SAND CREEK
TOWNSHIP
ANNUAL MEETING MINUTES
March 13, 2018
The Sand
Creek Township Annual Meeting was called to order by the Township clerk at
7:01pm; everyone stood for the pledge of Allegiance. The clerk called for nominations of a moderator. A
nomination for Debbie Pauly to be 2018 Annual Township Moderator made by Chad
Sandey, all were in favor, Unanimous. At
that time, the meeting was given to the 2018 moderator, Debbie Pauly, to
conduct all the township business.
Debbie
accepted the nomination and welcomed everyone to the meeting. The 2017 Annual
Minutes were distributed to all in attendance prior to the meeting; time was given
to read and review the minutes before the meeting continued. A
motion to accept the minutes as written was made by John Engford, second by
Chuck DeVaney, Chad had a correction to change the minutes to read the Al Menke
Solar Garden is 3 megawatts and the Gene Hauer Solar Garden is 4.7 megawatts
not 2.3 megawatts, motion carries with correction, Unanimous.
The
Treasurer’s Report for 2017 was also reviewed by all and noted the receipts
and disbursements were posted in a blue binder for all to view. A summary of the Township accounts was given
to all before the meeting for their review.
A motion to accept the Treasurer’s
Report was made by Chad Bohnsack, second by Darin Engbert,
Unanimous.
Sheriff Deputy’s Report – Debbie said
at last year’s meeting Travis Cherro requested that the Sheriff’s department
send out a code red when anyone escapes from the JAF center and the department
has been very good about notifying everyone and she thanked them. Sargent Phil Nawrocki attended the
meeting and went over the Sheriff’s report.
The Sargent said that there was nothing
alarming to report.
Chuck DeVany
– Does the county have a record of how many people have died on Bluff
Road and 169 intersection? Phil said they
do have records of all the calls. Chuck
asked how far back do the records go? Phil said the county has recently transferred
to a new system and the calls could be looked up, but it would take a little
bit of digging to find the answer.
Amy Bidell -
Jordan Avenue – Does the county decide who gets the code red alert and when? Phil
told her to sign up on the Scott County
website to be notified. She should get notified then every time a code red is
sent out.
Brin Rodgers Saw Mill
Road – Regarding the Stop Light for the construction at the end of Jordan – can
they set it to re-time at 95% incoming and 5% outgoing because of the back up
of traffic. Phil was not sure how long it will be there and could not answer if
it could be changed.
Chad
Sandey Reports:
Chad welcomed everyone to the
meeting. Excellent year for the township. The township tried to address all road
situations as they came up and this year the township supervisors are going to
be setting up a priority list of what items need to be addressed this year and
what can wait a year. One big project is
the Hwy 41 and 169 bypass with frontage and backage roads that will be worked
on this upcoming summer. Sand Creek is
concerned about the traffic with this project and what may evolve. The supervisors have been working with Stantec
Engineering to create a map of the issues and opportunities we may be faced
with now and in the future.
Hentges
Mining: - Huge topic in the township
since 2007. Ruling by the county to deny
Hentges mining and Interim Use Permit.
Hentges then filed an appeal. The
court had 90 days to review it and they upheld the county’s decision to deny
the IUP. Hentges can now appeal to the
State court if he is interested or he could reapply with a new plan – new design
etc. or to just drop the issue. Stay tuned.
Chad thanked everyone for their support in this process.
Solar
Gardens: Two solar gardens are located on
Hwy 282. They were commissioned late November,
early December. One on Al and Sharon
Menke Land – 3 megawatts and one on the Gene Hauer property – 4.7 megawatts.
Tru-North worked well with the
township on any concerns we had. The
glare was one of the concerns of the township and they agreed to study the
glare in the spring of 2018 and provide the results. A positive out-come from the solar gardens is
Scholarship Dollars that will be going to high school seniors. Tru North will give $2,000, and each land owner
will give $1,000. $3,000 will go to Jordan
High School and $1,000 will go to Shakopee High School. Encourage any seniors you know to apply for
them. The schools will list the criteria
to be met to be eligible for the scholarship.
