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8.g administrators report Staff Report Date of Meeting: December 20, 2016 To: City Council From: Neil Soltis, Administrator Re: Administrator’s report Comprehensive Planning – Bolton & Menk will be holding a pop-up meeting at Vinterfest in order to educate the community on the process, gather input, and identify issues and concerns. They are also working on creating a separate comprehensive planning website that will be linked to the Ci ty’s website. It is anticipated that the website will be up on the week of January 23rd in advance of Vinterfest. We have been informed that we have received 90% grant funding from Living Healthy Washington County (LHWC) and the Statewide Health Improvement Program for enhanced community engagement on the plan, to conduct baseline assessment of healthy food access in the community and make recommendations to enhance food access in the comprehensive plan or policies, and to conduct baseline assessment of active living components in the community and make recommendations to enhance active living in comprehensive plan or policies. I will be meeting with the County rep next week regarding the details and next steps. Board of Appeal and Equalization training – The deadline the Board of Appeal training is 5:00 p.m. on February 1. Steve Kronmiller has been certified which meets the minimum city requirements; however, the Board cannot meet if Steve is not present. I would encourage other Council members take the on-line course. Todds – Federated Coop is trying to open for pay-at-the-pump fuel sales this week. Federated has submitted a building permit application for the interior renovations to the store. Federated is also working on plans for the exterior improvements for submittal at a later date. Their hope is to reopen the store around March 1. The major issues with getting store reopened are related to the review by State Department of Agriculture of all food related equipment. Beyond the gas and convenience store, plans for store also include limited hardware, feed, and clothing similar to the merchandise carried at the Federated Country Store in Osceola. Health Insurance coverage – The City received notice from Teamsters Local 49 representing the full- time Public Works employees that the cost of health insurance will increase by 5% effective March 1, 2017. Adequate funds have been provided for the increase in the 2017 budget. Workers Compensation coverage – The invoice for the City’s coverage is in the bills to be approved. The premium charge of $23,930 is comparable to the $23,900 that was included in the 2017 budget. Broadband access – The State announced the award of Broadband access grants totaling $34M for 42 locations. There were no Washington County locations receiving grants. Of note is the award to Sunrise Township in Chisago County described below: Sunrise Township (CenturyLink) Fiber to the Home - Grant: $1,074,852 The project will serve 584 unserved households, 10 unserved businesses, and 2 community anchor institutions in rural Sunrise Township in Chisago County, MN. In a funding partnership with the State of Minnesota and Sunrise Township, CenturyLink will leverage CAFII funding from the FCC to bring 1 Gigabit service to two-thirds of the township, exceeding the 2026 state speed goal of 100 Mbps by 20 Mbps. Total eligible project cost is $2,388,560. Local match is $1,313,708. Note in the Sunrise information above the extent of the local funds that will be provided to the project. The Governor’s taskforce for the next State budget calls for providing $100M in grant funds for broadband. In considering a grant application significant criteria in the grant scoring process include: project readiness, a comprehensive proposal with partners in place, community support, benefits to community anchor institutions, impact on economic development, and economic distress. Additional points are assigned to proposals based on the percentage of project costs requested. The 2016 grant program opened for applications in July and closed in early October Xcel Energy – Xcel Energy is embarking on a program to convert street lighting to LED bulbs. Currently the City pays Xcel for high pressure sodium streetlights with primarily 100 or 150 watt lamps in 20 locations at a fixed rate of $210 per month . This does not include the Uptown street lights that are owned by the City and billed based on electrical usage. The changeover to LED streetlights will reduce the City’s cost by $10.38 per month. What will be most noticeable is the color of the light and the concentration of the light in the area under the fixture. The work is scheduled to be completed in the 1st quarter of 2017. One thought for the savings would be to add a streetlight at the corner of Oakhill and 95 which is a dark intersection at a curve in the road. The cost for this added streetlight would be approximately $9.89 per month. Website Upgrade – The 2017 budget provides funding to update the City’s website. We have received a quote from GovOffice (the current provider) to update the websit e to add custom images to the site along with quick link buttons to direct users to specific areas of interest. During the update process, we will also be working with GovOffice on simplifying the navigation on the home page of the site. Email retention - Legislation has been introduced in the State House that would include retention of not only emails, but also text messages and possibly social media posts for at least 18 months. Currently email retention policies are separate from record retention schedules. In record retention schedules, the keeping of official records is based on the content of a document or email. Therefore, if an email is an official record that pertains to human resources or planning and zoning, it would be kept according to the schedule under those categories. If emails do not fall within these categories, then they are likely considered “messages.” Messages are of a transitory or incidental nature and can be deleted after they are read. For example, an email confirming the location of a meeting could be deleted after being read. City Attorney Andy Pratt will be making a presentation regarding Open Meetings and Data Practices at the February work session and can further address the requirements for retaining emails.