CC VER 2020 09 28CHANHASSEN CITY COUNCIL
REGULAR MEETING
SEPTEMBER 28, 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: Heather Johnston, Kate Aanenson, Sharmeen Al-Jaff, Jake Foster, Greg
Sticha, Jerry Ruegemer, Charlie Howley, Chief Don Johnson, Richard Rice, Matt Kerr, and City
Attorney Andrea Poehler
PUBLIC PRESENT:
Maurielle Storms 1910 Whitetail Ridge Court
Mayor Ryan: Again good evening everybody and welcome to our council meeting. To those of
you that are watching at home or Livestreaming on the Chanhassen website, thank you for
joining us. For the record we have all of our council members present tonight so our first action
is our agenda approval. Council members are there any modification to the agenda as printed?
If not we will proceed with the published agenda.
PUBLIC ANNOUNCEMENTS:
Mayor Ryan: First tonight we have public announcements and we have a proclamation where
we’re going to be recognizing the Chanhassen Red Birds Amateur Baseball Team for winning
their third consecutive State championship and so due to COVID and we can’t have everybody
in the council chambers we’re going to move the proclamation ceremony and celebration outside
so if you are watching online we are going to take a brief pause and we’ll be back in about 15-20
minutes to continue on with the meeting so we’re going to take a brief pause and go out and
celebrate our Chanhassen Red Birds.
There was a short recess at this point in the meeting for council members to go outside and
present a proclamation to the Chanhassen Red Birds for their third consecutive State
Amateur Baseball “Class B” championship.
Mayor Ryan: Alright calling this meeting back to order. Thank you.
CONSENT AGENDA: Councilman Campion moved, Councilwoman Coleman seconded
to approve the following consent agenda items pursuant to the Interim City Manager’s
recommendations:
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1. Approve City Council Minutes dated September 14, 2020
2. Receive Planning Commission Minutes dated September 1, 2020
3. Receive Park and Recreation Commission Minutes dated August 25, 2020
4. Receive Environment Commission Minutes dated July 8, 2020
5. Approve Code Amendment to Remove 1”=200’ Scale Mylar Requirement
6. Approve Code Amendment to Correct IOP District Permitted Accessory Uses Numbering
7. Resolution #2020-54: Accepting and Allocating CARES Act Funding
8. Pervious Paver Operations & Maintenance Agreement with 2071 West 65th Street
9. Resolution #2020-55: Lake Lucy Road and Powers Boulevard Watermain Extensions,
Project No. 20-04-Accept Bids and Award Contract
10. Approve Partial Release of Development Contract Chanhassen East Business Center 2nd
Addition
11. Approve Multi-Year Health Plan Agreement
All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 5 to 0.
VISITOR PRESENTATIONS. STEPHEN REDDINGTON CITIZEN ACTION
REQUEST FORM.
Mayor Ryan: Tonight we have one scheduled visitor presentation and is he joining us via Zoom?
Okay. And there he is. Hello and welcome.
Stephen Reddington: Hello.
Mayor Ryan: How are you tonight?
Stephen Reddington: Good, how are you?
Mayor Ryan: Doing well. If you could state your name and address for the record please.
Stephen Reddington: Yeah, my name’s Stephen Reddington and my address is 1620 Coleridge
Circle, Wayzata, Minnesota.
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Mayor Ryan: Wonderful, well thank you for joining us tonight Stephen. We received your
request and so we would just like for you to tell us a little bit about it and about your project and
then we’ll ask, and your request of course and then we’ll proceed.
Stephen Reddington: Alright. My name is Stephen Reddington. I’m with Troop 409 from
Excelsior. I’m requesting to have the City Council waive the sign permit fee for my Eagle Scout
project for the Hope House. Hope House is a non-profit organization that helps teens in crisis. It
is an emergency shelter for kids age 14 through 19 where they can stay up to 90 days. In
October they are celebrating 5 years this year and they’re very excited about the new sign with
the address on it. Thank you very much for considering waiving the sign permit fee for my
Eagle Scout project and for the Hope House. Thank you.
Mayor Ryan: Thank you Stephen. A couple questions for you. Thank you for the presentation.
Tell us a little bit about what the sign is going to look like. Is it a brand new sign or a change to
the sign?
Stephen Reddington: Yeah, so the sign right now it’s just kind of like a wooden sign and it just
says their address and there’s, one of the kids in my troop his dad makes signs so he’s
customizing me a sign and the sign that I have is going to have like the address and then like the
name of the place and yeah and then where it’s located.
