CC VER 2020 06 08CHANHASSEN CITY COUNCIL
REGULAR MEETING
JUNE 8, 2020
Mayor Ryan called the meeting to order at 7:00 p.m. The meeting was opened with the
Pledge to the Flag.
COUNCIL MEMBERS PRESENT: Mayor Ryan, Councilwoman Tjornhom, Councilman
McDonald, Councilman Campion, and Councilwoman Coleman
STAFF PRESENT: Todd Gerhardt, Kate Aanenson, Charlie Howley, Jerry Ruegemer, Todd
Hoffman, Greg Sticha, Jill Sinclair, Roger Knutson, Chief Don Johnson and Matt Kerr
Mayor Ryan: Good evening again everybody. Thank you for joining us tonight. For tonight I
would like to again review the guidelines. We are still operating under the remote meeting
statute. I will be asking each council member for a verbal acknowledgement throughout the
agenda item and then ask for a roll call vote if required before moving to the next agenda item.
No council member will be holding public chats or discussions on the side through the Zoom
application as all discussions will be made public. For the record we have all of our council
members present tonight via Zoom or in the council chambers so our first action is our agenda
approval. Council members are there any modifications to the agenda as printed? As I call your
name please state yes or no. Councilman McDonald?
Councilman McDonald: No.
Mayor Ryan: Councilwoman Tjornhom?
Councilwoman Tjornhom: No.
Mayor Ryan: Councilwoman Coleman?
Councilwoman Coleman: No.
Mayor Ryan: Councilman Campion?
Councilman Campion: No.
Mayor Ryan: We will move forward with the published agenda.
PUBLIC ANNOUNCEMENTS:
Mayor Ryan: The first item on our agenda tonight are public announcements and we have a
couple. The first one is our Arbor Day Poster Contest winner. So on behalf of the Chanhassen
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City Council and the Environmental Commission I would like to congratulate all of the winners
of this year’s Arbor Day Poster Contest. The City has been sponsoring this contest for 20 years
in order to express our commitment to trees in our community and help educate students on the
importance of trees. Every year local fifth graders are invited to submit their drawings based on
an annual theme and the theme for 2020 was Trees are Terrific in Chanhassen. So we are
celebrating 20 years of Arbor Day. The City would like to thank all of the students from Bluff
Creek Elementary, St. Hubert’s School and Chapel Hill Academy for their wonderful drawings.
The framed winning picture will hang in City Hall along with past winner’s drawings. The City
would also like to thank The Garden for their generous donation of a gift card for the grand prize
winner and so please continue to support our local businesses. The Garden by the Woods this
summer for their generous donation. They are always incredible partners of the City on this
event so we really appreciate it. So now we’re going to do a little, some pictures. You’re going
to get your certificates and then we’ll unveil the grand prize winner so I’m going to move down
to up front and so when I call your name I know we have parents and the kids in the hallway so
thank you for standing out in the hallway. When I call your name I think Ms. Sinclair shared this
with you but when I call your name if you would please come into the council chambers.
There’s a little X on the floor and so you guys will stand at one X. I’ll stand at the other X and
then we’ll smile because we want to make sure that we’re social distance so let me move to the
front here and put on my mask. Lucky I know my voice projects and my kids tell me that all the
time so you can hear me through my mask so the runners up in this year’s poster contest are from
St. Hubert’s School a sister dynamic duo Lydia Katz and Lillian Katz. Do you want to come
forward? You hear any footsteps out there or see anyone coming in? No, okay. Alright the next
person from St. Hubert’s School, Delaney Mirau. You’re welcome to come right up front. I’ll
just wave to you and give you a thumbs up okay. So congratulations to you. Congratulations.
Thank you. Alright and if you want to go out that way. Alright joining us via Zoom from St.
Hubert’s School, Aevaleen Hesse. There she is. Hi! Congratulations. Do you want to hold up
your photo? Congratulations. Alright. You want to zoom in on it, oh my gosh. Well done.
Trees are Terrific for all reasons in Chanhassen. Can we get that up on the screen? Amazing.
Great job, congratulations.
Aevaleen Hesse: Thank you.
Mayor Ryan: You’re welcome and we’ll get this off to you. We’ll get it out to you. Alright
next from Chapel Hill Academy, Audrey Krone. Is Audrey here?
Todd Gerhardt: Yep here she comes.
Mayor Ryan: Congratulations. We’re very proud of you. It’s very exciting. Thank you for
participating in the contest too okay? Keep up the good work. Alright congratulations. Alright
next up from Bluff Creek Elementary, Ryleigh Berber. Is Ryleigh here? Come on in. Ryleigh if
you want to stand right there and open up, oh you got it up. Alright. Congratulations. Thanks
for coming in tonight. We appreciate it. And unable to be here tonight is Mary Cushman so
we’ll give Mary a round of applause. And here tonight we have Amanda Springer. Amanda.
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There she is. …this beautiful drawing. Well done. That’s amazing. Great job.
Congratulations, thanks for coming tonight. Well done. And then also from Bluff Creek
Elementary, he is unable to be here tonight is Noah Escolero so congratulations Noah. Now I
invite the grand prize winner, Esther Gilbertson from Bluff Creek Elementary. Absolutely
wonderful. What a talent. Beautifully done. Congratulations. Ready for a photo? You can
come forward… Congratulations. Hold it up so everyone can see the beautiful work that you
did. So Esther you are going to get a gift card from The Garden. Congratulations. Well done.
Thank you for coming tonight. Appreciate it.
Todd Gerhardt: Jill before you go I just want to recognize Peter Olin from the Landscape
Arboretum. He’s Executive Director of the Arboretum and Peter you’re in good hands. You can
see that people in Chanhassen embrace trees and the Arboretum so thank you for making the
Arboretum such a wonderful place and hands to you for that. …yes, they’re terrific.
Mayor Ryan: Well done Todd. On the spot like that. Well congratulations to all the kids and
thank you Jill for organizing that. We really appreciate it. It’s always a fun contest to see what
talented youth we have in this community so it’s fantastic.
SHERIFF JASON KAMERUD, CARVER COUNTY.
Mayor Ryan: Next up we have, before I’m going to invite the Sheriff up to speak, to say a few
things I wanted to kind of set the stage for this in terms of you know why tonight is the Sheriff
here this evening. Last Friday I had sent out an email to residents that have signed up on our To
Notify Me and I’ve been doing these weekly emails as well as posting it on the City’s social
media and so I wanted to share, share that letter with everybody to get, to provide a little context
for the conversation that we’re going to have tonight but then also kind of lay out the plans for
what our intentions are going forward and so I just want to share that before I turn it over to you
Sheriff. So if you’ll give me one minute. So I said Dear Chanhassen Residents. The events that
have transpired over the past week and a half have brought forward new questions, varying
emotions and most recently a call to action. Reflecting on the unjust murder, the destruction that
followed as well as the feelings of uncertainty of both people and organizations has made me
think deeper about how we move forward together. And while I was reflecting on all of this a
friend had sent me a message that really kind of inspired this next stage and the quote is, “we
cannot change the past but we can reshape the future” and with that in mind the following
measures are being taken and the first up was to invite Sheriff Kamerud here tonight to discuss
some of the Carver County Sheriff’s Office organizational policies and practices. The second
one through conversations with the sheriff is the City of Chanhassen in partnership with the
Carver County Sheriff’s Office will be devising a plan for a community conversation event. The
intent of this collaboration is to listen to and learn from our residents on their experiences and
define ways together to ensure that everyone in Chanhassen is being served with the respect and
dignity that they do deserve. And then lastly as Mayor I said, I communicated that I’m open to
meeting with residents and community groups to gain a better understanding of the challenges
that you may be facing or have faced in the past and I left my email address for people to get in
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touch with me and I have to say that I was just overwhelmed with the response that I got, not
only to the email but directly to me about wanting to meet or share their personal stories and not
only share their stories but encourage me to read different books. Follow different blogs. Get in
touch with different people so I really appreciate the immediate response that I received from the
residents in taking this call to action and that is what the sheriff is here to discuss tonight but then
that’s what we’re going to be doing moving forward and you know we both know that this is just
the beginning but I definitely have great pride and faith in our residents and I also have a
profound respect for our law enforcement so I really appreciate you being here tonight. I think
we both know, I think we all understand that this not going to be something easy to navigate but
that’s why the conversation is starting tonight. It actually started last week but that’s why we’re
bringing the sheriff forward tonight to share some of the policies and practices within Carver
County and then I know everybody wants to know when is the event going to take place but
those discussions are going to take place this week and as soon as we have something ready we
will share it. You know this is new to us and we’re going to do the best that we can to navigate
that and that’s going to take the community involvement and so the last line that I said in my
email, which I’d like to reiterate tonight because I think it’s really important is not only
recognizing and appreciating the outpouring of comments and ideas that I’ve shared but most
importantly I look forward to getting, for you to get involved and participating with the same
passion that you’ve expressed to me so it’s one thing to just send an email but it’s another thing
to get involved and I can see by the people that are here tonight, I know that there’s passion
behind it and so I definitely am encouraging you to get involved so just know that action is being
taken and so with that Sheriff I will turn it over to you and just want you to know how much we
appreciate you being here tonight.
Sheriff Jason Kamerud: Thank you very much Madam Mayor, members of the council. I
appreciate the opportunity to come in and talk with you a little bit about these important topics.
Two weeks ago today George Floyd was killed at the hands of law enforcement officers who had
sworn an oath to protect and serve him. And since then I’ve had a lot of calls from citizens,
emails and people asking Sheriff what are you doing in Carver County? What’s been going on
and so I want to talk a little bit about the history of where we’ve been in regards to what I call the
will to racial justice and I’ll tell you where I am. Hopefully from but you know Sheriff Jim
Olson, Bud Olson before him too but Sheriff Jim Olson really set out you know 10 years ago to
increase the diversity in law enforcement. We have had varying levels of success. You know
with each hiring process that we’ve had and we’re continuing to do that kind of work. In 2017-
2018 somewhere in there I started some work with Eastern Carver Schools when they were
building conversations with intercultural harmony sort of discussion and it was exactly the kind
of discussions that I’m hoping to have with our citizens this time in the context of service
delivery and law enforcement services. That conversation was in the context of service delivery
to students and people within the school district. The gist of that work for me or the park that I
brought with me to Carver County when I was elected sheriff in 2018. Started my job in 2019
was, I started with my management team and we had some required reading that relates to
implicit compliance and then from that reading they were tasked with building smart goals
specific, measurable, attainable and realistic timely goals that they can push down to their staff
Chanhassen City Council – June 8, 2020
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related to getting our minds around bettering our work where compliances are concerned. That
happened in 2019. Those goals are playing out in 2020. The next phase of this was to do the
work that we, that I participated in with the school district and that is these conversations. You
know my understanding is and my belief is that the citizens elect their legislative group to enact
the laws and then the elected new sheriff to enforce those laws to provide that service and I need
their input to tell me how they want that done. Just like each of you being elected officials, we
need their input to tell you the laws that they want enacted and those sorts of things. And so that
brings us to this next stage over the next couple of weeks. What I’d like to do is assemble a team
of people who have the knowledge base to have these, to facilitate these types of conversations.
