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HomeMy WebLinkAbout1999 [09] Sep 10 Page 3611 September 10, 1999 I City of Sl Joseph Special City Council Meeting 9/10/99, 2:00 PM 1. Call to Order. Pursuant to due call and notice thereof, the City Council for the City of St. Joseph met on Thursday, September 10, 1999812:00 p.m. in the Theresa Reception Center ofthe College of St. Benedict. Members Present: Mayor Kenneth J. Hiemenz, Bob Loso, Cory Ehlert, Ken Twit and Mary Niedenfuer, Clerk-Administrator Cari Schmidt. Others Present: Melanie LaComb, Jennifer Valorose, Scott McMahon, John Borgen, Nancy Taylor, K81ie Diedrich, Mark Zimmer, Elmer Reber, Lorean Reber, Valeria Reber, Art Reber, Dick Taufen, Steve Streng, Janet Anderson, Jim Hardwick, Michael Hemmesch, Gar Kellom, GiI Hayes, Dorothy Anderson/Klein, Margo Wagner, Mary Geller, John Scherer, Joe Bettendorf, Kevin Blanchette, Jeffrey Young, Jim Kostreba, Brad Lindgren, S. Miriam Ardolf, Sarah Brouillard, Benjamin Clasen, and Lori Pfannenstein. 2. Approve Agenda: Loso made a motion to approve the agenda. The motion was seconded by Twit, and passed unanimously. Hiemenz asked everyone present to introduce themselves before continuing with the regular meeting. I 3. Northland Drive Bids - Joe Bettendorf presented the bid inforrn81ion. Bids were opened in City Hall at 11 :00 AM on Thursday, September 9, 1999 for Sixth Avenue NElNorthland Drive. J.R. Ferche was the lowest responsible bidder at $286,033.00 Bettendorf recommended awarding the bid to J.R. Ferche subject to execution of a Developer's Agreement between Lumber One and the City of St. Joseph. Joe also presented a list offield adjustments to the Northland Development that included: Replacing riprap at ends of street stubs with aggreg81e bedding, adjusting castings once, deleting stop signs on street stubs, shorten forcemain to 70', deleting aggregate bedding, water main over-sizing, adding sod to comer lot and reducing the wood fiber blanket. The total cost reductions for the Northland bid are $13,078.15. The Northland bid with the reductions and construction totals $221 ,500. The City bid (Brandenburger) with construction is $145,500. The grand total project with the water main over-sizing ($1,971.00) is approximately $369,000. Loso made a motion to award the bid to JR. Ferche subject to a developers agreement with Lumber One. Twit seconded the motion and it passed unanimously. 4. Certification of Ballot Questions for November Election - The CKy bond counsel reviewed the language for the November ballot question and recommended the following language: ·Shall the City of St. Joseph be authorized to create a sales and use tax of one half percent and an excise tax of $20 per retail sales of a motor vehicle and to pay its proportionate share of and pledge its full faith and credit to, general obligation bonds to be issued by the City of St. Cloud, Minnesota for the acquisition, construction and equipping of the Central Minnesota Events Center. Whenever revenues from the taxes described above are greater than the amount needed to meet obligations for the Central Minnesota Events Center project then revenues will be used for other such uses as are allowed by law." I Ehlert stated that it would be more beneficial to list out the items that we would use the excess revenue for. Hiemenz indicated th81 we would be able to do any of the things we listed before, but with this language we aren11imiting ourselves to anyone thing. Ehlert asked if the other communities are listing specific items. Hiemenz stated that those communities that are listing specific projects are bonding for them in the next year. Ehlert asked who made the decision that St. Joseph won1 be building any ofthe projects in the next year. Hiemenz stated that the1;ity doesn1 have the money to do a project in the Year 2000. ! Page 3612 SepteDlberl0,l999 Attorney Scherer stated it was his opinion that the City use the generic language on the ballot, but launch a public information campaign ahead of time to get the information out to the voters. Ehlert asked Scherer if there is any question that there will be excess revenues. Scherer said that based on the figures he's seen, there will be excess revenues. Loso stated that this would also make the City liable for funds as well. Hiemenz indicated that a1though this is true, the City would only be responsible for our proportion81e share. Ehlert st81ed that he still thinks it's better to layout the options. Attorney Scherer stated that if that's a concern, it would be better to get the information out to the electorate before November. Twit made a motion to accept the language for the bal10t question. Loso seconded the motion and it passed unanimously. I The second question the Councif was asked to consider was the City manager ballot question. Niedenfuer expressed concern th81 a city manager has a lot of responsibility and we have a new administrator. This may be rushing things. This may be an issue th81 we want to revisit next year. Hiemenz stated that he asked for this question to be brought up just to give the Council the option before the deadline passes. Hiemenz stated that as City Manager the responsibilities would be much the same, except for spending and hiring and firing authority. Twit expressed concern about what this would mean forthe other employees. Loso stated that he likes that aspect of the City Manager position because it removes the hiring and firing authority of the Council and puts it into the hands of the person who has the day to day interaction with the employees. Ehlert stated that it doesn't appear that anyone is for this question. Niedenfuer asked if any action must be taken. The Administrator stated that no action must be taken. The Council can move on to the next item on the agenda. 