Yeah. Okay. I got them right there, and I got, four o and, nine g. Yep. I'll I'll I'll make that announcement too. Probably good. We're good. Okay. Welcome everybody to the, Byron City Council meeting, Tuesday, October 14. Before we start, I'd like to recite the pledge of allegiance, please. Thank you very much. Alright. Al, Dan is remote? Dan is remote. All of the members are here? Correct. And, note on the agenda, there's two additions, four o and nine g. Four o being the sheriff's contract and nine g being some solar,
which we got, information on our desk here. So I'll need a motion to approve the agenda. I'll move to approve the agenda. Second. I could do a roll call. K. Gotta do a roll call since Dan's remote, so we'll take a yes. Yes. Dan Messenberg? Yes. Is there a yes? All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? No. We're all You all said yes. We all said yes. We were all in. We're good. Yeah. K. We have a big, consent agenda. I'll go through all of them, and then, we'll approve them all at the end. Stop me if there's any, items there. City council meeting,
September 9. Planning zoning meeting, September 2. BDA meeting, June 17. Park board minutes, July 28. Approved after payment, 78,000, warrant list. And then some lawful gambling permits. The buyer and basketball association is one. Four h is the Christ the King, lawful gambling permit. Four I is gambling permit Ronald McDonald House, 40 improvement pay request, snow contracting for $6.00 8. BCRC, trail loop pay request to snow contracting for 52,000.
Accept the quotes, Tenth Avenue and Second And Twelfth Street, Northeast sidewalk construction, 4 M Fourth Street, Northwest overlay pay request final, passage of sand and gravel 57,000, and amendment, cast in acres. And the added one is the sheriff contract. Quicks on that, anything So it had to change because of statutory changes. So it's the same contract you've approved with updated language. No substantive changes. Move approval of the k. We got a first. Second. K. Yes. Daryl, yes. Dan? Yeah. Yes. Yes. And, approval.
Moving down to communication reports petitions. Nate, superintendent here wants to give us some time, so please come forward. You're probably getting pretty good at this about now. Right? Well, I mean, I was gonna ask you. There isn't a way I shoot this up there. I have two ways to present this. I can shoot it up there if there's a HDMI cord, or if there's not, that's fine. I have a I came ultra prepared. I'm an Eagle Scout. So I believe there is an HDMI cord. Thank you. Yep. Okay. Now let me see if I can get this work. I have changed the setting on mine. Anyway, while we let the technology warm up,
I'm Nate Walbrook, new superintendent to Byron Schools. It's, it's been a busy, couple of months since starting in July, but, I feel felt really welcomed. And, I'm just really appreciative of the chance to to to serve Byron schools and the Byron community. Emily is originally from the Byron area. My dad actually graduated with oh, I don't know if you're disclosing how many years ago. That was fine. Okay. Anyway, there's, there's a fun historical circle taking place. I was born and raised in Rochester, so this is absolutely home.
My last school assignment was at, Howard Lake, near, Cocoto, Hutchinson, Illinois area. Anyway, this doesn't seem to be cooperating, which is totally fine. Like I said, I came I came prepared, from Boy Scout days. So, in the scouts, you learned that you can't take anything for granted. And so I have a couple of packets. Do I say permission to approach the bench, or is that just a new tool? Thanks, Al. And we suspect that we need to tax in our health care for everybody behind this day. I know you all know Lisa because she comes to the, to the meetings on behalf of the schools.
But I just wanna acknowledge member. And since beginning my, service with Byron Public Schools, I really wanna, give a big shout out to Lisa and the rest of the board members for a lot of hard decisions they've had to make over the past couple of years. And the time and care that they've put towards making some of these decisions. And I recognize, that especially on the community side as it relates to the school, there's been a lot of angst and concerns and broken trust. And it's my intent and hope that, beginning with the campaign but moving into the future,
that we can restore that trust, that was I mean, trust is easily broken. Right? But we we wanna work hard to mend it. So, to that end, I wanna fly through this quickly. Highlights to people or or things that are peep want you to recognize. I will move through it quickly just so I can get through the presentation. And I would just ask that if you have questions, maybe just save them for the end because I tend to get very conversational, and, my wife hates all of the details that I add to everything. But I wanna just I wanna just make things super clear so that everybody understands.
And that so I wanna be respectful of your time. On the very first page, that one is, you know it's the first page because it has the Byron Pride Future Ready logo in the upper left hand corner. It says, Byron Public Schools Levy for Learning 2025. So a little bit about Byron Public Schools' budget history. The the city of Byron and its surrounding communities has been ridiculously supportive of the schools, and that is, that is something that is acknowledged and appreciated. And over the past, dozen years specifically, there have been a number of bond issues that have been put to the school
district, voters to approve. These bond issues were for construction ideas and renovation projects that were were needed at the facilities. It's important to distinguish what's what has been asked versus what's being asked now. An operating levy does not build anything new for the district. An operating levy is designed to pay the bills. So I'm going to warn it's not anything that really inspires the mind or draws a vision towards something that smells brand new and is super fancy. This is so that we can keep the lights on and pay insurance and pay
for the fuel. And our most the largest cost in our expenditure budget, is the, employment or employee compensation packages, so the salaries, benefits, etcetera. The last time Byron Public Schools had a levy, it was a $290 per pupil levy. That's how we measure levies in the school world. And that expired in 2018. So since 2018, there has not been a levy in place. And the only other time that the district has asked for a levy was last fall, and that was an $800 per pupil levy.
We did that levy effort did fail. But it's important to note that 42% of the votes for that levy, were yes votes. I think that's a sign, again, of just the the consistent and constant improvement and pride that Byron faces, as it relates to its schools. As I mentioned before, I know the budget concerns and issues over the past two years have been concerning, and I wanna I'm gonna address those, in just a moment. But I wanna highlight for you, that are facing Byron Public Schools. And three of these issues are issues that every district in Minnesota is facing,
and one of these four issues is, specific is on the front page still, and that is declining enrollment. So if you look over on the right hand side, I give you a chart there that shows the changing of enrollment year over year. So if you look at the sixteen, seventeen school year where there's 54, that means there were 54 more students enrolled in the sixteen, seventeen school year as compared to the fifteen, sixteen school year. Does that chart make sense? You end up seeing that over time, the general trend of the chart begins to go downward.
About twelve years ago, believe it or not, the fertility rate, which is the number of, children born to a woman in Minnesota, was right at two. And now that rate is more like 1.3. And I know in number sense, that's not a huge distinction. But when we talk about replacing the population, that is an enormous distinction. It's basically a Grand Canyon is what it amounts to. And year over year, where, couples are having fewer and fewer children, the declining enrollment that is beginning to see that. I will note that,
historically, Byron has had, as you see, enormous enrollment jumps. And because of these enrollment jumps, there hasn't been as dramatic a need for, for additional dollars because there's more kids than the district was expecting. And so, in a sense, that ends up being, like, a profit for the school for the year. So if you were expected kids but 1,600 kids ended up enrolling, you have a profit of a 100 kids. And if each kid is generating at least $77,000 per head, that ends up being quite a bit of money. So that's that's how Byron has been able to avoid year over year asking for
a levy because there's been such high enrollment year over year. Any questions about budget issue number one? This is one that is facing all schools. Okay. If you go to the next page, budget issue number two is the Byron only issue. Okay? And I wanna be super open, and I want if you have questions, I want you to make sure you're taking note of it. Okay? Over the past couple years, obviously, the school district's budgeting, concerns have been very prevalent across the community and the media. During both the 'twenty two and 'twenty three and the 'twenty three,
'twenty four school years, there were incorrect assumptions made. So in the spring of every calendar year, the district needs to build a school budget for the next school year. So, for example, this February, we will be constructing the budget for the 2627 school year. K? Because it's happening in the future, there are a lot of assumptions that you have to make. Unfortunately, during the 2223 and the 2324 school year, some incorrect assumptions were adopted. And, unfortunately, these were the catastrophic assumptions, meaning you overestimate the revenue that you were gonna get and they underestimated the expenditures,
which is the exact opposite of what you're trying to do in budgets. Right? And when you create budgets based on faulty assumptions, you are making decisions then based on those faulty budgets. And as I mentioned before, a district's main expense are its employees. Over right around 80% of our expenditures go to employee, compensation. And based on this incorrect budget assumptions, the district did settle with its con with its labor groups. I wanna show you what the budget issue is. It's right here in this one chart. And so in the school year 2324,
the district budgeted $21,000,000 for all staff compensation. That is everything. Benefits, pension, FICA, and salary, everything that we send to employees. The district thought it was going to be paying $21,000,000, but it actually ended up paying during the 2324 school year was $23,000,000. That right there is the budget issue. So the assumptions that were made led the district to settle for a compensation package that was this large when, in reality, the district should have settled for a compensation package that was that large.
