With it being 06:00, we will call our meeting to order and start with the pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of The United States Of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Alright. What's that? It does bring us to number two. Around the horn, please. Peterson here. Laura here. Spikeen here. Ash. And Olson. With that, it does bring us to our agenda. There is one additional consent agenda item, but everything else seems to be in place,
no other additions or subtractions. Motion to approve the agenda. I have a motion by Nash. Second. The second by Peterson. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carries. With that, we do have our consent, and the additional is four kilo four k. Any questions on the consent? I will entertain a motion. Motion to approve. A motion by Nash. Second. Second by Borra. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carries. With that, it does bring us to number five. Public comment period. Peyton, has there been any formal request to speak before council this evening?
None received. Once again, encourage the public to participate in our process. It is a great way to ensure we are making progress. With that, we do move to number six this evening of the recognition, and six alpha rec resolution twenty five thirty seven accepting a donation from Choice Bank for the Dilworth Police Department. Chief? Absolutely. This show is yours. Oh, this is Matthews. Mister mayor, council members, those present are watching remotely. Financial Group senior vice president and past city council member Steve Jasmine.
On behalf of the Dilworth Police Department, I wish to extend our sincerest thank you to Choice Bank and the Federal Home Loan Bank of Des Moines, Iowa for your exceptionally generous donation of $12,000 This significant contribution will be instrumental in funding various community events organized by our department. These incentives are vital in fostering even stronger relationships between the Dilworth Police Department and the Dilworth residents by promoting community engagement and enhancing public safety through collaborative efforts. Your commitment to the community's well-being and your support of our efforts are deeply appreciated.
This generous donation will have a tangible and positive impact on our ability to conserve to serve our community. And I look forward to sharing the positive outcomes made possible by Choice Bank and the Federal Home Loan Bank's generosity. Mister Desmond. Please bring the Happy Gilmore check. That's a big check. That is a big one. Let's hold it up there. Alright. So where so where's the camera? It's got you. Yeah. It's catching it? Yep. Alright. This is the big check. Wow. Wow. Anything else matters. Yeah. If we could put an extra zero on there when he leaves, it's fine. I'll take it with me. I got it.
Steve? Good. Thank you very much, sir. I appreciate your generosity. This is absolutely fantastic. So I appreciate it, mister Guise, for the community outreach programs. It's it's a great cause. I will pass it on to Stacy. I know. Oh, we can do photo? Yep. Oh, alright. Let's do photo. We need a couple people to pull the check, maybe. Couple people to pull this up here? Alright. Hey. You guys coming up? We can stand behind you. I Why don't you stand up? Yep. Oh my gosh. Everyone can stand down if I look tall. So I'll see you there. Yeah. So you look taller? Yes. I know. Stand by you with that one. That is fantastic.
I will. Bring it. We'll check it. Oh, yeah. Why not? Steve, we picked you up just as pick it up, like, on the day. Oh. There you go. Straighten off. There you go. 321. Very cool. Have you got it? Thank you so much. Alright. That's awesome. Steve, thanks, Piper. No. Thank you. That is awesome. Thank you all. Thank you. Thank you. Found That's That's amazing. No. I just really don't. The generosity of Steve Jasmine is one thing. He's committed a lot of time, to the city of Dilworth, obviously, as a as a council member,
but also as a citizen volunteer who has taken on a tremendous role in the development of our community center and been an outstanding voice in pragmatic, approaches to this new facility. His leadership has always been greatly appreciated, and the generosity from his employer and the institution will undoubtedly be put to great use by our police department. So on behalf of the City of Doris, Steve, thank you very much on many levels. Thank you, Mayor. Appreciate it. Have a good evening. And like someone who's been to a lot of city council houses,
he knows when to go. Again, that is simply outstanding. I look forward to what, like, Hunter was saying and what Stacy plans on doing. So they do a remarkable job with that. It does move us to number seven, however, as we continue business as usual. Oh, we have both? Oh, we have to yes, we got so excited about the big check. Thank you, Jessica. I appreciate that. Just a quick, point of order. Yeah. Anyone want to, approve that resolution and donation? I would like to make a motion to approve it. Thank you, Nash. And Second. Second by Peterson. All those in favor,
say aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carries. Again, thanks, Jess. With that, it does move us to number seven. Fire department considered pay request number 18 for the fire hall reconstruction project. Well, I was just thinking, like, maybe at the next project, we could do checks like that, once a month. Are you bringing them in? Because that's not all for the opposite way. No. No. Thanks for having me here again today. You know, I look back. Unfortunately, we're a little bit under the gun here trying to get the parking lot landscaping done. But I look back since our last meeting, we've had about 15 inch fifteen days of rain went about six and a half
inches. So we've been contending with a lot of rain over the last month, which has hampered getting that parking lot wrapped up. But I think the guys are doing a pretty good job, working when they can. We did end up having to take out some of the some bad fill that was in that location. So that was all part of we knew we knew that that was potential. So, and that was covered in contract. So this week, we're working on today, they finished the concrete work. They finished grading the, the gravel for asphalt, and they're gonna start placing black dirt around the site.
