PRC 2008 03 25
CHANHASSEN PARK AND
RECREATION COMMISSION
REGULAR MEETING
MARCH 25, 2008
Chairman Daniel called the meeting to order at 7:30 p.m.
MEMBERS PRESENT:
Glenn Stolar, Tom Kelly, Thor Smith, Dan Campion, Paula Atkins
and Jeff Daniel
MEMBERS ABSENT:
Steve Scharfenberg
STAFF PRESENT:
Todd Hoffman, Park and Rec Director; Jerry Ruegemer, Recreation
Superintendent; Terry Jeffrey, Water Resources Coordinator, John Stutzman, Recreation
Supervisor; Dale Gregory, Park Superintendent; Jodi Sarles, Recreation Center Manager; and
Susan Bill, Senior Center Coordinator
PUBLIC PRESENT:
Name Address Phone Number
Tim & Tari Haunty 7470 Saratoga Drive 974-0922
Jim & Sharon Dugstad 7476 Saratoga Drive 934-2358
Dave & Karen Rice 7440 Longview Circle 975-9540
Loren Trisco 7468 Saratoga Drive 934-0273
Pat & Mona Kerber 7489 Saratoga Circle 934-3514
Barry Trent 7204 Kiowa Circle 937-8304
Pat Neuman 740 Chippewa Circle 906-2824
Jim Wassenberg 7460 Longview Circle 974-2934
Richard & Janet Cleveland 7380 Longview Circle 934-9302
APPROVAL OF AGENDA:Kelly moved, Smith seconded to approve the agenda with the
following addition under administrative presentations, discussion and creation of an
th
agenda for the April 28 joint City Council meeting. All voted in favor and the motion
carried unanimously with a vote of 6 to 0.
PUBLIC ANNOUNCEMENTS:
None.
VISITOR PRESENTATIONS:
None.
APPROVAL OF MINUTES: Smith moved, Stolar seconded to approve the verbatim and
summary minutes of the Park and Recreation Commission meeting dated February 26,
2008, noting the change that Acting Chair Daniel should be Chairman Daniel. All voted in
favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 6 to 0.
Park and Rec Commission - March 25, 2008
CONSIDER CONSTRUCTION OF STORMWATER IMPROVEMENT POND IN
KERBER POND PARK.
Daniel: Thanks for coming Terry.
Jeffrey: Thank you. Chair Daniels, commissioners. Everybody else, thank you. I’m here
tonight to talk about a storm water project that we’re proposing in the trail corridor and Kerber
Pond Park itself. Before I get into the proposal I’d like to take a few minutes to describe why
we’re doing this. I think that when we get to what we’re doing, it’s important to know why
we’re doing this correction. The easiest way, the easiest cop out way to say well state and
federal regulations say we’ve got to do something but I wanted to kind of skip over that and kind
of go through what I think are the more pressing local issues that are driving this along. First and
foremost Lotus Lake, which this project resides within, is an impaired water. …part of the Clean
Water Act and part of the efforts to…whether it be invertebrate populations, fish populations,
nutrient…different uses. It turns out that Lotus Lake is an impaired water for two things.
Nutrients and mercury. The EPA and the PCA both decided you know what, mercury is
through…it just isn’t fair to let local governments have to address the problem that’s regional,
statewide or across the national boundaries, so really what we’re concerned with is nutrients and
that’s your typical fertilizer applications. Lawn clippings. Lack of buffers. Animal feces.
Things of that nature. And then there’s inherent nutrients within a lake itself, and as the plants
within the lake die, they put the nutrients back into it. One of the issues occur currently within
Laredo Drive corridor, in fact it occurs throughout the entire Lotus Lake watershed. If you think
about, a lot of the infrastructure that was put in place within this entire watershed was put in
place in the 60’s and 70’s, so we have storm sewer pipes that were sized for what was built out at
that time. So these tend not to have the capacity to handle the runoff that we’ve seen increase as
we add more houses and more traffic, more sidewalks. More streets. More trails. More
impervious surface. That water has to go somewhere. Because I think when the storm sewer
can’t handle it, so we get what we call a surge. Places where physically the manholes will blow
off because there’s not enough water, or there’s not enough capacity to handle the volume of
water that is coming through it. Fourthly, there’s limited opportunity for treatment within this
watershed. This watershed is fully built and it has been relatively fully built since 1988. So we
really don’t have many opportunities where we can say, ah a new development’s coming in.
We’ll put a regional pond. We’ll do something in this area to address the concerns we have. So
we’re forced to look for areas where we can retrofit projects to address the water treatment issues
that we have. Next, the surface water features in Chanhassen are unique. I mean we have 12
named water bodies, lakes in this city. We have 2 streams. We have the Seminary Fen. The
majority of all lakes that are found in Carver County are found in this city. It’s unique. The one
that’s not as significant, there currently is 2.6 acres going through the same watershed that we’ll
be talking about. This trail area that go to Kerber Pond untreated. It’s predominantly back yard,
roof runoff to the trail so we don’t necessarily…but we still have nutrient loading coming from
back yards. And then what I think to be the most important recent legacy, you know 2-3
generations ago somebody thought it had and saved areas that I now can go and use in the last 2-
3 generations. Now somebody can go out, fish Lotus Lake, swim on Lotus Lake. Not even just
Lotus Lake. The other water bodies that we have in this city and it’s nice to know that we had…
So I’ll try to quickly go through the state preservation regulations without making it too
convoluted and boring you… There’s a lot of layers that just kept getting added on and added on
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and added on. What it really boils down to, we are charged by the State and Federal government
to manage our waters so that we improve the water quality of our surface waters. The federal
level, and then I’m sorry this is going to be hard to read in the back but where the Clean Water
Act, which basically regulates 3 things. One, the impaired waters that we talk about and the
TMDL’s which is the Total Maximum Daily Loads that can be delivered to those water bodies.
Two national pollution discharge elimination systems, and that’s a permitting authority that does
what it says. How do we eliminate discharge of pollutants to surface waters. And then the other
one, the one that most people are familiar with is the don’t fill or dredge within waters in the
United States, which later became for Minnesota a Wetland Conservation Act. State rules,
we’ve got Minnesota Rule 8420 which set up the metro wide watershed district. Riley-
Purgatory, Minnehaha Creek…and all of those and they were charged with developing what’s
called surface water management plan. And that surface water management plan looks at known
existing issues within an area, and develops a plan to address those issues and that plan is
everything from funding to what will the actual fix be. Every city within those watersheds has to
develop their own surface water management plan, which we did and issues that we identified, a
lot of them exist with the Lotus Lake watershed that we’re talking about. So really it boils down
to the one on the left. Got the Clean Water Act. We’ve got Minnesota Rule 7090. There are 3
permits under the Clean Water Act. There’s industrial permits. That’s just, well that’s coke
refineries, large engine producers… There’s construction permits. That’s any time, more than 1
acre of ground is disturbed, they have to get a permit and they have to say how they’re going to
maintain so they’re not polluting waters. And then you have the MS4 permits. Municipal
Separate Storm Sewer System. We are a MS4 city. Within those MS4 cities, they came up with
a list, they being the Pollution Control Agency, of the 30 fastest growing communities in the 7
county metro area. We’re one of them. They were given the unfortunate moniker of the Dirty
Thirty. What they call the select MS4’s. That’s technically what we are. The select MS4’s had
to come up with a non-degradation plan. Non-degradation of surface waters. What it charged us
with doing is you look at your 1988 levels. 1988 is kind of the magic because that’s when
NURP, or the National Urban Runoff Program, we’ll talk about that in a little bit, came into
effect. But you look at where you were at with your 1988 levels. Where you’re at currently and
where you’ll be at 2030 for total suspended solids, total phosphorus and total volume. What we
found is that we meet the non-degradation requirements of total suspended solids. We meet the
non-degradation requirements for total phosphorus. Now remember, that’s 1988 levels. This
watershed district was built out in 1988. This watershed of Lotus Lake, so that lake was already
impaired at 1988. So all we’re saying is, well it was bad then. It’s still bad, but it’s not any
worst than what we had in 1988. But where we don’t make our non-degradation, and this is kind
of, it makes obvious sense to think about it is, total volume. As we add more trails. As we add
more driveways. As we add more roads. As we add more houses. More buildings. That water
that used to go into the ground, doesn’t. It’s got to go somewhere. Well it’s running off into our
lakes and our streams. So what do we do about it? Well, ponds aren’t the answer because ponds
do nothing to reduce the volume. Ponds allow you to release the water slower, but the same
amount of water’s still there and the same amount of water is still being discharged into Lotus
Lake in this case. So we look at two things. Extraction, which is just a fancy way of saying
stop the rain before it hits the ground. Plant trees. Do something to prevent runoff or water
getting…and that’s fine up to a point. Infiltration is the other one, and that’s where you actually
look to slow down the water and get it to soak into the ground rather than running off into
something else. Both of these have been incorporated into this plan in some manner, shape or
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form. So remember we have Lotus Lake, which is an impaired water. If you see the map,
everything in red is listed as a wetland or a Clean Water Act 303 impaired water. So the 12 lakes
we have, 5 of them are impaired. Of the 2 streams we have, one of them is impaired. Bluff
Creek. We actually just started the TMDL project on Bluff Creek. The Total Maximum Daily
Load. We have a trout stream in Assumption Creek and we have Seminary Fen. Using Bluff
Creek as an example, as we move forward with the TMDL, Total Maximum Daily Load for
Bluff Creek, certain requirements are going to come out of that. Reducing volume. Mitigating
for impacts that we’ve already created. I don’t even want to say we. That have been created
down in that area. So we will need to do things with the Lotus Lake TMDL is done to meet the
requirements of that TMDL. The Laredo project originally just looked at putting environmental
manholes in. Environmental manholes are sumps. The water comes in. It swirls around. The
sediment drops out and the water moves through. Well it isn’t impaired for sediments. It’s
impaired for nutrients, so even if we get rid of a majority of the sediment, all the nutrients, all the
dissolved phosphorus and nitrogen are still going through so it’s not, we’re getting no net benefit
for that. So when the TMDL would go in place, we wouldn’t get any credit for that. They
wouldn’t say well you did that. Thank you. It would be well, yeah. Move on. So we had to
start looking at what we’re going to do. Well, everything that’s colored on there is the entire
Lotus Lake watershed, with the exception of a few areas in Eden Prairie. There’s about 15 more
acres that are out in Eden Prairie that come in. It’s broken down in 3 colors. Yellow, green and
blue. Well before I go into the colors, if you look at it, it is built up. I mean it’s fully developed.
There’s really no remaining large tracts of land that we can build out in the future and put in a
regional pond or do other things to address it. What is in yellow is everything that was
constructed previous to 1988 and 1988 was when the NURP pulled through. National Urban
Runoff Program was in effect. So everything you see in yellow was built without the benefit of
stormwater treatment. By far the majority of the watershed. Everything you see in green was
built between ’88 and ’92. Well NURP originally came out as a recommendation. It’s still
called the NURP recommendations. Cities adopted NURP over time into their design standards
for development. From ’88 to ’92 we hadn’t adopted it. So there might be more areas of green
but not much more than what you see in yellow. And then the blue areas were built after ’92
when the city fully adopted their standards and it was required of all developments. So we have
fully built out watershed with very little treatment. In fact we only have 16 storm water ponds in
that whole, entire watershed. What is blue are wetlands. What you see is the blue diagonal
stripes are wetlands. What’s orange is ponds. Not many out there. The only one we can see is
the one that is 2.22 acres. All total the pond surface area that we have in this entire 1,028 acre
watershed is 5.66 acres of ponding. Of that most of them are quarter acre or less…on the
southern part of the lake. Closest to 101. The other things we are looking at or have now
already…Carver Beach Park trail and restoration project, which I’m sure all of you are probably
familiar with that. While that might not necessarily do storm water treatment. It does help
with…and it does mitigate… We’re looking some storm sewer improvements on the north side.
Not a whole lot of opportunity but again were probably going to be done with environmental
manholes…do much for treatment of nutrients in that area. The Triple Crown Estates, the
Meadow Green Park ponds as it’s sometimes referred to, we’re just looking at that area as can
we get more storage in here. And that’s actually around the area where that surcharge that I was
talking about, where the manholes…is occurring there… Then there’s Laredo reconstruction,
where we’re talking about the environmental manholes. The Kerber Park Pond water quality
improvement, which I’m here to talk to you about tonight specifically. And then what, we don’t
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have a name for that. …Lotus Lake 86.6. We’re looking at some ponding opportunities down
there to tie into some land owners who have a eroded ditch through their yard and so there might
be some opportunities there. But really overall, we don’t have a whole lot down there. This is
the area we’re talking about. John, can you click it over to the overhead camera because I can’t,
I tried the laser pointer on that and I can’t point at it so. Can you zoom in for me? Alright. So,
this is the trail coming in. This is the area we’re talking about for a pond down below. Actually
if you can zoom out a little bit. I want to show, because I know the question’s going to come up,
well what are we taking here. That’s fine. That will work. So currently what comes here is
really this back yard flow. Comes through here. Right now Laredo comes up and it goes down
Del Rio. Comes out. Saratoga comes down and actually goes down Laredo Lane. Comes
through this side yard. Gets picked up with the storm sewer here and brought down. What we’re
looking at bringing is Saratoga Lane and Laredo from about here north into this area, which
amounts to about 9.6 acres of watershed will be coming into this area for the plan that we’re
talking about. So that is the area in question. And this where homeowners will be directly
impacted by features in their back yard, which we’ll get to in more detail… Okay, so this is just
the existing condition again. Every, now north is actually to your right. So where the trail
meanders down the hill. You can see the steep slopes coming down to Kerber Pond. And if you
look at it, you want to point up here because I don’t have the overhead. It will be meaningful
later on. This is actually the high point of the whole thing so this will come in. Be about 4 feet
lower than this and that has to come back down which is important for the design considerations
we’re talking about and why we have the design we have. This was the original version.
