--------- 7:15 this is the Briner Safety and Public Works Committee meeting uh two items on our agenda the first of which is consider removing park maintained maintained flag poles and public works director Habigor thank you Mr president and last time we met we talked about the
five maintained flag poles in the downtown area i met with Troy our park maintenance uh uh foreman and he came up with a great idea he found a device there's pictures on there too sean if you can go scroll down i think uh
there's some pictures indicating that regarding that actual device where he was able to install this device and make it uh uh mendable in the sense that a staff person can lower and raise the flag um and it was just really a good
device that he was able to show up there oh it might it it's on our staff report i'm sorry and so it's a device that he was able to find and install himself and so it was a great uh maneuver and I just commended him for that and now just seeking
direction regarding the actual uh removal or consideration for the other four flag poles on Front Street mr chair yes mike um what flag poles that you just said this device can um
assist with which ones can that assist with it could assist with you we could install this device on any pole to make it operational without a lift so with this device previously to to this we'd have to get a lift to to lower and raise
a flag with this device it's just a like a pulley that you can lock and then staff can lower or raise the flag pole at normal height when you're standing on the actual sidewalk and this is something you move as you need it to
each pole it's portable if we so choose we just did one for sure to give direction um asking for direction from council i know the American Legion on Front Street has uh all the blue on that flag is uh private uh flags and the red
are you know the four that are downtown so if I'm not mistaken your recommendation on this is to if I'm not mistaken I could I can't remember is it to remove the four on front that was one option yes okay is this particular device mentioned in the recommendation
did I miss that well we were just going to seek bids to have that installed and but Troy was able to find a device to do it for very little money at all there's no information then what you just described in our packet correct okay
thank you that's all I have Mr chair for now any other questions of staff got it yeah the other uh note is the the actual lighting um because the flag pole on Laurel and Seventh Street is right next to a street light it it provides
ample uh lighting for uh night visibility and so that flag is well lit up at night all right thank you so I had a couple questions or at least comments um I may have misunderstood but when we talked about this last time I was under
the impression or misimpression that we were going to lower um excuse me remove the flags only in the winter time i thought there was a seasonal aspect to it um and it looks like I was either mistaken or u but that's not mentioned in the recommendation um if that's the
case I guess I don't support removing them you know I I want to lower have the ability to lower them and raise them properly light them but to me having not don't not having the ability to lower them I don't want to throw the baby out with the bathroom and remove the flags
altogether I guess is my concern um and now now this is new information we're hearing about this kind of the device that was uh is the device able to be installed on each pole or is it a device that goes around to each one i guess that was we would install that this device to each pole if the council show
so chose to do that sean can you pull up the map again um the one on on Front Street there's four there and whatever the council would like to do uh it is you know going down
on on uh 371 the business route you know those two on that route would be nice to see uh but again whatever the council would like is What What's the price of this device very minimal it was under under $50
it's mechanical right it's it's a mechanical device yes okay it's with a ratchet you put on and you can just ratchet it's very simple and it would prohibit the public from tampering and it would sounds to me like it might be the solution correct you a person with a
couple tools could do it but again anyone with some tools and the motivation could you know do anything that they would like but and how many of these uh keeping would we need we would need to get four more four okay any
other questions or discussion otherwise well I guess it I mean it sounds like we have new findings that make this make our current packet do we do we push this off for a month and then make a decision or do we make are we asking for new direction now based upon the the new
devices that we found and then with the other four we would have to get lighting there's I believe the only one that is has proper lighting is on front and I think that's 8 street is the only one that has proper lighting the other the
other three flag pole we'd have to you know electrical wires and is the a lot of I mean there's a lot of companies that make a solar unit that attaches to the top of the flag pole it stays up there by itself lights the flag right what what's our what's our cost do you
have any idea for this No we have not researched that maybe maybe we'll next meeting I think the direct staff to come back with the price for everything the the mechanical device and then any uh electrical need for the lights for the flags that we'd
want to uh for all the remaining flags on front three that can we direct staff Mr chzach from this we got to make a motion that's what I did well okay my motion is to direct staff second thank you motion and second any
discussion hearing none all those in favor say I i all right thank you very much and our next and last item is discuss assessment methodology for improvement 2314 and public works director Havagor again thank you Mr
president this one the council approved uh on 317 to move forward with the actual assessment after further assessment and the the consultant re relooking at that there's an alley that we need to pave also well only some
properties touch that alley and other properties do not so there's two different approaches that we could do we could assess that alley and determine a price point and then just assess those property owners on that and then we
could assess all the street and then assess those property owners on that i'd like to turn over the mic a little bit to to our city engineer Jesse and then he could um discuss a little bit more in detail on the different options that we have jesse thank you Mike uh thank you
Mr chair um so as as Mike stated um kind of the difference here normally we wouldn't uh def u deviate from our normal practice where we kind of lump all the street cost for a project altogether and then divide it by frontage um here it's it is a little bit
different because of the alley paving um the cost can be uh quite a bit more different because of the production rate um so that that can factor into the cost of the assessment uh so some of the folks that are on the side streets might be picking up a little bit more of the
tab for the alley paving um as compared to those folks that are just on the alley um so we just laid out a couple different options ahead of the improvement hearing which isn't necessarily for the assessment specifically but we know it does come up quite a bit during that uh improvement
hearing uh one would be to just continue as we normally do lump all the street costs together and just divide it by frontage and move forward just as typical uh the other option would be we could separate the the bid items for alley paving versus street paving um and
then kind of divide out the uh assessment rate um for the alley versus the street uh it won't vastly change folks assessments um just because most of the frontage is in the alley but it it will make a little bit of a difference for those folks um but it's ultimately up to the council if they
want to uh deviate from our typical practice on this one so any questions of staff or comments i I got to perhaps send me a combo question comment um so when we um removed access to these homes on Sixth
Street it um it now makes the only place they can get to their property is through the alley right yes yes sir okay and then on the three east west streets what how many homes would
actually be assessed based on the street improvement on the north and south side of each of those streets so on the very south end on Paul there are two that would just get assessed for the alley frontage uh because they were assessed last year for Paul um there are four
corner home properties on Ronald that would have sideyard deduction uh frontage on the Ronald side on the street side uh but would get the full assessment rate for the frontage on the alley um and then on Joseph you would have the north parcel that would be full
frontage on the um Joseph side for this street paving and then the two properties on the south would be split between the street and the alley okay so there's a total of two homes then that have both alley and street assessments combined or is there more six six okay
that I missed that all right that's all I wanted for now thank you other questions comments real quick um just out of curiosity what what was the impetus for this did a citizen bring these concerns forward how how did this how did this come about and then a second followup I'll be asking is you said it wouldn't the money difference
wouldn't be much can you just give me just a little bit more on that uh staff wanted to bring this to the attention of the council before the improvement hearing um if we wanted to go a different direction that we have some time to uh prepare some say documents or some exhibits for
folks to be able to review at that hearing as well uh so we wanted a little bit of time ahead of that uh for the council to review and give us some direction on okay um and like I said most of the frontage is on the alley um so most of those people are already
picking up the majority of the bill on this portion of the project really what it would be if you were to go uh and separate the two items the folks that are on the um that'll have uh two sides so the ones that are on Ronald and Joseph would see a little bit less of
the assessment and the ones on the alley would be a little bit more of the assessment because they're picking up a little bit more it's not going to be vastly different it'll be just a little bit slightly different because the alley is picking up a high but we Sorry go ahead but we've been using total project divided by uh divided by frontage for a
long long time yes sir yep with the three minutes that we have left so you anticipate additional costs on the alley portion of this improvement question before us how do we want to handle the assessment do it as we have done uh adhering to our
policy as you said total project cost by the by project frontage or another option because of the additional costs to the uh from the alley portion assess that one's break that out separately because the public benefit
would primarily be served to those residents so yes sir it's a little bit of more of a unique project compared with other ones so we wanted to ask that question we got Yes you may two minutes hey so if you weren't going to do the alley Jesse how much would the people
that are only uh uh with frontage on the alley would they they'd still be assessed for these street improvements correct yes sir okay questions comments be entertain ready to entertain
a motion i'll make a motion to move ahead with uh the traditional system of the total total project lumped together divided by frontage as we've done in the past second motion and a second any discussion
hearing none those in favor say I i those opposed same sign motion carries all right thank you very much we'll adjourn Part: 2
all right let's call to orders it's Brainer City Council it's Monday April 7th 2025 7:30 p.m uh Tony please call the role beans here chzach here johnson here stunn jagger yep ericson here oay here
bedau here please rise for the pledge of allegiance i pledge allegiance 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 next we're looking for approval of the agenda i would like to move two items out of respect for everybody here um we have a full agenda after a 3-week break um I'm sure you guys want to hear all that stuff too but
just in case for a few of you that might not I'd like to move uh 9A and 9B right behind our public forum mr chair or Miss uh PNF had one change as well item five moved to item one i
would approve your request along with that as well thank you put the motion to approve the agenda second okay motion by I think we had a motion by Chzock second by Ericson u five to one explain explain
that to me what was that we had an item that was originally listed as number five on our Oh agenda we moved it up to the top just so people could get upstairs for the safety and public works thank you all right any more discussion
hearing none go to a vote all in favor i we have an agenda next we have consent calendar this is a notice to the public that all matters listed are considered routine by the council and will be enacted by one motion there will be no separate discussion of these
items unless good cause is shown prior to the time of council prior to the time the council votes on the motion to be adopted by roll call motion to approve consent Mr president second by Tad motion by Chzach second by
Bevans any more discussion tony please call the RO beans yes chzach yes johnson yes stunic yes jagger yes ericson Od yes moving on to number six this is public forum this is time allocated for
citizens to bring matters not on the agenda to the attention of the council time limits may be imposed so at 7:33 I will open the public forum if anybody's here to address the council on any matters that are not listed on the
agenda please come forward and if you're online and you would like to address the council please press star three i'll ask again if anybody is here to address the council on anything that is not on the agenda please come
forward looks like no i'm going to wait till 7:34 you got 5 seconds it's 7:34 we will close the public forum moving on to
9A this item is consideration of an interim use permit for the operation of a year-round warming shelter at 1926 South 7th Street and this is community development director James Krabik thank you Mr president uh so Janice Shogrin
has submitted a request on behalf of Bridges of Hope for an interim use permit to operate a warming shelter for the homeless in the Brainer Lakes area at 1926 South Seven Street the current interim use permit for the shelter expires on June 30th of 2025 the facility operates between the months of
September 1st and April 30th of each year the applicant is proposing to operate the shelter year round according to the findings of fact the shelter meets all conditions of section 515-3-34 pertaining to warming shelters uh staff did include an incident report from the police department that had um
concerns about increasing incidents in the neighborhood uh staff's recommendation at the planning commission was for the warming shelter to only operate between the months of September and April and indicated inconsistencies with comprehensive plan uh the motion coming out of the planning commission meeting was as followed by a
3 to2 vote recommend approval of the interimm use permit uh renewal with the following conditions interimm use permit shall expire on June 30th of 2028 the facility must operate between the months of September 1st and April 30th of each year the facility may operate from April
30th through August 31st in 2025 essentially a trial year if the uh Brainer Police Department determines that the facility has been used in a disorderly manner and upon the recommendation of the police chief the interim use permit shall be brought before city council for review and consideration for suspending or revoking
the permit at the next available city council meeting and finally the shelter staff shall provide a report to the city council each year prior to September 1st and I can answer any questions thank you Mr kramvik we did already have a public hearing at the planning and zoning level
