City Council Workshop

WORKSHOP OAKDALE CITY COUNCIL November 23, 2021 The City Council held a workshop on Tuesday, November 23, 2021, at Oakdale City Hall, 1584 Hadley Avenue North, Oakdale, Minnesota. The meeting began at 5:00 PM. Present: Mayor Paul Reinke Council Members: Jake Ingebrigtson Susan Olson Colleen Swedberg Kevin Zabel Also Present: Christina Volkers, City Administrator Susan Barry, City Clerk Nick Newton, Police Chief Kevin Wold, Fire Chief Jason Zimmerman, Finance Director Holly Wilson, Human Resources Director Brian Bachmeier, City Engineer Will Bucheger, Intern John Shardlow, Stantec Alan Dale, Dale Properties John Rausch, Dale Properties Cathy Gow, JPL Elwin Tinkleberg, JPL Representative OAKDALE MARKETPLACE DEVELOPMENT PROPOSAL John Shardlow, Stantec consultant acting as our Community Development Director during this interim period, began the discussion on the proposed development and introduced the potential developer. The property was approved to be a Planned Unit Development (PUD) in 2005. The developer is planning a residential project. The property will need to be rezoned. The recent Comp Plan shows the property as mixed use. It would be rezoned so it’s consistent with the Comp Plan. Mr. Tinkleberg introduced himself. He noted JPL is out of St. Louis and has a tremendous amount of experience. They have built apartment buildings throughout the country. They currently have projects in Shoreview and Woodbury. This project would be located off 35W between County Road I and J. Just south of LA Fitness along the railroad tracks. It would have great visibility from the freeway. Council Member Zabel asked the number of units proposed. Tinkleberg responded, ideally a few hundred. WORKSHOP November 23, 2021 Page Two Council Member Olson asked if the units would all be rentals. The answer was yes. Tinkleberg said the rental culture and view is totally different now than it used to be. Lots of professionals are renting now. Mayor Reinke would like to see this project somewhere in Oakdale at a multi-housing site. Council Member Swedberg stated it is a great location. Target, a bank, Pinz and LA Fitness are right there. Mr. Rausch noted that he has been marketing the property for at least a decade. The retail environment has changed significantly since COVID. Convenience retail, for the most part, the kind you can’t buy online, is being developed now. There is a demand for self-storage. This project would be a high-valued asset for Oakdale. Mr. Shardlow said the city would need to look into the lift station and its sewer capacity. Right now it meets the comprehensive plan’s designation. Mr. Rausch stated it is difficult to market retail in that area. It has site challenges. Council Member Zabel is generally supportive of the project. Council Member Swedberg agrees with Council Member Zabel and would like to see more details. Council Member Olson asked about the timeframe. Mr. Tinkleberg would like to begin construction in mid-summer 2022. Council Member Ingebrigtson is supportive. Mr. Tinkleberg said the demand for rentals far outpaces the ability to build them. Council Member Zabel asked how much land would remain after the development was completed? Mr. Bachmeier answered 50 acres plus wetland. 2022 BUDGET CHANGES FROM PRELIMINARY AND NEW PROPOSED FINAL TAX LEVY Mr. Zimmerman reviewed year-to-date information. He said the preliminary 2022 tax levy was set at 6.99% higher from 2021. Based on conversations with the council, staff has taken the following actions to provide an updated proposal which would set the 2022 tax levy at 5.99% beyond 2021. That’s about an $11.00 difference for a median valued home (per year A few different scenarios were discussed amongst the council. Ms. Volkers stated that the budget is a work in progress. After further discussion, the council agreed on the proposed changes and staff should move forward with the proposed scenario at a tax levy increase of 5.99% over 2021. WORKSHOP November 23, 2021 Page Three 2022-2031 VEHICLES AND EQUIPMENT REPLACEMENT FUNDING - CIP Mr. Zimmerman stated at the October 12, 26 and November 9 city council workshops staff discussed the comprehensive list of proposed projects related to Oakdale’s parks, streets, utilities, signals, buildings, drainage systems, and vehicles. As a follow up to the November 9th council workshop, Mr. Zimmerman prepared a few financing scenarios for the city’s vehicles and equipment replacement. Each of the scenarios attempts to maintain a positive cash position each year ending in 2031. Ms. Volkers said she would like to have a member of staff do a fleet management. Ideally they would proactively manage all city vehicles including looking at every [vehicle] to determine if a new one is needed or not. We just haven’t had the resources to do that yet. We may not have to replace them all in six years as currently plan or some may need replacement soon. A good fleet management program would review and analyze this. We need to get that program going. After much discussion, council decided to do a hybrid of two of the scenarios. FEE SCHEDULE Intern Will Bucheger took on the task of the fee schedule for 2022. He compared what other cities were charging to come up with new fees for Oakdale. Only changes of portions of the fee schedule relating to ambulance, building inspection, code enforcement, community development, and engineering were brought to this workshop. Proposed changes to subsequent sections will be brought to future work sessions. Council Member Swedberg feels like