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CC 2009 03 09 CHANHASSEN CITY COUNCIL REGULAR MEETING MARCH 9, 2009 Mayor Furlong called the meeting to order at 7:05 p.m. The meeting was opened with the Pledge to the Flag. COUNCIL MEMBERS PRESENT: Mayor Furlong, Councilman Litsey, Councilwoman Ernst, Councilwoman Tjornhom, and Councilman McDonald STAFF PRESENT: Todd Gerhardt, Kate Aanenson, Paul Oehme, Todd Hoffman and Greg Sticha PUBLIC PRESENT: Maddy Haigh 90 West Point Circle, Tonka Bay Kayla Holme 447 Theis Drive, Shakopee Jim and Spencer Olson 2277 Lukewood Drive Ciara Riehl 1221 Bluff Creek Drive Mike Ludford 8615 Valley View Court PUBLIC ANNOUNCEMENTS: Mayor Furlong: Very good and welcome to everyone here in the council chambers as well as those watching at home. We have some students here tonight. Welcome. And a scout here I’m sure working on a merit badge or citizenship in the community or something I would guess. Welcome to everyone. We appreciate everyone being here. At this time I would ask if there is any changes or modifications by members of the council to the agenda this evening. If not, we’ll proceed with the agenda as published. CONSENT AGENDA: Councilman Litsey moved, Councilwoman Ernst seconded to approve the following consent agenda items pursuant to the City Manager’s recommendations: a. Approval of Minutes: -City Council Work Session Minutes dated February 23, 2009 -City Council Verbatim and Summary Minutes dated February 23, 2009 Receive Commission Minutes: -Planning Commission Verbatim and Summary Minutes dated February 17, 2009 b. Approval of Contract with REACH for Resources to Provide Adaptive Recreation Services. c. Approval of 2009/10 Contract with Minnetonka Community Education Services for Lifeguard Services at Lake Ann Park. City Council Meeting - March 9, 2009 th Resolution #2009-18: d. 77 Street Utility Project 09-04: Award Contract. Resolution #2009-19: e. Sanitary Lift Station 9 Rehabilitation: Approve Quotes. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 5 to 0. VISITOR PRESENTATIONS: SAFER (SEARCH AND FIND EMERGENCY RESPONDERS) PROGRAM. Mayor Furlong: We do have one presentation tonight but before we get to that I’d ask if anybody would like to address the council. I invite them to come forward at this time to the podium stating their name and address. If not we do have a representative here from the SAFER program. At this time I’d invite you to come up sir. Good evening. Mario Cortolezzis: Good evening. Mr. Mayor, members of the council. My name is Mario Cortolezzis and thank you for having me here this evening. Mayor Furlong: Thank you for coming. Mario Cortolezzis: I represent the SAFER program. I am the Program Director and I’m the proud father of a 6 year old boy with autism. Three years ago my son Dante got away from his school and ended up knee deep in Lake Waconia in the month of April and for anyone that has children, just losing your child alone is something very terrifying, but with a special need child, they won’t come to you if they’re called. They’ll walk in the opposite direction. People looked for my son for approximately 20 minutes and by the grace of God someone passing by saw a little boy in a red sweater playing in the water and called for help. I had to understand why this happened. As a father you fight for what you believe in and with my son I had to fight harder because I needed to find out, there had to be a system out there to protect people with special needs or people with Alzheimer’s if they happen to wander away safe. And I’m glad to say that we started looking into this in July of last summer and currently in Carver County we have 19 members. We started doing the research in finding out how to implement this program. There’s a lot of other nation wide programs that work very well but in today’s economy it was really hard for us to go to a department, a fire department or a city or a police agency and say, here’s the equipment. You need to buy this equipment and have someone run the program. So we decided to start a non-profit corporation and our non-profits, our funds are based under the 501C3 of the Community Foundation for Carver County. We’re able to pool our funds together and go to departments and offer them the training and when the departments buy the program, and buy the equipment, we’re able to run the administration portion of the program so that, the departments that run, that don’t have to have someone and the expense. These transmitters that we put on our recipients go on an ankle or on their wrist and they can track up to a mile on the ground or 5 miles in the air. But SAFER wanted to kind of expand it out more. We wanted to offer what parent, we knew that we had the search and rescue portion down and we wanted to offer the families that much more so we wanted to start, we asked the families, what do you want? What else do you want? Support always came back to us. We started offering support groups for families. We started offering support groups for dads because I was one of those dads when I 2 City Council Meeting - March 9, 2009 was challenged with the diagnose of a special need, I didn’t think my son was going to excel in life and the overwhelming number of divorces that are happening these days because of a special needs