Loading...
HomeMy WebLinkAboutCity Council - 12/01/2009 APPROVED MINUTES EDEN PRAIRIE CITY COUNCIL MEETING TUESDAY, DECEMBER 1, 2009 7:00 PM, CITY CENTER Council Chamber 8080 Mitchell Road CITY COUNCIL: Mayor Phil Young, Council Members Brad Aho, Ron Case, Jon Duckstad and Kathy Nelson CITY STAFF: City Manager Scott Neal, Parks & Recreation Director Jay Lotthammer, Public Works Director Gene Dietz, Community Development Director Janet Jeremiah, City Attorney Ric Rosow and Council Recorder Jan Curielli I. ROLL CALL/CALL THE MEETING TO ORDER Mayor Young called the meeting to order at 7:00 PM. All Council Members were present. II. COLOR GUARD/PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE Mayor Young thanked Cub Scout Pack 342, sponsored by Immanuel Lutheran Church, for presenting the colors. III. OPEN PODIUM INVITATION IV. APPROVAL OF AGENDA AND OTHER ITEMS OF BUSINESS Neal added two goldenrod items, Items XI.B. and XI.C.,regarding an ordinance requested by the City Council at the last meeting concerning the security alarm fee issue. He also noted staff is requesting the City Council go into a brief closed session at the end of the meeting to update the Council on a meeting with KinderCare representatives. MOTION: Aho moved, seconded by Duckstad, to approve the agenda as amended. Motion carried 5-0. V. PROCLAMATIONS /PRESENTATIONS A. SOUTHWEST TRANSIT UPDATE Len Simich, Chief Executive Officer of Southwest Transit, gave a PowerPoint presentation reviewing the state of the agency in 2009 and presenting their 2010 initiatives. He said they received three awards during the year, including one for being in the top four transit agencies in the country for safety and service efficiency. They are rolling out a new service on December 14 that will provide higher frequency service during peak hours. They were maxed out at their garage facility, so they purchased a new facility and have the old site up for sale. With the coming of light rail, they expect much of their business to move to the west where there will be a lot of growth. They were able to reduce the overall subsidy per passenger from$5.14 to $4.82. CITY COUNCIL MINUTES December 1, 2009 Page 2 Duckstad said he serves on the Southwest Transit Commission and he thought it is clear they do a terrific job. VI. MINUTES A. COUNCIL WORKSHOP HELD TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 17, 2009 MOTION: Duckstad moved, seconded by Aho, to approve the minutes of the City Council Workshop held Tuesday, November 17, 2009, as published. Motion carried 5-0. B. CITY COUNCIL MEETING HELD TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 17, 2009 MOTION: Case moved, seconded by Duckstad, to approve the minutes of the City Council Meeting held Tuesday, November 17, 2009, as published. Motion carried 5-0. VII. REPORTS OF ADVISORY BOARDS & COMMISSIONS VIII. CONSENT CALENDAR A. AUTHORIZING SUBORDINATION AGREEMENT FOR$4,790,000 MULTIFAMILY HOUSING REVENUE REFUNDING BONDS (SERIES 1997A) AND $1,670,000 TAXABLE MULTI-FAMILY HOUSING REVENUE REFUNDING BONDS AND APPROVING REFINANCING OF EDENVALE APARTMENTS WITH HUD-INSURED MORTGAGE LOAN B. AWARD CONTRACT FOR THE LOWER RILEY CREEK WATER MONITORING STATION PROJECT TO BARR ENGINEERING, I.C. 07-5707 C. ADOPT RESOLUTION NO. 2009-76 CONCURRING WITH DESIGNATION OF COUNTY STATE AID HIGHWAY NO. 61, I.C. 02-5576 D. APPROVE PURCHASE SELF CONTAINED BREATHING APPARATUS S( CBA) MOTION: Duckstad moved, seconded by Nelson, to approve Items A-D on the Consent Calendar. Motion carried 5-0. IX. PUBLIC HEARINGS /MEETINGS A. PROPOSED 2010 BUDGET Neal said on September 1, 2009, the Eden Prairie City Council adopted a resolution certifying the proposed 2010 City budget and property tax levy. Calculations for the City showed the September 1 budget to be $40,962,045 and the certified levy to be $32,751,059 before fiscal disparities distribution. The net tax levy after fiscal CITY COUNCIL MINUTES December 1, 2009 Page 3 disparities distribution of($1,696,687) is $31,054,372. The proposed 2010 budget maintains City services with a budget increase of 1.5% in the general fund and a total budget increase of 1.3% which includes the capital levy and debt service payments. The tax levy is budgeted to increase 2% or $607,951. This is an increase of$14.00 or 1.3% on median value home of$354,050. Neal said according to state statute, the final levy amount must be certified to the county auditor by December 28, 2009. City Council adoption of the final levy and budget tonight or on December 15, 2009, will complete this process. This public meeting provides an opportunity for the public to comment on the 2010 proposed budget. He said Ms Kotchevar will present the September 1 proposed budget and also a revised budget dated December 