K. Alright. The third one is unfunded mandates. As and I'm, in school districts, we have a a an array of requirements that we are required to complete whether or not we receive revenue for it. The hallmark or the poster child of an underfunded mandate is special education. This is not to say and don't take what I'm saying that where the superintendent doesn't think we should educate students with disabilities. That is not what this is about. This is just illustrating the budget concern that comes from it. Okay? Is, if you see in the 2223 school year,
Byron expended almost $3,000,000 on all services for students with special education needs. Yet, from federal and state sources, and we extracted as much revenue as we could, we only received $2,000,000 And that difference, that $900,000 difference, that is the first bill a school district has to pay. We can't we can't negotiate the expenditure on it. We can't say, well, you know, okay. This kid has autism. We're only we're only gonna give that person this much service. The the rules and the legislation dictate you have to give a kid that that
need has these needs. You have to serve them at that level. We're only gonna reimburse you for this much, but you you still have to serve them at that. Okay? In the 'twenty three, 'twenty four school year, you see that the problem is just exacerbated. We spent 3,800,000 and the district received $2,500,000 for a difference of $1,300,000 the numbers aren't out yet because, special education funding comes up to or the revenues come up to two years after we submit for reimbursement. So we don't know what last year's school year numbers were yet. But I would put even money on the fact that it will be the difference
will be greater than during the 2324 school year. K? Special education is one unfunded Band Aid, but there's a whole host of them. Five zero four plans, English language learners. I mean, the the list goes on and on. And, essentially, most times when the state legislature enacts rules for the school district, they may fund it for a season, but, eventually, it ends up becoming an unfunded mandate that then is the school district is still required to complete and do even though they are no longer receiving revenue to complete that task. The last issue,
and this is the big one, is that since the year February, the per the per pupil education formula that comes from the state, meaning the per pupil funding that districts receive, has not kept pace with inflation for over twenty five years. And the result is the graph that you see there. Right now, we receive about $7,300 for a regular education student, where, had that number kept pace with inflation, it'd be closer to $9,000 There's a $1,400 gap per student every year that districts are not receiving because the funding did not
just keep pace with inflation. K? So we're asking two questions. The first one is a $700 per pupil operating levy that's good for ten years, and it adjusts to the rate of inflation annually. So whatever the CPI index for the state of Minnesota reads in January, In July, the that $700 per pupil rises or falls based on that CPI number in January. K? The second question is a $252,150,000 dollar capital projects levy. It's also called the technology levy because that funding can only be used for technology
reasons. K? And it's important to note that question two can only pass if question one passes. The most important piece of paper is that last one. The top is our the district's budget right now projected now and into the next five years. So if nothing happens, this is what happens at Byron Public Schools in terms of budgets for, for the future. Row three, is just your expenditures. Excuse me. Row three is your revenue less expenditures. And row four is the fund balance, which is the District savings account,
is the cash flow that we need to maintain stable operations. You'll recall when we were talking about special education, this will come this this usually roils people up. But when we expend funds for special education, we pay the teacher or we buy the equipment or we buy the curriculum or whatever it happens to be, and then we submit that to special education for reimbursement. And it is not uncommon for districts to have to wait up to two years for that for that money to be reimbursed. And so having a health having a a fund balance,
provides the appropriate cash flow as we wait for those reimbursements to come down. You end up seeing that beginning in the 'twenty eight-'twenty nine and the 'twenty nine-'thirty school year, under the current budget conditions, that we end up going into a negative fund balance. When a district enters has a fund balance that is negative 2.5 of its expenditure budget, we enter what's called statutory operating debt, and that would occur during the twenty nine-thirty school year. And in statutory operating debt, the Minnesota Department of Education floats the district alone to cover its expenses.
And in exchange for that, the district loses its local control. And so the Minnesota Department of Education works with school leaders, and their main goal is to bring the school district's budget into balance. The most recent example of a district in statutory operating debt around here is Kenny Duwamingo that's been in statutory operating debt for the past couple of years. If both questions pass, you end up seeing, that's that's the second, chart, if you will. The thing I really wanna draw your attention to is that fund balance number and and compare that number between the two charts.
A school district with a structurally stable budget has a fund balance that stays right about in that same range. So, for example, if you look at the first chart, you see that here for the next year or two, we have this roller coaster climb. But then in two years, we see a drop. But if you look at that second one, you end up seeing and, again, it's not a perfect science. It there's a little up and down. But you don't see those drastic hills and valleys like you do with the first one. And that's because with both of these levy questions passing,
the district achieves what what we would refer to as a structural balance. This doesn't mean that everything is rosy and perfect in the future and we all can skip around and dance on rainbows. But what it does mean is that, at least financially speaking right now, our best projections point to the fact that we achieve, we achieve a budget stability. So that's the presentation in a hurry, and I'm happy to, stand for questions and, and conversation. So, you know, you I appreciate the presentation. So when you're talking about stability and you're 2,930,
I'm not sure, yes, you do have a nice fund balance, but and I know that the further out you project anything, the harder it is to make assumptions. But you're still $800,000 plus in the red for a difference there on $29,000 and $30,000 So you're going to start drawing down your fund balance again if that continues. And the the problem is that's so far out. Nobody knows what the statutory requirements are gonna be. Absolutely. And I'm glad you point that out. So I would have you know that, especially when you get out to the 2829 and the 2930 on these projections,
specifically, the 2930 school year is catastrophically projected. Meaning, at that point, we're experiencing we're hoping for, like, a 1% revenue increase and we're programming in, like, a 6% expand. And those those are pretty wide swings. But then also to your point, between now and then, we have the unusual pleasure of experiencing four different legislative sessions between now and then. And then, one thing that Sean, our new, executive director of finance and operations pointed out is that, there are some kids that are going to be entering kindergarten during that school year
that haven't been born yet. So, that just gives a scope as to how far out in the future we're talking. And so it is important to bring out that, especially when you when it comes to that difference line, you do see a dip as we get way out there. I would highlight, though, that in some cases, that that projection is it's a little bit better than asking what's happening in the future. There's a lot of variables between now and then. I mean, if you look back to prior to the grow, grow, grow, grow, grow, that's why we went out for these building referendums. And I I I think perhaps COVID might have had a little bit to do
with the lower growth birth rates that we're seeing. I don't know. But, as you said, it's statewide, and that's something that I don't think any of the people who study demographics predicted. I know we the one that we use in the district didn't predict predict that. And so I also like, your explanation, on the front. I I thought that was good about how the 54 more students, 68 more students, 37, 91 shows that we were gaining revenue from those students. I you get a lot well,
why don't you just right size with the population that you're getting? Well, we already we've done that. We do that every year. And seeing that these numbers are going down like this, the reason why we canceled that levy, correct me if I'm wrong, was probably because our demographics were looking good and our population was gonna continue to grow, I I I'm assuming. I That that count here then. But, I would also at that time, the district did embark on a couple of pretty ambitious building projects Yeah. And and was asking the the tax base for some some funding to to do
those. And so to your point, I wonder if as the future, you know, just the idea that Rochester continues to grow and expand in this direction specifically, Byron continues to be a very desirable place for people to move. It wouldn't be outside of the realm of possibility that, like, for example, if I had been superintendent at that time and seen some of those numbers, in a sense, you could make an argument to be comfortable to let a let a levy expire without asking the taxpayers for another one. And then, to get us back to where we are kinda today, in was it $3,000,000
in cuts over the last couple of years? Yes. Yep. What were some of the things that just so the people in the crowd here, what were some of the things that were cut, some other things, reductions that remain? Yeah. Be before you answer that, this is my question is, since you did have that many for referendum passes, or you got are you gonna still look at let me address, let me give some of a list of of what had been cut, and then I'll I'll come back to you, Dan. But, some of the ones or some of the things that have been cut, that are less noticeable, and most of these things were done in the first round of cuts,
so sort of in two school years ago, for last and and people can that's not necessary for me to decide. But there are a number of administrative positions, director of curriculum and instruction. And these people, I can appreciate that they aren't necessarily perceived as forward facing or or client facing. Student facing positions, but they do provide a pretty heavy lift on on a lot of back, back office work that needs to happen for districts to be in compliance. A couple of the ones, a lot have been, we are we instituted a cutting policy for our activities, and our sports across all levels.