Mayor Ryan: Wonderful, and how did you come up with this idea?
Stephen Reddington: Well I go to church there. Hope House is part of Westwood Community
Church and I go to church there on Wednesdays so I kind of knew that they were, because I work
with the Hope House a little bit so I kind of knew that they were in need for signs and I needed
an Eagle Scout project to do so I asked if I could help them make the signs.
Mayor Ryan: Well wonderful. Well it’s a wonderful organization and it sounds like a fantastic
project. I’m going to ask the council members if they have any questions or comments for you
as well. Anyone on council? Councilman McDonald.
Councilman McDonald: Well Stephen I just want to thank you for doing this. I think it’s a great
project. I’m familiar with Hope House from when I was on the Rotary and we helped to get
them set up. They provide a great service to the community and they also provide a great service
to teenagers also so I’m fully in support of what you’re wanting to do and we’ll do what we can
to help you but thank you for coming up with this.
Stephen Reddington: Yes thank you.
Mayor Ryan: Anything, any other council member want to make any comments?
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Councilman Campion: Sounds great.
Mayor Ryan: And is everybody on council in support of waiving the $100 sign permit fee?
Wonderful well Stephen council has agreed. Oh yes, oh sure. Would someone make an official
motion to approve waiving the $100 permit fee?
Councilman McDonald: I’ll make a motion Your Honor. I make the motion that the City of
Chanhassen waive the $100 sign fee for the Eagle Scout project for a Hope House sign.
Mayor Ryan: We have a valid motion. Is there a second?
Councilman Campion: Second.
Mayor Ryan: Thank you Councilman Campion.
Councilman McDonald moved, Councilman Campion seconded that the City of
Chanhassen waive the $100 sign fee for the Eagle Scout project for a Hope House sign. All
voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 5 to 0.
Mayor Ryan: That motion carries 5-0. Stephen congratulations. We will waive the $100 permit
fee but we would love to see when you’re completed with the project if you wouldn’t mind
sending us a photo so we can see what the final project looks like.
Stephen Reddington: Yeah thank you.
Mayor Ryan: Alright good luck. Thank you. Thanks for your hard work. Are there any other
visitor presentations tonight? Alright, with no one else coming forward.
FIRE DEPARTMENT/LAW ENFORCEMENT UPDATE.
Mayor Ryan: Next on our agenda is fire department and law enforcement update.
Chief Don Johnson: Good evening again Mayor and council. This will be a fire department
update for the month of September with data from August. We’re holding steady at 44 paid on
call firefighters with one on extended personal leave. In August we responded to 82 calls for
service which 3 were chief only, 21 day only, 40 duty crew calls and only 18 general alarms. Of
those 41 rescue EMS calls. We did have a little bit of an uptick in motor vehicle accidents which
were 8 for the month. We responded to 4 fires which one was a mulch pile fire in Chanhassen
on Dakota Circle with two mutual aid responses to Eden Prairie and one to Minnetonka.
Training consisted of leadership and development training for our officer core, online EMS
training, online sexual harassment training both for line firefighters and a separate track for
supervisors. Practical EMS stations and safety and survival training. It’s been a busy month
with activities. We assisted Paisley Park with events on two different occasions. One on
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September 5th and one this past weekend on September 25th. We also provided two firefighters
in small vehicles for traffic control for Tour de Tonka on Saturday with a crew of Wayzata
firefighters and their truck committee that came to visit and tour Truck 1 from our design. That
is it for my response. I would add Mayor that I give significant credit to Assistant Chief White
for her creation of an app that we’re going to use for National Night Out this year. It will be sent
out in several different venues and available on our website but she’s done a fantastic job of
putting some fire prevention training on there. Some interactive things for the young ones as
well as a place for people to send in some pictures of them practice home fire safety and home
escape plans.
Mayor Ryan: Great and when will the app be available?
Chief Don Johnson: It’s out there now. I believe we just started doing some social media blasts
on that and already starting to get some comments back so.
Mayor Ryan: Wonderful, thank you. Council any questions? Before you leave Chief I have, I’d
like to call attention that yesterday was Minnesota Firefighters, as you well know, Minnesota
Firefighters Memorial Day and it’s a day that we honor fallen firefighters and their families and
so with the flag being at half staff ordered by the Governor yesterday, just wanted to
acknowledge that and again thank the firefighters for their service. It says that since 1881 228
Minnesota firefighters have died in the line of duty and two of those firefighters are Chanhassen
firefighters and their name Mick Wiborg and Mel Windschitl and we just want to acknowledge
that and thank them for giving their life and service and thank all of you for what you do each
and every day so just wanted to acknowledge that that day was yesterday.
