With it being 06:00, we'll call our meeting to order and start with the pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of The United States Of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Alright. With that, we'll go roll call around the horn, please. Laura here. Steichen here. Nash here. And Olsen here. With that, we have our agenda before us this evening, and I did not see any additions or subtractions, so we should be solid. Motion to approve the agenda. A motion by Nash. Second by Steichen. And a second by Steichen.
All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carries. We have our, consent agenda, lengthy. Any questions or comments regarding our consent? Hearing none, I will entertain a motion for our consent agenda. Motion to approve. I have a motion by Nash. Second. And a second by Borra. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carries. With that, it does bring us to number five. Peyton, has there been any formal request to speak before council this evening? None received, mayor. Alright. Once again, please encourage the public to participate in our process as it is a great way
to ensure our progress. And with that, we'll move on to number six, recognition of Star Business of the Year. We are fortunate this evening, to have we do one at a time. One at a time. One at a time. We're to have but we we had to kinda set the stage, though. Right? Because the Star Business of the Year transformed last year. The longest standing committee, I believe, in the city of Dilworth is the Star Business of the year committee. And last year, they decided to go and have and really recognize what is known as the emerging
business, a newer business to our city, as well as a legacy business, one who's been around for a while, and continues to serve our citizens. And this year we get to start with our emerging business. We have the Tractor Supply Company and I'm not ashamed to say this, we welcome them with open arms from the city of Morehead. We're very fortunate to have them and we will continue to make sure we can, keep them into the legacy business, if you will. But this evening, we have, an opportunity to present this Emerging Business Awards to Tractor Supply Company. Right?
That's it. And, you know, where where's our rep? Where I'm looking. I'm like Do not supposed to be here. Yeah. I was like Confirmed attendance. But So what we'll do then is we'll actually make it a point to go there and deliver it. And Yep. We can do that. Say we'll say hello. Yes. We can do that. Fair enough. Because, yeah, I don't mind poaching good businesses for Moorhead. Mayor Shelley, I love Moorhead, but we'll take all the businesses that we can and and make it work. So, and I think that's a testament to both cities in all honesty. Rather than closing the doors and leaving the reason, they're sticking here. And that's that's important,
creating excellent business environment. Additionally, we do have our legacy award winner when and with Valley Hardwood. And I know our representative we represent there we go. We're here with representative Valley Hardwood tonight. And this is a fantastic story I got to share, at State of the Cities. We know Valley Hardwood had suffered significant loss with the the fire to their business. And, again, rather than going to Morehead permanently, they are coming back. They're reinvesting, in Dilworth, emerging like a phoenix, if you will, from the from the fire that, wreaked havoc. And, their commitment to the city of Dilworth is one of the reasons,
that we chose them as a legacy business of the year for the city of Dilworth as we will continue, to support them in all of their endeavors. So tonight, we have this opportunity to present the award to Valley Hardwell. And then let me have the floor to speak. Please. Perfect. Thank you. Oh, you lose all yours. Okay. So I'm losing my voice, so it's been a rough day. Yep. Yeah. We just started moving our inventory into the building. Hopefully, in a couple of weeks, we'll be open and running. So it's been a fun and difficult year. But, the hard part's done.
We're just waiting for a few minor things for the subcontractors. And, we'll be ready to get going on that. So so it's just it's right around the corner here. It's exciting. It's good to get that. Yeah. It looks amazing. I was just gonna say beautiful building. It looks Thank you. Yeah. It looks really nice. Nice story on the paper too on you Yeah. On your business. So yeah. We should hopefully get one more here before once we finally open. So Oh, wonderful. Yeah. Oh, thank you very much. As I get this. And thank you very much, and thank you for reinvesting in the city of Dorothy. We look forward to continuing our relationship.
Gonna leave. I love it. That's fantastic. Thank you very much. Never gonna leave. Love that. Love that. And again, it's it's it is fun to serve on that that committee. They take it very seriously, and you get the names like, you know, former representative Mark Hork, former Clay County commissioner, Gross. I mean, there there's there's some people with some clout and, of course, long time city administrator Ken Park. So they have, you know, it's the scrutiny is pretty intense. The debate is is often, it it's insightful when you start thinking about it. So Yeah. I look forward to seeing how we move that forward.