What I learned in the intercultural harmonies discussion is that it’s very awkward and we’re all
kind of fumbling through and it took some time to build up enough trust with each other where
we could speak openly and candidly. Get some parts wrong and people were angry and
judgmental so I expect that that will happen again here. We’ll have to create some space to have
that conversation and let it grow… But it takes people who have some skill sets and some
training to help facilitate it. I’m not the person for that. My role here is hopefully to create some
space where that conversation can happen. So the next couple of weeks I’d like to put a team
together to talk about what those conversations will look like. What are the specific objectives
that we hope to get out of there and I have some policy questions that I would like asked and
answered. We have some logistic pieces that are going to put a wrinkle into things because of
COVID-19. You know my original idea before the corona virus showed up was that I would
host a series of town halls and hopefully they would be well attended and we could talk it
through. Well corona virus makes that much more difficult. So I thought well now maybe we
could do it via technology. I feel like that would not work quite as well because there’s so much
loss through body language and tone and all those things that could potentially be lost in utilizing
technology so I’d like the team to get together and talk through how that might shake out. So if I
was able to put that team together the next couple of weeks I would say then probably sometime
around August-September and I’d like to do it sooner but it’s going to take time to coordinate
that. Start a series of conversations. I don’t think we’ll be able to have just, I don’t think we’ll
be able to have just one group in the conversations and I don’t think we’ll be able to have just
one conversation with each group because so far it’s the email and phone calls that the Mayor
and I have been receiving…there’s a lot of interest in participating in this and I want to make
sure that there’s space for everybody to share their thoughts and ideas and know that they have
been heard.
Mayor Ryan: Wonderful thank you Sheriff. Can you speak to any of the anticipated questions in
terms of your policy? Engagement policy.
Sheriff Jason Kamerud: You know I think first we’ll want to see what people are going to be
looking for. I should mention that next week my team is going, the sheriff’s management team
is attending a course hosted by Tim Berry, a professor at Mankato State University. He also
happens to be a member of my church and my pastor…racial justice advisory team and they’re
really passionate about this topic so between the church and Professor Berry they are doing some
instruction for it. This will be my second time through his course. The idea here is to get my
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management team to have this foundation of knowledge and roughly the same vocabulary so we
when we go into these community conversations we’re at least starting from a common
understanding or point. And then of course we’ll hopefully…
Mayor Ryan: Wonderful, thank you Sheriff. Council members any questions for the sheriff
before we move forward? For comments.
Councilman McDonald: Not at this time.
Mayor Ryan: Councilman McDonald, no.
Councilman McDonald: No.
Mayor Ryan: I know we have to go back through the roll call. Councilwoman Tjornhom?
Councilwoman Tjornhom: Not at this time.
Mayor Ryan: Councilwoman Coleman?
Councilwoman Coleman: Not at this time, thank you for your service Sheriff.
Mayor Ryan: Councilman Campion?
Councilman Campion: None at this time.
Mayor Ryan: And I don’t. We’ll continue to have the conversation. Lay out the plan. I know
that part of all of this is you know as we go forward as we had in our previous conversation in
terms of the budget conversation and our contract with you, you know and we’ll continue to have
conversations on all fronts so really appreciate you coming tonight. If you want to stay around
for a little bit to hear if there’s other comments I welcome you to do so. Again this isn’t a public
hearing so it’s not a back and forth engagement time. It’s really just kind of the first opportunity
to listen and then maybe that helps kind of evolve what the next steps are in terms of
conversations so I appreciate it. We’re towards the top of the number but I think we’ll be okay
here.
CONSENT AGENDA:
Mayor Ryan: Are there any items that the council would like to consider separately?
Councilman McDonald?
Councilman McDonald: Thank you Mayor. Yes I’d like to pull item number 9 which is the
approval of the 4th of July fireworks plan and I’m not sure how item 10 is any different but that’s
also approve fireworks display.
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Mayor Ryan: 10 is just the contract with the.
Councilman McDonald: Then no. Just item number 9.
Mayor Ryan: 9 okay so we’ll move that item number 9 to F. Old Business. It will be the first
one under old business. Councilwoman Coleman?
Councilwoman Coleman: No other items moved for me.
Mayor Ryan: Councilwoman Tjornhom?
Councilwoman Tjornhom: No.
Mayor Ryan: Councilman Campion?
Councilman Campion: No additional changes.
Mayor Ryan: Okay with that could I have a motion to approve consent agenda items number 1
through 8 and 10 and 11?
Councilman Campion: So moved.
Mayor Ryan: We have a valid motion. Is there a second?
Councilman McDonald: Second.
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 May 26, 2020
2. Receive Planning Commission Minutes dated May 5, 2020
3. Release of Development Contracts for McGlynn Park
4. Resolution #2020-38: Support for Carver County Regional Solicitation Application for
Highway 5 Arboretum Area Federal Funding Request
5. Approval of ERSI Software Agreement with Carver County
6. Amendment to Lease Agreement with Verizon Wireless at Water Tower #3
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7. Receive 2019 Park and Recreation Department Annual Report
8. Resolution #2020-39: Replace Resolution 2020-23 Establishing Grant Award Program
for Liquor License Expense of Local Bars and Restaurants
9. Pulled by Councilman McDonald for separate discussion.
10. Approve Fireworks Display at Lake Ann Park, July 4, 2020
11. Approve Temporary Modifications of the Licensed Premises to Serve On-Sale Beer and
Wine in Kai’s Sushi & Grill Sidewalk/Parking Lot Area.
All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 5 to 0.
Mayor Ryan: Okay that motion carries 5-0. Thank you everyone.
VISITOR PRESENTATIONS. TOUR DE TONKA 2020 – TIM LITFIN, MINNETONKA
COMMUNITY EDUCATION.
Mayor Ryan: We did receive 3 emails or comments prior to this meeting. Two are in regards to
the Highway 5 regional trail project so I will bring those up while we discuss that item under
New Business. And then we did receive one Citizen Action Request form and I believe that got
added, yes so that’s second under our visitor presentations so we will address that shortly. If you
do have any comments or would like to step forward as part of our visitor presentation we just
ask you to sign in and then step to the podium and please state your name and address for the
record. We have two scheduled and so first up we have Mr. Litfin with Tour de Tonka and he’ll
give his presentation. One minute Mr. Litfin. So after that then we’ll have Mr. Bishop who
submitted the Citizen Action Request form and then it will be open to anyone else that would
like to, alright. Welcome. Nice to see you again.
Tim Litfin: Good evening Madam Mayor. Thank you for having me here. City Manager and
staff. Council members, thank you for having me here as well. Chanhassen is near and dear to
my heart as we’re in the 15th year now with this great event, Tour de Tonka that Chanhassen has
been a part of and you recall Mr. City Manager was right there at the beginning stages when I
showed him my napkin of what this could be and he said I think that’s a good idea so, anyway
thanks to all of you here in Chanhassen. Tour de Tonka has fantastic bikes. That’s what it’s
about, just like fantastic or terrific trees that you talked about earlier and will it happen or not
that’s a question that I get about 20 times a day so we’re working through that. We’ve got 3
options right now and I’ll give a little presentation whoever is managing, I guess I am so I’ll start
out with first a little trivia for the City Councilmen here and women that are here tonight. How
many miles did all the Tour de Tonka riders ride last year? Here are the 3 choices in front of you
and this is collectively for all of the riders last year. Do I have an answer?
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Mayor Ryan: E.
Tim Litfin: B is a good guess. Very good guess. Riders last year rode almost 180,000 miles
collectively so there was a lot of miles. A lot of riders.
Mayor Ryan: You’re supposed to say so you’re wrong.
Tim Litfin: Mayors are never wrong.
Todd Gerhardt: Never.
Tim Litfin: Last year just a little bit about what happened last year. Riders really come from all
over for this great event and last year they came from 166 communities, 44 counties, and 30
states and we’re so proud to knock off another state last year. We brought riders in from the
state of Maine so that was kind of cool so we’re up to 43 states so far that have participated in
this event in 14 years and the top 10 communities from last year are right in front of you right
now. Chanhassen is always between 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, right in there so coming in at 10th place is not a
bad deal at all for Chanhassen and of course a lot of these communities are right around here so.
These communities really like to see their name on the list when I go to City Council meetings
and I’m sure you do as well so thank you Chanhassen. The next 11 through 20 and a little
deeper we go, it’s still communities right around us but they ebb and flowing throughout as far as
Eagan was some of these but they come from all over. They really do and here’s the State of
Minnesota showing 73 counties having sent riders in the 14 years. We’re still in the belief that
there are bicycles in northwestern Minnesota and I’m going to get up there and prove it one of
these days but we’ll get riders from there sooner or later as well. The age breakdown
demographically we really continue to be strong in the 50 year old men and women but it’s one
great thing about this is that it’s always, if you come and see it or ride in it you’ll see that very
quickly that this is not just 50 year olds. It’s families and you’ll see that here in a minute.
Registration history, I began tracking our registration history a few years ago and it let us know
if we’re on track, off track and we had a terrific 5 year run of almost the same rate of registration
and then 2020 hit and that’s that little worm down at the bottom line. We just can’t get that guy
to go faster. But that’s understandable. That is very understandable what’s going on in our
culture today with COVID-19. We raise money every year for the food shelf, the ICA Food
Shelf and…and they’re very pleased with this event and it brings great recognition to their cause
and especially with the COVID-19 situation they really need our help so we have a plan to help
them one way or another this year. The communities that are part of the event this year are in
front of you should we have the entire experience be allowed to happen. We’re going to go out
as far this year as a new community and that’s Lester Prairie. Here are all the police and fire and
Sheriff Kamerud who was just here and I tell you there’s no better partner than Chanhassen,
excuse me than the Carver County sheriffs and also the Chanhassen Fire. They’re both fantastic
to work with and this event would be nowhere without our safety PD and Fire support and we
love every one of them and they are fantastic to work with as well. And here are the distances
that we’re going to hope to ride if the full plan can go this year and talk about family and there’s
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some great family pictures right there from last year’s event. And this is the all ride this year.
That’s where you go with all the rides that are part of Tour de Tonka and out on the western side
we’re going to take in a new county and a new city as I mentioned earlier and that’s Lester
Prairie this year and they are as excited as can be so I’m hoping that we can include them with
the real event. It will be like a Super Bowl going through Lester Prairie so they’re really excited
which I am as well for them. All the cities we work with it’s just pure fun. Good people right
and left and they all want to do good things and we want to make it fun and I think in this day
and age we want fun and laughter and smiles in this event… The rest stops are everywhere.
Chanhassen’s got a beauty right by Bluff Creek Elementary, the Rec Center and our riders love
that rest stop and thank you Chanhassen. Sponsors we couldn’t be anywhere without sponsors
like any great event and these folks are fantastic for us and thankfully they come back year after
year because they love it. They really do. Every one of those has reached out to me. I haven’t
knocked on a door for Tour de Tonka. They come because they see the quality and the good
community… Volunteers if you’re out there let us know we’ll take you. Tour de Tonka.org just
give us an email and we’ll hook you up. We need only 600 of them so I think you can help us.
We did a survey back in early May when it looked like this event was perhaps not going to
happen and a straight up question was knowing what you know today riders, would you ride?
And 67 percent of them said they would so that was encouraging and then we went a little deeper
with some other questions and which of the following describes how you feel today knowing
what’s going on in our community and some said I won’t ride until there’s a vaccine but most
said, if you look at the bottom I’ll participate in Tour de Tonka this year because the event and
event leaders will do their best to keep it safe and that’s nice to know and then a few other
comments were more pointed and one was keep that ride on schedule. If you build it they will
come. Lobby the Governor which I have done and anyways so comments in that regard.
However we have Plan B. We have a great virtual event planned should we have to go down
that road and we have great face masks because I had to make a decision on the shirts here about
3 weeks ago and I had them make some shirts so we’re going to rearrange the fee structure
should we have the event in it’s full theme and if we do a virtual event there’s your face mask
that you would get. We also have a skinny, skinny version. It’s a smaller bike. What we might
do and that includes the city of Chanhassen and so we can do that based on the Governor’s
announcement last Friday with the announcement of 250 because we can do that back to back.
Kind of clean them out and go again. Clean them out and go again so we’re excited for that and
this time there might be a little more forgiveness so we’ll see but if we have to do a virtual, we
have to do a skinny we’re ready to go either way and we’ll see you on Saturday, August 1st if
you’re able. Thank you very much City of Chanhassen for the time this evening. Appreciate it.
