CC Minutes 1996 12 16CHANHASSEN CITY COUNCIL
REGULAR MEETING
DECEMBER 16, 1996
Mayor Chmiel called the meeting to order at 7:30 p.m. The meeting was opened with the Pledge to the Flag.
COUNCIL MEMBERS PRESENT: Mayor Chmiel, Councilman Berquist, Councilwoman Dockendorf,
Councilman Mason and Councilman Senn
STAFF PRESENT: Don Ashworth, Tom Scott, Todd Hoffman, Charles Folch, Kate Aanenson, Philip Elkin,
Scott Harr and Pam Snell
APPROVAL OF AGENDA:
Mayor Chmiel: Is there a motion to approve the agenda?
Councilman Senn: Don, a question or clarification before we do, if I could. Items l(j) and l(k) were not
advertised. Can we act on those?
Mayor Chmiel: (k) and (k)?
Councilman Senn: O) and (k).
Mayor Chmiel: Is there advertisement on this? A requirement?
Don Ashworth: No, this is, well first of all. City Council has approved an item that did not get published if the
determination that the, it's not really affecting the general public. In this particular case, item O) was one that the
City Attorney had worked out a settlement with Mr. Curry. I think it's fair to say that those two are the only two
involved and the City Attorney asked if there was any way it could get onto this agenda. And again similar to O),
(k).
Philip Elkin: I can answer that Don. (k) was approved with the Trotters Ridge Wetland Alteration Permit. What
this does is when you go to close your house, if they filled the wetland and your home is being built on this filled
wetland, the County Recorder still shows it as a wetland so they need a certificate showing that there's no longer a
wetland there, as part of the Wetland Alteration Permit to close on the house. So this was kind of thrown in at the
last minute because they're getting close to closing on the house and we don't, try to move that along so.
Mayor Chmiel: Okay. Are there.
Councilman Senn: I would move approval of the agenda.
Councilman Berquist: Second.
Councilman Senn moved, Councilman Berquist seconded to approve the agenda as presented. All voted in
favor and the motion carried.
PUBLIC ANNOUNCEMENTS: PRESENTATION OF MAPLE LEAF AWARDS.
Mayor Chmiel: Next comes public announcements and item number A. This is presentation of Maple Leaf
Awards to yours truly sitting here, Colleen Dockendorf, Charlie Robbins and Eldon Berkland. Now I know why
Eldon was all dressed up today. But I would like to.
Councilman Mason: Your Honor.
City Council Meeting - December 16, 1996
Mayor Chmiel: I'm not doing mine.
Councilman Mason: You're not doing yours?
Mayor Chmiel: No. Well I could. I could say all the years of service. Thank you. It'd be short and sweet. Okay,
we have here, let me just open these up and make sure that I have all the right ones. Okay. Colleen Dockendorf.
Councilman Mason: Stand up. Be recognized.
Mayor Chmiel: On behalf of the City I would like to present to you the City of Chanhassen Maple Leaf Award,
which is going to be presented to Colleen Connors Dockendorf.
Councilwoman Dockendorf: Why Connors is thrown in there all the time. I'm not that attached to it.
Mayor Chmiel: Well that just lets us know who it is. This is, you have been a Chanhassen City Councilmember
since 1993 through 1996. In recognition of outstanding service to the community, the Chanhassen City Council
hereby bequeaths upon you this award. And it's signed by Steve Berquist, Mike Mason, Mark Senn and Don
Chmiel. With that...
Councilwoman Dockendorf: Well I gave my speech earlier in the evening at an earlier reception so I think I'll just
take my seat. Thank you.
Mayor Chmiel: Okay. Charlie Robbins, is he here? I don't see him sitting out here. We'll have to get that to
Charlie. Eldon Berkland. Would you step forward please. Eldon and I have served on the Public Safety
Committee for many years. I hate to see Eldon go, only because we did enjoy his taxes on his home. But he really,
he has added an awful lot to Public Safety. His thoughts and different ideas and...for the City. And as Eldon is,
he's a paramedic. He does go through our community. He's always thinking of ways to simplify many of these
situations that do occur that are emergencies. But on behalf of that, I would like to really thank you for the Public
Safety Commission. I might add, there is no pay for this service. Many, many hours that are... So with this
recognition of outstanding service to the community, Chanhassen Public Safety Commission, the following have
signed this. By Don Chmiel, Brian Beniek, Steve LaBatt, Greg Weber, Jim Sloss and Bill Bernhjelm. Scott Harr
who's our Public Safety Director. On December the 16th. Thank you.
Councilman Mason: Don, I think you should get back down there.
Mayor Chmiel: Okay.
Councilman Mason: If you don't mind. About 3 or 4 days ago, 4 or 5 days ago, 6 days ago, I don't know. The
Office Manager, Karen Engelhardt asked me if I would give Don the Maple Leaf Award and I thought oh sure.
I'd be happy to. And after I hung up I thought well, I should at least know a few of the things he's done...I've
been here for most of them but I wanted a list so instead somebody wrote me a speech. Now I'm not going to give
that speech but I do want to list a few of Don's accomplishments. He started in 1988 as Mayor. Among other
things that we have in Chanhassen that we didn't have in 1988 are affordable senior housing in the city of
Chanhassen. We have the construction of the Chanhassen Senior Center. The Centennial Committee. Don,
certainly one of his major accomplishments in my view is the redevelopment of the downtown area. He's been on
the Chanhassen Housing and Redevelopment Authority for the past 6 years. In terms of what's gone on for...in
this City in the past 8 years. We have what some people argue is one of the nicer parks around. Lake Ann Park.
An awful lot of people from Eden Prairie visit that park so it must be. The Lake Ann Shelter. Additional softball
fields, soccer fields, youth baseball fields of course. You know one thing that I have learned from Don is there's no
reason that governments can't work together. Local governments. I think he's proved that by helping with the
Chanhassen Recreation Center... Those are some of the biggee's. Other things are the storm water management
plan. Don certainly had a hand in... Public hearing opportunities and citizen involvement. The construction of
the new access road to Lake Ann Park... Highway 5 corridor. Vision 2002 .... providing leadership for the future
City Council Meeting - December 16, 1996
construction of Highway 212. He's also served on the Public Safety Commission for the last 8 years. Also in that,
I'm guessing that the City Council will approve a budget tonight. If they do approve the budget as it is now, it will
be the same local tax rate as it was when Don was on 8 years ago. I remember some of my first budget sessions
with this City. Quite honestly not having a clue as to what was going on and Don saying well, anything can
happen but what won't happen is the tax rate... So clearly a lot has gone on in the city in the last 8 years, due in no
small part to you Don. And now I'm going to tell you my story... About 6 years ago. Well 5 years ago. One of
the few times Don and I rode together to a meeting. It was over at Chaska. I think it was one of the Youth
Commissions or something like that and oddly enough we started talking politics. Up until that time we really
hadn't talked about things on the local or federal level. I suspect that on a local, or a federal level Don and I might
not always think the same way. But we, I came to the realization, and in fact it was Don who said it. Something to
the effect that Mike, we might disagree on a whole lot of things, but one thing we don't disagree on is what we
think is best for the City of Chanhassen. And I truly...has led with that in mind. I don't think the plaque says
enough Don but on behalf of the City of Chanhassen, City Council and staff, I would like to thank you for your
leadership and friendship over these past 8 years.., and this is signed by Councilman Berquist, Councilwoman
Dockendorf, Councilman Senn and myself.
Mayor Chmiel: ...Truly the last 8 years have been really a lot of fun. Knowing how well the City has progressed
and where we're at is one thing that... On behalf of my family and myself, I'd like to thank you. It's been a
pleasure serving you...
CONSENT AGENI)A: Councilman Berquist moved, Councilwoman I)ockendorf seconded to approve the
following Consent Agenda items pursuant to the City Manager's recommendations:
Golden Glow Acres, James Ravis:
1) Final Plat Approval.
2) Approve Development Contract and Construction Plans and Specifications, Project 96-19.
b. Approval of Snow Plowing and Ice Control Policy.
f. Approval of Gambling Permit for February Festival, Chanhassen Chamber of Commerce.
g. Approval of 1997 Meeting Schedule.
j. Approval of Condemnation Payment, Curry Property, Lake Riley Utility Project.
k. Approval of Wetland Certificate, Lot 16, Block 2, Trotters Ridge.
All voted in favor and the motion carried.
VISITOR PRESENTATIONS:
Loren Veltkamp: Hi, thank you. My name is Loren Veltkamp. This is my wife Paula. We're at 6724 Lotus Trail.
I brought along a handout which looks like this. If you could grab that a moment. I have a little thing to read here
but I'm going to skip through it because you have it there in writing. You can refer to it anytime so first I just want
to thank the Council for the excellent work they did last time in trying to get a grip on all the implications of house
moving. I think you laid the essential foundation with the proper approach to this issue and this is no small task
where there are very few established procedures to follow for such an unusual activity. I think we have all
struggled to do the best thing here. In short here, just skipping through the rest of this. I talked with my appraiser
again, most recently this afternoon and this is like the third time. I told him what the Council agreed to last time
and he still had some pretty serious reservations about it so I think we might want to return to this again. I made
some recommendations later on here about what I would like to see done and you can read them and make your
decision at your leisure so I would just like to return to this issue, and maybe we don't even need to do that. I could
go and talk to the applicant and work something out. But I thought I'd better come here and at least ask for a new
look at this issue to make sure there's no devaluation of property. I've included in my statement here, the
City Council Meeting - December 16, 1996
statement that I was going to read but I'll skip through and then there is the appraisal after that and then I did
some house drawings which show how the house could be fixed up in such a way that I don't think that it would do
any damage to surrounding properties. And then I talked to my appraiser today and he said that he would be
happy to work with City Council and go through the plans and make sure there's no devaluation for surrounding
property and he would work with you on that. He's all ready to go and so it's basically just a refinement of what
the Council did last time I think but I think it needs a little closer look.
Mayor Chmiel: Okay, good. Appreciate it.
Loren Veltkamp: Thank you.
Mayor Chmiel: Thank you. Is there anyone else?
Bob Beduhn: Hello. My name is Bob Beduhn. I live at 1798 Valley Ridge Trail North. I'm here representing the
residents of the Bluff Creek Estates neighborhood and I'm here to discuss the Postal Service Annex. I have a
petition I'd like to provide to you Mayor and the Council, if that's okay. The purpose of our petition tonight is to
request that the City proceed with implementation of an injunction against the Postal Service to stop construction
of the Postal Service Annex. And I'd like to go through some of the reasons and basis for this request. Over the
last six weeks or so there's been numerous correspondence and discussions among residents, staff, with the postal
service. Letters transcribed back and forth. It has all centered around the impact of the postal service telling the
residents of the Bluff Creek Estates neighborhood, who many of them are here tonight with our families and what
has become very frustrating is that there's been absolutely no action. No concrete action that has been laid out.
That has been accomplished yet in regards to the impacts. I'd like to specifically refer to some of the letters that
you Mr. Mayor have sent out and some of the responses we've received from the postal service. The first thing I'd
like to point out is that, and this whole process was started in the environmental review the postal service began,
they sent to the City Council an environmental assessment which was reviewed by staff. Within that
environmental assessment the postal service committed themselves to a city site plan review. They committed
themselves to specific hours of operation. They indicated that this environmental assessment is a mandate of the
National Environmental Policy Act, which is a federal law. And in my reading of this, and me and my neighbors,
the postal service waived the supremacy clause of the U.S. Constitution by saying within this environmental
assessment, that they would commit themselves to local rules, ordinance and regulations. They're now using that
same clause to say that they don't have to comply with any of the requests of the City of Chanhassen. In our
opinion, the United States Postal Service has violated the National Environmental Policy Act and federal law and
they cannot claim the federal immunity to your local rules and regulations in this particular situation because of
what they have stated in the Environmental Assessment. The National Environmental Policy Act allows for
stopping of construction of projects by federal court action in order to preserve the status quo. In reading the case
law in that matter, what that refers to is that the impacted party is at a disadvantage. The person from doing the
project has all the financial resources, construction equipment and they're moving forward with the project where
we have no way to stop them and get them to take a look at the real impacts. The point of this matter is that, in the
Environmental Assessment they never really address the environmental impacts of the facility on us. What they
said is, we know there's going to be impacts and we're going to go through the City site plan review process.
We're going to get a permit from you. We're going to make changes to the building. We're going to construct
these berms and this sort of thing, and in doing, in going through that process we'll mitigate the environmental
affects. And right now the walls are going up. The last time I was here 6 weeks ago they were pouring a
foundation. And now they have one section 30 blocks high of a wall going up and they're working on the next
section. They have prepared a concept landscaping plan but this has not been evaluated by the noise consultant. In
fact as of today I do not believe that the noise consultant has been hired or has done one hour of work on this
project. One correspondence, it's my understanding and the understanding of the neighbors that the postal service
has agreed to pay for the noise consultant and abide by practical recommendations offered by the consultant.
However no specific information has again, been provided by the consultant and therefore no work is completed.
Today the City of Chanhassen received a letter which indicated, the letter from, to Sharmin A1-Jaff, from Bryan
Marschal of the U.S. Postal Service. In the fourth paragraph of that letter, the postal service has stated that they
will not entertain any changes to the building layout, plan, parking, loading dock or pavements of the facility.
However in an earlier correspondence they indicated that they would comply and now they wouldn't. Earlier they
City Council Meeting - December 16, 1996
said they were going to go through the City site plan review process. Now they don't. Then they tell us that
they're going to comply and make reasonable changes. Now they're telling us they won't. This is a very well
thought out method to continually stall the project and continue with construction. As I indicated, the
construction of the building has began with earnest with main exterior walls being constructed. There has not been
any work to determine what the impact of this facility is going to be on our homes. The delays and stalls are part
of a very carefully considered plan to construct these buildings with no physical changes. In short, immediate
action is needed to stop construction of the facility. We can't wait any longer. Every brick that goes in that
building is a chance, is opportunity lost to reduce the impact. In conversations I've had with other noise
consultants, and other experts I know in the field, they've indicated to me that a physical barrier consisting of the
berm diking, fence and at least a 100 foot thick of mature pine trees, would typically be needed to stop noise in the
decibel levels needed to really reduce impacts to our facility. So I'm very concerned that by only working with the
landscaping plan that the post office has proposed, that there's still going to be an adverse impact in our facility
without changes to the structure of the postal service building. So in short, we can't wait any longer. I believe me
and my neighbors will testify to that. The Council began action on this and the Mayor sent a letter saying we'd
like you to address these things. Senator Grams has sent letters. Senator Wellstone has sent letters.
