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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2004/11/01 - ADMIN - Minutes - City Council - Regular CITY OF OFFICIAL MINUTES ST. LOUIS CITY COUNCIL MEETING PARK ST. LOUIS PARK, MINNESOTA November 1,2004 1. Call to Order Mayor Jacobs called the meeting to order at 7:30 pm. Council members present: Mayor Jeff Jacobs, John Basill, Phil Finkelstein, Paul Omodt, Susan _ Sanger, Sue Santa, and Sally Velick Staff present City Manager(Mr. Harmening), City Attorney (Mr Scott), Director of Inspections (Mr Hoffman), Environmental Health Official (Mr Camilon), Sgt Lori Drier and Recording Secretary (Ms. Stegora-Peterson) 2. Presentations - None 3. Approval of Minutes 3a. City Council Minutes of October 18, 2004 The minutes were approved as presented. 3b. Study Session Minutes of October 11,2004 Councilmember Finkelstein noted on item number two that he had expressed concern and urged staff to look into this further. The minutes were approved as corrected. 3c. Study Session Minutes of September 27, 2004 Councilmember Sanger noted on page one, the last paragraph of item number one, "residents on one block of the" should be inserted after "...from the". The minutes were approved as corrected. 4. Approval of Agenda and Items on Consent Calendar NOTE The Consent Calendar lists those items of business which are considered to be routine and/or which need no discussion. Consent items are acted upon by one motion If discussion is desired by either a Councilmember or a member of the audience,that item may be moved to an appropriate section of the regular agenda for discussion 4a Adopt Resolution No. 04-132 authorizing final payment to Standard Sidewalk for completion of work on 2004 Sidewalk Project 04-02. 4b Accept for filing the Housing Authority Minutes of September 18, 2004 4c Approve Ordinance No. 2281-04 setting 2005 fees called for by ordinance, approve the summary and authorize summary publication Council Meeting Minutes -2- November 1, 2004 4d Authonze the Mayor and City Manager to execute a Communications System Subscnber Agreement with Hennepin County and Authorized Users Regarding. Use of the Regionwide Public Safety Radio Communications System, Lease, Maintenance and Repair of Subscriber Radios, Administrative and Operational Support of the Subscnber Radio Fleet 4e Approve the Fourth Amendment to the Amended and Restated Contract for Private Redevelopment By and Between St. Louis Park Economic Development Authority and City of St. Louis Park and Meridian Properties Real Estate Development LLC dated July 23, 2001 4f Approve the Subordination Agreement between U.S. Bank National Association, the City of St. Louis Park, and the St. Louis Park Economic Development Authority and Excelsior & Grand IV LLC relative to the Excelsior and Grand Phase E Project 4g Accept for filing the Park and Recreation Advisory Commission Minutes of September 14, 2004 4h Accept Vendor Claims for filing (Supplement) It was moved by Councilmember Sanger, seconded by Councilmember Santa, to approve the Agenda and items listed on the Consent Calendar. The motion passed 7-0. 6. Public Hearings - None 7. Requests,Petitions,and Communications from the Public—None 8. Resolutions, Ordinances,Motions 8a. First Reading: Proposed Ordinance Amending Chapter 8, Article VIII — Rental Housing Licensing Mr. Hoffman, Mr. Camilon and Sgt. Dner presented the staff report. Tom Powers, 2241 Hampshire Av. S, believed it was important to consider renters as equal and active members of the community. Regular inspections would be intolerable. Renters would have to pay for the costs of this through their rent. He felt appropnate opportunities for inspection occurred at time of ownership change or if a tenant called for probable cause. Gary Berscheid, 1604 Blackstone, stated he had been an active landlord and owned a number of-properties. -He believed-owner-occupied housing had-as many violations as rental properties and felt landlords and tenants were being treated as second-class citizens. He asked if City, County and Non-profit housing groups would be subject to the same inspections. He was unhappy with the change in 1990 which made landlords responsible for the actions of their tenants and believed the tenants should be responsible for their own actions. He was concerned about inspections which may trigger police action against tenants and was concerned that inspections would be a violation of tenant's rights. Mayor Jacobs asked about County and nonprofit owned properties and if they would be subject to this? Mr. Hoffman replied that the Housing Authority owned some houses that Council Meeting Minutes -3- November 1, 2004 are rented and they would be included in this. Group homes, typically owned by individuals, would also be subject to this ordinance. Councilmember Omodt asked if an Inspector would need a search warrant under this program? Mr. Hoffman replied that Minnesota Statute allowed Building or Housing Inspectors to enter a property with an owner, who has nght of entry provided they notify the tenant in advance that they were going through the property for the purpose of an inspection. Sgt. Dner added if something was discovered in plain view they would notify the police and a search warrant would be obtained. Diane Jones Ladhe, 2733 Hampshire Av. S, indicated she lived next to a rental property that was very dangerous to her and anyone who had lived there The property was in extremely poor condition and inspections were needed to protect the people that lived there. She had reported conditions to the city a number of times and believed the property owner was only interested in profits and not living conditions of the tenants. Rental property owners should be responsible for who they