CC VER 2020 02 24CHANHASSEN CITY COUNCIL
REGULAR MEETING
FEBRUARY 24, 2020
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, Councilwoman Coleman, and Councilman Campion
STAFF PRESENT: Todd Gerhardt, Jake Foster, Charlie Howley, City Attorney James Monge,
Chief Don Johnson and Lt. Lance Pearce
PUBLIC PRESENT:
Roger and Dorothy Downing 7200 Juniper Avenue, Excelsior
Tom O’Brien 449 Summerfield Drive
Mayor Ryan: Good evening everyone and welcome to our council meeting. To those of you that
are watching at home or livestreaming from the Chanhassen website, thank you for joining us.
For the record we have all of our members present tonight. 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. No public announcements.
PUBLIC ANNOUNCEMENTS: None.
CONSENT AGENDA:
Mayor Ryan: Next we have the consent agenda. Tonight we have consent agenda items number
1 through 8. All items listed under the consent agenda are considered to be routine by the City
Council and will be considered as a single motion based on staff recommendation. There’ll be
no separate discussion of these items. If discussion is desired by anyone on council or here in
the chambers you may request to have that item removed or have it considered separately on our
agenda this evening. Are there any items that the council would like to consider separately?
Councilman McDonald.
Councilman McDonald: I have a question. I received an email before I came to council where a
consent item was added. Is that included in here or is there actually 9?
Todd Gerhardt: There is 9 Mayor.
Mayor Ryan: No it was initially 1 through 7. I think number 8 is the.
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Councilman McDonald: Okay so it has been added?
Mayor Ryan: Yes, it was added.
Councilman McDonald: I just wanted clarification.
Mayor Ryan: Yes, yes so the last, it initially was 1 through 7 and the last add for the 101 is
number 8 so with that said is there any items that the council would like to consider separately?
Todd Gerhardt: Mayor would you like to give me an opportunity just to give a quick summary
of item 8. What that is is that it allows the contractor to have access to the Riley-Purgatory-
Bluff Creek Watershed District parcel for some clear cutting of trees and our attorney wanted
City Council’s full action on that item. So to stay on schedule we wanted to do it now versus 2
weeks from now.
Mayor Ryan: Okay, thank you for the clarification. Is there a motion to approve consent agenda
items number 1 through 8?
Councilwoman Tjornhom: So moved.
Mayor Ryan: Is there a second?
Councilman McDonald: Second.
Councilwoman Tjornhom moved, Councilman McDonald seconded that the City Council
approve the following consent agenda items pursuant to the City Manager’s
recommendations:
1. Approve City Council Minutes dated February 10, 2020
2. Receive Planning Commission Minutes dated February 4, 2020
3. Accepting the Public Trail and Utility Improvements in Beehive Homes Project No.
2012-09
4. Highway 101 Occupancy Agreement with Halama
5. Approve 2020 Key Financial Strategies and Legislative Priorities
6. Approve Consultant Contract Amendments for the Highway 101 Improvements (Pioneer
Trail to Flying Cloud Drive)
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7. Resolution #2020-11: Accept Bids and Award Contract for Pleasant View Road
Channel Improvements Project
8. Right of Entry Agreement for the Highway 101 RPBCWD Parcel
All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 5 to 0.
VISITOR PRESENTATIONS. None.
FIRE DEPARTMENT/LAW ENFORCEMENT UPDATE.
Mayor Ryan: First up we have the fire department and law enforcement update. Chief.
Chief Don Johnson: Good evening Mayor and council. The fire department update for the
month of February. Staffing remains steady at 42 of 45 firefighters. We did conduct interviews
with 4 candidates for this next year’s hiring process. When I authored this report we had made
one conditional offer. Since then we’ve made a second so happy report we have 2 additional
firefighters coming on and they’ll not need any academy this year which will help out, help our
numbers right away. They’re already coming trained so. In January we responded to 80 calls for
service. One chief only call. 19 day only calls. 28 duty crew calls and 32 general alarms. 52 of
those were rescue EMS calls that include 11 motor vehicle accidents. We responded to 3 fires.
One being mutual aid to assist in Eden Prairie a cooking fire and one car fire on Highway 5 and
Galpin. Other activities that took place we’ve got, we assisted with Feb Fest. Assisted several
Minnesota Chief’s activities related to the conference and administrative budgets. It’s one of the
things that I give my time to and returning that back to the State Chief’s. We attended an
emergency manager’s meeting with Carver County Public Health to discuss the coronavirus on
February 6th. Lieutenant Pearce and I conducted a table top exercise with Westwood staff on
February 8th and this drill is a continuing part of our main functional exercise which we’re going
to be handling in May. And we also assisted Victoria with a fire ground command training on
February 10th. The Fire Marshal’s activities for the month of January, Life Time Corporate II
had taken quite a bit of the Fire Marshal’s time up as we got that building set and open so I think
we’re done with the Certificate of Occupancy. The new buildings off of Galpin are also in
substantial completion and there’s quite a bit of testing going on in there and those buildings
with inspections and Don assisted the Bernard Group with another round of CPR and AED and
choking class training for their employees, as well as a Summerwood tenants meetings so just
some stuff that we’re doing in the community outside of responding to calls and that’s all I have
for my update.
Mayor Ryan: Council any questions for the Chief? I’ll have one. What was the conversation
around the coronavirus?
Chief Don Johnson: Well in regards to having Ridgeview there, Carver County Public Health, a
lot of information from the CDC is kind of all systems are just kind of normal right now. The
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regular flu affects us seasonally every year so there hasn’t been any real changes. Since that
meeting I believe was February 8th they did come out with some changes for dispatch now so
anybody that calls in with flu like systems they’ll ask them about travel and then relay that
information to responders so our normal protocols are just to kind of try to do patient assessment
from a little ways away and if we need to put on masks. Just regular surgical masks but we
haven’t really seen any difficult issues with flu or any coronavirus here yet for us so we’ll keep,
I’ll keep the City and the Council up on what’s coming from the CDC as we get it in from Carver
County.
Mayor Ryan: Great, thank you. Appreciate it. Lieutenant. Sergeant, welcome. Thank you.
