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CC VER 2019 09 23CHANHASSEN CITY COUNCIL REGULAR MEETING SEPTEMBER 23, 2019 Mayor Ryan called the meeting to order at 7:05 p.m. The meeting was opened with the Pledge to the Flag. COUNCIL MEMBERS PRESENT: Mayor Ryan, Councilwoman Tjornhom, Councilman McDonald, Councilman Campion, and Councilwoman Coleman STAFF PRESENT: Todd Gerhardt, Jake Foster, Kate Aanenson, Jason Wedel, Todd Hoffman, Greg Sticha, Roger Knutson, Chief Don Johnson, and Lt. Lance Pearce PUBLIC PRESENT: Mack Titus 2747 Century Trail Susan Kibler 7329 Bent Bow Trail Terri Berg 8616 Lake Susan Hills Drive South John Jensen 1181 Homestead Lane Mayor Ryan: Again good evening everybody. Welcome to our council meeting. I apologize that we’re a little late. Just wrapping up our work session meeting so I apologize about that. Thank you for those of you who are watching at home or livestreaming from the Chanhassen website. For the record we have all of our council members present tonight and so our first action is our agenda approval. Council members are there any modifications to the agenda as printed? If not we will proceed with the published agenda. PUBLIC ANNOUNCEMENTS: None. CONSENT AGENDA: Councilwoman Coleman moved, Councilman Campion seconded to approve the following consent agenda items pursuant to the City Manager’s recommendations: 1. Approve City Council Minutes dated September 9, 2019 2. Receive Planning Commission Minutes dated September 3, 2019 3. Receive Park and Recreation Commission Minutes dated August 27, 2019 4. Consider Interim Use Permit for Moon Valley Gravel Pit 5. Consider a Request for a Variance to Replace and Move a Septic System to the Bottom of the Bluff at 1181 Homestead Lane Chanhassen City Council – September 23, 2019 2 All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 5 to 0. VISITOR PRESENTATIONS. ANN MILLER CITIZEN ACTION REQUEST FORM. Mayor Ryan: I know we have one scheduled visitor presentation. Ann Miller who filled out a Citizen Action Request Form. Is Ms. Miller in the audience tonight? Ann Miller: Yes I am. Mayor Ryan: Yes please, come forward. Welcome. Ann Miller: Thank you. If I’m a little disorganized it’s because I left at 6:00 o’clock this morning for Madison, Wisconsin and I just go home. Mayor Ryan: Wow. Ann Miller: And traffic was terrible, but at any rate Ann Miller, 6561 Fox Path, Chanhassen, 55317 and I believe Mr. Gerhardt and Mr. Knutson and also Mr. Hoffman were all here when I moved here in 1992 in August. And we live in a very fragile hydro geological area which is also quite interesting. When I moved into my house the following, I moved in in August and at Thanksgiving our decks heaved and we had to put, had them cut off the next day and had to have helical coils put in to hold the deck down. So the reason I have all my stuff here with me is because I’m not just whistling Dixie. This is from the ground water protection plan from 1992. This is only probably one-third of all the material I’ve collected. I even have my grading things here and Braun Engineering and other engineers here, all the information about our area. Especially the street Pleasant View. Pleasant View is a pleasant view and if Mr. Cunningham was here, he used to live in the octagonal house at I think is 865 Pleasant View, told me Ann your house is in the big ditch and he was right. And behind my house is the little ditch and it was developed with what, 49 houses and it’s, and now I love it. It was a pain at the beginning because it cost us a lot of money to take care of all that water, ground water but living here now I even had one individual in our neighborhood that moved away because Pleasant View is so unsafe for walking. I believe we deserve to have a public boat access to Silver Lake from Pleasant View because the City owns that land at the southern tip and in the reconstruction of Pleasant View Road in 2020 I hope that there will be a bike path and a walking path that’s safe on that road. It is extremely dangerous. Even the sighting as you drive down that road, vegetation is not back far enough. There’s every driveway is blind. Every access on there is blind from North Lotus Lake Park all the way up past Peaceful Lane. So I’m urging you to listen to all, everybody who lives in our area. Our access in and out of our neighborhood is Pleasant View. There’s no other way. That’s it and also I am not going to pay a franchise fee for city streets. I paid for our street not 2 years ago and my husband and I strongly believe that’s enough. We pay our taxes. We don’t need a franchise fee. And so I, as far as public boat access goes to Silver Lake, I know Silver Lake is not very big. It’s 18 acres I believe. I believe the Chanhassen City Council – September 23, 2019 3 depth of it is approximately the same as Lotus and I also want to point out that Lotus Lake from 1970 to 2018, according to the M, what is it? The Pollution Control Agency. Minnesota Pollution Control Agency, it’s turbidity has not changed that much. The quality of the water which means the homeowners are doing a good job and I just want you to know that, I think you all have a copy of my letter right? Mayor Ryan: Yes. Ann Miller: The severe slopes are on Christmas, on Lotus and on Silver and I think homeowners do a better job of making the water clean than the City does and/or anybody else and I just want you to know from the National Geographic, October, 2019 fresh water is less than 3 percent of the Earth’s water but it’s home to almost half of all fish species. I am passionate about our neighborhood and I want it to be friendly and safe for the people who live there. We can, yes we have a path down to Lotus that we use but we need Pleasant View to be safer and maybe one way to do it is to have it a one way street. I don’t know. But I want everyone in, on Pleasant View, everyone on Silver Lake, everyone on Lotus Lake, everyone on Christmas Lake, everybody to know what the intentions are for reconstructing that road because it is pretty but it also you need to listen to the homeowners about what to do because we want to walk on that road and enjoy it and we can’t. It’s not safe. I’m a retired nurse 5 years ago. I would get on my bike to ride, I worked at the corner of 62 and 7 and my husband would say, I’d have to leave at 5:00 in the morning when it was dark and I said well I know the worst part is Pleasant View. Once I get to the path I’ll be okay and then I could take the path all the way down along the freeway but we, and the bikers, the people who are really serious bicyclists, when they come down around that hill if you don’t see the first one they are coming more than 30 miles an hour and it is frightening sometimes. And I can’t tell you since living there that long how many times I’ve almost hit people because they’re wearing all black or there’s just no place even for people to move over to jump off the road. It’s very scary so those are my, that’s my beef I guess so I hope that I’ll hear more from you and I think, I’ve noticed things being planned. You had a car counter on that road. You’ve had one culvert fixed. You’re doing stuff up on Powers Boulevard but we deserve, the people that live along this road we deserve a nice walkable, safe place. Thank you. Mayor Ryan: Okay thank you very much. And if I could just address a couple things. I know you’re going to, or I believe you’re speaking at the Park and Rec Commission? Ann Miller: Tomorrow. Mayor Ryan: Tomorrow night so I, that will address more specifically your request around Silver Lake so once you have that conversation and the Park and Recreation Commission has an opportunity to discuss it we’ll as council of course read those. Ann Miller: Oh I must, can I mention one thing about that? Chanhassen City Council – September 23, 2019 4 Mayor Ryan: Absolutely. Ann Miller: I went to the Riley-Purgatory meeting and that’s how I learned about the reconstruction of Pleasant View. That it was going to happen in 2020 and I learned that they were going to spend for Powers Boulevard, the stormwater that flows down into Silver Lake they were going to spend $180,000 to put up their little devices to help the water that goes into Silver. Well and I don’t, I know a little bit about phosphorus and phosphate. I’ve read a lot about it but I don’t understand why you would spend $180,000 on that little bit of road into Silver Lake when it’s not even commercial traffic. And I said what is the source of the phosphate? Source, if you walk along Ridge Road some of those driveways have a 20 percent incline. Mayor Ryan: Right. Ann Miller: I mean it, Pleasant View is not a problem for Silver Lake in my opinion. Mayor Ryan: Right and then to that point actually as well and Mr. Wedel can speak to it if you’d like to more specifically but in, I think the dates are a little bit off so there