[Music] you go y we'll call a Shak B city council meeting to order for January 21st if you'd please take the role Delaney here counc member Whiting here council member contras here council member Lara here mayor Layman here item number three please join us in the Pledge of [Applause] Allegiance Al to the flag of the United States of America to the rep for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liy and justice I'll go over there yes item number four approval of the agenda any changes to the agenda nothing from staff sir Council wishes of the council councelor contarus thank you I'd like to make a motion to approve the agenda is there a second to the motion I'll second second by Mr Lara discussion on the motion seeing none all in favor say I I I opposed motion passes item number five is our consent agenda any changes to the consent agenda Mr Whiting uh pull 5G please FG 5G any other changes from Council nothing from staff Sir with that I can make a motion to approve the consent agenda as modified is there a second to the motion second Mr Delaney has a second [Laughter] take turns uh any discussion on the motion the motion is to approve the consent agenda as modified removing five g g any other Mr Reynolds please read to consent thank you Mr Mayor members of council this these are the consent agenda items for Tuesday January 21st of 2025 5A is the public and roadside Memorial policy 5B approves change order number two for Canterbury Commons Internal roadway improvements 5c is a memorandum of understanding with the Henman County WMBB wmd tactical response team 5D approves the city council meeting minutes 5e is a settlement on professional fees for sand Venture design work 5f order is an order of abatement of a hazardous property in building at 2405 Jennifer Lane 5H is a maximum vacation acal mou for the shock B police captains and sergeant 5i approves plans and authorizes bidding for the 2025 pavement reite project 5j declares one squad car as Salvage property and authorizes its disposal 5K accepts the voluntary dissolution of the shaki fire department relief Association 5l approves a purchase agreement with vasala for weather stations and 5m accepts proposal from Alliant Eng engineering for M safe road zones Grant thank you Mr Reynolds any discussion on the motion discussion all in favor say I I opposed motion passes item number six public comment if you are here for an item not on the city council agenda now would be the time for that you have five minutes yep please step up to the table there and pull that microphone up give me one second to be fair with everybody and get my counter started here if you want to go ahead and give us your name and address I would appreciate that my name is Jessica and my address is 4133 Avenue East thank you well welcome we'd love to hear your comments thank you go ahead I'm bringing to you today a concern that I have um that's been going on for several months um there has been new neighbors that have moved into next next door we share a driveway that is an easement um shaki clearly has an ordinance about the easement that not it's not to be obstructed these neighbors have been obstructing that easement preventing me from use of that driveway um for the last several months um they've also installed High Beam lights that directly go into my house and into my son's bedroom and which are again city ordinance um they also have um been parking on the grass in the front yard which is isore um there's been several incidences of violations of state law that they have done I have reported everything to the Shak police I am now told by the SHP police they will no longer respond to any of my calls as of last third last week um J January 15th or yeah January 15th these neighbors followed me threatening behavior um to my garage I was outside to do yard work and snow removal and I called the Shak police and asked specifically on the 911 call for help and to have them escort me to from my detached garage which is by my alley to my home because I didn't feel safe these people have been videotaping in my house through my windows and I don't feel safe and I don't feel supported by sh talky policed and I'm backed into a corner and I'm feeling like the next logical step is to come here to beg you to do something about this I am taking care of the Civil issue on my end but the ordinances and the laws that are being violated Shak police have clear abilities to handle those and should they are there to Serve and Protect and you state in your in your little pamphlet that you're here for a safe community and it doesn't feel like it and I am I'm on the verge of a lawsuit and I don't want to go down that road I just don't I'd rather resolve the issue and move forward peacefully with everybody and move safely in my life and continue on but I don't feel safe in my home I don't feel safe being around my home because of these people people and I don't feel supported by the Shak police I feel abandoned thank you thank you for your comments is there anybody else in the audience that would like to address a city council on an item that is not on our agenda now would be the time to come to the table I would love to hear your comments is there anybody else that would like to address Council okay thank you uh moving to item number seven business removed from the consent agenda I'm I'm let me back up let me just explain that our our policy is to take uh citizen comment um not necessarily to sit here and find a solution tonight so just want to let you know that's a a current policy so thank you for your comments item number seven uh business removed from the consent agenda 5G by councelor Whiting Mr Whiting thank you U Mr Mayor this is something I've pulled in the past um my attempt is to get back to regular order uh on specifically the interview committee this is to interview uh boards and commissions for our city council and that's always been seated by City Council Members um and it rotated so with that I would make a motion to approve the mayor oral appointments with the change of adding councelor Lara and uh councelor contras as the interview committee okay is there a second to the motion I'll second and and I will say that was my oversight um I totally just oversighted it so my bad there I I appreciate you bringing it up con Whiting any uh Mr just were clear the motion was to add those two conf no to to change so the the change in the motion is to approve what's in front of us with one one change putting uh councelor Lara and councelor contarus on on the interview committee instead of currently myself and councelor Delaney correct is there all okay with that is that correct yes okay are you two okay with that all right any discussion discussion seeing none all in favor say I I I opposed motion passes and thank you again Mr whing that was my oversight no problem item 8A is a public hearing public hearing for Street reconstruction plan motion to open a public hearing would be in order Mr Lara make a motion to open the public hearing call second my Miss contras discussion on the motion discussion all in favor say I I opposed public hearing is now open uh good evening mayor and council members uh tonight we have a public hearing on a 5year street reconstruction plan uh a little bit of a background without necessarily uh rehashing the full discussion but last year during the budget and the CIP process uh we talked about the growing uh need for additional funding to maintain our existing Street c or city streets uh my understanding from that discussion is at least some of the city council me members uh wanted to consider all the options when it comes to funding which would include bonding uh what has been recommended uh to the city council for approval tonight uh includes the adoption of a street reconstruction plan and Declaration of intent to reimburse project expenditures through the issuance of bonds uh which would allow the city to utilize this funding option now or in the future in the presentation tonight I'll cover what is required to provide us with that Authority and then the benefit of doing so uh State statutes provide the city the ability to issue bonds for Street projects uh they fall under two different authorities um so we can't just issue debt to for anything it has to fall under one of these two authorities uh the first one would be um statute 429 uh which would allow the city to issue bonds if at least 20% of the project is uh being paid for from special assessments however the majority of these projects uh specifically the mill and overlays uh don't meet this requirement as they're not assessed uh which means if we were to issue bonds we'd have to issue them under Minnesota statute 475 uh that statute requires the city to adopt a street reconstruction plan covering a 5-year period uh additionally additionally the city must hold a public hearing on the street reconstruction plan which we're doing tonight and the plan must be approved by two-thirds of City Council uh the debt issuance uh would also be a subject to reverse referendum if petitioned by 5% of the number of votes uh casted at the last election uh the resolution also includes reimbursement language that follows IRS uh rules this uh is a requirement to adopt uh ahead of occurring any project expenditures uh if we want to uh reimburse uh those project expend expenditures through uh future Bond proceeds uh we have been including this language in a number of our street project resolution Solutions uh not NE so it's not necessarily anything new uh but this does allow us to reimburse any project costs of Street rec of the street reconstruction plan uh during the re reimbursement period which could be up to a three-year period and then again any of the projects identified in this street reconstruction plan would qualify uh the street reconstruction plan uh includes the manual um the manual the annual Mill and overlay and reconstruction projects for each year of the next 5 years uh that were included in our CIP plan uh in total this is 3426 million in projects uh we have included uh the CIP project sheets for each project as part of the street reconstruction plan uh so again no new projects um from what was listed in the CIP uh the full amount has been included in the resolution and the Declaration of intent uh to issue bonds uh so 34.2 six million would be the maximum amount over the 5year period uh however if we decided to move forward um with a bond issuance uh we'd really only bond for what we needed to so um we' probably be more in the in the range of 5 to 10 million versus that full 34 million that's listed there uh so why do this um so first and foremost this does not obligate uh the city in in any way to do any of the projects listed or issue bonds at all uh each of those would be separate decisions made by the city council um but what it does do is it provides the flexibility on the amount and timing uh we could move forward with a bond issuing process at any time over the next 5 years or again never at all uh this gives the opportunity on an ongoing basis to review our cash flow needs uh which are influenced by a variety of unknowns uh with projects or changes in funding uh possibly there are additional projects that city council uh may decide to pursue uh or project scope changes and um by issuing bonds for one of these projects it opens up funding for a completely different project uh other considerations might be uh interest rate changes and whether it makes sense to lower the cost of issuance by issuing with another Bond or with a refunding of an existing bond uh an example I can give is with our um Community Center uh Ice Arena bonds that we have issued uh there is a a provision in there that we could um call or refund those early so if rates were to drop um maybe it makes sense to do a a new bond issue at the same time uh and then lastly uh the reimbursement language uh means we'd be reimbursing ourselves uh with known costs uh the alternative uh would be issuing bonds based on estimated cost or a project bid all that are susceptible that to uh project changes or project delays or whatever might come up uh it also makes things uh easier from an admin perspective uh as typically uh Bond proceeds would be receded or well required to be receded into a completely separate bank account um as they can't be comingled with funds and then we do draws as projects occur or project expenses occurred uh so that tracking so there is more tracking and accounting uh whereas reimbursing ourselves it would just be a one-time entry uh so tonight um again this is a public hearing so receive uh public input uh and then uh consideration of uh resolution R 25- 006 uh if approved uh future steps would be continue to review uh Street Improvement funding needs on an ongoing basis uh but but specifically at the times of um when we complete our annual financial report uh when we're issuing um or when we're receiving project bids and then also during the capital improvement process and and reviewing to whether determine whether it makes sense to issue bonds at that time uh and then of course another Factor would be any interest rate changes uh so with that I can stand for any any questions that you might have thank you Mr Reinhardt questions from Council of Staff Mr Delaney sure so this is basically like a placeholder we're not running out the door to pursue bonds at the present time we're basically set in a stage to do that no absolutely not and it's not our recommendation right now to issue bonds is I don't know if we necessarily need them to to fill any gaps but what it does is you know a year down the road with a lot of the unknowns that we kind of talked about you know maybe there's other projects you want to throw in there or decide you want to pursue well it gives you the authority to then issue a bond and reimburse ourselves for costs we've already had so um it's just another tool in the toolbox more or less any other questions a couple of questions that I had uh this little statute 475.894 is for rec Street reconstruction not Street Maintenance correct um the projects that we have like the Mills Mill and overlay that would that would qualify so it's that qualifies but the uh crack crack and crack seal and Chip seal is not yeah so with those type of projects they're usually not as um higher dollar amount so um and really with the 35 million worth of projects we have identified in there I'm not sure if there would be a need to really look into throwing any more projects than what's identified already and then the other question that I had was under the IRS regulations 18 months after the project is complete or 3 years after original expense was made can you give me an example of that yeah so three years would be the max after you've you've spent the money but um if you had a project that lasted months you'd have 18 months from the completion of that project to issue Bond so it's whatever's so that project four years ago doesn't qualify correct year enough does or three years after a original exp way years yeah but 18 months isn't three years so I'm I'm trying to understand that better what's that essentially the projects take a long time some of them do and so what what that is either 3 years after the project excuse me 18 months after the projects is completed or three years after the original expense was made so you can you can pay it at the beginning and it could take a year to do the project the key is then you have either the three years or the 18 months got a quick question so as far as the funding this is basically covering the Capital Improvement fund portion of it we're not doing like the storm drainage special assessment okay y it would just be Capital Improvement correct it doesn't include you know the the spuck cost in some of these and but we are including the assessments um it would include the assessment portion of the project so it's the total project cost even if it was paid through by special assessments or in some other Manner and they have 10 years to pay their special assessments or paay it up front when they get it yeah or something in between but where does the dollars coming from the special assessments go then if the bonds paid off the project incomplete um for okay again the majority of these projects have very little special assessments associated with them some of the Reconstruction projects have a little bit more um but it would be obviously com you could have a combination repayment where you're paying it of with tax levy or special assessments we would not bond for special assessment portions of the project okay all right any other questions okay this is a public hearing if there's anybody that would like to speak on this matter now would be your time to be heard is there anybody in the audience that would like to uh speak on this matter last call Mr Delan last question so we'll always come back to council before the bonds are pursued though just make yeah we would be required to get approval from from Council and then it would uh also require us to basically give a 30-day period before we were to issue bonds