the meeting of the Brainer Public Utilities Commission to order. We'll have roll call. Higgins here. Mattton here. ODay here. England. Okay, we'll stand 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. And uh next item is approval of the agenda. It's not on.
Sorry. Approval of the agenda. I make a motion to approve the agenda. Second. All those in favor signify by saying I. I. Motion approved. Consent calendar. Uh this is notice to the public. All matters listed are considered routine by the commission
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 the commission votes on the motion to be adopted by roll call. Is there any changes? I make a motion to approve. Second.
Uh roll call. Higgins I. Matten. Yes. Oay. Yes. Next item is public forum. Time allocated for citizens to bring matters not on the agenda to the attention of the commission. Time limits may be
imposed. Anyone here for public forum? No. Thank you. Okay. Number seven is uh Clifton Larson Allen audit presentation. Thank you for having us today. I'm Mary Rei um been principal on the job. I'm
Eric Spendred. I'm the manager on the job. We will present to you today like we have in the past. Um so in front of you, you should have your PowerPoint. Then you also have your bound document. We'll go through the PowerPoint. The PowerPoint ties back to your financial statements. Um but feel free to stop us
at any time if you have any questions as they come up. So we'll start with page two there, the agenda. We'll go through some required communications. We'll go through the audit results, financial results, and then any key issue or summary items that came. So, our primary responsibility as
auditors provide an opinion on the fairness of the financial statements. We do review internal accounting controls. We want to make sure that there are controls in place and that they're working. Um, riskbased audit approach, meaning we don't test every transaction. We do some detail level transaction testing and then we do some higher level
transaction testing. Um, current year compared to prior year. make sure everything looks um reasonable. Significant accounting policies, those are going to be outlined in note one. Um new standard this year was Gazsby 101. So we address compensated absences just a little bit
different way that we have to look at it and assess it going forward. Um so we did adjust those page four. So there are management judgments in accounting estimates obviously comps I talked about one of them. Um but there are a few in there.
um corrected and uncorrected. No corrected misstatement. So the information you're getting is accurate uh monthtomonth uncorrected adjustment with Gazsby 101. We had to go back and reassess beginning um of the balance and we did pass on that since it was
immaterial. So next year that won't be there. Okay. No disagreements with management there. Page five. Then no difficulties encounter form in the audit. um came out was able to get everything we needed and wrap up the audit. Page six, overall audit results.
So an unmodified opinion, so highest level of assurance that us as auditors can give. Um no findings noted overall on the financial statements. Danny is able to um review those and um do everything. They have segregation of
duties over there. So no findings, very clean audit. Minnesota legal compliance. We come in and test those areas and no findings noted there either. So then Eric will go over the financial results. Okay. So first we
have kind of looking at brand public utilities as a whole. So all three departments within there. So overall you did have an increase over the last year for revenues and expenses. They kind of coincide with each other. Uh the main reason for that increase in revenues was the rate increases in all three
departments as well. You did have an increase in usage. So you had a pretty consistent year with the previous years for overall change in net position and you had a total increase of about $2.2 million for the year. Uh we will go into the different departments individually
in a couple slides in a just a moment. So on the next slide we do look at kind of a comparison between uh the different departments as a breakout by percentage. So overall there was no change very consistent with the different types of revenues you are
receiving. Uh the next slide is looking at then your expenses by operations. So you did have a slight change in the breakout for kind of shifting more towards electric. That was primarily because of that purchase power adjustment you do have. you had a huge increase in your usage there. Um, and so
it kind of just shifts based on which department has more expenses in any given year. Next, we'll look at the electric department by itself. You can see here you did have a pretty significant increase over the last year for both revenues and expenses. You did have a
pretty large increase in your industrial customer usage. Uh, you also had, you know, kind of influencing that was your rate increase. Um, but I think it was about a $5 million increase in your purchase power adjustment as well, which uh was shown for that huge increase in
expenses. Overall, still a positive gain in that position. So, doing pretty well. The next is looking at your cost and revenue per kilo kiler kilowatt hour sold. uh you did have a decrease in that margin of revenues over expenses, but
that's kind of it shifts depending on who you're primarily providing services to. You might get a better rate uh for one customer over the other, but you still had a positive game this year, but something to keep looking at going forward. Next up is your water
department. So, for the first time in the last three years, you did finally have revenues over expenses. you did have a pretty large project going on the last few years and so you're finally starting to see gains from that. You did have an increase in uh rates as well as usage compared to last year. So make
sure to uh keep looking that hopefully going forward it continues to be be running in the positive. Uh you did end up having for the first time also positive increase in that position. So looking good there. Next is the cost per thou cost revenues per thousand gallons sold. Uh
so you did have a pretty consistent margin compared with last year. Slight increase because of those rate increases. Um so definitely looking good there, but always keep that in mind going forward. Next up is the wastewater
department. Uh so just like last year, you did have revenues over expenses, but you do see kind of a increase uh in that gap compared to last year. Something that did change last year was we we recommended eliminating kind of internal services provided between the
departments. So like for electric usage by the wastewater department, we remove that for proper financial presentation. So that you're purely looking at what the wastewater department is doing uh on a yearly basis. Um overall a positive increase in
that position about $1.7 million. So very good. The next is the margin for cost and revenue per thousand gallons processed. So very consistent with last year. You did have a slight increase I believe in the wastewater treatment uh department
side of things. So do see a slight increase but very consistent and something to make sure you keep consistent going forward. Can I ask a question? Yes. Can you back up a slide? Explain to me what you just said about the electric not being charged for
wastewater. So it's still being charged but for our purposes to because we only present Brainard public utilities as one kind of opinion unit we call it. So we have to eliminate any internal costs and revenue in each department. So it
doesn't in affect each department. It's just more noticeable in this one because of the the electricity used in all those departments is pretty significant. Where is that expense picked up then? That is in the electric department then. So it's still there. It's just you're
