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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2017 04-10 CCM Work SessionMINUTES OF THE PROCEEDINGS OF THE CITY COUNCIL/ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT AUTHORITY OF THE CITY OF BROOKLYN CENTER IN THE COUNTY OF HENNEPIN AND THE STATE OF MINNESOTA WORK SESSION APRIL 10, 2017 CITY HALL - COUNCIL CHAMBERS CALL TO ORDER The Brooklyn Center City Council/Economic Development Authority (EDA) met in Work Session called to order by Mayor/President Tim Willson at 7:33 p.m. ROLL CALL Mayor/President Tim Willson and Councilmembers/Commissioners Marquita Butler, April Graves, Kris Lawrence-Anderson, and Dan Ryan were present. Also present were City Manager Curt Boganey, Deputy City Manager Reggie Edwards, Finance Director Nate Reinhardt, Public Works Director/City Engineer Steve Lillehaug, City Attorney Troy Gilchrist, and Michaela Kuj awa-Daniels, TimeSaver Off Site Secretarial, Inc. WATER METER FAILURE RATE - MR. LILLEHAUG - continued Public Works Director/City Engineer Steve Lillehaug continued his PowerPoint presentation and displayed the different meters. Mayor/President Willson asked if there is enough information on the pit meter to know its history with regard to functioning well. Mr. Lillehaug stated there is a 6% failure rate over eight years on the pit MIU meter, compared to the 34.4% failure rate on the two devices currently being used that are malfunctioning. Mr. Lillehaug stated some of these units are too new to have data to know how they are working long term. He stated he will look into the information on the new meters before he brings back recommendations for the City Council at the next meeting. Mayor/President Willson stated the batteries are supposed to be warranted to last 20 years, and he feels this is something else they need to look at with the vendor for replacing or fixing. Mr. Lillehaug stated the batteries are under warranty however they are prorated so it is not a full 20- year warranty. Mayor/President Willson asked if some of the units that are under a 10-year warranty are malfunctioning. Mr. Lillehaug stated the new meter version seems to have a better sensor and a cover which could help the malfunctioning problem that the older version of this unit had. 04/10/17 -1- Mayor/President Willson asked if there is any leaking into basements due to the bad units. Mr. Lillehaug stated there is no leaking he is aware. He stated they are just not able to read the meters for water usage for some homes. Mr. Lillehaug stated his recommendation would be option C. He stated he wants to take a step back and look at some of the brass issues on the new options and then come back to the City Council with further information and recommendations at the next meeting. Mayor/President Willson stated he likes the 2c option because it's a fixed device and staff intensive, but he is struggling with the cost when they could potentially have another device that won't work. Mr. Lillehaug stated he can't say for sure that they won't have issues with another device and stated only time will tell if they are better. He stated he does believe that the company has worked out a lot of kinks they had with the original device that the City is using. He noted the City was one of the first to use the devices that are having the malfunctions. Mayor/President Willson asked how long of a process it would be if they switched to the 2c option. Mr. Lillehaug stated it took about 9 months for the last process and this one could take longer because they will need to get permission and have time to access all homes. Councilmember/Commissioner Ryan stated this appears to be a problem with mechanisms. He stated he is astonished by the problems with the meter itself, he noted it is understandable for the batteries to go bad over time but it is the other issues he doesn't understand. He asked if there is a certain period of time that they could do nothing than review the failure rates to decide what to do. Mr. Lillehaug stated Maple Grove and St. Louis Park have the v4 so he can get some information and data from them to try to predict what failure rates on that version looks like. Councilmember/Commissioner Lawrence-Anderson asked who incurs the $150 cost to replace the battery. Mr. Lillehaug stated it would be funded through the water fund and then paid for through the water fees. Councilmember/Commissioner Lawrence-Anderson stated she isn't very confident in the vendor right now and doesn't want to spend $2 million on another product from the same vendor. Councilmember/Commissioner Butler stated with all the issues, she would like to know if there has been other evidence with the same issues Brooklyn Center is having. Mr. Lillehaug stated Coon Rapids may have the same issues and are going through the same process and he has heard as well as there have been some other issues with the v4 model in the Maple Grove community. Councilmember/Commissioner Butler stated she also doesn't have confidence in the vendor and would like see more options at the next meeting that should include other vendor choices and their costs. Mayor/President Willson stated he would like to see that as well. Mr. Lillehaug stated looking at a new vendor to start over will be the most expensive option. He stated the costs would end up being close to $5 million and upwards. Mayor/President Willson asked Attorney Gilchrist if they have any legal recourse on this issue. Mr. Gilchrist stated after meeting with another attorney and staff they decided that wasn't a viable option. 