i assume most of the council hopefully all the council members have watched that back um but at this time I'd like to hear from council any questions that you have for Mr kramic i know we the applicant is here Mrs shogran um if you
have questions for her as well that's totally fine but I'll open it up for discussion any questions for staff uh Mr johnson I've got a couple questions i got one for James Cranvic your initial
staff recommendation at planning and zoning was to continue operating the warming shelter under the warming shelter ordinance as a warming shelter during the cold winter months can you explain why that was the staff recommendation at the time
yes i'll go to the findings of fact when discussing the comprehensive plan uh so the first part of it uh the proposal you shall preserve the objectives of the ordinance and shall be consistent with cons comprehensive plan uh the proposal is consistent with public safety goal one brainer will
provide uh protect and provide for the safety of all residents and visitors uh make efficient use of existing facilities to ensure access to emergency service for all residents and visitors again the warming shelter has provided an asset to the community uh to shelter those in need during extremely cold
winter conditions and shelter staff have worked well with emergency services uh staff did in indicate that the proposal is not consistent with public safety goal one brainer will protect and provide for the safety of residents and visitors policy three continuously seek to eradicate crime through innovative
contemporary strategies including prevent uh preventative proactive and responsive measures again after reviewing the incident report from the police department uh certainly there was a correlation in increased incidents in that neighborhood so staff did have concerns thank you and then one more question of
the police chief i don't have a staff recommendation which you would have been included in but I kind of want to hear it from your mouth Chief Davis do you recommend us approving a year round operation over at the warming house let let me share with council um some of
our observations that we've seen over the last few years and first of all I want to say that uh the warming se um has been a good community partner with us um we've had a good relationship and they've really um during those winter months when there's unsheltered
individuals um have been um a tool to address what we consider sometimes a very dire emergency in the cold of winter um what we've seen over the last few years and I I would say my primary
concern is we're steadily seeing a a draw from outside of the city outside of this community of um individuals seeking services such as the warming center um we you know we've had numerous
discussions and we're aware of you know for example law enforcement agencies outside of Crowing County that um when they're addressing issues with individuals they have um guided them and assisted them at times to to come to
Brainer and one of the reasons um made aware to us is partly due to we we have a warming center uh we're we're aware of other organizations and entities outside of um Crowing County that um support um
homeless individuals and there's been times where maybe there's been limitations to their support and therefore um once again um made arrangements for individuals to come to Brainard remain in Brainer for the the warming center uh through discussions
with individuals from larger cities Fargo Duth St cloud um we've been told um that now that Brainer has some similar resources such as um some of these larger cities do that individuals
would have come to Brainer and would prefer being in Brainer due to a a smaller community um easier access walkability easier access to services uh less crime and violence so uh we're seeing some draw from some of those
larger cities specifically uh the last few months individuals from St cloud and it's our understanding through conversations that some of these individuals had lost their privileges at the the St cloud uh shelter and
therefore since they lost the privileges now relocating up to Brainard for some of these type of services and um our our concern primarily is um a year- round model what that would look
like as far as the draw um and would we you know these really good resources the question is these really good resources that we have here for our own community would we be exhausting those if we continue to have the draw that we've seen would that increase significantly
if you know we went to a year round model um and then you know also I think a big you know difference is like I started to say in the during the winter unsheltered at night is an acute
crisis and acute emergency i don't want to minimize the struggles of anyone in the summertime that doesn't have shelter however I don't identify that as the same type of critical emergency where they need to get into shelter as we do in the winter um so therefore you know
I'm still fully in support of uh you know a wintertime season but my support falls short for some of those observations and concerns that I just illustrated thank you Chief that's all I have President thank you Mr johnson anyone
else have questions for for staff i have a motion when you're ready okay go ahead with the motion my motion is to approve the recommendated uh recommended approval of the interim use renewal with those following
conditions motion not hearing a second no second that motion fails for lack of second mr johnson I'll give it a shot i I would move to approve the interim use permit renewal with the following conditions the interim use permit shall
expire on June 30 2028 the facility operate in the month September 1st through April 30th of each year the Brainer Police Department determines the facility has been found disorderly manner and upon the recommendation of the police chief the interim use permit shall be brought before the city council
for review and consideration for suspending or revoking the permit at the next available council meeting and the shelter shall provide an annual report to the city council and I so move second motion by Johnson second by Bevans mr
johnson yeah i I would like to speak to I we've heard staff's concerns about it going year round and I just want to speak to the history of the warming shelter i was on the council when they first applied and they they first applied kind of late in the season it was October November and I was kind of a champion of it i really
supported it i really pushed to hold special meetings so we could get the or the warming shelter ordinance drafted so we could get the warming shelter permit getting given out to the bridges folks so they could get a warming shelter operating in our community because I
fully support having a warming shelter here and I think it's an absolutely necessary need for our community and provides a great service to those who are most vulnerable in those cold winter months and that's why I make this motion
mr beans I echo everything Mr johnson said i think this is a really proven to be a excellent project and something that our community uh has benefited from that being said I'm a little bit disappointed in that I I'm not exactly
sure that homelessness is not a problem in the summer might be less of a critical problem as the chief said but I might disagree with the chief in that if the if the warming house hat was opened in the summer it may reduce the amount
of work you have to do rusting people from public lands with our new ordinance that being said I'll certainly support the amended or shortened motion thank you Mr beavens mr jagger thank you Mr od
i this is a to say that this is a nuanced conversation would would be the vast understatement of the world uh I I was very concerned about me personally finding the right space when this topic came before me i have visited both
shelters i have visited the leadership of both shelters i have talked to the county i've talked to uh had a lengthy conversation with Mr uh Davis i have um really dug into this not just in our own community but also in surrounding communities because I really feel like just me personally I wanted to get this
one right it's highly nuanced the group of people that this serves is highly nuanced and um people come from all different walks of life that find themselves in this position with all different needs are all of them good no are all of them bad no it's it's it's a
complicated issue uh I am in support of this shelter continuing its uh services through the summer months for primarily three main reasons and I'm just going to quickly summarize one is I believe that the camping ban was absolutely the right
decision i believe that as a city that's the right um that is the right decision for all of the stakeholders at place does it complicate this issue can yeah absolutely but I ultimately think it was the right decision i want to enable our law enforcement to be able to have a uh an ordinance when they go out and they
they talk to someone that says and that person asks where do we go i want them to be able to say these are some options for you to go so I I feel like I want this to continue through the summer mostly to not only to help the people but to also enable our law enforcement
to to have an option there as well second and this is one of the most important ones is I had no idea how robust the volunteer people in this community are and and just how eager
they are to serve when I visited uh both of these shelters we have uh churches we have private individuals we have just an unbelievable amount of people who invest of their time effort energy money and so forth into the into bettering this into
this cause into into helping the people that need help and I believe that I would like to be on the side of a champion for the people that volunteer for the other people right i just I want to support the people that want to support people so that's that's one of the key reasons why I'm on on that same
side ultimately I kind of found myself in a position of okay is this all good no is there bad here absolutely i I find that what I ultimately am coming down to this is is this more good than bad and I think one
of the key factors to to me finding the place in that decision was the fact that we are starting to talk about people coming from out from other communities to hear a lot of people that would land on them as a concern that lands on me as a success that needs to be managed so
while I certainly do see that us becoming a destination or refuge city for for people that that need these types of services absolutely comes with risk and absolutely has concerns i see that as we have something good here that people want to get to and I refuse to
you know exclusively measure the virtues or the shortcomings of human beings simply by their station in life even if it's of their own doing um so that is why I will ultimately support uh this however I have concerns one of my key concerns is data
every single person that I've visited that runs one of these shelters said at their own at you know by their own will that they are a person of data however when I asked very simple data questions like who are these people where do they come from do they have warrants nobody
really knows it is very there's very loose data attached with this uh group of people there's some but it's it's very loosely monitored and it's very loosely regulated so um the PIT study if you're familiar with the PIT study it's
it's one of the ways how we kind of get a count on on uh who these people are and how many of them are is is a in my opinion a a very terrible way to to get this count so um that leads me to one of
my other concerns uh is that um if if if these institutions and the people that are wanting to do this work have want to come before us and ask for us to support them I absolutely am encouraging the leadership of of the of these
entities to do a better job with data to give us the tools to not be waiting through the murkiness of what exactly is going on and how we can better help that was probably the most frustrating part of me digging into this is I just couldn't get a lot of square answers so
um because of the concerns I believe it's a mistake to extend to the 3 years and and the reason why I say that is when you look at the data that is produced um predominantly the PIT data it's showing some astounding growth in
the homeless in in this contingency of people the homeless population uh Crowing County is up 53% in just two years 22 to 24 uh the national average is up 32% in 22 to 24 and Minnesota's up 16% in 22 to 24 that to me says 3 years
is way too long to to to move forward with just saying this is a good thing i would like for us to look at this every year and I would like to encourage the leadership to come back to us with better data so that we can help not restrict but help make good decisions and so for that reason I'm in support of
it but I'm I I will not support a three-year extension of this with no checks and balances so that's kind of where I'm at guys and I certainly I want to say also say I appreciate all of the time and effort and the volunteers that that do this work and um I was astounded
at how many good people are in this city that's all sorry I took up too much you're good thank you Mr jagger anyone else nobody we have the motion restated again you want to restate restate your motion yeah
i'd move to approve the interim use permit with the following conditions the interim use permit shall expire on June 30th 2026 facility operates between months of September 1st and April 30th each year if the Briner Police Department determines that the facility has been used in a disorderly manner upon the
recommendation of the police chief the interim use permit shall be brought to the city council for review and consideration for suspending or revoking the permit at the next available city council meeting and that the shelter shall provide an annual report to the city council and I so move I'm so sorry i thought I heard 2028 in the original
motion i I apologize too okay oh I didn't catch that i was going to ask you if you wanted to change your motion but that's accurate okay um if no one else has comments I will say uh the chief's comments were my main concern as well
and if there were more cities with this type of shelter that were sized right for their community I think that would be a better better layout for the the state in general i call on the rest of those communities to look into this try to do something like this warming
shelter has done it's it's been overly overall it's been successful but as other communities aren't pulling forward and and bringing warming shelters to their community it then rains down on this community to take on that burden if
you want to call it that so I'd like to see I'd like to see this every year too see what changes i think it's a good idea to shorten it a lot's changed in three years a lot can change in one year so I'm going to support the motion and if there's no more
discussion looks like none can we get a roll call tony evans yes chzach yes johnson yes stun yes jagger yep ericson yes od yes that motion passes
uh next we will be moving on to 9B if you were just here for the shelter I'll give you a couple minutes to clear the room all right thank you moving on to 9B 9b we
have consideration of a conditional use permit for a boarding house on Northwest Third Street My Neighbor to Love again this is community de development director James Cranvic go ahead thank you Mr president vicky Kenny has submitted a request on behalf of My
Neighbor to Love Coalition for a conditional use permit to construct a mixeduse residential 8-bedroom single occupancy boarding house with an attached apartment for the property manager on Northwest Third Street uh the project meets a landscaping off street parking and design standards of the
zoning code uh in staff's opinion the project does not have to meet the dwelling units per acre requirement in the TN2 district as boarding houses um are not a dwelling unit and is listed on commercial uses the definition of a dwelling unit is as follows a building
or portion thereof designated exclusively for residential occupancy one or more rooms designated occupied or intended for the occupancy as separate living quarters with cooking sleeping and sanitary facilities provided within the dwelling unit for the exclusive use
