary financial sureties. e 0utlot A will be dedicated to the city at no cost should the City Council find that Carver Beach Road should be extended. All voted in favor ar~ motion carried. CONCEPT APPROVAL, PUBLIC WORKS GARAGE EXPANSION, NICK RUEHL, EOS CORPORATION. Mayor Hamilton: Didn't w~ do this already? Don Ashworth: You gave staff the instruction that we should look at a plan that did not include continuation of what is tl~ wood framed section of the building and you instructed fDS and staff to look at squaring the unit off and that's really what he did in that process, we're going to be able to use a portion of that for a part repairs, that will be a lower roof section but should again work very well for that type of function. Councilman Geving moved, Councilman Johnson seconded authorized preparation of plans ar~ specifications for the expansion to tt~ public works building as depicted on Attachment B. All voted in favor and motion carried. Mayor Hamilton moved, Councilman Horn seconded to amend the ag~ to move Consent Agenda items l(g) and l(b) to this point in the agenda. All voted in favor and motion carried. 23 City Counci 1 Meeting - August 17, 1987 CURRY FARMS ADDITION, CENTEX HOMES: A. APPROVAL OF DEVELOPMENT CONTRACT. ~.. APPROVAL OF GRADING PLANS AND SPECIFICATIONS. Mayor Hamilton: Tom Boyce is here wanting to have some discussion with us about that item. Did you have some major changes? Tom Boyce: No, I didn't really. I guess I just brought this for reference. First of all I have to apologize that nobody was here at the last meeting. I guess I was a little bit surprised in the Council's recommendation on the park and trail recommendation. We met with the Planning Commission, Park and Recreation Commission, Staff and the City Manager and was pretty much of the understanding Ghat our park dedication ar~ trail dedication would be taken care of. That our platting with the trails we're putting in and I would just like to run through the numbers and see what reason there was for the 50% on park and no credit for trail. We're dedicating 6.6 acres of park in the plat. Of the 6.6 acres approximately 1.05 acres will be pond when we're completed. We will be grading ar~ seeding the park so that it's ready and useable for the uses that the Park staff and Park Commission feel are needed in the area. The ordinance, as we read it, would require about 3.8 acres of park so I guess that's why we're questioning it. In terms of trails, we agreed to install about 3,000 feet of trails with the project at a cost of $16,000.00 or $17,000.00 to Centex. The City's trail fee is $138.00 a lot which amounts to $11,000.00 for the entire project and I certainly wasn't looking for any credit from the city or anything, we're just trying to make it a nice development and we'll put the city on and I guess I was a little surprised at the r~endations. Mayor Hamilton: I guess it was my recollection that at one point we thought that was adequate also and perhaps Don can shed some light on that. Don Ashworth: The item had caught myself by surprise and I should have had the statistics available. I did not. I did have a chance to talk with Mr. Boyce afterwards. We did go through the numbers and went back through the Park recommendations, etc., the numbers he has presented this evening are correct and it did go through the preliminary stages with the idea that we would receive 100% credit for both the park and the trails. What I mentioned to Mr. Boyce is that the final decision as to what type of park credits are given, come back to City Council ar~ that's really your discretion. In an area such as this, it would be 3.8 acres is assumed to be prime land and potentially th~ question being asked by the Council is should the full credit be given for these lands that are low. Again, that's a decision that you ~ to make. Do you want to hold to the 50% credit there or not. Staff had recommended and gone through the 100% position. We felt t_hat is fair. I think there is a position to look to some reduction. Maybe not 50%, somewhere in between. Tne trail with the extent of trails that they are putting in, I think we're going beyond the requirements of our ordinance to require them not only to put in the $13,000.00 in trails but then to also pay $11,000.00. I really believe that they should receive a full credit for the trail construction. Again, the issue as to whether or not there would be a reduction in the park credits is at ~ discretion of the Oouncil. 24 225.. City Council Meeting - August 17, 1987 Councilman Johnson: You said 3.6 acres is what you're dedicating? Tom Boyce: No, w~'re dedicating 6.6 acres. Councilman Boyt: Of which 1.1 is pond. Councilman Johnson: What of it is dry, useable area that we're going to utilize as parklar~? Tc~ Boyce: 5.55 acres. There are 6.6 there and 1.05 is going to be pond. Councilman Johnson: And you're grading that ar~ getting in preparation for us to do more work on it? Tom Boyce: We've agreed to grade the entire thing and put trails through it and seed it at this point. Councilman Johnson: I see this as considerably differe~t than what I would see down at say Lake Susan West where t/~re giving us barely the minimum ar~ only after density transfers in a I~JD. I really believe that we're being too tough here. I think tb~ developer has gone out of his way. This is an amount that the conservation easements he's given us. The new ponding and more than the minimum, considerably more than the minimum parkland and on top of that to do the grading. He could just give us the raw land and we have to come in and find our dirt to put on top of it ar~ get it higher, whatever. ISn a little impressed. I would not be opposed to, at this point, looking at the numbers, pretty much going with 100% credit dedication'on both of ~ The trails, like you say, you're doing more than 100%. I don't believe we're weakening our position with other folks who are doing considerably less that we do want the fees from. Tom Boyce: We came in initially and talked with Lori and she didn't think there was probably a need for a park there and in talking with staff about it and there was. We tried to change everthing around and .really make the park as big as we could. The land itself is not the prime real estate on the property for one reason is that some of the areas there are 30 feet of peat. It would be fine for a park but won't hold a house so I can't disagree with you. Councilman Geving: T~e only problem we had, some of our Park Minutes were a little bit late arz] we hadn't caught up with tb~ comments from the Park and Bec Commission. I don't recall exactly what the recommendation was on this particular one and I would like to seek to Lori at this time. Lori, could you tell us, or Jim, either one, exactly what you reccmm~er~ation was? Lori Sietsema: The recommendation fr~m the Park and Recreation Commission was 100% credit on park fees. Councilman Geving: And you feel that 100% in this particular case was well beyond what we would normally give to most developers because of the fact that they're going to grade, rough grade the park area? 25 City Council Meeting - August 17~ 1987 Lori Sietsema: Yes. If they were going to give us the land and grade it so it was prepared for us to just come in and put the tennis court in on it and the backstop for the ballfield, we felt that that was meeting the standard requirements. Councilman Geving: I guess the reason we were a little bit surprised, we hadn't gotten that discussion or I don't recall the discussion until it came to us in the development contract and Bill picked it up. He'll probably be talking a little bit more about it but I was surprised when I saw the numbers stating that we would give 100% credit. Tnat's very unusual. We don't normally do 100% but I have to admit that you have exceeded the basic requirements of 3.8. That's one thing if it's good dry land and it's developable land that we can use for parks ar~ recreation. The other thing is the developing and the rough grading. Tnat's extremely important to us. Tnat will get us scmething started. Tom Boyce: To be honest with you, it would be cheaper for me to give it to you and pay the 50% credit and not grade it but I would like to see it done too. Councilman Geving: I guess based on those comments I would either amend my previous thoughts on this to at least meet you halfway at 75% credit or some other type of figure. I'm always kind of a stickler when it comes to 100%. Tom Boyce: Can I grade 75% of it then. I hope you're not at least setting a precedent here. Councilman