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HomeMy WebLinkAbout09-19-06 PTRC Minutes EN HILLS . Approved CITY OF ARDEN HILLS PARKS,TRAILS,AND RECREATION COMMITTEE MEETING TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 19,2006; 7:00 P.M. ARDEN HILLS CITY HALL 1. CALL TO ORDER Committee Member Williams called the September 19, 2006 meeting of the Parks,Trails and Recreation Committee to order at 7:04 p.m. MEMBERS PRESENT: Committee Members Lanny Baumann,Dave McClung,Rich Straumann, Cindy Wheeler,Roger Williams and Steve Zilmer. OTHERS PRESENT: Michelle Olson,Park and Recreation Manager; Gregg Larson, City Council Liaison;Karen Barton,Community Development Director,Andrew Evans,Boy Scout working on Citizenship Badge and Chuck Kachel,Resident. MEMBERS NOT PRESENT: Committee Chair Bill Henry and Committee Members Derrek Hames and Jim Crassweller. APPROVAL OF AGENDA MOTION: Committee Member Straumann motioned, seconded by Committee Member McClung to approve the agenda as presented. The motion carried unanimously. 2. APPROVAL OF MINUTES Committee Member Williams had the following corrections for the June 20,2006 minutes: • Page 1, add Committee Member Roger Williams to the list of Members Present. MOTION: Committee Member McClung motioned, seconded by Committee Member Zilmer to approve the June 20,2006 minutes as amended. The motion carried unanimously. 3. ACTIVE LIVING GRANT DISCUSSION(Karen Barton) Ms. Barton stated the City was notified by Blue Cross Blue Shield that it was awarded the full grant amount requested of approximately $26,000. The grant is designed to support communities in preparing for a comprehensive plan update. All comprehensive plan updates are due at the end of 2008. The area the grant supports is the integration of active living principles into city comp plans for communities through policy changes, zoning changes and relevant ordinance subsection changes. Ms. Barton handed out a timeline for the Committee's information. It is a general overview of the comprehensive plan update process. The plan does include the opportunity for involvement in a variety of activities, several of which are workshops. The last workshop that was offered was"safe routes to school". The workshops are put on by the University of Minnesota. There will be five more workshops in the next year. Throughout this process we will involve the PTRC and rely on the committee to help identify the sections and make recommendations on the best ways to incorporate active living space. We are just starting the process and do not have in depth details yet, and will keep the committee updated as we know more. Ms. Barton stated that she and James Lehnhoff, the City Planner would be managing the work. Mr. Lehnhoff is the lead on the whole comprehensive plan update;therefore he will be the primary person incorporating • this. PARKS, TRAILS AND RECREATION COMMITTEE MEETING SEPTEMBER 19 2006 Page 2 of 8 • Committee Member Williams asked if PTRC members would be made aware of various workshops with enough lead time to work it into their schedules if members wanted to attend. Ms. Barton replied she would get the schedule out to members. Ms. Olson asked it there was a limit on the number of how many can attend. Ms. Barton stated there is not a limit and is not limited to just PTRC or staff. She has included the Council and is open to anyone from the community who might have an interest in having an active role in participating. Committee Member McClung asked that the Planning Commission also be included and if they were not already on the list. Committee Member Straumann stated that in April 2005 there was an active living in Ramsey County kick off. The second event will be on October 26"' and is sponsored by the League of Minnesota Cities. That event will take place in the evening. Committee Member Straumann will get more information to the committee. Committee Member Williams asked if the role of the committee is to react to things that are developed by staff/others. Or is the committee expected to be proactive and have discussions before the fact and come up with recommendations for consideration by the Council or whom ever to be incorporated into the plan. Ms. Barton stated the Committee would be doing both. Obviously, there will be things staff will bring forth to the PTRC for input and recommendation,but as Committee Members participate in workshops or other activities that come forward,that may generate some activity on your end. Committee member Williams asked who would design the format for the four community meetings. Would it be a staff function or something the Planning Commission and PTRC should be working on together? Ms. Barton stated that it would be handled by staff. Staff will also be working with a consultant, hired by the City, who will be assisting with the comp plan update process. The Blue Cross Blue Shield grant will help pay for those costs. Committee Member Williams asked for clarification on what this grant would pay for. From what he understands the Blue Cross Blue Shield grant is an