essentially removing that and putting it back in the department. It's Do we know how much that is? Danny would be able to provide that information, right? That's fine. I'll ask him later. Thank you. Yeah. Yeah, we do have that because it is a entry Danny does provide to us. So, the numbers you guys are getting are
before that adjustment is made. So, you're able to kind of account for that. Any other questions? Uh that was about it on that cost of thousand gallons process. So the net position one more slide. So here is
looking at your overall net position. It's kind of your retained earnings left in the uh bringer public utilities. So you did have an increase last year. Uh that top line is your investment in capital assets. So that's you're continually investing in your infrastructure. So that line keeps going
up. definitely uh it's used to support your uh operations. So that's kind of your most important item on your balance sheet. Next slide is looking at your total uh cash and investments. So you can see here you have had a decrease over the last year, but that's primarily
due to repayment of debt issuances. That one big increase was you had a bond issuance pre prior to year end that you had for a project in the following year. you just hadn't spent those funds yet, but you're still at about $6 million. So, sitting pretty
comfortably. Next is your total capital assets. So, it's kind of by department. Uh you can see here general increase in each of those buckets. Uh you did have a pretty big increase in the water department last year. This for I believe the $2 million gallon storage that you
put in. Um but generally the electric and your waste water and water treatment are your main uh operations. So the next couple slides are just kind of higher level financial highlights. I won't read it word for word. It's kind of just putting into words what we just went over. So
electric revenues did increase because of a increase in usage. Uh and you did have a pretty huge increase in that purchase power adjustment because of that. uh your water revenues and your wastewater revenues both increased due to higher usage and rates but you did have an decrease in expenses which kind
of helped increase that change in that position. The decrease in cash is again due to the bond repayments and you keep on purchasing and investing in your capital assets. uh your overall asset additions were lower than last year, but you still added about $6.5 million worth
of assets to your infrastructure, but you did o overall have a positive cash flow from your operations, about $5.3 million. So, you continue to have good cash flow to help support those asset additions and uh support the bond repayments. Um I have a question if I could. Y so on
the water rate increase that only think took effect I think December of last year. So was that that's rather insignificant com compared to the usage then isn't it? Yes. I mean plays a little bit of part but the big increase in usage was the main driver for the rate increase but it's just something
that you would see a little bit of pickup there in December. I do think uh the city of Baxter had a huge increase in usage. So can't remember exactly why but that was another big driver for that increase. Any other questions?
Uh next slide is just kind of laying out the change in net position. So electric had a lower but still a positive uh change in net position. Water department had a net gain this year compared to net loss last year which is great to see. Wastewater had again a higher net gain
compared to last year. And we advise as always to continue to monitor your margins for each department to be consistent. And then make sure you monitor and assess your rates every single year to make sure that they're where you want to be. Can you can you tell me the dollar amount of difference in water between last year and this
year? And the dollar amount gain over the loss gain over loss. Do you have that? Apologize for that. Um, so meaning it had a positive change in net position of 68,000 compared to negative 622,000. Is that what you're looking for? We had
a negative of 600 some thousand last year. So that's over almost 700,000, correct? Okay. Thank you. Yep. And that is all we had. Any questions from anybody? And then Danny, I think electric margin went down. You're charging a different rate for
crypto, right? So I think that was your big decrease in your margin. So, just continue to monitor that and make sure it's where you want it to be. I know that's a big piece of your revenue and expense right now. That's why purchase power went up so much. Um, so just continue to monitor that and make sure
that's where you want it to be. Any questions? No. Well, thank you. Okay. Yep. Appreciate it. Yep. Okay. With that, we'll move on to uh commission committee reports. Oh, do we need to make a motion? I would
make a motion to approve the audit presentation as presented. Second. Okay. Any discussion? All those in favor signify by saying I. I. Motion carries. Next is commission committee reports.
So, the personnel committee met a lot this last year. Uh but Chris has most of it in her report. But um I think ultimately on the personnel committee uh position of the interim public utilities director, it is felt that um we would
like to move forward with a permanent public utilities director uh to fill that position and not and forego the interim. So that would be the recommendation from personnel committee to the commission um with hopes that that could be our recommendation to city
council since they have a um motion right now to fill an interim position. Is that a motion that our motion? Yes. Is to fill the public utilities director with a permanent employee as opposed to interim.
Is there a second? What do I need to do in order to make a second on that pass? So Mike becomes to who? I'll take it. No, you don't. I would second the motion.
We have a motion on the floor. Any discussion? I have a question if I could. uh based on uh the charter language. Now, have we made a determination that is it the purview of the public utilities commission to make this as and
then does this take standing over the personal and finance committee and via the city council uh action we took to move forward uh or not even exactly sure if we looked at an interim position and then kind of both
simultaneously and and again I'm not challenging your motion I just want clarity. Yeah. And how I would respond to that and please anybody can correct me if I am wrong but um it falls under the needs of the operation of the or of
the facility and at this point uh the overview or the feeling of the personnel committee was that we wouldn't want to belabor the entire organization again with an interim just to have to go through the process again of filling the position. So, at this point, we would
like to continue with our six-month with the vendor that sought the uh initial public utilities director to fill that position and move forward that way. So, again, it kind of comes back to what are the needs of the organization. Um, and then it goes back into our vagueness of
our city charter language of the purview of the public utilities commission is to make sure that we have uh staffing and the needs of the organization to continue operating it the way it needs to be. So if I could, Mr. Chair, I I
appreciate that explanation. So then would it would we would you say maybe that we were a little premature in the recommendation coming out of personnel and finance to move forward with the direction we did here back a month or so ago? Uh or yes as to far as give the
direction of interim. Yes. Okay. Yeah. But after closer review and discussion I I would agree. Yes, Jeeoff. Okay. Thank you. Appreciate it. I guess as far is there any other discussion other than me? I guess I don't I don't believe that we need to
fill this position. So, I'm voting no and wouldn't second the motion just any other discussion. Is it a roll call or what is it? Roll call. Roll call. Vote.