Sergeant Tyler Stahn: Good evening everybody. Not the Lieutenant. Sergeant Tyler Stahn for
those who don’t know me and I’ll be providing the January sheriff’s office update. First I’d like
to state that there were 829 total calls that the sheriff’s office, total activity within the city of
Chanhassen for the month of January. Our Group A crimes, the predominant calls for service
were felony thefts. With regard to the breakdown of those calls for services, just under half of all
the calls for services included traffic stops. Of the non-criminal calls those were predominantly
alarms, medicals, animal calls and suspicious activity. And with regards to our training update,
as of tomorrow all of our staff will have undergone our current medical training put on by
Ridgeview Medical Center. All of our staff has also completed emergency vehicle operation
training. With regards to community relations update, just this last Saturday we conducted a
Coffee with a Cop at Caribou Coffee here in Chanhassen. Councilwoman Julia Coleman was
also present at that and then earlier in January I did a presentation at the Chaska High School for
a teacher there who I know talking to the kids about just in general what it’s like to be in law
enforcement. And with the rest our staffing update. We currently have 2 people who are out on
work related injuries, however we have been able to manage our staffing in this situation. And
that is it for the sheriff’s office update. Are there any questions that you have?
Mayor Ryan: Council any questions? No, thank you Sergeant.
LAW ENFORCEMENT ANNUAL REVIEW.
Mayor Ryan: Next we have our annual law enforcement review.
Lt. Lance Pearce: Madam Mayor, council, I’m going to go through the sheriff’s office 3 year
annual review. I did a 3 year versus a 5 year which Lieutenant Kittelson did last year because we
switched over from MNSIS and NBRS in mid-2016 so this gives us a 3 year breakdown of so we
can compare the same information. So the first slide I have on here is our total criminal offenses
and you can see in 2017 we had 737 crimes and in 2019 we’re down to 692. It’s a reduction of 6
percent and so I did some research and nationally and as reflected in the city of Chanhassen and
the county as a whole crimes are down. According to the FBI I did look to 2017 to 2018 and
nationally violent crimes are down 3.9 percent and property crimes are down 6.9 percent so it6’s
pretty reflective in the city as well. For medical for 2017 we had 1,004. We’re down to 931 for
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a reduction of 7 percent. So I looked at how much time we’re actually spending on these
medicals and it’s pretty consistent, about 35-37 minutes a piece so it’s pretty consistent from
what we’ve seen in the past. Mental health, mental health calls are down from 223 in 2017 to
120 so my guess on this is we’re doing a much better job of getting the people the resources that
they need on the front end so we’re not getting the repeated calls to law enforcement. I know our
crisis is doing a better job of reaching out both on the phone and in person when we call them for
help so that’s the reason I think that that’s quite a bit of reduction from 223 to 120. So I looked
at mental health and how much time we’re actually spending on that and you can see in 2017 we
had, we spent 94 minutes on mental health and we’re up to 117 so an increased amount of time
we’re spending on each call and that’s a direct result of not only our POST board which is our
licensing board. It’s peace officer’s standard training board is requiring all law enforcement to
have some sort of a crisis intervention training and in addition to that our agency requires all of
our new deputies that are on probation to go through a 40 hour class so all of is equating to more
time we’re spending with these people in the hopes that we don’t get repeated calls. I’ll just read
off the continuing education requirement for the POST board which I think is important for the
council to understand. So every year all licensed peace officers are required to be trained in use
of force and we’re also required to go through the emergency vehicle operation course every 5
years which all of our agency just went through that in the past month. In addition beginning in
2018 the POST board’s requiring every law enforcement officer to have 16 hours of additional
training in crisis intervention and mental illness crisis, conflict management and mediation and
also recognizing and valuing community diversity to include implicit bias. So we’re required to
do 48 hours of training every 3 years which is our licensing period. Before I move on is there
any questions from council on the requirements at all? Okay. So the burglary and robberies.
Fortunately for robberies we don’t have very many. We had one in 2017, three in 2018 and one
in 2019 so because it’s such a low number there’s really not a comparison for that. For
burglaries we’re significantly down. We went from 38 in 2017 to 15 so I think that’s a huge
number that we’ve decreased.
Todd Gerhardt: Lance can you give the difference between the two again just for the public?
Lt. Lance Pearce: Sure. Burglary would be a property crime so if somebody broke into your
house and stole your property out of there that would be a burglary. Robbery is a person crime
so if they assaulted you and took your purse, your wallet, whatever that, that’s a person crime so
it’d be a robbery. Thank you for the question. Theft and vehicle theft. We are down
significantly for total thefts from 188 in 2017 to 143 and then the vehicle thefts again are such
low number it’s pretty difficult to measure and we only had 4 last year. As it relates to total
assaults and sex crimes, the total assaults remaining pretty consistent. We had 46 in 2017 and
we had 43 last year. The sex crimes are up from 4 to 12 and I think that’s a result of some
organizations, the #NotMe, mandatory reporting where people are divulging this information and
then we get mandatory reporters that call us to investigate that. Doesn’t matter how long ago it
occurred, last week, a decade ago, they’re still required to report so we’re getting those calls and
I think that’s the reason those are increased a little bit.
Chanhassen City Council – February 24, 2020
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Mayor Ryan: Lieutenant that was one of my questions that I had. So you’re saying that you
attribute some of the increase to sexual assaults that have happened years ago that now they’re
coming forward or they were actually committed crimes in the last year because when you, if
you wouldn’t mind going back a slide. You know I mean to 2017 it was low but in ’18 and ’19
that’s a significant increase so.
Lt. Lance Pearce: Yes from the most part those are all crimes that had occurred previously and
just being reported in 2018 and ’19. Most of these are not, they occurred last week or they
occurred in the recent past.
Mayor Ryan: Okay so, okay. So they weren’t in ’18 or ’19?
Lt. Lance Pearce: Some of them were but the majority of them were not.
Mayor Ryan: Okay. And then when you, you get this information who do you pass the
information along to or is it just held within your department or?
Lt. Lance Pearce: They’re investigated by our investigative division yes.
