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Current Events
- If you or people in your area want to meet and discuss any topics on your mind, reach out to me and we will set up a time to visit.
- If you hear something you're curious to know more about, feel free to contact me (email, phone call, or in person is fine) !
- As you're driving on the river road by Stephen's 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. Unfortunately, our history over the past 20 years doesn't reflect it very well. We had a work session on the topic, but it wasn't very productive. We'll likely have another. Feel free to send me your comments on it!
Item L (Drones)
A few years ago I had a resident talk to me about a drone flying through their neighborhood and yards at a fairly low altitude. They weren't able to determine the pilot and it probably didn't matter since it was legal to do what they were doing. Last year we had another incident where a drone was flying over someone's Ag property then the owner posted the footage on Facebook. Both of these incidents were clearly intentional.
This ordinance makes it illegal to do that without the property owner's permission.
Item M (Water Trail Proposal)
Council approved a Water Trail Study in October of 2021. Since then there have been numerous meetings with Stakeholder groups, a steering committee, presentations to the City Council and Park Commission, and an Open House for resident input. Groups such as the DNR, Three Rivers Park District, and the National Parks Service became interested. This study was intended to generate interest at those agencies resulting in grants to build the system out. So far it's pulled in $850k in grant money. While that's far short of the $4M (which was/is likely low) needed, it's still a good start and will fund the canoe launch on the west side of Stephens' park. This item was to approve preliminary design work so when the grant is complete the city is ready to move on it. That work will run about $80k. It was approved by the council.
Item N (River Road Trail Extension)
This would authorize the design of a trail along the east side of the river road from Cloquet park down to 142nd Ave. That will provide a connection to Cloquet Park from River's Bend park. That trail will effectively connect all of northeast Dayton to Cloquet Park. It's also a key part of the Three Rivers Park District Regional Trail and they have indicated they will provide some of the funding but didn't say how much. That provided some concern to 2 of the council (including me). With some discussion we reduced the risk by limiting the scope of the work to get a much refined number to TRPD for them to chew on. It was approved by the council.
Item O (113th Avenue Improvements)
Back when the Dayton Parkway was built, it was realized that the 113th connection to it was not a good long-term solution. Once traffic increases, that intersection will not function well. So at the time it was realized the city would need to connect 113th to the Parkway in some other fashion. In the past few months one of the options that is looking pretty good would be to connect the middle of 113th up to the roundabout on the Parkway. That would also provide a means to get sewer up from the south end of the Dayton Industrial Park. Unfortunately that area has quite a bit of uncertainty associated with it. The city (council and Planning Commission) has wanted to look at the land use there because the current plans don't fit well with what's there now. There was also a question about getting the sewer / water across the south properties. Without that we could spend a lot of money on this ($95k) only to have it upended. The council decided to table this until we get more certainty surrounding it.
Item P (Wellhouse #5)
This will add a 3rd well to the central water system. It's located at the middle of the River Walk development. Along with well #4, the water will be run through the new water treatment facility before going into the system. Since that system is now looking like mid-2025 when it goes on line, this well will come online at that time. And if you haven't noticed, these wells are incredibly expensive. The estimate is about $1.4M. We'll see where the bids come in. This was to approve the designs, plans, and to go out for bids. It was approved by the council.
Item Q (Cleaning Bids)
This was to approve a bid for cleaning services for city hall, activity center, and public works. While the lowest bid wasn't taken, the justification was based on referrals. It was approved by the council.
Item R (Special Assessment Policy)
This was a discussion on where the city wants to go with assessing properties when their road and utilities have significant maintenance.
One of the first things discussed was how confusing the current policy was/is and that it was difficult to determine what it meant. So we basically had it go back to staff to be clarified with one main conclusion; the council agreed that road costs for maintenance would not be assessed to individual property owners but would come out of the pavement management fund. I think that local road maintenance shouldn't be paid for by the entire city but I also realized that can get messy... especially when almost all of the road traffic on your road comes from other cities. So I didn't put up much of a fuss when the other 4 pushed for no road assessments.
Please contact me with your questions or comments.