Agenda



Nowthen City Council Meeting

Minutes

July 14, 2020

1. Call to Order

Meeting called to order at 7:06 pm

Members present: Council Member Rainville, Council Member Greenberg, Council Member Blake, Mayor Pilon, Council Member Breyen

Pilon added (2) items to the agenda.

4. Council Items:

a) Centerpoint Energy utility work

b) Council Members being notified on public notices, when they are sent and who they are sent to

Council Member Rainville moved Consent Agenda, item g) Clerks Memo-Recycling Center to Council Items: c)

MOTION TO APPROVE TONIGHT’S AGENDA AS AMENDED BY BREYEN, SECONDED BY PILON; ALL IN FAVOR, MOTION CARRIED.

2. Consent Agenda:

a) Approve Special Meeting Minutes of 06-29-2020.

b) Financial Report: Approve Treasurer’s Report, and Claims dated June 3, 2020 through

July 7, 2020.

c) Resolution 2020-41 Approving the Anoka County Sheriff’s Contract

d) Resolution 2020-42 Accepting the 2020 CenterPoint Energy Grant

e) Resolution 2020-43 Approving a Premise Permit at Northwoods Bar & Grill

f) Clerk’s Memo – Operational Changes (Office Hours)

g) Clerk’s Memo – Recycling Center

h) RCA - Lakeside Cabinet’s request for approval of golf cart use & road closure

MOTION TO APPROVE CONSENT AGENDA BY RAINVILLE, SECONDED BY BLAKE; ALL IN FAVOR, MOTION CARRIED.

3. Engineering – Road Improvement Discussion

a) Resolution 2020-44 Resolution Accepting Bid and Awarding Contract for the 189th Lane, 190th Lane

& Dolomite Street Road Improvement Project

b) Resolution 2020-45 Resolution Approving Bid and Awarding Contract for the Krypton Street, 183rd

Ave., Potassium Street & Merle’s Lane Road Improvement Project

City Clerk Streich reviewed the budget and was able to confirm that the city could take back the costs of the culverts.

Engineer Nelson was able to come up with a little over $11,000 in cost savings on the current road improvement project for 189th Lane, 190th Lane & Dolomite Street The new cost is approximately $6180 per resident.

The approximate interest rate for both projects is 4%.

Dan Dennie – 6737 189th Lane asked when they could pay in full without being charged the 4% interest rate. Would the city be liable for the road for 10 years since the payment is spread out over 10 years.

How will they tie in the existing driveways.

Pilon answered that November 15th is the deadline to make payment in full without paying any interest.

There will be maintenance, not charged to the residents, but they anticipate that to be a 20-30 year road when it is complete.

Driveways will be tied in. If it’s gravel, they will put a small apron off the blacktop to the gravel. If it’s a blacktop driveway they will go in an appropriate amount on the right of way depending on how the driveway is laid out right now. If it’s concrete, they will put concrete in. They replace whatever is currently there.

Dennie mentioned that the core samples need to be taken care of. Clerk Streich will contact the City Engineer.

Gerald Nash, 6817 190th Lane NW asked how will they be notified to vote on the project and how will the rest of the resident be allowed to vote?

Pilon said that the meeting is being recorded on YouTube, and the minutes will be on the city website, and if the Council decides to proceed with this, the residents will be notified by letter that the project will be proceeding and they will be asked how they want to be communicated with.

Nash said that he thought he would be allowed to vote tonight. Pilon answered that only the Council would be voting tonight.

Nash said that he has lived here for 43 years and doesn’t see any problem with the way the roads are right now. He already went through one road improvement project when it went from gravel to black top. The only part that he can see is getting bad is by Dolomite. Most people don’t use that road anyways. He would also like Council to consider the widow that spoke at the last meeting and how hard this will be to pay for this by herself.

Dennie also addressed the topic of businesses that are open to the public in the area. He feels they should pay more. They are a separate entity with more traffic coming in.

Pilon said that Interim Use Permit (IUP) was investigated, and they are complying with their IUP.

As long as they abide by the conditions that were placed upon them when they applied, there is nothing that can be done.