Representative Minge has sent letters. You have sent letters. We have sent letters. Everybody's been sending
letters and paperwork and you know what, not one ounce of real work has gotten done other than the building's
going up. We don't know anything more today than we did 6 weeks ago. Actually I think we know less. I mean
the facts are, they're telling us this building, this operation is going to start at 3:30 in the morning and it's only
going to get worse as this area grows. You've done a great job of economic development and getting this city
planned out for continued growth in this area. This isn't just going to serve Chanhassen. This is serving five other
growing communities in the western suburbs. And there's only going to be more traffic and more impact on this
facility. I know some of you are leaving the Council and not going to be Mayor right now and you've
accomplished a lot and you deserve the awards you received tonight. I guess we're asking you one thing. We're
all new residents. We moved in because of the work that you did. Now we're suffering because the postal service
doesn't want to meet the commitments they made to you. I mean you as the Council are the ones that were
shnookered by these guys, but it's impacting us and we need your help and your power and you have the ability to
stop this project until the noise consultant can do his work. That's all we're asking. I mean the project's going to
be built. There's going to be a postal service annex back there. No doubt about it. We know that's going to
happen. We're not trying to kill this project. But we are trying to make sure reasonable, practical things are done
to it and every brick that goes in that building is one less chance for a practical change. There's things like
different types of asphalt that can reduce noise. There's things with the loading dock that could be changed that
could reduce noise. There's hours of operation that they committed to that could be changed. There's lots of
things that could be done. The physical structure of that building, it may not be that great of cost but it can be done
but it will never be done, and the post office today told you they're not going to do it unless somebody forces their
hand. And I believe this was on another agenda item and the Mayor in your memo to the postal service indicated
that this would be brought forth again on the, at this meeting tonight. So me and my neighbors are asking you
guys to take... We can't wait for the next Council meeting. We can't wait. We've waited. We've asked them to
work with us and we've asked, we've sent letters. We've asked our Congressmen, Senators. We've done
everything everybody told us to do. So that's our request for you tonight. Thank you.
Mayor Chmiel: Thanks. Appreciate. Many of you know, and those of you sitting in the first time, the federal
government does over ride what our existing ordinances are. And it's sort of nice to sit back and say, this is what
it's going to be because we're the federal government. We go along with the federal government many times over
on some things except of course this one there really is no way that we can actually stop them. I know we've had
discussions, and as he has indicated. Letters were sent to Grams and Wellstone and we are requesting them to look
at what the given problem is but there's no real solution to what we really see on this particular proposal. And
normally when things are done on visitor presentations, as I mentioned before, if action is required, even though
we've had many discussions on this, the item will be tabled to the next available agenda to allow for a publication
and review of items prior to final consideration. Let me ask a question of Council. Being I was not at the last
Council meeting due to a death in the family. What's your feeling, Steve?
Councilman Berquist: My feeling is that, the second line of visitor presentation is if action is required. I think the
time to try to do something is now. But putting it off again, 6 weeks ago we had an executive session and tried to
City Council Meeting - December 16, 1996
decide a route that would be the least damaging to all concerned. The City in general, the citizens on Valley Ridge
Trail, the post office and everybody else. At that point, I really thought that the post office was coming to the table
and they were recognizing the problems that were being presented. Now it appears to me, given the dates on the
different letters that are going out and the responses that are coming back, that the post office is just playing
games. They're delaying whatever they can do for as long as possible. And I go back to that initial meeting and
trust is a very precious commodity. That first meeting with the homeowners and the post office and a couple of
different Council people, the points of concern were brought up. The post office seemed amenable to the issues at
hand. It appeared that things would be able to be resolved without resorting to any legal activity but I honestly, I
think at this point that my faith in that process was ill conceived. The letters that we're getting from the post office
representatives seem to do nothing more than further delay things and further delay things and walls are going up.
I am in support of pursuing an injunction and forcing the post office to come to the table in a forthright manner.
That's my opinion.
Mayor Chmiel: Well thank you. I appreciate your opinion. The only thing that I look at, the little city of
Chanhassen fighting the federal government. When it gets done nobody really wins, unfortunately. Except
spending a lot of additional dollars. Colleen.
Councilwoman Dockendorf: I'd like to ask Tom, whether we should be having this discussion in a closed session.
Considering legal action against the federal government.
Tom Scott: I recommend...that topic.., special meeting.
Councilwoman Dockendorf: I would be willing to look at it again.
Mayor Chmiel: Michael.
Councilman Mason: If the feeling of the Council is to revisit that, that's fine. I have a tough time putting what I
could only envision be an awful lot of taxpayers money on the line for something that I, from what I understand,
would have virtually no chance of making any changes. But having said that, if Council wants to revisit that,
that's certainly the option.
Mayor Chmiel: Mark.
Councilman Senn: ...I think the only way we're going to affect it is to take the injunctive action simply to put the
feet to the fire so to speak. We've tried the go soft approach, which we talked about 6 weeks ago and I don't think
that's really gone anywhere at all. In fact I think we're sitting exactly where we were 6 weeks ago. So I would be
in favor of the 3 day notice, if that's what it takes for what, an executive session and going ahead and
reconsidering this issue as far as an injunctive action.
Mayor Chmiel: Okay as Mark has indicated, I think what we should really, you know as he said, put the feet to the
fire and see what happens. I would be more than happy to revisit the situation. What I'd like to do is to have Don
pull together a time frame going to be available and Don, if you can just do that.
Don Ashworth: I'll do that.
Mayor Chmiel: Good. Yes sir.
Bill Kemble: My name's Bill Kemble. I live at 1782 Valley Ridge Trail North and this is I believe the fourth
Council meeting that I've been in attendance at where we've discussed this issue and I've always walked away not
knowing exactly what's going to happen. So I'm listening very carefully to you Mr. Mayor asking Mr. Ashworth
to just do it. Holidays are coming up. This has gone on, dragged on for a long, long time. Please, let us know
what's happening. As we walk away from these meetings we don't know what's going to happen. We don't know
what kind of meetings are going to ensue. We're very appreciative that you all are willing to reconsider some sort
of an injunction and Mr. Ashworth, if you could, could you get back to either myself or Bob Beduhn directly and
City Council Meeting - December 16, 1996
let us know when the group is going to get back together to discuss the possibility of an injunction and then get
back to us with whatever decision is come to.
Councilman Senn: Can't we just try to do it right now? I mean set a time.
Mayor Chmiel: Yeah.
Councilman Senn: When's the soonest we can do it?
Mayor Chmiel: Don's already had discussions so I'd like to hear what he has to say.
Tom Scott: A special meeting is posted 3 days notice.
Don Ashworth: Thursday. Or Monday. You might want to, I think we're pushing it a little bit on the posting
today at 7:00. As far as I know we do not have a meeting for Monday. Next Monday. If you want to do it 5:30
next Monday, we could do that.
Councilman Berquist: What logistical problem do we have with Thursday?
Don Ashworth: Well we'd have to put the notice up right now.
Councilman Berquist: Is that a problem?
Don Ashworth: No, I'd just have Tom step out of the room and prepare one and put it up. I'm kind of questioning
whether or not you would be meeting the intent of the law if you did it in that fashion.
Councilman Berquist: Tom, are we meeting the intent of the law if we do it in that fashion?
Tom Scott: As long as it's posted today.
Mayor Chmiel: ...you have paper going to press probably sometime what, tomorrow? Wednesday? Okay.
Councilman Senn: But it will be in the paper anyway before we do it on Thursday because the paper comes out
Thursday.
Mayor Chmiel: But it couldn't get into the paper until the following Thursday.
Councilman Senn: But it's a closed meeting anyway in executive session so it's almost more, it's just a matter of.
Mayor Chmiel: Under all rights, could we not have an executive session for discussion of this one single item
without posting it Don? It still has to be posted?
Tom Scott: It has to be posted as a meeting.
Mayor Chmiel: Okay.
Councilman Senn: How about 5:00 Thursday?
Don Ashworth: Mr. Mayor?
Mayor Chmiel: Yes Don.
Don Ashworth: To respond to the question. I would anticipate at the end of that meeting that the City Attorney's
office would be in a position to notify the neighborhood as to what action the City Council could take.
City Council Meeting - December 16, 1996
Bill Kemble: Okay. And that would come from Roger Knutson then, or I assume you're his representative this
evening? Okay.
Don Ashworth: If you want to have someone here or as many representatives as you wanted Thursday evening,
that would be fine. But the City Council session itself will be closed.
Bill Kemble: And the meeting will be held here?
Don Ashworth: They'll probably meet in the courtyard upstairs.
Bill Kemble: Okay, thank you.
Mayor Chmiel: Good, thanks. Okay, everybody else was okay with 5:30? Okay. Good. All right, we'll look at
the next item on our agenda.
PUBLIC HEARING: REQUEST FOR ON-SALE INTOXICATING LIQUOR LICENSE, PAULY'S BAR
& RESTAURANT, 654 PAULY DRIVE, RUSSELL PAULY.
Mayor Chmiel: I think there's a lot of Pauly's here in town but it sounds like on a Pauly's Drive, I think it's pretty
neat. Okay. So with this I'd like to open the, who has. Kate, do you have anything on this or Don?
Don Ashworth: Myself. We have received a request from Russell Pauly for an intoxicating license at the
Chanhassen Bowl. There's various aspects of this that Karen had worked very closely with the City Attorney's on
but I think at this point in time they feel comfortable that the license as being presented does meet State Statute or
local ordinance. We have gone through the background insurance. Do you wish to comment at all on some of the
options that maybe Mr. Dahlin would have on this particular one?
Tom Scott: It's the position of our office is that the proposal is to service.., sell liquor in the bowling alley area.
And under that scenario Mr. Dahlin, as the owner of the bowling alley building would also have to join in the
application. That the application could not be, the license could not be issued solely to Mr. Pauly since he is, the
proposal is that he would be leasing the bar and restaurant area. It also includes a service window that would
allow liquor usage in the bowling alley area itself, which Mr. Pauly does not have control over. So Mr. Dahlin
would have to join in the application, or some other arrangement would have to be made between Mr. Dahlin and
Mr. Pauly, if the intent is to serve liquor in both the restaurant area and the bowling alley area.
Mayor Chmiel: Okay. All right, any other questions by Council? All right. Yeah Russ.
Russ Pauly: I'd like to address the Council on that issue that was mentioned. I'm Russ Pauly, 2447 West 64th
Street and you just mentioned the option of having Mr. Dahlin on the liquor license. I think the issue which Roger
and I discussed previously is that I don't lease the bowling alley. That is also an option. That I put that space
under our current lease, but see I don't believe he has to be listed on the liquor license. Only if I don't control the
space. If that space is under lease, then the issue is that I control the space and that he's not required on the liquor
license.
Tom Scott: That would be another option also.
Russ Pauly: Correct? Okay.
Tom Scott: The licensee has to control the space where the liquor is going to be consumed.
Mayor Chmiel: Okay. Thanks. No I don't, and I don't think anyone else does at this time. So I'm going to open
this public hearing. Is there anyone here who'd like to address this issue? Seeing none, may I have a motion to
close the public hearing?
City Council Meeting - December 16, 1996
Councilman Senn moved, Councilman Mason seconded to close the public hearing. All voted in favor and
the motion carried. The public hearing was closed.
Mayor Chmiel: Steve.
Councilman Berquist: Okay, let me understand. I mean I don't have any, I knew this was coming. I knew there
was going to be in essence a transference of the Pauly liquor license from where they were to this space. I haven't
heard necessarily, unless I missed something, which is entirely possible, any solution to the problem. And there's
verbiage in the memo that says a solution will not be reached before this report is sent out. So there is no solution
at this point Russ? There is no solution as to the who's going to control the liquor that is served to the bowling
patrons?
Russ Pauly: Well basically Roger Knutson and I had discussion on it last week. It was Wednesday of last week
and he was going to call Liquor Control in regards to an issue which surrounds the original...Dan Dahlin as far as
service to the bowling alley. Our original agreement stated that he'd pay the percentage of...by the Liquor
Control. I wasn't positive...I don't really have an answer on that. At this point you know anything we can do to
resolve those issues... Our original lease agreement...that's fine. We can do that, but Dan and I haven't been able
to meet to work out any type of an agreement on that short notice... Working on the lease, two lawyers looked at it.
One, my attorney Roger Pauly who represents Eden Prairie. When I brought this.., and again I'm waiting for
Roger to respond. Roger Knutson.
Councilman Berquist: Just out of curiosity, where does the Dram Shop, how does your?
Russ Pauly: The way the insurance works is that I'm being, or Pauly's and Chanhassen Bowl would also.., the
liquor liability as well as general liability.
Councilman Berquist: The bowling alley would have to carry Dram Shop insurance as well as general liability.
Russ Pauly: ...that's part of my lease. That's part of the lease.
Councilman Berquist: So your attorney didn't see any problem with this. Roger, the City's attorney thought that
there might be some potential problem but as of now we don't know if there is a problem.
Mayor Chmiel: Colleen.
Councilwoman Dockendorf: Well I'm not certain that we can act on it this evening.
Mayor Chmiel: Yeah, that's right.
Councilwoman Dockendorf: You know as Steve said, I don't have any issue with transferring the license. It's just
a matter of working out the details.
Mayor Chmiel: Russ I noticed, let me just interject something. You wanted to have this done by July, or January
1. Too many months flying by. Is that a real realistic date for you or can we?
Russ Pauly: Well you know. I have to shoot for something... The situation is that, you know Karen and I talked
about this in November...December and the next meeting is like the 13th of January so you know, we're looking at
another month...
Mayor Chmiel: Yeah. Are you ready for operation?
Russ Pauly: Well we've got our financing in place. The contractor's been picked. We're just, there's some title
issues right now that should be... I think the first of the year is a reasonable date...
City Council Meeting - December 16, 1996
Councilman Mason: Can we move this conditionally?
Mayor Chmiel: Sure. Mark? Do you have more?
Councilman Mason: No.
Councilman Senn: Yeah, I guess a couple questions. Russ, you're going to have 150 seats in the restaurant and
100 in the bar. Okay. Is the restaurant going to be open all the time the bar's open?
Russ Pauly: Yes. Our hours will be, you know roughly from 11:00 a.m. until 1:00 p.m. We'll have full menu
service until 11:00 and appetizers until the end of the night.
Councilman Senn: Tell me a little bit about Sundays. That's something that's new.
Russ Pauly: Well Sundays we're going to run a Sunday brunch so our hours of operation will be from 10:00 in the
morning until 1:00 on Sunday, as it is now.
Councilman Senn: Okay, and on Sunday then the restaurant would be maintaining those same?
Russ Pauly: There wouldn't be any hours. It's totally different...
Councilman Senn: Okay. A question for Don. Do we have any other Sunday liquor ones now?
Don Ashworth: I'm not sure if the VFW, if they do any?
Councilman Mason: What's Applebee's do? Applebee's must sell liquor on Sunday. Applebee's, sure.
Mayor Chmiel: Yeah.
Councilman Senn: As far as transferring the license goes, I don't offhand have any real problems with that. I
guess I have one concern, and at least in my mind would like to have full view of what's being agreed to prior to us
voting on it rather than a contingent type of thing. You know primarily because really our only, I'm going to say
leverage at this point on Mr. Dahlin over $400,000.00 past real estate taxes is a liquor license. Effectively as soon
as you take this action, depending on how you take it, you may effectively remove that leverage which then means
the City has absolutely no leverage in relationship to collection of those taxes. And allows him basically to operate
a liquor license in the establishment the say way he is now. Not under his name and to ignore paying those taxes.
So that's a concern. I think we'd be better off, I guess know and understanding precisely what the deal is going to
be... effectively knowing what the potential ramifications of that deal may be.
Mayor Chmiel: Okay. As was discussed in regard to pre-conditions contained on this. Is there any other thought
on Council?
Councilman Mason: I guess I'd like to ask the City Attorney to comment on that. Do you see a way for Dahlin to
get out of that? What Councilman Senn said.
Councilman Senn: Out of fairness to Tom, you weren't here before...
Tom Scott: ...dealing with Dahlin in the license situation as he was, I'm aware of that. I guess if the license
transfer was to Mr. Pauly, which enabled him to sell liquor in the bowling center without Mr. Dahlin getting a
liquor license, I guess that potentially, the owner would not be the license holder and the question of the taxes are
not current but someone other than the owner who is the license holder, whether or not you'd have that as a
condition of Pauly' s continued licensing. That's a possibility. Depending on what kind of arrangements worked
out. You want to make sure that if that does not happen.., with the actual structure of the arrangement.
