CC VER 2019 10 28CHANHASSEN CITY COUNCIL
REGULAR MEETING
OCTOBER 28, 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, and Councilman Campion
COUNCIL MEMBERS ABSENT: Councilwoman Coleman
STAFF PRESENT: Todd Gerhardt, Jake Foster, Roger Knutson, Greg Sticha, George Bender,
Bruce Loney, Chief Don Johnson, and Lieutenant Lance Pearce
PUBLIC PRESENT:
Larry Koch 471 Bighorn Drive
Alan Nikolai 6570 Galpin Boulevard
Jim G 3611 Ironwood Road
Joe Green Minnesota Valley Electric Coop
Dana and Mary Johnson 6671 Minnewashta Parkway
Craig Mertz 8561 Osprey
Mayor Ryan: Again good evening. Thank you for your patience. Welcome to our City Council
meeting. To those of you that are watching at home or streaming from the Chanhassen website,
thank you for joining us and welcome. For the record we have 4 of our, 3 of our council
members here with an excused absence for Councilwoman Coleman. 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. We have no public announcements tonight so next
up is our consent agenda.
CONSENT AGENDA: Councilman Campion moved, Councilman McDonald seconded to
approve the following consent agenda items pursuant to the City Manager’s
recommendations:
1. Approve City Council Minutes dated October 14, 2019
2. Receive Park and Recreation Commission Minutes dated September 24, 2019
3. Receive Planning Commission Minutes dated October 1, 2019
4. Receive Environmental Commission Minutes dated September 11, 2019
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5. Approve Contract Amendment for Kimley-Horn for Minnewashta Parkway Project
All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 4 to 0.
VISITOR PRESENTATIONS.
Mayor Ryan: We don’t have anything on here but are there, is there anyone in the audience that
would like to come forward? Mr. Koch.
Larry Koch: Good evening. Thank you and I have a couple things to go over and I’ll do it
quickly. I submitted some request forms rather late. Let me go over them very quickly so I
don’t have to take up your time. I want to present to you for your consideration in the future as
proposed amendments to the Chanhassen City Council city ordinances pertaining to our surface
water regulations. Namely to lower the slow no wake level to 895.8 feet. Limit our wake
enhancing boats to slow no wake speeds at all times, at all levels. Require counter clockwise
direction at all times and locations on Lotus Lake. Limit skiing and if allowed wake surfing
from 7:00 a.m. to sunset except for Sundays, limit it from 9:00 a.m. to sunset. And reduce the
speeds after sunset and before sunrise to 5 miles an hour. You’re already fully familiar with the
issues having to do with the wake boats and I refer you to the report by Mr. Robert Merrit that
was submitted at the public open house on that basis. The reason for the, I want to add the
importance I think of the counter clockwise direction. The times is because this lake, Lotus Lake
in particular is very, very narrow and it already has basically one direction when you’re outside
of the current 100 foot slow no wake but even within that it is very confusing when you have
boats on that narrow lake going clockwise within that area and so for consistency purposes we, I
believe in fact that it would be better to have one consistent rule going counter clockwise
regardless of whether you’re in the slow no wake or outside of that. It is very confusing. Other
people have said so and I think it’s really a safety issue and this goes back to the enhanced wake
issue. It’s really a safety issue. A safety issue for the lake and it’s habitat. So I’m going to leave
this for the record. I have two other things I just wanted to address that I submitted paperwork
on and that has to do with street cleaning and leaves in the streets and it seems to me we have a
lot of our citizens who are not doing a very good job of cleaning the leaves out of the streets and
in addition we have a number of city streets that we don’t have people living on them and it’s,
you know they’re boulevards and there’s a lot of leaves there and as we all know eventually
those leaves end up in the storm sewers either to end up floating into our holding ponds or our
lakes or they end up sitting in there rotting and then the City has to go and clean them out and
dredge them and I would like the City to look into some way to cajole or get people including the
City itself to clean up these gutters from these leaves. You know we’re Chanhassen, it’s because
we have the maple leaves and it is a particular problem on that basis, and I’ll just note on that I’d
like the City to look into this, I know that the City just purchased one of the more recent or
newer vintage street sweepers and I know that Riley-Purgatory-Bluff Creek have contributed to
that. I really would like to see that used you know more often, especially in the fall along the
city streets that have just boulevards. People don’t live along them in particular and then I know
Chanhassen City Council – October 28, 2019
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there’s a couple of areas in Chanhassen that have particularly dense foliage that I think it would
be appropriate to consider using it in those locations. And the last item that I want to bring up is
the fact that I noticed in the Minutes that my neighbor Annette spoke last time about her
concerns about 510 Bighorn Drive and I just want to echo her concerns, and this has been going
on for quite some time. I know the City has been involved on and off for a period of time but we
fully, my wife and I fully support her. I’m in a position where I don’t have to look at it all the
time but unfortunately her family does and I really encourage the City to do something about it
because it really detracts from the neighborhood and our city so those are the items. I’ll have
some comments on your franchise fee but that’s it for right now.
Mayor Ryan: Perfect, and did you Mr. Koch did you submit everything online so we’ll be able
to see it?
Larry Koch: I did as well as I have actual copies of these, of the letters so.
Mayor Ryan: Alright well we’ll get it sent out because we didn’t obviously get a chance to
review it in front of time but we will take a look at your requests.
Larry Koch: Do you want me to give these to?
Mayor Ryan: Sure if you want to give it to Jake that would be great.
Larry Koch: Okay thank you very much.
Mayor Ryan: Thank you.
Todd Gerhardt: Mayor just a couple points of clarification. We do have two street sweepers. A
mechanical one and a vac one that Riley-Purgatory did make a $30,000 contribution towards the
acquisition of that vacuum sweeper. It’s our goal to try to sweep the streets at least twice in the
fall and then we get out early in the spring to get the sand, salt up off the street before it goes into
the storm water system too so those are our goals. And then we will do periodic cleaning if we
started in an area and the leaves dropped again so we do work with residents on that. And
Bighorn Drive, the property owner is back into the country and we have been in contact with him
and he’s aware of the outstanding issues in front of him but as a part of the prosecution process
we have to give him proper time to make those corrections and so he is on notice for that.
Mayor Ryan: Perfect, thank you for the update. Any other visitor presentations this evening?
Yes, please come forward.
Ann Miller: Hello, Ann Miller, 6561 Fox Path, Chanhassen and I would just like to make a
comment. Part of Chanhassen is within the Minnetonka School District and as you know the
school board vote will be up on November 5th. I was alarmed when I received this in the paper
and many of you may have too, a flyer and the Superintendent of Schools, Dr. Dennis Petersen
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of Minnetonka wrote in the last paragraph, the District could not, most certainly not live on the
revenue of just resident students. This is regarding open enrollment so that’s what the context of
that is. So what is alarming to me is, if the District, the school district cannot rely on the revenue
of just the resident students, what about the taxpayers in our town? I’m very concerned about the
franchise fee. I did pay my thousands and I think I need a refund if you grant it. Thank you.
Mayor Ryan: Thank you. Any other visitor presentations? Okay.
FIRE DEPARTMENT/LAW ENFORCEMENT UPDATE.
Mayor Ryan: Next we have our fire department and law enforcement update. Lieutenant
welcome.
Lt. Lance Pearce: Madam Mayor, council. I’d like to cover the September activity for the
sheriff’s office. In September we had 426 traffic related incidents resulting in 4 DUI arrests. We
had 289 total traffic stops. Responded to 41 total crashes and we issued 87 citations. Last month
I covered 17 citations in August for the cell phone use and that has gone down to 11 last month
so hopefully we’re educating and informing people of the law there with that change. As far as
our crimes last month we had 35 felony level crimes and 12 misdemeanor crimes. Of those, as
we’ve seen in the past have been dominated by felony theft and drug related cases. Other
activities as far as our community engagement. Our citizen academy started September 19th. We
have 10 people that are participating in that. We also did Coffee with a Cop down at Starbucks
on October 2nd. That was a relative success and we’re going to try to do that again probably in
January so stay tuned for that. But last months activities mainly focused on traffic safety. With
school starting we had the deputies kind of doing some extra enforcement around the school
routes with school back in session. Training last month. The deputies focused on crisis
intervention training and, which included some scenario based training. And update on our
staffing. Deputy Bill Morrows who was assigned to the city of Chanhassen has moved onto the
city of Cottage Grove as a police officer so we wish him well in his future endeavors and that
does leave our power shift vacant temporarily. We should be filling that next month.
Mayor Ryan: Great.
Lt. Lance Pearce: The only other item to note is this Thursday with Halloween the deputies
working the night shift should be carrying candy so if you guys see them they should be out and
about.
Mayor Ryan: Great thank you. Council any questions? I have kind of question comment. You
know we get a lot of emails about who to call if there’s a certain situation that’s non emergency.
Could you, not to put you on the spot but do you know the non emergency number off the top of
your head that you should share it?
Lt. Lance Pearce: I do. It’s 952-361-1231 goes directly to our dispatch center.
Chanhassen City Council – October 28, 2019
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Mayor Ryan: Okay.
Lt. Lance Pearce: So that can be used in things that you don’t believe are an emergency but we
certainly encourage people to call 911 if they don’t know.
Mayor Ryan: Okay perfect.
Lt. Lance Pearce: And that will probably get a little quicker response.
Mayor Ryan: Perfect. Thank you for sharing that.
Lt. Lance Pearce: You bet.
Mayor Ryan: Thank you.
Lt. Lance Pearce: Anything else?
Mayor Ryan: I don’t think so. Thank you. Welcome Chief.
Chief Don Johnson: Good evening Mayor and council. It’s the fire department report for the
month with activities from September. We’re still, our staffing is stable at 43. The fire
department responded to 85 calls for service again in September. One chief only call, 23 day
calls and 28 duty crew calls leaving only 33 all calls for the month. Our duty crew calls years to
date are at 192. Notable for the month, 44 rescue EMS calls with 8 motor vehicle accidents and
to hear the sheriff’s office responded to 41 different incidents, our 8 were on serious injuries so,
or unknown injuries so, kind of a big different there in regards to the number of accidents on the
roadway. And just for this year we are starting to see more that we’re responding to so be
careful out there when you’re driving so. We’ve had 6 responses to, for fire. Four building fires.
