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CC Minutes 2002 02 25CHANHASSEN CITY COUNCIL REGULAR MEETING FEBRUARY 2S, 2002 Mayor Jansen called the meeting to order at 7:0S p.m. The meeting was opened with the Pledge to the Flag. COUNCILMEMBERS PRESENT: Mayor Jansen, Councilman Labatt, Councilman Boyle and Councilman Ayotte COUNCILMEMBERS ABSENT: Councilman Peterson STAFF PRESENT: Todd Gerhardt, Roger Knutson, and Teresa Burgess PUBLIC ANNOUNCEMENTS: PRESENTATION OF MAPLE LEAF AWARD, SUSAN MCALLISTER, ENVIRONMENTAL COMMISSION. Mayor Jansen and the City Council presented the Maple Leaf' award to Susan McAllister in recognition of' outstanding service and dedication to the community for service on the Environmental Commission. CONSENT AGENDA: Councilman Ayotte moved, Councilman Boyle seconded to approve the following Consent Agenda items pursuant to the City Manager's recommendations: a. Resolution #2002-22: Project No. 00-01-1. b. Resolution #2002-23: Adopt Feasibility Study for the Extension of West 78th Street, Project 01- 14. c. Galpin Business Park: 1) Approval of Final Plat 2) Approval of Development Contract d. Resolution #2002-24: Receive Feasibility Study, Call for Public Hearing on the 2002 Residential Street Improvement Projects. e. Resolution #2002-25: Adopt Resolution Approving Funding to Advance Construction of New Highway 212 in the Southwest Metro Area. Resolution #2002-26: Approve Resolution for Highway 212 Interregional Corridor Plan. i. Adopt Feasibility Study for Dogwood Road Utility & Street Improvements, Accept Donation from Chanhassen/Chaska Soccer Club. Approval of Bills. Approval of Minutes: -City Council Work Session dated February 11, 2002 -City Council Meeting dated February 11, 2002 City Council Meeting - February 25, 2002 Receive Commission Minutes: -Park and Recreation Commission meeting dated January 22, 2002 All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously 4 to 0. VISITOR PRESENTATIONS: None. LAW ENFORCEMENT/FIRE DEPARTMENT UPDATE. Sgt. Dave Potts: Good evening Mayor, Council members. Brief tonight. You have the Sheriff's office area report. Monthly report. January being the first month. You can see we have no trends yet for this year. Community Service Officer highlights are normally presented in the packet of information I give to the council. I did not receive those from Jeff in time to get them in the packet so that's missing for this month. And I just had a few items to address to the council. First one, identity theft. Beth and I had noticed just a very small rash, if you might, of some identity theft cases in Chanhassen. I believe there were a half dozen or fewer, but it's something very unusual, in this city anyways, and so we thought we'd take up a proactive approach and kind of get the word out to our neighborhoods and what not, but this is the type of crime that can affect anyone, anywhere. So we thought we might contact the Villager newspaper and see if they were interested in doing an article on identity theft because it can be extremely frustrating, aggravating and a host of other problems for the victims of that type of crime. And as you, I'm sure you're all well aware, the Villager turned out a very nice article. We were able to contact some of our local victims and let them know that we were doing this article and invite them to participate to give it that victim's perspective. Kind of touch base with the average reader out there and again, a real nice article and it was nice working with the Villager on that. It's great to do that. Mayor Jansen: That was great exposure and thank you for taking the initiative to contact them and our appreciation to the Villager for really having highlighted that for the residents as an issue. I certainly learned from reading. Sgt. Dave Potts: Apparently very timely because both the Minneapolis paper and some television news stations had items on identity theft as well, and it was something that has been going around the metro area for some time and it touched us a little bit here in Chanhassen too so. Mayor Jansen: And some of those simple things that you could do to avoid it. Just not putting your mail out into your mailbox for your outgoing and not putting your trash out at night I thought were some really good tips. Sgt. Dave Potts: Well exactly. I mean you can't protect yourself from everything all the time, but if there's a few little things that people can do, it can save them a lot of aggravation so. Next item, February Festival. The first festival of the year for the city, and the sheriff's office was able again this year to provide security with officers using snowmobiles and ATV's to kind of police the event and help out where needed with traffic and what not and I'm happy to report there were no problems or arrests or anything like that at the festival so it went real smooth. The last item I have this evening was a fairly routine traffic stop that one of our officers made and then was eventually assisted by two other officers. The 3 deputies that worked together on this were Jason Breunig, Kyle Perlich and Larry Lessard and often times a routine traffic stop can open the door to something. In this case, the door that was opened led to the arrest of both occupants of this vehicle on felony drug charges and it just kind of shows the team work and some of the City Council Meeting - February 25, 2002 skills that the officers use to look beyond just a basic traffic stop to come up with a good arrest like that. And it's not something that occurs every day so you might notice in the packet that I did include a copy of a positive performance tracker is a term we use at the sheriff's office that I completed with regard to those officers on that particular stop so, it's a good job. But with that, that's all I had for the council this evening. Any comments or questions from council? Mayor Jansen: Council? Councilman Ayotte: You've done this before where you've highlighted an event. Is this percolating to the top because you've been focused in identifying these sorts of incidents, or has something changed with respect to the performance of Carver County Sheriff that you're beginning to do more of these sorts of things? Sgt. Dave Potts: You talking about this traffic stop incident? Councilman Ayotte: In this case the traffic stop, but last week, last time you also brought up an event where you were successful in nailing a couple of fellas. Sgt. Dave Potts: Yeah this is something with regards to these performance trackers that I've included the last couple of times in the information to the council. It's something that's done on a fairly regular basis in our office, and I thought with regard to the City of Chanhassen, council may certainly like information on those types of things that occur in the city with the deputies assigned to Chanhassen so that's something new that I've included in the council information, but not necessarily new to the sheriff's office. Mayor Jansen: That's appreciated and certainly identifying where they're going above and beyond, as you're pointing out here, to the situation. Sgt. Dave Potts: I mean there's many occasions and we try to pick up on those and recognize the officers but since the officers assigned to Chanhassen work, you know pretty much exclusively here, I though that would be informative and interesting for council as well. Mayor Jansen: Great, thank you. Anything else? Okay, thank you. Appreciate your joining us this evening. And I don't see a representative from the fire department, correct Mr. Gerhardt? Todd Gerhardt: Right. Mayor Jansen: So we will then move on. AWARD OF BIDS: AWARD OF BIDS FOR LIBRARY BONDS. Bruce DeJong: Mayor and council members. This is kind of the end of a long process. If you go back to September of 2000 when the voters of Chanhassen actually approved a referendum for 6 million dollars to be spent towards a new library. Right now we have before you a bond issue for $6,095,000. That's because state law allows us to add on underwriter's discount onto the principal amount, so it is slightly higher than the voter's had approved, but I'm here to report that we've had a very successful bond sale. During the course of the process of preparing for this we had prepared financial information that was for an official statement of the city regarding our financial position, and I had a conversation with the analyst and raters from Standard and Poor's from New York City and during the course of this they decided that City Council Meeting - February 25, 2002 the City of Chanhassen is in very good financial position and they have awarded you an upgrade in our bond rating from a rating of A- to a rating of A. So I think that's a significant accomplishment and the council is to be congratulated for your financial foresight. With that I'll mm it over to Mark Ruff from Ehler's and Associates and he will talk about the results of the sale today. Mark Ruff: Mayor, members of the council, Mark Ruff with Ehlers and Associates. We're the financial advisors to the city. As Bruce mentioned, the official statement that was prepared with the financial information and demographic information about the city was distributed nationwide and we did take bids at our offices today from underwriters who competitively bid upon these bonds. The results of that bid is attached to the cover that we had handed out to you. There were 6 bids, which is a good showing on the bids. The winning bid was US Bancorp/Piper Jaffray with a true interest rate, which is a combination of both the coupons, the interest rates and the fees that they charge of 4.5793 percent. The interest rates ran from a coupon of 2003 of 1.55. It's