We did reduce the number of teaching positions, specifically at the elementaries. We reduced the nursing position. There is a complete list on the referendum website of programs that, that Moore has or has cut. Jane, remind me of your question. I'm sorry. Since those cuts were made, what are the plans to, you know, reinstitute them? Or, what does that look like? Thank you. If I could draw your attention back to the to the budget on the last page, this isn't going to be a thing that you'll like to hear, but I'm just gonna be really honest and and direct with you. The both questions passing chart,
that those numbers are all based on this year's budget. Okay. That, way over the past couple of years, there isn't really an active path or at least a responsible and sustainable path to bring them back into the district. That being said, we we do wanna engage the community in a in a great way to hear what have been the things that have been most onerous, and what are what are have had to look hard and long at the things. There are some things that people are are willing to say, you know what? Maybe we don't need that as much because we really like this other thing. And,
and, again, I as I look at at least the budget passed, if you think back to, you know, 2015, 2014, where year over year, the district is bringing in more kids than it ever expected it would. And then you say, right, wrong, or otherwise, the money faucet was wide open. Right? And and and there was a largesse that most districts participated in. And now is is the time to pay the piper. And now is the time where where we have to look long and hard at the services and what we're expecting out of our schools,
in a new era, to be sustainable. And so, time of great challenge, but it's also a really great time of unique opportunity where where we can come together as a community and say known for and just throw money at the problem. We're gonna have to be solution oriented. We're gonna have to work on a work in a budget, and, we're gonna have to be super creative. Regardless of the levy result, the school board's work, and my work afterwards is going to be focused on a strategic plan where we send intently to what people are really proud of out of their schools,
what they're very concerned about, what they wanna see us do. And we wanna work on a multi year plan to to make some of those hopes and aspirations and goals become a reality. And, and part of that process means you have to prioritize. I mean, you have to say, we only have so many resources. We aren't going to this is what we get, and we aren't we aren't gonna get any more. There's no other there's no other troops coming around the corner here, to provide reinforcement. And like I said, it it's a challenge, but it's also a really great opportunity.
Yeah. Thank you. So like I said, I it's not it's not the news that anybody wants to hear, but I I owe it to you to tell the truth. So One more question. Yeah. Please. So talk you talked earlier about gaining trust. And so during your very little time here, what have you learned about what happened in the past to get us into this budget situation to ensure that we're not gonna let this happen again. Yeah. Well, like I said on the I'm just making sure I got the pay like, at the top of the second page with that little chart,
that is the Byron budget issue right there. For that to take place oh, sorry. For that to take place, there's a number of things that could have potentially occurred. And I'm not going to guess, but I can say what we've done to it. Typically, a district the size of Byron would employ a full time business professional who who provides leadership and structure to all the business activities. Byron, since 2017, has not employed such a person, instead elected to go for, for a contracted option, which I wasn't there.
So I don't know if that was a a good or a bad decision. But, at this point, we have hired a business professional. He has a lot of great, school finance experience. He also has public experiences. He and what is super unique is that, he was a an auditor for for quite a few seasons, in Iowa. So it's hard to find those finance guys that have the. And as he and I, onboarded, we quickly identified a number of practices that he and I argued that just didn't exist. So, for example, on basically, we weren't supposed to start till July,
and we, at least in my case, donated the time because it was important to get things going as fast as we could. We found that the the person who was, collecting or was responsible for accounts receivable, meaning revenues coming in and depositing those into our institutions, was the same person that was responsible for accounts payable or the expenditure side as well. And so, immediately, we set to segregating those duties, so that there could be better accounting practices. There's a there's a address, but, again, I wanna be respectful of your time because I know you have a few other
things. But, most of those are relegated to these are standard practices that, some of the they're either nonexistent or they're only in partway existent, and and a lot of our work since we've started has just been trying to shore up those to make it consistent, to make it accountable, so that we can eventually get to a place where we can be, almost obnoxiously transparent with, with our budget situation. He and I's goal is to create a budget site and be able to see and track for themselves, at least on a monthly, maybe even a quarterly basis, what's going on with the schools so that everybody knows what's happening with the money.
Alright. Thank you. Mhmm. So thank you very much. Thank you. Thanks, Dan. You're welcome. Thanks for your time, guys. Yep. Thank you. Appreciate it. Alright. Next on the community communication report. My name is Jake Frederick. I am the operations manager for Rolling Hills Transit. I do have some handouts here. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Alright. So, I'm just here to give a little bit of an update on our services, and kinda talk about our service levels, a little bit of information out there. Has anyone here ever ridden Rolling Hills Transit before? I've not. No?
Okay. Yep. That it's a pretty standard answer. That's what the answer I usually get. Most people view us as a, bus that services preschool age kids or, older, seniors. And and, that is we're very good at that, and that is kinda our bread and butter. But we do, offer rides to anybody. We anyone can ride with us. We are a, completely nonprofit, public, and curb to curb form of transportation. So we pick you up right where you are. We take you exactly where you need to go.
Really no hassle at all to it. Because we're part of a nonprofit group, our, fares are very affordable. You're only ever gonna pay $6 at most for a ride with us. So we are, very, popular as far as, affordable fares go. So, exclusive to Byron, we are seeing quite a bit of shit close. On the second page of the packet there, you'll see that in, 2024, we provided 5,626 rides on our Byron bus. That is up about and right now,
I would say we are looking at probably up another thousand this year, in terms of rides that we're providing in this area. So, that bus, it put on 32,000 miles, last year, almost 33,000, and it provided an average of 22 and change, rides per day. So very exciting. We're we're seeing a lot of growth across all of Southeast Minnesota right now, but, Byron is is no exception to that. So, that third page there, I mean, it's just explaining our service levels. Byron is is one of our leading,
areas where we provide transportation. The heavy hitter, obviously, is gonna be Cassin just because that's right where the buses are. It's a lot easier to get a bus to someone in, Cassin like that. We do house the Byron bus in the Cassin Garage, but it is, he takes off for Byron in the morning, and we typically don't see him that much. So, we do have a couple other departments that operate with us. Our volunteer driver program, they offer folks rides, through insurance companies that we're contracted with, like UCare, Medica, BlueRide. We we do those types of our Caravan,
which is our, medical STS certified and special transportation services. They provide rides to, again, folks who go through their insurance and ask for transportation services. The the van that we have or excuse me, vans that we have, we have two vans right now, that operate throughout South Southeast Minnesota. And, they are mostly geared towards helping people, who have mobility issues. So people who use wheelchair, walkers, things like that. And then it just gives some facts kinda towards the back of the packet,
things that it, public transit provides an area, accessibility, affordability, social equity, environmental sustainability, community connectivity, economic development, reduced traffic congestion, health and well-being of our clients, as well as we do, play a role in emergency evacuation services. And we are especially popular for non drivers or people. Right now, we're seeing a huge surge in people who are going to clinic appointments in Downtown Rochester who do not wanna drive there. I do not blame them one bit.
It is a nightmare down there right now. So we're we're very excited, to see what the numbers shake out to be this year. Like I said, we're we're, experiencing a pretty vast amount of growth. We were hoping for 2%. We're looking at around 10% right now. So it's we're we're kinda being blown away by it. So, yeah. So that's that's why I'm here. We're kinda in the process of reaching out to local communities that we provide services to, to secure funding for our operational budget. Our funding source, MnDOT,
initially, they, in the past few years, at least, it has been a 5% match by us to their 95%, for operational services. However, they are moving to a 10% match structure where we would provide 10% of the match and they would provide the other 90%. When it was 5%, our fare box revenue or what people put into the actual fare box when they got on the bus, that covered our operational, budget, but we are looking at a deficit now with that 10% match. It's typically around 8% is what our fare boxes cover.