rent it to. Judy Burton, 6026 W 35th St., stated that there was an inspection that was supposed to be done when tenants changed. Mr. Hoffman clanfied that program had been dropped in 2001 Ms. Burton stated in St. Louis Park they were building new housing that was supposed to be affordable. When the housing was completed, it wasn't affordable anymore. She called surrounding communities and no one else had an ordinance like this. Hopkins had a$20 fee and only inspected if a complaint was issued and also did random inspections She asked how many single-family homes were in St. Louis Park? Mayor Jacobs replied 12,000. Ms. Burton asked how many rental units were there? Mr. Hoffman replied approximately 780 rental single-family homes. Ms. Burton was concerned that this ordinance would require that landlords raise their rent which could be cost prohibitive to tenants and contnbute to segregation. The ordinance would create problems in attracting renters. Councilmember Omodt asked if the fees would be tax deductible? Mr. Scott replied he believed it would be a business expense. Councilmember Finkelstein indicated his understanding was approximately one out of three of the rental homes had a correction notice in the last year. It was also his - - - understanding that-there were approximately 12,000-single-family homes in-St.-Louis Park. He asked before the meeting how many other correction notices they had and there were approximately 1,200. In rental homes there had been correction notices issued to one out of three, while the single-family owner occupied homes had one out of ten. It was three times worse as a housing inspection issue. William Putnam, 3172 Hillsboro Av. S, stated that he started in a duplex because it was affordable. They could say it was a business, but it wasn't profitable. Even when you start to break even, you have to put more money into upkeep. Most of them were responsible landlords and keep their properties up. They needed to keep up all of the properties in St Louis Park, and it should also be homeowners. He owned three properties, but sold two and kept one because he was thinking of retinng and moving back into it, but he would still be Council Meeting Minutes -4- November 1, 2004 subject to this ordinance even if he moved back in. He felt inspections should be triggered with a complaint and that homeowners should also be subject to routine inspections. Mr. Putnam believed town homes should also be included in the program as associations typically controlled only the outside maintenance of townhome properties. Mayor Jacobs believed they were more actively enforcing the property maintenance code Mr. Camilon noted they received a lot of complaints on single-family properties too. Where they can, they send Inspectors to deal with them the same way they did with rental property. Sometimes property owners didn't take care of it and they had to take it to the next level. If they didn't comply, they referred it to the City Attorney for further action. They had been addressing the issues better. He thought the current staff had made a better attempt at getting an equal, respectful compliance for most of the residents in the city. Richard Johnson, 4353 Briarwood Ln, Mtka, stated that one of the unintended consequences of this ordinance was that it would make property owners responsible for behavior of tenants. No matter how carefully screened, getting nd of a difficult tenant was extremely difficult, time consuming and expensive. He also believed the ordinance should apply equally to owner-occupied homes. He was concerned about tenant lawsuits against landlords resulting from perceived damages, as in the case of prosecution for controlled substances. He hoped there would be a hold harmless clause attached to this ordinance. Councilmember Sanger stated that several people had mentioned the concern if this ordinance is passed it made the landlords responsible for tenant behavior. She asked the City Attorney to address that. Mr. Scott stated that this ordinance dealt with the enforcement of the property maintenance code. Anything the tenant did that would cause damage that violated the property maintenance code would go back to the owner, but other things that might go on at the rental property and that the tenant might or might not do, would not be impacted by this ordinance. That could come up in many different contexts, such as loud parties or creation of a nuisance, the tenant would remain liable for those. This just dealt with a situation where as now, the property owner is responsible for making sure the rental property complied with the property maintenance code. This was simply setting up a regular inspection to see if that was happening. It was a mechanism for inspection and didn't change any of the responsibility between the tenant and the property owner. Mayor Jacobs asked if something such as gutters were deteriorated would be treated different under this ordinance than if they saw a single-family owner-occupied home with - - - -a bad-gutter or-torn off screen? Mr.