West St. Paul City Council chambers

City Council Preview: Nov. 9, 2020

We provide these West St. Paul City Council previews with your support.

The big news for Monday’s City Council meeting is that City Manager Ryan Schroeder is retiring. Other topics include a public hearing for the Moreland Avenue reconstruction and park improvements.

Standard COVID-19 disclaimer: Limited audience, wear a mask, overflow crowd can watch in the lobby. All meetings are broadcast online and on cable TV. Public comments will be in-person and via call-in.

City Manager Retirement

Schroeder came out of retirement to fill in as interim city manager in 2017, so it’s not entirely surprising that he’s retiring now. Much of his work has focused on stabilizing city finances after the Robert Street project, and there’s a solid plan in place. The Council will discuss the process and potentially the timeline during the Open Council Work Session on Monday. Schroeder says that he’ll stay on until his replacement is found.

What’s on the Agenda?

  • Moreland Ave.: The big road construction project next year is Moreland Avenue, and the public hearing for the project is the main item on the agenda. Affected homeowners are looking at a $7,400 assessment.
  • Park improvements: With a lot of park dedication funds coming in from development, the Council will discuss park improvement options during the OCWS. Pickleball and a skate park are mentioned, though the price tag for a skate park is high ($300,000 to $500,000). (The Parks & Recreation Committee will be discussing the skate park idea at their next meeting.)
  • Pond survey & Mud Lake: City staff have completed a survey of the city’s 42 ponds and during the OCWS Council will discuss treatment options and specific improvements for Mud Lake.
  • Fundraising plan: OCWS will also cover coming up with a plan for outside fundraising. This is an idea that’s often thrown around, but there’s never been a specific plan for who’s going to ask for money and how that would work.
  • Proclamation: November will be recognized as Native American Heritage Month.

The public can watch the meeting live on Town Square TV or cable channel 18 starting at 6:30 p.m. on Monday (5 p.m. for the OCWS meeting).

If you’re not able to attend the meeting in person, you can always use our coloring pages to imagine you’re there.

Keep City Council previews and recaps coming by supporting West St. Paul Reader.

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. Log Out /  Change )

Twitter picture

You are commenting using your Twitter account. Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. Log Out /  Change )

Connecting to %s