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CC 2011 03 14 CHANHASSEN CITY COUNCIL REGULAR MEETING MARCH 14, 2011 Mayor Furlong called the meeting to order at 7:05 p.m. The meeting was opened with the Pledge to the Flag. COUNCIL MEMBERS PRESENT: Mayor Furlong, Councilwoman Ernst, Councilman Laufenburger, Councilwoman Tjornhom, and Councilman McDonald STAFF PRESENT: Todd Gerhardt, Roger Knutson, Paul Oehme and Todd Hoffman PUBLIC PRESENT: Name Address Todd & Veronica Scholz 1070 Lake Susan Drive Amy Powell & Carlos Puig 8581 Chanhassen Hills Dr. S. Jay Seltun 1040 Lake Susan Drive Jim Wolf 8585 Chanhassen Hills Dr. S. Jen Thorpe 1050 Lake Susan Drive Denise & Paul Enberg 8608 Chanhassen Hills Dr. S. Glen & Joan Gerads 1071 Barbara Court Greg DeBenedetto 8593 Chanhassen Hills Drive Tom Bowman 8577 Chanhassen Hills Dr. S. Humphrey McKenzie 1021 Lake Susan Drive Jim Subak 1060 Lake Susan Drive Ray Schenk 1130 Dove Court Patty Besser 6518 Grey Fox Curve Mayor Furlong: Thank you and welcome to those here in the council chambers with us this evening and those watching at home. We’re glad that you joined us. At this time I would like to, without objection of the council add an item under new business. We’ll add it prior to number 2 and just insert an update from city staff regarding the watermain break in Chanhassen Hills. Without objection, and we will, if there are members of the audience here this evening that would like to provide some public comment after we get an update from city staff we will have that opportunity so I know I talked to some people about possibly providing comments during visitor presentations. If you’d like to wait so you can get an update on the status from staff at the same time council does, that will probably be the best opportunity. With that, are there any other changes or modifications to the agenda? If not then without objection we’ll proceed with the agenda as modified. PUBLIC ANNOUNCEMENTS: INVITATION TO CHANJAM ’11. Mayor Furlong: First item this evening is a public announcement. The City of Chanhassen is th proud to present ChanJam ’11. I’d like to invite everyone to join me on Friday, March 18 at Chanhassen City Council - March 14, 2011 6:30 at the Chanhassen Rec Center for this musical showcase. The event will feature several awe inspiring local bands from Chanhassen High School, Chaska High School, Minnetonka High School. These bands will be rocking it out at the battle of the bands for the bragging rights to Chanhassen’s best. Several prizes will be awarded including recording time, opportunities to th play at the Chanhassen 4 of July celebration, the Minnesota State Fair, guitar and rock camp scholarships and more. The winning band will be selected by a panel of judges. Tickets are $5 a person and are available at the door. Save a dollar if you bring a non-perishable food item for the local shelf. That is a great event and I would encourage people to come. I know that the bands have a good time and everybody that attends has a good time as well so this Friday th evening, March 18. 6:30 at the Chanhassen Rec Center. CONSENT AGENDA: Councilwoman Tjornhom moved, Councilman Laufenburger seconded to approve the following consent agenda items pursuant to the City Manager’s recommendations: a. Approval of Minutes: -City Council Work Session Minutes dated February 28, 2011 -City Council Verbatim and Summary Minutes dated February 28, 2011 Receive Commission Minutes: -Park and Recreation Commission Verbatim and Summary Minutes dated February 22, 2011 b. Approval of 2011-12 Contract for Lifeguard Services, Minnetonka Public Schools. Resolution#2011-15: c. Approve Resolution Awarding Bid for Vehicle Purchases Included in the 2011 CIP. Resolution#2011-16: d. Approve Resolution Accepting $2,000 Donation from the General Mills Foundation for Safety Camp. e. Approve Request for Temporary On-Sale Liquor License, Chanhassen Rotary Club, June 30, 2011. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 5 to 0. VISITOR PRESENTATIONS: None. UPDATE ON WATERMAIN BREAK IN CHANHASSEN HILLS NEIGHBORHOOD. Todd Gerhardt: Mayor, City Council members, we experienced a watermain break that ultimately turned into a sewer back up in the Chanhassen Hills neighborhood that did cause a sewer back up in 25 homes in that neighborhood. We had the residents submit a claim to Travelers with staff following up with Travelers to insure that all the homeowners were on Travelers list of potential claims and Travelers has decided to deny any liability on the City’s part. Staff has been in contact with Travelers for the past 2 weeks and got a phone call today 2 Chanhassen City Council - March 14, 2011 from Travelers and they have signed a new claims adjuster to the case and this individual’s name is Marsha Hardy. Marsha is going to be taking a look at all the claims and would expect within a week to hear back from Marsha on if Travelers can find any potential liability on the City’s part that may change or reconfirm their current decision on denying the claim. So expectations right now is there’s no change from Travelers. Just that they are going to take another look at it. Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Any questions for staff? At this point Mr. Gerhardt then for residents involved, the Travelers is reviewing their initial determination and we expect a one week timeframe or approximately a week? Todd Gerhardt: Marsha informed me that it was either going to be later this week or early next week. Mayor Furlong: Okay. Very good. Thank you. Any other questions for staff on this issue? Councilman Laufenburger: Just one Mr. Mayor. Do we have confirmation Mr. Gerhardt that all of the homes that were impacted to whatever degree, all, they have all submitted claims, is that correct? Todd Gerhardt: Yes. Councilman Laufenburger: Okay. Thank you. Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Any other questions? Okay, we may get some questions if people have some public comments. I would certainly at this time invite anyone from the public that has questions for staff or comments to the council, if you’d like to come forward to the podium, stating your name and address for the record. Good evening. Amy Powell: Hello. My name is Amy Powell. I’m from 8581 Chanhassen Hills Drive South. One of the many homes affected. I’ve been kind of a de facto organizer of just getting the neighbors together. Comparing notes. We are frustrated with the amount of attention that we’ve had from the City. Everything that we’ve gotten has been through channels. The newspaper. We read about exactly what happened in the break from the newspaper from Mr. Gerhardt’s comments. We just heard right now, none of us had heard about opening or re-opening the claim with Travelers. It’s been, at least in my estimation a one way road. We’ve been doing all the asking for information. I know I certainly have and then trying to compile my own information and then ask my neighbors what did you hear? What do you think? We just want somebody to work with us. We want some help. That’s all we’re asking for. You can’t tell because most of us have now showered and cleaned up a little bit but we’re dirty. We’re tired. We work and work and work and then we come home and we work some more and you know we sand and tape and drywall and paint and you know we didn’t do anything to cause it. We couldn’t do anything to stop it once it started. We just, we’re looking for a little bit of cooperation and a little help. Mayor Furlong: Alright, thank you. Anyone else? Good evening. 3 Chanhassen City Council - March 14, 2011 Jennifer Thorpe: Good evening. Jennifer Thorpe, 1050 Lake Susan Drive. I just have a few photos I’d like to present to the council of the evening you know in question. Mayor Furlong: Okay. Jennifer Thorpe: This is after the water had started to go back down out of my basement. The water level was up above the molding which was 4 to 5 inch oak molding and a leather couch and my son’s play mat in the photo. Of during the event this is what my bathroom looked like. This is clearly not a average sewer back up. You know some people had less. Some people had more but this was just unexpected by any means from anyone. So those are what I would like to present to the council. Mayor Furlong: Thank you Ms. Thorpe. Anyone else who would like to address the council this evening? Good evening. Veronica Scholz: Hi. My name’s Veronica Scholz. I live at 1070 Lake Susan Drive. We’ve lived in Chanhassen since 1993 and we really enjoy the community and appreciate the work on behalf of the City Council to have a nice community and to care for our citizens. I am, I share Amy’s concern about the communication. There was, our home, we would not have known about the sewer damage except for the good graces of Humphrey’s son came over to our house to say have you been in your basement and may have been a day or two if our neighbors hadn’t told us about it. So that’s one concern I have. We have about $25,000 in damage in our basement according to the estimate and I’m happy to, I appreciate the efforts of the city staff to follow up with Travelers to try to get a reconsideration so I’m very pleased about that and thank you to Mr. Gerhardt for that. And I hope that Chanhassen, I know that you’re all residents of our city and I hope that in the end no matter what Travelers decides to do, that you will decide, that you will try to do something for our neighbors. Many of our neighbors do not have any insurance coverage for this. I did not even realize at the time that you had to have a special rider on your insurance for sewer back up and that. It’s not something that every insurance agent informed our neighbors about even so our home was lucky. We did have some insurance but many of our neighbors have no coverage for this damage at all. And so I hope that no matter what Travelers decides that the City Council will do what other councils have done you know in instances like this and try to make a good will gesture or something, no matter what the outcome of the insurance company is. That there’s people that this is a serious financial hardship for them and as you know this is not a very good time in our economy for many families to be suffering this kind of a hardship so that’s what I’d like to say. Thank you. Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Anyone else that would like to make public comments this evening? Good evening. Jim Wolf: Hi, my name is Jim Wolf. I live at 8585 Chanhassen Hills Drive South. I ended up having about 6 inches of stuff, whatever you want to call it in my basement. I think, I just want to get across to the City Council how much frustration the residents have. One is, the first frustration was that when it was coming up, the helpless feeling you have not being able to do anything. I got, you’re down there in your basement in 6 inches of whatever you want to call it and I’ve got my daughter down there. You’re in shoes. You’re in socks. You’re in, the 4 Chanhassen City Council - March 14, 2011 frustration feeling of not being able to do anything and then once the water goes down, the frustration of knowing what you’ve got to clean up and not having the City stop by that night and handed out a card and no communication after that about what to do. What had to be cleaned up. Most of the residents got the information from the insurance companies and it was just more the frustration and the lack of communication and how much, the frustration in the residents may be a little overwhelming because of how many people it affected compared to normal and I know this wasn’t a normal city watermain break or a city, or a back up to a individual house. It’s a big deal to, to the people that