1440-1442 Shoreline Dr - HISTORY

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a green space buffer rather than to add additional parking. This is an extremely unreasonable request (just go knock on your neighbor's door and ask them if they would mind knocking down their house and put a lot sized park there instead because it would be nice for them). Nonetheless, we continued to work diligently with City Staff and the Planning Commission to ultimately come up with a very reasonable plan that also made allowances to mitigate the impact our business would have on our residential neighbor. The Planning Commission recommended approval of our plan to the City Council. But Mr.Johnson showed up at every meeting and vehemently protested our plan by completely mischaracterizing the nature of the activity that occurs at our site. He found sympathy with at least some members of the Council and we were informed that we would not receive the support we needed for our request unless we maintained a residential buffer between our property and Mr.Johnson's. We have talked with Mr.Johnson numerous times since then about how we can work together to mutually coexist. Unfortunately we are at an impasse. Mr.Johnson simply refuses to work with us. Instead he resorts to calling in frequent, frivolous complaints about our property that waste valuable City time and resources. He harasses our customers and photographs them without permission. He has even installed two cameras that film our property non-stop. This is a clear violation of the law per MN Statue 609.746—"Surreptitious intrusion; observation device.A. a person is guilty of a gross misdemeanor who: B(2) surreptitiously installs or uses any device for observing, photographing, recording, amplifying, or broadcasting sounds or events through a window or any other aperture of a hour or place of dwelling of another." Mr. Johnson also appears before the Council and misstates the facts and/or mischaracterizes the activity on our property in an effort to deprive of us of our constitutional right to the full use of our property. We would ask that the City of Orono remind Mr.Johnson that making false or misleading statements to public officials is illegal and could be construed as slander. The fact is this Mr.Johnson bought a residential property next to a commercial marina. He paid less for his home because of this. The marina was there well before he purchased his property. He simply cannot continue to complain anytime he sees commercial activity at the site. Until he understands and acknowledges this we don't know how to move forward. We would also like to point out that Mr. Johnson receives a double density allowance from the Lake Minnetonka Conservation District for being next to a commercial marina, this allows him more dockage and slip space and he takes full advantage of it. We would like to resolve our differences with Mr.Johnson once and for all and are asking the City of Orono for guidance. We would welcome an opportunity to sit down with Mr.Johnson, City Staff, and City Council Members to come up with reasonable solutions. We are absolutely positive that the City will see for itself who is being reasonable and who is not. We all have a mutual interest in making this work so we can quit wasting valuable time and resources. In the meantime, we have continued to be good stewards of our property and make significant improvements. We have recently made a significant investment in the homes at 1440 and 1442 Shoreline Drive to clean up these formerly blighted properties, which is something the City of Orono has always wanted. It cannot possibly be argued that they don't meet all the requirements for rental licensing, including adequate parking, and we ask that the City of Orono grant us our license requests immediately upon its next meeting. In addition, please note the below as line items as rebuttals or clarifications for discussion points that have come up at the past two City Council Meetings for which we were not in attendance.