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2005-01-18 City Council minutesPage No. I January 19, 2005 CITY OF MENDOTA HEIGHTS DAKOTA COUNTY STATE OF MINNESOTA Minutes of the Regular Meeting Held Tuesday, January 18, 2005 Pursuant to due call and notice thereof, the regular meeting of the City Council, City of Mendota, Heights, Minnesota was held at 7:30 o'clock p.m. at City Hall, 1101 Victoria Curve, Mendota Heights, Minnesota. CALL TO ORDER Mayor Huber called the meeting to order at 7:30 p.m. The following members were present: Mayor Huber, Councilmembers Duggan, Krebsbach, Schneeman and Vitelli. PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE Council, the audience and staff recited the Pledge of Allegiance. AGENDA ADOPTION Councilmember Schneeman moved adoption of the revised agenda for the meeting. Councilmember Vitelli seconded the motion. Ayes: 4 Nays: 0 Abstain: 1 Duggan APPROVAL OF MINUTES Councilmember Schneeman moved approval of the minutes of the regular meeting held on January 4, 2005 as amended. Councilmember Vitelli seconded the motion. Ayes: 5 Nays: 0 CONSENT CALENDAR Coimcilmember Duggan moved approval of the consent calendar for the meeting, along with authorization for execution of any necessary documents contained therein. a. Acknowledgement of the Treasurer's monthly report for December 2004. b. Acknowledgement of the Approved December 8, 2004 Airport Relations Commission Minutes. c. Acknowledgement of the January 11, 2005 Parks and Recreation Commission Minutes. d. Authorization for issuance of purchase orders to Polar Chevrolet for a3/4Ton Pickup Truck for its low quote of $18,553.41 and a purchase order to Aspen Equipment for a plow for its low quote of $3,786.06. Page No. 2 January 19, 2005 e. Authorization for Mayor and City Clerk to execute a Professional Services Agreement with Bonestroo, Rosene, Anderlik & Associates for completion of the city's Local Surface Water Management Plan Update. f. Authorization for Mayor to execute a Joint Powers Agreement for Group Employee Benefits and Other Financial and Risk Management Services. g. Adoption of Resolution No. 05-04, "RESOLUTION APPROVING FINAL PLANS AND SPECIFICATIONS, AND AUTHORIZING ADVERTISEMENT FOR BIDS FOR THE SLOPE REMEDIATION PROJECT AT 2400 PILOT KNOB ROAD (JES BUILDING), PROJECT NO. 200409." h. Approval of the list of contractor licenses dated January 18, 2005. i. Approval of the list of claims dated January 18, 2005 and totaling $516,229.52. Councilmember Krebsbach seconded the motion. Ayes: 5 Nays: 0 GUN CLUB LAKE WMO Councilmember Schneeman introduced the following members of the Gun Club Lake Watershed Management Organization: Jerry Walrach, Chair, and members Jerry Engelke, Brent Troyer, and Todd Huebner, consultant to the Board. Councilmember Schneeman is the Mendota Heights representative on the board. Mr. Walrach gave Council an overview of what the WMO is about. A few years ago, Mendota Heights nominated a board member as did the Cities of Inver Grove Heights and Eagan. He stated that the board members are present to explain what the watershed is and what the board is doing. He then explained what a watershed management organization is, how a watershed organization differs from a watershed district, who the Gun Club Lake WMO is, the WMO's accomplishments thus far, and what its future goals and actions will be. The WMO is currently primarily focusing on its annual newsletter, a watershed plan update and helping to facilitate the Lebanon Hills Regional Park drainage issues. Councilmember Schneeman stated that one of the things the WMO is doing is plantings in wetlands areas, like the DNR did at Rogers Lake Park. Goose management is also a big issue right now all over the state. Page No. 3 January 19, 2005 Councilmember Duggan stated that there was a recent newspaper article about a 6,000 acre net loss in wetlands and he asked if that has occurred in Dakota County. Mr. Huebner responded that many of the counties within the metro area are in the 60-80% loss counties, and several areas in Eagan and Mendota Heights were impacted by development before the wetlands conservation act was adopted. Councilmember Duggan stated that as he understands the act, if an acre of wetlands is lost to development, it is required to replace that with two acres over a period of time in developing a wetlands area. Mr. Huebner responded that is the way the law is drafted right now. There are other opportunities also. The Gun Club WMO worked with the City of Eagan in the early 1990's to develop a wetland bank. The city went outside of its boundaries and built a series of wetlands and as they filled wetlands through development, they actually withdrew wetlands from the bank to offset the loss. XCEL ENERGY UPDATE Council acknowledged a memo from Administrator Danielson regarding a presentation from Ms. Collette Jurek, Manager of Local Government Relations for Xcel Energy. Ms. Jurek informed Council that Xcel employees were out late last fall doing some survey work on the transmission line that connects the High Bridge plant to the Rogers Lake substation. There was legislation passed in 2001 requiring emission reduction, so Xcel is converting the High Bridge plant from coal to a combined cycled