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CC Minutes 2000 10 23 PCHANHASSEN CITY COUNCIL REGULAR MEETING OCTOBER 23, 2000 Acting Mayor Senn called the meeting to order at 6:30 p.m. The meeting was opened with the Pledge to the Flag. COUNCILMEMBERS PRESENT: Councilman Senn, Councilman Labatt, Councilwoman Jansen, and Councilman Engel COUNCILMEMBERS ABSENT: Mayor Mancino STAFF PRESENT: Roger Knutson, Scott Botcher, Bob Generous, and Todd Gerhardt APPROVAL OF AGENDA: Councilwoman Jansen moved, Councilman Labatt seconded to approve the agenda as presented. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously. PUBLIC ANNOUNCEMENTS: None. CONSENT AGENDA: Councilwoman Jansen moved, Councilman Labatt seconded to approve the following Consent Agenda items pursuant to the City Manager's recommendations: a. Summerfield Addition (aka Springfield 8th Addition), Meridian Development: 1) Final Plat Approval 2) Approve Development Contract/PUD Agreement and Plans & Specifications, Project 00-13. b. Arrowhead Addition; Located at the Southwest Comer of Powers Boulevard and Holly Lane: 1) Final Plat Approval 2) Approve Development Contract and Plans & Specifications, Project 00-09. c. Approve Land Use Map Amendment from Residential-Medium Density to Commercial; 7 & 41 Crossing Center, 2485 Highway 7 and SuperAmerica, 2391 Highway 7, City of Chanhassen d. Approval of Bills. e. Approval of City Council Minutes: Work Session Minutes dated October 9, 2000 Regular City Council Meeting Minutes dated October 9, 2000 Receive Commission Minutes: Planning Commission Minutes dated October 3, 2000 - Park & Recreation Commission Minutes dated September 26, 2000 f. Approval of Antenna Agreement with Sprint PCS, Located on Outlot A, Arboretum Business Park (Water Reservoir). City Council Meeting - October 23, 2000 g. Amend Development Contract for the Bluff Creek Corporate Center. h. Approval of Continuing Disclosure Contract with Ehlers & Associates. i. Approval of Findings of Fact & Decision, Cosgrove Kennel Permit Application. Resolution #2000-73: Approval of Request for EDA to Issue Bonds for Lake Ann Maintenance Building. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously. VISITOR PRESENTATIONS: None. UPDATE FROM SGT. DAVE POTTS, CARVER COUNTY SHERIFF'S DEPARTMENT AND JOHN WOLFF~ FIRE CHIEF. Sgt. Dave Potts: Good evening council members. If you've had a chance to review my written memo. I don't have a lot to add to that unless any of those items brought up questions in your mind that you'd like a little more info or a little clarification. One item not listed on there, just to bring to your attention, involves city property. There was some damage out at Lake Ann Park. A vehicle was driving upon the property witnessed by a city employee. Information allowed the deputy to track down the vehicle, the driver. Got a full confession so done deal on some damage that was done over at the park over there. But other than that, unless you have any questions or whatever. The information that I gave you this month. Acting Mayor Senn: Any questions? Scott Botcher: Just a piece of information, and David I haven't heard. Maybe you can inform me. I received an e-mail from Steve Beddor who lives on Pleasant View Road who's involved in the Project Leadfoot thing, asking me to sort of put together a de briefing I guess of the first year. Do we lmow when that is? I responded, I sent him an e-mail Thursday saying I'm sorry I'm tardy. I gave him some dates that were good and he said actually I was the first one to respond. Are you meeting tomorrow do you lmow? Sgt. Dave Potts: We haven't set a date or time. Scott Botcher: That's all I need to lmow. Sgt. Dave Potts: That's the short answer. Scott Botcher: Thank you, that's what I needed to know. Because I lmow Steve wanted it to be Monday or Tuesday and I told him Tuesday was best but. Councilman Engel: Those 20 dollar bills, were they the new kind or the old kind? Sgt. Dave Potts: They were the new kind. Councilman Engel: The new ones? City Council Meeting - October 23, 2000 Sgt. Dave Potts: And they were, I was going to try to get my hands on one of them to show you what they looked like but just to look at them, they look great. But you hold them up to the light and you don't see that little hidden picture that you lmow you can see through it. And actually how it was discovered was as they were flipping through bills, this one, one bill had a smudge on it. Well real money doesn't smudge. And so that was the tip. Scott Botcher: Well mine does. Sorry. Councilman Engel: So are they printing those? Did they find this guy's printing them here or was the guy just passing them? Sgt. Dave Potts: That's a metro wide investigation by the Secret Service and they're involved but we happen to be the agency that nabbed one of the people involved and the rest is history from there. I'm sure they're still working on it to some degree you lmow because it was a pretty big operation. From the Secret Service they say it wasn't the real good quality stuff. It's computer printed stuff you lmow. Copier kind of quality. As far as that goes, it was the better quality stuff. But to look at it you'd say, looks good to me. You look at it a little closer you can see it's bad. But a lot of our businesses that accepted these before somebody noticed it so we went back and grabbed as many as we could out of circulation again. Acting Mayor Senn: Good job. Sgt. Dave Potts: Thanks. Acting Mayor Senn: Any other questions? Councilman Labatt: No. Councilwoman Jansen: No. Thank you. Acting Mayor Senn: John. John Wolff: Council. Brief report again. It's been pretty quiet which is good news. Staffing, we're down one from our charter of 45, which is expected. We have about 10 to 15% turn over per year. We've got 37 active, 2 on light duty or transitional duty, and 5 probationary members in training. Calls year to date, we're down 3.6%. We're at 567 calls. The new dispatching protocol we talked about earlier