which would allow for this reverse referendum as well and um I believe uh the two3 vote would be required on the bonding piece of that too and not just the street reconstruction project or plan do we have clarification on that matter Mr Thompson uh Mr I'm not sure the question but the question is do you need two-thirds vote to sell Bonds on a project later down the road if we approve this tonight not that I'm aware of I unless this I'm I can check with our bond Council but this statute that you have tonight requires two-thirds vote on this action if this action is taken and the bonds are sold they come back I don't think it's a two-third requirement but I I'll double check on on on that on that action okay yeah if I can just say one thing to that so I have been working with uh Jim's colleague um Julia Edington who's our bond basically the bond council with Kennedy and Graven so she's the one that I primarily work to to craft this resolution and this street reconstruction plan and did you ask her if it would need two-thirds individually I I'd be happy to follow up with that okay is there anybody in the audience that would like to address this issue uh it is a public hearing so please step forward if you'd like to make comment Mr Whiting I think we ran out our votes on that so I will motion to close the public hearing there second second second by councelor contras discussion on the motion discussion all in favor say I I I opposed public hearing is closed Mr Wy I like having options and we know we have a lot of projects out there and and we'll have more but uh we knew we were coming up to a bubble we've talked about this for years how we were going to pay for it uh here's an option we don't know if we'll need it but uh all we're saying is that we're going to leave that option open we'll be ready so with that um I make a motion to adopt resolution R 2025 TX 006 a resolution adopting a street reconstruction plan and declaring the official intent of the city of shaki to reimburse certain expenditures from the proceeds of bonds to be issued by the city thank you Mr whing is there a second second mik is loud you are loud get lessons on that for two years I've been asking him to move his mic forward and uh we'll get there nice job Mr Delaney thank you all right uh any discussion on the motion we have a motion in a second discussion on a motion good I I I have some concerns with you know I don't know if this is time sensitive is this time sensitive does this have to be passed now can it be passed in 60 days who would I ask that question to um it's not time sensitive I don't believe it needs to I mean it has before you sell bonds you'd have have to adop okay do we have any plans on selling Bonds in the next 60 days no sir okay I think about it well I do I I there's a lot lot of pieces floating around between the the federal and state right now that I kind of would I'm not necessarily against this I I would just like to let the dust settle with some of these things and see what happens I mean we don't have a debt Silling increase there Federal government's operating on Extraordinary Measures uh well state is another separate thing it's possible they might have like a 30-day session we don't know if they'll have a special session after that um they didn't do bonding in 2021 or 24 so they're way behind on some mandatory improvements mostly water quality items um and it's going to take a lot of both sides to come together at all levels to pass funding bills and bonding bills so how does that affect this well if if if that doesn't happen and you know if there's a loss of Highway funds to Minnesota which there's a bill that does that at the federal level if these things happen it might change what some of these priorities might be and I think it would be prudent just to take a breather for a couple minutes yes Mr Thompson Mr may just so it's clear uh the reason to do this has nothing to do with issuance of bonds the reason to do this is if you decide to issue bonds after adopting this it's subject to a reverse referendum but you don't have to go to the voters first to issue the bonds that's the only thing that this does is it it allows the city to issue bonds without going to the voters first the other thing it does is it it sets out what our road plan is and that road plan could very well change um if some of these other things happen well the road plan changes all the time right um as you know Mr Mayor the CIP only the current year is incorporated into the budget and we do fluctuate things down the road uh this is merely a way to give us another option and and this is something both you and councelor Delaney actually were yep asking us to do as staff yep and and so we took that to heart and we went out and we saw what it was uh required to to put bonding on the table for these projects and and it doesn't change anything other than gives us that option if the council decides to at some point in the future yep I understand that and we have used bonding in the past uh over the years and I've been supportive I've always been pretty supportive of road projects um even when they're tough projects with you know a lot of people in the audience that are smarter than Engineers they think right um but it wasn't for this duration it wasn't for this amount and and the historical precedence of things that are happening right now is much different than ever in the past so go ahead um thank you mayor so someone did asked a question earlier and I saw their answer and I thought it was very well said establishing the plan will allow um flexibility the need in this time of uncertainty the one that you're talking about which proactively puts this in place to be prepared so all we're doing is just y you know being prepared nothing else I understand wouldn't this take the uncertainty off of Staff saying hey we got we got this in our pocket we don't have to be scrambling trying to do this we still want them to scramble for things like grants and things like that and opportunities but we have this project our CIP is covered y and I mean if you wanted some time I could I would consider retracting my uh motion for 60 days I I would I would feel much more comfortable with that and then bringing it back uh once 60 days is good enough I mean I mean any problem with staff with 60 days um I don't believe there would be any problem no and and and I would say again um you know it's it's trying to be more proactive and anti and not know what the future is going to hold so um the idea of you know having that Declaration of of official intent at least then you know as we start occurring these expenditures in summer summer is obious when the project is going to start um you'd be able to go back and issue bonds for something like that um and it doesn't even passing something like this tonight it doesn't obligate you to issue bonds it doesn't obligate you to do these projects it's just one step closer in providing that that option down the road give us us a little more comfort and it doesn't cost us or concern us than 60 days to me is is reasonable right yeah so anybody else I I would retract my motion if the seconder would okay so I'll second it if we put a wait a minute we have a motion in a second we have the motion maker retracting their motion was Mr Thompson the second would need to agree to that and the second on the motion was me up oh I agree yeah that sounds like a good plan to come back in 60 days and just pull it back out and go back through this okay but I am concerned what his concern is now Mr Lara um yeah that's 60 days is fine but I let's can we all agree that then at the 60 day Mark that we will vote on it regardless of what's going on in the well we may have some other thoughts in our mind what's going on but yeah right I don't want it to kick down I don't want it to be well let's wait on it for another 60 let's 60 days it's is it no and and I totally get your your position and you know I would be willing to sell five 5 million in bonds to cover 25's projects just to let this dust settle but uh 60 days I'm hoping we'll have some clearer pictures of what's happening in the in the world that we live in and last thing as was pointed out we can go back a little bit yep so so do we need to take any action on this Mr Thompson direct staff right now there's no motion on the table there's no motion on the table right now but but it sounds like there's consensus from three to have staff bring it back we want that in a motion or do you want uh take that staff that's good all right thank you Mr Reinhard very good presentation and appreciate staff looking at the flexibility option I tend to agree with that um item 9A Minnesota Riverbank stabilization project presentation by and Bolton and mink proposal uh thank you mayor and Council I'm here before you tonight to give you an update on a few projects uh the first is our Riverbank stabilization and Parks integration project uh I presented this project in preliminary design concept to you a few months ago um at that time I shared a preliminary concept and a plan for where we're at and where we were going with the project at that time staff wanted uh to refin our Concepts Council wanted an opportunity to review those Concepts a little bit further before we made any determinations moving forward so I'm here to provide you those updates uh I shared this with you last time but here's a little bit of the project history and need uh the Minnesota River is an impaired body of water that has eroded 100 feet in the last 100 years at the Home Street bridge and right in downtown chak increasing flood frequency leading to accelerated erosion is uh an issue that we're currently experiencing today um less than 1% of the water that's flowing through the Minnesota River in shaki is actually flowing from the city of shaki which means that this is a regional issue it's not just a city of shaki issue um that additional flooding poses a risk to park land the DNR State trail the city's trunk sanitary sewer system cultural resources that are in place um over the last five five or six years the city has done comprehensive studies Master planning in the area setting ourselves up for these improvements and staff and the city has done extensive effort to secure outside funding for the improvements which I'll summarize later uh from that project history we set aside some goals for completing these improvements uh the project will include 4,000 linear feet of Riverbank grading and armoring stabilizing those Banks from further erosion it'll include providing protection for the city sanitary sewer manholes that are along the river uh there's a few improvements that are specific to the project that I'll highlight in a little bit the first is levey Drive parking lot improvements the comprehensive master plan included renovating that space to include an art Plaza and other amenities um another goal would be a realigning and elevating the DNR State trail and pedestrian Pathways that are um that are risk to floods annually uh that create issues where Trail users are not able to use those Trails they become maintenance issues because there's mud and debris along those Trails um we want to create River touch points and overlooks essentially reconnecting uh residents and and park goers back to the Minnesota River um we want to improve the native landscaping and ecological restoration along the river banks that are currently essentially eroding and there's no restoration along the banks um we would include stor storm water management improvements treating the water quality before it's discharged to the river thereby improving the river's quality and then um another goal would be to improve the marina access and provide Ada accessibility uh this was the concept that I shared with you with few months ago none of this has changed but I will highlight a few areas um that we have refined further based on some Council Direction and some staff involvement um the first area that I'll highlight is at the West End of the project the levy Drive parking lot and art Plaza um the next is the main river Overlook near the new playground in Huber Park and the last is on the east or the far right side of the graphic which is the marina so this concept is something that we refined further um currently you're looking at between the hom Street and Cony Road 101 Bridges uh this is currently a parking lot today it's an underutilized parking lot it's used as a trail head for snowmobiles or bikers that access along the Minnesota River Trail um but really it's not being used by residents for parking maybe some larger events there are uh times that people are parked there but the parking lot and space is underutilized um so the comprehensive master plan identified using this as an area to reconnect people back to the river providing overlooks and also providing new to an art Plaza area and ways to activate the space so this concept what it shows is removing the parking lot and constructing a culdesac at the East End of Levy drive so if a larger truck or delivery vehicle gets stuck going down Levy Drive is a one-way Road they're able to circulate and navigate back out um but the main point of the culdesac would be to add space for different areas like food trucks that could park along the culdesac and then there would be some areas for pedestrians and residents to be able to access those food trucks and provide seating areas Outdoors um and the green areas are Turf which would be used for um people to go sit in the lawn space after they've um visited a food truck or also to um appreciate the art that would be added to this area um we haven't identified what that art would look like and what form it would be um but thinking big these could be larger art structures that could either be changed out or be permanent structures lastly the this area would culminate in something on the north side of it which would be a river Overlook area these would be ramps that would take you down from the art Plaza area down towards the river and you'd be able to experience the River from up higher in between the bridges and reconnect back to the space uh the DNR State trail um continues east west through this with a a crossing of the cdec which again would be underutilized because you wouldn't have vehicles that would navigate or park in this area frequently um and and one part of the parking I'll share with you on another slide is where the parking area gets made up essentially do we want to maintain the same parking spaces and I'll show you how we could accomplish that um so before I go on any further I'd like maybe to stop and pause here so if there's Council reactions or thoughts I can take those questions at this time yes Mr Lara um you said you're going to show us if we don't change parking uh I apologize council member Laura um if we do remove this parking lot and create essentially this call to SEC reduces the parking number of parking stalls here where is that parking made up and I show you where we're going to add that additional parking to make up those spaces okay cuz that's yeah that's that' be good to know because I was just curious like what what studies have been done to show that it is underutilized have you is there has there been a an average car count I know you've mentioned that it's utilized during uh different events which I can um contest I can uh test to that I do park there for special events because it's easy to walk to Hubert Park from that without crossing any major roads with young kids so I'm just curious where um like what where the thought process was on the under utilization MH yeah um so a couple points to that is um I park there too so I'm aware of this area especially when you try to avoid some of the larger traffic that's in downtown you can easily get to that parking lot and be able to walk under the tunnel we want to still maintain that connectivity with the tunnel so the DNR Trail provides that um ability to walk to this area um there's existing parking on Levy drive to the West as well so not the specific area we would add parking stalls more that would be in Hubert Park um and secondly this was an idea that came about in our 2018 comprehensive master plan to uh relocate this parking lot or repurpose this parking lot area we haven't done any parking studies downtown or analysis to justify how many available parking stalls there are I I know that there is available parking in downtown if you're willing to walk certain areas there are parking lots and on street parking um it just depends on where you're actually going to and where you're going be parking um but those are good questions espe if there's going to be like a I mean the picture shows that I mean that's going to have open for events in that area and then we just got to figure out like where those people are going to park and if or if we do um you uh maybe we improve the off street parking on Levy drive to Inc combinate more Vehicles maybe at a diagonal or whatever I'm just curious to see what you have what you came up with and those are good points and and we think about potentially if this