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CC 2003 02 10CHANHASSEN CITY COUNCIL REGULAR MEETING FEBRUARY 10, 2003 Mayor Furlong called the meeting to order at 7:05 p.m. The meeting was opened with the Pledge to the Flag. COUNCIL MEMBERS PRESENT: Mayor Furlong, Councilman Lundquist, Councilman Ayotte, and Councilman Peterson COUNCIL MEMBERS ABSENT: Councilman Labatt STAFF PRESENT: Todd Gerhardt, Tom Scott, Justin Miller, Todd Hoffman, Matt Saam, Teresa Burgess, Kelley Janes, Jill Sinclair, and Bruce DeJong PUBLIC PRESENT FOR ALL ITEMS: Misty Hiben Tom Hoffa Rich Slagle Janet Paulsen Debbie Lloyd Lakeshore Weekly News 970 Lake Susan Hills Drive Planning Commission 7305 Laredo Drive 7302 Laredo Drive PUBLIC ANNOUNCEMENTS: PRESENTATION OF 2002 ENVIRONMENTAL EXCELLENCE AWARDS. Mayor Furlong: Good evening everyone. Thanks for coming. The first item on our agenda under public announcements is the presentation of the 2002 Environmental Excellence Awards. Ms. Sinclair, is there a report or would you like to give us some background. Jill Sinclair: Yeah, just briefly. The Envkonmental Excellence Awards are given out each year to recognize commitment to the natural resources within the local city here. Tonight I'd like to thank all the applicants for their time and energy in submitting applications, and I'd also like to thank the Environmental Commission for thek dedication to the program. This year we've done a little something different. Some of the applicants will receive our $50 in Chamber Bucks. It's a local program and it's nice to be able to support local businesses too so they will receive that in addition to a certificate or plaque. I'd like to introduce Ron Olson from the Environmental Commission. He'll be presenting the awards tonight. Ron Olson: Environmental Excellence Awards are presented by the City of Chanhassen to recognize environmental improvements and stewardship throughout the community. These awards are designated not only to recognize achievement, but also to communicate new ideas and encourage the members of the Chanhassen community to make a difference in their world. The first award goes to Jack and Paula Atkins for their night sky friendly lighting. Are they present? Or Jack is I assume. This award is given to Jack and Paula for a long time advocate of night sky friendly lighting. Jack was able to put into practice what he has been preaching for so long. The commission is honored and excited to present this award to Jack and Paula Atkins. Jill Sinclair: Do you want to tell us a little something about your project? City Council Meeting- February 10, 2003 Jack Atkins: Sure. As Jill knows and the Planning Commission knows, I'm a real advocate for dark skies and as an amateur astronomer and a member of the International Dark Sky Association, I thought I'd put my money where my mouth was and make my house compliant as well. I'd encourage everyone to put a little study into their planning before they do any outdoor lighting to make sure they do it right. That's all, thank you very much. Ron Olson: We have a second award for the prairie restoration project that goes to the Bluff Creek Elementary School, and receiving that honor is Ann Curtis and the Prairie Council of Students. This group of dedicated students and educators has made a commitment to ensure that the health and beauty of their school prairie is protected and enhanced for all to enjoy. The Bluff Creek Prairie Pledge. I pledge to appreciate the simple beauty of the prairie and to respect the strength and wonder of the life within. I pledge to learn and understand it's delicate life balance, and to reflect upon my actions, whether they will hurt it or help it. I pledge to help nurture our prairie to remember I am nature too and to appreciate, respect and nurture all people. To see the entire world as our community. Great job. Do you have a spokesperson? Ann Curtis: When our school was originally being planned, it was planned to have this space for the children to walk through as they left their buses into the classroom, so it's been a long process to get the prairie to look like a prairie. We've worked really hard with some dedicated kids and staff to get the plants to look like plants and not like why aren't they mowing that. What's the matter? And last year we had a strong effort to plant some more plants and the kids were actively involved in it and we've incorporated lots of different curriculum ideas along with the prairie, with math and social studies and science and art and music. So it's been a project that has been interwoven within the whole school, not just once in a while. So we're really lucky to have a space like that to have as an outdoor classroom. Ron Olson: We have a second type of award which is a Recognition of Environmental Excellence. The Environmental Commission and City Council recognize that there are community members who have made contributions to our natural environment, but are too modest to share their accomplishments. In this spirit the commission and council have implemented Recognition of Environmental Excellence Awards to honor those who have had a positive impact on the environment. The first one goes to the Chanhassen Villager in recognition of fostering environmental awareness in our community. Receiving that will be Eric Serrano and Melissa Gillman. The Villager does the Chanhassen community a great service by consistently providing it's readers with information of a wide variety of environmental topics. Whether it's covering the process of the acquisition of the Seminary Fen, writing articles on how to reduce waste at home, or interviewing residents who have a passion for landscaping, the Villager creates an awareness of the natural world around us. Congratulations. I'm sure you have a prepared speech. Eric Serrano: Actually I don't. I normally hide out in the background but thanks everybody for this. We're all part of the big, blue marble I guess and Melissa did a lot of this work and it's really too bad she' s not here to be able to share in some of this. If you see her on the street or at a meeting or something, tell her thanks and congratulations. Ron Olson: And the second award goes to Pulte Homes of Minnesota in recognition of their environmental stewardship and innovative approaches to waste reduction. Receiving will be Keith Swanson and area supervisors. It has been documented that during the process of building a single new home, 2 3A tons of waste is created and sent to landfills. Take a large developer like Pulte Homes who is building 141 homes in town, and you have an enormous quantity of construction waste. Pulte Homes is pioneering a new strategy aimed at significantly impacting City Council Meeting - February 10, 2003 that statistic. At the Arboretum Village development cardboard was collected for recycling and sheet rock, concrete and pallets were chipped or pulverized and used on site thereby greatly reducing the amount of waste sent to landfills. This is an outstanding project and one that hopefully will one day revolutionize the building process. Great job guys. Keith Swanson: This is really a thrill for us. Generally we're the guys that name things after what we destroy, and in this case we've actually been able to add something back. What we're doing is we've partnered with a company called Construction Waste Solutions and not just the concrete and pallets, but all the leftover lumber on site is shredded and used as mulch. Recycled back into the landscaping. So we're hauling off a whole lot less junk than we used to. And I'd just like to thank the City of Chanhassen. It's been a real treat to work with everybody on your staff. It' s just been an excellent experience for us. Thank you. Ron Olson: Great project for the community. Thanks guys. And I do want to credit Jill for doing 99 percent of the back work for this so she did a great job on it. Thank you. CONSENT AGENDA: approve the following recommendations: Councilman Lundquist moved, Councilman Ayotte seconded to consent agenda items pursuant to the City Manager's bo Approve Amendment to Joint Powers Agreement, Western Area Fire Training Association (WAFI'A). c. Approval of Bills. d. Approval of Minutes: - City Council Minutes dated January 27, 2003 - City Council Work Session Minutes dated January 27, 2003 Receive Commission Minutes: - Planning Commission Minutes dated January 21, 2003 Ail voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 4 to 0. VISITOR PRESENTATIONS: Todd Gerhardt: Mayor I'd just