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Life Editor

Homeowners living near the recently opened Lakeside Commons Park public beach met last week with Blaine city leaders and presented a list of complaints.

The nearly hour-long workshop after the Blaine City Council’s July 15 meeting prompted action to address immediate after-hours noise and public safety concerns.

Four residents spoke during the workshop.

Discussion became heated among council members regarding the need for speed in addressing the residents’ comments about noise, garbage, swimmers going outside the roped areas or staying after 8 p.m. closing and swimmers jumping off a nearby street bridge.

The Lakeside Commons Park Beach is scheduled to remain open from June through Labor Day.

The beach and splash pad hours are 11 a.m. to 8 p.m.

Boathouse hours are noon to 6 p.m. and include kayak, canoe rentals and concessions.

Picnic shelter and playground hours are from 5 a.m. to 10 p.m.

Residents sound off

Dean Hanson, 2991 122nd Court N.E., owns Hanson Builders, one of the companies that builds homes in 1,080-acre private development

“I’m trying to make a big ruckus at the point,” Hanson said. “I’m just trying to see if there someway to work things out. If you don’t live there and don’t see how things are unfolding, The objective here tonight is to try and help the city council understand what problems are starting to be created at the beach.”

Hanson told the council rules governing beach use aren’t being followed and enforcement was lax.

During the workshop, Joe Stepanek, 2967 122nd Court N.E., presented videos that showed recent beach overcrowding.

“You actually need to be there to experience it,” he said. “Some of our concerns are about safety. The beach is about 100 yards long and 25 yards deep.”

Swimming safely?

According to Stepanek on a hot, calm day, with hundreds of people at the beach, water quality in the lake and the safety of the children who are in the actual swim area are concerns.

Hanson offered a more dramatic example.

“We would have three dead children out there [recently] if they had not been rescued by my son and one other couple,” he said.

Hanson told the council one of the swimmers was literally screaming for help and going down for the third time by the time his son arrived with a kayak.

“Something needs to be done as far as enforcing the rules,” he said. “They are not supposed to swim outside of the ropes. They swim to private property and onto beaches and docks.”

Council observation

Councilmember Mike Bourke said he was with Stepanek Thursday at the beach and witnessed two people swimming in the middle of the lake.

Stepanek said one group tipped over in a kayak, came onto his beach, climbed onto the dock and broke off several mounted lights.

“The ironic thing was my wife saw them, they picked up the lights, and put them into my boat and swam off. So you have people who are trespassing and they don’t care,” Stepanek said.

Bourke said he did an informal poll of beach and park users and many said they were coming from outside the city limits. Bourke also addressed parking.

“One of the concerns I have is the overflow parking. How does that fit into our zoning? It’s not blacktopped,” he said. “Being out there, it’s a great place for families and small kids, but I think what we have to do it make the beach an asset, not a liability. That’s what I would like to see us do.”

Park a work in progress

Mayor Tom Ryan said the Lakeside Commons Park and its beach were still a work in progress as far as ironing out ordinance revisions and city code changes.

“The problem is, since we calculated parking, you don’t know who is walking and who is driving. I’ve seen them come all the way over from Radisson Road.”

Councilmember Katherine Kolb said when plans for the park and beach were presented to the council back in 2007, she thought there wasn’t enough parking.

“We’ve had that discussion for a long time,” Kolb said. “I really don’t have a problem with closing down parking, but if we do that, we’ll see a street impact.”

Councilmember Wes Hovland said if the city added full-time patrols for extra policing, it would require a huge, overall cost taxpayers to provide that service.

Behavior comments

Jennifer Campbell lives at 2951 122nd Court N.E.  

“We have two young children at home,” she told the council. “A lot of times, I’m closing my windows and my youngest is napping and it’s so loud, I cannot open windows. I’m not letting my nine-year-old  go over there, because there are teenagers saying F-this and F-that. It’s coming across the lake.”

Mike Ryan lives at 12199 Dunkirk St. N.E. “I’m the jump enforcer,” Ryan said. “I’m out there kicking kids off the bridge all the time. It’s a safety issue.”

Recently one afternoon, Ryan said his wife was out on the deck and saw a group girls on the bridge, One girl yelled, “Be careful, it’s not very deep here.”

Ryan said the girl hit bottom, which is only five feet deep. “I never call police,” he said. “I probably should. It’s a pain in the butt, because they take forever to get there.”

Stepanek said getting rid of the overflow parking and enforcing the posted park and beach hours would help alleviate some residents more recent concerns.

Bourke agreed, continuing to hammer the point about the overflow parking area to the east. He suggested putting up a gate to block access to the dirt lot.

More council discussion

Councilmember Dave Clark disagreed with Bourke about the most important and serious problem since the new beach and park opened in May.

“The more serious problem is kids swimming across the lake. That’s a life and death issue. I don’t think the business community needs that kind of publicity,” Clark said.

“Our original assumption was we can staff this beach without any lifeguards. That was a bad assumption. I don’t think we need the lifeguards, but can we get somebody in a boat to tell swimmers to turn around and go back? We’ve got to find a way to stop the kids from endangering themselves.”

Clark also suggested a beach user fee to pay for extra enforcement. When he asked park users, a number said they would not mind paying $5 for parking.

Solutions sought

“This has become a very overcrowded little piece in Blaine,” Dean told the council. “We have to figure out to make it so it’s an enjoyable experience. People in the neighborhoods around us, they won’t even go to the beach anymore because it’s a bunch of wild kids. You can get 200 cars in that parking overflow.”

Kolb wanted to address residents’ comments about police response. She urged residents to call every time they saw someone climbing up on the bridge.

Blaine Police Chief Chris Olson said his department was working to address residents’ concerns about police response times.

