[00:00] Mayor Charles Cadenhead: Open the city council workshop for April 9th, 2024. As we've called this meeting to order, the second item on the agenda is discussion for crosswalk policy. [00:00] Marty [Public Works Staff]: Good evening, Mayor and Council. After receiving a request for a crosswalk just right out here by Arbor Glen on 39th, the Mayor and two City Council members asked staff to bring this to a workshop in April. On average, we receive two to three requests, typically in residential neighborhoods, each year about improving some crosswalk safety, whether it's signage or painted lines, etc. Tonight, I'm just bringing this before you to help determine if a crosswalk policy is needed and if Council would support it. I've added numerous attachments to maybe give you an idea of what a crosswalk policy might look like and what you might want in it. Currently, we do not have a policy, but we will talk to the traffic experts, transportation experts, and determine on high-traffic roads only if a crosswalk device or something is needed at that point. In the past, best practice is we do not do any painting or crosswalk devices in residential areas—only high-volume, high-speed roads. Typically, the county roads are ones that we look at with the county, and the county's transportation team then makes recommendations based on that. I can stand for questions or discussion. [00:00] Mayor Charles Cadenhead: Could you highlight maybe some of the reasons for why the city has not had a policy related to sidewalks or painting of sidewalks in the past? [00:00] Marty [Public Works Staff]: So, in my five years here, I've reached out to engineering a few times about it and the policy was strictly not to make any recommendations for crosswalk devices, basically because studies have shown that if they're placed improperly or if the wrong device is placed in a crosswalk intersection, that you're oftentimes creating more hazard than you are safety. It oftentimes leads pedestrians into a false sense of security. So we, in the past, haven't used crosswalk markings or anything in a residential area. Like on Hudson Boulevard recently, we identified an area that we knew pedestrians would be crossing from Union Park, The Springs—a lot of people in that area—and they would likely need to get across to the Dairy Queen and the little mini-mall. Now looking at that, we determined it's very unlikely they would walk all the way down to Keats Avenue at a signalized intersection and then cross, and that's typically where you would want all crossings to be: at a controlled intersection. Very seldom or almost never would you want a mid-block crossing. In this location, engineering reached out to some transportation experts and they agreed that in this location it would be in the best interest, and then they provided examples of what they recommended for crossings. So, typical practice has been to reach out to the true experts and then let them guide us. [00:00] Council Member Jeff Holtz: For that specific instance, did this discussion ever include what were the variables that in their view meant that this crossed that threshold of it being effective? [00:00] Marty [Public Works Staff]: So speed is definitely one of them; it's 50 mph down there. The number of pedestrians expected to be crossing that intersection as the Dairy Queen and that little strip mall is there. So those are variables that they look at and, you know, there's a bend in that road so visibility was determined to be an issue. So yes, these are all things that they identify and then check off on a list and then say, "Okay, this is going to warrant some devices or markings." [00:00] Council Member Jeff Holtz: And I may have missed it, what was the cost for those two signs? [00:00] Marty [Public Works Staff]: Typically, if we were to go out and buy them, they're going to be over $5,000. Those, I think, are a little more; they're probably closer to $10,000-plus for each sign plus installation. Plus, we had a center island in that area that's raised, and I believe there might be some markings there. So I'm sure we have all of $25,000-plus, probably even more with that center island in that area. [00:00] Council Member Jeff Holtz: Those lighted signs, they are solar? [00:00] Marty [Public Works Staff]: They are, yeah. Solar. [00:00] Council Member Jeff Holtz: Just a follow-up on the price: do we know in terms of access to grants what is out there? If a city determines, "Here's a master plan, here are places where we feel there's a warrant threshold for it," are there certain grants that are available? Obviously, if it involves schools, there's Safe Routes to School grants and that goes through the district, but are there other routes such as through DOT or even if it's more of a leisure path with DNR, are there opportunities out there? [00:00] Marty [Public Works Staff]: I'm sure there are; I'm not aware of it. It's not something I've really looked at. [00:00] Council Member Matt Hirn: Change in topic here a little bit. You mentioned that typically we're receiving two to three requests per year. Is it the same spot that you're getting the requests for each time? Is it different locations? What does that kind of look like? [00:00] Marty [Public Works Staff]: In my five years, they've always been in different locations. Every request I've had has been in a residential area, just crossing over to a park, something like that. [00:00] Council Member Matt Hirn: Can I follow up on that? What has been kind of the process in that situation? [00:00] Marty [Public Works Staff]: Since these are residential areas, typically we'll go out and make sure there's even a crossing. You know, we want ADA crossings on both sides and they're not always there. So we don't want to put in lines to somewhere that there is no safe crossing on the other side. In a couple of those situations, that's exactly what they were; we had no path to really go to on the other side, so they get ended fairly quick as that's one of those situations we don't want to encourage people to really cross at that location. [00:00] Council Member Matt Hirn: Have there been any requests where you go out and you look at it and you say, "Okay, this does make sense, there's access on both sides," and in that situation, then what does the process look like for you guys right now? [00:00] Marty [Public Works Staff]: So if we had that scenario, which I haven't been involved in any, I would then bring that up to engineering. Engineering would review it to then guide and determine if it even warrants enough to go to the traffic engineer. Then the traffic engineer would take it and design it to ensure that we're going down the right path and not putting people in hazard. [00:00] Council Member Matt Hirn: Okay, sorry, one more. To kind of continue with that, so Egan's crosswalk policy—they have that really nice flowchart laid out. Is that kind of something similar that you're using? Do we have anything formally like that or is it more like that's just kind of the process that you've been using in your years? [00:00] Marty [Public Works Staff]: Right, so we've been just following best practice of what like Lake Elmo has been doing. We have no flowchart at this point. [00:00] Council Member Jeff Holtz: Sorry, so just following up on your process, Marty. I want to learn a little bit more about the cost. So, $5,000 per sign roughly plus installation, but then before you even get to that point, you're connecting with engineering. And so is that what engineering focuses on? [00:00] Marty [Public Works Staff]: Engineering—so Focus [Engineering] does that as well. They are not the traffic true experts for crossing, but we kind of talk to each other and converse and make sure we are looking at something the right way. You definitely don't want to put a crossing in a bad spot over a hill. Are we looking at intersections? Do we have the ADA crossings on both sides? So we'll kind of look at different things and bump ideas off each other, and then if we felt—which we haven't been to that point yet—if we felt that we'd want to take it further, then we'd get a true expert on how to lay that out properly, and there would be a cost