It is 5:30 and uh we're going to try and accommodate Craig here and get him out as early as possible even though we weren't invited. Um all right, with that I'm calling the meeting to order. This is the uh May 19th, 2025 city council work session for
Minatrista. Present this evening are myself. I'm Lisa Whan. I'm the mayor. And uh council president are Peter Vicky and Brian Govern. uh Claudia Lacy and um Kathleen Refkin will be joining us for a regular meeting but are currently not here. And then we have Allison Falsky,
our city engineer, Gary Peters, welcome back. Um our public works director, and um Ally Palfus, our ad assistant administrator, Jasper Krugal, our administrator, um David Ael, our um uh community development director, and then
Chief Craig Squires. I have to get Paul Falls was a lot easier to say. Um, so welcome everyone and we have two items uh for discussion on our work session. We're going to move ponds at Hunter Crest to number one and then
we're going to uh talk about the Red Oak neighborhood speed reduction request. So Ellison, uh thank you Mayor Will and appreciate your uh willingness to change up the agenda. Um included in your packet is a is a summary memo of um staff's correspondence with the
developer uh at the ponds at Hunter Crest. Um the the correspondence certainly dates back months before we sent out the letter. Um basically there are some uh items left on the the warranty punch list which is the the punch the the list of items um two years
after the development improvements were installed. Um things that the the developer should be cleaning up. and we just haven't had a response from the developer. So, staff worked with the city attorney's office as far as putting them on official notice. Um, that letter
is included in your packet. Um, we have not heard back from the developer at this point. So, we wanted to bring this item to council for a discussion and direction. Um there is an option as stated in the letter to the developer that uh the city can go ahead and do the
improvements and assess the cost back to the properties. Um when I I updated I provided some photos so that the council can see the extent of the work. Um, I also wanted to offer an option to the council that uh city forces could do the
majority of the work uh the restoration uh specifically and then there's a water valve that needs to be um raised, but the concrete work could not be done by city forces and we're estimating it would be around $2,500. Um and so and the the extent of
the concrete work is there's some some sidewalk panels that are damaged where the for example the corner would be chipped off. Um and then there's also some curb and gutter that's holding water. Um and then there's one section in particular that's in pretty poor
condition um around the edge of a road. Uh so we're looking at that item that would be done outside of city forces. um and just requesting council direction on how you'd like staff to proceed. Would you like um us to have to go forward
with, you know, getting getting the improvements done and assessing it back to property owners? We would certainly come back to the council with that um if that's the council's uh desire. Or would you prefer that public works perform the work that they can and then we would um
get a quote from a contractor to do the concrete work? Um and preemptively I did talk to the contractor that's in town for this year's street improvement project and they would be interested in providing the city um a quote for that work. So um we do have some options to
explore if that's the direction council would like to see. So you say um assessing it back to the properties which properties? Well, that's a good question, Mayor Whan. So, um, you know, certainly I I would defer to the city
attorney's office, but, um, there there are a couple of lots out there that are that are still vacant. Um, the entity that owns them is not listed as the entity that the city entered into the development contract with. It appears there's a relationship between the two
of them. Um, but we would have to work specifically with the city attorney's office to see if that cost would be spread equally among all the properties within the development or if the city um if there would be an option to just assess it to the two vacant parcels. I
would not be in favor of assessing it to all the part parcels because those property owners, they bought their homes, they paid for their homes, they paid for their houses, etc. it is not their fault that this is a really bad developer and I think it just
would be unfair. I that's so I'd rather if we could if if those two parcels are owned by Quadrria I or or a a subsidiary of Quadriga then we should assess those two parcels. Okay. Or is there some other
way of assessing Quadrria directly? Um well I think part of part of the challenge and one of the reasons that staff wanted to bring it to council's attention is when we start looking at the cost the administrative cost of going through with that process if the council is comfortable with moving
forward with that knowing that um you know there while there's a cost associated with the public works department doing that work um that there you know is is the $2,500 estimated for concrete work um
comparable like you would you would occur you would incur a lot of attorneys you're saying for the 2500 but so we can't assess them for the work that public works is doing well I think you could but I again I I don't know what the administrative cost would be but there there would certainly be some
administrative costs associated with doing that um and I was hoping to provide council with enough information of you know is it is it worth spending those those legal fees engineering fees etc. to get the work done. Or is, you know, is the cleaner option to have
public works do the work and and you know, there's $2,500 worth of concrete work plus public works time. Plus Exactly. Yes. Thank you. Plus the time for They're not free. True. If if I may,
we we are holding a um payment for a final CO escrow as well for Oh. of $5,000 is what we're holding. We that was they the final, if you remember, there was a woman who came in here. Yeah. Right. She got her final CO,
right? They have that eligible, but we've held on to that just for this reason. But doesn't uh Quadrria have to reimburse her the 5,000 or No. No. Uh that goes to Quadriga. So Oh, okay. So we could hold on to that and use that.
