You can go on these. >> Okay, it is 7:00 on Tuesday, January 20th. This is the city of Brainard's personnel finance committee meeting. Let's start with introductions. >> Kelly Bever city council ward 2. James Critic, community development director. >> Connie Gilman, finance director.
>> Jesse Dean, city engineer. Nick Bro, city administrator. >> Teresa Burke, dispatch. >> Gabe Johnson, chair of the committee. We have three items before us tonight. The first of which is to advertise potentially advertise a request for proposal for our SAHA funds.
>> Yes, thank you, Mr. Chair. Uh so in order for developers to plan for summer construction projects, staff recommend advertising the city's available SAHA funds at the beginning of 2026. Available funds include the remaining balance of $34,484 along with the 40,121 that was awarded
for 2025 for a total of $74,65. staff recommend a motion to advertise for proposals for available SA funds with a February 20th submitt deadline and I can answer any questions. My only question is and and the first time we did this, we received a proposal
from a developer and I said, "Hey, maybe we should go out RFP, see if there's other developers." And we've done it twice and there's only been the one responsible developer both times. So, couldn't we just make a motion tonight to just award the remaining funds contingent upon a development in
Brainer? >> Um, you could um motion for that. I think we still would want um Habitats to submit a proposal um so we know which properties it's going towards or potential properties >> but if we restrict it to a development in the city limit of Brainer we don't care which property is it's policy in
Brainer >> so I would prefer to just give the remaining 74605 to Habitat >> my only comment on that and I've supported the habitat proposal two years in a row now >> but what if there is somebody else I I
realize past has been just um we have not had any new proposals, but that doesn't mean this year we wouldn't. >> Okay, >> that would be my thought. I would prefer to advertise. Doesn't cost >> advertise. Yeah, it doesn't bother me. I
just quicker to just >> I I know, but it's a fairly quick process. Anyway, I do have another question. When does this money run out? It's This is it. >> Um Nope. In 20 2026 we're certified to get $36,718.
>> Oh, I thought it was two years. So, it's >> this will be two years at a maximum kind of a maximum amount and then it was a draw down. >> So, it's it's going down, but I don't know. >> We don't know the answer to that. >> I just I mean, you hear a lot about the state not have about $9 billion in
money. >> Maybe you and I should create an NGO money. Yeah. >> Mr. Mr. Chair, my move is to advertise for proposals uh for the available SAHA funds with a February 20th submitt >> and I will second that. Any other
discussion? All in favor say I. I. >> That carries. Next up is a proposal for city code codification services. >> Thank you, Mr. Chair. Um council has budgeted $50,000 for codification. Recommended the city codify probably
every 10 or 15 years. Um, as we can tell, the last time this was done was in 1985. We did reach out to American Legal Publishing. They're kind of the gold standard for cotification. I know they've done over 300 municipalities within the state of Minnesota. Uh we talked with one of their attorneys. I
think it was might have been their president, but uh one of their staff attorneys, I believe, and um the estimate for uh to get this done on the upfront cost would be anywhere from about 25 to $30,000 det depending upon page counts and some
of the options that we may or may not select. Uh and then there would be recurring costs of approximately 2 to 3,000 per year. The baseline for that, the floor of that recurring cost is $695. That's a basically an online staging fee. But then there depend on
which options we would choose. And we looked through as a staff and there was maybe only a couple that we were interested in, but we think that the estimated annual cost would be approximately $2 to $3,000. It would take about a year to get those completely done. Um, if we signed a contract with them, they would take it
for a few months, put together a plan, come back to staff and say, "Here's what we're thinking. give us a chance to comment and then they would take about 7 8 nine months to actually do the codification. Um so staff would recommend that we that we do move forward and enter an agreement with American Legal Publishing
for codification services and their proposal is attached in the packet. >> I have a question Mr. Chair is is there any reason why we should go out for same as the last agenda item we've staff
agrees that a P is the place and there's no need to go into anybody else. >> I would absolutely feel very comfortable going with ALOP. I wouldn't look want to look anywhere else and we wouldn't have to statutoily. >> I can live with that. >> And they are the ones that contract with the League of Minnesota Cities to do this type of work >> or that the League of Minnesota City
