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CC 2005 11 28 CHANHASSEN CITY COUNCIL REGULAR MEETING NOVEMBER 28, 2005 Mayor Furlong called the meeting to order at 7:00 p.m.. The meeting was opened with the Pledge to the Flag. COUNCIL MEMBERS PRESENT: Mayor Furlong, Councilwoman Tjornhom, Councilman Lundquist and Councilman Peterson COUNCIL MEMBERS ABSENT: Councilman Labatt STAFF PRESENT: Todd Gerhardt, Justin Miller, Roger Knutson, Kate Aanenson, Jill Sinclair and Paul Oehme PUBLIC ANNOUNCEMENTS: Mayor Furlong: Thank you and good evening to everybody. Those here with us this evening in the council chambers as well as those watching at home. We’re glad that you joined us. At this time I would ask if there are any additions or modifications to the agenda. If there are none then we will proceed with the agenda as it was distributed. Seeing or hearing none we’ll proceed in that manner. Tonight I’d like to extend an invitation as part of our public announcements to all rd residents and their families and friends to join us this coming Saturday, December 3 at 5:00 p.m. at City Center Park for the annual tree lighting ceremony. It will be a fun time. The tree will be lit along with having refreshments, Christmas caroling, a visit from Santa Claus. The Chanhassen Chamber of Commerce is working with the city as well as other city sponsors, businesses as well for that event. It’s a fun time and I would invite again parents, children, grandparents, grandchildren to come and enjoy the evening and make some new friends and just enjoy the time so we’ll look forward to seeing everybody there. Just to be clear too, it is a free event and there is no pre-registration required so please just come. PRESENTATION OF ENVIRONMENTAL EXCELLENCE AWARDS. Mayor Furlong: I’d like now to invite some residents forward and make a presentation for the annual Environmental Excellence Awards. We have with us Ron Olsen who’s a member of our Environmental Commission. If you’d like to join me up front. Each year the City of Chanhassen, working with it’s Environmental Commission presents a number of Environmental Excellence Awards. The purpose of these awards is to recognize environmental improvements and stewardship throughout our city. They’re not, the purpose is not only just to recognize achievement but also to broadcast and advertise new ideas and encourage other people and residents to look for opportunities to make a difference in our environment as well. Tonight we have two outstanding nominees for the 2005 Environmental Excellence Awards. I’d like to bring them up one at a time. First I’d like to invite Rich Westerberg to join us up here. Rich is here with Dry Cleaning Station which is a new dry cleaning business here in the city of Chanhassen. When they started their business they decided that they could do something different about the dry cleaning solutions which are generally not environmentally friendly. The City Council Meeting – November 28, 2005 innovative dry cleaning business uses Green Earth solvents in their cleaning process, which are more environmentally friendly, non-hazardous, and cleaning the clothes just as well without damaging so it’s a new trend in the industry. They’ve also implemented a company wide recycling process for all their cardboard boxes. Do accept hangers and, brought into them by their customers so we’d like to recognize and congratulate Dry Cleaning Station and Rich Westerberg this evening. Congratulations. At this time I’d like to invite Mark Taintor to join us up here. For many of us our daily commute is one of the worst parts of our day. Mark, instead of driving in a car, has been driving his bike to make it a little bit better. He’s been commuting by bike to and from work for the last 4, almost 5 years. It started out locally. Commuting about 2 ½ miles each way here in town but when his job location changed out to Victoria, he continued to bike now 8 ½ miles one way, or each way. Does it year round which gives many people thought to wonder how he could do that but we appreciate the fact that he’s doing it and want to recognize his ability to doing it. He’s making a positive impact on our city and hope that he can inspire other people to leave their keys at home at least once in a while and hop on their bike so, Mark very good. Congratulations. Mark Taintor: Thank you very much. CONSENT AGENDA: Councilman Lundquist moved, Councilwoman Tjornhom seconded to approve the following consent agenda items pursuant to the City Manager’s recommendations: a. Approval of Minutes: -City Council Work Session Minutes dated November 14, 2005 -City Council Summary and Verbatim Minutes dated November 14, 2005 b. Environmental Commission: Approval of Amendment to the Bylaws, Changing the Meeting Date and Time. c. Minnewashta Creek Hill, 6560 Minnewashta Parkway: 1) Final Plat Approval. 