Budget #
Thanks to me getting sick, Monday’s budget review special meeting was delayed one week. It is now scheduled for Monday, Sep 21 at 5pm
Board #
Another 3 hour marathon, which by the way for a marathon is quite good. For a board meeting, not so much, but the topics were meaty, the discussion vibrant, and I am not sure how we could have done much better and still ended in a decent place on all the big items.
Hitting just the hot topics…
Consent Agenda #
This would have created an auto-approve list of items, at least theoretically for the items that are no-brainers. The goal was to shorten meetings, to which no one objects. There would be a mechanism by which any board member, either before or during a meeting, could unilaterally remove something from the list and open it up for discussion. We rejected it. Speaking only to my opinion, time savings would be minimal if we got the list right and added only items that weren’t going to generate discussion anyway. We would only save substantial time if we accidentally added something that would have generated discussion. I also didn’t like the optic of defaulting any item to approval without discussion. The proposal was well-intentioned but I didn’t think we were ready for it.
Mixed Use Zoning #
This new zone was intended to fill a hole in our zoning. We say in the Comp Plan that some areas are available for mixed use development but we have no zone defined for such. Some very valid concerns were raised about timing – do we do this before or after the updates to the Comprehensive Plan? Based on the way we’ve defined the zone, do we have any concern that the places we identified in the last Comp Plan are still appropriate for the this type of development? Is there risk that creating the new zone results in a proposal we can’t say no to? After some healthy debate, we asked that the staff tighten up the language in a few places to ensure the definition prevented anything unwanted in the short term.
Hagemann Rd #
This was a very long discussion, and as tough a decision as they come. Here’s the proposed site plan:
I won’t go into too much detail but the discussion revolved around how to balance the property rights of the owner and the protection of property values and quality of life for the existing residents. I joked that my goal was making everyone moderately miserable, which elicited some mild laughter, but I meant it. Since learning of this proposal, it was clear there was no solution that would make everyone happy.
The biggest issue for me was the orientation and (lack of) setback on the buildings. The buildings would create a brick wall, literally, forty feet back from the neighborhood lot lines. I did some research before the meeting – no one in Caledonia is that close to the side of a commercial building. One hundred feet is the closest I could find. Call me crazy, but a fifteen foot wall that runs over 300 feet just 40 feet off your property line seems unfair.
We sent the proposal back to staff to work with the developer to find a compromise on a series of concerns.
Waters Edge #
We had communicated that due to my potential absence from the meeting that we would delay this until the next meeting, and we did.
CoW Meeting #
We flew through the usual topics on this agenda, then took some time with the closed session topic. I don’t like going into closed session, but it sure does save me time typing up these notes. (That’s a joke, btw.)
More Good News Section #
The mound system at fire station 11 is failing, maybe has failed. Bill incoming no doubt. It happens and we can handle the expense. The firefighters on duty there, well, they probably don’t think it’s fine but we’ll fix it as quickly as possible.
Final thoughts #
It doesn’t sound like 3 hours of content from what I typed above, but it was and we didn’t go off the rails. Sorry to anyone who got unlucky enough to land their proposal on this week’s agenda. You probably got to doomscroll a lot of social media waiting for your turn.