CC 2009 12 14
CHANHASSEN CITY COUNCIL
REGULAR MEETING
DECEMBER 14, 2009
Mayor Furlong called the meeting to order at 7:00 p.m. The meeting was opened with the
Pledge to the Flag.
COUNCIL MEMBERS PRESENT:
Mayor Furlong, Councilman Litsey, Councilwoman
Ernst, Councilwoman Tjornhom, and Councilman McDonald
STAFF PRESENT:
Todd Gerhardt, Roger Knutson, Laurie Hokkanen, Kate Aanenson, Paul
Oehme, Todd Hoffman, Greg Sticha and Jill Sinclair
PUBLIC PRESENT:
Christopher Flick Chicago, IL
Greg & Colleen Fletcher 7616 South Shore Drive
Chuck Beisner Carver, MN
Tom & Pam Devine 7640 South Shore Drive
PUBLIC ANNOUNCEMENTS:
Mayor Furlong: Thank you and welcome to everybody who’s here this evening and those
watching at home. We’re glad that you joined us. At this time I would ask if there are any
members of the council that would like to make any modifications or amendments to the agenda.
If not without objection we’ll proceed with our agenda as it was distributed. I’d like to start this
evening with a couple presentations from the Environmental Excellence Award winners and so
I’m going to go down in front and invite some people up.
PRESENTATION OF ENVIRONMENTAL EXCELLENCE AWARD WINNERS.
Mayor Furlong: Environmental Excellence Award are presented by the City of Chanhassen,
each year by the City of Chanhassen to recognize environmental improvements and stewardship
throughout our city. These awards are designed not only to recognize the achievement and the
projects that our residents and businesses have undertook and other organizations, but also to
highlight and encourage others to consider their options in our city as well with regard to
environmental stewardship. With me here tonight is Denny Hanson, a member of our
Environmental Commission and the first recipients this evening are Greg and Colleen Fletcher.
Living near Lotus Lake has given Greg and Colleen an appreciation for the importance of water
quality. When they decided it was time to replace their driveway they explored their options and
found that the most appealing surface was also an environmentally beneficial one in terms of
permeable paver patio pavers. The permeable paver surface that they chose allows rain water to
infiltrate into the ground on site rather than running off and reduces the amount of water going
into our storm water system and eventually into the lake. The driveway shows that
environmentally friendly home improvement options can serve many needs. Aesthetically
Chanhassen City Council – December 14, 2009
pleasing, improve property values and provide good stewardship so Greg and Colleen,
congratulations and thank you.
Greg Fletcher: Thank you very much.
Mayor Furlong: We have a Certificate of Recognition as well so thank you very much. At this
time I’d like to invite members of the St. Hubert’s Church and School. I think we have one of
the teachers, Layne Bensiek here and some students as well. Project Reduce, Reuse and Recycle
programs in the church and school was the winner of this year’s award. This year St. Hubert’s
Church and School decided to do things a little bit differently. Instead of going with the status
quo they made some environmental changes throughout their building. Some of the changes
were small but some big but they all added up to a significant difference in the church and the
school’s environmental impact. They discontinued using styrofoam cups and now use donated
coffee mugs. In the classrooms paper towels are no longer used but instead rags and natural
cleaners are used instead. In hallways and other rooms there’s a greater quantity of recycling
bins to ensure access for everyone. They switched from, all from lighting to environmentally
friendly products and use only green cleaning solutions in their buildings. With the success and
accomplishments this year the school plans on forming a student green team, which I think we’re
seeing the initial membership right here. Excellent. This year and into next year as well as
looking at other options such as composting organic waste in their cafeteria. So to the St.
Hubert’s Church and School and the green team, thank you and congratulations. Move on now
to the next items on our agenda.
CONSENT AGENDA: Councilwoman Ernst moved, Councilwoman Tjornhom seconded
to approve the following consent agenda items pursuant to the City Manager’s
recommendations:
a. Approval of Minutes:
-City Council Work Session Minutes dated November 23, 2009
-City Council Verbatim and Summary Minutes dated November 23, 2009
-City Council Verbatim and Summary Minutes dated December 7, 2009
Receive Commission Minutes:
-Planning Commission Verbatim and Summary Minutes dated December 1, 2009
-Park and Recreation Commission Verbatim and Summary Minutes dated November 24,
2009
b. Park and Recreation Volunteer Service Awards: Approve List of Winners.
Resolution #2009-87:
c. Resolution Accepting Donations to Chanhassen Senior Center
from Community Bank.
Resolution #2009-88:
d. Approve Resolution for Withdrawal and Termination from the
Joint and Cooperative Agreement with the Regional Mutual Aid Association for the Use
of Personnel and Equipment during Emergencies.
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Chanhassen City Council – December 14, 2009
Resolution #2009- 89:
e. 2010 Street Improvement Project 10-01: Accept Feasibility
Report; Call Public Hearings for Red Cedar Point and Erie Avenue Areas.
Resolution #2009-90:
f. Well No. 14, Project 10-03: Approve Plans and Specifications;
Authorize Advertising for Bids.
Resolution #2009-91:
g. Approval of Vehicle Purchases Consistent with the Capital
Improvement Project.
Resolution #2009-92:
h. Chanhassen Public Works Facility, Project 08-03: Approve
Change Order #3.
i. American Tower Corporation: Approve Amendment to Conditional Use Permit 09-3 to
Allow Co-Location/Addition of ITT/FAA Antennas and Radio Equipment at an Existing
Telecommunications Tower, 2290 Lyman Boulevard.
Resolution #2009-93:
j. Approve Resolution Amending the 2009 Budget.
Resolution #2009-94:
k. Extend Authorization for Mayor, City Manager and Finance
Director to Execute Refunding Bonds Without Prior Council Approval.
Resolution #2009-95:
l. Approve Resolution Establishing Procedures Relating to
Compliance with Reimbursement Bond Regulations under the Internal Revenue Code.
Resolution #2009-96:
m. Resolution Approving a Land Use Plan Amendment, Re-Guiding
Lot 1, Block 1, West One Addition from Commercial to Office Industrial (7900 Kerber
Boulevard).
n. Approval of Temporary On-Sale Intoxicating Liquor License, February Festival,
February 6, Chanhassen Rotary Club.
o. Approve Tower Lease Agreement with Clear Wireless, LLC for Murray Hill Water
Tower and Lake Lucy Water Tank.
All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 5 to 0.
VISITOR PRESENTATIONS:
None.
PUBLIC HEARING ON FIVE YEAR STREET RECONSTRUCTION PLAN.
Paul Oehme: Good evening Mayor, City Council members.
Mayor Furlong: Good evening.
Paul Oehme: Tonight staff would like to review the 5 year street improvement plan with council
and hold a public hearing and we are requesting that council provide preliminary approval for the
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Chanhassen City Council – December 14, 2009
issuance of bonds for the Audubon Road improvement project scheduled for next year. The
Audubon Road segment that we’re looking at is from Lake Drive down to Lyman Boulevard and
is a municipal collector roadway and again it’s planned for next year. Funding for the project
proposed for a municipal street reconstruction bonds and assessments. The first step is to issue
bonds and then hold, or to issue bonds and to hold a public hearing. The purpose of a public
hearing is to hear the public’s comment on the sale of the bond. By holding the public hearing
the council’s not obligated to complete all the projects but rather it’s just a plan for the street
improvements that the council may consider annually as the projects are proposed. The projects
that are proposed here have been identified through the pavement management program and also
have been identified as areas that are in need of utility improvements as well so if we can put up
the. So the 5 year street improvements are shown here. For the next 5 years we’re anticipating,
we’d like to do about 9 projects throughout the community. Again these projects have been
based upon our analysis done by the city staff that we consider streets warranted for either
replacement, total replacement or rehabilitation so I’d like to just go through the next 5 years of
projects with you. Scheduled for next year is the Erie Avenue area, which is just south of 5 and
off of Dakota Avenue. This area is approximately .73 miles with the streets to be reconstructed.
Watermain in this area and some sanitary sewers are going to be replaced or rehabilitated and
there also is some storm sewer improvements planned for various locations. Mainly storm sewer
improvements. Storm sewer pipe improvements and water quality benefits. Red Cedar Point is
another area planned for next year and basically all of Red Cedar Point out by Minnewashta.
These streets are narrow and are old and deteriorating. This area is about .5 miles worth of
streets considered for reconstruction and again watermain is planned to be replaced and some
sanitary sewer rehabilitation of the site, along with some storm sewer improvements at various
locations. The right-of-way out here is so narrow that we can’t do a typical storm sewer system
with treatment through ponds so we’re looking at alternative storm sewer, or storm water quality
improvements at this area. And then Audubon Road, again this is from Lake Drive down to
Lyman Boulevard. It’s approximately .77 miles worth of streets and collector roadway. Handles
approximately about 3,500 trips per day. Proposed improvements here are for some widening.
Turn lane improvements and a trail safety improvements along this corridor as well so. This is,
has been rated one of the lowest pavement condition roadways in our system right now. In 2011
three project areas are planned. Saratoga, Santa Vera area which is shown here. Just off of
Kerber Boulevard. These streets are proposed to be milled and overlaid. Approximately .75
miles worth of streets in this area. Timberwood Drive is just over a mile worth of street off of
Galpin Boulevard. These streets are proposed to be milled up and repaved in this area. No storm
sewer or watermain or sanitary sewer is in this area so we’re not anticipating extending sewer or
th
water at this time through that area. And then also planned for 2011 is West 78 Street from
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Market Boulevard over to Powers Boulevard and then also Kerber Boulevard south of 78 Street
is also planned for a mill and overlay. In 2012 Minnewashta Heights neighborhood is proposed
for reconstruction. This area is about 1.2 miles worth of local streets. This project also includes
replacement of all the watermain and some sanitary sewer improvements along with storm sewer
improvements throughout the neighborhood. The Greenwood Shores neighborhood is planned
for 2013. This is currently a rural section roadway. 1.8 miles worth of streets are planned to be
milled and repaved in 2013. Some minor watermain and sanitary sewer improvements along
with storm sewer improvements are proposed in this area. In 2014 the Dartmouth Drive
neighborhood is planned for reconstruction, approximately .66 miles worth of streets. This area
is just, is north of Minnewashta. Lake Minnewashta and east of Dogwood. Minnewashta
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Chanhassen City Council – December 14, 2009
Heights neighborhood that we’re proposing to reconstruct in 2012 so. That’s the projects that are
planned for the next 5 years. Here’s an estimate of the street project costs. Mainly, the main
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funding source for these projects is out of the revolving assessment fund. The 78 Street project
in 2011, that portion of the city’s cost is proposed to be paid out of Municipal State Aid. And
then the Audubon Road project schedule for 2010 is planned to be paid out of, funding out of
bonding for a total project 5 year plan of 10 million dollars. The cost that I’ve identified here did
not include any of the utilities, the water or the sewer, the storm sewer planned for the project
comes out of a separate source so. So if we move forward here tonight, the schedule is to hold a
public hearing and if the council so wishes to adopt a resolution that gives preliminary approval
for bonding issues for the Audubon Road and also approving a street reconstruction plan. In
April the council, if the Audubon Road project moves forward, would adopt a resolution
approving sales of bonds and selling bond, obtaining bonding proceeds in May when bids are in
for the Audubon project so kind of piggybacking with the project schedule for that road
reconstruction project so. With that if there’s any questions you have about the plan I’d be more
than willing to answer them. Otherwise I’d request that a public hearing be opened at this time.
Mayor Furlong: Okay, thank you. Any questions for staff? Councilman McDonald.
Councilman McDonald: I guess the one question I’ve got, have you already started some public
meetings with residents in the areas, and what kind of feedback are you getting at this point?
Paul Oehme: We have had neighborhood meetings in all three areas. Erie Avenue, Red Cedar
Point and then Audubon and overall I think the general consensus is they’re supportive of the
project, although the assessment costs associated with the project, consistent with our assessment
practice, is something that they’re, that’s the main issue that we’re hearing about is the
assessments. So each neighborhood has their own little different issues but overall we had good
attendance at all three neighborhood meetings and we’re expecting good attendance at the public
hearings that we’re planning to have in February, or January and February so.
Councilman McDonald: Okay, thank you. That’s all.
Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Other questions? Councilman Litsey.
Councilman Litsey: Yes I do. On the, you know this coming year now the budget we’re looking
at there’s going to be $100,000 less going from the general fund into the revolving assessment
construction fund and moving forward that may be another scenario down the road. How do you
see that affecting the ability to complete these projects on our end?
Paul Oehme: It could impact it somewhat. We have a plan that we proposed for the next 5
years. If we stick with that schedule we should be able to fund these projects. If the council so
chooses to eliminate one or two of them too, we can always adjust the budgets associated with
that and work around that so.
Councilman Litsey: So the lack of money coming from the general fund going into that
particular construction fund, will that, you don’t anticipate that causing an issue or us having to
bond some of those projects?
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Chanhassen City Council – December 14, 2009
Paul Oehme: And that’s, could but I think that question maybe could be better answered by our
finance director but.
Greg Sticha: Mayor and council. The first thing I guess I wanted to point out on one of Paul’s
slides was the cost for the projects affecting the revolving assessment fund. Those are total
project costs of which a portion of it’s going to be assessed for so the cost to that fund is really
not those exact dollar amounts. It would be 40% less that those amounts. As far as the bonding
goes for Audubon, that’s particular project is going to be repaid with levy dollars not associated
with the revolving assessment construction fund. If you remember from our discussions earlier
this fall, some of our debt levies freed up a little bit this last year and part of staff’s proposal was
to use that freed up debt levy to be paid for the bonds on Audubon, on the Audubon Street
construction projects so the Audubon project itself will really have no impact at all on the
revolving assessment construction fund. The, as we discussed earlier this fall in some other
work session settings in regards to the budget and it’s effect on the revolving assessment
construction fund, certainly you know the projections have in 2016 the fund getting at or near
zero balance and that certainly will have to be addressed at some point in time, either through
finding additional resources or as Paul said, you know cutting back on some of the projects.
Again that document is a moving document. That’s a planning document that has changed each
of the last years and it changes at some times multiple times in a year so our best guess right now
is that in 2016 there could be a potential funding issue based on all of the knowledge that we
have at this point in time, but we reassess that plan every year and take a look at needs for that
fund and you know hopefully at some point we will have more of an accurate picture of some of
the funding resources available to it. Maybe the levy for that particular fund can be adjusted to,
back to it’s level of the last, the previous two years. Or maybe we end up adjusting some of the
expenses. Or you know we have some other revenue source that we don’t know about at this
point in time that comes in to help fund that fund so. That document is certainly fluid and it’s
you know projected to be in a deficit at that point in time but staff isn’t concerned to the point
that we think right now that any projects should be delayed or not considered because of that
future potential funding deficit.
Councilman Litsey: I guess as my concern if we’re adopting too aggressive of a schedule here
and then all of a sudden when we reach that point we’re not you know in a position to do much
more and some things are going to get neglected.
Greg Sticha: I guess I would be a little more alarmed if that, if we knew that that deficit was
next year or the year after, that would certainly you know be cause for concern. The fact that
we’re not projecting that for you know a minimum 5 to 6 more years, I think it gives you a little
time and ability to plan accordingly for the next couple years. You know like I said, at some
point if things project the way they are, yes. An adjustment will have to be made either in the
revenue side or on the projects themselves so. But right now I don’t see any problem in sticking
with the plan that we have put in place.
Councilman Litsey: I just have, it just seems to me with the position this council the last few
years have just, not supporting what I think is you know an adequate levy to do these kind of
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Chanhassen City Council – December 14, 2009
things, that we’re just, we’re doing too many things here and that we should maybe take a step
back and re-assess this. But that’s obviously just my opinion so thank you for your answers.
Mayor Furlong: But I guess to follow up on that, with regard to these projects, for the 5 year
plan, we have funding sources identified that are currently available, probably assuming that we
go forward this evening with the bonding proposal being recommended.
Greg Sticha: Correct. I mean if we went ahead with all of the projects within the 5 year plan we
would still be at a positive within the fund after the 5 years.
Mayor Furlong: Alright.
Greg Sticha: The problem we get, or the deficit becomes more apparent in years 2016 and 17 so.
Councilman Litsey: But I mean it’s my understanding we’ll spend it down. We have the money
here to spend it down and do all these projects and so forth but we’re spending it down to
potentially a deficit and so is that a wise move to do and what I’m saying is I don’t think that’s
perhaps wise to spend it down to that level given the position of this council the last few years
and a willingness to levy appropriately to do and supplement this fund so. The real problem.
Greg Sticha: One thing to keep in mind about this particular 5 year plan is that whatever comes
of this plan in the next 30 days when the waiting period is over, this document does not hold our
hands in these projects. We still have the ability to amend this document on an annual basis so if
things were to change and even worsen within that fund, we can amend this document to our
needs at that point in time so, but however there is a requirement that due to the nature of these
type of bonds and the state legislator setting up the requirements in a way that you need to at
least identify these projects, you’re required to do so within the documents so, you know we
have to put that plan into place. That 5 year plan but again we certainly can amend this
document next year.
