03/12/2012 Council Packet - Laserfiche WebLink

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• • • CITY COUNCIL SPECIAL WORK SESSION February 27, 2012 P 2 4 DRAFT DATE TIME STARTED TIME ENDED MEMBERS PRESENT MEMBERS ABSENT CITY OF LINO LAKES MINUTES : February 27, 2012 . 7:00 p.m. . 8:20 p.m. : Council Member Stoesz, O'Donnell, Rafferty, Roeser and Mayor Reinert : None Staff members present: City Administrator Jeff Karlson; Community Development Director Michael Grochala; City Engineer Jason Wedel; City Clerk Julie Bartell Possible Charter Amendment — Community Development Director Grochala reported. He noted that the council discussed at the last special session on February 13 the different elements of the citizen's task force proposal to amend Chapter 8 of the City Charter. There was a review of what the process would look like under that language. The council also brought up the idea of a cap and staff did have a discussion on that concept with bond counsel, Steve Bubul, and financial advisor, Springsted. The council also asked questions about how many miles of city roads are in a deficient situation at the current time. Community Development Director Grochala reviewed how the task force proposal would work for the improvement process including when the actual improvements are decided upon. Under the task force amendment, a hearing on the improvements is required. Property owners can object at that meeting and, if at least fifty percent of those property owners object, another hearing is scheduled 45 days out. If there is not that level of objection, the council could take action to order the improvement at that same meeting and would decide at that point what would be included in the project. The scope of the improvement is always left to the council with public input. The feasibility study would be done based on all possible improvements but if there is an element that the council wants removed based on public testimony, for instance, the council could spell it out differently. The second public hearing could be the opportunity to review the actual improvements. The task force proposal also contains a provision allowing affected property owners to petition against a project and stop the improvements (within a 30 day period after action — a notice to residents having been required within five days of action). The council and staff acknowledged that there will be situations where improvements like water /sewer wouldn't make sense. Also a process like "stubbing" would allow future hook ups as an option. The mayor acknowledged that it's important for property owners to have choice rather than having all improvements imposed upon them. Mr. Grochala added that staff is bringing forward the concept of adding in a reverse referendum, allowing voters to petition for a referendum and the idea was discussed by the council.