5. Joint Meeting of City officials, College of St. Benedicts and St. Johns Sister Miriam Ardolf welcomed the group to the College of St. Benedict for this milestone meeting. She read a joint letter from the CSBlSJU Presidents, Brother Reinhart and Mary Lyons. Jim Hardwick stated that the incident in May was of great concern not only to the City, but to the colleges as well. The colleges are committed now, more than ever to taking measures to try and prevent situations like the one during commencement weekend from happening again The colleges are putting a copy of the "Neighborly Guidelines For Attending College and Living in St. Joseph." The colleges would also like to get copies ofthe Police incident reports in order10 run the students through the academic judicial system. Although this happens on occasion now, they do not receive the reports in a timely fashion. Ifthey could receive the inform81ion as soon as possible, they can make contact with the students while the incident is still fresh. The colleges would also like to see stepped up enforcement on the City side. One problem that he sees is that the initial fine level is too low. The students know that they either won't get a fine or that it will be minimal. Hardwick stated that the colleges are interested in addressing the problems on both sides. I John Borgen, President of St. Johns' Senate, thanked everyone for caring enough about the issue to take the time to meet today. The Senate is also serious about addressing this issue. They held special meetings with the freshman students to talk about this very issue. They are also focusing heavily on non-alcoholic programming events. He has been an active member ofthe CORE committee and is looking forward to continued participation in that group of committed community members. Mary Niedenfuer stated th81 a resident a1tended the last Council meeting to report on the disruptive behavior of the students during the weekend before classes started. A number of students had congregated on his lawn around 1 :30 AM. They were loud and caused damage to his front hedge. The resident spoke with the Police Chief and found out th81 the police were 81 a number of calls th81 evening that kept them occupied. Niedenfuer st81ed th81 the Police are out dealing with the issues. There-are just too many incidents for them to respond to every one. The resident also had a number of suggestions for the Colleges. He suggested starting classes earlier to prevent all of the down-time that students have. He also suggested I I Page 3613' September 10, 1999 having more events and programs planned before school starts to keep the students busy and out of trouble. Niedenfuer asked Chief Lindgren if he knew what the percentage of calls are taken about student related incidents, versus other type calls. Police Chief Brad Lindgren stated th81 he doesn't know what percentage of calls are student related. He indicated that the Police Dept. attempts to deal with all of the calls that come in equally. The Police Department deals with a lot more than just student rel81ed issues. They also have to respond to domestics, assaults, medica Is, DUl's, traffic stops etc. Jim Hardwick stated th81 it's important to remember that there are alcohOl related incidents every weekend. The focus should not just be on how to prevent a repeat of last year's commencement weekend. It's clear that alcohol is what fueled the incident. These minors are being allowed to purchase alcohol at on sale and off sale establishments. The City should have stricter ordinances to deal with these issues. If we can prevent the students from even obtaining the alcohol, a lot of the problems will be prevented before they even start. City Attorney John Scherer stated that we do have ordinances to deal with this issue and the City has charged people under those ordinances. He asked Mr. Hardwick if he had ever looked at the ordinance book. There are noise ordinances and keg ordinances and others that deal specifically with this issue. Scherer stated that it's important not to lose sight of the fact that the majority of the students that were involved in the problems during commencement weekend were senior students and of age to purchase alcohol. Most ofthe underage students had gone home by that time. The issue with commencement wasn't with the underage students. There is nothing that the City could have done to prevent those of age students from obtaining alcohol that night. I Jim Hardwick stated again that he hopes