Mayor Furlong: Other questions for staff? I had one and it relates to the 2012 projects. 2012
and 2014. I’ve had a couple residents in that area call to make sure that those projects were still
scheduled and still going forward. Has that changed at all from what we’ve had in recent years?
I think you’ve probably talked to some of the same residents Mr. Oehme, but if somebody was
looking at this that lived in that area, watching us tonight, these projects are the same area, same
neighborhoods that we’ve had in place for a number of years.
Paul Oehme: That’s correct.
Mayor Furlong: Correct, okay. Just wanted to confirm that.
Paul Oehme: The Minnewashta Heights, I don’t believe that’s changed and Dartmouth too.
Mayor Furlong: Okay, thank you. Any other questions? If not I’ll go ahead and open up the
public hearing and invite any interested party to address the council on this matter. Seeing none,
without objection we’ll close the public hearing then and bring it back to council for any
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Chanhassen City Council – December 14, 2009
discussion or look for a motion. Is there any discussion? If not would somebody like to make a
motion.
Councilwoman Tjornhom: I’ll make the motion.
Mayor Furlong: Councilwoman Tjornhom.
Councilwoman Tjornhom: I make the motion the City Council approves the five year street
reconstruction plan, approves the attached resolution and provides preliminary approval for the
issuance of bonds for City Project 10-02.
Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Is there a second?
Councilwoman Ernst: Second.
Mayor Furlong: Motion’s been made and seconded. Any discussion on the motion? Hearing
none I’ll proceed with the vote.
Resolution #2009-97: Councilwoman Tjornhom moved, Councilwoman Ernst seconded
that the City Council approves the Five Year Street Reconstruction Plan, approves the
attached Resolution #2009-97 and provides preliminary approval for the issuance of bonds
for City Project 10-02. All voted in favor, except Councilman Litsey who opposed, and the
motion carried with a vote of 4 to 1.
CHANHASSEN TRANSIT STATION, 500 MARKET STREET.
A. PUBLIC HEARING TO CONSIDER VACATION OF DRAINAGE AND UTILITY
EASEMENTS.
Paul Oehme: Thank you Mayor, City Council members. This item is the vacation of drainage
and utility easements for the transit station. These easements are necessary to be vacated prior to
the final plat of the transit site. The easement in question runs east and west from the site and
currently is under where the proposed transit station would be built so a watermain is looped
through this site currently and the sewer is stubbed out to the south side of the dinner theater.
The utilities, the sewer and water have to be relocated for the transit site or the transit station to
be constructed so under this proposal the sewer and water would be relocated to the south into a
city right-of-way, which we would not need an easement for so vacation of the easement shown
here with dedication of new easements that are outside of the plat is recommended. Here’s an
exhibit of what the plat would be like and the utilities would be extended through this area. The
easement that staff is requesting to be filed at the county is shown here, and that’s included in the
resolution, updated resolution that was handed out previously so. At this time there’s no, or at
this time I would stand for questions and would request that a public hearing be opened at this
time too.
Mayor Furlong: Okay, thank you. We’ll deal with each under items under 4 individually, is that
preferred? For the public hearing on this item?
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Chanhassen City Council – December 14, 2009
Paul Oehme: That’s fine.
Mayor Furlong: Okay. Thank you. Any questions for staff on this item before I open the public
hearing? If not, let me open the public hearing and invite all interested parties to come forward
and address the council on the issue relating to the vacation of the drainage and utility easements.
No? Seeing nobody then, without objection we’ll close the public hearing and bring it back to
council for questions or discussion. Or a motion. If there are no questions or discussion would
somebody like to make a motion?
Councilwoman Tjornhom: I’ll make a motion.
Mayor Furlong: Councilwoman Tjornhom.
Councilwoman Tjornhom: I make the motion that the City Council is recommended to vacate a
portion of the drainage and utility easement for document #30100 and to vacate the drainage and
utility easement for document #30101 as shown on the survey prepared by Egan, Field and
Nowak. Approval is contingent upon filing the Chanhassen Station final plat and execution of a
temporary construction easement.
Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Is there a second?
Councilman McDonald: I’ll second.
Mayor Furlong: Motion’s been made and seconded. Any discussion?
Resolution #2009-98:Councilwoman Tjornhom moved, Councilman McDonald seconded
that the City Council vacate a portion of the drainage and utility easement per Document
Number 30100 and vacate the drainage and utility easement per Document Number 30101
as shown on the survey prepared by Egan, Field and Nowak. Approval is contingent upon
filing the Chanhassen Station final plat and execution of a temporary construction
easement. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 5 to 0.
B. FINAL PLAT APPROVAL.
Mayor Furlong: Let’s go to a staff report please. Ms. Aanenson. I assume.
Kate Aanenson: Well either one of us can do it. That’s fine.
Paul Oehme: Whatever.
Mayor Furlong: You guys decide.
Paul Oehme: I can try to handle it.
Mayor Furlong: Mr. Oehme.
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Chanhassen City Council – December 14, 2009
Paul Oehme: Yeah the final plat is before you tonight for the transit station. Some minor
modifications have been made over the last month but the staff feels that the plat before you
tonight is consistent with the Findings of Fact and the requirements that were in the final
approval for the transit station, Planning Case 09-18 so.
Kate Aanenson: Maybe I can add to it too.
Paul Oehme: Go ahead.
Kate Aanenson: For the final plat, if you can go to that one slide. We’re only final platting the
lot for the transit station itself at this time. Some of the other agreements that you looked at
before, the fees and the nexus that we collect would be for this transit station, thank you. Lot 1,
Block 2, that was being pointed to. So that’s the one lot being created. Then the other lot being
created is for the right-of-way for the street, and the other lot would be for where we have the
current transit, the, what’s the word I’m looking for? Train depot is on the other lot so those are
the three significant lots that are being created with this plat. The existing dinner theater is going
to sit on the lot and when that property develops in the future will be a time that we look at
extracting fees for development purposes when they come in at a future date and decide what
they want to do. So those are the three significant lots. There are some other outlots that are
being created. That kind of remnant pieces with the Great Plains Boulevard so the plat reflects
the fees that are required when we do a final plat, that’s the time that they’re attached with this
plat which would be for the park and ride itself. So those would be the conditions of approval
for the plat.
Mayor Furlong: So just to clarify then. Looking at the diagram on the staff report, Lot 1, Block
1 the right-of-way on Lot 1, Block 2 are the ones being created tonight. Is Lot 3, Block 1 also
being created?
Kate Aanenson: Yes. Right.
Mayor Furlong: Alright. So what we’re seeing here is what is being created through the plat.
Kate Aanenson: Yes. This will be the recorded plat for all the properties that are involved with
it but the ones that are being developed are the ones that we’re attaching the fees to, which also is
a part of this.
Mayor Furlong: Okay, and the other, any development on the other thoughts would, any fees
associated with those development would occur at the time development occurs.
Kate Aanenson: That’s correct.
Mayor Furlong: At the then current.
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Chanhassen City Council – December 14, 2009
Kate Aanenson: That’s correct. So then the condition that would go with that is, a typical for
the plat. Again these are addressing Lot 1, Block 1 which is a dinner theater lot which would be
those fees. Again the plat being recorded would put all those things in motion for the plat.
Mayor Furlong: Okay. No, sorry.
Kate Aanenson: That’s alright, no. Just all the conditions that would apply. Typically what we
do with the normal site plan, so these tie back to that site plan approval so they’re all bundled
together for Lot 1, Block 1.
Mayor Furlong: They’re all tied?
Kate Aanenson: Yes.
Mayor Furlong: Okay, thank you. Any other questions? For staff on this. This is not required
for a public hearing, is that correct? Is there anyone that would like to make public comment?
Sir, why don’t you come forward. This is relating to the plat?
Fred Reese: Yes, this is related to the crossing which at the Planning Commission meeting I had
addressed at that time. The crossing of the street at Great Plains Boulevard. Over to Lot 1,
Block 1 where the Goddard School is.
Mayor Furlong: Oh I’m sorry, if you could state your name and address.
Fred Reese: Oh, Fred Reese. Yeah. That’s okay, thank you. And wonder if any provisions
have been made for the crossings there. We have seen very much so an increase in pedestrian
crossings there, since the school has been completed because of the continuous flow of the
sidewalks and with the construction of the Southwest Transit station we anticipate an increase in
that. We also anticipate that you know we actually may see families that actually attend the
Goddard School that will be parking at the Southwest Transit and where our concern is, is that is
there going to be a safe way for them to cross Great Plains Boulevard? Okay. To get to
Southwest Metro Transit, and especially with what we already know now and that obviously will
see an increase in pedestrian crossing of that particular road and we just want to make sure that
that is being considered.
Kate Aanenson: Mayor if I can address that. We did point that out at the last meeting when we
went through the preliminary plat. At that time that was an issue that was addressed and we did
have a slide of that and maybe if you can go back to that first slide Paul that shows the overview.
There are currently two crossings in this location. The overall site area, aerial map maybe would
show it Paul. Oh, that’s too small. Too big of a scale. There are two crossings. One is actually
th
up on the north end. We go to the middle island piece right at the north, West 78 and Great
Plains Boulevard. There is a crossing there which we believe is a safe one. And currently there
is, where this exits out a crossing where the sidewalk continues across the street on the other side
of Great Plains. If you were to cross mid block here there’s not a sidewalk on the other side so
current, there is crosswalks at both those locations and we did have a map, I apologize at the last
meeting and that so, and reviewing with engineering department we believe that’s the safest and
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Chanhassen City Council – December 14, 2009
the best place to cross. Where we have a controlled intersection where there already is a
crosswalk and you’ve crossing over to a sidewalk over on the other side of the street, so it’s our
intent to work with the dinner theater, then keep the visual cueing of how they should be
continue to crossing in those crosswalks.
Mayor Furlong: There is a sidewalk on the, what would be the south side of the existing Great
Plains?
Kate Aanenson: Yeah and actually it weaves kind of behind the existing businesses there so if
you were to cross in the middle of the block there isn’t a sidewalk on that side so you’d have to
walk to a parking lot so the goal there is to keep it in place where they are and get to the
sidewalk.
Mayor Furlong: Okay. Alright, any questions on that?
Fred Reese: …a comment on that.
Mayor Furlong: Certainly.
Fred Reese: Is there any provisions possibly being made at the crosswalks. Now I’m not sure
th
exactly what’s at the corner of West 78 Street and Great Plains Boulevard. If there’s pedestrian
crosswalks.
Kate Aanenson: Yes there is. I’m not sure there’s crosswalks but there’s the depressed, to make
the cross, to get to the middle island there which is really the best place, then you can look again
and then cross so you don’t have to go all the way across. You can stop mid block and then
cross, so that’s really the safest place to cross. That would also include anybody going to Chapel
Hill Academy also so it provides a mechanism for both, so then you’re at your front door. Then
you can cross again to get over to Chapel so really it’s the best control point for that.
Fred Reese: Right, and I understand that but I’ve also seen a lot of crossing at the northern end,
just south of the railroad tracks. At that other crossing and I’m wondering if there should be
some sort of pedestrian crossing light there.
Kate Aanenson: Oh. There is a crosswalk. There’s not a crossing light. There’s a striped
crosswalk.
Fred Reese: Okay. Something that would you know give the pedestrians a way of pressing a
button and safely being able to monitor, you know slow down traffic. Stop traffic. Control the
lights in some way so that they could cross at that location. A lot of pedestrians cross there right
now, okay. And I’m assuming there’s going to be a sidewalk going down towards the Southwest
Metro Transit Station also. So, and we see a lot of crossing there now so there’s going to
th
definitively be an increase. So, and just to expect people just to cross at the West 78 Street and
Great Plains Boulevard location would you know, I would say it’d be a little naïve because most
of them, a lot of them cross down by the one down to the south. Not down to the north.
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Chanhassen City Council – December 14, 2009
Kate Aanenson: So if I can your question is, because they can cross, there is a crosswalk. What
you’re saying is you wanted to make it a more controlled access. More functionally.
Fred Reese: Right, more controlled, exactly.
Kate Aanenson: I’m not sure what the lights are on that.
Fred Reese: Something that would control the lights that would allow for pedestrians to cross
there safely, okay. We’re definitively going to see a lot of traffic coming out of the Southwest
Metro Transit, buses. Okay. So on and so forth. Buses do not stop on a dime, okay, and with
pedestrians crossing there, I just, you know we have concern.
Paul Oehme: There is a center median there where there is a safe zone for pedestrians to reside
to make that next crossing of the opposite flow of traffic area so there is a safe zone there. You
know we’d have to look at doing a warrant for that area to justify putting a pedestrian push
button sort of crossing light at that intersection or in that pedestrian crossing. To date I have
never heard of any issues at that intersection. Typically that takes into consideration for those
type of improvements so it’s one thing that we definitely monitor and pedestrian accidents in our
community and make recommendations as you know staff sees fit to the council. Any type of
warrants but to this point in time I don’t know of any warrants that would be made for that type
of a, those type of improvements.
Fred Reese: My whole idea was basically a light control system that would be there specifically
controlled by people who are going to be crossing the street. So in other words those lights
would only be engaged at a time when pedestrians will be crossing the street. Otherwise it
would be a green light.
Paul Oehme: Right, I understand.
Fred Reese: And that’s my you know concept there for that.
Mayor Furlong: And my sense is there that probably the best thing to do is let’s monitor. Let’s
look at what current issues are and once the station is built and complete continue to monitor out
th
there and up at West 78 and make sure that we have safe crossings.
Fred Reese: Right. I mean even if at the minimum when the station is built we put up some sort
of sign that says pedestrian crossing. Something like that. Something as simple as that. It
should be low cost.
Mayor Furlong: Okay.
Fred Reese: But yet make people aware.
Mayor Furlong: Okay.
Fred Reese: Thank you.
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Chanhassen City Council – December 14, 2009
Mayor Furlong: Alright, thank you. Any other questions or comments? From the council for
staff, or are there any questions or comments? Any comments on this proposal that’s in front of
us? If not is there a motion relating to approving the final plat with conditions? Councilwoman
Ernst.
Councilwoman Ernst: I make the motion that we adopt the resolution approving final plat for
Chanhassen Transit Station Planning Case 09-18 subject to conditions as specified on pages 11
through 12 of the staff report.
Mayor Furlong: And that would be conditions 1 through 18 I think. As I saw it. Going to pages
11 through 12. Thank you Councilwoman Ernst. Is there a second?
Councilwoman Tjornhom: Second.
Mayor Furlong: Made and seconded. Any discussion on the motion?
Resolution #2009-100: Councilwoman Ernst moved, Councilwoman Tjornhom seconded
that the City Council adopt the attached resolution approving the final plat for the
Chanhassen Transit Station with the following conditions:
1.Outlot B and Lot 1, Block 2 shall be conveyed to the City.
2.Existing public and private utilities must be encompassed by a ten-foot wide drainage and
utility easement centered over the utility
3.The main drive aisle dimensions to the parking ramp shown on Sheet C200 must be clarified.
4.The parking ramp and surface parking area shall be privately owned and maintained.
5.The sidewalks within Outlot B shall be maintained by SouthWest Transit.
6.The grading plan is incomplete. It must show the existing two-foot contours on the north and
west side of the proposed construction limits. The proposed contours must tie in to the
existing contours.
7.The proposed concrete spillway that would convey runoff from the western 25 to 50 feet of
the parking lot on Lot 1, Block 1 must be eliminated from the design as it would direct runoff
across a sidewalk.
8.The hydrology calculations must be revised to include the drainage area to the north,
particularly the flared end section that discharges approximately 55 feet north of CB B.
9.The developer’s engineer and the City’s engineering consultant must coordinate their
respective designs to ensure that the rate and volume control requirements are met.
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Chanhassen City Council – December 14, 2009
10.Hydraulic calculations must be submitted with the final plat submittals.
11.The developer’s engineer must work with the City’s engineering consultant for the public
street project to ensure that the City’s storm sewer design will be able to accommodate the
runoff from the parking ramp storm sewer.
12.A building permit is required for the proposed retaining wall.
13.It is the developer’s responsibility to coordinate any small utility relocation with the
appropriate utility company.
14.The utility plan must be changed to reflect the following:
a.Show the directional flow arrows on existing and proposed utilities.
b.Adjust the line work so that the proposed storm sewer can be seen on the plan.
c.Show the connection to the existing storm sewer on the southwest corner of the
construction limits.
d.Include a note where the rain leaders connect to the existing storm sewer.
15.Full park fees shall be paid in lieu of parkland dedication and/or trail construction. The fees
shall be collected for Lot 1 Block 1 (1.45 acres) as a condition of approval for Chanhassen
Transit Station. The park fees shall be collected in full at the rate in force upon final plat
submission and approval. The current park and trail fee charge for commercial property is
$12,500 per acre.
