What do you got? The cup and I was clanking. 321. Alright. Good afternoon. With it being two zero five, we are going to call our planning session to order, and we are gonna start you just wanna attendances with everybody. You're gonna go around the horn or We had just a little bit of agenda. Yeah. Let's do the roll call real quick like normal and should be good to go. We have not Yeah. It was like I'm sorry. I was right in front. It's just roll call. Yeah. Roll call around around the hall. But, yeah, I mean, I know it's the first step we usually do. I just wanna Yeah. We're right here. Here. Nash. Olson.
Do I go all the way around or we just No. We're good there. Alright. So with that, that does take care of our attendance. I'm gonna turn over to you, Peyton. Yeah. Thank you, everybody. Pull up our PowerPoint here. Give me one second. We're gonna be doing a strategic planning exercise today. If you remember a couple of years ago, we had a consultant come in and lead us through the conversation. This time, we felt we could get it its own little, just some tweaks and minor adjustments to our current plan and maybe, you know, it's taken some of the,
you know, ideas and concepts that we learned at the last strategic planning session. I've done a couple others since then that I think that we can sort of lead this discussion and conversation ourselves. Obviously, when we're talking about a strategic planning session, there's various ways to look at it. I've always looked at it as a winding highway. You know, you're gonna have all these twists and turns along the way, but, ultimately, worry we will have a series of checkpoints and litmus tests that we're gonna be
adhering to. So as I said, we keep this always looking as it's a road map road map towards the future, not really looking to the past, maybe learning from past history, but always looking about how we can improve things. And also this go around really focusing on both the short and the long term. Short term just typically meeting, you know, within the next one to three years, we'll say during this current administration. You know, we've been trying to do this every two years after the election, but this may involve us having an additional follow-up session.
I think it's really important as we deal with these transportation projects with MetroCog and a few other higher level things when we're talking about the future of some of our city facilities. It may be more appropriate for long term visioning session. With that said, we're still gonna discuss some of those concepts and think big picture and big term, and then we're gonna actually end up pulling it back just a little bit to get towards the near term as well. It should all come together. I did think it was important to look back at our last strategic plan.
I don't really wanna go through all the nuts and bolts of it. I can't remember. I think I put in your staff report. But with that said, there were really five themes that came out of it that the consultant highlighted for us developing a priority list and staying focused on those items. And I think that a lot of that stemmed from and it's still to this day. We have all these different forces pulling us in every different direction. We have one project ongoing,
but then we're trying to focus on something else. That can be challenging for a small community, but it's also part of being in a small town community. You're always getting pulled in all these different directions. Maintain fully staffed departments. Okay. That's great. I guess it's sort of a no brainer. We always wanna maintain fully staffed departments. One thing we probably didn't do as good of a job last go around that we we're gonna try to focus on this this year is hitting some having some actionable goals. Okay. We wanna maintain a fully staffed department.
How do we do that, though? Alright. So I think after that, we would need a, b, c, and d, things that the city is gonna be focusing on, just as an example, giving extra incentives for whatever. You know, I'm just throwing that out there. But how can we maintain fully staffed departments? How can our recruiting efforts be improved upon? This one really ties into the first one, I feel, and something another thing too that this go around where if we have similar type themes, I'd like to categorize them in the same bucket. But one thing that we noted last time was budget priorities meeting the city's needs
and keeping an open mind. And, again, that I think it traces back a little bit to that priority list we had. Find funding for the fire department. The whole fire department situation was up in the air at the time. We did not yet have bonding bill dollars then, and we do now. So I I guess we can say we accomplished that. And building the community build the community rec center. Well, that was a little hard to do in, you know, three hundred and fifty days, but we have taken steps now with our local option sales tax that we're moving
on and towards that direction. And again, I wanted to make mention of the short term versus long term, that that's really gonna be the theme of this conversation that we will be having. And I think just to get started, and the reason why we do this next exercise here is really just to get the juices flowing, get you thinking a little bit about the community and the city as a whole. I'm gonna be taking some notes up here on the board. We're gonna be going around to everyone in the room.
When I'm asking these questions just for things for us to jot down, we'll throw them up on the wall. Again, these are just ideas and, you know, things that we can, add towards the conversation. I think this will get your brain going. And the first one is thinking positive here. And when I'm talking about thinking positive, I'm asking about the community as a whole. So and we don't have to go in we don't have to go in any particular order. But the first thing I wanted to know from you and from staff as well,
What is it in our community is a positive? What what when we're thinking about our community, what do we think of as being positive? What are we doing that's positive? Sure. Everyone can listen to the guy with a dummy. You're very welcome. Is that all? Okay. What growth? Growth as in just the community, population size growing? Population. Yeah. Okay. Business growth. Okay. What else? I like the approachability that we have as a small town. People know each other's names. Actually approach the officers or council members. We have communications for maintenance on fire.
So are you talking about, like, with you're talking about both just with citizens and just a just a small town nature. Small town nature. Just yeah. Okay. Dave, what's a positive of this community? I think business friendly. I'll say community involvement. I think a lot of places see a decrease volunteerism, but we still see a lot of, like, community participation. Is that this end? Like, we have a supportive community. Oh. Yeah. Here we go. Right. I'm not too. I'll just wait. That was a much easier turn. What other positives about deal work do we have?
I think we do a good job of maintaining our green spaces, like our parks, and put a lot of effort into keeping those maintained and available for people to use. And you're also speaking you're saying that so I don't put words in your mouth. So you're thinking in terms of also our the transportation network as it relates to the entire metro as well. Correct. Is that correct? Yeah. Kinda to go along with Don's there. The last few meetings I've been to, it's it's really been apparent that, you know, we're part of the metro area,
and there's great collaboration between I mean, just the latest in Metrocog. They want Dilworth to do well. I mean, you could see it and I mean, it's not just Fargo. It's not just Morehead. So, not every city can say that for the neighboring So I think that's a plus that we have. Our neighbors are fantastic neighbors. Okay. Good point. Yeah. Neighbor. Let's see. What else we got, guys? Physically responsible. I took yours. Yeah. Was that Perry's? H two on positives. We should be able to do a lot of these.
I know we talk about parks, but I know I like that we also like, with the trees that we're being responsible about putting a tree back. So we're being environmentally conscious about our Green steps. Green steps. Right? You ready? Mhmm. We have committed staff across the board from management to the part time help that mows the lawn and and runs the, swimming pool. We have people who are committed to their job and then to the people that live in the city of Delworth, and that speaks volumes.
What else you got? I have we have, volunteers on our park board with the with the vision for our green space and how to maximize citizen participation amount of time of year. So are you saying volunteer does a whole? No. Like, like, specifically the park board. The they've changed their their mission from Right. Using you know, from the infrastructure to the enjoyment, whether it's local days part of programming? The programming piece. That's huge. And that's that's again, how do you get 300 people to the park in December in Dilworth?
You know? 300 plus people. I mean, that's that's pretty impressive. Along those lines, we also have the vision of our planning commission is, it's it's forward looking. It's understanding that our communities, although founded in 1911, have changed dramatically even in the last decade. So, again, their their vision in in what is coming for cities is very, very impressive. So I don't know if that's a vision and mission, but those are a couple of things. I think along with our committed staff, I can't get you to it. Obviously,
by us being my position, we have very skilled staff as well. Mhmm. One thing that we committed to the calls, but I think a lot of people the overwhelming majority of people that we employ are really good employees and very skilled with what they're doing. So they have a lot of tenure with our employees, which is a good thing, you know. A %. Well, in a world where we always turn over with a very, long tenured staff. I'd like to elaborate on what mister Steichen talked about in terms of how the city of Dilworth is seen. The word I have used,
our position has been legitimized, in the past fifteen to twenty years, and that's that's substantial. We are a viable, alternative or a viable contributor to the greater region. Socially, we're seen as a great place to live, a good school system to send your kids, a welcoming committee community, if you will. Economically, we talked about business friendly, also an increasingly or an increasing market opportunity for businesses to make money, whether it's small independent shops or large places like U Haul,
Walmart, so on. And we also mister Steichen also talked about how we have good neighbors. Again, our legitimacy has increased that, political collaboration with our communities, But our relationship with the state has increased dramatically. And, yes, we owe that we owe a tremendous amount of that to represent former representative Paul Marquardt made it really easy. However, when Dilworth now shows up with the chamber, the people in Saint Paul know who we are. The decision makers in Saint Paul.
Representative Lee knows us by name. And and that's that's substantial when we're looking at whether it's safe routes to school money or, transportation money, all of those things. And then that also goes along with our our the federal level as well. Our federal representatives know who we are. And and, again, as when we look at overpass dollars and we get into to that realm, or even federal dollars for our fire department, being seen as a legitimate entity,
and a significant player in this region, does us well. And my last piece to this right now is everything that I touched on, it all circles back to that key element. We are citizen focused. We are we are 100% focused on what is best for the residents in the city of Delaware. And I and I think that also speaks to council who also ultimately will put the policies in place. We might we might debate as to how to get there, but that common denominator of what is best, for the residents in the city of Dilworth really drives our vision,
and I think that is essential for our continued success. I'm gonna put down housing diversification. We'll know what you mean. We we won't hold it here. Diversified housing stock. Uh-huh. And along with that, on the diversity front, we have an incredibly diverse community. I don't know if a lot of people realize it because we somehow just associate with those who you're around. But we have an incredibly rich, diverse, you know, community across the board. Which is a continuation, really, of how the community is always bad?
Yep. I think we have agreed upon a a good mix of small and large businesses. Not every not every city has that. Yeah. And I think the railroad too will continue to be a a a good partner and vibrant going into the future. I like that we're well positioned to take in more growth, more neighborhoods, more more whatever. I'm still like we're well it's not like we're some island out in the middle of nowhere that no one's gonna be coming to. So I think there's a lot of growth potential with this wealth,
like position. I heard something when someone was about ready to Yep. Really. Yeah. We moved up two steps in the past decade or so. The group is all by itself. Kinda along with being positioned, you know, with this casino and convention center moving in in our backdoor, essentially. I mean, that's something that's a person's really gotta put a lot of thought into how you wanna deal with it, how you wanna position yourself, what you wanna be how you wanna make yourself available to whatever might be developed. That's gonna be massive for the area. So,
so that's gonna take a lot of brain power and planning and a lot of thought that's gonna go into that. So and, so that's that part. And being on the liaison to the fire department, I'd be remiss in not saying how not knowing much about fire departments going into this. I really didn't have a lot of knowledge. Vice mayor Nash certainly would because she's got family in in there. But I'm really amazed because I do know some people in different fire departments in
smaller communities. They probably do the minimum, I'm guessing. But what chief Payne and his crew does, all the way from the officers down to the committed firefighters, the amount of training that's they do, what you're committing yourself to, you know, if you wanna be a member and the existing members. It's no it's no small sacrifice. And I'm on the alert thing. So I see these things go off when I'm all warm and comfortable in the evening or night or mid middle of the night.
And it's, you know, if it's a head on crash or a fire or whatever, I'm, really thankful our fire department is who they are and how they how they train and and how they react. So so tremendous amount of work had gone into the fire halls, but it was well worth it in my in my opinion. So kudos to the fire department, not just chief Payne, but everybody involved. He would say the same as well. I think it's pretty fortunate that Peyton's on the board.
Are you still on the board for Habitat? That's pretty amazing thing in itself. I do enjoy going to the open house or the, house house warming or whatever and actually see the glow on their faces when they actually have something they can call their own and eventually will be all their own. And it's not just given to them. It's it's they work for it, and it's it takes a lot of work just to get to the point of, being considered. So, so that part's pretty impressive. I just come back from LMC conference, and I wish I could remember some of the towns,
the LMC staff. I'm not sure exactly what Peyton's involved with in different levels, but it seem like everybody knows Peyton in the state. I mean, you've probably talked to a lot of people in passing and different, reasons that they would know you. But, they knew the work that went into the fire hall by some small communities down by the city. So whatever, to commissioner Marquardt, the governor, and whoever else is involved, chamber, they our our efforts have been recognized, and they see what has been done. And they want to in their own way of whatever projects,
they wanna know what our secret was. And I'm really not the right one to ask, but, they realize that what we did, we did something right. We accomplished what our goal was. So, but I just wanna pass on how Peyton is thought of. So I go along with the committed staff that Mary Olson and, talented staff. It it it proves it very easy when when you go to these events and, and they wouldn't have to say anything, but Peyton's name does come up right. And I didn't come up with this idea,
but I think it's I've been trying to use it. We don't wanna necessarily be right. We wanna get it right. So if you keep that in back of your mind, however it takes to get there, it's not our decision. I know mayor Olsen has said this before in some of his talks that we want the community involved. It's important that the community is involved. I mean, the five or six or whatever in the room, yeah, we can have great ideas, but it's it shouldn't be our ideas. But we wanna make sure we get it right, you know, especially looking at the,
you know, mayor Olsen talked about it and Peyton did on the on the radio interview too. Community involvement is important on every level. We look for it. We appreciate it. We ask for it when it's important that they get their word out and don't feel like they've been left out in any fashion. And so do you don't just be right, we wanna get it right. So I'm gonna stop right there for now. Mayor touched on earlier, we have a really strong school system here. Mike? Yep.
Facts. We always have a way to go, but I believe staff and council do a good job of trying to be as up to date as possible with our ordinances, get back to our planning commission trying to think about the next thing with our downtown area, new zoning districts, things of that, things of that nature. So I was trying to think of something to say, like from department elected officials. Yeah. Updated regulations and So I was gonna say something like, we're good at kind of looking to the future. Yeah. We're trying to be proactive,
I guess. Maybe that's a better I'm just trying to think how do I word this, but that's like, yeah, proactive. We're trying to be proactive. Well, I think about, like, our body cameras. Right? We're the first ones in the metro to do that. Oh, kinda. Yeah. Yeah. And it was, like, scoffed out when we were doing it. Just little little things like that that show that we're trying to set it to some level of a lot of things. That's kinda cool. One of the things that, we talked about, I think, talked to Don, but that potential growth, do you call it the 30 Fourth Street Corridor? Or what is there a name?