in the year has actually made a pretty big impact. We're estimating between 65 and 75 calls we haven't gotten that we would have otherwise have gotten, which would have had us up compared to really any year almost by 5%. Recent calls of interest, we did have a grass fire west of Lake Ann on the 10th of October. And we brought in two other fire departments. It was a real quick response. Someone saw the fire early. Actually it was a monitored fire. It was a permitted fire. A burning permit. It was a homeowner that was burning some debris. And this is a very similar fire to the one in Anoka in terms of how it started. The good news is that it didn't sustain itself and end that way. Our fire was 3 acres. The Anoka fire was 10,000 acres. Fire conditions right now are extremely severe in the metro area. In fact, and this really isn't that well publicized. There are no burning permits currently being allowed and there's no rec fires even allowed. You can only use gas grill, propane, etc. So it's something that we're going to try to elevate a little bit with the local media. Using the Villager and so forth but I haven't seen anything really in any of the metro papers saying you know, there is no burning at all allowed and we had 2 or 3 small grass fires this past weekend but the danger is that it's just so dry. Even with a day like City Council Meeting - October 23, 2000 today, this will dry out in a day or two and we'll be right back to where we were so this doesn't really bring us 30 days of recovery time. It may give us a couple of days so we're definitely concerned and we're going to try to do a little educating around that. From a training perspective, we have 10 members that have been certified now as advanced open water divers which will give us a capability that we didn't have to handle our waterways and we're real excited about that. Recently the second week of October was Fire Prevention Week and in conjunction with that, as we have in really every year for a number of years now, we go out to the schools and this year we went to Pre-K through 3rd grade. We touched over 2,000 students. We had 2 full time employees helping us with that and we had 420 volunteer hours. These are people that are on the fire department, that weren't paid. Took time off from their own jobs to participate in getting the word out and doing some fire ed work with our students. And then cap the week off on Sunday, the 15th of October and had approximately 1,500 people attend our open house and once again it was a great event. Just a quick note on the budget. We're on target for fiscal year 2000 and we also are on target for our capital budget so, take any questions? Acting Mayor Senn: Any questions anybody? Councilman Labatt: No, only I wanted to comment on was the day they had the first graders over for the tour of the open house over here for the Bluff Creek kids. I came on with the chaperone, two busloads of first graders so I mean I couldn't speak more highly of John and the fire guys that were there on how they handled these kids and they had it all set up for stations and Jim Tice did a heck of a j ob keeping them going so it was a great time and well run. John Wolff: Thank you. Thanks for that comment. Acting Mayor Senn: Thank you John. Councilman Labatt: My kids are still talking stop, drop and roll. PUBLIC HEARING: CABLE TV FRANCHISE APPLICATION. Scott Botcher: Mr. Julian is the gentleman you've met in the past. It's not Chris, it's Eric Todd. Chris Julian is the gentleman that you may have seen around in the past. Maybe not. Maybe he's just been bugging Todd and I and the staff. Anyway, Wide Open West is another rapidly expanding cable/internet company and as part of the franchise process they need to have, we are required to hold a public hearing to solicit any comment from the public. They have submitted their application. You should have in your packet a document giving you all of the data they submitted, excised of the private proprietary data. There's a power point presentation that Eric would like to show us tonight. Eric promises us that it will be short. He will go right along but I guess Mr. Senn, one of the things that you may want to do after he's done is just ask the audience if they have any comments. Really tonight council's role is really just to listen. You'll have your chance at a future meeting to ask more questions. Acting Mayor Senn: And just so people generally understand, we currently have two approved? Scott Botcher: You have approved the granting of two franchises. One to our existing provider, MediaCom. You also have approved subsequent to the approval of the agreement, an agreement with Everest Communications to be the second provider within the community. As I indicated in the work session, Todd and I and legal representatives from the city, Mr. Grogan, and from the firm, Everest, have met. We probably have the agreement 90% hammered out. We have a couple issues that we have sort City Council Meeting - October 23, 2000 of laid back into their court that we would like to see satisfied in the manner that we described and it's our hope that we'll get it to you by the end of November and December. Acting Mayor Senn: Okay. And again just so people understand, there is no limitation on the number of franchises we can give and it's strictly open competition. It's just a matter of us essentially hearing and approving of the applications. Scott Botcher: Yep. Acting Mayor Senn: Okay. Alrighty. With that, this is a public hearing but why don't we start with Eric and give your presentation and then we'll go to comments from the public. Eric Brown: Well thank you. Good evening, members of City Council and city staff. My name is Eric Brown and I'm the Project Manager for Wide Open West and Chris Julian who is our Vice President of Market Development generally has been appearing before the city's at the public hearings, was unable to attend tonight and asked ifI would come. He sent me his