Chief Don Johnson: Thank you Mayor. It’s kind of a somber time with COVID. It’s usually a
pretty large event. I’ve been able and lucky enough to help with that for the past 6 years. They
usually do a complete reading of all the names at the event but with COVID and some of the
restrictions it ends up being just a virtual event and not just but a virtual event that we couldn’t
celebrate like we normally do.
Mayor Ryan: Wonderful.
Chief Don Johnson: Thank you for that acknowledgement.
Mayor Ryan: Yep, thank you.
Lt. Lance Pearce: Good evening Madam Mayor, council. I’m going to cover our activity for the
month of August. For the month we had 1,031 total activity calls. In August we also saw a
spike in theft related calls, mostly related to theft of mail. That has been sent to our
investigations unit and we currently have a couple leads on a couple suspects but we’re in the
process of trying to track those individuals down. In addition to our big call that we had in
August is we had an armed robbery the first week of August and that had to do with the, an
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online sale that went bad so we also have a suspect on that and that’s also currently under
investigation. Some matrix’s I’ve been tracking for council because I know it’s important to
folks in this room are mental health and domestic and domestic assaults all of which we’ve seen
an increase in August. And those are tracking up a little bit. I’m hoping that with the weather
change that might slowly track down a little bit but I’m certainly monitoring that but mental
health and domestics are, we’re seeing a slight uptick in those. Couple things I wanted to
mention specifically Night to Unite next Tuesday. The sheriff’s office will also be participating
in that virtually with the City of Chanhassen. We’re going to post several informational videos
to city social media and we are starting to do those videos tonight so I’ll call later to see how
those are working and unfortunately you get to see me in one of them so I’ll be in one of those as
well.
Mayor Ryan: Movie star.
Lt. Lance Pearce: I’ll be sure to cut my hair. That’s all I have for this group.
Mayor Ryan: Lieutenant quick question in terms of the mental health uptick as well as some of
the other calls that you have. Best place for resources on the Carver County website, for phone
numbers, emails, for people that are looking to get in touch if they need help.
Lt. Lance Pearce: Absolutely. They can get that off, obviously off of our website. If anybody
wants to simply call and talk to a deputy or myself we can certainly give them that information
as well. And I have given you some information that’s useful hopefully another avenue to
provide some resource numbers for people that want the help. And we certainly advocate people
if you think you need some help with domestic type situations or any help at all there’s a lot of
resources that are available to people. They just need to reach out.
Mayor Ryan: Yes and thank you for forwarding that on and we’ll get that message out here in
the next couple weeks and appreciate that. Go ahead Councilman.
Councilman Campion: Yeah Lieutenant just a question about the fraud and theft. I know you
were saying there’s a spike in mail related theft. I’ve heard talk about car related as well and car
break in’s. Has there been a spike in there or am I thinking of back in the June timeframe?
Lt. Lance Pearce: We have not seen that spike. We have seen a few of those but there certainly
hasn’t been a spike in those calls.
Councilman Campion: Okay, alright.
Lt. Lance Pearce: We’ve seen a few but there’s certainly not a trend or not a spike in those calls.
Councilman Campion: Alright, good to know.
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Mayor Ryan: Any other questions? Alright, thank you.
Lt. Lance Pearce: Thank you.
Mayor Ryan: Chief could I call you back up, not to put you back in the hot seat again tonight. I
know it’s your favorite. No pun intended right? Couple you just give a friendly reminder, I
know tonight is a little bit different because it feels, you know it rained today but could you just
give a reminder of our burning ordinance. It’s been very dry out. People are doing fall clean up.
Just to remind people of the expectations of the fire department in the city.
Chief Don Johnson: Sure. So under city ordinance we allow no burning. Open burning without
a permit. The only place that those permits would be issued is our large properties in the south
end of town that have large acreage and are open to burning. Our current ordinance requires that
we have recreational fires and a recreational fire is meant to be in a fire ring that’s 25 feet away
from combustible fences and homes and things like that and you would sit around it and enjoy
libations and S’mores and some things. That’s what a recreational fire is. What we have a lot,
some residents, what we have some residents doing is putting leaves and burning off yard waste
in those fire pits and it creates an enormous, sometimes an enormous amount of smoke which
then lends to calls for complaints for burning and we’re receiving those on a regular basis. Our
purpose is to educate. Obviously that we want to be out there and let people know what the
ordinances are for the City. Those are available on the website and if you go to the fire
department website it does explain what recreational fires are but they’re intended to be 3 by 3
by 3 so technically you’ve got clean wood. It’s wood that’s either cut or chopped to be burned.
