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Mayor Randy Stille February 9, 2021 City of St. Anthony, MN Dear Mayor, As a citizen of St. Anthony along with approximately 90 other citizens, I am concerned that the approach and process of the city in regard to the CUP for the carwash on Kenzie is flawed. This is because the actual city ordinances are not being followed. Another email and letter should be coming soon to give you direct ordinance language. But of course, you can access this at any time. Let me be clear: I am not asking for the city to deny the CUP just because I don’t want the project. I believe that if the project can pass required studies the carwash should be allowed to proceed. I do believe that when the appropriate experts weigh in, the CUP will have to be denied based on their evaluations. I cannot know this for sure of course, but I know that as residents we deserve to know the expert’s findings. The City Engineer is not the appropriate person to be doing the analysis. Typically, as I am sure you know, the Applicant pays for appropriate expert analysis and presents this to the city to demonstrate that the project will not affect the Health, Safety, and Welfare of those surrounding the project. It must not negatively affect the property values of the adjacent and other neighboring properties. Mr. Grittman certainly knows this. A CUP is a Request to build based on the elements described in the ordinances of St. Anthony. Mr. Grittman has not followed the ordinances and I believe if you inquire the City’s attorneys, not just Mr. Grittman, you will find that the city is not following the standard of other cities and indeed not the standard the city has operated on for years through many projects. CUP’s are requests to proceed once the standard has been met. I hope you will reconsider and direct the applicant to obtain appropriate expert studies be done by professional engineers. As a taxpayer I am unhappy that the city would do this for the applicant but not for me. I’m sure Mr. Grittman would not have a city planning person develop a plan for me to build a deck. Why would the city assist the applicant to obtain the CUP by doing their work? While our city engineer may be quite talented, in order to do these evaluations, he/she must be recognized as having an expertise in these matters—state law requires it. An engineer cannot work outside of his/her expertise. And even if the city engineer has all of these qualifications, the taxpayers should not be paying for this work. If necessary, the CUP should be rejected until these studies are completed. The applicant can reapply. Of course, this is a burden for the applicant in one sense. But in another, the applicant did not provide the information required by the city ordinances. If the applicant was misled by Mr. Grittman, that is another matter. But Ryan construction is a big firm and they certainly know what is required. My question is why? Why is this happening? Even with the Lowry Grove project, these studies were done. Mr. Hoyt paid for the studies and assessment. The city, rightly, directed him to do 225