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PRC 1988 11 22 ~ "..... CHANHASSEN PARK AND RECREATION COMMISSION REGULAR MEETING NOVEMBER 22, 1988 Chairman Mady called the meeting to order. MEMBERS PRESENT: Jim Mady, Carol Watson, Sue Boyt, Ed Hasek, Curt Robinson and Larry Schroers STAFF PRESENT: Lori Sietsema, Park and Rec Coordinator and Todd Hoffman, Recreation Supervisor INTRODUCTION TO NEWLY ELECTED COUNCIL MEMBERS. Mady: I asked Lori to invite the new council members to our meeting tonight. Apparently they didn't show up. APPROVAL OF MINUTES Boyt moved, Hasek seconded to approve the Minutes of the Park and Recreation Commission meeting dated November 1, 1988. All voted in favor except Carol Watson who abstained and the motion carried. ~ REVIEW POTENTIAL ACQUISITION OF PARKLAND AROUND LAKE ST. JOE. Sietsema: As you are aware, the area around Lake St. Joe is identified in the Comprehensive Plan as potential parkland and open space. That was put in there well over 10 years ago and I believe the initial reason that was put in there was to preserve it as open space. More so than for parkland due to what the land is. It's mostly marshland and wetland area. It's not anything that you could put anything active out there. Just by a fluke I found out that a portion of that property, a 15 acre portion of that property is for sale and someone has a purchase agreement to purchase it. She happened to call me and find out how the trails were going to impact her. Where it was going to go through that property. What type of a trail and when that would occur. I went out there to look to see if it could actually go where the trail plan depicted it and it would have to go around that second pond. I don't know if you recall. There's a little pond and there's Lake St. Joe and the trail goes just between the two around Lake St. Joe and it couldn't go there unless you wanted it to be a floating boardwalk because it's really too wet. Hasek: That's also in that area of tamracks up there isn't it? Sietsema: Yes. Mady: Which parcel is it? ,..... Sietsema: It's the northwest corner. Hasek: Is that where that guy has all that machinery out there right now? Park and Recreation Commission Meeting November 22, 1988 - Page 2 ......", Sietsema: It's past that. You go past that on King's Road and then it turns and it goes straight south along the border of Victoria and Chanhassen and that's how you get back to it. They are buying the front 4 acres and they've already purchased that and they plan to close sometime in the near future on the additional 15 acres. I told her that that was identified as potential parkland and she indicated that perhaps maybe the City would want to purchase it instead of them but they wouldn't be interested in signing off on their purchase agreement unless they know how we're going to use it. They were going to buy it so that it would be preserved, open space so they have a way to get down to Lake St. Joe. I don't know what kind of concessions you would want to make. Hasek: You've been out there and looked at it? Sietsema: I looked at it. I didn't trudge around in it too much because I didn't have any boots and it was cold out. Hasek: But it is wet? Sietsema: It's all cattails and reeds and marsh type vegetation. Hasek: Can we ask that for the next time we have a meeting that you get an aerial for us so we can see at least. Sietsema: Do you want to run up and get the aerial? ......", Watson: So we can see where that little pond is. Hasek: I guess coming from that neighborhood out there, I want a park and I think it's important to preserve some wetlands but I certainly don't think that this particular thing fills the bill for an active park out there. At all. Sietsema: I definitely don't think but we can look at the aerials. Perhaps if we continue to purchase the land around the south part, there might be something contiguous that would be more flat. Hasek: You get south of that lake in there between kind of where that little notch is in the City and Lake St. Joe, then there's a huge hill that drops down to both of those lakes. So that's what you'd be buying is a sledding hill maybe or downhill skiing as opposed to a ballfield. Watson: Wouldn't it be nice as open space? Hasek: It'd be beautiful as open space but that isn't what those people need out there. What they need is a place for the kids. If you look at those two neighborhoods, my son has let's say 15 kids in our 35 home neighborhood his age, within a year of his age. We don't have a park. The only place we've got to play is either in the street, in people's yards or down on the beachlot that the association owns and that thing is~ only 60 feet wide. It's just not there. Cathpark Park is across the highway would be fine if there was a way to get there but we don't have a trail system so that's out the window. We don't even own that park. We Park and Recreation Commission Meeting November 22, 1988 - Page 3 "..... own it but we don't maintain it I guess. Sietsema: We don't own it. Hasek: We don't own it but we do maintain it? Sietsema: We don't own it. Hasek: There's also one up here that's in Minnewashta Heights and the only way to get there is to go along the highway and I certainly am not going to allow my kids to go. If you look at this area of the city, right here, it's completely unserved by public open space. Completely. Watson: So you need ballfields and soccerfields? Hasek: No, we don't need ballfields and soccerfields. What we have to start with is a simple 5 acre neighborhood park in that area. Watson: What do you want? I""""'- Hasek: Anything to start with would be great. Something's that dry. If you want to play ball there. I don't think a ballfield is certainly out of line but it might not be the only thing that needs to go in there. A soccer field, soccer can be played on ballfield. I think it's more of a neighborhood park and not making it recreational active for organized sports. Watson: But 15 acres for $8,000.00 of open space is awfully cheap. Sietsema: It's real cheap but if you're only going to buy it to preserve it as open space and that's what the other purchaser is going to do is just leave it as open space, then there isn't really much purpose... Mady: They can't do anything with it. Sietsema: There isn't much sense, if it's going to be preserved regardless, why should we spend the money. Watson: We could just acquire a trail through it. Let them buy it and acquire a trail through it so that there would be... Sietsema: Before they close they want to know exactly where we're going to put that trail because that may be a deciding factor on whether they actually close or not. So they want to know what our intentions are. Mady: A question on that. On the Comp Plan, that area is cited as a potential park area or area we want as parkland. So the City has to sign off, isn't that how it goes? ,......, Sietsema: No. Mady: I thought they couldn't sell without first presenting it to the City. Park and Recreation Commission Meeting November 22, 1988 - Page 4 --' Sietsema: No. We can identify it as... Hasek: They can sell it. They can do anything they want but if they want to develop, if they want to subdivide it all... Sietsema: Right. If they're going to develop it, that's when we get the chance. So the plan is for the trail to corne like this. What I was saying is that, from ~he looks of it, this looked pretty marshy. Mady: Where's the 15 acres at? Hasek: See that hits the spot that we had nailed through that. All that marshland and I don't know how successful...floating bogs but you've seen this back there haven't you? This piece is for sale. Schroers: Behind St. Joe? Hasek: Yes. Around that pond. It's all tameracks. Sietsema: This big stuff over here is trees but this stuff is... Hasek: That's tameracks, yes. Boyt: Is that a tamerack bog? """"" Hasek: Yes. Mady: You can't do anything in there? Boyt: Hennepin County just did a big project with tameracks. Mady: That's the one down at Theodore Wirth Park but there's also a big one down in Carver Park but I don't know what the cost to maintain that. Schroers: High maintenance. Watson: Do people go there? I don't care how much it costs to maintain it but do people go to watch it? Schroers: People go there but it's mainly school groups that go to an organized thing. They're bussed in, 3 or 4 loads of kids and the naturalist will guide them through the area. Watson: So you don't have just the occasional people who might... Schroers: Well, you'll have an occasional person but you're not going to have hordes of them going through there. But every once in a while someone will go through there. -' Hasek: I thought perhaps this right in here... Sietsema: They bought this 4 acre piece here. Park and Recreation Commission Meeting November 22, 1988 - Page 5 "......, Watson: Ultimately if we could get this piece? Sietsema: I don't know that to be a fact because I didn't actually go and walk it. Watson: Should we put our boots on someday and go back there? Mady: I don't think that's necessary. Schroers: My questions are, first a comment, I think that would make a perfect area for a boardwalk and it would be real nice but I'm wondering how much that's going to affect our ability to buy other property in the area that we would need for active use which is really lacking in the Minnewashta area. That boardwalk would be more of a path and I'm not sure you're getting the kind of use and activity as tennis courts, ballfields and just a regular active area. ,..... Sietsema: Right, and again, what I was eluding to earlier is that when the Commission that was on the board 10 years ago when the Comp Plan was put together and that was identified, they were a very nature oriented group of people. They weren't into ballfields and tennis courts and active play areas. They were into let's preserve all the places for the birds and the deer to be. Mike was on at that time and he remembers struggling because they wanted to keep the kids out of there to keep it natural so they didn't wreck it and that was the train of thought at that point in time when that area was identified as parkland, which is still fine. Which still is a valid reason. Still is a valid reason for acquiring that type of land. Watson: I bought it very much and I am probably one of those people who was very into open space. I think there is a time coming in an area like Chanhassen when we're going to point out to our children something more than about 2 acres is going to be tough. But I also would like people to walk on it. I don't think we're trying to preserve it from anybody but for everybody. Mady: Just a natural open space. Watson: Yes, but I would want that. Mady: And not developed. Watson: We can put the geese out there. Schroers: I don't feel that I got any input. By purchasing this, will it limit our ability to get an active use area? ~ Sietsema: There's only $21,000.00 in the current park budget in the 1989 park budget that is not allocated for something. It's $21,000.00 and if we want to purchase the Carrico property which is going to be somethi.ng closer to $60,000.00. We might have some money freed up if the Lake Susan development, if a lot of that work can be done with the Lake Drive East Park and Recreation Commission Meeting November 22, 1988 - Page 6 ....." going through so our local share doesn't have to be $100,000.00 but right now that whole $100,000.00 is allocated for Lake Susan. So yes, I would say that it would have some impact but it's not, if you didn't want to do one project next year and put your whole $100,000.00 into land acquisition for the Minnewashta area next year, your capital improvement program, that's a possibility. It would have to be 1990, not 1989 because there's already projects that are budgeted. Boyt: Another possibility, since the people purchasing it plan to leave it as is, is to acquire trail access through the property. Sietsema: Right, and we may want to enter into something, if they want to sell it for development or something, let them know now that we are interested in it if they don't want it and purchase it from them later and just preserve the trail easement at this time. That's definitely an option but with change of Commission, change of staff, you lose some of those contacts and it's hard to keep... Boyt: But the other question, can it be developed if it's that wet? Sietsema: Not under the current ordinance I don't think it would be able to be. They'd have to stay 75 feet back from the wettest area. From the high water area. Mady: The point that I'd like to make on this is if they allow the land -' to be sold to the new developers who may, even though they want to leave it natural which is fine and great, it still does not allow anyone to walk on that property legally unless they get permission firsthand. Sietsema: If we preserve a trail easement. Mady: But then you still, yes you have maybe a 20 foot easement or 40 foot easement but through a tamerack area... Sietsema: You have to identify where you want it to be. Hasek: The point is that you won't be able to leave any path that we put in there anyway. You're going to step off of that and risk...because there is an allotment over a lot of those things. Boyt: That's what, Hennepin Parks has signs saying you won't leave the trail. Hasek: Is Pheasant Hills the one that we're trying to purchase the property? Sietsema: The Carrico, yes. That's what we talked about last time. Hasek: Okay, this property is the what property? Sietsema: It's Lake St. Joe. ...."" Hasek: There's a name on it isn't there? Park and Recreation Commission Meeting November 22, 1988 - Page 7 ,..... Sietsema: Kortgard is the people who are purchasing it. Hasek: My personal opinion is this. First of all, this was slated in the Comp Plan that was put together approximately 10 years ago and should have some sort of precedence over any other purchases that we might be looking at making regarding parkland. The second issue would be monies available for the next year or the next couple of years. I think it's important for this commission to take some time at some point in the future here to maybe restructure some of their priorities and those priorities should be based upon need and what I perceive right now, partially from the heart and partially from the plans that I see, is a very specific and dramatic need in the Minnewashta west area based upon no park service whatsoever in that area. If we look at the Pheasant Hills property and the number of units that is to serve and the number of people that is to serve, it's considerably smaller than the area that we are looking at serving in the Minnewashta West area. I am leaning towards looking at the purchase of the property rather immediately in that area because the cost goes up as it has in the pheasant Hills area. I guess I'm a little bit torn. We do have a very active and vocal group up there that's asking us for a park but at the same time we've got an area on the other side of Lake Minnewashta that's been asking for one for quite a while and I don't know that it's necessarily in our best interest to use all of the monies that II""'"' are ava i lable for purchases I guess as they corne along if in fact we put ourself in the position of not being able to purchase something in that Lake Minnewashta West area. I guess that's kind of the comment I wanted to make. I think it's important first of all that we purchase this piece of property and use the monies that we do have available and then I think we have to take a look at the future funds for acquisition in the City based upon need. Sietsema: I have to agree that I think the priorities should be set. We have development priorities that if we don't acquire the land when it's available, we're never going to be able to develop it. Where if our money is short, we may want to look at acquiring the land that is needed in the areas that we're deficient and hold off on some of the developments so that we preserve that and then when monies becomes available we can start development again. Hasek: That's what I'm talking about, the priorities. Are we in a mode where we should be acquiring land now as opposed to developing land? It's nice to develop when you've got the parkland that of course you want to start putting some things into it but you also have to keep your options open for purchasing as it comes along and if you don't do that, then you're just cutting your throat. You're going to have one side of the City that's completely developed and the other side of the City that's completely undeveloped. "'"' Mady: Here are some thoughts. In our capital improvement program, we approved and the Council approved $169,000.00. We're making a potential precedent we need to. There's $10,000.00 for Lake Ann Park for electrical bills as shown that we already said we don't need to do that. Down at Minnewashta Heights Park, you threw $20,000.00 in and said well maybe Park and Recreation Commission Meeting November 22, 1988 - Page 8 ...."", we'll do something down there but we don't know what we want to do. There's $30,000.00 without even looking too hard at things that we could maybe shift into buying some parkland. I agree we need to find something out at Minnewashta. We've discussed it quite often actually in the last couple of months about finding something on the west side of Minnewashta. We've all known for a long time that area needs something badly. We just haven't any thoughts, any ideas of what we could do. I'd like to see us be able to get out there and do a walk. Go out there and drive around and walk the area...and see if we can buy it. I think we can get interest for buying it before we get a developer or landowner... Sietsema: I would suggest that if the Commission is interested in purchasing this property, that we should also look at the rest of the land around the lake and what kind of access we're going to need to access this piece of property. We don't want to buy a landlocked piece of property that we can't get to. ,So we look at the overall picture and what we want, have some idea of what we want to do with it. It's fine if what you want to do with it is to just to leave it as it is. That's one option but so that you know what you want to do. Mady: The question on the map up here, the parcel looks like the property line goes right through the middle of the pone on the west side of Lake St. Joe. Does that actually encompass the whole pond? It's hard to tell. Sietsema: Yes. It would be just the north half of the pond. Does it ...."", show on that one that it's kind of an L shaped piece? Mady: Yes. Sietsema: Because I think that top half is the 4 acres that they're purchasing. So it would be the straight west then over to the city boundary. Hasek: The city boundary down to the lake. It goes right through the middle of the pond. Robinson: It looks like there is some highway under there? Sietsema: The city boundary is right here. This is Victoria so it's this piece right here. The lots on the north end of Lake St. Joe are built on and there's a lot of topography in there too. That's where that junkyard is or contractor's yard. What do you want me to do? Mady: What are our thoughts here? Robinson: I thi.nk we need some active land in that area and to me, it just does not look like active land. I'd agree with Ed that we've talked about it before that we need something out there and we haven't done anything but this looks like a marsh to me and I don't think, the price i~ good but I don't think we should even spend that kind of money just to -' have it and get it owned by the City when we could let somebody else buy it and keep it natural and if we could still have a trail through it. Park and Recreation Commission Meeting November 22, 1988 - Page 9 ,..... Boyt: I agree. Mady: My thoughts are kind of like Curt's. 15 acres at $8,000.00 an acre is a pretty good price. For a wetlands it's even a pretty good price but the way it sounds, if this developer is not going to do anything on it anyway, and if it's as wet an area and dangerous as it sounds like it potentially could be, we'd have a tough time doing much with it anyways. So my inclinations are let it sit as an active wetland which they can't do anything with either and it will be preserved as open space that way through our ordinance as it now exists. We always have the option at some point in time to go back and attempt to purchase it if we so desire it. I think it would be a different price maybe at that time and maybe they wouldn't be willing to sell but if the City at some point really wanted to buy it, they could look at it. It's not going to present us with something that we have to have at this point in time. Hasek: If that is our intent, is to take an easement on it, is all we're asking for...a trail is all we're looking for, are we thinking about coming off the roadway or are we thinking about following that lake all the way around? If we're thinking about doing that, are we going to be cutting our own throats? Kind of like we did along the south side of, where the owners desired to have it on the other side of the pond. South of Lyman Boulevard there. We had a place where we thought we wanted it ,..... and then it got pushed around and had the potential for a lot of it being eliminated. Boyt: Here's another something to suggest to Council. Tamerack bogs are unusual. I think they should enact an ordinance to protect tamerack bogs. Mady: Isn't a tamerack bog an active wetland? Hasek: This is protected. There's no way that they'd ever get any permission to do anything in here. Boyt: This might be a way to further preserve. When they had trouble with...plants encroaching on the bog. Mady: Carol, what are you thoughts? Watson: I want it. Sietsema: She wants geese too. Schroers: Looking at the overall situation, I'm a conservationist at heart. I definitely want to see that remain a natural area. I think it would be nice if we could have a trail through there but I think to serve the needs of the community in that particular area better we need to look a~ purchasing active use area and I guess that I would rather not see us tie anyone up on that when we don't really have to to keep the area natural. r- Robinson: I make the motion that we accept Lori's first offer and that is to allow the Kortgard's to proceed with the purchase of the land but work Park and Recreation Commission Meeting November 22, 1988 - Page 10 """"""" with them to reserve a trail easement through the property. Hasek: Second. Robinson moved, Hasek seconded that the Park and Recreation Commission recommend to allow the Kortgard's to proceed with the purchase of the land, working with them to reserve a trail easement. All voted in favor except Watson who opposed and the motion carried. Hasek: Do we want