I think we know our way around and I saw Robert come in also, so we're going to add him to the list. But Brian, I still think we're probably going to have time for you, so we'll make sure it work out. Thank you. First up, uh, Mr. Sand. Uh, good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Uh, my name is Tim Sailin. I am a resident of Bloomington longtime 30-year and a
small business owner of quality care tyrant auto in the corner of 9140 Old Cedar Avenue South in Bloomington the corner of old cereby a corner that this body here has been desperately trying to increase to make it more a much better better place to be. The reason I'm in
here today is in reference to Bloomington code section 21.302.18 302.18 D4 MB mobile food unit operation. I have uh these folks right here have a mobile food truck and we brought them in
to try and maybe help this corner a little bit just help it. We after we brought them in after a while I then began getting letters from uh the city here about the ordinance that a food truck cannot be parked
overnight. The reason I'm coming to you folks here is I'm looking for you guys to look at this ordinance and really say, is it a good ordinance to have? Yes, having the food truck, but to not allow them to spend the night. The reason I say that is these folks here are hardworking
individuals. They had to move their truck by midnight Sunday so I wouldn't incur a $300 fine. They did. They don't really have a place to go. And here's a small business who has a ballot license in the city of
Bloomington. I'm looking to get this changed because I see on Nichollet Avenue at Roth Music, there is a food truck that's been there longer than these folks have been there every night. I know that because I test drive cars. I pick cars up and I see them all the time. I see them there spending the
night. Nothing being done. I talked to the manager of Groth Music. There's been no ordinance, no citation given to them. Next, in the store next to them has another food truck that does not move at night time. Again, nobody's contacted
them. I know this is a pain. I know this is what the law states in the city, but this is an ordinance I think we could really move. These nice folks are going to end up having to leave. They're not going to be able to come back to our shop. I have not only gained customers,
they have gained customers. They've been there, how long do they now? Month and a half. Like two months. Two months now. Two months. And we start to get more people and more food. Yeah. And their volumes keep increasing. But if they have to leave, it's not possible for
them to take the food truck down to Chesca. Oh, Savage. Savage. Savage. Yeah. Then to bring it back in the daytime. I mean, it's just he it doesn't work their product. They, you know, yes, they go down there and they do their commissary and they do that, but to
travel with the truck and you can imagine the wear and tear also the product inside just it's just it's a shameless. These guys work hard for that. They lose product. I'm just asking the city to look at changing this ordinance because there's a lot of people that are being affected by this.
These folks are going to have to leave. Give you an example. I went from a 15 case order a week on pop to a 30k case order week on pop because of those guys food truck and the people they bring in. I have increased my sales in the back shop. Oil changes, repairs, might go out
help people. I'm going to see that decrease too. I'm just asking for you guys to think about this to allow these food trucks to sit overnight. That's what that's all I'm asking for is to think about that. It's it's hurting more than just the food truck. It's hurting the
people behind it. That's what's hurt the most. Yeah, appreciate it. And and I don't know the detail to be honest since we passed the food truck ordinance. I haven't really dug back, right? Figured it all out. Uh if I recall, the original logic was behind it was because we didn't want to park in neighborhoods
overnight. I mean, you wouldn't want your neighbor having in front of the house for three straight. I own the property and I own the business. Why can't I say what's on my property can be that? It's not it's not a eyesore. No. and and especially and I don't know what
the s situation is at growth music and and right that's I'm just stating that those are things that I'm seeing along with so many other violations just it just seems like this is really becoming an ordinance that just is hurting more than just one person it's not just hurting me personally so after you called in we did we did alert Lyn more
in our when I was in the meeting with with legal that's correct and so we'll uh I'll ask them to take a look at this and we'll see if we can get an explanation as to how this is working why why it's not in forest or why it's in forest what some options might be. What can we do to maybe change it to allow these folks to
stay in the city to be able to do this? I agree. It might take might be a simple tweaking. Uh it might be, you know, if it's a if it's a major overhaul, we're going to have to talk about I agree. We we should we can we can at least examine it and look at the That's all I'm asking. Can't guarantee anything, but certainly take a look at And the last
thing I'll implement in this is they have a Bloomington food license. They pay tax. Taxes go to the city. You make money on that, too. these other ones. There's no food license on those trucks right by one. So folks, ladies and gentlemen, I appreciate that. I know my
time is up, is indeed. And I just want to say thank you very much. Have a nice evening. Let me know how this comes out. We'll do. Mr. Tucker, good evening. Welcome. Good evening. Uh my name is Dave Tucker and I live in Williamsburg Village on the west side.