It’s not construction material and old cabinets or things from your home just around to light on
fire. And it certainly isn’t lawn waste so our intent would be that folks and that’s always,
somebody always supervising that with a means of extinguishment. A hose, bucket full of water
or shovel. It means that somebody’s already watching it so that’s the ordinance basically in a
nutshell and again we’re not out looking for this in any regards but we have seen over the years
and notably some concerns with folks that are burning things other than that in their yards and
this time of year people like to have their windows open and they really don’t appreciate it when
you’re filling it with smoke so.
Mayor Ryan: Thank you for that reminder. Appreciate it.
Chief Don Johnson: You bet.
Mayor Ryan: Thanks. With no old business or public hearings we’re moving onto new business
and tonight we are looking to set the preliminary tax levy.
SET PRELIMINARY TAX LEVY.
Mayor Ryan: Mr. Sticha.
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Greg Sticha: Thank you Mayor and council. So as the Mayor noted this evening staff will be
asking City Council to set a preliminary levy as well as establish a Truth in Taxation hearing
meeting date. For those who are listening at home who might not be familiar with the process,
the preliminary levy is the maximum levy that the City then can potentially set when they set a
final levy in December so the number that you set this evening will be used for the Truth in
Taxation hearing statements that will go out in the middle of November. In December the City
Council will then be asked to set a final levy from which the final levy cannot be greater than
whatever you set as a preliminary levy this evening. It can be lower but it cannot be greater than
this evening’s preliminary levy which is set. First I’m just going to briefly discuss some of the
budget assumptions that were used as part of creating this year’s budget and tax levy. There
were no increases for the health care contract this year. That was good news. We have slotted a
2 percent increase for cost.
Mayor Ryan: Mr. Sticha sorry to interrupt. We don’t have the power point on our screen so just
want to make sure. There we go, perfect. Thank you.
Greg Sticha: Staff did include a 2 percent increase for cost of living and merit pay for city
employees. The KFS average based on what we’ve polled our like cities is 1.9 percent. There is
an increase in the policing services contract of roughly 3 ½ percent. This budget doesn’t include,
does include a new technology fee for enhanced building software which will allow our
customers to access online, not just paying for permits but also creating and monitoring the
permit process if they are looking to purchase a permit through the city and it also includes a
planning intern which is funded by a sign, an additional sign permit fee. It is not funded by
property tax levy. Wanted to give kind of an update of the remaining budget and rate discussions
that the City Council will have between now and the end of the year. There’s quite a few
meetings yet that the City Council will be going over. Either the budget or the utility rates.
September 28th this evening you are setting the maximum levy. October 12th we will be
discussing the special revenue and enterprise fund operating budgets and CIP. That should not
be a bullet right there. October 26th we’ll be discussing utility rate discussion with the City
Council. November 9th we plan on having a long term financial direction discussion with the
City Council. December 7th, Monday evening 7:00 p.m. will be the Truth in Taxation hearing
here in the City Council chambers and then on December 14th the City Council will set a final
budget and tax levy for 2021 as well as establish a CIP for 2021. The budget process has been
ongoing for a couple months now so I don’t want to give those listening at home the
interpretation that the City Council is first having their first discussion this evening. We’ve
already had 3 meetings or more if you count back to last spring. Budget discussions with the
City Council so we’ve gone over quite a number of the details with the City Council and so for
that reason we’re not probably going to get in a lot of the line items or department budgets with
the City Council this evening. We’re going to highlight kind of the two main scenarios that the
City Council has been concentrating on since August. Under Scenario 1 the total levy would be
$12,066,700. An increase of 2.77 percent as compared to the previous year’s levy. Under this
particular scenario there would be no impacts on any service levels or changes in any service
levels and the resident impact for this particular levy would be about a $12 to $13 dollar increase
Chanhassen City Council – September 28, 2020
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for the year on the average home. Under Scenario 2, this levy would be an increase, would be a
total levy of $12,034,700. An increase of roughly 2 ½ percent as compared to the previous year.
