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CC 2013 10 14 CHANHASSEN CITY COUNCIL REGULAR MEETING OCTOBER 14, 2013 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, Councilman McDonald, Councilwoman Tjornhom, Councilwoman Ernst, and Councilman Laufenburger STAFF PRESENT: Todd Gerhardt, Laurie Hokkanen, Paul Oehme, Kate Aanenson, Todd Hoffman, Greg Sticha, and City Attorney Andrea Poehler Mayor Furlong: Thank you and welcome for everybody here in the council chambers as well as those watching at home. We’re glad that you joined us this evening. I’d like to start with prior to approving the agenda to add one item to the agenda. It was a resolution concerning the Eastern Carver County Independent School District 112 Referendum on November 5, 2013. A resolution was distributed to the council this afternoon so without objection we’ll be adding that as item G(2) under New Business. Are there any other modifications, from members of the council with regard to the agenda? If not then without objection we’ll approve the agenda as amended. PUBLIC ANNOUNCEMENTS: Mayor Furlong: With that I’d like to start with a few public announcements this evening. The first relates to our City’s Halloween Party. City of Chanhassen in support with our local community event th sponsors is proud to announce the fourth and final community event for 2013. It is our 29 Annual th Halloween Party. Please join us on Saturday, October 26 for an evening of fun at the Chanhassen Recreation Center. Children 13 and under are invited to participate in a wide variety of activities including trick or treating, hayrides, carnival games, spooky rooms, refreshments and family entertainment featuring Mixed Nuts. It’s my pleasure to invite all area residents, their families and th friends to join us at the Chanhassen Rec Center 5:30 to 7:30 on Saturday, October 26 for fun. Please register at City Hall or at the Chanhassen Rec Center. There is a $5 fee for children. Adults are free and it covers all activities. That’s a lot of fun so thank you. Our park and rec commission will be very involved in that again this year I assume Mr. Hoffman so always a fun time. I’d also like to extend an invitation to the Seminary Fen Fall Clean-Up event. This is the second annual Seminary Fen Fall Clean- th Up and it will take place on Saturday, October 26 as well. All residents and their friends and family are invited to spend a morning helping to restore the State designated scientific and natural area of the fen. DNR staff will be there to lead volunteers as they help with pulling buckthorn, removing trash and other activities. Afterwards the volunteers will be invited to share and be involved in a tour of the fen with DNR naturalists. The event is sponsored by our Chanhassen Environmental Commission. We thank them for their activities with this regard and in partnership with the DNR. Volunteers can meet at the fen parking at 9:00 a.m., which is off of Flying Cloud Drive. If you have questions or need more information thth please call City Hall and someone will be able to help you. Again that’s October 26, Saturday the 26 at 9:00 a.m. And finally this coming Wednesday the cities of Eden Prairie and Chanhassen are pleased to invite residents and businesses from both cities to participate in the grand opening and ribbon cutting of the newly completed Rice Marsh Lake trail loop. The celebration will take place on Wednesday, October th 16 at 5:00 p.m. at the border of the two cities located on the south side of the lake where the two trails meet. Were we able to line those up correctly? So we got them together? Excellent, good. The golden spike is in. Transportation to the event will be by foot, bicycle, shuttle vans, parking at Rice Marsh Lake Park located off of Dell Road in Eden Prairie. If you’d like more information again contact City Hall. Is this information up on the website too Mr. Hoffman I assume. Chanhassen City Council – October 14, 2013 Todd Hoffman: It is. th Mayor Furlong: Thank you. 4:30 p.m. Please arrive on Wednesday the 16 for this event. It should be a lot of fun and that is, I understand I’m looking forward to being there and seeing that trail myself. Beautiful loop trail around Rice Marsh Lake Park that is really just a great extension of our trail system. So lots of events here in the next couple weeks and we hope that people have the opportunity to take a part. Let’s move on now to the next items on our agenda. CONSENT AGENDA: Mayor Furlong: If there is desire for separate discussion by either members of the council or the public present I’d ask that you let me know at this time. Mr. Laufenburger. Councilman Laufenburger: Yes Mr. Mayor. I’d like to have discussion regarding item number 7 and number 11. Just brief comments and questions about those two. Mayor Furlong: Okay. Alright, we can pick those up before visitor presentations or right after. Councilman Laufenburger: Let’s do them right before visitor presentations would be fine. Mayor Furlong: Okay, thank you. Any other requests for items on the consent agenda? If not then is there a motion to approve items E(1) through (10) excluding (7). Councilman McDonald moved, Councilwoman Tjornhom seconded to approve the following consent agenda items pursuant to the City Manager’s recommendations: 1. Approve of City Council Minutes dated September 9, 2013. 2. Receive Planning Commission Minutes dated September 3, 2013. 3. Receive Park and Recreation Commission Minutes dated August 27, 2013. Resolution #2013-43: 4. Lift Station #10 Improvements: Award of Bid. Resolution #2013-44: 5. TH 212 Improvements from Chaska to Cologne: Approve Resolution Supporting Carver County’s Application for Corridor Commerce Funding. Resolution #2013-45: 6. Library Parking Ramp Rehabilitation Project 12-02-1: Approve Quote. 8. Repeal Conditional Use Permit for Stable Permit, 3530 and 3670 Highway 7, Premier Bank. 9. Approval of Cell Tower Lease, T-Mobile. 10. Ordinance Approving Street Name Changes in the Camden Ridge Plat. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 5 to 0. E(7). APPROVE QUOTE FOR CONSTRUCTION OF CONCRETE PEDESTRIAN MEDIAN TH ON GALPIN BOULEVARD AT WEST 78 STREET. 2 Chanhassen City Council – October 14, 2013 th Councilman Laufenburger: This is the construction of a median in the 78 Street and Galpin which is right near the proposed, or the approved PUD for the apartment complex. Is that correct Mr. Oehme? Paul Oehme: That is correct. Councilman Laufenburger: Can you give me a little background? First of all this is, this is not a project that was on the CIP for 2013, is that correct? Paul Oehme: Correct. It wasn’t identified specifically in the CIP. Councilman Laufenburger: Okay. And will it be, will the work happen this year or will it happen in 2014? Paul Oehme: The intent is to construct it this fall yet. Councilman Laufenburger: Okay. So where will it be funded? Paul Oehme: Through pavement management. Councilman Laufenburger: Okay. And then lastly, a little bit of background on what value this median will provide for traffic control and pedestrian access, things like that. Can you just do a little bit of that? Paul Oehme: Sure, absolutely. Just a little background about the intersection too. Again like you had th indicated it’s an intersection of Galpin Boulevard and 78 Street. There is currently a city trail on the th north side of 78 Street. Galpin Boulevard at that intersection is not a stop intersection. It’s a through so there’s, it’s not a four way stop at that intersection so, plus the intersection across Galpin is fairly wide. There’s almost 4 lanes of traffic plus the median so we have heard from residents, concerns about the length of that crossing to get across the intersection plus that there’s not a four way stop. We did talk to Carver County about the operations of that intersection and they’re, based upon their analysis and the traffic study that we’ve looked at, they don’t think a four way intersection is warranted at that intersection right now so to improve upon pedestrian safety we feel that a raised median at that intersection would be appropriate from basically the middle of Galpin Boulevard so if a pedestrian were to cross say from east to west, you would only have to cross basically two lanes of traffic. There’s a raised median, concrete median or safe