By Paul Downer
Community Editor
Cologne’s comprehensive plan for the year 2030 is nearly complete. The city council passed a resolution authorizing the distribution of the plan to authorities for review at its meeting on Monday, June 2.
Dean Johnson of Resource Strategies Corporation, who has been helping the city with its plan, was on hand to provide an update on the plan as well as the effort to sign an orderly annexation agreement with Benton Township.
Johnson said there were few changes to the plan since the last update, but he called the recent initiation of commuter busing from Norwood Young America to Chaska through the Carver Area Rural Transit (CART) program “very exciting.”
To recap some of the numbers from the comprehensive plan, Johnson said that the city is expected to grow in size from its current 1,220 acres to 3,100 acres by 2030. He also reiterated that there is a projected 10-fold increase in households for the year 2030.
“There aren’t many cities that do that,” Johnson said.
He acknowledged that such forecasts appear “preposterous” in light of the housing slowdown that is nearly two years old, but assured the council that extensive growth is still likely to occur at some point in the not-too-distant future.
While such growth is exciting, it can also cause serious problems for small cities, Johnson warned. Rapid growth can cause sudden and dramatic staff and equipment shortages. When cities hire more staff to handle the influx of service hook-up and other needs, there is a danger that they over-correct by hiring too many staff members who then have to be laid off when growth slows.
Johnson has witnessed such problems in other fast-growing cities, and said that the problems can become “mind-boggling and frightening.”
In that sense, he suggested that the timing of the housing slump, coming as it has at the start of Cologne’s growth, might actually be advantageous to some extent. It gives city planners a chance to prepare without being overwhelmed all at once.
On the orderly annexation front, Johnson said that the city and Benton Township are close to an agreement that must be signed before the city’s comprehensive plan will be accepted by the state.
The two entities have been meeting for months and both sides have been cooperative to this point.
“It is evident that [township officials] are working with us,” said Johnson.
While work has gone well so far, several issues remain to be resolved, most important of which is settling on a rate per acre for annexation costs. Johnson said that debate over rates have derailed annexation agreements between other cities and townships, and emphasized the importance of setting a rate that is fair to both sides.
A common practice is to set a rate for five-year increments. At the expiration of each time periods the city and township meet again to reassess the rate.
In other business:
Staff at Cologne City Hall will be able to revert to their normal duties after the council approved the hiring of a new account clerk in a special meeting of the city council on May 28.
The departure of Kelly Grinnell from the position of city clerk/treasurer earlier this spring left staff scrambling to cover multiple responsibilities, but the hiring of Susan Mueller as the city’s new account clerk will help restore a more normal pace at city hall.
The council expressed support for an irrigation system to water three new athletic fields that should be constructed in the Village at Cologne this summer, but wanted to see some numbers regarding the cost of installing a trunk line.
Each year the city puts aside about $5,000 for park projects and $5,000 for irrigation work.
There was some discussion over whether the primary source of water for the fields should be city wells or storm water ponds such as the ones currently located near County Road 53 on the east side of the development.
Mayor Barb Swanson said that citizens must be conscientious about watering their lawns, doing so only when necessary, since widespread watering can draw down the city’s readily available supply of stored water.
On that subject, Johnson suggested that other cities have found that an effective way to control unnecessary water expenditures is to set certain usage thresholds. If the resident surpasses a pre-determined amount of water, water bill rates will increase.
“It only takes one billing for people to notice,” said Johnson.
The council as a whole expressed interest in using storm water that runs off streets and rooftops in the development and collects in ponds for irrigation of the new fields as far as possible.
A total of three softball fields will eventually be leveled and seeded, and soccer can also be played at the site.
Joel Stencel of Eide Bailly presented data from the city’s latest audit study. He said that the city was in “very good financial position” in regards to the general fund.
One of the issues raised by auditors was a lack of segregation in duties among city staff, but Stencel explained that this was a common problem in cities the size of Cologne because it is not cost effective to hire more staff and said auditors understood the issue.
A final payment for Cologne’s new 500,000-gallon water tower in the amount of $29,797.76 was approved. The tower is now fully operational.
Overall, the project ended up costing slightly less than the estimated $813,000. The final cost was $808,788.06.
The council approved an application from the Cologne Lions for a raffle gambling license for the “Fill the Hill” day at Robert G. Fritz Memorial Field in Cologne on Sunday, June 22.
Events will be held throughout the day, and the afternoon will feature a town team baseball game between the Cologne Hollanders and the Norwood Indians. An Old Timers game preceding the town team game is also under discussion.
A temporary on sale liquor license was granted to the Cologne Fire and Rescue Department for the date of Oct. 4.
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