16.All plans must be revised to reflect a continuous sidewalk along the north edge of Market
Street.
17.Approval of the subdivision is contingent upon approval of the vacation of the drainage and
utility easement.
18.The executed temporary easement agreement must be submitted before the final plat is
recorded.”
All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 5 to 0.
C. APPROVE AMENDMENT TO CONSULTANT CONTRACT FOR ADDITIONAL
FINAL DESIGN PHASE SERVICES.
Paul Oehme: Thank you Mayor. This item is to consider modifying the consultant’s contract for
this project. This project has, I would say dragged on for a lot longer than we had ever
anticipated. The cost incurred by the consultant have been reviewed by staff and staff does
concur with the funds that the consultant is requesting. The main issue or the main cost over
runs for this project have been included in your background but they include several more
meetings with MnDOT and Southwest Transit and local property owners than were ever
anticipated. The federal government staff meetings to review issues with the park and ride
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Chanhassen City Council – December 14, 2009
facility as it relates to public infrastructure. Right-of-way and easement acquisition. There have
been numerous exhibits and displays that have been produced by the consultant for this project.
A feasibility, there’s been at least three feasibility updates and modifications throughout this
project and in addition to federal aid review, project coordination meetings and staff and project
memorandum assistance in writing that for the federal documentation. Federal grant
documentation so with that staff does support the amendment to the consultant contract for the
park and ride station.
Mayor Furlong: Okay, thank you. Any questions for staff?
Paul Oehme: One modification to the background for the council, City Council approval is,
instead of super majority it should be just simple majority for the proposed motion.
Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Any questions for staff? Any thoughts or discussion? The
consultant did a lot of good work here on a project that moved and, moved around a little bit and
took a little bit more time but I think that we certainly received good value for the services, for
what we asked for and what the results are. Mr. Gerhardt.
Todd Gerhardt: Yeah, Jon Horn from Kimley-Horn just did a fantastic job. He’s very familiar
with the federal guidelines that goes along with the grant application that Southwest Transit
received. He’s worked on a variety of other multi-jurisdictions. You’ve got Southwest Transit,
City of Chanhassen, Chanhassen Dinner Theater, and then there’s some movie theater and
Kraus-Anderson are somewhat involved with their parking easements so Jon has done a fantastic
job. This is a complicated project. We typically used our standard engineering contract and time
for services that we typically use on a simple road reconstruction or mill and overlay. Due to the
numerous hurdles that this project brought to the table, Jon was superior in helping us get over
those hurdles so staff recommends approval of this contract and thank Jon for his expertise.
Paul Oehme: Absolutely.
Mayor Furlong: Okay, thank you. Any other thoughts or comments? If not would somebody
like to make a motion?
Councilwoman Ernst: I’ll make a motion.
Mayor Furlong: Councilwoman Ernst.
Councilwoman Ernst: I make a motion that we approve the amendment in amount of $34,500
for additional design services to Kimley-Horn and Associates, Inc. for the Chanhassen Transit
Station 08 through 11…
Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Is there a second?
Councilwoman Tjornhom: Second.
Mayor Furlong: Made and seconded. Any discussion on the motion?
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Chanhassen City Council – December 14, 2009
Councilwoman Ernst moved, Councilwoman Tjornhom seconded that the City Council
approves the amendment in the amount of $34,500 for additional design services to Kimley-
Horn and Associates, Inc. for the Chanhassen Transit Station, Project 08-11. All voted in
favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 5 to 0.
PUBLIC HEARING: CONSIDER AMENDMENT TO CHAPTER 4 OF CITY CODE;
LICENSE, PERMIT AND ADMINISTRATIVE FEES.
Greg Sticha: Good evening mayor and council members. Chapter 4 of the city code has to do
with fees at the city. Throughout 2009, at various work session meetings staff has come to City
Council to review pretty much all of our fees throughout the year. The fees that are being
amended this evening, in one shape or form have been presented to the council earlier this year
in one of our work session meetings and reviewed on a pretty thorough basis so I won’t get into a
whole lot of detail discussion on exact amounts that we’re amending for various fees, unless the
City Council has some questions about the exact fee that, an exact fee or a particular fee.
There’s a lot of work put into putting this document together every year. We, like I said, we pass
an ordinance amending Chapter 4 of the City Code on an annual basis to adjust our fees in
accordance with cost revolved around putting those various permits or licenses into place, so
staff spends an extensive amount of time researching, not only just you know what our costs are
involved but what other communities are charging for similar fees and services so, and we’ve
reviewed again most of those with you in work session settings throughout the year. So I don’t
have a whole lot of detail to add to the discussion aside from what is put into the memo. I will
just kind of leave it up to City Council to, if they have any questions about a particular fee, either
myself or one of the other staff members certainly can answer any questions that you might have
about any of the fees.
Mayor Furlong: Very good, thank you Mr. Sticha. Anybody with questions?
Councilman Litsey: Could you.
Mayor Furlong: Councilman Litsey.
Councilman Litsey: Go over the utility rate structure and how that’s going to change for 2010.
Greg Sticha: Sure. The utility rates, the proposed rate increases for utilities as a part of our
meeting, first meeting in November, we discussed the rate increases with our financial advisors
Ehlers and Associates. The rate increases for the operation portion of those funds are proposed
at 5% for water and sewer and 4% for storm water. The connection fees in regards to those
funds, or the infrastructure related to those, more of the non-operational sort, have proposed
increases of water of 6%, sanitary sewer of 7% and storm water quality of 8% and quantity of
7%. We review those fees with the City Council on an annual basis. Those fees are very critical
to maintaining adequate fund balances within the enterprise funds. The reason for those fund
balances couldn’t be any more evident than last year when we had a couple of wells that just
basically went dry and we needed to access funds immediately to go ahead and put new wells in
so there’s certainly a need to keep or maintain fund balances adequate within those funds for
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Chanhassen City Council – December 14, 2009
purposes just like that last year. The rate study has been in place now I think for I believe 6
years or more maybe we’ve been doing the rate study with City Council. It’s certainly a very
key long term financial plan, not only I think our residents see the benefit of putting together
such a good long term financial planning document. Bonding companies certainly love to see us
put together a document such as this and keep updating it on an annual basis so that we have a
plan in place for our water and other infrastructure needs within the city so. From that standpoint
we review the fees on an annual basis with City Council. Prior to 2003 rate increases were kind
of sporadic. There was a period of time when there were no rate increases for the enterprise
funds. That was followed up by a very substantial increase to make up for some years of not
increasing those rates. It’s always kind of been staff’s thought and I think too our residents
appreciate more of a steady approach to rates in general to keep things from spiking up and down
rather than take a steady approach with continual moderate increases in those fees. The plan that
Ehlers put in place for us, and that we discussed at the last meeting is the exact same plan that
we’ve had in place for the last 2 years. Nothing has changed in terms of the rates or the amount
of the rates are planning to be increased this year or going forward into the future. Some
modifications did need to be made to the document due to a lack of development in certain areas.
Some projects were pushed off into future years and we have and will continue to make
adjustments to the document on an annual basis as development trends go one way or the other
or change so. I guess in summation that’s kind of the process we’ve been through in regards to
the utility rates and what we are proposing for rate increases for 2010.
Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Any other questions? Councilwoman Ernst.
Councilwoman Ernst: Greg, along with that there are things that really generate an increase such
as supplies and chemicals and that sort of thing. Could you speak a little bit to that?
Greg Sticha: Certainly. Our costs for doing business, you know whether it’s chemicals for our
water or other operational costs increase on an annual basis. You know sometimes those costs
are more moderate and may be around 2 or 3 percent and other years we see you know maybe
higher increases in our operational costs, 3 to 4 percent. The increases that we’re proposing as
part of the rate study at 5% not only take into account our operational increases but it also takes
into account the fact that we have already spent money on a water treatment plant and other
infrastructure costs that help, these rate increases help fund in portion part of our past
infrastructure improvements and other costs but also help fund our operational increase in cost
on an annual basis that we do see.
Councilwoman Ernst: Okay, thank you.
Councilman Litsey: But that’s really, I was just going to say that’s really no different than other
parts of the budget that see those same kind of an impact from changing costs in terms of.
Greg Sticha: I would think the impact is a little more substantial on these funds because they
have more chemicals and more cost dependent items that are dependent on items that can
fluctuate a little more so than in the general fund. The general fund still has fuel and utility costs
but in terms of proportion to size of the budget, more of the water fund’s budget is directly
18
Chanhassen City Council – December 14, 2009
related to utility costs and chemicals as compared to the general fund where not quite as much of
the budget is related to some of those costs.
Paul Oehme: Where we continue to add infrastructure which costs the city more money annually
to maintain. New wells. New lift stations. Those type of things so that all adds into the cost for
the rate increases. One other bigger ticket item for the sewer fund for example is the Met
Council fee. They are increasing their rates which, up approximately I think 5% this year which
is a substantial increase for us to take into our expenditures so we have to pass those dollar
amounts on to the users as well.
Councilman Litsey: I mean I understand that the Met Council fees and so forth, yes. Whatever
they decide we’ve got to come up with the money but on the water side in terms of what we’re
charging, we have a little bit more in discretionary in terms of what we want to charge and I’m
just, we’re looking at a pretty significant tax increase or fee. You can call it fees or taxes but
we’re looking at a fairly significant increase here to support infrastructure which I’ll talk about
before we vote but just want to clear that we’re talking about a significant increase to our
residents.
Mayor Furlong: Mr. Gerhardt.
Todd Gerhardt: Mayor, council members. Finance Director Sticha hit on it a little bit but I think
it needs to be highlighted that on the water side of the equation, two factors really kind of play
into that and the first one being the water treatment plant. When we developed the funding for
the water treatment plant it was one where as growth came into the community, hook up charges
would pay for probably half of it. The other half came from utility rates and seeing a substantial
increase right away wasn’t fair to all the residents that were here at the time so we put a plan in
place as growth came on that they would pay their share of the benefit of that water treatment
plant. So a big part of these increases started when we implemented the utility rate study about 6
years ago and that was our way of funding this. The other factor that plays in the water and the
sewer is every other year we do a street reconstruction and as a part of the assessments for street
reconstruction the city absorbs 100% of the cost for that sewer and water that goes into the street.
The utility rates that people pay throughout the community pay for the replacement of that sewer
and water. That’s a substantial amount every other year that we put towards that so that was a
commitment that a previous council had made and a policy that we’ve stuck by for probably the
past 8 years.
Councilman Litsey: Do we know how much the impact will be on the average homeowner in
Chanhassen in terms of water consumption? This increase.
Greg Sticha: Yeah, I do have that. As part of the rate study, and I don’t have the information
available for our audience but the average sewer and water bill, the average sewer bill would
increase based on the 5% from about 54 and a half dollars to 57 dollars so a two and a half
dollars. And for water from 52 to about 57 dollars so about 5 dollars a year. That’s based on an
average in consumption so.
Councilman Litsey: So sewer was, I’m sorry the difference was what again?
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Chanhassen City Council – December 14, 2009
Greg Sticha: About 2 and a half dollars.
Councilman Litsey: And then on water it was?
Greg Sticha: About 5 dollars.
Councilman Litsey: Okay. Thanks.
Mayor Furlong: Other questions? Any discussion? Would somebody like to make a motion
with regard to the recommendation from staff.
Councilwoman Tjornhom: I’ll make a motion.
Mayor Furlong: Councilwoman Tjornhom.
Councilwoman Tjornhom: I make a motion that the City Council adopt the attached ordinance
amending Chapter 4. Is that right?
Councilman Litsey: Actually I did want some discussion.
Mayor Furlong: And that’s fine. Let me get.
Councilman Litsey: Get the motion.
Councilwoman Tjornhom: Am I the right motion?
Todd Gerhardt: Number 5, yeah.
Councilwoman Tjornhom: Okay, sorry. Okay, I’ll start over again. I make a motion that the
Chanhassen City Council adopt the attached ordinance amending Chapter 4 of the Chanhassen
City Code.
Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Is there a second?
Councilman McDonald: I’ll second.
Mayor Furlong: Motion’s been made and seconded. Any discussion on the motion?
Councilman Litsey.
Councilman Litsey: Yeah I just think there’s an inconsistency amongst this council that we’re
willing to raise taxes or fees, and I understand the reason why. To support the infrastructure and
you’ve laid that out very well so it’s nothing that staff said that my comments are directed to, but
when it comes to, when we looked at the levy that we were setting for the city in terms of
supporting the general fund and what goes out of that, there’s no willingness to support what was
pointed out there in terms of additional, support additional infrastructure in terms of roads.
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Chanhassen City Council – December 14, 2009
We’re going to be cutting a staff person. We’re going to abandon our law enforcement plan
which is an essential service. I just don’t see that there’s a consistency amongst this council. We
talked about setting the preliminary levy that you know even a dollar makes a huge difference in
this economic times and yet we’re willing to pass along an increase on the utility side. I’m very
troubled by that inconsistency because I thought you know we should have supported a levy that
would take care of at least infrastructure needs for, depending on which scenario that staff
presented us, could have gone anywhere from you know a dollar a month more on the
preliminary levy side but yet the council’s so willing to pass this increase along on the utility
side to the residents so it puts me in kind of an awkward situation because I understand the need
but I also am troubled by the inconsistency on this council. It’s okay to tax on one side to
support infrastructure but it’s not on the other side.
Mayor Furlong: Any other thoughts or discussion?
Councilwoman Ernst: Yeah, I have a comment.
Mayor Furlong: Councilwoman Ernst.
Councilwoman Ernst: So in terms of the tax levy, I mean that really is what we’re looking at in
terms of what, what we can spend and what we really can’t spend and when we’re looking at
water usage, we’re looking at you know eventually if the city didn’t, and correct me if I’m wrong
on this but if the city didn’t increase the rate because the increases are raised for chemicals and
that sort of thing and some mandates are being passed onto us, eventually they would be passed
onto the taxpayer. And whether it’s done in a gradual pace now, or whether it’s done in a more
significant increase, it would be passed on and I, and from what I’m understanding this is, this is
something that we, it’s not, it’s not really something that we have a choice to do because it’s
getting passed onto us. To the city so we need to somehow pay that.
Councilman Litsey: I would say portions of it are being passed along. Portions aren’t. There is
some discretion. There’s some things you could do to defer certain projects and so forth, much
like we’re looking at on the general fund side where we are no longer going to be putting
$100,000 into the road fund that we’re projected to have a deficit in a few years and so we’re
going to be looking at having to deal with that. Some of the other infrastructure and so forth. I
don’t really see it as any different. You have to manage the money that’s there as effectively as
you can, which is what this council has said on the, when they set the preliminary levy, in my
opinion too low, and so we’ve been facing and struggling with that ever since. Trying to manage
where we’re going to go and we’ve cut law enforcement positions. Or the scheduled increase I
should say and then we’re cutting a staff position at city hall and all those other things we’ll be
talking about as a part of the next segment here on the budget but I think it’s apples to apples.
We’re comparing apples to apples on the utility side with the general fund in terms of what that
supports in services in terms of capital and infrastructure so on one side it’s not okay to increase
it because people are struggling in this city, and a dollar or two more a month is unreasonable in
the eyes of most of this council. But on the other side we can do, but on the reverse we can do
that on the utility side and that’s okay. I don’t get it.
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Chanhassen City Council – December 14, 2009
Councilman McDonald: Well you know I think to me the thing is on this for utilities, these are
more user fees than are reflective of the growth within the community and again I think as
Councilwoman Ernst has said, we have to support that. This is the basic of all basic services is
providing water and sewer to residents and there are certain costs associated with doing that and
this is the easiest way to pass those on. It doesn’t come out of the general fund so I don’t see it
as being a apples to apples comparison when what we’re trying to do here is take care of a
specific capital asset that we have which is our water and that should be separate and it is. I
mean I haven’t heard anything where the funds are being comingled or anything such as that.
These are directly related costs of supplying that particular service. You know if, again you
mentioned the patrolman and those things. If those were separate levies then fine. You know it
would make it maybe a little bit easier for people to see it and to vote on a particular item the
way the water is but it’s not. It’s buried within the general budget and it’s something that we
have to manage and take care of. We’ve only got so many dollars and I mean I agree with your
thing about yeah, a dollar here, a dollar there, it does hurt people but there is some control here
because it is a user fee. You can cut back on your water usage. You can do things here to
control this whereas within the general fund you do not have that control. We have the control
of setting a rate and that’s what people are taxed at on their property taxes. So I do see some
differences here. I’m not sure that we are being totally inconsistent. I can understand your
frustration at this of you know we give on one side and take on the other but I think you know
part of that is again we have to manage the resources of the city and that’s the city’s money. So
I’m not sure that, I’m not sure that we are being that inconsistent.