Fortunately Todd Hoffman is here, as he pointed out some glaring deficiencies with this one.
This pushes the trail in everybody’s back yard… What we came up with, and this one isn’t as
pretty because Kimley-Horn didn’t have a chance to do that one. Let’s switch back over so I can
point to this. Okay. So here again, here’s the two control structures. Saratoga, are the two catch
basin manholes. Will pick up the Saratoga Drive and bring it down to here. In this design this
elevation controls everything going down the street. We have to get lower than this elevation.
Which makes sense. We have to have water flow down hill. So that previous design that was
much larger, we had these manholes set down about 5 ½ feet. So what we did is we brought
those up to a depth of 2 ½ feet. Maintain a half percent grade down to here. So that we could
bring this whole feature up all the way along, decreasing the need to go deeper to get that ridge
around. This structure right here will be a deverting structure, and what that will do is, slower
events, there’ll be a weir structure inside of it. Smaller events will be diverted into these bio-
swales. These linear features coming down here. Where, and we’ll talk about those designs.
Where we can get our infiltration inflow. Where we can get our volume reduction. Well
because of that area, and because of concern for flooding, we can’t send all the water through
there. If we have a large, what we had in 2005, it would be a mess. It would be a disaster back
there. So with this diverter structure, any of the larger events, and I’m just throwing out 1 inch
because that will probably be around what it is. We haven’t completed the model because we’re
still conceptually designing this, but the larger events will go directly into the storm sewer,
which will run down to the proposed pond at the bottom. Bypassing the old system. So if we
stick with this linear system in here. Water will be diverted. The 1 inch event will come down.
Now remember that this was our high point so this is coming in lower than it comes out here. So
we have to get the water up to get it go down. Well, lift stations are prohibitively expensive and
it’s just not practical. I mean they’re expensive. They’re a maintenance nightmare. So this in
essence becomes our lift station. This will be our deepest point of water and it will be 3 feet
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Park and Rec Commission - March 25, 2008
deep at it’s deepest. During an event it will bounce up 3 feet. Start to flow into the system.
Downstream. The drain tile is fitted underneath this whole fitting as well as engineered soils and
aggregate which we’ll show you in a moment. So that we can drain down this system in 48
hours. So water comes in. It bounces up. Starts downstream. What doesn’t make it out then is
drained out through the drain tile underneath and sent back into the storm sewer system and
brought down. But now it’s been filtered through all the soil that’s there, and hopefully with the
plantings that we have in there. Not even hopefully, we will sequester a lot of the phosphorus
and nitrogen that’s in it making it cleaner water going in there as well. When it gets down to
here, it will be the same system except for here it will be designed to have 1 ½ feet of inundation.
It will go up to about 2.1 feet in this area because we need to maintain a positive grade down this
hill. Then it will bounce up at 2.1 feet. Discharge back into the storm sewer and come down
here. Again under drained to engineered soils. 48 hours of inundation and then it will be a dry
system. If you can go back John.
Stolar: How much of a rain event would it take to fill to that 3 foot level?
Jeffrey: That’s what we’re trying to figure out.
Stolar: That’s the modeling.
Jeffrey: So that’s where we don’t know if we’ll go to a 1 inch or it might be a 1 ½ inch rain and
it might be a ¾ inch rain, but we’ll model it to assure that you know, we don’t go over that. That
we stay within these design parameters. Any other questions about the plan that’s still up? We
can always come back to it as well. Alright, so here would be a typical cross section of what
we’re talking about. You would have, the shorter pond, the initial pond that came in is going to
come down and that will be about 4 to 1 slopes, so that will be a little bit steeper than other
places, but it’s still not…steep. It’s not straight up and down so for every 4 foot of horizontal,
you’ll drop 1 foot in elevation. The other, the longer pond would be 7 to 1. Little bit shallower
than the 7 to 1 slopes, which is a slight raise. It’s 14% incline. So that will come down. We’ll
be able to plan to put rock features, woody vegetation…within the entire phase. So it won’t be
storm water pond with water sitting there at some elevation, so we get some grasses…but
everything else is just completely denude of vegetation. There’ll be 30 inches of engineered
soils, and what that will mean is it will be 60% washed sand. 30%, no 20% organic matter. And
20% native soils. Some ratio of that. We’ll determine what’s best to get the infiltration we want
depending on what the native soils are… Below that will be washed, course aggregate and that
depth will vary depending on how much water we get through, what the model shows, but that
would give us additional storage that’s below grade. It’s not at the surface so we’ve got water 3
feet down. If in fact the…when the high, the water table itself is higher, that will actually carry
the water table through and bring it out rather than be in the back yard that we currently seem to
have issues with right now. So that would be the typical cross section. These are just some
generic photos of what I envision. Sometimes the photos speak better than line drawings.
Picture a water feature where we have standing water all the time. Don’t picture algae. I picture
2 or 3 years of small, little, tiny plants and a lot of bare soil. That’s just the way it will be. You
can’t come in and all of a sudden have everything there, so there will be a time where we’ve got
to establish vegetation. I know some of the other concerns that were brought up were being able
to access the trail through the back yards, because currently they can. Because it will be dry,
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Park and Rec Commission - March 25, 2008
first of all we could walk through some of these but there would be no reason we couldn’t put in
rock settling stones or even build a berm up and put a culvert underneath it so that it could
always maintain for access. So we can design around that so that people still have the access
they’re used to having at this time. But again, this illustrates it will be shred… So I’m working
with the landscape architect with Kimley-Horn on putting together a landscaping plan for this
area. You know please bear in mind that this is a project, given the built out nature of where we
are, these are some of the few options that remain in working in narrow corridors. I don’t want
to put in something that is…and ugly, impossible to maintain. I want to put in something that, if
I find another opportunity 3 years down the road, I can come back and I can say, would this
bother you if we did something like this? I mean this, it is imperative to me that this is
successful. That this is aesthetically pleasing. I’d like it to be a feature when you enter the
parkway, say ah that’s nice. That adds to the amenity of the park rather than detracts from it. So
just quick summary, under drain to allow complete drainage in 48 hours. Maintain…for 48
hours. Washed aggregate below for additional storage below the engineered soils. There’s a
diverage structure so we’ll be taking overflow into the storm sewer rather than going in through
the back yards. Detailed landscaping plan. Again working with landscape architect from
Kimley-Horn. I’ll work with Jill Sinclair, the City Forester and Todd Hoffman from parks to
make sure this is something, and work with residents to make sure that the screenings they have
are suitable for what they have. Put in rocks and other structural features within that, down
below. The woods that are below the hill, right now they’re dominated by box elder trees. There
are a few poplars down there. There’s some dead elms that have evidence of DED so I would
like to…so we may have to use some more water tolerant species closer to the pond. Something
like a black ash…and finally, this is to be financed through the surface water management
program fund, and those are already there. Funds that we’ve already collected through other
development projects and have been dedicated specifically to these types of projects. Again I
really want to emphasize that I want this to be a feature that is aesthetically pleasing. That adds
to the park. Adds to the neighborhood while still providing the water colony that the city
desperately needs to find areas for so it is imperative to me that it succeed. Not that I’d just
throw something in and walk away and a year later, well we tried. Any questions?
Audience: I have a question.
Daniel: Actually what we’d like to do is, we’re going to go through the commission quick as far
as questions. Then we’ll open up to the public and if you could. Well we’ll make it quick here.
And then if you could just quick step up. Give your name. Where you live and then we can ask
Terry some questions so, what I’ll do Terry, if you don’t mind, is quick open it up to amongst the
commissioners here and then we’ll move onto our guests so. Paula, do you have any questions?
Atkins: Not right now.
Kelly: I just have one. In your memo you listed Option 1, Option 2. You just went over Option
1. I’m just wondering, is there a way you can quantify how much worst is Option 2 than Option
1?
Jeffrey: Yeah, Option 2 would be really just a pond down below. What we would get is
approximately 50% reduction. We’d lose half of the treatment for nitrogen, phosphorus, total
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Park and Rec Commission - March 25, 2008
suspended solids. We would lose all of the volume reduction. There would be no infiltration at
all. And the cost that we would save would be, would drain into the two ponds…so maybe a
10% reduction cost.
Kelly: Thanks.
Daniel: Thank you. Thor.
Smith: Currently is there a problem with the water along that trail? I mean does it get a lot of
runoff out there now? And is it backed up along the trail. I’m not familiar with the trail. That
trail, particular trail so.
Hoffman: A lot of it’s wet, yeah.
Stolar: Was tonight when we went there.
Daniel: Little muddy.
Smith: Then you mentioned also in your report, being able to you know keep some of the
mature trees. It’s awful hard, I assume to quantify but.
Jeffrey: Yeah, well really what we’ll be able to say is, not much within the, we’re going to lose a
couple of really large, silver maples that are in there. We’re going to lose, there’s a series of 4
spruce trees. We’ll for sure lose at least 2 of those. Depends on where we end it and where the
grading works to. We’ll lose a majority of the trees in the corridor. Replaced, the only thing I
can say is there’ll be more stems when we’re done than there was. There’ll be less wood.
There’s a lot of, right at the beginning there’s a group of box elder. The silver maple again, I’ll
point out, they’re really nice trees and they’re actually doing really well. Silver maple inherently
are a softer wood and…and then you develop into hazardous trees later in life so the likelihood
that they’ll be there 10-20 years…but I can’t say for sure.
Daniel: Dan.
Campion: So when you’re replanting the trees, how mature are the trees that you’re replacing?
Jeffrey: The ones along the trail, we’ll probably go with a 2 inch balled and burlap. So they
won’t be big trees. What I’d like to do is, depending on the whole…I’d like to make a suite of
evergreen trees available as well because that would provide more immediate screening, and then
allow the hardwoods to grow up. And we could also plant shrubs in that area too so we can work
with the homeowners but yeah, typically it will be 2 inch ball and burlap trees. Down the low,
depending upon how much stocking you want, what I guess I’m almost envisioning we’ll do 2
inch balled and burlap and then almost overstock it with seedlings so we’ll have over story trees
and then a bunch of…
Campion: Okay.
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Park and Rec Commission - March 25, 2008
Daniel: Glenn.
Stolar: Just one question on the 48 hour infiltration. What determines the variability of how
long that infiltration will take?
Jeffrey: It will be the perocity of the soils that we put in. So we’ve engineered soils that we put
in and the size of the pipe that we put in, but more…how much water we let go into those
features. So we’ll know the rate of percolation through the soil. We’ll know the volume that’s
contained within there. So if we know that we can drain an inch or 7 inches per hour, 8 inch,
we’ll design it so that that much water comes in to go through that soil.
Stolar: So is a 48 hour system a target that you’ve set or.
Jeffrey: The 48 hours will be achieved. That’s what we want to achieve.
Stolar: Because one thing was the question of stagnant water so in a heavy event that might be,
we’d hit the 48. Is there, is it cost effective to try and reduce that or is that an unlikely situation
that you’re going to have with 48? I’m just trying to think is there a way to make it less than 48
hours for infiltration.
Jeffrey: Oh. Well we could certainly visit that. Again it would get back into bang for buck. I
mean.
Stolar: That’s what I wanted to know. Is that the point where you say, after this it’s diminishing
return in cost.
Jeffrey: Yeah. It would determine how much water it could bring in. If it turns out then we
th
bring in a 10 inch event or something, then it might not be.
Stolar: Okay.
Jeffrey: 48 hours is the design standard for these features. 48 hours is not, it will always be 48
hours. 48 hours is the maximum of what you want to achieve. Sometimes it may be 6 hours.
Sometimes it could be 15, 12 but we’ll always shoot for this number, 48.
Stolar: Gotch ya. Okay.
Daniel: Terry, as far as the path that’s going to be torn up and then eventually replaced, are there
going to be any changes? Are there standards Todd that we’re going to be using as far as the
width of the path and.
Hoffman: The path is scheduled to remain at 8 feet in width.
Daniel: Okay.
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Park and Rec Commission - March 25, 2008
Hoffman: It will be, the elevation will be raised approximately 2 feet throughout the corridor. 2
to 3 feet so it will be, the path should be dry just about all the time when it’s newly constructed
under this plan.
Daniel: And also, are there going to be any type of requirements for retaining walls, especially
on the west side since it looks like the path is moving on the west side. Moving up on the hill as
far as the homeowners there.
Jeffrey: There should not be any improved retaining walls. We should still be able to maintain
the same slopes in that area.
Daniel: Okay. Excellent. I think that’s about all I have. Terry, certainly appreciate the
presentation and very informational. It’s quite exciting so, what I’d like to do now is open it up
for the public to come up and if you could, if anybody has any questions. Just come up to the
podium. State your name and ask, certainly ask away. If you have any questions for Terry, and
your address as well please.
Leah Thorson: My name is Leah Thorson and I live at 7320 Longview Circle. That’s right at
the top of the hill. I’ve lived here 25 years and there’s always been water running down
Longview Circle. Go down a path, there’s always been water. Isn’t that built, hasn’t that whole
addition been built over an underground stream?
Jeffrey: Mr. Chair, there is.
Leah Thorson: And why wasn’t something done before the houses were put there? The water
has always been there. It has always been there.
Jeffrey: There is a perch water table in that area that actually goes into Laredo Lane area and it
extends up to roughly this area. As part of the Laredo reconstruction, we’re actually installing
drain tile…
Leah Thorson: Please don’t mention that. I still want to know what you’re doing with that
property tax is why I have to go another $7,000 for a damn street which just has one huge hole in
it right now that you can patch. And I’ll be happy with that.
Jeffrey: I’m sorry, that’s for the assessments.
Leah Thorson: The water that I’m talking about that has always seemed to be there sort of runs
down this way, and it runs clear down to here and there’s people always have to use their sump
pumps in there and it’s just a few houses so it’s very well defined where that underground water
is. And it’s always been there.
Jeffrey: Again they’ll be putting drain tile in there and storm sewer.
Leah Thorson: My question is why do it now when it’s so expensive? Why not have done it
then before it got so expensive?
