CC Minutes 2000 05 08CHANHASSEN CITY COUNCIL
REGULAR MEETING
MAY 8, 2000
Mayor Mancino called the meeting to order at 6:30 p.m. The meeting was opened with the Pledge to the
Flag.
COUNCILMEMBERS PRESENT: Mayor Mancino, Councilman Senn, Councilman Engel,
Councilman Labatt, and Councilwoman Jansen
STAFF PRESENT: Scott Botcher, Roger Knutson, Todd Gerhardt, Todd Hoffman, Kate Aanenson,
Cindy Kirchoff, and Jill Sinclair
APPROVAL OF AGENDA: Councilman Labatt moved, Councilman Engel seconded to approve the
agenda as presented.
PUBLIC ANNOUNCEMENTS: RECOGNITION OF ARBOR DAY POSTER CONTEST
WINNER, ADAM LINK.
Mayor Mancino: Tonight we get to recognize an artist that goes to school in our community, which is just
wonderful. Adam Link and his family are here. Mom Holly, dad Brian and sister Brittney are in
attendance tonight and what Adam won was a contest for our Arbor Day poster. And there were 60 entries
and he was the one picked. So we're going to all come up as a council and give you a plaque and hopefully
get to shake your hand. Jill, would you like to say something?
Jill Sinclair: Yeah, this is the first year that we did it. It was a brainstorm of staff and the Environmental
Commission and so we sent out invitations to all the public schools and the private schools in town and we
got entries from St. Hubert's and Chapel Hill. And the Environmental Commission had a very hard time
picking a winner. There was lots of great entries but Adam's just kind of stood out heads above the rest so
we were pretty excited to have such a great entry and it made a wonderful poster. Hopefully everybody
saw it. It was a beautiful, beautiful poster so we're happy to give away the sugar maple to him and have
his artwork framed and hung in City Hall here.
Mayor Mancino: Good, well come on up with us and let's give it to him.
The Mayor and City Council members presented Adam Link with a certificate for a free sugar maple
tree for winning the Arbor Day poster contest and explained that his picture would be the first
picture to be hung in City Hall celebrating Arbor Day. The Mayor then thanked Jill Sinclair for
putting together all the Arbor Day activities.
CONSENT AGENDA: Councilwoman Jansen moved, Councilman Engel seconded to approve the
following Consent Agenda items per the City Manager's recommendations:
a. Approval of KMC Agreement for Local and Long Distance Services.
c. Approval of Fireworks Display Permit, July 4, Lake Minnewashta, Bill Naegele.
d. Consider Proposed Declaration of Covenants, Arboretum Business Park 3rd Addition.
City Council Meeting - May 8, 2000
e. Approval of Bills.
f. Approval of Minutes:
· City Council Work Session Minutes dated April 24, 2000
· City Council Minutes dated April 24, 2000
Receive Commission Minutes:
· Planning Commission Minutes dated April 19, 2000
g. Approve Specifications; Authorize Advertisement of Bids for Lake Lucy Storage Tank
Reconditioning Project No. 00-02.
i. Approval of Financial Policies.
All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously.
B. Resolution Approving a Concept Plan for the Reconstruction of Highway 101 from West 78th
Street to Pleasant View Road.
Councilman Labatt: Pulled for consideration. Nothing more to debate about this.
Mayor Mancino: Okay, then may I have a motion please for l(b).
Councilman Senn: Move approval.
Mayor Mancino: A second please.
Councilman Engel: Second.
Resolution #2000-35: Councilman Senn moved, Councilman Engel seconded to approve a Resolution
approving a concept plan for the reconstruction of Highway 101 from West 78th Street to Pleasant
View Road as amended to clarify the last bullet point on item 1 to read as follows: Signalizing the
intersection of Pleasant View Road and Highway and Valley View Road and Highway 101. All voted
in favor, except Councilman Labatt and Councilwoman Jansen who opposed and the motion carried
with a vote of 3 to 2.
H. Approval of Metricom Right-of-Way Permit and Facility Use Agreement.
Mayor Mancino: Councilman Senn, you had a question?
Councilman Senn: Yeah, in the approval of the agreement I'd like to see the initial lease term changed to a
shorter period of time...just make it a 3 year agreements or whatever, so we have more time, or how would
I say, we have time to evaluate kind of where it's going and also have time to evaluate the pricing and stuff
as we go along.
Mayor Mancino: And what if we can't do that? What if the supplier says no? This is a fairness issue.
We've gone to the League of Minnesota Cities, etc. We want to stick with the 9 years. Would you feel
City Council Meeting - May 8, 2000
comfortable if we cannot do the 3 years, going ahead with the 9 years and let's just figure that out right
now. Because again I think it's going to come down to that.
Councilman Senn: Well I mean there's kind of two ways to address that. One would be in relationship to
the terms and if they don't want to agree to that on the terms, then maybe what we should do is negotiate a
little bit different language as it relates to the, let's see where is it? Let me find... The termination clause.
I mean the termination clause, the way it is written is essentially almost totally binding and impossible to
break. And you couple that with the 9 year term, you know essentially when we're going to something that
is a lot of guess work at this point, I just don't think it's real good policy. So I mean we could renegotiate
it one place or the other. But I'd really like to see that done and have it brought back.
Mayor Mancino: Okay. Is someone here from Metricom and like to answer that?
Max Thompson: Good evening Madam Mayor and Council members. My name is Max Thompson. I am
with Metricom and I'd be happy to answer any questions. Specifically the issue regarding length of term,
although it may seem long to you, in telecommunications world it's really short. When I was with AT&T
Wireless, previously McCaw Communications, previously MCI Communications. It took them 6 years to
become profitable so the reason that we put this length of term together was to try to find a length of term
that we could be guaranteed to be in the city and using the right-of-way. I would remind council that one of
the things that we tried to do is retain fairness between all the cities we've worked with and 41 cities have
signed this selfsame agreement. Same terms. Same length of term. And the benefits that are given to the
city as part of this agreement we feel are so beneficial that you won't outlive the contract and the beneficial
issues related to what state statute would give you. So we feel we've offered, and so does the League and
the SRA attorneys feel we've offered more than is required so our hope is that we could retain a fair
agreement with the other 40 cities that have signed this so that's our request. I understand that there has
been in a few cities a desire, not unlike your request Councilmember Senn. However, all of the cities that
have approved this have approved that length of the term.
Mayor Mancino: Okay, and there's nothing exclusionary about this so if another city, or excuse me, if
another company came forward with a like proposal or within the next 7 years Scott we could go with them
also.
Scott Botcher: Yep.
Councilman Senn: Yes and no. I mean there's always yes and no to these and that is that you can't...
effectively their system or their signals or whatever which then puts limitations on whatever additional
system you would bring in, etc .... has free reign, anybody after that has to conform to ongoing potential
problems that may result. That's part of what my issue is here.
Scott Botcher: But that's true with cellular. That's true with anybody within the frequencies of the FCC.
It's not just this frequency. It's not any different than.
Councilman Senn: Well no, but it's different in the sense that rather than talking about a 60 or 80 or 100
foot tower here and you know another one a great deal distance away or whatever, it's a whole different
story when you start hanging boxes on essentially every light pole or whatever, okay. I mean that's, at that
point there is nowhere else potentially to go for anyone else who comes in potentially.
City Council Meeting - May 8, 2000
Max Thompson: Could I make a comment about that concern? The concern about exclusivity is correct.
The document doesn't envision exclusivity. One of the things that we've been told by the experienced cities
who have put these in, at the density of 1 per, or 7 of these radios per square mile, that affects
approximately 3% of a standard city's quantity of light poles. If that's the case and we had 6 carriers like
we are faced with in the wireless industry of PCS and cellular, you would affect essentially 18% of a city's
light poles. So over the 20 years that wireless cellular PCS have been in, if you end up with 18% of your
poles used, I think the concern would be, you know of course technology differs so I don't want to
misrepresent this issue and I understand your concern. But I think that at least the experiences I've gotten
to date suggest that there is plenty of room for several competitors in this specific arena and the saturation
would occur at the FCC's allocation of frequencies prior to a quantity of light poles useable by people in
the city. I'm certainly not certain of that and I'll hope that's not ever proven to be incorrect but that's our
assumption going in.
Mayor Mancino: Okay. Any other questions from other council members? Any other discussion? Okay,
thank you. Then may I please have a motion.
Councilman Labatt: Motion to approve.
Mayor Mancino: And is there a second?
Councilman Engel: Second.
Councilman Labatt moved, Councilman Engel seconded approval of Metricom right-of-way permit
and facility use agreement. All voted in favor, except Councilman Senn who opposed, and the motion
carried with a vote of 4 to 1.
VISITOR PRESENTATIONS. None.
BOARD OF REVIEW AND EQUALIZATION.
Mayor Mancino: Angie, if you could go over this together with you. Help us through here. And this is the
first time we've really done this together so let's take our time and hopefully we'll have some questions and
maybe go through the first group. Is that how you want to do it?
Angie Johnson: What I had laid in front of you were.., so if you just want to start by, put the sections
together. We hoped that this might help this year and so like Section 1 basically is dealing with properties
on 101.
Steven Clay: I did call a few people and mention to them that they were first on the agenda thinking it
would start at 7:00.
Mayor Mancino: Oh okay. So then maybe we should wait until 7:00 and we'll go ahead and do some
other.
Steven Clay: Do some other or you could jump ahead to the last section which.
Mayor Mancino: Where you have agreement?
City Council Meeting - May 8, 2000
Steven Clay: Pretty much an agreement on.
Mayor Mancino: Okay.
Councilman Senn: Mayor?
Mayor Mancino: Yes.
Councilman Senn: I was going to suggest, regardless I mean if we're going to basically go through this in
this fashion, unless there's a lot of people waiting to go through this right now, why don't we just simply do
the rest of the agenda.
Mayor Mancino: Pardon?
Councilman Senn: Why don't we simply do the rest of the agenda so that the people who are here on the
other items don't have to sit around and wait for us to go through 40-50 of these things.
Mayor Mancino: Is that okay with you? Do you mind waiting?
Kate Aanenson: ... we told them later so.
Mayor Mancino: Pardon?
Kate Aanenson: We can do the home occupation and the porch but we told the other people later.
Mayor Mancino: You told them later too. Okay. Okay. Why is it that nobody thought we'd go so fast
tonight? I can't understand that. Then what we will do is go through number 4 and number 5. So let's
pull those out and we could probably do 8 too, depending on how quickly we go on these.
Councilman Senn: Why don't we do 2 too since those people are here.
Kate Aanenson: Sure.
Mayor Mancino: But there may be other people that want to come on 2. Do you know?
Kate Aanenson: That's Todd.
Mayor Mancino: Todd, are you expecting any people to come on number 2, new business.
Todd Gerhardt: Notices were sent out.
Councilman Senn: It's new business. It's not a public hearing.
Mayor Mancino: Just a minute. And it's in the paper that we start at 6:30? Okay. So they don't think
7:00. Okay, then let's go ahead with number 2 and staff report please.
City Council Meeting - May 8, 2000
CONSIDERATION OF KENNEL PERMIT REQUEST, 7431 WINDMILL DRIVE, HANS & PAT
PETRUSKA.
Todd Gerhardt: Mayor and the city council members. Before you is a kennel permit for 7431 Windmill
Drive. The Petruska's are here tonight. The reason the kennel permit is in front of you is that we did
receive a couple of complaints regarding the kennel permit. Those complaints stem from children being
afraid of the dogs at the Petruska's home. The property has got a 4 foot wire mesh fence around the entire
back yard and it is paddle locked. So it has been maintained very well and we've attached some pictures in
your packet showing the back yard and the locks on the gates. Staff is recommending approval of the
kennel permit because they do meet all the requirements that are in the ordinance. Staff is ready to answer
any questions that the City Council has and Petruska's are here to answer any questions you may have
also.
Mayor Mancino: Okay, any questions from council members to staff at this point? Okay, thank you. Is
the applicant here and would you like to address the council?
Pat Petruska: My husband and I are photographers.
Mayor Mancino: If you could go to the podium please and state your name and address so we get this on
public record.
Pat Petruska: I'm Pat Petruska, 7431 Windmill Drive. And my husband and I are photographers so
there's really an overkill of photographs here of our back yard but I wanted to make sure everybody could
see if they had any questions about what it looks like back here. There's many accusations in the papers. I
don't know if you want me to cover each one. I have taken many, many notes here and I don't know that
you want me to get into every accusation that's been made.
Mayor Mancino: Can you just tell us a little bit about any general, the dogs and how they, if they've gotten
out, what kind of dogs they are, etc and then maybe council members will have a few questions for you.
Pat Petruska: Okay. All our dogs are rescued dogs. They all would have been killed if we hadn't adopted
them. I'm an animal activist and there's millions and millions of pets being killed every year because of
abuse by people. And so the first thing we do when we get a dog is have it spayed or neutered. It's very
important because there's so many unwanted animals in the world. And until there's no more unwanted
animals in the world or I have no breath left in my body I'm going to do what I can and that's what I'm
doing here. We've done everything that we're supposed to do. We take the dogs to the vet every year. Get
their shots updated. We've done everything that we're supposed to do plus we've, you can see by the
photographs we've done a lot to keep our animals safe.
Mayor Mancino: Can you kind of Pat go over the picture for one minute if you could? That's your back
yard?
Pat Petruska: Yeah, that's our back yard. That's an aerial of it. And I can tell you, you know unless you
want me to go through every single one of these accusations by the neighbors.
Mayor Mancino: No. But what, do you put the dogs out in the back yard a lot?
City Council Meeting - May 8, 2000
Pat Petruska: Okay, the dogs are all indoor dogs. We are at home, my husband and I are semi-retired so
we are home almost all the time. One of the complaints was our dogs are barking all the time, which is an
absolute lie. The dogs are always inside with us. They are never down in the yard there unless we're with
them. All the dogs have a bed in our bedroom. They all sleep with us. So I mean that is not true Every
single accusation that was made is a total lie here. And our one dog did scare the neighbors kids and he
came over and talked to us about it and we thought about it and we thought well what can we do about it so
we said we'd put up trees on our fence line so that you can see the trees. Maybe you can show them a
picture of the trees. We put these trees up so it would make a solid wall so our dogs cannot see the
neighbor kids and vice versa. And once the neighbor realized that these trees were 8 foot trees, he ran over
to our house and said can't we come to some other kind of solution because now his view was being
blocked of our back yard and as you can see we have a very beautiful back yard. And this whole thing
comes down to not anything with the dogs, it's the view. Their view has been blocked and they're ticked
off. And that's what it all comes down to. I mean they've made accusations such as my dogs are running
in a pack. You know give me a break. Wouldn't I be in big trouble with the city and the police and
everybody else if my dogs were out there running in a pack causing trouble? I mean this has never
happened. In the last year and a half I've had a few instances where my grandchildren left the front door
open. I had one dog get out. Within two minutes I had that dog back. My dogs have never run the streets.
Never. Never. I've had a couple get out, like I said, but I get them right back in because we are always
home, almost always home.
Pat Petruska: I'd like to say a couple things. I'm Hans Petruska with my wife for 34 years. And my back
yard, just like I had 2 ½ acres on Lake Waconia, which was a nice piece of property on Lake Waconia. I
put in property a half a million dollars in trees on that property in the 18 years we lived there and we had
everybody in town didn't like us because the neighbors across the street couldn't see the lake any longer.
And then the city just figured out that I owned the place and so I can do what I want so basically what
we've done here is we have this neighbor. This neighbor complained about having, viewing, destroying his
view of this house. First he complained to me about the dogs barking at him so then I took care of that. I
put in $10,000 worth of trees on that side. Today, this picture was taken only about 4 hours ago. I had
Bachman's bring out another $14,000 more of trees. You can see they're delivering there. The rest are in
my driveway right now. So you know if I have complaints, if I've got to put a bubble around my place I'd
be happy to do so. The problem here is really the neighbors are really, being upset about the obstructions
and this is how they're kind of coming back to us out of it. Like the wife said, I live in that house. Our
dogs have, they all have their own beds. The house is all wood floors. It is immaculate, just like my yard
is. I certainly don't want to have dogs barking in my house and I certainly don't want to annoy a neighbor.
So when my neighbor asked me to take care of the problem, even though their kids were picking on my
dogs with sticks and teasing the dogs and last week, as a matter of fact. It really has bothered me. This
neighbor right there. That house there, his grandfather was over. Our dogs were barking because his kids
were poking sticks at my dogs which I told them not to do that. Dad came out, took his shoes off and
tapped his shoes together and started to make dog like noises. I mean this is absurd you know. And of
course I think he was doing this because the problem that's been going on this past week. That's all I have
to say.
Mayor Mancino: Okay, thank you. Thank you very much. Any questions council members have of Pat or
Hans? Okay. Thank you. Discussion on this, which our decision tonight is to, whether to approve the
kennel permit or not. Steve, any questions?
Councilman Labatt: The only question I have on the permit would be, the permit is for 6 and would that be
also capped? No more than 6?
City Council Meeting - May 8, 2000
Mayor Mancino: Todd, is there a max in our ordinance?
Todd Gerhardt: I'll have to refer over to Roger. Roger, I don't think there is a cap on number of dogs.
Councilman Engel: I thought there is per acreage.
Mayor Mancino: And let me just ask Pat or Hans, I mean are you.
Pat Petruska: We have 5 dogs.
Mayor Mancino: You have 5? Okay.
Pat Petruska: Yeah. We don't have the rat terrier anymore...
Hans Petruska: We'd like to have 6. My daughter.
Pat Petruska: Well, we have a visiting daughter.
Hans Petruska: We have a visiting daughter right now because we own a resort on the Island of St.
Marten. We own a business there and my daughter's running that right now and, because we sold it to
them and so right now we're babysitting one of her dogs.
Mayor Mancino: And you're not expecting to be buying any more dogs?
Pat Petruska: She'll be back but, I was wondering about that too and I asked if there was a cap on it and I
was told no.
Mayor Mancino: Okay, but let me just ask you. I mean are you considering, would you be adding any
more dogs or is this kind of it?
Pat Petruska: This is it.
Mayor Mancino: This is it? Okay.
Pat Petruska: You know this is too much energy for us and all I'm doing is trying to help and all I'm
getting is...
Councilman Labatt: So you wouldn't be opposed if we put a condition in this permit, approval of limiting
it to 6? Permanent dogs. Visiting dogs. I mean if you have 6 of your own, your daughter's only stays for
a short period of time...
Pat Petruska: I can't say I'm not going to bring any more home but you know.
Mayor Mancino: I think it depends what the ordinance says. So as Roger's reviewing the ordinance we'll
continue. Mark? Any other questions? Mark Engel or discussion on your point of view.
City Council Meeting - May 8, 2000
Councilman Engel: Well, I've seen no complaints on the record prior to this. There's been no dog bites.
The CSO that was out there saw no reason for it. So I have no problem with it. There doesn't seem to
have been a history of problems here at all.
Mayor Mancino: Okay, Linda.
Councilwoman Jansen: I'm really impressed with the amount of screening that you put up along your fence
line and I guess I would thank you profusely for having done that, realizing you know how easy it is to get
dogs going when they do see activity on the other side and to have gone to that effort is certainly admirable
for you to have done. And I guess as I said...it's an opportunity to address any problems that are coming
up as far as the permit and situations that may still exist. So I don't have a problem approving this as it is,
realizing that you know now we do have the explanation. Hopefully the neighbors are talking and if it's a
dog issue then obviously they've found neighbors that are willing to address the problem.
Mayor Mancino: Okay, Councilman Senn.
Councilman Senn: I'd like to find out first if anybody else is here to be heard on this.
Mayor Mancino: Is there anybody else here? Is there anyone here? I didn't recognize the neighbor on this.
No, there isn't.
Councilman Senn: Alrighty. Given the history and the fact that there really were no complaints or issues
until the permit came up I guess I could go with the existing permit but I could not go with an open ended
permit beyond what it is. No problems I think are based on maybe the number that are there now and I
wouldn't want to allow that, 6 is plenty of dogs for a residential lot.
Mayor Mancino: Roger, what'd you find out in our ordinance? And again, if it's something that we need
to change in the ordinance maybe we need to do that. On cap it. Not just for this one but deal with the
ordinance.
Roger Knutson: The ordinance does not limit the number.
Mayor Mancino: Okay. So that tells me it might be something that we as a council want to look at in
limiting that for future permits. Any other discussion?
Councilman Labatt: No, I don't care other than some sort of cap on it.
Councilman Senn: What do you mean for future permits?
Mayor Mancino: Well we could limit it now and then do it as part of, and change the ordinance. If that's
what the council would like to do but I think that we should change the overall ordinance, city ordinance
and just not do it on a spot basis. If we feel that you shouldn't have more than 6 dogs in a neighborhood,
then we should include that in the ordinance.
Councilman Senn: Well I mean if we're going to draft a permit, we can attach a condition to it can we not?
Roger Knutson: Sure.
City Council Meeting - May 8, 2000
Councilman Senn: So I mean are you saying then Mayor that you want to approve this with an unlimited
number of dogs?
Mayor Mancino: No. What I'm saying is that I think that we should also go back and look at the
ordinance too and put it in the ordinance because what I heard you say was that there shouldn't be more
than 6 dogs in a neighborhood. So maybe we should go and look at that.
Councilman Senn: No, I didn't say there should be 6 dogs in a neighborhood. I said 6 dogs was plenty for
one residential lot. That's what I said.
Mayor Mancino: Oh okay. Than maybe we should look at it in the context of a neighborhood and a
residential lot within a neighborhood.
Councilman Senn: Then let's put the condition on this permit though as a start towards that. We can
always adjust it later.
Mayor Mancino: And then we should also direct staff, if you could look at that as a planning commission
to look at that ordinance. So, may I have a motion? Oh, Kate did you want to say something?
Kate Aanenson: No, it's not a planning ordinance.
Mayor Mancino: So who would look at it? I mean that's land use.
Kate Aanenson: I don't know.
Councilman Labatt: I think that's Todd.
Mayor Mancino: That's Todd.
Todd Gerhardt: Yeah, I'm the dog guy.
Kate Aanenson: It's not a planning issue.
Todd Gerhardt: We'll get it to you. It's going to be Roger's office that's going to draft something so we'll
get it to you. See how that went around Roger.
Roger Knutson: I saw that.
Mayor Mancino: Everybody wanted to. Then may I please have a motion and a second?
Councilman Labatt: Motion to approve the permit with condition 1 that the permanent dogs in the
residence should not exceed 6.
Mayor Mancino: So cap it at 6 dogs. Okay. Then may I have a second?
Councilwoman Jansen: Second.
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City Council Meeting - May 8, 2000
Councilman Labatt moved, Councilwoman Jansen seconded to approve the kennel permit for Pat and
Hans Petruska at 7431 Windmill Drive with the condition that the number of permanent dogs in the
residence shall not exceed six (6). All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously.
Mayor Mancino: So again this, we did approve the kennel permit and a cap of 6 dogs with that condition
on it. Okay, thank you.
FINAL ACTION ON THE BOARD OF REVIEW AND EQUALIZATION.
Mayor Mancino: Angie and Steve, do you want to start us out with the first group.
Angie Johnson: I'll let Steve handle this group.
Steven Clay: Moving on to something simpler.
Mayor Mancino: Oh I don't think so. I don't think so. And could you please kind of present the first
group because I know that we do have people here from the first group.
Steven Clay: Yeah, for this first group we're going to be dealing with the ones that came in at the last
meeting. And we're dealing with homes abutting Highway 101. And the concerns are with the potential or
current impact of the future highway improvements on their market values. We're kind of walking in the
unknown territory here in that since the actual design has just not been approved and the plans have not
been drawn, we're not looking at how to treat lines on the map saying this is where the right-of-way is...
what's going to happen to your properties. It's still very speculative at this point but there does seem to be
some agreement of proceeding from council here and the Board of Review that there is most likely an
impact on property values for those properties abutting 101. In an effort to identify what that might be at
this point, in your packets here I did find four properties that have sold first subject, the first two are up in
Near Mountain. The second two are in the Colonial Grove neighborhood. They are, the first subject sold
in '99. The other three sold in 1998. If we make the assumption that those sales were, you know people
were possibly somewhat if not fully aware that the highway improvement plans were in the offing, then we
can go ahead and maybe make a second assumption that the sale prices reflected that anticipation. What I
did was I found, for the first two subjects, four other properties that were very, very similar split entry
homes as the two, first two subjects are. I adjusted for time of sale and for other smaller differences in
those sales. Basically adjusting everything out to zero so that what was left would be the difference
between what the subject sold for and what the mean sale of the other four sales. The difference being,
would be the impact of Highway 101. I did that for all four of them. The first page here you'll see that the
impact as a percentage of the total price of the property on the first subject was 3.32%. Second one, 5.93.
Those are the two up in the northern part of Near Mountain. Sales 3 and 4 have a larger difference. 16.14
and 14.53%. IfI had to hazard a guess as to why the impact is greater in the southern part than it is in the
northern part, I would have to say that it's probably due to the fact that the subjects 1 and 2 in Near
Mountain neighborhood, there are already much smaller lots. The houses are more tightly packed
together. There is a much degree of uniformity. There's like three or four basic different home styles here.
Open space and individual expression are probably not the key motivations that buyers are thinking about
when they choose a home here. Whereas the two in the Colonial Grove area have larger lots. You have a
more of a diversity of homes. More of an individual aspect to the neighborhood. Possibly that might be
impacting a greater influence down there. And again I'm being, this is just all conjecture on my part. I
can't point to anything in the data and say this is true but it's kind of a considered opinion. The mean of
those four ratios is just about 10%. You wanted to look at all four of them together and draw some sort of
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City Council Meeting - May 8, 2000
conclusion there. The other thing you could do would be to keep the northern section separately from the
southern section. I can tell you that, I called Eden Prairie and what they're doing for all properties abutting
101 is putting a 5% factor on their values.
Mayor Mancino: So they're lowering them all 5%? Okay.
