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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.
Local Board of Appeals
This is a once a year meeting that allows you to contest the value and / or classification that the county assessors office assign to your property to the city. Given what we heard at the meeting from the county, it's likely to be the last.
Last year we heard an appeal from a resident that believed his property should be declared agricultural since he had a fairly large orchard and garden he sold crops out of. Since my opinion was that he likely put far more time into that garden and orchard than post ag lots, I believed his classification should have been Ag. We got pushback from the assessors, but the council switched it regardless. Recently we were notified that the county had overruled us. During this meeting, I asked how that was possible and was told by the county that they had the final say. So they overruled us. To which a few of us asked... why are we here then?
There are 2 ways to handle appeals, through the city (which clearly doesn't have the last word, or letting the county handle it entirely). Apparently, many of our neighboring cities have taken the latter route. I suspect we will do the same given our interactions don't seem to matter.
Item G (End of Year Financial Closeout)
The freeway interchange finally came to a close and that project came in $500k over budget. Given that the project was primarily a road project, we had to move that money from our pavement fund to the interchange fund and close it out.
Item I (TRPD Engagement Plan)
For the past few months the council has been asking TRPD (Three Rivers Park District) what their plan was with the purchase of so many of the properties along the Mississippi river. They don't have a clear plan and it also appeared they were a little miffed that we were asking since the city had a general agreement back in 2016-ish with them to create a trail corridor. What seems to be at odds is their interpretation that the trail would involve their total ownership off all the properties. I have been on the council since 2019 and attended many meetings prior to that, and my belief is the city leadership was of the opinion TRPD was going to acquire easement or ROW (Right of Way) along the river road to put in a trail, not take ownership of all of the property.
So this meeting was for TRPD to present their plans for a course of meetings with the public to see what they want and to meet with the city to see what it's looking for. We did ask that they push out their schedule since it didn't allow enough time for the city to prepare.
Item J (Park Improvement Bid Award)
This was messy. A couple meetings back the council was given a fairly large bid package that included items for the area 21 (Brayburn Trails), Ione Gardens, and Stephen's parks. Last fall, we went over plans for Stephen's that had significant differences from what we got at that meeting. At that same meeting we also awarded a contract to MSA to update the plan/design for Stephens since it was almost 10 years old. We had a lot of discussion about what was in the plan for Stephens and why it seemed like the prices for many things were well above what I thought their value was. On top of everything else, we have a design consultant that doesn't like his ideas questioned.
Though we did vote to go out for bids, I believe the hope was that these bids would come in fairly lower. In the mean time, all of the Stephens items were changed to alternates in the bid.
Alternates are a way for government contracts to make sure all of the money budgeted for something is spent. If there is a budget of $100 for a bike rack with pavement under it and the bids come in at $150, then the plan has to be scaled back and rebid. If instead the pavement is an alternate, and the bike rack came in at $100 there would be no pavement, but the bid would be approved and the money spent. If the bike rack had a bid of $50 and the pavement had a bid of $50, both could be in the awarded contract (alternates don't HAVE to be approved). What this tends to do is make sure all the money is spent and a contract is awarded. It's also why government contracts rarely come in well under budget.
So, given that Stephens items were changed to alternates, we could approve the contract and not approve the Stephens items. Which is what 4 of us wanted. The reason being that the plan/design for the park was going to be redone. Some of the other alternates included tree plantings which the 4 of us thought we should get done locally. AND it turns out that the trees the contractor was going to use would have come from there anyway...
One concern raised by a council member was that we have for a while wanted our Park Commission to take more ownership and responsibility with the parks, which they have. The council member thought we should approve what they were recommending (which was to include the Stephens and tree alternates). My problem with that was we do have final say and I believe in this case we were justified to pull those alternates from the bid.
One of my long-standing complaints about this process is, these bid packages are huge. They include things like pavement, buildings, cement and other masonry work. What that means is local contractors that can do pavement or cement or buildings can't bid because they don't do they other things. So what happens is, what may be the cheapest options are not even looked at.
The bottom line is, the lowest bid for the project, not including the alternates we pulled out, was approved 4-1.
Item K (DCM Farms Preliminary Plat)
This development is at the north-west side of 113th and Fernbrook. It has come before us a few times for concept reviews and was rejected for the density being too high. That's come down a lot, though it's still higher than our R3 zoning allows which means the city is allowed to negotiate with the developer to get something in trade. So far, that thing is to have the developer pay for a roundabout at 114th. 113th would no longer connect to Fernbrook but the developer would pull that road north and connect to Fernbrook as 114th.
Fernbrook has troubles. The road has become busy over the years and with all of the development at Sundance, the Rush Creek / Fernbrook intersection is a mess. As part of a development the area roads are graded for throughput and that one gets an F. The county so far hasn't stepped in to fix it but I suspect with enough city money they would. Unfortunately Hennepin County has a history of taking your tax money but not wanting to give much of it back.
A roundabout at 114th doesn't do much for the city. It'll slow speeds down in the immediate area but it has some problems; it'll likely reduce access to 2 of the homes, it has yet to be planned out at all, and the extra property needed has yet to be purchased or discussed with the property owners (it's not likely this council will condemn the land needed, including me).
What I would prefer is that the money going towards this, instead go towards a solution at Rush Creek. I would prefer stop lights, which are much cheaper, but the county would have to agree to making a change there and they would decide lights or a roundabout.
In the end it was agreed that before final plat, this would be resolved so I voted for it. It passed 3-2. If it still results in a roundabout at 114th, I will likely vote against it.
Item L (113th Water Extension)
This item was to prepare a design to get water north from the west side of Territorial up to 117th. The design was estimated to cost $44k. It was approved 5-0.
Item M (Water Trail)
A few years ago there was a proposal to pay for a study (around $50k I believe) to look at what a water trail would cost along the north shore of Dayton. A couple of us were leery of another study... but we ended up voting for it. It resulted in a grant of $850k, in addition the DNR approved $574k for work on the west side, and TRPD believes it might get $500k for a canoe kayak launch next to Goodin Park (their property on the old Goodin homestead).
This item was to approve going out for bid on the Stephen's portion of work which is primarily a canoe kayak launch on the west side. If you're curious about what it'll look like, there's some renderings in the agenda packet.
It was approved 5-0.
Item N (Closed Session - Performance Review)
This was a yearly performance review of the city administrator. The result will be made public at the next council meeting.