hard to imagine interest rates getting much lower than that. 1.55 out to, in the year 2022 of 4.85 percent interest rates so you know this is awfully low interest rates in today's environment and we are certainly happy with the results of the sale. As a part of the sale process we allow bidders to purchase private bond insurance to upgrade the A rating up to a AAA because there's many bond funds and such that don't buy anything but AAA rated paper, and that is a cost that the underwriter takes out of their fees. It's not an additional cost that the city has to bear. And this underwriter, US Bancorp/Piper Jaffray did choose to buy the AAA insurance and so the people who buy these bonds will be credited enhanced. Again that's the only reason that that insurance would ever have to kick in is if the city of Chanhassen went bankrupt. A very unlikely occasion but obviously people like to have a certain rating that they like to enjoy. So these are going to be AAA rated bonds and that has been counted for the city in the past. The cover sheet that I handed out for you is, for those people who are curious about how does this compare to what was actually voted upon now several months earlier than today, and we always make estimates and we try to be conservative when we put together the tax impacts for folks, but at the time we were guessing that this type of bond issue would be about an average annual payment of $515,000. It came in much lower than that at $469,000. The interest rates certainly were much lower than what we were predicting as well. And so the tax impacts are about 10 percent lower than what we had anticipated, using the existing tax base. That doesn't even factor in the equation the fact that you had growth since this, you know you have an average market value increase of about 10 percent. A lot of that's existing inflation on existing property, but there's also new growth that's going to lower those. So those tax impacts will be lower than even a $62.00 a year that we projected today, but we'd just like to review that so we don't forget about some of those things in terms of trying to live by the promises that we made to the voters when they approved the bond issue. So, and with that we would certainly, number one recommend that the council approve the sale of the bonds to US Bancorp/Piper Jaffray. And two is I do have a certificate that I'd like to give the Mayor on behalf of the city that just is a general certificate that we put together that is a recognition of the upgrade for the city and I think it's important to demonstrate that a rating agency is somebody who's not connected to the city whatsoever. They don't have any vested interest. They certainly are a true third party evaluation and certainly showing positive trends within the city and we hope to see those positive trends increase over the period of time as we work with the city. So with that Madam Mayor, I'd like to present to you the certificate of the upgrade here. Mayor Jansen: Wonderful. Thank you. Mark Ruff: While I'd like to take credit for a rating upgrade, as many of you are aware, I was on vacation last week and so Bruce is the one who really was the main spokesman, person for the city and really should be commended for that process. It's not an easy process that you go through in these rating interviews. They tend to be rather intensive and almost are more like interrogations than anything else at some point in City Council Meeting - February 25, 2002 time. I've sat through many of them so staff certainly as well as the council should be commended for those efforts, so. Mayor Jansen: And thank you. And we certainly have appreciated staff's diligence in holding us to our financial commitments as far as you've continually emphasized to us how we need to improve our bond ratings and that the actions that we especially took this year are going to be significant as far as helping in that endeavor. My question to you earlier had been, what does this upgrade mean to our taxpayers as far as a savings and you had estimated that maybe on these bonds we're saving our taxpayers 30 to 60,000 dollars, correct? In having secured this upgrade in our rating so our appreciation and thanks to Bruce and your hard work and Mr. Gerhardt and Mark Ruff, you've certainly been with us all along as we've been trying to work through our situation. So appreciate that. Good job. Council, any questions for staff or comments? Okay. So ifI could have a motion please. Councilman Boyle: I'll make a motion that we approve the sale of the bonds to US Bancorp/Piper Jaffray. Councilman Labatt: Second. Resolution #2002-27: Councilman Boyle moved, Councilman Labatt seconded to award the sale for the $6,095,000 General Obligation Library Bonds, Series 2002A to US Bancorp/Piper Jaffray with an interest rate of 4.5793%. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously 4 to 0. UPDATE FROM MEDIACOM CABLE, BILL JENSEN, GENERAL MANAGER. Todd Gerhardt: I got a phone call from both Tom Boardwell and Bill Jensen that they would try to be here as close to 7:00 as they could. They did have another commitment. If you'd like to move this off into later in your agenda, when they arrive. They said they would be here. Mayor Jansen: Okay. We will do that. Why don't we go onto item number 6. We'll come back to item number 5. DISCUSSION OF ROAD IMPROVEMENTS TO LAKE LUCY ROAD, PROJECT 01-08. Teresa Burgess: Thank you Madam Mayor and Council. The council had requested additional information on the Lake Lucy Road section of the project. The Project Number 01-08 which was approved in January for preparation of plans and specifications for the remainder of the project. Some of the information the council had asked for was how many parcels remained as potential development on this stretch of road, and in your council packet you will notice that the parcels are shaded showing potential development parcels. Parcel number A is part of the Ashling Meadows development, and that has approximately 21 lots that have been preliminary platted. That has been approved. It just needs to be final platted before it can be completed. Parcels B and C together have been proposed to the city as a potential development. That is a 17 lot development as it currently stands. Staff is currently working with the developer. There are some issues with that development that still need to be worked out so that may, that number may go down. The remainder of the parcels that are there, obviously all these parcels have issues and I'd like to stress that these are parcels that have potential development to them. We have not received any applications from the property owners or any indication that they desire to develop at this time. All in all, our planning department has estimated potential for approximately 50 lots and the majority of that is on the Ashling Meadows and the Noecker piece, A, B and C. The Ashling Meadows parcel is accessed from Galpin Boulevard and the Parcels B and C will be accessed off Lake Lucy, but also have access through City Council Meeting - February 25, 2002 the Ashling Meadows development when it is completed. The other thing that council had asked about, I believe someone stood up and spoke at the public hearing about sanitary sewer to this area. I did receive a petition today to explore the possibility of sanitary sewer in this area, and I spoke with the individual that dropped it off, Mr. Kendall, and at this point nobody that has signed the petition has, to our knowledge or to their's, a failing septic system. And so what they're petitioning is if we're going to do the road, we might as well do the sanitary so it's available when they're ready. What I discussed with him was that if this is something that is really, there's a push to get sanitary, what we should do is investigate. Is there really an interest? And then rather than do it now, let's wait until either the sanitary sewer, the septic systems are pushing this project, or the road is pushing the project but let's squeeze what we can of life out of that road. If we're going to dig it up, let's maximize our dollars. The only disadvantage of doing that is you increase the cost by inflation for those property owners. I would still say it's a good bet. If you're going to pursue sanitary sewer, that you still push this project off7 to 10 years and then do a full blown project with reconstruction. You have to dig up the road. You might as well squeeze every ounce of life out of that asphalt that you can before you do it until we get into increased maintenance costs. At this point I can't answer if the sanitary sewer is something that the neighborhood is really interested in, or if they just have an interest in exploring it because we have not done feasibility studies. I just received it today. Lake Lucy Road is one that I do feel comfortable with the gamble of letting it go one year if the council wants to explore that idea of allowing them to wait and do sanitary sewer to serve this neighborhood does have water available to it. I would recommend that we leave Steller Court, which is the small cul-de-sac that you see, that we leave that project in. That was approved by the council in January for plans and specs. That stretch of road cannot wait a year. And we can piggy back that onto our other project, either remove it from the MSA project and put it into the residential street project, or leave it, either way it works. We have two projects this year that we can make it work with. And so with that I'll answer any questions. Mayor Jansen: Questions for staff. Councilman Ayotte: Teresa, did you say that you recommend a postpone of one year and a re-look? Was that your? Teresa