In order to achieve this scenario about $32,000 in levy reductions would need to be created
between now, well this evening or between now and setting a final levy and budget in December
so if this selection was chosen you would have to find about $32,000 in levy reductions to
accomplish Scenario 2. This particular scenario would have an impact on the average home of
about a $10 to $11 dollar increase for the year for that average home. Each year as part of the
budget process we kind of go over some of our data points with the City Council just to kind of
see how the City compares to other, some of our comparable cities as well as in one instance we
go over some of the tax rates in Hennepin County as well as Carver County so this particular
slide goes over the budget in expenditures and how the City of Chanhassen compares for 2020
budgeted expenditures as compared to 2019. As you can see from this graph the average of the
KFS cities increased their 2020 budget by 5.9 percent. The City of Chanhassen increased it’s
budgeted expenditures for 2020 by 4.4 percent. Each of the other KFS cities are listed in terms
of their percent increase from 2019 to 2020. This is obviously the most recent data available to
the City as we don’t know what some of these cities are going to be setting in terms of their final
budget expenditures for the year so that kind of includes this because it then gets into kind of our
spending per capita amount. So taking a look at per capita spending for 2020. The average of
our KFS cities is $662 per person. Chanhassen is the lowest and the lowest by a relative
significant amount. The next closest is.
Mayor Ryan: Could we get. Thank you Heather.
Greg Sticha: The next closest city with Lino Lakes being at $484 again with the average being
almost $200 per capita higher than Chanhassen in terms of per capita spending. The 2020
Carver County tax rates, Chanhassen has the lowest tax rate within Carver County. The next
closest city would be Chaska at 28.425. The average of all cities within Carver County is just
shy of 60 in terms of an actual tax rate. Taking a look at how Chanhassen compares to some
other comparable cities within Hennepin County. Just the average of these particular listed cities
is just shy of 43 with Chanhassen again at the 21.176. Wayzata being the only other city with a
lower tax rate than Chanhassen. These cities represent cities that are approximately the size of
Chanhassen. Some are, a couple of them are a little smaller. Some are larger. Some have
similar characteristics to Chanhassen so it’s always good to always monitor some of these other
cities in Hennepin County as not just within Carver County. Chanhassen does have a sliver of
the city that is within Hennepin County so taking this graph represents obviously where the
City’s tax rate compare to these other cities. So one of the things that was not in your packet but
I created this slide today actually, I quickly spoke with a number of my colleagues at all of our
KFS cities to find out what they have established for a preliminary levy increase and listed are all
the preliminary levy increases by percent for all of our KFS cities. The average of our KFS
cities levy increase is 5.2 percent. Based on staff’s recommendation this evening there’s only
one other city that established a preliminary levy lower than Chanhassen and that was Stillwater
at 2.66 so relatively close to what staff’s recommendation is this evening in terms of establishing
a preliminary levy tonight. As it then relates to the levy history comparing ourselves to our KFS
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cities, this graph represents what each of our KFS cities levy has, how each of our KFS cities
levies have changed since 2012. A couple of items to kind of concentrate on here, the KFS
average levy increase over those 8 years or 9 years was 5.54 percent with Chanhassen’s being
1.95 percent. In 2012 the City of Chanhassen was, it’s total levy was below the average by just
over 8 percent. In 2020 Chanhassen’s levy is 24.6 percent lower than the average of all of our
KFS comparables. If you were to include the previous slide plus a 2.77 percent increase in
Chanhassen’s levy, you would then be just over 27 percent below the average of all of our KFS
cities in terms of the average levy issued by each of those entities. So this evening staff is
recommending setting a preliminary levy of Scenario 1 which is a levy of $12,066,700. This
levy will give the City Council the most flexibility in planning before setting a final levy in
December. In the event that certain items were to shift or change that gives you the ability to
adjust the levy lower without having to have too much worry about a need to go any higher than
the current, the levy that’s listed there. The $12,066,700. With that I will just kind of stop there
and take any questions about any of the slides or about the process that we went through or about
the upcoming process.
Mayor Ryan: Thank you Mr. Sticha. Council, obviously we’ve had a lot of conversations as you
mentioned over the last many months, specifically during our work sessions so I know we’ve
gone through the numbers and the budgets quite extensively but obviously tonight we have to set
the preliminary levy and so there needs to continue to be more discussion but council do you
have any questions at this point for Mr. Sticha and his presentation? Councilwoman Coleman.
Councilwoman Coleman: One question. So Mr. Sticha did you receive word that the health
insurance cost won’t be going up or is that still an assumption at this point?
Greg Sticha: No we’ve received word that it’s not going up.