Steven Clay: As well as properties that are bordering on several other high traffic streets.
Mayor Mancino: I was going to say what about like on Pioneer Trail which is going to up to two.
Steven Clay: Pioneer, they're doing the same thing as well as 62. The east/west route that was approved
here.
Mayor Mancino: And they're using the 5%?
Steven Clay: Yeah.
Mayor Mancino: On all those?
Steven Clay: Yeah. We have five appeals on 101 from the last meeting. One of those had some other
issues going on with it and we did come to an agreement. We have four left. The Anderson property,
Braden. Oh, wait a minute. Wrong file.
Mayor Mancino: The top four?
Steven Clay: The top four, yeah. Thompson, Shoemaker, Mortenson and McHugh.
Mayor Mancino: So Steve are you saying for your recommendation then, because you know we don't have
a recommendation from you on this. Your recommendation would be.
Steven Clay: Well I was reluctant to make a recommendation without bringing this information to you.
You have been dealing with this issue and the plans for a lot longer than I have. And if you want a
recommendation I will offer one.
Mayor Mancino: But what would be your recommendation?
Steven Clay: Well I should also mention that whatever we decide here tonight as an appropriate
adjustment, I will then make those same adjustments to the other properties abutting 101 for this next cycle
so that we have continuity.
Mayor Mancino: A fairness issue. Because your comparables that I see are not on 101 so.
Steven Clay: No. And for the reason that you don't want them on 101. You want them to be away from
101 so you can see how they compare to home that are on 101. I'm adjusting for everything else. All the
other differences, except location.
Mayor Mancino: Okay.
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City Council Meeting - May 8, 2000
Councilwoman Jansen: Mayor, if I could ask one question.
Mayor Mancino: Yeah, I'm sure we're going to have quite a few.
Councilwoman Jansen: When you're making the recommendation of lowering the value, is that to your
assessed 2000 amount or is that to the previous year value?
Steven Clay: This year's value. Or current...
Councilwoman Jansen: To the pay 2000 that you've recommended. It's a decrease from that.
Steven Clay: Yeah.
Councilwoman Jansen: Okay. That was my question. Thank you.
Steven Clay: If you want to take these in order, I know the McHugh's are here.
Mayor Mancino: Are they here?
Councilman Senn: Could we deal with some general questions maybe first?
Mayor Mancino: Onthis? On 1017
Councilman Senn: Yeah.
Mayor Mancino: Okay. In terms of the adjustments your talking about, are you saying that it's your
recommendation to only adjust those properties abutting 101 ? More or less with frontage on 101 ?
Steven Clay: Yes.
Mayor Mancino: Okay. And so you don't feel that it's going to have any affect in values on other
properties not necessarily abutting 101 ? You know going from an existing roadway to something else or
whatever.
Steven Clay: As opposed to being 2 or 3 homes back?
Mayor Mancino: Yeah. Where is that line?
Councilman Senn: I'm just saying given the expanded right-of-way and traffic say brought by a four lane
versus a two lane, etc, etc, I mean you feel there's no impact on the other properties?
Steven Clay: The adjustments as far as a direct adjustment to the property for abutting on 101, talking
about tonight. As far as how it affects the larger neighborhoods and subdivisions that are abutting 101, I
would say it's probably too early to be talking about adjustments. Or trying to define an impact to those
right now. But as we now have those neighborhoods separated out in our system we will be doing a
separate sales analysis on those neighborhoods. Looking at the sales that take place so that if the growth in
those areas is less than what is the average elsewhere in the city, we'll be able to identify it right away and
make adjustments to land values each year rather than waiting 4 or 5 years and then saying all of a sudden,
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City Council Meeting - May 8, 2000
on there's an impact here. I will be looking at it on an annual basis. As we will every other neighborhood
in the city.
Councilman Senn: Before we get into this, and I guess one step further back. Before we get into the
specific issues of any one of these packets, were you able to get information together essentially on
Chanhassen and the proposed increases, etc, on some kind of an average or other types of a basis compared
to other places in the county?
Angie Johnson: You mean as far as an overall report?
Councilman Senn: Yeah. Well I mean you're comparing Chanhassen, Chaska, Victoria, etc, etc.
Angie Johnson: ...
Councilman Senn: In the packet we got earlier?
Mayor Mancino: In the new one?
Angie Johnson: Right.
Councilman Senn: Oh, in the new packet. Okay. In the stuff that was laying here when we walked in
here?
Angie Johnson: Right.
Councilman Senn: Okay.
Angie Johnson: ... exceptions and possibly this section can be taken care of as a whole since all these
property owners are on tat and you're looking at redoing tat. They all have the same issues.
Councilman Senn: No, but I'm just trying to understand from an overall basis, first kind of how we're,
before we get into the individual issues or more or less some levels of issues like tat. I'm just trying to get
an understanding because like when you were here the first time that's why I kind of asked for that
information. So we could understand a little bit better in relationship to how we're comparing to the rest of
the county and what's happening in all the other municipalities within the county.
Angie Johnson: ... for every jurisdictions. We look at each jurisdiction separately.
Mayor Mancino: And so right now you're looking at the 95.7% assessed value or, you're assessing the
value average wise in Chanhassen of 95.7% of what you found to be what the market's going for? And in
Carver it's 97%. In Chaska it's 95%.
Councilman Senn: That last column is the one we're working with.
Mayor Mancino: Yeah.
Councilman Senn: That's one of the things I'm trying to understand.
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City Council Meeting - May 8, 2000
Mayor Mancino: Right here.
Councilman Senn: Okay. And so what's the previous column to that? The state ratio?
Angie Johnson: That's what, when they run a public field study, that's the ratio that the State ended up
with before we could have these valuations after January 2nd.
Steven Clay: Before we apply the increases this year.
Mayor Mancino: And doesn't the State make sure that the percentage is 93% or higher?
Angie Johnson: No, between 90 and 105. It just has to be within that realm and then they look at the
numbers. They open a 5 year history also. There's a lot of different things that they do look at.
Mayor Mancino: But if you're not assessing it within those ranges, then they come back?
Angie Johnson: Oh, at the State Board of Equalization is when that.., is representative and all of our ratios
are...
Mayor Mancino: Okay. So between 90 and 105, we're at 95? 96? Okay.
Councilman Senn: But essentially your range for the County is essentially 90 up to 100 essentially?
Angie Johnson: 90 to 105. That's what the State Board looks at.
Councilman Senn: No, no, but I'm saying there are no 105's in.
Angie Johnson: Oh okay, but I mean that's their range. If you are within that range.
Councilman Senn: But I'm saying within Carver County itself, given the last column here, okay there's a
range anywhere from 90% up to 100%.
Angie Johnson: Right.
Mayor Mancino: There's 101. Oh, that's in Dahlgren.
Councilman Senn: Well yeah I'm sorry. I'm sorry, I was not looking at the decimal points...
Steven Clay: You do need to take the ratios from those smaller jurisdictions and townships when you have
5 or 6 or 7 sales. It's kind of a grain of salt.
Angie Johnson: Because at that time they look at 5 years...
Councilman Senn: Okay, but I guess what I'm trying to understand within our county why would
somebody be at 90% and why would somebody be at 100% and why is there a 10% differential within our
county so that effectively if you own you know a house in one part of the county and it's worth $100,000,
you're paying 10%. Or I mean you're saying effectively a 10% greater valuation than you would be living
in another part of the county.
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City Council Meeting - May 8, 2000
Angie Johnson: We have to look at each jurisdiction separately and what's going on. And when we do our
core.., we may pick up different aspects of what happened within that neighborhood. And so... within a
jurisdiction is quite different.
Mayor Mancino: The closer you get to Minneapolis. The more east you go in Carver County, the higher
the land values.
Councilman Senn: But land value would not reflect in the ratio.
Angie Johnson: Yes it will.
Councilman Labatt: Oh sure it will.
Councilman Senn: Not as far as a percentage?
Angie Johnson: Yes.
Councilman Senn: Why would it?
Angie Johnson: Because we're looking at just overall value there.
Councilman Senn: But I mean I thought all you're doing is comparing a percentage of where you are in
valuation in relationship to the State standard.
Angie Johnson: No. This is what we call our local effort of what we've done. Our work. Those
percentages are the work that we've done basically within that core tile or with the...
Councilman Senn: But you're saying, I mean if I'm understanding what this percentage is, and maybe I'm
not. I thought I understood this percentage to be that when it says 90%, that means that community is
assessed within 90% of it's real value. Okay. And when you look at another one, it's 95, 97 or 100% of
it's real value. Okay. So I'm not talking about the fact that the land's more expensive one place or the
other. That's a percentage of comparison in relationship to the real value. So why is it in one part of the
county?
Mayor Mancino: The real value.
Councilman Senn: The real value is 10% different than what you're saying the assessed value is. In
another part of the county there's no difference between what you're saying 100% of the value is.
Angie Johnson: When we do our core tile work we look at a lot of different things. Things might have
changed within that core tile. When we were looking at properties only once every four years, there are
some big changes that happen that we have to acknowledge at that time and that's what changes are,
percentage of effort. What we're concerned with here is just Chanhassen tonight.
Mayor Mancino: But so that would mean that next year, the 95% could go to 93% or 97%, depending on
the core tile changes?
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City Council Meeting - May 8, 2000
Angie Johnson: It depends upon what the sales are doing. I mean basically you start out with 88%. Well
on our effort this year was 8 ½% which raised it to 95.87. So it just depends upon the work that we're
doing, the equity that we're trying to put into our work.
Councilman Senn: Okay, and I guess what I'm trying to get at is, is there a factor then that you've
established as it's related to that equity? Are you trying to take everybody and raise them you know like
8.5 like the legislature says the max is or whatever or are you doing something else?
Angie Johnson: No.
Steven Clay: Another important thing to consider is if you look at these ratios for the different
jurisdictions, when we look at the larger jurisdictions that have, are going to have 1,500 or in Chanhassen's
case 470 sales, the more sales you have the more accurate that ratio is going to be. When you get to, oh
let's take Hancock Township, we have ratios of 90.55. They're just barely over the minimum but there
were probably 4 to 5 sales in Hancock Township. 4 or 5 sales is such a small population for any statistical
study that it's not a real reliable number to hang your hat on. And what say the revenue department does
is, they won't just look at that number. They're going to look at what has happened over the past 5 years.
And if we have that 5 year study on some of these outliners, these smaller jurisdictions, it would give you I
think a better sense of assuredy that Chanhassen isn't standing along in what's being assessed at 95% and
these other ones are getting by easily. When you've only got 3 to 4 sales you can have, it's much easier for
something to have where, you know they went in and they went to Menard's and they bought new kitchen
cabinets and redid the floor. It doesn't require a building permit so we didn't know about it and we didn't
pick it up and somebody came in and bought the property that year and they saw those new kitchen
cabinets and that old flooring in the kitchen and they paid an extra $5,000 for that house. Well, in Hancock
Township the house is maybe only worth $100,000 to begin with. That's a 5% difference in the sales ratio
right there. If that happens with 2 or 3 sales, some little things like that can throw off the total ratio quite
significantly when you're dealing with such a small population in any statistical study. So I wouldn't on
these outlayers, especially in townships, these small, lightly populated jurisdictions, I wouldn't look at that
number and base a whole lot of weight on it. I think you can be much more confident in what we have for
Chaska and Chanhassen, Victoria.
Mayor Mancino: Waconia.
Councilman Senn: Well and that's kind of, I mean that's kind of where I was going. First of all, so I don't
misspeak, why is Waconia in here twice?
Steven Clay: One's a city and one's a township.
Councilman Senn: Which is which?
Angie Johnson: The first listing is your city. The second one is in the county.
Councilman Senn: I mean essentially when you take your largest city which is Chanhassen sitting at 95 3/4
and your second largest city, I think I'm right on these sizes being Chaska at 95 ½ essentially, I mean those
two cities are a vast majority of the population in the county, correct?
Angie Johnson: Correct.
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City Council Meeting - May 8, 2000
Councilman Senn: Okay, and the fact that we assess those up to 90, almost 96% tile of what would be
100% of value, raises far more money in relationship to the county coffers than many municipalities within
the county get a much lower rate. Because (a), by sheer numbers they're, we're talking about much, much
more.., and by volume a lot, lot less.
Angie Johnson: I guess how we look at it is the bottom line. And this is what we ended up with and we, in
Chanhassen we divided it down into, what did we end up, 68 neighborhoods this year? To get the equity in
there. What we're looking at is just Chanhassen.
Mayor Mancino: So not trying to equal out the whole county?
Angie Johnson: No. We do not equal up in the county. We equalize the jurisdictions that we handle.
Mayor Mancino: Okay. Any other questions? Mark?
Councilman Senn: So that's by municipality?
Angie Johnson: Right.
Mayor Mancino: Do you have any other general question, overall questions?
Councilman Senn: No, that's it for general ones.
Mayor Mancino: Okay, thank you. Okay, let's go back to 101 and your recommendation.
Steven Clay: Well probably the best way to approach that would be just to go through the individual
appeals. Appeal number 1.
Mayor Mancino: We'll take all these, the four at the same time. Okay, so if you could go over each one of
them and then we will vote as, and discuss them.
Steven Clay: Okay. Although if we go to number 4, 41 Hill Street, you may want to address that
differently than the rest.
Mayor Mancino: Okay. Because it is in much closer proximity to the road than all the others are.
Steven Clay: First one, 7450 Chanhassen Road. The McHugh's are here.
Mayor Mancino: And what percentage increase is that? That's a huge percentage increase.
Councilwoman Jansen: 29.
Mayor Mancino: Is it? And Steve, what is your recommendation for that? And they're right on the road
too. Their property is.
Steven Clay: Yeah, well the increase in value is basically the increase of the lakeshore value. Well my
thinking, looking at the sales that we did analyze there, my general recommendation would be 5% of the
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City Council Meeting - May 8, 2000
properties in that northern most area north of, well starting with Near Mountain. Those properties and
10% for the rest of them on down.
Mayor Mancino: So for Tim and Diane, I'm sorry. Then what are you suggesting for this particular
property?
There was a change of tapes at this point.
Mayor Mancino: So for Tim and Diane you're suggesting a 19% increase versus a 29%?
Steven Clay: I'm suggesting a 10% decrease from my new estimated value.
Mayor Mancino: So you're suggesting instead of $250,000, 251.
Councilman Labatt: It'd be 225.
Mayor Mancino: It'd be 225? Okay.
Scott Botcher: I get 16% off the base of 194,600.
Councilman Senn: But I thought he said he was making the adjustment first.
Angie Johnson: He did a lot of changes in land values. The percentages are really...
Councilman Senn: So your recommendation is start with the 250 number and then deduct 10% off of it, or
25,000 which effectively puts you at 225 then?
Scott Botcher: That's what I had.
Mayor Mancino: And could you go through each one of these that way and tell us your recommendation?
Steven Clay: Say again?
Mayor Mancino: Could you go through each one of these and tell us your recommendation please.
Steven Clay: Oh! Recommend $225,100.
Mayor Mancino: Okay. Then I'm going to wait for a minute. Any questions on this from council
members?
Councilwoman Jansen: No questions.
Mayor Mancino: Okay. This recommendation.
Councilman Senn: Are we going to go through them all or just one at a time?
Mayor Mancino: And then could you go through, next one is Robert Mortenson.
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City Council Meeting - May 8, 2000
Steven Clay: We recommend $261,900.
Mayor Mancino: Pardon?
Steven Clay: $261,900.
Mayor Mancino: Okay. Any questions?
Scott Botcher: That's a decrease in value, is that what you wanted to say?
Mayor Mancino: So their last year's, previous year's value was $263,900 and now you're saying
$261,9007
Steven Clay: Yes. This one's not lakeshore property so it didn't get a big increase.
Mayor Mancino: Okay. Because of the lakeshore.
Councilman Labatt: And this one abuts 1017
Steven Clay: This one abuts 101.
Councilman Labatt: Their back yard.
Steven Clay: Yeah. And the recommendation is indeed less than last year's value but the impact from 101
is getting greater as we get closer to the present date so it stands to reason.
Mayor Mancino: And Shoemaker, the next one that again isn't lakeshore I'm assuming.
Steven Clay: Correct. 10% reduction there would be $371,300.
Mayor Mancino: $371,300. Again which is about $10,000 less than the previous year's valuation. And
the Brian Thompson's on Hill Street.
Steven Clay: The Hill Street property is right on the southern curve of 101. Depending on how wide the
road is, whether you need two lanes or do it... four lane, the proximity to the house, it's only...
Councilman Senn: It's a matter of whether he becomes a troll or not, is that the idea? Lives under the
bridge.
Mayor Mancino: We don't want to go there, okay. And again, what would be a fair?
Steven Clay: Well you know the house, the house only sits about 40 feet off the present right-of-way.
Now if we did 10% of the 168,500, and maybe that would be appropriate to stay with that for now until
there's more of a decision on final design.
Mayor Mancino: But isn't this one, doesn't the road have more impact on this one than any of the others?
Councilman Engel: You mean just because it drives right over it?
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City Council Meeting - May 8, 2000
Scott Botcher: Just the living room.
Steven Clay: Yeah you're right.
Mayor Mancino: So if you did t0 on the others, my question would be.
Steven Clay: Am I hearing you say that you're thinking about a larger percentage would be in order?
Councilwoman Jansen: Or at least equal to the first three.
Mayor Mancino: At least equal to or at least a little more than the others.
Steven Clay: I serve at the pleasure of the council.
Scott Botcher: They love it when you say that.
Steven Clay: 15% we'd be talking about $159,000.
Mayor Mancino: $159,100 at 15%.
Councilman Senn: If you kept with the same 10% it'd be $168,500 which is just a few thousand higher
than the existing.
Mayor Mancino: $3,000 higher.
Councilman Senn: That's why you were saying keep at the existing.
Councilwoman Jansen: Maybe do it consistent.
Mayor Mancino: Consistent and do the 10%. Okay.
Councilman Senn: Well unless you assign a greater value because of it's proximity I guess.
Steven Clay: And it is unique compared to the other properties you're looking at tonight.
Mayor Mancino: Okay.
Steven Clay: I guess it would depend, if you're really thinking along the lines that what's probably going
to happen is a wider than a narrower roadway configuration, you might want to go to 15%.
Mayor Mancino: Okay. Any discussion on these?
Councilwoman Jansen: Is this a one time adjustment then realizing?
Steven Clay: No, this is something that I will be factoring into our estimating system so ongoing.
Mayor Mancino: tOt?
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City Council Meeting - May 8, 2000
Steven Clay: Yeah. Unless nothing happens with 101 and then we fall back to where we were before.
Councilman Labatt: So when, how do you play catch up on them at that point?
Steven Clay: Yeah. You do what we did here for this. As more sales take place abutting or very near to
101, I'm going to constantly be making comparisons and updating this bit of data. The more sales we have
to work with, the better handle we're going to have on it. Just as when we were talking about the number
of sales in small townships. You know 4 sales is a fairly small number to hang your hat on. If in the next
year or so we get 5 or 6 or 7, that will nearly double the confidence we can have in these percentages.
Councilman Senn: I think one of the ways you have to look at this property per se is that anywhere else
pretty much along 101 where you would leave the roadway in it's current configuration and add an 8 foot
trail to the side. Most of that would always be done within the current right-of-way with little impact to the
properties. In this particular location you can't even add the 8 foot trail without impacting the property
effectively so no matter what configuration you take, this property will be more severely impacted than any
other property along 101.
Mayor Mancino: Well I'm going to make a motion. Plus the fact once we get a trail in then the value of all
these properties will go up.
Councilman Labatt: Where are we going to put that dividing line between the north and south, before we
get too much further into this? We've got to decide if.
Councilman Senn: Yeah, I think you have to pick a general parameter like Steve said because if Steve's
going to go, the other Steve's going to back and apply that effectively to all similar properties on 101 to be
fair, you kind of really need to set that game rule up front. So if it's going to be 10% for this situation and
x percent for this situation, then I think he needs to know that I'm assuming to apply it across the board.
Angie Johnson: Probably for right now until things start progressing, 10% will probably be equal enough
throughout the whole properties until you get further on into your steps with the highway and then you can,
you know based upon...
Scott Botcher: The only question I have is that if you continue, and this is more of a practical question. If
you continue to apply a discount factor of 10% annually to these properties and I'll just call it inflation but
the growth in value of these properties is less than 10% annually, and a property owner appeals it every
year. Don't you have a incremental ratcheting down of the property every single year until in theory it
could be worth zero? I mean where does it stop? I guess my question is, how are you going to apply that
101 factor so you don't end up just continually ratcheting down if the growth doesn't exceed 10%?
Angie Johnson: Basically we'll put 10% on for location factor.
Scott Botcher: 10% what though?
Angie Johnson: 10% of the total market value here.
Scott Botcher: 10% discount?
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City Council Meeting - May 8, 2000
Angie Johnson: Right, which would be only per year. There will always be growth. As you can see in the
city, there's always growth.
Scott Botcher: Right, but what if growth is less than 10%?
Councilman Senn: Scott it's already factored in before you take your 10%. See you're starting with what
they're saying the 2000 valuation is. Then you're taking 10% off of it so they're already factoring in.
Angie Johnson: I mean we're not going to put an extra 10% on every year. That 10% will just remain, if
sales indicate a decrease in value, then there will be a decrease in value but it's only always going to be
10%.
Scott Botcher: So if the 2001 number, on one of these appeals, is up 5%. Maybe I'm missing something.
And then you, I'm sorry.
Councilman Senn: It's where you were with your first question, you know. If they base their adjustments
on last year's number what you're saying would be 100% true. But the fact that they are upping last
year's number on a current evaluation basis to this year's number, then deducting the 10% off of it, they're
taking into account all the comparable sales, all the market conditions effectively bringing the property up
before they're applying the discount back down to 10%. So it doesn't become accumulative each year. It
only becomes a discount off what they're saying the revised market value is for that.
Scott Botcher: Well I guess I'll need to sit down and put paper to pencil. Just conceptually I'm having
trouble getting around that.
Angie Johnson: ... last 3-4 years the market growth in Chanhassen has been roughly about 8 1/2 %.
Essentially what would be happening, we'd be raising that property even from what you're decreasing it
10%. Still I take the 8 ½% rate but because they've got a 10% discount, they're going to be 10% below all
the other market values.
Scott Botcher: Gotch ya.
Mayor Mancino: So does that make sense to you?
Scott Botcher: I still need to play with it but yeah. I get the concept.
Mayor Mancino: And you feel comfortable, I mean one of the discussions we were having is you feel
comfortable with doing the 10% and I think the Hill Street should have more versus the Eden Prairie doing
the 5%?
Steven Clay: Yeah.
Mayor Mancino: Okay. Do you want to ask any questions about that?
Councilman Senn: Mayor?
Mayor Mancino: Yes.
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City Council Meeting - May 8, 2000
Councilman Senn: One thing I just want to make sure here before we do it, because we've run into this
problem in past years. The past year with the previous assessor, when we took groups of properties like
this and applied a blanket action okay, that was then taken to the County Board as a blanket action which
was not a correct or legal action and they then left all the assessments the way they were based on the fact
that it was not a legal action. So what we ended up getting down to was having to take an individual vote
and action on each individual piece of property. That's what we did last year but we were forced to do that
because it's the only way we were told we could legally act and not have it overturned by the County
Board. So I just want to make sure we're in sync so we don't all walk out of here tonight thinking we're
doing one thing and then have it reversed two weeks later simply because somebody says we can't do that
again.
Angie Johnson: I know where you're coming from basically. We're the ones that are recommending the
10% as a blanket so we will not go back and change that. I understand where you're coming from and
what happened there but I do believe it was not a recommendation that we made at that time.
Mayor Mancino: Okay, thank you.
Councilman Senn: Well you guys weren't here so I'm not saying you did, okay.
Mayor Mancino: Thank you.
Councilman Senn: I just want to make sure when we do something tonight it's a deal so to speak.
Angie Johnson: Yeah.
Mayor Mancino: So I'm going to make a motion and then you know if anyone wants to discuss the motion
or second it or not and that is, on the four properties, I'm going to start out, I'm going to say this
individually. The McHugh's, Mortenson, Shoemaker property, going with your recommendation of the
10% decrease of the 2000 assessed total estimated market value on each property. And on the Hill Street
property, the Thompson's property, a 15% reduction. Is there a second to that motion?
Councilman Senn: Friendly question please?
Mayor Mancino: Yep.
Councilman Senn: Friendly question is, do you need in that motion essentially the blanket adjustment to all
properties of like kind abutting 101 ? Or can you do that simply based on the action that we take on these
particular lots?
Steven Clay: What we're going to...
Angie Johnson: Next year's assessment.
Steven Clay: Next year's assessment.
Angie Johnson: All we'd be doing what the appeals are here tonight.
Mayor Mancino: Okay.
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City Council Meeting - May 8, 2000
Councilman Senn: I'm sorry, I lost the answer.
Mayor Mancino: The answer is no. It would not happen this year. It would only happen to those that
appealed this year but next year when they go to do the 2001 assessed total EMV, that you will do it to all
the properties on 101. Will do the blanket 10%. Okay? Any other discussion on that? And I don't mind
adding that to the motion. Can you do that this year to all of them on 1017 That abut 1017
Councilman Senn: Why can't we just adjust them all 10%?
Mayor Mancino: Can we do that this year?
Angie Johnson: You're limited to a certain amount of deduction and without knowing all the properties and
what this might do. If you exceed that 1% change in the market value, all of these decisions are null and
void.
Mayor Mancino: Got it. No, I understand that.
Councilman Senn: What's our aggregate?
Mayor Mancino: Well can you look at that and come back and tell us that?
Councilman Senn: Well I think that's, I mean.
Mayor Mancino: Because if it's over the amount.
Angie Johnson: No, that's only residential there.
Councilman Senn: Well but I mean let's just talk about residential. I mean if you're taking our residential,
that's $1,351,000,0007
Angie Johnson: Well I don't know how many...
