1i Approval of MinutesCHANHASSEN CITY COUNCIL
WORK SESSION
OCTOBER 14, 2002
Mayor Jansen called the work session to order at 5:35 p.m.
COUNCILMEMBERS PRESENT: Mayor Jansen, Councilman Labatt, Councilman Boyle,
Councilman Ayotte, and Councilman Peterson
STAFF PRESENT: Todd Gerhardt, Justin Miller, Kate Aanenson, Todd Hoffman, Richard
Rice, Teresa Burgess, and Bruce DeJong
TAXATION PLANT EHLERS AND ASSOCIATES.
Jim Proesser from Ehlers and Associates was present. He reviewed the impact statement they had
prepared and told the City Council how they had categorized and prioritized the items listed by
Council the last time they had met. Staff department heads were present to explain the items
listed under the Capital Expense Plan under the different priorities. Jim Proesser reminded the
council that this was not the time to get into details on each item, but rather to look at the items
conceptually and make sure they were prioritized correctly and if any items had been missed. He
emphasized that one key strategy would be to have small annual increases rather than one large
increases. Another suggestion was that the council look at the list of priorities on an annual basis
to see if they wanted to change any priorities, add or delete items. Councilman Ayotte felt staff
needed assumption ground rules. Mayor Jansen asked for background information on each dollar
amount in the Capital Expense Plan be attached when this was brought back in the future.
Councilman Peterson asked that the council review in detail at a future meeting the 20 points.
Jim Proesser then passed out a handout entitled "Funding Community Facilities Public
Participation Process" and went over the strategies the city should be using in future decision
making. The council discussed they would like to meet sooner than later to discuss the 20 points
in detail. It was decided to meet on November 7th at 1:00 p.m..
The work session was recessed at 6:55 p.m. to attend the regular City Council meeting. The City
Council reconvened the work session at 9:55 p.m.
PUBLIC SAFETY COMMISSION.
Mayor Jansen explained that the issue of forming a Public Safety Commission was brought up at
a previous City Council. Councilman Peterson stated he had been absent from that meeting and
was looking for a recap of the discussion held. It was explained that there hadn't been any
discussion, that was what this work session meeting was about. Sheriff Bud Olson was present
and provided input on the contracting police model being used in King County, Washington.
Councilman Labatt passed out a handout he had prepared on the reasons the city needed a Public
Safety Commission, i.e. goal setting, MUSA expansion in south Chanhassen the need for
additional fire station and public safety coverage in that area, validate the police contract and
make sure it' s meeting the needs of the public, measure the success of the rental housing
licensing and Project Leadfoot, Homeland Defense, West Nile Virus, and coordinating
communication between law enforcement, fire, and EMS. Councilman Peterson felt that the City
Council could handle the role of reviewing those items in lieu of forming another commission
and another level of government. Sheriff Olson was asked for his input. He stated if the public
saw value in such a commission, he would support it to review specific issues. Councilman
City Council Work Session - October 14, 2002
Ayotte emphasized that a Public Safety Cormnission would be involved with reviewing fire,
Homeland Defense, as well as law enforcement issues. Councilman Boyle asked what the impact
on staff would be. Todd Gerhardt stated that because of the diversity of issues covered by public
safety, i.e. building pen-nits, code enforcement, rental licensing, etc, it would be difficult to decide
who would oversee such a commission. Mayor Jansen stated maybe the commission would be an
advisory group to work on specific issues rather than a generalized commission. Councilman
Boyle felt it was important to keep some continuity with the learning curve to have one
cormnission. Mayor Jansen suggested contacting the Neighborhood Watch coordinators for their
input on forming a group. Staff stated it would review the list handed out by Councilman Labatt
and come back with a recommendation at a future meeting. Mayor Jansen reminded the council
to keep in mind the work load staff already has and how this decision would affect their ability to
perform their jobs.
Mayor Jansen adjourned the work session meeting at t0:45 p.m.
Submitted by Todd Gerhardt
City Manager
Prepared by Nann Opheim
CHANHASSEN CITY COUNCIL
REGULAR MEETING
OCTOBER 14, 2002
Mayor Jansen called the meeting to order at 7:05 p.m. The meeting was opened with the
Pledge to the Flag.
COUNCILMEMBERS PRESENT: Mayor Jansen, Councilman Labatt, Councilman Boyle,
Councihnan Ayotte, and Councilman Peterson
STAFF PRESENT: Todd Gerhardt, Roger Knutson, Kate Aanenson, Teresa Burgess, Justin
Miller and Todd Hoffman
PUBLIC PRESENT FOR ALL ITEMS:
Debbie Lloyd 7302
Janet & Jerry Paulsen 7305
Tyler Stein 1594
Linda Landsman 7329
Jake Klatt 2475
Molly Bizek 8750
Michelle Spieker 8417
Mike Sitter 9249
James Montgomery 8360
John Berg
Uli Sacchet
Laredo Drive
Laredo Drive
Lake Susan Hills Drive
Frontier Trail
Christian Drive
Powers Boulevard
Rosewood Drive
Lake Riley Boulevard
West Lake Court
760 West Village Road
Planning Commission
PUBLIC ANNOUNCEMENTS: None.
CONSENT AGENDA: Councilman Boyle moved, Councilman Labatt seconded to approve
the following consent agenda items pursuant to the City Manager's recommendations:
Approval of Agreement to Permit the Issuance of a Building Permit for a New Home
Prior to Demolishing the Existing Home, 6250 Ridge Road, Mark & Connie Brabec.
Villages on the Ponds 7th Addition:
1) Final Plat Approval
2) Approval of Construction Plans & Specifications and Development Contract
Project 02-12
Approval of Bills.
Approval of Minutes:
- City Council Work Session Minutes dated September 23, 2002
City Council Minutes dated September 23, 2002
Receive Commission Minutes:
- Planning Commission Minutes dated September 17, 2002
- Planning Commission Minutes dated October 1, 2002
City Council Meeting - October 14, 2002
k. Approve Request for Site Plan Approval of an 8,300 sq. ft. Restaurant with Variances,
550 West 79th Street, Infinity of Chanhassen, LLC.
1. 2002 Trail Connector Project, Change Order No. 1.
All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 5 to 0.
B. ADOPT THE 2001 MINNESOTA MANUAL OF UNIFORM TRAFFIC CONTROL
DEVICES AS THE STANDARD FOR ALL TRAFFIC CONTROL IN THE CITY
OF CHANHASSEN.
Mayor Jansen: Typically when we remove things from the consent agenda we move them to the
end of the agenda for separate discussion. I don't know how quick these items are. Okay, I'm
seeing Councilman Peterson suggesting they go to the end. Councilman Labatt?
Councilman Labatt: Item (b) is just, I'd like to actually pull it and have a chance to review the
code before we adopt it to see what it all entails as far as, if a resident wants to appeal. If they
want to come in and ask for a stop sign here or there, and the code says this, what recourse does
the residents have, so just take some time to, I want to review the, whatever it's called. The
Minnesota Manual of Uniform Traffic Control Devices.
Mayor Jansen: Okay, and you have that in your office Teresa?
Teresa Burgess: I have that in the office. It's approximately 3 V2 to 4 inches thick.
Councihnan Labatt: I've looked at State Statute books before so.
Teresa Burgess: It's not a statute. It is a policy of the Minnesota Department of Transportation,
and there is no recourse regardless of whether the council adopts or not. We are required to
follow that manual. Tonight is a formality because it does cause some confusion in the residents
but this is an adoptive policy of the City of Chanhassen but they still have to abide by it. So I can
certainly make that available. You're welcome to come see it.
Councilman Peterson: I think to Steve's point, I guess we're talking about it now then. My
concern about it was that when we adopt that, are we putting the onus upon that policy to dictate
whether or not, if the citizens want a stop sign in a neighborhood, and that policy says that we
shouldn't have one, then we're not going to get one?
Teresa Burgess: That policy governs anyway. Even though, even if, whether we adopt it or not,
the policy by law on a public street we are supposed to follow it. There are some built in places
for judgment calls, but it does, we are required to do it. By State Statute we are supposed to use it
on all public streets. If you go into a private setting, they can put stop signs up anywhere they
want to. If you choose not to adopt it, we will still have to follow it. The reason for asking the
council to adopt it is because of the confusion it causes for some of the public that we have not
adopted it so why are we following it?
Councilman Ayotte: Is it time line driven? It's in place now. We've been going along as we
have been going along for a long time.
Teresa Burgess: We received the updated copy in September, and have been following the
revised updated copy since September when we received it. Prior to that we followed the, I don't
City Council Meeting - October 14, 2002
remember the date. It's about 10 years old. A previous version of the Manual Uniform Traffic
Control Devices.
Mayor Jansen: So what you're telling us is this is just simply a technicality. That this is a
practice we really don't have a choice in as far as the guidelines that we're following. Any sort of
variance that we would want to have to this, I'm assuming would have to be stricter versus less
strict and may perhaps fall within our city ordinances if we wanted to add something there, but
we couldn't do anything with this document.
Teresa Burgess: We cannot change this document. It is adopted by the Department of
Transportation. I can certainly make it available to the council. I don't really want to make
photocopies because like I said, it is about that thick, but if you'd like to have a chance to review
it, I can certainly get that to you and you can take, each take a turn reviewing it before we
formally adopt it.
Councihnan Peterson: I think a work session for a few minutes might be appropriate on this
Steve.
Councihnan Labatt: Sure.
Councihnan Boyle: I agree.
Councilman Ayotte: In addition to the work session discussion we're going to have after thi-s
meeting, which is going to be about public safety, it even begs further to the question of seeing
whether or not the discussion regarding public safety would have an impact when we talk about
this particular...
Teresa Burgess: No. This is a signage issue and how we install signs and where. It's not related
to enforcement.
Mayor Jansen: Yeah, so if I could have a motion to table that, I believe is what we are going to
need to do at this point for a separate discussion.
Councihnan Boyle: So moved.
Councihnan Peterson: Second.
Councilman Boyle moved, Councilman Peterson seconded to table adoption of the 2001
Minnesota Manual of Uniform Traffic Control Devices. All voted in favor and the motion
carried unanimously with a vote of 5 to 0.
Mayor Jansen: So the motion carries 5-0 to table l(b). So we will then move l(e) and (h) to the
end of the agenda, which (e) is the approval of resolution to update Surface Water Management
Water Control and Water Quantity Connection Charges. And (h) is the Property maintenance and
rental licensing so those have now moved to the end of the agenda. So moving on. Actually
within our consent agenda I did just want to mention two significant projects that we just
approved. There's been a lot of interest in the community around the Presbyterian Homes senior
project over in Villages on the Ponds, and one of the projects that we just approved as part of our
consent agenda was the final plat approval and the approval of construction plans and
specifications and development contract for that project. It's a 90 independent living, 71 assisted
living units, all apartments. And a 9,000 square foot of commercial space that's going into
City Council Meeting - October 14, 2002
Villages on the Ponds, so we're real excited about that project. And we also approved as part of
this a location for 8,300 square feet of restaurant space on 79th Street, which is the city parcel
that's right next to the Applebee's on 79th Street, and that will have two restaurants in it. I think I
can say these publicly. It will be the Chipotle and Buffalo Wild Wings and our residents have
certainly been looking for more restaurants so we're pleased to see those two come in and be
approved. With that I'll move on then to visitor presentations.
VISITOR PRESENTATIONS:
PRESENTATION OF CRIMNET~ SHERIFF BUD OLSON.
Mayor Jansen: We have a scheduled presentation on our agenda. The presentation on CrimNet
from our Sheriff Bud Olson. If you could go ahead and approach the podium please. Thanks for
joining us this evening.
Bud Olson: Well Mayor and Council, thank you very much. I think the frog took my voice so
I' m not going to have too loud of a voice here tonight. What I wanted to do is introduce Gary
Rotari. He's from the Minnesota CrimNet Office in St. Paul and with him and I we're just going
to present just real quickly tonight what the Carver County Sheriff's Office and what the courts
and what court administration, Carver County is doing and why it's important for the City of
Chan. Why it's important for our public safety and why it' s important for all of Carver County.
Back several years ago we had a very disturbing case in Minnesota. It was the Katie Poirer case
and the offender was Donald Blom. I hope you all remember this case that came to our attention
through the news media and through all the activity that was going on. What we learned ttwough
that case and through several other cases in Minnesota is that a lot of offender information is not
getting into our criminal justice system in Minnesota. We have many areas where our criminal
justice system does not talk to each other, and the Katie Poirer case kind of brought it to a head
and with her help arid the family of the Wetterling family and the Swanson family, they went to
the State legislature and said come on you guys. Criminal justice system has been asking for 20
years for an information system that will talk to each other. You would probably be astounded to
know that in the sheriff's office here there's data, there's information that we don't share across
our different disciplines. Court, an offender goes into court and gets convicted on a crime. That
crime son'tetimes gets posted on their criminal history. Many times, and Gary will speak to this,
that information isn't even getting into our criminal justice, criminal history information systems,
and so a lot of people think that as law enforcement does their job day in and day out and the
squad cars being moved around, that we know everything that we should know about when we do
our job, and the fact of the matter is we don't. So through the efforts of these families and
through some great senators and reps, we went to the legislature and started a program called
CrimNet, and it's being partially funded now and the exciting part for Carver County is that
we' ye been chosen, because of our great collaboration in the court system, and the court services
systems, and the law enforcement, Chaska and Carver County, to be the first pilot project in the
State of Minnesota to work on integrating our information systems so that, where the deputy on
the street can get access to a tot of good information and that our courts and our court services
can get great information. So I think we supplied you with a packet that kind of just discussed
this and has many articles that review this. You'll hear more and more as we move forward but
what I'd like to do is just introduce Gary Rotari to help complete our presentation.
Mayor Jansen: Okay, thank you.
Gar5' Rotari: Thank you Sheriff Olson. Mayor, Council. I am Gary Rotari. I am the Technology
Director for the Project called CrimNet. It is a state collaborative process involving the
City Council Meeting - October 14, 2002
Departments of Public Safety, Administration, Finance, and Corrections as well as the Minnesota
Supreme Court and the ten Judicial Districts in the State of Minnesota. The court services now,
through the Supreme Court, are working on a project or collaborative project replacing an
outdated, 25 year or so proprietary information system called TCIS. Total Court Information
System. And they're moving toward a new system that will have enhanced capabilities and allow
for some sharing of disposition, warrant orders for protection and some other court processes that
had to have special file transfers that sometimes left them as much as a week very often the most,
the closest to real time that Sheriff Olson's deputies could get to would be 24 hours. The court
disposition would be 24 hours old before they received notification. In that process is that,
through the efforts of the legislature and the public support, and law enforcement, corrections and
courts, we have been able to bring forth the technology not unlike what you've seen in the
internet through services like Ebay or marketing services. Very akin to that, except that we do
not run it on the intemet. We run it in a state' s proprietary network. The state' s intranet if you
will. Again we run it with the appropriate security precaution, but we do attach to information
systems, and what Sheriff Olson spoke about is that Carver County has been selected fa'st of all
because of the unique collaborative environment that exists between all of the public services and
the courts here, and it allows for us very quickly to come to the forefront. What would be
available to the police officer or sheriff deputy industry is that they would have access to a wide
variety of information that currently you don't have access to today. They would have
corrections information, detention information, but they'd also know the conditions and terms as
they' re related to probation. They would also have records as to what public events, or public
contacts, law enforcement and corrections it had with any individual they might come in contact
with. That information is not widely available to them today. It has only been coming forward in
any sort of a context within the last couple of years. In this process is, and it' s funded by the last
legislature referred to as the Katie Poirer Bill, and was funded to the amount of 27 million dollars.
15 million went to the court system, and the rest was distributed with 4 million going actually to
the CrimNet backbone itself and that's what we're in the process of building. We just recently
demonstrated that functionality in a small lab environment, and we're looking to move forward
with Carver County and making the connections to the MCIS' project. It's called the Court
Information System. That project will be coming forth in February, and so we're looking to make
those connections now. It's really exciting for me. I've been 30 some years in public service. 27
as a law enforcement officer of the state. 19 years of those on the street. The rest the time I've
been involved in information system building and the like. To come to Carver County, because it
does create a unique opportunity and we'll be able to demonstrate by the end of this fiscal year,
June 30t~, 2003, that sort of functionality and we' 11 be able to talk about and you' 11 be the first
county to be able to demonstrate that. I would be happy to take any questions and I don't want to
take up a lot of your time. The information by the way is available on our web site at CrimNet,
Crimnet.state.mn.us. Any questions, I'd be happy to field from you.
Mayor Jansen: Well it sounds like a very exciting project and we're certainly pleased to see
Carver County be your pilot program. That's very complimentary of the county that they've
managed to rise to the forefront for an innovative system like this that is so advanced, so very
exciting. Do keep us in the loop. Council, any questions?
Councilman Ayotte: I'll probably e-mail this to you, if you don't have the information at the
ready but, take a situation where there is a change in law. Where we may start tracking people
who are not U.S. citizens. Does the system have the ability to quickly assimilate that kind of
information for tracking purposes?
Gary Rotari: Mayor, Councilmember. Absolutely. What we're looking to do now, INS we're
looking to make connections not only with the Homeland Security as part of our effort. We've
City Council Meeting - October 14, 2002
also chosen a technology referred to as Extensible Markup Language, or XML that will allow us
to exchange technologically information with any variety of information repositories, like the
INS, FBI, ATF and others. We're expecting that. One of the most cod-tmon requests we get now
are from the Secretary of State. They're looking for, in a straight forward almost a non-criminal
way, they want to know if in fact voters for voter registration is in fact the person alive who's
voting. They're looking for death records. They're looking for felony records to see whether or
not the person still maintains the right to vote, or they're looking for are you resident of this
country, or are you an alien status. So I think in answer, if that's an answer.
Councilman Ayotte: That answers, yes. Yeah, great. Thank you.
Councihnan Boyle: How long will it be before it's fully operational?
Gary Rotari: Fully operational, I'm anticipating that it will be 2 years before we connect up the
87 counties. There are some 1,100 information repositories. 400 plus systems that we've
identified, and making those connections we anticipate to take a full 2 years to be able to do that.
There are some business process changes. Today the court requires a paper notary seal and a
signature and so the court now is really looking at efforts to automate with digital signatures and
other ways of authenticating a document. Those could be lengthy in their process.
Councihnan Boyle: Thank you.
Mayor Jansen: Okay, any other questions council?
Councilman Labatt: No.
Mayor Jansen: Well thank you for coning this evening and presenting this to us. We sure
appreciate it and we'll took forward to the updates as you're getting this online, thank you very
much.
Gary Rotari: Thank you Mayor and thanks for the opportunity.
Councilman Ayotte: Thanks a lot.
Mayor Jm'~sen: Moving on, still tinder visitor presentations. If there is anyone in the audience
with an issue of city business that you'd like to bring to the council's attention, we allow for that
at this time. You just need to approach the podium and state your name and address for the
record and we just ask that you keep your comments to 5 minutes or less please. Go ahead and
approach the podium Mr. Smith.
Don Smith: I'm Don Smith with Chanhassen Estates. I'm here on this housing rental fee
projection. And I'd like to bring again my objection to this because I don't think it's going to
work and it's above and beyond very aggressive program. To begin with, I see where they're
going to charge one family dwellings 50 bucks. There's no fee for two families. Each condo
would be charged 50 units, yet 3 or 4 family dwellings like a big apam-nent, there's only one $50
fee.
Mayor Jansen: It's $50 per unit sir.
Don Smith: It doesn't say that.
City Council Meeting - October 14, 2002
Mayor Jansen: Yes, I believe it does.
Kate Aanenson: He's got an. earlier draft.
Mayor Jansen: Oh, you've got an earlier draft.
Don Smith: Oh! Well I picked this up this morning.
Mayor Jansen: Okay. It is per unit.
Don Smith: Well moving right along with my 5 minutes. We get into the property maintenance
and I see where this, a lot of it is already in the works between public health, building codes and
law enforcement. And in the section 1, on b it says, there's something about if anything is proved
unconstitutional. I'd like to bring up the point, I hope legally this has been checked out because
there's a lot of things in there that should have been checked out and probably 89 percent of this
could be eliminated. And moving right along, back to the last, next to the last page, I might add
that all of this is in the form of existing building code. We're covered by the law, and health
department. And lastly, but not least, the point of this is, you are only responsible, the landlord
for the conduct and nuisance of his renters. And I don't see how anybody can do that when it's
already covered. And again I will repeat my objections to the fact that as a landlord I have no
authority to do anything and a good example is if there's a public disturbance, a domestic affair,
do you think I'm going to go in there and say be quiet? I'm going to call the police. And then to
add insult to injury, if I report it myself and I get number 3 violations, you're going to shut me
down for 60, 190 days and revoke my license. A license that I don't want to pay for in the first
place. I don't have to pay for. And two, I feel that if you're this set on controlling everything,
why don't you have a little booth out somewhere where anybody that wants to rent in the great
city of Chanhassen, they fill out your form. You approve it and then they can give me it to me as
a renter, and I'll take it from there. Okay? So I'm going to close with between the police, the
health and the building codes that are already in existence, you don't need this. Whatever you've
got on the books, polish them up and get on with it but this is ridiculous. Enough said. Any
questions?
Mayor Jansen: No, thank you.
Don Smith: Thank you.
Steve Liefschultz: My name is Steve Liefschultz. I'm here on the same issue. I find myself in
the unusual position of actually having to defend the council here in that I'm sort of the
spokesperson for the owners that were involved in the licensing situation and quite frankly we
feel the licensing ordinance is fair and if it isn't the landlords who are going to be able to control
the tenants, we're not sure who else it can be and we feel it gives adequate leeway for the
landlords to take care of it. I have just two issues. One my colleagues asked me to bring up. The
$50 per unit and $50 per building. For most multi-family structures in Chanhassen, that comes to
somewhere around between 7 and 9/10 of 1 percent of their annual revenue. I've only checked
with three complexes and that's about what it is. Somewhere between 7/10 of a percent and 9/10
of a percent so just under 1 percent of their annual revenue. At Lakeview Hills it will be just
under $9,000. If we collected all our money every month and it was always full, we would have
just under a $1,200,000 of scheduled revenue. And I checked with the gentleman who called me
and asked me to make this speech who has 24 units and his comes out to be about .75, so just
under 1 percent. We just want to make sure that council's aware of that. I asked Mr. Knutson
earlier, I know that in Rochester, to be quite candid, we do get charged $50 per unit. For that we
City Council Meeting - October 14, 2002
get a team that comes out once a year. Looks in every unit. Let's you fix what's wrong and gives
you sort of your free type thing every other year. In no other city I'm in do we have that kind of
fee. In Burnsville we have no fee. In Eagan we have no fee. In Woodbury, because we're part
of a star program, we have next to no fee. There may be some other cities that charge it, but I'm
just not aware of it other than Rochester. But the most important concern that I have is on the
maintenance ordinance, which essentially indicates that when this ordinance is passed, any
structure, whether it's residential, commercial, retail that is not in conformance, is therefore in
violation of the ordinance and subject to getting a modification from a building official is going to
be in violation. Now if they're not a rental unit, it may be years til they ever find out they're in
violation because there may not be any reason for them to be found out. My concern is that the
ordinance itself just is going to lead to problems that people could have the chance to avoid.