zone basically where that person can rest and then move on to basically the southbound traffic lanes and cross at the appropriate time so it gives a little bit of a refuge for the pedestrian to cross a little more safety involved and that median will be signed appropriately. Mayor Furlong: If I could Mr. Laufenburger too, this was something that we heard about as a council at the public comment period when the apartment building was being considered a few times. Councilman Laufenburger: Absolutely, yes. Mayor Furlong: And so it was something that in conversations with staff obviously that crossing was a concern to many people. Councilman Laufenburger: Sure. th Mayor Furlong: We have trails on Galpin. We have trails along West 78. The park is down, Lake Ann th Park is further down West 78. I know that having personally observed it, there are a number of people th that run along West 78 and so the question was what can we do to address the concerns from an engineering standpoint and still keep it safe but still keep traffic safe and the mobile too so. 3 Chanhassen City Council – October 14, 2013 Councilman Laufenburger: So I think this is good that we’re doing this. Galpin is actually County jurisdiction, is that correct? Paul Oehme: That’s correct. Councilman Laufenburger: So are they helping us pay for this? Paul Oehme: They are not. The trail system typically is all of. Councilman Laufenburger: Our responsibility. Paul Oehme: Yeah, for the local trails. Councilman Laufenburger: So you say that it will be signed so traffic that is coming from Galpin headed in a southerly direction, they will obviously see the presence of this raised median. Paul Oehme: Right. Councilman Laufenburger: Okay. Paul Oehme: Absolutely. Councilman Laufenburger: Okay. Do we typically inform residents within 500 feet of that indicating the construction will occur or is there some other way we’re, do we feel that it’s necessary to inform them of that? Paul Oehme: In the past we have. Councilman Laufenburger: Okay. Mayor Furlong: They’ll see the orange pylons I guess. Councilman Laufenburger: Yeah I guess they will. Absolutely. Anyway I appreciate the forward thinking on this and doing this even before that development occurs so thank you Mr. Oehme. That’s all I had Mr. Mayor. Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Would you like to make a motion? Councilman Laufenburger: Sure, I’d be happy to. Mr. Mayor, I move that the City Council awards a th construction contract for the Galpin Boulevard/West 78 Street intersection improvement to Parrott Contracting, Inc. in the amount of $24,937.00. Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Is there a second? Councilwoman Ernst: Second. Mayor Furlong: Motion’s been made and seconded. Any other discussion? Questions or comments. Seeing none we’ll proceed with the vote. 4 Chanhassen City Council – October 14, 2013 Resolution #2013-46: Councilman Laufenburger moved, Councilwoman Ernst seconded that the th City Council awards a construction contract for the Galpin Boulevard/West 78 Street intersection improvements to Parrott Contracting, Inc. in the amount of $24,937.00. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 5 to 0. E(11). APPROVE STIPULATIONS OF SETTLEMENT AGREEMENTS FOR ACQUISITION OF RIGHT-OF-WAY IN CONJUNCTION WITH THE TH 5 IMPROVEMENTS, ABBARIAO, EKSTRUM/BURDICK AND GAUER PARCELS. Councilman Laufenburger: I’m not sure where to address this question Mr. Mayor. I guess I’ll go to you Mr. Oehme if you don’t mind. My question is, first of all what’s the area? Is this the area of Highway 5 right near Lake Minnewashta where those homes are very close to the highway and it’s part of a road that access to Highway 5 was vacated, is that correct? Paul Oehme: That’s correct. These houses are adjacent to Minnewashta right on Lone Cedar. Councilman Laufenburger: Okay. As I read this item on the consent agenda I was struck by the notion or struck by the stipulation that the City’s going to be paying significantly more money now as a result of this settlement than we had planned originally. I guess I’d like to know why. Maybe you can’t answer that but somebody else can. Paul Oehme: Sure, the engineering department has worked through the city attorney’s office on these negotiations and maybe if somebody from Roger Knutson’s office can address that. Andrea Poehler: The condemnation process requires that the City pay for all of the fees and costs associated with the property owner’s condemnation process if you will if the offer is 20% or more. If the difference, the last offer is 20% lower than what the actual condemnation award comes in at. It gives the Judge the ability to then require a payment of all of those fees and costs so generally weighing the risks, the City often times will increase it’s offer to something that’s a little bit more comparable. Kind of a between the numbers. Between the high appraisal and the low appraisal that the City typically has so it’s a balancing of those risks. Councilman Laufenburger: So my question is, I’m assuming that this is money that we paid to the homeowners in order to move Highway 5, or the roadway closer to them for safety. The purposes of you know milling and overlaying Highway 5, etc. I’m wondering why we, why it was an estimate so low to start with. Is that typical approach that you low ball and estimate to a homeowner? Paul Oehme: Absolutely not. So the process is that the City or the governing agency hires an appraiser to go out and look at what the amount of say temporary or permanent right-of-way that’s needed. Roadway right-of-way what have you for a particular location so we did that. We had an appraiser come out and look at each of these individual parcels and give his best estimate looking at assessed values or appraised values in that area. Sellable market value and look at damages that potentially can occur based upon you know construction timing, access and then damages potentially to their property so it takes into all that into the appraised value. Now the property owner has the right to go out and get an independent appraiser. Councilman Laufenburger: Their own appraiser. Paul Oehme: Their own appraiser, yep so we look at what our appraisal is and then look at the homeowner’s appraisal and hopefully they come in the same. In this case they were significantly off so that’s where the city attorney’s office gets involved and go into negotiations and see where you know 5 Chanhassen City Council – October 14, 2013 how these appraisals based upon, you know how are they generated so through those negotiations you know this is the settlement that we have come up with so. Councilman Laufenburger: And this settlement includes not only that portion that the City of Chanhassen will pay but also a portion that the State of Minnesota through MnDOT has agreed to pay as well. Paul Oehme: Yep, absolutely. Yeah, so you know when these, when the appraised values from the property owners came in significantly higher, we did ask MnDOT to help out with the settlement amounts because a lot of the improvements that are, were made through this grant application that the City did receive definitely embeds the trunk highway system so they were kind enough to support you know our settlements and contributing significantly to the settlement amounts. Councilman Laufenburger: So the initial appraisal that we had was based on reasonable investigation, research and the homeowners was also on their perspective reasonable research and we’ve essentially come to an agreement that is agreeable to all parties, is that correct? Paul Oehme: That’s correct. Councilman Laufenburger: Okay. That’s what I needed. Thank you. Thank you Mr. Mayor. Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Any other questions or comments on this matter? If not is there a motion to approve? Councilman Laufenburger: Yes Mr. Mayor. I move that the City Council approves settlement agreements for acquisition of right-of-way for Abbariao, Ekstrum/Burdick and Gauer parcels in conjunction with Trunk Highway 5 improvements from Trunk Highway 41 to Victoria Drive, CSAH 11, State Project No. 1002-89. Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Is there a second? Councilwoman Ernst: Second. Mayor Furlong: Motion’s been made and seconded. Any discussion on the motion? Seeing none we’ll proceed with the vote. Councilman Laufenburger moved, Councilwoman Ernst seconded that the City Council approves settlement agreements for acquisition of right-of-way for Abbariao, Ekstrum/Burdick and Gauer parcels in conjunction with Trunk Highway 5 improvements from Trunk Highway 41 to Victoria Drive, CSAH 11, State Project No. 1002-89. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 5 to 0. VISITOR PRESENTATIONS. INTRODUCTION OF LORI ANDERSON, PRESIDENT, SOUTHWEST METRO CHAMBER OF COMMERCE. Mayor Furlong: We do have a couple presentations this evening. Initially I’d like to introduce and welcome Ms. Lori Anderson who’s the President, new President of the Southwest Metro Chamber of Commerce. Good evening Ms. Anderson, how are you? 6 Chanhassen City Council – October 14, 2013 Lori Anderson: Fine. Thank you very much for having me tonight. I just wanted to come and introduce myself. I’m not the new President of the Southwest Metro Chamber of Commerce. Very excited to be part of your community and part of the region and I’ve been out and about meeting with people and visiting and I know I’ve had the opportunity to meet several of you and I’m just looking forward to getting to work with you and do more things within the city of Chanhassen. Mayor Furlong: Very good. Lori Anderson: If there’s any questions I can certainly answer anything that you might have. Mayor Furlong: Any questions for Ms. Anderson? We have had a chance to be in a variety of meetings over the last few months so we appreciate that. The most recent was I think Friday. Lori Anderson: Yes, absolutely. Mayor Furlong: With the District 112 Leadership group so thank you for your involvement. Lori Anderson: Thank you. Mayor Furlong: And thank you for helping with the chamber. Lori Anderson: Great, and thank you for having me. If there’s anything I can do please contact me. Mayor Furlong: Thank you. CHANHASSEN LIBRARY PRESENTATION, NICK DIMASSIS AND KATHY BOGNANNI. Mayor Furlong: We also have representatives from the Chanhassen Carver County library system this evening. Mr. Nick Dimassis and Chanhassen Librarian Kathy Bognanni. Good evening. Nick Dimassis: Thank you Mr. Mayor, council members. Mayor Furlong: And I apologize if I messed up any names. Nick Dimassis: I’m Nick Dimassis, the Director of the Carver County Library System and this is Kathy Bognanni. She is the Branch Manager for the Chanhassen branch library and we really appreciate the opportunity to come and tell you about the library, both at the county level as well as what’s happening just across the plaza here. Often times when I go out and talk to civic or service groups I kind of take head on the whole issue of the library becoming irrelevant. There’s a lot of talk about that. You hear it, you read it in the newspapers. You hear it on TV. You hear it on the radio. Everyone, all the, there’s a lot of predictions that the library is becoming obsolete and will be, is just on it’s way out so, I think this is how we do it. Laurie Hokkanen: Yep. Point it more at me. Nick Dimassis: Point it more at you? Okay. Alright, and so what I did is I just went in the demise of the library. I heard, you know you hear that and so I went into a search engine, right? The thing that’s going to kill us off and put in that phrase, demise of the library and this is some of the first phrases or articles that came up so there’s one saying probably. They’re looking at the world without it. Read it and weep. Right? A little bit melancholy about it and then demise of the libraries means of course the demise of everyone in this room right here, right? We don’t have democracy anymore so perhaps that’s a little bit 7 Chanhassen City Council – October 14, 2013 you know hyperbolely but what it clearly shows is that the library means a lot to communities and the individuals within them as well as our larger infrastructure. Political infrastructure, social infrastructures. And what is it of course, there we go. What is it that is the threat to libraries and it’s this thing. Everything is on the internet we often hear and in fact much is and more will be but everything is, what you have to do then is look at well what is a library? Is it simply an internet connection? Since I put this together which is just saying okay, well what’s happened? What is the threat that everyone assumes is going to overtake what the library has traditionally done and I just from 1980 to today, these are a lot of the technology innovations that we have seen come along that we have also adopted. That a lot of you have a variety of those in front of you right now. I’m holding one in my hand but even though with all those innovations what has happened, we would think that visits to the library, right? This thing that’s becoming obsolete and irrelevant would follow, that there would be a downward trend towards this and in fact what we see nationally, this is visits to libraries. People walking through the door nationally and you can see that it in fact has increased. What happens in Carver County? You can see the same kinds of trends. And what interested me more than anything are the long term trends. We can always sit there and put the dots down and see up, down depending on each year. The economy. Libraries are very, we have an inverse relationship with the economy. When the economy goes down, library usage spikes and we can go into reasons for that. Actually Kathy will touch on a little bit of the resources that address that but, and then when the economy starts to improve, what would we expect? We would expect that some of the usage and the visits would start to what I say normalize. Not go down right but normalize and so visits over the long term, long trend have continued to increase. Circulation. This is that, physical items right. Probably one of the biggest threats of the electronic supposedly is well we won’t need the physical items anymore, whether it’s print. Whether it’s DVD’s. Whether it’s CD’s. And in fact circulation has seen the same kind of increase in the last 10 years or so nationally and so has circulation within Carver County as well. So with all the technology increases, we’ve also seen more people walking through the door and we’ve also seen them checking out, taking home physical items. And we do this through our distribution centers. In a way we’re no different than a mom and pop’s store. A Walmart. An Amazon right. These are your distribution centers. It’s the public library. It’s the brick and mortar. Things come in. They get labeled. They get put on shelves. In comes the customer. They grab them and they put them to whatever use it is that they need to put them to. Here is an interesting snapshot and you can see the yellow hidden back there. That’s Carver County. The 5 yellow dots, or 6 stars I’m sorry, are the branches. 5 public libraries and then the law library branch. The 3 stars are our express libraries. Again using technology to make library materials even more accessible, and all those grapes all over, what those are, those are people that are registered in the Carver County library system so and that’s where they live. And you can see, it goes outside of the county borders and if our friends to the east did the same thing, you would see the same thing. Hennepin County folks are registered, well that shows, Hennepin County folks registered here. You would see the same thing. In negative is that there’s a lot of Carver County people that are registered in the surrounding counties as well so not only do we deliver within the city, Chanhassen. Within the county, Carver County. But we also are part of this larger network of regional libraries and then across the state, and just, it’s a lot of people don’t realize this because you live within it but Minnesota really enjoys a very robust network of library services that many, many other states do not enjoy. This is that regional library. We’re connected to the other counties so there’s a lot of cooperation. A lot of delivery and also economies of scale kinds of things for databases and other electronic resources. This is the statewide network of the different regional libraries and again you can see there where we are in the Twin Cities. That’s the one in which we are. All kinds of partnerships. All kinds of sharing happening. You don’t need to know it because perhaps you just walk into the Chanhassen library and get what you want. This is our strategic plan that we just finished last summer and these are our 4 strategies directions, and we won’t spend time on that but actually Kathy will hand out our, a short summary of our strategic plan. Some of the things that have, that we’ve been doing lately. Again all that technology. We added a Mayer express library. One million items, fourth year in a row. That trend of circulation, things being checked out, a million items 4 years in a row. As more technology comes out, more things are being checked out and in fact just the technology often helps that. We remodeled the Watertown library. 