I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> All right. Thanks for being here
tonight, everybody. Looking at changes to the agenda. And if we don't have any changes, we would entertain a motion to approve tonight's agenda as printed. >> I'll make that motion. >> We'll second. We have a motion by Robin, second by Rick to approve the agenda.
Any further discussion? Hearing none. All in favor, please state I. >> I. >> Anyone opposed, state no. Agenda is approved. Guests in open form. Is there anybody here tonight to address the city council? All right, we will move on to number
six, committee reports, presentations, and awards. EDA is up first. >> EDA met on Monday, January 12th. Um our our main issue that night was the uh housing study RFP, and that's on our
agenda, item 7C tonight. And we also had a monthly market update. 20 homes for sale in the zip code, four sold in the last 30 days. That is all I have. >> All right. Any questions for Robin?
We will move on to budget and finance committee. >> Budget and finance met last Thursday the 15th. Um we talked about the Edgewood Drive reconstruction and looked at the financing options. That is also on our
agenda tonight. 7B, we talked about the Luan Drive development. That's in our exec session tonight. Uh we reviewed our investments and uh reviewed past two utilities 60 days plus at about 16,500 and we
reviewed all the standard financials. All right. Any questions for Robin on budget and finance? So, now we'll move on to public works committee. >> Public works, uh, we met last Wednesday. Um, the street and parks supervisor, uh,
candidate has been accepted. It's on our agenda, uh, tonight. Um, street improvement projects, Edgewood, uh, that's there again, it's on our agenda tonight.
uh wastewater the u water system evaluation report uh Chris will be bringing that up in the exact session I believe and um Phil will be bringing up uh
the uh the streets and also the right of use. Is that what it's called, Phil? Okay, that's it. Okay, any questions for Mike? We'll move on to police management committee. Police management, we met uh
last Friday, 0700 for anybody uh want um that's how we roll. Um we had a uh we had a staffing update. um running uh little thin on uh staff right now with um you know between the the hiring of the um positions later this year and
then we have one on medical leave right now and but um uh not uh um we're not we're not not serving but it's just it's harder for officers to get uh um PTO and stuff. So um but you know obviously we still we still have coverage though. Um
the uh community uh engagement uh that the chief had here uh recently, we just had an update on that. Um that went over well. The uh uh let's see, talked a little bit about some uh quotes for um the uh the radio coverage uh some of the
um the for the for the police department radios. Um there's some coverage gaps uh within here. So um talked about uh getting some quotes to um have some folks come out for that. Um, also talked about the uh the emergency response um
like a JPA. Uh that's that's needed. It's it's kind of the county's um call it a version of a SWAT um is probably the easiest way to think of it. So um but they do require a separate JPA in order to do that. So we uh looked at that. Um we had some other uh um just
discussion items. And then uh as far as u we talked also about the uh um the the possibly amendment to the fee schedule coming up too. Um and then uh statistics uh slightly down from last year. Uh still still really close but slightly
down from last year so far. Um and then uh just our meeting schedule. Um just looking to possibly move to an every other month uh meeting just because um we've had just so we don't have uh the you know a meeting right now we're meeting quarterly and you know we can get a lot of items on there. So just
talk about moving to every other month so we can get uh a little bit shorter agendas. So that was about it. All right. Any questions for Rick on police management? All right. We'll move on to number seven board committee and consultant reports.
Up first Mr. Mr. Kudson with the property right of entry transfer and maintenance agreement resolution 2607. >> That was good timing. I was able to make it up here. So, >> I like that. >> I got to have those long uh titles. Uh good evening, mayor and council. Um in
front of you tonight, we've got a resolution that uh we're looking for to grant us right of entry uh transfer and maintenance agreement with Jimmy and Dana Williams. Uh backstory on the project. Um we this year we're we're working with the county. So, the county has got a project that's going to uh
work on uh uh County Road 23 from Park View uh out of town past the the community or the uh city park. Uh with that, we're looking at redoing Edgewood Street from 23 all the way to Highway 10. Uh we're working on the the uh
intersection uh to make some improvements there. That's being led by the county. Um but as we're looking at Edgewood as well, there's a new trail that's going to go north of Edgewood out uh just past City Park. Um, as we looked at this, uh, one of the things that's been a hurdle for quite some time is the
intersection of Edgewood. As you approach, uh, Easterly towards, uh, Conroe 23, the sightelines are not very favorable. Uh, and it's been a a tough situation. So, um, I approached the the Williams family uh, probably 6 months ago, maybe a little bit longer uh, than
that. Uh I've had some really good conversations with with uh uh Jimmy on what we could do over there to try and create a sight triangle uh for that property. So as you're approaching the stop sign on 23 uh especially when you're looking south uh towards town if we could open that area up. There's a
lot of underbrush there. There's several trees in that area. Um he's got a storage uh shed there as well. Uh so the proposal that's in front of you tonight that we worked out was to look to move that shed a little bit closer towards their property, clear out a lot of that
underbrush, and then in exchange for access and and maintenance, we would put up a vinyl fence that would be three-sided fence that would uh give them privacy, but would also uh open that up. So, if you're a pedestrian or a biker on the trail or a vehicle on the
street, uh you you'd open up those sightelines. And um I think it's a pretty favorable uh for the city. It it uh solves a huge community need. Uh with the county, we've addressed the the Edgewood Trail, I'm sorry, the 23 trail
from Park View to Edgewood. Uh you're riding in the ditch. The the trail on Edgewood is is primarily in the ditch the whole way. Uh but with that, the new uh scope of work will bring that trail up on grade uh sooner. So the again the the pedestrians and bikers will be uh at
grade level uh quicker so they're not coming out of the ditch right at the intersection. Uh along with that uh we'll work through the drainage uh components. If we need to put a a collection point there and get it underneath Edgewood as we transfer that water to the golf course, we'll do that as well. Uh there is a decent ditch over
there right now, but the commitment to the property owner is is we'll transfer no water onto their property. We'll collect it all and deal with it appropriately, not leaving it in the ditch, getting it away if we need to. So, all of that being said, I would like to get a props to to Jimmy and and Dana.
Uh they've been really good to work with. It was a a little tough uh there there was some issues uh prior um with with some lilocks and and some things that maybe wasn't done right, but we've worked through that and and they've been uh very responsive and and very respectful understanding this is a big
uh community need and uh I think it's uh very favorable. So, um with that, I'd look for movement on resolution uh 2607. Uh one thing on that, the the the hard dollars on this public work staff is going to do most of the work. the hard
dollars cost for the fence and and everything associated with that is about $6,500. I'm I am asking for $10,000 because there's one big oak tree. If we take that down, we might hire a contractor to pull that down because of all the power lines and the roadways and all of that stuff. I don't want to put
my guys in harm's way to to do that. So, that would be the overall ask tonight. And uh the timing of this uh the commitment we're making to the Williams family is is we're not going to open that area up and leave it sit for 2 months. So, we got to see what the timing of the county project is because they're doing that trail work. So, it
this may be midsummer, it may be fall. Uh the commitment is we'll we'll make sure that Jimmy and Dana know exactly what we're doing and when we're doing it. Our goal would be to remove those uh the the underbrush and and stuff like that on a Monday or Tuesday so we can start setting fence panels right away yet that week. So, their their privacy
is is is limited to being exposed for a few days. So, I think we can do that. um our staff can handle most of this stuff and uh we'll make sure surveyors get out there, we get everything, you know, positioned properly and and make it go. So, the big thing is is we'll commit to them. There is a property just to the
south of them that's got a white uh vinyl fence that's up, just a a shorter fence. That's the type of fence we're looking. It's going to be more of a sand tone that'll match their house and their decor a little bit better, but that's a similar fence that you'll see. So, and with that, I can stand for any questions.
>> All right, any questions for Phil? When would we start? Do we know or we don't know yet? >> I I I don't know that because um I don't know what the county schedule is on that. >> Yep. So, as soon as the county lets us know, I'll let you know right away. >> Beautiful. >> Okay. Okay.
All right. If not, we would look for a motion on resolution 2607, a resolution allowing entry, transfer, and maintenance to the Williams property. >> I make that motion. I'll second >> motion by Mike, second by Becky. Is there any further discussion?
>> I just take this point. Uh Jimmy's here. Thank you, Jimmy. Uh something the community is going to appreciate and it's going to increase the level of safety there immensely and uh we appreciate you and Dana, you know, being willing to uh work with Phil and and get this done. So,
>> you guys know I've been, you know, I've been at my resort, you know, during the summer months, and every time I'd come back, I trim my lilacs back. Mr. Kudson alluded to it. You guys did some stuff to my lilac said and it is what it is. A couple years ago, just being honest, if Dana didn't call
me in last July or whenever that child was hit by a car, I would have still been telling you to pound sand. We'll figure something out. But because that happened, I went, "We got to do something." And when Mr. Kudson told me, "You're going to raise the path in front of, you know, next to my property
because you guys know this, we all know this. You pull up to 23, all a sudden a kid's up. You don't see him and then it's he's right there. >> So I we're more than happy to do this. And I told Mr. Canudson I was just going
to come here to give you That was >> a cobrer lost the post office. >> Well, that's a whole another topic. >> Clark, I'm giving you I've known you a long time. >> Maybe we'll put the post office in the
corner. I'm kidding. I'm just kidding. >> I'm key. You know, we appreciate it. Please tell Dana, too, that that we do appreciate this. >> It's all good. Just you stay in touch with me >> and I I love the fact of what we're doing. I think it's going to help the community and it's really going to help
the silence. >> Yep. For sure. >> Thanks for letting us be a part of it. >> Thank you very much. >> See you guys. >> Right, we had a motion and a second. Is there any further discussion? Hearing none. All in favor, please state I. >> Anyone opposed, state no. Motion carried. Thank you also, Phil. I know
that you worked on that for a very long time and we're very persistent and we appreciate that. This is a a true win-win where citizens are working with government to do the right thing. So happy to do it. So >> awesome. Thank you. Uh letter B MSAS
advanced funding requests. Mr. Kudson again resolution 2604. >> All right. So we're working on Edgewood. Um it's a very complicated project and it's a very large project for the uh for the city. It's our first uh once we reach 5,000 uh people we're we become
state aid qualified and this will be our first state aid project. A whole set of rules that come along with that but there's also a funding source that comes along with that. So uh MSAS has a a program that you can borrow into future years funds and uh tonight in front of
you that's what we're looking to do right now. So, the maximum they'll allow is to go up to five years of your prior year. It's kind of weird because 2026 doesn't count yet. It's not in our bank, but we can't use it as a year and and and borrow 5 years out from that. So, 26 is kind of one of those years,
but what we're looking for tonight is to borrow into those funds. We've already uh sent the initial engineering estimates out there, the the engineered documents of what the project's going to look like. It qualifies for everything. And now the funding that's out there, we're likely to get it, but it's kind of
a first come, first serve. So that's why we're jumping on it as soon as we can tonight and get that funding. So, uh, there's a lot more that's going to go to that, but tonight the the resolution is just going to say you guys are approving and you support the city of Becker reaching out to MSAS to secure advanced
funding for the project. the funds uh the the future funds or advanced funds along with our existing funds are still going to fall short of the project, but we do have other funding mechanisms that we'll look at through our CIP or alternative funding sources. We'll discuss that in full detail once the plans and specs are here. If you guys
approve the project and move it out to bid, we'll have more detail on that and then once we actually get the bid, we'll see have true documents or our true uh engineer costs or bid costs as we go through that. So, tonight there's really no cost to it. We're just saying MSAS,
our city supports asking for these advanced funds and that's what the resolution will cover here tonight. So with that, I can stand for any other questions as well, though. >> Anybody have any questions for Phil on the Edgewood? >> Obviously a needed project. We just are
going to fix the sight line and now we'll take care of the rest of the road and get the trail up where it belongs. >> The trail is part of this as well. So there's going to be on the design work there's uh two sections of that. there'll there will be a an urban section. So from Brenda east, it'll have
curbon gutter on both sides and and uh west of of Brenda, it'll still be that rural section. U be we've we've got more room to uh acquire the drain, but the trail is going to be moved on grade the whole way. >> So with the development that that that
that's being considered uh further west, uh we'll look at what that trail impact would look like and where the crosswalk would be at that depending on where we're we're going with that. But if we if that is incorporated, we'll add that into the design project as well for Edgewood. So we don't have to come we we hate to do something and then in three
or four years tear it up and and have to add to it. So if there's turn lanes or anything like that, we'll we've already addressed that. So >> Okay. >> Nope. So we are looking for a motion on resolution 2604, a resolution requesting advancement of future municipal state
aid construction funds. >> Make that motion. >> Second. We have a motion by Robin, second by Mike. Is there any further discussion? I'd just say to staff, thank you for coming up with this. Uh, it's a really
good funding plan at a nice zero interest rate, which always helps. >> And we can get a project that the community is definitely asking for done. So, all right. Any further discussion?