aren’t plans to do anything on Pleasant View in 2020. We’re actually in our long term planning for road projects it’s in 2025 and as part of. Ann Miller: Oh then we have a lot of time to talk about this. Mayor Ryan: Right, well and that’s very true. Whenever we have any type of road project we have many neighborhood meetings prior to any work that is done to get the feedback from the residents that are going to be impacted by it so city staff would present preliminary plans and invite neighbors to come and discuss this and give feedback which often times changes some of those plans or alters them slightly to make sure that we’re addressing the needs so, so just so you know that those plans aren’t until 2025. Ann Miller: Okay. Mayor Ryan: But we have heard from residents recently along Pleasant View and we are looking at some sight line issues because we do know that especially with North Lotus Lake Park, people trying to, families trying to access that park. It gets a little bit challenging to navigate some of those sharp curves so our engineering department has gone out to look at sight lines to see if there’s some tree trimming or something that we can do in the meantime to cut some of that back to, you know to at least make it a little bit more visible from a car so I just wanted to let you know. I don’t know Mr. Wedel if you have anything to add to that but just so you understand some of the timing with the road project but also that we are doing something to address the sight line as those trees continue to grow over the road. Chanhassen City Council – September 23, 2019 5 Ann Miller: Okay well we do like trees and we like hills and we like curves but we just want it to be safe for bikes and walkers. Mayor Ryan: Yeah some of them is just some of the trees are just growing into the road and of course we will talk to the residents before we do anything but just so you know that we’re looking into addressing that. Ann Miller: Okay, thank you. Mayor Ryan: Alright thank you. Are there any other, yes sir? Mr. Titus. Mack Titus: My name is Mack Titus. I live at 2747 Century Trail in Chanhassen. I recently received the summary of resident questions at the franchise fee meeting and I had a question there and the answers here in the summary have been updated I guess from the answers provided at the session. It says, my first question was how many miles of street. Out of how many miles of street are public and how many are private and the answer at the session was, or the council meeting was 125 public and here the answer is 115 and at the session on the private streets was don’t know. In here it’s 25. I had 3 other questions I wanted to ask had I gotten something besides don’t and that I’d like to ask those and then you can, somebody can answer at their leisure but the first question is the, this totals 140 miles of which 25 are private so that’s about 18 percent and I’m wondering if that percentage, how that percentage has changed in the last 5 years or past 10 years. The second question is, and again with regard to private streets, are they totally residential or are there some industrial/commercial streets involved that are private. And the third question is what safeguards are there to prevent double standards from evolving when there are public versus private streets involved. For example my home is accessed by a public street and I’m told that there should be driveway inspections. There was no driveway inspection back in 2002 or so when the unit was built and this is a public street access says there should be Chanhassen inspections. My neighbors tell me, I moved in in 2017, my neighbors tell me the building or the driveways were rebuilt along our section of the street I think in 2015 and there’s inspection report available for that rebuild job. The next thing I run into is the 14 foot rule which excludes 94 percent of my driveway from inspection. If that’s 14 feet measured from the curb as I understand it and I’ve got 7 feet of driveway apron, 5 feet of sidewalk and then another 2 feet of my driveway. There’s another 34 feet that’s currently not subject to inspection. And then I noticed on the permit for the driveways rebuilding it says call for inspection upon completion. That’s pointless. You have to do it as the driveway is being rebuilt. I think the overall problem here is that the engineering department has a mission statement which simply says administer and supervise contracts and there’s no…so there’s nothing in that mission statement that says we have to do those things well so I think council has to work with engineering to modify that mission statement. That said I would also add I don’t think that Mr. Wedel is responsible for this. He’s relatively new and he just simply inherited a bad situation and those are my comments. Chanhassen City Council – September 23, 2019 6 Mayor Ryan: Great, thank you Mr. Titus. We’ll get back to you on questions 1, 2 and 3 and I believe. Mack Titus: They’re written down. Mayor Ryan: Okay perfect. And then I know that there, did you receive your letter as it relates to the driveway inspection? Did you receive that yet? Mack Titus: I got your letter dated September 16th which… Greg Sticha: That was the Q and A comments. Mayor Ryan: Okay. Greg Sticha: It’s the driveway inspection. Mayor Ryan: The one that you wrote Mr. Wedel that’s included in the packet. Jason Wedel: Yeah it should have been sent out. Mayor Ryan: Okay. Jason Wedel: I’ll check on the status of it. Mayor Ryan: Okay. Because it’s in the packet tonight so if you want to go, it’s in the packet. A letter to you that was dated September 12th from Mr. Wedel as it relates to the driveway inspections. Mack Titus: I didn’t see it. Mayor Ryan: Okay. Well we’ll follow up with you on that as well. Mack Titus: Appreciate it. Mayor Ryan: Thank you. Any other visitor presentations tonight? Ann Miller: Can I just make one comment on his comment? Mayor Ryan: Sure you may come back up. Ann Miller: Thank you. Mayor Ryan: Of course. Chanhassen City Council – September 23, 2019 7 Ann Miller: When you talk about having things inspected on the day that they’re built, you know the building inspectors come and they look at it and they approve it and a long time ago when you talk about driveways I think the City should have, when the City is doing things at your property, in front of your property or whatever where you have to amend something for the building inspectors, a photograph should be taken. We all have cell phones and I don’t know if the building inspector wants to take them and off a CD to the owner or the owner should be responsible but I know there are not enough people to do inspections especially the DNR. To keep up on things and I just think a factual way to do it would be, as I told the building inspector a long time ago, yeah the minute you leave they can change it. You know you might have seen it right then but hello, unless you have a picture, a picture says everything so that’s just a suggestion. Mayor Ryan: Great, thank you. Ann Miller: You’re welcomed. Todd Gerhardt: Mayor, council members. Just to add to that comment, after a development is completed we ask for as built drawings on every single family home that’s built in the community. It’s more for a drainage purposes that the property drains properly and that they conform to the grading plan that’s submitted. We don’t get in and get as builts of every inspection inside the house or the rafters but a lot of issues that pertain to the outside of the home for drainage purposes usually is where things can get messed up and backing water up into other people’s property and people customizing their back yards to their needs and not realizing that it’s affecting the overall drainage of the overall development so we ask for as builts after the development has been completed. Mayor Ryan: Great, thank you Mr. Gerhardt. FIRE DEPARTMENT/LAW ENFORCEMENT UPDATE. Mayor Ryan: Alright next up we have our fire department and law enforcement update. Chief. Chief Don Johnson: Good evening Mayor and council. Mayor Ryan: Good evening. Chief Don Johnson: First things first. I know this is a little sideways but we do have our fire department open house. Our fire department open house coming up on October 7th so we invite the, everyone from the public to come out and enjoy it. We’ve got live fire exercises. We actually have a car extrication exercise going. Free hotdogs. We have many sponsors in the community that are also donating water and food items and I believe Culver’s will be there with ice cream again so it’s a great time. We’ve got a great fire prevention message as usual so come Chanhassen City Council – September 23, 2019 8 out, enjoy it. It’s October 7th from 6:00 to 8:00 so that with council’s report this evening I’ll start with my general report. We’ve got 43 of our 45 firefighters. We’ve still got 2 of them going through class. One of our firefighters is on personal leave. We responded to 85 calls for service in July. One chief only call. 23 day only calls. 