family is really a concern to us so we started opening support groups for dads. In our Alzheimer’s community, the Alzheimer’s that are getting into the retirement age, the baby boomers that are retiring now, we’re seeing a lot more Alzheimer’s numbers coming in so it’s keeping them safe. Most Alzheimer’s patients live at home with their wives, and 75% actually live home with mom and dad. So the assisted living facilities, they have the alarm systems on their doors for example but that alarm goes off so many times in a day. Everything you have works until it fails and trust me with these little devices, they do work. When we do train, we did training in the lake area for some different departments and they were picking this technology up so quick that we were driving down the road and throwing them out the window and they were still finding them in under 5 minutes. So the technology itself is very proven to work very well. Another thing that SAFER offers for families, individual safety plans for the schools or for the assisted living facility. A lot of the schools that have a special needs child in the school may not know what to do when they call 911 and the dispatcher answers and they had this program. So we tailor safety plans individual for the children that are in the schools also. The support groups for the older people, for these Alzheimer’s or for the teenagers for example, they need that interaction, not only for children. The interaction has to be there for the teenagers also so we started a friendship circle where we can bring teenagers in on a Friday night and watch movies with regular kids to see how they react with regular kids. So it’s more than a search and rescue program. It’s more of a network and I think the families, as myself, when you look at this program, it’s the program itself. The network is so important to us also. The identification that comes with this program when you sign up, there’s a picture with an ID Card that comes with it so the law enforcement agencies or the fire departments responding to the call, they know who they’re looking for. They have key facts about that person. They have a nick name. They have mom and dad’s phone number or they have the caregiver’s phone number so we’re trying to implement it in as many cities as possible that do have special needs children or Alzheimer’s patients for that matter. In the city of Chanhassen we currently had a response for 4 members that wanted to sign up, and now that more people are starting to hear about the Alzheimer’s community, there’s a lot of assisted living facilities within Chanhassen after meeting with the Assistant Fire Chief that would probably be very beneficial to have a program like this. The transmitters themselves cost $260 apiece and the families are responsible for that, and there’s an $8.00 a month fee for a battery change that one of the SAFER members will come out every month and meet with them and change the batteries, so the process itself is pretty easy for a department. For a fire department and an agency to get into it. They can get into it for under $5,000. You get the actual receiver units. You get transmitters that you can donate back to families in your city. And you get full training involved with it. So that is the SAFER program itself in a nutshell. I’m trying to keep it down to my 5 minutes. Mayor Furlong: You’re doing very well. Mario Cortolezzis: Sorry if I’m going fast. My passion sometimes takes over so, but if there’s any questions I’d be happy to answer any questions. Mayor Furlong: Sure, any questions at this time? 3 City Council Meeting - March 9, 2009 Councilwoman Tjornhom: I have one question. Mayor Furlong: Sure. Councilwoman Tjornhom: You had mentioned the friendship circle. How do people volunteer for something like that? Mario Cortolezzis: On our web site, which is www.safermn.net you can go to the volunteering tab and say what you, how you would like to volunteer and how you would like to help. There’s so many opportunities for citizens to really get involved with this because we open it up to different communities. We have a board of advisors that meet with us quarterly and tell us what they need in their cities. If there’s anything else that we can do to improve or to send a specialist or have a support group in their areas. Currently we’re starting to look for swimming instructors to teach special needs children how to tread water. They’re attracted to water. Why not give them the basis skills on how to tread water. So we’re trying to open it up and we’re getting these ideas from regular people in the cities that are asking us for their help. Councilwoman Tjornhom: Thank you. Mayor Furlong: Questions? Councilman Litsey: Well I just, I think it’s a great program. I’ve had an opportunity to see it more first hand and close up through my law enforcement endeavors so I mean I think it’s good and it’s much needed and appreciate what you’re doing so. Mario Cortolezzis: Thank you very much. Mayor Furlong: You’re primarily based in Carver County, is that correct? Mario Cortolezzis: Yes we are. We’re based out of Waconia currently. Carver County is where it started, but as soon as we started branching out we started getting calls from Hennepin County. Since we’re bordering Hennepin County and in the