Hearing none. All in favor, please state I. >> I. >> Anyone opposed, state no. >> Motion's carried. >> Thank you. >> Thank you very much. >> I apologize. I should have let out with 0% interest on the loan. >> That's okay. You just threw it in there. It's always good. All right. Mr. Sanders
has the comprehensive housing study consultant selection with resolution 2606. Thank you, Mayor Councel. For you tonight, we're uh considering the selection of a consultant for the comprehensive housing study. So the last time this was done was in 2019 and the
2019 one was done by Maxville that was kind of piggybacking or 2020 um and it was piggybacking on the county's housing study that they did. So it was more of an executive summary. Uh in the comprehensive plan we do talk about one
of the goals in there is to support a promote increase and promote a variety of housing options to accommodate residents. And one of those action items is to keep a housing study updated. Approximately every 5 years data gets outdated pretty quickly and especially some of this was during COVID and so
it's even more outdated because of that. So we received 12 proposals. One of them was received late so in the RFP that's one of those pretty defined lines. So that one wasn't considered. Um, that's a lot of proposals to receive and I just want to give a shout out to Austin and Karen for their help on going through
those and combing through them to narrow down what we thought was a good field for interviews. So, three firms were selected both in a main career development resources and confluence. Um, and those took place at the EDA. Interviews took place at the EDA on the 12th of this month. So, after
discussion, the EDA ranked them. Redevelopment came in first, Bolton and Mink second, and Confluence third. Um, the reasons redevelopment was considered uh and recommended for this is they have really strong graphic capabilities. Their submitted work examples were well
applicable to really applicable to what we were searching for. They have a lot of expertise and a lot of the TIFF and other um development incentives. They also have real life expertise as realtors, developers, and otherwise. And so for what we're looking for as an actionable document and what they've
produced, um EDA felt that they'd be a good fit. It was noted EDA wanted noted that a close second because there was some back and forth on Bolton and Mink and Redevelopment uh would be Bolton and Mink. So if redevelopment couldn't complete the contract uh that would come
back to you, then Bolton and Mink would be a strong second candidate for this. So you do have somebody that could fill in should redevelopment not be able to complete their work. But again, we we believe they'd be a really good fit as well from the staff side, just based on what we're looking for. And so the if
council chooses to select redevelopment resources, that would come back with a contract at a later date that you would approve um that would lay out the scope of services and kind of the nuts and bolts behind what they would be doing. And so we're looking for a motion in a
second adopting resolution 2606, which would select redevelopment resources to complete that study. And just as a side note too, um 30,000 as a reminder is budgeted in the admin CIP for this project and we were able to we did have
some reach out to some of the consultants that were not selected. They appreciated that. Um a lot of time and effort goes into these for these consultants and so it's the least we can do to to talk to especially the ones that interviewed to talk to them on the phone and explain why they didn't get it. And so a lot of them were
appreciative of that as well. So with that, we're seeking for that motion and second, and I'll stand for any questions. All right. Is there any questions for Jacob? If not, we would entertain a motion for resolution 2606, a resolution selecting
redevelopment resources LLC to complete a comprehensive housing study, needs analysis, and development action plan. >> I'll make that motion. I'll >> second. We have a motion by Becky, second by Rick. Is there any further discussion?
Hearing none. All in favor, please state I. I. >> Anyone opposed, state no. Motion carried. >> Thank you. >> Thank you very much. All right, we're on to the consent agenda. Mr. Larude, >> Cobinger, and city council members. Items for adoption, approval or review
on tonight's consent agenda include the revised hiring and termination report. Chain of the bills. The minutes of the January 6 council meeting, minutes of the January 6 executive session meeting, the minutes of the December 18th budget and finance committee meeting.
Resolution 26-05 accepting a $2,500 donation from the Becker Lions for an AED for the BCC. A app number 15 and final in the amount of $90,000 to Apex Construction Group for the police department city hall project. And I will stand for any
questions. All right. Any questions for Greg on the consent agenda? I >> think I say it every month. Thank you to the Lions. AED at the BAC is a great step. So, thank you Lions.
>> Question. and it is not really that important. But our final pay request on the construction um did we end up above or below the >> I'll have that number for you at the next meeting. We're talking about um Council Hendendrickson brought up the
radio system. The the amplifiers are going to be needed in the PD. We probably have funds left available for that. So, we will get you a final report. >> Yeah. I was just curious how it came in based on >> It did. I believe it came in under what we anticipated. All right. Anyone care to move approval
of the consent agenda? Move approval of the consent agenda as presented. >> Second. >> We have a motion by Rick, second by Mike. Is there any further discussion? Hearing none. All in favor, please state I. >> I. >> Anyone opposed, state no. That consent
agenda is carried. Uh, quick shout out to Chief Limblum and Josh Kua from city staff. They came and presented at career day last Friday at the middle school. I think you survived. >> Okay. Appreciate that very much. Thank
you for being involved. Does anybody else have any additional agenda items for tonight? If not, we'd entertain a motion to adjurnn. >> Make that motion. >> A second. We have a motion by Robin,
second by Rick. All in favor adjourning, please state I. Okay. >> Anyone opposed? State no. Meetings adjourned at 5:24. Thank you everybody. We're going to move into Do you want to just roll with executive? Okay. Let's take a couple minute break.
That's why we >> Oh, the water system. I'm getting more lifesavers. You >> need some? No. I've got a whole bunch. Thank you. >> Okay. >> Well, you got the good ones. >> You like the orange ones? Nobody else does. >> Oh my gosh, I love those. >> I always throw them to Robin. I'm like,
here >> I'll trade you one for one. Little burger system going. >> Yeah. >> Chris, that email I sent. test to see it tonight. I was >> No, it's fine. But it was funny cuz I'm like, "Oh, he'll love this cuz they're used just here." But I'll shoot it out.
>> School made libs a Tik Tok today. >> I could get someone to work with. >> Yeah. >> We >> as soon as I go, >> isn't that sad? any of our like activities and stuff,
>> which I would think that'd be the fun career job. >> Just kidding. >> Oh my god, that was so funny last night though. >> Maybe I do, maybe I don't. >> But yeah, I laughed last night cuz >> why not be at another one?
I don't know. >> Sarah's like, "Come on, Becky." >> She asked me to. >> I got a couple things for a dollar. >> I know. Well, little though. >> Someday. >> Yeah. >> I'm like, I guess last night was
>> I appreciate though. >> Last night was hilarious with all the boys. You forget how boys are chaos. >> Maybe when you need more >> like I appreciate him being here. >> Next time I buy them, I'll buy more of those. I thought I was able. >> I never see them. I mean, I don't like
>> Good to know. >> Oh, me too. So, like my table was out of control. I go, "This is not a race. >> We're going to calm down." So, like four. >> Although that'll get tested this one. >> Yeah. I'm not walking anymore. >> Oh, they're stapling killing my OCD. I'm
like, "No, we're going to fold." >> You're just going. >> That's what she tells Sarah like, "Maybe I'm not Yeah, maybe I'm not good for this." Like, "No, no, no, no, no, no." >> Uhhuh. By the way, yeah, apparently.
>> Yep. That's on you. >> What do you think, Jacob? Are you set? >> Want to go? Yep. Yep. >> All right. We will call the executive meeting January 20, 2026 executive session to order at 5:27
and we're starting out with the Luan Drive Development TIFF discussion. Mr. Sanders is up. Yeah. Thank you, Mayor Council. So, tonight we have with us uh Land and Resources Consulting LLC and True Blue and Mike Kappers. Did I say
that right? >> Yes. >> Yes. Okay, I've said it the other way, too, and I was wrong. So, um, they're here tonight to discuss the Luan development. You've seen, I think most of you have seen, um, a concept previously of this. I'll let them discuss, but the one that you're seeing
tonight is one that staff has worked on a number of changes that we heard from planning commission and some of the other individuals on the development. And so, I'll let them present on it. They'll present kind of at a fairly high level. are just looking to make sure that this development concept is kind of
aligns with what you are expecting to see especially based on the grant application that we submitted previously and received funds for and then um just general kind of direction on submitting for and considering a full tiff application. So I'll let them introduce
themselves and we'll go from there. >> All right, welcome. >> Thank you Mr. Mayor, council members. My name is Todd Ol and I'm with Land and Resource Consulting. We did the drawings basically for the development team. Uh and we appreciate your time and taking a look at this. Um it's going to be
somewhat new in the in the way that we're approaching a private uh public team uh approach on this one. Um I just wanted to walk through the concept a little bit because it really incorporated that team um you know effort up front. Uh we I think you all
saw the uh concept we did. It had one culde-sac that came off of Lannne at one point. All all of the units with the exception of the apartments were located on that road, but it did exceed the the maximum length of a culde-sac, which of course there's fire concerns, there's plow concerns, there's all kinds of
different things that go along with that. That and several other comments came from your staff. Then we we met with them, coordinated with them, we came up with a new concept that addressed some of them, most of them. Um, and there's still things being discussed. And so this is conceptual. I have to remind everybody this is
conceptual level right now. So we're we're kind of sitting at 10,000 ft looking down. Uh it's a good fit plan. We know the boundary very accurately, but as far as grades, utilities, those things, all those details need to be worked out. The reason we're in front of you tonight is that this is because this
um it's really something the the city has recognized before. There's a grant that was applied for to extend Luan. And the reason being is that that benefits the public generally speaking completes the road network getting it up to Edgewood. Uh the utilities would be extended as part of that. And uh it's
it's a challenge for this site if it weren't being done that way. There are other challenges associated with the site to what we call cover a gap so to speak. Um, and because this one is located where it is and it's against
some uh higher intense uses, US 10 sitting there, whatnot, um, we went through cost estimates preliminary and identified this this is a a sound project, but it does require some gap financing to help out in the long run.