Burgess: I feel comfortable allowing this to go until 2003. Allow us to take a look at, is it serious that we do sanitary sewer out there? If it is serious to do sanitary sewer, I would recommend that we wait 7 to 10 years to do this street. If it's not, if we look at it and people are saying no. We aren't ever going to want sanitary sewer, then we need to look at next year we would be looking very seriously at a rehabilitation project. Councilman Ayotte: And the CRI calls out the road for this year, but you feel comfortable if we're pushing it out a year? Teresa Burgess: This road is, you have a range, if you remember that curve, you have a range of time. We're at a point where we have a little bit of leeway. We don't have a lot and it is a gamble, but our street crews have done a good job of maintaining it. This is one that if any of the streets were one that I would say push it off, this is the one that I'm the most confident that we can do that with. It is something that in this case, because we have an interest, I feel more comfortable doing that because if we're going to do sanitary anyway, we're going to let that road go. I think it's a good gamble in this case. Mayor Jansen: Okay. And I like that idea in that it maybe eliminates some of the construction traffic that I was a little concerned about having running up and down Lake Lucy Road as they're completing these projects, and already impacting a brand new stretch of roadway, if in fact we can have that go in after some City Council Meeting - February 25, 2002 of that development is done. Even though it's off of Galpin, I don't know how much control we have over where their actual routes are taking them with this construction traffic. But I would just as soon maybe, if we're going to push it off, we've maybe eliminated that as an issue to some extent. Teresa Burgess: The remaining parcels, as I said, we have not had any applications from the property owners so we cannot even guess when those remaining parcels will come in for development, or if they will. At this point we've simply looked at it, based on the council request, what else is out there for potential. I feel comfortable with this one waiting until 2003 so we take some, a good look at this. The other issue that was raised was the bike path and our parks department has not had a chance to really take a good look at the bike path. There's some controversy there on whether it should remain on the street or if it should be separated. If we do a rehabilitation project we really don't have the opportunity to separate it. If we do a reconstruction, then our parks department will look at it and decide if it's appropriate to leave it on grade or to separate it in this area of the project. Mayor Jansen: Okay. And so your next step to find out whether the sanitary sewer is something that the majority of these residents are looking for, what would that next step be that you'd take? Teresa Burgess: At this point we probably would not initiate a feasibility study because we would be, if they are interested we would be recommending it in 10 years. That seems a little bit premature. Instead what we would do is we would just evaluate from in-house what it's going to take to get sanitary into there, and then talk with the property owners and see if they're interested. We would look at it strictly from a technical standpoint, and talk with them. To see if they really are going to want that or if they like being on septic and are going to be fighting to stay on that instead. So probably a neighborhood meeting and some information from our staff and we would take some time. Probably do that in the fall so that we could answer it with next year's feasibility studies. Mayor Jansen: Okay. So it'd be back on our agenda with the road construction projects for next year? Teresa Burgess: It would come up with next year's feasibility studies for projects. Mayor Jansen: Okay. Alright. Any other questions for staff? Councilman Boyle: No, I concur with your recommendations. Mayor Jansen: Okay. Then if I could have a motion please. Councilman Boyle: It's your turn Bob. I did the last one. Councilman Ayotte: Well I'd like to make, let me see ifI can articulate the motion and we can edit it as we go along. Mayor Jansen: Oh just a short one would be fine to push this off a year. Councilman Ayotte: I was going to add a few more things to it but alright. Let's just keep it at that. That we take the Lake Lucy project, postpone it for a year and have a re-look at it at that point in time, including the sewer and water indication. Mayor Jansen: Thank you. And a second please. City Council Meeting - February 25, 2002 Councilman Boyle: I'll second that. That sounds pretty good. Mayor Jansen: Thank you Bob. Councilman Ayotte moved, Councilman Boyle seconded to table the road improvement project for Lake Lucy Road until next year. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously 4 to 0. UPDATE FROM MEDIACOM CABLE, BILL JENSEN, GENERAL MANAGER. Todd Gerhardt: Mayor, Council members. Tonight we have Tom Boardwell from Mediacom and Bill Jensen, the General Manager. Staff has scheduled quarterly meetings with Mediacom in the coming year to update the council on activity dealing with our cable access connection and with our cable company. And I'd like to introduce Tom Boardwell and Bill Jensen. Mayor Jansen: Welcome. Tom Boardwell: Thank you. Mayor Jansen: Thank you for joining us this evening. Tom Boardwell: Thank you. Mayor, Council members. Tom Boardwell, Director of Government Relations for Mediacom. Thanks for having us. It's a good time to check in and we're going to do it on a regular basis, which is going to serve us both well so. You know in our business we don't like surprises, and I certainly know in your business you like surprises even less so with some good communication we can tell you about what's happening with our company and with your system. Maybe I should just mention too that, even though we've not necessarily been at a lot of council meetings that were outside of renewals a few years ago or transfers, we have been in touch with your staff quite a bit. Our technicians spend some time with your staff to make sure that things are addressed and moving forward the way that you'd like to do it. And your staff, Mr. Gerhardt is excellent at being an advocate for our customers when they're in need of some extra help or something that slipped through the cracks perhaps that Todd will get on the phone and track me down on my cell phone and frequently with the customer on the line, and then we will take that information and try to address those customers concerns and I think we agree that there have been less since the upgrade, but there's still things that come up and we're very appreciative that we have the opportunity to get at those once they make it to you or your staff, we want to make sure we can jump on them quickly and solve them, and I think we've got a good mechanism to make sure that that happens. I'd be happy to answer any questions. I think maybe just briefly I could tell you maybe just a couple comments about what's happening at the State level as far as regulatory things. You may have heard a lot of different talk, especially actually at the last session about re-regulating our business. There's been quite a few different proposals bouncing around. We are regulated at the State level, as well as your local franchise here. There's a chapter that, it's Chapter 238 that, depending upon who you talk to, they think that that chapter needs some work. You are familiar with the chapter perhaps when you were looking at granting a second franchise, because it actually spells out the process for doing that... At the state level there were a few different ideas on what should happen with, of all things, money and the Governor had a plan that he would like to take a look at maybe streamlining some of the regulations at a state level. Maybe taking some of the franchise money that you get, or take public access money that you get from us, and do some other things on a statewide basis for that. And yet another senator had an idea that there shouldn't be any local control of franchises and that that should happen only at a state level such as the PUC or City Council Meeting - February 25, 2002 something like that. And then there was even a third or fourth view of what should happen. In essence nothing happened last session, and obviously this session's going to be a short session that's focused on some other things too so we don't expect things to happen at the state, from a regulatory level, this year. But we think over the interim, and going into next year, we'll probably see that rekindling of what should happen with, if anything, on franchise with cable. And companies vary on how they approach that. We're regulated at the local level. That's where we appreciate it the most. It ties us closest with our customers there. It's where we do our business. Obviously our satellite direct dish competitors don't have a local franchise or the need for one, so they're our most direct competitor. So our only concern is not to have multiple layers of regulation and duplicate of requirements. We're fine with it as the way it is at the local level. But we'll keep in touch with that as things go forward and make sure that you're in the loop of what our feelings are as some of these things may or may not become closer to reality and things heading into the next session. I'd be happy to answer any questions. Probably what you have most on your minds maybe is something what's happening operationally and we've got the top guy in the state for us here, Bill Jensen has