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HomeMy Public PortalAbout12/05/00 CCM259 MEDINA CITY COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES OF DECEMBER 5, 2000 The City Council of Medina, Minnesota met in regular session on December 5, 2000 at 7:30 p.m. in the City Hall Chambers. Mayor John Ferris presided. Members present: Ferris, Lane, Johnson, and Zietlow. Members absent: Smith. Also present: Attorney Ron Batty, Public Works Director Jim Dillman, City Engineer Tom Kellogg, Planning & Zoning Administrator Loren Kohnen, and Administrator Clerk -Treasurer Paul Robinson. 1. Additions to the Agenda A. Truth in taxation. B. Pull item 7A4, releasing the final letter of credit for Regency Estates. Moved by Phil Zietlow, seconded by Jim Johnson, to approve the agenda as amended. Motion passed unanimously. 2. Approval of the Minutes from October 3, 2000, October 17, 2000, October 25, 2000 and November 8, 2000 The only correction was that Tom Kellogg was present not Glenn Cook as City Engineer. Moved by Jim Johnson, seconded by Phil Zietlow, to approve all four sets of the minutes as amended. Motion passed unanimously. 3. Consent Agenda A. Plat / Lot Combination, 1495 Medina Road, Derrick Wetterstrom/Schutrop Homes. Moved by Phil Zietlow, seconded by Jim Johnson, to approve the Consent Agenda. Motion passed unanimously. 4. Comments from Residents in Attendance on Items Not on the Agenda Bruce Jondahl of 75 Navajo East said he was here this evening to support the Brockton Lane project. He would like it to be budgeted for and completed next year. Phil Zietlow said that right now they don't have a date to move ahead with this project. Jim Dillman said that what they are doing is that they are talking to the people about the design of the road and putting together a public information meeting on the road. 5. Park Commission Comments There were none. 6. Planning Commission Comments There were none. 7. Lighting Ordinance Pat Hunt said they made a number of changes to the lighting ordinance since the previous draft and there are a number of issues that she needs some clarification on. One is the curfews, Medina City Council Meeting Minutes December 5, 2000 260 another deals with the glass -enclosed area, signs, some definition issues, as well as when review of the plan documents would take place. She said this draft includes a different curfew set up for both the residential and commercial areas. Jim Johnson asked what would happen for a business that operated 24 hours. Pat Hunt said that if it is operational, then they would be allowed to keep their lights on. There was some discussion about curfews in the residential areas and some confusion about the choice of times. Pat Hunt said that was somewhat of an arbitrary choice, but she thought it would be a good starting point. There was some discussion about whether or not there should be curfews for monument entrances. The Council thought that would be an acceptable exception from the curfew. Phil Zietlow asked if there would be a public hearing for approval of this ordinance. Ron Batty said if it is part of the zoning ordinance, there would have to be. There was some question about how this ordinance would be enforced. Pat Hunt believed that it would be enforced by complaint. There was some concern by Council members about active enforcement of this ordinance. There was some discussion about display lights versus security lights. Pat Hunt said that there are different classifications of lights. Class 1 would include security. Class 2 and 3 would include lights that would be adding color or decoration. There was some discussion about the Glass Enclosures section. Ron Batty was going to check and see if a greenhouse would be exempted. However, the idea was that greenhouses would be included in the regulations if they had over 10,000 square feet of glassed in area. The concern was to make sure that Medina does not end up with a Bush Garden commercial greenhouse complex. There was a desire to include a definition of sky glow added in the ordinance. Phil Zietlow thought the way that the ordinance was currently written, it would be tough to have a zero tolerance type of enforcement. He did not know if the current draft was reasonable. Ron Batty said this draft of the ordinance was an attempt to give the Council something to think about. He said staff was looking for some kind of approval so that we could work on a final draft. Before that can be done, more time needed to be taken to consider the ramifications of the various regulations. Medina City Council Meeting Minutes December 5, 2000 261 There was some discussion, about the current sign ordinance and how that related to the lighting ordinance. Ron Batty said he did not believe the City could regulate the types of lights that could be sold within the City. That provision was to be taken out of the ordinance. There was some additional discussion about enforcement. Loren Kohnen was directed to consider the time involved in enforcing the ordinance. There was also some discussion about the site plan requirements and whether or not this requirement may be too onerous for residential properties. The Council requested a map showing the different zones E-1, E-2, E-3, and E-4. After some additional discussion, Staff was directed to take it to the Planning Commission for their review. 