So, with that, we revised the the the layout. So, we went with more of a what we call the barbell now. that comes off of Luan in one spot and then goes in two directions. So there is we don't exceed that length that dead end length anymore. Uh we reduced the number of the
8-unit and 4unit and quadunit buildings and then increasing the number of apartments. So that was about a 10-unit swing there that swung from the smaller scale units into the apartments. And so what we're trying to get to here is a
multi-use or a multi-use residential development that that really caters to a lot of different uh options for your community. And by that it could be uh the the twin homes would lend themselves well for seniors because they're they're a slab on grade. They're uh you know
relatively small floor plans. They're easy to maintain. And then um a lot of times these are starter homes or they're they're seniors that are just empty nesters that want to downsize. Um but in order to get here, we have to cover that
gap. So what we're doing is looking at the possibility of doing a tiff and it came to our attention that you're not real familiar as a city doing a lot in the way of tiff. uh tiff basically is a method to establish what the baseline
tax and if I'm if I'm starting too early trying to establish the baseline tax that's collected today we have an investment that's going to raise the tax and this is really elementary terms but we capture a portion of that and over the course of sometimes 26 years
sometimes 21 years 16 whatever is appropriate that captured tax goes back to the developer and So everything up front is out of pocket uh to get it constructed, to get it up and running, get it built, get it occupied. And with
everything south of the apartments, that's all owner owner occupied. So these are, you know, first-time home buyers that they can come in and establish equity in home and investment in the community. Um and then uh also the apartments, what they do is they end
up being a feeder to those home ownership u situations. So we have, you know, sometimes single people or single plus one uh or parents with one that are living in an apartment that actually end up, you know, save up some money and then they can step into different
alternatives with ownership. Um and then people can move without throughout the community, not only this one, but the adjacent communities without having to go too far out of the neighborhood cuz people really like to stay in neighborhoods. this has enough options here as well as the options that are already there to allow people to stay in
those neighborhoods and keep pretty much their same neighbors and and whatnot without having to move too far out. Um we have coordinated with uh again with a on a conceptual basis we've coordinated with engineering such that you know we're looking at how do we serve this uh
where are the utilities at what gets extended as part of the LUAN extension um and that grant the status of that grant is that it was awarded but I believe the the actual expenditure would come up in 2027 um if this were to go forward and we
could make an arrangement with uh TIFF uh to move this forward or help move it forward. Uh we would want to move a little quicker than that. So, another consideration we'd have for for you would be number one, uh, let's talk more about TIFF and see if that's a there's a
comfort level there going forward. And if so, we'd like to coordinate with the city on how we would do the Luan improvements as part of the project. And then the grant money reimburse the developer possibly a year from now or a year from yeah, a year from now when 2027 and that that grant money is
available. So, there are different formats of of TIFF as far as what the capture amount is, and those haven't all been decided, but um and there's also uh some of the comments we've heard from the city thus
far about if we're going to do an apartment component to this, which we know there's going to be apartment component, some portion of that has to be affordable. Uh right now what we're we're dealing with with uh conversations that we have with relationships of our apartment builders is we're going to
start off at the 20% of uh at 50% um of the units. So at the end of the day, if we had 130 units there, which isund 136 that are included in the plan right now, about 27 to 30 of them would be
affordable and set at that AMI at 50% AMI for the area. Now, that may change. That's the lowest amount starting up, but we may talk to a developer that is comfortable going higher than that. And that's why I say we're going to start where we're starting and then move up from there.
So, because, you know, different uh apartment builders and owners and operators have a different formats and and models of how they like to run and what they like to run. So, um yeah. So, if there's any questions on the layout
or uh TIFF, we went through a lot of different uh questions and and uh responded to those, revised the plan several times and coordinated with your staff along the way. If there's any questions, we like to feel those. >> I have
You wanted to start moving sooner. Uh you kind of lost me there. uh cuz we're be doing the the street and water and sewer and evidently we're not doing it as soon as what you would like to see it done. Is is that correct?
>> Well, that's part of it. Um and and thank you for the question. The um there's two items. When you're doing any project that has impervious surface in it, you're going to have to coordinate where the utilities are, the depth of utilities, the frequency of utilities, where they lead for all the proposed
uses, as well as all the storm water runoff. So, if uh so that's one item is that we're we're looking toward being able to just control or design it to fit this development and uh make sure that
all of the city goals are met throughout that process. And the way we're proposing that is that we work with your engineer. >> Okay. Because it sounded like you wanted to actually do the project and I I I was going to question that. >> Right. And then there's question too is
when it's public money, we have to work through those details as well as to there are requirements for bidding for example. And if if that becomes an issue, what we do is we just turn the drawings and specs over to your engineer to be bid publicly and advertised according to how it's supposed to be. Uh
what that does is it keeps it on the same schedule with us and the coordination with us so that we know all the leads are at the right depth for every use here. We know the storm water is all going to be combined for not only the development but all the road surface um and everything gets done at the same time. It also includes what we were
talking about constructing it. So knowing if we wanted to move forward and do a spring start for example, which it it may be late spring, it may be midsummer, however that works out as we can most quickly get going, the grant money may not be available at that
point. And so if it's not, then we would work those details out in the DA to where we would actually pay for that upfront. And then possibly a year later, we'd be looking for the grant money to reimburse us for the construction of Lann and the utilities in accordance with, you know, city standards. as long
as we could do it that way, I guess. >> Yeah. And all those details are really we've uh we've been again talking with all your staff and whatnot and there are some of those questions we don't have answers to yet as to what we can and can't do uh and what those limitations are. So, um I believe that was your
staff has contacted the state now and looked for some direction on some of those items. >> Jacob, do you have an update? I I was just going to say we we have contacted the state. Austin's been in contact with them. Getting an answer has not been a quick process on the grant. We don't
have the contract either. And I know they were I think what was a couple weeks ago they said they would have some grant details forthcoming, but we haven't seen those yet. And so we've asked a couple of the questions that Todd touched on. And so we're just waiting on the response. And I think I would generally say there's a lot of
details to flush out between the grant and some of the tiff. Really what tonight is about is getting the concept kind of are you comfortable with where that's at and then on the tiff front saying we're comfortable considering it with a full complete application because we don't have that yet. There is
application process they have to go through. There's the escrow. There's the amounts. There's a whole run that has to be done by the finance consultant. So there's a lot of details that still have to go into this. But this is at a high level. And so I think for a project of this caliber which we've been looking for from the grant side, it is a good
fit for what we are looking for. We don't have a lot of developers that are busting down our door to build. And we do generally hear without some of these gap financing tools. It used to be where you'd hear some of that from some developers to make more money. Now it's just a every single one of them are
asking about especially on housing projects because of the cost of infrastructure and development in general has just gone up substantially over the years. So that's all I really wanted to say is just to kind of recap at a general level. That's what we're looking for tonight. And I think Todd touched on a number of those things that
they've been pretty responsive to trying to do what the city's looking for. And they've worked with Randy too on the engineering. So >> would you be looking to uh put the whole project in a tiff or just the houses or just the apartments or both? Well, to
maintain the maximum amount of flexibility for the developer side, we'd put two t districts together. Actually, one would would be the uh apartments and the description around that and then another one for the rest of the units. That way, um True Blue, for example,
they would love to build this, but long-term ownership operation likely isn't going to be the way it goes. It may be the way it goes, but it gives them that option to at some point if they need to to transfer that tiff to an apartment builder operator
because, you know, with all of these districts comes auditing every year. You have to be really v vigilant about who your applicants are, who you're selling to, and make sure that you're staying within those guidelines. Otherwise, >> uh you're out of compliance with your tiff. Would you, so you have um in the concept
here, you have three three buildings listed. Would you be thinking to build all three right away or would that be something you would uh potentially stagger? >> You know, with the with the group that we're talking to with right right now, this is their type of community as far as size and whatnot. They'd build one at
a one at a time and then similar to what you saw over by the golf course. They'd build one, they'd try to fill it or get it to a certain occupancy rate and then they'd immediately start on the next one. And we feel, you know, obviously we're very confident that there's still a big uh need out there for that for
this housing. Otherwise, we wouldn't be here. So, >> yeah, I I don't think you'll have whether it's the housing study or just, you know, the feel, you know, you're you're not going to have I don't think you'll have issues. Uh it'll be built. You know, that one over there we saw,
you know, they filled up in 3 months, I think it was. Yeah. And so they're at 100% occupy in less than 90 days. So >> yeah, and there and there's a magic I don't know how to explain it, but every housing study I've ever seen, and I've been doing this my entire adult life, there's always a magic piece that can't be measured, and that's where do all
these people come from? Uh because I'll give you another example that's a really good side by side with the one you guys just built is Zimmerman. I don't I think there was 148 units in that first phase and there were people lined up to get into them. There aren't that many people in Zimmerman
right now that would fit that category. They want an apartment, but they come and you know, obviously with Becker schools, there's a highly desirable area to be in. So, I don't think we're going to have any problem filling them up. >> And I'm assuming the homes would go, you're not going to build them all on
spec. I'm assuming those will probably go few at a time. So, a few at a time. So, that's maybe why you would do a separate district as well. >> Yeah. No, that's a Thank you, council. That's another good question is what you'll see with these types of units is the twins you'll sell a side and then you'll build two. You build a building at a time. Same is true with a four
unit. Same is true with an 8-unit. They'll have with an 8-unit, for example, I think they'll want to sell two before they'll build the whole building. And then once that building's up, you have six more units to sell and you get, you know, two or three more sales and you start on your next one. So there'll be some specs. There'll also be
some people that approach him and say, "Yeah, I want to be part of that twin, but you're going to build me somewhat." It'll be somewhat unique plan. So, you'll find both, but it'll most of them be will be spec. Could you comment again on your timeline? >> Yeah, thank you, Mr. Mayor. Um, we would
like to get started uh putting a shovel in the ground as soon as this close to the spring as possible. Now, with reality and entitlement processes and approvals, it's really looking toward early summer than anything else. That would be the best case scenario. I'd say a midsummer start.