Mayor Mancino: Yeah, Angie you'd have to come back and tell us. I mean I don't want to put you on the
spot now to say yes, that you can do it. But if it does come underneath the 1%, can we, we can do the
blanket this year. How do other council members feel about that? Doing the, as long as these properties
get the 10%, would the other properties abutting 101 should also get the 10%. Again, abutting 101 if we
are able to legally. Any discussion on that?
Councilwoman Jansen: I guess my only hesitation is the one that you did change to 15%. That being,
realizing the value's probably already been affected by how close it is to the roadway and the impact that it
is having. I guess to be at least consistent, if we're now going to apply this up the rest of the road, how
many other exceptions do we end up coming across or if we just do the whole thing at 10%.
Angie Johnson: It might be better off doing...do everything at 10% this year and then A1 will take a look at
each individual property next year to see, like with this Thompson. If this is what that's worth, then maybe
an extra 5% and you'll take a look at those situations next year.
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City Council Meeting - May 8, 2000
Mayor Mancino: Okay, that seems fair.
Councilwoman Jansen: Truly pull out all the exceptions that way.
Mayor Mancino: Yeah, and do that next year.
Councilwoman Jansen: Just a thought.
Mayor Mancino: Mr. Engel, what's your feeling on that?
Councilman Engel: I'd say consistent and I don't have a problem with that 10% across the board.
Mayor Mancino: Okay. Councilman Labatt?
Councilman Labatt: No, I'm fine with it. I mean...too high of a starting point but if that's what the
council wants to go with, then I'll go with it. Our neighbors to the west or east have already said 5 and I'd
offer middle ground and go 8 or something like that but if you want to go 10, that's fine.
Mayor Mancino: Well if they feel comfortable with that recommendation. I will do a new motion then.
Take that one back and do a 10% blanket on those properties abutting 101 and again you will certainly
have to come back and tell us obviously if you can't because it goes.
Steven Clay: I might recommend that the Near Mountain section that it would be 5%.
Mayor Mancino: Okay.
Councilman Labatt: Because they're farther back?
Steven Clay: Yeah, and it's a subdivision with smaller lots and there's different sales that you have to
compare.
Councilman Labatt: How about Fox Hollow though?
Steven Clay: Those are at 10.
Councilman Labatt: So how many houses are we talking about in Near Mountain then?
Mayor Mancino: Now we're.
Councilman Senn: I like the idea of simplifying...
Councilman Labatt: I like it. I mean I'm for a blanket reduction you know. I just hate to see a neighbor's,
pick you know whatever street is the person to the north is going to get 5 and the guy to the south is going
to get 10. I don't want that.
Councilman Senn: Well again, given the differences I think they all affect them in different ways. I mean
even the people in Near Mountain, given some designs that are effectively north of Pleasant View versus
others which don't affect it a lot. I mean it's from like Point A.
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City Council Meeting - May 8, 2000
Mayor Mancino: I'm going to stick with my original motion, 10% all the way down 101 so it's a fairness
and then we can go back next year and look at those in specifics.
Councilman Senn: Second.
Mayor Mancino moved, Councilman Senn seconded to make a motion to decrease the Estimated
Market Value of all homes abutting Highway 101 by 10% if the County Assessor determines that it
does not exceed the 1% threshold. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously.
Mayor Mancino: So we've got four done.
Councilman Senn: There are people here from there if you wanted to.
Mayor Mancino: Well it's not a public hearing. Yeah. Sorry. Not at this point. We'll be here til 12:00.
Thank you. Okay, the next group please Angie.
Angie Johnson: Okay, the next section on Group 2 are residential properties.
Mayor Mancino: Yes, it's the whole group. I'm sorry, go ahead please.
Angie Johnson: These are residential properties which values were being appealed and.., you might have
to go through each one maybe. We looked at each one. Steve's recommendation on here .... no change In
fact a lot of them are no change and so I guess if you want to go through them individually.
Mayor Mancino: Yep, let's just go through them very quickly. One on one. David and Kimberly
Anderson. Any questions on that from council? Okay, then may I have a motion to accept David and
Kimberly Anderson? Let's just go through and vote on these right away. Make it a little faster.
Councilwoman Jansen: And that would be moving approval of the new recommendation.
Mayor Mancino: Correct. Yes, the new recommendation of $261,200.
Councilman Senn: ... do you want to ask if the property owner's here then or?
Mayor Mancino: This isn't a public hearing.
Councilman Senn: Oh okay. Right.
Mayor Mancino: Okay, thank you.
Councilwoman Jansen: Move approval.
Mayor Mancino: May I have a second please?
Councilman Labatt: Second.
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City Council Meeting - May 8, 2000
Councilwoman Jansen moved, Councilman Labatt seconded to approve the Estimated Market Value
at $261,200 for David & Kimberly Anderson, PID#25.8520250. All voted in favor and the motion
carried unanimously.
Mayor Mancino: The next one, the Braden property. This one, Angie or Steve, you're going with your
assessed value of 131 which is an 8% increase? Okay.
Steven Clay: Yeah, it is a fairly typical split entry. I did note that the outside siding was starting to
deteriorate and made adjustments for that to account for the comparables as well as making adjustment for
the smaller sized lot. Still showing that none of them stayed in value.
Mayor Mancino: Okay. Any questions on this? Okay, then may I please have a motion.
Councilwoman Jansen: Move approval.
Mayor Mancino: And is there a second?
Councilman Engel: Second.
Councilwoman Jansen moved, Councilman Engel seconded to approve the Estimated Market Value
at $131,100 for John R. Braden, PID#25.3900020. All voted in favor and the motion carried
unanimously.
Mayor Mancino: Okay the next is the Hidden Lane, 261 Hidden Lane. Again this was reviewed last year
and the increase is an 8% increase. Steve, anything you want to tell us on this property?
Steven Clay: Yeah that's true. We reduced it because of a problem with leading windows...the problem
windows were fixed so we raised the value back up again. Also have three very good comparable sales...
which showed his values as probably actually $20,000 more.
Mayor Mancino: That's a very popular subdivision in Chanhassen.
Steven Clay: Yeah.
Councilman Senn: I remember this one from last year and the discussion on it. Did they end up, is this one
of those wonderful insults to injury deals where they got stuck with paying for the window problem or did
they actually get a remedy on the window problem?
Steven Clay: I asked but didn't get a dollar amount. I think they did maybe contribute a little but not the
full amount. They didn't sound unhappy with the settlement. And was a bit perturbed. You know.., some
other problems and he's invested all this money in the house and then the assessor keeps raising the value
on him when he fixes the problems and I can understand the frustrations. You spend money and then you
end up spending money.., pay more property taxes. It's frustrating but it's sort of the system we're blessed
with.
Mayor Mancino: And the previous owner didn't have those window problems. Okay. May I have a
motion please?
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City Council Meeting - May 8, 2000
Councilwoman Jansen: Move approval of staff's recommendation.
Mayor Mancino: A second please.
Councilman Labatt: Second.
Councilwoman Jansen moved, Councilman Labatt seconded to approve the Estimated Market Value
at $171,400 for Paul & Michelle Haik, PID#25.3450380. All voted in favor and the motion carried
unanimously.
Mayor Mancino: Okay. The Tropic Park Drive.
Steven Clay: This is a person who has a lot. Did you get a copy of?
Councilman Labatt: No.
Councilwoman Jansen: No.
Steven Clay: Basically it's Hallgren, the lot is going to be probably closest to where I assumed that
monopole is going to go. As of January 2nd of this year the pole wasn't there and as far as I know it's still
not there so for this year's value there's really nothing to contest. And even if it were there I'm not terribly
sure it would have much impact on value. It's pretty well buffered by some fairly mature, tall trees...
Mayor Mancino: Okay thank you. Then may I have a motion please.
Councilwoman Jansen: Move approval of staff's recommendation.
Mayor Mancino: Second.
Councilman Labatt: Second.
Councilwoman Jansen moved, Councilman Labatt seconded to approve the Estimated Market Value
at $66,000 for Del & Wendy Hammond, PID#25.5680050. All voted in favor and the motion carried
unanimously.
Mayor Mancino: The next is the Sandy Hook Circle. Does this abut 101 too? Is this one of the 101
properties?
Steven Clay: No. If you look at the location map, you'll see where the subject is located.
Mayor Mancino: Oh okay. It's kind of close.
Steven Clay: It's over 300 feet from the current right-of-way. It is buffered by some trees and another
house. Three other sales, or four other sales that I looked at were similarly located across.
Mayor Mancino: Proximity to 101.
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City Council Meeting - May 8, 2000
Steven Clay: Thank you. I was looking for that word all night. In similar proximity to 101. He did also
raise at the first meeting the issue of the house across the street. They just kind of zeroed in on this one that
sold directly across the street and it did sell for, I don't know $50,000 or $60,000 less than his. I did
include a nice colored photo map showing the.., of value that, the different values of those two
neighborhoods. You can see where the subject's located that there are, it's not unique in it's value.
Mayor Mancino: Steve, when these other comparables sold, did they sell you know kind of after the 101
had come up for discussion a year ago or so? Are these mostly?
Steven Clay: No sale dates are on there. It should be fairly current sales.
Mayor Mancino: June '99. Okay. June '99 and August '99, okay. Okay. Any other questions on this
property? Can I have a motion and a second please?
Councilman Labatt: Motion to approve assessor's recommendation.
Councilman Engel: Second.
Councilman Labatt moved, Councilman Engel seconded to approve the Estimated Market Value at
$301,900 for Harold T. Love, PID#25.2400200. All voted in favor and the motion carried
unanimously.
Mayor Mancino: The 7290 Kurvers Point Road property. And again this is a 5% increase okay, over last
year. And you did go and inspect and review it. Okay, any questions?
Councilman Senn: I'm sorry, I have to apologize because I was behind it looking at papers and realized
we're into another grouping that I would like to at least make a comment about.
Mayor Mancino: Okay. While I'd like to really commend the assessor for, and thank the assessor for the
fact that someone has finally looked at the issue of what people have been putting with up there for about
30 years now in terms of uncertainty in relationship to the properties directly adjacent to 101. And you
know if we in effect are going to go ahead and proceed and do something sooner rather than later on trails,
that eliminates a lot of my argument but I still contend that there is an issue out in this part of the city that
affects the overall values when you have a lake on one side, a highway on another side and you can't even
move anyplace other than on your local street safely. And stuff not being served by any kind of a trail or
any means of getting in and out except playing dodgem on 101. And stuff and I'm just saying from a
general context it goes back to my earlier...
Mayor Mancino: Okay, thank you.
Steven Clay: I'm not used to being thanked but I'll take it.
Mayor Mancino: Can I have a motion please?
Councilman Labatt: Motion to approve assessor recommendation.
Mayor Mancino: And a second?
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City Council Meeting - May 8, 2000
Councilwoman Jansen: Second.
Councilman Labatt moved, Councilwoman Jansen seconded to approve the Estimated Market Value
at $471,300 for Dan & Brenda Vatland, PID#25.3920030. All voted in favor and the motion carried
unanimously.
Mayor Mancino: The last one in this group is the Winter property on Stone Creek Drive. Steve, can you
talk a little bit about this. I think this is a pretty special.
Steven Clay: Do you have photos?
Mayor Mancino: Yes.
Steven Clay: This is a property where.., until I realized there was a flag lot behind them. Now this year
they've got houses.., started in the process of being constructed on the flag lot behind him and the way the
house is positioned it's in such close proximity to the rear of the Winter's property. It's quite atypical to
have a home in such proximity to the rear of your home. If you were standing.., constructed house, to have
a house that's close, you know standing outside your front yard. In that price range and neighborhood
area. So then the Winter's would make the argument that there's an impact on the market value to the
home given this new house back there. There is a nearly identical house also being currently built on the
next lot which abuts and fronts on the street rather than the flag lot. I think the differences are the front
faCade. Otherwise it looks like it's exactly the same floorplan. If those two homes sell this year it would
give us a pretty good indication there what the impact is on that flag lot's proximity to the Winter's
property. It would also probably indicate the impact on the Winter's property if something were to
verifiable than simply looking at the same kind of...and it's probably this as far as impact goes. So our
recommendation was a 5 % change.
Mayor Mancino: Okay, so last year it was valued at 317. This year at 301. And that's a 5% decrease
from last year's. Or 5% decrease from the 2000.
Angie Johnson: 5% from last year.
Mayor Mancino: From last year, okay. It's not on the 321 because it looked like.
Angie Johnson: No, the 317.
Mayor Mancino: Okay. And as you said you're going to be making sure when the two houses, the one to
the west of them sell and the one, the flag lot behind them sell, you'll get more comparables for next year.
Okay. Okay. Any other questions?
Councilman Labatt: I look at this and as I visited this place and kind of look at what we just did with 101 I
wonder if this is an immediate impact has affected this homeowner.
Mayor Mancino: But we did 10% off the new estimated.
Councilman Labatt: Right.
Mayor Mancino: And this we're doing with 5.
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City Council Meeting - May 8, 2000
Councilman Labatt: If we do 10% off the new, and amend this one we drop it 32. Correct?
Mayor Mancino: If we did 10% off this one, of the new estimated, where would we be?
Steven Clay: That's a $32,100 reduction. It'd be 289,100.
Mayor Mancino: I agree with you.
Councilman Labatt: I mean let's apply the 101 standard to the Winter's and give them 10%.
Mayor Mancino: I agree on this one. Any other discussion?
Councilman Engel: Yeah I walked by it and I see it. It's goofy. I agree.
Mayor Mancino: Do you want to make a motion?
Councilman Labatt: So I'll move that we deduct, I'll make a 5% change to 10% to the 2000 estimated
market value.
Mayor Mancino: Okay. Is there a second?
Councilman Engel: Second.
Councilman Labatt moved, Councilman Engel seconded to approve the Estimated Market Value at
$289,100 for Craig & Christine Winter, PID#25.2560420. All voted in favor and the motion carried
unanimously.
Mayor Mancino: Okay, next group.
Angie Johnson: Is a commercial industrial properties. This year I redid the entire county as far as land
value. I included.., summation of Village on the Ponds and also on number 5 also has sale information just
for Chanhassen areas themselves. The first property is the Paws, Claws and Hooves which is a stable and
kennels down on 101 and 212. Basically that increase in there is basically all on land. The land went from
$60,000 to $110,300. I guess there was a little bit of an increase in the building also. It went from
$342,000 to $358,000 but the major thing with this was the land. We had 15 acres of land for there
although part of it's in the bluff area and part of it's in wetlands. And so I'm valuing of 15 acres without
utilities at $24,500...land schedule but I'm using only 30% of it. Saying that only 30% can be utilized.
Although when I talked with the Planning and Zoning here, they thought I was very lenient on that part.
Mayor Mancino: Any questions? Okay, then may I please have a motion?
Councilman Senn: Move approval.
Mayor Mancino: Second.
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City Council Meeting - May 8, 2000
Councilman Senn moved, Mayor Mancino seconded to approve the Estimated Market Value at
$469,200 for Paws, Claws, and Hooves, PID#25.0360600. All voted in favor and the motion carried
unanimously.
Mayor Mancino: Next is the, and I don't know where this is.
Angie Johnson: This is the Mini Storage that's right on 212 and Stoughton Avenue. They have some land
on both sides of Highway 212... not aware of. He has 21 acres there and after talking with Larry and also
with the City, part of it was used for agricultural use right now although it could be buildable. And
basically I, when I first looked at it I was using the increment approach for mini storage buildings and I
wasn't taking into consideration the excess land and so I re-evaluated the land and the buildings based on
that information and the information that I got from Bob Generous here at the City. And so they said that's
where the changes. The land actually went up. The building value went down but there is a decrease
overall.
Mayor Mancino: Okay, any questions? May I have a motion please?
Councilman Senn: Move approval.
Councilman Labatt: Second.
Councilman Senn moved, Councilman Labatt seconded to approve the Estimated Market Value at
$813,100 for Gary Dungey, PID#25.0340100. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously.
Mayor Mancino: The next is the McDonald's.
Angie Johnson: Basically there too it's totally on the land value from $299,100 to $500,500. It had been
valued at $2.41 a square foot. I revalued it at $5.27 per square foot basically we based a lot of them on the
sales of Village on the Ponds which are all selling for $7.00 or more dollars a square foot.
Mayor Mancino: And did you do that Angie with all of that commercial on TH 5?
Angie Johnson: Right.
Mayor Mancino: Okay, so you applied that to everyone?
Angie Johnson: This schedule that I gave you has been applied throughout the whole city.
Mayor Mancino: Okay. Well, any questions?
Councilwoman Jansen: No.
Mayor Mancino: May I please have a motion.
Councilman Senn: Move approval.
Mayor Mancino: And a second please.
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City Council Meeting - May 8, 2000
Councilwoman Jansen: Second.
Councilman Senn moved, Councilwoman Jansen seconded to approve the Estimated Market Value at
$825,600 for McDonald's (Attn G. Borg), PID#25.1760010. All voted in favor and the motion
carried unanimously.
Mayor Mancino: State Bank of Chanhassen.
Angie Johnson: Basically their adjustment was done totally on the building structure. After reviewing
some more information, if I can just think of the guy, Al... After reviewing with me. I had gone through
the bank had put an addition on it and such the following year but certain things I guess I wasn't aware of
them so that's why the reduction of the land value here. And based on what other, I looked at the other
banks in Chanhassen to make sure there was equality within the banking systems here.
Mayor Mancino: Did the Village on the Pond prices also affect the downtown too? Those land prices for
the other companies in our downtown area.
Angie Johnson: They would. Well essentially yes in a way but then I looked at other factors too. I mean I
looked at all the sales throughout the whole city and then even compared Chaska and Chanhassen too
because of so many industrial parks that basically are just so close together between the two cities. And so
it's kind of looked at as a large area. And then taken into consideration what...
Mayor Mancino: Okay. Any questions?
Councilman Senn: Mayor, may I ask a question.
Mayor Mancino: Yes.
Councilman Senn: I just want to understand. You're saying that the valuation adjustment you're saying is
based on what, the building or the land?
Angie Johnson: On this one it's on the building. On the main building. So it's on their depreciation
schedule.
Councilman Senn: Okay so even with the addition and everything else.
Mayor Mancino: So what is your concern Mark?
Councilman Senn: I mean what I'm trying to say is previous year's value, did that reflect the addition or
not?
Angie Johnson: That was reflected in the year previous .... 1999 assessment.
Mayor Mancino: So the 2.7 took into account.
Angie Johnson: $2,712,700 from last year had the addition on it.
Councilman Senn: And that took all the value effectively of the new addition onto it?
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City Council Meeting - May 8, 2000
Angie Johnson: Yes.
Councilman Senn: Okay. And so it wasn't a partial.
Angie Johnson: No.
Councilman Senn: Okay. And so now you're looking at essentially adjusting.
Angie Johnson: The depreciation schedule on the older part of the building is what I looked at there.
Councilman Senn: Oh okay. The depreciation schedule on the older, okay. Because that's where I was
getting hung up. I'm sorry, when you were talking about adjusting the depreciation schedule on the
building that essentially was new.
Angie Johnson: ... built in '88 or something. Late 80's I do believe. That's the.., depreciation is coming
from.
Councilman Senn: Okay. But you're not basing it on effectively then the issue of the use then?
Angie Johnson: Well all banks are based on value of...
Councilman Senn: Yeah, which is usually higher than any other commercial building. That's why I'm
asking.
Angie Johnson: That's probably true, yeah.
Councilman Senn: Okay, so that's why I'm saying. I mean if I was understanding at least the explanation
we got here it almost appears as though you're saying, or somebody is saying that an adjustment should be
made to decrease it because of the use. Whereas at least in the business I work in that's just to the
contrary. A bank is the most expensive commercial building to build.
Angie Johnson: What I wrote here is I looked at all the banks in Chanhassen to make sure that I had them
valued basically equally and this one I realized did have depreciation on the older part of the building and
so that's where the adjustment came in.
Councilman Senn: Okay.
Mayor Mancino: Okay, any other questions? Then may I have a motion please and a second.
Councilman Labatt: Move approval.
Councilwoman Jansen: Second.
Councilman Labatt moved, Councilwoman Jansen seconded to approve the Estimated Market Value
at $2,908,700 for the State Bank of Chanhassen, PID#25.0122200. All voted in favor and the motion
carried unanimously.
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City Council Meeting - May 8, 2000
Mayor Mancino: Then we're to 7210 Galpin Boulevard. That's where the owner lives. Any questions on,
this is one parcel in the business park, 7th and 8th Additions?
Angie Johnson: It's right north of Chan Lakes Business Park 7th Addition. It's 7.47 acres.
Mayor Mancino: Got it. Oh, it's a 7.47 acres, got it.
Angie Johnson: This is what, at that old farmstead and he's running a business out of it. And all these
sales are from the Chan Lakes Business 7th Addition which basically surrounds his piece of land there.
Councilwoman Jansen: it's zoned the same correct?
Angie Johnson: Yes it is.
Mayor Mancino: Any other questions? Then may I have a motion and a second please.
Councilman Labatt: Move approval.
Councilman Engel: Second.
Councilman Labatt moved, Councilman Engel seconded to approve the Estimated Market Value at
$573,900 for David Stockdale, PID#25.0140900. All voted in favor and the motion carried
unanimously.
Mayor Mancino: Okay, then there were some that needed some follow-up here.
Angie Johnson: In that section some of them we just might have.., new packet.
Mayor Mancino: Let's do the 471 Bighorn Drive which is from the new packet. You have the top sheet
from the new packet. Okay.
Steven Clay: I apologize for not having all of these to you... 101 research and everything else, I didn't
want to short change anybody.
Mayor Mancino: If you could just give us a summary of the follow-up.
Steven Clay: On this particular one, I think they were at the first meeting. I talked with Mrs. Koch about,
their concerns were that their value of their property increased. The land increased quite a bit and other
neighbors across the street didn't and I explained well their properties and the ones next to them are on the
lake. And that was, lake properties were adjusted quite a bit more because of the aggressive appreciation
happening in the market now for lakeshore properties.., happening with residential properties in that
neighborhood. We did a neighborhood sales ratio analysis of that neighborhood, it was pretty high.
Indicated that we were, you know.., going to raise land values in that particular neighborhood too much.
Have not, I was, she was going, where I left off with her, she was going to talk to her husband and he was
going to call back. I didn't get a call. I left a message or two and no response. I guess I would recommend
leaving the value the same. I did not get in to inspect the house.
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City Council Meeting - May 8, 2000
Mayor Mancino: Okay. I know they're not here tonight. Any questions on this? Any discussion? Okay,
then may I please have a motion?
Councilman Labatt: Move approval.
Councilwoman Jansen: Second.
Councilman Labatt moved, Councilwoman Jansen seconded to approve the Estimated Market Value
at $541,700 for Larry A. Koch, PID#25.7930140. All voted in favor and the motion carried
unanimously.
Mayor Mancino: Okay. Then we have the 1451 Knob Hill Lane.
Steven Clay: I did come to an agreement with the reduction in his property. Mr. McIntee is an attorney
who is being sued by a neighbor. There's a certain irony there. By a neighbor, there's a dispute about the
easement, the driveway easement and location of his driveway of Mr. Mclntee's current driveway and turn
around area. This lot and the neighbor's lots access to them is through an extended easement back up to
roadway. It was supposed to come to trial in August and at that point in time he would know whether or
not any changes...in the position of the current driveways. I was out there and looked at it. I did note you
know that the access and the driveway does cause some functional problems.., against some trees and
another dirt road driveway to the subdivision to the south. And I'm recommending the reduction of 26,9
and he is agreeing to that.
Mayor Mancino: He's agreeing to that? Okay, thank you.
Councilman Senn: Move approval.
Councilwoman Jansen: Second.
Councilman Senn moved, Councilwoman Jansen seconded to approve the Estimated Market Value at
$385,000 for Shawn Mclntee, PID#25.3940080. All voted in favor and the motion carried
unanimously.
Mayor Mancino: Thanks Steve for taking so much time with those who have appealed. 310 Pleasant View
Road.
Steven Clay: She has had a fee appraisal done.
Mayor Mancino: Do we have, did you do some follow-up? Is there something in our.
Steven Clay: That would be in the new set.
Councilman Senn: I didn't see one in the new.
Councilman Labatt: No, there isn't. It goes to 4-04.
Mayor Mancino: Yeah, that one we don't have.
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City Council Meeting - May 8, 2000
Councilman Senn: What were you recommending?
Steven Clay: Yeah, maybe it was in the old one.
Mayor Mancino: Okay. What is the recommendation?
Steven Clay: I'm recommending a reduction to 150,700.
Mayor Mancino: And is the property owner in agreement?
Steven Clay: Yes.
Mayor Mancino: Okay. Then may I have a motion and a second?
Councilman Senn: Move approval.
Councilwoman Jansen: Second.
Councilman Senn moved, Councilwoman Jansen seconded to approve the Estimated Market Value at
$150,700 for Dawn Prymas, PID#25.3700010. All voted in favor and the motion carried
unanimously.
Mayor Mancino: Okay, then 6915 Highover. You did go and follow-up with them and did you have an
agreement with them?
Steven Clay: With Highover?
Mayor Mancino: Yeah. The Wagner property. That's our next one.
Steven Clay: I don't think they were here last time. Were they here last time?
Nora Wagner: I submitted it in writing per the instructions.
Steven Clay: Oh okay. Mrs. Wagner? I talked with Mrs. Wagner on the phone and pointed out in the
letter here that she was preparing a payable 2000 estimated market value on... whereas her's was a pay
2001. Her pay 2000 line was a partial construction. I did look at three other sales in the Highover
neighborhood. You should have that attached location map and photos showing.., value of $413,000. That
was purchased last April for $404,500 .... recommending changing our current estimated market value of
385.
Nora Wagner: That wasn't the issue.
Mayor Mancino: Excuse me just one second. So Steve your suggestion is the 388,500? To stay with that?
Steven Clay: Yeah.
Mayor Mancino: Okay. And the home was purchased in April of '99 for $404?
