[0:02] **Joe Wicklund:** and again we really appreciate everybody's patience on this as we work through this process during uh during a pretty unique time uh dealing with the pandemic i'm going to pull up our presentation for tonight again at this point we won't do questions in the middle we'll do questions at the end can we see the powerpoint mr mulder yes perfect all right again my name is joe wicklund i'm going to cover the very beginning part of this before i turn it over to david wolf our city engineer and john mulder our i've got a little bit of feedback that i'm going to check real quick you've got you've got a couple of [0:47] **John Mulder:** participants that came in late joe [0:47] **Joe Wicklund:** yep i'm going to hop in and i got to stop sharing for just a second make sure we're again i'd ask folks who are at home especially after i've shared the screen to mute their devices that way uh we don't have to jump in and out but again a lot of latitude and lot of grace tonight as we as we pull this together so let me jump in again to our presentation tonight and we'll start with uh this slide which folks who are a part of our first presentation on the johnson carlson portland alexander and hermantown road project that finished up earlier this fall got used to seeing [1:34] **Joe Wicklund:** this slide our calendar that we originally wrote out to you in our first public information meeting has obviously got some changes on it obviously we're meeting later uh the pandemic has a great deal to do with that uh process but most importantly we've reached a point where david [2:07] **Joe Wicklund:** and we're back right [2:07] **John Mulder:** yes yes [2:07] **Joe Wicklund:** we used to joke when i was at st scholastic as a student and as an employee that uh patience is one of the lesser known benedictine values that we'll be tapping into tonight so [2:28] **Joe Wicklund:** so the uh the ever changing calendar but most importantly we've reached the point where we can they said bring david in and talk about the work that's been done that is as uh less theoretical and started to be in process anything that we talk about tonight um and any feedback david and john get will end up before the city council uh during one of the two january meetings and that's where um plans and orders um would be approved and advertisements would be sent out for construction bids uh some of this history my friends like robin munch who've been in meetings with us quite a bit have seen before but we always need to start out at the beginning in case someone's joining us for the first time but the road improvement plan [3:14] **Joe Wicklund:** kind of came into being for two reasons one multiple community engagement surveys have shown that roads uh are the number one issue to residents in our community the last two years we've done these we've been below 50 percent of our community saying that the roads are good and excellent so they're really kind of the number one issue to residents across uh our community and then david will dive into this in a little bit a second but it fit the ability to make the road improvements that we really hope to make community-wide is something that goes far beyond just you know the regular taxes paid and the regular uh budgeting done at the city level so the long-term financial management plan that was approved by the city council in march of 2019 uh john will talk a little bit about this but it really took it [4:01] **Joe Wicklund:** the plans for what we had as a community to a level where we could reconstruct roads so that they would be good and excellent which led to the city-wide inventory of roads where's the volume and at this point i'll turn it over to uh city engineer david wolf to talk about how they uh executed and ranked our roads uh in the community to determine where we were going to target our efforts first david [4:47] **David Wolf:** okay thank you joe again my name is david wolf from the hermantown city um so what i'd like to start out tonight with is our road improvement plan how we got to that point is we needed to inventory all of our roads that we had within the [4:47] **David Wolf:** city and in in 2015 we inventoried and ranked each road and we ranked them one to five one being a new road and five being a deteriorated or failing road um and then we looked at um how do we how do we treat each of these roads that are ranked and you know the ones that are one and two we wanted to extend the life of the road there's still a lot of life in him but we wanted to extend it further the the ones that were three um needed attention to and then the ones that are four and five would be qualify for reclaim and overlay or a full reconstruction and this table on the right side of your [5:34] **David Wolf:** screen shows the different sections of road that we have we have 164 different road sections under our um inventory some of them are gravel some of them are um rural bituminous meaning there's no shoulders or no excuse me no curb and gutter and then the urban sections are the ones that have curb and gutter and some with sidewalk so with that um joe let's head to the next side please so here here here's a slide on the improvement strategies for the roads ranks three through five so when we looked at this inventory the roads that were one and two we we knew we had some maintenance but they [6:21] **David Wolf:** weren't uh streets that are in dire need of repair so we focused on the ones that were three through five and the improvement strategies for those roads in those conditions were usually one of these three um options one is a mill and overlay where they pick up the blacktop haul it away and they put new blacktop down the second being the reclaim and overlay which they actually grind up part of the the road and then we reuse that and then the third option is the full reconstruction so the proposal on the levate junction project is a combination of the reclaim and overlay on the west end [7:06] **David Wolf:** and then full reconstruction on the remainder of the project okay joe [7:06] **Joe Wicklund:** so i think this one's john's gonna take yeah and at this point let's hand it over to we'll talk a little bit about how we afford uh and pull off a project of this magnitude in hermantown john mulder our city administrator will take over now [7:52] **John Mulder:** yeah so back in uh 2015 after we had done that road inventory um we started talking about well how are we going to um deal with these the need to um fix these roads and we also looked at just a larger scope is how do we um use and maximize [7:52] **John Mulder:** the various sources of revenue that we have to accomplish what the priorities that the city council had so we looked at um all kinds of things in terms of what were some of the aspects that we needed to deal with so we looked at what our existing debt was we looked at future debt that we knew of we knew about capital improvement we said well tax base is going to grow but by by how much we looked at operating expense when are we going to need to add another police officer when will we need to add additional help and maintenance uh in the public works area and so we looked at those and we looked at our current financial policies and the idea there was to help us make better