Base course of asphalt will is expected to be installed between the fifteenth and the eighteenth and continuing landscaping throughout the week. Next week, we'll complete the landscaping and wear course on the twenty third twenty second and twenty third. So barring any more additional rain, we should be in very good shape for the pancake fee. Any questions? All right. Well, thank you very much. And from my vantage, where we've sat in the time frame, like, let's not rush the last thing. And we're not.
I mean, it's not that we're the guys are cutting any corners or doing anything odd. It's just, it's just what nature's given us out there. And, it's coming together really nicely, and we'll we'll finish it all strong for you guys. So with that, I will entertain a motion for pay request 18. So moved. A motion by Nash. Second. Second by Borah. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carries. Thank you. It won't be a big check, but I guarantee it will cash. Right, Perry? Hey. They haven't Okay. Yeah. I haven't We haven't had any issues yet. So Alright. Thanks, everyone. Yeah. Thank thank you.
With that, it does bring us to number eight. We have updates, eight alpha. We have update from West Central Initiative, our annual report. We have, Greg Wagner, sorry, sir, with WCI presenting this evening. It's It's all yours, sir. All good. Hey. Thank you, mister mayor and members of the council. I appreciate the opportunity to be here tonight to visit with you. My name is Greg Wagner. I'm the director of business and economic development at West Central Initiative. So, we like to come and visit our partner communities every year as much as we possibly can and update you on our activities.
And, you'll notice that check on the cover, it's it's an impressive number, but it's not as impressive as the, check that was just brought to the police department. But, so, what that represents is we are approaching our fortieth, year of existence, next April, and we thought it would be, an interesting endeavor to, come to our our city council visits and share, the amount of grants and loans we've invested into each community over the last almost forty years. So, as you can see in for the the members of in attendance and on TV,
that check equates to about $1,620,000 of total grants and loans from West Central Initiative or our component funds that we administer into the city of Delaware. So, I'm here just to kind of provide an overall update. What I did hand out is, last year's annual report, just kind of highlighting, some key top stories of, what happened in the last year in in all of our programs. And a lot of people wonder, like, what exactly does West Central Initiative do? We are a regional community foundation, and we're a regional planning organization,
But we do a whole lot, and, our comms team did their best to encapsulate what we do into this one pager summary. So it just kind of covers all of our work, community funds, climate resilience. We bring, people together to discuss and debate important topics. We administer donor advised funds. Early childhood, childcare is a big conversation all across the state and nation, and we continue to work diligently on trying to solve some of that equation, with funding and technical assistance.
We provide grants to communities and nonprofits. We, administer a fellowship program with some other partner organizations. Kind of our our most, upfront and visible, work is in our lending department. I oversee our lending, and so we partner with banks, like Choice Bank and, Bell Bank here right here down the street, Northwestern. Pretty much any bank, that wants to invest in community commercial, projects. We help businesses get started, and we do that through gap financing or small micro loans. We have welcoming campaigns. I can go on and on,
but, just, we do a lot. We do a lot to try to create thriving quality communities where people wanna live, work, and play. And, it's been almost forty years now, so it's been a lot. So one of the things that I did wanna highlight is, one of the programs that I'm administering, we saw a lot of state dollars come through our organization in the past year, initially through COVID relief. And then it was kind of those small business support programs after the pandemic is wrapping up, but the supply chain issues and inflation were still affecting businesses.