to not focus on commencement weekend alone, but to address EVERY weekend as an issue. One of the biggest problems seems to be not having someone at the door to ID the students coming in. This should be an issue for the City and the schools. When do these students become residents of St. Joseph? We categorize them as students only. The City needs to take Some responsibility for these students, because they are residents too. If the ordinances are in place, does the City need more officers to enforce them? Chief Lindgren stated that the St. Joseph Police Department is comprised of six officers only. Some cities have larger departments and some have smaller ones. The department responds to as many calls as they can, including gang related issues, domestics, etc. They are going from call to call. There is no down time. The City doesn't have an investigator. We also don't have the manpower to conduct sting operations or bar checks every night or to do all of the preventative programs that we'd like to do. We also have to deal with the 20,000 vehicles that pass through St. Joseph every day. Attorney John Scherer stated that this issue goes beyond enforcement. The issue is kids with good values. The City does not have the budget for another officer. We are already dealing with overtime issues. We don't have the officers to sit outside of bars and parties to wait. We don't have the officers to do wh81 the school is asking for. Each call takes time. We also can't change attitudes and behavior overnight. We've been working on this issue for at least eighteen years. We have to address the fact that this generation of students is different. I Ken Twit stated that he hears the colleges saying they are receptive to addressing the issues at hand, but are putting it all on the City to remedy. The Colleges are saying one thing and doing another. More officers will not help this situation. Programming on the part of the Colleges has to be top priority. Mary Geller stated that it's clear that there are constraints on both sides that have to be recognized. We know that neither the City, nor the colleges can control the behavior of the students. Knowing th81, it would be more productive if we could move forward from here with Page 3614 September 10, 1999 the discussion. What else can we do? Chief Lindgren stated that the Police Department is working on getting the incident reports sent to the college as soon as possible. There may be an issue of whether or not it's public inform81ion. He is checking on this issue. I Mary Niedenfuer stated that it would be beneficial for everyone to take a proactive community oriented approach to this problem. This also includes the students. The group should focus on getting the students to take some ownership in the community too. One of the biggest problems she perceives is when bouncers 81 bars let underage students into the establishments because they are friends, or because they give them cigarettes. She knows it doesn't always happen, but it would be nice to prevent it from ever happening. She asked what is the possibility that security officers from the colleges could act as bouncers at some of the local bars? Cory Ehlert asked what is the biggest problem that the colleges and City see? It seems to be house parties and neighborhood issues. The message needs to be sent that if you are going to hold the parties, you need to be responsible for your guests. If we can get this message across to the students, maybe they will patrol each other. It means so much more when a peer comes up to you r81her than hearing it from an administrator or City official. The more creative solutions we can come up with, the better off we'll be. Jim Hardwick stated that we also have to realize we are dealing with some chemically dependent people. These people are not experimenting with alcohol for the first time anymore. They are coming to us with 5-8 years of solid drinking expe,rience and habits already. A combination of enforcement and educa1ion is key. Mark Zimmer, owner of the La Playette, stated th81 on any normal night the officers will come through the bar. Their presence is definitely felt throughout the bar and on the street. They stay anywhere from 20 minutes to a half hour. So there is enforcement going on. The La is trying to prevent problems 81 the door, but they make mistakes too. If the police were called every time an underage person tried to get in, there wouldn't be time for them to do anything else. The notion that there is no enforcement is wrong. The officers are doing their job 81 the bars. They greet people when they come in and talk to the customers. The fact is though, that it's a lot easier for underage students to drink at house parties. This is not a new problem either. His business hasn't changed in 24 years. I Dick Taufen stated that this meeting isn't any different than the other meetings that we've had. He hasn't heard anything new about how to correct the problems. The real solution is to make the students live on campus. Why should the City have to take care of the students when it's the colleges' problem? Bob Loso suggested that maybe the colleges