like to add one item. It's a short update on the February Festival after Barry Pettit's presentation. We have a short power point presentation for the council. UPDATE ON LIBRARY PRO,gECT~ BARRY PETTIT~ MS&R. Mayor Furlong: Okay, thank you. Mr. Pettit is here from the library project and is going to give the council a quick update. We thought this would be a good time for that. If you're ready Mr. Pettit. Barry Pettit: I am. Mayor Furlong: Great. Welcome. Barry Pettit: Thanks for having me here. Talk about the library a little bit. We finally got out of the ground, as you can see and we actually might get done with this project, so we're excited City Council Meeting - February 10, 2003 about that. As you know it was a long, sort of arduous summer with the rain and the weather that we had, and it impacted the project dramatically in terms of time. And it also impacted the project unfortunately in terms of dollars. I think we've gotten our way through all of those issues and we're, I wouldn't say we're back on track but we are moving ahead rapidly, finally. And I think we've gotten to a point now where weather isn't as much of an issue as it had been all summer long. As I understand it right now Kraus-Anderson, the contractor, is hoping to complete the project probably about mid-June. That's kind of their time line right now. The way the library work is they need to obviously move in a lot of new books and equipment and furniture and so on. They need some training time and so they're kind of thinking that their shake down cruise, if you will, for getting the library on line, will take them to about mid-August. And that's when somewhere around there will be the grand opening. And the theory on that, and it works out pretty well. They had originally hoped to maybe have it open by 4th of July, and it's just not going to happen. I think that would be a tight deal. But the nice thing is it does get it open before school starts in the fall of '03, which is from the library's point of view, is very important because they get settled in. They get all the new staff trained and they're ready to prepare for their busy season which starts in the fall again. Kids go back to school and then through the balance of the winter. So that works out pretty well for them. I would say we're probably about 2 months behind. Yeah, almost exactly. I think we're 2 months behind after we're 4 months under construction. That's how bad the weather got for us in the early parts of the project. Again, we've got that behind us. As you can see we've got some stuff that's beginning to head north in terms of gravity and we've got the roof in place and they're working inside. They still, it's a little bit of a process yet to enclose the building, meaning to get it to a point where they can heat it. And glass and so forth is still probably about 5 weeks off so they have to do temporary enclosures and then heat the interior of the building so they can thaw out all the ground and then put in all the underground piping and so forth and then do the slab, and once they get that going, it really allows them to run free with framing and continuing the completion of the interior. So that's where that is about now. We're going to be going out for bid. There's another package on this that is really a county piece of the work and that's all the furniture and miscellaneous millwork and that will be going out actually tomorrow, and there's about 3 week bidding process on that. And I think the value of that contract with the furniture and shelving, some other significant millwork pieces and so forth, probably in the neighborhood of about $600,000 or $700,000 but that's a county piece of the project so it's not a city dollar amount. The only other piece that's out there is some signage that I think is going to go out in the second, or the third package. Probably in, maybe about another 2 or 3 months, and that's interior signage for all the handicap issues. Naming all the rooms and so forth. Signage you see on the end panels of shelving, and then next year signage on the building. So that's kind of where we are, and I think it's taking shape. It's frustrated a lot of people. Kraus has certainly been pulling their hair out, but again as I think we're rolling ahead pretty actively and aggressively right now and beginning to see some real good things happen. But if you've got any questions, would love to take those now. Mayor Furlong: Any questions? Councilman Ayotte: In your estimation, and we've had bad weather. What if we have another uncontrolled event? Have you put that into your schedule for worst case scenario? Barry Pettit: The way we look at it right now is that, because the building's effectively, although it's not enclosed in terms of windows being in place. It's effectively enclosed with respect to the roof, so in terms of literally the building itself. It's hard to imagine a weather event or a sequence of events that would stop the building from getting completed. The only issue would be some of the landscaping around the exterior, but I think it is, in order to get us open the way we'd like to get open in mid-August, it's almost at this point, and this is sort of the knock on wood. It's City Council Meeting - February 10, 2003 almost kind of unimaginable what that would be to delay us. Now I will say, and as you all well know is the, is there's the big park component to the east of the building that is going to, I think it went out for bid, it is out for bid or very soon? Couple days? A couple days, and it's my recollection with the meeting we had last week, starts mid-May is when construction will start. That would be probably the most vulnerable piece right now. If we have weather that's not unlike what we had last summer. Councilman Ayotte: Let me try it another way because I did want to narrow the question to just that point. Vender base as an example. Do you have your vendor base locked in? We have all the material we have locked in? Barry Pettit: Right. Councilman Ayotte: No other issues. The big one we had was weather. We're not going to revisit that, is that? Barry Pettit: It'd be hard to see how that would be a problem, yeah. It's a legitimate question in terms of what it has cost us but it, the only issue would really be the landscaping. This park piece that could be affected. Councilman Ayotte: Thank you. Barry Pettit: Again, not to belabor that but if we do run into weather like we had last year, it would probably be, it certainly would impact those guys. And I will say it's a fabulous park. It's rare that we are able to, you know normally when we do library work, and by the time you get done with the library and by the time you add in the parking lot, that's about all that's left on the site. So it is a pretty dramatic opportunity for the city, not only to get a new library but the park piece to go along with it. It's going to be really an exciting adjunct to it. And all things considered, probably isn't going to lag that much further behind the library in terms of opening. It might be, what maybe a month later, plus or minus. So the sequencing has worked out really pretty well, so it will be an exciting fall for the city. It really will. Councilman Ayotte: Thank you. Barry Pettit: Anything else? Councilman Peterson: What about the, I know there's some discussion about location of the fireplace. Has that been resolved now? Barry Pettit: We've got the fireplace figured out. We have, and I think we worked through that and it will, it's there, number one, and I think it's in the right place. Councilman Peterson: Okay. Barry Pettit: No one's going to bring up the coffee shop so I can go now right? No, it's exciting. I think the building, it's always fun to see it begin to transform spatially so you can really define the building, especially as long as it's taken to get there and we're, in the office we're all really excited about it. We think it's going to be a great add to the city. I know the library folks are excited about it. The Friends of the Library. The library board and all the library staff and they have a lot of work to do obviously with hiring new staff because they go, it' s almost I think what, 10 times bigger than the library they have now, which is a huge, huge transformation for them City Council Meeting - February 10, 2003 operationally. So they need a lot of time to ramp up and get on line but I think it will be exciting when we finally cut the ribbon sometime in August. And if you need us to come back, or myself to come back with any reports, by all means. Give us a call. We're here anytime. Mayor Furlong: Gmat, thank you. Barry Pettit: Great, thank you. Mayor Furlong: If there are any other visitor presentations? If there are none we'll close visitor presentations for the evening and move on in the agenda. We have no public hearings this evening, nor unfinished business so we' 11 move onto. Todd Gerhardt: We're going to have one power point, just on the February Festival. Todd Hoffman, our Park and Rec Director has put together a power point outlining the activities that took place 2 weeks ago at February Festival. At this time I'd like to introduce Todd Hoffman. Todd Hoffman: Thanks Todd. Mayor, members of the City Council. February Festival was this past Saturday, February 1. It was just an enjoyable day and we wanted to share that enjoyment with the council and those members that were not there and the rest of the audience. So the weather was great. I think we picked the best day out of the last month. 