8 Chanhassen City Council – October 14, 2013 Library web page. We put together a new one. We considered it our virtual branch. We have more digital signage. Network throughout the different libraries like you’re seeing around this room. Three on Books is a new exciting project. So far we’ve been offering eBooks through one vendor and now 3M is getting into the game and as far as I’m concerned competition between vendors is always a good thing and it benefits, it’s going to benefit the patrons as well. Wifi printing. Something else that’s being asked for a lot. Can you print off your laptop within the library? And now I’m going to let Kathy talk about specifically what’s going on across the mall here. Kathy Bognanni: Thank you. Well believe it or not it has been 10 years since our Chanhassen library has been built and we celebrated our 10 year anniversary in the middle of August. Recently when CNN th Money Magazine selected Chanhassen as the 4 best place to live in the nation, the library staff were thrilled to be part of that. As a key service in the community with 255,581 visits to the Chanhassen library in 2012, we look forward to continuing to be a vital part of Chanhassen as it grows throughout the st 21 century. It’s a busy place. Chanhassen residents really use their library. One of the things that we th enjoyed a lot at our 10 anniversary celebration was hearing Chanhassen residents tell our Friends of the Library and our staff how much they have enjoyed having this library in Chanhassen in the last 10 years. 10 years ago we had young children make tiles for the children’s area and this young man, Ben Bawd was one of those children who was 4 years old at the time. Ben told me that he still remembers what he used to like to read back then. He liked the Magic Treehouse books but now he told me, as he finished the summer reading program at the library 10 years later, that his favorite book was Kidnapped by Murray McDonald. He’s still a big library user. Our Friends of the Chanhassen Library are invaluable to us and we appreciate so much that they do. They volunteer for the library and they help financially support programs at the library. They help with our summer reading program and they started a new program this last year called Lucky Day Collection to buy some extra copies of best sellers so that not everybody would have to wait for 3 months to get a best seller on the waiting list. They could walk in and pick one up that day. Chanhassen parents really value education and the library’s thrilled to be a partner in education with them. Some of the key ways we do that are in trying to foster pre-literacy skills in our toddlers and preschoolers and to help with homework support and also to help children during the summer maintain those reading skills that are so critical. Without summer reading, reading skills tend to drop back during the summer months. For our teenagers we try to find interesting programs that will stimulate them and take advantage of some of their skills. This summer, as part of our summer reading program we had a design a bookmark contest and our Chanhassen winner was Victoria En Oui and her bookmark is going to be printed for teenagers during teen book week coming up later this month. We also use a lot of volunteers at the library during the summer, which is a win/win situation. We had 500 hours of teen volunteer help at the library this summer and not only did those young people help us at the library but we think it was great for us to give them an opportunity to have some volunteer experience in their town and to see what it’s like to be in a work environment. Parents love storytime so we offer them almost every day, including Saturdays where we have musical storytimes. Yoga storytimes. Teals for Reading and lots of special storytimes for our working families. During the summertime we have about 8 summer reading programs and about 300 kids come to each one of those at our library. Most of those children go out the door with a big stack of books after the program. Some other fun things for kids are our board books for babies. The Teals for Reading program. A pre-literacy experience and craft programs that kids have fun at the library. For adults, MELSA helps us sponsor authors that come to Chanhassen and our community really comes out to see those. This particular one was a visit by Lorna Landvick, a Minnesota author. We also had Mark Rosen from WCCO who attracted a great big crowd and recently a visit from Mary Sharratt and tomorrow night, it’s not too late to see Sarah Stoneage will be there tomorrow. In the month of September we had 111 groups meet in our library meeting room or programs at the library so those library meeting rooms are a tremendous community resource. One of our sort of quiet services at the library is our public Wifi and as so many people now have tablets, laptops, Smartphones and other devices that need Wifi, we’re finding a lot of our business is switching from hardware computers to people who just need a good, reliable source of Wifi so one day this summer I 9 Chanhassen City Council – October 14, 2013 looked around the library and every single table in the library was filled with someone and most of those people were using our Wifi. During the economic downturn a lot of people used one of our databases called Job Now that helps people learn how to write resumes and practice interviewing. They interact with a real person remotely online. A second database that our small business community used a lot is Reference USA which tells them a lot about, about 14 million companies across the country. Helps them find out suppliers that they might use for their businesses. Maybe who their competitors might be and also it lists consumers so that if a business is trying to develop a mailing list they could use this resource for that and we try to do some individual tutorials with people in the community who’d like to know how to use this service better. We offer tax assistance during the tax months and about 40 people a week take advantage of that. And now Nick is going to talk to you a little bit more about more resources. Nick Dimassis: And as Kathy describes all the things that you saw there, or most of those things require a brick and mortar building and so even as we move electronic there’s still so many activities that are happening that are very community, face to face. The same kind of reason that we all meet in a room here today instead of Skpying in all the meetings. There’s a lot of physical human interaction that’s going on within the library and it’s community members going down there but I do want to address one more time, all this technology that is out there and that everybody has, does the library just avoid it? Does it try to push it away? Absolutely not. We have our virtual branch as I said was the new website that came up a year and a half ago and we’ve been adding and adding and improving it. You want eBooks? This is where you can go. You go to our website and you can download eBooks. Whether you have a Nook. Whether you have Kindle or any other kind of eReader. As I said, 3M now is going to become and even opening up more options. More items as well. If you want audio, downloadables so right now you know we had books on tapes. You had books on CD now and there’s also books on, that are downloadable to your MP3 player or whatever you might have. Your phone even. Zinio is a new and very popular resource. When it comes to you know electronic versus print, newspapers and magazines were very hit, or were hit hard and magazines were one of those that everyone