Mayor Ryan: Okay.
Lt. Lance Pearce: And sometimes they’re divulged in our social services environment but
they’re required to notify us and then we, I’m not sure what the term is but we co-investigate
those because sometimes they’re social services component to the investigation when it involves
children specifically and sometimes it’s just a law enforcement.
Mayor Ryan: Okay and so this dip doesn’t differentiate between child and adult?
Lt. Lance Pearce: This does not no.
Mayor Ryan: Okay.
Lt. Lance Pearce: This is a collective number.
Mayor Ryan: Thank you.
Todd Gerhardt: This is mandatory so there is a report that is submitted to law enforcement to go
and check and see if they’re complying with the orders of the court.
Lt. Lance Pearce: No. This would be if somebody, if somebody reported to somebody from
social services for example. If we take a teenage kid and they reported that they were sexually
assaulted 10 years ago the social worker’s required by law to notify law enforcement and then
we would investigate how long ago it was because there is statutes of limitation stuff but there’s
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also a social services component when it comes into the safety of the children. The safety of the
home.
Todd Gerhardt: So these are all new cases?
Lt. Lance Pearce: That are reported on here yes.
Todd Gerhardt: Okay.
Lt. Lance Pearce: But the number for example when it says 2019 up there and it says 12, that
means in 2019 12 were reported.
Todd Gerhardt: Right.
Lt. Lance Pearce: Okay. That doesn’t mean that’s when they occurred. That’s just when they
were reported. I think that answers your question Mayor.
Mayor Ryan: It does yes, thank you.
Lt. Lance Pearce: Okay. For DUI and drug crimes the total DUI’s are down from 73 to 59 and
the total drug crimes are up from 97 to 125. I don’t think we have an increased drug problem in
our city. I think we have a couple of deputies who focused on that a lot and I appreciate their
efforts but it does reflect in the increased number on here.
Mayor Ryan: Lieutenant I’ll also jump here because this was another number that jumped off
the screen to me when I was reading it.
Lt. Lance Pearce: I knew it would.
Mayor Ryan: Because at face value it is very concerning to think that there was such a
significant increase. How does the Southwest Task Force, Drug Task Force play into this? Is it
because they’re being more proactive that there you know, catching more or is that totally
separate from this report?
Lt. Lance Pearce: It’s intertwined with this report.
Mayor Ryan: Okay.
Lt. Lance Pearce: So what happens is this, what’s reflected on here is everything from a citation
for a possession of marijuana all the way up to methamphetamine. This is a collective number. I
didn’t do a breakdown in this but I know just from watching what comes in the majorities are
just a, your low level possession of marijuana ticket. It’s not a lot of the harder drug crimes.
What happens is when we get the reports, if it’s going to be investigated on a larger scale,
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somebody is dealing drugs, that kind of stuff, those reports go from our office to the task force
and then the task force takes over the larger investigations.
Mayor Ryan: And where they, I mean I found it interesting with you know some of the crime
statistics going down yet you know the overall robbery and theft that sometimes is associated
with an increase of drug crimes, did you notice any correlation or do you not make those
comparisons as part of this report?
Lt. Lance Pearce: I did not make those correlations as part of this report.
Mayor Ryan: Okay.
Todd Gerhardt: Mayor but, some of this also occurs with traffic stops. Some of the officers will
take it upon themselves also to check the vehicle for other things.
Lt. Lance Pearce: Yes.
Todd Gerhardt: When they have the opportunity where typically you’re pulled over for
speeding. You get a speeding ticket. Some officers will you know search the car for other items
that…
Lt. Lance Pearce: Yep when we have the authority to do that, yes and I think that’s where a lot
of the increase in here is coming from.
Mayor Ryan: It’s still a concerning number so. I’m wondering if we can get some sort of a
follow up report from the drug task force, just if they’re seeing an increase. I know when, I
know her first name and I don’t want to call her by her first name.
Lt. Lance Pearce: I know her too. I can certainly inquire from the task force and get a report for
Chanhassen.
Mayor Ryan: Okay I’d appreciate it. I think you know to have a 22 percent increase with drug
crime in the city where we’re seeing that most of crime is going down but you see something like
this, I think a little further explanation would be helpful.
Lt. Lance Pearce: I can certainly have that for here, yep. I can inquire for you.
Mayor Ryan: Oh I’m sorry yes go ahead.
Councilwoman Tjornhom: Something to add to that. I think too what would be a good, key part
of this is to know if they are Chanhassen residents or if they are just crimes that were committed
in Chanhassen where it was someone that pulled someone over. A deputy pulled someone over
and they were able to search their car and they found paraphernalia or they found that you know
Chanhassen City Council – February 24, 2020
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they were about to make a deal somewhere, that type of scenario because I think that too would
influence these numbers correct?
Lt. Lance Pearce: Okay, sure.
Councilwoman Tjornhom: Because if someone’s driving on Highway 5, they get pulled over
they could very easily live in I don’t know Minneapolis, anywhere but still they were arrested,
stopped and arrested in Chanhassen so it’s part of our statistics.
Lt. Lance Pearce: Correct. Okay. I can certainly get that for council.
Mayor Ryan: Alright perfect, thank you. Anything else? Okay.
Lt. Lance Pearce: Okay for the domestics, domestic assaults were up a little bit from 24 to 32. I
don’t have an explanation for that other than it just reporting to us. I honestly don’t have an
explanation for the increase.
Mayor Ryan: Okay, but that would be actual numbers of domestic assaults that take place in
this year. This isn’t reporting afterwards like the sex crimes.
Lt. Lance Pearce: Ask the question again?
Mayor Ryan: Like the sex crimes that were reported, these are actual domestic.
Lt. Lance Pearce: Reported in 2019 yes. Yes.
Mayor Ryan: That occurred in?
Lt. Lance Pearce: Yes. This is not reflective of the arrest though. This is the reports.
Mayor Ryan: Okay.