Councilman Litsey: Well the way I look at it we are. I understand what you’re saying too and I
respect what you’re saying but when we, I just think we need to be honest then when we go out
and say well we didn’t pass on, along any increases to homeowners in this city in 2010. We
have. And you can call it a fee. You can call it a tax. You can call it whatever you want to call
it. It is what it is and it’s an increase to the residents of this community next year and I think
that, although it wouldn’t be ideal, just like we’re forced to do now on the other side in terms of
the general levy and so forth and having to make some significant cuts and so forth to make that
work out, perhaps we need to take a second look at our infrastructure on water and see if there
isn’t a way we can do that within the existing structure or fee schedule if the philosophy of this
council is, you know it’s, in these economic times we can’t add another burden to our residents.
Mayor Furlong: Any other thoughts or discussion? Earlier tonight and these are, these are
enterprise funds that Mr. Sticha, there’s a difference between the enterprise fund and the general
fund. The enterprise fund, as I understand is a specific service of business. It’s kind of a stand
alone business that the city operates for the benefit of those residents and businesses that utilize
that service. Not all residents are on city water, correct?
Greg Sticha: From a strictly governmental accounting standpoint the enterprise funds are set up
by our rules and regulations that are put in place to govern government accounting as enterprise
funds. That definition means they’re there to have fees to support the cost to provide that
service. If you look at the actual accounting statements for those enterprise funds, the revenues
that are coming into that fund are defined as fees for services for that service. So from a strictly
governmental accounting standpoint it is defined as, an enterprise fund is defined as a service
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Chanhassen City Council – December 14, 2009
provided for residents in this case that is to be recovered by fees for that core service. So based
on that definition yes, that’s exactly.
Councilman Litsey: Were we not charging ourselves from our general fund up until this year?
Were we not assessing ourselves for water and sewer?
Greg Sticha: Yeah, and that practice again is varies from community to community and it’s not a
substantial amount of either budget. It’s been in place in communities more as a cost accounting
type way to manage how many dollars you’re spending for your water or sewer usage. It’s not
common practice to do it one way or another. In communities it varies all over the place so
whether or not we are charging ourselves for that service varies greatly. There’s no standard
practice that says you have to do it one way or the other.
Councilman Litsey: So the general fund though up until now was supporting an enterprise fund.
Greg Sticha: Right and again, the main reason for that was for cost accounting purposes.
Councilman Litsey: Has it helped balance the general fund by not having that in there?
Greg Sticha: We didn’t use that as part of our balancing process this year, no.
Councilman Litsey: Okay.
Greg Sticha: So we are still actually charging.
Mayor Furlong: I don’t think there have been any changes this year, have there?
Greg Sticha: No. We still are actually charging ourselves for it.
Councilman Litsey: I mean with the plan is moving forward that we will not be doing that.
Greg Sticha: No. It’s still in there at this point. We didn’t use that as part of our solution for the
2009 shortfall and it’s still in there for the 2010 budget. But again you know what you do with
that practice can certainly change. Either way.
Councilman Litsey: So there’s money going in from the general fund currently into the
enterprise fund.
Greg Sticha: Yep. Currently there is, yep.
Councilman Litsey: So it’s not technically a stand alone fund.
Greg Sticha: The?
Councilman Litsey: Enterprise fund. If they’re being supplemented to some.
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Chanhassen City Council – December 14, 2009
Greg Sticha: Well we’re paying for our usage.
Councilman Litsey: Right.
Greg Sticha: We’re paying for whatever water we use at our parks and city hall, library, etc so
the general fund is just paying essentially for it’s usage.
Councilman Litsey: Okay, that’s fine.
Mayor Furlong: Any other thoughts or discussion? If not there’s a motion been made and
seconded.
Councilwoman Ernst: I’m sorry Mayor, I do have one other comment.
Mayor Furlong: Councilwoman Ernst.
Councilwoman Ernst: Councilman Litsey I would just like to say that what appears to be a
resentment towards the rest of the council to the fact that we did not vote in favor of raising the
levy to the highest point that we could, that the taxpayers would have to pay. For every expense
that comes up that we have to pay, will we have to more or less an expense onto the taxpayer.
To run this city you’re going to have to spend money. I mean it’s just a reality of life and I think
you already know that but truly it seems to me that this keeps coming up time and time again and
I would really suggest that we just move forward and I’m hoping that you can move forward
with us.
Councilman Litsey: Well I just want the council to be consistent. You know either do it one
way or the other but don’t mix. You know it’s okay on one side but not the other. I just want
you to be consistent and I never asked that the preliminary levy be set to the maximum amount.
I went with what staff’s proposal which they had recommended which wasn’t a maximum
amount but it did support some infrastructure. It did support continuing a plan in the law
enforcement in terms of adding an additional officer and it did support not having to lay
somebody off, which we’re going to be facing now. Putting a face to that person and feeling like
Scrooge I guess this time of year because we’re going to be letting somebody go, which I think is
unnecessary and we could have looked at other ways to use that person but so I’m just asking for
consistency and not playing these games of saying this is a fee and this is a tax. Let’s just be
honest with people. A tax is a tax or a fee. I mean you’ve got to pay for it one way or the other
so let’s be consistent is all I’m saying.
Councilwoman Ernst: And to your point, I think we are being consistent.
Mayor Furlong: Any other discussion on the motion? Hearing none we’ll proceed with the vote.
Councilwoman Tjornhom moved, Councilwoman Ernst seconded that the City Council
adopts the attached ordinance amending Chapter 4, Chanhassen City Code License,
Permit and Administrative Fees for 2010. All voted in favor, except Councilman Litsey
who opposed, and the motion carried with a vote of 4 to 1.
24
Chanhassen City Council – December 14, 2009
CONSIDER ADOPTION OF THE 2010 BUDGET AND CAPITAL IMPROVEMENT
PROGRAM.
Greg Sticha: Good evening.
Councilman McDonald: Before you do that, isn’t there any.
Mayor Furlong: Councilman McDonald, is there something?
Councilman McDonald: Isn’t there an item on the agenda before that for any unfinished
business?
Todd Gerhardt: There isn’t any.
Councilman McDonald: There isn’t any? Okay.
Mayor Furlong: Okay. Let’s go to a staff report please. Thank you.
Greg Sticha: Good evening again Mayor and Council. Last week city staff and council held an
annual meeting for presenting the 2010 budget. I’m going to at one point here briefly go through
the power point presentation for those this evening that may not have had the opportunity to see
it last week. To get the information one more time real quickly. This evening what we’ll be
attempting to doing is passing a 2010 budget, levy and CIP. The budget is for the general fund
and special revenue funds. The levy is for all levies at the city. General fund, debt levies and in
this case our sealcoating levy. And the CIP we had a discussion on in our last week’s work
session meeting to discuss the CIP document itself. We’ve reviewed that document with council.
That document totals $59 million dollars for the next 5 years. Of that $59 million, a substantial
portion of that is not funded with city dollars, and is not funded with city tax dollars. They’re
funded from dollars from other agencies so I just want to make that clear as a part of passing the
resolution later this evening that that $59 million dollars in large part is not funded with city tax
levy dollars. With that I’m going to quickly go through the public budget meeting presentation
that we had last week to give those an opportunity who are listening this evening for the first
time, exactly what we discussed. The budget process starts early in the year. We start having
discussions with City Council as early as June. In July our department directors submit budgets
to the city manager and myself at which time we review those and bring those together in a
document for your review in August. We had a couple budget meetings in August this year to
review the preliminary budget numbers that we saw at that point in time and set a preliminary
th
levy which we set in September. We set that at our September 14 meeting. In October we held
detailed budget meetings to discuss the general fund budget in detail. I went through the budget
department by department for council’s review. Last week we held a public budget meeting to
give the public the ability to comment on that budget. And then this evening we’ll be adopting
that final budget levy and CIP. The expenditures in regards to the general fund budget for 2009
versus 2010 are presented here. There’s a 3.1% decrease in total expenditures. The reason for
this decrease we’ll get to in a minute but it’s primarily driven by the reduction in revenues, in
particular permit revenues that we’re anticipating for 2010. The total budget for 2010 is
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Chanhassen City Council – December 14, 2009
proposed at $9,557,400. The previous year was $9,859,100. Revenues match the expenditures
in total. Property taxes, licenses and permits you’ll notice is the most substantial change from
the previous year’s budget. Due to development changes over the last year and into next year
we’re anticipating that permit revenue again will be down from what we have seen in years
previous to 2009. One item was added as a revenue under charges for services and we discussed
it again in this work session earlier tonight, a charge for an administrative charge for 5% for
utility cost on projects, on engineering for projects related to utilities was added as part of the
2010 budget. That cost pays for engineering services that our staff puts in for, for the utility
projects. In previous years we had an outside consultant doing it. Do those services and this
year’s budget we’re, and for 2009 as well, we had staff do the engineering services in house.
Otherwise for the most part the other revenue line item budgets stayed relatively flat from the
previous year. Taking a look at our general fund expenditure history over the last 7 years, you’ll
notice the decrease from 2009 to 10 and otherwise a relatively flat or standard increase from year
to year. Anywhere from 0 to 5%, depending on the year. Each of those years and those budgets,
the increases that might have happened in those particular years, there were certainly factors that
were behind each of them. We’re probably not going to get into those this evening but what did,
or what factored the change in the 2010 budget? Total expenditures decreased by 3%. Some
other items that affected the budget, we did not account for a cost of living or wage increase for
the 2010 budget. All the other expenditure line items for the most part were kept flat from the
previous years. In order to balance the budget for 2010 one of the adjustments we did have to
make was lower the transfer for roads from $150,000 down to $50,000. One full time equivalent
employee was eliminated in the 2010 budget and again, permit revenue was reduced. The levies
themselves, I like to look at the levies in a couple categories. First you take a look at the first
line of the general fund levy and the third line of the sealcoating levy. The change in those levies
from 2009 to 2010, in total was approximately about $140,000. The amount of new tax in
regards to new construction we had and taxable values in the city in regards to new construction
we had in 2000, for tax year 2010 was about $140,000 so that was offset by the new growth that
we had in 2010. The capital replacement levy was the same. The other levies are all debt levies.
You’ll notice two new levies up there. One for Audubon Road, which we discussed earlier this
evening, and public works facility which was built this last year. First bond payment will be due
in 2010. If you look at all of those debt levies, and on the next screen you’ll notice the park
referendum levy in 2010 came off the books. But if you add up all those debt levies, from 2009
to 2010 there was no change essentially. The levies got shifted from levies that came off the
books to now new debt levies that were added. The total levy increase was $138,000 or 1.38%.
As I mentioned just a few minutes ago that is the new growth or we had for tax year 2010. So
how does this affect the average homeowner in Chanhassen? I have six examples of parcels
within the city. These are actual Truth in Taxation statements that were sent out to our residents.
The majority of homes actually saw a decrease in value in 2010. Somewhere in the
neighborhood of 1 1/2 to 2 percent was about the average. As you can take a look at each of the
different level value of homes and the corresponding decrease in their property tax bill in regards
to the city’s portion of their property tax. At the higher the level of their home decrease in value,
the more they saw a decrease in their property tax bill. The one anomaly there is parcel number
6. That property saw a substantial increase in it’s value, thus resulting in an increase in it’s city
portion of it’s property tax bill. Our recommendation for this evening is to adopt a tax levy and
budget as presented within staff’s memo, adopting the same levy that we set at our preliminary
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Chanhassen City Council – December 14, 2009
levy in September of $10,213,190 and total general fund expenditures of $9,557,400. That’s all I
have.
Mayor Furlong: Okay, thank you. Any questions for staff? No questions? Thank you. Bring it
to council for comments and thoughts, or a motion.
Councilwoman Ernst: I’ll make a motion.
Mayor Furlong: Councilwoman Ernst.
Councilwoman Ernst: I make a motion we adopt the resolution establishing the 2010 final levy
at $10,213,190 and approve total general fund expenditures in the amount of $9,557,400. It also
approves the CIP for 2010 to 2014 in the total amount of $59,933,650.
Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Is there a second?
Councilwoman Tjornhom: Second.
Mayor Furlong: Made and seconded.
Councilman Litsey: I’d like a chance to comment.
Mayor Furlong: Of course. Discussion on the motion. Councilman Litsey.
Councilman Litsey: Yeah I just, a few things and I’ve said some of them before but I’m not
obviously pleased with the way the budget process went again and I guess you know the first
time you know fool me once and shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. I should have
paid more attention to the fact that the same shenanigans were going to be followed this year. I
went through the budget process that we were going to set an arbitrarily low preliminary levy
before hearing all the facts and before we had a chance to hear from department heads and so
forth, and you know maybe in the end it would have come to this number but the whole thing is
process and also ethics in my opinion in terms of how this budget process tracked once again. I
was led to believe earlier this year that we would have ample opportunity to hear from people
and weigh what they had to say in terms of staff and so forth and that never materialized in time
because once the preliminary levy was set so low, or at an arbitrary number, there was no
opportunity to go anywhere from that number but down and it was locked in so that’s one point
I’d like to make. The other is, we’re abandoning what we had set out a few years ago in terms of
law enforcement. In terms of staffing that we had committed to that we would be continuing that
plan over a period of years with 2010 being kind of the reaching where we were trying to get at
least in the, I think we had about a 2 or 3 year plan initially where we wanted to go with staffing.
We certainly haven’t achieved that benchmark. In fact the couple recommendations that came
from the sheriff’s department, or the recommendations that did, it took into account quite a few
factors but ideally the sheriff’s contract committee had said that they’d like to you know achieve
a .8 FTE in terms of deputies. We’re not at that level yet. Right now we have 15 deputies. If
you go by the State statistics and so forth, we should be at 34 deputies. If you look at the
International Chiefs of Police formula we should be at 21 deputies. If you look at the sheriff’s
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Chanhassen City Council – December 14, 2009
contract committee, what they recommended, we should be at 20 deputies. Somewhere that
averages out to about 25 deputies and right now we’re at 15 deputies so I’ve looked at some of
the statistics the sheriff’s department has provided too. I noticed that our emergency or critical
calls that our response time has gone up, which is concerning. But on the reverse side we’ve
seen some good trends in terms of crime rate and stuff going down and I think that can be
attributed a lot to the fact that we did stick with a plan. That we did increase our staffing and that
we’re planning to do that next year and now we’ve disregarded that in the levy that’s before us to
vote on and obviously we don’t have much choice now because the preliminary levy was set so
low. Or artificially low in my opinion. And actually to add that additional person next year
would cost the average valued home, the homeowner in an average valued home, correct me if
I’m wrong on this but about 50 cents a month more to add that additional position and yet we
were willing to, to pass along an increase in utilities and that was okay but we’re not willing to,
for less than a cup of coffee a month, add an additional person in the law enforcement side of
things in terms of protecting the people here and that’s one of our primary duties is public safety
and obviously we’ve fallen short of meeting our own benchmark that we adopted a while back.
I’m also, I have a concern about letting a full time person go from city hall. I still haven’t heard,
you know there’s no face to that person right now. I’d like to know what the plans are with that
before we let somebody go. Perhaps we could have used him in some other area until things
picked up in other areas or whatever, but I’m still not real clear on where that’s at. And we’re
also not transferring money into our road fund that we had planned to do, which we’re
admittedly looking at a deficit a few years down the road and so we’re abandoning our
commitment to our pavement management plan too by not levying appropriately. The scenario
that staff had proposed in setting the preliminary levy, which may have changed but initially at
least that would have given us some wiggle room to consider all these things, would have on the
average valued home at about a $14 increase or about a, a little over a buck a month to support
infrastructure, critical services. Many of the things we talked about on the utility side. It’s
important to have infrastructure and contingency and so forth and we haven’t done that here.
The people that I’ve talked to in the city, the majority of them when I talked about the levy and
what was appropriate they said if you did all, you know your due diligence in other areas, which
we have you know with freezing salaries and we’ve made cuts in a lot of other areas. In doing
all that if you still feel that in order to do the things that I just mentioned it’s going to cost me
you know about a buck more a month, I’m willing to do that. You know forego a cup of coffee
once a month or whatever to do that, I think it’s important to keep the quality of life up in this
city and so forth. And as we, as we nickel and dime down to the point of there’s no wiggle room
for anything and we’re living right on the edge in terms of what the amount of money that’s
coming in in terms of expenses, that’s only going to get perhaps worst down the road where we
really are going to put ourselves in the position where we’re going to have to levy a significant
amount just to keep pace, and right now if we just do a little bit at a time, there would be a lot
less of an impact on the average homeowner in the city so I see down the road that there’s going
to be some significant increases to make up. All the cutting and so forth, that’s been done and
people are not going to like that. I also brought up that perhaps we could, as leaders of this
community and so forth, step up to the plate and at least symbolically show that we’re in this
together with staff and other people too by perhaps deferring our council payments pay next year
or at least cutting it back. Cutting out meals. You know how does that sit with this person we’re
going to say well, you know we’re going to be laying you off now but bring on the meals at these
work sessions because we still need to eat. You know where’s our priorities here? It’s just
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Chanhassen City Council – December 14, 2009
backwards. I really feel bad for the person that we’re going to have to let go, and I don’t think
that was necessary so I think that this whole process has been concerning to me. Even more so
this year. I think people haven’t been forthright in how the process was going to track this year
for the budget, and I’ll be darn sure next year that I pay closer attention to the shenanigans that
go on.