>> Jacob, I have a followup for you then. >> So, we're talking about Have we ever done TIFF before? >> It's been many years ago. >> Many years, right? >> We haven't done one since I've been here. I don't know if anybody here has actually done one. >> I have. >> Except for Mike. Excuse me. He just said
that. Mike invented the whale, but >> that when we still had a post office, too, Mike, >> yeah, I think you mentioned earlier it was the Tom Thumb building. >> That was >> So, it's been a long time. >> It's been a long time. So, my my question is we just approved a housing
study that's going to >> talk about should we do TIFF, how should this work, how do all our incentives work? >> Yep. >> And we're talking about with this timeline approving something before we have the results of that in >> Yeah, I think it would weigh into it. I think you're going to find to Rick's
point the demand is there. Now what that actual final number is I couldn't tell you cuz we haven't seen it but the concept like this would probably weigh into the housing study and weigh on what the demand would be in the community. And so you are doing your housing study but it kind of coincides with the project as
well. So I don't necessarily think the timing is as big of an issue as far as when they build out on the housing study. I think the consultant would consider what that concept does to the results of the housing study. Does that answer your question? >> I don't think so because I thought part
of the housing study was to look at incentives. >> It is >> because I'm looking at we got the sack and whack discounts going on. We've talked about delaying those. >> So, I'm trying to wrap my brain around we have all these ideas that are going to come out of this housing study, but
we're saying before that's done, we have this separate track we're running on. >> You know, I'm not saying I can't get there, but I'm saying isn't that what the housing study is supposed to tell us? Yeah, I think that's it's structured in a way to tell you how competitive you are with other communities on your incentives. That's what we're asking,
right? You're asking the question, are we going to improve a project before we actually know the answer to that? Potentially based on what we're hearing though, I would not be shocked that we're going to hear that other communities are have some compet have some competitive advantage on this
front. That being said, you are propos or if you consider tiff, it would be approval before your housing study gets in place. But based on what we're hearing, I would say that it's a pretty like good likelihood that we're going to see that those incentives do weigh heavily into development
going into certain communities if they are offering them. But as the if the question is do you need to wait until we have the results of it, you certainly could. But it's just I don't know how that impacts the developer timeline from their construction standpoint. >> At this point in time, we're operating
off of our old housing study. >> Correct. >> So, I mean, it's we it isn't as though we don't have a housing study. >> Well, I've seen it. I don't know how good it is to be honest. >> It was one that the county >> All due respect. >> Oh, I didn't do it. So, >> No, I know. I know you didn't. I know
you didn't. I wouldn't have said it if you didn't. >> I know. I would have texted you. >> You texted me and said, "Trappy job. Nice job on that one. >> No, I I'm not No one Yeah, I I realize that piece. It >> I I see what you're saying. I >> the hurdle for me because it's
>> you know, we're going to talk about a water treatment plant later and here's the recommendations, but we're going to build one before. >> Yeah, >> it's just >> Oh, I get that. And I I think it was a general it I don't know if it'll get into it's going to tell us competitive advantages. I don't know how nitty-gritty into the details though
it's going to necessarily ex community is doing these tiffs and it resulted in this many numbers. I think we're looking for more of an overall understanding. So I get what you're saying. Martin Greg, did you have something? >> Yeah, I was going to say that the housing study the incentive tools are already known. Everybody knows what they
are. The housing study isn't going to um get down into a particular development because it's you can't do that with the study. It's a very general um how many units and of what kind are available. So I don't this won't have any the the idea
of offering incentives or even approving incentives doesn't have any impact on the housing study. It will have impact on the housing study will be how many more apartments units are we going to be able to support? That's it'll be factor into those numbers not into the
incentives. That will always be a council decision. >> Yeah, I get that. But I think the housing study would tell us what other communities are doing. >> Yep. >> Yeah. Yeah, for sure. >> No, go ahead. Talk. >> Um there's a couple of items I just that
that struck me while you were talking. And number one, um there's a couple of really well-known consultants in the area that do this type of uh all the background work. Make sure you're operating within the statutes and whatnot because these are all set. Uh the statutes are all written. They're all they've been tried and true. One is
uh Ellers and another is Northland. and you guys uh are with Northland. There's an extraordinary amount of experience that comes with Northland of what are other people doing, how are they doing it. Not only that, but they will take all of our project details and plug it into what the statute says and what the
norm is and what they're comparing to with other communities and what others have done. So, there's an there's a lot of experience coming with that relationship that you've hired. The other item is, you know, my best experience, you know, is hindsight. Um, there's always a first and the
experience there will help you define what you want to see, what you don't want to see in the future of how things are done. We're going to do the best we can. Northland's going to do the best they can. Your staff is obviously doing the best they can and we'll we'll get there from here. Um, there will be some caveats in the future that you'll say,
"Well, just like everything else, um, I wish we would have I wish we would have done that instead of this or whatever." Um, so you know, I think from a city standpoint, you're covered with the relationship you have that you bring in. Northland is no slouch when it comes to
this type of work. We've worked with them in other communities, um, as close as Princeton, as a matter of fact, a couple of them just recently. Um, so they'll come with council, they'll come with recommendations on how you should, how you shouldn't. So uh and the other item I wanted to say
with something that has this amount of investment in many many cases there is a requirement by the banks financers to require that we do our own housing study to prove to them that there is the need here and that we're filling a need so and what that absorption rate would be.
>> My understanding too uh Mr. Mayor, if I could on the uh um I'm thinking I I was more worried about the housing study. Um not not in the in the context of this project, but um at what point, you know, let's say we go forward with this project and the and
the housing come, you know, comes back and says, uh 175 units. Well, is that counting this or you know, how how is that going to take this into effect? I guess it would that would be more of my concern how to um you know you'd almost I don't know if you pause that or you
know delay that a little bit because you know then it's then you're always going to have that question of well did that was that before or after um my I I've never looked at a housing study as a uh we've done I've been part of a couple I guess I've never looked at them as a way
to say even not even necessarily here's what this community is doing or that community is doing. I've always liked to retain that position for myself. Um, but more so just the what can the market reasonably support? So if you know if there's a need for you know multif
family housing or something that I maybe don't see um something that I could tell us that um you know yeah there's a huge demand for that or there's not a demand for you know apartments or you know something. Um I guess that's what I've probably gleaned the most out of a housing study before. not um how we
should finance it or how it or how the project should finance or how we should participate if at all. >> No. Yeah, I agree. I don't I don't I don't think I was looking for that either. It's just it's curious timing. >> Can I can I say one thing on that too? The other thought I had and I I I don't want to guarantee anything with
redevelopment resources, but you haven't done a contract. they have some proposal that has tasks and detailed timelines, but one of the thoughts is because it's a section in and of itself on the incentives piece is we could have a conversation with them that puts that up further or earlier in the process. Um
because it isn't isn't necessarily always tied to the data of the population, etc., etc. You're more looking at developments and what tools were used to build them. And so that is something we could talk to them about. I don't know what they would say, but if we were interested in putting that at the first, maybe you have a preliminary
understanding of where you're going early on in the project, that would be an option. Um, again, it's not kind of like Greg mentioned, the TIFF analysis isn't getting into super nuts and bolts of each tiff that we're looking at. It's more of just a general idea of what the
market is doing and what it's supporting and what that's resulting in each community. And so, but that is an option that we could talk to them about potentially that may give you an answer to that question a little bit earlier in the process. I don't if anybody has any to answer your no
>> specific question, they do take snapshots of where developments are in the process and when they're coming online and they do take that into account on all their housing studies. The other item I wanted to just throw out there and I know everybody's seen every article about it, but the the
strongest part or the biggest need of every community we enter or every community bar none is affordable housing. And that's really the target we're at here. We're not looking at uh you know subsidized rent or anything like that, but it is a form of subsidy that helps us control the price of the
house at the end of the day. And we do it through um you know uh what usually happens is we uh pass a savings along to the builder in the form of lot prices. Um and I'll give you an example. We just finished up construction and one in Lassour. Uh Lassour is a a bit a little
bit smaller than Becker I believe by by number but not much I think by 200 people. Uh the project was 35 lots all single family detached. Um the benefit uh was based on that and and and home
ownership and um the lots were sold for 50,000 each with utilities for single family detached which is remarkably low. So that's how we pass savings along to the developer or the builder to make these affordable on the on the buyer side.
We should take a show on the road all back and forth. Yeah. >> Other questions? >> Other questions? Anybody? >> So, I see you got the landscape buffer along the >> what would be the southwest side of the
project there. So, I know in a previous discussion prior to you folks, I know the we had heard from some of the business owners that would um definitely appreciate something there cuz I know they were there was some concern about uh some of them have uh um they they
didn't want folks using their lot as a cut through but up to Highway 10 or something, but right that was um so I'm glad you incorporated something there because that was a concern of of business owners here. >> Thank you. And I'm I'm just going to throw this out there too because when I I'm from this
area so there is a special I'm in the township but same same um when I look at projects like this I I look at not only the specific site we look outside the border and I always look for where's the closest park, where's the closest connection for pedestrians. I'm excited to know that Edgewood's being
reconstructed. That's that's incredible to me. Uh I'm also excited that within a half a block there's a park. So, anybody that's, you know, pushing a stroller or riding a bike or wants to just go get some open space, there's a lot of open space down there. As a matter of fact, we wanted to start, you know, I get to
that point where I'm excited to say, okay, you know, you got a lot of open space in that park. Can we fund a couple of pickle ball courts there, you know, things like that. So, it's there close proximity. It's really well connected to the downtown area with getting to the golf course, getting to the city center
with a pool and everything else. So, I love the location. So, >> I'm biased. All right, Jacob, what else do you need from us? >> I think just general agreement that the concept is kind of fits with what you were looking on this and then the other
one is just more of a headnod that you'll um give the go-ahhead for them to submit a full tiff application um to do that run. Obviously, that's all going to come back to you and there's a bunch of nuts and bolts in that, but that you'll at least consider. It doesn't mean you're approving anything.
I think it just is considering the the TIFF application. So, if there's agreement on that, then that gives us what we need to to move forward from now. >> Yeah. I'd like to see him continue on. >> Mhm. >> Yeah. General agreement. Okay. Sounds
like it. >> All right. We will have them do that. Thank you. >> Thank you. Thank you, Todd. Yep. Thank you. All right. So, we're going to have all these buildings and apparently Chris wants us to have water.
>> People ask for certain things, >> man. City, I guess. >> Jeepers. >> Quality water. >> Quality. Quality water. >> All kinds of water. >> Great. >> Careful. >> Good water.