As we look at our agenda, we move on to now number seven, planning and engineering. We're gonna start with seven a in our Eighth Avenue corridor study. Peyton, are you leading us off with this one? I'm actually gonna turn over to Brent and Michael to discuss our Eighth Avenue extension corridor study. Good evening, mister mayor and members of the council. My name is Michael Maddox. I'm the senior transportation planner with the Fargo Moorhead Metropolitan Council of Governments, which is a mouthful, where go by MetroCOG for short. About five months ago only, MetroCOG, commissioned a study with Apex Engineering to look at the extension of A Street,
in the growth area of the City Of Dilworth. We have now concluded with that study of bringing this forward, for final plan approval, after which this will go to our board, RTTC and our policy board for final approval. But I'd like to introduce the project manager from APEX Engineering, Brent Mushe. Thank you, Michael. And thank you, Mr. Mayor and members of the council. As Michael mentioned, my name is Brent Mushea. I'm a project manager with Apex engineering group. Our team was hired by MetroCog to, help with this study. As Michael mentioned, it was about five months ago. So relatively short time frame, but, we really focused our efforts and,
got down to business right away. So, other members of the team, HKGI, who the city has done some planning work with, and then TC two who is, kind of a traffic transportation focused, firm that we work with very closely. So general overview of the study area, looking at Eighth Avenue from the western, city limits to the eastern city limits. And then, also looking at Main Street and extending that up to the north. So Peyton's gonna move the screens there. Thank you, Peyton. So the general purpose of the study is was to just kind of provide a framework
for extending Eighth Avenue North, and looking at ways that that can support the growth of of Dilworth. So we broke the study down into three primary tasks. The first task being, of course, the plan for that extension. What is the street gonna look like? Where's the street gonna be? What sort of access are we gonna have to the street? And then also look at how that affects the surrounding land use and what opportunities there would be, especially looking at, the the concept for kind of a regional park in that area, in Central North Central Dilworth. And then also making sure that there's a corridor that's gonna,
support the the housing needs that we have in the community. And then lastly, bringing some of those options and alternatives forward to, the public to get some input. So that was kind of our last step. So we talked a lot about the proposed park. This was the image up there is kind of a preliminary concept that was laid out. We use that as kind of a starting point for some of our options that we looked at. But, obviously, that's a very large area. A lot of opportunities, where you can really attract some people to the the community of Dilworth. And Eighth Avenue is gonna be one of your primary quarters to access that park. And then also,
connecting Main Street, as I mentioned, from the south is gonna be another primary access point. So we wanted to to kinda take all that into into consideration. Looking at what's the overall road network, throughout Dilworth. Next slide, Peyton. So Eighth Avenue is is really your, one of your collector routes. That's as Dilworth grows, it's gonna provide connection for local trips within the community. You've got Fifteenth Avenue on the North Side where there's been a lot of talk about improvements to Fifteenth Avenue and that being able to, carry more a little bit more traffic. And then also what happens on Highway 10 or,
Center Avenue, in the future with potentially looking at the how many lanes do you need in that downtown area? And part of that, Highway 10 concept reducing lanes, you know, you wanna make sure that you've got, another East West connector for people to to, get across town without having to get down onto Highway 10. So, we talked a lot about, what would connecting Main Street up through the, the ballpark area, what would that look like? And then also some of the streets that currently just dead end, on the North Side Of Gilworth. What do we do with those?
So, that was all part of the kind of options and alternatives that that we looked at and tried to get some feedback on at the end, of the study here. But we started out looking at some of the existing traffic patterns. What's traffic doing right now? And so when when we look at, traffic that is using an existing, the existing part of Eighth Avenue over by Walmart on the North Side Of Walmart, about 30 actually, closer to 50% of that traffic is coming from, that north intersection on 30 Fourth Street coming from North Moorhead,
and coming down into Dilworth. And then there's a lot of that traffic that comes back through after leaving Walmart on Highway 10. There's about 15% of the traffic that comes, 10 to 15% of the traffic that comes out of Dilworth. A lot of that has to go down onto Highway 10 and come up 30 Fourth, or they're coming back and forth on on Fifteenth or they're cutting across on Fourth Avenue North, Third Avenue North, kind of through that area. So there's a lot of traffic, that's using that little stretch of Eighth Avenue North up by Walmart.
About 10% of it comes out of Dilworth, and they're taking routes that they wouldn't have to take if Eighth Avenue was was built out. So it's putting extra pressure and extra extra traffic on some of those other routes that they wouldn't need to necessarily be be using. So, we looked at that intersection of Eighth Avenue and 30 Fourth Street over by Walmart and also that, North North entrance into Walmart, where you've got the Walmart driveway on the South side, the Aldi driveway on the North side. And we did some traffic projections to try to see what would happen in the
future once you make that extension and open that up all the way to the, to the east. And those intersections don't operate as well in the future as they as they do now. The intersection with 30 Fourth Street, you're gonna still have an acceptable level of service. That's just kind of a a measure of how long traffic is delayed at the intersection. Still acceptable, but that's kind of an awkward intersection. And so it would benefit from some, realignment of some of those lanes and extending or potentially making a a double left
coming out of the Walmart entrance. And then that Walmart access, the one on the top right there, that intersection pretty much completely breaks down. You wouldn't be able to get out of Walmart at that point, into the future. So at some point, there'll have to be some changes made at that intersection. A roundabout at that intersection works really well for getting people out of Walmart over to 30 Fourth Street or once Eighth is built, getting them out to the to the east. Or there's some other, options for access control there,
but that's one that's, especially, like I said, as you connect Eighth Avenue, from 30 Fourth over to County Road 9, you're gonna have a lot more traffic that's just headed straight east through there and straight west through there. And so it becomes really hard to take a left to get out of Aldi to get out of Walmart. So these are kind of the existing sections, the top left there. That's looking west or, east, sorry, from 30 Fourth Street. You'd have Walmart on the on the right and Aldi on the left. So you can see that, you know, that's just kind of an awkward roadway configuration. It's something that you you would wanna try to improve,
especially as, the Morehead side of Eighth Avenue would potentially get built. That would be a good time to to look at that intersection overall. The top right is the section that of Eighth Avenue that's built just to the east of Seventh Street. So that's and that's looking east from Seventh Street. So that's your more residential, type of street with, a path on one side. And then on the bottom there, that's actually what, Morehead has built of Eighth Avenue, farther to the west of 20 Eighth Street, I think. Yeah. It's 20 Eighth Street over to Twentieth Street.
