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Current Events
- If you or people in your area want to meet with me and discuss any topics on your mind, I am willing to find a time that works.
- The Dayton Lions are planning a Music activity this fall. We don't have all the details but it's looking like Sat Sept 9th (either Central or Stephens park).
- The Dayton Lions and Dayton Community Foundation are currently Planning Heritage Days Sept 14-16.
- We currently have 1 opening on the Parks and 2 on the Planning commissions. If you're interested and want more information contact the city or me and I can explain what they do, how much time it takes, etc.
Item K (Transportation Plan Update)
This was the final step in submitting an amendment for the transportation portion of the city's comprehensive plan to the Met Council.
The current plan calls for a connection from the north curve of Fernbrook southwest to the Dayton Parkway and from the south end (in Dayton) of Fernbrook up to Zanzibar. This is what has been referred to as "the X".
The new plan would remove all of that and run the Dayton Parkway up to Zanzibar, and puts in the option of an E/W road from the parkway to Fernbrook in line with 121st. Due to a large wetland it's highly unlikely that road would connect to Fernbrook. It's more likely there would be another N/S road between 117th and 125th it would connect to.
Over the course of this fiasco (almost 2 years in discussion) a couple ideas have been floated including running 129th west to Zanzibar and looking at roundabouts on Fernbrook and connecting roads.
All of this will be revisited in the next planned update (around 2026).
This passed 4-0.
Item L (Budget Presentation)
This is a yearly presentation covering what was done over the past year and what is being requested for the next year. This presentation covered city hall and public works. Not a lot of surprises here.
Over the past 2 years we've been able to knock the tax rate down from 54% to roughly 35%. That was a historical drop. And we did it while adding 3 full time staff members, some expensive equipment, AND significantly raising the amount of money being put into the pavement fund (something the city should have done long ago). Unfortunately about 20% of the city had their home values significantly increased by the county so those houses likely seen an increase in the check they write out.
But... for all property owners, if you take the city portion of your property taxes and multiply it by 1.5, that's what you WOULD be paying if you had elected a council that "stayed the course."
Given that our tax rate is now comparable to other cities around us, and our build rate has significantly slowed, we'll likely not be able to reduce the rate much at this point.
Item M (West French Lake road change order)
If you go to a contractor and ask them to build you a garage, any unforeseen condition is eaten by that contractor. But... it's also likely they have that risk built into their pricing.
Government funded projects are opposite of that. Unexpected costs found during a project are billed back to the city in what is called a "change order". This item was to approve some of those costs.
I'm not sure which model is best, but part of my problem with the change order version is, the change doesn't get bid out... the change is treated like a design build project, which means there is no competition for the change cost.
This passed 3-1 (Salonek voted against it)
Item N (RiverWalk Final Plat )
Not much here other than some indication of what the market is doing at the moment. The number of homes in this phase went from the original 81 down to 41 homes.
Item O (Closed Session)
This was a discussion regarding property the city owns that sits on the Dayton Parkway.
Please contact me for any questions you have.