8. Wild Meadows Development Agreement Dave Newman said he would like to respond to the City Council's previous decision to charge 10% of the value of the property for a park dedication fee. Staff went through some of the examples of park dedication fees that they had found in the area, and the history of park dedication fees. Robinson said that there was some fluctuation in the amount that the City has charged over time based on the City's policy, and there are a variety of policies that are used by the surrounding cities. Dave Newman spoke to the Council regarding their situation. In the end, he believed that a 5% park dedication fee, which would provide $3,300 per lot, would still be in the upper end of park dedication fees charged within the metropolitan area. There was some discussion by the Council about the impact of park dedication fees and whether park dedication fees should be done on a per lot basis instead of a percentage of the land value. Some thought that 5% of value of the property may not necessarily recoup enough park fee revenue to off -set the impacts on the park system. They thought a flat $3,3000 per lot may be better. There was some discussion about the amount of credit that would be given for the park trail. The developers purchased the park property for $30,000 per acre and were asking for a credit of $30,000 per acre. There were approximately 3.49 acres of property that would go to the trail or around a $120,000 credit for the developers. There was some discussion about the upgrade to County Road 101 and impact on those improvements on the development. Dave Newman said that the County agreed to have CR 101 upgraded from TH 55 to Evergreen Road by next year and complete the portion from Evergreen to Hackamore before April 2002. The final lift was to be done by Labor Day, 2002. Medina City Council Meeting Minutes December 5, 2000 262 Moved by Jim Johnson, seconded by Carolyn Smith, to charge $3,300 per lot for a park dedication fee and credit the developer 30,000 an acre for any property dedicated as trail on the perimeter of property. Motion passed unanimously. 9. Prosecution Fees and an Update on Prosecution from Steve Tallen Steve Tallen said that it has been a fairly quiet year. He said fine revenues are up dramatically from a few years ago now that the department is at full strength with a lot of hard working, dedicated officers. He believed that over the past year, fine revenue was around $130,000. He said court fees were $19,000, and prosecution fees were $40,000. That is higher than they were in the previous years, however, not significantly higher considering the additional amount of fine revenue and workload. Tallen discussed some of the appeals that were pending that the Council had given him approval to work on. He said that there is a building trend now, that more and more people are appealing their decisions. There are more and more DWI appeals. He said that many of the residents in this area do to hire an attorney and appeal. He said this means that cases are taking longer and this, in turn, is increasing the cost. He said that he is requesting approximately a 3.4% increase in his fee to $92.50. He said that is just keeping up with inflation, increased cost of health coverage, and additional administrative work. There was some discussion about creating a contract between the City and himself. He said that he could draft sort of a letter of understanding between the City and the prosecutor. He said that he does that with some cities and not with others. He said basically his service could be terminated at any point. He believed that was as important a motivator as a contract. There was some additional discussion about the trends in law enforcement and in prosecution and some of the changes that are occurring with judges. Moved by Jim Johnson, seconded by Phil Zietlow, to approve an increase to $92.50 an hour for the City Prosecutor for 2001. Motion passed unanimously. 10. Personnel Policy Updates — Merit Pay Robinson said after looking at some of the merit pay issues and personnel issues, it looked like it would be more cost effective to hire someone who does this for a living, someone who could also update the job descriptions that have changed over the past two to three years, as well as, update the personnel policy to be more current with current law and practice and incorporate recent changes. Robinson said, therefore, Paul Ness was here this evening to make a presentation on those issues and to explain his proposal for this work. Paul Ness said he divided up his bid into three separate proposals that could be taken in any combination or all together. He said his review would be based on using comments the City has already received from Kennedy & Graven and working with the employees of the City to do some of the editing and formatting of the documents. He said he would be focusing on the requirements of the FMLA. He explained that the personnel policy update would be a basic update. Medina City Council Meeting Minutes December 5, 2000 263 The next bid was for job analysis. He said this would entail sitting down and interviewing the three positions that were being