CC 2010 09 27
CHANHASSEN CITY COUNCIL
REGULAR MEETING
SEPTEMBER 27, 2010
Mayor Furlong called the meeting to order at 7:10 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, Laurie Hokkanen, Kate Aanenson, Paul Oehme, Todd
Hoffman, Greg Sticha and Roger Knutson
PUBLIC PRESENT:
Collin King 6886 Lotus Trail
D. Laufenburger 8673 Chanhassen Hills Drive North
PUBLIC ANNOUNCEMENTS:
Mayor Furlong: Thank you and welcome to those here in the council chambers as well as those
watching at home. We’re glad that you joined us this evening. I’d like at this time to get started
this evening and ask members of the council if there are any changes or modifications to the
agenda. If not, without objection we’ll proceed with the agenda as published. First item on our
agenda this evening will be those consent agenda items.
CONSENT AGENDA: Councilman Litsey moved, Councilwoman Ernst seconded to
approve the following consent agenda items pursuant to the City Manager’s
recommendations:
a. Approval of Minutes:
-City Council Work Session Minutes dated September 13, 2010
-City Council Verbatim and Summary Minutes dated September 13, 2010
Resolution #2010-81:
b. Approve Consultant Agreement and Joint Powers Agreement for
TH 101 Environmental Document Improvements between Lyman Boulevard and Pioneer
Trail.
Resolution #2010-82:
c. 2011 Infiltration/Inflow Project 10-06: Approve Quotes.
Resolution #2010-83:
d. Resolution Approving the City of Prior Lake as a Member of the
Suburban Transit Association.
Resolution #2010-84:
e. Resolution Approving Letter of Support for River Crossing
Implementation Collaboration (RCIC) Partnership Agreement.
Chanhassen City Council - September 27, 2010
f. Approve Comment Letter to Metropolitan Council for 2030 Transportation Policy Plan.
All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 5 to 0.
VISITOR PRESENTATION:
Mayor Furlong: We do have a young gentleman, Collin King who’s a boy scout that’s going to
be working on an Eagle Scout project for the City. He’s here tonight to present his plan to the
council so Collin, good evening. Welcome. Come on up.
Collin King: Good evening. My name is Collin King. I have been working on my Eagle Scout
project with the City of Chanhassen. I’m a resident of Chanhassen and I’m part of Troop 409
out of Excelsior, Minnesota. I have been, for my project I will be upgrading the City park of
Carver Beach doing the following. I’ll be removing the boards around the play structure that are
cracked and decaying and replacing them with like a recycled material. I’ll then be sanding and
staining these benches that are also starting to decay. And the hillside is eroding so I will be
putting down mulch with some helpers and trying to prevent erosion. And then last there are 3
trees that need to be removed and be replaced. Thank you for your time tonight. Are there any
questions?
Mayor Furlong Questions for Mr. King? Collin, and for full disclosure here, my son is also in
Collin’s troop and have worked with him and gone camping with him and good young
gentleman so thank you for choosing to do your project here in Chanhassen. When are you
planning to have, do the work?
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Collin King: October 16.
Mayor Furlong: Okay, so that’s coming up in a few weeks then.
Collin King: Yep.
Mayor Furlong: Okay. And have you been coordinating your work with city staff?
Collin King: Mr. Hoffman.
Mayor Furlong Okay, great. Any everything’s looking fine in terms of funding Mr. Hoffman?
We’re good on the funding side too?
Collin King: Yes.
Mayor Furlong: Great.
Councilman Litsey: No, it looks like a great project. As a user of that park I very much
appreciate your efforts so.
Collin King: Yeah, I live just up the road so.
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Chanhassen City Council - September 27, 2010
Councilman Litsey: Okay, great. Great. Well thank you.
Councilwoman Ernst: Collin, how long do you expect this project is going to take you?
Collin King: Probably 5 to 6 hours.
Councilwoman Ernst: Okay, great. Thank you very much for doing that.
Mayor Furlong: Anybody else?
Collin King: Thank you.
Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Let’s move on. If there’s anybody else for a visitor presentations,
then we’ll move on.
LAW ENFORCEMENT/FIRE DEPARTMENT UPDATE.
Sgt. Peter Anderley: Good evening Mayor, council. I’ve attached both the July and August
reports and if there’s any questions on any of the numbers there, I certainly can try to answer
those. A couple of things I want to discuss tonight was, we’ve had some recent burglaries.
Probably about a month ago we had some residential burglaries you may have heard about.
People going into some open garage doors then actually entering into a residence or two and
taking some items. We got a lucky break there. Some good work by South Lake police
department. Stopped heads up by one of their officers. Stopped you know a vehicle out at night
and ended up finding some evidence that linked them back to our burglaries. Kind of a joint
effort. I know there’s some investigations and ultimately there was two adult males were
charged out in Carver County as well as in Hennepin County with the burglaries from the city of
Chanhassen. On a more recent note, over the last week or two, you may have seen some crime
alerts came out from Beth in the downtown business district of the city we had a little string of
burglaries. The other, I believe it was Wednesday night we had approximately 10 either
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attempted or successful burglaries along the 78 corridor and then a couple other nights we had a
bunch of individual ones. As of this morning we were able to identify 4 juveniles and we have
basically got confessions out of them and the reports and investigation is being completed and
they’ll be forwarded to county attorneys for charging so those, and we’ve linked them to every
one of the burglaries down here except for one that we’re still working on yet. Other than that all
of them made progress towards and we should be done with them hopefully for a little while.
The couple other things I wanted to discuss, kind of a public safety note. It’s homecoming week.
Festivities are through the week. Parade on Friday. Just a reminder out there that a lot of kids
like to go have fun this week. There’s, we’ve already had a couple of stores call us and say that
the kids are buying a large amount of eggs and toilet paper and that type of thing. So you know
with that we understand that people like to have fun but not everybody likes to get toilet papered
and eggs and we encourage the kids not to be doing that. There is curfew ordinances if the kids
are caught out after curfew, they certainly can be charged with that also so just something to
gives a heads up and keep in mind. See them enjoy their homecoming festivities but we want to
make sure they’re safe and doing so also. On the other note is the river crossings have closed.
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Chanhassen City Council - September 27, 2010
Some obviously the roads are barricaded now. Make sure we’re obeying the road closed and not
trying to attempt to go around those barricades at all. And that was all I have. If any questions
about any of the burglaries or any other things that are going on in the city, I can try to answer.
Mayor Furlong: Any questions at this time?
Councilman McDonald: I don’t really have a question. Just do want to say thanks for solving
the burglaries and stuff. I was one of the victims of that and I talked to quite a few of the other
business leaders within the community and those things but yeah we do appreciate you solving
that. Even though the frustration sometimes gets kind of high like you know why don’t you get
them right now, it just takes a lot of work to get them and I really appreciate the effort that you
and your deputies put into this and yeah, hopefully you’re right. Won’t have to worry about it
for a while and everybody can go home at night safe that all their property’s going to be secure
within their building so thanks very much for the work you and your deputies did and please pass
along to everybody.
Sgt. Peter Anderley: Appreciate that.
Todd Gerhardt: Mayor just a note on that. How we solved this crime was really due to the fact
that Pilgrim Cleaners had a security system that was able to videotape the individuals
participating in these crimes so that really helped us along in having a picture to identify who
was involved so that was a big thank you over to Pilgrim Cleaners for their system.
Sgt. Peter Anderley: And the other thing is, you know all of the businesses I mean they’re
victims and we understand that they want to get things done but all the businesses in this
community were very great to work with as far as getting the evidence we needed. You know
whether it be finger printing, taking pictures and you know taking the time out of their normal
business hours when they show up for work and hoping to open up for business and find that
they’ve been a victim of a burglary you know and we have to come in and I would say take up
some more of their time making sure that we get all the evidence collected we can. You know I
got a, I commend them for giving us their patience and getting through what we needed to get
done so we can get to where we are today.