-Camilon replied it wouldn't be treated differently; it was part of the property maintenance code, that it be maintained. Larry Kirchner, 1300 Melrose Ave., stated that in the study conducted 15 years ago, the conclusion arrived at by both tenants and landlords was that the tenants were opposed to the ordinance. He supported comments made earlier about tenant behavior and recalled a situation with a tenant who, despite good references, had turned his property into a trash house. As a result of that experience he tried to do a better job of screening and monitoring. He suggested that a committee be formed again with homeowners, landlords, tenants and staff to reconsider the ordinance. He was not comfortable with the fees and felt the would have greater impact on persons who rented out more units. Council Meeting Minutes -5- November 1, 2004 Richard Eaton, 4701 16th St. W, stated that he didn't understand why a condo association or town house association would be exempt because they have a controlling authonty He owned a duplex and was the controlling authority. Since correction notices were already being issued to rental properties when problems occurred, he did not understand wy an additional $75 should be required for a licensing program David Estenson, 3324 Xylon Av. S, stated he was offended as a rental property owner for the City to say that because rental properties exist, they were more prone to being run down and needed to be inspected. He believed people were prone to complain about homes when the property owner wasn't living there and that owner-occupied homes should be inspected as well. Mary Ann Lavoie, 5712 York Av., noted when they were talking about responsibility, she didn't think it was fair for owners to be responsible for the tenants. She also noted that owner-occupied people were not as responsible in many cases as landlords were. She believe inside inspections of rental property were discriminating and destroying the ability of the tenants nght to their property. George Simon, 2668 Inglewood Av. S, indicated that the draft ordinance mailed out had an exemption for dwelling units complying with relative homestead requirements, but that was not in the attachment tonight? Mr. Hoffman replied that the proposed draft that had been sent out for the meeting notice included the exception for relative homestead. Since then, through discussion, that exception was eliminated It would apply to any non-owner-occupied residence even if it carred a relative homestead classification. Mr. Simon stated he lived in his fathers home and treated it just as if it were his own home and maintained it well. He couldn't fathom having inspectors in every two years. Diane Slats, 3529 Zinran Av. S, stated that two homes adjacent to her property were rental properties. They had junk cars and there was no clean up of the yard or maintenance of the property. It had only been rental property for a year, but the landlord didn't come around much. The house behind her on Yukon was a disaster. The tenants had moved from Las Vegas because of medical issues. They were paying $1150/month rent and were now being forced to move out of the property because it was uninhabitable. There were leaking pipes and ceiling tiles falling down at will in the basement. The landlord kept promising to make changes but it never happened. She had never seen the landlord after 14 years until last fall. She saw a lot of first ring suburbs that had gone down the tubes, but she thought St. Louis Park still had a mark of excellence and a lot to be proud of. People needed to be responsible. Councilmember Basill stated he got many calls from people who wouldn't come to the meeting because they felt it would be confrontational, but very concerned about their property and neighborhood. He received a letter from a person who owned her home and said that, "rentals in single residential areas are presenting new and challenging problems for the City." That was something he heard often, many people were concerned about rentals and the upkeep. He had a renter who asked that this be passed, but was afraid to complain about their landlord. There were comments in the staff report from a landlord who said, "The City was doing a good job with inspections," "The City enforces Code and does a good job" "advantages to have the City inspect the rental property: the license fee is tax deductible, inspect to maintain the property value, thinks this program is a good idea." The fee was tax Council Meeting Minutes -6- November 1, 2004 deductible and they didn't have to pass it all along to the residents. There were many ways there could be good stewardship within the community. They had seen a 50% increase in rented homes within the city since 2001 when they stopped the inspection program. That happened because of the value of the location and of the single-family homes in the community. No matter how they looked at the numbers, the number of complaints on rental units and non-owner-occupied units was higher than they had on homes that were owner- occupied. They budget money for Inspections staff and because they were having a higher amount of complaints and problems with non-homesteaded properties, the single families were subsidizing them because they were spending more time on the non-homestead properties. They had 7,000 rental properties and 6,200 got inspected now because they were multi-family units. 780 that were one or two family homes are not inspected and getting preferential treatment. He didn't want the police spending a lot of time having to chase down peoples tenants, there was some landlord responsibility. They were running it as a business and needed to make sure the business was run well so that their police department could concentrate on real emergencies. When other businesses had a lot of issues and police there on a regular basis, they had worked with those business owners to clean it up. They didn't want to do the job of a good landlord and didn't want the police department doing the job of a good landlord, they wanted the owners of the properties making sure they had solid leases and were dealing with those issues. The complaints on rental properties were higher and when he looked at this and asked what the nght thing to do was, the non-owner occupied houses had a higher complaint percentage and because of that they needed to approve this. He had a call from a person living next to rental properties who was ready to retire and had real estate