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HomeMy WebLinkAboutWK - September 22 2009 9 ' LN T Y O F p D0VE 1685 CROSSTOWN BOULEVARD N.W. • ANDOVER, MINNESOTA 55304 (763) 755 -5100 FAX (763) 755 -8923 • WWW.CI.AN DOVER. MN.US City Council Workshop Tuesday, September 22, 2009 Conference Rooms A & B 1. Call to Order — 6:00 p.m. 2. Community Tour 3. Community Center Update & 2010 Proposed Budget Presentation 4. Discuss Hawkridge Park/09 -18 — Engineering 5. Discuss Andover Huskies Youth Hockey Association Letter 6. Single Family Residential Market Value Preservation Program Progress Report 7. 2010 Budget Development Progress Report - Administration 8. 2010 Special Revenue, Debt Service, Capital Project, Enterprise & Internal Service Funds Budget Presentation 9. 2010 -2014 Capital Improvement Plan Development Progress Report — Administration 10. Other Discussion 11. Closed Session - Open Space Negotiation — PID 07- 32 -24 -12 -0001 12. Adjournment C I T Y �� F ND OV E 1685 CROSSTOWN BOULEVARD N.W. e ANDOVER, MINNESOTA 55304 0 (763) 755 -5100 FAX (763) 755 -8923 • WWW.CI.ANDOVER.MN.US ANDOVER CITY COUNCIL WORKSHOP MEETING —SEPTEMBER 22, 2009 MINUTES The Workshop Meeting of the Andover City Council was called to order by Mayor Mike Gamache, September 22, 2009, 6:00 p.m., at the Andover City Hall, 1685 Crosstown Boulevard NW, Andover, Minnesota. Councilmembers present: Sheri Bukkila, Don Jacobson, Mike Knight, Julie Trude Councilmember absent: None Also present: Director of Public Works /City Engineer, Dave Berkowitz City Administrator, Jim Dickinson Community Development Director, Will Neumeister City Planner, Courtney Bednarz Others COMMUNITY TOUR The Andover City Council toured the City along with City Administrator, Jim Dickinson, Community Development Director, Will Neumeister, Director of Public Works /City Engineer, Dave Berkowitz and resident Winslow Holasek. First on the tour was Cardinal Ridge 2 nd Addition, formerly The Putnam Property. It was noted that one permit was pulled and the developer is going to try to save as many trees as possible. The Council also passed the location of the recent townhouse Woodland Development PUD amendment. Shaw's Glen Development was next on the tour. It was noted that Ben Minks purchased a majority of the lots and is building on them. One of the Parade of Homes houses was viewed from the outside and Mr. Dickinson thought the selling price was $279,000. Mr. Berkowitz stated in the CIP, Nightingale is slated to be reconstructed in a few years so they will need to determine access points along the road. Next on the tour was a home on 161 Avenue and Swallow Street. Mr. Neumeister reviewed the violations with the Council and indicated there are many cars and recreational vehicles on the property but none are in violation since they are operable, licensed and on an improved surface. It was noted there were a lot of weeds popping up by the vehicle tires and should be mowed. Councilmember Trude stated that grass was growing up around the cars and it did not look like that was part of the City Code. Councilmember Bukkila stated if it was mowed and maintained it might not be so bad. Councilmember Trude stated she also did not like the vehicles parked in the q Andover City Council Workshop Meeting Minutes — September 22, 2009 Page 2 backyard because they are visible from the street. It was noted a home on 178' Avenue had the same type of issues. The Council next toured Hughes Industrial Park and Mr. Neumeister stated the owners have started to clean up the area and have been mowing. He noted the Larson property is now in compliance as much as possible so the warrant will be removed. He also explained that Gilbertson Precast is in compliance because it is a pre- existing condition and was grandfathered in. Councilmember Trude thought the businesses needed to be clean because of the residential area close by. Mr. Dickinson stated this area was one hundred percent better than what it was a year ago. As the tour continued Mr. Neumeister noted "Affordable Movers" vans parked at a residence and indicated he thought the business was working out of the home which was a violation. He stated he talked to the owner who indicated they were moving the residents but they have been there for a while with other vehicles parked there during the day and the vans being gone. He explained every time the business is citied it moves to another part of the City. He stated staff will put them on notice to become compliant. The tour went to Hawkridge Park and Mr. Berkowitz stated the park needed a well for irrigation if the soccer fields are built. He stated they are laying the park out for soccer. Maintenance on the ball field has been minimal and has not been used much this year. He noted the ball field will be gone this fall. Mr. Berkowitz wondered if the Council had an opinion