Councilwoman Coleman: Not going up.
Greg Sticha: Zero percent yep.
Councilwoman Coleman: So aside from I suppose those costs increasing are there any budget
items that you think could potentially be higher between now and when we set the final budget
that we would want to give ourselves a little leeway for just in case or do you feel comfortable
that everything will remain as it is right now?
Greg Sticha: I think this is a comfortable levy scenario here. One potential scenario deal let’s
say for whatever reason the price of fuel went through the roof, obviously we have a significant
line item in the budget for operating all of our equipment and vehicles so in the event that the
price of gasoline were to increase 25-50 percent that would probably be the only scenario I can
currently think of that would have a negative impact on this budget process. It’s always hard to
guess when you’re talking about the market in terms of commodities but Charlie did do a pretty
detailed review of the cost for the fuel and what we use on average in terms of our fuel usage so I
Chanhassen City Council – September 28, 2020
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feel pretty comfortable with the number that we’ve put in the budget for that but any economic
collapse could have an impact on any number of line items.
Councilwoman Coleman: Okay, thank you for clarifying that.
Greg Sticha: Yep.
Mayor Ryan: Any other questions council? Councilman Campion?
Councilman Campion: Not at this time.
Mayor Ryan: Councilman McDonald?
Councilman McDonald: Okay. Yeah we’ve had a number of discussions about this and I guess
one of the things that I brought up is that I thought the percentage of the 2.77 was probably too
high and we looked at a scenario of 2.5 percent and one of the keys there is that yeah there needs
to be a roughly $32,000 in reductions. We’ve talked with public works about some things there.
There was some other, there’s not one big budget item where we can save $32,000. We probably
made that discovery but we did talk about a number of scenarios. Will we be getting any kind of
a final report as to any of the viability of yeah, we could save some money there so that in
December we could lower the levy or is that pretty much done and we go with what we’ve got?
Greg Sticha: Well and Interim City Manager Johnston can probably chime in but you still have
multiple work sessions and regular sessions that you could have these discussion points about the
budget between now and December 14th. Typically you’ll get into more detail as it gets closer to
December 14th and you might get into some of those services that we talked about as it gets
closer to that date. I don’t think at this point in time we have a work session specifically
scheduled for those discussion topics but you certainly could make that decision to have
additional discussions on those items.
Councilman McDonald: Well it’s just, I’m really not in favor of the 2.77. I could maybe go
along with it tonight but only under the condition that we’re working hard to come up with
something to lower it down even if it’s just to 2.5 percent. Without some assurances there the
only alternative I see is to kind of force the issue and try to talk two more members of the council
into going along with me and vote for the scenario to lower it down to 2.5 percent but I’m
willing to kind of look at work in progress here so I need some assurances.
Heather Johnston: Madam Mayor, Councilman McDonald, let me provide those assurances for
you. We’ll continue to have these conversations. The first step in that process we had talked
about some changes to our trail, or our road and trail snowplowing policy. We’re going to be
bringing that back to you I believe at the next work session to discuss that and we can talk about
the implications of that as well. There were also some questions that you all had on some of the
impacts of some of the other items that we said would be involved and will bring those back to
Chanhassen City Council – September 28, 2020
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you at a future session as well so we absolutely are intending to continue to scrub this budget.
We’re going to continue to look into what we can do to maybe bring it under this amount. The
sheriff’s contract is still outstanding. We’ll get those final numbers hopefully by the end of
October, beginning of November and so we’ll continue to update you and have additional
conversations as it goes by. I think in Greg’s presentation there is a November date as well that
we can bring back additional items for consideration.
Councilman McDonald: Okay yeah I’d like for you to do that and again as I stated I realize there
is no one thing that’s going to get us to the $32,000. It’s going to be a number of little things at
this point but I believe that those items are within the budget so as long as we have not stopped
our search or to dig into the budget and find some areas of savings, as I said I can go along with
Scenario 1 but only under the condition of assurances that the investigation into finding cuts so
we can lower it on December 7th continues. Thank you.
Mayor Ryan: Councilwoman Tjornhom?
Councilwoman Tjornhom: Yeah I think I’m kind of thinking along the same lines as
Councilman McDonald. If this was a final budget approval number and that vote I wouldn’t
support Scenario number 1 but I think that I can support it knowing that we do have time to still
investigate options of how to bring that levy down $32,000 and still have all our services covered
that our residents expect. So like I said if this was just the final vote tonight Scenario 1 I would
not support but I can support this recommendation because it is for the preliminary levy.