04/10/17 -2- City Manager Boganey stated at this stage they will review the questions and feedback and then gather more information for them for the next meeting. Mayor/President Willson stated his main concern is that the City has to pay for this. He stated he isn't happy about the failure rates and the amount of money they need to invest after the initial cost. Councilmember/Commissioner Graves stated she would like to see a contingency plan rolled into the options and what the vendor can do to build the City's confidence in them back up. Councilmember/Commissioner Ryan asked if they could look at the other cities such as St. Paul to look at the device they use to get information as to what is working for the other cities. The majority consensus of the City Council/EDA was to have Staff gather more information and bring this item back to the Council at the next meeting. COMMUNITY IMALOUGE Deputy City Manager Reggie Edwards provided a presentation and history on this item. Mr. Edwards stated he would like to know if the values outlined for the proposed process are in line with those of the City Council/EDA, if there is a consensus regarding the outcomes desired for the proposed process, and if there is a consensus for staff to move forward with the process. Mayor/President Willson stated the meetings in the park are a good way to get information to and from citizens and he stated he wants those to continue. He stated his concern is that a small minority of citizens will show up providing them with only that group's ideas and opinions. He stated he would like to reach a broader crowd with any meetings they decide to move forward with. He stated he thinks they have a good handle on whit people want and how they want to the City to move forward currently. He stated he does not want to have the issue where a certain few people manipulate the conversations and intimidate the other citizens. He noted his role as the Mayor is to listen to the community, go in the direction the City wants to go, and make the hard decisions when there is no consensus among the citizens. Councilmember/Commissioner Butler thanked Mr. Edwards for putting this together, noting it is well thought out. She stated she thinks they should do listening sessions as that is what the citizens are looking for. She stated if they do community dialogue events they will have the small group of people only who will show up. She stated she feels doing the park meetings and listening sessions in addition would be good. Mayor/President Willson stated maybe doing a neighborhood meeting where they travel to different areas with the Brooklyn Center police and they could hold listening meetings in churches or some neutral locations would work well. 04/10/17 -3- Councilmember/Commissioner Lawrence-Anderson stated having some listening sessions initially would be good to start with and she likes the ideas Mr. Edwards has put together to follow-up the listening sessions potentially. Councilmember/Commissioner Ryan agreed with Councilmember/Commissioner Lawrence- Anderson and stated the neighborhood meetings in the parks are good. He stated most people who come to the meetings in the park, however, seem to be selective and older usually not as diverse as they would like for this type of input. He stated he thinks starting with a listening meeting would be good, and noted they will want to be mindful of additional expenses and time commitments by staff while adding more meetings. Councilmember/Commissioner Graves stated she is in agreement with the other Councilmembers/Commissioners and feels it isn't as much of an issue where they start with the listening sessions and meeting, but more important that they just need to start somewhere, note the locations, decide who is leading the sessions, if there will be child care available, and lay out the ground rules for the meeting ahead of time so no one person can monopolize the conversation. Mayor/President Willson stated they will want to have a way to communicate issues or questions that are asked right away so the City Council/EDA can respond and inform citizen of issues already being worked on or those that already have a solution when they are brought up. Councilmember/Commissioner