Yeah. The intent is to try to um provide that to be an incentive for them to come and do the work. I don't think we can use it. We can't use it for this. That's what I thought. That's what I thought. You can hold it and try to get them to the table, but we can't use it for that.
Yeah. Yeah, that's what I thought. Okay. So, we're trying to do what we can to get them to do this. I mean, we've handd delivered notices and um it's just unfortunate there hasn't been a response. So, we wanted council direction at this time. Okay. I did notice that they had a different
address than the the Baker Road address that's in this letter. Yeah. So, it's been um uh there there have been a number of changes of address from, you know, doing research online even just to find out if there's a nexus between the
um the real estate company that owns the two vacant parcels and the developer. Um so, there's been a lot of address changes and so that's been a challenge, too. Um, but the long and short of it is, I mean, I've I've been in contact. I hand delivered a notice to this developer
back in September um at their office on Baker Road and they didn't respond. So, it's, you know, it's getting to a point where we just need to we need to resolve this. We've really tried to extend um the best foot forward and trying to be cooperative with them, but when they're
not responding, it you know, we we need to go that next step. And what's staff's recommendation? Um, well, Mayor Whan, I I think the I think the path of the least resistance and the way to get this resolved um is
for public works to to do the work and then um take a look at what we can get for pricing on that concrete work. Okay, I'm fine with that if the rest of the council is fine with it. Except I want Gary, you tell us what you when they do this work, how much money it costs us
basically in time and materials because if it comes down to it and we have to prove that we spent x number of dollars, I want to be sure that we have those numbers. Yeah, we'll do that with a work order through our cardograph. It'll figure everything out for us. So Okay. Yep. Okay. And do you have the
everything? Yeah. And you have the time to do this? Sure. It needs to get done. So, we we're'll work in our schedule. Okay. All right. That's good. Yep. For me. Go ahead,
Govern. You're okay. All right. And if we can somehow or other get our money from them, I think we should. This make me mad. Yeah. They kind of piss me off. You can strike that for the record. And And I've I've been I you know, perhaps
we could work with staff if we if we keep track of public works time. will have an invoice for concrete work. You could attempt to invoice them for for the charges. Um but I I think when we look at it um for the residents that are out there and some of the challenges
that they've you know some of them have faced um I think this is a wise direction to go in and and try to get everything buttoned up in there and Yeah, I I agree. I think we agree. So all right. All right. Thank you. Okay. Next we have um speed limits on in Red
Oak. Yes. Uh, madame mayor, member, members of council, um, there's a request uh, that the city received from the Red Oak neighborhood. Um, Alisa Webb of Sharper Management Company um, mentioned a petition. I haven't seen a
petition, but maybe there's one floating around out there. Um, that requested that this neighborhood, and if you're not familiar with it, you can kind of see the photo on in the staff report. Um there's a section of that neighborhood that that has been designated 20 miles
an hour. Um and this goes back to 1969. So there's a there's a long that neighborhood isn't part of Red Oak. Um that Grand View area is not part of the Red Oak neighborhood. Sure. Technically, yes. Uh what they're saying is that people use that road to get into the
neighborhood and and it's inconsistent with what's all in there. So, okay. Their request was that everything in the neighborhood in Red Oak is also 20, the same as Grand View. So, that was their request. Um, I kind of went through some of the Is Red Oak 20? No, the Grand View
on the south side that isn't technically part of what was developed. Okay, that's 20. And that's where that 1969 ordinance comes into play along with a lot of other if you ever were, this was new to me and I was interested in it because there's a lot of areas in town that are signed 20 only 20. Yeah. You know, so
and I Gary has all the records and he found he found that out and see if you look at the ordinance from 1969, you can see the neighborhood. Some of them exist yet and some don't. Some don't even I I couldn't even I didn't even recognize some of the roads. Yeah. Some of them names have been changed and stuff like
that. But Red Oak too yet or um Grand View was the dead end too. It wasn't even connected because Yeah, that's right. It went to the golf, you know, that was up to the golf course. So that's why it was 20. Yeah. Right. It never went through. It never went through. Y So, there's a little history there about the 20 mph zones. Um, I
also, uh, included this Minnesota House Research Group paper on on what we can do as a city. In a nutshell, if we want to reduce it from 30 to 25, we can do that um, via ordinance and we can just we can just do that
unilaterally. Um, we can't go below that. So 25 is the max. So there's no way one the request of going from 30 to 20 in the area. We we just can't do but other options would be to reduce that neighborhood to 25 and maybe move the
Grand View up to 25 to make them all the same. Um or just leave Grand View and make or you could just leave it. Um and we we've talked about it. I think I included some language about you know have we run into speeding issues in that neighborhood? And the answer generally is no. Uh we're not issuing citations.
