03-13-2023 Council Packet - Laserfiche WebLink

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MINUTES OF THE ORONO CITY COUNCIL MEETING February 27, 2023 6:00 o’clock p.m. _____________________________________________________________________________________ Page 11 of 22 gone from 30 officers a couple years ago to 12 and they can barely field one or two officers a night even for 911 calls. So that's why you support your first responders, support your police as we have from day one, and that's why we're fully funded. We make sure our citizens are taken care of first. Edwards said another highlight is that the police created the cadet program using CSO Cadet positions to bring students that are in law enforcement education into the department part time an intern setting to be able to set them up for future employment. He also cited the embedded social worker program, which is largely funded by Hennepin County. In just this year, we have been able to have 72 different cases referred to the embedded social worker and we tried to get that integration between our law enforcement and social services. The social worker has been shared among six departments however as time goes on the number of cities sharing one person will probably decrease as the workload increases. The Parks Department grew this past year, adding another full-time parks maintenance worker, and as I mentioned earlier, they took on the role of facilities. Some key accomplishments for Parks in 2022 were a playground refresh at Crystal Bay Park and marking a number of our lake access points. Parks did a number of studies including the Summit Beach master plan, the golf course, fees, and permanence feasibility. The crowning event of every year is our Holiday Tree Lighting event, which was brutally cold, but well attended this year. The Public Works Department continues to do good work. The City has been using an asset management workflow tracking system for public works and parks for a number of years. There has been a large increase in the number of tasks from 5800 to 8100 year to year. A big piece of that is the fact that the City is now maintaining that fleet with an in-house mechanic, which allows for preventative maintenance and quicker reaction to a problem. Edwards said, for example, during the snowstorm the past week, one of the City’s larger plow trucks went down and the crew was able to get that truck back on the road pretty quickly. Recent Council actions have also improved public works equipment and facilities, he said. And then finally, Engineering. It was pretty much a normal year for Engineering with the same level of support to the Planning and Zoning Department or the Community Development Department. The road project and the watermain replacement project along County Road 19 south of 15 are substantially complete. A ravine stabilization project on North Shore Drive is 90 percent complete waiting to do some vegetation restoration in the spring. The Public Works facility was awarded last year and construction is underway and will continue in earnest in April, when additional groundbreaking and foundation work begins. Seals moved, Benson seconded, to adopt the 2022 City of Orono Annual Report. VOTE: Ayes 5, Nays 0. 12. 2023 STREETS – TOWNLINE ROAD AGREEMENT AND FEASIBILITY STUDY Edwards explained Townline Road is on the City’s northwestern boundary and shared with the City of Independence and the City of Medina. If you're looking at the road as it runs north south, we own most of the eastern side of the pavements. Independence owns most of the western side of the pavement. And then the road continues and transitions in the north into Medina and serves one of their developments in the far north, just south of Highway 12. We've had this road on our capital improvement plan to be maintained for a number of years, but since it's owned by three different government entities, we've been waiting for