the control and the authority to do wonderful things and is going to be happy to address you as well, but I'd be happy to take your questions as well. Mayor Jansen: Well maybe if you could tell us a little bit about what's happening with your on-line internet system. Tom Boardwell: I sure can, but I think that's part of what Bill would like to do. And it's the most timely thing so I think that would be helpful. Mayor Jansen: Appreciate it, thank you. Bill Jensen: We won't let Tom sneak away here so, I'd like him to answer all the government. Good evening Mayor Jansen. I'm Bill Jensen, J-e-n-s-e-n. I should change the e to an a maybe, but I'm the regional manager for Mediacom. I've been out here in Minnesota for about a year and a quarter from New England. And I didn't have any gray hair when I first arrived. Tom can attest to that but anyway, very quickly. My region is all of Minnesota as far north as Grand Marais, and all the way down south here in the metro Minneapolis areas as well as Waseca, St. James, St. Peter, some of those communities. In Minnesota Mediacom has just under 90,000 cable television customers. I have an additional 45,000 customers in northeastern Iowa and Wisconsin. Mediacom as a corporation is the eighth largest cable telecommunications company in the country. We have 1.8 million customers. I'm sorry, 1.6 million. I don't know if we acquired anyone today Tom, but 1.6 million customers spread out over 26 states, and the company is a publicly traded company based out of New York. So that's kind of the background of the company. To give you a quick update on where we are here in the city of Chanhassen, as far as subscriber numbers. Councilman Ayotte: As far as what? Bill Jensen: Subscriber numbers. Customer numbers. We have 4,592 customers in the city of Chanhassen franchise area. Of those 4,592 customers, 852 customers subscribe to our digital product, which is approximately 19 percent. Right about where we're at because the digital product has only really been available for just about a year where we've really been pushing it. We also have 645 high speed data or cable modem customers, which I'll talk about the conversion in just a moment. And those numbers look pretty good for us really. We generally, in most communities right now are in the 5 to 6 percent area, and of course that takes us close to the 17 percent penetration so we like those numbers. As far as the modem service goes with Mediacom, you might recall a little over a year ago we started in the cable modem City Council Meeting - February 25, 2002 internet business with a company called the ISP channel. It wasn't really a video channel like ESPN, but it was an internet channel that you could communicate over the internet with our modems and after about 8 months that channel decided, or that internet service decided they weren't making enough money to make it a viable business so they got out of the internet business. So we went with the largest cable internet network provider in the country. A company called Excite at Home, and they went bankrupt. So in the past 18 months we decided enough is enough. Not just for our customers but certainly for our company, and we decided here in the past couple of months to form our internet company, much like many of the large cable operators do such as Charr Communications, Time Warner with their AOL Road Runner product. Charr Communications has Pipeline. Etc, and AT&T and those companies. So we came up with, we now operate our own internet service. It's under the domain name of MCHSI. You can actually go to that web page at www.mchsi.com. That stands for Mediacom High Speed and we now, the beauty of that is we own the domain name, where with at Home we did not. We pay for the data circuits that takes our customers locally out of Chanhassen, puts them on a fiber optic network and then we transfer you to a, transfer those modem customers to an internet portal which right now for us is down in Des Moines, Iowa. So we own the domain name. We own, we pay for the data circuits and it's our internet now to manage so we did a big conversion here last week, and hopefully, and perhaps some of you are our customers and some of the citizens are here, we sent out at least one letter to each customer. We sent out at least 2 e-mails to every customer, and we called each customer at least twice. It was a pre-recorded message, but we've had a real high success rate where by simply clicking on a configurator if you will, it re-set their modem settings on their computer and their e-mail settings and walk them through the process so that really for us has been the biggest, really item for us that's been going on lately. Is the internet conversion, and it's quite healthy and quite healthy here in the city of Chanhassen. I can also let you know that of course you folks have a lot of development going on, and a lot of times we're chasing after our people to make sure that cable TV drops are buried on a timely basis. I think I met with the city manager this past summer at a subdivision and I think that's a great relationship where if we're stubbing our toe, the city, especially Mr. Gerhardt calls us and we get right on it so we've been real appreciative of that. We have of course just added a couple of channels here, and I just want to add, both channels are WE. Women's Entertainment Network. Pretty soon we'll probably have ME, the Men's Entertainment Network, but we don't know. That will probably be down the road someday. Also the Inspiration Network, which is a multi- denominational religious channel. A couple of other real quick things. We expect here within the next 2 to 4 weeks to have a contract with Time Warner Cable to deliver the Minneapolis broadcast channels via fiber optic cable right to our customers here in the city of Chanhassen. We're going to pick up 8 studio quality feeds. We have fiber optic cable from the interconnect that's already there with Time Warner. It's already built. All we need to do is get them to sign the contract. In addition to that we will add on Channel 6, MCN which is the Metro Cable Network. That's the Hennepin County Board of Supervisors funded channel and they do local programming on behalf of Hennepin County. You might also have seen recently Channel 10 which we activated a couple of months ago. We call that the Mediacom Connection Channel. We're in the communications business but as the city manager tells us once in a while you're not getting your message out so that's our connection if you will, our way to communicate with our customers. It has 3 elements and one of them is really kind of bedrocked right here in Chanhassen with the National Weather Service. The reporting station. We have the first layer of software to do local weather via the National Weather Satellite Service, and it's a lot quicker than the Weather Channel. There's no hosts. No commercials. Gives the National Satellite image and then a 4 state regional and then the Minneapolis with Wisconsin kind of over on the right, and we're going to load the second layer of software, and that's a pretty sharp looking channel. In addition to that we have some high end graphics where we can promote our products and our services. How to reach us. And then we also have the ability to playback videotapes. How to install your modem. How to fine tune your TV set so that's looking to be a pretty good channel for us to communicate with our customers. And then a couple of two other real quick items. Last late summer 10 City Council Meeting - February 25, 2002 we essentially shut down the satellite receive site for us, which was based out of Lake Minnetonka in Mound where we had the big satellite dishes and that's how we delivered signals here to Chanhassen. We now do that up on Route 169 in a million dollar facility in St. Peter, Minnesota. And we're headquartering a lot of items in there. The video product. The digital product. The modem product and who knows one day our telephone product. And we certainly open it up to the council, if you'd like to take a tour, we'll pick you up in a bus. Take you up to St. Peter. And last but not least, we continue to expand our call center in Waseca which is the customer service call center that services this area. And we've been hiring more people and we're just wrapping up just under a quarter of a million dollar renovation in that call center in Waseca. So I live in Excelsior but I'm based in Waseca. Take that lovely commute every day unless I stay over, but we're right here in your back yard so, and I'm open for questions along with Tom Boardwell so, any questions? Mayor Jansen: Great, thank you. Any questions council? Councilman Ayotte: A couple. You just had an enhancement upgrade not too long ago in the city of Chanhassen. Bill Jensen: The upgrade, right. Right. Councilman Ayotte: And there was a cost associated with that upgrade. Didn't do it for free. Bill Jensen: Right. Councilman Ayotte: But the cost for that upgrade, how were the people notified? Were they notified before the fact or after the fact? I honestly don't know so I'm not trying to suggest. Bill Jensen: Right, oh no. No. Actually we don't charge, certainly we capitalize and we pass those costs to some degree onto our customers, but generally we don't send them the bill for the upgrade, which by the way I believe was completed in the fall of 2000. I believe it was completed. Now we have done pieces that either we missed or that we've added on with the outgrowth here in the city, but I can tell you that generally speaking annually we'll do a price increase to our customers. Adjust for rates. Councilman Ayotte: So the upgrade, there's not necessarily, the