Councilman Litsey: Yeah I was just going to echo the great work that you did. I know some of
that first hand and it was nice too, thanks for solving that burglary in Excelsior. It’s nice to say
when they called and file the report to say it’s already been solved so. But I don’t think some
people realize sometimes all the hard work that goes into it. You know there’s luck but there’s
also creating your own luck sometimes and just by doing the right things and you know thanks to
you and your staff for all the time and effort you put in the last month basically on all these
burglaries and so forth so thanks.
Mayor Furlong: Very good and thank you and thank you for stepping in. Sergeant Anderley
was in this role working with the day to day policing services for Chanhassen for quite a while
and it’s déjà vu all over again.
Sgt. Peter Anderley: We’re back for a while.
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Chanhassen City Council - September 27, 2010
Councilman Litsey: Great to be back right?
Sgt. Peter Anderley: It is. Well it’s a change of pace. I’d rather been out at night trying to catch
these guys but.
Mayor Furlong: Well thank you. We appreciate your services. Chief Smallback is here this
evening. Good evening Chief. Chanhassen Fire Department.
Chief Roger Smallback: Good evening. The calls to date, the year to date call volume is 483
calls. We finished the month of August with 54 calls and September month to date in September
we’re at 52. The trend continues to be above average. These numbers are not quite a significant
departure from norm as we had earlier this summer but they are still running somewhat above
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average. We did have one very significant structure fire. That occurred on August 29 and that
was on White Dove Lane in Chanhassen. The fire department was dispatched a little bit after
4:00 a.m. 4:05 a.m. is when we were called out. It was a single family residence split level. On
arrival the garage was fully involved and extending into the house. The damage to the house was
substantial. It took out a lot of the roof in the kitchen and the living area of the house. Garage
area and two cars were completely destroyed. We did have mutual aid from Eden Prairie,
Excelsior and Victoria on this fire. We were dispatched at 4:00 a.m. and we cleared the scene at
8:00 a.m. The investigation is continuing as far as the cause of the fire. This, we’re at the end of
September now and that’s kind of the end of the third quarter. A note about training. A
significant part of the activities of the fire department is training. Training to keep existing skills
sharp and fresh as well as acquiring new skills. Just a rough idea of how significant training is.
End of third quarter, year to date, 2,642 hours of training have been performed by the members
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of the fire department. Next week, or starting next Sunday, October 3 is the start of Fire
Prevention Week. National Fire Prevention Week. This is a big deal for the fire department and
the fire marshal’s office especially. Over that week they will run 1,200 first, second, third,
kindergarten, first, second and third graders through a variety of fire prevention programs that
are put on by the fire marshal’s office and by members of the Chanhassen Fire Department. Fire
Prevention Week is kind of wrapped up or culminated with the Chanhassen Fire Department
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Open House which is on Sunday, October 10 from 1:00 to 4:00 p.m. Any questions?
Mayor Furlong: Councilman Litsey.
Councilman Litsey: Well I was just going to make a comment. I heard some really good
feedback on how you responded to the house fire and the professionalism and also the
compassion that was shown for the homeowner and helping them through that obviously tragic
event so I just wanted to pass along that, the good job that you did and I heard that for the fire
department, law enforcement and so forth so good job.
Chief Roger Smallback: It’s great to get that kind of feedback.
Mayor Furlong: My question was just a little more detail on that event and just confirm that
nobody, or any sort of injuries.
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Chanhassen City Council - September 27, 2010
Chief Roger Smallback: No, there were 2 people that were at home at the time the fire started.
The one homeowner and her son smelled smoke and got up and trying to figure out what was
going on and you know woke up her son and he tried to call 911 from a wireless phone. Not a
cell phone but a wireless phone that was hooked into the land line but it didn’t work because the
electric was out in the house. The breaker panel for the home was in the garage and at that time
the garage was heavily involved so there was no electric power in the house, which would also
explain why the smoke alarms didn’t go off. They had smoke alarms that were only hard wired
in and did not have the battery back up’s in them so very fortunate that they did wake up and
were able to get out so no civilian injuries and no fire fighter injuries either.