could limit the enrollment of the students to the beds that are available for the students. Jodie Terhaar stated that something has to be done differently. There is not enough risk for the students when they get caught. They pay a minimal fine if any and end up saying it was worth the fine for the fun time they had that night. We need to work on that link-the noise ordinances, the drinking violations. Dick Tauren asked "Why can't you teach your students to be respectful?" Ben Clasen, a student from St. Johns said that he is currently renting from Mark Lambert in the off campus housing. He has never seen the friendly neighbors brochure and has no idea what ordinances are in place. He suggested that a renters council be put together where off campus students and residents of St. Joseph could come together and discuss common issues and problems. Once the students move off campus, they are more isolated from the administration ofthe colleges. This is often why they move off campus in the first place. This I Page 3615 SepteDlberl0, 1999 I renters council would give the community of off campus students a forum to talk to one another. The key is to get them talking. Ben also mentioned that he has never heard of the CORE committee and would like to be involved with it. Cory Ehlert stated th81 Ben has a really good point. It's the Council's responsibility to distribute the rules and regulations of the City. The renters council would be a great idea. It would be in the best interest of the renters to come to the meeting too. Mary Niedenfuer said that we should get the landlords involved so that the meetings are made mand810ry in the leases that the students sign. Katie Diedrich, a St. Bens student, said why does it have to be in the lease? The students are going to realize that its in their best interest to attend the meeting. Cory Ehlert also stated that each rental unit could be visited personally by a member of one of the colleges and the Chief of Police. They could give the students a handbook personally and talk to them about neighborhood concerns. This personal contact might make all the difference. Jim Hardwick mentioned again th81 it's important to remember that it is often the on campus students that go to the house parties and cause the problems. These are also the students that are starting school with well developed alcohol habits. Two thirds of the students drink one fourth of the alcohol and one third of the students are drinking the other three fourths. I Art Reber, a St. Joseph resident, said that he feels sad to live here. There shouldn't be any student housing off campus. He stated that we are losing the City to the students-that it's no longer a City for the residents of St. Joseph. The students aren't contributing anything to the City. Katie Diedrich, a St. Bens student, took offense to th81. She st81ed that she grew up in St. Joseph as a resident and now, just because she is a student, she isn't contributing anything worthwhile? Students are residents too. Mary Geller stated th81 both sides have conceded the layers of problems here. Maybe 81 this point, the next step is to carry this issue back to CORE for further discussion. After the smaller group has had the opportunity to discuss it, they will bring it back for another large group meeting. Art Reber also mentioned th81 CORE should reach out to the elderly residents, because they won't become involved withoutthat. Art asked how long CORE has been in existence and what have they done. The residents don't know. CORE should also publish their findings in the local newspaper so that the residents know what is going on. Brad Lindgren, Chief of POlice, stated that the Police Department will work to implement any initiative they can to help. Another solution might be to form a common board with school officials, residents and students to hear and deal with the noise issues. Attorney John Scherer stated that he was happy to see reporters from the Record and the Newsleader in attendance at the mealing. He encouraged them to tell this story and to stay on top of it. The more we can do to put names with faces on this issue, the better off we'll be. I Cory Ehlert suggested that each landlord designate a representative from each building for meetings. The individual could also be given an incentive by the landlord for being the designated contact (e.g. reduction in rent, etc.) Cory suggested that this large group meet on a quarterly basis to stay on top of the issue. He also suggested th81 the group talk to other communities about this issue. St. Joseph isn't the only community in the state with a college. Mayor Hiemenz stated that he thought it was a good idea to get the group down to a smaller Page 3616 September 10, 1999 size to discuss the issue. The biggest problem he sees is the students making noise late at night. If we can work to make the students more respectful of their sleeping neighbors, a lot of the problems will get better. I 6. Adjourn - 4:30 P.M. Loso made a motion to adjourn, seconded by Ehlert. The motion passed unanimously. Respectfully Submitted, C~5~ Cari Schmidt Clerk/Administrator City of St. Joseph I I