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City Council Meeting - May 8, 2000
Steven Clay: Correct. 404,5.
Mayor Mancino: Nora, would you like to come forward?
Nora Wagner: Yeah I would. When I compared our property with the time that we purchased our home it
was compared with the property on Acorn Lane that had 2 1/2 acres and we have .3 acres.., on a busy
street.., this person would have, some people don't like to mow that much. And I said well, what does that
have to do with anything on property values similar. And as you raised the taxes on other homes when I
did some things.., this isn't right.
Steven Clay: No, I did not change the taxes on this other home. I simply told her what the actual
estimated market value for 2001 property was that we estimated. She was using a pay 2000 down there.
informed her that the actual 2001 value was $401,000. I didn't make any changes to Acorn.
Nora Wagner: Oh, the new taxes for 2001 are costing $100 more than our's and the properties are very
dissimilar in market value. That house has been on the market... This property is also on a cul-de-sac. It's
extremely quiet. It has no wind. I mean I could go on for an hour...I think that our's is a new home.
Mayor Mancino: Okay, thank you. Any questions from council?
Councilman Senn: Okay, so essentially you're saying the house was purchased at $404,000. You're
suggesting $388,500 and the $388,500 essentially is about 95 point whatever percent of the 404 essentially.
So it falls effectively right in target with where all of our houses are in relationship to 100% value based on
the purchase that was from 1999, right? Okay. Then I understand, okay.
Mayor Mancino: Any other questions or comments? Then may I have a motion.
Councilman Senn: Move approval.
Mayor Mancino: And is there a second?
Councilman Labatt: Second.
Councilman Senn moved, Councilman Labatt seconded to approve the Estimated Market Value at
$388,500 for Rodd & Nora Wagner, PID#25.3490140. All voted in favor and the motion carried
unanimously.
Mayor Mancino: Next is.
Steven Clay: Next is a property that we called after the last meeting. I did go out, or just prior to that and
I inspected the property on May 2nd. I didn't have time to have it ready for the Wednesday packet. I did
look at three sales. One is across the street from the subject. More because the owner thought it was a
good one to compare, so I did. It's a three level split with a partial basement. Not quite of the quality of
the subject property. Two car attached garage. The subject is on a lot, if you look at the map there which
isn't wonderful...of the lake. Comparable 1 is across the street. Comparable 2 is quite elevated and it does
have somewhat of a view of the lake. And the third comp is similar in lot size and it's a similar sized
rambler. Again where this.., as the Mayor says is quite nice. Comps 2 and 3 are from the same
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City Council Meeting - May 8, 2000
neighborhood. I'm showing the three sales, I'm showing an indicated value of $242,000. We have a
current estimated value of $221,000.
Mayor Mancino: Okay, any questions? Then may I please have a motion and a second?
Councilman Labatt: Move approval.
Councilwoman Jansen: Second.
Councilman Labatt moved, Councilwoman Jansen seconded to approve the Estimated Market Value
at $221,800 for Jason White, PID#25.3451030. All voted in favor and the motion carried
unanimously.
Angie Johnson: In Group 5 we have 22 appeals there. One of them was not in your packet prior to us
dropping it off. These are all the appeals that Steve has reviewed and contacted the owners. The owners
are satisfied with our recommendation.
Mayor Mancino: So that's 5-01 through 5-21. Are there any questions?
Councilman Senn: Through 5-22.
Angie Johnson: I added 22.
Councilman Senn: There's one added in the new packet.
Mayor Mancino: Thank you.
Angie Johnson: It would have been in your new packet. The owners are all satisfied with the
recommendation that Steve had made.
Mayor Mancino: Okay, got it. Thank you. Any questions from council members on any of these 22?
Then may I have a motion please.
Scott Botcher: I would just suggest, and Mark since one of them is your's that you might want to abstain
from voting on this motion.
Councilman Senn: Oh I was planning on it.
Scott Botcher: Okay.
Mayor Mancino: May I have a motion on these 22 please.
Councilwoman Jansen: Move approval.
Mayor Mancino: And a second?
Councilman Labatt: Second.
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City Council Meeting - May 8, 2000
Councilwoman Jansen moved, Councilman Labatt seconded to approve the Estimated Market Values
for Appeal Number 5-01 through 5-22 as recommended by the County Assessor. All voted in favor,
except Councilman Senn who abstained and the motion carried.
Mayor Mancino: Great. Is that it?
Angie Johnson: How do you want us to handle the tOt... ?
Mayor Mancino: Well, how long will that take you to find out that information?
Steven Clay: I can pull them up on GIS and have them for you in t0 minutes.
Mayor Mancino: Why don't we, if you could tell Scott tomorrow and if we can't go ahead and do it, then
when does this have to be done legally? When do we have to make a decision? Because if we have to have
a special meeting to come back and review anything, we'll have to do that.
Angie Johnson: You have to do it within 20 days. Your 20 days would be up by next Monday.
Mayor Mancino: So we could do it next Monday night if there's any problems. So why don't we schedule
it that way. If there isn't any and you can go ahead with our motion, then let's go ahead. If there is a
problem then we'll just have to schedule. Is that okay with the rest of council to review whatever the
problem next Monday night?
Councilman Senn: I don't think there's going to be...
Councilman Labatt: I don't know if I agree with you Mark but if there is a problem should we have them
come back with a recommendation and a certain percentage that would get us right there.
Mayor Mancino: Oh absolutely, yeah.
Angie Johnson: Why don't we just.
Mayor Mancino: Make a recommendation if there is a problem and we'll review it on Monday night.
Angie Johnson: Why don't you just convene the meeting right now then.
Mayor Mancino: Table it?
Angie Johnson: Yeah, to continue it and if there's nothing to be done you can close it then next Monday
night. If there's nothing to be done, otherwise...
Mayor Mancino: So Roger do we do it at the end of our meeting or do we table the final Board of Review?
How would you like us to handle that? Or how would you suggest?
Roger Knutson: Mechanically the easiest thing is at the end of this meeting just recess this meeting til
Monday night.
Mayor Mancino: At the end of our meeting?
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City Council Meeting - May 8, 2000
Scott Botcher: Yes.
Roger Knutson: Unless you want to recess the meeting now.
Steven Clay: You might want to add some verbiage to close the Board to any new appeals.
Mayor Mancino: Pardon?
Roger Knutson: You can do that.
Steven Clay: You might want to close the Board now to any new appeals.
Mayor Mancino: Okay. May I have a motion to close the.
Councilman Labatt: Motion to close the Board to any new appeals.
Mayor Mancino: And is there a second?
Councilman Senn: Second.
Councilman Labatt moved, Councilman Senn seconded to close the Board of Review and
Equalization to any new appeals. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously.
Mayor Mancino: Thank you. And thank you very much for all the information and the backgrounding you
did on everyone who did appeal. Appreciate it very, very much.
Councilwoman Jansen: Thank you very much. You made it very easy. Well, as easy as it can be.
REQUEST AN ORDINANCE AMENDMENT TO REZONE 3.98 ACRES OF PROPERTY
ZONED A-2, AGRICULTURAL ESTATE TO lOP, INDUSTRIAL OFFICE PARK; SITE PLAN
APPROVAL FOR A 10,270 SQ. FT. OFFICE BUILDING WITH VARIANCES; AND A
CONDITIONAL USE PERMIT TO CONSTRUCT A BUILDING IN THE BLUFF CREEK
OVERLAY DISTRICT, STONE CREEK OFFICE BUILDING; SOUTHWEST CORNER OF
COULTER BOULEVARD AND STONE CREEK DRIVE, M.J. GORRA.
Public Present:
Name
Address
Mark Foster
Mary Frasch
Charles Radloff
Mike Gorra
8020 Acorn Lane
8000 Acorn Lane
4441 Claremore Drive, Edina
1680 Highway 5
Mayor Mancino: And how we'll proceed is we'll have a staff report. The applicant will be able to speak
and then if there's someone here tonight that would like to address the council, they may do that at that
time. Can we wait one second? I think Steve is just finishing up a phone call, if everyone would mind
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City Council Meeting - May 8, 2000
waiting on council for one minute. Sorry to make you wait Mike and whosever here for this just one
second please. Thank you again Steve and Angie. Okay, let's go ahead. Staff.
Cindy Kirchoff: Thank you. The applicant is requesting a rezoning to construct a 10,270 square foot
office building. This use is consistent with the comprehensive plan. The property is located within the
primary zone of the Bluff Creek Overlay District and thus requiring a variance from the condition, or the
requirement in that ordinance that requires 100% of the zone to be open space. The buildable area of the
site is limited due to the physical features so two additional variances are requested. First is a setback
variance on the south side of the property. The ordinance requires a 50 foot setback. The building is at 41
feet and the parking and drive aisles are at 13 feet. A second variance is for parking. The proposal is 9
stalls short what is required by the zoning ordinance. The proposed office building is residential in
character. Has a low visual impact. It's to be constructed of EFIS and face brick with neutral colors. The
applicant is proposing to access the site via Stone Creek Drive and Coulter Boulevard. Staff is
recommending that the access to Stone Creek Drive be eliminated as part of the proposal. On April 19th the
Planning Commission reviewed this item and recommended approval by a unanimous vote. However they
did have concerns with the residential setback on the southern portion of the property. They did feel that
the parking and drive aisle areas should be consistently located as the proposed building. They did
recommend a 26th condition to the report. That the parking area be 40 feet back from that property line.
And they also recommended that access via Stone Creek Drive be eliminated with that condition. Staff
does recommend approval with the conditions in the report and I'd be happy to answer any questions?
Mayor Mancino: Thank you very much. Cindy, again why the Stone Creek Drive entrance is eliminated
has to do with stacking engineering wise or is there any other reason?
Cindy Kirchoff: Yes. That's my understanding.
Mayor Mancino: Okay. And how many feet is it from the comer? Do you know approximately? Or
maybe we can get that from the applicant too when they know the exact feet. Okay, we'll wait and why
don't you come forward Mike and the applicant like to address the council?
Mike Gorra: I'll let the architect...
Mayor Mancino: Okay, sure. If you can come up. State your name and address and tell us a little bit
about the project, that'd be great.
Charles Radloff: Certainly. My name is Charles Radloff with Radloff Architects. I live at 4441
Claremore Drive, Edina, Minnesota. The project, as staff has indicated, is basically a one story building
with a walkout. What we've done is to try to create a building that is residential in character. We're using
a series of material that.
Kate Aanenson: It's going around.
Charles Radloff: Oh. The materials are basically a brick and, here we go. The basic materials are
essentially the brick band. The light green color would be a tinted glass in an anodized aluminum frame.
The infill panels would be EFIS material. The mulians and the mulians around the lobby space would be
anodized aluminum. The roof, the soffit and facias would be pre-finished aluminum material. The roof
will be an asphalt shingle with an accent construction of additional line every 4 or 5 courses to create a
horizontal look or they sometimes call it the Bermuda roof line again to accentuate the horizontal character
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City Council Meeting - May 8, 2000
of... In terms of other materials we have some accent decorative points in the EFIS. Coming around to the
walkout side, on this part of the building is basically the lobby so that as you come in the entrance of the
building you will look through and see out this lobby and two story space into the south, into the wetland
area. I think that we've worked with staff on this as we've addressed on the project for the last three
months. And I guess we're only in disagreement with staff in one place on this and that is in terms of the
site plan. This is Coulter Boulevard and this is Stone Creek Drive. The initial meetings we had with the
engineering staff indicated that due to the nature of the buildable area of this site, which continues to go on.
This is approximately 1 acre out of the 3.9 acres that are available on the site. There was a water retention
pond built here or a NURP pond if you will. It's a quality treatment pond that treats the storm water that
comes off of Coulter Boulevard. Takes it into this pond and settles it out before it goes into the wetlands
that are on this property. Additionally there is a sanitary sewer line that's been constructed across the
property. That comes down Coulter and makes a diagonal across the back side of the pond over here.
These two elements along with the pieces of buildable land that we have that really constrained the
configuration of the building to the design that you see. Working within that, realizing that we really are
stuck with the comer of the property and basically that buildable land. Had we had a few more feet in this
direction, because we're somewhat restricted by the location of the sanitary sewer and so in terms of
setbacks of actual structures. We constructed the building and the parking to lay out in this manner. When
we went through with staff and reviewed the access for drives and circulations, the traffic count on the site
the two considerations were, the first consideration was, was there enough space here at Stone Creek Drive
to justify a driveway in and out. And there was and there's a driveway across the way here from the
townhouses that are there. It's approximately, in terms of the driveway to the comer, I think it's like 130
feet from the curb to the access. Anything under 100 would, staff didn't feel they had a problem with the
Stone Creek Drive access. I think what came to light was that in terms of our discussions of the site and
the traffic flow to the site, because of our constraint to this area, we don't have room enough on the site to
make a turn around on the site. Not that there will be very heavy traffic. I mean this is basically 10,000
square feet of office building. The number of cars and trips that are generated will be minimal. And we're
talking about consulting type offices. We're not talking about a high volume of occupancy. What started
was on the final staff review there was a comment that said that the city would generally like to see
collector roads not have access on them and so Dave Hempel suggested that Coulter Drive be, to be closed
at that point. At that point that sort of defeats the design of the building which comes into the front door.
This piece of property goes for 600 and some feet in that direction and would have probably several access
drives in reality. And in terms of traffic flow and it's impact on a collector road, since there are no other
driveways, just a church up the way and so on, they felt that that consideration probably was not the intent
of what the ordinance said. It didn't say you couldn't have it. It just said to analyze it. Well the Planning
Commission, which liked the building, seemed to get on a roll at that point and said well as long as we're
going to close one, let's close the Stone Creek Drive and at that point we didn't really feel, the developer
and myself didn't feel like that really benefits the project or the neighborhood or the use of the property.
Since we're constrained by the pond and the sanitary line in terms of being able to put a turn around in in
the property, as a car comes and you come and you're looking for a parking space and you didn't find one,
you could turn around and go back out and go to Coulter. But there are occasional delivery vans that
arrive at any building, in fact even into the neighborhood houses. UPS truck will arrive or a Staples truck
or something. We're not talking about a semi but at some point in time ifa UPS truck arrives here, I have
a hard time envisioning then that this truck is going to back up all the way out to Coulter Boulevard
because we don't have a place to turn around. Wherein with the 39 stalls, the flow through on this traffic
would make a lot more sense in terms of use for the site. The other question that we talked about, and we
have a couple power lines in this area and we would talk with staff and we will get into the actual
engineering of those particular, the driveway and it's relationship to the power line and the sidewalk that
goes through here so that there's a ramp.., handicap relationship. There was a request on our part to,
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City Council Meeting - May 8, 2000
because again we're restricted here to be able to provide additional parking to the west, that we would
propose to come closer to the property line than the ordinance would allow. And we're basing it on the
concept that in reality, though this is a residential lot, this is the residential property line. The actual house,
as is seen on the other drawing, this is the piece of the property that we've been discussing in terms of the
overall, Mr. Gorra's land. These are the two residential lots that are adjacent to it. So the picture that you
see here was taken in the dead of winter. Taken from the piece of ground right at that point and it's a
composite of the view from here around to here. Can we get that up there? If you start, the first picture
shows the driveway of Stone Creek coming down here. And then the panorama takes us all the way back
down to Coulter on this side. So it's a quite large panorama of the property to the south. The two houses,
there's one here and the other house is just barely visible in here. And that was with all the leaves on the
property down. The house, this house is 535 feet from building to building at the closest point. This is 469
feet. So I guess that the concept that we're asking for a variance to a residential property is in a sense a
variance, but at the same time we're using as our argument the hardship of the layout nature of the site.
Mayor Mancino: Yeah but when those people bought the property they looked and they saw how close the
office building could be and they saw the 50 foot setback and they've positioned their house in a way so
that they'd be far away from it so. I mean I understand what you're saying but I also understand the
people who positioned their house in that area too and why they put it there. Okay.
Charles Radloff: I think that kind of discuss where we're coming from. We're real excited about the
property and the project and we look forward to getting under way on this. Any other questions?
Mayor Mancino: Great. Any other questions from council members?
Councilwoman Jansen: No.
Councilman Labatt: Nope.
Mayor Mancino: Okay, thank you very much. Mike, do you want to say anything? You don't have to.
Do you want to pull around and say your name and address.
Mike Gorra: My name is Mike Gorra. I live at 1680 Arboretum, Chanhassen. And like I say, I don't
really know if I could add anything to what the architect's already pointed out. I think the diagrams are
pretty explicit. The only complaints that we've had are the two neighbors and you can see how far away
they are. 469 feet, 535 feet and you can't even see their property with the leaves off the trees. I'd invite
anybody to drive by now and see if they can see anything. You can't even see the property period. I also
noted that Property A, the house has, it looks like two parking stalls off of the side facing their neighbor's
home. They're only 40 feet away. I thought that that was their argument is parking stalls that they'd be
able to see from the house and in order to see parking stalls on our property they'd have to look through the
trees and the wetlands and I don't think they could see them. But if they were looking, if their neighbors
were looking at their house 40 feet away I'm sure they could see those two stalls. I know it sounds pretty
petty to be arguing about 2 parking stalls and maybe one entry for a driveway but when you even build a
small office or any kind of building like this, it involves a lot of work. A lot of money. A lot of
responsibility and you usually live with it for a long period of time. And I'm a little reluctant to go ahead
on something like this unless I feel comfortable with it like I'm doing the best that I can. And I would ask
the City Council that if they don't, if they feel that we're unreasonable in asking for either the two
entrances for the driveway or the two parking spaces that we've got there, that they table this and take 10
minutes of the day and drive by this site. Take a look for themselves. If they still think we're unreasonable
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City Council Meeting - May 8, 2000
about it, we'll talk about it then. But if we are refused those two items, I'm kind of reluctant to go ahead
with this project. Thank you.
Mayor Mancino: Okay, thank you Mike. Anyone here tonight? Oh, sure.
Councilman Senn: I just want to understand this. Really the two spaces are tied to the entrance, correct?
Kate Aanenson: No, there's also the variance. The parking stalls are into the setback requirement.
Councilman Senn: But as soon as you, if you would allow the entrance, then the entrance is equal to the, at
least to the setback you're talking about for the stalls anyway. Same distance correct though? Or am I
missing something?
Kate Aanenson: Closer to the setback area. The stalls enter the...
Councilman Senn: But so does the driveway is what I'm saying.
Kate Aanenson: Right.
Councilman Senn: Same distance.
Kate Aanenson: Right.
Councilman Senn: So essentially all I'm trying to say is if you allow the driveway and, I mean they go
hand in hand is what I'm trying to say. If you allow the driveway and not the parking stalls, it's kind of
ridiculous because essentially with the driveway you're forced to use that kind of a setback anyway and the
two stalls go with it.
Kate Aanenson: Yes.
Councilman Senn: Okay, I' m just trying to understand. Okay.
Kate Aanenson: And that was the Planning Commission's recommendation.., stalls and the driveway.
Mayor Mancino: I want to make sure I understand. You could eliminate the two stalls.
Councilman Senn: And you accomplish nothing is what I'm saying.
Mayor Mancino: And then you force the driveway to go a little bit more to the north. You could still keep
that driveway access.
Kate Aanenson: The problem with it to the north is you're getting too close to the intersection...
Councilman Senn: Then you're getting into your stacking.
Mayor Mancino: You're still only, you're still 100 feet away.
Scott Botcher: It's got to be closer than that.
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City Council Meeting - May 8, 2000
Mayor Mancino: Isn't two parking spaces like 15 feet? I mean you're 130 right now.
Kate Aanenson: Dave's given a recommendation where that is... close to the intersection anyways and
power poles and etc.
Mayor Mancino: Well I'm concerned about trucks trying to get through there more than.
Cindy Kirchoff: Could I just explain?
Mayor Mancino: Yes.
Cindy Kirchoff: This building right here is 41 feet from the property line and the Planning Commission
wanted the parking and the drive aisle to be 41 feet. You'd be losing 1, 2, 3, 4 stalls.
Mayor Mancino: Oh, not 2?
Cindy Kirchoff: Right.
Mayor Mancino: Well, that's new. Okay. 1, 2, 3. It looks like 3 on mine. 3 stalls.
Cindy Kirchoff: Well it's goes into the fourth stall. It wouldn't meet the minimum.
Councilman Senn: And that's what the variance with the 9 stalls you're talking about?
Kate Aanenson: No.
Cindy Kirchoff: The zoning ordinance requires so many parking stalls for office. They don't meet that
minimum requirement. They're short on parking.
Councilman Senn: Under which way is what I'm saying.
Cindy Kirchoff: For an office use.
Councilman Senn: No, no, but under which scenario? The Planning Commission approved scenario or.
Mayor Mancino: Or our ordinance.
Councilman Senn: ... been submitted or the ordinance.
Cindy Kirchoff: The ordinance.
Kate Aanenson: We did include all their area. They're using some, if you took a gross square footage of
the building, they're saying they're using some as storage. We're saying that we will never give a
Certificate of Occupancy for that space because you're short. Okay, accepting that they're short based on
the option that they're not going to be use the entire building, if you take away additional parking, that
would compromise them. Make it still short.
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City Council Meeting - May 8, 2000
Councilman Senn: But what I'm trying to get at is when you say you want us to approve a variance tonight
of 9 stalls.
Mayor Mancino: 13. Isn't it?
Cindy Kirchoff: It would be 13 based on the Planning Commission's recommendation because they would
be losing 4 more stalls. They were short 9 to begin with and now they'd be losing an additional 4 because
it would cut into that, it would be 3 full and then cut into a partially into the fourth.
Councilman Senn: So the variance is really 137
Cindy Kirchoff: Yes.
Mayor Mancino: And that Cindy includes the 13 stall variance includes the crawl space, used as crawl
space and not being an office.
Cindy Kirchoff: Yes.
Mayor Mancino: So for their, what they can use as office space they're still 13 short.
Councilman Engel: If you cut 4 off.
Kate Aanenson: That was the point I was trying to make. It's not clearly stated though.
Mayor Mancino: Okay. If from what they can build out as office space, and what they have as crawl
space, how many stalls do they need?
Cindy Kirchoff: Okay. On page 15 of the staff report, where you review the Planning Commission
meeting. It discusses the rentable space as opposed to the space.., space is 8168 square feet. They would
need 33 stalls for that.
Mayor Mancino: And how many?
Councilman Engel: 4 per 1,000 feet?
Cindy Kirchoff: Yes.
Mayor Mancino: And how many stalls do they have?
Cindy Kirchoff: They've proposed 37. If they eliminate the 4 they'll have.
Councilman Engel: They're right on the number.
Kate Aanenson: They're right on the number, that's my point. That's the point we were trying to make.
Mayor Mancino: So we're okay for the rental space.
Kate Aanenson: With the caveat that they don't finish the crawl space, right.
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City Council Meeting - May 8, 2000
Mayor Mancino: Okay. So we're okay according to ordinance?
Kate Aanenson: Yes. Which is why the staff supported and the Planning Commission came to the
conclusion that we could eliminate that and we'd be okay.
Mayor Mancino: Okay.
Kate Aanenson: The applicant would like that flexibility to have additional space...
Mayor Mancino: But according to ordinance they don't, okay.
Councilman Senn: So either way there's no variance on parking?
Mayor Mancino: Yeah, exactly. So there's no variance on parking.
Kate Aanenson: Well, the City's reading the interpretation of gross square footage and I'm saying they're
not finishing it so it's not gross. Right.
Councilman Senn: Okay. And you're basing it on the use.
Kate Aanenson: Right. The use.
Councilman Senn: I understand. But does the ordinance then require us to vary it because of that?
Kate Aanenson: If you want to put it in there to cover it, that's right. That's how she wrote it in the report.
It's just a little confusing.
Councilwoman Jansen: So what I'm wondering is if within the recommendation then we need to leave then,
from what you just said, the 13 stall variance? Is that correctly worded on page 16 in the recommendation?
Cindy Kirchoff: Yes. You can take that out.
Councilwoman Jansen: Take it out?
Kate Aanenson: Leave it in there and say with the fact that they're not finishing the crawl space or
whatever it is.
Mayor Mancino: If they're only finishing 8,100 square feet. 8168.
Kate Aanenson: Then it's clear.
Mayor Mancino: Okay. Okay, would someone like to come in front of the council tonight? Is there
someone in the audience who would like to address the council? Please state your name and address.
You've been waiting very patiently.
Mark Foster: Thanks. Got to wake up. My name is Mark Foster. I live at 8020 Acorn Lane. I'd just like
to say I'm in favor of the Planning Commission's recommendation and with the elimination of the
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City Council Meeting - May 8, 2000
Creekside access. I think there's plenty of parking available with the elimination. I think the Creekside
access only funnels traffic down a residential street and that's not really necessary.
Mayor Mancino: Okay, thank you. Okay, bringing this back to council. Oh I'm sorry. Come forward.
Mary Frasch: Mary Frasch. I live at 8000 Acorn Lane. And I'd also like to say that we're in support of
what the Planning Commission is recommending as far as with the elimination of those extra parking spots.
That would be very close to our property line and that is, as the Mayor had pointed out, one of the reasons
why we built where we did. There is a wetlands there which would come up, right up against the area
along the property line. That's why, if you could put the picture up I'll show you. The wetland comes
right to this area here. There is a wooded area in here. As far as reference to this spot here, this is merely
a back-up. This is a narrow driveway. We need this in order to turn around the cars and get back out
rather than backing up out of the driveway. In reference to, as far as not being able to see that building.
We can see that area very clearly the majority of the year when the leaves are off the trees. So I would just
like to say we're in support of what the Planning Commission has...
Mayor Mancino: Thank you very much. Anyone else? I don't want to forget anybody. Bringing this back
to council. Any comments from council members? Anyone like to start with comments? Councilman
Senn.