natural gas plant to reduce emissions by nearly 100%. Xcel does not expect to start construction on the High Bridge plant until 2006, with anticipated completion in 2008. Xcel's transmission department was out surveying the existing towers to see whether the size of the line needs to be increased. Xcel is still in the very preliminary stages of the project, and she is here to ask for Council's comments or concerns for her to take back to the project team. Mr. Dave Dreelan, 871 Crown Circle, stated that he saw the survey crew and became concerned. He showed a photograph of the power poles he sees from his back yard and deck. He stated that he is present to see if Xcel is going to restring the lines or to try to clean things up a little bit. He hopes they will look at a way of putting in better looking poles or putting all the lines on one pole. Page No. 4 January 19, 2005 Ms. Jurek responded that the feasibility study is in such a preliminary stage that she doesn't have any information for Mr. Dreelan tonight. Xcel does not even know at this time when the feasibility study will be completed, but she will work, with property owners. Councilmember Schneeman asked if Xcel would be thinking of putting in the new style poles and whether there is a chance the lines could be buried. Ms. Jurek responded that it is very expensive to bury transmission lines and it would be very cost prohibitive. Councilmember Krebsbach asked how many Kv are on the line now and what it will be upgraded to. Ms. Jurek responded that she does not have that information this evening and does not know if the Kv will be upgraded. She believes it might be at 34.5 now but would have to look at Xcel's maps to know for sure. Councilmember Krebsbach asked what the route is for the power to the substation. Ms. Jurek responded that it originates at the High Bridge plant and it is transmitted out to the Rogers Lake substation. Councilmember Krebsbach stated that she voted against the power lines when they were coming in because Xcel could not give Council information on Xcel's long range plans. There are five power lines in Mendota Heights, and she would like to know Xcel's plans. Ms. Jurek responded that all she can tell Council at this time is that Xcel was out surveying last fall and is looking at upgrading the plant in St. Paul and that it will probably double the output from that plant. The transmission lines coming from the plant will need to be reviewed to determine if they need to be upgraded. Councilmember Krebsbach responded that is what happened when the Red Rock plant upgraded, and she is interested in knowing what Xcel's plan is for the Rogers Lake substation. She stated that her other question is if the gas line that runs through the city will be upgraded since the High Bridge plant is being converted to natural gas. Page No. 5 January 19, 2005 Ms. Jurek responded that she is not aware that any upgrading the gas line will be needed at this time. She informed Council that the Metropolitan Emission Reduction Program team is working on this program and she is not on that team but will get information for Council. Councilmember Duggan stated that he would appreciate an update in three to six months on EMF readings from the new lines that were installed from the Red Rock line. Residents were concerned about the potential negative impact of the much more powerful line. Councilmember Vitelli asked what the specific purpose of the survey was. Ms. Jurek responded that they wanted to inspect the towers, look at the lines and check the route to see exactly what is happening at the plant. She will return to Council in a couple of months with someone who has specific knowledge about the project. Councilmember Krebsbach stated that Council is wondering about capacity, since Xcel is upgrading the plant and is using the Rogers Lake substation. Councilmember Schneeman stated that Council wants to know what is going to happen with the Rogers Lake substation, including what its capacity will be. Councilmember Vitelli suggested that Council ask Ms. Jurek to return on a quarterly basis to give Council an update. Councilmember Krebsbach suggested that Ms. Jurek also bring an engineer who is familiar with the upgrade along with her to help answer questions. MAC 20/20 VISION Administrator Danielson informed Council that the Airport Relations Commission (ARC) has been discussing the MAC 20/20 Vision Plan over its last several meetings and has concerns, especially about how the increased traffic will impact noise over Mendota Heights. They would like to invite someone to their meetings or send letters to get someone to address the city's concerns. They would like to know what Council would like them to do to investigate the matter further. Mayor Huber stated that one of the things Council has struggled with is how to look at this and get questions answered and have an impact that will accomplish all of the city's desired outcomes. He feels the Page No. 6 January 19, 2005 Council would be best served to try to handle it in a coordinated fashion with the cities that are impacted. He called Mayor Ryback's office today, but his staff person has not yet responded. Mayor Ryback made a statement to the Senate committee last week. Council has