1 that was reviewed with the City Council tonight at the workshop session. Kotchevar reviewed the tax impact of the two versions of the budget on a median value home, an apartment building valued at $5,000,000, and a commercial building valued at$2,000,000. She gave a summary of the total proposed budget and tax levy. Young asked if the December budget is a flat budget in all respects. Neal said it is. Young then asked if staff is present tonight to answer questions from the audience. Neal said staff may be able to answer some of the questions tonight and, if not, can get back to the questioner as quickly as possible. He said we have staff from the Assessing Division here in case there are questions about valuations. Young said the way the tax burden in Minnesota is calculated is a two step process, and tonight we are setting the budget that will determine the total amount we spend and the tax levy. The other important piece is the property assessments which were determined for 2010 and mailed to property owners in February. There is a process to appeal that assessment but the City Council does not have jurisdiction over that. The only thing the Council can control is the 2010 budget. John Urbanski, 18828 Nature Lane, asked if the budget being flat means that every line item is flat and also where he can go to get a copy. Kotchevar said we have copies available. Neal said the 2010 budget is flat for a couple of reasons. One reason is it contains no cost of living increase for City employees in the budget which is typically one of the major costs from year to year. There has also been a limitation in the changes in programs, and increases in operations and services have been limited for the upcoming year. We also took steps to restructure our future debt service. He said most of our current programs will receive their projected levels for the upcoming year. Mr. Urbanski asked what has happened to the social services budget specifically. Neal said there has been no change in those funding levels in the December 1 budget. Duckstad noted about 70% of the budget is for personnel and wages, and he asked Mr. Neal to explain the level of wages that has been increased or decreased over 2009. Neal said there is no cost of living increase incorporated into the employee wage base for 2010, and earlier this year we decreased our employee head count CITY COUNCIL MINUTES December 1, 2009 Page 4 from about 280 full-time employees to 268. That decrease had an impact in our 2009 budget but also has a significant impact in our 2010 budget, and that was also a major factor in our ability to offer a flat budget. Duckstad asked if there has been a general wage freeze. Neal said it has been our practice to offer a cost of living adjustment, a merit adjustment and a performance adjustment,but we have not programmed that into the proposed 2010 budget. Duckstad asked if the total spending in 2009 was $40,614,931, and the proposed 2010 budget is less because it is $40,583,045. Neal said we characterize it as flat but it is actually a slight decrease. Duckstad said that means we have $32,000 less to spend in 2010 than in 2009, and the tax levy will also go down a little from 2009 so the 1.3% increase shown in the September budget will not happen. Neal said that is correct. Jim Rea, 18492 Pathfinder Drive, said his area has seen an increase in property taxes and thanked the Council for making the hard decisions in considering the budget. He said he has had discussions with one of the assessors about the valuations in Settlers Ridge. The valuations there are all over the board, and he thought there will have to be some significant changes in valuations for 2011. He said they have seen 5-20% reductions in selling prices in Settlers Ridge. MOTION: Aho moved, seconded by Duckstad, to close the public meeting. Motion carried 5-0. B. FIRST READING OF THE ORDINANCE UPDATING THE FEE SCHEDULE FOR ADMINISTRATION OF OFFICIAL CONTROLS Neal said official notice of this public hearing was published in the November 12, 2009, Eden Prairie News. This ordinance establishes a fee schedule for the City's costs in administering official controls pursuant to Minnesota Statutes Section 462.353, Subd. 4. Minnesota statute allows a municipality to prescribe fees sufficient to defray the costs incurred by it in reviewing, investigating, and administering an application for an amendment to an official control or other approval required under an official control. Minnesota Statute defines an "official control" as ordinances or regulations which control the physical development of a city and implement the general objectives of the comprehensive plan. Official controls may include ordinances establishing zoning, subdivision controls, site plan