to talk about that? Mady: We should. I think we need that information. Hasek: I think our first choice would be, I think our first choice should be to try to follow the wetlands if at all possible. Like I said, I don't want to take the chance of cutting our throats in the future. It seems to me though that if the guy to the south should ever sell his land for the purposes of development, that there may be the possibility of some rather huge homes going on it with a view over that Lake St. Joe. And if our intent is to run a pathway around it, then you might run into some resistence from that developer at that time wanting to do that. So I think perhaps what we maybe should think about doing is putting a trail into but not necessarily through that area. We could come off of the -' property or off of the City street which is on the west side and acquire a trail perhaps along that, or even along the northern shoreline of the pond and into that wetland without going all the way through it. There might be some sort of a loop that maybe can go around St. Joe's. Mady: Some potential...? Hasek: If I owned that property to the south or even more so if I bought that piece of property, I certainly wouldn't want the trail running along the shoreline of that lake even though there might not be any reason for lake access. That surely is a visual intrusion. Sietsema: So state again where you're proposing this to go. Hasek: I think we should try and either come around the north edge of Lake St. Joe and into that area and perhaps lead that to whatever that street is on the west side. Something like this and then maybe back out again or we should think about coming in along 7he road~ay of t~is area... I just think we'd really meet with a lot of resistance if we tried to go along the shore. Mady: The Comp Plan right now shows it through here. All the way around. Hasek: I think the only way that we should think about this is if we really feel that we have a position and power to get an access for out ~ there. Sietsema: If they're going to develop, we do. Park and Recreation Commission Meeting November 22, 1988 - Page 11 ,...., Hasek: If we look at the one that we just had come in here where we had a trail easement and we ended up giving it up. Sietsema: That was a little bit different because we didn't acquire that. We stuck that on during their plan. That was the justification for the Council being able to go in there. Hasek: Personally I would like to see it go through but does it need to go through I guess is the next question. Maybe that's what really driving my thoughts here. If this is the interesting part, do you need to go all the way through that? Is this going to be a vital part of the link that's going up and down Minnewashta Parkway which may never happen now because of the buyers. Mady: To me that would be a natural part of it. Let them have a natural trail system in close to an active which would go down Minnewashta Parkway. I really don't think it has to go through there, to be honest with you. I really don't. I think you can experience the tameracks that are in there without going all the way through there and unnecessarily encumbering any property. Schroers: My idea of a trail in there would be to stay on the upper, more ,...., dryer part of it than just go along the edge and look into it. I would not want to cut into it. I think that does damage. It's no longer a natural area. A trail down in the middle of it is very difficult to maintain. I would just like to see the woodchip walking path on the high ground around the edge and disturb it as little as possible. It'd be a very low maintenance, low cost type of thing. Hasek: Do you think we should think about coming through here then? That would be the loop then to come around...around here and back up. Schroers: I would definitely not be in favor of cutting a trail through the middle of it. Robinson: Is this down next to the lake? Sietsema: No. Mady: Not easily. This place is surrounded by cattails. Sietsema: Really the only way you can get down to the lake is over on this, off of Minnewashta. So if we wanted to continue to pursue that so we get this feeling that this nature trail is the thing to come off of Minnewashta Parkway and stay along the high water mark, you come around and make a loop like that. I don't think they would like that. ,...... Mady: I don't ei ther . Schroers: I don't think that it has to be anything big enough that it would bother them in anyway. The actual path or surface, all it would need to be would be wide enough for a couple people to walk side by side. Park and Recreation Commission Meeting November 22, 1988 - Page 12 ....", I probably wouldn't recommend that as an area for horse riding or anything like that. Just a walking path. Hasek: Can I ask if that opinion is kind of the consensus? To try and get to high ground and go around the lake. Is that generally what we're all thinking? Robinson: I'd sure agree with that. Hasek: Maybe what we should do is just allow Lori and staff to kind of negotiate with them. They know what we'd like to see and let's see what they'll give us. If what they give us isn't enough, then we've got another choice... Sietsema: We're going to have to buy an easement. If we go a 20 foot easement along the high and it's $500.00 an acre out there, whatever that comes to and we'd have to figure that out. The other thing is that we'd probably have to have it surveyed so we know where the high water mark is so we have a legal description of that easement. Hasek: Is that 4 acres separate already from the parcel? Sietsema: Yes. Hasek: It is? It's already been separated? ...", Sietsema: Well, they bought it separately. Hasek: That means they subdivided their property so that means it must have come before us then, or somebody. Sietsema: Some of the larger pieces, I don't understand. Hasek: Maybe they can buy it by description until such time as the second piece of property is added and at that point it has to be legally split. That's possible. There's only one house on the whole thing right? Sietsema: Right. Hasek: Yes, that might be possible. But if you wanted to sell the other 15 at all, that should come before us at that point. I don't know, does that make sense Lori? Hoffman: The $8,000.00, was everybody clear on that? That was for the full 15 acres? Mady: Yes. Sietsema: Then the direction to staff is to go back to them and tell thero that no, we're not interested in purchasing the property now but we woule . like to preserve a trail easement in there. This is where we would like ~ it. The next question is, what's the priority? When are we going to go in and actually install the trail? And what type of surface would it be? Park and Recreation Commission Meeting November 22, 1988 - Page 13 ",..... They're going to want to know that. Hasek: When are we going to do Minnewashta Parkway? Sietsema: What I could tell them, I could tell them what priority it would have. So further on when we get to election results, I was going to have us talk about prioritizing our trails and taking a look at how we're going to pursue that. Hasek: Maybe we'll have the timeframe then there. Sietsema: Okay, I'll just wait for that. If I could amend the agenda. Jon pahl is here to give us an update on his Eagle Scout project. He's the Eagle Scout that did the, or actually the Boy Scout, I don't know if he's got his Eagle Scout yet, but did the landscaping at the Carver Beach parking lot. Did a great job and he wants to get up and tell us about it. EAGLE SCOUT PROJECT UPDATE - JON PAHL. Jon pahl: This is what I've done to it. Before there was just grass up to it. We started in August of this year with the posts, putting them in. It was late August. In September, we found it real difficult with the plans that you gave us Lori. Some of the measurements were off on this so ~. we couldn't have a full 4 foot trail all the way around the parking area. The total cost for this came to $1,359.00. Hasek: Did that include the bollards and stuff? Jon pahl: Yes. Hasek: The purchase of the bollards? Jon Pahl: Yes. Sietsema: How many people did you have work with you on it? Jon pahl: 13 to 14. A lot of them came back twice. Sietsema: Have you got your Eagle Scout award yet? When does that happen? Jon pahl: Right now I figure around next March. It's a long process. Sietsema: So it's under review right now? ,...... Jon Pahl: Not yet. I have about another month b f . e ore I can get into reVIew. They have a lot of paperwork. Mady: I drove by this about a month ago and it looked fantastic C~mpared to what it was previously and what it looks like now it's like ~~9ht an~ day. If I lived across the street from it before if was done ~ w~~fkfnd of an eyesore and just kind of spot in the road Now it's' eau I u. It's gorgeous. I'd be proud to live across the. street from Park and Recreation Commission Meeting November 22, 1988 - Page 14 -' there because you know it's not going to attract a bad element. It looks like a park and it looks like something you should probably take care of. A very, very nice job. Sietsema: Did the park sign get put back up there? Jon Pahl: Yes. It's between those two trees. Hasek: Where did you buy the plant material? Jon pahl: We bought it from Hartman Tree Farm. Hasek: Did they give you a good price for seven...? Jon pahl: I can't remember exactly what it was now. There's been one person who already drove down to the playground. Hasek: Through it? Jon pahl: Drove between where the bollards end and the bushes. Watson: Did anybody see this genius? Hasek: Did they ruin any plants? ......" Jon pahl: I'm not sure. Since there's snow on the plants. Mady: ...install some more bollards next year. What you might want to do Lori is ask Dale to go over and take a look at that and see if he can help the problem for the potential people driving down. If that's the case, we'll have to do something about it. Boyt: Can we get a letter to Jon that he can put in his file? Hasek: Yes, attention your scout master or whatever. Mady: Also if you can put a note, a copy of that or something to go to the Villager and the South Shore Sailor. We get some nice publicity. Jon gets some nice publicity. Boyt: ...before they get their award. We need to say he's working on it. Sietsema: Yes, instead of calling him an Eagle Scout, you are a Boy Scout working on your Eagle Scout. So can you give me a list of your grand poobahs? Jon pahl: Sure. Hoffman: The tops of all the posts, did you cut those? ...". Jon pahl: Yes. Park and Recreation Commission Meeting November 22, 1988 - Page 15 ,..... REVIEW RESPONSES TO TIM ERHART'S LETTER REGARDING EQUESTRIAN USE ON TRAILS. Sietsema: Item number 5 is the continuing saga of the equestrian use on nature trails. Boyt: Tim has a shovel, I think it's taken care of. Watson: I thought it was interesting that Mr. Head1a wanted to know if Tim Erhart's...horse needed a permit and he better apply for one by the end of November because he has never examined his pasture, etc.. I thought that was a very interesting comment because it's a very valid point. If he's keeping a horses without a permit in the City, he should get one. Mady: I just think the same thing. I think everyone who was concerned enough to write us a letter, there are good points being made on both sides and gave us some information that was eye opening for the non horse person. I think we're