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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.
Item P (Unpaid Utilities)
Every year staff collects all of the unpaid utility fees (water / sewer) and they get attached to next years property taxes for that property. If you're on this list you still have until the end of the year to pay it off to save on the fee.
Item Q (Full Time Public Works Employee)
This full time slot is intended to fill 2 part time openings that were created due to a resignation and retirement. It was passed 4-0.
Item R&S (Sewer / Water budgets)
The rate increases for next year were proposed at 4% for water and 1% for sewer. These increases will help the city keep up with increases in costs and help pay for future needs such as the incoming treatment facility and wells, etc. We will also have a discussion in the near future on the south system (Maple Grove) since their possibly moving to soft water will significantly increase the price of their water.
Item T (Storm water Projects)
There's a lot of details around this but it basically authorized 4 small projects around the French, Grass, and Diamond lake areas. The intent is to study treatment options to improve the water quality in these lakes. While the overall cost will be $200k, $130k of that will be covered by a grant. It was approved 4-0.
Item V (Stephens Park Master Plan)
Back a few months ago it was obvious that the master plan we had for this park was out of date and the council didn't like significant parts of the plan. This agenda item was the result of those updates. Due to its proximity, Cloquet was also included.
Right off the bat, the price tag came up. While we didn't set that as a design parameter, it probably should have been. Depending on how you count everything, the price tag was approximately $20M. Some quick math indicated that it would take decades worth of development to get anywhere near that amount. And from my talks with residents, they're not willing to put that kind of a bill on their property taxes. A more realistic budget might have been around $6M given what we're seeing for development amounts.
It was clear from the start of the discussion about the layout and components that there was a lot of disagreement within the council.
- Parking
- While we finally got the parking areas moved from the center of the park (not sure why that was controversial) there was significant disagreement on how much parking was needed. Rarely do we have events that require much parking and when we have we've used the grass. Parking lots are expensive and permanent, though in time I can see a need.
- Two separate playgrounds (one on each side of the ravine)
- My problem with this has to do more with cost.
- I also felt that the playground should be next to the water park.
- Water Park
- It seems early for Dayton to have a water park.
- Lots of debate on the cost.
- Pavilion
- $3-9M. Ouch. Yes it would be nice... but not that nice... at least in the near future.
In the end we decided to adopt the plan, with the agreement that we may make significant changes to it as we go, including components and timeline since clearly the cost will limit it significantly.
Closed Meeting
This was to discuss the 2 union contracts that are expiring at the end of this year.
Feel free to contact me with your opinions on these or other city matters.