decisions about our budget so that they were fitting in [8:39] **John Mulder:** with our priorities that we weren't doing something this year and then a year later it had to be undone or didn't make sense anymore so trying to have something beyond just that annual budget and it helps maintain our assets um it provides you know some clarity and a more defined purpose of where we were trying to get to as opposed to again just that annual budget thing and one of the one of the things we looked at a lot was that um the use of the various funds that we have we have different sources of revenue but they're they're restricted on how we can use those but we wanted to talk about how can we best use those and how can we best accomplish our [9:24] **John Mulder:** priorities so so we did that and then finally in march of 2019 is um the city council adopted that and that really lays the groundwork for the road improvement plan [9:24] **Joe Wicklund:** thanks john and john you can you can dive in on this and i know david can speak to this too but you mentioned the different revenue sources and they have some limitations kind of walk us through what you're saying [9:24] **John Mulder:** yeah so as we looked at that it's like so how could we possibly find road improvements well we could do assessments we could just do general tax levy we've got municipal state aid which is specifically designed for roads but only state aid roads so not just not every street is eligible [10:09] **John Mulder:** for a state aid road so in hermitage an example is arrowhead and ugstead those are city streets that are state aid roads part of hermantown road is that way part of steubner is that way so we could use state aid for those kinds of streets one of the topics we always talk about in hermantown is the fact that we don't get local government aid our neighbor to um in duluth gets millions of dollars in aid we don't receive any people know that we have a sales tax but that sales tax is limited by statute and by the legislature to the trunk sewer some water upgrades that allowed us to build this facility the city hall building and then also the wellness center [10:55] **John Mulder:** we have a water and storm water and sanitary utilities but those are those revenues only go to fund those operations and maintenance and upgrades and same with the streetlight utility fund we receive money from minnesota power and we use that to maintain our street lights and our single system so we have all those funds but they're for specific purposes and then in this process we can use okay maybe we can use the water funding part of this or maybe we can do stormwater for part of this we just try to maximize all of those funds in order to get the best product we can get [10:55] **Joe Wicklund:** thanks john i'll turn it over to david wolf we'll talk about um [11:42] **David Wolf:** you know the city standards in terms of roads before we dive into what they've seen on the lake junction david hey yep thanks joe so this this is our hermantown rural standard so this throughout the history of the city we've had standards most recently in 2017 we updated our construction standards part of that standard is the both the rural and urban roadway sections so what we're what we've proposed to the the council is to stick with our um rural typical section for a roadway which includes a 24 foot wide road with two foot wide shoulders [12:28] **David Wolf:** on either side so okay thank you this this next slide is just kind of a overview of the the costs on how we get to the you know the construction costs and the what we call soft cost the engineering and permitting and um contingencies so estimated project cost is 2.1 million dollars and then the bottom of this um shows how we propose to fund the construction of this project so as john stated earlier we we can put [13:14] **David Wolf:** use some money from our stormwater utility fund for driveway culverts and ditches the water utility fund to extend the water main to a vac road and we have approximately 40 parcels that are accessible at the 9750 per parcel and then the general levy um takes the you know the bulk of the the project cost here so that's how the the 2.1 um gets funded [13:14] **Joe Wicklund:** perfect thanks david now i can jump back in here because uh it's a part that gets asked to me in my role as the community uh engagement manager and communication director but what that assessment total means uh [14:00] **Joe Wicklund:** is that 9,750 dollar assessment um can be either paid up front once it becomes finalized which in this case won't be uh for almost a calendar year uh we just finalized the assessment role for the project on johnson portland carlson alexander and hermantown roads and it was at 9750 for them it doesn't have to be a one-time payment obviously it can be rolled onto your property taxes uh at four percent interest over 15 years and that payment annually then works out uh to 876 dollars and 93 cents um there have been different versions of this slide that folks have seen as we were working through the first year and with levate junction being obviously [14:47] **Joe Wicklund:** a road we knew we were going to do on the front end of this project in the second year some of you might have seen 10 years and 5 but this is where we landed we were able to get 15 years and four percent through the hard work of kevin orme and the folks in our finance department um and again we're seeing that first round of folks who are some choosing to pay it up front and some having it rolled on to their assessments for 2021 on the roads that we completed in 2020. [15:17] **John Mulder:** so joe if i could just talk just briefly about that before we go too far yeah as you saw in that previous slide we're going to maximize our use of the stormwater funds that we can apply to that um the water utility fund for that water improvement you see the assessments and and part of that is because there's benefit to these individual property owners having that new road but but you're not the only ones who use it everybody in hermantown and even people outside of town could potentially use your road and so that's why you know we put you know 1.5 million of the general levy and how we do that is we um we'll borrow the money and have debt service to pay that 1.5 million off over 15 years and that's kind of why we have the assessment [16:03] **John Mulder:** there as well that at 15 years that's kind of the that service schedule that we would use for that so so again it's a mixture of different funds the assessment for the benefit that we the property owners get with the new road and then everybody pays um to use that road as well through the general levy okay so you can go back [16:03] **Joe Wicklund:** thanks john we'll hand it back to david wolf now to get into some of the very specific details from the work that uh him and the engineers have done on levate junction and what they're seeing already david [16:49] **David Wolf:** okay thanks joe so again um we we've realized that um levate junction was one of the one of the poorest condition roads [16:49] **David Wolf:** in the city and we needed to you know in during this 30 percent phase of the project we've um looked into a variety of the the uh underlying conditions out there