HRA 08/09/2007 - 29536, �5
CITY OF FRIDLEY
HOUSING AND REDEVELOPMENT AUTHORITY COMMISSION
August 9, 2007
CALL TO ORDER:
Chairperson Commers called the Housing and Redevelopment Authority meeting to order at
7:32 p.m.
ROLL CALL:
Members Present: Larry Commers
Pat Gabel
William Holm
John Meyer
Steve Billings
Others Present: Mike Jeziorski, City Accountant
Paul Bolin, HRA Assistant Executive Director
Jim Casserly, Development Consultant
William Burns, HRA Director
Scott Hickok, Community Development Director
ACTION ITEMS
1. Approval of Expenditures
Chairperson Commers asked what does the line "property taxes," refer to?
Mike Jeziorski, City Accountant, stated that is in,. relation to the properties purchased in the
Gateway NE Project.
Paul Bolin, HRA Assistant Executive Director, stated it is the newer Van-O-Lite building and
Oriental House.
Chairperson Commers asked when does that become exempt from the real estate ta�ces?
Mr. Bolin replied typically it is almost a full year.
MOTION by Commissioner Gabel, seconded by Commissioner Holm, to approve the
expenditures.
UPON A VOICE VOTE, ALL VOTING AYE, CHAIRPERSON COMMERS DECLARED
THE MOTION CARRIED UNANIMOUSLY.
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2. Approval of June 7, 2007, Meeting Minutes
MOTION by Commissioner Holm, seconded by Commissioner Meyer, to approve the minutes.
UPON A VOICE VOTE, ALL VOTING AYE, CI3AIRPERSON COMMERS DECLARED
THE MOTION CARRIED UNANIMOUSLY.
INFORMATIONAL ITEMS:
1. Housing Conditions Study
Mr. Bolin stated that Laurel Tracy, HRA intern, will give a presentation. She has been out
surveying the conditions of all the residential properties in Fridley.
Laurel Tracy stated the purpose of the survey was to establish a general understanding of the
condition of our housing stock to help the process of updating our Comprehensive Plan, evaluate
the need to establish a housing maintenance code based on actual observed conditions, and
evaluate the need to provide funding assistance for specific areas of the city or particular types of
home improvement projects.
Ms. Tracy stated the average condition of the houses was established by scoring five individual
components. They rated each house on the condition of the roof, the soffit and fascia, the siding
and paint, windows and doors, and the foundation. Each of these received a score of 1-3, based
on their condition. A rating of "3" meant excellent condition and"1" indicated a need for repair.
The computer then took these five scores, calculated an average, and determined an average
condition for each property.
Ms. Tracy stated the first component was the roof. The majority of Fridley homes have roofs in
fairly good condition; 68 percent of our homes scored "excellent" in this category. They suspect
that the recent major storms that passed through the community contributed to a lot of roof
replacements. The second category, soffits and fascia, showed 88 percent of the homes in
Fridley are in "excellent" condition. However, when she was out in the field she did notice that
peeling paint on soffit and fascia boards was a fairly common problem. This, however, is
actually reflected in the "siding and painY' category.
Ms. Tracy stated the "siding and paint'.' of most Fridley homes is in fairly good condition. We
had 68 percent of our homes score "excellent" for this category. She did notice again the peeling
paint on soffit and fascia boards was fairly common, along with peeling paint on window and
door trim. She also noticed that vinyl siding on homes in even some of our newest development
projects are often suffering from weathering or disrepair. She thinks this is a major contribution
to the generally lower score for this category.
Ms. Tracy stated the "windows and doors" category showed 89 percent of our homes are in
"excellent" condition. However, although windows are not necessarily suffering from obvious
signs of disrepair, she would suspect that most homeowners would prefer to upgrade to more
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energy efficient windows. She also noticed that faded screen doors, weathered gaxage doors, and
doors damaged by dogs are fairly common throughout the City.
Ms. Tracy stated regarding the final category, "foundations" were not generally visible from the
curb. This survey was strictly done from the street. After she talked to a number of assessors
and residents, they determined that generally unless there are obvious signs of disrepair, they
could assume that the foundation is in excellent condition. Based on these criteria they
determined that 98.7 percent of our houses have foundations in excellent condition.
Ms. Tracy stated when they take all these scores together, they can began looking at the average
condition of our housing. While she was out in the field, she took note of the scores houses were
receiving and in what condition they appeared to be in. From that information she was able to
decide four categories for scores: excellent, good, fair, and poor. A house that received a score
of 2.6 to 3 was in excellent condition; a house receiving a score of 1 was generally in a state of
disrepair. She is happy to report they only had 3 out of over 7,000 homes receiving a score of 1.
Of our homes 85 percent are actually considered to be in excellent condition and are well
distributed throughout the City.
Chairperson Commers asked Mr. Hickok what do we do with this information now?
Scott Hickok, Community Development Director, stated it would be very helpful in a number of
different ways. They think it will be valuable information in terms of special programming. It
does allow us to see where they may be some certain problems or characteristics where they
could introduce some programs into our loan programs and housing revitalization programs.
Certainly these statistics provided the HRA will aid in the creation of the housing maintenance
code or, maybe it will be determined after reviewing these, that it is not so urgent. That is yet to
be seen by the Council. The Comprehensive Plan is also going to be key. Housing is a big
component of the Comprehensive Plan. This information is very valuable as they talk about the
future and look out to the year of 2030 and start understanding the age of our homes and how
they are being maintained. They think this will be very helpful information for them to have.
They will program as necessary to make sure that between now and 2030, the City looks as good
as it does today.
Commissioner Billings asked Ms. Tracy if she has presented this to the City Council?
Ms. Tracy replied she will be presenting this information to the City Council at their next
meeting on Monday.
Commissioner Billings stated this of course is Ms. Tracy's determination of the 85, 11, and 4.
He supposed someone else could conceivably have a little bit different criteria, but it does
present two arguments. One axgument is that if there are only three homes that are in very poor
condition, then why would they want to create a housing code to impose on the other 6,997
homes. The flipside of that argument is, with only 1,300 that are in some kind of state of
disrepair, that is not a lot of people to be impacting with a housing code so why not put it in
place. However, if these three are in that bad of shape are they really going to get fixed up
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anyways. To him it sends a message that the housing code, while it may be nice, is not really
something that is a pressing matter and has to be dealt with in the immediate future.
Ms. Tracy stated when she did get the chance to talk to residents while out in the field, she did
ask them their opinion of the housing maintenance code. She thinks it was a very good reflection
of what Commissioner Billings just said. She got mixed opinions. Some people were very
supportive of the housing maintenance code. They were saying keep it nice or make sure we can
improve what we have because we want to protect our property value. Other people were saying
they were really happy with Fridley and everybody seems to be doing a really good job. It is
debatable either way.