power point presentation and it's, he told me it generally goes 20 to 30 minutes so we're going to see if we can't maybe abbreviate it a little bit for you SO. Scott Botcher: Give me that clicker. Acting Mayor Senn: Is this first slide and last slide you said or? Scott Botcher: Hey, we took power point class. We can zip through this. Eric Brown: Something like that. I made a few notes too so if you would bear with me. Now I've got to get this to work. First, Wide Open West is a broad band company that has designed a high capacity fiber optic network to bring you the fastest, multi mega byte, two way internet speed, cable TV and voice services available in the market today. Our company mission. To build and operate the country's best residential fiber optic based high band with internet and digital cable television network. Our management team consists of a group of highly talented and experienced individuals who come from all areas of the telecommunications industry. In fact our CEO and founder, Mr. Mark Habberket and several of our top management came from a company back east call RCN. Which spent approximately 5 years over building the existing cable providers from Washington D.C. to Boston. So they had, in doing so they received much experience in constructing and operating competitive cable systems. Wide Open West was officially formed just about a year ago. Our corporate staff just recently moved into our new headquarters in Castle Rock, Colorado. You'll note that 22% of the company is owned by our management. This is a requirement of the Oak Hill Group that any company invest in, that the top officials also make a capital investment. This had been Oak Hill's formula for success. Our financial partners primarily invested in the telecommunications industry. In the last 10 years these are the types of companies that they have invested in. In the last 10 months Wide Open West has been awarded franchises in these 19 communities, which provides us with a total of 1.2 million homes past. As you can see we have franchises awarded in Texas, Arizona, Missouri, Colorado. To date we are still looking forward to receiving our first franchise in Minnesota. This is essentially the architecture, simplified format for our network. The two key components here are the redundant fiber optic ring. What this provides us is an opportunity for should there be a break in the system, if someone accidentally cuts the line or a pole falls down or something like that in a storm, it would not lmock out the whole network. It actually would provide for isolating wherever that problem was. The outage occurred and still maintain the mai ority of our customers on the network. The other item is that our design allows for 150 homes City Council Meeting - October 23, 2000 served per node, and that compares with anywhere from 500 to 1,200 homes currently that are served per node, and the reason why we're designing it this way from the ground up is because we want to be able to maintain the type of speeds that you can get with not having so much congestion on the network. Some of the speeds that we're talking about as far as the internet services go, always on 10 megabyte per second transfer speeds and what we're hearing from our engineers, that may soon be increasing. The technology is changing that fast and they're improving on things that they're now expecting to top out or at least reach at least 100 megabytes per second. At 10 megabytes per second we were comparing that to a 56 K modem and it's 175 times faster so things that were talcing like 45 minutes to download are now taking 4 or 5 seconds. And to think of it running at even faster than that is just hard to comprehend. Some of the other services are going to be the IT telephony which is the voice over internet. What it's going to allow people to do is act as a second line initially where they can make long distance phone calls over the internet. They'll be able to use the telephones they now have in the house. It won't require any special equipment. On the cable, digital cable TV side. That's 860 MHz band width. 80 channel capacity, basic service which is unscrambled to the back of the TV sets, VCR's. The premium digital TV channels will be 100 with a potential capacity to expand up to 300 channels. There's going to be all of the normal events. You lmow we're going to provide the Pay Per View, }tDTV signals. Digital music channels. Probably the single most important thing to us is having the best customer service standards. We're going to do this by having people available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. We're going to empower our customer service representatives so they actually can make a decision without having to tell you well I'll have to get back to you on that or something like that. We're going to have people that are available to stay in contact with our customers. They lmow exactly what the status is. One of the things that they want to do too is be able to have you check even through the internet to see when the appointment is or what the status is of maybe a repair that you're waiting on or something else. The consumer benefits is a super high band width and always on the internet. No more dial up or anything like that. The other advantage that Wide Open West provides is allowing the other ISP's to come onto the network and compete. We are going to offer our own version of internet service but also to, if other companies want to come on. In fact there's two companies now in Denver that have signed up and will be also competing to provide people services so it's really designed along the lines of competition and competition is being a real big plus for the communities that we serve. Benefits to the city is increased franchise revenue. You know the other thing that we're pointing out is that when we have, when you allow other franchisees, or have franchises, other providers come in, you actually end up with seeing the services