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HomeMy WebLinkAboutMinutes i� ��tJV� �ri°t � y � ............................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... ���� �ri e ar�d PC�� t MINUTES COTTAGE GROVE CITY COUNCIL November 16, 2016 COUNCIL CHAMBER 12800 RAVINE PARKWAY SOUTH SPECIAL MEETING - 6:00 P.M. ST. CROIX CONFERENCE ROOM 1. CALL TO ORDER Mayor Bailey called the Special Meeting to order at 6:00 p.m. 2. ROLL CALL The following were present: Mayor Myron Bailey, Council Member Steve Dennis, Council Member Justin Olsen, Council Member Jen Peterson, Council Member Dave Thiede. Also present were: Karla Bigham, Washington County Commissioner; Dan MacSwain, Washington County Natural Resources Coordinator; Wayne Sandberg, Washington County Engineer; Cory Slagle, Deputy Washington County Engineer; Grant Wyffels, Washington County Project Manager; Jon Horn, Kimley-Horn; Charlene Stevens, City Administrator; Korine Land, City Attorney-LeVander, Gillen & Miller, PA; Les Burshten, Public Works Director; Joe Fischbach, HR Manager/City Clerk; Jennifer Levitt, Community Development Director/City Engineer; Ryan Burfeind, Project Engineer; Sharon Madsen, Communications Coordinator; Robin Roland, Finance Director; Harry Taylor, Public Works Supervisor; Rick Alt, Utilities Foreman. 3. AGENDA ITEM A. Workshop: Washington County — CSAH 19 & East Point Douglas Road Improvements Mr. Wyffels stated there are four projects that they'll be working on and said he'd talk about the construction phasing, the estimated cost, financing schedule, and then they'd take questions. The four projects are the six-leg roundabout, the East Point Douglas Road extension, the park road, and the ravine restoration; the ravine restoration portion is being led by the Watershed District, who's designing that, but the four projects together will be led by the County with a single construction contractor. CITY OF COTTAGE GROVE • 12800 Ravine Parkway • Cottage Grove, Minnesota 55016 www.cottage-grove.org • 651-458-2800 • Fax 651-458-2897 • Equal Opportunity Employer City Council Meeting Minutes November 16, 2016 Page 2 He summarized all four projects: When working through the roundabout design, they realized there was going to be a gap of about 600-to-700 feet on East Point Douglas Road between the Walmart entrance road and the new roundabout. When that was discussed with Engineers Levitt and Burfeind, they felt maybe it presented a great opportunity to complete that segment of East Point Douglas Road. So, the County's partnered with the City to include the extension of East Point Douglas Road, to upgrade that roadway to the roundabout, which provides the opportunity for the City to extend their trunk utilities across CSAH 19, to allow for future redevelopment in the area. The roundabout will be similar to the Jamaica Avenue/61 roundabout. Cottage Grove Ravine Park improvements include a new entrance point off of CSAH 19; it will be a full-access intersection that will tie into the future development across CSAH 19. The old access point, off of East Point Douglas Road, will be removed and will be replaced with a trail. Commissioner Bigham stated this is Phase 1, which is going forward; Phase 2 is more of the amenity side, with a playground and picnic area, and is in jeopardy as far as expansion, as are other County parks with second phases. Mr. Wyffels stated a multi-use trail will run the full length of the park; there will be soft trails added to give wintertime cross-country skiing opportunities with overall increased exposure to Ravine Lake fishing opportunities, etc. They will also be realigning the road; the existing road is fairly low, adjacent to the water, with concerns about flooding. They will realign the road to the edge of Ravine Lake; it will have multi-use trails on both sides of the roadway. Mr. Horn stated a significant benefit of the new outlook structure and new roadway design is it will be accessible even during flood events. The fourth project is the ravine stabilization; the goal is to protect the ravine from erosion due to local flash floods and overflow events while maintaining park use. There will be ongoing ecological restoration and forestry restoration. The tree removal will be done in the early phase so that will happen in February or March, and Mr. MacSwain is involved with that. Mr. Horn said one of the challenges is how to phase construction, as this is a one-year project, and they have to minimize impacts to the traveling public and residents. They're looking at two phases, which he reviewed in detail, and stated that the detour route will be Jamaica Avenue and 80th Street during the first phase, from May to either August or September. The second phase will have East Point Douglas Road open; the ramps from Highway 10/61 will be closed, and access to southbound CSAH 19 will also be closed. MnDOT actually had plans to rehabilitate the bridge over Highway 10/61, which was originally intended for 2018; in conversations with MnDOT, they've agreed to try to accelerate their construction to allow their work to happen at the same time our work is happening in 2017. The goal is everything would be done in 2017, and there will be some impacts to the traveling public, but Jamaica and 80th will serve as detour routes. City Council Meeting Minutes November 16, 2016 Page 3 Mayor Bailey stated they need to make sure that there's a way to access the Hope Glen Farms business, as their access will be shut off. Mr. Horn stated in late winter 2017/early spring 2018 Ravine Park will actually be closed, so that information will also need to be conveyed to the public. Mr. Wyffels reviewed the costs associated with each of the projects; the County has bonding for this project so will be using that funding, as well as Metropolitan Council money for regional parks. Washington County will be leading the construction portion, but all total the projects' costs are between $9,500,000 and $10,000,000 going forward as a single construction project. Project Schedule: Finish up with planning go to final bid in November, 2016. Construction will take place April, 2017 through December, 2017. The City of Cottage Grove will have to go through a 429 process to assess the project, so the City will have to approve the plans and specifications in February, 2017. At that time, when doing the 429 process, the cooperative