Chairperson Commers wondered if any of it was the consequences of the HRA's remodeling or
home loan program allowing people to maintain, for example, the soffits, fascia, etc. There must
be at least a few hundred the HRA made over the years.
Mr. Bolin replied he thought there were somewhere around 740 loans since they started the loan
program.
William Burns, HRA Director, stated another contributing factor he thinks is the annual street
reconstruction program. Where they went into a neighborhood with street reconstruction, over
the years they have noticed people fixing up their homes. There seems to be a correlation
between the two.
2. Gateway NE Update
Mr. Bolin stated over the past eight months the HRA has purchased four properties along
University Avenue which were vacant or for sale. They were all acquired througln voluntary
purchases. As they started to acquire these properties, they had an opportunity to meet with the
Corridor Housing Initiative Group out of the Center for Neighborhoods and the University of
Minnesota Design Center. They have a unique planning process where they involve property
owners and neighbors to work together and try to develop a plan for an area prior to developers
knocking on the City's door. Rather than the developers driving the end product, this allows the
property owners and the neighbors to develop really a feasible vision for the neighborhood on
their own. They had their first planning meeting on July 19 at the Community Center.
Excluding staff and commission members, they had approximately 25 residents there from the
immediate neighborhood as well as people from other parts of town and folks from out of town
who own businesses along that strip. Commissioner Holm, the Mayor, and councilmember
Barnette were present.
Mr. Bolin stated there was good background presented on the Corridor Initiative planning
process. There was actually some work done that night to identify from a resident's perspective
what some of the opportunities and challenges are along that corridor. People were also asked to
share what types of buildings and housing they may see along that corridor. The next meeting is
being held August 16. At that meeting those attending will have an opportunity to use the aerial
maps and building blocks done to scale, and it allows residents and property owners an
opportunity to build different scenarios on top of those aerial photos. At the same time that is
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being done, they have some financial programs on their lap top computers and they can run some
of these different scenarios through and determine how much money a certain development
would make or lose based on its size. They also have students from the University's Design
Center there as well that can sketch out what some of these buildings could look like on these
sites. They do expect to get quite a few more residents at this meeting and have had a number of
calls since the first meeting has been airing on the cable channel.
Mr. Bolin stated after the August 16 meeting, they will then meet again with the Group on
Thursday, September 6. That conflicts with the regular HRA meeting that same night. It is a
possibility the HRA could either meet at 6 o'clock or possibly they could postpone the meeting
for a week. They will then meet again on Thursday, September 20, and at that point all the
different projects that have been looked at will be foiled down to a few that there seems to be
some group consensus on, and those will be drafted into some recommendations that will be
passed onto both the HRA and City Council. All of the meetings that they have upcoming will
take place between 7 and 9 p.m. at the Corrununity Center.
Commissioner Commers stated he sees in Mr. Bolin's report that he has also made a proposal
to the Sikh Society. He assumes there has been no response to that.
Mr. Bolin replied, he is correct. They do not anticipate a response until probably later this fall
once the City Council takes action on the special use pernut the Sikh Society will need to build
behind Taxget. Even as soon as last Friday they still did not have an active application in. They
have made a couple of attempts to submit an application but each time it was missing some
important items, and there was concern over wetlands that needed to be addressed and ponding
requirements. Staff expects them to make an application some time in the next few weeks which
would put them on the Council's schedule the soonest maybe the end of September. Most likely
they will be looking at October before they hear back.
3. Northstar Rail Station Update
Mr. Bolin stated the NCDA has asked that the HRA not take any action on whether we would
like to make a commitment to fund the installation of the tunnel until their September 6 meeting.
At that time the NCDA will have some actual construction costs from Burlington Northern for
the tunnel. Currently they have been working off estimates, and the estimates have gone
anywhere from about $900,000 last winter to $1.2 million some point this spring to about $1.5
million at the end of May. Some time in the next few weeks they should have actual numbers as
Burlington Northern gets their bids back for the tunnel installation.
Mr. Bolin stated also time is needed to examine the changes caused by the 35W bridge collapse.
Since the bridge collapsed, President Bush has been in town, Senator Norm Coleman has been
spending more time in town, and the folks from NCDA have had an opportunity to chat with
them and some of the changes that have been discussed in the past week which includes putting
Fridley back into the first round of construction, making Fridley part of the first�project. There
has been talk of an expedited construction schedule, and even the possibility of using temporary
platforms in some areas in order to get the train up and running in 2008, rather than 2009. There
has also been some talk about more money (he believed the figure was around $10 million)
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coming from the Federal Government for this project. Finally, there have been rumors of a
special session that would likely happen in September and would deal with the transportation bill
that was addressed this last spring. There has been talk of not only funding for Northstar going
into that bill but a possibility that our special legislation for tax increment could also get put into
that transportation bill or somehow end up in a special session.
Mr. Bolin stated he did not have a recommendation for them tonight. There is still a lot of
information they need to gather. There are a lot of unknowns. Tim Yantos from the NCDA is
here tonight, along with Paul Danielson who is one of the consulting engineers to the NCDA.
Chairperson Commers asked attorney Casserly regarding the entity they are dealing with was
very confusing over the last couple meetings and the documents look like it was the State who
made the rail lease agreement with Burlington Northern. However, it is the Metropolitan
Council as their designee that is required to do the construction, get the easements and
everything else, is that correct?
Attorney Casserly replied that is his understanding of the documents. It would appear as
though MnDOT has authorized Met Council to act on its behalf.
Chairperson Commers asked whether Met Council is the one who has the authority as to who
is required to do the construction?
Attorney Casserly replied that is how it appears according to the documents.
Tim Yantos, Executive Director of the Northstar Project, stated, yes, the unfortunate incident of
the 35W bridge collapse has caused a lot of agencies to take a look at how they can move their
project forwaxd or implementation of it so they can relieve the congestion caused by the bridge
collapse. That includes the Northstar Project. There were a lot of elected officials in town last
week wondering what they can do in allocating some dolla'rs mostly towards the reconstruction
of the bridge. They have been asked to take a look at what they can do to move Northstax to an
opening date. They now have a projected opening date of November 9, and they asked what can
they do to move that up considerably. So they have been looking at a couple different scenarios,
one that would move it up to October 2008. Also, one that would force some, what they would
call "emergency program" that would have some temporary program up in a few months. They
are trying to see if each of those is feasible and moving forward in that direction.
