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CC Minutes 1999 10 11CHANHASSEN CITY COUNCIL REGULAR MEETING OCTOBER 11, 1999 Mayor Mancino called the meeting to order at 6~30 p.m. The meeting was opened with the Pledge to the Flag. COUNCILMEMBERS PRESENT: Mayor Mancino, Councilman Senn, Councilman Labatt, Councilman Engel and Councilwoman Jansen STAFF PRESENT: Scott Botcher, Roger Knutson, Todd Gerhardt, Sharmin A1-Jaff, APPROVAL OF AGENDA: Mayor Mancino moved, Councilman Labatt seconded to approve the agenda as modified to move item 6 to 3B. PUBLIC ANNOUNCEMENTS: None. CONSENT AGENDA: Councilman Senn moved, Councilman Engel seconded to approve the following Consent Agenda items pursuant to the City Manager's recommendations: a. Award of Bids for Telemetry System Upgrades (Y2K), PW385. Resolution #99-83: Approve Change Order No. 1 to Arboretum Business Park Water Tower Contract, Project 97-1B-1. Resolution #99-84: Approve Change Order No. 1 to Well Pumphouse No. 8 Contract, Project 97- 4A. Approve Revised Grading, Utility and Street Construction Plans & Specifications and Development Contract for Arboretum Business Park 3rd Addition, Project 99-5. Approve Contract with Meyer, Scherer, and Rockcastle, Ltd. To Complete a Library Needs Assessment. f. Approval of Bills. Approval of Minutes: -Work Session Minutes dated September 27, 1999 - City Council Minutes dated September 27, 1999 Receive Commission Minutes: - Planning Commission Minutes dated September 15, 1999 Resolution #99-85: Award of Bid for Temporary Traffic Signal at TH 41 and 82nd Street, Project 97-1B-3. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously. City Council Meeting - October 11, 1999 I. APPROVE SECOND AMENDMENT TO LAKEVIEW HILLS SPECIAL ASSESSMENT AGREEMENT. Councilman Senn: I just pulled that for a separate vote. Mayor Mancino: Then may I have a motion please for l(i). Councilwoman Jansen: Move approval. Mayor Mancino: I'll second that. Councilwoman Jansen moved, Mayor Mancino seconded to approve the Second Amendment to Lakeview Hills Special Assessment Agreement as presented. All voted in favor, except Councilman Senn who opposed, and the motion carried with a vote of 4 to 1. J. APPROVE EXTENSION OF TIME TO CLOSE AND DENIAL OF REQUEST FOR REDUCTION OF PRICE, WINGATE HOTEL SITE ON WEST 79TM STREET. Councilman Senn: I pulled (j) to make two modifications to it. If we could, staff's recommendation is to extend the purchase closing date to March 15, 2000 but to deny the request on decreasing the price which my motion will mirror basically or keep those in, but I'd like to add two additional points. One being that a clause be added to the agreement whereby if the City receives another offer or equal or greater value, that the applicant then has 72 hours to close or the City has the right to sell the parcel to somebody else. And secondly I wanted to include, let's see here. See ifI can find it here. That it be contingent upon if the hotel site plan is denied, that it will be automatically withdrawn and will not have to you know go on, I mean the purchase agreement would be cancelled at that point automatically. Mayor Mancino: Any discussion on that? Scott Botcher: Does that denied also include withdrawn? Councilman Senn: Yes. Scott Botcher: Okay, so we should state that. Councilman Senn: Okay, denied or withdrawn. Mayor Mancino: And is the applicant here? Okay. Councilman Senn: That's my motion so. Councilman Engel: Second. Mayor Mancino: All those in favor. Scott Botcher: One more question before you go. Just to clarify, and Mark you know more about this than certainly I do. Do you mean to say simply close within 72 hours or is it meet the other offer? I'm asking because I'm not in the business so you can sort of tell me. City Council Meeting - October 11, 1999 Councilman Senn: Generally you would have it as basically closes in 72 hours. Councilman Engel: At the increased price? Councilman Senn: No, at their deal. I mean that's. Mayor Mancino: At the deal we have with them right now. Councilman Senn: There is another approach. The other approach is to have them meet the other offer but that means if we get a higher offer, to meet the higher offer and the timing of the new offer. What I was trying to keep this simple in a sense that you know effectively give them the right to extend the agreement, but if we do end up with another buyer, they've got to perform. Scott Botcher: And I'm just asking the question if you have to extend the time and you get enough for it, is it worth it? I mean you don't know that because you don't know. I'm just raising the issue. Councilman Senn: I know that but I'm assuming you'd come back to us with the timing so we'd have to right? Scott Botcher: Yep. Mayor Mancino: Okay, everyone understand the motion and any other discussion? No? Then discussion that just took place? Okay. The motion, we've had it seconded. Councilman Senn moved, Councilman Engel seconded to approve the request for extending the closing date to March 15, 2000, or until denial or withdrawal occurs, and denying the request for an adjustment in the purchase price. This approval is contingent upon a clause being added to the agreement whereby if the City receives another offer or equal or greater value, that the applicant then has 72 hours to close or the City has the right to sell the parcel to somebody else and contingent upon if the site plan is denied or withdrawn, that the purchase agreement will be automatically cancelled. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously. VISITOR PRESENTATIONS: None. PUBLIC HEARING: RESOLUTION REGARDING LEVY CERTIFICATION TAX RATE INCREASE. Scott Botcher: Bruce is at an award banquet for his former boss in, I think the place is called Minnetonka. I'll just read directly from Bruce's memo. The '99 legislature adopted a requirement that cities hold a public hearing and adopt a resolution before authorizing a tax rate increase for the following year. This process is in addition to the Truth in Taxation process that the City normally follows. It has been determined by the County Auditor that the proposed 2000 levy adopted by the council may result, and I stress may result, in a tax rate higher than the one for 1999. Obviously that's not known at this point until such time as the valuations are set and secondly is that the amount to be levied is set. This resolution merely allows for the possibility of adopting the proposed levy or something in-between the proposed levy and last year's levy at the hearing in December. And that's in essence what you have and you heard the City Attorney speak to it at the work session beginning at 5:30. City Council Meeting - October 11, 1999 Mayor Mancino: Any discussions before we open this up for a public hearing? From council. Is there anyone here tonight wishing to address the Council on the maybe a tax rate increase? John Ash: John Ash, 7444 Moccasin. I guess I'd like a little more information on, excuse me. If this is merely a resolution to indicate a possible increase with no weight one way or the other, is this really a resolution even of any merit or is there window dressing? Mayor Mancino: That's a good question. Scott Botcher: Well it's a procedural requirement that the legislature makes us do. I guess if you were Roger, our City Attorney said Mr. Abraham's, who is a proponent, he would say it's a communicative tool. In addition to all the other tools that we've already followed to date as part of the Truth in Taxation process. If you're on the other side, yeah. You could say it's window dressing. It's just another piece of paper that flies down the road until such time as you actually get to the budget process which is in December. Mayor Mancino: And this is new this year from the legislature. I mean this is the first time we're doing it and John we did pass a proposed levy increase but we have not passed the final one. And what we did do in the proposed levy increase in September was we decided to actually pass one because we did not want to go like we have in previous years, we've just gone with the max we're allowed to. We wanted to set some parameters around it. But we have not passed a final levy which will dictate the tax rate. John Ash: And what role does this resolution have in that? Mayor Mancino: So this is again just telling you that there may be a tax rate increase. And we will not know until December. John Ash: Okay. Thanks. Mayor Mancino: Okay? So it's again a communication, just so you know. We're trying to be very public about it and we may be so come back in December as we do the budget and help us keep the levy and the tax rate down. Okay, thank you. Any other discussion? May I have a motion please. Councilman Engel: Do you need one? Scott Botcher: You need one to adopt the resolution. Mayor Mancino: Yes we have to. We have to go through the formal procedure of voting on it and. Councilman Senn: Okay, well I'll move approval that we approve this but for the record I want it just very simply understood on the record that this is simply just like the tax levy that we adopt. It's nothing more than an authorization of a limitation for us to go up to if we have to. It has nothing to do effectively what we end up at, end at through the budget process. I made the motion. Mayor Mancino: Thank you. Is there a second to that motion? I think that explanation is fine. It's a hard one. City Council Meeting - October 11, 1999 Councilwoman Jansen: Second. Resolution/t99-86: Councilman Senn moved, Councilwoman Jansen seconded to adopt the resolution authorizing a levy certification tax rate increase for taxes collectible in 2000. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously. Mayor Mancino: And we appreciate the public input because it was at the public hearing so appreciate that. RECONSIDERATION OF RUBY TUESDAY SITE PLAN APPROVAL. Mayor Mancino: I'm bringing that up for a reconsideration. Last week we approved the site plan approval and the applicant asked that we review it and make some consideration of deleting some of the windows, the fake windows from our site plan and I think we all feel, or I feel comfortable with that. Any discussion on reconsideration? Do councilmembers want to reconsider the site plan? Councilman Senn: I'll move approval for reconsideration. Mayor Mancino: Okay, is there a second? Councilman Engel: Second. Councilman Senn moved, Councilman Engel seconded to reconsider the Ruby Tuesday site plan. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously. Mayor Mancino: We have a reconsideration. Roger Knutson: Mayor can I just point out where you're at procedurally? Mayor Mancino: Thank you. Roger Knutson: You are now...just before you voted on the motion that passed, so you now have a motion to approve, on the table, just as you did last time. Just like you've made the motion, it's been seconded and you are now ready to vote. So for example if you didn't like. Councilman Senn: I'm going to say, I want to offer a friendly amendment to that motion. Roger Knutson: There you go. Councilman Senn: Okay, because I was not here when this vote was taken. Friendly amendment that I would like to add is that I would like to add that the changes be adopted as per the plan that staff now has which backs off on, what was it, three. Councilman Engel: Five windows down to three. Councilman Senn: Yeah, it backed down to three additional windows which were added at that time and in trade off for that, substitute the coniferous 12 foot trees as designated on the plan that staff has. City Council Meeting - October 11, 1999 Mayor Mancino: Okay. Councilman Senn: ... remember who made the motion. Councilman Engel: As numbered 8.6. Mayor Mancino: 8.6 and I also did have a minute to go over this with Mr. Ruta tonight before getting into Council, starting our meeting. Is there a second? Councilman Labatt: I'll second it. Councilman Senn: No. Whoever made the motion the last time has to accept the amendment and whoever made the second has to accept the amendment, correct? Mayor Mancino: Okay, who made the motion? You made the motion. Councilman Engel: No, he was gone. Councilman Senn: I made the amendment tonight. I wasn't here when the motion was made. Councilman Engel: We need the minutes. Councilman Senn: See Roger what you started. Roger Knutson: It depends on how technical you want to be. Anyone can make an amendment. Then you vote on the amendment. Then you vote on the main motion. Under Robert's, friendly amendments don't exist. Councilman Senn: So mine is a motion for an amendment. Roger Knutson: Right. So anyone can make the motion to amend. Councilman Labatt: Mark, you moved and I seconded. Mayor Mancino: Will you accept the friendly amendment? Councilman Engel: I will accept. Mayor Mancino: Okay, and is there a second to that friendly amendment? Councilman Labatt: I'll second it. Mayor Mancino: Okay. All those in favor. Roger Knutson: That's fine. You've voting on the amendment now? Councilman Senn: Yeah, we're voting on the amendment. City Council Meeting - October 11, 1999 Councilman Senn moved, Councilman Labatt seconded to make an amendment to the Ruby Tuesday site plan that would add the changes per the plan staff has showing the addition of three windows instead of five, and substituting the coniferous 12 foot trees as designated on the plan. All voted in favor and the motion carried. Mayor Mancino: Okay, the friendly amendment is passed. Roger Knutson: Now you can pass the main motion as amended. Mayor Mancino: We now pass the main motion as amended. Councilman Senn: Pass the main motion as amended. Mayor Mancino: I'll second that. Councilman Senn moved, Mayor Mancino seconded to approve the reconsideration of the Ruby Tuesday site plan amended to reflect the changes submitted to staff showing the addition of three windows instead of five, and substituting the 12 foot coniferous trees as designated on the plan. All voted in favor and the motion carried. Mayor Mancino: So the motion, the friendly amendment, the reconsideration passes. Thank you. Next on our agenda is Wingate Hotel and the applicant is not here yet so we'll move forward. Thank you for letting us know that. CONSIDERATION OF CONTRACT PROVIDING FOR POLICING SERVICES/FISCAL YEAR 2000. Scott Botcher: In your packet you have a memo from me dated the 7th. Just as Karen was about to go to the copying machine, Bud's e-mail came so we had her put a P.S. on the bottom and put Bud's e-mail on back. The balance of the presentation you have heard. You heard last Monday. There has been a few modifications to it and the Sheriff I'm sure is able to explain those and answer any questions about those tonight. I also distributed to the council, Bud just so you know, the paperwork that you distributed Wednesday night at the contracting meeting so they all just tonight received copies of that, part of which was a four point presentation and part of which was city specific information. What staff is looking for this evening is some direction. We have two things in front of us. We do have a copy of the annual renewal contract which is just sort of same old, same old. That has a response date of October 15th included in it. Beyond that we also have a multitude of options as the City has been discussing policing for a majority of this year. What staff is looking for is some direction from the council as to what their preference is in terms of providing policing services to the citizens. Utilizing the county or utilizing some other means because we do need to get together and execute an agreement and the staff recommendation is as you all talked about on Monday night and as we talked about Wednesday night at your meeting is that if, and I'm assuming you probably will in some way, shape or form, contract with the County, that we do include in there performance measurement standards of some sort. To put those together, as I said at the work session, I would recommend that the County and their representatives and Mr. Knutson and I work with them to put together the agreement and the performance measures to bring back to you for final approval and blessing and addition/deletion I think is probably a more effective way of doing that. Beyond that, Bud's here to make a presentation. City Council Meeting - October 11, 1999 Mayor Mancino: Thank you very much. Bud Olson: Mayor, Council. Thank you for this opportunity to get back together with you and hopefully put some resolution to this long process that we've been through. I do have a presentation that kind of dove tails off my contract meeting that I did on Wednesday night, and that also brings into play some of the comments that we had at our work session this past Monday, last Monday. Before I do that I just want to introduce to the audience my Chief Deputy Denny Owens that is here with me tonight. And for the public I did bring the same handout that I'll be going over so anybody is welcome to that information that's on the table here and I can take a minute if they want to. Mayor Mancino: Can we distribute that to anyone? I think John would like one. Bud Olson: IfI might approach, I'd distribute that to you too. It's a different presentation that I had the other night. Mayor Mancino: Okay, thank you. Scott Botcher: ... you may approach the bench. They have that as well, yeah. Bud Olson: What I'm trying to do Mayor and council and the folks in the audience is to give you as much information I can to provide you so that you make an informed decision on what your policing needs are in Chanhassen. I first of all have to thank the members of the task force that were charged to come forward with a recommendation and because of timing in the office and issues of me getting up to speed a little bit on the county contracting history here, I felt it was important for me to step back and take some time and really understand it. But I do want to say that a lot of valuable input and work went into that task force and they did a lot of information gathering and I'm going to use some of that information tonight in my presentation because they did an outstanding job and I'm just sorry that the process got delayed by my wanting to step back and take a look at it so. I think any presentation has to start with why are we doing this and what is our mission? I really am a vendor in this market. It's the market of police service. It's your community. You're the policy makers. You're the policy deciders of what kind of community you want. What values that you want to bring forward and what mission you want to accomplish. As a vendor of this commodity called law enforcement I think that we all work under principles and we work under value systems and ours is the mission statement of the Carver County Sheriff's office. I think it's important to remember what we're committed to as a policing agency and so I provided that in your packet so that you all could see what I value in our organization and what we work with every day. Why we bring the services to your community. I also included in this handout is what my duties as sheriff are. I went over this with you, I'm not sure if I did at the workshop but I certainly did at our contract meetings about what the sheriff is statutorily mandated to do to provide services. And how my services can overlap on the services that you get in the local, as far as having a local police department. So I thought I'd include that for your information as well. And then we get to contracting. Who else contracts? I thought it was important for the council