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HomeMy WebLinkAbout10.13.08 Work Session Minutes City Council Workshop Minutes October 13, 2008 Acting Mayor Pritzlaff called the workshop to order at 6:30 p.m. Present: Absent: Pritzlaff, Fogarty, McKnight, Wilson Soderberg Also Present: Peter Herlofsky, City Administrator; Missie Kohlbeck, Rambling River Center Coordinator; Lisa Dargis, Administrative Assistant; Cynthia Muller, Executive Assistant Discussion of the old City Hall site was moved to the beginning of the agenda to accommodate the audience. MOTION by McKnight, second by Wilson to approve the agenda. APIF, MOTION CARRIED Old City Hall Site Staff provided information on costs for renovating the old City Hall for the Rambling River Center. The estimate from Wold Architects was $600,000, and the estimate from Larry White, a contractor was $447,000. Missie Kohlbeck stated there are 520 members of the Rambling River Center and most commute to the center for events. She gave information on who uses the center and age groups. Members would like more space for events, storage space for program equipment and materials, noise control is a huge issue, adequate parking, space to leave crafts overnight. The challenges in the current building include lack of space, heating and cooling issues, mold, sound proofing, outside is deteriorating, and the carpet needs replacing. Challenges at the old City Hall include needing to update the building to code, HV AC, flooring, cost, and the CAP Agency. Our own grant programs cannot be used for City facilities. In order to use rehab money you have to allocate money. For 2009 we have used half of it. Next year the allocation goes down by $15,000 so there is not a lot of money left. Volunteers could be used to do some of the work such as moving walls and painting, but not the technical work such as HV AC. If a construction manager, such as Larry White, were used this could be coordinated through him. We could bid out the work and contractors could bid zero if they wanted to volunteer their time. This is good inside work for over winter. Councilmember McKnight appreciated receiving the numbers and would like to prioritize what we need to do to get them in the building and then upgrade. Staff stated the HV AC system and flooring would be first. The most expensive item is the sprinkler system for the building. Council Workshop Minutes October 13,2008 Page 2 Councilmember Wilson asked if Council has formally decided to move the Rambling River Center to the old City Hall. Councilmembers noted the majority of Council has said yes, and it has been discussed to investigate the possibility. Councilmember Wilson felt the process should slow down to investigate all options. There was the option of a Veteran's Memorial Park, but Council felt to tear down the building was not wise. This will have a budget impact and we need to be frugal with tax dollars. The facility is headed for use by seniors who do a lot for the community, but we also need to consider teens. Staff did discuss with Larry White having the center used by seniors and teens. Included in the cost are mall gates to keep teens out of certain areas. Staff is still looking at how to include teens in the center. CAP provides 20 meals on wheels per day and 2-7 people eating in. If there is a joint party there could be 100 attending. Councilmember Fogarty envisions a kitchen in the building. Staff noted in the estimate there are costs for two different types of kitchens, one is a catering kitchen and the other is a commercial kitchen. CAP's primary target market is frail, elderly. In other areas in the county CAP is held in senior housing. If a kitchen is provided for them in the center, they will come. Some equipment from the current Rambling River Center could be moved to the old City Hall. Councilmember McKnight would support doing this now, because he does not see another chance in the future to put this group in a better place. He wants the seniors to have priority in the center and spread out in the next couple years. Councilmember Fogarty agreed, and she would like to see the bare minimum to get us in and would also like to see the kitchen option. She would very much like to see it go through as a senior/teen joint option. She suggested reaching out to leadership kids in the high school and the middle school. Eventually she would like to see a board with a combination of seniors and teens. She would like staff to reach out to contractors to see what we can do to reduce costs and work with teens and seniors. Councilmember McKnight suggested looking at organized fund raising. Councilmember Wilson felt using the building for seniors would look good. There are a lot of complaints about not reacting quickly enough. Maybe this is a good situation to react quickly. He agreed with looking at numbers, but was not in a position for this to be a new senior center. The Park and Rec Commission talked about the junction of 195th Street and Diamond Path Road for ball fields. Perhaps the City could work with the school district to have a building in that area. We do need to find a way to take care of the teens in the community. Given the size of the building he could not see how teens and seniors could co-mingle. Staff noted this would be handled through scheduling. Teens would use the building after school and evening hours. The biggest programming for seniors is during the day. Council Workshop Minutes October 13,2008 Page 3 Acting Mayor Pritzlaff agreed with Councilmembers Fogarty and McKnight. He was willing to look at a full kitchen. He did not want the building to be empty for 6 months - 1 year. This is a good use for the seniors. The 4-H group came together and was a tremendous help with buying chairs. That is a place to start with teens. Councilmember Wilson stated converting the old City Hall into a senior center is a viable option. He wanted to make sure we are paying due diligence to the budget and to economic development downtown. He felt it was okay to proceed slowly. Mr. David Storey, business owner, stated it is a good idea to take this slowly and look at whether we can afford to do this. He suggested putting the building on the market and using the money to build a senior or youth center. We could also use City Hall or school facilities. Mr. Charlie Weber noted they discussed congregate dining. Seniors come to CAP meals because they feel obligated to use them because they are in the building. He did a lot of work on the Rambling River Center and some day it will fall down. Seniors could really benefit from a larger building. You have to have a lot of supervision for teens so you have to have