Mr. Yantos stated over the last year or so they have looked at different ways they can get
Fridley's station funded. They try to support the legislation that they had, they have always tried
to encourage the Governor and the legislature to fund Fridley outright, and they have worked
with congress to outright fund Fridley. As the congressional people look at ways of funding
money and transportation improvement in the Twin Cities area, they have again asked for money
for the City of Fridley in the amount of $10 million and that has gone through our two senators,
congressman Oberstar and possibly even to the President. Over the last week, because of a very
unfortunate incident, they have looked very hard at where they can place Northstar commuter
light rail, because they are building 40 miles of commuter and 4 blocks of light rail into a
position where we can help out in the 35W corridor.
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Mr. Yantos stated the Minnesota Department of Transportation is the grantee and they will turn
over the project to the Metropolitan Council. There are three agencies that are working together
to build the project, and they are the Northstar Corridor Development Authority, the Minnesota
Department of Transportation, and Metro Council. They have what they call a Northstar Project
office located in downtown Minneapolis. All three of them are working together with their
teams of people to build a project. Fridley is outside of that project and so, if one were to ask
who would build it today, it would either have to be the Northstar Corridor Development
Authority or the City of Fridley if the tunnel were to be built today.
Chairperson Commers asked Mr. Yantos, when he is talking about Northstar Corridor
Development, that is an entity of the Metropolitan Council?
Mr. Yantos replied, no, the Northstax Corridor Development Authority is an entity of 30 units of
government, from Minneapolis into the St. Cloud area. Councilmember Billings probably knows
as much, if not more about this project than he does. He has been on the project almost ten years
on the Northstar Corridor Development Authority. They are a joint powers organization and one
of the three that are working together to fund and build a project.
Chairperson Commers stated the documentation makes it appeax that the Metropolitan Council
is the one that will be obligated to do the construction.
Mr. Yantos stated eventually the project will be turned over to the Metropolitan Council. All of
them have different elements of the project. Because the State does not have the funding,
actually the Northstar Corridor Development Authority holds some of the major contracts or is
funding a major contract. So they are working together. The Metropolitan Council is buying all
of their vehicles, locomotives, and coach cars. The Minnesota Department of Transportation he
believes has the contract for light rail and for the maintenance facility in downtown Minneapolis.
So that is how that works right now.
Chairperson Commers asked regarding the legal arrangement is it that the Metropolitan
Council will merely lease the land from Burlington Northern and will not be the grantee or
owner?
Mr. Yantos replied the Minnesota Department of Transportation right now is the receiver of the
various properties they purchased. Burlington Northern is not giving them any property. They
are giving the project an easement allowing them to run on the rails.
Chairperson Commers asked so Burlington Northern would continue to own the land under
which the tower would be constructed?
Mr. Yantos replied, yes, any Burlington Northern land that exists today will continue to be
Burlington Northern land.
Commissioner Billings asked Mr. Yantos to refresh his memory a little bit on the relationship
between MnDOT and Met Council. If inemory serves him correct the Federal government
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would only give the money to the Minnesota Departrnent of Transportation because that is how
they work. They work with the Minnesota Department of Transportation, but is there also some
Minnesota legislation that says the Metropolitan Council would be responsible for the operation
of rail in the Metropolitan area?
Mr. Yantos replied, most of that is right. The Metro Council is the operator of light rail. It does
not say commuter rail right now but he thinks by the time the government's legislation is
finalized, next year it will allow the Metro Council to operate commuter rail outside of the metro
area also. The reason way the Minnesota Depa.rtment of Transportation is receiving the funds
from the federal government is because state legislation says that the Minnesota Department of
Transportation will build the commuter portions or whatever is built in the area here.
Commissioner Billings stated it had something to do with various elements of legislation and
this entire project going on for as long as it has gone on. The Northstar Corridor Development
Authority, a joint powers agreement of about 30 governmental entities including counties, cities,
rail authorities, and townships, has actually been held out as a model of how to get citizen
participation into projects like this. These volunteers from the communities, all of whom are
elected officials in their own community that sit on this board, have all worked very hard to try
and make sure that everything is moving a�ong. It is the funding portion of things that gets
locked up in the Minnesota legislature from time to time over the last ten years that has caused us
not to be riding those rails today. It is unfortunate that a tragedy had to happen to have people
step back and say, how do we get cars off the road and get people where they have to go without
the congestion on the roads.
Chairperson Commers asked, for his legal understanding, the Metropolitan Council is the
lessee of the properiy and the owner of the station and they will be required to maintain and build
the station. Is this how the legal documents are set up at this point?
Attorney Casserly replied that is his reading.
William Burns, HRA Director, stated there are about five or six agreements with BNSP and his
understanding is the NCDA and their attorney negotiated them. They are with NCDA but they
govern such things as the use of the rail right-of-way and the operation of the stations and the
platforms, the operation of the trains themselves, the conductors, etc. Do those agreements
transfer to the Met Council at some point? He is still somewhat confused as to whom those
agreements are with and where they end up.
Mr. Yantos replied all of the agreements right now are with the Minnesota Department of
Transportation. Out there are five or six different railroad type agreements, the easement
agreements, track usage agreements, and platform agreements. All of those different agreements
are all signed by the Minnesota Department of Transportation and the Railroad. They did them
as a three-way partnership between the NCDA, MnDOT, and the Metro Council and so they
have the ability and authority and some of the funding right now to be able to do that. That is
why they took the initiative with the attorneys to put that together. MnDOT can delegate their
responsibilities, which he understands they will to the Metro Transit who will oversee the
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operations of the commuter rail and the four-block extension to their Hiawatha LRT. Burlington
Northern will operate the commuter rail.
Chairperson Commers stated that is what is confusing because each of the documents they
have been provided is between Burlington Northern and Metropolitan Council. Every easement
agreement is between these two. The only thing Mr. Yantos' people had was an easement on the
west side they obtained from Nielsen (sp.).
Mr. Yantos replied the Anoka County Rail Authority actually purchased the land on the west
side and is holding that for the project. One of the signors to the agreements included the
Metropolitan Council, but the documents should also include the Minnesota Department of
Transportation.
Chairperson Commers replied for some reason they do not.
Mr. Yantos stated Mr. Danielson informed him that in some of the agreements, such as the
platfortn agreement and the other agreements where heavy insurance was required, the only
entity that could acquire the insurance was the Metropolitan Council perhaps and on those
documents they were the signors. There is something like $2 million of liability insurance that
was required and in some cases only the Met Council could purchase that and indemnify an
agency like Burlington Northern Santa Fe. They would be the signers of those types of
agreements.
Commissioner Meyers stated he had two basic concerns, one is the cost of the tunnel itself and
the other is what do they get in the tunnel? Is there going to be a guaranteed maximum amount
for the tunnel construction written in any agreements?
