09-14-2020 Council Packet - Laserfiche WebLink

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MINUTES OF THE ORONO CITY COUNCIL MEETING Thursday, August 24, 2020 6:00 o’clock p.m. _____________________________________________________________________________________ Page 10 of 13 Walsh noted that lot actually had wetlands that one could get through, but just couldn’t build on. He said he remembered that coming through the Council. MAYOR/COUNCIL REPORT Crosby congratulated his daughter and Johnson’s daughter on purchasing their first homes, noting their kids are growing up. Printup said good luck to the former police Officer Timothy Datwyler, who is leaving the department and thanked him for his service. He also noted hiring a new police officer will be exciting and a good addition. He noted he had a great trip in South Dakota. Seals thanked the Fire Department for putting out a blazing boat fire on Lake Minnetonka. Crosby said the boat fire made “Boneheaded Boaters of the Week” (nationwide clip). He encouraged all of the boaters to run their blowers, it’s very important. He said the Fire Department did a great job and were able to save all the boats nearby. Seals noted she is still getting emails regarding the water bill and said the City hasn’t communicated it well. She read an email she received which read: “We’ve been blindsided and burned by water so hard and in fact, impossible to budget when your quarterly bill was $15,000, that was a 100% increase over last year [Seals noted the July bill used to be $4,500). We have been told two reasons; one is that the City did not get enough money that they usually do in their water budget. [Seals noted that is not the case.] We were told it went into roads and bridges [Seals noted they love their roads but that is not where the money went.] Second was that Orono charged the multi-dwelling buildings to a higher bill, possibly to keep at bay more of those types of dwellings.” Seals said communication between the City about utilities and the impact on residents is lacking and Seals said this is something they own and it’s not good, noting there are future increases coming and they need to really debate. Walsh said the future increases are really small, except for the Met Council. Seals noted there is one more big increase. Rief stated this year is was 20%. Walsh stated the Met Council was 30%. Johnson noted the “blindsided” comment is the part that is tough. Seals noted the amount is the amount, but then there is the fact that the City isn’t communicating very well. Seals also noted another issue is Mediacom, noting they are not a good vendor to Orono in so many ways. She stated she’s heard the complaints year after year and she thought, how bad can it be…until it happened to her when she was presenting to the President of her company and it all died. She said she gets it, it happens. However, what is more painstaking, and she cannot imagine what their residents are thinking, is when the company says “No ma’am, we’ll come out in a month to look at it.” She said the funny thing is it turns back on at 10:00 p.m. at night and is active all night long and then around 9:30 a.m.