thought was going to go away and this is kind of made a resurgence because it’s really taken advantage of technology that you’re looking at the magazines. Not just a PDF of it you know in some of the ways that they were making articles available. This is the actual magazine and you can flip through it. You can save it. You can save issues. You can do a lot of the things that the potential was there and now it’s being realized with this and there’s Consumer Reports. There’s Harvard Business Review. There’s the Bloomberg Report. All kinds of stuff that is now available and again your library can show you how to download those. And we often talk about everything’s in the cloud, right. We don’t need the brick and mortar because it’s all up in the cloud but what is the cloud? Well you can’t get anything into the cloud unless you first get into the ground. Our network internet and all that is really just tubes connecting to each other. The way it gets up into the cloud is the Wifi really and certainly in terms of the library. This is a photo taken out in Mayer when they were laying the fiber down. The fiber project rings through the county. I know you all know probably every square foot of where that goes through but it goes through every one of our library branches and it was lit up just a couple months ago and we’ve been hearing all kinds of reports because broadband, broadband, broadband, right. When you start streaming, whether it’s video or audio it just eats up a lot of the band width and so this fiber, we’ve been getting a lot of compliments, or comments on how it has increased access for a lot of people who come in and sit at the computer and to be able to get access to a lot of the electronic resources so we embrace it. We embrace all the electronic resources and all the innovations and you know folks don’t need one of these to be able to go into the library and take advantage of all these, of all these things that are out there. The library will continue to adopt. It will continue to adapt, evolve and all you need, all your constituents, all your residents need is one of these to come in and take advantage of that. So thank you very much. Again thanks for the opportunity for us to come and talk to you and we’d be happy to take any questions. Mayor Furlong: Thank you very much. Appreciate the presentation. Questions for them? 10 Chanhassen City Council – October 14, 2013 Councilwoman Ernst: Mr. Mayor? Mayor Furlong: Councilwoman Ernst. Councilwoman Ernst: I’m curious to know, you talked about the increase in traffic over the last few years and I’m curious to know if, in terms of demographics, if you have a specific age group that has generated that traffic or are there a variety of age groups? Nick Dimassis: Yeah. Mr. Mayor, Councilwoman Ernst, there is a variety. One of the things that we often say is life long learning is what happens in a library and so from, you know from birth all the way til you know someone last uses the library. Traditionally though, kids. Kids, parents bringing in their kids. And then what happens of course you know and then in high school they use it and then they go to college and so we don’t see as much of the college age. Now Kathy will probably argue with me on that and say no, we do but traditionally you know they have other resources. They’re using college libraries. They start doing other things getting started in their career. Then they have families and all of a sudden they come back and start using the library again so lots of kids that way. Families that way and then of course as they get older, retire, then you see another surge in that so it is life long. I mean you know all ages but we definitely have some demographics in that area of usage. Councilwoman Ernst: Okay, thank you. Nick Dimassis: Yeah, you’re welcome. th Mayor Furlong: Other questions? A couple. First of all congratulations on the 10 year anniversary. Some of us were here and so it’s, time goes really fast. I guess we’ve been having a lot of fun but question I know neither of you were here at the time that the Chanhassen library was built. Did you go back and look at some of the expectations in terms of patronage? In terms of usage, circulation those type of things and see are we tracking close to what we thought we’d be doing at that point or have we exceeded that or, in some areas we’re doing better than others. Did you take a look at that at all? Nick Dimassis: Mr. Mayor I do not believe, I don’t think any of us looked at expectations. Mayor Furlong: Okay. Nick Dimassis: We can certainly track you know whatever the circulation or any of those matrix before the library was built and then afterwards and you always see you know a big spike. Mayor Furlong: Sure. Nick Dimassis: But we did not go back and look at expectations so I really don’t have anything to offer along that. Kathy Bognanni: I did see a document when the community was trying to rally support to build the library that listed some of the things that they wanted in that space. Mayor Furlong: Okay. Kathy Bognanni: Including the meeting room spaces that are now being used tremendously. Increasing children spaces were a couple of things that I particularly remember that were listed that I think we’re doing a really super job with. 11 Chanhassen City Council – October 14, 2013 Mayor Furlong: Okay. Kathy Bognanni: Just a larger collection generally and our collection now is a little over 104,000 items so I think of some of those things that I remember seeing in that document, I think we’re pretty well doing what people want. Mayor Furlong: Okay. Kathy Bognanni: Although probably nobody foresaw all of the directions that some of the electronic services were going to go in. Mayor Furlong: Which you said have expanded at the library in terms of those type of offerings. Kathy Bognanni: Oh yes. Mayor Furlong: The other question I have is, and I’m curious how familiar you are with the plans for the Excelsior library that Hennepin County has been talking about for a while. Can you give us an update there? And do you expect any effect from that, if that library does open or when it opens on usage at Chanhassen? Kathy Bognanni: Well we do have quite a few Excelsior residents that use the Chanhassen library. I’m sorry. We do have quite a few residents who use the Chanhassen library that live in Excelsior and I think some, I think the school boundaries have a little bit to do with the back and flow traffic between Excelsior and Chanhassen but I have a feeling that it’s not going to have that drastic of an effect because I know that Eden Prairie has a really large library to our east and Eden Prairie is one of the cities that we draw most heavily from in our usage here at Chanhassen so I think people just kind of go where it’s convenient for them to go when they’re shopping or if they have a book on a school reading list and their local library copies are out, then they go elsewhere so it’s possible we’ll see a little bit of an effect but I’m not expecting it to be real drastic. Mayor Furlong: Okay. Do you know what the timing is on that or if they’ve made improvements there? I realize it’s Hennepin County but just curious from an update on what their plans are. Kathy Bognanni: I was thinking it was going to be about a year but I’m not 100% sure about that. Mayor Furlong: Okay. Kathy Bognanni: I think I saw a few different dates and I’m not sure I remember the most recent. Mayor Furlong: Okay. Kathy Bognanni: Thanks. Mayor Furlong: That’s fair, thank you. Any other questions? Thank you very much for the update and report. I know that it’s been a little while since we’ve had you here but you’re certainly welcome anytime to come back and give us an update. We appreciate it. Nick Dimassis: Thank you very much. Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Anyone else for visitor presentations this evening? If not we’ll move on then to the next items on our agenda. 