City Council Workshop

Blaine City Hall City of Blaine 10801 Town Sq Dr NE Blaine MN 55449 Anoka County, Minnesota Minutes City Council Workshop While this is a public meeting where interested persons are welcome to attend, it is a work session for City Council and staff to discuss issues before them. It is not for the purpose of receiving public input. To participate in the meeting remotely join the Zoom Webinar at: https://blainemn.zoom.us/j/95205021430 Questions? Email - communications@BlaineMN.gov Monday, December 7, 2020 6:00 PMto the COVID-19 pandemic, city meetings will be held as Due virtual meetings until further notice. NOTICE OF WORKSHOP MEETING 1 Call to Order The meeting was called to order by Mayor Ryan at 6:00 p.m. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic this meeting was held virtually. 2 Roll Call Quorum Present. ALSO PRESENT: City Manager Michelle Wolfe; Community Development Director Erik Thorvig; Public Works Director Jon Haukaas; Police Chief/Safety Services Manager Brian Podany; Finance Director Joe Huss; Public Services Manager/Assistant City Manager Bob Therres; City Engineer Dan Schluender; City Planner Lori Johnson; City Attorney Chris Nelson; Communications Technician Roark Haver; Communications Manager Ben Hayle; Park and Rec Manager Nate Monahan; and City Clerk Catherine Sorensen. Present: 3 - Councilmember Jeppson, Councilmember Robertson, and Councilmember Paul Absent: 1 - Councilmember Hovland 3 New Business Mayor Ryan announced that SBM Fire Department had postponed the Santa Parade scheduled for later this evening and asked staff to work to share this change with the affected neighborhoods as quickly as possible. 3-1 REVIEW CITY OF BLAINE WATER SUPPLY PLAN City of Blaine Page 1 City Council Workshop Minutes December 7, 2020 Attachments: Plan Public Works Director Haukaas stated all public water suppliers in Minnesota that operate a public water distribution system, serve more than 1,000 people and/or all cities in the seven-county metropolitan area, must have a Water Supply Plan approved by the Department of Natural Resources (DNR) per state statutes. The goal of the Water Supply Plan is to help water suppliers implement long term water sustainability and conservation measures and to develop critical emergency preparedness measures. State Statutes require that water supply plans be updated every 10 years. A Request for Proposals process resulted in the City of Blaine hiring Barr Engineering Company to prepare the required Water Supply Plan updates and shepherd the plan through the DNR review and approval process. The Plan utilizes the template developed by the DNR to improve review time and ensure completeness. Mr. Haukaas reported City Council reviewed the draft of this plan in 2018 prior to submission to the DNR. The review process is lengthy; the city received DNR comments back in July 2019, comments were addressed, and the plan re-submitted. Final approval by DNR of the plan occurred on September 11, 2020. The Water Supply Plan has three primary parts: System Description and Evaluation, Emergency Preparedness Procedures, and Water Conservation Plan. The Plan is focused on the period from 2006-2015. Discussion ensued on how the city’s water capacity would improve after WTP 4 was brought online in 2021. Staff reviewed the city’s water conservation efforts along with data included in the plan describing the city’s historic water demand and largest customers, treatment and storage capacity, projected demand out to 2040, and our ability to meet that demand. Mayor Ryan discussed how valuable water was to the community. He noted the city did not meet with Aveda in 2020 and recommended the city plan to meet with Aveda in 2021 to discuss water usage. Councilmember Jeppson commented on the historic water demand table and questioned why the unmetered/unaccounted water in 2010 and 2011 was three or four times higher than in other years. Mr. Haukaas explained he did not have the history as to why this happened. He stated this could have been from leaks or major fires in the city. He explained in more recent years the city has been hovering around 8 percent to 10 percent. He anticipated that the city would not have to flush the system in the future once it was using filtered water. Councilmember Jeppson asked what the 2017 water numbers would look like. Mr. Haukaas stated he did not have this information readily available but would research further and forward information to the Council. City of Blaine Page 2 City Council Workshop Minutes December 7, 2020 Discussed 30 Minute Discussion 3-2 CITY OF BLAINE WATER SYSTEM INTERCONNECTION WITH THE CITY OF LEXINGTON WATER SYSTEM Attachments: 1992 Memo - Lex not pumping enough to balance use 1994 Memo - Lexington WQ Concerns Raw manganese levels in wells 2020 Blaine Water System Plan -WTP Capacity by Population Mr. Haukaas stated to meet the demands of Lexington residents, the City of Blaine provides water to the City of Lexington through a series of sixteen interconnection points. Historically, Lexington has