agents tell them they would take a$20-25,000 hit because of the rental properties. That was not being fair. It was allowing someone to run a business and make money at a neighbors expense. He was supporting this ordinance. Councilmember Finkelstein noted that the number of rental homes had more than doubled in the last ten years. Mr. Hoffman indicated since 2001 the number of rental single family dwellings that were identified as non-homestead had gone up about 50%. Councilmember Finkelstein stated no matter how they calculated this, they were still several times more likely to have a correction notice for a rental home than they were for an owner- occupied home. They were dealing with a first ring suburb and a majority of homes were built between World War H and 1960. They took a lot of careful maintenance and many landlords had done an extraordinary job, but some haven't. That was seen in the number of correction notices, even if they took aside the two garbage cans that were left out. Pnor to 2001 they had an even more intrusive inspection going on because every time they changed a tenant, they would need a City inspection. This was much less intrusive. He had been a landlord outside of St. Louis Park and knew it was difficult and they couldn't pre-judge tenants. It was one of the hardest things to get rid of difficult tenants. He believed this program was good for the tenants, good for the neighbors and good for the landlords by keeping up property values and he believed it was good for the City. It was part of their stewardship program. Councilmember Sanger supported the program and agreed with Councilmember Basil' and Finkelstein's comments. One of the speakers raised the question of who was being protected by this ordinance? This was not an ordinance aimed at just the protection of tenants or just at landlords. This was an ordinance aimed at the protection of the entire community and was no different than any of the other housing inspection and property maintenance programs. The goal of which wasn't just aimed at any one particular home it was aimed at keeping the entire community in good shape. They needed to work hard to keep first ring suburbs from going Council Meeting Minutes -7- November 1, 2004 downhill and people liked it there because they had strong housing. This situation has been compounded by a trend in the last couple of years. Not only has the number of rental homes been skyrocketing, but they get a report every month about who buys property and it was obvious that another trend was that homes were being bought, not by individuals who may own a home here or there, but by large corporations who may not even be in Minnesota and buying homes as an investment. Large corporations and the absentee landlords would have less incentive to keep the homes up because they had no connection to the neighbors and the neighborhood. They didn't even know what was going on at these houses because they were not here to look. Her belief was that some of those at the meeting were the "cream of the crop" and very responsible landlords, not the people in general who owned the houses that they got complaints about. They receive a lot of complaints about rental properties and about their lack of attention and neglect by the landlords, particularly corporate landlords. Those are the problems this proposed ordinance was aimed at minimizing. This was no different from licensing any other business. They owned the properties as an investment and were running them as a business. The margins might be thin, but they owned these properties because the values were appreciating every year in St. Louis Park and they may get profits when they sold the homes Like any other business they needed to be licensed and they needed to do inspections to make sure that they met the property maintenance standards They also had problems with owner-occupied houses and she received many complaints about those as well They are held to the same property maintenance standards. Just because they were not included in this ordinance didn't mean that they didn't get a lot of attention for keeping those houses up and didn't meant that perhaps there shouldn't be other programs addressed to them They had talked about repeating the drive by inspections program in the future on an on-going basis. That was a different issue and didn't negate the need to do this with rental properties. She wasn't clear why they were exempting condos and townhouses. That was something they should look at in the future to add them, but she thought they should start here. Councilmember Santa also supported the ordinance and agreed with the other Councilmembers. She noted the Cnme Free Multihousing Program available for apartment buildings, she had talked to managers and owners of small apartment buildings who had taken advantage of that program and found it very helpful to find problems before they got bigger. They could address problem tenants sooner in the process. Also, the information and education for owners and tenants was a value. It was a start to good education. She heard several people talk about a prior task force of single and duplex owners who got together and met and talked with tenants and how valuable that was and she would like to see that started again. She would like to see the Inspections Department play a role in having that happen and include other programs so that better communication could happen between landlords and tenants and deal with issues before they got out of hand. She heard a lot of complaints about rental housing and also-about owner-occupied houses The-main difference was-that they knew where to find the owner when it was owner-occupied and had a person they could deal with. With a rental property, they had to track