we're not pulling people over for speeding in there. And at the end of the day in a neighborhood like this, it's the it's the residents that are living there. They're the ones that would be speeding. Um you know, there might be some delivery trucks. You know, maybe um we get that once in a while. Uh but
generally, it's the people that live in the neighborhood who are driving on those roads going in and out. Um, so, uh, I guess I'd like to respond to to Lisa Webb, um, about her petition or her her request. Um, and I'll I'll go from
there. We have David and and Craig and and Gary here as well to answer any questions about speeds and speed limits. I just know another thing I'll point out, if we do change one neighborhood, there very well likely will be other neighborhoods. And well, we've already
had a request from um a late lady over on Scott, I think. I think it was Scott. Okay. Yeah. So, it I guess the if if we set a precedent of of moving to 25, we'll likely get more requests for
going to 25. And there's some costs with um the signage that's required. Uh you know, things like that. So, um, what are, uh, speed limits in similar new neighborhoods like They're all 30. Yeah, they're all 30.
Yeah. Yep. Yeah. I'd just be afraid of the I think there'd just be an avalanche of requests. But is that bad? I'm just wondering. Um, I mean, I'm I don't know. I'm just for discussion sake. I don't
Yeah. And I did send out a little report that Mindot put together um this morning. I don't know if you had a chance to look at it, but really in an in, you know, the truncated form, reducing the speed limit by 5 miles an hour doesn't make people drive any slower. That's what they found with all
these traffic studies that Mindad and other communities have done. So, if it's uh you know, something that you're looking for to to to drive change as far as habits and behaviors go, it likely won't do that. It's enforcement that
would change that. Maybe it it could if people are actually speeding. One of the things I noticed, so I drove through there and 30 is pretty fast to go through those that neighborhood. I mean, it is. I I agree. But on the other hand, like you said, enforcement is the other
issue. But I also noticed there were no speed signs period. I think you had put a temporary one out there. Well, the temporary one was put up because they were going to put their speed indicator sign up there. Yeah. They hang them on there, but Brad was having trouble with it that day and I think they sent off
for repair and I don't know if it ever got put up, but yeah, I mean that that's that's why that temporary was put up there because it was right down the street from a different one. So, okay. So, I'm wondering if we shouldn't at least sign it the 30 so that it reminds people. I don't got a pretty big sign
coming in for 30 already. I mean, there's a big sign as you come in that's says 30 right on the pole. I mean Okay. And we we had the same thing when I was at Chanhasson. They had the same issues. And I know Carver County went out and ran radar and all that and issued
tickets to everybody that lived in the neighborhood because it's the neighborhood residents that are the speeders. Yeah. They're the issue. They're the problem. They need to I'm I'm just going to say it wholeheartedly. I mean, my neighborhood, they go flying by my house. Yeah. But it's the people that live farther down. It's in our
neighborhood. I mean, it's just, you know, unfortunately, don't have your kids play in the street and talk to your neighbors about slowing down. I mean, I 25 isn't going to make a difference. I'm sorry. It just it it won't neither will 20. Yeah. The data says that if it's 25,
they're still going to go 30 or 35. It's it's enforcement that might make a change. And Madame Mayor, member of councils, I I would just add that our Gary's correct, our speed sign was down. Okay. Well, we did put it off for a small portion of time, a couple of days
when we got it working again, and speeds were between 22 and 17 m hour. So, in that small time frame, we saw nothing egregious. Yeah. One thing that was interesting, so on Grand View, so as you leave the development, you're you're in
there and you're going out towards Grand View. There is no speed sign for Grand View. Now coming in off a county road whatever 19 there is a speed sign. So maybe what we
need is a speed sign for 20 m hour on Grand View on this end as you're you know what I'm saying cuz there is none going that yeah we normally don't sign you know a small neighborhood like that very much. I mean, Woodland Cove gets more because we have longer stretches of
road and there's more. But smaller neighborhoods like this, like South Saunders, North Saunders, there's one as you enter and we really don't because most 30 anyways, but we can put one coming the other way for 20. I mean, that's fine. Well, I'm just wondering if you can enforce 20 miles on Grand View
if if they're going they're going whatever east, I guess, on Grand View. If it's it's marked 20 and it's but it's not marked this that direction though. I I think what Mayor Whan's saying is I think the transition from 30 to 20 as you're exiting right that there's maybe
not a sign there. We could we could put one there and we could put a 30 on the other side. I mean across from it so that they know the neighborhood's 30. I don't or leave it as 20 but we could put a 20 coming up the other way. That's not a big deal. I believe there we probably have a post or something there we could