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Jeffrey: My short answer is, it wasn’t considered at that time.
Leah Thorson: People need to talk to each other about these things. It’s like the street coming
in. I paid my house off when my husband died in ’83. In ’03, and I did that for a reason, so I
could afford to continue living here. Now what’s happening, and if there’s an assessment on
this, I’m going to be priced out of my home.
Jeffrey: There is no assessment. Like I said.
Leah Thorson: And of course my taxes have gone up another $1,000. So it looks kind of like
I’m going to be out of money about $10,000 worth with street assessment and the new taxes.
Now what good did it do me to pay off my house? I’m going to lose my home. And I’m not at
all happy about having part of my front yard taken out. The easement for the front yard. I’ve got
a short front yard. I mean you’re going to be at my front door. You’re also going to take out my
sprinkler system. To say I’m unhappy about this is an understatement. I’m mad as hell. I really
am.
Ruegemer: Have you contacted the engineering department?
Leah Thorson: I’m sorry?
Ruegemer: Have you contacted the engineering department?
Leah Thorson: Well I was at one of the meetings and I sort of shut down on that. I mean it was
sort of, I felt like somebody patted me on the head and said there, there little lady. We’ll take
care of it for you. I don’t want it taken care of. I want it taken care of but I don’t need to be
defeated all the time. With a little help from my city I can’t make it you know. God knows
Carver County tries to do me in. This is a real expensive place to live and I don’t need you guys
deciding to rip up a street. And then ripe out my back yard. And get rid of my sprinkling
system. I assume that you will replace everything that you tear up.
Daniel: Yeah I was going to say.
Leah Thorson: I’m just saying, is that a dumb assumption?
Daniel: I wouldn’t know.
Leah Thorson: …assumptions.
Jeffrey: Mr. Chair, if I may.
Daniel: Yeah.
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Park and Rec Commission - March 25, 2008
Jeffrey: As we go through, as the road reconstruction project goes through, there are identified
features that are in your property that are damaged as a result of what we are doing, they will be
replaced. So for instance your driveway, your sprinklers, those will be replaced.
Leah Thorson: When Gopher comes out to mark for any kind of improvement, my front yard
looks like a circus because one of the things that happened was that all of these pipes and lines
and underground wires intersect in my front yard. Nobody else has that wonderful privilege so
whenever anybody does anything to the front part of my property, they fix it so something
doesn’t work and then they don’t come back and fix it so I just want you to hear me and this all
comes up again you’ll say oh yeah, I heard her at the meeting. She raised holy hell. Well, I
have. But I’m not happy about what you guys are doing.
Daniel: Thank you.
Karen Rice: Hi, I’m Karen Rice and my husband Dave and I live at 7440 Longview Circle and I
have a couple questions for you. First of all we bought, we built a home in Chanhassen but we
purposely moved into town so that our kids could enjoy the city life and we built, or wanted to
buy on this lot because we have the walkway. We have a lot of nieces and nephews that come
to visit so I have a couple concerns. Number one is the safety issue. I know you said we can
walk on the rocks but I’m also getting older and I know I can fall down on rocks, as well as little
children. So I do have a safety concern and I’m not sure if that will be the city’s responsibility if
anybody was hurt or if it comes back to… I also want to know what environmental studies have
been done for the soil. We have a garden in our back yard and so if all this more green and stuff
that you’re talking about is, I’d like to see some sort of an environmental study on that. Just to
see. And then also I’m wondering what the budget is going to be just for the landscaping per
homeowner so, in our back yard what would be the budget you would spend just in landscaping
that would be replaced?
Jeffrey: Mr. Chair, for those questions. The first question regarding the cost. We’re certainly
flexible. Again we have…while we have a fairly defined plan, it’s still conceptual in many ways
so if there is a berm with a structure underneath so you actually have…there’s no reason that we
couldn’t go from that direction so that wouldn’t be a problem. Regarding the soils. Soil testing
is available and we could certainly do that. Again though…it’s not typically associated with
runoff is nutrients… What I can speak to is the EPA and federal…did look at, as cities do pond
clean out’s, it’s the same thing so they start to go, do we need to classify this as hazardous? It
was determined that… Currently I’ve asked them, I’ve started with a budget of $30,000 to ask
them, that’s the overall budget to see what that would do for screening…so roughly $2,500. Is
that right?
Stolar: Yeah, it’s 25.
Jeffrey: Thank you. So roughly $2,500. Now if that turns out that it will be not enough
screening, adequate screening, we’ll re-visit it and look at that. But what I’d like to do is be able
to talk with the homeowners. If you want evergreen trees so you’ve got the quick screening,
great. If you want hardwoods…we’ll do that. If you want some combination, we’ll do that.
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Karen Rice: So if someone with a large lot, with a large back yard would get the same amount
that I have?
Jeffrey: No. See it’s not partial at all on a per lot basis. That’s why I…this is a project and so it
would be per…
Karen Rice: Oh, alright. Alright and then if this does go through, are we allowed to have a copy
of that EPA report at all? Is there some…
Jeffrey: I can make that available.
Karen Rice: Yeah, just appreciate, okay.
Jeffrey: Actually I have the contact information so.
Stolar: Can I ask a quick question? The mercury issue is the issue of the mercury in Lotus Lake.
Not in the soils.
Jeffrey: Correct.
Karen Rice: Okay.
Stolar: And that comes from, I was on the surface water task force so familiar. It’s how the
atmosphere mercury ends up collected in the lake and doesn’t go anywhere so, it stays there. But
it also will hit the soils too the same way. It’s the same, but it’s not the soils that are an issue
here. It’s what’s in Lotus Lake.
Karen Rice: Okay.
Daniel: And I guess I just want to clarify as well, I guess Karen you, was it more concern also
the build up of the phosphorus and nitrogens inside the gardens and how they make, how they
seep or spread out through your own property?
Karen Rice: Yeah.
Daniel: As well, in essence.
Karen Rice: Yeah.
Daniel: As we start to collect that and build it up.
Jeffrey: Actually the plants that are put in there are selected specifically to sequester that…
Karen Rice: I know that aside, a little plant like this.
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Jeffrey: Now some of them are more effective than others obviously. A tree that’s been growing
for 8 years…
Karen Rice: Sure. Okay. Those are my questions. Thank you.
Pat Neuman: My name’s Pat Neuman and I live at 740 Chippewa Circle and I’m concerned
mainly about the water quality in Kerber Pond because I think it’s a special place. We have a lot
of ducks there and egrets and herons that come in the summer. I’ve got wood duck houses. I’m
concerned that these sedimentation ponds will not deal with the water quality issues on Kerber
Pond. I don’t want to see us destroy Kerber Pond to try and have a minimal effect on Lotus Lake
water quality. The other point that I’m concerned about is the runoff. I think you mentioned
there was 2.6 acres that drain into Kerber Pond and you’re talking about possibly an additional
9.65 acres.
Jeffrey: A total of 9.65, so yes. An additional 7 acres.
Pat Neuman: So that’s more than 3 times the drainage area going into Kerber Pond?
Jeffrey: No. More than 3 times of the drainage area that flows through that channel. The
drainage area to Kerber Pond is, it’s considerably.
Pat Neuman: Do you have that figure?
Jeffrey: I don’t know the exact acreage but, so Kerber Pond. This watershed flows into this
watershed. This watershed flows into this one. Flows to this one so it’s, this watershed flows to
Kerber Pond.
Pat Neuman: Alright, well even like 9 to 10, or 9.65 acres of basically a large portion of it being
impervious runoff from Santa Vera and you know parking lots. I guess there’s a little parking lot
with that condominiums is it?
Ruegemer: Yep.
Pat Neuman: And I’m concerned about the downstream condition coming out at Kerber Pond
and going downstream towards, downstream at Santa Fe. There are a couple houses that are
fairly, fairly low there and I don’t really know. I’ve only been here since 2000 but I heard there
was a big runoff event in 1988 and I don’t know if those houses were affected there. But
increasing the volume of runoff, you know at that flood flow. I mean you can talk volume of
runoff for these little episodes that you divert into these small ponds but it’s the big events that
cause the problems and how are you dealing with that? Well there’s two questions. Water
quality and runoff.
Jeffrey: Let’s take the runoff quality for a second. I think that’s the, conceptually the easier one.
One of the models, first of all the model with volume will show…Kerber Pond but if you think
of the size that Kerber Pond is and then the wetland that extends beyond Kerber Pond. There’s
actually a tremendous amount of storage capacity in there. Without modeling it I couldn’t say
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what the bounce would be with fluctuation of water level, but I can’t imagine it’d be more than a
couple… If it were to flood out somebody’s house, we wouldn’t proceed in that direction. As
far as water quality, currently there’s really no treatment prior to going to Kerber Pond. Granted
we’re going to be taking some watershed that had made it away from Kerber Pond and putting it
there. But we will be treating it to NURP standards.
Pat Neuman: Well only for the smaller events you mean.
Jeffrey: The larger events will also because that will be, the pond at the end, I’m going to go
back here. Will be designed to NURP standards as well so, there’s in essence two treatment
mechanisms and combined it should.
Pat Neuman: Well how effective are they?
Jeffrey: NURP standards is 90% total suspended solids and essentially 60% nutrients removal.
For the rain water.
Pat Neuman: Well it’s not near 100% on nutrients.
Jeffrey: Right but currently we have no treatment. We have zero treatment.
Pat Neuman: Yeah.
Jeffrey: I would say that…the water that we put into Kerber Pond will be higher quality.
Pat Neuman: During the large runoff events basically everything goes into it.
Jeffrey: No, during the large runoff events it goes into the pond and is stored there and is
released.
Pat Neuman: Well I mean eventually it goes into there.
Jeffrey: Yeah, it will eventually but it will be treated prior to discharge into that.
Pat Neuman: So, can you tell me that Kerber Pond water quality is going to be as good with this
after a few years as it is right now? Can you guarantee me that?
Jeffrey: I can tell you that the water that we put into it will not degrade Kerber Pond because of
that water, yes.
Pat Neuman: For both nutrients and mercury?
Jeffrey: No, I can’t tell you anything about mercury. Mercury is atmospheric… I have no
control over.
Pat Neuman: Well isn’t there some mercury that comes in from the runoff on the streets?
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Park and Rec Commission - March 25, 2008
Jeffrey: There may be some but it’s not, it’s not a manageable pollutant. Atmospheric
deposition, coal plants, that’s what.
Pat Neuman: Yeah, I understand that but I mean other pollutants. Somebody’s you know…their
oil on the asphalt surface. Does that mean that ends up coming in?
Jeffrey: That will come in and outlet structures are designed with what’s called skimmer
structures so it will actually skim off the floatables. Oil being a floatable.
Pat Neuman: Okay, thank you.
Daniel: Thank you Pat.
Tim Haunty: Hi. My name is Tim Haunty. I live at 7470 Saratoga Drive. My wife Tari. I
moved here about 10 years ago. Bought a house. Spent quite a bit of money to, with my own
time and effort, and…where that, I don’t disagree that you need this for the water control but all I
see is, we’re not discussing Option 2 at all and you know what we’re going to take out in trees,
between all of our yards back there, I’m questioning my lack of privacy. I’m asking, I hear you
tell me that you wouldn’t let that water go on your garden but it’s okay to run in my back yard.
When Karen was talking and you had said if that water were to get into her garden and you said
you wouldn’t want that water on my garden.
Jeffrey: The excavated soils from cleaning out the pond. I wouldn’t want that on my garden.
Tim Haunty: Did I misunderstand something? Is that.
Stolar: He said the soils. So what collects in the pond at the bottom, if you take that out, that has
all the nutrients and phosphorus in it and you don’t want that.
Tim Haunty: I guess what I’m, we’re being kind of forced onto this, at least my perspective is
this Option #1. Where my house is, and with, that house between…I mean I had the shrills when
you guys were out there earlier. This is my house right here. Meeting with this down the center.
That is one of my main reasons we bought because that walking path was so serene. The people
on the walking path for the most part have privacy. It’s down low and now you’re going to put it
literally right in my yard. Now the setbacks, not picking on my neighbors but look at the
difference in setbacks based on what I have. I mean I may as well just invite them all for
breakfast, lunch and dinner because they’re going to be right in my yard. And I have shrubs
there, over 20 years old. And you were talking about replacing trees and shrubs that are…so I’ve
got to wait another 30 years to live in my house for the size of the 35 and 40 year old trees that
you’re taking out. Now, the tree that you guys are talking about, the silver maple that I have on
there, you’re saying that that’s not, I take care of the trees. Even though it’s the park. I even
irrigate this right along side my shrubs. I take care of all that. In fact if you ask the park people
when they come to cut, they don’t even cut my yard. Just, well cut that park area because I
fertilize that grass. I take care of it and maintain it as if it’s my own. My contribution to the city
and you know again, you’re taking out 30 some year old trees and replacing them with twigs. I
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lose my privacy, not to mention what’s that going to do to the value of my house. It’s going to
drop the value of my house. If I wanted to move in next to a swamp, I would have moved into a
swamp, and that’s what that’s going to be. I’m not hearing you saying, with any definitive
commitment, words out of your mouth that says what happens when that thing backs up and
we’ve got little kids playing around back there. They’re back there all the time. And that
becomes one of these troubled areas where we’ve got kids playing in the back yard. In Karen’s
yard right now, if that thing backs up, I’m high enough. I’m 4 ½ - 5 feet with my bottom of my
elevation and my basement. Last three houses over there, they’re going to be flooded. And
where’s that water going to go after it can’t go down that beautiful soil? It’s going to go through
the storm sewer system that’s in there. Now, let me ask you this. Has anybody, with this Option
2, talked about making the potential to make that pond a final retention pond larger to the
northeast, correct? Or I maybe don’t have my directions. That could be, and did I not hear you
say that that would help maintain 50%, approximately 50% of what we’re dealing with now.