Mayor Furlong: Other thoughts or comments on the budget.
Councilman McDonald: Well you know.
Mayor Furlong: Councilman McDonald.
Councilman McDonald: It’s tough to let all that fly by because in order to do so it’s almost as
though you know you would agree with all the points you made there and I just have to say I
can’t agree with all those points. I mean as I get back to the whole thing about the water and the
taxes and you know what’s a tax and what’s a fee, you’re right. A fee is an increase but again as
I said earlier, a fee is controlled. You have some control over that. You can cut back on water
usage and that’s part of the reason we put fees on water is to encourage people to conserve you
know that natural resource. The other things, I mean you go down through, okay the ethics. I
think that that’s a terrible thing to levy at a council such as this because I just don’t believe that
anyone’s been back handed about the approach to the way that this was done. It’s just we have a
difference of opinion. I voted with you in the beginning because I wanted to make sure that as
we went through the process, and I knew how that was going to work, that if there were
questions that yes, you know maybe we would have to do something and not have to make a
hard decision. But you know my point did not prevail there and I’m fine with going forward
with the way it was. The feedback that we got from the community was that they did not want
us to raise taxes. I have not heard of anyone yet that has come forward and talked about you
know raising taxes. I went to the Night Out. We talked about the policing services. Do not get
any complaints about the policing services or the fact that we need to increase it. I think if you
look around, all the communities within the Twin Cities area, law enforcement is being hit. City
of Minneapolis today just finally announced they’re going to be laying off officers. We’re not
laying off officers. We’re just saying that we’re at a level to keep you know stuff on a plateau
without raising costs. I think that’s responsible. The thing about the individual that we’re
looking at the position of eliminating, yes. I feel very badly for doing that but I also have to look
at all the residents that are out there that have been in that same position. They’ve lost their jobs.
It’s a fact of life. This city is no different than any business. We have to live within a budget
and we have to make ends meet and if that means that we grow too fast or get too big, it’s up to
us as council to reign ourselves in and I think that’s what’s been happening here. Yes, it is a
shame that someone is you know not working but I’m hoping that the economy turns around and
you know we can again hire someone, hire that person back. The road fund, I don’t see how
we’re abandoning anything there because again it is something that kind of changes on a year to
year basis and yes, it will get funded in years when things are good and it’s probably going to get
hit in years when things are bad. The cutting of salaries and the food thing, that’s kind of hitting
below the belt. I mean truthfully. We don’t make that much money in this position the way it is
and you know that. I think I earn my money. I think everyone on this council earns their money,
what little there is. I put a lot more time into this job than almost I do my day job so I feel that
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Chanhassen City Council – December 14, 2009
the residents get more than their money’s worth. If I didn’t feel that way, yeah I would agree
with you. You know there would be some basis for that. But to continue to hit the council for
something such as that, I think is just, it’s petty and I wish you would move on from that. There
are other things to look at. Yes, we need to make hard decisions. Yes, you ought to hold our
feet to the fire if we’re not making those hard decisions but I think this council is so I just, you
know I’ve sat and I’ve listened to this for quite a few weeks and I really haven’t gotten into it
because I understand your frustration with all this but you know when you continue to make this
personal against individual members of the council, I think you go too far. If you want to say
we’re not making correct decisions, then base it upon that and what we can do is have an open
and full debate on those issues. But to come back and say that we’re not acting ethically, I mean
we’re having public meetings for Christ sake. People come in here. We’ve asked people’s
opinion. I read the newspaper. I’m not seeing any support for your position about raising taxes.
Yes, it’s just a cup of coffee and we’ve now gotten money down to the point where we look at it
in terms of coffee but it’s a cup of coffee here. It’s a cup of coffee at the State. It’s a cup of
coffee at the school district. It’s a cup of coffee for all of these government entities and there are
so many of them between the individual and the federal government that it just gets, it gets mind
boggling at times so anything we can do at our level, if it is only a cup of coffee, I think we’re
doing a damn good job. So that’s my only comment to all that and as Councilwoman Ernst has
said, I hope we can just move forward from this. It’s been a very trying time for I think
everybody but I think we need to just move forward.
Councilman Litsey: The ethics comment, that was specific to the budget process. I don’t know
if you agree with this or not Councilman McDonald but when we discussed a time table for the
budget, it was discussed that we would have ample time to make decisions as we moved along
and leading one to believe that the preliminary levy would be set at such a level that we could
have some wiggle room to make those decisions. That didn’t occur. If I knew that it was going
to happen again the same way, and specific to comments that the mayor had made about us
having an opportunity to do that along the way, I would have insisted, whether it would have
happened or not, that we heard from department heads much sooner. That we heard from the
key people, staff people and so forth so that we could hear all that before we set the preliminary
levy but that didn’t happen and that’s what I’m talking about the ethical comment in terms of I
just didn’t maybe ethics may perhaps be a little strong of a word, but I don’t think that the
process that was laid out was followed in the spirit that it was discussed.
Councilman McDonald: Okay, well see I would take issue then with the word ethics because I
do not think anyone did anything in a malfeasant manner. Maybe we have a disagreement on the
process. I mean what we should do is discuss how we go about doing this and that’s a legitimate
discussion to have going forward, but to throw ethics in there, the connotation is, is that things
are happening in the back room and that you’re not aware of them and I do not know of anything
like that going on.
Councilman Litsey: No. No, I don’t think connotation is that I brought that up a year, not just
this year. I brought it up last year that I was concerned about the budget process and that we
were going to redefine how we did it and so we talked about it and it was made clear that we
needed to get information sooner to make good decisions and so forth, and then it was put off
down the road. What I assumed was we were going to hear from law enforcement. We were
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Chanhassen City Council – December 14, 2009
going to hear from other department heads and so forth earlier on, and then it was decided no,
we’ll do that later in the year, but that we’ll still have ample time to make decisions and so forth.
And so I guess you can call it what it is. Is that ethics? Well I think ethics is owning up to what
was discussed and to the spirit of what’s discussed and I don’t think that occurred so I guess we
can, we can call it what you want but I don’t think that, call it then the spirit of what we
discussed wasn’t honored and that, I call it shenanigans because I think there, you know there
was no process up to that point when the preliminary levy was set that we could really base a lot
of good decisions on because we hadn’t heard, you know the people that run the city on a daily
basis hadn’t even been really heard from yet and so we put that after the fact is what I’m saying.
In terms of law enforcement, our staffing levels are so low. Other agencies may be heading in
that direction. We’re already there. We have no place else to go. I mean if you cut from here,
you’re going to be looking at some significant problems down the road and so you know and
look at overtime and stuff too. You know there’s some, I think the question was raised today by
another council member about overtime in the budget and stuff, well that goes into staffing and
so forth. We’ve got a really good plan that we adopted in terms of where we needed to go with
the law enforcement in this community. It still hasn’t hit the benchmark of .8. .08 actually. In
terms of where we need to go or .8 I guess. I’m sorry. But at least it’s getting us closer to that
benchmark. That’s still way below where everybody else is so you know we’re not making the
grade when it comes to that and some of the other things. The road fund, we’ve already talked
about that might be going to a deficit. Probably will go into a deficit so we could ignore that
now as part of the levy but somebody’s going to have to make that up down the road because
you’ve got to have decent roads, or at least you have to have roads and they’ve got to get plowed
and they’ve got to get fixed and so forth and this budget potentially doesn’t support that down
the road. So I am disappointed in this council. I do feel like the things we discuss sometimes are
kind of done in the back room when we’re in work sessions and they’re not done out here in
front of the public and the camera and so forth. Yeah, work sessions are public but it’s hard
enough getting people to come to a council meeting. How many people have actually come up
to you and said don’t raise taxes out of a city of 24,000 plus people? Maybe 10.
Councilwoman Tjornhom: Could I answer that Mr. Mayor?
Mayor Furlong: Councilwoman Tjornhom.
Councilwoman Tjornhom: Yeah I had a resident that sent an email out thanking me for not
raising their taxes and she sent out to 200 people and I heard from them.
Councilman Litsey: Now what percentage is that of?
Councilwoman Tjornhom: You know I’m not going to tell you what percentage is Bryan. I
don’t know what percentage it is but how many people told you to go ahead and raise their
taxes? They want their taxes raised.
Councilman Litsey: They didn’t say raise their taxes. They said.
Councilwoman Tjornhom: That’s what you’re going to be doing.
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Chanhassen City Council – December 14, 2009
Councilman Litsey: A few dollars. They’ve said that if, if it will support the things we’ve talked
about and we’ve done our due diligence then they’re willing to go along with that because they
feel law enforcement is an important function and realize that our staffing isn’t where it needs to
be. In terms of roads, if they want good roads. You know our salary freeze is going to have to
be made up somewhere down the road. We’re looking at potentially passing along a huge
increases to our residents down the road because we’re not willing to just increase it a little bit
just to, it’s not even maintaining the scenario that staff recommended, wasn’t maintaining
actually status quo. There was less money going into the road fund and there was some other
accounting shifts that had to be made to even accommodate that so we’re not even keeping pace
with current levels and to say you know, and in terms of council salary. I didn’t get into this for
the money. In fact I think one of the harder jobs in this city in terms of commissions is the
Planning Commission and they get paid absolutely nothing and I think we get some really good
people stepping up to the plate to do it so I’m not in it for the money. Yeah maybe there isn’t a
whole lot of pay that we get but you know I’m willing to do it for nothing if it’s going to help out
here because I got into this for the greater good and to help people out. I would like to, if I
could, I don’t know that there’s a way to do this, instead of eating at our work sessions, donating
that food to a, the money or the dollar equivalent to food shelves. People that really do need the
food, so I mean I’m willing to do it because I didn’t get into this for the money. I got into this to
serve the community and if times are decent and the community wants to give us a little bit of
money to, in consideration of that, that’s fine but everyone else on this council is saying that,
correct me if I’m wrong, that even a dollar increase in the levy on the average homeowner is too
much.
Mayor Furlong: Okay, other comments. Councilwoman Tjornhom.
Councilwoman Tjornhom: May I speak in turn now?
Mayor Furlong: Yes.
Councilwoman Tjornhom: I’m sorry that I was interrupting Councilman Litsey the last time.
That was not the way we do things here.
Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Councilwoman Tjornhom.
Councilwoman Tjornhom: You know Bryan in the paper over the past couple years you’ve
called me irresponsible and arbitrary and now I’m unethical and I’m full of shenanigans and I’ve
never, ever addressed it.
Councilman Litsey: Yes you have.
Councilwoman Tjornhom: No I have never addressed it publicly in the paper. Ever. I have not.
And I’m not going to, you know it is what it is. What I’m going to call you is tenacious. I think
that we’ve had these discussions over and over again. Talking about these issues. It’s not going
to change anything and so I’m not quite sure what your point is tonight except to get your point
across and I think you have. I think we’ve all heard you and understand you but what it comes
down to is I’m just going to speak for myself right now so the public knows my philosophy of
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Chanhassen City Council – December 14, 2009
why I’m on this council and my philosophy of government. I’m a council member because I
don’t want people spending my money irresponsibly and I think just being able to go ahead and
raise a levy because you can is irresponsible. I think there has to be checks and balances with the
budget and if it’s needed, it’s needed. If it’s not, it’s gone and I think that’s what we’ve done
consistently and every time we’ve had a budget discussion with you in the last 2 years you have
wanted the scenario 1 and you’d like to even raise it even higher so we have a different
philosophy about how to spend taxpayers money and that’s all it comes down to. If the sheriff
tells me that he needs more deputies. If he needs more equipment, whatever he needs, I’m going
to listen to that and respect it because he’s going to present it to me in a respectful tone and he is
going to come with me with numbers that are accurate and I’m going to respond to that. Your
approach doesn’t do anything for me and so you know I’m hoping when this is all done at the
end of the evening the mayor will actually tell the residents the good things that have happened
in this city over this year because I don’t want this meeting to end on this tone. Enough is
enough. You know we’ve heard you. I don’t know who agrees with you and who doesn’t agree
with you. I don’t agree with you. I’m on the taxpayer’s side and I always will be and I will not
raise their taxes just because I can.
Councilman Litsey: And that’s totally distorting my position. I have not, in fact this year we
had several scenarios presented to us and I said I was willing to support staff’s recommendation
in terms of setting the preliminary budget. That was not the most expensive. We have done our
due diligence in terms of we’re freezing salaries. I went along with that in terms of you know
we’ve got to do that. I’ve gone along with the other things that we’ve done at city hall in terms
of doing that, and but I did think we needed to be realistic in that we don’t want to get caught in
the future where we have to raise taxes so much to make up for poor decisions in terms of just, I
think most, the people I’ve talked to. I don’t know who you’ve talked to but the people I’ve
talked to said I’d rather you increase it just a little bit at a time than have to do it a lot later on
and so I’m not, I’m a fiscal conservative. I don’t think that you should just send, spend money
for the sake of money but I’m also a realist and I also understand that as I was elected to you
know represent people in this community on this council so that they got the services that I’ve
heard that they want to receive and they do value the quality of life in this community and what
all I’ve asked for in this, first of all the preliminary levy is more process orientated. That there’s
enough in the preliminary levy so that if we do further down the road in the process come up
with some issues in terms of funding and so forth and we feel it’s important to continue those
services, that we can do that. Now when it comes to this end of the process perhaps then we
have better data. We have better information and this might be the right choice to make at that
particular point in time. And I’m not going to get into, I’ll send you tomorrow if you’d like the
article in which you name called and so forth but I don’t want to get into that. I’m just saying the
reality of it is, is that if you set a preliminary tax levy before you hear all the information, to me
that’s arbitrary because that’s backwards. That you should have all the available information you
can. You should hear from the people that have to run the city on a daily basis and once you
hear all that information, then you make your valid, you make your decisions based on credible
information and listening to your constituents and so forth. It’s totally unfair to say that I just
want to raise taxes for the sake of taxes. I’m looking, if you say raising taxes for the sake of
raising taxes is adding another position that the sheriff did support, and that he recommended to
us, that the sheriff’s committee, contract committee has recommended, and I believe you were on
board with, we haven’t completed that plan and we’re not, we’re not doing due diligence in just
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Chanhassen City Council – December 14, 2009
abandoning it at this point in time. So you know for 50 cents more, you know 50 cents here. 50
cents there. Yeah, perhaps it adds up to you know maybe 2 cups of coffee a money or something
like that. But I just think it’s realistic to take a look at the budget process as just that. A process.
It’s a methodical process where we hear information and as we get closer to the end of the year
we have better data in which to support our decisions. And we didn’t do that again this year and
so do I feel slighted? Yeah. If the process had been followed that I was led to believe would be
this year, which wasn’t the previous year and we were going to correct this year, and I know
Councilmember McDonald had the same problem with, I don’t think we would be talking the
way we’re talking right now because there would have been a process followed that made sense
and allowed for some decisions to be made along the way and so I.
Mayor Furlong: Alright.
Councilman Litsey: No, I’m going to keep talking until I feel like I have said what I needed to
say.
Mayor Furlong: As long as there are new points please.
Councilman Litsey: Well I’m just responding to what’s being said here and I just, I just think
it’s very important that this, that this council take to heart what’s been said because you know
it’s so easy to discount it and say you know all these other things but you know.
Councilwoman Ernst: Bryan in all due respect, do you mind if I interrupt you for a minute?
Councilman Litsey: Yes I do but go ahead.
Councilwoman Ernst: Can you accept the fact that the rest of the council did not agree with the
direction you wanted to go? Question number one.
Councilman Litsey: Obviously at the end of the day it’s majority rules.
Councilwoman Ernst: Question number two. Can we move on? Can you move on?
Councilman Litsey: This is a process where I think it’s important that I express my opinion and
that this not all be decided in a work sessions and then neatly packaged so that we can present it
as a unified front here. I think that the public is good to hear dialogue back and forth.
Councilwoman Ernst: I think the public is very much aware of the fact that you don’t agree with
the rest of the council on this…
Councilman Litsey: But I think it’s important, excuse me. I interrupted you so go ahead.
Councilwoman Ernst: No, go ahead. I was done.
Councilman Litsey: No, I think it’s important that the council, or the public hears this kind of
dialogue that goes on and that we not always neatly package things in work sessions, which I
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Chanhassen City Council – December 14, 2009
consider behind the scenes because it’s hard to get people, like I said, to come to work sessions
and you know there’s a value to work sessions and I’m not going to go down that road again
whether you know, we’ve already talked that through. I certainly think we should do more on
these open kind of sessions but you know it’s, I think it’s trivializing what I’ve said and it’s just
discounting what I say and say oh you’re just in favor of spending more, more, more, more.
