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HomeMy WebLinkAbout02.07.22 Work Session Minutes City of Farmington City Council Work Session Minutes February 7, 2022 1. Call to Order Mayor Hoyt called the work session to order at 5:00 p.m. Present: Hoyt, Lien, Porter, Wilson Absent: Bernhjelm Also Present: David McKnight,City Administrator; Lynn Gorski,Assistant City Administrator; Samantha DiMaggio,Community Development Director; Kellee Omlid, Parks and Recreation Director; Peter Gilbertson, IT Director;Jeremy Pire, Parks and Facilities Supervisor; Cynthia Muller,Administrative Assistant Audience: Mike Slavik, Dakota County Commissioner; Darlene Donnelly, Resident; Kara Hildreth, Reporter 2. Approve Agenda MOTION by Wilson, second by Porter to approve the agenda. APIF, MOTION CARRIED. 3. Discussion Items a. Access Control System Upgrade Purchase IT Director Gilbertson proposed an upgrade to the entrance control systems in city facilities. Various buildings are open on various days/hours and the door locks need to be adjusted manually. Current key access cards are subject to duplication. The current hardware is out of date and if it goes down, repair will be expensive. There is a new system by Feenics that is cloud based, has built-in support, geo redundancy, no servers or backups, is more accessible, users can access it through a web browser or mobile phone and department heads can schedule building availability. It includes an alarm system for the liquor stores that will notify the police. This system will bring the Pilot Knob store up to other facilities. Funding will come from the liquor store fund and IT funds. The total cost is $113,000 and there is a re-occurring cost of$9,200. Council asked if grants are available for this. Staff will look into that option. Council also noted the city's commercial insurance carrier would look favorably upon this and staff should take this to them for a discount on insurance. Council asked about the number of people that will have access to the system. Staff explained the license is based on how many readers we have and there can be any number of users. The current system has a $2,000 fee to add a user. This upgrade is included in the budget. Councilmembers were comfortable with moving forward with the upgrade. Approval is on the council meeting agenda for tonight. Council Work Session Minutes February 7,2022 Page 2 b. Discuss Adding a Parks Maintenance Worker Since 2006, the number of parks has increased by six, but park maintenance staff has not been added. There are four boardwalks that need to be maintained, there are now 48 miles of trails, and 4.5 miles will be added in coming years. With the transition of solid waste to DSI, parks maintenance staff is now responsible for the collection and disposal of trash in downtown. Staff did a comparison of the number of park maintenance staff in eight other cities, and Farmington has the least amount of staff. Residents want trails plowed in the winter. Staff is concerned about playground equipment safety. Playgrounds should be inspected every month; it is done twice a year. Staff is only able to keep up with high level duties, such as mowing. Councilmembers asked about seasonal staff how much maintenance they are able to do. These are teenagers, so they are only able to do general duties. We need skilled maintenance workers to use the equipment. Staff would like to add one position now and another in 2023. Council asked that staff develop a plan for the next one to four years for staffing. Councilmembers wanted to look at the big picture. Plowing does not cause damage to the trails. We cannot allow resident volunteers to use city equipment because of safety issues and possible damage to equipment. Council agreed we cannot let our greatest asset (our parks) diminish. They will support adding one position, but staff should ask for more—ask for what we really need. Councilmembers suggested increasing visibility for park and pond cleanup and do it more than once a year. They encouraged pushing groups to adopt a park. Staff will prepare for the recruitment process. c) Development Process Update Assistant City Administrator Gorski has reviewed the city's development process and presented recommended changes. The steps taken were a review of Farmington's materials, interviews with city staff, attending internal meetings,viewing past Planning Commission meetings, receive neighboring city input, developing a survey and letter for outside sources along with interviews. Findings were that materials such as staff contacts needed to be updated and information was inconsistent with city code and requirements and text heavy, and it gave false expectations such as the preliminary plat application schedule. When interviewing city staff, she found there needs to be improved communication both internally and externally. There is an application software that would be helpful in accomplishing this. We need to have the right people at the table for development review committee meetings, staff has dealt with inexperienced developer engineers, we have unrealistic timelines and land uses need to be updated. Staff needs to have the confidence to make decisions. Regarding Planning Commission