in which include there's on the the east end there's some wood corduroy that supports the road through that wetland area um i think we're all aware of there's there's ledge rock on that um on those two crests those large hills towards the east and and most of the pavement is in uh disrepair meaning it's it's beyond its useful life and from a safety standpoint the the [17:36] **David Wolf:** vertical curves meaning that the up and down of the road do not meet um 25 mile an hour design standards so that's that's one of the the big um parameters that we've um had to deal with in this this 30 percent design piece so we can go to the next slide please there we go so we've kind of broken this this project we i'm showing four segments here but it really can be broken down into into two um segment one is the western about one thousand feet and that's what we're stating to be a reclaim and [18:22] **David Wolf:** overlay this section was rebuilt when they put the sanitary sewer down there so it's it's in fair condition it is um it hit it has settled over the trench and if you notice when it rains there's a long um stretch of water that sits in that in that section and then segment two three and four will all slated to be a full depth reconstruction which means we will be digging down two feet putting in um new sand in class five and blacktop and all all the sections would be uh [19:08] **David Wolf:** widened to 24 feet of driving width and then two foot shoulders okay joe so i i hope i can explain this well to everybody but this is um uh what we call a profile of the roadway and joe maybe for um if you could point to the top of the hill there right there is um i think we call wall-e's driveway there on the north side they give a a perspective of where we're at and that dark line is the what we are calling the proposed [19:53] **David Wolf:** finished grade and that dash line is the the existing ground so when we design roadways we we have criteria that we have to design it to the the purpose of this slide is to show that the existing roadway does not meet any kind of design standard and we entered this with trying to achieve a 30 mile an hour speed and it's it's it is not possible with the with the amount of driveways we have to match into and the topography and the ledge rock so we backed down our standard to a 25 mile an hour and so this is what we're we're showing [20:38] **David Wolf:** and we're where you see 25 mile an hour design curve and um on the on the bottom to the left joe where would actually be raising the road there about two feet in that little spot and then if we go to the right of the page joe we're where we go down the hill to the wetland we're planning to raise the road up to six feet in that area so it's it's going to be a vast improvement for anybody that lives along these curves as far as being able to see when you exit your driveway there's not [21:25] **David Wolf:** going to be the blind approaches that are there today so that this is probably the biggest change that will you'll notice as part of the project so i thought it was a um that's why i wanted to highlight it here tonight so joe let's go we can go to the next slide there so this is this slide here is what we we call a typical section which it's basically slicing the roadway and we we have two sections here the upper one where we're showing the roadway as it is today and basically we have um 11 foot wide lane on each side [22:10] **David Wolf:** for a total of about 22 feet with little to no shoulders and you can kind of see the the ditch there off to the left then the section below is i kind of lined it up so you can see the orange line um is the edge of the new pavement which is about a foot wider than it is today on both sides and then an extra two feet of shoulder so you know where the roads plan to be three feet wider on each side one foot of pavement two foot of shoulder so [22:58] **David Wolf:** the other thing i want to point out on this section joe is on the on the left side the ditch bottom you can kind of see how that ditch moves closer to the homes than it is today you'll notice um this fall we stake the right of way the right-of-way is um 33 feet each side of the center line so there's stakes in everybody's front yard that they're 66 feet apart so for a good reference um if you're interested in where the the ditch will end up in the under the road construction project is if you measure 10 feet from those um [23:43] **David Wolf:** right away markers that are in your front yard that will be the new ditch bottom so the ditches is going to get wider and deeper than it is today so it's it's moving that ditch you know closer to the homes but also deeper to help convey water help um you know alleviate ponding in people's front yards it'll also with this section we'll get those driveway culverts lower to reduce the the heaving problem that we see out there today both the the center line and driveway culverts are um have heaved because they're they're not very deep [24:30] **David Wolf:** so i wanted to to you know point that out to everybody as well okay next slide joe so this is uh what we tried to do here is we took a picture of the roadway i believe we're looking to the um west right here and a couple of things you'll notice we widen the road to 24 feet so you'll see that difference and then added that two-foot shoulder so that kind of gives you a sense of how things will look there in addition we we plan [25:16] **David Wolf:** to stripe this roadway with a a center double stripe which means no passing and then the white line on either side is called a fog line and those you know keep people in their lane and you know it's a it's an aid at night um they're they're the lines are reflective so you can see them when you're driving at night as well and then you'll notice um on the right side we superimpose a speed limit sign our our plan right now because of the vertical curves at the other end that this road gets posted to 25 mile an hour to accommodate the [26:03] **David Wolf:** design speed of those vertical curves so we we've talked about that with the you know the police chief the uh county traffic engineer and and staff and we all feel that's the that's the direction we'd like to go with with the speed limit and we you know we feel this this adds uh you know a couple of um safety measures to this roadway by the the striping and reduced um speed limit and the added shoulder for whether it's walking or just um you know snow storage [26:49] **David Wolf:** or being able to um navigate around somebody that's biking or walking on the roadway so we feel it's a good balance on what we've heard at the previous meetings about reducing the speed but allowing you know pedestrians and bikers to to use this roadway so there's there's some thought and effort um into the comments that we've heard from the previous meetings okay thank you joe here's a so again part of part of this project is a um from a water utility standpoint [27:36] **David Wolf:** we're planning to extend the water main uh it's about 1300 feet from the bottom of that hill through the the top of the hill to the vac road um you know and the purpose of that is to you know increase the pressure and also provide a loop so if um we ever have a break in this area that