And then, the state provided a Main Street Revitalization Grant Fund. It was statewide, and West Central was named as an administrator, and we created three corridors with interested communities across our nine county service area, one down in Browns Valley, one in, the city of Morris. And then we had enough interest along the Highway 10 corridor here from, you know, the start at the Red River Valley or the Red River on Center Avenue all the way to Bluffton that we created a pool of funds for businesses along that,
Highway 10 corridor to apply for. And two businesses in Dilworth were recipients of those funds. One, Valley Hardwood Supply. Unfortunately but fortunately, the the fire loss that they sustained, brought some additional funding to them. So we were able to provide a a sizable grant investment, from those state funds, to the tune of $135,000 for their reconstruction to so they can continue to operate here in the city of Dilworth. And then, the Starlight Hotel and the the, I think it's a doggy day care hotel behind it.
The the redevelopment and kind of the renovations of the actual former hotel, I think, Rick does plan to bring that back into function. Well, hey. It's you back there. Working with him on getting on, some, some of the funding reimbursed on that project as well. I'll pause there. I wanna you guys are running a tight ship, so I don't wanna go over any amount of time here, but I'd happy to answer any questions. No. And, again, sir, we're we're happy to hear from you and, again, refresh a lot of us for to remember just the scope, what West Central does and how it is impacting us.
So I'm taking notes, and I'm learning as we go. So is there any questions from council as we take a pause? You can continue on, sir, if you have other information. And just, you know, Peyton and, Don keep me on the phone and and engaged with what's going on here. So we're always looking to find projects and funding or opportunities to bring businesses in and or fund businesses. So you guys are, a growing city. I noticed some new construction in that rail district again going on. So it's and,
you know, the the, fire hall and the the new, community center. So good stuff is happening in this community. Mr. Steichen. Mayor and Mr. Wagner, as we're working on getting our community centerwhatever it might be more figured out, I guess, for lack of better words, Is there any help or guidance we would expect or appreciate to get from you? Is that something that's in line with what you do, or am I barking up the wrong tree? Not necessarily barking up the wrong tree.
We can definitely have conversations and focus in on, like, are you looking for funding for programming, funding for capital investment? You know, what components? And then if we can't help, we're we have a pretty strong network of folks that we can put you in touch with the right people to talk to. So Would that involve everything from an efficient building design to, I don't know, at the conference in Duluth, we had some visits with people that are dealing with, OGIS energy concerns as far as,
everything from geothermal to electric windows I heard about. That's kind of an amazing thing I never even knew existed. To, different other, high end technology of, you know, windows lighting, design, I guess, and, excels, carbon footprint. It's it's just all kind of a big encompassing thing that they were promoting. So I imagine it's nothing new to you, what they are talking about, this Energy Coalition has been working on. Yeah. There we do have a couple staff members that work very closely with,
energy efficiency, resiliency, sustainability. And the conversations now, too, really are related to, putting those energy efficiency measures or solar or, what have you as part of community buildings and community facilities as kind of a resiliency center. If there is a natural disaster, battery backups are becoming components of that. So we're working a lot on that. So, you know, both the solar, can produce revenue for the for the community and for the city if it's on a municipal home building, but also having that solar feed into a battery backup in the event of a
disaster and long term power outage for people to have a a safe place to go, are conversations we have with communities quite a bit. So that definitely right in line of of where our work aligns and what we can put you in touch with. I know a lot of that is dependent on, credits and things from the gov federal government that may or may not be here tomorrow. So Yeah. We're keeping a a pretty close eye on what availability there is for right now, the kind of the commercial,
which community, you know, municipal municipalities would fall into are okay for a couple more years. It's the residential ones that are going rather quickly, but we're keeping an eye on that too, definitely as part of our work. Thank you. Any other questions? I guess mine is more of a statement and probably from a planning perspective. As we're looking at the Highway 10 corridor study and the impacts of that, we're looking at our four block area from our currently existing stoplight. Would there be an opportunity, and may this a question that you can work out with Peyton and full time
staff, is there a way to identify and gather funds or get funds for redevelopment of our existing Highway 10 corridor businesses downtown? Is there the grant funds and opportunities that we're not aware of that could be used to incentivize reinvestment in areas downtown along our Highway 10 corridor? Yes. We had some talk about the state program, small cities development program. There's a a lot to that program, but definitely you know, we we watched what, what happened at the legislature and a lot of the state funding well,
as as you all did too, a lot of the state funding, the traditional state funding even that had existed for, for grant programs really didn't see a whole lot, come of that. So, but, yeah, we're always on the lookout for for other funding opportunities. So, the I would say besides that small communities development program, there's probably not gonna be a lot of redevelopment grant funding. But, you know, one of the things that we offer in partnership with with lenders are lower interest gap loans.