Yeah. I mean, that could be very massive. Could be huge. I mean, get some, business developed over in that area. Then you you need to talk about three different growth areas, you know, that, rail, and whatever might happen downtown here too. So and they're all competing. They're all complementing. I'm not sure how how it all balances out together. But the, at the LMC, they talked about, you know what, just a meeting like this here to get the word out. So you got the baby boomers. You got the gen x,
millennial, and gen z. They all see things so different. And you you can't leave, you know, their thought process isn't gonna the gen z and baby boomers are, like, so far apart in age type groupings. So that's always a struggle to get to the right people. I mean, you can be blasting on social media or whatever method you do, and some people never hear it until it's almost over with or deadline or or whatever. And I just thought I mean,
it's always a struggle on everything about, you know, you know, you know, the baby boomers have, you know, got us a huge part along the way, but then, like, the gen gen xers are moving in. But it's, it's hard to it's hard to get them all on board on the same idea for the most part. So you don't wanna leave out any of the any level of the, of the, age group, demographic groups either. So So I I wrote down having a community for all generations. There you go. I believe our it ties back to our parks,
but our swimming pool is really cool. You know, I think it gets a lot of amazing use during the summertime. It's obviously not the best condition pool, but we have a need for it in our community. As an aside, our if anyone ask, our family full pass is I think it's a hundred 25, hundred and 30 dollars per year. It's not 500. Not 500 or no. We're doing this at $3.50. So we're really setting them up in that regard. That's a good point because a lot of people that's probably their major outing and
recreation for the summer, the pool. Yes. It is. And it's a babysitter for a lot of people. Because a lot of the people that we have are family passes with. Their families whose parents aren't there, and they have their babysitter that brings their children there. Not everyone goes to the lake even though everyone thinks they go to the lake. Most people do not. Right. And they don't have an outlet or something fun to do during the summertime. But this also be able to plug the dates. Free lighting, whatever it may be. No. No. Your first comment there, chief. Oh, you know? Yep. And with that, we've come full circle.
Okay. I'm talking about as well with the logo dates and the things like that. I was just doing terms of place department with that. Oh. Yeah. I'm sorry. I just thought big picture is out there. Oh, there seems to be something going on. We tried to do something working on Landmore. So Yep. But with the community that size, just a cooperation collaboration we have with the other departments. I mean, street departments Yep. Going out there doing traffic control for local days. You're driving the float. No one's falling off the float. So it's good. I mean, it's just for everyone, like, Halloween, the council members get they're just great. And it's also it also relates back to our business community as well.
There's a lot that goes on with the rail district, but they've been inclusive we've been inclusive of having everybody on board with these community events. Is there anything else positive in this community? I'm sure there's plenty. But No. It's good. They're more people out there. Any and all that is. Anything? Positive? We're easy to reach. I don't know. Accessible. It's very accessible. Staff is a stop on the side of the road. Phone calls. And then It's usually one of the Is it are you really? What about maintaining our roadway system?
How do we do that? That's fair. I think if you drive around other cities, Yeah. I think we do it fairly quickly. Yeah. And pretty decent. I mean, there's always room for Sure. This is four pages of positivity. This is how we need to start your work anyway. Studies will show that if you are going into any type of engagement, even simple questions, like, tell me something positive that you did this past weekend with your kid or whatever it may be, set the tone tone differently for any conversation that you're having. That's why you'll come out and start with the what we're gonna talk about next
here in the school a little bit. I always think positive first. Is there anything else that we feel like we need to identify as far as, like, big things with this community that we're, like, really knocking on the part with? Support community, and we support community. Community supports us, which is a great symbiotic relationship. Same thing. Alright. Anything you think of Don? Anything else there? No. I think we're good. And I don't like saying anything negative, but where should we be better as a GP? So So a better road infrastructure. Yes. Oh, if they are an area for growth is walkability. Yeah.
There are sidewalks. There's some talk about the traffic issue around the school at the start and the end of the day. Oh, yes. Hunter's got a plan, I'm sure, for that. I'll say a challenge area. I don't know if it's where we can be better, but a challenge area of people wanting to be a small community but wanting policy enforced. And so it becomes like a safety issue sometime too. Like, everybody wants to have a policy about what you can do with your pets, but when it comes to them, they don't wanna lease their own. Or, you know, it's like Policy is for They want they want they want they want they want
but not for me. Yeah. It's like, I don't want my neighbor to park here, but I'm not gonna clean my sidewalk. You know, it's like so it's like we like policy, but we don't like it enforced on ourselves in a small community. And I don't know if that's a small community problem. I think it's never a community. But we get to actually just talk to one another. Right? We all tell one another. You get you get hit with it differently. I know we're gonna discuss this as sort of a big ticket item, but we're really lacking in this missile missile missing middle housing area.
You know, that's gonna be something that continue to where it's been. Senior housing. Oh, we got another one. Is that part of the missing middle or is it different? It's changing to it. It's a housing base. Mhmm. It is, but we have two senior centers in Town No. I 1 Senior center, one living home. Not like nursing home. Like one story homes that are grown Yes. Accessible? That one. Yep. Alright. Convenience. Like, how automated is city hall? Like, if I need to get my dog license, like, what can be completely done in online?
Right? And it's not that I don't wanna come into city hall, but if I don't need to, why should I have to? Right? I mean, if if I can order peanut butter from Walmart and have it delivered in thirteen hours, I think we can automate our city, make it a little bit more convenient across the board. People are more apt to do things when it's easier because they have to put too much effort into it. They just And for the record, I don't order peanut butter on my own. I'm just saying you can't. Oh, I'm gonna ride that automated city, but are we making the city as user friendly as possible? There. Right.
Yeah. Convenience. User friendly. Most of the lines set of amenities. I love to be able to to walk a dog and things like that. But, like, what else do we have going on? We talk about the swimming pool. We know we have the potential for our community center, to be built. What does that look like? I think I think having you know, they still ask the question. Like, if you're gonna move to Dilworth, you know, what amenities do we have that puts us above and beyond our neighbors? And by about Parks and Rec, you have aging active recreational amenities.
Your fields and everything, and that has to be looked at. Yes. That for the future. And and I do have, like you know, when it comes to what where can we be better, I think that that residential growth component is a place where we can do better. I don't know how, but I you know, can we do better? Toss back into the housing. And I don't think we're doing it necessarily, but we just we have no inventory. Even when we had inventory, we had no inventory because the most we ever had is one or two subdivisions that are online.
That supports what we have in town. It's just the lack of diversity in housing stock. The inventory. Council member Peterson's not here, but he touched on having, like, a newsletter or something more to communicate. I I know I've seen I mean, we've improved our communication with the residents a lot just from time I started on council, but that is one thing I hear a lot from people. Like, nobody told me, and I know we can't go door to door and tell everybody everything, but just keeping up with the times, I guess, as far as communication goes. We're doing a good job of it, but maybe there's And we can get back to and this sort of ties back
to what Chad was talking about a little bit about the whole user experience. So thinking in terms of this, Most people in here have kids. If you have a teenager or whatever that's gonna be growing up, what are the chances they're gonna be growing up to come in to city hall and pay a water bill? They're not gonna do it because they don't wanna talk to anybody. Right? And if it's not made convenient for you on your device right in front of you, are we doing a disservice to a little swathe of people? It gets back to, you know,
also trying to be accommodating to every generation, so we wanna provide as many opportunities as possible. And we have, and we I feel like little things that we've done even just on our notifications to individuals who have not paid the water bills, for example. Like, we can text them now. Yes. And we have a lot more success in that regard. Our new program, we can see people's water usage, little things like that. Where are we getting where are they getting out living in this community? Thank you, sir. We talk about the participation, and we're very grateful for who we have.
But we also struggle to get participation as well amongst our residents and how to engage them to be on boards and committees, get involved in the civic process. We've done an okay job, actually, of having people run for council, but we also have challenges getting people to serve on the park board, as an example, Or washing beans, whatever it may be. Jeeps. These are jeeps. I got one. Group of residents that cannot pay their bill, that struggles every month, that that this team out here
works with. Sometimes daily, sometimes weekly. So I guess my main my question is what? You know, it's a resources issue for some people to, you know, is there something we can come up with to point people, guide them, I don't know, how to manage their money better, how to where to go for resources if you're in need. I think I mean, it's a multi pronged question. I know you've all struggled with it for a long time. I just every day listen to it. And it's, like, it's heartbreaking.
Yeah. And it's a lot of times the same people. It's always the same people. I can't even could be corrected because it's funny. It's the same. We're dealing with the same fifteen, twenty people that are on the shutoff list every single month. We can go on and print every month if we want to right now with these notices that we're gonna put out there. And I'm sure Don can attest to you that it's the same every community. Right? You're always dealing with the same. Every situation is a little bit different. Yep. I like Perry's idea. Are we giving them, like, the you know, they have 211 or whatever you can dial to get.
Do we have a list of stuff that we can point them in a direction? Go back to my office and say, Yeah. Harry's our guy. Where's can I help you manage your checkbook? Yeah. But And unfortunately, to the other side of it, a lot of people that are struggling continually to pay their bill. They're already aware of these resources, or they're taking advantage of them. And, you know, they're they're still in need of help, oftentimes, for the police department, they have a lack of, like, online reporting. Okay. It's more of an automated reporting system. And I'm a big believer in also communicating,
I think, with the the citizens. So we do have some other agencies that just you do a car accident report, theft report that's online, get signed to someone, but then it breaks down. There's no communication. It's just very dry. So kind of catch point two on that one for me. How do we compare with other metro partners as far in what What you're saying, like, online reporting into that? So at Fargo and some of the more head agencies will do online reporting month. And a negative point six. Not a big fan of all, but it's our positive contact that we have in the community. That's what we're out there to have a face.
And that's not through New World, chief? That's something completely separate? No. That'd be something separate. It'd be an online. Yeah. Strictly an online report. It says that just kinda it's almost like a tip line Oh, yeah. Where it just comes right to your agency and it comes with email to you. Chief Ralston? No. No. No. This is just this is just doing a basic report on something that you can do. Is, your department or how not sure how it would actually the mechanics of it work. Are you able if someone is in a situation where they can't make a phone call to you because they're with someone that they don't are they able to text
to you somehow? Or Text 911. I mean, we have there is some automated ones to text 911. We have that. But they could send a message, and the message will get to you. To 911. Not directly to the law enforcement officer, not to our agency because after hours, you want it to go to 911 because they have those capabilities. And the communities that have that, that's how that would function as well? Yeah. Just right tonight. Okay. That's makes sense. Yeah. He's special. The other one was, it came up during interviews for you guys. The dashboard and you wouldn't want real time events.
But is there a way that the community would it kinda goes back to I learned this weekend that a lot of councils have work sessions maybe before the council meeting or the off weeks or whatever. And a lot of it's it's open meeting, obviously. And a lot of the decisions have been talked about and hammered out. So when they get to the council meetings, it just looks like a five zero five zero five zero vote. And people don't realize, because they don't part participate in the work sessions, that, but do they really understand
what it is you guys are doing for the most part? Because that if it's a dashboard thing or whatever it's called, just like a real synopsis. And I suppose they could ask for the information maybe. No. We get it in your management reports, what you were doing, but is that was there a value in that? There is. And what I I know we talked about this in the dashboard. Let the systems know know what we do and some of the information that we provide to counsel. One thing I've actually because I was trying to figure out how the response was because of our neighbors numbers. Those are the Burbank Bureau that you see.
And Comparative to other agencies, I have a little feedback from, you know, from this area saying, are these actually numbers? Why are they so much higher than other agencies? And the the I mean, truth is the numbers, and that's the hard part is that that was the feedback from from here. So I'm not sure how the other regular citizen would say, okay. Well, why do you have so many arrests or why doesn't this agency have so many arrests? What is the difference going on here? What's happening in Delaware It might not be just easy on representative. On first blush to see understand it totally without I think that's what's hard that
the numbers might be misconstrued as something different. Even though it's the same amount of work for us, it doesn't mean the optics might not be correct. You know, what's irritating is, when I have heard people tell me that all they see you guys is sit at the wherever, just watching traffic. And we all know you do more than that. I mean, maybe you are looking for something. I don't know. It's not our job to to scrutinize everything you do, but I know you do more than just sit and look for someone speeding. I mean, you have to make your presence visible,
but I just I guess food for thought if it's any value in it, and it's you probably got it thought out quite well. And I appreciate that. And I haven't maybe come up with a great way with my liaison to maybe come up with a different tactic on how to use it for the optics to be corrected. So it's not viewed as something I don't know. I wanna say this is correct. I don't want the optics to be misconstrued as we have one problem here and that represents the the But sometimes I know some of our citizens will see, you know, our here our officers sit in some place, and some of that is just targeted enforcement because of a certain area that we've
identified as for Oh, I'm not questioning what you're doing at all. So I'm gonna add hiring processes that we go through. I know some of this is a product of just the nature that we're in, being in a small community and only having enough time and resources to do things. I sometimes feel like I'm letting everyone down by not having a more robust hiring process or whatever position in the city of Dilworth, and just making sure those are always top notch.
It always kinda gets back to relation, to the HR side of things. Should've been here before you were here. Not saying. I'm just saying because I was. I know. We're getting better every day. It's all we can do. I talked about this two years ago as well. I think I'm the only one up here that didn't grow up in Dilworth. And it took a long time to feel like you weren't an outsider. Huge amount of time. And I'm not saying history should be forgotten or, you know, there's value in understanding what took place prior and everything.
But that's a great turn off, especially for the, the younger, the millennials and Gen z's and those kind of people. I was thinking that, you know, you don't want to make them I like history. I under and I like understanding where things came from and how it was developed, but just so a person doesn't dwell on that too much, I guess. I think that makes you more challenging in a smaller community too. Still looking for the word for it, mister Steichen, because I think that's a great point. And I've been struggling with that.