Geving: In a sense it is because I don't recall very many developments that we've given 100% credit for park. It's very few but on the other hand, we've also not had very many developments with 3,000 feet of trails. Tom Boyce: We're just trying to make them all work and put it in. To be honest with you on the trails, I think we can put in more trails for your dollar than the City can. Councilman Horn: It always disturbs me to get in a position where the developer has to come in ar~ give a little to every group that he meets with. It appears to me that when Park and Rec are the people who should give us the recommendations on these things and I don't know that it's necessarily incumbant upon us to get more than what they've asked for. Typically I would think it would go the other way around. That they have a better feel for what they need and I would be inclined to go along with Park and R~c's recommendation. Mayor Hamilton: I agree 100%. I think that's why we have commissions and although we don't agree with them 100% I think we try to hold pretty close to that. If they review it carefully and decide it should be 100% credit, then I feel, based on the way the developer is developing the land and doing a lot of grading for us and everything else, I see no reason why we shouldn't give anything less than 100%. 26 City council Meeting - August 17~ 1987 Councilman Boyt: I was sitting out there so I could see the map. I guess I would like to start out by sayirg that it disappoints me to find that we're discussing an issue that's already been fully discussed. It's already been voted on by the City Council ar~ now it's c~mirg back before us which I really thing is matter of reconsideration and I don't see it approached as a matter of reconsideration and I think that's out of order. The othe~ point that I would make is that ar~ it fits right in with that is that without a copy of the map, without notification that we're goirg to be talkirg about this particular issue, without the opportunity to review the past minutes in regard to this particular issue, I think that we're just not prepared to do this. I think several councilmembers have said they want to do it anyway but I personally feel it's bad form for us and I know other councilmembers have said on other issues that they don't want to be presented with something at the last minute ~ this is clearly a last minute presentation. Now that I've vented all that. In another angle here, I think what we've looked at ar~ the reason why we reviewed this was that this may have well ~ one of the first developments that Park and Rec was looking at with their trail fee schedule. That we had not, as a Council, had a discussion with Park and Rec about what we felt was appropriate and I don't know that we've had one in the last year that's really dealt with the issue of park fees. How we ~_ that being handled so with that I think it's quite appropriate, the City Council would try to get both the Park and Rec Commission and the developer some guidance about what we think is the right amount to grant. I think we have said that I'm quite comfortable with the 50% for some of the reasons Don mentioned. For the reasons that we did it last time. On the trails, I think it is new information that our trail fee would net us $11,ggg. g0 and that this developer is paying $13,g00.~0 to put trails in. Given that, I can't see justifying how we can charge the developer more than if he paid the fees so on the trail fees I happen to think, given what you've just told me, that maybe our trail fees aren't high enough because you're telling me we can't put a trail on every street that you're developing. I think the City should have the option to do that ar~ the trail fees should pay for it but given what our fees are and what your costs are, I can support, as long as you're putting the trails in, relaxin~ those fees but I think we should retain the 50% park dedication fees and I would make that amendm~mt. Mayor Hamilton: Is there a second to the amendment? Amendment dies for lack of secor~t. Mayor Hamilton moved, Councilman Horn seconded to approve the Curry Farms Addition's Development Contract with lgg% credit for park and trail dedication fees. All voted in favor except Councilman Boyt who opposed and motion carried. Mayor Hamilton moved, Councilman Horn seconded to approve the Grading Plans and Specifications. All voted in favor except Councilman Boyt who opposed a~ motion carried. CONSENT AGENDA: FINAL PLAT APPROVAL, CHANHASSEN VISTA FOURTH ADDITION. Councilman Boyt: The question that I have in rega=d to this, I've talked with Gary, there are a couple of engineering issues we ~ to deal with and he's 27 22.8 City Council Meeting - August 17, 1987 assured me that we still can in regard to the marsh and the diking system around there. Tne other issue that I think is fairly important and the main reason I pulled this off was I would like to hear from Mr. Segal about working a trail system around Chan Pond that would in fact put that trail into the conservation easement and find out if that would be a difficulty for him. I guess what I'm saying simply is, the best placement of that trail around Chan Pond, according to the information that I have would place it at s~me points into the conservation easement and we need to have the ability to do that. What I just want to confirm that we have that ability. That the developer is comfortable with us having that ability. David Segal: We've ~n told about this from Barb. We've had some discussions with her and in our discussions with the city staff we brought up the point that we don't have a problem with the trailway going through the conservation easement as long as it belongs to the City as an outlot. That's the way it has to be. We can't have public trailway running across the conservation easement that belongs to someone else because there is a huge liability issue for that homeowner. For the homeowners where the trailway encroaches on their property. According to our attorney, there is no safe way to get around that issue without having it as an outlot. At this point, final plat, the mylars have been drawn up and everything else and I think the expense of changing that at this point should be born by the city. We'll grant the outlot for the trailway but the expense of the engineering changes I think should be born by the city at this point. Barbara Dacy: Mark Koegler has been out to the site and we're in the process of preparing a plan to determine exactly how much area would be needed from the lower portion of the conservation easement area. We think we can accomplish this identification of the trail and identification of exactly the area that we may or may not ~ from the conservation easement area depending on it's location. That we can work with the applicant in determining which additional area would need to become part of 0utlot A as indicated as the final plat so to answer your concern, we are pursuing the point that a meandering trail around the north side of the pond has been the preferred method of installing a trail and we will work with the applicant to accomplish that. Don Ashworth: I believe the request is reasonable. If I may drop back a little bit. We have a number of easements, conservation easements throughout the city and in the case of Lotus Lake Estates, we obtained a conservation easement. We obtained the right to put a trail within that conservation area and it was defined as such on the plat. Again, we had anticipated that would be a good area for that. In the case of Derrick Development property, we also have a conservation easement to insure that the spawning area in the adjacent shoreline there is protected. There was no way to build a trail through there and we did not include the necessity for a trail in there. In fact, we specifically left it out so we do not have that right and instead we created a trail within the plat itself to insure that the trail system would be connected. When we started working with the Segals, we were also at a point in time where we had erosion problems off of Lotus Lake, we looked at a means to insure that that hill, t. ke side slopes, could in fact be protected. Staff came back with the recommendation that that be accomplished through a 28 229 City Council Mseting - August 17, 1987 conservation easement very similar to what we had done in these other areas. In the numerous discussions with the Se]als, liability issue ar~ how we could get it in there, it arose and it was my firm belief that throughout that discussion the area that we were lookirg at for the conservation easement were solely the steep side slopes and the desire or necessity to put in a trail would be absolutely opposite everything that we had said up to that point in time. It was also reasonably assured that we maintained an ownership around Western Hills Pond to construct a trail without getting in the conservation area and without in any way damaging the pond and that trail in fact could be built within the area that we were defining as city ownership. T~ issue has continued to ressurect itself. We did send Koegler back out. It now appears as though there is one section in there that's about 20 foot in width that we haven't got the actual dimension that probably should have gone under city ownership and would doubly insure that we could build the trail without getting into the conservation area and still protecting the por~. It would appear as though we have made the error. We talked to Segals. The~re willing to amend the plat to allow that additional area to go under city ownership and maybe one way to finally resolve this issue ar~ I guess I would recc~m~ that we do it. Councilman Geving: What's it cost? Don Ashworth: $100.g0 to $200.00 I'm assuming for plat amendment. Give us a ballpark. Is it $50~. 