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Current Events
- If you or people in your area want to meet and discuss current/future topics related to the city, reach out to me to set up a time to visit. (email, phone call, or in person)
- As you're driving on the river road by Stephens' park, you'll notice construction on the south side of the road. That's the new central water system treatment facility in progress.
- Many of you are familiar with the phrase "rural look and feel" or "rural character." Dayton residents have said this is important to them and I agree. It's even in our mission statement. We've had a couple work sessions on the topic and I believe it'll result in a list of ideas we will be prioritizing for the future. If you have ideas, please let me know.
Work Session (Fire Department)
This really wasn't a work session. It was a presentation by someone who's been in the fire service for many years. I'm not sure what the intent was here but there wasn't anything new in it.
Item B (Extrication Equipment)
This is the second time this has come up. The fire chief wants to purchase new equipment at $50k but twice now hasn't explained why the old equipment isn't serviceable. He has brought up that the hoses leak, but many of us know those hoses are replaceable. He was tasked with having another shop look at it.
Item G (Republic Services Presentation)
This was a presentation by our recycling provider on various issues around recycling (compliance, organics, etc.)
Item H (Fire Department 5-year Plan)
Well, we've been waiting for years for this... and I wasn't at all impressed. Right off the bad it started with an assumption of an additional full time fire fighter which we've said numerous times, we're not doing.
That pretty much caused us to focus on year one of that plan rather than the entire 5 years. The remaining years we'll get to next time since we sent this plan back for work.
It also didn't mention something the council has stated they wanted a number of times and that's limiting some of the calls that the fire department responds to. These are calls that are likely to result in a cancelation in route or other calls that are referred to as "stubbed toe" calls.
After the entire council made it clear we wanted the calls thinned, we tackled some of the other issues for the first year:
- A full time fire fighter. This was dead on arrival. again.
- Hiring part time fire fighters from other cities to pick up short shifts during times when we're low on responders such as daytime and early evening. This made sense though I voted against it only because I thought we shouldn't be making so many changes at once. This passed 3-2.
- "Medical call" teams for night time. These would consist of people that would sign up for call shifts for middle of the night medical calls. We had these in the past but this chief didn't like them and killed them off. Now there's apparently been a change of heart. This seems like a no-brainer and was approved 5-0.
Item I (Stephens Park)
At the last meeting it was decided that the plan we received from the contractor wasn't phased as we'd like and it was way out of our league for cost. That plan was roughly $20M and we typically receive $250k a year for our regional parks from development. So this was our first stab at thinning it down for next year. All of us agreed the things we'd look at would be:
- Some form of rest room facilities cleaner than the port-a-potties. Something that will suffice until we put in some activity center of sorts (likely years away).
- An expansion of the stage area and some sort of roof for it.
- A water park on the west side
- Expanded parking on the west side near any water park.
- Keeping the price inside the $1.5M we have available for this at the moment.
Staff will look at costs and get us more information in the short term and we'll go from there.
Item J (Budget Discussion)
Once again the county / state has thrown a monkey wrench into our numbers with a massive increase in what is called Fiscal Disparities. If you ever want to get a definition of government nonsense, feel free to look that up. It's a way for other communities that are done growing to sponge off of communities that are growing. So Dayton, Rogers, Corcoran, etc.. end up effectively subsidizing other cities such as Champlin or, of all places, Minneapolis. And since they don't determine the amount of damage until after the preliminary budget is set, we end up scrambling since lately the estimated impact value ends up being smaller than the actual. So, in order to keep our tax rate the same we will need to come up with another $160k in reduced increases by the end of this year. So that will be a future discussion (prior to the end of the year).
Item K ( Tax Forfeited Properties)
This was a continuation of previous discussions on two tax-forfeit properties we have in the city; one down on Robinson street just below the church, and a 9 acre parcel by the interchange. There were 2 questions. The first was if we wanted the EDA to manage them (that took some discussion but eventually everyone was on board) and the second was how to pay for the interchange property since the EDA would need $760k to buy it and they only have about $500k. The decision was to loan them $300k and to charge them 3.5% interest.
Item L (Post for Full Time Firefighter)
As stated above, this was a non starter and failed to get a motion.
Item M (Part Time Firefighters)
As stated above, this was approved 3-2.
Item O (Legislature Funding for Tier 1 EIS Study)
This was to approve staff requesting the state to pay for a tier 1 EIS study of a possible river crossing bridge. This in no way approves any bridge schedule, work, or approval by the city. In fact I've stated that any bridge discussion we have, needs to stipulate any work done is out beyond 30-years and can not proceed without a north-south road (likely Zanzibar) completed. This study will just make sure that the current plan (Armstrong in Ramsey and Vicksburg in Dayton) is the correct one. It passed 5-0.
Item P (113th Sewer Plans and Bidding)
This was to approve the plans and go out for bids on getting sewer up to 113th from the south. It passed 5-0.
Item Q (Three Rivers Purchase Permission)
Three Rivers is continuing their push to buy up all of Dayton's river front property along the Mississippi. We had many discussions with them in the past and the agreement was that any further purchases would only be approved if they came to us and made the case that there was no way to get a trail through without them buying the entire property. The original understanding years ago would be that they would be putting that trail along the right of way. Over time it became clear their were doing more than that and when asked, they flat out stated that owning our entire northern border was their goal. That means that that land would be forever locked up for use by the city or residents. That being said, there are definitely properties that exist along the route that would need to have the trail go through the middle. This property was discussed quite a bit because there is a case to be made that it might qualify, however the council tabled this in order for Three Rivers Parks to make that case to us.
Item R & S (Closed Meetings)
These were to discuss continuing negotiations with the Teamsters union and a possible property purchase by the city.
Feel free to contact me with your opinions or ideas.