to have the information that this isn't a new concept. Contracting has been around for a lot of years now and as we see consolidation and collaborative efforts and governments coming to the forefront these days, I thought it was important that you see that there's local agencies right around you that really are made up of contracting police services. And that in each city they're unique but they still have the same concept. How do we deliver a quality police service at the most reasonable price for our taxpayers? And I think that we have a situation at South Lake. We have one in Orono. We have the City of Shoreview which is a population, I don't even know but it's probably around 35,000 community members and they in that community have the Ramsey County Sheriff's office contracting for them. We City Council Meeting - October 11, 1999 also have the City of Andover. That's about 23,000 people. Very comparable to Chanhassen that has the Anoka County Sheriff contracting in their community. And maybe Steve can help me with Hennepin County, whether there are communities that contract with your sheriff's office in Hennepin County as well. So this model's been around and it's been very effective. We have been in Carver County lucky to have a blend of that in your community and I think through this process that we've been going through, it's to determine whether we want to continue that model or move towards a full sheriff operation. So the next page here that I have here is Carver County Sheriff's office in 1999. Cost comparisons of some of those communities out there that share resources in this area. And as you can see and as the public can see, when we look at per capita costs for running your law enforcement mission, you can see under different models how much it costs for the taxpayers. And pretty much what it gets down to is what level of service do you want and there's different models to work under, but I thought this would be a good cost comparison for you to see and for the public to see as well. Any questions on this one by chance? Okay. Then I thought it was interesting that an article just came across my desk just the other day, September of '99. It's very current, about Rock County down in southern Minnesota and the City of Luverne had decided, they went after a board of innovation and cooperation grant and they have now consolidated their policing in Luverne with their sheriff there too so it's continually going on. This concept is not going to go away. It's only going to get better as our scarce resources get harder and harder to manage. So I did a little, I stole a little bit of Shakespearean here to contract or not to contract. Costs and benefits to some of that and as I looked at it and looked over it, there are many, many benefits and some of the costs, even though they seem little, there are some that we've had great debate over in our task force and in our community about the control of these resources and the responsiveness of the sheriff to the local area. What about that squad car? Golly, you know I want one that looks you now different from all the rest and you go to Chaska, theirs is black and white. And you come to the county, it's white. Locally you've got blue and so people identify in your community with the type of vehicle and the uniforms we wear. Those are all part of that mix of your law enforcement identity and so there are some costs there. You'll see a brown instead of a blue at your door. But does that really matter when we talk to people in our community? Does that matter what color the uniform is as long as when they dial 911 we're there. And some of those concerns probably stand out more for people. So I hope to show the economic savings are substantial by doing a police contract. Then we talk about the contracting concerns. The loss of local control. I just mentioned that. The lack of identify with the uniforms and squads. The community has a feeling that they really don't know their deputies or their officers as well under a contracting system. I don't think that's necessarily true here in Chanhassen. Our deputies have worked here for many years. Most of them have worked here probably 5 or more years. I think they have a local identity. I think they're well connected in your community. I think that they understand the needs of your community and I think that that's a positive for us in Carver County. And then the last one's responsiveness of the sheriff to the contract. I think if anything that is evaluated for this presentation, what stuck out in my mind the most is this issue of local control and contract management. How do we do that? How do we do it where the sheriff is responsive to that? So part of my presentation is how do we build some of that accountability into your contract in Chanhassen. So we talk about this a little bit. I've got to believe under my proposal, under my recommendations is that we have a contract supervisor in your community that will be a rank of a sergeant my organization. That person's benefit would be for the liaison with your city manager on a daily basis. So that we have a good link and a good communication... I though it was important that this contract supervisor end up at your staff meetings. That you find out through other staff and department heads what's going on, just like I join the county staff and find out what's going on in our county because there's a lot of things that we do in law enforcement that overlap in other services. Whether fire services or planning or building inspection. If you have a problem, it's easy to know who your local law enforcement is and ask them to come along. There's times where building inspectors get into situations that they didn't expect at the door and they have to call for a squad to come over. I can think of many neighborhood disputes that started with a visit by city planning or City Council Meeting - October 11, 1999 somebody else in city government. So it's good to have that communication link between other staff members. I also thought that by having the contract supervisor here in town we can set priorities specific to Chanhassen. That we're looking at your local needs and your local issues. The other presentation I have, it's no surprise of what's happening in Chanhassen with your growth. It's no surprise that your population is going up. Your calls for service are going up and your criminal and non-criminal activity levels are going up. When population comes, those are the things that are going to happen. It's a normal, natural trend. So those are things to look at. What's going to happen in the next year, or next two years. Five years and start planning for some of your law enforcement needs. So I see a benefit there. I also see that there's a benefit because this is a very responsive package. IfI, as a contract provider, ifI don't provide it, what's your other options? Within six months you tell me sheriff, next year we're not contracting with you. As a contract provider I believe that's the most responsive system you have. If you don't like your model and it's not working and we can't come to some agreements, you have the option in your contract to say sheriff, we're out of this. We're going to do our own thing. Or decide on something else. So there is into this system of contracting, a built in accountability that I think is very strong and so I think that's another advantage to the city. So here's my options, and we discussed them, I discussed them in a memo form to you and we'll put them out again. I think our option, one we start with is maintain the current condition. Here's what I know today. That if I use the guidelines and apply them to Chanhassen that we have for the last 15 years, Chanhassen isn't meeting their contract hours. You're about 19 hours short from what we considered under the formula to be an acceptable level of service in your community. Under this arrangement you don't have a contract supervisor from the sheriff's office right now. Under this condition you have what I believe are some uncoordinated police resources. I don't think that everybody's working the same direction here and I think that we need to talk about that and we need to address that so that we all are working on the same. What's the cost if we came and brought this contract up to the guidelines? And it's listed right there. It'd be about 51 hours. It's based upon population and that is your $2,000. That's your $2,000 amount. Comments? Questions? Councilman Labatt: What are some examples of uncoordinated police resources? Bud Olson: I don't have the schedule of Bob and Carrie. I don't know when they schedule themselves. I don't know when they plug themselves into the schedule. I can't tell you whether they're scheduling themselves at an appropriate time or not Steve, and so I think that there, we need to look at how we take those two licensed, sworn police officers in your community and coordinate them. That's one example. Okay? Other questions? Option 2. Option 2 is to consolidate your police resources all with the sheriff's office. I look at this in two forms. Is what your cost savings are and what your benefits would be. First of all we would transition those two sworn positions into the sheriff's office. I'd see that we'd eliminate some equipment and supply expenses that you have right now maintaining your public safety function in the community. And I see that I would be assuming the liability for that police service under the sheriff's contract and I would believe that there could be potential cost savings to the city not having the police liability for having sworn officers in your community. On the benefit side, I see that we can increase police service to the community. We can increase the accountability by having that contract supervisor here and we can better coordinate the law enforcement services in the total wide span of police services in the community. Again, this is a cost for that consolidated service based upon 2000 rates. Mayor Mancino: Bud, a question I have. Would we have the ability as a city to... choose those that we wanted to work in the city, especially at the supervisory level? 10 City Council Meeting - October 11, 1999 Bud Olson: I definitely would include that in the overall plan. Is to have a panel that would be made up of your chosen Mayor, to sit and help us select that person to work in the Chan area. I see that as a strong benefit here. Scott Botcher: How many hours are included in Option 2? Bud Olson: In Option 2 it's 44. Mayor Mancino: And does that include the hours of the supervisor? Bud Olson: Does that include the hours, no. The supervisor would be an addition to those hours, yes. Mayor Mancino: Would the supervisor also, not only supervising but doing patrol duty also? Bud Olson: Absolutely. Still a licensed sworn position so they would still, if there was something happening in the community, they would still have a response to that as well. Councilman Senn: Does that raise it to 52 then or what? Mayor Mancino: Do we get close to that 51 level? With the supervisor's hours, is that what you're saying? Councilman Senn: If44's a daily number, and he's adding 8 for a supervisor. Bud Olson: That's correct. Councilman Senn: Okay, so 52 then and we're over that, okay. Councilman Labatt: ... Bud Olson; Yes it does. That's correct. It accounts for his hours on a Monday through Friday basis and not as a patrol hours where I'm guaranteeing 44 hours of police patrol coverage every day. Seven days a week, 365 days a year. Scott Botcher: And in addition you're deciding to buy 8 administrative hours. Bud Olson: Correct. Okay. The third option, and I feel strongly as your sheriff standing here and talking about contracting that this is really my recommendation to the council. And the reason I say that is I think that we take up all the benefits of Option #2 with Option 3. Plus I believe that we pick up some enhancements here. It would actually add an extra deputy into the Chanhassen patrol area. It would give us some opportunity to be a little bit more flexible on some of our traffic enforcement details that we have. I would see that this person could pick up some overlapping investigative work, or work with Beth in your crime prevention area. I really believe that by having this extra deputy in town, we're really talking about some more visibility. Some overlapping hours to handle some of our heavy work load times of the day. I also see that really in identifying the issues going on in Chanhassen, that this is really a minimal level of police coverage that we should have to do the job adequately for your community. And so I built that into this option. 11 City Council Meeting - October 11, 1999 Mayor Mancino: Bud, let me challenge you on that, just a for what if. The levels that we're looking at right now are kind of national minimum levels that you've given us, right? The 51 hours for population that Chanhassen has. And one of the things that you're going to do is start a 10 month study on you know this is a national level. Does Chanhassen with it's kind of non-violent, non-criminal crimes need that minimum level? Bud Olson: Well Mayor, it's not a national level. It's a Carver County established guideline level that we're talking about. If you took a stand alone department and said how many police personnel do I need to open up a full service police department for the city of Chan? You can talk about FBI standards. The national standard is 2.3 officers for every 1,000 people in your community. The Midwest standard is around 1 per every, 1 officer for every 1,000 people. So if you look at that 19,000 people in Chanhassen, you'd need a department of 19 officers. That's just kind of the guidelines that we in law enforcement use to try to help policy makers decide what good levels of service are. When you start going into a full service police agency, you've got to talk about investigations. You have to talk about clerical and administration. And all those other aspects that I cover just being the sheriff with all the resources of the county sheriff's office behind us. So when you talk about national levels, this really is more identifying what Carver County struggled with 15 years ago to identify adequate patrol hours in a community and it really was just trying to define what does the sheriff give us for free and what do we pay for as a community and this is what this identifies. But it looks, it calls for service. One thing that's changing in our environment that takes a little bit more police effort is our youth. There's more violence occurring with our young people these days so I think you need to build into your plan an adequate measure or adequate way to interact with your young people in your community. So I know you all have heard of the situation we had on Tecumseh where we had six intruders in a house. That's just not one patrol deputy trying to confront that situation, and we did confront it and we confronted it on the street. And so there, our world is changing a little bit but we're still a very, very safe community. Very safe county. But this anticipates what some of your needs are. It's what you'd like to get from your police service as well. So, okay. Councilman Senn: If I could Bud, just to ensure they're okay. So essentially, I'm not trying to just break it down to numbers but just so everybody understands the numbers. Basically by the national average you just referenced, and our population, that would be 43 hours and by Carver County standards you're using 51 hours. Bud Olson: I guess you lost me. Councilman Senn: Well you said 2.3 nationally per 1,000 population. Bud Olson: Deputies. Not hours. Deputies. Officers. Not hours. Officers. There is no national standard for hours. Councilman Senn: Okay, alright. Scott Botcher: But as we talked about last time in the agreement, it is, the agreement with the audit with Arnie Carlson's auditor, it's the contracting agency's responsibility to request the number of hours that they see fit. Bud Olson: That's right. 12 City Council Meeting - October 11, 1999 Scott Botcher: So you can use these guidelines. You could use something else. Roger's guidelines. Whatever. Bud Olson: Right. Councilman Senn: I understand. Bud Olson: That's correct. Except the fact that you need to have a starting point. You need to have a sheriff tell you what he thinks or she thinks is an adequate number of hours to really cover your community and that's what I'm trying to do. Is just establish what I think is your, would be your acceptable hours. Your minimum. Okay? Why choose this option? I really think it's a realistic approach to look at your community needs. I think it's a reasonable solution looking at the total picture of our contracting system. I think it addresses some of the task force concerns that they have about management and accountability. Adding that supervisor in there for 8 hours administrative time. I think that will help tremendously, and I really do believe that it's a minimal level if you talk about, and I think as time goes and we get into this study period and get into the year 2000 and talk about this, we need to look at what happens in 2001 and beyond. And my last little ditty is I think it's the best bang for the taxpayer's bucks when you look at per capita cost for your law enforcement services, so. Mayor Mancino: Other questions for Bud? Councilman Senn: Bud how, I mean in the... I suppose in a perfect world we could just simply say that this service is going to take 44 hours a day and plan it that way but we both know it never works that way. Bud Olson: Sure. Councilman Senn: In the past year's, sometime after the end of each year the city gets a bill and that bill is for hours that were paid at overtime rather than regular pay because of particular demands within one time frame. And now we haven't seen that for the last year since you came in and it may be a practice you've discontinued and that's kind of why I'm asking the question because is that something we need to factor into this? Where effectively under this proposal, I mean we're covered period and there's no issues over, if there's 55 hours this day and 34 the next, you know that type of thing. Bud Olson: Sure, Councilman Senn. I think one thing that you might be speaking to is that every year during the spring you've traditionally contracted for deputies working weights and scales in your community, more than what we do in the county. Councilman Senn: No. No, I'm talking about regular service under the contract. In the past there's always been a provision in our contract with the county that said that county had a right basically at the end of the year to add that all up and basically turn around and bill us for any overtime hours. Or I mean you know the additional of the overtime hours. As I read your contract proposal, I kind of thought that had all been thrown out the window but I just wanted to clarify to make sure it had been. Bud Olson: What you're getting is what you're getting. There is an adjustment in your contract that talks about the end of the year, making an adjustment, but that's not in relationship to what you're talking about. Councilman Labatt: So this paragraph on page 6 of the contract then we had before? 