“We do understand that the two different closing times for the park and beach have been a point of confusion within our department,” he said. “I will admit that right now. Our park patrol is monitoring 30 different parks. We can suggest patrols make visits between 8 p.m. and 9 p.m. to get out there and shoo the people off the beach.”

Working out a process

Councilmember Dick Swanson said the city council should establish a process to deal with the beach and park problems.

He suggested having City Manager Clark Arneson and Olson determine a short-term enforcement plan for the next week or so while the council could address other issues.

Swanson also wanted  the Blaine Park Board to get involved in the process. Arneson said the enforcement and little issue could be addressed quickly, but parking was longer-term.

Jim Kappelhoff, park and recreation director, said the Lakeside Commons Park issues would be put on the Blaine Park Board’s July 27 agenda for review.

“What we do have in place at the beach is a park attendant who is there from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. selling concessions and renting watercraft.” Kappelhoff said. “That person also has a megaphone and when he has an opportunity to supervise, he does that. He calls to people who are swimming beyond the ropes.”

Clark contended the most immediate concern was for the city to get someone out on the lake to prevent swimmers from endangering themselves.

He was joined by Councilmember Russ Herbst in disagreeing with Swanson’s point about working a process first.

Suggested actions

“We know what the problem is. We don’t have to try and develop the exact solution tonight,” Swanson said.

Clark replied: “I disagree with you. Short-term means the end of September. It doesn’t mean a week.”

Hovland asked City Attorney Thomas Sweeney if the city would face liability issues moving forward with a plan to have an employee do beach enforcement.

Sweeney said if that were the case, the city would face an obligation if something happened at the beach.

He based his opinion on information provided by the League of Minnesota Cities Insurance Trust.

Arneson then asked for direction from the council regarding the issues presented by the four residents.

Direction to council

Clark replied, “The consensus is we want you and your staff to figure out a way to enforce it to prevent the swimming across the lake, jumping off the bridge, deal with the trash issue, and then we want to run the parking and capacity issues to the park board.”

Clark also suggested cutting overflow parking in half.

Ryan also reminded the council to consider what would happen when buildings started going into the commercial development next to the park and beach.

“This is not a city staff problem. We created this,” Ryan said, referring to the 2007 council’s approval of a conditional use permit by Main Street 1000 LLC.

Arneson reviewed the three-pronged approach suggested by the council.

“My qualifier on increased enforcement and own personal belief is that a 16-year-old who is running the concession shop is not going to be taken seriously,” he said. “We are going to need a uniformed person out there. That will take additional resources, that aren’t in the budget.”

Arneson said staff would have come back to council with a budget amendment and staffing plan to cover that action.

Day After Analysis

Ryan was asked after the meeting why he allowed residents to speak during a council workshop.

Such meetings are open to the public and interested persons can attend, but it’s normal council procedure not to receive public input because city leaders and staff are in a work session.

Ryan said the nature of the residents’ concerns, namely a serious public safety issue that needing action, prompted him to allow comment at the July 15 meeting.

Arneson said last Friday that city staff responded to the council directives and resident suggestions presented the night before.

For example, Arneson said the rope barriers marking the parking overflow area would be adjusted.

Additional enforcement would be provided by the Blaine Park Patrol, a community service officer and a uniformed Blaine Police Department officer.

The park and beach would be monitored for after-hours activity, Arneson said.

Last Friday afternoon around 4 p.m., groups of teenagers and families were seen leaving the beach, but there was a steady movement of people in the park.

Another resident’s view

Jeff Heimer lives at 12215 North Lake Boulevard in The Lakes.

Last Friday, he stopped at the Lakeside Commons Park concession stand with his 14-year-old nephew, Zach Mikulak, and 11-year-old niece, Ashley Mikulak, who are from Ham Lake.

Heimer has lived in a nearby neighborhood since January 2008.

Heimer said he’s been spending a lot of time in the last five weeks hanging out at the beach. In an e-mail, Heimer had plenty to say about the beach’s impact.

 “There are very few negatives as far as I can tell,” he wrote. “Clearly, the beach has been more popular than anyone could have predicted.”

Heimer did state in his e-mail the beach area was too small and there weren’t enough garbage cans and initial parking, but said those problems were minor as well as fixable.

“I’ve seen police, community service officers and park police every day I’ve been there, and they [the city] deserves credit for that” Heimer said.

Other than some trash left behind at the end of the day, Heimer said he hasn’t seen a single problem on the beach in five weeks of highly regular visits.

“As far as people swimming across the lake, it seems to happen daily and I understand my neighbors’ concerns” he said. “Same goes for bridge jumping.”

According to Heimer, Lakeside Commons Park and its beach have more positives than negatives, and he would trade three months of increased traffic to enjoy the beach, which is less than a five-minute walk from his home.

“The crowds are amazingly diverse, and nearly everyone, of every age, every size and every nationality seems to be having a genuinely good time,” Heimer said.

“ I can hear the sounds coming from the beach only if I’m on my front porch or only if my windows are open. If it’s hot, everyone has their windows closed when the beach is packed, so noise is not a real problem. Trash is not a big issue.”

Police provide update

Last last week, Olson was asked to provide a summary of complaint calls the Blaine Police Department had received since the new Lakeside beach opened.

According to Olson, since May, police have received approximately 24 calls-for-service. He reported in an e-mail that 15 of those calls were of them are related to after-hours complaints of people on the beach or in the park after the respective closing times.

Olson said the remainder of the complaint calls represented miscellaneous calls reporting people jumping from the bridge near the park, vehicle lockouts, a theft from an automobile and a boat usage inquiry.


Tim Hennagir is at This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it