Higgins. No. Matt. Yes. Oate. Yes. Motion passed. You can have it back. Okay. Anything else? No. Nope. Um, finance operations
committee. You want to handle any of this, Mike? No, you I'll take the gavl and you can do it. Request for proposal for construction management contract. Um, reclaim tank.
Um I don't go ahead Danny. I can speak to the motion or the request. So as part of the reclaim tank construction process, we went out for bids in November. Uh the bids came back higher than anticipated. We rejected all those bids in November December time frame. We
had discussed at that point of going out and rebidding um and talking with Bolton M. The suggestion was to do this construction at risk uh bid process to get us better pricing and a not to exceed pricing. Um Morgan from Bolton and Mink is here if we have any
questions for him. But that is their recommendation and the recommendation of staff is to move forward with requesting those bids and going out for sealed bid for a construction at risk management for the reclaimed tanks and okay is it I would move to to move
forward with this second for discussion. open for discussion. So I just I'm trying to understand what are the pros and cons to a construction at risk or construction manager at risk. Can you explain that? I mean trying to read through it but it doesn't make much
sense to me. Yeah. Uh Morgan say um so a construction manager at risk or semar process is a lot of schools and municipal buildings get constructed with this. So what what the utility is effectively doing is you are getting proposals from a contractor and you are
selecting a contractor that you want to work with to help value engineer scope the project to meet a what's called a guaranteed maximum price. If you have a budget in mind, let's say $5 million, we can scope that project down and work with a contractor to get down to it. We can build this for $5 million. So it's a
lot more transparency in the process. Um and so it does provide a lot more value. The contract is still between the city utility and the contractor. Um, but we are designing with the contractor and we're asking, hey, is it going to be more cost effective to do X, Y, and Z
versus if we do this? Um, is it going to be more cost effective if we procure this uh material versus this material? So, you get a lot more say in a lot of the decisions that get made at the bidding time uh with the CMR contractor. And so there's a lot more transparency in the process. You get value
engineering out of it and you can scope a project to meet your specific budgets rather than the other process of scoping it initially, working with staff. Staff is far more involved or time constraint on them and then having to come back and you're playing back and forth and Yeah.
Yep. And then the open bid process too. When you get a sealed bid um for the whole project, you don't know is that going to come in, you know, in this case it came in higher than than what the utility was budgeted for. Um, and so you you don't run that risk in this instance with the CMA because you can tell them I
have a you know dollar amount of X as my uh budget and then we work towards scoping that project value engineering it to be under that budget including the Semark contingency fee and any extras that they may have in that process. So with that being said, then the the cost
to have a construction manager at risk and what is the cost to the utility and where do you see the cost balancing out the savings piece of it besides staff time? So the there's there's a couple different areas with that. So to get a Semar on board is um it's hard to say
relatively inexpensive, but it's you're not bidding the project at that time. You're going to select a Semar for a a fee, typically a smaller fee. I can't say I've seen a wide range of them. Um we're doing one in Aken right now. Um and it was it was very reasonable. Um
that process could take 6 to 12 months to design right for that small fee. And then the contractor goes out and bids that project. Nine times out of 10 they bid to themselves. Um and so the typical Seymour contractors we work with are the ones that normally bid our water
wastewater projects. Um and so they're very well verssed in understanding how this process works. Um, Seymar is newer in the water wastewater realm. Um, as of there was a statute change at the legislature in 2023 um that allowed Seymar to be used for
municipal uh funded projects. Prior to that, it was it wasn't regularly used in municipal projects for water wastewater. Um, but again, your schools and other government buildings typically have used a SEMART process. Um, so your cost savings come in more transparency with
being, hey, staff wants to do this, contractor comes back and says, hey, that's going to cost you an extra million dollar if we do it that way. We can save you 300 grand by doing this. And so it's just transparency throughout the entire process and that the staff and the city is still very involved.
Yes. It it it's they're almost more involved with the contractor because you're meeting with the contractor talking through that entire process versus working with the engineer saying, "Hey, what do you guys want? What do you want this to look like? What kind of face, you know, facial do you want to have in this? What kind of brick do you want?" We'll design that in there. Now,
we can talk to the contractor say, "Give us a price for this. What is this going to cost us? Can we do alternative foundation design?" You know, what is dewatering going to take? Can we move this on the site to a more cost-effective location? Does this put a limit then on your uh change potential change orders? It it
can. It definitely can. Um a lot of times there's a contingency. There's a contractor um semar fee that they build into the GMP which is a guaranteed maximum price and then there's a contingency that's typically built in. In a lot of projects we build in what's called an allowance. So it's basically just some extra money that's bid with
the project that you can use um on various aspects of the project. that contingency uh fee is typically built in to cover any miscellaneous changes. Ideally, everything you've scoped out is in that GMP and that's what they go and bid. If you were to ask for, hey, we
want to change this and it's different than the bidding documents, yes, there's a potential for a cost change there. But overall, the stuff that you scope out and is in the GMP is what they bid. Is it kind of like a design build type thing? It it's very similar to a design build. There's design build, there's
design, bid, build, and this is the CMR, which is very similar to that design build. Is there's a couple different steps in there just with how you arrive at the GMP because this one has a budget. And if you're going to go over that budget, there has to be a documentation of why are we going over
that budget when you bid it the way we scoped it. Thank you for that explanation. Does that make sense? Is that clear? It's a a process that's being used a lot more especially in water wastewater with with the cost of these projects. Um and it does provide a lot more transparency in
the process. Any more discussion? I would don't care either way what we do. I would caution staff to understand there was a another project that happened similar to this in
our region a few years ago and they forgot to like add furniture for some of the room brand new rooms they built and at the end of end of the deal they got in a lot of trouble and ran into a lot of expenses. So, I I don't mind this
process, but I think staff needs to be very highly involved just to make sure that we're getting what we need as a utility. So, that's all and that's the same process. And in this instance with the reclaimed tank, we already have a design done and so we are trying to
value engineer that to a point where it's like, hey, we have a budget in mind. We can afford this. We work with the contract, get a seamar board, work with them and say, how do we cut the cost of getting this piping from point A to point B? because we know some of the areas that were expensive, we can kind of value engineer some of those areas and make sure that again to your point
that the city gets the things that they need in that facility that everything that that is being bid with that is approved and the city understands what is included in that. Okay, any other questions or discussion?