cost for the upgrade is captured by the annual? Bill Jensen: Partly, but part of doing the upgrade allows us to add what we call ancillary or new services. Services like digital video, which obviously more customers have subscribed. That's great. If we didn't do the upgrade, we wouldn't have been able, we didn't have the channel capacity to add digital. Likewise, for the modem service. So we invested the money, I think in 3 years Mediacom's actually been in Minnesota for 2 ½ years. I think the number right now is 73 million dollars in capital expenditures that we've spent in Minnesota, but we do annual price adjustments and we add product. Whether it's video channels, digital product or modem service. I'm not sure if I answered that. Do customers get a separate bill for the upgrade? No, they don't. They'll get. Councilman Ayotte: That I understood. Bill Jensen: Right. And just recently they should have received this multi-panel brochure with the channel card and certain pricing on it. 11 City Council Meeting - February 25, 2002 Councilman Ayotte: Okay. Do you ever have sessions for quality assurance with the cross section of the population? Rather than waiting for Mr. Gerhardt to give you a call or have you entertained that sort of thing? Bill Jensen: Right. We do an annual customer service survey, and I'm not sure if we, do we send this out to the communities Tom? I know we use it within the company but. Tom Boardwell: Yeah, there's a sampling throughout all the systems so there will be samplings in Chanhassen. Bill Jensen: And for customers that, you know if they don't want to call us, you know they could e-mail us. They can right to our web site and they can actually e-mail their comments. We probably get a couple of e- mailed comments daily at the Mediacom web site. But as far as a town meeting, we'd love to come back and just have a Mediacom afternoon on a Saturday or an evening meeting but sure, we're wide open to that. But we do a cross section through the whole franchise area for customers. Councilman Ayotte: Which you have 5,000 customers in Chan, is that what you said? Bill Jensen: Just, 4,592. Councilman Ayotte: 4,500 and you've got 90,000 total? Bill Jensen: 90,000 total in Minnesota with Mediacom. Councilman Ayotte: Yeah, and we're 4,000 of that 90,000? Bill Jensen: Right. Councilman Ayotte: Okay. And I like the idea of the town meeting. I bet you folks would like that. Bill Jensen: Sure. Councilman Ayotte: Because there are a lot of questions. I get a lot of questions about cable and I don't understand one of them. Bill Jensen: Well we'd love to come back and set it up. Councilman Ayotte: Just, that's up to the council obviously. I can't speak for the council. I'm just throwing a thought out. You had one internet company go bankrupt and the other one didn't want to do it anymore and then you decide. You know I'm a little concerned about the market research there but, why did you go through that 3 tiered level of pain before you picked up the mission? Bill Jensen: Well it's a great question. I wasn't with the company when they went with the ISP Channel. The parent company to ISP Channel, was it Soflnet? Tom Boardwell: Soflnet. 12 City Council Meeting - February 25, 2002 Bill Jensen: Softnet. Our Chairman Rocco Canneso was on the Board of Directors, and it was a great partnership, but Softnet decided you know we don't see a future with internet for cable modem networks so they backed out and there was a pretty good transition period there. Now Excite at Home, which was the parent to At Home, the cable network, cable modem network provider, they were the largest in the country. They had over 3 million cable modem customers through various cable operators and we thought well, we don't want to go through this pain, just like you mentioned. Let's go with the biggest cable modem network provider and wouldn't you know it, less than a year later they went bankrupt. Councilman Ayotte: Where's the guy that made that decision? Bill Jensen: Well. Councilman Ayotte: I have another question but I'll hold off on it. Bill Jensen: You have a great question and I can't answer that other than we've decided to go, bring it in- house like the other large MSO's or multiple system. Councilman Ayotte: I like the idea of a town meeting. Bill Jensen: Yep. Other questions? Councilman Ayotte: Thank you Mayor. Councilman Labatt: Regarding the high speed internet access. I'm one of those customers and for the last, it hasn't had a problem for the last I would say month but 2 to 3, 4 months ago the system was going down continually in my neighborhood and, it would go down on a Friday and then unfortunately the technicians don't work the weekends, is what I found out, and Monday morning I'd get a phone call and.., is your system still down and we'll be right out if it is. And then I checked with my neighbors and I found...in the community to have this same thing. It's out system wide. The whole thing was crashed. But does Mediacom, when they get a whole system like Chanhassen that is down, why don't, why doesn't Mediacom take initiative and offer credits right away to the customers? Bill Jensen: Now are you talking about all of the services or just the modem? Councilman Labatt: Just the modem. The cable TV still works. Bill Jensen: Yeah. I'm not aware of a system wide modem outage that happened, but obviously it did, that you said. Now by the way, we do work 7 days a week. We are doing installs 6 days a week, Monday through Saturday and we have a 24 hour service call support. We have technicians on call. Now I don't know why they would have said well, we only work Monday through Friday but we do have tech's out there. If it's a mass outage, you know we roll a truck. Councilman Labatt: It was something that came out, Steve the technician. Bill Jensen: Steve Carlstadt, right. 13 City Council Meeting - February 25, 2002 Councilman Labatt: Wonderful guy. He's the guy every time and my compliments but every time, he pointed out the system, the signal never came up from Waseca and some switch or something went out and it was not delivering it... Bill Jensen: I can you that what we struggled with until we installed the optical transport mechanism, the DS3 from Qwest and Citizens Communications, our modem growth was so rapid that we were running out of capacity to fit all of the modem customers on the network. I'm wondering if, is that what you were experiencing or just your modem didn't work bottom line? It wasn't slow, it just didn't work? Councilman Labatt: No. Only one light was blinking and the whole thing was down. Bill Jensen: Okay, well I'11, what I'd like to do is speak with Steve about it and find out about it and there's no problems issuing credits. Councilman Labatt: I mean just you know, I mean do customers, to have 4,592 customers call into Mediacom and say hey, you know we're paying for the service and we're not getting it for 3-4 days you know. Bill Jensen: Sure. Yeah, that's not good. Yeah I agree. We'll take care of it and I'll send a letter to the city manager and let you know what we find out. We'll see what we can do. Councilman Labatt: Okay. Bill Jensen: But we are out there 24 hours a day on trouble calls and we do normal installation activities Monday through Saturdays. Todd Gerhardt: And if you have trouble with your internet service you call the 1-800 number also? Bill Jensen: Right. And you can either call our call center at Waseca, the regular customer service number or we have a new tier one tech support number which is actually down in Des Moines, Iowa where we have a customer support center there as well. Councilman Labatt: We tried that. We went through the unplug and reset button and. Bill Jensen: Right. Did you convert okay though? Did that work out for you? Councilman Labatt: I believe so. My wife did it, I don't know. Bill Jensen: Okay. Well let us know. Councilman Labatt: I checked e-mails before I came in to work I know so. Bill Jensen: So it must be working, okay. Okay, good. Councilman Labatt: But you know Steve is a wonderful technician and very competent of his job and he likes to chit chat and it's fun to have him over. I miss him now. Mayor Jansen: Now that you don't need him huh. 14 City Council Meeting - February 25, 2002 Bill Jensen: I'll let him know that you made those comments because I was based out of the Mound office up until a couple of months ago so I saw Steve everyday. Todd Gerhardt: Bill to get to, did you have another one Steve? Councilman Labatt: Well I was just going to read out number 3 here. What do you envision for Chanhassen for, what areas of the city are you going to look at expanding for this high speed internet access? Bill Jensen: Well high speed is available everywhere. It's 100% available in the city of Chanhassen. Franchise area. We don't limit it to just the densely populated areas. It's out there at 100 percent. It's available to everybody. Todd Gerhardt: To expand on that question, we get a lot of pressure or calls from southern Chanhassen residents that aren't within the guidelines established in the franchise agreement and I know Mediacom hasn't used that as a guide all the time. You know you will go out and get customers if it is economically feasible. I'm just wondering if you looked at the Lakota area in southern Chanhassen off of Highway 101 at all? Bill Jensen: For some reason I thought you and I had spoken about that previously but, you know the business model for extending cable plant now isn't just based on plain old TV anymore. It's based on really three layers and hopefully one day a fourth or a fifth and those three layers are regular, plain old basic cable, and digital cable