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City Council Meeting - December 16, 1996
Mayor Chmiel: Yeah. It'd be a problem for both and then all of a sudden if Dahlin goes by the wayside as well
with that, that would cover that license. Yeah.
Russ Pauly: I can assure you that before I engage in any operation of a liquor...
Mayor Chmiel: Yeah.
Russ Pauly: ...before I turn one stone over there so. This whole thing is a part of...but I don't want to come back
in a month and for no reason they say well, I'm sorry. But at this point we need to move forward and this is
another step in moving forward. If we want to stay where we are now and go back to where we are now and no
taxes paid where we are now, this is where we're at. In order to move forward we need to make some decisions...
Those are the issues as far as title that I'm talking about. Those are the issues that we need to resolve before we
start remodeling.
Councilman Senn: I take it from your statement then that you'd be willing to agree to that as a condition then? Of
your approval.
Russ Pauly: I won't agree to pay the back taxes.
Councilman Senn: No but.
Russ Pauly: Before I assume a liquor license, those back taxes will be paid.
Councilman Senn: Okay, so you would agree to that as a condition? I mean if they're willing to do that and we
feel that you're comfortable with leaving some flexibility on the structure of the deal, and with that in there, I think
that protects that primary concern. I'm assuming with that in there then that can happen.
Mayor Chmiel: Okay. Is there a motion that anyone would like to move? It can be also with conditions...
Councilman Senn: I'd like to ask Tom how we'd do that. I don't mind doing it but Tom, how would we leave
that?
Tom Scott: Well I guess we could approve it subject to arrangements through the lease arrangements between Mr.
Pauly and Dahlin being subject to the City Attorney's office. And then it would include the condition that the real
estate property, you know just so I understand it. Mark, or Councilmember Senn, your question was in context of,
my understanding is the payable '96 taxes are current, or have been paid. It's delinquent taxes.
Councilman Senn: Correct.
Tom Scott: It would be a condition that an ongoing basis the taxes would be kept current?
Councilman Senn: And that the delinquent taxes be paid prior to issuance.
Tom Scott: Issuance of the license?
Councilman Senn: Correct.
Tom Scott: Yeah, so it'd be subject to the legal arrangements between Mr. Dahlin and Mr. Pauly be approved by
the City Attorney's office and a condition that the property taxes be kept current and that delinquent taxes be paid.
Councilman Senn: So moved.
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City Council Meeting - December 16, 1996
Mayor Chmiel: Before I call for a second. I keep thinking that discussion on that, I would also like to just add to
it. Check out the additional information that Russ said that Roger Pauly indicated. Re-state that? I guess that.
Russ Pauly: Well in regards to... Chan Bowl and Pauly's, how those rents are paid or those customers.., as rent.
Roger...guidelines...I'11 have to call him and get back, which he did. In the meantime the issue...Roger Pauly and
he said percentage of that lease is fairly common...
Tom Scott: I'm familiar with that. That would again be subject to, or we have had that issue come up in some
other cities where they've raised questions about a percentage of gross sales in a lease. Whether or not that makes
the landlord actual, having an interest in the, but again that would be something that we would.
Mayor Chmiel: We could put as an additional condition.
Tom Scott: Part of the review and approval by our office.
Councilman Senn: Basically that's covered by your review and approval. If you're not comfortable with that and
you and their attorney's aren't in agreement, then I'm assuming we'll be revisiting the issues. Okay, good.
Mayor Chmiel: Okay, there's a motion on the floor. Is there a second?
Councilman Mason: Second.
Mayor Chmiel: Any other discussion?
Councilman Berquist: ... did your motion get picked up by the?
Mayor Chmiel: I think they can probably resurrect it without too much trouble. Okay. I'll call the question.
Councilman Senn moved, Councilman Mason seconded to approve the request for an on-sale liquor license
transfer and Sunday sales for Russell Pauly subject to the legal arrangements between Mr. Dahlin and Mr.
Pauly be approved by the City Attorney's office and with the following conditions:
1. Resolution of how bowling center patrons will be served liquor.
2. Submittal of a $5,000.00 surety bond with an expiration date of April 30, 1997.
3. Submittal of liquor liability insurance with an expiration date of April 30, 1997.
4. Submittal of the license fee.
5. The property taxes be kept current and the delinquent property taxes be paid.
All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously.
AWARD OF BIDS: ARBORETUM BOULEVARD EXTENSION TO LAKE ANN PARK, PROJECT NO.
95-21.
Charles Folch: Thank you Mr. Mayor, members of the Council. On Tuesday, December 3rd bids were received and
opened for the Arboretum Boulevard road improvement project. A total of six bids were received. The apparent
low bid at the time of the opening was Northwest Asphalt at $768,412.61. As we tabulated the bids the next day,
as we typically do with projects such as these, we found there were some errors in the bidding process, which
changed who was the low bidder. However, the revised low bidder had an irregularity in the bid format with
regard to the, they left a pay item blank from the bid proposal. In discussion with MnDOT regarding this issue,
they recommend basically, based on their specifications, that that bid be rejected accordingly. So therefore staff
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City Council Meeting - December 16, 1996
would then go back and recommend recommendation on this award back with Northwest Asphalt at the amount
indicated and again, this award has to be contingent on two items here. One is MnDOT is completing their State
Aid plan review of the project. We expect some minor revisions. Nothing of any significance in nature but there
will be probably some minor changes to accept with the contract. And also there's a cooperative agreement that
will be attached with this project, since MnDOT is paying for more than probably around approximately 70% of
the project cost with it so, therefore staff recommends the award of contract for Arboretum Boulevard to Northwest
Asphalt in the amount of $768,412.00 contingent upon MnDOT's State Aid review and the City entering into a
cooperative agreement with MnDOT.
Mayor Chmiel: Okay. Is there any questions?
Councilman Senn: Just clarification if I could. Charles, then basically their 760 bid left out $5,500.00? Is that the
crux of it?
Charles Folch: Well it left out an item that, as an average with the five, the rest of the five bids was about a
$5,500.00 item.
Councilman Senn: But where they still willing to do the entire project for the $760?
Charles Folch: Yes, that's correct. And if this was a, strictly a local funded project, I think staffwould have
recommended going with that bidder. With that condition that they would do the work non-compensated. Again,
this project is a cooperative agreement project with MnDOT and according to their specifications, this is an invalid
bid being that an item was left blank. If a zero was put in, then it would be an acceptable bid but nothing was put
in there. It was left blank. It's considered an irregularity in the bidding process. And therefore MnDOT will not
accept, will not concur with that, acceptance of that bid.
Councilman Senn: Even though the contractor's saying they will accomplish that work for the same bid amount as
bid? Thus not changing their bid one way or another.
Charles Folch: It's considered an irregularity and they won't accept it.
Councilman Senn: And so, who pays the $8,000.00, us or the State?
Charles Folch: Well, it's probably something less than $8,000.00. Again, that particular bid item that they left out
ranged in bid prices from $4,500.00 to $7,500.00 so.
Councilman Senn: No, no. I'm going to go back to the premise I just asked you. I want a straight answer on that.
Was the one contractor willing to do the entire project for 760?
Charles Folch: Apparently so, yes.
Councilman Senn: Okay, if he is, then what you're suggesting is what the State is saying is that it's going to cost
us $8,000.00 more. Now who's paying the $8,000.00? Us or the State?
Charles Folch: Well the State has agreed to pay a straight amount of $660,000.00 towards the project. Regardless
of what the bids come in at. Their share is $660,000.00 towards the project.
Councilman Senn: But we're paying the 8?
Charles Folch: Any additional amounts we pay.
Councilman Senn: Do we have to accept the State's recommendation?
Charles Folch: If you want their money.
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City Council Meeting - December 16, 1996
Councilman Senn: Okay. Well that's a legitimate answer. I understand. What does it cost us to rebid it?
Charles Folch: Probably somewhere in the neighborhood of, with consultant time and.
Councilman Senn: More or less reject all bids I'm saying and start over.
Charles Folch: Right, and start over. We considered that. Probably that difference would be about $2,000.00-
$2,500.00 to go through the whole rebid process. What's more critical than necessarily the monetary amount of
rebidding is the time lost. We need to initiate a surcharge operation on the project to begin hopefully yet this
month. Or early January, which then would be completed by June in time for them to mobilize and do the major
construction work. If we waited to re-advertise, going through that procedure, the number of days required, we
wouldn't be able to re-award this project until probably the second meeting in January, which is the 27th, which we
basically lost a month and a half in that process which means we may not be able to start work, the road work
process until maybe mid-July. From a timing standpoint, that's what's more critical here. And if you re-bid it,
there's no guarantee either way that the bids would come lower.
Councilwoman Dockendorf: Don't they kind of bump them up January 1 anyway?
Charles Folch: There's a lot of things that affect the bidding market and a lot of it depends on what jobs are out
and open and how much work they have lined up for the coming year. If there's a lot of projects that are bid in this
time of year for the coming year, then you're right. Maybe in January or February they're not, well they've got
things lined up for the early part of their contract season. But again there's so many variables it's hard to know.
The question is, is the delay in the time and no guarantees of getting a better bid price, is that worth risking it? I
mean I guess that's your decision.
Councilman Senn: No, well it doesn't sound like it is but I guess.
Charles Folch: Well in terms of a re-bidding. I mean if you wanted to re-bid.
Councilman Senn: No, I understand what you're saying. I guess just one last silly question and that is, if when
asked, when the contractor was asked why that item was blank he would have said, it was blank because it was
included in another item we wouldn't be even dealing with this, correct?
Charles Folch: No, according to, again according to talking to MnDOT officials, something has to be written in
there. It cannot be left blank. You either have to put a zero or put some amount that shows that the line item was
addressed basically in the bid. Right now they're not comfortable with the uncertainty of leaving something blank.
It's considered an irregularity within their specs.
Councilman Senn: Bureaucracy at it's best.
Mayor Chmiel: Okay, any other questions? If hearing none, is there a motion to accept the Arboretum Boulevard
Project No. 95-217
Councilwoman Dockendorf: I'd move approval of the contract to Northwest Asphalt in the amount of
$768,412.61.
Councilman Mason: Second.
Resolution #96-107: Councilwoman I)ockendorf moved, Councilman Mason seconded to the award of
contract for Arboretum Boulevard, Project No. 95-21, to Northwest Asphalt in the amount of $768,412.00
contingent upon MnI)OT's State Aid review and the City entering into a cooperative agreement with
MnI)OT. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously.
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City Council Meeting - December 16, 1996
CONSIDER THE BLUFF CREEK WATERSHED NATURAL RESOURCES PLAN FOR OFFICIAL
ADOPTION.
Kate Aanenson: Thank you. We've been working on the Bluff Creek Watershed Plan for well over a year. What
I'd like to do is just kind of go through where we've been and where we're at to date and what we're looking for
from the Council tonight and introduce the team that's been working on this and the next implementation steps.
The history of the plan comes about from the former Water Resource Coordinator who had an idea to study the
Bluff Creek watershed and sought about seeking some funding. The City did finally secure some funding from the
Watershed District, the DNR and then the City pitched in and put enough to start a study. And really this study is
an element of the comprehensive plan. Another evolution of our city's stormwater management plan. It's just
another layer, just like what we've done with the lake management plans and the like and we're pretty excited
about the recommendation that have come out of here. After securing the funding we came back to the Council
with our idea and asked for you to put together a steering committee. That steering committee put together a
vision statement and worked with a technical committee in order to put together the document itself. We worked
with Diane Desotelle, as you know the former Water Resource Coordinator. Go ahead, stand up Diane. They're
all going to be available for questions. We're not going to go through the document. And then Ismail Martinez
with Bonestroo who did our stormwater management plan. Both Ismail and Diane acted as the facilitators and ran
our vision statement goals and bringing together all the technical and actually writing the document. Mark
Koegler with Hoisington and Associates was brought on to help the staff with looking at the land use
recommendations. And Todd contributed a lot too as far as the park and recreation recommendations. And then
Phil, as the new Water Resource Coordinator is going to be the person that's really going to be carrying on the
continuation and the implementation of the visions and actually as part of his job as Water Resource Coordinator.
So after we got the plan adopted, and spent a lot of time with the technical steering committee, we need to take it
through the process and we think we've done a really good job. We tried to slow it down and make sure that we
gave everybody an opportunity to respond to the process. We held a workshop back in August with the Park and
Recreation Commission and the Planning Commission and the City Council. That was an exciting process to have
all three groups together and I think that everybody had a pretty good understanding of the direction that we were
going with that. In addition we broke down the land uses south of Highway 5 for future land use recommendation.
We broke that into a couple of areas and allowed people to come in and comment on the land use
recommendations. From that the Planning Commission held a number of workshops to make sure that they
understood the document and what the implications of the recommendations would be and finally they held a
public hearing and recommended approval of the document. So what we're here tonight for is seeking your
approval of this comprehensive plan amendment for adoption. Just to summarize some of the elements of the plan,
and this was covered in the staff report too. We're looking at future land use recommendations. As you know
most of the area south of Lyman is unguided so what we did as a part of this process is to give future land use
recommendations. This brings us into compliance with the new State law and that's something that Mark and
myself will be working on in the next year is the further evolution of the comp plan amendment. In addition that
recommends projects, and that's something that Phil will be following through on and also it gives the great
inventory of the natural resources of this whole area. What this document doesn't do at this time is provide
additional development standards. That's the next layer that we'll be looking at and we've talked to a lot of people
about the public process that we'll be holding on that. We certainly understand that it has a lot of implications for
development and what we've been trying to communicate is the sensitivity this area. That we don't see
development as we've done in the northern end of the city. Pretty much standard subdivisions. Because of the
topography and the sensitivity, that the development in this area is going to be a little bit different. It's kind of
similar to what we did with the Highway 5 process. We went through and we re-visited those looks and then we
came back with an overlay district and that's what Mark and I will be working on and there's a lot of different
techniques that we can employ but that again will go through a public process and we've committed to include
such groups as the Builders Association. Certainly the large stake holders in that area. And just for clarification, I
did make notes on your plan and I know Mr. Pederson's here and has a comment. There is a couple of errors.
This is a draft comp plan map. As far as Bandimere Park, part of the development with Lundgren Brothers, so that
is all city park and the other one is the Watershed secured this piece of property here. Mr. Pederson's property to
the north is not part of, at this time, is not part of the open space so I showed that, highlighted those two properties
on your map. And those will be corrected with the final draft. The document that you have right here is in draft
form and we'll be making any changes would be made in that next document. Finally, what are the next steps?
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City Council Meeting - December 16, 1996
Certainly we have to implement this and we will be going to the Watershed District to petition for a water
management project and that has to be done by March. We'll certainly continue to seek other funding sources.
We've already received $100,000.00 from the Met Council and then again, as I indicated, we'll be developing
zoning techniques to implement the vision and in conjunction with that, updating the comprehensive plan. We're
not intending to bring any additional property into the MUSA line at this time. That's a whole other discussion.
What we are trying to do is give some people some ideas of what development potential can happen down here.
We are recommending approval of this. We have all the information here. I'm not sure how much time you
wanted to go through that, but the team's all here and we'll be happy to answer any questions that you would have.
We are certainly recommending adoption of the plan at this time.
Mayor Chmiel: Okay. Is there any questions by Council?
