06-24-1996 CC - Laserfiche WebLink

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June 20, 1996 IIITo: Honorable Mayor and City Council From: Chuck Whiting, City Administrator Re: June 24, 1996 City Council Meeting I have several items to touch upon with you. First, I did get Pam Sheldon situated to come to Mounds View. She intends to start either July 15 or 22 depending on available housing. As with Bruce Kessel, I had to negotiate terms for her to come. I will start her at Step 2, with two weeks banked vacation and up to $2,000 in moving expenses. As with Bruce Kessel, I felt this was appropriate considering the amount of experience she has, plus she is taking a significant pay cut to come here. I think she will be very good for the City. This past Monday evening the Mayor and Julie Trude and I attended the quad ice rink meeting in New Brighton. The status of this project is that the arrangements for having so many communities involved in the project leads to some difficulties. Specifically, I sense our neighboring communities are cool to the prospect of guarantying the debt for our quarter of the project. Shoreview and Arden Hills were not in attendance Monday, and will be meeting with the NSC people later. Our debt obligation would supposedly be paid off by the pull tab and membership fee revenues of the local hockey association, and the fees generated by the rink. Concern was expressed by New Brighton that if the cities were to back the debt, they should also profit from the business of running an arena when . profits are made. Excess revenues are to be managed by a board representing the communities, but then the question of whether each community's revenue generation is equitable came up. In the end, I felt the project was fairly positive, but these issues should be resolved prior to any commitment. Also,Paul Erickson, Executive Director of the NSC offered to come to a Council meeting to review the project. I think scheduling him for a regular meeting would be beneficial in order to get the issues out to the community. It is very complicated and we may be better off with him trying to sell it to the community instead of trying to explain it ourselves. Also, I think will need to be sensitive to our fellow communities involved in this in order to present a unified position. This may require us to have a joint meeting with the Council's and staffs of New Brighton, Arden Hills, and Shoreview. Brooklyn Center may also be a participant. On the Bel Rae, Cathy and I expect to have some work from the architect on Friday in order to go Bob Thistle for further number crunching. We are sensitive to the cost concerns expressed and will work accordingly. I would like to have the Council meet for a special workshop session on Tuesday at 5 p.m. (this appears to be the only time we can get you all)to go through this again, and I expect we will be able clarify the options much better by then. I have contacted most of you on this meeting possibility, and when I have contacted the last member, we will notify you that the meeting is on. I appreciate your flexibility in setting up this meeting. Speaking of rescheduling meetings,with two Council members gone for the July 1 meeting, the idea of moving the July meeting schedule back one week has come up. Because of five Mondays in July, this could be done to maximize Council participation. Perhaps this can be brought up Monday under 10 staff or Council reports.