Paul Danielson, Project Manager, stated there are several agreements that are all part of this
agreement with Burlington Northern and the main body of the agreement is the purchase and sale
agreement which allows them the opportunity to run 12 trains a day, 6 in the morning and 6 in
the evening on Burlington Northern's property. Attached to that is a joint use agreement that
talks about how they can operate on that. Attached to those agreements is also a platform
agreement that allows them to build a structure within the Burlington Northern right-of-way and
maintain and operate it along the way. Then there is a final agreement which is a service
agreement allowing Burlington Northern to operate the trains. There is a series of agreements
that are all tied together so it does make this a bit cumbersome. As far as the issue about the
Fridley tunnel, the purchase and sale agreement allows for a station in Fridley. However, the
agreement also says that facility needs to get built to be an underground tunnel in a timeframe
that fits Burlington Northern. They are going to make some improvements on their rail in order
for them to operate on it. There are some improvements to be done in and around Fridley and
they want that work done at the same time the tunnel is done.
Mr. Danielson stated to be able to do the tunnel the best way, Burlington Northern wants to be
the one to build that tunnel because they can get it done as quickly and inexpensively as possible.
In order to do this, they will have to fundamentally shut down all of their tracks but one, and
there are five in this area. They want to be able to control when that happens and would like to
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do it on a long holiday weekend in 2008. To be able to do that in 2008, the agreement says they
have to have a decision by November 1, 2007, on whether the grantee (the Minnesota
Deparhnent of Transportation) wants to do that or not.
Mr. Danielson stated as far as the price goes, as consultant to the NCDA, they have put together
documents to allow Burlington Northern to go out to a select group of contractors to get a price
to actually physically do that work. They will go to the contract and get a lump sum price to do
that work. However, on top of that work Burlington Northern will do what they call, force
account work, where their individuals will be out there and have to take a track apart, put it back
together, and make sure all the signals are back in place, etc. All of that will be done in a 20-
hour window in order to make that work. When you get what Burlington Northern thinks it is
going to take to go on top of that, they get into this range of $1.2 to $1.5 million. The agreement
says that Burlington Northern is required to get us a more definitive cost estimate, 30 or 40 days
before the documents are presented to them. They hope by the time they come back on
September 6 they have that hard bid number from the contractor that Burlington Northern is
going to use as well as a more firm price estimate so they can collectively make a decision on
November 7, 2007, to say, yes, we want you to build this in 2008 and this is the entity that is
going to sign in'to that.
Mr. Danielson stated Burlington Northern will still own that tunnel until somebody is ready to
use it. The price they are talking about is simply to put the tunnel in underneath the railroad
track and close it off. So the work that is within the Burlington Northern right-of-way is done.
If you want to be able to use it, they have other things to add on each end. There will be
elevators and stairways to get access out of the tunnel and up to the surface. That will also take
place after the effect. In the middle there will also need to be an elevator and stairway to get you
up to the platform. Right now they have given Burlington Northern documents that allow the
tunnel to go all the way through so if the City of Fridley wants to use it in the interim as a tunnel
it would be fully connected. If they were to do this as a commuter rail station in the middle, the
tunnel would stop and they would actually have a fairly large structure below ground that they
would have the elevator shaft mechanical room down there and then the stairways up to be able
to service the platform. So there is a fair amount of underground work that would need to take
place in there as a commuter rail station on day one.
Chairperson Commers asked is there not a$300,000 limitation regarding the track work? At
least in the underpass construction agreement there is a cap on it.
Mr. Danielson replied, yes, there is a cap on the cost for Burlington Northern.
Chairperson Commers stated so the overruns would only relate to the other construction other
than the track work?
Mr. Danielson replied Burlington Northern would be capped at that amount and, once they get a
hard bid from the contractor, they are also capped but again building tunnels underneath old
railroad tracks there is also a potential for you to uncover something unexpected.
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Chairperson Commers asked regarding the contract between Burlington Northern and
Metropolitan Council construction, that is no longer a valid agreement because Burlington
Northern is doing the construction, not Metropolitan Council, is that how that works now?
Mr. Danielson stated he was not sure which agreement Chairperson Commers was referencing.
Chairperson Commers stated the underpass construction agreement, between BNSF Railway
Company and the Metropolitan Council.
Mr. Danielson stated that underpass agreement would allow somebody else to build that. It
could be transferred from Met Council and in this case, to the City of Fridley for instance, to be
able to build that facility. It could be transferred back to the Burlington Northern. In fact
Burlington Northern would prefer that they be the ones that construct the tunnel.
Chairperson Commers asked who will require the temporary construction easements?
Mr. Danielson replied in order for Burlington Northern to construct this tunnel, and do it over a
long weekend, they are going to need a lot of area to be able to stage all of their material. They
have to have all the track ready to go, their sand, etc. They will need a temporary construction
easement on the east side which is the area they need to work on The easements would be done
by the entity that is going to take over the responsibility of building this. So if the City of
Fridley were to come into an agreement with Burlington Northern to build this tunnel, it would
be responsible to secure that temporary easement. Burlington Northern is going to do the work
in the Burlington Northern right-of-way and anything outside of what they need, they are going
to expect the agency that is asking them to construct it to get them the rights.
Chairperson Commers stated that is actually, legally, Metropolitan Council.
Mr. Yantos stated if the Fridley station was part of the project, the answer would be "yes."
However, because the Fridley station is outside the project, then you have some options you can
work with. You have the option of the City of Fridley doing the construction, having totally new
contracts, or the Northstar Corridor Development Authority. That is how that works. If indeed
the station was part of the project, then indeed it would be the Metropolitan Council.
Commissioner Meyer asked if there is going to be underground electrical included in that? Are
there going to be an underground drainage system and drain tiles included in the contract
documents?
Mr. Danielson replied for this piece of work the only thing that would be included would be
drain tile underneath the box culvert. All of the electrical lighting, etc. put inside the box would
be in the ultimate design of the station. They are asking Burlington Northern to do the stuff that
Burlington Northern does well and that is put pipe in the ground, put the tracks back together
again, and make sure that tunnel is waterproof. Anything other than that would be the
responsibility after Burlington Northern has that tunnel up and running.
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Commissioner Meyer stated there has been talk about, if the station does not come to pass, then
the City can utilize that tunnel for a bikeway, etc. He asked if they have done any estimates in
what kinds of costs would be involved in picking up the tunnel and establishing the necessary
appurtenances and amenities on either end to make it an acceptable bicycle/pedestrian
passageway?