We're a 99 home HOA uh that has three entrances right off of Minnesota Bluffs. Uh on Thursday, we became aware of the um program that is proposed right now
for the snow plow reduction program. Um spoke on Friday with Tim Eton I guess had been tasked with putting the whole thing together and then met with him actually at that open house on Saturday. Um to
his credit he's done a ton of work. Um we are a little bit of a different animal which is why I'm here tonight. As I said, we have 99 homes, but 75 of them are on private culde-sacs off of city
streets. And on these culde-sacs, the city doesn't maintain or plow them. We do. So, as part of the HOA, we collect assessments from our residents. We engage landscape and snow removal
contractors and we cover probably and this is a a ballpark estimate 2/3 of a mile between Quebec Circle uh Rhode Island Avenue South 111th
Street and Sumpter. The problem is in that entire span, we only have 11 homes that have frontage on sidewalks. All the rest are either on the other side of the street that doesn't have a
sidewalk, but 75 of them are on the culdeacs. Uh we brought we've been scrambling since we found out about this um to try and be here tonight. We had our snow removal contractor come in and
he had to measure the width of the sidewalks to make sure his equipment could get in there. Um, the bottom line is it's going to cost us another $4,800 a year to plow that. There's no
way our residents can do it. Uh we also we're 41 years old and we got several people that have lived there since it was built. Um we're all getting old and and decrepit. So
um we actually believe that this program is valid and it's got merit. We back it. We support it. Um the thing that we believe though is we believe that the cuts, if you look
at the overall map, they're still going to plow the sidewalks on the major routes. For example, Minnesota Bluffs, all three of the entrances for our community for 100 homes, 99 homes
come right off of Minnesota Bluffs. We believe that the cuts ought to be surgical versus a blanket thing. The problem is if we incur the 4,800, our monthly income from
dues is 49. So, we're going to have to pass it on to the residents. Um, most of the people I've talked with say, "We get why you don't want to increase taxes because you'll get
screamed at being the president. I don't want to increase the assessment so I don't get screamed at." Sure. But that's that's basically why we're here. We're heavily involved in we just joined the neighborhood watch. We're putting together a no
solicitation policy. We're working with Sean to be able to hang no solicitation signs. Uh we promote Bloomington and all the activities on our website. So, um we think you guys are doing a great
job. We support you. We're just asking that you put this under a microscope for our case. I I appreciate that and I appreciate I appreciate your your acknowledgement that uh a that they've done a great job with the the whole community outreach engagement trying to
get feedback from everybody on all of this and and Kevin's great trying to look at this from a citywide perspective and I know there are individual stories based on you know every sidewalk's got a story uh but I mean but it's a citywide kind of uh decision that we we have been asked to make and uh honestly we're
we're having the conversation again tonight a little bit more Right. I I expect you'll stick around and listen to the conversation. Then I'm going to watch it on TV. Probably better call. It's too far down on the agenda. Yeah. For that one. Uh but I appreciate your input. Uh because this is uh tonight is
it is just a a staff discussion with the uh the council and wouldn't have an opportunity for for input uh like I know they have gotten as I said. So, but I appreciate it. I appreciate that you're here tonight. Appreciate that you're offering your your thoughts on this. Thanks. Appreciate your time.
Robert. Okay. Hello. Good evening. Hello, Mayor, City Council. Um, I'm here with uh two of my friends. Uh, we are uh you know me, my name is Robert Coleman. Um, I work at the, uh, Valley West Cup
for Jerry's Enterprises. Uh, I've lived in Bloomington since I think 2008, and I've worked at that job since 2022. Uh, my name is Sierra Storm. I work at the Unifi Cub off of Glendale and I have
lived in Bloomington for about 12 years now. My name is Savannah Bau. I work at um, Nolan's Festival Foods. I have lived here for in Bloomington for 17 years. Thanks be for how we help you. Uh we are
here to talk about to give you a little bit of an update on uh how it is going with uh our union negotiations. Uh we are all unionized under United Food and Commercial Workers Local 663. And uh for some of us, like for I work for Jerry's
Enterprises, uh our employees have ratified the uh the employer's final offer for better or for worse. Um but the fight does continue at these other two stores. Um at the UNFI store and at Oh, yes. And then there's one more
employer, uh HG's own Cubs that are in the north metro. Um and uh there's a lot of things that uh we're we're mainly here uh to give you an update because uh there have been a lot of uh unlawful activities uh performed by our
employers. Um all three of ours including and also the the Hag employers. Um there has been uh the most common things have been uh interrogation, surveillance and intimidation by uh store directors. Um I
we're not sure if there's any that have happened in Bloomington at those two stores. Um the uh all of the the things are on the NLRB website, but it's not split out by store, it's split out by company. Um
uh do you guys want to talk about how what it's been like at the stores that have uh that have not read that rejected the contracts? Yeah, I mean at festival in particular, this is something that has never happened before. Um, in my I've been
working there since 2015. Um, it's honestly we know we need better. This has never happened and people are actually talking about it and we just support.
