This transcript has been formatted with speaker names based on the context of the meeting and the list of officials provided. *Note: The names "Troutman" and "Whalen" appear in the transcript but were not in your provided list. They have been identified as Council Members based on their participation in the roll call and motions.* *** **[00:00:00] Mayor Mary Supple:** Good afternoon. I'm going to call to order this special meeting of the Richfield City Council. It is 4 P.M. on August 29, 2023, and in addition to the people here in the chambers, we have Council Member Whalen and City Attorney Tietjen joining us on um via WebEx so we're having a hybrid meeting. So if you guys can help me watch to make sure we include everybody that would be wonderful. Um so we've called to order because this is a special meeting we don't have a lot of the features we have at a normal meeting so we're going to go straight into a business item number one and I'm going to turn it over to Council Member Hayford O'Leary. **[00:00:30] Council Member Sean Hayford O'Leary:** This item is to consider approval of a change order to design and install a soil retention system for the 65th Street reconstruction project in order to replace sanitary sewer and install a storm water box culvert consistent with city council direction, the capital improvement plan, and the city's comprehensive plan. The staff has been working towards the reconstruction of the 65th Street reconstruction project over the past few years. The 65th Street reconstruction consists of a full road reconstruction to replace existing deteriorated infrastructure along 65th Street between 66th Street/Ray Drive intersection and Nicollet Avenue. In addition to this road reconstruct, other improvements along this quarter include pedestrian improvements on Lindale Avenue and the implementation of a trail along Ridgefield Lake and the north side of 65th Street. New storm water infrastructure will be installed to address historical flooding issues in the area and to accommodate any additional runoff that may occur from the redevelopment of a hub property. The existing 18-inch water main that runs through the hub property will be relocated to 65th Street to allow for more flexibility when the hub redevelops. The necessity for the change order: during excavation for the sanitary sewer replacement and storm sewer box culvert on 65th, city staff were notified by Enclave—the owners of the Linview apartment property—that the Linview building had been constructed on four-foot-deep foundation and they were concerned about the stability of the building during excavation. Work was immediately stopped and staff reached out to the consultant geotechnical engineers at Braun Intertec to assess the risk to the Linview building and the need for an engineer's soil stabilization system. Analysis by Braun Intertec showed that an engineered soil retention system is needed to install both the storm sewer box culvert and the sanitary sewer without impact to the Linview building. The system deemed most appropriate of the installation of permanent H-piles with a timber legging wall in the interest of future maintenance to the city's utilities and to eliminate the risk of vibratory impacts to the Linview building during the removal of the temporary H-piles. A permanent solution is proposed as the best course of action. The anticipated cost of design and construct the soil retention system, modify the project's utility design, and accommodate any costs that may arise due to the project's delays is estimated at seven hundred thousand dollars. The project's existing contingency is nearly exhausted. In order for the project to maintain a reasonable schedule and allow maintenance access to city utilities in the future, staff is advising that the city council approved the change order for the soil retention system along 65th Street. The cost for design and installation of a soil retention system, minor design and construction modifications to the sanitary sewer and storm sewer, and possible project delay costs will be borne by the project; however, funding sources need to be identified. Staff are investigating potential funding sources including utility funds, franchise fees, municipal state aid construction funds, and tax increment finance pooled funds and capital reserves among other sources. Staff and the City Attorney are investigating whether any external organizations could or should share responsibility for the extra costs incurred with this change order as well as determining what requirements will be needed in future redevelopment reviews to ensure similar situations do not occur in the future. And does staff have anything additional to add? **[00:03:45] Joe Powers (City Engineer):** Thank you Council Member Hayford O'Leary, Mayor Supple, and Council Members. I do have one change to the staff report. This was communicated via email to you earlier today by City Manager Rodriguez. Last night we received an updated cost estimate from our contractor for the construction costs of the soil retention system and associated costs for the design modifications on the corridor. That cost estimate came in at $825,600 and change, so substantially more than what we had estimated. I did hold a meeting with city staff, our contractor, our engineering consultant, and our geotechnical consultant