on if the hockey rink should remain. He stated he has met with Andover Hockey Association regarding this. He has also called the St. Francis Association but they have not returned his calls and have cancelled a meeting they were to attend. He did not think St. Francis would use the rink or invest in it if their project with Oak Grove progressed. Mr. Berkowitz noted that if the hockey rink were to remain the boards would need to be replaced and the rink would need to be relocated to a different location in the park. Councilmember Trude asked how large the park was. Mr. Berkowitz stated it is between 16 to 18 acres. Councilmember Trude suggested when the park is redone to locate the parking along the edge of the park to utilize more space and eliminate the long driveway. Mr. Berkowitz showed the Council the road reconstruction project that was done in the © Woodland Meadows development and noted they received good feedback on this and the restoration is better than what they had before. He stated the southern part of the neighborhood is slated to be reconstructed in 2010. Mr. Dickinson indicated the general vicinity of where the group home will be located in Country © Andover City Council Workshop Meeting Minutes —September 22, 2009 Page 3 Oaks West. The Council went by Prairie Knoll Park and discussed the parking on Prairie Road and possible reasons why the north parking lot is usually empty. They talked about possibly posting "No Parking" signs on Prairie Road for safety reasons. Mr. Dickinson showed the Council where the proposed cell tower placement will be within the park. He noted the residents' concerns will be addressed at the next Park Meeting. The Council drove by the Mike Smith property and it was noted semi trailers on the property need to be cleaned up. It was also noted that the abandoned home on University Avenue and Andover Boulevard will be demolished soon. Next on the tour was Shadowbrook Park. Mr. Berkowitz explained to the Council where the Clear Wire sites for wireless internet could be located behind the playground set and trees to hide it from view. Mr. Berkowitz stated the cell tower would be a monopole 120 feet high with collocation for multiple users. He explained the pole will be the same color as the fencing in the park. He explained they are looking at a total of five towers in the south part of the City where most of the population is located at. Mr. Dickinson noted it would not be brought into the northern part of the City since it would not be cost effective to bring it into rural areas of the city. The Council went to Andover Station South and looked at the pond. Mr. Neumeister asked the Council to take some time to try to vision what they would like done to the area. Councilmember Knight suggested they engage the business area to do more for the community. They could have kiosk pads with grass islands, a wandering path along the pond with eating areas and possibly some special events a couple times a year. He also suggested a farmers market. The Council viewed the WDE Landfill and was told there will be a pilot project at this site which will take the vapor gases out of the hazardous pit, condense it to a liquid form and hauled to a Wisconsin facility for recycling. The last stop on the tour was 149 where there was discussion about an intersection where an accident occurred with a car and bicyclist. Mr. Berkowitz explained residents want this to be a four way stop but he thought the problem was with the trees. He explained the trees needed to be trimmed back or removed because they create a site issue. He indicated this intersection does not meet warrants for a four way stop. He stated staff will contact the residents to have the trees trimmed or possibly removed. a The Council returned to City Hall at 7:35 p.m. where the workshop was continued. COMMUNITY CENTER UPDATE & 2010 PROPOSED BUDGET PRESENTATION © Andover City Council Workshop Meeting Minutes — September 22, 2009 Page 4 Mr. Erick Sutherland, Recreational Facilities Manager, Mr. Frank Kellogg, Community Center Advisory Commission Chair and Park Commission Chair and Community Center Advisory Commissioner Ted Butler were at the meeting. Mr. Sutherland updated the Council on the Community Center, planned events and the 2010 proposed budget. Councilmember Jacobson asked what Mr. Sutherland thought about the estimate for salaries and benefits for 2009 is $274,000 and estimated for 2010 is $286,000 and based on what is happening at City hall with layoffs and salary freezes, increasing salaries at the Community Center. Mr. Sutherland stated they are including outdoor concession staff in the budget and then will get moved out to the different parks. Mr. Dickinson stated overall they will see a salary benefit going down. Working with the Community Center relative to the furlough they are doing things differently