Yeah, I would say uh one of the at least for Unifi UNFI uh the biggest uh ulp we have was like a uh it was a buyout they tried to do with
the full-timers without bargaining it with the union first and um yeah that's that's still ongoing right now that was definitely our strongest ulp because uh
they during CO and stuff hired a lot of full-timers and now they're trying to really cut back on that and so they broke the law and have been validating our rights to try to get around those kinds of things. Yeah. And the uh right
like the contract fight is one thing but during the course of the negotiations they have engaged with in a lot of unlawful activities. Uh there have been at least eight uh that have uh in unifi that have been signed like thumbs up by
the the board the the labor relations board as having merit and uh those are the and it has been at uh Nolan's festival and at Hakes Cubs as well and those are the uh we're looking to hold a
strike vote uh on uh over uh unfair labor practices um because our contract is expired uh a strike is our only recourse for that. We don't have access to arbitration. Uh the NLRB isn't very uh
effective right now. Uh and even then they can only really hand out like a slap on the wrist. Um and I would love to have your support. I mean uh we have we didn't get a time. On Friday uh there is going to be the firstformational
picket that we have held at the Hes Source. It's in Minnotonka. We the time has not been finalized, but it's on Friday. It was originally 1:30 to 2:30, but they weren't sure. Yeah. Yeah. Um I'll send you guys an email when that gets finalized, and I'm hoping
we can get one at your store soon. Um and we've had we've had visits from Alice Man and Julie Green. And uh at our picket at London Barley's, we were joined by Lieutenant Governor Picky
Flamigum. Uh it was we uh she called the uh the employers chief skates on the local news and one of their longest employees held up a quarter signifying how much raises that they would get under their offer and then on the final day of bargaining LMB all of a sudden oh
hey there's so much more money here for raises and it was cut you off and I'm going to remind you all and you know this of course as a as a body we have literally nothing that we can do here I know that if you if you have legal concerns, if you have actual,
you know, lawful issues, contact our Bloomington police. Uh if you want to talk to council members individually about their support, you certainly can. As a as a governing body of the city of Bloomington, there there's really nothing we can do here. And but we wish you luck. I I do want to Yes, we're not
the city council. You're the members of the city council in your personal capacity. Thank you. Thanks. You guys sign in over yonder and let Mary sit on down. We can she has to say good evening. Welcome. Hello. My name is Mary Pat
Jarian. I have lived in Bloomington or well I should say I bought my house 26 years ago actually today. So, wonderful thing, wonderful. I love living in Bloomington. Many great things. However, I was a little late to find out about this snowplow and being
responsible for it. So, I'm here just to voice my concern as a homeowner who can't even plow her own driveway, much less half a block on the side of her house. So, I I realize that it's a budget thing, but at the same time, I look at it in the fact
that there are not that many houses that have to do their own plowing because they are not by sidewalks because your sidewalks aren't in front of every house. It's like every other block. So, between me and the next one, there are 12 houses that never have to do snow plowing on sidewalks. And I just don't feel that that's fair because it's not
that you know your sidewalks are not what percentage of the city streets actually have sidewalks. So anyway, I'm just hoping that you will take into consideration that there are some elderly people like my neighbor and even myself who have bad days. I cannot
I pay to have my driveway plowed. And I would just appreciate you revisiting this. I like I said, I came a little late, so I didn't even realize this was up for discussion or open houses, but it will be it'll really affect us. You know, there's a lot of
you got a lot of seniors that live in Bloomington who have streets that I don't know how we're going to do it. Just people I don't know. Well, as you heard me say earlier, we're talking about this. Uh I don't I don't plan on voting on it tonight, but it's another discussion and we appreciate the input that you're
bringing back to us and our city staff. Uh I mean it's the second time I've heard that you didn't hear about the open houses and all the they have done it. I saw it like in the paper or one of your briefings like after it already had happened and I just you know because lots of times you'll send notices or something but never got anything like
that. Uh but appreciate the opportunity. I'm glad you had the opportunity to come here and talk to us and provide that feedback. U we're we're going to have the conversation. No decisions have been made yet and great, we will go from there. Because I have to do say that sidewalks even in the summertime, they're not exactly a nice thing to have
on the side of your house because there's people going by, dogs going by, I mean, and peed in your grass. So, just saying it's not really the most wonderful thing, but I love blooming. Thank you for the the
feedback, Brian. We have more than enough time for you. Thank you. which is still only good five minutes. Just so we're greeting, mayor, city council. Thank you for allowing me. Um I saw on the let's talk Newington
project list the uh information about the franchise fee expansion and I realize it's been taken off the agenda. Um, I reached out to Sean with an email and and also copied the project manager and also GS the city's finance director.