So we are, out in the communities right now trying to drum up not only business, not try not only trying to explain our services, but we are, talking with communities about funding. So, that is definitely coming down the pike. Yeah. Does anybody have any questions or anything? Great service. Al, anything? I just wanted to point out we $5,925 annual contribution that you approved was overstated. And when the bus actually came in, the ten year payables, you'll see that the check is only 5,700. Next month, you'll have the revised resolution report,
to bring it in line with the Yeah. Yeah. Yep. Yeah. The number did come in just a little bit lower. So we're we're happy about that. And, yeah, thank you guys very much for for approving that. I mean, that that means a lot to us. So Of course. Means a lot to the people of Southeast Minnesota too. Thank you. I think it's a very valuable service for especially the the non driving. And you're right. I'm sure that ridership has want to drive downtown Rochester and I have to. So Yeah. Yeah. But even that with all the kids' activities that the parents work in, you know, it's a good source to have to get them to those activities all over the
place very much. Yeah. That's what we're here for. See you later. Appreciate it. Okay. Another one is, five c, Nick Butaker, the buyer and first responders. Got some good good news here, I think. Good evening. Let's see. My name is Nick Boddicker, and I'm the interim director of the Byron First Responders. I'm here tonight to introduce myself as acting director to provide high level overview of the status of the Byron First Responders and what we do and to shed some light on the members of the first responders for their life saving work and contributions to this community. The Byron first responders organization was established in the early 1990s with the overall objective
to provide care to individuals in this community before the ambulance service arrives. This five to ten minutes of intervention that we have with these patients, while waiting for the ambulance can truly be life saving. When I first joined ten years ago, we had approximately seven active first responders and ran approximately 200 calls. Today, we staff 18 active first responders and run over 420 calls, which on average is over one call per day. The types of calls that we respond to vary from, ellipsis for someone that has fallen, someone with difficulty breathing, an unresponsive diabetic,
rehabilitation for firefighters battling a structure fire, all the way to cardiac arrest where we perform CPR, and the traumatic incidences that include snowmobiles or ATV accidents, all of which are important. Last to an incident near one of the parks here in Byron. This young individual had a traumatic accident that restricted their airway. One of the first responders gonna be about a block away, when the page came out. He ran to the call quickly, assessed the situation, and began providing life saving care. Shortly after, four of the first responders arrived on scene with additional equipment required,
including oxygen, airways, along with the AED and our LUKUS device that provides optimal chest compressions in case the patient went into cardiac arrest. The Olmsted County Sheriffs responded to the call, with the first responder. Mayo Clinic ambulance arrived at and along with Mayo one, which is the helicopter, that landed at the park, which obviously draws attention to the community. Visual is alive and doing well. Because of this amazing response and care provided, to address this life, threatening event, the five first responders were recognized by the Olmsted County Sheriff's Office.
Last week, they, attended the ceremony put on by the sheriff's office and received an honorable an honorable award. So tonight, I would like to recognize our five first responders. They are so are not here tonight, many of them. But these include, Aaron Heyman, William Morrissey, Tyler Bosman for their, truly amazing care. So, in addition, I I also wanna thank the Olmsted County deputies, the Mayo Clinic ambulance. I also wanna recognize, Brian McGregor for his outstanding leadership to the first responders and his contributions to the community as a whole, for first responders for over ten years,
well over ten years. But this last September, he resigned from his role as director. And if it's okay with you, I would like to read his resignation letter. Absolutely. My personal world has changed, and I need to step aside as director before the end of the year. I plan to stay on as a first responder just stepping out of a leadership role. It's become a way of life for me to work through the balance of my family, career, and community service. I have loved serving the community for many years as director and as an unknown person as we all do. I plan to step down as director of first responders after tonight's meeting.
He provided this to us in September. We have a capable team and members here to work through any transition. My term is through 12/31/2025. Elections are to be, at our November 4 meeting, which will still happen with, personal nominations due at the October to share with the body. We are incredible service to this community with no pension that will hopefully change soon as we run four twenty five medical calls compared to the Hunter Fire call. Reality is I do both and have leadership roles on both. We are a great team with diverse group of VSR firefighters,
EMTs, and paramedics within the, and also emergency medical responders with a range of medical degrees. Appreciate all of you, and and I'm sure we can do better to recognize your service. We need to. Highlights of my LEAP township blue signs, the reflective, he made this happen by sharing a real story. We purchased a new first responder truck, financed in cash, made it happen with our team. We survived COVID by ordering supplies before it got crazy. We were and are ahead of what was and might come next, I think. Many local departments were not prepared, and the work is going on for a pension conversation for those that are only
first responders as we are not an ambulance service and are not part of the fire department. We are an anomaly work in process that needs to happen. I appreciate all leadership teams over the years, to each of you as my and first responder family, and work to the many stories, and and work and to the many stories, we could all share for how we helped our neighbor in their time of need and big calls we go on. You are all heroes and I believe we are all called to serve those individuals and families that need us. You all have a gift and I thank you. I'm nominating Nick to take over between now and the planned upcoming election for the
director position, of the week to week activities that the new director probably doesn't know go on. Brian McGregor. Brian's been an instrumental founder in this community and it's hard to imagine the first responder organization being where it is today without him. On a personal note, Brian was one of my first friends when I'm when my family moved here. He was the first to show, 911 at five in the morning, probably twelve years ago. And he's the reason I am part of this great organization, but he's he's been a great mentor. And so for all this, on behalf of the Byrum first responders, I would like to thank Brian for his hard work, leadership, and dedication to the organization.
And then finally, I just wanna take this time to thank all of the volunteer first responders, in our organization. We're all called upon to help this community at all hours, day and night, and they voluntarily leave their families, to fail, which is truly one of the most selfless acts of kindness. And with that, I thank the city, council and everyone in attendance here tonight. Thank you. I just think that is super cool. I the list of five. On that list, I got a neighbor of mine, I've got a parent of a student of mine, and I got a former student of mine on that list. So just to kinda they're all our neighbors,
and it's just super cool to hear that list of people who who are heroes and help save lives, being honored at Olmsted County, and just my time being on first and you speak to Brian's leadership over my five years as part of that, you know, how how that number has grown and, you know, you have to cap it. You've got people that want to be on. Mhmm. That's where you're at right now to see where you've gone from seven to 18 over ten years. And thanks to Brian's leadership, and I know whoever takes if it's you or whoever else,
you know, Brian has set a good standard there to to help the the first responders grow and continue to do the awesome things. And you speak to all the it was you and also with Brian, all the wonderful talents, the people that we have, I'm never in an emergency. There's someone on that team that, that I got. So it's fabulous. Yeah. Peep people with an array of backgrounds, that, you know, use their talents to to help out in the community. So it's really good. Oh, very good. Top hat? Real short and sweet this month. Last month, we had 316 calls for service in town.
Percent were self initiated. We've been doing what we can to work out the traffic issues around the middle school specifically. They seem to be ironing themselves out the more we're out there. We try to try to pound it every day and people seem to be getting to hint. So at least as far as I'm aware, that's been calming down. But that's all I've got for you tonight. Do you have any questions or concerns? Activity with the parks recently? Not that's been brought to my attention. K. Good. No news is good news. Absolutely. Might be helping. Yes. Alright. Thank you. Thank you. Perfect. Thank you. Okay. We got the, Byron Community newsletter.
Any comments on that? Fred did an excellent job as always. Yes. Alright. With that said, we're gonna move down to a we have one public hearing here. I'm moved to open the public hearing. I'll second. We got a first and second. All in favor? I will call back. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. All in favor? Yes. Dan? Yes. Daryl, yes? Yes. Yes. K. Yes. Alright. Hearing's open. Public hearing's open at 06:54. Wanna give us an overview on it now? This is a a brief amendment to, city code chapter 96 o five,
sub c, sub 28, sub b, sub one. Specifically, it's changing the hours of construction or repairing buildings, weekdays instead of six a. M, which identifying weekends and cleaned up some language concerning city administrator instead of city clerk treasurer. Pretty basic on there. We're just making some adjustments. So Yeah. And this was in line with, I believe was it Stewartville that we had looked at? I I believe it follows Stewartville, not identically, but, more closely. Pretty close. Okay. And this was at a a request from a citizen to modify our starting hours.
We did leave the ending hours at 10PM, and this does exempt. This is not a change. I just wanna remind people this does exempt individuals working on their own personal, but most generally, that's done respectfully anyway. Yep. Basically for contractors. Alright. We got a good overview. So back to the public. I'm gonna say three any comments on there? About three times on public comments on the nuisance enumerated public comment twice. Any other public comment on this? Okay. Motion to close the public hearing.
