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Current Events
- Election Updates: There are 4 council candidates and 2 mayor candidates. General election is Nov 5th. Click here for list of local candidates.
- 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.
Item K (Holland Concept Plan)
When a developer wants to go forward with a project in Dayton, there typically go through 3 stages:
- Concept review. This is where the planning commission and council give their subjective input to the developer as to what changes they’d like to see and the developer gets an idea of what they need to change to get it to the next stage.
- Preliminary Plat review. This is where the plan is objectively measured against the city planning and zoning requirements. If it meets them all, then the council has little power to reject it. Typically, the developer can’t meet all the requirements and submits it as a Planned Unit Development (PUD) and then it becomes somewhat of a negotiation between staff, council, and the developer (i.e. more trails in lieu of minimum lot width).
- Final Plat review. This is a formality that is there to ensure the developer has meet the requirements specified by the Preliminary approval. It’s NOT there for a council member to make a final statement not liking the development, though it’s often used that way.
This was a Concept review. There were some minor issues with the development but it had one very significant issue; the developer wanted Dayton to allow Champlin to annex roughly 2.4 acres to make it work. In addition, Dayton would get nothing for it. That was a non-starter for the planning commission when they looked at it, and for the council. That ended the conversation.
Item L (Park Design)
We recently had a scheduling issue with our park designer that ended up pushing significant updates in Stephens (and other) parks to next spring instead of the scheduled late summer time. The council directed staff that if they felt this contractor wasn’t giving them what they wanted they should look elsewhere. The contractor felt a desire to come in and explain what happened and why. The bottom line is, the contractor felt they shouldn’t have agreed to the schedule in the first place since it was an unrealistic schedule.
Item M (Commission Term Limits)
We typically get agenda items from staff for things the council must deal with, but occasionally a council member will want to have something placed on the agenda for discussion. Based on some history, this agenda item seemed driven by a personal motive. My issue with it is the council can simply NOT vote them in when their term expires. We’ve seen this recently with a park commissioner. Council member Fashant (he didn’t make the original request) often provides us with reasoning we (or at least I) hadn’t thought of, and his reasoning was that it could help push new candidates to come forward if a seat is forced to stay open long enough. It would certainly do that, but the council decided to look at other forms of finding more candidates. Tossing out a good candidate simply because they’ve been there over some arbitrary length of time seems a bit bureaucratic.
Item N (Extended Business Permit)
In order to have a home-based business, you have to get a permit from the city. If you base the business in your house, you fill out a form, pay around $60 and it’s just approved by staff. If you base it somewhere else on your property (like your unattached garage) suddenly it’s called an “extended business” and it’s a big deal. It’s many hundreds of dollars plus you have to go in front of the council and make your case. Not a very rational difference.
This specific agenda item was to approve a permit for a home school co-op. It’s on a 2-acre lot, 3 days a week, 9AM to 1PM, and based in a garage that will be built (which will be approved separately) at a later date. One of the neighbors was concerned about the noise from the kids and they might play in the wetlands that separated the properties. Another concern was it might grow in size beyond the applicant's statement of 25 kids, so an additional requirement was that it be limited to 30. It passed 5-0.
Item O (Event Center)
For those of you not familiar with the Magnus Veterans Foundation, I would highly recommend checking them out. They’re an organization aimed at helping veterans and their families. They have an event center and needed an IUP to have an Emergency Response Plan registered with the city. It was approved 5-0.
Item P (Special Event Ordinance)
This item was actually on last meeting’s agenda and was voted down 3-2. For my version of the summary, it was way too much government involvement for 3 of the council members (me included).
The parliamentary procedure we use is Robert’s Rules. Under those rules motions are made to take some action. Motions are never made to NOT take action. Last week we voted against putting the Special Event Ordinance in our ordinances. Evidently staff had a concern that we had to have a “passed” vote, so they requested we vote NOT to implement this ordinance. I explained that under the rules that makes no sense... but rather than debate Robert’s Rules we had a motion to NOT implement the ordinance which passed 3-2 (the 2 still wanted that much government). After the meeting I spoke to staff and I think it’s cleared up.
Item Q (Parking Lot Contract)
A few months ago the council agreed to pave the parking lot for Central Park. This was to accept the low bid and start the work. That parking lot wasn't too bad when it was dry but the one significant downside to dirt is that you can't put lines on it (unless you do it all the time). Lines will effectively increase the capacity of the lot. It passed 5-0.
Feel free to contact me anytime over ideas, concerns, or if you want to get involved in community events.