Mayor Ryan: Thank you. Thank you for that great presentation. We always enjoy having riders
come through our city. It’s fun to see if you’re standing and cheering them on as they go flying
by so it’s a lot of fun. Real question, or two questions for you. You said something about a,
having them go off in groups. Are people registering for that now or is that what you’re working
towards?
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11
Tim Litfin: Great question and just as of last Friday with that new Governor’s Executive Order
that’s where it shed some light on the possibility so we’re meeting tomorrow as staff and we’re
going to talk about what we can do in that regard but the vision is you know 250 is the limit so
we have staff. We have law enforcement as well at the release site so it’s probably going to look
like about 225 and then we just do it again, do it again, do it again. But we probably wouldn’t be
able to pull 100 miles. It’s just too much cost, all the structure that would have to be in place.
Mayor Ryan: Right.
Tim Litfin: But it hasn’t been officially released yet to answer your question. Hopefully soon.
Mayor Ryan: Right, well fingers crossed that things continue to open up and you can do the full
scale, the full scale race. I know one of the, and I wanted to highlight this as well about you
mentioned the food shelf and the donations and I think we all understand you know in working
with the different non-profits in this community how hard they’ve been hit as well with COVID-
19 because it’s events like this or church groups or school groups that are used to you know
contributing to their food shelves, whether it’s financially or through donations and they’ve been
really hard hit so is there an opportunity for people to just donate through Tour de Tonka that
then gets passed along to ICA Food Shelf whether or not you have this event?
Tim Litfin: Great question Madam Mayor and yes there will be because if the event can’t
happen in it’s physical form the virtual event will go and in there is going to be a flat out piece of
that going to the ICA plus the opportunity to dedicate more so yeah we’re going to support the
ICA no matter what.
Mayor Ryan: Great, I know you have in the many years, what is it $70,000 is just incredible so
congratulations to you on that. It’s I’m sure a very valuable partnership for them and wonderful
to be participating in an event and know that you’re doing good on the side as well so thank you
for that.
Tim Litfin: It’s a two way street. We appreciate them and they appreciate the opportunity…
Mayor Ryan: Absolutely.
Tim Litfin: And as well to you and to all of Chanhassen, thank you.
Mayor Ryan: Council I will go through and see if you have any questions. Councilman
McDonald?
Councilman McDonald: None at this time and good luck going forward and I’ve got my fingers
crossed.
Tim Litfin: Thank you sir.
Chanhassen City Council – June 8, 2020
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Mayor Ryan: Councilwoman Tjornhom?
Councilwoman Tjornhom: No.
Mayor Ryan: Councilwoman Coleman?
Councilwoman Coleman: None from me.
Mayor Ryan: Councilman Campion?
Councilman Campion: No questions. Good luck.
Tim Litfin: Thank you very much. Appreciate it.
Mayor Ryan: Thank you for coming tonight. We appreciate it. Best of luck. Fingers crossed.
Alright thank you.
VISITOR PRESENTATION: DAVID BISHOP CITIZEN ACTION REQUEST FORM.
Mayor Ryan: Next we have, we did receive towards the end of today a Citizen Action Request
form and this is submitted and I don’t know if Mr. Bishop is here tonight. Okay Mr. Bishop if
you want to step forward. The purpose of the Citizen Action Request form is to, if you have a
question or comment that requires action by council or staff this is the first step in that process.
This isn’t a time for the council to engage and have conversation but it’s an opportunity for us to
listen and then provide you feedback. So with that Mr. Bishop.
David Bishop: Thanks Ms. Mayor and council members. My name is David Bishop. My life
partner and I live off of Minnewashta Parkway… I also, and I have to tell you right now I have
no happy thoughts here for Arbor Day or bike riding. Aside from Minnewashta Parkway I
myself own a residence in Falcon Heights which is another, it’s a first tier suburb of the Twin
Cities and we’re very proud of little Falcon Heights because we host Minnesota State Fair. We
host the Minnesota, University of Minnesota Ag School and we think we’re really great people.
Now my house is just a block and a half from the intersection of Larpenter and Fry Street. April,
I’m sorry July 6th it was 2016 I happened to be outside when I heard all the ambulances and the
police because Philando Castile was murdered by an officer of the law in my little city. I never
thought it could happen. I’ve lived, I lived there for 25 years. I thought we were all above that.
I have friends who are minority. How could this be? Falcon Heights council chambers are about
the size of your’s. Two days later there were almost 350 people in this council chamber and I
was a minority. Two months after that the United States Department of Justice was holding their
meetings. The meetings had to be at the high school in the gymnasium because there were so
many people there and you had to go through the metal detector and they had the men in the
black suits with the little thing in their ear to make sure that everything would be civil. I still
Chanhassen City Council – June 8, 2020
13
have a little PTSD from the trauma of Philando Castile’s death in my city. Chanhassen’s a great
town. I love it. I’d like to live here the rest of my life. You are spinning on a roulette wheel. St.
Paul’s number came up. I lived there. This week, last week, two weeks ago we watched
Minneapolis number come up again. In 2016 Falcon Height’s number. There’s no reason to
believe your number isn’t going to come up as well if you do not take this seriously. Your
legacy is not going to be whether you funded Minnewashta parking or repaving Minnewashta or
whether you gave a variance for a strip mall. Your legacy is going to be whether you took the
action necessary to prevent a Philando Castile or a George Floyd from occurring in your city.
Now I came here bearing gifts. I had nothing to do with the creation of this but this is the City of
Falcon Heights Inclusion Police Task Force overview and recommendations. This is the result
of 2 years of meetings by hundreds of people that did not include me as a result of what
happened to Philando Castile who you may remember was charged with 2nd Degree Murder and
was exonerated because we have something called qualified immunity which means as far as I
can recall 143 out of, 143 Minnesota officers have been charged and won… He was a minority.
There is, and I don’t think there’s actually anybody in the room who denies it structural problems
in our policing system. Now what was the critical problem for Falcon Heights? They wanted to
save money so what did they do they farmed out their police responsibilities to a third party and
they had no authority over how they did their work. They thought that the City of St. Anthony
Police Department with their pretty black and white cars were doing the Lord’s business and
they were keeping Falcon Heights happy and at meetings like this I listened to their Chief of
Police explain to us that of course they have programs and of course they have bureaucrats who
had meetings and they had training to tell their teams how to reduce hostilities. All this kind of
stuff and of course they would never profile someone like, it took a year and a half and maybe a
little prodding from the Justice Department but we found out, I live a block and a half from
Larpenter Avenue. That’s the boundary line between St. Paul and my little city. Six times a day
I go down there and I couldn’t figure out why was it that there was always a police car on
Larpenter. I mean sometimes I’d see 3 or 4 in a day and when they were stopping someone it
was almost always someone in an older car or poor black guy. I made a joke about it to my
friends because I couldn’t believe in my own skin, you know white guy that there was such a
thing as red lining in 2016. A year and a half later we finally got them to admit that yes, it was
official policy. None of us, none of us, the Mayor and the council members of Falcon Heights
knew this was occurring. None of them would have agreed to it had they known but they were
clueless. Now the Mayor at that point was a really great guy and he ultimately figured out a way
to get out of being the Mayor because it ate him up and he’s not the mayor anymore. The new
mayor is my next door neighbor. I’ve known him for 30 years. He’s a great guy. I hope you
call him up and I hope you ask him what his experience was and what the effect of this disaster
on his little town was. Just because you’re out here as a third tier suburb does not mean that you
have the comfort of believing that what happened in Minneapolis and St. Paul cannot happen to
you and the effects will be somewhere where minorities live and not effects where all of us live
because I think they’re getting smarter. The next time they’re not going to destroy their own
town so whether you’re in general, and I don’t think any of you have a bad bone in your body.
I’m not even suggesting that but it is in your economic interest to not look at how you can save
money on your policing efforts. Over the long haul it’s going to get you because times are
Chanhassen City Council – June 8, 2020
14
changing. Now it’s easy to say I have profound respect for law enforcement. I too have a
profound respect for law enforcement in general. There was a time I was a prosecutor in the city
of Milwaukee. It was a while ago and on Monday morning I got to come in, out in and I get to
look at who was in the cell and…their status was and it still burns in my mind the people with
broken noses. The crushed fingers because the police decided good old Milwaukee street justice
was the way to deal with the issue and then on Monday after they had 3 days without medical
attention, then the Judge could handle the guy. Now you can say that was Milwaukee. That was
a long time ago. I also had 20 years as an attorney in the Twin Cities and I’d talk to my clients
about their interactions with law enforcement. It is not, and we would be Pollyanning the issue if
we believed that it is different here and we’ve seen that because today in the paper we have law
enforcement or officers that we’re paying who have slashed, who were taking pictures of
slashing the tires of reporters in the Target. This is the police protection of property. Before that
we had, we had George. Mr. George. Mr. George Floyd and I still have a hard time saying that
so we know how they can handle issues of life. It can happen here. Carver County, and I have
had interactions with Carver County’s police force. I bet none of you have. Very few of you.
Because you don’t live the lifestyle maybe where you actually have interactions with them.
They are not different. They are not special. There are systemic problems and even though you
have, I suggest even though you and I both have profound respect for the law and law
enforcement, maintaining your relationship with Carver County and off shooting your
responsibility for what happens in your city is a wrong way to go. I’m happy and I’m glad that
you’re starting the process but you need to aim higher. We need systemic change. You have
your little part you can do here in our great city of Chanhassen, the State legislature and the
Supreme Court of the United States all have things they have to do to handle all this. So I’m
done and I apologize if you feel that I’m giving you a ringer. I’m the only I think minority in
this building. There was one…took a look at who the crowd was and I think he left so I’m using
all my white privilege to give you the overview and the recommendations from the City of
Falcon Heights and I wish with God speed that you do not become what we were because it’s
still traumatizing to me and my friends.
Mayor Ryan: Thank you Mr. Bishop. Thank you. Are there any other visitor presentations
tonight? Sir, please step forward. State your name and address for the record.
Jim Manders: My name is Jim Manders and I live at 6791 Chaparral Lane and the reason I’m
here is kind of two fold. One is the regional trail. That’s not the purpose of this conversation. I
wanted to bring up an item that’s been on my mind for a number of years that I think you can all
recognize it and I think it’s a great marketing PR opportunity for the City. I hope to plant a seed
here that someone takes action. I didn’t realize...because that’s part of what I want to mention is
that too often I see in print or hear on TV that the Arboretum is in Chaska. And that Camp
Tanadoona is in Excelsior. And we all know they’re in Chanhassen. And I’m just saying what
would you think or what would a lot of people think if the Dinner Theater wasn’t here. When
they think of Chanhassen they think of Chanhassen Dinner Theater and so how are these two
places any different and I think you need to do something to have these organizations mentioned
as in Chanhassen…
Chanhassen City Council – June 8, 2020
15
Mayor Ryan: Wonderful, thank you for the suggestion. Appreciate it.
Todd Gerhardt: Mayor you want me to answer it now?
Mayor Ryan: Oh Mr. Gerhardt is ready for an answer right now.
Todd Gerhardt: We know the Arboretum’s in Chanhassen and we know that Camp Tanadoona
is in Chanhassen and those are the key points to my statement is they’re in Chanhassen. Now the
postal service delivers the mail based on their route deliveries and the route delivery to the
Arboretum happens to have a zip code that is Chaska so when you have a zip code in Chaska
you’re going to go with that title. And the Arboretum, or Camp Tanadoona is in the zip code of
Excelsior and the whole northerly part of Minnewashta is all in Chanhassen and they have the
Excelsior zip code. Mayor Tom Furlong was our Mayor and had an Excelsior zip code and
somebody asked him once, you live in Excelsior. How can you be the Mayor of Chanhassen?