Okay. And part of the, you know this walking path and it’s sereneness, we lose all of that and I
guess my understanding is, I mean have we looked into anything with directional boring where
we can go, without any devastation to, other than what we would have to do for different
monitoring as they sort of run that in, making that retention pond bigger. Bigger and making it
two separate. So one drains into the other. The sediment sets in the one. The sediment sets in
the other one and the last pipe is a bit higher so that all you’re doing is taking off the top water to
go into that Kerber Pond. I mean have we even looked at that?
Jeffrey: Well directional boring being anywhere between $75 and $175 a lineal foot is an
expensive proposition to run the almost 900 foot run. And then we’d have to install the drop
structure and then we’d have to open a trench down to the pond from there.
Tim Haunty: Then why not, then I guess what’s the difference… So it’s okay that I can lose
property value of somewhere in the neighborhood of 5 or 10% of my property value. When I go
to talk to somebody and say would you like to buy my house. Oh by the way, those people that
walk by, they’d just like to come in for breakfast because they’ve got keys to my house because
I’m that close. I lose everything. And so my privacy is gone and what you’re going to replace,
and it’s very nicely drawn on there that you’ve got 25 year trees drawn on that schematic. In
reality you can’t even see them on that. And what has it done to my value and all my neighbors
values? Everybody’s going down and that’s what that does. That open drainage swale, that’s
what that does to our property value. Not to mention when we get one of the kids in the
neighborhood gets hurt in there, what’s the first thing the city’s going to do? They’re going to
put a fence up so that’s really going to be attractive because they’re going to say, okay let’s keep
everybody out of that drainage swale. We’ll keep the kids out of there. The kids had a great
time in there. That is a very serene area with mature trees and there’s a reason why I bought
where I bought. It’s so that I have that privacy. I’ve see my neighbors go down and see my
neighbors and I see the people on the walking paths and talk with them, but it’s great because
everybody has their own little thing. You are totally changing that corridor. Now if you’re
saying it’s $200 a foot time 900 so what are we talking? $180,000 to set directional bore.
What’s my property value times 10-12 houses dropping? It’s that right there and this other
Option 2, I mean what’s the minimum that you need to take on that pond? It’s basically a 6 foot
wide, if I’m not, correct me if I’m wrong. 6 foot, 8 foot wide backhoe that you get in there and
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Park and Rec Commission - March 25, 2008
you basically you’re tearing up the walking path. The neighborhood stays where they are. 99%
of the trees don’t get destroyed, and you go right down the walking path.
Jeffrey: You mean to do an open trench?
Tim Haunty: No, not an open trench. Going Option 2 with not an open trench. Going directly
to those ponds. Making that lower pond the larger one, and I don’t understand why you can’t get
that, instead of one large pond, that that can’t be split into two ponds. And the sediment drains
from one pond. It helps to slow your water ratio. I mean it’s slowing your flow rate because
you’re going to from one pond to the next pond and we’re going to get sediment dropping into
the, it’s no different than the way a septic system works. It’s the same type of set-up. That goes
in one tank versus.
Jeffrey: I’ll go back to $75 per foot…reduction into those ponds and then we get half the
treatment that we otherwise get… As it is, we’re chasing slope right away into those ponds. As
we work our way around and we start taking out more of the path, you know and other people
walk around that…they enjoy that part of the lake so.
Tim Haunty: Those people are, I mean guaranteed now who’s going to maintain all these nice
plants that you’re going to put in?
Jeffrey: Eventually had that conversation with several different organizations that is what…so
we would contract with them to come in and maintain.
Tim Haunty: But that’s for how long? These trees are here for 35-40 years. I mean and again,
my property value, because you’re going to probably end up taking out the 20 year old shrubs
that came with the house that I meticulously maintain every year. They constantly grow nice and
straight. You’re going to take all of those out of there because you want to put that walking path
on the high side.
Hoffman: That’s your shrub row right on your property or is it, that’s not?
Tim Haunty: I’m sorry.
Hoffman: That shrub row you’re talking about. Is that in your lot?
Tim Haunty: No, actually my property line is just on the other side of them so.
Hoffman: Okay.
Tim Haunty: So they’re going to go. I mean it’s…
Hoffman: Well, I think those will be staying.
Tim Haunty: Well, but you can’t, nobody’s saying definitively here and I guess, I mean this
open swamp, because that’s what it’s going to be. And this is great talk right now. This is really
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Park and Rec Commission - March 25, 2008
super talk that we’re going to maintain. Who’s going to pay for this 5 years from now? Let’s
just say 8 years from now? What if we get budget shortfalls? Do you think that the parks are
going to maintain shrubs? That’s the last thing they’re going to do. Then we as homeowners,
with our property values depleting, and right now Carver County’s supposedly in 2008 is only
going to be 5% in the positive. By ’09 we’re supposed to be in the negative. We’re already in
the negative. We already know where our property values are going. This is going to take us as
a double whammy. So I mean what am I gaining as a homeowner? I move into Chanhassen, this
serene town. I even build homes in this town. Our company builds in Chanhassen. Great
people. Great, super place to work with. And now, and I live here. Then I got this forced on me
because it is economic, you know what it’s impact. Nobody asked us what it’s going to do to our
home values. Nobody’s even, that’s not addressed anywhere. Nobody did that. So I’m furious.
I mean obviously you can tell. I’m rambling on. I’m furious what you people are going to do
because of you know, if we can get that pond, why can’t that pond also get extended out to the
north, whatever that is. Northwest. Right at the corner. Off of Kerber Drive. There’s a swamp
area there right now.
Audience: That’s my property right there right now.
Tim Haunty: I understand that. Why shouldn’t that, but that’s an open, my point being with
that exactly. It is a swamp area and why can’t that be dug out and become another pond? If
we’re worried about it, A goes to B then B goes to C and then it goes into Kerber.
Jeffrey: Because by excavating out something that’s already saturated, you don’t have any
what’s referred to as…volume storage, so all that you’re storing is water that’s already.
Tim Haunty: Good water. That’s good, clean water.
Jeffrey: Plus all your…so anything we put into there, we don’t get any treatment for it. It’s just
tops it.
Tim Haunty: But you don’t get the nutrients and the mercury and the sediment and all that
settling down in that pond?
Jeffrey: You can only force so much water into something before it’s full and, you pour water
into something that’s already saturated, that water will potentially goes out so it doesn’t get any
of that treatment because it’s not in there to be treated.
Tim Haunty: So what you’re saying is Option 2, even though they gave it to us, we don’t even
discuss that? That’s not even brought up to all of us here?
Jeffrey: We are discussing it.
Tim Haunty: Right, because I brought it up. It wasn’t coming up when you made your proposal.
Jeffrey: …last week in our neighborhood meeting.
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Tim Haunty: But we can’t, I guess I’m, I see the least, the issue is still being able to contribute
to Lotus Lake is digging this out with a backhoe. Putting in a larger pond and maximizing that
pond. I don’t think we’ve studied all our options here. I personally don’t think that, and that’s
opinion only and you may know obviously a lot more than I, but even directional boring, we’re
putting a price tag but nobody’s putting a price tag to pick up the tab on what I’m going to lose
on my house. You know why aren’t you telling me that I’m going to lose you know $250 a
square foot on my house or something? Or $100. That doesn’t happen. And then I’m not the
only one. That’s going to take care of everybody right here. The same thing. So for what it’s
worth, that’s my opinion. Thank you.
Daniel: Well appreciate your comments Tim. Thank you.
Dave Rice: My name is Dave Rice and it’s 7440 Longview Circle. My wife Karen spoke
earlier. I’d like to make this a record to the council here that, a letter to Todd from a neighbor
that couldn’t make it. So here you go. He may have emailed you… It’s a letter from Tim and…
Daniel: From Tim Thompson?
Dave Rice: So, to start out you know, and following Tim’s notes here. Start from Laredo and
we can just work ourself down, and you didn’t respond to my questions so you’ll have…to
respond to it. That first drainage or holding pond per se, you say that’s going to be 3 feet. It’s
going to come in. It’s going to accumulate up to 3 feet deep. At that point it’s going to overflow
now. Trickle down into the second holding pond. Or overflow into the second basin there.
What happens when kids on a trail see running water?
Audience: They go play in it.
Dave Rice: They run. They run to it. What’s going to happen when a kid falls in there head
first? You guys are liable. This design is on your shoulders. In your hands. Right now. With
an open 3 foot pit where water’s going to accumulate. Where people are going to be walking
along side the path. That’s a danger and it’s going to be an issue for the city someday. I’m
afraid. I hope we not but you have to look at the you know possibilities. Secondly now coming
down to the second ditch, catch basin as you want to call it. I’m the third lot in there and looking
out my back yard, and I’ve got a nice trail. Green, natural space here. Now just imagine if
somebody comes to my house, I want to sell my house and just, you’re walking around the yard
like god, this is nice. And then they go back to there and they say, well what’s this? Well you
know what? That’s a drainage ditch. Well it’s a catch basin. Well, it doesn’t really have water
but you know so I can’t see that being a positive you know for this homeowner. Or as
homeowners on this. You know and you talk about the treatment of the water, and you had
mentioned earlier Terry about the degradation. You had 3 bullets there and we’re meeting 2 or
we’re the same as 1988. The third one was.
Jeffrey: Volume.
Dave Rice: Volume. Okay. Well, we’re putting more volume now and isn’t there some kind of
design where you can handle the volume instead of my back yard. You know you’re looking at a
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Park and Rec Commission - March 25, 2008
treatment. You’re looking at a treatment patch or basin there that’s going to act like a coffee
filter. That’s basically what it is. The runoff will come in from the water in your home. It filters
before you want to drink the sediment. Now, is there any kind of, like my wife said, well the
EPA. Any kind of leeching that could take place. Now I’ve always heard clay will wick up to
10 feet. I could be wrong on that but I don’t think I’m too far away on that. So with the
nutrients that’s going to be filtered in my back yard, and now people are saying mercury’s
airborne. Well what about acid rain? You know that falls on this 9.6 acres that’s going to be
running, some of it’s going to be running into the water. And now it’s in my back yard? I mean
that’s a hazard. Terry, how many have you done of this design?
Jeffrey: Done of this design?
Dave Rice: No, have you designed these before?
Jeffrey: Yes.
Dave Rice: You have?
Jeffrey: Yes.
Dave Rice: Okay. Well we should see some pictures, or maybe that was what we saw.
Jeffrey: Yeah, Kimley-Horn who is doing this did all the paperwork. All the paperwork and
Kimley-Horn is the designer on this project.
Dave Rice: Well I see it as a hardship. Me as a homeowner of our value. I mean look at all this
in here. Maybe people are well off and. What’s your main investment as you go through life?
Your home. You know that’s where you work for. That’s where your money’s accumulating
and hopefully you’re going to have something, and now you put a treatment center in my back
yard. So you know that’s troublesome to me. You know and I don’t think it’s good practice. I’d
like to ask all of you, or I wish I could ask all of you individual, would you like that in your back
yard? And honestly I don’t think anyone of you would. If you’re honest to yourself, you would
not want that in your back yard. So going on down the path, I understood the second option was
to take it, a buried culvert underneath the trail. You know going from the first catch basin, and
then having a culvert down into that holding area down there. You know if you want to do a
project like this, you know come in and do it but put it back the way you found it. You know
and sometimes it can be maybe done the same way because you have to have the filterization but
you have to look at the impact of what you’re going to be doing to people here. And it’s a big
impact. You know for people, for their values of their homes. Just for your lifestyles. You
know getting up every day and looking at something like that. You know that’s great. You
know that it’s going to be landscaped and all that, but come on. You know budgets are budgets.
You know you look at the cost of landscaping, you know $30,000 to do all that? That’s not
going to go very far, I don’t think. You know for what stuff costs now. So you know I’d like to
keep the trail as a natural, nature spot. As it is. And if we have to find a way to run off water, I
don’t think it’s right and I don’t think it’s fair to be putting that in people’s back yard to do that.
So I would hope that we could come up with a different design to put that trail back the way it
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was found, or laid out and then you could move on so. That’s all I’ve got. I’m not happy with it.
It’s going to put a hardship on me for selling and you have an open pit. That trail will be a lot
more expensive if somebody falls in there and dies. Thank you.
Daniel: Thanks Dave.
Audience#1: Are you telling me there’s not underground drainage for this?
Audience#2: Yes, there is. Underground drain under all of that. It drains under all it, right?
Underground drain under all of that.
Audience#1: But it gets…what happens when they get plugged up? Very expensive to clean
them out?
Jeffrey: We can maintain the underground drains and we still have the existing storm sewer that
would be in place. Storm sewer runs everywhere. As to having a waste dump in your back yard,
I would suggest you just think of all of the neighborhoods that have ponds immediately adjacent
to a house. There aren’t people suffering dire illnesses because they have a storm water pond
next to their house.
Audience: You don’t know that. You don’t know that. And people that move next to a pond,
purposely move next to a pond and they have the decision whether, when they move into the
development, they wanted to move into a retention pond area. They have that decision.
Jeffrey: You know what, I appreciate that. I have heard your comments and I will take them all
into consideration. I don’t think this is the venue to just start arguing back and forth. Mr. Chair.
Daniel: Yep.
Karen Rice: I have one more question. Also, and I’m not for this either.
Hoffman: Could you repeat your name please?
Karen Rice: I’m sorry, it’s Karen Rice. I’m at 7440 Longview Circle. I am the third house on
there. I do have a question, I know you mentioned that you’re going to have in the budget
someone that can maintain these ponds. Right now, and I can tell you last year for a fact that I
called about 4 times in like a week to get some trees moved that were in the back yard. They
were a danger to my family. They were a danger to the people on the path. I called and
nobody…an answer. I also know that my current shrubs in the back are a great place for kids to
stash their alcohol bottle and their pop cans and stuff, so I’m curious how often you would have
these things cleaned. Would you have routine, once a week? Someone’s going to come in and
pick up our garbage that collects in those ponds? You know and as for the budget you know, this
budget I’m sure so.