What I've suggested a couple of different times, and I don't have the answer but a suggestion is,
give everybody 6 months, 10 months, 5 months to have the official come out and find out
whether they are going to be in violation on the date the ordinance becomes final or not. Ask for
a modification. Be told yes or no, and then have them decide what they're going to do rather than
have it be passed and have people in violation of just about every mortgage that I have seen. I
kmow it's every one I've signed and every one at the bank I own where we give mortgages, they
would be in violation. I've taken the opportunity to have the building department come out and
tell me what's yes and what's no on mine and I'm going about trying to take care of it but I have
serious concern about the viability of the ordinance itself if people are not given a chance to find
out where they' re going to sit when this thing becomes effective. And that's my biggest concern
is on the maintenance side. Thank you.
Mayor Jansen: Thank you. Todd or Kate, can you speak to that a little bit as to the period of time
to come up to compliance once the ordinance is in place. I' m assuming we've anticipated some
of that.
Kate Aanenson: Correct. I'll let Roger speak to this a little bit more but in reviewing what Mr.
Liefschultz is talking about, Section 754. Modifications. We understand where some of the older
apartments may not meet some of the cun'ent code so the intent there is where there' s practical
difficulties, that there's something put in the file explaining the situation. Again as Mr.
Liefschultz indicated, the building department has been out there to find out and what would need
to be con'ected so it's not so onerous. Again the intent is to put someone on notice, a timeframe
to get those corrections made and that they're doing due diligence to make those modifications.
So I don't know if Roger wanted to add something to that.
Roger Knutson: The purpose of the ordinance is to gain compliance, not to punish or prosecute
anyone, and that's reflected in the content of this ordinance which is quite different than others.
This provides in 7-56 that before we prosecute anyone, we have to give them a notice that we
believe they're in violation and I have to specify certain things which we say here, and it gives
them a chance to fix it up. And it's only if they fail to fix it up that we would consider
prosecution. So they'll have ample opportunity and we don't say how long we're giving someone
to fix it up in here because some things take a little bit of time to fix up, and sometimes it could
take quite a length of time to fix something up and you'll have to work with people, depending on
the type of issues we're dealing with. So that's what the goal is. Not to, to bring, make sure we
have a quality housing stock in the community that's well maintained. Not to punish.
Mayor Jansen: And so in the meantime, as the ordinance is implemented, are we causing
properties then to be out of compliance as Mr. Liefschultz is suggesting and making the financing
on those properties then precarious?
City Council Meeting - October 14, 2002
Roger Knutson: It seems to me the way, the way I would read this, I do read this, is that until we
tell you to fix it up and you fail to do it, you're not in non-compliance. You're in technical non-
compliance with the, potentially with the various standards in here, yes. But until you fail to
comply with the ordinance, the notice to repair that we've given you, there's no crime. There's
no misdemeanor. There's nothing.
Steve Liefschultz: I agree that there is no crime. My concern, and I'm going to leave here, is
every mortgage that I know of has a provision that you will not be in violation of any ordinance.
There are, I'm not just talking about apartments. There are apartments, retail centers, anything
built 20-30 years ago could be 3 million dollars in violation of something that may in fact need to
be fixed. May not need to be fixed. I'm not talking about any criminal situation. Every
mortgage you sign says that at all times you will not be in violation of any ordinance. If they
came to my building and said 20 years ago this was okay. It's going to be 3 million dollars to fix
it, the day this thing passes, I'm in violation. Now, I may get a chance ahead of time. If you
came and let me know before the ordinance got passed, I could challenge the official. I could
challenge the ordinance. I could do something. But on the day that this passes I'm in violation of
an ordinance, it doesn't, I don't have it agreed that I won't be criminally prosecuted. The
mortgage says you will not be in violation of any ordinances. And orders and anything of the
like, and that's my concern. I have no doubt that everybody's going to be reasonable in letting
something, I don' t know how reasonable you can be if it' s a 4 million dollar fix, you know but
I'm sure everybody's going to be reasonable. The problem I have in the mortgages I've seen and
give is, you're still going to be...everything else will stay the same.
Kate Aanenson: ...question too, because we get these every day. These letters and to the best of
my ability, the building official gets them. We don't make inspections. My understanding is that
we say to the best of our ability because they're not inspected. Is that true...
Steve Liefschultz: We don't know?
Kate Aanenson: We don't know, right because we get those every day. We don't know, so right
now if we get those letters we say we don't know because we don't inspect every building. This
would only come up on those ones that we have inspections or something in the file. And again
the goal is to get compliance to work towards that, and that's why I was reading that modification
and we put something in there that we're working, most buildings we don't do inspections on
when we get those letters. We say we don't know.
Roger Knutson: And to the best of my knowledge, I think most larger communities, not most
smaller ones, but most larger communities do have similar codes. Maintenance codes, and at
least as has been reported back to me, I' ve never heard anyone report to me that they had a
problem with their mortgage because of our maintenance codes.
Mayor Jansen: Okay. Alright. And then to the point of the buildings actually being looked at
and reviewed, that will be the position that we're talking about as far as having someone going in
and doing those code inspections and working with the landlords to get those upgrades. Okay.
Alright. Moving on with visitor presentations. We have one more person?
Janet Paulsen: My name is Janet Paulsen. I live at 7305 Laredo Drive. I want to speak to this
landlord law. I think it's a hardship for landlords. Who wants to be a landlord in Chanhassen and
build apartments? Build duplexes. We'll have a hard time finding them because it's punishable.
It's just too punishing for them. Don't we want diversity in housing? As Don Smith said, we've
already had codes which govern rental housing, upkeep and standards. Well let's enforce them.
City Council Meeting - October 14, 2002
As I recall from 2 years of council watching, and it's been a real education, this law on landlords
was initiated to deal with Lakeview Apartments on Lake Riley. The neighbors were upset with
behavior of some of the Mexican renters and they demanded action. Let's just enforce our
current laws. Let's use the police for dangerous situations, and why don't you as a council work
with these people and coordinate volunteers in the community to help our Mexican works. Our
guest workers seem to be needed in Chanhassen. They're working in the fast food places.
They're cooking in the restaurants. They're roofing our homes. They're painting. They work
hard. Let's help them out, not put their landlord out of business, and put them out of housing.
Where else can they afford to live in Chanhassen? So take the high road, not the low road.
Thank you.
Mayor Jansen: Okay, I am going to address several of those statements because in fact we pulled
together a task force, as Mr. Liefschultz spoke to with 6 landlords that served along with one of
our senior co~runissioners and two residents. And this was a group effort and the reason that the
landlords were there, were to make sure that this was the type of a program that we were putting
together that was also helpful to the landlords. I mean it is helping with the enforcement. It is
also helping the tenants. We had tenants that were looking for these types of controls on our
parks, so we're not persecuting a single complex. We are not persecuting individuals. We are
looking at Chanhassen and wanting to make sure that we have standards in place where we can
help maintain the quality of the housing in the community. We are not pricing it out of the
marketplace, and there are numerous occasion where we end up with issues coming before us on
some of the maintenance of some of our older homes so this is not meant to persecute. It's been a
very long and open process with our landlords trying to work out the language and we certainly
are also looking at working with all of our businesses in town as this program is put into place.
Again it's not being put into place to punish. With that, I do want to, I want to mention the
people who served on this advisory committee because they did put in quite a bit of time and now
we've moved this to the end of our agenda. I just want to recognize them. The 9 people who
served for us. Jeff Copeland as a Chanhassen resident, Tom Faust as our Senior Commissioner,
Lisa Lane of the Carvei County HRA, Mike and forgive me if I don't pronounce his name right.
Mike Stoebe, INH Property Management Inc. James Martin of the Carver County Apartments.
Lynette Schmitz, Marthin Management. Rob Vaules, Chanhassen resident. Joe Videlz, Stuart
Management, and Mr. Steve Liefschultz, Ramada Company. So our 9 people who did put the
time in on this project, we certainly appreciate it. Is there anyone else with con~nents under
visitor presentations? Otherwise I will close visitor presentations and move on under public
hearings.
PUBLIC HEARING: VACATION OF UTILITY AND DRAINAGE EASEMENTS FOR
OUTLOT F. VILLAGES ON THE PONDS~ VOpI, LLC.
Teresa Burgess: Thank you Madam Mayor. Madam Mayor and Council. This evening we are
reviewing a easement vacation. This is a picture of the existing easement. This easement was
platted at the time that Villages on the Ponds was originally developed, and the property owners
have requested that we vacate this easement and they have already submitted the revised plat.
They will be removing the two ponds that are shown and will be dedicating the area that is shown
in pink as drainage and utility easements in place of the easements that were originally dedicated.
With that I'll answer any questions. Tonight is a public hearing.
Kate Aanenson: There was a stormwater pond right in the middle of this building...we just
moved that pond... At the time it was put in place, the building shape has changed.
10
City Council Meeting - October 14, 2002
Mayor Jansen: Okay. The question that I had posed to staff was that the Planning Commission
had taken some pains to make sure that that wetland was a focus piece for the building so I was
just clarifying it was the ponds that we're leaving and not the wetland. Okay. Any other
questions for staff before I open this up for the public hearing? Okay. This is a public hearing.
If there is anyone who would like to comment on the agenda item, certainly step forward to the
podium at this time and state your name and address. Seeing no one, I will close the public
hearing and bring this back to council. Council comments or I'll call for a motion.
Councilman Peterson: Motion to approve.
Mayor Jansen: And a second?
Councilman Ayotte: Second.
Resolution #2002-89: Councilman Peterson moved, Councilman Ayotte seconded that the
City Council approves a resolution vacating the existing drainage and utility easement
within Outlot F of Villages on the Ponds as defined in the attached vacation description,
subject to the following condition:
The easement vacation will not be recorded until the Villages on the Ponds 7th Addition
final plat is filed with Carver County.
All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 5 to 0.
PUBLIC HEARING: CONSIDER A REQUEST FOR TEMPORARY I,IFTING OF NO
PARKING RESTRICTIONS ON LAKE LUCY ROAD FOR A CHRISTMAS DISPLAY.
Public Present:
Name Address
Phil Thiesse
Tim Lindquist
Robert Kendall
Uli Sacchet
1675 Steller Court
1650 Lake Lucy Road
1645 Lake Lucy Road
7053 Highover Court South
Teresa Burgess: Thank you Madam Mayor. This evening we are looking at a petition from the
property owner at 1645 Lake Lucy Road to have a temporary lifting of no parking on Lake Lucy
Road. We do that typically on a 1 to 2 day basis, up to a 1 week at an administrative level. This
road, they are requesting for the period of November 27th through January 12th. Given the time
period staff has brought it to council for approval. We feel that's beyond the administrative
authority and with that we have put a number of conditions on this. We have sent a copy of this
to the property owner. They do have some disagreement with some of our conditions but we felt
that they were reasonable and as we had put them forward, they did match with what Carver
County felt also. I did speak with the Carver County Sheriff Deputy's Office this afternoon and
they concurred that they can work with these conditions and would be happy to work with the
Kendall's, as well as with the city to coordinate anything that needs to be done out there. We
have left also the possibility that the Kendall's would be able to provide their own, using their
volunteers or paid staff, that being up to them, flaggers to also ease the problems that we've had
out there with traffic control issues, rather than having paid deputies on site. In the past we have
used the city deputies, the deputies that the city is paying for to be on staff here in the city, as well
11
City Council Meeting - October 14, 2002
as our CSO, which does take away from our coverage in the rest of the city. I asked the deputies
for a rough estimate of the time they spend there. They felt that they were there most of the
evening on Friday and Saturday but didn't really have to be there during the rest of the week.
Jeff, our CSO estimated he worked between 10 and 20 hours per week on the site, mainly
documenting what was going on and verifying that there were not problems so that he could call
it into the sheriff' s deputies. So far we have not had an accident in the area and it is a large
display. I know a lot of people get excited about it. We do receive calls every year asking when
and where it will be. We have recon'nnended that instead of allowing all of the parking on Lake
Lucy Road. Lake Lucy Lane does not have homes adjacent to it. We do have a couple of homes
that are to the south that access off Lake Lucy Lane, however they are set back quite a ways and
therefore instead of recommending all of the parking be on Lake Lucy Road, we are
recommending a large amount of it be directed off to Lake Lucy Lane. That will require people
to walk a little bit further, but it keeps them off of Lake Lucy Road. Looking at the distances they
would have to walk, they would probably be walking just as far. It's a less busy road. They will
have to cross the road and that is why we' re putting forward that we believe there would need to
be flaggers to allow for those people to cross safely. So if there's any questions I'd be happy to
answer them.
Mayor Jansen: Okay. Any questions for staff at this time?
Councilman Ayotte: Yeah I have one for Roger. If we have a volunteer who's providing traffic
control instead of a deputy, and we pass this and there's an accident, who holds the liability?
Roger Knutson: Council members, those questions are difficult to answer in the abstract because
it depends on who's negligent. What caused the accident. Was someone driving too fast? Was
someone drunk? I mean what caused the accident?
Councilman Ayotte: Well let's take a case where someone is drunk and let's take a case where
someone is not drunk. Give me both scenarios.
Roger Knutson: The city should not have any liability. Now if you put someone out there. If a
homeowner, and I don't ~know what this entails. I assume they're not going to be stopping traffic
in the street. I assume they're not doing that.
Teresa Burgess: Well traffic stops in the street now. The condition that's in there specifically
states that all flagging will follow the Minnesota Manual of Flagging, which is what is used for
all of our construction site flagging. It is used on several projects per year, and if they are
following those guidelines, they will have the proper signage, vests, flags.
Roger Knutson: Then it should be okay if they do it appropriately.
Councilman Ayotte: Okay. Do we have an obligation to ensure that, a trade off, anything along
that line. Do we have any responsibility with respect to his employing traffic control?
Roger Knutson: I think it would be prudent to ask about whoever's going to do it, what their
experience is and are they familiar with the requirements for doing it appropriately, yes. I think
it'd be appropriate to make those inquiries.
Councilman Boyle: Roger, let's take it just a little step further. Nobody's drinking. Everybody's
driving below the speed limit. The city takes the no parking sign restrictions away. The city does
12
City Council Meeting - October 14, 2002
this. A little boy runs out behind a parked car and gets hit. Everybody's, there's no negligence.
Is the city liable then?
Roger Knutson: It's a terrible tragedy. No.
Councilman Boyle: But the city is not liable? Even though we're responsible for taking the no
parking signs away.
Roger Knutson: It's your policy decision that you should not have a, no liability should be
attached to that.
Councilman Boyle: Okay.
Roger Knutson: But again, that does not, would not diminish the tragedy obviously.
Councilman Boyle: Understand.
Mayor Jansen: Okay. Any other questions?
Councilman Peterson: The only questions I had was on one of the conditions, you've got down
that on the 27th of November and 24th of December, 25th, etc, etc, that the operation goes til 1:00
a.m. I was a little surprised at that. If I was their direct neighbor I would be somewhat concerned
at that one.
Teresa Burgess: Those are the evenings that they have traditionally stayed open late. They are
Thanksgiving evening, Christmas Eve, Christmas night. New Year's Eve.
Councilman Peterson: I'm familiar with the dates but.
Teresa Burgess: You know, some of them move around. They were the dates that they
traditionally stay open late, and that people traditionally come even if they shut down the lights
and people have knocked on their door and asked them to open up again and so it was felt that we
should offer.
Councihnan Ayotte: They come up and knock on your door?
Councilman Labatt: Do you turn them back on quick?
Teresa Burgess: Those conditions are all open to discussion by the council and the final decision
is your's. If you don't feel those are appropriate, that's your decision.
Mayor Jansen: Okay. Councilman Labatt, did you have a question?
Councilman Labatt: Teresa, number 6 also as far as just on the other days of the week where you
say 10:00 p.m. Is that consistent with our ordinance?
Teresa Burgess: That is consistent with the ordinance. The ordinance allows til 11:00 p.m.. The
reason going with 10:00 p.m. is that by issuing the parking permit we do have the ability to add
some conditions by issuing the temporary lifting. We can request something .in return. If we
choose not to issue that parking permit, they Can stay until 11:00 p.m. every evening as per the
existing ordinance.
13
City Council Meeting - October 14, 2002
Councihnan Labatt: So we're taking away an hour on approximately 28 days, and giving them an
extra hour or 2 on 4 days.
Teresa Burgess: Correct.
Councilman Labatt: Right.
Councilman Ayotte: I was somewhat surprised that.
Mayor Jansen: Is this still within questions?
Councihnan Ayotte: Yeah, I want to ~know why we, I'm surprised we only have one response.
Could you talk towards the announcement to the neighboring community and.
Teresa Burgess: We only received two written responses from people that could not be here this
evening. I know that one other individual had told me they were going to write. I did not receive
it. We have received a significant number of phone calls with people that said they would be here
this evening. It doesn't look like that many people for the calls we got, but we did mail as a
standard practice, we mailed a 500 feet from the property. In this case we used that same process
that we use for the planning department for any of those developments that go out and we mail
for a 500 foot radius from the property.
Councilman Ayotte: Were the responses from the phone calls negative or positive towards the?
Teresa Burgess: Our statement to people on the phone is we will listen to you but we cannot
convey that as easily as you can yourself. We prefer them in writing or that they come to the
public hearing because I don't feel comfortable coming and telling you I had 6 calls for and 3
calls against. What if I miscounted or...
Councihnan Ayotte: Generally speaking though were they negative or positive con-unents?
Teresa Burgess: Most of them were taken by the secretary and she did not tally.
Mayor Jansen: I doubt that it's much different than we've received on the other occasions when
we've reviewed this issue. Okay. With that, why don't I, I ki~ow the applicant is here this
evening. If you'd like to speak before the public hearing, you're certainly welcome to.
Otherwise I will open this for the public hearing. Good evening.
Bob Kendall: Good evening Madam Mayor. Gentlemen of the council and the city. I just want
to say, Bob Kendall at 1645 Lake Lucy Road. I just want to thank the city for the years that we
have put this up, it's been an enormous delight. I don't know how many council members or
mayor have actually been there during the full activity of the display when it's actually most the
time when it does get extremely busy is close to Christmas. Thanksgiving is kind of an opening
to the holidays. We get, those nights get a little bit busy, but what I say traffic's going to be
parking enormously, from my experience, and I've done this for 15 years. This display
orientation type Cl~'istmas display. Usually it's up the block, maybe you know up towards the
top of the hill on there, and some of Yosemite gets full. I do walk the streets. I do have a Blazer.
I' ye taken myself out of the Santa sleigh to try to start the, coordinate the traffic. Keep it moving.
Mayor Jansen: I' m trying to picture Santa out in the middle of the street waving the traffic flag.
14
City Council Meeting - October 14, 2002
Bob Kendall: Well I'm not in the Santa. I actually have another person in the Santa chair just to
try to control the environment. We' ve moved, the sleigh never used to be in the driveway. It'
used to be up on top of the hill so we've moved that chair. That chair's still there and people can
still come there and sit and then take photos with the families and so on. It's a little bit less
tensioned area for the children if they don't really get along with the big...the elf guy but. And
then also for barricading, we barricade that whole front. My lot, all around this corner here. We
usually barricade it quite...so there's no parking across that entke front into the William's lot.
All the way through my lot, and then up to the Weingart's driveway, just past that so we keep that
cleared open. I've talked to them in the previous past and they like to, they did respond with a
letter. They do live on Steller Court. It might be an inconvenience for them if they're passing
from the east going west. I'm hoping that they can oversee that and take a diverted routes which
is the new frontage road up Galpin and back towards the east. Some situations, which a lot of the
neighbors, and I do try to respond to all the neighbors as much as I can. We've tried to lower the
hours. 1:00 could be open for discussion. And comments on having the lights off. I did try to
turn the lights off early one year at 10:00 and unfortunately they have these little memos and we
had it to 11:00 and I do have people that travel distance from all over the United States. I had a
10 year old that came. He had saved his pennies and wanted to donate $9 in coins to the donation
box and it was 10:10 and I turned the lights off so I re-turned them on for some time and then I
turned them off again. The music, I don't want to keep the music on til 1:00 at night. Usually
after the news that gets all toned down and it's not verbally heard across the street. That's
probably another issue that's on hand. But I do try to, and with barricades, I mean we pretty
much slow the traffic down entirely on the road, but on that event it actually enhances the safety
on the road and when you take the parking on both sides, referring to one neighbor, Deanna
across the street. Her whole lot is barricaded and so is the fire hydrant is barricaded. I try to rnn
a high safety, healthy environment. No drinking. If I see someone drinking, they're gone. Of
course if I see them there too much drinking. We don't generally get a lot of those on the lot.
Most the time when we turn the lights on, 4:30 to 6:00, it's pretty quiet. Right after dinner it gets
a little bit busier. Then we see a lot of the toddlers from then, in that point but around 9:30-10:00,
it's more the traffic level drops extremely. Except for Christmas Eve, Christmas Day. Those
times. They get to be, it can be a little bit bumper to bumper. I look at it and it is over amazing
but the traffic does keep moving and I try to keep the buses, I don't let them pull up. And I do
want to restrict hours now for the buses. One is the lights are off, they're not going to be just
loading. Most of them, over 2 years ago I talked to, you know you can't take your limos and you
can't pull up like you're special people to the display and park and unload. I said you shut down
traffic. I said you're going to have to get your people somewhat weather booted or something to
take a little bit of hike if they're going to go up and through the yard so.
Mayor Jansen: Can I maybe have you address a couple of the conditions. Maybe specifically so
we know where you stand on some of these things. Maybe as a for instance number 5 where it's
talking about having you work with the Carver County Sheriffs Department to obtain any
additional help that you might need out there. Are you open to doing that and having someone
available to work the flag system on your busier nights?
Bob Kendall: I don't have any problems with that. Is that something that you're going to have
funded or is that something that would be funded?
Teresa Burgess: The condition is that it would be at no cost to the city of Chanhassen. That is up
to the council if they want to subsidize that, and Roger, where does that come on that separation
of church and state because we ran into that with the fight-of-way issue where we couldn't allow
15
City Council Meeting - October 14, 2002
it in the right-of-way because of the separation of church and state. Can we subsidize the
deputies?
Roger Knutson: I don't see the church and state issue. This is a public safety, directing traffic
and the right-of-way issue.
Teresa Burgess: Then it's up to the council if you want to supply the additional force for it and
finance it. We do not have it in the budget currently.
Councilman Ayotte: What are we talking about? Are we talking $10 or $10,0007 What would
be the cost of having someone?
Mayor Jansen: Friday and Saturday nights.
Teresa Burgess: $50 an hour for a deputy. If you want to have a deputy on site Friday and
Saturday nights, which is what the deputies have recommended. I felt that when I talked to the
deputies that experienced flaggers could certainly offset that and reduce the necessary time.
Councih-nan Ayotte: But a uniformed deputy.
Teresa Burgess: To have a uniformed on duty deputy would be $50 an hour, unless you want to
choose to shift some of our enforcement that we have on duty during those time periods over to
this display, and except that we will not have as much coverage in the rest of the city. In which
case it would be built into our existing.
