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Mounds View City Council December 11, 2006 <br />Regular Meeting Page 10 <br /> <br /> 1 <br />Council Member Gunn said that this is not being rushed and it will follow the construction 2 <br />schedule and has been under consideration for a long time. 3 <br /> 4 <br />Director Lee addressed the water issues with this project. 5 <br /> 6 <br />James Miller of 7980 Fairchild Avenue asked whether there was input from the citizens on the 7 <br />plan to disconnect Hillview and Fairchild from County Road 10. 8 <br /> 9 <br />Council indicated that there were discussions for the last year with public meetings. 10 <br /> 11 <br />Mr. Miller indicated that he uses the County Road 10 access point to get to Fairchild Avenue and 12 <br />this change would send them past the Kindercare and that will create a visual block for the 13 <br />drivers coming down Hillview to Fairchild because the Kindercare employees park along the 14 <br />street. He then said that this will also increase the traffic on Red Oak. He further said that there 15 <br />are other things that bother him on the design issues but the biggest one is that the streets are 45 16 <br />or 50 years old and it embarrasses him to live in a City that does not take care of its streets. 17 <br /> 18 <br />Mr. Miller indicated that one of the main issues he has is this is a lot of money because his 19 <br />County taxes and school district taxes are going up and that is a struggle for him. 20 <br /> 21 <br />Mr. Miller indicated that something needs to be done with the streets but he does not think that 22 <br />curb and gutter are needed. He then said that he has lived there for 26 years and nothing has been 23 <br />done for 26 years and now it is so far gone that it will cost $3,000 for residents to fix it. 24 <br /> 25 <br />Mayor Marty explained that the Council Members are common people that pay taxes too and 26 <br />Councils prior to this one had reduced funding for streets down to where nothing could be done. 27 <br />He then explained that the City has been taking funds from the franchise fees and dedicating 28 <br />them to a fund for street projects so that residents did not have to pay for the entire project. 29 <br /> 30 <br />Mayor Marty indicated that the City does not have to bond and incur more debt to do this project. 31 <br />He said that the streets are falling apart and it is time to do something about it and, unfortunately, 32 <br />residents will have to contribute toward the costs. He then said that the City has taken steps to 33 <br />limit the amount that residents have to pay by creating a fund for street improvements. He 34 <br />further said that the utilities need to be done at the time the street is reconstructed because the 35 <br />utilities are as old as the streets and it would not make sense to do the street without the utilities. 36 <br /> 37 <br />Mayor Marty indicated that, with appropriate maintenance, the streets should last another 30 38 <br />years. 39 <br /> 40 <br />William Werner of 2765 Sherwood Road said that he wishes that each person that talks about the 41 <br />surveys would list how many responses and how many surveys were sent back. He then said that 42 <br />there were a lot of meetings where few people show up. 43 <br /> 44