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HomeMy WebLinkAbout08-01-07-S ~ /],\~HILLS Approved: September 10, 2007 CITY COUNCIL SPECIAL MEETING AUGUST 1,2007; 6:43 P.M. ARDEN HlLLS CITY COUNCIL CHAMBERS CALL TO ORDER/ROLL CALL Pursuant to due call aud notice thereof, Mayor Stan Harpstead called to order the Special City Council Meeting at 6:43 p.m. Present: Mayor Stan Harpstead, Councilmembers David Grant, Brenda Holden, Fran Holmes, and David McClung. Absent: None. Also Present: Finance Director, Sue Iverson; Community Development Director, Karen Barton. AGENDA ITEM Mayor Harpstead stated he had one item on the agenda for the special meeting which was consideration of a motion to approve Resolution 07-64, authorizing a grant request to the Metropolitan Council for the City's Comprehensive Plan Update. APPROY AL OF MEETING AGENDA MOTION: Mayor Harpstead moved and Councilmember Holmes seconded a motion to approve the meeting agenda. The motion carried (3-2). Mayor Harpstead stated the item on the agenda and part of the reason he called the meeting was the fact that at Monday's meeting there was an incomplete set of information. After seeing the actual grant application he wanted to ask Council to allow reconsideration of the motion. Mayor Harpstead also indicated he thought there was a concern about whether this bound the City in any way to the contract. He indicated that in his reading of it, it does not. He then asked whether Council had any other concerns that he may have not reflected properly. Councilmember McClung stated he did not believe that this required a special emergency meeting to be called and that because he did not have the opportunity to review the material he felt he was in no position to vote on this at this time. Mayor Harpstead stated the deadline for the application is Friday, August 3rd. Councilmember McClung stated he is aware of that, however, he would not vote on something that he had not reviewed. He also indicated he had an additional concern in that since action was taken at SPECIAL CITY COUNTY MEETING - August 1, 2007 Page 2 Monday night's meeting he felt Council needed to reconsider in order to take action on this since there were no subsequent changes that needed to be approved. Mayor Harpstead stated he believed that the new agenda allows it to be reconsidered. Councilme11lber McClung felt that Robert's Rules of Order says something slightly different. He felt that things would then go through reconsidering votes with a new agenda, when a vote they didn't like was taken and they wanted to bring it back up again. Finance Director Sue Iverson indicated she talked to Jerry Filla and they checked Robert's Rules of Order and read them very thoroughly. She indicated Mr. Filla said it is a new agenda and that anyone can make a motion and it is not reconsidering, but new. Mr. McClung asked how this resolution was different than the resolution that failed on Monday night. Mayor Harpstead stated that the real rule is that within any meeting the same motion cannot be considered twice, and that idea was 100 percent. Finance Director Sue Iverson indicated Jerry Filla confirmed this. Mayor Harpstead stated that otherwise there is the potential that an outgoing Council could make a motion and then an incoming Council couldn't act on it. He stated you have to enable a new body to entertain a new motion even if it's identical. He asked Mr. McClung if his primary concern was about not having time to review the material. Councilmember McClung confirmed this. Mayor Harpstead indicated that he wanted to discuss the paragraph on the bottom of page 2 (Item E) where it stated that the accompanying plans submitted by the grantee must conform with Metropolitan System Plans of the Council. Alternatively, the Comprehensive Plan is deemed to comply with this condition if the Council concludes a review that the plan is not likely to have a substantial impact on or contain a substantial departure from Metropolitan System's Plan and allows the plan to go into effect without plan modification. He indicated that, in other words, Council could corne up with a plan that is not consistent with it, but to make sure they sell it. He stated that the only area in the System Plan that seemed to have anything inconsistent with their expectation was the 2030 population number of 22,000. Councilmember Holden indicated she asked for verification on the number of households and population and wanted to verifY that Mayor Harpstead indicated the whole foundation of this Comprehensive Plan is based on those numbers. Community Development Director Barton indicated that the Comprehensive Plan covers a period of 10 years and the system statement goes out to 2030. Councilmember Holmes questioned why they would not change the numbers when they had requested it. Community Development Director Barton indicated the problem was that when this was distributed in September of 2005, there was only a brief period in which you could request a change, but since there was no City Planner or Community Development Director on staff at that time, the window to request the change closed. She indicated that she and City Planner James Lenhoff met with Metropolitan Council staff and again recently to discuss the numbers. She stated the Metropolitan Council is not concerned that the numbers are lower than what they are proj ecting as long as they are not higher. SPECIAL CITY COUNTY MEETING - August 1, 2007 Page 3 Councilmember Grant stated his interpretation is that they must conform with the system statements or the Metropolitan Council decides they don't have to. He stated either reason is fine Witll the Council, it's not like it would have a substantial impact or a departure from the Metro System Plan. Mayor Harpstead stated that it is possible they would be asked to modify, where the City Council would tell them "no", and then they may indicate that the duties of the grant are not being fulfilled and return the money. He indicated this opportunity doesn't extend beyond just the money part. He stated that they could go use state law for lack of performance but not through the grant application. He stated it rests with them, but it also doesn't say that they don't have to create an artificial plan that meets their review. He stated they could end up with that obligation regardless of whether they received the $20,000 from them. Councilmember Holmes stated she thinks Council has a fiduciary duty to the residents. She stated she talked to Jerry Filla about this and he stated the grant is requiring Council to do what they ordinarily would have to do and that there is nothing tied to the grant that they wouldn't otherwise. She stated they needed to tell the residents if they are not going to take the $20,000, and didn't know what they would tell the residents if they didn't take this money. Councilmember Holden quoted paragraph 3, page 24, of the Local Planning Handbook. She indicated this tells her this is her Comprehensive Plan and they've given her the forecast numbers. Mayor Harpstead indicated that the numbers were based on what the City had given them before. Then he wanted verification that the Metropolitan Council did not corne up with the numbers. Community Development Director Barton verified that they had