Alien. A few things. Well, not necessarily alienation. How much do you think that's changing all of this as the city of SmackDown girls do it instead? That's what we hope to do. And There's a part of what people here. Are. That and that's why you have to offer as many different activities and whatever out so that we're giving as many people an opportunity as possible. And and I'm just gonna say it out loud because when we're when we're talking about different housing options or, you know, multifamily housings, what to me, when someone says, you know, we don't like that type of housing as it brings in those types of people,
that is what we need to avoid, and that's that's still prevalent. And and and I don't know if it's welcome. I don't know. Because I think we are welcoming, but maybe accepting or an acceptance of yeah. Well, we could get we don't need to do better than that. We're pretty solid there. Well, I think, you know so the opposite side of the same point about, like, diversifying perspectives. I mean, we couldn't have better community program if someone didn't come from another community and be like, hey. You know what? We did where I grew up. Or, you know, what kind of housing we had,
you know, where I used to you know, I worked in this community. We did it this way. Or, you know and so it's that diversification of perspectives that we need to invite to the table. Right. Our I don't know if it's us doing a poor job. I think it was the community as a whole. We've always talked about our Highway 10 corridor area. And I know we're going taking some active steps to improve that whether it be clearing the sidewalks, business enhancements, redevelopments, whatever it may be, that's something I feel like our community has really lacked with when you consider is what people know of when they think
of DoorDash. Most people that I hang out with and associate with don't live in DoorDash, so it's fascinating to hear them all the time when they come to my house or whatever. Like, oh, I didn't realize. I thought the work was just out of the way. You know? So so better at self promotion? How do we promote our city? How do we how do we highlight, like, all of the quality things that we discussed already? I think we're collectively fairly modest and conservative across the board.
We will look at fixing perceived deficiencies more than we'll talk about patting ourselves on the back. Yeah. We're good. Could this give you a long term where we can do better? But when you think about where we locate our services as a city for convenience for staff, and I'm always thinking you have to run from this building to this building or, like, you know, especially what I'm thinking about the old community center. It's like nobody was there. Right? So there's nobody staffing it. And so then we finally got to electronic locks or whatever. Yep.
But I just sometimes think figuring out how it's a long term thing. I don't even know. But, like, recycling's over here, but then maintenance you know what I mean? Like, then they've got a building over here. But sometimes you need that, right, for different parts of town. But, again, it's just kinda thinking about where we have facilities. I just called it facility logistics. There you go. Yeah. Hopefully, I'll remember what that means. And again, as we think of where the new community center is and how it functions, whether or not and if you have city hall here, but you have the community center there, like I also heard we're talking about that earlier today.
Yeah. I mean, it it's just, again, thinking about what works best for the city as we grow. That's Is it about equidistant? From where it was before? To where to where it might be now. Pretty close. No. It'll be a little further, but Yeah. I'm not sure. Not much. A little. Be more concerned about a response time in ten years from our fire department to the Northeast part of town. And now I'm no longer worried. Sure. Let's check that one off. Did better. Done. Done. Done. Easy. Good. When can we be doing better?
Is there a way we could get on, like, businesses and houses that aren't this manicured or well taken care of? It's probably May. Well, probably May. Yeah. Coming soon. That's a wrap. For two years. Silly state laws. Wait. And maybe that's approach. Do we are we able to Especially on Highway 10. Right. And we could do better on Revitalization. Revitalization. There you go. Yeah. Improve revitalize okay. Let's do better on revitalization efforts. I like that. Here we go. Yeah. There's some. Don, I think we need some art on display when people come in from the East
Side, like, the on by the, Tray Depot area. Like, we talked about that a few months back. That'd be kinda neat to see. So aesthetics, citywide aesthetics. You said whether it's art or property maintenance. I know that's not a cheap thing to do with Christmas. They do like your city, Christmas wreath things you hang on the poles. That gets a lot of comments. We're gonna be able to get some new ones here in the future. And the tree, that's fantastic. Yep. Yep. That's exactly what we're gonna do. I'm just 100% we are. Just throw it out there because There's a there'll be a center lane.
Yeah. Call me down and say this was pretty cheap. We have a we have great partners, business partners. We don't have many of them, though. And housing partners. It's just a very limited Well, I was thinking of that too because, like, the we have the Greater Fargo Moorhead Yep. Like, groups, but we have we tried it once to, like, organize. Oh, like a door? Yeah. Business. I know. I think we could do better there, like, right? How to how to better connect with the business needs in our community. And then how about bringing in new business?
Like yeah. I mean, obviously, we wanna maintain the relationships with existing businesses in town. Right? Make sure we're taking care of, the investments that are made, the seeds that have germinated, all that stuff. But what efforts do we need to make in order to continuously attract business to Dilworth? Yeah. Which means you have to take it away from Morehead, and then, obviously, the bigger push is taken away from Fargo, but let's do better or at least try. You know, that EDC event we were at, do are they involved with Dilworth at all in some capacity over the years?
Did it seem like it? Well, no. No. But If it's North Dakota, then yes. If it's North Dakota. And that's that's not fair for me to say, but that's I think that's sort of the perception of it all. Right? And maybe that's for your reason on some level with the different state structures and overhead that it cost to run a business over there. But, yes, they're much more North Dakota centric. Reason I ask, this is all public information on the Clay County Commission. They had a real problem with the money they keep sending them.
And they agreed, so they're gonna keep sending it. What are they getting out of it? Is kinda what they were wondering. And I don't know how the inner workings go, but, yeah. Yeah. It's been a yeah. I ain't gonna see. No. Well, I still struggle. Yeah. Right. I mean and that's then then again, like so when we're talking about attracting businesses, I think a good look would be for us to evaluate the process it would take that we can control, whether it's building permits, what type how can we use our economic incentives? Like, what can we control to make sure the city of Dilworth is as attractive as
possible? And we know that there's state issues, right, between Minnesota, North Dakota or whatever. But, again, it goes back to highlighting the positives. Right? And and that's increasingly important when we're looking at developing and maintaining your workforce. I mean, there's with the sort of state law for earn sick and safe time, I mean, there's pros and cons to that and depending upon where you wanna stand or whatever you wanna argue. But at the same time, if that means that it allows a business, greater flexibility in hiring and other peep and more people can work fantastic with the businesses figured out,
but we have to focus on what we can control. Yeah. The border issues in Minnesota versus North Dakota that there's any battle that we're always fighting or fighting out there to have some equalization across state lines. And and a balance a balance with the state legislature, and, hopefully, they're they're gonna take a look at that. And, again, balance out recent legislation. But, again, at the same time, we'll maximize our leverage with with the tools that we have. I think we definitely look at how we could do better there. That's a good point.
Part of it being in a small organization, lack of I don't know if we're doing it poorly. It's just kind of the reality of it is lack of advancement opportunities. You know, you have long tenured employees. People have been here for a while. They're seemingly good at their job. They want to remain with the organization. How do we do that? And sometimes that's a matter of just thinking creatively what we could do to make people intrinsically feel welcomed and wanna stay around because we are limited from a budgetary standpoint. Understand that.
Chief Payne, do you have anything? From a fire department perspective, we're getting to that point with the size of the work Mhmm. And the day to day activities. Yep. We need, like, community fire officer Yep. Position or something like that, and I have that in my office. Yep. At some point, it does inspections, does the day to day, you know. Yep. Little little old ladies who call and say, hey. You know, I need that. Would you come over and check my COF monitor? Yes. Public service calls. Yeah. Yeah. Kinda like a full time part time thing?
Yeah. Or part time? I could probably be a part time to start but overtime But it'll be con consistently, like, it would be there all the time. Right? Twenty hours. Yeah. Excellent hours or Or something. You know? Yeah. What Marty Grimley's doing right now. Sure. You know? Yeah. It'd be twenty hours. You'd be surprised when you start that how much more demand there'll be for that. Oh, absolutely. Having done it elsewhere. Which we're just talking about. Yeah. And then coordinating with with the billing inspector and doing those Oh, yeah. Day to day things. Yeah.
I don't think we can we're gonna go backwards on that. I mean, it's not gonna get No. Better. And it's just beyond what the fire department can handle right now. That's just it. Just advise what time frame would be when you think that would have to be. Yeah. I wasn't gonna bring that up, but I'm stressed out. Yeah. I don't know if it's something we're doing wrong, but it's something we don't have that other cities have is, like, the parks department. I mean, they have community education things, you know, pamphlets that they send out. They have a parks department where kids can go and sign up for basketball or
whatever it is. And I know that's, you know, community. Added more ads to run through the school district. Yeah. So that's not a city thing. Well, they have a parks department then. They do have a full time parking department. Brochure, and they can sign up for things. So does Fargo. Yep. Right. And how do we get into them? State of Yeah. Because, I mean, I know if somebody signs up for something in Morehead that we'd offer in Dilworth, like, my family, for example, I'd rather come here and do it than have to drive them over to wherever. You know? Maybe that's a collaborative effort with the school district.
Maybe we need to look at where we don't have to duplicate, but can I I think having a parks department has an excellent goal? Like, an independent park board with elections and some authority has to be the vision if we're gonna grow this in a meaningful way. And maybe that's long term. Yeah. I don't know. But I kinda said that for a long time. If we're gonna build this community rec center, well, what type of employees are gonna be working there? Are you city's employees and or you know? So park board, and and is that the natural transition as this could be the the catalyst for
that change as as we get to, like, the full maturity of the community slash rec center. So what is it maybe that's a long term thing. Yeah. Our citizens I totally agree. A very poor job of keeping their softballs clear of snow. Looks pretty good right now. You been outside? I don't know. But then we'll be mad again. Yeah. We're gonna see all the other But I'm gonna go back to that too. It's very hard to enforce that, like, especially in my neighborhood. One person may have a sidewalk and then the next person doesn't. So I'm telling you, you need to,
like, clean your sidewalk when you're, you know it's like, we don't even have consistent sidewalks. The but the policy is consistent. You only have to show the sidewalks. You don't have what you have to show. We we have a little dry angers that we, you know, have five people, and that's the friendly the friendly enforcement. And it's it's small. And that's gonna be part of our transportation talk that we'll get into here in a little bit, especially if we're gonna be receiving money or devoting money to go into our sidewalk infrastructure. We need to start taking a serious look at how important it we're already we're sensitive to that. Mhmm. You know?
Knowing that there's missing pieces or sidewalk goes to nowhere. But we also have the mechanisms in place to, you know, enforce something if we really want to. Oh, for sure. Is there anything else that we as a community can improve on? I was gonna say collaborate with the school district more. Yep. That's a good one. Didn't I just so I don't duplicate service? Heart. Right. Oh, I I wasn't sure if I said that out loud or if it was stuck up here. Like, you know in general, like, proactively. Not just when we need something, but Why else would we collaborate?
Yeah. We collaborate about now. Nothing. No. I 100% agree. One one like, I do. Like, we need a break, Peyton. But I 100% agree, across the board because the the duplication of services is not efficient, and we can do better. But at the same time, maybe we can do something better than they can, or they could do something better than we can, as we look at this going forward. Yeah. We deal with totally. Community centers would be very important to coordinate. And I was just thinking beyond parks because, again, it's like when we think of where where we're gonna put communities, are we talking to them about where they need transportation?
You know what I mean? It's just like and it you know, it kind of they do things and they'll plan for something and we're like, oh, well, all of a sudden that makes transportation or like traffic on that street just intolerable. You know, like, we didn't plan that very well. Right? Well, we did but they seem they have different ideas. Yeah. Remember that conversation? They did what they want. But no. But here's here's a good point to the transportation issue. If we put in a new subdivision inside of town and there's no bus service, like, currently in our neighborhood Mhmm. Both that might inherently be a problem.
Like, so as as we do this and we're looking at okay, DeWirth or DGF, we're looking at a new new section of town coming in right here. How does that impact transportation? We it's something to consider. If you're trying to attract new families and there's no transportation for for schools, it's problematic. So 100% agree, Julie. One hundred percent agree. I wanna make a note about and I think we do find but just remain competitive on the hiring front with everyone to ensure our wages are appropriate with our wage study last year.
Just a brush up of it. But every time we're hiring an employee, it's always just something I'm nervous about. Regardless of what the wage study is reflective of, we do still have to compete with our metro neighbors with it. Also, I do think it's interesting when you hear perspective of those that maybe come from the private sector like Perry did when we when he hears about what we offer, like, on the insurance front, for example, how great it is and other, you know, vacation and things like that that we know. Unfortunately, employees just see what I mean in an hour.
What they're asking. You know, you can tell them you get nothing else, but if you I don't know. Yeah. Then, you know, that's just how people think. Right? Especially when you're young. Right? Mhmm. Is there anything else? I believe we have a strong list here. So what we are going to do now is take about a five to ten minute break. Yeah. At least nine Then we will continue off. So do you want, like, a official recess for nine minutes? Sure. Yeah. Would that bring us So we'll we'll we'll we'll adjourn until, 03:30.
No. We'll go into recess until 03:30. Alright. With it being 03:36, we're, out of recess back, into our regularly scheduled afternoon council meeting slash, planning session. Peyton, we went positive. We look to improve, moving forward. Where are we hitting next? So the next thing we are gonna focus on is actually actually giving an opportunity for all of our managers here, department managers to talk a little bit about their departments. Just a few ideas, notations, doesn't have to be elaborate.
It can be one thing, two things, six things, whatever it may be, Just about what they're visioning for the future, sort of like a mini strategic plan, we'll call it. And then the first one that we have is our police department. So if Hunter would like to talk a little bit about what it sees for the future of the Absolutely. PD. Oh my goodness. I've got to know it. Yeah. Wow. Long on it. Thank you. Alright. Well, thank you. This is something we've been kind of working on in the past, year and a half,
realistically. It's kind of a living document for me. So one of the first things we did was I was looking at what we needed for the police department, and I kind of put that in my own short term. During that time, we've kind of developed the strategic plan, and and this is kind of moving into it. Some of the areas that we identified is some of our goals, and we'll bring that in the next portion, is going to be your Office of Wellness and Professional Development, Investment in Technology Equipment, Building Start Communications, accreditation, that's something new in our staffing needs. No one particular order. If you look at the first couple pages, just community overview, just kind of the general stuff that you will come across in a strategic plan.
