01-04-2010 Council Minutes - Laserfiche WebLink

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CITY COUNCIL WORK SESSION January 4,2010 APPROVED CITY OF LINO LAKES 2 MINUTES ‘■■■■ 3 4 DATE : January 4, 2010 5 TIME STARTED : 5:40 p.m. 6 TIME ENDED : 8:15 p.m. 7 MEMBERS PRESENT : Councilmember Gallup, O'Donnell, 8 Rafferty,Roeser and Mayor Reinert 9 MEMBERS ABSENT : None 10 11 12 Staff members present: Acting Administrator Dan Tesch; Community Development 13 Director Michael Grochala; City Engineer Jim Studenski; City Planner Paul Bengtson; 14 Economic Development Coordinator Mary Alice Divine; Director of Public Safety Dave 15 Pecchia; City Clerk Julie Bartell. 16 17 1. Snowmobile/ATV Regulations (per Reinert& O'Donnell) -Police Chief 18 Pecchia explained that one intent of the city's snowmobile/all terrain vehicle (ATV) 19 regulations are to keep these type of vehicles off the roadways when that is not 20 appropriate. It is not the intent to use the regulations to limit a neighbor's ability to assist 21 another neighbor with driveway plowing. While such an activity may in some cases 22 technically be a violation of the regulations it is important to keep in mind the spirit of the 23 law. He understands that council members were contacted with a question about 24 changing the regulations but he believes the concern at the heart of the matter is an 25 extension of a neighborhood conflict, one that has created a minimum of 65 calls to the 26 Police Department in the last few years. Chief Pecchia further explained that the 27 department will be bringing forward in the near future a proposal for regulations 28 regarding multiple calls to be considered as an ordinance by the council. 29 2. Legacy Update—Economic Development Coordinator Divine reported that staff 30 has met with representatives of OSM the current loan servicer of the Legacy property. 31 The investors are not interested in redeeming the property at this point so it is likely that it 32 will go into tax forfeiture. If the city is interested in taking the property, it can only do so 33 for a public purpose and that is probably not what the city wants to do. Other options are 34 to allow the property to go to public auction or possibility use a deed in lieu of forfeiture, 35 the latter being a lesser known option that staff is further investigating with legal 36 assistance. The current principal and interest on the taxes could be more than$6 million. 37 Community Development Director Grochala noted that there are some important 38 considerations involved in this property question. This is valuable property from many 39 standpoints—so how the land is held until it is developed is the basic question. While the 40 city does pick up forfeited properties each year,they are normally bought for a public 41 purpose. Regarding the idea of a deed in lieu of forfeiture,that process would eliminate 42 the forfeiture process with the city dealing with the county up front. The city has been 43 covering the debt service on the improvement bonds and that seems like a big burden but 1