A bath fan fire on Pheasant Circle, a lightning strike fire on Stone Creek and two mutual aid
responses. One to Minnetonka and one to Eden Prairie. Training for the month was focused on
our open house and fire prevention activities. We did, also did a pre-planned walk through with
the new Riley Crossing building that’s ready to open and the next 2 nights we’re working on, or
the next 2 Monday nights we’re working on auto extrications so our big highlights for activities
was our open house. We spent a lot of time getting ready for that. It was a tremendous event. I
think it was probably more well attended since we’ve switched to Monday nights in my time as
chief so kudos to the entire fire department. I think we were 3 short for the night. Everyone else
responded that night to work with the public and we get a lot of praise for what was going on and
a lot of credit to Fire Marshal Nutter continues to find new ideas on ways that we can send our
public safety message so. I will be working duty crew on October 31st so I’ll be finding the
police cars with candy and so that’s all. I can stand for questions.
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Mayor Ryan: That was good Chief. Council any questions? A couple things I want to just
acknowledge and say thank you for your community outreach. I know that the open house that
you did, like you said was very well attended and really appreciated and valued by the
community members so I know that’s additional hours but appreciate that community outreach
for all of our residents here. Also I was made aware about, I know it’s daylight savings but I
know there’s a public service announcement that always come with daylight savings so I wanted
to plug that so you can make that public service announcement.
Chief Don Johnson: Thank you Mayor. Smoke detectors. Batteries. I know a lot of our new
homes are coming with sealed batteries so you just have to replace them after 10 years but smoke
detectors in your home are good for 10 years but we’d like you to change your batteries at
daylight savings every time, or every 6 months so make sure you’re keeping up on that.
Mayor Ryan: Okay. And then last but not least I heard from a resident that you helped out, how
much they appreciate you stepping in and helping out so thank you for that.
Chief Don Johnson: You bet.
Mayor Ryan: Alright, thank you.
Chief Don Johnson: Thank you.
PUBLIC HEARING: MINNEWASHTA PARKWAY REHABILITATION PROJECT
NO. 20-20: ORDER PROJECT AND AUTHORIZE PREPARATION OF PLANS AND
SPECIFICATIONS.
Mayor Ryan: With no old business we’ll move into our public hearings and first tonight we have
a public hearing for the Minnewashta Parkway rehabilitation project. Who’s going to take the
lead on that? Mr. Bender.
George Bender: Good evening Mayor and council members. At the last council meeting we
called the public hearing which we’ll have tonight. Prepared a similar presentation to the last
meeting to kind of go through for any new public that would be here tonight. Go through that
quickly. And so to start the project, the intent was originally to work with Victoria to create a
new paved surface from Trunk Highway 7 south to Trunk Highway 5 and the city limits end
about 850 feet or so north of Highway 5 and the thought was you know there’s no point in the
roadway getting redone just in Chanhassen and then having a short stretch that is similar to it’s
current condition. Through additional research at the beginning of the project we found out that
the City of Chanhassen owns the right-of-way for Minnewashta Parkway from the city limits
which are near Hawthorne Circle south all the way to Highway 5. That research showed, or
identified that in 1992 Victoria ceded this right-of-way to Chanhassen through a decision of the
Municipal Board. The reason that this was completed was if one entity owns the right-of-way
along the entire stretch Minnewashta Parkway can be eligible for State aid funding. So basically
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850 feet of new scope were added to the original project limits so that we will have that new
pavement surface from Trunk Highway 7 to Trunk Highway 5. This is a new part of the
presentation from the last meeting but some of the MnDOT State aid requirements in order to be
eligible for State aid designation and hence the associated funding the roadway must be
classified as a collector or arterial and Minnewashta Parkway is designated as a collector
according to Chanhassen city code. The roadway must tie to another State aid or Trunk
Highway facility which it does on the north where it’s tied to Trunk Highway 7 and on the south
where it’s tied to Trunk Highway 5. The State aid program, it’s designed to create an integrated
network street system that’s up to the proposed traffic which you know our Minnewashta
Parkway currently on the south end is about 2,000 vehicles per day and on the north end it’s up
to about 2,400 vehicles per day. And it acts as a relief for the trunk highway network. As part of
utilizing State aid funding there are certain requirements associated with the design that must be
met. A minimum of 30 miles per hour design speed. They have typical sections, lane widths,
clear zones, no parking provisions and other things that have to be met including design capacity.
It needs to have horizontal and vertical alignment and profiling. And it has a minimum
pavement design which is greater than our city standard residential street design. And another
main item is the local agency may not restrict vehicle use on a state aid roadway. So the
proposed project scope is a mile and a half of street rehabilitation which is going to consist of
full depth pavement reclamation. Trail reclamation. New ADA pedestrian ramps. Watermain
replacement. Sanitary sewer rehab where needed. Sanitary forcemain replacement from the two
lift stations. Lift Station 5 and, or sorry. Lift Station 6 and Lift Station 7. Storm pond
improvements. There will be 3 ponds that are proposed to be maintained on the south end and
retaining wall improvements along the corridor. So one of the main drivers of the pavement
rehabilitation technique that was selected which is full depth in lieu of the mill and overlay is
related to the watermain rehabilitation. The south half essentially to two-thirds is constructed of
ductile iron pipe. The north is constructed of cast iron pipe and that transition happened due to
when the original pipe was installed. In the early 70’s that’s when the manufacturing in the
United States switched from primarily manufacturing cast iron pipe to duct iron pipe and that
became the main material availability. The City has an established policy when there’s
opportunity due to street projects to replace cast iron pipe. This is due to it’s repeated
deterioration that we’ve seen on projects and you know making sure that when we put a new
rehabilitation project over the top of it and we don’t want to be accessing it again for quite a
while, hopefully up to about 40 years so we have to look at you know whether it will make it
through the cycle without repeated additional costs due to main breaks. What’s interesting and
unique along Minnewashta Parkway, through our main break research is that the section that was
constructed of ductile iron pipe is the section that has the documented break history. So that
essentially tells the engineering department that you know this early ductile iron pipe is you
know, we’re having issues with it in this area and that’s something that we should take care of.
There is you know over we’ve presented before there’s 10 breaks in this area. So early in the
project the decision was made instead of just replacing all the cast iron pipe that we should
replace all the watermain along the entire length of the project which is in the neighborhood of
7,700 feet. In order to keep this project from becoming a full reconstruct project it was decided
to investigate trenchless technologies in order to replace this watermain. In looking at it we can
Chanhassen City Council – October 28, 2019
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keep the project from becoming a full reconstruct project which would lead to additional expense
by utilizing these technologies and we investigated directional drilling new mains. Lining the
existing pipe and pipe bursting the pipe and pipe bursting is the preferred choice. So here’s an
exhibit that essentially shows that the limits are that red line that’s kind of by Glendale Drive.
It’s cast iron pipe to the north and ductile iron pipe to the south. The sanitary sewer
rehabilitation. Basically we ran a camera through all of the lines and you know reviewed them.
There are certain ones that have been identified as needing rehabilitation. There are 6 segments
total from manhole to manhole and you know those are proposed to be, have a liner and cured in
place. The forcemains from Lift Station 6 and 7 have also been identified for replacement. They
are, they were constructed of cast iron pipe and they also have a break history associated with
them. Sanitary manholes will also be rehabbed which is probably going to be in the chimney
sections to avoid infiltration through the adjusting rings and castings. For the storm water
improvements, an analysis was done on the existing system from a pure capacity perspective to
identify whether any improvements need to be made as part of the project and it was determined
that the existing system is sized appropriately and adequate for future including you know where
we see development occurring along the corridor. There is a significant amount of rehabilitation
that needs to be done to the structures including casting and adjusting ring replacements. Up a
level to the manhole reconstruction and also complete replacement of certain structures. We
reviewed the storm ponds that are along the corridor for, you know need to be cleaned. And we
also identified one that it makes more sense to eliminate than it does to even clean. It’s a very
small pond by Lake St. Joe. The pond as it was originally designed has completely failed.
Essentially when the water comes in there’s no way for the velocity to come out of it. It blew
out the berm and you know we feel that replacing it would not be successful. We would have the
similar or same problem and in order to address this we are proposing to put a sump structure in,
in the street in the catch basin and do routine cleaning on that and then connect the inlet and
outlet pipes that are currently there. They’re separated and deteriorated but run new piping down
to the lake. There are two other ponds near Lake St. Joe that has significant sediment
accumulation and we’re proposing to remove this material from the ponds and also the volunteer
tree growth that are surrounding the ponds. Another thing is we early on in the project
approached Minnehaha Creek watershed district of which this Minnewashta Parkway is within
and due to we’re not really creating any new impervious surfaces. There’s some but it will be
less than the requirement of 10,000 square feet. There is not a requirement for additional
stormwater quality treatment or rate control. Construction phasing. When this project started we
were looking at being able to do the entire corridor within one construction season. Due to the
significant increase in the amount of work it is no longer deemed a mill and overlay project. The
full depth reclamation. The watermain replacement and you know just the overall impact of the
residents we feel that two seasons would be appropriate for this particular project length. This
will allow the residents to essentially go north or south depending on which section is being
done. The feasibility report that was prepared by Kimley-Horn considered this and they
proposed constructing the southern half in the first year, and this would be from around Kings
Road to, down to 77th Street. And that would leave the northern half to be done in year 2 up to,
from Kings Road to Trunk Highway 7. As part of the second half, when we’re doing that.
We’re sending the residents and users of the parkway out to the south, we’re proposing a
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temporary signal be installed at the intersection of Trunk Highway 5 and Minnewashta Parkway.
Estimated cost summary. For the street improvements they’re proposed to be around $2.2
million. The watermain improvements have, went up significantly up to about $2.3 million from
what was originally proposed which was just replacing the cast iron main. Sanitary sewer
improvements are $385,000 and storm sewer improvements are $371,000 for a total project cost
of $5,254,000. In order to fund this amount we’re proposing a little over $2 million dollars of
our municipal state aid funding be used. The surface water utility fund take care of the storm
water improvements. Sanitary sewer fund take care of the associated sewer improvements. The
water utility fund take care of the watermain replacement. There’s a small amount of special
assessments proposed to be to 37 properties in the amount of $165,000 and that is, you know
adds up to the total amount of the estimated project cost. Proposed schedule was to have the
public hearing tonight. Approve plans and specifications. The last meeting of the year on
December 9th. Have a bid opening in January. A neighborhood meeting in February. Have an
assessment hearing in March. Start construction in the spring of 2020. We’re estimating around
16 weeks of construction in both 2020 and 2021. You know we would shut down for the winter
obviously. Start back up in the spring of 2021 and complete it somewhere around October of
2021. So for there I’ll stand for questions.
Mayor Ryan: Thank you. Council before I open the public hearing do you have any questions?
Yes Councilwoman.
Councilwoman Tjornhom: I’d like to address the issue of the intersection of Highway 5 and
Minnewashta Parkway. What are the plans for that? Are there any plans moving forward?