extra and not intended to pay for the City's normally required update by the Metropolitan Council. It is intended to ensure that the active living components are incorporated into the plan. Ms. Barton replied it overlaps. It will cover added activities but also some activities that the City would have already been required to do, such as the community meetings. The grant will pay for a portion of the cost of the meetings, but we have also budgeted monies for those meetings since they are a requirement of the comp plan update. Committee Member McClung stated Committee Member Williams raised a good point. Since we are able to roll some of the comp plan meetings into meetings required for by this grant, it is important that the focus on active living does not take a back seat to the comp plan update. Ms. Barton stated she didn't think Blue Cross Blue Shield would let that happen. They are going to be working with us hand in hand and reviewing sections and they have TA's that will be specifically assigned to us. 4. TCAAP UPDATE The General Services Administration accepted our offer to purchase and it is now being taken to the congressional committees for approval. We anticipate getting a favorable response back by the end of October. We are also in the process of working with the development team to contract with a number of consultants to assist with the various processes we need to move forward on: including the characterization, the AUAR, the master plan, and the frame work vision. Our current version needs some tweaking, defining and adjusting. She and Michelle Wolfe spent the day with Ryan Co. staff interviewing four teams to act in that capacity. The search has been narrowed down to two teams. Hopefully we will PARKS, TRAILS AND RECREATION COMMITTEE MEETING SEPTEMBER 19 2006 Page 3 of 8 know by the end of this week or early next week who the team will be that will help us move forward. Committee Member Williams asked if that team would be the development team or the planning team. Ms Barton stated it would be more of a planning team, but they are going to encompass landscape architecture, refining the master development plan, traffic assessment, AUAR. Committee member McClung asked if it would function as sort of a consultant for CRR and the City for helping prepare all the documents. Ms. Barton replied that although they are going to be doing a number of things, some will pertain more to the development team, CRR's,needs. Some such as the AUAR is a City piece. Ms. Olson stated that when she went on the staff TCAAP tour, Mike Fix said the Primer Tracer Area is not as polluted as was reported. Ms. Barton replied that when the characterization was done it was found to be not as contaminated as previously thought. CRR is in the process of doing further characterization to fully understand what it is exactly what it is that we are dealing with. Committee Member Williams stated that he read on a bulletin from the Mounds View School District explaining their reasons for a new levy. They emphasized that the MVSD is losing children because the changing demographics of the school district. I think TCAAP is going to be important because it will bring new families into this area and help the school district to be healthier. He realizes it is not something that will happen next year or the year after that, but there is a lot, regionally that is riding on TCAAP and not just Arden Hills. Ms. Barton added it would help in a number of ways. Single family detached homes will bring in new families. Town homes and condos will help people from Arden Hills and surrounding communities who are empty nesters who want to stay in the area but don't want to stay in their larger homes,therefore freeing up their larger homes for families to move into. 5. CITY COUNCIL UPDATE Council Liaison Larson provided the Committee with the following City Council Update: • We have seen one change since the purchase offer was submitted. Ryan Companies will be the managing partner in negotiations instead of Rehbein. Rehbein is still part of the development team, but whereas in the past Rehbein has been the principle spokesperson, Ryan is now playing a more prominent role. • A couple meetings ago, the Council approved a six percent levy, an increase of 2% over last year. It is not a final for this year, but that is where the majority of the Council is at right now. Whatever we certify to the county this fall, we cannot raise it any farther, we can only drop it. We will take the final action in December. • 2006 PMP in Ridgewood is underway. We approved an assessment roll at our last meeting. I think it was the first time we used our new assessment policy. I think the change was a good one, but the circumstances pointed out some things that we need to reexamine. Some people brought up issues that I think were not thought through all the way in the assessment policy. We talked last night about going back to take a look at the policy. • Location of County Road E trail has been approved for the north side. • The preliminary plat of the master plan