03-20-23-WS - Laserfiche WebLink

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ARDEN HILLS CITY COUNCIL WORK SESSION — MARCH 20, 2023 7 Public Works Director/City Engineer Swearingen stated that if they desire to go forward for the design for Old Highway 10 he would need to know if Council would like to go to RFP for the consultant or have staff direct select. It would add six to eight weeks to the timeline if they went out for RFP. After discussion, Council agree to let staff direct select a consultant for the Old Highway 10 trail. Mayor Grant directed staff to direct select and have the item on the second meeting in April, and to get clarification from Ramsey County on funding. D. Assisted Hearing Technology City Administrator Perrault stated that staff had worked with NineNorth and Electronic Design to review the Chambers and found there is a hum in the room that they cannot identify. NineNorth feels the hum would likely interfere with a T-Coil system and they are no longer recommending that system, but proposing to go with a Wi-Fi system. There would be Wi-Fi equipment in the Council Chambers and users would need to have an app on their phone that would connect to their hearing aid. Or if someone had a T-Coil hearing aid they could wear the neck loop and pick up the audio. The hip packs are also still available for use. The Wi-Fi system is just under $9,000 for the system, versus $25,000 for the T-Coil system. Councilmember Fabel thought it would make sense to have a few people try the options out before they decide. City Administrator Perrault there is concern with the app having to be downloaded onto phones, and someone having to figure out how to install it and connect it to their hearing aids. The technology probably won't be widely available for about 10 years, and the people coming in to use assisted hearing technology will probably not have the app already on their phones. He felt the return on investment for Wi-Fi would be relatively low considering we already have the hip packs. Better signage could be made to make it more obvious that the hip packs are available. However, they are confident the hum would not be picked up on the Wi-Fi system. Councilmember Fabel said he could test what we currently have to see how well it works. He had a terrible hum when he put his hearing aid into T-Coil operation. Councilmember Rousseau felt it didn't seem like a good solution and they shouldn't move forward unless someone tried it out first. She thought we should keep the hip packs and make people more aware that they were available. Mayor Grant thought they should go forward and try to test it somewhere else. He felt they should have a solution beyond the hip pack. Councilmember Holden suggested larger signage for the hip packs until they figure out if anything else will work. Mayor Grant said they could have Councilmember Fabel turn on his T-Coil and they could turn off things in the Chambers until the hum stops.