13 City Council Meeting - October 11, 1999 Bud Olson: May I read it again? Councilman Labatt: Yeah. Scott Botcher: That contract is the rollover of the same old same old. Councilman Senn: It's the old one. That's kind of why I'm asking the question. Scott Botcher: So and if you choose another option, then obviously that's not... Bud Olson: My understanding of this Steve, and I wish I had my staff here. Pam Raser knows this more. It's not, you know I should probably let her clarify it for me before I make a statement I'm not sure of. How's that? I should probably have her address that for you. Councilman Labatt: And if you could also figure out what the amount was that we were billed for for '98. Scott Botcher: Well that we should be able to get. Councilman Senn: Yeah, we should be able to get it for '98 if we were billed anything. Bud Olson: It's already here. Councilman Senn: There was a requirement that we have it I think by April 1, 1999. Mayor Mancino: I would certainly like to make sure that you know we have a contract that's good and hard and true and that if we do ask for overtime or etc, that it has to come through city council for approval. Scott Botcher: That overtime bill payment would have been in early '99. Is that correct? Councilman Senn: Well if I remember the old contract, the way it reads, language in it that requires them to get us the data by April 1 or within 100... Scott Botcher: I guess I want to have some direction of where I should look. Early '99 or early '98? Councilman Senn: '99. In the first half of the year. Mayor Mancino: Towards April I would think. Any other questions Councilman Senn at this point? Councilman Senn: Let's see here. Just to pursue that I guess one step further though. Would be your understanding though going forward that essentially under your contract proposal that that's kind of really all inclusive? Bud Olson: It is. Again, as I've learned this contracting system, Pam has a simple explanation for what that is. That is not extraordinary expense here. There is an adjustment that occurs every year in all of the contracts because we assume at the front end of the contract what the hourly rate is, right. And there's adjustments at the end of the year because we're just not certain of all the costs in the contract. So it's just a catch up cost. Some years we actually rebate the contracting community. 14 City Council Meeting - October 11, 1999 Councilman Senn: You have in some cases even negotiated the contract at the time that you enter the contract with us, if my memory serves me right. You have a negotiation on a labor contract that may occur in the middle of the service year. Bud Olson: That's part of the adjustment right there. Exactly. I think the contract does address, if you want services beyond what the contract hold, that there's a formula that's applied there and that is in that language as well. In other words, here's your contract services. Hey sheriff, I want every park double patrolled in the summer. That is a contract service up and beyond and outside what your normal contract hours would be. In other words, let's say that you want to intensify the park patrol efforts on a given two week period of time. 4th of July. And we factor in 44 hours a day and you say we want more on this particular time. There is a provision in that contract to pick up those extra hours. Councilman Senn: But I'm assuming under what discussions we've had though, we could also sit down with you and say we want that programmed in so you do do that and we may give it up in other areas or whatever to achieve that. Bud Olson: Sure. Sure. Sure, we could adjust work schedules to accommodate that as well. Sure. Councilman Senn: So I mean when I'm kind of saying all inclusive, I'm saying all inclusive effectively at this prescribed hour limit. Then it's up to us to work together to allocate. Bud Olson: Correct. Yep. Mayor Mancino: And I think the thought was also talked about on Monday night that we can look and see when our peak times are throughout the year when we need more service and adjust accordingly. Days of the week, etc. Bud Olson: Spring, well summer versus winter too. You know your times change. Times change. After school and, you know and the school year is a good time where they're in the parking lots and you know they're doing their thing and so you know at different times of the year your resources can be applied differently. Mayor Mancino: And that's the kind of information that we would need from your department to give us. To take that information and where the calls are, etc and give it back to us so that we can use it to do some good planning with you. Any other questions? Councilman Senn: Not right now, thank you. Mayor Mancino: Councilwoman Jansen. Councilwoman Jansen: I guess to clarify and of course having been on the task force, we've gone back and forth over all these points but I guess just right up front to note, none of these proposals include our transferring to the sheriff department the community service officer would remain as a Chanhassen employee and the crime prevention officer. Bud Olson: That's correct. It does not include those two positions. 15 City Council Meeting - October 11, 1999 Councilwoman Jansen: It's just our licensed personnel or a badged personnel that would be transferred. Bud Olson: That's correct. Councilwoman Jansen: Okay. I think that's the only thing to clarify. It's a thorough proposal. Thank you Sheriff. Bud Olson: Very good. Councilman Engel: To piggy back on Councilwoman Jansen's question. Everything else has been answered. Then those two positions are theoretically animal control, crime prevention, things like that. We're not going towards an all in one yet. Bud Olson: No. And that's part of that window in the year 2000 to sit down and talk about that if you want. Some things that are going on, not to bore you. In the whole Carver County contracting system I have 11 communities that contract with the sheriff's office. The only community that doesn't is Chaska. They have their stand alone. Some of the big issues out in my contracting communities are animal control. Our population centers, our communities are growing and so are the dogs and the dog complaints and the, you know the animal control complaints, and there really is no county wide effort at this. They're all trying to do it with private contracting. But that's one issue. The other one is crime prevention and community policing programs. Outside of Chanhassen, we really have very little established in the county and those are certainly areas that I'm focusing on. I brought it up Wednesday night at our all contracting meeting. This is where our county resources are going. This is what the public demand is. It really is time consuming for a deputy to go out and spend a half hour to get a raccoon out of a window well when somebody at a cheaper rate of pay can go do it and so every community's struggling with these issues. So there's a model in Chanhassen. I told them let's all take a look at it and look how well it works and try to model ourselves after it too. Councilman Labatt: Is there a current 2000 contract? Or a negotiation for it. 2000 with the union. Bud Olson: The union has settled and we have, yes. Councilman Labatt: The estimated hourly rate in the contract, 43.63 is. Bud Olson: It is an accurate number, yes. It should be I think $43.36 or is it. Councilman Labatt: 36, yeah. Then the only other comment I have is a monthly audit. Mayor Mancino: That's a good comment. Councilman Labatt: And I talked about it at our work session is to have an audit done to compare the contract hours versus hours worked. This is looking at you know contract for 11,680 hours, pull off the logs. Track it throughout the year. At the end of the year you know if we have our 11,860. Bud Olson: Okay. That is supposed to be done by, we do that through our paychecks. The deputies sign off of how many hours they work in their contract communities and how many they put on their base level and so they are supposed to be putting those hours out there. 16 City Council Meeting - October 11, 1999 Councilman Labatt: So it's already in existence? Bud Olson: Yes it is. That accounting system is in existence. Councilman Labatt: Along with the questions on the contract that I had then, should we also get ~98's audit then for the comparison to show what we contracted for for '98. Actual work was. Bud Olson: Okay. Okay. Scott Botcher: When I check the overtime bills, it might be with that. Mayor Mancino: We already have that. Scott Botcher: I've not seen it but my guess is for you guys to send us a bill for overtime, that calculation is probably attached. Councilman Labatt: Okay. That's all I have for right now. Mayor Mancino: Thank you. I just have a couple. Thank you for the proposals and how clear they are and we asked so many questions at our work session last Monday night, that I think we can give you some direction Bud tonight. Hopefully get there. Here's my question. Let's say we went with Option 2, which gives us more hours. The 44 hours plus the administrative of 8 hours a day which gives us to an hourly daily of 52. And didn't go with Option 3. I'm assuming that during the year, as we see maybe our needs changing a little bit and want to increase the hours and maybe you know target a certain... (There was a tape change at this point in the discussion.) Bud Olson: ... we weren't adjusting all over the county something like this. But it would certainly be something that we would plan for in the year 2001. Absolutely. Mayor Mancino: Okay. And I'd also like to make sure that the supervisor obviously with the daily meetings with the city manager and going to staff meetings, also does attend the monthly or bi-monthly meetings of the council and that we have that good communication too. That's been very helpful with Bob here and talking with the council. Bud Olson: Okay. Mayor Mancino: Okay. Which. Councilman Labatt: I've just got one more question...and this is really for Bud. If we do go with Option 2, which I've been supportive of at this point but what is your plan as far as a transition of our officers to your department in relation to the difference in pay, realizing that the Carver County is on the lower end of the scale. Are our employees going to take a pay cut or are you going to lateral these guys in at a comparable step in your contract? Bud Olson: I'm going to try to do my best there councilman. Just remember, in the county structure the county board is actually the contracting agent and so I will have to take whatever recommendations you have and probably develop a work group that will sit down and look at all those transitional issues. 17 City Council Meeting - October 11, 1999 Probably the easiest one is the Officer Nolden because she is a Clinton Cop and the dollars are already designated and her contract, her Clinton contract isn't up until July of 2000 so you're really not going to have those costs in there until then anyway. And so as far as Assistant Deputy Public Safety Director Bob Zydowsky, those are some latitudes. I always have in my hiring, I have the latitude to look at experience and adjust new employees in that area of salary. As far as some of the seniority issues, those pretty much are set out by your membership in the sheriff's office. So we'll have to look through all those transitional issues by getting that work group together and just hammering out some of that. Scott Botcher: We will also need to, if there is some sort of transitional activity that takes place, review our own handbook for rights and privileges that any employee would have upon transitioning. Because I think certainly that both these employees may be entitled to separation benefits, whatever you want to call them. But that would all have to be worked out. Mayor Mancino: I'm assuming when we give you direction tonight, that you'll come back with some of those details and let us know. How it all works out. Scott Botcher: Yeah, especially the first year. If you choose to consolidate, you will probably have a master agreement and then maybe some sidebar agreements that just affect these specialty issues. Transitional items. Bud Olson: I could see equipment. Scott Botcher: I had a couple questions. One was, we need to figure out what to do with the fixed assets. That are held by the City of Chanhassen. Obviously in our own interest we want to make sure that we maximize the value that we receive for them. As an organization and that may or may not mean that they transition over. If the Sheriff has an interest in them. If not, we can sell them on the market. We can transition them to other uses in the organization, but at this point I couldn't tell you up or down. The other thing that I want to, and I've been asked this many, many times by every one of you except for Mark because I don't think we've got his e-mail fixed yet on the computer, and that is the issue of management and such like that and I don't, you know I don't think anyone, and I said this last time. I don't think that having a contracting option, I think it's a good option. I don't think it's certainly the maximization of management ability and Bud talked about the control issue in here. Certainly if you want to spend enough money you can buy a police service that you can totally control, and that's not what we're buying here and that's okay. I mean I'm comfortable with that. But certainly, and I think I've been upfront with Bud about wanting to do some things. I don't claim to be a police chief. I'm not a public works director but I certainly know enough to be able to tell those people some goals I want to achieve and I think Bud is probably aware of that. I'm going to do the same thing with he and this sergeant individual. But you know there will be recommendations that I will make of them and I just, you know you talked about getting known in the community and one of the things I keep knocking around in my head is I, and I think it's important, is that we do our best to get the deputies out of the cars because I think for a lot of, especially at the county level. And not just our county, but the county as a unit of government, primarily in the old northwest territory. The upper Midwest sort of an area. Sometimes county police services are driving around in a Crown Vic and that's not it anymore, and you've said that many times when you talk about the community policing. You talked about Beth's activities and CSO's. I think in Chanhassen if we decide to go to one of these options where we have a supervisory personnel, I think that one of the things that we'll be talking about is the utilization of some of those hours in a different way than maybe we've done it in the past. And we need to make sure that these officers are known in the community. That we see them on foot downtown. That we see them at neighborhood meetings. That we see them at some of these things. Some 18 City Council Meeting - October 11, 1999 of this stuff is, I call it Beth sort of stuff. But the foot patrol stuff isn't Beth sort of stuff. I mean it's walking, being known by the business people up and down main street. You know checking. Mayor Mancino: Kerry was on a bike all summer. I think or a lot of the time. Scott Botcher: Some of those sort of stuff and I think that's another way we can creatively utilize the 40 some hours that we're going to have. So those are just my thoughts on it and you know I think it will work out. He obviously has a sensitivity to the client relationship. From a practical point of view, if we don't like what he's doing, the economics are not in our favor to go out and start a police department. That's just reality. Maybe we should have a police department and he can contract with us for sheriff's services. Mayor Mancino: Get into another business. Scott Botcher: But I think that's where we're going with it. My own, and I know Bob sits in on staff meetings. You know whoever the sergeant ends up being will be certainly subjected to the same abuse that Bob is subjected to at staff meetings, and that's just how it's going to be. I don't care what color the uniform is. But I guess my two cents worth, and I know Bud likes Option 3. I like Option 2. Basically because I want to really, really watch cash flow until we get to 2004. And I've said this for other issues in the budget process. Nothing wrong with Option 3. Could we afford Option 3? Yeah, we could probably afford Option 3. But I'm basically cheap and I think we should really just sort of, we're getting a good service here. We're increasing our management abilities, our administrative abilities and perhaps our responsiveness and maybe incrementally work our way up towards Option 3. Just my own two cents worth. I think we just in the grand scheme of things need to just be sensitive to cash flow issues. Mayor Mancino: Okay, thank you very much. Bud Olson: Council, I appreciate that. Mayor Mancino: Bud, I also just wanted to say that I think we've been contracting with the Carver County Sheriff's office for 30 years and so I know that the community knows and honors and respects your officers and has for all those years and when they did a survey of the Chanhassen residents, a lot of the residents in Carver County that I think 97% of those surveyed in Chanhassen feel very safe. This was a couple years ago so I'm not sure a lot has changed in two years, but they felt very safe in our community and thought the law enforcement was just excellent. Bud Olson: Appreciate that. Mayor Mancino: Okay. Some discussion from council members about where we want to go with these options. Anybody want to kind of weigh in. Councilman Senn: I'm programatic so I'll just move Option number 2 with the direction that staff proceed on the negotiating a contract which would include performance measurements as delineated by Mr. Botcher, Bud and Mike Fahey and Roger. And secondly, that a provision also be ordered into the contract that the City can audit hours at any time they want in terms of hours against performance in the contract and stuff. And other than that, like I say, direct staff to come back with a complete contract. Mayor Mancino: Okay, and I may I just a little discussion here. Also the corporal, of getting Bob up to corporal status.., looking at detail also. 19 City Council Meeting - October 11, 1999 Councilman Senn: Yeah, I'm assuming that'd be in the details that they negotiate out. Mayor Mancino: Okay. Any other discussion on that motion? Councilwoman Jansen: I don't know that it would necessarily be part of the motion. But since Mark's taken us to that point, one of the things that we did discuss in our work session on this was to move then to take the action, even next year and you spoke to this a little bit. To really do an analysis of what our actual law enforcement needs would be. We discussed either using the neighborhood watch groups to get a feel for what's going on out there. Or a resident has shared with us that there is a gentleman who does evaluate community policing needs, whether it's bringing in an outside consultant like that to really get a feel. Maybe it's a higher number. Maybe it's a lower number. Or maybe it's fine tuning how we have the hours, the way that you've discussed here tonight. And I guess, I'm sorry. Mayor Mancino: I'm sorry, and that's in, that's not part of the motion but that's in something that we said we wanted to do first quarter of next year. To really hone in on that. Councilwoman Jansen: And making sure that we're moving forward on that and the other point, the whole strengthening of the community identity. Whether, and again I don't know if you put it in the contract. The sheriff has already suggested that yes, he thinks it's a good