35-40 degrees. Felt like you were standing in your living room. There was a good turnout. We sold approximately, or exactly 997 tickets. Approximately 500 people on the ice that day. Fun for the whole family. It's great to see all the kids out. Many of these youngsters have not been ice fishing before, so it's good exposure for that part of the event. Plenty to eat and drink. Roasting s'mores. The boy scouts, local Boy Scouts sold s'mores kits. The Lions Club is a service organization, comes down. I can guarantee you this is not a money maker. It's a social outing for them and a community service project and they hope to break even and we really appreciate that they come out every year to support the event. People went ice skating on the beautiful fink there at the beach at Lake Ann, and built about a 10 foot snowman there out in the center of Lake Ann. There were novice fishermen present and expert fishermen alike. Here's Justin there. The fish were biting more than any other year. 32 northerns caught and weighed in which is by far probably 5 to 6 times the normal amount of northerns that have been caught that day and plenty of other fish as well. Crappies, bass, sunfish. Lots of prizes were given away thanks to our community sponsors. This is one event that's a part of our annual sponsorship program where businesses donate in kind upwards of $35,000 in case and in kind contributions on an annual basis, so our local businesses support their local events. Here are the lucky winners. The gentleman on the left caught the largest fish of the day, a 2.85 pound northern. And the gentleman on the fight was so happy I saw him pick his neighbor up when they announced his name. He won the trip to Las Vegas and he's from the Lake Susan Hills, or Chanhassen Hills in southern Chanhassen. That was a huge success, with the help of many people that came out. Community groups, fire department, Carver County deputies, staff and a good time was had by all. Mayor Furlong and his family joined us as did... So thanks again for all your help and we hope to see you next year for February Festival, the first Saturday in February at Lake Ann Park. Mayor Furlong: Very good, thank you and that was, it was a great time. And people were really enjoying themselves so congratulations Todd to you and Corey and Jerry and everybody else that really put in a lot of effort to get that done. We really appreciate it. Can I move on now? Todd Gerhardt: Yeah. Mayor Furlong: Thanks. We'll move on and again close visitor presentations. City Council Meeting - February 10, 2003 APPEAL PLANNING COMMISSION DENIAL FOR A VARIANCE TO ALLOW A SECOND DRIVEWAY~ 9450 FOXFORD ROAD~ RON SAATZER. Matt Saam: Thank you Mayor Furlong and council members. As you said, this is an appeal of a variance denial by the Planning Commission to allow a second driveway on a lot at 9450 Foxford Road in Chanhassen. I have a survey of the lot here. I want to just show you some site characteristics and then talk briefly on what staff feels are other options instead of the variance. This is the original house at 9450 with the original driveway which accessed onto Foxford Road. They were both built in approximately 1989. Last fall the applicant constructed a second driveway off the north side of the existing driveway onto Eastwood Court. The applicant's reason for wanting a second driveway and the variance is the existing driveway he says is long and difficult to back of at night. There aren't street lights out there so it gets to be rather dark. The new driveway configuration provides them with a horse shoe loop type where he can pull in and then leave that way. It's really a matter of convenience. As I said staff believes there are other options to this driveway variance. A couple of those, the applicant could construct a loop driveway completely within his lot utilizing the existing access, both in and out onto Foxford Road. Another option would be to increase the pavement in this area. Maybe use the existing driveway here. Just increase that turnaround area so the applicant could come into the garage and back out, turn around and go out that way or back out this way. As you can see either way, even with this driveway, the applicant still, if he pulls into the garage he has to back out so you're really not losing anything that you'd have with this second driveway. Another thing he could do is to provide some landscape lighting along the existing driveway if it's difficult to see out of at night. Illuminate it. That's, staff feels those 3 options are significant enough to disallow the variance. With that we are recommending denial of the variance based on Findings in the staff report. I'd be happy to take any questions that council may have. Mayor Furlong: Any questions? Councilman Peterson: Do you know if the applicant intends to blacktop? Any idea? Matt Saam: We have not discussed that. I did mention in the staff report, there's another city code that if you would allow this, city code requires that the portion of the driveway within the right-of-way be of a hard surface type material. So I don't know if he intends to. I would say that he'd have to. Councilman Peterson: Okay. And last question. Do we know, what your knowledge is, do we know, recall if the applicant did contact us and why we, I guess his understanding or recollection was that we gave him kind of a tertiary approval to go ahead with something, but. Matt Saam: Yes. He, as is outlined in the Planning Commission minutes, he moved in this last summer. He says he called city staff at that time. Don't know who he talked to. He doesn't remember and he believed it was okay to construct a second driveway. At the time he moved in the new code was on the books that only one driveway access is allowed per residential lot. Councilman Peterson: Would we normally pull a permit on a driveway like that? Is that? Matt Saam: Yes, for work in the right-of-way. But in this case, because it's a second driveway, I mean we wouldn't have allowed it anyways. If he would have called me and wanted a permit to do it, I wouldn't have allowed it. But yeah, for work in right-of-way, yep. You're required to get a permit. City Council Meeting - February 10, 2003 Councilman Peterson: And most contractors would know that. Matt Saam: Correct, I would hope they would if they worked in Chanhassen before. Councilman Peterson: Okay, thanks. Councilman Lundquist: Matt, the issue is, is it really that the driveway connects out to Eastwood Court or is it that the work is in the right-of-way or what's the real issue with the? Matt Saam: Well I guess our issue as staff is that it's against city code and we have to go by the city codes. Now if you're asking what the reasoning is for having that on the books? Councilman Lundquist: That's really my question. Matt Saam: Okay. When this went through, as I remember a couple years ago there were really 2 reasons. One from engineering's point of view. To limit the amount of direct accesses onto streets. It's just a good rule of thumb. Good engineering. You always try to limit your points of direct access. In turn you limit the possibility of accidents. Planning' s, what I believe the reason is that planning wanted this code on the books was, they were beginning to see a proliferation of out buildings being used for possible businesses, so they, and with these out buildings maybe people would put in a second driveway off of those. So they wanted to try to limit that so we went with the one driveway access per lot. Councilman