So kinda make that cash flow a little easier to handle when a business does wanna make that investment, but they need to to seek financing to do it. So we're happy to have those conversations. Okay. Well, good. Any other questions from council? Well, thank you again. Thank you, mister mayor. Let's see you again, sir. Good to see you. Be well. So with that, we'll move to eight b, and we have, the Clay County Heartland Trail Routing Analysis. Good evening. Good evening. Thank you, mayor and council members. We'll get going on our presentation.
We are going through the, show here, and you guys are toward the end, so we're saving the best for last. So anyway, it's, I got Stewart here with SRF Consulting and then myself, with Metro COG. And so we'll do a presentation for you all on this study that we are looking to adopt in August. So from there, I'll turn it over to Stuart. Great. Thanks, Dan. Mayor, members of the council, my name is Stuart Crosby. I'm project manager with SRF Consulting Group, and we've been working with, the Metro COG and, other stakeholders on the Heartland Trail study in Clay County. And as you can see here,
just a few quick background slides. It's something that you all are very familiar with, but the Heartland Trail currently is a 49 49 mile paved trail, that extends from Park Rapids to Cass Lake. It's one of the first rails to trails projects in the country, and it was started, construction was started in 1976 from Park Rapids to Walker. So, Peyton, are you running here? Thanks. Next slide is In this area, in 02/2006, the state of Minnesota authorized the extension of the Heartland Trail from Park Rapids to Morehead and in 2014, Metro COG created the Heartland
Trail Task Force in Clay County with the focus of looking at the trail between Morehead and Park Rapids. In the last few years, in the next slide here, in the last few years, there have been some, segments constructed, primarily between Detroit Lakes and Frazee. There was a five mile stretch and there is some additional, work going on in, that area as well this year. So work is happening in this part of the the state. Turn it over to Dan here for some background information and engagement. Sure. Thank you. So in, beginning of twenty twenty four,
MetroCog kicked off this study. Most aggressive study we've done with this. Before it was more just grassroots type effort. So we got, organized here. And so the study here that we're presenting, we partnered with Clay County, City of Dilworth, Partnership for Health, City of Morehead, and City of Glendon. So they all contributed funds for this study and then, really 80% of the funding was through Metro COGS, federal funds. So you can see on that next slide the timeline of this study. Again, we started in January of last year, and then we started with looking at existing and planned conditions,
what's out there and what's kind of planned along these potential corridors. And then looking at a host of different alignments for this, trail. And so anything, kind of around that Highway 10 corridor north and south plus or minus, three, four miles or so. And looking at cost estimates, how much would it cost, for different alignment alternatives and all the features along that. And then looking at implementation plans. So where do we start? Where do we end? What phases should be done first, second, third, and so on. And, then putting together a draft study report, and that's what we have in front of you in your packet.