So there's a a portion of Eighth Avenue that's missing there between, 30 Fourth and 20 Eighth in Morehead. But so, we've kind of put together or looking at what's out there, it kinda made sense, to carry forward some of those those two, basic street concepts, the two lane kind of residential street, and then also that two lane divided with the median type of street. Both of them offer, you know, kind of bent different benefits as far as, you know, traffic calming. Also, the two lane undivided is a little bit narrower street, so a little maybe less maintenance,
maybe a little bit less right of way that you would need. But we brought both of those options forward again just to try to get some input on what people thought. And with those, specifically looking at the the median divided, street section, we kind of wanted to show some ideas of what, that median what you could do with that median. You see a lot of places where they plant trees or they use that, median to put street lights in the middle. Also, without the median, you can put you could put more width in the boulevard to have more of a winding sidewalk. So,
really these are just kind of concepts of you've got, kind of an open slate. It's it's an open field right now. And so the the main idea here is to think about how much right away, you know, you you wanna have to be able to do some of those things. You'll never get another chance to go back and get more right away. It's just, you know, not very likely to happen. Not at a not at the price you're gonna get it now anyway. We also looked at, some ideas for, green buffer space. A lot of the people that we talked to that lived, kind of in that along that northern edge of Dilworth now where where the street
would be, there were, I guess, kind of two different, opinions about whether or not there was a preference to having a street in their, you know, backyard, what used to be the open field, or if they would like to see maybe just houses backed up to their house. But the one concept that we talked about with the street is you don't have to have the street right there. You can have some sort of a buffer, and there's different things you can do with that buffer. That top picture there, that's a, just an area over in in South Fargo that has kind of a winding road, and they've used that buffer space to to plant a lot of trees.
There's actually kind of a berm there, so there's a little bit of a a sound separation too. The next slide, Peyton. There's another example, where they've actually used that, buffer space to, create stormwater, retention ponds. And then that actually helps to increase the value of some of those properties that now have a pond in their backyard. So, there's different things you can do within that buffer space. And then if you do have that, that that's something then the city has a little bit more control over too if if you go with that route.
So that bumper space and, like I mentioned, whether or not people would prefer to have the street directly in there, or, you know, adjacent to their property where it's been a open field in the past, or to have a little bit more space in between. We kind of went through a whole host of different alignment concepts, and you can see some that go farther to the north, some that go farther to the south. The farthest north alignment, kind of the pink one on top, that kind of matched in where that original park concept map had shown Eighth Avenue going through.
And part of the idea with that was to leave room on the south side of Eighth Avenue, to have some, baseball fields and things like that. The green alignment, kind of in the middle there, that actually follows there's a there's a stretch of existing, sanitary sewer right in there that was put in. And so that green alignment would be, right over the top of where that existing sanitary sewer infrastructure is. So you wouldn't have to go back, you you would be able to keep and preserve that, sanitary sewer without having to get potential easements to go back into and repair or
relocate it with one of the other alignments. And then the southern alignment there, the the kind of teal or cyan alignment, that just kinda shows where, we wanted to keep the roadway as far to the south as we were comfortable putting it. And what that really does is just maximize everything that can happen to the north. Instead of splitting some of those parcels up with the roadway in the middle, it just allows everything to to kinda be an open slate to the north. So those were kind of the three main, alignment concepts that we settled in. And,
really, once once we had those, then we were able to look at some of the land use patterns within that. The next slide, Peyton, shows really depending on what type of of housing, density you're looking at. You need a a minimum depth from from the street to the next street. So that's where, you know, and I said we're with the with the green alignment or the central alignment, how much room do you have in between what's built on the North Side Of Dilworth now and where that street's gonna be?
So that amount of depth that you have kind of dictates what type of of housing density you can fit in. And, so we we use kinda some of those guidelines. And then along with that, of course, there's the the the concept of the missing middle housing. That was something that came out of the, Fargo Moorhead housing analysis study that, MetroCOG led. And what the, kind of conclusion of that study was is that there's, a bun you know, an an abundance of I shouldn't say an abundance, but there's there's enough single family detached homes.
There's enough of the the mid rise apartment homes. What what's missing is the duplexes, the quadplexes, the townhomes, that middle level of housing where maybe you've got, rental opportunities, maybe you've got ownership opportunities. But that's kind of what is that that's the the focal point for developing housing in in the Fargo Moorhead Metro Area. And so we kinda use those as guidelines for laying out some of the land use concepts that we developed. And so we use those three alignments to lay out different land use patterns,
and you can kind of see how, each each concept, we worked around, where the community park is planned, where the commercial areas plan on 30 Fourth Street. And then where does it make sense to have some of your, higher density housing, some of your medium density housing? And how does that kind of spread out throughout that northern, development area of Dilworth. So you can see on this kind of northern alignment, there would be room, to the south of Eighth Avenue to have some of that medium density housing, and and maybe a mix of medium to lower density housing.