put it on. Okay. I was just wondering from a um legal standpoint if you can enforce it if there's no sign uh for the 20 m per hour zone. Yeah, that makes it a little more difficult because 30 is the average. So, um maybe we should at
least put a sign there. We could I I don't know how many people are going over 20 too often through there, but certainly would make if you have more signs, it definitely makes enforcement easier and stronger in court. I mean, if it's not a huge cost. No, I mean I had
it figured out. I don't know what it is right off hand, but what it our time to go out and put it in what it costs. I mean, my guys are going to be here anyways, but yeah, mean a sign. I think I think the posts are 40ome dollars total and I think the sign is 30. Okay.
So, for the for the actual post hardware and sign, you're probably talking a h 100red bucks. Okay. You know, and then you'll have to put a locator in, go out, dig it, put it in and stuff. But okay, it's it's about an hour and a half, two hours for two guys to by the time you're
all said and done. So if nothing else, maybe people driving on going out on Grand View might see that 20 m an hour sign and then think that the rest of Red Oak is 20 miles, but you want it so as you're coming on to Grand View right before the park where it transition, you
want another 20 right there. Yeah. Yep. Okay. We'll we'll get one in there. Okay. And it doesn't have to be immediate, but maybe in the next. Well, we'll put the we got to put a locate in. It takes three, four days for them to get everything located and then we can put money in. And is that ordinance that makes the speed limit 20? Is that still
valid or that? That was my question. Uh because there's been some changes as just as far as the structure go like the I forget like the highway commissioner or something like that is what they were called. Now mind has jurisdiction. Um it is they're grandfathered in. um they're
legal. At some point, somebody could challenge it if they don't like it and maybe it go all the way to the Supreme Court. I don't know. But they are valid right now. Um and I don't think we want to change a a low speed to a higher speed if we don't have to. Then you're going to get a lot of um kickback. You
know, you're going to get a lot of push back from residents. And I think um you know if we know now and the police know that this might be an issue. So I think they'll probably be out a little more frequently once we have these signs
posted and so on. And the speed. So Craig, does the speed sign, does that really work? I mean, do people really slow down? They do on occasion, but the way we've been using it in in um issues like this is we put it in stealth mode so the speed doesn't even come up
because then people don't notice it. So they're driving more naturally like they would normally drive without the speed sign up. Um there are other times of course in areas where we will have the the speed sign up where people can see how fast they're going. Yeah, but in studies like this where we want to pull
some statistics, then we tend to just do it in stealth mode cuz people don't see it and then they're driving just how they would normally drive. So there's also these things that I've seen, you've probably seen it, too. We have time so and I'll let you go to your party, but um so on the So there's a speed sign and
then underneath there's the it says what speed you're going and sometimes it says slow down. It never says that for me. Um sometimes I think it said something said slow down. So, I mean, do those kind of signs
really work? You know, I I mean, I'm just wondering. It's it's probably sub it's it's it's probably subjective. I mean, our sign will start blinking at you really fast if you're going too fast, you know, kind of go into hyper mode and whatnot. Um, but I think
generally, you know, generally probably not. I think the signs we maybe they just slow down for that little bit and then yeah then they speed up twice as fast there there's a few studies I know Allison's not here but she could probably speak to those better than I can but uh people generally get used to them especially if they're permanent in
a neighborhood they just start doing old habits. So maybe right away they maybe change it a little bit but after a while they kind of go back to what the normal few tickets might help. Yeah. But and and and we we did run um a five-year study and we've had very very few
traffic complaints coming from the residents up there. Okay. So, it one of the nice things with those signs is it does show for the neighborhood what the speed is cuz sometimes visually you think somebody's doing 40 miles hour, but then you see the sign, it's like, okay, they're really only doing 25. So,
it can fool the brain sometimes, especially coming around corners and whatnot. Cars look f like they're going faster. So, yeah. Um, you know, our sample size is pretty small, but we're not again seeing anything egregious speedwise and we're just not getting a ton of speeding complaints coming from the neighborhood. I think it's just that
there are a bunch of kids in that neighborhood running around all the time and are probably hyper sensitive to it. Yeah. But I think Brian's comment then it kind of opens up a floodgate. So, yeah. All right. So, we'll keep it we'll
put up we'll do a little enforcement. We'll put up the 20 mph sign and hopefully things will calm down. Sounds good. Okay. Um, anything else? I don't have anything else. Wow. Fast.