and then modems. And so our capital plan, I mean we're more willing to extend cable plans because there are more revenue opportunities. We're testing a product called Video on Demand. Not in Minnesota but down in Alabama right now. Video on Demand is kind of like going to the video store and getting the movie when you want it. Not waiting for the time of the movie on pay per view when it comes on. We're also, as I mentioned earlier, testing IP telephony where you one day could utilize your cable for telephone service as well so. You know maybe we could talk after the meeting or tomorrow Todd and we'll take a look at it because that's how we're growing now through new build and construction and plant extension so they must be further, really way out there. That's down on the southern end there? Todd Gerhardt: Down in this area. Bill Jensen: Okay. Well if you give me the particulars, we'll go out and look at it and make an estimate. See if we can make it work. Todd Gerhardt: Sure. One of the other questions I had is that you've advertised that people accessing the internet system, before Steve made his comments you had talked that there's been some slowdown in your band width. What are you going to do to ensure that that 700 KB broadband will be provided to every resident 24 hours a day? Bill Jensen: Well we were using, not to get too technical, but we were relying on T-I, which are really basically telephone trunk lines for connectivity. And we maxed those out very quickly. I mean we grew so quickly here in the Lake Minnetonka area. I think we have over 3,000 customers just in the Lake Minnetonka area which includes Chanhassen, and we did that in like 8 months. And so we put in an order for this DS-3, which is a digital optical circuit and it took all of 8 months to get that circuit because, and of course we had to get it from our competitors, both Citizens and Qwest. But we're no longer maxed out 15 City Council Meeting - February 25, 2002 anymore. Now I can tell you that over the past month, month and a half we were making changes, kind of re-porting based on all the fiber optic nodes and realigning. But that should be fine. I mean our goal is to deliver at least 1.2 meg a download speeds for our customers and that's pretty stout. You know for $29.95 a month, plus $10.00 for the modem, that's pretty good. Very competitive. Todd Gerhardt: The City of Chanhassen just completed a survey, customer resident survey and in there, Linda if you can help me on the percentage. I think it was over 50 percent of our residents are on-line. Mayor Jansen: I think it was more like 87. Extremely high. Councilman Ayotte: It's the highest suburb of the 7 county area. Bill Jensen: Wow. Todd Gerhardt: So I'm a little surprised that you only have 695 residents on, using your access. We're constantly being requested of how people can get DSL lines here in town and. Mayor Jansen: The Chamber. Chamber members have been asking about how to get the on-line. Bill Jensen: Yeah we've, you know it doesn't sound like we're doing a good job here marketing. In fact my eye doctor in Plymouth, I was in getting an eye exam the other day and he lives in Chanhassen and he, we were talking and he said who do you work for? ... internet. I said where do you live? Chanhassen. I said oh, well you must be downloading a lot of files. Do you have our high speed cable modem? He said, no. Is it offered? And I mean right here in front of me, so it sounds to me like we're not doing a good job either with the after hours events with the Chamber or communicating to our customers that it's out there, because it is a great product. Todd Gerhardt: Yeah, I'd like to run some articles in the newsletter or sit down with our local reporter to talk about, because we get a lot of phone calls from people looking for DSL service and a lot of people work at home, have at home businesses here and need that speed to be productive so. Mayor Jansen: And right now they're blaming us for not providing it. Todd Gerhardt: Yeah. Bill Jensen: I see. I see. Well listen, we'd love to capture all of those have not's so perhaps the city manager and myself and Mediacom can work to put a proactive marketing plan together. I know you're not there to do our business but at least to make sure people have enough of these customer updates... This update, hopefully it was supposed to go to everyone, and in there we talk about the, actually on the back panel, it talks about the internet service so, but if they're not our customers they didn't get this so. Todd Gerhardt: Well I think some people are getting confused between the digital and the DSL lines too and trying to figure out what the difference is. Bill Jensen: The digital and the modem lines? Todd Gerhardt: Yeah. 16 City Council Meeting - February 25, 2002 Bill Jensen: Because DSL service is an acronym for digital service line or digital subscriber line, which the phone companies offer. And of course cable modems are different. We use a different technology, so two different technologies. They're both very good. And there's a place for both of them in the marketplace. We tend to work, or target the residential market versus the business market, and the DSL folks tend to target the business, the commercial market so. Todd Gerhardt: Well I think we have a captured market here that would love that service. Bill Jensen: Yeah it looks, I can tell you that on a percentage basis, the modem penetration here is almost 3 times higher than we average in other communities so, I know it's not up to that 85 percent on line percentage, but there's obviously as you know there's some great upsides to cable modem. You don't need to tie up the phone line. You don't need a separate phone line. It's always on. And we're hearing good things about it so you shouldn't have the, I mean we just converted like late last week. You shouldn't be having the issues. You can go to any web page and do a speed test and check it out. Todd Gerhardt: This individual had and occasionally they weren't meeting the 700 KB. They were down into the 500 range, but if you were having some troubles the last month, that's when he performed those. Bill Jensen: Yeah, well. Usually those internet officiandos, they keep us posted with those things so we'll certainly, some of those out there. And again, I'd love to come back. Schedule it on a Saturday, kind of a meet and greet, where people are available and not working. If they want to come in and we'd love to do that. Mayor Jansen: Certainly have a conversation with Mr. Gerhardt about doing that. That would be wonderful. Bill Jensen: Okay. Mayor Jansen: If you don't mind a little spontaneity, we could have a little public hearing here. I don't know if our residents who are sitting in the audience might have any questions on your Mediacom service for these gentlemen. Okay, great. Bill Jensen: So you have the DSL service, not the cable? Audience: Well I have the TV. TV cable. Bill Jensen: Just the video. Okay. Mayor Jansen: Alright. Any other questions from council? Thank you for coming this evening. We very much appreciate it and your comments about having worked with Mr. Gerhardt, we appreciate that relationship and responsiveness. Thank you. Bill Jensen: We'll be back and I'll contact the city manager tomorrow, okay. Todd Gerhardt: Yeah, that'd be great. We'll set something up. Bill Jensen: And Tom and I will be out in the lobby if there are any customers or constituents that want to cuff us around, we'll do that. 17 City Council Meeting - February 25, 2002 Mayor Jansen: Thank you very much. Appreciate it. COUNCIL PRESENTATIONS: COUNCIL/COMMISSION LIAISON UPDATE. Mayor Jansen: Any council members with updates? Councilman Boyle: I had nothing. Mayor Jansen: Okay. Mr. Gerhardt and I, along with Kate Aanenson attended the Government Affairs Committee meeting of the Chamber. They had inquired as to taking a look at some of the zoning issues within the community and Kate Aanenson did I thought a wonderful job of presenting the comprehensive plan perspective and the rationale around the zoning issues and speaking to the level of flexibility that staff has in taking a look at development as it occurs in the southern part of the community. So feedback from the Government Affairs Committee members was that they were pleased with the information that Kate shared, and I think they walked away very satisfied that the city showed the flexibility that Kate spoke to. And some of those issues will come forward as we're doing some of our reviews and Kate will undoubtedly be looking to us for a little bit of guidance as to where council stands, because the one thing that we did share is that this council is very proactive about encouraging economic development and of course their concern was looking at office and commercial, industrial development. So we certainly encouraged them that that is the direction that this council has given to staff. Is that we want to be very proactive about that. Anything to add to that? Todd Gerhardt: Just as mixed use developments come in, we wanted to see southern Chanhassen with some mixed use developments that would see office, commercial as a part of that, so anywhere south of Lyman, as developments come in, those are some larger tracts. So staff wanted to see some flexibility in introducing the mixed use, which the Chamber wasn't aware of so. It went, it was a great meeting. I think we have a great relationship with the Chamber here and it seems to be getting stronger. Mayor Jansen: I mentioned in the work session the sheriff's contract meeting that we attended last week, and that we won't be seeing any impacts from that on our budget until the year 2005, and that it was primarily an introduction on his part to all of us of bringing in the third party consultant to take a look at the contract. And just bring that up to speed since it hasn't been evaluated since 1986 so as he's forming a committee and looking for more input, we'll certainly keep council informed as he gets back to us once the board has taken a look at his proposal and they've done the initial review of the contract. And then the only other thing was on Friday, I was over at the Capitol testifying in front of the House Committee on behalf of the city for the Seminary Fen Bill. The House Environmental Committee was hearing that Bill and they moved it onto the next meeting, the next. Todd Gerhardt: Committee meeting. Mayor Jansen: Committee meeting, so we do have in fact a lot of co-authors that are on that committee so it was, we weren't challenged. There weren't any questions for us on the project and it was Representative Workman taking time out from his busy schedule to attend that meeting. He had to leave a committee that he was chairing to come over to introduce our Bill to the Environmental Committee so I thought it was a very positive meeting. Lori Haak was there on behalf of staff, along with the other representatives of that committee for the hearing. 