Lt. Lance Pearce: Okay so for arrests and citations, total arrests from 416 to 432. I think that’s
reflected in the drug slide I had a couple slides ago. Citations are down significantly from 2017
to 2019. Upon looking at the data that’s a direct result of the winter parking citations. And we
also had some issues with the State as it relates to license plate issuance and license tabs, if
anybody was even got their own personal tabs and had an issue with the State so we had some
issues with that when officers in the past would make traffic stops for license plate violations,
that kind of stuff we kind of held off because we knew there was an issue with the State for 6 or
more months. I think the County even had tab issues with the State. Okay so here’s our
misdemeanor investigator. So we looked at the number of cases that he closed out and the
number that he cleared. In 2017 we had 119 with a clearance rate of 50 percent. In 2019 we had
a few less cases assigned to him but we also had a larger percent of increase of clearance.
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Mayor Ryan: Do you want to explain the difference between closed and cleared?
Lt. Lance Pearce: Clear would be if we made an arrest, we cleared it as unfounded for example.
Anything other than an arrest. There’s like 5 different clearance codes but if it’s an arrest it will
show as that. If it’s just cleared out either we can’t do anything else with it. It wasn’t a crime so
if it’s anything other than cleared.
Mayor Ryan: Great, thank you.
Lt. Lance Pearce: Without a lengthy explanation. Okay so total activity. So anything that
generates an incident crime report, it’s called an ICR, this is where we’re at for police activity.
So it’s collectively. Anything that we find on our own. Anything that somebody calls 911 or
calls our non-emergency number gets an incident crime report okay. So total numbers for 2017
we had 12,657 and in 2019 we had 11,046 so we’re down about 13 percent. So we looked at the
number of arrests and report calls and the number of arrests are up a little bit. Again I think
that’s the drug related slide and the number of reports are actually down so anything we clear
where we write a police report which we don’t write a report on every call for service. We do on
all crimes. Anything that might be significant as far as, we find a suspicious person that might
be related to somebody. We might write a report on that. Anything that generates a report is
reflected in here and we’re down from 1,438 to 1,332 from ’17 to ’19. So we also looked at the
monthly arrests and report incidents and in 2017 we had 137. We’re down a little bit to 131. I
think those are intertwined with the last two slides. So I compared our neighbor Chaska to see
where we’re at because we share a border with them. We also have similar populations, size and
demographics and so comparably from 2017 to ’19 I think we’re seeing the same pattern in
Chaska as well and in 2017 again we had 12,657 calls and we’re down to 11,046 and the city of
Chaska had 13,207 and they’re down to 12,908. I looked at populations because I said they’re
pretty similar within 1,000 people as far as comparably. This slide just shows what I just
explained. So I looked at their police department to see where we’re at in Chanhassen and in
Chaska police department they have 25 officers total and besides patrol they have 3 sergeants
and 12 patrol officers. Compared to Chanhassen we have 15 officers assigned to the city of
Chanhassen and we have 3 sergeants and 9 patrol. On this slide here I looked at our history to
see where we are with a total of number of contract personnel and went back all the way to 2010
and from 2010 to today we have remained the same as far as the number of people that are
contracted up here at 15. We made some administrative changes. In 2012, actually 2011 or
2013 where we made some sergeants, or I’m sorry. Some corporals into sergeants so we had
some direct supervision up here where before we only had one sergeant up here and that was
assigned to everybody for supervision. So the last two people added to the police contract was
our misdemeanor investigator in 2007 and the school resource officer in 2009 when the
Chanhassen High School opened. So I looked at the KFS cities and the police operating budgets
just to see a comparative here and you can see on the slide where Chanhassen’s at. We had a
police contract in 2019 was $1., a little over $1.9 million for 15 sworn officers. Council have
any questions on that at all?
Chanhassen City Council – February 24, 2020
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Mayor Ryan: Well I’ll ask the obvious question because I think it jumps off the page. You
know we’re similar in size yet we have a significant you know difference between how many
sworn officers we have with some of our comparative cities and obviously it’s been a decision by
council because we have felt that we’ve been appropriately staffed to handle what’s happening in
our city. I know there has been a request for next year to have an additional officer but you
know going from 15 to 16 still doesn’t get you up to 25 and so from your perspective I’d just like
to hear what you have to say in terms of where we’re at with staffing and handling, you know
obviously you show a report that reflects that crime continues to go down with the exception of a
couple items and so I just want, you know I think it’s important for us as council to hear your
perspective on our staffing level but I also think it’s important for residents to feel comfortable
that they are being you know adequately served by the contract that we have with the sheriff’s
office.
Lt. Lance Pearce: Sure. You know I think that we’re a little under staffed in Chanhassen. We
did a work load analysis last year, Commander Owleen completed that and I know that was
submitted to the City. We have enough staff right now to answer the calls for service but that’s
what we have. Enough to answer the calls for service. I know that I can get to the next slide
here. This is the policing work plan that I work with the City Manager on and the focus for the
sheriff’s office and the City has to do a lot with the community engagement and I would like to
continue doing that because I think, the more community engagement you do the more presence
we have the less opportunity there is for crime and the more police presence has a direct impact
on things like theft from vehicles, burglaries. I mean there’s been research that’s been done on
that and I think that with the community engagement piece in order for us to progress in that we
need more staff because I typically have two deputies on per shift and if I end up with 2 or 3
calls for service I can’t guarantee I can have staff attend community engagement events without
staffing it with overtime and then I’m not being a, being good with the overtime money that is
budgeted. And I would like to continue with that because the current crime stats are low right
now but we all know that’s not going to stay like that forever. The economy’s good and I think
that has a little bit to do with why our crime stats are down and I would not, I would hate to be
under staffed for when it does go back up. So in order to increase the amount of community
engagement that I think the council wants, that the sheriff’s office wants, I think we need a little
bit more staff in Chanhassen.
Mayor Ryan: And when you say community engagement do you mean like Coffee’s? Going
into schools? More of a presence of driving around?
Lt. Lance Pearce: I think it’s all inclusive mayor.
Mayor Ryan: Okay.