All those in favor signify by saying I. Oh, I'm sorry. Well, I don't know why, but All those in favor I I I opposed passes. Okay, the next is uh discuss approve
credit card transaction processor. Danny, thank you. The staff have been reviewing credit card transactions. This has been on our a conversation we've been having for over a year now. uh our credit card processor raised their fees again 100%
here in February. So at that time staff have now requested quotes for credit card transaction processing. The challenge we're having with our credit card processing is that the general ledger package we use only allows certain processors. So we have a limited
number of quotes that we are able to go and get that work and fully integrate with the general ledger package. So with Tyler in code that is what we're working with. So we did are are obtaining those three quotes. We have heard two of those
presentations. We are waiting on the third. Initial indications are we can save a considerable amount of money by switching processors. um items for us to consider in a switch that we would like commission direction
on is one of the options would change our customerf facing portal and that could lead to questions from customers. Does commission have any desire to change that? Staff have seen that demonstration. It seems fairly
straightforward, easy for staff to talk through any changes with customers. But a question we wanted to ask the commission if that is something that they even wanted to be interested in in doing. Uh savings are significant. I don't why wouldn't we? Agreed.
It would be nice to see the demo though to see what it would how the difference would what it would be. I mean is it drastically different for the customer? Are you going to be spending a ton of time? No, it's fairly intuitive. Like go through like your normal checkout process at um any online vendor would be
what it looked like. It was very easy for the four staff that were in to follow. We thought it was cleaner. Okay. Um we have an option with Tyler payments themselves. We wouldn't the customer would not notice a difference and we would still have some savings. We're still waiting on final quotes and final
numbers to identify that savings. So this page, this next page is is your examples. Correct. The ne the following page then shows the examples. The summary per the item transaction. This is outlining what global has charged us.
So you see there's an average of 212% increase from uh the last year from April 1st of 25 to March 1st of 24. When we look back, I mean we have a 300% increase in our discount rate and item
rate. the item rate and the bottom like four items on this are per um per transaction. So that is what's driving the increases. We are seeing this everywhere. I've talked to several other cities as well. They are seeing this as
well. So it's not uh unique to our situation. How much lead time is needed once you make a make a decision? 120 days and we have early. So, we have a 36-month contract right now with Global. There are termination fees. I believe
they're $500 per merchant ID. We have three. So, we're looking at $1,500 in termination fees, which when you look at the savings is, I'll say, insignificant. The um but 120 days is needed for that transition and turnover. Do we have to give
them um notice then? We would. Yes. Well, I mean, that's obvious. We're not going to go with global, so why wouldn't we just go forward with that getting that submitted? I mean, that'll take a the
couple quotes that we've heard about the the termination time. It's 120 days for them to come online. So, we wouldn't we'd want to wait on that notice until Okay, I see. I thought you meant we had to give notice that. Okay. Nope. Y All right.
So, you'll come back with this next meeting. We don't Yes. As long as commission is okay with if we're looking at changing portals and find the cheapest option is what I'm assuming the commission is in favor of, but we wanted to ask that. Seems like an easy decision. Yep.
Okay. Unfinished business memo. I don't remember what that is. Go ahead. So the unfinished business memo is just our updates of the ongoing things that we have. We had the lead service uh items. The
one biggest item for us to look at as we look at um then it's on as the next item on the contract would be the hydrogeneration project. And then um I guess the question is are there any other questions on any of the other
items before moving on to that just just item F the system impact studies? I was just curious on the electric transmission service brainer uh um Minnesota Power uh the next step for the process. Are they doing an impact study and the cost? Great question. We would
we don't have a cost on that. We'll have to do an application for them to do that impact study so I can provide more feedback at a later date if that's something we still want to pursue. Okay. Do we have to let you know that right this very minute? You do not. Okay. I just I just wanted clarification
on that. Thank you. Okay. Then we'll move to item B is discuss flarity and hood lobbying contract for hydro generation. Um, go ahead Danny, you want to tell us? So, as as the commission
knows, we hired a lobbyist to discuss the hydrogeneration project. That was Marty Seaffort with FLD and Hood. He was the one that helped us when we were down at the capital discussing the project with the energy committee. Um, his
contract that we have, we signed a 15-month contract through and it ends June 30th of this year. The question, we have options. We could extend with Marty um for 12 months at $25,000. We could
extend through December 31st of 2027 for $45,000. Uh we could look into looking and talking with MMUA and their legisl governance legislative team with Bill Black or we could work with our own
contracts to discuss or our own contacts, excuse me, to discuss and continue the efforts on the generation project. The update, the latest update from Marty is that both the Senate and the House have picked up our bill. So, it is on
those individuals to carry that through. The discussion items at the capital are whether or not those bills will even be open for discussion at this point. At this point, they have not been opened. The other caveat or item that we have noted
as of the last meeting is that the and Trent can correct me if I'm wrong, but the generators that the bar engineering team had picked out, the manufacturers have paused all manufacturing on the type of generator we were going to install in the pit. So, there are