Lundquist: Okay. When I drove around out on this site there's no curbs on any of these areas, right? You have the road to the edge and then there's no curbs. Matt Saam: Correct. I believe it's the rural type with ditches. There may be some spot blacktop curb but nothing like concrete curb or anything. Councilman Lundquist: Okay. And you just said that, you know one of the reasons you'd have is for safety and I think that's one of the things that Mr. Saatzer is citing when he talks about not wanting to back down that entire driveway. And as far as out buildings. Matt Saam: Yeah, I'm not saying he's proposing an out building. Councilman Lundquist: Right, right, but. Matt Saam: I was just using that as an example. Councilman Lundquist: What I'm looking at when I see your staff suggestions that he's going to have to tear up as much, if not more of his yard to make an existing turn around, or to turn around rather than replace that driveway that he's put in without that variance. Matt Saam: Are you referring to the loop that he'd have to do some more grading in the front yard? Councilman Lundquist: Yeah. I mean he's, this isn't a real long stretch, this driveway and I guess I'm looking for an engineering or some reason why in this particular case, other than obviously it doesn't meet the ordinance that's in place right now, that is there any reason other than it doesn't meet the ordinance? City Council Meeting - February 10, 2003 Matt Saam: Well the safety is our issue. You know limiting the access, another access coming onto Eastwood Court. It's close to the comer. People would be turning. Not expecting this driveway to be there. If you go out there and it's mentioned in the staff report, it is in a rather thick area of brash. Right now with the leaves off you can see it pretty good but in the summer it could be hidden, so that's our real reason Brian. Councilman Lundquist: Okay. Mayor Furlong: Councilman Ayotte, any questions? Councilman Ayotte: If, in order to mitigate risk, because of the blind sides that are, I'm sorry thank you. In order to mitigate risk does the blind sides that are there in the road that he put in, could we impose some requirements to diminish that risk if we were to go ahead and allow a variance? And what would be your recommendation for mitigating that risk? Matt Saam: Lighting would be one obvious one. It's rather dark out there. If you wanted to require that lighting go in. You can attach, as you said, conditions to a variance so you could require that he put in some sort of lighting to illuminate, at least maybe down toward the street. Councilman Ayotte: One other question with the, what is the, getting back to Councilman Lundquist's point. What would he have to do in terms of eliminating trees, eliminating vegetation, moving rocks and so forth to get a turn to go back out the same drive? Matt Saam: To do the loop. Councilman Ayotte: To do the loop. Matt Saam: There are a couple of trees, if you've been out to the site. A couple of significant trees in this area. It was my estimation you could work around them, maybe you couldn't. There is also a retaining wall which is mentioned in the staff report which would have to be, there'd have to be a hole put in that but as I said, no more real grading than what was already done. I mean he's already cleared a path to put a driveway out there so, and there is another option. You could just pave a wider turnaround too, which wouldn't cause near the destruction of another loop coming back through. Councilman Peterson: To your point Bob, I think you're talking about taking out 5 foot of trees so that the, it mitigates to some degree the issue of driving out from the driveway into the road without the exact. Councilman Ayotte: I'm right now leaning towards a nod for a go but with conditions. And the point you were working towards too is a bit of a, why would someone in the business not be upfront and pull a permit. But I suspect we'll hear some more before we go forward. Mayor Furlong: Is drainage along that, I think it's Eastwood, any issue or could that be corrected with a culvert or something? Matt Saam: That's a good point. I did put a condition at the end, if you all choose to approve it, that he supply us with a little better survey with some elevation data so we can determine the drainage impacts. We may need a culvert along Eastwood Court, that sort of thing so, but at this time Tom I'm not sure how the drainage impacts of that driveway. City Council Meeting - February 10, 2003 Mayor Furlong: Okay. You said it's not well lit. Is there a street light at that intersection of Eastwood and Foxford, do we know? Matt Saam: Well that's a good question. I've been out there and I don't remember one but I should have noted it. I don't believe there is. If the applicant's here, and I don't see him maybe, of course he could let us know but I don't believe there is. Mayor Furlong: Okay. Matt Saam: I wasn't out there at night so it' s just. Mayor Furlong: That's okay. Alright, any other questions for staff? Okay, thanks. This is not a public hearing. As I understand that hearing took place at the Planning Commission. Is the applicant here? Matt Saam: I don't see him. Mayor Furlong: Okay. So with that I'll bring it back to council then for discussion. Councilman Peterson: I guess I'm somewhat reticent to approve it without heating from the applicant. I'd be very curious as to know why they didn't make a bigger turn or a platform area, and they didn't do a loop. The loop seems the most logical to me, both from a cost perspective and from a, just from an aesthetic perspective. You know I think Brian you mentioned that it's probably a little bit longer to go where they did versus a loop and I don't know whether it's purely a cost issue or their personal aesthetic issue but I'm not ready to vote on it until I get some of those questions asked. Right now there wasn't enough compelling reason to approve a variance in what the applicant submitted in his hand written note. Mayor Furlong: Okay. Other discussion? Councilman Ayotte: I want to say it's because of the weather that he's not here. But maybe something happened or maybe he couldn't get out of his driveway. I don't know but since we spent this much time on the discussion, I'd like to table it to ask the applicant to come visit to have a chat with us. If we're taking the time to talk about it, I think he should take the time to pump paws with us a bit too. Councilman Peterson: Do what with us? Councilman Ayotte: Pump paws. It's just like a pony in the pile. Mayor Furlong: Okay. Councilman Peterson: We should get a court reporter to write these things down. Todd Gerhardt: We have one. Mayor Furlong: We have one. Todd Gerhardt: They're in the minutes. It's very entertaining. Mayor Furlong: Councilman Lundquist, do you have discussion? 10 City Council Meeting - February 10, 2003 Councilman Lundquist: I guess I would second Bob's comments. I've driven by the site and with the trees and the retaining wall, I can see where that would be an issue and it looks like he took the easiest path but without talking to the applicant himself, I guess we'd be making assumptions and I don't really want to make an assumption as to what Mr. Saatzer was thinking without talking to him and so, although I thought that he was going to be here. I wish he would have been here tonight, I don't, I lean towards tabling it until we can talk to Mr. Saatzer or give him, at least give him a notice of one more meeting if he doesn't show up at the next meeting that we'll go ahead and vote on it without his input. Mayor Furlong: If I could go back to questions. Was he notified of the appeal this evening? Matt Saam: Yes. Yeah, he's required to submit in writing a formal appeal to the Planning Commission's denial. When he did so I told him I'd put you on for the February l0th council meeting. I never gave him a reminder call or anything but I tell him the date so. Plus he did get a copy of this staff report. Mayor Furlong: Okay. And he didn't contact us at all? Matt Saam: He never contacted me since that denial. Mayor Furlong: Okay. Well I have a few comments but I guess his absence just went to the top of the list as far as I'm concerned from a use of time standpoint so I will withhold my other comments at this point, sensing what was indicated earlier. So is there, if there's no further discussion, is there a motion? Councilman Ayotte: I move to table. Mayor Furlong: Is there a second? Councilman Lundquist: Second. Councilman Ayotte moved, Councilman Lundquist seconded to table the appeal Variance Request ~2003-1 to allow a second driveway at 9450 Foxford Road. Councilman Ayotte and Councilman Lundquist voted in favor. Mayor Furlong and Councilman Peterson voted in opposition. The motion failed with a tie vote of 2 to 2. Mayor Furlong: With a 2-2 tie. Tom Scott: It doesn't pass. Mayor Furlong: The motion to table does not pass. Okay, therefore we'll go back to either further discussion or another motion. Councilman Peterson: Motion to deny. Mayor Furlong: Is there a second? I'll second that. Is there any discussion on the motion? Councilman Peterson moved, Mayor Furlong seconded to deny Variance Request ~2003-1 to allow a second driveway at 9450 Foxford Road. All voted in favor, except Councilman Ayotte who opposed, and the motion carried with a vote of 3 to 1. 