09-23-2019 Council Packet - Laserfiche WebLink

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MINUTES OF THE ORONO CITY COUNCIL MEETING Monday, September 9, 2019 7:00 o’clock p.m. _____________________________________________________________________________________ Page 9 of 10 Seals stated the LMCD has a whole board that could do outreach for free and that they are simply marketing themselves to the residents using their tax dollars. Rief reported he met with James Whisker this morning at the Minnehaha Creek Watershed District and that he has been there about 18 months now. They had a good discussion about what Orono is doing in the watershed and what they are doing. In October the Watershed District will be approaching the various cities looking for input and then doing some revisions to their processes. The Watershed District would like to do it more incrementally rather than drastic changes. Walsh noted Staff deals with them regularly and that he would like to see what Staff’s thoughts are on how things can be improved. Rief stated one item that was discussed was a development from preliminary plat to final plat and the amount of time it takes. The Watershed District will be working on trying to streamline the process more. Rief reported he received an email last week Thursday regarding the school and the construction related to the water line. A response has not been sent at this time. The contractor missed a connection on the fire connection for the building to the north. That connection was then rerouted through the school property. The City notified the school of the start date and the contractor started the project. During construction of that project, the contractor cut electrical and fiber lines that were owned by the school. The School District is now asking the contractor pay for that repair work. Staff does not feel the contractor should pay for it. The City has already offered to pay $37,000 for the added water connection. Johnson asked how the City could not be responsible for that. Rief stated the contractor did the One Call and it was not marked. Seals asked if the City did their due diligence that would typically be done to ensure they were aware of where all the lines were. Edwards stated this is a unique situation. The call for locates goes out to all the private and public utilities. Those locates are only done in pubic corridors, such as in rights-of-ways and easements by the utilities that own that infrastructure. If there are private utilities buried in a public or private area, that responsibility lies with that private property owner, and in this case that would be the school. Crosby asked if the school knew they were there. Edwards stated they indicated they did not know the electrical lines were there but that they knew about the fiber optic line. The School District has indicated the City did not specifically ask them to identify it. The question is whether there is a responsibility for the City to say mark your stuff other than showing them the map and giving them the dates. Johnson stated if the contractor had done it right the first time, this would not have been an issue. Edwards stated as it relates to the water main project, the service line was not shown on any of the plans and no one noticed it previously. That service was put in in the early 1990s when the building was converted from a church to a school facility. When that service was put in, it was likely directionally bored under the street. The method that was used in replacing the water main is the existing one was