down an owner and it took a lot more time, was more irritating for the neighbors and problems tended to grow. Councilmember Velick commented that she believed those at the meeting were the responsible landlords. The City appreciated it and appreciated the concerns they brought forward. Much of the discussion had been helpful and would perhaps lead further to a task force. She received a lot of calls. When you can't reach a landlord and neighbors are complaining about parties and other issues of reckless endangerment for the neighborhood such as cars all over and trash, the police had spent hours of time trying to Council Meeting Minutes -8- November 1, 2004 track down this landlord. That was not right and not fair. She supported this ordinance and thought it was a good start. Mayor Jacobs stated he had been on both sides of this. He had owned his own house for many years and had owned rental property in St. Louis Park and in Minneapolis. He knew what the landlords were talking about. He has had his house inspected many times and was very thankful for it once because they came out on a change of tenancy and found out that the transite flue had plugged and if the tenants had turned the furnace on they would have had a problem with carbon dioxide back-up. From his perspective he was very happy that the inspection had occurred. Did he regard the inspections as a bit of a pain? At that point he did, but in retrospect he thought it may have been far more valuable to go out and deal with the housing improvements that had to be made, one of which was the transite flue. They knew there were single-family homes in bad shape, but the percentage of complaints they were getting on rental homes was higher and therefore a problem to be taken care of. Ultimately they had a community problem that needed to be addressed. He expected that most of the additional fee would be passed on to the tenants. When he was renting his homes, one of the things the tenants were looking for was not dust price, but they were looking for the quality of the home. This took care of a community wide problem The cost may have some impact on the ability to rent to some tenants, but it would result in a community wide benefit, not dust to the tenants but for the community in general. Ultimately what they were aiming for was to have no more of the pictures that were shown in the presentation. They were working on single-family owner occupied houses as well. This was a logical extension of a long-standing program in place for the multi-family housing. He understood there were additional costs and potentially some hassles, but he didn't think the dire consequences as predicted would occur. The benefits would far outweigh the costs and he said that having been both a homeowner as well as a rental landowner. Ms. Burton asked how many tenants were informed of this? Mr. Hoffman replied it was in the Park Perspective that was mailed last month to all residents. There was also an article in the Sun Sailor. Mr. Eaton asked if anyone had a break down of the number of violations for someone such as himself with an owner-occupied duplex versus non owner-occupied? Mayor Jacobs was unsure. Councilmember Velick stated that the lists that they received monthly showed that corporations were in increasing numbers buying properties in St. Louis Park. Mr. Eaton stated if that was the problem and they didn't know where they were, couldn't there be a fourth exemption for owner-occupied duplexes? Everyone on the Council said that they didn't know where those people were for non owner-occupied properties. He was right there, it was the same as an owner-occupied single house, he just happened to have two houses. This was not a business, the only reason he purchased a duplex was because he could count that rental income as income to be able to afford the place. Mayor Jacobs indicated they could get more information upon second reading. Mr. Hoffman noted that they could prepare that information for Council. Council Meeting Minutes -9- November 1, 2004 Mayor Jacobs believed that was a good point if the landlord did not live on the property and they were having a greater percentage of problems as a result, that may not hold true. He would be interested in looking at that. Mr. Johnson asked about the comment of the landlords being unreachable. How would this ordinance find those landlords? Councilmember Sanger replied that part of the issue was that sometimes they didn't even know who the landlords were. As part of the licensing they had to give contact information with a phone number and Email. That was a start in the nght direction Councilmember Basill thought what made the difference was even if they couldn't track them down, they were assured under this program that the house had been inspected within the last two years and had been brought up to code. It would help because they would have been in the property and made sure it was being maintained. Ms. Burton asked what the vacancy rate was on these properties? Mr. Hoffman replied the City didn't have that information. It was moved by Councilmember Sanger, seconded by Councilmember Finkelstein, to approve first reading of an ordinance amending Chapter 8, subdivision VIII for rental housing and set 2nd reading for Monday November 15, 2004. A speaker in the audience stated that she had owned properties since the 1980's and had one inspection through the years. It was not about the$75, it was about what they found and the $5,000 it cost her to fix things. They were petty things that all added up. It was already a tough business and hard to get tenants Mayor Jacobs replied he was aware of that. His transite flue cost about $800, but that was nothing compared to what it would have cost him if one of the tenants had