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Park and Rec Commission - March 25, 2008
Jeffrey: I would assume there’d be a 2 to 4 times a year that would come out of the operating
budget. That’s…so it’s not out of the project budget. It would come out of other budget monies
dedicated to.
Karen Rice: So if there’s a collection of garbage, I would call and someone will come and clean
that up or. Like I had…last fall or last winter when my husband couldn’t help me with those
trees because he was ill, you know and I had to have someone come and do that, and that’s not
right. But that was not on my property. It was back on the pond. The trailway there so it wasn’t
something I should have had to take care of but you know as, not only just how it looks, etc so
I’m really concerned. I’m sorry, my perception is my reality and I’m just really concerned about
the garbage that’s been collected out there and nobody’s going to maintain it.
Daniel: Dale, how often is your staff there as far as cutting that area?
Gregory: We cut pretty much once a week through all of that area.
Karen Rice: And we’ve asked not to have it cut in our back yard. That wasn’t being maintained
on a weekly basis. I know there’s often times we have to cut 2-3 times a week when the rain
comes so I know that my husband takes care of that himself.
Daniel: Okay. Okay, thank you Karen. Are there any more questions of Mr. Jeffrey as far as.
Jim Dugstad: I have one more.
Daniel: Okay.
Jim Dugstad: Jim Dugstad, 7476 Saratoga. I’m here with my wife Sharon and we don’t live
right along where most of the other neighbors have commented, live along the path. We live on
the hill and our property will directly overlook this pond, or this final pond, and I have not heard
anything, how big is this thing? Is it 50 feet long? 100 feet long? A football field? Is there
going to be standing water in it all the time? Is it going to be fenced? What’s going to look like?
th
Jeffrey: It is, the entire grading limits that you see is 9/10 of an acre. The pond itself would be
about a half acre. There will be standing water in it to a 4 foot depth. Was there another
question, I’m sorry?
Hoffman: Fencing.
Jim Dugstad: Is that going to be fenced?
Jeffrey: No.
Jim Dugstad: We’re talking about safety issues.
Jeffrey: It will not be fenced. The design doesn’t show, there will be a bench that will be
constructed. A type of bench in there…
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Park and Rec Commission - March 25, 2008
Daniel: How about do you consider it any more dangerous than the pond that’s right next to it?
From what I’ve seen, most other rain gardens.
Jim Dugstad: I wanted to know how large it was going to be.
Jeffrey: About a half acre.
Jim Dugstad: Because nothing was really said.
Jeffrey: And again, until we run the full model and how much we’re taking there…but it’s a half
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acre right now that is shown of ponding surface. 9/10 acre of total grading.
Jim Dugstad: Okay, thank you.
Daniel: Thank you Jim. Is there anyone else? We have another guest.
Barry Trent: I’m Barry Trent. I live on Kiowa Circle. 7204 Kiowa Circle. I also got limited
response… I live on the ravine that runs out of Kerber Pond and down into Lotus Lake and I’m
just curious about the impact to bring that extra 7 acres into Kerber Pond and how that’s going to
be handled coming out of Kerber Pond and down to the lake.
Jeffrey: The control structure that sits at the trail has a limit to how many cfs it will allow
through so the rate coming into the stream would remain the same. When we run the model
we’ll make sure that Kerber Pond itself is not going to bounce a significant amount…more than a
couple tenths of a foot. So that will be looked at through the model to ensure that there is.
Barry Trent: When do you anticipate that model being done?
Jeffrey: Well we needed to have a few public hearings to get some comments in here. I would
anticipate that that model will be run the middle of next week so I can certainly make that
available.
Barry Trent: That’d be great. Thank you.
Mona Kerber: I’m Mona Kerber. I live at 7489 Saratoga Circle. Our property is the large
acreage there and we will be, the first holding pond will be the entire length of our property onto
the Kerber Pond trail. We have been told they’re going to move the trail over and it would be
approximately 10 to 12 feet from our lot line. It will not be adjacent to our lot line. If it would
go, and I thank you for considering that. Otherwise we could invite people to come into our
bedroom and have a nap because we’d be only 75 feet from a lot line from what our bedroom
house is, so I thank you for that. I thank you very much for keeping it away. Now I have a
question, is there going be water standing all the time in these holding areas going down the
trail? Is there going to be water standing there? I was under the assumption that under each one
of those there’s drain tiles. Underneath and in the space there is a drain tile. There’s not going
to be any overflow on that because the drain tile underneath these two individual ponds, and then
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you’re putting the filtration system on top, so is there going to be water standing in there so kids
can fall into it or is it going to go away within 48 hours?
Jeffrey: It will be drained within 48 hours.
Mona Kerber: It will be drained within 48 hours, right?
Jeffrey: Right.
Mona Kerber: But there are drains under all of the.
Jeffrey: All of this has under drain.
Mona Kerber: It’s not just the filtration system.
Jeffrey: Correct.
Mona Kerber: Okay. But as far as the trees on our lot down there, please take them off because
they’re nothing but a garbage dump there. You can have the box elder tree too. That’s okay,
you can have them. Not worried about that.
Daniel: Thank you Mona.
Mona Kerber: You’re welcome.
Daniel: Is there anybody else who may have questions for Mr. Jeffrey at all, or the park
commission here? If not, Terry I want to thank you for coming here and get an opportunity to
talk about the program here as well as getting us educated about the I guess the whole watershed
issues and everything that needs to be addressed with regards to water quality. And as well I
appreciate everyone, all our guests coming here today to certainly field questions to either
ourselves as well as Mr. Jeffrey here. We certainly understand and appreciate these issues.
Made decisions that a city makes can have impact upon just about any citizen here so we
understand that certainly the little changes that we certainly may make as a city will have an
impact on everyone, and as you mentioned Tim for example your concerns on home value and
Dave and Karen, some of the issues that you guys may have as well and all those things are truly
taken into consideration so we do appreciate those comments. And certainly if you do have any
others, Terry is there any way that they can get a hold, or is there going to be another forum in
which we can further continue these discussions?
Jeffrey: Yeah, it would definitely have to go before I would assume the Planning Commission’s
going to look at it. I know the council will be looking at it so there will be at least 2 more public
hearings that will address that. I would be happy to sit down with people if they want to contact
me. Sit down face to face and discuss this so either of those options would work. Get in touch
with me through the engineering department at the city offices so. And I would like to thank all
of you as well for coming and speaking up.
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Daniel: Do we know the dates Todd or Terry as far as the next?
Hoffman: Yeah, this commission is prepared to make a recommendation. You should be
making a recommendation concerning this project to the City Council.
Daniel: Okay. Is that something that we want to make a recommendation tonight then Todd do
you think?
Hoffman: Prepared tonight. If not.
Daniel: Well, do we want to further discuss this issue? Obviously based off the passionate
discussions here we certainly might want to consider that.
Jeffrey: Mr. Chair, if I may.
Daniel: Yes.
Jeffrey: You know I certainly know that some of the issues that were brought up regard specifics
concerns of the modeling and I certainly could make that available to this commission in the
future if that would help with your decisions on what’s really going to be going on with these
issues.
Kelly: I do have a quick question. You said a lot of this was done in Maplewood. This
company has dome similar projects in Maplewood. Have there been any type of analysis done to
see how much, that the homeowners properties either went down or increased based on these
types of projects in Maplewood?
Jeffrey: I’m not aware of any. That doesn’t mean that they aren’t there. I will certainly, I can
certainly research that and look into that and see what the results were of that.
Daniel: What type of impact there is. Okay. Well as a commission I certainly thank, I don’t
know if I’ve gotten any necessarily any positive feedback or if this is something we want to table
for next discussion. Next meeting. Do we want to have, or do we want to have a separate work
session on this? I’m certainly open to discussion on this. Or should we just, how do we want to
address this? I’m certainly open to comments. Thor?
Smith: Well I guess, there’s a few things, questions I had regarding the modeling, you know and
some of them things could, you know depending on how they come in, could make a difference
on how things were planned out. To address some of the complaints I guess, my thought is that
you have to, there’s been a lot of talk about, you know a lot of runoff and rain water coming
down into this and what, you know that’s happening now and it’s just not being treated so I think
it, either plan, either option would be beneficial overall to the overall good. I don’t think that
having either the, some standing water for a couple days in these drainage ponds or the
additional pond creates any more of a danger for the public than having a regular pond there. I
guess that, you know for me that’s the biggest thing I’ve got to, comments I want to make I
guess.
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Park and Rec Commission - March 25, 2008
Campion: I would suggest potentially a motion to table the decision as a commission in terms of
Option 1 or Option 2 until the complete model is available. And (b), some research has been
done into any available economic impact studies or anything like that have been at least
researched, if not a new study performed.
Daniel: Glenn.
Stolar: I think having the modeling information is helpful. I’m not sure it’s going to make a
huge difference but it certainly, it’s more information that in an area where you have some
discussions. More I think though is there’s some lack of clarity, at least on my part and it sounds
like in the audience, could we talk about this 48 hour infiltration but is that like 2 days out of the
out of the year you’re going to have that, or is that every week, you know and that’s part of the
communication that I hope the modeling will clarify. And again I sat on the task force on the
surface water management. When we talk about this infiltration, we’re talking about big rain
events that are occurring now. We had two 100 year events occur in 2005 I think was it? Yeah,
2005. So two of those in 10 years I believe that impacted it that you would have 48 hour
infiltration. Not every day. Two in 10 years. But we need the modeling to tell us what the
projection is and I would suggest, use some of the 2005 data potentially to say you know, 2005
was a bad year for rain. We know that. Use that model and say here are the number of days you
will have standing water in those areas. I think that’s an important thing for the audience to
know and so if the models can help us, can’t predict for sure, but if it can use that, you know say
worst year, 2005 worst year we’ve had in a long time as the park knows from a, oh what was that
park that was flooded out?
Daniel: Curry Farms.
Stolar: Curry Farms, right by your house so that was at least puts it in perspective, which I don’t
think we have right now so I agree with Dan that that would help. I agree with Thor about the
danger. I mean you’ve got a big pond down there at the bottom of a steep hill. That needs to be
addressed no matter what.
Daniel: And I agree with you Glenn as far as you know certainly some concerns. Dave, and I
appreciate it but there are a lot of examples of paths throughout the city, if you get a chance to
walk them, where they border right next to lakes or ponds or other areas. And we certainly to
take into consideration the safety of our, you know when paths are designed. Especially with
new paths as we start to expand our walking path areas throughout the city here. But there’s
examples all over. If, you could just about walk into almost any one of our parks and if there’s a
holding pond, or water surface pond, there’s most likely a path that’s going to go right next to it.
Stolar: I do agree with the statement though, if you’ve got water, kids will find it.
Daniel: I can attest to that.
Stolar: I have 3 kids, I can attest to it too. They’ll find it but whether it’s a puddle on the street
or whether it’s the wetness that’s already on that trail or whether it’s the NURP pond at the
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Park and Rec Commission - March 25, 2008
bottom, regardless Option 1 or Option 2, you’re going to have water that’s going to attract kids.
Unfortunately the way kids seem to be built. The final thing is about the property values. I
mean I think that’s somewhat important but I purchased a property in this town too and I have
one third of my land in easement and I know at any point the city can take that land and do what
they want with it. One third of my land. And you buy it, you recognize that. I don’t mean that
we should diminish value and I agree that we should do all of these assessments, or understand
it, but that is part of the buying process that when you have an easement, that the city owns,
you’ve got to recognize that that means the city owns it. The city can do. Now I want to meet as
much as we can the conflicting requirements here and so Option 2 isn’t to me out of the question
as an option because it does provide, as Thor stated, better filtration than what we have today. I
will say though, some of these rain gardens, they actually add value too which is why I want to
look you know to some of Tom’s points. That they can actually add value because as they
mature, and I understand. We’re talking time and I understand that concern but as they mature
they actually can add value because it adds to the landscape so.
Daniel: And I think for those who want to get an idea, and I realize Tom they won’t be
necessarily identical but I think if you head to Lake Ann, along the east side right when you pull
in along Fields 2 and 3, Todd is that right? The little parking lot on the right hand side there.
There are rain gardens that are now placed in there and that will give you an idea of what that
will look like down the road. Again I agree with, this is all new for me so, but at least as far as if
you want to visualize for yourself what these may look like. These swamps or ponds or holding
mechanisms. Whatever you may want to call them. I think that’s a good example and those
have been around for what, this is their second year?
Jeffrey: I think their second year.
Daniel: So, 2 years. So this will be going on it’s third full year then?
Stolar: No, second full year.
Daniel: Second full year, okay. To at least give you an idea as far as it’s impact so. Paula, is
there anything else you want to add?
Atkins: Just that I think that there’s a little more discussion and I’m curious as to when how
soon a decision needs to be made with the work starting on Laredo in 2008, is that the plan?
Jeffrey: This will be an alternate bid item. We would like it to go out with the plans as an
alternate bid item, but it is not inconceivable that it couldn’t be added as any scope change after
the project has been let.
Atkins: Thank you.
Daniel: Tom.
Kelly: Is this a one shot deal at Lotus Lake or are there other opportunities to do similar projects
around Lotus Lake? The reason I’m asking is because let’s say this overall project reduces the
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Park and Rec Commission - March 25, 2008
chemicals in Lotus Lake or the nutrients in Lotus Lake by 3% and Option 2 would take it down
to 1 ½% so by the end of the day it’s not really making that big of a difference, unless there’s
other similar projects that can further enhance Lotus Lake. So is this a one shot deal or do you
envision other treatments around the lake?
Jeffrey: I envision other treatments. I mean then it’s going to be as opportunities present
themselves so as we have other reconstruction projects. As we have, I’ve been in discussions
with some association ownership groups and they’re trying to identify areas that might be
considered so there will definitely be other opportunities. Just, I can’t identify them right now.
Kelly: Alright.
Daniel: It’s one of those situations where obviously you want to, it’s not the, it’s single impact
but as a collective, over a long period of time that will then have the impact upon Lotus Lake.