John Engford – Encountered a huge
glare going north on 282 tonight on the way to the meeting. Chad and Bruce wrote it down to bring it to
the company.
Bluff
Drive Slope Repair: 2014 Storm
caused water damage to this hill. FEMA
money has been available for repairs.
2015 repairs were done on the lower part of the hill, culvert etc. 2016/2017
repairs were done to the slope and a guard rail was put in at the lower part of
the road for safety purposes. There were
also native grasses that were planted. These grasses normally take two to three
years to become fully established.
Jordan
Fire Contract: Jordan Fire Department
covers the entire Sand Creek Township. Our cost for 2017 was $129,202.00. Sand Creek township pays about 26.9% of Jordan’s
Fire Budget. Total fire calls in Sand
Creek Township in 2017 were 34 – down from 2016 – it was 36 then. The fire department informed the township of
a new pumper truck they may be purchasing in 2018. We will be charged our 26.9% of this cost
also.
2018
Budgeted Projects:
Culvert Replacements will be
taken care of in a few areas this year.
The Tree
Trimming Plan will continue in 2018. The board divided the township up into 3
sections to keep a revolving trimming plan going. We will take another area this year to do
some aggressive trimming and then do maintenance trimming where needed.
Future planning
– 169 Corridor Study. Bruce will explain
this study in more detail. Chad mentioned
the frontage roads that are already in place with the 41 and 169 project and we
hope to continue on with a few of them.
Gary Frey –
Tree Trimming – questioned about the oak trimming which could not be done in
the summer and needs to be done in the cooler spring weather. – He is wondering
if this is still on the schedule to be done.
Chad said they are supposed to be coming back to take care of it. He asked Bill to write it down and make sure
we have it on the list to do.
SMSC – ORF – Organic Recycling Facility
A number of years
ago the SMSC purchased land from Jesse Coghill on Bluff Drive and Pueblo. There was a rumor they were possibly looking
for a new area for their ORF due to the many concerns they were receiving from
residents regarding the facility off of 83 between Shakopee and Prior Lake The
board approached Charlie Vig and a few of their members of the board and
questioned them as to the plans for the land. At that time, they said it was
purchased with no plans. The township board
decided to contact the county and work with them to look over the zoning
language to have more controlled and restrictive language. The product comes
from food waste which causes the odor and rodent issues at the current facility.
A couple weeks ago Al Freidges invited the
board to a meeting to talk about what SMSC’s plans for the land. They would like to relocate the ORF facility
from Shakopee to Sand Creek Township. SMSC
also invited John Weckman from Louisville Township and they brought along the township’s
Associate Planner Cindy Nash. There are a few things that are standing in the
way for them to proceed. One is that
they are in the flood plain, second there are layout issues for this area, and
the zoning does not allow a true recycling facility to be there. The actual composting cannot be done on the
site without a variance, which SMSC found out at the meeting may not pass. The county did let them know of land in Louisville
township that would be favorable to their plans. SMSC was going to explore that or see what it
is going to take to explore their application yet in Sand Creek. Mr. Freidges invited any board members or
residents to tour the current facility to see how much they have improved the
process.
One resident questioned, if
it is working so good why would they want to move it? Chad’s response “SMSC said they are at
maximum facility size for the amount of materials they can process. The land in the township would double the
size for them.”
Gary Frey
asked about the 169 and 41 interchange, if the project got moved up because of
a grant that came in. Chad said that is
exactly why it got moved up. Bruce will
be talking more about the challenges with this in his report on the Issues and
Opportunities Map.
Bruce Hunstad reports:
Bruce invited
township residents to sign up on the website to get a notification email for
any item that was added or changed on the website.
169
Corridor Study: Issues and Opportunities
Map.
This map came to fruition because
of the Hwy 169 and 41 project. Ground breaking will be in August of 2018 and work
will begin on the frontage and backage roads in the fall. The bridge work will begin in 2019 with an
additional bridge being built to connect to County Road 14. It will be built a little north of County
Road 14 and connected by a frontage road and acceleration lane. It will be the fall of 2020 before you see completion.
