2012-01-24_PWETC_Minutes - Laserfiche WebLink

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following construction of the roof, with remaining exterior and interior concrete work needed in the spring, including baffle wall construction. Member Stenlund recognized Pulte Homes for their care in stabilizing their construction site for the winter at County Road C-2 and Lexington Avenue; and expressed his appreciation for the quality of their work in interim stabilization efforts as well as their attempts in saving specimen trees. Mr. Schwartz advised that an open house had recently been held for the County Road C-2 connection ordered by the City Council, with good feedback received from the residents on that strip of roadway. Mr. Schwartz advised that staff intended to bring those comments to the City Council's attention prior to bidding, as well as providing another opportunity for public comment. To-date, Mr. Schwartz noted that feedback on the preliminary design had been favorable, with creation of parking bays, turn lanes on the east/west portion of the project; and advised that prior to returning to the City Council, staff anticipated having an estimate available for the lowering the intersection at Merrill and C-2 that would provide cost-savings by including it in the project scope at this time and address safety issues with the curve currently not meeting safe design standards. Mr. Schwartz also advised that through the economy of scale in performing the work at the same time, there were indications that the actual construction costs may be less than originally estimated. Chair DeBenedet spoke in support of the cost benefits of doing the work now. Chair DeBenedet voiced his frustration with the lack of compliance with contractors using the parking bays along West Owasso Boulevard during residential remodeling and construction projects. 5. GreenStep Cities Presentation Mr. Schwartz introduced Ms. Dianna McGeown, and clarified that Ms. McKeown was with the MPCA's GreenStep Cities Program, not with Eureka Recycling as indicated on the staff report. Ms. McKeown noted that the confusion was from their being housed at Eureka now, since they were previously housed at the Green Institute before they closed, and Eureka offered to host and support their efforts at their facility. Ms. McKeown advised that GreenStep Cities was a state-wide cooperative partnership among non-profit agencies, the U of MN, and various government agencies, and was an energy program, not a recycling program. Ms. McKeown presented a slide presentation of this MPCA GreenStep Cities Program, whose effort was toward implementing sustainability by encouraging cities and other government entities to voluntarily bring together proven best practices throughout cities in the State of MN to achieve sustainability goals, through twenty-eight (28) best practices in five (5) different categories. Page 3 of 10