it affected it was a big deal and I think the City needs to realize that, how much it affected the residents in that area and how frustrated they are. Mayor Furlong: Okay, thank you. Jim Wolf: Oh, one other thing. So far about the only thing we’ve heard is most of us from our insurance companies have just washed our hands. So far Travelers has just washed their hands and I think most the residents are just hoping that the City Council, we’ve seen a few emails and we’ve seen a few things but so far all we’ve seen is people just washing their hands of who’s responsible for it, and I know it wasn’t our watermain that broke. It was the City’s watermain that broke and I think it’s just more frustrating for, so far we’ve just been everybody’s been washing their hands of it and said it’s your problem. Humphrey McKenzie: Hi. I’m Humphrey McKenzie and 1021 Lake Susan Drive. Actually I really don’t know what I came up here to say other than the fact that it’s been a long couple of weeks for my family personally and the reality is that it’s not as serious as some other events or activity that could have happened in terms of you know damage to personal stuff to self. Being injured in some way. There were no deaths or anything like that but the reality is we, we spend our time in our homes. We spend a lot of time in our homes and you feel really helpless when you come into your home and you realize that something is happening that you have no control over. That you can’t do anything about and at the end of the day, once you get done with that event, there’s still a long lag time of work that needs to happen to get your home at least back to a close state to where it was before and you know to the previous point, the reality is that every single person has kind of denied any culpability for this. It was an act of God. It was an act of circumstance. But I think when you drill down to it, it really doesn’t matter who’s fault it was. At the end of the day each of the homeowners here has a responsibility to maintain their property. We have a responsibility to ourselves. We have a responsibility to our neighborhood and we have a responsibility to this city to keep our homes in good standing and the reality is, the expectation is that we would do our part to take care of that. We would do what we can do and I’m one of those that didn’t have insurance so I had a choice. I could have just left it there because the reality is, it’s my house. I could just leave it there because insurance isn’t covering it because I didn’t have the addendum but it’s my responsibility, it’s my home. It’s the place that I live in so my desire is that we at least get that back to a place where it’s livable. Where we can use that space again and I think that’s what the whole crux of the matter is and that’s where the heartburn is, is that the reality is everyone washes their hands of the circumstance and doesn’t want to say that it was any, you know it wasn’t our fault. The insurance company’s saying well because you did your maintenance stuff on time, which is good. We’re happy that you do your maintenance but that didn’t help us. I had 8 inches of water in my basement. I walked down the stairs and we had a nice swimming pool down there that I really didn’t plan but at the end of the 5 Chanhassen City Council - March 14, 2011 day I still have to clean that up. I still have to live in that house. I still have to have my kids at some point in time, hopefully once we get it cleaned up, playing down there again. We want to have that space useable and I want to have a property that actually is worth something. So when it all boils down we’re going to be paying for it as homeowners. We’re going to pay for it because this is where we live. This is our place and I think the only expectation that we have from the City is that we get some support as we go through this process to resolve the issues that we currently have in our homes because as we rip out sheetrock and as we disinfect all of our different baseboards. As we do all of the things that we need to do, we’ll take our time. We’ll put our effort in. We’ll do what we need to do to take care of our property and I think the bottom line is what we’re looking for is some support from the City. Not even a fault thing anymore. It’s just taking care of business. Just taking care of our city. Taking care of our homes and I think that’s all that we’re asking is for support from our City Council and from our City as we go through this very difficult situation. Mayor Furlong: Thank you Mr. McKenzie. Jim Subak: Good evening. Jim Subak. I’m at 1060 Lake Susan Drive. I’d like to thank Veronica, Humphrey, everybody. They’ve really stated the case very well. I was traveling when this occurred and thanks to the pictures I realize that I’m glad I wasn’t here. I lost two lower levels and I guess what I’d just like to point out is two things. Thanks for the dumpsters. That was great. I had my own private dumpster as four of my neighbors did so I think everybody should realize magnitude of what we lost. I think everybody also should realize that some of us had insurance. What does that cover? Well my insurance, after disinfecting and mitigation of everything, it won’t cover the carpet that they ripped up and threw away. And I helped them so it is a big deal and we’re not asking for anything we don’t think we deserve. We’re a community. We all live together. We’re not here because, we’re here because we love this place and we just want everyone to work together and do the right thing. Thank you. Mayor Furlong: Anyone else this evening? Good evening sir. Ray Schenk: My name’s Ray Schenk. I live at 1130 Dove Court and my house wasn’t involved in any damage. As a citizen in town what I’m interested in is fairness and making sure that we do things fairly and when I hear the different reports I’m