And, then once we're done presenting to everyone, we will go ahead and bring it to our policy board for, adoption, and that will become a final plan at that point. So we're expecting that to be done in August here. And then going on to, a big part of our plan here is public engagement. So we wanted to bring this out to the public and see, what they preferred for alignment alternatives, wanted to meet with landowners and other stakeholders along this corridor. So, in July of twenty twenty four we had our first public open house and then
also we had a second public open house, going over the narrowing down the three alignments and seeing what people preferred. And then we also had a landowner meeting in October of twenty twenty four. This was just right before the public open house. We wanted to ping all the landowners along this corridor and just ask what their questions were, concerns were, thoughts were with the different alignment alternatives. And then, stakeholder meetings, we had two of those as well throughout the study process. So stakeholders would have been Buffalo River State Park, would have been the snowmobile clubs,
townships, quite a few stakeholders, including our legislative delegation for this area as well. Pop up events. We had, four different pop up events in 2024. If there was an event going on, we said, hey. Let's put a booth here. And so we had a few and, apologize as I'm looking at this. We didn't have Dilworth on there, but, I'm not sure if the the timing worked out with some of the events there. So had to kind of do it when we could. Alright. On this slide here, we had some great input from the public, a lot of interactions, and besides the in person meetings that you saw in the previous slide,
we had online engagement. And so for online engagement if you look at that table on the bottom of the screen we had a total of over 2,000 total visitors to our website throughout the course of the study and then we had three fifty for contributions to the website. So whether it was a comment, or taking a survey, that's what the contributions were. So we have this online mapping tool that you can see on the side of the slide here. People could put a pin, drop a pin of locations where they said, oh, this is a good idea to have the trail here or this is a beautiful
area. Let's do this feature or, I have a concern at this location. You know, maybe this is not the best spot for a trail. So it was great to get that kind of feedback. And then, we had a survey toward the beginning of the study about what type of, how would you use the trail and what type of trails, what kind of activities would you like to use it for, whether it's exercise or just being out in nature and so on. And then we had a survey of the segments of the trail of what alignments would you prefer. And going to the next slide here this is zoomed into segment number one. We broke it into four segments and Stuart will dive into those shortly but,
this is the western segment which would be Morehead, Dilworth and Glendon. One thing I'll point out here, and Stuart will talk about that too I guess, is you can see that that swath of, aerial photo and you see a more grayed out area toward the perimeter. Everything within that swath is within the DNR's study area from a plan when this was, when they did their master plan of the Heartland Trail corridor way back in 2011. And so our corridor has to our state trail that we're looking at here has
to be within that shaded area so within that clear shaded area so now it could be without, if there's a segment of the trail but we just have to take some different measures there which Stuart can talk about but one thing you'll notice on this slide here is, if you see kind of a little series of those red I'm have a concern, that'd be the Highway 10 corridor. And so, that's one thing we did hear from the public is that they would prefer for the trail to not be along a busy highway like that, even if it is, far into the ditch there. Just not the most enjoyable for a lot of folks.
So, you'll see the different quarters that we're presenting here. And so and we could talk a little bit also about the resolution that, Dilworth had. They passed it 2020, I believe it was. Just wanting the trail to go through the core of the city on Highway 10. And so, a little bit of a a change from that or just some reasons why we're looking at a slightly different alignment through there. So we can talk about that. So with that, I'll pass it back over to Stuart. Thanks, Dan. So as Dan mentioned, we have four different segments that we look at we looked at through this, this project study. The first segment is one starting at Morehead on the West Side,
and we'll extend through all of these. I think, for you all this is probably the most, interesting and important just because of how the trail corridor is proposed to extend through Dilworth. As Dan mentioned, the aerial image is the DNR's focus area for the trail. If the trail goes outside of that or if our alignment is proposed to go outside of that, then the DNR has to amend their master plan, which is a long process. So we worked really hard to make sure that we're sticking within that. And as you can see, the blue line is our proposed alignment for the trail.