That's, the MDR would be medium density. The LDR would be low density residential. And then you can kinda see along the park how we kind of use that park as a, a buffer for some of those housing densities too. And this is all, again, just kind of trying to show different ideas of how this whole area could be could be laid out. And there's the southernmost, alignment where really, like I I mentioned, we'd have some of that buffer green space that could be used for, maybe stormwater retention ponds, but probably not enough room to get any type of housing,
development or anything like that between the existing homes and and and the new roadway. So with that, we talked about what is the likely order that this would happen in. We know that there's already been some interest in kind of developing some of the land that's, just to the west of of Seventh Street East. And so that would that development, would kind of open up into the the park area that the or the parkland that the city owns. And so that was kind of the central zone, phase one,
the p one on the map. Once once that happens and you've kind of opened up into that central zone area, then the next thing you would wanna look at is is is it possible now to make that connection of Main Street up to Eighth Avenue and start to make that connection of that corridor. And once that happens, now your whole park is accessible. So we we looked at those are probably, you know, kind of the two primary things that need to happen, for that park area. A little bit is gonna be driven by some development pressure.
A little bit has to be, city led. But, the in the Western zone at at, 30 Fourth Street, you know, that connection from 30 Fourth Street to County Road 9 is is probably just all gonna happen at the same time. It makes sense, to make some of those intersection improvements that we talked about to look at to look at those intersections, when you make that connection to County Road 9. And then when that happens, kind of your last phase in that central zone phase three, then it makes sense to connect that over to your park. Over on the East End of Dilworth, the Eastern Zone,
we kinda broke that into two phases. Phase one would be connecting what's there of Eighth Avenue now over to Fourteenth Street, to make that connection so that folks can get down along Fourteenth Street, get into the rail district, get on the Highway 10. And then phase two, connecting it all the way over to Sixtieth. Again, that's probably just gonna kinda be development driven as people look at, what the needs are in that area. But so we we kinda broken into those three zones because things might happen independently a little bit in each one of those areas. But as far as the order that they would happen in,
again, it's kinda that central zone phase one is where some of the pressure is happening now, and you can kinda see how that, again, opens up your park area and then making the connection over to counter nine. So, like I mentioned, we kinda brought these concepts forward to the public, back in November. I know I think most of you came to the meeting, so we appreciated the attendance and support for that. We had really good attendance. I thought, it was about 50 or 60 people that came. Along with that, we did an online survey. We had over a 70 people take the online survey,
which is really good, as well. So, felt really good about the response that we got from, people in Dilworth about sharing their thoughts, you know, what they wanted to see. And that's really what this kind of study is all about is getting some input from from people and seeing what they wanted to what they wanted to see in their community. So, we'll touch on some of the survey results here. Our first question was what photo best represents your vision for the future land use patterns as the city grows? The the preference was for a mix of housing and traditional neighborhoods.
That's what people are used to, around here. Not a lot of interest in small lot subdivisions, you know, really tight housing, single, single unit housing. And and the other was, you know, rural estates that was kind of on the low end, of course. You know, people are seeing that they would that would probably not be the best use of that, of that land. The next question, which photo represents the type of homes you want to see along the Eighth Avenue corridor? Preference here, again, what people are used to, single unit, detached homes. The second one was,
you know, kind of contradictory to the last question because the preference was for single unit detached small lot homes. And then some, the third would be for for townhomes. But, you know, people are voting for what they're used to to seeing in those in those cases. And, the next question was, asking about what roadway features they would like. This is really just what's your preference in kind of that street section. Nothing really with the, you know, with the strong real strong preference here. You can kinda see the I guess, in the photo on the right, maybe which was the board that we had up at the at the meeting where
people could put the dots for their votes, you can see most of the dots were on the divided roadway with the median versus the undivided. And then a lot of dots on the roundabout, which I think is a good sign that people are thinking a little bit outside the box. They're seeing maybe that roundabout is something that has been promoted as a safety, feature, something that helps control speeds. So I kinda take that as, you know, people are looking for a safe corridor. The next question was, which photo best represents best represents the bicycle and pedestrian facilities you wanna see.
Not a lot of support for on street bike lanes. The preference is to have off off street separated, multi use paths, you know, very similar to what you've got along Seventh Avenue or Seventh Street East now. Actually, when we did some of our traffic counts last fall, right at that Seventh Street and Eighth Avenue intersection. I think in the day we counted, there was about 50 people that were using that path crossing Eighth Avenue. So a lot of people wanted to get out and about and use and use
the paths. And then the, last question was, which photo best represents the type of commercial buildings you like to see? There's pure really strong preference from the online survey to to see mixed use commercial buildings. So I think that's, you know, a good sign that people are seeing the benefits of having, you know, those different options for, retail space, commercial space, residential space, all kind of mixed into one. So, I know that was a lot here. The study, as Michael mentioned, is complete. The report,
itself is less than 50 pages, so it's would probably take you less time to read it than it took me to present to you. But, you know, just to kind of summarize where we where we kind of settled on things, some of the the the main points, as you develop Eighth Avenue is there's a was a desire from city staff and from the public to better control access to not see driveways lined along Eighth Avenue. In the residential areas,
because you'll have a mix of residential areas and you'll have kind of that park area. In the residential areas, a two lane undivided street makes sense. But maybe in the park area, that could be a place where you'd wanna consider a median, having some trees, different landscaping options like that. And then as I mentioned, as you build out, Eighth Avenue and connect, between 30 Fourth Street and County Road 9, that's when you you're gonna need to look at some improvements to that 30 Fourth Street and Walmart intersection. And then, of course, ongoing discussion with the school district about the impacts of potentially connecting Main Street up