water customers can be fed from either end so i know from the last meeting there was concern specifically to the two residents right at the where the water main ends we know we have ledge rock there there's there is a concern about how to [28:23] **David Wolf:** how do we deal with the ledge rock so i've i've done some investigation there there is an alternative to to blasting rock out of the way and that alternative is to drill more holes smaller holes and then they they come in with a backhoe with a hammer and they they they hammer the rock out so it's it's a longer slower louder process but the hope is there that it's less there's less likelihood of any um [29:08] **David Wolf:** negative effects versus blasting so that's that's how we are are approaching this water main extension right now okay and we go to um [29:08] **Joe Wicklund:** that's kind of the grand finale david i'm gonna turn i'm gonna stop sharing the presentation we can jump back in if there's a particular slide [29:08] **John Mulder:** joe if i could just make a couple comments if i could [29:08] **Joe Wicklund:** yes please do john [29:54] **John Mulder:** so one of the things that we've heard you know a couple things we heard is a lot of talk about the issue of the trail we also heard a lot of talk about we want to be able to walk on our street safely we also heard about we don't want [29:54] **John Mulder:** the traffic to get too fast we also heard concerns about we don't want the road to be super wide and so we've tried to balance all of those things with the standard of 24 feet using pavement markings which we don't have now that will reduce the lanes a little bit and provide a little bit more paved stuff out paved pavement outside those lines so that would provide a little better walking space to try to define that walking area and we're also reducing the speed limit to try to um you know reduce the speed as well and the amount of traffic or the traffic that's going on there we have specifically talked to the police department and said we're going to need to see some when [30:39] **John Mulder:** this road's completed we're going to want to see some strict enforcement out there so um we're telling the police department we want you to be out there we want you to be looking at that and enforcing that lower speed limit so we've tried to balance all of those concerns we've got a couple of questions before i'll before i'll have folks unmute i there's very few people that i ended up having to mute um so i'll do a mute piece in a second but there's two questions already in the chat [31:02] **David Wolf:** add a couple of things here too before we go ahead david so as we're got through this 30 plan set and working towards the the next milestone of 60 what we're we're doing right now is we are setting the elevation in the new roadway and our it's been a challenge because this road is up and down there's no uniformity in any sense [31:48] **David Wolf:** and we have driveways on one side that are high and the other side that are low so if you can imagine we're trying to thread the needle and give the road the best ride possible yet connect into these every driveway as best we can so the our goal has been to match driveway grades meaning from the right away to the edge of the pavement as as they are today there are a handful of them that are getting steeper and those individuals i'll reach out to independently and probably um meet with you on site or [32:34] **David Wolf:** at least over the phone let you know what our what our plan and our thought is so it's i've been involved in enough of these projects where you know how somebody's front yard and driveway and culvert tie in are a measure of success so we really are giving this a a great amount of effort and you know diligence in in this phase of this project so if you know anybody ask questions about how their driveways per yard are going to tie in or a drainage issue feel free to you know contact myself or joe and we'll get we'll get you an answer [33:21] **Joe Wicklund:** i've got a david anything else from you or john at this point no perfect we've got a couple of and and folks if you want to dump your questions into the chat that's fantastic again i'll open it up in just a second but let's tackle the questions we have in the chat already uh first two are kind of tied together david uh just for clarity's sake are the outermost markers uh the label you know the right-of-way markers are that where the orange flags are now or what are those markers that folks want to talk about it in there or check it out in their front yard [34:06] **David Wolf:** yeah so good question those are those stakes are this the right of way for levate junction so if you measure across from one side [34:06] **David Wolf:** of the street to the other it should measure exactly 66 feet and they are tied with the orange ribbon [34:06] **Joe Wicklund:** perfect and that's in that slide david with uh and again i'll dive into questions individual questions and follow-up questions after we knock out these ones in the chat all right the slide where you've got the superimposed road um the outer the fog line stripes the outer white line stripes is that pretty close to where the current edge of the roadway is today i know that when we say it's 22 feet wide now it's not actually 22 feet wide in every single location but is that a a pretty fair way for folks to think about that [34:52] **David Wolf:** slide and i can call it back up while you're answering it so that that's a good question and that the final answer has not been determined so we we show a paved roadway with of 24 feet on on that slide that you're looking at there joe is we actually brought the the fog line in one foot so um it's paved at 24 but it's actually striped at 22. so that's pretty close to right where the road is today yes perfect so another a point that i think needs to be made is the existing roadway [35:39] **David Wolf:** does not sit exactly in the middle or parallel to the right of way so if you can visualize this if you're at uggstead road going east the road diverges north a half a mile and then it diverges back south as you go to the vehicle so at the worst case it's about three feet so what does that mean that means somebody that lives right in the middle of this roadway is gonna see the biggest um difference in the location of the road so we're in essence gonna move it three [36:26] **David Wolf:** feet to the south in that location so i i want that to be clear to everybody that we're gonna make make the road straight it is not straight today [36:26] **Joe Wicklund:** and this might be a paul senst question but what is our plan should utility issues be encountered will the city foot the bill to repair since we are digging or the homeowner let's take that in two parts when um if there's any issues uh during the process when we're putting in the water main where people have outages and things like that can we speak to how those are are handled how folks communicate those if there's any issues during [37:12] **Paul Senst:** construction during the construction they would go to the your initial one would be with the foreman of whoever the construction company is who would then alert the inspector with whatever engineering firm that is and then