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HomeMy WebLinkAboutCCMIN_03-22-17CITY OF FALCON HEIGHTS Regular Meeting of the City Council City Hall 2077 West Larpenteur Avenue MINUTES March 22, 2017 at 7:00 P.M. A. CALL TO ORDER: B. ROLL CALL: LINDSTROM _X_ HARRIS _X_ BROWN THUNDER _X_ FISCHER _X_ GUSTAFSON_X_ STAFF PRESENT: THONGVANH_X_ FREIHAMMER_X_ C. PRESENTATIONS: 1. Como Park Falcon Heights Living -At -Home Block Nurse Program Jody McCardle, Executive Director of the Block Nurse Program presented on the services they provide. They have over 60 volunteers that they work with on a regular basis. They help low-income seniors who cannot afford assistance. They would like to partner with the City of Falcon Heights to work on some of the goals from a Request for Proposal (RFP) for a grant specializing in Dementia. They would be more effective if they hire an individual specialized in social work that could partner with Fire Departments and emergency responders to provide the best care to people with Dementia and their families. In order to proceed with partnering on an RFP, they would need a letter of memorandum of understanding from the city. If the city may be interested, she would write the grant and the city would approve the submission of the grant or make any necessary changes. The Block Nurse Program would be the fiscal agent. The commitment from the city would be helping with communication and advertising. They did 1,000 hours of volunteer service in Falcon Heights in the last year. They also partner with the veterans administration and home health agencies. Budget impacts are happening so quickly, but they are looking to help offset some of that with this grant and getting more recognition to recruit more volunteers. D. APPROVAL OF MINUTES: 1. March 8, 2017 City Council Meeting Minutes E. PUBLIC HEARINGS: Approved F. CONSENT AGENDA: 1. General Disbursements through: 3/16/17 $79,721.71 Payroll through: 3/15/17 $18,697.56 2. MN Association of Volunteer Administration "Building Inclusive Civic Community Engagement' Grant Application 3. Appointment of Katie Kohn to the Community Engagement Commission 4. Appointment of Stacey Tidball to the Community Engagement Commission 11Page 5. Increase for Administrative Coordinator Katie Thrasher Council Member Harris Moved, Approved 5-0 G: POLICY ITEMS: 1. Letter to MnDOT Added to the Council agenda: Council Member Harris Moved, Approved 5-0 A letter has been created to express disappointment in the complete lack of citizen engagement. Only at the city's request, a representative came to present to the City Council and host a public open house. If MnDOT had engaged earlier, they would have heard about the importance the city places on being a pedestrian -friendly city. The city requests that the project be delayed for further input. Council Member Harris suggests that the letter be delivered in person or sent directly to the person(s) that needs to review it. Council Member Gustafson suggests to submit to local media outlets as well. Council Member Fischer suggests to request a complete streets review with special attention to non -motorized users and have the city be a part of the review. Beverly Larkin -1725 St. Mary's St: She and her husband have several objections to the MnDOT plan. They would like the Council to encourage our official to delay construction and hold at least one community engagement meeting. She believes the plan will hinder the sense of community in Falcon Heights and have negative long-term effects. It will be more difficult to exit their neighborhood as well, and in her opinion, utilizing the frontage road to Roselawn is a less safe alternative. She'd like to add to the draft that it's not only affecting pedestrian safety, but vehicular safety. Tim Bykowski-1745 St. Mary's St: He believes these changes are going to have a negative impact on the businesses at Snelling and Larpenteur. There will be increased traffic on the service drives and there are no sidewalks at these locations. There will be a backup on the service drive at Roselawn and a very short time to get to that light to cross. With regard to the open house, the information was not clear or clearly presented. Walt McCoy -1746 St. Mary's St: He believes the best answer is to put a traffic light at Snelling and Garden so the road is not closed. Kris Grangaard-1777 Simpson St: She would add to the letter to say that is should specifically be delayed until next year. She agrees that sending it to our state representatives is a good idea. Council Member Fischer Moved, Approved 5-0 2. Accept Bid for 2017 Pavement Management Project City Engineer Freihammer presented that we had six qualified bidders for this project. The low bid price with alternate one was $1,414,816.39. That estimate overall was 18.4% lower than the engineers estimate. St. Paul's Water portion of that cost is $582,130 and 2 1 P a g c the city's portion of that 1,230,685.71. The overall rate that would be assessed would remain the same as the proposed assessment rate. Assessments remain the same because some things have been adjusted and added since the feasibility report. The storm sewer drainage was one thing that was identified after the feasibility report. The water main and pathway costs are slightly higher too. Council Member Gustafson Moved, Approved 5-0 3. Agreement with American Engineering and Testing for 2017 Pavement Management Project City Engineer Freihammer stated, as part of the project the city is using MnDOT state aid funds. The city is required to do a minimum baseline testing. To perform this, he recommends hiring a consultant, American Engineering and Testing, who has been used in the past. We received a quote of $16,400. Of that about $6,000 will be the cost of St. Paul Water. This has been applied in