One thing that we've noticed is really, kind of the current trends in police departments, especially when it comes to staffing. Minnesota right now is averaging approximately 600 people per year passing the post test. Those are people that are post eligible to be hired by any given police department. In the next two years, Minnesota is looking to lose 1,500 officers just to retirement, not to medical out. So that's gonna still show a net loss of about 300 officers just based on those general numbers for retirement only if we maintain the 600 people posting.
So in addition to losing officers, now we are trying to fight for additional officers, how to keep our own before if they're gonna try to go to another capitalize another department. I know years ago, a while ago, I was talking about the cannibalization of other departments. People are feeding off each other's departments to try to get seasoned officers. So one thing we looked at, I was gonna go kinda to our vision for it, is staffing. Where what can we see? Where do we see some allocation of resources? And some that we've looked at really are some maybe, more of a minority and gender based law enforcement officers.
Some people that we have, they're not represented in that field and that's a field that we can actually maybe recruit from. So some of these other ideas for increasing some of our applicants or recruitments is internships for high schools, youth academy. That's investment for to grow the future LEO. The use of, AI is really I've seen that done with communication for a speech of a chief of police in another language and that type of to get your message out in a different language, and that was use of AI.
Advertising an alternative location, something a little different for a venue. And I'm I'm at the very back, not goal number one, so I apologize. Kinda going through it. But we are some of the other areas, we normally look at the the schools to do some recruitment. But some of the other ideas we can hunting shows, hunting exhibits, gun shows, military bases, Camp Ripley, some military, just some reserve units just to see if there's another venue for law enforcement. These are some of the staffing that we need to come across in the future.
We have to be competitive with our neighbors. That's who our immediate draw is from. With the staffing, the one thing that has been fantastic is the equipment. We said earlier, we are the first to have the body cams. We're also the first to issue, rifle rated best to process them to our officers. We have suppressed rifles. We have an LPR system. We have top notch equipment. And that is a key portion. That's something I want to do from the beginning of my strategic plan when I first got it because we were missing a lot of equipment. Now that we have the equipment, now we can focus in on a lot of the other things,
and that is part of my plan in the future. This was something gold number two is something kind of Peyton touched upon earlier, and and Julie has as well as, council member Nash. I apologize. Facilities, something that we were talking about. I know when a couple years ago when chief Sharp talked about some descriptions of a pipe raider joint, police department city hall on on the where the we're located right now in that area because I know we bought out some of the property. So we're just talking about what is the future, what else can we have. Can there be a campus building? We have the fire department that is on the North Side.
Can we have a city hall slash police department? We have a conference room. I know it would be a nice little collaboration for me. It'd be easy to come across with the city administrator's communication with Don, just that aspect, but also kind of a joint plan. Now when I asked, mister Mastera was the optics. You know, I didn't know how that would look as far as we have a Police Park our fire department being finished, the money for that one, community center being growing at the same time. That's why we're looking or I was looking at maybe a 2035 plan about ten years out. Because at the time,
we're gonna probably need to be there in the future. As for the staffing, and I'm going back to staffing right now, we are fine. Our department can maintain us and can hold us to where we're at. In the future through 02/1930, we're looking to have maybe, I'd like to have a chief of police, the same one or chief of police, not the same one. A patrol sergeant, investigative sergeant, an investigator, eight patrol officers, two community, service officers, and two office managers or office manager and admin assistant. Part of that and I'm going back kind of back and forth. But part of that would also be a 30% I'm wondering that made up of females and or minorities.
So that is one of the goals that I would have, one of the resources that we can, I believe, recruit from? So that is the the goal in the future. Thank you, sir. Absolutely. Can you can you Excuse me? Do you wanna keep going or write down? Oh, I thought you were done. Oh, no. No. I was going on goal number three. You're not following along? I spent thirty years on this one. I know you did. I know. Missed my kid's game that he lost at at state. No. That's alright. That was Eastern Conference. They made it to state this Thursday, so they're going. They're playing everyone team in Minot, but they lost We're about to go into another recess, chief.
Yeah. No. No. No. We're good. Okay. Okay. Alright, chief. Some of the technology my goal, number three, three, was some technology and equipment that we're looking to purchase. As I wrote this, we already had a lot of the equipment already allocated for with the PSA funds and also with the city. The PSA funds obviously was helpful. We have taser tents. That's actually already been issued, so I updated that. We have three officers now that have been, certified trainers on that, and we're looking to do some training in the next week or two to get all the officers up with this technology. Patrol vehicles, we are looking to update it.
As I think I discussed in, our budget proposal at the beginning is due a rotation with the lease program for vehicles. We're gonna maintain that as far as also with our technology, And I think Councilmember Nash suggests this as well. Every time we have a new every time we get a new patrol vehicle, we outfit that with a new computer as well, a new MVC instead of using some of the PSA funds. We're just going to update it as they come along. But recently, we've also updated our server room. So our technology really is right now fantastic for the next ten years. I mean, we really are seven to ten years. So we are ahead of the power curve on that one.
Some of the other things I'm looking at potentially will be, you know, in the next two years to have a a new, security system around the in the North Police Department as well as our interview room, which doesn't currently have any, camera system except for a body camera. Really, that could be a a safety issue if if I'm observing an interview from our officer and someone attacks them, then we're available. Right now, I'm right next door, so I still have that verbal. Number four. Goal number four is on there. Now it's actually number one's officer wellness. Again, that's not in particular order. In the next in the next five years,
oh, shoot. I have number one is number should be number two. I would like to establish a peer to peer program. We don't have that as of right now, a peer to peer counseling program for our officers. I would like to get, at least try to get two officers per year to that training. It is about a week long training, but that also coincides with our Ally Connect. I'll be presenting on the next, council meeting for a contract with them for our mental health. What is peer to peer training? It is, officers that have the need to talk to someone that is within their own department. They can actually communicate with that officer, but you have to be right now,
it's an informal. My background has some of the training in it, but we'd like to get a professional. This is more of a peer to peer locally, or we can even peer to peer with, a pastor or a priest or someone else in the in another field. So pastor Elizabeth, I know we've talked in the past about offering something to that effect. Here was something new. And I didn't learn this until the the Clio command. We have one agency that was actually offering two hours overtime per pay period to work on their own personal wellness. If that's ice fishing, if that's doing anything, I know some of the comments that were came out is that it helps save
my marriage just for two hours yourself. There's no accountability. We just base it on that officer to go do two hours to your own self. Just kind of an idea, something we were thinking. And this next one says three on there, but it should be number four. Also part of the officer wellness with the permission of chief Payne is possible usage of the fire department, Jim. Thank you. Further officer development, I'd like to have all the North, the North Police Department has certified trainers and all mandatory training except right now in EVOC. So we have the only one we're lapsing right now in is our firearms,
and that's because our firearms classes have been postponed each time. So that's just not by our choice. We've already we actually I think the council approved it a while ago for officer Monahan to attend these. They just got postponed. So we just sent officer Martin. McClain Hayes just got back from his, defensive tactics training, dislocated his rib the first day, but it pushed through it, I guess. So it's only five days of being bruised. They didn't have to, like, repeat that? Apparently, it didn't go so well. No. Okay. That's good. No. I don't use it. Good pressure. In the future, I'd also like to get,
that's in '26 and '27 and kinda coming on. I'd like to get our next one trained in the EVOC, emergency vehicle operations. So we're trying to get that one done. And in 2030, in the next couple of years, I'd like to get specialized training for each officer and have duplicates in there. I'd like to have two for defensive tactics, two for firearms, especially if one leaves. Like, earlier one of our our past chief left with all the training and took all that with him. Some of this law enforcement memorial association. It's something I'd like to have one or two officers involved in this with a proper class a uniform. It's just something if the fallen officer we can send some of our officers to
that event for the fallen officer. The next one, accreditation. This is something new. This is something to put on the BCA, and it's becoming actually accredited just like you would a school or college or anything else like that. This is a a new approach for law enforcement. There is a process that the BCA is putting on especially with policies, and this is something I am looking to get implemented. So the Delworth Police Department could be one of the first I'm aware of to be an accredited police department. That doesn't do anything as far as insurance that I'm aware of, but it is another caveat for our department.
And last but not least, community partnership. Recently, our tech our our secretary has requested us to have our tenth annual unite night to unite event. So she has asked for a committee to assist her. So we have made up right now of two community members, the park district, council member liaison Amber Bora, and also one of our spouses to assist with this event, which also got us thinking more to a Dilworth more of a partnership. What else can we have in the future? I'd like to have a Dilworth community outreach committee made up of Dilworth Officer Staff,
Two to four community members, and Dilworth City Council members, our liaison, or other in the future for these events. I think I'd like to grow these events in the future, and the more input we have from outside is better. And something that I've brought I brought this to mister Mastair's attention. I think it's a great idea. I'm just not sure how to implement this. Is Dilworth's Isle Of Lights, the one in Coralville? It's a gorgeous thing. And where I live in Coralville, Iowa, they used to have, and I'll briefly talk about it. Community got together. You have a white sandwich bag, just regular sandwich bag,
but it's a white put a little sand in there and they line up on the sidewalks. The people then put in their own tea light, light it at a certain time, and it's called the Isle Of Light. So at night, during winter, you'll have these sidewalks lit around the community. Only if they're shoveled? Only if they shovel. If not, it's not a fire hazard then. Once the fire chief, you know, then it goes into the but it's one of these community events I know. Mister Mastera expresses it's just really nice. It's just something that kinda novel and something we haven't seen out here before. So but these are part of the process. It's more of a park board and city administrator, so we got that.
Last weekend, Maplewood State Yep. Park, they had a similar type things, like a one mile loop. And I understood it's like an hour away just to get in Really? Before it got into that. It was Wow. Yep. Saturday night, was it? Mhmm. Yep. We are looking to do some more. The one the one takeaway I really want, especially if any of finances, I don't want city council to look at these are expenses. They're not new expenses. They're not expenditures, but these are actually investments. So I don't want us to see expenditures. I wanna really view as investment whatever we do in our future with the city,
anything else we do. They truly are investments for our department and for the city. That's all I got. Very cool. Are we supposed to ask questions now, or are we just taking all this in? Nope. Just taking it in. Fair. I'll save my questions for coffee too. There you go. Next, we're gonna bring up Mike's gonna come talk about the maintenance department. That's really good. No. You're good. And just to and just and just to clarify, no one was asked to bring handouts. That was just Hunter going above and beyond. Showing off, sir. Yep. Showing off. But I'll be lackluster over here. Sorry. But I'll be jotting these down as we go along,
so they'll come up on the screen. Like I mentioned roads earlier, I would like in the short term to do a few around town till we'd start getting more money on the budget to do them. I don't wanna do total rebuilds. I was just thinking some old mill and overlay. One what I identified as a bad one is Crocious Drive. There's also some driveways that hold back water, so it'll be a mill and overlay. And then they'll have to have some aprons redone. Some of the parts of the driveway, maybe a couple of sidewalks over there. Where they meet the road, it'll have to be redone. Eighth Avenue along Walmart, I was thinking.
That's in rough shape. That's this is just real near future. This is out of ways. I wouldn't mind doing part of Fourth Avenue, start working on that to get some of that done. That road ain't horrible, but it seems to peel up every year. I'm not forgetting little little Italy. Bean Avenue is in rough shape also. Those are just some of the ones I'm thinking in the near future, next couple years. Like Peyton said, sidewalks. We're gonna start doing some sidewalks. I'd like to start closer to the school and kinda work my way out spider web since that's probably where they get used the most.
I haven't looked at it too closely where we wanna start over there yet, but there's plenty of room for improvement. And the problem is you you bought up a nice new sidewalk with an old sidewalk. Some of them aren't quite as wide as what we recommend. Some need work. I mean, as you know, you walk up and down a lot of the sidewalks. They're tilted. Trees have been there and tilted some of them. So I don't know if it's more feasible to just tear them all out and start fresh. That'll be something I'll have to ask the contractor. Sure they'll say tear them all out because there's more money in their pocket.
So, buildings, I would like to get a new building. Granted, this is probably fifth ten, fifteen years out. I don't know. I have to see how things fall in the future. I'd like to update some of our aging infrastructure or maybe rebuild. But So when you're saying may are you talking about, like, replacing the existing DOT Yeah. Building? Okay. And I don't know if we replace that or if we build something new and keep that for cold storage. I don't I haven't thought completely through yet. But Mhmm. It'd be nice to have all of our equipment under one roof in one area.
We could meet there. Everybody's in the same spot instead of having broke up around town. I know some of our park stuff's starting to get deteriorated. Has been for a while. The pool, I'd like to update some of that, especially the pool because it'll probably be a while before we get a new pool. I'm guessing our pool is probably one of the oldest in the region. Well, now that Fargo tore theirs out, Moorhead tore a load. I I think we hold that that title. Mhmm. Wow. Nineteen nineties, the oldest pool in the Ours is '88, I believe. Yeah. Eighty eight, '80 '7.
Eighty old. Yeah. Yeah. And, of course, the structure by the pool is good, but it could use some shingles. We have been painting a little bit on it, so it's we're trying to update it, but I'd like to update some new equipment or get newer equipment. Start working in getting a new plow or two in the next few years. We could use a new snow hauler slash branch hauler. Maybe in the future, get rid of our road grader, but I'd like to keep one. Or not keep one, but, maybe transition into just renting one or leasing one for the winter,
if we possibly can. Which I don't think that would be too hard of a sell because they're mainly used for construction. So I think we could lease one pretty reasonably throughout the winter. It's a great great job. And other than that, I mean, our equipment is it's all good. It's just needs to get older. And then hiring, like the police department, it seems like it's getting harder and harder for us to hire. These jobs used to be sought after. Nowadays, it's we get three people, two people to apply. I don't know what we can do. I think money wise, I think we're doing pretty good,
especially compared to everybody else. I know our the people that work here, they like the work culture. So but how do you explain that to new employees that, hey, it's great to work here. I think we gotta try to sell that a little bit better. I know, like, with our last hire, we offered them they didn't have a commercial license. We put them through the course. So more stuff like that to get a new employees, but it's the next three, four years, we'll probably be losing one for retirement. That's not saying nobody, you know, somebody else might believe.