11 City Council Meeting- February 10, 2003 CONSIDERATION OF PURCHASING POLICY. Bruce DeJong: Mayor Furlong and Council members. What you have in front of you tonight is a purchasing policy which we have never had formalized at the city before, so I'm bringing it here to present I guess codified method of dealing with purchases, very similar to the informal method that we've been using for the past several years. What I've done in putting this together is gone out and consulted with our auditors. They have been looking for us to put together a purchasing policy so that they have something that they could verify procedures against, and I went out to the League of Minnesota Cities web site and got some information from them and have talked to several other cities and received samples of their purchasing policies. And this is an amalgamation of those documents. What I found is that there are a few things that we've done that really are not exactly square with state law and this document is trying to rationalize our policy and make sure that it follows the state statutes and tries to keep us in line with those procedures. One of the things that we haven't been doing is, the city manager's purchasing authority really goes up to $15,000. We've only been bringing in those formal bid items that were expected to exceed $50,000 so this will be a change in the way that we've been dealing with some of these purchases. But I think I included a few of the relevant statutes there for you to look at, just so you understand the background and why we proposed the methodology that we have. I think that the dollar figures that I've included square up pretty well between state statute and our capital improvement program, whereby we will bring back items at least to the fmance department and city manager, anything that's going to be in excess of $5,000 so that there is a formal approval process that we will be using purchase orders in the manner that they're intended to be used to get preliminary approval before any purchase is made. On those items that are below $5,000, we're still leaving that to departmental discretion and quite honestly there aren't a lot of major items that fall into that $5,000 level. It's primarily small supplies and tools and pieces of equipment, say for vehicles, that type of stuff. The larger items are all presented to you annually in the capital improvement programs so that you have a pretty solid understanding of what is intended to be purchased. It's really the 80/20 kind of rule that you're getting 80 percent of the dollar volume, approving the maximum and not having to deal with the 80 percent that's really the 20 percent of the dollar volume in a situation. When discussing this with staff, the main questions that other departments had was in the area of RFP's for consultants and that, this policy really doesn't address those specific engineering consulting projects. You've approved a pool of engineering consultants that are available to help on various projects that are going to be of a smaller nature. When we come to large, one shot type of projects, we'll still be bringing those proposals back to you for evaluation and review. There's a couple other things besides the policy document that I'd like to talk about and those are authorizing the city manager to make payments and the use of credit cards. What state statute does is it allows you to delegate your authority for approving payments so long as there is sufficient, let's see regular and frequent review by the City Council. What happens is we have a significant amount of time between council meetings. It is at least 3 weeks on a very regular basis, and we have some state statutory language that requires us to make prompt payment of our bills and sometimes just simply because of timing issues and how we have to prepare the claims list, you know waiting for invoices to be turned in and then having a 3 week gap between that time, there are times when we do not meet that statutory requirement. By authorizing the city manager to approve payments, what you're doing is you're really squaring up procedurally the way we have to interact between two different state statutes. That the council needs to approve bills, you know but you could delegate that authority, and we have to make prompt payment. And on an annual basis there is a time in December that generally we have our 2 meetings in December at the very beginning of the month. The tn:st meeting is your Truth in Taxation hearing, and then the second meeting is your regular, your first regular meeting. Otherwise you would run into having your regularly scheduled second meeting falling someplace right before Christmas, which nobody really wants to do and I'm sure would 12 City Council Meeting- February 10, 2003 not be very well attended meetings. So by delegating that authority to the city manager you would allow us to be in compliance in December when we still need to make regular payments of bills. The third issue is credit cards and we have not really used credit cards in the city before but in 2001 state statutes were amended to allow the use of credit cards or purchasing cards. I've investigated between the VISA program, American Express program, the Mastercard programs and I'm recommending to you that we go with the American Express program. It is very interesting in that there are no set fees for joining or there's no set fee per card. We are able to issue credit cards to any city employee who has a need to purchase on a regular basis, but unlike the VISA/Mastercard programs, we are able to restrict this down significantly more. They're able to restrict it down basically on a transaction dollar level. With American Express, because it's a closed loop system, American Express owns both ends of the transaction. You know as a card issuer and as the acceptor. They can restrict it down by dollar amount per transaction. By vendor types. Say it will only be good at gas stations or hotels, or they could restrict it down to specific vendors so that you would only be authorized for a particular card to purchase from a particular vendor for a particular dollar amount, which I think gives us significant management authority to make sure that there is not abuse on purchasing of the cards. What they ask in return is that we provide them with annual purchases in an amount of $50,000 or more in order to participate in the program. It sounds like an awful lot of credit card purchases if you're thinking about you know just gas and stuff like that but American Express has a number of preferred vendors that we use on a regular basis. Industrial supply firm of W.W. Grainger is a preferred vendor. Target is a preferred vendor. Dell Computers if a preferred vendor, and I think between those preferred vendors and other use of the cards, that we would be able to meet that requirement without much difficulty on an annual basis. Certainly can use it for purchasing of office supplies, etc. So what it really boils down to is, it eases the administrative burden on us. Instead of having to write checks to you know a large number of vendors for quite a few small amounts, we're able to write checks to one vendor in a much more significant amount and what it will do is, the statement will provide an easier tracking method, and put more responsibility back onto the purchasing member. Whoever has the card, to track their own expenses and make sure they're turned in on a timely basis. Councilman Peterson: So it would be a corporate liability card or individual liability? Bruce DeJong: It would be a corporate liability card. Councilman Peterson: And direct bill or individual bill then? Bruce DeJong: It would be direct bill to, they would provide a bill to both the cardholder and to the finance department. Councilman Peterson: So does the cardholder then reconcile it on a monthly basis or do you guys? Bruce DeJong: They would have to bring up the receipts. You know the supporting items, the documentation for their card on a monthly basis. Councilman Peterson: Okay. Bruce DeJong: We would reconcile that in the f'mance department to verify. 