through the ballpark area there. As far as the alignments go, there really wasn't a strong, preference one way or the other, for which alignment people liked. Each alignment has its benefits. Each alignment has some cons. The northernmost alignment provides maybe the most flexibility with the school as far as, maybe repurposing some of that area that they've lost when they when you extend Main Street through the ballpark area. The central alignment stays over the top of that existing sanitary sewer, so you wouldn't,
have to relocate or, have easements on that. And and the relocation cost for that, facility isn't to the point where it should be, you know, that's the deciding factor, but it is a consideration. And then the southernmost, alignment, like I mentioned, it minimizes those smaller parcels on the on the southern side of Eighth Avenue or or gives the city the ability to decide what to do with them. And then everything up to the north is is kind of an open open slate. And, again, as far as phasing goes, you know, it's really just kind of reviewing each step as it as it comes forward to
the city, taking it one step at a time. But, you know, with the with the study and some of this input now that you've kind of got a you've got a plan to to move forward. So with that, any questions? Julie? Just one question I hadn't thought of before, but so I saw some of the work with the North South, you know, like, intersections and that. Did you look at the impact of the Main Street versus that Second Street North where it looks like there was a little roundabout. Like, is it worth taking that land when is that Second Street wide enough,
and would we you know, you've already got four I mean, are people gonna come up Highway 10 and go or are they still gonna come up Fourth Avenue or Eighth Avenue at some point? Like, it's gonna be easier to go up Highway 9 or something. There was yeah. There's a couple, examples there. You know, Slide 7, maybe, Peyton would I don't think that was actually intended to show connection at Second Street. But, so Second Street would would make sense to extend and connect. The other thing to think about is that right now,
Main Street is your funnel, to get north into Dilworth. That's where your signal's at. That's where you want to, kind of keep traffic going to and and and not use some of the side streets as much actually as, the ongoing design for the Highway 10 project is is happening. They're talking about that traffic signal at at Main Street and if that's the right thing to have. And part of it is traffic coming down onto Highway 10 is just kinda spread out between all of those,
intersections because you got, you know, an intersection every four or 500 feet coming onto Highway 10. And so really, connecting Main Street up to Eighth Avenue would really channelize a lot of that traffic to use Main Street instead of Second. And, along second, you do have you know, you've got residences that have driveways. It is a residential street versus right now Main Street. It's kind of, you know, it's along the school and, little less impacts, that way. But it would certainly be easier to connect Second Street
and to connect on the East Side to connect Second Street. Second Or Third Third Street goes all connects all the way down to, to Highway 10. So what you wanna connect is something that's gonna make a connection to Highway 10 so that people can they don't have to zigzag. Go ahead. Yeah. And not necessarily a question for you, but as I'm looking at this, my concern is, of course, you know, in talking to the school, if that's what we're gonna do, if you're really gonna make Main Street that north south, you almost gotta take all that parking out and make that I mean,
that's just so much congestion by the school there. It's not a good North South Road from the traffic signal all the way to Fourth Avenue already. You mean the the the parking lot right north of the school? Well, that whole strip there with the way the teachers and everyone park on the road, and you got kids coming in and out, that's not a good North South Corridor No. To send traffic. It's as I pick my kids up there, it is a nightmare. There's nowhere I mean, there's so many parents that pick up. There's buses everywhere. It's I can't imagine.
Yeah. I believe this issue was addressed in the the Dewworth, Clendon, Felton Safe Rochester School study that MetroCog completed last year. And it looked it provided some opportunity for maybe reorganizing where that student that parent drop off and the bus drop off take takes place. And so I would look to that plan to to kinda look at some of the the options that MetroCard proposed. Yeah. And they did do some of what you guys proposed because I noticed they they you guys suggest that they paint the curb and move back a little bit and let some because it was hard to pull out the parking lot.
People couldn't see. So they've done some of it, but it still is just I mean, I pick up there. It's it's a nightmare. Yeah. The other portion of that is moving curb lines, which would happen at the reconstruction of the street. Yeah. Any other questions? My my first one is is this. When we look at the two I mean, I and again, it's written on paper, so we can have the legitimate conversation. We do the engineering, but, you know, they talk about the north and then the center alignment. Is there anything that negates is doing I mean, is it too dramatic to try to follow the infrastructure that's already in place?
Because if we didn't have to replace, I mean, we can save the money. I mean, is it too dramatic of a to kind of take it can we meld the two? Is that possible? Well Yeah. The green one is the infrastructure one. Yeah. Right. But can then like, as you get further to the east, can then then can you break it up to go to the park to give more you know, and and maybe not do it all? You certainly could. Just, like, a partially. And so when you get to the park, then there's, you know, not so so far the west. That's that's my and I get it. I mean, maybe yes, maybe not, Julie. So our to add to that,
another thought I had, you know, like, when we're using that concept of the park. Now when that concept of the park was made and thinking that the school district would use more of that land, it was before it was just an elementary school. Those kids are not gonna walk all the way up there. And so I don't know if it's as of much interest to the school district again. And this is where we have to have these conversations with the school because the school kids are not gonna so whether the road is closer down there and then there's another road that goes through, Like, we may have two roads that go through the park. It's not necessarily gonna be Right. Just one road. And so I really don't see those elementary kids hiking all the way up to
Eighth Avenue. So I don't think I I think you're right. The whole school district thing until we talk to them. I wouldn't put as much emphasis on what What we'd have to look at is what they'd be losing with community ed space. Right. Right? And then Babe Ruth's space Yeah. Lead you know, they have their high school baseball team, stuff like that. But I think that changes that concept because they probably don't necessarily need those baseball fields as close to the like, again, like, we can put the road more because the kids aren't walking out after school to go out practice. They're probably being driven there if that's where they're gonna end up having practice.