to that. [00:00] Council Member Jeff Holtz: Do you have any rough estimates on cost? [00:00] Marty [Public Works Staff]: I don't. We haven't had to do it. [00:00] Mayor Charles Cadenhead: Right. So of the crosswalk policies that you provided us with, Marty, are there any examples that stick out to you as something that may be in line with what we have? I notice that primarily they're more commercialized cities with undoubtedly higher traffic volumes in certain locations, but are there any that you would point to and say this looks like something reasonable? [00:00] Marty [Public Works Staff]: You know, there were a few different flowcharts that looked good. I would be cautious to even consider anything in a residential area. We have hundreds of crossings, so if you were to start by doing something in a residential area, I would fear that would open up a lot of things. I would recommend we stay towards a high-traffic, high-speed road if we were going to do anything. I mean, certainly, there's criteria that these—whether it's what did I see, Egan, Blaine—just decide to use. I highlighted a few things that I liked, but in general, if engineering and Public Works feel that if we did want to travel down this, that maybe we get some professional help with that—a consultant that does, I mean, they do literally, there's people that do nothing but crosswalks. [00:00] Mayor Charles Cadenhead: Yeah, I've seen some familiar names on especially the LRRB report, and I have reviewed some Federal Highway reports and research documents on the topic. So I would agree, I'd want somebody that has experience in that. [00:00] Nate Stanley (City Engineer): I agree with that, Mayor. And also we have to refer to the Minnesota manual, you know, for traffic control devices for guidance on location and things of that nature, which I'm sure Focus probably looks at. That's pretty much a standard for non-traffic engineers to get some sense of what would be required. [00:00] Mayor Charles Cadenhead: Any more questions for Marty? Yeah, Council Member Holtz. [00:00] Council Member Jeff Holtz: So like within the packet on page 231, they have a flowchart—I think it's Egan—for the various thresholds based upon traffic counts and the various variables, and then it's color-coded for "okay, if it's this color, here's your threshold." Is that their own creation or is that based upon a higher authority saying here are the best practices? Was this a discretionary chart that they created? [00:00] Marty [Public Works Staff]: I would have to assume they had somebody help them with this for sure. It's probably based on previous research and documentation. It's not very common that somebody just creates something of that nature from scratch. [00:00] Council Member Katrina Backstrom: I guess I just want to add a comment around this. If we move forward with any sort of policy, I think it's important that we look at the science and the guidance. If there is evidence that suggests a crosswalk is creating safety—which there's a study in here that indicates as much—that a marked versus unmarked crosswalk, there really was no difference in safety with that. And so I think we just have to be careful about opening a can of worms here because we do have quite a number of residential developments. I know my own development asked for a crosswalk and electric sign to walk over to the park, and it wasn't supported by Public Safety, which makes sense. So I just want to be really careful because it seems like there's a fairly substantial cost to this if we go down this path. From, you know, you could estimate anywhere from $8,000 to $10,000 for a crosswalk easily with these. So I would just want to make sure it's evidence-based and indeed improves the safety, and it's not just the perception of safety. [00:00] Mayor Charles Cadenhead: I would probably say that, and not reading every word of the policies, but that it's probably the gist of what cities have done. Given that city engineers look at studies and research and make sure, you know—I mean, it's really their job to make sure we don't put the public in harm's way unnecessarily. It's a credo in your professional engineering license that you don't do that. So I could see having something on paper that tells us whether something's—you know, much like signal systems, right? They require meeting warrants. Typically, a traffic engineer will say, "Well, you have certain amounts of traffic at certain amounts of speeds and you have close access points, so this is really kind of the minimum you need to install a signal system." I could see something like that being for crosswalks. An option there would be, I know if you've read some of the policies in here, there would be a study at request. And when do we decide when we want to invest time into a study? Pedestrians are typically counted, so you hire either somebody to sit out there or we'd have to pull a staff member away, and it could be for an hour on random days or longer, like a full day. [00:00] Mayor Charles Cadenhead: Why don't we—I mean, I would suggest that we get some of those questions answered as to: one, what is the cost to hire an expert to help with the development of a policy? Two, once you have a policy, what is the typical cost for finding out if that intersection meets the thresholds? I mean, we should get some of these questions answered, I think, before we just make a decision. [00:00] Council Member Matt Hirn: I think a fair amount of that is included in some of the research from the MnDOT article. And I'm pretty sure that the flowchart from Egan that's on page 224, I think most of the information from that flowchart is taken from that article from MnDOT, from the LRRB, which stands for Local Road Research Board. And you know, again going back to if we're getting two to three requests per year, or Marty's getting two to three—so you know, maybe it's actually five or six between other people reaching out to council members or whoever it might be—I personally do like kind of a model like that, like Egan's flowchart, where the two requests that Marty's getting per year, they'd be taken off the books right away. It's just there's no way that those are valid for a crosswalk. But at least we have some sort of policy in place that we can bring back and we can say to the residents, "Hey, like, this is why we're not going to move further with this." But in the situation where okay, it does meet these criteria, at least then we're starting to go through that process. You know, I personally do like that flowchart. I personally like Blaine's policy better; I think it leaves a little bit more—I think they define a little bit more. They specifically talk about arterial roadways where they're not going to do any crosswalks without some sort of traffic light signal or some sort of enhanced control for anything over, I think it was 40 mph, it might have been 30. So they just leave a little bit more decision to the commissions, to the Council, which I feel like would fit well with Lake Elmo. So personally, as I read through, I thought Blaine's policy I liked the most. I thought it would fit the best with Lake Elmo, just with that addition of the flowchart from Egan, because I feel like that would just weed out so many right away that just would not even make sense to go through that whole process with. And it looks like with that, it doesn't even get to the engineering until it meets those, right? So it would be on staff to go out and measure, okay, like sight visibility and lighting, what does that look like? Is there parking around or no parking? So a lot of these would just be not even considered then beyond that, but it would at least give that opportunity for spots where it could make sense. So that was my two cents from reading through those. I think Blaine has the best policy that would fit with Lake Elmo, just with a little bit of Egan's flowchart brought into it. [00:00] Council Member Jeff Holtz: I agree with Mayor Cadenhead on the process standpoint. I also agree with Council Member Hirn in terms of Blaine; I thought theirs was the most effective. I don't think any of them were bad, but I think Blaine was probably the most effective