Mayor Furlong: Okay, very good. Thank you. Thank you Chief.
ADVANCED REFUNDING OF 2004B AND 2005B WATER REVENUE BONDS.
Greg Sticha: Good evening Mayor and City Council members. The plan this evening was to be
here to award a bid for advanced refunding of our 2004B and 2005B water revenue bonds.
However due to changes in the market late last week, interest rates dipped a little higher and we
did not achieve our debt policy goal of 4% net present value savings on the refunded principal
for that issue. Before I get into any more details on that particular issue I wanted to also just
kind of notify the council that as part of that process we also did undergo a review by Standards
and Poor’s, our bond rating agency. S&P did reaffirm our AAA rating for this issue so that was
good news that we got this week. We had that conference call last Monday. As we started to
progress through the week, early in the week we thought we would achieve just above 4% net
present value savings. As the market fluctuated a little later in the week it became apparent that
we probably weren’t going to get that today when we were out going to go out to sell bonds.
Our financial advisors advised us to pull the sale at this point in time and not go ahead with the
sale simply because we wouldn’t have met our debt policy requirement. Instead what we are
proposing to do this evening, if you recall from our library bonds advanced refunding that we did
earlier this year, we had a similar situation where the markets were fluctuating right around that
4% net prevent value savings and as in a lot of cases on these refunding, time is kind of the
essence in catching the market at the exact right time so what we would like to do this evening,
instead of awarding the bid for the sale of the bonds is pass a similar trigger resolution that we
passed for the advanced refunding of the library bonds. In simple terms the trigger resolution
authorizes the mayor and myself to go ahead and authorize a sale of bonds if we achieve the 4%
net present value savings as required per our debt policy to advance refund these bonds. I’m
going to pass out a copy of that resolution right now for you to consider. The resolution does
have the requirement listed within there, that 4% net present value savings needs to be achieved
for the advanced refunding. It authorizes the mayor and myself to execute the advanced
refunding if the market achieves those savings, and it has a expiration date of the end of
February, 2011. So it’s not open ended. At that point in time if we have not advanced refunded
these bonds we would have to come back to City Council to either extend this resolution or wait
until the market came back to a point that we would achieve 4% net present value savings. I
think that’s all I have to add on this so if there’s any questions I would certainly take them on
either the resolution or why we didn’t award the bid today on the bonds. I can answer any of
those questions.
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Chanhassen City Council - September 27, 2010
Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Any questions for Mr. Sticha? This resolution is nearly identical
but for the specifics of the offering to the resolution we operated under, that was last year I think
it was or the year before.
Greg Sticha: Yep, it was December. I think we actually issued the bonds in December and then,
or we passed the resolution in December and then we refunded the bonds in January I believe.
Mayor Furlong: Okay.
Greg Sticha: But it’s the exact same resolution.
Mayor Furlong: And the reason for this again is that since the council only meets twice a month,
unless as in today, if we had taken action a week ago we might have achieved the 4%. Today we
can’t so this gives the opportunity to realize the savings when those savings are present rather
than making, waiting until our council meetings and the savings line up.
Greg Sticha: That’s right. Our FA has even indicated that it’s possible maybe by Wednesday or
Thursday rates will have rebounded and we might be doing the sale as soon as then. So the only
way to award bid that quickly would be to quickly gather you to go ahead.
Mayor Furlong: We’d have to do a special meeting and this is just a little more efficient process.
Greg Sticha: Yep.
Todd Gerhardt: Yeah just two things the Mayor and City Council should remember. Approving
this resolution is authorizing the sale of the bonds and there will be an official adoption by
Mayor and the City Council at a future meeting once that sale occurs. So we will bring it back
for your authorization but the sale will have already occurred. You’re authorizing both the
finance director and the mayor to go ahead with that acquisition. As long as we see at least a 4%
net present value savings.