revised. He said, for example, a full job analysis and compensation study would typically cost between $3,500 and $5,000. Since he is charging around $1,500, this is not a full fledged analysis, but will fill in the pieces that need to be addressed. He said he will also provide a quick job evaluation and conduct a brief compensation study to see where Medina is for compensation in comparison to the market. The last issue which caused Paul to call him in the first place was to create a performance management merit pay system. One that was simple and easy to administer, but will hold up if challenged. There was some discussion and questions for Mr. Ness. Moved by Jim Lane, seconded by Jim Johnson, to approve Items A-C for a total of $4,445.75. Motion passed unanimously. There was some discussion about what could be done for the upcoming year since a merit pay system would not be in place. Paul Ness said that with a letter describing the reason for the merit pay, it may be possible to give some merit pay increase for the person who had taken charge of the public works department in the absence of the public works director. Ron Batty said that Jim has provided a letter and some background for that purpose. 11. Comprehensive Plan Implementation Issues Bill Thibault listed his proposals for implementing portions of the Comprehensive Plan. He said he was asked to give a bid for what it would cost to review and mark up the current ordinances and note all of the changes and inconsistencies that were existing previous to the new ordinances which have been created by the adoption of the new ordinances. The next part of the proposal was to identify all the critical issues that would need to be addressed by the Council that have been identified as a part of mark up. A third part concerned correcting all of the ordinances. He said it is difficult to gauge the amount of work involved in this, however, this is the most critical part and could take quite a bit of work. The next part of the bid included making additional revisions in other sections of the ordinance, such as the performance standards, shoreland administration, driveway, and a number of the other ordinances. The last issue concerned establishing a checklist for processing zoning and land use applications. Jim Lane thought that a large part of drafting the ordinances involved a knowledge of the laws and some legal background. He thought it might be best to have the City Attorney make those corrections and fix the inconsistencies in the ordinances. Medina City Council Meeting Minutes December 5, 2000 264 Ron Batty said that was something they could do. He said this is an extensive project that is going to take a lot of time. He said for background, a number of these changes, as Bill had mentioned, have come about because of the adoption of the new Comprehensive Plan and the implementation of the new ordinances. There was some discussion about a number of the ordinances that may have issues. Batty said there are issues in the lighting, driveway, floodplain, sub -division, and many others. Phil Zietlow thought it was premature to start fixing ordinances before we have adopted all of the proposed new ordinances. He would rather wait. Ron Batty said he thought that what Bill was going to do first was to separate issues between those which need to be addressed immediately and those that could wait. There was some discussion about the checklist. Most agreed that some type of checklist for processing land use applications would be good. However, the Council wanted to wait awhile before going forward with creating one. Most felt it could be done in-house. Moved by Jim Lane, seconded by Phil Zietlow, to have Bill Thibault provide the review and mark up of the ordinances or select items one and two. After these are done, the City Attorney was directed to implement the changes in the ordinances. Motion passed unanimously. 12. Review of the 2001 Preliminary Budget for the Special Revenue, Debt Service, Capital Improvement and Enterprise Funds Robinson went through the various funds and updated the Council on any changes. He said overall there were no significant issues in the budget. Moved by Phil Zietlow, seconded by Jim Lane, to approve the draft of the 2001 Budget for the Special Revenue Funds, Debt Service, Capital Improvement, and Enterprise Funds. Motion passed unanimously. 13. 2001 Contribution Budget Paul Robinson presented the contributions requested for 2001, and the recommended 2001 contributions. Moved by Phil Zietlow, seconded by Jim Lane, to approve the contributions as presented. Motion passed unanimously. 