and the most applicable. In terms of that first step from a policy standpoint, do we have a current policy or even a precedent as a policy if an entity decides to donate money to pay for the solar crossing? Do we have a policy or even a precedent for how we handle that? [00:00] Marty [Public Works Staff]: We do not. [00:00] Council Member Jeff Holtz: And obviously there's the issue of right-of-way and long-term maintenance, but has it happened historically? Obviously, we have more of a recent situation now, but has it happened before? [00:00] Marty [Public Works Staff]: We have different donations that happen. I can't think of anything in the street-related lights. Anything we get is trees, benches, a lot of park items. [00:00] Council Member Jeff Holtz: If that's just a thought, as to if, presuming we go down this route of starting with a policy, I think that would be something to at least document in there as to how that works. If an entity wishes to donate for that, what are the criteria? Obviously working with engineering to make sure it's not in the right-of-way. But I personally would be very much more receptive to making sure that we're definitely being flexible if someone's willing to help with that and they deem it to be a priority, as long as there's not a distinct visible harm. Let's be partners. [00:00] Mayor Charles Cadenhead: The research indicates that—and it's kind of not very intrinsic—that there's an FHWA study, and actually one of the study locations was in Stillwater, Minnesota, that indicated driver's attention really doesn't vary from standard with painting on the pavement. In other words, they're going to travel as they normally do unless there's certain extenuating circumstances. I think that's maybe a lot of times where you see predominantly crosswalks happening at trail/sidewalk connections, but also signalized intersections, because the driver has to be aware of the signal as it's going on. So even if somebody were to donate, you'd still, I believe, need a policy that shows that you're meeting the criteria for one to be installed. In other words, if somebody just wants one installed and says "I'll pay for it," I don't think that's a valid reason. [00:00] Council Member Nick Dragisich: I would agree with that. I'd also add that as we consider whether we should develop a policy—and I kind of like policies personally because it gives you some guidance—but I think we also have to then take a look and say, if we put together a policy, do we have places where that policy would require we would now have to install a crosswalk? So we don't have a policy and then find that there are 14 locations this policy would require a crosswalk that currently are not crossed. Not that that's a good thing or a bad thing, it's just a piece of information we ought to have so we know how that would fit with our current situation. [00:00] Council Member Matt Hirn: I think most of these policies that are laid out, it really is based upon requests. None of them are stating—and maybe I missed that—but it didn't look like any of them were stating that if it meets this criteria, a sidewalk or crosswalk *must* be installed. So it was really more based off of if the request is brought. And which I think, you know, that's probably why we're having this discussion in the first place, right? We get a lot of requests for—or the Council gets requests for this. And I think that kind of goes back, too, to like trying to figure out why are we having this conversation. I think a big part of it is businesses and pedestrians are looking for some sort of path. And again, Blaine even talks about this where it says they want to put these where significant pedestrian concentrations occur or where pedestrians would not otherwise recognize the proper place to cross. And so I think it kind of goes—and this can probably fall into our next topic tonight, the Old Village master plan—of where do we want to direct traffic? And I think that should be a big part of this discussion for the crosswalk policy as well: utilizing it as a way to help guide traffic and pedestrians to where we feel would be the safest. Even if it maybe isn't the safest—because if they have to cross across County Highway 15—but it still will guide them to where we think is the safest location. [00:00] Council Member Jeff Holtz: That's kind of where I was falling in in terms of, say it does relate to the next item with the OV master plan, but when we talk about thresholds and obviously with traffic signals it's the warrants—let's say there's a similar process. If we have pedestrians crossing at four different spots on 14 because there's not necessarily a preferred place to go that's already signalized, and this is considered the safe place, technically if none of them meet that threshold but all of a sudden that now there is a spot and this is the designated spot and then people are going there, that actually would change the number for that spot and it might hit what the policy says is the threshold. So that's where it does kind of touch on this next topic. But I also fully agree with Council Member Hirn about some of the feedback that we are hearing from our businesses and from our residents is: where do you want us to go? Crossing 14 is not safe, period. And the county knows this, but the county's not going to do anything until 14 is redone. And it sucks; we can't do anything about it. We've pushed on it, but until that happens and we get additional easements for things, what can we do in the meantime? And that's where I was coming from with this request. [00:00] Mayor Charles Cadenhead: Just with relationship to CSAH 14 or any County State Aid Highway, the city's not going to get the authority to put a crossing sign or a crosswalk across the roadway without the blessing from their traffic engineer. So that's the one hurdle that would put that one to bed for the city in a fairly quick manner. Just to make that note, because we don't own that roadway, we don't control that roadway even though we tie into it. [00:00] Council Member Katrina Backstrom: I was just going to share that as well. I think that's out of our control. We can't put a crosswalk across 14; we know it's an issue until the county is able to do that. Us having a policy or even talking about much of that really isn't going to go anywhere. And I also just want to remind us that we have 25 square miles of city, not just the village to think about when it comes to crosswalks. And so while we can talk about businesses downtown and directing people with crosswalks, we also have many, many, many large developments that could require crosswalks if we're not very careful about how we approach this. Which is why I would be in favor of a policy that simply outlines our process for evaluating a crosswalk. I'm not sure I love the idea of putting in specific criteria because I think from a policy standpoint and from a risk standpoint, it positions the city to potentially have to put crosswalks in where they're not today, regardless of what the policies for other cities say. If we have a policy in place that has specific criteria that we need to have a safety crosswalk in place and we don't have it and an accident happens there, what is our liability as a city if we didn't put that crosswalk in? I think we have to be careful about opening up liability for the city based on what we put in our policy. So I'd prefer something a little more vague than specific to criteria from that angle of it. [00:00] Mayor Charles Cadenhead: I would think if we had it for requested sidewalks—because first and foremost, I mean, if there's an opportunity, at least in my opinion, if there's an opportunity or a reason or justification to keep our residents safe, then I'm all for that. I think those instances need to be addressed. What city are we if we don't have safe residents? I guess is what I would heed caution to. And as a growing city, I'm sure we'll run into instances, given traffic volumes and speeds, where it is something that will, if not in place already, likely need to be addressed in the future. So I guess if there's—you know, I would echo much of what Council Member Hirn indicated about the Blaine