Mayor Ryan: Thank you Councilwoman. Councilman Campion.
Councilman Campion: Yeah I, for similar reasons I will support Scenario number 1. However I
would like to see further work looked at, further reductions even you know Scenario 1.5. The
reason I’m not going to dig in and say that’s it is because I don’t think that that you know .27
percent is meaningful difference there between the Scenario 1 and Scenario 1.5. There are a
couple of budget saving items that we were exploring and I’d just like to see those hashed out
more and as the police contract comes in and ideally do even a little bit better than Scenario 1.5
at our final.
Mayor Ryan: Thank you Councilman. Councilwoman?
Councilwoman Coleman: Thank you Madam Mayor. I completely agree. I think for tonight’s
purposes we can cover our bases and set the do not exceed amount to the higher number to
Scenario 1 but I do think at the end of the day when we have to go back to our constituents who,
many of whom are having really difficult time right now with their own family budgets, we do
have to say we worked until the final hour to cut as much as we possibly could and save your
money as well so I’m in agreement with everybody here.
Chanhassen City Council – September 28, 2020
13
Mayor Ryan: Thank you Councilwoman and for those that are watching or you know reading in
the paper I think what you’re hearing tonight is obviously that the council is willing to set this
preliminary levy at staff recommendation. Ms. Johnston I ask that we put enough time on the
schedule on a work session to be able to go through that list again and for the public over the past
couple months have we not only just talked broadly about the budget and then start diving into
some of the department budgets but then we had a laundry list of what if scenarios to try to
continue to chip away at the different, or the overall levy so what we would like to do as a
council is come back in a work session where we go back through that list again. Maybe
department heads have found other ways to cut within their departments and then it gives the
council an opportunity to weigh out what makes sense in terms of service level cuts because in
order to achieve a lower scenario that’s what it says. Those reductions would have some impacts
on service levels and so we have to weigh those service level cuts against what we know is
expected by our residents and so every dollar matters to you but it also then has an impact or
affect. Cause and affect on the service level that the City provides you so it’s not something that
we’re going to be able to chip away tonight in this discussion because we’re setting the
preliminary levy but we will again hopefully in, you know after we get the sheriff’s contract so
we know where that comes in so we can talk real numbers then we can have this conversation to
see if we can’t get to a lower number from the 2.77 scenario that we’re discussing tonight so, I’ll
wait for a motion from somebody on council but again I just want to reiterate the expectation
from council is then to have a work session with enough time where we can really do another
deep dive into those different line items to see what service levels are going to go away to make
sure that we can achieve a lower tax levy. Go ahead.
Councilman Campion: I will make a motion.
Mayor Ryan: Councilman Campion.
Councilman Campion: I move that the City Council adopts the attached resolution establishing a
preliminary levy of $12,066,700 and sets a date for the Truth in Taxation hearing of December 7,
2020 at 7:00 p.m.
Mayor Ryan: We have a valid motion. Is there a second?
Councilwoman Coleman: Second.
Mayor Ryan: Thank you Councilwoman Coleman.
Resolution #2020-56: Councilman Campion moved, Councilwoman Coleman seconded
that the City Council adopts the attached resolution establishing a preliminary levy of
$12,066,700 and sets a date for the Truth in Taxation hearing of December 7, 2020 at 7:00
p.m. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 5 to 0.
Mayor Ryan: That motion carries 5-0. Thank you Mr. Sticha.
Chanhassen City Council – September 28, 2020
14
COUNCIL PRESENTATIONS.
Mayor Ryan: Any further council presentations? Any other council presentations?
Councilman McDonald: Madam Mayor. As part of what I’ve been doing for the past couple
months, you had asked for updates periodically on where we’re at with Southwest Transit. I’m,
not sure how much everybody knows but the Governor formed a Blue Ribbon Commission to
really look at how the Met Council and transit in general is delivered to the area. That would
include us. That includes Minneapolis and what this commission is kind of chartered to do is to
look at what is the best methodology for doing that and to define methodology means budgets.