I don't I don't see that, but I think it's possible. That's oh, and room for growth too would be nice for our employees. Maybe if we open up, like, a separate park board someday, maybe we could transition somebody over there or turn into an assistant. I don't know. I'm just snowballing ideas. But because our guys work here. Pretty much stay maintenance workers till the day they retire, which I don't think they're most of them are content with. But Perfect. They have to wait for me to keel over the tire.
So Yeah. Yeah. Thank you, sir. Thank you, Mike. Chief chief Payne, is there anything you'd like to know about the fire department? Thank you, sir. Thank you. Thanks, chief. Perfect. There you go. It's like you knew it was gonna happen. That's that's just efficiency with resources. Really, it's so many trees. Now they grow back fast. I burn them up every day. So so basically thinking about the fire department, the day the years on there are not accurate. I didn't know how far to plan out. So I kind of readjusted those while, Hunter was talking. The first set,
probably one to three or three to five years out, and then just go ten to fifteen, fifteen to twenty. I think that's a better, more accurate display. Mhmm. For that one to three or three to five, like I mentioned, we need a part time or full time employee as a community fire safety officer, and handling those day to day operations. And not only that, but, you know, we have this brand new building. It'd be nice to have somebody in there on a daily basis, you know, cleaning, doing the day to day operations of the fire station, those types of things, answering the phone when they're around,
that type of thing. The duties would include, like, safety inspections, knock Knox boxes, fire hall maintenance needs, work conjunction with the training officer to arrange and set up trainings that would take some pressure off of our our our officers doing that. And then organized community outreach in conjunction with the PD or or park board or however that works out. My next you know, I've I've broken this down into two types of or two areas, capital investments and organizational changes. And this next one's a capital investment,
and I I I think we should sell the rescue truck and replace it with two vehicles, an f three fifty and an f one fifty. F one 50 would be more of a that community safety officer slash chief's vehicle, as a chase car or chase vehicle, and the F 3 50 would be a people mover. If you remember a while back, we did have a van, and it held, like, eight people. We don't we got rid of that and got the rescue truck, and that rescue truck only holds five. What's the rescue truck, chief? I can't I can't The rescue truck is it has our rescue tools on it.
It has estercation tools. It's the f five fifty that we have. Okay. Thank you. Okay. Now I got it. We bought it from Morehead for $15,000, eight or nine years ago. But since we're getting our new we're investing the city's investing in a new engine, that new engine will be our rescue because it's longer. It's got more compartments. We're gonna put all our rescue tools on that. And I think that's more efficient because not only when you go to these accidents, like, on Saturday night, you you usually bring an engine anyway. Well, the engine's there for for water purposes if there's a fire and extrication.
So and then we'd be chasing with that f three fifty to bring more people to that scene. So that that's kind of that that's more of a an immediate need in one to three years to get that done. Within ten to fifteen years, we definitely are gonna need a ladder truck of some type. I propose not buying a new one. More is buying a new one. It's, like, 2,300,000.0 right now. I say we buy a short used at some point. It's not it's not a highly used vehicle, but and that's why you can go you you can get away with a a
used vehicle in that manner. That also helps us with ISO because it is actually a backup pump too. It has a five usually, they have about a 500 gallon tank and a, you know, eight fifty to a thousand gallon per minute output. And we now will have space for it. Okay? All the any apartment buildings, U Haul especially, are are areas we'd use it, and then we'd also be available to the county to to back up Moorhead. Because Moorhead is is Moorhead is the first response for a ladder truck in the whole county.
Right. So Am I correct that, chief, to the county help finance more of his ladder truck? I think so. I'm not certain on that. I can find out. Yeah. Of course. They actually have some issues with their old one right now. That's why they're getting a new one. But we don't want that one then. Well, no. I don't think it'll be operational. They only have one? They only have one. They only have one. Is that the price for a refurb one? Yeah. That's every time. Current price for refurb. Okay. Thank you. Yeah. That's current price. And we could go with a quint. I mean, a shorter ladder, 75 to 80 foot. I just threw a hundred foot on there.
That's what Mooreheads is. And that's a that's a big vehicle. I mean, that's that that's a big vehicle. So and that one does not have onboard water, where I think I think the city should go with the onboard water. So then it is an actual response vehicle, not just to to, to need for, high rise or those types. Used. Yeah. And we need to use it. So so that's the ten to fifteen, year plan for the organizational changes. That's when I think that should start. You know, we are we are at that point where, you know, if you look back at West Fargo and Fargo or West Fargo fire where they
were rural fire and they made the transition to a full time department and they're split because West West Fargo rural, West Fargo full time. I don't know how that looks. I just jotted this down, but maybe it looks like there's a duty crew that's on during the days of two to three people with an assistant chief or a chief depending on how you, you know, how the city sees that and how that integrates with the call it the rural, what we are now. I don't know how that looks like.
I mean, that's something to talk about. But I think the discussions need to start within that time frame because at some point, it's gonna have to happen. And start early from what what I can gather from doing this. It's not just an overnight transition. And it it it it's gonna be difficult in the aspect of the actual, you know, leadership organization in that because you have you can't have two chiefs. I mean, you can't do a battalion chief and a battalion chief. Somebody has to be in charge.
And and in my mind, initially, that should stay on the rural side because you're not gonna hire a full time chief for three people. Right. You know? And you just maintain more control if it's on because there's more people on that side because we'd still maintain 30 on call. And so, anyway, I'm I'm talking way too much on that. But and then within in twenty years, you know, make that transition. Fifteen to twenty, twenty five years. It's gonna have to happen. I mean, it's writing's on the wall just with with my twenty years here of what we've
grown to and and what you can see in the in the future with the number of calls that we get during the day, the number of, you know, public service calls we get, those types of things. I mean, it just makes sense. So I love the CFO that I'm calling it, the community fire officer position. Seems like a natural step to for us to get into all this. Right? I think it is. Yep. The hard part with that, because I've been asking around, is finding somebody. Absolutely. You know, that that's got that type of training, and that wants to only work that amount of time.
That's right. It may be a a full time firefighter from Fargo or Morehead, you know, that just wants they all have extra jobs because they only work that they only work Yep. Almost set hours per month. You know, maybe we start there and we just work our way. But that's discussions that council needs to have. Yeah. And It feels like a good organic jumping off point Yeah. For all future staffing needs. Okay. So that's all I have unless you have any questions. Awesome. K. And I can I can email that if you can Perfect? Those questions. Alright. Just write them all down. This is Perry. Alright. So just a few months ago,
number one thing from the finance world is we were made aware of Great Plains Dynamics sunsets. So the And just for those who may not know, we tell them what Great Plains Dynamics is. So Great Plains that is our accounting software. It's so it's got all the general ledger, and payroll is in there too. So it's really it's the heart of what my position is out there. And and the other two use it actually, everyone uses it for the most part. So back to paper pencil? Just got cheaper. Yeah.
Oh, I know. And and my understanding is that, I think the city's had Great Plains. I think Sherry brought it on maybe fifteen years plus ago. Ever bit of it. Yeah. And I think the price was, no charge and demo it. And that's what I was told. And so there was no charge at the time. So but given that given that it's a, we could so, again, August or September of twenty nine is when it's supposed to there's no more Microsoft does not support it. Okay. So in theory, you could go and keep using it. Now,
we've got a hard copy of it, and you could, you know, hire somebody to do some support for it. I don't know that I'd recommend that road, but that's just in theory. So I told Peyton, we would look at after this audit, there's so True North is our our vendor, our well, I almost call them our sales rep. They so if I have a question on Great Plains, I I call True North and they've got an expert. And they connect and they and they patch me into her and she's down in
Florida and or wherever that person is. So True North is is advocating other options right now. Business Central is one of them. But again, there's so many different choices and we just need to start kicking that can and and going down the road here. And if it's a year or two, you know, I don't wanna go up, but I don't wanna propose that we, just go into '29 and don't have a change made and go with hiring somebody to patch it and to go that road.
So, so relatively new, but it will be a big big step for the department, for the city to have a new software. And we wanna I wanna get something that that I wanna that's dynamic enough that it, it's gonna be around, that it's supported, and that's relatively user friendly. And I'll be honest, Great Plains is a beast of a software. It's it's probably overkill for what we've got for the city, but it's also it is sometimes not super user friendly.
I mean, there's not just drop down, oh, you did this. Are you sure you wanna do this? Oh, do you wanna back up? You know, it doesn't do that. So it's, in some respects, it's dated, but it's very powerful. So, again, software will be the number one focus over the next two years, I'd say, Peyton. And there's an integration piece with all this, making sure it talks well with our point of sale system Right. And things of that nature. Yep. Yep. And I and ideally ideally, that software, like, for example, Business Central, which they're advocating, it doesn't have a a,
payroll component. So now you've gotta go patch in something. So is there something that ideal we need accounting and we need payroll. I really I mean, it needs to be in one. And ideally, some fixed Bailey said, well, you should have a fixed asset system also. So, there's lots of things to think about and to plan. And luckily, we got time to do it. It's it's I was glad to hear it wasn't going away next year. You know? So, So, anyway, number one though, the software. And then and then, really, I got two just two other points. On the, so what everyone's talked about, in my brain is the capital plan.
Something to from streets to equipment, these bigger purchases, I need to be able to plan the cash that's gonna be needed not just in the next year, but two years and three years. And again, Mike and I have started a little bit on the equipment for these bigger purchases. We wanna keep them on the radar and sort of have a plan for it. And, lastly, it sort of all ties in and I just got back. I went to the Ehlers conference. It's really good. Number one thing, talked about though,
and it's a windfall for the cities right now, for for for most cities with cash, is our interest income. Mhmm. So, for example, this this last year, I mean, it's we're talking six close to $700,000 of interest income. And and this used to be in the $200,000 pocket before I before I got here. I didn't bring this on. This is just the nature of what's what interest rates are doing. So the goal is how can we stretch out and just instead of Perry just rolling a CD every six months to whatever is being offered,
how can I ride this wave, a two year, three year plan, and maximize this interest that we're in right now? So it's a windfall, but how can and I'm gonna work with dollars a little bit on that. But part of that is the capital plan too and what what the needs are of the city so I can plan on the cash, so I can now invest the cash to get the max return on. So again, those are the three three topics. Don't have a fancy handout like these guys, but, you know. Nice viewing.
Yeah. Now I can do. Look. Yeah. What's up on the screen? Mhmm. K. Anything else, Peyton? That's good. Thank you, sir. K. Next going to for city hall, there'll be some overlap with other departments, obviously, since it all kind of flows back to city hall, but just things more direct. I've always stated, I think a cool ability we should be able to offer is having remote access. However, that involves a lot more than just giving people giving employees a computer to go home and work with. That means the entire system has to be integrated back to what the mayor was
talking about with this whole user friendly experience. It has to be user friendly experience and productive. In trying to recruit employees, if we have that ability to, say, offer flexible opportunities where maybe they work at home one day a week, whatever that may look like, we cannot do that right now. I'm probably the only employee maybe paired to a lesser extent that could do that. But even with that, there's a lot of systems and programs that talk to hard paper and other processes
that we have internally. And a lot of that's control related to, though, for checks and balance purposes, but making sure we, you know, have that transition eventually so that we can do everything electronically and from any location restructuring. And the the reason why I frame it like that in talking about having a we we have a very experienced squad here at city hall. We need to be taking advantage of those resources. And are we making the best use of our employees? And as things have evolved, we're able to work on things in a much quicker fashion process,
document information. Is there ways that we can restructure? Could Perry have a different level of support? Could I have a different level of support from another employee? And by doing that, maybe it frees up spaces and other parts. When talking about, like, social I'm just using social media and PR for an example. That's something that I do for the most part. You know, probably 90% of it is me doing it. Like, I'll receive some help from Angela and others to maybe put together social media posts at times,
but it's still filtered through me. And not that I'm above that or being below it for that fact, whatever. I I enjoy doing it, but maybe there's better utilization of our resources that we have here. I talked about the HR enhancements earlier from hiring processes, you know, online application, whatever that may be. Just making sure that entire infrastructure is in place and suitable for the employees that we are bringing on. And there's always a lot to keep up with on the HR front.
Minnesota is a very complicated state when it comes to employees, employee rights, and all those things. So making sure we're always up to date on those and having the wherewithal programming nature that we can draw back on, if necessary. This one's gonna be a little more immediate on the community center funding, how it looks, and this ties back to Perry's world a little bit. We're gonna start bringing in a little over a month money from our local option sales tax. How this is gonna be structured and working with Ehlers to determine if we bring
in, you know, $300,000 a year, for example, you know, how we can structure this to make it the least because there will most likely be some levy increases that come about that. But are we able to capture a lot of those proceeds accordingly so that the impact is so minimal that we're raising it? Then in ten years or whatever time that is, there'll be the impact will be negligible, we'll say. So it's a financial planning tool. And I guess financial planning in general,
get back to CIP plan, all those things. But the community center itself and funding how we structure all that, that's gonna be something that we're gonna have to negotiate or navigate here relatively soon. On the community development front. And, Donna will both tackle this or if there's anything I miss, Don, you know, talking about that missing middle, is this something we need to be incentivizing more? Right now, we do a two year tax abatement for residential, presumably be offered for this as well.
But why are we putting that on the same level of incentive? You know, why are we saying one's just as important if the missing middle is our most important gap that we're trying to fill there? So just something to keep keep in mind then keep in mind Our downtown business corridor, we've revamped some ordinances recently, but really being strategic and intentional with how we build that corridor with the Highway 10 improvements, how the city how the city can get involved,
how the city can be an advocate and encourage businesses to redevelop in that area. Talked about the community center project. That's all coming along, but it's also worthy to know that there's gonna be many partners and missing and and, moving pieces with all of this. So having to always maintain those relationships and staying on top of them will be of the utmost importance. The Northside Park project, you know, and and I think just with all of these, almost prioritizing determining which one needs to go in what location because we do.
