08-28-1991 Council Minutes City Facilites Public Hearing

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PUBLIC HEARING FOR PROPOSED CITY FACILITIES AUGUST 28, 1991 r' During the election that year, the subject of a new City Hall was controversial. Mr. Printup at the time termed the new facility a Taj Mahal and ran his campaign on the platform that the City should not be allowed to build such a structure. Since no one on the Council was planning to build anything of the sort, they took the opposite side of the argument. The election resulted in changes to City Council and the new Council felt a need to do something about the facilities. The question of actual need and size was discussed. There was a meeting at which the citizens came forward and there was a serious debate as to whether or not a consultant should be hired to determine space needs or whether the internal staff could determine those needs. It was determined that a consultant should be hired and there were meetings to determine who to hire, with very little input from the public.. In 1986 Boarman and Associates was retained for the purpose of studying the space needs and making a recommendation about them. After a period of time, a report was received from the consultant which was quite lengthy. The Council, Planning Commission and staff members then took a tour of several City facilities which Boarman thought bore some relationship to the City of Orono. They included: Southlake Public Safety Building, Champlin, Mendota Heights and Chaska. Those cities all had new facilities, all costing different amounts and with different organizations. Several meetings were then held on the general layout of the building and rough plans were prepared by Boarman's office and the general picture of the size of the building to accommodate the needs. By this time it was mid -1990. All of the meetings were open to the public and usually occurred within the Council meeting. The general layout of the building was square or rectangular. At this same time, location of the facilities became an issue. Callahan had at that time felt the Crystal Bay site would work fine. That was not a universally accepted view at the time. Boarman- was .asked to look at.other sites in the community.. He returned with 3'site options, including: the Old Crystal Bay Sewer Pond, Highway 12, and the Crystal Bay site. The Council was split on the decision of location. Boarman suggested a Citizen's Committee be organized for a recommendation. The Committee was comprised of 30 persons originally, Council Members were not on it nor did Council participate in the deliberations of that body. The report from that Committee recommended that Highway 12 was the best location. An option to buy the Highway 12 land was obtained in case the site was selected for the proposed facilities. The Council and Committee had held a meeting which was rather heated because of the split opinions, but,in the end the option was taken for the Highway 12 site. 2