there. They are working through scheduling and doing types of rescheduling in lieu of the furlough to achieve savings. Councilmember Knight stated as the numbers increase and if the supervision does not increase the City liability keeps going up. This concerns him. Mr. Kellogg stated they did look at other community centers in the area for comparisons. Their percentages are roughly ten to fifteen percent less daily than those facilities. Councilmember Trude stated when they look at the revenue projections it is on budget as compared to other City revenues. Councilmember Jacobson stated it was his understanding that when they took over the sales at Sunshine Park they had to purchase a lot of equipment and even with sales they came out negative. He wondered if the equipment will be paid for and will this help with the net income. Mr. Dickinson stated everything will be paid for in the first year and for next year they are projecting excess revenues. Those funds will be put back into the park. Both Mr. Sutherland and Mr. Dickinson expressed their disappointment relative to field scheduling at Andover Station North. The current scheduling is not conducive to generating concession sales. Park Commission Chair Butler stated that is something the Park Commission could look at for next year when the associations come to the Park Commission for scheduling of the fields. Councilmember Knight stated they have a supervision problem at the Community Center and Cindy is working on getting volunteers to help with this. Mayor Gamache stated on the field house the revenue on the Performa looked good but he © wondered from January through April it looked pretty well booked so the slow down time is the summer. He wondered if there were any ideas to get that last $15,000. Councilmember Trude stated she heard from someone at Fun Fest regarding tennis at the field house and she did not know they were equipped for this. Mr. Sutherland stated he did email the school about this and have not heard anything back. © Andover City Council Workshop Meeting Minutes — September 22, 2009 Page 5 Mr. Sutherland stated they already do the home show and he thought maybe they should identify other shows of some sort to host for extra revenue. Councilmember Bukkila suggested they could have one day where they could get all of the community based organizations together for an open house. Mr. Kellogg thought they hit a niche when they identified their field trips. This brings in a lot of revenue. Mayor Gamache asked if advertising struggles were still in the ice arena and field house. Mr. Sutherland stated that was correct. Mr. Tony Howard asked if the Community Center would be willing to offer free walking time in exchange for rink attendants. Mr. Sutherland stated they could work this out with them. Councilmember Knight thought it would be a good idea to get shirts for the volunteers to wear also. Councilmember Trude thought they could also work with the Lions Club for volunteering. Councilmember Trude stated if they will not be able to get volunteers she thought they will need to hire people for supervisors. She thought another option would be for every ten hours of free Q meeting room space they could get volunteer time. Councilmember Bukkila thought if they had people make a monetary deposit and if they volunteer they would get the money back. DISCUSS IIAWKRIDGE PARK109 -18 Mr. Berkowitz updated the Council on Hawkridge Park. Mr. Berkowitz wondered what the Council wanted to do with the hockey rink. Council previously stated they wanted to keep the hockey rink there for this year. They have made several attempts to contact the St. Francis Hockey Association and they have not had any calls returned along with a cancelled meeting by St. Francis. He noted St. Francis is working with Oak Grove on a facility and they may not need the hockey rink at Hawkridge Park if this happens. Councilmember Trude thought the approach they needed to take was what the residents in the community needs. She thought they might want to look at removing Crooked Lake School rinks because the school is slated to close if needed. Mr. Howard stated they use the rink three days a week but the open skate is not used as often. Mr. Berkowitz stated North Metro wants to see a layout and cost estimates before they go forward. © He stated an irrigation system will need to be placed in the park to make this work. Mr. Howard stated they hoped to get the hockey rink by City Hall ready for use next winter. He stated they had a lot of problems with grading and the Watershed District. © Andover City Council Workshop Meeting Minutes — September 22, 2009 Page 6 Councilmember Jacobson stated if they get rid of Hawkridge Park hockey rink they will need to have the hockey rink on Crosstown ready to go. Mr. Howard stated it may be just one sheet available by next year but