I move to close the public hearing. Second. K. Yes. Zero yes? Yes. Okay. Public hearing closed at, 06:56. Now we'll go to the resolutions. The first one on the resolution is, what we just talked about here. So that would be the 2025 dash thirty five twelve and approving the summit publication, nuisance enumerated, which we just discussed on the public and so. Motion? I move approval of resolution twenty twenty five dash 36, adopting ordinance 25 dash 12 and approving summary publication for the new since as ordinance
is discussed. Second. Okay. We have a first and a second. Any public comments on this, resolution? Any public comments? Any public comment? Okay. Any other council comments? K. Roll call vote. Yay or nay? Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. K. All were approved. Alright. Next one is twenty twenty five thirty seven, additional repository. Oh, again? You can have a few of these. This is just authorizing the finance director to utilize an additional option for investing funds. I move approval of resolution twenty twenty five dash 37,
authorizing additional depository. Second. We got a first and second. Any public comments? Any public comments on this resolution? Any other public comments? Any council comments? Okay. Roll call vote. Yes. Yes. Five yeses? Yes. Five yeses now. Okay. Resolution approved. Moving right down to seven c, resolution twenty twenty five thirty eight, accepting a donation to the fire department. From fire relief to the fire department for equipment. And for a nice nice nice nice. I move approval of resolution twenty twenty five dash thirty eight, accepting of donation to the fire department.
Second. K. We got a first and a second. Any public comments? Public comments? Any other public comments? Any council comments? K. Roll call vote on this. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Both yeses. Resolution passed. Resolution 2025, interim use permit. Right. This did come through planning and zoning. It is a home occupation intermuse permit for Harlan Hansen, for CAP's kitchen and bath business. In essence, it allows him to operate his business as He has been. The zoning code changed around his,
property twice, actually, and, this just brings him into compliance with operations. K. And this went through zoning. Right? Yes. They recommended approval. Okay. And so I move approval of resolution 2025Dash27 I'm sorry. 39. 39. I'm off got my off there's one line. 39 interim use permit for 1524 Seventh Street Northwest. Second. K. Any public comments? Any public comments? Any public comments? Any council comments? If not, roll call vote, please. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.
Five yeses. Resolution passes. Alright. Now we're we're seven e. Resolution 202527. Variance. Same address, 1524 Seventh Street. Again, this is for, Cap's Kitchen and Bath, authorizing him to put an addition on a building on his property, which would not be in compliance with our zoning code because of size. However, based on state code, the practical difficulties and exception are warranted because of the size of the property that he has and,
allowing him to better meet his requirements of the zoning code. And I also recommended approval of this They recommended approval. Yep. Unanimous. Yes. Yes. Okay. Any board, anything else on the resolution? I move approval of resolution 2025Dash27 Variance 1524 Seventh Street Northeast. K. We got a first? Second. We got a first and second. Any public comments? Any public comments? Any public comments? Any other counsel comments? Alright. Vote call to vote. Pro to vote, please. Yes. Yes. Yes.
Yes. K. All yes if resolution passes. Alright. The next one is resolution twenty twenty five forty a, resolution authorizing certification of collections of deferred special assessments. These special assessments were put into place ten years ago with a ten year deferral. That ten year deferral is now up. It has to do with the development along Fourth Street, Northeast. I move approval of resolution twenty twenty five dash 48, Resolution Authorizing Certification in Collection of Deferred Special Assessments.
Second. Got a first and a second. Any public comments on this? Any public comments? One more time for public comments. Any other counsel comments? If not, roll call vote, please. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. All yeses. Resolution twenty twenty five forty eight approved. A couple more. Resolution twenty eight twenty five forty one, interim use permit, 11 Second Avenue Southwest. This is an interim use permit for a car dealership, with limited parking, up to five vehicles on the Southwest West corner of the intersection of Highway 14
And Second Avenue, where there was previously a car dealership. Yes. So before planning the zoning, they recommended approval. Okay. I would like that. I move approval of Resolution 2020Five-forty1, interim use permit for 11 Second Avenue Southwest. Second. Second. Okay. We've got a first and second. Any public comments? Any public comments on it? Any other public comments? Nothing. Council comments? No council comments. Anything else? Roll call, please. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. All five approved along with the p and z. So resolution passed.
Seven h, resolution twenty twenty five forty two, approval of transfer funds. And this is a standard transfer of funds primarily in the fire and first responders department, putting money into their CIP. I move approval of Resolution twenty twenty five-forty two, approval to transfer funds. Seconded. Okay. We got a first and second. Any public comments? Any public comments? Any other public comments? Nothing. Any council comments? If not, roll call vote, please. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Five yeses. Resolution 202542 approved. Nice work.
That's a lot. Yes. Unfinished. Nothing unfinished. Now we're in a new business. We'll get you guys here. We'll get there. Thanks for waiting. Yeah. Thanks for waiting. Nine a municipal cannabis dispensary land. At this point, the city has received preliminary approval of a municipal cannabis license. Location is the next issue. The one location on Highway 14 frontage that the city owns and would have access to would be the property where the current park and ride sits. In order to put a municipal cannabis or to consider a municipal cannabis dispensary on
that property, we would have to, do a land split. So part of the property would remain, to park and ride. The rest of the property or a section of the property would be used as the site for the dispensary. The land split for two reasons. One is this is an enterprise fund and it should be split out from the general parking, if you will, the park and ride. Also, in order to meet the zoning code of 1,000 feet from, school or 500 feet from a daycare, we have to pull back in from the northernmost boundary of the park and ride.
And there is a the diagram in the, packet shows or depicts what the building would look like. We would have to, obviously, set it up so that it would meet setbacks and what have you for, our zoning code. There is space there, and I'd ask for your blessing to proceed with the land split. Did P and Z have any issues? P and Z hasn't seen the It's not gone to P and Z. What we would be doing is sending it to we're asking this The city council is the owner of the property. We're asking the owner for permission to send it to b and z for the
land split. Okay. Okay. We have a motion on any other motion on that? I don't have a problem with the, with the splitting of the parcel. I mean, at least moving forward, it's looking at what that's going to be to meet all of the setback requirements and all of the other zoning requirements because it's not gonna look like the blue square. Just so everybody realizes that. Because, but, you know, I don't have a problem with expending the money to look at that from a practical standpoint. I think there's some bigger questions that very quickly after that, though, need to get answered.
Correct. This seems to be if this plan is still right in its infancy. We're just kind of starting off. That's something that the public needs to understand that, that if we go forward with this idea that this is the best place for it in terms of the public being able to get there. It's right there on the highway as well. I mean, it's gonna be a business, and that makes a lot of sense compared to what you had provided was that what was that other place that you had The hip. The hip. We'd originally looked at the hip property, which does not qualify for this.
There's not a lot of traffic by their Yeah. Well, they're Well, they they didn't match the requirements anyway. Right? The zone yeah. Not not not to mention a poor area for a business, I think, for for this type of business. Yes. The thousand foot from school would be a problem. I think that because of the CEC Building still constitutes a school. Right. Yeah. I don't think to them on the EDA insurers, the EDA was fine with that. They like the location and stuff as well. So they and they're all businessmen on the business people on that EDA, so they were all excited about it too, going to that location.
Yeah. I think to speak to land split and bringing out to PNZ, there's there's some more questions that we gotta talk about, but I think that's in some later business here. So you need a motion to allow us to go to PNZ to allow us to go to PNZ. Second. K. We got a first and second. Any public comments? Public comments? Any public comments? No public comments? Any other council comments on this? K. Roll call vote. I I do actually sorry. Go back. So on your your counsel comments Yeah. I think I have no problem with it going there. But I think in order to do a split and take it to p and z, you we have to be able to suspend funds because you are looking at having
our city engineer actually create documents. So I think there is an associated Toss. Cost associated with that that it's not a huge amount of money. We don't have an estimate in front of us, but I think everybody needs to be cognizant of that that you are in that 10 plus or minus thousand dollars. So do we add that to the line split with all associated funds or not? Yes. I think if you're gonna ask for approval of actually, I guess, funds, that's where you're gonna end up. Correct. And that's fine. I think we have it within the,
I'll call it, the spending authority. But, yes, it would make it very clear if we have the authority, in the motion to expend the funds required to, create the appropriate parcel split. Yeah. Okay. I'll I'll amend my motion to include the expenditure of the funds for the split. Perfect. First? That was And then second? Second. Second? K. Public comments on this? Public comments? Any any public comments? Any other council comments? We're good. K. Roll call vote? Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. All five with the addition on there.