the formula. Community Development Director Barton indicated they could deviate from the forecast as provided and supply information on why they think the numbers should be different. Mayor Harpstead asked if that could be done in their Comp Plan Amendment. Community Development Director Barton indicated it could be done in the Amendment for the TCAAP portion. Mayor Harpstead indicated that his primary concern was that they not embrace anything that had the 22,000 population in it. Councilmember Holden agreed. Mayor Harpstead asked the Council if they were feeling like they were bound to that number just because they've accepted the grant. Councilmember Holden indicated she did feel like they were bound to that number. Councilmember McClung asked if they could fashion the statement to say, "Based upon current projections to accepting the Grant and apprising Metropolitan Council that, due to the fact the City did not have a Planner, they could not respond and the numbers need to change." SPECIAL CITY COUNTY MEETING - August 1, 2007 Page 4 Mayor Harpstead asked if there was an opportunity in the grant application to signal that the activities of the grant will be based upon a lower population threshold because they did not get all the money that they got before. He stated that then MetCouncil could choose to not accept the grant application. He also stated they could have that be part of the motion. Councilmember McClung stated the City needed to signal to them the reason they did not respond was because they were not in a position to respond and the numbers they see in their plan are not jiving with what they anticipate, and signal to them that if they have a problem with that then they didn't need to give the City the grant. Mayor Harpstead asked if there were other concerns? Councilmember McClung indicated that he raised the issue of population twice in the past. Mayor Harpstead asked ifthere were other elements within that that were equally important. Councilmember Holden indicated she would also like that to be stated in the resolution. Mayor Harpstead agreed. Councilmember Grant stated there were questions in one of the handbooks that specify number of parks, number of trails, specific locations of trails, and required trails. He indicated there were requirements because they connect up to other trails. He stated he did not have time to go through the housing section and other sections but that there may be similar requirements there. Mayor Harpstead asked if the resolution was on the yellow sheet. Councilmember Holden indicated it was. She indicated they needed household and population. Mayor Harpstead suggested they say the following: "The population, household and employment reflected in the System Statement for the City of Arden Hills dated September 12, 2005, is no longer accurate and overstates the impact." Then he indicated they could add a resolve between the two stating, "be it further resolved that the City will be reducing the population, household and employment numbers." He indicated they are going to do that in grant application itself. That way if they turn it down, they turn it down but we've told them we are not going to live with the 22,000. Councilmember Holden wanted clarification on whether they would make the changes right now in the TCAAP amendment that they were doing right now or are if they were going to do a completely separate amendment from that. Mayor Harpstead questioned if it could do it without doing the TCAAP amendment. Community Development Director Barton indicated they needed to go through the process and that there are public reviews. Mayor Harpstead asked if was acceptable to Council to let it go and complete it after the TCAAP Amendment? SPECIAL CITY COUNTY MEETING - August 1,2007 Page 5 Councilmember Holden stated she felt this defeated the whole purpose of doing this and adding it to the resolution because, in essence, they would be taking the money and giving it back later. She felt they might as well just pass the resolution as it is with doing it later. Mayor Harpstead indicated that the way the resolution reads it could either be with the TCAAP amendment or it could be a standalone amendment. He stated they could decide which is the best use of the City's money for submitting it. Mayor Harpstead indicated he was going to reread the resolution again adding the last whereas clause. "Whereas the population, households, and employment reflected in the System Statement of Arden Hills dated September 12, 2005, is no longer accurate and overstates the impact;" The other resolution states, "that be it further resolved that the City of Arden Hills will be including a significant reduction of the population, households, and employment in the 2008 Update." Mayor Harpstead indicated this would put the Metropolitan Council on notice and they could then decide if they wanted to give the City the grant. Councilmember Holden indicated she questioned the first whereas clause. Mayor Harpstead indicated it was, "whereas the population, households, and employment reflected in the system statement of Arden Hills dated September 15, 2005, is no longer accurate and overstates the impact." He further stated he did not think it needed to have another clause added. Mayor Harpstead verified that they have an adjusted resolution with an addition of a "whereas" and an addition of another "be it resolved." He asked if they wanted him to read them all or ifhe could call the question. Councilmember McClung stated he was not going to be voting on things where he had not had an opportunity to review the items and would be voting against this. Councilmember Holden indicated she also had a major problem with this coming up because it now puts them in a position where the next time there is a resident who is urihappy and it is voted 3-2, that this will be a reason to bring the position back. She felt because this happened, this gives them all the opportunity to bring things back and forward many times. Councilmember McClung also felt that things would just be brought back night, after night, after night. It was his opinion that this was not the way to be handling business in the City. Mayor Harpstead stated that there was a significant difference in that they didn't have complete information when they voted it down. SPECIAL CITY COUNTY MEETING - August 1,2007 Page 6 Community Development Director Barton stated the "missing" information Mayor Harpstead is referring to was, in fact, provided in a memo to the Council in the July 13 Administrator's Update. Councilmember Grant indicated they never have complete information. Councihnember McClung added that they do not have complete information now and he is still being asked to vote on it. Mayor Harpstead stated he will call the question that was moved and seconded that they approve a resolution where they actually didn't vote on the amendments, but the resolution itself contains an amendment of a "whereas" and an "added resolve." He stated all those in favor indicate by saying "aye". Mayor Harpstead moved resolution 07-64 with the following amendments of an inclusion of a "whereas" and a "be it resolved". Councilmember Holden seconded the motion. The motion carried (4-1). ADJOURNMENT ~NPh Q,;\lj~ Susan Iverson Finance Director