Lt. Lance Pearce: I think it’s all inclusive with all of that stuff. It also allows us to have some
built in shift relief for when people call in sick, that kind of stuff so we’re not filling in shifts
Chanhassen City Council – February 24, 2020
12
with overtime all the time which has a direct impact on the City’s budget. For example when we
get requests for, and this actually happened a few months ago. When Act on Alzheimers group
wanted a deputy to come down and be present at their event. We made it about a half an hour
and the deputy had to leave so I can’t guarantee we can get deputies to the events that the City is
hosting. And I’d like to be able to do that. Plus it’s that presence. I was just reading an article
on Friday, certainly not even remotely comparable to our size of our city or our state but the City
of Everett, Washington. They have a little different dynamic there but they have a little over 200
officers and the title on the end, the article is crime is down but Everett hopes to hire 24 more
officers and it has to do with a number of factors but what the article says is, their citizens want
more visibility even though crime is low and it also focuses in here that crimes are getting more
complex and they’re also taking longer to clear meaning the, when I first started, a long time ago,
if you had a theft call for example it was somebody in the next town that took your stuff or
whatever. Those aren’t happening anymore. It’s somebody over the internet stole something
and it turns out it’s in the next county and the next state and we have to take the time to try to
figure that part out, especially with the technology piece. We’re putting more time and effort on
the backs of the patrol staff to do that which I can’t measure in the presentation that I gave you.
And I’ll just give you an example and, I’m not the technology guy. I’ll just preface it with that
but there is a technology component to almost every crime we investigate right now. It’s either
on some social media platform of some sort. Some app, some something and if somebody steals
your stuff and they put it on Facebook or Snapchat or something like that, there’s a time limit
where we can get the information so if somebody puts it on Snapchat I have a limited window to
try to grab that information from the vendor so that has to do, and goes right back to the
investigating deputy which just means more time that they have to take to complete all these
reports which is less time to do the community engagement part. Or the presence part or you
know some of the other proactive events like Coffee with a Cop and all that other stuff that we
could be doing. Does it make sense?
Mayor Ryan: It does. Thank you.
Lt. Lance Pearce: Okay.
Mayor Ryan: Council any questions? Go ahead Mr. Gerhardt.
Todd Gerhardt: Lance I just want, I just want to make reference that you showed the number of
officers that are patrolmen and sergeants that patrol Chanhassen.
Lt. Lance Pearce: Yes.
Todd Gerhardt: And our contract also includes in there dollars associated for the sheriff, deputy
sheriff. I think there’s also money in there for dispatch and jailer in that $100 and whatever
thousand dollars per officer. So there’s an administrative fee associated with each of those
officer contracts.
Chanhassen City Council – February 24, 2020
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Lt. Lance Pearce: I’d have to see it, I don’t recall that being in there but I’d have to look at the
contract.
Todd Gerhardt: Yeah that’s the way it was explained to me because a lot of the officers say boy
I wish I could get paid that much and.
Lt. Lance Pearce: We all do.
Todd Gerhardt: Yeah and, because that was a part of the formula that they used to calculate the
per officer because certain cities felt as though they were subsidizing Chanhassen’s police
service than other communities so a portion of those, not all of them, just a portion, 10 percent or
whatever it may be but 3 to 4 total is kind of how I did the math of the administrative side where
I think Chaska has 10 so I just wanted to prefaced that but we still have a difference if you’re
looking from a patrol sergeant comparison of Chaska, a total of 15 in Chaska and 12 in
Chanhassen.
Lt. Lance Pearce: Correct, yep so in this slide, if we back up a few slides here their calls for
service in the city of Chaska, let’s just say it’s 13,000 and we have 11,000 in Chan, they’ve got if
we just do a direct comparison on this slide they’ve got 3 more patrol officers to answer
essentially within 1,000 calls for service difference.
Todd Gerhardt: Right. And your 15 officers under the Carver County how did you come up
with that number?
Lt. Lance Pearce: The 15? That is the total that the City contract. That includes my position,
the 3 sergeants, the school resource officer and misdemeanor investigator and 9 patrol deputies.
Todd Gerhardt: And the 25 in Chaska includes the Chief.
Lt. Lance Pearce: Yes.
Todd Gerhardt: That’s their total compliment and I’m saying of the 15 officers that we have we
pay roughly $110,000 per officer.
Lt. Lance Pearce: Roughly.
Todd Gerhardt: But they don’t get all paid $110,000.
Lt. Lance Pearce: No they wish they did though.
Todd Gerhardt: Yep, and so included in that $110,000 is part of the sheriff, the deputy sheriff
and the other services so.
Chanhassen City Council – February 24, 2020
14
Lt. Lance Pearce: Yes.
Todd Gerhardt: Just so you have a full understanding of how the contract plays out and, but I do
support that this is something we need to look at as a part of our vision and our goals into the
future of you know when we add officers and just because the crime stats in some areas show the
numbers going down, we don’t want to be reactive of when the numbers go up and the more I
call it kind of community policing when the officers have down time where they’re showing
more of a presence in neighborhoods or at our businesses or at our churches or at our non-profit
organizations, that we’re getting people to think about being preventive in crimes. It’s
something I always bring up about, to my neighbors. Make sure your garage door’s down
because crime of opportunity is probably the biggest thing we have going on in Chanhassen
because it’s easy for somebody to drive by and see a garage door open and grab that little
snowblower and throw it in the back of their truck and they’re gone in 2 minutes so, so it’s those
crimes of opportunities and the more officers we have the better off we might be able to catch
those or talk about prevention. That’s it.
Mayor Ryan: Thank you.
Lt. Lance Pearce: Any other questions from council?
Mayor Ryan: I don’t think so. Thank you for the report tonight Lieutenant.
Lt. Lance Pearce: Thank you.
Mayor Ryan: And then if you’ll just get, can send it to Todd and then he’ll forward or send it to
council some of the follow up questions that would be great.
Lt. Lance Pearce: Very good.
Mayor Ryan: Great thank you. Next we have two public hearings.
PUBLIC HEARING: APPROVE VACATION OF A PORTION OF PUBLIC RIGHT-
OF-WAY: HICKORY ROAD (FORMERLY KNOWN AS KIRKHAM ROAD)
ABUTTING 3734 HICKORY ROAD.
Mayor Ryan: The first public hearing is the approval of vacation of a portion of public right-of-
way Hickory Road. You taking that?