>> All right. Um, so today we have Chris Larson from SE here. So he uh worked on the water feasibility study that we approved kind of to look at kind of where we're at in our water system, what our needs are. We did address some of that in our water comp plan. So this is kind of highlighting some of the needs
that we talked about today and then kind of give you an idea of how we can meet those needs. So there'll be some information that goes with that, some costs that go with that. the end you guys can ask some questions of him or us and then we'll kind of see what you guys feel for how you want us to go forward
with trying to address future water this morning. >> Cool. All right. Welcome. Thank you. >> Thank you. Good evening, mayor, members of the council, city staff. I'm going to take a second to log back. >> Okay. So Chris mentioned uh I'm Chris
Larson. I'm a water engineer and sort of specializing in water treatment uh with and and we did a a water system evaluation uh for for you guys. Uh the first thing I'll talk about are
your existing wells. So the city of Becker has seven existing wells right now. Uh no six. I must say I admit there's a five missing. Uh so six existing wells. Uh
and two of them, so wells two through six are are the older ones. They're all in town and there's a map on the next page, but uh wells seven and eight were drilled recently, but it had some water quality issues where it's not water that you can't send into the system, but it's
water that you'd likely get some complaints about if you sent it into the system. Uh the the firm capacity of your wells right now if you're not using wells seven and eight is 1,50 gallons per
minute or 1.5 million gallons per day. And in firm capacity is sort of a conservative way to look at how much capacity you have. So they say if you take your largest well out of service uh then it's the remaining capacity of that and that's you know you look at that
versus your maximum day demands and say so so conservatively if your biggest well was out of production on your worst day you you know that determines whether or not you have sufficient capacity. So this is a map of the Becker water
system and your well locations versus. So you get three wells. Wells two, four, and six sort of on the south and they're all relatively close together. Well three's north of that a little bit. And
then you see wells seven and eight uh off to the east a fair distance. We'll go through some of your water quality. Uh, one of the things, uh, it's not so much specifically related to the wells that you have, but some of the wells you've been drilling, but nitrate
is something that is, you know, exists in some of Becker's water. Nitrate is it's it's very likely that that nitrate is caused by agricultural, you know, fertilizer production and that sort of thing. and you have relatively shallow
wells. So when it rains and stuff, the nitrate percolates down into the ground water. You get some in your in your uh your water. But nitrate is a primary standard, which means that you can't you can't send uh water into the
distribution system that has nitrate over 10 parts per million or 10 milligrams per liter. And it's an acute primary standard. So you can't some of the things have a rolling average and if you exceed it you get a notice of violation but you don't even have to shut the well off with nitrate uh you
would have to issue things on the news and that kind of stuff telling people not to drink the water it would be and you you immediately have to shut that well off. So your existing wells uh are not really all that you know so you have a little bit of nitrate in some of the
wells or some of them that we don't have data for but your distribution system by and large has about three parts per million of nitrate in the test that were collected versus a standard of 10. Um, another thing that we looked at is uh
PAS, which is a forever chemical that I'm certain everybody has heard of. Uh, you do have a little bit of PAS in the four wells that are in town. I will say that we don't think that there's PAS data for well seven and eight right now,
but I would say again that PAS is a man-made compound. Uh, when you see the location Well, seven and eight is it's not in town. It's not where you would have sort of activities that might have likely caused PAS contamination. I don't think I'm not suggesting it's not
prudent to collect samples from well 78 to see if there's PAS, but I would be a little bit surprised if there was. Uh you do see that well six. So all of your wells have a little bit of PAS and the the PAS compounds on the left side. There are different these are all the
regulated compounds. Uh there's thousands of PAS compounds apparently but there's only six different things that are measured. Uh you do have in well six that the PFOS you do have
that at 4.9 parts per trillion in this case. uh versus a standard of four. But I will say that that was one of the ones where they operate that on a four quarter rolling average. So just because you have 4.9 in one sample doesn't mean that
that well even exceeds the standard. Uh but I do think it's enough where you can't ignore it. I mean it's it's it's it's over the standard. You have to you sort of have to operate under the assumption that it could at some point exceed the standard. How would a PAS get
into a a well like that? I mean, you think of that if it's like the chem you think of the chemicals that come off pots and pans and all the, you know, the all the different man-made stuff, but I mean, when it gets down there, if it's not from fertilizer, where would that come from? >> Some sort of industrial. When I say industrial activity, I think like
firefighting foam is a common source of PAS. Uh obviously if you're in the Twin Cities, some of they're actually like putting heat ass in the dumps and that kind of stuff, but the first prediction might be firefighting for some sort of
firefighting activity. Uh and again, your water's shallow. So So you you know, if if it was sprayed on the ground, it's likely to get >> Would it take a a massive amount of it? I mean, >> it doesn't take very much though. I mean, when you So
this is a parts per trillion standard. So one part per trillion is one part per million of one part per million. So it's it's a million of part per million. So it's it's an extremely low number. Uh so
a little bit would would contaminate a lot of water. And again I don't know I don't think anybody's ever looked to try to figure out where it's coming from. But but >> our Becker sand is good for road beds but it's not always as great for because It allows movement of things very easily
through the lower layer. So if it's in that, it'll move quickly. So you could have that source may not be that close to that. >> That's what I was just going to bring up. It could be quite a ways away. >> And we don't have good confining layers.
So we don't have a clay layer or layer that would keep things from the surface from penetrating. So So yes, we do. We're more highly vulnerable to those kind of things. And I wouldn't say that it's firefighting foam for sure either the
other industrial things that that use PAS. So it could be this could have been some sort of manufacturing or something else. Somewhere along the line it got into the So the next thing we look at is iron and manganesees
by your wells 2, three, four, and six. We don't have data for a couple of them, but I think we have reason to think that there's for all intents and purposes little or no iron or maganesees in in the four wells that are located in town. The two that you do have data for are
like said essentially zero. Uh and then well seven and eight have so you know the standard EPA standard for fire or the standard at which you're likely to get complaints. So you are involved in both seven and
eight at 7 and 1.58. Uh similar with magnes uh you have the standard for that is 05 and.138 and 307. Um, one thing I will say though is that
I wouldn't necessarily say I mean you got a little unlucky with well seven and eight, but I actually think you got lucky with wells 2, three, four, and six because iron and magnes are extremely common substances in wellwater in Minnesota.
Uh if you ask me what like sort of just a typical well in Minnesota, I would say it has a one part per million of iron and two times a part of magnes and that you know you're sort of in that ballpark. Um but it is a point at which like I
said if you if you don't do anything with it you can add polyphosphate to sequester it uh and that helps a little but but again at these levels you could get some complaints. And then not listed on here. There's CO2 in the in that
water too. That that that actually would be the one thing that you would likely get complaints from. >> I did look up because I wanted to say look it up before the POS and 78. We've had one test so far. It doesn't have it's not over in any of the categories for POS. So most of them came back as
zero. Seven that way. >> Thank you. And I don't I hadn't seen that. So >> I didn't want to say So your future water demands uh I mentioned that your firm capacity right now is 1.5 million gallons per day. Your
projected water demand in 2028 it's like 1.94 million gallons per day and that's increasing to 2.73 million gallons per day in 2050. Uh so you are right now
we're on the borderline or basically a little like you have a little less firm capacity than you would like today. Uh but it doesn't mean I mentioned that that this firm capacity number is sort of a conservative way to look at things that you'd have to have your biggest
well out of service on your worst day and well seven and eight are not they don't the the standards that well seven and eight exceed are not standards. They're aesthetic water, you know, just appearance standards. So, so
you could, it wouldn't be ideal, but you could use seven and eight if you ran into a problem. And right now, you get the problem you would see when you use it because we did use them for a short time. Hoping that you could just intermix it. It would be
enough to kind of dilute it as we very quickly got calls, especially since they're on the east side of the river kind of fome that area calls about. I've got slightly orange water. My water's red. I've got my water bubbles.
So, some of those things that we had. So, again, yeah, they are aesthetic. Fortunately, they're aesthetic things that people don't spray away. >> So, one of the things we've looked at and I think that city has looked at extensively over the years is, you know,
where can we find more water? where can we find more water that we don't need to treat? Uh that sort of thing. But two of two of the more recent exploratory wells were this is basically straight north and I could uh know people are familiar with
where this is at. >> That's 212, isn't it? >> It's this piece of property right here. >> But so we had some promising wells on that piece of property and we're sort of aware that nitrate was present. Uh but
but we actually had test wells drilled and then ran some did some test pumping on it and then northern one was at like nine parts per million and the standard is 10. Uh and the southern one was a
little better than that. And then given that I think you had some surprises with the water quality at seven and eight, we ran like a weekl long pump test on the southern southerntherly of these two wells. We came back at five.
And I think given that you got one at nine and one at five, you know, it gives you some pause and and concern about, you know, is the one that's at five going to end up being at nine in a few years and and it and it certainly could be. Uh so so the two wells that were
sort of promising have fairly high nitrate which is something you can treat. We'll talk about a little bit here but but but it wasn't it wasn't a no-brainer that you would just use these tools. Uh so addressing future capacity needs.
I mentioned that the two test wells that that we looked at, the most recent two test wells uh have nitrate. Well, seven and eight have iron, manganese, and carbon dioxide. Uh and I've already said this, but you you know, it isn't for lack of trying
with the new wells that you've all over the place looking for for water that you wouldn't have to treat. a new water treatment plant at well seven and eight would alleviate the capacity concerns. It would you know you go from
uh it would increase your capacity enough where you'd be over the limit. You'd also have the opportunity additional wells at that at that site. One of the advantages of that is it takes advantage of some of your existing infrastructure. Obviously the wellhouse is for seven
eight the wells and the wellhouse exist already whereas if you're back at the would have been wells 9 and 10. I still need to drill formal wells and build some sort of pump houses.
Uh so we also evaluated nice removal or venture removal water treatment plant for the test wells. Uh, one thing that you sort of get into with the with the test walls that had nitrate in them, if you were to build a water treatment plant
for that is that if you needed additional capacity, so I think the capacity of those two walls are relatively low. So, you're going to need additional capacity at some point and a nitrate removal water treatment plant doesn't do anything for anything besides nitrate.
So, if you find iron and magnes in the next well, so you're what you sort of have to do with guarant you know the guarantee that you would have to build some other form of treatment is finding wells that only contain nitrate and not other constituents.