a number of questions, the two biggest being if the footprint of the runway is the same but there is additional traffic on that runway, what impact will there be, and the other is the issue of a third runway coming up again. Council needs to pose these questions to MAC, and he thinks Council's best efforts would be to coordinate its efforts with the other impacted cities. Councilmember Schneeman asked if Council could get someone from MAC to come to a meeting so that Council can ask questions. Councilmember Krebsbach stated that Mr. Leveque was at the ARC meeting. Based on her recollection of the discussion at that meeting, the following are some of the important points. MAC plans to increase the capacity of the airport to about 600,000 flights and she asked him what the plan was to reduce the impact of noise to Mendota Heights. MAC does not have a plan. The impetus for this is economic development but they are not looking at changing any standard operating procedures. It is important for people to know that MSP is the same size as the Anoka County airport. It is one of the smallest airports in the country and has the seventh largest traffic in the world. Mendota Heights gets 65% of the flights. Council should not be timid in asking what MAC is going to do to reduce the impact. Bloomington will have some protection because the planes will not turn until they are 2.5 miles out. Over the north parallel runway, the turn can be mid runway. One thing MAC can do is to restrict turns until the planes are 2.5 miles out. Another feature that in some ways protects Eagan is that the centerline of the south runway is marked. The north runway has no marked centerline. Planes come out of the corridor probably 8 to 10 %. With the projected volume at the airport, if MAC changes the standard operating procedures to benefit Mendota Heights, such as staying in the corridor, that might generate a back up that would cause a 24 hour operation in order to get all the planes out. Mendota Heights needs to ask MAC to pay attention to the conditions on hours of operation, turning out of the corridor and quality of the aircraft. MAC is not making an effort to track the operations off the north runway. Also, there are 400,000 take -offs from the parallel runway, and that is the most in the world. Councilmember Krebsbach stated that this city accommodates a lot of the economic development and strength of the airport and Council Page No. 7 January 19, 2005 _ has the right to ask what their plan is. The number of flights going up to 600,000 will certainly impact more of Mendota Heights than is currently impacted. Councilmember Schneeman stated that she believes Congress is looking at traffic at all the airports. Councilmember Vitelli stated that he read the 20/20 report, and MAC's attitude towards neighbors of the airport is evident when one looks at the report. While they talk about their grandiose plans for gates and terminal facilities for the light rail, etc., there is not one reference to what they are going to do or at least makes evident their concern about neighbors to the airport. That reminds one of the current attitude of MAC, which is one of complete disregard for the residents of the cities that neighbor the airport and complete disregard for commitments that were made on noise mitigation. They are only interested in increased traffic and increased GNP for the State of Minnesota, increased jobs, but no concern for people around the airport. Councilmember Krebsbach stated that the reason we matter is because this is a very small airport, the same size as the Anoka County airport, and there is a claiming of land around the airport. Mendota Heights makes the airport possible and has a right to ask these questions. Councilmember Duggan stated that he attended the first of the meetings of the NOC, which has been in disarray over the last year over not being able to accomplish anything. They discovered that Mendota Heights has a video and that Mendota Heights has an ordinance on airport noise. Bloomington is now considering adopting one in relation to the 17/35 runway scheduled to open in October. There was a big question when he attended the meeting last Tuesday in relation to the 20/20 plan. One would think there was a halo over the airport in relation to how it was described. The problem is that there was not one mention in the report about the noise impact. He attended the MAC meeting today and again there was no mention about noise until he got up and spoke. There was an article in today's Minneapolis paper wherein the reporter stated that when Northwest says jump, MAC asks what altitude. The article was disparaging of what MAC does. The challenge Council has is, looking back at the efforts that have been taken over the years, is to see what Council can do that might be more effective and get better results. One of the first ways would be to look at the numbers in the 20/20 plan and examine the numbers they presented. He did that, Page No. 8 January 19, 2005 and they do not extrapolate out the 3% increase in operations. Using the base of 510,000 operations in 2003, there will be 688,000 operations in 2013 including the new runway. MAC projects 640,000 operations in 2020. He wondered why there is