Councilman Ayotte: Well they're all going to be over there anyways. I mean you know.
Teresa Burgess: If you don't do this, they will be.
Todd Gerhardt: No, I mean they may have to leave the scene and won't be able to do traffic
control if there's an accident someplace else or any other issues so I can't see how we could
provide traffic control under our contract system. A dependable one.
Mayor Jansen: An experienced flagger, and you're tal~ng about them needing to be trained
under the regulations that you've accorded here.
Teresa Burgess: If they're an experienced flagger, whether they've received training or not, if
they' ve been used on a construction site or have worked in that area, they' ve received some form
of training, whether that's formalized. The State of Minnesota does not provide training. Neither
do any of the cities or counties that I'm aware of, but a number of companies do provide training
to either their employees, warning lights, which I 'know Bob has used in the past, provides
training as a courtesy to people that buy signs from them. That's where our people go for
training. If we could go back to deputies real quick. I did talk with the Carver County Sheriffs.
If you hire a deputy under that $50 an hour, he is dedicated to your site. He will not be pulled off
short of a major catastrophe. That he would have been pulled off from non-duty. They bring in
an officer on overtime or they dedicate an officer that is not otherwise assigned so that is different
from our contract.
Mayor Jansen: Okay. Right now the staff recommendation is ti'mt it be paid for by the property
owner and not by the city so we'll bring that back for council discussion when we get to council
discussion. I was just checking with Mr. Kendall to see if he had considered that condition.
16
City Council Meeting - October 14, 2002
Bob Kendall: I haven't seen officers. Keith Walgrave's actually been on the site and spent some
time when he's off call working in Chanhassen. He hasn't, I don't know if Teresa's talked to
him, that was the one. And I have, the CSO I haven't seen at all. I don't know where he is
during the display. Instead of working and taking notes and controlling it, I'd rather see if you're
going to spend that time to try to use it at a better pace on the street showing uniform...
Mayor Jansen: Well he wasn't actually assigned there to be working the scene. He was
monitoring what was going on so that's, he's not a consideration as far as being able to staff.
What this is stating is that you would be responsible for making sure that you do have somebody
on the site, either able to flag or serve in the traffic control.
Bob Kendall: I feel comfortable that I could get volunteers to do that too, because I can get
the...Blazers and the flags. I've also worked about 20 years construction with road and highway
and different issues with county roads, state roads, city roads. I haven't been out really on
interstate work but.
Mayor Jansen: Okay. So it sounds like you're familiar with what staff is requesting.
Teresa Burgess: And Bob does have a copy of the manual. I did supply him a copy of the
manual.
Mayor Jansen: Okay.
Councilman Labatt: I hate to lighten this topic here but, when the school can get fifth graders to
do the crossing guard flags, I would think Mr. Kendall can get the proper adults to wear the safety
vests and put a flag out there and. Fifth graders can be crossing guards.
Mayor Jansen: That's what I'm checking with Mr. Kendall for is to make sure that he's
comfortable getting people to do that. So on the other conditions, if we could maybe move
through the conditions so we can maybe get through this. Are there other conditions Mr. Kendall
that you'd like to address with us?
Bob Kendall: Yeah. One would be the, and Teresa you might want to just brief me on this. The
right-of-way, the mailbox is exempt but most of the structures are back 10 to 15 feet, 2 to 3 car
lengths from the curb.
Teresa Burgess: If you're 10 to 15 feet back, you're fine.
Bob Kendall: Okay. Alright, then.
Teresa Burgess: And we're not, just so you understand, we're not coming out there with the tape
to check it. We're going to eyeball it and then if something really brings our attention to it, we'll
talk about it then. If there's something you're putting in there and you're going I don't know if
this is kind of pushing it. Give our office a call. We'll come out and talk to you about it and
come out on the site. We'd rather get it taken care of before you get the stakes in the ground.
Bob Kendall: Okay. And this would be basically for the utilities, if there was a utility breakage
underneath to access it?
17
City Council Meeting - October 14, 2002
Teresa Burgess: That's part of it, but also because the city right-of-way, you can certainly still
put some of the things that are non-permanent in the right-of-way. You know the things that hang
in the trees, things that are not difficult to relocate. Those can go into the right-of-way. The issue
is that we can't allow people to put a Christmas display on public property, and if we allow you to
put it on the right-of-way, knowingly put it on the right-of-way. I realize people do it all the time.
That would be no different than our allowing you to put the display in Lake Lucy or Lake Ann
Park.
Bob Kendall: Oh okay.
Teresa Burgess: And so we can't allow you go out and do that. Some of that's going to happen.
You're going to hang some stuff in the trees that's going to overhang into the right-of-way. I'm
not going to come out and get upset about that. It's the permanent structures and the semi-
permanent that you're going to put in there that are going to stay til spring when the snow melts
that I'm concerned about.
Bob Kendall: Oh okay. Well I'tl have you check a few buildings.
Teresa Burgess: Certainly. I have no problem, either myself or somebody from my office
coming out.
Bob Kendall: The trash, number 4 has not really been an issue. We went over 5.
Teresa Burgess: On number 6, Madam Mayor and Council, if I could just clarify. By putting
these hours in, we're not requiring Mr. Kendall to stay open until this late or to run the lights until
this late. However, as he mentioned, he does have 15 years experience and so we were allowing,
staffs intention was...
Bob Kendall: Do you have any more questions? I mean I can stay for more questions...
Mayor Jansen: Okay, any other questions for Mr. Kendall.
Councilman Peterson: Going back to number 6. If you're not going to do 1:00 a.m., what is
reasonable? I mean I'd rather do something reasonable you're going to use. If you're not going
to stay open past midnight, then should we put midnight on thgre?
Bob Kendall: Well on those particular dates, 1:00 wouldn't be bad. I mean we get a lot of traffic,
fan-filies that gather that do come late. Also, I mean that would be the latest. I mean I like to go
to bed too so. But those nights are high activity. Some people, I don't like to concentrate it all at
one time. If I can hold that off til 1:00, 12:30, that would be, it seems late but a lot of displays
stay lit all night long during Christmas Eve so.
Mayor Jansen: Well and I think we also need to consider what's reasonable for the neighbors too.
Those are special evenings for those living around the complex too so, coming up with that
reasonable balance as well. I understand what you're saying.
Bob Kendall: Yeah, my neighbors across the street are most valuable, and Deanna's, you know
I'll try to step up as nmch as I can but with the barricades across the front there, I hope, usually
there, cat's are not parking there and if they are, there's just no way. I haven't had, since we did
the ban'icades and the co,3es, we haven't had really any problems on that parking issue there so.
18
City Council Meeting - October 14, 2002
Mayor Jansen: Alright, well thank you. Appreciate it. I'll open this up for the.
Councilman Boyle: I've got one quick question.
Councihnan Ayotte: On December 31st, New Years Eve, have you seen a little bit more
rowdiness in your 15 years of experience with this versus on Christmas Eve as an example? Is
New Years Eve and quite possibly more potential for concern than other evenings?
Bob Kendall: No.
Councilman Ayotte: Okay. And down here on the recommendation, the recommended motion it
says November 27th through January 12~h. Would you have much heartburn if that was shorten up
by a week. The January 12th to January 6th as an example. It's still after New Years.
Bob Kendall: I like to try to keep it to the second weekend.
Councilman Ayotte: Because?
Bob Kendall: Well a lot of people from different internationalities here and like to see the display
and a lot of people aren't available to get to see it during the regular hours. It also expands the
hours so concentration of people. If you cut it back, a lot of people say okay we're, but you know
when I say it's open to that second weekend, it gives people more time.
Councihnan Ayotte: More time so it's less traffic.
Bob Kendall: Right, it cuts down. I mean it also cuts down, we could cut the hours down if
you'd like that last week. My wife probably wouldn't be too happy with that but I'm more
willing to cut it back to 9:00 or 10:00 at night.
Councilman Ayotte: If you were to cut hours the last week, what would the hours be cut to?
Bob Kendall: 10:00. 9:00, 10:00 on the weekends. There is going to be, the other thing is, once
the display is done, I keep a few lights on in the trees just in certain areas and spots to kind of
shadow the display so if I do go outside or someone tries, and these areas are pretty much you
can't get...so there's a little bit of security blanket there. Those lights aren't really pouring off to
across the street, which is funny if you look at this magnitude of the display, you'd think there'd
be a lot of reflection going on but for some reason it gets. It' s a very unique, I have a very unique
lot and it caters to it remarkably so.
Mayor Jansen: Okay. Council, are we ready to move this on?
Councilman Boyle: Just one quick question. We jumped around a lot Mr. Kendall. I want to
make sure that I understand that you have read the conditions and you have no issues that haven't
been brought up tonight.
Bob Kendall: Teresa, you got all the red on here. Does that mean that there's going to be no
parking on that whole curve right there?
Teresa Burgess: No. The red is actually the area we are recommending parking.
19
City Council Meeting - October 14, 2002
Bob Kendall: Oh. I would recommend not to park there. I'd recommend you keep that
ba~Ticaded.
Mayor Jansen: Around the curve.
Bob Kendall: Yes. Because on that one curve there, if you want to put the parking, put it on the
other side and down, and then up Yosemite people park. And then past the Weingart's driveway.
I don't think I, I at least try to get that parking barricaded and signaged on that one side. I don't
like to get, that's just, people, I don't know why. The curve is there and I do slow the traffic down
but with the barricades, that side, it also gets, that side gets a little bit more wind, snow. The
winds coining off the northeast and all that stuff there so. I mean I plow the streets curb to curb
during that time so you're not getting the guide, the plow drivers get their roads all cleaned up
and they don't have to lean over and all that stuff but.
Teresa Burgess: And certainly, if council's okay with it, what we can do is council can approve
the concept of parking with staff and Mr. Kendall and Mrs. Kendall going out on site to designate
the actual areas to be designated. If council's okay with that. We typically pick those locations
administratively. It's just the length of time we're uncomfortable with in this one. So if council's
okay with that, we'll do that. Rather than stick ourselves with this one and say no, this is the way
it has to be this evening. I do know the Kendall's are anxious to get started with setting up their
display, if you haven't already started and would like to have this issue put to rest so they' re sure
that they're going to get approvals.
Bob Kendall: And then also Teresa, right in front of our lot there's, I'm not going to have
parking on either side. One's for the protection of the neighbors across the street and their
driveways. It is, when you're coining down to the road and it is on a busy, busy night, and they
get to their driveway and it's blocked and then you' ve got bumper to bumper, you know people
looking, it can be very frustrating to get in your driveway so that's another reason. Also if I can
get this, if we can try to work this so it can be on the agenda every year so I don't have to, it can
be just automatically renewed. Is that going to be2
Teresa Burgess: What you need to do is just fill out your permit for temporary parking. Lifting
of no parking, so that' s all you need to do, and the loud speaker permit. We'll want you to fill
that out every year, but we can certainly make a note to ourselves on our tickler file to try to
remind you. Just for council's information, as a matter of practice our engineering department
generally does not allow parking on both sides of the street that is cun'ently signed no parking.
When we temporarily lift we only lift it on one side of the street. And we will lift on the side that
we would prefer people to walk on, because they won't cross to walk.
Mayor Jansen: Okay. Alright, thank you Mr. Kendall. Appreciate your comments.
Bob Kendall: Thank you.
Mayor Jansen: I'm going to open this up to the public hearing and ask that as you come forward,
if you can limit your comments to 5 minutes apiece and if the person ahead of you has said what
you wanted to say, consider it said and we can then move this along. So if you'd like to make
comments, please approach the podium and state your name and address for the record please.
Tim Lindquist: Hi. My narne's Tim Lindquist. I'm at 1650 Lake Lucy, which is right here on
the comer. I called in and I was going to write a letter but I do feel pretty strongly about this so I
thought I'd show. I think I've been there for about every one of Kendall's displays in my
20
City Council Meeting - October 14, 2002
residence. I do have a 2 year old son and I've got another one on the way so I think I'm looking
at the future too. I very much support. You know usually you hear the bad things, and I very
much support Bob and Sandy doing what they're doing. During Christmas you know, we spend
sometime over at their place walking the display. I've got a lot of family come over and we walk
the display. Usually you go over there, I haven't seen anybody rowdy. I haven't seen any
problems. I haven't seen anybody yell at anybody else for any track violations or you know,
everybody's in a Christmas spirit is what I'd like to say. Our bedrooms, both my son's and my
wife and I are on the road side of the house. We don't hear any extra noise. Nothing keeps us up
at night. We like to have the windows open, or the blinds open a little bit. We like to see
Christmas things. We love it. I like tO see it happen. Like I say, I don't think there's any
problems. Bob has jumped through a lot of hoops to keep the traffic down. And I also think
parking on the side actually does keep the traffic better. I think it slows it down. So I appreciate
what they do. Going across the street you see a lot of happy faces, a lot of kids so, thank you.
Mayor Jansen: Appreciate your comments. And just so we understand. All we're talking about
this evening is the parking. Lifting the no parking along, at least a side of the road. It's not
whether the display will actually happen or not. We certainly appreciate it as well. Anyone else
who would like to comment on this agenda item.
Phil Thiesse: Good evening. I'm Ebenezer Scrooge. I'm Phil Thiesse from 1675 Steller Court.
I feel it's kind of un-Christmas like or anti-American to say anything bad about the display.
Mayor Jansen: Then stick to the traffic issues.
Phil Thiesse: Okay. My concern is that any parking on Lake Lucy Road impedes traffic. The
bike lane where, the pedestrian lane where people have to park is about 5 feet wide from my
estimation. And you put a car in there, and you have to drive around those parked cars. And if
you look at the map, now you're directing people over to, across the street so now they're going
to have to cross where 3 different lanes of traffic are, or traffic from 3 different directions are
coming. And what concerns me about having flag wavers, like say Randy Moss were to try to get
through there, are they in a position to be able to stop traffic? This is a 35 miles an hour road
with a pretty sharp curve in it, and it's a very busy road. I admire what, all the work Bob has
done and I just think that this is a very dangerous place to have this. Thank you.
Mayor Jansen: Okay, thank you. Teresa, any comments on what the flaggers would actually be
able to do as far as the traffic? And stopping traffic, or is it more, what is the intent?
Teresa Burgess: We would be looking for flaggers to assist people with crossing because we are
encouraging people to cross Lake Lucy, so we would be looking for them to act as crossing
guards. Also to help people that maybe are going a little too slow, that seem to be just trying to
drive by and look. Encouraging them to go to the appropriate places for parking and get out and
walk the site instead of driving by it. You'll see people that do. They try to look at it all from the
street. We're also encouraging those flaggers to gently remind people that are parking in
inappropriate locations, to get back to where they're supposed to be. So if they see somebody
trying to pull over and park someplace, they would go over and tell them, I'm sorry. This is not
an area you're supposed to park. You need to be in this area and directing them. So we're not
asking them to take an enforcement role. They're not authorized to do that but they would, when
you put a person out in a flagger setting, they are expected to be able to stop traffic. The flagger's
manual provides with what, how that's done and how those people should be attired. What type
of equipment they need to be able to do that. And if you've been through a construction site,
that's the type of flagging we're looking for, is what you see on a typical construction site and we
21
City Council Meeting - October 14, 2002
would like to see someone that has done it before. Not somebody that just walks in and goes well
geez, what do I have to do? Where's my vest? We're looking for somebody that has tried it and
has done it under a situation where they' ve actually been out in traffic before, because it is a scary
situation to be out in traffic. You have cars very close to you. Even at a low speed, they're very
close and as that gentleman brought up Randy Moss and his run in with the traffic control agent.
She was injured in a very low impact, very low speed impact. It can happen if you're not paying
attention so those people need to be experienced enough to know what to expect and how to react
to people that may not want to see them out there.
Mayor Jansen: Okay, thank you.
Councilman Ayotte: That's beyond a fifth grader's skill settings at that point.
Mayor Jansen: Any other comments?
Councilman Labatt: I watch them on Laredo every day.
Uli Sacchet: My name is Uli Sacchet. I live at 7053 Highover Court South. I drive through Lake
Lucy Road quite a bit and my concern is for safety. It's certainly a great display. There's
nothing to be argued about that part. However, safety wise I think it's a real big issue. I think
flagging is not enough. If we have a neighborhood party we close off a cul-de-sac and we don't
have traffic in and I think for something this magnitude, you know given that a neighborhood
party may have a keg of beer, but you'll have mostly a lot of kids and that' s the reason why it' s
part of. I think Lake Lucy Road, that stretch and whatever road there is should be closed for
through traffic for the whole period, and then the question is, is that possible for that long? I
think there is a mis-match. Something not quite balanced. This was a great location for this
display before Lake Lucy was traveled so heavily, but now that it's a major collector, connecting
41 to Powers, and a's all these neighborhoods are developing really fast, and hundreds of people
or hundreds of families'I should say are moving into that area using that as one of the major
through roads. I don't think flagging is enough. I think you would have to close it to through
traffic in order to do it somewhat justice, and then that raises that question, can you do that for a
month or whatever the duration is? I don't think you can. That's my comment, thank you.
Mayor Jansen: Okay, thank you. Anyone else who would care to comment on this item? Mr.
Kendall?
Bob Kendall: Can I just have a brief moment here?
Mayor Jansen: Brief moment again.
Bob Kendall: Just with the parking. When you park on both sides. You still get enough passage
for even a one ton truck to get through, or a fire truck. I like actually once it gets into the parking
it slows the vehicles down. Hopefully the people that live in the neighboring areas will give me
the benefit, and also I could probably maybe illustrate, this display's going to start on December,
or Thanksgiving. It's going to end, try to use an alternate route. I mean we've got the Galpin
route. We' ve got 41. I'm not trying to steer you in different directions but maybe if I can make
people aware ahead of time, you know like Highway 7's going to be closed down from date to
this date, if you can use an alternate route. A lot of people tell me when, and I do real estate
appraising and I get to see a tremendous amount of people and I hear most, I know the ones, I
hear all the good things and sometimes these kids just want to drive by just to see the activity or
the display. You know the kids aren't going to be good if they can't but, which does pick up
22
City Council Meeting - October 14, 2002
traffic a little bit but usually that's more or less 4 or 5 people going home but I just wanted to add
that little bit to it so, thank you.
Mayor Jansen: Okay, thank you. Alright, is there anyone else who would care to comment?
With that I'm going to close the public hearing and bring this back to council. Council any, I
guess we can take this to comments. If anyone has any more questions for staff, that would be
the better place to start. Any questions?
Councihnan Labatt: I've got a couple for staff.
Mayor Jansen: Okay.
Councihnan Labatt: Teresa. Since Highway 5 is re-opened up to 4 lanes, West 78th is now open,
has a traffic study been done to determine what those new roads have caused for traffic
alleviation up on the north end?
Teresa Burgess: No. We do not have a functional model for Chanhassen for the entire area.
Typically you' 11 build a model for only the pieces you're looking at, and the Highway 5 model, it
was never designed to look at what that does to Lake Lucy when they open up. Lake Lucy is a
fundamental part of our transportation system. A lot of those neighborhoods, that is their primary
access point so to close it would really be a problem. The other issue that comes up is that that
road is funded with state funds. It's what's called a municipal state aid route or an MSAS. And
because we receive those funds we cannot really shut people off from that road because the
state's going to get a little angry and probably.
Teresa Burgess: That's addressing Uli's comment.
Councihnan Labatt: No. I'm not looking at closing the road. I'mjust trying to, my normal
route when I come in from where I live, is I take West 78th now instead of Highway 5 or go up to
Lake Lucy so I just wonder how many people are taking that same new frontage road.
Teresa Burgess: It was anticipated that West 78th would mainly take traffic off of 5. Or traffic
that should have been on 5 in the first place. It was not anticipated that they would take large
numbers off of roads like Lake Lucy. It may take some, but most of that traffic, if it was going to
migrate, would migrate up to 7.
Mayor Jansen: I think it's a safe assumption to think that people will be taking alternate routes
during the display times.
Councihnan Labatt: I would encourage them to.
Mayor Jansen: Obviously.
Councilman Labatt: I know I do.
Mayor Jansen: As we're going through this, maybe what expedite it a little bit. All we really
have before us is the motion as far as the no parking and the conditions, so if council, we can
maybe get the conditions down to what we think is acceptable. By doing this through the
permitting process, just so there's a little public understanding around it, we can apply conditions
as long as there is a lifting and a permit process around the no parking issue. So that is why we
are coming through this process and how we are able to address some of these issues that have
23
City Council Meeting - October 14, 2002
been raised as concerns and Mr. Kendall's been wonderful trying tO work with his neighbors
every year and buffer some of the concerns and we certainly have tried to work with both parties
to see what we can't do to make it a more positive experience for everyone through the holiday
season. So council, maybe if someone could start with the conditions and any modifications that
you would.
Councilman Labatt: Why don't you take them 1 through 9 and take them one at a time and see.
Mayor Jansen: Go for it.
Councilman Labatt: Well I'd just say like 1, no. I have no problems with 1.
Councilman Boyle: I don't have any problems with any one of the 9.
Councihnan Ayotte: I have a problem with 5.
Mayor Jansen: Start there.
Councilman Ayotte: I would like, and I'd like to add a condition. I think that it's beyond simply
the function of flagging, as you've so eloquently depicted Ms. Burgess, so I'd like to have
benchmark training by the sheriff s department to ensure that proper traffic control measure is
taken. I think that can be done at city expense because I don't think it's going to be a big cost.
Mayor Jansen: Can I clarify something?
Councilman Ayotte: Yeah.
Mayor Jansen: When you say benchmark training, are you referring to the flaggers?
Councilman Ayotte: I'm not going to call them flaggers. It's traffic control.
Teresa Burgess: Carver County has stated they will not train flaggers.
Councilman Ayotte: Well then I think we should seek out some means of providing training. If
they're not going to do it because of some reason, then there must be a concern on their part. The
second condition I would like to see imposed someplace along this thing, because Mr. Kendall
and you on the discussion on this map had indicated that the traffic control plan or layout of
things wasn't exactly the way that you sought, so I'd like to see a safety, a public safety entity
come up with a parking plan or traffic control plan that would be acceptable by Mr. Kendall and
by the city since there was a disconnect here. So I.
Mayor Jansen: As Teresa pointed out, that is typically an administrative part of this process.
Councilman Ayotte: I understand. You asked me what condition I want. That's a condition I
want. I want some sort of public safety endorsed plan that will assure that we have some...
Mayor Jansen: Fine. Continue.
Councilman Ayotte: Public safety. That's the condition I want to impose.
Mayor Jansen: Okay.
24
City Council Meeting - October 14, 2002
Teresa Burgess: And if I could just clarify. All of our temporary lifting of no parking are
supplied to the sheriff' s department for comment before finalization. So they all do go through
the Carver County Sheriff s Department.
Mayor Jansen: Thank you.
Councilman Ayott¢: So there would be review and approval of whatever's produced? Okay.
Then that should be stated as a condition.
Teresa Burgess: We have never had one rejected. It's part of the normal permit process but we
can add it as a condition.