Councilman Senn: I'd like to, I guess I would agree to cut the 4 stalls because I don't think that they're
really needed. But I would agree to leave the driveway in and move it closer to the intersection. You're
talking essentially about a building, I mean small office buildings carry a lot lower load factor than larger
office buildings do. And if you apply those normal load factors you'd probably be looking at an average
occupancy of this building of about 17 people. And if you put that in perspective, saying at what time
would all 17 ever go and come at the same time, you know in relationship to that intersection or stacking
distances and all that sort of thing, I mean really in my mind is like a non-factor and stuff and I think the
driveway's pretty critical to the functionality of the site. I think it's a real problem if you dead end a
parking lot like that, essentially especially in that kind of a configuration. And so I think you can kind of
basically achieve the best of both worlds and I really don't think it's going to cause any problems to the
stacking at the intersection. But it would keep the setback back and eliminate the 4 stalls.
Mayor Mancino: Councilwoman Jansen.
Councilwoman Jansen: I agree as far as the elimination of the parking and increasing that variance to the
13. However we're wording that. In order to keep from really bumping that setback variance up. I am
hesitant on this driveway and I appreciate Mark's comments as far as the actual traffic or lack thereof into
this access. My hesitation just comes from staff's comments to the Planning Commission. Mr. Hempel did
note that the 120 feet south of Coulter is short. And even on the Coulter, just the entrance on Coulter from
the Stone Creek Drive is somewhat short. That one's 230 whereas they like to have a 300 foot separation
inbetween any intersection. That was the comment that he had made with planning. And I don't know if
putting two in here that seem short is really complicating it. I guess I would wait to hear other comments
from other council members. I'm not sure on that one, although I can appreciate the applicant's desire to
have that second driveway and can appreciate trucks not being able to very easily turn around. And I don't
know if you would lose additional parking space of course if you tried to just make it more of a turn around
area. So maybe the driveway is the better option. But I'd listen to other council members comments but I
do think the building's just wonderful for the area. Appreciate how well it does fit in with the whole feel in
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this area and that it is the lower height. The Planning Commission and staff also, wonderful job working
with the applicant to get this configured the way that you have.
Mayor Mancino: Okay, thank you. Mark.
Councilman Engel: Well as someone who lives in the area and drives down that road pretty much every
day when I am in town, I can tell you that most the people are not going to come there from the west side.
Or from the east side. If you ever tried to make a south mm on Audubon, it's ridiculous almost any time of
the day. Anybody that comes there regularly isn't going to take Audubon. They're going to drive down 5.
They're going to hit the light and they're going to come in on Coulter driving eastward. So they're all
going to take that right in on Coulter anyway. So having a driveway on Stone Creek is not really a
problem. They're going to use it just for what you're talking about. A mm around or the parking's full
and the guy's got to get out. They're not going to go driving down that road to get in, and I live there. So
that's not going to be a problem at all putting that drive access. There's not going, it's not going to bring
traffic there. No one's going to use it. Parking is dead on with the needed capacity. Regardless of what,
how we want to term it. The tree cover, the natural wetland is just, this is just a tremendous a buffer as I
think I've seen on a property that butts up to a commercial like this. And it's an attractive building anyway
so I don't see any problem with it.
Mayor Mancino: Okay, thank you. Councilman Labatt.
Councilman Labatt: I don't want to be repeated or redundant but I'll agree with the Mark's with the access
on Stone Creek. Generating a lot of traffic southbound into the Stone Creek development, I just don't see it
happening unless a resident down there is going to utilize that office building.
Councilman Engel: Unless they work there, yeah. I might get an office there.
Councilman Labatt: I'm really hesitant about closing it off because of delivery trucks or you know backing
up is when a lot of the accidents happen and for somebody trying to back out of there after making a
delivery or find and getting down to the end there, finding the lot is full for some reason. That's going to
present two big of a problem. So I'll leave it at that. Cutting the parking stalls and make it...
Mayor Mancino: I'll be very quick. I'm pretty ditto as everyone else. Mike, it's a great project. It's a
nice building and I think it will compliment that comer so it's very, very nice and very nice Charles
architecturally. It's really nice. Oh I guess. You can say one last thing. Come on up. We want to get
you, as long as you're going to talk you've got to do it legally.
Mike Gorra: Mike Gorra again. For someone who's owned and managed commercial and apartment
buildings.., for quite a while, I've learned the hard way that you can never give too much parking. I know
you people don't want us to park on the street. And I guess I could accept 2 or 3 or 4 or 10 spots being
deleted from this project if there was a good reason. I don't see any reason for it. It'd be difference if
somebody had a house 30, 40, 50 feet away and they didn't like cars. You know they were the Amish and
they had horses and they didn't like to see cars. Okay. There's no reason, the parking lot is not
undesirable. When's the last time you heard somebody say, oh ish. Look at that parking lot 500 feet away.
Or look at those ugly cars 400 or 500 feet away. I don't guess you've heard that. So unless there's a real
good reason, I think it'd be a mistake for the City not to allow us to have full parking there because it's
going to come back to haunt us. And I'm the one that's going to suffer and I don't like the idea of doing
something that I know is not going to be good in the long run.
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Mayor Mancino: Okay, thanks Mike. May I please have a motion? Or any discussion on that?
Councilman Engel: I don't have any problem. To me if I'm 500 feet away and looking at it, I don't care
whether the parking stalls are 30 or 40 feet closer to me. I don't care. I've got that stuff near me. I
couldn't tell you how far away it is. It doesn't really matter to me if they're in there.
Mayor Mancino: Okay. Any other discussion?
Councilman Senn: I mean I would agree with Mark ifI were the one over there but I'm not the one that's
there and I think we have to fall back to the precepts that we always fall back to and that is, you know if
the neighbors were there first and they bought it based on what the rules were in relationship to the adjacent
property, then I think we have to honor the neighbor's request, at least as far as the setback goes.
Mayor Mancino: And we're already doing a 10 foot variance.
Councilman Senn: Yeah, and from a parking standpoint I think that the, you know. I understand what
Mike's saying and it's always better to have more parking but I just, you know you're going to meet
ordinance requirement either way which is our job.
Kate Aanenson: Can I give some clarification on that. We're double checking numbers here. The staff
report did say 37. And based on the 8,000 square feet, so if you use 4.5 you do need the 37 stalls so they
would be short 4 additional stalls.
Councilwoman Jansen: So it's as worded in the recommendation.
Kate Aanenson: Yes.
Mayor Mancino: Can you park on Coulter, on Stone Creek?
Kate Aanenson: I don't think we want to encourage it. You cannot park on Coulter.
Mayor Mancino: But can you, I'm just asking. Can you park on Stone Creek?
Cindy Kirchoff: Yes.
Mayor Mancino: Okay.
Councilman Engel: I would ....
Councilman Labatt: You're pretty close to the intersection though.
Mayor Mancino: Well you could have no parking between the access and the comer. We could put post no
parking there and just have parking south of the entrance onto Stone Creek.
Councilman Labatt: So at what point does it become better case of saying, give them the property parking
inside the property lines.
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City Council Meeting - May 8, 2000
Kate Aanenson: Or cut the building down a little.
Councilman Senn: Well I think that's a question for the neighbors.
Councilman Engel: I would prefer to keep the parking, if that all happened, out of the neighborhood and
keep it in the lot. And if we have to go into the lot and give more variances to let them cut 4 or so stalls.
Mayor Mancino: Well let's ask.
Councilman Senn: I mean again, I don't disagree but I really think it's up to the neighbors.
Mayor Mancino: Mark and Mary. Why don't you both come up for a minute if you don't mind. I hate to
put you on the spot but let me try and explain this to the best I can and certainly anyone can, from council
can contribute. If they're 4 parking stalls short, they can always park on the street. If they park on the
street we would ask them to park south of the entrance, which would really put them closer to your homes.
Okay. So, the other alternative is to give them the 4 stalls as the drawing is and do some buffering as far as
coniferous trees on that south end of the parking lot so that you really won't see the cars. Do a little
berming and do an average of 6 foot trees and put them every 15 feet or something so that there's real nice
buffering so that you don't see the cars. Versus having them on the street. Do you want to.
Mark Foster: I think that that would be good because the.
Mayor Mancino: Would you feel comfortable with that?
Mark Foster: There's virtually no trees on the applicant's property now that's going to have any kind of
buffering. There's nothing there.
Mayor Mancino: Well, I would hope since Mr. Gorra I think has some trees. I'm just kidding. That we
could accommodate some coniferous trees. Mary, do you feel comfortable with that? I think that's
probably the best.
Mary Frasch: I think that would be workable because there isn't anything on that property.
Mayor Mancino: Okay, good. Thank you. Appreciate it. Okay, good. Then I think what we can do is go
ahead and allow the variances and maybe put a condition in there that there be screening on that southern
property line of the parking lot. A little berming. A little, and coniferous trees. Year round screening. So
who would like to handle this.
Councilman Senn: I'll try. Move approval of the rezoning, the site plan review, the variance.
Mayor Mancino: 37 foot variance. I'm sorry.
Councilman Senn: The variance from the requirement of 100% of the property within Bluff Creek Overlay
District Primary Zone remain open space. And the conditional use permit to construct within the Bluff
Creek Overlay District. And a, I think I'm getting this right then. 37 foot variance from the 50 foot
setback required when an office use abuts a residential use. With the condition to that variance that
landscaping and berming be enhanced to staff's approval on the south end to provide adequate screening of
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City Council Meeting - May 8, 2000
the parking area from the abutting residential properties. And that we also then approve a variance of
parking of.
Kate Aanenson: 9.
Councilman Senn: Give a variance of 9 parking stalls.
Mayor Mancino: As shown?
Councilman Senn: As shown.
Mayor Mancino: On plans dated March 17, 2000.
Councilman Senn: Is that right? March 17. Mine say March 16th. As plans as submitted and accepted by
staff.
Mayor Mancino: Okay, any discussion on that?
Councilwoman Jansen: We're then maintaining the rest of the conditions then 1 through 26?
Councilman Senn: Yes.
Mayor Mancino: Yeah, so the conditions 11 change. The conditions 26 change.
Councilman Engel: Eliminating 26?
Councilman Labatt: Are you going to work with number 11 here? You've got to reword number 11.
Councilman Engel: You strike it.
Councilman Senn: Yeah in my mind I was striking that and I was attaching it as a condition under the
variance. It's kind of where I thought it should be essentially if we're giving the variance we ought to be
sticking it as...
Mayor Mancino: And so you're also allowing access onto Stone Creek Drive.
Councilman Senn: Again, as the plans submitted by the applicant.
Mayor Mancino: Okay.
Councilman Labatt: Second.
Mayor Mancino: Do you have a question Kate?
Kate Aanenson: Was the landscaping one added then?
Mayor Mancino: Yes.
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City Council Meeting - May 8, 2000
Councilman Senn: I had it written in one of the conditions under the variance.
Councilwoman Jansen: 27 1 guess.
Mayor Mancino: So it's been moved. It's been seconded and hopefully we've answered any of staff's
questions. We have everyone in agreement.
Councilman Senn moved, Councilman Labatt seconded that the City Council approve an ordinance
amendment (REZ #00-1) to rezone 3.98 acres from A-2, Agricultural Estate to IOP, Industrial Office
Park. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously.
Councilman Senn moved, Councilman Labatt seconded that the City Council approves the Site Plan
(SPR #00-6) for a 10,270 sq. ft. office building, a variance from the requirement that 100 percent of
the property within the Bluff Creek Overlay District Primary Zone remain open space; a 37 foot
variance from the 50 foot setback required when office use abuts a residential use, and a 9 stall
variance from the parking requirements for office uses, as shown on the plans dated March 17, 2000,
subject to the following conditions:
The applicant shall enter into a site plan agreement with the city and provide the necessary
financial security to guarantee erosion control, site restoration, utility connections, driveway access
and landscaping.
All boulevard trees along Coulter Boulevard shall be preserved and guaranteed by the applicant. If
any trees need to be removed in conjunction with site grading or utility installation, they must be
replaced elsewhere on Coulter Boulevard and guaranteed for one growing season after the
construction has been completed.
Protective tree fencing or erosion control fencing shall be installed along the boulevard to protect
the trees from construction activities. Landscaping may be placed within the Stone Creek Drive
boulevard area as well as portions of Coulter Boulevard to assist screening the parking lot. A
landscaping plan will need to be reviewed and approved by engineering prior to any landscaping
being installed.
4. The site plan and the grading plan should include the following:
a. The existing 6 foot wide concrete sidewalk along the west side of Stone Creek Drive.
Any power poles and street lights to determine potential impacts to the existing
infrastructure. The development shall be responsible for any and all coordination and
adjustments to the existing power pole and line.
The site plan should include the rim and invert elevations, size, type and grade of utility
pipes.
A detailed grading, drainage and erosion control plan including the lowest floor and first floor
building elevations need to be submitted prior to this item being considered by the City Council.
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City Council Meeting - May 8, 2000
All private utilities shall be constructed in accordance with the city's latest edition of Standard
Specifications and Detail Plates and/or the State Plumbing Codes. Installation of the utilities will
require a building permit through the city's building department. All retaining walls in excess of
four feet in height will also need to be engineered and permits obtained through the city's building
department.
An encroachment agreement will be necessary for any structures and/or the parking lot that fall
within the proposed drainage and utility easement for the sanitary sewer line. This document shall
be recorded against the property.
All disturbed areas as a result of construction activities shall be immediately restored with seed and
disc-mulched or wood fiber blanket or sod within two weeks of completion of each construction
activity in accordance with the city's Best Management Practice Handbook.
The applicant shall provide detailed storm sewer calculations and drainage area map for 10 year
and 100 year 24 hour storm events prior to issuance of a building permit.
10.
The applicant shall apply for, obtain permits from the appropriate regulatory agencies, i.e.
Watershed District, Minnesota Department of Health, and comply with their conditions of
approval.
11.
The plans shall incorporate the city's industrial driveway detail plate and provide a 5 foot wide
concrete sidewalk to Stone Creek Drive from the parking lot.
12.
The applicant shall be responsible for surface water management fees in the amount of $8,993.
These fees shall be collected at time of building permit issuance.
13.
The applicant shall be responsible for sewer and water hookup and connection fees based on four
REU's unless the Metropolitan Environmental Commission estimates more than four SAC units.
The applicant will be charged these fees at time of building permit issuance. The hookup and
connection fees may be specially assessed.
14.
The applicant will need to have a soils engineer recommend a pavement design to accommodate the
7 ton per axle design requirements based on soil conditions experienced on the site.
15.
The applicant/owner shall dedicate the necessary street right-of-way for Coulter Boulevard,
sanitary sewer line and storm water pond. The city shall prepare the necessary legal description
and easement agreement for the applicant to execute.
16. The northern one-half of the lower level shall not be utilized for leasable office space.
17.
The lighting plan shall incorporate existing light fixtures along Coulter Blvd and Stone Creek
Drive that may impact the site.
18. Landscaping shall be increased around the parking lot to provide 100 percent screening of the area.
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City Council Meeting - May 8, 2000
19.
20.
21.
22.
23.
24.
25.
26.
The trash enclosure shall be constructed of materials compatible with the primary structure.
Further, it shall be screened from adjacent properties on the west, south and east elevations with
landscaping.
The building is required to be protected with an automatic fire sprinkler system.
Detailed occupancy related requirements will be reviewed when complete plans are submitted.
Two accessible parking spaces are required for the thirty six spaces that are provided.
The fire marshal's conditions are as follows:
a. Submit utility plans showing fire hydrant locations for review and approval.
b. Submit radius mm plans to the City Engineer and Chanhassen Fire Marshal for review
and approval.
c. Comply with Chanhassen Fire Department Policy regarding notes to be included on all site
plans. Pursuant to Policy//04-1991. Copy enclosed.
Full park and trail fees shall be paid at the time of building permit.
All signage shall comply with Article XXVI of the City Code.
The applicant shall provide year round screening in the form of a berm and landscaping to the
south side of the parking lot.
All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously.
Councilman Senn moved, Councilman Labatt seconded that the
City Council approves the
Conditional Use Permit (CUP #O0-1) for the construction of a building within the Bluff Creek
Overlay District. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously.
Mayor Mancino: Thank you. Thank you for coming.
CONSIDER AN AMENDMENT TO ARTICLE XXIII~ GENERAL SUPPLEMENTAL
REGULATIONS, DIVISION 3~ HOME OCCUPATIONS TO CREATE A PURPOSE
STATEMENT~ ELIMINATE PERMITTED USES~ AND SPECIFICALLY PROHIBIT THE
OUTDOOR STORAGE OF MATERIALS AND EQUIPMENT IN CONJUNCTION WITH THE
HOME OCCUPATION.
Councilman Senn: Do I move approval then?
Mayor Mancino: Staff report.
Cindy Kirchoff: Thank you.
Councilman Engel: There's a motion on the floor.
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City Council Meeting - May 8, 2000
Mayor Mancino: There's a staff report first.
Councilman Senn: Does staff object to the motion?
Mayor Mancino: Cindy, is there anything you would like to say to us?
Cindy Kirchoff: Sure. The purpose of the amendment is to clarify the existing ordinance. The existing
ordinance lists permitted uses and one prohibited use. Staff would like to amend the ordinance to require
that the occupation complies with performance standards rather than specific uses. Therefore if it complies
with the standards that are in the ordinance it is a permitted activity. Just a note, the staff receives most
complaints from contractor's businesses. Landscaping in general. Landscaping businesses in general. So
we added an additional section discussing equipment and vehicles associated with contractor's yards. Just
to clarify what is permitted and what is not permitted. The Planning Commission did review this item on
two occasions. The latest was April 19th. They did support the amendment with a change to the definition
to add the word potential so that, but they wanted to say carried out for potential gain by a resident. Staff
does support that change and the amendment and I'd be happy to answer any questions that you may have.
Thank you.
Mayor Mancino: Okay, first any questions from council?
Councilwoman Jansen: I have one question.
Mayor Mancino: Okay.
Councilwoman Jansen: On page 6, under your prohibited uses you've done some great research pulling
together different ordinances and how they were worded. And under the prohibited uses you noted the most
common prohibited, and within our ordinance we've only prohibited the contractor yards which I do
understand is the biggest complaint. Would we foresee these others also being common enough here that
you'd maybe want to add them to the prohibited list or do we want to address them as they come up?
Cindy Kirchoff: That's a good question. The reason I didn't add more is because, for instance a restaurant
would be a permitted activity. That they're limited in square footage. You can only have so many parking
stalls. So the performance standards that are in the ordinance which prohibit these other activities so I'd
want to add them.
Councilwoman Jansen: So the barber shop and people cutting hair out of their homes or.
Cindy Kirchoff: You can't have any retail sales. You can only have so many parking stalls.
Councilwoman Jansen: Okay, so that'd fall under, most of these fall under that retail.
Cindy Kirchoff: I believe so.
Councilwoman Jansen: Okay. If you've got us covered, great. Thank you.
Mayor Mancino: Any other questions? Any other comments? Then who would like to make a motion?
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City Council Meeting - May 8, 2000
Councilman Senn: It's got to be somebody else than me. I already did.
Councilman Labatt: Second.
Councilman Senn moved, Councilman Labatt seconded to direct staff to draft an amendment to the
home occupation ordinance based upon the information discussed in the memorandum in the staff
report. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously.
CONSIDER AMENDMENT TO SECTION 20-908~ YARD REGULATIONS (5)~ TO ALLOW
PORCHES TO ENCROACH 10 FEET INTO A REQUIRED FRONT YARD SETBACK.
Councilman Senn: Move approval.
Mayor Mancino: Staff report please.
Kate Aanenson: I've waited all night.
Councilman Senn: Oh, let's see. I want to get this quote down and keep this for the next time we go til
midnight.
Mayor Mancino: Excuse me, staff report please.
Kate Aanenson: Thank you. The intent of this ordinance is we've had a couple requests for variances for
porches and the Board of Adjustments and the Planning Commission in the past feel like it's important to
have architectural and the character that a front porch provides. We think it's important, we also don't
want a carte blanche for variances. For example, tonight one of the requests that you had for relief on was
given a variance on a porch that encroached into the back yard. While the staff recommended no, they
were given a variance. Sometimes you create another problem down the road. What we felt with the front
porch is that again, the character that it provides the neighborhood and if somebody's trying to improve
their house, we feel it's important. So in the application of this it was not intended for someone with a new
house to apply for it. They still have to meet the 30 foot but for somebody existing that wants to add on.
Now the rational basis that we looked at that is to go with the character and also want to not have it be
enclosed so we tried to be careful in how we apply this. So we did a little bit of studying. We had a work
session with the Planning Commission and then came back with an ordinance and they still wanted some
further clarification. Again, the porch was intended to be an open structure and I've got a couple examples
up here of one home that this is what they did.., and this other one in Carver Beach... so we clarified to say
it's open. It's not intended to be enclosed addition to the house which again may cause additional problems
down the road. But to improve the character of the neighborhood, so we've added a couple of definitions
and allowed the variance into the, or the encroachment into the front yard. So I think this will help solve
some problems with people coming to you and the Planning Commission for the variance. The thing that I
wanted to make sure that you understood was that again a 10 foot encroachment and then it's for railing
and platform only. We have one that went to the Planning Commission just recently that they did
recommend denial. The drawings didn't clearly state why they needed that scale and why they needed that
size so that's part of the intent of this ordinance too. So with that we are recommending approval of the
Planning Commission did at their April 19th meeting, recommended approval to the zoning ordinance and to
the definition section.
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City Council Meeting - May 8, 2000
Mayor Mancino: Great, thank you. Any questions on it? Good research, thank you. Can I have a motion
please and a second?
Councilwoman Jansen: Move approval.
Councilman Labatt: Second.
Councilwoman Jansen moved, Councilman Labatt seconded to approve the Zoning Ordinance
Amendment to Section 20-1 Definitions and Section 20-908. Yard Regulations as outlined in the staff
report and shown in Attachment #5 and approval of the summary ordinance for publication as shown
in Attachment #6. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously.
RECOMMENDATION TO AMEND 2000 CAPITAL IMPROVEMENT PROGRAM, CITY
CENTER PARK.
Mayor Mancino: I actually think we've gone ahead and made this motion and approved it when
Councilman Labatt was out making a phone call so I'm not sure we really need to talk about this but.
Todd Hoffman: Madam Mayor, members of the City Council. Item number 7 can be re-titled out with the
hockey rink and in with the skate park but we didn't want to incite the riot so we more formally titled it an
amendment to the 2000 CIP. Generally what this is is government is often blamed for reacting slowly but
the skate park has been an overwhelming success and so in light of that the Park and Recreation
Commission and staff has re-evaluated what we have slated for 2000 capital improvements. The concept
for this area behind City Hall was obviously intended to be two hockey rinks to be utilized in the winter for
ice skating. And then utilized in the summer with the asphalt surface for inline skating. The rink which we
currently have up there is in addition to the two rinks at the Chanhassen Recreation Center which are for
inline skating. Both summer and winter use, and then the one at North Lotus. So the city currently has
four of the asphalt hockey rinks whereas just 4 or 5 years ago we had no rinks which had the capability of
summer play as well. So the intention that the City Council asked that we build the one. See how
successful that hockey rink and inline skating rink is. Build the skate park. See how successful that is, and
obviously I think for all of you, you've watched the usage patterns here. About 99% of the use right now
from March has been in the inline skating jumps and ramps and very little use has been inside the hockey
rink. Not to say that we won't see that use at the inline hockey rink during the summer. It's there at the
Recreation Center. But again with the skate park being right next door, that's where they're spending their
time. Some things that we considered early on, we thought we should just go ahead and build these two
hockey rinks and then put the skate park inside.., possible storage inbetween the boards and, which it turned
out to be too narrow, and so that's not an option. And then putting them on a trailer and hauling them out
to Lake Ann and off loading them and then hauling them back after the skating season. We certainly could
do that but in just moving this equipment off to the side and moving it back in place, it would be impossible
to do it with the equipment being whole. You know put together. You would have to dismantle the whole
set of equipment, which it can be done. You just take, you have to take off all the screws out of the skate
like material and take this equipment apart and then haul it out. What we saw basically in the first year
with the weather we had, we were up and running essentially for about a 9 month period with less than 3
months down time. And in that 3 month down time, actually less than that, we saw a 50, what 52 day
skating time. So to go to that effort to dismantle this whole thing. Take it out of the second set of hockey
boards. Move it to Lake Ann. Flood that for skating for 50 or 60 or 70 days and then move it back, it
really didn't seem a prudent investment for... And so the recommendation presented to the Park and
Recreation Commission which they unanimously supported would be to eliminate the $30,000 expenditure
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City Council Meeting - May 8, 2000
for the second set of hockey boards. Invest $15,000 of that in the second phase of the skate park which
has been identified already. It's the half pike that was identified in the first drawing. And then I would
also like to discuss with the council an additional investment of about $5,000 for some site improvements.
We've been having conversation, when I say we, the City Manager's office and my office, with the folks at
the elementary school and the fire station about how we can manage this facility to be positive in light of
the interaction that go on between the parking lots at the fire station, the parking lot at the school and the
issue with parking, cross traffic. Those type of things. So if we can do some fencing. A little bit of a
border wall and some other site improvements for an additional $5,000, I think the site will become much
more user friendly to the neighbors and still be a very positive experience for the youth of our community.
Mayor Mancino: So what you're asking for is for the year 2000, a $20,000 investment in the site?
Todd Hoffman: Correct. And taking the additional $10,000 and just putting it back in the bank, in the
park dedication fund.
Scott Botcher: We'd reduce it. You know we just wouldn't bond for it. That that'd be very clear.
Mayor Mancino: Okay. Thank you.
Scott Botcher: What we do with our capital expenditures...
Mayor Mancino: Any questions? Is there anyone here tonight wishing to address the council on this?
You've been patient too. Thank you.
Tim Hughes: My name is Tim Hughes. I live at 1780 Lake Lucy Lane and I actually wasn't going to
come tonight. I was coaching girls softball but that's another story. I don't really have much to say. I just
would hope that you guys would make a decision to pass the second phase and maybe add the fences
because I do see it kind of complaints from the school. I think because of the skate boarders have been
interacting somewhat with students that are talking back and forth and that really hasn't been brought up.