George Bender: As part of the Arboretum Area Region Transportation Plan, that intersection is
under consideration for that, that’s being done for the study. There’s not a date for it but they’ve
considered a couple of, they considered the do nothing approach which is not what they’re
looking at. They’ve considered a roundabout and they’ve considered a signal. The Arboretum is
actually proposing to realign their entrance to be the southern leg of that intersection and as part
of that a four way signal is the lead option in that study right now. That study does not include a
timeline for when exactly the work would happen so I can’t really comment on that so it will be
when there’s funding available I think.
Councilwoman Tjornhom: Thank you.
Mayor Ryan: Councilman McDonald.
Councilman McDonald: Yes thank you Mayor. What I want to address is a little bit about the
funding of how all of this is being paid for. A lot of the emails that we have been receiving
concern funding and also concern somewhat the unfairness of how this is being funded as far as
being paid for by the residents along the road. As I understand it, and tell me if this is correct or
not but the road is being built to a 10 ton limit, is that correct?
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George Bender: That is correct.
Councilman McDonald: And what the City typically looks at is a 7 ton road for residential
streets.
George Bender: That is correct.
Councilman McDonald: So in the process of paying for this, is it true that really all the residents
would be picking up is the cost of a 7 ton road and then the delta would be paid for out of the
MSA funds?
George Bender: That is also correct.
Councilman McDonald: So that really in effect when we look at how we’ve I guess funded past
MSA roads in the past in other neighborhoods and everything it is a fair comparison to say that
really the residents only pick up what we would normally do as far as a city residential road and
that’s what they’re going to be assessed for.
George Bender: That is what is being proposed.
Councilman McDonald: Okay. And then some of the other issues that have been brought up is
about the traffic that’s on Minnewashta Parkway. There is truck traffic but again that’s because
it’s a connector road and it’s built for a 10 ton usage. And I got one email about the fact that that
takes away from it being a parkway but today we have trucks going back and forth on that road.
George Bender: There is truck traffic along Minnewashta Parkway. During this summer there
has been an increased amount of truck traffic due to construction projects on the north side of the
lake. With the seasons changing that should diminish. The other thing that I could comment on
is over the last decade there have been the engineering department has been working on
reconstruction projects along the north side of the lake and this one was the last one. One of the
main reasons that there was more traffic along Minnewashta Parkway is into the project that’s
Orchard Lane there is not a left turn so if they’re using Trunk Highway 41 coming from the east.
Driving westbound to approach that project there is not a left turn into that project area so they
kind of need to make a right hand turn.
Councilman McDonald: Okay. And then once all this construction is completed is it your
opinion that things will kind of go back to normal the way they have been?
George Bender: Yes.
Councilman McDonald: Okay.
George Bender: We don’t have any control or regulations on who uses the roadway.
Chanhassen City Council – October 28, 2019
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Councilman McDonald: Right but yes as far as everything, again the old pass were because
they were probably the shortest pass and now because of construction people are using this as
detour to get from Point A to Point B but again I would ask that Minnewashta Parkway was
designed for just that purpose. To act as a connector for trucks between 7 and 5 and 5 and 7.
George Bender: Yes it does.
Councilman McDonald: Okay.
George Bender: Assigned for that.
Councilman McDonald: Thank you Ms. Mayor. No more questions.
Mayor Ryan: Thank you councilman. Councilman Campion.
Councilman Campion: Not at this time.
Mayor Ryan: Okay. Mr. Bender I’d like to follow up on a couple questions that Councilwoman
Tjornhom and Councilman McDonald made. When Councilwoman Tjornhom asked about the
highway, the intersection of Highway 5 and Minnewashta Parkway, I know the long term plan
for the Arboretum study is what you explained but I think the concern that we have been hearing
from residents is what’s going to happen during the construction season and I know that it’s in
the feasibility report that there is, that we’re going to request it or we’re proposing that they do
something. How do we make sure that there is something because when we go through traffic
volumes of 2,000 per day on one end and 2,400 cars per day on the other end, that’s a lot of cars
and it’s already significantly backed up as you know during rush hour. Is there anything that we
can do from a City’s perspective to make sure that there is some traffic calming measures in that
intersection?
George Bender: The plan is to continue to work with MnDOT on this throughout the winter.
MnDOT has already been approached with this topic. They didn’t immediately say no and, but
there’s not a, we haven’t received a formal yes from them at this point either. That’s kind of
more of a final design element as we’re going through that. Kimley-Horn has been asked to
work with MnDOT and reach out to them and talk to them about this. Schedule meetings to
discuss it as necessary which you know I’m confident they are doing.
Mayor Ryan: Okay.
George Bender: But at this time we do not have a formal yes, that will be fine and you can
include that as part of your project.
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Mayor Ryan: Okay, so I don’t know if this is a question for you Mr. Gerhardt or a legal question
Mr. Knutson. You know I think that safety is going to be a real concern, I mean other than the
annoyance of having long lines to try to access Highway 5 during any time of the day but
specifically rush hour. How does the City put pressure on MnDOT to do something about it? Is
it reaching out to our legislators and commissioners and residents calling? This is out of you
know all of the concerns that have been put forward I think this is the number one concern
because without the construction it’s, it’s a challenging situation and when we add this element
to it I think it’s above all else it’s a huge safety concern so how do we as a city?
Todd Gerhardt: I think Roger would agree with me. All of the above Mayor and council
members. But I think the key element here is to work with MnDOT. Kimley-Horn has a
wonderful relationship with MnDOT and works on a variety of projects but other communities
where MnDOT is involved and they work directly with MnDOT on their own projects so, and I
believe we have a good working relationship with them and in coming up with a safety plan as a
part of any work that would go on on the south part of Minnewashta Parkway and then on the
north part, you know a couple of things come to mind is timing of the signals at Bavaria and
Rolling Acres Road you know to provide more gaps. If it needs traffic control situation. That
would be an extreme but I know that setting the signals at those intersections and at 41 and
Highway 5 and 41 and 7 would greatly help create a gap for those people trying to get out of
Minnewashta. George, Bruce anything outside of that that you can think of?
Bruce Loney: No I think what you said is perfect. You have to continue to ask MnDOT and
show and I think the Arboretum started and George has been attending is a proper place to put
our concerns there and tell them about our project and can we get an expedited decision. That’s
what we want. We don’t want to be waiting to let bids and still be hanging out there not
knowing. We’d like to get it done by the time we authorize bids.
Todd Gerhardt: Yeah I think the Arboretum study is definitely the long term solution to this
situation but during the construction periods there’s going to be some delays with truck traffic
coming and going with bituminous and Class V and pipe but you know we’ll try to work with
MnDOT on some type of traffic control and signage is typically what happens with projects like
this.
Mayor Ryan: Okay thank you. And then just a simple question because as Councilman
McDonald mentioned we received a lot of emails in terms of the parkway and save the parkway
and keep it a parkway. Just for clarification is there any differing set of standards other than the
7 ton versus a 10 ton in why it was called a parkway versus a road or is it really constitute the
same application as a road. Minnewashta Road or if it was called Minnewashta Road or Street or
anything else.
George Bender: I did try to do some research on this today. I believe parkway is just pretty just
a name.
Chanhassen City Council – October 28, 2019
13
Mayor Ryan: Okay.
George Bender: I don’t know how long it’s been named Minnewashta Parkway. It used to be a
county road. At the same time there is numerous, it’s very common for county roads to also
have an additional name associated with it. I know the roadway has been there for a very long
time because that’s one of our older plats along Red Cedar Point Road and even along the north
side those are also older plats up there and you know so people have been coming to this area for
a long time. As far as parkway to me that probably references scenic views along a
thoroughfare. Landscaping. Sometimes it may include a divided median which is you know for
the width of the existing roadway that we have and that this is a reconstruct. Not a
reconstruction project that does not really bode for a change. For the current geometry. But
along the ways of I do think it’s scenic. You know landscaping could be looked at if the council
wanted to you know try to make improvements along that corridor. But you know primarily I
don’t really feel that parkway has a whole lot to do, it kind of means other modes other than just
vehicular transportation to me you know for pedestrians and bicycles and we do have a continue
trail from the north to the south end so that kind of goes along with it. There’s nothing that the
parkway designates that actually means that we have to be doing something different as far as
I’m aware.
Mayor Ryan: Okay thank you for that clarification. And then last just to reconfirm, I did see it
in your slide. It was one of my questions that it said because it’s a state aid highway we have to
keep it at 30 miles per hour so I know there’s some legal changes that now we an lower speed
limits to 25 but if we want to accept the state aid we have to keep it at 30.
George Bender: Correct.
Mayor Ryan: Okay. Because I know that was another concern about lowering the speed limit.
Todd Gerhardt: George could bring that slide back up. You know the designation of, what MSA
is it’s a Municipal State Aid roadway and the City receives approximately $1 million dollars a
year in state aid funds from the State for such roads like Minnewashta Parkway and we use those
dollars to help with the reconstruction of what are the major collector roads that Minnewashta
Parkway does and some of the parameters of receiving that money you must have a minimum of
30 miles an hour. There has to be a typical section of a lane width out there and then it also has
to have a minimum ton pavement strength and, which is 10 ton and if you could go to the slide to
show how much of our state aid that we have allocated to this of the $5.2 million dollars. We’re
using almost 2 years worth of municipal state aid funds to help offset the construction which is
close to about 50 percent and the assessments are around 3 percent of the overall project cost so
without the municipal state aid standard you know we would have to look at other funding
sources, either through a tax increase. Franchise fee. Some other way of funding instead of
using the $2 million dollars we receive in the state aid.
Mayor Ryan: If we wanted to change any of those elements.
Chanhassen City Council – October 28, 2019
14
Todd Gerhardt: Correct.
Mayor Ryan: Okay perfect. Alright thank you council, any. Oh go ahead Councilman
McDonald.
Councilman McDonald: We were talking about Highway 5 and Minnewashta. I thought I saw
in your presentation that you were looking at some kind of a temporary signal down there. What
is that? If it’s not a stop light what are we talking about?
George Bender: We are talking about a stop light.
Councilman McDonald: Okay.
George Bender: So they make temporary signals. We wouldn’t have to necessarily go with the
wooden poles and hanging wire across the roadway. They make them that are trailer mounted
and can kind of pop up there and be easier to remove which I expect may be a concern of
MnDOT because once the signal is in place they certainly may get some feedback related to how
much we like it.
Councilman McDonald: Yeah that’s why I was wondering. Can we use that to again bolster our
point that there needs to be a light there?
George Bender: I think it may naturally do that.
Councilman McDonald: Okay.
George Bender: Whether they like it or not.