have decided to subsidize some of their players rather than spend on the new sheets. Councilmember Knight stated he has heard from some of the residents up by Hawkridge to leave the rink up for recreational use. Park Chair Butler stated there has been some discussion within the Park Commission to put a rink at Rose Park and not having it at Crooked Lake. His concern is the residents around Hawkridge and how concerned they were about removing the rink. Councilmember Jacobson asked if there was cost difference between a hockey rink and recreational skate rink. Mr. Berkowitz stated they would need to replace the boards at Hawkridge if it remains. Mr. Berkowitz stated they are looking at this because of a budget issue along with two new rinks potentially coming in and a lot of the people that approached the Park Commission were from St. Francis that said they were willing to help out. Now Oak Grove is working with St. Francis for their rinks. Mr. Butler stated the people that showed up at the Park meeting were Andover residents and their kids went to school in St. Francis. Mr. Dickinson stated the main question is the warming house and rink attendants and if they want to maintain those. Councilmember Bukkila thought with the TIF Districts falling out in 2012 they could take the extra money and put it in parks and things like this but she wondered what they do until then. Mr. Dickinson stated they try to maintain until then. Councilmember Trude wondered if they could hold off on redoing some of the non -ADA parks to try to maintain the park equipment that needs replacing such as the hockey boards. Mr. Dickinson stated when they do build outs of parks it is not always dependant on park dedication fees, they generally want to do it in conjunction of new development of parks. Councilmember Jacobson stated they have the ability to bond and in 2010 if they bonded enough to put in irrigation and new boards would they be able to make the bonds payable in 2012 when the TIF District comes off line. Mr. Dickinson stated this would not be eligible to bond for. Council direction to staff was to keep the rink open for the coming winter season and figure out ® financially how things will go next year with planning of the park reconstruction. DISCUSSANDOVER HUSKIES YOUTHHOCKEYASSOCL4TIONLETTER © Andover City Council Workshop Meeting Minutes —September 22, 2009 Page 7 Mr. Tony Howard, President of Andover Husky Youth Hockey Association, requested Council help with rink attendants at Hawkridge, Crooked Lake and Prairie Knoll Park. He reviewed his request with the Council. Mr. Howard thought they could use High School Juniors and Seniors who need to fulfill their Community Service volunteer time at the parks as attendants. Mr. Dickinson stated they would need background checks done which cannot be done on a minor and they would also need to arm them with a city radio. He stated the City would be working with volunteers, the City is ultimate liable if the volunteer does something wrong and that is why he would like them to have employees, if they are going to take on the liability, he would like to own the responsibility. Councilmember Trude asked if cutting back the park budget includes the reduced mowing of the parks because this does affect public service. She wondered if there is something else they could have traded out in order to maintain the parks. Councilmember Trude wondered if they could just staff Saturdays and have the hockey association staff the rinks during the week. Q Mr. Kellogg stated he understood the budget constraints but they have a seven million dollar facility that the Hockey Association is debt servicing for thirty years and then the capital asset is the city's and he wondered what other organization out there in the community provides them with that support and whatever they can do, within reason, to support their best client and customer is something they should strongly look at. Councilmember Knight thought they could cut the hours a little bit to keep the costs down. Keep the warming house open with attendants and closed without attendants for open skate. Councilmember Trude wondered if they could allocate $5,000 to schedule prime weekend hours and the hockey association could schedule the rest. Mr. Dickinson asked if this is something the Council wanted to put back on the table for continued discussion of the budget. Mr. Howard thought they could try to look at helping pay the costs for the warming house at Hawkridge Park. Councilmember Trude thought it would be better to take that money to help cover the costs of the new hockey rinks by City Hall. The Council wanted to put the rink attendant funding back on the table for budget discussion. © Mr. Howard thought it has been well documented in Mr. Haas' handout and he just took a look at what the associations used for lighting costs and as