But I think the fence is a good idea but I'd really like to see Phase Two added and maybe we can do it
within budget. Maybe see extra materials added.
Mayor Mancino: Thank you Tim. Appreciate it.
Scott Botcher: The major issue with the fencing, besides the interaction with the school is that the fire
department has expressed concerns about individuals who are using the skate park, parking where the junk
cars are. You know where that is. That they're always tearing apart. And also.
Todd Hoffman: Bike trail back there.
Scott Botcher: Yeah, sort of hanging out in that, you know where that drive comes up into that back
parking lot. And they have some concerns about if there's a call and they're coming, they don't want to
nick somebody frankly and if we can eliminate the ability for that foot traffic to come there with a fence
and direct them to park in the lower lot, lower lot here or in the other lot over here, it's a safer situation.
You know I just don't want to face that liability with our firemen who are just trying to do their job. And
for the money spent it's money well spent.
Mayor Mancino: Okay, thank you. Any comments? Now's the time or forever hold your, yep.
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City Council Meeting - May 8, 2000
Councilman Labatt: Okay.
Mayor Mancino: Have you been over to the skate park? Have you been skating?
Councilman Labatt: Oh yeah.
Mayor Mancino: Okay. Just wanted to make sure.
Councilman Labatt: I'm going to throw out numerous questions here. Is where it's located right now the
best spot for it?
Todd Hoffman: The skate park?
Councilman Labatt: Yeah. Given the problems with the school and the fire department.
Todd Hoffman: Yes. It was the best location for the skate park in my opinion.
Councilman Labatt: How often are the tennis courts used at the Rec Center? What if you converted those?
To the skate park.
Scott Botcher: It'd cost you more to do that.
Councilman Labatt: How would it cost you more?
Scott Botcher: Because you'd be losing what you've already invested in the tennis courts. Plus what you'd
have to build to put there.
Councilman Senn: Plus you're taking the majority of the traffic or kids in Chanhassen and putting them at
additional risk to get there.
Scott Botcher: A lot of these kids are biking or walking here.
Councilman Senn: Yeah. I mean you're asking, I mean any time you start asking them to get across
Highway 5 I think that's.
Tim Hughes: ...is the correct thing for me to say point of order. I think the whole, I'm just going to come
up here and interrupt all you guys.
Mayor Mancino: But you can't do that, thank you. Excuse me Tim. I'm very serious, okay. If you ask
for permission to come up, that's fine but at this point it's the council is reviewing it and they're.
Tim Hughes: I was trying to raise my hand.
Mayor Mancino: I know. But yes you can go ahead but.
Tim Hughes: Okay. I think the main focus of the skate park is to people off the street in downtown
Chanhassen. And I think if you put it way off over in the Rec Center, the kids are probably going to tend
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to go back to skating on the streets here in Chanhassen because they don't feel like biking or skating or
walking that far. Because the majority of the skaters here in town are people that live here in town. Not
like somebody that lives in Excelsior, Minnetonka, even though we do get those riders. I do apologize for
interrupting.
Mayor Mancino: Thank you. Well if you can sit right in that first row and if you do want to respond you
can put up your hand and that will work. Thank you. Appreciate your comments anyway. Okay, thank
you.
Councilman Labatt: Well, I'm going to be blunt. When we were doing the CIP this was a last minute
addition I had put in there specifically for the hockey boards. The Park and Recreation Commission didn't
have the foresight to do this so it was my asking them last year that we look at this for the hockey boards
because there was a problem this year, or this past winter of attendants not showing up for hockey which
caused problems for all the families being there. And if we can get, I don't want to beat a dead horse with
that and I won't go down there anymore but this is something for the hockey boards and the Hockey
Association. It's now only benefiting Minnetonka and Chanhassen. We're multi use. We had 1,392
people there last year. 1,589 people that used the hockey rinks so. I don't know. Other cities can, seem to
move their equipment. Burnsville has, Maple Grove, their skate park. Moved them off the sites and store
them in the winter time. I don't know why we can't. So, put the boards up and move the equipment in
there in the summer time. So I'll leave it at that. I disagree with you.
Mayor Mancino: Okay. I don't know exactly how to respond to it only that I did not anticipate that the
skate park would be so popular. I mean obviously when you brought it up Steve about having the hockey
rink there, I had no idea, I don't think any of us did, or the Park and Recreation Commission, how
overwhelmingly successful it would be and how it would be running for 9 months. So as everything being
in our community pretty dynamic, I'll listen to other council members but I don't know. I kind of agree
with where staff is and the Park and Recreation Commission is taking us. Any other comments?
Councilman Engel: Yeah. I'm on both sides of this. I've got kids in hockey and my little guy's already
eying up that skate park with glee every time he's up here. He can't get enough staring at it so I see it, it's
filling up. It's getting a lot of use. It's getting more use than I thought it was going to get so I'm inclined
to leave it and let Todd do what he wants to do. But I've also been making suggestions in the past that
we've got to look at a way to make ice available that is more usable throughout the entire skating season.
And the last several years we've gotten very limited, and I mean limited use of our outdoor ice because of
conditions so I'm very serious about recommending we look into putting an inflatable bubble on the rink at
the Rec Center. We've got two rinks there. Todd has talked about other communities that have put in
inflatable bubbles for I don't know, $200-250,000. You can refrigerate say November through March.
Four or five months. That's extremely cheap compared to the numbers I've heard thrown around to build a
two sheet permanent facility. We're talking millions versus land we've already got. Parking we've
already got. The rinks there, the boards. If we went the last another half mile and got a bubble up, we'd
solve two problems at once. We'd have more ice available. More of the time for more people to use in the
community plus we'd have that skate park there and you wouldn't have the hassle of tearing it down and
setting it up. I think that we'd get more use of all of our facilities if we pursued that with a little bit more
commitment and you've got the park and rec money already you're pulling out for this $10,000. Not much
but maybe it ends up being 5% of what you need to build that thing.
Mayor Mancino: Is that something you'd like the Park and Recreation Commission to study and get back
to us on?
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Councilman Engel: Without a doubt. If we're talking about taking money away from what was originally
considered a hockey proposal, it's only right to look at a mitigating move and in fact better than mitigating,
going beyond any problems we've had and seeing if we can make more ice available on a constant basis.
And I think that that would help the problems we've suffered at Chaska with getting ice time scheduled. I
think it'd be a winning move all the way around. And it'd certainly be cheap, or cost effective. Use
whatever term you want. Heck of a lot less money than a two sheet permanent facility that we've looked
at. We know how expensive that is.
Mayor Mancino: We already have the shelter out there at the Rec Center too. So if you put a bubble and a
shelter. It's all right there.
Councilman Engel: We've got a lot of raw material sitting there ready to go that would make a much more
cost effective option than trying to put up our down indoor rink. And the demand that you see on those
parcels, it is I think time to seriously look at doing it.
Mayor Mancino: Okay, Councilwoman Jansen.
Councilwoman Jansen: Well I like what Mark just said about being able to make ice more usable by doing
the bubble situation but I would have to see those costs a little closer. It still sounds like a lot of money but
I look at the, what is it $380,000 in capital investment and just wonder if it can't be better focused for how
we do our rinks is what we've listed here for ice currently. I'm feeling between the rock and the hard place
because it is too bad that it has to be an either or out here. Did you get many requests from the hockey
association as far as they're needing this second rink so badly that we're now about to switch the use out
there and have you informed the hockey association of this potential change? The recommendation.
Todd Hoffman: Not officially, no. The direction from the council was to gauge the demand for the first
sheet of ice, which we did. And again, would the hockey association like the second rink of ice?
Absolutely. Would they say anything different? I would doubt that they would. And if we could put, we
have always planned to put that skate park inside of that second set of boards but it really becomes
cumbersome to do that. We attempted to lay it out so we can simply push these apparatus out the gates
and into a storage area between, but there's not room to do that. We evaluated designing them so you
could put a few eye beams in them and simply pick them up with a front end loader so you would not have
to dismantle them, and again going to that labor intensive activity is not in our best interest. So the skate
park is operating. Last year we closed it down in December and we opened in March. And to get that
much use out of that specific area in town which parents, the users see as a very positive. They see that
location as highly positive for the skate park. And I watch it every day out my window and again, saying
that up until this point in the year we opened in March and up until this date, that 99% of the use has taken
place at the skate park and less than 1% has taken place in that inline hockey rink is not an over estimation.
That's what is going on on a day to day basis.
Scott Botcher: I think Mark's suggestion is good. It's at least good to get the numbers sooner than later
because we're going to be looking at the capital budget again as part of the budget process.
Councilwoman Jansen: You had started out, excuse me I'm sorry. You had started out by saying that we
have the four asphalt hockey rinks. And it was only a couple of years ago when we didn't have any.
Todd Hoffman: Correct.
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Councilwoman Jansen: Is there any way to pick this rink up off the asphalt and put it someplace else?
Does it have to be an asphalt rink or are you just looking the boards?
Todd Hoffman: No other location is currently identified for an additional hockey rink in town. The park
commission has talked about the parking lot of Bandimere Community Park. So in the winter you could
simply put up a set of boards at Bandimere. You could actually put up a couple sets of boards in the
parking area at Bandimere. It's been proposed there. They do that in many other municipalities. Many
times in their golf course parking lots they try to look for summer and winter use and so they bring in
temporary boards. And if need be, you can set up the set of boards at that location.
Councilman Labatt: So what if you're going on, instead of flooding a little circular rink out here, but if
you were to put up temporary boards up there.
Todd Hoffman: You could do that as well.
Councilman Senn: I mean hockey rinks have functioned for many years on grass before we ever put
asphalt down.
Councilman Labatt: Oh yeah...
Councilman Senn: City Center Park.
Todd Hoffman: Yeah you could put boards up just about anywhere out there. It just kills the grass and so
you have to reseed it with the annual grass which this site out here is reseeded and serves as a soccer field.
Councilwoman Jansen: Okay. But that would still cost us, if we were to get the boards, what was it,
$30,000. Is that just for the boards?
Todd Hoffman: For temporary at $15,000 to $20,000 by the time you bought the lumber and put them up
and.
Councilwoman Jansen: So conceivably you could do both?
Councilman Labatt: You could do both by putting up temporary boards.
Todd Hoffman: Again, the demand for outdoor ice, you know we have the four rinks right now and it's,
we spend a lot of time and effort maintaining outdoor ice and so we tend to see the highest percentage of
people using the rinks. If they're going to book out the ice...they want to be inside.
Councilman Labatt: But indoor ice isn't available.
Todd Hoffman: It's not. The availability's not there and it costs more so they're glad to use the outdoor
ice but it's here for 50 days. It's a big investment for 50 days. At the Recreation Center, the bubble
concept's two draw backs are, or the two drawbacks but the questions I've seen that need to be answered is
that...location large enough. It's very tight the way it is, or would it have to move down below the hill onto
the field area. You could do that as well. And then the refrigeration would be.
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Councilman Senn: You'd have to dig up all the asphalt.
Todd Hoffman: You've invested a quarter of a million dollars today. Will you have to dig that up and
take it all away to put refrigeration in there, you'd have to start over. So it's one of those remodel
questions like when you have the house so far done and you want to improve it. You go backwards.
Councilman Labatt: Plus where do you get the Zamboni in and out.
Todd Hoffman: Excuse me?
Councilman Labatt: What about the Zamboni?
Councilman Senn: We'll never get that for Engel's $250,000.
Councilman Engel: Zamboni, that's a whole other question.
Todd Hoffman: We owned a Zamboni in the 80's and I was the Zamboni driver. We have been there
before and we operated that indoor rink over at the Dinner Theater.
Councilwoman Jansen: Well I very much support expanding the skate park, like everyone else is saying.
You know absolutely. I'm liking the idea that if there is that other option out there for the temporary
boards to put a second rink up here still for the hockey, if we can maybe look into that need and it's there,
then let's just change it from having been planned onto the asphalt as make it a temporary rink.
Scott Botcher: Well I think if you can get them for 15 Todd, we can probably squeeze that. We can
probably make that a go.
Todd Hoffman: If that's the desire of the council.
Scott Botcher: If you guys want to do that, we can make it go. It'd be temporary boards on grass.
Mayor Mancino: Yeah or you could do it at Bandimere.
Todd Hoffman: Yeah, whichever location. Bandimere. The Rec Center. City Center. Wherever you
want.
Mayor Mancino: You could do the temporary. How much does the temporary cost?
Councilman Engel: It'd be easier doing it here because that's where you've already got traffic for the
hockey.., and the other ice, and the warming house.
Mayor Mancino: It's so common sense. Councilman Senn, any comments?
Councilman Engel: He wants a Zamboni.
Mayor Mancino: Did you say no?
Councilman Senn: No, I didn't say no.
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Mayor Mancino: Okay.
Councilman Senn: I've been a long time advocate of kind of directing the dollars to where the use and the
need's the greatest so I like the idea of the skate park just as I was cautious on the skate park because we
didn't know how much use it was going to get. It's now very definitely proved itself and I see that as a
much better expenditure to fund at this point. I think rather than really rushing into a decision on the
boards, I think we should really kick that back to the parks commission and just have them look at the
overall issue and come back with some recommendations. If the need's there for the ice, I think the
question becomes should it be temporary and if it's going to be temporary, where should it be. And you
know, I don't know.., should it be temporary? That doesn't mean that we shouldn't be looking at altering
other resources if the need again justifies that we should do it so I mean again, we should, right now I think
they're reacting saying here's what the need justifies. If you think the needs are the other way, you ought to
take it back and let them look at it some more.
Todd Hoffman: I'd be glad to do that.
Mayor Mancino: I mean we certainly do have the time because they probably didn't look at that to say you
know if they wanted to make it, if they feel that we should put a temporary one up there or a permanent one
somewhere else. They may come up with something. Or not, we have the time.
Todd Hoffman: We can show the commission and the council all the numbers on last year's reservations
for the hockey rinks.
Mayor Mancino: That'd be great.
Councilman Senn: At the same time Mark I think brings up a real good point because I don't care if it was
when I was a kid or now or whatever, I mean outdoor ice has always been a perpetual problem in terms of
schedules.., what you can control and can't control in the environment. I don't think there's anything
wrong with also asking...
Mayor Mancino: A bubble somewhere else.
Councilman Senn: Well a bubble... $4 million that we've stuck into the existing facilities for refrigeration
equipment but that doesn't mean we can't look at possibly incorporating it somewhere else and doing
something with within reason that it might, it can provide more quality ice time rather than more facilities
and stuff which leads me to usually kind of say let's look at where we've got existing rinks to maybe put a
bubble up to where we don't have to dig up asphalt etc and provide a better quality of ice so again, I think
we should try to send that back to the commission to look at.
Mayor Mancino: Okay, then may I please have a motion.
Councilman Senn: Move approval of the change in the capital improvement project budget allocating the
money as recommended by staff for the skate park and leaving the rest aside for the moment. Is that
correct Scott? Just leave it aside.
Scott Botcher: Well I think, I mean it's up to the council but I think that seeking input from the Park and
Recreation Commission is a good idea. Take a look at the options and try to decide...
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Councilwoman Jansen: Or send it back to the Park and Recreation Commission for their input and their
recommendation.
Mayor Mancino: And that would mean the $20,000. Excuse me, the $15,000 for the new boards and the
$5,000 for the site improvements. Just want to clarify that.
Councilman Senn: Yes, but I thought as far as the balance goes, I really think we should set that aside and
not send it back to the park commission. I mean I don't think we're trying to say that that's an invitation to
go tell us what the next higher priority in expenditure is. What we're saying is, let's look at the hockey
issue and then bring something back to council.
Mayor Mancino: Yeah.
Scott Botcher: It is money that sits in your capital budget but I don't plan on bonding for it unless you all
tell me you want to bond for it before the time I issue those...
Mayor Mancino: And we'll wait and see what we hear from the Park and Recreation Commission. Okay,
is there a second?
Councilman Engel: Second.
Resolution #2000-36: Councilman Senn moved, Councilman Engel seconded that the City Council
amend the 2000-2004 Five Year Capital Improvement Plan, deleting $30,000 from Year 2000 for the
construction of a second set of hockey boards at City Center Park. Further, that the City Council
utilize $15,000 of this $30,000 allocation to purchase the second phase of the Chanhassen Skate Park
designating the park's current location as a permanent and year round facility, and $5,000 allocated
towards site improvements around the Skate Park. All voted in favor, except Councilman Labatt
who opposed, and the motion carried with a vote of 4 to 1.
Councilman Labatt: That's for my support for boards. I like the idea.
RECOMMENDATION TO ESTABLISH MEMORIAL PROGRAM COMMITTEE.
Todd Hoffman: Madam Mayor, members of the Council. If you recall last year we had a request for a
memorial which got bogged down in, do we have a policy. Should we have a policy about memorials
dedications. So we took a look at some other communities and there's a variety and they really focus
around three different things. Some gardens, either the rose garden variety or tree memorial. Some
locations had a catalog where you can pick a park bench or hockey bubble or anything. And then some
communities really left it wide open which is why we got in the spot we did in the first place. Whenever
you take a look at what fits for Chanhassen we thought we really don't have a location for a rose garden
and we have the City Center Park but we don't have an identified location. This concept of picking from a
catalog seemed a little bit difficult to manage. You have to, how do you secure the item and where, so
people start buying park benches and things, where are you going to site those locations. And the one that
came to the top of the heap was a memorial tree program where you identified a location for that. It's
really a benefit for both the donor and the recipient. The City and the community. So you've got the
concept and then you've got to look at some siting issues and a couple of sites we identified are Lake
Susan. There are some small areas there that could be used. The Red-E-Mix site came to mind simply
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because it's been a halfa dozen years or so, maybe even a little less, but the city studied a landscaping plan
which was in excess of a quarter million dollars for that site. We simply I think back burnered it at that
time because of the expenditure of the dollars for what seemed kind of low priority site. So the commission
was tossing around these ideas. They were uncomfortable in coming up with a final recommendation.
They think there's a lot of community minded issues to be talked about. And what they were comfortable
in doing is recommending that the City Council appoint a couple of people to talk about it. Talk through
the memorial program. They've identified two members that would serve on that and then calling a couple
members from the Environmental Commission and talk about is this the best concept and are there other
ideas? Are there other locations? Is there a partnership that can come along with this tree memorial? If
you think about it, by the time it's all said and done it would be a very nice thing to take to the community.
You'd invest in a $200,000 or $300,000 in trees and plantings and arbors and those type of things in this
location. And then from staff's perspective we would recommend you do not do identification on site
simply because of the forever maintenance of an on site type plaque. What you would do is identify an
area in city hall where you would have a large memorial configuration which would indicate this section
and each particular tree and it would be identified by species and plant type and those type of things. So
that's where the discussion has evolved to today. If you see fit to establish the committee, you can do so.
If you have other direction to give staff, I'd be happy to accept that.
Mayor Mancino: Thank you. Any feelings from council members?
Scott Botcher: My own two cents worth is keep this as simple as possible. I respect the wishes of people
to be able to go out and touch the tree that they you know, my own thing in terms of recognition is that we
simply have a list of donors in City Hall. You know like you see other plaques. I'm not really so
concerned if they go out and identify their tree by species and date and whatever else. But we have had
people contact us and this is something they'd like to do. I can't say it's an overwhelming floor, unless
you've had an overwhelming flood, but it's an opportunity to, it does create a vehicle to encourage people
to do that that might otherwise not think of doing it. For somebody that they feel is appropriate.
Something that they need to do.
Councilman Senn: Yeah, I don't want to really belittle what everybody's doing one way or the other but I
really think we're asking the wrong people. I think we really ought to go ask the experts because I mean
it's real silly for us I think to bark up, you know or try to run up the hill that you can't up essentially. I
mean if there isn't effectively a market, and I'm sorry this is just as much a market as everything else is, for
our concepts and ideas which we're just kind of throwing out and coming up with, I think it's really kind of
silly to go down that road. We've got some great resources here locally with expertise in this particular
area such as the Arboretum and other such places we've got where they have very defined giving programs
and know exactly how and why you do what you do in terms of providing variety and choice and what sort
of things that go over and what are things that don't go over. And etc, etc because they've been there.
They've done that. They've experienced it all. They've tried most all of it. And maybe we should fall
back and do a little more research and go to that resource rather than trying to, I don't know, formulate
more ideas. A lot of it is again well meaning people but maybe not necessarily people that know. I think
we really ought to get a better handle on that I think before we run off into designing some kind of a
program.
Mayor Mancino: Any other comments? Well you actually have gotten, you've talked to quite a few. Well
you haven't really talked to experts but you've talked to different cities to see what they're, what
communities and I mean have they, have you gone to the extent of saying from those communities, the
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plans that they have, are they working. You know for, I don't know, one of them was a catalog last year
and it seemed like they were 20 different things you could do.
Todd Hoffman: The communities that I'm aware of and have talked to, these programs have been highly
successful. The Brooklyn Park rose garden has been an overwhelming success. They've gone and closed
their first one and started their second one. Maple Grove's tree program has been real successful. So the
Arboretum could be a wonderful resource and if you want to start the committee and then invite those folks
over to talk about that, you can certainly do that. Or if you want to have the discussion first. That would
be fine. The feelings from the park commission is that they thought this thing should have more ownership
and again in talking to other people about something that could have some value from having input from
other groups.
Mayor Mancino: You could certainly have experts come from cities or the Arboretum and speak to this
group. I was also wondering as the make-up of the group. Whether seniors should be on the group.
Because again that would have a lot to do with memorials and those are the people that are close to it.
Todd Hoffman: We've done benches.., planted a lot of trees in the past for memorials for people. And
when there's no program it's difficult because you have to manage a single site and they do go visit in the
spring and it's not pruned properly and it's now mowed properly and we have to go out there and visit it
and then they die and who's going to replace it.
Mayor Mancino: Well a lot of times it's a spouse making that gift for the other spouse who's passed away
and so.
Todd Hoffman: It's been cumbersome over the years to manage these things individually, on an individual
basis because it is, and so if you have a program where you can kind of give them.., this is what it is and
everybody understands. It's a difficult time for all people involved in these memorial requests that are
coming forward.
Mayor Mancino: Any other comments?
Councilwoman Jansen: I guess I like the idea of doing a committee but I guess I also looked at the make-up
of what was being suggested and I don't know whether you necessarily need city council members serving
on this committee or the Planning Commissioners came to mind. If you're talking about sites and
locations, maybe tapping them to see if anyone's interested in getting involved with a program like this.
But I do like that idea and the fact that staff has already contacted communities to see how they've been
doing it and then Mark's suggestion about bringing in maybe people from the private sector that can give
some insight as to how to make it the most successful. My only hesitation on the site that was suggested is
when I think of a memorial garden and people visiting it, I picture something a little quieter and more
removed.
Mayor Mancino: I think that's a good question...
Councilwoman Jansen: So it does seem like there's some of those things that could maybe be explored.
And reading Maple Groves and how they were saying there's a creek and a path that you can walk through.
If it's more of on an experience type of a destination. I don't know. For size.
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City Council Meeting - May 8, 2000
Councilman Senn: That's where you really need to ask the experts because I think you'll find a lot of that
stuff out. Believe me they know. It's done, they're given stuff all the time and they've got it down to a
fine art. I mean why not take what they do and learn from it.
Todd Hoffman: When I get this small committee of planning commission, environmental commission and
a senior and then two park commissioners. Five of them.
Mayor Mancino: Sure, and that's it.
Todd Hoffman: We'll have a first meeting and we'll invite the memorial person from the Arboretum and
we'll start from there.
Mayor Mancino: Yep, great. Get the experts in and talk about sites. Yep. Good, thank you. Do we need
to make a motion for that? Thank you Todd.
Todd Hoffman: You're welcome.
COMMISSION APPOINTMENTS.
Mayor Mancino: Commission appointments. May I please have a motion?
Councilman Labatt: I will move that we appoint Alison Blackowiak, LuAnn Sidney and Uli Sacchet to the
Planning Commission.
Mayor Mancino: Do you want to take the rest of them?
Councilman Labatt: Should we do them all?
Mayor Mancino: Yeah.
Councilman Labatt: And to the Park and Recreation Commission I move that we would re-appoint Rod
Franks and David Moes. To the Environmental Commission appointing both Susan McAllister and Sharon
Beduhn. And the Senior Commission, re-appointing Dale Geving, Bobbie Headla and Sherol Howard.
Mayor Mancino: I'll second that.
Councilman Labatt moved, Mayor Mancino seconded to make the following commission
appointments:
Planning Commission
Park & Recreation Commission
Environmental Commission
Alison Blackowiak
LuAnn Sidney
Uli Sacchet
Rod Franks
David Moes
Sharon Beduhn
Susan McAllister
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Senior Commission
Dale Geving
Bobbie Headla
Sherol Howard
All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously.
ADMINISTRATIVE PRESENTATIONS:
Mayor Mancino: Okay, then thank you. I think that Scott had some things to go over with us. Any
discussion on correspondence, before Scott gets back. I just wondered Scott on the AMM, Association of
Metropolitan Municipalities. The 2000 elected officials salary survey. Was that put in here for any
particular reason?
Scott Botcher: No, because I give you all sorts of stuff you probably don't want to hear about. It came
and no, we responded to a survey. And as part of the deal they sent us a copy so whatever.
Mayor Mancino: Okay.
Scott Botcher: Now they're complaining I'm giving them too much stuff Todd, what is it? If you're going
through correspondence I just have one thing I'd like to point out if I could. Jerry and Todd put together in
here a District 112 fields task force report which is sort of in the middle.
Councilman Labatt: Highly represented on there.
Scott Botcher: There are 6 city of Chaska people, 1 city of Victoria and 1 city of Chanhassen. I'm
becoming paranoid. It's interesting though if you look at the charge statement, which is this document right
here, which I assume is blessed by the School Board for the District.
Mayor Mancino: You never know.