14. Road Assessment Policy Jim Dillman said that he provided the Council with the basic outline for how the City has been assessing road improvements recently, and was providing this to the Council as a general outline for a policy that they could adopt for how roads are assessed. There was some discussion about the policy. Overall, the Council agreed that it seemed to be consistent with past practice. Moved by Phil Zietlow, seconded by Jim Johnson, to approve the road assessment policy as presented. Motion passed unanimously. Medina City Council Meeting Minutes December 5, 2000 265 14. Traffic Study Jim Dillman said as a part of the recent proposal for development on the Bendickson property, a number of issues have been raised regarding traffic in the area. These concern access points to the Bendickson property, but also concern traffic at the intersection of 55 and 101, future frontage roads, and access roads for traffic, both in Plymouth and in the Medina. Tom Kellogg said the cost of the traffic study would be $9,300. He said the Cudd Development Company would be willing to pay for the cost of the study as a part of their plat review. There was some discussion about the traffic issues to be addressed as a part of the study. In the end it was decided to authorize staff to proceed with the traffic study analysis for the area with the idea that it be paid for by the Cudd Development Company. 15. Sewer and Water Area Charges Tom Kellogg said he is updating a letter from a year and a half -ago regarding trunk area charges for the various sewer districts. He said for this year they increased the cost by the construction cost index. However, there may need to be some additional adjustment over the long term. Jim Dillman said that they are going to have Bonestroo, as a part of the looking at the overall City's capital improvements, look at the amount needed for the trunk area charges. It looks like the charges may be too low in the water fund in certain areas. Moved by Jim Johnson, seconded Phil Zietlow, to approve the rates as proposed for 2001. Motion passed unanimously. 16. Change Order for the Holy Name Sanitary Sewer Project Tom Kellogg said there are some minor adjustments in the work needed for the Holy Name Sewer Project. The outcome is an actual deduction of $2,600 from the total project cost. Moved by Phil Zietlow, seconded by Jim Johnson, to approve the change order. Motion passed unanimously. 17. Truth in Taxation Hearing Paul Robinson said there was not a quorum of Council members present for the initial Truth in Taxation hearing. Therefore, a continuation hearing will need to take place. He said the continuation hearing was scheduled for December 11, 2000. Moved by Jim Johnson, seconded by Phil Zietlow, to hold the continuation hearing on December 11, 2000 at 7:00 p.m. Motion passed unanimously. 18. Pay the Bills Moved by John Ferris, seconded by Jim Johnson, to approve the bills, order check numbers 21747-21795 for $80,061.47, and payroll check numbers 16852-16873 for $20,215.88. Motion passed unanimously. Medina City Council Meeting Minutes December 5, 2000 266 19. Adjournment Moved by Jim Johnson, seconded by John Ferris, to adjourn the meeting at 11:20 p.m. Motion passed unanimously. John B. Ferris, Mayor At Paul Robinson, Administrator Clerk -Treasurer Medina City Council Meeting Minutes December 5, 2000 267 ORDER CHECKS - DECEMBER 5, 2000 21747 ANDERSON, EARL F. $604.97 21748 ASPEN ENVIRONMENTAL $59.59 21749 AWWA $105.75 21750 BUDGET PRINTING $750.04 21751 CHRISTENSON, JEREMY $11.77 21752 CLASSIC CLEANING $459.02 21753 CROW RIVER NEWS $22.60 21754 DELTA DENTAL $752.05 21755 E-Z-RECYCLING $2,552.22 21756 EAKMAN, ROBERT $270.00 21757 FORTIS BENEFITS $266.14 21758 GOPHER STATE ONE CALL $259.20 21759 HAMEL FIRE DEPT. $18,499.00 21760 HUGHES, RANDALL $400.00 21761 IMS MINNESOTA $350.00 21762 KENNEDY & GRAVEN $7,784.18 21763 LAW ENFORCEMENT LABOR SERVICES $132.00 21764 LORETTO FIRE DEPT. $9,991.25 21765 MAPLE PLAIN FIRE DEPT $700.00 21766 MEDICA $226.20 21767 MEDICA CHOICE $5,619.96 21768 METROCALL $88.21 21769 METROPOLITAN COUNCIL WASTEWTR $1,089.00 21770 MID-AMERICAN SPECIALTIES, INC. $250.90 21771 MINNEGASCO $331.65 21772 MINNESOTA CHILD SUPP. PYT.CTR. $630.00 21773 MINNESOTA CONWAY $44.50 21774 MINNESOTA DEPT. OF HEALTH $653.00 21775 MOTHERS MOTORS/LORETTO TOWING $14.00 21776 NELSON, JASON $16.00 21777 OLSEN CHAIN & CABLE $300.54 21778 ORCHARD TRUST CO $880.00 21779 PRUDENTIAL INSURANCE CO. OF AM $140.30 21780 QUINLAN PUBLISHING GROUP $89.00 21781 QW EST $475.09 21782 RANDY'S SANITATION $120.89 21783 ROYAL CONCRETE PIPE $1,195.52 21784 ST. PAUL STAMP WORKS $14.43 21785 STO-COTE PRODUCTS, INC. $223.72 21786 STREICHER'S $2,719.98 21787 SUPERIOR FORD $241.29 21788 TOWN & CO. FENCE $10,750.00 21789 VALVOLINE FLEET SERVICES $53.14 21790 VIEAU, CEC $31.55 Medina City Council Meeting Minutes December 5, 2000 268 ORDER CHECKS - DECEMBER 5, 2000 (CONT'D) 21791 WESTSIDE WHOLESALE TIRE $191.95 21792 WRIGHT-HENNEPIN ELECTRIC $1,223.48 21793 XCEL ENERGY $2,440.58 21794 XEROX CORPORATION $2,330.00 21795 P.E.R.A. $3,706.81 $80,061.47 PAYROLL CHECKS - DECEMBER 4, 2000 16852 SMITH, CAROLYN A. $138.52 16853 FERRIS, JOHN B $207.79 16854 ZIETLOW, PHILIP K. $138.52 16855 JOHNSON, JAMES R. $138.52 16856 ROBINSON, PAUL A. $1,106.39 16857 SCHERER, STEVEN T. $1,069.62 16858 MCGILL, CHRISTOPHER R. $1,424.17 16859 ROUILLARD, MICHAEL J $1,699.85 16860 DILLMAN, JAMES D. $1,548.34 16861 DRESSEL, ROBERT P. $966.46 16862 BELLAND, EDGAR J. $1,883.45 16863 VIEAU, CECILIA M. $933.63 16864 SULANDER, LAURA L $1,025.71 16865 LARSON, SANDRA L. $877.89 16866 BOECKER, KEVIN D. $345.51 16867 PRIEM, JON D. $1,447.42 16868 CHRISTENSON, JEREMY L. $1,699.68 16869 NYSTROM, JAMES $1,637.07 16870 LANE, JAMES S. $138.52 16871 NELSON, JASON $1,228.03 16872 LARSON, TODD A $501.29 16873 MIGNONE, CONNIE $59.50 $20,215.88 Medina City Council Meeting Minutes December 5, 2000