a resident just looking at the lighting costs, the associations should be allocated for this and not covered by the City. He thought there should be a fee to use the facility so the City could recoup the lighting costs which could be used for other things in the City. This is a cost associated with the individual associations, not the City as a whole. ® Andover City Council Workshop Meeting Minutes — September 22, 2009 Page 8 Mayor Gamache stated the Council understood the issues but hockey has always been different and requires more expensive facilities. Councilmember Trude thought they could have the associations charge outside groups for use of the fields when playing games and tournaments. SINGLE FAMILY RESIDENTIAL MARKET VALUE PRESERVATION PROGRAM PROGRESS REPORT Mr. Dickinson updated the Council on the Single Family Residential Market Value Preservation Program. Councilmember Trude thought they should add something to the newsletter to encourage people to call if they are renters. © Councilmember Bukkila stated when she searches for properties she is finding thirty to forty properties advertised each time from various sources. She thought they were building a viable program in the beginning and even though it seems to be labor intensive she would rather see it be established with minimal numbers and participation so the City has control of it. She stated they have seen through meetings and open forum that people are having issues and they are seeing a positive impact on the community as a whole by involving law enforcement and other things. She thought they were building a concrete foundation so they can deal with the problems as they come in and if they let it go now they will lose ground because they are not established or up and running on the crime mapping. They are dealing with homeowners and code enforcement plus the rentals. They are not isolating a certain group but they are dealing with the whole big picture and it involves law enforcement and all the other issues. Mr. Dickinson stated the crime mapping will look like the School District mapping and will be a valuable tool whether they use it for single family rental. The tool will also be valuable to law enforcement. Councilmember Trude thought Mr. Neumeister was spending too much time on this and she would rather have him working on EDA related items creating a tax base. Councilmember Bukkila thought Angie Perera was the main person working on this and without this she would not have much to do. Mr. Dickinson stated he understood the concern but indicated they are committed to work on this for two years and are making progress but if the Council wanted to pull the plug they needed to let him know. Mr. Dickinson also indicated that Community Development is also busy with code enforcement. Councilmember Knight thought they needed to keep it in balance and perspective because there are other things to do. © Andover City Council Workshop Meeting Minutes —September 22, 2009 Page 9 2010 BUDGET DEVELOPMENT PROGRESS REPORT Mr. Dickinson reviewed the 2010 budget development staff report with the Council. Mayor Gamache asked in 2010 if there is anything the Legislature could take away from the City. Mr. Dickinson explained that the only thing he saw in the future would be the dollars that could go away are recycling dollars. He thought that was about all that could be cut. Councilmember Trude thought Alexandra House needed to stay at $10,000 since there is a lot of domestic abuse out there right now. Mr. Dickinson discussed the debt service levy percentages and some proposed options to generate available funding with the Council. Mr. Dickinson stated option #2 showing $252,618.00 is maxing out the market value homestead © credit but allowing them to do that by removing funds from debt service to operations and doing it via a special levy. They have the levy authority on debt service. The preliminary levy was based on three percent gross levy increase. The three percent levy number already reduced the community center debt service number by $100,000.00. The Council has significant authority to levy for more debt but based on the reserve fund management they do not need to levy for it all. Councilmember Trude stated going with the three percent earlier in the month allows them to recapture unallotments up to the $547,000. Mr. Dickinson stated they do not need to go to the three percent and what he was hearing was they wanted to reduce from the three percent to another number and the best baseline he had was 2.48% because they had all the staff work done getting to that percentage. Councilmember Trude indicated she liked what was presented since this gives them some money to work with and to apply to unfunded items. Mr. Dickinson stated the Council has latitude and they need to decide where they wanted to be. He indicated that staff will