up the line to david and or myself [37:12] **Joe Wicklund:** perfect and those names and contacts as well as mine are always available as we especially to get closer and we know who our subcontractors and contractors are which aren't determined yet on the hermantownmn.com backslash roads website which is going to have a ton of information once we get into it and the question is does the city foot the bill to repair since we're digging or the homeowner i'm not sure if that's uh a specific water question but [37:57] **John Mulder:** uh paul i'll rephrase the question and and david and john um to talk about uh how driveway culverts work and the work that we're doing because all of the digging and all of the work that we're doing during the construction phase obviously is on our dime but if we have culvert driveway culvert issues or utility issues after we are complete how does that part work a couple of things one is as part of this we're going to replace all of the driveway culverts okay so and that'll be as part of the project um when you talk about other utilities is that if there are repairs in the [38:45] **John Mulder:** water and sewer that are part of the main we if we were to discover that as we're going through that we would do those fixes if it was a repair that needed to be a service line and was seen and you noticed it at this point in time or whatever then that would be the responsibility of the owner [38:45] **Joe Wicklund:** do we anticipate interruptions outages to services such as power or internet during construction for those of us who work from home and how will it be handled same kind of answer paul gave obviously if there's any kind of confusion or issues during construction there'll be contact folks right away i can tell you that during the entire project and david and paul correct me if i'm [39:31] **Joe Wicklund:** wrong but on the johnson portland carlson alexander projects we did not have any outages or interruptions for longer than a few minutes and it was only internet am i correct on that [39:31] **Paul Senst:** the best of my knowledge yes [39:31] **John Mulder:** we don't anticipate any uh power outages there might be there might be some very short time periods when you know we got to move a pole or a pole needs to be moved or something like that but we do not anticipate power or internet services being disrupted [40:17] **Joe Wicklund:** any of those pieces that john alluded to to not only any service interruptions but obviously the times when uh you know large equipment or something the work might be being done right outside your home we've mentioned this in other meetings but we'll communicate that when the time comes so [40:17] **Joe Wicklund:** that arrangements can be made so that you're parked so that you can still leave there's a ton of communication we'll do around garbage around mail services all those types of things so although those are unknown today when we get closer to having those schedules those will be communicated not only on the website but in a couple different places david a couple questions and you can answer this from the experience we've had this uh first time around but trees that are very very close or maybe just on the inside of the right-of-way at the 33-foot mark talk to me about what happens to those and what we've done in the in the past year to maintain some of those in the places where that's possible [41:04] **David Wolf:** so um we've we've looked at you know trees on multiple projects and um we work diligently with homeowners on projects that you know we have a tree that's a on the right-of-way line or b um on private property or real close to it the right-of-way line and one of the things that you know we have to be you know realistic about um trees and when we do our ditching we're going down three feet and when we get into a situation where we get into the roots of the trees it's been our experience that it's best to [41:50] **David Wolf:** take those trees out now rather than the um inevitable they're gonna either die or fall you know where we don't want them to fall and when we don't want them to fall if if there's we have um this year we when we had a couple of trees that were very um close to right away the owners wanted to keep them we worked with the homeowners and we we decided to prune some of the lower branches and um save save the trees and i've i've had a couple discussions with residents already on the levate junction project to that effect so there's there's a you know method for us to do [42:36] **David Wolf:** that [42:36] **Joe Wicklund:** and i can tell you that david uh did a lot of work last year face to face with residents as we got into the construction season once we were standing in yards to be able to make sure that we knew uh what was possible with each tree so it's kind of a tree by tree answer and we'll get to that when the time comes but we'll work with you but we also want to manage expectations that the inevitable work that we're doing to build this road and this storm water system can impact the roots of those trees how far into each driveway will repaving go [43:21] **David Wolf:** good question so right now like this year's project every every driveway we have um slated to go back to the right-of-way [43:21] **David Wolf:** line so that goes back to those stakes with the orange ribbon um that's the plan right now is to reach back that far on each driveway and as i said before there there might be a two or three that we need to go back further and in those instances i'll be contacting those homeowners individually to um uh share our thoughts and you know the the limits that we feel is necessary to give them a a good product [43:21] **Joe Wicklund:** uh as we kind of uh stay with the driveway paving questions will there be an option to purchase an extra bit of paving at a better rate than hire someone separately [44:08] **David Wolf:** good question um it's that that solely falls on the contractor that's awarded the work on previous projects uh in general they are reluctant to do any work on private property because their equipment is usually not set up for that um meaning it's it's bigger and heavier than um you would use in driveways and then also the the other issue is um you know payment how does that work and it cannot be um [44:55] **David Wolf:** part of the public process or probably public project so if somebody wanted a driveway paved they'd have to work directly with the contractor and not through the city contract so it's possible but it's it's um not not likely is all i'm going to say on that [44:55] **Joe Wicklund:** we did work with folks who were then going to privately uh pave their driveways uh on the project read this year to line up schedules so that was most convenient for them so that part can be uh coordinated with the subcontractors and contractors but uh that's different obviously than them doing it right and that we're and we got feedback that that worked really really slick uh this past year um [44:55] **Joe Wicklund:** are utility poles being moved [45:42] **David Wolf:** great question um undecided at this point and i say that um because as i told you we are moving the ditches you know out towards the homes that means these power poles are some of them may be in jeopardy as far