Waconia school district we have kids that live in Hennepin County that come to Waconia school so the police agencies in the area said okay, they live in our cities. We need to know how this is working so. Now that we’re branching out more and more, now we’re hearing more cities across Hennepin County and further up in the state that want to get on the program itself so. Mayor Furlong: You say there are 4 families participating in Chanhassen. Mario Cortolezzis: There are 4 families currently looking into the program. I’m meeting with them in the next couple weeks, and one of them has 2 children and the other one has an Alzheimer’s dad and the other one has a teenage boy with autism so. Mayor Furlong: Okay. Are you working with the school districts to try to identify some of the families? Get your, to let people know. 4 City Council Meeting - March 9, 2009 Mario Cortolezzis: It’s kind of hard when you’re dealing with a special needs community. The special needs community is very, very, it’s a very closed circle but awareness like I’m doing tonight. This is the biggest thing for us. Awareness. Letting them know there is a program out there. Letting the school boards and I do meet with the school boards and let them know, yes we are available. And it’s just, if they have a new person move into the county or to the school district, they’ll be able to say here’s a pamphlet. If it could benefit you, give them a call so our main goal with meeting with cities and meeting with people is, you represent the people that live in the city so when someone comes to you and says have you heard of this program, we want you guys to have as much knowledge as possible so awareness is a big thing for us. Mayor Furlong: Very good. Thank you. Any other questions? Councilwoman Ernst: Just a quick question. Mayor Furlong: Councilwoman Ernst. Councilwoman Ernst: Have you developed a web site by any chance? Mario Cortolezzis: Yes. Councilwoman Ernst: Oh you do. Mario Cortolezzis: Yes, the web site should be on the brochure that’s, it’s www.safermn.net and there’s a ton more information than I couldn’t explain in 5 minutes so that’s on there. Councilwoman Ernst: Great, thank you. Mario Cortolezzis: No problem. Mayor Furlong: Thank you very much. Mario Cortolezzis: Thank you very much for your time. Have a good evening. Mayor Furlong: Thank you for your service. Anyone else who would like to address the council on visitor presentations this evening? Okay. Very good. PUBLIC HEARING: HIGHCREST MEADOWS: VACATION OF DRAINAGE AND UTILITY EASEMENTS. Paul Oehme: Thank you Mayor, City Council members. This easement is located, for consideration for easement vacation on Arrowhead Lane, which is again in the Highcrest Meadows development, shown here in the exhibit. It’s located just north of Longacres Drive and rd east of Trunk Highway 41. On January 23 of 2009 an administrative subdivision was approved which changed the orientation of the common lot line between Lots 9 and 10 in Highcrest Meadows which is shown here. Parcel A represents the newly described Lot 9, which is here. 5 City Council Meeting - March 9, 2009 And Parcel B is Lot #10. The lot line adjustment was necessary so that the type of home that the developer is proposing to build on Parcel A will comply with the current ordinance. As a result of a lot line adjustment the developer has requested that the platted drainage and utility easement between Lots 9 and 10 be vacated and replaced with a 10 foot wide drainage and utility easement centered over the newly common lot line. And here’s an exhibit of the vacation exhibit. Gopher State One locates was called and no events of public or private utilities within this vacated easement were identified. The City Council therefore is recommended to vacate the drainage and utility easement between Lots 9 and 10 of Block 1, Highcrest Meadows as shown on this survey here produced by Westwood Professional Services dated January 13, ’09. At this time I’d stand for any questions that the council may have and I would request that a public hearing be open. Mayor Furlong: Okay, thank you. Any questions for staff at this time? On what’s before us this evening. Councilman McDonald. Councilman McDonald: Could I just ask one question. I think I understand what’s going on but this is basically just to readjust the lot so they can build a particular home there and it meets the qualifications. Paul Oehme: Yes. The Lot #9, the building that’s proposed to be built there has changed from it’s original configuration and therefore to meet our ordinance for setbacks and what have you, that’s why the property request for changing it was made. Councilman McDonald: Okay, that’s all I had. Thank you. Mayor Furlong: Just to clarify, the issue before us tonight is not the change in lot line. That was done administratively. Kate Aanenson: That’s correct. Paul Oehme: That’s already been done. Mayor Furlong: That’s been done and the new lot, or Lot 10 still meets all the requirements. Kate Aanenson: That’s correct and. Mayor Furlong: It’s just the fact that because that lot line moved, we have to physically consider relocating the utility easement. Paul Oehme: We have to readjust those easements accordingly. Kate Aanenson: And really there is no setback from an easement. You can go right up to the easement, but we try to make them all uniform so the easement centers over the property line as the city engineer. Mayor Furlong: Rather than keeping the entire easement on one property and none on the other. 