area is utilized for events but there aren't events downtown you could park downtown and use the tunnel that way so you could use the tunnel to navigate in both directions so rather than thinking of it as you need to park here to get to downtown there's a lot of parking in Downtown that you can walk and navigate the tunnel as well thank you got two questions Mr Delaney oh sorry thanks two questions are is there anything preventing I know I got this question during night to you I think I may have already asked this in council at one point but there was a food truck owner at that point at that time asking about use of food trucks in the Parks and I do we have anything in our ordinance that prevent them from currently coming out to the parks I mean it looks like we would try to try to use this going forward but is there anything that we would need to change to make it easier uh we actually are relooking at our food truck ordinance which has been clearly out of bounds of what most other cities are doing and that should come to you probably in the next month or so uh if there is anything in there that prohibits it we will certainly bring that forward thank you uh second question is the Terrace that's being proposed any concerns about flooding and what would need to be done thank you Council Delaney this area is actually elevated above where Huber Park is so this would be completely above the 100-year flood plane thank you any other questions on this slide Mr whing you have a question on this slide I would be concerned about losing parking as well I think if we can reconfigure that maybe make that uh caac wider we can get a few more slots in there or pull them in straight in the culdesac uh with some options there if we're going to do food trucks down there again we'll have to look at the ordinance but we better have some picnic tables down there things like that amenities um other than that uh I I I hate losing parking I that's the only thing I can see the value here but yeah the question that I have is the stairs um I don't know do you have a pointer up there I do if you can see it oh um sorry you can't see it on the screen up there is there a way you can do it on the screens that we're looking at in front of us here H let me get my mouse here let's see if I can do it apologize for no but the stairs that I'm looking at I think I'm looking at are them existing stairs where in the middle these right here or oh this yeah that's still go up those are the winding one yeah that's a more existing stairs those are existing correct Mr Mayor it's a ramp yep and when when I was down there recently looking at the some of that edge stairway area some of it's kind of tough shape are we rebuilding that uh Mr May that's a good question we are looking at the other side of the tunnel the area the stairs that are leading up that direction on the southide um I don't believe the north side are programmed in the CIP but we can certainly identify if there are improvements that needed this would be the opportune time to do it as we're looking at this parking lot okay all right and the little things next to the depiction of cars parked in the parking space What are what are them so that'd be this area if you can see my mouse is that right yeah this area little brown Square things yep those are different benches um uh one of the counselors alluded to seating areas for the food trucks that would be the areas that you'd have covered benches and um tables for people to enjoy the food and uh and from my own experience when we were doing the uh River Valley thing down in the park where I helped do the logistics part of it we had food trucks there three or four of them in the parking lot but that was part of our it was included in our application for that special event true yep so I I would assume that special events would be able to put that into their request and the city would review it for you know whatever needs to happen Okay one last thing uh if we're going to do events down there we want to make sure we have lighting I don't see any lighting down here and I don't know the rest of the park has plenty of electricity so if we wanted to plug anything in for I know these are usually self-contained but um for other events I think having some electricity there would be good yep I agree okay the next is the area further to the east this is uh near the new playground in Huber Park um when we talked about that there was 30 sorry I'm going to go back one there's 35 stalls that would be removed from this area of the art Plaza um there we would propose to add 36 new stalls in this parking lot which would be essentially just to the east of the playground there's area between the new Trail and the playground and the parking lot where we could widen out and add those parking stalls back obviously those parking stalls are not directly adjacent to where the levy Drive parking lot is but when we look at the area as a whole we can reintroduce new parking stalls that um more that exceed the number of stalls that we were removing um but again they're not in the exact same area but there is room for parking available here pardon me sleding Hill yes that's graded are you guys would you have to level that out okay let's let's let's back up here Mr Delaney just that one quick question I know we're talking about parking but I know as if go back to that other your first image there's parking extens in going west um is that City parking or is that so to the West on Levy drive in this area yeah yes there's on street parking in in that area that is City parking in so that's yep it's a public road so there's uh it's it's for anyone to park there yes when we reconstructed lovey drive three or four years ago we added that on street parking with that project um still it's at a premium I would say at certain times right okay Mr Laura just kind of what um coun whing was alluding to so that part where you were talking about adding parking um just like what you said it's it's yes you'd have to like level that out is there good question Concor Laura um this Trail the the black pathway gets raised to the same elevation as the parking lot so that area gets filled in the slope is actually on the east side of the trail that goes down to the new storm water management Basin so yes that area is a low depression with the sledding hill there but there's going to be a lot of fill that brings that area up to reconstruct that parking lot um so this area we looked at um the last time there were some Terraces along a retaining wall over the main Overlook which extends north of the parking lot um we looked at reusing this space to lower the retaining wall That's along this primary Overlook the area where you see lots of trees here essentially that's going to be a lawn garden area with a shade structure it's not identified in this exhibit uh but that was an idea that was brought up at the last council meeting represented this having um some sort of shading or structure there to be able to gather and use that lawn space so we are talking about ideas to potentially bring art into that structure um we haven't detailed that much further but that would be part of this next phase of design as what that St shade structure actually looks like Mr there's some full growth trees in there uh those are mainly for schematic more than likely there won't be trees in that area they could be scattered along the lawn area but not we're going to cut down the the good trees to put in new trees there will be new trees planted throughout the park we just haven't identified those exact areas um we want to ensure that they don't conflict with p with uh with use from Park goers but also in in right areas where they can grow and Thrive as well um then the concept that I do want to show you is these Terraces that extend down from the main DNR State trail essentially the black Trail that's shown on this exhibit that's the new realigned DNR State trail that goes through the park right now so in um when we have flooding that trail is not being being able to be used because it's covered with water or mud this Trail gets elevated about 5 ft so that it's above those flood waters up to about the 25e flood elevation and then there's a a secondary Trail which we'll call the river access Trail um the low river trail which would take you down closer to the water's edge and these Terraces will provide seating areas that you'll be able to access from the trail so essentially the concept and the goal with this is to provide areas where uh visitors to the park can actually access the water at certain times through the year some of these teres may be um inundated with water where you may not be able to access the low areas but depending on where the River elevation actually is this will allow you to connect down to the river um having the low river trail as well um being not the DNR Trail it allows our public work staff to be able to clear that area off if it does get inundated with water and mud while still keeping the main trail open um we're able to design this Trail so we can get actual skid steers and equipments to push that mud um and sediment off the trail and still be able to maintain it um appropriately so if we call this a fishing pier we might be able to get into some new grants uh I think you can catch large catfish in this area from from what I've heard um potentially that is one of the big ideas that came out of the master plan is people could be fishing down here you could definitely Envision people bringing fishing poles and stand on the rip wrap along the river or on those Terraces as well let's try and put some design elements that maybe go with that is my thought it's a good suggestion Alex question I have is I'm looking at the the next page in our uh Council packet picture-wise this one right here yep and when I look at the picture you just put up and I compare it to this it looks the Terrace area is straight back from the parking lot where your other picture that you had shows it really close to the straight Trail down to the river from The Pavilion or Bandshell so has something shifted here yes um and thank you Mr Mayor for that and and I wanted to point out that this was that older exhibit that I brought forward to you a couple months ago and we have made some refinements main reasons for shifting that Terrace to the West is that it decreases the retaining wall height um for the river Overlook so it saves us cost in funding the project um by having a sloped area from the retaining wall down to the Terrace we're able to take advantage of grade and lower the Wall height um this also connect people to the um Terraces basically where they are so if you're leaving the playground area this will provide a main trail connection right down to The Terraces and the low river points um also if you're using the Lower River Trail um you'll be able to access those Terraces directly from the trail as opposed to in this exhibit um that lower Trail if you're walking on it you'd have to walk up the trail and then back down to the teres um from where it's located so this provides additional connectivity for Park users people that are recreating that can stop and take a break along The Terraces access the river in different areas and then it also saves us cost in in height of that retaining wall construction so is is this the final design the latest design I should say to where them Terraces are further to the east from the original U Mr Mayor nope this is the older exhibit these next exhibits that I'm showing you are refinements from that previous version so this is what staff's recommendation is so let me see if I can find that in here because I went in order I thought your presentation would go the same order as what what we have here it may have printed wrong um I this is the same presentation I tried to put in the packet so if it if it's not following with you I I apologize it's his meeting you got to follow him so and the dark Trail is the DNR Trail that's correct if I me you said that's going to be raised 5 feet but it's not going to be raised it's just at that level as 5T above where it was that's correct apologize for the confusion on that essentially it's dirt's going to raise that up with grading and embankment um essentially the River Bank looks like this we'll be softening that bank and then raising it by extending the trail further away from the river it'll be higher up with that grade it'll be up the current Hill that's there correct you got it okay all right any other questions on what's before you right here let's move on okay the next is the marina uh this area we didn't get into a lot of details at the time in the last council meeting because we didn't have a lot of details at at that time we knew we had the Marina that we wanted to repurpose but we hadn't done the actual engineering to uh provide some recommendations and solutions for you so I'm going to go a little bit of history about what this project is and some of those further details that you didn't get before um so current conditions today um the marina essentially is only accessible from the marina to the river at 21% of river flow conditions um that's because the marina is much higher than the river so the river needs to back up into the marina and it only is accessible During certain periods of time I'll get into when exactly those periods of time are but that's just I want you to to note that essentially if you're trying to use the marina today to access the Minnesota River you can only use it at 21% of the river flow conditions um the city was issued a permit from the DNR back in 1958 it allows us to excavate um the Marita to 4 foot below the prevailing water level now what does that mean it's an arbitrary elevation that was assigned at the time but that elevation is 6867 F feet above uh mean sea level so um I will get into what that actually means but this is important because this allows us to actually use the marina and excavate it back to its existing conditions when it was first established back in 1958 if we didn't have that permit the changes that we're proposing today more than likely wouldn't be permitted so that's a really good ex distinction to note um so as far as staff's goals for the marina we wanted to provide a navigable connection to the river for paddlers we're talking about kayakers and canoers not NE necessarily watercraft that would be powered by a boat a boat or um powered by a motor um next is we wanted to provide ADA accommodations for site access now Ada would be someone who's handicapped or in a wheelchair the ability to actually utilize the river the same way any anyone else would be able to um the we wanted to ensure that there was uh we could encourage safe use of the recreational resource we didn't want to put people at in harm or in danger if the river was at a certain elevation or the river was flowing too fast when make sure that safety is important when we're reintroducing people back to the river um we also wanted to establish a regional destination for river access and the DNR water Trail um there isn't a lot of areas to access the the river this could be a regional hub for paddlers that wanted to actually access the Minnesota River and then again we want to encourage habitat Improvement and natural settling of that sediment from the river Mr whing a question on this slide um you mentioned the uh encouraged safe use of the recreational resource so now if we're providing access to the river at a certain point are we going to have to shut it down that's correct and we'll be providing actual cues um based on the water elevations that are in the marina for when it's safe and when it's not safe and the marina will only be accessible at periods of time below the safety meaning that the docks that I'm going to show you won't be able to function above certain elevations and you won't be able to actually use it um so that's a distinction too but more like more than likely we'll be using signage or other cues to have residents know that that they shouldn't be using the marina thank you the the marina isn't the unsafe part it's it's going into the river when it's really high yeah the Marina's it's large if you're a kid that's paddling around there but the main point is the marina is essentially The Hub to get into the river if you can Envision that um so when we looked at the design parameters for the marina this is where we're at today um based on all the engineering mayor you had talked about utilizing the existing docks what we could actually get out of the marina so we did some engineering and we identified that bace Center designed today um we can accommodate Ada accessibility for River paddlers at 58% of the river flow conditions so previously we were at anyone no matter who you were could only access the River from the marina at 21% of the time we can provide ada8 accessibility at 58% of the time then we can provide General accessibility for 88% of the river flow conditions um so that's a huge improvement over 21% essentially at 88% of the time that the river is Flowing we should be able to utilize the marina um