That’s not the case at all. I’m looking at it from a realistic standpoint and providing services.
When we sit here and say that we’re not going to be, we’re going to be providing the same
amount of services as we’ve always provided. Well that’s just not true and it’s not, it’s not
staying true to some of the commitments we’ve made in the past in terms of our commitment to
the law enforcement community. The people that we ask to serve us on a daily basis and it’s not
fair to you know the public works in terms of the road, managing the road fund and I mean I
could go on and on and I won’t on that so. So yeah, I feel very ganged up on by this council at
times. I feel very, like my opinions are discounted. I look at you know we’re talking about next
month having our key strategic plan again and going through that and you know whenever I
bring stuff up, you know I don’t get any consideration for any of the ideas that I bring up. They
just get buried, like the social host ordinance and a lot of other things.
Mayor Furlong: Let’s stay on topic.
Councilman Litsey: Well no, I’m just saying it’s all part of a process and a disrespect to
somebody in a minority position and so, so yeah. I do feel, I feel that this council has, by the
way they’ve you know treated me in terms of my positions and discounting them and not taking
them seriously at times and so forth, it does leave a taste in your mouth and I don’t like that. I’m
an upbeat person. I run an organization. I manage an organization that stays within budget. Has
to live within their means. I know what that’s all about. I’ve had a lot of budgeting experience
and so forth, but I also want to realistic on what we are going to be providing with these kind of
budgets and I do feel there’s inconsistencies. In one area we’re willing to raise things and
another we’re not so with that I’ll leave it.
Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Any other thoughts or comments? My comments are similar.
There’s a variety of items discussed. This council’s responsible for providing for services as we
see fit. Often that results in trying to find a balance between different competing interests. With
regard to the budget the largest competing interest is, is if there is such a thing, is the taxes paid
and the services provided. That’s where the balance we try to find. With the, with this budget,
with the road capital improvement plan for roads that was discussed and adopted earlier this
evening with, with the CIP which we’ll be considering here. It’s part of the motion that we’re
discussing. All this relates to long term planning and planning is just that. It’s trying to lay out a
direction of where we think we’re going to go. Times have changed and they’ve changed rather
dramatically over the last few years. The issue with regard to our police services, we’re not
reducing any positions on our contract with Carver County. We are not increasing.
Unfortunately that, not unfortunately. That to me is not a no, never. It’s a no, not now. To try to
balance where we are. Calls for service are down. The demand for that is down. The response
time was mentioned. I think it went from 3.8 minutes to 3.9 minutes. I mean it’s less than a few
seconds. And if we want to look at that, we can. I think what we need to do is look at the whole
picture and what the council has always tried to do, and we’re going to have differences of
opinion as to where that balance is and that’s what the debate is about and I think that’s what the
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process is about. The process that we started through the budget, we talked about that and as I
recall everybody agreed to what that process was and you know within any preliminary levy,
expenses can be modified and moved to fit within that. We can go down if we want to. Here
we’re not doing that. I think that what we’re, what this council has done and what we’re all
going through and what cities across the state and across the country are going through is the
pains associated with changing directions. When we drive down the road and we think we’re
going somewhere and the road’s closed because there’s a detour. We’ve got to take the detour
and I think that’s what we’re doing here. I think as growth returns, as demand for services
return, then this council and future council will provide those services that they feel are
appropriate to the appropriate level to meet the demands so, that’s what we’re doing here. I
know there are differences of opinion with regard to the process. I think we followed the
process. If the result is different or if steps along the way were different than what people
expected, the simple fact is, is I think we did follow the process. We had to establish a
preliminary levy. I think we did that in open debate and we have gathered the information from
the departments as part of the process that we’ve lined up and we did that in the order that we
thought we were going to, and here we are so I think we’ve, this is not a budget that I think
anybody’s happy with but it is a realistic and practical and responsible budget and so I will
support the budget and certainly if there’s any other comments, otherwise we can proceed to a
vote.
Councilman Litsey: I don’t understand how you can say that we followed the process. That’s
why I wish we had done it in a City Council meeting instead of a work session so there was a
record of it. Because what was talked about earlier on in the process was not, in my opinion,
followed. And all I’m expressing is my opinions obviously.
Mayor Furlong: I understand.
Councilman Litsey: But.
Mayor Furlong: As am I.
Councilman Litsey: Yes, and obviously one other council member felt the same way back then
and to say well let’s move on, well if you feel like the process wasn’t followed it’s a little hard to
move on. I mean so, I mean that’s where I’m coming from. So people say well let go. It’s just
trivializing any validity to what I’m trying to say and that’s what this council tends to do. If
somebody’s in a minority position and they don’t agree with it, they just kind of discount it and
move on, or snicker or they just kind of you know make, like has been done here tonight,
expressions and so forth. Just trivializing what I’m saying and not even giving me any kind of
respect in terms of having an opposing position so you know when you start throwing things
around, you know not being disrespectful and I don’t know if it’s been caught on camera or not
tonight but the expressions here were not respectful to what I’ve been saying.
Mayor Furlong: Okay.
Councilman Litsey: By some. By some. Not all.
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Chanhassen City Council – December 14, 2009
Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Any other comments or thoughts?
Councilwoman Ernst: I would just like to say Bryan, I was the sole vote that opposed the budget
2 years in a row but you know what? I respected this council for their decision and they
respected mine. It didn’t mean that we had to agree but we can respect each other for it and I
would like to see the same.
Councilman Litsey: So you haven’t heard what I’ve said because I said I could get to that point
if the process had been respected.
Councilwoman Ernst: Everyone had an opportunity to talk about the process, as the mayor said.
Councilman Litsey: I did but by the time that when things got set up down the road, then things
changed and it was too late. Once the preliminary levy’s set at that level, it can’t go up any
further from that and so you’re locked in and that wasn’t, certainly wasn’t the process that I
thought was, and like I said one other council member here felt the same way so it’s not just me
seeing it from my own viewpoint but.
Mayor Furlong: Okay. Any other thoughts or comments? Councilman McDonald.
Councilman McDonald: No, I think we should just go ahead and vote.
Mayor Furlong: Alright. If there are no other thoughts or comments, we’ll proceed with the
vote. The motion’s been made and seconded.
Resolution #2009-99: Councilwoman Ernst moved, Councilwoman Tjornhom seconded
that the City Council adopts a resolution establishing the 2010 final levy at $10,213,190,
approves total general fund expenditures of $9,557,400, and the CIP for 2010-2014 in the
total amount of $59,933,650. All voted in favor, except Councilman Litsey who opposed,
and the motion carried with a vote of 4 to 1.
CONSIDER APPROVAL OF 2010 CONTRACT FOR POLICE SERVICES WITH
CARVER COUNTY.
Mayor Furlong: Lieutenant Olson is here this evening. I see we have Commander Enevold as
well in the audience. Thank you for coming Commander.
Lt. Jim Olson: Thank you and good evening. The sheriff apologizes for not being here tonight.
He had back surgery on Wednesday and was hoping to be here but was feeling a little bit under
the weather and ended up going home early today so, if he is watching on TV I’d like, hope you
feel better sheriff. Today we’re going to be talking about policing in Chanhassen. Yesterday,
today and tomorrow. What we’ll be covering is we’ll look at crime trends and overall cost of
service in the city from 2006 to 2008. We will also compare 2009 to 2008 year to date and so
that will be through the month of November for both this year and last year just to compare the
two years. We’ll look at recent additions at the city that have had an impact on public safety.
We’ll do a little bit of a year in review where I’ll talk about a couple of things that have
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Chanhassen City Council – December 14, 2009
happened here in the city that are law enforcement related. I’m also going to cover efficiency
and effectiveness through technology. Sheriff Olson has always been very, it’s always been very
important for him, for us to move forward with technology. Technology can help us, can help
make us more efficient and also more effective. And then what’s ahead for 2010. The first slide
I have is a Part I and Part II crimes. Going from 2006 through this year. 2006 for Part I crimes,
we had 495. And then 2008 went to 391. In 2000, excuse me. 2008, 391 and 2009 so far
through the month of November we’re at 261 Part I crimes. Part II crimes, 2006 was 874. This
went down each year. In 2009 again year to date it’s 503. Excuse me, 2009 is 503. 2008 was
699 and that was for the entire year. For the total criminal that we’ve had, 2006 we had 1,369
and then through 2008, 1,090 and for 2009 764 Part II crimes. Crime rate per 100,000 and again
this is for the city of Chanhassen. 2006 our Part I crime rate, and a Part I crime rate again is for
the 100,000 and how we come up with that is number of crimes divided by population by
100,000. So our Part I crime rate was 2,070. For 2006 it went down to 1,610. For 2008 and
2009 year to date through November it was 1,070. Our Part II crime rate, 2006 was 3,660.
Through 2008 it’s 2,870 and then 2009 it’s 2,050. And then the combined crime rate is 5,730 for
2006 down to 4,480 through 2008 and then 2009 it has dropped even further to 3,120. Part I
crimes are the more serious crimes. Those include homicides, robberies, aggravated assaults,
arsons, thefts, thefts of vehicles and so on. Part II crime rate, or Part II crimes are the lesser
crimes. It includes DWI’s, disturbing the peace, those type of crimes. To compare with the rest
of Carver County, and I don’t have that up on the slide here. 2006 the Part I crime rate was
1,980 and then through 2008 1,570 for the Part I. For the Part II it was 4,379 for Part II. 2006
through 2008, 3,457 and then for the combined crime rate, 6,359. 2006 down to 5,027 through
2008. Our miscellaneous non-criminal calls. Those include accidents. Those include medicals,
fire calls, driving complaints, miscellaneous traffic calls. 2006 we had 1,200, or excuse me,
12,753 miscellaneous non-criminal calls and that went down to 11,733 for 2008. And then in
2009 through November we have 10,543. Next I want to talk a little bit about burglaries, thefts
and damage to property which are three of our more important types of crimes from a
community standpoint. 2006 we had 61 burglaries that occurred in the city. That’s down to 34
in 2008 so those have dropped quite a bit and 2009 through November we’re at 27, and we’ll talk
a little bit more about the burglaries later in the presentation. Our thefts, 2006 we had 401 and
each year that’s went down. Through 2008 we have 323. In year to date for 2009 we have 215
and then damage to property calls 2006, 279 and that went down to 200 through 2008 and 154
through 2009. So overall calls for service that we’ve had in the city, 2006 we had 14,122, and
that’s decreased to 12,823 through 2008 and through the month of November we’ve had 11,307
calls this year so far. Comparing 2006 to 2008, from each successive year, Part I crime has
decreased by 21% and our crime rate has decreased by 22% here in the city. Part II crime has
decreased by 20% and our crime rate has decreased by 22%. Miscellaneous non-criminal calls
have decreased by 8%. Overall calls for service have decreased by 10% and the overall crime
rate decreased by 22% and our calls for service, which were dependent on a deputies response
decreased by 12% in 2007 to 2008. I didn’t have those numbers for 2006. 2009 year to date
compared to 2008, and that’s through November for 2008 and 2009. Our Part I crimes decreased
by 28%. Our Part II crime has decreased by 22%. Our total criminal calls have decreased by
24%. Our miscellaneous non-criminal calls have decreased by 4% and our overall calls for
service have decreased by 6% from 2008 to 2009 through November for each year. Our traffic
related calls, and these are going to be accidents and miscellaneous traffic calls. 2006 we had
543 property damage accidents. Through 2008 we had 451 and 2009 accidents through
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Chanhassen City Council – December 14, 2009
November is at 340. Our personal injury accidents. 2006 we had 87 personal injury accidents
on our roads here in the city. 2008 we had dropped that by 20 down to 67 and this year so far
we’ve only had 33. And again that’s through November. Our fatalities that we’ve had here in
the city, we had 1 fatality in 2006 and we had 1 in 2009. Our miscellaneous traffic calls. 2006
we had 1,542 and through 2008 we’ve had, we had 1,349 and year to date for 2009 1,069.
Traffic stops and citations. Traffic stops for 2006 we had 4,220. 2008 we had 3,951 and through
the month of November, this year we’ve had 3,871 and that’s about 130-140 more than last year
through the month of November. Citations. 2006 we’ve had 3,499. 2008 down to 2,259 and
this year, year to date 1,797 and we’ve tried to do a, have a good balance between citations,
written warnings and verbal warnings with folks. What we’re trying to do is educate the public
and change behavior and that can be done, whether it be citation or whether it be through a
warning but that’s something we’ve tried to have a good balance on. Clearance rates for the city
of Chanhassen. 2006, and I need to probably to qualify this a little bit when I get done. 2006
we, 30.26 through 2008 we have a 31.32 clearance rate and 2009 41.81. We went back and
looked at our process for how we clear calls and we found some, a few discrepancies when we
sat down and took a good look at it. There were some things that were not getting cleared out
that should have, such as like runaways. We took a look at runaways. We had a 40% clearance
rate on our runaways in the city. But we don’t have 60% of our runaways that haven’t been, that
haven’t come back home or haven’t look located. Disturbing the peace. We had like a 30%, 30-
35% clearance rate on disturbing the peace. There was a lot of those calls that were going in that
were non-criminal in nature that we’re getting, records was coding as a crime. We sat down.
We’ve talked about that and that will be getting changed. The other thing that we’ve, that we
strive to do with the sheriff’s office is have, have very accurate numbers. Throughout you know,
throughout everything we do and we’re always trying to improve when we see some problems or
some issues with that. We also found, according to the UCR or Uniform Crime Reports
guidelines a case cannot be cleared out as cleared by arrest until there’s been a formal complaint
that’s been filed and our records department has not cleared any of those out until they’ve
actually gotten a copy of the formal complaint from the county attorney’s office. Another thing
that we found that we were missing was, if let’s say we had a theft that occurred here in the city
of Chanhassen and there was property that was found in Eden Prairie. The actual, either the
person will get charged with possession of stolen property in Hennepin, in Eden Prairie and our
records department would never get a copy of that complaint from the Hennepin County
Sheriff’s Office. Excuse me, Hennepin County Attorney’s Office. All of those were not getting
counted with our clearance rates. We’ll be getting that changed starting next year. Another
thing that we were finding reference clearance rates. I lost my train of thought here. Oh, the
other one that I was trying to think of was, it’s very important for the City, for the citizens in the
City of Chanhassen, for us to take reports from them from an identity theft standpoint regardless
of where those crimes occur at. So what records was doing was, let’s say we had an identity
theft that occurred here in Chanhassen but the actual crime happened in California. Technically
that’s not our crime. But we’ll take the report and what we should have been doing was
unfounding it here in Carver County and referring it to another agency because it’s actually a
California crime. Our records department was not clearing those out as I founded here so that
was also another crime that it looked like there was a crime that had occurred here without any
kind of a, without any kind of clearance at all. So any questions from a clearance rate
standpoint. I hope I explained myself okay.
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Chanhassen City Council – December 14, 2009
Councilman Litsey: Are those clearance rates internal Lieutenant or are those state clearance
rates? Do those come through the State Uniform Crime Report or are those clearance rates that
you’re tabulating internally?
Lt. Jim Olson: Well the clearance rates themselves are tabulated internally and then they’re
transferred over to the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension. The City of Chanhassen rates do not
go on the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension’s web site themselves so they were tabulated
internally.
Councilman Litsey: Internally. Okay, thank you.
Lt. Jim Olson: Correct. Another thing that we found, I did do some talking to auditors from the
Bureau of Criminal Apprehension and those numbers are not, are not audited at all. That they go
into the UCR. That go into the UCR are sent to the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension. There
are different departments throughout the state that have, all the way up to 100% clearance rate
throughout the state. There’s different ways that, there are guidelines but there’s different ways
that agencies will interrupt those guidelines and what they send in. Response time to high
priority calls. Our response times in minutes to those high priority calls increased in 2006 to
2008 by .18 minutes. The average response time is now 3.96 minutes so it is still under 4
minutes for high priority call. Some recent additions that we’ve had to the city of Chanhassen.
Chanhassen High School has come in and it’s had a bit of an impact with how we do business
and it’s certainly been a positive, positive for the city as a whole. From a law enforcement
st
standpoint we’ve had 45 calls for service overall since September 1 and 23 of those calls were
handled by the school resource officer. A number of those calls would have happened at
different events at the after school, at the high school such as football games and so on. The
school has been very good about hiring off duty contract officers to work those so those off duty
officers would have handled all of those calls there. I don’t have a number for how many of
those were but overall we have not had a big impact law enforcement wise for the officers that
are on the road handling calls at the high school.
Mayor Furlong: Lieutenant Olson, a question on that.
Lt. Jim Olson: Sure.
Mayor Furlong: How does a call for service at the high school get initiated? Is it a 911 call or is
it, if it’s the liaison officer or one of the other security officers actually witness something, does
that create a call for service?
Lt. Jim Olson: Yes.
Mayor Furlong: How do those calls for services get generated?