policy about reviewing intersections that get requested. If there's some criteria for that, then some of them will fall away right away based on the flowchart. Some will go to the next level. But again, all the engineering about roadways is about trying to make it safe for people that drive on them, use them, walk across them, or bike—whatever mode of transportation they use. I think as a city, we need to take that responsibility for safety of the residents, however they choose for their mode of traffic, with some sincereness. It would be nice to have a policy that gives some guidance as opposed to—it would help provide transparency and openness about what it really takes to require one. And these things on safety... what is this document on page 233 where they start talking about different costs for different kinds? We may need to look at Safe Routes to School or things like that that provide opportunities for funding, but that's something we would have to consider in that type of development. I guess I would say, but generally, I mean, do they belong in neighborhood settings like where I live? I would say no. There's plenty of roadways that have smaller amounts of traffic, it's lower speeds, where they're not really maintainable, they're not useful. But you do find some higher speed areas where... but if not handled properly, I mean, I'll just attest to it: my son was hit in a crosswalk that was lit. He did have the right of way, he pushed the button, the lights were going, hit by a car. Well, it didn't make it any safer for him. But I think overall a policy should be made so that we can make informed decisions as a city related to the safety for pedestrians and people using other modes of transportation than a vehicle. [00:00] Council Member Jeff Holtz: Agreed with most of that. Two smaller questions slightly related but not: Has the county started to have their conversations now for 14 regarding their Greenway and the path going eastward? I'm under the impression that they've reached out to the city and/or others. [00:00] Mayor Charles Cadenhead: I mean, at the last Park Commission meeting, a representative came and discussed that and just kind of gave an update on where things are at. There's still not a set path or plan. [00:00] Council Member Jeff Holtz: But have they found a funding source yet for that, or are they still now at the point where they haven't identified a funding source? [00:00] Marty [Public Works Staff]: I don't believe that they have. [00:00] Council Member Jeff Holtz: Right. Then follow-up: When new developments come in, and our development is a prime example and so is Wildflower and all of our new developments that we've had recently in the last decade, and they're painting crosswalks, who told them to where? And then what is our process for—you know, residents might be used to that being a place to cross and again, not talking about the science or the data about it, but that has become a place they're thinking that the city said "This is a place to go," and it might be because the developer painted it, right? [00:00] Marty [Public Works Staff]: Yeah. Currently, those are designed by the developer's engineer, along with where the trees are placed and stuff. Engineering reviews, you know, and Public Works review many of the assets and such, but there are things that maybe we don't look into as much as maybe we should. Our plan right now is we don't have a budget for restriping any of those crosswalks, so there is no plan; they would likely just fade. [00:00] Council Member Jeff Holtz: I'm sorry to put you on the spot with all these questions, but this is your... [00:00] Marty [Public Works Staff]: Yeah, no. We don't have a... there's no budget for restriping stop signs, crosswalks, etc. [00:00] Mayor Charles Cadenhead: Thank you. I do need to pay attention to time a little bit here as we're past our 7:00, so I would like to try and be concise here and give staff some direction. Is it amenable to have them take a stab at looking at some policy and coming up with some—I mean, there are some costs that are in there—maybe finding out what the cost is per review or coming up with a plan what that cost would be? Can we get some consent on that being a motion forward? [00:00] Marty [Public Works Staff]: I mean, I think your suggestion 20 minutes ago was really starting to go down the policy route, see what the costs are for certain things, and at least start to piece things together. [00:00] Mayor Charles Cadenhead: Yeah, I mean, do you feel like you have enough feedback to start to piece a couple recommendations for an initial policy that's high level, but... are you looking for staff and engineering to put that together, or do you want some consultant assistance? [00:00] Marty [Public Works Staff]: I guess it would, you know, just gathering the information and I guess I would be looking for staff to see what... you know, you can check around and see what it would cost for a consultant to have input on a policy and some... maybe somebody has something they've done before and would recommend that. Traffic is traffic, it really is. So we talked a little bit about the Blaine policy, which is fairly compact, pretty broad. It would seem like working to maybe amend that to fit the City of Lake Elmo might be a real good place to start. [00:00] Council Member Katrina Backstrom: Yeah, I'm not opposed to exploring the cost. As I've looked through the policies, there was fairly compact, fairly broad, but it still gave a policy that we could work with. And perhaps one part of it might be the understanding of what is already covered by, I think it's 169 the statutes, talks about pedestrian crossings as well, and so there's some statutory things that are automatically there depending on the street and that. But it might be good to kind of put those in so everyone knows that this is required by law. [00:00] Mayor Charles Cadenhead: I'd be fine with that. And so we could just take this policy, which is actually pretty good already, make some amendments that fit Lake Elmo, and we'd have a reasonable policy started. It would be... maybe we could get a traffic engineer to review it at some point, but we could frame it up and get it 90% of the way there. [00:00] Council Member Matt Hirn: Yeah, I just think the part that Blaine is missing, especially from our discussion tonight, is it doesn't have a very clear policy of what we should even consider. And I think if we take that—again, that flowchart from Egan—that's going to disqualify any of the neighborhoods that want to request a sidewalk. It's just going to be immediate: "You don't have a thousand cars going through this intersection today, this is not going to be an option." [00:00] Mayor Charles Cadenhead: Flowcharts are always nice. All right, good enough. I think we have enough. [00:00] Marty [Public Works Staff]: Okay, I can start with that. Great, thank you. [00:00] Mayor Charles Cadenhead: Thank you. Going to move on to item number three, which is Old Village master plan. Director Stopa is up there. [00:00] Jason Stopa (Planning Director): All right, so as you know, the moratorium was adopted on February 6th, and it has a maximum duration of one year. The legislative findings—this is in the ordinance when the moratorium was adopted—is that the city needs to study the required utility corridors; the city needs to update its Village master plan in order to provide guidance on development and redevelopment in the Old Village corridor area; and that it's in the best interest of the city to impose a moratorium on development within the Old Village corridor area so that it could study the required infrastructure and update the Village master plan. The issue for the Council is specifically the scope, and specifically, it's: should the Council approve an update to the Lake Elmo Village area master plan as part of the moratorium study? This was last updated in 2007. You can kind of see the main site plan/master plan that came from that Village plan. We've been working with our planning consultant, Bolton & Mink, and asking them for some options, and they came up with essentially two phases: Phase 1, and then if you want to go the