Councilman McDonald: Okay good.
Todd Gerhardt: If you go to the intersection of 41 and Lyman, those are temporary signals that
have been there for 30 years.
George Bender: They’re going to get a roundabout now so.
Mayor Ryan: Alright thank you. With no further questions I will open the public hearing.
Please step forward and state your name and address for the record.
Larry Koch: My name is Larry Koch, 471 Bighorn Drive. I have one comment in particular and
I have no doubt that Minnewashta watershed district you know has done it’s analysis and I’d just
encourage city staff to really look at the storm water capacities because the information being
given to me is that the increase, really increase moisture levels for who knows how long and it’s
Chanhassen City Council – October 28, 2019
15
going to be stressing a lot of existing infrastructure particularly stormwater solutions so I just
encourage everybody before they get to that to double check those because as we all know that’s
a very expensive project, to try to redo on that basis. And then the last comment I have is, how
much would it cost to, I mean if you did nothing is there a need to do anything actual need?
George Bender: Can you expand on what you’re referring to?
Larry Koch: Well on the Minnewashta update itself. I mean is it deteriorated to the point, does
it otherwise meet our standards for being deteriorated that it has to be redone at a 10 ton level as
opposed to a 7 ton level because it’s sufficient if it’s just 7 ton and if 7 ton would actually be
sufficient what would it cost us to do it at a 7 ton level because we wouldn’t be getting the state
aid.
George Bender: The difference between a 7 ton design and a 10 ton design is pretty much about
an inch of bituminous so there’s, in our 7 ton design our standard detail is 4 inches of bituminous
so this project will include 5 inches of bituminous. So an additional 20 percent in bituminous
cost is pretty much the difference which you know from a, I don’t have the numbers in front of
me. That would have to be different but I would think that that would be in tune of somewhere
between $100,000 and $150,000 difference.
Larry Koch: And one last question. When it applies to our other streets, when we reconstruct do
we reconstruct to 7 ton?
George Bender: On a residential street?
Larry Koch: On a residential street.
George Bender: Yes.
Larry Koch: Okay so all reconstruction gets done at the 7 ton level.
George Bender: Yep.
Larry Koch: Okay, very good thank you.
Mayor Ryan: Yep, and Mr. Koch as Mr. Bender had pointed out in our ordinance that this is
identified as a collector road and that’s why we’re, it has to be designed to a 10 ton standard.
Larry Koch: I understand that. I was just trying to get a picture of the difference in cost between
you know doing the 10 ton versus the 7 and you’ve given me that answer so thank you very
much.
Mayor Ryan: Perfect, thank you.
Chanhassen City Council – October 28, 2019
16
George Bender: I can comment maybe a little bit on your first point as well. When the capacity
analysis was done to the storm water it was with our newest rainfall calculations that are out
there. It’s Atlas 14 Method for prediction so that’s the current version that is heavier than the
previous versions that were being used.
Mayor Ryan: Great thank you. Anybody else like to come forward? Okay with that I will close
the public hearing and bring it back to council for either further questions, comments or action.
Councilwoman Tjornhom: I’d like to make a motion.
Mayor Ryan: Yes Councilwoman.
Councilwoman Tjornhom: I’d like to make a motion that the City Council adopts a resolution
ordering the project and authorizes preparation of plans and specifications for the Minnewashta
Parkway Rehabilitation Project Number 20-02.
Mayor Ryan: We have a valid motion. Is there a second?
Councilman McDonald: I’ll second.
Councilman Campion: Second.
Mayor Ryan: Councilman McDonald give you the second. With a valid motion and second all
those in favor please signify by saying aye.
Resolution #2019-51: Councilwoman Tjornhom moved, Councilman McDonald seconded
that the City Council adopts a resolution ordering the project and authorizes preparation
of plans and specifications for the Minnewashta Parkway Rehabilitation Project No. 20-02.
All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 4 to 0.
Mayor Ryan: That motion carries 4-0.
PUBLIC HEARING: CONSIDER FRANCHISE AGREEMENT ORDINANCES AND
FRANCHISE FEE ORDINANCES.
Mayor Ryan: Next we have another public hearing and it’s a consideration of a franchise
agreement ordinances and franchise fee ordinances. Mr. Sticha.
Greg Sticha: Good evening Mayor, council. Before I get too far in my presentation I just want
to make a couple of comments. Public hearing this evening is certainly going to get a lot of
discussion on the franchise fee portion of the ordinance adoptions. I do want to make a couple of
public comments that we are also adding the franchise ordinances themselves that govern the
Chanhassen City Council – October 28, 2019
17
right-of-way of the utilities within the city’s right-of-way so that’s an important part of this
discussion this evening an eventually a potential vote if the council so chooses. One additional
item of note I have included on the table over here a frequently asked question document that
we’ve gotten from residents over the last couple years when the council has been considering
this item. Some very lengthy responses to some relatively detailed questions. I’m not going to
be going over all those questions. Some of them will get answered inherently throughout the
presentation but I would encourage anyone who is here for this portion of the public hearing to
go over, take a look at some of those frequently asked questions and I think some of them may
be answered as part of a question they might have during the public hearing portion of the
evening. So we’re going to hop right into it and I know the council has seen this presentation
multiple times and then some in the audience probably have seen this presentation multiple
times. I’m going to do my best to handle some of the engineering kind of portions of it as I’ve
also heard the presentation several times so I’m pretty adept to some of the terminology and
information that’s within the presentation. So the first 3 or 4 slides are going to be mostly
discussing the existing conditions of some of our streets and why there’s an additional need for
funding for our local roads. This first slide is intended to show the history of our OCI which is
Overall Condition Index or the condition of our pavement on average throughout the entire city.
As you can see dating back to 2010 there has been a decline in our OCI into the mid 2010’s. We
did do an extensive project in 2015 which improved a lot of the very poor areas of town which
resulted in a jump in our OCI in 2016 and ’17 and now we’re starting to see another decline in
our OCI at this point in time. What does an OCI mean? What does that percent number that is
associated with an OCI mean? This chart kind of breaks that out. It details what’s an excellent,
a good, a satisfactory street. The recommended activity is what in theory the engineering
department would recommend if a street had an OCI in that range, what type of treatment or
maintenance or reconstruction would be needed. And then the cost per square foot to do each of
those, for each of the various types of projects that would be associated with each. This slide is
just mean to kind of give you an idea of what each of those OCI’s mean. So where are
Chanhassen streets in terms of the OCI or condition index? 40 percent are in the good range.
The 85 to 100. And then roughly another 40 percent are in the fair to satisfactory range which
can range from 50 to 85 and about 20 percent are in poor range. As previously noted in the other
slide once you get to the poor range you’re looking at most likely a reconstruction project and
any maintenance dollars in terms of a mill and overlay probably aren’t going to be very effective.
This particular slide was created last year. This last year and I think it’s a pretty important slide
because it really I think hits home to why there’s a need for increased funding. My next slide is
going to indicate that a street has a useful life or a rough life of about 50 years and if you look at
the blue line in this graph that is the miles of streets that were built in Chanhassen by year going
back all the way to 1960. If you correlate that to 50 years later the orange line corresponds to
when you should be replacing those streets. So it being 2019-2020 what you’re starting to see is
we’re approaching the point in time of when 50 years ago we started increasing the amount of
miles of streets that were constructed in the city of Chanhassen to 2.7 miles per year and then
eventually we get to more miles per year in the next 15 to 20 years. This particular graph
actually should have been on the slide before but it visually depicts the, I’ll go back and show
you the breakdown of the red, yellow, green and blue. This slide depicts where in our city are
Chanhassen City Council – October 28, 2019
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the red, yellow, green and blues. As you can see from the map a lot of the red and yellow is in
the older part of the city. A lot of the blues in certain newer parts of the city. Some of the blues,
and I’m sure engineering could count on this are probably roads that have had either some type
of maintenance or reconstruction associated with it already. So the older parts of our city
certainly are in need of either reconstructions or a mill and overlay and some of the newer parts
of the city obviously not to that point yet but maintenance is certainly, if you ask any of the
engineers ongoing maintenance is important to get you to that 50 year span for a street life. So
as we’re talking about the average life being 50 years the next thing to account for is well how
much per mile does it cost to replace those streets. When you’re doing a street reconstruction,
the analysis that was done by engineering throughout the 1960’s and 70’s indicated we’re
building about 1.6 miles per year at that point in time. We’re at about 50 years. 1.6 miles times
$1.5 million, which is the approximate cost per mile for a street reconstruction project would
indicate that the City should be spending about $2.4 million per year on reconstructions.
Looking at a very similar graph but this time as it relates to mill and overlays, which are
maintenance in nature, and should take place approximately every 25 years. So the blue line is
the same as the blue line that you saw in the previous slide whereas the orange line here is 25
years later and as you can note by it now being 2019-2020 it would indicate that the City should
be doing about 3 1/2 miles per year in mill and overlay projects throughout the city if you follow
the theory of about 25 years a road would be due for a mill and overlay. Those streets were done
probably in the late 80’s, early 90’s and again that was 3 ½ miles per year. It costs about
$350,000 to do one mile of a mill and overlay. 3 ½ miles times .35 million equals $1.2 million
per year. So what all this is indicating is a total spending on road improvements, whether they be
maintenance or reconstruction, the City should be spending about $3.6 million per year for the
maintenance of those deteriorating roads that were built some 50 years ago. What I am going to
go over and that is a new item to the presentation that others may not have seen prior to this
evening is the impact that increasing that funding from what we had previously been doing was
an average of just under $2 million dollars a year in roads. There are other additional impacts
aside from the cost of the road itself and in particular that relates to the utilities that are under
those roads. Based on increasing the funding or spending on those roads, in particular related to
street reconstruction projects, you’re looking at about additional $450,000 per year that would be
needed for water system improvements. About $140,000 for sewer system improvements and
about $375,000 for storm water improvements. Those amounts have been included in the 2020
rate study that the City Council saw back in September so those are included on the proposed
rates that Ehlers and Associates had included as part of that presentation. So at this point in time
there would be no need for an additional rate increase related to this additional funding on roads
but we wanted to make it clear that yes we are completely aware that there is going to be
additional costs related to the additional roads that would be done. The City Council is also
considering an additional street department resources in the general fund for part of the 2020
general fund budget related to pothole patching. The council will be getting a detailed
presentation by staff in a November meeting to consider that item in particular as it relates to just
pothole and patching and not mill and overlays, sealcoating or any of the other items.