12 Chanhassen City Council – October 14, 2013 PRESBYTERIAN HOMES CONDUIT DEBT REFUNDING BONDS: PUBLIC HEARING AND CONSIDERATION OF HOST APPROVAL RESOLUTION, JOINT POWERS AGREEMENTS AND HOUSING PLAN. Greg Sticha: Good evening Mayor and council. Earlier this summer, I kind of want to clarify the two conduit debt issuances that we had in front of council previous this year. We had one issuance that was for an actual conduit debt that the City would be issuing and that got pulled off the agenda at the last minute at our September meeting. This is for a different issue. This is for the facility located, Summerwood Presbyterian Homes built facility and they are attempting to do a refinancing of their conduit debt. At the time they approached the City of Chanhassen to participate in the conduit debt issuances, we had already committed ourselves to a conduit debt deal with the other facility that had previously gotten to us a month before. They had discussed doing the refinancing. In the meantime Pres Homes and their attorneys went and sought alternative cities to issue the conduit debt. They accomplished that but because the facility is located in the city of Chanhassen, they need to have passed a host approval issuance of the senior housing refunding notes, and that’s according to Minnesota Statutes and they need to approve a joint powers agreement and a housing program, which is in front of you this evening so the public hearing as well as the joint powers agreement as well as the housing program all need to be passed for the conduit debt issuance to go forward for Pres Homes Summerwood here in Chanhassen. Mayor Furlong: Alright, thank you. Any questions for staff? Is there an applicant here this evening with regard to this? Good evening sir. Anything you’d like to address to the council before we open the public hearing? Mark Beezie: Mr. Mayor, members of the council. My name is Mark Beezie with Northland Securities. I’m here on behalf of Presbyterian Homes and I was here back in 2003 when it was just raw land over here and we all worked together to make the project a reality so, and back in 2003 the City was quite busy with their own debt issuance so with the host approval we went through the City of Victoria and now Victoria’s doing their projects. You’re doing your projects so we’ve gone to Spring Park, Rockford and Carver to issuance the bonds, bank qualified for Presbyterian Homes. Back in ’03 they also had a tax increment agreement which helped them make the rents affordable. That runs out next year so this refinancing will help them maintain the viability of the project so appreciate your support. Mayor Furlong: Okay, very good. Thank you. Any questions for Mr. Beezie? No? Thank you. Alright, if there are no questions at this time I would open the public hearing and invite all interested parties to come forward to the podium. Please state your name and address to address the council on this matter. Okay, seeing no one. Without objection we’ll close the public hearing. Bring it back to council. I guess for clarification, our role here tonight is to adopt the resolution and approval of the joint powers agreements, is that correct? As well as the housing plan. Greg Sticha: Housing program, that is correct. Mayor Furlong: And the housing plan effectively describes the operations of Presbyterian Homes here, or excuse me of Summerwood, is that a fair statement? Greg Sticha: That is correct. Yep. Mayor Furlong: Alright. Any comments or discussion? Mr. McDonald. 13 Chanhassen City Council – October 14, 2013 Councilman McDonald: I have a question and I guess, what is, are we going to be issuing the bonds or could you explain a little bit what, why are we the host? What does that have to do in all of this? Greg Sticha: And maybe the applicant can also clarify but we will not be issuing the conduit debt in this particular instance. He had mentioned the other cities that will be participating in issuing the conduit debt. My understanding is that we are, since we are the host facility, that’s what we’re being asked to do. Mark Beezie: Absolutely. You’re not going to issue any debt. Just the project is located in Chanhassen. We need your approval for the other cities to do it on your behalf so. Councilman McDonald: Okay. Todd Gerhardt: Mayor, council. Just to insure that nobody has any idea that we would be obligated for any of this debt. We are clear. Briggs and Morgan is our bonding attorney. I think they made it clear in their memo to you and again Presbyterian Homes is located in Chanhassen and because of that location here we are playing host to the conduit debt to the other 3 communities. Mayor Furlong: And Mr. Gerhardt, I’m sorry. Go ahead. Councilman McDonald: I was going to say if you’re looking for comments then, I just needed clarification on that but I think that Presbyterian Homes has been a very good asset for the city. We talk a lot about senior housing and you know kind of beyond and I do know people that live there and have nothing but good praise for the way that they’ve run their operation and everything so I would have no qualms whatsoever about supporting the, either the joint powers agreement or the resolutions that we’re going to put together. I think that yeah, you’re a real asset to our community and it helps a segment of our community also so thank you. Mayor Furlong: Thank you Mr. McDonald. Any other comments? Discussion. Councilman Laufenburger: Mr. Mayor. Mayor Furlong: Mr. Laufenburger. Councilman Laufenburger: Just I want to echo what Councilman McDonald said. Not only does Presbyterian Homes provide service for residents of Chanhassen and surrounding communities but it also provides a great venue for organizations interested in volunteering to help with, help senior citizens as they mature in their life. I know that there are a number of organizations in the community that provide all sorts of services so it’s a, not only are they providing great care but they’re also making it possible for others who have an interest in whether it’s volunteerism or caring, they’re the recipient of those as well so anything that promotes and perpetuates the presence of Presbyterian, there was a lot of P’s in that. Anything that nurtures that with Presbyterian Homes I’m also in favor of that too so Mark, if you would pass along to your fellow operators over there, we appreciate their presence as a citizen in this community. Mark Beezie: Thank you. Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Well said both of you. If there’s no other comments or other, if not then Mr. McDonald would you like to make a motion? Mr. Laufenburger you can second it. Councilman McDonald: Certainly. 14 Chanhassen City Council – October 14, 2013 Mayor Furlong: When the time comes. Councilman McDonald: I just have to get to it. I’m sorry, I scrolled. Okay, I make the following motion. That the City Council approve the resolution entitled Giving Host Approval to the Issuance of Senior Housing Revenue Refinancing Notes Under Minnesota Statutes and approval of the Joint Powers Agreement and a Housing Program for the Presbyterian Homes/Chanhassen Summerwood project. Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Is there a second? Councilman Laufenburger: Second. Mayor Furlong: Motion’s been made and seconded. Any comments or discussion? No, again thank you for everybody and the comments I know are, represent all of our appreciation and for the organization. With that if there are no other comments we’ll proceed with the vote. Resolution #2013-47: Councilman McDonald moved, Councilman Laufenburger seconded that the Chanhassen City Council approve the resolution entitled Giving Host Approval to the Issuance of Senior Housing Revenue Refinancing Notes Under Minnesota Statutes and approval of the Joint Powers Agreement and a Housing Program for the Presbyterian Homes/Chanhassen Summerwood project. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 5 to 0. RESOLUTION CONCERNING THE EASTERN CARVER COUNTY INDEPENDENT SCHOOL DISTRICT 112 REFERENDUM. Mayor Furlong: Let’s move now to items of new business. The one item here. I put it under G(2) but I now notice that G is public hearings so this will be under new business if anybody would like to make comments they can. It concerns a resolution concerning the Eastern Carver County Independent School District 112 referendum to be held on November 5, 2013. This was added late. I can certainly read it. I know it was distributed to the council. Generally we don’t read resolutions but since it was added late and not public I feel that that would be appropriate. I’ll move the resolution and read it here. Whereas the City of Chanhassen City Council recognizes that a quality system of public and private schools is highly regarded by the residents and businesses of Chanhassen. Whereas Independent School District 112 serves a significant portion of Chanhassen and the cities of Chaska, Victoria, Carver and other surrounding communities. Whereas the City of Chanhassen City Council supports the efforts of the Independent School District 112 school board, administration, teachers and staff to provide high quality and safe educational opportunities for all students. Whereas Independent School District 112 will be holding a referendum vote on November 5, 2013 in which it will be asking two questions of the residents of the district. Whereas the first question being asked of the district voters is to renew an existing $9.1 million dollar operating levy which provides $874.35 per student. Whereas the second question being asked of the district voters is to approve a capital projects levy of $2.45 million dollars annually for 6 years to support both technology and security initiatives within each of the schools in the district. Whereas Independent School District 112 has prepared a 6 year plan detailing the capital projects plan that would be implemented if this second question were to be approved by the district voters. And whereas Independent School District 112 has provided significant information on the district’s website, throughout various meetings and presentations throughout the district about both ballot questions of the district’s educational and technology, safety needs, opportunities and plans to project a financial effect of questions on residents and businesses property taxes. Now therefore be it resolved that the City Council of the City of Chanhassen encourages all residents of Independent School District 112 to learn about the district’s educational, technology and safety needs, opportunities and plans and to vote on both referenda questions on November 5, 2013. So I would move that resolution and ask for a second. 15 Chanhassen City Council – October 14, 2013 Councilwoman Tjornhom: I’ll second it Mayor. Mayor Furlong: Thank you. So we’ll provide for discussion. Mr. Jim Bauck, the superintendent of the school district was here at our last meeting and gave a presentation on the referendum questions. Since that time I’ve been approached to assist with building awareness for the referendum and I think that’s what this motion does. It doesn’t take position of support or against the referendum but recognizes the needs and supports the efforts of the school district in providing quality education and safe environments but it really encourages people in the district to educate themselves. Become aware of the issues. Ask the th questions of their school board members and their administrators and above all to vote on November 5. The higher the voter turnout, especially because in this situation there are no other questions on the ballot. There are no candidates on the ballot. Voter turnout is going to be critical so that the results of the ballot is best representative of the majority of the voters in the district so that’s the purpose of the resolution and why it’s coming forward at this time so I’d certainly honor any discussion and comments. Councilwoman Tjornhom: Yeah Mayor I think I would like to, I agree with you that I can support this resolution because we as a City Council, we are not taking a position whether or not we are supporting the resolution or we are supporting the referendum or not but I think it is important that everybody understands that they do have an opportunity to vote and voice their opinion and now is a good time to be educated. Go to the website. School district website. Find out what’s going on and see if they can support it or not support it but definitely go out and vote. Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Other thoughts or comments? Mr. Laufenburger. Councilman Laufenburger: Thank you Mr. Mayor. I would echo what Councilwoman Tjornhom said and even add to it. I’ve had the pleasure of being at some of the events at Chanhassen Elementary School, at Bluff Creek Elementary and at Chanhassen High School and I’m very pleased to see the community engaged in the discussion and the discussion is not, it’s not a confrontational discussion. It’s a discussion rooted in help me understand this. Help me understand why. Help me understand the value. Help me understand the benefit and I, that’s been an extremely engaging process by the citizens and then at the same time I would say, Superintendent Bauck and Finance Director DeeDee Kahring and Brett Johnson all have been very responsive even to the point of as questions came up earlier in the sessions, those questions were even answered before the questions came up in the supplement session so I applaud both the citizens of Chanhassen that are engaged in this process as well as the school district because this is really a cooperative effort on everyone’s part to help people understand what this means to the education of our children so thank you. Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Other thoughts or questions? Discussion. If not, the resolution’s been moved and seconded. If there’s no other discussion we’ll proceed with the vote. Resolution #2013-48: Mayor Furlong moved, Councilwoman Tjornhom seconded to approve the Resolution concerning the Eastern Carver County Independent School 112 Referendum. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 5 to 0. COUNCIL PRESENTATIONS. Councilman McDonald: One thing that was very interesting that happened yesterday was again we had the fire station open house. It was great turnout. Lots of kids. Lots of family. Good food. We kind of displayed all the new toys that the fire department’s got and we even had the paramedics there so they could show off you know the equipment that they have and I guess even the DNR is loaning us equipment in case we need it also so I think it’s very good. The citizens got a chance to really get out and see what our fire services are like and it was a very, I think productive and informative thing and I know all the 16 Chanhassen City Council – October 14, 2013 kids had a good time. This year we actually took pictures at the fire truck with the kids and everything and then gave them buttons. You know just as you get at the sport parks and stuff so I think everybody really enjoyed it so it was a good time. Mayor Furlong: Good, thank you. Todd Gerhardt: Mayor, council to add. Mayor Furlong: Yes. Todd Gerhardt: I just want to thank Chief John Wolff for his assistance in putting on the open house. Our membership over there, probably the largest turnout we had for volunteers to participate in the event so they really give their time over there and are proud to show off their toys, as Jerry mentioned, but to see the faces on the kids I think is what really drives them so it was just a great event and those guys should be applauded for participating in it. Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Well said. Other council presentations? Mr. Laufenburger. Councilman Laufenburger: Thank you Mr. Mayor. I know that there’s an event that happens every spring in Chanhassen. It’s called the Rotary Foundation Tulip Gala, if I recall it correctly, and that’s the, that is clearly the watershed event of springtime which helps rally the community around doing things for the community. A similar event, perhaps not with as much notoriety but an event that is growing is the Third Annual Fall Classic. This is the Activities Fall Classic put on by the Activities Office of the Chanhassen High School and this year that event will be held at the Arboretum on Friday night, October th 25 and it will be a rousing opportunity for people who get involved in high school activities. Whether it be athletics or academics, this is a great opportunity. There will be a silent auction and a, what’s the opposite of a silent auction? Councilman McDonald: A live auction. Councilman Laufenburger: A live auction. Mayor Furlong: A loud one. Councilman Laufenburger: A loud, yeah. It will be a loud auction. Anyway, this is a great event and th you can learn more about it at the Chanhassen High School website but that’s Friday night, October 25 at the Landscape Arboretum. The Third Annual Fall Classic sponsored by the Chanhassen High School Activities Department. A great event. Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Other council presentations? Mr. Gerhardt and I had the honor to have lunch with Joel Wiggins, the new President at Crown College. Jim Hunter, their Vice President of External Affairs and other representatives from Crown College last, I guess it was a week ago. Last th Monday and Crown College is, will be celebrating their 100 anniversary. Their centennial here in a few years and they are the college in Carver County. They’re making an effort to get out and connect and talk to people in and around the county so it was, I just wanted to mention it on the record that I know Mr. Gerhardt and I really appreciated the opportunity to meet with them and I think we’re going to look to find ways to integrate some of their program offerings in with some of our activities. I think we’ll make some contacts with the Senior Center and their life long learning and other things so it’s, but I also mention it and I know that they are going to become more involved in Southwest Metro Chamber of Commerce but our local businesses may find some benefit from being involved with and some of the programs that Crown College offers as well so just wanted to on the record thank Dr. Wiggins and the 17 Chanhassen City Council – October 14, 2013 others for meeting with us and for all the work that they do and good luck as they approach their centennial here in the next few years. Mr. McDonald. Councilman McDonald: If I could just add to that, because one of the other things that they do, they do have a great insight to recognize talent. You know they’ve improved their football program and they’ve done a lot of things and they realized they need a public address announcer. You know someone with some real background and experience. Mayor Furlong: Have they had any opportunities to find anybody? Councilman McDonald: And they certainly did. They found one of the best public address announcers in this city, Mr. Laufenburger. Mayor Furlong: Now football is not the same season as baseball is it? Councilman McDonald: No it’s not but Mr. Laufenburger is an all sport’s player so I have to really hand it to him. They can recognize talent. Todd Gerhardt: Well all four of them did say that and we also have another individual that’s associated with Crown College is an alumni that sits up here and Councilmember Ernst graduated from Crown College along with Rick Rice, our MIS Coordinator so we are getting the benefits of that education here and just a great group of individuals. I think they’re in good hands from a leadership. They were very sincere in trying to engage into Carver County. They’re really proud of the fact that they’re the only college in Carver County and I think that is a good tag line to start spreading the word about that. They immediately joined the Southwest Chamber and then I did make contact with Sue from our Senior Center because we lost our connection with Augsburg. They discontinued their senior learning programs so maybe there’s an opportunity there so. Mayor Furlong: Last call for council presentations? Councilman Laufenburger: And Crown did win their football game on Saturday, beating Iowa Wesley in Mt. Pleasant, Iowa 31 to 28 in overtime. Mayor Furlong: You realize now that on the outside of the Red Birds season we may get some updates on Crown College. Councilman Laufenburger: Well I know that as an alum, Councilwoman Ernst will want to keep track of how things are going over there at Crown. Councilwoman Ernst: Absolutely. Councilman Laufenburger: So I feel it as an obligation Mr. Mayor. Todd Gerhardt: How close was the homecoming game? Councilman Laufenburger: Single point. Mayor Furlong: He said quietly. Mr. Gerhardt, administrative presentations. 18 Chanhassen City Council – October 14, 2013 ADMINISTRATIVE PRESENTATIONS. Todd Gerhardt: One of the big items I wanted to make the council aware of is the Lotus Trail tree situation that we have. We have talked to the property owner adjacent to the parkland and did admit that he or hired somebody to cut down the trees. He feels very remorseful about the situation and does want to you know put things back to natural setting that it was before. We probably won’t get the significant growth but he does regret the actions that he did take as he stated to many staff members. The City Attorney is talking with this individual and some type of good will gesture may be coming our way to settle the issue. The County Attorney is still involved in the investigation. I don’t know what direction they’re going to take it from a criminal side so as I hear more I will let you know. Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Any questions for Mr. Gerhardt on this or any other items? Mr. Oehme, any updates on the street projects here as we sit mid-October? Paul Oehme: Mayor, City Council members. Wrapping up a few projects right now. The trail crossing over off of 41 and Minnetonka Middle School West. That one, the pedestrian crossing arm should be going up, should have gone up today and gets generated so that improvement is wrapping up shortly. The 101, big 101 project south of Lyman down to Pioneer Trail, that one had seen a lot of work last week. We did remove all the surcharge material and paved almost, a little over half the project now is paved. Basically to the south side of Bandimere Park and we intend to try to get the, that section of roadway opened up by the end of November now. That’s the new completion date. All the four lane section th should be improved down to 96 Street with, by the end of the year as well so most of it will be opened up to four lane traffic by the end of the year here. And the 101/Pleasant View project, that one’s going a little slower than we anticipated here the last couple weeks with the rain delays and some contractor scheduling but the wall for the pedestrian trail along 101, that should be done this week and we intend to try to get that section of roadway paved in a week and a half so. Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Questions for Mr. Oehme? On the 41 pedestrian crossing, when those signs are going up. Obviously they’ll move the pedestrian crossing signs to the appropriate distance from the new crossing. Are we going to try to do anything, or can we do anything to alert motorists to the new crossing and what comes to mind are the message signs that MnDOT has. The two or three messages that they might have with a lane closing or something like that. The trailers that sit on the side for a period of time. Paul Oehme: Sure. Mayor Furlong: To alert drivers to the new crossing and to yield to pedestrians. Or are there some other things we can do or could we do that or look into that? Paul Oehme: Yeah, I can definitely check into that. That’s a good suggestion and we did talk to the school district about notifications and the local newspaper, we intend to put an article in there this, on Thursday as well to get that notification out. Carver County Sheriff, we talked to them about maybe doing a little more extra patrol up in that area as well when the crossing is in place. Mayor Furlong: And part of the education process is for pedestrians too. Paul Oehme: Absolutely. Mayor Furlong: I mean just because the lights start flashing yellow don’t step out in front of a vehicle. Paul Oehme: Yep, exactly. 19 Chanhassen City Council – October 14, 2013 Mayor Furlong: You know cross when it’s safe. Paul Oehme: Exactly. Mayor Furlong: So is that some of the work you’re doing with the school or? Paul Oehme: Yeah, Todd Hoffman’s working with the school on that and I’m working with the newspaper on trying to get some more information out to the general public. Mayor Furlong: Alright, great. Thank you. Looking forward to seeing that in action. Any other comments or questions for staff? CORRESPONDENCE DISCUSSION. None. Mayor Furlong: Okay, if there’s nothing else to come, we will complete our item, last item on the work session in the Fountain Conference room immediately following our meeting so if there’s nothing else to come before us tonight, is there a motion to adjourn? Councilwoman Ernst moved, Councilwoman Tjornhom 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 8:15 p.m. Submitted by Todd Gerhardt City Manager Prepared by Nann Opheim 20