25 duty crew calls and leaving only 36 all calls for the month. Year to date duty crew responses are 164. Of note there was 44 rescue calls with 8 motor vehicle accidents. One car fire. Two citizens complaints for burning and one unauthorized burning incident that we discovered while we were coming back from a call. Training was officer development training. We’ve got EMS training and in the next two Monday nights we’re out at SCALE in split shifts doing live burn training and tower training for high rise response. We’ve hosted several meetings. It’s been a busy month for training and conferences for us. Exciting news, we’ve got, we just got finished with our Truck 1 or Engine 1 inspection for mid-construction. There’s a couple of change orders we made and they actually rescheduled our final inspection for October 9th through the 11th so we’ll be accepting our new engine during that timeframe which again it was about the same time last year that we brought in Truck 1 and we’ll plan our training and things around that and again I’ll be able to display our truck proudly at the Minnesota Chiefs Conference in Duluth this year so pretty excited about all that coming in. The Fire Marshal was extremely busy with the Venue. When buildings are coming together like that and trying to get Certificates of Occupancy and I know most of our departments were having some of those same issues so I’m happy to say that folks did start moving in. We had our first little incident where somebody accidentally hit the sprinkler head with a chair and opened up the water system for everyone else. Still working with Riley Crossing and there were several remodel inspections with Middle School West. Most of our efforts right now in prevention are focused towards the planning of the open house. With that the Mayor had actually talked about putting some where are we at information together so I’ve handed out a packet. This first one, and Nann if you can zoom in. Just kind of shows us our calls for service and where things are going right now. I looked at the last 5 or 6 years. We’re averaging about 8 ½ percent increase per year so right now with where we’re at for, we’re at 731 calls for this year. As you can see that puts us on pace for about 1,003 and then I averaged out the 8 ½ percent, 8.6 percent for what we think we’ll do in 2020 so that’s about where we’re sitting for calls. Now if you look at the breakdowns. If you can go to this document, an I don’t know that she’s going to be able to do much with that but fire calls, we’re about 8 ½ percent. We’re on about 8 ½ percent above where we were last year at this time so we’re on pace for that 1,999 calls If you look at the breakdowns, medicals are obviously increasing. They’re not increasing at an exorbitant rate as far as we’re at that 9 percent with a projected of 551 and we were at 504 in 2018. And then some of those other numbers, that bottom one if you look at motor vehicle accidents we’re running a little bit ahead on motor vehicle accidents this year. A lot of the hazardous, hazardous calls are up as well. Hazardous conditions. Most of that’s related to, we’ve had a lot of trees on wires with storms so those generate several calls and call back’s as people see wires and arcing and sparking so just a quick glance at how those calls are coming in and we’re running about 55 percent medical overall. And then those other breakdowns and basically just for a comparison I laid 2018 out with just the major calls so we’re running about the same. 55 percent of our overall call load is running in the medicals. In regards to the medicals, we’re staffing up now. Again if you go to 164 I think we had 129 total Chanhassen City Council – September 23, 2019 9 duty crew calls last year. We’re at about 164 now and earlier in the year when we started talking about what we could, what we could hope to find with that expansion. Just adding the weekends and those Monday nights we’ve already started to see, we’re in the neighborhood of running about 250 calls just for the duty crew which we have a different paging protocol. So if we’re on and working we’ll respond to every medical. If we’re in a time that we’re not staffed then our medical protocols change and we’re not responding to a lot of the lower level stuff or we would be up in the 1,400, 1,400-1,500 range. I pooled Ridgeview I want to say in 2018, they made 1,200 runs out of Chanhassen and if you go back to our medical calls we were in the 380’s. Or I’m sorry the 500’s so they’re, Ridgeview’s here quite a bit more than what you’ll see the fire service on an actual medical but when we’re staffed up we can provide a better service and we’ll go to, we’ll hit every medical on, when we’re staffed so. Mayor Ryan: In terms of response time. Chief Don Johnson: Correct. So the difference again for us when we’re staffed we’re out the door in 90 seconds. When we’re not staffed that could range 7 to 9 minutes just to get in route. We’ve got about an average 5 minute response time so, and middle of the night too, in the morning that can range out a little bit further because it just takes people a little bit longer to get up and get dressed and get down to the station. Mayor Ryan: And where do the ambulances come if they, when Ridgeview gets called where are they coming from? Chief Don Johnson: So we’ve got, Ridgeview’s in town or scheduled to be in town about 20 hours a week, or 20 hours a day I’m sorry. Chaska is about the same and then it depends, it gets a little bit more scattered. The challenge is Ridgeview also gets a lot of calls and they’re, so they could be coming from Delano. They could be coming from Waconia. They could be asking for mutual aid from Eden Prairie depending on where they’re at. They do have some protocols where if Chaska or Chan get a call they’ll start moving trucks from the west to the east because we tend to have a higher call load. Call volume than out west so they do their best to try to keep a response in town but the busier they are I’ll notice that we’re getting rigs from farther away or we’re responding quite a bit more direct and getting there before Ridgeview’s getting there. More likely when, during the day when Nutter or I or someone’s around and we’re readily available as well as on the duty crew, again at night it just depends on how long it takes Ridgeview versus us when we’re not staffed. Mayor Ryan: Great, thank you. Todd Gerhardt: Mayor, council members. Ridgeview has a bay in our park maintenance shed at Lake Ann so if you go out there it’s the maintenance shed on the west side of the driveway as you go into Lake Ann and we provide restroom facilities. Kind of a place to wait for calls so they don’t have to sit in their vehicle or sit in a parking lot somewhere. They can relax. They have supplies there and having their presence in the community it’s a part of those 20 hours per Chanhassen City Council – September 23, 2019 10 day that we have them here but unfortunately if there’s a call in Victoria or Mayor or whatever they may have to leave so then as Don says they need to back fill. But they are housed here 20 hours a day depending on calls for service. Mayor Ryan: Thank you. Council any questions for the Chief? Councilman McDonald. Councilman McDonald: Yes, thank you Madam Mayor. Chief, you know I looked at this and I’ve been watching the numbers kind of climb as to what we actually do and don’t do. Looks like it’s less a fire fighting and more of a rescue and emergency medical. If, and you know we’re contemplating now the duty crew going to kind of a full time during the week. If we were to stop doing the rescue and the emergency medical that would greatly cut back on what you need as far as staffing to handle some of this. Chief Don Johnson: From the expansion standpoint or just staffing in general? Councilman McDonald: Well from the expansion standpoint. I mean at that point you probably wouldn’t really be needing the duty crew to handle as few fires as what we have. Chief Don Johnson: The call load would go down considerably in regards to if we stop responding to medicals as a whole. Councilman McDonald: Okay and this is a service that we provide to the citizens of the community so if it were to go away what’s the impact on the citizens? I mean you talked about a Ridgedale and they’re ability to you know kind of respond to some of these things and I take it maybe they’re the first people to get a call and if they’re available then we’re secondary but if you were to go away and you know one of our constituents out here has a heart attack or they fall or you know any number of things, what’s going to happen to them? What’s their choices if you’re not