regulations, sanitary codes, building codes and official maps. He said we have two sets of user fees, some that must be changed by ordinance and some that may be changed by resolution. Dietz said they made some modest adjustments of about 3% in engineering fees but there were no significant increases. Jeremiah said there were some modest cost of living adjustments for planning and zoning fees but no significant increases. There were no comments from the audience. MOTION: Duckstad moved, seconded by Case, to close the public hearing and to CITY COUNCIL MINUTES December 1, 2009 Page 5 approve 1 st reading of the ordinance updating the fee schedule for administration of official controls. Motion carried 5-0. C. FEE RESOLUTION Neal said official notice of this public hearing was published in the November 12, 2009, Eden Prairie News. This resolution establishes a fee schedule for the City's services not covered by the preceding ordinance. Dietz said there was a nominal 3% increase in the fees, and they did raise the utility rate percentage because they have to start ramping up sewer fees to cover the costs of our inflow and infiltration issues. He said we will have a fee study this winter and will bring that back in January to talk about all of our fee issues regarding sewer, water and storm water utilities. Jeremiah said there were no significant changes in the planning and zoning fees. There were no comments from the audience. MOTION: Case moved, seconded by Duckstad, to close the public hearing and to adopt Resolution No. 2009-77. Nelson said she realized we approved membership fees for the Community Center earlier this year, but she was approached about an issue involving those fees. The concern was about the monthly non-resident membership rates being only $6 more than the rates for residents. She said it seems like there should be a bigger difference than that, although she didn't want to reprint everything at this point. She thought the difference should be at least as much as the youth rate which has a $15 difference. Residents should get something for paying taxes for the Community Center. She asked how we could deal with this issue now. Lotthammer said a couple of years ago as we reviewed fees for memberships at the Community Center, staff's initial way to look at this was to look at other cities and other community centers to see the difference between their fees for residents and non-residents. At that time they established the non-resident fee to be $6 per month more for an individual membership and $11 more for a dual non-resident membership. He said we have only 63 non-resident memberships out of more than 1600 total memberships, so that is a very small percentage for non-resident memberships. He noted we have had a practice of bringing all our fees and charges that are related to parks and recreation early because we have to print brochures in September and October. We do specify in our publications that the fees are subject to change at any time, so if the Council elected to change the fees tonight, we could communicate that to the 63 non-resident members. He said the Council could also handle this at the next go around when staff would come back with a recommendation for our price point for each level. He thought we have some tolerance to have a little higher price point without people dropping out. CITY COUNCIL MINUTES December 1, 2009 Page 6 Nelson said she was willing to give the non-resident members fair warning for next fall since everything has been printed. VOTE ON THE MOTION: Motion carried 5-0. X. PAYMENT OF CLAIMS MOTION: Duckstad moved, seconded by Aho, to approve the Payment of Claims as submitted. Motion was approved on a roll call vote, with Aho, Case, Duckstad, Nelson and Young voting "aye." XI. ORDINANCES AND RESOLUTIONS A. SECOND READING OF ORDINANCE NO. 11-2009 UPDATING THE FEE SCHEDULE FOR ADMINISTRATION OF OFFICIAL CONTROLS AND ADOPT RESOLUTION NO. 2009-78 APPROVING SUMMARY ORDINANCE Neal said this is the second reading of the ordinance just adopted by the Council so it requires a unanimous vote to be adopted at this meeting. MOTION: Aho moved, seconded by Case, to approve 2nd reading of Ordinance No. 11-2009 updating the fee schedule for administration of official controls and to adopt Resolution No. 2009-78 approving summary publication. Motion carried 5- 0. B. FIRST READING OF AN ORDINANCE AMENDING CITY CODE CHAPTER 9, SECTION 9.10A, & 9.10 B RELATING TO REGISTRATION, FEES,APPLICATIONS,AND TECHNICAL CORRECTIONS FOR POLICE AND FIRE ALARMS Neal said pursuant to the City Council's discussion at the November 17 Council meeting, the City Attorney has prepared an ordinance amendment to eliminate the $25 annual fee for the registration of home security systems that was