improve from the incumbent. There's an interest in the new company, the entrant to get as many customers as they can and it just gives overall interest. It generates interest amongst people maybe who are not currently signed up with a cable company. And potentially the penetration is increased and it means more revenue and things for the city. We provide a part of our program is to provide an I-Net for an institution network for the cities. It's basically two dark fibers to all the institutions in the city identifies. It's something that we maintain throughout the period of our franchise. A thing that we of course request is a level playing field, and we point out that the cable incumbent already has all the customers. Still we will come in and we believe though the better network on the same schedule. Pay the same franchise fees per customer. Carry the same global access channels and pay on per subscriber basis as far as the PEG... things like that. The first phase is what we're in now which is public hearings. Obtaining franchises and then going out and getting the full attached agreements which is part... Phase 2 is construction. The engineering walking out in the areas. Mapping. Something that I've currently been involved with. And then eventually the construction commences. We are, everything that is in the works for just an unbelievable communication plan for the neighborhoods, for the cities so they lmow exactly what's going on. Where we're working. Right down to uniforms and easily identifiable trucks with our logos and everything else. We're committed to be as least disruptive as we can. Phase 3 is our customer service, and essentially things are in order right now for training of our technicians. Training the customers for personnel. And as I said, a lot of these people will be in a City Council Meeting - October 23, 2000 position where they're going to be able to contact with our customers. Make decisions that will help rectify situations quickly. And the last phase is our marketing installations and operations and as Chris has said, if we fail on Phase 1, 2 and 3, we'll never make it to 4. So it's very critical for us to follow our business plan and stick to our commitments and get to the point where we are actually in a position to be advertising and earning new customers. Our company's pluses, our experience. The fact that this has been done before successfully and one of the comments was, and these fellows from RCN in building from Washington D.C. to Boston, that included Manhattan and one of the guys was saying, believe you. If you can build out Manhattan, you can build anywhere and do it successfully. In Minnesota we are concentrating on the Minneapolis/St. Paul metroplex. Especially areas like this where we feel the demographics shows that the citizenry can be interested in the services that we're offering and be interested in becoming customers. And material availability. We've got materials and everything we need well into next year and our commitment is we expect no surprises. And that's it. The only thing that I'd like to finish with is that we have a web site. It's, we can be reached there at www.wideopenwest, com. And it's kind of interesting if you go to it, it gives you kind of an interactive, you can select different things to see and it shows a floorplan of a home and some of the services that we'll be providing and it's really quite nice. So it's worth taking a trip there and seeing it. If you have any questions that I can help you with. Acting Mayor Senn: Thank you. Anybody on council have any questions of Mr. Brown? Councilwoman Jansen: No questions. Councilman Labatt: No. Acting Mayor Senn: Okay. Well this is a public hearing. Is there anybody here who would like to comment or talk on this? Nobody? Okay, well we'll close the public hearing then. Beyond that, as I understand it, we are taking no action tonight then? Scott Botcher: No sir. We just need to close the public hearing. Acting Mayor Senn: Okay. We've done that. Public hearing's closed. Okay. Alright, well thank you Mr. Brown. Eric Brown: How long was that by the way? Scott Botcher: Well it was more than 5 but you're okay. Is it possible for us to download that power point presentation for our uses? Eric Brown: Sure. I can actually, Chris e-mail me a copy of it today so I can e-mail it to you. Scott Botcher: If you could, that would be great. Thank you. AWARD OF BIDS: INSURANCE AGENTS OF RECORD DESIGNATION, PROPERTY AND CASUALTY LINES. Scott Botcher: Consistent with the council's policy, one of the folks up for the 3 year bid process this year was the agent of record for our property and casualty lines. Dolliff Insurance in St. Louis Park has been our agent of record for, I want to say nye upon 20 years. I don't know if or how much bidding has gone on recently. Dolliff originally received this business late 70's, 1980-81 through a competitive bid City Council Meeting - October 23, 2000 process. This year we went through a competitive bid process. Scope of services was identified. Sent out to 6 individuals, or 6 parties. Got 2 responses. One was from T.C. Field and Company. The other was from Dolliff. Both of them have extensive experience acting as agent of record. T.C. Fields is based out of St. Paul. Dolliffis in St. Louis Park. T.C. Field has probably 40 municipal clients. Dolliffhas one, which is us and as I said in my memo, T.C. Field came in with a proposal that was approximately $5,000 less than the Dolliff quote which is the same amount we paid last year so staff is recommending appointment of T.C. Field and Company as the agent of record for the City of Chanhassen. Acting Mayor Senn: Thank you. Any questions of Scott? If not, could we have a motion to appoint T.C. Field and Company as the agent of record for the, which period of time? I'm sorry. Scott Botcher: It's a 3 year. Generally we do it every 3 year. I would recommend that you not make the appointment for 3 years. I would just appoint them which gives you the right to unappoint them if for some reason you're dissatisfied with their service. Acting Mayor Senn: Okay, and we would review it then again though in 3 years? Scott Botcher: Yes sir, at a minimum. Acting Mayor Senn: Okay. Can we have a motion to that effect? Councilman Labatt: So moved. Councilman Engel: Second. Acting Mayor Senn: Okay. Any discussion? Councilman Labatt moved, Councilman Engel seconded that the City Council appoint T.C. Field & Company as the Agent of Record for the City of Chanhassen. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously. CONSIDER RESOLUTION FOR SAFETY IMPROVEMENTS TO HIGHWAY 101 BETWEEN WEST 78TM STREET AND TOWNLINE ROAD. Scott Botcher: Consistent with your direction of 2 weeks ago, the City Engineer and I have worked to put together a draft resolution trying to communicate the City's position and desire for safety improvements to occur on State Highway 101 between West 78th Street and Townline Road. A draft of the resolution was included in your packet and if this is something you continue to desire to pass in order to communicate your position on certain improvements on 101, then passing this resolution would be in order. If you have language modifications you would like to make, please let me lmow and I guess that's about it. Acting Mayor Senn: Okay, any questions? Councilman Labatt: I did the work session on that fifth whereas, where the State Highway remains in need of several, delete that one word safety improvements. Scott Botcher: We can remove that, sure. If that's the council's desire. City Council Meeting - October 23, 2000 Councilman Labatt: Okay. Acting Mayor Senn: Anybody else have any changes? Councilman Engel: No, that was the one. Councilwoman Jansen: No, that was the only one. If not, how about a motion? Do we need to make a motion on this? I think so. Got to pass the resolution. Acting Mayor Senn: Councilman Engel: Acting Mayor Senn: Councilman Engel: Okay. Approve the resolution as worded with Councilman Labatt's edit. Acting Mayor Senn: Is there a second? Councilwoman Jansen: Second. Resolution #2000-74: Councilman Engel moved, Councilwoman Jansen seconded to approve the resolution communicating a desire for safety improvements to State Highway 101 between West 78th Street and Townline Road as amended. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously. CONSIDER CITY CODE AMENDMENT CONCERNING GRAFFITI. Scott Botcher: In last meeting's packet I believe I included a copy of a graffiti ordinance from the City of Minnetonka. We have had a couple issues dealing with graffiti in our city. Unfortunately or fortunately they seem to be hitting city property more than anybody else's but, so maybe we're more sensitive to it. We have drafted this to fit the City of Chanhassen Code. You can read it yourself so I won't read it to you. Also included in your packet is a memo from Vernelle Clayton. As I indicated in the work session, I did make a brief presentation on this proposed ordinance to the Executive Board of the Chamber of Commerce as the probability exists that commercial property may be more impacted by graffiti than residential properties. Again this is something that is optional at your discretion. We currently don't really have a very effective deterrent legally to graffiti and again if you want to make language changes or such, now's the time to speak your piece. Acting Mayor Senn: Okay, any questions of Scott? Councilwoman Jansen: No. I'm comfortable with what staff put together. Thanks for drafting one. Acting Mayor Senn: Are there any comments or questions or changes from anybody? Okay, if not could we have a motion? Councilwoman Jansen: Move approval. Councilman Engel: Second. City Council Meeting - October 23, 2000 Councilwoman Jansen moved, Councilman Engel seconded to approve an ordinance amending Chapter 13 of the Chanhassen City Code adding Article V, Graffiti. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously. CONSIDERATION OF CITY CENTER COMMONS DESIGN RFP SPECIFICATIONS. Scott Botcher: At the last meeting when we approved the library RFP it was reiterated that staff should go back and draft up a scope of services for a City Center Commons design process and so that is what we have attempted to do. Certainly there are a number of issues in front of the council, most of which you discussed at your work session so I won't restate them. Again I think staff's just looking for your direction on it. I think it makes a lot of sense to have the library and City Center Commons project design be done in parallel. I don't think you want to put the City Center Commons design off until the library's done because I tend to agree with Mr. Engel as to being somewhat cynical as to when we'll ever get back to it. To paraphrase. At the same time we need to make sure that the design incorporates library design needs because certainly the library is driving to a great extent what will happen with the City Center Commons. Obviously you'll exercise discretion. You've been very clear that you don't want the entire front piece of grass to be the library, but to some extent what happens with the library in terms of design will impact to some extent the Commons. I guess I just, you lmow we need some direction as to how you would like to do this. Certainly whatever you communicate in terms of, if you want to follow Mark. What Mark put on the board, we can do that. We'll just obviously have to incorporate those types of things in the scope of services so the perspective bidders are aware of what our thoughts are. That's just appropriate so I don't think I have anything else to add. It's sort ofyour's to hammer out some of these details. Acting Mayor Senn: Okay. Councilwoman Jansen: I have one question. From what Teresa had brought up in the work session about having the contractor then working with the landscape architect as the sub. Does any of the language in this RFP then need to be adjusted to speak