contracts with to do this type of work. >> I have a motion when you're ready. My motion is to move to authorize staff to enter an agreement with ALP for codification services. I'll vote for it down here. I'll vote against it upstairs. Can we change the motion to be
uh to the budget of up to $30,000 >> since that's what the rest estimated cost is? >> Okay. And then just do a yearly motion every what are you going to do about that? >> The the annual hosting the annual hosting that's just going to be budgeted
annually. I don't want the project to be done for $24,200 and then staff finds $17,000 add-ons to get it up to 50 because that's what's budgeting. >> I I have absolutely no problem with restating my motion to include a $30,000
limitation right now. >> Perfect. >> Because I understand what the argument my motion would be to enter the year with ALP for codification services with a limit of $30,000. And I will support the motion down here and still vote no more upstairs
discussion. >> Yeah, Mr. Chair, if staff comes up with something that comes up with over $30,000 because there are some options, I would presume you would want that we could just they could come back >> and absolutely. It would just be something that we would talk about. >> Yeah. At the time it would it wouldn't
just be Yeah. It only cost 30, but you guys have 20 more to blow on whatever bells and whistles you >> I understand completely. you know, >> include a putude a chair massager in there. So, >> okay. All in favor say I. I. That motion
carries. Next up, franchise fees. Jesse. >> Thank you, Mr. Chair. So, we're bringing this item back from a little over a year ago. Uh council asked us to go out and start garnering some public input and uh comments regarding the initial proposal
on franchise fees as an alternative for capital construction funding. uh specifically uh to include special assessment funding. Um so we did two public open houses here at city hall. I threw some flyers out uh put some notification out. We had two of them.
One kind of during the workday at two uh one more in the evening. Uh we did not get any attendees at either of those sessions. Um we did also present to the chambers government affairs committee to get some um comments from our business
leaders and representatives there. Uh we did that last December year ago. So those comments and input are there. So at this time we're looking for kind of direction from the council. Uh some of the options could be uh do we drop the discussion on the matter u as a
replacement for special assessments? Do we uh go out do some more public on outreach. Um things you could do like an online survey uh present to other groups. Um my one caveat with online surveys there is tough to manage who's
putting in the feedback on surveys whether that be actual residents or not. Um or we could continue with the next steps of the franchise fee structure. So things that uh we laid out in the uh presentation would be starting discussions with the electric and natural gas utilities. uh what would the
fee structures that they would prefer to be? Uh what kind of agreements would they those be? U form a committee with staff and potentially council if they want to be involved in crafting kind of the structure and policy uh using our committees, maybe sound boards. Uh what
does the new policy look like? Do we want to hold a an annual public hearing uh before rates are set? Uh how often are rates set? Is there a sunset on it every five years or something like that? So, uh, staff is just looking for, uh, direction from the council of how to
take our next steps regarding this. >> I have a couple of questions, Mr. Chair, and one statement. Uh the statement is I I've supported this every time it's been brought up for the simple reason is that it's easier
for me to pay a much smaller amount per my utility bills than it is to cover a much larger amount on when I'm a a budding property owner on the project. That it's
just easier to budget that. It's kind of outside of mind thing which is I don't mean to say that it's not being transparent but it's just easier for me to do that. The other thing is is it spreads the the u
the cost of all our construction projects not not just on the abuing property owners but it's but it's on everybody who gets a utility bill which would include a much larger amount of people. So the dilution of the diluting
of bills is simp is is easier to handle. That's that's that's my thought and it it also reduces some of the argument of I don't get a benefit out of that whatever that is whatever that project is. So I like the
thought process and my my recommendation was I'd like to see what it looked like. My my initial question would be if I'm a if I'm a Centerpoint gas customer in my home and
some large user. Is is the is the fee the same or is it based on usage? Right? I don't know that. Does Walmart pay the same as Kelly be? In other words, I realize Walmart is
so general practice is no. they wouldn't pay the same most of So there's two different frames of thought when it comes to franchise fees. There's a kind of dollar per month based on the category of user. So residential, small commercial, big commercial. >> Got it.