00? David Segal: $500.00 at the most. Don Ashworth: So what I would suggest is that in the approval that it be conditioned upon Mark Koegler finishing that trail drawing, the location of it ar~ the inclusion of that additional minor area as a part of the city ownership for this plat. Councilman Boyt: I appreciate your flexibility there David and I think Don we talked about also involving the University of Minnesota in this develo~xnent of this particular park, maybe future parks as w~ll. DO you recall that? Don Ashworth: Yes. The council does have the ability to establish a planting plan for that entire conservation easement ar~ to install any plantings in accordance with that plan so you still have that ability ar~ I see that as a separate but ongoing issue that we should address. Councilman Boyt: That' s all I have. Councilman Johnson: I find that hard to believe. I probably want to ask Roger this more than anybody else. We've got the trail easments through considerable number of properties that are just that, easements. We were just talking with one on the ~urvers where we tried for an easement. I don't know if that was an outlot or an easement. A lot of places we have gone for easements~ This is rte only place that everybody is saying there's this huge liability that the developer is going to have. I don't know if the developer is going to have it or the homeowner is going to have it for a city easement and the use of that city easement by citizens of (hanhassen. Would there be a 29 City CDuncil Meeting - August 17, 1987 liability that that individual homeowner who has no right to make any modifications of the soils or the trees or put anything on this conservation easement we have. We have a trail goirg through there that is approved by the city, it's a city trail, and somebody gets hurt on that trail, where do we stand? R~ger Knutson: I think what maybe is confusing to some people, where they're coming from is like in a sidewalk situatior~ It's typical for cities to require sidewalks and have an ordinance that says you've got to shovel them for example. It's your job to maintain the boulevard. If the city owns them, we've got to maintain it is what they would say. Tnere is no similar requirement for trails in this city right now. It's just the opposite. With the conservation easement, it's the city's responsibility. We're not requiring anyone to plow it or maintain it or clean it or do anything with it. From my own perspective, I do not see right now where they have any liability. That is not to say liability theories are constantly expanding and tomorrow there might be something different but as far as I know today, the homeowner does not have any responsibility. David Segal: If someone gets hurt, that party can not sue the city and a homeowner? Roger Knutson: Taey can sue everyone. Anybody can sue anyone. Mayor Hamilton: It does't matter if it's an easement or anything. Somebody can fall down out anyplace they can sue you or anybody else. It's just the way things are. Roger Knutson: Being sucessful is something else. Councilman Johnson: Dale Geving and I were talking a while back, if you look on your plats on Lot 3 of whatever this is, you see that 40 inch oak tree. I would want the trail to go right up behind that 40 inch oak tree which is one of the most beautiful overlooks over that pond there is. I don't believe, what Don's talking about, last year as a private citizen I presented a trail plan to the Council which put the trail up around this oak tree and that would have to go up a side slope. I think we would need to work out the liability issue here. Having such a beautiful spot sitting there, people are going to up and use it anyway. Councilman Boyt: Can't we leave that up to Mark and the folks about how they line the trail up? Councilman Johnson: What I'm hearing right now is that they are obviously, they are not going to go up any side hill and we're throwing away a perfectly good piece. Another point is, if this is affecting Lots 5 and 6 which are required to be 15,000 square feet and we have to now take part of that, now we've made Lots which aren't 15,000 square feet, fairly small lots and if those have to become part of those which go to the outlot then we're not meeting our ordinance. I don't really see the need for the outlot. I believe we can do the trail with no liability. Everybody has liability for everything they do. If we have a trail easement through here and an assistant gets hurt 30 city Council Meeting - Aunt 17, 1987 231 on that trail, if we don't have a trail easement, the citizen wanders off out of the outlot onto this person's property ar~ gets hurt on that property, which would the property owner be in worse shape for? If we had a trail easement ar~ they got hurt on the person's property ox if they wandered onto the person's property from our outlot and they got hurt on the person's property? I would think that the trail easement would be partial defense for Mayor Hamilton: I would think if you're trespassing and you're going at your own risk ar~ if you get hurt that's tough luck for you unless you have something unusual there. Roger Knutson: It would take an hour to discuss it fully. Depending on why you're back there. Why they fell dowru Why t~ got hurt ar~ a whole b~ of other things. All I can say, there are lots of miles of sidewalk in the city of Minneapolis. I've got a sidewalk right in front of my house. Lots of people do. I don't worry about it. I don't lay at night worrying about my sidewalk. Accidents happen but not that often. Councilman Johnson: If they decide that conservation easement would do it, they'll have to get the outlot... Councilman Boyt: They'll have to do drawings, that's right. Councilman Geving: I want to follow up on what Jay has before we proceed with this, does the City have in the conservation easement that high bluff on the north side of the hill? Is that part of the conservation easement? Will it be reserved for people who can walk up to the top of that hill or will that be part of someone's lot? Lori Sietsema: Mark and I went out and did walk the site one more time last Friday. The question was, can we get the trail in there and I asked him that question. Can we get a trail UP there to get UP to that tree and he said he would recommend not doing that. Number one, the conservation easement is right on the top of that hill so it's rather close to that tree so you would have people in the people's backyards. It's going to be close to people's houses and he said you would be asking for more problems than what it's worth. It's a nice place to look at from below too ar~ he would definitely recommend not going to the top of that knoll. Councilman Geving: I guess the reason I had to ask that question, I've looked at that knoll for a long time ar~ we based our height, our altitude on the conservation easement based on getting to that top knoll there but if that's the recommendation, I'll go along with that. That's fine. Councilman Boyt moved, Councilman Horn seconded to acce~ the final plat for Chanhasse~ vista Fourth Addition with the provision that an adequate trail system be worked out between the City and the developer and the City will bear t/~ expense if charges are needed in the plat drawirgs. All voted in favor and motion carried. 