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<br />Bill Douglas from Bolton and Menk stated that he could answer questions from the City Council. <br /> <br />CounciImember Strommen stated that she would like to know if there was additional backgro)..lIld <br />work completed surrounding the issues she. already mentioned that were not included in the <br />report. <br /> <br />Mr. Douglas stated that they looked at the guidance documents from the Environmental Quality <br />Board (EQB) on a State level. He read a portion of their guiding document for natural areas. He <br />stated that there is a segment of this document that talks about encroachment and he agrees that <br />this portion of their report should have been written more clearly. He stated that this project will <br />not encroach on the natural areas. <br /> <br />CounciImember Strommen stated that she feels there will be some effects from noise and dust <br />because the application is adjacent to the natural areas. <br /> <br />Councilmember Look stated that he would like to hear Mr. Douglas's opinion on the report and a <br />quick-synopsis of the proposal. <br /> <br />Mr. Douglas stated that Bolten Menk was hired to determine if there were State laws present that <br />would require an EA W. He stated that he sees five key issues. The first is noise and the EQB <br />has no threshold on noise in State law and the information that they reviewed from a noise study <br />completed in Annandale shows that the noise levels will be less than the State law thresholds. <br />He stated that another issue is traffic and noted that there are currently 430 parking stalls <br />available at Diamonds and the events are planned for evenings and weekends, so there should be <br />no adverse problems affecting traffic. He noted that another issue would be the Mississippi <br />River Critical Area, which found that the applicant was not encroaching on this area. He stated <br />that the entertainment threshold would come into play if the planned use would change so tllat <br />5,000 more people can come to the business. He stated that based on this information, they do <br />not see a need to mandate an EA W. <br /> <br />Councilmember Dehen asked if, for example, there were gasoline spilled on the track, how it <br />would be taken care of. <br /> <br />Mr. Douglas stated that usually the ground is excavated and spread out to volatize it. <br /> <br />Mayor Gamec read aloud the Findings of Fact. <br /> <br />CounciImember Strommen stated that she is not convinced that an EA W is warranted, however, <br />she does not think the report was helpful for the City to get where it needed to be because there <br />was not enough review of potential environmental impacts. <br /> <br />Motion by CounciImember Dehen, seconded by CounciImember Look, to Adopt Resolution # 12- <br />07-334 adopting Findings of Fact #0817 relating to the November 16, 2007 citizen's petition to <br />conduct an Environmental Assessment Worksheet with regard to the Application to conduct up <br />to thirteen events per year on its property, identified in attached Exhibit A. <br /> <br />City Council / December 11, 2007 <br />Page 7 of 25 <br /> <br />P15 <br />