Councilman Berquist: No questions. Just a couple of comments. I participated in a little bit better than haphazard
manner in the process and everyone that participated in it was dedicated to the task at hand. I know at least from
my perspective that it tends to be a little bit esoteric and out of my league and it lacks some excitement but it's very
necessary. I wanted to... appreciation for sticking with it and putting together what I think is a very good plan.
Although I understand now the work of implementing it begins.
Mayor Chmiel: Colleen.
Councilwoman Dockendorf: I have a broader question Kate. With the completion of this plan and talking about
land use as our next step, don't we, won't that pretty much complete our overall comp plan work?
Kate Aanenson: Right. The City's Comprehensive Plan, sewer and water plans were approved in 1993. This is a
comp plan amendment which needs to be approved by the Metropolitan Council but there's other things that we
need to do to update our comprehensive plan. One of the things that we still need to do as far as systems is look at
the transportation system. That's something that we'll be doing this next year. And if you look at the comp plan
in 1991, we were pretty aggressive. We've accomplished a lot of the things in there. We need to update that in
relation to our housing goals, our population projections, and that sort of thing so that's what Mark and myself will
be working on. Fine tuning that in relation to the land uses that we've now designated. I included in your packet
the population projections based on these and also the breakdown of the different land uses and I think we're, I
think that's a pretty solid footing. What we are looking at as far as the land use, there may be some densities,
swings based on how it's designed and that's something again that we'll be working on as far as how we
implement the tools.
Councilwoman Dockendorf: I mean do you think that will be accomplished in '97? All of that?
Kate Aanenson: Well we have to get the comp plan certainly updated. That's going to be a requirement but that's
our objective. As far as, the pressure isn't there as far as zoning because it's still outside the MUSA so I think we
have some time but we want to make sure, there are other properties inside the Bluff Creek corridor that we want
to make sure that maybe we're still addressing those because we've had some come in and we've been
uncomfortable. That's one of the other forces that go with this process. We didn't really have setbacks from the
creek and what properties we want to acquire. Where there's water quality projects. And also not just the zoning
but also what properties, if development comes in, what we want to do. Enhance a wetland or try to acquire an
easement and just the educational points so.
Councilwoman Dockendorf: I have one personal question, if you'll indulge me. The red blob over my entire 2 ½
acres says hydric soils. What does that mean?
Councilman Senn: Have you noticed a sinking feeling?
Phil Elkin: We're not making judgments but there is a good possibility that at one time your property was a
wetland so.
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City Council Meeting - December 16, 1996
Councilwoman Dockendorf: So it's based on historical?
Phil Elkin: Well it would be just the type of soils found in there. If you're digging in your yard, right, right.
There would be black...
Councilwoman Dockendorf: All right, thank you.
Councilman Mason: A quick comment. Kate, when did we adopt our surface water management program plan?
How many years ago is that now?
Kate Aanenson: '94. '93.
Councilman Mason: It's been longer than that.
Kate Aanenson: That's the first thing that Diane finished up.
Councilman Mason: Yeah, we started it yeah before that. My comment, I think Steve certainly alluded to it. I
had the good fortune of working with city staff and Bonestroo on the surface water management program and I see
these things as extensions of that and once again I think the City of Chanhassen and Bonestroo and the people that
help the City of Chanhassen are taking a leadership role in what we can do with the environment and still allow
things to develop and my hat's off to everybody.
Mayor Chmiel: Okay, Mark.
Councilman Senn: Nothing additional to add.
Mayor Chmiel: Is there a motion to approve the Bluff Creek Natural Resources Plan?
Councilman Mason: I will move approval that we do what you said.
Councilwoman Dockendorf: Second.
Kate Aanenson: Can I just get more clarification. With the changes that we recommended on the map so we make
sure.
Mayor Chmiel: Yes.
Resolution #96-108: Councilman Mason moved, Councilwoman I)ockendorf seconded to adopt the Bluff
Creek Watershed Natural Resources Plan with the changes recommended to the map by city staff. All voted
in favor and the motion carried unanimously.
SITE PLAN REVIEW FOR A 45,505 SQ. FT. AMERICINN MOTEL & SUITES; LOT 1, BLOCK
VILLAGES ON THE PONDS, JOHN SIEBERT.
Kate Aanenson: This is the second project that we'll be doing on Villages on the Ponds. It's located on Highway
101 and Highway 5, on the corner. The first project, as you recall, is St. Hubert's which we were excited about as
far as the architecture and how it fit in. When this first came before the Planning Commission, the Planning
Commission was a little concerned, as was the staff as far as the presence on Highway 5 and the image of the
architecture that was presented. So the Planning Commission did review it twice. I'll spend a little time talking
about the changes and I'll let the applicant go through that in a little bit more detail but it is consistent with the
original PUD that was set up. It's on 3 ½ acres. It does have access offofLake Drive and Main Street, which will
be constructed in 1997. It is an L shaped building. It will have a pool on the front. Some of the issues that the
Planning Commission took into consideration when they tabled it for the first time is, as you recall when we put
this PUD together and we talked about new urbanism, there was a lot of features that we wanted this to be
17
City Council Meeting - December 16, 1996
different. Such as street furniture, landscaping, kind of the more pedestrian. In the public realm we kind of call it.
Some of that warm and friendly that we felt with the first site plan. It didn't accomplish a lot of that. It's still a
little big and bulky. It didn't have that pedestrian feel to it. And the street furniture and the warmness of it was
missing. Sharmin really spent a lot of time working with the applicants and coming up with some revisions and
we're pretty pleased from where we started to where we are today. And we feel much more comfortable as far as
the street furniture, the materials that were revised, the warming of the colors, the addition of the brick, the
changing of the roof lines. All those things again. We think it fits much more into what we believe was the
character of the village. One of the issues that the Planning Commission looked at too was the type of siding and
they wanted it not to exceed 6 to 8 inches and they'll have those material samples here today and the colors. Todd
Hoffman's brought to my attention there may be a motion missing on the park and trails. When we get to the point
I'll make sure that I give clarification to that. One of the other issues that came up was the number of fire
hydrants. The Planning Commission was concerned that may be excessive. Again we checked with the Fire
Marshal and based on the occupancy and the fire rating of this type of building, they did require the six fire
hydrants. That was an issue so they're standing by the recommendation of the six fire hydrants. With that we are
recommending approval with the conditions in the staff report and I'd like to just turn it over to the applicants and
let them give you a brief presentation of their project.
Mayor Chmiel: Okay, thank you.
John Seibert: Mr. Mayor, members of the City Council. I'm John Seibert with Americinn International. I'm Vice
President of Construction and Real Estate. With me this evening I have a number of other individuals. I have
Truman Howell who is at the present time passing out booklets to you. He is the project architect. We have
Vernelle Clayton who is the representative for the developer with Lotus Realty. And Mika Milo who is the
architectural review committee for the PUD. We also tonight brought along with us a number of visual aids which
will give you some assistance in the process of evaluating this particular project. The study model which I have off
to my left here is indeed a study model. It's not intended to be a full blown model with all the coloring and that
sort on. It's really intended to be a study to give a visual perspective of the 3D layout of this particular building.
We also have renderings of the exterior elevations of the building. We have the renderings of the festive court
yards which we designed and incorporated into the project in order to give it some more of that neo traditional feel.
And we also have some information in reference to the signage and we brought along some elevations of the
building which will give you again, a full perspective of what that looks like. We have floor plans of the building
and then we've also passed out these booklets which are basically again going to just give you a miniaturized size
of some of the information we have available with us this evening. One thing I'd like to point out to you is that the
roof in the renderings appears to be more of the green color in nature and I might divert just your attention to the
mock up board that we have in front here and you'll see there that the shingles are really more of a brown tone and
it's called Weatherwood for the official name. But sometimes when you copy color renderings and so forth, the
colors don't quite come out the same so I apologize for that but I do feel it's important that we mention that
particular issue. I would like to give just a real quick brief scenario of where Americinn has gone and come to this
point in time. It is started in 1984. You do have a property that was built by the original developer here in
Chanhassen called the Chanhassen Inn. It is subsequently been purchased by our organization in 1992 and at that
point in time we took a rather aggressive approach into our development concept and at the time that we purchased
the organization there were 25 motels. Currently we have 78 motels that are open. We have 23 of them that are
under construction and we have another 30 in the development phase so you can see we've aggressively changed
the process upon which this particular organization is developing. The other thing that I'd like to take care of at
this time is a little bit of a housekeeping issue and I know in your packets you have information about the Shakopee
Americinn. That was built prior to the time when our organization took over and albeit the fact that the Shakopee
Americinn is indeed an Americinn and we're proud to have it within our system. It is not necessarily the current
rendition that we currently have in our system so I ask you to look at that with those particular eyes. We go
through what we call an evolutionary process. Not a revolutionary process, so there are going to be similarities to
the two of them. The other thing that I noted in the packet of information is that they relate to this building as
being a wood frame construction. That is not true. This is a slab on grade with concrete block walls in-between
the rooms and it has concrete plank for the flooring area for the second floor with block walls going above that. It
does have a wood truss system on the roof. So that in turn would be the only real wood that's associated with the
building. So we're not real sure how that affects the categorization and the fire hydrant issue which we need to
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City Council Meeting - December 16, 1996
address. The construction of Americinn as I mentioned being of block makes it a lot quieter building and that's
one of the things that we've really kind of featured as one of our primary finds. We also have an indoor pool as
Kate had mentioned and we have a, what we feel to be a nice layout within our lobby area where we have the main
entryway coming into on one side a continental breakfast area and on the other side it's a fireside conversation
area. Within that it really is intended to give you a feeling of being a home away from home and we feel like
we've accomplished that quite nicely. We also have a variety of rooms within our particular project so that's again
another thing that's a good strong calling card for us. The Americinn Inn that you see that we're presenting here
to you this evening does have a number of unique changes to it from our standard prototype Americinn. We did
these changes obviously to make it unique to Chanhassen. We also made these changes in order to provide the neo
traditional feel for this particular project. We've had Mika Milo work with us closely in reference to the
development of this project and staff, along with our developing architect to make sure that we were in keeping
with that. I might also add that we went to Florida to look at Celebration to get an opportunity to see a neo
traditional development so we in turn would make sure we are in keeping. I think we've accomplished that
particular.., and on this particular project we've got a number of things that were changed, and it's, we added the
cupola's onto the building and the cupola's that we added onto the building incorporated the signage program in
that. You'll note that we do have two cupola's on that. We also have incorporated a more of a European style
chimney. We've been having two stacks on a chimney rather than just the one. We've also given some elevation
to the porte-cochere here by having initially one coming out and then the next one sitting up a little bit higher.
That again helps break up the lines of the building again giving that stronger neo traditional feel to it. We also
have very different dormer areas which are brick all the way up. That gives elevation to the building and again
keeping in line with that particular aspect of it. We've given a number of pitches, changes to the building. We've
also gone in and made a festive courtyard areas and we've also ended up incorporating some pavers and so forth
into our main entryway. The intent behind those again is to provide a little bit more of a festive environment.
You'll see this is a courtyard shot of the area that's located right in this area here on the building. And you'll see
again we've got benches and light poles and that sort of thing which give a feeling of user comfort, from the
standpoint of the pedestrian that would be walking through the project. This is a shot or a rendering of the area
that would be going into the main entry of the building, coming in underneath the porte-cochere. You'll see
utilizing the pavers gives that character and break-up too. This is an area that's located out in front of the motel.
Out in our pool area and if I might relate just to the model. That's this area out here and what again it's intended
to do is give a little more of a festive patio environment. In the summertime obviously utilizing the umbrellas and
so forth in order to give you again that comfort feeling. A real key to this was to end up providing again the user,
the ability to be able to walk through the complex. Walk through the city and feel comfortable in traversing
between all the very different areas within the project. We also have a landscape plan for this particular motel area
shown here and you'll note that we've done a lot of very different overstory trees in this area. We have a little bit
of a problem along this area here. We've worked with BRW in trying to incorporate our overall landscape plan
into their overall landscape plan and we're continuing to work very closely with them and you will note from the
proposal that's going...that we are continuing to be required to work with them. One of the things that's been
discovered is that there's a power line easement that runs across through this area here. That power line easement
is requiring us to fulfill NSP's side of this issue where we have to keep our trees to a certain height. So again it's
all being encompassed together in the process of putting this together. The sidewalk area that we have going
across here would extend over onto this area and hook eventually over into the sidewalk area that you see shown on
here. We also have sidewalks that wrap around the building and connect onto.., sidewalk area. Again, the intent
behind that is to make it very user friendly for the very different pedestrians that are walking around through the
area. We've also used warm colors in the process of developing this. We initially came forth with more of the
gray tone colors. Staff felt that they were just a little bit too harsh. They wanted something a little softer and a
little warmer so we've gone to the sandstone color and indeed the mock-up that we have down here does show...
and the actual dimensions that the cedar will have. This is a 8 inch.., staff is suggesting and recommended that we
end up utilizing. The other thing I guess that we've done to the project that I would like to point out to you is that
we've also taken the through wall units, the HVAC units that you generally see down below the windows. You'll
see here that we've taken and incorporated that into a full window treatment so instead of having the protrusion of
this through wall unit sticking out of the building, it's all encompassed and incorporated within. Again, those are
the highlights of it and I appreciate the time commitments that you have tonight and I would like to say what we're
really interested in, at this point in time is being able to move forward with this project. We're excited to be able to
get into the City of Chanhassen with an Americinn. This particular project is going to be a flagship for us. Our
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City Council Meeting - December 16, 1996
offices are located in here in the metropolitan area. Actually in Deephaven and so this would be a particular
project that we would bring perspective franchisees in to take a look at. It obviously being close to our home
offices work fairly well for us as well. The only real issues that I feel that we have outstanding at the present time
is the access road, the right-in, right-out road and I again feel that that's been pretty well labored through and that
issue has been somewhat postponed as to a final decision made on that when the County actually takes possession
of that road. So and again, if you read through the recommendations by the staff, that was one of the things that
they have suggested. Is that at the time that the County comes in, if the County is going to permit the right-in,
right-out, then they're okay with it as well. The fire hydrant issue, you know we've gone back and forth on that.
We will certainly do whatever the Fire Marshal requires us to do here. I wonder though if there might be some
miscommunication yet as to what the type of the actual structure is that's here so, but again we assure you that
we're going to work with the Fire Marshal and make sure that we're in compliance with that. Those are the only
real issues that we see at the present time that would probably need additional discussion and the gentlemen that I
have, or the gentlemen and ladies that I have brought with me this evening would be happy, along with myself, to
answer any questions you may have at this time.
Mayor Chmiel: Good, thank you. I guess I have just one specific question. In relationship to the roof area, have
there been any other considerations to put those shingles in that, have that new mode to them, which enhances the
appearance of that structure?
John Seibert: These are a Timberline shingle, and so they have high, low elevations to them. They're not just a
flat shingle so they do give dimension to it. I think that's the question you're asking me.
Mayor Chmiel: Right.
John Seibert: So these are an upgrade shingle than what you would normally see on a motel.
Mayor Chmiel: As you indicated, if and when the County determines whether or not a right-in and right-ont could
be available, are you acceptable to that?
John Seibert: That is correct. We are at this present time willing to go with what the County requires, or what
they're willing to accept.
Mayor Chmiel: Good, thanks. Steve.
Councilman Berquist: Is that map behind you a map that shows the site as it relates to the entire Villages on the
Ponds?
Councilwoman Dockendorf: That's exactly what I want to see.
John Seibert: This is site specific to the Americinn Motel. This is Highway 5 out here. This is Highway 101 and
this is strictly just the Americinn. That's all that's shown on there.