>> There's also a different frame that's like dollar per use, dollar per therm or dollar per kilowatt hour, >> right? >> That's a much more rarer structure. Out of the couple hundred that I've looked at, only a a couple handful maybe use
that structure for their franchise fees. Most use the dollar per month based on the category of property >> or user. So for the most part, they usually structure them in a kind of in a tiered way. So residential is usually the smallest because they're they take
up so many more quantity wise compared to like your commercial and industrial which are much smaller dollar quantity. So the dollar amount goes up for those users and they're using more of the facilities too. >> Okay. All right. So there would be a couple of ways to do it. The other
another question I have as since we are the city of Brainard is a utility property owner and this has come up recently since I've been on the council with with another municipality that
resells our utilities. You know, has our utility company looked at this since I would presume they would be a part of it. We have a public utility commission. I'd like to hear what they have to say. That would be and I'd like to see a mockup of how it would work.
Um, and I'd like our public utilities to look at that as well. I know the city of Minnotonka does a a slightly different version of this. They don't do it based on utility bills. They do it based on property owners. And
they assess every single property owner in the city of Middle America for every single project. and that reduces the amount, but it includes people who aren't on the project. So, I don't know if they still do that, but they used to.
>> But those are my comments and questions. Uh the utility commission has not been presented with this yet. I we wanted to get support from the college like this one to explore before that. >> Um if this is something that we take the next steps, that's probably what we
would engage them on now would be how do you want to see that agreement structured? Um, how do you want that to look like? Because the last conversation that I had with utilities was with Todd Todd Wickland at the time. >> It's been a while. >> So, it's been a little while. Um, but we
talked a little bit about kind of the framework behind it and some of the issues that they had had with some other people in the past. Um, so and I also spoke with the attorney that was representing BPU in that case. Uh, said that this is not something that we can't
do. this is something that we can do. It just has to be done the proper way. So I've explored that as well. Okay. >> I haven't fully engaged all of the gas companies at this time. Just pretty much center point and Excel. I've had some highlevel conversation with them really
quick just asking them more of a number of users and stuff like that. So that we were looking into this and to present something to the council. So, we haven't engaged them fully again until we get support from the council that we need to expend time on this effort.
>> I have a motion. When you're ready, can you roll up? Unless you have comments or questions. >> I have a comment. I can make it after the motion. >> You got it. So, Mr. Chair, my motion would be uh to the u the the very last
bullet point to continue further development of franchise fee and to structure along the lines of the presentation which would include uh engagement with utilities including our own. Um, I'd like to skip the second the
former committee at this point until the council sees the mockup of how this would work and I would then do the public hearing. So, in other words, I'd like to move it along to see more detail. So, the bottom bullet point, but
skip the committee for now, Mr. Chair, that's what I would do. I'd put it on staff to say, "Show us what this would really look like." And I'll second that even though I'll vote no against it upstairs. I'll vote yes to just bringing a recommendation up
instead of bringing it to the full council. But two two reasons I'm voting no. Primarily BPU is in the midst of initiating a rate study and we're looking at our our uh
our pilot our payment of taxes >> and right now it's at 3%. And we requested to be SL close to the median. Still, we requested to get to five, which is still below average and still makes them >> y, >> you know, living under a poverty line,
but that's, you know, they're having trouble getting to 3%. I would like to finish the conversation of getting that pilot to five before we start tacking on another hundred or close to a million dollars a year in fees on them. That >> Yep.
>> So, so that I'm not going to support moving forward with it with the electric utility at this time. And then because of that, I don't know if it makes sense even to go on the gas utility because it wouldn't be enough unless we doubled all of those rates. So, I'll be against it
upstairs until we at least figure out what the uh payment of taxes from our own from ourselves to ourselves is. I understand what you're saying as far as we've given our public utilities commission a lot to chew on. On the
other side of the coin, I think it'd be better that they know now that we're considering this and I think it would be beneficial for them to know to see what staff comes up with as far as a mockup. Remember, this does not enact a
franchise fee. This is just getting more up in more detail. >> It does, but even just asking them how they feel about it, in my opinion, is going to lock them in at 3% on the pilot forever because we're they think we're coming after them with the franchise fee, which at the end of the day, I'm
opposed to out of principle. So, >> I understand. So, >> okay. I >> I with that we're ajourned. >> Thank you. >> Let's see what they got on. >> Yeah. Yeah. So that's