Scott Botcher: We have exactly 1/8 the membership of the Park Ridge neighborhood, whoever they are. I
don't know. I mean Todd and Jerry and I sort of looked at each other like I don't know. And I don't know,
this gets into that whole part, and I know you and Linda have heard me say this before, but the whole part
of the referendum, this million bucks that we're spending towards this stuff. You know is this something
that might be better replied within, as you re-prioritize what was in the referendum or not. Even if you
assume that it is okay, the representation within here is, I would argue somewhat unbalanced. For
whatever it's worth and if you desire to respond, then that's fine. If not, at least you have it in your
correspondence.
Mayor Mancino: Well my question is to they're developing 5 soccer fields at the middle school campus.
Who uses those soccer fields besides the school?
Scott Botcher: The CAA.
Todd Hoffman: CAA and the Chan/Chaska Soccer Association.
Mayor Mancino: And does that take into Victoria, Carver. Is it pretty equal as far as all the kids?
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Todd Hoffman: I don't know if it's equal...
Mayor Mancino: I mean pretty representative pro rata.
Scott Botcher: I can't claim there's any ratio to it. That the ratio necessarily ties to school district
populations. But kids from all communities play.
Todd Hoffman: If Tonka United wanted to request, they would certainly review their request. But
generally talking, just geographically didn't want to drive down to this part...
Mayor Mancino: Sure.
Councilwoman Jansen: Have we ventured to ask why Chaska has 5? I know in parenthesis they put
including technical expertise. And of the technical expertise, does that represent 4 out of the 5 in that the
other communities just have 1 or?
Scott Botcher: I just looked at the list and I'll answer the second part. You can answer the first part. I
don't know who on that list from the city of Chaska has any technical expertise that is above and beyond
anyone else. So I don't know what they really mean by that.
Councilman Senn: It's just using 5 to 1 and say that represents $5.00 to $1.00...
Scott Botcher: I don't know Mark. No, I have talked to Todd and Jerry about trying to find out how the
make-up was determined and that sort of stuff and I don't know if we've gotten that far but.
Todd Hoffman: The make-up was determined obviously as an administrative role of the school district
and from what I can gather these facilities are located within the city of Chaska to balance the community
needs...
Councilman Senn: To serve the School District of 112, which serves basically the School District 112.
Mayor Mancino: Well I would think that everybody should be represented the same. All the cities should.
City of Chaska should have one. The City of Carver. The City of Victoria. The City of Chanhassen. It
should be each city should be one and the school district, because it's their fields should have more but
other than that I think it should be just very fair against all the cities.
Scott Botcher: Is Park Ridge neighborhood like across the street from the High School?
Todd Hoffman: Yes.
Scott Botcher: Is that where that is?
Councilman Senn: Well the Tonka United thing seriously is a misnomer. I mean Tonka United was more
than happy to go down to Bandimere. They were considering going down to fields on the Minnesota River
bottom for cripes sake to get fields. They reason they are precluded in those nor are never going to be
using them is they've always been told they aren't able to.
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Scott Botcher: Which I've heard as well.
Councilman Senn: And they've been told that a hundred times at least, if not more and through insistence
on a number of people's parts they've now been able to get or be allocated field space out of Chanhassen in
the northern part of the city as well as Bandimere and other places like that but they've never been invited
to participate, nor been responded to in a favorable manner when they've asked to participate in stuff to the
south.
Todd Hoffman: The difficulty there is that the city of Chaska assumes the role for scheduling those and in
doing that they've established certain criteria, and that being the city of Chaska programs are first and so
you can easily say there's no space available because they're...
Scott Botcher: There's some 112 kids that play with Tonka United.
Mayor Mancino: Can I ask a question? Why is the City of Chaska being the city that controls the fields?
Why isn't it a group again, a group of four representatives. Each from one city who regulates the use of
these fields and they look, it's a group like a city council. Five of us. It's not one of us. It's five that
represent and why isn't it four for the fields, for the whole district?
Todd Hoffman: Well I can answer why it is the way it is. I can't answer why...
Mayor Mancino: I don't know about.
Councilman Senn: We should suggest that they follow the Minnetonka Community Education Service
model which is, they schedule all the fields throughout the Minnetonka School District which they invite
every municipality to send a representative to and as well end user groups and they sit down in a common
meeting and divvy up the fields so that they're all basically getting service from the same field selection.
Mayor Mancino: Then why don't we make that suggestion.
Councilman Senn: They've been doing it that way for years.
Todd Hoffman: Sure. We can make that suggestion. From a staff perspective, you know the Park and
Recreation Director making that suggestion is not going to get very far. If you want us to research this
review at the Park and Recreation Commission. Bring our recommendation to the City Council and the
City Council make a, pass a resolution to the School Board, that's going to get their attention. This is one
of the reasons why, as both as a resident and an employee of the city, why I argued for school siting within
the City of Chanhassen. Once the schools are located in a municipality, it's so easy for that municipality to
take over the control of organizing and scheduling that particular facility. And District 112 it just happens
that that's the way these reservations and facility reservations are handled. The school district has not been
real successful in managing the reservations of it's facilities and so quite frankly they're happy to give it up
to the communities as long as they keep things pretty well organized. In this city, I mean we have to be fair
in saying that in Chanhassen we schedule the school facilities in this city and in Chaska they're doing the
same. We fought against that. I testified against that at the high school and were obviously lobbied very
heavily from the City of Chaska and successful. City of Chaska was successful in gaining that control over
that facility.
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Mayor Mancino: Well I agree with Mark. I mean I think it should go back to Park and Rec and there
should, we should offer a different model and it should be a model that represents all the cities in the school
district. I don't know how anyone else feels.
Councilwoman Jansen: Well I'm just wondering if from what Todd just said, if then we don't have to also
then on our facilities.
Mayor Mancino: On everybody's.
Councilwoman Jansen: Do the same situation. The same representation. Since it's all District 112
property, right?
Councilman Senn: Just so you know. It does facilities that are not school district facilities too. The school
district plays the coordinating role. Okay, they invite all the cities together and the cities all send a
representative and then you sit down and they, you know whether it's Cathcart Park, which has nothing to
do with the school or whatever. If it's got a hockey set of boards that can be used for soccer. I mean
everything is listed as a resource. They throw it all out on the table and they sit down and they work it all
out so it's all scheduled. We have participated in that process ourselves as a city and it's worked very well
for many years and the only thing that school district does through Minnetonka Community Education
Services is act as essentially the coordinator and they also make sure that the school district, school athletic
needs are worked into the equation at the same time, which has to take priorities on some of the school
district facilities essentially.
Mayor Mancino: Well, again I think the Park and Rec Commission should look at it, and of course, I mean
whatever model they come up with includes us.
Todd Hoffman: It's a hot topic right now.
Scott Botcher: Is it worth having myself, having me draft a letter to Bev given just on this committee,
because they're going to look to make recommendations on this million bucks between now and summer.
And I think, no disrespect to the commission but they're going to take some time to do their deal. I mean I
can write a letter to Bev and say you know, what's the deal and see what happens.
Councilman Senn: Go for it.
Mayor Mancino: Yep.
Scott Botcher: Alright, can I get to my three things and then we'll do whatever. One, I got a voice mail
from Ron Beatty. The legislative process is going on. They were supposed to get the tax bill was supposed
to come out of conference committee today at noon. Then it was 1:00. Then it was 2:00. I don't know
when it came out because I haven't seen it. Apparently we're looking at getting it to, the Governor is
supposed to sign or not sign these things a week from today. He has, Ron is suggesting that we hold a brief
special meeting the 17th or 18th of next week so we can formalize our response. Is that the 17th or 18th?
That's right. 17th or 18th, SO we can formalize our response to OSA. Knowing at that point what's in the
bill and what's not.
Councilman Senn: Because he has three days after the legislature adjourns and they have to adjourn the
15th.
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Scott Botcher: Correct. So we sort of counted the number of session dates and all that sort of stuff. I'll be
honest with you, I have, I'm serving on the Chamber Scholarship Committee as they give scholarships to
youth. That's the 17th. I also have a very important t-ball game that night. And so for me personally the
18th works but there's certainly, if the 17th works for you all, Beatty can be here and Todd can be here. Not
a big deal.
Mayor Mancino: So we're supposed to look at the 18th?
Scott Botcher: Well I'd prefer the 18th. If the 17th works, 17th works. So I need to.
Councilman Labatt: Neither of them are good for me so.
Mayor Mancino: What time on the 18th?
Scott Botcher: Well I mean we could do it at, you know if you wanted to do it early, I'm sure people would
go for that. No sense waiting til 6:30 if we can do it at like 5:00. 4:30. I mean I'm just.
Mayor Mancino: Who can do it? I can do it at 4:30 or 5:00 onthe 18th.
Councilwoman Jansen: I didn't bring my calendar. What day of the week is the 18th?
Mayor Mancino: Thursday.
Councilwoman Jansen: A Thursday?
Mayor Mancino: Yeah.
Councilman Senn: All I'm trying to understand is that, if they adjourn like they're talking about on the
15th, the Governor may not even take any action until midnight the 18th. I mean essentially he has three full
days after the legislature adjourns to decide what he wants to do.
Scott Botcher: Go out of session. Wait three days, which is what he's got to sign or veto the bills. Okay,
that gets us to the, I think what he's assuming then is that by the 18th, that's the third day. If we meet that
night, even if he hasn't officially signed a veto, we'll have a pretty darn good stinking idea to get a response
to OSA because we're running up against their 60 day clock. We've got to get a response.
Mayor Mancino: Or else we could meeting Friday morning first thing. The 19th.
Scott Botcher: The scenario lays out maybe the House or the legislature's coming back maybe on Friday
the 19th to lay out vetoes.
Councilman Senn: Well that's what I understood the legislature wasn't going to actually adjourn. They
were just going to.
Councilman Engel: They were just going to recess.
Scott Botcher: They're going to save one day.
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Councilman Senn: So.
Scott Botcher: But if we meet on the 18th, that's, we've got to make the best, that's our best choice. We're
not going to be able to get to the point where they finish all their work and then we get to meet. They've
screwed around. You know they recess for those what, 4 days or something around Easter and had potluck
dinner when they should have been working. That screwed us up.
Councilman Senn: And when's our, when do we have to respond to them?
Scott Botcher: I don't have that date. I'm sorry. Oh, here we go. Here's what I can say. Unfortunately,
we cannot wait until the next regular meeting which would be May 22nd because that will be the 60th day
and OSA is already due a response by that point. My suggestion is to hold a special meeting probably the
17th or 18th, which would be Wednesday and Thursday of the week.
Mayor Mancino: The 22nd is a Monday, okay.
Scott Botcher: We've got to be able to get, talk about it. Prepare the response and get it to them.
Mayor Mancino: So what about Thursday at 4:30 the 18th?
Councilman Engel: I think that's the only time.
Scott Botcher: Is that a good time?
Councilman Engel: I'm going to be out of town either way but I'll be in touch with you guys in e-mail.
Mayor Mancino: And we'll meet, what do you think? For about an hour.
Scott Botcher: Tops. Now it's Steve, Linda and Mark. We've got to make sure we have a quorum.
Councilwoman Jansen: I have to check my calendar. I didn't bring it.
Scott Botcher: Are you gone?
Councilman Senn: I may be gone so.
Mayor Mancino: Oh, we may not have a quorum.
Scott Botcher: How about, is the 17th any better? Not for Mark.
Councilman Senn: Not for me.
Scott Botcher: Not for Steve.
Councilman Senn: Because if I'm out that week, I'll be out Wednesday and Thursday.
Mayor Mancino: Friday? Saturday morning?
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Councilman Senn: I won't be out Friday, I know that.
Mayor Mancino: Okay, you won't be out Friday? You'll be back. What about Saturday morning on the
20th?
Councilman Senn: It'd have to be awfully early because I have to be in a wedding up north.
Scott Botcher: How are we going to get a response to the State Auditor for them on Monday.
Councilman Labatt: Unless Ron works the weekend hours.
Scott Botcher: Let's do this. Let me talk to him and see what he says about having a draft put together. I
mean we've already laid out what our options are. If he held a gun to my head I could pretty much guess
what the response is going to be tactically and legally. Maybe we can throw together a response.
Communicate it. It's public record as much as it is on, and some of this OSA stuff is public and not,
depending upon what the Statute says because they have different rules. And we'll just do it that way.
Councilman Senn: What about early Friday morning? Does that work?
Scott Botcher: I don't think we have a quorum.
Mayor Mancino: Well then we'll have three. We'll have Mark, Linda and.
Scott Botcher: Are we going to have three then?
Mayor Mancino: But I thought you said you're out of town Thursday and Friday?
Councilman Senn: No, I said Wednesday and Thursday.
Councilman Labatt: I'm gone all week.
Mayor Mancino: Again? Are you ever here? Do you work?
Councilman Senn: You just came back from vacation.
Councilman Labatt: I'm working 10 days in May.
Mayor Mancino: Wait, you're not a pilot.
Councilman Engel: Cops get paid pretty good nowadays.
Mayor Mancino: I want to work, Hennepin County, is that it?
Councilman Labatt: Comp time.
Councilman Senn: I wish I got comp time.
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Mayor Mancino: Friday morning at what time, 8:00?
Scott Botcher: 8:00's good for me. Steve's going to be in Canada.
Councilman Labatt: I'll be in Canada.
Councilwoman Jansen: I'll only call you if it's a problem.
Scott Botcher: Okay. We have a quorum then, correct?
Mayor Mancino: Yes.
Scott Botcher: Mark? Mark?
Mayor Mancino: No, Mark.
Scott Botcher: One Mark? Which Mark?
Councilman Engel: I might be back by then.
Scott Botcher: We're pulling teeth tonight aren't we.
Mayor Mancino: We all just wanted to stay together.
Scott Botcher: Okay. Let me start this one because it's well I don't know what's simple tonight or what's
not. This morning we met again with the school district, whatever that group is called. Nancy and Linda
were both there. And talked about some sites and issues again. One of the things that we learned, and I
mentioned this earlier, was that.
Mayor Mancino: And we keep learning new things.
Scott Botcher: Yeah we do. The school district is conducting a random sample community survey. That's
what they've entitled it. I gave you a copy and I think Melissa's got a copy. Which was somewhat
surprising to us what Jim Paulson from Victoria, who strangely enough was called as one of the random
sample people.
Mayor Mancino: Of all the people.
Scott Botcher: Somebody screwed up. When he explained the premise to me I was concerned so we did
ask for a copy. The premise you can all read for yourself but to me it's just you know, and I know a
number of you have been involved in survey work and boy if this baby doesn't beg an answer I don't know
what does. This is terrible. I mean this is undergrad at Winnoa State stuff.
Councilman Senn: I was going to say, I hope their sample's more random than their questions.
Scott Botcher: We'll just, you know they plan to purchase a site in the city of Chanhassen, which I guess
is a pretty firm commitment. Since the referendum passed, land costs in Chanhassen have doubled. I
didn't know that.
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Mayor Mancino: And that isn't true.
Scott Botcher: Making it impossible. There's a pretty strong statement, to buy a site in the city of
Chanhassen, which I find to be interesting because we've given them four options and how they can
actually pull it off. It reads to me like the determination's already been made that it's impossible. The next
paragraph, they left with two choices. I didn't know they had two choices. I mean you read this and you
say, there's more than two choices. Because there are more than two choices. Down to the next part, you
get underneath the 4 through 10 bullet items. Well actually if you go to bullet item number 5. School
district and city should combine financial resources when possible to create facility that benefits the
students and the community. Once again they've forgotten that there are communities out there with
multiple school districts. Item 10 is somewhat, I'm perplexed by it but I could just be falling asleep. The
bold face type underneath it, donated to the school district free of charge by the city of Chaska. I don't
know this for a fact but I guess I wonder if it's free. I know I've heard people from the city of Victoria say
that free isn't really free. I don't know that. And just this whole thing is, I don't know. I think it's poorly
done and I think they're going to get the answer that maybe they want to get. I'll play bad cop. I'll keep
shooting my mouth off. I just think.
Councilman Senn: How can they get anything else?
Scott Botcher: I think it's poorly.
Councilman Engel: Someone might be illiterate.
Councilman Senn: I suppose that's an option.
Scott Botcher: And if you're a Chanhassen District 112 resident, and you read this script or you receive
this call, one of two things will happen. People are going to hear this and they're going to believe it. You
know, dang it. It's the school calling. Of course they're telling me what's up and what's not. Or if you
read this, and you have any knowledge of what's going on you're going to really scratch your head and say,
what is really going on there. So I don't know. I keep beating up on Hoffman but he doesn't want to listen
to me rant and rave anymore. But it's just, to me it's very, very bothersome and they're going to get the
answer that this is going to drive them to get, and I'm not saying that it's a conspiracy between the UN and
the Trilateral Commission of Bankers of Switzerland or whatever but there's, it's just, it just blows me
away. So that's that. Secondly, and lastly, the school district is hopeful to receive a response from the
City Council to Bev's letter of April 28th or something .... one was Mark Engel's and one was Nancy's and
I think, well I know I forwarded them both. And so I'm just sort of going to shut up now and you guys can
take whatever direction you want but obviously there's no rule you have to give them a response. I think
you probably should. It's the right thing to do. It's professional. You need to respond. But I've read, you
know I read both of them as well. Nancy's is probably, Nancy's is the complete letter. Mark's are more
sort of his thoughts I guess. Nancy's is probably softer than mine.
Councilman Senn: The best way to put it is I like our's the best but we've got to send Mancino's.
Scott Botcher: I was glad that Jesus is going to come help us Mark. That... so I'll shut up and you guys.
Mayor Mancino: Let's get some comments real quickly. Obviously everyone received both and just give
us some comments on where we want to go because I really do think that we do need to respond. And there
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may even be a second letter towards the end of this week, after staff meets with some more, with staff of
district 112. That may need to go out but we'll wait and see. Anyway.
Councilman Senn: Why don't we just send your letter as the letter and then just add a P.S. to it and say
that we just received a copy of this survey and we had a few comments about it.
Councilman Engel: You should add the question for those who support it.
Mayor Mancino: I think again the survey is a whole other thing. I think first we need to respond so you
feel comfortable, Linda?
Councilwoman Jansen: Actually, even just setting aside differences of opinion on what we should or
shouldn't do, reading through the memo I keep coming back to what it is we're trying to really accomplish
with this memo. What are we intending the results to be? Because it's more than just answering the
requests that were made of us from the district. I mean we're stating policy positions that we're intending
to take that maybe aren't necessarily, well they certainly reflect what was done in the community from my
understanding of the conversations on Bluff Creek Elementary. So we're taking a little bit different
position ourselves policy wise, which yes we can do that. But this memo seems to be serving more of a
purpose than just answering what the district staff have asked us to consider doing. So I'm just wondering
what we think the results is really going to be.
Scott Botcher: Well I'll give my answer, because I wrote the first one. I think that we have said to staff,
and I encourage, school district staff. To work with us primarily on the alternatives that we've laid out,
and those four that Ehler's laid out aren't certainly exclusive. We've talked about the different legal
options they've had. We have also, as gently as we can, and maybe we were too gentle. Have tried to
indicate to them that there would not be staff support for us being financier for a levying instrument I guess
of the school district for the construction of a school. That's obviously their focus at this point.
Councilwoman Jansen: And just so I'm clear when you say that, you're referring to our putting the, what
is it, 3 million whatever. Correct? It's the gap financing that you're referring to where we're thinking that
they're wanting us to bear the burden.
Scott Botcher: In response to Bev's letter, certainly. I mean all sorts of things have been talked about that
have just sort of been scrubbed at different points in the process. You hear about the school or by city
staff. But I mean it's just, I have a hard time grasping, much like we did today when Dave was trying to
write those numbers out. I have trouble getting those things to sit still. And maybe I'm, no I don't think
that's right. I'm getting it. I just, they're not sitting still for me. You know it seems like the more time that
we spend looking into them, the more we find. And I recognize that they're under a real crunch to get a
school up. And I think that's part of the reason I try to cut to the chase. You know let's not do this mating
dance, and I think Mark sort of touched on it. Let's not do this mating dance if the Council's not going to
handle the money. I mean they're asking for more money than they've got budgeted. And we're not
granting an FHA loan. It's not a 5 % down deal.
Councilwoman Jansen: And I guess that's where.
Scott Botcher: And I think that's, for whatever reason, that hasn't been communicated, maybe not well
enough on my behalf or Todd's behalf, to Bev and to Dave, and you ultimately can say no Scott and Todd,
you guys are wrong. We'd love to write a check and get them in town. And that you can take that
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position. I understand what you're saying. But I think to speed this process up and get focused on what's
really going to make this thing go, because we can make this deal go in Chanhassen with the alternatives
we have. Period. That's simple. We can do it. But the focus to date has been other things. And they're
largely delineated in Bev's letter. If we can communicate clearly what we're interested in doing, that may
in fact work in the school district's best interest. And that is our ultimate goal to get these schools in
Chanhassen. Maybe that's why we went that way.
Councilwoman Jansen: And I appreciate everything that you just said, because I thought that's what we
were trying to do. But I think we lose that with a lot of what we're saying here versus just responding
almost point for point to what it is that they're requesting because we already know just flat out, no. We're
not going to carry the gap. And I think they've already heard that message probably pretty loud and clear.
But I mean this is coming from the district staff. It's not coming from the school board so they've
investigated or at least stepped over that line to ask for the ultimate. We've refused that and referred back
to what presumably was a letter that crossed in the mail and those options. Within Ehler's memo, their
Option 4 addresses the fact that potentially the city does not want, as you've said in your memo, to just
waive the water and sewer lines but you've given them an option under that Option 4 in Ehler's letter, to
consider how they can spread those costs and maybe relieve a little bit more of their burden. But I think
we're losing what potentially we're saying we will do and maybe going too far in stating what we
absolutely will not do instead of just saying you know, no. We're not going to purchase the open space.
But here are the things that we're saying we will do.
Scott Botcher: And the other part, and that's great and if council feels like it, they can add a whole another
page about saying here's what we will do. Here's what we won't do. Here's what we will do. I think the
other thing that we're trying to communicate is maybe a philosophy because we all sat here and watched
the Victoria debacle go down. And it was a debacle. And I have said many times, two things. One is I'm
not in the school business. That does drive Hoffman nuts. I'm not in the school business. Secondly, I'm
also not really interested in having the city of Chanhassen play Let's Make a Deal for a school. I've had
District 112 residents come up to me in the last two weeks and say, how much is Chaska paying to get the
school? I mean there's just an assumption, somehow, somewhere in the community that when you get
down to it, Chaska will just you know give free land or they'll %uy" the school site. Go buy the school.
You know I faxed to you and to Nancy last week the fee schedule for the city of Chaska. Nowhere this
morning in our discussion did that fee schedule come up. And I went there to see if it'd come up. That's
why I sat there and didn't say anything. I just looked and said, this thing is, you know the spread sheet was
bogus. I mean I won't say it's totally bogus but there was stuff on there that should have been on there that
wasn't. And you know if you take the Chaska fee schedule, lay it against the 27 acres or whatever the
number is of Pioneer Park and on Friday I was trying to get somebody to commit to how many acres of
land I should lay against the fee schedule. You come up with a number. I don't think it's $190,000 but
we've never, you know if we're going to compare really apples and apples and apples and apples or
oranges, or whatever, we need to know what those things are. We can't seem to get there. That's one of
those numbers we just can't get.
Councilwoman Jansen: But that was discussed, not this morning but a week ago and what was stated was
that the 190 is what the city council of Chanhassen is comfortable with. That's what they'll accept.
Scott Botcher: That's Dave Porkorny's number. And I asked Lee on Friday, what he told me was that the
city council of Chaska has never approved that number. That's Dave Porkorny's number in a letter and
they didn't do any original research on it at all.
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Councilwoman Jansen: Okay.
Scott Botcher: And as I said, the more you dig into this to really make quantifiable comparisons,
sometimes the more confused I get.
Councilwoman Jansen: Well probably like yourself, Porkomy's familiar with what his council will and
won't approve or he wouldn't necessarily go out on that limb with that 190 would he?
Scott Botcher: Well you know, I don't know.
Councilwoman Jansen: Well it certainly doesn't seem like it.
Scott Botcher: You know I was asked for the, and we want to represent what the costs are. You all have
to determine if they make a selection what you do and don't want to do. But I think the school district
needs to know all the data.
Mayor Mancino: Well and I think we do to be able to make the decision. We didn't know what the.
Scott Botcher: ... as well and I would think that Chaska, city of Chaska residents are probably going to
want to know that.
Mayor Mancino: I also want to bring up something else and that is that we have as a city, at least staff has
I know when we were looking at siting, the middle school and the high school and working with the school
district. One of the sites from the very beginning that our staff came up with was a site that is next to our
100 acre park with field and track and everything else, to have a partnership there. There were several sites
that could be explored and the district didn't so that's also up to the district to make that decision.
Scott Botcher: We're really trying hard.
Councilwoman Jansen: But they have stopped now and they're certainly looking at it, but they did have a
board member who was rather vocal to staff on issues that apparently we now k now to have been
misrepresented potentially to district staff and so they.
Mayor Mancino: But they did know that.
Councilwoman Jansen: I mean they did pursue. But now, I mean they are and in that they are now back to
that consideration, it takes me back to this memo wondering if we have fully considered what the result
would be of this kind of a communication, because it takes a threatening tone right down to at least one
sentence that I don't even know legally how we pull it off, or if we pull it off. And do we want to be taking
a threatening sort of a position right now in this negotiation when we have gotten back to what might be
more considerable site locations within the community. Not to say that they're going to work out. But I
look at this and it's potentially on a site that push comes to shove may not work. I mean it's just, it just
may not work. So is it worth our getting our relationship all tied up in this and throwing some accusations
out there when we're still at the table trying to work this out? I don't see this site working out. From all of
the figures that we've been working with it points to, we still have the potential in the negotiation to get that
future high school, potentially. Maybe it's a long shot but it's still open for conversation, you know in
Chan.