And he lives in Chanhassen. It’s the world we live in. We’ve got two wonderful school
districts. Eastern Carver County School District and Minnetonka School District that serve both
Chanhassen and it’s just not uniform. It’s an efficiency from the mail service that delineates out
their zip codes and the Arboretum, like most people have a very tight budget and to take a P.O
Box and have it in downtown Chanhassen, they’ve got to send somebody to downtown
Chanhassen to pick up the mail every day. Pay for that P.O. Box and bring the mail back out to
the Arboretum just to have a Chanhassen zip code. That’s kind of ridiculous to spend that kind
of money to have a Chanhassen zip code. We know where the Arboretum’s entrance is. We
know where a majority of the Arboretum is and we’re very proud and here along Camp
Tanadoona, one of the oldest businesses in Chanhassen which we are very, very proud of.
Mayor Ryan: Thank you Mr. Gerhardt. Any other visitor presentations tonight? Okay. And
Mr. Bishop just to follow up, as you know you submitted the form and we as we shared with you
earlier we are moving forward on both reviewing our sheriff’s contract as we do annually as well
as putting forward the, you know the community conversation for individuals like you.
Individuals that you know residents, non-residents that want to come forward and share their
views. It’s unfortunate that anyone left tonight. Maybe they weren’t aware that it was an
opportunity for them to speak at the visitor presentation but I will say that we always welcome
people to come forward. We encourage. We ask every single week for people to come and
share their concerns. Their ideas. You know that’s a great opportunity for us during this
meeting but in terms of our contract with Carver County sheriff’s office we will be reviewing
that as well as having a community conversation so I hope you stay engaged and attend those
conversations as we move forward.
CONSENT AGENDA: 9. APPROVAL OF 4TH OF JULY FIREWORKS PLAN.
Mayor Ryan: Next up we have old business which was added from the consent agenda and that
is the consent agenda item was number 9 and it is a discussion that we had from our work
Chanhassen City Council – June 8, 2020
16
session that is now on, it’s been a conversation over a course of a number of meetings and it has
to do with the 4th of July fireworks plan. So Councilman McDonald I will, since you had it
pulled to the old business, off the consent agenda I’ll have you, if there’s any questions that you
want answered or if you just wanted Mr. Ruegemer to go through a quick review of the plan.
Councilman McDonald: Thank you Mayor. Yes I asked that it be pulled. Not that I have any
real questions or anything like that. I think that we talked about a number of things but what
struck me is the fact that a lot of information was handed out. One of the outcomes of that was
we wanted to start getting it out to the public as to what we had decided to do for the 4th of July
and I just thought that that was good information. I understand you’re going to put articles in the
newspaper, on our website and all of that but I thought there’s no better place to start than
tonight at our public meeting so all I wanted you to do is if you could just go over the plan.
What we’re looking at and maybe some of the rationale for our decision on the option that we
chose. Thank you.
Jerry Ruegemer: Great, thank you Councilman McDonald. Be happy to do that tonight. So we
had talked about this at the work session meeting tonight so I’ll kind of go right to the plans that
we had kind of looked at. So we had looked at four different plans of kind of putting together a
fireworks display at Lake Ann Park. It certainly was the City Council’s desire to have a
fireworks display on July 4th to kind of help celebrate our day of independence for our country.
So we had looked at Plan A which was to launch fireworks at Lake Ann open the park for
fireworks viewing with spectators practicing social distancing. Plan B was launch the fireworks
under a drive in only theme. According to the Executive Order 20-56 there will be no general
seating in Lake Ann Park as spectators must remain in or adjacent to their vehicles. Vehicles
would be parked every other stall under that scenario. Plan C was to launch the fireworks with
the park closed to the public. All fireworks viewing would be off site and Plan D was no
fireworks display. So as the 4th of July fireworks committee had kind of viewed the four
different options that were available to us during the conversation we knew that Plan A would
likely not be permitted by the Executive Order for that so we kind of did kind of a process of
elimination for that. We know that Plan D, it was not the council’s desire to cancel the
fireworks. We kind of did a process of elimination with that. We looked at Plan B as an option
to kind of guide or designate that as a drive in only theme. We had looked at a number of
different scenarios with that as far as kind of limiting the number of cars coming into Lake Ann
Park for the fireworks itself. Some of the obstacles I guess with that was spectators had to
remain in their cars during the course of the fireworks celebration so if that means that they
would get there at 7:00 or 7:30 to get a prime viewing spot, they would need to remain in their
cars until the fireworks concluded. So under the drive in only guidelines set by the State there
really is no bathrooms provided for that. There’s no food. Everything they’re really kind of
quarantined to their cars for that so knowing that that would, people would probably not likely
stay in their vehicles for up to 2 to 3 hours potentially really the planning committee really
looked at Plan C as really the viable option that would really kind of check the boxes as it relates
to complying with the Executive Orders set in place by Governor Walz so the planning
committee is making a recommendation to launch the fireworks at Lake Ann Park and that
Chanhassen City Council – June 8, 2020
17
would be closed to the public for all public viewing and the fireworks viewing would be done
really off site in probably the proximity or perimeter around Lake Ann Park similar to what
people have done in the past. So under Plan C the Lake Ann would be open from 6:00 a.m. until
5:00 p.m. that day so families could go and enjoy a day at the beach or day at the park to enjoy
and then at 5:00 we would kindly ask people to vacate the park so we could prepare for the
fireworks display.
Councilman McDonald: And then also I think there was a part where you looked at the
fireworks themselves in order to make Plan C a much more viable option and also more
enjoyable to the public. Would you kind of review that a little bit?
Jerry Ruegemer: Sure can. So that was kind of one of the questions that had come up during the
committee conversations with that so we did contact our pyrotechnics vendor to see if they could
adjust the dander of the shells or kind of, that we could reach the height of the 10 inch shells that
we currently had so the question was could we kind of rearrange the 3 inch shells, 5 inch shells,
and kind of reallocate those to increase the number of 8’s and 10 inch shells that would basically
be the same height as the 10 inch shells that we had currently in our existing show. So the
thought behind that was to make the shells go a little bit higher as the same height as the 10 inch
shells so people could see them from farther distances outside of Lake Ann Park. So our
pyrotechnics company gladly rearranged the show and then increased the number of 8’s and 10
inch shells to get kind of higher up into the air so to create a better viewing situation. So we
even did ask the fireworks company if there was anything above 10 inch shells and they, there
certainly is. They have 12 inch shells but they are not licensed for those. Those are a higher
explosive than what they are licensed for so they do not shoot anything higher than 10 so we’re
going to stick with the 10’s of what we currently had in our previous contract and we just
reallocated that number.
Councilman McDonald: Well I thank you for the thorough vetting of all of this and a thorough
background checks and everything that you all went into to again meet the desire of council that
the fireworks show should go on so thank you for all your work. Again just to reiterate I thought
it was important that we start with this council meeting to get the information out to everyone
about the 4th of July so they can begin to make plans and so that the community knows and
understands what the City of Chanhassen is going to be doing so thank you very much and
please thank your working group also.
Jerry Ruegemer: I will, thank you very much.
Mayor Ryan: With that I would stand for a motion.
Councilman McDonald: Madam Mayor I’ll make the motion since I pulled it. I would propose
that the City Council approves the proposed plan that includes closing Lake Ann Park at 5:00
p.m. to display fireworks at Lake Ann Park in a manner that meets the current Executive Order
from the Governor of the State of Minnesota as on June 8, 2020. Furthermore the Council grants
Chanhassen City Council – June 8, 2020
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approval to the planning team to adjust the plan to meet any changes made by Executive Order in
place on July the 4th, 2020.
Mayor Ryan: Thank you Councilman McDonald. We have a valid motion. Is there a second?
Councilman Campion: Second.
Mayor Ryan: Thank you Councilman Campion. We have a valid motion and a second.
Councilman McDonald moved, Councilman Campion seconded that the City Council
approves the proposed plan that includes closing Lake Ann Park at 5:00 p.m. to display
fireworks at Lake Ann Park in a manner that meets the current Executive Order from the
Governor of the State of Minnesota as of June 8, 2020. Furthermore the Council grants
approval to the planning team to adjust the plan to meet any changes made by Executive
Order in place on July the 4th, 2020. 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 again Mr. Ruegemer, Mr. Hoffman, Chief for
all your work on this and to the sheriff’s office as well.
Jerry Ruegemer: Thank you, have a good night.
Mayor Ryan: Thank you. You too.
HIGHWAY 5 REGIONAL TRAIL FUNDING.
Mayor Ryan: No public hearings and so the next item on our agenda is new business and it is the
discussion around the Highway 5 regional trail funding. Mr. Hoffman.
Todd Hoffman: Thank you Mayor, members of the City Council. Just before we get started, so
tonight we’ll have a dual presentation. I’ll present on behalf of the City. Mr. Marty Walsh who
is here from the County will present on behalf of the County. We also have a variety of project
partners either on Zoom or in the council chambers and so we have Peter Moe here, Alan
Brandhagen with the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum and then Justin Schmidt with Life Time
Fitness. I believe one of our Park and Recreation Commission Chair Jim Boettcher is probably
on Zoom as well. There may be others as well and council are on Zoom. So after we’re done
presenting if you want to hear from anybody else it’s up to council if you want to allow those
people to speak on behalf of the project. So tonight we’re going to talk about a city budget
amendment to increase the City share, the 25 percent share of the project. The $1.2 million
dollars to $1,681,549. Citizens have dreamed of a day that a pedestrian trail would link our town
to the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum since 1958, the day that the Arboretum was founded and
having worked here for 33 years I can tell you that I’ve talked to many people or in fact people
have talked to me many times about when will that dream ever come true in our city. This trail
Chanhassen City Council – June 8, 2020
19
pedestrian link or transportation corridor is the single largest remaining missing link in the city’s
comprehensive trail plan. We only have about 3 remaining to finish up that are of any major
significance. This is the largest of those 3. In 2010 the City of Chanhassen initiated the current
planning effort. There have been others in our history. Other planning efforts which have failed
but in 2010 the City of Chanhassen initiated this current planning effort to create a pedestrian
connection to the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum. The City applied for federal funding. It’s a
151 page application that we applied for, for $986,000 in federal funds in 2011. We did not
receive that grant. In talking with the people that process those they suggested that if we moved
that up into the county jurisdiction that the scores would score better and it may be more
favorable as an application so subsequently the City of Chanhassen, we encouraged Carver
County to become the lead agency on the project to increase the likelihood that a future federal
funding application would be approved. In 2014 Carver County’s application for $1,192,000 in
transportation enhancement program funding received approval. At that time a project
partnership team between Carver County, the City of Chanhassen, the Minnesota Landscape
Arboretum and Life Time Fitness was created. It’s a pretty unique partnership having both
county, public, public and private. The Arboretum pretty unique partnership to forward a project
like this. Together this partnership has committed 5 years of planning efforts towards the project
and I can tell you as we’ve reached closer and closer to when this project could move forward
those efforts have doubled and tripled and doubled and tripled again, especially on the county’s
side and they really deserved some credit for that. To accomplish those planning, that 5 years of
planning funds in excess of $500,000 have been invested so far in this work to date. Currently
pedestrians utilize the shoulder of Trunk Highway 5 to gain access to the Arboretum or they
sneak in one of few back doors if they’re a pedestrian that they may find an access to. This new
trail will travel underneath State Highway 41. Again another long term goal of the City is to
have a pedestrian underpass under State Highway 41 at the intersection of Highway 5 so the new
trail will travel underneath State Highway 41 and connect directly to the front entrance of the
Minnesota Landscape Arboretum in the community of Chanhassen. And I’m hearing more and
more Chanhassen so I don’t know where they’re getting that from but they’re saying Chanhassen
more and more. The trail will fill a sizeable gap in the local and regional multi-modal
transportation system providing a safe connection to vital employment and cultural centers,
recreation opportunities and transit facilities along and in the Highway 5 corridor. This is past
city support for the project. In February of 2018 the City passed and adopted a resolution
supporting the Trunk Highway 5 regional master plan. In October of 2018 the City approved a
Memorandum of Understanding between Carver County and the City for the construction of the
Trunk Highway 5 regional recreational trail and underpass. And in June of 2019 the City
executed a Joint Powers Agreement with Carver County for the design, construction,
maintenance and operation of the Trunk Highway 5 regional trail and underpass. Tonight the
recommendation is that the City Council authorizes a 25 percent share increase in budgeted city
expenditures for the Trunk Highway 5 regional trail and underpass from the $1.2 million dollars
previously budgeted based on cost estimates to a $1,681,549 contribution based on actual bids.