18 City Council Meeting - February 25, 2002 Todd Gerhardt: And we're through the Senate side already so we're working our way through the House side over there in St. Paul. Mayor Jansen: Yes. So that was the latest update on that. And then just so everyone is aware, we have two of our shorter term Park and Rec Commissioners who have notified us now that they will not be continuing in their positions due to family commitments at this point. Their time commitment needs to shift back to their family so we will have 4 openings on the Park and Rec Commission. We have 2 applications currently, and staff is going to be re-advertising the Park and Rec Commission openings and extending that deadline. The deadline was February 15th I believe was the date. So that everyone here is aware. Certainly spread the word. We're trying to let people know that we have these opportunities available for participation, but I wanted to make you aware. I just became aware of that today so. Todd Gerhardt: Yeah, and we're going to try, the Planning Commission is going to be interviewing candidates next week for the 2 vacant spots on the Planning Commission and try to get that to you prior to the joint meetings so the new members can attend the joint meetings, so we're going to have a discussion tomorrow during staff meeting to see if we can meet that. Mayor Jansen: That will be fast. Todd Gerhardt: Yes, that would be fast. But that would be a good introduction for them to get started on the right foot. Mayor Jansen: Sure. Todd Gerhardt: And then Park and Rec, that's going to be a short meeting with that commission only probably having 2 members serving on that. Might have to reschedule that one for later in the year or something. Mayor Jansen: Yeah, with the whole group. We could certainly talk about that. Councilman Labatt: Is it a bus tour? Todd Gerhardt: No, this is when we have the joint commission meetings coming up. Councilman Labatt: Right... bus tour. Todd Gerhardt: Yep, that's next Monday. You're probably, I don't believe the 4 Park and Rec Commission members that are going to step down probably will not be attending that. But they may. I'm not 100 percent sure on that. Mayor Jansen: Yeah, but otherwise the tour is still on. That was originally scheduled on our behalf so that we can see what some of those, the options and alternatives are so we can move forward with that project with some direction to staff. So yep, that will still be on the agenda. That was everything that I think I had under the council presentations. Why don't we move onto the administrative presentations. ADMINISTRATIVE PRESENTATIONS: UPDATE ON REDISTRICTING PROCESS. 19 City Council Meeting - February 25, 2002 Todd Gerhardt: Mayor, council members. Included in your packet is a summary of the redistricting method that staff would use. Some key dates that you should be aware of is April 30th is the last time that we can approve our precinct boundaries. Establishing poll places and boundaries. So that's a key date to remember. Currently Chanhassen has Legislative District 43 and Congressional District Number 2. The State is in legal, in the court system now trying to redistrict their boundaries so if for some reason Legislative District 43 or Congressional District 2 should happen to split Chanhassen, then we would have to change our precinct boundaries to follow those legislative boundaries so our hands are kind of tied right now, but we are thinking ahead with taking into account no changes. So we've been looking at future population forecasts. If you take a look at the map, we've given you some 2010 numbers in each of those precincts. Karen has told me that precincts 5 and 6 could get quite large by the year 2010 and the possibility of looking at dividing those into 3 precincts is an option. The area south of Lyman will come into the MUSA in 2005, which would have an impact probably in our 2006 election, and we could expand that into an eighth precinct if we should happen to divide. Some of the processes as a part of that, according to Secretary of State's Office we can divide precincts before the redistricting process, but there are some timing issues we'd have to follow. Precincts are what, frozen during the census process before elections. However, changing these precincts will have an impact down at the State or down at the County Auditor's office that it makes a lot of work for them if we change them after the census process here. So just one thing to keep in mind if you're looking at changing them down the line. If we add 1 or 2 more precincts we need to find more polling places. Typically we like to hold those at churches, rec center, fire stations, so as you get south of Lyman, those places don't exist today and so we would have to look at something in that area as development comes in so, or take into account some type of public building or private building that can handle up to 3,000 to 4,000 people. Yeah, a golf course could be a possibility down there. Elections are usually in November. It's still, sometimes the last couple years they're still golfing then but you know typically you kind of close out at the end of October. The only problem I could see is if, not the general election but the primaries could have a conflict with the golf hours there. Mayor Jansen: Okay. So at this point we're not needing to give any direction but it certainly has been brought to my attention a couple of times as to the discussions that are happening at the State level as far as the redistricting so I had asked staff to just bring this forward so that council was aware of the issue as it's pending before us and will be coming up obviously by the end of April. But in the meantime, once the State makes their decision what, middle of March they have to be done? Todd Gerhardt: March 19th or 20th. That's up in the air I guess. It's one of those 2 dates. Mayor Jansen: So then staff at that point would be bringing forward a couple of different options and alternatives for us to take a look at as to how to divide the districts based upon what the State ends up doing. Todd Gerhardt: Correct. Mayor Jansen: Maybe once the State gets their's done, I would assume then you're provided a map. If you can pop us out an update once that's taken care of versus waiting until the next council meeting after that. Just so we're all aware. Any questions for staff around this part of the issue? Councilman Ayotte: Do you think there would be more local government participation with a greater number of precincts? 20 City Council Meeting - February 25, 2002 Todd Gerhardt: I don't think more precincts is going to help. It's, we're having a difficult time now trying to find precincts that work and I don't think having more is going to be an option. I mean it's, we struggle just trying to find the 6 polling places we have right now. Councilman Ayotte: Well not just from that standpoint but I'm concerned about commission involvement. I'm concerned about people running for offices. Running for commissions. I'm concerned about the number of people who are not voting. Mayor Jansen: How do you think the number of precincts impacts that? It's just a polling place. Councilman Ayotte: I don't know, that's my question. Mayor Jansen: Okay. This just represents a polling place. Todd Gerhardt: Yeah, the only thing I was thinking was convenience is where you were going and we're just handcuffed so much in trying to find handicapped accessible spots and finding staff to run these. Councilman Ayotte: Logistics of it let alone. Todd Gerhardt: Yeah. I mean you've got to have an election judge at each one. They've got to go through training and trying to find somebody to commit to that type of commitment is difficult. And it's a very trying day. It just drains you. You're there for a good 12 hours. Councilman Ayotte: Yeah, I'm just, I'm looking at the commissions. They're working so dam hard. We've got such turnover. There's, and I'm just wondering if this may have had an impact one way or the other. Todd Gerhardt: No. Mayor Jansen: Oh I don't think the precinct has anything to do with that. Councilman Ayotte: So even the ward concept I don't think would have an impact necessarily. Mayor Jansen: I don't know if the ward impact would have. That might have an impact on actual involvement. But this question had just been posed to me so I threw it out to Mr. Gerhardt to say, I don't even know what would be entailed in creating a ward system so I just asked him to bring forward what the steps and procedures would have to be to even consider it. Todd Gerhardt: You really have two options. One is to change your charter, and that would need a charter commission to review that and make a recommendation through a referendum. A second one is to get special legislation so you'd have to introduce a bill over in St. Paul and go through the process over there and get their endorsement for us to create a ward system. And if that's something you're interested in, I would establish a committee to look at that also and it's, it depends on how the legislation is written. If you would need a referendum on that. I've seen, I think there's a couple of cities that have gone through that process and I think the language that the legislators have added to that is that they have to go through a referendum also. I don't know Roger if you've seen anything on that. I think Shorewood is one community that went through that process. 