Councilman Ayotte: All swell and good. I'd like it listed as a condition so it's in black and white
that we' ve had a review and acceptance by the Carver County Sheriff s Department.
Mayor Jansen: So that's how you need it? You just need it reviewed by.
Councilman Ayotte: And then the other condition is, the discussion I heard, these isn't just a
function of flagging because you did indicate that people would be taking people back and forth
across the road to make sure that things were done properly. Example, ADA. Okay? You've got
someone who is a paraplegic, quadriplegic. Is there going to be some sort of arrangement for
that?
Bob Kendall: Usually they don't, usually they stay in their vehicles. They just drive past.
Councilman Ayotte: Okay. But nonetheless, there should be some sort of training. I think there
should be a condition for that training.
Councilman Boyle: Well one of the conditions does say experienced. We could change it to
traffic control people versus flaggers.
Councilman Ayotte: Well if they have a card carrying traffic control certification of some sort I
suppose, but I'm saying there should be something that baselines these people and make sure they
have a certain skill set because it's just not flagging. As you've pointed out and a few other
people have pointed out.
Mayor Jansen: Okay council, other conditions.
Councilman Labatt: Well I'd just like to comment on Bob's.
Councilman Ayotte: Don't start with the fifth grade thing again.
Councilman Labatt: Well, I guess in 15 years of law enforcement and watching, everything I've
done I mean, it's kind of common sense and when fifth graders can do a job at Laredo Drive
crossing guard at 9:00 in the morning, I think Mr. Kendall can get adults to don the proper
reflective vest and the lighted flashlight if he has to and control the traffic out there. So, but then
the other one. I'm okay with the Carver County review. It's already in there so just put the word
in there. There's been no accidents here so far, thank god. I'm willing to bet that we've had
double that number in the Target parking lot in the last year. That's one accident, right so.
25
City Council Meeting - October 14, 2002
Councilman Ayotte: We need flaggers in the Target parking lot.
Councilman Labatt: So I do mean, it's just getting back to cormnon sense here. The only thing
I'd like to talk about the hours of operation. And in reading Mr. Kendall's letter, he, the midnight
mass people that go to church until midnight and they get out at 1:00 and want to stop by to see
the lights. I'd have to have them drive by to a dark display so I'd like to look at, I mean on
Christmas Eve day, extending it a little bit beyond 1:00 a.m. And I'm torn between why we are
taking an hour away from what our ordinance says. I realize we may put conditions on. It
doesn't say we will. I think we can put conditions on when we issue, when we're looking at a
parking permit like this and whether we try to go with 11:00 or 10:30 but on a Friday night to
shut it down at 10:00.
Mayor Jansen: Can I ask you a question to where you're going on that?
Councilman Labatt: Sure.
Mayor Jansen: You just mentioned like Friday nights for the 11. It's during the school week that
the 10:00 seems to be more appropriate. What if the 11:00 were on the weekends, like the
Friday-Saturday where he's the busiest.
Councilman Peterson: We're at 1:00 now, right?
Mayor Jansen: No.
Councihnan Labatt: No.
Mayor Jansen: Those are just on the special days. Yeah. Right now it's 10:00...
Councilman Labatt: So we can go 10:00 Monday through Thursday and 11:00 on Friday and
Saturday. Is that what you're thinking?
Mayor Jansen: Sunday would probably be til 10:00.
Councihnan Labatt: Sunday, yeah. Yeah, Sunday will be 10:00, yeah.
Mayor Jansen: So Sunday through Thursday til 10:00, and then Friday and Saturday could be til
11:00. Yeah?
Councihnan Labatt: Are you okay Craig? Is that okay Mr. Kendall? Just give me a nod.
Bob Kendall: Welt Sundays would be good til 11:00.
Councihnan Ayotte: Say again?
Bob Kendall: Sunday's to 11:00.
Teresa Burgess: Sundays are a school night.
Councilman Boyle: When school's in session.
Teresa Burgess: When school's in session, correct.
26
City Council Meeting - October 14, 2002
Mayor Jansen: Which it is during those months.
Councilman Boyle: No, not all the time though.
Mayor Jansen: I don't have a problem if you're wanting to extend to 11:00 on those busier nights
on Friday and Saturday.
Councilman Labatt: Maybe we want to consider 11:00 on Sunday? Craig you will? Bob?
Craig?
Councilman Ayotte: I've got a, is this pork barrel? On the last week, I've got, I don't know if
you can tell. I've got a little bit of...
Mayor Jansen: Are we still on number 6? With hours.
Councihnan Ayotte: Well yeah. I'll counter Councilman Labatt's point of 11:00 and your's
Mayor. But on the last week from the 6th to the 12~ we could have reduced hours somehow put
in as a condition. I'd be more receptive to the whole thing. You think I'm difficult on this one,
wait til the next one.
Councilman Labatt: I thought we had it worked out here Bob, as we've got 4 against 1 right now.
Councilman Peterson: Let's just not make it too complicated, that's my goal.
Councilman Boyle: I agree. We're cutting some pretty fine... Of course I'd like to go to 10:45.
Councilman Labatt: 10:00 Monday through Thursday.
Councilman Peterson: It will be after January 14th before we get this thing done.
Councihnan Labatt: i0:00 Monday through Thursday, 11:00 Friday, Saturday, Sunday. And
let's talk Christmas Eve day. Christmas Eve for midnight massers.
Councihnan Ayotte: Is this a leap year?
Councilman Peterson: I don't know. Feels like it.
Councilman Labatt: Can we, Mr. Kendall, and I was down there at Christmas Eve night so, after
midnight mass.
Mayor Jansen: I think l:00's way late enough.
Councilman Ayotte: Yeah.
Mayor Jansen: For the few that.
Councilman Labatt: Okay, I realize I'm losing that one so I'll shut up. That's all I had.
Mayor Jansen: How about a motion.
27
City Council Meeting - October 14, 2002
Councilman Labatt: Okay, I'll make a motion that.
Teresa Burgess: Could we clarify real quick what the hours were, so I get it in the agreement.
Mayor Jansen: I believe it will be in the motion.
Teresa Burgess: Okay.
Councilman Labatt: Make approval, that we approve the, lifting the parking. No parking zone
subject to the following conditions. 1 through 4 remain the same. 5, we will add that reviewed
by the Carver County Sheriff's. You ~know normally what happens, we'll put that in there. 6 will
be that the hours of operation will be Monday through Thursday until 10:00 p.m. Friday,
Saturday, Sunday, 11:00 p.m. Everything else will stay the same. 7 and 8 stay the same. 9 stays
the same.
Mayor Jansen: Great. Second?
Councilman Boyle: Second.
Councilman Labatt: Craig, you've got this look.
Mayor Jansen: Any questions on discussion of the motion?
Councilman Peterson: Well we talked about having the staff work with the applicant to
determine where the appropriate parking...
Councilman Labatt: Okay, do you want to make it a friendly amendment number i0 then?
Councilman Peterson: That'd be affirmative.
Councihnan Labatt: Okay. So then number 10 then would be, staff and the Kendall's would
make a walk through of the site to determine the parking and no parking zones.
Mayor Jansen: And who was the second?
Councilman Boyle: I seconded.
Mayor Jansen: Did you second the friendly amendment?
Councilman Boyle: I'll second the friendly amendment.
Mayor Jansen: Okay. Any other discussion of the motion? I'll call for a vote.
Councilman Labatt moved, Councilman Boyle seconded that the City Council approve the
temporary lifting of no parking restrictions as shown on the parking permit for November
27, 2002 through January 12, 2003, subject to the following conditions:
1. No permanent or semi-permanent structures shall be allowed in the right-of-way. The
mailbox is exempt from this restriction.
28
City Council Meeting - October 14, 2002
,
The property owner shall remove all permanent or semi-permanent structures from the
drainage utility easement(s) by February 1, 2003, or apply for an easement encroachment
agreement through the City Engineer's Office.
o
The property owner shall provide and post temporary signage in keeping with the 2001
Minnesota Manual of Uniform Traffic Control warning of slow traffic.
.
The property owner shall be responsible for pick-up of litter and other debris associated
with the temporary lifting of no parking.
o
The property owner shall coordinate traffic control to keep traffic moving through the
area and direct people wishing to stop to appropriate parking areas. In past years the
Carver County Sheriff' s Department and the City's CSO have increased patrols in the
area to deal with traffic and noise related issues during the event, which has reduced
coverage in other areas of the city. The property owner shall work with the Carver
County Sheriff' s Department to obtain any necessary traffic control enforcement during
the event at no cost to the City of Chanhassen. Using experienced flaggers to keep traffic
moving during the event may reduce this need. All flagging must be in compliance with
the 2001 edition of the Minnesota Flagging Handbook, and reviewed by the Carver
County Sheriff' s Department.
o
Hours of operation shall be limited to dusk until 10:00 p.m. Monday through Thursday,
and until 11:00 p.m. on Friday, Saturday and Sundays, with the exception of November
27, December 24, December 25, and December 31 when the hours of operation shall be
limited to dusk until 1:00 a.m.
,
The loud speakers shall not be audible from any of the adjoining properties with the
windows and doors shut.
The property owners shall provide contact information where someone can be reached 24
hours, 7 days a week during the display.
The property owners will sign an agreement acknowledging the conditions of approval
and that violation of any of these conditions may result in immediate revocation of either
or both of the temporary parking permit and the loudspeaker permit. In addition, the
property owners may be held liable for costs incurred by the City for enforcement of the
conditions or the agreement.
10. The applicant will work with the city staff to determine the parking/no parking zones.
All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 5 to 0.
Mayor Jansen: For such a simple topic, it is always painstaking to get through this one so I
appreciate everyone's patience and Mr. Kendall, good luck to you out there and we' 11 look
forward to enjoying your lights and appreciate your working with the neighbors on their issues.
Again thanks for hearing their concerns. Thank you.
Councihnan Peterson: Councilman Ayotte has volunteered three nights to flag so.
Councihnan Ayotte: And no one's crossing the street.
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City Council Meeting - October 14, 2002
Councilman Peterson: He's wearing his camouflage outfit.
Councilman Labatt: I'll be there to supervise Bob too.
Councihnan Boyle: Maybe we'd better discuss the times.
Todd Gerhardt: I want to see his flag certification.
UPDATE ON ROUNDHOUSE RENOVATION PROJECT~ DEANNA BUNKLEMAN
Mayor Jansen: Staff did receive a phone call from Deanna Bun 'kleman late this afternoon. She
did have something of an emergency come up and has asked if we would move this to our next
agenda, which would be the 28th. If council is receptive to doing that, I would just need a motion
to table and move it to October 28th.
Councilman Ayotte: With caveat.
Mayor Jansen: And I think that's our last tabling and moving of the project. We need an update.
Councilman Peterson: Take that as a motion and a second then.
Councilman Peterson: I think and the caveat, I don't think I agree with Bob. I think we need to
make a decision to either move ahead or start demolition. Next time. Next meeting.
Councilman Ayotte: And I'd like to read that before the next meeting. I don't want to be hit on
the 28th and then a short time line to make a decision. And I placed a call to Mr. Hoffman's
office today as~ng for that so we can revisit all the n-filestones associated with what we agreed
upon.
Mayor Jansen: And I'm son'y, I missed what you said. You want a review of the history?
Councilman Ayotte: I want a review of the history. A read ahead so that when we have the visit
on the 28th we're educated before.
Mayor Jansen: Okay. You want a review and a report of the current situation so that we're not
having it delivered at the council meeting.
Councihnan Ayotte: Yes ma'am.
Mayor Jansen: Okay, understood. So with that, if someone would make that motion please. To
table.
Councilman Peterson: Motion to table.
Mayor Jansen: And a second?
Councihnan Labatt: Second.
Councilman Peterson moved, Councilman Labatt seconded to table the update on the
Roundhouse renovation project to October 28, 2002. All vc, ted in favor am:l the motion
carried unanimously with a vote of 5 to 0.
30
City Council Meeting - October 14, 2002
CONSIDER REQUESTS FOR SITE PLAN APPROVAL; NORTHEAST CORNER OF
LAKE DRIVE AND MAIN STREET~ VOP I AND PEREGRINE CORPORATION:
Al
A 4-STORY BUILDING CONSISTING OF UNDERGROUND PARKING~ 19~000
SQUARE FEET OF STREET LEVEL COMMERCIAL AREA, AND 2-3 STORIES
FOR 54 APARTMENT UNITS; AND
g.
A 2-STORY 11~000 SQUARE FOOT BANK BUILDING WITH DRIVE
THROUGH WINDOWS AND UNDERGROUND PARKING WITH VARIANCES
FOR BUILDING MATERIALS, PARKING AND SIGNAGE.
Kate Aanenson: Thank you. To put this into context. This is the Villages on the Pond project.
The subject piece that we're talking about is right here. To put it in context, the Foss Swim
School, America Inn, Houlihan' s, Culver' s. I'll show you a colored rendering but I just want to
give you an orientation on Lake Drive. This will be the bank over here. There will be
underground parking that will be accessed coming this way, so you have access on Lake Drive,
and then interior parking as well on the street. Lake Drive parking. So the proposal before you
tonight includes a site plan review. There's two buildings. The 4 story building which includes
the 54 apartments and retail and underground parking is 19,000 square feet and a separate 2 story
11,000 square feet. Between the bank and the office building there will be an open space
courtyard area. As I mentioned before, there is underground parking. Our standards require 1 ½
per unit. They are asking for a variance for that. There is underground parking with the bank, but
with the ratio and type of apartments there, we believe the 1.3, which they meet, should be
adequate, so we are recommending approval on the parking variance. The other variance that's
being requested is for a sign on the bank. As you can see on the site plan, our ordinance requires
on the interior that the signs be above on this facade. There was different standards put in place
for those along Highway 5. When we put this PUD together we recognized some of the uses
would have an orientation along Highway 5. This was interior again to be more pedestrian. The
applicants are requesting a variance for the bank sign in height. Again the height the ordinance
for this site is 20 feet. In the staff report, in the executive summary there is a compulation of
some of the other sign heights in the area. That' s actually on page 8, giving you a summary of
some of the other signs and the heights. And then the other request for variance is for EIFS. I'll
just go through this, the different faces of the building. The bank itself, and the residential.
Again the residential does not have a request of percentage of EIFS. The Planning Commission
did request to look at some of the color, the similar color on the back of this side of the
residential. And the final faces. So if you look at the compulation again under the executive
sumlnary in the first page, the bank was broken down. The Planning Commission wanted to see
specifically what those percentages were. The bank itself is 16.5 and the ordinance requires the
15 percent. One of the other issues that came up as a part of the hearing with some of the
neighbors on Marsh Drive and their sight lines and traffic. In reviewing the EAW, as far as the
traffic control ultimately out on Highway 5, the signal there and possibly at Lake Drive, but
interior will be stop lights. Again part of the design of the Villages is to have on site parking
which should do some of the traffic calming. The other issue is the sight lines between these
homes, and the applicant, and this was included in your packet, prepared the sight lines and then
there's a specific one for each home. So these are the homes to the side, and these were shared
with the neighbors too so they had an opportunity to see it to show, I'm not going to go through
all those but since you had a chance to see them but we did respond to that. And again they were
900 feet plus away from that and there is other buildings in front. For example Foss Swim
School and the tree line. Again the Planning Commission did review this. There was a lot of
deviation as far as what they wanted to see regarding the height of the sign. A lot of discussion
again. The goal of the bank certainly is to get a great sight line. We believe at 20 feet they can
31
City Council Meeting - October 14, 2002
be seen, enough distance for direction. That was their concern, will people be able to find it?
There still is an opportunity to put a directional sign on Lake Drive. This way to get into the
bank. To put up cueing, so staff didn't support that. The Planning Cormnission kind of split
their recommendation but didn't come to the consensus. Since there's no consensus, staff again
forward the recommended denial for the variance. Again the EEFS, you still... The site plan
approval includes the two uses and the variances are put into the recommended condition of
approval. There is a separate motion for the denial of the variance for the 20 foot height. And the
conditions of our approval are in the staff report. So with that I'd be happy to answer any
questions that you have.
Mayor Jansen: Okay, thank you. Any questions for staff?
Councihnan Labatt: Kate, excuse me. The sight lines supplied by Mika.
Kate Aanenson: Correct.
Councilman Labatt: Have you verified these?
Kate Aanenson: Yes.
Councilman Labatt: Okay.
Kate Aanenson: We supplied the data for the lot surveys, based on our information.
Councilman Labatt: Do you have the photographs that they took and gave to Bob?
Kate Aanenson: We gave them the lot surveys which show the low elevations.
Councilman Labatt: In Vernelle's letter it says that, she took some photographs and she provided
Bob with a set.
Kate Aanenson: These, I'm sorry...
Mayor Jansen: That little board sitting over to the side.
Kate Aanenson: This. The big thing I brought down. Yes. I don't ~know if we can zoom in on
each one or would you like to pass it around, whichever is more convenient. There's a series of
them. Do you want to just it around?
Councilman Labatt: Maybe that would be easier. I just want to look at them to see.
Kate Aanenson: And then the material samples which I did bring too are all on the board here,
but we believe it's a well conceived building, and so does the Planning Commission.
Mayor Jansen: Okay. Any other questions for staff?
Councihnan Labatt: No.
Councilman Peterson: My only question Kate, have we given a height variance in Villages yet on
the signs?
32
City Council Meeting - October 14, 2002
Kate Aanenson: There was an interpretation. We've done several amendments to the Villages on
the Pond. When they came in and asked for the most recent ones, one of their requests was for a
height variance. The staff at that time had recommended no. We say we take it as an ad hoc
basis.
Councilman Peterson: And we supported the declination I believe, right?
Kate Aanenson: Pardon me?
Councilman Peterson: We supported'declining it right?
Kate Aanenson: Correct.
Mayor Jansen: Any other questions for staff at this time?
Councilman Ayotte: No ma'am.
Mayor Jansen: Seeing no other questions, I know we have the applicants here. I don't know if
there's any additional information that you would like to add. You're certainly welcome to or to
address the two variances. I don't know if council's had an opportunity to actually meet Mika.
Mika Milo. Certainly welcome this evening. I know you also attended the Planning Commission
meeting as well. And then Jeff Burzinski.
Jeff Burzinski: Thanks Linda. I'm Jeff Burzinski and I'm President of Peregrine Corporation
and founder of the organization, and just wanted to take a minute and if I could, I've got some
photographs of signage that we've used on our current location in Chaska, which you can tell by'
the architecture if you've seen our building in Chaska. The architecture is very much the same.
You'll be able to tell this is a Community Bank, whether it's Community Bank Chaska or
Community Bank Chanhassen. And I think our signage, at least for our purposes is not been one
to be intrusive or ostentatious. It's very simply stated. And I wonder if I can just pass these out.
Thank you. It's very simply, it's a copper signage that is back lit. Again as you can, I'll wait just
for a moment.
Mayor Jansen: Thank you.
Jeff Burzinski: I think Todd, there's one for you too. Again it's very simply stated. It's not
today that's kind of catch your eye. It's bright yellow, bright green, bright red. Our's is really
our PMS color or logo, it's back lit. On the left hand side of the paper will be the day picture and
the right hand side would be the night picture. The middle right, excuse me. I said that wrong.
Left hand side is day, right is night. The middle right hand side is really a ground lit sign. And
I' m aware too that within Sector II, which I understand is Highway 5, that there are provisions to
allow signage above 20 feet. With the wetland and the visibility between us and being set back
from Highway 5, it would be our desire in making this kind of investment, if there' s some kind of
way that we could at least make sure that people know that there is a Community Bank located on
that site. Again, this is not to be, meant to be pedestrian unfriendly either, as subtly as it is, and
you're welcome too to come down and drive by our current location just to s'ee what affect it is
so. I understand too the difficulty in sometime making compromises and when you have policies
and yet at the same time, if there's any way that you would consider some kind of exception,
we'd appreciate it. I think within the planning session, as I recall, there was a sincere attempt on
their part to approve it as presented, but I don't, for some reason we couldn't quite get there and
get that consensus so, thank you.
33
City Council Meeting - October 14, 2002
Mayor Jansen: I do have one question, if I could Mr. BurzinsM. There's two locations on the
plan that note the signage. The one higher up and then of course the logo below. I'm assuming
the logo will be your CB.
Jeff Burzinski: CB, Community Bank. Correct.
Mayor Jansen: So the highest point.
Jeff Burzinski: Would be Community Bank Chanhassen, which for the best example with that
would be, well either one. As you can see, just the words Community Bank Chanhassen. Or you
could use the example in the picture, Community Bank Chaska.
Mayor Jansen: Okay. I didn't know if that point was actually large enough to fit all of that
wording up there.
Jeff Burzinski: Yeah, again I'm not an architect so I'd have to defer to Mika, and we pay him lots
of money to figure those things out so.
Mayor Jansen: Alright. Any questions for Mr. Burzinski? Okay, thank you. Okay. This is not a
public hearing. If there is anyone present that would like to make comments, you're certainly
welcome to at this point. I would just ask that we keep your comments limited to 5 minutes if we
could. But if there is anyone present who'd like to speak to this, you can certainly step forward to
the podium at this time. Okay. Otherwise I will bring this back. Good evening Al.
A1 Klingelhutz: Good evening.
Mayor Jansen: Good to see you.
A1 Klingelhutz: Well I don't get round too much anymore but.
Mayor Jansen: Then we appreciate it when you do come to visit us.
A1 Klingelhutz: I think this addition to Chanhassen will be a big asset. I like the configuration of
the building. Been doing business with Jeff over in Chaska. My personal feeling about him, I
think he's a great banker. They watch my finances pretty close and I trust them with them, and I
think that's important about a person that's coining into the comlnunity. That we can show, that
he can show a lot of trust for what he's doing for people. The first time I went to Jeff's bank, I
sat down and talked with him for quite a while, which I normally like to do with anybody that I
do business with, and I just felt that hey, I found a man that I really liked to work with. In fact I'll
be investing some of my money in the bank so that's how far I will go. I think we couldn't do
any better for having that type of a person controlling a bank in Chanhassen. Thank you.
Mayor Jansen: Thank you Al. It's a wonderful testimonial. Appreciate it. With that I'll bring
this back to council. Council, any questions at this point for staff or I'll open it for comments.
Councihnan Boyle: I have one question Kate. The Americana sign, is that on here? The height
of that.
Kate Aanenson: It should be.
34
City Council Meeting - October 14, 2002
Councilman Boyle: Was that on page 8?
Kate Aanenson: Yeah.
Mayor Jansen: I didn't see the sign heights in there. Meaning the Americlnn?
Councilman Boyle: Yeah. What'd I say?
Mayor Jansen: Americana. I assume you meant the other bank.
Councilman Boyle: No, I meant Americlnn. The hotel.
Mayor Jansen: Is it in there?
Kate Aanenson: Yeah, just a...
Mayor Jansen: I went to 8 and I didn't find it. I had e-mailed Bob Generous on that and he got
back to me saying it was 37 feet.
Kate Aanenson: It was, yes.
Mayor Jansen: That was the only building that I asked about.
Kate Aanenson: Yeah, and again that was a different sector .... again the orientation, what the
staff had recommended no. This shows again the site location of the building. Facing the view
across here. So just.