Mr. Danielson stated, yes, they have taken a look at that. First off if they wanted to go in and
put the ultimate end on it being an elevator and stairways that would be part of a commuter rail
station, they have an estimate of about $1.3 million to build the two ends,
Commissioner Meyer confirmed in addition to the basic tunnel?
Mr. Danielson replied, in addition to the basic tunnel. If we were to let this be a basic tunnel
and have something built on each end, there are a lot of options to do that. The staff's desire at
this point is to try and make that as straight as possible to come out which does take up a fair
amount of room on the east side to come out. When you start at the Burlington Northern right-
of-way, you are almost to Main Street by the time you reach daylight. That structure itself would
be a fair amount of retaining walls and/or an awful lot of land would need to be acquired. They
have not done a detailed design of that, but that is probably in the order of about $300,000-
$350,000 on each side.
Commissioner Meyer asked about the tunnel itself, it is proposed to be a 10-foot clear tunnel,
right?
Mr. Danielson replied, right.
Commissioner Meyer stated he was concerned about the narrowness of that tunnel, being made
for pedestrians and bicycles.
Mr. Danielson replied if he is not mistaken, it is a 10' x 12 ` box culvert. It is 12-feet wide.
Their No. 1 focus when they looked at designing the station was for this to be a commuter rail
station. If they will recall the head outs on each side were elevators and stairs and, with that
design, they were not anticipating that they were going to have a lot of bicyclists streaming
through this tunnel. They were expecting that bicyclists were going to get off, have to down the
stairs and into an elevator, and their primary purpose was to let people go and get to the
commuter rail station. They did not look at going wider to make this purely for bicyclists. At a
10' x 12' box they feel they will be able to serve the commuter rail needs. Each train can carry
up to 600 people. He does not remember what their rider ship was predicted here in Fridley but,
for every train coming in, he thinks that is more than adequate for what they expect to get in and
out of the platform at that location.
Chairperson Holm asked if an easement needs to be negotiated with the landowners and so on,
should this not begin now or how long a process is this?
Chairperson Commers asked attorney Casserly if they need a temporary easement and they are
not willing to do it voluntarily, does it not take 90 days?
12
Attorney Casserly replied, probably.
Chairperson Holm stated if it takes 90 days, they are back beyond November 1.
Attorney Casserly stated the issue he believes is they do not need the easement in the next 90
days. They need the easement so they can start bringing material to the site so they can install it.
Mr. Yantos stated it is the decision that Burlington Northern is looking at by November 1 so
they can construct in 2008.
Commissioner Holm stated if they do not know any more information next month than they
know today, they are faced with a decision about funding a tunnel that may be used just by the
City of Fridley and not for any station. If the funding never comes they could be stuck with this
tunnel and what are they going to do with it? They have a million dollars invested and, if they
are going to use it for a bikeway and walkway, they do not need just a tunnel but they need that
add-on to get an easement up to Main Street so they can use that tunnel for a gentle slope down
under the railroad tracks. That is probably more than a temporary construction easement, that is
a permanent easement from the landowner. He noticed in some of the documentation the
importance of the November 1 date. Yet elsewhere he sees that maybe that date is not so
important because Fridley can be added on at a later time. It is just a matter of Burlington
Northern agreeing to provide the necessary construction of the tunnel at a later time.
Mr. Yantos stated the agreement says that there will always be an opportunity to build a station
in Fridley. What Burlington Northern is saying, if you want us to build it and we think we can
build it at a lower cost than somebody else building it, you need to let us know by November 1.
If you do not let us know by November 1, we are okay, then you can build it sometime in the
future but it will cost you a lot more money. There are a lot of different decisions going in
whether the City of Fridley wants to generate funds to try and secure that tunnel. The decision
on whether we can get overall funding by the City of Fridley is being worked on very hard by a
lot of people. In fact they are almost putting more time on Fridley's station than on other pieces
of the project. However, people are very interested and the timing is good now to talk about
funding and where we get funding. So there are a lot of people from the Governor who has
mentioned Fridley, state legislators, congressional people — a lot of people interested in funding
Fridley. The reason they want to wait until September to make a decision is they will have a
firmer price from Burlington Northern from their contractor and what the overhead costs are
going to be.
Attorney Casserly asked if there was a possibility of entering into a loan relationship. He is not
quite sure what will be the tipping point to make these funds available. It would appear that in
some period of time there is going to be s station constructed. So the issue is the timing�of that in
trying to expedite making it available. What the issue is as he is understanding it is really having
a source of funds that allows this to proceed. At least this initial work. Is there an opportunity to
treat this as a loan to whatever entity that would ultimately be the owner-operator. What he is
thinking of is the Met Council of course. So they would have the authority in some fashion to do
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this and they would simply be advancing funds on an interim basis until such time that it was
fully funded and they could be reimbursed.
Mr. Yantos replied he thinks the challenge with that scenario is whoever might be loaning the
money, whether it is MnDOT or someone else, really does not have the ability to guarantee the
payback of those funds. If that was true they would go forward and build a tunnel on their own.
They do not have the statutory right to guarantee that absolutely they would pay those funds
back. That is the trouble with the entire scenario building the station. Nobody has the authority
to say, yes, we will guarantee that if you loan us the money in November, whoever we are, we
will pay you that money back.
Chairperson Commers stated he also thought Burlington Northern was willing to fund the
tunnel on some time of provision or condition the City pays them down the line some time. The
City did not need the immediate upfront money and they could take their chances with the
federal funding or state funding coming through with our legislation which of course would of
course solve the problem. He does not know what the arrangements would be but Burlington
Northern, he believed had indicated willingness to fund it.
Mr. Yantos replied that could be true. What they have learned from Burlington Northern is that
they are not cheap to work with. They will be good partner, they know how to run commuter
rail, they will do what they need to do, but it will cost some money if they are doing the loaning
to pay that back. Because they will also look to the guarantee of whether those funds will come
at a certain time, will they be guaranteed, and that is going to cost some money.
Commissioner Holm asked for a little explanation about the six trains that are running each
morning and evening. Are their six inbound trains from Big Lake down to Minneapolis and then
six outbound trains in the afternoon?
Mr. Danielson stated it is five trains in, one train out. So they have four train sets that are sitting
out in Big Lake in the morning. The first one leaves just before 6, comes into the City of
Minneapolis, drops off their passengers, and goes right back out. The second, third, and fourth
train start on half-hour intervals so the first one is at 6, 6:30, 7, 7:30, etc. That first train makes
its way back out to Big Lake and then comes back in for the fifth trip in. So there are five trips
in and one trip out in the morning. When the morning commute is done, they all sit in downtown
Minneapolis, so the first of four trains leaves at 3:30 or 3:45 and starts on that half hour. The
first one goes all the way out to Big Lake, comes back into Minneapolis, and makes the last trip
back out to Big Lake again.