route and add Phase 2. So Phase 1, the first task would be to review the old plan, the 2007 plan, the comprehensive plan, and the zoning code. The second task would then have community meetings, there would be recommended amendments, and that's how we would get out of the moratorium with changes to the zoning code. That would take about four to five months. Phase 2 is essentially tasks one through three, with task four being the new master plan "book," and that would take six to eight months after the approvals would go through and the moratorium would be lifted. I hope you could see this schedule and cost. I wanted to include it from the Bolton & Mink proposal. You can see in green that those tasks would end at the end of August. Phase 2 would bring that out into November. The deadline to remove the moratorium is in February. We also wanted pricing: Phase 1 is $10,500; to include the full plan [Phase 2] is an additional $18,500, for a total of $29,000. I want to talk about advantages and disadvantages of doing Phase 1 only versus both phases. In Phase 1 only, obviously, it's going to cost less and it's going to take less time. It also would allow the department to accept land use applications, which could result in development sooner. The disadvantage is it really limits the scope. What we're looking at is a review of those existing plans and then making amendments, and maybe not addressing other areas that have come up in the past—some of the issues that people have mentioned about the Village area. And Phase 2—I really want to read this because we can figure out the detail moving forward—the advantage is it would better align the zoning code to the Village area's needs as of today. It would provide an updated area plan that will be incorporated in the next comprehensive plan. I think this is important as we enter into the comprehensive plan, I believe in '26-'27 for the next round. It would give us a document that we could work off now with our needs currently, and it would make it easier when we update the next comprehensive plan. It would address design standards that are currently not listed in the Lake Elmo design guidelines. Those design guidelines aren't perfect; it's a little bit difficult to apply to the Village overlay. It would be nice to add design standards specific to the Village overlay that complement the design guidelines that are already adopted. It would also update sub-districts. The Village area has the Civic District; it also has an area called the Station District—that's basically the land east of what's developed. It could also assist with grant applications because you have a new plan. A lot of times grants want to know if it's part of your plan. Review infrastructure needs for pedestrian safety. I think the other piece of this is it could create a plan for the reuse of the old fire station and Parks building. I think this is really important. Instead of moving forward with maybe accepting the highest bid, we could go through a process and understand what residents want for this site. Also, it could look at maybe an RFP process, so it's a competitive bid process for these properties. The other things that are included in the old plan and also in the comp plan are: how do we connect the Village Parkway north to Stillwater Boulevard? Consider road connectivity from the developed downtown area to the surrounding land within the Village area. Also review land uses for the undeveloped land both on the west and the east of downtown; that may be something we would want to modify from the comprehensive land use plan and give us guidance in the future as development comes and wants to seek to develop that property. And we've talked about the signage requirements in the past; we've been holding off on that to get a better idea of what people want to see in the village. Obviously, the disadvantages are the cost and the time would increase, and then it could potentially slow down an acceptable development. We are making a recommendation that Phase 2 best addresses the legislative findings that are in the ordinance that was adopted. I'm here to answer any questions. We also have Nathan here from Bolton & Mink if there's anything specific to the proposal that they've submitted. [00:00] Mayor Charles Cadenhead: I would just say, in that would be to consider not just road connectivity, but multimodal connectivity for the developed downtown area. We were just talking about crosswalks and pedestrians and bicycle usage, and I think part of that is having developments that are close to the downtown, hopefully driving some economic development that's wanted and needed. Mixed areas are part of that equation. [00:00] Council Member Nick Dragisich: I just had one question that came up. The moratorium we currently have, does that block any development at all? Let's say we had a use right now that was conforming and someone wanted to put a different type of use to it but still a permitted use under the zoning code, would that be blocked? [00:00] Jason Stopa (Planning Director): It wouldn't be blocked, but it would not allow someone to basically create an addition or change the site, you know, add parking or landscaping. The moratorium specifically lists—and I have it here just so everybody knows because this question has come up—it's a moratorium on development projects, and that means any site plan, subdivision plat, planned unit development, variance, conditional use permit, or interim use permit. Somebody could receive a permit and build out, let's say, because we've heard like an ice cream shop, as long as they weren't modifying the site. [00:00] Council Member Nick Dragisich: Okay, thank you very much. [00:00] Council Member Matt Hirn: When you move from Phase 1 to Phase 2, is there a reason we couldn't lift the moratorium after Phase 1 rezoning when we're done with that, and then we're working on updating the master plan? Is there a reason we have to wait until the end? [00:00] Jason Stopa (Planning Director): You could actually lift it at that point. The challenge would be you're doing a lot more work in Phase 2 to understand maybe potential changes, like we need more commercial in the Station District or something may come up, and then you're amending it again. Zoning twice is essentially what could happen if you don't wait. But that is at least an option. [00:00] Council Member Matt Hirn: It's an option, yeah. [00:00] Council Member Katrina Backstrom: I'm not sure if this is a question for you or for Clarissa: Where in our 2024 budget did we put money in there to complete a master plan, or where would we get $29,000 to do this work? [00:00] Clarissa Hadler (Finance Director): It's currently not budgeted for this project. We'd have to talk to Council specifically about potentially doing a budget amendment to include this for this year. [00:00] Council Member Katrina Backstrom: My next question is, where on our priority list does this fit? Our strategic plan that we defined a year and a half ago—where does this item fit? It popped up out of nowhere, and we're looking at $29,000 to... I don't even know why we have this moratorium. I voted against it because I don't understand why we're doing this right now with everything we have going on in our city. So I need to understand why this is a priority at this point and why we should do a budget amendment to pay for it. [00:00] Jason Stopa (Planning Director): I could speak to the fact that the moratorium was adopted and there's certain legislative findings that we have. We can't just get out of the moratorium. I think since it has been adopted, we've been in a position of how do we move forward? One of the things we wanted to do is get this proposal from Bolton & Mink, and that's where we've landed at this point. Just because we can't just get out of it at this point now that it's been adopted. [00:00] Council Member Katrina Backstrom: But do we need to spend $29,000? I mean, that's what I'm struggling with here. This was not on our priority list, and $30,000 for a plan at this point with everything going on in the city, to me, seems concerning. And so I'm trying to understand the recommendation for doing the two-phased approach with