Where’s the money going to come from? How should money be distributed? Where is it most
effective? To try to begin to get at some of those questions. One of the things that’s coming up
is again how is Met Council set up to govern transportation throughout the region so that’s an
issue that they’re going to look at. The long term effect that those of us that are opt out’s which
are the members of the Suburban Transit Association around the western part of the Twin Cities
is there is every possibility that we could be voted out or eliminated and we’re trying to make
sure that that doesn’t happen but what it comes down to with this commission is to look at again
how does the region handle transportation. How do they spend their money? Who votes on
spending that money and what kind of impact or what kind of voice does the taxpayer have on
how that money is spent. So those are all the issues that are in play. I think around the middle of
October, the 15th through the 17th the commission’s now meeting every two weeks. They met
today and they’ll meet two weeks into the future. They’re supposed to be done by December
31st. That’s a rather short time period to determine an answer to these kind of questions but
they’ll do something so it’s more or less kind of stand by as to what’s going to happen with
transit. The one happy note I guess I can give us that while our express service from here to the
Twin Cities is down over last year and most all of that is attributable to again COVID-19.
People working from home. All of these things. The local service is really kind of hanging in
there at about 58 to 55 percent of what it was which is a pretty healthy number so we know that
the demand for local service is still there. Southwest is handling that. We put new procedures in
place for the COVID virus and stuff about being able to kind of semi-isolate people within the
vans because again all local service is with the smaller vehicles. Vans and cut away’s and those
things so we worked to do something there but the local service is still in high demand. There are
still people that need to get around our communities and we’re still doing that. The other service
that we rolled out just about the start of COVID was Prime MD who’s purpose was to get people
back and forth to medical appointments. That service has kind of been suspended because we
never got a chance to really get it off and running so we’re looking at bringing that back once we
know a little bit more about what public transportation is going to look like. What the demands
are and those types of things so I just want everybody to know that you know nothing has
stopped. We’re still looking at serving the communities. Anything that would jeopardize any of
that would definitely come back before this council because we do have a, well we’ve got a one-
third voice in what happens to Southwest Transit so any decisions that are going to be made
there that would affect our stake in that I’ll definitely let you know and I’m sure that Len Simich
Chanhassen City Council – September 28, 2020
15
will definitely let you know but that’s kind of the current status as to where things are at. The
State is trying to look at how to be efficient with public transit and we’ll see what they come up
with but that’s the latest update.
Mayor Ryan: Thank you Councilman McDonald. Are they in terms of the group that’s looking
at it, are they also looking for letters of support from councils or are they not even at that stage?
They’re just evaluating service numbers and that type of thing.
Councilman McDonald: Yeah. It’s a really strange Blue Ribbon committee. Commission
rather. They actually were formed a couple years ago, at least most of the same people were
formed a couple years ago to look at some issues but because they’re moving so fast no, they’re
not taking a lot of input from anybody. We’re hoping to be able to get basically a one page kind
of bullet point of what we do as far as suburban transit so we can at least get that to them. The
first meeting they held they had over 600 pages of information they had to go through for their
first meeting. Every meeting thereafter is kind of the same which is why it’s every two weeks.
But no at this point yeah they’re not soliciting anything from outside the cities or any of that.
That may all come out of the recommendation because at that point it may go before the
legislature to act on and at that point then definitely we would probably want to weigh in
depending on what the answer is so I think the answer to your question is we will get an
opportunity to voice what all of this means to us as a community.
Mayor Ryan: Perfect, thank you and I know that continues to be one of our legislative priorities
so as we, I know it’s something that you want to do Ms. Johnston in the near future is start
discussing our legislative priorities so that will again be on that list and then you continue the
conversations with our legislators as we move forward so thank you for the update. Council any
other presentations tonight?
ADMINISTRATIVE PRESENTATIONS.
Mayor Ryan: Anything in the administrative presentations?
Heather Johnston: Madam Mayor, members of the council, as you heard from our public safety
partners next Tuesday, October 6th is Night to Unite. We’re excited to share a virtual content
with you and the two things that we are asking from the public and that’s to share what you
learned. Take pictures and post them on our social media and view the videos and we’re really
excited to share that. We’ve done a lot of really creative work and we’re really excited about it
as you can tell from both of our presenters tonight. We’re all very excited. And the other piece
of that is we are also asking to show support for our public safety officials by leaving your lights
on all night so turn your lights on and so as they’re driving around out there everybody knows
that we support them so thank you.
Mayor Ryan: So next Tuesday leave your lights on all night.
Chanhassen City Council – September 28, 2020
16
Heather Johnston: Yes ma’am, thank you.
CORRESPONDENCE DISCUSSION. None.
Councilwoman Coleman moved, Councilman McDonald seconded to adjourn the meeting.
All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 5 to 0. The City
Council meeting was adjourned at 8:05 p.m.
Submitted by Heather Johnston
Interim City Manager
Prepared by Nann Opheim