Councihnan Labatt: So Highway 5's where?
Councilman Boyle: South of that?
Councilman Labatt: Bottom of our screens, right? Okay.
Mayor Jansen: And the bank is actually in the comer of that L.
Kate Aanenson: Right. So I'm going to show that to you, and just to give you a context, looking
across the pond.
Councilman Boyle: Wait a minute, don't leave that just yet. What's the elevation right there? I
mean there's a hill, a pretty good sized hill.
Kate Aanenson: I'll show you more clearly... So the ponds here, because this doesn't show.
Again here's the bank comer that we're talking about right here. This is the pond looking across
here so you're looking across the pond where this data sheet is. Can you back it up just a bit
Nann? Thank you. So you're looking across the pond here. That's why the staff came up with
the 20 and the visibility. If you look at this, this comer is this fagade across the pond, and that's
when staff came to that conclusion. Again it does have visibility across that pond. That's how
we came up with... Again because of the different sectors too.
Councilman Boyle: Thank you.
35
City Council Meeting - October 14, 2002
Mayor Jansen: Good question. Okay, council. Comments?
Councilman Peterson: Yeah, I think generally I think.
Councilman Ayotte: It's great.
Councilman Peterson: Yeah, and Bob said great. It's wonderful. It fits in with what we had
envisioned and what Mika had envisioned years ago that we laboriously went through over the
years, so I applaud the architecture and applaud the efforts of getting this thing built. I think the
only question I've had on the project is the signage issue. And Linda you brought up, will the
Community Bank of Chanhassen fit up there. I would bet you that it wouldn't. You wouldn't be
able to read it. I'm assuming it's face is probably 8 to 10 feet wide, and I don't know Mika if you
could share with what it is. But to get the sign that big up there, you'd have to have a pretty big
cupola or whatever you want to call that area so. Assuming that it really wouldn't fit well and the
fact that it's in a sensitive area, I guess I would be right now motivated not to approve the sign
variance, but to wholeheartedly approve everything else in it.
Mayor Jansen: Okay. If council doesn't mind, I'm going to ask one more question on the
signage on the bank, and that's on the lower portion of the bank where it says bank signage. I'm
assuming that that will read Chanhassen Community Bank, correct? Where it's, I believe it's at
the 20 foot. I think that's 20 foot, isn't that right Kate?
Kate Aanenson: Con'ect...
Mayor Jansen: Yeah, along there. I'm assuming that that will read the full Chanhassen
Con2nunity Bank.
Councilman Peterson: It will sit at about 15 to 18 feet.
Councihnan Boyle: Would it be visible from Highway 5?
Kate Aanenson: Again the intent, we believe it had sight lines because of the wetland.
Councilman Boyle: You believe it would?
Kate Aanenson: Yes.
Councilman Boyle: Okay.
Mayor Jansen: Okay. Thank you.
Councihnan Boyle: Bob, do you have anything?
Councilman Ayotte: I agree with Craig.
Councilman Boyle: I do too. I think it's just fantastic. It's everything we've been looking for.
And everything that we should expect I guess. I believe the sign, because of the size of that
cupola, is going to be not obtrusive. If we ask a business to come in, I think they should have the
opportunity to let everybody know what type of business is there. I know that doesn't fit our
guidelines of 20 feet, but I believe there should be exceptions sometimes.
36
City Council Meeting - October 14, 2002
Mayor Jansen: And to that point, I guess what I'm looking at is that there are two opportunities
above the 20 or 18 foot mark. Again I assume Kate that this would be above ordinance where the
logo's located on the building as well as bank signage. I'm just wondering if one of those two
would accommodate the logo and serve the purpose of the signage.
Kate Aanenson: Yeah, this drawing here has the 20 foot, so you're somewhere in probably 30
foot with just the logo area, and then closer to over 40 feet on the other.
Mayor Jansen: Okay.
Kate Aanenson: So is that what you're saying? So there's a repeat of the 3.
Mayor Jansen: And noting that if we provided one of the two locations on the higher elevation
for the logo.
Kate Aanenson: I think that's the same issue the Planning Commission was kind of struggling
with. Maybe one of the two.
Mayor Jansen: One of the two versus trying to get all of the verbiage up in that small space and it
becoming so small that you can't really read it. If you have one of those upper elevations to be
able to put the logo, I'm assuming it's that recognizable that if they're actually looking. And then
your signage then along the lower portion of the building providing the full name of the bank
then, at that lower level. It's just, it's such a subtle logo. I don't think it would be as distracting
and if it's in those muted colors up above. If anything it looks more architectural versus being a
real sign element, I guess is my thought. If you would care to speak to that. Either Mika or Jeff.
Jeff Burzinski: Now as I may have said to some of you, this is not necessarily a deal breaker, but
it is important to us and we'd be willing to work with staff and council to come up with some
compromise. I think the bigger issue however on the 20 feet, if I could. Is on the south elevation.
And I'd actually like to have Mika maybe address this and just kind of what our thoughts were. I
mean let me just first of'all say philosophically we feel very strongly about drive-up's need to be
very ample. I mean there's this real sense by most people who approach a drive-up, they're
claustrophobic. No matter what you do, it seems very narrow and it's standard 8 feet, and people
may not be aware of that. But one of the things that really sets the perception is the height of the
drive-up, and so for instance in Chaska we have a very high drive-up. It's very prominent. To
kind of reduce that sense of gee, can I fit through here? Can I get through here. So we did that.
And knowing too some of the sensitivities to drive-up' s, even though they were food related, we
did want to understate our drive-up facility and not make it too large. But I think also with that
we did some design for the roof, and I'm going to have Mika just address that and talk about, if
that signage were not to go there, what impact that might have on the roof line. Mika can you?
Mika Milo: It's my pleasure to be able to answer some questions of the members of the City
Council and my name is Mika Milo. I am a principal with Milo Architecture Group in Eden
Prairie, San Diego, and I live in ...Drive, #207, St. Paul, Minnesota 55108. When we, I know
specifically the signage because that looks like the most important topic right now than the other
question comes sometime... But the signage has been really talked through and... And also
bearing in mind what Jeff already said that, that that is not that bright shiny red, huge colored sign
or neon or SOlnething like that. It's a very subtle, back lit, very elegant signage that is appropriate
for the bank or office type establishment. So that is very important to bear in mind. Therefore it
blends much better with the architecture. It is not coming out. It's not too aggressive or... so that
needs to be kept in mind. And regarding the position of the signage, it has been made to work
37
City Council Meeting - October 14, 52002
with the architecture. So that the signage is really incorporated... That is both the case for the
signage here on the corner where it is part of the tower, as well as doing the signage on the back
side of the building, which is in essence also the front side facing the Lake Drive. Actually there
is no back side on that building at all. But this one facing Lake Drive is facing the street, and this
one facing the Highway 5. So the signage really, the signage that is facing the Lake Drive can't
be seen from the...and the signage facing the freeway can't be seen from Lake Drive. But the
traffic is very...Lake Drive and the freeway for the... So therefore we propose the signage both
facing the Lake Drive on the back here, as well as on the tower here and the front part of, within
20 feet facing the highway. Again, and I thank you very much. This is the face facing the Lake
Drive so, the tower is right here. Right here. So it will be too small and also remote from the
view on Lake Drive. For the people driving on Lake Drive, they will see the sign here...see this
sign. This one here. And the people on the freeway... Now, if we were not to do here the bank
signage on that face here, on the Lake Drive, then I think I would change the architecture because
that faDade has been, you see how it's been definitely designed and the brick comes up and then
the faDade comes, on that...sign with the cornice, very strong cornice, so the signage really fits
very well here. And that has been made...of that sloped roof. If I don't have the signage here,
which needs to be that high and about that size in order to be read from the Lake Drive...Drive,
but east people, then the architecture will change and I will really be letting...because that is not
even involved in that high wall. Why then do we need that big, high wall there? I would then
simply cut down and have the...maybe so sheet metal roof line around, and that would be I think
much more boring and the quality of the design would really suffer and the aesthetic of that face.
This is really a face. It's not a back side. It's a really nice back spacing...it's almost like the
main face, while here on the freeway, people are farther away. Quite farther away and they will
not see much of the signage down below here within the 20 feet here because of marsh, the
vegetation and everything else, the street and so on, so therefore it's important to have some sign
or symbol, something higher up. I agree with you, with a very good remark that the size of that
portion here on the cupola, we could...bank, Community Bank Chanhassen is going to be rather
small letters. So to overcome that, maybe we could consider having the logo being on top...
Having the logo there instead of having the...description. It was just like 3-4 letters would be
enough to see from here. But even if we put Community Bank of Chanhassen, it will be able to
be read from the near-by but not from the freeway. You need 30 feet to 1 inch. 30 feet this way
will require 1 inch of sign. That's the...approximate assessment. And when we look into these
signs, this one, if that is 200 feet, then we are talking about 200, 400, about 500 or 600. Let's say
500 feet from the tower to the freeway. Then as I said, every 30 feet is 1 inch. So for 300 we
would be 10 inches. So we would need to have the letters so sized of about 16 to 18 inches
letters. Now at least to be seen from the freeway. 18 inches, if you now say Community Bank
Chanhassen, I think to read this...to be honest, I did not do the study with how much that would
be seen. I did the study on facing the Lake Drive, but this one we did not do. I think it will be
seen, but not easy to read that small and therefore maybe we consider making that... Maybe we
can inco~'porate ComAnunity Bank of Chanhassen here.., and the redesign and replace the signage
saying that. In that case we have this face here to have it...down below. We just have the...so
anyway, on that one we can work out some of the...
Mayor Jansen: Okay, thank you. What I'm obviously hearing is that we were neglecting to
really look at the south elevation and that signage. I was primarily focused on the tower.
Councihnan Boyle: As was I.
Councilman Peterson: I think as we should be.
38
City Council Meeting - October 14, 2002
Kate Aanenson: One point of clarification though is that the staffs opinion again was that, if
you're coming into here and they have to get, it's really for cueing because you have to come in
this way to go through the driveway so we believe that appropriate signage will also handle this
by putting bank driveway...similar to what some of the other businesses do. It doesn't have to
be.
Mayor Jansen: To be more of a monument sign is what you're saying.
Kate Aanenson: What you're geared for, right.
Mayor Jansen: For more the pedestrian.
Kate Aanenson: Right. Because really that's what they're trying to do, as Mr., as Mika
indicated, is really for cueing. So how to get in the, again the hotel is a different traffic pattern as
we saw as the bank does as far as users. Certainly he wants to have a regional draw, we
understand that, but again the staff s position on some of the signage was the diluting of the
ordinance out there as a whole.
Mayor Jansen: Understood, yep. Thank you. Sure Vernelle.
Vernelle Clayton: I would just like to clear something up about the directional sign.
Mayor Jansen: Name and address for the record please.
Vernelle Clayton: I'm sorry.
Mayor Jansen: That's okay.
Vernelle Clayton: Vernelle Clayton Madam Mayor. I live at 422 Santa Fe Circle here in Chan.
Mayor Jansen: Thank you.
Vernelle Clayton: Thank you for letting me speak. I just need to clear up something with respect
to the suggested remedy for, or the alternative to having the taller sign. We aren't, we won't be
permitting that type of sign for any particular tenant or owner out there. We will be having some
pole signs at various corners that say you know, St. Hubert's Church this way. Starbucks that
way but not any particular single user. And it won't be on land. What the suggestion was that it
be off on Lake Drive, which they won't own so that probably wouldn't work long term for you.
Kate Aanenson: But you could make it work.
Vernelle Clayton: Well, you could force another landowner to have a sign, but then we have
other. Then you are giving something to the bank that you didn't give to say Ed Pidgel, so.
Mayor Jansen: Okay, understood. Thank you. Let me bring this back to council. I'm okay with
one of the two locations on the tower containing the logo. Which I would assume then would
translate to it being at the tallest location and then the lower location being more the architectural
detail, like is reflected in one of the other squares and one of the cupolas. So I would go with just
the one logo sign on this tower.
39
City Council Meeting - October 14, 2002
Councilman Labatt: So, I lost my drawing... So the one, we'll call this the H here. So that one
on the top of the, the red one.
Mayor Jansen: Yep, that says logo would go.
Councilman Labatt: But the top of the cupola.
Councilman Boyle: Is where the red one could go.
Mayor Jansen: Could be where the logo would go.
Councilman Ayotte: Yeah, and on the back side?
Councilman Labatt: What about the south elevation?
Mayor Jansen: I'n't torn.
Councilman Labatt: I'm for it.
Mayor Jansen: Well and it's subtle enough, and I don't know if part of the condition, in that we
are, if we do grant a variance would be to make sure that it does stay in more the neutral tones so
it's again tonal to the building, and no one comes in after the fact and have ownership turn over
and it turns into a bright red sign, you know up at this height.
Councilman Labatt: Couldn't we attach it to the variance? That it's only for the bank and if they
were to sell and a new tenant came in that they have to come in for a new variance and meet the
sign requirements.
Councihnan Peterson: Why would we do that though? I mean that would.
Councihnan Labatt: Well because if we, if we're going to say.
Councilman Boyle: It could be obtrusive.
Mayor Jansen: I think you just want to restrict it to the color.
Councilman Peterson: Yeah. Let me throw a different perspective at you. You 'know I think that
in all due respect to the marketing, the logo isn't going to attract people to the bank. They're not
going to know what it is.
Councilman Labatt: No, but it's their identity though.
Councilman Peterson: But it won't, your intent from the highway is to ~ow what it is, and it's
not going to have a McDonald's kind of a symbol that there's a McDonald's there. People are
going to see that, they're not going to have a clue.
Councihnan Boyle: No initially.
Councihnan Peterson: Even, but they're going to have to drive up to it and see the name or look
at it froln a lower level to see what it is. The point of us giving a variance is almost moot because
it's not getting him a marketing point, which is what they want is they want the name viewed
4O
City Council Meeting - October 14, 2002
from Highway 5. So I'd be motivated to say, leave that highest point as a cupola, and give them
the variance on the south side. And then you don't have to worry about somebody else moving in
there years from now or whatever, but again if their intent is to pull people in and let...be viewed
from Highway 5. And they're not going to have that from the logo. My humble opinion.
Councilman Boyle: Well I respect your humble opinion, however I do think that logos do work.
I mean look at the target for Target. I mean after a certain period of time they're going to know
that that logo is Community Bank of Chanhassen. That's my feeling on a marketing side.
Councihnan Labatt: I thought it was going to be a long...
Mayor Jansen: So Craig did I hear you then on the south elevation, suggest that you were okay
with that bank signage? Granting a variance for that.
Councilman Peterson: Yeah, I think Mika's right. You'd have to redesign the back of the
building if you didn't grant that, and that does add some architectural interest the way it is. I
think it would be less architectural interesting if we put the seamed roof on there.
Mayor Jansen: Okay. I would just want some sort of stipulation that it stay in more those, the
tonal colors so that we're not ending up with something we didn't expect.
Councihnan Boyle: Do we, what is the height? I'm sorry, I must have, is it, on the south
elevation?
Councihnan Ayotte: 40 feet I think.
Councilman Boyle: Oh is it that high?
Mayor Jansen: Yep. It's high.
Councihnan Labatt: It's 3 feet higher than America Inn.
Councihnan Labatt: Can I diverge you away from the sign real quick?
Mayor Jansen: Sure.
Councihnan Labatt: In looking at number 29 Kate. Condition number 29. And I'm just going
back to our joint commission meeting with the Senior Commission. And all parking included in
parking garages must be provided with accessible parking spaces dispersed among the various
building entrances. Can we, you know the Senior Commission was, one of their big things was
that they wanted designated senior parking stalls. Can we work with that?
Kate Aanenson: We meet with him separate on that. We don't have an ordinance that says that,
provide that.
Councilman Labatt: Well I realize that but can we put in here, can we encourage the.
Kate Aanenson: Sure you can put encourage. We can't force them.
Councilman Labatt: Right, but I mean.
41
City Council Meeting - October 14, 2002
Mayor Jansen: Staff will work with the applicant.
Councilman Labatt: But we're still meeting, or addressing the needs for the Senior Commission
that said that we need more senior parking and obviously the Community Bank of Chanhassen
may have senior citizens banMng there. It might be one of those things we can help facilitate the
goals of the Senior Commission. So that would be in the first one. The second one also has
condition, the same condition as number 28. Where if we can just attach language and we would
encourage the owner to work with our Senior Commission in obtaining senior citizen parking
signs.
Mayor Jansen: And you're just encouraging?
Councilman Labatt: Just encouraging.
Mayor Jansen: Just encouraging.
Councilman Labatt: A nudge to strong encouragement maybe. I can send some of the Senior
Commissioners over there. I'll drive them if I have to.
Mayor Jansen: And they're not nearly so subtle.
Councilman Labatt: I think they might work with them. Those are the only two I had. You
know I would just give you my two cents worth on the variance. I believe when a person comes
in and is willing to invest in the community with this building, we should work with them to
allow them to advertise their business and I don't have a problem with the logo on the cupola and
the south elevation. As long as it's the blending of the letters and...that's fine but I mean I'm in
favor of both variances on both sides.
Mayor Jansen: Okay, thank you. Any other conm-~ents council?
Councilman Boyle: I'm in agreement with Steve on both. The cupola and the south elevation.
Mayor Jansen: Okay. Councihnan Ayotte?
Councilman Ayotte: I don't want to be impetuous. Ijust want to get the building in. I think it's
beautiful and anything we can do to be a responsive to your needs within reason and I don't like
the comment about possibly changing the design so, anything we can do to facilitate the process I
think is the way to go, so I kind of, I swayed a bit. I'm in agreement with Gary and Steve.
Mayor Jansen: Okay. Councilman Peterson.
Councilman Peterson: I stand where I was before. I think it's, it'd be interesting to hear the
owners perspective on that logo perhaps, on the upper area, or whether or not there's relevancy.
Mayor Jansen: Mr. Burzinski? Would you care to address that for us?
Jeff Burzinski: You know I have to admit being 32 months old, or young, that there probably
aren't a lot of people right now that identify with CB, but I have to tell, whether it was just
prudent risk management or not, when we started Peregrine Corporation, we did acquire the name
rights for Conmmnity Bank Eden Prairie, Community Bank Victoria, Cormnunity Bank
Shakopee. Will we ever be there? I don't know. Frankly I never thought I'd be here. CB stands
42
City Council Meeting - October 14, 2002
for Community Bank, and hopefully people recognize community first, bank second. We do
have a strategic goal to have 40 percent brand and name recognition by the end of our first 5
years of operation. I think we' ve probably achieved that in our current location. I think we can
achieve it here too but the logo is a big part of it so it' s, it could be. Your comments were good
from a marketing perspective. A lot of things that I didn't expect to happen, have in fact
happened and it may be even more important than even I stated so.
Mayor Jansen: Thank you. I'm in agreement as, I have to say this is, it's a beautiful project.
Mika, it's just, it's going to really be a jewel for over in that area and I know we're all excited to
see this go in so thank you for bringing forward such a good looking project for us, and I know
the Planning Commission felt that way about it as well. With the, and I don't mean for us to
spend so much time on the signage, but of course we do as we're going against design standards
that have been followed throughout the entire development, but I do want to show some
flexibility and I do recognize that the logo does look more architectural, so I think because it
would be the logo, I'm less concerned. And because it is the muted colors, I think if anything it
will be fine in the cupola. And again the upper sign, so we're doing one of the two, and the other
goes to just an architectural detail. Not both locations, but just one logo.
Kate Aanenson: I'm not clear on what you're...
Mayor Jansen: Where it says bank signage. There.
Kate Aanenson: You're giving them both?
Mayor Jansen: No. Only the upper one.
Councihnan Peterson: Or one of the two, if they have a preference.
Mayor Jansen: If they have a preference, so one of the two. And then the south elevation. So
with that, if I could have a motion.
Councilman Labatt: Sure. A couple of them I guess.
Mayor Jansen: I think we have a few.
Councihnan Labatt: Move that we approve Site Plan #2002-7, plans prepared by Milo
Architecture dated August 2, 2002, subject to the following conditions with the amendment on
number 29 to encourage the applicant to work with our Senior Commission and obtaining senior
citizen designated parking stalls on the site.
Mayor Jansen: And a second?
Councilman Boyle: Second.
Councilman Labatt moved, Councilman Boyle seconded that the City Council approve Site
Plan #2002-7, plans prepared by Milo Architecture Group, Inc., dated August 2, 2002, for a
street level commercial and upper level apartment building with a variance for 1.35
underground parking spaces per unit based on the Findings of Fact and recommendations,
and subject to the following conditions:
43
City Council Meeting - October 14, 2002
.
.
.
,
10.
11.
t2.
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
18.
The applicant shall enter into a site plan agreement with the City and provide the
necessary security to guarantee erosion control, site restoration and landscaping.
Site plan approval is contingent on final platting of Outlot A, Villages on the Ponds 2nd
Addition, to a block and lot designation.
The developer shall work with the city to provide 20 percent of the units at affordable
rents.
Lighting shall comply with the Villages on the Ponds design standards.
Signage shall comply with the Villages on the Ponds design standards. A separate sign
permit is required for each sign.
The applicant shall eliminate parkway maple from the plant schedule. A suitable
replacement shall be substituted.
Submit storm sewer design calculations for a 10 },ear, 24 hour storm event with drainage
flow map.
Add the following City of Chanhassen latest Detail Plate Nos.: 3101, 5201, 5207 and
5300.
The applicant is responsible to obtain and comply with all regulatory agency permits.
Retaining walls over 4 feet in height must be designed by a registered engineer and
requires an approved fence at the top of the wall.
All plan sheets must be signed by a registered engineer.
Add rock construction entrance a mininmm of 75 feet in length and revise the note from
50 feet to 75 feet.
Add a storm sewer schedule to the plans.
Type II silt fence shall be used around the grading area. Also, existing catch basins
around the site perimeter must be protected from construction-related sediment through
the use of filter baTiers (see City Detail Plate No. 5302).
Add a legend to the plans.
On the site plan, show the dimensions of the parking stalls, access aisles and driveway
widths.
Revise the grade to 3:1 maximum on the south side of the underground garage entrance.
On the grading plan:
· Show storm sewer size, type, class and slope.
· Show CB and CBMH numbers, rim and invert elevations.
44
City Council Meeting - October 14, 2002
19.
20.
21.
22.
23.
24.
25.
26.
27.
28.
29.
30.
· On the utility plan, show all existing and proposed utility sewer type, class, size
and slope.
A 10 foot clear space must be maintained around fire hydrants, i.e. street lamps, trees,
shrubs, bushes, Qwest, Xcel Energy, Cable TV and transformer boxes. This is to ensure
that fire hydrants can be quickly located and safely operated by firefighters. Pursuant to
Chanhassen City Ordinance #9-1.
"No Parking Fire Lane" signs will be required as well as curbing to be painted yellow.
Contact Chanhassen Fire Marshal for exact location of signs and curbing to be painted
yellow. Pursuant to 1997 Minnesota Uniform Fire Codes Section 904.1.
The radius turns shall be designed to accommodate the turning of Chanhassen Fire
Department's largest apparatus. Submit radius turns and dimensions to the Chanhassen
City Engineer and Chanhassen Fire Marshal for review and approval.