of a single family maintaining a household does not include hotel mo motel or boarding rooms however a boundary line adjustment is required uh to so the storm water facilities are located on the same property as the proposed project uh the boundary line
adjustment will affect the overall density of the neighborhood and can be considered when reviewing the application as a TN2 district is intended to provide for a compact pedestrian oriented mix of residential and neighborhood serving commercial uses so according to the plan a
significant amount of space is taken up by the parking and storm water facilities with that uh the planning commission recommendation is as follows by a 3 to2 vote recommended approval of the conditional use permit to allow for a mixeduse boarding house at the properties indicated with the following
conditions the applicant is allowed 18 months to start the project a boundary line adjustment which includes the storm water retention basin is approved prior to issuance of the building permit and with that I can answer any questions thank you Mr kramvic anybody have questions for staff
nobody okay got a motion to approve uh as recommended by staff with the the two conditions as presented motion by Ericson second by Tat second by Bevans
any discussion anybody have discussion oh Mr johnson yeah I'll be voting no for the same reasons I gave the last time they applied and and received approval for a boarding house and that's I don't think it fits the comprehensive plan i don't think it fits
the zoning code in TN2 i don't think that it just fits that zoning district and I don't know what more I can say about it so I'll just be voting no because I I think it's wrong thank you Mr johnson go ahead Mayor you're a council member
yep go right ahead please thank you Mr chair i I will also be voting no on this i was a part of the planning commission when a lot of these projects were brought forward to us i want to first state that my position of no is not a position of I'm against this type of work that and I think that
is unfortunately a really kind of common default place of both the public as well as applicants as well as we're all guilty of this that just because we don't agree with the methodology means we don't agree with the work and I am not in that position i believe in low-income housing i absolutely believe
in workforce housing uh I believe in the need and so because I was also a part and very much appreciated being a part of some of the zoning work that we did years ago when we looked at this site the spirit and the intent of these specific sites was was uh high density
we we saw apartment buildings here we saw um multiple dwelling units in these areas um there was also when this particular application uh applicant came before us there was quite a bit of dialogue that happened regarding okay if we're not using the entire site we will want to maintain the
trees what I dislike is that when we begin to proc is when is when the the process begins uh where where design work begins to take over and we start looking at these projects all of a sudden we say okay well we can't keep the trees because of xyz when in fact
that's not really the case there are ways to keep the trees on sites like this the storm water the storm water management could absolutely be done subterraneanly underneath a driveway we don't necessarily just have to take every single project whack down every single tree on the parcel just for storm water i don't I do not subscribe to that
method of approaching uh construction inside cities that have mature growth we're fortunate that we are a city that does have mature vegetation so I just don't support that whole mindset of just clear cutting a property whacking down every single tree on it just because it's the easiest way to do storm water
and for that I will not be supporting this mostly on the boundary adjustment because I just don't feel that meets the comprehensive plan so I will be uh in that position here so that's all thank you thank you Mr jagger mr mayor yeah so I I don't know how many of you actually watched the the planning and or the uh
planning and zoning meeting but uh citizen Mike Duval came forward and spoke uh against the project for multiple reasons but the thing that I was really surprised by was uh the language of the boarding house itself and how that fits into our plans and how
it's fits into zoning in general and to tell you the truth after listening to him speak I don't think I support boarding holes in general mainly because I think that there's a little too much wiggle room in what can be allowed where and in what zoning it essentially felt like you could basically pick and choose
what you wanted to do with a boarding home whether you wanted it to be in commercial or residential and how many units it is how many things it just seemed like there was way too much wiggle room in there and I will say that as a homeowner if my next door neighbor became a boarding house I would be very upset because it's essentially becoming
a hotel if you will and it's very hard to then have that as a resident who then has no control over what the next unit's going to be next to them uh it's not specific to this project but it's specific to the idea that I think that we are supposed to set parameters and I
don't know how I feel about that parameter of a boarding home being able to shift its way back and forth between multiple different types of zoning within the city so because of that I just lost support of boarding homes in general um specifically to this project I just want to speak very very briefly
to the group themselves as council members we are representatives of the city we are representative of the citizens of of Brainard it's very disheartening that your group continually throws this council under the bus continually and so I'm going to speak directly out to your
group right now and say no matter what the outcome of this is I would ask that you please understand that the people that are up here are making decisions based off what they think is best for the entire city and what we are supposed to do is take projects on a basis of what will this mean going forward as a
larger scale for the city and I can say that when your representative comes forward at the planning and zoning committee and says what would what is your biggest hurdle our biggest hurdle is the city council well that's that puts me in a mindset right away where I say "Why why would I want to continue to
fight for what you're doing if what you're doing is going to continually be coming back at us and and saying that we're not we're not doing what you want to do therefore we are creating roadblocks for you." City council is basically here to make decisions based off of what they think is best for the entire city and I would just kindly
gently recommend that when things don't go in the direction that we like that we don't continue to throw people under the bus for those decisions thank you Mr mayor anyone else i'm going to have to agree with Mr
johnson and Mr jagger um for all the reasons that they've listed i appreciate the comments by by Mayor Bedau um although those concerns probably um about boarding houses in general is something maybe we should visit
following this item moving forward um revisiting the idea whether we want them or not where we want them or not where they can be allowed in a conditional use but um I think those reasons that I would vote no have
already been listed by Mr johnson and Mr joerger so I will be voting no there's any more discussion looks like not tony please call the role beans yes chaz yes johnson no stunn no jagger no
erikson yes od no that motion fails four to three m mr president yes i have a motion yeah Mr johnson i'd move to deny the request for the C the CUP and direct staff to
come back with the right language at the next meeting based on your comments based on the comments that we made second oh sorry motion by Johnson second by Jagger any more discussion seeing none let's go to a
vote all in favor i against same sign no motion passes six to one okay moving on from 9B we're going to go back to committee
reports and that would be 7A 7a is safety and public works committee chairman Ericson thank you Mr president we had two items on our agenda the first of which is consider removing
uh park maintained flag poles uh the motion coming out of committee is to direct staff to seek um funding information for uh locking and mechanical equipment to raise and lower those uh flag poles as well as to seek
costs uh for lighting those flag poles and I so move second motion by Ericson second by Chzach several flag poles i don't know if we can um get the graphic on the screen there but the blue flow uh blue circles on the map there represent privately
owned flags the one single red one there is one that we already have this piece of equipment on that we are able to lower and raise that flag pole in a way that uh is locked so that the public could not tamper with it the four uh flag poles on Front Street with the X's
do not have that capability um and they do not have the appropriate lighting and so the recommendation uh after a lot of discussion and some information from staff was again to um get costs on the additional mechanisms and lighting for those four
flag poles thank you Mr ericen any more discussion hearing none let's go to a vote all in favor i I against same sign that motion passes chairman Ericson all right thank you our second item was to
discuss assessment methodology for improvement 2314 and with this project um there are three uh roadways and one alleyway that are included in this and the the reason that this came before us is that staff anticipates additional costs uh
associated with the alleyway and so the question that was raised is um uh should uh we follow the traditional assessment policy or should we break out the assessment for the alleyway um separately the motion is
that we should follow our current assessment policy and I so move second motion by Ericson second by was that Jagger yes any more discussion just reiterate what I said i got a little hit on the discussion there but um um the
current assessment policy would be to add up the entire cost divide it by um by frontage okay 50% assessed to the community 50% to the owners assessed by frontage all right any more
discussion hearing none let's go to a vote all in favor against same sign motion passes mr ericson uh end of report thank you thank you Chairman Ericson moving on to 7B uh personnel and finance chairman
Gabe Johnson thank you Mr president we have nine items the first of which which was the fifth of which is the accept the resignation of Christopher Evans and the motion is to accept the the resignation of public utility director Christopher
Evans effective April 4th 2025 and I so move second motion by Johnson second by Stunnick more discussion i will say I think we all read the resignation that there are some pretty inflammatory comments in it i think uh you know I've met with senior staff I've met with Nick
Broyals I've met with HR director to kind of address some of these accusations that were made to make sure that that we're operating a healthy environment and from what I've learned so far we have room to improve but I
think we're doing a good job and if any of our employees feel that there is something unsafe hostile wrong with the workplace I I'd ask them to refer to the employee policy manual where it is addressed and there are actions that you can take as an employee to if you have
those concerns rather than resign rather than resign and make accusations yeah okay president OD Mr trezac um mention of a resignation letter was uh it's missing or is it in our
packet i find that quite interesting that if I'm not mistaken I don't think there was anything about unsafe work environments or anything to that effect but that may be just a matter of interpretation too um I I look at that
and I see an element of truth Perhaps not in its entirety but I I'd have a question why is not the resignation letter in the packet as it seems to be in most any other resignation maybe someone can answer that
mr brous thank you Mr president um good question perhaps there was some miscommunication um I've heard a couple things i've heard we we sent this letter of resignation out to all the council members so it wasn't necessary to be in the packet and I and and correct forgive
me if I'm wrong Mr chzock but I thought that um we had perhaps had a discussion that we could pull this letter but I could be wrong so I apologize if that was misunderstood but um and also as I talked to our attorney he said if we if
this is been sent out to all the council members that there wasn't any there wasn't a necessity for it to be in the packet um Mr president Mr um Nick the uh other the other item was related to um uh give me a second here uh it wasn't
this resignation letter if you um give me a second to think about what it was um um it had to do with the email you sent on October 28th i believe that was the one
that I asked you to take off are you agreeable to that yes if I I think I understand what you're referring to the answer is yes okay thank you and uh in most every instance we provide the resignation letter and is it in the meeting room in
the information that uh is supposed to be according to the open meeting law is that resignation letter in the meeting room for the public's review it is not in the room okay so therefore uh we should have it in our packet even if it was provided to us that's an item
that we base our decision on according to the open meeting law that's something that's required to be in the room will it get included in the packet online so the public can review it Mr broyals after this meeting mr chzac do you mind if we refer to our
attorney if that's a question or a statement it's a public document yep i know he has his hand up sure yeah Mr chair and and councel it is a public document uh to the extent that uh well to the extent that it doesn't include
private data and other individuals but just because it is a topic of this agenda item does not mean it automatically has to be in a council packet under the open meeting law i think that that statement is over broad in terms of how the open meeting law
works it is not required that it be in the packet thank you president O day yes Mr chair what are we required to have in the meeting room are items that we base our decision on any documents that are shared that is in the open meeting law
joel no sir it is not yes it is i'll show it to you i can pull it up right now if you'd like you can do that if you like but I disagree with your interpretation again the documents that are shared with the council that we base our decision on according to the open meeting law whether
it's Excuse me is somebody saying something down there i heard somebody talking i'd like to know i'm sorry Jeff that was me Gabe okay um so again documents that are shared with the council that are related to agenda items whether we're talking
about making a decision on that information or just discussing it they are supposed to be at least one hard copy in the meeting room for the public's review and that is something that was shared with us it's not it's no different than any emails such as the
emails we received from Mr beaven asking Mr uh Cranvic they are in the meeting room or they are supposed to be it's the same thing we base our decision on the information i'm sorry Joe but you are incorrect anyway um what I saw there in
that resignation letter were several elements of truth whether we like them or not I'm not afraid to hide from the truth that's why I contacted Mr evans to see if he'd be willing to uh maintain his employment if we were to reject his resignation letter here tonight there
was zero discussion on that in PNF and uh they move forward with as you'll see here um so I'll be voting no on the resignation letter i don't need to say anymore because I think I know how things are going to go regardless of what I
say thank you thank you Mr chzach mr ericen um thank you Mr president i too did not interpret the resignation letter to refer to unsafe work environment it was certainly a strongly worded letter um but I was on the Brainer uh public
utilities when um Mr evans was hired had the opportunity to interview him had the opportunity to interview all the candidates um he was my top choice um I thought then that he was the right man for the job and I I I do uh as well