Kate Aanenson: I can give you a reference point to what we're looking for as far as.
Councilman Berquist: I'm just trying to see how it all, I'm trying to visualize the entire PUD.
Councilwoman Dockendorf: Me too.
Kate Aanenson: St. Hubert's is down in this area right here.
Councilman Berquist: So that's really right on the corner of TH 101 and Market.
Kate Aanenson: To the old, yeah. The old Great Plains. That's going to be coming out and then you've got this
connection coming through here. The new.
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City Council Meeting - December 16, 1996
Councilwoman Dockendorf: But to the, I'm sorry Steve. But to the east of the project is where the pond is?
Kate Aanenson: The pond is in this area right here in the center.
Councilwoman Dockendorf: So this property will be right on the pond?
Kate Aanenson: No, there will be a space before the pond and there will be a restaurant.
Councilwoman Dockendorf: OH okay. So there's another use between this and the pond?
Kate Aanenson: Correct. Right, and there will be other commercial use as you recall when we put the PUD
together, we allowed, we called this sector kind of the commercial. Made it a little bit more traditional. Highway
commercial. We're still trying to integrate it architecturally but as it has a more traditional highway commercial.
So there is another commercial.., right here.
Councilman Berquist: Okay. I was at the first Planning Commission meeting and listened. Ah here we go.
Perfect.
Mayor Chmiel: Maybe if you could just put it up.
John Seibert: Here's the location of the hotel. Here's the other site that's out there. This is TH 5. Is that
orientation okay for you?
Councilwoman Dockendorf: That's fine.
Councilman Berquist: Turn it 90 degrees just for...
Councilman Senn: Some people can only read north...
Councilman Berquist: Okay, great. Thank you very much. I was at the Planning Commission meeting, the first
one that you went to and I listened to the commissioners make a lot of what I considered to be pretty good
recommendations and it would appear that you've gone along with most of them, although I think some of them
you were going to do anyway because all the information was predicated on the Shakopee thing, which when I first
saw it in the Planning Commission packet I was not impressed. Did you say you own the Chan Inn now?
John Seibert: No we do not. And that's not part of the Americinn system. That was built by the original of the
Americinn system who subsequently now sold it to our organization and the Chanhassen Inn is indeed just the
Chanhassen Inn. It's not part of our organization.
Councilman Berquist: ...to your organization but it's not part of your organization. I'm confused.
John Seibert: I'm sorry. Initially when the Americinn system was developed in 1984, they built 25 motels. That's
one of them that they built that never joined the system but it was built by the same developer. Built kind of under
his criteria and that sort of thing. When we bought the Americinn system.
Councilman Berquist: And he chose never to pick up the franchise?
John Seibert: That's correct. Yes sir.
Councilman Berquist: All right. And now since, it's still not part of the franchise. It's not part of your group.
John Seibert: And it won't be. It will not.
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City Council Meeting - December 16, 1996
Councilman Berquist: It's independently owned and operated.
John Seibert: That's correct.
Councilman Berquist: Okay. I think, let's see. This fire hydrant issue. The way the motion reads, the
recommendation reads, a fire hydrant, item (k), three additional fire hydrants has been crossed out. Now we're
approving five?
Kate Aanenson: No, I think what we want to do is put in, on number 15. Those conditions are complying with the
Fire Marshal's letter and policy. I think it's covered and we'll just make sure that there's clarification on the
materials and stuff. I believe those are covered under a, b, c. All the way through (j). They're covered in one of
those.
Councilman Berquist: 300 foot intervals. That means we have 150 foot overlap. Is that extraordinary?
John Seibert: Ah yes. For this type of construction I guess we were a little bit confused about that issue and that's
why we raised the issue.
Councilman Berquist: The building is a wood frame construction with a high rate occupancy. I mean the latter
would be true but the first, the former is not. It's not wood frame construction. It's simply wood frame sheath or
wood sheath.
John Seibert: That's correct.
Kate Aanenson: Right. What I'm saying is that, I can't make that call here. I think it's covered and Mark's
intent is that they follow the building code and that's what I believe the condition states. We struck out (k) which
is really, more because he's asking for 3 additional hydrants. We just struck that whole condition out and what
we're saying is that you comply with the Fire Marshal's conditions. Whatever. I'm not sure final plans have been
submitted so.
John Seibert: And we in turn are saying that we're fine with that. We just questioned that issue. And if it is
indeed required to have the 5 or 6, or whatever it is, that's how many we'll have.
Councilman Berquist: And the last comment I'll make, and the colors, the materials that you have in front of us
are, I know the Planning Commission had talked about coloration and I don't remember the original gray that was
proposed. But that's not it?
John Seibert: That's correct. This is not it. This is sandstone and the original one was called Cape Cod gray. The
Cape Cod gray was in the cool family and this is in the warm family and that's really what, was to get away from
the cool colors and get into the warm colors.
Councilman Mason: But then it's not going to be cool anymore.
John Seibert: That's part of what we have to do. We have to kind of roll with the tide.
Councilman Berquist: Forgive me, but at the risk of showing my ignorance in taste, I kind of like the coloration in
the rendering.
Councilwoman Dockendorf: The green roof?
Councilman Mason: I kind of like the green roof myself as a matter of fact.
John Seibert: I told him.
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City Council Meeting - December 16, 1996
Councilwoman Dockendorf: Mr. Seibert, could you explain to me where the right-in, right-out issue is?
John Seibert: Sure. This particular access point right here.
Councilwoman Dockendorf: Oh, that's not controlled.
John Seibert: And the concern is that this is required. This turning movement is required because Rosemount's
right over here. And so the intent was to be able to have the means for which a right-in, right-out could occur so
traffic coming this way coming in and it could go back out that way. The concern that there has been is that
traffic.., so in our conversation with the State and Federal agencies, they've suggested that there certainly is a way
in which you can control this by putting in kind of a diamond area in here. So that you can't get in. You can only
make a right-in and a right-out and so that part of the discussion is continuing to occur. The State is saying we're
giving control of this road over to the County. As far as we're concerned, we probably can do it. The County is
saying well, if we can work it out, we may consider it so it's really kind of one of those that's at the present time
not a determined issue.
Councilwoman Dockendorf: ... In terms of the, are you responsible for the landscaping all the way up to Highway
5 there?
John Seibert: Yes. Our responsibility would be this landscaping all the way around the building.
Councilwoman Dockendorf: And it looks like just like wildflowers and a couple scrub trees in front. Is there any
buffering on Highway 5 there?
Kate Aanenson: Maybe I could address that. That was one of the issues that the staff had. Under the underlying
PUD, the applicants are required to give us a final landscape plan, which hasn't been done to date and BRW is
working on that final plan. Some of the issues in that is because we have that interesting wetland in the front and
there was some discussion on how we wanted to make it, not necessarily over treated. Natural but yet works with
what they're trying to do because they want to have somewhat of it manicured so they can use it as part of their
product development. So we wanted to give BRW time to do it justice and to do a good plan. Our
recommendation was to let them kind of set the framework and then they would be adding to that. Embellishing
that. One of the reasons that we did have is on the pool area and making sure, and even though it's under the
power lines, we think that that corner really needs to be given some treatment as far as noise attenuation. Just so
that comfort feeling again for pedestrians who are crossing there. So that was, it is still one of the conditions we
have in here as far as the landscaping plan.
Councilwoman Dockendorf: Would you point out to me where the pool is?
John Seibert: The pool area is right here...
Kate Aanenson: You're on the corner of TH 5.
Councilwoman Dockendorf: Okay. What's your time line? If we approve it tonight, when it's going to be built?
John Seibert: In the process of putting this together, we've given a preliminary time line of mid-February is when
we would start construction on it. They are presently at the current time rough grading the site and it takes a
certain period of time for us to go through the whole plan approval process and also the actual working documents.
At this stage of the game we have conceptual in nature everything put together but there will still have to be some
construction documents drawn. So it will take a period of time for that. And then the approval process and then
we'll be able to start construction. We're anticipating the present time of mid-February.
Councilwoman Dockendorf: Opening when?
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City Council Meeting - December 16, 1996
John Seibert: It typically takes us 5 months in a standard project. I'm going to guess this project's going to take
about 6 months because there's enough uniqueness to this so we'll be opening in mid-summer.
Councilwoman Dockendorf: Will Main Street be built by then?
Kate Aanenson: Main Street Vernelle?
Councilwoman Dockendorf: Vernelle? Will Main Street be built by June-July?
Kate Aanenson: ... We'll still have access off, have just a right-in off of...
Councilwoman Dockendorf: Right. Those are all my questions, thank you.
Mayor Chmiel: Okay, Mike.
Councilman Mason: They've been answered. Looks fine.
Mayor Chmiel: Mark.
Councilman Senn: Kate. Where's the restaurant going to go in relationship to this then?
Kate Aanenson: It's immediately to the east. It's kind of adjacent. One of the concerns we talked about was with
the PUD itself. How we tie that in as far as pedestrian access. If you're walking across the parking lot so it's kind
of been moved around from that original plan...better access but it's to the east, closer to the pond.
Councilman Senn: Okay. And there's adequate room for that and ample parking to service the restaurant?
Kate Aanenson: Yes. They did eliminate some of the parking to the north to provide additional landscape buffer.
But we believe within the project itself there is, with the usage and the overlap in times, we believe that that works.
Councilman Senn: But hotel and restaurant typically aren't good sharers of parking. They're just the opposite
generally.
John Seibert: Our intent is for our group to develop a restaurant there as well. We're comfortable with...
Generally you don't, during the daytime, utilize a lot of the parking for the lunch crowd and that sort of thing.
Motels don't have any parking problem at that time. The only time you really have a conflict is later at night.
And that would be from the 8:00-9:00. There will be some cross over then.
Kate Aanenson: Right. And that's where we had the office to the south. There will be additional parking in the
rest of the project to solve with the extension of the street. Additional retail which will again be different hours.
Additional parking there. And that's one of the things we looked at with the PUD and our objective is trying to
really look at the cross share parking but I think.
Councilman Senn: Because a.m. and dinners will be conflicts normally.
Kate Aanenson: There will be some peak times, right where people are going to have to walk a little bit further but
again that was the objective of the project to make it pedestrian friendly.
Councilman Senn: I was glad to see we aren't talking about construction... In the discussion with the Planning
Commission and stuff there was a lot of things referenced back and forth in terms of building materials and such.
Is there a reason why you're not going with more brick on the exterior?
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City Council Meeting - December 16, 1996
John Seibert: In the process of looking at the neo-traditional feel, what they really would like to see is elevations
and height out of it. And by using the brick in certain areas and not in other areas, we're able to give some of that
up and down feeling in the project so that's why it was really decided to do it in that particular fashion.
Councilman Senn: I had one question on signage. I can't find it right now.
Kate Aanenson: If I could just clarify that too. When we put together the PUD we left it flexible that they
couldn't, the only way they could have the tall sign, remember they wanted a free standing sign and we said
absolutely not. Not in the PUD but they could incorporate it into the design itself and that's what they've done. It
still does require a separate sign permit so it will be coming back but we said the only way they could have a sign
at that height would be if they incorporated it into the architecture itself. And we believe that the design that
they've done, while we have some concern about the color, we think that integrating architecturally makes the
most sense.
Councilman Senn: All right. That's it for questions.
Mayor Chmiel: Kate I noticed that Sheet A-20, Sheet A-2.1. Those do not have a signature of a PE. Is there any
reason for that? All the rest of them do. Basically on the elevations.
Kate Aanenson: You could make it a condition.
Audience: I'll sign it for you now.
Mayor Chmiel: That's fine. I'd like our copy for the City to have that signature.
Kate Aanenson: And could I make one more clarification? Todd pointed out condition 20 is missing and that
would be the park and trail fees not addressed. That needs to be added, and I could just give that to you.
Condition 20. That the project is subject to full park and trail fees per city ordinance. 1/3 of these fees paid by the
developer at the time of building permit. Or excuse me, at the time of platting. And the remaining 2/3 would be
paid at the time of, that the building permit is issued.
Mayor Chmiel: I guess I have no additional questions in regard to this other than that last one. Is there a motion?
Councilman Berquist: I will move approval of the site plan #96-13 for the Americinn Motel and Suites facility as
detailed in our packet with recommendations 1 through 19 and number 20 being added relative to the property
being responsible for full park and trail fees payment as previously outlined by the Planning Director.
Councilman Senn: Second.
Mayor Chmiel: It's been moved and seconded. Any other discussion?
Councilman Berquist moved, Councilman Senn seconded to approve Site Plan #96-15 for a 45,505 square
foot Americinn Motel and Suites facility as shown in the plans dated October 7, 1996, subject to the following
conditions:
1. More evergreens shall be planted along the northern boundary.
More deciduous overstory or evergreen trees should be added to the northwest corner of the property to
increase the landscape effect.
Aeration tubes must be installed in islands and peninsulas less than 10 feet wide. Applicant must provide
plans and insurance of success if alternatives are requested.
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City Council Meeting - December 16, 1996
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
The applicants shall incorporate the comprehensive landscape plan currently being prepared by the firm of
BRW into the Americinn site plan, after City approval.
A separate sign permit must be submitted for all site signage, except for traffic control signage. The
applicant shall submit detailed sign plans reflecting a recessed panel with individual backlit letters.
Site plan approval shall be conditioned upon the developer of the Villages on the Ponds recording the final
plat and all pertinent documents for the PUD with Carver County. Financial guarantees must be submitted
to the City to guarantee all public utility improvements and landscaping. Also, the applicant for the
Americinn shall enter into a Site Plan Agreement with the City and provide financial security pertaining to
specific improvements on Lot 1, Block 1, Villages on the Ponds.
Direct access from Market Boulevard (Trunk Highway 101) shall be prohibited unless approved otherwise
by MnDOT and Carver County.
The parking lot configuration shall be revised to accommodate emergency fire apparatus. The applicant
shall work with the City's Fire Marshal in revising the parking lot configuration accordingly.
Three additional fire hydrants shall be placed on the site in accordance with the City Fire Marshal's
recommendations. Plans shall be revised accordingly.
Site utility improvements will require separate building permits from the City's Building Department, i.e.
sewer, storm and watermains.
Storm drainage plan shall be revised to include an additional catch basin across from catch basin manhole
No. 62 and provide a 15 inch storm sewer lead east out of catch basin No. 64.
No building permits will be issued until the final plat of Villages on the Ponds has been recorded and the
site has been graded in accordance with the approved grading plan.
Construction access to and from the site shall be limited to approved access points from Market Boulevard
(Trunk Highway 101) and Trunk Highway 5, as approved for the Villages on the Ponds.
Lot 1, Block 1, Villages on the Ponds is subject to full park and trail fees per city ordinance. One third of
these fees will be paid by the developer of the Villages plat. The remaining two thirds shall be paid at the
time the building permit is granted.
15. Fire Marshal conditions:
A 10 foot clear space must be maintained around fire hydrants, i.e. street lamps, trees, shrubs, bushes,
NSP, US West, Cable TV, transformer boxes. This is to ensure that fire hydrants can be quickly located
and safely operated by firefighters. Pursuant to City Ordinance 9-1.