multiple vendors and contractors that supply that type of equipment. All of them have paused production. The anticipated cheapest option has halted production indefinitely at this point in time. So, we're kind of working
with bar to determine additional options at this point. So, this might be a question we ask once we know more on generator technology that we need to review and look into, but at this point, that is what staff has asked bar to do. Um,
we're looking for direction from commission on how they would like to proceed, if we should be signing another contract with Marty Seafford at Flity and Hood, waiting some time to identify what our needs might be. At this point, why wouldn't we just
terminate that contract with Marty and then figure out over the next few months which way we want to go? I'm not so sure I know what MMUA offers. for one. Um I mean we can always start a new contract
with Marty later. Doesn't have to be July 1st. I would and I I I would agree with that. I think that uh I feel there's huge value in having a presence in St. Paul. Um, but at this point, I mean, it seems like
we're at a major roadblock that we would almost be throwing money away uh if we extended this at this point. Um, not knowing what our other options might be. So, I'm I I would agree with that. But again, I'm a I'm a huge advocate of having someone
in present always down at the state uh at state capital um you know, lobbying on our behalf. But, uh, I I think there's too many too many things that we don't know at this point that we wouldn't and shouldn't probably extend
this contract at this time. Would MMUA request additional money if we go that route? I I do not know that. We would have to follow up on that one, but what I can say is uh I I'll I dropped the ball on this one. Did not notify MMUA that we
were going down to testify. I didn't even think of it. Bill Black was monitoring the schedule and seen that we were on the schedule and actually appeared at the hearing for us just to support us and so more conversations could definitely happen with MMUA, but I'm not sure what their financial or what their fees may be if there's any,
but we could follow up. We kind of wanted to take this step here, decide if we were going to continue to use um the services here or look at other options. So, I think we'd be crazy not to do the extension through 2027 with Marty. I
think that if we want to raise 1012 million dollars to rebuild our dam that we need to keep our presence in St. Paul, um I've met with Senator Heindman and Congressman Heinsman. Um, the bills are probably not going to get opened because of all the crap that's going on
down there, but I I think that that dam needs investment money and we need help and we should continue keeping our, you know, lobbyists keep our our requests at the top of the stack. If we don't have a
lobbyist, that we're going to go to the bottom of the stack and it's going to be very hard to um keep our foot in the door just in case. I think for the amount of money we're trying to raise and that we need, um, the $45,000 is a
kick in the bucket. So, I would make a motion to table this until next till next commission meeting when we have answers from MMUA. Um, because this doesn't expire until June 30th and we would meet before then. I
would second that motion. Okay. Is there any further discussion? Hearing none. All those in favor signify by saying I. I. I. Okay. Next item is approve STR lowest quote main lift makeup air
unit. You want me to take it, Charlie? Yes. This is this is pertaining to the uh grit and uh uh screening building um that we chose to do inside. Um that is the next step in the uh protection for uh safe work environment. So it it will
be uh the lowest bid and that's where we're at. So, okay, that being said, we got two competitive bids and uh line for line, that's uh who who staff recommends to go
for. Danny, we had a budget of $150,000 that we carried over from 2024 for this line item. So, we're coming in under that $150,000 budget as well. Make a motion to approve. Second. Further
discussion? No. All in favor signify by saying I. I. Do we need a roll call on a monetary motion? No. Okay. Good to go. Okay. We'll move on to new business.
Tower mixer quote. I can take that one. So, as part of our uh review and KLM's assessment of the water tower, so this is where talking the downtown water tower, they had suggested putting a mixer in the water tower. There is not
one there. Now, this will help improve water quality. They in looking and discussing with staff and then in discussing with KLM, there's an option to put in this mixer. The mixer itself
is uh less than $25,000. There's about $9,000 in this 30,000 presented for electrical work. There'll be a determination of whether we have KLM do that or we can do that internally. Um but the recommendation from staff is to move forward with KM's
recommendation to put a mixer in and determine how that improves our water quality. Is there a motion? I'd make a motion to approve this second. Can I ask a question, Mr. Chair?
Yes. So, you say improve the water quality. Um, what where are we suffering right now? And is this kind of like a shot in the dark to see if it helps the quality? Where's our quality suffering?
Is it the amount of uh the chlorine? Is it I thought that was more because of the distribution factor or what what's the real issue here? I can take that. Um in any volume of water um it'll stratify depending on temperature and so first in
first out. So if we're running a a stage or a set point of a turnover the tower um it could potentially be just first in first out without uh mixing the tank. It stratifies. So you'll have age water at the top or uh just like temperature and
uh so on affects that to keep the tanks fully mixed and homogenized um to so that the water quality going in and out is equal instead of having something that's stratified. Okay. Thank you very much. So we didn't install this initially
uh the downtown tower the million gallon uh tank that we're referring to right now. No, there is nothing in there uh for a mixing uh whatsoever. But the other two have them. The south tower has one. The the state hospitals we refer to our state or tower 2 does not which
would be we would be doing this on the state hospital then too because that would make sense if we're doing it downtown or we just want to Yes. Yes. We'll be looking at the reservoirs. We'll be looking at uh all of them. This is the first step in in that direction.
Thank you. Any other discussion? All those in favor of the motion signify by saying I. I. I. Motion carries. Next item is discuss Brainer community action beautifification ideas.