today so I'm going to vote no as well thank you Mr ericen mr johnson yeah I just want to clarify i don't I never said that the resignation letter said that it was an unsafe work environment i said if our any of our employees are feeling that way it is addressed in the employees policy manual what Christopher
Evans said it was a hostile work environment but I absolutely agree with Jeff that if something is shared with all eight council members I don't care no offense Joe I don't care what the bare legal minimum is if all eight council members receive a
non-confidential document it it is a public document it should be in the packet it should be available in the council i absolutely agree with Jeff 100% if we need to get that on a future agenda to direct staff to try to meet more than the absolute bare legal minimum I think we should do that
thank you Mr johnson mr chzac um is the document going to put in the packet that's online is that something we can do staff if council directs that we can do that okay
would you like to amend your motion we have a motion on the floor the motion is just to accept it let's just go with that okay we can make a second one if somebody wants yeah yep okay any more discussion seeing none um Tony can you please call
the role bevans yes chzach no johnson yep stunn yes jagger yes ericson no oday yes that motion passes 5 to2 mr president I'd like to move that we include the resignation letter from Chris Evans
dated March 4th I believe uh and uh include that in the packet that's currently online second motion by Chzach second by Ericson any more discussion on that see none Mr od okay Mr like I said I see elements of truth in there and I
am not afraid to hide from the truth and I if you if you if you're if you are unwilling to accept that and I think some of us may be in the wrong position up here thank you thank you Mr chzach any more discussion uh Mr mayor I support the inclusion of the document
and I don't believe the city has anything to hide from this document at all it's not some magical document that has words in it that are going to hurt anyone's feelings so no I agree i don't think there's any secret of nature or anything of of the document it might have been a mistake that it wasn't put in there um but now we're going to
correct that so anyone anyone else any none let's go to a vote all in favor i against same sign motion passes and we're looking for second part of this we're looking
for approval of the appointment of an interim public utilities director so back to Chairman Johnson thank you Mr president the motion out of committee is to direct staff to find uh an interim public utilities director and I so move
second motion by Johnson second by Bevans mr johnson so we don't necessarily need we felt down in committee we don't necessarily need an interim utility director today all of the division managers can report to Nick Broyals but we do feel that there are a
lot of issues not issue a lot of outstanding undecided things in as far as integration and whatnot that this council needs to decide before we go out and hire a full-time interim or a full-time director and so we're looking for an
interim director for hopefully for a year or more so we can address all of the outstanding issues related to integration of finance and public works and whatnot thank you Mr
johnson any more discussion Mr chzot yeah I'll be voting no on this because we currently have a person that's fully ready and able to do the job is uh got years and years of quality experience and he's got respect at the utility uh
excuse me i was just asking Mr chair the PNF chair if if any there's no limitations on who can apply Jeff okay it's hard to have a thought that I'm expressing when I hear talking so I I I mean that's that's what we say having
the floor I believe oh thank you um so no we have somebody that can do the job as a professional um and and if we think about what's going on uh I think somehow um a resignation of an individual may prompt us to do things we may not have
otherwise done and uh I think we're just uh kicking the can down the road here when we could have the person maintain their position right now and do a fine job thank you thank you Mr chzach any more discussion hearing none let's go to a
vote uh Tony please call the RO beans yes chzach no johnson yep stunn yep jagger yep ericson yes od yes that motion passes uh Chairman Johnson thank you Mr
president we're back up to the top of our agenda of the discuss proposed change to special assessment policy and the motion out of committee is to approve the special assessment policy as presented with the one change
of adding language that when somebody splits a large parcel into a small parcel to be developed they only pay the assessment on the small parcel until they've parcled out 50% of the large parcel and I so move second
motion by Johnson second by Stunic mr johnson yeah so I think you all read the packet this kind of We didn't have language for undeveloped deferred land like we have up in Beaver Dam Load Road and whatnot so we've created a whole new section that has that and instead of if
somebody has 40 acres and sells off two and a half to be developed we're not going to make them pay the assessment on all 40 they'll only have to pay on the two and a half acres until it's half developed or anytime that property is transferred via sale that 100% of the
deferred assessment shall be paid excellent Mr beavens and thank you Mr chair and the one thing that's missing from this that staff is still working on is those times when there is developed property
within the city of Brainard that's not in the city of Brainard like on the Beaver Dam property where we had where we skipped property that's not part of this staff is still working on that okay thank you any other discussion hearing none let's go to a
vote all in favor i against same sign that motion passes chairman Johnson thank you Mr president next up is the review the municipal cannabis dispensary proposals we received two of which are obsolete right now because we missed the uh deadline for the license but you may
want to review them they were two and quite different one was a fixed fee for management services where we get all of the profits one was a profit sharing but that's questionable legally so well we'll see how things shake out in the future and maybe try it after Stunnix's
gone hey hey hey no motion no motion continue on next up is item three of the insurance renewal and the motion is to approve the insurance renewal from LMCIT for a period of March 1st 2025 through
February 28 2026 and I so move second motion by Johnson second by Stunnick more discussion Mr johnson yeah we budgeted a 7.43% 43% increase back in December and it came in here in March at a 7.82 so Connie was right on there only
off by like $40,000 for our annual insurance that's not bad applause connie all right any more discussion just a clarification 40,000 is less than half a percent i I'm sorry it might have been like four it was point4% it was
just a few thousand dollars connie could could get the exact number thank you yeah I I misspoke yeah got a little nervous there all right um any more discussion seeing none let's go to a vote all in favor i against same sign that motion passes
chairman Johnson thank you next up is a change to our grant policy and the motion out of committee is to amend the grant policy to state under three policy statement the city of
Briner staff shall obtain explicit approval from the city administrator and chair of personnel and finance prior to submitting any grant application that falls under one or more of the following categories and I so move second we have a motion by Johnson second by Bevans chairman Johnson thank you so
this is this was the request from the wastewater treatment board that they have some timesensitive things they want to apply for this changes it that it doesn't necessarily have to come to the next city council meeting if they talk with the city administrator he feels it's a it's a good grant that we should
go out for he calls the chair of the personnel and finance committee and then if that person agrees to it then it can just happen without having to go to the council the council will be updated oh and furthermore as part of my motion is this will be reviewed in six months
thank you Mayor mayor Mayor Bau yeah just super fast does this mean that so let's say the park board and or BPU are they being involved in this discussion at all or is it just circumvent those boards wastewater treatment is it just for
wastewater i'm sorry just having to do with No it says it says this is everybody this is this is amending the entire grant policy i see yeah yeah so it's it's every it's every board commission department okay mr president Mr chza
um this actually uh began um like 20 years ago there was a grant made to get money for the Mississippi River corridor study and uh there were some questions in that application and one of them was
which I still look back at um the question was is there any public opposition to this grant and the answer was no but nobody knew about it no public nobody in the public knew about it till after we were awarded a $1 million grant from the federal
government with a 20% local match that also said do you have any local support outside of your and there was a question was answered yes when there never was any local support so um this whole policy um I'll I'll I'll say that I was
instrumental in getting this policy going 20 years ago so not not that I see it being perfect by us looking at it now but I'm I'm glad we're doing this change i'll be vote in favor of it thank you Mr chzach any more
discussion i'll say I'm a little hesitant just because it's more broad than what the ask originally was um I like that we're going to look at it in another six months i think it it's fine to try it out um but the ask was basically for the the
big wastewater treatment uh project that we have coming up um I thought we would keep it to that but I I guess if we're going to try this for 6 months see how it goes i'm comfortable with it mr mayor sorry to speak again but I my only hesitation on it is that I
just don't want boards that are in charge of specific things i.e bpu and or the parks department to all of a sudden be handed a grant for something that they were not aware that they were even asking for so the people that are in charge of the actual park land should
probably at least be informed but as long as it's a if we put it in the the policy that they're at least informed that this is happening before the request comes i would I would hope that that would be the case but it doesn't specifically say that mr johnson yeah I forgot what I forgot your
I was going to address your concern Mr president but I forgot what it was Nick now because of the mayor's it was what just how broad it is oh and we'll address that in six months but the park board will still be reviewing any grant applications for the park system this isn't changing the policy to say that
the city administrator and chair of personal finance are going to go seek out grant funding we are going to approve any grant requests instead of the council approving it for the next six months to see how that goes basically to speed it up so we don't have to wait two weeks to another oh yeah yours was you it was broader than
you wanted i want to treat all of our departments exactly the same i don't think we should say oh this department's looking for something spe department do one thing everybody else do another thing so we're making it broad now see how that works maybe maybe tighten it in in six months but I want to keep
treating all of our departments the exact same so we have an agenda request for the first meeting in October october noted all right any more discussion seeing none let's go to a vote all in
favor i against same sign that motion passes chairman Johnson thank you next up is uh Mitch Blackhilt and the motion out of committee is to approve the voluntary demotion of Mitch lackl Journeyman line worker position effective April 8th 2025
further that he be placed on step six of the journeyman line worker position and to authorize staff to backfill the electric distribution supervisor position internally and if no qualified candidates apply proceed with an external posting and ISO move second oh
motion by Johnson second by Jezach johnson so we received 12 applicants for the journeyman line worker position we received 68 applicants for the apprentice line worker position this one's the journeyman but uh Mitch applied to go back to journeyman he did
he found that the the supervisor the electric distribution supervisor wasn't the perfect fit for him so he wanted to go back to be a journeyman after reviewing all 12 applicants his was the uh he was the most qualified person and he requested step six which is what he was on before we promoted him anyway so
we approve that in committee and we get to keep Mitch all right any more discussion hearing none let's go to a vote all in favor i against same sign that motion passes chairman Johnson thank you next up is a public utilities department
full-time laborer position and the motion is to authorize staff to begin the hiring process for a full-time laborer position for the public utilities department and I so move second motion by Johnson second by Bevans mr johnson yeah we did have budgeted a
facilities custodian position the public utilities department has asked that we instead hire a laborer instead of the facilities custodian the labor comes in at slightly less cost so they will remain within their budget thank you more discussion seeing none let's go to
a vote all in favor i against same sign motion passes chairman Johnson thank you this is for an extension of anou and the motion is to approve theou between the city of Brainard US Steel Workers local number 9230 unit09 union and IBEDW local
number 31 union representing public utility employees that allows IBEDW public utilities employees to assist in the hydro dam facility as needed till May 1st 2025 and further to authorize the signature of the city administrator
on saidou and ISO move second motion by Johnson second quick second by Stunic more discussion Mr johnson yeah so our our lastou expired on April 1st so we've ex we've extended it a month the steel workers have agreed to that we
have union negotiations with them coming up and we can hope we can figure out a long-term fix on how to operate the hydro facility thank you more discussion seeing none go to a vote all in favor i against same sign motion
passes chairman Johnson thank you next up is uh obtain a pro pricing quotes for private Minnesota paid family medical insurance options and the motion is to authorize staff integrity benefits to conduct a request for proposal to obtain
plan design proposals and pricing quotes for private Minnesota PFML options and ISO move second motion by Johnson second by Bevans chairman Johnson this is the family lead leave law that's going into effect January 1st 2026 we are the 13th state to adopt this
law so there are private insurers that offer pretty good rates in other states and they're they may be able to beat what Minnesota is saying now is a 88% which is significantly higher than what they were saying a year ago and they still don't even know what it'll be so we're going to go up for proposal and
see if the private market can give us a better rate than what the public can and if they can't we can still stick with the public you don't know until you know yep all right more discussion seeing none let's go to a vote all in favor i against same sign
motion passes chairman Johnson end of report second all right thank you PNF moving on to number eight uh unfinished business 8a is a call for applicants mayor Bedau absolutely we'll just keep this party rolling the following applications are
available on our website you're going to want to get those in because we're going to try and fill some slots next meeting here at the city council uh the charter commission two terms expiring 2025 two terms expiring 2026 housing redevelopment authority one term expiring 2027 library one term expiring
2027 public Utilities Commission one term expiring 2028 the Transportation Advisory Committee two terms expiring 2025 one term expiring 2026 as council president I have two terms open for the water tower committee hurry