So the actual bids received were very competitive. The actual cost of the project, to build the
project would require our share be raised to that $1,681,000. If we want to pay for it out of the
park fund the current park fund balance is not sufficient to cover that full cost but future
Chanhassen City Council – June 8, 2020
20
forecasted park fund revenue exceeds $10 million dollars. If you were ever to give the park fund
a loan it certainly makes sense to loan that park fund that $481,000. Pay for it with future
proceeds so this project can move forward. Bridging any financing gap in the City’s park fund is
a sound financial strategy as it will avoid having to redo this project in the future and recapitalize
this project at any time in the future. We know the partners will break down if this project
should not move forward. The federal funding will go away and all the planning efforts to date
will go away. This current process again was started in 2011. Today we sit at 2020 prepared to
award the project. Acting positively on the project is in the best interest of all partners and of our
communities. With that I’ll allow Marty to, he can step up here. Is there a clicker up there
Marty?
Marty Walsh: Yes right here.
Todd Hoffman: Why don’t you introduce yourself for everybody who doesn’t know who you
are.
Marty Walsh: Madam Mayor and council members, Marty Walsh, Carver County Park and
Recreation Director…512 West 76th Street.
Mayor Ryan: Well welcome. Thanks for being here tonight.
Marty Walsh: Well it’s great to be here. This has been and is one of the most exciting projects
I’ve had yet to work on. It’s been extremely challenging but the outcome here I believe is going
to be well worth it. It’s quite a project. So I’ll begin and I’ll try not to repeat much of what
Todd said so if we could move to the next slide Todd. Oh I guess I’ve got the clicker. Okay so
Todd covered a bunch of the history that was related to the project. As he mentioned 2011 the
application was made. 2014 Carver County made an application and we were successful but had
the same goal if you will as what the 2011. Addressed safety, make sure we had partners, it’s a
key connection and consistency with local, regional and U of M Arboretum plans. I will say that
we’ve been quite fortunate with regards to this application. You may not know that this is the
last application that we’ve been successful with. And we’ve applied every year since then on
multiple projects and even this project here when we got the federal funds for it, it was the last
one on the list. It made, just barely made the cut so again I’m telling you we were quite fortunate
that we were successful with obtaining the federal funds. So as Todd mentioned we did receive a
number of letters of support for our grant application from all of our partners and again Peter and
Allen are here from the Arboretum…
Mayor Ryan: I think he’s on the phone.
Marty Walsh: Again more history if you will with regards to this particular project. So once we
received notice that we were going to move ahead with the project or we desired to move ahead
with the project given that we received notice of federal funding. From 2016 and 2018 we spent
time and partner meetings developing our master plan. These partner meetings included the
Chanhassen City Council – June 8, 2020
21
school district, City of Chanhassen, City of Victoria, Life Time Fitness, Arboretum, and
representatives from our local… We had a very robust public engagement process. We engaged
about 300 people through open houses at the Chanhassen Community Center. At Life Time
Fitness in terms of public meetings and at the Rose…at the Arboretum. So again very robust
conversations about the project. About planning for the Highway 5 regional trail and I can’t
think of one negative comment that came from that entire development. In 2018 we did
see…resolutions from all of our partners about the project going forward and that application or
master plan went onto the Metropolitan Council and that helps us receive future regional funding
for the entire Trunk Highway 5 corridor. So again just some more history here if you will.
Going back to 2017 some of the key steps that we took here. Preliminary design was completed.
Project memorandum which describes the project was submitted to the State for consideration
and the initial environmental review was completed. In 2018 Todd went through the MOU’s.
That MOU contained the cost participation policy of the County which for many regional trails
which the Trunk Highway 5 corridor is, it’s 50/50. 50 percent county and 50 percent local. In
this case local is split down to 25/25 percent between the Arboretum and City of Chanhassen.
Todd mentioned the JPA’s. He didn’t mention that one of the major things that we secured here
was the right-of-way from Life Time Fitness and right-of-way from the University of Minnesota
at no cost to the project. Also during this time period there was a cultural and historic resource
investigation completed. Very substantial process. You may not know but the Arboretum’s
apple research is part of the registry, National Registry of Historic Places so it’s very significant.
And there hadn’t been, there hadn’t been any other archeology investigations. Archeological
investigations done on the new projects so that was done. 2020 we get a little closer here.
Construction plans and permitting are now complete. Bids were obtained on May 26th and
tomorrow we present before the County Board our desire to move forward with the project and
the retaining of $1.2 million dollars of federal funds. Tonight we are seeking your concurrence
for the project. Next slide here. So this is the master plan area for the Trunk Highway 5
corridor. And does this have a laser on it? You’ve got to point it in the right so it’s helpful if
you point it in the right direction so. I got it. It’s not really showing up all that well on the
screen there. You can see the diagram pretty well. Off on the far left hand side is the City of
Eden Prairie so the trail starts about where Dell Road and it runs westerly through the city of
Chanhassen, crossing major highways and then along the way it gets to where Century
Boulevard. So the solid dashed line indicates what’s in place today and then when we get to the
dashed line here, that’s the section of trail that does not exist. From Century Boulevard over to
Minnewashta Parkway. That’s a very significant area as you’re quite aware but this connection,
and I’ll talk about some other lines here. This connection makes key on contact with U of M
Landscape Arboretum as we talked about. Carver County Park Reserve which is just off the
edge of this picture here. The Minnetonka trail which is the blue line off to my far, off to the left
hand side. The blue line going north/south there. Continues the Trunk Highway 5 regional trail
and you can make access to Lake Minnewashta Regional Park by a local trail system in this area.
There are also numerous other city trails and that cities, you’re just talking about Lake Ann
where you can get to Lake Ann Park from here. While diving in just a little closer to this area
and to, I’m going to try a different laser to see if it’s. This one does a little better doesn’t it?
Diving in a little closer to the project area here, again this is over here at Century Boulevard
Chanhassen City Council – June 8, 2020
22
where the project starts. Existing city trail connection is there. Heads over to Highway 41 in
front of Life Time Fitness. Highway 41 we have an underpass. And the project takes a
significant dive on the Arboretum property. It goes behind the evergreens that you may be
familiar with along Highway 5 and it continues to the gate house shack and heads back along
their parking lots and then across the wetland area ultimately reaching back to Minnewashta
Parkway where there’s an existing box culvert. Just a little bit of a diagram what that underpass
will look like here, it does have a curvilineal design you’ll notice that you can’t see straight
through the box culvert area but what that curvilineal design allows us to do is to minimize your
impacts both on the Arboretum property as well as on Life Time Fitness’ property. The sheet
piling that’s kind of showing in the background here, sheet piling that’s showing on either side of
this here…construction limits. This is an aerial view if you will of that intersection of the box
culvert which is located here, Life Time Fitness is in the background and that curvilinear design
hooks such that if people were to go straight it would run into the parking lot of Life Time
Fitness. It hooks over here towards the right-of-way as well as it hooks behind the monument
sign of the Landscape Arboretum. And that design saves you impacts for those facilities. I got
started going one direction and now I can’t change my habit. This is an example of a boardwalk
that years of one that we intended to construct on the University of Minnesota Landscape
Arboretum property. It addresses the challenge that we face here. We tried numerous times, in
fact we went through 10 different trail renditions about how to minimize impacts to wetland area.
Ultimately the permitting authorities were not going to allow us a plan that did not come up with
the least amount of wetland impact and so we just had to switch gears very quickly and move
over towards a boardwalk design. This is another look at that particular boardwalk. An
example. It is a substantial structure. It’s actually 14 feet wide. It is built solid enough that
lightweight pick-up’s, maintenance equipment can travel across that boardwalk and it’s quite
substantial. 14 feet wide and about 1,000 feet long. We’ve been looking at ways to reduce cost.
We talked about the right-of-way which we received at no cost. We did redesign the underpass
as we went through this one more time and that did save some additional dollars but it is a very
substantial structure. We attempted as I had mentioned to cross the area between Highway
5 and the Arboretum on an existing utility corridor which made a lot of sense but ultimately we
were not permitted. The boardwalk as well as the underpass are substantial items that drove the
cost for this project. Here is the bid summary for the project. Initial engineer’s estimate was
$5.5 million dollars for the project. We received very competitive bids that are close together.
All 3 of them are within 3.5 percent of each other. We believe the engineer’s estimate to be
under value for this project and it really is confirmed by the 3 bids that are within 3.5 percent of
each other. We know that sometimes engineer’s estimates are on and we also know that
sometimes engineer’s estimates are either above or below. In moving on I’m just going to
highlight several things here. One is the funding. The federal funds which is shared
proportionately across the partnering agencies by percentage. The project, the project is nearly
an $8 million dollar investment in the community. We have planned for some contingency
funding and some utility funding and we’ll talk a little bit more about in the future. We hope that
we don’t have to use those but we have planned them. So this is kind of a transparent look at our
project and again all total it’s about $8 million dollars worth of investment. Again taking a look
at some potential cost savings as we continue to look at ways to bring down and drive down the
Chanhassen City Council – June 8, 2020
23
price for this investment, there is a potential where we might be able to stockpile surplus soil on
the Arboretum property. The savings could be as high as $250,000. The quoted or price inside
our quote or bid for the project the deer fence is higher than we anticipated. Substantially higher.
We may look at if it’s possible to bid this item separately. And then we are also looking at
additional value engineering as it would relate to the box culvert. All total if we were successful
in all the attempts to stay within our contingency and not have to relocate utilities and we are
successful on these items that reduced in price there’s a potential that we might be able to bring
the price down substantially by about $200,000 for the City of Chanhassen. I want to talk just a
little bit about the project’s significance. Again it’s an $8 million dollar investment that
improves safety. It removes a long standing barrier that would link communities of Chanhassen,
Victoria and if you want to go further you can get to Excelsior. It links the trail system both
locally and regionally so I mentioned that not only is it the Trunk Highway 5 regional trail, the
Lake Minnetonka regional trail, you stay long enough on the 5 trail you go east to Eden Prairie
and eventually get to the Minnesota River Bluffs regional trail. We achieved a public/private
partnership which we was our initial goal with our partners and as we talk about in our grants but
there are some other things here that you’re probably not aware of. The Arboretum has a
problem with deer and keeping those little critters out it’s a very, very important and Allen and
Peter here can attest to that but it provides the security that they are looking in keeping those
critters off. The other significant item here that I’m sure you’re not aware is that the person that
initially started this conversation with Life Time Fitness. He’s no longer with us. He died at a
very young age. I want to say he was less than 40 years old. He’s no longer here. Life Time
would like to honor that person’s commitment with Life Time, his vision with the connectedness
of the community and so we have plans for a memorial if you will for that section of trail in front
of Life Time Fitness. We talk about this being critical infrastructure to be constructed timely.