Councilman Litsey: I think it makes a lot of sense. We did it before and it worked fine and I’m
all for letting the mayor make that decision. No, you’ve got to do that when time is of the
essence and trying to get a special meeting together doesn’t make any sense so.
Mayor Furlong: Other questions? Councilwoman Ernst.
Councilwoman Ernst: So is this giving us an option if we approve this tonight to go one way or
the other or are we going, I guess I’m trying to understand that. Are we still having the option to
gain a greater savings?
Greg Sticha: Yes. Had we awarded the bonds today we would have achieved about 3.1 to 3.2
percent net present value savings. Our debt policy requires that we get to 4%.
Councilwoman Ernst: Right.
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Chanhassen City Council - September 27, 2010
Greg Sticha: Which is, in this case would roughly equate to about $350,000 over the life of the
bonds. Had we done it today we would have probably only saved $260-70-80, somewhere in
there over the life of the bonds. Because we have that requirement in our policy that forces us to
get to the 4% net present value savings, we essentially could not sell the bonds today. So what
this resolution does, and it’s identical to what we did with the library bonds is, if rates rebound,
and a lot of times within 2-3 days they can rebound very quickly and our financial advisors
indicate to us that yes, now you can achieve the 4%, the resolution you see in front of you
authorizes the mayor and myself to go ahead and execute the sale at that point in time. At which
point in time it would become legally obligated to follow through with the sale but we will still
come to the City Council for an official approval of the authorization of the sale.
Councilwoman Ernst: Okay. That makes sense. I just wanted to make sure that we weren’t tied
to just a 4%. That if the market changed say 5% savings we could get that gain of 5% versus 4.1
or whatever it is.
Greg Sticha: Oh sure.
Mayor Furlong: And if I can comment on that. Certainly if the savings are there we will take
those. It would be my thought though if the council approves this, is that if the financial advisors
say that we can sell and achieve a 4%, that we would do it and I wouldn’t.
Councilwoman Ernst: Want to wait.
Mayor Furlong: Unless the council told me something different, I wouldn’t be waiting thinking
that maybe we could do better than that so if the opportunity’s there, yes but if the opportunities
to do more than 4% is there, yes we would realize that but it would have to move pretty quickly
because I think if that 4% is realized, the way I would interpret this is the council’s authorizing a
sale of the bonds if 4% is realized and not to necessarily wait.
Councilwoman Ernst: No and I’m not asking that we wait. I’m just saying before the sale of the
bonds, if something should change significantly within that time period from 4.
Mayor Furlong: Move in that direction.
Councilwoman Ernst: Right.
Mayor Furlong: Right.
Councilwoman Ernst: That we would still be able to gain that.
Greg Sticha: Due to the length of these bonds, and I won’t get into too many details but it has
something called negative arbitrage associated with it, it’s going to be difficult to achieve much
more than 4% and we’re really flirting right around that 4% off and on with the market and have
been for a few months. And that’s only because interest rates are at historic lows. If interest
rates start to rise I think our window is gone and we might not be able to certainly advance
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Chanhassen City Council - September 27, 2010
refund these bonds and the first option to do a regular refunding when they’re callable isn’t until
2017 and 18 so.
Councilwoman Ernst: Yeah, I mean I certainly want to, wouldn’t want to take the risk of even
losing the 4, right.
Todd Gerhardt: Yeah, we should say it’s going to be at least 4 or higher and if for some reason
Mark believes the market is going to go down in the next 2 weeks you know, I don’t know how
he could know that but the goal was to achieve anything at least to a 4 or higher.
Councilwoman Ernst: Right. Thank you.
Todd Gerhardt: Or there’s some big news that’s going to come out you know. Some type of
inflation factor, end of the month type thing. Cost of living announcement that might trigger it.
Mayor Furlong: Any other questions? Forecast on interest rates that anyone would want to
make public? Alright, would somebody like to move the resolution.
Greg Sticha: The motion’s highlighted in the dark black on the resolution.
Councilman Litsey: This part here?
Todd Gerhardt: Yeah, the title of the resolution.
Mayor Furlong: So you don’t have a resolution number.