wondering, I’m missing something in the reports that there’d be somebody that is independent, without a stake in it investigating and understanding what’s going on. For sure Travelers has a stake and as a city we have a stake too and we like to think that you know our city government is going to be above you know covering anything up or those natures, and I’m not accusing anybody of that but really understanding the facts. I just don’t see where there’s a third party involved, or I haven’t heard where there’s a third party that’s uninterested in what happened making sure that fair things are done. Mayor Furlong: Okay. Humphrey McKenzie: I just had a question. We’ve kind of talked a little bit about our situation and I don’t, I guess I want to understand. What are the, what are the options that you have as a homeowner? Because even if you had the insurance it doesn’t cover everything because even the riders that you have covers a certain set amount so regardless of how you slice it, you’re 6 Chanhassen City Council - March 14, 2011 going to still be out something. You still have to put some money out so what are the options for homeowners I guess from a, are there I guess, are there things that number one the homeowner can do to prevent this? Because again all I know is water came up through my sewer, okay. Are there things that again that we need to be doing differently to I guess protect ourselves in some different way because all I’m getting is you know that’s not insured and you know we can’t cover that so what else as a homeowner can we do to either protect ourselves or to protect our property from situations like this? Or are we just out? Mayor Furlong: Mr. Gerhardt. Todd Gerhardt: Sure. One of the things you can do is put in a back flow preventer and, but what a back flow preventer does is where your sewer service line comes into your house you have a valve and as the water flows out of the house the valve stays open. But if the water should come back into the house it would go down, but all that does is push it downstream. So if your neighbor doesn’t have a back flow preventer it’s going to end up going into the next lowest spot in that neighborhood or the lower floor level so that’s one thing a homeowner can do to protect his property. But unless you know everybody does that, you know it’s somebody’s going to get the back up. Because in this case we didn’t even know the back up occurred until it came up into somebody’s basement and then we got the phone call because it was a watermain break that saturated a manhole and it was a 12 inch water line that flooded that manhole that forced it back into everybody’s home. Once we got the call we went in there and saw the amount of water that was coming up and we had to quickly make a decision that this was not a regular sewer back up where you have a clog. It’s a pressurized 12 inch watermain that broke and our guys were you know quick on the spot to realize that and shut off the water line that was broken. So back flow preventer and then insurance are really your two options. Humphrey McKenzie: But what are the requirements around the back flow preventer? I mean are there any building standards that would I guess either require it or recommend it or are there anything? Todd Gerhardt: Oh building code? Humphrey McKenzie: Yeah building code. Todd Gerhardt: It’s not a requirement in the Minnesota Building Code. Humphrey McKenzie: Okay. Are there any city ordinances? Has this happened? I guess what’s the frequency of sewage back up’s or other related flooding from a city perspective? Todd Gerhardt: Paul you know how many sewer back up’s we have on an average per year? Paul Oehme: Sure. Mayor, Todd Gerhardt, City Council. You know sewer back up’s are very infrequent as long as we maintain our sewer system. The biggest problem we have in this city currently with sewer back up’s, they’re more in the downtown area where we get a lot of grease from some of the restaurants but we’re continually addressing that issue. In terms of back up’s in residential areas, very infrequently do we see a sewer back up. You know on occasion if 7 Chanhassen City Council - March 14, 2011 there’s something gets caught in a sewer for some unknown reason, you know it can have a tendency to back up but you know I can’t think of the last time we had a sewer back up in the residential area. Within the last year so. Todd Gerhardt: Yeah. Typically what causes a sewer back up is something in the sewer line to have that sewer line back the sewer up. Mayor Furlong: Obstruction of some sort? Todd Gerhardt: It could be mineral deposits. If there’s infiltration into that sewer line. It could be a sewer pipe that, where the frost pushes the sewer pipe up and that would then, the gravity would push it back into another direction. We’ve had that occur. We’ve had it in newer residential homes where people don’t clean out their service line before the home is connected and you’ll get class V sand, clay in those service lines and then that will clog and back up the sanitary sewer into a home. Humphrey McKenzie: So just looking at a watermain break, I’m just trying to understand what happened here. So what caused the watermain to break? Todd Gerhardt: The watermain, it’s a 12 inch watermain and what you had was a frost heave and the frost heave, if you had kind of a pencil. The frost was pushing up from underneath, or could be pushing down, and it broke that pipe so there was a straight line crack in the pipe. I think we provided pictures of the pipe and we also provided a 2 or 3 page incident report that kind of detailed the events that occurred that day. Humphrey McKenzie: So it’s still a potential that you could have other pipe breaks as a result of I guess a similar situation in terms of, again to me it just seems kind of, you’re saying the pipe broke. We didn’t have any back up’s