Sealcoating will be a part of the discussion. I do know that so we’ll get into more detailed
information as it relates to those small maintenance items. The funding for this evening that is
Chanhassen City Council – October 28, 2019
19
being discussed would not be going towards any of that. On this slide what we’re attempting to
do is put together a visual presentation of how many miles of mill and overlay streets, street mill
and overlays could be done based on previous funding the City has put towards it and based on
what the new funding could afford. So one of the things that we discussed with the engineering
department within the last few weeks is if the funding is passed what would give the City the
most bang for the buck for their dollar in terms of where would they put those resources towards
and the engineering department indicated initially in the first couple years the most efficient and
effective way to spend those dollars would be on mill and overlays. Maintenance of some
existing roads that are probably, haven’t had any attention in 20 to 25 years and so the funding
for this particular, under this particular scenario the engineering department is recommending
roughly 15.2 miles of mill and overlays within the first two years of the new funding for the
pavement management fund. Had the City Council continued spending about $2 million dollars
per year towards those roads you’d be looking at roughly 8.7 miles of roads that you could do.
As you can see in the yellow and blue lines indicated on top that’s a significant amount more of
neighborhoods that the City Council will be able to have funded for mill and overlays. In
addition the City Council did want included a potential list of streets that would be included for
those mill and overlays and as we get into the next slide I do want to caution that while the
engineering department I think is fairly certain in particular on the 2020 mill and overlay
approach of this plan. Any of the years and all the years are subject to some change depending
on the conditions of each of the roads in each of the neighborhoods so while you might see a
road Ashton Court scheduled for a 2021 mill and overlay, that does not absolutely guarantee that
a mill and overlay would be done on Ashton Court in 2021. A number of variables will come
into account as it relates to that, in particular the conditions of those roads and of other roads that
might need a mill and overlay sooner than Ashton Court as one example. Looking at the 5 year
plan that the engineering department has put together in terms of where all the funding for the
pavement management program would go. As the previous two slides indicated the first two
years the majority of the funding would go towards mill and overlays. Starting in 2022 you
would be averaging about $1.5 million per year towards reconstructions and about two and a half
million per year towards mill and overlays. There’s a footnote at the bottom of this slide that
also indicates that this does not include MSA funding reconstructions which over this time would
be an additional 4.4 miles. You were talking about one this evening. Minnewashta Parkway so
the numbers that we’re talking about this evening are non-MSA funded roads and do not include
any of those that would be reconstruction projects spent with MSA dollars. So I’m trying to give
the total picture here in that these are not the only roads that would be done over that 5 year span.
This is simply a list of what it looks like. A list of all roads and when they would currently be
estimated for either a mill and overlay or reconstruction. Again does not include MSA funding
of reconstructions and is subject to change. So the next part of the presentation gets a little bit
more into how to pay for the City’s share of the $3.6 million in additional roads. So one of the
items I want to make abundantly clear and we’ve attempted to make very clear at our previous
public meetings is the City Council has indicated and made it very clear to staff that the City
Council will continue it’s current assessment practice. The practice of assessing 40 percent for
mill and overlays and reconstruction projects to benefiting property owners will not change. The
funding issue that the City has is for their 60 percent. Their portion of those projects. So any
Chanhassen City Council – October 28, 2019
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franchise fee or levy that would be issued has been indicated by this council and previous
councils would be used only for local road improvements. Whether it’s a franchise fee or a
property tax levy that has been the indication by the elected officials at this point in time. So
then comes the question of why is the City considering issuing a franchise fee rather than a
property tax and there are a few reasons behind that and I’m going to go into a couple of them
here over the next few slides. Probably the most important reason is a franchise fee allows the
City Council the flexibility to structure the franchise fee to have impacts on certain, certain
customer bases within the utility companies total customer base whereas if the City issues a
property tax only for all of these costs, total cost improvements roughly 83 cents of every dollar
would be coming from a residential property owner. The proposed franchise fee that the City
Council sees in front of them is structured differently so that that is not the case. As I stated a
franchise fee offers more flexibility than a property tax levy. Under this proposed rate schedule
the portion that is related, the portion of funding, the $1.7 million in funding in franchise fee
would result in about a 63/37 percent split between commercial and residential properties
whereas a property tax levy would be 83/17 obviously putting a little bit more of the burden on
some of the commercial properties within the city by using the franchise fee. One other item of
note, and I know we’ve brought it up at multiple meetings this summer. We’re fully aware that a
franchise fee has the same impact as a property tax but this incentive of allowing for the structure
to be a little bit differently and take a little burden off of the residential property owners has been
an important part of the discussion that the City Council has had. This slide shows the proposed
franchise fee schedule by customer class within each of the utilities generating the $1.7 million
discussed earlier. So who has a franchise fee in the 7 county metro area? It’s becoming more do
not, or do have a franchise fee than do not. All 7 of Chanhassen’s neighbors, neighboring cities
have a franchise fee including Chaska, Eden Prairie, Excelsior, Minnetonka, Shakopee,
Shorewood and Victoria. The majority of those are being used for local road improvements but
it’s not extensively used by each of those cities for local road improvements. There really is no
limitation on what the funds can be used for but it’s been very clear by this council and previous
councils that the funding would be used for local road improvements only. So how do we get to
the $3.6 million a year needed in funding? And some of the answer is the franchise fee but some
of the answer here is also an increase in the property tax levy above and beyond the current
property tax levy which is just over $380,000 that the City Council 5 years ago put towards it’s
pavement management fund. City Council as part of it’s preliminary levy in September did
include $350,000 as a potential possibility for the 2020 levy. In addition staff would recommend
a portion of the library levy which is coming off the debt portion of the library levy in 2022,
which is coming off in 2021 to be used towards the pavement management fund. The use of that
particular levy would not result in a property tax increase as it would just be the shifting of the
levy from the debt of the library building to the pavement management fund. So what would the
total impact on a residential property be under this funding scenario with a franchise fee
assuming a home has both a gas and electric utility and the $350,000 property tax increase that is
proposed by City Council at this point in time for 2020, and this graph represents that. The
franchise fee portion of that on all homes would be the same obviously. $120 per year and then
the property tax increase would vary depending on the value of your home with a much smaller
home such as a $200,000 home paying only $13 per year and a larger home paying as much as
Chanhassen City Council – October 28, 2019
21
$80 per year in property taxes. Total cost we’re talking could range from $130 per year to just
over $200 in total depending on the value of your home. One of the representations the council
wanted to point out this evening is, this graph shows what would happen if the City Council
continued to spend $2 million per year on roads or less, and even in this case you’re spending $2
million dollars every other year on your pavement management program and under this scenario
in 2021 the pavement management fund would be out of funds. Under this particular scenario
the only revenue stream that is going into the pavement management fund is the current levy of
$384,000. Based on the graph we saw earlier spending $1.1 million per year towards our local
roads is certainly not going to keep us up with the increasing demand of those roads that were
built 25-50 years ago. This graph shows the funding with the new funding revenue streams that
were discussed previously including the franchise fee as well as the property tax levy increase. It
keeps the fund funded with a minimum reserve of about a half a million dollars for the next 10 to
15 years. Again these are based on a number of estimates. There are some things that could
impact the projected fund balance in this fund including interest rates as well as if in one
particular year the engineering department decided it was important to spend a little more than
$3.6 million towards local road improvements and then the next year spend a little less. Having
that small amount of fund balance would be crucial in having even the slightest bit of flexibility
in determining when and how much each of the year’s projects while in a completely ideal world
the top line indicates that we’re going to be spending $3.6 million per year adjusted by 3 percent
inflation per year. Realistically some years it’s going to be $3.9 million. Some years it’s going
to be $3.3 million and so, but over the life of the fund over the next 10 to 15 years we would
project that the minimum fund balance would stay above the $500,000. So with that staff would
recommend opening a public hearing to take input on the implementation of the franchise fee
and the updated franchise ordinance which are included with all 3 gas and electric utilities. At
that point in time the City Council could consider adoption of those ordinances.
Mayor Ryan: Thank you Mr. Sticha. Council before I open the public hearing are there any
questions of staff? Go ahead.
Councilwoman Tjornhom: My question is referring to slide 14 and the comment or one of the
issues, or not issues but, is it 14?
Greg Sticha: I’m trying to make sure I get to 14.
Councilwoman Tjornhom: It was a funding, no it was not. It was slide 14, sorry.
Jake Foster: That’s 14 in the packet?
Greg Sticha: This one here?
Councilwoman Tjornhom: No. It’s what we have established at this point so it was close.
Greg Sticha: Okay.
Chanhassen City Council – October 28, 2019
22
Councilwoman Tjornhom: There we go, thank you.
Greg Sticha: Okay.
Councilwoman Tjornhom: Alright number 2. The additional funding is for financing the City
share only. Last year that was an issue I had with the whole process and when you look at, I’m
not going to even try the slide number anymore but the graph with other cities, yes they are using
it for cities for their roads but also some just use it for their general fund. So I really want to
know how this works. Would it be where this would be just established and the City Council,
future city councils could never dip into this fund or these fees for another project? Or is this
just something, it would go year by year where the City Council could decide if they were going
to use these funds for roads or for something else they decided they needed?
Greg Sticha: The franchise fee agreement is dated for 20 years. However the difference
between a franchise fee and a property tax, a city council can change either of those at the same
pace or level so whether the City Council decided to issue a franchise fee this evening or whether
they decided to issue a property tax, in either case that cannot bind a future city council. So
whatever funding stream you want to use there is no way to bound a future city council to say
that funding will go only towards local road improvements. Now we’ve from a staff level
standpoint we’ve talked about this item and on an annual basis we will be reviewing the balance
in the pavement management program with the City Council. It will become an annual part of
the budget process so it will be looked at multiple times every single year. So it’s not going to
be a set it and forget it. The reserves that are in that fund will be reviewed by every city council
every year as a part of the budget process. But whether you issue a franchise fee or a property
tax levy increase to fund these roads any future city council can change either of those.
Councilwoman Tjornhom: So it’s not set in stone then? That these fees would just go to roads.
I’m just asking a question because that was my problem last year and so I just when I saw this in
the power point that the city share only, that’s.
Greg Sticha: I guess my answer is there’s no legal way to bound, bind a future city council.
Councilwoman Tjornhom: City council for those funds. Alright thank you.
Greg Sticha: And Roger or Jim can correct me if I’m wrong but.
Councilwoman Tjornhom: Thank you.
Mayor Ryan: Any other questions council? Alright I hereby open the public hearing. Please
step forward and state your name and address for the record.
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Craig Mertz: My name is Craig Mertz, 8561 Osprey Lane in Chanhassen. Homeowner in the
city for more than 40 years. I’m here to urge approval of the four ordinances for the pavement
funding program specifically the franchise fee. This is not a perfect solution. It’s not a solution
that’s going to be fair to 100 percent of the properties in the city. Perfection’s an elusive goal.