Greg Sticha: We don’t. We didn’t this afternoon.
Todd Gerhardt: Karen will assign that.
Greg Sticha: We’ll fill that in.
Mayor Furlong: Would somebody like to move that we adopt.
Councilman McDonald: Okay I’ll move that we adopt resolution number to be determined later
approving the authorization for the issuance of general obligation water revenue refunding bonds
Series 2010B. Is that the right one to read?
Greg Sticha: That’s correct.
Mayor Furlong: Okay. Thank you. Is there a second?
Councilman Litsey: Second.
Mayor Furlong: Any discussion on this? Hearing none we’ll proceed with the vote.
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Chanhassen City Council - September 27, 2010
Resolution #2010-85A: Councilman McDonald moved, Councilman Litsey seconded that
the City Council approve the authorization of General Obligation Water Revenue
Refunding Bond, Series 2010B. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously
with a vote of 5 to 0.
Resolution #2010-85B: Councilman McDonald moved, Councilman Litsey seconded that
the City Council approve the authorization for the issuance of General Obligation Water
Revenue Refunding Bond Series 2010B. All voted in favor and the motion carried
unanimously with a vote of 5 to 0.
COUNCIL PRESENTATIONS:
Mayor Furlong: Any council presentations? Councilman McDonald.
Councilman McDonald: Yeah, this afternoon the Assistant City Manager and myself got to
attend a new business opening and I just thought it would be a good idea to announce that before
the council that yeah a new business opened up in Chanhassen today. It’s call You Click and it’s
kind of an interesting concept and idea. What it is, they rent out photographic studios with the
backdrops and natural lighting and all of those types of things. It’s where you could go in and
take professional looking pictures. You can rent out the space by the hour, by the day, however
long you want to but it’s also set up so that like professional photographers could come in and
rent the space and take pictures. If you wanted to sell things on EBay you can go in and they
have you know little booths and special lighting so that you can take pictures of the merchandise
you’re trying to sell and it actually looks a little bit better. Enhances it and then you can put
those on EBay and hopefully it’ll sell it quicker but it’s kind of a unique concept and I just
thought it would be a good thing to make recognition and notice that yeah, we started a new
business in the city today and I wish them a lot of luck and it was a fairly good turnout of family,
friends and the Chamber of Commerce was there so wish them a lot of luck going forward.
Councilman Litsey: Where’s it located?
Councilman McDonald: Over by Summerwood.
Todd Gerhardt: Retail underneath.
Councilman McDonald: Yeah, in that little, right next to the nails place.
Councilman Litsey: Okay. Yeah I know that well. No, just kidding.
Councilman McDonald: Summerwood or the nails place?
Councilman Litsey: Good come back.
Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Any other council presentations? I guess just a few that I have to
update the council on some of the things that are going on also to bring your attention to
something that I think you all received in the mail. It was just sent out, maybe start with that.
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Chanhassen City Council - September 27, 2010
It’s from the office of a legislative auditor. Legislative auditor works with the state legislature
and conducts various studies and reports back to the legislature periodically on various matters of
interest that the legislature is interested in gathering more information on the state of affairs of
public policy. Currently they’re conducting an analysis and audit of transit within the Twin City
area and they’re looking at the strengths and weaknesses of our transit system. Specifically
looking at suburban providers and their successes and challenges that they’ve had over the years
and other transit issues as well. It’s a fairly in-depth, comprehensive analysis that they’re doing.
Each of us, and we just last Thursday evening the Southwest Transit Commission, of which
we’re a member along with Chaska and Eden Prairie, met with the staff from the legislative
auditors group for about an hour and a half, hour and 45 minutes and talked about a variety of
issues. In attendance there in addition to current commission members was the Bob Roepke,
former Mayor of Chaska who was heavily involved with the Opt-Out legislation and organizing
Southwest Transit. Also Metropolitan Council member Craig Peterson. Our former council
member was there. Mr. Peterson served as Chair of the Southwest Commission for a number of
years as a member of our council and County Commissioner Workman was there too. Tom
Workman was there. Mr. Workman was very involved with the legislation adoption and various
aspects at the legislature as part of the Transportation Policy Committee. That being said, I
would encourage you and I’m noticing the dates here. This was just sent out. This letter from
the Legislative Auditor Office was sent out about a week or so ago and they’re looking for us as
local public officials to participate in an online survey. I’m noticing the date here, they’re
hoping it will be completed here by Wednesday so I would encourage you to take a look at that.