for the old city hall site was approved. This is the second time around for the proposal by Royal Oaks, who want to develop an office park there. It has been some changes since the application that was submitted the first time around last year. We expect to have a closing sometime in October. • Filing for candidacy has closed. There were four filings for Council and two for Mayor. He and Councilmember Pelligrin will not run this fall. PARKS, TRAILS AND RECREATION COMMITTEE MEETING SEPTEMBER 19, 2006 Page 4 of 8 Committee Member Williams stated that he read in the paper that a number of cities are adding more to their levy to hedge their bet against the legislature reneging on the homestead credit. Has Arden Hills given any thought to that? Council Larson replied that it did not come up in discussions regarding the six percent levy. Speaking only for himself, he feels the City is under funded in its ability to raise capital funds. A two percent increase in the levy does not raise a lot of money. The utility funds are lower than they should be because for a long time the City did not increase City water and sewer rates and we are recognizing more and more that our pavement management projects have been more expensive then they have been in the past. We are replacing water infrastructures in the City, which cost money. We do not have a plan as to how we are going to fund capital improvements in the parks in the future. There was some talk about that,but the Council has not come to any resolution as to how that is going to be done. Committee Member Williams stated that when he read the article he thought it was worrisome that the legislature has reneged on their responsibility for the homestead credit. If they do this again next year, Arden Hills and all the communities that haven't figured for that are going to be in the hole and the six percent won't be six percent anymore and the City will have to make up that difference if the legislature does not come through with it. Committee Member Williams thanked Council Liaison Larson for Mr. Larson's allegiance to the PTRC by hearing the committee's recommendations, forwarding them to the Council and arguing what he thought was very rational information. Council Liaison Larson replied it has been a pleasure to work with the committee as the liaison. 6. PARKS,TRAILS,AND RECREATION UPDATE Michelle Olson provided the committee with the following update: • • Royal Hills and Floral Parks tennis and basketball courts were resurfaced. Committee Member McClung stated that his driveway is right across from the tennis court and he has seen more use after the courts were resurfaced. • Mounds View High School's tennis courts will be reconstructed next spring, 2007. The City decided to donate $8,000 towards the total cost of, approximately $140,000. The reason we contribute money towards this project is because we utilize their courts for team tennis and other lessons that require more than a couple courts. With our contribution, we get priority over many other groups, being only second to the school. We are also hoping to piggy back on that construction project with the Cummings Park tennis court. It is tentatively scheduled for next year and our goal is to follow a strict maintenance schedule for the courts into the future. • The Freeway Park warming house was torn down and the electrical obviously disconnected. Preparations are being made to move the Valentine Park building to Freeway. The location of the building coming to Freeway Park has been moved slightly to accommodate the size difference, site line, and set back requirements. Once secured at the new site, the building will need new paint or residing to make it look nicer. A mobile unit will be brought in for use at Valentine Park this winter. Ms. Olson and the Kris Giga, City Engineer, will work on bringing forward an overall assessment of Valentine Park. Because of the drainage issues, an assessment of the neighborhood may be needed. Nothing can really be done to the park unless we look at the whole picture because we do not want to make the drainage worse for one or the other. • The public works department structure was approved and the recruitment process is underway for a new public works director. Currently, five candidates have been interviewed. Under the new department structure, public works personnel will remain as one unit,handling both public works • and parks and recreation responsibilities. Ms. Olson has been promoted to Parks and Recreation Manager. She will deal with park maintenance and park related decisions will be made in PARKS, TRAILS AND RECREATION COMMITTEE MEETING SEPTEMBER 19 2006 Page 5 of 8 cooperation with the Public works director. The public works director will remain as the department head. Ms. Olson will probably still present park projects needing Council approval at City Council meetings. There is still discussion as to whether who or both would serve as staff liaison to this committee. Ms. Olson thought it would be both and they would be able to cover for each other. Also, for