We have a lot of things going on. But that Northside Park is also gonna be a catalyst for that residential expansion and growth. Seeing Eighth Avenue go across there. The Energy Park, that's what council member's sake was referring to earlier along 30 Fourth Street. There's a potential for it where Red River Valley Co op is gonna be collocating up there with another business. Is that an opportunity for us to look to have a new zoning district for
some kind of an energy park or lower impact industrial type use. So it gets back to community planning, thinking about as we work through the comp plan this upcoming year, if this is something that the city council would like to see in that area. This is more of a longer term thing, but obviously out in the rail district, tangent to the community center, but the future Fourteenth Street connection, If there is in fact some type of commercial business, casino, whatever it may be, closer to the interstate, I believe that will bring a lot more incentive to have the overpass constructed there at that location.
And in addition to that, how Fourteenth can connect up with Fifteenth Avenue. That's not too far away potentially. Any way that we can build out Fifteenth Avenue and bring that around to Fourteenth Street, that should be somewhat of an immediate goal of ours. And then long term, talking about the future of the community development position, Don right now puts anywhere from fifteen to twenty hours depending upon availability. But depending upon how the community continues to grow, he could put in more hours at this time. You know, I could utilize them a lot more than what we do.
But long term, maybe having that as a full time position. But that position could also be as part of going back to the city hall discussion on the organizational side of things. Maybe this person is also able to focus on city planning efforts, zoning ordinance questions, and be that liaison back out to the public, not just the business community. And then talking about all of our different facilities here. And and, again, some of this is going to tie back to a future conversation we will have. I guess not tie back,
but tying forward to a future conversation we're gonna have about our road projects, but also long term visioning for the community and what all these operational growth opportunities are. Fire hall's probably in a good place now for a few years, so we got that one taken care of. All. Yep. But everywhere else is somewhat of a question mark. We have a city hall building right here that is functional, usable. We're not on top of each other here, but we also have an interested partner potentially that would look to purchase this building.
So thinking long term, for example, is this something where the city hall would this be an opportunity for city hall and the police department to combine? And by doing that, there would be some efficiency of resources, maybe shared administrative staff, whatever that would look like. And but just trying to determine where this building as just as an example, could be located and what it would look like. We have probably the most connection with the police department and maintenance department regularly, on a basis on an everyday basis.
So I think sometime so I think any way we can collocate that service is a benefit for people across the entire community. Is that just because the fire department's not full time? What's that? Like, yeah, the the greatest connection between the police department and the maintenance department, but they have full time staff that are on on the ground every day where the fire department wouldn't? Like, if we had a full time fire chief like we talked about, would that mean there'd be greater communication in the city hall? No. That's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about I'm talking about people calling to complain or whatever.
We have more Same question then. Yep. I would say probably in that the order, they go to city hall, police department first, then probably the maintenance department. As far as, like, level of calls we take them to the Yes. Okay. Okay. Okay. Yep. That's what I'm saying. But Yeah. I I hear your question. Right. I I see what you're saying to me. That's okay. Thank you for the clarification because that that that does make a difference. Yep. And then the community center and surrounding property there, I know we've talked about whether it be a health care provider. Maybe that's an opportunity for us to be colocated out there.
I don't know. But just keeping all opportunities open. We have our property on Fourth Street Southwest adjacent to our maintenance department and our police department right now. What is this property I know we've always talked about it. We wanna have the whole block for the maintenance expansion opportunities or whatever that looks like. But if that's the only building that's gonna be there, do you need that much land? This is all part of a larger conversation. I think we can have this part of the longer term visioning,
session, but just thought it was worthwhile to bring up. And then the last one I wanted to talk about, and this is this is definitely some of this may be TBD. So we're talking about our and this ties back to Mike's presentation on the transportation road systems and priorities. This might be a better conversation suited for longer term visioning session that we may need to wait to see if we receive any funding for our safe routes to school grant because I think that may impact some things on the more immediate side.
But just to give you an idea of what we're looking at in the 2025 budget, we have about, I think, dollars 232,000 budgeted for road improvements, road sidewalk improvements. That number was zero up until, two two or three years ago. So I think we're making some headway in that, and we are looking to make an investment. This year, Mike has two projects that's really capturing what all those dollars are about. That's the Eighth Avenue and also the work over in Crotius. But going forward into the future because if we look at next year,
that's three twenty. I think it's I think the number's gonna be around $450,000 that we're gonna have in that one item, we'll say, that we are to be devoting towards road improvement projects. It's gonna be incredibly important we prioritize those to give direction to Mike because he's gonna have to be going out and getting quotes months in advance for some of these, especially the more robust we make this program. Do we you know, when talking about rehabbing infrastructure, thinking about sidewalks, is that something that we're gonna say,
okay, we're gonna put set aside a hundred and $50,000 a year regardless to improve our sidewalks in town. Again, I'm just spitballing, just throwing ideas out there until we can get them all up to, you know, up to order there. Having a more defined capital improvement plan where we're identifying streets when those will be done, that's gonna be the most important. We identified up here some of the more immediate term ones sort of and and more medium and longer term, road projects as well.
And, again, maybe we'll have some more clarity after we find out from the state where we are. But think about that path. You know, we recently got CRP funding a hundred thousand dollars for the path from Third Avenue to Fourth Avenue. That's a half million dollar project. That said, it's a very worthwhile project too. It's not just having some bridge going to nowhere. That connects up two very important links in the community. Does the city wanna make that investment, though, at this time? So I think that's why it's important for us to hear back from the state
on where we are so that knows so that we have more defined, you know, way of determining where we're gonna go in the future. Our Fifteenth Avenue North project, we're at $1,100,000 for 2029 for the construction of it between Seventh And County Road 9. If this is something that the city is wanting to move forward with, it's gonna take a year or two to acquire the easements for that. We need to be planning for that now. We're in 2025 right now, and that's gonna be here before we know it. So I would say by 2026, we would need to be initiating that process with SRF or whoever to help acquire
those easements to get that, to get those in place so that we're ready to hit the ground running, at a later time. Then I know we talked about Eighth Avenue North and rehabbing infrastructure and some of these other projects that are of, you know, great need in the community. So thus far, we've gone through all of this somewhat as just an exercise to get your brain going a little bit, thinking about where we are as a community, where we're gonna be going in the future as a community. So now we want to
have everybody participate in this next segment here, and we'll start and and, again, we're gonna be dividing this out into a couple of different sessions we have today that we're working on. I think probably something in the next two or three months span will maybe look to reconvene this whole discussion to talk about some of the more longer term goals and initiatives of the community so that we can start planning them a little better. And all these things that we see up on the wall, these will all be included in a document so that we can have it all
housed in there so that we're all keeping these notions in our collective minds, as we work through this. So, with that said, we're thinking about our top four or five ideas or initiatives. We can be as, you know, what are the most important things we feel going forward we should be focusing our attention on as a city. And we can make this as narrow or as broad as you wanna make it. Like, maybe Dave's top priority is we've got to get Eighth Avenue constructed.
Or it can mean, you know, we wanna build a more diverse community, like something very broad, whatever that looks like. Were you gonna say something? Keep going, please. No. You're good. You see, you've had a lot of information given to you today. We can go through and pluck out your four or five priorities or allow you to ask questions first probably, then pluck out your four or five priorities. It's gonna take more time. This ain't gonna happen in a half hour. Just a second. We got an hour. Okay. I mean, it's it's up to you guys.
I mean, you can you can say, hey. I've got taken everything in. You know, give me a a document that has all this in, and we'll reconvene and talk about it, or let's try and hammer this thing out today within the hour. I mean, I I'm just sort of jumping in there. And, Peyton, I can give it all back to you right now. Mhmm. I think we take the conversation, see how far we can bring it, and we'll probably end up having to look to reconvene. And and here's the thing. We could do all this in one day. I think at some point, it becomes educationally incorrect to keep you in the classroom for seven hours.
We'll make decisions based on fatigue rather than facts. Absolutely. And I know my I know everyone in here. Eventually, we're gonna be ready to move on to the next thing. So this is what I'm recommending we do. If there's any direct questions that you have for management staff or anyone in here about any of the things that we've looked at thus far, anything up on the wall, we can have some of those conversations right now for the next five or ten minutes or so or however we wanna look at it. And, yeah. And from there, just we we need to know what everyone's priorities are.
Are are we gonna post these on the board too? We will. I I think that's that that's fine. I have to say that because as this conversation has happened, I'm gonna take a break. Mhmm. I'll be right back. I'll have the conversation. Because my initial thought is because, like, what is the most important thing? Right? Right? Is that what should we focus on? I think when we break these down, are there are there themes that emerge? Right? What's the most important thing we can do for our employees? Management employees across the board. What's the right? What's the most important thing we can do to attract new business?
What's the most important thing we can do for our city infrastructure? Like, what is our you know? So depending upon right? Is that the do we break do we break this down and say, okay. Just like we did last time, here's the five things. What's the most important thing we could do with like, for our finance department, buy the software. That'd be my my number one priority. Okay. That's done. Let's what you know? I don't know if that's the best way to do this or not. That's my 2¢ worth. How about the next step? We should Are we in recess? They need to start a truck. Well, I think we just use it in the restroom.
What's the line But, you know, like, there's certain things of all the things that were talked about, certain things are definitely financial costs. And certain things are just, you know, like, use example of diversity. That's probably not so much a financial payout per se. It could be a lot of other things. It was kinda hard to, you know, rank all these four or five things when you got such a wide variety? Like, does the Eighth Avenue need to come early to get that thing started? You know, the is there things we were we're gonna be working at the state level trying
to get things just you know, might take two, three, four, five, six years. You know, Fifteenth Avenue is probably because I got approved for the study on the Fifteenth And Eighth Avenue. That's 29, and this row here is 2,030. So, I mean, certain things probably has to get in the queue before others. I like the idea of a combined city hall police station. I mean, that's probably efficiency is all about that. But, I mean, it all comes down to, you know, do certain things need even though it might be a priority,
but does something have to come before the other? Well, and and with the with the road systems, and Pete and I have talked about this. The other the other one is fourth. The extension of fourth pass community center out to sixtieth. Right. And with that, if that's paid, would we then also pay the sixtieth down to 10? You know? And right now, is that, as far as new road building, the priority? Because we're building the facility there. That'd be important road to consider. Yeah. I kinda like the idea of grouping them into areas as well. Because again, every time we talk about adding more road surface,
we're talking about adding more people hours for maintaining it. And equipment. And equipment and all that. I mean, it's the same with the parks. So you can't just put in a park and then Quebec is gonna take care of itself. Right? So I mean, like, thinking about what's our priority short term, what's our priority long term in this area and that area. Because a lot of these things that we're talking about would require significant increases in staffing if we did them all. So yeah. So it sounds like you're concurring with doing it thematically.
I yeah. I feel like because it's not I don't feel like, oh, this is a priority over this. But what's our priority in those areas? Like, I agree with that. Like, we can't just be single focused on I don't know. We we have an entire city and all the intricacies and inner interconnectedness that we have to look at. And and maybe this is the part too. Like, if we're gonna look at infrastructure, say, okay. We're gonna put in this road. That'd be the perfect time, right, to have Mike jump in and say, well, in order to maintain that road, right,
chief paid to jump in and say, oh, by the way, you know, we need to make sure hydrants are here and not down in the ditch. And then, you know, hunt chief how was it chief I like chief I like chief hunter. I'm sorry. Right? But chief officer says, okay. So what's it gonna take in order to, you know, to patrol and keep it safe? You know? So as we talk about infrastructure because, again, I like the idea of building roads and building cities and and doing this stuff. But as we make these decisions, everybody's expertise comes into play in how we again,
we don't have to be right, but if we're looking at getting it right, everyone's gotta contribute to this. Well, and in the next five years, we're talking Highway 10 reconstruct. So potentially, if they don't kick it further down the road. But with that, you got community center going in. You're gonna need that extra road up there if we don't I mean, otherwise, you're gonna see people being detoured. It's not gonna go through Dilworth because we don't have the class roads for, actual detour. It's gonna go around Dilworth. And so do we wanna see that while Highway 10 is being reconstructed?
You know? That's part of the stuff to consider. I definitely don't want Highway 10 traffic directed down Fourth Avenue. Nope. No. That road isn't I I mean, MnDOT would come up with where the detour goes. We don't decide where that goes, and and Fourth Avenue is not And the people in the cars will decide. Oh, look at this. Right. Right. So that is the other part of it. Right? Yeah. I get your point on that. The 94 reconstruct, that's gonna happen sometime. Some you probably know better the date on that. So I don't remember.
Sooner, though. So if we if we just took a look at five areas, right, and put these into and we don't have to come up with the best one. But if we looked at five areas and we call it but, like, one being infrastructure, what what are our priorities? Amenities, employees. Right? If would that be would that help us take the next step in terms of, you know, what and, again, it says what projects should we be focused on? Right? Or what what should employees be working? You know? So when we look at this and then what should residents get out of living in Dilworth? If we break this down into themes.
Right? Because, again, infrastructure, what should what should be what should our citizens expect? But quality infrastructure that winter or summer, right, it makes it easy to get to and from or it makes it easy to get home. Right? It makes it easy to get to the park. Whatever. So do we go in I mean, I'm just saying, do we develop topics and then we say, okay. Here's the priorities. Mayor? Please. Peyton, may I I would suggest one topic be infrastructure, the second be amenities, the third be called city life, the fourth be called public safety,
and the fifth be called economic development. And the sixth would be probably transportation. So if we're developing community themes, so second it like that, and we, yeah, yeah, call one thing infrastructure. So I'm envisioning this document. The city of Newark is committed to enhancing the infrastructure employee needs, x, y, and z needs in the community to enhance the community. So we have these four or five topics that you're talking about. That's sort of the basic framework from there. And then from there, we put down what these are,
then you rank them. Well, and I think if if I'm I think a rank is important. Right? And and I'd also like everybody to remember that when we started this entire conversation a long time ago about our what's the what's the committee, the that you're on now? I took my spot. Building facilities. Building facilities. It was because of a conversation that was focused around what do we do at city hall. And in the meantime, look at what we've done because our priorities have changed, right, due to, really, funding mechanisms. Right? The the big push was,
would this get bought out or not? Well, it hasn't, so we're still here. We were able to we were able to secure funding in other places to and then make new priorities. Fire department, increase and improve our our community center because we have funding sources. So I think if we have our list, and, yeah, it would be fantastic. But if we would if MnDOT says, hey. We're gonna help you with Fifteenth Avenue because that's where we're gonna run all transportation off Highway 10, I think that would automatically become a priority. What are the most important economic development goals that we should be looking to achieve?