Yellow painted curbing and no parking fire land signs will be required. Contact Fire Marshal for exact
location of signage and curbing to be painted. Pursuant to 1991 UFC Section 10.206 and Section
20.207(a) and Chanhassen Fire Department Fire Prevention Policy 06-1991.
c. A post indicator valve will be required on the fire service line coming into the building. Contact
Chanhassen Fire Marshal for exact location.
d. Comply with Chanhassen Fire Department/Fire Prevention Division Policy No. 01-1990 regarding fire
alarm systems. (copy enclosed)
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City Council Meeting - December 16, 1996
e. Comply with Chanhassen Fire Department/Fire Prevention Division Policy No. 04-1991. Notes to be
included on site plans. (Copy enclosed)
f. Comply with Chanhassen Fire Department/Fire Prevention Division Policy No. 07-1991 Pre-fire plan
policy. (copy enclosed)
g. Comply with Chanhassen Fire Department/Fire Prevention Division Policy No. 29-1992 premise
identification. (copy enclosed)
h. Comply with Chanhassen Fire Department/Fire Prevention Division Policy No. 36-1994 water line
sizing. (copy enclosed)
i. Comply with Chanhassen Fire Department/Fire Prevention Division Policy No.40-1995 fire sprinkler
systems. (copy enclosed)
j. Comply with Chanhassen Inspection Division Policy No. 34-1993 water service installation.
k. Submit turning radiuses on Fire Department access routes to City Engineer and Chanhassen Fire
Marshal for review and approval. Pursuant to 1991 UFC Section 10.204.
Prior to construction fire apparatus access roads or access shall be provided for every facility, building
or portion of a building hereafter constructed or moved into or within the jurisdiction when any portion
of the facility or any portion of an exterior wall of the first story of the building is located more than 150
feet from fire apparatus access as measured by an approved route or on the exterior of the building or
facility. Pursuant to 1991 UFC Section 10.203.
Fire apparatus access roads shall be designed and maintained to support the imposed loads of fire
apparatus and shall be provided with a surface so as to provide all weather driving capabilities.
Pursuant to 1991 UFC Section 10.204(b).
When fire protection, including fire apparatus access roads and water supplies for fire protection is
required to be installed, such protection shall be installed and made serviceable prior to and during time
of construction. Pursuant to 1991 UFC Section 10.502.
o. The Fire Department sprinkler connection shall be located adjacent to the main vestibule to the
building. Contact the Chanhassen Fire Marshal for exact location.
16. Concurrent with the building permit, a detailed lighting plan meeting city and PUD standards shall be
submitted.
17. All rooftop equipment must be screened in accordance with the PUD ordinance.
18. The siding for the entire motel shall be cedar siding with the smaller width, 6 to 8 inches.
19. The sidewalk located south of the proposed building shall be extended to the west and connected to the
sidewalk on Market Boulevard.
All voted in favor, except Councilwoman Dockendorf who was not present at the time of voting, and the
motion carried.
Kate Aanenson: Can I just bring up one other item on this issue. We are going to the Met Council on this
Thursday. We were one of the four finalists to receive $500,000.00 under the Livable Demonstration Account for
this project. Bob put together a great application and we went down and through a series of several cuts we've
27
City Council Meeting - December 16, 1996
made it and we're pretty excited about helping again put some public money into, and we're hoping that affects
some of the rent and some of the design work in there.
Councilman Berquist: I've got one question regarding that. That memo from the Met Council regarding the
runoff into Rice Marsh. Does that have any, I mean does that stand any chance of pulling the project down or
doing anything to us?
Kate Aanenson: No. They sent us a follow-up letter. They've over a period of time asked us to contribute to the
study of the Marsh Lake. We already monitor the lake. Have additional information and we volunteered to give
that information to the Met Council. We believe actually we've got a little bit better information. Phil's responded
with a letter that went out this week. And actually I think it sent out Friday. But we're concerned is that we're
kind of getting beat up on this issue and we've actually done more for stormwater management than Eden Prairie
when they approved Bear Path. They looked a lot away on some of the issues so we raised that point so they've
acquiesced. The one thing they said is that at this point they'd like us to pay for some of the data information and
we're saying wait a minute, we've already got that data but they're not going to hold the project up now. That's
been resolved.
Councilman Berquist: It was referenced in that memo, I won't take but a second. It was referenced in that memo
to an organic richness that's, where would that have come from?
Kate Aanenson: Sewage treatment plant in an earlier time.
Councilman Berquist: A what?
Kate Aanenson: A sewage treatment plant.
Councilman Berquist: At an earlier time? Was there one there?
Kate Aanenson: That pumped directly into that lake. Correct. There's some history there. That keeps resurfacing
and penalizing Chanhassen. Again, we believe the way we've handled the stormwater management is only going
to improve this project and we want to get credit for that. So I think it was just a matter of doing some PR
building, which Phil has done and try to state what we're doing.
Councilman Berquist: Okay, thank you.
KateAanenson: There'sjust some history there. Some personalities.
Councilman Berquist: How many years ago?
Kate Aanenson: Maybe Charles could answer that. I'm not sure.
Charles Folch: I think that is prior to the 70's.
Don Ashworth: About 30 years ago.
Councilman Berquist: Is that the plant that was adjacent to the apartments?
Charles Folch: No, I believe this plant was on the north side. Where Chan Estates now is.
Councilman Berquist: Park is.
Mayor Chmiel: Okay. Let's move to item number 9.
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City Council Meeting - December 16, 1996
ADOPTION OF 1997 BUDGET.
Mayor Chmiel: Don, are you going to do this? Well prior to that maybe, let me just throw something out at the
Council. I had some discussions with Don and also Pam in regard to the budget. I didn't like the appearance of
additional increases for the City and I asked Don if he could go through and find the additional $60,000.00 to
eliminate that and have a zero taxes to be levied for this. And I think from our discussions that can be done and
accomplished and I would like to have him move in that particular vein so.
Don Ashworth: Sure. The other evening there was some questions on management information. System costs
associated with really when we started what was the stormwater management plan but again having that into a
digitized format was one of the original.., so there is that information. What I'm handing out is very short.
There's also a lot of, there's discussions regarding required reserves. So I did again a very, very short memo on
that which I'd like to summarize and that is, in talking about this with Pam, you realize that the confusion was by
putting in the verbiage of required reserve. There's absolutely no question, as it deals with the general fund, there
truly is a required reserve that has been adopted by policy to ensure that the shortfall occurs during mid...time
frame, in fact is in place. And again, a policy type of position which basically sets out, one-half of the following
year's property taxes plus one-half of state dollars, which in our case are HACA dollars. We're proposing that in
all of the other funds that.., required reserved, will actually disappear in future budgets. Simply show what actually
is, which is a balance forward for that particular fund. Current level and current expense and an ending fund
balance. We don't believe that that really comes into place as a part of, I'll call it a current budget. That was one
of the items that Deloitte hit on very heavily in his presentation. That if you're using reserves to meet your current
budgetary needs, you're putting yourself into a jeopardy position which is exactly how New York City got into
trouble and part of Miami's current problems. As it deals with the Mayor's request, I do have, I previously handed
out a cost of living increases as they had applied for city employees. Mark had given me, Councilman Senn had
given me at a work session, CPI numbers as we had distributed them initially are correct. Amounts that are
shown as a CPI increase let's just say for 1996 was the amount that was given out in 1996 and we compared that to
what the cost of living was for 1995, which is the correct way for, were in fact correct. As it deals with the
Mayor's request, we were sitting at 25, about 25.7 and an 8 year average has been at about a 25.5 area. Your
previous request had gotten that down to 25.4 which then would be average .... was that even though last year's
was actually a mistake, it got us to basically a flat 25, but he would still like to take and leave office knowing that
the taxes for 199... That would require the reduction of...from the budget as it sits. And we just rounded that to
$60,000.00. $10,000.00 of that, I'm happy to report this evening was not become necessary because the County
Board did approve to continue the Senior Linkage Line and...that we previously had in the budget, approximately
$10,000.00 is now. The remaining $50,000.00 I have not specifically identified how we would accomplish that. I
can though tell the City Council that we would, if that becomes your final motion to... $60,000.00 being cut out of
it to bring it to under the tax rate for 1996... not commit the expense of the...budget. Out of other areas, I have not
specifically identified what those are but I would...
Mayor Chmiel: Okay. Any other questions? Steve?
Councilman Berquist: Not at this time.
Mayor Chmiel: Okay. Colleen?
Councilwoman Dockendorf: No.
Mayor Chmiel: Mike?
Councilman Mason: No.
Mayor Chmiel: Mark?
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City Council Meeting - December 16, 1996
Councilman Senn: The information that you handed out tonight in relationship to the MIS stuffwas kind of short
notice to discuss or react to it, being the night we're supposed to adopt the budget but these are your annual totals
on here then?
Don Ashworth: Correct.
Councilman Senn: And I guess I'm confused because in going back and checking your presentation in our
Minutes as it relates to MIS, it was supposed to be $100,000.00 over three years. $100,000.00, $100,000.00,
$100,000.00. Was what we were programming for MIS development. Now what?
Don Ashworth: I will be the first to admit that in terms of the overall figures that we had provided solely took the
numbers as associated with Tautges' firm with the packages that we are proposing to bring in-house and I, quite
frankly did not expect the, that system is highly dependent on an integrated computer system that allows for, one
aspect that we did not fully understand. Recreation Center, it's very important for the Recreation Center to be able
to do receipting and to do that directly into the accounting system as it would sit at City Hall and vice versa. They
need to be able to do high speed communications in terms of the virtually everything that they do out there,
including what is referred to as directware package, which was one of those which was purchased and included in
the figures that you just got through going through. What I did not include, and it was an oversight, whatever you
want to call it. The highly dependent position that the City become in terms of all of the data processing needs,
which includes goes back into the MIS, which is the ARC view system that takes the points that were developed
through the stormwater management plan and allows those to be used by planning in doing their reports, turn
around and get information regarding ownerships, turn right around and schedule a field or a facility and all of
those operations needing to be virtually interconnected and that's where you bring in this additional GIS type of
cost. And that's where it could remain as an outside consulting cost of $120,000.00 but the recommendation in the
presentation during the budgetary process has been one of saying, we really should be looking at bringing that in-
house and that's why we separated those two numbers. Showing one as 70 and the other as 50.
Councilman Senn: But that's for the coming year you' re talking about?
Don Ashworth: Correct.
Councilman Senn: Okay. Where, I mean basically to date though, not including your '97 request of $156,000.00,
we've spent over a million dollars on MIS development in the last four years.
Don Ashworth: Total integration, well I haven't gone through the numbers. I'm assuming that's approximately
the correct number, but I cannot emphasize enough that that includes telemetry. It includes all of the works out at
public works. It includes the recreation component. It includes both telephone system. It includes back-up. It
includes the modules that were purchased of accounting, rec ware, fixed assets, utility, payroll, the whole shot.
Councilman Senn: Okay. But Don the thing I'm trying to get at is, you know last time we had an overall
presentation on MIS was a presentation that said we were going to spend $300,000.00 over three years. You know
I'm not aware of any specific authorizations or approvals beyond that that authorized over a million dollars. And
you know nobody's ever really come back to us and said you know, here's how that all integrates and here's why
we need this much more money. Except for to do this, you know. You know watching the accounts payables is
about the only thing that we've had to even I think get a handle on that, and quite frankly that's shown that it's
being substantially out of control over what that original approval was. And this only confirms that effectively and
well over a million for those four years. I guess it would be my hope that at least as far as this budget goes for '97
and it would be my hopes that the Council would concur that all MIS money for 1997 be put in a contingency and
held by Council at this point until Council gets you know, I'd say a better explanation and more information on
where this is going. What we're doing to get there. What more it's going to take to get it done. And get a little
more picture on this because quite frankly I think that should have been done a long time ago, given the fact that
we're well over a million already. So that, that's enough on MIS. As it relates to CPI numbers, you're suggesting
that your CPI numbers are correct. What is incorrect about these numbers that I gave you the other night that Mr.
Gerhardt wasn't in agreement with?
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City Council Meeting - December 16, 1996
Don Ashworth: You've basically shifted everything. They should be shifted back up a year. So in other words,
you have.
Councilman Senn: In my column here, in 1995 the CPI, you from Minneapolis-St. Paul went up 2.4% and on
January 1st of 1996, which is what my column says, we gave a 2.5% increase. Are you telling me that's incorrect?
Don Ashworth: I'm saying that the sheets that we handed out compare the correct year with the correct amount
that was given. So the ones that we had, let me redistributed what we had previously.
Councilman Senn: Well I need to understand that because in my eyes yours didn't and that's why I did this and
went over it with Todd and said, he said he was in agreement with this. More or less the CPI increase given on
January 1st is the increase for the previous, it ties to the previous year's CPI increase.
Don Ashworth: I think that Todd did take and have input into the process with Pam but Pam, in my own mind,
was the primary person who developed this listing that we handed out from before. And Pam, is the sheet as
distributed on November 21st, or dated November 21st, is that correct? Where it shows that the City budget portion
of 2.5%, let's say for 1996, that was what was awarded on January 1st or l0th of 1996. And that is being compared
with the cost of living for what would be 1995.
Councilman Senn: But the 1995 cost of living was not 2.9% as Todd's original thing shows here. In the first
place that's a national number. Okay, the numbers over to the right, which is a 2.4% is the correct number. Those
are the numbers that I went over and gave him.
Pam Snell: They had gotten those from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Councilman Senn: Okay. So but following that down the line then effectively, other than the fact that you're
going to 1988, even though cost of living increases were given in 1988 but you've got a zero there because that was
the comparable worth deal and you're carrying that over. Okay, so let's ax '88 okay because it's not accurate. But
basically in a period, in 1988 your CPIU was 5% and they were given a 5% increase on January 1st of 1989. Okay.
But if you take the cost of living data then, okay. Don, you're trying to tell me that these numbers are wrong and
these numbers I know aren't wrong. I mean we reviewed these with Todd. We reviewed...
Don Ashworth: I'm not saying that they're wrong. In fact if you look at the two sheets, you'll see the cost of
living figure shown on yours are exactly the same as they're shown on the one developed by Pam. The only
difference.
Councilman Senn: Which overall.
Mayor Chmiel: Let him finish. Just a minute.
Don Ashworth: The only difference is that there's just a shift in the year.
Councilman Senn: Okay. And overall, over a period from 1988 to 1995, or through 1995, there was basically
increases granted in CPI, 2.9% over and above actual CPI.
Don Ashworth: I continue to maintain that the correct figure is, that the cost of living increases were 34% and
Minnesota was 34.4 and National 36.8.
Councilman Senn: The only reason you're getting that is because you're putting a zero in 1988 which isn't true.
We did not zero out CPI increases in 1988.
Don Ashworth: There was not cost of living increase given in 1998 because the City had just completed a total
upgrade of the position classification plan looking at individual cities and modifying literally all of the ranges to,
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City Council Meeting - December 16, 1996
I'll call it to correct them to what other cities were paying. Now as a result of that, did the type of increases were
given. Do you want to call those, part of that a cost of living. I don't. I consider it simply market to market, and
that's exactly what we did in 19, end of '87, effective salaries in 1988.
Councilman Senn: But if you're taking the data off of other cities that's included a CPI increase, you've got a built
in CPI increase.
Councilwoman Dockendorf: Mark, what's your point?
Mayor Chmiel: Yeah. I was just going to ask that same question. You're trying to prove.
Councilman Senn: Well Don is arguing. Well I'm sorry, Don is arguing.
Mayor Chmiel: Just a minute.
Councilman Senn: Well you asked me what I'm trying to.
Mayor Chmiel: Just a minute. I don't think we're trying to come up as to who's right and who's wrong. I think
the whole point is, tell us exactly the point that you're looking at. And let us address that rather than taking
another 20 minutes just to cover that segment.