We have some other alternative alignments as well that I'll mention here in a minute. But the trail starts in Morehead, and extends east on Fifteenth Avenue and then through public input and communication with our advisory committee, we're showing the trail going south on Fourteenth Street through the rail district. There's a couple reasons for that. One is, one of the primary concerns in Dilworth is getting across the railroad tracks. And as you all know, Main Street is really challenging. We have had conversations with the railroad and with potential future bridge crossing over the
rail area at Fourteenth, this would be an ideal location to put a trail. So I'll show you in just a second a potential cross section for how that trail could be worked into a bridge over the railroad there. But this also provides a great opportunity to have a trailhead and really a location for people to get on the trail in the rail district. So it's not along the Highway 10 corridor but based on public input and a desire to create a node in a developing area of Dilworth, rail districts seem like a great location.
Once it gets across the railroad and heads south, the trail will extend east on Twelfth Avenue all the way to Buffalo River State Park. It goes South of Glendon and as you can see there, there's a dark green line that extends into Downtown Glendon. That is an existing concrete trail segment that's already been constructed, so that would be a local trail connection into town with a trailhead right there. On the next slide is segment two, and I'll just run through these then we can come back to Dilworth. But the trail will extend east on Twelfth Avenue,
past Glendon, and toward Buffalo River State Park. The DNR worked with us. They were on our committee and, they raised several concerns about Buffalo River State Park, primarily the cultural and archaeological and natural resources of the park. They said that there would have to be a lot of different studies to identify a route through the park and so we have a couple of different options there. Most likely, and the one that we're showing really as our primary, is extending north on County Road 9, east on the in the Highway 10 corridor,
and then south into the park at the main entrance. The trail could meander through the park and then through the Science Center land and then exit in the southeast corner of the park along Seventeenth Avenue. The DNR has in their park master plan, paved trail through the park, but they recognize that there's a lot of work to be done, as I mentioned. And so that might be one of the first steps is to coordinate with the DNR on how you could get a trail connecting to and through the park. The public's primary interest in this whole corridor in this area is to get to the park, and that's one of the main reasons that we're showing the trail along Twelfth Avenue
is because that gets people directly to the park. And so if we could get an entrance, a trail entrance on the south side of the railroad and on the river into the park that would be ideal for trail users. East of the park, the trail extends toward Highway 23. It goes north across the railroad, the only accurate rail crossing, and then across the Buffalo River, and then it extends east, along Twelfth Avenue and Fourteenth, eventually making its way into Holly. And with the Downtown Holly trailhead,
one of the challenging areas in Holly is getting under or over the railroad there, and, we have some ideas for how to do that. We've been talking with Holly and the railroad. But really, from Holly going northeast, the trail extends along Junction Avenue all the way to the Becker County line. So this is something that, we looked at multiple different routes, north of the highway, south of the highway, and one of the key things is to connect communities and make that trail connection both for the multi use trail users including walkers,
runners, and bikers, but also in the winter for snowmobilers and fat tire bikers, cross country skiers, etc. So going back to the in the next slide here going back to the area around Dilworth, we have a couple of cross sections. These are typical cross sections for the trail. The first one on top is at Fifteenth Avenue, what that trail could look like along Fifteenth Avenue. What we're showing here is that the trail could be on the south side of Fifteenth Avenue, between the current drainage ditch and the roadway itself right there. We looked at a couple of options, one on the south side of the ditch,
one on the north side of the ditch. Both would be, I think, really nice as a trail but it, with in terms of right of way and and uses on the south side of the ditch, this is one of the the primary segments or ideas we have for that Fifteenth Avenue stretch. So the trail would be paved 10 feet wide with a two to four foot buffered shoulder between the roadway and the trail. And as I mentioned, that Fourteenth Street bridge over the railroad, we would like to see a buffered 10 foot or 12 foot trail as you can see here on one side on it would be on the the east side
of the of the bridge right there, which would provide an opportunity for bicyclists and pedestrians to get across the the, the railroad tracks. In our next slide here, we show a concept for a Rail District trailhead, and this is a great location we think for a trailhead because you have immediate parking there, you have places for people to stop on the trail, and get lunch or snacks or drinks. And, if they're starting here, they can, they can set their bikes on the bike rack and to get ready and then
head out. So this would be a great amenity. Trailheads are typically developed as part of the trail itself, and so as part of that development plan, this would be something that would be covered by the cost of the trail development. One of the key things that we have looked at is how this project would get phased over the future and costed. We put a cost estimate for each of the four segments, together, and then we looked even more closely at phasing. What we are proposing is really focusing on development from Morehead to the East,
and that's what you see here with segments one, two, and three. Segment two obviously really will depend a lot on development in Dilworth around the rail district and also with that Fourteenth Avenue Bridge, that how that, Fourteenth Street Bridge, excuse me, how that develops. But, throughout the public process, we heard from the public that the real interest is getting from Morehead to the state park. And so we see this area on the West is probably the first and foremost area for development. On the East side, Holly to the Becker County line is probably something that would happen in conjunction with
Becker County and any trail development that happens there. So that's not to say that that won't happen. It might not happen last, especially because Becker County has a lot of momentum right now in their trail development. But it's likely that segment six would have to happen in concurrence with Becker County. Then the last slide here is really next steps. What is what is next for this now that the study has been done and identifies cost estimates phasing and a preferred alignment? The recommendation is to set up a task force and identify lead entities, if that's the county or if it's, the FM COG.