Uh and that sort of combined with the fact that like you said you already have existing infrastructure seven and eight. We feel like building a water if you're going to build a water treatment plan safer and better to build at seven and
eight. So a water treatment plant what that would consist of. So we we would propose or suggest a 2 million gallon per day water treatment plant and we would size that at sort of a conservative filtering
rate so that if you needed to add so the 10 state standards allows you to fill filter water through sand between two gallons per minute per square foot and four gallons per minute per square foot. So if we size it using the more conservative two gallons per per square foot, it would allow you to, you know,
if we're calling it two 2 MGD is 2 million gallons 2 gpm per square foot. At 3 gpm per square foot, which is still a fairly comfortable filter, it would be a 3 million gall. So you could add additional wells to this water sl
as as you needed to in the future. There's a couple of different types of water treatment plants. Most of the ones that we were looking at are using sand, either their sand filters, but you can put them in whatever the container for the sand is. In this case, we're looking
at the concrete gravity filters where it's a concrete box that has a sand filter inside of it. We also looked at steel. We can have a steel box that has the sand filter inside of it. Uh again from for multiple reasons. The size of
this facility is sort of lends itself to the concrete gravity. Uh the steel is just more you have to rehab it and paint it every 20 years or so. That sort of thing. There's not there's advantages to the concrete gravity. I would also say
to the concrete gravity filter plant, you know, the lifespan of that is you know 75 years or more. So it would last a long long time. Uh the treatment train that we would propose is aation
which is where you run water through you're pumping air up and cascading water down through it. Adds oxygen to the water but it would also strip carbon dioxide. It also oxidizes iron. Detention which is just a slow spot
where it allows chemicals to react. Filtration is a sand likely would be some sort of like a cold base media and then sand underneath that. Uh followed by a a half a million gallon
clear well which is just it's just stored filtered water. Uh the other thing I didn't get into this our report also looked at your like a storage analysis and it largely said you you know if you add a half a million gallon clear water plant you don't need
additional storage you know it's almost 2050 and even the additional storage you need in 2050 is modifying one of your existing towers uh so so you you know largely your storage situation is is pretty good then there's chemical
addition at these plants and then pumping from the clear weld into your distribution system. One thing with a with a sand filter plant like this is it sort of provides the foundation if you ever said well what about PAS or what about these other things a lot of times sand filtration is
the pre-treatment for more advanced filtration anyway. So if you had say you needed to use reverse osmosis membranes for something but you can't go direct to reverse osmosis membranes anyway you need to have pre like pre pre-treatment and sand filters are often times
pre-treatment for more advanced field so that you know it provides you a level of safety if something else comes up. Uh this is a layout of a of a of the first floor plan of a of a water treatment plant. The the the
filters these are the filters here. This is a detention tank. These are mostly chemical rooms, an electrical room, a mechanical room, like a office control room. This is the clear well, which is just a a concrete tank.
And then there's some pumps on on the left side there. Uh this is a section of a water a gravity filter water treatment up plant. Uh one thing to note is that when the architects give us these sections that show the bottom footing. So the building
is actually this is this is the sidewalk here. So this is great. These are frost footings. But you see the clear well is primarily buried but it is a twostory building. >> And the architectural features on these can sort of be whatever you want but probably some sort of
brick or or decorative masonry possibly depending on, you know, could be pre-cast wall panels. It could be I've seen like metal siding on parts of it. So, but you you'd fit it to like the city sort of motif or or the
neighborhood. This is a site plan for water treatment. You see that the the wells seven and eight building is there. the raw water would go into the treatment plant. Uh the drive again, this is all could be oriented differently, that kind of
stuff. You could push the treatment plant back into the site more, but we're showing a driveway where you could sort of loop in and that sort of stuff. So if you're chemical deliveries, that sort of thing. You would have a backwash tank, which is just where you when the filter gets plugged, you back flush it and the
gunk off the filters goes into the backwash tank. let it settle and then you reclaim the water back to the front of the filters. I probably have a standby generator. So, pretty standard stuff. >> Is the idea when the water leaves here then it's portable it's it could go it
goes right into it right it's ready. >> Oh yeah. Yes. Absolutely. It it's clean treated drinking water at that point. Uh and it's this site that you know technically like you said there's nothing preventing you from using water but it is it is as clean as it's going
to be when it but free of iron and magnes free of carbon dioxide. >> So right now so in this at this particular location that's we'll call it even almost beyond the edge of a town you know it's out in the it's an island out in the township basically. Um, so
you mentioned in the future with the uh um, you know, let's say PAS and they need you to pre-treat, but that would require, right now everything's just kind of coming into town and that's it as far as existing pipes, but that would actually require us to run stuff all the
way out there. Would it make more sense to centrally locate this? >> So I think the PAS my my prediction two things. So you have PAS at well six and a little bit at the other wells. I actually think the cheaper solution to
say replacing or treating the PAS in well six would be to add a third well out here or add a well out here and don't treat the water from well six for PAS. So PAS treatment requires like typically people are treating with granular activated carbon. Uh, so you
you'd have a vessel that you could add on the back side of this, but I I don't I think that sending the water from well six all the way to to the site wouldn't be it would be cheaper than well. >> Mhm. >> And and we did look and I think it's
sort of 601 if we so we looked at it when we were originally looking at the the treatment site near the test wells. There's a long stretch of water man from here that comes into town. you could use that as raw water and meaning you could
pump well seven and eight site that was you know was actually on the east side of that large piece of land that you were looking at the test for. So we there would be alternate locations that would be closer to well six or well three, you know, just all of them. But
you still even even at that site, I suspect running the raw water main from well three to that other site would be would might not be cost expensive >> because right now it just goes back to
water to the current campus. So you have to Yeah. >> Um and then if you had Part of what you run into is if you had a central site in town somewhere to build a water plant, you still have to get the water from well seven and eight to the water plant.
So you sort of end up with the same the same problem is is that water main especially if you're going to go through town with it. >> It's be difficult to say we're going to have a central hub that all wells would go to.
You can maybe >> well if you did that would how many acres do I mean how many wells could you put out where seven and eight is >> we own 10 acres >> we can we can looking on where 78 are currently
we've done some drilling there we haven't got as good of results as we hoped we did a couple extra holes a little further to the north but I mean there's a lot of pivots between town and So there's water out there.
I mean, >> I think one of the things we've looked at too is we've always tried to find clean water, >> you know. So looking on that 75 acres for just capacity of water that's similar to seven is is more likely than finding something that's going to match in town,
>> right? So if you already have treatimar treat it versus right now we're being selective on trying to find that that perfect amount which we can't find. >> That would be my question. Th this proposed plant does not treat nitrates.
So it what would happen if let's say we couldn't find additional water here and the only water we could find cuz it seems like nitrates are if we look around us they're an issue.
So then we're we're so then and we're looking at a nitrate plant as well. >> If the only thing you could find was high nitrates and not iron man. So I I've given this a little bit of thought too. >> I'm sure you have.
>> So I think that you know a couple things you can do with water. You can blend the water from you know well seven and eight with whatever. Say you have a future well nine that has nitrate but maybe has nitrate and things. Uh but you're sort
of it's the nitrate that hangs you up. There's there's ways to remove nitrate like a your home softener is an ion exchange softener. It's a cation exchange softener. You start exchanging calcium and magnesium for sodium. The
salt regener anion exchange softener that exchanges chloride for in this case it would be nitrate. Uh but what you could do is you could add like a nitrate like a basically a softener you know to the
backside of this but it wouldn't necessarily have to treat all of the water. would just have to treat enough to get your, you know, if you're blending and that sort of stuff to get your nitrate below, you know, to a a level that you are comfortable with. So, it wouldn't you
wouldn't have to treat all of the water at this water plant for nitrate. You'd already have the buildings and the pumping and that sort of stuff. So, I think a lot of the infrastructure would be in place if you needed to add a nitrate removal set.
>> A little background on that. So, the two that they have on our existing 212 acres. So just east of the river. The estimate rough estimate for production could be 3 to 400 gallons a minute. So we don't have any wells in place. We don't have any infrastructure there at
all. 3 to 400 gallons a minute. Maybe times the two wells that are there. Plus we'd have to treat for nitrates. Seven and eight. We already have the wells in the ground. We know what the water is. We don't have POS there. We don't have nitrate issues. Those each are 500 gallons. So just trying to weigh
the two that are kind of the most obvious choices right now. That's kind of where you lean towards seven and eight because we already put the wells in the ground. They're already there. We have that pipe back into the city. So just so you guys are aware of kind of what the difference I mean we were
really hoping the 212 those nitrates weren't going to creep up as we tested and unfortunately in the one to the north when we test bumped it for a longer period it crept up to 14 I think. And we're not currently farming that. >> Correct.
>> 2026. >> Yep. >> And you run into, we've mentioned this earlier, but you run into the same issue with the other test wells. If you say, "Okay, I'm going to build a nitrate removal facility." And what happens if the next well has something else in it? you sort
of run into the same game, you know, where say I, you know, but I, like I said, an iron and magnes removal plant ends up being the tree treatment for a lot of this anyway. So, not necessarily nitrate, but but PAS, it's helpful to have iron and magnes,
you know, a lot of the having magn is a helpful step. >> Sure. Did is operation costs considered in any of this? >> We we might have them. I didn't specifically put them in this
presentation. Uh I don't like getting in trouble about telling people how many like additional hours somebody's going to have to work or that kind of stuff. These plans are not that labor intensive. Uh, >> is there a difference between operation
costs for iron magnes manganese I can't say that and and the nitrates? >> I would think that iron mag is less expensive. I mean a lot of the chemicals there's not really that much chemical usage of an iron maganese plant but uh that you're you know you're already
adding chlorine to your water. the airator would take care of some of the chlorine demand volumes. You probably have sodium peraganate which is a chemical stronger oxidase. Um so I don't think your chemical costs
would go up all that much. Your pumping costs are sort of like what they are. Meaning for you to pump from a well to the top of a tower is the same for you to pump a well into a low head situation and pump that into the tower. So those those are you know I mean you still
you're going to maintain a building so you have heat and electricity and that sort of stuff and then there's a little bit of extra operator time for somebody like but somebody's probably doing rounds anyways already stop
previous experience magnet plants I mean you're talking usually you want to do testing you'll determine how often you want to do that kind of based on back wash. So I want to test in cool water. I want to test the end of the filter just to verify it's kind of hidden. You know, yep, it looks good.
Remove what I want. Break down my chemical levels. So I know that I'm feeding roughly the same. That doesn't see. So I mean, you know, your rounds each day, maybe a half hour for one person to do that. Most of these, you know, you have scanned monitoring, so you can see them from afar. So it's
plugged into your SCA system so operators can see it if they're not there. Some of the alarms it'll send out alarms. Most of them will backwash based on whatever timing you want. So you can either do it based strictly on a time every two days I want the backwash to go
over two weeks or whatever ends up or you can do that differential in the filter itself. So you don't have to have an operator that comes and pushes make self operating that way. And then yeah,
some basic cleaning things. I mean, as far as the general our operation stuff, it's not like I'm not gonna come new guys because >> three and a half. >> I'm kidding.
>> Okay. Thank you. That was just a question. >> Yeah. No, and and I think yeah, one thing I would mention too about nitro or at least the option that we looked at because it's the like the least expensive, it's a biological process. So you have this issue where you have to
sort of keep bacteria alive and that sort of thing. So I think there's a little bit of probably a little bit more risk in like if the bacteria dies or you know like you just there's a little bit more risk of offset and maybe a little bit more handholding keep everything
operating correctly where this is all sort of a chemical process >> as long as you're adding chemical. >> Yeah is technically probably a newer technology. So yeah, I mean it's like a waste water plant, but you're creating
water with those bugs instead of waste water. So there's still that same opportunity that something goes wrong and your bugs die. You got to start fresh issue pretty rock solid. It's been around for a long time.
