CC Minutes 06-23-2014
CHANHASSEN CITY COUNCIL
REGULAR MEETING
JUNE 23, 2014
Mayor Furlong called the meeting to order at 7:05 p.m. The meeting was opened with the Pledge to
the Flag.
COUNCIL MEMBERS PRESENT:
Mayor Furlong, Councilwoman Ernst, Councilwoman Tjornhom,
and Councilman McDonald
COUNCIL MEMBERS ABSENT:
Councilman Laufenburger
STAFF PRESENT:
Todd Gerhardt, Laurie Hokkanen, Paul Oehme, Kate Aanenson, and Todd Hoffman
PUBLIC PRESENT:
Larry A. Koch 471 Bighorn Drive
Laurie Susla 7008 Dakota Avenue
PUBLIC ANNOUNCEMENTS:
Mayor Furlong: Thank you and welcome to everybody here in the council chambers as well as those
watching at home. We’re glad that you joined us on this nice summer evening. We’ll start now with,
request or first of all ask if there are any changes or modifications being requested of the agenda.
Otherwise without objection proceed with the agenda as published. I’d like to start with an invitation to
our City’s annual Fourth of July celebration. It’s amazing how fast this is coming up for nonetheless in
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about 10 days or so, next week is the 4 of July and this is the City of Chanhassen’s largest community
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event each year. This will actually be the 31 Annual Fourth of July Celebration in Chanhassen. The
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celebration is actually a 3 day event now beginning on July 2, 3 and 4. Presented by the City of
Chanhassen and our sponsors for a community event and other organizations are heavily involved.
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Wednesday, July 2 is Family Night at the carnival from 3:00 p.m. til 10:00 p.m. at City Center Park.
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Activities begin at 4:30 on July 3 with the Southwest Metro Chamber of Commerce Business Expo.
Chanhassen Rotary Taste of Chanhassen. Carnival rides and games. Three on three basketball
tournament. Music by Ragtown and the ever popular street dance beginning at 7:00 p.m. with Casablanca
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Orchestra again this year leading us in the fun. Friday, July 4 itself the events start early with adult
fishing at Lake Ann at 7:00 a.m. and many other events throughout the day at City Center Park. There’ll
be live music by American Bootleg. Games and carnival rides. The Chanhassen Rotary Taste of
Chanhassen will continue. They’ll have their classic car show and the parade sponsored by the
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Chanhassen Rotary Club begins at 2:30 down West 78. Fireworks display over Lake Ann at 10:00 p.m.
that evening. It’s a great event. I hope everybody can come and join us with your family and friends.
It’s a great reason to stay in town for the holiday so looking forward to seeing as many of our friends and
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neighbors as we can at the July 4 events beginning on Wednesday, July 2. Let’s move on now to the
next item on our agenda.
CONSENT AGENDA:Councilman McDonald moved, Councilwoman Ernst seconded that the
City Council approve the following Consent Agenda items pursuant to the City Manager’s
recommendations:
1. Approval of City Council Minutes dated June 9, 2014
2. Receive Planning Commission Minutes dated June 17, 2014
Chanhassen City Council – June 23, 2014
3. Receive Park and Recreation Commission Minutes dated May 28, 2014
4. Approval of Temporary On-Sale Liquor License, Eden Prairie Lions Club Fundraising Event,
July 16, 2014, Halla Greens Golf Course, 495 Pioneer Trail
5. 9111 Audubon Road: Approval of Interim Use Permit for Approximately 40,000 Cubic Yards of
Fill, Applicant: Mathiowetz Construction Co./Owner: Gayle Degler
All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 4 to 0.
VISITOR PRESENTATIONS:
Laurie Susla: Hi, my name is Laurie Susla. I live at 7008 Dakota Avenue in Chan and I am the President
of the Lotus Lake Conservation Alliance. I’m here tonight to talk with you all a little bit about the buffers
and stormwater, the new rules and regulations that are being put in by the Riley-Purgatory-Bluff Creek
Watershed District. Our group sent you an email about a month ago running through the list of our
concerns, again primarily stormwater management and the buffers. As well as the very onerous nature of
actually applying for one of these permits where if you were putting in a garage with space underneath for
a basement would probably run in the vicinity of $20,000 we believe so it’s, the rules are complicated.
They are onerous. They are by far the most stringent of any watershed in the metro district we believe in
the state but we haven’t had time to analyze every watershed in the state but we are asking, as we did in
the email, that you all please get in touch with the watershed in an official manner express concern about
these rules. I just brought for your review, Terry Jeffery did an excellent job of going through the
concerns on this and I’m just going to, I don’t know if you can even read this but I just thought instead of
using my words I would use his official words here. He said just in his general comments, when looking
at the proposed rules for buffers, floodplain management, stormwater management and bank stabilization,
it is undeniable that these rules will result in significant additional encumbrances on the limited
developable land, excuse me. Developable land within Chanhassen and the other communities that lie
within the district boundaries. So there’s little land to develop and this is going to prevent quite a bit of
that. In many cases these rules go well beyond regulatory mechanisms which have been implemented by
the other 3 watershed organizations with jurisdiction in Chan and the MPCA. One of Terry’s big
concerns is that the other watersheds that have rule in Chanhassen, the rules from the Riley-Purg
watershed are going significantly beyond what the other watersheds are. Then regarding buffers. The
implications of the encumbrances being imposed on privately and publicly held land by the proposed
buffer rule is dramatic and not without potential for significant hardship to people and government
agencies. The proposed buffer rules by far exceed any buffer requirements implemented by other
watershed management organizations in the metropolitan area. Chanhassen cannot support these buffers
and strongly requests that the RPBCWD align the buffer requirements for closely with the other cities and
WML’s in the area. And then he goes on again with the stormwater just to say how many properties,
three-quarters of the properties in Chan will be affected by the stormwater rules. They are very, very
difficult to achieve. The levels that are requested, that are required by the rules are levels that cities,
counties, watersheds theirselves have trouble achieving with their engineering and taxpayer dollars at
their hands. As I said the homeowners in private property owners is extremely onerous. One of the
things that we have been asking since the beginning of this, of the rules process was for the watershed to
provide us with some actual data that why this is important, particularly with the buffers. There are no
lakeshore buffers in any other metro area at all so when you are saying to somebody we’re going to take
part of your property and require you to do a certain thing with it, it’s important we believe to show the
data on why it’s important for the water and what we’ve learned in looking at this, which is straight from
the watershed 10 year plan, is that you can see on this chart the top one. 63%, the phosphorus that goes
into the lake. 63% is from internal loading which is things like dying weeds, carp, turtles, birds, that type
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