Mayor Bedau. David Dave projects that we've been approached by a couple groups and interested in the city and brought this to the city at their last
meeting to move forward. uh the first of which I believe is a banner program. So uh maybe a little bit over a year ago uh former uh county administrator Tim Wolf had approached me and
said I thought I looked directly at it. Look at that. I'm just loud. Uh I'm not going to start the whole thing over, but a year ago roughly, uh former city or uh county administrator Tim Hoo approached me and said how how great it would be if we did some kind of
banner program in that area between city hall here and the county buildings. Um we've got those decorative light posts and so we took a look at it and and saw what that could potentially be. Uh what we are proposing to you is a banner
program that we would run that would be for people to uh get either banners for active service members uh previous service members or those that have uh lost their lives and then we would hang those up on an annual basis. The
drawback to this is that those poles about every other one has banner brackets, but they only have the top banner bracket. The uh bottom half, and you can kind of see it in the picture, is just a hook for a triangleshaped banner. So, what we're proposing is that
we would uh fund this completely, but we would want to have a bottom bracket put on those poles so that we could hang the banners. And then uh we would like to, if at all possible, do this on a yearly basis where people would purchase the banner. We would put it up. I think we
can manage that. Uh we could take a look at it, but I I I think they're low enough that we could manage putting them up and down. And then at the end of each season, we would give those back to the people that have purchased them as a keepsake with the option of putting them back up the next year. So, uh, time frame, we'd like to do it May prior
prior to Memorial Day and then run it for sure through the 4th of July, but probably through the entire summer process. Um, so that's that one there. What what we're looking at is every other pole because you can see the second pole behind it there. Those are hanging baskets. I don't think we want to mess with that. So, we were thinking
uh we'd find out what the cost would be to put that bottom bracket on. We would ask BPU to do that process for us and then we would work with figuring out um what the process for getting them up and down would look like. How many total poles are there? You know, I didn't I didn't run the full number there. So, we
would want to do um both sides, left and right. Um and I want to say it's probably roughly 10 to 15 poles per side, but then you've got your every other. So, it wouldn't be a ton of poles, but it's
about a two block rad or two block area. You m you mentioned the top bracket was already in place, but the next poll shows a much smaller top bracket. So, do all of them need to be replaced? So, that's the hanging baskets. We figured we'd just leave those alone. Okay. So,
is it alternating? It would be alternating. Yeah. So, it' be every second pole. Um, but again, yeah, just the triangle brackets or the triangle banners just wouldn't allow for enough space to get people's names and stuff on there. Personally, I I love the idea and
I think it's a fantastic idea. It's going to be a matter of staffing and can is it something that we can um can we do this for? Yes, I think this is I also agree it's a wonderful project. We can definitely fit this into um that time frame time of
year for us fits well. The polls are engineered to have banners on them so there is no concerns from the operations side of BPU. Love it. I thousand% support this idea as well. Do you know the estimated cost of the banners? I do not. We've we've run it before with the
city. We did banner we've there's been banners that have done been done downtown. We did the ones for the uh 150y year anniversary. Those are a little bit smaller than what we'd like. So costwise they're not a couple hundred bucks. Yeah, it's not it's not too bad. We would like to run this as a fundraiser. Um, and we are we have
partnered with the Panda Project, which is a local group that works with uh veteran suicide. So, we'd like to try to get enough to kind of disperse a little bit in some different directions. Um, but again, just even for just the Fourth of July purposes, it would be fantastic
for us. So, so you said they're only up for the summer. What then after that? We'd like to take them down. We'd like to give them back to people so that they can have them and then for a reduced rate they could put them back up the next year. Uh what I don't want to do is have banners that become tattered and
torn, especially with that type of imagery on there. If it's people's names, we'd like to keep them nice. So, is the uh VFW and American Legion involved with I have not approached them yet. The Brainer Lions did uh mention they would be interested. I haven't
approached anybody yet. We wanted to get approval first. We we're not going to try and push this through this year. We want to take a full year. That's why we're bringing it up now. Um let's take a full year. Let's get it right. I don't want to I don't want this to be something that ends up being an eyesore for such an important process. Yeah.
Okay. So, from what I hear, we're all good with that. Okay. That's number one. Number two, we were approached by a group of artists that uh are interested in decorating of electrical boxes.
Uh we we like the idea. There obviously is a little bit more um trepidation I think from the council on this one. Not in that they don't like the idea in that art is subject to people's opinions and could get
squirrely real fast. So uh the two artists that we've worked with have a long-standing history of creating art uh that has been used in the city. We worked with them on the cookie project this last winter. Um Tony Powers is one of the artists as well. He has um the
two murals, the uh Ubetta as well as the one at the Legion. Um and we think we could do something uh fun and exciting. There's there's a couple different variations of your guys' electrical boxes. There's the one that's shown here, which is obviously kind of the taste of resistance. It's right next to
city hall. It's beautiful. It's brand new. It's smooth. Um it would be very easy to do. But then there's also the ones and I I mentioned the one in the alley of Bremer Bank that is just becoming um a little less sightly. So
we'd like to kind of work with your staff and identify some that could potentially be um rehabilitated and then give them just a little bit of of spice of life. Those aren't ours. Those ones aren't yours. Those types are the dots. Yeah,
that's what I thought. Those are all which is fine. Which is fine. We we noticed that on the one right on 210 uh and there's also the one on Oak Street. So those would be would be fantastic. We did lay the groundwork on this a few years ago um to app and we did approve certain certain ones had to come to the
commission um because there was big concern about the stickers being remaining exposed. We talked about wraps. Um, and then we would talked about working with the, uh, downtown Brainer, the art, the artist downtown Brainer to create designs so that they
can come that we would create a commit committee to approve designs before they went, you know, onto the electrical boxes. Um, but yes, I know these specifically these types aren't art, but I know Jesse has a question or comment. I can just mention that the DOT has
approved art on traffic signal control boxes in the past and Wilmer comes to mind. Uh it's just a permit process and approval process and and we don't have to start with those ones either. Those are just they're easy. They're large. Um but we took a long a lot of time and went around and tried to identify which
ones could potentially be. Fifth Street comes to mind as there's a ton of them. Uh the library is right there, the school district's right there. Um and they would be easy to do. they're at least a little longer. Um, and and again, we in terms of art, I I I'd like
to stay away from activism type of stuff and just keep it as something that is beautifification. Um, we had some conversations with some council members about potentially Paul Bunan type themed stuff or things around that nature, things that are a little bit less uh, let's say artsy fartsy. How about that?