as um depth of bury meaning they're not safe they might they could fall over so we have not determined that yet we need to meet with minnesota power and make a determination on that i would expect that we're going to be replacing [46:29] **David Wolf:** or moving some of them but not all of them so that that will be part of this um 30 to 60 effort that we're working on right now [46:29] **Joe Wicklund:** perfect thanks david this might be a uh a favorite question of john mulder city administrator uh what happens if the contractor bid goes over budget where does that difference come from [46:29] **John Mulder:** so um from on this project is that we had that source of we do water um and sewer utility stormwater utilities the assessment and then general uh levy so to the extent that we can use water and sewer we would use that otherwise it's going to come from the general levy [47:16] **Joe Wicklund:** the assessment is not going to change perfect uh back to power poles how what is the minimum height of power and telephone lines if we know those and how can these be checked and moved up to meet code [47:16] **David Wolf:** another good question um there's you know there's different criteria for different types of line whether it's a transmission line a distribution line or a service line and that is something that the city of hermantown does not regulate that's the public utilities commission and the individual utility companies like minnesota power charter centurylink mediacom [48:03] **David Wolf:** they they know their standards and when we meet with them to discuss moving poles um they will they will address that at that point [48:03] **Joe Wicklund:** gotcha the question came up because we had a resident who could not get their camper in their driveway as it all stands today and so that's kind of what they're wondering about obviously my guess is they would like to get their camper in their driveway after this project comes to being uh questions not sure if i heard i'm sorry i'm not sure if i heard the answer to this or if it was asked will mailboxes be um the city's responsibility to replace or the homeowners [48:50] **Joe Wicklund:** perfect uh let's sneak that question in before i open it up to everybody uh let david we do talk uh mailboxes for us and what happens [48:50] **David Wolf:** yes so this project will include the removal of everybody's existing mailbox and fire number the project will get all new fire numbers that are blue backgrounds with white lettering and then um the the swing away mailboxes so you know if if the plow hits it it's designed to spin around and um not uh damage the the pole so that's that's the plan right now everybody gets a new mailbox um [49:38] **David Wolf:** mailbox post and fire number and it would be up to the homeowners to put their their address and their name on the the mailbox as they see fit [49:38] **Joe Wicklund:** and folks can keep and folks can keep their previous mailbox david if they want but but they have to make those arrangements when the time comes when we make those replacements [49:38] **David Wolf:** yes so you don't have to take the city one but um but that's uh the plan there [50:23] **Joe Wicklund:** let's uh dive a little bit i have kind of a trio questions and statements about the water main um like uh what kind of pressure and flow do we need in hermantown and what kind of pressure and flow do we have on our junction that that why why do we need this loop why do we say we need this loop [50:23] **David Wolf:** that's your question david wolf i was i was waiting for paul to jump in before me um so this is something that you know um water distribution systems are the more number of loops in a system and the redundant feeds it just creates a lot stronger operating water system so we we feel this is a you know an appropriate use of the the water fund to to make this this loop and it and again like i said earlier it also if if there's a water main break [51:22] **David Wolf:** in the middle of levate junction there's valves that we can isolate it so the whole road won't be out of water it would just be um from the valve to to the break so that's that's the benefit that we see from from the uh putting the loop in here [51:22] **Paul Senst:** perfect paul senst anything to add to that or is that it that's just i mean water water mains are meant to keep the water moving and dead ends create troubles either little or small and we have the chance to make this make the connection make the loop to minimize the dead end keep the water moving to you know minimize and eliminate sediment settlement [52:08] **Paul Senst:** and it's just better overall for the system as a whole [52:08] **Joe Wicklund:** we've got a question about do we know which side of the road the trail will be placed or any trail discussion and at this point nothing's been determined about that and it's not any part of this project is that right mr mulder [52:08] **John Mulder:** the trail is not included in this project if if at some point in time we look at um a future trail in this area that will be done separately [52:55] **Joe Wicklund:** perfect i think let me do a quick page through i've got everybody's questions in the chat uh that we've dealt with let me page through to make sure about that no i think we do um you can keep sending the chat in but if you'd like to [52:55] **Joe Wicklund:** unmute yourself and ask a question we'll kind of i won't ask you to raise your hand and if it looks like we're going one or two at a time i'll i'll call on somebody but if you have further questions if you want to unmute yourself and ask them go ahead right now [53:42] **Resident:** will the city's right of way continue to be 33 feet from the center of the old road so the city will not be getting any more of our frontage than they already have now [53:42] **Joe Wicklund:** got you so the question is does david does the right of way change at all at this [53:42] **David Wolf:** no so good question the question is if we move the road does the right-of-way move with it no the right-of-way stays where it is [53:42] **David Wolf:** today so those orange the stakes with the orange ribbon is the existing right-of-way and we're going to work within that and we're not going to move the right-of-way or ask for any more right-of-way [53:42] **Resident:** good thank you [53:42] **David Wolf:** you're welcome [54:29] **Amy Van Loon:** amy van loon i think had a question that was uh next up amy thanks um mine is regarding the those orange flags that mark the right of way and the trees would it be possible maybe to have individual trees marked or is it fair to assume that if our 50 to 60 foot row of seven pine trees is on that line should we assume those will be removed in this project [54:29] **David Wolf:** good question i i would like to um if you're okay i would like to meet with you individually and and look at um where the road and the ditch is going to end up relative to the trees and then it's hard for me to to answer that without being out in the field looking at at things [55:14] **Joe Wicklund:** so the easy and to the easy answer is not just as a matter of course we'll take a we'll take a look at it and we'll talk to you about that fair david [55:14] **David Wolf:** yes thank you [55:14] **Joe