But not only Lotus Lake but obviously Kerber Pond itself. Again I think as you said, the water
quality certainly will not degrade based off of these, but there’s other issues obviously that
Kerber Pond fights by itself just by the fact of it’s depth. Natural depth and the existing water
that it already has to fight from other locations so. Alright, well. I agree with Dan’s motion to
table the model. Table until we get the model made available and I think Terry, if you could do
the economic impact. Or at least get some information from with regards to Maplewood. How
that may have had impacts so that we can answer some of those questions. I think that will give
us some more information and then we can assess this at the next meeting in April so.
Hoffman: Chair Daniel, just to explain for all the audience members exactly how this is going to
work. Terry started that. This is a sub-set or a part of the Laredo Road project so as that moves
forward, most of these people are involved in that as well. As the Park and Recreation
Commission, you’re responsible for making a recommendation concerning this project, since it is
in a park within the city of Chanhassen, prior to the commission addressing it as a part of their,
the council addressing it at their meeting. So this group of residents will have an opportunity to
come back in to talk to the City Council at that time about your recommendation and staff’s
recommendation at that time. Between now and the next scheduled meeting, you know April
ndth
22 meeting, you also have a standing work session meeting on April 8. If you want to
stth
schedule it, that’s the second Tuesday in April. The 1 is the first Tuesday and the 8.
Stolar: Yes, correct.
th
Hoffman: So if you’re prepared and we have the information by the 8, I would recommend that
thnd
we go with the 8 at a work session type of format. If not, it will have to extend to the 22 for a
continuation of this discussion.
Daniel: Well I’m going to make the recommendation Dan, since you so eloquently put it before.
Do you want to go ahead and make the motion.
th
Campion: Okay. I move to table our decision until, we’ll target April 8, until a complete
model is available and some research has been done into the economic impact.
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Park and Rec Commission - March 25, 2008
Daniel: Second?
Smith: Second.
Campion moved, Smith seconded that the Park and Recreation Commission table
consideration of the Kerber Pond Park Water Quality Treatment Project No. 08-01 until a
complete model is available and research has been done into the economic impact. All
voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 6 to 0.
Daniel: Thank you Terry. I appreciate it and thank you very much for all of our audience.
Hoffman: Thank you all for your time. Thank you.
2008 FOURTH OF JULY FIREWORKS CONTRACT.
Daniel: I think we had tabled that last time.
Hoffman: Well we had…and then.
Daniel: We had some questions based off of, I remember if we could add a third year. Was that
it to the contract?
Hoffman: Well, we went back and, the commission made a recommendation to approve the
single year. We went back and spoke with our finance department and received, or we identified
that we’re able to award all three years based on the fact that this is professional services and not
a product that we are purchasing. And so it is our recommendation that you amend your
recommendation to include all 3 years at the $30,000 in 2008, the 23 in 2009 and the $23,000 in
2010 as professional services for the fireworks contract.
Kelly: I’d like to make a motion to approve staff’s recommendation of amending our previous
recommendation to the $30,000 in 2008; $23,000 in 2009 and $23,000 for 2010.
Smith: Second.
Kelly moved, Smith seconded that the Park and Recreation Commission amend their
recommendation to the City Council to approve a 3 year contract for the Fourth of July
Fireworks contract with Melrose Pyrotechnics from 2008 through 2010 in the amount of
$30,000 in 2008, $23,000 in 2009 and $23,000 in 2010. All voted in favor and the motion
carried unanimously with a vote of 6 to 0.
REPORTS:
RECREATION PROGRAM:
2008 CHANJAM ’08.
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Park and Rec Commission - March 25, 2008
Stutzman: Thank you Mr. Chairman. As some of you guys were asking, Easter was this past
weekend and it was a very good event, despite the weather. Another 100 year event of Easter
being the earliest it’s going to be in about another 100 years so.
Stolar: 215 according to the…
Stutzman: So, but overall it was a very good event and had a lot of happy kids and gave away a
lot of sugar so. But the next event that we have coming up is actually the newest event that we
will be doing. It’s actually, it’s going to be ChanJam ’08. It’s a battle of the bands featuring 4
high schools within the Chanhassen area being Chaska High School, Minnetonka High School,
Southwest Christian and Holy Family Catholic High School as well. We’re going to bring bands
out from each school. I have received applications from the bands at this point. We are
reviewing them to see which bands we selected. The selection process includes asking them to
submit demo’s, as well as checking with school liaison officers. Kind of feeling out you know
are these guys going to be easy to work with? Is this a band that is going to abide by our rules?
Are we going to have some problems to make sure that we get this run, or this to be a good, fun,
th
clean event as well, and this will be held out at the Rec Center on April 11 from 7:00 to 10:00
p.m. The prizes for this, for the first and second place bands… Especially proud of giving these
young bands opportunities to play further in pretty marquee events. Both one will be, the
rd
winning band will get an opportunity to open for Casablanca Orchestra on July 3 at our
celebration.
Daniel: Very nice.
Stutzman: And they will also receive an invitation to play out at the Music Mayhem stage out at
the State Fair, which is out near the Third Lair or the skate parks and all those things up off of
th
Machinery Hill. The second place band will receive an opportunity to play also on July 4 after
the parade up here at City Center Park, as well as an invitation to the State Fair as well. To help
cover the costs of this we have brought in some vendors to serve food because even a concert
needs some refreshments as well and we’ve brought in two local vendors in Buffalo Wild Wings
and Pizzaioli Pizzamaker to serve food. I figure that wings and pizza go very well with music
and having coached many junior high and high school kids, all I hear about from them is Buffalo
Wild Wings anyways so I figured it would be a good opportunity for both businesses to come.
Tickets will be $5.00 at the door. The price of this was essentially just to cover our costs. This
is a majority of a service to the high school and junior high aged kids that are so tough to
program for so we wanted to make sure it was affordable out there. And in my research of what
to charge for this, a lot of people were asking me, what the money goes for and I was explaining
to them that we’re, our basic goal is again is the programming and to cover costs and they were
all thinking it a charity so I looked into it and found an agency that would like to partner with us
as well. The CAP Agency said they would love our help with donations on this and anybody
that brings a non-perishable food item will get a dollar off at the door as well so we’ll be
collecting for the food shelf as well so. This should be a great event. I know the staff is very
excited about it and we’re really looking forward to this one.
Daniel: Exciting.
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Park and Rec Commission - March 25, 2008
Ruegemer: Why don’t you tell the commission too how CBO’s going to be involved.
Stutzman: CBO will be involved. I have actually been communicating with Melanie, the lead
singer from CBO. She’s incredibly excited about this as well. As soon as we mentioned the idea
to her about getting a local band into the local celebration. She was thrilled about it. But they’re
unable to commit for sure if they can make a guest appearance to just be out there, but they are
going to email, and email blast publicity of this out to their entire email list so we get publicity as
well as that. And she has contacted me again you know sending email blast and getting this
publicity out there. Publicity’s also in all 4 schools as well so CBO is very excited to do this and
very excited to welcome the young, local talent to this celebration as well.
Daniel: I might sound a little out of date. What is CBO?
Stutzman: Casablanca Orchestra.
Daniel: Casablanca, there we go. Okay.
Hoffman: The band that’s played…
Daniel: I just didn’t realize they were, Casablanca. Okay, fantastic.
Kelly: How many bands have you received interest from?
Stutzman: We’ve received interest from 12 bands at this point. I believe it was 6. Initially it
was 7 bands from Minnetonka. One did have to withdraw due to a conflict, which is unfortunate
because it was a band that all the staff was really leaning towards bringing in. They were
actually a Led Zepplin cover band and really, really sounded good. They’re among one of the
top bands that actually had a singer that matched their songs well so I was disappointed to lose
them from consideration. But we do still have 12 others. 6 from Minnetonka. Let’s see here, or
no. It is 7 still from Minnetonka and it’s 3 or 4 from Chaska and 1 from Southwest Christian
and, which is actually a Southwest Christian and Tonka combo at this point, and Holy Family
was interested. They actually contacted me and said that they have school events only bands that
they were interested in are unable to participate but I asked them about future years, if this year’s
a success and they said absolutely. We want to come back. Keep us in the loop if this happens
again so. I have talked with my contacts at Chaska and said if somebody can get in touch with in
the next day or two, to keep the numbers fairly equal among these schools as well, I would
consider another band or two from Chaska just so we don’t have a school dominating you know
where the representation is because the goal really is to keep it a full bill of 10 bands, as that’s
what we’ve advertised.
Daniel: And how will they, what type of amenities will the bands have? A raised stage. Lights.
Sound board?
Stutzman: Excellent question. We have another local contact helping us out with sound, stage
and lighting. There will be about 2 or 3 foot stage, getting the bands elevated off the gym floor.
There’ll also be about another 6 inch riser for the drum player to bring the drummer up as well.
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There will be lights and a professional sound system. We’re still working on actually if we’re
going to do audio and visual or just audio recording, so we’ll have that opportunity and what
we’re looking really to ease this into as well for the bands is, so we’re not hauling equipment off
and on all night is Joe Scott who’s helping us out with this has said he’s got plenty of equipment
where we can get the guitar amps and possibly even the bass amps and we can just keep those on
stage as well as monitors for all of the bands. That they can just come in, plug and be ready to
go. In addition to having a drum set ready to go. Obviously with a drum set there is some
uniqueness that bands and drummers specifically like to toy with. We welcome them you know
if they’ve got cymbals or things like that they want to add or bring, if they’re particular to their
snare drum, we encourage them to bring that but as far as the base set up of the toms and the base
drum, we’re going to try and keep that intact. And again if they want to take a tom off, that’s
fine as well. So Joe and I have talked at length and his goal is, as somebody in the music world,
is really to give these kids an opportunity to keep it very, very professional. Give them that
experience of a professional show so it will be, they’ll receive a lot of amenities of this and really
turn it into that high quality, new level of it’s not just playing you know for your buddies in your
garage. This will be considered a fairly professional show and top quality on that.
Daniel: So in essence members of the park and rec department will now be roadies? Excellent.
Anybody have any quick questions for John on the, I mean this is an exciting event John. I think
it is fantastic so.
Stolar: We’ve talked for a long time about serving this population. It’s a great idea and I just, it
sounds like it’s already going well and I just think it’s a well thought out program and I think it
will be fantastic.
Ruegemer: And the winners will be judged by the audience.
Stutzman: Thank you Jerry.
Ruegemer: Through a decibel meter so whoever cheers the loudest for your band, decibel at 104,
whatever it’s going to be is going to be the winner so the audience will choose the winner.
Stolar: You know if you broadcast this live over our internet, public television, and then have
people dial a number like American Idol.
Stutzman: Yeah, hopefully we can grow into that.
Kelly: Will it just be one gym or are you going to take that wall?
Stutzman: For this year it will just be the one gym.
Kelly: The Bluff Creek or the Chan Rec Center?
Stutzman: The Chan Rec Center, but the food will be served in the room so we’ll have all the
rooms to our availability too. This will help keep the gym preserved as well. We’ll set up tables
and things of that nature to really keep the food out of the gym as well so we will have that
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Park and Rec Commission - March 25, 2008
spillover space and you know as any live music event, it’s not going to be just the gym that hears
it. It’s going to be the whole building that will be hearing the music so, especially with the doors
open and the rooms, they’ll be able to hear the music out there but for this year it will be the one
gym. And in dealing with Joe again, it should be plenty sufficient.
Daniel: And no capacity issues as far as fire or maximum capacity issues or anything from that
perspective? I mean obviously if, the good news is if we had an event, well we’re going to have
an event like this but if we had a lot of people show up.
Stutzman: We do have a max capacity. I have talked with the building department and the fire
department as well to answer that exact question. Give or take, it’s 1,000 people in round
number.
Daniel: For that half?
Stutzman: For the, yeah. For that half of the gym.
Daniel: Okay.
Stutzman: And that’s, and you know the rooms have a capacity as well but assuming we’re
going to want most of the people in the gym for most the evening. As staff we’re going to say, if
we were to hit 1,000, which would be highly unlikely, that would be where we would cut it off
and say, you know what this building is full at that point so.
Hoffman: You might go…2 days before, you never know.
Daniel: I guess the other question I have is security. There’s going to be a lot, hypothetically a
lot of teenagers here. There’s, just statistically.
Stutzman: Once again an excellent question. Jerry and I actually met with Sergeant Pete
Anderley this afternoon to discuss these very issues and we will have two paid, on duty officers
out there. We’re working on getting the CSO’s out there and then obviously the patrol officers.
One of my major concerns too was if something does happen, we do have to haul some kids off
for something like that, is can we call the patrol officers to come and help us with that or will we
be losing the security of the event. Sergeant Anderley assured us that the patrol officers will be
able to come up and help us, so we won’t lose security just because of an incident. In talking
with him, the biggest incident that he would have concerns with would be the drugs or alcohol in
the parking lot and they will be making sweeps of the parking lot as well as the building to
address that.
Stolar: Like you said, you’re inviting them all to the whole park there…
Stutzman: And with that, any drugs or alcohol suspected within the event will be immediately
addressed and handled accordingly.
Daniel: Okay, great.
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Hoffman: So stating the obvious, what is going on in the school gym that night?
Stutzman: Actually at this point Jodie just informed me tonight that there is the after school
program going until 6:00 but after that I have reserved the permit so we have the school gym
after that just to make sure that we’re not.
Hoffman: Just for sound.
Stutzman: Annoying somebody else and it will be, we do have access to that if we were to need
it, for power needs or anything of that, but that was a precaution that we took into consideration.
That the events at the rec center, this will be the primary event. You might have people coming
in to work out or something like that, but the dance classes, the fitness classes, you know the
sports classes in the other gym, we have addressed that so that we’re not having conflicts with
that.
Daniel: Great.
Stolar: What about medical? Are there going to be medical people on, you know like
paramedics available there?
Smith: EMT?
Stolar: EMT.