So, with the added stress to the road, the township decided to have our
engineering company Stantec come up with an Issues and Opportunities Map. This
map is a low budget map with protentional challenges that could come up. The township board has shared this map with
the residents at a board meeting, the County and MN DOT immediately said this
was talked about a long time ago and agreed it is perfect timing for a map like
this to be done. So, MN DOT suggested the
township apply for a grant MN DOT has available. MN DOT would grant $100,000.00 to have a full-blown
study done of this area with the residents, traffic study, and accident study
of the area if the township could come up with $50,000. The County agreed to put in 37,500, if the
township could add the balance of $12,500. MNDOT would like to see us reduce
the number of intersections on 169.
There are a couple of areas like Berkshire and Jordan Avenue that could
potentially be closed. MN DOT basis
everything that they do on safety. We
will let the township residents know as soon as we do if we do receive the
grant. There will be meetings for both
residents and business owners along 169 to attend so that the township can hear
from everyone on concerns and issues.
Long
Range Planning Committee: Planning
meetings have been held with township residents, along with MN DOT, Stantec, County
Planning, Soil and Water, Natural Resources, City of Jordan and the City of
Jordan Planners. These groups came
together at some point and conducted research and monthly discussions. This committee prepared monthly reports for the
township board meetings. The committee met
from April through December of 2017.
Special Thanks to Herb Baldwin and Emily Nordick for their leadership
and work with minutes for all the meetings.
There was a lot of positive comments and planning that came out of the
meetings. This enabled the board to come up with ideas and suggestions for the
2040 Comp Plan.
2040
Comp Plan: Information was sent to Brad
Davis at the county and copied our Commissioner Barb Weckman-Brekke. Items sent to them included, Community Engagement,
County Vision, Land Use and Growth Management (which was actually a rather substantial
topic because it had to do with preserving our ag land and natural features for
home development), Transportation (which actually stemmed from our Opportunities
and Issues Map), Parks and Trails and protecting our Natural Resources,
especially the water and promoting accessible Broad Ban across the
township. The process for the 2040 Comp
plan is being shared at open houses right now.
The timeline for the 2040 comp plan was started in the fall of 2016. We
started up with our Long Range Planning Committee Meetings at that time, with
input in the beginning of 2018, open houses March of 2018, public hearing at
the county in April, and then a community review period with changes and in the
fall of 2018 a copy is submitted to the Met Council. Then once they have reviewed
it, the plan can be adopted in March of 2019.
Herb Baldwin encouraged
everyone to get involved as the government is making decisions for all of us. Attend
the open houses and ask many questions.
Website: We recently had our clerk retire in 2016 who
has worked for the township for over 20 years and decided to stay on during 2017
with the township as our administrator of our Website. But, as of now, they will be moving on and
turning the website back over to the board.
Our goal as a board is to try and get more information posted on the calendar
and update all website information. Please
go onto the website and sign up with your email to get notified of any changes
from the township. The website is Sandcreekmn.org
Bill
Schneider Reports:
Dust
Coating: The cost of
dust coating this year will remain the same as last year. There has not been a raise in price from the contractor.
The process went very well last year with
this contractor. Motion
by Bob Wolf to have a 50/50 split of the Dust Coating between the residents and
the township, second by Catherine Moore, Unanimous.
Scott
County Association for Leadership and Efficiency – SCALE: The county is trying to create a city without borders
between the cities and the townships and trying to get everyone to work
together. People who attend the meetings
are representatives from the state, townships, cities, schools, SMSC, etc. Example of topics they are discussing right
now are: 1 - 50/30 plan. They would like
to see 50% of the county residents working in Scott County by 2030. To accomplish
this they would like to have quality businesses in the area and also try to
attract higher paying businesses into the area. 2 - Housing for the workforce and the elderly.