here? Chief Don Johnson: Well right now I believe that you know the Carver County sheriff’s deputies will show up for most of the medical calls unless they’re tasked with something else. There’s a distinct difference in the training that goes between those two departments. So in your question if a rig’s coming from Watertown and you’re having an emergency that you feel is important enough to call 911 you’re going to be waiting for someone to show up from Waconia or some points further away sometimes because you’re not going to get the level of trained staff that we have on the fire department. I’ve got 43 firefighters. I’m going to say well over 23 of them are EMT’s which puts them above an EMR or Emergency Medical Response. The sheriff’s deputies do CPR training and basic emergency care so we’re trained in medications. We’re trained in vitals. And we can take some action on some of those so the service level that we provide is above that in most instances and as well as the timely manner. Again I think from a community standpoint I’d have trouble standing here accepting that we were going to go on less medicals because of the response that we’re having in our community and the people that we see every day. Chanhassen City Council – September 23, 2019 11 Councilman McDonald: So if I were to have a heart attack or a stroke, by the time somebody got to me it’s probably be a little bit too late as far as treatment. Especially with a stroke because you need to get there within a matter of minutes you know to have an effect and that’s what the firefighters are trained for to deal with those kind of emergencies, right? Chief Don Johnson: I think as a, as the fire service, not just here in Chanhassen but as a fire service we’ve adopted to the needs of our communities and you’ll see us more being fire rescue services just based on that so yes. We train probably 25 hours, 28 hours a year on medical alone because it’s 55 percent of what we do. And with the duty crew on it gives us an ability to get to some of those lower level calls that we don’t get to see, both to practice our skills but to provide that enhanced service to the community when they call 911. Councilman McDonald: Okay and I guess I remember when you instituted the feedback cards and you know you used to share those with council and stuff and you still do but have you ever had anybody complain about the fact that the fire department’s providing this type of service to people? Chief Don Johnson: Honestly no. We haven’t any of those complaints. I think I have heard where people feel like it’s taken us a long time to get there and again when you’re in, depending on when we’re staffed and when we’re not staffed and if there’s someone available in town with a chief’s buggy at night it can take us 6, 7, 8, 9 minutes and again when it’s your emergency and you’re living in it time seems to slow down for you so I’m exceptionally proud of what we’re able to do with a staffed station and our team and how we care for the community. Councilman McDonald: Okay. I don’t mean to insinuate by my questions that I do not support what you’re doing or what the fire department has evolved into but what I am doing is, I think that there probably needs to be a better understanding within the community of just how important this service is and the fact that a lot of people take it for granted and because it’s taken for granted I think it’s like well we got what, 3 hospitals within maybe a 5 mile radius of town and there’s plenty of people that could service all of this but in true there really aren’t. It’s mainly you guys, the sheriff’s deputies who again are mainly trained in first aid and of course the ambulance services that are pretty swamped as it is so really the service being provided by the fire department I think it critical to the citizens and I would just like to see more appreciation for that and I know part of that would be maybe a little bit more tooting your own horn as to what you do provide to people and the lives that you’ve managed to save or you know the lives you’ve made a difference with because I think that those people, every card I ever read they were extremely grateful with the fact that you showed up and I think that that’s important but it’s just in these times of you know looking at what services the City’s going to provide and the way that we do it, you know things could come under I guess questioning and my point in all this is I don’t think your service should be one of those so thank you. Chief Don Johnson: Thank you. Chanhassen City Council – September 23, 2019 12 Mayor Ryan: Thank you Councilman McDonald. Any other questions council? Alright, thank you Chief. Thank you for pulling this information together for tonight. On such short notice. I appreciate it. Lieutenant Pearce welcome. Lt. Lance Pearce: Good evening. I’d like to cover just the August, our activity for the month. Total calls for service, we had 925. 428 of those were traffic related. Of those we have 278 traffic stops resulting in 81 citations and 5 DUI arrests. If we look at the other data spreads, I don’t know if you guys got all the spread sheets. They were a little late because I was out of the country but Group A we had, dominated with felony theft and drug cases which has been the habit and prediction all year and then our non-criminal we had medical alarms and suspicious activities. For our training update for August, we did not have any in-house training due to the many events in the county including the county fair. For community relations and crime prevention. Our focus for August was Night to Unite and we had 10 deputies assigned to the various events in the city. I think we had 43 events we covered. I participated in the initial planning meeting for the major training event with Chanhassen Fire with Chief Johnson so we’re continuing to work on that. And then community relations events, we went to Primrose School and Life Time Fitness and the open house at Chanhassen High School. I also did a safety audit for the Chanhassen Dinner Theater. The requested that I attend and just a couple reminders, our Citizens Academy started last week. We have 9 people. There’s a couple of citizens from Chanhassen and then Coffee with a Cop is scheduled for October 2nd at 9:30 a.m. at the Starbucks so we hope to see everybody there. Mayor Ryan: Great, thank you Lieutenant. Council any questions? I have one. Have any citations be given with the new hands free driving? Lt. Lance Pearce: 17. Mayor Ryan: 17. Lt. Lance Pearce: Yep. We have an internal directive right now of no tolerance for that so. Mayor Ryan: Oh okay. Lt. Lance Pearce: Yep, just to get the message across and luckily even in my car that I drive around I haven’t seen anybody so they’re not happening in front of me. Mayor Ryan: Alright, well good. Habits are changing so wonderful. Lt. Lance Pearce: Yes and that’s what we want. Mayor Ryan: Right perfect. Thank you. Appreciate it. Chanhassen City Council – September 23, 2019 13 Lt. Lance Pearce: Thank you. Chief Don Johnson: Mayor can I have one comment? Mayor Ryan: Yes please. Chief Don Johnson: Mayor, Councilman McDonald just to kind of reiterate something. I think most citizens feel when they drive past a fire station TV does us no favors. I believe Lieutenant Pearce could probably say that same thing so I believe that a lot of the Chanhassen citizens feel if they go and drive by a fire station that it’s staffed and that’s just not the case. We’re getting there and we’re doing a better job and when we are there we can, we really can provide a great level of service to this community so just to. Councilman McDonald: Okay thank you. Chief Don Johnson: Thank you. Mayor Ryan: Chief and you know to reiterate Councilman McDonald’s comments and questions, we think you do a great job here. Our fire department is, provides an amazing service for our community. It’s part of a greater discussion over the course of the new few months when we talk about an increased level of service, particularly related to the fire department so we appreciate the information but generally speaking we really value all that you do for the community so thank you. Todd Gerhardt: Mayor and council, just before you guys. I know you want to get out of here but. Mayor Ryan: Trying to make a run for it. Todd Gerhardt: I know it just, you think they’re making it by the hour or something. But I appreciate Chief Johnson and Lieutenant Pearce. I’m always amazed when I get my updates from the law enforcement and you know we don’t let the petty crimes go. In some cities they don’t have the time or the staff to go with the misdemeanors and we concentrate on some of the higher end misdemeanors and I’m always amazed how they find these people and they, you know somebody ends up stealing something. They get the stuff back. They give it back to the