6 City Council Meeting - March 9, 2009 Kate Aanenson: Correct. Correct. Because you can go setback right up to it but I think it’s, to be consistent is why we recommended that. There are no utilities in there right now. Mayor Furlong: Okay. Alright. Is the applicant here tonight? Is there anything they want to share with us? I don’t even know if they’re here. Kate Aanenson: I don’t think so. Mayor Furlong: Okay. Are there any other questions for staff? If not we’ll go ahead and open the public hearing and invite any interested party to come forward to the podium and address the council on this matter. Okay. Seeing nobody that wants to discuss this matter we’ll, without objection we’ll close the public hearing. Bring it back to council for any discussion or thoughts. Councilwoman Tjornhom: It seems pretty cut and dry. Mayor Furlong: Would you like to make a motion? Councilwoman Tjornhom: I’d love to. I make a motion that the City Council is recommended to vacate the drainage and utility easements on Lots 9 and 10, Block 1, Highcrest Meadows as shown on the survey prepared by Westwood Professional Services dated January 13, 2009. Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Is there a second? Councilwoman Ernst: Second. Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Made and seconded, and I guess as part of the motion it’s also to relocate the easement over the new lot line. Kate Aanenson: That’s correct. Mayor Furlong: That’s in the staff report so, just to clarify. Very good, any other discussion of the motion? Resolution #2009-20: Councilwoman Tjornhom moved, Councilwoman Ernst seconded that the City Council approve the vacation of the drainage and utility easements on Lots 9 and 10, Block 1, Highcrest Meadows as shown on the survey prepared by Westwood Professional Services dated January 13, 2009. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 5 to 0. CONSIDER APPROVAL OF RESOLUTION ESTABLISHING A PRICING COMMITTEE TO AUTHORIZE CROSSOVER REFUNDING OF $6,095,000 G.O. LIBRARY BONDS, SERIES 2002A. th Greg Sticha: Good evening Mayor and members of the council. At our February 9 work session meeting we discussed with Ehlers and Associates and presented some of the advantages 7 City Council Meeting - March 9, 2009 of doing an advanced refunding of our 2002A G.O. Library Bonds. Since that meeting interest rates have continued to climb. The higher rates have resulted in a net present value of savings of less than 4% which is required per our debt policy. Based on our policy staff feels that it’s best to take a wait and see approach on the refinancing of this debt and hope that rates lower between now and the time that we could execute a deal. In the meantime however staff would like to have the flexibility to execute that refinancing in a timely manner if rates were to change. Being able to do that, because the market conditions change daily, staff and our financial advisors, Ehlers and Associates, decided to put before you this evening a resolution called a parameters resolution. This resolution establishes a pricing committee that can execute a bond sale based on the authority given to that committee. The pricing committee would be comprised of the Mayor, City Manager, Finance Director and our financial advisor’s Ehlers and Associates. The bond deal would still be competitively bid and negotiated, and/or negotiated with multiple dealers. In addition the resolution only gives us authority to complete the deal by no later than December st 31 of this year, and does not allow for an execution of the deal unless we achieve the net present value savings of 4% as required per our debt policy. If a deal is found to meet the parameters of the resolution and the pricing committee accepts the proposal, it is staff’s intention to still bring a ratification resolution in front of full City Council for a final ratification of the sale. We have a representative of Ehlers and Associates here this evening to answer any questions about the parameters resolution or anything else in regards to the debt of the 2002A G.O. Library Bonds. Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Questions for staff. Councilman McDonald: I have a question. If we give you this authority and you go out and you go ahead and do the bonds, why would you need to come back to us with a resolution at that point? Isn’t the deal, wouldn’t it be completed? Greg Sticha: Yeah the. Todd Gerhardt: Mayor, council members. I can answer that question. I put that language in there just, ratification would not have a factor. It’s more of bringing back that information to the council so you’re aware that we did close on the bonds. The council couldn’t challenge the sale of those bonds. The ratification was more as an informational item back to you so you know that the bond sale occurred and what the interest rate was. What the return we saw was. So more of keeping you informed as action is taken by that committee. Councilman McDonald: Okay, so this wouldn’t be a resolution that we would vote on. This is just something you would come back and say