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Mayor Mancino: But in this letter, I mean you know Scott goes through, I think I picked up his. He goes
through the four points on you know why we wouldn't. Then it goes into some real conceptual things
about the process and the way that it's been used and with Victoria that I don't think, I think everybody
feels this way about. And I also think that we have to get to a point where we discuss some of these
philosophical things. And especially when it gets into the win/lose approach that's been going on and how
Chanhassen and Victoria have more than one school district and how are we going to approach this in the
future. We have to talk about the land base decision model and we have to talk about the cost of land.
Because those are all real and identifiable issues.
Councilwoman Jansen: And I don't disagree. That's where I'm wondering with this letter, if the intention
is to respond to district staff's request, checking to see what we would or would not be willing to do for that
particular site, should we be going into some of these other issues that are definitely something to address
at a date in time but I don't know that now is necessarily it because the school board is talking about
having that philosophical conversation. They've unfortunately gotten themselves into a time crunch.
They've been bringing that up.
Mayor Mancino: I don't think it's going to change.
Scott Botcher: I don't know who they're going to have a conversation with though.
Councilman Senn: Well the site's immaterial. I mean let's just face facts. I mean where are you going to
find another site less expensive than that site with that kind of acreage in Chanhassen? I mean staff's
already done all the research on what sites are even potential sites.
Councilwoman Jansen: One's being looked at now.
Councilman Senn: Where? Where are you going to get land...
Councilwoman Jansen: It's not identical. I mean and that's why you can't even go out to the public and
give options because they're all different.
Scott Botcher: As they continue to look at this and stuff starts squirreling around, they go back to things in
the past that they've scratched off. That's fine. I would probably do the same thing. IfI was in a tough
spot, I would go back and say geez, should I re-look at some this stuff. But I think the philosophical
discussion, they're not going to hold with us. They're not holding any philosophical discussions with us.
Frankly. And I guess, I think, and I do agree with one part, and we could debate the merits of should we, is
saying we're going to have our school district a threat or not? Well yeah, it's pretty much a threat. Is this
the right time for it? I can see some merit in saying maybe this isn't the right time. By the same token
though I think the balance of the letter, where we just say you know ultimately it's the responsibility to fund
the construction of these schools. For some reason there's a philosophy, I believe, and you guys can
disagree with that, in District 112 that they somehow believe if they join municipal school district
obligations to fund the construction of schools in District 112, because no one's ever really told them no.
And you know we don't represent, as you heard, identical constituent bases. We don't. And they have
frankly, forty some million bucks to do this with. And you know when they, and you were there today.
They don't have a whole lot of interest in looking at the priority list and saying what's really important
because the world has changed. If you really accept the argument that land prices have doubled in
Chanhassen in the last year, or since the referendum, which I don't, and I don't think anyone believes. But
if you assume that is correct, doesn't that give you pause to re-prioritize what you have within this
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referendum. But you were there. There's little or no interest in doing that. They're going to spend a
million bucks on five soccer fields and bleachers. And that's their call. They can do that.
Councilwoman Jansen: And unfortunately they did put all of that time into coming up with those issues
with their constituents.
Scott Botcher: But as Bruce would say, that's a spent cost. You can't get it back. The time is gone. That
doesn't mean you continue on down the road and make a bad short term decision because you've already
spent time doing something else.
Councilwoman Jansen: But as of this morning we came up with the potential for being able to fund, and
afford, the two school sites. I mean through some additional research that needs to be done, they may be
able to do it. Now if we've gone through all of these gyrations to get to that point, well at least we got to
that point before we.
Scott Botcher: The only thing it would cost you is don't buy the argument that we can't do the Degler site.
Because you can. Period.
Councilwoman Jansen: But is it the right decision? And that's again this morning it was pointed to and
legitimately that it may not be in the long term the best position to put these schools in and if we are going
to be looking long term, and it does get to that philosophical question that they're talking about, from what
I understand having the city leaders group discuss, is how they go about making these site decisions but
they don't have those future plans and they need to do that.
Scott Botcher: That all may be, I'm not in the minds of the school board. I'm just suggesting that we need
to make sure that we're very careful in saying, because there were some representations saying well geez,
we can't do this so we must now look at these. I think looking at the other these is probably good but I
don't think you predicate it on the assumption that you can't do something else because it hasn't been
looked at or there's not a real desire to look the other way to make it happen. And that's the one thing I'm
saying. Because I think using a combination of the four things in Ehler's letters in conjunction with other
things that are out there, they can make a lot of sites go.
Councilwoman Jansen: They could and I guess that's where I come back to trying to re-look at that site
with what we've heard now as the potential arguments against it, and even I've changed my mind. And
they were legitimate arguments for us to be pursuing these other potentials.
Scott Botcher: Okay, so how do you tie then this survey into philosophical representations in your
response? Because I think this survey almost demands a philosophical type conceptual response in your
letter. Personal opinion again.
Mayor Mancino: Well I'm going to get back to mine and just say, I feel comfortable sending this letter. I
would want in number 4, I'd like Scott to go through some of the numbers because if they've changed.
And I don't feel uncomfortable with any of the philosophical premises. I'm certainly comfortable with, on
page 3, the paragraph that starts out, we are extremely concerned that we as a governing body have
strongly indicated our desire to have, and then delete that next paragraph with the talking about the legal
option to establish a new, separate, independent school district and leaving that out would be fine for me.
That whole sentence. The other philosophical philosophies that come up here, I don't feel are going to
change. I mean I think whether we address them now. Whether we address them 6 months or a year from
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now. We want to, we wouldn't want the process to be the same that happened in the elementary school
process and the city of Chaska right now has pro rata 53% of the students in District 112. And if you look
at how many schools that they have in Chaska, it's overwhelmingly over that. If you, we have about 33%
of the kids and if you looked at all the 12 schools and if you took the four cities and pro rata them, you
wouldn't have such a big proportion in Chaska. If you did it that way. That was important to the school
district. So I think some of these base philosophies should be out and being discussed with them. Now, if
the rest of the council doesn't feel that the philosophies are correct or things that we shouldn't be talking
about, that's a whole other discussion.
Councilwoman Jansen: Well I guess I for one, and I'm probably the only one that feels this way. I would
not want to be a part of this memo. So if you want to send it as individuals listed, eliminate my name. I'm
not comfortable with it. At this time I don't think it's appropriate.
Mayor Mancino: Okay. Any other council feedback?
Councilman Engel: I think there's just a lot of debate going on now about specifics and variables, none of
which anybody really knows and while you debate all those things back and forth as I've been sitting here
listening for the last, I don't know how long, you lose sight of some key fundamental questions that you just
need answers to and once you see those and know those answers, I think it's a little clearer to see your way
through what's going to happen a month from now. Two months from now. Five years from now. I think
those three questions are, philosophically who's mission is it to fundamentally fund schools? You answer
that question first. Who's got the primary responsibility for fund schools? After that then you discuss
whether or not you really want to spread schools out into communities and for argument sake we're the
only one that cares about Chanhassen so Chanhassen is the subject of that question. Is it a priority to place
a school in Chanhassen? More specifically a high school. I think a high school's much more of an identity
for a community than a middle school for example. And after you know the answer to those two questions
you just ask yourself a third one. When's the best time to move to purchase that land given present
development pressure and the available parcels that can hold a campus? Is the best time now? Or 3 to 4 or
5 years from now? Will you even have an option to do it 3 or 4, 5 years from now? And I think once you
just boil it down to those three simple concepts, it's a pretty easy decision to make if you have the best
interest of Chanhassen in mind. Now if you have the best interests of current School District 112 in mind,
it's up for grabs. We're two different bodies and that's why we have a different view of these things. And
if you can't keep those three things straight, it's easy to get bogged down in the details and the
rationalizations for where you site a school because you're not focused on what I think are the three most
important questions. That's personal opinion but.
Mayor Mancino: So if you go, number one. Who's mission is it to fund schools? It would be the District
112 taxpayer who uses the school.
Councilman Engel: I would say that that's true based on how people vote for referendums and how you
pass taxing levels of the city. And what you base your taxes on for a city.
Mayor Mancino: Any other comments on that?
Councilman Labatt: Well if you look at, you say your question, who funds the schools? 276 students are
going to use the athletic fields at the school so it's just not going to be 112 students that are going to be out
there kicking the soccer ball around. You know, the whole city's going to use it.
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Mayor Mancino: But that doesn't happen.
Councilman Engel: You're saying 276 are going to use Chaska fields?
Councilman Labatt: Sure. They're all part of the Chanhassen, the Chaska, or the Chaska Association for
the soccer. The t-ball. They're all, it's all one big community. And to sit here and for us to sit and draw
lines in concrete between you know then we're 276 and we're in 112. No. You know, we're one
community. Now if Minnetonka or 276 came to us as a council and said we need some help in the location
of a school or redoing the Minnetonka Middle School West up on 41. Would we be willing to be a part of
that? I'd give it full consideration. You bet. So I think it's wrong for us to sit here and say that, and then
divide it between 276 and 112 because everybody in this community will benefit from having the school in
Chanhassen. And as far as the letter, I mean I was just reading Bev's letter again here and you know, Scott
I've got to be honest with you. I've seen better works of writing from you than this one. I don't think this
is going anywhere to work on what we put together on the resolution as trying to form a partnership. I
think this letter is just going to destroy that partnership and send a message to the school board and the
school district that let's just build in Chaska. I mean this is, there's statements in here that frankly I think
if you look at our rules, I think they're disrespectful to another, just to other people. So I don't want to be
a part of that letter. But my kids go to 112 and I supported the referendum and the school board and the
school district and I don't want my name on a letter.
Scott Botcher: Understand that that letter was simply a draft.
Councilman Labatt: Oh I do. I do. And I'm glad.
Scott Botcher: You guys can do whatever you like but I think I would also argue though that.., for a school
that's going to be in Chanhassen. We went to Deephaven or wherever else. You're not going to see that
money. I think that's just reality. Because fundamentally, and this is my position and Mark's is the same
and we haven't talked. It's just coincidental. The schools are created because they across municipal
boundaries and they are, they have taxing authority because it's their obligation to build schools and fund
their maintenance and operation. And I don't think anyone's drawing a line between necessarily 276 and
112 because I think you have a minor bit of cross over but as we sit there and we talk about PE stations
and all these different things, I don't think the focus of it is whether or not we're going to have a 276 kid
kicking a soccer ball around. They're asking for 3 million bucks to buy the dirt. That's the difference. To
me that's just a fundamentally different question and you know they have 40 some million dollars. We're
willing to work with them. Certainly you know some of the statements in there you think are disrespectful.
Please take them out. I don't want to be disrespectful and I've said that to District 112 many times. At the
same time however, I do think that if we have a philosophy we need to communicate it and I think that
given our obligation to our taxpayers as we sat last year in the budget process and all five of you sat there
and we talked about consolidating our funds and watching our liquidity and taking the fund balances and
doing what we could with our bond ratings. Our primary fiduciary responsibility is to this organization.
And maybe that's the hat I have on Steve because that's what I'm paid to do. I'm not paid to build a
school for 112. And you know we've given them the tools to work with it. Linda's right. I think they have
probably after day an increased interest in pursuing those things. Mr. Peterson did not call today as, you
know we were going to get together so I don't know if he'll call tomorrow. But we do need to sit down and
start running serious numbers based upon the Ehler's options. We need to do that. We haven't done that.
The focal point of attack so far from the school district has been simply to seek money. And I don't think
that does even District 112 taxpayers justice. Because District 112 taxpayers through the sweat of their
brows, they're giving District 112 their hard earned money and they gave them their hard earned money on
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the premise that when they did the referendum they could do certain things. Unfortunately the referendum
was put together with the dollars, when they were broken apart, apparently were inadequate simply to go
out and purchase the property. And that's very respectful. But that's also, those are the facts.
Councilman Engel: I want to clarify something too here. I mean not just for Steve but for everybody. If
there's language that you think is offensive, I don't have any problems stripping it out or changing or
deleting, omitting, I don't care. But it's okay to have a disagreement with another governing body. It's just
to have a fundamental disagreement. If we think our best interests are served by locating a high school in
Chanhassen, if we think the only way we'll get that in the future is by having our own school district,
there's nothing wrong with saying we believe that. And if we disagree with 112, then we disagree. I mean
it's just, there's no difference between us having a disagreement up here as a council and our whole group
having a disagreement in whole or in part with 112 school board members. We just disagree. Sometimes
you go your separate ways. There's no hard feelings. If we feel we're doing the best thing for the people
who elected us. They do what they think is the best thing for the people who elected them. I don't have a
problem with disagreeing with them. And if the letter needs to be changed, I don't care.
Scott Botcher: I would piggy back. If there's language in there Steve that you feel is disrespectful, then I
guess I think I would ask you, since I was the original drafter, that you show me the courtesy and tell me
what language you would like taken out that would be able for you, and the same for you, that you could
support. I don't intend to put you all in a position where you feel like you're being disrespectful to District
112 because that's not the issue. The issue is they're asking for your cash and I think Linda wants to say,
stay to the four bullet items and leave it at that is I think what you said. But you know, you're here today,
tonight, tomorrow, working as a group to put together. I mean your goal ought to be here to put together a
letter that you can all support. That doesn't necessarily mean that any of you will be 100% satisfied with
whatever letter goes out. But you're all on the same team. It's not like you know, it's the 3 of you and 2 of
you or 1 of you and 4 of you. It's not that. You're on the same team representing the same constituents.
And District 112 is a team. And Mark's right. Sometimes you're on opposite sides of the line of
scrimmage but I guess if there's things that you want to take out, then tell us what it is. Because I think it's
important that the five of you work together to get something that you can support and communicate a
position.
Councilwoman Jansen: Well and I had started to do exactly that as far as working with the letter that you
had started out with and that's where I found myself having to ask the question, what are we intending to
do with this letter? Because if it is simply a response to the school district staff's request that we consider
these bullet points that they have requested of us, then you know preference would be that those are the
bullet points that we respond to, emphasizing the letter that was drafted by Ehler's as to what we can do.
Again, and that's where I was trying to back off of the, what is it that my difference of opinion with what
we should or shouldn't do, and I don't even come close to even beginning to consider that 3.8 million any
sort of a consideration and I wish we could just cut that out of the entire conversation because it's even
alluded to in our response at some point, and I don't have it highlighted, that there might be some of the
lesser significant requested numbers that could be considered. But we never say what that is. But I mean
that's where.
Scott Botcher: All we say is that we say that some of the fees may be able to be waived. In other words,
and maybe we should say the council retains the legal right to waive some other fees with a smaller
financial impact. We are legally unable to waive others. It was meant to be more of a legal statement as to
what the council can and cannot do because there's some of those fees that you cannot waive because of
council requirements or because of bond covenants. You can't do it. You've obligated a revenue stream
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towards certain payments. And that's just, that's an obligation that the city has. And if we need to change
the nomenclature of the sentence, we can do that so it reads more like it's a legal obligation on your part
that you can't waive them.
Councilwoman Jansen: Well and as it turned out they weren't asking us to waive the SAC and WAC,
correct? Wasn't that a misunderstanding?
Scott Botcher: No, that's true. They were not, although they were not asking us to waive the SAC and
WAC, although they assumed the SAC and WAC would be between $30,000 and $50,000. So they had
not done their research as to what it would really be so you know.
Mayor Mancino: And they did request Victoria to waive the 100% SAC and WAC.
Scott Botcher: You know maybe Linda to try to work this through, I can see, and I don't have Nancy's is
much nicer than mine I guess.., but the whole paragraph on choosing a path somewhere to Victoria, I can
make the argument with myself, as my wife did.
Councilman Labatt: Which one is that Scott?
Scott Botcher: This one right here. The legal person said, how is it germane in this case, at this point in
time, what happened in the city of Victoria? And I said, hell ifI know. Sounds good. So I take it out. I
could sit here and say you know, the paragraph on the city of Victoria, and I just have mine. I think Steve
you've got Nancy's so I'm sort of winging this a little bit.
Councilman Labatt: Here, you can have it.
Scott Botcher: The part on the City of Victoria, I could agree with the argument that I'd take the whole
paragraph out. I could see that. And just saying you know, that's not really necessarily germane to what
we're doing here. I can see that.
Councilwoman Jansen: That was one of the things that I had marked. Okay.
Scott Botcher: I think that, and I'm looking at Nancy's letter here because it's got the edges smoothed out
on it.
Mayor Mancino: Well now wait a minute. I don't agree with that. I mean I think one of the hardest parts,
one of the hardest lessons and I think it's important for the school board to know, that the whole thing with
Victoria got to a point where Victoria did come to the demands or answered the school superintendent's
their 4 or 5 or 6 bullet points. They came up and said yes, we'll do this, this, this, and this. And they still
didn't get it. And I think that's the hard part about it. I don't want to go through this and continue with
this process and every time we step up to the plate, in the end we don't get the school. And I just don't
want that to happen.
Scott Botcher: No, but here's the concharian point of view, and that is that life is like that. I mean you
don't know that and the second thing is that.
Mayor Mancino: It's not a good way to do business.
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Scott Botcher: No, it's not. It's not. I think the whole issue with Victoria was mishandled. At the same
time I can't say that if I was czar and I was the city of Victoria, I might have done things differently if I
was Victoria. I mean I think there's probably two sides to that, although I think that Victoria I think acted
out of good faith with the full expectation that if they performed they would receive the benefit.
Mayor Mancino: An elementary school.
Scott Botcher: Performance, right. That didn't happen. I wasn't a party to that. Again, I think that in
terms of the philosophies that Mark said, that's, I think it's ancillary to those a little bit. And I don't know.
I think that, I think what you want to communicate is largely what Mark laid out, which is what I tried to
say in some of these things. It's not our job to pay for schools. We're willing to help you, but you're
going to have to pay us back. I mean because Bev's letter is not a give us money free for 3 ½ years. I
think, and I'm back on.
Mayor Mancino: The other thing goes to your community based education. How these should be spread
out to the district.
Councilman Engel: If you don't broach that point you're really ignoring the elephant in the room.
Scott Botcher: That's the community base?
Mayor Mancino: Yes.
Councilwoman Jansen: Well and I guess I wrote next to the paragraph on Nancy's page 2. It's the bottom
real full paragraph that somewhere in here, what we're trying to get at is that they need a policy. They
don't have a policy for siting schools and that's what we're suggesting we need to all come together as
members of the district and get that determined so that they are following a policy and maybe avoiding
what we're terming to be this win/lose. This perceived win/lose situation. If they had determined that their
only option, because of policy was in Chanhassen, we might have reached today's option consideration a
little more quickly.
Mayor Mancino: No, because they don't want to do...
Councilwoman Jansen: I don't know that. But it seems if they had a policy, I mean that's what we're
coming back to.
Mayor Mancino: Oh well that's what Jim Paulson said a month ago with them.
Councilwoman Jansen: Absolutely.
Mayor Mancino: He said that they wanted one right after Victoria.
Scott Botcher: Sure he said it half a year ago.
Mayor Mancino: Yeah. They should have done one a long time ago.
Scott Botcher: And I can't read their minds and know if there's any real interest in having a policy or not.
And sometimes I think we got too many policies in the world.
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Mayor Mancino: Well actually that's what I thought we were doing as a group when we met Monday
morning but that hasn't happened.
Scott Botcher: Yeah, well that hasn't worked that way.
Mayor Mancino: I know. I mean we've been trying to talk about some of these philosophical questions in
those Monday mornings but it never gets there.
Councilman Engel: ... purely in black and white, there's really no shades of gray and some things I look at
policy on siting schools, and all the clamoring that's been going on in the city, do you really need a policy
to know you should put schools in places evenly? Doesn't everybody want a school in their community?
Councilwoman Jansen: But the other part of that that they're trying to weigh is the fiscal responsibility.
Councilman Engel: Can't do that.
Councilwoman Jansen: And that's what they're trying to establish with their taxpayers is which is the
priority.
Mayor Mancino: Well that's because.., referendum.
Councilman Engel: There's where you go wrong with that thinking because you can't have both of these
guides because you're always going to be at odds. Case in point, look at how expensive the land is here.
Look how cheap it is there.
Councilwoman Jansen: Oh I don't disagree but that's where they need a policy to say that so that they're
not weighing those two against each other.
Mayor Mancino: They're not right now. They've set their policy right now ad hocly as fiscal. Not
community based. That's...the question is.
Councilwoman Jansen: And that was partially what Beverly was saying she was trying to accomplish,
though I'm not arguing that she managed it with this random survey questionnaire. But she had started at
least with the original premise being, figuring out what the District 112 taxpayers priority was. Is it the
location of the school, or is it staying within budget as it was set in the referendum?
Mayor Mancino: But when you ask a question and you have it says twice as much.
Councilwoman Jansen: I started out by saying that I don't agree with the way the questions are worded in
the questionnaire but that's what she was trying to accomplish.
Scott Botcher: I'm going to try to force you back to, and I'm working off of Nancy's letter now because
it's got some of the bad words I used out of there. Because I had to sit through all that variance stuff on
parking spaces. I'm going to finish this letter Melissa. Is that okay?
Mayor Mancino: Well, and I think we should talk about the philosophy of community based education.
It's got to be in there.
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Scott Botcher: Yeah, is that an additional? I mean I think I can put, the city considers community based
education to be a priority of it's...
Mayor Mancino: Is closer proximation to the pro rata population.
Scott Botcher: ... share with you. Okay.
Mayor Mancino: And the time is now. When's the best time? I thought that was great because the land
prices are going to go up.
Councilman Engel: You're not going to have the options.
Mayor Mancino: You're not going to have the options and land availability in Chan.
Councilman Engel: You've got everything going against you there. Absolutely everything is against you.
Timing is not on your side. Is your enemy in this whole debate. And is cost is the only thing, let me go to
Victoria. I can guarantee you I can find some cheaper land out in Victoria. I'll see if they've got stuff on
the west side of Victoria, that will be cheapest.
Councilwoman Jansen: They've got the land already for the cheaper site. They know where it's at. But
they wouldn't even be asking us this, to go through all of these gyrations if they didn't realize how
significant this is to Chanhassen, to the district. I mean they're trying to make this work in Chanhassen and
the debate is do we think they're trying hard enough? You know they're having to figure out where they
compromise to their taxpayers.
(There were a number of different conversations going on at the same time at this point in the meeting.)
Melissa Gillman: Excuse me, can you use the microphones?
Mayor Mancino: Okay. Let's go ahead and have Scott rewrite. Take some of mine. Take another shot
and talk about community based education. When's the best time? Now.
Scott Botcher: I'll try to take out as many potentially offensive statements as I can.
Mayor Mancino: And can you read, and look up at the numbers and the ones that are not accurate now,
can you make them accurate? On number 4.
Scott Botcher: Yeah.
Mayor Mancino: And can you e-mail us a copy Scott?
Scott Botcher: Yes I will.
Mayor Mancino: And then can we have a motion to table this meeting until next Monday night?
Roger Knutson: Adjourn the meeting.
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Mayor Mancino: Recess the meeting until next Monday night. Is there a motion?
Roger Knutson: What time?
Scott Botcher: 5:30.
Mayor Mancino: Well we should say before that. 4:30.
Scott Botcher: What are we doing?
Mayor Mancino: Because next Monday night is we're having discussions with commissions so we should
say 4:30 at least. Okay?
Scott Botcher: Okay. Now my question is to Roger. I do this, and I'm not doing this tonight but I do this.
I e-mail to people. It's public record then correct? So I give it to Melissa. So I copy you on it. So I play
fair. How do we, because the school's going to ask me, do we have a letter that's been approved by the
council or not? How do I get to that point?
Councilman Labatt: Before Monday?
Scott Botcher: Well they'd like it, they wanted it before tomorrow. I said no, we're meeting tonight and
that's what we're going to do. How do I get, do I just get calls or e-mails from these folks saying it's okay?
And then like document those and then save that and then let Melissa know yes, it's a go. I just want to
make sure I don't do something illegal.
Mayor Mancino: Or should we have a special meeting during this week and just get a quorum to meet?
I'm just asking. I'm just asking.
Councilwoman Jansen: And they need it for Thursday night.
Scott Botcher: If we fax a response on behalf of the council, if they all give me their.., and say, I'm.
Mayor Mancino: Well I hope they're discussing...
Scott Botcher: Each one of you will probably find parts of the letter that you're not going, you're going to
say ah, I might do that different but understand that's part of the compromise. But if they all say I'm okay
with it, then do we go back like we talked about. I'll just sign it saying I have a reasonable direction from
my employer to send out this letter.
Roger Knutson: You can do that.
Scott Botcher: Does that fly?
Councilman Engel: Scott, just for FYI. As you start circulating documents like that, number them. This is
Version 1-01. Then next time you get a change, this is 1-02 because sometimes you may think you're
talking about the same document but you're talking about two different ones. Start versioning them so
everybody knows that something's been included.
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City Council Meeting - May 8, 2000
Scott Botcher: Okay, fair enough. Can we do that? Is that okay? I mean I just want to make sure we're
all on the up and up. So check your e-mails tomorrow.
Councilman Labatt: I'm off tomorrow but I'll be home. My computer's kind of messed up. That's why I
didn't get these.
Scott Botcher: I've got a 9:00 meeting. Staff meeting and I've got a 1:00 meeting so I'm going to try to
get something to you in the morning.
Mayor Mancino: So why don't you guys check in with each other.
Councilman Labatt: Well if you want to give me a call or I'll call you.
Scott Botcher: Have you got a fax?
Councilman Labatt: Yeah. You can fax it to me.
Scott Botcher: Because I know you're on the fax speed dial.
Councilman Labatt: Yeah, just do that and then maybe give me a page or call and let me know when the
fax is. I'll be out with the kids tomorrow. I go back to work Wednesday.
Scott Botcher: Thanks for your patience.
Mayor Mancino recessed the City Council meeting until Monday, May 15, 2000 at 4:30 p.m.
Submitted by Scott Botcher
City Manager
Prepared by Nann Opheim
94