31 232 City Council Meeting - August 17, 1987 Councilman Johnson moved, Councilman Geving seconded to amend the agenda to put item 9 at this point in the agenda. All voted in favor and motion carried. METRO AREA GOOSE HUNT, CITY MANAGER. Don Ashworth: Tne request was received from Mr. Dimler. He put this item together relatively quickly recognizing the program from the State. In the process I asked Staff to look and see what type of regulations we would have to look at. How we would actually carry that out. It did not get included in the packet but Jim Chaffee did find that we do have on the books Ordinance No. 9C which has a section dealing with DNR monitored hunting. The City Council by resolution may from time to time authorize special Department of Natural Resources monitored hunting to reduce wildlife over population in no shooting areas or on "as necessary basis". Tne City of Chanhassen shall send out written notices to adjacent property owners not less than 10 days prior to the commencement of the monitored hunting period. You do have that provision in the ordinance right now. Mr. Dimler has assured me that in carrying out hunting on this property that it would be his intent to hire professional people to carry out the hunt. Has that changed any Brian? Are these professional people or are these people who are just out hunting? Brian Klingelhutz: I don't think there are any professional hunters left. There are guys that know what they're doing. Councilman Boyt: I talked to Mr. Dimler last night about this because he knew he wasn't going to be here and at that point, as I understood it, this was going to be a controlled hunt which is a little different than a professional hunt but it's still not what you would think of as someone picking up a gun and walking out to just hunt whatever was in front of them. My understanding was that Mr. Dimler would be controlling who was on his property. That he would be digging pits for them to hunt from but that he was basically going to be determining who hunted when and where. Does that fit with your understanding? Don Ashworth: Yes, I guess that's what I was trying to say. Councilman Geving: And it would be confined to this September 1-10 period? Don Ashworth: Yes. You would assume that in their making the application for this, that in fact it was approved by the State. Councilman Geving: I understand that in the provisions of the metro hunt, you still have to have all of the other duck stamps, federal duck stamps, state duck stamps as required for any other kind of hunt and you're just opening it up early for the metro area in specific locations. Don Ashworth: If the Council were to consider this, I would do it with the condition that the Public Safety Director look at the proposed location of these hunt areas or pits and assure that they are adequate distances from any potential highway, hcme, anything like that. 32 233 City Oouncil Meeting - August 17, 1987 Councilman Geving: A certain number of feet from any residence. Don Ashworth: Could you do it then subject to their approval, potentially Thursday? Mayor Hamilton: We already have it and we're dealing with this. Don Ashworth: The applications have to be in by August 24th which is next Monday. The Public Safety does meet Thursday night so you could have it as a condition of their approval. Councilman Horn: DO these people need a hunting permit in Chanhassen? DonAshworth: Yes theywould. Mayor Hamilton: Ail the other cor~itions w~uld be required. Councilman Horn: This isn't somethirg that they would have to pay to do right? We're not giving someone permission to a game farm type of thing? They aren't going to charge people for this privilege? Councilman Geving: It's to reduce the goose population in the Chanhassen area. That's really what our objective is and the metro area it's every community is being faced with the same thing. Councilman Horn: But I would hate to think we're 'giving one private property owner mmme benefit for financial gain if we're not allowing others. Mayor Hamilton: DO you know what his intent is Brian? Is he going to charge people to hunt there? Brian Klingelhutz: My brother is not charging. I don't think it was mentioned. Mayor Hamilton: That could be a condition that it would not be allowed to be charged. Councilman Horn: Would these be used then by the people who shot them or w~uld they be given to s~me type... Mayor Hamilton: If you shoot ths~ they're yours. Councilman Geving: I understand too the bag limits are going to be like four birds per person or something like that. I don't know, they haven't issued those regulations so it's pretty liberal. You're still under state guidelines. Tnel~re trying to get the goose population dowru ~he state is usually one goose per day. Councilman Horn: We're going to have to be careful how we state this. Don Ashworth: You're passing a resolutio~ City Council, by resoluti~ may from time to time authorize special Department of Natural Resources monitored 33 City Council Meeting - August 17, 1987 hunting so I would refer to it that way. That this is the State's special hunting program. Jim Mady: I just wanted to clarify the limits. It's four per day and eight in your possession total. That's the DNR's regulation for the special goose hunt. Larry Schroers: The State has firearm regulations that state that you must be 500 feet from any building that's inhabited by human beings or domestic livestock. Also from any improved roadway and from any area that is pastured by domestic livestock and I'm wondering if it wouldn't simplify things for the City to go along with that rather than just saying north of TH 5 is a no hunting zone. I've ~n a hunter my whole life and I've found personally that if you maintain that 500 foot distance, it really doesn't infringe on anyone at all. Mayor Hamilton: I think it's already incorporated into our firearms permit in the City. When you get a permit here you get a booklet that tells you what the city's regulations are and those have already been incorporated into our permit process. Mike Klingelhutz: Everybody who wants to participate in this has to send application to the Carlos Avery Game Farm and the reason for that is so that the managers there can get in contact with people that have a permit and get a number of geese that they shot so they are in fact monitoring the shoot. Councilman Boyt: I think Chuck does intend to do this in both seasons if there is a second season which would be September 1 and then there is after the normal goose season special season as well. I think that he is looking, although you can make it a condition of your motion if you want but I think he's actually looking to recoup some of the damage that's been caused by the geese over the course of the year. This is, I suspect going to meet with mixed reactions from our community. There are probably a good many hunters who will understand. There are probably a good many people who watch the geese fly over their house who won't understand so I personally think, given his location and distance away from other residential developments, this is a little different than the one right by Lake Ann. I could see supporting this given the limited timeframe and the location. Mike Klingelhutz: I think people when they see geese they like to think that they are wild animals. They don't like to see them eating cigarette butts at Lake Ann and maybe something like this will help to make them a little more wild and I don't think it will desecrate the population any. Councilman Johnson: For the permit that you have to get in next Monday, is a requirement that you have prior city approval? Will they even know that you're in a on shooting area and that you even need city approval because we have not talked to the public. We have not talked to the neighbors to the north of this area. I think if we go on and do resolution tonight approving this with only Chuck's assertion that he's talked to all the neighbors and they all agree, and I've heard a lot of people say they've talked to all the neighbors and they all agree. It depends as to what they all agreed to. I 34 235 City Council Meeting - August 17, 1987 think that this should be brought out ar~ noticed what the area is and the adjoining property owners notified by mail before w~ do this. Councilman Horn: Before next Monday night? Councilman Johnson: What I'm wondering is, is City action required for next Monday or can they put in based on us sayirg that we will consider it next meeting, Se~r 14th, that doesn't do any good either. Mayor Hamilton: They have to have