Practice. I don't imagine kids going to play to Fayette if we put a road. If Main Street goes north right through the green space that is currently owned by the school district, they're not gonna go up there for Fayette at all. Yeah. Like, their their their release time or whatever they do. And I don't even know what they do in the middle and because that's elementary. That's k four now. Right. So I don't even know what they're you know? I said release time that makes it sound. So that that's why I was concerned about putting that road there and not going over to second because, again, it's just the school losing. They've already got a smaller playground for the kids,
and then they're gonna lose the RE space to the road. I mean, that's you know, I don't have kids in school anymore. Well, but and and again, those conversations are gonna be the important ones to have because they're again, when we when we turn this over to the when we turn this over, like, okay. So how do we reimagine it? And if we end up moving, you know, the existing infrastructure, what can we put in in its place? I mean, does if we move existing infrastructure, does that parking lot then just become a gigantic you remove the asphalt and you put in a playground. Mhmm. So the the the I mean, that's again, as we're planning this and bringing that forward to the school district,
that that needs to be the conversation that we have. Go ahead, Julie. I do have one more thing I I want you to kinda explain at the plan I was at the planning commission when you presented it and talk about the green one versus the one closer down or the one further up. If we don't follow what the infrastructure, you were talking about the cost. And, yes, there is a cost, but Yeah. Yep. And I'll I'll just add too. We did talk to the school district, to kinda get their thoughts on these alignments. And their preference was certainly the the northern alignment so that they would not have
to cross Eighth Avenue to get up to some of the area that might be the park. But, I think they were open to to kinda hearing, you know, whatever works best, I guess. They certainly weren't against anything, but they did have a preference, and so, yeah, when we're looking at, that central alignment that follows, where you have that existing sanitary sewer, so if you follow that alignment and put the road over the top of the existing sanitary sewer, then you really don't need to to do anything with it. If you don't follow that alignment, you would have an option to,
just abandon it. Put new sanitary sewer in underneath your new road wherever that may be, or you could leave it in place and keep it operational. You would just have to have easements. You'd have to have sewer easements over that. So you wouldn't want, anybody building a house over the top of that or any kind of structure. So that that determines a lot what you can do, you know, if you choose the Northern Alignment. Now you've got this easement where you can't have any homes in that area. So it's kind of like trying to to, you know, fit some of these random puzzle pieces together.
If you choose the Southern Alignment, I think maybe you've got a little more distance between there where, you know, you could have an easement over that sanitary sewer and it wouldn't affect some of the development options as much. But again, when we're, you know, we're talking about some sanitary sewer that's that's already there, if you abandon it, do nothing with it, and put a new sanitary sewer, you know, that's not gonna drive the cost of the new roadway up to the point where you wouldn't do it. And, you know, we're not talking millions of extra dollars to to do that. You would just be,
you know, you you would be out the cost of that existing that existing sanitary sewer. Mister Second, did you have a question? Go ahead, mister Second. Oh, this kinda goes along with the, school. I know it's so preliminary. But in your presentation, you mentioned that if the road went through the school property, they'd be losing a lot of their area right now. Are they you mentioned that they would need some I forget the word you used, but something to replace that with, essentially. Would that be something they would be dedicated?
I mean, you you really couldn't have a southern, roadway then, could you? If if if the school required you to exchange kinda exchange land if it's not probably exactly the right way to put it. You know, you could, but if you have to cross the road concern is with, yeah, you know, small kids crossing, one of your main roadways at that point. And I think that's Pete, and I think early on, you know, Pete had mentioned an underpass, as a way Pedestrian underpass. Pedestrian underpass. Right? Mhmm. As a way to access the park from from the south.
Mhmm. And, you know, those that's not cheap. But, again, it's part of that's a discussion of, you know, is it even an area that the school's realistically gonna use? What are their long term plans? I think there's a, you know, there's a pretty deep dive into what what the school's current and future planned operations are, as far as what they need and what they're willing to to kinda give up to, you know obviously, they know, I think, that it's this this is a a huge transformative thing for the entire community.
So I don't you know, in in talking with them, it it doesn't feel like they wanna get in the way of of things, but, obviously, they're, you know, they're looking out for their best interest as well and and their students. So, yeah, it's I I think that, like I said, their preference is for Eighth Avenue. If you're gonna build a new street to build it as far away from the school as possible. So whatever it might be on the South Side, you know, they they have easier access to it. But like you mentioned, miss Nash,
that that they're if we connect Main Street, they're gonna have to get across Fourth Avenue and Main Street to get over there anyway. So We just put a roundabout in at Main Street and Fourth Avenue. Yeah. Solve all the problems. I do have any other questions? I have another one. So when we look at the phasing end of this and and I get the logic behind the development driven and the pacing. But when we look at, you know, potentially working at, what, two miles with the roadway? Like, the Eighth Avenue Yeah. Two miles.