the sale is completed and these are the terms and everything and we met the criteria. Todd Gerhardt: Just keeping the rest of the council informed of what action that committee has taken. Councilman McDonald: Okay. 8 City Council Meeting - March 9, 2009 Todd Gerhardt: You know I’m always hesitant to have somebody else making decisions when the council doesn’t know what has occurred so to keep everybody informed I felt it was important to put that language in the resolution. Councilman McDonald: Okay. I guess where I got confused it sounded as though we were going to be voting on something and it sounds like at that point the deal’s completed. What are we voting on? That’s my only question is there really is nothing to vote on so that’s why I would question why would we call it what we call it. I agree you need to come back and tell us what’s going on but there is no vote and I just want to make that clear I guess. Todd Gerhardt: You’re absolutely right. Maybe ratification wasn’t the correct word to use in that resolution, but to keep the council informed was the intent behind it. Councilman McDonald: Okay. Greg Sticha: Just as another informational note on the refunding here. I had Bruce run some numbers this afternoon, to achieve a 4% net present value savings, we need to get to a true interest cost of about 2.7%. I also had Bruce kind of take a look and let me know what the current market conditions would have us at and we’re looking at about 3.5% true interest cost. So we’re quite a bit a ways away from where we need to be, if we actually did execute a sale right now. And Bruce could certainly comment on where or how quickly or how soon we actually might get to that point but as of right now it does not look like we will be executing a refinancing here for at least the immediate short term. Mayor Furlong: Yeah, I think that’s a question or point of clarification. The resolution before the council this evening is to authorize this to occur at any time up until the end of this calendar year. Greg Sticha: Correct. Mayor Furlong: Is that correct? Greg Sticha: Yep. Mayor Furlong: And because of the nature of these bonds, and what the nature of the refunding proposal in front of us is, since they’re not immediately callable, as we sit here tonight, the closer we get to the call date, which is 2012? Is that correct Bruce? Greg Sticha: That’s correct. Mayor Furlong: The opportunity to meet that 4% hurdle gets easier at the same interest rates. Now it may not get their recurring interest rates but time is actually on our side in terms of, assuming rates don’t go up more. In terms of trying to achieve that 4% or greater savings. Is that correct? Am I understanding that? Greg Sticha: Bruce, would that be a correct statement? 9 City Council Meeting - March 9, 2009 Mayor Furlong: And I think that’s one of the reasons why we didn’t just say for the next 2 weeks let’s try to do something. Bruce Kimmel: Right. Mr. Mayor, you are correct that with advance refundings, because right now we’re seeing what’s called a negative arbitrage situation in the escrow where you’re actually having to overcome some earnings hurdles if you will in the investment of the funds to the call date. You’re right. The closer we get to the call date and assuming that rates either stay the same or get better, we would have an easier time of meeting that 4% test or exceeding that. Mayor Furlong: Okay. Bruce Kimmel: And I would also point out that you know we had proceeded with advertising this sale to the market. Preparing the preliminary official statement and other documentations so really part of this parameters resolution is also to sort of still take advantage of the work that was done. Be able to use that. Refresh that information quickly and move to the market should rates improve you know between now and the end of the year. Mayor Furlong: Other questions. Councilwoman Tjornhom: I don’t know if this is appropriate, if you can answer it. We obviously went through this during work session and you threw out some numbers about exactly how much we would be saving on, maybe for those people watching and at home, it’d be good for them to in laymen’s terms know the benefits of this. Greg Sticha: If we would have gotten to our goal of the 4% net present value savings, our savings I believe were in the neighborhood of about $150,000. Mayor Furlong: On a present value. Greg Sticha: On a present value basis, correct. Mayor Furlong: Right. Councilwoman Tjornhom: Thank you. Mayor Furlong: Isn’t there an, what’s the approximately annual savings amount once we get out to four, 3, 4, 5 years out. Greg Sticha: On the actual levy itself we would be able to lower the levy by about $50,000 per year starting in the year 2013. Mayor Furlong: Okay. Other questions? Councilwoman Ernst. Councilwoman Ernst: Just so I understand the recommendation. Does this cap the MPB so it doesn’t go below 4%? 