City Manager Blog

COMMUNICATIONS AND NEWS FROM THE WEEK:  September 22, 2023

Meetings and Announcements:  

Our next Council meeting will be on Monday, September 25th. We do not have a workshop planned for the 25th.

ADMINISTRATION

Cultural Agility Training

On Wednesday and Thursday of this week our employees participated in Cultural Agility Training. Jeannette Grace with Expressive Communication Consulting and Training assisted us as we continue our Cultural Agility Journey. Over 126 employees participated in this important training this week and more are scheduled for next week as we continue to act on one of the six strategic priorities within our community: Community Inclusiveness.

Create a city where everyone is valued and respected, and celebrate our strengths as a diverse multi-cultural, multi-lingual community. We recognize that our different perspectives and experiences bind us together to make us stronger.

PARK AND NATURAL RESOURCES

University of Minnesota Ecological Restoration Planning and Management Student

Service Learning Scheduled at City Hall Campus

Dan Shaw, Minnesota Board of Soil and Water Resources, will be bringing his Ecological Restoration Planning and Management Course Students to work on the pollinator restoration project at Maplewood City Hall.  Sara Nelson of Great River Greening will lead the project, scheduled for the morning of September 18. Students will gain experience through hand-seeding native plants in bare areas and removing invasive plants such as yellow nut sedge.  Thank you to all involved in our continued restoration work! 

Follow up video from Communications Team

You might have noticed the landscape around City Hall and wondered, “what’s going on here?”  Well, Prairie Restoration, that’s what’s going on. Turf grass that we have come to accept in most of our suburban landscapes is taking out critical food sources for the pollinators that contribute to our bio diversity.

Watch the video to see how we’re working to transform the City Hall campus back to its natural form.

City Hall Campus Courtyard Update

The Green Team continues to tidy up the City Hall Campus Courtyard in preparation of spring plantings. During this week’s service project, the team tackled the spirea bushes, removing all 20 bushes despite the hard rock and soil. The team took a moment for a photo opportunity, with City Councilmember Juenemann playing along with a parody on the famous American Gothic painting. 

City staff met with the Ramsey-Washington Metro Watershed District to begin drafting the native planting plan for the Courtyard.  The Green Team will share that plan once complete.  The work will continue in the spring with an employee volunteer planting day. 

COMMUNICATIONS AND NEWS FROM THE WEEK:  September 15, 2023

Meetings and Announcements:   

Our next Council meeting will be on Monday, September 25th. We do not have a workshop planned for the 25th.

ADMINISTRATION

From City Clerk Sindt

The Office of Cannabis Management held a session on Aug 16 to provide a general overview of the early work to establish the OCM, an update on the temporary regulations for hemp-derived cannabinoid products, and information about upcoming OCM rulemaking.  View the session recording here. Following are a couple slides regarding licensing and the rulemaking timeline from the session. Staff will continue to share updates and information as it is received.

COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT

Proposed Metro Transit G Line – Public Engagement Kicking Off

Starting September 25, Metro Transit will kick off a six-week public engagement period. A virtual open house will be held on October 10 at 6:30 p.m. City staff will send the City Council the link to this event closer to the October 10th date. In addition to the open house, project staff will collect feedback via survey, email, phone, and in-person interviews. Postcards will be sent to all properties within a quarter mile of the corridor. A door-knocking effort will occur for all properties neighboring the proposed station locations.

The Metro Transit G Line is a planned bus rapid transit line, like the A Line and C Line, that will provide faster and more reliable transit service in the Rice/Robert corridor. It will travel from Little Canada through Maplewood and downtown St. Paul to West St. Paul. Proposed Maplewood stations include County Road B, Roselawn Avenue and Larpetneur Avenue. More information on this project can be found at https://www.metrotransit.org/g-line-project. Project staff has also offered to present to the City Council, so if there is interest, please let Melinda Coleman know.  

Metro Transit has offered to present this information at a Council meeting. Please let me know if you would like them to come out to present.

PARK AND NATURAL RESOURCES

TOUCH A TRUCK 2023

Maplewood Parks and Natural Resources hosted the rescheduled Touch A Truck event on Wednesday, September 13th at the YMCA/MCC and we could not have asked for a more perfect weather day!