Stutzman: That is something actually that I haven’t addressed specifically yet but with the
officers there, obviously they’re the first responders so I will definitely look into making sure
that we have something, a contingency plan for injuries available that evening.
Stolar: Might be worth having somebody there this first round just in case.
Daniel: Yeah I guess my only suggestion is, and it’s not that I want to make any comparisons
but I do know when Paisley Park puts on an event, I think the fire department, is that true Dale,
usually has EMT’s there?
Gregory: Well they have somebody standing by out there and they have somebody to make sure
that they’re not.
Daniel: Over capacity?
Gregory: Over capacity. Actually with some…you may be able to talk to the paramedics and
have the ambulance crew guys, if they’re not busy or anything that night, they can just come out
there and…
Stutzman: That is something, as I said, I will make sure that we have that by the date of the
event figured out.
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Stolar: Very exciting.
Daniel: Excellent. Thanks John.
SELF-SUPPORTING PROGRAMS: 3-ON-3 BASKETBALL LEAGUE.
Ruegemer: Any questions?
Daniel: Is it successful?
Ruegemer: We actually started Monday night and we do have actually 5 teams and not the 6 to 8
that I projected when I…the memo but we scheduled all the…so there are no byes with that so
just another continuation of…probably about mid-April, or the start of a post season tournament
so…
Daniel: Absolutely. Anything for Jerry? Okay, thanks Jerry. Excellent. And moving on, I
understand we have a new staff member Todd. If you could introduce.
RECREATION CENTER REPORT:
Hoffman: Thank you Chair Daniels, members of the commission. Tonight for the Recreation
Center, first I would like the commission to accept the March report that we have before you but
then most importantly I’d like to introduce Jodi Sarles, our new Recreation Center Manager.
Jody started yesterday. Monday and so we put her through a couple of grueling days. You know
how it is starting a new job, and Jody comes to us by way of the Andover YMCA which is a joint
partnership between the City of Andover and the YMCA so I’ll let her introduce herself and say
hello to the commission.
Sarles: Alright. As he said, I’m Jodi Sarles. I did come 3 years at the YMCA. We opened a
brand new branch, community partnership there. Before that I worked for the family business
for 11 years selling food so. We grew up in Eden Prairie right on Lake Riley. Familiar, very
familiar with the area. The whole time, my folks are still out there but I’m excited to be here.
Questions or?
Daniel: Well we’d love to sit here and ask all sorts of questions since it’s your second day on the
job. And you got to see a taste of what our typical meeting looks like today. So, but welcome
aboard Jodi. We’re certainly looking forward to working with you and I don’t know if there
were any issues left over. I think we’ve addressed a lot of the furniture and equipment. I
understand equipment’s been.
Hoffman: 4 new pieces are in there.
Daniel: Yep. So we’ve got that taken care of and a lot of the new programs that Tom certainly,
we worked with Tom before on that, started to see it come to fruition. I think a perfect example
John of what you’re doing. Making use of the recreation center. Truly turn it into a community
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center is exciting so we’re starting to see a lot of good, positive things turn around. I think that
brainstorming session we had certainly added a little bit but I think Todd, your staff have done a
great job in, and like I said Jodi, we’re looking forward to working with you as I assume. Does
anybody have any questions for her?
Kelly: I was first off whatever came of that life size Simon game that was in the rec center?
Hoffman: Neos?
Kelly: Yeah.
Hoffman: Neos here is just a trial and if we had an appropriate location for one permanently we
may investigate installing one but that’s the trick is identifying the appropriate location. The
lobby of the rec center is not… We knew it wasn’t the appropriate location going in but we just
wanted to get it here as a favor to Midwest Playscapes who is in Chaska and does a lot of work
with the city so they wanted to show it around. It went to Minneapolis-St. Paul first and then to
Chanhassen so we were out at that.
Smith: Big hit?
Hoffman: Big hit, yeah. $30,000 retail value. Right now they’re offering them for a reduced
price to get them out into the streets of the United States but that’s the retail value on that
product.
Daniel: Anything else?
Stolar: Just one quick comment just to thank Tom for all the work he did.
Daniel: Absolutely.
Stolar: As Rec Center Manager and Jodi, looking forward to working with you.
Sarles: Great, thank you.
Daniel: Thank you Jodi. Susan.
SENIOR CENTER REPORT.
Bill: Good evening. Kind of follow up to Jodi and the rec center. One of my goals for 2008 was
to introduce more fitness programs so I’m happy to let you know that I’ve got two new programs
going at the rec center during the day. One is Tai Chi for older adults. We’re on a second
st
session with I think 12, 10 to 12 people. And a new program that we’ll be starting April 21
called Enhanced Fitness. It’s a program sponsored by U Care and there’s some grant money
through the MAAA which is the Minnesota Area Agency on Aging. It’s a program like Silver
Sneakers, if anybody has heard of that. Silver Sneakers if funded through Blue Cross and
Humana so we are lucky enough to get the benefit of that program. It’s an evidence based
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Park and Rec Commission - March 25, 2008
st
program where there’s pre-imposed testing for older adults so it will begin April 21. I did a
separate find, or a separate mailing, flyers that went out for 15 slots. As of day I’ve got 12
people signed up and that’s before the Connection even came out so now I’ve got even a, you
know worrying about another problem. Will I have to have a waiting list or whatever but so, I’m
really, really happy that we’re able to realize the rec center for that, and this program will add a
new dimension where we don’t have much fitness specifically geared for older adults so. I’m
excited about that. I’ve also bought a Nintendo Wii for the senior center. We’re going to have
some demonstrations on the Wii and as a number of other places are doing, if it goes over we
might start some fall leagues in bowling and baseball. I’ve got to get my daughter or someone in
to hook it up and show me how to use it. And I figure if it doesn’t go well, I’ll just put it up for
sale and I probably could make the city a little money on it.
Stolar: Actually one of the interviewees for the senior commission yesterday was talking to me
about how excited he is about it going in. He really is looking forward to it.
Bill: Yeah, good. I’ve got a demonstration in May and I’ll do another one in June and then get it
up and running and, I’ve got to set up the wiring so it will be really a fun, new program for the
senior center. A couple other things I want to highlight. I started it last year, a Lifelong
Learning presentations through Augsburg College. Klein Bank has once again sponsored this
program. We’ll have 6 of them a year. I’ve had 2 already that have been really, really well
attended. We get the benefit, there’s a booklet of probably 100 different presentations and I get
to, I pick different topics. The ones we’re doing now is called Music of Social Change Part I, II
and III. And 3 retired professors from different colleges around the Minneapolis area are
teaching it, and I’ve been 20 to 25 people so it’s really been, they still are well attended and
people really value kind of the diversity of a new dimension to our programming. Tomorrow
John and I have worked on a program, our wood carvers are doing an introduction to wood
carving for children. We’ve got I think 7 people taught by 2 of our wood carvers, and we didn’t
know if it would fly but during spring break we got 7 children, grades 4 through 8 coming and
this summer we’ll offer another one. And if that goes over, we do have a couple of the wood
carvers that would be interested in doing a weekly class for children in carving. They’re going to
start off with chip carving. So they’re real excited about that. Two other things I want to
mention. One thing, I highlighted in my write up. The senior center has been involved with a
number of organizations in the community. We don’t have people that go and work at a number
of them but I’ve looked to make some contributions and one thing that we’ve done is Minnesota
Operation Nice. I don’t know if any of you have heard about it. They’ve got a chapter here in
Chanhassen. It meets on the fourth, no the second Tuesday of the month at the Legion and they
package goods to send to the servicemen in the Middle East, and how this all started was I had a
lady called who donated envelopes for our recycled greeting card program so we just expounded
on that where we send greeting cards every month, or our greeting card program makes greeting
cards and servicemen and women can send them back to the States at no cost so we do all of the
holidays as well as birthdays, and we started donating goods to them and they pick them up each
month. Things that are really popular are beef jerky. Like sweet…products, whatever so there’s
a lady from Minnesota Operation Nice that every month comes and picks up our goods and then
will package them and send them to the Middle East. We are also Feed My Starving Children.
We’re a donation site for that, as well as the CAP Agency, the food shelves have been really low
this past winter, and not only the senior center but the entire city has been donating and it’s been
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really great. They’ve been averaging probably 30 to 40 pounds of food a week that our
congregate dining program, the director there will take over to the CAP Agency in Shakopee and
those go to the food shelves in Scott and Carver County. And then last, I got an idea back in
November, or no. Back in February at the fishing contest when I was talking to Paula out on the
ice one day, and we got talking about an event about the old St. Hubert’s Church and Paula
mentioned I think that Grace Lutheran Church had concerts there and that got me thinking why
th
can’t we do something so I think Paula passed this out and on February 18 we’re going to be
th
doing, I mean I’m sorry. Sunday, May 18 we’re going to be doing a free community event
called a Celebration, a Chanhassen Celebration of History and Arts, and the purpose of it is
really two fold. One is to have a vehicle to talk more about the historical society that they’re
really trying to get going in Chanhassen, as well as the Council for the Arts and to have a free
concert for residents of Chanhassen to enjoy. We’ll have our chorus from the senior center, the
Chan-O-Liers. St. Hubert’s Brass will be there. There’s a combined choir between Bluff Creek
Elementary and Chan Elementary I think and they’ll be presenting. And then Paula’s been kind
enough to get a group from Chaska Valley Theater so it will just be really, really a nice
community event and we’re excited about it. Paula, do you want to say any more on that?
Atkins: Oh no, I hope you all come. It will be fun.
Bill: We did put, hope to have one. Now we’re going to start asking, the wine and cheese that’s
going to be in the plaza will be a social hour from 4:00 to 5:00 and then the actual concert will
move into the church from 5:00 to 6:00 so hopefully you can all attend and that the weather will
be good.
Daniel: This will be in the old, the concert will be in the church?
Bill: In the church.
Daniel: Okay. Excellent.
Kelly: Can I ask a quick question? Who’s doing the Wii demonstrations? The reason I’m
asking is, have you thought about contacting Chan Elementary School? Getting some fifth
graders because it might be a good experience for them to do something like that and no offense
to you guys, they’ve…
Bill: I can sure do that. For the demonstration, Laurie Hokkanen was just going to do it and set
it up. But I can sure call them.
Kelly: It just might be a good experience for the elementary school kids.
Bill: Oh that’d be wonderful.
Hoffman: And the seniors, they’d love it.
Bill: That would be great. Good, great idea. Thank you.
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Park and Rec Commission - March 25, 2008
Daniel: Thank you Susan.
PARK & TRAIL MAINTENANCE REPORT.
Gregory: Good evening. First I want to apologize for the report that I handed you at the last
minute but I wanted to keep it out and get the latest updates on the oxygen levels at Lake Susan,
st
so we’re pretty much up to date on it. What I’ve done there, and that is December 31 the
numbers had run down. It shows you the depth that we take oxygen levels and it gives you what
st
the oxygen levels are at those depths, and December 31, everything at that point the lake was in
really pretty good shape and that’s about the normal readings that we get. From there on you can
th
see the start of the, that keep going down and we got to February 4 and at that point the oxygen
levels were getting fairly low. Dean, my foreman and that was in contact with the DNR and we
stay real close when the numbers start getting to there and that and they tell us when, if they
recommend putting it in or not and we want to make sure that we’re right and that and, they felt
it was time to put it in and so we did. And as you notice, the next page and that, the numbers
th
continue to drop and getting down around March 10 the numbers were getting fairly low. We
were looking at actually talking with the DNR, they thought too and that, that we’re definitely
th
going to have a winter kill down there. March 10 on they have started to come back. We’re
th
actually getting some fairly decent readings in some of the areas on the 20 here. They’ve come
up quite a bit. Why? We’re not exactly sure whether the oxygen or the aerator’s doing more
work or if we’re getting more runoff from warm weather, rain or snow melting and everything
else running in through the cracks. That’s where we think where we’re getting the real oxygen
into it. Right now I originally I put in there that we were going to, thought we’d have a winter
kill. Right now I’m not sure. I mean it’s really kind of a guessing game and that. It all depends
on if they were able to make it through that, when the levels were low. So we’re hoping not but
like I say, we won’t know for sure.
Daniel: Did you have the aerators on? The aerator going on.
th
Gregory: We had the aerator going since February 5 so, and that’s when the DNR and we
talked about, they thought we should start it up. So but this year we had, we had early snow.
We had early ice. So with snow cover. The oxygen level went down fast with the decline of the
weeds and everything else in the lake and that so the oxygen was down.
Daniel: Okay.
Smith: Was the aerator going in just Lake Susan?
Gregory: Just Lake Susan. This year and that we started doing a little bit more oxygen readings
on Lake Lucy and we found that that one is really going down and it very much looks like
there’ll be a winter kill on that one. Right now so. And we haven’t, we have no aeration system
or anything set up for that lake but right now it’s looking like there will be a winter kill there. I
don’t have the numbers from Lake Ann. We also did weekly tests on that one and that one’s off
the charts. I mean there’s never going to be a problem with that lake.
Daniel: Because of the depth and?
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Park and Rec Commission - March 25, 2008
Gregory: Because of the depth and there’s got to be springs and stuff in it that oxygen is really
good in that lake all the time.
Daniel: What about Rice Marsh?
Gregory: We didn’t go down and do anything on Rice Marsh. No, we haven’t been down on
that one at all.
Daniel: And Riley, do we do any testing there as well?
Gregory: Riley we have…
Daniel: Deep enough and.
Hoffman: Yeah. Rice Marsh will probably, it’s right in there with Lake Susan and Lucy so
similar.
Daniel: Okay.
Smith: When you say winter kill, what is it? I mean.
Gregory: Well the fish start to die.
Smith: I know, what type of numbers do you guess?
Hoffman: Anywhere from a few percent to 100% depending on the severity of the winter kill.