And I'll just I' like to kind of just share the thoughts from my email with you just to kind of get a broader audience for my perspective on what I see happen. I appreciate that. Okay. Um
so some input on the franchise fee expand expansion which was outlined in the recent newsletter. I think the various maps which were included were for me a great visual understanding why I oppose the increase in fan in
franchise uh fees to cover retaining wall maintenance. So the seal coding and overlay maps, they clearly indicate that these are citywide initiatives which impact all Bloomington road roadways and neighborhoods. Uh as such, the fees in
place seem to be an understandable mechanism for funding the ongoing maintenance and repair of our streets. The costs are shared by all Bloomington residents via the franchise fee arignment arrangement and necessary for
work that impacts us. On the other hand, the map which indicates retaining walls across the city shows they are dispersed and very small in scale
compared to the citywide roadway projects impacting fewer neighborhoods and fewer residents. Uh to me it doesn't seem appropriate that an incremental fee should be added to all
residents for work that impacts relatively few areas and is currently managed out of the city budget out of the general fund. So for me it appears to be an incremental fee for existing
routine maintenance. And so I have I have trouble with that. Um in addition uh the fact that only three areas are identified for replacement over the next two to three years uh it uh doesn't again seem to
support the need for you know incremental fees that would begin starting January 1. Um, I recommend continuing to fund retaining walls as a regular main site uh from the current source which I understood to be the
general fund. And I say that just kind of in view of recent tax increases, other economic pressures on Bloomington residents, and even what I am anticipating to be triple down uh expenses that will be uh hitting maybe
not only the city uh but just as I had my kids at Penn Lake or my grandkids, I should say, at Penn Lake uh last Friday only to hear that children's story time is being cut because of budget
constraints. So, and it they said no, it's a it's a trickle down from federal the state to the uh county government. So, there there's pressure and I just um as an individual when families incur
unexpected expenses, we find a way to fit them in. Um we don't always have a new revenue source that that we can tap into. So that that's kind of uh the gist of what um my view was and I I
appreciate you hearing me out. And the only other thing that's since I um reached out to Sean, if you look at 93 cents on your gas bill and your electric bill, doesn't sound like a lot. Okay, two bucks a
month, 12 months. But if you look at it on a percentage basis, that increases the franchise fee by 15.6%. That that's start a little bit starting. Like I say, the numbers appear
small, but you you add them up over 50,000 households and you don't have a project that's out there until two to three years down the road, it's millions. It's millions of dollars. So anyway, I I appreciate the time and you know, I appreciate you coming in and as
you said, yes, we we had it on the calendar tonight, the public hearing. to cancel that because frankly we got more work to do on it. Okay. And we we understand that and that that seems going to be the plan moving forward and where that work goes I'm really not sure right now. Sure. Because we've been hearing a lot from a lot of different folks and I know council members have
different opinions as well. So well and seeing that it was canceled just wanted to uh register my view. Council member Nelson quick comment here and you know I think as our reply back to the general fund is paid by all people franchise tax
is paid by all people it's just a different source the question in my mind that I think the part of the reason why we delayed it is to look at if there's a different timing of when we do these projects or some of the other projects
in that program in order to avoid an increase. So, if we have to increase spending for those retaining walls and it goes into the general fund, that'll be in the levy and we'll all have to pay that. Um, if we do it through franchise taxes, we'll have to pay that as well.
So, we're going to pay for it either way. It's a matter of how we do that. And I think the big question, the reason it was delayed was, is there anything else we can do? Is there a way to manage those costs? There's a way to time those costs so that we can do it without an increase in the existing funding. Exact.
I wasn't I wasn't um proposing an assessment of sorts only for people who have retained. Yeah. I didn't I didn't I didn't gather that and I just remind you and kind of setting clarity what the mayor said about what the ongoing conversations are about this because
we've heard you and others and we understand the situation in the community and we we want to make sure we're being fiscally responsible. Perfect. And I I do I appreciate the conversation that we had to talk to. Absolutely. Sir, thank you very much. Appreciate it. Thank you, Mitchell.
Also, we are at 6:15. Look at us. Right on time. I will look for a motion to adjurnn. We'll head downstairs. Motion second. All in favor say I. I. We are adjourned. We'll head downstairs. Thank you all for coming this evening. Appreciate it. Appreciate your input. No. Thanks.
Thank you.