Commissioner Holm asked about talk of expansion. He has heard about Pine County and
Duluth being interested in this type of transportation. With that expansion that would require
additional negotiations with Burlington Northern with those time frames, etc.
Mr. Yantos replied, yes, there ar� discussions with St. Louis County to add additional trains
some time in the future. Every time you put a train on the track, yes, somebody needs to
negotiate with Burlington Northern in order to get that train slot to happen. The train slots are
very important to Burlington Northern with their main priority is running freight, and they want
14
to be able to run freight on their schedule from Chicago to the west coast. . Any other trains like
the Northstar on their track causes them difficulty as to how they can and will Burlington
Northern have flexibility when running their own train. Therefore, it costs a lot of money to run
a train slot. For each train added some time in the future it is questioned whether they should go
beyond Big Lake to St. Cloud. .
Commissioner Holm asked but at this point they are looking at four locomotives and four sets
of cars for their transportation needs?
Mr. Danielson replied fundamentally they run four train sets every day plus a spare locomotive
and a couple spaxe cars to go along with it.
Mr. Yantos in the future they can add up to 10-12 cars on each train. You are not going on
another slot, you are just adding more cars and they can do. They do not need to renegotiate
more cars to the train only when you add more trains to the system.
Commissioner Holm asked whether this creates a capacity problem for the size of the stations
handling the number of people at each of the platforms?
Mr. Danielson replied absolutely. Every platform is built to accommodate its initial size of four
trains plus a locomotive. They can add a fifth car without needing any expansion on the
platforms. Once you get past five cars behind a locomotive, you need to start doing expansion.
Each one of those platforms gives them up to 1,000 feet so they can get to a 10-car train, but it
will require them to build a fair amount of expansion on the platform. In some cases there might
be some track improvements to go along with that.
Mr. Danielson stated the reason why they want to try and get this commitment by November 1
is that Burlington Northern wants to do these improvements while they are doing the other ,
railway improvements. If they elect to wait, Burlington Northern may not be as receptive to
being able to do that work. As an example, they do not like the idea of having a tunnel in this
location. They might come back and say, fine, you are obligated to have a station here but we
are not obligated to give you the tunnel. We can make you have an overpass here as we are
doing in other locations. So the one thing we can secure by making a commitment by November
1 is we know we will have a tunnel because they will do that work while they are building their
railroad improvements at the same time. If we do not make that decision, they may come back
and say build a station, go overhead. That is the risk that they have if we do not make that
collective decision on November 1.
Commissioner Meyer stated that is very interesting, he asked whether other stations going to
have an overpass?
Mr. Danielson stated there is an overpass at Coon Rapids that is currently in the design.
Commissioner Meyer asked how high is that above the center of the feet, 22 feet?
Mr. Danielson replied, 23 feet is the clearance that they need to be above the tracks.
15
Commissioner Meyer asked w}iat is the cost compared to a tunnel?
Mr. Danielson replied, this is a different situation than in Coon Rapids. Coon Rapids only has
two tracks, one in each direction, so it is a lot shorter tunnel than they would have to deal with in
Fridley. They did look at this quite extensively when they were in the preliminary engineering
phase of this project and, what they came back to, was about a wash on whether you were above
ground or in a tunnel. The City Council direction from Fridley was the tunnel provides more
flexibility, more connection for the community to be able to utilize, and that has been the
direction that they go. Also, there is a groundwater problem in Coon Ra.pids and, if we were to
go underground, we would be sitting in a bathtub. There would be whole other waterproofing
issue that we do not have in Fridley. The groundwater is below the tunnel here. Big difference
on how we look at the two.
Commissioner Meyer replied do not bet on that. We have groundwater problems not too far
away on Mississippi Street. Just look at the Michael Bannin (sp.) underpass. It leaks water
winter and summer through weep holes. He hopes the tunnel design will recognize that.
Regarding the actual bids for the construction of the tunnel being received hopefully around the
first part of September, are there documents prepared especially for this very shortened last part
of the project? In other words, a corked tunnel, are there bids prepaxed for the scope of the work,
etc. that they could look and see what is being asked of the bidder?
Mr. Danielson replied, they have put together some documents for this. This is a little bit looser
as it is an invite-only bid, but they have put together plans and technical specifications.
Burlington Northern and its consultant are dealing with the actual bidding process so that is not
being run through the Northstar Project office. He actually has meetings with Burlington
Northern next week to be able to go through what they have added on top of this and make sure
they understand the time frames and what they have in there. So once those are made available
through the project office they would be public documents.
Commissioner Meyer asked if they could see a copy of that? He thinks some of this would be
very interesting just to see what they are potentially going to buy.
Mr. Danielson replied, he understands.
Commissioner Billings stated he would assume that the November 1 date is a date that was
chosen so that Burlington Northern would have adequate time to issue the contracts and acquire
the materials for the potential Labor Day. That is the reason for the November 1 deadline on
making the commitment to go forward with the project so they can start getting everything lined
up. They mentioned it would cost more to do it at a later date. He is assuming that Burlington
Northern is going to be shutting down their tracks on one long weekend in order to do the things
they need to do and there would be no additional cost to set down the tracks. If the City opts to
wait to do this project, it would be responsible for shutting down the tracks during a period of
time to do the construction. So that is one additional cost right there. The other thing is since
they are doing work on their tracks, they are providing the flagmen, etc. Those additional costs
are not costs they would have to bear in the future. He is assuming the City is capable of hiring
16
contractors to do the actual construction for relatively the same amount of money as Burlington
Northern. However, it is these things that Burlington Northern is already doing to accommodate
their needs in terms of upgrade that would not be duplicated at a future date. That is where the
primary savings of actual dollaxs is. He asked if that was a reasonable analysis?
Mr. Danielson replied, yes.
Commissioner Meyer stated he thinks that Burlington Northern would be extremely foolish to
let any private contractor under their tracks to any of this work. That is a touchy thing for
Burlington Northern to faction in the materials, the load, the ballasting for this and that, etc. that
allows for the safe operation of their tracks. He would be surprised if they would allow private
contractors to do this type of work.
Mr. Danielson stated that is one of the advantages of letting Burlington Northern do it. They
can do it as a selective process. They can pick the three or four contractors they are comfortable
with and can do that work. Rather than us having to go through a public bid process and have
some challenges that may be in front of us.
Commissioner Gable asked if they are going to shut down on one of those holiday weekends,
are they going to be the working on the entire line over that weekend?
Mr. Danielson replied, not the entire line but they will take advantage of it wherever they can.