the graphic on the right shows the different River elevations and when that accessibility is provided essentially when the river is really high it's the left side of that graph the blue dots that's when our marine and our river is not accessible up into a point of a certain elevation when then it's accessible for the general P public and then there's a larger that 58% the larger Gap is for ada8 accessibility and on the very low conditions of the river where there's not a lot of water in the marina that's when it would be enal um accessible just for General accessibility um we then provide an engineered connection to the river to stabilize the entrance from the marina to the river and we'd restrict that access above an elevation of 72.4 um these numbers are pretty hard to follow but again that's that safety point for when we don't want people to utilize the r if you could get your pointer on that screen in front of us and explain it would be a lot more helpful I apologize thank you for pointing that out let me get my mouse here all right so can you see my mouse yes so starting on the left side here this is where the River elevation is much higher um as we go down and the river starts to fall then we can have the river be accessible for the general public to utilize our our docks in the marina once it gets to a certain elevation then that ADA accessibility is also provided from the for the marina docks that's that 58% of the time in river flow conditions and then below that when there's not a lot of water in the marina to the river um that's where 8 accessibility wouldn't be provided but General accessibility would be and I'll show you kind of what the distinctions are on the next exhibits and design for how Ada accessible is provided but General accessibility is provided in certain areas um so this is our concept for the marina today on the right side of the screen is the Minnesota River um the left is to the West the right or to the bottom is the East um the area shown in the middle here is the marina itself essentially what we'd have is um a there's an existing Gravel drive down to the marina today that area would be paved to a road with a CLD disect to circulate vehicles with some parking um then there would be some Trails leaving that parking lot down to a main area that would connect to the docks um then there would be a level ramp that would take you down the hill towards where we have a metal gang way essentially now what a gangway is is it's uh U an area accessing the river that will actually fluctuate with the River elevation so as the marina goes up the gangway goes up to a certain point and as the river recedes and goes back down that gangway goes down too that provides that ada8 accessibility so someone at a certain steepness or elevation they'll be able to navigate down that Gangway to get down to the dock now the dock is what sits out in the middle of the marina that's where you'd actually get on your on your paddle so on your kayak or canoe and then you'd enter into the water and then navigate into the Minnesota River um these connections would be um we're proposing retaining walls that would hold the soil so you'd have areas that are higher in this elevation so the water can rise and lower from the river into the marina um in a location that's wide enough for paddlers to be able to navigate at all of those 88% of river flow conditions um if you didn't want to use the ramp or the gang way let's say you are using a tandem paddle and you're you you can navigate down steps we'd have um concrete steps that you could navigate down the hill essentially into the marina you could do that when the water is really low essenti Al and the Gang way is not accessible you could just walk down to the area where it's only 4T deep at that point and navigate right from the concrete steps into the marina um there's some other points here this would be another Overlook that's shown in tan um that you could access and and view the River from both the East and the west and also this area is much higher down from where that Marina connection is I'm just before I stop and take questions I'm going to show you just this is one concept for what a gang way and a DOT could look like especially for Ada accessibility essentially what's shown on the left image here this is that gang way that would raise and lower at certain elevations as the water in the marina Rises and lowers so you'd be able to walk down carry your kayak down the gang way um this would be kind of an ADA accessible launch so there's different railings that you could bring yourself right to the edge of get into your kayak or canoe and then go down a gentle wrap down into the water and then have handles to pull you back up at the as you exit back into the marina as well this is one type of um doc system that's there there's ample different options and and variables that you can look at when we're looking at different accessibility I just wanted to show you a concept of what you'd actually be looking at in this example okay so I'll I'll pause there okay so questions on this slide Mr Whiting just to start this is a little different from our concept plan that we've seen in the past I think we wrapped around the other side a little bit um I like the idea of the gang way changes the water level you can uh get in there wherever you are the other side part of it is you've changed the the out Overlook I can't tell how big that is but uh um that's about a 30 foot diameter pad you can make that as as big or as small as you want but essentially the point is that we want to be able to provide a good Overlook that people can sit and enjoy the river and have different points to sit and you're you're not driving back there you're staying on the parking area and walking back and then you'd walk that way and and one other point to this this is shown in the overall exhibit but this would be connected back to Hubert Park along um some gravel trails that would navigate along the river so you'd actually be able to park your car back in the other parking lots by the playground enjoy the playground walk along the river and actually sit at this Overlook as well and it's all connected the only other comment uh I don't know that we need electrical connections but definitely lighting concerns with some of the steps and things yep any other questions Alex question I had as you talked about when uh when the river is too low or too high and what prevents somebody from using this when it's too high to use or when it's too low yeah thank you Mr Mayor um some of that's going to have to be something that staff goes out and puts barricades on if we're going to close it at a certain River elevation we already do that in certain points of Huber Park when it's flooding you can Envision that we've closed different trails with barricades and whatnot this would be pretty similar so we'd add it to our maintenance plan um we'd also have different warning signs so if an elevation got to a certain point along a marker along the river then it would be something that could alert users to say well even if it's not closed right now we're within maybe 6 inches or a foot of when it's not safe and then people can make that decision themselves uh the DNR also puts out different levels um of experience for paddlers at different elevations we would follow that same concept so if it's um inexperienced paddlers if the water is at a certain elevation based on the river flow conditions once it gets higher and the river flows harder um there could be more debris in the river then it would alert for more experienced paddlers so those signs would also be out there um based on the dnr's recommendations and guidance self-placement we had police officers out down at the Yuber Park telling people to get out of the water it was during flood and it was nasty water to begin with and they had their kids in it so we could make an ordinance yeah well I you know I mean that's just the reality of it stops sign like people are going to do things whether but we will do everything in our power and make sure that they understand that it's not acceptable and that it is closed uh I just you know that's the reality of it any educational signage because because this is a dangerous river I don't want to miss something you know whatever we can do to make sure people are safe proceed sir uh Project funding we touched on this a little bit but I've listed all the outside funding sources that the city has received to date um this is a total project cost of $17.5 million over 78% of that overall project cost has been from outside funding whether it's from the state bonding funds the EPA Grant uh recently uh we received an lcmr grant for over a million and a half or a mill $1.4 million the $350,000 DNR recreational grant that goes explicitly for the marina improvements and explicitly for the ADA accommodations that is what we put in our Grant application so that 350,000 is only contingent if we proceed with the Marine improvements that we just talked about and then the Watershed Grant is for different water quality improvements the uh lccmr Grant it says recommended to be funded so that is because um it still needs to get approved by the legislature we're recommended in the funding package right now so essentially it just needs to go through the legislative process to get included in their budgets they got to get to work and it's uh and it's targeted for 2026 for when we get that funding Mr Delaney good question there's one that's not listed on here but it's shown on page 101 of our packet it says Marina for 1 mil what's what's the funding source for that or what's the name so um I only listed the outside funding part part of the Marine is funded by Park dedication funds or other internal City funds as well thank you those in uh so next steps in and schedule I'm here to collect Council feedback on the uh revised exhibits and the overall project um after that uh I'd look to have Council authorize approval of a proposal from Bolton the m to complete the final design and permitting essentially that'll get us through this year to the point that we can bid the project and then move forward with construction um and then again 2025 we'd go through permitting um uh our funding requirements for those outside funding sources and complete final design and then 2026 would be bidding and construction is there a uh certain aspect to this plan that the lccmr is particularly connected to uh thank you Mr Mayor that's essentially tied to the river armoring and Bank stabilization okay I got little feedback on that I I was uh had the opportunity to take a a Riverboat drip uh with some of our Watershed districts and they talked about the sediment and uh I think we said 1% is Shaka but if 1% fixing up the river and helps on the sediment and slowing down the water runoff from our storm sewer is going to help uh reduce uh phosphates and sodium and and the big thing is the sediment and you can see it in the river it's just those suspended things that uh just need to settle out for a little while am I missing any chemicals I'm sure that we're going to try and save no essentially the Minnesota River is impaired for sediment um is the main contaminant a lot of that is the agricultural fields that are Upstream of this Watershed in Iowa or Southwest Minnesota that contribut to that and the erosion but 1% is it needs to be noted that the water that storm water runoff that shock be puts into the Minnesota River is cleaner than the water in the Minnesota River we are actually helping Downstream with cleaner water we slow it down currently I was going to mention your point that you make all the time on that Mr Mayor because you're exactly correct that's a true fact yeah and I like I like your further comment where you go we should charge them for putting clean water in the Minnesota we're making the river cleaner down stream Blue Lake we really are um so my my concern is if that dollars don't come through and it's part of the stabilization of the bank we're going to have a shortfall so Mr Delaney that was my same question was I mean the goal is to stabilize a riverbank basically protector infrastructure so as this project rolls out if we do run into a shortfall is there opportunity to pull some of the I guess amenities or are we just kind of locked in what's what's presented yeah thank you mayor and Council um as we get through final design we'll be able to have a better cost estimate to determine what funding sources are tied to which components of the project and then where those components lay into with our budgets certainly if we start to exceed what our budget amounts Council will be seeing this project again several times where we talk about if we need to scale back portions of the project we could certainly do that and allocate those for future projects um but these outside funding sources are largely tied to the park improvements the riverbank stabilization and the sewer protection um the lccmr funding um we're we're essentially secured at this point it just needs to go through the process but looking at past years um those projects that were recommended for funding were actually funded so I'm not as concerned about that Grant per se but if that Grant doesn't fall through then yes we'd have to increase our storm drainage funds that are tied to the project um in the previous CIP before we got the lccmr grant um we had more storm drainage funds associated with the project when we got that Grant we decreased what that share was so essentially we'd go back to what we had proposed back in the 2023 to 2027 CIP thank you uh Mr Larry you have your hand up yeah um I mean I I I agree I think it might be a good idea to um when when this is all getting drawn out that if there's a list of um amenities or uh project ideas that um can be eliminated should something happen that we um um don't get the funding that we need for it um just kind of like things that are easy to remove from the project um that are kind of like not as a Central yes yeah yeah thank you councelor Laura the the park improvements essentially is kind of what I think you're getting at and I would agree the the goal of this project is to stabilize the river protect the resources that we have out there that's the main goal there's other improvements that we're tying into this because we included as part of our grants like our bonding Grant um and using some of the city funds uh if if the project starts to exceed other budgets we'd look at removing the non non as critical items from the project and Page 101 is a good uh snapshot of a funding scenario where it shows State bonding EPA Federal grant um goes all the way down it's got a total when it when you include the sanitary sewer portion uh park Del Development Fund Park asset fund um you get to that 185 so I'm going to be like I am with the with a sand Venture you know like other council members have mentioned Mr Whiting and Mr Lara I I tend to agree with that we need to set a hard uh stop and have Alternatives available if bidding comes back and thank you Mr Mayor and and that's I'm assuming you're alluding to the CIP page that lists all the the project cost and the funding table that's what was adopted recently by City Council in the 2024 and 2028 CIP that's the number we're working off of right now as we develop the project um if that changes we would be coming before you you um in 2025 to amend the CIP if there's recommendations and we'd be talking about how those different funding sources change uh but at this time before we go through final design that's the Target that we're working under and I'm just saying that the uh sand Venture process that we all went through um you know we set a hard firm Target and look at the that work how difficult that was right uh um we will we'll make sure we're staying on top of project costs um the good thing is proceeding with this final design now we'll be a year ahead of when construction actually happens where we'll have better cost estimates that we can work under and if we need to eliminate some of those things we'll certainly be taking a look at that and there's also things that Council has asked to be considered putting in some of it was uh lighting electricity things like that and there's cost to do that so and Mr Mayor we have included some of those soft costs as part of our current cost estimate that we've looked at um but until we go further and and look into details it's hard to say exactly what those numbers are some of that stuff we have and that's why you're asking us to approve hiring uh Bolton mink Bolton and mink to get down into the weeds a little further that's correct okay Mr Whiting well I'm glad it's Bolton and M we've worked with them before in the past and they they they do great work and and what's exciting is you know some of the opportunities we're opening here with kayakers and getting back to the river and if I'm not mistaken this is one of our big ideas too right that we talking about and thinking about and pushing along for a long time now so I'm excited to see one of these R Mr Delaney y any other