13 City Council Meeting- February 10, 2003 Councilman Peterson: So if the individual user is tardy in getting their expenses, we're still going to pay the bill regardless, whether we get an expense report in? Or haven't you worked that detail out? Bruce DeJong: I haven't really worked that out, but since we're getting a duplicate bill, if we don't get that we'll certainly be asking the cardholder to get that information in on a very rapid basis. Councilman Peterson: Okay. Bruce DeJong: So that's I guess the information that I have and we'll open it up for questions. Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Are there any questions from council? Councilman Lundquist: Yeah a couple Bruce. Back to the, I think Craig answered the individual versus corporate. Concerns me that, I know that there's restrictions you can put in place to limit vendors and different types of things but I still worry about, all the corporate cards that I've ever had in a business life have all been an individual responsibility. The corporation grants you that card but by putting it in an individual responsibility, that then takes away the temptation to go out and charge something. I mean once that charge is made you're on the hook. If it's a corporate responsibility, once the charge is made the city's on the hook to pay that bill. Now we could take all kinds of actions with that employee and other things in there but we're still on the hook for that so that concerns me. The, I wonder how, what the difference is going to be. If you're using American Express cards at Grainger and all kinds of different, and then trying to reconcile back on a statement, I mean you don't really get, do you get a good enough description to reconcile back or are you going to have a statement with a couple of thousand charges on it that you're going to have to go through and try to itemize which department charged each one or each department gets it's own card and then they get. I see, I'm just looking at a capital project. We've got some city utility workers that are going out and charging pieces for lift stations or generators or whatever they may do and that might come out of a sewer and water fund, and then the next thing they might go and charge something that would come out of a general fund, and how do you reconcile where, what bucket of money those charges come out of? Bruce DeJong: Exactly the same way we do now. For the most part we rely on the department heads and supervisors to code those bills, and we review the coding when it comes into the finance department. For the most part the finance department does very little of that coding and we ask the department heads to review that so that their expenses are accurate. Councilman Lundquist: So where's the, what are you gaining by having a credit card versus a purchase order? Bruce DeJong: Well, purchase orders really don't work very well. In the sense that for small items, what you ended up with is generally...down the information on the receipt. So what this saves us is, we don't have to go through and reconcile a statement, say from Merlin's. Where we have basically anybody with some semblance of a city ID has the ability to go down there and charge something on the Merlin's bill, and then they're supposed to bring the receipt back up to us. On a monthly basis we're calling around, calling to Merlin's trying to find out, now who signed this receipt you know and checking it out. If we move to the card, we don't have that issue. We know exactly who charged it and if they don't provide us with the back-up documentation, you know that's when we take some management action. 14 City Council Meeting - February 10, 2003 Councilman Lundquist: Okay, that's fair. Councilman Peterson: To further answer your question. This is kind of my business for 20 years so, American Express can granulate it per individual, per card number. You have that option or you can have one ghost card. Obviously the previous is better than the later so it's individually billed, and they do get a master bill. And to your question on the purchase order system, you're going to reconcile the purchase order just the same as you would the credit card statement but you don't have to do the purchase order which is a requisition and the purchase order so you're being redundant there so it does speed up the process. And I think that some organizations, government or otherwise also, even though it's not individually billed, and individually responsible, they do get a release from the individual saying that in the event that these charges are made for personal, etc, etc, or unreconcilable, that they can be deducted from their pay. As long as they willingly sign that and they release that, you can generally do that. Particularly if it's personal stuff that they've inappropriately charged. Mayor Furlong: I guess follow-up question there. Even if it was individually billed and responsible, wouldn't there still be an underlying guarantee by the city for issuing the card under the account? That's been my experience with most corporate purchase cards anyway, even if you have it individually billed. The card company reserves the right to come back to the employer. Councilman Peterson: There are two types of systems. One in which they have corporate responsibility overall, and one where you don't. Mayor Furlong: Okay. So American Express has both of those? Okay. Councilman Peterson: And obviously they would prefer the corporate responsibility one because then they' re. Mayor Furlong: Sure. Councilman Peterson: How most organizations do then, if they don't want corporate responsibility they'll agree to work with the credit card vendor to recoup the funds as necessary. Mayor Furlong: I guess, do you have another question? Councilman Lundquist: Yeah. Mayor Furlong: Go ahead. Councilman Lundquist: Purchasing guidelines. City manager up to $15,000. Only concern I have is that if we get in a large scale project where we've got 4 or 5 different stages going on. We've got an investigation stage, and I think we approved one a couple weeks ago on the consent agenda that has 2 or 3 different phases. And I would be concerned if there was, in order to speed up the process, if there became an effort to cut PO's that were $14,900 and less in four stages on a $60,000 project in total to do that so. You know I'm not saying that's never going to happen but certainly we want to pay heed to getting something around, our hands around the total project cost versus individual phase cost and being cognizant of what that total dollar amount is before we come for approval. Bruce DeJong: Yep. I've attempted to address that in Section 2, ethics and relations with vendors. You won't circumvent competitive bidding requirements in splitting purchases so that 15 City Council Meeting - February 10, 2003 they can be made through several small purchases. While it's difficult to police that as MnDot has shown sometimes. Councilman Ayotte: Let's not mention state agencies please. Bruce DeJong: Well I think we've tried to hold steady to that and we have made people change the scope of their projects you know if they were trying to avoid these bid requirements so. While that certainly can happen I, this is not intended to reduce your authority to order projects. And so having Todd approve bills is something different than approving projects. We would still bring those projects to you for your approval. It's just that when an individual invoice or progress payment is submitted, that Mr. Gerhardt would have the authority to go ahead and pay those. Councilman Lundquist: So you're talking about a, if we have a $10,000 lift station project, it would be your intention to bring that before the council for approval on go ahead and then when the invoice comes in from the contractor, it's under $15,000. Todd signs the bill and away we go. Bruce DeJong: On an under $10,000 project I would assume that, as long as it's listed in the CIP that Todd would have the authority to go ahead and approve that project. Councilman Peterson: Anything under 15. Councilman Lundquist: Right. Bruce DeJong: And under the dollar amount. You know if it's over the dollar amount we would bring it back to you for approval, but then when the time comes to make payment, we would not request any additional. Councilman Lundquist: So then our source of information would be on the bi-weekly or monthly printout on the bills that were approved. Some of them obviously rather than being on our consent agenda for approval of bills, they're going to be, some of them are going to be probably the lion share of them are going to be paid already, and we see them as a correspondence that these checks have been cut and if we have any questions we'll go back at that time. Bruce DeJong: That's correct. Councilman Peterson: The biggest tool we have for your point of doing the $14,999 items or something called employment at will. Councilman Lundquist: Yeah. Todd Gerhardt: That's right. Mayor Furlong: And with regard to the purchasing policy that's been proposed, and maybe this speaks a little bit to Brian's issues but my sense is that you think these guidelines and with the other activities that the finance department is akeady doing, will we have adequate controls on our spending? And with the authority to spend. Bruce DeJong: I believe that we will. I've looked at this with H.L.B. Tautges-Redpath, our auditors and they're very comfortable with this from an internal control standpoint. That our procedures are adequate to assure that there won't be abuse and I think if you ask any of the 16 City Council Meeting - February 10, 2003 employees, my staff members are very particular and scrutinize everything with a fine tooth comb. I wasn't mixing metaphors there. Councilman Lundquist: Maybe Bob can give you some better metaphors. Councilman Ayotte: Well I do have a, first off. Thank you, because I think this has been missing. We need it. In the RFP portion, Request for Proposal. One of the things that may be there but I'm not seeing it, is the basis of estimate, the tool to build a cost estimate within that RFP so that, or to have it available so that when an RFP is issued we have a benchmark to determine whether or not the bids that we get, the proposals that we receive are fair and reasonable. And in order to do that, they have software packages. RS means to work up costs and so forth. Is that addressed in your document in some fashion? Bruce DeJong: No it is not. Quite honestly, this is a little outside of the typical engineering type where you would actually have an engineer's estimate. Most of the things that we're looking for are probably a little bit different than that, and I'll use the instance of the scanning software. You know the optical record storage system that you approved back in December. And that is, you know there isn't any real good method to come up with an engineer's estimate other than try and solicit some ideas of what the proposals might be. You know if you're going to go with the school vendor. Councilman Ayotte: I usually don't disagree with people Bruce but on this point I don't think we necessarily need an engineering process to figure out where we get some price indexes to determine whether or not what we are seeing is a fair and reasonable price. I just, I' m not saying necessarily that we address it in this document, but I would like to ask whether or not it's reasonable. Some people do it by having a vendor base and they generate a list of history on what's been paid and use that as a reference so there's an active check point to take a look see at what a cost is before you go ahead and approve a proposal. But with respect to the document, and the need for a policy, yes. I ask that we take one additional step to see if we can do something about pricing so that we know if a cost is up or down or just right. I don't know if that's inappropriate to ask or not but. Mayor Furlong: I mean I guess a request has been made. Is that something that can be looked into rather than make it a condition of? Councilman Ayotte: Oh absolutely. Mayor Furlong: Okay. Alright. I guess we're still in the question stage. If there are more questions. If not then we can move to discussion, but we've had some. Are there more questions specific? Why don't we bring it back to council, thank you, and open it up for discussion on the recommendation. Without being repetitive. Councilman Ayotte: Yeah, there's nothing else to say. Mayor Furlong: Okay, fair enough. Fair enough. Councilman Lundquist. Mayor Furlong: Mayor Furlong, I would like to see us move, put a condition in here somehow on the employee waiver or move to an individual responsibility on the credit cards. We've got to get something I think in writing that gives us the ability to control or have some recourse on employees that get a little frivolous with their cards because it might not be today or tomorrow, 17 City Council Meeting - February 10, 2003 but someday it's going to happen and better that we get that out of the way now rather than try to address it when it gets painful. Other than that I'm comfortable with everything that's in here. Mayor Furlong: Is there any, Councilman Peterson do you have any other discussion at this point? We're back. Councilman Peterson: I'm comfortable with it as it's presented. Mayor Furlong: I guess my comments, and Councilman Lundquist I appreciate your thoughts on the personal liability. I'm wondering if maybe from a process standpoint, yes Mr. DeJong. Bruce DeJong: If I could point out in the section of the state statutes here. 471.382. It says. Mayor Furlong: I'm sorry, could you repeat. Bruce DeJong: Minnesota Statutes 471.382. The fourth page back. Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Bruce DeJong: It says, where it says the city council or town board may authorize the use of a credit card by any city or town officer. If you read further there, it says if a city or town officer or employee makes or directs a purchase by credit card that is not approved by the City Council or town board, the officer or employee is personally liable for the amount of the purchase. Which I think pretty directly addresses the question. Mayor Furlong: Do you concur? Tom Scott: I would concur that's what the statute says and that they would be personally liable. The issue though of whether or not you could actually make them sign a form that says if I don't pay, you can collect what I'm personally liable for by deducting it from my paycheck is, I'm not sure I could assure you tonight that we can do that across the board with all of our existing employees. So if you wanted to condition this, the adoption of this policy on that I would suggest you do to the extent that it's legally permissible that we would require our employees who have access to these cards to sign such a waiver. If you're not comfortable with that, then maybe we should just double check that, if you really want to make sure that would be permissible across the board with all of our employees and we could let you know at the next meeting.. Mayor Furlong: Thank you. I guess some thoughts that I have. First of all I think all three components of these make a lot of sense. One, the purchasing policy is very good, especially to the extent that it provides the cost controls that we talked about and improves the efficiency of the city's operations. I think with regard to delegating authority to the city manager, while little hesitant about that, I think it makes sense as well and I say that facetiously clearly. With regard to improving a management of our cash and accounts payable. On the credit cards, my thought them is, and that to request, you know if the statute speaks to it, the statute speaks to it. To request of our employees to sign something for personal liability, just from an employer- employee relationship, that can clearly be stated in the policy or, it's in the statute. I'm going to rely on Mr. Gerhardt and Mr. DeJong to manage the details of the finance and if there's a problem, to me that's an employer-employee issue that will have to be dealt with. I guess what I would ask, and maybe too, to address this, rather than anticipating problems, I would ask if there's a reasonable time period such as maybe 6 months or 9 months after, if we approve this policy this evening, that we could just get a review back or report back on how the policy's been 18 City Council Meeting- February 10, 2003 implemented. How the process is going with regard to the credit card application, usage and if, and just, you know