to that relationship? Scott Botcher: It should be. Yeah, we should communicate that our desire, if that's what you choose, to establish that sort of relationship and it does not at this point. Councilwoman Jansen: Okay. Scott Botcher: It's not a bad idea. Councilwoman Jansen: Can we do that tonight or do you need to. Scott Botcher: Sure, oh no, no, no. No, we can do that. You can just communicate what you like and I can fix it up and send it out. Again I might, and I'm flying in the dark here. I might make a few calls to people. Remember what Kate said, assuming that they'll do it. I don't lmow. Only one way to find out frankly and if they don't, then we go back and we bid it another way. Because we still want the library to be a bit ahead so I don't think that we're not up against the wall in time that badly on this project. But if you have a preferable process, try it. If it doesn't work, try something else. Councilwoman Jansen: Well I don't know how anyone else felt but I liked that idea that Teresa brought up as far as our then being able to designate who the landscape architect would be and have the two talking and being the communication themselves. 10 City Council Meeting - October 23, 2000 Acting Mayor Senn: Councilman Engel: Councilman Labatt: onus off the city. Councilman Engel: Councilman Labatt: Councilman Engel: Any other questions? I would concur completely, go ahead. When you brought up the idea of having a project manager. So then that takes that Puts it on the designer of the library. Okay, I just want to make sure we're all on the same. Which makes it a great idea because it takes the city out of the loop, I would concur completely because, and we can put that in part of the RFP for both of these firms that they agree to work with the other but we get to make the selection of both. Councilman Labatt: So who's got some wording then? Scott Botcher: I'll come up with it. Councilman Engel: You lmow where we're driving though. We get to select both firms. Part of the acceptance on their part is they agree to work together and the sub is the landscape firm that will trail the library design firm and that takes it off of us effectively. Acting Mayor Senn: Okay. Councilman Engel: Do we need to move on that? Scott Botcher: No I can do it. Councilman Engel: Okay, good. COUNCIL PRESENTATIONS: None. ADMINISTRATIVE PRESENTATIONS: DISCUSSION REGARDING COUNCIL DEFINITION OF CUSTOMER SERVICE PER TASK PLAN. Scott Botcher: One of the items in the task plan, and believe it or not I do read that on occasion. In the task plan was the customer service issue and when the task plan was being put together I had mentioned the issue of defining what customer service means. We have a couple customer service tasks, I think 3 or 4 identified as first quarter 2001 tasks. And I think that's fine and they should stay there. But as we go into the process, I guess my question is, and I struggled with this and even as I read this thing again about how they did this, I'm not sure this is the best way to identify what it means but. Before we go spending time and money on customer service initiatives, I guess my question is, how do you know if you're going to be successful unless you have a definition? How do you know if you've actually attained what you wish to attain unless you agreed on what it is you want to attain? And so in the task plan we have a single line in there just mentioning the definition of what customer service is. And cities around the country have been very good about starting customer service initiatives. There's all sorts of people doing it. Few of them have really defined what customer service is, which raises the question, what are they 11 City Council Meeting - October 23, 2000 going to? You lmow how do they lmow when they get there? And I don't know if, and I guess the thing I liked about the North Caroline example is that it tended to incorporate these 8 dimensions of public sector service quality that are in the third paragraph and measure them from the customer's point of view, but it also measured them from the employees/providers point of view and I think, the more I read about that, and I didn't put the whole, obviously the whole communicate I got from my source in this paragraph, but there appears to be, and there are articles out there that would tend to support this, some disparity in the perception of what customer service is and how you achieve it. Although one thing that I don't know that this community did that other resources have indicated may exist, is that there actually may be a three headed monster as to what customer service is. You've got the employees who generally tend to under estimate the satisfaction level that customers actually have with the services that they provide. If you think about it, a majority of our calls and a majority of our contacts are negative in nature. We do have people that will stop in and say geez, you guys did a really nice job or they call up and say you did a nice job but candidly a big part of our job is dealing with customer service complaints. Just like Qwest. And you know that goes to the psyche of any organization. Be it us or Qwest or anybody else. You just think god, the whole world just thinks we stink. And it leads your employees to tend to believe that everyone out there thinks you stink and the perception of the quality you're providing then is suppressed. The converse seems to be true from the customer's point of view. From the citizen's point of view. And then there appears to be case studies indicate that the third body would actually be the governing bodies. The governing body's perspective can be different depending on whether or not it's considered to be a network sort of a group. A group that's more fragmented. There's different perspectives that that will bring into it. And that tends to be more individual in nature and much more difficult to quantify frankly. So you know I tried to come up with what I thought