If there is some track work being done just on the north side of the Northtown yaxds and, if they
are going to. do the shutdown, they are going to have a lot of people in town doing a lot of work
wherever they can while they shutdown the train.
Commissioner Gable stated throughout this she keeps getting this, if we build the tunnel, the
rest will fall into place kind of thing. She asked Mr. Danielson whether he thinks that is true?
Mr. Yantos stated there are a surprising number of people who want the Fridley station built.
Do they have a guarantee or contract in front of them today that says it will be built, no.
However, there are a lot of people who continuously, from the Governor to congressional people,
who are very interested in getting the station built.
Commissioner Billings asked in negotiations with Burlington Northern, was there any one item
that dominated the amount of time that was spent?
Mr. Yantos replied the Fridley station dominated a lot of time.
Commissioner Billings asked would it not have been easy for the Department of Transportation,
the Metropolitan Council, and the Executive Committee of NCDA just to throw up their anns
and say, look, lets not even worry about the Fridley station. However, a tremendous amount of
time, energy, and work has gone into guaranteeing the fact that a Fridley station can be built and
was one of, if not the most, time-consuming elements of the negotiations with Burlington
Northern. People are dedicated to it. The problem is there is nothing on paper right now. Is
there not a State law that says we cannot take highway funds to use for transportation projects?
17
The funding for transportation actually has to come through the legislature as a bill. The
highway department cannot just take highway money and use it for transportation. That is where
all of this is coming from. If the Governor and the legislature had been able to come to a
meeting of the minds in terms of the legislative package this spring, funding would be there but
right now it is not. He thinks that everybody who is a decision maker related to this project is
sold on the fact that Fridley is an essential piece to this puzzle, and they are committed to it. He
honestly feels they 95 percent certain it is going to happen.
Chairperson Commers stated it is very frustrating to try and understand why they so easily
shuffled Fridley aside when they came up $10 million short.
Commissioner Billings stated the reason we are $10 million short is because Burlington
Northern did not want a station in Fridley. It is costing them approximately $25 million just for
the right to put the station in Fridley. The budget was set ten years ago. Because of legislative
inactivity it did not get funded seven years ago and continuously. Then the legislature spits out
10 percent of the funding and then 40 percent of the funding and then another 20 percent of the
funding. The legislature has been dragging their heels on this thing all along, and we made a
commitment to the federal government. This is how much the project is going to be. So you
cannot just go out and grab more dollars and throw it in because Burlington Northern is
demanding additional money because of the Fridley station. It is so close to the Northtown
yards, they are afraid that this is going to be a detriment to their freight traffic. They did not just
walk away from Fridley. It would have been so easy just to walk away from Fridley, and the
whole package would have been $25 million less.
Chairperson Commers stated it is a little disappointing for the Northstar people the decision as
to where to cut and meet their funds coming from the federal government when it was essential.
They could have maybe cut somewhere else or reduce some other expense. For example he does
not know how much money they have made for Niedelsen's (sp.) properiy that is maybe useless
over on the other side of the road. We all agree that we want it, it is a very important matter, and
a lot of people have done a lot. Some decision got made to remove us.
Commissioner Billings stated they will be able to tell you where cuts were made in the repair
facility, but the primary factor is there was not enough money to do the job. The federal
government required cost benefit analysis. Fridley is the closest to downtown Minneapolis;
therefore, the number of miles ridden are the least and, since we are the closest to downtown
Minneapolis, the number of passengers that are going that distance is the least. Therefore, to
remove the Fridley station from the current package created the least amount of impact to the
cost benefit ratio. If they would have eliminated Big Lake, it would not have met the ratios and
nothing would have been happening on the line. He asked where else cuts were made?
Mr. Yantos replied they made cuts up and down the entire corridor. They talked about the
"cost-effective index" which is a very complicated formula and a lot of factors go into it, such as
how fast the train moves, how close they are to the Twin Cities, how many people you have, how
much foot services. There must be a hundred different factors that go into this computer
calculation and then out comes a formula. The only formula that would work and yet maintain
the entire project was to take Fridley out. They did make other cutbacks in other areas, and they
:
tried to cut back a lot as long as it did not have a major effect on the cost-effective index. The
cost-effective index is actually a dollar amount, and they got down to pennies as to how close
they got to the amount. If you go over that amount, you are out of the program. That is how
close they came with the City of Fridley being out of the station but yet being able to maintain
the station. Staff did come back to the Northstar Corridor Development Authority and said
Fridley is out. There is nothing we can do about it. Mr. Billings called Mr. Rose, the CEO of
Burlington Northern, and much to our surprise and maybe perhaps even his, he was able to
communicate with him directly to share his frustrations and the frustrations of the City of
Fridley. It was after that phone call and the intervening of other people, that Fridley got back in.
It was not because of staff negotiating. It was because we did as best we could and Burlington
Northern said we just do not like Fridley station. It was the political efforts of Mr. Billings and
others that went right to the top Burlington Northern, and Burlington Northern came back to the
table and said, look, okay we will give you a place holder but it is going to cost you a lot more
money.
Chairperson Commers stated, well, at least with the events that have occurred there is reason to
be a little bit more optimistic that this thing may be reviewed more closely and they may become
more available to fund this project. Is that a reasonable statement?
Mr. Yantos replied, they believe so. They believe that they have been able to bring Fridley
again to the attention to the highest government officials in the State and certainly to the
congressional people that Fridley is a very important station to the metro area, to the travel shed,
as you go across the river, and as you look at the bridge being out on 35W, and us trying to run
the Northstar. Fridley becomes very important and it certainly is on a lot of peoples' minds in a
lot areas.
Dr. Burns stated he did not know that it would make the HRA's decision anymore comfortable
but he thinks it underscores the sincerity of the NCDA and the Anoka County representatives
that a full-funding grant agreement did not happen when it was supposed to. The counties
involved and NCDA did have to put up quite a huge amount of bridge loan money to pay for the
obligations they had to BNSF. Part of that obligation to BNSF was the portion of the money,
whether it is $25 million or something else, that is obligated for the Fridley site. So, the counties
involved in NCDA have fronted some of their own money betting on this is going to happen if
their full-funding grant agreement is going to be passed. It does not make their decision any
easier he knows.
Chairperson Commers replied, no, because they are not involved. If they were in the position
of being included in the project, there would be no position. They would be in the same position
as those counties because they are sure of getting repaid.
Dr. Burns replied, well, nothing is certain.
Mr. Yantos stated we are talking here about very serious amount of money, $1.5 million. As
Dr. Burns indicated, the counties axe putting up $70 million on the same hopes when it happens.