100 percent fairness is an elusive goal but the City Council shouldn’t be bypassing the good to
try to seek the perfect and this is the best solution that I’ve heard.
Mayor Ryan: Thank you Mr. Mertz.
Alan Nikolai: Alan Nikolai, 6570 Galpin Boulevard. I have a question and I don’t know if it’s
even possible but it was on the pie chart about commercial versus residential. Can you do a two
tier taxing levy, commercial at a higher rate than residential to get the numbers skewed back to
that I think it was 63/37 or something like that. Is that even legal or possible?
Greg Sticha: If I understand your question correctly, if you look at the proposed charges on this
chart a residential customer will pay $5 per electric and gas utility and if you look in comparison
to a large electric commercial customer they will pay $290 for their electric utilities so under this
proposal it has been created to have a larger dollar increase to be paid for by the commercial
property owners. Now if you question is has the City Council considered even larger portion
than that to.
Alan Nikolai: I’m not talking about the franchise fee. I’m talking property tax levy.
Greg Sticha: Oh you’re talking property tax levy.
Mayor Ryan: Levy.
Greg Sticha: The answer to that is no. The Minnesota State Property Tax system is structured
based on the taxable market values in your town. So because over 80 percent of the total taxable
market value of all properties in the city of Chanhassen are residential properties the City
Council cannot alter that.
Alan Nikolai: So you can’t do two tier, one commercial, one residential?
Greg Sticha: Not for property taxes, no.
Alan Nikolai: Okay. The second thing I guess I have is concern with the flat rate tax. $5 dollars
per, doesn’t matter if you live in a $2 million home or if you live is a $100,000 home you’re
paying $5 a month.
Greg Sticha: Under this proposal yes.
Chanhassen City Council – October 28, 2019
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Alan Nikolai: I have a problem with that. You’re basically pensioners are going to be taking it
on the beak with this franchise fee. The ones that least can afford it, they’re going to be paying
as much as someone that really can afford it. Can the franchise fee be part of the property tax,
what your assessed value of a property collected and that always may be a three tier. $3, $5, $7.
$300,000 less, $300,000 to $700,000, $700,000 plus. See what I’m saying? Is that possible?
Greg Sticha: Under the State Statutes you cannot charge different identical commercial and
residential classes different rates for a franchise fee so the answer to that is statutorily no. Now
one thing I would like to point out is while $1.7 million of the total funding we’re talking about
is coming from a franchise fee under this proposal, an additional million dollars in total when it’s
all said and done, assuming the council follows through with the preliminary levy it set and using
the library levy in 2022, that total funding will be just shy of a million dollars and is based on the
property tax system so it is based on value of home so a portion of the total funding for, under
this proposal is based on property value and so if you look at this scenario just the $350,000
portion of the property tax increase that the City Council is considering for 2020, a $200,000
house is going to pay $13 dollars and a $1 million house is going to pay $82. So the proposal
has been structured very carefully in that we have taken into consideration that concern, among
other concerns, and tried to offset and weigh as many of those as possible to come up with
something that’s equitable using both a property tax and a franchise fee.
Alan Nikolai: I guess I don’t understand. You said you can’t have two different tiers and yet if
you look at the commercial there’s multiple tiers. In the commercial you can do multiple tiers
but residential you can’t?
Greg Sticha: As long as they’re within different classes yes you can charge different rates. So
residential there’s only one billing class for their customers in that billing class so the answer is
in residential no. In commercial yes because there are different billing classes within that
customer base.
Todd Gerhardt: For electric and gas. Not taxes.
Alan Nikolai: I understand but at the same time it’s kind of tying your hands because I’m just
looking at the people on pensions or just on social security hardly making it, they’re going to be
paying a higher percentage compared to someone that’s a, that can afford it and they living in a
million dollar home. You know it’s just, I have serious concern about that. Another concern I
have is basically borrowing from Peter to pay Paul on the library. That $200,000. That’s not
crooked. That’s like saying the parks department oh we’re going to take $200,000 from the
parks departments and we’re going to give over to the, so we can buy some new equipment for
the city. Wait a minute. You’re baiting and switching there. If there’s that levy was supposed to
be for the library why doesn’t it stay with the library? Or whatever department. Okay that’s
supposed to be for say parks or streets, you’re taking from one to the other shifting.
Greg Sticha: I can answer that question.
Chanhassen City Council – October 28, 2019
25
Alan Nikolai: I’m just saying it’s more to the council here, that’s not crooked. That’s frankly
slight of hand of how you’re, what you’re doing, you’re taxing is supposed to be for that and
now you’re going to put it for something else which adds a concern by Bethany earlier about this
dedicated oh yeah but it can’t, wait a minute. You’re seeing it here. You’re taking the library
fund and putting it towards streets. That’s.
Greg Sticha: Let me make one clarification on that particular item and this may or may not
answer your question satisfactorily but the library levy I’m talking about is related to the bonds
that were issued for that levy for that library built 20 years ago. So after 2021 the debt will be
paid off. So you now have, it’s like no longer having a mortgage on your house so the City has
the capacity and the total debt for that is $467,000 per year. So what the City Council has the
option to do is use that mortgage if you will, that you no longer have to pay towards the library
building, to use it for another purpose. And I don’t want to say it’s common that sometimes
those levies get used for other purposes once those buildings are paid for but it is a good way to
use those levies that don’t impact the taxpayers by okay, one year taking it off and then the next
year asking for $200,000 for roads so that’s related to the mortgage payment if you will on the
library no longer being in existence.
Mayor Ryan: Mr. Nikolai I’d like, because I know you directed it at council as well. That is
what is proposed for 2022 but as every year when we go through our budget process and we look
at all the different levies that we’re you know evaluating for, as our overall levy conversation,
that is what will be discussed. It’s part of this proposal but it is not money that has been shifted
or moved or anything of that nature so like I, I think it’s very important to be clear because these
are the levies that we evaluate as part of the budgeting process every year and this is what is
proposed for 2022 but no council member, we have not said that this is how we are going to
reallocate this debt so it’s proposed. It is not the confirmed solution and I think that’s important
to clarify.
Alan Nikolai: I understand it might be legal but is it ethical to the taxpayers? About
transparency, I don’t think it’s ethical. At all to take from one fund and shifting it. I understand
that it might be legal. There’s a big difference between ethical and legal. I guess I’m going to
make a recommendation, I do not support the franchise fee. At all. Based on, I think frankly if
you really want a tax increase do a referendum and let the voters pass it. Not the City Council.
The voters. Do a straight referendum. If you got, have your case the voters will support it. If
you don’t make your case they’re not going to support it. I think this, all the taxpayers should
have a right to vote on it and they should vote on it basically one year from now at the primary
elections. Put X amount of money. This is what we need to do. If it’s $3 million a year for X
amount of years, but let the voters have a say on it. That’s my opinion. Thank you.
Mayor Ryan: Great, thank you. Mr. Koch.
Chanhassen City Council – October 28, 2019
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Larry Koch: Larry Koch, 471 Bighorn Drive. Thank you. First of all I’ll reflect on the previous
speaker. I too agree, and I expressed this when we had the, I guess maybe it was public hearing
before at least 2 of you were, or 3 of you were elected to the council and I expressed my concern
that this type of a tax is the most regressive tax you can possibly have. It has the most significant
impact on low and fixed income people and that, I also have that concern. And there’s no good
way of probably of raising taxes but I think that needs to be considered and I understand the
whole goal here is so that the residential taxpayers pay a smaller piece of the pie that’s required
to fix the streets and we want to go throw it onto the commercial properties. I mean that’s what
we’re doing. We’re saying here’s the amount of dollars we need. We want to throw a bigger
piece on the commercial properties than what we can do using the normal property taxes. Just so
everybody knows that. You know we’re not hiding the ball which leads me to another comment
by the previous speaker. I don’t like, and I don’t think there’s any citizen here that likes the idea
of taking money that was approved for a library and all of a sudden shifting it to another purpose.
And again whether you can do it or not I don’t think is the question. The question really is, is
that good government and I say that’s really bad government because that leaves a bad taste in
everybody’s mouth. Then you don’t get trust. If you don’t have trust how are you going to
govern ultimately? Actually my biggest point before the prior speaker spoke was I don’t think
we’re raising enough money. In my example Frontier Trail has been in a despicable condition
for the 30 years that I’ve lived in Chanhassen and nothing has been done about it. It has patches
on patches on patches and when I looked at the chart I didn’t see a place where Frontier Trail
was going to be repaired. Certainly not in the first 5 years and if I missed it please correct me.
The problem with Frontier Trail is not only it’s a bus route for example. A lot of, it’s a collector
for a lot of people going onto 5 and ultimately into the cities. And another issue is that there’s a
deficiency in the storm water pondage and draining on that, on the oldest portion which is at the
bottom of the ravine and that has an impact on our water quality okay in Lotus Lake. And I
think that we really need to look at really doing it right and actually spending more money.
None of us like to pay taxes. I think that’s a given but when you have streets in that condition it
doesn’t speak well for our city. Somebody drives on that, what do they think of our city? They
go driving down our streets, which is another issue I have, we’ve got grass and weeds growing
out of every one of the major boulevards. I grew up on a farm. We never had weeds growing
out of roads or anything else like that and so we need to raise sufficient money so not only can
we take care of our roads but we can maintain them and I’m very concerned what I observed this
summer on 78th Street. Now I don’t know if that was all the city’s money or somebody else’s
money threw in there but that was a simple sealcoat okay with gravel on it. On the street that I
ride by almost every day for the past 5 years on my bicycle and I would have to say, since I’ve
seen most of the streets at least in the middle part, that was probably the last road that needed to
be done. It was in relatively good condition compared especially to Frontier Trail and especially
I think it’s Conestoga which is only about 3 blocks away. So one we need to spend more money
but I’m really concerned at how we determine which streets and roads we’re going to repair and
I’ll leave you with the last point. I was in these chambers I believe some, it’s probably been
almost 10 years ago when they redid Bighorn Drive all the way from Kerber. My street in front
of my house was less than 15 years old. It needed a mill and overlay like I need another hole in
my head. Now I finally convinced the council that if you want to go waste your money don’t
Chanhassen City Council – October 28, 2019
27
spend my tax money wasting the money when there are other streets that need it so I have a
grave concern about the decision process for deciding which streets and roads need to be fixed
when. And in particular Frontier Trail needs to be fixed now and I don’t know if that’s a million
dollar job or two million dollar job but it needs to be done now instead of throwing away a lot of
money patching over patches. And so if you need to know we can do bonding. Go raise some
money. Let’s go fix it right and pay for it if we have to over 20 years. At least we get it done
right and we’re going to maintain these costs instead of having everything deteriorating more
quickly and wasting money doing patches on patches. So I’m in favor of raising the money.