21 City Council Meeting - February 25, 2002 Roger Knutson: I know several cities have. Most cities that have wards are the larger cities and they've done it through charters. It isn't obvious to you why you would need to have a legislative don't have to require it as far as I know. I've never specifically looked at that. Maybe they think it's the way to do it. Todd Gerhardt: Yeah. So it depends on what committee you're talking to and who tags it onto a bill or what, but I've seen language where it is both. Roger Knutson: Just to say the obvious. The ward system of governance is not, I would say there's a lot of arguments for and against it. It is not a simple thing. It has great consequence in how a community's run. If you want to look at a model, look at Minneapolis. Todd Gerhardt: Yeah it can divide a community too and it does make it a little more political. Right now everyone sitting here is looking for what's in the best interest of Chanhassen as a whole and then when you go into the ward, most people look, I would think would look at Chanhassen as a whole but they still in the back of their mind, they still represent that one area. And so those are I think the areas that Roger's talking about and where I say that you could divide a community. I'm not going to vote for your project unless you vote for a project for my area. Roger Knutson: Typically, and I represent many communities that do have wards, if you have a controversial project, the district, the ward within which that project is going, typically that council member from that ward will never, ever vote for it so you just start with that as a given. Councilman Ayotte: Well do you really think that that possibility might exist in this city? Roger Knutson: No, I'm talking very broad based. Mayor Jansen: Chaska's on a ward system, correct? Todd Gerhardt: Yes. And Minnetonka has a ward system, but also has 2 individuals that are at large. Mayor Jansen: I guess maybe, if council's at all interested in just at least maybe seeing a comparison to other communities. My thought was what do other communities our size have as far as their systems and what are the surrounding communities, how do they look. Now some of the issues that have been raised to me as this was brought forward, in discussions over the whole redistricting issue, what's it been? 4 years. 4 years ago you had, was it 3 or 4 councilmembers that were all basically on Lotus Lake so the comments that have come to me is, you can't really avoid that under our current system. You know you go in. You take a look at the addresses where people actually live. If your concern is that you want someone within your region that is going to at least understand your issues, the ward system certainly gives you that. To your point, yes. You do end up with someone who has been championing the cause in that area, you know be that a pro or a con in how they handle it. At least you have someone from your region and thinking of connecting the Minnetonka areas into the community and having them feel as though they do have some representation. That was yet another issue that came up and I don't know if that's something we end up maybe looking at as we're doing our, if we end up doing the reconfiguration of our precincts. But to Councilman Ayotte's point, it was also raised as to, it would make it more economically feasible for more individuals to be able to run for council because then they're focused on a smaller area, though you knocked on practically the entire community's doors. Not everyone is going to be able to do that. It's a significant time and financial investment. So do we get more people involved by doing that? 22 City Council Meeting - February 25, 2002 Councilman Ayotte: Yeah, but I think it's something to talk towards. The concern I have is the size of our plate right now. We've got so much on it, and I really would like to talk towards the ward thing. I just don't know when and how. We do have a time line associated with it, and there is the fact that we'd have to go through some hoops, but it may be, and I don't know if we want to put it on staff. It might be kind of interesting to have a chat with some of our council from other communities that do have wards. I prefer to have discussions with other council members that have the ward system rather than put staff at another work load. I don't know if you'd entertain that but that might be kind of fun. To have a chat with them. Councilman Boyle: I agree with Bob. I think we've got so many things on the plate right now, and we wouldn't get this done by the end of April. There's no way in the world... Mayor Jansen: Oh, this doesn't need to be done by then. Not to get that sense. Councilman Boyle: Okay. Mayor Jansen: This doesn't have to happen with the redistricting. What I'm understanding from reading this is that it has to go to referendum, then you're talking about you'd really want to tag it in with either the primary or a general election so you don't have the additional cost involved in putting it out to the voters would be the one thing I could think of. Todd Gerhardt: You could have, yeah. Those are two options. A third option is to have a special election regarding it and. Mayor Jansen: But then you've got the extra expense. Councilman Labatt: What would? Todd Gerhardt: $8,000 to $10,000 to do a special election. Councilman Labatt: It's just a simple ballot question. Mayor Jansen: So then you'd just want to tag it in with, if it's not this election, then maybe the next election. But now it's out there as far as if you wanted to asking some of your constituents. Their opinions. Councilman Ayotte: Do you think it'd be okay if we sat down with like some Chaska council members? Is there a forum for that sort of thing? Mayor Jansen: You know as you brought that up, I wonder if like a representative of their council, maybe even the mayor. I could contact the mayor and see because your mayor would be. Councilman Labatt: Mayor, go ahead. Mayor Jansen: Oh, you want me to bring you the feedback. Oh now I get it. Councilman Ayotte: I'd like to have a chat with, and I don't know what forum so we don't have a problem about it. 23 City Council Meeting - February 25, 2002 Mayor Jansen: Yeah, because your mayor's always going to be at large so that might be someone that is able to give a perspective of everyone else then having been in these ward systems. Or to Minnetonka's point, they've got both. Councilman Ayotte: Who's the former councilman from Minneapolis, maybe we could talk with him. Todd Gerhardt: Well they have a different system in Minneapolis. It's more than just a simple ward system. Councilman Labatt: Can you explain it to us? Todd Gerhardt: No I can't. It's different, that's for sure. Mayor Jansen: Well the main point was so everyone is aware of the redistricting as this is coming forward. We'll see what happens at the state level the middle of this next month so it's coming up on us. I didn't want anybody to have any surprises. Mr. Gerhardt, anything else under administrative presentations? Todd Gerhardt: Nothing at this point. We continue to monitor the Governor, when they can find him and figure out our budget procedures. Right now we delayed hiring both the Assistant to the City Manager and our IS support staff and that being probably almost 50 percent of the estimated budget cuts that we'd have to make under our Governor's proposal. So I think we're supposed to learn more by Wednesday and so we're keeping an eye on that. And we probably will be having an EDA meeting to update everybody on the bowl property. We have some changes afoot there. I have a meeting tomorrow to find out more what's going on with that process so, and we are out to bid right now on the library. Plans went out last week. We had 6 general contractors call first day that they were out so we're hoping to get at least 12 and so that's a good sign. Mayor Jansen: Great. Okay. Todd Gerhardt: That's all I have. Councilman Labatt: When does that process close? Todd Gerhardt: March 14th I think is the bid deadline. Mayor Jansen: Okay. Anything under the correspondence discussion? Okay. Once we adjourn we are going to go back upstairs and continue our work session items as was noted on the agenda. And that will then be followed by the executive session to discuss the city manager's performance review so with that, if I could have a motion to adjourn. Councilman Ayotte moved, Councilman Labatt seconded to adjourn the City Council meeting. All voted in favor and the motion carried. The meeting was adjourned at 8:30 p.m. Submitted by Todd Gerhardt City Manager Prepared by Nann Opheim 24