Highway 10, redevelopment, or reinvestment reinvesting in infrastructure maybe. Real district development. What does that mean? Like, what? Well, we have two developers in the picture here. This area has to be our main priority for commercial development, especially now with community center project going in. Not only that, but Fourteenth Avenue now becomes a reshifting to the east of a lot of development within Dewar, especially with the development that'll take place down on the interstate. The eventual Fourteenth Street overpass going South of 12,
then eventually to a new exchange someday on 94. The whole development, I mean, is is it's, what I wanna say, call listening or there's a lot of synergy out there for the development of that area, and we have a lot of interest going forward. So that's, in my mind, one, I have three. And then, of course, the traditional downtown and discussion of that and what to do there. And it's not just business incentives downtown, but it's also the purchasing of property and assembling of parcels redevelop.
Those are things you're gonna have to start thinking about. Do you wanna do an EDA for that? Do you wanna do a downtown development authority for that, like Morehead did? And then the Energy Park. And that starts with discussions with with with central initiative, with DEED, and with the coop. Getting all the partners together and having it's a long road to develop that park, but you start with that kind of a meeting to figure out where you go from here. So a lot of that stuff's going on, and and Pete has already talked about the community center project itself. So you talked about three locations.
Right. Three three primary locations. Primary things that need to be worked on. Yeah. So what about policies? Like, what policies or incentives do we need to address at council level to, again, to to make doing business in Dilworth exciting. Right? And, ultimately, can we cut out the red tape? Can we cut out the over I mean, the bureaucracy of it all? Do we how do we make Dilworth more business friendly? Are we do we have policies in place that inherently prohibit business? I think I think what you just stated becomes a goal,
and then we work on developing the tools. Right. Because we you have three areas or whatever. Mhmm. Well, how do we create an environment that will entice people to come to these areas? Yes. So housing is part of that then. Right? Oh, yeah. Middle housing, the missing middle and whatever, as Peyton alluded to, do we do we put more, incentives towards one or the other to try and encourage that development within the community? We've had great single family development. We have multifamily development,
but it's the in between part that we're we're missing. I have asked the development community themselves. I said, what do we need to change? And I've yet really to get an answer from that. I think there's opportunities. The state has housing money. There's a Greater Minnesota Housing Fund that we qualify for because we're not an entitled city like Moorhead where the state is just dropping money into a bucket. The county also has access to housing money. I'm not sure what's happening with that. That should work through the county board and the HRA. But those might be in conjunction with a project.
It's sort of like money looking for a project. We need a project, and then maybe we can look for a funding source. Right. So for missing middle housing anyway. Unless you have an incentive, they're gonna do what they wanted what they feel they need to do at this point. Right? They'll do what they feel will, you know, is well, economically so. Right. You know, obviously, it has to work. Economics have to work irregardless. Exactly. You can't deny that. At the end of the day, it should be market driven. Correct. Yes. Thank you. And and I don't know. And maybe it bleeds over.
We put it down twice. But is that city life? Right? Is that is that what is it like to live in Dilworth? Homeownership of some capacity. Right? Mhmm. So is that are we going on themes here, Peyton? We're still on economic development right now. If there's anything else that we feel like as a city, like, this is an actual avenue that we would just sort of overall themes of the economic development, you know, what we're looking for here. And and maybe it's it's some low hanging fruit too. It's just also to we talked about promoting our like, the positives of doing business in Minnesota.
Like, what are they? What are the pos you know what I mean? There's all kinds like, you talk about revenue streams for, you know, starting business. There there's some opportunities at the state level that maybe we need to market that a little better. You can achieve you know, you can get these incentives to start businesses in Minnesota. Right? We wanna have, like, an industrial park for you to keep most of your businesses for your manufacturing. Well, and I and I think that's two separate types, whether it's commercial or industrial. Right? Because commercial would be your Rail 10 District, Highway 10 District, and then your industrial park,
you know, up on the North end should that what did you call it, Peyton? The Yeah. Energy park, establish itself. Maybe. But that's a commercial, so that's not industrial. Industrial is kind of zoned over by the railroad more. Right? Well, that's not zoned anything up there right now. It's not. But that'll be a conversation that our planning commission is gonna be having for future land use. Yeah. But I was saying what they're looking at would be commercial. It would be commercial? Commercial or light industrial. What's going on behind us is heavy industrial. That's how that would be classified. Yeah. Anything else in the economic development front,
does it need to be jotting down? So let's do public safety. I just wanna start off with, like, I want training across the board. And I think, you know, we talk about maintaining fully staffed departments. I think having continuing as as much relevant training across the departments that we can possibly have. I think it's fire, police, and maintenance no matter what. We have those we have those subject matter experts, and we we talk about, one, a skill set. Right? We need these things for public safety.
But then we talk about maintaining employees or retaining employees. Well, it's giving them an opportunity to grow their skill set, to feel like they're they have ownership inside of their department. And and, again, from that ownership, hopefully, a a greater longevity. The we've all seen the the the saying, like, train them so they have all the skills possible so they can leave, but then treat them so they don't want to. I'm a big fan in in training. And if it works, all we're gonna get is better employees and better results. Personally, on the public safety front, I think mental
health Mhmm. Thinking that. For the what the chief has got going on with that training and that peer to peer, it's a fantastic start. And I'm gonna say reenvisioning staffing because you're talking about at city hall. But again, it's like with both the police department, the fire department, the maintenance department. Like, do they need people in those traditional roles? Yes. Or is there someone that could be out there doing proactive work instead of reactive work? Yeah. Yeah. Re envisioning. That's good. I like that because that transcends all departments.
What I wrote down is reimagining staff and organizational structure. Definitely. Because we've been operating practically since about right before me, you know, under the same umbrella of how everything looks. My fleet now and then, you know, have a sergeant in there or whatever. But, really, how we've added is just how it's always been, which has worked well. But overall general themes in the public safety, I think of, you know, creating a safe environment for our residents. It's a no brainer, obviously. Are we are you
thinking public safety under that umbrella? So, like, capital investment. Or are we thinking public safety even in, like, walkability, like, having safe streets, that kind of I was thinking just more, like, voice and butter. Okay. Sort of in that. So I mean, it kinda crosses over to what Perry needs though too. It's like figuring out a better asset management. Mhmm. Yep. And and how do we fund it? Is that the whole interfund borrowing thing or save up and then spend it. But what's the best course of action when it comes to that? I know we've always paid ourselves back,
so to speak. I don't know if that's the best option. I I don't know the answer to that question. I'm sure there's a time value of money formula that we could apply to that and and figure it out. But I think that's I like the asset management. That's a good one. If we go from asset management to personnel investment, I mean, that covers the gamut. Does it not? What else are we thinking? Gentlemen, this is your area of expertise. What are we missing? No. I think we got assets personnel right now. Yeah. I think the key thing is That's that's asset. From a fire department perspective, it's it's rearranging assets to fit what we are now rather than what we were.
And personnel, I've already explained what we need. So I think that works across all three of us. Yeah. You're saying good. Yeah. Personnel, the hard part is just fighting for the the small spots with other agencies. That's what's difficult. So, like, like I said, the word-of-mouth once we get inside, people are bested. It's just that initial attraction, what brings them to the city to go. Great. So word-of-mouth has helped a a lot just because of the environment that they're working at. The equipment that we have is top notch, and that's what's fantastic. Just the tough competition that we have. It's not, you know,
Twin Valley or smaller cities. We have these other big cities. So that's our part, but they are vested. That is part. They are really vested in this department in the community. I understand. One is moving the community. So that's great. No. I just put up there, Peyton. When we come back, we can revisit and Mhmm. I like this. Revisit, review. I don't think we wanna make this overly exhausted. We have, like, 35. I don't I agree. It's really it's like public safety. These are really the four themes, you know, that we're focusing our effort and energy on. And under, you know, we have some of these actual goals that staff has already talked about and so
forth. What was another thing that you enjoyed in He said Infrastructure? City living infrastructure. City life. City life. City life. City life. City life. I like that. So those vague and positive terms. What does that mean? It means whatever you'd like it to. Yeah. And and it could you could add amenities in under here. I mean, you know, with everything in the diverse community to develop of the of the North Park. You know? I mean, everything. If you want to, or you can separate that out. I like City by that one. Yeah. I like that. What are we gonna do for City by that one?
One of our priorities has to be to transform our community center to a community and rec center. We need to figure out how to maximize the investment that we're making there. We need to think about the park or the the pool. I'm sorry. The pool. Mhmm. And whether we continue with that or some splash pad theme, you know, and again, community rep or I don't know. But Maybe Prior park priorities, maybe? Yeah. May that's what I'm thinking. Like, maybe one step above that for this would be park and recreational
opportunities, investments. And so I'm gonna toss out there because, again, like, when we think about if we want our community to highlight what we want in those park amenities and we talk about having a regional park, I'm gonna say we're competing with Moorhead for regional park status. And because I saw in a lot of those, documents we got for the community center that Moor has already got these designations and they're already getting the funding with those designations. So how do we compete with that? So unless we have an idea of what makes it different and unique so that
we can go after a status to make it, what we I don't know how we do that otherwise because we can't fund that. Again, like, like, what are we lobbying for in that? But that's where I think we need to start looking at prioritizing what, our parks in the city should look like. Not just one, but multiple. Parson Greg being distinguished. And maybe we don't wanna be distinct. I don't know. That's what I mean, that's what I think we need to find out. What are they what is our community? Distinguishable or at least cater to.
Yeah. Well Maybe. And is is that just for funding? Right? How how and and maybe that's another topic. Placement and funding. Right? So, like, should everything be here, or do people want it spread out? Like, do you want it more in your neighborhoods? Do you want it all here? Like, what should be all here? What should be in your neighborhoods? You know? I don't know. And and I guess I was more I was thinking more in line with, you know, your comment that Moorhead has this designation of it's a regional park. Was that a state designation? And and how do we pursue that?
Because if that's key to state funding, then that's that's the lobby question for two weeks. Like, how do we do this? Right. Right. And I think that's the problem is trying to figure out again, that the figure it out part. Mhmm. Because if we really if our priority is really to go for this regional park thing, if we think that's our priority and it's not even a possibility, you know, to get that designation, then we need to know that earlier on. So I mean, I don't wanna get there now, but that's Right. What we need to look for. Yeah.
And there's the state has different pots of money. Right. You know, greater, Minnesota Park and Recreation Commission gives money to these regional parks, but they have to service an area, You know, depending what we want for amenities within there, the state has different pots of money. Typically, these cities work through a consultant. The consultant identifies the pot and helps put together the grant applications and things like that. So if you wanna start to pursue that, we probably need to be looking along those lines. That would make sense. We saw a lot of that when we were in Saint Paul trying to work
for the community center. There's a tremendous amount of effort lobbying for bonding dollars for anything from a swimming pool, to a skating rink, and they were they were chasing bonding dollars. Yeah. So but definitely be long term. But, again, we don't talk about vitality. You have to have things for people to do. Yep. And and parks and rec is perfect. Because even in the winter, people wanna go outside and do stuff as long as it's not 38 below. Right? And the more opportunities we have
within our left and right limits, the more attractive our city is gonna be. We're doing what no. Vitality. The next thing I wrote down is just continue to bolster our community events. Yes. And what that can look like in the future, I don't know. I mean, I'll be honest. I do a lot, right, for, like, a park event or what I'm trying to organize that or doing logo day stuff. The city has a lot with it. And the chief mentioned how safety is putting together a small committee for '99,
you know, being a little more thoughtful and how we can make this a focus of the community, knowing that we wanna schedule a handful of events on an annual basis, how we can be supportive of that, but not having to drive the train the whole time. Doing the whole doing it all ourselves. Okay. So I'm gonna throw another one out that's not I don't think it's the missing middle. It's our senior housing. Okay. I don't think it's the middle. So Because that free I mean, I think it might be Is that economic development? I well,
it's vitality and people being able to stay in their community too. That's what I'm like, I don't know if it's economic Totally. Totally. Development. Or if it's vitality because we have people that have to move out of our community to find the housing they want. Right? I think just put it under housing. I think it fits. I mean, it it doesn't really matter what topic that's under. I mean, if No. But But I totally agree. Like, if if you hit 60 and you can't stay in your house and you can't stay and deal with, yep. 100. The serenity of serenity kept my grandma and grandpa in town.
Now that's that's substantial. And, that they are that was a great opportunity for them. And my grandma could still drive. She could come and go and as time went on went on. But I I see what you're saying. Serve. The 55 and older community where it's need us We don't need the assisted living or whatever. So I'm putting That's because I'm glad you brought that back up. Accessibility. Yep. Mhmm. Because that's when you come to the same as those are sidewalk and by Yeah. Yeah. And I think you were I mean, if we're talking long term, you were talking about some kind of park district.
Right? Or or something instead of And does our does our city charter or whatever allow for that? Statutorily, you're not allowed to. Okay. Now you may have, like, a parks There's vision of the city, but we can't establish a parks department with its being its own taxing authority like the state of North Dakota. Right. But it's not to say that we can't have our parks department that has Overseas program. So, yep, has a full time staff, has a vision, has Correct. And says, hey, council. We need this. What do you think?
And then the council in the future can decide if that's a priority. So but, yeah, I I do think that. And then and then when we look over there, we say, okay. How does that impact, right, our our management leadership? Right? How does that impact police, fire, and maintenance when we do this? I mean, because that's they all they all alluded to it. Staffing. Right back in there. It Like, when you talk about community engagement Yep. Yeah. Okay. I don't know. Alright. What else? Can you hold that up, Peyton, so I can kinda see it? Community events on there? Yep. Oh, alright.