questions or my only question is so are you looking for a motion tonight just on acceptance or thank you councelor Delany the motion simply is to accept the proposal from Bolt And The Mink for final design um I've been taking notes on your feedback that we'll include as we refine that file design as well and any other like I've said my door is open if you have any other thoughts and suggestions you'd like to share Mr Delaney the recommended action would be on the first page under action to be considered accept the proposal from Bolt and bank and the amount of to per perform professional Engineering Services okay with with that i' like to make a motion to accept a proposal from Bolton and mink in the amount of 9936 to perform professional engineering services for the Minnesota River Bank stabilization project is there a second I'll second Mr couna and a discussion on the motion I do want to point out that that was a dump and so we may want to put some extra things aside putting fill on top not digging H we not well we might find some stuff if there's any artifacts call me but uh um we are digging into a dump again so we're don't what what's the dump it's a dump no where was the marina or all of that area boy that was before my time there Delaney one last question the flood sign is that going to be moved closer to the shore or what oh um thank you councelor Delaney yes we talked about that we still have to find a good location in this park where that will be located in a space that people can actually see that's at the correct elevation and can't be damaged what was the question the flood sign that everybody was stopping to Historic flood yes actually found correct one okay so we have a motion by councelor Delaney and seconded by councelor Lara is there any any other discussion on this side no no good over we here no we're good okay uh all in favor of the motion say I I I opposed motion passes unanimously the floating Bank sign thank you sir uh the mayor and Council if I could continue I'm just going to talk about engineering tonight so I apologize for that item 9B uh Mary's Corridor Improvement project update we're in your element yeah thank you um so this is a project that I haven't presented to you other than some kind of Concepts and overviews so I'm going to go into detail on our Marytown Road Corridor Improvement project um the background of why we're doing the project the purpose of the project and also get into the design look at construction staging as we move forward into uh extending this project so a little bit of project history in need the section of Marytown road that we're going to be talking about tonight tonight is between 12th Avenue on the south and or I'm sorry 17th Avenue on the south and 12th Avenue on the North this section of Marytown Road uh used to be called County Road 15 it was turned back to the city in 2016 um from Old County Road to a city street um this is a corridor that's been long studied by the city and mainly because of the safety issues along the corridor it used to be a County Road it used to function like a County Road new development has happened um it's not a County Road anymore and it's not operating as such um there's safety and operational issues uh the new development that we talked about there's lack of pedestrian connection so we're building all the new houses and New Commerce and business and we have parks in the area but there's no way to navigate there as a pedestrian um we we know that traffic volumes are going to continue to grow as new development keeps occurring to the South um and improvements are needed that's been demonstrated uh continued on the project history in need uh between 2020 and 2022 essentially the city applied for every funding source you could imagine um we were unsuccessful in a lot of those funding applications for that three-year period um but in 2022 we applied for and received $3.7 million in federal funding from the Met Council that Grant is essentially tied to safety um improvements along along the roadway so the project finally Rose to the level that uh we were able to achieve that funding um once we got that funding Gap figured out we programmed the project in the CIP and then began design in 2023 the council app approved a proposal from srf for that um while while we were doing design we applied for a local Road Improvement fund uh Grant from Minnesota Department of Transportation and we were successful on receiving $1.4 million essentially again tied to safety and those pedestrian improvements um last year in June of 2024 we met with the public we met with the business holders along the business stakeholders along the corridor hi ve in the area businesses um and then in July in 2024 we had our first open house we had 50 attendees from the public that attended that open house we had an in-person event at the community center but also we collected feedback online as well um once we received that feedback we included that in the project design and also the project staging uh the project goals we wanted to implement safety improvements and we wanted to reduce crashes now when we looked at crashes we wanted to reduce the high severity and fate and fatal accidents along the corridor we wanted to make connections for pedestrians that are walking and biking in the area whether they're walking to Starbucks or HIV or TOA park or lions park or sand venture or the schools that are along the corridor we wanted to make those connections we wanted to provide improved roadway capacity um we wanted to maintain business access we know that that's important for businesses so as we looked at the design Solutions we didn't want to impact those negatively um we wanted to provide a continuity of traffic control measures this is a long Corridor we didn't want to go from stop stop sign the traffic signal the roundabout the traffic signal we wanted to make sure it was a cohesive Corridor so it wasn't confusing to um Road users and then we wanted to minimize the rightaway needs and environmental impacts we wanted to try to design this project with a smaller footprint that minimize those impacts so the proposed improvements for the project include reconstructing Marytown Road as a two-lane divided Urban roadway now what that means is there's one lane in each Direction that's where you get the two lanes from divided means that there's curb and a concrete median barrier that separates the lanes of traffic um and an urban roadway means that there's curbing gutters so instead of roadside ditches that would convey storm water there'd be curbing Gutter and storm sewer um we would include pedestrian trails along both sides of the roadway um we'd construct single Lane roundabouts at the US 169 South ramp North ramp and verling Drive intersection um there's uh the traffic study that we prepared um when we did the analysis of this project identified that single roundabouts would function for at least 10 years um but we designed the roundabouts to allow for if traffic volumes get above what we expected that we could do minor improvements to the existing roundabout footprint to add different Lanes circulating the intersections at the 169 north and southbound ramps and I'll show you exactly what those improvements are on the graphic and then we want to we're going to include bridge deck modifications essentially separating pedestrians from Vehicles so we'd have a raised concrete barrier between where drivers would be driving over the bridge and where pedestrians would be navigating over the bridge and again having those Trails or pedestrian accommodations along both sides of the bridge deck so this is the project layout um on the right side of the screen is the north so that's the verling Drive intersection um on the on the bottom side of the screen that's to the east that large building is high ve to the West is top of park on the top side uh going north south is 169 and then South is 17th Avenue at the south extents of the graphic I'm going to break these sections up and go into details um starting on the sou side of the project so looking at 169 South ramp um unless before I go on are there any questions just what's the blue patch is that storm water uh thank you uh councelor Whiting yes that's a stormwater management thank you go yep so on this is the south side of the project this is the 169 South ramp uh this shows the connection to lisis atano drive um on the south which is a local city street essentially that would be maintained as a right in right out roadway which was part of the turnback agreement with the county that we approved back in 2016 that that be maintained is right and right out uh the single Lane roundabout at the off-ramp which lines up with windamir way um there's the new gas stations that's going into the corridor this doesn't impact those operations um and then the bridge deck is on the right side of the screen now when we talked about those future accommodations that could be made at the um roundabouts if traffic volumes were to increase above what we expected the first option would be to add a Northbound right turn lane so as there's a lot of traffic coming from the south this would be a dedicated right lane Lane that would get you on to 169 uh eastbound yep so that's the black line that I added to the picture here sorry um so that would be the dedicated Northbound right turn lane on to 169 the second Improvement would be carrying a second southbound lane through the intersection so rather than having one circulating circulating Lane for southbound traffic this could be widened just by pulling this median back pretty easily to add a secondary southbound lane um the traffic study that we prepared showed that those improvements wouldn't be necessary till 2045 um now that's a big estimation um we don't know what's going to happen with driver behavior um what types of vehicles are going to be on our roads at that point so we didn't want to include these improvements right now because um Studies have shown that multi-lane roundabouts uh if they're not necessarily Justified or warranted could increase accidents and Driver confusion so constructing them as singleand roundabouts right now are sufficient to handle the current traffic and also up to a 20 period before that additional Lanes may be contemplated but we wanted to design the roundabout such that we could easily convert it to add these improvements without an impacting traffic or reconstructing the entire roundabout I have a question on the top left of the screen you have a to your to your left sorry keep going keep going left right down right there that right turn lane on the very top nope up oh sorry there you go it looks like it's turning into to where there's not a turn uh Mr Mayor that's basically the the differences between the aerial imagery and the actual surveyed lines they're off um from the scale for each other so while it looks like it's going not into the actual Lane it's because of the aerial image that it is um but the lanes line up as they approach 17th Avenue traffic so that would basic what you're telling me is that the right turn is for the future right turn at the intersection that's coming up MH and same the left turn correct that's correct okay yes all right good question any other questions uh next is the bridge deck so this is over the 169 Bridge essentially when we said we were going to convert it to two-lane roadway we'd have one lane in each Direction there would be a wide concrete Center median that would separate those Lanes of traffic um then we'd construct a concrete median barrier between the vehicle lanes and The Pedestrian pathway that would be along the bridge deck now this is important because this provides pedestrians the ability whether on the east or the west side of the roadway to get across 169 in a safe location that's separated from vehicle traffic on this bridge deck it completely repurposes it and changes it the way it's functioning today um and we're actually decreasing some of the loads on the bridge so it works from a structural standpoint we've worked with minda to ensure that they support the bridge design um and this is an accommodation that matches in on both sides of the roadway then noow removal yes uh thank you so the trails are between 12 and 14 ft wide between those barriers so our typical pedestrian trails are 8 ft wide that we remove snow with a typical um uh snow removal equipment so we'll be able to navigate onto this bridge and still have extra width on that bridge deck to be able to remove snow um and then we have shoulders along the roadway outside of the through lanes that we can store snow and I can get my mouse here there it is is it six sorry I can't see my mous here it is oh there you got it yeah so this this white line delineates the shoulder from the through Lane so there's an 8ft wide shoulder for snow storage on the bridge deck itself outside of the through Lanes before you get to that concrete barrier okay no parking obviously that's correct there's no parking along the bridge Mr L did you have your hand up yeah um all this is all existing we in terms of like structure we're not going to be adding onto the bridge that's correct um thank you for the question uh we are not adding onto the bridge or changing the structural components of it will'll essentially be removing surface concrete and adding concrete on top of the existing Bridge so it's a relatively lowcost change for such a major Improvement to how the bridge actually functions okay uh moving North the bridge now is on the left side of your screen this is the 169 North ramp and it also is the entrance into topa park so again a single Lane roundabout uh with trails along both both sides of the roadway the blue box you see is the storm water management Basin that will be an infiltration Basin so it'll be dry the majority of the year um and water will infiltrate through the soils um the trails will provide connectivity into TOA Park um and also you can see the high ve Drive Entrance maintains that right in right out as it functions today it's just in a little bit of a different configuration than where it's constructed kind of as an off-ramp Lan into high ve Mr Jordan is there a barrier between the uh right in right out lanes right there so on the right side where High ve is are you talking about yes yes so that is a actually move your move your pointer down so if you right there oh uh there's no like pork chop Island if that's what you pork chop no I'm I'm looking between the two arrows oh sorry that's just a a striped Lane so that would delineate people coming in and leaving hiy okay um I'll get into the importance of this when we talk about the roundabout to the north um but again talking about those future improvements that could be accommodated with this intersection essentially you'd have volumes coming from southbound 169 where we'd add an additional Lane shown in Black here uh that would be able to have a right turn lane off onto Marytown Road Northbound um and the other Improvement would be again a second circulating southbound lane that would navigate the roundabout so these would be improvements that we could build relatively easy we've set the trails in the locations where we wouldn't need to move remove Trails it would essentially be pulling back medians on the roadway to accommodate it and again that would only be if it's Justified 20 years from now where the volumes increase to a point above what we're expecting so looking at going further north this is the verling drive atam Street intersection um this is a single Lane roundabout what's important here in a good opportunity for um some of the issues that we see at hi ve is that maintaining this right in right out the roundabout allows Vehicles leaving hi ve to circulate the roundabout and head back south to 169 that's where the majority of traffic is going from hi ve today we have safety issues because the median essentially ends about 100 feet north of the high ve Drive where we have people leaving HIV and making a illegal U-turn movement back to 169 the always stop doesn't lend itself to be able to have people accessing 169 so this Improvement is um a a major upgrade from the issues that we're seeing today and is going to improve safety I mean really provide good circulation for the corridor um again single Lanes at this roundabout the only distinction here is we don't expect volumes ever to need more than a single Lane in each Direction so we're setting this up to only function as a single Lane roundabout in the future um and then provides connectivity back into the roadway to the north on Adam Street good question yes there is a fire station over there do we have the similar warning and the roundabout like we have over here at the other fire St yeah thank you Council we we certainly had those discussions um this fire station has good visibility to the intersection whereas opposed to the Eagle Creek veering Drive intersection you have the hill and the curve so people can't see the fir trucks as they're screaming down the hill towards the intersection so I don't believe that that same type of