we should accept the changes that Bucheger made. Ms. Volkers said the ambulance didn’t change much at all. Mayor Reinke adjourned the workshop at 6:56 Mayor Reinke reconvened the workshop after the regular city council meeting. FEE SCHEDULE, CONTINUED Council Member Zabel made a suggestion to adopt the fee schedule as proposed so we can make adjustments to plan reviews, etc. Then, bring it back early next year for a more in depth look at the fee schedule. Mayor Reinke said our fees can’t exceed the reasonable cost of services that the city provides. Council Member Zabel stated we can look to other cities to be comparable. WORKSHOP November 23, 2021 Page Four Council supports that. Ms. Volkers will convene a “task force” of various staff after January 1 to take on the task of doing further analysis of our fees and making further changes. CODE AMENDMENT: CHAPTER 4 – ANIMALS AND FOWL It is requested of the council that licensing of dogs and cats be removed from the code in its entirety. Council Member Olson is going to make her suggested changes (there are more she wants) and redline the code and circulate it through the Administrator to council. Council Member Zabel suggested we eliminate the pet licensing portion of the code. The amended code will come back to council at the next workshop on December 14, 2021. COUNCIL CODE OF CONDUCT It was suggested that the city council have a code of conduct. The one presented was modeled after the City of Edina. Mayor Reinke only had one change to the proposed code and that was on page 5, what the council does not do, and that was hire and fire staff. They do that officially instead of the City Administrator position. Ms. Volkers shared that was an error and had modified that bullet point before the meeting. Council Member Ingebrigtson is opposed to the code in its entirety. He said it was very well intentioned and some of it makes sense to him however, he’s concerned about someone making it a political issue later on. Censoring is a bully tactic. Council Member Zabel stated even without the code of conduct council can be censored for anything now. This is just setting parameters for that conduct. Mayor Reinke supports the code of conduct. Behavior should be respectful. Council Member Zabel see this as an affirmation to do better. Council Member Swedberg doesn’t think it does anything for us. There’s no consequence [for bad behavior]. We should already be doing the stuff in the code. This will go to a workshop in January. PROPOSED POLICY: TELECOMMUTING Ms. Wilson stated this policy was put together as a result of some employees telecommuting during COVID. We don’t have a policy in place for this. So it is needed for the purpose of employees that are interested in continuing to telecommute. The proposed policy provides a way to do that. WORKSHOP November 23, 2021 Page Five Employees would work with their supervisor, fill out the paperwork, have it approved by their supervisor, and it must be approved by the city administrator. The policy doesn’t allow for employees to work from home five days a week. Supervisor would need to decide how many days a week working from home is acceptable. This does not apply to all positions. Mayor Reinke likes the idea of a trial period for those employees interested in taking part of this. Council Members Ingebrigtson, Olson, Swedberg and Zabel all believe this is a doable option. PROPOSED POLICY: SPECIAL ASSESSMENTS Bachmeier stated that while doing the assessment role for this year’s projects, he noticed a great disparity in the allocation of the assessments particularly the business community off of Imperial Avenue and 3rd Street. He would like to see this evened out a bit and presented two possible options. Option 1 would allow the flexibility to choose the method most appropriate bsed on project to result in a more uniform assessment for a particular class of property regardless of the improvement type. Option 2 would allow a modification of the current, long-standing assessment policy for this project/assessment and more discussion and consideration regarding a permanent change in policy that can be evaluated in the future. Council Member Swedberg doesn’t like the idea of picking and choosing. Prefer we are consistent. Council Member Zabel likes the way it is currently. Mayor Reinke stated any improvement to a property has to be a benefit to the property or it shouldn’t be done. He’s in favor of making the policy fairer. Council Member Zabel asked why we apply residential standards to non-residential properties. Mr. Bachmeier said you have to be able to prove the benefit. And in his experience, the benefit is more applicable if it’s considered residential as opposed to commercial. There’s a zoning connection. Mayor Reinke asked the council if there was any support for changing the policy. Council Members Swedberg, Zabel, and Ingebrigtson said no. Mayor Reinke and Council Member Olson said yes. The current policy will remain the same. Ms. Volkers stated that she understood the council didn’t want to change the policy, but asked if they wanted to make an exception in this case. The status quo will remain for now. COUNCIL TOPICS Council Member Ingebrigtson asked if the council would be switching commissions in 2022. NOTE: The only responsibility to change in 2022 is the Acting Mayor position. All council liaison assignments to Commissions are for a two year duration 2021-2022. WORKSHOP November 23, 2021 Page Six ADJOURNMENT The workshop was adjourned Respectfully submitted, Kathy Laur, City Clerk