staff. Staff is not cheap. He has heard horror stories about teen centers. Some of the work could be done by volunteers and it would be a good community project. The old City Hall building is in better condition than the current building and has more room. Joanne Weber noted Council made a comment about waiting. She stated she is 69 and does not want to wait 10 years for a senior center. We need it now. We do not need to wait 10 years to improve our programs. She goes to the senior center for many programs and also teaches a program there. Jeff Thelen stated he used to be the Youth Manager for the Farmington Youth Center in the late 60's and early 70's. Regarding moving too fast, we have known for two years now that the old building will be available. He did not feel we are moving too fast. It may not have been discussed for two years, but it is definitely time to move ahead. Another use for the building is the food shelf. Mrs. Becker from the food shelf, stated they need a level space on the ground floor. Currently they have 400 sq. ft. and could use 600 sq. ft. They need their own entry, a locked area, and access to a bathroom in the building. She asked Council to give them some consideration. This morning they had a delivery of 1300 lbs of food. Currently they have an area in a church and have to go up and down stairs. Councilmember Fogarty asked if it had to be at the old City Hall or could it be at the current senior center. Mrs. Becker stated it did not matter as long as there is more room and parking. Currently they serve 60 families. City Administrator Herlofsky noted the arts council is also looking for a space. There are a lot of agencies providing services in the community. As soon as someone moves out of the senior center we will be concerned with who will move in. Council Workshop Minutes October 13, 2008 Page 4 Councilmember Wilson asked if options could be presented at the budget workshop. City Administrator Herlofsky suggested this be put on the November 3, 2008, Council agenda for discussion. The budget is what we are doing for operations in 2009. With the new City Hall, if there is money left over, we can look at options for doing this. He suggested putting out an RFP for the project and at the end of the month we should have a better handle on costs. Getting into the general fund for this, we would have to say which employee do you not want to see here next year. We have already laid off two people, not including positions we have not filled. It would be difficult to put this into the 2009 budget. Councilmember Wilson asked if we could have a general fund option or a short term bond option. Staff will bring back some recommendations. City Administrator Herlofsky noted Council has not taken definite action on what to do with the building. We need to bring that back for a vote and look at financing options, how to go about it, and get direction from Council. Doing the work over the winter may be advantageous. Councilmember McKnight asked that the packet include the prioritized list from the contractor. Acting Mayor Pritzlaff asked for a cost analysis of the value of the building. David Storey stated when he mentioned slowing down he was thinking 6-24 months. He has no objection to the seniors having a fund raiser to raise money for the work. Doug Bonar stated he heard a lot of good things this evening. He was encouraged by hearing Councilmember Wilson mention the CIP in conjunction with the potential improvement of an existing public property. He hoped Council would consider that as a course of action. Regular CIP's deal with a lot of infrastructure, but not necessarily buildings. This would be a good time for Council to look at the old City Hall and the re-investment opportunity along with other structures they have in place. The largest growth segment in Dakota County will be persons over 50. To expand provisions for the current and future elderly is a wise choice. We have had an opportunity over the last couple of years to research the future use of the old City Hall. Now is the time. Inaction would only serve to blight the downtown. Foreclosed Properties Last year the Police Chief looked at for sale signs, called the realtors and informed them of the needed clean up of properties. Lisa Dargis provided information from the county on the number of sheriff sales. The rate is going up. There is not a lot of assistance for preventing foreclosures. The CDA discussed that HUD has distributed 3.92 billion to the State to be used for homes already foreclosed. The county was awarded 2.7 million. The county will turn in an action plan by December 1. The county will look at foreclosures, sub-prime mortgages, foreseeable foreclosures and abandonment and determine the areas of highest need within Dakota County. Options that can be utilized include acquiring properties and land banking them for potential redevelopment, they can be rehabbed and sell them or rent them. If Farmington received money, they would have the CDA work with down payment assistance for residents. By December 1, staff will know if they fall into the area of need. Farmington has the highest need in the county. City Administrator Herlofsky stated staff will put some information on the web site regarding foreclosures and either put in information of our own, or link it to what the county has. Council Workshop Minutes October 13,2008 Page 5 Councilmember Fogarty would like a thorough inventory of foreclosed homes and wants staff fighting for every dollar we can get for the residents. She would also like to know about the maintenance issues and if there is money that can be used to make the properties look better until someone has time to do something with them. She noted the county asked for a list of five homes, she wants staff to send them at least 30 homes and let them know how bad we are hurting here. Councilmember McKnight asked if we have a list of foreclosed homes. City Administrator Herlofsky noted it is hard to get that, but we can get other lists that will give us an indication. Councilmember McKnight was happy to see staff is already taking care of appearance issues, utility issues and garbage. Acting Mayor Pritzlaff asked about cleaning snow from sidewalks and mowing the grass and asked if the City can raise the standards. City Administrator Herlofsky stated unless we hire a lawn service we follow up as best we can. It would help if the neighbors would work together to keep up the property. The appearance affects their property also. MOTION by Fogarty, second by McKnight to adjourn at 8:03 p.m. APIF, MOTION CARRIED. Respectfully submitted, U~~kCL } 1-7u.C~ ~;::/1" CCynthia Muller Executive Assistant