We have to determine whether or not it's going to be a state trail or a regional or local trail and there are a couple of things about that. The master plan that the DNR put together shows the state trail corridor going all the way to Morehead. But there are different opportunities for funding if it is considered a regional trail, and that would be through the Greater Minnesota Regional Parks and Trails Council where you can get, funding for regional trails. I think a big decision that has to be made, whether it goes state or regional, is about maintenance and operations costs and who would be in charge of that. Because if it's a state trail,
the DNR typically will cover those maintenance and operation costs. The challenge is the state and the DNR do not have, any money or plans set aside for these segments of the Heartland Trail right now. So it might be a faster process to go for a regional trail, but then that also puts more burden on the local entities for finding funds for development and for operations and maintenance. After that, really, it's pursuing funding sources, and then getting into environmental reviews, right of way review and acquisition,
trail design, and in, that all of that would include landowner discussions, and then obtaining funding and beginning construction. This isn't something that's going to happen overnight. With these six phases, this is probably a ten to twenty year process. And really, the benefit of having a plan like this is that it allows communities, Metrocog, and the county to plan for trail segments if there are other projects in the area. If there are roadway projects, if there's any development that's occurring, this plan will help to facilitate and guide getting right of way and possibly even
some trail segments constructed. So I think with that, we can pause and see if there are any questions. Thank you, sir. Questions from counsel? I just want to say thanks for coming again. I was hoping from planning commission, I was like, okay, that shaded area, the clear area on the map means something. I was on my notes, so I'm glad you explained that one again. I was like, wait a minute. There's Yes. Thank you. Great job from you both. And you alluded to it just a little bit during the presentation, but can you explain to the council why we had to tweak the alignment to
Fourteenth Street as opposed to coming in on Highway 10? Right. Do you want me to take a stab at that? Yeah. I'll take a stab at that. Yeah. So we definitely considered that, seriously, the resolution that the council made back five years ago. And there is just a number of reasons. I mean, there was a public feedback that they really preferred not being along Highway 10. There's also challenges of, traversing the interstate, or excuse me, the interchange to the east. And then, also, like we had heard, in order to get at some point, need to get it south of Highway 10 there and deal with the railroad tracks too. So we know there's an opportunity coming along with Fourteenth Street,
grade separation of the railroad track and with the rail district, being a kind of up and coming type of a downtown type, feel there, we also talked with technical staff, and they felt like that would be a a good option, in lieu of the the downtown area. But I think there might be a few other reasons here too. Just, we'd also recognize that with the Highway 10, study here and the reconstruction of Highway 10 that there would be a, type of a spur type of trail along Highway 10 similar to what you see in Glendon where, that could feed into the Heartland Trail alignment as well. Any other questions?
