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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 in Central park. The intent is to move it to Stephen's park but a wedding beat us to it.
- Heritage days is planned for Sept 15-16 at Stephen's Park and the Old Village. The Lions and Dayton Community Foundation (DCF) is putting this on and the city will be a sponsor.
Item E (City Audit)
The city is in good financial shape. We are continuing to lower our debt. The debt that matters is the debt that would fall on taxpayers should new development be significantly reduced. That debt is at about $14M at this point and is reduced approximately $2M per year.
We've built in somewhat of a buffer against any downturn in the economy by significantly reducing our tax burden over the past 2 years, while still providing additional employees and equipment needed.
There was a finding that won't have any impact on taxes but it was discovered that the new assets the city accepts at the end of a development (such as roads and underground utilities) wasn't being included in the liabilities. While it's good to get that depreciation accounted for, we track those future costs separately.
The company we were using previously should have caught these but didn't. One more reason that having our finances done in house is beneficial.
Item F (Heritage Days Request)
I believe our city should find ways to enable groups that put on public events. Some cities put on events themselves (Champlin), some rely on local groups, and some are a mix (Rogers, Dayton). Years back the city (unofficially) provided support to help Heritage Days work. This involved some police time (given the road was shut down for the parade) and some help from Public Works. A few years back we made it official to not charge non-profits the large assembly permit fee at to provide some level of city support. In the last few years our Activities directory provided support for the Heritage Days Friday evening activities at Stephen's park (though it was cancelled last year due to rain), but she resigned a few weeks ago (if you want to know more about that feel free to contact me). The Lions still want those activities to go forward, so some arrangements had to be agreed to between the Lions and city staff. Some of that is still being worked.
At this point it looks like the Friday activities will consist of bouncy houses, food trucks, a movie (Encanto), and possibly fireworks. The Saturday activities will be similar to previous year's.
Item G (Diamond Lake Support)
For years the Diamond Lake Association has come to the city and asked for funds to help clean up the lake. For the most part those activities consisted of killing off the Curly Leaf Pondweed. This year they might be looking at addition activities such as rough fish control and fish stocking.
For years they've asked for $10k to support their efforts. To help push some of these extra efforts I suggested moving that to $15k which everyone agreed to.
Item H (Police and Fire Budget Proposals)
At the last council meeting we were given presentations for city hall and Public Works budgets. All of these presentations consisted of what the departments did last year and what they propose to do with their budgets next year.
Typically, police and fire consume a large part of the taxes. And it's easy to just go with the flow and spend. That being said, we have significantly reduced our tax rate over the past 2 years (54% to 35%) and while I still believe we need to keep an eye on spending, I think we now have some headroom to work with at this point.
These presentations were clearly full of needs AND wants, so they'll probably be filtered some as we get closer to the September deadline.
Item I (Ziegler Trucking)
This was a request to allow Ziegler the ability to add some commercial use to the property just to the west of the Dayton Parkway. That commercial use is to allow a few EV vehicles inside the facility for sales. It was approved unanimously.
Item J (Master Plan Proposal)
With the transportation amendment we recently approved out of the way, it's clear that land use plans in that same area are pretty messed up. The land use approved back in 2014 and again in 2019, counted on the Parkway going far more east than it finally did. And while I pointed out (lots and lots) the problems we would have with the current layout, the current layout is what we ended up and have to work with.
Part of re-working the land use will be to incorporate what are called Master Plan areas. These are basically multiple properties lumped together to better lay out the area prior to going to development. I believe we'll have more control over the development process and we can leverage this to better plan the amount of land being developed at a given time.
In this case it'll also give us a better definition of where the Dayton Parkway will go as it makes its way up to Zanzibar.
So, this was to ok the start of our first attempt at a large area plan. While I think this was too large of a chunk at 500 acres, I was in the minority and I'm not sure how important it is.
You can look at the agenda to see the area being looked at but it's roughly a square between 117th and 125th just on the east side of French Lake.
Item K (Park and Planning Commission Positions)
There were 2 planning positions that opened up and the current members (Jon Sevald and Darren Browen) in those positions reapplied. For the Park Commission Jack Prom did not reapply but Brad Cole did.
Given there were 3 applicants for 3 positions the council unanimously approved the applications.
If you are interested in one of our commission spots, please contact me or the city.
Item L (Closed Session)
This was a discussion on pending litigation. While we have been aware of this for a while, this was just a formality to discuss options.
As always, feel free to contact me with any questions / comments.