10 City Council Meeting - March 9, 2009 Greg Sticha: Right. It does not allow us to execute the deal unless we achieve the 4%. If the net present value savings is less than that, per this resolution we would not be able to execute it. Councilwoman Ernst: Okay. Thank you. Councilman Litsey: Just one quickly. Is this a pretty common way to handle it? Greg Sticha: I’ll let Bruce answer that one. Bruce Kimmel: Councilmember Litsey, yes it’s becoming much more common now because of the market turmoil we’re seeing. Even highly rated communities like Chanhassen are seeing the benefit of having the flexibility to do this. Within certain limitations and really where we’re seeing this most often is with refundings because it’s not like a new issue where you need money for a street project on a certain date in order to pay contractors. This is really, we’re trying to seize an opportunity here and so having this kind of parameters resolution is becoming more common. Councilman Litsey: Okay, thanks. No, it makes sense. I just was wondering how common a practice it was so thanks. Mayor Furlong: Any other questions? For staff. Okay, thank you. Any thoughts or discussion? Comments? Councilwoman Tjornhom: Keep our fingers crossed that the interest rates get lower I guess. Mayor Furlong: Yeah, I think you need the ability to move fast so this will allow that and give you some awesome authority. I don’t know that you want it. No, I’m just kidding. That’s, I think it’s the smart way to go. Mayor Furlong: Okay. Other thoughts or comments. Mr. McDonald. Councilman McDonald: Well I guess the question I’ve got is, by state law it’s got to be 3% and we’ve set 4% and what I’m wondering is, is that, and I’m sure that we discussed this and I’m just asking the council to kind of refresh my memory but why wouldn’t we want to do this at a 3% rate if we could get that, if the market is such that would we be able to get back to the 4% and meet that goal. I guess that’s where my confusion is. You know is 3% a realistic number more so than 4 and do we still save money at 3? We want to lock ourself into 4 or do you want to give ourself the flexibility of going to 3? Mayor Furlong: I’m going to defer that question back to staff. Greg Sticha: Our policy is between 4 and 5 percent and I can let Bruce kind of explain some of the complications of doing an advanced refunding. They’re a little more complicated than just a refunding of a callable debt so that’s part of the reason the State requires a 3%. They don’t just want anybody going out there and refunding, advance refunding their debt on a consistent basis. 11 City Council Meeting - March 9, 2009 Right now we would not even be able to achieve 3% so in the current market conditions I think we’re even at about 0% so right now it just would not make sense to consider that. I can let Bruce comment on exactly why the 3% or the 4% is good for policy and I know various cities have different limits on each of their policies. We have chosen between 4 and 5% as a goal for the City of Chanhassen and it’s certainly something we could discuss either internally or with council again in the future as to adjusting that to a lower amount if council wanted to do that. Councilman McDonald: Okay, I guess I don’t want you to have to go into detail of that. I guess the only thing that I would say is you know what’s here today is fine. Maybe at some point in the future if this is something to look at and then we can always see if this would apply but I don’t need to go into all of that tonight. I was just asking the question to look at giving you know the pricing committee maybe a little bit more flexibility in doing this but I’m fine with the way it is and we’ll go ahead and go there. Todd Gerhardt: Mayor, council members. I think Bruce would tell you that typically these refundings occur with larger issues. I mean this is the largest issue we have out there so that’s why it made sense for the City of Chanhassen to take a serious look at this, and usually when you have a larger issue you’re going to see a substantial savings as a part of that. And so if, there’s also some administrative work that goes along with this. Now we’re kind of monitoring two different debt issues out there and you have to track those to make sure you know the payments are being made so there is an administrative function that goes along with this. Bruce Kimmel: If I can just add one other point. Besides the administrative burden, which you raised, which is an excellent point. One last thing, I won’t give you a treatise on federal tax law but, although I know you would like one, but with advanced refundings you can only do them one time for each bond issue so unlike with current refundings where you can basically advance, or you can do a current refunding multiple times, this is something that is limited by federal law so it’s, the State test is really meant to encourage cities to really preserve that right until the right time to maximize savings and I think Chanhassen’s policy couples that need to preserve a scarce resource as well as recognizing the administrative burden that goes with an advanced refunding. Councilman McDonald: Okay, I’m fine. Mayor Furlong: Okay. Councilwoman Ernst, any thoughts? Questions? Comments? Councilwoman Ernst: Well I just have a comment. I think because the market is so volatile right now and having to react very quickly due to that, I think that this is definitely the way to go on it in terms of the recommendation so I would definitely support it. Mayor Furlong: Okay, thank you. And my comments are similar. I think this creates flexibility but it also has the council setting the policy parameters so the