all richer for it and we have a better understanding of the equestrian trail situation in the city. If we...on it in a good positive way. Sietsema: The Planning Commission discussed this on Wednesday night and ~ they expressed some concern that there were some changes made without their review. When Jo Ann came back to me with that I said there's nothing that's been changed. Horses have been allowed all along. We just made that into a policy. They weren't not allowed before or disallowed before. Prohibited before so we haven't really made any changes. I don't think it's a dead issue yet but as long as we keep up and keep informed and we know what our priorities are, staff still maintains that until there's an equestrian/pedestrian problem or conflict, that we should not eliminate any uses just for the sake of eliminating valid uses of trails. Watson: I think we really are using fact on a relative volatile issue. Who would have guessed that there would be people responding to the interest in whether they can or can not use the system. Mady: We discussed it to the point where we recognize that it's not a dead issue. That it needs to be reviewed from time to time as the need arises. We're comfortable with it. We haven't gotten any really negative feedback on it outside of Mr. Erhart's letter. We just take it as that. We're never going to have 100% agreement on anything. As long as we don't have any serious safety situations at this point in time or any safety situations at this point in time. Our current policy seems to be fine and. . . Sietsema: There's no action needed. I just wanted to bring that to your attention. ,,-.. Schroers: There never has been an incident has it? It just kind of evolved as a political situation more than anything else. Park and Recreation Commission Meeting November 22, 1988 - Page 16 Sietsema: Yes, I don't really know why it arose. was a problem for some people. -' All of a sudden it just Hoffman: It arose as part of the discussions of the trail plan. The proposed trail plan and the proposed uses for it. REVIEW ELECTION RESULTS. Sietsema: I included the tally of the votes to let you know where we won and where we lost. I really don't know what the problem is with the trails. When you look at the number of blank votes on the question, there are only 175 ballots that were left blank on this question and when you go down to the councilmembers, there's 2,000 left blank. So it looks as though, it would appear as though people were up on the issue enough to vote one way or the other. I just think the City's split on whether they want them or not. Boyt: There's a minor problem. I think that it would have worked better if they would have been called trails and sidewalks instead of just trails. Sietsema: Yes. Mady: Two things. One, when I look at the trail plan that was shown, it looked to me, there was confusion in people in that we drew in every trai~ that is or was or was going to be and $800,000.00 wasn't going to build all these. A lot of these are being, either exist presently or we have developers putting in for us. I think it would have helped if maybe we had two maps. One showing the entire plans. What the city Ultimately will look like. So many trails are being put in by developers. Some are being put in by the city. Some already exist. The State's going to put in some. Then here's what the $800,000.00 is going to actually buy us. Here's the parts we don't have to pay for. Here's the parts we have to tie together. It might have helped. There's always going to be those people who vote against some of the trails...whether or not they believe there wasn't going to possible raise their property taxes. You'll never be able to convince some people. They'll always believe it. No matter what you tell them, you're wrong and it's going to cost some money. I think they have about a third of the people in any city, not just our city, who would be with any type of a program like this, be it an addition to a school, firehouse, city hall, anything that's on a referendum that costs money, you're going to have at least a third of the people who will vote no. They don't even have to think about it, they're going to vote no. We've got to get to the other two-thirds and we got to about half the people in the City already who agree with us. The amazing thing on the numbers, when I ran a calculator on them, that in none of the precincts did over 49% of the people vote against it. Not one precinct, at least 50% of the people voted against it. Of the total numbers...the entire election so it's probably not half the people who are against it. We jus~ didn't get quite enough of the people who wanted it to vote. -' Hasek: I think that's pretty negative numbers. Unbelieveable. Park and Recreation Commission Meeting November 22, 1988 - Page 17 ,..... Sietsema: It's pretty unbelieveable. Hasek: What was final on it? Sietsema: Two. Robinson: To me that's the bad part. I don't think that it's our job to sell this. I think it was to answer questions and get the information out so they have the information to vote. I would have felt better if we would have lost it by a landslide which says, hey they don't want it for whatever reason but to lose by this small amount. Sietsema: I think that's a key point. If it would have lost by 200 votes last time instead of 2, we probably wouldn't have put it on again but there's such a great number of people who do want it. Hasek: The thing that disappoints me is that the area that I'm in out there, for some strange reason, I don't know how much Minnewashta has been involved or how large that precinct is out there. I don't know the exact numbers but I talked to an awful lot of people... Boyt: ...just invite 6 people from each area and talk to them about how ~ they voted or what they think about trails. Just what they think about trails. Get some off the wall...random people. We don't know why it failed. We heard two main reasons. Anything that costs money, they're going to vote down no matter what and they don't want a trail in their front yard. But otherwise we're guessing. Watson: When conceiveably could we try this again? Sietsema: Not in my lifetime. Mady: It sounds like the school will be going to referendum in late spring and potentially the City may be going to a referendum at the same time. Sietsema: It's my feeling that, I don't think that we should take it back unless we do some dramatic changes to it. If you cut it back and you do some dramatic things to it. If you take it back one more time, I think people are just going to get mad about it and vote no because they're sick of hearing about it. Watson: I was thinking like, can we get something this restructured in some way and give it a shot in 2 years or something like that. You're right, you can't do it right now but it's still something... ,...., Hasek: I think the community, there's going to be a lot of changes and I think maybe within 2 years there will be enough people out there to realize... Watson: Because just because it was defeated doesn't make it a bad idea and I'm certain it's got to be back because it still is a good idea. Park and Recreation Commission Meeting November 22, 1988 - Page 18 --' Boyt: I was in a neighborhood gathering this weekend and a couple of people said, oh, the trails didn't pass. Does that mean we're not going to get trails Sue? You mean not even on Frontier Trail, and you know all the grief we've taken on Frontier Trail. I said that's right. Not on Frontier Trail. Well, we thought we'd get them anyway and these were some of the people that had been up here over and over again saying we don't want the trails. We don't want them and misinformation allover the place. They still don't know what's going on. They still don't know. Robinson: But that's their fault. Boyt: The information is out there. It's been in 3 papers. It's been in flyers. Sietsema: Yes, I really don't know what else we can do. We put out a brochure. We put it out in the paper. We got it to every single doorstep. We sent flyers home with kids and we held public meetings. We went to civic organizations and held informational sessions. I don't know how, you can't direct their eyeballs to read it. Watson: But it's discouraging because these people are so opinionated against it and yet when you give them about two pieces of information they said, oh, I would have voted for that and I wanted to slug them because I thought, if you're so opinionated against it why didn't you read the stuf in the first place that would have told you but obviously they hadn't eve~ read the stuff that had been out there to read and yet they were sure they didn't want it. But in 2 minutes they can change their minds. Boyt: It's not a mandate that we can't come back again. Watson: It's going to be a couple of years. Robinson: And then we get into some traffic changes. Mady: My gut feeling is that it's going to take getting a couple kids killed on the street before the people in the city are really going to wake up. I hate to say that but I look at it as, my neighbors, the woman who lives across the street from me told me I had the only kid on the whole street and if I couldn't keep track of her than the heck with it. We didn't a trail in front of my house because she was the only one. Well, there are 50 kids under the high school level that live within 2 blocks of our house. She just doesn't see them but they're there and they're on that street. It scares me. It scares the hell out of me that we're going to have problems. We had a group of people in here last summer who did want us to put parking in their park because it would bring more traffic on their street. And we asked them if they wanted maybe we should put a trail on because they had a child hit on that street 2 years ago. They didn't want that. As it passed, we had another child hit on that street. That street begs for a trail yet they don't want it. I don't know what it's going to take to wake these people up that we have l~ get the kids a place where they can be without being involved with cars. ,.... Park and Recreation Commission Meeting November 22, 1988 - Page 19 Watson: You should see the people on Pleasant View Road that voted no. Talk about a place where you're going to finish off somebody's kid. You go around that curve, those little kids that live down there are always out in the middle of the road. All the time and frankly it's because they don't have anyplace else to ride their bike because most of them don't have tarred driveways, which there isn't much of a driveway anyway but there's no way of getting those kids off that road and yet they didn't want it. I don't understand. They never look at the aspect that we give those kids a place to ride a bike up and down Pleasant View without risking their lives. Boyt: The Laredo trail that's going in was surveyed. The survey stakes are out and I came upon one of my neighbors pulling them out and I stopped and talked to him. Told him why he shouldn't do it and then called his parents and told them they should call City Hall and make some arrangements to have that taken care of. These kids are the kids who do these things over and over again. Whenever there's a kid in trouble. I've talked to those kids about that before. They know they shouldn't be pulling those out. Now they're going to resurvey next spring. Sietsema: Right, they won't do