previous pavement management projects. Council Member Harris Moved, Approved 5-0 H. INFORMATION/ ANNOUNCEMENTS: 1. Weekly Police Reports - Can Now Be Found At: hU://www.falconhei hg ts.org/index.asp?SEC=75B3E8BB-785B-4048-B543- 995BAE0716A5&Type=B_BASIC City Administrator Thongyanh: The Police Reports will be included on the website for people to access. He does not know when this had stopped being the city's practice, but he will now be doing this every week. Council Member Fischer: • His experience with MnDOT is that they are very responsive. There is a spot on their website to submit comments, and the more they hear, the more seriously they will take it. • The Community Engagement Commission is looking to put together a spring together event in May, so look forward to more details on that. The Parks and Recreation Commission is planning to be a part of that event as well. Council Member Harris: The Planning Commission did not meet this month. Council Member Brown Thunder: NYFS is having their Leadership Luncheon on May 3 at Midland Hills Country Club from 11:30 -fpm. To sign up go to www.nyfs.org. Council Member Gustafson: • The Parks and Recreation Commission will be meeting in April. • The Inclusion and Policing Task Force has held two meetings since the last Council Meeting. On March 14, the Task Force began the process of condensing information, research, and community input into draft statements for recommendations for policing policies for procedures and resources. On March 21, they continued the process to refine those draft statements. This draft statement will be available for the public to review at the next Community Conversation on Monday, April 3 at Falcon Heights United Church 311'agc from 6:30-8:30pm. The focus of Community Conversation three will be for participants to provide feedback on the draft recommendations. The feedback at that conversation will help the Task Force shape recommendations that accurately reflect community values. The April meetings of the Task Force will be focused on finalizing the recommendations. The Task Force has scheduled an additional meeting on Thursday, March 30 to bring in a panel of experts from various fields to review and provide feedback on those draft recommendations as well. Finalized recommendations will be presented to the Council in May. On Monday, May 1, there will be a fourth Community Conversation at Falcon Heights United Church. Participants will provide feedback on the Task Force recommendations on how to best be an inclusive and welcoming community. He also wants to thank everyone who has helped participate in the process. Our goal is to continue to operationalize our values to be an inclusive and welcoming environment for residents and guests and reflect those in our policing values, policies, and procedures. This is a journey, not a destination. City Administrator Thongvanh: • Weather permitted, there will be street sweeping next week. The Council approved purchasing the street sweeper from our joint agreement with Little Canada. • Auditors were at the city this week, and it went smoothly. Additionally, the Police Chief will be doing his annual report to the Council on Wednesday, April 12th. Mayor Lindstrom: • He has been participating in the Task Force meetings and the Environment Commission meetings. • The Environment Commission is planning an event on how to make our homes more energy efficient, and the event date is to be determined. They will be bringing in a representative from the Citizen Utility Board. They will explain utility bills. • In April, he has been invited to speak with the Regional Council of Mayors and represent the city on climate change and sustainability efforts at the local level. I. COMMUNITY FORUM: Farook Meah-1597 Hollywood Ct: He was at the Council meeting on February 22nd. He has applied four times to volunteer on Commissions in the last two years, and he was rejected. He also applied for the City Council twice and was rejected. At the February 22nd meeting the Mayor said he would send him a letter of why he was not selected for the Commission. He asked the Mayor about it in the beginning of March, and the Mayor said he did not send one. He also questioned his attendance when on previous Commissions in 1994 and 2002. He talked to the Mayor on the phone on March 14 about the Commissions and was being interviewed again. He will not let people treat him as a second-class citizen as he was treated in Burma. Akil Foluke: We could progress a little bit further if voices are heard. What led to the immediate action of a letter being drafted to MnDOT? Mayor Lindstrom: The project is rapidly progressing and the Council wanted to take action on this item. Akil Foluke: Was it input from citizens that brought this to action or the Council that decided on it? 41Pagc Council Member Fischer: The project was happening shortly. The Council and city received input from residents. It was clear what our action needed to be, and there was consensus on that action. Akil Foluke: Ifs concerning that pavement can get this type of attention, but the murder of a man cannot. Council Member Fischer: The pavement project is a much simpler issue. He agrees on the issues that need to be addressed, but he believes that they do not agree on the solutions. Tom Baldwin -1716 Albert St: He thanks the Council for drafting the MnDOT letter, and they responded in a clear and urgent manner. If they would have taken similar action when the Chief of Police refused to come to the Council Meeting, that would have shown leadership. Although it cannot be changed, he would like to continue seeing that leadership and clear, direct messages. J. ADJOURNMENT: 8:05 pm P ter Lin Strom, Mayor Dated this 22nd day of March, 2017 /-e f ' iCtDrl�.w+4� Sack Thongvat , City Administrator 51Page