Lt. Jim Olson: Yes to both of those. It can come from a 911 call. It can come from, let’s say we
have a theft of a iPod that gets reported to the school resource officer. The school resource
officer will generate a call for service and take that call and investigate it from there. He’s
investigating all calls that occur within the high school themselves.
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Chanhassen City Council – December 14, 2009
Mayor Furlong: So it could be initiated action similar to a deputy witnessing a traffic violation.
If they see something they would obviously take care of it right away and that would be
considered a call.
Lt. Jim Olson: That would be a call for service, yes. That’s correct.
Mayor Furlong: Okay.
Lt. Jim Olson: Highway 212 has come in and has certainly made a difference here in the city as
well. It’s taken some of the pressure off of Highway 5, Highway 7 and County Road 61. I think
that that’s had an impact on our accidents overall throughout the city. We’ve had less
intersection related accidents. You know at 5 and Powers, 5 and Galpin, 5 and Great Plains, so
on and so forth and there’s more traffic on Highway 212 so we have less of a chance of those
intersection related accidents. Another thing that we’ve had come in since 2006 is Tour de
Tonka. The first ride actually was in 2006 itself, but 2009 had over 2,000 riders, bicycle riders
coming through the city of Chanhassen. It is a one day event. The Tour de Tonka is handled
through Minnetonka Community Ed and they have contracted for some different officers and
we’ve also had reserves that have come in to help assist with the Tour de Tonka. Changes in
population for the city from 2006 through 2009. Population has increased 2.7% since 2006. We
had 23,864 residents in 2006 and 2009 we have 24,481. So again that’s gone up 2.7%. Year in
review in the city of Chanhassen for a couple of the crimes that have occurred here. We had the
burglary up in Longacres where Daniel Saba was arrested. I don’t believe that has went to court
as of yet, but he was arrested and he’s had a couple other issues at some other agencies since
then as well but. We also had a suspect charged with theft. This was actually one of our
burglaries that we had that was a theft from garage. We code that as burglary. We charged an
individual from Eden Prairie with that and the Campbell-Knutson, we got advice to charge it out
as a, actually as a theft so we forwarded that over to Campbell-Knutson and so he was charged
with theft from garage on that. Tyler Funk was arrested in August and that was for robbery of
the Holiday gas station in Chanhassen and then he also robbed the Kwik Trip in Waconia. He
was also involved in a burglary in the city of Mound where we recovered a safe in the Minnesota
River. Molly Stroot was just arrested in November for thefts from vehicles at Lifetime Fitness.
Molly admitted to doing, being involved in over 100 thefts from vehicles from around the metro
area. It was good to get her arrested. And then last but not least, we had a bank robbery at Cub
Foods. Actually the TCF within Cub Foods. The suspect was arrested in that. There have not
been charges filed on that at this point. We’re waiting for some forensic evidence to come back
from the BCA on that. I talked a little bit about increasing efficiency and effectiveness through
technology. One of the things that we’ve instituted this year is called E-charging. We’re one of
the pilot agencies in the state to do that and our paperwork is now routed electronically to
records. I shouldn’t even say paperwork. Our reports are routed electronically to records. They
go both to the City and the County Attorney, Court Administration, as well as the judge and so
we now have a paperless system. There’s no hand carrying or driving of paperwork between
offices indoor divisions. This is much more efficient through less duplication of data entry. Not
only for us but also for the county attorney’s office, the city attorney as well as court
administration and the judges and there’s less of a chance of key stroke errors that occur with
that. We’re also an agency that the BCA has given us the Midwest Automated Fingerprint
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Chanhassen City Council – December 14, 2009
Identification Report Network, also know as MAFIN. That’s a repository of misdemeanor or
gross misdemeanor fingerprints in a 3 state area. Minnesota, South Dakota and North Dakota.
You know we also have AFIS or Automated Fingerprint Identification System. AFIS involves
nationwide with fingerprints that are on file from felonies, but they’re other than MAFIN there is
not a repository of misdemeanor and gross misdemeanor fingerprints. We are 1 of 7 agencies in
the state to have that. We’ll be online sometime this year. Excuse me, sometime in 2010 for
MAFIN and we’re excited to get that. We also had a fingerprint identification expert that we
have with our agency, Dan Kaylo who does a wonderful job and he will be monitoring them and
adding fingerprints to that. We’re looking at starting a facebook page, both in the sheriff’s office
as well as here in the city with crime prevention analysis, or excuse me, Crime Prevention
Specialist Beth Hoiseth. We’re going to highlight crimes that have occurred and ask for the
public’s help in solving them. We’ll be putting photos on the page and asking for help in
identification of the people that are involved in those crimes, and then we’ll be, again Beth
Hoiseth and I will be creating those specific to the city of Chanhassen and we’ll be highlighting
public safety issues in the city along with crime prevention tips so we can tailor it directly to the
city with things that are occurring within the city and you know crime prevention tips and so on
that are occurring here. We also have crime mapping with the sheriff’s office. It’s available on
the Carver County web page. You go to public safety. The sheriff and then to crime mapping.
It allows citizens to look at different crimes that have occurred around the county for the past 90
days. There are specific type crimes that they can look at, or a number of them at the same time.
You can bring it up first by the city and actually zero in on your neighborhood if that’s
something you’d like to do, but it tracks burglaries, thefts, assaults and damage of property
among other crimes and it’s going to be a real useful tool we think with people that are looking
to move into the city. Looking into certain neighborhoods as well as for realtors. Mobile data
computers, or MDC’s that we have in our cars. We have the world at our fingertips now.
There’s mapping software to help us pick out the best route. It has access to our in-house
database with any type of contacts we’ve had with people. It gives us the ability to give booking
photos that we’ve had right there in the car so if somebody is, you know we’re not sure of the
identity of somebody, we can see if we’ve had them in our jail in the past and it will help with
that. It will also allow the deputies to give completed police reports, prior citations, as well as
those verbal warnings and written warnings that I talked about earlier. They can actually see in
the car if the person has gotten a verbal warning or a written warning here in the county in the
past. E-ticketing is something that we’ll be starting up first part of next year I believe
Commander? Hopefully. And that’s where tickets will be sent electronically to records and
court administration. We won’t be physically filling a ticket out in the car anymore. The driver
and vehicle information will be automatically generated on the citation through card swipes and
what that will give us is that will give us much less chance of error. Right now a number,
whether it be here or whether it be at the records division or with court administration, it will be
much faster and the tickets will be legible so they’ll be easy for records to read, which is
certainly, can be a problem sometimes when officers are trying to do things quickly. So that will
be coming first part of next year as well. What’s ahead for 2010? I think it will be important for
us to increase our efforts to provide crime prevention information to the public. We’ll be doing
that through public safety seminars that we have every year. Crime alerts that Beth Hoiseth
sends out, along with the neighborhood watch that she does. Neighborhood Watch and so on
that she oversees in the city. The Chanhassen Connection. Local access channels. Articles in
the local newspapers. National Night Out. Last year I think we had 40 some neighborhoods that
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Chanhassen City Council – December 14, 2009
we had with National Night Out which is a phenomenal number I think. But we’re going to
work on increasing that. City Council meetings of course. Seminars that we do at the Senior
Center, and Beth Hoiseth and I are also both available to do site surveys for both residential and
commercial to look at crime prevention tips and so on that we can look at. Whether it be
landscaping, doors, locks, those kinds of things, and I already talked about the facebook a little
bit. As part of that I wanted to touch briefly on, the majority of our thefts and burglaries are
opportunistic that we have here, and no force is needed to gain access. As I was gathering
numbers together for this presentation I took a look at how many burglaries, I took a look at our
burglaries and in 19 out of 22 of our residential burglaries that we’ve had this year so far, force
was not used to gain entry of a residence. Of the remaining 3, 2 were entered with cutting a
screen window where the window was open behind the screen window. And in 17 out of the 20
thefts from vehicles in residential areas, no force used to gain entry to the vehicle so where the
door was open or somehow they were able to get access to the vehicle. These are preventable
crimes. We need the public’s help in trying to, trying to prevent some of these. I found that
number, you know 19 out of 22, I think that was 86% of our burglaries were non force and 85%
of our thefts from vehicles were non force so again I encourage people to lock your doors. Close
your garage doors. Take your valuables out of your car. I know I talk about that every council
meeting but I think it’s very important for folks. Another thing that we’re going to be doing next
year is I’m going to be taking a look at problem specific objectives where I want to target
specific areas and/or crimes dependent upon crime data and/or citizen complaints to respond to
specific problems. We’ll take a look and analyze that data. Determine a course of action,
whether that be law enforcement action or citizen action and/or public education. I want to
implement the plan and then measure the results from that. Re-evaluate again and see how we’re
doing, so that’s something that’s important, I think will be important for next year. I also want to
concentrate, do some concentrating on juvenile crime as well for next summer when we have
School Resource Officer Zydowsky back in the city. Questions on our year in review.
Mayor Furlong: Any questions for the Lieutenant. Councilman Litsey.
Councilman Litsey: First of all I just want to say I’m pleased that you capitalized on this second
opportunity to present to the council. Considerably better. More thorough and you’ve done a lot
of your homework here so I appreciate that. That’s what I was looking for last time around. I’m
also glad that maybe challenging some of those practices earlier on, that I brought up, have
helped the sheriff’s department re-examine how they’re doing some of their record keeping and
so forth to clean that up a little bit so that we can get better numbers so I appreciate your efforts
in that. One of the things this data seems to be showing, and you can interrupt data in a lot of
different ways and I understand that but is that the plan that we put in place has had an effect. I
mean if you look at a lot of this statistical data that you presented, since implementing the plan
recommended by the sheriff’s department in terms of staffing and adding an investigator and
school resource officer and so forth, has had a significant impact. And again careful what
conclusions you draw but, so it makes sense to me that the plan that the sheriff and the
Commander actually presented to us back in 2007 to look at staffing in 2008, 2009 and 2010 has
worked. And I guess I’m curious then if it seems from the data that’s presented that it’s had a
marked effect on going in the direction we want to see things go in terms of crime rates and other
factors, why we would not continue completing that plan in 2010, or why the recommendation is
not to complete that plan. Because as you’re aware, I mean the plan talked about 2008, what we
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Chanhassen City Council – December 14, 2009
were going to add in 2009 and then 10 picking up the three-quarters of that additional deputy.
We were going to start it, actually phase it in 2009 and complete it in 2010. And by your own,
not your’s. Excuse me, but by the sheriff’s recommendation back in 2007 they looked at
policing factors, including the things you talked about tonight. He also talked about community
factors, which you also touched on so I think that was better tonight in terms of the 212 effect
and some of those, some surprising perhaps results from that. That it actually helped take some
pressure off 5 where it is more prone to traffic accidents because of the semaphores and so forth
so I think that was excellent. But we still haven’t, we’re still not meeting the mark when it
comes to officers per 1,000 or, well the different standards actually that we talked, I talked about
earlier in terms of the ICP formula. International Chiefs Formula. Your own committee’s you
know recommendations. State statistics and so forth. So the question is, why would we not want
to complete, or why would the sheriff’s department not recommending completing the plan that
they put forth if the effects that we all are hoping for seem to be materializing?
Lt. Jim Olson: I don’t think we are abandoning our plan Councilman Litsey. We’re putting it
off for the time being and we’re saying that you know in the budget times we understand and
we’ll be okay for next year. But we will come back next year I think with a recommendation
again, and ultimately it’s the council’s decision on how they want to, on what type of policing
they want with this.
Councilman Litsey: Yeah, those were kind of my words last time around. I just want you to
give us, which you did tonight, a lot of the data and then we can make the decision in terms of
the policy decision on where we should go but, because it’s my, and maybe you can clear this up
for me which would be helpful. Is the sheriff himself still committed to this plan or is he saying
it’s, I mean I think there’s a difference between the reality of presenting to a council that set the
preliminary levy where it was and I think there was a comment in the paper to that effect by a
representative from your office, and if I’m wrong but I think I’m right on this, that one of the
comments was it really proposing to go ahead with this additional deputy wasn’t going to happen
anyway because of the preliminary levy being set where it was is different than saying but you
still need it. In our professional opinion let’s complete this plan and see where we’re at when we
complete it because if we stop and start, then we just have that much more ground to make up
down the road. Wouldn’t it make sense to continue a plan and phase in and it could ease it into
the budget rather than stop it and then a couple years with the presumption things are going to
get better, which they may not, having to pick it up again and it would be a lot more of a fiscal
impact that way. So I put a lot in there and I don’t, but you’ve got some reinforcements so.
Commander Enevold: If I may Councilman Litsey.
Councilman Litsey: Yeah, no. I’d appreciate hearing.
Commander Enevold: Our recommendation has not changed. Our recommendation was to
increase in 2010 one deputy. Our philosophy has always been to use community factors,
policing factors, all those issues. We present you with a recommended policing plan. It’s the
community’s decision, the community leaders decision to decide whether to take that
recommendation or not take that recommendation. We do that with all of our communities. In
these times of budget crunches we understand that difficult decisions have to be made. This
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Chanhassen City Council – December 14, 2009
decision is not unique to the City of Chanhassen. There are other contract customers out there
who have actually reduced levels of service and we respect that. We understand that. That’s not
going to change our recommendation for continuing years. You know we’re going to make
recommendations based on all the policing service factors that we’ve done in the past. We’re not
changing our philosophy so the final decision is the community leaders decision and we respect
that decision.
Councilman Litsey: I guess where my frustration came in, and I do appreciate that clarification
that the sheriff department’s still committed to the plan, was that at the last work, the work
session where this was addressed, to say that it was okay that we not complete it, I got mixed
messages and it was, you know because it’s one thing to say you know there are budgetary
considerations that you as a council can take into account but your role really, as we’re talking it
through here, is to tell us the things you think we need and the staffing levels we need and then
we make our decision based on the information you give us and so I felt like that the sheriff’s
department was withdrawing, I mean that seemed to be the case at the time, their support of the
plan that they had put forth and I’m glad to hear tonight that you’re still committed to that plan
and now we have to figure out how to pay for it, if we can. Which we can’t with this levy but
that’s where the frustration came in because I felt very committed to the plan. I thought it was a
good plan that the sheriff’s department had put forth. Obviously the majority of the council did
at the time, the last few years. And then all of a sudden it felt like, for whatever reason, it was
like giving us an out you know in terms of saying you know you don’t need to finish this plan,
more or less, and I’m glad to hear that you’re still committed to that and leave it to us to figure
the other out.
Commander Enevold: And let me add, again the final decision is your’s and we respect that. In
reviewing the data and the police service factors and all that, we’re confident that law
enforcement services are not going to be negatively impacted in the city of Chanhassen. I mean
it’s going to be, I don’t think you’re going to notice a whole lot of difference from what you had
in 2009 to 2010. It’s not going to negatively impact the law enforcement services that we
provide to the citizens.
Councilman Litsey: But correct me if I’m wrong, isn’t the goal of this plan though to make
things better? Not just be satisfied with status quo or whatever. I mean the goal is to make it
even a safer place isn’t it? And that’s what you’ve started, I mean with this plan, I mean
compliments to the sheriff’s department on presenting this plan, and it’s working. It seems to be
working and so if that’s the case then why would we want to stop.
Commander Enevold: Well the reality is the budgets. I mean again it’s not unique to the City of
Chanhassen. Other contract customers have reduced levels of service and we make a
determination that that’s not going to negatively impact the citizens that live in that community
and we’ve made that decision here in Chanhassen.
Councilman Litsey: Okay now I’m confused again because isn’t it our decision to make? Your
recommendation you said still was that we add a deputy in 2010.
Commander Enevold: That’s our law enforcement recommendation to you, right.
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Chanhassen City Council – December 14, 2009
Councilman Litsey: Because when you look at officers per 1,000 or you look at all the other
factors that you’ve provided in the past in terms, we’re not making the mark when it comes to
that comparative data. We’re one of the lowest staffed policing agencies around and so that was
a consideration that was in your recommendation back in 2007. And so while you can say well
other communities are making decisions to maybe not fill positions or whatever, like I said
before, they’re already, we’re already at the minimum, if not below where we could be. They
may be coming down to this point because of that but we’re already, we’re already there and the
data shows that. Clearly shows that. You look at the State statistics. You look at the
International Chiefs of Police Association data. Formula. You look at officers per 1,000. You
look at what your own committee has recommended. We haven’t met the mark, you know we’re
not even there yet in terms of being where you recommended a bare minimum we’d be, which is
.8 per 1,000.
Commander Enevold: And none of our contract customers are at that point yet. Remember in
2004 when we did the study, in 2005 we said here’s the mark. Here’s where you’re at now.
Here’s the mark where we want you. We’re going to phase into that process.
Councilman Litsey: Right.