up and get those applications in 8b we have a public hearing on the submission of small cities development program grant application and uh to the department of employment and economic development for the streetscape along Washington Street and uh today's
presenter for this we have John Schmer from the H come on up John thank you President OD members of the council as you probably remember from last uh meeting you had there were some policies that were required to be passed in order to apply on behalf of the city
of Brainard for up to $580,000 to be applied towards the Washington Street uh reconstruction project the dollars are specifically asking for is for streetscape it would go to help uh alleviate some of the cost to the city for the lighting um so uh the goal to
this is just to allow citizens to provide input on the project itself which would be just over $2 million for the streetscape portion which includes some uh plantings and the lighting um and they're anticipating I think start
around August with completion of the project in 2027 so uh with that I guess there's any questions of me thank you John anybody on the council have questions for John before we open the public
hearing looks like not thanks John so with that we will open the public hearing at 8:32 so if anybody's here to address the council on this on this grant please step forward and if you're online you want to
address the council on this item please press star three ask again there's anybody in here that wants to step forward and address the council on this please do so now we will close the public hearing at
8:33 mr president Mr chzach I did have one question for John if I could so ask it now i just thought of it okay john do you mind are you okay with that absolutely okay so on the the amenities
we plan for this the streetscape will it uh pay for everything and and is it uh uh the um prevailing wage used on this too because of the grant money yes prevailing wage would be required which would be required because it's a state project anyway um and this these funds
will only help alleviate some of the cost to it it will nowhere cover the costs appreciate it it's an answer thank you thank you John i'd move to approve all right do we have a
resolution i think it's just the public hearing yeah just the public hearing we've already we've already approved the application so that's all we had to do tonight for that one moving on to 8C we have approval of the title transfer from Crowing County Tax forfeit
property uh I believe this is community development director James Kravik go ahead James thank you Mr president city Council considered the land transfer at the February 18th meeting this is the land that's next to Evergreen Landing Cemetery and the landing into Mississippi River and preliminary
approved acceptance of the property at a subsequent meeting the county board approved the sale of the parcel to the city the cost is $1 for the land $46 recording fee a $1.65 deed tax and a $25 state deed fee for
$73.65 total uh staff do not recommend title insurance based on the fact that this property has been tax forfeit for several years is being purchased for a dollar and no public improvements will be constructed um again about 96% of the property is either flood plane or flood fringe uh so with that staff recommends
approval of the land transfer of P 41230522 for $1 plus recording fees and I can answer any questions thank you Mr kravick does anybody have questions my question is for Chief this is like your last opportunity are you sure you want us to take over this land
i I have no concerns about it it's like 3 cents an acre okay thank you pretty good it's a pretty good deal sometimes the best comment is none any more questions of staff all right if not we're looking for
a motion to approve the land transfer of P 41230522 for $1 plus recording fee so move second i don't know let's give it to uh let's give it to Jagger he hasn't made a motion yet tonight there we go welcome second by Chzach
any more discussion hearing none let's go to a vote all in favor i against same sign that motion passes we go on to 8D this is a resolution to accept offers for temporary easements for the trunk highway 210 reconstruction
project and this one is public works director Mike Abigorst thank you Mr president attached uh to this item is a resolution that certifies the acceptance of the MDOT for temporary construction easements on the 210 Washington Street
uh reconstruction project the easements lie on three different separate city-owned parcels throughout the corridor the description of the parcels and easements are included in the attachment the offers for the in uh easements are as follows: $2,600 $500 and
$4,400 for a total of $7,500 for the three parcels again this is just a temporary construction easement and uh staff is recommending adoption of this and accepting these offers from M uh and MDOT and at that take any questions
thank you Mr havagar does anybody have questions mr johnson a question of the finance director where does the $7,500 go park board where they it would be part of the project it would just go into the project it would go as part of our cost
of the project we'd use the money for that okay that sounds good thank you any more questions mr ericson I probably don't have to do this but I'm a Mindot employee so I'll abstain okay probably should so far we're we're pretty good on land
deals we 32 acres for like a dollar and probably just like an acre we're getting $7,500 temporarily good we're on a roll here any more discussion seeing none let's go to a vote all in favor i against same sign
oh and there's no combo breaker and there's no motion mark the time folks 8:38 8:38 on the clock folks go ahead Tony there was no motion i'd move approval second well you're off the hook exactly
it wasn't me this time all right we have a motion by Johnson second by Jez tony please call the role beon yes chzach yes johnson yes stunn yes jagger yep ericson
odate yes that motion passes moving on to 8E and this is update on the airport i believe this is city administrator Broyals thank you Mr president council asked staff to coordinate with Crowing County the airport director to provide a letter of
recommendation regarding airport functions around HR finance legal technology and facilities city staff the Crowing County Administrator and the airport director have provided comment in the attached letter general recommendation is to uh to consolidate all the disperate governing documents
into one mutual agreement to to be agreed upon and signed by the city council the county commission and the airport commission recommended motion is to direct staff to work with our attorney and the county attorney to prepare a document outlining roles and responsibilities across all functional
areas of the Briner Lakes Regional Airport i'm happy to answer any questions we we we we went into each section so there'll be a write up in each section for technology facilities HR finance and legal uh we just add some things other
considerations we talked about uh public works had a little bit in there potential annexation advantages and disadvantages uh airport authority with a question mark um just to explore that option we also had uh a section there for airport director comments so those
are Steve's comments unedited and then there's also comments in section 8 for the Crowing County Administrator and those are Debbie Ericson's comments unedited and then just closing thoughts so I'd be happy to and staff may assist me because there's lots of different information in here but if you have any
questions we'll be happy to entertain those thank you Mr broyals does anybody have questions i I have a Jez question or two um when you um uh we had the administrator from Crowing County um will this will go to a vote no
I mean eventually if we were to have it come back with the um and what what was it called the the review of the ordinance and come back with a what what is it called again that for everybody to agree to what's the document i guess I
phrase that phrase it as a consolidated document that kind of organizes all the different documents into one and then that document would obviously have to be approved by the county board and the city council okay and then the airport commission you said yes and the airport commission so
technically the airport commission could hang up the could hold up the approval of this is that what I'm hearing if they didn't agree to it if I might Oh sorry Mr chair if I might in my opinion if I might add uh it would be my thought that the airport commission would look at
this first and then send it along but maybe that's not the right process there so um Okay um that I I don't have my preference i was just asking the question um uh and then as I read through here maybe I missed it but it
seems like the the recommendations in here are more geared towards the city picking up more responsibilities and I don't see much in the way of the county taking on anything really unless I missed it is there anything in here that the county is going to at least
preliminarily here say uh we will uh we'll we'll take on more of the u whether it be HR finance or anything like that and that that's kind of my question right now i I didn't see anything specific to the county uh contributing more in the regards to the
staffing that we're providing mr royals i I think functionally I agree i don't think there was much in there for the county taking on things i think where that could potentially be accounted for in a finished document is is uh dollars and cents is there any is there any money changing hands between the county
and the city etc so ultimately we we would want this to be fair to both the county and the city so it could be services or it could be payment in le of services i mean anything's on the table it's just a matter of what we can come up with that everybody can agree to and one other question uh with the current
ordinance uh does this uh is this going to work its way into a new uh version of the ordinance do you foresee or is it something that's separate or well as a lay person I guess Joe can correct me if I'm wrong but I would think that we would try to integrate these into a
legal document a binding legal document that could be presented to both bodies for signature all three bodies pardon me would that be what you would see it too Mr lane yes and and Mr od I'll just add to that
sorry and uh yes thank you Mr od and I'll also add to that also the uh both myself uh and Mr barrows have been having uh a very similar discussion and that the uh it seems as though it's almost a certainty that the ordinance rewrite is a is a critical function of
all of this process and if you if it's okay with uh the council here I would I was going to do my airport report at the uh commissioner comments but perhaps this is a better time so I'll just ask Mr od if that might be okay i'll just rip through it here real quick okay uh so quickly there's a lot to kind of go
through but I'm just going to zip right through it first of all our airport metrics for last month really the lowhanging fruit here is we saw 4.6% growth uh at the airport over our 2024 numbers however we are still 40% down from pre-COVID numbers so uh good and bad there we last month we approved a
$1.3 million security fence project local match on that roughly $35,000 that will be coming out of our capex um the letter uh as Mr bro already spoke to that was a part of my report here uh we have also just uh the airport commission
has just received its 2024 through 2030 proposed budget we haven't had any dialogue on that but that is coming up for our meeting on Thursday lots and lots of questions in there a lot of information needs to be absorbed especially regarding the budget as it
and its relationship to the CIP that we have out there there seems to be a little bit of a disconnect out there that needs to be cleaned up uh commission has asked for staff to help us with the CIP as aviation CIP does not work like normal CIPs from a calendar
month to calendar month also uh uh very exciting i did reach out to uh Bill a very nice gentleman who is the director of St cloud Airport i had about a 30-minute discussion with him regarding the entire process as he was on the ground floor of St cloud uh transforming
from a regional airport owned by St cl by the city into the um into the airport authority where they they took on some other counties he gave a lot of great information and guidance on that one of the great parts that came out of that conversation is he put me in touch with a company called Steven Baldwin
Associates they are based out of New York City what this entity does for a living is they uh they look at airports they look at their finances they look at their hangers they look at their money they look at their staff and they uh
review all of this information they also look at the surrounding counties as well as the ownership they look at uh the burdens uh as far as the certificated airports as well as the obligated airports which we are and they craft a uh if we hire them they craft a proposal
that uh will propose to an airport of uh how to good housekeeping best practices based upon what they see as well as how they might potentially present a airport authority moving forward in the future so it's a very exciting conversation uh
I'm very energized about the possible outcome out there of that and I have asked this person to uh to join our May meeting and give about uh you know 15 minutes summary of what their business does how they might be able to look how they might be able to help us as well as
the city and the county and potentially that airport uh authority conversation moving forward so there's some positive energy it seems like that might be going uh that direction uh and uh as just a quick followup as you remember uh couple months ago we did lose our deputy director we received six applications we
believe that uh there are several great applicants in there for the deputy director however it is not a certainty that this airport commission wants to hire this deputy director and that will be coming up on our Thursday meeting as well as to whether or not that is a good fit if it's the right buy right now and the basic tenor is is that there's a lot
of uh balls up in the air at the airport right now moneywise um performance-wise and and otherwise that uh the airport commission certainly has their hands full and is digging into so that's where we're at thank you Mr jerger
great so yeah Mr johnson yeah I I really appreciate the update it's I'm glad to hear things are are going well over there i want to go back to this document that that we're being asked to approve and and it's basically staff coming back to us
and asking us the exact same thing they've asked us before and we already said no but they're just going to I guess ask the exact same question again and see if they can get a yes this time i you know it's like look at their overall recommendations consider technology integration review revised technology support agreement incorporate
finance technology and HR services into one master agreement i thought when we had had this discussion before and it was kind of do we take on more of a responsibility from from the city's perspective or less of a responsibility i thought the council was always on the side of let's take on less let's make
the county do more work this is putting more on the city number two consider annexation of the airport property that sounds like it's putting more on the city three classify airport employees as city employees subject to the city's personnel policies that's no we don't
want more we don't want another bargaining unit i don't I'm speaking for myself i don't want another bargaining unit clearly identify HR support requirements in the master agreement we shouldn't have any they should have their own HR they're an airport five update the BL employee policy manual
stating the airport employees shall follow the city of Brainard's technology policy no if we can't provide it out there then let's just not i we don't need to bring them into the city we tried it for a year or two if it's not working it doesn't mean we dive in