2) Approval of Development Contract and Plans & Specifications. Resolution#2005-96: d. Resolution Approving the Issuance of a Revenue Note by the Economic Development Authority of the City of Chanhassen. nd Resolution#2005-97: f. Knob Hill 2 Addition, Project No. 02-06, Accept Streets and Storm Sewer. g. Accept Donation to the Senior Center from Community Bank Chanhassen. All voted in favor, except Mayor Furlong abstained from item 1(f), and the motion carried. VISITOR PRESENTATIONS: 2 City Council Meeting – November 28, 2005 Mayor Furlong: I would like to welcome Greg Krauska this evening. Greg is here representing Chanhassen Rotary Club and wanted to inform the council and other residents about a new project and one that’s coming up soon that the Chanhassen Rotary Club’s working on so good evening. Greg Krauska: Thank you Mayor and council and staff. I want to first of all thank city staff who’s been very helpful, especially in the Park and Rec Department in helping us plan and put this event together last minute. The genesis of this event really is the fact that while we can consider ourselves very fortunate in this area, there are many among us however that, especially with the rising cost of energy, are facing a difficult winter. Knowing how they’re going to pay for their heating costs and how they’re going to live comfortably through the winter. Secondly we know that far away from here in Pakistan there was an earthquake in October that killed 65,000 people, injured 85,000 and left countless others homeless. And so Chanhassen Rotary is putting together it’s first, we’re not sure if it’s going to be annual, but at least it’s first shelter box camp out, and the shelter box is a, basically a 48 gallon square, rectangular box that contains tents, cooking equipment, heat, light, water purification. Basically enough to keep people alive for 3 months in Pakistan and these units will be shipped over to Pakistan and we still have a chance to save people who are facing horrible conditions and tremendous exposure, especially with the onset of winter. The other half of the money that we’re going to raise is going to go to the CAP Agency energy assistance program locally which serves residents of Dakota, Scott, and our own Carver County. So basically the format is Saturday afternoon we’re going to start setting up tents and we are going to have dinner for all the campers around 6:00. At 7:00 we’re going to bring in a couple of speakers. The first one’s going to be Neal Mueller, who’s a Chaska resident, native, who’s going to talk about his experiences of Mount Ranier. And he certainly has some great stories to tell about exposure on the mountains but also some very instructive insights about his experience, having climbed 6 of the 7 tallest peaks on the planet. Also with us is going to be Linda Cowan who’s a professional photographer who is just returning from Pakistan and Afghanistan and is going to share her photographs and her story which are sure to be stunning. So in terms of involvement, if people want to get involved, the public is welcome at no charge to attend that lecture series and their photographs. That’s going to be at 7:00 on Saturday. If people want to support this we’re also selling karabiners for $10.00 each to raise money. People and organizations, companies want to sponsor us, we’ll certainly welcome that as well. And finally our Breakfast with Santa again put together with cooperation of the City and th city staff takes place on Sunday, December 4 and that will be at the Chan Rec Center as well, so we’re looking forward to a lot of fun. Even if people can’t camp out we’re looking forward to having them. If people are looking for more information they can go to www.chanhassenrotary.com or contact myself. Thanks so much. Mayor Furlong: Okay, very good. Wish you every success. We’re still within visitor presentations here if anybody else would like to address the council. You’re welcome at this time. Seeing none, very good. LAW ENFORCEMENT/FIRE DEPARTMENT UPDATE. Sgt. Jim Olson: Hello, thank you, and a beautiful evening it is. For the council this month I have the sheriff office area report for the month of October. I have the area citation list also for the 3 City Council Meeting – November 28, 2005 month of October. Crime alerts that were issued by Crime Prevention Specialist Beth Hoiseth, and also Community Service Officer report is also included. And a couple of other miscellaneous items I have for the council. For the monthly