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HomeMy WebLinkAboutCCMin_03Mar26CITY OF FALCON HEIGHTS COUNCIL MINUTES March 26, 2003 Second Annual Neal Kwong Youth Citizenship Award Presentation for 2002 Mayor Gehrz thanked everyone for attending the Neal Kwong Youth Citizenship Award presentation. She introduced the Kwong family, most specifically Neal’s sister and brother, Laura and Alan. Laura Kwong introduced the two nominees for the award, Beth Duncan and Karis Hustad, and each nominee gave a synopsis of their volunteer activities. Laura and Alan Kwong presented Karis Hustad with the Neal Kwong Youth Citizenship Award for 2002. Mayor Gehrz congratulated Karis and Beth for all that they have accomplished and commented that the community can see their future leaders right here. Mayor Gehrz called the regular Council meeting to order at 7:25 PM. PRESENT: Mayor Sue Gehrz, Council members Laura Kuettel, Robert Lamb, Peter Lindstrom and Richard Talbot. Also present: City Administrator Heather Worthington and Deputy Clerk Mary Shea Kodluboy. COMMUNITY FORUM: There was no commentary from the audience. APPROVAL OF MINUTES: Mayor Gehrz asked that the CERT grant amount indicated on page 7 be changed from $9,087 to $9,807. Deputy Clerk Kodluboy said that a correction also needed to be made on page 4, sixth paragraph. Ordinance Amendment #03-03 was approved 4-1 with Lamb voting no. The Council minutes dated March 12, 2003 were unanimously approved as corrected. PUBLIC HEARINGS: None scheduled. CONSENT AGENDA: Council member Kuettel asked if the coding to communications was correct for North Suburban, in the amount of $7,386.22. Administrator Worthington said she would check on that and let her know. Kuettel moved that the Consent Agenda, outlined below, be approved. The motion was unanimously approved. General Disbursements through March 7, 2003 in the Amount of: $ 94,091.58 Payroll, 3/03/03-3/14/03: $ 9,910.83 FALCON HEIGHTS CITY COUNCIL MINUTES -2- March 26, 2003 CONSENT AGENDA: (continued) Appointment of Linda Fite, 1710 St. Mary’s Street, to the Neighborhood Commission POLICY AGENDA: Consideration of the Como Lake Subwatershed 7 Area Study Cooperative Agreement Administrator Worthington said that in late 2001, staff began discussions with the City of St. Paul, Ramsey County, and the Capitol Region Watershed District (CRWD) about the Como Lake Subwatershed 7 drainage area and related issues, to flooding downstream from our storm sewer in Falcon Heights. These problems were addressed because of early conversations about potential stormwater runoff from the SE Corner redevelopment site. The parties agreed, preliminarily, to work together on a hydrological investigation of the Subwatershed 7 area, the purposes of which would be: Evaluation of water conveyance capacity limitations in the subwatershed and identification of potential solutions and costs; Evaluation of related water quality impacts and identification of specific Best Management Practices and associated costs for the purpose of meeting the implementation objectives of the CRWD’s Como Lake Strategic Plan; Identification of a fair cost distribution among partners for future implementation projects addressing the water conveyance capacity issue and water quality impacts in Como Lake Subwatershed 7; Preparation of a project implementation timetable. Consultants for this project were solicited, and the process is ready to go forward with the partners. The cost breakdown for the study is as follows: CRWD $22,500 Roseville $ 3,500 St. Paul $17,500 Falcon Heights $ 3,000 Ramsey County $ 3,500 She said the City Attorney is recommending that a modification be made in the proposed cooperative agreement on page 4, #10-the hold harmless provision. The modification will permit the City to also be held harmless. Questions were asked about cost breakdown, the relationship of this study to the Curtiss Field improvements, and participation of the City consulting engineers. Administrator Worthington said the cost sharing structure is based on population, acreage within the watershed, and associated flows. FALCON HEIGHTS CITY COUNCIL MINUTES -3- March 26, 2003 Consideration of the Como Lake Subwatershed 7 Area Study Cooperative Agreement (continued) Administrator Worthington said that City funding for the study will come from the Storm Sewer Enterprise Fund. The study will relate quite nicely with the Curtiss Field improvements. Installing a drain and storm sewer system in the pond would require a lift station, which is costly. Instead, the pond will be dredged and about 25’ of sand installed as its base, which will aid greatly with natural drainage. The City