If we know that we're committed to option a, Is there any reason not to build it now rather than wait because in five years, it's gonna be more expensive? Or is it I mean, is that like, why would we wait? I no. If you're if you're committed, to, you know, and and you have the the the plan of what you wanna build, then it's just a funding Right. Thing. And and that's definitely a thing. Yeah. But at at the same time, if we look at, you know, phase one of what whichever route,
I mean, is it gonna be more cost effective to do it in 2025 rather than okay. Well, we did part of it in 2025. Now we're gonna do the other part in 2035. We saw it coming. We we we know what the plan is. I I mean, is that just a purely numbers game, or we worried about building a road to nowhere and have it sitting there? I mean Well, that's yeah. I mean, that's one one risk is as you build too much road, you know, prematurely and it doesn't get utilized, and then you're paying for maintenance of a road.
That, you're not getting the benefit of. But it almost it it could be a little bit of a if you build it, they will come scenario too where it could spur some development. As far as build it now versus later, obviously, things are never gonna be cheaper into the future. And the larger, you can put together of a project, the bigger of a project you can get done, you're gonna get an economy of scale. But, you know, it's gonna cost less per foot to install new storm sewer if you're installing 5,000 feet versus 1,000 feet. So things like that,
will obviously be a a cost savings by doing a larger project sooner. Yeah. I think our our phasing plan here, just basically denotes that there are some areas that are receiving higher pressure than others. And so if you, on here, the areas that are east of the park, there's some developments and, that are kinda sniffing around some developers about the utilization of that land. And then we, Metro COG and with the city have realized that the connection to Walmart is important, especially as the the construction of Highway 10 happens in the future,
making that direct connection there. The road is already stubbed there at Walmart so people can get from the city to, the shopping areas over over there, whether it be East 10 or Walmart or some of those other areas. So that's another important connection, and that's why it's, kinda listed as as one of those first those first things to happen. Alright. Thank you. Are there any other questions? Peyton? In somewhat tangent to the point that Michael was making in talking about the phasing, build it, they will come. The p the phase one on the far left,
Bob, Walmart, that one, I think, we can all say with certainty if that would receive utilization right away. The other ones are more develop driven, developer driven residential components about it. May take a little bit to realize the full you know, get get back the full impact of it. But, definitely, the connection at Walmart, we know we would have a lot of individuals utilizing it off of County Road 9. Yeah. Alright. Thank you, Pete. Anything else? Brent and Michael, thank you for being here tonight and and for the expedited study.
I know it was there was some pressure to get it done, so we appreciate all that effort, and honestly giving us some direction as we continue to move forward. So, thank you very very much. And with that, Peyton, do we we need a we need to accept this and move this into Do you need anything? Do you need anything from us? Appreciate that. A formal Motion. We didn't do a resolution or anything. A motion. We can call for a resolution if if you like something more formal like that, or otherwise, it can just be a simple motion, whatever you prefer. Simple motion. Very cool. Yeah. Some simple motion,
I guess, saying that you've signed off on a motion. To the accept the proposed Eighth Avenue Corridor study between Metrocock and Apex. There you go. Can I have a motion, please? Or I will entertain a motion, please. So moved. I have a motion by Nash Second. Second. And a second by Steichen. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carries. Again, thank you very much for everything, gentlemen. We look forward to, like, driving this forward. Great work by the MetroCard. Yeah. That was that's it's great to see you. Brent over to Apex and everyone and all the other consultants for the expedited time frame,
their hard work, and pulling it all together as fast as they did. Mhmm. That's good. Alright. So with that, we are gonna move on to 7 B. And with it being 650, what? 4? 4. We are going to, move it to 7 B. We have a public hearing resolution twenty five zero zero two, the approval of properties participating into your tax abatement. And at 06:54, we'll call the public meeting to order and start with staff presentation. Peyton. The city of Dilworth has been participating in the two year tax abatement program for
new residential construction over a decade now. This resolution would continue on this program through, well, I'm sorry. This is actually just approval of I think in November, you approved to extend it for two more years. This resolution right here is to approve the properties that are receiving the abatement. And as a reminder, these are for full valuations on the REIT. So, like, if you had a home constructed in 2023, but if they don't come out there,
they're talking about they the assessor's office from the county does not come out there and make the REIT on the property, until a later time. Once it's a % value, that's when you receive the abatement, which is a good the best type of incentive a property owner can receive. And we also apply this to our multifamily residential as well. K. Anything else from the staff presentation? No, sir. Alright. Thank you, Pete. And is there anyone in the audience to speak in favor of the resolution? Second call in favor? Is there anyone here to speak in opposition to the resolution?
Second call in opposition? Hearing no public comment, we will close the public hearing at 06:56 and go to council discussion. Questions, comments, or considerations from council? Yeah. No. Alright. Be there. I have that many homes. Right? It's actually it's kinda good. Kinda good. Kinda where we'll see where we go next year. But right now we're sitting there. And if there's no further discussion, I will entertain a motion for resolution twenty five zero two. Motion to approve. Motion by Nash. Second. Second by Borra.
All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carries. With that, it does move us to number eight. Eight alpha is resolution twenty five zero one accepting the donation from Holcomb. Did I say that right? Holcomb. Holcomb. For the donation, to the Delaware Fire Department. Chief Payne, thank you. Miss Rayer, members of the council, we received $450 donation from Holcomb, which is basically aggregate industries. It's a subsidiary of Holcomb, and we appreciate it. Not much more of the resolution speaks for a second. That's awesome.