idea to put the marking for the city on the side of the patrol car. Let's get the officers introduced to the community, whether it's through the newsletter or through the newspaper. However we go about doing that. Just part of the whole discussion of what we're trying to accomplish as a part of the big picture. Councilman Senn: That's fine. You can include it in the motion. The things I was leaving out of the motion were everything that he already has in the write-up's includes those things. Like the 10 month study and the. Scott Botcher: And Linda's thing is just stuff we can include in our, and I had it in our notes for negotiations. Councilman Senn: I'm sorry, the reason I mentioned the other two things was those haven't you know really been previously discussed or were not in those write-up's so that's why I wanted to add those. Scott Botcher: Bud, your review, or not review but your analyzation. Do you have a game plan on how you're going to do that? Bud Olson: Yes, actually I do... kind of identifying, you know again we go back to the guidelines that I have, it says that every city should specify the hours and types of services that their community.., those needs are and try to identify them as best as we can. Scott Botcher: So what Linda talked about should be done before this work session. Councilwoman Jansen: So that we identify our needs. Scott Botcher: ... about what the needs are. Right, I'm just. Councilwoman Jansen: Yeah, thank you. 2O City Council Meeting - October 11, 1999 Scott Botcher: And you're thinking mid year, right? Sort of. Bud Olson: I'm thinking.., it depends, I'm not sure if I understand what you're saying. Scott Botcher: You're going to come to us at our work session mid year 2000, is that what you said? Bud Olson: No, by July we're going to have this worked out because we're going to start next month. Scott Botcher: Internally though right. Internally next month? Okay. So we need to probably get going then. Mayor Mancino: So we need to get going on identifying our needs in early 2000, first quarter 2000. And it may be that we consult with someone to help us do that too. Bud Olson: That process is for the contract for 2001. We started last Wednesday with.., communities is for the contract for 2001. This proposal here is given through 2000. Mayor Mancino: Yes. Is that all understood by council? Is that all understood? Scott Botcher: But from a practical point of view I want to make sure that we've coordinated the research activity because you know we need to find out what our citizens want and what's important to them. Because as stewards of their money we need to know what police services they want to buy. I mean when you think about it, you look at the Shakopee-Prior Lake numbers, there are some citizens out there, and we had this in Delafield when we had our 14 officers for 7,500 people who said no. If it costs me $50.00 more a year to have that, I'd pay it. They said for 50 bucks, I'll pay it. And you know our citizens may all come back and say, for 50 bucks we'll pay it. We don't know that yet. We really need to go out and do a better job of asking our citizens what is important to them in terms of police services and how do you quantify it? We need to do that. Mayor Mancino: And we might do that both through qualitative and quantitative research. Scott Botcher: The other thing too Bud, and I don't know how you're going to do this. I thought of it... start doing your internal work. At any time in the process is there going to be any input from the contracting communities or are you just going to be sort of insulated because I'm not sure that's the best way. I mean if you're going to be insulated. Bud Olson: No... Scott Botcher: Okay. So you'll be in contact with like city managers and. Bud Olson: Exactly. Scott Botcher: Okay, great. Bud Olson: That's the whole process... 21 City Council Meeting - October 11, 1999 Scott Botcher: I didn't know if it was just your staff or you were, we could all sit down and really have a heart to heart, you know privately about what's going on. Bud Olson: ... internal work session to really identify... Scott Botcher: Okay. Councilwoman Jansen: And then just again to Mr. Botcher I'm sure he'll do this for us but this is only one small piece of our law enforcement budget. Actually it's a big piece. If we can figure out what the small pieces are so that we've got the total dollar amount for all of the law enforcement. Scott Botcher: Especially by December. Councilwoman Jansen: Yeah. Mayor Mancino: That would be helpful. Scott Botcher: Bruce and I have already... Mayor Mancino: Thank you. Mark, anything you want to ask? Councilman Engel: Yeah, I like both options 2 and 3 but when I look at them, it looks like if you go to 3 you're taking two steps at one shot as opposed to going to option 2, let's just take one step. But we're making a decided change in the make-up of how we deliver this policing service. So I think it's pragmatic, someone used the word. I think that's the proper word. It's the right way to go, short term. And I'd like to see some analysis on dollars spent, calls fielded, and then some feedback that we can look at and digest over the course of the year and decide what to do the next time so I think 2 is the best way to go. Councilman Labatt: I think the comment that Scott made, and figure out first what the city wants. And should we just go with Option 1. First determine what the need is and then doing an option after that. Option 2 is fine. I mean.., something else but I'm comfortable with it. Really I'm concerned that our employees are treated fairly in the transition and not a hit on them financially too much. And then I'd just like to open this up for public comment if we could, some of the residents here and... Mayor Mancino: Okay. Before we go on, excuse me, I need to say a couple of things and I think that that's true. I mean I think one of the details is, and obviously has been a concern and one that we talked about at the work session was handling obviously our crime prevention CSO officers will stay on here at the city and then just, we have two officers that will go on with Carver County and get the details on how that transition will work. I think everyone is concerned with that on council. Anyone like to address the council on this? Bob. Bob Ayotte: Madam Mayor, Council. My name is Bob Ayotte, 6213 Cascade Pass. I've had the good fortune of having quite a bit of interaction with Carver County Sheriff. Not specifically Sheriff Olson but a number of his officers with some vandalism problems that we've been having in our neighborhood and they've been extremely responsive. One of the concerns I'd like to voice this evening is not whether or not we go Option 1, 2 or 3. I have an opinion but I'll keep that to myself. What I would request is that Chanhassen work in concert to assist the sheriff's office to deal with some of the significant issues that he must contend with. He's just taken over recently. I believe they're short about 17 personnel right now, 22 City Council Meeting - October 11, 1999 both jail and patrol. When you take a look at the ratio on a national average and possibly Councilman Labatt can ensure that my number is correct. It's either 1 or 1.5 police officers per 1,000 people. Is that about right? And I believe the population of the Chan, or correction. Of the Carver County sheriff's is around 57. And when you take a look at the aggregate of the community at large, it's not just simply accurate in terms of ratio. There's a concern, not only in numbers but also the issue with what Sheriff Olson has to contend with in I believe Carver County's probably the worst paid in the metro area. Is that a true statement? Compared county wise, am I close? Councilman Labatt: ... middle to low, I don't know. Bob Ayotte: I suspect Sheriff Olson could respond to that but my point is that we should take a positive stance to ensure that we can assist and so maybe if we make it $100 a citizen rather than $50 but these guys have to make more, one. So there's a quality assurance issue. I guess that's what I'm requesting. That if you do go to I believe it's Mr. Cussock under the community policing activities, that possibly they could also address the issues with quality assurance to assist Carver County in not only meeting numbers, and not only meeting the type of police that we may need, but also assisting with the quality assurance that's needed to keep these police that we have on hand. Attrition is high and the only way to keep a good person, whether he's working the police force or in the private sector, is all you can to make sure his benefits are there so he doesn't have to worry about his family and so on. There's also internal to Carver County, I don't know if we can effect as possibly Mayor you can with your influence with the county commission. There's a tremendous imbalance. Take the secretaries. A secretary is a very important position. Now when you compare it to an inspector on the sheriff's department, should they be making more? I don't know. So there's also the issue of not only an equity in pay for comparatively speaking, there's an inequity within the structure of Carver County and we as the largest community of Carver County should take a position and influence those people so we can assist the Sheriff who has an upward battle. So please, from a citizens standpoint let's look at quality along with the numbers. Thank you very much. Mayor Mancino: Thank you. Thank you. Appreciate that. Robert Mortenson: My name is Robert Mortenson, 7371 Kurvers Point Road. First off I'd say I think the Carver County Sheriff's department is doing a very nice job. I'm very pleased with the services that they're providing. I don't have a problem with that. I do have a problem with two of the people in this room have commented that, for an extra $50 we can get some additional service or whatever and I think it's kind of indicative of the situation of taxes today in Minnesota, and real estate taxes in general. I'm sorry but I've been...just about $10,000 a year and I'm sorry but that's a lot of money. And I'm not debating whether the Carver County Sheriff isn't worth it. They are. But it's your responsibility to keep a lid on things and make sure that we're spending the money wisely and a lot of communities would love to have the tax base we have. And sometimes I feel that I'm the unheard voice and I do sometimes feel beat up. Mayor Mancino: Thank you. Appreciate that. Okay. Let's bring that back. We've had a motion. Anyone else? We've had a motion. Is there a second for Mark's motion? We haven't gotten to that part because I wanted to make sure we got discussion. Councilman Senn moved, Councilwoman Jansen seconded to approve Option number 2 for the 2000 Policing Contract with Carver County with direction that staff proceed on the negotiating a contract which would include performance measurements as delineated by Scott Botcher, Bud Olson, Mike Fahey and Roger Knutson. Secondly, that a provision be ordered into the contract that the City can 23 City Council Meeting - October 11, 1999 audit hours at any time they want in terms of hours against performance in the contract and direct staff to come back with a complete contract. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously. Mayor Mancino: So we will go with the Option 2 and give you that direction. And obviously have the experts work on the performance measures and bring us back something. Anything else, Mr. Botcher, or anything else Bud that you need direction in? Bud Olson: No, thank you.., and we'll proceed forward. Mayor Mancino: Okay, thank you. Bud Olson: Appreciate all the comments. REQUEST FOR SITE PLAN REVIEW FOR A 17,544 SQ. FT. HOTEL (WINGATE HOTEL) AND A VARIANCE TO ALLOW A THREE STORY BUILDING IN THE HIGHWAY BUSINESS DISTRICT; LOCATED ON LOTS 2 & 3, BLOCK 1, CROSSROADS PLAZA 3m~ ADDITION, NElL WEBBER ARCHITECTURE. Sharmin A1-Jaff: The applicant is requesting site plan approval for the construction of a three story hotel, Wingate Hotel. And a variance to allow a three story building in the Highway Business District. The building is proposed to have 17,544 square foot area. The site is currently zoned Highway Business. It is bordered by West 79th Street to the south, West 79th Street Center to the east and Applebee's and Tires Plus to the west. Access to the site is provided via West 79th Street. The parcel area is 1.8 acres. The site is visible from Highway 5. We've been working with the applicant for approximately 3 months on this project. Materials used on the exterior of this building include brick and EFTS. The first and second floors of the building will be brick, and the third floor is EFTS. The applicant does have some materials with him and when he presents the architectural design of the building you will be seeing the renderings as well as the materials. There's a service door, trash pick-up area located along the west elevation. This door. This is the service door. Vehicular parking is proposed along the north portion of the building of the site. As T mentioned earlier, this site is within the Highway 5 corridor which is the underlying district for setbacks. What the applicant has done is pushed.., facing West 79th Street and all the parking is then placed to the back. Completely screened from views and located behind the building. There is a variance attached to this application. The Highway Business District allows a maximum of two story buildings. The applicant was willing to build underground parking to free up some space. Hard surface space for the maximum building portion so instead of putting parking, you put up buildings and the parking would go under there. However, there's a high water table on this site and it's doable but it's cost prohibitive to go forward with that alternative. Another issue associated, we are recommending approval of this three story variance. And the applicant has brought in sketches that show how this site with three story relates to the buildings on the east and west of the subject site. As well as sketches of what a two story building would look like with a pitched element in relationship to a three story. Another issue associated with this site is restrictions on types of materials used on this building. The city owns the property and has entered into a purchase agreement with the hotel. The restriction requires all exterior surface materials on the building to be composed of at least 80% face brick, stone or glass. Since the Planning Commission meeting the applicant revised the exterior materials on this building and the current design has a total percentage of brick and glass of 82.3%. So that portion meets ordinance requirements. The last issue deals with hard surface coverage on this site. The ordinance requires 65% hard surface. Maximum of 65% .... part of this subdivision for the hotel. When Applebee's was developed, the City granted a 66.5% hard surface coverage variance. That's 1.5 deviation from what ordinance permits. When Applebee's was developed 24 City Council Meeting - October 11, 1999 the City granted a 70% hard surface coverage. That's 5% deviation. In both cases the understanding was that when the hotel site developed, they would make up the difference. That means approximately 3,100 square feet of green space that they would have to incorporate into this site. We need to point out that the ponding in the surrounding area can handle a 70% drainage and hard surface coverage and the storm sewers in that area were designed to accommodate a 70% hard surface coverage. We also need to point out that the majority of the site within the surrounding area exceeds the 65% hard surface coverage. So as far as creating a precedence, that already exists. Mayor Mancino: May I ask a question? Is the 65% the overall average? When I took the numbers and I averaged Tires Plus and I averaged Applebee's and I averaged the hotel, the average for all of them was 67%. I took all three and divided that by three and got 67% so talking about 2% over the impervious surface. Because it's always average of the aggregate. Sharmin A1-Jaff: Correct. Mayor Mancino: As we look at sites. Sharmin A1-Jaff: You're probably right. As far as your calculations of the. Mayor Mancino: That's what I've been told by, when I was on the Planning Commission so I just wanted to make sure. Sharmin A1-Jaff: I just need to add the square footage and compare it to the hard surface coverage but you're probably right with your analysis as well. Mayor Mancino: Again, I just took the numbers and added them up and divided them by three and came out with an average of 67%. Sharmin A1-Jaff: The last variance, staff is recommending approval of permitting this site to maintain 65% hard surface coverage as required by ordinance. The last issue deals with the Highway 5 requirements. The Highway 5 overlay district requires a fifth element on any building within the overlay district. And in reviewing the design of this building we believe that it is acceptable and they truly don't need a pitched element on the building. This item appeared before the Planning Commission on September 15th. The Planning Commission did recommend denial of this application. The main issues that they raised was the fact that, at the time when this appeared before them they did not meet the 80% requirement of brick and glass. There was an issue with the 65% hard surface coverage. They thought the site should make up the difference as required in the development agreement with Tires Plus and Applebee's. And the third issue dealt with the third story on the building. They felt there isn't a hardship and adding a third story was just a way to increase the income potential of the property. Again, since the Planning Commission the only thing that has changed has been the adding brick on the exterior of the building. Staff is recommending approval of this application with conditions outlined in the staff report. Thank you. Mayor Mancino: Thank you. Any questions for staff? Councilman Senn: Sharmin, my recollection of the, I guess I call it the old definition of the Highway Business District and it talks about two stories but it doesn't define it. I mean does it define it by an overall height limitation? 