Kind of this approved. Dispensary, PSA. I split these out on purpose and you've heard a lot of discussion about more questions to be answered. We're at a position now where we have to decide if we're interested and willing to proceed with the creation of a municipal cannabis dispensary, the next step would be to design and create the bid documents for I did put the PSA on here from, Fortell Architects, who are the leading architectural firm in the state for cannabis dispensaries,
we had currently in the metro. So they have some background. It is not inexpensive, but the bigger question and what I tried to convey in my memo, we've been operating under the premise of $1,500,000 Current projects is closer to $2,500,000 So there is a change in the economics. It also changes our return on investment, anticipates are going up pretty significantly. And we have other projects that are in front of us. I don't want a decision made on the municipal dispensary to be made in a
vacuum, because all of our projects to this point, we've tried to keep them in front of us. I put them back in front of us and you'll see that they are not insignificant projects as well. So, from a staff perspective, we're concerned about the return on investment and the financial implications for the city, moving ahead with this, simply because to this point, we've been blessed with being able to pay cash. The municipal dispensary did some more research, and I want to mention that no place in The U. S. Have we been able to find an example of general obligation bonds being used for
a municipal dispensary. There's a couple of people who have talked about it, but nobody has done it. I'm not sure I'm willing to leave it. And so we would likely be paying cash, but if we pay cash for this, we're bonding for other projects that we'd normally be paying cash for. So it's a it's a trade off with that scenario. So I'm I'm giving you my, hey. We can do this. If the council says go forth and make it happen, we can. I do have some reservations because of the we did discuss this briefly at public works,
not because it's the best place for it, but I don't have a committee that's focused on cannabis right now. Other than the proceeding with this and and recommended approval, to use caution as you consider this. Yeah. So I'm not against any of this, if if we didn't have I think are of more priority. Newton Municipality is doing this. We we would be we're actually currently, what, one of 13 only in the state. And some of these other cities that are doing this are so they're involved in
that business, that then you know, that kind of stuff, where this would be brand new for us, the the the business aspect of it and and being able to run that. Whereas, some of these other cities, like I said, have liquor stores that they've been running, a business and they've been very successful at it. So the transition into to marijuana and cannabis is a little easier than it would be for us. Also, I know that I think, correct me if I'm wrong, we would also be able to sell not just, the herb, weed or whatever. Right? But also the other ways that you can consume cannabis.
I think this would greatly impact a local business that we currently have, which is is it called the Aloha Smoke Shop, which currently does sell they I've in talks with the guy who runs or works at that store, they're very concerned about us going into this business venture, and that can definitely affect their business. Something to take into consideration, I think. So and I knew this discussion you know, we know this discussion was coming up when we talking about the land split.
So there's a lot of other things that aren't included in this engineering estimate because this is for a building. There's all of the grading, the water retention issues for surface waters and stuff like that that are real cost of this project too. So, I mean, if we think that the building is five, I think that we have to kinda look at that building footprint and, at least, before we move forward with any building design, ask or pay our civil engineer to look at this and go, what is it gonna cost to make that fit in this potential site from a
grading standpoint, water retention? Because we are touching that site now. Right. And that is included as I dig into that, that is included in the proposal? I didn't see it. I didn't see that in their proposal. There is a separate breakout for civil, structural, electrical. I'm missing one. But and I will tell you, I've talked with the architect about specifically ensuring that we utilize our current city engineer for any aspect that is available to them, which they are supportive of. So we would use our own civil engineer for sure.
I'm not sure if the structural would go there or not, but, the civil would be. Yeah. The some of what you're saying is accurate, but I just wanted to point out, I do know that the are built into this proposal. Okay. Because I'm not seeing them specifically listed. But that's still I think I We have added what we have coming down the thing, I would like to put a hold my personal opinion is put a hold on going forward with the building. Yep. But, again, long time that we talked about that, it sounded really good. You know, we didn't have all the cost and stuff together.
But as things are rolling in and the cost is coming up, I think I'm agreeing with the council and and most of them here that maybe not the right time at this point. I also think if that's our if that's our place of that intersection off of 14 will be closed off, hopefully. Eventually. Hopefully, with an with an interchange. Eventually, we hope. Yeah. It's been fifteen years for the last twenty five years. We're working on it. But access then to that shop from people going all all you know, on 14 from wherever they're going,
that access is more difficult for them. That's that's my mind. I'm like, we're we're yeah. This would be a great business, yes, for the we would make some money as as a community, and people in our community might go to it. But I'm also thinking people passing by. And and if we that's our only spot that we can have, and then eventually, hopefully, that intersection's closed off to get into Byron. Yeah. It's a little bit more inconvenient to get off of there and then go to this business where you could probably go someplace else or whatever else. I don't know. I just did them when I was seeing the close off that intersection eventually,
that might hurt that business. I could be wrong. What I'm hearing from the council is we're hedging on this, but why would we approve the land split? We spend the money then if we're really thinking that because I think that it's not a lot of money to move forward with the gain at that. And, you know and I'm fine if I mean, that's the only thing is you can you have the documents prepared. Splitting the parcel isn't going to make that much difference. It's two parcels versus one from an ownership. It may allow us in the future down a private public route to rent out
the land and and have somebody else build it and operate it. There's other options that are it's not a huge cost, relatively speaking. I mean, you start talking about the consulting fees for the building design, that's a bigger much bigger chunk. And you start talking about really building the building, that's a that's a big chunk. So I agree with the council on on many points here. I I think we have time on our side. And with all these big budget items coming up for road improvements,
a roundabout within the next year for sure, I think we defer this until we see what'll aspect in the next year. I I agree with Justin. I think it's a good idea at some point. I just think right now is not the point to do the professional services agreement to build this out and design it yet. Question? Go ahead. Can you hear me okay? Yep. Again. So, Al, my question would be, if we choose not to move forward, is there a drop dead date on our ability to exercise the option to have this facility? Not as a municipal, that I'm aware of.
No. If if it is a private license, there are some timelines. But as a municipality, if we want the license, it's ours. We're not taking it away from anybody else because we are the only municipality in in Byron. So I think it's ours for as long as we choose to hold it. Okay. Then I would echo the thoughts of the other council members. I don't think the location is a problem, because I will thought out and people drive places to find them. They don't care where they're located. However, the visibility would be good on Highway 14.
However, I think, like everybody else, we're in a position where we probably should not move forward with this at this point. I would rather see us pay continue to pay cash for our larger projects. And a couple of those projects, we have estimated amounts on the budget for them. I don't know that we're gonna be able to complete them for the estimated amount. I think it could be actually slightly higher. So I I think, conservative well. K. K. So would you like for a resolution? Do you want us to resolution to table it? Or Respectfully,
I'd request a resolute or a, a motion to table this. I make a motion to table the Cannaswale Cannabis dispensary. I'll second. K. We got a first and second. We want public comments. Public comments. Public comments. Any other council comments? K. If not, roll call vote, please. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. K. 550 to table it or whatever you wanna call it. Yep. Till later. Thank you. Good discussion, guys. Fire station bid advertisement approval. That would be a quick one. I'm requesting the council's permission to go out for bids on the
k. Make a motion to approve, the fire station bid advertisement approval. Second. Second. Oh, okay. We got a motion second. Any public comments on that? Any public comments? No public comments? Any other counsel comments? If not, roll call vote. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Five yeses. Yes. Gotta wait for that fifth one. Okay, guys. I'll go to you first. Alright. All five yeses. Fire department, advertising approval. Retirely. He's he could've retired a second time by the time. Good evening. Matt Grant, Byron fire chief. I'm up here tonight to recognize, one of our, firefighters that is retiring.
Kevin Morris will be retiring from the Byron fire department with thirty years of service. Wow. And Kevin's thirty years, he's held a few, officer positions such as secretary, safety officer, and served on many, many, committees. So on behalf of the Byron Fire Department, I'd like to thank Kevin Morris and his family for, thirty years of service on the Bayern fire department. We got good. We got something. Thank you. Take picture of her? What do you want? Melanie's gotta get out of the way. Then poor Mel has to move. Would any of you want to move right now? Well, I got this for Kevin.
Congratulations. But, again, 30 issues to him, but like you said, the family is so important for all of our volunteers. They go out on the job or whatever it is. The family's up behind wondering. So it it it affects him and the family, and we really appreciate thirty years of that. Thank you very much. Thank you. Pleasure. Thank you. I'm good. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks. Congrats. Okay. Where is we? Hey. What do we have in mind? I think we actually improved them in for, Municipal utility feasible feasibility study. We had looked at the possibility of studying a, the conversion of municipal utilities for electric I mean,
creating a municipal utility. The first step in that is to do a feasibility study. We do have a feasibility study in front of you. It is not insignificant. Public works did address this earlier this afternoon, and I would turn it over to the public works committee. So this was a another long discussion for public works. I have some expertise and and and different opinion on this. I work for a municipal. I don't really think this is a good time for small municipal
utilities to be created from a risk reward standpoint. I also think that the proposal has a lot of issues as far as from future cost impacts and stuff like that. And I think this is the first one of many dollars we'd be spending on studies to before we'd even get to the referendum for it because purchase power adjustments, a whole lot of other things would be a lot more expensive studies that we'd have to go through. So my opinion is I'm not in favor of doing this at this time.