this morning—first thing in the morning. We did go through this cost estimate and have determined that most of these costs were reasonable for the amount of work and the scope of the work that's going to be conducted. There is one area where we're going to look to reduce some of that scope of cost, but I anticipate it's probably no more than about twenty thousand dollars. Additionally, not reflecting that cost estimate is one known cost of about twenty thousand dollars for the design of the soil retention system by Braun Intertec, and the unidentified costs at this time are potential delay impacts to the project. So what the revised recommendation is from staff is for Council to approve a change order total of 850 thousand dollars, and then if there are additional delay costs that are identified in the future, we would return to Council for approval on those costs. Thank you. **[00:05:30] Mayor Mary Supple:** Thank you. I do want to ask a couple questions about that last paragraph investigating whether external organizations could or should share responsibility for the extra costs. Would that include the possibility that the developer would be responsible for some of this? **[00:05:45] Joe Powers (City Engineer):** Sure, I can answer that. I'm sorry, I didn't introduce myself for anyone listening in: Joe Powers, I'm the City Engineer for Richfield. We have been talking internally with staff and with the City Attorney. What we have determined at this point is there doesn't seem to be any violation of the State Building Code in this, and that is the main place where we would be able to push any responsibility onto the developer for cost share. There is some ongoing investigation with that with the City Attorney's office. I'll let City Attorney Tietjen add anything if she wants to at this time. The other thing is we are looking at some language to try to make sure we prevent this in the future with our redevelopment reviews and possibly some additional requirements for building developers to make sure this doesn't happen. **[00:06:30] Mary Tietjen (City Attorney):** Mayor, Council: The only thing I would add is just let the Council know that we are doing some legal research just to see if there are any legal theories that the city might be able to pursue in terms of, you know, having other parties share in the responsibility of costs for this. At this point, you know, we have not completed that research and we're still kind of exploring options. So I don't have a lot more to share with the Council at this point but wanted to assure the Council that we are looking into that just to determine the feasibility of something that might be possible. **[00:07:05] Mayor Mary Supple:** Thank you. And I was pleased to see that you are looking at ways to add requirements so that we won't have this happen in the future. Can you say a little bit more about what we would be looking at to try and prevent future problems? **[00:07:20] Joe Powers (City Engineer):** Yes, we haven't defined that clearly quite yet. It's another thing that City Attorney Tietjen's office is working on for us to get some specific language of what we could include in our redevelopment review requirements. One thing we do know is that we need to make sure that we're following State Building Codes, so we're not going to do anything that would violate State Building Code in that sense. **[00:07:40] Mayor Mary Supple:** So in other words, we can't have a stricter standard than the State Building Code? **[00:07:45] Joe Powers (City Engineer):** Correct. **[00:07:47] Mayor Mary Supple:** Okay. At least we can try and learn from this. Other comments or questions? **[00:07:55] Council Member Sean Hayford O'Leary:** I guess I might just ask staff what... I mean I, I'm obviously unhappy—I'm sure everybody's unhappy to be in this position—but we can't not have the project and we can't wreck the building, so obviously we need to move forward today. I guess I am wondering next steps in terms of addressing this in the future: would there be a staff memo? What can we expect to sort of see as a follow-up to this besides the change order that we're talking about tonight? **[00:08:25] Joe Powers (City Engineer):** Thank you. Council memo, if it's fairly clear-cut and after we do the review at the staff level, it would be a council memo. Or if there's input that we need from the Council, then we would have a work session. **[00:08:35] Council Member Sean Hayford O'Leary:** Okay. All right. Um we could still do discussion but I'll go ahead and make the motion to approve the change order to 850 thousand dollars to design and install a soil retention system for the 65th Street reconstruction project to replace sanitary sewer and install a storm water box culvert. **[00:09:00] Sharon Christensen:** Second. **[00:09:05] Mayor Mary Supple:** Okay. That's fine, thank you. Is there a second? [Second provided by Sharon Christensen]. Okay, it's been moved and seconded. Is there further discussion? All right, so we're going to do a roll call vote because we have a hybrid meeting here so we'll start with Council Member Troutman. **[00:09:20] Council Member Troutman:** Aye. **[00:09:22] Council Member Sean Hayford O'Leary:** Aye. **[00:09:24] Council Member Sharon Christensen:** Aye. **[00:09:26] Council Member Whalen:** Aye. **[00:09:28] Mayor Mary Supple:** And