25 City Council Meeting - October 11, 1999 Sharmin A1-Jaff: No. It defines it by number of stories and that's it. There is no height limitation. Mayor Mancino: It doesn't say two stories, 20 feet? Sharmin A1-Jaff: No. Councilman Senn: I understand. So effectively it doesn't really outline the parameter one way or the other? Sharmin A1-Jaff: No. Councilman Senn: Okay. Mayor Mancino: Any more questions before the applicant? Councilwoman Jansen: I have a question for staff. And I didn't have a chance to look this up but the bowling alley, is that the same district? Is it also Highway Business district? Sharmin A1-Jaff: No. It's General Business District. Councilwoman Jansen: Okay, so it changes as you get across the railroad track? Okay. Councilman Senn: The Highway Business District and the downtown district are two different things. Mayor Mancino: But I think, I don't think the central business district has impervious surface requirement. Sharmin A1-Jaff: No it doesn't. Mayor Mancino: The cinema does. Sharmin A1-Jaff: Correct. The cinema is general business. The Dinner Theater is central business district. Councilwoman Jansen: Okay... And then when we were reviewing the real estate purchase agreement on this property, there was that one condition that, why weren't we originally requiring hotel on this property? Do you know? Scott Botcher: Why the conditions were what they were, I can't answer that. They've been on the property, maybe Todd can. But there is still that issue out there of, unless it's been taken care of, getting a waiver from the neighboring property owner to allow for a hotel, is that correct? Tires Plus? Doesn't Tires Plus have to sign off on a hotel being there? Todd Gerhardt: Yes. Tires Plus has not signed off yet on the hotel use. Applebee's has. They have sent us their release of the condition of allowing a hotel on this site. The reason the hotel got added was when we first originally started redeveloping the downtown it was very difficult to find users to come here and the Country Suites was taking somewhat of a gamble to locate in downtown and made quite a capital investment in doing so. So at that time when we were marketing the property on West 79th Street, we did not want to jeopardize their development as a business in the community. So we did put that condition on there. Since then the Country Suites has expanded and we're seeing more demands for hotels in the 26 City Council Meeting - October 11, 1999 community. So that is one of the things that you have to consider tonight is releasing that hotel use as a part of the conditions on there. You will ultimately have to sign a release also eliminating that use from the property. You also must grant a hotel on there. Scott Botcher: But any approval we would give would still be predicated on Tires Plus signing off? Todd Gerhardt: Correct. Councilwoman Jansen: Okay. Was Americlnn aware of that restriction on this property when they built across the street? Todd Gerhardt: I do not believe they were. Councilwoman Jansen: Okay. Todd Gerhardt: It was something that the EDA had placed on the property as a part of marketing it. The EDA had spent time talking about what kind of uses they'd like to see there and they definitely didn't want to see fast food. They didn't want to see automotive repair type facilities. They wanted to see more restaurants, retail type uses. Something that would be complimentary to the community. Councilwoman Jansen: Okay. Thank you. Mayor Mancino: Any other questions? Is the applicant here and would you like to address the council please. Neil Webber: I just wanted to start out a little bit here with the site plan. Mayor Mancino: Could you give your name and address. Thank you. Neil Webber: Sorry about that. Mayor and Council, my name is Neil Webber. Neil Webber Architects. With me tonight is Don Schein from Cambridge Commercial Real Estate representing the owner. I think you've got a pretty good picture. We went through, and if you read the.., from the Planning Commission meeting, that was an interesting meeting and I guess the one good thing that came out of it is that we went back and convinced corporate that we needed to add brick to the building as Scott told us very early in the game was very possible. So we've done that. First I want to talk a little bit about the site plan and how we arrived at it. Basically what we have done, as the report says, moved the building up along 79th Street. Our building setback line here, the little dotted line is what we're required. We're about 25 feet back. As near as I can tell scaling Applebee's, and I can't say this for sure because I didn't have the working drawings for that but it appears as though they're about 8 feet back from the setback line... Like I say, we're 25 feet at the closest point. We're about 35 feet back here and of course... And what we did is we altered the standard floor plan for the Wingate to an L shape so we sit on the site and meet the setback requirements. Inside on the first level we have a pool in here with a plaza up here with landscaping around it. The intent here is that we use, the hotel does have a restaurant facility in it so it depends on neighbors which is exactly I am assuming why Applebee's approved it. Because we think it would be a real benefit to them, just as they will be to the hotel. Basically the entrance to the hotel is on this site. Our signage, I'll show you on the elevation as it calls out... This is the entrance to the hotel. We have a sidewalk connection down this side to the street as well as being able to connect, I think the real entrance to Applebee's is right over in this comer. They've sort of turned their back to the street.., connection there. So basically that's 27 City Council Meeting - October 11, 1999 it. You see the site plan which in this particular case shows a landscaping and I think the report shows, I think we are exceeding quite handily the requirements of the landscape plan. What is missing on this, and realizing that this is a conceptual thing with a lot of details, whether we've got is the main trees here in the darker, the lighter green here is a little lighter stuff. We've got the lobby entrance along the building a smaller scale.., working drawings but the idea is to get some color along the building and around the outside of the patio area that you can see from the street. The intent here is that we wanted to be able to get buildings as far back from the street, and still get the parking behind it. In order to get the right kind of parking we have loaded.., so from that aspect I think we meet all the requirements. Now bear with me here. This afternoon when I met with Sharmin to go over our stuff she suggested.., going to be difficult to see. But take it one side at a time. What I'm showing here is the relationship of the building to the neighboring building. What I got this afternoon from Sharmin is the elevation as it exists, actually the one that was approved for Applebee's didn't show this as... Mayor Mancino: Our camera's turning. Councilman Engel: You had me going there Todd. If this city thing don't ever work out Todd, Hollywood... Neil Webber: ...the distance between the buildings here is approximately 60 feet if you look at the site plan. That's where it is with the property line down the middle of the access, down the middle here. This is the south elevation, as I said of Applebee's and when the original one was approved, it didn't show this as brick. It shows a canopy and I think that must have been added after it was approved. Anyway, that's what this is on this side. This is obviously a one story building and you'll see that the, if you follow it across here, it comes up just to above the window height for a second story. Now that's important when we get to the, show the building heights. Obviously we're not trying to pretend a three story building is the same scale as a one story. On the other side, it's a little bit deceiving because the building that's here, that exists here is basically an all drivit building and it's approximately 40 feet separated... So what you're looking at here is a little bit deceiving in that regard but what we are showing is the building height on this element here is approximately a couple feet lower than our building, a building with a decorative element. So that part of it is you know again, we're not trying to pretend that a three story building.., but we're trying to show there is some consideration there. What I brought along, what we added on the brick is basically this brick, which is a direct match to the trim. That is the basic brick of the building. And that goes to the underside of the windows on the third floor. So in other words we would have a sill all the way around the building up to the sill level of the windows. That's what would tie it in. And this basic brick color here is, I don't know if this will come across very well on the picture but this brick here is an exact match to the banding that exists on the Applebee's. What we wanted to do is to get a brick that tied in with the surrounding materials, but wasn't exactly the same. So all the brick on the Applebee's in this area, this brick. I don't know if in fact this is the brick but... I will guarantee you won't be able to tell the difference. Then what we're doing is taking a contrasting brick that isn't too contrasting and utilizing the horizontal lines that existed when we used the drivit. They exist on this lower level. Some banding to get the building to look, achieve that horizontal look that we had with the drivit material. Mayor Mancino: Can you point to that again? Neil Webber: You can see it on here. It's the heavier line. Here it's colored to try to depict here. The banding is right at these windows and then one above the window here. Then above the window at the second level we've got a soldier course of a darker brick which of course is lined up... so we get that banding affect. Then this level up in here would be a white sill, just like you see in a lot of windows. Then 28 City Council Meeting - October 11, 1999 on top, there's the drivit material which is a fine pebble, or sand pebble it's called, which is the final finish that would occur above this, up to the upper soffit area here and let me show you.., can just look at this over the top of it. Todd, if you can sort of focus in on that or is that too small? This is the building section and this is the drivit material. The two lines that you see across the top of the building are these two indentations in the drivit. They're shadow lines. They're not a different color. Then it gets up to this point here and it's an indentation. This is the decorative fascia up above. It picks up on the flagship color if you would of the Wingate is green. It's quite coincidentally matches almost exactly the awnings of the bank on the comer. Coincidence because this happens to be a Wingate color. So what is happening here, we are picking up this green on this decorative fascia and then the metal flashing cap right here. Metal flashing to match this. That's the basic color scheme of the building... Another thing here that addresses the... Sharmin and I don't want to make a big point of it but it's important. At the Planning Commission I said that a two story building... I was wrong. Two story building with a sloped roof of 6/12, which is... That building, the two story building with a 6/12 sloped roof is actually 4 feet higher. Admittedly it is receiving nice, and I'm not trying to pretend it isn't, but when you look at the sheer of the actual height, it's actually 4 feet... That's one reason we don't see that as a major issue when we consider what we've done with the banding and you've seen this on quite a few buildings. It does, the design affect is to lower the height of the building visually and the top building being a lighter color.., green at the top. That's the accent. The image that Wingate wants to project and I guess in adding the brick, that was a real important thing for them is to be able to keep this image, that's just like any other franchise. They want people traveling the country to know what they're going to get and they want to be able to have that image... I think that's, did I cover all the issues? I'm basically open for questions. I think we listened to what the Planning Commission said and tried to address the issue with the brick as much as we could. The hard cover issue, I think you're absolutely right.., if you consider we're really dealing with two lots. Really four lots. We're both at the average.., but when you start talking about 1% to 2%, especially if the runoff and the ponding area will be able to accommodate it, I guess I don't see that as a major issue. Mayor Mancino: Probably a green space issue too but thank you. Thank you very much for showing the materials and the detail that you went to showing us that. Any questions from council members for Neil? Steve, any questions? Anyone else? Councilwoman Jansen: No. Mayor Mancino: Okay. I think it's up to you. Scott Botcher: overhead door. materials? And Sharmin maybe you can help me with some of these. The garage door, or the That's on the side of the service entry. What would the color of that be and what are the Neil Webber: It would be, well I guess I'd have to, I would assume it'd be a metal finished door that would be painted out to match the face brick. The intent is to make it the same as the face brick... Scott Botcher: I don't see a dumpster on the site plan. Where is it going to be and how are we going to screen it? Neil Webber: Internal. Scott Botcher: Best screen you could ever see. HVAC visibility? Will you see any from the top? I mean with Highway 5 sort of being out there. It gets a little high. 29 City Council Meeting - October 11, 1999 Councilman Engel: The elevation of 5 is quite high. Neil Webber: Yeah, I guess what our intention is here. When you look at, actually you can see it on both of these. We have got approximately from the building...to the top of this parapet about.., actual height and I think that we would not be opposed, I mean obviously anything there that could be seen we would screen, but my guess is at that height, at tree level, even from Highway 5 you would not see the mechanical. If we... we would just screen it. I think it's inherent in the building design that it screen the rooftop units. Scott Botcher: And you may not. I guess I'm just, since you don't have drawings.., had situations where they make these condenser units that are flat. You know they're built for this sort of stuff and they cost more, but my only concern is, you know I know we've all worked very hard and we've met on this thing but we don't have, I've never seen the final HVAC drawings. So I don't know if you guys. Neil Webber: There are no final ones. Scott Botcher: Yeah, if you guys have determined the tonage of the units that you need. Neil Webber: Well yes, and I guess I don't have shop drawings as to what. Here's, let me just add this. I did a, just completed an office building at 7 and 101 in Minnetonka. Very similar situation where 101 going towards 7 from the south is elevated. You go by, it's across the street from MLT, if you know that area. And that was a concern Minnetonka had about the rooftop units. What we've, we were approved there with this as a condition and that is, number one mechanical people are well aware that ordinances require screening so modem mechanical equipment tends to be constructed in a nice box like shape. And what we did there is we simple said we will put the mechanical units on the roof. We will paint it out the same as the flashing material. If it can be seen, we will screen it. Minnetonka took a look at it. You basically can just see the hair of it. They said fine. It's a way of dealing with it that assures that you're not going to be sticking some big mechanical unit up there and it also doesn't obligate us to say we're going to screen it if in fact screening is irrelevant. Because screening mechanical units on the roof are a real maintenance issue for building owners. Scott Botcher: The only issue I have on screening a roof unit is that to me it's an alteration of a site plan. It changes the architecture of the building and so I personally, and you guys do what you want. I have never been in favor of just approving a screening as a solution unless it's integrated as part of the site plan. Personal opinion. Neil Webber: I understand and we... Scott Botcher: And most architects will tell you that too. You guys, I know the building owners hate them because they are a pain. Councilman Senn: Yeah, if you have a 44 inch parapet wall, which we're talking about here, unless you have an extraordinary large HVAC unit and you put it right over the edge of the building, there's no way you're going to see it. Scott Botcher: I just, I want to be sure that if we don't, and I'd like to push people to go for, if there is a concern.., specialty units would fit and just express strongly our concern about the rooftop units. 3O City Council Meeting - October 11, 1999 Mayor Mancino: Okay. Also, they've also been located more in the center of the buildings. Keep it away from the outside perimeter so that you can't see it so when, the location has a lot to do with it too. Neil Webber: And quite frankly it's most efficient to work out with distribution down the middle because the corridor is used for distribution. Scott Botcher: Beyond that, you know Sharmin stated pretty clear the couple percent is minimal. The three story thing is not an issue to me and I think they've responded to the material issue. To my satisfaction anyway. So I guess beyond the HVAC unit issue, I think it'd be a nice addition. Mayor Mancino: Neil, I only have two other concerns and one of them I'd like to put in the form of a condition and just make sure that you're comfortable with it. And that is that making sure that during construction that the construction vehicles can't park in the parking lots where Applebee's and Tires Plus use because that's just, that parking lot becomes very, very crowded and I just want to make sure that no construction vehicles will park there. And so maybe in your phasing in you do the parking construction first of your parking lot. Do the construction there so you've got a parking lot. Neil Webber: ... we only utilize our site. Mayor Mancino: Yeah. Okay. Neil Webber: I don't know any site that's allowed us to use the neighbor site so I understand that. Mayor Mancino: Okay, I just want to make sure because you're so close right there. You're so close right there. And then my only other concern was if there's any lighting on the building, and that if there is going to be any lighting on the building that it be shielded fixtures. Neil Webber: There is no lighting directly on the building. What happens is that the canopy area has a down light on the street side, and of course... Councilman Labatt: As long as we're on possible amendments. I know.., designated senior citizen parking stalls. So kind of looking at this and reading what number 7 is here.., for handicap. I'm assuming they're handicap. It doesn't say in here. Be provided with aisle ways. I'd also like to add that they take a look at seven stalls up against the building... Mayor Mancino: What's your demographics on that? What do you expect to, do you have any idea? That's pretty detailed. Neil Webber: It's basically businessmen hotel. That's the majority. Mayor Mancino: Business person's hotel. Excuse me. Okay. Neil Webber: ... Councilman Labatt: Then there should be some more up front spaces so. There's a chance here where there's three spots here... 31 City Council Meeting - October 11, 1999 Scott Botcher: Other businesses have them in the community. It's almost a non-issue because seniors is such a large demographic. Neil Webber: Yeah, I don't see that as a deal breaker or anything. Scott Botcher: That'd be senior men, right? I just want to make sure I've got this straight. Mayor Mancino: Okay, thanks. Thank you very much Neil. No other questions at this point. Anyone else like to address the council that's here tonight? I see some people. Please do. Tom Schneider: I'm Tom Schneider. I live at 5000 Suburban Drive in Excelsior. A resident of Chanhassen but I do run the business next to... This building is set back... I'm not opposed to a hotel at all. I'm opposed to the way the hotel is proposed to sit on the lot. If you drive Highway 5 coming, I don't know how to even present.., but when you come from the west, Cheers Wine and Spirits, which again is right here. Is pretty visible. As a matter of fact... With a three story building sticking up as close as it is, it's going to make it completely impossible. So while it