Charlie Howley: Madam Mayor, yes. I’ll be presenting. I presume I’ll do my little introduction
and then you’ll open the public hearing.
Mayor Ryan: Yes please.
Chanhassen City Council – February 24, 2020
15
Charlie Howley: It will go that way, okay very good. I have a power point prepared here. I’ll
give credit to Erick, our Project Engineer. He prepared the staff report and I’m presenting it.
The property owner at 3734 Hickory Road has request the City vacate an unimproved right-of-
way that goes back to the original platted right-of-way from quite some time ago. Here is a
aerial of the area in question so this is on Lake Minnewashta and the area highlighted in yellow
is the existing public right-of-way that’s being requested to be vacated. This is the original plat
dated 1913, it’s called Red Cedar Point and it was made up of a number of small little lots and a
bunch of roads bisecting the property. Here’s a blow up of the area in question. The 30 foot
highlighted yellow is the requested vacation. This slide is meant to show that over time, I don’t
know the dates of when these happened but the items in green outline shaded yellow were
previous vacations, very similar in nature to this so the old roadway which was never built going
north and south has over time been vacated and vacated and vacated so this I just another step in
that process. Not that this was planned by the City. These were all based on requests by
landowners, or at least I presume that they would have been. So here’s a current survey of the
property and one of the things I want to point out is this dashed line here. If you can think of this
rectangle, this rectangle and that rectangle coincide with this rectangle, this rectangle and this
rectangle. Hopefully that’s clear. At some point in time, and we don’t have the history of this
but these two lots were somehow joined administratively. Not through a platting process
presumable when this house was originally constructed so this is one lot next to the original
right-of-way. The other point of this map is to show in green our existing sanitary sewer line and
in blue our existing watermain. Public utilities. These are not just services to houses. These are
mains. And this existing driveway to the property to the west, so when we go back here this
driveway kind of cuts through here. You can see the house was under construction at the time of
this aerial. So what’s in front of us is adopting a resolution with it’s conditions as noted in the
staff report to approve the vacation of a portion of the public right-of-way dedicated as follows,
and I don’t know that I need to read this but this is the formal legal description of what would be
vacated should you approve this. Now I will say that as noted in the staff report that once this is
vacated we still maintain, and that’s what’s written in the conditions a line, that would be a
dashed line where this red line is, we would maintain a drainage and utility easement over that
exact same right-of-way. So for the purposes of the City and owning and maintaining our
utilities in there, we still have that right to go in there. It just isn’t our land anymore. It actually
goes to this property owner as part of their land and they are just encumbered by an easement at
that point. The obvious question would be well why are we doing this and as noted in the staff
report this is being requested by the landowner. Property owner and I believe the reason is
because currently this being their western property line they have a setback, building structure
setback on a street which is like 30 feet so if they wanted to do an addition to this house or build
a new house or what have you they’re, they can’t use that area. By vacating this right-of-way
and this just becoming easement this becomes a side yard setback way over here and the building
setback is only 10 feet. They still couldn’t build a structure within the easement over the utilities
but I think it gives them the ability to construct structures clear out to here rather than into there
so I presume that’s the genesis here and if the applicant’s here tonight I have no idea if they are
or not they can maybe say why they’re doing it. From the other portions of the city is this access
Chanhassen City Council – February 24, 2020
16
down to the lake certainly isn’t needed for public benefit anymore. We’re not presumably ever
needing another lake access. I think we already have two public access to this lake as I’m told.
We really don’t have a need for it so like the other ones that have been vacated the City has been
okay with the vacation and the recommendation in the staff report is to allow it.
Mayor Ryan: Great.
Charlie Howley: So that kind of, there may be a question on a dock size or location and I did
look up the ordinance so I think I’m prepared to answer that if we need to.
Todd Gerhardt: Do you want to go ahead and.
Mayor Ryan: That was my next question Mr. Howley so.
Charlie Howley: Alright, so just before the meeting.
Todd Gerhardt: The Mayor would want to know that before.
Mayor Ryan: I received a phone call about that that there was a concern.
Charlie Howley: Very good.
Mayor Ryan: About the, I think you answered the question in terms of the structure that now yes
they would possibly be able to add onto it but obviously that goes through another process but
the concern was about adding a dock to this property.
Charlie Howley: So in a mad rush I went and looked up our zoning, our code and under the
zoning so I’m a little out of my lane but I think this is pretty straight forward. Section 20-920,
structures, boats, waterways, it talks about docks and in there it talks about the size of a dock and
location of a dock but I think we’re wondering about size. No more than one dock shall be
permitted on any lot so this becomes one lot. It doesn’t, this parcel doesn’t become a separate lot
and it has a maximum length of 50 feet or the distance it needs to get out to 4 feet of water. I
think based on the aerial looking at the other docks right next door it would all be in line with
those so I think it’s a 50 foot maximum. It’s not like okay this property owner’s going to get 34
width, 30 more feet of width. That doesn’t mean they get a bigger dock in length and in width
the width is calculated as part of the length so you’re at a maximum of 25 foot wide but then that
shortens off your 50 so I think the answer is, I’m fairly confident that no you can’t have a bigger
dock if you have a bigger lot.
Mayor Ryan: Okay. And I think it was just now could they have an additional dock and maybe
they’re here. I’m not sure. I just received a phone call this afternoon about the additional dock
so.
Chanhassen City Council – February 24, 2020
17
Charlie Howley: They would not get an additional dock.
Mayor Ryan: Okay.
Charlie Howley: And one of the other items I would rather just get out in front of is there might
be some questions about drainage and we know that the west end of Hickory has some existing
drainage problems. It doesn’t threaten property or you know personal safety. It’s just a very,
very narrow, narrow road. It’s always had drainage problems and could there be a project in the
future to kind of correct that drainage? Potentially. It may be too small to do on a project on it’s
own but when we have a number of projects that kind of build up we go and comprehensively do
a drainage improvement and this potentially could be part of that but we don’t have any planned
improvements for this right-of-way or Hickory Road in the CIP but we are aware of the drainage
and it’s something on our radar for lack of a better word.