Federal funds right now if we go with the project, stay within Carver County and for one dollar
of local funds, that’s three additional dollars being federal, county or from the Arboretum. And
it addresses the number recreational demand that we have which is hiking, biking, walking trails
are extremely popular. The other thing I’d like to just kind of mention, so we talked about those
connections if you will but there are some experiences here that people may or may not know
either. And so some of those experiences and I was biking from my home in Chaska to
Minnewashta Regional Park here the other day and I thought geez how great would it be to get a
nice cold drink over at the Arboretum’s café. Or if I was particularly thirsty I would continue on
further to the Brewery in Victoria or maybe to the ice cream shop there. Again if I wanted to go
further yet and connect with the Lake Minnetonka regional trail and get back to Excelsior and do
this grand loop that would bring me all…from Chaska. So there are some neat experiences to be
had by this trail. So Madam Chair and members we are recommending that we move ahead with
this project. We have had strong partnership for this project. It’s lasted over a number of years.
It’s lasted through some really trying times as we’ve done this project. It avoids future costs of a
trail on the Trunk Highway 5 itself which will be much more expensive and certainly in a less
desired area than the grounds of the Landscape Arboretum. This has been an enormous effort.
Mast planning. Good will by partners and a huge undertaking rally this last year to get the
project to where it is. The next opportunity would be a number of years in the future if this
Chanhassen City Council – June 8, 2020
24
opportunity does not succeed. With that Madam Mayor, members I’ve certainly got partners
here in the room. I think some of WebX. I’d stand for questions.
Mayor Ryan: Thank you Mr. Walsh. Council if any of you have any questions to begin and
then we can have some conversation around it. Any questions for Mr. Walsh Councilman
McDonald?
Councilman McDonald: Yes Mayor, thank you. I’ve got basically two questions. First question
is why is the estimate so far off?
Marty Walsh: Madam Mayor and Councilmember McDonald. Really we believe it relates to
two significant items. The boardwalk, the addition of a boardwalk was a million dollars and the
box culvert. We believe the engineer’s estimate in those two categories were under valued.
There’s some other things too that with regards to earth work…under value but as our
engineering department has taken a look at this and compared it to other spots the pre-estimate
that we have near the low bid are in line with other work the County has done.
Councilman McDonald: Okay. And then the other question I have for you is that Chanhassen’s
share is going up. Are the other partners shares also increasing?
Marty Walsh: That’s correct Madam Mayor, Councilman McDonald. All the partner shares are
going up proportionately just as you know it’s 25 percent for the Arboretum. It’s 50 percent for
Carver County and 25 percent for Chanhassen. Everyone’s cost going up proportionately.
Councilman McDonald: Okay I have no further questions, thank you.
Mayor Ryan: Thank you Councilman McDonald. Councilwoman Tjornhom, any questions at
this time?
Councilwoman Tjornhom: Councilman McDonald kind of already asked the questions that I
was going to ask about why the cost increase and what our partners were seeing with this too. If
they had a cost increase so not at this time.
Mayor Ryan: Alright thank you. Councilwoman Coleman any questions at this time?
Councilwoman Coleman: Yes if someone wouldn’t mind just reiterating you know where the
funds will come from on our end and if this will have an impact at all on next year’s budget
moving forward.
Mayor Ryan: Mr. Sticha is stepping forward.
Greg Sticha: Councilmember Coleman, Mayor, the funds were budgeted as part of the 2020
CIP. They are park dedication fund dollars that have been I guess budgeted for the purpose of
Chanhassen City Council – June 8, 2020
25
this project. Going into this CIP year we had planned for $1.2 million. The issue with the
funding for that is we probably only have about $1.3 million in available park dedication fund
dollars to pay for any project so we’re essentially short in park dedication fund dollars by
roughly $300,000. So while this would not impact the general fund budget, this would have an
impact if we were to have to either temporarily loan it internally or as I suggested earlier this
evening if the council did want to proceed with this project would be to ask for a zero percent
interest loan from Carver County in the hope for future park dedication fund dollars when they
are paid in 2020, 2021, or 2022 to repay the remaining portion, i.e. the $300,000 that we would
be short. Keeping in mind in that time we wouldn’t have a lot of opportunity to fund any other
projects with park dedication fund dollars. We also don’t have a lot of other projects currently in
the 5 year CIP slated for park dedication fund dollars.
Mayor Ryan: Thank you Mr. Sticha. Anything further Ms. Coleman at this time?
Councilwoman Coleman: No thank you. I just wanted to make sure I was clear on that.
Appreciate it.
Mayor Ryan: Councilman Campion?
Councilman Campion: I actually had a follow up for Mr. Sticha. So how does this increase
relate to then you know the Lake Ann trail? Completion.
Greg Sticha: So Lake Ann trail is roughly $4.2 million. There was probably no scenario where
we were going to be able to fund Lake Ann trail without some type of property tax increase.
Park dedication fund dollars would be very difficult to fund Lake Ann trail with. It could take
you years to accumulate $4.2 million dollars in park dedication fund dollars. So Lake Ann trail
is probably going to have to be something that we’re going to have to consider some type of levy
and debt payment to make that particular trail happen and probably not park dedication fund
dollars.
Councilman Campion: Yeah and I’m just raising that. You had commented that there weren’t
any other significant expenditures planned in the next 5 years but.
Greg Sticha: That were not part of the CIP for park dedication fund dollars.
Councilman Campion: Okay got it.
Mayor Ryan: Alright anything further at this time Mr. Campion?
Councilman Campion: No more at this time.
Mayor Ryan: Okay thank you Mr. Sticha. Mr. Walsh I don’t have any questions for you at this
time. I think, I mean I know that there’s been some conversations as well but there’s just some
Chanhassen City Council – June 8, 2020
26
information that I appreciate your presentation as well as Mr. Hoffman’s presentation. Clearly
you know that you’ve had support since this first started discussion I think back, actually back in
2009 when I was on the park board and that was when it first came to the conversation.
Obviously since 2017 you’ve had the council behind you as we you know progressed. We’ve
also had an increase in the price as we’ve progressed earning from $900,000 and up to $1.2
million dollars and now we’re at over $1.6 million dollars. And we understand that that happens
as time goes. Costs increase. We understand it. I think it’s very clear how much we appreciate
the partnership with Carver County. Obviously with the Arboretum and that relationship and
there are many benefits to this project that I think the reason why you got support over the course
of those last years is because we understand that it’s a missing trail link or connection. There’s a
lot of cyclists in the area that use it. It’s something that Chanhassen takes great pride in is
investing in their trails. I mean it’s why we get recognized all the time is our parks and trails.
The challenge that I see and is a big challenge I think for this council. We had our meeting
earlier today when we talked about our budget situation and it isn’t just this but in a big picture
and yet if we focus you know council just on where we’re at with our park dedication fund
Councilwoman Coleman you asked and I have our CIP, our 5 year plan and so for 2020 we
started at $1.795. $1,795,000 and what that’s been spent on is our picnic tables and benches,
trees, and the park equipment replacement that we’ve done the projects so far and City Center
Park the paver replacement. And so of that $1., almost $1.8 we’ve already spent $445,000 and
so when you see in Mr. Hoffman’s report why, or Mr. Sticha pointed out that what’s remaining
in our park fund is $1.35 million dollars left in this park fund as stand today. We’ve already
committed to the nature trails so now you have to take about $150,000 out of that and so we’re
left with this $1.2 million and so now we’ve just spent our park fund. So we have no dollars left
in our park fund without even doing this project and now you’re going to add, you know now we
have this project has gone up to $1.681. We are now going to be running a $481,549 deficit in
our park fund and while we don’t have any major projects and Mr. Campion or Councilman
Campion you asked about the Lake Ann trail. You know that is for sure a pipe dream but we are
running a deficit for what we do every single year. Certainly since I’ve been on, involved in the
park board with picnic tables and benches. We don’t have the trees. Some of the other park
replacement equipment so that means we don’t have any money to touch any parks that are vital
to the community and the neighborhoods in this community. Tennis court refurbishment is for
2021. We are running a significant deficit and while we talk about the potential of $10 million
dollars at some point coming into this park fund, I mean that is long term. When I was on the
parks commission we had a goal of always maintaining a minimum balance in the park fund of a
million dollars and we slowly kept eating away at it because there were important projects that
obviously needed to get done but now we are at a point where we have to make a decision as
council of do we want to run such a significant deficit and then borrow from whom? The County
again? We’re already borrowing from the County to pay for our Lyman Boulevard project. I
don’t think the County should be our bank. We don’t have any sources of additional revenue for
the City other than increasing taxes and we already added you know our franchise fee last year
so we could pay for roads and we learned tonight with Mr. Sticha we are potentially facing not
getting money from the State Aid and so now we have to figure out how we’re going to fund
some major road projects and so you know there comes a point where as vital as this connection
Chanhassen City Council – June 8, 2020
27
is and as important as making these trail connections are, we owe it to our residents first that we
are being you know good stewards of their dollars and by running a deficit in a park fund from
borrowing again from the County. From our using our reserves which we know we’re going to
need just based on some of our budgeting situations going forward, is that really the wisest
decision? I mean it’s hard to look out and see you know representatives from the Arboretum and
we got the tour and it’s a beautiful tour of where the trail was going to go but at the end of the
day we have to answer to our residents in saying this is how we spent our money. This is what
we get is we borrowed again, we borrowed from the County. We ran a deficit in our park fund
yet we don’t have enough money for our roads. You know I think that’s a really challenging
predicament for us to be in when we have to make, when we have to answer that question. I
know how much money and time and effort has gone into this project and planning on it and I
appreciate everybody’s time and effort in putting this forward but it doesn’t mean that it’s the
end. I mean we’re on our consent agenda tonight we approved you know support of funding,
federal funding for part of the Arboretum area transportation plan. Now I know that’s
Minnewashta Parkway up to Rolling Acres but you know long term as we are going to be sitting
down as council in the next month or two to talk about that whole area of planning, if council
recalls in our work session you know the intersection between, at Highway 5 and Highway 41 is
going to be redone and MnDOT has already provided support for a plan to redo that intersection
so there is going to be time in the future to address crossings in that area and so just because it’s
not this time, you know I don’t believe that that means never and at the end of the day when we
vote on something you know I really feel that I, I mean I have to be 100 percent comfortable.
It’s our taxpayers dollars and running a deficit in a park fund and borrowing from reserves which
we know we’re going to use is not, it just not a responsible way to move forward and you know I
just think that the numbers are clear as day. Again I come back to your presentation. I think that
the value add is significant. I understand the importance of this project but when push comes to
shove and you can’t afford to do something you shouldn’t do it and that’s really where I am right
now is we as a City cannot put ourself in a financial predicament that jeopardizes other things
and when I say things I really mean our 2020 budget. 2021 budget as well as all of our road
construction projects that are going to be a challenge in the coming years so I just wanted to
share my thoughts with council on this and I’m open to further discussion or feedback from
council. I’ll start with you Councilman McDonald.
Councilman McDonald: Well thank you Mayor and I will say your point was very well stated.
The thing for all of this though for me is as we’ve said this has been a 25 year project. Been
looking at this for a number of years. You’ve been waiting for an opportunity because if we’re
going to put in a below grade crossing it just isn’t that easy when you’ve going across a major
roadway so we’ve been waiting for something to happen on Highway 41. It finally happens and
we have an opportunity. It troubles me somewhat that we’re looking at borrowing money from
the park board but I think it’s money that the park board would have. I’ve talked to the park
board. They understand that if this money is spent on this project it will diminish what they can
do going forward and I think that they have prioritized this project as something worthwhile and
something that they would place a higher priority on so I think in listening to them, the fact that
all the other partners in all of this have also experienced an increase. The fact that, I don’t know
Chanhassen City Council – June 8, 2020
28
that you could even bring this team together again. There are a number of moving parts in all of
this and it’s taken a number of years to get everybody’s cooperation and agreement in order to do
this plan. I think it’s a worthwhile project. We just talked a little bit earlier about why is the
Arboretum being known as being in Chaska. Well part of it is we don’t have good connections
with the city of Chanhassen. This gives us a good connection. It gives us you know part of what
we’re trying to do with those features of our city that we do try to highlight and again draw
people in for. So I think with that it is a worthwhile project. I would support it with the
understanding that again we’re borrowing money from the park board for a fund going forward.