Good been refined over time. So it's I would say generally a more >> mature technology >> process >> and I mentioned that you can remove nitrate with like an an exchange essentially a softener. Uh but if you
were going to remove a significant amount of like if you're going to treat a significant amount of water through those stops, it's the same as your home stock where you have to add salt. But on a municipal scale like you if you were treating 700 gallons per minute a day of
water, all of it going through an exchange softener, you're probably using tons of salt every day. Uh and all that salt brine, salt brine is going to go to your wastewater plant. Uh >> it's expensive. You know, it's probably not if you run into like
>> chloride discharge issues at your wastewater plant, meaning at some point all of that water, you're adding a lot of salt rind to your waste water that ultimately ends up in river. >> Okay. >> So, there's other ways to do it, but it's
>> Yeah. >> But none of them are ideal. So, then the estimated cost for a water treatment plant Uh we're estimating a cost of about $18 million uh with then some
contingency on that but when you add contingency to that the total construction cost we're looking at is around 20 million. Uh I will say that we are trying to be conservative meaning that that I'm
fairly comfortable that the numbers 20 million or less not not 20 and then it comes in at 28. Uh so I you know we're trying to be conservative because of what we've seen with just construction cost over the last six or seven years.
Um and then when you add the soft cost and that that sort of thing there the total project cost is around 22 million. Um, one thing to consider as far as next
steps, uh, the state drinking water revolving loan fund, uh, has this project priority list. If you want to apply for a drinking water revolving fund loan, you have to get on the project priority list. Uh, that comes
out in March. The applications are due in March, but it doesn't obligate you to anything. So, you know, if you get on the list, it just gives you an option. It gives you an option to then later get on what's called the intended use plan. And even that doesn't until you actually
close on a loan, you're not actually off. >> But one of the things, one of the reasons to get on this project list is I think when you go to look for bonding money or your marks or that sort of thing, one of the questions they might ask is, well, are you on the project
priority list? So, I think there's helpful even if you don't intend to do it right away or that sort of thing or you want to pursue other bond money or grant money. >> So what is the what is the population number? You said we're a little bit low
meaning biggest well goes down on the worst day type of thing current world current day we're slightly below in that worst case scenario. Um obviously we just talked uh you know in the previous uh presentation
there you know probably a decent potential of you know bringing on you know 100 100 people in an apartment 100 families in an apartment another you know 50 in some houses. Um you know what what is the what is the
point where we we don't want to be on the at the gun but we don't want to be too far ahead either I guess. So what is the >> So I'll say that your existing population which I don't know is around 5,000
>> here. >> So your existing population is using around 700,000 gallons of water per day on an average. I'm using 2020. I suspect we're close to that. Uh, so if you were going
to add a thousand people, you should figure that you're adding 20% of that number. So you're another, you know, >> 0.9 instead of 7.15 higher or something like that on average
day. Uh, so so I think these numbers you can you would need to add quite a few people before it really starts swinging. You know, actually the numbers are on actually just but uh so they're saying
if you go add like 450 people like from 28 to 33 you're adding 006 million gallons per day or 60,000 gallons per day your average day and it's probably and about
16 160,000 galls per day to your max. So that's adding like I said 450 people. So it's if you added a 500 gallon per minute well which is or say you add a 700 gallon
that's a million gallons per day that that would buy you quite a few people. You can see that your max day between now and 2050 is not even projected to go up a whole million gallons per day. So
adding a well or two would buy you a long time. >> What about Okay, a well or two, but more so talking about this plant here, I guess. When is um I mean assuming the well or two would also come with the plant.
>> Well, you have seven and eight there already. So that you're actually freeing up a well or two when you build the plant because you're not pumping seven and eight right now. theoretically like well seven and eight weren't intended to be run at the same time but I suspect you could get the
listed value is 500 gallons per minute but I suspect you could get 700 out of you know one of them at a time so you're you're you know likely freeing up a million gallons per day of well capacity by building
>> well for go okay for the treatment project though when is I mean is that something we should really be considering in the next 5 to 10 years or is this something that would make sense in the 10 to 20 year range I guess that's maybe the the golden question
>> I'd say you the next five years would be a really good idea just given if our biggest wall had some sign significant issue that we had to shut it down for a period of time it's going to definitely alter operation for people in Becker,
especially in the summertime with the grass that we have in sand. So, um, you know, I don't I don't think you could push it out 10 to 20 years. >> How long does it take to build a plan? >> A year and a half. So, probably figure
it's a twoyear process. If you have, you know, between design and actual construction, probably two years >> maybe two years and But it's >> I remember Monaceel upgrading there. It seems like they were done the construction forever.
>> I think they're in the process of building a new water treatment plant right now. Uh in fact, you know, some of the bonding and that sort of stuff and grant money. Uh but there's they're between five and 10 million
gallons per day, I think. I don't remember exactly what the number is, but that's like a $45 million building. And I don't remember if it's dead or not yet, but it's close. It's it's it's either under
construction or or it's or it's this construction season. So talking about that uh that state list I mean we put our it sounds like there's a priority meaning you know if you are drastically
under you and it makes sense you know if you got somebody that needs a wall like right now where there people aren't going to be able to brush your teeth in the morning then that's you know that needs to happen before you know we can't water our lawns but what is the um
I mean how much of the you I'm sure every town is going to be on that list in some some some area. I guess what are the what is the realistic possibility? I mean, do we do we put our name on there just for so we can tell the bonding people later on that our name's on there
or I mean is that something we even have a shot at? >> It depends on what your I think you have a shot for sure at a like so primarily what the drinking water revolving fund loan is is a loan program. So it's a low interest loan program. It's not It's not
>> Well, it's not a grant >> portion of it, but I think the grant stuff is harder to >> get. I mean, it's just just a grand grant. >> Okay. So, it's a loan. All right. >> So, it's essentially a loan. Some communities, if you're, you know, depending on your financial situation,
don't want to go through like the hassle of the administrative requirements of saving 2% on your interest rate. Uh, many communities it is worthwhile. Uh, but like you mention there's also a ranking process though and interestingly
you mentioned a new well they they actually had a call with the health department today and the health department is the one that does the ranking and that kind of thing public facilities authorities actually the bankers but they don't fund growth so the things that give you priority points
are things like uh contaminants like if you have a primary contaminant and I actually would in the application would try to reinforce the fact that if not for well six having primary contaminated exudence
you would be less concerned about building the water treatment. So tie it back to a primary standard. The manganesees helps a little bit. Just the fact you're treating the water helps a little bit. But if you were just building an iron and magnesium water treatment plant and didn't have any
primary contaminating consideration u and depending on your like your household income levels you you may or may not actually score high enough to get lower >> well they take household income into account >> it is but not not necessarily negatively. It's one of those things
where if you're below the median you get extra points but if you're not you don't get deducted >> we're not So right now we're at 1.5 million gallons. Let's say the plants built. What can you remind me what the treatment capacity was? >> The treatment capacity of the plant
would be we're recommending 2 million. >> That's right. >> And that would allow you to treat all of the water from either a well seven or eight and an additional well. And the life of this plant would be how many years?
>> Like 75 at least. I mean, I think there's Minneapolis built a concrete gravity water treatment plant. I mean, they do more than just iron magnet. I mean, they're primarily >> No, they use river water, don't they? >> Yeah. And it's primarily a softening
plant, but I think that plant was built in 1940. and they have no intention of tearing down their primary treatment by meaning they've added on to it that sort of thing but >> and and it will need a rehab every 20 to
25 years meaning your >> systemated your pumps are probably continuously but you you'll want to paint everything you'll want to replace the filter media so there will be rehabs every 20 or 25 years but not not like
>> not the structure no I think that was built around 2000. It was early 2000s. So, it's 2020 plus. You never know. It wasn't brand new. And the nice thing is when we
got there, an operator there, open the door, turn the lights on. That was just part of not there. We wouldn't propose to put a big office here. We wouldn't staff people there either. So, we would love to try and absorb what we could our
staff. >> Any other questions for Chris? Do you have you have more? >> No. >> Okay. >> Thank you. >> Yeah. Thank you very much. >> Actually, I kind of do. >> So, um you know you had the engineering cost there and typically, you know, we
typically we would do the engineering first. So would um if we were to do the engineering on it, how um how long would that engineering be good for before, you know, could we do the engineering, you know, and wait a year or two and
then pull the trigger? Would we have to all this, you know, would two years be up too long, we got to circle back and redo some of this engineering or and is that or is that something that's just kind of other than moving the numbers to adjust for inflation >> a little bit, you know, meaning I'm
thinking things like SCADA, like again, you'd have to update it a little bit, but I would think it's fairly minor. None of the the structure doesn't change the plant itself, the filter plant >> other than your inflationary numbers or Yeah.
skate software or whatever five years or something like that, you know? It wouldn't It isn't It's more like >> Well, why would we spend $2 million now and wait five years to do something else?
>> Yeah. Well, I'm just um So, we got So, in in your numbers that you listed, you had the engineering and the construction admin as 2.4 million. How much of that would you say would be the pre-engineering where if we were to look at, you know, thinking of something that we could start beforehand to get the engineering, you know, if it's a million
dollars or something or what is the >> realistically the engineering design is something in the 6% range. So probably if you were to do the complete design, it's probably a million. Chris, you do this a lot of places. What
have other communities done for conservation because I know to me it just seems like and I have crappy grass, so of course I can say this, but you know, to treat this water and pump it and throw it on our lawn. I get that. I get people want green grass, but you
know, I've I've hit on Phil and Chris, you know, over the last year that is there a company that wants to come in. I've talked to so many people that would love to move to a Sandpoint for irrigation. Can can that make a difference in in a city this size if we
had 150 additional sand points? I'm just throwing it out there. >> I I do think that irrigation is like the the low hanging fruit in in in water conservation. Uh I mean it it would help you know I don't know I don't predict
what like you know if you really went after it aggressively I think you could slow growth uh slow growth in your water usage. You might be able to claw back a little bit of water usage if you you know and and then I can point you in directions both on
sort of programs. I know the city of Woodbury has been for various reasons they have they have a whole slew of water issues including because but uh they they were going to try to hold their water use steady in a growing you know
community but one thing they have is that they're like they really have a lot of houses that water It's a new It's a new town. Every house has an irrigation system. So, they're they're doing things like, you know, a smart irrigation controller program where they're where I
think they might actually they practically give the smart controllers if they don't outright give the smart controllers to residents. On the smart controllers can predict when it's going to rain, that sort of thing. They might even look at soil moisture and things like that. So you can So if your lawn doesn't need
the water, it doesn't just automatically in the morning or whatever >> it's too windy just >> takes weather takes the forecast. So it's connected to internet and it takes the forecast and says, "Well, it's predicted to rain in an hour, so I'm not
going to start the lawn system because the rain's coming anyway." >> Well, that means it's not going to rain if you >> Yeah, >> I've got a smart. No, Phil. >> It doesn't work very well. >> Carly Johnson Valley
just on an acreage basis versus our water consumption for irrigation purposes and just extrapolate that over average lot size. Say if you watered to that we did. So we can get you a number on 150 households or 200 what that
number. I can tell you what mine did, having gone from irrigating before a standpoint and after it went down by 75%. I went from my entire water bill for a year was about $250 after I put my sampoint, it was closer to a,000 when I
before I had my sampling point in. So, >> we could look at that and correlate that to dollar gallons used, >> you know, and just look at that and then we could look at the cost of us saying, "Okay, we could be a leader and that program as well." Just curious, you know, what it would
look like and if there is a company that's interested because again, we're not telling people you can't water, but we're saying, >> I mean, that's significant amount of money. >> Paid for my pump in a year. >> Pay for your pump in a year. So, I mean, if that migrated 150 people off, it's it's something. And does that help on
our grants and things like that to show that, hey, we're trying? >> Not every place can get water with a sandpoint. >> No, I know. Sometimes cities have rules about private wells and that kind of stuff. I suspect you could get past that.