their applications in. Councilman Johnson: Yes, but I'm saying, does the application ~ an endorsement fr~ the City saying that they're in an area of no shooting? Councilman Geving: It works separately. I think what happens is this is the process. The cities have to work independently. If the city of Chanhassen decides that we have an abur~ance of geese and we want to reduce the population, that's one thirg and if we have landowners wb~ are willing to have hunters to come onto the land to shoot the geese because they're decipating their croplands, that's why they're doirg it. Now, the people who are actually going to h~nt have to, like I said, go through all the entire process of getting their state permits, their federal duck stamp and then they get the permission from Chuck Dimler to hunt on his land. So it's two separate pieces of action they have to have here. The City has to do s~mething to make this available and the applicant, the firearms person that's going to shoot the geese, he has to be a licensed hunter. Councilman Johnson: What I'm saying is, if all of a sudden without any kind of public notice other than an administrative presentation where nobody knows out there in the public, the next door neighbors to this do not have any idea that we're here saying that we're going to give somebody permission to go hunting next door to you. Councilman Coving: This decision was only made last week so this is happening all over the metro area. Councilman Johnson: We have a special meeting next Monday night. They can submit their applications. Is there a fee with your application? Does it cost you anything to sutx~it your application? Brian Klingelhutz: No. Councilman Johnson: Because I would hate to start getting a bu~ch of neighbors coming in yellirg and screaming, hey, I hear there's going to be hunting next door to me and I don' t allow hunting. Mayor Hamilton: Next door, it's not like there are neighbors, houses right top of them. Councilman Johnson: I know we have a very picky neighbor to the north. 35 :236 City Council Meeting - August 17, 1987 Don Ashworth: Your process addresses Jay's point in that it states that the City Council by resolution may from time to time authorize the special hunt. ~ne City of Chanhassen shall send out written notices to adjacent property owners not less than 10 days prior to the commencement of the monitored hunting period and we have time to do that. The question becomes one if somebody makes a complaint on the tenth day we would not then have another meeting of the council unless you called a special meeting. We can get notices out. I would anticipate that any complaints could potentially be addressed this next M~nday night, August 24th. Mayor Hamilton moved, Councilman Horn seconded to approve the Metro Area Goose Hunt as presented by the City Manager with the condition that notices be sent to all the adjacent landowners for comment ar~ review it on August 24, 1987. All voted in favor and motion carried. COUNCIL PRESENTATIONS: Councilman Johnson: This was in our administrative section and the last memo there talked about boat access policy change. That our boat access is now, we can't close it because there are 10 trailers up above, we can not close the boat access. One third3 they were talking about in there is that we might post the adjacent area as no trailer parking. I say why do we have trailer parking on the streets anyplaoe in Chanhassen. I would believe that that would be a hazardous situation having an empty trailer sitting out in a private street. Now anybody can come and park in front of your house with his car. That's pretty open. I would not want, if I was living on 77th Street there which is a convenient walk from the end of 72nd Street back over to there. All you do is pull around at 77th and park. I think we ought to make no empty boat trailer parking. Mayor Hamilton: You wouldn't dare park your boat on 77th. Councilman Johnson: Not the boat, just ~npty trailer. Mayor Hamilton: Even the trailer. It would be cut up in little pieces and you would never find it again. Councilman Horn: How do you differeniate it? How are you going to say... Councilman Johnson: I'm saying empty trailers. Councilman Horn: So if a s~ni has an enpty trailer,he' s going to park. Councilman Johnson: If he's got an empty boat trailer, I'm saying he can't park it there. Councilman Horn: How can you differeniate boat trailer? Councilman Johnson: I think a boat trailer, being as low as it is, what I would like to do is have staff look at the possibility of writing an ordinance or modifying our existing parking rules. I can see the need, Clark your house 36 237' City Oouncil Meeting - August 17, 1987 is fairly close to therel I don't think they're goin~ to come park in front of my house and walk a mile, three quarters of a mile away but your place they may. Councilman Horn: I've had semi's park on my street and we don't have an ordinance against that. Councilman JOhnson: Are you suggesting that we don't want to put an ordinance? Councilman Horn: I'm saying we should be consistent. Don Ashworth: You can control that. You do control it on main street when you have that posted no vehicles higher than 6'6" or something like that and we regularly ticket semi's who park there so you could enforce semi no parking throughout the community. We're not doing somet/~ing opposite. I don't know, Roger could you respond to the question as tD whether or not? You took the position of posting either side of the, because this is a horse shoe street, as long as it was adequately posted coming into that addition for no parking for trailers, that that would suffice or that would be enforceable. The question becomes one of can we pass an ozdinance that would say no boat trailer parking on any residential street. (1~ any street. Not residential. On any street. Roger Knutson: Yes. Don Ashworth: We'll place the item on the agenda for Sept~er 14th. Mayor Hamilton: I think it should be a motion approved by the Council. Councilman ~eving: That's one person's opinion. Councilman Johnson: I see a lot of head shaking over here saying that they want ~pty trailers p=rked around. Councilman (~eving: No, it's not that. Councilman Johnson: I would like to present my safety hazard side of this. I believe that nice short little trailers out there aren't as visible as cars and other things and people might hit them. I think there's more than just, I think there's legitimate reason for trying to regulate this ar~ I%n foreseeing a problem. Now that the boat access is going to be open, people are going to be finding, I've ~ out there on Saturdays when there's four cars lined up waiting for a parking spot. Those people are going to find another place to park. Mayor Hamilton: But they have to get their boat in the water first. Councilman Johnson: They put their boat in tt~ water and then they go park the trailer. Councilman Horn: We can lock the gate. 37 238 City Council Meeting - August 17, 1987 Councilman Johnson: No, we can't lock the gate anlanore. Mayor Hamilton: Why not? Lori Sietsema: I was informed by the Department of Trade and Economic Develop- ment who is a member of the Metro Waters Access Task Force that it is a State Law to limit access to a lake by closing off the area. It is violating the policy of hours of operation in the contract agreed to in the LAWCON grant so we no longer are able to close the access when the parking area is filled. Mayor Hamilton: I would think that all through this whole process of putting that access in there, that was the premise that we were working under and they had told us that we would be able to do that. Had we known that a long time ago, I suspect we would have told them to put the damm access on their own property and we wouldn't have gone through this whole mess. Lori Sietsema: ~nat was exactly what my point to them was is that you should change the rules in the middle of the game here but it's a state law at this point. Mayor Hamilton: So what happens if we continue to close the access? Lori Sietsema: We'll be in violation ar~ we won't be considered for the LAWCON grants in the future which we have qualified for 1988 for one. We would no longer be eligible for that grant ar~ the DNR has indicated that they would go ahead and put their own boat access in on their property as well. Councilman Johnson: We'll get two boat accesses and we lose our ballparks at Lake Ann on the LAWCON grant. Councilman Boyt: Ar~ the lighting. Mayor Hamilton: We're not going to lose any funds, we're going to lose the ability to apply in the