consulting engineers were involved earlier in the preparation of the document. Lamb moved approval of the Como Lake Subwatershed 7 Area Study Cooperative Agreement on behalf of the City, subject to the stipulation that the hold harmless provision on page 4, No. 10, be changed to also include the City. The motion was unanimously approved. Consideration of a Joint Powers Agreement for participation Suburban Ramsey County Hazardous Materials Team/Hazardous Materials Response Vehicle Administrator Worthington said that in 1992, the cities of New Brighton, Shoreview, Arden Hills, North Oaks (through the Lake Johanna Fire Department), and Roseville entered into an agreement to share a Hazardous Materials Response Vehicle, and form the 3-D Haz Mat Team (the name references the participation of the three fire departments, Lake Johanna, New Brighton and Roseville). In 2002, the City of Roseville formally withdrew from the Team, and the agreement expired, allowing new cities to enter into the JPA. During meetings and discussions related to homeland security issues, several cities expressed interest in joining the team, including Falcon Heights, and Vadnais Heights. The cities of New Brighton and the Lake Johanna cities will also be signatories to the JPA. Joint training, shared response and shared equipment are features of this agreement. The need for regionalization of services including sharing the costs of training and equipping specialized functions of public safety continues to be important. The team will be regional in nature, and will be and is trained at a higher level for hazardous materials incidents, including terrorism-related concerns. This agreement provides the framework for decision making to specifically include budgeting and financing of equipment and vehicles. Falcon Heights budgeted for the additional training costs for joining the Team in 2003. The Team is scheduled to receive several thousand dollars in equipment and training funded through Department of Justice Terrorism Grants. No other unusual expenses are anticipated in the near future for the continued operations of the Suburban Ramsey County Hazardous Materials Team. Equipment and training is likely funded for the next one to two years through these grants. A Hazardous Materials Response Vehicle may need to be purchased in the next three to four years, but will be a shared cost for all involved cities, with the participation to be negotiated under a separate agreement. FALCON HEIGHTS CITY COUNCIL MINUTES -4- March 26, 2003 Consideration of a Joint Powers Agreement for participation Suburban Ramsey County Hazardous Materials Team/Hazardous Materials Response Vehicle (continued) Council member Lamb said that he thinks this is a very good idea. Who will represent the City on the Operations Committee? Is there value in soliciting Lauderdale into this? Administrator Worthington said the Fire Chief and Assistant Fire Chief will represent the City. Lauderdale can be brought into the agreement, although they are covered through an agreement they have with Falcon Heights for fire protection services. Council member Lindstrom asked what the University of Minnesota does regarding hazardous material. Administrator Worthington said the University contracts with Saint Paul, who has two teams. The State regional team is also located in Saint Paul. This team would also be called in under the mutual aid agreement. Council member Kuettel said that she sees pluses all the way around. The training opportunities that will be provided will make our Fire Department all that much more attractive to new members. Council member Talbot asked who responds now. What happens if funding goes south? What is the projected cost of the vehicle? This sounds like a good plan to him. Administrator Worthington said that at this time the Fire Chief requests assistance from the regional team in Saint Paul. The funding is assured from the Federal government and has been paid out to the State. There would be no adverse impact on the basic training budget. The last truck purchased cost about $207,000. The cost will probably be apportioned according to population. There will be capital planning for the next 3-5 years, with 2006 being the earliest purchase date. Mayor Gehrz said the joint powers agreement is very detailed. This is something that will be used for all kinds of things. Chemicals are chemicals. She doesn’t see our society becoming less dependent. Kuettel moved approval of the Joint Powers Agreement for participation in the Suburban Ramsey County Hazardous Materials Team/Hazardous Materials Response Vehicle. The motion was unanimously approved. Consideration of participation