owners and I’m always amazed so I always send out an email or I’ll go over and talk to the guys and so Lance and his whole department have a passion to serve not just Carver County but the City of Chanhassen so we’re very fortunate to have Lieutenant Pearce working for us and his deputies. You know a lot of people probably wouldn’t put the time or effort into some of that as a part of their job but they do so that tells me they care. They’re dedicated and so I’m just looking for something and they never give me anything so good work on their behalf and then Don and his staff. Don is very passionate about fire if you can’t tell and I know Councilmember McDonald was just trying to send a message to the public of the service that you provide Don Chanhassen City Council – September 23, 2019 14 and I was pointing out, I said this was when Don was hired when the line started going up and that’s not because of his fault. It’s just I think a trend throughout the metro area and as we get older we do have more medicals and so I’m, would be delighted to have somebody there immediately when I have an issue and I know our residents, we’ve seen them in the comment cards and to go to the duty crew like some of our surrounding communities is just going to be an added service for that response time so again just like the rest of my department heads they have a passion to serve and it’s in their department that they have a passion to serve so we are very, very fortunate to have people like Don and Lance on our side so thank you. Mayor Ryan: Thank you, have a good night. Alright no old business so next up is a public hearing. PUBLIC HEARING: APPROVAL OF ON-SALE BEER AND WINE LICENSE FOR FRIENDS AND FAMILY CREATIVE ENTERPRISE, LLC, DBA BOARD AND BRUSH CREATIVE STUDIO, 7882 MARKET BOULEVARD. Mayor Ryan: Who’s doing this one? Mr. Gerhardt. Todd Gerhardt: I will be doing this one. Mayor Ryan: Alright. Todd Gerhardt: Mayor, council members. In front of you is a request for an on-sale beer and wine for Friends and Family Creative Enterprises. This is a creative, think outside the box. I think some people may have attended these. My wife enjoys going out and painting different pictures and sometimes there’s some wine included with this and believe it or not that helps with the painting part of it I guess. But I think it’s more of a social gathering and we need more of that in society. It’s huge that from a mental health standpoint the more we gather together as a group we can talk about things. Get things off our chest and so it’s a positive thing and it can be fun too. I’ve seen some of these and I’ve seen more laughter come from these rooms and so I would like to open up the public hearing for a beer and wine license for Friends and Family Creative Enterprises and they will be serving food following our liquor license laws in the State of Minnesota and their background check came clean. Mayor Ryan: Perfect. Would the applicants like to come forward? Susan Kibler: We would. That’s a hard act to follow. Todd Gerhardt: I have the easy part. Don’t ask me to paint anything. Susan Kibler: My name is Susan Kibler and this is my partner friend Terri Berg and we are long time Chanhassen residents and I fell in love with the board and brush concept. There is 3 in the metro area now. Woodbury, Lakeville and St. Louis Park and there’s actually one in Duluth and Chanhassen City Council – September 23, 2019 15 Rochester as well and we really thought that we needed something in this area instead of driving all the way to St. Louis Park or the other suburbs and it’s really a fun concept. The gal that started it is in Heartland, Wisconsin. She only started this back in 2015 and they are now one of the fastest growing franchises. We’re number 257. Mayor Ryan: Wow. Susan Kibler: Yes. And the concept is very simple. It’s a place to gather with your friends and your family and do these DIY workshops and Terri and I recently went. She made this coat rack and I made this little box here. We have 800 different projects people can choose from and the best part about this compared to, I’ve done the wine and paint things is I would leave with something that looked like you know a little kid had done and I didn’t want to hang it up but you always leave with a really nice project and so that’s to me is like a win. And so we are looking at, we are moving into Market Square where the old Iris building is so we think that’s going to be a great add to that area as well. Mayor Ryan: Fantastic. Susan Kibler: Yeah. Mayor Ryan: Well welcome. Susan Kibler: Thanks. Mayor Ryan: I follow you on Facebook and I see that you have over like 750 likes I think it is. Susan Kibler: Oh we’re almost creeping 1,000 and we’re going to have a giveaway for a table of 6 to win that once we hit our 1,000 so it will be fun. Mayor Ryan: Well good. Susan Kibler: Yeah. Mayor Ryan: Well obviously the excitement is there or here in Chanhassen. I know people are really thrilled about a new fun gathering place to go and something very unique. That’s what we hear a lot is we like something you know unique businesses to come to Chanhassen so welcome. We’re excited to have you. Council any questions for either of these two ladies? I don’t think so. Well welcome. Susan Kibler: Thanks. Mayor Ryan: Now we have to do the official business but we’re really excited to have you in Chanhassen. Chanhassen City Council – September 23, 2019 16 Susan Kibler: Thanks. Mayor Ryan: And that is a beautiful project so, alright thank you. Susan Kibler: Thanks. Mayor Ryan: Alright council before I open up the public hearing any questions of staff? Alright with that I hereby open the public hearing. Please step forward and state your name and address for the record. Nobody’s coming forward. Can I get a motion to close the public hearing? Councilman Campion: So moved. Mayor Ryan: Is there a second? Councilwoman Coleman: Second. Councilman Campion moved, Councilwoman Coleman seconded to close the public hearing. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 5 to 0. The public hearing was closed. Mayor Ryan: The public hearing is now closed. And bring it back to council for questions, comments or action. Councilman Campion: I’ll make a motion. Mayor Ryan: Councilman Campion. Councilman Campion: Alright I move that the City Council approves a request for an on-sale beer and wine license from Friends and Family Creative Enterprises, LLC doing business as Board and Brush Creative Studio. Mayor Ryan: We have a valid motion. Is there a second? Councilwoman Coleman: Second. Mayor Ryan: With a valid motion and a second. Councilman Campion moved, Councilwoman Coleman seconded that the City Council approves a request for an on-sale beer and wine license from Friends and Family Creative Enterprises, LLC doing business as Board and Brush Creative Studio. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 5 to 0. Chanhassen City Council – September 23, 2019 17 Mayor Ryan: Congratulations and welcome again. Susan Kibler: Thank you. APPROVAL/CERTIFICATION OF MAXIMUM PROPOSED PRELIMINARY LEVY TO CARVER COUNTY AUDITOR. Mayor Ryan: Mr. Sticha this is you. This is the approval certification of the maximum proposed preliminary levy to Carver County Auditor. Mr. Sticha. Greg Sticha: Thank you Mayor and council. On an annual basis the City Council has an extensive budget process that we actually began in June of this year. Looking at a number of factors that impact the budget and we’re going to go through some of those here in a little bit but just to kind of give the public a sense of the calendar of events and what’s to come going forward. This evening the City Council will be asked to pass a preliminary levy for the 2020 budget season that will be used for Truth in Taxation statements that will be mailed to residents and businesses in the city of Chanhassen in mid-November. The number that the City Council sets this evening is the not to exceed number before setting a final levy on December 9th. On December 2nd the City Council will take public comment from residents and businesses who received the Truth in Taxation statements based on what the preliminary levy was set and it will give the public an opportunity to publicly comment to the City Council based on that preliminary levy. After that meeting one week later the City Council will set a final levy for 2020. That evening the City Council will also set it’s utility rates for 2020 as well as any other ordinance or fee changes for the upcoming year. So the budget calendar starts in May/June and doesn’t really end until December 9th so for the public’s information it’s a long process. And my clicker’s not working. We’ll have to use the mouse with the old fashion way. So what are some of the things that went into putting together this year’s budget for the 2020 budget season? The City had increased new