future. Lori Sietsema: We won't get the funds that we had coming on the boat access. We haven't gotten all the funds, the federal funds for the boat access. We wouldn't get the rest of those. We wouldn't get the grant that we're always going for next year and the DNR will open their access which will not be monitored, will have unlimited parking and will be open 24 hours a day. Don Ashworth: I don't think that the financing of the other projects has anything really to do with the issue. They have changed the rules. It's the same as in any type of a new State Law that you may not like. We're simply obliged to follow that regulation. If they set up a 25 mlmh s~ zone in all cities or I'm trying to think of some other type of state regulation. You may not like it. Mayor Hamilton: There's got to be some way around that. Councilman Geving: Is there scmeway we can limit the horsepower on that lake? That ~m_s to be one of the biggest problsms I've seen now. 38 City Council Meeting - August 17, 1987 Councilman Johnson: My whole thin~ was based on the fact that we can no longer close that and I had heard that there was an August 17th, if we have not done it by August 17th we're out of luck and that's today. Lori Sietsema: Basically they said that I was to inform you on your next meeting to change of policy so as of tomorrow our policy should reflect that. Councilman Johnson: That's where I'm ooming from. I think we've ~ forced into this and now we will have people that will have empty trailers who will try to find a spot to park. ~he Sheriff's going to be all the way from the concrete company and the taco stand. Mayor Hamilton: We're not talking about Lake Minnetonka. I really can't believe we're going to have that big a problem there. I understarzt your point but I don't think it should just say trailers. You may want to say no vehicle with ~pty trailer attached is allowed to park unless it's the resident. Councilman Johnson: Why would you want to put an empty trailer without a vehicle. Mayor Hamilton: The way you were talking, that's the way you were saying. A trailer. You just said a trailer. Councilman Johnson: Car and trailer is what I think. Or a trailer. There are people out there that are crazy but I would not leave a trailer not attached to a car. I would even have that thing padalocked to the car if I was leaving it outside on sc~e street because talk about something easy and convenient to rip off. Mayor Hamilton: Is there any c~mmen~ on Jay's comments? Councilman Horn: I think it's unworkable. Councilman Boyt: I agree with Clark, it's unworkable. Councilman Horn: Aren't we anticipating a problem. We still have time to react to this if it really became a problem. You might be spending a lot of staff time with something that will never materialize. Mayor Hamilton: I think if people are parking at the cement factory, if thel~re parking in the taco place, if they're parking on any city property, it's up to the private landowner to solve their probl~m~. Councilman Johnson: I don't think we're talking a lot of time on this. I see this as a fairly simple ordinance. Don Ashworth: Passage of an ordinance still requires publication so from the date you start a process to the end is going to be at least 3~ days. Councilman Johnson: All my resolution is is to look into it. Not to go further with it. Once we've got a draft in our back pocket, if there is a ~ for it, we can implement it quicker. If no ~ ever arises, it may just 39 -.240 City Council Meeting - August 17~ 1987 stay in our back pocket. Councilman Johnson moved, Councilman Boyt seconed to instruct the City Staff and City Attorney to look into seeing if it's feasible to have a restriction on car and boat trailer parking within the City. Councilman Boyt and Councilman Johnson voted in favor and Councilman Horn, Councilman Geving ar~ Mayor Hamilton opposed and motion failed. Mayor Hamilton: Next item, Clark wanted to talk about citizen's complaints and council direction. Councilman Horn: The first item, citizen complaints, I've been receiving several dog complaints up in the new area. Apparently they feel that the dog catcher is always coming through in the afternoon and people come home in the evening and let their dog run about 6:00 ar~t there's nobody ever around at that point. Up in Triple Crown. Another complaint I got was an attitude that was presented to a person by one of the City employees, I believe it was a deck inspector. He felt that the inspector came out there with the idea about, well, you're obviously in violation so let me see how many things I can find rather than coming out there with a positive, constructive attitude. He eventually did approve the thing but the first comments were well, you don't expect me to approve that or something to that effect. I think we, as the City Staff, need to present a more positive image than that rather than this you're in a heap of trouble boy type of reporting. Don Ashworth: Can you give me an address for where this potentially occurred? Councilman Horn: I can get it. Councilman Johnson: I think this dog thing is city wide. It's not just Triple Crown because I've observed that also. Councilman Boyt: I guess I disagree with that. I have found the dog ordinance in this city to be remarkably good in that the dog catcher does not have to catch your dog, all you have to do is complain. If my neighbor sees my dog running loose at any time, all he has to do is call the sheriff and report my dog loose and I get a ticket. Tney don't have to see the dog on the street. I think our dog ordinance is fantastic. It has nothing to do with the dog catcher. Jim Chaffee: I would like to comment on the problem that Councilman Horn brought up. If your constituents complain to you about something like that, please tell them to call us. We can't be everywhere at all times but if they call us when a violation is occurring, we will respond to it. We respond to all complaints. A lot of times people will think that we're just innudated with community service officers and they're everywhere. We can't be. We need to get calls. I was trying to tell my Public Safety Commissioners the same thing. They will call and say we've got this dog running loose, where are your CSO's. You've got to call us when it's happening. We've got to get calls to get out there so if they would call us, if you tell ~ that. 40 City Council Meeting - August 17, 1987 Oouncilman Horn: This person said they did call ar~ he did see the dog catcher come arour~ during the day when there weren't any dogs around but what he's saying is in the evening is the time when they should he out and I don't know what you're hours are or anything like that but he said he did do that. I think in many cases these people would rather not be identified. Jim Chaffee: We respond to all anonymous complaints. The other side of that coin too is that the deputy should respond when there is not a CSO on because still it's law and it's still a violation of the law and sometimes police officers, even in Minnetonka when I was in Minnetcnka, the same thing. If you get those complaints and you don't think you have to handle the dog calls but that' s part of it. That' s part of law enforcement. Councilman Johnson: So in the evenings we call the Carver County Sheriff because there's nobody here at 1988 to take the phone call. Jim Chaffee: They know. The Carver county Sheriff dispatcher knows that when there's a CSO or there isn't one on but theme also gotten a little complaisant and they will hold the calls until they know one is coming on the next day and that shouldn't be. A deputy is a police officer ar~ he's charged with enforcing the law and he should enforce all laws. councilman Johnson: One other thing, this came up at our .HRA meeting Thursday night and it has to do with the misleading sign on main street that says the Road is going to be closed s~meday. It keeps changing and the date goes by. Really, from what I understand it's totally a misnomer, the road will not be close~L Some of the downtown business people are saying that they are already seeing an effect on business. Their customers are nervous thinking that road is going to be closed because that's what the sign says. It hasn't been closed. Tae sign is still sitting up. We talked to Todd about this on Thursday night. He assured me it would be taken down the next day. I've driven by there all weekend arid it's still up and it's still misleading and I think w~ should do something about that. C~ry Warren: It has been a problem and we've talked with our consultant BRW about