doesn't bother Mr. Botcher...three story building, it does to me a lot because... Scott Botcher: How many hotel people do you think will go to your business? Tom Schneider: That's what our business is all about so. Mayor Mancino: Tom, you know I drove that. I read the Minutes from the Planning Commission and drove it today. You know west to east and you're right. Even right now Applebee's and the trees shield it. And even if we were to do a two story building, it does meet setback. Our ordinance, our setbacks. With a sloped roof it would still do the same thing to your building. Tom Schneider: I thought about that and I agree but what, two questions. One is, what if the hotel was actually in the rear? Parking in front. Question number one. Question number two. Is with a two story pitched roof, couldn't we address the sight lines a little bit more efficiently with a different sign. A different sign with a two story building would, I mean that's going to be a huge sign. I'm not sure we could address it but with the two story pitched roof, I think we could establish a different way to provide signs. Mayor Mancino: Well the sign, are you talking about the monument sign? Tom Schneider: I'm talking about a sign for the whole 79th Street Partners. That whole building. Councilman Senn: Your signage you're talking about. Mayor Mancino: Your sign? Oh, okay. Tom Schneider: I'm worried about our signage, or our sight lines. That's what I'm worried about. Mayor Mancino: And you're not, I mean obviously you didn't buy property right on Highway 5 so you're across the street. I don't know about your signage, as far as right now what we can do about that. Tom Schneider: My point is, with the two story pitched roof, I think we can probably address something with some resemblance of a decent sign. With a three story building, I don't think we can. We'd have to 32 City Council Meeting - October 11, 1999 get, for us, to be in our sign, would have to be huge to be able to get... I mean my point is this. Is that... I mean we really do. It's a big deal. I mean we belong to the Chamber. We go overboard on all that stuff... and when I came to the Planning Commission, I dropped this off... I think it'd be great if we could move this hotel in the rear and put the parking up front. And the response was from Mr. Webber that they met the street offset. Mayor Mancino: Yeah, it's more than that. It's not in the street offset but as we you know developed Applebee's and the Americana Bank and that whole area, one of the things, the very concept was bringing the buildings up to the streetscape and having the parking in the rear so that our public areas, our roadways, the only thing that's around them is not just parking. That we have some building frontage and the fine architecture of those buildings are right there to greet you on the roadway and that we have the parking in the rear. We very consciously, as a huge task force was formed in this city and for 2 years talked about how Highway 5 was going to look and what you would see and trying to build berms, etc so that the whole corridor down Highway 5, you just didn't see parking lots. And that we had our buildings, our fine architecture out there. And it's been something that a lot of people on West 79th like about it. They like the Applebee's being out there in front and the nice architecture and the buildings, etc. Tom Schneider: But I agree with the two story pitched roof, but not a three story... You know the one other point is that we had a little sign, a little banner up, hanging on the side. On this side... This side of the building and we had, I was unfamiliar with the.., we got a notice that we had to take it down and they very conveniently.., so I of course took it down. And again the law was very clear on exactly what the... and at first I was a little upset because gee you know, again I'm trying to run a business and I'm trying to get a name out. Trying to have people come by and...and yet there's no way that they can see short of... So at first like I said I was a little upset, but then all of a sudden I got to thinking gee, that's what the law is all about, right? The law is there to protect... We've got a three story versus a two story. You're going to make an exception on this. The other one is what? The brick. I assume that that's been resolved so that's no longer an issue. So my big question is that.., if I owned this land, would you guys make this concession for me? For the hotel... Mayor Mancino: Well I can answer that very honestly and we make exceptions all the time. When they're this close and we can see a good rationale for making some variances. And it would just depend but to me it doesn't matter who owns the lot. Whether I will personally go with a variance or not. It depends you know how much it is. Like whether it's a 2% versus a 5% or a 10%. Or what two stories is with a pitched roof versus three stories. I mean those are the kind of questions that we're asking so that we can understand and decide whether we will go with a variance or not. Who owns it, for me makes no difference. And you'll have to hear, you know other council members. Also, when it has to do with the sign ordinance, just so you know that several years ago, and again this is probably 2 or 3 years ago the Planning Commission spent months and months meeting with our Chamber members, etc and designing that sign ordinance. And you know we had joint meetings for many months trying to hammer out the sign ordinance so that it would be fair and equitable to everybody in our downtown without having a proliferation of so many signs all over. So we worked very much hand in hand with the Chamber on that. And also know that any of our ordinances, we're always willing to look at them and say, do they need to be changed or not. I mean we don't do it willy nilly but if someone comes up and says, you know times have changed. We need to be looking at it, we give it a good shot. Tom Schneider: ... I mean I understand the reason for the parking in the rear. But again with a slighter building on it. With a building this size, with the size of the three stories, straight facade, doesn't it make more sense to put the parking in front of the building? Then all of a sudden no one has a problem. I don't 33 City Council Meeting - October 11, 1999 have any problem with the hotel coming in. I stated that up front. But it's just the fact that it completely... sight line for that whole building. Not just Cheers Wine and Spirits but for that whole building. I mean it does screen it a lot. Mayor Mancino: Appreciate it, thank you. We'll have that discussion. Come on up please. Brian Burdick: Good evening. I'm Brian Burdick with Burdick Properties, 684 Excelsior Boulevard in Excelsior. I'm here this evening regarding the 79th Street Center immediately adjacent to the east, which Tom Schneider, the owner of Cheers was just referring to there. And I have a couple of comments for you and a lot of them are the same probably as what Tom has stated this evening, but maybe I'll just reiterate some of those for you. Burdick Properties is not opposed to the hotel development on this site. Another good quality, sensible, reasonable development on this site. Something that makes sense. I think that's good for everyone. I think it's good for the 79th Street Center. I think it's good for the City of Chanhassen and so forth. That's not a problem. As a matter of fact I'm going to say we'd like to see development on there and I think a hotel, they've made a nice presentation. They have a good looking building. Apparently I remember from the Planning Commission meeting that there was a discussion on the brick, the amount of brick percentage being in the purchase agreement and apparently they've taken care of that through their plans. I don't know the details but I remember that originally they had no brick and so they've done a nice job doing that. The problem is that this building is simply huge. It's three stories and it's going to be huge and if you've seen, I'm sure everyone here has seen the Americana Inn along Highway 5 and that's a three story building. And this is just a huge building, 17,500 and some square feet. It is placed very close, as close as possible, to West 79th Street. When you drive by this site you take into account the curvature of the road, the way they brought the building towards 79th Street. With a straight facade, three story building, this thing is going to be a monster. Where they currently have it on the site plan. It's huge. My other point that kind of goes along with that, or it certainly does go along with that. Is that for us owning 79th Street Center there, and a lot of good tenants and Tom spoke. I think he is a good person and so forth too and we all appreciate that. That it is, this building where it is proposed on the current site plan is going to severely block the view of the entire center. The light and the air space you commonly refer to. It just is. If you look at it and you see how it is, and you start comparing it to the Applebee's and Tires Plus immediately adjacent, and I've heard some reference this evening to those two buildings. I'm going to guess on the top of my head, so please don't hold me to the numbers but that those two buildings together are about 10,000 square feet in two separate buildings, one story with a flat roof. This building is three stories with 17,500 square feet so it's going to be huge sitting out there. I think what makes sense, I said we're opposed to where it sits on the current site plan. Is to move this building to the north. Put the parking in front towards West 79th Street. You're still going to see the building if they're concerned about views or sites of the building. You're clearly going to see it from Highway 5 if you really look at your sight lines there. It's still going to be plenty big to have great sight lines from Highway 5 for the business travelers. There's no doubt about that but it makes a lot of sense to move the building to the far north end of this property. Put the parking up front, and I understand the concerns, and I appreciate those. I like that too so this is a little difficult this evening about having the Applebee's up towards the front. Or towards 79th Street, excuse me. And then on the Tires Plus on the north end with parking in the middle. Two, personally I think it's nice not to have all the parking lots in the front and seeing all the parking lots. I think it looks better to not do that but the Applebee's and Tires Plus are very different from this site. They're two buildings. They put the parking in the middle and the total building on that larger piece of property is a heck of a lot smaller than this proposed three story building with a straight front on it. So I think that's, I guess what we'd like for you to just consider is somehow to work with the developer and the neighboring property owners, and move this proposed building to the far north end. I think somehow they could accommodate it. This gentleman seems like a very good architect and reconfigure it, moving it 34 City Council Meeting - October 11, 1999 towards the north end. Bringing the parking out front. It makes a lot of sense. I also think one other issue is, this building the way I see it sitting there and driving by there many times, I think there's going to be serious safety concerns. People pulling in and out of the parking areas there. This is going to be a big building. You need to look around. Take a left view or a right view, depending on which direction you're going on 79th Street. I think there's going to be some real safety concerns there. It's so far forward towards 79th Street. And I don't think anyone would want to have any safety issues there. Safety concerns or something worse than that certainly. So we'd really like you to, appreciate you to consider every one to review it. Move the building to the north end of the property. Pull the parking out front. Makes a lot of sense. Parking is a problem in that area, just one note on the parking in that area. I think people already know, it's a real problem. Every time I see it at Applebee's and Tires Plus, there is overflow parking going every which way. There's cars parking up and down the access road between these two properties. And it's been vacant there so they park all along the side. Well it's not going to be vacant once the hotel is built there too so there's just always been a, definitely a parking problem there. And that's at the size it's developed with the Applebee's and Tires Plus which are much smaller. Too so, thank you very much. Mayor Mancino: Thank you Brian. Sharmin, did engineering have any concerns about sight lines going in and out? They feel with the setbacks that we have, that those are okay? Okay. And they did review them? Great, thank you. Councilman Senn: Is the building placement being driven by us in relationship to the Highway 5 ordinance? Or is it being driven by the applicant's desire in terms of building pad? Sharmin A1-Jaff: Both. We gave the applicant the Highway 5 overlay district ordinance requirements. And we said read those ordinance requirements and that was the way they addressed that issue. Also, because of the shape of...push the building to the south. So it's both. The applicant as well as the City wanting the parking hidden and in the back. Mayor Mancino: Neil, do you want to add to that? Neil Webber: To answer your question, I think both. I think we were told basically that the concept of the parking, that was something the City would like to see. A general statement. Not anything specific but what we attempted to do here is, we obviously knew that we had to meet the setbacks and we wanted to create a space in here too so the building didn't just crop on 79th. The L shape tries to address that. The only place that we, I mean here is the closest place and we're exceeding the setback already. Over here we're exceeding the setback by twice the distance and then everything in here of course is... so we've exceeded maximum setback at all points, and only at one point are we within 5 feet of it. So I guess our intent was to keep it as far back as possible. No, if we want to reduce this buffer area here, which we felt was somewhat important, we could probably just slide the whole thing back another 5 to 6 feet. That would work. I guess you know we tried to address the issue of saying we're going to have a three story building along 79th. We don't want to put a building that just fronts at the setback line here so we attempted to vary so when you look at this street elevation, this part right here is, this comer is at the setback line. Everything over here is well back from the setback line. So because of the shape of the building so in a sense we understood what the city was after and we understood that we didn't want to put a building that was just a massive along here and that's why we've attempted to show, and I think that the site plan shows a fairly extensive amount of landscaping there that would further soften it. When you look at these trees here, these trees are about 20 feet tall which probably relates pretty close to a 4 inch caliper B&B tree. What that does is that provides that step up in scale off of 79th. So yeah, it's an issue and I think we've tried to address it as best we could in the design sense. 35 City Council Meeting - October 11, 1999 Councilman Senn: Well if you go back the 5 or 6 feet you're talking about, that's not going to really accomplish much of anything. Neil Webber: That's correct, and see we felt that this was a fair, this lines up, it doesn't show here. It lines up with what's happening on the back of Tires Plus and we felt that that was an important element to keep and it gave us a good buffer between here and I think the railroad tracks are right here. You know a good buffer between the tracks and the parking lot as well. Councilman Senn: I assume you want to stay away from the tracks. Neil Webber: Yeah. Mayor Mancino: Well the other part, the other underlying part is the curvalinature of the street. You know we try and build in again this balance of having our streets have some character and curve to them. This one obviously works against the center to the east when you come west on Highway. Councilman Senn: No, no, no I agree. But I mean it's also a little bit of a conflict that deals with the new. I mean when the center was built you know parking was put out front and the buildings were set back. You know the Highway 5 ordinance moves the building forward, put the parking back. In this particular situation that I think presents an interesting dichotomy because what you're doing is you're backing up parking to an already existing sea of parking. So effectively what you're doing is you're even taking a situation I think is far less than desirable now as it relates to the parking, and making it less desirable. But I mean again it all depends on which side you want to view this from. I mean if you want to look at it from the site already that's over parked and over hard surfaced and everything else, you know your tendency is to say well let's do something to compensate there. If you want to look at it from the Highway 5 ordinance side, you're looking to say well let's compensate it from something there. So I guess about every side of this thing you could look at it and... Mayor Mancino: And if you go way back in history, like Excelsior, they were all in the back so anyway. Thank you. Anyone else wishing to address the council? Please do so. Jim Burdick: Good evening. I'm B.C. Jim Burdick from Excelsior. Mr. Webber and I have a cordial relationship. I want to keep it but this 6/12, that just doesn't hold water. There isn't a building in Excelsior with a 6/12 roof on it. That's about an A-frame. And you don't put peaked roofs on commercial buildings. Much less of a peak. And the three story of course bothers us because it's going to hide some very fine business places. Cheers, Safari Tanning, Insty Print, Kitchen and Bath, and Hour Glass Dry Cleaners. So surely we think you should stick with the two stories but really would have no objection to three stories if the building was moved to the back .... 