Councilman Senn: Okay. All right, the whole point is, is over the last 8 years we have given CPI increases, 2.9%,
almost 3% more than the cost of living. That's the point. The point is that in future budgets, rather than simply
budget an estimated amount which exceeds the actual, we should have a policy that basically says that any increase
given in CPI will not exceed Minneapolis-St. Paul CPIU, okay, as published and determined by the Bureau of
Labor Statistics. Then we eliminate the problem that we've been experiencing because in some year's we've had
some pretty significant deviations in relationship to what actual CPI was and what was granted. As high as 1.3%,
which with our payroll is not small potatoes. So I think it's time we stick some type of a system in that effectively
provides a safeguard for CPI increases being given in excess of the real CPI.
Don Ashworth: Mr. Mayor?
Mayor Chmiel: Yes.
Don Ashworth: I will continue to defend the position here but I think coming down to where Mark would like us
to go, I have absolutely no problem with Council establishing some type of a policy that says that any cost of living
has to take in and be equal to what it actually was. And we'll notify you as to what that was before it becomes
effective.
Mayor Chmiel: Any other questions? Is there a motion for adoption of the 1997 budget?
Councilman Mason: I would move approval of the 1997 budget as proposed by staffwith the caveat. Caveat's not
the right word but with the additional, I believe it would now be $50,000.00 that would need to be cut.
Don Ashworth: The motion should actually show $60,000.00 off of the budget as it's been received.
Councilman Mason: Okay, with $60,000.00 subtracted from the proposed budget.
Councilman Senn: Just one clarification. Does that then mean there is no tax increase? Zero percent?
Don Ashworth: For the City, zero percent.
Councilman Berquist: Our total expenditures simply declined from $10,118,000.00 to...
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City Council Meeting - December 16, 1996
Mayor Chmiel: Okay. There's a motion on the floor. Should we also include this the policy portion that's been
suggested?
Don Ashworth: Again.
Councilman Mason: I would think that would be something apart from approving this budget.
Mayor Chmiel: Okay, I agree. That's why I was asking the question.
Councilman Senn: How about the MIS?
Don Ashworth: Mayor?
Mayor Chmiel: Yes.
Don Ashworth: If you would like additional information I can provide it. I do not think that the figures are that
far off. The City Council specifically approved the original work of Bonestroo and again part of that was separated
offwhen we saw that Hartley could do it better. But that was approved by the Council at the $300,000.00 level,
and I'll have to go back and see what the Tautges was because I believe that Mark's numbers of the $100 for the
three years is correct. And also that we have had ongoing data processing, communication costs of approximately
$100,000.00 per year so I don't think that the statement that it's been out of control is really correct.
Councilman Berquist: This stuff does partially, or in total, include all the accounting that went away from St. Paul
and came here. Yes?
Don Ashworth: Yes. It includes all the costs to take it away from there. It does not include what we've previously
paid there. You know a good portion of that was Mr. Chaffee.
Councilman Berquist: No, in '93 and '94 it doesn't but some of the expenditures end up as a result of that change.
Pam Snell: Yes. The TR system, expenditures, that is a result of that conversion from Ramsey County to...
Mayor Chmiel: Okay. We have a motion on the floor. Is there a second?
Councilman Berquist: I'll second.
Mayor Chmiel: Any other discussion?
Councilman Berquist: Do you want to tie in a motion on the rest, on the MIS as far as going into a contingency
account approved by Council as a separate? Do you want to do that as a separate motion?
Councilman Mason: It won't stand on the motion I made.
Councilman Berquist: It won't stand on the motion you made?
Mayor Chmiel: I think it's something that has to be established coming up with a separate policy for that.
Councilman Mason: As far as I'm concerned that MIS stuff is hearsay. I mean if in fact there have been over
runs, that needs to be addressed but I also heard the City Manager saying he doesn't think things are out of control.
That's not going to stand on the motion I made.
Councilman Berquist: State your motion for me please.
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City Council Meeting - December 16, 1996
Councilman Mason: To approve the 1997 budget less $60,000.00. To ensure there will be no tax increase to the
city portion of our tax statements. That's my motion.
Councilman Berquist: Just out of curiosity, is there any curiosity on your part as to the, I know there's benefit but
as to the overall benefit of the MIS system and the $1,077,000.00 that have been spent so far?
Councilman Mason: Well I do not know that it's been a million. I need to see things broken down. I'm not just
going to go on what I've heard tonight. From what I know about the information systems, that has nothing to do
with my feelings about this budget. But we need that stuff in place. I mean in my school district, it has a much
larger budget than this. They're spending a whole lot more money on putting an information system than what
we're doing here. I know because I'm directly connected to some of that stuff in my school district. I'm painfully
aware of the expense. Do I think it's necessary? Absolutely.
Councilman Berquist: I withdraw my second.
Mayor Chmiel: Okay.
Don Ashworth: Mayor, if I may. I will volunteer to provide to the City Council the cost to other cities associated
with this going into these type of systems and I will show in those memorandums that what we have purchased and
what we have is three to four times, we're doing three to four more times the things that other cities are doing for a
lot more money.
Councilman Berquist: For a lot more money?
Don Ashworth: They're spending more money.
Councilman Berquist: Oh! They're spending a lot more money.
Don Ashworth: I apologize.
Councilwoman Dockendorf: You know I would agree that it would be interesting to talk about it but putting the
current budget into a contingency fund I think is...
Mayor Chmiel: Okay. We still have a motion on the floor.
Councilwoman Dockendorf: And I will second it.
Mayor Chmiel: Okay. I'll call the question.
Resolution #96-109: Councilman Mason moved, Councilwoman I)ockendorf seconded to approve adoption of
the 1997 budget less $60,000.00 to ensure no property tax increase on the City's part. All voted in favor,
except Councilman Senn and Councilman Berquist who opposed and the motion carried with a vote of 3 to 2.
PULLED CONSENT AGENDA ITEMS:
C. ESTABLISH 1997 PARK AND TRAIL DEDICATION FEES.
Councilman Berquist: In looking at, where is it? In reading the memo, the concern that I had stems from where
our existing development is and where our new development will occur. And I know everybody realizes that the
majority of our population currently resides north of Highway 5 and our infrastructure from a park point of view is
pretty much intact there. The majority of our growth on the other hand will come from, come on land that's south
of Highway 5 and I just wonder about how the rest of the Council feels regarding leaving the park and trail fees as
they are or should we talk a little bit about perhaps raising them, and you know an arbitrary number would be
$1,200.00 and if you translate that into the third for trail dedication that would mean an even $1,600.00 per
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City Council Meeting - December 16, 1996
residential single family lot. That's not a tremendous amount of money. I know it's on the high end of the metro
area. It's not a tremendous amount of money on a one year basis if we issue 200 permits but over the course of 5
years it's $100,000.00. That can do some good on trails. I talked to Todd a little bit earlier today and he expressed
some, perhaps I should let him speak. But you only get a chance to do this once a year and I know we have high
fees in a lot of other areas, but I think it's worth at least discussing rather than passing as a consent item. So that's
why I pulled it.
Mayor Chmiel: Okay. Is there any feelings by the Council in regards to that?
Councilwoman Dockendorf: How frequently do we look at, I mean really look at most of our fees on various
items? I mean once a year we possibly look at them but, I mean not just for park and trails but overall.
Don Ashworth: Oh, all fees?
Councilwoman Dockendorf: Yeah.
Don Ashworth: The League of Cities puts out a survey of literally all forms of fees and I think it's fair to say that
we go through that each year and kind of see where we're standing in terms of liquor license fees, cigarette, park
acquisition, you know right on down the line.
Councilwoman Dockendorf: What do you think Todd?
Todd Hoffman: Fees were raised significantly in 1996 and to paraphrase what I talked to Steve about today is
rather than nickel-dime our fees, I would rather go back at a 1997 increase. The values, a more significant
increase than tagging on $50.00 or $75.00 or $100.00 per line item. These fees are aligned directly with land
values and it's stated as average land values and average land values are a difficult horse to get your rope around
but they are increasing. We saw a dramatic increase back 4 or 5 years ago and that's flatten out. That land value
increase. There's some statistics in this packet this evening which talked about some land values. Residential land
in southern Chanhassen at $21,000.00, $28,000.00 per acre. The last two purchases for park land that the City has
made were right at the $27,500.00 and $30,000.00 per acre. We've seen other residential properties sell for
upwards of $50,000.00 to $54,000.00 per acre but that's premium land with lake views and what have you. So I
would like to see the land values go through another year of inflation and increase in the Chanhassen area. We are
at the top of these fees across the metropolitan area but then again our land values are as well. I would simply feel
more comfortable. We get resistance to these increases every year and I would simply feel more comfortable
allowing those prices to escalate again prior to looking back at these.
Councilman Berquist: What were they in '95 that they raised to $1,100.00 in '96?
Todd Hoffman: Single family at that time was, if my recollection is correct, $750.00.
Mayor Chmiel: Okay.
Councilman Senn: Todd, excuse me if I could. I understand tying it to land value but based on, or to kind of
follow-up to Steve's question. Won't development of a trail system in the southern portion of the city be more
expensive than it has been in the northern part of the city now on a per acre basis simply because in the southern
part of the city we're going to have, on an overall basis, lower density, or much lower density? Isn't that a true
statement?
Todd Hoffman: I've looked at that a number of times and had a number of conversations with Roger Knutson and
we discussed attempting to collect enough money per block of land and simply because a single house consumes a
larger block of land, is it reasonable to charge that single user a higher fee and the law says it is not. The law says
that this is a single user who puts an impact onto parks and trails. Simply because they use a larger tract of land
does not increase their usage of that. But we don't have, in our assessment, the ability to collect at a higher rate in
those southern areas. You simply will have to accomplish those trails using some other dollars at that point.
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City Council Meeting - December 16, 1996
Councilman Senn: But precisely what Steve is suggesting is another way to counter that, isn't it?
Todd Hoffman: Any increase in these fees will help us accomplish our goals in the comprehensive plan. But what
I'm telling you today is that I feel they're reasonable based on our current land values. If the City Council would
like to propose an increase, I can certainly go along with that. The $250-$300,000.00 that we collect in park
acquisition and trail fees on an annual basis has little impact on the $6 million proposed as part of the referendum.
Councilman Senn: But I guess what I'm trying to get at is what is the impact, I mean given the fact that it's going
to cost more to produce that trail system on an average acre basis, and we're tying our charge system to a unit cost
effectively you know per acre based on land values. Are we digging a hole for ourselves?
Todd Hoffman: We certainly are and I've been saying that for a number of years. It's not a perfect system. It will
not fund everything that we have identified in the park acquisition and development and trail acquisition and
development. If we had a perfect system we would calculate what we think our final costs would be and then
divide that by each unit that we think we're going to build in the community of Chanhassen but park and trail fees
have not risen to that level in the metropolitan area yet.
Councilman Senn: Okay.
Councilman Berquist: I would argue that we're being short sighted if we don't raise them.
Councilman Senn: Yeah.
Councilwoman Dockendorf: But the, I mean the nickel that you're asking for...
Councilman Berquist: If in fact '95, between '95 and '96 he's saying we raised it $350.00. I would bet that
raising a trail feel $150.00...much greater response on the developer's part than a raise on a per year basis of...but
I would suspect not. I would suspect that.., raises are going to generate more cash in the long run than a big raise
over 3 or 4 years. So I would propose that we do it at $1,200.00 a lot, unless someone has a better idea.
Todd Hoffman: Now Mr. Mayor I was going to say that, $1,200.00, $1,000.00 and $5,000.00 in putting together
my staff report will still fall within the letter of the law regarding values and what we can see as an average land
value. I'm confident if we were put to the test, that we could go ahead and defend those fees. So if the Council so
chooses to raise it to those amounts, with the appropriate one-third trail fee, I would support that.
Councilman Senn: And you're suggesting what? $1,200.00, $1,000.00 and $5,000.00?
Councilman Berquist: I wasn't suggesting any increase necessarily. I had looked at residential single family only
insofar as that's the predominant number of permits that we get. The CI number I don't really, $4,500.00 an acre
arguably is very high compared to the rest of the metro. I wouldn't have a problem if that one stayed the same.
Multi-family apartment units at $900.00 a unit, I don't know where that's at relative to the rest of the metro area. I
was focusing on residential single family/duplexes. What we choose to do with the other two.
Councilwoman Dockendorf: Well we should look at them because we're going to be getting a couple of these.
Multi-family.
Todd Hoffman: In recent years multi-family has been very low on the aggregate value regarding how much is
collected in park and trail fees. Commercial/industrial and residential single family have been almost equal.
Councilman Senn: You mean in terms of overall dollar amounts?
Todd Hoffman: Correct.
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City Council Meeting - December 16, 1996
Councilman Senn: Okay. How do they stack up in comparison? More or less is the CI, are we towards the top
end on the CI in comparison?
Todd Hoffman: Yes.
Councilman Senn: Okay. How about on the multi-family apartment units?
Todd Hoffman: Multi-family apartment. We actually are back down. Many communities stack those right into
the residential single family duplex.
Councilman Senn: So we're low there is what you're saying?
Todd Hoffman: In some cases, yes.
Councilman Senn: In terms of single family we're where?
Todd Hoffman: Right at the top four in the metropolitan region.
Councilman Berquist: Why don't I make a motion, if it's all right with everyone. I will move that we adopt 1997
park and trail fees established at the rate of $1,200.00 residential single family/duplex. $1,000.00 multi-family/
apartments and $4,500.00 per acre for commercial/industrial property with trail dedication fees being one-third the
cost of the park dedication fees.
Mayor Chmiel: Okay, is there a second?
Councilman Senn: I'll second that.
Todd Hoffman: Comment Mr. Mayor? I should note that commercial/industrial has been the only rate to stay flat
the last two, this would make it the last two increases across the board. It's remained flat now for probably four
years.
Councilman Berquist: And yet we remain at the upper? High upper tier.
Todd Hoffman: Not in all cases. Many communities tag commercial/industrial to the actual value of the property
so they take a sliding scale. The majority of those being at 10% of the actual property value. In many
communities where they're collecting commercial property, commercial park fees, they're way above the $4,500.00
per acre due to the increased value.
Councilwoman Dockendorf: Have we looked at a similar sliding scale?
Todd Hoffman: Looked at them and never made the recommendation to. Well I take that back. The City did
implement one oh, 8 or 9 years ago and then McDonald's purchased a piece of property next to their existing site
for astronomical price. The formula was placed against that value. There was a park fee of $62,000.00 assessed
against that parking lot and the Council threw it right out the door.
Mayor Chmiel: Why?
Todd Hoffman: IF they're going to pay that kind of money for the parking lot, the staff at that time said make
them pay the percentage of it for, that's justified but.
Councilwoman Dockendorf: Does it make sense today?
Todd Hoffman: You could see the same things happen but Eagan has a sliding scale and a number of other
communities. I haven't had any in-depth conversations with those directors on how it's going. But I will.
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City Council Meeting - December 16, 1996
Councilman Senn: Can we look at that and do we have to wait to revisit the issue until next year?
Todd Hoffman: No.
Don Ashworth: There's no requirement.
Councilman Berquist: So we can amend the CI at any time? Or any of the others?
Todd Hoffman: Yeah.
Mayor Chmiel: Okay. We have a motion on the floor with a second.
Resolution #96-110: Councilman Berquist moved, Councilman Senn seconded to establish the 1997 Park and
Trail Fees as follows:
Residential single family/Duplex units
Multi-family/Apartment units
Commercial/Industrial Property
Trail Dedication Fees
$1,200.00/unit
$1,000.00/unit
$4,500.00/acre
One-third the cost of park dedication fees.