construction... ,....., Mady: My understanding was those surveys, all they did was find where the roadway was and probably with a note on it. Sietsema: They had to know where they were going to have to do some grading and that type of stuff. Boyt: So that trail will be in in the spring? Sietsema: Right. Mady: The money's there. Sietsema: The Park and Recreation will see the plans for those in January and there are some changes that need to be made and we'll be discussing those in January. The next thing I wanted to talk to you about, these election results, because the trail plan failed, I just want to get us starting to think about prioritizing the trails so we can use existing funding, the best way that we want to do it. The red line represents what are in place, and you can let me know if I miss anything. The blue lines represent what's proposed and what's going to be done within the next year or two. Either the developers are going to be doing it or we are or something. Highway 5, the one along TH 5 out to TH 41 will be done with the upgrading of TH 5. Lake Susan Hills West, we'll be putting theirs in. Lake Drive East will go in when that road is extended. Laredo is planned. Carver Beach Road is planned. The ones in Curry Farms. The developer will be doing the ones in Saddlebrook. The developer will be doing Kerber ~ and part of TH 5 are in. Lake Lucy Boulevard. The one around North Lotus Lake Addition. So that gives you an idea of what's being done so far. What I'd like you to do is take your plan out and look at it. See where these connections are. What it's going to connect to and where our next priority should be because we do have money coming into the trail Park and Recreation Commission Meeting November 22, 1988 - Page 20 -'" dedication fund that we are going to be able to start using next year. Start planning to use next year for use in 1990. I've got this scheduled for Mark to come in and talk about other funding sources. Remember we had talked about tax increment and State Aid and the trail dedication fund and he's going to come in and talk about what could potentially be done with those other funding sources and help us prioritize and figure out what alignments are logical to do next. Keeping in mind with this whole trail plan, the whole reason it was put into place, or the main reason it was all put into place was for safety. I would imagine that that would be our key when we're prioritizing those alignments. Mady: If I could speak up on this. Right now I've got 3 priorities. Number 1 is Minnewashta Parkway. At least those people have asked for it. They want it. The votes don't reflect, which we have to remember, that there's a lot of people who live east of Lake Minnewashta who are also part of... The second thing we need to build in, make connections like from Lake Susan Hills West up to Lake Ann. To the park. That connection has got to be made. We have to make that connection. Sietsema: Say that one again. Which one? Mady: The connection along CR 17, from Lake Susan Hills north to TH 5 so they can get to the park. That connection I think should be made along CP 17. The areas where the kids have to walk to school. Those kids are -' forced on the road no matter if they want to or not. One of those areas is Frontier Trail but only up to Laredo. From Laredo north, from Frontier north of Laredo, those kids don't walk to school and if they don't want it, at least we can get some of the kids, because I know there are a lot of people who live on the south side of Laredo on Frontier Trail who do want the trail and they have kids. Boyt: One of the areas that has trails in southern Chanhassen and I think if maybe we talked to those people who live in Chan Estates, they want their kids to be able to get from Chan Estates across TH 5 into town. So I think that's very important too. We know they support trails. I think with the TH 101 realignment and when all that's taken care of, then we'll get some sort... Robinson: Is Chan Estates in Precinct 3? Boyt: Yes. That was Richard Donnay's area. He was on the trail task force. Mady: That's one of the things that concerns me. Bring people in to tell us what happened. What they thought went wrong...whatever with the meetings. You get 10 people at a meeting is impossible for a lot of these unless you went to a meeting that already existed. Had a reason to be there besides the trail plan. Boyt: We only had 4 people on the task force. That says something about-, trails. Park and Recreation Commission Meeting November 22, 1988 - Page 21 ,.... Hasek: But I think 4 people, with the right 4 people can do an awful lot of damage. Sietsema: Three of them were from southern Chanhassen and I think they did their job. They got their area to vote. Watson: When we had the public meetings for the Comp Plan, all those years when you sit there and on that commission, I remember sitting at these public hearings and nobody would corne. We would sit and chat among ourselves, wait an hour and pack up and go home. Mady: The City's been trying to communicate. That was one of the things that really kind of got to me in the current election was that we had all these people saying the City's not communicating. Not telling us what's happening and gosh, we hold these public meetings. The things are in the paper and no one shows up. You can't force people to be there. You can't force them to listen. Watson: You have to tell them what they want to hear at the public meetings or they decide... If they can go and get the opinion that they want at those public meetings. ,..... Mady: I don't know how we can handle that but anyway, we have the opportunity to do a few things on the trail plan. Those are my priorities. Lori, I think you indicated to me that Minnewashta Parkway, the rebuilding of that road was now further out in the future than the next 2 years. Sietsema: Yes, it's not going to be anytime soon. Mady: So there's no reason to hope or wait for that. To me what we do is there are some interested individuals in that area and maybe they want to take the ball and run with it, so to speak. Boyt: Maybe we should hold a public hearing on this too. Hasek: I'll tell you what the opinion out there is. The people out there want that trail to go first. They feel like, I think if they voted against this whole thing it was because they were of the opinion that they were going to be voting for trails in other parts of the city before they were going to get their own and they didn't want to have to do that. It's ludicrous. Sietsema: The logic of that just flew by me. Hasek: I really honestly believe that that's what happened. If we can't be first, than we don't want anybody to have it. It's unfortunate but I really honestly believe that's what happened. I think there's a very ~ drastic need out there. That's why I pushed to get into Phase I but to think that it's going to be first is a pipe dream. It's like they said, that road needs a lot of help and once that road gets rebuilt, than at that point the trail goes in and we have to start pushing it. Start hitting Public Safety Commission. Park and Recreation Commission Meeting November 22, 1988 - Page 22 .....,. Schroers: Who maintains that road? Hasek: We do. It used to be a State Aid Road because it was a little road connections but it was given back to the City... Schroers: So that road is actually owned by the Street Department of Chanhassen? Hasek: Yes. That's very unfortunate. I don't think the road is within the right-of-way... It's been graded out of the right-of-way. Schroers: If it belonged to the State or the County, we'd get the neighborhood and residents involved along with the City to put some pressure on them to improve the road and get the trail in right along with it would probably be the best way to do that. Let's give it back to the State. Hasek: It wasn't a State. I think it was a County. I guess I feel like maybe Jim and some of the other opinions that I've heard here is it seems to me that we ought to try and get those pockets of population that don't have circulations to schools and where they want to get. Get them organized. I would say that if there's a trail within those areas that tends to connect them to where they want to go within a neighborhood that's fine for right now but it's like Chan Estates crossing TH 5. -' That's the same as my neighborhood trying to cross TH 7 to get to a park. Sietsema: And that will come with upgrading of TH 5. They're planning to put in a way for people to get across that either by overpass or underpasses. Mady: Could we ask, we might have a little bit of money you could find in our budget, ask for a survey of the road right-of-way on Minnewashta so at least we have some indication of what we've got there? Hasek: I don't think we even have to ask for that. I think what we have to do is we ought to petition the City to give us an accurate idea of what's going on out there and in some of the other areas in the City. You've got topography for this City for crying out loud and you're asking developers to carry that ball. You look at what's happening in other communities and this metropolitan area, Chanhassen is becoming the laughing stock. I think the city ought to survey their roads for their own information, not the Park Board's or that the City is going to pay for it. Boyt: If we could just request the City. Mady: Ask the street department. If they're looking at it they must have some idea. Maybe if you could request that a survey be done on that road so we have some idea. We feel that's a top priority and we need to have ~. some information before we can even hold a pUblic meeting. I mean how can you hold a public hearing when you don't even know where the road is? ,..... Park and Recreation Commission Meeting November 22, 1988 - Page 23 Boyt: I don't want to put it number one on the priority list if those people really don't want it. They didn't vote for it and I think we need to hold a public hearing to find out, do they want it or don't they want it? Hasek: Exactly and I think you'll find that they do want it. Like I said, I believe that because it wasn't number one stated on the plan... Boyt: I think we're still guessing as to why they voted. I think we need to find that out and then we can go ahead and set our priority list. Mady: We do have a petition with about l~~ names from those people. You've got to remember, that precinct, Precinct 2 also includes a good share of the land on the east side of Lake Minnewashta. There are a lot of people who live along TH 7 there that are part of that area that don't really care if anything happens in the City because they identify themselves as Excelsior residents, not Chanhassen residents. So it's going to be very hard to look at the election results and really seperate them out. Maybe a public hearing will be helpful...maybe 5 people who signed that petition a year and a half ago. I know sometimes petitions aren't a good feeling for what's going on but at least we've got some names there. Maybe we need to contact those people and invite them in ~ here to our meeting in December and say okay, we need some information. Do you or don't you? Talk to your neighbors. Let's find out. Boyt: Not the people on the petition but if we're going to hold a public hearing and invite the people within a certain range of Minnewashta Parkway. Watson: You do. It's like 35~ feet of where you're