Mayor Ryan: Alright thank you Mr. Howley. Before I open up the public hearing council are
there any further questions? Alright with that I open the public hearing. Please step forward and
state your name and address and comments for the record.
Tom O’Brien: Hi good evening. Tom O’Brien and I am the property owner. My wife and I
own the property at 3734 Hickory. I think you did a fantastic job of describing what we were
thinking so really you know just as we understood a little bit better about the right-of-way and
what had historically happened our thought was to be able to minimize that setback would
provide a little more flexibility if and when we were to ever do anything on that property so we
understand and fully expect to grant the drainage and utility easement as well as access to our
adjacent neighbor.
Mayor Ryan: Perfect, thank you Mr. O’Brien:
Tom O’Brien: Thank you.
Mayor Ryan: Anybody else that would like to come forward? Alright with that I’ll close the
public hearing and return it to council for any further comment, question or motion. Anyone?
Councilman Campion: I’ll make a motion.
Mayor Ryan: Councilman Campion.
Councilman Campion: I propose that the City Council adopts a resolution with it’s conditions
approving the vacation of a portion of public right-of-way dedicated as follows:
1. All the part of Hickory Road, formerly known as Kirkham Road, and as dedicated in Red
Cedar Point Lake Minnewashta, according to the recorded plat thereof, Carver County,
Chanhassen City Council – February 24, 2020
18
Minnesota, lying northerly of the westerly extension of the southerly line of Lot 28,
Block 1, in said plat (PID No. 256600140).
Mayor Ryan: Alright we have a valid motion. Is there a second?
Councilwoman Tjornhom: Second.
Mayor Ryan: Alright Councilwoman Tjornhom with the second. With a valid motion and
second all those in favor please signify by saying aye.
Resolution #2020-12: Councilman Campion moved, Councilwoman Tjornhom seconded
that the City Council adopts a resolution, with it’s conditions, approving the vacation of a
portion of public right-of-way as follows:
1. All that part of Hickory Road, formerly known as Kirkham Road, as dedicated in RED
CEDAR POINT LAKE MINNEWASHTA, according to the recorded plat thereof,
Carver County, Minnesota, lying Northerly of the Westerly extension of the Southerly
line of Lot 28, Block 1, in said plat (P.I.D. NO. 256600140).
All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 5 to 0.
Mayor Ryan: That motion carries 5-0.
PUBLIC HEARING: APPROVE VACATION OF DRAINAGE AND UTILITY
EASEMENTS AT 8077 CENTURY BOULEVARD.
Mayor Ryan: Mr. Howley I think you’re up again for another vacation of a drainage and utility
easement.
Charlie Howley: Thank you Madam Mayor. I believe you are correct. Okay what we have here
again is a vacation. This one doesn’t have anything to do with right-of-way. It’s just public
drainage and utility easements and again we’ve got a power point here that will go through the
request. It’s located at 8077 Century Boulevard on the site of Control Concepts. Here’s an
aerial of the site in question with a blow up. This was the original plat from 1997 of Arboretum
Business Park. You’ll notice this northern portion is the subject in question and as part of that
plat these yellow shaded areas were platted as drainage and utility easements. Nobody really
quite knows why. Presumably there was some low areas that maybe they thought would be
dedicated for wetlands or some use but nonetheless they were platted this way back then and
could be noted as non-standard or atypical. Here’s a blow up of that as well showing the yellow
vacated easements, and these are drainage and utility easements. These are the oddly shaped
atypical areas and then these are the standard 5 and 10 foot that border any sort of platted lot that
we typically do nowadays. Also on top of this, which we’ll show on the next slide is what we’re
replacing it with so we’ve vacating this and adding new. It just seemed easier that way because
Chanhassen City Council – February 24, 2020
19
of the size and shapes than trying to just carve out. Leave existing and just carve out what’s
changing. This was just from a surveying and documentation. This is just a cleaner way to do it.
A complete vacation and a complete dedication. So here’s what we would be dedicating back.
Again we’re going to maintain the 5 and 10 along the platted lot lines and doing a nice, more
geometrical shape than these areas in yellow. So the recommendation is that the City Council
adopts a resolution approving the vacation of public drainage and utility easements on Lot 2,
Block 1 of Arboretum Business Park 7th Addition.
Mayor Ryan: Thank you Mr. Howley. Council any questions before I open the public hearing?
Alright I hereby open the public hearing. Please come forward and state your name and address
for the record and then address the council. With nobody here I will close the public hearing and
return it to council for any questions, comments or motion.
Councilwoman Coleman: I’ll make a motion.
Mayor Ryan: Councilwoman Coleman.
Councilwoman Coleman: The City Council adopts a resolution approving the vacation of public
drainage and utility easements as dedicated as follows: All drainage and utility easements as
dedicated in Lot 2, Block 1, Arboretum Business Park 7th Addition, Carver County, Minnesota,
according to the recorded plat thereof.
Mayor Ryan: With a valid motion, is there a second?
Councilman Campion: Second.
Mayor Ryan: Thank you Councilman Campion. With a valid motion and second all those in
favor please signify by saying aye.
Resolution #2020-13: Councilwoman Coleman moved, Councilman Campion seconded
that the City Council adopts a resolution approving the vacation of public drainage and
utility easements as dedicated as follows:
1. All drainage and utility easements as dedicated in Lot 2, Block 1, Arboretum Business
Park 7th Addition, Carver County, Minnesota, according to the recorded plat thereof.
All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 5 to 0.
Mayor Ryan: That motion carries 5-0. Thank you Mr. Howley.
APPROVE BIDS FOR FIRE DEPARTMENT CREW ROOM FIRE STATION
IMPROVEMENTS.
Chanhassen City Council – February 24, 2020
20
Mayor Ryan: Chief.