in the line so again we’re saying the weather caused it. Well the weather hasn’t changed so why don’t we have pipes busting all over the place? Todd Gerhardt: We do. We are having pipes break. We had another watermain break down next to the movie theater in downtown. We had a watermain break over in. Paul Oehme: Frontier Trail. Todd Gerhardt: Frontier Trail. Paul Oehme: And Galpin Boulevard was another one. Todd Gerhardt: So watermain breaks are a little more frequent than you would see the sanitary sewer back up. I’ve worked for the City for 25 years and I’ve pretty much during my whole term have dealt with the insurance claims. I’ve never once had one where we had a watermain break that followed the frost line that went into a sanitary sewer system and we had a back up that way. We’ve had watermain breaks that have occurred and did surface damage and got into people’s basements. And we’ve had storm water ponds back up into people’s basements but this is the first time I’ve seen a watermain break where it followed the frost line and filled 3 or 4 manholes. 8 Chanhassen City Council - March 14, 2011 Humphrey McKenzie: So how did it get into the sewer? Todd Gerhardt: It follows the path of least resistance, and you’ve got to remember this is a pressurized 12 inch watermain and a fire hose is 3 inches and you see the amount of water that comes out of a fire hose so this is 4 times the pressure of a water hose and it’s coming out and then it goes to the manhole and the manhole has concrete rings with a, kind of a rubber membrane in the middle to kind of establish that manhole height to what the road is. And instead of trying to splice in a concrete manhole, tile, they use these concrete rings so this pressurized watermain broke. The water followed the path of the pipe to that manhole. The path of least resistance and shot into that manhole and I think we gave pictures of the manhole after the event. Those rubber rings were hanging inside the manhole from the pressure of that water that was shooting into those rings. So then you’ve got a 12 inch watermain, like a fire hose, shooting into this manhole that filled up the manhole and then you have an 8 inch sanitary sewer line that each home dumps their sanitary in. It overcame the manhole in front of Barbara Court and then it filled up the manhole as you went closer to Lake Susan Drive and I think there was 3 or 4 other manholes that filled up so it, there was that much water coming out of that watermain. And by the time we had the water shut off, the system still was going to drain down so once we had it down you probably still experienced sewer back up occurring. Humphrey McKenzie: And what’s the length of time I guess, I mean because it sounds like that took a little bit of time there for this to happen. Are there any I guess preventative stuff that you would realize that all of a sudden you’ve got 10,000 gallons of water shooting out or are there any things that again from a city perspective, a preventative perspective that you would, that would flag you or help you to know that something was wrong or in that case did you wait until somebody had actually reported water in the basement? Todd Gerhardt: Our lift stations are another thing that we monitor with alarms and a lift station is where your sanitary sewer goes to where we have to lift it up and so it can go to another pipe and then gravity flow and we’ve got 20 plus lift stations in the community and so, we have alarms on those. So if the electricity goes off, a lift station will fill up with rain water or sanitary sewer and then in some cases it will go you know it will overflow so, and then it calls a pager number and then our utility guys go out and if there is no electricity we have a back up generator we can hook up to those lift stations and, to get them pumping again. Humphrey McKenzie: So did anything happen I guess in this circumstances of, it just sounds like a lot of water to me thinking that you’d have some indication from some, again either some lift station or from something that just shows a whole volume of water just kind of going out of just, is there no indicator that would have told you that manholes were filling up? That again things were occurring in the system that were out of the ordinary. Todd Gerhardt: Probably the only thing would have been an alarm on our water reservoir. If it was drawing down enough it would have set off an alarm on the water tower but it wasn’t enough to do that. 9 Chanhassen City Council - March 14, 2011 Humphrey McKenzie: Okay, so what’s the volume then? I had 8 inches in my basement. I don’t know what other people had. That seemed like a lot of water to me. Todd Gerhardt: Well there’s a lot of water because the 8 inch line was at capacity as it was going down Lake Susan Drive and the sewer back up was going upstream. It was at such a capacity going downstream it started going upstream, going up the gravity pipe into people’s homes so that’s how much water was going into the system. Once our guys arrived on the scene and saw the amount of water going into people’s basements, they said this is not a blockage. It’s got to be a watermain break. Humphrey McKenzie: So I’m just asking are there any ways that the City would know, or would there be any indicators that would help the City folks to know that if you have something like that going on, something again to me this seems like an unusual break. You have watermain breaks that you probably do… Todd Gerhardt: Typically how we know a watermain break is that it percolates out of the ground. Because of the 5 foot of frost above it, it didn’t percolate out of the ground. You know we usually find our watermain breaks fairly easy because they go straight up and in this case it followed that 5 foot of frost and the path of least resistance was that sanitary sewer system. Humphrey McKenzie: Okay. So it didn’t ever come up? It must have come up… Todd Gerhardt: One of the gate valves as somebody said it was coming up there. Paul Oehme: It was coming up one of the manholes I believe too. Blew one of the lids off the manholes. Mayor Furlong: Okay. Veronica Scholz: Veronica Scholz again, 1070 Lake Susan Drive. I just wanted to follow up. My understanding is the back flow preventer would require like digging up our front yards and quite an extensive you know, expensive and extensive project. I did investigate that a little bit. I didn’t get an exact quote for how much that would be but that’s not really very realistic once you have your house built. It might be a good thing for us to think about if we’re building a new house again but I think you, thank you Mr. Gerhardt. You did an excellent job really describing how unusual this circumstance is that we’re all in and I guess it just kind of underlines for me the consideration that we’re asking for from the City Council because it is such, it was such an unusual event that we are experiencing and that too so, although the back flow preventer probably would help. It’s not a realistic, it’s not going to fix anything now and it’s probably not realistic for homes to install that after they have been built, although we’ve all been alerted to this insurance and everybody, my family and friends I’ve told them all go check your policies to make sure that you’ve got that so I just wanted to follow up on that comment so thank you. Mayor Furlong: Thank you Ms. Scholz. Anyone else who would like to provide comment this evening? 10 Chanhassen City Council - March 14, 2011 Carlos Puig: My name is Carlos Puig. I live in 8581 Chanhassen Hills Drive South. You mention that then it is nothing for the City to know if a main water pipe break. You also mention that it is a 12 inch watermain, water pipe break and it went into a 8 inches sewer system and it’s nothing for the City to find out than during around hour and a half it was losing water because it is something then somebody need to notice. If you leave your hose during the summer putting, watering the grass, you notice and you mean then to 12 inches main pipe break nobody notice anything because I bet you do the calculation. Do the City do the calculation in how many gallons do we lose during this hour and a half, something like that that it was flowing free? Todd Gerhardt: Yeah, in the summer time we can pump up to 8 million gallons a day when people are watering their lawns or you know that’s a heavy usage day in the middle of the summer. And Paul did we do the calculation on how many gallons that came out of? Paul Oehme: Yeah typically in a winter type basis we’re averaging right around 2 million gallons a day. When this watermain break occurred it was later in the evening. Typically we see a little peak of usage when people come home from work and so we look back at our system and our monitoring equipment that we have for the watermain and based upon that information, we did see a little tick basically down in our level of our water tower in this area. We kind of contributed that to the watermain break. Based upon some of our estimates, our flow meters, we had estimated about 15 gallons, 1,500 gallons per minute for this watermain break which is, we think it’s pretty reasonable estimation for that size of a watermain break so based upon you know that information, you know there’s really no indication that we could have had at a city level with the equipment that we have since there was basically, you know when you’re pumping 2 million gallons a day versus a 1,500 gallons for this watermain break, you really don’t see that type of indication that we have a problem in the system. Carlos Puig: So how many gallons do the city calculate during this, until it was shut down? Paul Oehme: In. Carlos Puig: And also on the web psi because I was standing during summer when everybody’s using the water it would be probably harder to notice to see who is using or what is the main break but during winter with the, where the water is pretty limited. Nobody’s going to be outside except when you get a shower or something like that, I mean that’s not really noticeable. Paul Oehme: Yeah again we’re pumping about 2 million gallons a day. When we’re talking about 1,500 gallons per minute it’s really kind of a blimp on the radar in terms of how much water we’re seeing. Especially at this time of the day when we do see a little bit of peak usage based upon people coming home from work and showering and doing laundry and dishes and those type of things. Todd Gerhardt: Maybe another way to explain it, for enough water to leave the water tower for the alarm to go off, you’re going to call us with the sewer back up before enough water is gone out of that water tower for that alarm to go off. Does that make sense? 11 Chanhassen City Council - March 14, 2011 Carlos Puig: Oh yeah and it won’t be easier to pull, try to make like every homeowner now then in our, in the back of heads try to put one of those valves than they are not always effective as putting maybe one bar or one alarm into the main pipe getting to certain neighborhood or into the main pipe going to certain areas of the city so when the water pipe break it would be noticeable instead of putting so many hundreds of valves putting one in the city so I guess there’s to further explain this, if certain gallons per day usage in the average and one day it just pom like doubled I think it would be pretty good, easy way to find out anything like that, any breakage like that instead of one house by house so to break the. Todd Gerhardt: Yeah, I am not aware of that technology being used anywhere where watermains being monitored for breaks. Again lift stations, water towers we monitor but we’ve got miles and miles of watermain pipe and you know to put that type of, and it’s all come in at different times. We’ve got pipe that is 40 years old and we’ve got pipe that’s a year old and to have one system to monitor all that would be pretty costly. Carlos Puig: Well and what I mean, it is not put one every mile. Every 10 meters. I mean I suppose the city will have certain mains going different directions was my point so. Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Patty Besser: I’m Patty Besser and I live at 6518 Grey Fox Curve. As you all know that I went through the same thing a year ago and I’m in support of these people here and we know that my results came back today. I won my lawsuit but I just, I’m just curious. What is the difference between one watermain break and another watermain break and why are our citizens not being treated equally and fairly? I mean what, what is the good will offering? I really want to know what a good will offering is and why one resident gets it. I didn’t get it and how these residents aren’t getting it either. What does it take to get a good will offering? Mayor Furlong: Well Ms. Besser I think it’s. Patty Besser: It’s only fair to all of us though. Mayor Furlong: Alright, thank you. Anyone else? Sir. Yep, please come back. And your name again sir, I’m sorry. Ray Schenk: Ray Schenk. Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Ray Schenk: I just wanted to understand the, I just did the calculation. I might have done it wrong but it’s like, that water leak was basically 2,100,060 gallons a day is what it was leaking at, which is a third of our capacity and that’s a blip? I mean is that right? Is this the right number? rd Paul Oehme: Well you know we got the call for the watermain break at 6:45 on February 23. Our guys shut the water off I think it was about a half an hour after that so. 12 Chanhassen City Council - March 14, 2011 Ray Schenk: Okay that’s why you’re saying it’s small because it’s very short. Paul Oehme: Very short time duration. Ray Schenk: But basically that watermain break was very significant for our water usage in the city. Paul Oehme: Yeah, and again you know we’re using water at this time of day so, and like I said we did see a little blimp at that point in time when we think the watermain broke so. Ray Schenk: Had it gone on it would have been major. Paul Oehme: Absolutely. If it had gone on for a day. Ray Schenk: That’s a big… Paul Oehme: Right, exactly. Ray Schenk: Thanks. Mayor Furlong: Anyone else? No? Okay. Well very good and thank you for everyone’s comments and suggestions and I learned some things this evening and some things we can look at I think the bottom line is at this point, we need to continue to see what the City’s insurance carrier is going to do. I appreciate Mr. Gerhardt you’re working, the staff to continue to work with Travelers and now at this point as they are reviewing all the claims. Also pleased to hear that, to the best of our knowledge everyone that experienced an issue does have a claim into to Travelers so everyone that might be in this situation is being fairly considered, is that? Todd Gerhardt: As far as I know. Mayor Furlong: Okay. Todd Gerhardt: We’ve got 25. Mayor Furlong: Is there anybody here? Todd Gerhardt: Homeowners if there’s, maybe I can give Amy a call and we’ll double check our list to your’s just to make sure we’ve got the same people. Mayor Furlong: Okay. Alright. Very good. Well thank you everyone. We appreciate your comments this evening and we’ll see how this continues to develop. Todd Gerhardt: Mayor? Mayor Furlong: Yes Mr. Gerhardt. 13 Chanhassen City Council - March 14, 2011 Todd Gerhardt: As I hear from Travelers to get the word out to the neighborhood, Amy are you the spokesman? Do you have everybody’s? Amy Powell: No, and Kelly. Kelly Seltun. Todd Gerhardt: Get it to both of you? Amy Powell: I’m in touch with everybody on my street and she’s in touch with everybody on her street and then now we’ve also rolled in Barbara Court… Kelly Seltun: I think we all individually gave the woman that, before she went on maternity leave our contact information though so, I don’t know why the City couldn’t be in contact with all of us. Todd Gerhardt: No, we can do that. Kelly Seltun: Because we have had some, you know people that have been missed in the process. I think initially we were missed so, if that would be possible that would be preferable. Todd Gerhardt: Sure. Mayor Furlong: It’d be nice to make sure that we have a complete list and I guess I’m interested in how we can do that but maybe we can work on that you know tomorrow morning and send out contact information, just if nothing else to check and make sure we have a complete list. Either by phone or by email. Hopefully email so that everybody gets the same information at the same time. Todd Gerhardt: Sure. Mayor Furlong: So if, and again back and forth. Everybody who I guess gets missed tomorrow call in or send an email and we’ll try to make sure that everybody’s in touch. Okay. Very good, thank you. Todd Gerhardt: If everybody here could just sign up too and write Lake Susan Hills initials by your name and then I’ll double check that with the list we have upstairs and then I will also call Amy tomorrow and double check who was here tonight. Our list and then what Amy may have and then try to make sure we’ve got everybody covered. Thank you. Mayor Furlong: Okay. Councilman Laufenburger: Mr. Mayor may I make just a quick comment please? Mayor Furlong: Certainly. 