Discussion of Winter Activity on Neighborhood Ponds, Pawnshop Moratorium on Council Agenda

When the Oakdale City Council Tuesday, Feb. 8, for a workshop meeting at 5:45 p.m. and regular meeting at 7 p.m., it will consider a number of items including:

• What kind of activity is allowed on neighborhood ponds. One neighborhood has shoveled off a pond on a city outlot and installed hockey nets and lights for nighttime skating, according to a staff report. A neighbor complained about noise and the lights, the report says. The city received another complaint about someone snowshoeing on Armstrong Lake—saying the snowshoer was trampling the reeds and destroying the pheasants’ habitat, according to the report. City staff has asked the City Council how to respond to these complaints, and it is on the council’s workshop agenda.
• Requiring a storm shelter at Twenty Nine Pines mobile home park. Currently, the park recommends residents go off site and seek shelter somewhere else during a tornado, according to a staff report. A letter from a lawyer for the park notes that a number of nearby businesses, churches and schools as well as the Oakdale Discovery Center all rejected requests from the mobile home park—located at 6450 Highway 36 Boulevard—to be a shelter in case of a storm. The issue is on the council’s workshop agenda.
• Ratifying a contract with the public works union. The contract for 2011-2012 includes a 1.5 percent and 2 percent pay increase respectively, according to a staff report. The issue is on the council’s regular meeting agenda.
• Enacting a one-year moratorium on giving business licenses, zoning approval or building permits to pawnshops. Until recently, the city had no pawn shops, according to a report from the city attorney. There is now one shop open in Oakdale, Twin Cities Pawn, one shop in the application process, maX it PAWN, and another shop that has expressed interest in coming into Oakdale, according to the report. The city would use the time to conduct a study on appropriate locations for pawnshops based on existing uses, according to a staff report. This issue is on the council’s regular meeting agenda.
• Requesting state bonding money for the planned veteran’s memorial at . The city would request capital bonding money from the state to cover 50 percent of the project’s cost, or $50,000. This is on the council’s regular meeting agenda.