Most of them are what they call, the DNR refers to as a partial winter kill and the DNR does not
necessarily believe that, or have by policy. It’s not necessarily a bad thing. Winter kill lakes can
be very productive and they’re more of a boom-bust type of a cycle where they grow fish very
rapidly and great fishing and then they bust and then they go back down and then what you
create when you have that winter kill is a very fertile environment for growing more fish. Grow
them back up again so. The DNR is re-looking at it’s policy in aeration across the state of
Minnesota. They’re not necessarily convinced at this time that lake aeration is all that
beneficial.
Atkins: What is, how do you aerate the lake?
Hoffman: It’s a pump and baffle system and.
Atkins: Yeah. Pump back, pump air into it?
Hoffman: Yep. So if you take a look down at Lake Susan, there’s a pump that is pumping water
out of the lake up into a baffle that sits on the shore and it just drops the water down. Agitation
system and shoots it right back into the water.
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Park and Rec Commission - March 25, 2008
Atkins: Never saw that before.
Hoffman: And that doesn’t aerate the entire water body. Just provides settling for refuge is how
the DNR describes it. In that area where you’re aerating.
Gregory: And we go down there almost about every 2 days to grease the pump and everything
else. At this point we have not seen any fish you know floating in the open area or anything yet
so, you know we’re hopeful on it anyway. Skating rinks. This year and that was one of our
better years. We had 88 days of actual being open. I think we only closed 1 or 2 days, and that
was because of cold weather. Nothing warm. I did give you a report on this year which gives
you all of the costs along with running along time. It also, the cost goes up on the skating rinks
but if you look at the cost per day is down compared to like last year. Last year we ran 30, well
we ran.
Hoffman: 37 days.
Gregory: Last year we ran 37 days and that and it actually ran out to about $705 per day. And
this year it cost us like $459 per day but you’ve got to take into consideration last year we still
got all the start up time. All the extra hours of flooding and everything else and that so, you’ve
got the base time of a lot of flooding to get the rigs up and ready to go.
Stolar: Do we know the usage yet or?
Stutzman: I have that numbers. I didn’t have that time presented. It was right around 9,000
people this year. Or yeah, using the rinks. I’ll have those figures for you again in April.
Hoffman: And that’s during the times they were doing the counting.
Stutzman: Yeah, during the time…
Stolar: Every time we were there, it was packed.
Daniel: Every rink I can think of was used constantly.
Gregory: Yeah, we had a lot of use even out at Roundhouse and everything like that this year.
There was a lot of use.
Daniel: You know the absolute coldest day of the year, I saw somebody out skating. Couldn’t
believe it. Actually and his kids. But more power to him.
Gregory: I did change the report for you this year. We tried to put a little bit more on for you.
Back in ’82 was when we started keeping track of the days open. When we closed and
everything else. The last 10 years I’ve been keeping track of what it actually costs. Per day and
total cost for doing the rinks so it just gives you a little bit more information on the past 20 years,
25 years in just a couple of pages or so. And right now it averages out, we’re about at 25 years,
26 years average days open is 55 ½ days so. We had a good year there. Next on a bad note. We
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Park and Rec Commission - March 25, 2008
did our wood duck house cleaning and that this year and we’re down. Really down. We
dropped 15% from last year. We were up 44 last year and that and we’re down to 29%. I don’t
have a real answer of why. But if you look at the years of all the times it’s been going we have
been gradually going down. We started out the first year in ’94 and that. We were up at 80%
and we’ve gradually been working our way down and like I say this year we’re down to 29%.
But like I say, I don’t have a reason why we’re not having as many wood ducks around.
Hoffman: In the early years part of that was because we would have selected the best sites for
the fewer houses earlier and as we added more houses it would go to secondary sites so that
explains a little bit in the early years. But after that, you start to see we’d average around 50
most years and now we’re at just about half that so. We provide these numbers to the DNR so
they’re aware of what’s going on. Just our study.
Gregory: Okay, Lake Ann ballfield lights. I was out talking to the electricians out there. The
poles are all set. The wiring to the poles is all done. They’ve gone around, they’ve straighten
the poles. Currently they are working in the, it’s back up there where the electrical comes in and
they’re putting in the contactors so things are looking pretty good for having lights. I don’t know
if the ballfields will be quite ready but you’ll have lights.
Stolar: So Jerry are we going to plan a midnight softball game to kind of kick those things off?
Ruegemer: Give me your dates. Seriously, we could do…
Hoffman: …versus staff. We’ll have to get an exemption from the council.
Stolar: But year, it’d be fun to promote it too. Right you can get the press out there and promote
it.
Hoffman: Yeah, we’re working on a dedication.
Gregory: Also at Lake Ann, the park shelter. I was visiting with those guys the other day and
most of the tin and everything is on the roof. They were putting the trim around the outside.
They were there yesterday but with the snow on the roof they couldn’t go on the roof and do
anything so basically looks like just doing some trim around the outside on the roof part of it,
and they’ll have that part of it would be done, the structure part. The snow, that kind of slowed it
down a little bit with putting rafters and getting everything done and that but they’ve got that
pretty much done now. Picnic tables. We, right after our skating rinks closed, the guys went and
worked on picnic tables. We took a bunch of our, we’ve got about 20 tables that we brought in
and it had the old wood tops on them. We had recycled planks that we were able to replace them
so we rebuilt those and that and so we got 20 new ones with, or 20 rebuilt ones with recycled
planks on them. And also the, what was it? 34 of them I think, new ones came in for the
shelter. They were just delivered the other day so we’ll, in the near future we’ll start putting
those together. And lastly seasonal help. I had a good year again this year. Out of 15 people, I
had 13 of them come back so I only needed to replace 2. With the help of the guys up at city
hall, we had it on the internet and that. I had I think 17 applications come in for 2 positions and
it was really a good year. Three-fourths of those we could have hired just about any one of them.
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Park and Rec Commission - March 25, 2008
They were really good kids that came in this year. So we’re up to full staff and actually I passed
my applications on to the street department. They’re looking for help so they’ll go through them
and that too and see if they can pick out a couple of kids to hire so. But I was really impressed
the kids that did come in and we interviewed and that were really, really out looking for work
and that. I mean not the kids who come in looking and that expect to get a free paycheck all the
time. They wanted to work so that was encouraging. That’s pretty much all I’ve got then.
Daniel: Excellent. Is there any questions for Dale? Dan?
Campion: None.
Daniel: Glen.
Kelly: Fantastic job on the trails again with the recent snow storms. They’re fantastic.
Gregory: Last snows were a little bit tougher on the trails though because the frost is coming out
along side of the trails so any place we get off and that, you’re going to see tire tracks and issues
on some of it. We will be going around after everything dries up and putting dirt back in along.
Put the seed and that in but, it’s real tough in that the amount of snow we had, we had no banks.
We had nothing to follow anymore for trails so it’s real tough.
Daniel: Break in a new trail again. I suppose you’re going to plow them like that, but it was
nice. I mean you look around at other cities like Eden Prairie and Minnetonka, even Chaska to a
certain extent and they’re still covered for the most part. I mean some of the trails have been
cleared but boy you can just about go on any trail in Chanhassen. They’re open right now so I
appreciate it. Great job for you and your crew Dale.
Gregory: Well through this weekend we took care of them on Friday and we came back in
Saturday and we did them again Saturday after the snow we had Friday night so, okay thank you.
Daniel: Thank you Dale.
ADMINISTRATIVE REPORT.
Hoffman: Thank you Chair Daniels, members of the commission. One item I would like to
highlight is the Highway 41 pedestrian underpass and trail. That’s just like putting a million
dollars in the bank account for future trail construction in Chanhassen and so that’s a big piece of
news. Carver County is the lead agency on that project and they were the one that applied for the
grant. The City of Chanhassen was a supporting partner. This work will likely start off in 2009
to 2010 and end in 2011. It will be a great project for our western portion of our community and
really for anybody in the community, they can reach that park by bicycle trail and taking this
underpass.
Stolar: This is to Minnewashta?
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Park and Rec Commission - March 25, 2008
Hoffman: This is for the trail and the Minnewashta, Highway 41. On the east side of Highway
41 and then the underpass to Minnewashta Regional Park.
Stolar: And will it go like right to the front entrance there or?
Hoffman: Just south of the front entrance, yeah.
Stolar: Okay.
Daniel: And there’s going to be a trail Todd correct from 5 all the way down to Lake Lucy or
continuing all the way down to Chaska Road?
Hoffman: On 41?
Daniel: On 41.
Hoffman: It will start at Longacres where it currently leaves off. Longacres Drive and go north
at least to the middle school. The Minnetonka Middle School West and perhaps farther up to
Chaska Road.
Daniel: Okay. Excellent. Excellent. That’ll be really nice.
Hoffman: Our matching grant, our matching portion is $125,000 and the County will match
$125,000 so, and that also includes the underpass and then the trail that extends into the park
from the underpass.
Daniel: So for $125,000 we get a mile of path and a underpass.
Hoffman: Of a state highway.
Daniel: Of a state highway. Excellent. That’s a bargain.
Hoffman: Great deal.
Daniel: Yep, excellent. And you hit it right on the head. That will make, that’s exciting news
for those who are, anybody within the Chanhassen trail system. Getting access, especially to the
regional park and I think if anything, will create more exposure to Minnewashta and as well as
the dog park.
Stolar: Well I got the comment yesterday about that. Someone asked, was talking about the trail
and said can we put a, asked me can we put a trail in to get them to the dog park. They live I
guess right across over there. Funny you should mention that.
Hoffman: It’s coming.
Daniel: It’s on it’s way.
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Park and Rec Commission - March 25, 2008
Stolar: I told her I didn’t know when but it was hilarious, she was mentioning about that because
of the dog park.
Daniel: Yep.
Hoffman: And I’ll be happy to take any questions either tonight or any other time concerning
the other items on the report.
Daniel: I think that should be it.
Kelly: I think there was the City Council meeting you wanted to talk about.
Daniel: The agenda for talking points.
th
Hoffman: You can either do that tonight or you can also table it if you choose til the 8 and pick
it up at that point, depending on the hour. If you want to take that til 10:30 or if you want to do
th
that on the 8.
th
Daniel: Should we do it on the 8? What do you guys think?
th
Smith: 8.
th
Kelly: 8.
thth
Daniel: 8, excellent. Motion to move it to the 8.
Hoffman: That is hopeful that we’ll have, what do you think the odds are of having that
information available?
Jeffrey: Oh, I’ll have it.
Hoffman: Okay.
COMMISSION MEMBER COMMITTEE REPORTS.
Daniel: Okay. Alright. Any commission member committee reports? Paula, anything you want
to add from the Arts Council or anything?
th
Atkins: No. Just the event coming up on the 18.
Daniel: Okay. Tom?
Kelly: No.
Daniel: Thor, Dan, Glenn?
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Park and Rec Commission - March 25, 2008
Stolar: Just one quick note. The passing of an RPA board member. Barb King who lived in
Delano. And she did a lot. She’s one of the co-founders of Landscape Structures. One of the
playground companies and she served on the board there and she also founded a foundation that
works with parks and rec departments to address childhood obesity. She passed away not too
long ago.
Hoffman: Age 62. 7 month battle. Very short battle with cancer. Married to Steven King of
Landscape Structures, Delano. Very good employer for that community and for us.
Daniel: Excellent. Okay, thank you Glenn.
COMMISSION MEMBER PRESENTATIONS.
None.
ADMINISTRATIVE PACKET.
Daniel: Anything that we want to address in the administrative packet then? Todd, anything that
we should note?
Hoffman: Just an invitation from a resident I think is always worthy of special note that Cynthia
Tonn is interested in working with the commission if you would care to a trash type of a public
service announcement or publication. She’s concerned about the amount of litter or trash in the
community. Suggested that I address that with the commission and then have you guys think
about that and come up with a response for Mrs. Tonn. It’s the last item in the administrative
section.
Bill: She was the woman that heads up Minnesota Operation Nice. Really, really good…person.
Daniel: Okay.
Ruegemer: I’ll just add one real quick. The party after ChanJam, the City of Chanhassen is co-
sponsoring a karaoke series with a local business called Kids Sake and that’s going to start April
th
18 and it’s going to continue every Friday, with the exception of the Memorial weekend Friday
th
til May 30. It’s about 6 or 7 weeks. What it is, it’s going to be held at the Chanhassen
Recreation Center every Friday night from 6:00 to 9:00. It’s basically just a drop in karaoke
program where you can bring your whole family in. You sign up whatever song you want to
sing. They come with the lights and the, all the karaoke equipment and that sort of thing. You
pay $15 from 6:00 to 9:00 for a family or $5 for individuals. There’s going to be food up there.
It’s really just kind of a good family event that we’re going to try to boost up our recreation
programs at the recreation center so it should be a lot of fun. There’s no pre-registration. Just
show up that evening. Just come on in and sing your favorite song so that’s going to start before
our next meeting so I just wanted to let the commission know about it. Flyers are going to be
going to the school. It’ll be on our web site. We’re going to have flyers here at the city hall.
The Chanhassen Recreation Center so exciting program so if you all want to stop down on the
thth
18, or any other Friday night between that and May 30.
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Park and Rec Commission - March 25, 2008
Daniel: Excellent. So will you have information for us at the next meeting then?
Ruegemer: You know I’ll email you a, from our flyer.
Daniel: That’d be great if you could do that for us.
Stutzman: Chairman Daniel, I’d also like to invite all you guys to join us for ChanJam too, if
you guys are available that night. As you guys said, I think it will be a fun event so come on out
if you guys…
Daniel: Absolutely. Actually I was just thinking about heading out there. I don’t know if with
my youngest but maybe my oldest will be real interested so that will be fun though. Like I said, I
think that’s exactly what that type of program, as far as getting kids in the community together
and, especially the different school districts which should be interesting, but especially with
music events so very good job John. Well with that said, motion to adjourn?
Kelly moved, Smith seconded to adjourn the Park and Recreation Commission meeting.
All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 6 to 0.
Submitted by Todd Hoffman
Park and Rec Director
Prepared by Nann Opheim
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