14 Chanhassen City Council - March 14, 2011 Councilman Laufenburger: This impacted my neighbors. I live in the Chanhassen Hills area and I saw some of the homes that were impacted by this and I also, I also was present at a neighborhood meeting last week and I want to, I would like to put everything that’s happened up til now behind us just for this next moment and I think there’s some things that we as a City Council and a City could do better. First of all there’s no question that I think we need to promote and educate the importance of this insurance rider. Surprisingly personal note, the morning after the event I called my insurance agent and realized that I didn’t have the rider in place. Well it didn’t take me long to figure out that that’s something that I needed to do so somehow I think that we have a responsibility to help the citizens of Chanhassen understand the importance of this insurance rider. Second of all I did do some searching on the internet and found that there are, there are some cities that have the equivalent of a sewer information policy in place. Or not policy but more like a page where citizens can go to and find what happens if there’s a sewer back up. Who do they contact? What’s the form that they need to file? Plus it’s some education about what the citizens are responsible for and what the city’s responsible for so I would just, I would like to direct city staff to exercise some good, good activity associated with coming up with a plan to promote and educate the homeowner insurance rider and also potentially put on the City’s website and even in the Chanhassen Connection some information that proactively puts in the hands of the citizens of Chanhassen information that quite possibly the citizens of Chanhassen Hills might have found beneficial during their very emotional time so I just, point of information I would like to see city staff respond in that regard. Thank you Mr. Mayor. Mayor Furlong: Alright, thank you. Any other comments this evening from members of the council? Okay. Again, thank you everybody for your time this evening. For your comments. We appreciate that and we’ll see where, how this continues to develop. We’ll move on now to next items on our agenda. APPOINTMENTS TO THE PLANNING COMMISSION. th Mayor Furlong: At our work session 2 weeks ago, on March 14, the City Council interviewed 8 residents who had applied for a position on our Planning Commission. This evening, earlier this evening we interviewed some candidates, resident applications for the Senior Commission and the Park and Rec Commission and who are also interested in the Environmental Commission. Next meeting we will be interviewing more candidates for the Senior Commission and Environmental Commission. These are the four commissions where residents volunteer to serve. Each commission has 7 members. It’s a great way to get involved and it’s a great way to, council really values the comments, the insight and the information that we receive from our commission members. With that this evening we do have on our Planning Commission, st beginning April 1 we have 2 commission members who’s terms are expiring and we have 2 vacancies currently on our Planning Commission. One has 1 year remaining on the vacant term and the other has a 2 year, 2 years remaining on the vacant term. First of all my general comment is, as with all of the interviews that I’ve conducted for our Planning Commissions we have a multitude of fantastic people that are interested in serving and I know it’d be nice to find a place for everybody. That just simply isn’t a possibility but I do say thank you to all the residents that interviewed and some of those who put down alternate positions, they will certainly be considered if they don’t get appointed here to the Planning Commission here this 15 Chanhassen City Council - March 14, 2011 evening. They’ll certainly be considered for those commissions as well. We likely will be making those appointments perhaps at our next meeting. Probably the first meeting in April for the other commission members but with that I guess what I would propose to the council and I’d certainly be open for discussion but I would suggest that for Mark Undestad and Kathleen Thomas who are the current incumbents, that the council would reappoint both of them to the 3 year positions. To their full positions. And that the council would appoint Kim Tennyson to the 2 year vacancy and Lisa Hokkanen to the 1 year vacancy so I would certainly put their names into nomination and ask for a second at this time and then we can open it up for discussion. Councilwoman Tjornhom: Second. Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Any discussion or comments from other members of the council with regard to the Planning Commission appointments? Councilwoman Ernst: I have a comment. Mayor Furlong: Councilwoman Ernst. Councilwoman Ernst: I’d just like to say that all the candidates that applied really were great candidates and this was a very hard decision. In fact I think of the years that I’ve been on council I’ve never had such qualified candidates so it was not an easy decision and I want to thank all of the residents that came in and applied for these positions because it’s great to see that kind of an interest in this community so thank you to all them. Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Any other discussion? Comments? If not then a motion’s been made and seconded to appoint Mark Undestad, Kathleen Thomas to 3 year terms, Kim Tennyson to a 2 year term and Lisa Hokkanen to a 1 year term on the City of Chanhassen Planning Commission. Mayor Furlong moved, Councilwoman Tjornhom seconded that the City Council appoint Mark Undestad and Kathleen Thomas to 3 year terms, Kim Tennyson to a 2 year term and Lisa Hokkanen to a 1 year term on the City of Chanhassen Planning Commission. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 5 to 0. COUNCIL PRESENTATIONS: None. ADMINISTRATIVE PRESENTATIONS: None. CORRESPONDENCE DISCUSSION. None. Councilwoman Ernst moved, Councilman McDonald seconded to adjourn the meeting. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 5 to 0. The City Council meeting was adjourned at 8:00 p.m. Submitted by Todd Gerhardt City Manager Prepared by Nann Opheim 16