93% of the housing for those over 65 is
filled already. With the workforce
changing and the elderly retiring, there is a shortage of quality trained
workman. 3 – The high school leadership
attending these meetings are working together to exchange ideas on educating
children on much higher levels. 4 –
Transportation is an issue with the number of elderly in the county. Transit services and handicapped transportation
are a couple examples of what is needed.
Right
of Way Clearing – Tree trimming and Farming: During the last 15 years, there has not been
a large amount of tree trimming done in the township. Last year the board decided to divide the
township and start cleaning up the trees.
In the year 2017, the township completed about one-third of the township,
with another third of the township being tackled in the year 2018.
Farming in the right away has become
an issue with farmers being to close to the road and creating safety concerns
for drivers. Bill plans on talking to
the individual farmers and have them change how close they farm to the
road. The township is also in the
process of trying to keep the right-a ways clear.
2017
Road Project Update:
Akers Lane – 28 loads of dirt
were removed from this area. Frontier
came and reburied the phone line in this area also.
Berkshire behind Cemstone had a
culvert that needed to be replaced. It was not holding up to the amount of traffic
on the road. A new cement culvert was
installed with new fill and blacktop.
Some crack sealing was done in
2017 with much more needed that we will try to get to in 2018.
Zumbro had a lot of ditch
cleaning work that was done in 2017.
On 160th a culvert
had to be fixed due to a hole in it and dirt getting into it, this problem was
repaired.
Valley View Road - Good news is
that now that the SCALE facility is located on Valley View and heavier vehicles
on the road, with the help of our new commissioner, the township was able to
get the county to apply the dust coating to this road in the future.
Herb Baldwin asked the board
not to forget the problem at Naylor, just north of Akers.
Chad said a culvert at the
corner of Naylor and 185th and the pond east of there had been backing
up because the drain tile that goes down to Joe O’Brien’s property and down to
another lower creek, has some clogs in it and the cows had gotten ahold of the
inlet and tipped it up so there were problems there also. So, this past fall he
was able to get the drain tile fixed and they were able to excavate and rebury it
and put a different inlet on it so the work is done and just waiting for the
spring to come and hopefully there should not be any more issues.
Herb thanked Chad for the explanation
and getting the work done.
Another question was asked by a
resident that “if a culvert is replaced are the people downstream from the culvert
notified if the culvert is replaced with a larger one.” Bill said not that he is aware of. The gentleman then said he replaced a culvert
on his property that was the same size as the one that was there and two years
later a 30-inch culvert was put in up the road from him and washed out some of
his property which then cost about $16,000.00 to fix. He is wondering if there should be something
in writing that the township has to notify residents downstream of this. Bill said he has no idea, but thinks it might
be a good idea. The resident said that
the Soil and Water group did help him out with some of the issue, which he
appreciated.
Old
Business: None
New
Business:
Jaguar
Communications:
Michael and John from Jaguar
Communications were at the annual meeting to advise the township of a couple of
projects that they will be working on. Their
headquarters are in Owatonna. MN. They
brought along a map that shows the areas that they will be concentrating on
this year. The state of Minnesota awarded
Jaguar a grant to serve an underserved area of the township with internet and phone
service.
A resident also asked if they are
currently being serviced by Frontier and are unhappy, can they request service
by Jaguar. At this time, Jaguar would
like to serve as much of the township as they can and only have a limited amount
of time to work with. The grant is for
an area that the state believes is an area that truly is an underserved
area.
A resident asked if they had a projection of when they might be able to serve
more of the township and they replied they do not at this time. The maps are the two areas they will be
concentrating on this summer – Valley View Road area and the Sutton Lake area. The men from Jaguar left business cards and a
list for residents to sign up on if they would like Jaguar’s service. They are not affiliated with any other company. The website is Jaguarcommunications.com
2019
Levy Discussion:
Chad said the levy is the amount
of money the board believes is needed to run the township for the year. 2019 levy is set by the number of projects
needed to completed. 2018 Levy was $295,000
road and bridge –$135,000 fire contract and general is $58,000. Road Bond for $20,000. There is approximately
a 3.9% increase per year. The
continuation meeting for the levy is set for September 6th and will be approved
later in the meeting.