meetings, staff should explain to the commission the expectations and ground rules for the commission. Are we pro-business and are we communicating to businesses and developers what staff recommends before Planning Commission meetings? When Council Work Session Minutes February 7,2022 Page 3 interviewing outside sources/customers the findings were- is staff trusted to make decisions? Planning Commission meetings can be a wild card, late comments are surprises for developers, businesses should be invited to meetings such as Development Review Committee meetings, there needs to be better communication with customers, developers would like to see more industrial use zoning, they would like to see designing through comments and the scheduling timeline for inspections could be improved. Recommendations— 1. Sell Farmington; we need to tell our story. 2. Rewrite our packet/applications/guidelines to include simplified steps and make corrections. 3. Software to provide tools for our customers and employees. 4. Have the right players at the table (ex. Bolton/Menk). 5. Open DRC meetings to outside customers. 6. City Attorney should be revising development contracts. 7. Hold a Planning Commission and City Council retreat. 8. Remove staff steps out of the preliminary plat application schedule as we are setting ourselves up for failure. 9. Increase building inspections by one FTE (this is done and has greatly improved scheduling of inspections). 10. Increase communication and expectations with all stakeholders. 11. Demonstrate and communicate pro-business. 12. Allow staff to feel supported in making decisions and owning the process. 13. Owner of the process. Councilmembers liked the idea of bringing people in face-to-face, building trust and holding people accountable for the process. Several years ago,there was a presentation by the Urban Land Institute and their suggestions were very similar. Council asked if these changes would allow us to go back to developers from the past. Staff noted previous staff gave developers every opportunity to come here. The fear of staff is that we are not big enough to handle some projects. Council expected the Planning Commission to have the same vision as the City Council. Staff recommended going over expectations with all boards and commissions. A Planning Commission/City Council retreat would be great and maybe do some strategic planning with them for the vision of the city. Staff noted the comp plan should be used as a guide. The Planning Commission mirrors what the comp plan says. Staff has directed the Planning Commission to follow the comp plan. Councilmembers felt we need an exhaustive review of the city code. Staff should schedule a Planning Commission/City Council retreat for May or June and have a joint meeting twice a year. Councilmembers were very pleased with the outcome and recommendations of the development process review. Council Work Session Minutes February 7,2022 Page 4 d) Flagstaff Avenue Future Planning The high school is already there and there has been increasing development along Flagstaff. Planning for future land use designations has become an important issue. Staff asked council to discuss future planning and provide any direction needed. Flagstaff will remain a city road for many years. Councilmembers noted the road is dangerous for biking and walking and the shoulders need to be improved. Commissioner Slavik stated the county did an analysis and found a necessary improvement for CR50 and Flagstaff would be to make that intersection a right in/right out on CR50. They would also address improvements on CR50 for turn lanes, etc. This can be accelerated to be done with another project in 2022. Council noted residents are concerned with eastbound traffic on CR50. This will not alleviate that. Commissioner Slavik stated this is an interim improvement. Council noted if land is sold on Flagstaff, we need to have a plan for the road and for safe development. To what depth do we want to do a study? It was suggested to start with zoning use. Staff added then prepare an AUAR for water, roads and infrastructure. Perhaps we could use ARPA dollars to pay for the study. This will help future developers. Ms. Darlene Donnelly, a Flagstaff resident, stated this is a band aid to block off going across CR50. Farmers are driving large equipment down Flagstaff to CR50. This change will cause damage to vehicles and equipment, and will send people to Lakeville, not Farmington. Farmers have to get from the fields to home. It takes major fuel to go five miles out of their way. The business district will not be happy with this proposal. Councilmembers noted the city has worked with the school district to construct a new road going west, so we already have that option. Commissioner Slavik stated it is a county cost and a county decision. According to the traffic study,there needs to be 2,000 more vehicles going north and south on Flagstaff to warrant a traffic signal. e) Emergency Leave Discussion Due to time constraints, this item will be brought back to a future work session. 4. Adjourn MOTION by Porter, second by Lien to adjourn at 6:55 p.m. APIF, MOTION CARRIED. Respectfully submitted, Cynthia Muller Cynthia Muller Administrative Assistant