The proposed parking deck over the underground parking must be built to support the
load of Chanhassen Fire Department's largest apparatus or shall have vehicle height
lin-fiters installed. Contact Chanhassen Fire Marshal for additional requirements.
If Chanhassen Fire Department's aerial ladder truck is unable to negotiate access via the
east parking lots, Fire Department standpipes along with fully sprinklered buildings will
be required.
Additional fire hydrants will be required. Contact the Chanhassen Fire Marshal for
locations.
The buildings must be protected with automatic fire sprinkler systems.
The building plans must be prepared and signed by design professionals licensed in the
State of Minnesota.
The buildings must be constructed in accordance with the Minnesota State Building Code
and the International Building Code (IBC) as amended by the State of Minnesota. The
IBC is scheduled to become effective this fall. The architect must provide a detailed code
analysis, during the preliminary plan stage, for review for compliance with the new code.
Special attention must be paid to the fire-resistance and opening protection of the exterior
walls between the two buildings, and the parking garage below, in relation to the
placement of a property line.
An accessible route .must be provided to both buildings, parking facilities, public
transportation stops.
All parking areas, including parking garages, must be provided with accessible parking
spaces dispersed among the various building entrances. The City encourages the
applicant to work with the Senior Commission in obtaining senior citizen designated
parking stalls on the site.
Accessible dwelling units must be provided in accordance with Minnesota State Building
Code Chapter 1341.
45
City Council Meeting - October 14, 2002
31.
The utility plan does not contain enough information for review at this time; plans will be
reviewed when submitted for permit.
32.
The building owner and/or their representatives shall meet with the Inspections Division
to discuss plan review and permit procedures. In particular, type of construction and
allowable area issues need to be addressed as soon as the Minnesota Amendments to the
IBC are available.
All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 5 to 0.
Mayor Jansen: Next motion please.
Councihnan Labatt: Okay. I move that we approve Site Plan #2002-7, plans prepared by Milo
Architecture dated August 2, 2002 for the 18,000 square foot two story bank and office building,
with drive up facilities with a variance for 16 percent of EIFS based on the following finds and
recommendations with the amendment to number 28. To again encourage the same applicant
with the same nudge to work with the Senior Conmnission.
Mayor Jansen: And a second?
Councilman Boyle: Second.
Councilman Labatt moved, Councilman Boyle seconded that the City Council approves Site
Plan #2002-7, plans prepared by Milo Architecture Group, Inc., dated August 2, 2002, for
an 11,000 square foot two story bank and office building with drive through facilities with a
variance for the use of 16 percent EIFS based on the Findings of Fact and
recommendations, and subject to the following conditions:
The applicant stroll enter into a site plan agreement with the City and provide the
necessary security to guarantee erosion control, site restoration and landscaping.
Site plan approval is contingent on final platting of Outlot A, Villages on the Ponds 2nd
Addition to a block and lot designation,
3. Lighting shall comply with the Villages on the Ponds design standards.
.
Signage shall comply with the Villages on the Ponds design standards. A separate sign
permit is required for each sign.
.
The applicant shall eliminate Parkway maple from the plant schedule. A suitable
replacement shall be substituted.
Submit storm sewer design calculations for a 10 year, 24 hour storm event with drainage
flow map.
,
Add the following City of Chanhassen latest Detail Plate Nos.: 3101, 5201, 5207, and
5~00.
8. The applicant is responsible to obtain and comply with all regulatory agency permits.
46
City Council Meeting - October 14, 2002
.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
18.
19.
20.
21.
22.
Retaining walls over 4 feet in height must be designed by a registered engineer and
requires an approved fence at the top of the wall.
All plan sheets must be signed by a registered engineer.
Add rock construction entrance to a minimum of 75 feet in length and revise the note
from 50 feet to 75 feet.
Add a storm sewer schedule to the plans.
Type II silt fence shall be used around the grading area. Also, existing catch basins
around the site perimeter must be protected from construction-related sediment through
the use of filter barriers (see City Detail Plate No. 5302).
Add a legend to the plans.
On the site plan, show the dimensions of the parking stalls, access aisles and driveway
widths.
Revise the grade to 3:1 maximum on the south side of the underground garage entrance.
On the grading plan:
Show storm sewer size, type, class and slope.
Show CB and CBMH numbers, rim and invert elevations.
On the utility plan, show all existing and proposed utility sewer type, class, size
and slope.
A 10 foot clear space must be maintained around fire hydrants, i.e. street lamps, trees,
shrubs, bushes, Qwest, Xcel Energy, Cable TV and transformer boxes. This is to ensure
that fire hydrants can be quickly located and safely operated by firefighters. Pursuant to
Chanhassen City Ordinance #9-1.
"No Parking Fire Lane" signs will be required as well as curbing to be painted yellow.
Contact Chanhassen Fire Marshal for exact location of signs and curbing to be painted
yellow. Pursuant to 1997 Minnesota Uniform Fire Codes Section 904.1.
The radius turns shall be designed to accommodate the turning of Chanhassen Fire
Department's largest apparatus. Submit radius turns and dimensions to the Chanhassen
City Engineer and Chanhassen Fire Marshal for review and approval.
The proposed parking deck over the underground parking must be built to support the
load of Chanhassen Fire Department's largest apparatus or shall have vehicle height
limiters installed. Contact Chanhassen Fire Marshal for additional requirements.
If Chanhassen Fire Department's aerial ladder truck is unable to negotiate access via the
east parking lots, Fire Department standpipes along with fully sprinklered buildings will
be required.
47
City Council Meeting - October 14, 2002
23. Additional fire hydrants will be required. Contact the Chanhassen Fire Marshal for
locations.
24. The buildings must be protected with automatic fire sprinkler systems.
25. The building plans must be prepared and signed by design professionals licensed in the
State of Minnesota.
26. The buildings must be constructed in accordance with the Minnesota State Building Code
and the International Building Code (IBC) as amended by the State of Minnesota. The
IBC is scheduled to become effective this fall. The architect must provide a detailed code
analysis, during the preliminary plan stage, for review for compliance with the new code.
Special attention must be paid to the fire-resistance and opening protection of the exterior
walls between the two buildings, and the parking garage below, in relation to the
placement of a property line.
27. An accessible route must be provided to both buildings, parking facilities, public
transportation stops.
28. All parking areas, including parking garages, must be provided with accessible parking
spaces dispersed among the various building entrances. The City encourages the
applicant to work with the Senior Commission in obtaining senior citizen designated
parking stalls on the site.
29. The utility plan does not contain enough information for review at this time; plans will be
reviewed when submitted for a permit.
30. The building owner and/or their representatives shall meet with the Inspections Division
to discuss plan review and permit procedures. In particular, type of construction and
allowable area issues need to be addressed as soon as the Minnesota Amendments to the
IBC are available.
All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 5 to 0.
Mayor Jansen: We should have the variance.
Councihnan Labatt: And I would recommend that we approve a variance for installation of
signage above 20 feet based upon the findings of fact and recommendations, right?
Kate Aanenson: The motion said denial so findings of fact reflect that.
Roger Knutson: You have another set of findings though, don't you Kate? For approval.
Councilman Labatt: We'd have to come up with those findings I would imagine.
Roger Knutson: You have findings for the variance for the building material and signage height.
Councilman Labatt: Okay.
Mayor Jansen: Okay, so we're alright.
48
City Council Meeting - October 14, 2002
Kate Aanenson: Can we just, are you on page 197
Roger Knutson: 19, 20 and 21. It says denial of the variance.
Kate Aanenson: Correct, that's what I'm saying.
Councilman Labatt: Yeah, we're recommending approving it.
Kate Aanenson: They're recommending approval.
Councilman Labatt: So we need to come up with Findings of Fact.
Kate Aanenson: Thank you. That's what I was trying to read it the same way you were, because
we recommended denial.
Mayor Jansen: So do we need that to come back to us?
Councilman Labatt: Why don't we just write them out right now.
Councilman Peterson: Roger's having a heart attack.
Roger Knutson: No, not yet.
Councilman Labatt: We can work them out right now so we don't have to come back.
Kate Aanenson: Clarification on the motion Steve. Can we put the sign band as shown on site
plan August 2nd?
Councilman Labatt: Okay. So let me go back to that page, So my motion would then be, to
recommend approval of the variance for the installation of signage above 20 feet, based upon
plans.
Kate Aanenson: Or as shown on site plan dated August.
Councilman Labatt: As shown on site plans dated August 2, 2002, supplied by Milo
Architecture.
Kate Aanenson: Right. And then just again, further clarification. One would be for the bank,
over the bank canopy.
Councihnan Labatt: Bank canopy, south elevation.
Kate Aanenson: Correct. And the other one.
Councilman Labatt: And the cupola.
Kate Aanenson: Okay, either the cupola or the logo, that was my understanding?
Mayor Jansen: Right, one of the two.
Councihnan Labatt: Yeah.
49
City Council Meeting - October 14, 2002
Kate Aanenson: And your finding would be that it be consistent based on architectural style?
That'd be the findings? Roger? Muted neutral tones and the style of architecture as your finding.
Roger Knutson: Yes.
Councilman Peterson: Way to go Kate.
Mayor Jansen: You're working with us real well here, thanks Kate.
Councilman Boyle: Doing very good.
Kate Aanenson: I'm biting my tongue as I'm doing this.
Mayor Jansen: Yes you are, and we appreciate it.
Roger Knutson: Those findings are in writing because Kate just wrote them down.
Kate Aanenson: Yes, correct.
Mayor Jansen: And so in your findings is that clarifying what we said about it needing to be the
neutral colors?
Kate Aanenson: Correct. And it's the logo and it's neutral and it matches the architecture.
Mayor Jansen: Okay. So then we're okay if somebody else comes in and wants to paint it
purple?
Kate Aanenson: Yep.
Mayor Jansen: Okay. Alright. Let's see, do we have a second?
Councilman Boyle: Second,
Councihnan Labatt moved, Councilman Boyle seconded that the City Council approve a
variance for the installation of signage above 20 feet, based upon the Site Plan, plans
prepared by Milo Architecture Group, Inc., dated August 2, 2002, one being for the signage
over the bank canopy on the south elevation, and the other for the logo on the cupola,
subject to the Findings of Fact as prepared by staff regarding the color and architectural
style. All voted in favor, except Councilman Peterson who abstained, and the motion
carried with a vote of 4 to 0 to 1.
Mayor Jansen: Based on what?
Councihnan Peterson: I can do whatever I want.
Mayor Jansen: Okay. Motion passes 4-0 and 1 abstain. Thank you very much, and welcome to
Chanhassen. We'll look forward to your coming into town and the project opening up for us.
Also with some more commercial space as well so, thank you.
5O
City Council Meeting - October 14, 2002
CONSENT AGENDA ITEMS.
Mayor Jansen: Consent agenda items, l(e).
Teresa Burgess: Madam Mayor and Council. If we could, I know we tabled it, but if we could
re-visit item 1 (b) real quickly. Were there specific areas of the Manual you wanted to discuss in
that work session so I can make sure I'm prepared on those areas. Since it's quite thick, I don't
want to come in and say here you go.
Mayor Jansen: If we could just have the council people who are concerned with that come in and
go over it, versus it coming into a work session I think would be appreciated.
Teresa Burgess: Certainly.
Mayor Jansen: Okay. Let's just handle it that way.
Teresa Burgess: And then I will re-schedule it, assuming those people are taken care of, back for
consent. Thank you.
Mayor Jansen: Thank you. Okay, so then let's come back to (e).
me
APPROVAL OF RESOLUTION TO UPDATE SURFACE WATER
MANAGEMENT WATER QUALITY AND WATER QUANTITY CONNECTION
CHARGES.
Councilman Peterson: And the only reason why I pulled that was, I just, we are essentially
raising, not taxes but the cost of coming into Chanhassen, we are raising the price of getting a
ticket into the city by increasing those rates by 20 some percent over a couple year period. I just
think you know there's an impact there. We're already an expensive city to develop in and to buy
land and build in, and we're not making it any easier and I just, I didn't feel as though it was
appropriate for consent agenda because you know, we're increasing the cost of living for
Chanhassen. Now is it, are we trying to make up some costs that the city is out? Yeah. But it's
still going to be passed onto the people that are living and buying in Chanhassen. And I just think
it doesn't seem appropriate that we not at least talk about that a little bit, or at least think about it
before we put it on the consent agenda. Because it bothers me that we're going to raise the price
to get into Chanhassen so relatively nonchalantly. So that being said.
Mayor Jansen: Mr. Gerhardt, if you'd maybe like to provide a staff perspective on that item if.
Todd Gerhardt: Well the cost of doing storm water management is difficult. We have to buy
land at the going rate that development's are coming in, and the price of land has gone up over 20
percent in the last 3 years so. We're competing with the market in trying to purchase this land, if
it isn't dedicated over to us. And we're also playing with the increase of construction costs and
labor costs and benefits so we have to increase these utility costs just to keep up with the market.
Mayor Jansen: So right now in essence we are subsidizing these projects if we're not charging
enough. Is that what you're saying?
Todd Gerhardt: Well we haven't charged it back to the general fund yet, but it could happen
some day because we're not fully funding the cost of providing that service because the cost
today have increased over 20 percent.
51
City Council Meeting - October 14, 2002
Mayor Jansen: And this is saying the last that it was updated was '94?
Todd Gerhardt: I believe so.
Kate Aanenson: Yes.
Mayor Jansen: Okay. And this is suggesting that our ordinance also read that it be reviewed
more regularly, if I recall reading this correctly, so that it's actually being put into the resolution.
Todd Gerhardt: Well it's one of the things I think we'll be talking about as our strategies under
the Ehlers study is that we look at other revenue sources, and this is one of our other revenue
sources that we don't charge back to the general fund. And that we put back to whatever the cost
of that development is. And we should stay in line for what it costs to do my development to
what a new development would be today, and charge them the cost. If you're not, you're under
utilizing the revenues to try to create or maintain that pond. So it's my recommendation that we
approve the increase just to stay up with inflation and what the market is doing.
Councilman Ayotte: And it is for over a 3 year period so that 26 percent is spread over 3 years.
And I called earlier on this point to see if we were in any way out of step. And although we can't
compare to other cities, it's my understanding that we're not out of step given the valuation of
land in Chanhassen.
Kate Aanenson: That's con'ect.
Councilman Boyle: Why can't we compare it to other conmmnities?
Kate Aanenson: Well our system is set up, it's based on land value. If you look at the equation,
it's charged on a land u~e type so what people at the marketplace is showing for industrial or
residential, that's what we need to. If we need to oversize a pond, then we have to compete, pay
that appraised value to buy that extra acreage. So as Todd said we talked about with the Ehlers
study, where we need to be fiscally responsible and get up to speed. Similarly the.
Todd Gerhardt: Park and trail.
Kate Aanenson: Park and trail does that but engineering also does that. Automatically adjusts for
inflation every year. Unfortunately we haven't in this. People pay the utility. It doesn't affect
that. That also maintains this, but this is our cost of also, with the new regulations that are
coming along to provide and create, because we're only halfway developed that infrastructure,
and it needs to be current with what developers are paying out in the marketplace.
Councilman Boyle: Okay.
Councilman Ayotte: And if we do fall short and it does come out of the fund, then the taxpayer
does get hit.
Kate Aanenson: Exactly, and that...
Councilman Boyle: And then it's going to be big time later on.
Kate Aanenson: ...existing revenue, correct.
52
City Council Meeting - October 14, 2002
Councilman Labatt: So how much, I hate to ask this question publicly but how much have we
lost by not having this updated?
Todd Gerhardt: I haven't done the math on that.
Councilman Labatt: Okay, you don't have to but.
Kate Aanenson: But you're right. This is, again this is things that are coming out of the Ehlers
study. Similarly with the pavement management that we need to be more fiscally responsible to
be paying our way, and this again, development pays it's way for this. As a developer coming in,
those are those storm water funding and quality fees that you see in every project.
Todd Gerhardt: And there's certain things that you relate back to land cost. This is one of them.
Todd's park and trail dedication fund. He'll be in front of you either within a month or so asking
on a rate increase on that also. Because you're seeing land in Chanhassen, there was a piece the
other day that sold for $171,000 an acre.
Councilman Boyle: And acre?
Todd Gerhardt: An acre. And that's what we're up against. That's going to be the comp as
people go out and do appraisals when we try to buy this property.
Councilman Peterson: But my point was two fold. It's simply to bring the fact that we're
increasing cost of doing business in Chanhassen in a fact that we, it would have been much more
tolerable had we been doing it 3 percent a year, versus you know 10 so.
Councilman Boyle: At some point in time we've got to do it.
Councilman Peterson: Yeah you've got to, philosophically I'm just, I would have preferred to do
a cost of living since, when we're supposed to have done it instead of waiting now and trying to
play catch up.
Mayor Jansen: Unfortunately this council's been playing catch up on a lot of these type of issues
and here's one more for us so I commend staff for bringing this forward and bringing it to our
attention so that we can update it and get a policy in place to address it, so appreciate that. With
that if I.
Todd Gerhardt: And we'll talk more about that as you get into those strategies, that we put a
schedule together. And we' ve heard it time and time again. It's easier to accept a small
incremental increase versus a large double digit one like this, so Craig makes a good point.
Mayor Jansen: And at least you've spread it out over 3 years. You're not looking to recoup it all
in one.
Todd Gerhardt: And we'll put it on a schedule like Todd does with his park and trail dedication
fees. Sometimes the land costs kind of stay stagnant and it's construction costs that go up so,
we're not seeing that trend now. Land costs are dramatically high.
Mayor Jansen: Okay. If I could have a motion please.
53
City Council Meeting - October 14, 2002
Councilman Labatt: Move approval.
Mayor Jansen: And a second?
Councihnan Boyle: Second.
Resolution #2002-90: Councilman Labatt moved, Councilman Boyle seconded to approve
the resolution to update the Surface Water Management Water Quality and Water
Quantity Connection Charges. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with
a vote of 5 to 0.
H. PROPERTY MAINTENANCE & RENTAL LICENSING.
Councilman Peterson: And I think we've, my primary reason for pulling this was for, I don't
think it's at all a surprise for anybody. I'm not necessarily for it. For this basic reason that we
are increasing the size of government for what I don't see as a compelling reason. We'll be
essentially adding a new position to this, and it's been kind of tossed back and forth whether or
not it will be fully funded with the fees. Whether it can be, but at the end of the day we're still
adding a person to do this. At least a majority of their time is going to be spent doing this and
I'm concerned about that. For what I don't see again as a real driving reason to do it. Mr.
Liefschultz this evening brought something to my attention I really hadn't thought about it, about
you're putting people immediately into a situation where they're, they could be harming their
mortgage situation by being out of code. And Roger I heard you talk about well they're out of
code til we tell them. Well, that's kind of a gray area. And whether or not we should give and
notify everybody that they've got 6 months to come to code. I don't know whether that really
does much good either. Whether we're wasting money notifying them through the newspaper or
whatever, but I think that Mr. Liefschultz presented a relatively closing argument as to why we
should do something different on that 754, point number A in the modifications area, that it
would seem appropriate that we give them some time to have them call us in to do an inspection
and then give them a period of time, you know 6 months to a year to come into code before the
thing goes into full effect. That may be a reasonable. But just philosophically, if we do approve
it, which I assume we will tonight, without my approval. But if we do it I think you maybe
should consider adding something addressing that point. So there, I'm off my soapbox.
Mayor Jansen: Okay. Any other co~mnents council?
Councihnan Labatt: So this would, just reading the summary ordinance here. Passed and
adopted and approved for publication on the 14th day of October. So this would Roger take in
effect when?
Kate Aanenson: We wrote in there January 1st effective date.
Councilman Labatt: So we have time for a public education. I mean everybody knows about it.
It's been in the paper. If there's an owner of a property that is in doubt or question, they have
until the end of the year to come up to City Hall and say can you help me.
Kate Aanenson: Well it will take two process. One is rental licensing. Rental licensing does
require inspection. The other is a complaint basis, just as how we handle it now. The problem
with the complaint basis that we have right now is there's things that for example we have homes
that have tarps over their roofs.
54
City Council Meeting - October 14, 2002
Councilman Ayotte: Have what?
Kate Aanenson: Have tarps over their roof. That's not in violation of a building code but
aesthetically it's not pleasing. So now we've sent them a letter, we don't inspect all properties
unless there's a complaint basis that's separate, so you have to separate that from the rental. So
as I indicated before, when we get letters all the time, is this building in compliance? We have to
say we don't know because we. don't inspect every property on an annual basis, so that's the point
I was making with Roger. So there's two separate prongs to this. And rental licensing, certainly.
Just as we do now code enforcement, the goal is to get in compliance. The last thing we want to
do is turn it over to the attorney's office. We always, we send a letter. We follow up with
another letter. We work, as long as there's good faith effort to moving. Now there's certain
things that we have to decide, whether it's a life safety and at that point we' 11 make a call to the
attorney's office to decide how severe it is. Or the building official makes and determines if it's a
safety issue that we want to be, that we're aware that we need to enforce but again it's pretty
much the same process we handle now as far as code...
Councilman Labatt: So if a homeowner's in the process of re-roofing. Does a complete tear off
of the wood and everything. Inclement weather happens. He puts a tarp up. And it rains for 2
days and he can't get it, is there a provision here to say you know you're not in violation because
you're under a permit reconstruction?
Kate Aanenson: Sure. You have 180 days.
Councilman Labatt: He's safe?
Kate Aanenson: Yeah. Yep. And we're not trying to do that. What we need is the people that
just.
Councihnan Labatt: Throw a tarp up for the next year and a half.
Kate Aanenson: Yeah, and the neighbors are complaining. Again, so you go out and visit them
first and say is there something going on? Try to figure that out. Ascertain the facts. Just how
we do it now, but as long as, and now because it's not a violation of the building code, there's no
nuisance section. This tightens that section up. Where we have more control if they're seeing a
violation of that.
Councilman Ayotte: The other part of it too is, I mean if we have a situation where we do have a
complex that has...black mold, something along this line, the issue of compliance is going to be
good for the owner of the building, along with the occupants, along with the neighbors. So this
thing, in the right vein, is going to be a very positive thing for people around the dwelling and in
the dwelling so I think we've got to.
Mayor Jansen: And we've had comments from occupants of rental units where they've been
without water for several days. Heat for several days. I mean we're not just coming in and trying
to get on the occupants. It's to benefit all. I mean the complaints I think are not publicly heard
most of the time. You deal with them in the planning department and we don't necessarily know
about them until somebody has reached that extreme aggravation with the tar paper side of a
house that they've had to look at for you know over a year. And there's nothing that staff can do.
So I mean this isn't to come in and harass your typical homeowner. It's to help maintain
properties that are falling well out of what you'd consider to be normal or average. We're not out
there looking for problems. I think that's what Kate was saying. You know this is an answer to
55
City Council Meeting - October 14, 2002
complaints, These are neighbors that have just reached the point where they're at fl'ustration and
they come to the city to look for us to do something and right now we have to say we can't.