the $29,000 price. [00:00] Jason Stopa (Planning Director): I think it just gives us everything that I've been hearing that people have asked for, and I think it lines up more with the legislative findings. It's definitely a Council decision how they want to move forward with this if they don't want to pay for the plan, but we definitely need guidance on the scope and what we're looking at moving forward. [00:00] Mayor Charles Cadenhead: If we... all right, so I'd just like to offer my understanding. The moratorium was that there were certain pieces, at least with the current zoning, that didn't necessarily mesh very well with the original concept back over the last decade, and there were some businesses that some people probably didn't want to see in the Old Village area. We should probably take some time and find the ability to craft the Old Village area that's attractive to businesses and residents to use that area. Some people are going to agree, some people are going to disagree. So it's possible to do just Phase 1 to lift the moratorium and then look at the budget in the future to allocate for Phase 2, right? [00:00] Jason Stopa (Planning Director): That's correct. I mean, you could shelf it for a period of time. [00:00] Mayor Charles Cadenhead: And then just a question for Finance Director Clarissa: Do we have any discretionary funds? I believe I remember seeing a budgetary item that was listed in the budget for items that may come up. [00:00] Clarissa Hadler (Finance Director): We do have a... what did we call that? That $35,000 kind of "at the end" of the budget there that had been set aside in previous years, so we had left that in. We also... I mean, the general fund, I wouldn't speak to a number, but I believe we've had a surplus for the last couple years, so there's certainly cash available. It's up to Council as far as whether we direct that towards this or... and I don't remember, Jason, did you mention that you had a staffing position that was not yet filled? The plan reviewer? [00:00] Jason Stopa (Planning Director): Yeah. So I don't know if that's a... not that I want to be willy-nilly with dollars that the taxpayers put in, but I think this is something that's beneficial for the whole city and the businesses involved. [00:00] Council Member Nick Dragisich: I like your suggestion—if I'm hearing correctly—that perhaps we could do the Phase 1 option this year, lift the moratorium, and budget for Phase 2 in a future year. We kind of get the best of both worlds in some way and manage our budget. [00:00] Council Member Katrina Backstrom: Can we cut down the cost of Phase 1? Because that's $10,000. So that to me is still a lot of money for a plan. And I guess I need to understand what the other "issues in the village" are. I clearly have been left out of the loop because I don't know what all these issues are in the village that this moratorium was meant to correct, other than it sounds like to prevent business growth in the village. If we're wanting to keep specific types of businesses out, that doesn't seem right to me to put a moratorium in place for that. What are you specifically talking about with the issues? You referenced "other issues in village" in one of your slides here as a reason for doing this. [00:00] Jason Stopa (Planning Director): The other issues would just be this larger scope of everything that's included in terms of pedestrian connectivity, the reuse of the old fire station and parks—all these other issues that have been brought up that we've added to the Phase 2, that would be added into the actual document. [00:00] Council Member Katrina Backstrom: Possibly the current Lake Elmo Elementary School site? But what's the urgency? What are the issues that was the urgency for the moratorium? I'm not... I'm missing something here because the things that are being talked about don't seem like they require an immediate review. And so there must be something else that I'm not seeing here that is pressing that we need to get resolved in the next six months. I guess I'm just looking for help on what those issues are. [00:00] Jason Stopa (Planning Director): I think the issue is directly the land use issue and what uses should be there. Correct, that I think is why the moratorium is in place. Also, it mentions studying the pedestrian connectivity and some of the other—let me just bring it back to the slide. It specifically was adopted to study the utility corridors, road right-of-way, looking at infrastructure, and whether or not you want to update the Village master plan. So the legislative finding in the moratorium that was adopted has a fairly large scope. So, you know, that's why we're here asking for direction on how we are going to proceed with this, because based on this, it looks like a pretty large scope from the moratorium. That's why we recommended Phase 1 and 2 because it addresses what's in the moratorium. [00:00] Council Member Katrina Backstrom: Well, can we just limit it to whatever the main issue is and cut the cost? I mean, if it's zoning or land use, can we just limit it to just the land use and get that done quickly and under $10,000 and be done with this? [00:00] Jason Stopa (Planning Director): I think if that's the direction—as the moratorium stated—if that's the direction of the Council and the Council wants to just focus on that, then that's an option to look at land uses as part of the study. My only concern with answering it that way is the moratorium does state that these are the findings, and there's a process when you implement an interim zoning district with the state statutes: you have to state your legislative findings and go through this process. And what we're looking for today is general feedback from the Council so we can come back where you're going to take a vote on something. And so I guess the question more is if we want to focus on what is the length and the breadth of the study that you want to do. We've heard some people say we just want to do Phase 1 and do Phase 2 next year, or do the whole thing all at once. Those are kind of the feedbacks we're looking for as staff to help guide us. [00:00] Council Member Jeff Holtz: Thank you for putting this together and for documenting, based upon what we already voted upon, some of the advantages and disadvantages with each plan. In seeing the pretty objective advantages that are listed in option two, at this point, my preference is that we go with both. But I understand the solution that both of you have offered, and if it was that route, I would just want to make sure that we are still saying we're going with option two, maybe just option two is starting in the new year. Because these are all substantial value gains. Nearly every one of those is something that either we've had a resident talk to us about, a business owner—something that we see where there are gaps between the comp plan and reality. These are things that are coming up right now, so I don't know if "sense of urgency" is the right word for it, but this is our job. So I have no issue with going with option one and two at this point. I think it's being more transparent to say what the plan is going to be for this process, especially for staff, because if we say, "Oh, we're going with option one, we *might* go with option two," that's not necessarily to me what staff would want to hear for knowing what's on the radar. But if the position is we're going with option one and then we shall initiate option two in the start of the new year, I support that. [00:00] Council Member Matt Hirn: I think this is a good investment. I know it was not budgeted for; we do have the discretionary funds for it. Looking at the Village plan that was put together in 2007—it's an excellent plan, but a lot has changed since then. A lot of what was initially planned was not able to be completed because of the Met Council direction we had to take with that. This is going to bring more businesses to the city if we do it right. It's going to mean it's going to be help for the economic development; it's going to bring tax money. So I look at this as an investment. And with that being said, I do want this moratorium to be lifted sooner than