Rainville stated that they cannot charge a residential property more if they have a commercial businesses. Every property is assessed every 5 years and those properties can be changed on the property tax classification to commercial and they would pay more property taxes. Staff looked at the current IUP and from what they understand, it is being adhered to. If there is an issue, the city needs to be notified so we can do something about it. She is allowed the traffic that is associated with her businesses.

Council Member Blake said they talked to the IUP owner at this address about the dog show and that will not continue anymore. That drew huge amounts of people and she agreed not to do that anymore. She wants to be a good neighbor. She doesn’t want to upset anyone.

Dennie also asked if the speed limit be lowered to 20 mph. Pilon said maybe 35 mph but he would have to check on that.

Council Member Breyen said these two road projects have been reviewed by staff and have been on the radar to be improved for a good five years now. When staff reviewed the roads and came up with potential roads back in 2018, these two were included. Knowing that the staff evaluated all of the city roads he would recommend moving forward with it.

MOTION BY RAINVILLE TO APPROVE 2020-44 RESOLUTION ACCEPTING BID AND AWARDING CONTRACT FOR THE 189TH LANE, 190TH LANE & DOLOMITE STREET ROAD IMPROVEMENT PROJECT, SECONDED BY BREYEN; ALL IN FAVOR, MOTION CARRIED.

MOTION BY BREYEN TO APPROVE 2020-45 RESOLUTION ACCEPTING BID AND AWARDING CONTRACT FOR THE KRYPTON STREET, 183RD AVE., POTASSIUM STREET & MERLE’S LANE ROAD IMPROVEMENT PROJECT WITH ENGINEER AND CITY CONTRIBUTIONS, SECONDED BY BLAKE; ALL IN FAVOR, MOTION CARRIED.

3. Emergency Management

a) RCA Discussion - Cares Act Local Government Aid Funding

Greenberg asked what exactly they were approving at this time. Are they approving those recommendations, or will there be discussion?

Breyen explained that they are accepting the funds from the state, and he is looking for a motion to allow Pilon and Breyen to work with staff to determine what else they can spend those funds on. There still will be more to come. This plan still needs to be discussed further by the Council as to what they want to spend the funds on.

Pilon said part of that will be items that are not included in the list.

Rainville asked if Breyen would be willing to amend his motion. The Farmer’s Market Coordinator has had some expenses related to COVID and she would like to allow the Coordinator to provide that information and be approved for expenses, not within the Farmer’s Market budget, but within these COVID Care funds.

Breyen said it would be his understanding that those funds would be originally coming out of the Farmer’s Market funds and then reimbursed through the CARES Act.

Rainville stated that she has not put it in for reimbursement yet, but when she does, in her opinion, that would be a legitimate CARES Act cost.

Breyen said that he agrees that they could potentially be reimbursed, but the city has not paid for them yet, so he is not in favor of amending his motion.

Greenberg asked at a later point, if the rest of Council will get an opportunity to present their opinions on those expenses.

Breyen said that if Greenberg is aware of something or doesn’t know what something means, he would suggest that he contact Clerk Streich so she can send those concerns out to Council.

Pilon said that if it’s a burning issue. Otherwise Pilon and Breyen will go through it and try and prioritize for the Council. They want to dance around that open meeting law when too many people are offering their opinion.

Blake asked Pilon when they send the list out to everyone, and there are three Council Members that aren’t happy or confused about certain issues, will we vote on this to decide? Will the whole council make this decision, not just you two?

Breyen said they are just going to make the recommendation to the council. Unless Blake would like to participate on how to spend this money, that’s okay too.

MOTION BY BREYEN TO APPROVE PILON AND BREYEN TO WORK WITH CLERK STREICH ON A PLAN FOR THE CARES ACT FUNDS. ALSO TO APPROVE REIMBURSEMENT FOR THE OFFICE FRONT DESK REMODELING, THE TWO RECYCLING DAYS EXPENSES, THE ELECTION PREPAREDNESS FOR THIS YEAR’S EXPENSES AS WELL AS THE EMERGENCY PREPAREDNESS PLANNING CONSULTANT FEES FROM THE CARES ACT DOLLARS, SECONDED BY RAINVILLE; ALL IN FAVOR, MOTION CARRIED.