We had numerous vehicles on display from Parks, Public Safety, and Public Works, along with a school bus, trash and recycle trucks and a semi-truck. Another crowd favorite was getting up close and personal to a K9 officer!

Families were able to refuel with free grilled hotdogs, chips, and water! The Maplewood-North Lions volunteered to work at the food tent and was a huge help! Guests also had the option to buy ice cream from the Milk Mart Ice cream truck and 10% of proceeds will go to the Maplewood Youth Scholarship fund.

Other activity stations offered temporary tattoos, Krazy Hair spray, bounce castle, yard games, 3M Wizards Science on the Go and the Hasse Family Petting Zoo.

In addition, we had booths from Ramsey County Public Health, Ramsey County 4H, City and County Credit Union, Maplewood YMCA and more all providing free activities, prizes and information about their services.

Thanks to the Parks and Natural Resources Commission members that hosted a booth and gave out construction hats, stickers and candy to attendees and shared information about upcoming city happenings.

Parks and Natural Resources wants to give a huge thank you to staff from other departments, partners, and sponsors for helping make the event a success and it was great having City Council members and the Mayor on hand to be a part of the fun!

PUBLIC WORKS

City EAB Update

Due to the large amount of ash trees being removed in the metro area, disposal of the trees and brush material has become increasingly difficult. Both RAMCO Workhouse and Environmental Wood Supply are no longer accepting brush and logs at this time.  Environmental Wood is still accepting woodchips. For the City to be able to continue removing ash trees the best course of action is to stockpile removed trees and brush material in the Public Works yard area.  Once there is a significant stockpile of trees and brush material, the plan will be to grind the material onsite in the public works year and haul it to Environmental Wood Supply for disposal. 

We have been working with the Dakota Wood company for several years to rent screeners for our sweepings each year. We have contacted Dakota Wood and they confirmed that they will provide a tub grinder and loader to do the grinding.  Environmental Wood Services will provide the trucks to haul woodchip material from the Public Works yard to their facilities.  This plan will allow City crews to continue with tree removals throughout the fall and into early winter while keeping the operational costs relatively low. 

Ramsey County EAB Work

At the last council meeting it was asked that staff reach out to Ramey County to see how they are managing EAB on County right-of-ways and park lands.  Their process is very similar to how Maplewood is managing ash tree removals.  When someone contacts the County regarding EAB in the county right-of-ways or park land the County dispatches staff to inspect the trees.  If EAB is found and the tree is on County right-of-ways or park land, and is a hazard, the County schedules the tree to be removed.  If the tree is out in the middle of a wooded area, where it is not a hazard, the tree is not removed.

The County has received grant money for removal and plantings work.  They are planning to continue pursuing available grant opportunities moving forward. 

Note from Director Love on detour for Gold Line Project

The gold line project team has been coordinating with 3M for a revised detour plan (see attached).  Staring on Monday the following ramps will be closed at Century and I-94 (see red lines on attachment):

West bound I-94 to Century Avenue

Century Avenue to West Bound I-94

North bound and south bound traffic on Century Avenue will remain open to traffic.  These closure and detour plan will be in place approximately for the next 2 month through the end of the 2023 construction season.

3M is aware and has agreed with this detour plan.  The previous detour plan used Minnehaha and Upper Afton.  Both are more residential in nature and there is a school on Upper Afton.

If you have any questions please let me know. Map of detour is attached.

Thank you,

Steve Love

Good afternoon, Mayor and City Council. I want to share a note of thanks to Lois, Mike Darrow and department heads for assisting me in keeping things running smoothly as I balance rest and work. They have been a great help to me.

Please reach out if you have any questions or concerns with any of this content or other matters.

Melinda

COMMUNICATIONS AND NEWS FROM THE WEEK:  September 8, 2023

Meetings and Announcements:  

Our next Council meeting and work-session will be on Monday, September 11th. The workshop will start at 5:45 with a presentation from Ramsey County on their Emergency Operations Plan and a presentation on the EAB Grant application process. There will be an EDA meeting at 6:45. At the Council meeting there are 3 public hearings and the Approval of the 2024 General Fund Levy/Budget.