those who do not know, the finance director has resigned as well. The search for a new finance director has been narrowed down to one candidate. • Council had a discussion on "Celebrating Arden Hills" last night. Most of the Council had the opinion that the event does not necessarily need to be a yearly event. The biggest reason being cost and whether the community wants the event every year. No decisions were made with the exception that the majority of the Council wants to take a break, look at the day and perhaps take a survey of what the community wants. The City contributed over$27,000 towards the event last year. Ms. Olson stated she understood that the Council wanted to scale back next year and perhaps only have fireworks and a band. Hopefully after elections, a group can be formed to figure out how to proceed with the event. Recruiting volunteers and sponsors have been a struggle and sponsorship is crucial to success of the event. • The Blue Cross Blue Shield "Safe Route to School" Seminar was very beneficial. Ms. Olson stated that the seminar focused on why we need safe routes to school, what the trends are, why kids are not walking to school, how many are walking, how may are riding their bikes, what the fears of parents are, what the fears of the community are and what the most beneficial things to do are. Ms. Olson stated she has talked with Jody Yungers at Ramsey County and Ms. Yunger has offered to work with us to apply for this grant. The DOT has not yet determined the deadline for the next round of grants. It is hopeful that more information will be available in December/January with the deadline soon following. It would be important to have Ramsey . County as a partner because trails would be designed on both County roads and open space. Partnerships are crucial with this type of grant. Mr. Mack and I have talked a little about where the best route for a trail is, but we want the PTRC to give us their recommendation. At the last meeting we talked about the loop on County Road E that goes across from Valentine Hills. There is a connection to the neighborhood there off Rolling Hills Road. Our thought was to put in a connection there and possibly another connection to the library. We would also want to include crosswalks to the school and to where the underpass connects. By doing so, you would have a huge connection through Tony Schmidt, the underpass and then the whole neighborhood. Also there is a possibility of putting in a trail on County Road E to connect the underpass. Ms. Olson will try to map it out. There already is a trail there but we will try to pave it and connect it in a few more places to make it more of an actual route to connect the neighbors. Ms. Olson voiced the concern that since that route is within the woods and there is always the stranger danger issue with parents she didn't know if that would be the safest route to school or if it would be the best route we can go for. Certainly any thought the committee has is appreciated. Committee Member Wheeler asked if we could make it an item of discussion on the October 17t'agenda. Ms Olson tried to explain the location of the proposed route. County Road E2 has wider shoulders and many times people assume it is a walking area. You could put in a trail all the way down Valentine Hills from the lift station road or the other side and make it into an official trail. Obviously, this grant is specifically for elementary school so this is the area we have to focus on. We need to focus the safe route to Valentine Hills for neighbors and personally, there are not a lot of safe routes to that school. Myself and Jody Yungers (RC)plan to meet out there to walk the trails. Committee Member Wheeler suggested that if we have a two mile radius around the school to work with, perhaps we could look at other connections. Ms. Olson stated that even going down New Brighton Road is a dangerous area. There are plenty of dangerous areas, most of them being County roads. We could PARKS, TRAILS AND RECREATION COMMITTEE MEETING SEPTEMBER 19, 2006 Page 6 of 8 • not do this without County involvement. This grant doesn't work without partnership and that point was discussed it at the sessions. All interested parties must be involved in a cooperative agreement. Committee Member McClung asked if we want to consider going north and south of County Road E2 on Old 10. That is close to the school, within the distance we would have a connection coming over on E2 from that. There are a lot of houses that go along that. We have already proposed the trail on Old 10 and if we are able to use some of the grant money to do some of that trail earlier instead of later,that would be a great kick start to finishing that trail. Even in the Skiles/Ridgewood Neighborhood coming up from County Road E up past Chatham to Lake Valentine Road, there are a lot of houses that all have kids in them in that school. Committee Member McClung commented that Michelle has done a wonderful job with her promotion and has provided the committee with wonderful information. He thanked