was a good way to maybe address this customer service definition issue. There was a city in Florida that had a definition that just pained me to read. It just babbled on and on and on and on and on. We're going to do everything for everybody and we're going to be great and we're going to smile and we're going to have sunshine and flowers and butterflies. But it didn't say anything. I mean there was no quantifiable, this is what we're going to do and I think we need to try to achieve that while at the same time in the service business, and we are. We're in the service industry. There's some things that we're just not going to be able to quantify. Attitude is very difficult to quantify, and as we've gone through this organizational change, and a big part of what I said when I came here and I've tried to make it a big part of the hires I've made is simply attitude. And you know while some people have you lmow, have concerns about the amount of turn over at City Hall, you lmow the amount of turn over at City Hall has been less than it has been in the private sector and less than the fire department, which are volunteer based. But when we replace these people we are, well we aren't. Scott is, looking for a specific attitude. A specific way people carry themselves and you lmow frankly, you lmow Bruce and Teresa I think are representative of what I'm trying to look for. There's a way that you can do business and I think they represent that very well. So you know there's no rule. No law that says you have to come up with the definition of customer service. It's an identified task in the task plan. I think that if you choose to incorporate a process much like in North Caroline, obviously that will have a negative impact as far as timeliness of achieving the other tasks in the task plan because what they did is going to take some time. So you know Mark, I don't have any other, I don't have a trite definition to hand you because it's just really hard to get your arms around it. But you lmow I do want to stay on top of the task plan. I've tried to do that and this is one where you guys have to give me some direction. Acting Mayor Senn: If you take individual measures, kind of like North Carolina did, I mean that seems to actually somehow in my mind say it's going to shorten the process rather than lengthen it. Scott Botcher: Well a number of, and I should have brought the task plan down but some of what they did here is what we contemplated in the task plan for the first quarter. So there is overlap there and if 12 City Council Meeting - October 23, 2000 that's what you're saying, I think that's accurate. We have, and I think that you can both define customer service while at the same time quantify what you find to be acceptable levels of performance. The down side is going to be once you establish, you gather all this data, and whatever criteria you choose to measure, you're going to come out with a measured standard. Be it citizens and the employees probably. Acting Mayor Senn: Perspectives. Different perspectives. Scott Botcher: Right. You are going to have to then just basically exercise your subjective judgment and say okay. This is what we think we want to target. Here's how we're going to measure it. And then we have some tasks on the task plan that say, we will do training. We will set up processes. We will set up methodologies by which we can achieve whatever it is you identify. So I think if that's what you're saying, that's a logical progression. The down side is that, you know we would need then to establish this, I'll call it a measurement process because we haven't yet. I could certainly call them and steal their measurement process because it sounds like they did it fairly well. And we would need to go through the same selection process we're going through with the library and with City Center Commons. Find parties that do this because this is a specialty field and we would just have to make the economic commitment to do it. It's going to cost us some money to do that and probably 2001 money to do that just because it's darn near November. So that being understood, I think yes we have some overlap but I think it will push it back just because of the timeliness of putting this together and the timeliness of putting, of gathering the data. And then frankly interpreting the data. I mean that's something you all would have to do. And you could all sit here, you could all four sit here and say this is the stupidest damn thing I've ever seen, and that's okay. I gave it my best shot and if you guys have a better definition or better process, I'm okay with that too. Acting Mayor Senn: Steve, any comments? Councilman Labatt: Not really Scott... I don't know. I don't really have any. Other than a lot of great. Acting Mayor Senn: Mark? Councilman Engel: No. This is tough for me. I've got to leave this one close to staff. I don't think council's good at determining this. I mean I lmow what I want but the process and the procedures, I'm not close enough to work. Councilwoman Jansen: Well I guess I'd follow one of Scott's later comments as far as there are experts out there that do this for a living as far as customer service and undoubtedly they've defined and redefined and gotten somewhat exact as to what it is that they're tracking. So we probably would save ourselves a great deal of time and effort if we went to one of the experts and followed their lead, rather than having you or us or staff start from the ground up since there's probably a good basis for us to follow that's already out there. Acting Mayor Senn: You know the North Carolina model, I don't think is a bad model. I mean at least it breaks it down and brings some definition to it. I think that's far better than kind of keeping it undefined. Actually look at it, I think they did a pretty fair job. I mean there's a few things I guess I would like to add to it or whatever if we're going to do that, and the notes I just had was kind of