activation system is necessary in this area but it's something that we are still discussing thank you Mr J I got a question have do we put these plans before like the snowplowing people and the fire department obvious viously to make sure that they can get through all this yeah thank you Mr Mayor we have had extensive project meetings where we've met with our public works department to talk about maintenance we looked at width of the the lanes navigating the roundabouts so we set that up before we started design to make sure that it could be maintained appropriately and we've also uh met with uh Chief Nelson to talk about fire station needs and access as well throughout the project okay uh a little bit more into Project funding this hasn't been discussed as much to date uh I talked about the two grants the $3.7 million Federal grant the $1.4 million State Grant um the other Project funding comes from our storm drainage funds for the storm sewer and storm water management improvements that's $832,000 we've programmed $2.5 million in capital Improvement funds essentially that comes from our state aid dispersement um because this is a state aid roadway we're not using taxes we're using the state aid allocation for that share of the project cost for a total project cost of $8.4 million and then I want to highlight again that over 61% of the overall project costs have come from outside funding sources so we're not burdening taxpayers with these improvements even though they're funding local improvements and providing a direct benefit to our community right other people's money we get uh what do we what do we get roughly 1.2 million per year from the state aid we get about $2.2 million in our state aid allocation per year per year so project schedule um spring of 202 coming up here hopefully it won't be as cold um we're going to complete final design and permitting for the project um we expect to get project authorization and then bid the project in June uh coming up in a few months here uh we' look a to award a contract to a contractor in July of 2025 and then we'd start phase one construction between August and November of 2025 this year um I will get into the exact details of what phase one of construction will include um and then we would suspend project for the winter between 2025 and 26 where the roadway would be reopened and then phase two of construction would occur between somewhere between May and September of 2026 so this is a 2-year project it is also important that we build the project and get authorization this year because it's tied to our federal funding we needed to advance the project to start in 2025 and incur costs and we can finish the project in 26 so I'm going to get into project staging and actually how we're going to build this project this is a massive Improvement project it's going to impact a lot of people we're talking about access to a major interchange in the city of Shaka that we're rebuilding um so when we talked about staging we were cognizant of all those issues we were cognizant of the business access um the tournaments that are had at topa Park and how all of these improvements work together so we prepared several different staging options and we came to one that we recommended a staff we brought to different businesses to our parks department we worked all collaboratively to come up with an option that worked for everyone that still has an impact but something that people can buy into so phase one of the project August till November of this year um this would be the 169 North ramp so the middle of the project the middle round about um this is the entrance to topa park and the high ve entrances would also be constructed um this would be under a full closure of the intersection during construction including the southbound us 169 off and on ramps so if you're going Southbound you're not able to come on to Mary's toown Road or if you want to go south bond for Marytown you're not able to do that at this interchange and we'll talk about what that means um essentially Regional traffic is detoured to County Road 69 Interchange verling Drive in Fuller Street to the east um top of Park we temporarily close this road between um off of Marytown but we will be constructing a temporary Road between the west parking lot from verling drive over to the east side parking lots and I'll show you where that temporary road is well they can't be detail detoured to Fuller street because Fuller Street doesn't have an access to I'll show you what that detour looks like with that so I've got a plan there um and then after phas is one we would reopen the corridor for the winter so this roundabout would actually be able to be driven on in Thanksgiving of this year I it would tie into the existing intersections to the North and South uh so detours for stage one uh this is a uh a detailed graphic but there's going to be a lot of detours so the red area that I've shown that's the area that's closed that's Marytown Road at 169 the north interchange um I'll go color by color because they represent different modes of traffic so the teal line the blue line that's for anyone driving Northbound Marytown Road this would be your detour so if you're coming from the south of 169 you'd be detoured East I'm going to grab my mouse here sorry East along 17th Avenue or County Road 16 up Fuller street across 169 and that was the Fuller Street detour I talked about and then West along verling drive to get back to Adam Street um so that would be if you're driving from the south along Marytown Road uh if you are driving from 169 from the South and you want to go north bonto Marytown you'll be directed to get off at the one at the 69 interchange North to verling drive over to atam Street as well so essentially if you're coming from the south on 169 or local traffic you'll be detoured in different areas east or west of the project the yellow line is for the Northbound 169 detour so these would be people that want to get to 169 Northbound from Adam Street so if you're leaving sandventure how do I get back Northbound on 169 because the bridge is closed you can't get through the intersection so you'll be detoured West along verling drive to the county road 69 interchange and then back on to 169 um the green line is the southbound us 169 detour so if you wanted to go south into Mano from Adam Street you'll again be detoured along the same road on verling over to the county road 69 interchange and West to 169 and the magenta line is for southbound Marytown Road detour so if you're coming from Bloomington and you typically exit at Marytown R and want to go south into our High View Park neighborhood say you'll be detoured actually at Marshall Road further to the East and then along 17th Avenue to get to Marytown road so there'll be a lot of advanced warning and Detour signs that will nav that'll show people how to navigate to different directions um and I skipped over one of the green ones which is our southbound 169 if you're coming from the south on Mar's town and you typically go south bound 169 you'd actually be navigated all the way to Marshall Road and then go west from there a lot of people will figure out that it's probably a lot easier to take count 78 South into the trunk Highway 41 interchange um so even though it'll be signed a certain way people will find their way around town too um and we will let people make those decisions for themselves so I'll pause there to see if there's any questions just on this detour routing looks like a lot of work good job uh next is this is where we talked about that temporary road so because the top of Park Road from martown road is going to be closed we need to make sure that there's connections to the main parking lot because you won't be able to drive there from Mar town so we're going to be constructing a temporary Gravel Road that will take you basically between the two fields and connect between the two parking lots um we're going to be relocating one of the fences uh for the outfield for one of the fields to make it a wide enough safe connection um and that will be then relocated back to its um uh its existing conditions after this uh it's important to build this part of the project in 2025 because in the fall of 2026 there is a large tournament that's being held at TOA Park um where this tempor Road will be removed and the field will actually be put back in its current condition uh we've had plenty of meetings with our parks department and different associations with this and we're on board with this solution um this temporary Road will be in place for both years of the project uh we know that people will probably get used to this at some point for 2025 and we'll be able to keep that accommodation for 2026 uh contractor is going to be responsible for maintaining the gravel road so if it gets um rut it up or there's divots in it or whatnot the contractor is going to have to keep freshening that up um this will be the way to maintain complete access to the park through construction yikes all right next stage phase two this is the bigger one so this is where we're going to be building both the 169 sou intersection and the verling Drive intersection at the same time um a key component of this is that the middle intersection is open so 169 will be accessible throughout this phase of the project but only from the direction if you're coming from the north so this will include both Again full closures of the intersections um Regional traffic will be detoured to trunk Highway 41 17th Avenue 10th a lot of different streets and then the top of park access will be open from both sides so you'll be able to use the roundabout to access TOA Park but if people are coming from the south we want to make sure that they can get off at K 69 and use the temporary road because they won't be able to use the Marytown Road interchange so that temporary road is very important for both phases of construction um so again in red that's what's closed um on Marytown Road and the 169 interchange ramps um if you're coming from the north you'll be able to get off at Marytown and you'll be able to get to H ve but if you want to get back to the north you won't be able to because the red area is going to close your access to be able to get to Northbound traffic so I'm going to go again color by color to talk about the different detours um we'll start with green this time that's the US 169 southbound detour so if you're coming at Adam Street um we're going to have you detour along 10th Avenue to get to County Road 69 to The Interchange to go south um the reason is we can't use verling cuz that intersection is closed for construction and the rest of the neighborhood streets along those areas we don't want to detour traffic because those streets have driveways they function more as residential streets as opposed to ten hav uh which is still a collector roadway um the next is teal that's our North Northbound martown detour again we'll uh detour you along 17th Avenue um to Fuller street again the challenge is vering is closed at this intersection so you'll be detoured All the Way North to 10th Avenue um and then back to Adam Street uh so a much larger detour because you you have to go quite a ways out of your way because there's no other connecting street because of San Venture and other areas that aren't developed um and then again for the Northbound detour if you're coming from the south on 169 you'll get off at cter Ro 69 up to 10th Avenue to Adam Street next is magenta um southbound Marytown Road detour will get you off at Marshall Road to 17th Avenue to Marytown that's the same as phase one and then yellow is the Northbound 169 detour if you want to go north on 169 you'll use 17th Avenue to Marshall Road interchange and continue to go north 17 questions I always thought Engineers like to play with taco trucks and doers and stuff like that but apparently they're like a bunch of lines on a piece of paper right it took me a long time to draw those lines on the paper it's nice to see you know that you're thinking ahead I think the the last slide that you had where you have to go up to 10th Avenue on Fuller uh preventing people from making a left and getting trapped on Ling is going to be pretty important thank you Mr Mayor that's a really good point because people are going to see people going that way because they'll get to hi ve and other businesses in that direction so you may in inadvertently get lost by trying to go that way and have to navigate through residential areas so we will have barricades that say no access to Marytown Road or 169 at that intersection to make it look like it's closed but we still want to keep it open because we need people to get to Hive in other businesses right questions question um I saw that uh July 2024 you had a open house with 50 attendees um did they what kind of feedback did they provide on this yeah great question um there was a lot of support for the project there is it was it was um pretty clear that there are safety issues and people know that improvements are needed along the area um when we talked about roundabouts there's obviously there's people that like roundabouts and there's people that don't like roundabouts we can't really fix that other than addressing the concerns that hey we have these are single L roundabouts they're not larger roundabouts that you may be um used to where it creates more confusion these are areas that you have smaller circulations to navigate they're better accommodating for pedestrians um we pointed to different areas that you could have examples for those roundabouts and that quelled a lot of the fears um and concerns there was a lot of issues um not a lot of issues some of the concerns were raised with removing one of the through Lanes in each Direction um but when we looked at the traffic volumes this will function just fine as a single lane roadway and also the single Lanes will help to reduce speed so when we talked about all the safety benefits that this project actually provides there is a lot of strong support for the project um the negative is the impacts during construction and trying to accommodate it and people would say if if you could just have it done in a day that'd be great um spanning a year and a half is going to be challenging but the way we staged the project we tried to minimize those impacts for those area users and residents as much as possible while still being able to build the project in a way that doesn't um increase the cost so much that it's not affordable yeah a little bit of pain well you know out no pain no gain right you can't make an omelet without take a short break by anybody on Council sure I'll make a motion to uh take a 10-minute recess second all in favor say I I motion passes we're recess for 10 minutes thank you let's reconvene the city council let's let's Recon reconvene the city council after our uh recess and that'll bring us to item 9C Shak High School caps project presentation on the safe routes to school uh thank you very counc I with uh mik Owen and Erica on uh a project this year they are three Shak High School seniors um with in the Caps Human Services Academy at Shak High School uh I had a problem where I um had the idea of putting together Grant applications for to try to obtain safe routes to school funding for the city of shaki um the challenge that I had is I needed connections into shaki schools in order to to put together good applications and to get good ideas and feedback from the public so I worked with the these three students in the Human Services Academy to be my conduit and liaison to the schools um these uh students are not Engineers they don't want to be Engineers maybe they do after this uh but they they did a great job a fantastic job helping me um put together a lot of information and they were diligent and worked extremely hard in order to put together our grant applications which they will talk to you about um and I will let them get through their presentation and I will help stand for questions afterwards very good all right welcome thanks for coming welcome and we appreciate your your assistance yeah thank you so um my peer here is going to give you a quick little stat to start off yeah so I just want to set a baseline that so SHP high school a school of about 3,000 students 177% of those students walk to school each day which is four 477 students going to and from school each day through walking so that just like and that's just one of the schools in shock so it's a pretty big deal that they can get to school safely so here's a slide just about us and just a quick little meet the team so my name is Mok fad I was on Communications um I took care of the majority of the emails and any outside Communications that we needed whether it's from the district principles or just peer communication or teacher communication my name is Owen rude I was on like the Outreach so I was going around to the schools giving them Flyers talking to the principles and gaining support that way my name is Erica Sanders and I was the project manager so I was doing a little bit of everything I was making