Open
to authorized residents who wish to address a township topic or issue:
Travis Cherro – Valleyview
Drive. Question on when the wells on the
Hentges property will be sealed.
Chad said the wells are
inactive, but they were test wells. As
soon as we hear that there is no longer a viable project on the property, the
wells should be sealed.
Gary Frey - Question was asked
if Shakopee Sands is a 24-hour operation.
Chad said Shakopee Sand is a 24-hour operation, 6 days a week. Chad said they have informed the township
they have not had to utilize all of the hours they thought they were going to. Gary said between 8:30 and 9:00 they have
been hearing a lot of pounding of rock.
Chad said it is good to know this information because they have monthly meetings
and can talk about it then.
Amy Bidell – Jordan Avenue –
They live right next to Shakopee Sands and get notified everyday that they are going
to be blasting. She also wanted to know
if any of the wells in the area have been tested. Chad reported at the regular Shakopee Sands
meetings have tests and reports available that show they are staying on top of
it. These reports should be available on
the website, but Chad will check with them at the next meeting.
Bank for the Township – Frandsen
Bank
Motion by Darin Engbert
to have Frandsen Bank as the township bank, second by Bob Wolf, Unanimous.
Official Newspaper – Jordan Independent
Motion by Chad Sandey to have the official
newspaper as the Jordan Independent, second by Bill Schneider, Unanimous
Official Posting Sites – Website
and Clerk’s Residence
Motion by John Engford to have the website and
clerk’s residence as the official posting sites, second by Gary Frey, Unanimous
Setting of Levy:
2019 Levy
will be set at the continuation of the Annual Meeting on September 6th, 2018,
township monthly meeting at 6 pm.
Annual Meeting: March 12, 2019 at MVEC at 7 pm
Regular Monthly Meeting:
Monthly
meetings are set for the 1st Thursday of every month at MVEC 7pm
Motion
to recess the annual meeting until 6 pm on September 6th to set the
levy by Bob Wolf, second by Roger Nohner, Unanimous
_________________________ ___________________________
Township Clerk, Shelley Pauly Township Moderator
Sand Creek Township
2019 Levy Continuance Meeting
Minutes
September 6th, 2018
Officers Present
Chairman
Chad Sandey, Supervisor Bill Schneider, Supervisor Bruce Hunstad, Treasurer Myron
Pauly, Deputy Treasurer Michelle Rutoski, Shelley Pauly, Clerk and Emily
Nordick, Deputy Clerk
Called to Order
The
meeting was called to order at 6:13 pm by Chairman Chad Sandey.
BUSINESS/DISCUSSION:
Review
of the Levy amounts from 2018:
General Fund $ 58,000.00
Road
and Bridge $295,000.00
Fire
Fund $135,000.00
Bonds/Debt $ 20,000.00
$508,000.00
There
was a conversation about the new fire truck that the City of Jordan is planning
on purchasing and that we should adjust for a 1-1/2% increase from year to year.
The township needs to work on sending out the bills for Fire/Emergency Calls.
This has been discussed and plans are put in place to start processing the
bills from June of 2018. We need to ensure we have enough money for the top
projects for Road and Bridge: patch work for Golfview Drive (~ $83,000),
sealcoating, tree trimming, plus average snow plowing and maintenance costs.
Motion by Chad to have the General
revenue for the 2019 Levy Certification for taxes payable:
General Fund $ 60,000.00
Road and Bridge $305,000.00
Fire Fund $135,000.00
Bonds/Debt $ 20,000.00
$520,000.00
A 2.36% increase for the year.
Second by Bruce, Unanimous.
Motion to adjourn the annual meeting at
6:55 pm by Bill, Second by Bruce, Unanimous.
Submitted
By: _____________________________________________________
Emily
Nordick, Deputy Clerk
Approved by ______________________________________________________
Chairman,
Chad Sandey