proposing something so it would be anybody within 35~ feet of Minnewashta. Sietsema: In this case it would be more than that. It would be the people who are served that. Hasek: You could go all the way across the north part of the lake then because actually part of the trail is to get people down to the Arboretum as well. Boyt: We know it's a high priority to the Park and Rec Commission to get Minnewashta Parkway taken care of. Watson: But we've talked about it and talked about it. Maybe we should start having the public hearings. Find out what they want. Get the City to go ahead and do some surveys. Find out where the road belongs. If it is even remotely in the neighborhood of where it should be and where we could put a trail in. If we wanted to put a trail in before something's done to that road, could we put a trail in safety not knowing that the road is not going to destroy it at such time as the road is fixed. ,..... Sietsema: surveyed. It's going to corne out of the Park Department if we have it It's going to corne out of our budget. Park and Recreation Commission Meeting November 22, 1988 - Page 24 ....." Hasek: I don't think it has to. If it's a public health, safety and welfare issue, why in the world does the Park Board have to carry that? Sietsema: Because we're the ones who want to put the trail in there. If the street is just fine where it is, what do they need to have it surveyed for? Hasek: The City doesn't know what the street is. The City has talked over and over again about making improvements on that road and if they're going to do that, then they're going to have to have a survey so they're really operating from the same lack of information that we are at this point. Sietsema: But Engineering has indicated to me that they're not going to upgrade that road in the next 5 years. Hasek: But the survey isn't going to get old. I mean what's the last one that we have on record? 1931 maybe. Sietsema: But the point is, is that if we want the information, we're going to have to pay for it because Engineering doesn't have any extra money floating around either. If that isn't a road that they're going to upgrade this year, they're not going to go and do a survey for something that they're going to do 7 years from now. They'll budget for that in 7 ~. years and have the survey done then. Hasek: Does Engineering do surveys for all of the public improvements that they do or does it come out of the general fund? Sietsema: It comes out of the engineering budget in the general fund. Watson: If it's not a priority, it's not on the list. Sietsema: But what I'm saying is that Gary budgets for the projects that he's going to do and all the things that are in the scope of that project. If Minnewashta Parkway isn't going to be upgraded for 7 years, again, he hasn't budgeted for a survey to be done on Minnewashta Parkway now. So if we want that information, we're going to have to pay for it. Maybe in 7 years they can buy it from us then when they do the road but... Hasek: It's public information and can be used. Sietsema: I know. Hasek: Maybe we can work with them and get it done. Maybe they'll be willing to kick in for their own information. Off the top of my head I'm saying we're looking at $10,000.00 for survey that road. Especially when it takes $400.00 to get your lot surveyed. Sietsema: It's a lot of money. """" Watson: That's why people will object to having a plat because it costs so darn much money to get their property surveyed. Park and Recreation Commission Meeting """"" November 22, 1988 - Page 25 Hasek: But it's the piece of information that you need to begin to do all of your work and here we are working without it. Sietsema: So do we need the survey before we hold public hearings and dec ide. . . ? Hasek: It would be interesting to have the survey in order to be at least knowledgeable as to what we're talking about. I definitely want to know where we mayor may not have to acquire land or where we might have some room and may not have some room. Mady: I was looking at the public hearing process, the first part just to find out if we have the interest. Hasek: I'll tell you, we do have the interest irregardless of what the election results show. The interest is there. What the people,are going to come here wanting to know is when are we going to build it. If we don't have enough information to tell them when we're going to build them, we're not going to get them on our side no matter what. It's just not going to happen. They don't want to say yes to a trail that's going to be built 20 years from now and they're living in the house today. They want .~ to see the trail. They've got a problem now with their kids that are on the road that can't get to where they want to go. They could care less if it's built 5 years or 10 years from now. They want it built as soon as possible. That's why I pushed so hard to get it into Phase I. I figure within the next 3 years, sometime we can start looking at that, that seems to make some sense. That's rational. It's reasonable and it's something that we can look forward to. Sietsema: If the plan had been approved, I'd go right out now and spend the $10,000.00 to have it surveyed and hold the public hearings and work towards doing it but, without knowing how much it's going to cost to do it and without knowing for sure everybody that lives along Minnewashta Parkway wants it and they're not going to take us to Court for putting it across their front yard, without knowing a lot of those things, what do I do? Do I find out that everybody along there wants it and please see what you can do to do it as soon as possible, sure. I'll go out and do a survey and when I get that results, than I'll call you all back in and we'll have another meeting and see exactly how it's going to impact you. Watson: That would be good. Sietsema: But I don't know that we want to spend $10,000.00 without knowing that the 488 people that voted yes don't live on Minnewashta Parkway. Those 520 may be the ones that live directly adjacent to Minnewashta Parkway and they're going to kick and hollar and scream all the way behind the paver. " Mady: That's what I'm looking for. We need to find out that first before we spend. Park and Recreation Commission Meeting November 22, 1988 - Page 26 ...."" Hasek: It certainly doesn't hurt to have the public hearing. I guess I'm a little apprehensive about what kind of information it's going to give us and how that will be interpretted by this Commission at this time. Maybe I'm just over cautious. Sietsema: What do we want to accomplish in the public hearing, the first one, that we aren't still interested in putting in a trail along Minnewashta Parkway even though the trail plan failed? There are some funding sources out there. Do you want it? Hasek: Let me give you a scenario. Let's say we fill the place with people that say yes, we want the trail system. We want it so desparately that we want it tomorrow. We don't want it 5 years from now.. We take that information and say boy, they're being unrealistic. We can't do it tomorrow. We know we can't do it so that must mean they don't want it built. Would you think that? Or would you try to put it in 5 years from now knowing that that isn't really what they want anyway. Boyt: I don't think we're looking at 5 years. I think it's tops on our priority list. Do you think it will take 5 years to get it in? Hasek: I don't think you're going to be able to put a trail down that road without making major improvements to that road. Sietsema: Another question you can find out from those people is are the~ willing to be assessed for it? We can do it next year if they're willing to be assessed for it. Hasek: Why should they be assessed? Sietsema: If they want it bad enough to pay for it. Do they want it that bad that they're willing to pay for it themselves? Hasek: I'll put myself into this. Let's say I lived there and I wanted it really badly. Am I going to be assessed for it? Yes, I'm willing to pay for it...because there isn't anybody else in town that's been assessed for it, why should I be assessed for something that should be my right as well as it should be everybody elses right. Sietsema: It's a matter of getting it or not getting it. Or getting it next year or maybe in 5 years or 20 years. Hasek: That's true but if I want a school in my neighborhood and there is no school, do I have to pay for that school myself or is it the obligation of the community to help me pay for mine and I'll help them pay for theirs? Mady: We already tried a couple of times to get the whole community to do it and the whole community said no. So now we're going to find out if this one area wants it so bad, that's one of the things we're going to as . them. Do you want it so bad, would you be willing to have it assessed ~ against you? Yes or no. ,.... Park and Recreation Commission Meeting November 22, 1988 - Page 27 Watson: But I wouldn't mind if there was a trail going through my front yard that could take people down to Lake Ann, to connect to that park. That would be the problem. I wouldn't want to be assessed for that trail. I don't have any trouble getting down there and I guess I really wouldn't want to be assessed for it. I watch the people from Chaparral...go through my front yard. Boyt: I think we need to listen to that neighborhood. If they say we want it in 2 years or we don't want it, than that's what we give them then. We give them that. If they say we want it anytime. We say we can get it in...but we don't want to be assessed but we don't know what they're going to say to us. Hasek: You're right. Sietsema: I can't believe that somebody would say if I can't have it next year I don't want it ever. ,.... Hasek: It's not that I don't want it ever. It's just that the people that are there want it now. They have the need now. My kid is going to be 17 years old in 5 years. I won't need it 5 years from now. I need it today. I need this year. 5 years from now, I could care less about building a trail for the next guy who lives in my house. My might not have any kids. I'm interested in building it for the children who are there right now that need it. Today is kind of what I'm looking at. I'm not looking at, I know that to ask for it tomorrow is impractical but I felt that the next 3 years was reasonable. Now what you're telling me is that the City isn't even thinking about making improvements to that road and like Larry, my gut reaction is that we're not going to get that trail built without major improvements to that road. So if you're talking about anything that's beyond what I need, it's outside of my range. Schroers: I agree with that. It doesn't even make good sense to me to build a nice trail along that road. I think what we need to do, we do need something to happen there in the immediate future and we should look at maybe another way of getting it accomplished. I'm wondering if the City has any options or anyway of applying to the State or to the Federal government for improvements on roadways when they don't have funds readily available. Mady: They've already pledged the State The Council did that about 2 months ago. City's going to get for the next 2 years are going to be built. Aid money for the next 2 years. All the State Aid money that the is already pledged to roads that Watson: Creek. Lake Lucy Road where we did get a trail and they went to Bluff