levy or new construction of 1.61 percent. This translates to $177,000 in real property tax dollars that the City has it’s disposal for using, for either upgraded services or continuing to pay for current services. This number has ranged in %past years from anywhere from 1 percent to as high as 2 percent so this number when we were first talking at the beginning of the year we thought might be a little lower. It turned out to be a little better than we had thought and so the 1.61 percent was certainly a pleasant surprise for this year’s budget. As I said it equates to $177,000 in new property tax dollars available. The budget for this year includes a 16 percent reduction in health care costs. That’s not a typo. We actually are seeing a reduction in our health care premiums for 2020. Good experience that we’ve had over the past year has been very helpful and it translated to a 16 percent reduction. Initially we had planned on a 15 percent increase so the combination of a, not only not having an increase but a reduction in that number was a significant dollar savings for all the city’s funds but in particular in this case for the City’s general fund which we’ll get into here in a little bit. We did include a 3 percent increase for cost of living and merit pay. We also have a 5 percent increase in the police services contract and the average home in Chanhassen increased in taxable market value by 5 percent for taxes payable in 2020. That compares to I believe it was 7 percent last year so the taxable Chanhassen City Council – September 23, 2019 18 market values or the homes, home values are increasing in terms of their taxable market value by on average 5 percent in the city of Chanhassen. So we have introduced 3 potential scenarios this evening for the council to consider. Attached is the detailed budget which the City Council has reviewed at it’s last meeting in August at the work session and have all of the factors on the first slide included in the numbers. I think one item to keenly point out is that there are increased service levels in this year’s budget. As the Fire Chief and council and City Manager Gerhardt pointed out in the fire presentation this evening we are adding duty crew hours to this year’s budget process to the tune of a cost of about $140,000 to $150,000 and so that increased service level was afforded the luxury of having a decrease in the health care insurance costs which allowed for a levy increase very close to, a potential levy increase very close to the new growth number that we saw on the first slide so the fortunate health care contract for next year is helping to fund at least a portion of the new service level for the fire department as well as to pay for other costs in the general fund. Under scenario 1, this levy would be an increase in the previous year’s levy by $211,500 or 1.92 percent. That’s $34,400 above the new growth number. This evening that will be staff’s recommendation for setting this levy. We will look at scenario 2 in a second which will be $34,400 less than the $11,231,368 which is exactly new growth and we’ll be looking at that scenario here just momentarily. Under this scenario this would allow for the City Council to keep the current library levy intact. I know previously the summer for those that may have not been a part of the conversations the City Council was considering using a portion of the library levy which has adequate reserves to be reduced in order to help pay for a portion of the increases that we were estimating at that time. Under this scenario the City Council would not need to do that and that levy can remain intact and be used for a future year’s need. The resident impact under scenario 1 is about a 3…increase in city portion of their property tax bill on an average home which in Chanhassen is about $370,000 and increased in market value by about 5 percent. Scenario 2 is new growth which is a similar levy to what has been set in the last previous few years with new growth being 1.61 percent. The increase in the levy would be $177,100 larger than the previous year’s levy. In order to fund this scenario staff would recommend using $34,400 of the library levy to achieve this particular scenario. A result of this levy would be no increase in the property tax bill on the average home in the city of Chanhassen. And a third and alternate scenario, I do not include an actual levy amount for an exact dollar amount for council to consider. Rather we’re kind of including a list of items that we know are known future funding needs for the City of Chanhassen and we spoke about them briefly in the City’s work session this evening. The City could consider any or all of these or none of these and add those to either scenario 1 or scenario 2 to allow the City flexibility in setting a final levy later this year. And by that I mean if the City Council did not include one of these items or a portion of any of these items in the preliminary levy there would be no opportunity to discuss funding any of these between now and December 9th as they’re the maximum levy would be already established lower than what would be needed in this case so if the City Council wanted to consider any or some of these items they would need to include it in the preliminary levy this evening. The resident impact on this particular scenario would be approximately $9 to $10 on every $100,000 increase of the levy above and beyond either scenario 1 or scenario 2. So taking a look at how the City of Chanhassen compares to from a budgeted expenditure comparison in the general fund, this is taking a look at our KFS cities that the City compares itself to routinely Chanhassen City Council – September 23, 2019 19 on a number of various measurements. The 2019 general budgeted expenditures which is the most current data we have from the State Auditor’s Office had Chanhassen with a 1.8 percent increase in general fund budgeted expenditures. As you can see the as compared to our KFS cities we’re the lowest budgeted general fund increase on the expenditure side with the average being 4.8 cents and the range being from 1.8 all the way up to 9 percent. Taking a look at our KFS cities and how we compare on a per fund, per capita spending comparison. This is simply taking the population of the cities listed in the previous graph. Dividing it by the general fund budgeted expenditures for 2019 and the City of Chanhassen has the lowest budgeted per capita spending in 2019 of all of our KFS cities with the average being 609 and the range being 447 to 810. Taking a look at the Carver County tax rates for taxes payable this year in 2019, the City of Chanhassen has the lowest city tax rate in all of Carver County. Again the range being 21.1 all the way up to 122. The average Carver County city tax rate is 58.3. Comparing Chanhassen with other entities within Hennepin County, again Chanhassen is extremely competitive in terms of their city tax rate. I think this is the first time we’ve put this list together where we were at the top. We’ve always been very close. There are a handful of cities in the entire Twin Cities that have a lower city tax rate than the City of Chanhassen but by far well over 95 to 98 percent of the cities in the entire Twin Cities have higher tax rates than the City of Chanhassen. I think it’s important measurement to take a look at as you set your levy each year just from a standpoint of to see how you’re doing compared to some of your neighbors in the Twin Cities. Previous City Councils have been very fiscally responsible when setting the preliminary and final tax levies here in Chanhassen. So this evening staff would recommend setting a preliminary levy under scenario 1 of $11,231,368 which is $34,400 above new growth to allow for the most flexibility and planning before setting a final levy in December. I would also like to point out within the resolution there is a Truth in Taxation date that is set up as part of the motion and described within the resolution so this evening the City Council will also be setting the Truth in Taxation hearing date for December 2nd, 7:00 p.m. here in council chambers. With that I would take any questions from the City Council. Mayor Ryan: Perfect, thank you Mr. Sticha. Council do you have any questions? I know we discussed this in our, in our work session prior to this evening’s meeting but based on if you’ve had any further thoughts from that discussion or something that Greg mentioned tonight does anybody have any questions for Mr. Sticha or want to make any comments to open the conversation. Councilman McDonald. Councilman McDonald: I do. Thank you Mayor. Mr. Sticha, scenario 3 is kind of new to the council. I mean it’s not something that we’ve discussed before. However each of the items within that have been discussed at one time or another and some of this was brought