Mister Steichen, mister mayor, and Dan, mister Crosby. Couple of things. Can you go to this section where you're trying to get into Buffalo Park? Mhmm. Of those three options, you said looks like the one that you kinda shows option one in our packet going up to Highway 10. Is there you know, for people not wanting to be on Highway 10, is that kind of almost what needs to be at this point going up to 10 to get in there? Is that difficult to take the other two routes? Yeah. And that it's a good question. I think it could be almost potentially that northern one could be the the initial
segment and then slowly working with the DNR to try and punch into the park from the, west if possible. The few challenges we have, like Stuart was saying, is the sensitive, archaeological and, environmental areas there, but also that's private land and those two segments there too. So there hasn't really been discussion with those landowners yet, and there would have to be to make that possible. The other thing is, Fourteenth Street going over the railroad tracks. Who knows when that'll happen? Mhmm. I mean, it'll likely happen sometime. Are you still thinking about going 30 Fourth Street
even though it's out of the DNR's purview? That's a great question. Maybe I'll have, Stuart answer this one. Yeah. Council Member Second, that's a great question. And I was gonna mention that but forgot, so I'm glad you brought that up. The blue line is the preferred option with Fourteenth Street and the overpass over the railroad. But knowing that that may take several years, there is the option to use 30 Fourth and then Twelfth, which is the green dash line you see right there. That has the benefit of primarily being an existing trail over the railroad. There's only about a mile long stretch on Twelfth Avenue that would have to be
constructed. So, it goes outside of the DNR's buffer, but because this is a constructed trail and it would be a temporary alignment, that is likely not going to be a problem with the DNR in terms of funding because we still show the primary alignment as the blue alignment that comes on Fifteenth to Fourteenth to Twelfth. So, let's say fifteen years down the road, the Fourteenth Street Bridge gets constructed, there's trail on Fifteenth, and you've got that great trailhead in the rail District. What will end up happening is you have a benefit of trail connections on both
sides of Dilworth. So you'll be able to get to the trail on Twelfth or on Fifteenth. So, in the long run, that will be a real benefit to have a couple of trail options. But it is something that, phased over time, will be on thirty fourth and then on Fourteenth. I know this. Moorhead was you know, Centennial Park is a great Trailhead location, obviously. To get a spur into Moorhead, does that fall within your study as well? It you want me to jump in there? Sure. Go for it. Well, so, yes. When with our conversation with Morehead City Council, there was some, I'd say, disappointment with not having the trailhead right downtown.
And we explained our process and why, with Centennial being the great location for it. So we're actually going to be adding to our plan, the idea of a local trail connection to get a trailhead downtown that would then feed people up to the Centennial Park Trailhead or east along Twelfth Avenue. So that there is a a facility and a and a Heartland Trail Trailhead down in Downtown Moorhead. Kevin? I thought at one point, the Trailhead was supposed to be at Gooseberry that then it would then connect to Linenwood and Fargo,
but that's in your grade area there. Right. I yeah. I don't recall that unless it might have been a different trail segment, or maybe it was the route. I'm not sure which one that could have been. There's also a bike route that's being discussed within Minnesota. And what's so appetizing about, Centennial? Well, Centennial has, a lot of parking right now, and so that's, I think, one of the key components to it. It also is a great location to connect into the Fargo Moorhead Trail network. There are a couple of options for being on the South Side and going along Twelfth. The difficulty or the I would say the what we didn't like about that is
that it wouldn't allow a connection into Dilworth. If it went along Twelfth Avenue and the Trailhead were in downtown, Moorhead, then the trail would probably pass on South Side of Dilworth, and we would have a local trail connection as we're showing in Glendon. So we felt that, Centennial to Fifteenth and coming down through Dilworth was a better option for making that downtown connection in Dilworth. We like that connection to Dilworth. Any other questions? Ian, thanks, Dan and Stuart, for coming to council. They did a great job discussing this with planning last week,
the first Wednesday in July. We appreciate the opportunity and the partnership with putting actually a plan in place to move this forward. It's a significant step and has some great potential for Moorhead, Delworth, Hood and Holly down the road. So it's an excellent opportunity. Thank you, gentlemen, very much. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks for your time. Thank you, Peyton. Peyton, just with a quick question with that. I mean, they're talking about putting together the lead agency. No, I'm just making the assumption that it's not going to be us. But what do we measure our level of participation with that being?
Do you want you wanna handle that question? Yeah. