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Mounds View City Council January 24, 2000 Regular Meeting Page 2 Council Member Marty requested a correction to Page 4, second paragraph, first sentence, to indicate “…the maximum driveway width in the R-1 Zoning District would increase from 35 feet to 35 feet or, the width of the garage plus 12 feet--whichever is greater.” MOTION/SECOND: Marty/Stigney. To accept the January 10, 2000 City Council minutes as corrected. Ayes – 5 Nays – 0 Motion carried. 5. SPECIAL ORDER OF BUSINESS A. State of the City Address Mayor Coughlin presented the State of the City Address as follows: “Members of the City Council, Former Mayors, and Fellow Residents of Mounds View: In keeping with the rules and traditions of the City of Mounds View, the Mayor is required to address the residents at the start of every year. This is in order to provide yet another means to communicate the goings on within the City to the residents. In the past year, this Council has dealt with several items of considerable note. One of the first things done by this Council was to set time limits on its own meetings. Although this seems to be a small thing at first blush, having reasonable time constraints provided some motivation to cut to the chase and be efficient with the time that we have together. In addition to providing a new level of efficiency, having meetings end at a reasonable hour protects the overall process by keeping important and critical decisions from being made after the Council Members and staff are tired and fatigued. Great strides have been made in the past year in the way this community is communicated with by its Council. This Council passed a broad and extensive Cable broadcast policy by which, for the first time in the City’s history, the various City commissions and boards were televised. Because much of what is done at the City level is discussed at the commission level, it is of great benefit to the community to have the opportunity to witness first hand, all levels of our City government. When concerns were raised that even this new policy was not extensive enough, an even broader policy was passed, to include all groups meeting in this building, which are subject to the State meeting laws. In addition to radically changing the broadcast schedule for our local cable access channel, the Council gave its blessing to the continued expansion of our Internet and e-mail capabilities. When I took office last year, the City’s WebPage was generic and out of date. In one year, we now have a Website that contains vast amounts of information about the City’s operations, and staff now receives more E-mail correspondence than it does telephone calls, on any given day. Now all members of this City Council and every staff member can be reached by E-mail. This acceptance of the new communication technologies has provided more information into the hands of residents than at any time in the past. With much discussion, this Council adopted a new street reconstruction and replacement policy. Gone are the days when the City tells the residents what is going to happen to their streets and