established by a previously adopted ordinance earlier this year. The attached ordinance will eliminate the fee, make corresponding changes to the registration process and amend the non response section. City staff will refund fees that have been received under the previous ordinance. Rosow said the $25 annual fee for registration was eliminated from the ordinance, and they took the opportunity to make a couple of technical corrections and to amend the fire portion to specify that the application the City receives will be determined by the particular department so they don't have to come back for approval each time a change is made. He said the Police Chief suggested we incorporate a provision similar to one used by Minnetonka that for the first response to a non-registered alarm police have the opportunity to not respond until it is registered. He said we are just talking about non-registered alarm data going to an alarm service provider, not a call from a resident. CITY COUNCIL MINUTES December 1, 2009 Page 7 Nelson thought it sounds good, and she hoped there is a place on the website where they will be able to register easily. Neal said they will make it as easy as possible. MOTION: Duckstad moved, seconded by Aho, to approve the first reading of an ordinance amending City Code Chapter 9, Section 9.10A, Subdivision 4A & 5A, relating to deleting registration fees for burglar, robbery and safety alarm systems. Motion carried 5-0. C. APPROVE SECOND READING OF ORDINANCE NO. 12-2009 AMENDING CITY CODE CHAPTER 9, SECTION 9.10A, & 9.10B RELATING TO REGISTRATION, FEES,APPLICATIONS,AND TECHNICAL CORRECTIONS FOR POLICE AND FIRE ALARMS AND ADOPT RESOLUTION NO. 2009-80 APPROVING SUMMARY ORDINANCE Neal said this is the second reading of the ordinance just adopted by the Council so it requires a unanimous vote to be adopted at this meeting. MOTION: Nelson moved, seconded by Duckstad, to approve second reading of Ordinance No. 12-2009 amending City Code Chapter 9, Section 9.10A, Subdivision 4A & 5A, relating to deleting registration fees for burglar, robbery and safety alarm systems, and to adopt Resolution No. 2009-80 approving summary ordinance. Motion carried 5-0. XII. PETITIONS, REQUESTS AND COMMUNICATIONS XIII. APPOINTMENTS XIV. REPORTS A. REPORTS OF COUNCIL MEMBERS B. REPORTS OF CITY MANAGER 1. Resolution No. 2009-79 Certifyins! 2009 Property Tax Levy,Adopting the 2009 Budget, and Consenting and Approving the 2009 HRA Tax Levy Neal said this is a two-fold budget proposal, one proposed budget and tax levy that was certified on September 1 and the other proposed as the December 1 budget and tax levy. Aho said he wanted to commend the City Manager for coming up with a budget that is more in line with what the Council asked for at the September meeting. This keeps our budget flat from 2009 to 2010, keeps the levy flat and spends less of our Budget Stabilization Fund. He thought this is a good plan and he likes it a lot. CITY COUNCIL MINUTES December 1, 2009 Page 8 Duckstad said he also wanted to commend the City Manager for making every effort to not increase spending and to maintain a zero increase budget over last year. Case said he remembered in 1995 when we were increasing the budget to the tune of 4-6% but increasing the tax levy by only 1-2%, and at that point we were a couple million dollars behind. We then had to increase taxes higher than budgets to make up the difference, and it feels like history is repeating itself tonight. He didn't think this is an honest budget because the budget isn't going down as fast as the tax levy. He thought it sends a message to our residents that it is actually easy to freeze taxes and spending, while in reality this budget requires borrowing money from the future. It depletes our savings, and it forces a catch up at the next go around. Projected out to 2013 this budget leaves us $2,000,000 in the hole, so we will need to raise taxes 3%just to get back to ground zero. He thought this is the first time in his time on the Council that a budget is being voted on that he believes has a negative impact on public safety. The duty fire crew proposal would make our homes safer in the event of fire. It would cost about 75 cents per month for residents, and it would assure that fire fighters would arrive 3-4 minutes sooner. We are not funding that duty crew in this budget. He didn't think we can maintain our parks,roads, level of safety and other amenities in Eden Prairie unless we balance our budget by cutting what and where we can, by borrowing from savings for one-time expenses that don't increase the cost of government, and also by looking at new revenue sources. The Budget Advisory Commission (BAC) recommended we look at a fair and equitable user tax in the form of a street