Reminder that you are invited to the City Employee Picnic on Wednesday, the 13th. It will be held in the Police Garage from 11am to 1pm. Hope you can join us. 

ADMINISTRATION

Moving the Heritage Preservation Commission to quarterly meetings

The Heritage Preservation Commission (HPC) is an advisory body to council. Its members serve to ensure Maplewood is tracking and working to preserve potentially historic structures, parcels, items and culture. In March of 2012, Maplewood was designated as a Certified Local Government through the U.S. Department of the Interior, as recommended by the State Office of Historic Preservation. This designation grants the city broader authority to make local designations.

All HPC work is advisory, City Council takes all formal action regarding preservation efforts.

While the HPC serves a noble purpose, Maplewood’s overall building stock tends to lack architectural and historic significance, relative to many of the communities that have Certified Local Government status. The HPC and its staff liaison have been working from the Maplewood Historic Context Study, which was conducted in 2014 to identify potentially historic structures and parcels. In looking through the list trying to identify potential sites for more formal historic designation, it’s become apparent that few such structures are left in the city. Most of the stock in the city that could be deemed historic has fallen into disrepair or has been significantly altered to render it no longer historically significant.

For these reasons, staff is recommending to the City Manager resetting HPC meetings from monthly to quarterly. This would ensure all meeting have a purposeful agenda. It would also give staff and commissioners time to fulfill the State Historic Preservation Office’s requirements to maintain Maplewood’s Certified Local Government Status.  If and when a pressing HPC matter arises, a special meeting can be called.

The move would also save the city nearly $1,800 in meeting fees and allow the staff liaison to spend time on other core communications functions.

COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT
As the Council is aware, Metro Transit has had to largely start over with their due diligence for the Purple Line configuration now that the White Bear Avenue realignment is under consideration.  Due to that fact and the rationale listed below, the initial timeline for the project will need to be extended.  As a part of that, they are seeking letters of support from their municipal partners, Ramsey County and their congressional delegation for inclusion in what they call their Project Development (PD) Phase Extension Request.  They need to submit the request to the Federal Transit Administration (FTA) asking for the extended timeframe to complete their due diligence.  The draft letter of support is purely related to timing and in no way is affiliated with recommendations or any other aspects of the project.  I’m planning on signing it and sending on behalf of the City.  Please let me know if you have any questions.   

Rationale for extension request: 

• Public feedback through community engagement has led to recent policy direction to explore a route alternative for the northern portion of the BRT project.
• As such, an extension of time, beyond the original 24-month PD Phase set to expire in early December 2023, is needed to complete the PD Phase requirements. Met Council is seeking a 22-month time extension, 10 months longer than the typical PD Phase Extension granted by FTA.
  Specifically, a time extension is needed in order to:
• Evaluate the White Bear Avenue (WBA) route alternative to inform a policy decision on whether to advance this new route alternative as the Locally Preferred
  • Alternative (LPA) for the BRT project. A policy decision could be received by September 2024.
  • If WBA supported as the revised LPA, advance preliminary engineering of the White Bear Avenue route alternative sufficient to support the analysis for the environmental review process. Preliminary design plans could be completed by June 2024.

If WBA supported as the revised LPA, prepare and publish the federal environmental review document, and obtain an federal environmental decision. Environmental decision could be obtained by September 2025.

Please see attached letter supporting the time line extension. I can sign the letter unless Council has concerns. If so, we can discuss under Council Calendar on Monday night.

PARK AND NATURAL RESOURCES

University of Minnesota Ecological Restoration Planning and Management Student

Service Learning Scheduled at City Hall Campus
Dan Shaw, Minnesota Board of Soil and Water Resources, will be bringing his Ecological Restoration Planning and Management Course Students to work on the pollinator restoration project at Maplewood City Hall.  Sara Nelson of Great River Greening will lead the project, scheduled for the morning of September 18. Students will gain experience through hand-seeding native plants in bare areas and removing invasive plants such as yellow nut sedge.  Thank you to all involved in our continued restoration work! 

Note of Thanks
The residents of Ecumen Seasons at Maplewood have been working with staff to help pick up trash around the pond at Legacy Park.  Several of them kindly took the time to send us a note of thanks. We love it when we can partner with the community to take care of our parks and open spaces!