I think well enough as is. I mean, I don't see I'm gonna defer to Steven's expertise on this one. Absolutely. I realize we're looking for other sources of revenue. And if we want to do it from a municipal from a utility standpoint, there's another way available. It's also politically got issues too though. We can always implement a franchise fee. And I wanna just mention for the whole council, I'm looking at opportunities that may exist. I believe my responsibility is to present them. I am comfortable with whichever direction we go. I think there's an opportunity,
but I do respect, councilman Cook's position and his expertise. And so I'm okay with it. I will continue to bring you opportunities as I find them, and, you know, one of these days, I'll get one to stick. So do you want us to bring it up just as a vote? We'll we'll answer that from a vote? You will answer that as a vote. Yes. Okay. I would suggest that you have a motion to do whatever you choose to. So I will move that we do well, I always hate doing negative motions. I will however, I'm not gonna table this one to come back right away.
So I will make a motion that we do not move forward with the municipal utility feasibility study at this time. K. Second. We have a first and second. Any public comments? Any public comments? No public com any other council comments? If not, roll call vote. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. So that is to not proceed. Correct. Alright. Reason I hate doing niggas. And the last one on the new well, there's one more after that. Nine f is delinquent utilities. Just a couple on there. Motion for, for the utilities delinquent utilities.
Motion to approve the delinquent utilities. Second. We got a first and second. Any public comments? Any public comments? Any public comments? Any other council comments? Roll call vote on delinquent utilities. Aye. Yes. Sorry. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Okay. The delinquent utilities will process those. The next one was an add on. It's nine gs. It's a solar on the city buildings. And we have, some paperwork in front of you there if you wanna go through or have it in front. We do have Brock with us here tonight. If he wants to address it, Brock is with Solar Connection and,
we have been talking with him about options at both city hall and the wastewater treatment plant. And, there are two packets in front of you. They look very similar because they are very similar, but they're not identical. And you'll see that we did work on locations, both at city hall and at the wastewater plant, but I don't I'll turn it over to Brock for anything he wants to add to that. Yeah. Thanks, Al. Thanks for having me. So, and I believe you've talked about the public buildings grant in the past. So, in a nutshell,
the states will fund 70% of the cost of each project, in a state grant. In addition to that, there's the 30% federal direct pay rebate. So, essentially, you can get a 100% of the cost of the project covered up to a 40 kilowatt AC, project. And there's no limit as far as how many you can do. So we originally looked at some of your Xcel Energy sites. Unfortunately, with Xcel, there's there's no hosting capacity right now with our grid in the Byron area. So, then we looked at a couple of the people sites, and and that's how we arrived at these projects.
So, we we met with Alan Kelly on-site, took a look at the electrical with our electricians, make sure there wasn't gonna be any issues, or perceived issues with interconnection, looked at a couple different locations for them. And then, that's where we arrived at at those two proposals. So, basically, they're 54 kilowatt DC solar projects. The power comes in from the sun in DC, goes to an inverter, converts it to AC, and the AC side would be under the 40 kw threshold. With People's Energy Co op, you'll get 40 ks you'll get full retail net metering up to 40 kilowatts AC.
And as long as you're over a mile apart, you'll receive that on on both projects, which we are the way the crow flies before between city hall and the wastewater plant. As far as the the overall savings, we try to be conservative with our projections. But in a nutshell, you should net, you know, minimum $11,000 a year starting out between the two projects. The warranties, the panels have a thirty year production warranty on them, twenty five year product warranty. The inverters come with a twelve year warranty, and then there's optimizers for panel level monitoring and and shade mitigation that have a
twenty five year warranty too. So, while there there could be some maintenance along the way, generally speaking, there are there are very long term warranties and they're very durable projects. With that being said, the the grant deadline is November 14, or until the money runs out. I was at another city council meeting last Wednesday night with a member of CERTS who kinda helps the state administer this program. And at that time, there was 70 applications submitted. Since then, I'm assuming there's been quite a bit more. I've submitted seven more myself. So, if if the city does decide to go forward,
I would recommend, you know, applying for the grants right away. So with that, I'll just kinda open it up for questions. And I I will point out, at the wastewater plant, the site is pretty easy because that's tucked away. There's not a lot of question there. At city hall, we looked at two different locations, one northeast of of the building, maybe adjacent to the parking lot, with a two row configuration. Because of the cleanness of it, we did, opt to show you the single row on the I don't know what we'd call it, property line. Basically, on the Southwest Property Line,
between the between City Hall and Tenth Avenue. So it leaves the majority of the area open and and unaffected. But those are the two sites that we looked at, at the City Hall. I was approved. I won't care of the wastewater. I'm still not keen on having, the solar at City Hall. Now this is a little better because it's a little different. It's at the property line. It's kinda back there. So don't like the idea, but I'll let the council decide help decide that. So I would like to take them as separate issues because I think that'll clear it up. That we that we approve
applying for the grants for the ground mounted station at the waste energy the treatment facility. Waste energy is a different facility that I have to deal with. Motion. K. We get a first and second. Any public comments? Public comments? Any other public comments? Any other council comments? Do you have a motion on the table? I'd like to hear, you know Okay. The reasoning So the reason I'm asking to split them up is discussion because the issue seems to be concern about I don't wanna kill both of them if we're having an issue with here because it's economically,
it makes sense in both places because it's I won't call it free money, but we're not investing these dollars, and we are saving the taxpayers money that we can repurpose for other things. And I think both personally, I believe both locations are fine. I have no problems with the aesthetics of ground mounted solar in a commercial environment, which is what this is. I have no problem with it in residential either, which is perfectly allowed to I'm asking to split it up. Gotcha. And because they are independent grants. We owe I like the first I like the motion on that.
So any other council comment that good with you? Mhmm. K. We had a first and second. Right? Yep. I got a question. Yes. So, if we were to put both of them out at the waste treatment plant, is there a grant that goes away then, or what is the reason that they can't be next to each other? Because then you are you're losing under the state of Minnesota's, requirements. You're over 40 k w a c. You fall into another You also lose the grant because the
It's over 40 k w. You also lose the grant because the It's over 40 k w. Right. Well, and they also have to be a mile apart. Yes. That's a perfect rule. Oh, yes. Yes. A little bit too. So first of all, even if you did decide to apply for the grant at both projects, even if you did receive still, you know, after that decide, no. We're just not moving forward with the project. So that would if you'd if you're on the fence about it, I'd say apply for the grant, see if you get it,
then you could talk about, well, maybe we wanna put it here or here. The only caveat to that is if you move it to the other side of the building, the project is gonna cost more because it takes a lot more to get to the electric service. Is there a time frame in which we have to use the grant? So you have, it's at least a year to build the project. Okay. I believe it's eighteen months, and you can apply for extensions too. However, the safe harboring on the federal part disappears if you're not under construction or substantial by is it June or something? Yes. So thanks for bringing that up.
So, they did come out with the the findings on the safe harbor rule. So in a nutshell, if you make a 5% credit, so Okay. You still then you have until the 2027 to get the project completed. Okay. Because that was another one of my questions is is that the federal government doesn't open back up before the end of the year. Yep. And, you know, it doesn't have to be this building, but you the part of the state grant too is that you have to you can only put in a solar array that's gonna offset annual usage at that service, and there has to be a physical building that it's serving as well.
So, that's that's why we looked at this one. Oh, I just don't I just ask you the Application. Yep. K. Because that's the motion before us. We got a first and second. Anyway, any other discussion? Any other discussion on it? K. We'll move on both. We'll move ahead with the wastewater site. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Five yeses. Wastewater site, we're moving forward on. Okay. Then I'll make another motion that we move forward with applying for the grants for the Iron City Hall. Second. Here we got a first and second. Any public comments?
Any public comments? Public comments? Council comments? I have comments. Yes. I do like the idea to apply for the I think I think I would wanna see what these things look like out at the wastewater treatment center before Can that happen that way? I mean, can one build lag the other? Yeah. It it certainly can. I mean, we're we're right out of Rochester, so it's not like we're traveling. Interesting. Well, you can also open the area. You can, you know, go and look at. Sure. Where would we where would one be similar to this? So if anybody's got yeah. I can definitely send you some some references of projects to go look at.