>> Yeah, we we we have a process with the correct controls on them, but I'd like to see us at least regardless of what we're going to do. >> I mean, >> it's just hard because you get protection issues, you know. So, where you looking at that?
>> Oh, for sure. >> You close one door. >> Absolutely. >> You just got to be cautious on that. >> Yep. and make sure we're putting the barometric control and everything else on it. >> They worked for the city of up river for the municipal there. They were they did
not want to um open up all those wellheads poke all those holes in the aquifer and then have all that um potential contaminate into your own drinking water source. >> So, I understand the conservation piece,
but that was definitely something that they not want to go manage all those protections. >> Right. Well, we currently allow it and there's a lot of people that have them down that don't have any of the
you know the stuff on it. So, >> and you're not in a confined aquifer, meaning you don't there's not a whole lot of protection from your aquifer that spans, meaning that if somebody were to dump, you know, contaminate on the ground, it's probably your aquifer
anyway. Whereas like some of the communities and I don't know if which which wells but some of them have like confining layers thing that would block a contaminant from getting and then when you drill a hole through that confining layer you're providing a conduit for
>> contaminant for sure. >> Well, I know the state will say uh we we can help reduce whatever by raising rates. I know that's always their first uh um >> top
conscious how much water >> and we have I I don't you know I didn't we have the data already to say okay what sort of your what is your peak day look like versus your average day and that ratio sort of tells you how much you're you're getting and how much
opportunity that you have to because some of the like new metros like Woodbury, they're using four times as much water on a peak day in the summer as they are in an average day. So they're they're just >> well and we base off our sewer rates um
based off of water usage in the winter. So I mean that kind of gives us an idea too of what it you know say what does that increase to in the summer? That's probably you know we assume it's just as a blind calculation. It's most of its irrigation. So, >> right. Any other questions for Chris?
Are you looking for something specific from us tonight? >> Yeah. What you want me to run? >> My my question and >> they're running away. Can you talk to Phil about this a little bit too? But I know we've done a lot of water exploration, but when you're looking at
that price tag, what what other options do we have? What other I know there's some things that probably aren't very palatable, but um and we need water. It's not like this is a luxury item, right? Um so I mean, is there other
tough discussions that we need to be having about what we're looking at? One of the things that comes to mind right away is the handle property. We've got a monitoring well out there. We have had to sit down with with passing her voice. That's their home
property home farm. They don't want to develop. They don't want to get rid of that. So, it's a lever that we could maybe exercise. Maybe there's some sort of lot we could consider that we could maybe get pennies to the table again. very
candid, great businesswoman, so respect what she has to say, but it's something that we could have sit down there and talk about. We've looked at industrial areas as well, areas that have promising water, but 42 foot depth of well, so
again, we had in that area is poor, but the water quality over the property just well in there. Again, water are higher, which is expected. off of the the MS MSP20
property nitrates for 28 water but um very very high nitrates. >> The other thing is over by the H property we're going to try and reach out to the office on that corner there to see if we could explore that that corner lot to see if
there's could tell us do I go away but you know, honestly knock on doors and talk to people and get the final note. So, >> the other thing you got to look at too is the cost of drilling even just drilling the test wells. Let's say you
do find look how much money we spent putting the pipe in the ground for seven and eight. I mean, you got to get the water there. So, you still got to you got a expense in getting the water to your facilities. >> And that's the benefit on the Hammer property or or if you look at that Brady
property, you've got water right there. you're 200 feet away, 400 feet away, you know, so the cost there is is is >> just to tap into the existing >> even if you had to overpay for the property, you know, um if you did a market valuation on it, they said, "Well, the highest best used residential
housing and it should sell for X dollars an acre. You know, it's farm egg right now. It's double price, but picture schema things you can buy a lot of land for for that price and well development and stuff." So, there are a few levers to pull. I think the biggest thing right now is get this in front of you so you
guys can think about it and then in the next 30 days we kind of say okay hopefully have a little bit more information and then what direction are you guys comfortable with with us going because standing still isn't an option three is going to fly by before we know it and we got to do something. So even if it's you know that next step is okay
this is the plan this is a longterm plan even if we find another well in the ground that can buy us five eight years of development we still need to use seven and eight to treat it and we get to that point we start phasing that engineering for funding. Is it appropriation funds?
Is it is it funding? What are what are our opportunities? >> Yeah. >> Hey, I have a question. With all these solar panels, I mean, is that is that going to I keep hearing that's going to positively affect the water quality? Is there any
>> positively >> how's it going to positively? Well, well, that that's what they say because it's not getting farmed and we're not pumping millions and millions and millions of gallons for agriculture. >> We don't know the time to. So, we we did this with with one of the property owners that recently acquired property.
Well, you say Amazon is over there and as we started talking through with their engineers and what they're seeing and looking at the water consumption that they need. There's no asurances that you can say high nitrates quit farming. It goes away in a year, 5 years, 12 years. There's nothing to say that is it groundwater produced is there is there
something else that's producing naturally versus farming. >> So >> you don't know. >> Yeah, that's what I figured. But >> could >> it's most likely from farming though. >> That's the general assumption would be because we all grew up with it. We think that that's probably the case. But
there's no asurances that a it is and b if it is, will it go away? How fast will it disappear? You just don't know that, >> right? >> And a big risk to take with a lot of zeros behind it, you know. No. Yeah, I agree. >> Well, in thinking about this too, uh the
you know what should we go down the route of the the treatment plan if it's a 75 plus year building and the design is not likely to change, then it would be once we know we're going to do it, I think it'd be more
advantageous at that point to do it quicker because it's good. It's the technologies. We're not going to have outdated technology or anything like that. The sooner you get it in, the cheaper it's going to be. You know, if you throw a four or five percent per year on it, I mean, five years, a fivey year wait, you're already
>> 10 15% more for the same exact thing. >> Chris, I think, has a number that would tell you >> it's it's co was bad for construction. >> Yeah, >> this same building is 10 million or less seven or eight years ago.
>> So, it's probably doubled. But again, it's not the only construction costs. I mean, you see that across the board. >> It's probably triple three years ago, came back down to double. >> So, I think you're right though that the reality is once you've decided once you're convinced that we need to do
this, there's not a whole lot of weight. >> It'll just get more expensive. >> Yeah. >> I really think you look at that really you can the hammer property and potentially the property. We've we've stuck so many holes in the ground
>> and we've tried to do it judiciously where we're spending money wisely, but I I just we're running out of options. We've tested any farm field that's close by that's got irrigated grounds on it. We're trying to scrap those waters so we don't have to disturb the ground and get it. So, I really think those are are two
options that we can look at. If there's no joy there or we don't muscle our way into it a little bit, this is our option and and we have to start looking at that. That's that's really when we're going to sit down and say, "Hey, we need to do something." >> And where are we at? >> Is there any further direction you and
Chris need from tonight? >> I don't think so. I think we can handle that. And I would say within 30 to 45 days, we'll try and set those meetings up. Maybe one of you wants to sit down with the property owner. >> Yeah, I'd love to go with you. >> No, we would reach out.
>> We'll let you all decorate sit down sometimes. Yeah, you heard from a longtime citizen earlier that >> apparently the post office, dude. >> Um, >> why do I see Phil out there with a bucket catching irrigation water for
testing? >> He just takes a drink and if he's alive tomorrow, it must have been okay. >> Not doing the crappie. Let's do it. >> Two years old. It's a >> rust. might have problems where you go. >> I believe the hammer well is like the
second oldest. I I want to say that if that's the one that I I remember that from the well study before that was like a 1970 well if I remember right. So I can take you back to to I think it was 2004 or 2005 when we first worked with with Tom Hammer on on that that
what's now a monitoring law and we had an agreement in place and u it it fell through for um the cost of five lots when you know it was adamant we didn't need five lots on a host.
>> Yeah. So that fell through and we've been kicking ourselves ever since. So we're not going to relive that but it's very very frustrating because that water is makeup of that water is very similar to what we're seeing in our existing wells right now and it's a very good producer and we understand it's agriculture they need to
close to that as well and feeds that whole 100 acres maybe 160 acres I don't know if that waters the worst property out there so we understand that we want to be respectful of that but really at that point if we get to that it's really a decision you guys want to make you
know there's no agreement we go down the path that nobody likes to go down or not. And if we don't, that's fine. Then then we just know that. But our our goal as staff is to exhaust every option, bring everything in front of you guys. So you see that we're we're checking every box. We're trying to be
physically responsible, but we also know that we're going to >> Yep. Do you two need any more on on this? >> No, I think I think we're there right now. uh we'll take this and then we'll come back and revisit this and then then we'll start to plan that out. We'll have
to get finance heavily involved with what directions we would go as far as what are our options. If that's the the way we land, what is that step? And it's a one year, three year, five year plan. I would think we probably do something like that. >> And if we need to be on this list by March, is do we all have agreement we
should get on this list? >> Is that something we can do? >> Let's get on the list. Okay. >> Yeah, we uh put in an application for a grant for some infrastructure and we didn't expect to get it, but we did.
>> Right. >> So, >> watch them show up in April. >> All righty. No. >> All right. Well, thank you all for that. Thank you, Chris, Chris, and Phil. Appreciate it.
Uh round table. Anybody have anything? Oh, I do not >> uh industrial park round table >> this Thursday. I think we have 20 or so businesses coming. So,
looking forward to that. Um >> that launch thing. >> It's a 1:30 meet and greet. Sherburn State Bank is sponsoring the apps for that. and then a kind of a two o'clock kick off the program, finish up about
3:30. Jacob did a nice job of coming up with some feedback we're going to gather from businesses. We'll give a little city update. The robotics team's going to be there to give a little update. Um, and then uh we're going to have all the
businesses introduce themselves. uh do a little discussion at the table so we can what we're doing well, what we can improve on, anything else they need from us, and then we have a final survey they'll fill out. We'll get some updated contact info cuz that's been kind of
interesting to see who's over there and who's renting what space now. Um and then we'll decide if if it's something they want to do each year. And we've had some good feedback so far. So I don't think I have anything else.
>> Do we uh let's see Thursday morning we got CMRP uh you attending that? >> Yep. >> Okay. Wouldn't miss that exciting discussion for anything. >> I was glad you said that. >> Yeah, I will be there.
I'll be on online or whatever. All right. If there's nothing else, we'll adjourn the meeting at 7:06. Thank you everybody. You got your card. sound before.