All right. Um, then we can be adjourned and we'll be back in a little over an hour and uh celebrate um swearing in four. We have four, right? Uh, yes, Madam Mayor. Uh it'll be myself, uh Deputy Chief Cummings, and then Sergeant Scriggs and Brown. Yeah,
be four of us. So, good. Oh, and I'll talk to you offline just real quick how you want to do that. All right, with that, is there a motion to adjurnn? Thank you. Seconded. Thank you. All those in favor signify with I. I. All those opposed? Motion passes. 300. So,
Craig, I just wanted to ask you, so do you want to swear? We'll swear everybody in one at a time. Yeah, that's what I'd like. Just kind of a team effort where we're all up at the same time. Oh, you want everybody at the same time? So, my idea would be to call all four of us.
This is how we do it. If they uh and then it just I think it makes Hey, call that guy. Pass the dog. Okay. Okay, that's fine. And then I was going to ask you, so Paul usually did a um brief um
Oh, intro. Yep. Okay. Do you want me to do your intro? Yeah. You know what? in instead of um doing four different Perfect. Yeah, I mean it should open up I bet there's I just kind of wrote a speech if it's okay with you. Basically, do whatever you want. So, well, so I I
kind of want to bring this I'm sure it is. So, I I talk about, you know, as supervisors, we have 70 years. Okay. Yeah. We have 200 years. So, Okay. Perfect. All right. Thank you. In each individual and I talked to these guys a couple times and said, "How do you want to do this?" They're comfortable with
that. Okay, that's good then. So, um it's just a short little intro I'll do and then at the end I'll just uh if it's if it's okay with you I'm just going to ask um us to come up and then I'll say madame mayor will you please do the honor swear in okay but that works and then I I'm not sure if you have I have
that y that's our supervisor one and yeah I think it'll be good quick um I I will have copies no I mean you get the same oath it's the same oath for everybody well This one's for super
um as a leader of administr. Okay. So that that's that's just you're not even home yet. Yep. Okay. So it's it's different from supervisors. I have a copy. You do? Okay. Perfect. You need this? I have a copy. I didn't Do you
have a copy? Because I'll just burn a couple extras just in case. So So yeah. So I think it'll be good. Um, sounds good. And then when what? Well, just I mean I don't know how much because I'm going to try to get
everybody back here. What time is it now? Hopefully within a half an hour. You don't want to don't worry about it. It's fine. 40 minutes. Half an hour seems like a long time. All right. Cuz we're flushing like a bastard. There could be when I say get everybody here. Oh my god. We opening our connection
mode and it's just I might try to get a few. So I think we'll have a pretty especially with all right Brown having like 10 kids. So his family alone will fill up half this place. So flushing whenever you get here
is fine. 6:30 64 get all that bad mound water out. The water looks disgusting. That could happen. Obviously they can. Yeah. My goal now pockets we got in there too. So everybody's going to have it. But I'm sure that's because we backed down from
All right, cuz we're pushing from the main break. A quick tour, then we'll head over here. We'll just be ready for water softener calls. We already got one. The faucet ain't working. Sure. It's got an air gap in it. Hang on.
Got to the HOA people told don't wash any clothes tonight. Yeah. So, we're good. that uh house fire was uh which one now? There was one in Mound. Um it was in
Mound though. Yeah. Good. And it was it was a small garage thing that put out with a fire extinguisher, but while we were doing a bunch of the water stuff having to to we open the interconnect up and it's like nice lovely brown one
mound water in there. That water's just so nasty. I know. I don't even know how they can how they Well, they we open the interconnect up. We had the hydronone open and when they flushed it for damn near 20 minutes for it even tried to even clear up enough to make it look halfways decent. It was
just so nasty. Yeah, that's a And they pay big bucks to drink that water. I know it. Well, theirs their rates are damn near darn darn near close to ours. I mean, for an average for an average user, it's uh
they're more Wow. Wow.