01-31-18 CC/Staff Retreat MinutesCITY OF SHOREWOOD
CITY COUNCIL /STAFF RETREAT
WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 31, 2018
MINUTES
Convene City Council /Staff Retreat
Mayor Zerby called the meeting to order at 12:08 PM.
24150 SMITHTOWN RD
SOUTH LAKE PUBLIC SAFETY
FACILITY TRAINING ROOM
Noon
Present: Mayor Zerby; Councilmembers Siakel, Johnson, Labadie, and Sundberg, City Attorney
Keane; City Administrator Lerud; Interim Finance Director Rigdon; Planning Director
Darling; Director of Public Works Brown; City Engineer Fauske; Communications
Coordinator Moore; City Clerk Thone, and David Drown. Park and Rec
Coordinator /Administrative Assistant Grout (arrived at 4:10 p.m.)
Absent: None
Sundberg moved, Johnson seconded, approving the agenda as presented, unanimous consent.
1. COMPREHENSIVE PLAN SURVEY RESULTS
Planning Director Darling said the city had a survey on it's website for several weeks to gather additional
information for the public input component into the comprehensive plan update. She went through a
compilation of the survey results.
2. ROADWAYS AND TRAILS
City Administrator Lerud said he invited David Drown to review and offer his comments about the city's
present Street Capital Improvement Plan (CIP) and recommendations on how to improve it. Drown
stated that the city has very good planning documents and offered a couple of suggestions — considering
doing bigger projects every couple or three years, rather than every year, and the "judicious" use of debt
to even out cash flow. After the council discussion, the council directed staff to prepare a CIP that
considers traits, street, water, and storm sewer over a multi -year program rather than a year at a time.
Director of Public Works Brown said he thought staff could come back to the council in late March with a
draft plan for comment.
Lerud said this is a very broad category and meant to be a presentation and discussion about how the city
communicates with our residents and what improvements and tools can be used to make those efforts as
effective as possible.
a. Updating website. Communications Director /Recycling Coordinator Moore shared several
examples of other city's websites and there was a discussion about what features the city
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January 31, 2018
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council wants in the new site. Moore said once the city selects a vendor, the new site will be
operational in about four to five months.
b. GIS /Permitting programs. Director of Public Works Brown discussed different software
programs and equipment that would help the city better locate its facilities. He said staff is
also looking at software that would allow right of way permit or other project information to
be available by the public.
c. Lerud said that the city has had several problems with the presentation display equipment in
the council room. He said that he is working with Jim Lindberg at the MCCC to obtain
quotes to upgrade the equipment in the room. He said he hoped to have proposals to the
council very soon.
The council expressed interest for all these proposed improvements and directed staff to bring each of
these topics forward to a future meeting as information becomes available.
4. SOLID WASTE
Lerud said this item was on last year's retreat for discussion, and unfortunately staff did not have the time
necessary to work effectively on this issue, so it was brought back for discussion. City Attorney Keane
presented options to the city council and the process that would need to be followed should the council
want to move forward in an organization effort. Lerud said there are two primary questions that need to
be answered; first, should the city examine organizing garbage collection. Second, what does the council
hope to do, or what problems does the council hope to solve by organizing. After a discussion, the
consensus of the council was to direct staff to take the first step toward examining the issue and that is
forming a committee to review the issue and report to the council.
5. STAFFING
City Clerk Thone presented several different compensation models for council discussion and
consideration. Lerud said in late 2016, the City Council received a compensation study from George
Gmach. While staff roughly followed the plan for 2017 and 2018, the council does need to make a formal
decision about adopting it or some other model. The reason for including it in the agenda was to see if the
council wanted to consider other compensation models that could be incorporated into the Gmach plan, or
an entirely free - standing compensation plan. The consensus of the council was that a pay for
performance should not be considered, but there was interest in seeing if some type of incentive could be
incorporated into the overall step plan that Gmach proposed.
City Clerk Thone presented a recap of 2017 StrenghsF'inder assessment process that staff and council
participated in and the basic concepts of Strengths -Based Leadership principals and requested feedback
on whether to continue building on what has been done in 2017 by applying the principals in building a
Strengths -Based Organization. The consensus was that the experience was positive and if staff thought it
was a positive direction, council supported it.
6. WATER AND WASTE WATER
Director of Public Works Brown gave an overview of the current water system. There was a discussion
about how the city charges for water connections and what could be done to encourage the approximately
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January 31, 2018
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175 properties that have public water available but who continue to rely on their well. Many options were
discussed, and the Council directed staff to come back to a future work session to discuss.
City Engineer Fauske presented a sub - watershed map of the middle and western part of the city showing
where a proposed storm water project could be. She said that this will be a multi -year project and staff
would be bringing the memorandum of understanding with the Minnehaha Creek Watershed District
forward at a near future meeting for council consideration.
7. SOUTHSHORE CENTER
City Administrator Lerud said that the council authorized proceeding with the cosmetic improvement
project and the Building Official, Joe Pazandak prepared the enclosed spread sheet showing the specific
improvements that are planned. He said staff will be brining proposals forward for the various
improvement as they are received. Communications Director Moore said she has been in contact with a
couple of firms about assisting the city in a renaming or rebranding project for the Southshore Center.
The proposals were too expensive to consider, and after a discussion, the consensus of the council and
staff was that some variation of Shorewood Event and Community Center, or Shorewood Community and
Event Center would be used. Staff was directed by council to examine the rental pricing of the center and
to take advantage of business that could be captured, such as birthday rental packages or graduation party
rental packages. It was also important for those assembled that since the city was the sole owner and
operator of the facility that a resident and non - resident rate be established.
With no other business a motion to adjourn was made by Siakel, second by Labadie, all voted in favor
and the meeting adjourned at 5:00 p.m.
Respectfully Submitted,
Greg Lerud, City Administrator
ATTEST:
llu�f -'OkAg"I'
Sandie Thone, City Clerk