02-24-2020 Council Minutes - Laserfiche WebLink

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MINUTES OF THE ORONO CITY COUNCIL MEETING Monday, February 24, 2020 6:00 o'clock p.m. Rief said he was correct and that when he worked at the City of Omaha,they had the same problem with city intersections and had to come up with an ADA master plan. It's just a matter of time until they get to trails and other things. When they are being reconstructed/reconfigured, that's the first thing that kicks in. Whether or not it is compliant now, if they ever check on it, they will make the City change it, anyway. Johnson stated the point he was trying to make is that even though it does not say ADA in the agreement, it is assumed the City is doing certain things and he wants to make sure the Council is comfortable that it is not park benches,bathrooms, shelters. He asked if the dock was also included. Edwards indicated it was. Johnson asked if the City was stuck with the dock. Edwards stated in the recreational facilities in the ADA requirements, there is some latitude given to the governments and how that is done. Federal regulations don't require everything, for instance, in parks to be ADA accessible.A portion of what the City has needs to be ADA accessible.Once some ADA accessible elements are established to your park or facility, it has to remain that way. If the trails are set up as ADA accessible and ten years from now the City decides they are not easy to maintain and they need to do things differently, the City has latitude to do different things. Within the design itself, not all picnic benches proposed are ADA-compliant; half of them are.Different elements have different proportions. Some things are goals; some things are requirements. Walsh said Johnson wants to make sure that the City is not committed to having to have picnic benches or shelters or bathrooms, but it's just keeping it open to the public in general. Mattick indicated that is what the document that the State has requested is saying. Johnson said, by taking the money, the City is buying into some responsibility and over the course of time, especially as the City's budget goes down, it is not a lot of money from the State. Whether they give $140,000 or$200,000, their teeth into the City is the same.At some time, the City might get the project down to a point where it is self-funded and they won't want to use the grant because there's some value in not being under scrutiny. He is hearing there isn't any real scrutiny. It's already a park.As far as the trails, the City would meet the ADA requirements anyway.The rest of the items, with the exception of maybe the dock,the City can modify as it sees frt without anyone else's permission. Mattick stated he was correct,although he gets nervous about the phrase "without anybody's permission." Walsh indicated the City is already under essentially the perpetuity to have this as an open public space based on buying it and the documents they are bound to. Johnson said he does not want the vault bathroom to be the central Lake Minnetonka public restroom,or the expense to maintain it will be exceptional. Edwards agreed and stated that it is not going to be advertised as a public restroom across the lake. If you go there and you know it's there,use it. Johnson wanted to make sure there wouldn't be a Lake Minnetonka fan club page on Facebook. Page 8 of 15