That's a good term for it. And I said this at the council meeting as an artist myself. I take no offense to anyone not liking art. That's the way that it is. If you want to put something out into the world, it's it's subjective, but in terms of what a city is interested in, it should be something pretty basic. So, walley, white tails, and whiskey. There
you go. I love it. Whiskey at the top. Just in a community in Wisconsin for a couple days where they must have implemented some kind of program like this. And it looked awesome. Yeah. Everywhere you went, you saw it's a paper mill town, so it was paper mill
themed. And it was it looked really good. Yeah, I do I do want to push back slightly on committee type stuff cuz again as an artist that stuff gets really homogenized really quickly, but we'd want to make sure that we're presenting something that the city is
interested in. So the only question really for us though, I mean, is can you paint them or wrap them? Do we have a problem with that? We'd have to take a look at the wrapping, but it's came technologies came a long ways. The only concerns we may have is if it's prot pre preventing the transformer from cooling or the
cabinet from cooling. But technologies came a long way. So I think we can definitely accomplish that. And we have to make sure we don't cover up identifi identifying tags, safety stuff, all that. Mhm. The alignment art isn't as pretty as the
art that you have, but is required that we have that on there. So we can work with the placement of that stuff and maybe look at some other opportunities, but I can support this. I mean, we're not going to be involved at all in what you do as far as what's painted that you
can take those complaints. I I will take those complaints on personally. So, really? Yeah. Absolutely. We got that. We got that on recording. Of all the things I get yelled at, art not being pretty is fine with me. It'll be under some intense scrutiny. Yeah. Yeah. Uh
we'd like to work with your staff and maybe identify a handful of them. I I think our artists would like to kind of start in areas that are not quite so visible ju just in terms of it's difficult to sit there and paint while people are hounding you. Um but there's also a couple that could use a little
bit of sharpening up. So I got a couple. Okay. Yeah. So if we could identify those and they're everywhere, you know, once we started driving around they're they're literally everywhere. So So Trent, can you work with them to move forward with it? Absolutely. Okay.
Perfect. So I don't think we need a motion because this was already approved some time ago. So appreciate it. Yeah, they just Thank you. Yeah, that's great. Okay, we'll move on then to staff reports. City administrator report. Uh thank you, Mr. Chair. I do have a
written report. Um I missed the deadline to get in the packet, so that's on me. I apologize. I'll get that remedied for next time. I'll just hit a couple of the highlights. The city also is going through their audit right now. Uh the deadline for completion is June 30th and the results will be presented to the city council in July. Um couple other
items for uh as far as community development for Country Manor. The groundbreaking ceremony is scheduled for June 10th. Um we are working with the YMCA executive director Shane Riffle on an expanded YMCA project. City Council did approve a not to exceed amount of
$5,000 to go out for an RFP to talk to consultants that are in the business of bringing together uh a financing mechanism to pay for high price projects. So, we'll be working through the Y with that. Um we had a fire request. There was a
statewide request. You guys recall the fires north of Two Harbors. Oh, about the middle of May sometime. Uh we did receive a request and we did deploy one team to go help out with that. They were there for a night, maybe two nights and then they came back. So that was a good thing for the city. Technology
department is making some hires. They've hired a GIS specialist, a technology specialist and a network administrator. Network administrator is to begin June or excuse me, mid June. I've met the other two. So we're getting some good people on the staff. Airport director
resigned on May 7th. So the airport commission is working through that process of backfilling that position and advertising. So more to follow on that and I think that's the highlights. I'd be happy to answer any questions if you have any.
Any questions? No. Thank you. City Council leaison report. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Um we did one thing at our last meeting that uh y'all might be interested in more of the um code
enforcement. It's not going to be just uh complaint driven on our major corridors such as our 210, 371, Oak Street, Mil Avenue, I believe is one where we'll have uh staff um uh reviewing that uh on more of the staff
level if they see things that'll come forward to our uh community development department. and then um also within 300 feet of that and around parks. So tried to uh take the more visible areas of the city to uh have a little bit more enforcement which I I I think that was
the unanimously. Well, it wasn't. Mr. Johnson voted against it, but he um other than that um it's interesting. I found that um watching the planning and zoning committee uh commission meeting the other night with the um St. Francis.
Uh they're coming forward with the request for the re uh I believe it's resoning and uh street vacation. That's a public hearing coming up that the council approved. Um uh that was a 4 to2 4 to1 vote I think in favor of uh
allowing that by the PNZ commission and uh that'll be on our uh meeting coming up on the 2nd of June. So that's something to look forward to to see how that goes. So other than that, thank you very much. Appreciate it. I have just a question on the the complaint driven part of that. If does it have to be a
neighbor? Can it be anybody? What if someone comes with a list of four pages and said here these are the bad ones in the city. You could you could live in Sou Falls, South Dakota and drive through Brainard. As far as I understand, you could call their city
and um Mr. Mr. Cranic would take your call as a nice individual he is and he would note your concern and probably have our Mr. Stalkinger go out and uh address the issue if it's uh legit. They'll notify the citizen that owns that property that they need to improve
it or fix it or whatever it might be. That's how I understand it to be. Okay. Thank you. Yeah. Of course, now they'll have more of the major areas corridors of the city being addressed by staff. So that's a change we made. Okay. Entirely complaint driven.