All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously.
APPROVAL OF BILLS.
Councilman Berquist: Yes, Pam and I had a conversation earlier today. I have more yellow circles on my
accounts payable than I think I've ever had and those largely are the fact that I don't know what we're buying.
We've got to get able to get a handle on this. In talking to Pam she tells me that accounts payable has to be in the
basket by Tuesday for checks to be cut on Thursday. Is that right? And as a consequence of that the individuals
that are inputting the checks and the descriptions for the work have a tendency to push the things as fast as they
can and perhaps not provide as much information as to what Campbell Knutson charged $12,600.00 for as should
be done. Or another individual for $700.00 worth of snowplowing. I mean my way of understanding, I see
Chanhassen snowplows going up and down the road. Why are we paying somebody $700.00? It's probably
perfectly justified but I don't understand why. Uniforms. Trading cards. City's Best Marketing. $2,425.00 for
trading cards. I suspect that has something to do with the police deal but there's nothing in there that references it.
Nothing in there that speaks to it. Data Commercial Warehouse, or whatever it is. 100 MBPS Hub and Ethernet
Cord for $2,800.00. I mean Don on Monday I specifically asked whether or not there's the habit of use it or lose it
within the budget. And uniforms. Uniform embroidery. I mean without descriptions and information as to where
this stuff goes and what it's being used for, the cynicism that I've gotten over the years comes home to roost and I
wonder. Equipment upgrade to max. Laser printer for the library. It looks like there's a lot to me. It looks like
there's a lot of, it's in the budget. I'd better buy it or I'm not going to get it. Shelving and installation, $8,900.00.
Metro Maytag. Refrigerator. $662.00. For what? Where? I mean it's, we've been talking about this for months.
And I don't know how to get a handle on it but we've got to get a handle on it and whether that takes rolling the
accounts payable over for a two week period of time. What's in the basket on Tuesday gets paid the next pay
period and that provides the input or more time to put descriptions and allow the bill payers who ultimately are the
people sitting here, a chance to find out what's going on. I don't know how to get it. How to do it but it's got to be
done because it's ridiculous. Absolutely ridiculous.
Don Ashworth: In terms of rolling over type of a thing, my recollection is, and I do not recall if it was in this
year's management report or previous but that Deloitte had felt that there was a number of times that we were
sitting on bills too long and that we were violating usury... I don't know if the City Council's had an opportunity
to read the..distributed this evening. It's entitled Accounts Payable... Nancy had brought up this. You're talking
about doing an organizational meeting in the first part of the year.., subject that would actually fit in with that and
you would then some type of a policy position. Have input by... actually going to be sitting on the Council and if
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City Council Meeting - December 16, 1996
you've read my memorandum, what I am suggesting in there, right now it takes approximately two fan folders to,
information on the accounts payable and they're all numerical so if you're looking, first check in there is 1000.
You're looking for 1020. They follow the same sequence as appeared in the accounts payable listing. Very easy.
Run down to 1020. Pull it out. Behind there the check. Requisition and all of the information in regards to that
particular item. Some of the questions maybe won't be answered. I know Mark had asked the question, isn't NSP
cheaper? Why are we paying Minnesota Valley and we're also paying NSP? It's a jurisdictional issue. You won't
find the answer to that one in there and that will be one that you'd have to carry forward and then I would answer
the question, by State law there are definitive lines and anything that is owned, any services that are provided
within that belong to that particular company. Minnesota Valley is really, the signals down by the Y. Probably the
lift station that we have south of Lyman. But anyway, that would be my suggestion. That I put out the accounts
payable. Have that available starting Thursday evening. It would be available Saturday and Sunday. I would ask
that you not take them home but if you'd like to take and work on the packet let's say on a Saturday morning and
you wanted to come in and you wanted to go through those, 80% to 90%, I used 70% to 80% but your questions I
honestly think would be answered looking at that background information.
Councilman Berquist: Let me ask you a question. In your many years of experience in looking at various cities
accounts payable packets and detailed claim rosters, are they all identical to this? Most of them are worst? Who's
are better?
Don Ashworth: I don't know. I know that the City Council did not like the one... Tautges was the closest that
I've seen to providing more fields in there for more descriptions. Obviously it's not, we're not getting it.
Councilman Berquist: Do you think, I mean let me understand this. Do you think you're getting it to us?
Don Ashworth: Obviously not. I mean if I'm receiving 9 pages. I mean Mark must have spent, I don't know how
long he had to have spent to take and write all of this out. I honestly.
Councilman Senn: No time at all. I mean basically Don I read the accounts payable. As I read it, you know
Holder. Holder for what? It's just.
Mayor Chmiel: I think there has to be some trust in this as well.
Councilman Senn: I'm just saying it's a simple matter of putting in a couple more words.
Councilman Berquist: There is trust but, there is trust. There is. Believe me. At least from my perspective. I
can't speak to it from him and I told Pam the same thing. But we're being asked to approve something as if we
know what's going on and quite honestly there's a lot of stuff that I'd like to know what's going on and I have no
ability to find out short of creating a lot of work for her. And a lot of time spent trying to do it and there has to be
a better way.
Councilman Senn: I mean I don't think it's fair to send Pam this list because Pam's not the one creating the
problem and at the same time though, you read through these things and you just haven't the foggiest idea what
they're for. And even when you do understand what they're for, I mean in this one here there's quite a, I think
there's well over $100,000.00 worth of equipment in this, in these particular requests here and I look back at the
budget and I don't see two printers in Public Safety and I don't see this equipment, data equipment in any of those
equipment budgets. You know because I whip out my budget books so I write down the question. What's this?
It's not in the budget. I mean there's a whole bunch of that in these payables. I see three different retirement
associations. I see three different deferred compensation programs. You know geez, I've never even heard of that.
We've always only had one. I mean I don't know why we have multiples. Just a question why. There may be a
logical explanation.
Don Ashworth: We just approved one recently which was my switch from PEPSCO over to ISCMA but you realize
those are totally my dollars. There's not one penny of city dollars in there.
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City Council Meeting - December 16, 1996
Councilman Senn: I understand. But we're writing the checks to three different retirement associations. Now
your one I understand.
Councilman Berquist: ...deferred comp Ashworth.
Councilman Senn: And you remember which one it is.
Councilman Berquist: Well the big one. I mean there's one here for 10 grand. $10,404.87. Public Employees
Retirement Association. I circled that because there was another one here. I mean I know that that's probably for
everyone but then there's another one six items down that's for $5,048.00. USCM, deferred comp program.
Don Ashworth: First one is PERA. That's your state mandated public retirement association. And you do
contribute to that one. The employee contributes, I can't remember, 3 ½%-4% and the City, 5% or whatever. And
then on the other one is totally voluntary so, which means that that's an aggregate payment. We've had a real
good response out of public works people. I mean some of them are just $10.00 a month type of thing but that's an
aggregate payment of all city employees to USMC.
Councilman Senn: Well but that USMC says deferred comp.
Don Ashworth: Correct.
Councilman Senn: I mean PERA is retirement, correct?
Don Ashworth: Correct.
Councilman Senn: That's not deferred comp.
Don Ashworth: Right.
Councilman Senn: And so your other retirement ones in here, Minnesota Mutual, which says retirement after it.
Deferred comp, it says USCM...ICMA, USCM. Four different deferred comp plans.
Councilwoman Dockendorf: But you've got to write out one to each firm I would assume.
Don Ashworth: Correct. Correct. Which can be an aggregate of how many employees wanted to participate in
that particular.
Councilman Senn: So we're offering multiply funds as far as deferred?
Councilwoman Dockendorf: Well I would hope so.
Councilman Berquist: I want to bring some closure to this without beating it over the head, and I did have a
couple of other quick questions. We apparently, we refunded six different people who paid their '95-'96 taxes
twice?
Mayor Chmiel: Yeah, there was one...
Pam Snell: That had to do...
Councilman Berquist: So it shouldn't say paid twice in '95/96 taxes. It should say paid twice '95/96 assessment?
Pam Snell: Taxes...
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City Council Meeting - December 16, 1996
Councilman Berquist: Right. Okay. All right. And then I noticed that Brian Beniek must have driven Santa
Claus to the tree ceremony. That was nice of him. Okay, so as far as closure goes, this is going to be one of the
organizational topics for 19977
Don Ashworth: I will bring in the accounts payable. I will show you exactly how I would propose that we handle
the item. Show you how you can pull those. Again I think that actually going through those, pulling the thing out,
you'll have total information that you need. If I'm wrong, then we can go with some other solution.
Councilman Berquist: I move approval of the accounts payable, item l(e) in the, l(d) in the Council packet.
Mayor Chmiel: Is there a second?
Councilman Mason: Yes.
Councilman Berquist moved, Councilman Mason seconded to approve the Accounts Payable as presented.
All voted in favor, except for Councilman Senn who opposed, and the motion carried with a vote of 4 to 1.
E. APPROVAL OF MINUTES.
Mayor Chmiel: Mark, you're on deck. Can we sort of hit these?
Councilman Senn: Oh, City Council Minutes. Just a quick one on that. If you go back to page 29. It goes to the
bottom of the page. At the end of the discussion. Relating to the Southwest Transportation Coalition. The
Southwest Coalition. Southwest Transit, blah, blah, blah. More or less all of the Southwest. It all starts to kind of
run together. There's a note there that the tape was changed at this point in the discussion. There was also a
direction by Council and an agreement by Don Ashworth to basically bring back an explanation of all those as well
as some contract basis or forms for our payments and you know what our payments are based on and what
agreements we've entered into in relationship to them and stuff and that got lost at that point evidently because of
the tape being changed so I wanted to get that reinserted in the Minutes and that also had included holding those
requested contributions until that was done was what was decided, even though one, we turned around and
approved $3,500.00 1 think in your previous action tonight. Without that but I wanted to make sure that that got
back in there so that got followed up on.
Mayor Chmiel: Do you want to move that?
Councilman Senn: Sure. I'll move it with that change.
Mayor Chmiel: Yep. Is there a second?
Councilman Berquist: There's a second with a question. Will that change reiterates the request that we fine gives
them some sort of a detail like we just got with MIS regarding the obligations that we have for the transportation
coalition.
Councilman Senn: Well Transportation Coalition and the Southwest Coalition and you know essentially what our
payments are based on. What agreements or contractual obligations we have and what those funds are used for.
Mayor Chmiel: Okay.
Councilman Senn moved, Councilman Berquist seconded to approve the following Minutes:
City Council Minutes dated November 25, 1996 as clarified on page 29 by Councilman Senn.
Planning Commission Minutes dated November 20, 1996.
Park & Recreation Commission Minutes dated November 26, 1996.
Public Safety Commission Minutes dated November 14, 1996.
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City Council Meeting - December 16, 1996
All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously.
H. APPROVAL OF POSITION CLASSIFICATION AND PAY COMPENSATION PLAN.
Councilman Senn: I have a number of questions and issues as it relates to this. I guess there's one of two ways to
deal with it. One would be to simply put it off until our organizational work session. Deal with it there, which
would probably be more appropriate than spending a lot of discussion on it tonight but I do have probably over a
dozen questions related to it.
Don Ashworth: Is there any way that you might be able to let us know what those are prior to January 6th?
Councilman Senn: Sure. I certainly can. So I would move to table that until our January 6th work session.
Councilman Berquist: Second.
Councilman Senn moved, Councilman Berquist seconded to table the Position Classification and Pay
Compensation Plan to the January 6, 1997 work session. All voted in favor and the motion carried.
Councilman Senn: Just a point of clarification. That January 6th is going to be our work session then? That will
be our next meeting?
Don Ashworth: I didn't look at a calendar but I believe that is the Monday, isn't it?
Councilman Senn: Right.
Councilman Mason: When did we have a work session scheduled on the 6th of January?
Don Ashworth: We talked about that, I don't know what meeting it was. I know that Nancy had talked with me
on the item and had said that she thought it would be good to get her going, just to kind of have a work session
type of meeting to talk about who was on various boards and commissions and I guess just kind of as an
organizational type of, I'm not quite sure what. Totally what we're going to do.
Councilman Berquist: It will be fun.
I. APPROVAL OF MODIFICATION TO 1997 WATER RATES.
Councilman Senn: The easiest way I guess is to preface my remarks by saying I'm not in disagreement with this as
a funding or revenue source, okay? I'm having trouble understanding the logic as I read through this as to why
we're going and where we're going. We're already one of the highest but we're saying we're not the highest so
we're raising it. I think we're second highest in the sewer according to what you gave us and we're kind of middle
of the pack on water. But with the overall increases we end up highest and I guess I'm not saying that that's bad,
okay. But if we're going to raise water and sewer rates like that, don't you think it's appropriate public process to
notice the public. Tell them we're going to raise those rates and give them an opportunity to come in and be heard
on them? Rather than a consent item on the agenda that substantially increases their rates?
Don Ashworth: Probably a good point. The item came about out of the presentation by Deloitte who had basically
stated that the overall funding level for sewer and water operations was actually going down. That we really
needed to re-look at our rates. The graphs that came out of this, or presented here were from Deloitte and Touch6.
They were the ones who noted that the water portion was, and that sewer was higher. They didn't make a
recommendation as to the amount of the increase but they did recommend that. Should the City Council wish to
take and see this appear as some kind of notice in the newspaper, first of all I'm assuming that Kathy will probably
be picking the thing up just because we're talking about it right now. Do you want me to put a separate notice in? I
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City Council Meeting - December 16, 1996
can surely do that. There's no necessity to take and have this acted on this evening. You could do it on January
27th, 13th. Whatever you wanted to do.
Councilman Senn: Well if we're going to do it, I think we should notice the rate increases, you know why and
have a public hearing. Maybe nobody shows up but I think that's what we should do. As far as reviewing
Deloitte's deal, and basically what Deloitte said was that we should review them annually and adjust them so we
can pass through increase costs to the customers. I mean that was the whole basis of their recommendation. Now
if you take that as the basis of the recommendation and transfer it to these rates, we're increasing the rates 12%.
Does that mean our costs have gone up 12% in the last year? I mean that seems excessive but it's just a question,
why and I think that's something I would hope would get answered for a public hearing, etc. but I mean that's to
me one of the first questions that would pop into mind. Nobody else's rates are, or I mean nobody else's how
would I say, their incomes aren't going up I don't think 12% or whatever. So I think as far as the Deloitte
recommendation, they' re just simply saying watch yourself, increase your cost but again there's really no back-up
or information here to tell us why the 12% or etc.
Don Ashworth: I'm hearing you say you're going to table so, not to prolong it but just so you're aware. We are
looking at that and said okay, a customer gets a utility bill. They look at that and they see the total amounts that
they pay for sewer, water, and stormwater management and if you were only going to be touching the water but you
want to see an overall increase of let's say 4% or 5%, you're increasing the one element, the 12% to ensure that
overall you're collecting the 4% to 5%. Because you're not, okay.
Mayor Chmiel: Okay, so with that item, would you like to table it?
Councilman Senn: All right, move to table.
Mayor Chmiel: Is there a second? Did I hear a second?
Councilman Berquist: We're going to hold a public hearing on it? Is that the intent? Second.
Councilman Senn moved, Councilman Berquist seconded to table approval of Modification to 1997 Water
Rates to hold a public hearing. All voted in favor and the motion carried.
Mayor Chmiel: It is my pleasure to say this meeting is adjourned.
The meeting was adjourned at 10:45 p.m.
Submitted by Don Ashworth
City Manager
Prepared by Nann Opheim
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