achieve whatever target the Council sets. Councilmember Bukkila asked when Mr. Dickinson added back Youth First and Alexandra House is this including what he has already allotted towards that or is that simply to back up anything that charitable gambling does not produce. Mr. Dickinson stated he would pull the reliance on the charitable gambling fund out, what he would prefer to do with charitable gambling is to figure out what projects will be funded at the end of 2009 for 2010 on available funds at that time. He stated this also opens up another option for funding public safety purchases. Mayor Gamache stated one of the Council's goals is to get rid of the furlough. © Andover City Council Workshop Meeting Minutes —September 22, 2009 Page 10 Councilmember Bukkila stated she did not think they needed to put back the entire $22,000 for rink attendants and she did not have an appetite for increasing them back to the dollar amount for Alexandra House. She thought they were headed in the right direction when they minimized some of the expenses. They had the earlier discussion about rink attendants and part time, she thought they were on the right path with that and then all of a sudden they are talking about an explosion of money needed. Councilmember Trude stated option one is what they know they have with the open space bonds where they are at. Anything Mr. Dickinson can do better than the $162,900 helps them with the other things and she did not want to count on the exact dollar amount indicated. She would rather get rid of the furlough, add back the rink attendants and then put the rest into a reserve fund. She stated by agreeing to option one hoping there could be as much money as in option two but count on reducing the furlough and see what happens to the bond settlement before doing the rest. Councilmember Knight thought they needed to keep Alexandra House at $10,000 because that was important. Mayor Gamache stated he wanted to get the furlough removed by 2010 if possible. He stated the employees have taken a cut in time, salary freezes and insurance costs will probably increase and he did not want to burden the employees anymore than they already have. Councilmember Jacobson stated he was not too sure about this because of the large amount of money involved. Councilmember Bukkila agreed and stated she wanted to look at this further. Councilmember Trude stated she likes to have a contingency in place for things that come up. Mr. Dickinson stated they could take the furlough off and put some money in for contingency and reduce the number below 2.48 %. His goals were to find out what target percentage the Council wanted and if there are specific things the Council wanted to look at adding back into the budget or to just leave it the way it is and just reduce the levy. Councilmember Jacobson thought 2.48% was good and the Council indicated they wanted to be at 2.48% or less. Mayor Gamache stated he wanted to eliminate the furlough and would not budge on that. Councilmember Trude agreed. Councilmember Knight asked if they reduce the furlough by 25% what would happen. Mr. Dickinson stated they could fall below 2 %. Councilmember Jacobson thought they should see where © things are going in 2010 and reinstitute those hours back and they do not have to do that exactly on January 1, 2010. Councilmember Trude thought it was unfair to put all this on the back of the employees because they have cut significant staffing in previous years, going from mid 60's to low 50's. © Andover City Council Workshop Meeting Minutes — September 22, 2009 Page 11 Councilmember Knight asked what if they decided to do something with the Hockey Association, where would the money come from. Mr. Dickinson stated they could go back into what was currently approved and reduce the swap out of outdated equipment in their park and allocate from that. He indicated that was not his preference because they are so far behind on replacing outdated equipment already. 2010 SPECIAL REVENUE, DEBT SERVICE, CAPITAL PROJECT, ENTERPRISE & INTERNAL SERVICE FUNDS BUDGET PRESENTATION Mr. Dickinson reviewed the staff report with the Council. He indicated he would be happy to review these budgets individually with Councilmembers. 2010 -2014 CAPITAL IMPROVEMENT PLANDEVELOPMENT PROGRESS REPORT Mr. Dickinson handed out the CIP development progress report to the Council. The adoption 1 process will be initiated in October. OTHER DISCUSSION There was none. RECESS The City Council recessed at 10:30 p.m. to go into a closed session to discuss an Open Space land negotiation — PID 07- 32 -24 -12 -0001. RECONVENE AND ADJOURNMENT The Council reconvened at 10:50 to adjourn the Workshop. Motion by Jacobson, Seconded by Knight, to adjourn. Motion carried unanimously. The meeting adjourned at 10:50 p.m. Respectfully submitted, Susan Osbeck, Recording Secretary