All right. Move on then to C uh HR directory report. There is a written report in your packet. Um if you have any questions otherwise I have nothing else to add. Does anyone have a question Chris? No. Okay. We move on. Finance
manager report. Danny. So just one one thing to highlight is the attorney discussions with attorney Lingal have been happening and then as well as Spencer Feain on the purchase power agreement with blockmetrics. Those are ongoing. Um we hope to have a contract
here this week ready to present to blockmetrics and nothing additional. I'll answer any questions. Um, with that, I mean, some of this stuff has been going to committees and and you've kind of backed out on this block metrics
contract, correct? Was told I had to. Well, so that would be a yes. Um, I don't know if you if Dolly and Danny or Dolly and um Mike England are available to help review that was mentioned or if Mike can't make
it or I mean I'm available too if you two of them want to review it. I or I don't know. So when we review it and if we have concerns, questions, uh like to some changes and whatever, is the contract going to be brought back to commission for a a final review or is it
going to get signed uh with any modifications that we recommend this week? I would I would entertain sending it to blockmetrics to get their comments as well as your comments. So I'm waiting for commission comments and then I'll have administrator Broyals look it over
as well. James Cranick has seen it. Okay, we'll have all of our comments go and then I would anticipate going to Blockmetrics to ask them if they would have any changes so that we can get a contract. And Kayla, our attorney, is
also helping us with this. Correct. And Langel as well has seen it. Okay. Do you see this coming back then the commission at the end of June if everybody seems to give the thumbs up on it? Yes, that would be my anticipation. Yep. Thank you. Perfect. Thank you.
Anything else? I do not. Okay. Operations manager report. Thank you. Um a verbal report for me this month. May screams past and it's already come and gone. So I did not have time to get a written um packet in the
packet but I'll hit a couple highlights that we have working through with climate vision right now. U mostly right now we're working through the state and the actual site itself where we have easements and where we don't have easements. So, uh, we're making good progress there. The state's willing to do a license agreement with us. Uh,
they're willing to draft that so we can bring it back for presentation. So, we have a few bulletin items that we're working through with Climate Vision right now. Electrical plans, where the crane would be set up, things of that nature. So, essentially, uh, for lack of a better term, a temporary easement for
us to have a crane on site to set that on top. Um, they're very much, um, in favor of this and willing to work with us towards it. So, we're still grinding away on that. Hopefully some more action items here coming in uh in the next week or so. Uh hydro uh rains in early May
have helped us be successful. We've been able to turn on generators four and five for about 9 hours a day since about May 6th, May 7th. So we've seen some um extra capacity and water flows there. That's been a benefit for us at the dam. Typically on a 25-y year average, we're
seeing about 6,000 cubic feet per day at the dam and we're down to about 3,500 right now. So, um, we're still seeing those lower flows, but making progress and able to run some of those generators. Uh, water distribution, we're still doing our directional flushing. Um, that's going well. Uh,
continue to work towards that. We did have an opportunity last week to do a tour of the waters plant down in South St. Paul. So, myself, um, and three of our distribution crew members were able to attend that. Uh, it was excellent tour. They do our gate valves, they do
hydrants, they do, um, pumpers on fire trucks. So, as we move into different materials into our distribution system where we've been very much a ductile iron for many, many, many years now that we're moving into plastic and other things, it felt important that we were able to get down to the factory to see what the new um connectors and stuff
look like. So, very beneficial. That was about a three-hour tour. Um, I highly recommend it. If anybody has the opportunity to take that tour, I would definitely do it. It was very, very well done. Um, thank you to them. electric distribution crews currently right now having a pretty big outage on our main sub and luckily none of us are noticing
that. So, we're doing some maintenance work out there today. We came in early, started doing some switching. Uh, hats off to them. A lot of this work landed in their laps to design and put it together and so I'm very happy of the outcome of that and they're doing a great job as we speak right now. Nothing
else unless there's questions for me. Any questions for Trent? No. Thank you. water wastewater manager report. Yes, thank you. Uh a few things in my
report that may get uh buried but uh looking at the start goal for uh land application of bios and all the new paperwork that we have to do with that. Um we got a little bit
of a slow slow start um but ended strong. Um, and I just want to say appreciation goes to uh the wastewater and water guys um for uh getting 160 trucks out and applied uh before the
corn crop went in and beans. So, uh kudos great staff um managed it very well. So, um that alongs with the uh lead and copper um first half lead and copper are out um and we have a deadline
of June 30th to get them back uh and into the lab. So, um right now we're focusing on that. So, um it's where I'm at. Any questions? No, you're heading up to Breezy on May 20th or you already did that. How was
that? We did that. We presented, we had to get our renewal for uh uh type 4 land application of bioels and the agency MPCA requested or asked if we would present our program and so we did. Um
the operators all did. I just facilitated um so did a great job. Um good attendance and a lot of questions out there with the new rules. So awesome. You would have let us know that that they presented had I not asked. That's
awesome. Mhm. Well, I put it in the report. Is that it? Any other questions? Not many. Nope. Commission members report. Anybody have anything else? I just want
to thank uh our managers for all the extra time that they put in this last month in going over um some of the staffing uh questions and meetings that we have had. I I know it's added, but we really appreciate your guys' time. Um, and really understanding and
appreciating all of the cross trainining that sometimes we don't speak enough about. Um, and it's very much appreciated the skill level that all of our employees in the operations actually obtain through your guys' leadership. So, it's very much appreciated and it
should be noted. So, I just that's all I have. Anything else, Danny? If commissioners are interested in going, there's the legislative update by MMUA. That's June 18th at 5:00 PM in Grand Rapids. That was the same
presentation, their new presentation. It was here in Brainer last year. I know one commissioner is interested in going. So, if there's going to be a quorum potentially, we might want to adjourn to that meeting. Okay, with that motion to adjurnn.
So moved. Second. You should adjourn to that meeting. Is is there anybody else going? I guess question. I'm not. All right. Then we won't have that danger of a quorum. All right. Okay. We're adjourned.