79th Street, the building was to the back. It'd be much more in harmony to have the hotel farther back. I guess I haven't seen a hotel, except in the small towns and built 75 to tee years ago, in which the parking was in back. People do not like to park in back. Shopping centers years ago. Remember the old Montgomery Ward building on University Avenue in St. Paul. Out to the street. Things were pretty slow. Shopping centers. First were out near the street. Parking in back until when they had very poor soil in front, put parking in front. Put parking in front creates success. One of these is Miracle Mile, Excelsior Boulevard and tee. So I'd like to, I'd say we'd be compatible with these people if they just move it to the back. It's going to look better. Be a lot better for us. It's going to be better for the city of Chanhassen. So I'd like to request that you follow the Planning Commission. The Planning Commission seemed to spend a lot of time on this and deny it and 36 City Council Meeting - October 11, 1999 then negotiate with them on setting the building to the rear. Something was said here about this in planning stage you know, but we didn't learn about this until quite recently. So we weren't in on that or didn't know about it. I guess that's about all I have to say. Thank you. Mayor Mancino: Thank you very much. Now both of you did make it to the Planning Commission. Yes, because I read the minutes and you were there. Okay. I just wanted to make sure that you got. Jim Burdick: ... in the works for 3 or 4 months. We didn't know about this until... Mayor Mancino: Okay, thank you Mr. Burdick. Anyone else? Wishing to address the Council on this. Okay, thank you. Let's bring this back to council. Councilman Senn. Councilman Senn: It seems to me we ought to maybe sit back and take this one step at a time. You know traditionally the way, at least I've tried to look at variances is to, you know we try to evaluate variances on basically a pretty open, you know a pretty free basis. One of the key factors is, you know how does that relate to the neighbors and people who had formed expectations you know based on those things that were effectively in place before property abutting or neighboring them and I think there's some legitimate concerns and arguments over that. And I guess the thing I keep coming back to in my mind though, and I don't even want to get into that understanding of why it's that way because.., but why don't we get past the first issue first. We may be arguing over absolutely nothing. I mean you've been turned down by one of the two parties. And they haven't agreed to sign a waiver allowing a hotel there. So I mean do we really have something in front of us we can do anything about one way or the other? And my understanding to that is that we at least weigh that restriction on the property in favor of those two parties. Those two parties have to agree first for this even to be a project. So I mean I don't know. So it's kind of like, how much do you want to get into the details, positioning and how do you balance this site and how do you balance it between existing things around it including seas of parking, railroad tracks. I mean there's tons of...use that you put on it, and we're doing that over a use we don't know if we can put on the site. Mayor Mancino: But obviously we can always say yes to a site plan contingent on their getting approval. Have we gotten at all a negative response from anyone or just? Councilman Senn: That's my understanding. Mayor Mancino: I don't know that. Todd Gerhardt: Tires Plus is looking for an additional sign on their west side of their building. We've made several phone calls. We've met with them and... (There was a tape change at this point in the discussion.) Scott Botcher: ... and no, he's right. No letter has been forthcoming. Mayor Mancino: Yes, Roger. Do we have to make a decision on this? Do we have so many days or? Roger Knutson: They called me and I met with them briefly at 3:00 this afternoon. Tires Plus on the sign issue. They made an argument to me as to why they don't need a sign variance and I have not, again it was just at 3:00 1 met with them. So I haven't had a chance to look at it. They think they have as a matter of 37 City Council Meeting - October 11, 1999 right to have an additional sign but again, they just called and I met with them briefly. And I'll evaluate that. Scott Botcher: I think he also says the 120 day clock, has that expired? Roger Knutson: That's correct. The clock started running on 13 August. So we have 120 days from then. Mayor Mancino: And they have the sole right, if they don't say yes, then the hotel can't go there? Todd Gerhardt: Well the issue again is the sign and Tires Plus believes, as they made the argument to Roger today, that they have the right under our ordinance to put a second sign on the west side of their building. And Roger is reviewing their request on that. And so the ball's kind of in Roger's court to give us, staff an opinion on their request. It's kind of a complicated one that Roger's going to have to look at. Councilman Senn: But the answer to your question is yes. Regardless of the sign. They have the right to approve or not approve the hotel use on this property. Councilman Engel: I'm curious how they ever got that right. Councilman Senn: Well like I said, I didn't want to get into this wonderful, I mean the exception was created for Country Suites and Country Suites should have been named as the benefiting party. They weren't. Now you've got a restaurant and a tire store that has the right to determine it one way or another but you know it's silly, it's kind of water over the dam, there's nothing you can do about it but the issue I heard here earlier was about a sign. And signage and stuff and I don't know, that could be real interesting one to see considering we turned down Applebee's for a sign on the west side and a whole bunch of other things. I'd love to see how that rationale works but on top of that I mean I don't know how we can bargain away our sign ordinance to get a hotel and then turn around and tell people next door who are being harmed by the hotel to no, we can't redo your signage because it doesn't meet ordinances and it just seems to me we've just gotten ourselves into a little bit of a spaghetti factory we shouldn't we be in so that's why I'm saying. Mayor Mancino: So you're saying first things first. Councilman Senn: First things first. Let's go back to do step one and let's take this thing one step at a time. I don't think we should grant approval which makes anything contingent upon Tires Plus who just turns around and gives them bargaining power to try to hold us up for a signage deal or something else etc, etc, etc. Mayor Mancino: Okay, thank you Todd. Neil, did you want to? Neil Webber: Well yeah I guess, I understand what Councilmember Senn is saying and I guess from our point of view what we were trying to do is develop a plan. Meet as many of the guidelines as possible... Mayor Mancino: Yeah, we understand that. Neil Webber: We certainly understood the Tires Plus. I guess on the flip side of that, it's my understanding that if Tires Plus approves the hotel, they get paid off approximately $175,000 assessment on it which is a little bit of a motivation so our thinking is we get a project that is okayed by the city 38 City Council Meeting - October 11, 1999 contingent on approval. What that does is it gives us the authority to go back and say okay, let's work something out here. Mayor Mancino: Yeah, but I also see where Councilman Senn is coming but yeah. Neil Webber: It's the same argument we had before. There's two sides to it and I guess in our way of thinking moving it forward is a lot more efficient. If we get a plan that is... right now, Tires Plus will say well gee you don't even have a plan that's accepted. So there may not be a project so why are we even talking. Mayor Mancino: Okay, thank you. Thank you for giving us your point of view. I understand that. Councilman Senn: I'm sorry, I don't see two sides to this one at all. I don't know why I would ever go spend dollar one in developing a piece of real estate with a use that's prohibited being on the property with the abutting property owners effectively approval without first having the approval before I spend dollar one to effectively make that investment. Sorry. Mayor Mancino: Understand. Councilwoman Jansen. Councilwoman Jansen: Well I guess I'm agreeing with Councilman Senn. Hey for a change. Sorry. Mayor Mancino: Mark, do you want to change your? Councilman Senn: I may reconsider, okay. Councilwoman Jansen: ... and that's why I did refer back to the purchase agreement on the property and we really hadn't had the update yet as to whether or not that had progressed. And I'm looking at the same dilemma. I wouldn't want to put Tires Plus in that sort of a situation by approving something and now sending the parties back. I know we've talked about you don't want to pit neighbor against neighbor. Well this is business against business. Technical difficulties. We have blank screens. Mayor Mancino: Oh well. I think we're still at the audio stage. Okay, I'm sorry. Go ahead. Councilwoman Jansen: So I mean I could move through my issues on the property but I'm feeling as if maybe we should be tabling this until the additional information comes back to us on where we are with being able to move forward with the agreement. Mayor Mancino: Makes good sense. Councilman Engel, do you agree? Councilman Engel: You know I have other feelings about discussing this, and that is all moot based and hinging on the signing agreement and their approval of that property. Just like Mark said, the fact that they could hornswoggle a sign agreement they want which the very people we're telling to the east can't get a break on, is very inconsistent so let's get over that one. Then let's come back and deal with this. Councilman Labatt: I agree with that. It doesn't make sense to have the first runner get to first base. Councilman Engel: Let's decide what the rules are going to be first before we go forward with this. 39 City Council Meeting - October 11, 1999 Mayor Mancino: Scott, do you want to weigh in on this one because I know that you've talked to both parties. Scott Botcher: I don't disagree with Mark. I mean I don't have a problem with it. At the same time I don't necessarily discount everything that the architect has said. I guess the only thing I would say is, whatever you decide to do at whatever point, I think it's important more than anything else that you stick to the development stance of not having acres and acres of asphalt in front of buildings. You need to make a change at some point and I guess the theory is if we can point to all sorts of bad architecture in the world. If you never, ever changed it, that's all we would have. That doesn't mean that the buildings are bad or it's just, there's certain design standards that have been found to be less palatable than others. I don't want the Highway 5 corridor looking the downtown looking like the Miracle Mile Shopping Center. I think it's important that whatever you decide, and these guys could walk away and go away, whatever but whenever you develop that property, that you do stick to that parking lot in back thing. I mean you're right. Communities have that. I showed you all the stuff with Delafield. We stuck everything in the back and shoppers loved it. They killed to come there. We didn't have enough parking. People want that more pedestrian, all the stuff you said. That's attractive to people. So whatever you decide, whenever you decide it don't, and this is going to sound terrible, but it's a word I use a lot. Don't roll over and say well we'll put the building in back, parking lot in front. Stripe it and there it is. You can do better than that. Councilman Engel: I had something else I wanted to add on this, I forgot. I'm inclined to agree with Scott on that as well. The eastern development on West 79th should not be driving the architecture on the site plans on the west. We're trying to turn this back the other way and we can increase security with lighting, with cameras, with all sorts of other measures that I'm sure were problems that were referred to earlier. But above and beyond that, we've got a piece of property here owned by the City and we've got a development, a redevelopment problem just to the north of it on the other side of the tracks that hinges on shared parking agreements and I don't care what's developed on either side if it's hotels, restaurants, movie theaters, shops, I don't care. We should get by this parking problem that we encountered with an earlier redeveloped proposal on the north side by requiring these parcels to have cross, shared parking agreements. And that goes for anybody who comes on either one of these properties. I just want to bring that up now because the field's wide open and now is the time to fix it so parties coming in on both sides realize the position the city's in with some limited real estate. While we've got a chance for anybody who comes in to know up front that the win for both properties is the win for the city and that is their shared parking. And if parties on either side don't like it, it's something we should consider right now. Scott Botcher: As long as we don't, for example if the hotel use and a cinema use and they're both parking lots that are full in the evening, we don't want to create a situation where a developer can double count spaces that are full and say yep, I meet parking putting up the building... Councilman Engel: With that being considered. And I rely on you and staff to deal with that. What I'm looking for is to give you guys some tools to make development work on both sides because we got a problem with the parcel on the east because it's already owned. East of the Frontier. Scott Botcher: Concept is interesting. Mayor Mancino: Well, and it's a concept that we are using to the full extent at Villages on the Ponds. And so you know we've done that. We're used to working out and looking at shared parking. The problem that we also have with shared parking is making sure that all the parking lots are constructed at the same time so that you can have shared parking. So that's the other part of it that we're learning. But we certainly do 4O City Council Meeting - October 11, 1999 have some experience and I know staff has advocated for the last 3 or 4 years doing shared parking and putting different uses and using shared parking. Yes. Councilman Senn: There's a lot of inherent you know problems with the site that gets back to use questions one way or another. I mean at the same time, I mean I think everybody understands. If they don't, they should understand there's no way you're going to look to a hotel use on this site and slide it back against the railroad tracks that's active. I mean I wouldn't wish that on anybody. In fact I just even wonder why a hotel even wants to go there because I can hear those dang trains every day when they come through and I live a mile away. From that, and they just, they blow their horn all the way from the east boundary of Chanhassen to the west boundary of Chanhassen, and they never stop. And stuff but I mean those are all the issues that you get into this regardless of which way you slide things or which way you do things so that's why I'm just saying fundamentally what we really ought to do first is resolve the use issue. And then once we resolve the use issue, then take a hard look at which you know, which concerns from which side can best be met out. Mayor Mancino: Okay, it seems to be unanimous that the council would like to look at the use issue and get that resolved with Tires Plus and table this and get this back on as soon as we possibly can. Get some agreements there and talk about the sign variance and have Roger review it. So I do think that this is a very good proposal. Very worthy proposal for the site. I can acknowledge the concern that the 79th Street Center has, but I think that the, you've done a great job of listening to our concerns about materials. The impervious surface I think that 2% is very negligible, and I think my biggest concern was the three stories and how that impacts and going from west to east and looking at myself and also saying two stories and a sloped roof, whether it's 6/12 or not, how tall that would be because I did go back to the City Code and saw that there were no feet maximums. So I'm feeling more comfortable with the three stories but I think you have a good plan. I think the L shaped helps set it back. Gets the massive part of the building back off 79th as much as possible. So those are just some thoughts. But let's have a motion please. Councilman Senn: Move to table. Mayor Mancino: Second? Councilman Labatt: Second. Councilman Senn moved, Councilman Labatt seconded to table the site plan review for Wingate Hotel. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously. AMENDMENT TO APPROVED SITE PLAN; LOT 1, BLOCK 1, ARBORETUM BUSINESS PARK 3m~ ADDITION (FORMERLY THE QUIK TRIP SITE); MIKE SCHLAGEN. Mayor Mancino: Scott, what do you need from us on this? Scott Botcher: Need to, I guess I would defer to Roger. I think you need to have a motion on the record though supporting the staff recommendation. Roger Knutson: That would be appropriate but you don't really need anything. This is really for your information. 41 City Council Meeting - October 11, 1999 Mayor Mancino: Okay. Just for the record and that we reviewed with Bob Generous the easement to have the driveway on the west side. Or what was it, on the southwest side to get back to the city property is still going to be part of the agreement. So I just wanted to, he talked to us about that. Any other discussion or questions on that? Okay. Thanks. We know about it. We're fine. HIGHWAY 5 UPDATE. Scott Botcher: There will be a conference call this Thursday involving the Highway 5 project. Apparently the let date has been tentatively, well I think probably it has been pushed back from March to June I believe and I think the June date has been somewhat in question as far as DOT's time table. The Southwest Transportation Coalition, Lindall's group, called up and they're seeking our support in trying to make this project go. We want to have a conference call Thursday with Roger, myself, DOT representative, Mr. Lindall, some folks from Chaska probably as well. And I guess at this point I've committed to listen and Roger has been involved in these discussions, to the possibility of the City seeking letters of access. Receiving from property owners and we have ten along the Highway 5 corridor. Giving us/DOT permission to enter their property. We would be actually acting as an agent for DOT prior to the actual condemnation. That's as far as I've been willing to go. I think that there has certainly been mentions from the staff that there may be individuals along the route who may not have any interest in signing those and that's a possibility. Beyond that, some of these other individuals who would have an interest in the City actually going ahead with the Quick Take provision, I have little interest in putting the City in the middle of that deal. But I wanted to let you know that that's out there. That the Highway 5 project bid let date has been pushed back a little bit and I'm not sure until Thursday if I can tell you where it's going to settle. Is that a fair statement? Roger Knutson: That's a fair statement. Mayor Mancino: And I am assuming that that will have an affect on bringing more land into the MUSA. Councilman Senn: If you think the second part that's going to take a lot of time.., amount of time the first time. Scott Botcher: Well, I know. And the good news is that we may keep our park building for another year. Those guys at Hazeltine may want to help us out. Councilman Senn: Move it down there then. Mayor Mancino: Any, thank you on that update. Scott Botcher: I received today in the mail from the First National Bank of Chaska, Brian Weimer who I've never met, they're sponsoring the Crystal Achievement Awards. It's designed to honor the valuable volunteer contributions of citizens of Carver, Chan, Chaska, East Union, and Victoria. And so if you have an interest in submitting a nomination, I will make copies of this for everybody. The categories, there's five categories. Education, the Arts, Sports. We could do sports. Human Services, and Senior Citizen Volunteer. They get their own parking space. So anyway, I will copy this. I just got it today and I figure you guys probably know lots of volunteers who are worthy of receiving that. Mayor Mancino: Great, thank you. 42 City Council Meeting - October 11, 1999 Scott Botcher: Beyond that we talked about correspondence