light franchise utility fund. We can't do everything we need to do and at the same time keep revenues flat. He said he cannot support this budget tonight as presented. Young asked Council Member Case if he had a budget proposal for the Council to consider. Case said he has shared this throughout the year. He has suggested implementing the franchise fee and also suggested we go back to make the levy the same as last year to fund staff step increases. Young then asked if he had a proposal tonight that solves all the problems he presented. Case said his proposal would be the franchise fee that would raise $800,000 which would almost cover the $900,000 in debt. Young said he did not think the public was privy to the discussion regarding a franchise fee. Case said it was an electric utility franchise fee that many cities are going to, and he would propose we need to look at that. Nelson said we discussed earlier at the workshop the whole question of step increases for employees which would cost$52,000. She believed the promises we made to our employees about step increases should be kept this year. This budget could be increased by $52,000 and still be decreased overall. CITY COUNCIL MINUTES December 1, 2009 Page 9 Young said his understanding was that Mr. Neal's proposal was to include the step increases. Nelson said she understood that was included and would prefer not to borrow more from the Budget Stabilization Fund to do it; however, she believes we do need to do something to put money where we are putting policy. She asked for clarification if there are any plans for funding this. Neal said he does recommend we provide funding in our budget for employee step increases. If that is the consensus of the Council, there are two ways to do that. One would be a budget neutral approach whereby we would adopt the proposed 2010 budget as it is and staff will identify how to do that funding and bring it back in January. Another alternative would be to change the decrease in the total tax levy from$185,435 to $133,435 which would still be a reduction in the total levy but would be $52,000 less than the original decrease. Duckstad said he took issue with the suggestion that this budget is dishonest. He thought we have to look at this budget in light of all circumstances including the state of the economy and the fact that 10-20% of the people have lost their jobs. He thought this budget is done in good faith and is commensurate with circumstances and the state of the economy, He took issue that the fire duty crew we didn't add this year would somehow jeopardize fire safety. He didn't think the fire duty crew would affect when a truck would get to a house to fight the fire. He said this is not the time to increase our budget. Young thought we can have reasonable differences of opinion on budgets and matters of policy. When we had the initial budget discussions in September, we said we didn't want to raise taxes. We left it to the discretion of the City Manager to put together a proposal to manage that but this isn't the only way it could have been done. We have dollars set aside for emergency purposes, and if this isn't the time to draw upon those funds he didn't know when it would be. He thought a flat budget is what our residents want to see from us this year. He said we could have cut employee compensation across the board, and that would not have been unprecedented in this environment. What this Council did was to put together a proposal that satisfied the principles we wanted to reach. He said the same is true for the duty crew. If it was a staff priority that the duty crew be implemented in 2010, then we left it to Mr. Neal to put it together in the budget proposal. He did not think we are jeopardizing the safety of our residents by not rolling out the duty crew in 2010. Case said he really believes this is a "pay now or pay later"budget, and it will take tax increases at some point to pay for the $900,000 deficit we are incurring. At the time of our discussions in 1997 and 1998 he recalled the Budget Stabilization Fund had more to do with one-time expenses such as funding for the firemen's pension deficit. This is not a tax-free budget for our people, and it will have to be made up at some point. He thought the CITY COUNCIL MINUTES December 1, 2009 Page 10 user fee that the BAC recommended is an appropriate one because right now we pay for street lighting out of the general fund property taxes. If we had a franchise fee we would spread the cost more evenly and would include those who aren't already paying for the street lights. Young said he didn't think the BAC recommended that we add that but rather that we consider it. Nelson said she would still prefer to add money for the step increases by