even if there are problems and what's worked well and what's been, if it's meet the expectations. It's been better than expectations and maybe it hasn't met expectations. I'd like to, rather than just passing and moving on, I'd like some feedback in a reasonable time and I'll leave it up to the two of you to determine what that time period is after it's implemented and has time to be fully utilized. So I guess I'd, in response to your issue, I guess I'd be a little hesitant to include that as a condition on this motion. Councilman Lundquist: If I can go back to the statute. The way I read it is, if the employee makes a purchase by credit card that is not approved by the city council or town board, the officer employee is personally liable. Now by delegating that authority to the city manager if it's less than $15,000 does that inherently include the city manager, although he's not spelled out in there? Or is that. Mayor Furlong: You're saying, if I understand you. Since this speaks to the council, if the council delegates it's authority to the city manager by inference of that, will we still be covered? Councilman Lundquist: Yeah. If an employee goes out and charges $800 of whatever that isn't approved by, or it isn't approved by the city manager or it is approved by the city manager and the council decides that they didn't think that was a good charge, where do we stand? Mayor Furlong: That would always be our option, even if we delegate. If we delegate the authority to authorize purchase. Todd Gerhardt: You're doing that already. Mayor Furlong: Yep. Yep. Councilman Lundquist: I mean I know I'm splitting hairs here but. Councilman Peterson: I think it goes back to the mayor' s point of you know, are we thinking that our city employees, is their glass half empty or half full? There's a certain amount of trust and if they abuse it then we have the opportunity for disciplinary action. I think that that's what most organizations do. You know I think part of what we're dealing with is you may have heard about the federal government's use of the credit cards and it's to the tune of millions and millions of dollars of fraud, but that's also in a previous kind of card system where there wasn't reconciliation and there wasn't granulation about what they could purchase. Those were open cards that they could purchase anything they want. Were these to be different and that's why, that's why credit card companies have responded with that granulation so they specifically what SIC code and they can do per county and per you know city, etc, etc, so I understand, I think 3 years ago I would have been more passionate about what you're trying to accomplish but I think that they've granulated the card system now mitigates that to a great degree, for what that's worth. Councilman Lundquist: As we continue to put restrictions on those cards, the more restrictions we put on, the less useful they're going to be potentially. Councilman Peterson: Yep. Councilman Lundquist: If via dollar amount, vendor, area, whatever, every time you put a restriction that's one less possible use that could be on. 19 City Council Meeting - February 10, 2003 Councilman Ayotte: Well that's why when Tom said let's look at it in 6 months, we'll look see how it's going but Craig's right. I work for the Feds and it's so restrictive now that's what's happening. The number of cards is going down and it's not as useful of a tool as it used to be because there was a little bit too much discretion. Discretionary use I should say. Mayor Furlong: Okay. Is there any other discussion? If not we have a recommendation before us. Is there a motion regarding the recommendation? Councilman Peterson: Motion to approve as submitted. Councilman Ayotte: Second. Mayor Furlong: Motion's been made and seconded. Is there any discussion on the motion? Councilman Peterson moved, Councilman Ayotte seconded that the City Council adopts the purchasing policy presented, delegate it's authority for paying certain claims to the City Manager, and authorize the City Manager to contract with American Express for credit card services. All voted in favor, except Councilman Lundquist who opposed, and the motion carried with a vote of 3 to 1. Councilman Ayotte: You thought that was going to be easy, didn't you Bruce? Mayor Furlong: It was. COUNCIL PRESENTATIONS. Mayor Furlong: Are there any council or commission liaison updates? I guess there are two that I had, that Mr. Gerhardt and I had. On Friday there was, are each of these complete packets? If you want to take one of these. There was a meeting of the Southwest Corridor Transportation Coalition to discuss the continued need to impress upon our key legislators our support, our express support for continued to seek funding for Highway 312/212. I think it was a good meeting and the next meeting that they've tentatively set is for February 21st, I believe is a tentative date. The purchase there is to try to get local and other influential legislators to meet with us, and I believe they're going to drive all the way down 312 until they have to get off, and then take them on the back way to get them to the meeting site so they can appreciate what we live with. So that's from an update standpoint. The second item that I'll pass out also on Friday there was a meeting of the Eastern Carver County Community Leaders, which includes most of the cities representative or serviced by the Chaska school district as well as the county as well. Here are the minutes of that meeting that we just passed out and there are extra copies. Of note here, I would have council note that the next meeting is currently scheduled for Tuesday, April 8th at which time all elected leaders within the cities and counties will be invited to a presentation. It will be a public meeting because we'll all be there but the purpose is for all the members to present strategic, current strategic plans, initiatives. Look for ways to work together. Make sure we're not working against each other on various issues so if members of the council could put April 8"~ on their calendar to the extent that they are available, that will be a good meeting to attend. Mr. Gerhardt, was there anything else on either of those two that you could add? Todd Gerhardt: Just 6:00 p.m. and probably at one of the school sites, if not the administrative offices. 20 City Council Meeting - February 10, 2003 Mayor Furlong: Okay. Councilman Lundquist: Todd can you have Karen or somebody send out a reminder a month in advance or something. Todd Gerhardt: Yeah. They usually send out an agenda and we'll pass that onto council. You'll probably get it directly, either in your box upstairs or at home. Councilman Lundquist: Okay, thanks. Mayor Furlong: Perhaps we can distribute that by e-mail too if it comes that way. Todd Gerhardt: Yes. Mayor Furlong: Okay. Any other council presentations, commission liaison updates? Anything on the 41 river crossing yet? Councilman Lundquist: Nothing to report yet. Mayor Furlong: It's been 4 weeks. Alright. ADMINISTRATIVE PRESENTATIONS. Todd Gerhardt: Staff only has one item. I will be emailing each council member an accounts payable sheet that you would fill out for your special meetings. If you remember last year the council had modified their pay for attending special meetings, an extra $50 for each special meeting, up to $150 per month. I have a form for you to fill out, and that would take into effect as of January 1, 2003. So pull out your calendars and check back. The criteria you should use in determining what a special meeting is, whenever you would leave the house representing the city as a city council member. It doesn't mean you have to be with the entire group, but representing the city as a council member or a mayor would classify as a special meeting. And I have put the codes on each of the forms for you. All you have to do is put the date and item for what the meeting was about, and sign it and give them to me on council meeting nights. Any questions? Mayor Furlong: Okay, any questions? Yes. Okay. Thank you. CORRESPONDENCE DISCUSSION. Mayor Furlong: Any discussion from the council or questions on correspondence? Seeing none, is there a motion, I believe we've covered all the items on the agenda so is there a motion to adjourn? Councilman Peterson moved, Councilman Lundquist seconded to adjourn the meeting. AH voted in favor and the motion carried. The City Council meeting was adjourned at 8:30 p.m. Submitted by Todd Gerhardt City Manager Prepared by Nann Opheim 21