her for her work. 7. TRAIL DEVELOPMENT—RAILROAD UNDERPASS Committee Member Straumann referenced pictures that were taken of the railroad underpass. He stated that Mr. Greg Mack of Ramsey County sent a bill to the City for its share of the cost for the railroad underpass, which is approximately$32,000. Ms. Olson stated that she spoke with Mr. Mack and was informed that the side by Tony Schmidt is going to be paved soon and they plan to gravel the other section to the lift station road. If the City is interested in doing a connection from Perry down to the lift station road, which would then connect to the north trail from the underpass, that would be a possibility that we move for that next. Basically the trail half is cleared, to the north. They still need to do a little more work in the tunnel because there are still a couple of disconnects with the underpass, but they will smooth that all out. Ms. Olson did go out with Jim Perron Public Works Superintendent, to take a look at grating for a trail from Little Lakes Little League ball field and winding it back down. The DNR has a local trail connection grant. With those underpass and trail now done, that section to Perry Park would now be an actual link. The DNR deadline is February 28`h. I am in the process of getting price estimates from the engineer. We couldn't have applied for this grant last year because it would not have gone anywhere officially. I think it is a worthwhile connection. It is clearly written that there must be a connection. That was the biggest factor for not applying at an earlier time. (50%cash match for up to 100,000.00) Committee Member Straumann initiated the discussion regarding the western half of Tony Schmidt Park and connecting trails. 8. PTRC STRATEGIES PLAN—FUNDING DISCUSSION Ms. Olson stated the committee needed to start talking about the funding part of the PTRC strategies. The park fund is diminishing and the committee needs to discuss funding options. Hopefully we will be able to discuss this with the Council at a work session. Before then, it is important for the committee to come up with some ideas. This item could be placed on next month's agenda and this month we start by brainstorming ideas that could be brought back for discussion next month. Committee Member Williams stated if the committee meets with the Council to discuss funding alternatives, he would like the committee to be in a position to make some fairly logical and comprehensive recommendations. That might require that funding be a major portion of an upcoming PTRC meeting, whether it is scheduled for the next meeting or the meeting after that. We should structure a meeting were this item is place at the beginning of the meeting to allow for adequate time,but staff has to do some work in order to energize that discussion. Committee Member Wheeler stated she agreed that funding needs to be the main focus of a meeting. One PARKS, TRAILS AND RECREATION COMMITTEE MEETING SEPTEMBER 19, 2006 Page 7 of 8 way might be to take the information and put it in chart format and look at some options like bonding, local grant program,regional grant program,and maybe see if we can find some areas of overlay. Committee Member Williams stated that the city also has to be in a position to have enough financial strength to pay its own way. You can't expect everyone else to spend 100 percent on projects and have the city take a free ride. Arden Hills has been known for that for a long time by other communities. It seems if we go for grants, whether it is 50 percent or matching of any proportion, that the City should have some of its own funds available. The city could go to Met Council or Ramsey County and say we have X amount of dollars to put towards a project and the total cost is X amount, so we are looking for the gap. Committee Member McClung stated he thinks it is an easier discussion and easier sell if we are able to show we are serious about a project by being able to come up with a portion of the funding. Committee member Williams stated that the first time this was presented to the Council,their response was to go out and get the money or the people who are willing to fund the projects and we'll do it. Well, it is much easier to go looking for money if you are able to say the City has this much and we are looking for the gap. But if we don't have that amount, why should anyone help Arden Hills. Why should they front a project when there are all kinds of projects to be fronted? The City has to come to some grips about how parks, trails and recreation are important components of what the City is responsible for providing to its residents. The City must be willing to dedicate money to help accomplish that. Committee Member McClung stated he agrees that the City should not ask anyone to front 50 percent of the cost and we come in after. We should identify what types of funding sources are available that we can combine with, get leadership to committee the money and then get the 50% or whatever we can to proceed with the project. Committee member Williams stated