the Mayor votes Aye. So that I believe is five eyes and zero—are there any nays? I guess we did roll call so it's five Ayes and zero Noes. So the motion has passed, thank you. All right then we will move on to item number two, Council Member Christensen. **[00:09:45] Council Member Sharon Christensen:** Thank you, Mayor. We are considering authorizing the City Engineer, City Manager, and Mayor to execute a construction work order agreement with MnDOT and the I-494 Project 1 design-build contractor for the construction of a sanitary sewer crossing underneath I-35W. Public Works is requesting authorization to enter into a work order agreement with MnDOT for the construction of a sanitary sewer crossing underneath I-35W. This work order is pursuant to the Master Utility Agreement for the I-494 Project 1 MnDOT Agreement number 1051052 and approved by the City Council on February 14, 2023. The project will replace the existing nine-inch clay sewer that is below I-35W on the north side of I-494. This utility services a portion of the business district along the 77th Street corridor and is a critical piece of infrastructure. The project will eliminate a flow capacity issue that has been long outstanding as well as eliminate a conflict foreseen with the bridge abutments that are proposed with I-494 Project 1. Although this project was not programmed, the timing of I-494 Project 1 provides a unique cost-saving opportunity to resolve these issues. The costs associated with designing and resolving the bridge abutment conflict are being applied towards the cost of designing and constructing the new crossing. Does staff have anything else to add? **[00:11:15] Joe Powers (City Engineer):** Nothing at this point, thank you. **[00:11:18] Council Member Sharon Christensen:** All right. I make a motion to authorize the City Engineer, City Manager, and Mayor to execute a work order agreement with MnDOT and the I-494 Project 1 design-build contractor for the construction of a sanitary sewer crossing underneath I-35W. **[00:11:35] Council Member Sean Hayford O'Leary:** Second. **[00:11:38] Mayor Mary Supple:** Okay, it's been moved and seconded. Is there any discussion or are there any questions? **[00:11:45] Council Member Sean Hayford O'Leary:** So to clarify, we're basically rearranging our capital outlay plan to do this sooner rather than later to take advantage of the cost savings by the participation of MnDOT? Or is this new funding? **[00:12:00] Joe Powers (City Engineer):** So this project was on our long-term capital list; it wasn't included in the five-year CIP, but it was a long-term project. Because of Project 1, we're needing to do it now. And the silver lining of having to rearrange our existing plans for lining sanitary sewer—we had 900 thousand in the budget—is that we are getting a hundred thousand dollars towards fixing this long-term concern. I'll leave it to Joe if he has anything further on that. **[00:12:30] Joe Powers (City Engineer):** Nothing specifically further to add. Maybe just to clarify: MnDOT in their design-build contractor would have needed to address this conflict, and so that's what that 135 thousand dollar cost that's in your staff report shows—it's what it would have cost them to address the conflict. So we're essentially covering the difference in that cost, which will be an improvement long-term for our system, and this improvement is what we likely would have identified in the long term as a solution anyway. **[00:13:00] Council Member Troutman:** All right thank you. I was just going to say briefly to to folks that are watching that it's absolutely incredible how our sanitation system works and what goes on underneath our streets and particularly under 494 and 35W. And like Council Member Hayford O'Leary says, nobody likes spending money for things that we don't ever see, but everybody loves our sanitary system working well. So I'm supporting the motion. **[00:13:30] Mayor Mary Supple:** All right. Are there any other questions, comments, or discussion? All right, then we'll do the roll call vote. It's been moved and seconded so we'll ask each person for their vote. Council Member Troutman? **[00:13:45] Council Member Troutman:** Aye. **[00:13:46] Council Member Sean Hayford O'Leary:** Aye. **[00:13:47] Council Member Sharon Christensen:** Aye. **[00:13:48] Council Member Whalen:** Aye. **[00:13:50] Mayor Mary Supple:** And the Mayor votes Aye. So we have five Ayes and zero Nays. The motion has passed. So at this point we're going to take a vote in a moment here to adjourn the meeting, and then we're going to move over to the Bartholomew room to have a work session on budgets. I believe Council Member Whalen will be calling in and joining us over there after this. So do we have a motion to adjourn the meeting? **[00:14:15] Council Member Sean Hayford O'Leary:** I move that we adjourn. **[00:14:18] Sharon Christensen:** Second. **[00:14:20] Mayor Mary Supple:** It's been moved and seconded. And so we'll do the roll call. Council Member Troutman? **[00:14:25] Council Member Troutman:** Aye. **[00:14:26] Council Member Sean Hayford O'Leary:** Aye. **[00:14:27] Council Member Sharon Christensen:** Aye. **[00:14:28] Council Member Whalen:** Aye. **[00:14:30] Mayor Mary Supple:** And the Mayor votes Aye. And so we stand adjourned, thank you. Sound system works well.