Chief Don Johnson: Thanks again Mayor. This would probably potentially be a consent agenda
item but there were some things that changed during the process so special thanks to Fire
Marshal Nutter who primarily authored the staff report and has done the leg work on this. I just
get to stand up here and present it so. In regards to our crew rooms that you approved for the
overnight duty crew staffing there’s some modifications that have to come for the station so
Phase 1 of this is to take 3 assistant chief offices that they were sharing with their captains and
repurpose those into crew rooms. If you remember, being back that far that city hall, that small
conference room on the upper level then we would turn into a combined use supervisors work
areas with four dedicated work stations for 10 supervisors to share to make room for the crew
rooms. So Phase 1 was to update the crew rooms. Create the combined supervisor’s office area
and then redo the two bathrooms on the upper level of city hall for the restoration of Phase 1.
Phase 1 would have been approved for $95,000 or I’m sorry, $93,000 as part of the CIP. During
the process of obtaining bids and in your packet there’s a simple table. We also got Phase 2 bids
which Phase 2 is to renovate the two existing locker rooms downstairs. That had not been in
front of you in regards to budget approval because it was a 2021 CIP project and we had put
$125,000 aside for that. We engaged 3 contractors, two which we know really well here in the
city, Engelsma and Gardner. Just for reference Engelsma built Riley Crossing and Gardner is
doing Camp Tanadoona so two reputable companies that we’re used to dealing with. We
engaged a third one and could not get a quote from them so if you look at the simple table, and
why this is important part of new business, Engelsma bid to do both phases and put a financial
incentive in, a savings of $14,000 to do both Phase 1 and Phase 2 of this year. So not only are
they cheaper across the board as far as the bids for both projects of Phase 1 and Phase 2, they’ve
also incentivized to do both projects this year. We had to add alarm devices, notification devices
inside the crew quarters. During that process in obtaining those bids we found out that our fire
alarm panels are too old and antiquated. We can’t add anything so we did get 3 bids for the
replacement of that panel and the additional devices that we need to add to the rooms as well as
the furniture cost was provided by a State contract, furniture company that we use here in the city
so those are, that’s all in State bid. Primarily those costs are related to the construction of that
office combined supervisor’s office. So the recommendations at this point would be to move
forward with Phase 1 and Phase 2 to recognize the cost savings of $14,671 and approve the
contractor for the, both Phase 1 and Phase 2 as well as the purchase of the furniture off the State
contract and the approved bid for the fire alarm system.
Mayor Ryan: Thank you Chief. Council do you have any questions?
Todd Gerhardt: Mayor and council. As a part of this presentation Don mentioned that we’re, we
split these from 2020 and 2021 and that total cost was $218,000 so by taking advantage of the
quotes that we have now you’re roughly saving oh just under, just over $50 some thousand
dollars from doing it all in one year versus two years. If you look at the CIP sheet, $51,741. If
Dan’s calculator’s right.
Chanhassen City Council – February 24, 2020
21
Mayor Ryan: And so the addition, because I’m looking and I was looking at the CIP earlier.
The addition of the furniture, because that wasn’t in the initial part of the CIP and then you made
reference that the Fire Relief Association is adding to it so if we could, obviously you’re
retrofitting that space but it wasn’t you know new furniture and desks and etcetera. More in part
of the initial CIP so I’m just.
Chief Don Johnson: …Mayor, again what I tried to do when we got the original construction bid
was to put in allowances for this type of thing. We knew we were going to have to furnish them
and just for an example the crew rooms are going to have a desk and a chair and that’s the extent
of the furniture as well as you know a bed and we do have some furniture in the station that will
work in that crew room. The Chanhassen Fire Relief Association is purchasing the beds and the
televisions so those, you will not see any of that in here. That’s all being done by the Fire Relief
Association. So the main brunt of the furniture that you see in the bottom of that chart is the
modular furniture and the work stations for that combined office for the supervisors.
Mayor Ryan: And that, okay. So that was all part of the.
Chief Don Johnson: Correct.
Mayor Ryan: Entire bid. Okay. And I mean I understand that we approved the 5 year CIP at the
end of last year so this coincides with that. It just moves it all up into one year. Council are
there any further questions, comments or motion?
Councilwoman Coleman: I’ll make a motion.
Mayor Ryan: Councilwoman Coleman.
Councilwoman Coleman: The City Council awards a bid for construction and alarm system
upgrades to Fire Station 1 to coincide with the overnight duty crew program approved for 2020.
Mayor Ryan: We have a valid motion. Is there a second?
Councilman Campion: Second.
Councilwoman Coleman moved, Councilman Campion seconded that the City Council
awards a bid for construction and alarm system upgrades to Fire Station 1 to coincide with
the overnight duty crew program approved for 2020. All voted in favor and the motion
carried unanimously with a vote of 5 to 0.
Mayor Ryan: That motion carries 5-0.
Chief Don Johnson: Thank you council. Appreciate it.
Chanhassen City Council – February 24, 2020
22
Mayor Ryan: Appreciate it.
COUNCIL PRESENTATIONS.
Mayor Ryan: Council is there any presentations? I would just like to add one I’d like to extend
my thanks to Mr. Sticha as well as the Economic Development Commission for hosting the first
business open house last week. We had a good turnout and received some positive feedback
from local businesses going forward and will be part of their planning process for goal setting
going forward but they had a great set up in the room at the Rec Center with a lot of displays and
got some good traffic I think from local businesses but also for, from the Highway 101 update
that was in the room next door but regardless of why they showed up we appreciate that they did
it and the Economic Development Commission did a great job with that so I just wanted to
extend my thanks to those who attended as well as to the commission members.
ADMINISTRATIVE PRESENTATIONS.
Mayor Ryan: Anything on the administrative?
Todd Gerhardt: I’ll give a plug here for Park and Rec. We have the Luminary Walk this coming
Thursday. I believe it’s from 6:00 to 8:00 over by the Holiday Inn and Life Time Fitness off of
Century Boulevard. I’ve attended these in the past. They’re really enjoyable. Weather looks
good and great family activity. There’s some smaller loops you can take as many as you want
and I guess dogs are welcomed if they are leashed and you have the proper disposal bags with
you and so it should be a good family event.
Mayor Ryan: Perfect. Thank you Mr. Gerhardt.
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 5 to 0. The
City Council meeting was adjourned at 8:10 p.m.
Submitted by Todd Gerhardt
City Manager
Prepared by Nann Opheim