There probably are not a lot of projects that the park board’s going to be able to put forward but a
couple years ago on the commission that you sat on you looked at what was the plan for the park
board? You know what are we going to do as far as money? What are we going to lay out
projects for and we tried to put together a list again without a real timeline but something that
said these would be I think projects of opportunity and as they came up we would look at how do
you get funds to fulfill the opportunity. I think this underpass is one of those things and I think
that you know again it’s something that would be supported within the community. If you’re
going to wait for the Highway 5 corridor to come up, now you’ve still got a problem on how do
you cross Highway 5 because at this point if you shifted that you’ll be on the north side of
Highway 5 instead of being on the south side because to be on the south side you’re going to
again be on Arboretum property and right now they’re not part of anything to do with any
upgrade to Highway 5 so that’s why I think it’s important that the City has again stated that this
is a priority going back 25 years we’ve been trying to find a way to do it. I don’t want to wait
another 25 years so I would support it.
Mayor Ryan: Mr. Sticha I think you should clarify that we’re not borrowing against the park,
from the park fund. If we go forward we have to use our reserves that we highlighted earlier
because we’ll be running a deficit in our park fund.
Greg Sticha: You would have to either use reserves to borrow until the park dedication fund
dollars came available, or borrow from the County until park dedication fund dollars became
available. You have to borrow from one of those two sources.
Mayor Ryan: Because the park board will be running a deficit with just the increase, right.
Greg Sticha: Yep.
Councilman McDonald: Then Madam Mayor could I ask you a question Mr. Sticha? Has the
County indicated a willingness to loan us the money at zero interest?
Greg Sticha: We’ve had some I think email discussion about it but I don’t know that they’ve
officially stated that they would be willing to do that.
Marty Walsh: I can speak directly to it. Perhaps my supervisor is watching…so I believe the
County is receptive to a reasonable financing plan for that amount that is over the money.
Chanhassen City Council – June 8, 2020
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Greg Sticha: In terms of how long will it take to repay the last $300,000-$350,000 it depends on
development. Park dedication fees in a normal year we probably have $75,000 or $100,000 that
would roll in. Currently the one major development that we do have is not paying park
dedication fees so that leaves only smaller projects that are coming in on occasion that are
actually paying park dedication fund fees so we’re not going to probably see a lot of revenue in
2020. Some. So it could take 1 or 2 years before we’d have that $300,000 in the fund to pay it
back.
Councilman McDonald: So how long would it take to be able to pay the money back then?
Todd Hoffman: Depends on development but the money might be there before the projects is
built back out… Again we’ve studied this for a long time because we always wanted to know
what the eventual income would be in park dedication so you know it’s well in excess of $10
million…so if you’re ever going to borrow money, many cities do this. In my 33 years here
we’ve never borrowed for the park fund so if this is the first time in my career that we’ve
borrowed against the park fund, that is the first time. Many cities do this… In many cases you
wouldn’t use all the park fund money. There might be some…
Mayor Ryan: And I think the big project that everybody’s waiting for is Avienda and Avienda is
nowhere in sight and we keep getting feedback that you know that’s the one big project that
when we talk $10 million that’s being built out and we have $10 million in the fund. You know
it’s a long time before we get any dollars back in the park fund to get it up from $481,549 dollar
deficit to get it back to zero. That’s a long time and you know and when we talk about it’s not
that and we borrow some of our reserves that we talked about at our council meeting or our work
session tonight, obviously we didn’t have any lengthy discussion about our reserves but I think
we all know where some of those reserves are going to have to go to maintain our infrastructure,
our roads and you know some other, who knows what other unexpected costs come to the City.
We have to be aware of that and while the County’s always very willing to be our banker, I don’t
think we should continue to get in a relationship as a city to be borrowing from the county.
We’re already doing it for Lyman Boulevard and now we’re going to do it for this. You know
we don’t have the number of revenue streams that the county has right now so we don’t have
wheelage tax and sales tax and other ways that we get money. We have our property tax and our
franchise fee and I get very concerned with all of a sudden Carver County becoming our banker
for our project and to me it just feels like with this project we’re living beyond our means and I
don’t do it in my personal life and I’m certainly not comfortable doing it with taxpayer dollars so
I just wanted to thank you Mr. Sticha. I wanted to get clarification on who we’re borrowing
from so I appreciate that. Councilman McDonald I can come back to you if you want me to
continue down the?
Councilman McDonald: Yeah go ahead and continue.
Mayor Ryan: Alright Councilwoman Tjornhom?
Chanhassen City Council – June 8, 2020
30
Councilwoman Tjornhom: Yes thank you. I want to thank the presenters for the information
they gave us tonight and this has been 25 years in the making. It’s not like it’s been 25 weeks or
25 months. It’s been a lot of people working together. The private industry, government, and
that’s really a unique situation and so to now get to the last let of this journey and say no. We’re
backing out of it. I just think it’s irresponsible. It’s irresponsible and it’s disrespectful for all
those people for 25 years that have worked so hard and all the support they’ve had from the
residents to get this done. Borrowing money from the county sometimes you have to do what
you have to do to get it done and so I’m interested in hearing what the terms would be of
borrowing money. If you think about it they get their money from the taxpayers. They get their
money from the wheelage tax that Chanhassen pays a lot of money into and so you know there’s
a lot of things that Chanhassen has done to help the County have funds also so I think this has
been a partnership for 25 years and maybe there needs to be one more partnership to see this
through.
Mayor Ryan: Thank you Councilwoman. Councilwoman Coleman?
Councilwoman Coleman: Yeah I do have to agree that this isn’t some random wish list item.
This isn’t reckless spending. This is something that’s been under careful consideration and while
we are living in unsure time there is every indication that the economy and life as normal or life
that we’re used to is going to go back to normal. My biggest question with this is, you know has
this gone back to the park board? Have they taken another look at this now that we know there’s
this big increase in spending and when I met with staff a couple weeks ago to talk about road
projects they mentioned that now’s a great time to take projects out to bid due to gasoline being
so cheap and other items. You know is it possible to take it back out to bid to see if we can save
some money? That’s something I’d be interested in knowing as well.
Mayor Ryan: Mr. Walsh or Mr. Hoffman?
Todd Hoffman: Councilwoman Coleman, Madam Mayor, members of the council. I spoke with
Chair Jim Boettcher today and he can’t speak for the entire commission. We don’t have time to
go back to the Park and Recreation Commission between the bidding but they supported the
project throughout. I don’t know if Chair Boettcher has talked to anybody else recently but he
supports moving forward with the project. So there’s no time to go out and rebid it. This has to
be awarded by the County in the morning and then there has to be a payment made by I believe
it’s the end of the week. Pre-construction meeting so we’re at the end of the time line. The time
line is now and to move forward this is the time.
Mayor Ryan: Thank you Mr. Hoffman. Anything else Councilwoman Coleman?
Councilwoman Coleman: Well I appreciate the response. You know I do believe that we need
to live within our means and not spend what we don’t have but you know I have a mortgage.
When I have to get a car I have to get a loan so this isn’t like I said reckless spending. This is
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something that’s in the works for a long, long time. This is something that many members of the
community want and would understand that there’s an increase in cost and I have yet to be
disappointed by staff’s creativity to find ways to make things work and would be happy to
dedicate more resources to our park fund in the future.
Mayor Ryan: Thank you Councilwoman. Councilman Campion?
Todd Gerhardt: Mayor before Councilmember Campion, Councilmember Tjornhom’s answer I
don’t think was answered on the terms that the County would give. I think you said you know
the County would be willing to step in on the difference but didn’t say an interest rate or year or
anything like that.
Marty Walsh: I think the answer has been provided before. I think the County is the
understanding of a no interest loan and the arrangement would be a reasonable time period.
Typically a year…
Todd Gerhardt: Thank you.
Councilwoman Tjornhom: If I could. It was hard to hear his answer Todd.
Todd Gerhardt: The answer was zero percent interest over a 2 to 3 year period or I’m going to
add this, until there’s park and trail dedication funds available to pay back the outstanding
amount that is owed to the County to the tune of about a half million dollars.
Mayor Ryan: Does that answer your question Councilwoman Tjornhom?
Councilwoman Tjornhom: Thank you very much, yes.
Mayor Ryan: Okay. Councilman Campion?
Councilman Campion: Alright. My thoughts on this, I do appreciate all the effort that has gone
into this for the past 25 years. I understand it’s a lot of work. I certainly appreciate the concept
of not living beyond your means. I wish that topics like this that come to us for approval aren’t
brought to us at the eleventh hour where there are no options to get more clarification or finality
before voting on issues like this where there is a shortfall that we have to make up and the
financial terms you know maybe are being agreed to here. It’s just, it’s concerning. I’d like to
ideally to see that finalized before we vote on it so it is clear where the funds are coming from.
You know and I didn’t catch the terms of the, where you say the average park dedication fees has
been $34,000 per year?
Todd Hoffman: $300,000 to $400,000.
Chanhassen City Council – June 8, 2020
32
Councilman Campion: $300,000 to $400,000 annually. But could be less than $100,000.
…right so but I mean there is the potential that 2 to 3 years down the line we haven’t made that
up right? As Todd, Mr. Gerhardt was alluding to it could be 4 to 5 years. We don’t know and so
in that period of time we’re not going to be repairing any park equipment. We’re not going to be
doing a lot of things so those are my concerns.
Mayor Ryan: So are there questions that you want addressed by council or staff tonight before I
mean, this is the discussion because just for your reference. So tonight if we give our approval
the Arboretum has committed but then tomorrow it goes to the commissioners. Carver County
commissioners and they would approve it and then it moves forward so this is our last
opportunity to get these things nailed out. I don’t know if Lyndon is on Zoom or he can text
somebody but if somebody can get some sort of clarification on what the County is proposing.
I’ve heard that loud and clear from at least a couple council members that they want to know
what that agreement is. And if that’s the option I think the other question is okay if not that then
where are we going to get the money and I think that’s something that we need to determine as a
council. Are we going to be pulling from reserves? Is that what you’re asking?
Councilman Campion: Yes that’s exactly it. I don’t feel like, I can’t in good conscience approve
this or vote for this without knowing where the funds are coming from when it’s an identified
shortfall. I mean how can you say go forward and we’ll figure out after that and maybe it’s A,
maybe it’s B, maybe it’s C but yeah clarification on that. A firm number and if that’s the
agreement that it would be a zero percent loan for you know until the park dedication funds are
available to repay it.
Todd Gerhardt: Mayor, council. The City Attorney just advised me that as a part of your motion
you should lay out the terms that you need to make this approval. I mean Marty may be
suggesting one thing but you need to put the terms in. This is your last chance. They’re going to
award bid tomorrow and we need terms that you can live with and I agree. We shouldn’t take it
from reserves from other places and I don’t know if Mr. Sticha is strong enough to make that
statement but I can show you other cities that don’t have reserves and what their outlook is and
it’s not good and you do not want to be put in that position and I do not want to leave this city in
that position. And we worked too hard to get a AAA bond rating and to build up those reserves
so I do support Mr. Hoffman that future dollars will be coming in but it’s not know when and so
in whatever your motion is, if you should happen to move towards approving this you should
include the terms and explain that to Marty so he can explain it to his board tomorrow.
Roger Knutson: And if I could just add onto that a bit. Since this is your last opportunity if you
want to say no, just say no tonight because the time is running out. So if you wanted to you
could say we approve the bid, that amount subject to receiving a loan from the County for the
differential between 15 percent and 21.14 percent as X percent interest over X years. If the
County Board will not agree to give us that interest that loan under those terms then we cancel
the agreement per Section 5.01 of the agreement because the lowest responsible bidder exceeds
engineer’s estimate by 15 percent.
Chanhassen City Council – June 8, 2020
33
Lyndon Robjent: Madam Mayor this is Lyndon from Carver County. Can I?