it and definitely want to see some charges on any of ~ signs that is going to require to have us involved. As a result, what we're doing is Thursday we're setting up a meeting with the contractor ar~ with Todd and myself here to get this schedule that has ~ elusive from the contractor as firm as we caD. The other problem with the sign there has ~ that all of a sudden it appeared one night without a lot of advanced notice. The road will be closed down for about a day ar~ a half. That is still going to happen and I criticized them also of, as you say, it's crossed out and now it's 17 and tomorrow it may be whatever ar~ it really attacks the credibility of the whole operation so what my direction to BRW was that signing is difficult. How many words you put on a sign and all that stuff, if there is any question at all on signage, that staff should be involved with it. We're going to have weekly meetings that we're setting up now with the contractor ar~ BRW so we can get updates on what's going on and keep changing the schedule as we ~ to so we can inform the public on it. If we do get a signage problem such as this one where it's kind of hard to say exactly what it is, then we're going to prepare a separate har~ note ar~ go door to door with it if we have to to make sure 41 242 City Council Meeting - August 17, 1987 that the business people are informed. Councilman Horn: Just go tip the things over until it's suppose to happen. Todd Gerhardt: I met with Greg Roy on that and said that we would like you take them down and he requested that we don't. He says we wants to leave them up. It's always ~n their policy to have that type of signage up during construction if the road is going to be closed just to notify those people. They are in the process of rewording signage and the other sign will come down and an alternative sign will be put up. Mayor Hamilton: I think Greg Roy can take their direction from the Council in that we don't want the signs up there until the road is going to be closed and they can change their wordage to say, road closed August 18th and 19th if it's going to be closed for two days. The way it is now, you say it's closed the 17th, everybody assumes it will be closed the 17th until spring. Councilman Geving: Not only that, people are taking alternate routes because they're expecting the road to be closed. Mayor Hamilton: Take the signs dowru Tell him what we're going to do and don't let him tell you what he's going to do. Councilman Horn: Then there's council directions. I think we've had at least one letter recently directing staff to take certain action on the Planning Commissioru I believe one had to do with the attendance and it seems to me that we do have a Council policy on when attendance is taken and we should not have separate, independent directions taken on those issues unless I'm wrong on that. I believe there is a policy we have on that. Tne other one had to do with a letter that went out on city letterhead to a developer and the Chairman of the Planning Commission and staff of Park and Rec was copied on that. I think that this kind of thing is somewhat misleading because it implies that this is more of a council direction when it's on official letterhead. I think it also might be interpreted as trying to influence the other Commissions by either one or four members of the Council. I think our direction to the Commission should be through our Minutes, not through private letters to them. I throw that out for Council discussion. Mayor Hamilton: I think that's true. I think each commission has dealt with their attendance problems on their own in the past and I think when you and I were on the Planning Commission, that's when we had a problem and we passed an ordinance saying that each commission can deal with their own and they can set their own standards. Council can review that but it's up to them to talk to their own people and to make any changes they see necessary. Not at Council direction but at the Commission's so I agree. That's the way it's ~n for years. Councilman Geving: Regarding your second point though Clark. I just received this today so I have no idea what it really said until I got here this evening and I think when we write to a developer we should do it on our own letterhead, certainly not the city letterhead. It might give the impression that it's a city sponsored rather than the single councilman's statement or 42 243 City Council Meeting - August 17, 1987 directiom I think that the directic~ that was given here, at least the thought that was given came hack to us from Don Patton when he says he feels that this whole thirg is being fragmented. I don't know how you guys operate but the way I operate, when someone calls me, like a Don Patton or Jim Curry or something, I listen to him and I'll even go out and talk to him but if I've ever written a letter, I've always written it on my own letterhead or just plain letterhead ar~ it's my opiniom This gives this a more formal sense that it's really a city of Chanhassen position and I kind of agree with your statement Clark that when we do these things we're doing them as irdividuals rather than as a Council speaking for the city. I guess I would agree with the' thought that if we're going to communicate with constituents or with developers, we should do it as individuals and not use Chanhassen letterhead. Mayor Hamilton: Let me make just one comment on that. I think my position has always ~-cn to encourage all councilmembers to talk with any developer, bullet, anybody who is doing business in the City of Chanhassen, to make your position clear to them. Whether it's on the telephone, in person, at lunch, at dinner, whatever anybody cares to do. So I guess based, just what I've heard here tonight, perhaps we should consider, we could have some stationary made for each council person with just their name on, Councilman person, home address and I see no reason why that couldn't come through the City and have the secretaries here type a letter for you ar~ send it out but use the paper that has your name. As coming from your specifically and it doesn't imply the rest of the Council. Maybe that's a good way to do that. We could say Jay Johnson, Councilperson for the city of Chanhassen with your specific letterhead. That' s just a tJlought. Councilman Johnson: I just grabbed one here as far as letterhead and I would still like to, just like the people's cards we have, the individual business cards we were supplied for by the City, have the logo, the maple leaf type thing but like you say, rather than the City of Chanhassen here saying... Councilman Coving: From the desk of Jay Johnson. Councilman Johnson: Just City Councilman Jay Johnsoru I think that is a valid point. I do think we are the people's representatives and when we are making a statement we are making our statement as we feel we are representing our constituents. The letterhead I've used in the past has been just a plain piece of paper with Jay Johnson's address on it typed in bold print. I would like to see it a little differently. I wrote a letter for a Boy Scout who did a local clean-up project and I used this and I thought for his purposes it would be better to have a more official thing for his merit badge. Treat's a little different situation but I think that's a very good idea to get our own stationary. Mayor Hamilton: I think that would accomplish the same thing even in that case. If you wanted to have the maple leaf on there and Jay Johnson, Councilmember, City of Chanhassen, you're really accomplishing the same thing without implying that it's representing the city. Councilman Geving: I would like to have the telephone number on there. 