There' s nothing that we can do. And now with this in place we can be of help to residents that do
have issues like that. So no, we' re not going to be out policing and knocking on people's doors to
look for problems, This is to address the ones that are brought to us.
Todd Gerhardt: And Mayor and Council members. This also gives the landlords the opportunity
or a tool to help manage their tenants. I think that was the key thing of why they got involved and
are behind it. They need the threat that that tenant could be evicted, and thi, s law or ordinance
helps them in that manner. So that's why they're supporting it. It helps them manage their
tenants.
Mayor Jansen: Okay. With that I'll call for a motion.
Councilman Labatt: I would move that we approve,
Councihnan Ayotte: Second.
Mayor Jansen: The property maintenance and rental licensing.
Councilman Labatt moved, Councilman Ayotte seconded that the City Council approve the
following regarding Property Maintenance and Rental Licensing:
1)
2)
3)
4)
A~nendment to City Code Chapter 7 Concerning Property Maintenance.
Amendment to City Code Chapter 10 Concerning Licensing of Rental Properties.
Resolution 4/2002-91: Approval of Resolution Establishing Rental Housing License
Fees.
Approval of Summary Ordinance for Publication Purposes.
All voted in favor, except Councilman Peterson who opposed, and the motion carried with a
vote of 4 to 1.
Kate Aanenson: Clarification. There's actually four motions there. One was adopting a fee
resolution.
Roger Knutson: And the summary.
Kate Aanenson: And the sLtmmary ordinance, and the two ordinances. Just to be clear that that's
what that motion covered.
Roger Knutson: I understood the motion to cover all four items.
Councihnan Labatt: That was the motion Roger. Chapter 7, 10, sections 1 and 2, 3 and 4.
Mayor Jansen: You just took a shortcut.
Councilman Labatt: Yep. Well Bob cut me off. I was going to do the whole thing but Bob cut
me off.
Councilman Ayotte: ...way too long guys.
56
City Council Meeting - October 14, 2002
Mayor Jansen: He's rushing us along. Okay. So that covered everything I believe that we had
moved off of the consent agenda.
COUNCIL PRESENTATIONS.
Mayor Jansen: I will only briefly mention that the sheriff called together a contracting committee
meeting that was pulled together very last minute, but he had a chief in for the, what the sheriff's
conference. National conference here in town.
Councilman Peterson: Police chiefs.
Mayor Jansen: Yep, and had one of the chiefs come in and speak to us as a group about
contracting in her community, and we have those documents. Justin attended. Steve and I both
attended. The contracting meeting is typically with the Mayor and city administration. I did
think to go ahead and get Steve involved because of the nature of the contracting and he had also
served on the contract review task force back when we did that, so it was a good follow-up for
him on that. So we do have that information. We can copy those documents into the Admin
Section, but I commend the Sheriff for having pulled that meeting together to give us yet another
perspective on contract policing. I didn't have any other reports under council/commission
reports. Mr. Gerhardt, anything under Admin Presentations?
ADMINISTRATIVE PRESENTATIONS
Todd Gerhardt: The only thing I have is on our next agenda we will have an extension on the
purchase agreement on the land for West 79th Street. They're finalizing all the documentation.
Purchase agreement called for an October 30th closing, and we're not going to meet that. We
need another 30 days to get all our T's crossed and our I's dotted, but it looks as if we will have a
closing. You approved the site plan tonight and so just wanted to give you the heads up on that.
No big issues there. Just an administrative extension. Library project had some good progress on
that last week. Got all the footings done. We have a section of the west wall to pour for the
parking ramp, but we're moving along nicely there.
Councilman Boyle: Did you sell the bowling alley?
Todd Gerhardt: We are working on a couple of proposals right now. Would hope to have
something back to you probably within the next 30 days to consider a purchase agreement. We
want it to be something that both the Planning Commission, or planning staff could support and
meet all our ordinances.
CORRESPONDENCE DISCUSSION.
Mayor Jansen: Great. Under the correspondence, i don't know if council took notice of the Met
Council redistricting memo, and if that is something that we want to be commenting on. There
are a couple different plans in there as to how Chanhassen would actually be split out. In two of
the options we end up in a District 5, which is Chanhassen, Eden Prairie, and Bloomington. The
option number 2 would segment us off with a much larger group of communities in the western
suburbs which include, as it states, most Lake Minnetonka communities, Eden Prairie,
Chanhassen, Victoria, Chaska, Chaska Township, Laketown Township, Watertown Township,
Watertown, Independence, Maple Plain, Medina, and Loretto. So they're two very different
configurations for us, and I don't know if we want to take time to take a look at this and make
comment. Their co~mnent period, we'd have to get it in like real quick.
57
City Council Meeting - October 14, 2002
Councilman Peterson: Otherwise they decide.
Mayor Jansen: Make final recommendation at it's meeting on October ~23rd.
Councilman Peterson: When I read it, I really didn't understand what impact one or the other, if
them making the decision, and if we make a recommendation, does it really a difference`?. Have
they already got their mind made up? If we did make a decision, it seemed reasonable that we
have more in common with the latter group than we do with Eden Prairie and Bloomington. So I
think from my perspective, if we do make a recommendation, it seems more realistic that we do
the latter.
Councilman Boyle: I agree. I didn't understand it either totally. I mean I just echo Craig's
comments.
Mayor Jansen: Okay. Does staff have an opinion on whether`?.
Kate Aanenson: I did speak to Jules Sn-fith, who is our sector rep and I did kind of voice the same
concern that Craig brought up and that is in the fact that if you compare us to Bloomington or
Eden Prairie, they're built out communities. We have little bit different issues. We're on the
fringe and we still have a lot of MUSA so I would agree that I think we would want to be with
like kind. And I did express some of those concerns to Jules.
Councilman Ayotte: But would there be an advantage in terms of us hitting thresholds earlier
with the people that were built out already`?.
Kate Aanenson: No, they just had different issues. Bloomington has different issues than
Chanhassen does. We're trying to expand MUSA and they're trying to intensify their
redevelopment stuff so.'
Councih-nan Boyle: Should we submit this in writing?
Kate Aanenson: Sure, I think Todd and I could put together a letter and forward that. Put it for
the Mayor's signature.
Councihnan Ayotte: And what was your sense`?. Do you think they're going to honor our request
and.
Mayor Jansen: I think it's better to at least voice it.
Councih-nan Peterson: So that means should we do a resolution?.
Mayor Jansen: I think we should. Do it in resolution form.
Todd Gerhardt: We were just discussing if we, under options 3 and 1, we may lose Jules as our
representative because he does not live in the city of Chanhassen.
Kate Aanenson: He also indicated he may not be reappointed either so, you serve at the leisure of
the Governor so that was my other question to him too.
Todd Gerhardt: I think he, it was Eden Prairie. Well what's our district right now`?.
58
City Council Meeting - October 14, 2002
Roger Knutson: I know it goes over into Lakeville.
Todd Gerhardt: Yeah.
Kate Aanenson: Scott County, includes part of Scott County. Eden Prairie. Chaska. So it's kind
of similar to more the other, because again their issues are more growth management.
Todd Gerhardt: I think the key thing there is somehow if we can keep Jules as our representative.
He's got the knowledge and experience over there and he's always looked out for our best
interest.
Kate Aanenson: Again, he indicated that he may not be reappointed, depending on who the
governor is.
Mayor Jansen: Yeah. So if we could put together a resolution on Option 2, and get that
forwarded as soon as possible. Do we need to make a motion for that then this evening?
Roger Knutson: That'd be appropriate.
Mayor Jansen: Okay. If I could have a motion please.
Councilman Peterson: Motion to approve that this council approve version, Option 2 as via the
proposed memo.
Councilman Boyle: As a resolution?
Mayor Jansen: As a resolution. And a second please.
Councilman Boyle: Second.
Resolution #2002-92: Councilman Peterson moved, Councilman Boyle seconded that the
City Council approve a resolution supporting Option ~:2 for the Metropolitan Council's
Redistricting Plan. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 5
to 0.
Mayor Jansen: Great. If we can get that forwarded right away.
Todd Gerhardt: Yep. Get it out tomorrow.
Mayor Jansen: Okay. Anything else council? Motion to adjourn?
Councilman Boyle moved, Councilman Peterson seconded to adjourn the meeting. All
voted in favor and the motion carried. The City Council meeting was adjourned at 9:50
p.m.
Submitted by Todd Gerhardt
City Manager
Prepared by Nann Opheim
59
CHANHASSEN PARK AND
RECREATION COMMISSION
REGULAR MEETING
SEPTEMBER 24, 2002
Chairman Franks called the meeting to order at 7:30 p.m.
MEMBERS PRESENT: Rod Franks, Amy O'Shea, Glenn Stolar, Paula Atkins, and Jack
Spizale
MEMBERS ABSENT: Tom Kelly and David Happe
STAFF PRESENT: Todd Hoffman, Park and Rec Director; Jerry Ruegemer, Recreation
Superintendent; Dale Gregory, Park Maintenance Director; Susan Marek, Recreation Center
Manager
APPROVAL OF AGENDA: As presented.
PUBLIC ANNOUNCEMENTS: None.
VISITOR PRESENTATIONS: None.
APPROVAL OF MINUTES:
Franks: Are there any commissioners with any changes to the minutes? Amy?
O' Shea: I have one on page 9. It should be O' Shea instead of Atkins.
Franks: Alright. Are there any other changes to the minutes? Is there a motion to approve the
minutes as amended?
Spizale moved, Stolar seconded that the Park and Recreation Commission approve the
Minutes of the meeting dated August 27, 2002 amended on page 9 to change the statement
made by Atkins to O'Shea. All voted in favor and the motion carried.
REVIEW PROPOSED 2003 PARK AND RECREATION CAPITAL IMPROVEMENT
PLAN.
Hoffman: Thank you Chair Franks, members of the commission. The next two items are placed
on your agenda simply for refresher prior to next Monday night's joint meeting with the City
Council. Item number 2 is placed on your agenda for a second reason and that is to provide you
with the clarification on the funding source for all of the items which are labeled Capital
Replacement Fund. In conversation with Bruce DeJong, City's Finance Director, this is the
proper location or proposed funding source for these improvements. We have placed them in the
general fund but there was a differentiation between the general fund and the capital replacement
fund. So the CIP as presented here totals $893,000 that the Park Commission is forwarding to
the City Council. I'm not sure if they've received this yet. Probably later on in the capital budget
discussions with Mr. Gerhardt, the City Manager and Mr. DeJong. So the items there are listed
and for park dedication fund and capital replacement fund are self explanatory. There may be
one deletion and that's the carpet at the Rec Center. During that review we discovered that there
Park and Rec Commission - September 24, 2002
was still money in this year for carpet at the Rec Center. It was listed as a cut last year but was
never cut, and so Susan's securing quotes for carpet at the Rec Center and we may put that in.
And she's looking at the squares similar to the carpet that's going in the library so you get the bad
stain in one square, you rip it out and put it back down, so that might happen this year. The
remaining items, the other one we looked at this evening, the Lake Ann Park resurfacing. 1972
right Dale, we talked about that installation probably happened?
Gregory: Correct.
Hoffman: Yeah, so you're looking at 30 year old pavement out there. The 240 is for an overlay
so they would patch the worst of what you see there. Put down a petrol mat and then pave over
the top of that again, so you will see some fracturing or the cracks coming back through that. The
worst cracks but some of that alligatoring that you saw, the alligatoring checks, that would hold
through that new application. And then the other items here totally $510,000 in park dedication
fund allocations and $383 in capital replacement fund allocations. Any questions on item 2?
Stolar: One quick question. The cover on the previous memo, it talked about the, in the second
paragraph that the 510 equals $38,000 more than the average of 582. Should that be 482 or,
because we have 510 for park fees?
Hoffman: I think that's 482 plus the.
Stolar: Plus 38 would be... I don't know if this is going to the City Council that we need to
correct it or if this is just for our reminder.
Hoffman: That's a typo. I think what it's supposed to be is, proposed 2003 CIP investment of
park dedication fund which is 510 is $38,000 more than what should be 548. That looks right is
there.
Stolar: Are the numbers on here?
Hoffman: I'll double check that number but I think that number should be $548. The average
income the past 4 years should be 548, not 582.
Stolar: So we're asking for this year would be lower than the average out of the park dedication?
Hoffman: I'll go upstairs during this meeting and I'll find out that answer for you. Find it on file.
Stolar: Or at the next meeting.
Hoffman: Well we want to clarify it now because...
Franks: Any other questions for staff? Okay, seeing none then we'll move onto item number 3
under old business.
REVIEW DISCUSSION TOPICS~ JOINT MEETING WITH THE CITY COUNCIL.
Hoffman: Thanks Chair Franks, members of the commission. These were developed probably
back in June or July, and the packet will go out to the City Council tomorrow so if there's any
modifications or deletions or additions that you would like to see, you're certainly welcome to
make those. Otherwise you will go into next Monday's meeting, which is at 6:45. The times are
Park and Rec Commission - September 24, 2002
changed. When this original memo was made back in June, the time was going to be 8:00 p.m.,
but it's 6:45. So 6:45 on Monday you'll have an hour with the City Council.
Franks: Okay. Are there any comments regarding the four discussion points that we have laid
out? Has anyone come up with any kind of an addition in the intervening period? Do any of the
commissioners require any clarification on any of the four items? Great. Okay. My personal
experience in the joint meetings with the City Council is they go best when there's lively
participation from all the commissioners so I would encourage all of you to take some time to
think about these four points so we can come prepared to quickly and succinctly enter those
opinions into the conversation so, great. Alright, thank you Todd. Let's move onto reports.
RECREATION PROGRAM REPORTS:
DAVE HUFFMAN 5K MEMORIAL RUN.
Franks: First report that we' re considering tonight is recreation programs. Jerry.
Ruegemer: Thank you Chair Franks and members of the commission. We're talking about the
Dave Huffman 5K Memorial 5K Race. That did happen Saturday, September 14th. I thank all of
the commissioners that helped out with that event. Again it was a success in our eyes and it
started out with a little rain that morning, but it certainly stopped by race time. Again we
registered, I think our final numbers were roughly around 300 people. We did very close to 200
runners, walk-up's that morning, which was probably about 50 more walk-up's than last year so
we certainly needed those numbers to kind of make it around that 300 mark again s°. You know
again we did have a lot of involvement from the Minnesota Vikings this year with Ragnar being
out there. With the Vikings Cheerleaders. They did donate a few things for the goody bags. Leo
Lewis who works for the Vikings actually ran the race this year and helped out kind of with the
emceeing at the end. We had really kind of a major sponsor with KFAN who did some on air
promotion for us. Mike Morris was out there. If many of you listen to KFAN in the morning, the
superstar was out there helping out and he emceed kind of at the last minute since Joe Schmitt,
the sportscaster from Channel 5 was supposed to do that again this year, was called out of town
late in the week right before the event because the Twins were clinching the conference title in
Cleveland that weekend. So he was called out of town kind of last minute and Mike graciously
accepted the emceeing duties with that so it was actually a lot of fun. He I think brings a sense of
excitement to the event and I hope to have him back next year, along with Joe Schmitt so. Joe
Schmitt was really fun last year too. He ran the race and that kind of gave some personal
testimony to the crowd afterwards and I think a lot of the crowd liked listening kind of the
Viking' s stories from player to player type of thing they kind of shared. I think we as a race
committee I think need to educate people a little bit more as to who Dave was. I think we're so
consumed with this whole idea, concept, special event that I think we're losing focus... A lot of
people came up to us at the race and asked who was Dave Huffman so maybe we need to educate
people a little bit more on that so. The kids race was brand new this year. I gave away 43 medals
for the first year. I think we could do a lot better job on that as well as far as getting the
information out sooner and pulling that together and it was a, kind of a fun event. It was really
kind of fun seeing the kids come down the finish line and Ragnar, the Viking's mascot did kind
of place the medals over the kids necks so it' s kind of fun and he was there along to cheer on the
people as they came across the finish line so. We did meet again tonight and go over kind of
many aspects of the race and we're going to put it to bed now for a while and pick it up sometime
early, late winter. Probably next year. We've already been working on updating information and
securing people for next year. We've done that already. As far as the Race Director and a lot of
our intemet obligations that we have so we're moving forward. So if you just look on the second
Park and Rec Commission - September 24, 2002
page, it's just kind of the race results per age group. Male and female. How they finished. Their
home town and times. And then this is, I'm not sure if any of you have gone on
Raceberryjam.com, but this is the kind of the official race results from the race from first to last
and everybody inbetween and how they finished per age category and all that. So does anybody
have any questions? I'm dazzling you with paperwork.
Franks: So as far as the bank balance.
Ruegemer: 51 in the bank right now.
Franks: Okay, so that's looking.
Ruegemer: That's exactly where we want it to be. We did increase our donations this year from
1,000 per group to 1,500 this year so we always want, as kind of seeing that 1,000 and 1,500
range per group so we're bank rolling about the amount that we wanted to again so we have some
seed money for next year just in case something may fall through, but a lot of the major
components, the shirts, a lot of those type of things were paid for through sponsorships.
Franks: Any other questions anyone? Seeing no questions, are there comments from
commissioners?
Stolar: Just commending Chairperson Franks for his run.
Franks: Well thank you. I will comment though that both of my children ran in the kids race and
were very proud finishers so they thought that was just the best. Jerry, I hope that we see that
again next year. My only other comment is about the date that we choose for the race. Because
it' s exactly the same day as the Nickel Dickel Race in Waconia. So I'm wondering if there' s
every thought about the weekend before or, I don't know what if that conflicts with something. I
remember when I was on the committee there was, we kept trying to find a weekend to see what
it conflicts with so.
Ruegemer: Yeah we certainly had talked about that initially and then kind of over the course of
time, since the race's inception but at this point I think the race committee really feels that we
have something established and I don't know that we're going to be changing the weekends. I
know we go head to head with Nickel Dickel and.
Hoffman: There's one person from Waconia I think.
Franks: Traitor.
Ruegemer: So you know it's very hard to kind of come up with weekends, especially in the fall
time with other races and that going on but.
Franks: Well I guess what I'm seeing is that this is really turning into a pretty close to home,
regional kind of event, which is perfect but we might just be able to draw more from our area and
then if we necessarily weren't conflicting with a race that's you know right next door.
Hoffman: How many people run Nickel Dickel, do we know?
Ruegemer: I don't know. Susan, do you know?
Park and Rec Commission - September 24, 2002
Marek: No I don't know the numbers but I do know that all the talk at the rec center is about the
Nickel Dickel race, so just...
Hoffman: Among staff or the public?
Marek: No, the public. Because we talk up the race in our fitness classes, and people are going
oh no, we're doing the Nickel Dickel race.
Hoffman: Been around for longer.
Franks: And it's got the big event that surrounds it as well so obviously they're not going to
consider changing. If any changing's going to be done, it's going to have to be done on our end
SO.
Ruegemer: And I don't know that that will happen.
Franks: Okay. Just want to bring it to your attention.
Ruegemer: Thank you Rod.
Franks: Okay, seeing no other questions regarding the Dave Huffman 5K, good work to all. And
Jerry, if you would pass that onto the whole race committee, that'd be great too. And Todd, have
we sent a memo to the members of the race committee from the commission?
Hoffman: Not that I'm aware of.
Ruegemer: Shall I draft one?
·
Franks: If the commission approves, I'd recommend to staff that they forward a memo to the race
committee members and to select sponsors that, with what you decide, thanking them from the
commission for all their hard work in this great event.
2002 LAKE ANN PARK CONCESSION OPERATIONS.
Ruegemer: Moving onto the Lake Ann concession evaluation. As I was paging through the item
I noticed that there was a, the second page was not printed on there so I did pass that out tonight
to you. The one that I passed out. If you look on the back side it' s kind of the nuts and bolts of
the financial statement so I'll kind of go through that with you real quick. This year, as you
know, we had quite a bit of rain this summer so that certainly did hamper sales out at the
concession stand. When it wasn't raining it was cold at times, and we just didn't seem to have
the traffic as we have in the past down there. And it sure did appear that the swimming raft did,
getting rid of that, it did slow down some of the activity as well but on the flip side, as I
mentioned, it seems to be kind of going back to kind of a family atmosphere which is I think nice.
With that. It seems like people are bringing their kids back down again and having fun so
hopefully they can open up the pocket books a little bit more and grab some sodas or something
and that's certainly what we look to for the future. Looking at just some general comments. The
slush puppies are always a good thing. The meal deal I think we're going to raise the price on
that next year a little bit. I'm going to do probably a boat rental increase across the board on that.
I think we're slightly low on that so we're just hopefully going to add some components where
we can obtain some additional revenue with that. Looking on the back side of that part of the
new report I sent out, as we look at boat rentals we did increase from last year in that what we're
Park and Rec Commission - September 24, 2002
trying to do too is with the picnics coming in, we do a lot of company picnics. I certainly try to
sell, you know if we want to set aside some paddleboats, that sort of thing, it's 'kind of guaranteed
money for us so we've been really trying to help ourselves with that as well and coordinate that
between the companies and the concession staff down there to have those available so that
certainly helps. With the amount of days that we were closed, it did certainly increase the boat
rentals. As we look at the expenditures, concession hours and wages, roughly about the same
bottom line as last year. What I really tried to do even more this year as I have in the past, since
we were a little bit of money in the hole from the lifeguard contract, I really tried to kind of put
the squeeze on our manager out there and myself to kind of watch the bottom dollar on the
supplies and we did cut some money on that, or save some money for the Lake Ann budget
operations so we're in pretty good shape with that. So if we look at our total supplies and wages,
we're at roughly around $12,000 with revenues of about 13.5 so net profit we did make a little bit
more money than last year, just even with the slower year so. And that certainly is our goal from
year to year is to turn a profit, whether it be large or small, it certainly is our goal to do that so.
And if you just look through the rest of the report, we have a memo from our manager, Erin
who's been with us 4 to 5 years. Does a great job. This I think is her last year. She's going to
graduate school. Started this fall so we were very fortunate to have a very excellent worker and
manager down there so. She kind of goes through a lot of the things that we certainly address
from year to year. If you look at, in the next couple of pages, when we have the daily food and
boat sales, starting from May all the way to the last day in August, that certainly includes rain
days and those sort of things. We have kind of our vendor expenses, whether it be Coca Cola or
Watson who supplies the chips and candy and ice cream to Bessel Foods where we get buns and
ketchup sort of thing. You see Target on there. We did something a little different this year. We
went to Target to kind of get our, for the meal deals we had the bag of chips and that. We could
get the chips a little bit cheaper if we go to Target with that so, we're always looking for new
ways to save some money and that seemed to do pretty good for us this year. And then the last
page is just the workers that we had down there. Their hourly wage, total hours and total wages
for the summer and then that all kind of goes back into the report. Does anybody have any
questions?
Spizale: I've got one. Is the raft gone for good?
Ruegemer: Yes.
O'Shea: Jerry, out of curiosity, how do you handle inventory here, or shifts? Do you cash out
every time a shift or?
Ruegemer: We don't cash out during the shift changes since we do have overlap on that, but we
do Z reports at the end of each day, and then we have inventory sheets on a daily basis.
O'Shea: Do you deal with much theft?