agreement between Washington County and Cottage Grove will outline the dollars, participation, and responsibilities. The project will be bid; there will be a concurrence with the Watershed District and a concurrence with Cottage Grove before the project is awarded. Those are two major steps that will happen after this meeting. Mayor Bailey asked if there were any questions from the Council; Council Member Olsen asked when we'd know for sure that MnDOT was completely invested in helping us out with moving their project up. Engineer Levitt stated that this is really just bridge deck maintenance so she didn't see that the maintenance of the bridge deck is going to negatively impact the City's ability to seek federal funding or third-party funding. Mayor Bailey felt the future upgrades to the park and the new entrance will be amazing; he just wants to ensure the businesses affected will be messaged appropriately. B. Workshop: Water Meter and Radio Replacement Mr. Verne Jacobsen stated there was a three-year meter replacement program that expired in 2015, and there are still 3,000 water meters that need to be replaced. There are three types of ineters in the community due to manufacturers changing specifications or the way they do business. There's currently a system for drive-by readings. Previously, there were meter readers. They need to have a system that's compatible with the meters and radio transmitters that will be compatible with every meter in town. $750,000 was budgeted to replace meters. Since then, they found there's also a need to replace the radio transmitters, and they'd like to do that at some point; the cost for that is $447,000 more than what was budgeted. That comes out of utilities, it's an enterprise fund. He's spoken with Director Roland, who stated the fund is capable of absorbing the additional cost if we go that direction. There are some radio transmitters that need to be changed, and there are some other new systems out there. City Council Meeting Minutes November 16, 2016 Page 4 There are currently 10,500 meters in the City. Mr. Jacobsen stated replacement depends on the age of the meters; a meter's life is between 20 to 25 years, and then they start losing their capacity to read. Mr. Jacobsen explained they read meters once a month, and it takes 12 hours to drive through the City and read the meters, which is about .09 per read on the water meters, approximately $960 a month, about $10,000 a year. Council Members were informed they're looking for a universal radio that will read more than just one type of ineter. Right now, each manufacturer has their own meter and own radio. Council Member Thiede asked why they didn't know at budget time about the $447,000 for the radios. He was advised they were ready to go to an extended two years on the current contract, but Badger changed from a four-digit register to an eight-digit, so the technology did not work on the existing radios. Because the manufacturer changed their technology, we could no longer use their meter product with our existing radios. So, we had to go back to the drawing board at that time. It was decided in the future they had to use some type of universal radio so this wouldn't happen again. Discussion ensued about technology changes and the ability to not have someone drive around to collect the data; however, that comes at a cost. Council Members were advised that every meter system out there now can be read with a handheld, a mobile drive-by, or a fixed net. The question with the fixed net is how far you can send a signal. You might end up with a series of 16 to 18 collectors in the City to collect the data. Once you buy a meter system, what you're going to buy after that is a collection system for the fixed net. The collection system can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, plus maintenance costs for the collectors and taking care of the software. Administrator Stevens stated that the meters that they currently have wouldn't necessarily translate to a fixed-net system, as they're on a specific frequency solely for a drive by. On a fixed net, you'd have to replace all of the meters to be able to read them. Council Members were advised if Cottage Grove went to a fixed-net system, the City would end up with 16 or 18 fiberoptic collectors in town. Regarding the current labor cost, Administrator Stevens stated with 12 hours a month to do the full city-wide read it's really hard to justify the return on the investment of putting in a whole new system because it would take a lot of years to recoup that expense. Director Roland stated they were authorizing to go out for bids; it's still a guess as to what it will cost. When the bids come in, then we'll know the actual cost. Administrator Stevens stated her recommendation would be to bid the meters and bid the radios to see if they can get universal radios in an affordable fashion. A question was posed about what the impact on the enterprise fund would be. Director Roland stated there's an ample fund balance for potential additional fees regarding this City Council Meeting Minutes November 16, 2016 Page 5 program. It was also asked if we wanted to continue to support a company that did us a great disservice; Administrator Stevens stated that's why they want to rebid those contracts, as whatever they bought now would be convertible to fixed net five-or-ten years from now. Director Roland spoke about the issue of data collected being compatible with the City's financial software; they ran into that problem in 2015, they modified the software, and handled the situation with our software provider. It did not have a significant impact on the billing because the problem was fixed by us. Council Members were advised there will have to be two radio-read systems for the time being until we can convert everything over because these things always change; meters last so long and the radios last so long, and there's a time when they no longer work, which is no different than anything else that the City performs maintenance on. Council Member Thiede stated he'd like to know the strategy for the future and maybe there's an alternative to the fixed net also, with all the connectivity advances. Council Member Olsen confirmed they were looking for authorization to get bids, and he was advised that was the case. 4. ADJOURNMENT The meeting adjourned at 6:55 p.m.