that we know what most of the funding sources are. There may be some lurking out there in the weeds that we are not aware of,but I think most of the programs are known to somebody. We need the City Council to help us understand what is possible and what isn't regarding the City, when we have that discussion. Council Liaison Larson stated that having the leverage of funds of your own to match funds from other funding sources is a good idea, but he also thinks the City has to be willing to do some improvements on its own. Otherwise,you are at the mercy of the grant cycle. Ms. Olson stated that when it comes to the park fund, we do have some regulations that have been revised. We did find out that the statues state that the money from that fund cannot be utilized for ongoing maintenance. That is significant information because you are not able to resurface a tennis court or trail with that fund. Committee member McClung stated that it focuses our discussion of what we can use our special assessment park fund for. Committee Member Wheeler has done some work on identifying funding sources along with our strategies. She stated that there are sources that we are eligible for. She added that formatting sources and strategies into a chart would help us identify what projects would be eligible for what funding program, such as local, regional and there may be some that don't meet the criteria for any. We talked about bonding proposals. Maybe now we look at bonding to make up the difference. Committee Member McClung stated that some of the advantages of the discussion regarding TCAAP is what the Council is going to do in terms of updating the interim agreement. They will need to revisit and start to educate themselves a little more on the pluses and minuses of each of the various tools of public financing. That might break down some of the reluctance of bonding and levying. He thinks there are • some misunderstandings in terms of what a lot of those tools are and what they might mean to the City. He doesn't think the Council realizes there are some serious pluses going in that direction. Some of those PARKS, TRAILS AND RECREATION COMMITTEE MEETING SEPTEMBER 19 2006 Page 8 of 8 • discussions might help along what we are trying to do in terms of getting money down the road. Bonding is not a new concept, but it is for the City. Perhaps on the October agenda, this item could be placed as the item of discussion after the approval of minutes. Ms. Olson asked Committee Member Wheeler if she could bring the information she researched regarding what cities did bonding and their success level to the next meeting. Ms. Olson would also do some research as well,but it would be helpful to have Committee Member Wheeler's information as well. 9. BUCKTHORN REMOVAL DAY There will be a buckthorn removal day on Saturday, October 28t'. The event is scheduled to take place at Floral Park from 10:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. A continental breakfast will be served at City Hall at 9:30 a.m. Event information will be place on the website. We hope to get word to residents in the hopes of getting as many people to come as possible. Information has also been put in the next City newsletter that should be going out soon. This information has also been included in the Administrator Update therefore City Council should also be aware of this event. The plan is to cut down buckthorn and place them in piles. Public Works staff will come by on the following Monday to chip up the wood piles. Stumps will also be treated afterwards. Hopefully we'll have a good turn out for the event. 10. PARK TOUR Ms. Olson stated that a park tour with the City Council has been tentatively set for Monday, October 16th at 5:30 p.m. It is the day before the next PTRC meeting, which means the committee will be meeting on two consecutive nights, but since it is a scheduled night for the Council hopefully there will be a good Council turnout. Ms. Olson asked the PTRC what their focus was for the tour. This information would be given to the City Administrator to set up the tour. • Committee Member Wheeler asked if the focus should be on things that were done or on the committee's current objectives. Council Liaison Larson suggested adding the tennis court improvements to the tour. Ms. Olson suggested adding the warming house and the underpass. There should also be a short stop at Valentine Park to discuss the problems there. Committee Member McClung stated that he has heard that in years past, the City used to come and plug up the connection and when there was a problem, they would unplug it to let the water would come back in. He further stated that as a kid, he never remembered issues with flooding. He recalled that in the spring, the water would come up on the lake side higher than the park side. Ms. Olson stated she would look into it. 11. NEXT MEETING DATE The next meeting will be held on October 17th. 12. ADJOURN MOTION: Committee Member Straumann moved and Committee Member Baumann seconded a motion to adjourn the meeting at 8:32 p.m. •