There’s no good way to raise it but I think we need to do more because our city streets I think
need more money and they need more repairs so I would like you to reconsider that and
particularly the maintenance of our streets, whether it be from weed control, etcetera, to do it
right. And I forgot one thing about the weed control. So the seal and overcoat. So what did they
do? They go and squirt the oil over the top of the weeds thinking that oh that’s good enough
right? Well you know what happens? The oil never gets down into the crack to seal it so now
you’ve got a weed that is, sucks up moisture. It’s going to, the moisture’s going to go right down
to the pavement. What happens when everything freezes right? It breaks up. That’s when you
go down the street and you see where you have bituminous next to a concrete gutter and you see
all these break out’s. That’s what happens when water gets in there and it freezes and it breaks
it. So that also needs to be done so please raise the money. Please put money towards
maintenance of these streets so that they’re done properly. Thank you.
Mayor Ryan: Thank you Mr. Koch. Anybody else that would like to come forward?
Ann Miller: Ann Miller, 6561 Fox Path. I agree with the previous two people on everything that
they’ve said and also was, were toll roads, can roads be toll roads? Was that ever thought of? Or
I’m serious about it. Especially for commercial, could there be a toll road in Chanhassen?
Could it be Highway 5? I don’t know. It just seems that, I agree that we need to do it right
instead of mill and overlay and my street Fox Path is an example. It was just done 2 years ago. I
personally paid over $2,000 to have it done. It’s already breaking up. You can drive down and
see it. That’s a perfect example. And also is Pleasant View Road eligible for MSA? Funds
because I don’t see it listed anywhere.
Todd Gerhardt: Yeah it connects to two major collector, 101 and then it goes over to Powers
another collector so it’s on our MSA street collector program.
Ann Miller: And at some of these junctures like for instance where Valley View Road runs into
County Road 101 right now they’ve got all kinds of pink lines around what’s broken up. It looks
like they’re going to patch that. I’m not sure is that, is 101 just a county road or is it, I think it’s
called, you’ve changed it to Chanhassen haven’t you?
Todd Gerhardt: Well it’s a county road south of Highway 5 down to Pioneer and then it
becomes a state highway from Pioneer down to the lower whey or what is county road 61 and
that is in the works of being turned back to the county so in 2020, this spring in 2020-2021 101
Chanhassen City Council – October 28, 2019
28
will be reconstructed south of Pioneer down to the roundabout and then that will become a
county road. As you go north of Highway 5 up to Crosstown that is still a state highway but
there may be agreements with the State that Hennepin County and Carver County may be
maintaining that.
Ann Miller: …where it’s 101, is that Carver County?
Todd Gerhardt: No that’s Hennepin County.
Ann Miller: That’s Hennepin County.
Todd Gerhardt: Yep.
Ann Miller: So as far as doing the roundabout where Pleasant View runs into 101, and the
reason I’m bringing the roundabouts up I think we need more roundabouts in Chanhassen and
I’m just thinking of slowing traffic down as it enters one area and I don’t know Minnewashta
Parkway when I hear about that I’m thinking well why wouldn’t you have roundabouts but the
other thing is what about delinquencies if people decided not to pay their franchise fee.
Todd Gerhardt: Well if you do not pay your electric and gas bill they will shut your electric and
gas bill off.
Ann Miller: Okay because it’s.
Todd Gerhardt: Or shut your electricity off. Not your bill but your, they’ll keep sending you a
bill and there will be charges on there plus fees.
Ann Miller: Okay. Well and I also agree with Bethany that I’m afraid that, about number 2.
The additional funding for financing the City’s share only. About what other ways you would
put our money so I am against it right now thank you.
Mayor Ryan: Thank you.
Todd Gerhardt: Mayor, council. This pre-dates you but we did look at toll road for Highway
212 as a part of funding for that and there was overwhelming no support for a toll road for 212.
Or anywhere really in Minnesota so people will use the sane lanes and pay a fee for that but they
want to have options and there was no support for a toll road.
Mayor Ryan: Perfect and Mr. Gerhardt, well I’ll save my question for later. Anybody else want
to come forward? Alright with nobody else coming forward I will close the public hearing and
return it to council for questions or comments. Councilman McDonald.
Chanhassen City Council – October 28, 2019
29
Councilman McDonald: Well I guess I’ll start. You know we’ve been doing this for almost 3
years trying to decide how we’re going to do this. Everything that you brought forward tonight
we have discussed. We looked at bonding. We looked at a number of different ways to do this.
We looked at how do we not have too big of an impact on the residents. How do we do it fairly.
There is no way to come up with a way to do it fairly. The next big thing you have to decide is
do you want your roads fixed or not? We went through all that. How do we determine what
roads need to be fixed. Do we really need to do all these the way that staff had laid them out.
This past winter shows that you have a bad winter and all of a sudden the roads go to hell in a
handbasket. It’s as simple as that so then at that point you’ve deteriorated the roads even more.
You drive up the cost even more and the problem just gets worst and worst. You talk about
bonding. We looked at bonding and in about 10 to 15 years all of a sudden the debt service load
gets even bigger than this. That’s not a good answer either. All I can tell you is we have looked
at everything and the councils have gone through. We’ve butted heads over all of this. We’ve
tried to find ways to again not impact people. I’m in favor of this franchise fee because it hits
everybody in the city, not just the homeowners and the taxpayers. It goes after non-profits. It
goes after anybody that owns property in the city and I just have this belief that everybody
should contribute to the roads in the city and this is the only way to do it. Otherwise with
property taxes if you’re a non exempt property you don’t pay property taxes. So this is the only
way to make sure everybody pays for the roads. Again looking at how important are the roads?
It’s the number one thing. Mr. Koch brings up the whole thing about his street. Your’s is not the
only street I hear these things about. As soon as a road gets to a point where there’s the first little
crack or first little pavement our public works department hears about it and everybody wants
their street fixed now. In order to do that it takes money. What we’ve tried to put together I
think is at least a plan for how do we address all the roads within the city. Is it perfect? No but
again at this point it’s a proposed plan and I think that as we’ve said each year City Council is
going to have to go over the pavement management program and look at how much are we going
to spend and where are we going to spend it and each year we always demand of staff yeah go
out, look at the roads. Tell us which ones need to be fixed. Why do they need to be fixed so
that’s on each future council. I think this council has done it’s job as far as looking at the
problem and we’ve come to the solution that there’s no easy way to fix it. It’s as simple as that.
There is just no easy way to fix it. One of the other things I wanted to address is okay the
disparity. Again I don’t know how to solve that. $5 does not seem that bad on a residential
home and we looked at all kinds of numbers to make this work. Is it too much for someone on a
fixed income? It could be. I don’t know. Is it too much for someone with a million dollar
house? It certainly could be because they could be living beyond their means. Any number you
pick is going to be arbitrary. It is going to depend on the individual that is getting hit with this
fee as to whether or not it’s fair or unfair so I don’t know what to do about that. Again what it
comes down to is we’ve got to fix roads. What we’ve come up with is a plan to do that. You
asked about a referendum. That’s not the way you fund roads. That really isn’t the way you do
it. You may do it for parks and you may do it for other improvements you want to make with the
city but roads are taken care of by pavement management funds. They’re taken care of through
your taxes. Every city in this state does that. I don’t know of anybody that goes out and does
bonding to do the normal pavement management. If I’m wrong please correct me but that’s one
Chanhassen City Council – October 28, 2019
30
of the constraints that we’ve got to deal with. Otherwise what we’re going to be holding levies
every 2 to 3 years? That’s not realistic. So I hear what everybody says and like I say over the
past 3 years we have looked at everything you have brought up and again the conclusion I come
to and I can’t speak for the rest of the council is, this is not an easy problem to solve. It’s as
simple as that but the most important thing what we have to agree upon roads need to be fixed
and if we agree upon that then we’ve got to find a way to do it and this is our proposal to do it.
It’s the most fair I think of all the proposals we looked at. It’s not perfect but it accomplishes
what the residents tell us they want and what they want is they want roads they can drive on.
The want roads that are in good repair and they want roads that they can depend upon. This is
the only way I know of to do it and I haven’t heard any other suggestions from anybody else in
all the 3 years of another way to do this that really meets the requirements. I’m sorry for that.
You know this is, this is not an easy thing to come up with but this is the best solution to really
what’s a very bad problem and that’s the fact our roads deteriorate so that’s why I’m in favor of
it. I would support the franchise fee and all the other amendments that go with it and again I do
that because over the past 3 years or so we have beat this thing up all over the place and there is
no easy answer. This is the best solution and that’s why I’m in favor of it. Thank you.
Mayor Ryan: Thank you Councilman McDonald. Councilwoman Tjornhom.
Councilwoman Tjornhom: Councilman McDonald I have to say I agree with you. The roads
need to be fixed and I think that you kind of laid and established out the whole process that
we’ve been through for at least 3 years looking at the budget. Looking at the real numbers and
seeing the potential problems we’re going to have. The bumps in the road so to speak in the
following years so I don’t disagree that we need to fix our roads. That we need to have a plan to
fix our roads and we need to have a funding source to fix our roads. What I do disagree, or what
I do not feel comfortable with is the way we’re going about it. The process. Yes it’s true a lot of
these cities that have these fees they do use the roads, or these fees for fixing roads. For road
improvement projects but there’s no guarantee for that and that’s what I can’t get past. The fact
that we could say yes. We could tell everybody they could see these slides and they could see
that yes the City is going to use these funds. The $1.7 million dollars to fix roads. What I’m
concerned about though is that alright so in 3 years from now new faces are sitting here tonight,
or in 3 years and they decide they’d like to do something different so they’ll take those funds.
They could take this $1.7 million dollars and use it towards a new project and then levy again for
roads and so I think there’s a potential to use this as a stepping stone for other projects in the
future and so that’s why I can’t support this. If there is a definite way where I could just firmly
agree and say yes we need to fix our roads. This is a great way to do it because I do agree that it
is, nothing’s fair so it is probably the most fair process because we are, we’re reaching all those
people in our city that have to pay utility bill and so it’s not just people. It’s not just businesses.
It is non-profits and so then it is more fair because those non-profits and those businesses they do
bring in people. They bring in the businesses bring in trucks. The non-profits bring in a lot of
people so I think that it’s the most equitable way of funding our roads. I just don’t think it’s the
most sustainable way because I’m afraid that at some point, like I said these funds will be
Chanhassen City Council – October 28, 2019
31
allocated for other projects and then people will be levied even more for roads so I cannot
support it.