Ruegemer: Not really. We had I guess some external or non-employee theft early on when the
building opened, but now that we have our security system that works out there, we started with
a, was it a Barga System from Carver County and that was okay. But since we added our current
security system, we haven't had any break-in's for quite a while.
Franks: Good work on keeping costs down this year. Watching the bottom line. I just want to
make sure that every year this report comes that there's some mention of a slush puppy machine.
Ruegemer: The Bahama Mama was the new one down there this year, which was very popular.
Park and Rec Commission - September 24, 2002
Franks: Alright. Well if there's no more comments or questions from commissioners regarding
the park concessions at Lake Ann, then we'll move onto the 2002 Halloween Party coming up
next month.
2002 HALLOWEEN PARTY.
Ruegemer: That is coming up next month. Saturday, October 26th out at the Recreation Center.
Never too early to start asking about volunteers so I'm going to pass a sheet around if there's
anybody interested in that. I'll start that and pass it around. With that, a lot of the same types of
activities as last year. You know games, hay rides, refreshments. Corey has been working with
the, some of the local organizations to obtain volunteers already as well, so I know the Bluff
Creek gym is also arranged this year for the event, so a lot of the games and that sort of thing in
the gym again. A lot of the same types of rooms and set up' s as we have in the past so. The
flyers have been done for about 3 weeks now. Sitting in our office. They're raring to go. Corey
will distribute those here by the next week or two to get them to the schools, to get the word out
on those so. Other than that, does anybody have any questions?
Hoffman: There's a devil, a bat...political correctness questions quite often so, it's been in the
news. Devil going to bother the people or is the devil okay?
Spizale: I know witches bother people. I'm not sure about the devil.
Franks: You hate to take things too far but if you can do it another way and it's not a big deal,
why not I guess is my thinking.
Hoffman: Well let's reprint the flyers.
Franks: Oh they've all been printed.
Ruegemer: If you would like that to happen, we certainly can do that.
Hoffman: ...nobody's, these have not gone out.
Franks: Any opinions?
Atkins: I think you'll get some comments. Negative comments. I have a feeling.
Hoffman: This is why we have a park commission.
Spizale: Might be safe to choose something else.
Stolar: What's the cost to reprint?
Ruegemer: Yeah, what's a ream of color papers? 60? 80 bucks? Not a ream, I'm sorry. A case.
Franks: I was going to say, where do you buy paper?
Ruegemer: So probably roughly 100 bucks in paper plus labor.
Franks: And that's all done in-house, you do these?
Park and Rec Commission - September 24, 2002
Atkins: I can use the paper that's already printed if you decide to trash those. I'll take them.
Ruegemer: Recycle them or use?
Atkins: No, I run them into time cards.
Franks: Well since we have an offer for an adaptive re-use of the paper, I think there's some at
least consensus here that we should maybe choose a different thing here. What are you, what
would you consider?
Hoffman: There's a thousand of them in artwork, no problem.
Franks: Yes, I'm sure this was one of them in there but that's why you know.
Hoffman: We'll pick a safe.
Franks: Safe and benign.
Stolar: Have you heard stuff before or is this just a concern you're thinking ahead, in advance
that this may cause issues?
Hoffman: No. I haven't heard any concerns. It's not the public but this kind of stuff is the stuff
that is becoming increasingly sensitive in the public eye. Some people don't like the association
of the devil. Some people don't like Halloween altogether.
Stolar: Yeah, I was going to say well yeah.
Hoffman: It's just their level of comfort, and we try to err on the safe side where we can.
Franks: Why not? It would be our recommendation then to go ahead.
Hoffman: Or you can do a test case. You guys can send it out, and test the sensitivity of our
public.
Stolar: I mean are we going to have decorations watched too? I mean I don't want to get, I mean
it's Halloween.
Franks: Yeah but the difference is that the people who come...
Stolar: ...over here on the poster is different than how we decorate in the.
Franks: Correct.
Stolar: Okay, yes. I think that that's best.
Franks: Yeah, and that's my only thing for bringing this up is that this is going to go home with
everybody.
Stolar: It's intrusive in those who may not wish to partake versus if someone goes to the center,
they're there for Halloween.
Park and Rec Commission - September 24, 2002
Hoffman: Good description.
Stolar: Okay, thank you.
Franks: Great. Will you still be able to make the, yes. You'll have plenty of time to make
timelines. The only other comment that I have is Oscar and Half Pint. Make sure that their sound
system is adequate and that if there's something that we can do to more distinctly define their
stage area. Like cones with tape, you know that, because it just was not looking safe to me last
year. They had little children running around behind them and the cords were there and you
know the kids were encroaching, encroaching, encroaching, closer and closer and closer, and if
they could back farther up so there's more room for people to sit. Anything else regarding the
Halloween Party? Okay, great.
Hoffman: Decorations are ready.
Marek: Yeah, the entrance to the Rec Center. I just commented to Todd earlier that there's a bit
of a risk we take in having that many pumpkins right out front. We'll see how that goes.
RECREATION CENTER.
Franks: Okay, there are no self supporting programs to report on and Susan, that brings you up
next with the Recreation Center. We appreciate you hanging in there with us this evening.
Marek: Well thank you. Commissioners, thanks for visiting the Rec Center tonight. A bit
unexpected on my part, but glad you could stop out. Things happening at the Rec Center this fall.
Certainly our traffic cycles with the school year and so we've seen an increase in our traffic.
Tonight when you were there, we did have 3 meetings rooms that were occupied while you were
there. The fourth one, that meeting didn't start until 8:00. So we did have 4 meeting rooms filled
tonight. We also had dance class and then follow that up with an aerobic class tonight as well so.
The only traffic we're missing at this point is the open basketball traffic and with another week of
cold weather I'm sure that will pick up as well. When you walked into the Rec Center, hopefully
you noticed the wonderful decorations that we had at our entrance. As well as the somewhat
meager garden with the park bench installed. Next year it's going to look much better so we look
forward to having a more beautiful entrance in the spring. This fall we're starting a new fitness
class. I believe it's going to be called Balls and Bands, and that is a fitness class. And we're
going to be holding that class in a meeting room, not in the dance studio so it will be our fa:st
adventure in offering fitness classes outside of that traditional setting. We will also offer that
class for free for the week. Or excuse me, for the month of October and then we'll start charging
after that. Every year in December for the last two years, and again coming up this December,
we will have our punch cards on sale. This is when we sell the most punch cards. We'll be
selling a 40 punch card and throwing in a 10 punch card for free. So try to boost the sales here
right before the end of the calendar year for us. Dance season has begun. We have 3 very young
instructors working at the Rec Center this year so we look forward to some big changes there, and
a more youthful appearance to our dances. All of our instructors are under the age of 24. So it' s
been a great start this year with these young instructors and so we look forward to big things from
them. When I put item number 5 into our notes here about carpet replacement is in our future, I
wondered if maybe that was looking into the crystal ball and seeing what I wanted to see, but it
appears that's becoming more firm as time goes on. I do have two quotes that are being prepared
right now by local carpet dealers and installers. It's possible that we'll split that installation over
the Christmas/New Year break and possibly be able to write those expenses off. Half in one year,
half in the next year to make that work out better financially for us. And our child care program
Park and Rec Commission - September 24, 2002
has resumed. Some of the veteran commissioners remember that this is a program that I struggle
with continually. This year we're offering child care only 3 days a week, and only for 2 hours on
each of those days. I can say that the first 3 weeks of child care have been not impressive. I think
we probably only had 6 different children come and use our facility so it seems we hit a high
point about 2 years ago where we had to make a go of it and we could at least break even and
we've really been struggling with that for the last year and a half. Part of the reason we only
offer it 3 days a week is to minimize our risk. Our financial risk because we just don't seem to
have captured and held that market. So we'll see how that all falls out. I'll have an update with
actual numbers here at the next time you see me which will be in 3 months or so. And then we'll
probably have to take a serious look and decide if it's something we're going to continue or not.
Hoffman: Very specific market.
Marek: You know it's a hard thing. Everybody wants child care at their own convenience.
Unfortunately a convenience based child care doesn't necessarily lead to profitability for us so
right now we're pretty much just trying to hit stay at home moms who want to come to an aerobic
class, which is where the bulk of our market has been in the past but you know those kids grew
up and now they're in school so, Mrs. O'Shea knows that. Any customers that you can sort of
drum up for us, we appreciate. In the last 2 weeks I did allocate about 200 hours of free gym
space to local sports associations, with the primary winners in the game being the Chanhassen
Athletic Association, and the Chaska Youth Basketball Association. Every year the Rec Center
does contribute about that many hours of free gym space for them to allocate amongst their teams
for practices and games. We did have about 7 different parties involved in vying for that space.
Some were basketball associations. We have lacrosse, soccer, volleyball, I think that's about it.
Obviously we give priority to the in season sports and as well we also give priority to those
associations that have the most participants. So that process went through as usual and we were
able to satisfy most parties involved.
Hoffman: But not hours.
Marek: But not hours, correct. It's a hard one with such limited resources from the city. Only
having one gymnasium. Certainly these associations are getting the bulk of their needs satisfied
through the local school districts. And on a bright note, last Friday night was the fourth annual
barnyard boogie. We had 320 people at the Rec Center for the party. Once again the highlight of
the evening is certainly the barnyard animals that can be found, both inside and outside the
building. This year's star animal was a Scottish Highland Calf, that had bright red bushy hair that
covered his eyes. The kids just went nuts for him. It's a great party and one of the most
successful things we do out there. That's it from the Rec Center.
Franks: Barnyard boogie. Okay. Any questions for Susan regarding the Rec Center?
Spizale: No questions. I'm just impressed on how often these community rooms are rented. I
didn't realize it was that busy.
Marek: During the school year it is. Quite often in the mornings we'll have a mothers group or
bible studies. Usually the afternoons slow down. They're pretty empty. And then we'll have an
after school activity like...Explorer program. That will clear out and then we'll get into the
evening activities which involve some of our own recreation offerings like Tae Kwan Do or
tonight I had Yoga going on. Or private organizations renting, Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts and
also for profit businesses.
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Park and Rec Commission - September 24, 2002
Spizale: That's a question too. What do the rooms rent out for?
Marek: The rooms that have the kitchenette rent for $12.50 an hour. The rooms that don't have
kitchenettes rent for $10.00 an hour. Generally it's important to keep in mind that the most of the
rentals at the Recreation Center are free rentals and that's through non-profit, city based
organizations. City based organizations. And so we do the majority of the room use is at no
charge.
Spizale: Okay, thanks. I love the bench out there too. It looks great.
O'Shea: Susan, I've got a couple questions because I do remember the days where it was really
packed in the child care. Have you seen, I'm assuming, I haven't looked at the schedule lately.
I'm assuming you've coordinated the fitness classes.
Marek: Right.
O'Shea: Start a little bit after 9:00 so people can get in.
Marek: Yeah, they start at 9:00.
O' Shea: Have you seen a drop in attendance in those at the times that you have child care?
Marek: No, we generally haven't. Other than the drop that we've seen across the board in our
whole fitness class offering. And that drop started of course with the downturn in the economy as
well as the closure of Highway 5. So across the board we have. Specific to that time slot,
nothing unusual.
O' Shea: It'd be interesting to survey those people for a 2 week timeframe of finding out what
ages their children are. 'You know are they finding alternative options like a neighbor, well I'll
watch them while you go this day and you know swapping that way or if it is kids 'that are
growing up and now are in school. You know what you're attracting in those fitness classes and
their ages of their children.
Marek: You know in our fitness classes, particularly those that we run at 9:30 a.m., our market
segment is a stay at home person, you know who can come to a class at that time. So that is our
market segment. We used to pull a lot of stay at home parents from the Longacres neighborhood
and then from Stone Creek.
O'Shea: That's why it'd be neat to see where they're coming from now.
Marek: Both of them are groups of people, and they're all repeat customers. We don't have you
know the strangers coming in and coming out of those aerobic classes. It's a core group of
people that continue to come and make up those classes and for those, for that core group, their
children have gotten older. But you know there's got to be people out there.
O'Shea: That's just it, is that you're not having new participants. You know you're not building
your base.
Marek: At this point, no. It seems to be a lot of repeat.
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Park and Rec Commission - September 24, 2002
O'Shea: So you know, so you don't have to survey. You know that the people coming are, their
kids are older now?
Marek: Yes. And it is kind of, it's kind of a catch-22 because we would like to increase
participation but then do we need to increase child care or are they not coming because we don't
have a lot of child care conveniently available, or are they not coming for another reason? It's
been a rough year for the Rec Center in that we've been more level. It hasn't been a real growth
year for us.
Franks: I think next year will be a more telling year with Highway 5 open.
Marek: I hope so. Also, by the way. Just another thing that happened a year ago in September.
The school start times changed drastically from the previous year. Swung more than an hour
difference in school start times in District 112, so that also affected people's ability to participate
because maybe they had older children who's schools ended up starting later. That also affected
it.
O'Shea: Yeah, Bluff Creek didn't change more than 5 minutes but maybe.
Marek: From this year to last year, but the previous year they moved an hour. They used to start
at 9:20. Now they start at 8:20.
O' Shea: Interesting though because you want to pull in new people somehow.
Hoffman: Programming isn't that large so it doesn't take a very drastic change to show, if you're
down at all you have problems. If you go up, you're going to feel a little bit more comfortable.
That's where...been for the last 6 years.
Marek: I have to have 10 children show up for an hour each day we're open to pay for it.
Franks: Not happening?
Marek: No.
Franks: Well let's take a look at your report next quarter. You'll have some hard numbers for us
then so we can really see what's going on. But I like to hear that the building's being used and
being used by the community so. We always put you last Mr. Gregory.
Gregory: It's okay, I can wait.
Franks: You have to wait around until we're all done.
PARK & TRAIL MAINTENANCE REPORT.
Gregory: That's okay. Good evening commissioners. Summer activities in the park have all
come to an end. The only thing we've got going now is fall soccer and some football yet, so all
of our kids are back in school so we don't have any of the high school kids and that so all of our
grass cutting and everything and that now has fallen onto what I call a senior seasonals, and the
retired people that are here and that. We do have 4 of those that work for us and they do an
extraordinary job. I mean they come early in spring and help us out, and through summer, and
they can stay until we don't need them anymore so without them we'd really be up a creek with
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Park and Rec Commission - September 24, 2002
cutting grass so they do a lot for us. On a sad note, we did have one, I don't know if you guys
remember Bob Bish. He would work downtown. This was his third year. Always go around, he
had a big straw hat on, pushing a lawnmower. He did have a heart attack this year, and he ended
up with a triple by-pass but 10 days after his operation and that he was out walking on the streets
already so he's, he walks continually. He walks 5 miles a day and so he's really, when he'd come
to work for us and that, we talked about putting him on a lawnmower and that and he said he
wants to push one. He doesn't want to fide. And I think he's 78.
Hoffman: Retired postman.
Gregory: Retired postman and that. Now whether he's coming back next year I don't know and
that. I mean he's really doing good. He's in, you know the doctor says he's doing good shape
and that so we'll see what happens. He really enjoys working for us and that so.
Hoffman: Over the years he might be our oldest employee.
Gregory: Probably is. He's probably our oldest employee. Well he's really a good guy. Also
Jerry helped out this year with our soccer fields. We were able to take two of them out of the
rotation. One at Bandimere and one at Lake Ann so we were able to get in and re-seed those and
get them, try to get them in a lot better shape for next year. And we've been talking about that,
trying to get one or two out, or whatever we can in the fall to actually re-seed and get them going
again. So if that holds true each year and that, maybe we can do that with one or two and that, I
mean it would be great. It will help us with our soccer fields. The restoration at Lake Ann, going
in by the building. Our plans were really to have that all done by the 4th of July for everything
and that. Weather didn't help us out at all. We weren't able to get in there. So we decided to
wait until fall and do the seeding and that in September. So we've got everything, it's all graded
out. We' ve got all the seeding done that we need to do. We' ve got a little bit of sod that' s got to
be laid right in front of the building and on the other side by one of our catch basins and that
down there, and that should be done probably next week so that project will be completed all by
next week. We were able to get the STS again in. They came in. We have for 2 days we had 10
people each day and we did all the wood chipping at Bluff Creek, the elementary, the rec center,
all the way down Coulter Drive and then we also went into some of our parks and re-did that so I
mean those people are a big help for us and they did do a lot of work on our picnic tables,
painting and different things and that so we call on them as much as we can and we've gotten to
know the guy in charge of them so whenever he's got some time and that, he gives us a call fight
away and sees if I' ve got work which, we kind of always try to keep something on the back so we
can bring them in. It works good. He's got a good crew there.
Hoffman: Sentenced to Service.
Gregory: Sentenced to Serve, right. We also, these are the older people in that they bring them
out during the week. Occasionally they have the juveniles, but they can only come on Saturdays.
It's real tough for us to have anything for them to do unless it's like, like I say, unless it's painting
soccer goals or stuff like that where they can do it outside and not. We don't have to have
somebody there all the time with them, so it's tougher with those, but again we try to
accommodate them if we possibly can. We are in the process of overlaying some of our trails.
We should be starting on those in probably a week. We've got about a half of mile of trails that
will be overlayed and also the South Lotus Lake boat access and the parking lots. It's going to be
completely redone this year. So we're down there right now. We've had a water problem on the
one side of that parking lot. We cured that problem with drain tile and found out where the
water's coming from so we've addressed that and like I say, I'm meeting Thursday morning with
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Park and Rec Commission - September 24, 2002
the blacktopping guy to go through them and we should be going in about a week. Week to 10
days and it will be done. One other note I have on there is about elm. Dutch elm disease. For
some reason and that, it's really popping up again this year all over in that we've got several in
some of our parks that have died. Bandimere has got some down there and we've definitely got
to take care of them. There's different areas that I've got an ongoing list right now and those will
be addressed this fall. When we do our trails we go through all the trails and do all the brushing
and that so we can get through with the trucks for plowing and anything in the way for people
walking through, we try to address that and get it all done so. That's pretty much everything that
we' re in the process of doing right now. Just trying to keep up with ongoing maintenance
problems. We've got one other project that we will be starting probably next week, is Carver
Beach. We've got a real erosion problem around the swimming beach area. We're losing beach
area and we've got the okay to go in there, that we're going to be rocking the whole area except
for right where the beach is. That will be, in fact the guys are going to be going down there, are
going to get rocks and everything tomorrow so that's, we will be working on that probably
Thursday and Friday this week already. Try and eliminate some of the erosion down there. Any
questions?
Franks: I have to tell you, great summer. Everything looked good as far as I could see all
summer long so could tell you guys are out there working.
Gregory: We had a year with a lot of rain and I don't think we've cut as much grass as we ever
had. It is starting to slow down now and thin out and that, but I mean we're still cutting, well
especially ballfields and that, we're still cutting those things and that 2 times a week. And then
during the summer, like I say, it's really tough the way it was growing, to keep up with. We did
have to vacuum several of them every once in a while because by the time you got back the
second time, they were too high already. And some of the problems, we do mow in the rain. I
mean we can't afford to not mow if it's drizzling out or raining a little bit. The guys are real
good. I mean they keep mowing unless it's really bad, but if we give up a day of mowing, that
puts us way back.
Hoffman: Then they can't sleep at night.
Gregory: Well we're mowing, on an average we're mowing over 400 acres a week, and actually
more than that because the soccer fields and ballfields all get done twice a week.
Franks: Well good job staying on top of it. Well if there's no more questions regarding park or
trail maintenance, we'll move onto committee reports. I don't believe there's any commissioners
present tonight that are serving on a committee. So we'll open it up for any commission member
presentations.
COMMISSION MEMBER PRESENTATIONS:
Franks: Are there any commissioners wishing to make a presentation?
Stolar: Just a comment. During the tour today, Todd had mentioned that we might want to ask
staff to start looking at the master plan around Pulte and that area, so that we can get ahead of the
game as to how we want to look at that area behind the Pulte development.
Franks: As far as development?
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Park and Rec Commission - September 24, 2002
Stolar: Well the park area, yeah. The master plan. What we want to do with that open space. So
I don't know if that's a motion or if that's, this is the appropriate place.
Hoffman: Make a motion.
Franks: Be more than willing to entertain a motion regarding that, if someone wants to put one
together.
Stolar: On the fly.
Franks: On the fly.
Stolar: Motion that we ask staff to begin work on developing a master plan for the open space
around the Pulte development.
Franks: Is there a second to the motion?
Spizale: Second.
Stolar moved, Spizale seconded that the Park and Recreation Commission direct staff to
begin work on developing a master plan for the open space around the Pulte development.
All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously.
Franks: Todd, you' ll pick an agenda.
Hoffman: We'll formalize that into an agenda item and bring it back.
Franks: Okay, when it's appropriate. Thanks. If there's no other presentations, then we can take
a look at the administrative packet. Are there any comments regarding the administrative packet?
Jerry just one that I have again is, you know it's every month just the comments for the park
shelters and the park rentals are just tops so great. I just love seeing that again and again. People
being pleased with using our facilities here.
Spizale: I do want to note the question that was asked of Director Hoffman's kid. What's the
answer? Are they amateurs or pros... It's on, which one.
Hoffman: Oh the Rotary one.
Spizale: Yeah...
Stolar: It's fun reading these things when you get little comments like that in there.
Hoffman: That was Mr. Slagle.
Franks: Any other comments regarding the administrative packet? I gUess I did have one
comment. It's popped up in our administrative packet before, but Eden Prairie's move to go
completely non-smoking on any city owned properties. And I know that we've kind of kicked
that discussion topic around, but now with them making such a move like that, I'm wondering if
you've received any kinds of calls along those lines too, or comments from.
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Park and Rec Commission - September 24, 2002
Hoffman: Nothing recently. Jerry is working, smoke free policy for youth facilities. At that time
we could talk about whether that...broaden or not.
Franks: Well, we'll wait for that. Okay, well if there's nothing more.
Hoffman: I have the math on CIP.
Franks: Great.
Hoffman: And it wasn't even close so it was a matter of old math, mixing old math with new
math, which turned into something that we didn't catch and perhaps it would have changed Mr.
Happe's motion, or vote last time around so I apologize for that. But if you go to that second
paragraph, the proposed 2003 CIP. Investment in park dedication dollars is, the correct number is
$72,000 less than the funds annual average income for the past 4 years of $582,000. So it's
$72,000 less. Our average income for the past 4 years, in '98 it was $561,000. In '99 it was
$699,000, which I believe may be the record year in park dedication in this town. For the city.
2000, $631,000. And then continuing on the downward trend which will continue again this year.
It may level off is 2001, $435,000 so that's an average of $582. Then there's, so knowing this, a
little farther down the paragraph, it's apparent that the proposed 2003 CIP investment level of
over 500,000, being 510, is fairly aggressive. So I apologize for those errors in those are the
corrected numbers. I will change this report as it goes to City Manager and before it goes to the
City Council.
Franks: Thank you. That clears that up?
Stolar: Yes.
Atkins moved, Stolar seconded that the Park and Recreation Commission adjourn. All
voted in favor and the motion carried.
Subn-fitted by Todd Hoffman
Park and Rec Director
Prepared by Nann Opheim
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