sure it ran smoothly I was also communicating for our team with Alex um via email and other um ways to communicate throughout the project so for our agenda we'll start with um talking about our goals for the project and the Grant overviews and then we're going to go over the design assistance grant and the infrastructure grant that we applied for and then we're going to go ahead and end it with a reflection so our goal was to obtain two men do safe route to school grants and this was to improve the roads impacting shock B schools so we applied for two GR grants so the first one was the Mind do safe route School design assistance grant and this was asking for engineering assistance in designing this and estimating and all that and then the second one we split it into four separate applications and that was the infrastructure so that's actually like for the money part and we split it into four schools where we saw that there was a something that was impacting the safety of the student students getting to and from school and are them four different uh projects in four different areas it's four different schools okay so with the first grant this is a design design assistance grants so our first step was to reach out to the schools on 10th Avenue and this was four schools including East and West Middle School Sweeney Elementary and Pearson Early Learning Center so our goal was to ask them for a letter of support and this is a written statement of their support or concerns around the school agreeing with um the city of needing improvements on this road for students to make a safe journey to school and we provided this in the insights to Alex to submit this by November 21st which was about a week and a half involvement on the student side and then we received that Grant recently which is good for us that means um this year we will continue and commence the design assistance project yeah so to go a little bit more in depth over here we can see 10th Avenue which is basically the orange line and all those little red red pin dots are the schools and 10th Avenue is a very very busy road um it's very close to downtown it's very close to a lot of parks um grocery stores big shops and it's very used by our citizens and especially like with the use of this road a lot of kids are going to get confused whether they need to cross or like walk along so it does create somewhat of a hazard for kids and possibly even adults cuz it is such a busy road and also because of the ages of these kids we can't always rely on them to know when is the right time for them to cross and unfortunately we also can't rely on drivers so this is an example of a proposed idea to change the road this is uh showing um by West so first there was an option to have just a um one lane each way and this would create a wider s uh shoulder for the road so that when buses are doing pickup and drop off there will be more area for students when they're Crossing at a crosswalk to be able to see the incoming traffic and um another option is with three lanes so the middle turn left turning lane one still going each way and this still gives a um bigger shoulder than the two lanes each way we currently have but then this also means that at crosswalks that left turn lane is a safe area for students to stop in case um it is too steady each way and they need to take a break in between crossing the road and often just to check again and that's another safe option so for those of you who don't know grants are kind of like it's like a test so there's different points for different categories and we focused on the Outreach category cuz that's what we could do the best so we had to find a way to get data like feedback so we created a survey and we had sent those surveys out to the families and students by going and delivering Flyers to the offices and talking to the principles and then once we got that feedback we developed those four individual grants and we compiled the data and sent it to Alex and he submitted it on the 17th so we all know it's kind of hard to collect information from people who don't really know the kind of overalls of the project um so therefore as I previously stated we created a survey and we also received feedback and demographics from that survey which helped us a lot and we also asked for data from the district um it's basically like just the amount of students that are in the school the percentage of the percentage of the students that walk bike bus Etc and we also made a social media post on the shaki Human Services caps Instagram account and we also made a PA announcement to shaky high schoolers so with our survey findings we received almost uh 300 responses um one thing to note about this though is that is 95% of the survey findings were from three schools luckily two of those are two that we will use in our applications and that need these improvements um but we did not have even um responses as we'd like um two of the schools up there did not receive any but um in the Orange is West Middle School in the pink is Sweeney and in the blue is High School in that pie chart um and so with more survey findings um West Middle School specifically in the blue quotes are some things that either students or parents submitted on their concerns um but the graph shows the rating on How likely are they were to support um improving these routes routes to school basically meaning one know everything is perfectly great on the roads they don't need it and five they do and most of the responses were from the 3 to five range meaning that they really do need these improvements on the roads and you can take time to read out the um blue quotes if you'd like and moving on to Sweeney um these are couple graphs as we can see on the left hand side is rating a possible improve Improvement and this is the opposed um proposed one is enhanced pedestrian Crossing which means the flashing Beacon at Adam Street and four out of five stars is the average rating meaning they think this would improve students routes to school and we actually included this in our Grant application because it shows that families would like to see this Improvement and the same on the upper right hand side is the same one as West that how often are they How likely are they to improve these Chang and most of them are in the middle still not on the one side which would be perfectly safe and then another quote in the blue of where they could use that Improvement so this is the first one of our suggested improvements so can you see this mouse so right around here and lower there's a new Whispering Waters development and it is over 120 new single family homes so they're new homes so probably younger families are going to moving into those and there previously was no safe way for them to cross the road so we have a suggested sidewalk coming up here and then a crossing at Woodward so a sidewalk on Pike Lake and then Woodward so that the people who live in these new 120 single family homes could walk to school if they wanted to because they live within a half mile and they don't have a safe route to get to school and then this is at sunpath elementary school so these yellow lines is the pickup line for after school so when students get picked up by their parents they have to wait in a line here and it usually backs up around here cuz the parents get there early and there's no sidewalk along here so if students want to leave or if students want to walk home into the giant neighborhood below they would have to either walk in the street or in the grass so a proposed sidewalk right here would help a lot of students walking home and then this is the shakb high school so when school ends about 3,000 kids are trying to leave at the same time so it's chaotic and this is one of the two exits so right here Stu uh students come from this parking lot and from this parking lot and there's giant neighborhood here where students walk and there's no crosswalk here so if you want to get into this neighborhood you have to go all the way up here to the stop light and then cross there and then come all the way back down or you have to go all the way up this hill cross and go back down so students just run across the street here cuz they don't want to do the all the extra walking so putting a crosswalk there so they could safely cross the street there if they're going to do it anyways let me let me ask a question um and this might be for staff do we do we have the uh the school speed zones in this area also when kids are present call children thank you Mr Mayor yes there is a school's own speed limit on keer okay okay and that brings us to our fourth one and that is Sweeny so you see a similar thing as sunpath with the pickup line here so there's cars lining up here and Adam Street is a fairly busy road so these cars are lining up and students are crossing the road at 11th in Adams and there is currently a crosswalk there but it's very faded and so this suggestion would or this Improvement would be to add a rrfb crosswalk so that students can like hit the button and then the lights will flash so that they can cross the street there safely but no roundabout there it would be like uh the one on Marshall Road and then it'd be like Marshall Road where you push the button and you get the the light the county added a few of them I think Point Mr Mayor not exactly like that one think the ones on 17th Avenue but instead of the overhead Mast arm signs us to be postmart mounted signs okay so then we sent out the survey and Sweeney was one of the schools that responded a lot and these are two quotes from people in the short response they said that the clay Street crossing is unsafe that it's very faded and that someone suggested that a sidewalk on the North End of 10th Avenue would be beneficial but that orange Mark right there that's the women's prison so putting a sidewalk for elementary schoolers to walk to school right next to the women prison would probably not be a great idea so the Clay Street sidewalk could be a future project that would be very beneficial to to the students of Sweeny now as previous stated we wanted to collect information from the citizens the families and the students just to help us gain an idea of what we needed to do and what they're demanding for so we were I'll explain this a little bit later further on in the presentation but um we also created a flyer to put around the high school and also in the offices of the elementary schools and we asked also the receptionists at those offices to point this out to parents that are coming in picking up their kids or whatever they're there for and we found this to be very beneficial because I have seen multiple parents walk out with the flyer in hand so I knew that this was a very good use of our time to create this and go through and actually ask the receptionist to put this out and basically what the flyer had was just a simple QR code of the survey parents could scan and go um there's also an email on there just in case they had any additional questions and we also gave them a summary of the project and what we were looking for and a lot of people filled it out and thankfully I like to say that we were clear enough in our survey that we didn't receive any emails so I I'll take that as a good sign so unfortunately we did have a few setbacks and challenges within our journey and one of them was the distribution of the survey which Erica will tap in a little bit later but we did have some issues with communication and just sending out the survey which we problem solved with the flyer and thankfully it worked out pretty well and we did as of today have around 300 responses and another setback we had was the quality of responses as you saw earlier about half of those were from West Middle School which meant that about half the responses were middle schoolers typing on their iPads so we got several responses of move my house closer to the school or I fly to school or I ride my hoverboard to school so we had a lot of responses like that we had to sift through and get rid of because I don't know we're supposed to do about that can't pick your house up and put it across the street from West Welcome to government don't give any ideas so um picking back up on the distribution of the survey equal responses from all schools was a setback that we wanted um 300 responses is a very good number but we were hoping that that would be a decent amount from each school um and part of this was also timing so with this project being from end of November to now it in the middle of that is winter break and that was something we didn't anticipate of was sending out the survey right before winter break we were hoping to reach other schools and people in the district and we were just with the hecticness of that we didn't anticipate either not be able to being able to reach people or getting it out on time or people caring to respond in that busy last two weeks before break um and so we had to take it into our own hands of emailing each principal individually which was um still had a good um impact on our responses however receiving an email from just like a high school student sometimes isn't always the top of your list and we respect and appreciate them still seeing our um asked to send out the survey however that was a setback of ours of having to reach out by ourselves I have a question do do various schools have different levels of Ages to where this school might have more Walkers and bikers and even some cases drivers where another school might be at such an age that the majority are not Walkers or bikers I'm thinking Pearson um and that probably sways a lot into the response because from a a walking standpoint there's probably not a whole lot of Walkers to that school so there's really not a as much motivation I guess or or qu quantity of of Walkers or data right yeah um although there are issues you know in that area that we're all aware of too so Mr White I think they brought up a good point with the Eagle Creek and the new development out there that wouldn't have been one that normally may have had a lot of Walkers to it but now may have so I think even with uh the small segment of data you collected you're finding out that these surveys are you got a pretty good response actually sometimes would and and they're hard to time and and uh they're hard to figure but uh you came up with some good data so please continue yeah Mr rnold thank you Mr Mayor did you feel that you were getting support from a ministration at the school and principles yes um we felt that um with reaching out it was um we got very good responses from depending on the school like specifically West was able to have students completed and that was very helpful while other schools might have not been able to um just get back to us as quickly and part of it was on our side of not thinking about response time we were just like the survey is done it's good to go we'll get responses today and that wasn't realistic so it was just the timing of it all that where we ran into issues in communication thank you so to like recap so our first thing that we had to do was gain letters of support from the principles that was for the first grant so you need a letter of support that was part of the scoring for that one and so with that we applied for our design assistance grant and then we moved on to the school engagement for the infrastructure Grant and then we collected all that engagement from the survey and we kind of took all the input and made it into possible improvements and then therefore we collected all that information information and then applied it to the grant um thank you guys for listening we truly appreciate this if you have any questions we're currently open to answering it questions from Council Mr Delaney we'll go right down the line I just want to say thank you this was a great presentation uh a lot of identified a problem provideed Solutions looks like a lot of great data collection um thank you for yeah I said a few things uh great uh points to for us to look at um again you're finding out a lot about surveys and that you can use in your future life but uh but thank you for that and I I just ran into the same situation with low turnout on a survey and had to turn to like focus groups to try and gather some more data so uh there's tools out there but you did a great job thank you thank you C conf first thank you you did you guys did do a great job so just to recap you how many grants did you guys like get at the end of applied applied that yeah we're not there yet thank you ccil you did get one right you guys did get one yeah so there was two grants the first was the mindat St proc School design assistance grant we were able to get funding for that project and that essentially just goes to 10th Avenue and looking at different design improvements which we can use to a future project uh the second Grant was the infrastructure Grant we actually applied for three different grants that included four schools in those three grants so we spaced them out to try to give position ourselves the best for funding um so we it was