Wicklund:** david too for folks that's a pretty regular question when is the right time and and i'm throwing this a in the middle of a pandemic when we can't meet [55:14] **Joe Wicklund:** and can't be in city hall but for folks who do want to meet with you and talk trees how should they when should they where should they uh and is that just an answer that hey we'll we'll handle that in the spring when we get closer or is there something that could be done at this point [56:00] **David Wolf:** i i would offer to meet now before we um get the plans finalized and any further so with you know the comfort level of any individual i'm i'm willing to meet outside and uh take a tape measure and show people where um you know the ditch or driveway or culvert and where the trees where i think they need to go and where they can [56:00] **David Wolf:** stay and then we can put that information in our plan and have it you know the contractor bid it accordingly so with that joe i would offer you know they can give my work phone or email address to set something up individually [56:46] **Joe Wicklund:** perfect and that information everybody is already available on the site dedicated to the roads so if you go to hermantownmn.com the city's website backslash roads it'll take you right there you don't even have to kind of cruise around for the roads information you'll see my contact information and david's as well so if you want to shoot either him or i times that work for you or questions specific to your property around trees [56:46] **Joe Wicklund:** and distance from the right of way and distance from the center of the road um certainly do that and i would say definitely take advantage of david's offer sooner than later easier for him to measure stuff before we get too much snow piled up if you could do it on a day like tonight when it's 45 degrees that'd be even better any uh any other questions from residents and members of the public that we can answer today i'm going to go through by the way too and unmute everybody just to make sure somebody i didn't mute somebody earlier who who couldn't um to see if they have a question [57:32] **Resident:** so i got one i have another question um a year ago in may 2019 when i first talked to david wolf he [57:32] **Resident:** said to me that if a majority of levate junction residents did or didn't want something the city would do its best to accommodate us and i got that petition that 32 out of 40 residents really really don't want levate junction road widened more than 21 or 22 foot blacktop is that something that can be accommodated [58:28] **Joe Wicklund:** so i'll start by answering on the community engagement side of things i think david was right on he did take that into consideration in the parts that he's done in design work and has uh continued to but it doesn't necessarily mean that the road will then end up being 21 and 22 feet we've had a ton of discussions about this and i'll let david answer [58:28] **Joe Wicklund:** how do we handle the most important parts of this project that we've heard safe [58:28] **Joe Wicklund:** you can't hear david no he went oh joe all right i think i'm back okay so david i i don't know where i cut out but i'll i'll let you take over [59:14] **David Wolf:** david and i'll uh you know we definitely took that under advisement um you know staff i i guess myself and public works director you know feel pretty strongly that we have standards in place for a reason and those are the roads that are they're proven to be safe and they're easy to maintain we also presented this same presentation to council and head nod [59:14] **David Wolf:** to proceed with um with the 24 foot working road so that's kind of how we landed and again um hear you but we took all all things considered you know by lowering the speed limit by um reducing the lane putting paint markings out there and and solder that provides some kind of refuge or you know pedestrians or bikers or you know walking your dog or what what have you um so we think this is truly the best balance of all the uh competing factors that we have on this [1:00:00] **David Wolf:** roadway thanks dude i've got a galaxy s10e the gentleman in glasses and an orange shirt who's been on the edge waiting for his question let's have him jump in [1:00:00] **Resident:** no big rush uh i just had a question i got i had celo uh put my property corners in do i have to worry about those things getting ripped out [1:00:46] **David Wolf:** don't you please state your your name and your address so we can um joe can we have everybody do that so we can yeah i think that would be a good idea so to answer your question um the the contractor supposed to preserve [1:00:46] **David Wolf:** all um property markers in the event that one gets removed we had one happen in our project over on alexander and yes the city um replaced those corners so if they get taken out they will be replaced not at the homeowner's cost um question that came in on chat of other projects you've done have residents been able to pave their own driveways privately at a reduced cost [1:01:32] **Joe Wicklund:** with with the subcontractor i i believe we don't know what folks paid to to have your driveways paved this summer on the first project right david and paul does that sound right and is there [1:01:32] **Paul Senst:** other cases where uh folks have negotiated that we know of hey my experience has been that the the general contractor that we'll have on board is not set up to pave driveway where we've seen a value in savings is where our group of neighbors contract with a paving contractor and they come in and do a half a dozen driveways so there's economy of scale there to pave it your driveways like that [1:02:18] **Joe Wicklund:** we uh i i will take advantage of the compliments that we've gotten in the chat because we don't always hear a lot of that at city hall but [1:02:18] **Joe Wicklund:** folks are very happy about the lower speed the 25 mile an hour speeds uh also that the road improvement is long overdue and should look great a question will property values and this is probably for you john mulder will property values and tax bases be raised as a result of the road improvement [1:02:18] **John Mulder:** well um the whole pro that process will look at the the county assessor will have to make that determination of whether or not you know what's the increased value of that that's a possibility but that's not they don't go in and say here's the road let's increase everybody's value that's not how they do that they'll look at those properties individually to see what's the proper um assessed value [1:03:04] **Joe Wicklund:** so not automatically perfect i i've got i've got all the questions answered in the chat so if anybody in public would like to toss one out who is uh out there go ahead and again like david asked i i should ask this again please tell us your name and your address when you start any further questions on the public side of things [1:03:51] **John Mulder:** and joe just um if people tonight are thinking about it and they get a chance to talk to their significant other they can always contact city hall you know and we'll you know this is not the last time you you'd ask questions we'll have other opportunities [1:03:51] **John