up through discussions of either the street fund and the problems we’ve had this past year with roads and what we need to do about that. Also you know looking at the pavement management levy and that gets into the whole discussion of a franchise fee and again you have shown to us I think the cash flow analysis based upon you know different scenarios if we did this or if we did that but as I understand scenario 3 what you basically have presented to us pretty much we need to fill in the Chanhassen City Council – September 23, 2019 20 blanks. You don’t have a recommendation on any of these particular items as to their importance or anything like that. Greg Sticha: We do not. We wanted to put a list together for the City Council to consider as a known funding list need. We hadn’t really anticipated having a significant discussion about this until the last few weeks and we decided to include these numbers because we know they are known funding needs for consideration, and I think it’s from the standpoint of when you’re setting your levy from year to year you always want that levy increase or if it is a decrease to be consistent. So one of the things that would give you the opportunity here is by levying for some of these things which are known and needed at this point in time in pretty much all of these cases. It would allow you to have less up and down in future levies including 21, 22 and 23. And I would say if you were to ask some of the department heads about some of the items listed they would say they are needed now. It’s not a question of whether or not they potentially are not needed right now. It’s a matter of how do we make it work without having a fluctuating levy from year to year that has large increases one year and then maybe is at new growth the next year so, and I think the most important thing to keep in mind is you’re setting the preliminary levy so if you were to not include any of these items in the preliminary levy this evening there really isn’t an opportunity to discuss them the rest of the year. There just wouldn’t be an opportunity to fund them so what we wanted to do is give the council the opportunity to at least consider them tonight. Potentially include them in the preliminary levy and have a more detailed discussion about any or some of these items between now and setting the final levy on December 9th. Councilman McDonald: So in setting the levy, as far as scenario 3 is concerned it’s not necessary at this point as part of any motion or anything to assign any particular item if we were to give you enough of a I guess a margin to look at then council could continue to look at each one of these and make a determination before December as to whether or not you know we would approve it or not. Greg Sticha: That is correct. Councilman McDonald: Okay. Greg Sticha: You would not have to pick one of these items. We just wanted to give you an idea or a ballpark of what each one costs. Councilman McDonald: Okay, thank you. Mayor Ryan: Thank you Councilman McDonald. Council any other questions or comments? Councilman Campion. Councilman Campion: Yeah like Councilman McDonald said this, the items outlined in scenario 3, though we’ve talked about needs before are relatively new in the context of the levy for 2021, Chanhassen City Council – September 23, 2019 21 or for 2020. And I would like to explore these more. I believe we need to fill in an amount that we would add, right if we were to set scenario 3. Todd Gerhardt: You could set a maximum amount yes. Councilman Campion: And so I believe we’d, if otherwise we were favoring scenario 1. We would look at adding some amount of these to the, you know to the amount for scenario 1 so considering that would, I guess I’ll, I guess I can make a motion and then you know open it up for additional comments or modifications but what I would propose would be to add $510,000 to scenario 1 which I believe would be $11,741,368. For the interest of being, or with the intent of being the preliminary levy. As we discuss these items we might decide that we’re not going to do any of them when we get into more detail but, so I should make that as an actual motion and say it properly so. The motion that I propose is that the City Council approves the preliminary levy of $11,741,368 for 2020 and establishes the Truth in Taxation hearing date for 2019 as December 2nd for taxes collectible in 2020. Mayor Ryan: Alright we have a valid motion. Is there a second? Councilman McDonald: I’ll second. Mayor Ryan: Is there any discussion? Alright go ahead. Councilwoman Tjornhom: Yeah. I have a real problem with all of this. I don’t necessarily have a problem with discussing the needs and the dollar amounts. I do feel that if the park maintenance department needed an employee that should have been brought up when they presented their budgets to us earlier. And I also feel that way about the street maintenance employee. That’s the time when that dollar amount and that employee, that need should have been discussed. Talking about it now at the ninth hour when we’re setting a levy I just don’t feel it’s appropriate when it comes to policy and setting a budget and so because of that and because we just really haven’t had I guess adequate time to discuss it as a council and talk about how we want to look at funding different needs and our growth I just don’t feel comfortable supporting this so I would be supporting scenario 1 that staff had recommended. Mayor Ryan: Okay thank you Councilwoman. Councilwoman Coleman: Madam Mayor I’m going to have to agree with Councilwoman Tjornhom. I am only one vote and I’m not comfortable with setting a preliminary levy at that high of a rate because I cannot guarantee that it will be lower than that at the end of the year because again I am just one vote and would encourage that these scenario conversations be hammered out far in advance of this type of situation. Mayor Ryan: Thank you Councilwoman. Councilman McDonald you raised your hand? Chanhassen City Council – September 23, 2019 22 Councilman McDonald: I was just going to ask if Councilmember Campion would repeat the number that he came up with. $11 million how much? Councilman Campion: $11,741,368 dollars. Councilman McDonald: Okay thank you. Councilman Campion: Greg maybe you can confirm that that is. Greg Sticha: We have a $510,000 increase. Councilman Campion: Okay. Greg Sticha: In the amount above and beyond scenario 1. Councilman Campion: Okay. Councilman McDonald: Thank you. Mayor Ryan: And I’ll make a couple of comments. Obviously all of us at council really approach any scenario outside of scenario number 2 with a lot of trepidation. It’s not something that councils in the past and the City is used to having any increase above new growth. However in all of our discussions in at least the prior 4 years that when I was on council we talked about you know wants versus needs as well as you know levels of service so whenever we’re trying to get below new growth and cutting taxes we have lengthy conversations as if we’re going to do that well then what service are we going to cut and we, we have nothing to cut because people are looking, looking for the same level of service that the City continues to provide and here this year we’re faced with, in my mind two areas of increased service level. The first being the proposal for a duty crew to support the ongoing and growing needs of our fire department and the expectations of our residents for that level of service coming from our fire department as the City continues to grow not only in population but grow further into all corners of our city. Second of all in a month we as a council or are going to be having conversations as we have been over the last few months and really 2 years now addressing the needs for our roads and that comes with a franchise fee and over the last years we’ve been doing a million and a half dollars worth of road projects and we are now projected to go up to $3.6 million dollars of roads and you can’t have an increase of road projects without somehow supporting that increase when we’ve had many conversations about how we fell behind this year and I think that’s no surprise to anybody as some people may still be waiting to have potholes filled we just are stretched thin and so when we look at the levy and we look at the needs those are really the needs that we’re trying to address so we can achieve the expectations that we set as a council that also that the expectations of our community so while in the past we’ve maintained the levels of service, this year or next year in 2020 we’re planning on increasing the level of service and I think we need to Chanhassen City Council – September 23, 2019 23 be supporting that by some of the items that are listed here. Another thing that Mr. Sticha said in his presentation is the concern about