such a discrepancy as he sees it. MAC often tends to forecast in a conservative fashion. They have actually far exceeded their growth. When the city's video was done, MAC said that MSP was number 10 in the country and now it is now number 6 in the country and 7 in the world. That is a huge jump in three to four years. He thinks that Council needs to get after the legislators and invite them, with representatives from MAC, to talk to Council and give them some of this information. Council needs to go to the sources where the decisions are made. MAC says that 55 million people will go through the airport by 2020, and it will be much sooner than that. After the meeting today, he spoke to MAC Executive Director Jeff Hamiel, who told him that the numbers he projects are correct, but planes will be much quieter and smaller. He stated that he told MAC today that there will be a 66% increase in one area and asked them if that would mean a 66% in noise and they said no. He said they talk about a 25% increase in usage but it will actually be 33%. There is no word anywhere in the plan about what new mitigation efforts will be made and how much quieter the planes will be in the city's air space between now and 2007. He stated that Mendota Heights will be very noisy and Council needs to work with the ARC with a better foundational plan than currently exists. There is an effort to change the NOC bylaws to make it better structurally so that it can go forward in a hopeful manner rather than being disillusioned. He feels that Council should send a follow up letter to Mr. MacElroy to ask them to follow up. Council knows that the Governor and Northwest Airlines are working together and everyone agrees that Northwest is very important to Minnesota but no one is doing anything about noise. Councilmember Schneeman stated that just unveiled a huge plane in France that will carry 800 people and wondered what kind of facility and runway would be needed for those planes. Mayor Huber stated that Council can continue to go after MAC, but they are not receptive. He felt that Council needs to engage the legislators and also to get other cities to also contact their legislators and get legislative support for getting answers from MAC to the question of what these changes mean noise wise, footprint wise, whether there are runways to handle the increases. Council needs to try to get coordination of efforts to have enough of a presence for people to take notice. Page No. 9 January 19, 2005 Councilmember Krebsbach stated that Mendota Heights needs to get a standard operation procedure that benefits the city, including turns 2.5 miles out, a centerline marker so that there is more accurate noting of when planes go out of the corridor, and they need to report to the city what this increase means. Councilmember Duggan stated a key point is that the quality of life that people boast about in Minnesota is not available to those who live around the airport. Residents do not enjoy the same quality of life as other communities because of the air noise. Nothing has been done about it. The common good is being suborned to the business good, and there is no easy answer on how to balance those needs. He informed Council that the next NOC meeting is tomorrow at 1:30. Mayor Huber stated that Council should stay in touch with each other through the city administrator on this issue and that he will talk to Senator Metzen as well as Mayor Ryback's staff person. Councilmember Krebsbach stated that she would ask that Mendota Heights get treatment similar to Burnsville and Eagan, question whether the airport can handle the increased capacity, and ask what is the benefit to the region. Councilmember Duggan asked if there is a way to find out what the capacity of the airport is. Councilmember Krebsbach stated that she would like to know what the capacity is from 6:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m. COUNCIL COMMENTS Councilmember Schneeman commented that the city's ice rinks are in excellent condition and encouraged families to go out and use them. Mayor Huber informed the audience that the first annual Skate with the Mayor will be held on Saturday, January 22, from 11:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. at Friendly Hills Park. He stated that everyone is invited to join him and that hot cider and cookies will be provided. Councilmember Krebsbach informed the audience that last Thursday, Councilmember Schneeman presented a commendation to the St. Thomas Academy swim team. She also stated that she and her husband recently hosted Joel Maturi and Regent Metzen and Northern Dakota County University of Minnesota alumni, and that Page No. 10 January 19, 2005 was an opportunity for her to update the Northern Dakota County alumni and ticket holders on what is happening with athletics and the stadium. Mayor Huber informed Council that he will not be present for the next Council meeting. Councilmember Krebsbach informed Council that ADJOURN There being no fin they business to come before Council, Councilmember Schneeman moved that the meeting be adjourned to closed session. Councilmember Vitelli seconded the motion. Ayes: 5 Nays: 0 TIME OF ADJOURNMENT: 8:30 p.m. Kathleen M. Swanson City Clerk ATTES 4fa'yor