Mayor Ryan: Thank you Councilwoman. Councilman McDonald. I mean I’m sorry, Campion.
Councilman Campion: Alright so I do agree with nearly everything that Councilman McDonald
said. I think that he said it very well. This is a very difficult problem that we have wrestled with
for the past few years. We’ve had heated debates on it. We’ve tried to get creative and think
outside the box. Come up with new ways to solve it. It’s a problem that just gets worst year
after year. If we do nothing the problem gets worst next year for the council to try to address. If
it goes 2 years out it gets even bigger. I think that this is our job as councilmembers is to deal
with difficult problems like this and given all the facts and doing our homework I believe that
this is the least bad alternative to solve and address this problem and I believe that we’ll be held
accountable for this as well, as we should be. If a future council misappropriates these funds and
uses them in ways that the residents don’t approve of then they do have opportunity to weigh in
at the next election. And yeah that’s it. I do support this and I plan to vote for it.
Mayor Ryan: Thank you Councilman Campion. I’ll wrap up here with my comments before we
turn over to a motion. I too don’t take this lightly. I think this is a really challenging decision. I
voted against it last year because I wasn’t comfortable with the information. I wasn’t
comfortable with the plan that was laid out. I just felt that there were missing pieces in order to
move forward with it. I know we’ve talked about that, that this has been discussed for the last 2
to 3 years. I would argue that this has been a conversation for probably closer to 15 years of how
are we going to continue to fund the roads. I mean when we’re looking at our fund balance and
we are told that we are essentially going to be out of funding for our roads in 2021 and that
would be with the decrease of going every other year, how are we going to pay for our roads? I
mean this has been a long term problem, concern that has needed addressing and it hasn’t been
addressed and by putting surpluses into the pavement management fund or taking when projects
come in under budget and putting it back into the pavement management program, that is not a
long term plan for funding our roads and we need to make these tough decisions which aren’t
easy because of fairness and equity and the challenge it is for every taxpayer whether you’re on a
fixed income or you live in a million dollar home these are taxes and you have elected your city
officials to do right by you and spend your tax dollars accordingly and that is why we had asked,
council had asked for a deeper dive and more specificity around what roads are going to be done.
What is going to look like. We need to address potholes. You know is a mill and overlay going
to be better than a reconstruction and so the engineering department really took a deep dive into
this entire process to come back to council and say, here is our long term plan. Not only for this
year but well into the future and that is something really important when you’re talking about
allocating funds for now and into the future that there is a plan. You know as Chanhassen our
motto is you know a community for life. Well we have to be preparing for that and that’s part of
these tough decisions is how are going to plan, prepare and fund projects that we have. We, to
your point Mr. Koch when you said look at bonding. That was one of the very first things that
we did at the beginning of the year and we had multiple meetings on what would bonding do to
Chanhassen City Council – October 28, 2019
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the City and the City takes great pride in having a AAA bond rating and really a strong financial
position for you know for the strength of our city and when we evaluated whether or not that was
an option, it was not an option that this council believed in because it puts more hardship on the
City then need be and so we wanted to look at other options. As Councilman McDonald said
we’ve gone through every number. We’ve gone through every percentage in terms of how can
we divvy this up to make sure that it is most fair and this was the hard solution but the best
solution that we as council could come up with. I know there was concern, I share concerns
about, as Councilwoman Tjornhom says about how are these funds going to be allocated. But to
Councilman Campion’s point that’s why you do your job in electing city officials to make sure
that they are utilizing the taxes correctly and whether the franchise fee could be changed by a
future council, well every fund that we have in our budget those monies can be around, moved
around if there is not oversight by the council members and that is our job and that is why we
spend months upon months reviewing the budgets. This is not something that happens
overnight. This is not something that all of a sudden in December when we set the levy it just,
we just come upon it. These are long term discussions that we as a council have with staff. We
challenge them to get us better answers. Different answers so that when we have to actually take
a vote we are comfortable with the vote that we are putting forward. So you know when I look
at this I look at the roads. They need to be sustained, maintained and improved and those were
the 3 words that I kept coming up with is because that is the long term plan for what I think that
our community needs with the expectations of residents in this city with the services that
Chanhassen provides and part of that is infrastructure and maintaining that and that is, you know
that is the responsibility of this council as well as future councils so it is a very difficult decision
to implement a franchise fee because it is not done in the history of this city and so I know I
certainly don’t come by that lightly but it is something when I look at our fund balance we don’t
have a choice. We have been put in this situation and we need to do something about it and so
therefore I will be supporting this franchise fee. With that is there anybody that would like to
make a motion?
Councilman McDonald: Mayor?
Mayor Ryan: Yeah.
Councilman McDonald: I’ll make the motion.
Mayor Ryan: Councilman McDonald.
Councilman McDonald: I would propose the City Council adopts the attached franchise
agreement ordinances and franchise fee ordinances.
Mayor Ryan: We have a valid motion. Is there a second?
Councilman Campion: Second.
Chanhassen City Council – October 28, 2019
33
Mayor Ryan: With a valid motion and a second, any further comments?
Councilman McDonald moved, Councilman Campion seconded that the City Council
adopts the attached franchise agreement ordinances and franchise fee ordinances. All
voted in favor, except Councilwoman Tjornhom who opposed, and the motion carried with
a vote of 3 to 1.
Mayor Ryan: That motion carries 3-1.
PUBLIC HEARING: CERTIFICATION OF DELINQUENT SEWER AND WATER
ACCOUNTS TO THE COUNTY AUDITOR.
Greg Sticha: Good evening Mayor and council. On an annual basis the City Council considers
the certification of delinquent utility bills to the county auditor. Under State Statute this is
allowed, I believe it is Section. Roger can you help me with the section number?
Roger Knutson: 444.
Greg Sticha: 444. These accounts have been delinquent at a minimum of 3 months and in some
cases have been delinquent for over a year. The attached list shows the number of accounts as
well as the dollar value of those delinquent accounts. It’s almost identical as to last year and the
year before so there’s no real change in the amount of delinquent accounts as compared to
previous years. So with that and without any further discussion I would open, ask the council to
open a public hearing to take any comments from any potential delinquent account holders that
might be here this evening and then after the public hearing ask the council to certify the
delinquent list to Carver County.
Mayor Ryan: Okay I hereby open the public hearing. Please step forward and state your name
and address for the record. If nobody here I close the public hearing and return it for a motion.
Councilman Campion: I’ll make a motion.
Mayor Ryan: Yes.
Councilman Campion: Alright I make a motion that the City Council adopts the resolution
certifying delinquent utility accounts to the county auditor.
Mayor Ryan: We have a valid motion. Is there a second?
Councilman McDonald: Second.
Mayor Ryan: With a valid motion and second all those in favor please signify by saying aye.
Chanhassen City Council – October 28, 2019
34
Resolution #2019-52: Councilman Campion moved, Councilman McDonald seconded that
the City Council adopts a resolution certifying delinquent utility accounts to the County
Auditor. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 4 to 0.
Mayor Ryan: That motion carries 4-0.
COUNCIL PRESENTATIONS.
Mayor Ryan: With no new business are there any council presentations tonight?
Councilman McDonald: Madam Mayor if I could.
Mayor Ryan: Yes.
Councilman McDonald: Last council meeting I was not here. I was actually in New York City.
As part of my duties with the City Council I represent the City of Chanhassen with Southwest
Transit and what I was in New York for was the Transit, well the Transit, the National Transit
Association meetings where they do education about public transit. Where the trends are as far
as public transit. Where things are going. Where they would like things to go and some of the
things I learned from all of this is that public transit has thoroughly embraced the idea of electric
public transit and they’re trying to put together a number of programs in a number of cities
where that can become a reality. There’s been a lot of pressure on manufacturers, bus
manufacturers and battery manufacturers to make an electric bus and I think one of the things
that happened in Minneapolis, Minneapolis tried to electrify one of their lines and it was a big
failure and they had to pull the buses and part of the problem was they don’t have the
infrastructure to charge the buses. It takes a lot of electricity to charge a bus and that’s
something that all of these cities, and there was a big emphasis on the west coast and the east
coast where a lot of this innovation is coming from but they’re looking for solutions to this and I
think what you’re going to see is the things that cities, there were also city leaders there. We just
went through the whole tonight about a franchise fee. In the larger cities across the U.S. what
they’re now starting to look at is they’re going to start implementing congestion taxes and New
York City is supposed to roll their’s out either this month or next month but like London,
England they’re going to look at certain areas and are going to try to keep cars out of those areas
and they’re going to do that by taxing them and that includes taxi cabs, anything with an internal
combustion engine. So there is a real move throughout the nation to go with electric buses and
all these things. Southwest Transit, we’ve been looking at this for golly I think the first one I
saw was almost 5 years ago and at that point you were lucky if they could go 20 miles and the
problem is most of the routes with Southwest are 20 plus miles so also you needed large
charging stations and infrastructure. While they’ve gotten a lot better it’s not quite as bad as
what it was but the biggest problem they have is range. They still are around 20 to 25 miles.
They haven’t pushed that much higher than that. Charging is easier than what it was even
though Metro Transit couldn’t charge their buses. And I think that again that’s the trend of what
everybody is going toward is that they want to see public transportation instead of being done by
Chanhassen City Council – October 28, 2019
35
internal combustion engines being done by electric vehicles and you’re going to see a lot of
policies. Minneapolis was there and they are also looking at this whole thing about congestion
in the downtown area. They’re looking at ways to again encourage people to take public transit.
To ride scooters. This was the first time there was a large discussion about scooters. Every city
has got it’s horror stories about these E-Scooters and there’s a lot of talk about that they need to
regulate them and so that was part of what this conference looked at was how can we do a
unified approach to this so that at least the scooter manufacturers or the owners of the scooters
aren’t trying to meet regulations in 20 different cities that they just can’t meet. The cost at that
point gets to be too high so I guess my time away from here was well worth it at least as far as
looking at public transit and how that will eventually affect us in this area so that’s what I was
doing was learning even more about public transit.
Mayor Ryan: Great. Great update, thank you.
Councilman McDonald: You’re welcome.
Mayor Ryan: Alright no other council presentations but thank you Councilman McDonald.
ADMINISTRATIVE PRESENTATIONS. None.
CORRESPONDENCE DISCUSSION. None.
Councilwoman Tjornhom moved, Councilman McDonald seconded to adjourn the
meeting. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 4 to 0. The
City Council meeting was adjourned at 9:20 p.m.
Submitted by Todd Gerhardt
City Manager
Prepared by Nann Opheim