reimbursed Blaine by pumping from their well into the Blaine system over the summer months. This total use versus pumping is not accurately measured and water quality issues with the Lexington well has prevented Lexington from fully balancing the volumes in recent years. Blaine residents have paid a significant investment to improve the City’s water quality in recent years and he said it would be a disservice to Blaine residents to balance use by an outside agency with poor quality raw water. Staff is proposing to no longer accept water from the Lexington well, to separate the two systems, and continue to sell water to the City of Lexington through metered connections. The Blaine water system has sufficient capacity to supply the City of Lexington with filtered water for some time into the future. Lexington’s population is a little more than 2,000 people, with the potential to double through redevelopment to a greater mix of multi-family housing. The future growth of Blaine’s system is anticipated to be able to provide that volume of service to Lexington. With the construction of the metering stations, Lexington would essentially become a large industrial level customer of the City of Blaine. He discussed how the city should move forward with a new JPA with Lexington in 2021. City Attorney Nelson reported discussions have started with Lexington’s city attorney and a rate proposal was being drafted. He explained concerns have been raised by the City of Lexington at which time the concerns from Blaine have been discussed. Councilmember Garvais stated he understood the concerns from Lexington but noted Blaine has worked diligently to create a high quality water filtration system for its residents. He supported the city not accepting poor quality water from Lexington moving forward. Mayor Ryan agreed with this recommendation. He discussed the city’s history of City of Blaine Page 3 City Council Workshop Minutes December 7, 2020 selling water to Lexington. Councilmember Robertson questioned when a JPA would be in place. Mr. Haukaas reported the arrangement was Lexington only pumped water into Blaine until October. He stated Lexington was fully using Blaine water from November through the spring. He indicated this would allow Blaine to come to an arrangement with Lexington over the winter months. He discussed the investments Lexington was making in its infrastructure system and understood they needed time. Councilmember Robertson reported the city has made massive investments in the water system and she wanted to see this system protected. City Manager Wolfe summarized the comments made by the council and noted staff would begin negotiations with Lexington taking a phased in approach. Mayor Ryan commented this was the correct direction to proceed. Council consensus was to direct staff to work with the City of Lexington to phase in the proposed changes to the water supply. 30 Minute Discussion 3-3 COVID-19 IMPACTS/OTHER Ms. Wolfe reported the new executive order implemented by the governor two weeks ago was something the city has had to review at length and apply to city staffing. She explained staff was continuing to be creative with respect to city programming. Police Chief/Safety Services Manager Podany explained a fire truck would be sent to the west side neighborhoods informing residents that the parade has been postponed. He indicated he would be meeting with Fire Chief Smith tomorrow morning to discuss the logistics and plans to reschedule the Santa Parade. Mayor Ryan thanked staff for working through the issues in order to make this parade happen. He commented he would be willing to help in any way to ensure the parade was held and food donations were collected. Councilmember Robertson stated she would also be willing to help pick up food donations after the parade. Councilmember Paul asked if any testing sites were located in Blaine. Ms. Wolfe reported a testing site was located at the National Sports Center. Police Chief Podany explained the NSC would also serve as an inoculation site when the vaccine became available. Councilmember Garvais questioned if the traffic control assistance at the NSC was a reimbursable expense. Police Chief Podany stated at this time, the expense for City of Blaine Page 4 City Council Workshop Minutes December 7, 2020 traffic control would not be a reimbursable expense. Councilmember Robertson discussed how she was working with staff to come up with a creative way to engage the community for the holiday senior dinner pickup at the MAYC. She explained she had students making signs and cards for the event. Mayor Ryan stated on Wednesday the five veterans memorials would be installed at Tom Ryan Park. He noted these memorials would be covered all winter until they could be revealed next spring. He explained the next memorial would be a women’s war memorial and thanked all Blaine residents and local businesses who continued to make donations to the memorials. Discussed 10 Minute Discussion ADJOURN The Workshop was adjourned at 7:02 p.m. Adjourned City of Blaine Page 5