Officials planning structure for meetings

The city council will leave Coffee with the Council on the backburner for a little while longer.

Council members discussed bringing back the public outreach initiative during a work session meeting Tuesday night. While the council seems to agree an open, informal meeting with the public is a good idea, council members decided to discuss potential ground rules or meeting restrictions during its annual council retreat toward the end of February.

The meetings took place from March to July 2012 before council members decided to suspend the initiative after a few people came to dominate the meetings with complaints and suggestions for the city, and a local candidate appeared to stump for political office during the last meeting.

Council Member Janet Anderson, who along with former Council Member Marian Clennon came up with Coffee with the Council, said she hopes to see the meetings come back with a little more structure, perhaps meetings focused around specific city issues.

“We have to figure out what that could be,” she said.

Council Member Steve King expressed concern with the idea in general, as the meetings weren’t as well attended as the council hoped and may not have answered residents’ questions.

“I’ve never heard from a citizen that we are out of touch, that we aren’t accessible, that they need more time with us,” King told council members. “[It] sounds good, sounds easy enough, but I think what you’ve seen … is you’re going to get the population of people, a very vocal minority, that are unhappy with something or just have some gripe. And no matter what you tell them, no matter what the forum is, they’re not going to be happy, they’re going to keep talking about what they want.”

King acknowledged there is a benefit to the Coffee with the Council idea, however.

Council Member Judy Enright agrees there should be more structure to meetings if they’re going to continue.

“We need a couple ground rules,” she said.

City to buy old Sinclair

The city of Austin needs to buy the Sinclair gas station property on North Main Street if it hopes to finish flood mitigation efforts along the Cedar River, according to Public Works Director Jon Erichson.

The city council voted 6-0 to buy the property for about $60,000, risking a potential $125,000 bill to clean up contaminated ground, during its public meeting Monday.

The city has tried to work with Sinclair Oil Corp. over the past year to buy the property, but efforts were complicated when the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency found underground contamination from leaking gas tanks. City officials since then have tried to minimize the cost of cleanup.

Erichson told the council the city can buy the property now and could pay an estimated $125,000 to clean up the contamination as a “worst-case scenario.” City officials estimate clean up could cost $250,000, but a grant from the Department of Natural Resources would absorb half the cost.

The city must define its mitigation efforts with the MPCA as soon as possible, however. The North Main Project needs to have the project bid out by September in order to qualify for a $5 million grant from the Economic Development Administration, and the project can’t get started until MPCA officials approve detailed mitigation plans, which the city hasn’t completed due to the uncertainty surrouding the Sinclair property’s contamination levels.

“We’ve changed our plans a number of times trying to accommodate the wishes and desires of all parties,” Erichson said.

The city has several options to deal with the contamination, and Erichson said the city submitted a plan for MPCA approval to drive steel sheet piling on the contaminated soil and keep contamination on the dry side of the property. If the MPCA doesn’t believe that would properly deal with the site’s contamination, the city would need to wall off the property in order to get the project started this year and qualify for the $5 million grant. MPCA officials told the city it would take at least 90 days to review the city’s plan, however.

“Unfortunately, if we wait 90-plus days [to buy the property], we basically would lose the 2013 construction season,” Erichson said. “This project has gone on for such a long period of time that basically, the risk tolerance of having another flood is to the point where it’s not acceptable for that [to happen].”

In other news, the council:

—Approved a 4.4 percent overall assessment rate hike for 2013. City officials came to the council during its last work session asking for the rates to increase, as the city would like residents to pay for 50 percent of any work assessed. In 2012, according to Assistant City Engineer Steven Lang, residents paid about 34 percent in assessments for improvement projects done. The city has slightly raised assessment rates over the past few years.

—Will allow city officials to pursue Minnesota Department of Transportation grants to improve the landscape in the Interstate 90 corridor through Austin and improve walking and bike paths leading to schools throughout the city. Both projects come from Vision 2020 committees, as the Gateway to Austin Committee hopes to use volunteers and MnDOT-paid supplies to beautify the land around I-90’s exits in Austin this summer.

In addition, the Bike/Walk Committee hopes to improve many of Austin’s paths through town under MnDOT’s Safe Routes to Schools program, which funds efforts to make trails and paths children use to get to schools safer by identifying dangerous intersections and coming up with solutions.

—Decided not to change parking restrictions near the Hormel Historic Home. Council members formed a subcommittee after residents living north of Fourth Avenue Northwest and west of First Street Northwest complained of uneven police enforcement on the two-hour parking restrictions in that area. The city sent out surveys to residents to determine whether the restrictions should stay, increase to four-hour parking or lift parking restrictions on those streets.

After reviewing the surveys, Police Chief Brian Krueger advised the council to keep the current restrictions, as lifting restrictions in that area could cause more problems for residents since the neighborhood is close to a number of buildings, including Austin High School, Pacelli Catholic Schools, and the HHH, where residents regularly gather.

“We believe we should just keep the parking where it is,” said Police Chief Brian Krueger.

—Allowed the Planning and Zoning Department to remove junk and refuse from the property at 1300 First Place SE.