03-14-2018 Council Packet - Laserfiche WebLink

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STAFF REPORT TO: Mayor Keis and Members of the City Council FROM: Joel Hanson, City Administrator DATE: March 9, 2018 RE: Amendment to Quiet Zone Agreement with MnDot As you recall, the Minnesota Legislature had allocated $1,250,000 to create a Quiet Zone in the City at our six at-grade railroad crossings. Initial discussions estimated the cost at $250,000 per crossing. After a more detailed analysis, staff was expecting City out-of-pocket costs to run between $100,000 and $130,000. Final costs have been paid for this project as follows: Canadian Pacific Railroad -------------------------------------- $1,080,445.39 CP Engineering --------------------------------------------------- 30,000.00 Short-Elliott-Hendrickson (SEH) ------------------------------ 35,386.84 B2 Median --------------------------------------------------------- 19,383.90 Signage ------------------------------------------------------------- 1,592.63 Total Expended $1,166,808.76 The grant agreement we signed with MnDot was set up with a match requirement given because the estimated project costs were exceeding the funds allocated. The match listed in the agreement was $83,104. This amount did not include all expenses given State requirements dealing with the use of public funds within the Railroad’s right-of-way. That meant the median costs and signage costs were our responsibility for an estimated total of $104,080.53. Once final costs were known and given that we were under the $1,250,000 allotted for the project, staff requested that MnDot to revise the agreement given the initial legislative intent to enable us to use more State funds and less City resources. I am pleased to say that MnDot agreed with this approach and is willing to revise our initial agreement to remove the match requirement. This means we will only be spending $20,976.53 of City money to accomplish this project. (Note: We still have to pay for the costs outside of the railroad right-of-way pursuant to State requirements. The City of Shoreview also had to comply with this provision.) As a result, staff recommends we approve the attached resolution that amends MnDot Contract #06820 by removing the local match requirements.