Agenda - Council - 02/09/2010 - Laserfiche WebLink

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Councilmember Elvig felt that people would vote for no change. Councilmember Dehen felt that it would be important to have that data. Councilmember Elvig agreed and said this change is a huge impact for the City. Councilmember McGlone stated that if you are going to purchase a house, most parents look for certain school districts and they sometimes make a decision based on the school district whether to buy that house or not. Anoka is losing kids and Elk River is talking about how much they have grown. Councilmember Elvig stated that when we looked at a new building for City Hall, the School Board led us to believe they would be interested in our old building -possibly for a middle school here and now he is hearing that is not the case. Director of Public Works Olson asked what happens with the buildings that are closed to which Mr. Paulson replied that is being looked at. It was suggested that maybe the superintendents of Anoka-Hennepin and Elk River should be in the same room together to have this conversation. 3) Mississippi River Visioning Collaboration Parks Supervisor Mark Riverblood stated the purpose of this report is to discuss the proposed Mississippi River Community Visioning endeavor. The concept, in part, is an outcome of the observation that compared to the cities of Anoka, Coon Rapids and Champlin, the river stretch above the pool is noticeably more naturalized and less intensively developed and more conducive for high quality natural resource-based recreation. Because there are more undeveloped areas within the cities of Ramsey, Dayton, Elk River and Otsego, these cities may collectively identify a unified vision to cultivate the Mississippi as a key asset for recreation, wildlife, scenic beauty and tourism and to realize the river as a healthy, enduring and significant community legacy for future generations. Mr. Riverblood continued that in October, Mayor Ramsey and City staff met with the Friends of the Mississippi River (FMR) and discussed a broad range of issues and ideas. One outcome was the concept that the FMR would prepare a proposal that may facilitate a process to arrive at the goals and visions. This would be to identify areas of mutual agreement for consistent, long-term land use planning in the shared river corridor.. This may also aid these .cities in applying for grants. for things like fishing piers, boat landings, and others. There is a cost, which could possibly be shared by Dayton, Elk River, Otsego and Ramsey, and Anoka, Hennepin, Sherburne and Wright Counties. The City of Ramsey could allocate money from the 2009 park's operating budget, which has a present balance of $10,727. Mayor Ramsey stated this concept is kind of like the Highway #10 Coalition - to advocate everyone getting together and coming to a common place. City Council Work Session -December 1, 2009 Page 3 of 16