in the Citizen Observer Program Mayor Gehrz said that for many years the Neighborhood Block Captains, individual residents, city council and staff have wanted to use e-mail as a rapid and cost-effective tool for crime alerts and/or notification of upcoming city events. CitizenObserver.com, Inc. is a St Paul company that can enable the City to provide that new service to our residents. FALCON HEIGHTS CITY COUNCIL MINUTES -5- March 26, 2003 Consideration of participation in the Citizen Observer Program (continued) Mayor Gehrz said that she has heard Terry Halsch, President, make three presentations about this resource and would like to pursue this opportunity, using some of the $9,807 grant from the Department of Emergency Management to do so. Mr. Halsch presented information to the Neighborhood Commission at the March 19 meeting and the Commission suggested that we continue researching the details of how we could use this. CitizenObserver has secure servers in San Antonio, Texas. Their initial work was in using Internet, fax, and cell phone notifications to alert businesses to crimes. Businesses funded most of the cost. They later expanded to other alerts and to providing the web site presence for police departments. They currently have over 1000 Neighborhood Watch Programs enrolled through 115 participating agencies in eight states. The next phase is to expand this resource for use by Citizen Corps Councils. They currently offer automated registration, secure sites so no one can create an unauthorized message, the ability to target alerts to specific neighborhoods, and the ability to create both public and private pages. We do not have the in-house resources to do this ourselves. The projected cost is about $2,500 a year. The Council and residents can take a look at this resource at www.CitizenObserver.com. Surf around the site and check out the “Neighborhood Watch Groups.” You can also see which cities in Minnesota and other states are already using this service. Council member Talbot said that he thinks this is something that should definitely be pursued. He thanked Mayor Gehrz for looking into this. Council member Lindstrom said this seems like a no brainer to him. Council member Kuettel said the cost bothers her a little bit. She sees the cost as only getting bigger every year and that is her only reservation. She would like to see this pursued further. Council member Lamb said the City has talked about this for a couple of years. Expanding the City’s capability is an important thing. We all know our own server is very limited. In the past the City has talked about joining with other communities utilizing a joint server. He would like to see the City to pursue the idea of joining a server consortium and doesn’t want to pay for duplicative services. Anything the City can do to expands its communication electronically is a good thing. The general consensus of the Council was that Mayor Gehrz and staff do more study of the Citizen Observer Program and bring back to the Council detailed information at a later date. FALCON HEIGHTS CITY COUNCIL MINUTES -6- March 26, 2003 INFORMATION AND ANNOUNCEMENTS: Council member Lamb, for the benefit of the cable audience, gave a brief review of the used clothing recycling program that will become available to residents starting April 4, as a part of the City’s regular recycling program. He reminded the cable audience that a descriptive flyer about this new program had been distributed to everyone in the community earlier in the week. Council member Talbot thanked Mayor Gehrz, the Kwong family, Beth Duncan and Karis Harstad for the wonderful presentation. He said they made him delighted and proud to be a Falcon Heights resident. Mayor Gehrz reminded the Council that City Administrator Heather Worthington celebrates her third anniversary with the City on April 15. It is time for her annual performance review and Mayor Gehrz said she would be sending an e-mail to Council members asking for their input. Mayor Gehrz said that the City is far enough into the new year to begin talking about and preparing the 2004 budget. There will not be a Council workshop session in April because Administrator Worthington will be at a conference and unable to attend. The Council workshop on May 7 will be facilitated by an outside facilitator to talk about our own attitudes around risk management. Administrator Worthington said that the Planning Commission is recommending approval of the PUD rezoning for the SE Corner and she is meeting with the developer on Thursday, March 27. The regular City Council meeting was adjourned at 8:20 PM. Respectfully submitted, Mary Shea Kodluboy, Deputy Clerk.