having a slightly smaller decrease. It is important to keep things flat in 2010,but she is a little concerned that we seem to be only doing the 2010 budget and she hasn't seen the 2011 budget. Neal said we adopt the budget one year at a time. Nelson asked if the duty crew is still expected to be in the 2011 budget. Neal said it is at the discretion of the Council, and staff has not done much with the numbers for the 2011 budget. He said the duty crew initiative would be $240,000 for a full year. Nelson said she believes it is an important one and one that we need to go to,but she is willing to let it go to the beginning of 2011. She didn't want the concept to be lost. She thought we owe it to the residents to take a serious look at that. She asked if the budget includes social service funding as it did in September. Young said it has not been removed, and there was never a motion or a request by the City Council to take it out of the budget. Nelson said people should know it is included in this budget as it was in the September budget. Duckstad noted the August 18"'report of the BAC recommends a franchise fee be considered. He said he would support this zero increase budget because it is in the best interest of the taxpayers. Young asked if we would still have a flat budget if we were to follow Council Member Nelson's recommendation with respect to the step increases. Neal said we would still have a decrease proposed in the 2010 total levy. Kotchevar said the current decrease in the budget is $31,886. Young asked if the budget would be above zero if we added $52,000 into it. Nelson said she didn't want to go over zero. Young suggested we put $31,886 into the budget for the step increases so that there will be a purely zero budget for 2010. Neal suggested the Council move to the next item in order to give Ms Kotchevar a chance to recalculate the numbers. Kotchevar said according to her recalculations the 2010 property tax levy would be $32,009,673 and the 2010 budget would be $40,414,931. Duckstad asked if those figures are a zero increase in the levy and the budget. Kotchevar said there is still a decrease in the tax levy and a zero increase in the budget. MOTION: Aho moved, seconded by Nelson, to adopt Resolution No. 2009-79 certifying the 2010 property tax levy to be $32,009,673, to approve CITY COUNCIL MINUTES December 1, 2009 Page 11 the 2010 budget of$40,414,931, as reviewed by the Council, and to consent and approve the HRA tax levy and budget of$200,000. Motion carried 4- 1-0, with Case opposed. C. REPORT OF THE COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT DIRECTOR D. REPORT OF PARKS AND RECREATION DIRECTOR E. REPORT OF PUBLIC WORKS DIRECTOR F. REPORT OF POLICE CHIEF G. REPORT OF FIRE CHIEF 1. Code Red Update This item was addressed out of order under Item XIV.B.1. Fire Chief Esbensen said they have launched a software product called Code Red that essentially works as a reverse 911 system. The product will enable people to receive emergency messages if they register for it with their contact information. The week of December 21 we will send a test message to see how it is working. He said they are also dividing their staff into groups in order to have more efficient ways to contact certain groups of employees. Aho asked if there are any scenarios in which the system would be used to contact people. Chief Esbensen said last week Brooklyn Park had a potential toxic plume drifting over a residential area, and this software could be used to automatically dial the contact information for people in that area. Aho asked if we have to bring in any additional phone lines. Chief Esbensen said it drives 60,000 phone calls an hour, and the system is all internet based. Neal said this is something that we had budgeted for this year and are just now implementing. We have to be careful not to overuse it. He noted there will be no fee to participate. H. REPORT OF CITY ATTORNEY MOTION: Duckstad moved, seconded by Case, to go to closed session. Motion carried 5-0. The Council moved to closed session at 8:40 PM. The Council returned to open session at 8:55 PM. MOTION: Case moved, seconded by Aho, to settle KC Propco condemnation for $800,000. Motion carried 5-0. CITY COUNCIL MINUTES December 1, 2009 Page 12 XV. OTHER BUSINESS Neal said with the adoption of the 2010 budget this evening there are no operational reasons to have the December 15 meeting. Jeremiah said WalMart is aware of the possibility of not having a meeting on December 15. MOTION: Duckstad moved, seconded by Aho, to cancel the December 15 meeting of the City Council. Motion carried 5-0. XVI. ADJOURNMENT MOTION: Duckstad moved, seconded by Case, to adjourn the meeting. Motion carried 5-0. Mayor Young adjourned the meeting at 9:02 PM.