Councilwoman Ernst you served on the commission in the past. If you have questions about
some of the questions being asked I would encourage you to talk to Mr. Gerhardt, Len Simich
who’s the Executive Director of Southwest Transit can certainly provide you some background
as well. I have not seen the survey myself so I’m not familiar with the questions but it is related
to transit in the region. Not just necessarily suburban providers. One of the points that we
emphasized is that while Southwest Transit’s been very successful in this area in terms of
increasing ridership and providing services to focus on the needs of our residents, the question
was how does that serve the entire region and when the parking facilities, the transit stations at
Eden Prairie and Chanhassen and Park and Ride down in Chaska are 80% full or more, those are
cars that are not on the regional road system so anyone else driving on the system is benefitting
from those cars being in a park and ride as opposed to being in a parking lot, now called
Crosstown, 35W, 394. So I think we really do play a key part in the overall regional
transportation system. And while there’s always been congestion mitigation providing an
alternative to those commuting to downtown, the University, to reduce traffic on our roads so
again I would encourage council members. I’m just seeing this evening, as I know most of you
are. They just came out recently and they’re due in the next few days so if you have some
questions I’d be happy to talk to you but just with open meeting laws I’d encourage you to talk
with Mr. Gerhardt and with, and/or Mr. Simich as well. The Executive Director of Southwest
Transit. They’d be able to answer any of your questions that you might have. Mr. Gerhardt,
anything you want to pick up on that particular?
Todd Gerhardt: No. I think you covered it all.
Mayor Furlong: Okay.
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Chanhassen City Council - September 27, 2010
Todd Gerhardt: It’s an online survey. It’s real simple to follow.
Mayor Furlong: Good. The other things, just again some updates. Had an opportunity to make
a presentation to the Chamber of Commerce on Wednesday last week. It was the joint meeting
with the mayors from the cities that are served by the Southwest Metro Chamber of Commerce.
Ourselves, Chaska, Victoria, and Carver and each of us gave a presentation about the issues that
we’re facing and the opportunities that we’re enjoying and such like that. It was a good turn out
and I want to thank the Chamber for giving me the opportunity to speak and also thank Laurie
Hokkanen, our Assistant City Manager for her helping with the presentation and others that were
involved as well so Mr. Gerhardt, I know you helped as well on that so I appreciate that. And
then finally another meeting was with one of our businesses and working together. Mr. Gerhardt
and I met with a local business, Smart Track who employs about 100 people. 127 people here in
town. Has a very interesting business and security business and they’re looking to expand their
business over the next few months so it was a great opportunity to meet with them. Learn about
what they’re doing and interesting to see, Mr. McDonald just as you were talking about new
businesses locating here. Other businesses that are here are looking to expand and bring more
employees to our work force here so it was a great meeting and interesting tour.
Todd Gerhardt: Yeah I think the number one thing I took away from it is that they’re very happy
in being located in Chanhassen. It meets all of their needs, especially from the law enforcement
standpoint. Very happy to have 24 law enforcement service. Internet service. And the other
thing is they’re growing company. They need employees. They need skilled employees so it
was my job to get them connected with the Work Force Center here at Carver County and the
statewide agency to try to draw more employees to the Chanhassen area either live or work for
their company so they have a very extensive background check that they have to go through. It’s
anywhere from 90 to 120 days so they try to hire through a temp agency during the interim and
as that background check is going on so it’s a very secure company. There is cameras all over
the place. You cannot get in or out unless everything is accounted for so it’s kind of interesting
the process we went through so great company. Clean company and looking to give back to the
community too and really want to try to network with local elected officials and other business
leaders. They draw from a variety of areas. They’re also very interested in working with us to
try to get our transportation system upgraded and retaining the Opt Out systems so whatever they
can do to help in that manner they’ve offered and so that was nice to hear.