like helpfulness or respectfulness. You know that type of thing and an overall satisfaction type of deal, you know as with any encounter. Now again, granted given our business, you know how you measure that effectively as far as. 13 City Council Meeting - October 23, 2000 Scott Botcher: You would need to get a representative sample. I mean I don't think Stats 101, you've got a population. You've got a sample. I don't think you're going to go to the population as most surveyors avoid doing, and interview 20,000 people. It's a cost factor as much as anything else but you need to make sure that when you establish your sample, it is in fact a representative sample. That you just don't take people that hit your website or people that have called to complained about something or people that have business before the council. Those are all obviously not representative for all sorts of different reasons. Acting Mayor Senn: Well but I mean in customer service as everything else. There are standards and statistical that simple say for a random sample you have to get whether it's 2%, 4%, you lmow whatever. Scott Botcher: I guess what I could do is piggy back off of what Linda said a little bit and maybe just put out some feelers in this professional community and use maybe this as a beginning template and go to these guys, you know this is sort of what we're looking at and then see what they do and work with them to get like a response. Their response to the methodology. They may look at me and say oh geez Scott, you've got way too many, way too many factors that you're measuring. They say geez, it's really good. I mean you talked about, did you say friendliness or whatever you said. Personal attention is sort of a broad category. That may cover parts. We can get some ballpark ideas of what we're looking at for price. You lmow we obviously won't solicit somebody like that but just feel them out and say this is what we're looking at. But I think if we're really going to do customer service stuff, and I lmow we've talked about it. As I said earlier, it's going to take some commitment and some money to do it but I think this is a good start. And if you're okay with that we'll start down this road because I think Linda's probably... Councilwoman Jansen: And you eventually, like you said, within our task plan there is the plan to have the training so those folks again may be able to help us set those benchmarks as to where we're training to. Scott Botcher: Yeah, you've got to know where you're going before you take off because otherwise, and that's what kills me about these cities. They've all done this stuff. When I talked to the city manager, I talked to the administrator and says so how do you lmow if you've been successful? Some say well the council will set these standards. Well what's their baseline? Well they made it up. Councilwoman Jansen: You've not getting complaints. Scott Botcher: Well and that's not bad. It's just, and you lmow there's a lot of private companies that do that too. The boss just says I know when we get there. When you own the company you can do that. Acting Mayor Senn: There's a lot of good feedback outside of just purely an evaluation. Scott Botcher: That's true. Yep, that's true. But if we're going to do this right and build a statistical model, then there's methodologies we need to follow. Because we are a big business and we've got a $17 million budget and all this other happy stuff. We can do this right if we're going to do it. Councilwoman Jansen: Well because even in retail they of course have to gauge themselves as to how they're doing their customer service and they've got some pretty elaborate programs. They do what is called a secret shopper and somebody just goes in as a plant and is evaluating you know the approach time. How they're handled, so on and so forth and they do an evaluation of what their visit into that store 14 City Council Meeting - October 23, 2000 rated that day. And they may, you know maybe we end up doing those kinds of checks and balances ourselves. Scott Botcher: I've got some software packages that are customer service, I won't call them packages. Software templates that I've gotten through my participation in the Carlson School that I can try to apply here. I'll have to bill you $48,000 for it but that's fine. No I'm teasing. Anyway, but I can try to apply those because I think, because I think Linda's idea is probably the best one and we can try to do that and she's right. They do secret shoppers. They do, we can do secret citizens. Acting Mayor Senn: Imagine the training program you'd have to go through on a secret shopper. Scott Botcher: Secret citizen. Have dark glasses and a mustache, whatever else so. Anyway, the only other thing I have under administrative presentations, and this is just for what it's worth. On November 6th, and this somewhat relates to that quarterly task plan review like we did last time. It was about 15-20 minutes, whatever it was. You all had set it up with Mr. Benson to do it on the 6th. That's the night before election night and it's a work session night that we don't have anymore. Mr. Benson called and he has a conflict .... score card that night that you guys will then turn in, I think it's 2 weeks hence. So there will not be a work session on the 6th, which we had cancelled for everything else. Unless someone really has a heartache and wants to do it then so. But that's all I have I think. Acting Mayor Senn: Okay. Was there any, we kind of got rushed upstairs. Anything on correspondence anybody has a question on that we didn't get to? Councilman Labatt: Is anybody going to go to that thing at Larkin-Daly-Hoffman? Scott Botcher: Kate's a speaker. Councilman Labatt: Yeah. Scott Botcher: I'm not attending myself. Acting Mayor Senn: Cheap, $25.00. Okay, with that meeting adjourned. Acting Mayor Senn adjourned the City Council meeting at 7:30 p.m. Submitted by Scott Botcher City Manager Prepared by Nann Opheim 15