and the role of tax parcels. I won't go back into that. And then finally, just so you know, I got a call from Southwest Metro Transit today seeking to have a meeting with myself and the Finance Director and Nancy's a Board member over there. One of the issues that Bruce and I brought up in our meeting with the Executive Director and the Finance Director of Southwest Metro Transit was the whole issue of how levies are done. In the past, well even up to the day, they send, we get an amount and you guys got this document from Southwest Metro Transit. They want us to publish and levy. They then go and your Board meets Nancy and you set your budget and divvy up your levy amount based upon the agreement. Apparently a couple of the other parties in the Southwest Metro Transit area, Eden Prairie and Chaska, didn't publish what they were supposed to publish according to Southwest Metro Transit. And Bruce and I both being new, pulled open the documentation and we sort of said to them, well you big dummies, you can't make them. And really you can't. I mean we could go into the Truth in Taxation hearing in theory and levy zero I suppose. I mean we may have some other things in the document that would preclude us from doing that but we wouldn't have to levy the amount that they think we all need to levy. So they have an interest in reviewing that process to ensure that it's coordinated amongst the participants so the City of Chanhassen for example doesn't end up carrying an inordinate amount of the tax burden to... support Southwest Metro Transit or the City of Chaska doesn't or Eden Prairie if we all decide to bag out or do something else. So that meeting hasn't been scheduled yet. I don't know when it will be. They want to do it sooner than later. But that's an issue that will be coming down the pike. My guess is ultimately they'll probably re-open the Joint Powers Agreement and amend it to deal with the whole taxation issue. That's where that's going. Councilman Senn: Just so you understand there's two levels of approval in that process. We already took one level approval which just simply recognizes the fact that again there was an outside amount of money and if... that money would have purely and simply been grabbed by Metro Transit. By Met Council, okay. So that was protectionist move or whatever. But essentially when it comes back to the other, we can set any amount we want you know as we feel is justified. We aren't obligated again to that dollar which we set as an outside in the first place. Scott Botcher: But in the minutes if you go back to previous budget hearings, there candidly hasn't been much discussion about the Southwest Metro Transit levy. Which is good or bad I guess depending on where you sit on the issue. But you're right. I guess in theory before would be that Met Council amount for a levy. But if you're trying to run an organization and if you're Southwest Metro Transit, it's a really tough way to do a budget when you do as a unit don't really control your revenue stream. You guys control your revenue stream to a great extent. They would sort of be hoping. Mayor Mancino: More so than they do. Scott Botcher: ... parties don't talk to each other. Will levy the appropriate amount and so. Councilman Senn: But that's subject to negotiation and they have to basically streamline their operations effectively to a service level again that we set by effectively that budget policy. More or less they have to manage their growth okay in keeping with what we're willing to commit or put on the table as far as dollars go. Scott Botcher: Right, except that you guys don't really participate in the management of that organization and I don't think, I mean candidly I couldn't, we couldn't speak with any intelligence as to some of the operational issues they face and their economic impact. We don't know for example what it cost to have the third party drive the buses. We don't know what the bus drivers get paid. We don't know what the 43 City Council Meeting - October 11, 1999 overhead is. We as a unit don't control those and don't participate in those. I agree. They need to streamline their stuff. I think that's probably what they're trying to do. But I just wanted to bring it to your attention. Mayor Mancino: Good. Councilman Senn: ... because effectively from a broader base.., you look at it and the growth has been astronomical. So now the question is, understanding the growth and need for the growth and making sure that we're stewarding those tax dollars because we're the only ones that are going to steward them. Scott Botcher: Yeah, and one of the things we talked about. Mayor Mancino: The community uses though. Scott Botcher: The amount of money that they have levied for over the last couple years, and they've been looking at I want to say 10%-11% pops a year. Now the theory is from the folks at Southwest Metro Transit, we need to build this capital sinking fund and the only two cents worth I gave to them is that okay, fine. You need a capital sinking fund to perform, ya di ya di ya. But I think politically, for support of your own organization, you may want to do that over a longer period of time. I mean they're just trying to take it all in one big grasp and if they did it say, 4% a year for 15 years instead of 11% a year for 4 years, they might be better off. And I mentioned that to Nancy to take that back to the Board and just say really guys, are we, can you grab it? Yeah, you probably could for a couple years but eventually it's going to come back to haunt you. Personal opinion. Mayor Mancino: They're operating budget is this year higher than what they anticipated with the new hub so it will be interesting to see what they say. Because their operating expenses have come in higher so. Any thing else about correspondence? Councilman Labatt: I just wanted to add to that. I think it was a great event the fire department hosted over the weekend... Councilman Engel: They did a great job. Mayor Mancino: Good, well goodnight. Did you guys, did you have anything? Oh! You know, I was just going to, I looked at you and I just said to Steve, you know I think I missed visitor presentation. Yeah, he just docked my pay. You have been very, very patient. Thank you so much and please come forward. VISITOR PRESENTATIONS: Bob: .... from 7371 Kurvers Points Road in Chanhassen. Just adjacent off Highway 101. And as you all know the 101 project, whatever it's getting a name for has become fairly popular in our community here lately. And I'm a little miffed. We've been talking for many years about, it started out prior to buying the lot out there that I now have my home on, that after I bought it, built a house, and everything else, I came to find out that there was talk of a bike trail and a walking trail. People agonized over that for a long time and nothing was done. I think during this process I think the State gave Eden Prairie and City of Chanhassen or someone that road even. It was given up I believe 101. I could be mistaken. Councilman Senn: Hennepin County. 44 City Council Meeting - October 11, 1999 Bob: Hennepin County, I'm sorry. Okay. We've progressed from that date, from going about building a bike path and a walking path that I contested at that time because it goes through my back yard, to now we're talking upwards of a four lane highway. I'm here to say that I'm displeased. My neighbors are displeased. We have Dell Road which is just adjacent to us. We talk about rates and levels of traffic on 101 that are in quotes, supposedly unacceptable. Instead of turning 101 into the Crosstown, why aren't we moving some of the traffic over onto Dell Road? Why aren't we coming up with other creative solutions? It also strikes me that we took and had somebody do a big survey and they come up with these six options or whatever it is and quite frankly I think our City Engineer could have jotted down on a piece of paper those six solutions. I don't think we had to spend a lot of time or money to figure that out. I think any 10 or 12 logical people in our community could have figured out that we could have either a two lane road or a three lane road or a four lane road or mm signals or whatever. I don't think that that really is any real rocket science here. Where we go from here, that's where it really gets to be an issue. There's been talk of upwards of 49 houses going out of there. There's been talk of people taking over property. One of my neighbors spoke to someone at the City and they said well, what if we just decide we don't want to do it? We don't want to sell our property. And we're going to block it and the comment was, well we'll just take it and the only thing that will be argued will be the price of it later on. I think that puts us as homeowners in very precarious position. You've clouded my property right now. The valuation on my property is in doubt because of this new proposed highway and bikeway and possibility of a four lane road. Who's going to want to buy my property? What has the valuation of it already been diminished just by the pure talk of it? On top of that, when this was first brought up, one of my first statements right here in this room was to say, if you're going to do this, and create this bike path, and I think you were here even then Mark. One of my comments was there's probably nothing I can do to stop the bike path because it's for the greater good of the community. And you can say you're going to put a berm there or trees or anything else, but I'll guarantee you there's going to be people walking through my yard. And that's annoying when you have a beautiful house and you spent all this money to locate there. And I said at the time, if that's what you're going to do, then you should give me some consideration at the very least by rolling back my taxes and freezing them. If it's going to be for the greater good of the community. If you're going to inconvenience me and devalue my property, there should be some compensation. And when we've now gone from the bike path to the possibility of four lane highway, I think we were really way off track and I don't really believe that that's what the people.., our elected officials will review this very carefully and hopefully we'll have some more meetings. I'm also somewhat disappointed, I didn't get to go to that last meeting and it was because I was out of town at the time, but in the original meetings I said with today's technology there was no excuse and no reason why in some of these controversial areas, why they couldn't go out and take a videotape or actually go out and put it in the perspective so that the average citizen can see. If we're going to take out 49 hours, let's go out there and videotape. Put them up on the board. Show everybody who's houses are going to go and why. If we're going to redo an intersection and it's controversial, let's do it. I don't think that takes a lot of time or money to do those types of things. It's a funny thing about architects blueprints and many things get kind of you know by the wayside when you don't have a bunch of laymen that can understand those blueprints. But when you set and show a video of 49 hours getting ripped out of there, it's pretty easy to see if your address is on the door. And when you start talking about setbacks from the main road, if all of a sudden you're coming 75 or 100 feet into your back yard, and you've got to cut your dog's rope short so he isn't out in the middle of the highway, yeah. I think those are some important things. So that's my concern and I do hope that we'll get some more feedback. I'm not you know trying to stand in the way of progress but I don't see where redoing the one lane road we have with a bike path, even though it's objectionable to me to have the bike path, I don't see where that's really stifling the growth of Chanhassen. 45 City Council Meeting - October 11, 1999 Mayor Mancino: Bob, just so you know we've just had, you know you've missed the first kind of open house informational meeting and that was to get everybody on the same page. Our next step that we had talked about was having small neighborhood meetings and giving out more information. I mean we're just starting at the very beginning of a process and we, a lot of people came that night. We're going to be getting minutes so there will be word for word transcribed minutes that we can read. We'll also, people are e-mailing us. Sending in comments, etc so I think that this council needs to sit back and say, you know we had planned to have small, more neighborhood meetings at this point. Do we go ahead with that, etc. Bob: I think that's all really important in the communication issue and everything else is wonderful. But I guess in talking with some of my neighbors, there is a sense of frustration and futility here. If we're going through the motions and having a bunch of meetings to make us feel good as citizens of Chanhassen but you don't have an open mind and you're not willing to change, if there is no real hope for any change, we're just kidding ourselves. Councilman Senn: Bob, I think you're misunderstanding something here because the City isn't proposing any project. Bob: Oh I know that. I know that and I've even been told that the City of Chanhassen and the City of Eden Prairie have to somewhat agree, to my understanding. I mean I could be wrong. Scott Botcher: ... Bob: Okay, so let's just say for the sake of argument Chanhassen says no and Eden Prairie says yes. Then what happens? Mayor Mancino: I'm assuming it doesn't happen. It wouldn't happen. I mean we have to come to consensus as to what goes on in our city. Scott Botcher: ... DOT and Hennepin County. So I would rather say we need to find out. Bob: Well I think as a citizen I think there's a lot of people who are concerned. Mayor Mancino: But that's a good question. That's a bottom line question. Councilman Senn: ... it doesn't concern DOT one way or another because they're just trying to get rid of the road. But Tim Grew from Hennepin County sat here in numerous meetings saying effectively this road's only going to go basically if the cities approve it. And so I mean that's the process. Scott Botcher: But I always have a problem with DOT saying effectively or probably or sort of or have to. I want to see it in writing. That's his personal point of view. Councilman Senn: Ask him. Mayor Mancino: And we will follow up on that but I think your elected officials here, or your council are very open. We don't have a point of view. Bob: ...but by the same token I think there's a lot of people that I think are feeling this is being jammed down their throats. I don't know. It's a big proposition out here. I realize there's a lot of people that 46 City Council Meeting - October 11, 1999 would like to see 101 fixed, you know i.e. potholes and many other things but I don't think they want a super highway running through their back yard either. Mayor Mancino: Understand, thank you. Councilwoman Jansen: I had called Anita to follow up on the process as you started to discuss Mayor, and it almost seemed like we maybe need to get involved in it to make sure that maybe it does get expedited a little bit because she gave a list of steps that could drag this out for quite a while before we even get the feedback from the meeting as far as the minutes and how we want to take the next step. Mayor Mancino: I think it's a work session. Next work session item. Councilwoman Jansen: Okay. And then we'll go about scheduling the neighborhood meetings just so people have some idea of when they'll get their next round of input in? Okay. Mayor Mancino: Yeah. I mean I think we want to talk about it on Monday night because, and read those minutes and decide how we want to go forward. Scott Botcher: ... capital funds on Monday. Mayor Mancino: Oh good. Did you want to also come up? Please do. Be on the record. State your name and address. And again, thank you both for being so darn patient. Do you want to spend a lot of Monday nights with us? Dan Schumacher: I may. My name's Dan Schumacher. 7380 Kurvers Point. I don't know that tonight I have anything to add in terms of reaction to this proposal about 101. I read the minutes, or at least I read most of them, and Councilman Senn acting as a citizen that night I think expressed my reaction to this. I'd agree with everything that Mr. Morton says also. The question I'm leaving with still is it's not clear to me reading the minutes, and I apologize I wasn't able to attend. I was out of town also. I don't understand how this is going to proceed. There is vague references in here about neighborhood meetings and further discussions, but if we don't even know right now what the decision process is, that's a question that Bob and I both came here tonight with. Whether Chanhassen alone could back out of this thing and that kills the whole thing. I would like to suggest that the process gets clearly articulated to all the people involved in this because right now there's a meeting that's got a lot of people stirred up and there's no clear path how to make the feelings known on this and then once they are expressed, what's going to happen with that information. Mayor Mancino: Good, thank you for saying that. We had anticipated at the, towards the end of the meeting, the open house. The informational meeting, to spend the last half hour trying to get some feedback as to what kind of a process those that are in attendance would like. But that didn't happen. I mean there were, you know everyone was pretty concerned and wanted to give their comments just on the roadway, so we had hoped to get more comments on procedure and what those neighbors who had come would like to see next steps. And hopefully some of the people wrote down comments. We have not, or at least I haven't. I can't speak for the other council members. We haven't gotten a copy of the minutes yet so I don't know. Any other council member have, we haven't gotten a copy of the minutes so you're a little further than we are and hopefully we will also get the comments that those who came in attendance wrote down. But we'd like to get the feedback from you on procedure too. 47 City Council Meeting - October 11, 1999 Dan Schumacher: Will the comments be published also? Mayor Mancino: Yeah, they are published. Scott Botcher: When I walked into the office this morning, they were finishing up the minutes. We had some citizens that requested them so we made some copies and they started going out so that's what we've done. As far as the comments... Mayor Mancino: So what I just said is we'll try and meet, not we'll try and meet. We're going to have a work session on next Monday night, this coming, a week from tonight and I haven't talked with Scott on what else is on the agenda but we'll probably place on the agenda going over the informational meeting. What the next step should be. Now we had pre planned that they would be neighborhood, small meetings. Getting together and going over some of the details. And giving more information to people. But again I think that's something that we need to talk about. But we will certainly communicate with you what those next steps are and again if you have anything, any things that you would like us to do, please e-mail us or call us and let us know. We're open for suggestions. Dan Schumacher: Thank you very much. Mayor Mancino: Good night. Thanks for coming. Mayor Mancino adjourned the City Council meeting. Submitted by Scott Botcher City Manager Prepared by Nann Opheim 48