19
Chairperson Commers stated but they are a step ahead in that they are in the project if the
project goes. They are assured of getting reimbursed through the State. Fridley is still not at the
step where we are included back in the project and assured of getting reimbursed if in fact the
project does go. So there is a little difference there.
Mr. Yantos replied, yes.
Attorney Casserly stated there are actually several issues. One of it is knowing that we have a
source of funds. That legislation would make that very clear. If that was the only thing before
us, he would not have any problem recommending they advance funds in anticipation of that
legislation passing. That received support from both the House and Senate. Generally the way
that works is that bill will be picked up in total or with all the provisions in it the next time the
legislature meets on the topic. Generally they do not start over on those issues. There really are
some more interesting issues, and they will have to see how this evolves. It is a little unclear to
everybody how it is they acquire certain easements and rights when they are not the operators,
lessees, owners, or as near as he can tell, anything else. Because the State itself does not have
the right to acquire these easements and this property, they cannot acquire the property for land
banking, and this station is not part of the project right now so he is a little unclear exactly how
they do this. Clearly if it is on a voluntary basis, we can work out anything. There are some
very technical legal issues in terms of negotiating with property owners to give them some
benefits from the federal law as they can imagine right away. If it is a bit fuzzy about who has
the right to acquire, then how do you provide those benefits. He thinks they even have a little bit
of an answer for that. He is not sure they even need to deal with those issues until they decide
whether they want to even proceed along this course or not.
Chairperson Commers stated by their next meeting they would reasonably expect to have
information as to where at least the State of Minnesota is.
Attorney Casserly stated he thinks everybody is hopeful that will be the case because it really
makes it, even at our level, very complicated to try and figure out what authorities we are using
and what rights we have in dealing with this. We really do need to kind of have some more
direction. There are really two sets of issues, one is the funding issue, and the other is the issue
to acquire certain portions of property or construction easements or other parcels that may be
necessary to really facilitate the whole development. If we do not have the ability to bring
material on our site and put in construction easements, it really does not make any difference
whether they advance funds or not. We really do need to understand how we can achieve that or
if that is going to be a voluntary basis and, if not, then how do we resolve it.
Chairperson Commers asked whether there had been any more discussions with the property
owner by anybody?
Mr. Bolin replied, no, not on behalf of the HRA. The last group was MnDOT who talked with
Tim Nelson and that was six months ago or so. It sounded like it may have been working
towards some sort of agreement and then there was no funding. Once Fridley was taken out of
the grant agreement, then MnDOT could not negotiate on it anymore.
20
Dr. Burns stated he was in a meeting yesterday with Gary Carlson from the League of
Minnesota Cities and he was telling the group at the meeting that getting an agreement on an
agenda for this special session is going to be a bear and take some time and his projection was
probably two months out for the special session. It may be late September which puts the special
session past their next meeting date. If our decision hinges on something happening at that
special session, he is wondering whether they have more time than September 6 to make this
decision.
Mr. Yantos replied the deadline they are working with is November 1.
Commissioner Meyers asked whether September 6 was a firm date for when they get bids back
and they get a firm price established or does that mean they go another week or so or how does
that work?
Mr. Danielson replied he did not have a firm date when they will have the prices. With the
events that happened in the last week, he has had meetings cancelled twice with Burlington
Northern. He is hoping he can get together with them early next week and make sure that he
does indeed understand what that date is, and he will convey that staff as soon as he has that
information available.
4. Monthly Housing Report
Mr. Bolin sta.ted for the month of July we closed on one of our regular revolving fund loans and
CEE issued two other loans to Fridley residents. Year to date they have a total of 8loans
between the revolving loan fund and some of the others. One of the things they have noticed
over the past few months in talking with CEE, it seems that Fridley residents seem to be having
the same problems that everyone else is having right now. They are getting loan applications
and a number of people are not qualifying for our loans. They were seeing typically just about
every loan that they processed ended up being approved and for the past few months that has not
been the case.
Chairperson Commers asked whether our applications axe based on income are they not? Is
there also a credit level that they have to pass?
Mr. Bolin replied, yes.
Chairperson Commers asked who established that?
Mr. Bolin replied the Center for Energy and Environment processes all of our loan applications.
They look at income, credit history, and really similar standards to what you would try and fmd
trying to get a home equity loan or second mortgage. Because of that screening they do, they do
have very few delinquent loans. They have had three that have been outstanding for some time
but they actually just got an e-mail from the loan servicer saying they have come up with plans
now to collect those loans that have been outstanding for quite some time.
21
Mr. Bolin stated looking at the remodeling advisor visits, they did 4 visits in July and 17 year to
date. They wanted them to try and do 50 this year. It seems to be fairly on pace. When
Mr. Hickok was out for National Night Out he met with some folks who expressed interest in it.
So they should see a few visits in August.
Mr. Bolin stated for Operation Insulation, he does not know why but there is not been a lot of
interest in that even with the gas and oil prices etc. that have been high for the past few years.
He does not understand why they do not get more calls for that. It does get advertised and
promoted as much as the other programs. Dr. Burns is working on a newsletter article again for
an upcoming newsletter and if they can run a few cable spots for that it would be nice to get
those numbers up.
Mr. Bolin stated they do have to meet before September 15 because they do need to get their
levy certified by the middle of next month. If they would like to postpone taking action on the
Northstar item, they could do that at the October meeting if they like and by then they should
have firm numbers back from NCDA and Burlington Northern. They may possibly have a
special legislative session done by then. If the�y could still meet on the 6�' they could at least
approve that levy or they could meet at the 13 at their regular time.
Chairperson Commers stated the legislation really relates to the two TIF districts and our
capturing of those funds, is that not right?
Attorney Casserly replied there are actually two efforts. One is to get full funding in for Fridley
for the $10 million, and he thinks the other effort is to get our TIF legislation that would be very
important to us in any event to kind of manage the surrounding development. There is just a
piece that he is going to be talking about further as he is understanding it better and that is the
property that sits adjacent to the site. He is still a little bit confused about who is supposed to
acquire it, how it is supposed to be allocated, and who is taking the lead, and how do we provide
whatever level of funding is needed and who is contributing to that. Our legislation is going to
be helpful with that in addition to everything else.
: 1 � 1�_� \� _ \ _
MOTION by Commissioner Gabel to adjourn. Seconded by Commissioner Holm.
UPON A VOICE VOTE, ALL VOTING AYE, CHAIItPERSON CONIlVIERS DECLARED
TAE MEETING ADJOURNED AT 9:30 P.M.
Respectfully submitted,
������� ' / � G����' `
Denise M. Johnson
Recording Secretary
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CITY OF FRIDLEY
SIGN-IN SHEET
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Name and Address
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Agenda Item of Interest
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