Commander Enevold: And phasing in is part of the budget process. I mean that has to fit into
this phasing process that we do so. You know the county has, we’ve reduced deputies at the
county level. It’s just a reality and we understand that and we expect that and we’ll continue to
make recommendations based on statistics and…
Councilman Litsey: No, and I appreciate that recommendation and our decision is whether we
want to, the average homeowner in this city in 2010 would pay about 50 cents more a month to
accomplish that and that’s our decision to make. I don’t expect you to make that decision so I
very much appreciate the thoroughness of what you’ve presented tonight. It was what I was
looking for last time around but I’m glad that you got it this time around. Next year it would be
appreciated if we could get on top of this earlier in the year before the levy’s, preliminary levy is
set and I think we’ll be back on track so thank you.
Commander Enevold: You’re welcome.
Todd Gerhardt: Mayor, council. I’d just like to add a point here. To Councilmember Litsey’s
concerns that you didn’t stick to your plan. Once the preliminary levy was established I kind of
gave guidelines to department heads and Jim of what they had to work with and to present their
department budgets based on that. It’s never been a trend of Carver County sheriff’s office to
you know stick to the plan no matter what. They stuck to what I kind of laid out as what I felt
was their preliminary budget based on the preliminary levy that the council established. And the
council at any time can modify the preliminary budget to where you want to push your services I
think is what your point is. That if you want to increase law enforcement and reduce let’s say
road reconstruction within the levy, you have that authority to do that and you know I think
everybody, all the department heads kind of conformed to what the preliminary levy kind of laid
out.
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Chanhassen City Council – December 14, 2009
Councilman Litsey: See and that was where there, in my opinion was a miscommunication and
Mr. Gerhardt and I have talked about that.
Todd Gerhardt: Yeah.
Councilman Litsey: So we’ve settled that but I haven’t reconciled that with Lieutenant Olson
which I still need to do, is if I had known where that communication was coming from and the
fact it had been conveyed to Lieutenant Olson that, why even present it because it’s not going to
happen. I wasn’t aware of any of that so to me it looked like that you were pulling your support
for the plan and so I’m appreciative of the fact that we’re still on track. Now we aren’t going to
be able to complete it because we haven’t put the money aside for it but that’s not your issue.
That’s our issue. You’ve done what you needed to do so I’m glad then that things have come
together so we communicated that and I think we can move forward so thanks.
Commander Enevold: You’re welcome.
Mayor Furlong: You know just I guess to perhaps a question or comment too as I said earlier,
you know the decision with regard to following the plans for police services. Following other
plans in terms of capital improvements. Following all sorts of different plans. Many of those
changed this year. Some did, some didn’t but many did in light of times changing and I think, as
I said earlier, the decision that I made with regard to police services and the number of full time
equivalents that we’d be contracting, whether we increased it as we originally, as the original
plan 3 years ago suggested that we do this year or not, was not a decision that we’re never going
to do that. It’s just not now and so maybe that’s where, I don’t know if that helps from an
understanding. We’re living in times that we’re trying to do, everybody’s trying to do the best
they can with the resources they have to try and find that balance. I think that the message that I
saw in terms of the charts, in terms of crimes for service, we saw it in chart after chart showing
lower crimes. We can look at it and say the plan’s working. I know that there are other areas
that are also seeing declines in crime rates. The message really is that we live in a very safe city.
People feel safe in Chanhassen. They deserve to feel safe because it is a safe place to live and
you know I think there was a slide back there that there were, one of the break-in’s. It showed
20 some odd break-in’s at cars. Was that it Lieutenant Olson? Was.
Lt. Jim Olson: There were 22 residential burglaries and there was 20 thefts from vehicles in
residential areas.
Mayor Furlong: So the people that had something stolen, I mean you can’t, you can’t change
that. That’s terrible. It’s an invasion of privacy. It’s a bad thing but 20. 22. Out of a city of
24,000, we live in a very safe area and I don’t think there’s anybody on this council, on the city
staff that is going to do anything that’s going to jeopardize safety. We may disagree on whether
the actions taken will do that or not but there’s never an intention. I hope everybody understands
that to do that. I think the information here tonight is very helpful, and especially for people
watching at home, the good work that the Carver County sheriff’s office is doing and continues
to do and the improvement in terms of their services that they continue to do for our residents
and businesses. When crimes occur, they solve the crimes to the best of their ability as we saw
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Chanhassen City Council – December 14, 2009
here. Some of the unusual crimes, the abnormal crimes this year have been solve, and those are
the big ones so I want to finish by just saying thank you to Lieutenant Olson, to Commander
Enevold and to Sheriff Olson who may be watching at home this evening, we are, we do hope
you feel better sheriff and to everyone at the Carver County sheriff’s office, thank you for all the
good work you do in terms of helping Chanhassen stay the safe city that we are.
Commander Enevold: Thank you Mr. Mayor,
Lt. Jim Olson: Thank you.
Mayor Furlong: Is there, we have a request for a motion in front of us. Would somebody like to
make a motion adopting the police contract for 2010?
Councilman Litsey: Can I make a comment before we do that?
Mayor Furlong: Certainly. Councilman Litsey.
Councilman Litsey: Thank you. If in fact you know we’re looking at the plan we put forth a
couple years ago and by at least some of the statistical data is pretty compelling that it’s had a
positive effect, I just don’t understand for approximately 50 cents more a month for the average
valued home in the city, person that lives there would pay about 50 cents more a month, why we
wouldn’t continue a plan that’s apparently had a really positive results. I mean we’re getting a
great bang for our buck. I mean for the money we’ve put forth and for just a little bit more we
can continue what was recommended and still be recommended to us by the sheriff’s
department. Why wouldn’t we seize that opportunity. I just don’t get it. So I’m just going to say
ahead of time that I very much support the plan that the sheriff’s department had put forth. I
think we should continue it for the 50 cents a month again on the average home valued here in
Chanhassen that it would cost to continue lowering hopefully the crime rate in this community.
Let’s have zero if we can. I mean that’s not realistic, I understand that but let’s keep moving in
the right direction. Let’s not lose the momentum now so if I’m going to vote for what’s before
us, the reason I’m going to vote it down, I want to make that clear, is because I think we should
complete the plan and this plan put forth or recommendation before us does not do that and so I
would support completing the plan that we put forth in 2010 by adding that additional deputy and
this does not do that so I cannot support it.
Councilwoman Ernst: Mayor I’d be happy to make the motion.
Mayor Furlong: Councilwoman Ernst.
Councilwoman Ernst: First off I want to say thank you very much. I also want to thank the
sheriff’s department for keeping this city a safe city. Thank you and thank you for all the effort
and the work that you put in your presentation tonight. I’d like to make a motion that we
approve the 2010 law enforcement contract with Carver County.
Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Is there a second?
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Chanhassen City Council – December 14, 2009
Councilwoman Tjornhom: Second.
Mayor Furlong: Made and seconded. Any discussion on the motion?
Councilwoman Ernst moved, Councilwoman Tjornhom seconded that the Chanhassen City
Council approves the 2010 Law Enforcement Contract with Carver County which includes
funding for the Southwest Drug Task Force. All voted in favor, except Councilman Litsey
who opposed, and the motion carried with a vote of 4 to 1.
APPOINTMENT TO SOUTHWEST TRANSIT COMMISSION.
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Todd Gerhardt: Mayor, council members. You interviewed back here in, it was December 7
that you had 3 applicants for 1 position. Neil Anderson, Jody King and Stephen Withrow for the
vacant Southwest Transit Commission position. Currently Neil Anderson is serving as our
Chanhassen resident on the Southwest Transit Board. Those 3 members are before you. One
noted change in the packet you have a resolution that calls for this position to start January 1.
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Staff has changed that on the request of Len Simich making it January 28 which is the first
Southwest Transit Commission meeting in 2010. Neil Anderson is the Secretary for Southwest
Commission and if for some reason he is not selected as the member, he needs to sign documents
between now and the next 3 weeks so just wanted to make that point.
Mayor Furlong: Okay, thank you. We interviewed, the council interviewed all 3 candidates at
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our work session on December 7, last week and we have 3 good quality candidates. I think that
was raised by, or pretty clear to anyone that was there at the meetings. Thoughts and comments
in terms of appointment for this commission member. Councilwoman Ernst.
Councilwoman Ernst: Well you know we had some very qualified candidates and each one
brought very different business experiences and it was a very hard decision to make. I think at
the end of the day the candidate that we chose, which I assume we’re going to announce, was a
very qualified candidate and she brings some things to the commission that I really think are
going to be very valuable to the commission and so it was a, it was a very hard decision to make
and I just want to thank the candidates for coming forth and taking an interest in the position.
Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Other comments?
Councilman Litsey: I guess I’m a little confused. I didn’t think in a work session we could
chose a candidate.
Mayor Furlong: Yeah I don’t.
Councilman McDonald: We didn’t.
Mayor Furlong: There was no, and to correct Councilwoman Ernst, there was no decision or
vote made there. Obviously there were comments and discussion about.
Councilwoman Ernst: Well, right.
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Chanhassen City Council – December 14, 2009
Mayor Furlong: About the merits of each of individual candidate.
Councilwoman Ernst: We just discussed them, correct. I do stand to be corrected on that.
Mayor Furlong: Other thoughts, comments.
Councilman Litsey: I’ll just say that I thought they were all very qualified also and it’s nice to
get people stepping up to the plate to serve on commissions. I think that when you evaluate all
the candidates that I feel that Neil Anderson deserves to be reappointed. He served the city well.
He has an impressive list of professional accomplishments and so forth. He interviewed very
well. He’s very committed. Yes occasionally perhaps he has an opposing point of view but I
think that’s good. It challenges the commission to think outside the box and from everything I
heard and feedback we heard during our work session I think he’s very deserving of continuing
in that position.
Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Other thoughts or comments. Councilwoman Tjornhom.
Councilwoman Tjornhom: Yeah it was, I think it was a positive experience to interview these
candidates. They all seemed willing to be on this commission. I think they all would do a good
job. What was important to me was that there was an actual rider on this commission who best
knows what’s going on on the bus, unless you’re actually sitting in it day in and day out and
because of that reason I chose Jody King.
Mayor Furlong: Any other thoughts Councilman McDonald?
Councilman McDonald: Yeah. I kind of went into this and Neil has done a very good job for
the commission. I mean I was very impressed with his knowledge and his involvement on the
board and everything. But I think in our discussions afterwards and we were just talking about
what does the commission need. What does it mean? You know what does this appointment
actually do? I was persuaded that yeah, you need to have someone who rides the bus because I
think that’s very important. In light of some of the things that are going on today about the
changing of the bus schedule and stuff, those are the kind of things that I think a rider can really
bring to it. Of the two candidates who were riders, I was impressed with Jody King from the
standpoint I thought she could step in and replace Neil in the areas of basically challenging the
commission and you know helping to get move involved with things, plus she added the extra
dimension of knowing what it’s like to sit on the bus and ride and how important it is as far as
stops and where things are at within the city of Chanhassen so for that reason I would support
Jody King to the commission.
Mayor Furlong: Thank you. And my thoughts are similar. We had 3 good candidates. Neil
Anderson is a very good candidate and I can certainly understand support for him. He served
well. He’s very thoughtful. Very strategic focus and his comments I think have benefitted the
commission and it’s service. I think having a rider on the commission from Chanhassen,
representing the interest of Chanhassen is important as well. I also serve on the commission as
the elected official. The commission is made up of 7 members. 2 each from Eden Prairie,
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Chanhassen City Council – December 14, 2009
Chaska and Chanhassen. One of those representatives from each city needs to be an appointed,
or excuse me, an elected official from that city. And having someone who is also a rider that I
think will benefit the riders and the residents and all concerned in Chanhassen with regard to the
commission. Of the two riders, Judy King and Stephen Withrow both I think would serve
adequately. Judy brings with her the experience of having ridden the bus for 15 years, out of
Eden Prairie as well as for the last 5 years in Chanhassen. She was, I think she made the
comment that she was there before they had the current coach buses so she remembers what it
was like when, with the hard seats and I think that perspective as we look at our current, current
situation from a regional and from a statewide standpoint in terms of funding and pressure on
Southwest Transit to continue to be a part of it, I think she brings that perspective. I think any of
the 3 of them would serve well and if the council moves forward supporting Judy King, which I,
excuse me, Jody King, which I would support, I think we certainly owe a debt of gratitude to
Neil Anderson for his service over the last 3 years.
Councilman Litsey: Can I just ask one question. There seems to be a prevailing attitude that
having a rider on the bus, or on the commission, somebody that rides the bus is kind of a key
ingredient and as our representative on that commission you are not but we do have somebody
on the council, Councilmember Ernst that does, wouldn’t it make more sense then if that’s the
thought process here that we change that?
Mayor Furlong: Well I mean if the council wants to do that, they certainly can. The term that I
was appointed to is a 3 year term and so my term will be up at the end of next year and that’s
certainly something the council can consider.
Councilman Litsey: Okay. I mean because from every indication you’re doing a good job but if.
Mayor Furlong: Thank you.
Councilman Litsey: But I’ve heard that you know in the work session and here that ridership is
so key then if we had the availability of riders on this council and the community, then that
would make sense to me. I don’t personally believe that because I’m going with Neil. He’s not
a rider.
Mayor Furlong: No.
Councilman Litsey: But I’m just saying that if that’s what this council’s kind of thinking about
then it would seem to make more sense in my opinion to go that way.
Mayor Furlong: Okay. Would somebody like to make a motion or a nomination?
Councilman Litsey: I’ll make a nomination. Get my reader glasses on. The City appoint Neil
Anderson to the Southwest Transit Commission for a term to begin January 28, 2010 and expire,
would expire then on December 31, 2012?
Todd Gerhardt: Correct.
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Chanhassen City Council – December 14, 2009
Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Is there a second? I’ll second that. I think Neil would serve well,
even though I would prefer to see Jody King. Is there any other discussion on that motion?
Seeing none we’ll proceed with the vote.
Councilman Litsey moved, Mayor Furlong seconded that the City Council appoint Neil
Anderson to the Southwest Transit Commission for a term beginning on January 28, 2010
and expiring on December 31, 2012. Councilman Litsey voted in favor, the rest of the
council opposed. The motion failed with a vote of 1 to 4.
Mayor Furlong: That motion fails. Is there another motion for appointment?
Councilwoman Tjornhom: I’d like to make a motion Mayor that the City Council appoint Jody
King to the Southwest Transit Commission for a term beginning on January 28, 2010, expiring
December 31, 2012.
Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Is there a second?
Councilwoman Ernst: Second.
Mayor Furlong: Any discussion on that motion?
Councilwoman Tjornhom moved, Councilwoman Ernst seconded that the City Council
appoint Jody King to the Southwest Transit Commission for a term beginning on January
28, 2010 and expiring on December 31, 2012. All voted in favor, except Councilman Litsey
who opposed, and the motion carried with a vote of 4 to 1.
COUNCIL PRESENTATIONS:
None.
ADMINISTRATIVE PRESENTATIONS:
Todd Gerhardt: Just one item of business. Just a public information that we are ticketing now so
anybody parking in the streets between the hours of 1:00 a.m. and 7:00 a.m. will receive a ticket
so this would allow our plow trucks to clean the streets and then whenever we have a 2 inch or
more snowfall we ask that residents also have their vehicles off the streets. So I just wanted to
provide that public notice to residents and we did take out a couple ads in the newspaper. We
also had notice in the Chanhassen Connection, on Channel 8 and also the informational sign at
the library notifying people of this rule so. That’s all I have.
Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Any questions for Mr. Gerhardt or his staff?
CORRESPONDENCE DISCUSSION.
Mayor Furlong: One comment that I’ll make, it was in the correspondence packet. The holiday
th
schedule this year. City Hall will be closing at noon both on Christmas Eve, December 24 and
st
on New Year’s Eve, January 31 so if you need to get something done at city hall, do it before
52
Chanhassen City Council – December 14, 2009
noon on those days. Otherwise regular hours. And I’m sure that will be posted Mr. Gerhardt at
the door of city hall.
Todd Gerhardt: Yes. And we’ll also put it on the informational sign.
Mayor Furlong: It’s been a good year. I’d like to thank everybody for their effort and service
for the city and especially staff. It’s been a very trying year. A lot of changes going on. We
talked earlier this evening about our 2009 budget. Revenues did not come in as expected. It
looks like they’re going to be short about $450,000 and credit to the staff for their work during
the year to reduce spending across many areas of the budget so that that shortfall in revenue
appears at this point will be, will be covered by reduced spending so it’s been a challenging year.
It’s been a year of change and but we still received, we got a lot of things done and it’s been a
good year and I think as we step back and look at things, we’re going to realize that we made a
lot of progress in a lot of areas so I’d like to thank everybody again for their service and wish
everybody happy holidays. Safe and prosperous new years and if there’s nothing else to come
before the council for this calendar year, is there a motion to adjourn?
Councilwoman Ernst moved, Councilwoman Tjornhom seconded to adjourn the meeting.
All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 5 to 0. The City
Council meeting was adjourned at 10:00 p.m.
Submitted by Todd Gerhardt
City Manager
Prepared by Nann Opheim
53