deeper it means we say "Hey we tried and that didn't work." Six incorporate airort costs to obtain city services into their operational budgets so we can levy those dollars so we're going to see how much it costs us to have the city do all of the work so we can levy half of
that when we're already levying general fund dollars to pay for all of our employees to exist that doesn't even make sense to me and then the last one in short a master services agreement identifying roles responsibilities and financials of all stakeholders that makes sense but if the first six things
are put more responsibility on the city and less on the county I don't know if that master services agreement is going to be very agreeable to me identifying the roles responsibilities and financials of all the stakeholders so I I don't support these overall recommendations pretty much none of them
that's just my opinion on on this document thank you Mr johnson thank you for bringing those concerns up now and not bringing them up next time this comes back so maybe we can have a a better list of recommendations and and changes um and thank you Mr jagger for
that update very informative looking forward to see seeing what happens with the airport but we are looking for a motion president O mr chzock I would echo virtually everything Mr johnson said um yeah I read through there and uh
that's kind of where I was getting at with the county not having literally anything additional and he he summed it up very good for me so thank you y so we are looking for a motion to direct staff to work with our attorney
and the county attorney to prepare a document outlining roles and responsibilities across all functional areas of the Brainer Regional Airport and it doesn't have to be this exact document that you see that's a draft obviously it's a working document is this something we want to go
forward with looking for that motion mr chair I'm not I'm not prepared to make a motion but I do have potentially a suggestion the the airport commission has not seen this document yet right so I'm just wondering if because I have a
lot of these same concerns that I would be bringing forward to the airport commission and in to to our earlier dialogue which is we would go through all this work potentially airport commission could have some last you know Monday quarterbacking thoughts on this after it's already out there i'd like to ask the permission to uh bring this
document in its rough form right to our airport commission right now and express my concerns and and the concerns of Mr chzach and um Mr johnson right off the bat and just see how it lands on the airport commission also as they're obviously a willing part a maybe not
willing but a participant in this entire process Mr oday mr trezac I would make a motion that we uh just allow Mr joerger to look this over first bring it to the airport commission which they have their first meeting on Thursday yes it wouldn't make the packet for this month uh I could
certainly introduce it but it would not make the packet sir um and then Okay so in that case he could introduce it they could go over it more thoroughly in the uh the u May meeting perhaps and then come back with it at our perhaps second meeting in May yes that sound like an
item motion for you i second was that a motion i'll second by Chzok by Chzach second by Joerger any more discussion on that either way the language needs to be cleared up between the city and the county airport commission um whatever that ends up
being in the end it's not going to be this exact document maybe something similar but um keep moving forward on it i think this is a good motion speaking in favor of the motion if I may go ahead Mr chzac in referencing what Mr uh uh Johnson pointed out my same concerns I I
might be able to accept most of what's in there if not all of it if we got some sort of indication from Crowing County that they would essentially take over administer the entire levy for the airport operation uh prior to any discussion of a airport authority i mean
that's not part of my motion of course that's just something I I've been thinking about this we discussed it at at Nauseium the last year year and a half so thank you Mr chzai mr and if I might add to that exactly to your point all of this only makes sense
if the money makes sense also so it may very well make sense for the city to take some of this if the compensation or the balance between the city and the county is correctly balanced so I think the two kind of have to work together the obligations of both city and county as well as the financial support of both
city and county working together to find the right balance for both parties we're 50/50 owners in the airport we share the bills out there basically 50/50 or we're supposed to and um like it or not the city of Brainard and Crowing County are 5050 partners in moving forward with
this airport out there and supporting it so that's all yeah thank you Mr jagger any more discussion seeing none let's go to a vote all in favor i against same sign motion passes moving on to 8F we have a
discussion on council priorities to staff this is uh was a motion in the last meeting by Mr chzi but listed presenters are myself and Nick Broyals uh Mr broyals go ahead
thank you Mr president yes so I was uh I was traveling 3 weeks ago so I wasn't here for that meeting um I think what came out of that I watched a little bit I watched the meeting and um I think um council wanted to have an opportunity to formally identify priorities to staff
which I I welcome i think that's a great idea um so I don't know where this conversation's going to go and and I don't know if I'm the one to lead it but um whatever priorities council has for staff um would be very helpful for us as we um divide up our resources and figure
out where to emphasize our efforts so with that I would just open it up to council i'll take that first we have we have a email i think it's in the packet here I believe and there are a list of different things listed under each of
our names from that meeting anyone who was there and then uh a summary at the end for Mr broyals about what he got out of the meeting um maybe some of them are great for this maybe some of them aren't
but we could spend a lot of time going over this stuff um I would ask that we point out things that we really want on there or we really don't want on there i don't want to get into a a long debate i
think where I go with this one we we talked about having a workshop i don't think it's set up for a week from today i think if we end up doing a workshop this would be a perfect item for that workshop and we could probably hammer this out in 20 30 minutes if we
really wanted to um so I'm just going to throw that out there i don't I don't want to point out anything specifically but if anybody wants to or has a motion to throw out there I'm open to it mr chzac I assume you want to President
yes um I'm having a little trouble pulling this up here um well there's two things I would like to address specifically and uh we've been uh kicking this whole um well the integration of finance that was a
uh uh integ interim uh I should say integration work group met and uh and we were I guess considering a workshop on that and I would uh and again it's mentioned here in item number eight I'm still having trouble pulling this But it
talked about facilities if I'm not mistaken i'm kind of running off of memory here uh work on facility integration along with uh um H what is it i apologize i can't pull
this you're talking about number eight on Mr broyle's so it says consider infrastructure integration and deputy city administrator concurrently consider charter implications not an easy effort yes okay begin begin to socialize this with the charter commission okay so what
I would like to do is uh I have I think I'll have two separate motions here to kind of get this direction either for or against and this directly with the city charter um by council action we could amend the charter with a uh unanimous
vote and uh I would uh I'm I'm not in favor of that myself but I would move that uh to give clear staff direction that we cease and assist all utility services being amended in a charter change and and that would the
change I think is being uh implied to be directed to the public works department which I would move that we cease and assist all direction or interest by anybody body staff or anyone else moving any services under public utilities to the public
works department and that's my motion second motion by Chzach second by Johnson discussion on that jeff speak to it a bit jeff do you want to speak to your motion yeah I there's been a lot of u concern uh confusion uh many other
things related to this uh uncertainty I think is the key word about what's really going on when when is this expected to happen if it does uh we we uh we need to we need to either move forward with this with a unanimous vote
to uh have utilities go to public works or not and that's why I have my motion here to give direct clear direction to staff on how we want to proceed with this at this time okay thank you Mr chzach mr beans thank you Mr chair i I'm
going to vote against this motion i just don't have enough information to be able to make the yes no right now there's a lot of things I've heard that really make a lot of sense with continuing various potential im integrations but
with this motion we no longer have any staff support to be able to discuss it workshops etc uh plus I saw something regarding some presentation from our finance department and
um the guy over at PUC Danny but I wouldn't be able I mean we wouldn't be able to answer any questions or anything to cease and desist all conversation to me seems a little extreme at this point okay thank you Mr beans anyone
else mr johnson I'm going to support the motion i I think council could put it back on could act on having that discussion any given time and cease and desist now and decide in two months you know remember we were talking about that maybe we want to do that again but as of
right now I mean like I haven't heard any informationation either but we've been talking about it for a year and I still haven't seen anything you know with I with information technology I got nothing but the IT opinions with finance there's been no business plans or
anything put forth so it's a lot of just flying blind here where I I I'm going to support the motion because maybe just taking a break on this and focusing on something that we actually want to we know we want to get done it could be a
good thing thank you Mr johnson i'm g have to agree with Mr johnson's comments just because whatever the most recent motion motion is by council we can we can open this back up if the council decides on a
4-3 vote any meeting in the future um I I've actually I feel like I've learned a lot i I sat in on the integration group just a couple weeks ago um and I I learned a lot from that meeting just on the financial part uh I think we had more to learn on the public works and
utilities integration uh but what I'm feeling like I'm learning is one it's it's expensive on a lot of these things maybe not so much the public works integration but the financial part was is and I do I do feel like that is a
good idea in the future when we're ready to update our software but both those software systems at city hall and BPU have just been updated in within the last few years and it doesn't make sense until we get down the road to a point where it becomes one of them becomes
obsolete and then we combine into one um and I think it is fair to give staff clear direction on something like this so um the other thing is charter changes all it takes is one council member to disagree with something on there and
then we did a ton of work for months and months for no reason so if that's going to be the case and we know that's going to be the case then we might as well just close it down for now revisit it again when it makes sense so thank you for roll call vote Mr
president okay anybody else seeing no more discussion Tony can you please call the role beans no chzach yes johnson yes stunic yes jagger yes ericson yes od yes i have another motion
Mr president go ahead Mr chazak on the U integration of uh finance uh I would move that we do not conduct a uh workshop I think is what we came out of uh the integration workg group meeting talking about and we also
uh uh don't move forward with integration of finance that's my motion second motion by Chzach second by Ericson uh anybody want to speak on the
motion mr beavens thank you Mr chair didn't our last motion cover this it was any I think part of it part of it i think it was any and all so I'll But part of this motion is not having the workshop that we were we semi-scheduled at that integration we couldn't have one anyway because we just voted no mine was
for utilities Mr beavens yeah only utilities public works yeah he did specified the public works part I guess yeah okay clear no okay Mr johnson just a question so if
we don't do the workshop and obviously not move forward on finance integration we we did have staff put together a lot of time was that presentation just never going to see the light of day is that the intention here um well we were provided with the document that the
integration workg group was provided with the presentation that was sent out via email so I guess if you want to call that the light of day i mean I I left there uh I I I think I was a little remiss for not uh suggesting we didn't need a workshop but I I've also al also
since have more time to think about it and I I would just like to uh kind of keep things u u I I you saw staff's recommendation in the presentation and I I I I hear all the time we have excellent staff and I would not disagree
with that sometimes I think we need to listen to our uh department heads and take their advice thank you Mr chzac johnson you still have the No that answered my question okay
we have a motion on the floor yep any more discussion seeing none go to a vote uh roll call beans no chzac yes johnson yes stunn yes yes jagger yes ericson yes od yes that
motion passes i have another motion Mr chair mr chzach um yes i would like to say uh uh I would like the motion to not approve the hiring of a deputy administrator whether now or anywhere in
the next uh well I I'll just say u I I don't like to let me think about this no no deputy administrator hiring position for uh at least the next 18 months
is that a motion yes motion by Chzach second second by Johnson discussion question so I mean effectively the motion Jeff is to just modify the 2026 budget before we've put it together just to make sure we
don't have that position included for 2026 yes and and and I'm I'm asking I'm asking this so we can give direction again we saw what happened here was after the workshop it appears that there was very few council members approved a
deputy administrator position and yet it moves forward with a staff priority to look at that as being a priority so that's why I want to give clear direction in this motion thank you more
questions seeing none let's go to a vote uh Tony please call the role again beans no chzach yes johnson yes stunn yes jagger yes erikson yes od yes that motion passes all right i I would like to get
the council's appetite for clearing up some of the rest of this as far as we owe it to our staff to give them clear direction we're not all going to agree on everything but is there an appetite for us to sit down the idea that Mr bro and I talked about in his
office last last week would be a meeting with the council just meeting as council staff in attendance but not in participating form where the council just has almost a round table discussion
on what are our priorities and we can we can have it in the form of a meeting where we actually vote and give clear motion for the intent or more of a whiteboard discussion
that's up to you guys but if that's something that you guys are interested in I think it would be a productive way to lead our staff in the direction that we want them to go and I think that would be fair for our staff game you'd be for it yep i'd move to hold a
workshop on a date that works for the president okay second all right motion by Johnson second by Chzach mr mayor I have seen Kevin Jagger work wonders with a whiteboard so I