It's not that the use of those funds haven't improved the system. ,.... Sietsema: We do get State and Federal funds and they are being used but they're not allocated to go on these, on Minnewashta in the near future. Schroers: I would want to research that a little bit and find out if there is a way that Minnewashta can be a priority. Park and Recreation Commission Meeting November 22, 1988 - Page 28 .."" Mady: I guess I'm disagreeing with you guys in that I don't really care about the roadway. If the residents don't want to pay to have the roadway improved, that's fine. They're the people who have to drive up and down it but to get the kids off the street, we can do something about that. We do have funding sources available to do something about that. If we put a nice trail next to a crumbling roadway, well, so the road's crumbling. Schroers: As Park and Rec, could we do something in the way of a grant, we call it Minnewashta Parkway but can we apply for some kind of a grant to make it a parkway? Do the street improvement with the plantings in the middle somehow making us eligible for that type of a grant? sietsema: There's not enough room for a boulevard down the middle of that. There is enough room for the existing road and a bump in the road and 5 foot trail next to it and that's all that road right-of-way width, that's all we've got. Hasek: How wide is that? That's not 69 foot is it? Is it 49? Sietsema: It's bigger than we thought. With the topography in different places, we can meander more than that but in some places that's exactly what it's going to be. I think it is a 69 foot right-of-way. Boyt: If they put a new road in in 5 to 19 years and if they damage our trail when they're doing it, wouldn't there be responsibility to fix that trail? -" Sietsema: Right. If we put it in next year, it would probably need to be repaired or replaced in the next 7 to 19 years anyway. Hasek: Tell me, just run through a quick number here to see what's going on. We're guessing $19,999.99 for a survey and I don't think that that's far off at all. What did you figure for trails normally per mile? Is it $29,999.99? Let's assume the worse case scenario. That would be a mile and a half, a little more than that, so we'll say $69,999.99 to build that. How about acquisition? We don't have dedicated trailway in there so we'd have to buy the property. Sietsema: We should be able to get it within the right-of-way. It's 69 foot right-of-way I'm pretty sure but you've got some barriers in there. You can get as much right-of-way adjacent to it as you want but without mowing down big trees or filling in a big pond or part of Lake Minnewashta, you're not going to get it in there. Hasek: The part that I'm thinking about is.I guess adjacent to the lake there. Right from probably a quarter, not even that, an eighth of a mile north of... Sietsema: It's going to have to go on the other side from the lake. -' Hasek: Then I know you've got...because those trees that are there are on the right of the property and there's no way that you've got any road, Park and Recreation Commission Meeting ~ November 22, 1988 - Page 29 there's only 6 feet between the edge of the road and those trees at that point. That's what I'm saying. That road is climbing that hill or it's dropping down that hill and I don't think that road is, I think it's close to the center of that right-of-way and there's no way you can build on the side of the hill. Let's just figure it will cost us $199,990.90 to put that trail in down along Lake Minnewashta. That works out to approximately $100.90 per voting household. No, per voter so it could be as much as $200.00 per household from people who want us to reduce taxes. Robinson: Good luck. Hasek: How can you say that to the people who don't want this as well as the people who do and expect them to say yes, I want them? It's just impractical. Sietsema: No, I don't think assessment is the answer but I mean if they all come in here and said they were willing to pay it. Mady: But we don't know anything right now. That's all I was saying. ,.... Hasek: I think you're right. Even thought I've got that reaction I think they'll be eager to come in. Mady: Just point them out. Here's the problem. Here's our concerns. Maybe we need to have them form their own task force so they can investigate to see how they can get it done and come back to us or back to Council. I'll make the motion that we hold a public hearing on the feasibility of Minnewashta Parkway to investigate the public's support on a Minnewashta Parkway trail. Let them know that we have at this point in time probably no way of doing it but we recognize the need and working can get it done. Mady moved, Hasek seconded that the Park and Recreation Commission hold a public hearing to investigage the public's support on the feasibility of putting a trail along Minnewashta Parkway. All voted in favor and the motion carried. Boyt: When we're talking about public meetings, I was asked by a resident of southern Chan if we had discussed that in terms of park acquisition in southern Chanhassen. They would like some input on parks. Parkland. Where it is. What use it has so we might want to look at having a public hearing on the southern area. Sietsema: I definitely see that happening too. I have not contacted even the landowners yet of what we talked about last time so when we get more information, so we have some options. ,.... Boyt: It sounds like they have some ideas too about pieces of property. Watson: Lori, in that article in the Sailor that talks about the boat access on Lake Lucy, what is the timeframe for the public hearings on Park and Recreation Commission Meeting November 22, 1988 - Page 30 -' that? Sietsema: We talked about that last time. I have it on the agenda to update on that if you want to just wait. Watson: Yes, I just read that article. COMMISSION APPOINTMENT PROCEDURE. Sietsema: The next item on the agenda is Commission appointment procedure and that was just to let you know what... Watson: That you're advertising and...December. Boyt: I have some sample questions and some sample criteria. When are we going to discuss that? Sietsema: We can right now if you want. Mady: I was hoping we could do that at our next meeting so everybody would know we should start thinking about that. His appointment is up in January so... ...,; Watson: That gives us some time to think about what. Robinson: Do I have to reapply Lori? Sietsema: Yes. Robinson: A formal application. Okay. Mady: You have to be interviewed too. Watson: He doesn't have to fill out an application. Sietsema: No, I can pull your old application but unless you want to update it. So you want me to put something on the agenda for establishing criteria and guidelines for selection? Mady: Yes, so when we interview candidates we should have a set thing that we ask everybody. Boyt: I have something else. This is about Park and Rec sponsored activities like Octoberfest and the 4th of July. If we're going to be included in working on those, I would like to have input into what is going to happen here. I felt like we were manipulating the 4th of July bv someone e1 se and we didn't have information where it was going to be or .. what was going to happen. Octoberfest, there were a number of us that ~ worked pretty hard there and that money went to the city staff fund which is a nice fund but should we be working there if it's not a park and rec activity? It's a city activity. We put a lot of hours into that. Park and Recreation Commission Meeting November 22, 1988 - Page 31 ,.... Mady: I've also got on the school thing, the Halloween party, the firemen got a nice little pat on the back but we didn't hear or see anything for the Park and Rec. Watson: You're right. The firemen were so helpful. Sietsema: In what? Mady: In the Halloween party. Boyt: In the newspaper they thanked the city staff and the fire department for the great party. Sietsema: Who did? Boyt: The newspaper. Mady: It just seems like, the Fire Department gets a lot of pats on the back and this is a question that I didn't even have on here. I've been hearing a little bit of rumblings in the City of installing a firehall racketball court. People lining up in town to fill all their open spaces who are friends of firemen. I want to find out about that a little bit. ,.... Sietsema: Call Jim. That's not a Park and Rec issue. You can call the Public Safety Director and find out about it. I don't know a thing about it. Mady: I'm hearing things on why they're trying to take .up all the time and now wait a minute, if they're going to do something, opening it up to firemen, they better...otherwise we've got enough things going on in the city to worry about. Boyt: Have you gotten 30 applications in yet Lori? Sietsema: No. Mady: I have a couple other things. Ed asked for an update on the Lake Ann grading plan so I asked Lori to bring that along. Hasek: How's that coming? Sietsema: I talked to Lori this week and they are working on the grading plan. We should be seeing it in our first meeting in January. We'll see the grading plan. This is just what you saw in your packets when we approved the site plan. The first page is just a blob drawing of where different activities would go and then the second one is what we actually approved. The major change in that from what we had looked at before is ,.... moving the soccer field off of TH 5 over to the side there. The reason that that was done is because Lori really felt that our current entrance into Lake Ann with that berm, you drive in and that berm just buffers you in there so you feel like you're away from everything. You don't hear traffic. You don't see traffic. You're in the park and you're away from Park and Recreation Commission Meeting November 22, 1988 - Page 32 ...,." all of those intrusions. That was a nice, beautiful feature and she was really relunctant to taking that out for a soccer field. Since it fit in over in the elbow of that right-of-way, she thought that was appropriate to put it there. Mady: So you guys are aware, from the Community Center Task Force, one of the members there has been really pushing for having this thing built on the Lake Ann Park as it exists even though there are problems with no sewer being available for another 10 years. He wanted to see us move all fields and everything down toward the lake in that wooded area. We tried as best we could to explain to him that's not really a feasible option. We keep hearing comments out there about why don't we do this or that. We do have some people who don't quite understand what the Lake Ann Park is. Okay. A question Lori, on the City Center Park play equipment, have we gotten any contract from APT as to some indication that they will put $10,000.00 towards the play equipment being... Sietsema: They're talking about it a lot and that they've heard rumors that Park and Rec has budgeted some money but nobody's contacted me and I haven't contacted anybody over there yet. Boyt: We don't know where it's going to go yet. Sietsema: That was just the point is that if the Community Center is ...,." built on that site, it would have a big bearing on where that would go. Mady: I think we need to contact them and find out what in the world they're trying to do. If there's $10,000.00 worth of equipment, we all know how much that buys. Boyt: They would like to work with us. Mady: land. We need to get heads together on that. Have you gotten anything? You mentioned the Carrico Sietsema: We got the appraisal back today and I haven't looked at the two separate pieces very closely. I'll put that on the next agenda. Boyt: Has anything been done about Mike's... Sietsema: I believe it's on order but it takes quite a while. Mady: So we won't get it until... Boyt: Until the new Council is seated? Sietsema: I'll have to check on it. I don't know if it's going to be in by the 12th or not and that's the last Council meeting. Boyt: I would still like to host something afterwards. --' Mady: year. Two other things I had. We're getting close to the first of the We have to start thinking about goals and objectives for the next Park and Recreation Commission Meeting November 22, 1988 - Page 33 ,...., year. What we'd like to see us have done that with our budget. the last meeting in December to year. accomplish in the next year. We kind of We should start thinking about that maybe figure out where we want to head next Sietsema: There will only be one meeting in December unless you want to meet Christmas week but I won't be here. Watson: Can we change the date of the meeting? Sietsema: You mean the 13th? Boyt: Well, the 13th is fine. Robinson: Lori, would it be helpful to put something like this in the paper? Would that be informative to people and give them a little update on Lake Ann? Boyt: Mary Durben asked for information from the Park and Rec. She said she would like to start covering it. ,...., Mady: That was an idea I had over the weekend was the possibility of maybe like once a month the Chair or somebody should write a letter to the citizens and have it posted in the paper saying, here's what happened in the Park and Rec over the last month. On the community center thing, there's still a lot of people talking about Lake Ann Park. Watson: As a good place to put it. Mady: I had to point out to a couple individuals that one, the voters in this town already approved redoing of Lake Ann Park. How do you now take all that money away from doing that? Sietsema: Council can do that. Just because the voters approved it doesn't mean the Council has to spend it. Mady: The last thing I had on here, something does from time to time and that is to have the floating chair between Ladd and Steve Emmings. guys doing that if that's something. the Planning Commission Chair position is kind of a I just wanted to see you Boyt: I'd like to see it rotate between everyone on the Commission myself. Mady: I don't mind. Boyt: We could get a different flavor to each meeting. .~ Watson: It would certainly be a different flavor but do we need it? Sietsema: I'll let you guys work that out. If you want to talk about that before each meeting or whatever. I don't care. I don't think that's something that planning staff schedules or anything. Park and Recreation Commission Meeting November 22, 1988 - Page 34 --' Mady: No, but it's something that whoever the next chair is going to be, should know before the meeting so they can get some ideas and thoughts together. Sietsema: Did you want to make a motion on that? Mady: I just want some input. Hasek: I think that's fine. Mady: Do you want to do that alphabetically? Hasek: I think you should know before the meeting but I don't think you should know anymore in advance. It seems to me like it would be real easy, think about Council for example, if you're sitting on the Council and you had the opportunity to chair the meeting, which issues that you'd want to be on that agenda or at least try to pop them in? I think if you know the week beforehand, or just the meeting beforehand just decide. Mady: Yes, the meeting beforehand. Who hasn't done it yet and who's next? Sietsema: But I don't think that if you're not comfortable being a chaiI-, that you should have to be. Hasek: That's why we can put a schedule together. Boyt: We might as well try it once. Sietsema: At the last meeting I talked about the Lake Riley chain of lakes clean-up project and that everything was on hold until this big magical meeting was held. To give you the history, evidentally, the whole project is a grant project. A federal grant project. It's a million dollar project that the federal, let's see, it's PCA, Pollution Control Agency is funding and the local unit is the Watershed District. Watershed District has asked Eden prairie and Chanhassen to participate in some of the funding which would be for developing the work plan so we have kicked in about $10,000.00 each to do this work plan and the PCA is paying the rest. The actual work that's going to be done is going to be done by DNR so the feds are paying $500,000.00 and the DNR is paying $500,000.00. Eden prairie, Watershed and Chanhassen are paying about $10,000.00. They met and got things going in January. The biggest thing that had to be done was this substate agreement. In the meantime, DNR and PCA said that they can't do any work or any rehabilitation on any lake that doesn't have public access. So that meant they had to corne back to Chanhassen and request us to put access on Lake Susan and Lake Lucy. I met with those people in June and we got commitment from the City Council that yes, they would indeed commit to the project by putting access on Lake Lucy and Lak~ Susan and we got the grant for Lake Susan so we're halfway there. We then held the one public hearing for the Lake Lucy access but we never got the grant, the substate agreement back from PCA or actually the state level "" Park and Recreation Commission Meeting November 22, 1988 - Page 35 which is EPA, that said we do indeed have the grant, or Watershed has gotten approval for this. They couldn't go ahead with the work plan until they know that they have the grant. I wasn't going to hold more public hearings and rattle everybody's chain and get them all riled up if we didn't get the grant so I didn't have to have access. PCA meanwhile contacts EPA and says there's been no activity on this since January. Spend the money somewhere else or give it back to us. So they held this big meeting last week with all of the people who were involved and it turns out that EPA, the State level has been sitting on the substate agreement because they've had other projects that have been on the front burner and they put ours on the back burner. They have to let them know by the 30th of November how they're going to spend all this money and they're not going to be able to do it. So, what they're going to do is give the money back, or allocate the money to other projects in the hope that they get refunded in 1989 for this million project. So it's still up in the air. Hasek: Where does the responsibility for the failure of this thing lie? With the EPA or our inability to get an access? ,....., Sietsema: EPA. Because they got all the information. They said we need to know where you're going to have access and we need to know it by November 1st. I said there's no way that I can tell you on Lake Susan or on Lake Lucy where and when we're going to have access by November 1st. First of all it's going to take a lot of public hearings. I don't know if I've got LAWCON grant approval. There's a number of steps that I've got to go through. I can get commitment that we will pursue access but I can't tell you all the details. So I sent them a schedule of our public hearings. Of the LAWCON process and the whole thing. They evidentally have some problems with our schedule and they don't know if that commitment is binding enough for them to allocate the money but they never told me. That was last week when I went to that meeting was the first I heard that there was a problem with the schedule. So they've been sitting on it and it may jeopardize the whole thing but the bottom line is, is that they've allocated the $50,000.00 to do the work plan and they're going to put the money into other projects and hope that it gets all approved so they can do the project in 1989. It looks like that is a likely think to happen but it's not guaranteed. So we really don't know for sure if the whole project is funded until January 17th. Watson: So we won't be doing any public hearings on Lake Lucy until after that time? If this is the only catalyst is to have accesses on Susan and Lucy, than we don't need to worry about it until after that. If the access is going to be an issue regardless of whether this other... Sietsema: No. See there's no way that I feel we should pursue access on Lake Lucy if this grant isn't approved. I told them that. I said flat out, I'm not going to pursue this any further until I know that you've got ~ a grant and we have to have it because it's a small lake and it doesn't need an access except for you guys to go in there and kill all the fish and restock it. But I do have to go through the process enough if the LAWCON deadline is pushed up. Park and Recreation Commission Meeting November 22, 1988 - Page 36 ....."" Hasek: Am I to understand that the City Council gave approval to pursue access and this whole project? Sietsema: Yes, and we had a public hearing on that. Hasek: When you had the public hearing it basically told us that we didn't want, the people didn't want it. Right? Mady: The people who lived around the lake didn't necessarily want it. They didn't know where it should go and they didn't know about the fact that...didn't understand how anyone who ran for City Council could make that comment when there was only one person who ran in the election this last time, outside of the current people who are on the city commissions, who has even been to one of our meetings. How would they even know how they operate? Sietsema: Don Chmiel has been. Mady: He's the only one. He was the only one who ran, he was the only one who's been here. None of the other people who ran, not just the people who ran were attuned to our needs yet they made those comments about communication and not being open to the people in the community. Watson: That's election rhetoric. It happens. It goes along with... ..."" Mady: But I'm just saying... Hasek: I think that some of the people that are elected are going to be rudely awakened. Mady: It really bothered me. I know I'm on record right now but it really bothered me when Tom Workman said in the paper, in the Villager and his comment was "throw the bums out". He said it twice now in the paper and he says well, maybe that's not him saying it but when the man says it twice, there's something up here in his head and I think he should be in these chambers 3 or 4 months in a row and find out what it's like to be under the gun sometimes. I think he's going to change because we're not bums up here. I don't know a commissioner in this or a councilmember who doesn't do the best job he thinks he can do. We don't always agree. We don't always agree with the Council and the Council doesn't always agree with us but everyone of us is giving at least 199% every time we're up here. . Watson: I think the fascinating thing too is it doesn't matter who you are, you are one vote. You never get your...and it's almost like there's this feeling that once you get here you've sudden1y...you're one vote. You never get anymore or any less. Mady moved, Watson seconded to adjourn the meeting. All voted in favor and the motion carried. The meeting was adjourned. -' Submitted by Lori Sietsema Park and Recreation Coordinator Prepared by Nann Opheim