Programming community events. Welcome to Maxima's Park Community Center investment. Oh, yeah. Parks and rec being distinguishable and providing opportunities for our residents, bolstering community events, pedestrian accessibility, and parks and recs division. And and if you've not if you flipped that upside down because it'll be upside down, but if you read that from bottom to top, right, it's parks division. And every and maybe I'm wrong, but every subtopic would fall under the parks division. It could be.
Yep. I think I can part of the whole I do too. Vitality, I don't know, summary at the top. Sure. City has a goal of eventually having its own parks and rec division with these four things that it's looking to focus its attention to. Is there anything else in the city vitality? You know, we don't wanna make these list too No. And and again, if we're three four five and what was our other topics? So we talked about five themes or four themes or Employees. Yeah. That was the one, wasn't it? Well, and I and I so Yep. And you can include transportation with that if you want to.
Oh, infrastructure. Yep. It will be your next one, ma'am. Just to get under the four groups. Mhmm. So we're gonna call this one transportation and infrastructure. Are we being specific? Like, are we gonna go Eighth Avenue, Fifteenth Avenue? I think we should just establish a priority of work. Yeah. And I think the getting specific about those projects themselves, I think that'll be our next meeting when we're getting to more of the long term vision. I think that can also tie into future building opportunities, like, if we're gonna be co located or how we're gonna strategize adding
a CFO position. I I think I think, Julie, like, when we're talking about roads, I mean, Mike gave us this list and everything like that, but establishing a priority of work. Now we're just gonna turn that crap. Oh. Like and and, again, I'm not I'm not out there driving the roads, and I don't know what's a good pothole from a bad pothole or what's the worst. But having that, again, the priority of work. When Mike comes up and says, hey. These are our priorities. Okay. What do we need to fix them? So let's let's have that Yeah. Establishing a priority. Yes, please. That would be it.
Yeah. Let's have a priority at work. And to Perry's Point and maintain it. Right. Well, absolutely. And we we we add rows. And that was my question. When we when we added the position in the maintenance department, one, do we have the equipment? And then again, I'm just thinking snow removal. Right? Do we have that equipment? And and again, Don? I'm thinking capital improvement planning. That's gonna take care of the infrastructure and decide the priorities. And then you have equipment planning, and then you're gonna have staffing, which you kind of already Mhmm.
Covered a bit. But you're doing that capital planning will help establish those priorities, because you'll look at what's more near term and what's more long term. Just a thought. I'm always wondering if we need help. It's something I know we can do internally, but it's also something we've been talking about for eleven years since I've been here about coming out with an actual capital planning mechanism. It's worth getting someone to actually help us out with this so that we can at least have a baseline to build off of and kinda build it from there. Are you talking about infrastructure like roads,
water, sewer, or capital in terms of equipment? I'm talking roads and infrastructure. Yes. I'll I'll break the awkward silence. Like I guess that's the thing in that all it's that all ties to our establishment. Right. Let's just but I I think that's important. And now what, if you have that idea, then you could within that, you could rank what is if something let's say the casino happens. That might push everything up in a fast pace. Well, as we talked about, I mean, that would push that overpass up from Right. We're talking the forties or fifties,
you know. Right. It's just something that was a distant vision. All of a sudden, it becomes more real that it's gonna have to happen sooner than that. And we don't know what because they play their cards pretty close to their chest when they we don't know what they're gonna do. It's it's very tight right now. It's very tight. We can only guess what they might be planning. We need to talk to our development partners, Moorhead and everybody, because we have agreements for extension of the infrastructure line 12. And that's gonna have to, you know, be paid for somehow.
And that's our we're going to need to ship development and look at the South area. That which we thought was way way in the future sooner. We've been saying it for years. We've been saying it. Yeah. But sometimes things happen sooner. They can be But their plan could be a fast paced on their minds if it happens or not. Who Again, having conversations would would help. That'd be a good starting point. Yes. So, sir. Okay. So let's go back one step here. I think similar to how we have that parks and recs division that kind of links the overall theme of city vitality,
I believe that's where we also have established a priority work and maintain it. It also kinda ties with the transportation infrastructure in general. So so kinda breaking down one notch below that, Like, again, I know this is a priority for me, but one thing that I would love to focus on is getting all of our sidewalks rehabbed or replaced. Maybe that's takes ten years for us to do. That's why I was thinking like an overall general theme of something, and we're gonna do this by x y and z. Mhmm. Devoting a hundred thousand dollars a year applying for That's very specific for what we're
doing now. What's that? That's very specific for what we're doing now. That's priorities of work. What are they? Because I'll take the hundred thousand dollars for sidewalk if we needed it for the overpass in a heartbeat. I mean or if it I know. Well, right. That's what I'm saying. But, like, so we sidewalk. Well, I'd have to have one. Right? So our priorities of work, if we if when we delve into that, then would we have that conversation about what are they? Streets, sidewalks? So what are their element b? Keep sidewalks in there because, again, it is that What I'm saying is right now,
we have established a priority of work, but would which would include all of that. Oh, yeah. Right? Well, we don't need to break it down, do we? No. Not today. Yeah. So then we we're gonna do do the capital So then it would be, like, what do we need for maintenance vehicles for streets? Right? Would that be the other big topic? Like Capital equipment. Capital equipment. We have priority of work to fix the infrastructure. What's the capital improvement plan for the equipment for the maintenance department? Big topic. Like, what Peyton said is very valuable in getting to that point with sidewalks. But Okay. Like, you're Not saying sidewalks away.
I'm just saying in this on this big picture come up so often over the years. Work. And you can see why it's brought up a lot. So I'm gonna throw it out. It's not a huge I don't know where to put it. But, again, it's that whole reinvesting. But I know we used to focus a lot more on the little things like weed control and all that along roads. Yep. Now that we have again, I wanna look at staffing and asset to see how that plays into infrastructure, like it plays into that maintenance. Like, how can we do a better job of making sure you have what like,
is it equipment or is it people or is it whatever to get back to being able to actually get to the little things as well. The little things lead to the property maintenance being point that we're promoting Right. Better term. It's not nature that communities. Yeah. Or Aesthetically pleasing. Yeah. So in terms of if because we're still talking infrastructure and roads. Right? Uh-huh. So think about utilities as well. Right. Like Right. But and and for me, this plays into it because if we have weeds growing, it's catching stuff that should be going into this too. You know what I mean?
Like, it's just not only No. My my next thought was are we gonna talk like, do we need to worry about water? Yes. Like the Like, the availability in our in our agreement with Moorhead, and how that all plays out. I mean, that's not Yeah. Water. You're gonna say Yeah. Well, right. So water, sewer, that and then that agreement, it's been fantastic. We've got a great contract. Do we do we maintain that? Because those are those are very I mean, without which, we're in trouble. Right. And but going to that is that whole issue we had with going towards Twelfth
Avenue Mhmm. That way because of the water capacity and sewer capacity out that way. And so what that could mean. I mean, that's where our develop why we're not developing that way is because the water and sewer is not there. Yeah. It's getting closer. But this new development out there may prompt the extension of those utilities. We don't know, but I think it behooves the conversation. Right. Something to think about anyway. So that's that's roads and infrastructure,
capital investment for for maintenance equipment. The the staff to work ratio, right, in terms of maintenance and weeds and all that other stuff, and then water and sewer. Solid? We got one more pin. I'm sure. That would stay. Right. And, again, I like that. And your other suggestion? I think it was employees, wasn't it? Or staffing. Was that the other one down? You don't wanna have a a category called the city organization or the city. Oh. Called the city, and everything that paper's packed up with the organization and facilities and things like that.
Mhmm. Then I think you got it all. Yeah. Because I think it's consolidated too. Yeah. Like, the city. Put training on top again. Pardon me? Hence, I put training on top again. Still trying to go out with the title for it. But, you know System. Yeah. Employee experience, organizational. Yeah. Maybe it's maybe it's organizational vitality. You can use that word again. Just throw it out there twice. Organizational infrastructure. That'll work? So So organizational infrastructure, providing everything with all of their I know. I like to ask that. What are you talking about?
Oh, organization infrastructure. Again, I go back to that training and opportunities again, maximizing, the talent that we have inside of our organization. I know and I know we talk about that a lot with police and fire maintenance. They're going to trainings all the time, but it holds true regardless of where you're at. And and to Julie's point too, when you're talking when you which is, like, staffing and flexibility of staffing, like, how do we do that? Like, what does the what does the community development position look like in five years? Are they taking care of the PR stuff and,
social media stuff? Is that where that's leading us? Look if there's a You're in class to assist at the right reimagining positions. Right? How did we say it before? Is it up here? Yes. Enhancing organizational. Logicious. Yeah. Enhancing organization. Staff and organization structure. Structure. I just say careful so it doesn't so when people read this, they don't think everyone's gonna lose their job. No. Reimagining organizational efficiency. Who are they firing? We don't that's not the message that we're trying to send here. Words matter. That's why I was Words matter. Right, Jim? Yeah. Okay. Training enhancing I think that's important.
Your Facilities. Facilities. Facility needs. Yeah. Oh, I like that one too. Because that goes that goes to the It's a good one. Software we need. The software and efficient and and just convenience of it all. And, again, we talk about, you know, citizens coming in to pay a water bill, but someone who wants to build a house. Right? The building permits and stuff like that. All of you know, I wanna bring a business to town. Well, where's all the resources, and and how do we access that without having to drive to City Hall? We'll drive to City Hall when it has to. Small smart that it's not the same,
but I'm, like, trying to link it in with the CityVitality on some level. They're talking about a customer experience. Because I'm thinking of the CityVitality is like the experience that someone's gonna have within this community. Well because I I'm just trying to think of where the category I like that one. I was trying to think of where they go. Yeah. And and I guess for CityVitality, I'm thinking more like fun. I'm jamming. Yep. And and I know business is fun and that Service is a business. Yep. Business. The business is safe. Which is Okay. So, anyways, maximize training opportunities, enhancing organizational structure, long term facility development.
And what was our next one? If I wanted to come in town and put up a store to sell widgets, who'd be my first contact person? Hey. Or the Is that how you want it? Man. Is that how you want it? Yep. Okay. Not online where they can get some basics? You can you can, email the city right now, and it'll come to to us and we'll respond. Okay. Yep. It could be just a general question to the city inbox. So, mister Stoy, is your question, like, if I'm sitting in my office at 11:00 and I wanna know, does my business fit Dilworth, can I click on a link and and get a To to that effect?
Yeah. I mean, I see what you're saying. I mean, I know I understand it's the conversation is, you know, ultimately, but if you can kinda answer these initial Right. Like, with mayor Olsen's time. And and we're on the same page. I I agree. Like, if I'm sitting there and is that the con because your best ideas come at 11:00 at night. Sometimes. Yeah. Sometimes. I wonder what North has to offer. And can I click on the button? You're just gonna compare the like to like, Oh, that you can find. We have the incentives and everything. Yep. Right. And then Oh, but you got more of a specific question. We don't have the capacity. And that won't be there someday.
Basically, answering, you'll be able to dialogue with our official See, the county's changing theirs through a number of different things. To make everything more user friendly, far as ordinances. Right now, you can find it if you keep searching and searching, but they're making theirs user friendly for lack of better word. So you can easily find out Right. What you're searching for instead of getting frustrated. And That's my software again. And Right. We need to have the bot that's down there. Responding. How can I help you? Yeah. And then you type it in. CitiBot. Yeah. Has technology efficiency slash enhancements equals better user experience.
I don't know exactly I'll I'll need a retitling of it, but that's sort of the overall report we're kinda talking about here. Right. Because this helps employees work better, provides that you hit a remote opportunity, whatever that may be, helps retention. But at the same time, we're allowing a 19 year old to pay the water bill or apply for a dog license with their mobile phone. Well and and I think at the end of the day, when we look at if we put that one up, are we done with that one thing? I don't know. Is there anything else under an organizational infrastructure that we should put as for?
Feel pretty good about it. And I guess as we do a quick as we do a quick review, because I am thinking that we're gonna wrap this up in about the next one hundred and eighty seconds. When when we look at this across the board, are there any other because, Julie, you had one that popped out. I was like, hey. Where does senior housing fit? I mean, do we have any other moments that we could legitimately add to this to again, we're not having a complete picture. We're just talking key items. Right? So as far as the next steps go from here, I believe we have a solid list that we can build from as far as
taking them, then being able to put some actionable items after that. But also tangent to this entire conversation is our long range planning. A lot of it has to do on the transportation side and how we're gonna strategize that. I don't believe we'll be there until we hear back from the state on our safe routes to school grant application. As well as we also applied for community center application for some monies as well, to help fund some of the architectural fees on it.
But not that's not really outstanding. But we so my recommendation is we'll take this, condense it down a little bit, have a document. The council can review, you know, with the this being sort of the baseline. These are the five overarching themes that the council's focusing its attention on going forward in the future. And these are these actionable steps below that that we don't have up there at that time, but it also kinda intertwines some of these themes from the get go, that we were discussing.
Then we'll come back, have that conversation, making sure that document is clear and concise and that you're comfortable with, adopt it while at the same time having this conversation about the future transportation needs of the community. If I'm here? Please. Mayor Olsen, Peyton. I know I got, like, twenty seconds left. No. No. Good. Mayor's hundred and eighty seconds. I really like the fact that you mentioned the planning for infrastructure. I like a I would like something planned out, written down, and it can always be changed, obviously. But instead of every you're thinking, like,
every you're thinking, every you're thinking, this is that. I mean, once you got it stated, and you can kinda shuffle things, if something moves up, down, I think that'd be kinda a lot of value in having something like that. However, it happens, which I don't know how it happens. It helps from a budgeting standpoint. For everything, all the important. A lot of value in having that Yep. Written down. Anything else, mister Stecken? That's it. Any questions before we wrap this up and take a breath before our next meeting? Alright. So with that being said, we're gonna conclude our 02:00 meeting with planning,
and we'll call this meeting adjourned.