That's awesome. Alright. Thank you very much, chief. Thank you. Any questions for chief from council? That's good. Awesome. With that, I will enter entertain a motion for resolution twenty five zero one. So moved. Motion by Nash. Second. Second. And second by Steichen. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carries. With that, it does move us to nine. Nine alpha is resolution twenty five zero three, accepting a donation from Essential Health Health for the Dilworth Police Department. Chief? Mister mayor, council members, we have graciously accepted a donation from Essential Health,
part of a new vision that we have for our mental health program. One of which has always been viewed as reactionary, like we have with the employee assistance program, something that the onus is on the officer to seek out some type of mental health with no way to really proactively gauge our department or any needs unless we do come across them in a just in a conversational setting. So one thing we sought out, especially in more recent events, was how can we find a more proactive approach to this mental health? Health. One is called,
it's a company I'll be presenting another time on Ally Connect, which is more of an application that we have access to where the officers it's an application on the phone. They can either just, go through a series of questions, seek some counseling that way. Most important part is that as the administrative chief, I will get a general feedback of the department. So that way I could take any necessary steps to say, hey, this is what we need. When I did reach out to Essentia Health for a it would be a contract
with the Ally Connect. Essentia Health graciously offered to cover the first year expense. In addition to we just had a Zoom meeting on Friday with them. They wish to extend this to all first responders in the county area, fire departments, medical, other law enforcement agencies, and in addition to take pay the additional two years for the contract. So they very much supportive of this mental health program that we are looking at. So today is just the acceptance of the check.
That's awesome. Yeah. Yeah. And and what was the name of the the program, chief? Well, the the company the contract's gonna be Ally Connect. That's a l l I connect, all one word. Awesome. Thank you. That's fantastic. That's fantastic. Any other questions for the chief? That's outstanding work, chief. And with no other questions or comments, I will entertain a motion for resolution twenty five zero three. So moved. Motion by Nash. Second. And second by Borra. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carries. Thank you. Thank you. With that it does move us number 10.
Committee council members concerns and committee updates around the horn. I had the honor of going over to the station having dinner served to me and my daughter, and we got a little tour. And building looks very nice, and she had seconds. So anytime an eight year old will have seconds or something, that means it was good for you. So thank you for the invite, and congrats on your new building or updated building. It looks great. Anything else? Mister Staffing here. Good. Nash? I don't really have anything from, MetroCog's working through some pieces with the funding.
But other than that, I think they'll be fine and onboard and going again. So that's what I'll have. Just a couple of quick comments. The building and grounds committee next week will be conducting interviews for the architectural design work for the community rec center project. We actually end up receiving 10 proposals. We'll be interviewing five different firms for this service. We're really pleased with the response level that we took in,
and, hopefully, we'll the billing grounds committee will be bringing forward a recommendation either at the next meeting, next city council meeting or the meeting thereafter, and then we'll get started. So the same is moving along rapidly. Those were all received in by Thursday afternoon, and everything's always already been evaluated. We're moving this thing right along. And I also want to make a note. This is our first time displaying out on YouTube. So we encourage everyone to subscribe to our YouTube channel at City of Dilworth,
and we'll get out a little more information on our social media feeds. But we're starting to house all of our content video content on our YouTube channel, and that'll be the form at which we will display meetings going forward. Anything else? No, sir. Alright. Thank you, Peyton. Just quickly, thank you, vice mayor Nash, for filling in, my absence of my illness. It's always nice to know that we'll never miss a beat. We're always in good hands. State of the Cities was fantastic. Like, grew a great recognition on the work that,
you know, we, the collective, we and the city of Dilworth have, accomplished in 2024. In a in a reoccurring question that was asked is what's next, and I'm glad that we're already working on our what's next. And again, that's a testament to the collective efforts that everyone works towards, every day to to making, you know, progress in in our great city. And with that, you know, I know we all I talked about where we see our city having our comments, you know, and the vision at one meeting, usually the second usually this meeting,
but illness is a funny thing. And I also know that we have our our, master planning committee meeting or whatever we get. Planning up. Yeah. Coming up next month and and maybe that's a more opportune time as as we bring everything together and we can articulate, our our vision as we move forward then. I I do think it's great. You know, we have some excellent opportunities coming up too with, the Building and Industry Association BIA event on Thursday along with the intergovernmental retreat with Clay County. I mean, it's a great opportunity to talk about what we're doing,
building our relationships, and continue to move this forward because we're gonna be working with the county and working with, you know, future builders, and it's it's just great opportunities to to highlight and showcase Stuart. So keeping us on track, is gonna be great fun in 2025. With that, I look forward to it. So I know we have number 11 and we are paying our bills. Are there any questions about the bills? Okay. Hearing no questions about those, I will entertain a motion to pay the bills. So moved. A motion by Nash. Second, Steichen. And a second by Steichen.
All those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carries. I I do wanna say one more thing because last year at the state of the cities, I made a comment about mental health. And we always talk about physical health and and, you know, my new year's resolutions, I'm gonna be, you know, new year, new me type stuff. And we try to get physically fit and we do all that stuff. Chief, I love this idea of taking care of the mental health of our PD, and I like how it's it's blossoming. And I think it's important, and we say it out loud that this is what we need to be doing. So continue to lead the way. That's outstanding. And with that, I have nothing further to say and no further business before this evening.
Call this meeting adjourned. I did want that on the record. Like, I I want