43 g44 City Council Meeting - August 17, 1987 Mayor Hamilton: You could put your home address and ~ telephone number. Councilman Johnson: Cn my business cards I prefer to have my telephone on there instead of the City because nobody can get a hold of me through the city telephone number. Tnat's a different specific issue. I believe that these communications should come and they should be a little more formal than the type of letterhead that I've been using. Mayor Hamilton: Anything else on that? Councilman Boyt: I definitely do since I'm invovled in both of these. Let's start with the attendance. I am under the impression and can be corrected if wrong, that the City Council has set a standard for attendance on the Commission. That that is not left up to the individual commissions but is in fact a city standard. Mayor Hamilton: As a recommendation of the Commission through the Council that that he a percentage that they would like to see in their various cc~nissions if I r~m~m~r that correctly. Councilman Boyt: But it's consistent throughout the commissions and it's there because the City Council approved it. Is that right? And I've been concerned about attendance on some of the commissions. I personally have ~ concerned about it and so I contacted staff and I said, how can I get this issue addressed and I was told send us a memo. I did. I don't think that's inappropriate. I never indicated that it represented the position of the Council. Simply my position and I don't see anything wrong with that and would continue to do it in the future. On the use of the City stationary, again that was something that was approved. If we choose to indicate something differently, I'm comfortable doing that. I'm not writing this as a private citizen. I'm writing this as a representative of this city. I've copied Ladd Conrad because I worked with Ladd Conrad in developing what was in that memo. I copied Lori Sietsema because it very directly affected what she was working on and I had talked to her about those issues on the phone. When I wrote that letter to the developer, I talked to the developer about it before hand. I met with him today and talked to him about it afterwards. There was nothing intended in that other than this was representing my position and I felt, given the confusion that circled around this particular PUD that it would be valuable if he understood why I was prepared to vote against it. I think that did him a service. ~nat's what he indicated to me today when I met with him and I certainly don't feel it inappropriate to take action to try to clarify a situation. Mayor Hamilton: I don't think anybody has said that. It's just the way, and I think if you had done that with your own stationary, with your name, Councilman Bill Boyt and your address just as we had said previously, I think it accomplishes that same thing without the implication that it might he the desire of the Council. Councilman Boyt: There was that implication. If Don Patton comes in here and says that he ever had that impression I would be amazed for all the reasons I talked to you about. I don't mind changing the stationary but this is not a 44 City Council ~ting - August 17, 1987 private matter. If it was between me arzl him as an individual citizen, I wouldn' t have bothered to write. Councilman Johnson: I do remember my last comment was that I, after reviewing the letter that was written, do not believe that it said anything about what the Council was saying but basically it explained Bill's vote and I thought it was done very well. I personally did not have any problem with it going on City stationary because I thought it was pretty straight forward as being written as an individual, this is why I voted the way I voted. I thought it was quite appropriate personally. Mayor Hamilton: I've been called on this previously as you are right now on one of the previous councils because I've done tt~ same thing. Writte~ to people using city stationary representing my views and the rest of the Council thought I was representing all of theirs ar~ that was not the intent either at that time so I sort of quit writing but I think using your own stationary is probably a vehicle to avoid that kind of question in the future. Don Ashworth: Staff will pursue that. I think we have part of the blame in that in that Bill did contact me and said is it appropriate for city staff to be able to type a letter that involves city business and I said no problem. I know he brought that in and I never talked to Karen instructing her one way or the other. I still have not read the letter myself and I'm sure Karen went ahead ~ did that without thinking about it. I will instruct them to the contrary tomorrow. Councilman Boyt: Are you telling me that she will no longer be available to type letters for city business? Don Ashworth: No, no. If I heard the Council correctly, they said that carrying out the typing functions for councilmembers is perfectly appropriate. In fact it's maybe even preferred. Staff should pursue getting the letterhead for each councilmember showing their home address, home phone number but taking off the wordage City of Chanhas~. That's what I heard being said. Councilman Horn: I have a question of D~n then on this. This commission attendance issue. It was my understanding that the Council did have a procedure in place where we regularly reviewed that. Don Ashworth: That' s correct. Mayor Hamilton: We saw that not too long ago. Councilman Boyt: We didn't see it for Park and Rec. It's now in tonight's adminsitrative pack and you'll notice that there are two people that are below 75%. Mayor Hamilton: I'll make one comment on that. There are instances, there are exceptions to everything I guess amd I'll use Cliff Whitehill as an example. He's a very valuable member of the ~ His attendance is probably about 50% but probably his attendance of 50% is more valuable than somebody elses at 1~%. He's just an extremely good asset for the city to have and in 45 City Council .Meeting - August 17, 1987 this case, that one example, and we've talked about this previously on other councils and with the staff as to how can we Cliff here. He's just out of the country a lot. That just happens to be his job but when he's here he's extremely valuable. Not only just at the meetings but we do consult with him outside of that so I would really feel uncomfortable asking Cliff to step down because he can't meet 75%. He's a good resource and I think that can apply to other people on other commissions. Councilman Geving: We've done that on the Planning Commission with Howard Noziska. He's a very valuable person. Councilman Boyt: In the changed hours, I was curious as to why the hours went from like noon until 8:00 on Friday instead of until closing. Why would we not have an attendant there the last two hours of the day on Friday? Lori Sietsema: I don't think it's busy enough to warrant it. That was the reason. Todd Hoffman, the Park and Recreation Assistant has been monitoring the access and from the documentation that he's gotten from the attendants as to who is using the access, I think he determined there wasn't a need for someone that late. I can certainly change it if you feel that it's necessary but he didn't feel there was enough use of the access on the later hours on Friday to make having an attendant. Councilman Boyt: I notice that your attendant is taking down a good bit of information, I think in the future one of the concerns that I've heard about on the lake is how do we police it and I would like to have the attendant take down the boat license number and boat description. One of the things that I've noticed about boats on any lake is that if they're are more than two or three lengths away it's extremely difficult to read their number which makes them a ghost. I think we should have in place, as long as we have an attendant, some sort of system so that residents around the lake would have the number of the attendant. Tney could call, describe the boat and get the boat number and call the sheriff and report it. I think we need to have some means of patrolling what's happening on that lake. Lori Sietsema: Assuming that it's a boat access user that's violating. Cour~ilman Boyt: That's right. It may well not be. On the chance that it occasionally is, it gives us a piece of information that I think is fairly easy for that attendant to gather. Tnat's my only comment. Councilman Geving: I think it's a good one. If that park attendant is sitting there and he's monitoring people that are going onto the lake, he could easily take that boat number. Mayor Hamilton: I've been by there several times when there's nobody in the house and I don't know where the guy is. Last time I went down there, there was nobody in the house and his bicycle was sitting there, the house was open. I drove down to the launching area. There was nobody down there. Drove back up. There was nobody in sight anywhere. I don't know if the guy was out swiping or what. 46 247 City Council Meeting - August 17, 1987 Lori Sietsema: F~ could have been out swimming. I did tell him to go down there and take a swim and make sure that people aren't using Melblfs dock. I tell him to walk the park site. Councilman Horn moved, Mayor Hamilton seconded to adjourn the meeting. All voted in favor ar~ motion carried. The meeting was adjourned at 10:30 p.m.. Sukmit~ by Don Ashworth City Manager Prepared by Nann Opheim 47