numbers for the month of October the total calls for service were up by 70 for the month and the criminal calls were down by 97 for the month and that’s compared to October of last year. Total calls for year to date are up by 663, which is up 6% over last year. And the criminal calls are down by 237 and that’s down by 21% for the year. A couple of the highlights on that, thefts were down by 24 for the month and they’re down by 119 for the year and that’s 31% that the thefts are down for the year. Damage to property was down by 28 for the month and then year to date they’re down by 45 or 18%. The reported burglaries are up by 6 year to date, however actual burglaries, the burglaries that actually occurred are only up by 1 over last year and this includes both residential and commercial. The reported burglaries or the calls for service are not always turn out to be actual burglaries and that’s true of all of these on the numbers that we have. The traffic stops were up by, or excuse were 401 for the month, which compares to 222 for last year. And the citations for the month of October, 248 and that was up by 37 for the month. Number of traffic accidents, that remained about the same compared to last year, and that is also certainly a good thing for us. Any questions at all number wise for the monthly numbers? Mayor Furlong: Questions for the Sergeant? Sergeant, a couple I guess for clarifications. Some of the things that we’ve seen and hear. With regard to drug violations, those are from a criminal standpoint, those are up. We’ve heard recent news reports about reduction in meth lab problems because of some of the action of legislature. Have we seen that here in Chanhassen or across Carver County as well? Has there been a change there that you’ve seen? Sgt. Jim Olson: Actual meth labs are down. However, meth use is not. The meth is being imported from other, from other areas and other countries so meth use itself is not down but the meth labs are down and that’s thanks to some legislation that the State put through. Mayor Furlong: Okay. The other question I had was with regard to traffic stops and those numbers. There are three different codes there on the information that we received. Miscellaneous, special and stops under traffic. Is there a reason that those numbers are significantly different for example under the special category. Is that as much how the ticket is written or reported or is it a change in direction that’s taken place? Sgt. Jim Olson: Yeah, the traffic special is a special detail that we get and every time we would target a specific area, we would receive an ICR number for that. Because of the number that we did last year, dispatch asked us to not do that this year so, just because there was so many of those that we were doing, so we’re still doing the special traffic details but we’re not getting ICR numbers for those, and that is why that number is still. There is still occasionally Safe and Sober and some real large scale, big traffic details that we might get a number for, but that’s more from a county standpoint that happens in Chanhassen for that. Mayor Furlong: So where as a city we’re still focusing on those areas that we’ve identified as problem areas or areas that we want to emphasize. Sgt. Jim Olson: Absolutely. 4 City Council Meeting – November 28, 2005 Mayor Furlong: They’re just not being recorded in the same manner. Sgt. Jim Olson: Correct. We are not asking for a ICR, a separate ICR number just for the detail. We are getting ICR numbers for the traffic stops themselves that are done during the details but not for the detail itself. Mayor Furlong: Okay. Have we been, are we, with regard to our city organized special details, are those about the same? More? Less? Sgt. Jim Olson: Those have been worked and some of that is thanks to the traffic car that we have this year. You know he’s been able to concentrate just on traffic issues. Mayor Furlong: On some of those special situations. Sgt. Jim Olson: Absolutely. Absolutely. Mayor Furlong: Okay. Thank you. Sgt. Jim Olson: I also want to talk about winter parking briefly. It is certainly that time of year. Just a reminder for everybody, that you cannot park vehicles on the street between 11:00 in the stst morning and 7:00 in the morning, between November 1 and April 1. You also cannot park during the day on the street if we receive 2 inches or more of snow in a street that has not been plowed as of yet, so it’s important to keep those cars off the road so you don’t get ticketed, and so that the plows can do their job that they need to do and get those streets cleared for everybody. Ice safety is also something to think about this