Mulder:** but it's like hey oh i wish i would have thought of that question you know give us a call at city hall and we'll try to get those those answered for you [1:03:51] **Joe Wicklund:** and john you're exactly right if that's a question that you know we think obviously applies to a couple different properties that uh answering question will be posted out on the uh roads website again hermantown.com backslash roads if it's something really unique to your property if you're asking about a particular pine tree or a particular set of trees close to the right-of-way we'll get you connected with david um to get that answered at the individual level um so that being said i'll i'll open it one last time for the folks who are here um either in the chat uh or uh via the phone or their device if there's any other questions please go ahead and [1:04:36] **Joe Wicklund:** ask now casey mcdonald it looks like you got again could you do casey i've got your name because it's listed but could you do your address for us too [1:04:36] **Casey McDonald:** uh 5236 perfect fire away uh it was said before were the stakes with the orange flag um it's going to be paved to that uh flag or the stake [1:05:24] **Joe Wicklund:** no no that one earlier so david explain to him the issue of the where the stake is is the end of the right-of-way not the end of the road right [1:05:24] **David Wolf:** yes so yeah let me explain that again so there's there's right-of-way markers on both the north and south side of the road they are each 33 feet from the center of the platted road our new road will be 12 feet of pavement on each side of the center line so if you take 33 minus 12 21 feet from that marker with the orange ribbon will be the edge of the paved roadway [1:06:10] **David Wolf:** that makes sense so take your stake measure 21 feet toward the road that's where the end of the pavement will be in those 21 feet there'll be some shoulder and some ditching so where the stick is would be the end of the ditch um the the ditch bottom will be 10 feet from there and then as the ditch bottom goes back up to the yards that's where we'll we'll tie in is at that um uh right away stake with the orange ribbon [1:06:56] **David Wolf:** okay if if you need um you know further clarification i'm i'm going to be out there multiple times and um we can just set something up and i can you know walk you through what the uh [1:06:56] **John Mulder:** is it fair to say that all of the work that we do will be within those stakes [1:06:56] **David Wolf:** correct okay thank you i mean there might be one or two exceptions where we have to do something because of driveways but in all of those cases if we had to do that we would talk to those landowners but our expectation is the work that we do will stay within those stakes [1:07:44] **Resident:** correct thank you [1:07:44] **Joe Wicklund:** thanks casey great question and uh another quick little blurb from [1:07:44] **Joe Wicklund:** the chat but uh we david especially to you but thanks for all your hard work and uh folks we do have residents who are in favor of the three foot increase in pavement because it does increase they feel it increases the safety for the walkers and that kind of gets to what what david mentioned we've had a lot of folks talk about um width and and size but really what what we've heard quite frequently is they want a very safe road not only for folks with wheels under their feet that are attached to a car but bikers and walkers and folks pushing strollers and i know david's worked really hard to get a road that that accommodates all of that and then the added perk i guess you could say of the vertical curves keeping us at 25 miles an hour will help combat some of those speed issues any [1:08:29] **Joe Wicklund:** uh any final questions uh i think casey mcdonald you've got one more [1:08:29] **Casey McDonald:** yes uh i was as a teenager here in the 70s when this last time was completely paved and there better be police on that road in the beginning at least because it's going to be a drag strip i have to i have told chief grace park a squad out there when that road gets done i can't remind you i'll remind you that that might be your neighbor or you i'm saying it's gonna be trouble for walkers and i just want everybody to be safe absolutely thank you let me see i think i've got one i've got a hand raised [1:09:16] **Joe Wicklund:** by cab 8902 go ahead and if you can unmute yourself i've got you unmuted on our side if you want to ask your question otherwise uh cab 8902 um you'd have to put your question in the chat or if it was the occasional inadvertent hand raise i understand that but i thought she was i thought that person was clapping well it might have been we're not used to seeing that again during these meetings i don't know i might be wrong i might have i might have overreacted any any final questions thoughts concerns or anything from the public side of things and uh and we did john mulder you were right it was a clap [1:10:02] **John Mulder:** so i guess we're just not used to hearing that and and i can tell you from our side of things folks we really do appreciate these we we i think um for the vast majority of the folks who worked with uh closely with david myself paul john the subcontractors and contractors on the roads we did this summer it really was a huge project but ended up being really well communicated really well handled um so you'll get used to seeing with us so it's nice to it's nice to get a clap from you john do you want me to show you i just wanted to say just quickly is thank you for your patience and uh in being involved in this meeting um it's really hard to do virtual meetings it's really hard to engage the public when we can't you know talk face-to-face and we would much rather do that [1:10:47] **John Mulder:** so we appreciate you know you're you're taking the time and figuring out the technology and fighting an internet speed or whatever and and coming in and and listening to our the presentation and giving us your feedback um and and being patient with us and you know um as we do this i mean we're all trying to work on this together and this time is just makes everything so much harder and so we appreciate the fact that um you've participated and that you've um you've done so in such a graceful way we really we really do appreciate that thanks everybody [1:11:34] **Joe Wicklund:** one final reminder before i'll end this meeting again any information i do have the recording i think i'll be able to put this up on our website but hermantownmn.com backslash roads [1:11:34] **Joe Wicklund:** you can get all this information if you go to our main page and go under departments and communications which is my page you'll see road improvement updates that's where it takes you and anytime you have questions concerns or wondering about something my email is on that site david's contact information is on that site you'll be able to track us down and we'll be able to get you uh taken care of again like john said thanks so much for being a part of this project and a part of tonight's meeting stay safe everybody and again anytime there's questions uh be sure and reach out goodnight everybody goodbye night good job thank you good night [1:12:22] **John Mulder:** you