Mayor Ryan: Yes go ahead.
Lyndon Robjent: Yes so thank you very much for all the discussion. This has been great. I
would say that the County is committed because this project is so important that if the City is
wanting to contribute the $1.2 million that you already had budgeted we would be willing to
finance the rest over 3 to 4 years at zero percent financing until you can attain those funds. I’m,
pretty confident I can get the Board to adopt that.
Mayor Ryan: Thank you.
Councilman Campion: He should watch out, he’s going to get hit by a semi.
Todd Gerhardt: You shouldn’t be out in the middle of 212 in rural Carver County. Get run over
by a cow.
Mayor Ryan: Mr. Campion I think it was last on you. Obviously you got a little more
clarification on that in terms of what the County’s willing to do. I think you heard clearly from
Mr. Gerhardt about the dangerous precedent it would set or situation we would be in by using
our reserves for a project like this so I don’t know if you had any further comments or questions
or if you wanted to pause at this time.
Councilman Campion: No further comments or questions at this time.
Mayor Ryan: So you know I’ll keep talking because I feel very strongly about this. I am really
concerned about continuing to borrow for projects. Now I know we borrow for cars and
mortgages but that’s our own money and you have the choice to do this. We are utilizing
taxpayer dollars to borrow, you know we don’t. Yes back in 2017 and ’18 and ’19 we got
support but when you, I’ve been at the public hearings where you put projects out on the board
and people comment on them and who doesn’t like. I mean it’s a beautiful project. It makes
sense. It makes connections. Of course I would that you would have support. I mean you had
the support from council but June of 2019 is not June of 2020 when we are facing so many
unknowns with Covid and just our own budgeting situation and to you know hope that we’re
going to get $300,000 or $400,000 a year in our park over the next couple years, we haven’t, the
reason why our park fund has continued to deplete is because we haven’t been getting the
development park dedication fees that we normally have in the past and so that’s why it
continues to go down. And now with a project like this and I don’t disagree with Mr. Walsh,
with anybody that this has been a hard project that people have put their time and effort with, to
and with the Arboretum but we are talking now about borrowing money from the County, unless
somebody wants to go with the reserves. You know to pay for this project which then eliminates
any opportunity for us to do anything going forward. But aside from that I, I just really struggle
Chanhassen City Council – June 8, 2020
34
with spending money that way. I really, I just struggle with it. I struggled with it with the
Lyman Boulevard project having to borrow such a significant amount from the County and now
we’re back here doing it again and when you have to keep borrowing to pay for projects you
have to think maybe we can’t afford it at this time. And I don’t believe that it’s the end. I don’t
believe that just because if it doesn’t happen today that it doesn’t happen going forward. Any
other comments by council? Any further questions or points of clarification? Councilman
McDonald.
Councilman McDonald: I’ll come back. My support of this is kind of based around the fact that
we would get a loan from the County. I too am not in favor of doing the reserves because I’m
not sure how much we’ve actually got. And I think it needs to be dedicated going forward but I
think I agree with Councilwoman Tjornhom when we says that borrowing money from the
County is getting some of our money back. We do pay a lot of money to county taxes. A lot of
that money goes down there. It should benefit us. A zero interest loan I think is a very good
deal. I would amend any support of this to getting that type of loan and if we could not get that
then I would agree with the Mayor we don’t have a source of funding. Because we can’t put a
bond issue. It’s too late and we can’t borrow from our reserves because I agree that would not be
responsible so I don’t know if you’re ready for a motion or not. If anyone else on council wishes
to speak I would yield to them right now.
Mayor Ryan: Councilwoman Tjornhom any other comments?
Councilwoman Tjornhom: No just that I’m in favor of it if the terms are a zero percent interest
from the County. Not only is this a great partnership but it’s going to be a great legacy and it’s
going to be drawing people into our community that wouldn’t necessarily come and we have to
think about that also. You know are going to just throw it all away or are we going to have a
trail that for the next 25-50 years people will come and visit Chanhassen because of the gorgeous
boardwalk because it connects to the Arboretum. Because you can get to Victoria. This trail is
going to be an accent and so I’m still in support of it.
Mayor Ryan: Thank you councilwoman. Councilwoman Coleman?
Councilwoman Coleman: I have no further questions but I do agree with Councilman McDonald
that on the terms that need to be implemented in order for me to accept this.
Mayor Ryan: Alright thank you councilwoman. Councilman Campion, any further comments or
questions?
Councilman Campion: No further comments or questions.
Mayor Ryan: Okay. And the last comment I’ll make, I don’t think I can get it up on the screen
but I just, I want everybody on this council to know when we sit down with Mr. Sticha and we
start talking about plans for next year that we know that indefinitely we are not going to be able
Chanhassen City Council – June 8, 2020
35
to pay for picnic tables, park benches, trees, tennis court refurbishment and then nothing else
comes on until we basically repay $500,000 to the County so there’ll be no park projects. No
neighborhood park projects going forward for at least the next 3 years. I would feel comfortable
saying and so we’ll have no park and trail improvements in the city of Chanhassen so I just,
that’s a tough pill to swallow. But with that that’s my last comment so.
Todd Gerhardt: Mayor, council I have one last thing to say in 22 days. The term has to be
somewhere between 5 to 6 years out. I do not believe that with the economy the way it is and
what’s going on in this community that you’re going to have $500,000 in park and trail
dedication fees in 5 to 6 years. So I think at least your term should be 5 to 6 years and I know
that is substantially under what other negotiations are and it would be my recommendation to the
council to include 6 year term on this.
Mayor Ryan: Well if somebody is going to make a motion and they want to add that then I guess
it’s up to the county board to make that decision on whether or not they agree.
Councilman McDonald: I’ll make a motion.
Mayor Ryan: Okay Councilman McDonald.
Councilman McDonald: Okay I would propose that the City Council authorizes an increase in
budgeted expenditures for the City’s share of the Highway 5 regional trail and underpass from
$1.2 million, or $1,200,000 to $1,681,549. I would further add that this motion would be
conditioned upon terms of acceptance by the County that they would loan the difference in
money to us at zero percent interest and I’ll go with 5 years and it would be paid back as soon as
possible or at the end of 5 years.
Roger Knutson: Without interest?
Councilman McDonald: Without interest. Didn’t I say that?
Roger Knutson: And you might also want to add that if they don’t agree, if the County does not
agree to the terms of the loan then you cancel the JPA pursuant to Section 5.05 of the JPA.
Councilman McDonald: Okay we’ll add that as the last sentence.
Mayor Ryan: Alright, thank you Councilman McDonald. We have a valid motion. Is there a
second?
Councilwoman Tjornhom: Second.
Mayor Ryan: Second from Councilwoman Tjornhom. I will take a roll call vote please say aye
or nay.
Chanhassen City Council – June 8, 2020
36
Councilman McDonald moved, Councilwoman Tjornhom seconded that the City Council
authorizes an increase in budgeted expenditures for the City’s share of the Highway 5
regional trail and underpass from $1,200,000 to $1,681,549, conditioned upon terms of
acceptance by the County that they loan the difference in money to the City of Chanhassen
at zero percent interest and it would be paid back as soon as possible or at the end of 5
years. If the County does not agree to the terms of the loan then the Joint Powers
Agreement will be canceled pursuant to Section 5.05. All voted in favor except Mayor
Ryan who opposed and the motion carried with a vote of 4 to 1.
Mayor Ryan: That motion carries 4-1. Thank you for being here tonight. Thank you for being
tonight gentlemen. And I should add and now, we did receive both emails and they were shared
with council tonight from Life Time Fitness and another gentlemen so we have those as part of
the packet.
Todd Gerhardt: Mayor I’d also direct staff to work with the City Attorney to draft the language
based on your motion to send over to Carver County first thing tomorrow morning.
Mayor Ryan: Yes please, thank you Todd, Mr. Gerhardt. Thank you Mr. Knutson.
COUNCIL PRESENTATIONS.
Mayor Ryan: Any council presentations? Councilman McDonald?
Councilman McDonald: I guess what I would report back on is, again I attended another Zoom
meeting today based upon the transportation for the Opt Out’s. One of the things that we are
definitely looking at ridership and what the trends are looking for going forward. We’ve taken a
number of surveys. We’ve done a number of things to look at where the economy is at. What
the new normal will actually look like. The picture that’s beginning to emerge is that it will
probably be until the fall, about the time school starts and a few other things get worked out as
far as the stay at home order. What businesses are going to open. Those types of things and how
businesses right now will accept the stay and work at home models everybody is at so what
we’re looking at is ridership will probably be down for the rest, at least this quarter. What we
would look at is that going into September-October there should be an increase but again no one
knows for sure. We’re following the same trajectory that all other metropolitan areas are
because we’re following their experiences the same as our’s. The whole country is kind of
behaving the same way. It’s a wait and see attitude. People are starting to get their jobs back.
It’s starting at a local level and that’s kind of it but it’s a moving target now and it looks like it’s
moving faster than it was before but I’ll probably have more going forward because we are going
to be looking at what this public transportation actually looks like with the new normal. That’s
kind of where we’re at. It’s not definitive but I can tell you that things are probably going to be
changing.
Chanhassen City Council – June 8, 2020
37
Mayor Ryan: Thank you Councilman McDonald. Any other council presentations?
Councilwoman Tjornhom?
Councilwoman Tjornhom: No.
Mayor Ryan: Councilwoman Coleman?
Councilwoman Coleman: No Madam Mayor.
Mayor Ryan: Councilman Campion?
Councilman Campion: No.
Mayor Ryan: I just would like to congratulate all students on graduating. I know the seniors are
out. I know there’s a few school districts that still have one more day of school but just want to
extend congratulations to all the students for a successful year. I know it ended very challenging
with at home learning and so hats off to the students. A huge thank you to teachers for you know
supporting our kids through something so new for all of us. Just want you to know how much
we appreciate and value the extra effort that you put in to make it work for everybody and then
of course thanks to the parents for helping your kids and supporting your kids through this. It
was a journey and we’re, but we made it through so congratulations to all those that graduated.
A special thanks to our fire department Chief and the duty crew that were on that night. Had an
opportunity last Friday to hand our proclamations at the Chanhassen High School parade for
when the seniors went through and it was a great night. We were there for about 3 hours handing
out proclamations and taking pictures and congratulating them and the Chief and his team were
there and they had the extended ladder truck and put the banners that you see hanging in
downtown hanging from the ladder truck and it just meant a lot to our community, to the students
and we had a fun time so just appreciate everybody’s effort in that and congratulations to
Principal Unger on his retirement and he really finished with a bang so congratulation students
and wish you the best in your next adventure and endeavors.
ADMINISTRATIVE PRESENTATIONS.
Mayor Ryan: Nothing administratively or?
Todd Gerhardt: Well yeah. You took a little bit of my thunder there Mayor. I also want to
congratulate the Chanhassen High School but I also want to thank Mayor Ryan for giving up her
Friday night from 6:00 to 10:00 handing out to make sure all 383 seniors got a proclamation with
a pin and a picture underneath the banner. It was almost 100 feet in the air and well represented.
Thank the duty crew, Don Johnson but Mayor thank you for giving up your Friday evening.
Mayor Ryan: It was a lot of fun. It was a great time. I enjoyed it so excited students you know
it was the first time they had ever done a parade like that before and so even the ones that were at
Chanhassen City Council – June 8, 2020
38
the end of the line that had been sitting in their car for 2 ½ hours were happy to get to the line
and got a picture taken and hats off to the band members that were playing for 3 hours. Those
trumpet players, I don’t know if they have any feeling in their lips anymore so anyway it was a
great night. Had a really good time so thanks again.
CORRESPONDENCE DISCUSSION. None.
Councilman Campion 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 9:45 p.m.
Submitted by Todd Gerhardt
City Manager
Prepared by Nann Opheim