time of year. There was just a tragedy I saw in the news in Wisconsin over the weekend. Ice is starting to form on the city’s lakes and ponds and the ice is not safe to walk on until you have at least 4 inches of ice that is on the water and you should not drive on it until it’s at least 12 inches thick. And the ice is not safe on any of the lakes or ponds at this time. Area sporting good stores can help you with thickness of ice. Give them a call and they can help you as far as how thick the ice is on different lakes. Thefts from vehicles, I also wanted to briefly touch on. We always see an increase this time of year during Christmas shopping season with cars being broken into and gifts and so on being taken. Make sure that you don’t leave anything in view, inside of your vehicle. Put packages in your trunk and make sure that you disable the inside trunk release if you are able to do that. And make sure when you get home that you take them out of the vehicle and put them in the house somewhere. Thefts are certainly down quite a bit this year but we do need to remain vigilant even with that. Any other questions at all for me? Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Any questions for Sergeant Olson? No? Okay. Sgt. Jim Olson: Thank you. Have a nice evening. Drive safely. Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Chief Geske is here as well. Good evening. 5 City Council Meeting – November 28, 2005 Chief Gregg Geske: Good evening. Don’t have a whole lot to report. We did have a pretty slow month, which is good for us. We did add 3 probationary fire fighters for our west end. We were able to, usually that’s a hard area to find fire fighters for and we were able to add 3 probationary members that will start here in December so. I want to recognize 3 fire fighters that assisted in a delivery of a child. A lot of the calls that we get aren’t much fun but it’s sure exciting when we do go to a call and we actually have a delivery of a child. We recognize those people on the fire department by calling them up during our business meeting and we give them what’s called the stork pin for fire fighters, and it’s pretty proud that they do wear that stork pin you know on their uniform in the future so it’s a neat thing that we can recognize that. It’s a neat thing to happen on the fire department. I also want to re-emphasize what Sergeant, about the thin ice. This year is quite unusual. Usually we have a period where we try to train on the thin ice and it’s only about a few day window. This year we kind of had the ice freeze and then it’s thawed out again so it is real important that we keep an eye on the kids. My own son, 8 years old and he saw that the deer was able to walk across the pond in back and you know wondered why he couldn’t walk on it because the deer had walked across it…so kids are very inquisitive and if we can keep an eye on those. I did have in our report that we get our ice safety equipment out and our ice rescue equipment. Hopefully we don’t have to use it so. December here we will be having elections for Assistant Chief and Chief position and we’ll see how that comes out and that’s about all I have. Mayor Furlong: Very good. Any questions for the Chief? Very good, thank you. Chief Gregg Geske: Thanks. Have some nice holidays. Mayor Furlong: Thank you. This evening there are no items of unfinished business or new business to address, so we’ll move forward now with council presentations. COUNCIL PRESENTATIONS: None. ADMINISTRATIVE PRESENTATIONS: Todd Gerhardt: The only item I have is the Mayor and I will be attending the School District 112 Facility Planning meeting, I believe it’s tomorrow night? Mayor Furlong: That’s right. Todd Gerhardt: 7:30 at district offices. This is where they’re going to talk about secondary schools and locations and different plans that they have in expanding the high school and th potential middle school, so then there’s going to be a follow-up I think December 6 and we’ve selected a couple business people in town to attend that meeting. So they’re getting input from a variety of sources. One other items is that we will be finishing our work session. Moving into the conference room. Fountain Conference Room to finish up comprehensive plan and retail market study. So that’s all I have. Mayor Furlong: Very good. Any questions for Mr. Gerhardt? Okay. CORRESPONDENCE DISCUSSION. None. 6 City Council Meeting – November 28, 2005 Councilman Lundquist moved, Councilwoman Tjornhom seconded to adjourn the meeting. All voted in favor and the motion carried. The City Council meeting was adjourned at 7:25 p.m.. Submitted by Todd Gerhardt City Manager Prepared by Nann Opheim 7