Lack. Some of them have will still have a silver frame, so they're not the the typical old older technology, navy blue type panels. Sure. But, yeah, of ground mounts in the area that we can They're they're similar and everything? Yep. Okay. Yeah. I so, again, I think I'm okay with applying for the grant so that we have it. I think we table that for another council meeting. And my resolution, my recommend my what I made resolution on was going for the grants. Yeah. I understand. I just wanted to be on record that I'm not approving to build it yet
on City Hall property. Yep. You're you're just approving the grant for City Hall. Yep. Yes. So we have to yep. Alright. Is there any way it can be put on the roof? Yes. Good question. So you can do that, and we looked at that. You would not likely get to the full 40 w, maximum threshold. You you might not even get to half of that, with the roof space that's here. And you want ideally, the roof is gonna face due south. You can use, you know, east west facing roofs if needed. But even still, the the And you're saying price usually goes up too for roof mounted units.
Well, yeah. Yeah. Good with the grant for city hall as well, but I I just there to see the map. I apologize. I would wanna see exactly what they're gonna look like because I, quite frankly, think they're an iStore. I do too. But maybe they're not. Maybe they've improved. At least So this spot that we picked, though, this is, like, the the perfect spot for it to generate the most amount of money. It's good from a generation standpoint. It was, it's also good from a cost perspective, which isn't as big of a deal in a case where you're getting a 100% of it paid for, but still you wanna be good stewards of the taxpayer funds.
You know, if there is debate about maybe the city would decide to move it, you know, farther away, I would recommend that we factor that cost the grant for, as it's easier to go down than to to go up later on. Okay. That makes sense. Outfit. Is the question about the location or about whether they're here or not? You say you're not sure you want them here at all, versus location? You're asking just I'm just asking just for clarification. It's the well, it's just location. I think this spot, you know,
just green it's aesthetically pleasing to the eye, all the green space that we have behind city Hall. And we might have different city, property in that area at some point that I just I'm not sold on it yet there. But I do see the benefits, looking at the cumulative cash flow. So I get that side of it of it too for the citizens. I just I would like to take a look at them and maybe pull my still the The conversations about approving or going forward with the grant. Right? Yes. And the reason I'm asking is because as Brock mentioned,
maybe we should apply for the grant based on the east side of the building versus the west. That's my whole point is, have them or not. But again, to the point of the grant should be based on covering all of our costs. I don't picking up cost because we couldn't make up our mind. I would want it in the ideal spot if we did it. And I think they're both ideal from an application standpoint except that there is a higher cost to running the connection from the east side around the building to get
to where the pedestal is versus where they're shown here as direct I think we need to apply for the highest amount that we would expect to spend. And if we spend less, we spend less. Okay. I'm fine with that as an amended motion to motion. Apply for the grant with the assumption that we will be on the east side of the building from a cost standpoint with the final location to be determined if we decide to move forward. Can you repeat? No. I like Alright. Yeah. We got a first and a second.
Any public comments on that? Any public comments on that? I mean, public comments? Okay. Okay. Al, can you send me that map since I was not there? Do you want it before we vote or not? Right now right now, he's just voting on going forward with the grant. I just didn't know if one of the maps to look at before. Okay. Okay. Roll call. Roll call. Yes. Yes. Then yes? Yes. Yes. Yes. Five yeses to proceed. We'll give the motion. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. Let's see where we're in the area. And I know, we have someone. 54, say. I mean,
this is We have some, 40 k w a c. That's the most wants to talk in public comment, so I know that. So I will ask her to come up. Oh, boy. So we're trying to expand excuse me. FurFest. And so we're trying to put on a light parade. Isn't that exciting? And a vendor fair at BCRC. Next year, the mayor is so in favor of this. Watch they wanna move the tree lighting to BCR. But he's still grow really fast then. Right? Yeah. Well, I figured I'd get one of our people you know, one of our businesses to donate a nice size tree.
We'll see. They grow fast to be a little bit later. On October 3, we did a combination, presentation about paid leave for our businesses with Stewie and Raj, and we had 200 people come to that. So I was impressed with that. Nice. Nice. Then October 21, next Tuesday, we're doing which is about and the speaker is doing supporting employee caregivers, another thing they need to know. The twenty fifth is black and orange bash at CEC where our businesses set up,
things for kids to do, and they give them toys. So we've been very active. That's all. And when you say? That's it. Nice. That's it. Alright. Thank you, Granny. You, Granny. Let's just pick up, Burfest. We we kinda tentatively have it. 06:00, tree lighting. How's how's the Santa looking? What's the date? Check it out? Yeah. I still I haven't heard from Oxblood. Well, so the conflict last year was I believe that was Santa. The Zoo Dazzle had Oxblood changed Zoo Dazzles, so Santa was double booked. Right. So asking to check it out. I will yes. I will find out when Zoo Dazzle is this year at Oxbow.
So thought Santa could be everywhere at once. Primary building for breakfast with Santa. Everywhere, Santa. Make sure make sure the reminder that that's coming up. That's We could, It'll be right around the corner. So for tenants here, like I said, the 06:00, the tree lighting, hopefully, with with Santa, make a trip there. And then, 07:00, if they get the parade going, if they if they do, they'll they're gonna go out to be end up at BCRC. Then 08:00, we'll do the fireworks. And out to BCRC, like we said, a vendor fair possibly. So a lot of that stuff is in the works. The concrete stuff is the, the tree lighting and then the fireworks at eight.
They just gotta work out the stuff in between. But what a great place to end up if they do a a parade out there Yeah. And they are out there. Fireworks an eight. I think it's good. It's enhanced. Just good luck with that. Mhmm. K. Thank you. It's nice and short and not a lot of shit. Way to let we have to get this Hopefully, you'll have the numbers by then. You know, you have a few participants. So okay. Public comments. Once. Public comments twice. No other public comments. So we'll close this session out, and then we'll have to we have to committee Committee Committee all our sources. Yes. Yes. Yes. Let's do those really quick.
P and Z, nothing to report that we did. EDA, the the main thing you guys should be aware of is that we discussed potential opportunities for purchasing land in the area, which EDA was favorable for. So just know that that's, something we're looking at. Okay. Go ahead. Let's see. Not too much from Park Board. First responders, wondering, those those five first responders and, of course, the service of Brian. And we've just been in talks about to highlight all of the wonderful things that our first responders do, whether that's via social media and and some other ways. So we'll be looking into how to do some more of that.
I wanna thank the mayor for coming to my classroom, the other day. Just in my classroom, we were working on, kind of a model legislature kinda thing. And so he came there as a lobbyist to kinda lobby for, the passing of some bills Mhmm. For for our community and stuff like that. So it was great to have. Well, I love listening to the the kids and okay. I'll I think alright. No one's from the school that they because, that was fun. And then, next week, we'll have the the mock vote of the third grade. All a 150 something kids are coming here. So I'll ask for your help on there a little bit, do the mock voting and set up the booths and stuff.
They love it, and that's awesome. Mayor, I'll also you sent me an email earlier. I'm I'll I'll forward your mayor for a day. Yeah. Dude, that just came out. Right? Yeah. I'll forward that to my teacher friends at the intermediate school. Would you be interested possibly? I think so. Yep. No. Who's doing the mock quote? What grade? Third graders. Oh, my kid. Okay. Thursday coming up here? Yeah. Oh. Might have to come here. Okay. But that's fine. The twenty second and twenty third. Wednesday, Thursday. Two a session in the morning, like, 08:30 and one at eleven both days. So, hopefully, get nice weather. They can get out of school and walk in nice weather.
So k. Let's see what else. Sorry. Okay. Won't die. I had a dinner with KAL with, Next Level, Nate's project. So we did that, and he's more along nicely there. And, that's that's it. Cool. Cool. That's it. Awesome. Alright. I'll move. We go do we close this session? Second. Got a first and second? Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. K. Public session is closed at 07:51. Wait a minute. Bet you didn't know you were gonna be here this long. Yeah. So does Dan stay on then for this? Okay. But you is it a shared right now,
or is he on a separate direct dial? No. I'm on a single closed circuit here with just me. Okay. Alright. Thank you so much. Thank you. No. Thank you. For he showed up in my classroom too. Michael Dirks. Yeah. I really appreciated that. Motion to open it. I know. Second. K. I got it for a second. Aye. Aye. K. Eight 02. Open up the city council session. Recap. K. They gotta wait for it to open. Okay. Thank you. So recap is we gave direction to, the city's attorney dealing with existing litigation.
And we were unanimous in our disagree in our our direction. So and I move to adjourn. Second. Okay. All in favor? Aye. Any poll? Adjourn. At 803. Thank you. Good Awesome. Good session today. A lot of stuff recovered. Good session. Make sure to stick it around, Melanie.