watch out i'm just going to tell you watch out you're going to want to be on your toes well I have to wear my glasses for Can you bring your own whiteboard i will okay thank you and I will also uh follow up with that the discussion m the Mr bedau and I have had several times is the vision is the easy part the vision
is the easy part but uh it seems to me that we need to clarify this list we're all here to try to uh wrap our hands around around what we should be doing and the vision moving forward so let's get together let's figure it out give it back to staff let's do it
excellent so in setting that date does the 28th work for the president of April is that a Monday yes monday so Monday the 28th at 6 6:30
6:30 i'll add that to my motion all right okay i'll second that as part of the motion thank you any more discussion that work for for the rest of council seeing thumbs up this is a daytime meeting nighttime okay got it
understood sorry good question i was looking at my calendar i miss you all day and all night you didn't hear i made the most groans yeah okay motion yeah all right seeing no more discussion all those in favor say I i
again same sign that motion passes um Sean could you please scroll down just a bit on that right on that yep keep going mr broyals wants communication on uh Keep going is
it on this list yep oh sorry sorry nope keep going go down let me tell you lower on the document there we go there right there uh thank you Mr president so one of the things that count the council had asked of me was to come up with type some type of a
suspense tracker where council can get some insight on to what staff is working what the current status is etc this is a product of this is a Microsoft product under task manager i have never used it tony and I and I when I say that I mean
mostly Tony um has come up with this in task manager before we pull the trigger on this and and we talk to all the department heads and and make sure that they're updating this on a regular basis I just want to get some feedback from the council and see if this is something
that is what you're looking for essentially the first column is you know the topic of of what the the issue is the second column is what department is working at the third column is the most recent notes and then you know we can you know kind of the kind of the green
yellow red so we can come up with different ways to present this because I want to be kind of an executive level presentation but I just want to get some feedback from the council before we invest in this fully and develop it if this is something that kind of like what you guys had in mind is this in an
actual spreadsheet it is not it's basically it looks like a word document with four columns it's an output of of task man is a task manager oh okay okay Mr jagger uh yes thank you
Mr chair yeah I we're ex we're absolutely on the right track here uh my uh one comment here is in the status i I don't like just the stagnant in progress that's a really easy just oh we're still in progress i'd like to see a percentage complete or some version of a slider bar
that says hey we're still at zero on this one we think we're 20% we think we're 40% um it's my belief that when you see that and you look at last month it's an incentive to keep going so that'd be my only thoughts but we're absolutely on the right track here and I do like the Excel with the colors but uh
that's all yeah he's a design guy i know uh Mr johnson absolutely think it should be an Excel i don't think there's any questions about that Tony but I I ag I agree with uh Councilman Joerger on the status something more
than everything's just always in progress i like under the notes that we had the last touch point like we voted on it on December 1st i would like to see something maybe of a next expected touch point so it doesn't just disappear forever but I think this is the type of
spreadsheet that I was thinking of exactly this looks really good let's just make sure it is indeed a spreadsheet tony thank you thank you Mr johnson and I couldn't agree more with having colors yeah absolutely
okay there's no more discussion we can move on next we're on uh new business 9 we've already covered A and B so we're moving on to 9C uh this is consideration of a conditional use permit for vehicle trailer and equipment sales at 1801 Mil
Avenue i believe this is James Kravik thank you Mr president mike Higgins has submitted a request at 1801 Mill Avenue for a conditional use permit to lease space to a third party dealer for auto trailer and equipment sales outside service sales and rentals are required to provide screening from the right of
way per code uh the request does not include screening uh staff does not believe sales areas should be screened from view as um you're looking to sell uh those items uh so staff is recommending a code change uh so with that the planning commission unanimously recommended approval of the conditional
use permit request as presented and further directed staff to remove the screening requirements in the zoning code for outside sales areas thank you James anybody have any questions for staff we also have Mr higgins here i guess I do mike uh Mr
johnson I have one question if we removed like the the screening requirements i don't know how the technical requirements of but does that mean we're going to be taking down pine trees off of Mill Avenue no it does not okay you're a big tree advocate i'm I am a tree appreciator
mr chair Mr beaven just a follow up to Gabe Johnson's mr cranic is there any trees being removed um the applicant has not indicated that um the applicant certainly is here i presume that would be part of it so so conditions could be added for those trees to remain in place
um if the city council sees fit um but it was not part of the application that those trees be removed i'm ready with a motion oh sorry go ahead i I would ask that that be included in uh the cup yeah because u once they're down
they're down okay second item oh there's no Oh I don't think we have a motion yet be included so recommended action motion is uh recommend approval of the conditional use permit request for 1801 Mil Avenue
as presented and direct staff to remove the screening requirement in the zoning code for outside sales areas that's a two-part motion uh conditional you could add in I whoever makes the motion I'd like that
added in okay no tree removal right we have a motion by I I would I would move to what you just stated as a motion and then include the uh trees to remain okay unless taken out by storm or something whatever but that's obvious so if you'd be willing to add I'd like to
just add that the trees not get limbmed up any further also so not only do the trees in my should stay but they should also not be limbmed up right to their tops uh one part sticking up from the top i Yeah I did a little looking on this just out of curiosity the at the deconstruction of this uh it was
actually an IUP so long ago that it was in microfish and there was a motion that the existing visual buffer shall be retained so I did we was able to find that and I think we're on the right track here so uh I'll include what Kevin
is asking for in the uses whatever that was okay don't don't don't lie so we have a second Mr i second okay by Chzach second by Jagger any more discussion seeing none let's go to a
vote all in favor i against same sign motion passes and it is 9:16 all right thanks for sitting it with us Mr higgins moving on to 9D my pleasure he's here for mayor comments or
mayor comments oh it's coming up next we have 9D resolution approving plans and authorizing biddings for improvement 2113 Beach Oakidge reconstruction project and this would be public works
director Havoc thank you Mr president this is the fourth step that you have seen this project we are now just ready to go out to to bid on this and it's going to be including uh curbon gutter new sidewalk replacement of main water storm sewer and utilities and also
asphalt and again this is uh just going to be going out for um a bid and we're asking and you'll see it one more time once we get those bids you'll see it one final time before it goes to construction at that we can take any questions thank you Mr havagar anybody have questions for
staff looks like none we're just looking for a motion to adopt the attached resolution approving plans and spec specifications and ordering advertisements for bids for improvement 2113 so move motion by Johnson second by
Ericson second okay any more discussion seeing none Tony please call the role beans yes chzach yes johnson yes stunn yes jagger yes ericson yes oh date yes that motion
resolution passes is there a resolution on this yeah there was a resolution we just did it okay I was on the wrong i'm sorry sorry next item is also a resolution this is accepting bids to award the contract for improvement 2316
South Brainer Resurfacing Project again public works director Habacorst thank you Mr president this is for resurfacing of streets as listed in the attachment and also uh curb replacement uh when needed and also five or 10 fire hydrants
excuse me and this is we're just the final thing before we um we need to accept you just accepting this bid for us to go to construction with that we can take any questions excellent anybody have questions seeing no questions we're looking for a
motion so move to attach adopt the the resolution second Ericson award to Knife River all right motion was by Chznach second by Ericson any more
discussion seeing none tony please call the role beans yes chzach yes johnson yes stunn yes jagger yep ericson yes od yes that resolution passes 9f we have a discussion allowing sidewalk performers
in Brainer this one's exciting mr havagor go ahead yes thank you Mr president so we have a request from a resident to conduct sidewalk performances in Brainer in the downtown area currently we do have we do not have an ordinance nor do we have a uh require
a permit for any such performances until we do have an or ordinance to guide staff for individuals for conducting performance in public property and that they must also provide uh comply with city ordinances state and federal law
performances can bring another element to the downtown district uh but we just need some guidelines and appropriate uh just guiding staff to for that type of activity to move forward so staff is seeking guidance uh for developing an
ordinance one the ordinance can allow or or can prohibit such activity so we want to make sure that you're aware of that and also if it's allowed what type of permits should we indicate and should it have a fee should there be restrictions on the material being used such as
carpets a display and any restrictions as the actual where it's located you know away from the building entrances outdoor dining area fire hydrants and crosswalks etc also we would need to take into consideration amplified sound
and also lastly should it be council approve a council approval or administrative approval and at that time we can take more questions and we're just again looking for guidance thank you Mr habigor i have a question so is this just having to do with people who
are trying to collect donations when they're doing a sidewalk performance or a street performance is it that kind of thing i mean if somebody wants to walk down the sidewalk and sing a song really loud nobody can really stop that so I'm
I'm wondering if is is are we trying to regulate this if it's just somebody with with who's sort of panhandling is that what we're getting at here that is one aspect aspect of this and the
applicant did indicate is it okay if I do uh have a tip jar um he also indicated that he would only want to be where he's welcomed but again our ordinance would steer us in that direction and and our attorney is here if you have any other you know comments
too he could maybe Thank you shed some light on it does anybody else have questions for staff mr mr chza um I can't remember but that we currently have perhaps in this packet or in general an ordinance that prohibits
people from blocking the sidewalk for pedestrian travel sure we do is that in our packet that I don't remember um I believe so um that there are restrictions within rightaways impeding traffic um I'd have to do some more research and we can certainly get
back to council on that i think it might be like near the restaurant section this came up during expanding seating okay okay is that just a question yep that's just a question okay any other questions
see none staff is looking for uh direction on this do we want staff to move forward with this or is this something we uh I would move that we direct staff to move forward with coming back with draft ordinance language on this uh street performance or sidewalk
was it sidewalk performance i think this is a good one for safety and public works um Mr mayor yeah I was just going to say we do a lot of this stuff for like parks and for streets it feels like a street closure to me so we have documents that are very similar to it use those as the basis for how we do it that includes whether or not there's
amplified sound or not so we have those as a basis to use and we have a great amphitheater perfect fit to perform for rent did I get a second oh did you not get a second i I should have take kept track of that it's
getting late i'll second get a second by Johnson so you have a a motion by Chzach second by Johnson um any more discussion any more direction just real quick the somebody out there already must have this ordinance somebody somebody out there has this to have this fleshed out
just not saying we got to create it from scratch so we're not Las Vegas yet no but Mr chair I just personally would prefer there not to be a fee okay yep and I I'm pretty sure this could be handled administratively
i'm just giving you my answer to a couple of I agree okay see no more discussion let's go to a vote all in favor i against same sign no
okay we No yeah yeah no same sign yes no no yes i'm not sure what he's saying but I think he said no welcome to our world that motion passes 61 next we have a discussion on uh retail cannabis
registration uh this one James Kravik and Connie Helman thank you Mr president so I'll start here um so originally the Office of Cannabis Management was going to issue licenses in each category giving priority to applicants who receive the highest score uh if there
were insufficient licenses available for uh entities that receive identical scores the Office of Cannabis Management was going to utilize a lottery to randomly select licensed uh recipients from among those entities uh this process was challenged and based on staff research we believe that it
will now be up to local government to create a process for selecting applicants which could include a lottery a first come ser uh first served model rolling approvals or other options uh recommendation from staff is to uh work with the city attorney on drafting an uh
an amendment to the cannabis registration ordinance that states registrations are on a first come first- serve basis and then create a lottery if multiple businesses are eligible with that I can answer any questions thank you Mr kravik so I want to kind of get this straight so the the state
originally was using like programs with equity to select and score individuals trying to get a license they've done away with that from my understanding that has been challenged maybe the city attorney has
found additional research but uh uh the what we're finding is that it is going to be up to local governments if there's multiple applications that do qualify it's going to be up to us to to determine who those who gets those registrations so the state now is just making sure that somebody meets certain
requirements whatever those are we're not really sure right now and then it's up to the city to pick from those people who gets that but they also say we can't pick it in a certain way we can't we can't wait for say six or seven
applicants and pick the two best ones you do have to respond within a certain number of days i I do believe there's options for the city to potentially create its own point system we'd have to do more research on that um but again um can that be challenged if the city
creates its own point system geared towards a certain way i'm not sure on that part of it i feel like we should just create a standard and if you meet the standard you get the license if you don't meet the standard you don't get the license then it is a first come