later. The last thing I want us to do or that government should be doing is telling businesses when or when they can't be doing stuff. So I tend to at this point, if it's possible, lift that moratorium after we're completed with Phase 1. I do still feel it's important to move forward with Phase 2 and look at that Village master plan again because I think that's really going to be the meat and potatoes of it where we get the most from this. Yes, it costs more, but again, I think it's an investment that we will reap the benefits from as a city down the road. So my preference would be, if it's possible, once the Phase 1 is done, the rezoning has been completed, that we are able to lift the moratorium but then still move forward with that Old Village plan, revisiting that. [00:00] Council Member Katrina Backstrom: I think it's a bad idea. And I'm very concerned about the money that's been spent by this Council this year since terminating our administrator and going through and having that added expense this year. I think we need to be cognizant of the money that's being spent that we didn't plan for. Yes, there might be some discretionary dollars that were in the budget last year. Well, how much money did we spend to hire a consulting firm to find us a City Administrator? How much are we spending on the payout to the last City Administrator? We need to be good stewards of dollars and not simply spend because we think it's a good idea and an idea pops up. This is something that was absolutely not on any strategic plan that I've seen or was a party to in the last two years. It was not anything we've talked about until it popped up one day on the agenda to vote for a moratorium. So I think it's wasteful at this point to spend $29,000 or even $10,000 on a study that, frankly, I still don't quite know what the hell we're doing because no one can seem to articulate what the problem is that we're trying to solve that, again, created the urgency to put a moratorium in place. So I simply don't support any part of this. I think it's not good use of limited dollars that we have in the city. And we can cite our comp plan and the need to do this for guidance in that, but I'll remind this Council that they have made changes to our comp plan how many times when it's come before us? We don't live by our comp plan. So to say we want to do some of this in preparation for creating our next comp plan or for having a village master plan that we intend to follow—we don't follow plans. If somebody proposes something different and we like it, we change things. So I just simply don't support any part of this. [00:00] Mayor Charles Cadenhead: All right, so we've heard from Council Member Backstrom. I think the rest of the Council would appreciate moving into Phase 1 and looking at Phase 2 potentially in the future. That's what I got. All right, thank you. Item number four is Public Safety Aid allocation. [00:00] Dustin Kalis (Fire Chief): Mayor and Council, I don't have a formal presentation tonight. I just have some information for you to review and get some options from you and some direction from you from what was provided in the staff report. In the 2023 legislative session, the state of Minnesota allocated $300 million to local governments in the eyes of Public Safety. The City of Lake Elmo received $553,000 of that, and that was received by the city December 26th of last year. Tonight, just looking for guidance on how we utilize those Public Safety dollars. The eligible uses were pretty broad on what you can use it for and then pretty specific on what you can't use it for. Some of the eligible uses are community violence prevention/intervention programs, community engagement, mental health crisis response, victim services, training programs, first responder wellness, equipment related to fire rescue and emergency services, and then to pay other personnel or equipment costs. They did get into some pretty specific things you can't use them for, especially related to certain law enforcement activities, but really looking for your guidance on how we should utilize these dollars. Just within the past month, I know there are some bills proposed in the current legislative session right now to have cities report back what they've spent these dollars on. In the initial bill, there was no reporting requirement—it was pretty broad—but I think now, especially tied to some of the law enforcement uses that municipalities or organizations can't use these for, I think that's where some of the bill traction is. The state looks at Public Safety pretty defined on what it is. I worked with the Administrator and Finance Director on just kind of figuring out ways on maybe some options for us to utilize these dollars. In your packet, I did include some high-level ideas of what I've come together with—our command staff and our general staff—on what can we do with these dollars. Provided some examples for you and just kind of want to have a discussion around those dollars. When I originally looked at these and looked at what other communities are doing, it's extremely broad on what everybody's frankly doing with these dollars. Cities that have an immediate need for fire truck purchase took these dollars immediately and put it into their current truck purchase. We could retroactively cover expenses that we had last year pertaining to almost anything on the fire department side of things and cover those dollars with the money we received. When I look at it, I look at some of the things that we had... one item we identified in just the construction of the building here is just our 800 MHz radio coverage. You really don't know until a building's done what that radio coverage is going to be, and for us it's pretty poor in this building. So looking at a radio repeater would be extremely helpful to us and also the Sheriff's Department on the other side of the building. We look at as we grow our department how we maintain and change our policy. There's a policy program that looks at industry best standards and really maintains and creates our fire department staff policies, personnel policies, and our operational policies at a very high level, something that we would have a very difficult time doing at the staff level. And I look at things that we can do to benefit the community: Community Risk Reduction. We have on staff CPR instructors. In order for them to maintain their CPR cards and their instructor certifications, they have to teach, and we would love to offer classes here to our community for certified CPR or even hands-only CPR. That comes with the cost of just getting some equipment we don't have to put those classes on for our residents or our business community. Same thing with a fire extinguisher training; we'd love to offer that as part of our commercial building inspection program where we can go out to our business community and provide that required training that these places need to maintain OSHA standards and other standards. So tonight I've got Assistant Chief Svoboda and Captain Mike Schwarz to kind of talk about what it could look like for Community Risk Reductions and joining the dive team. [00:00] Anthony Svoboda (Assistant Fire Chief): When you think about fire prevention in our community, we've been doing fire prevention activities and talks for years, and it's always been reliant on the number of volunteers that we could get on a specific day to go out and do those things. And so the messages weren't always consistent; we weren't able to get to businesses and schools every year. But now that we have consistent staffing, we want to take our fire prevention program and turn it into a Community Risk Reduction program where we're still talking about the classic fire prevention things, but taking the opportunity with some new tools and equipment to maybe take a fire extinguisher training simulator to Arbor Glen, The Fields, Boulder Ponds, for example, and our larger businesses to give them that training. That gives us the opportunity to interact with the residents, interact with the business owners, the managers, the employees, and build the relationships that we need to be building with folks to manage the community