Graves stated maybe there is a way comprehensively to document what they talk about prior to the meetings. Mayor/President Willson stated they need to look at other media sources to get information to the public because once people get to the website after requesting information they seem to find all the information they need, but the issue lies with getting them to the website initially. He stated they need to offer a way for others to get the information to the public. Councilmember/Commissioner Ryan stated that mediators or facilitators have given a good foundation for meetings as a third party uninterested person, they are a good positive feature to make sessions work well. Mayor/President Willson stated there is consensus regarding the values outlined in the process, as well as what the City Council/EDA sees as their desired outcomes. He stated the process itself is where it seems they have come to a different idea and would like to have a town hall style meeting to let citizens voice their opinions to start with. Mr. Boganey stated he is hearing they would like to move forward with an open forum but longer with the City Council/EDA responding to citizens during the process. Councilmember/Commissioner Lawrence-Anderson stated she would expect to engage and have dialogue with people and let them know they are being heard and that the City Council/EDA cares about their concerns. Councilmember/Commissioner Graves echoed her thoughts. 04/10/17 -4- Councilmember/Commissioner Ryan stated there should be time for interaction and it is up to the City Council to clearly layout and remind people ahead of time what their expectations are for the meetings. He stated they want to remind the public that they are not always subject matter experts on all things and they can only do their best for the largest number of people as possible. Mayor/President Willson stated they will need to be careful not to accidently make quorum while having the meetings. He stated if they can engage a moderator it may be the best way of doing it. Councilmember/Commissioner Ryan stated maybe having the secretary take minutes or have only two members present at each meeting to eliminate that concern. Councilmember/Commissioner Butler stated she wants to be able to respond and would be concerned that if all members aren't there that they will be perceived to not care about the citizens' concerns and issues. Councilmember/Commissioner Graves stated she feels they need all members there but maybe only two members respond to begin with so they are making sure to listen and answer questions keeping time in mind. Attorney Gilchrist stated he appreciates the concern about the open meeting law. He stated, however, that as long as the meetings are posted and there is an announcement made stating they have no intent to take action that evening on anything discussed and it is for discussion purposely only; that would eliminate the open meeting law concerns. Councilmember/Commissioner Ryan stated the City Council is bound by City and State law before they can take formal action on things such as ordinances. He noted open forum was established years ago to allow citizens to come forward and express concerns but what has happened is that Councilmembers have, in the past, gotten into a dialogue with citizens that isn't productive and then everyone loses as a result. He stated they try to avoid that and allow staff to respond to their concerns and staff does a great job. Attorney Gilchrist stated as a City Council they can set up the listening sessions as a hybrid, have it be something completely different than what they normally do, and not change their open forum rules. Mayor/President Willson stated it all comes down to how the meeting is structured and that the ground rules and expectations need to be provided up front. The majority consensus of the City Council/EDA was to have staff move forward with looking at options to hold some listening sessions with the public using the values and desired outcomes presented by Mr. Edwards. ADJOURNMENT Councilmember/Commissioner Lawrence-Anderson moved and Councilmember/Commissioner Graves seconded adjournment of the City Council/Economic Development Authority Work Session at 9:18 p.m. 04/10/17 -5- Motion passed unanimously. 04/10/17 -6- STATE OF MINNESOTA) COUNTY OF HENNEPIN) ss. Certification of Minutes CITY OF BROOKLYN CENTER) The undersigned, being the duly qualified and appointed City Clerk of the City of Brooklyn Center, Minnesota, certifies: 1.That attached hereto is a full, true, and complete transcript of the minutes of a Work Session of the City Council of the City of Brooklyn Center held on April 10, 2017. 2.That said meeting was held pursuant to due call and notice thereof and was duly held at Brooklyn Center City Hall. 3. That the City Council adopted said minutes at its April 24, 2017, Regular Session. City Clerk Mayor 04/10/17 -6-