fluctuating levies and how challenging that is for residents to plan and budget themselves if the council goes up and down every year. And you also made a comment about prior councils have been fiscally responsible and I think part of being fiscally responsible is adequately preparing for the years to come and so when we look at this we’re not just looking at 2020 but we’re looking at 2021, 2022 and 2023 and I think that’s particularly important considering the situation we are in with our roads and having to do a franchise fee because we weren’t prepared with that budget. That we need to make sure that we’re adequately preparing for not just 2020 but to set the City up for success in the years to come so that is why I’m supporting Councilman Campion’s motion for scenario number 3. Not that that’s going to be the final levy necessarily but at least it gives us an opportunity as council to discuss some of these needs for the years to come so we will now take a vote. We have a valid motion and a second. Resolution #2019-45: Councilman Campion moved, Councilman McDonald seconded that the City Council approves the preliminary levy of $11,741,368 for 2020 and establishes the Truth in Taxation hearing date for 2019 as December 2nd for taxes collectible in 2020. All voted in favor, except Councilwoman Tjornhom and Councilwoman Coleman who opposed and the motion carried with a vote of 3 to 2. Mayor Ryan: That motion carries 3-2. COUNCIL PRESENTATIONS. None. ADMINISTRATIVE PRESENTATIONS. Mayor Ryan: Administrative? Todd Gerhardt: Well it’s kind of a bittersweet night here. This is Jason Wedel, our Public Works Director’s last City Council meeting with us. Jason was appointed this past Tuesday, October 17th I think. No, September 17th. I’m a month ahead. And wish I could keep him for another month and, or another week I guess. We do have him for a few more weeks but as the new city manager in Prior Lake and our loss is their gain which was their loss and our gain 5 months ago as Jason was their Public Works Director in Prior Lake and chose to be our Public Works Director in Chanhassen and you know I think I teased him earlier. I do that out of respect to all my employees because I appreciate so much effort that they put towards and Jason has shown that time and time again. I think Mayor, council members if you’ve seen Jason at work he is very good listener. He follows up on items with residents. He’s a strong project manager. He’s fiscally responsible with the City’s taxpayer’s money and I would like to call him a friend. I think everybody around here appreciates his kindness and willingness to help out in any situation and Jason we wish you the best in Prior Lake and it’s been a fun 5 months to get to know you and it’s been our pleasure to work with you so thank you. And any comments from Mayor or council on Jason’s last meeting here tonight? Chanhassen City Council – September 23, 2019 24 Councilman McDonald: I’ll say something. Yeah Jason I’ve really enjoyed working with you. You know we’ve had a little project and everything going and I found you to be very responsive and I’ve been very impressed with your presentations. I was really impressed with the fact that you seem to be able to come in here and pick up on what’s been going on which is no easy task so I really appreciated that. Your learning curve was pretty steep so I’m sure you’ll do a really good job over in Prior Lake. I just hate to see you go. I was looking forward to again as we get into street projects and making determinations of what all we’re going to do with public works. Like I say I thought you had a real good handle on it and I thought we were in really good hands. I’m sure Todd will do a good job of trying to find your replacement but I don’t know if they can measure up. I think that’s one of the things that they’re going to have to do is, we’ll have to give them a list and see how they stack up but good luck and as Todd said it’s been a pleasure serving with you and I hope to see you around or you can always come back over and visit. You know we’ll welcome you with open arms so thank you. Mayor Ryan: Any other comments? Councilman Campion: Yeah I agree. Jason in such a short period of time it has been a pleasure working for you. You’ve been very diligent in the work that you’ve done and good luck in your next endeavor. Mayor Ryan: Go ahead. Councilwoman Tjornhom: Yeah Jason I just want to say thank you too for the 5 months you were here. Hopefully we didn’t scare you away. You know I mean you started and you kind of got tossed into the fire with a lot of issues that we were having and it was kind of sink or swim time for you, no pun intended when it came to dealing with residents and their concerns and I watched firsthand how you, you were responsive and you listened and that was very professional. I was always very impressed with that and felt confident even though you didn’t necessarily know the history. You didn’t necessarily know what was actually going on sometimes but you did a really good job of maintaining that professionalism and following through with questions and gave great answers and thank you. Councilwoman Coleman: I think a great example of your good work is an elected official friend posted right away the good news that they were getting to steal you and we had a little banter back and forth of them being a thief. Thank you for always responding to my 10,000 follow up emails. It really helps me understand the process so sorry to see you go but happy to see you move up. Mayor Ryan: Congratulations. Very I thought I expressed to you before, I’m very disappointed to see you go. Whether it was 6:00 a.m., 6:00 p.m., Monday through Sunday you always were very available to respond to any email, text, phone call and you know so I appreciate that. Personally I know how much you were very much valued and respected by not only the city staff Chanhassen City Council – September 23, 2019 25 here but by the public works group. You made a concerted effort to get to know them right away and show how much you value and appreciate them and I know how much that was greatly appreciated. And additionally I know it was said by other council members as well as Mr. Gerhardt, your outward facing persona and public relations and community relations was just off the charts outstanding. I was always so proud to stand next to you at any resident meeting, and there were many that we went to and you answered questions directly. If you didn’t have an answer you said you didn’t know but you always responded and got back to them and I think that just instills trust in government when you have a city official there really receptive to having conversations and exchanges and were always willing to do it so I think Prior Lake is extremely fortunate to have you as their next city manager. Very sad to see you go but wish you nothing but the best as you move forward so thank you for all that you’ve done for our city. Jason Wedel: Thank you. If I could just. Mayor Ryan: Absolutely. Jason Wedel: Yeah thank you. The last 5 months has been wonderful and it’s definitely very bittersweet to be leaving so soon. I would never have anticipated that my time in Chanhassen would be as short as it was. I felt very accepted from day one at the staff level and with the City Council. Came in and was part of the team. Got to work with a lot of really great people. We’ve got a great staff here and it is hard to leave when I feel like we’re just on the cusp of doing some of these really neat things with our street improvement projects and making some things happen and yeah it’s definitely very bittersweet for me to leave. It’s been a wonderful experience here and if there’s anything I can do to even help out after I’m gone if there’s certain things that come up, I’m going to sure I’ll make myself available to Todd. Mayor Ryan: Wait why just Todd? Jason Wedel: So, so thank you very much for letting me be here. Mayor Ryan: Absolutely. You’ll be missed. Todd Gerhardt: Well you guys may be losing a public works director. I’m gaining another city manager in my field that I can bounce things off of and gather information so Jason we go up to meet in the city manager’s conference. You know we can connect there and I’d be proud to introduce you to those city managers you don’t know, which is probably very few because I know you’ve worked in almost every city here in the Twin Cities already but it’s nice to see you up there with the rest of us. Mayor Ryan: Wonderful. Jason Wedel: Thanks. Chanhassen City Council – September 23, 2019 26 CORRESPONDENCE DISCUSSION. None. Councilman Campion moved, Councilwoman Coleman seconded to adjourn the meeting. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 5 to 0. The City Council meeting was adjourned at 8:30 p.m. Submitted by Todd Gerhardt City Manager Prepared by Nann Opheim