Mayor Furlong: Yeah I should pick up and thank you for mentioning the law enforcement.
They have had meetings with the sheriff’s department. Those associated with the contract.
Employees for the sheriff’s office and Sheriff Bud Olson as well. Were very pleased with those
conversations and the committed response times that our sheriff’s office could provide them in
large part because of the 24-7 coverage and our ongoing contract with them exceeded the
expectations of their customers and what they needed from a security standpoint or response
standpoint so our thanks to the sheriff’s office and Sheriff Bud Olson for their commitment and
drive to work with our local businesses. He basically said if we didn’t have, if they didn’t meet
the necessary commitment from a public safety and law enforcement standpoint they would not
be able to locate here so it’s good to see the, it’s good to hear those comments. And in terms of
transportation, one of the items we talked about with that business in terms of expanding their
ability to attract good employees was the 101 river crossing and improvements there. We’ve had
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Chanhassen City Council - September 27, 2010
some meetings, Mr. Gerhardt and I with our peers in the City of Shakopee and the Scott County,
Carver County. We took some action this evening in our consent agenda to promote upgrading
the 101 river crossing. We’re currently working on a project on 101 from Lyman Boulevard
south to Pioneer Trail, that’s in the works and we’re looking to continue that down across the
river and for businesses such as this where the issue came up is the, if people can’t conveniently
get to their place of business then that cuts off a portion of their potential work force. Where we
may have technical people that would be able to and would want to work there but if their
commute is too long or they simply can’t get there conveniently then that reduces the number of
potential employees of a business so for our other businesses, whether it’s our large employers,
Emerson, General Mills but also for some of our smaller employers, having good access to good
people is very critical so appreciate the council’s action this evening with regard to 101 and
making improvements there.
Todd Gerhardt: Maybe just to add on the infrastructure question. We talked about 101. It is
closed again today. Closed at 11:30 and due to the recent rains that we had last week. It should
peak here this coming Thursday about 3 feet short of the record so. My guess a couple weeks for
that closure. That forces basically everybody to either go to Belle Plain or use the Bloomington
Ferry crossing so again really inconvenient. We have some employees that work in the
Shakopee area, or live in the Shakopee area and work here so they’re going to have a tough time
getting to work.
Mayor Furlong: And that’s all I have. So any questions for me. Mr. Gerhardt.
ADMINISTRATIVE UPDATE.
Todd Gerhardt: Just one other item. This coming Friday we have our homecoming parade for
the Chanhassen Storm. It’s going to be around 4:00 to 4:30. It’s going to follow a similar route
thth
that our 4 of July parade follows. A little shorter with coming down Laredo, along West 78,
up Kerber and then through the elementary school property. They plan on having the high
school band, middle school bands, marching in the parade so should be a fun event as they start
to celebrate really their first homecoming this coming year so. Really second. Really don’t have
a homecoming until we have a graduation.
Mayor Furlong: And they really don’t have any alumni yet.
Todd Gerhardt: They didn’t have a graduation class last year, correct.
Councilman Litsey: They have seniors this year.
Mayor Furlong: It was a fun parade last year and it was a lot of fun to see so many people
having a good time so.
Todd Gerhardt: Yeah. Keep building those traditions and you know just great example of the
fun you can have in this downtown in having a high school in the community. That’s all I have.
Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Any questions for Mr. Gerhardt or his staff? Okay, very good.
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Chanhassen City Council - September 27, 2010
CORRESPONDENCE DISCUSSION.
None.
Councilwoman Ernst moved, Councilman McDonald seconded to adjourn the meeting. All
voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 5 to 0. The City Council
meeting was adjourned at 7:50 p.m.
Submitted by Todd Gerhardt
City Manager
Prepared by Nann Opheim
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