and its risk. [00:00] Mike Schwarz (Fire Captain): I think Dustin's kind of talked on most of this, just from both a staffing perspective and also a service to the community and for our ability to interact with other departments and belong to a team that is a shared resource. I think that there's definitely a need for the resource in our city, and we've seen even recently over the last two years there's been significant calls that might require that resource in the City of Lake Elmo. More recently, I've had several meetings with other departments that are part of that team, and they've been very receptive to us joining that resource and that ability to share that resource with them. [00:00] Dustin Kalis (Fire Chief): The Washington County Fire Chiefs Association has for years structured their own water rescue team, and it's slowly evolving to more of a technical rescue team involving rope rescue, low-angle rescue, and water. We have not been an active participant in that group; we've kind of been a bystander. If we need something on the water, our current capabilities are limited; we call in the team and the team comes along with the Sheriff's Department dive support. It's just kind of bolstering things that are already out in the county and really adding our own staff to that mix as well. I bring that up because we always kind of look at not what can our staff do, but what other paths do they have available to them? Mike's a prime example; he's got a great history of technical rescue. I have another two-year firefighter that is a master diver, and we can utilize that skill here by being a part of this team and offering that potential rescue resource to our residents as well. Those costs could be completely covered underneath this Public Safety dollar amount and wouldn't have to come out of our general fund. [00:00] Mayor Charles Cadenhead: Can you give an estimate of what that cost would be? [00:00] Dustin Kalis (Fire Chief): Looking at equipment to have enough proper equipment that we kind of fall in line with that group now, it'd be about a $20,000 equipment ask to outfit/have equipment for three individuals. [00:00] Mayor Charles Cadenhead: And did I hear you correct in saying there's not ongoing costs with that beyond the initial investment? [00:00] Dustin Kalis (Fire Chief): Most of these things, there's definitely going to be ongoing costs. You know, we look at the life of a tank or the life of a wet suit. Some of that equipment we definitely have to keep in mind and acknowledge that many of these asks have some sort of life expectancy in them. Really tonight, looking for guidance in what option we go. Worked with Finance Director Hadler and we kind of came up with two options. Option 1 would be to create a Fire Department Technology and Equipment Fund similar to our vehicle replacement fund, where some of these purchases would be made following the same process for quotes and bidding. Identify what those long-term costs would be, but utilizing this $553,000 to go into that. Option 2 would be simply to take those dollars and transfer it directly into the vehicle replacement fund and cover our costs that we incurred last year. Our vehicle replacement costs that we incurred were $523,000. I look at Option 1 as the better option for us because it truly does make a large immediate impact on our operations. [00:00] Mayor Charles Cadenhead: I recall we did some purchasing of—was that 800 MHz handsets? [00:00] Dustin Kalis (Fire Chief): We did. We replaced our entire radio fleet in late 2022/early 2023. As we constructed the building and kind of realized as things were finishing up, that's when we encountered the radio coverage issues in the building. We've got a quote for anywhere between $22,000 and $28,000 for a piece of equipment [a repeater] like that. [00:00] Council Member Katrina Backstrom: I like the idea of the community risk programs, the reduction, because I know we've talked in past meetings with your call volumes around falls and things like that. So I would really like to see some of the money directed towards those community programs where we can engage more with the community if possible. [00:00] Dustin Kalis (Fire Chief): Absolutely. One of the things I've been talking to is Washington County reached out to me not too long ago and they're wondering how they can maybe partner with fire departments to assist with them. In my previous city, we partnered with the American Red Cross on their smoke detector replacement program. The fire department staff would go and replace smoke detectors free of charge. I think we can use these dollars that frankly came out of nowhere and really put them to work in a number of ways that benefit not only our operations but definitely impact our residents firsthand. [00:00] Council Member Nick Dragisich: In looking at this list of all 12 items that you have, I think it would be really helpful if you could prioritize them and put a cost to them. I think the fund is a good idea, but if we had a list where the most important thing on this fund would be—I'll pick the divers just for an example—and the next thing would be the Community Education and then 800 MHz, and you kind of go down the line and say we have $553,000 to spend, can we get through all of them? What's the most important that would make the biggest impact on the department and the residents? Then we could work with Finance to set up the fund and how this will proceed over time. [00:00] Mayor Charles Cadenhead: I would agree. I love the community risk reduction, but really you guys are the experts in that field, and there is a cap on the dollars. So in any way that you could help maybe define those priorities as you guys see them, I think that would be beneficial for us as a Council to have that expertise to lean on. [00:00] Dustin Kalis (Fire Chief): Yeah, absolutely. I'll continue to work with the Finance department to lay out the fund idea and come back and say, "Here's our current list of priorities." That will still definitely leave us plenty of dollars left in this fund as we continue to grow. Another item I look at is vehicle repairs and equipment repairs. That can take a hard left one time with a certain repair on a truck that goes into double digits pretty quick. Tire replacements—I'm going to have to spend $4,000 to $6,000 on a tire replacement for a vehicle. Our rescue truck's coming up on five years right now, and one of these days we're going to smell the batteries and they've had enough; that's a $1,500 replacement. We can kind of schedule some of these, and I want to look at this fund to help us with some of those potential known repairs or replacements too, which ultimately helps us eliminate some need from the general fund in the future. [00:00] Council Member Katrina Backstrom: One last question: Do we have anything currently—a fund or resources—that cover costs of mental health support or wellness? I just think of all the really bad calls that our department has gone out on just even the last year, and I worry about that. [00:00] Dustin Kalis (Fire Chief): We don't have anything specific, but I would say we're very fortunate in the state of Minnesota that the legislation did provide dollars to create MNFIRE, which is a mental health, cardiac health, and cancer prevention program specific to the fire service. Does that mean that we can't bolster it with our own thing? I mean, there's plenty of different things that we can continue to look at that would support our staff's mental and physical health now and in the future. Absolutely. [00:00] Council Member Jeff Holtz: I like the fund. I appreciate feedback as to what the highest priorities are. I agree with Council Member Backstrom as well: if there's additional above and beyond for mental health, just say it, and I'm sure the Council is always going to be receptive. [00:00] Mayor Charles Cadenhead: All right, thank you. For the next Council Workshop that will happen in May, it looks like we've got future work session agenda items for the MPC, update on PFAS in Lake Elmo, open space PUD ordinance review, and community room policy discussion. With that, we'll adjourn this evening's city council workshop. [8:02 PM]