died in that house Councilmember Basill asked upon second reading that they look at the concern and statistics about owner-occupied duplexes. The motion passed 7-0. A member of the audience asked to view the complaints. It was noted it was public information with the exception of the complainant. Mr. Scott suggested a formal request be made to the City for that information 8b. Parking Distance from Driveways and Alleys and Self-propelled Wheeled Devices Sgt. Drier presented the staff report. Councilmember Velick asked what it was before the change. Sgt. Dner replied there was no number. Councilmember Finkelstein stated that there was a discussion in the study session that it was 15 feet from the center median and was difficult to figure out. Sgt. Drier completed the staff report. , Council Meeting Minutes -10- November 1, 2004 Councilmember Santa indicated she had a question brought to her about the self- propelled wheeled devices and if this meant that kids could not use their skateboards or inline skates on the trails as they currently did? Sgt. Drier replied it would not prohibit them. Responsible use was allowed. Councilmember Basill asked for further clarification if someone was inline skating on the way to a trail and had to go through a public area was that OK? Sgt. Dner replied that was OK,Just that it be responsible use. Councilmember Omodt indicated he used to live by the high school and the complaints were skateboarders on the steps Police would chase them away and they would keep coming back and nothing would happen. He didn't think skateboarding was a crime, but when people were not being responsible it was hard on the neighbors because of the noise and traffic. They had a skate park, but neighbors were still complaining about the kids and the skateboards. Would they be able to enforce that now if they were not being responsible? Sgt. Drier replied yes it would. If it was posted at the high school, "No Skateboarding" then they could do something about it. They could always do something about the noise and curfew and other related issues with the behavior. Councilmember Omodt stated that he spent a lot of time at the Rec Center and they have a beautiful skate park on the East side by the public art and there are always kids skateboarding and inline skating there. He had talked to the maintenance staff and they were sick of sending the kids away because they wouldn't go the 100 yards to the skate park. Were they also going to start enforcing that. It has ruined the concrete in that area. He would like to see the City go after that because it was a nuisance and it was ruining their property. Sgt. Drier replied she had talked with Cindy Walsh about this specifically because they had posted "No Skateboarding" at the front of the Rec Center along the fire lane and they subsequently take the signs down, which was vandalism and theft. They had discussed ways to deal with that. Councilmember Finkelstein noted that the definition of a wheelchair didn't affect devices such as a wheelchair operated by a disabled person, bicycles, wagons or strollers. There are some devices that are self-propelled that are not wheelchairs have a battery underneath such as a Cushman vehicle. Would wheelchair cover that or did they need to add the words, "or similar machine"? Mr. Scott replied that they needed to be careful with similar machines because there were some other non self-propelled vehicles. They could look at that for second reading and consider a definition of wheel chair Mayor Jacobs stated he had been at the Rec Center and seen kids in front and staff had made them move and when the police had made them move and within 15 minutes they showed up again. It was not a good solution to have them do that in front of the building. This was a good ordinance and they had talked about putting an obstacle or two near the skate park so the kids that wanted to do that would have somewhere or put them in parks around town. Part of the purpose in building the skate park was so skateboarders, in line and trick skaters and bikers would have a place to do that. The damage doesn't look good and he was concerned someone would get hurt. Council Meeting Minutes -11- November 1, 2004 It was moved by Councilmember Santa, seconded by Councilmember Omodt, to approve 1" reading and set second reading for November 15, 2004 amending the Ordinance Code for changing the parking distance from driveways and alleys and regulating the use of self-propelled wheeled devices. The motion passed 7-0. 9. Communications Mr Harmening stated that there would be a post office built in St. Louis Park to replace the Elmwood branch that was located near Beltline and 36th Street. The new post office was being built at Raleigh and 36th Street,just to the West. The buildings have been demolished and he would expect they would have permits soon and plan to have construction done by spnng. It would be a retail walk up facility as well as annex distribution facility. Councilmember reminded people to vote. Mayor Jacobs stated it was critical to vote. People could register at the polls He thanked the City Clerk staff and election judges for their hard work over the past few weeks and months on the election Mayor Jacobs indicated that the St. Louis Park football team had a playoff game on Saturday, but most of the team was involved that morning participating in senior chore day along with members of the Rotary clubs. They had a very important football game, yet they were out helping senior citizens do chores all morning. He was very proud of the job they had done. Councilmember Finkelstein thanked John Thang who set that up. Volunteers like that make this a great place to live. 10. Adjournment The meeting adjourned at 10:15 p.m I %. City Clerk May•r