one Grant but we we applied for three different applications perfect thank you great job guys Mr Lara um yeah great job on the presentation um good eye opening um results so best of luck all right my questions did did uh was it a learning experience for you did you learn from this experience yes and personally for me I learned a lot of patience and a lot better communication skills and just how to be a better responder to emails that we weren't necessarily expecting and the others yeah I learned a lot about the community I mean we had 300 families respond to this survey that we sent out and this was in like two weeks so knowing that like that many families were committed to safer route for their kids to go to school or safe route for other kids to go to school is very eye openening okay yeah I learned um again both of those like about our community and with like communicating I learned um in in a project like you can't predict everything which is that usually goes without saying but I think having the first time or second time through our class working directly with like the city and um working on a project that isn't just for a grade was um it felt very like rewarding and good to know that like our um work is that we can present it to people and um I learn just um I'm rambling a bit sorry Lear learned um how to work with like my great team and everything like that that's awesome did you guys have fun yeah okay um I'm going to look at it just a little bit broader you did a great job by the way but not only does your efforts make the school access safer but when school is not in session it makes safe uh points for the community at large to utilize also so it's it's much bigger than what you were focused on um because these safe Crossings can can be utilized by anybody not just School Walkers and stuff so it's much uh more important than maybe you you focused on so really appreciate all your efforts are you graded on this yes we are well if you just want to go ahead and contact council members with your teacher and tell them you know we'll make sure you get a good good crade and bend some arms for you or something but no seriously they can watch and and you did a great job you should be very proud of yourselves uh appreciate staff's efforts working with you on this and the school's uh joint commitment to the Caps program with the city so appreciate it thank you all very much I'm always I'm always impressed with the uh make sure that we can get each one of these um uh lapel pin okay we do mayor um I'm always impressed with anytime we have students involved from the Caps program that come in and work on projects uh you may have noticed that when our all of our Graphics that we have up on our screen uh that was actually all done by a caps uh student uh including the selection of the music it used to be something like the old chick monk song from catty Shack when I first got here 10 years ago uh but that you know that would have cost the city $30,000 if we were to do that uh because I looked at it and and what you be able to present here is is is not only saving us money tax dollars but more importantly you actually are going to make this community better and that is worth a million dollars and I hope that in the future uh you understand uh how Comm communities rely on people like you to make that happen it's not just all of us it's actually you as well thank you very much yes thank you thank you present him so token for all your hard work but uh paycheck Mr Jordan you know you better be careful you know you got some people looking at your job now that's right they want they don't want to do that right they don't want to be Engineers uh I don't know I think I convince them to be Engineers they sat through three hours of engineering presentations for a council meeting on a day they didn't have school so maybe they will be Engineers Engineers than just the public side too so should iracy thank you item 9 comprehensive plan text Amendment figure 4113 plan plan land use overview 2040 comp plan Mr KY whenever you're ready Council this is the um revisiting the comprehensive plan text Amendment for the Mixed use commercial center residential density so again background 240 comprehensive plan includes future land use classifications to guide the broad pattern of land use figure 4.1 three the plan land use overview list each land use tonight we're requesting to modify the mixed use commercial center residential density which is currently 30 to 60 dwelling units an acre to 6 to 45 dwelling units per acre city council can approve an amendment when it finds one or more of the criteria exists original comp plan and zoning ordinance or an error significant changes in the community goals and policies have taken place which is one of our items and also the comprehensive plan requires another provision which is to meet shabe Market realities so again these are the areas in the comprehensive plan so this isn't zoning this is just land use designations that would be affected uh circled in red and this is the table in the comprehensive plan that we would change which currently has the 30 to 60 dwelling units an acre and this is the page that would be amended in the current comprehensive plan that's at 30 to 60 dwelling units an acre so this again is a um shows the primary uses our commercial and retail office and the secondary uses are multifam residential so we looked uh after the last council meeting staff went back and looked at our most recent projects you can see we have a high uh dwelling density of 133 units in AC acre um at The Deco Shaka flant Shaka Flats is 95 and then it go was down the emblem which just opened recently is probably lowest it's more of a garden style apartment complex so this is to give you some scale this is shabe Flats at 95 dwelling units an acre this is the Henderson um which its sister building next door this is at 41.4 dwelling units an acre this is the building that's currently under construction by the CDA which is 40.8 dwelling units an acre excuse me this is the Blakeley which is in windir this is at 37 dwelling units an acre and then this is the aerosan which is 34.5 so um staff looking at that table is pretty comfortable that at um 6 to 45 dwelling un an acre will cover us for the projects that are currently built or probably will likely built in the next 10 years in Shaka thank you sir questions of Staff yeah we've uh discussed this uh recently and there was some number changes I think from what we had looked at in the past time when this came up mayor and Council originally uh the Planning Commission Rec recommended six to 60 dwelling in an acre after getting the feedback from the council um staff went back and looked at all of our recent projects which are on this list and feel comfortable that changing at 6 to 45 uh will meet the market demand and could you flip back to the current land use map that you had it doesn't affect a lot of areas so it's it's pretty I I I guess it's it there's not a lot of opportunity here is what I'm trying to say there there could be some but it's it's really going to be dependent so it's yeah mayor C this is typically you'll see Redevelopment or infill so at a good example that's s the comprehensive plan um which has happened for instance in Adina and in Eden Prairie where they're building residential and parking lots at some of the commercials so the um Southdale mall has had a number of residential projects built on the exterior that's happening more and more around the Twin Cities so somewhere down the road where the for instance the coals and the target is there's a lot of parking there that if you see today it's not filled anymore um there could be some residential development there and that would be at up to that 4 45 units an acre the other site that we've had a lot of interest in but no one's been able to make work is the um site adjacent to the emblem um it's currently agricultural it's not on the hard corner it's the kind of indust the Agricultural site there that goes down the hill um towards Seagate and shuab Public Utilities property we've had some people interested in doing kind of high density Town Homes there with some small commercial in the front um and this would allow that to be able to work any questions of Staff wishes a councel I guess my conern you had some concerns with it has your concerns been addressed well I you you know when when they said they it's really not likely to be at 60 and we asked to lower it and they came back with a lower number and I think it's reasonable I I think compromise is good that's what we strive for and and uh yeah Mr I'll make a motion then to approve resolution r225 d012 approving a comprehensive plan text amendment to modify the mixed use commercial center residential density from 30 to 60 dwelling units per acre to 6 to 45 dwelling units per acre uh in figure 4.13 Dash planned use overview and Associated pages in the 2020 2040 comprehensive plan Mr Delaney it's a long motion but I'll second it yeah all right we have a motion by Mr Lara and seconded by Mr Delaney is there any discussion on the motion um just that I'm glad we're able to find something in the middle anybody else all right seeing none all in favor say I I I opposed motion passes unanimously um that takes us to item number 10 reports and lisons leison Report which side did we start last time this side so we're starting over here all right leaz on okay 169 Coalition we did have a uh Coalition meeting actually we held a meeting to groundbreaking meeting um we back up here we participated in a groundbreaking meeting for the 2821 1699 which is ongoing I think that'll be in April so we're supporting that event um we also have having a meeting with menot Thursday um to talk about what we can leverage as far as uh Coalition and the work that's going to be started on 169 I think around 20 29 um as far as spu we had no meeting no activities um I want to do bring up hockey day Minnesota hockey day Minnesota um it's not too late to volunteer um great event for the city I did volunteer you're probably see me in the vest walk around Friday but again go to the website this should be a great event good time and and I want to thank councelor whing as far as mvta um Benedictine is getting a presentation from mvta for their micro transit in March so thanks for the information they're excited to hear that that's it thank you thank you counselor Mr Whiting great great segue I want to make sure everybody's got that mvta Connect app on their phone uh we have uh basically door door service here in shaki uh at a low rate so you can use that to get around town get your shopping done three bucks get you get you where you need to be um pretty cool stuff also skiers get to Buck Hill now you know get on the bus get out to the Burnsville transit station we got hourly trips to Buck Hill uh going out there so again I mentioned Shak be connect uh the board is working on our uh legislative breakfast and definitely welcome to come that's going to be on February 5th uh at the capital room B15 or the vault um we're going to be doing uh giving our presentation to our legislators on basically H how to keep us funded um as they say uh uh Transit relies a lot on the motor vehicle sales tax and they're saying motorview mest is not performing as predicted so kind of like U your Investments sometimes it doesn't work well for us do they collect anything from the electric segment collect anything from the electric segment GRS out there does government collect any revenue from electric vehicles into the transportation system like they do the gas tax it's a good question I should check into that because that be another aspect of getting some money in there so uh we're working on that Burnsville bus garage uh modernization project I had mentioned in the past and uh that's about all I have I am uh once approved I'll be moving to the vice chair of the Minnesota Valley Transit thank you Mr Whiting M cont yes thank you mayor so um on the 9th Thursday the 9th I did attend the mvta ribbon cutting um thank you Jay and mayor for being out there and um talking in behalf of the city great job um on the 10th I attended the scale meeting um Jordan Public Schools were the the host and lots of good stuff happening over in Jordan they got a a total makeover over there so for 2024 it was the L largest graduating class class 17 uh 117 170 students graduating overall 1,800 students um she talked about all the renovations um lots of stuff seven new CL well she was talking about different phases so don't she had tons of phases phases of of the whole entire entire construction that happened and that are still happening um phase um 2.0 um will happen in the summer of 2025 um lots of great information and then the second half we had Minnesota recreational Cannabis law which um it was a panel consisting of all the local jurisdictions great information and I did send that out to you guys so you guys could see it if you had any questions um hopefully your answers are there and what I liked about it was on one of the last pages there there's a um they did like a little um chart of where each City stands and what their um like buffers and you know different um requirements are for for for the cannabis laws that are coming um and that was it yeah pretty much for me that was good information appreciate you sharing it out course thank you some surprising information actually in that too I was surprised to see the potency going up so quick so fast and my understanding is it's the state's responsibility to make sure that they have that under control Mr Lara uh yep um so attended a ribbon cutting um last Thursday for near North title um ribbon cutting for The mvta Connect service and uh we had a Main Street meeting where we uh they were primarily discussing different marketing tactics for downtown and um they were talking about the events for 2025 which they already came up with that schedule so that's exciting to see that already taking place no bands yet though that's coming schedule for um the events so like Rhythm Of The Rails and ales in the alley different things like that basically it's like when the streets will be closed because that was one of the big uh things that the downtown businesses had comments on was when and how long and all that stuff so um but yeah that's that was it very good thank you sir uh my report is Wednesday January 8th met with uh representative bakeberg here at City Hall Thursday January 9th I attended the mvta ribbon cutting for the microtransit and uh that's when I Le J's Council whiting's potentially going to be a vice vice chair correct um the ninth we also had the joint quarterly County meeting with staff uh commissioner Brennan what's going on in the county squ on City type talk um met with Senator Pratt in bakeberg at the library on the night of January 9th January 14th was the ribbon cutting at near North tit title and they apparently they do a lot more than just titles uh which was pretty interesting we talked about abstracts which goes back into some history of properties and which is kind of a cool thing um 14th they also met with uh Congressman woman Craig's office Mr Reynolds and myself here at City Hall January 17th was the Barb Hedland Police Department retirement um she was a victim Advocate and she was here for 10 plus years did a great job missing her but uh that is my report Mr Reynolds nothing for me sir all right other business City Bill list City Bill list I'm sorry I missed that one thank you counselor no questions here none good all right other business Mr Delaney just one thing there was a resent I talked to the guess they don't realize the packets are available online on the website um the packet that we do get the I guess Council gets before we come in those are available on the website just want to put that out there in case people don't understand those I will mention uh this cold weather let's make sure we're taking care of our pets and keeping them inside and uh uh checking in our parents and hopefully our pipes aren't freezing I haven't heard any complaints like that have you you they'll come right to you next definitely here no all I wanted to to add was after the uh public comment session tonight I uh and I you know I can't imagine anybody disagreeing on this Council I have absolute complete trust and confidence and a Shak be pleased Department's um function uh you know they placing Concepts Community pleasing their respect approach and uh they do a great job so you know there is always that oneoff case where there's things that are above and beyond that uh you know whether a civil issue or whatever but uh uh I have full faith and confidence in the Shak Police Department I'm sure you all do too so yes all right with that being said what's the wishes of council okay uh I make a motion to adjourn to February 4th 2025 at 7 P.M second somebody coun Whiting I'll take it all right you're good motion by Mr Lara discussion on the motion discussion n none all in favor say I I opposed motion passes we are adjourned thank you stay warm everyone engineering presentation