first serve yes or no that's just my two cents i don't know if anybody else has any sense to throw in mr yeah and and because the licenses were cut off um I believe March 14th uh there you know we have two l or two
registrations available with the city of Brainard there could be five people that essentially apply for those two registrations and the state says those licenses are all all eligible that would probably be released to us at the same time so first come first serve you know
will probably work potentially in the future um but because of this first round cut off dates and multiple um license eligibilities I do believe for sure a lottery system would be needed to initially or some type of system to choose could we have an RFP as part of
that system attorney Langel or some type of proposal maybe not a RFP but details of the operation i I don't have all the details on this new process by the state off the top of my head i'd have to look back and see if that's even
an option given the way that they're doing this okay but would we be able to ask location plans for the building what's this going to look like that that type of thing or is it just here's my license pick me
yeah so I do suspect that that could be potentially legally challenged um from cities choosing because it's really our registrations that that we're accepting we're not going through that whole licensing process a lot of those things are required by the state um so I would
be somewhat concerned you know go going through that process rather than a lottery system but again we can do more research yeah I feel it's kind of odd that we can't just ask some questions about what what are you planning on doing in our city before we register
their business and give them the license that that seems very odd they would still have to go through the planning and zoning the nor you know the building they would still have to go through all of that process on the mun you know through our municipal process for the building planning and zoning right it's
not like just because they get it they get do whatever they want or is it i don't know i don't know please no they still do have to meet all the requirements that were passed by city council for the zoning code so there's time place and location all of those things have to be met um you know the
planning zoning would not review um typically business plans and that type of thing um it is a permitted use if it's a certain distance away from schools um parks that type of thing if it's if it's within 100 to 300 feet then it is a conditional use permit process
um so there is a zoning code um that they do have to meet that criteria of where it's located when it can operate um but outside of that uh you know staff's recommendation would probably be to do the lottery system because we know that there probably wouldn't be legal challenges at that point would there be
legal challenges say say we got I think this is only going to be a problem the first time and then we can go first come first serve from there i think maybe not but say we had five applicants we have two licenses could we have those five applicants all go through planning and
zoning and planning and zoning could then recommend two uh according to the zoning code it would only be based on the distance of where it's located so if it's within 100 to 300 that's when it would be referred to planning zoning it's permitted use unless it doesn't meet the meetings then
it's cup got it i don't know what to tell you if we have to do lottery then we have to do lottery but it's not the way I'd like to do it if you can get us more info on what we legally can control in that situation
that would be nice simple solution are you under any time constraint here to come i'm just waiting for you to be done and I I'm not done but I'll let you talk go ahead well I I I just want to say I absolutely oppose a first come first serve lottery system right we have two there's going to be a lot of other
towns that have two there's going to be people who get their permit from the state of Minnesota and just bulk apply and then they'll be holding one of the permits in Brainard and maybe they get one in Little Falls which is much more favorable to them well they're still holding this Brainard permit that
they'll just sell it to the highest bidder i I just I don't see how that works i I we need to have some type of oversight that it's an actual business that it's preferably locally controlled i would like Joe to do more research to figure
out if and what we can look at or ask on an application for the permit how about not transferable that staff's recommendation is to have Joe go back and come and to come back with a first come first- serve lottery system we can talk for another hour but I I don't want
a lottery system i want to come back with what other options do we have right that's my feeling too mr stunick there's so many gray areas we've been talking for 10 minutes i've got a real simple solution no don't allow anything we don't have the choice you don't have that choice that's leg That's illegal
too i have a choice everything's illegal anyone else take my choice away i got to give Kevin Studio high marks for his commentary anyone else does that What's going to be next does that give clear direction i mean we can come with a motion probably
be more clear other cities are going to be doing the same thing we can Mr langel I excuse me i I have enough direction i'm fine we'll come back with more information as to what kind of control you have i suspect frankly given that the state has taken over licensing on this and all you're doing is registering
i suspect outside of normal zoning type of issues that James talked about you probably don't have very much here but we can certainly look into that and get back to you pretty quick if they meet the requirements they get the license okay yeah all right that's what we have
for now moving on next we have staff reports should we make a motion Mr od he said he didn't need one he's going to come back you want one Jeff i know you like them i know i would move to direct staff to come back with more uh information on
what our options are second uh motion by Johnson second by Chzach any more discussion none go to a vote all in favor i same sign that passes now you can go on next report see moving on to
the staff reports tony Gage chief Davis nothing to add thank you sean Strong I guess I'll give a couple updates um of the tech positions that weren't filled internally they were posted publicly they closed Wednesday about 90 applicants amongst them we're
setting up interviews now so we could have uh recommendations in next meeting or two I suppose um and also the college is now filling their cable position as we speak so they should probably be back
in the game in about a month or so so that's all I got good back on TV that's exciting well yeah uh before I forget H Chris Sharpener Eric nothing this evening Mr president ron Sharpener
one of the sharpeners sharpener sharper connie helmet yes so we have a special election to fill the Senate District 6 race the primary election will be April 15th the general will be April 29th all eight city polling locations will be
open both days from 7:00 am to 8:00 pm there's one change to ward 4 generally both precincts for Ward 4 were at St andrew's Church we could not have it there so the Ward 4 will all be voting here in the chambers for both days just
for this election it's not even in the ward we had we had Can we use the Lincoln room we found out that we were having this on May 20 excuse me on on March 21st we found out there was going to be a special election
we found out like 3 days later we couldn't use St andrews that coun city hall was the quickest location that we could have that's fair but I think we all knew there was going to be a special election a few days before that i did not I was surprised that this was the process we had to use to be honest with you thank you Connor this will all be at
city expense by the way there'll be no reimbursement from the state or the or the government so it'll all be city expense all right little Caesars that's that's what I'm hearing mike Cabagor actually we are not providing meals for this election they're even better thank you
Mr president two items james and I have met with the UPS uh staff regarding the just importance of not parking their trailers on the streets they were open with discussion and they had several ideas and James and I will be keeping u you informed with that process also the
second is our transit uh work unit i just want to give out kudos to the staff uh Crystal Aaron and and Amy they have been keeping this operation afloat our our third party contractor has been failing on several different matters one
more just importantly to me is our vehicles and the state of Minnesota has also failed the third party contractor on multiple months regarding our vehicles and the state of Minnesota has been is reviewing uh possible uh uh
consultant to help us review this operation i've been keeping Councilman Jezach informed with this process and this week we'll be having our first kickoff meeting with the state of Minnesota regarding this uh consulting services and more information will be at the next council meeting with a full
report thank you Mr abigor mr kravik thank you Mr president so the EDA held a workshop last Thursday discussed uh numerous items on where to potentially spend some budgetary items in the next couple years here uh the uh areas that were discussed was the Washington Street project and potentially providing some
funding to help businesses remain open uh and potentially targeting facade improvement grants during the project uh the EDA also directed staff or talked or gave general guidance to staff to work on new signage standards and potentially additional facade standards along Washington Street so this will be
brought to the attention of the planning commission at their next meeting which is next week uh at that planning commission meeting they will be conducting a public hearing for the proposed data center ordinance so that'll be coming to city council soon and then lastly uh staff is working with the city attorney on creating an
ordinance to end the rural service district uh we are receiving a list of all properties um currently in the rural service district from the county and staff will review all properties um prior to the ordinance to make sure that they still qualify and a report thank you Mr cranic attorney Langel thank you
chris Schubert nothing to add jesse Dean thank you Mr president i did receive news today at the ATP they awarded our Oak Street reconstruction project the $1 million uh surface transportation block grant uh so we will be getting that for
the 2029 reconstruction project nice thank you good news administrator Broyals nothing sir nothing to add the mayor's report well Kevin one you're I was going to make a joke about your micro fish however Kevin Stunic informed us that he does not like
clowns as well as marijuana so that was the start of the mayor's report uh speaking of fools April Fools was this last week and I don't know if you guys heard or not but BIR uh partnered
with Hubard Radio and had a real good little uh diddy on uh the radio and on social media in which they said that we were going to be running some national dragsters down Washington Street turns out as I was informed by the police chief that's not allowed so that won't
be happening however however I do want to say thank you to those two entities for uh including the city in that wonderful uh little bit of tom foolery and I will say that it kind of leads to my second thing here uh there's some good buzz happening in the city of
Brainard and uh it was a really good conversation to have with BI out there about how excited they are to start kind of looking at what things could potentially look like right it probably won't be dragsters down the middle of our busiest street however uh one of the
biggest assets in our area has got their eyeballs on the city of Brainard and we're really excited to see what something like that could shake out to be so keep your eyes on that which also goes to just the general buzz surrounding the city of Brainard i don't know if you guys are hearing it but I
have been hearing lots of wonderful buzz from a lot of different entities um I don't know what we're doing but we're doing something right and I just want you guys to know that uh eyeballs are upon us right now and uh it would be in our best interest to try and capitalize
on that as best we can and then lastly as the liaison for the park board just a quick update park board is about to enter into a process of just going through and taking a look at where everything stands taking a look at what
we've done over the last handful of years and then looking at where we're going to move forward from there all with the interest of making sure that our budget is in order so that one Gabe Johnson can look at that thing and say "Oo best budget I've ever seen from the
park board." So I just want you guys to be aware that they're diligently working on that process and I'm excited to see them continue the work of one Kevin Jagger from the multiple years past end of report thank you Mr mayor moving on to council member
reports councilman Stunnick i have nothing councilman Chzac uh yeah um April Fool's uh very odd uh time on the radio we're traveling down to St paul that day for unexpectable
funeral and uh KQRS you all familiar with it they played Soul Asylums uh what's the name of the song uh misery meet somebody to love or something like that and uh it repeated over and over oh
nice that's a good one and I was just uh I mean it went on for hours one song so that was a very interesting note i thought you'd all find that kind of entertaining it's not not an April Fool's joke is that all that's it all right Mr
beavenons just to draw attention to item 14A the library community facility project award letter i believe that means we are moving full speed ahead to make our library better this summer and they know about it now excellent yeah I know it's great we're not going to just
go in there and do stuff mr jagger yeah real quickly I had the opportunity to attend a couple of our last planning commission meetings uh if uh we we do have a relatively new planning commission and boy did they get thrown into a couple doozies right off the bat so I just wanted to uh extend my
appreciation to all of those that serve especially on our planning commission here recently um it's highly criticized underappreciated work and I just wanted them uh to you know keep the chin up and uh keep doing the good work and and all of it may not seem like it at times but
all of us are listening and appreciating the good work that they do in in our other boards and commissions also I had the opportunity to attend the business after hours uh that was at yesterday's gone i believe that was and wow if you want a good burger that's a place that's all where was that burger yesterday's
gone yeah you were there Kelly i was yeah i just didn't hear it chairman Johnson thank you i just got a call from a constituent today and you don't have I don't need an answer right now but if I can get an answer they saw that we're giving free bus rides to Gregory Park on
Easter i thought that that's really cool and it's good for the kids but then they also said but who's who's if it's free somebody's paying for it because there's going to be diesel there's going to be wear and tear there's going to be a driver so do we know if that's being sponsored or how is that being paid for with the state of Minnesota we get our
tokens from them and then we're going to be subsidizing also that with our tokens that we get from the state so but I can look in more the very the transportation fund right okay thank you nothing more that's all I have all right
chairman Ericson nothing further all right and everything I was going to say has already been said so I have nothing to add that's the benefit of being the chair thank you all for hanging out until 9:43 we still have a little bit left to adjourn to a closed
session so looking for a motion to adjourn to close session for Minnesota statute 13D 03 subdivision 3C3 to consider offers on the sale of the annex motion by somebody and second by second
somebody else all in favor the whole time same sign what are they here for uh just give