flexibility is greater with this committee. The committee is responsible to meet the parameters set by the council and what that, those parameters are is a certain level of savings that is more than just the State minimums, and yet also is at a level that provides, you know allows you to do something. If we required a 10% or 15% savings, we’d probably never see it. It’d never get there so why have that policy so I think by establishing a policy to say if we can provide on a net present value basis of 4 plus 12 City Council Meeting - March 9, 2009 percent, and I certainly hope that it’s more than 4, then it’s worthwhile doing. And again time is actually on our side here. The rates have bumped up because of some other factors going on, and you know we’ll see where they are over the next 9 months. And as we get into it, if, towards the end of the year if it’s something we want to extend, we can always do that too. If whatever we see at that time so, I think it makes sense to go forward. Create the flexibility to take advantage of the markets if they present themselves. Very good. Any other discussion or would somebody like to make a motion? Councilwoman Ernst: I’ll make a motion. Mayor Furlong: Sure. Councilwoman Ernst: I make a motion that City Council approves the attached resolution accepting the proposal on the sale of general obligation library refunding bonds, Series 2009A and levying a tax for the payment thereof and establishing a price committee to execute that sale. Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Is there a second? Councilman Litsey: Second. Mayor Furlong: Seconded by Councilman Litsey. Any discussion on that motion? Resolution #2009-21: Councilwoman Ernst moved, Councilman Litsey seconded that the City Council approves the attached resolution accepting the proposal on the sale of general obligation library refunding bonds, Series 2009A and levying a tax for the payment thereof and establishing a price committee to execute that sale. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 5 to 0. COUNCIL PRESENTATIONS: Mayor Furlong: Mr. Gerhardt and I attended the leadership meeting on Friday with the Easter Carver County cities so School District 112 and the mayor and city administrators from the respective meetings. We received a presentation from Len Simich at Southwest Transit. It was an update to that group. We’ve invited Len to come and give that similar presentation to this council. He’ll be here either later this month or early in April. Do we have a date at this time? rd Todd Gerhardt: 23. Our next meeting. Mayor Furlong: Okay. So our next meeting so the commission’s had a very good story to tell this year and we want to make sure that they can tell us and also the residents of Chanhassen. Overall it was a good meeting. Anything else you want to bring from that meeting? Todd Gerhardt: You know it was Len did a great job informing the communities of the accomplishments. It was kind of the State of the Transit, Southwest Transit so you know he does have a good story, as the mayor said, and excited to have him come to our next council meeting. The other cities and county and school district talked about budget issues that we’re all facing 13 City Council Meeting - March 9, 2009 and slow growth. To date we’ve probably seen about 6 single family home permits and that was kind of a familiar tone with the rest of the communities. I think Chaska talked about quite a few projects at our last meeting and some of those have even been put on hold so you know it’s, it is slowing down out there. So I do have our budget discussions scheduled for our first meeting in April to talk about some tentative solutions to our 2009 budget if we do potentially see a revenue shortfalls there. Staff will be making some recommendations to you on that. Also kind of stemming from that, the mayor and I are trying to meet with some of our local businesses to talk to them to see how things are going there. Anything that the city can do to help them out as a business or to expand or create new jobs so trying to get out in the community. We have a meeting this Wednesday with Heartland America. I met with M&I Bank last week and so it’s tough out there and we’re going to see if we can’t see if there’s anything that the City can do to help the economy, meeting with our local businesses so. With that we have our legislative priorities meeting tomorrow. City Council is going to meet with Senator Ortman and Representative Hoppe. We’ve invited Commissioner Workman and Degler who represent the Chanhassen area to that meeting. Our Carver County commissioners. I’ve also invited our Met Council Rep Craig Peterson and we’ll go through our list of legislative priorities that we established early this year and express those to our legislative bodies over in St. Paul. And then we’re still trying to schedule meetings with Klein and Klobuchar. And that’s all I have. Mayor Furlong: Okay, thank you. Anything for Mr. Gerhardt? Any comments? Okay. Very good. CORRESPONDENCE DISCUSSION. None. Councilwoman Ernst moved, Councilwoman Tjornhom seconded to adjourn the meeting. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 5 to 0. The City Council meeting was adjourned at 7:40 p.m. Submitted by Todd Gerhardt City Manager Prepared by Nann Opheim 14