4. Council Items

a) Centerpoint Energy Utility Work

A few years ago, Centerpoint Energy came to the City of Nowthen and asked to use the city hall building for a public meeting to present a proposal to bring natural gas to the east/central portion of our city. They had their meeting, got a bunch of people signed up and excited, and then something happened at Centerpoint Energy and they had to pull back from the project.

A public commissions hearing needs to take place in order to vote on it going forward.

That meeting will be next Thursday, July 23rd. If it passes, Centerpoint Energy is ready to start digging and hooking up homes in August. In order to move that fast, they’ve authorized locators to come out and measure and inspect for sewer lines. The company they hired is DIS. DIS did not inform the city or the people at their front desk that they would be out. When they began walking through yards locating, residents wanted to know what they were doing and called Centerpoint Energy. But the person at the front desk at Centerpoint Energy did not know, so residents were advised to call the Sheriff.

DIS decided they better call the city and let them know that they were out in an authorized fashion and that they would all have badges on, and what they would be doing.

Unfortunately, when they gave that information to the city, they said that Centerpoint Energy had been authorized and the project was going forward.

The Public Commissions has authorized a hearing, at which time they will tell Centerpoint Energy whether or not they can go ahead.

Information going forward will come directly from Centerpoint Energy and will be given to the City Clerk and Deputy Clerk at the city office.

Information has been sent out by Centerpoint to the residents that are in the zone that they are working on right now. All of those homeowners will have two more opportunities to sign up.

The meeting will be a virtual meeting at 9:15 am next Thursday, July 23rd.

Clerk Streich will contact Centerpoint Energy to obtain the virtual meeting link information and send it to the Council.

b) Public Notices

Mayor Pilon’s recommendation is that when Public Hearing notices are mailed out to the residents, council members receive copies along with resident addresses that the notices were sent out to.

Rainville would also like to see a copy of the application as soon as it is complete.

Council Member Breyen asked if Rainville is asking to receive the information earlier than the Planning & Zoning packet? He is not sure what the value would be to have the application before the packet comes out. The application is not normally included in the public notice for the hearing.

Clerk Streich said that if it were to be done this way, Council would receive this information before Planning & Zoning receives it.

Rainville said she would like to see it as soon as it’s filed and the letters go out. She has no issue with Council receiving it before Planning & Zoning because Council makes the final determination as a governing body.

Streich said that although the application would be complete, the Findings of Fact from Planner Stockman would not be ready until the packet is assembled for the P&Z Commission.

MOTION FOR COUNCIL TO BE INCLUDED IN THE LETTER THAT GOES OUT TO RESIDENTS AND LIST OF RESIDENTS NAMES AND ADDRESSES, BY PILON, SECONDED BY BREYEN; ALL IN FAVOR, MOTION CARRIED.

c) Recycling

Council Member Rainville asked if verbiage was ready yet for the city website regarding the recycling center. She also asked about volunteers if they would be insured.

Clerk Streich stated that she would have that information complete on Wednesday, July 15th.

Council Member Greenberg asked if he could coordinate with Clerk Streich and add the information to the Community Facebook pages.

Discussion continued as to whether Council Member Greenberg and Clerk Streich could work together, or if Council Member Rainville should be included in that process.

MOTION TO RE-OPEN THE RECYCLING CENTER TUESDAYS & THURSDAYS, 10 AM-7 PM, AND SATURDAYS 9 AM-12 PM, BEGINNING JULY 21ST, AND COUNCIL MEMBER GREENBERG TO WORK WITH CLERK STREICH TO CREATE AN INFORMATION PAGE TO BE POSTED ON THE CITY WEBSITE AND COMMUNITY FACEBOOK PAGES BY GREENBERG, SECONDED BY BLAKE; ALL IN FAVOR, MOTION CARRIED.

MOTION TO ADJOURN AT 8:50 PM BY BREYEN, SECONDED BY RAINVILLE; ALL IN FAVOR, MOTION CARRIED.

Respectfully Submitted by:

________________________________ _____________________________

Lori Streich, City Clerk/Treasurer Jeff Pilon, Mayor

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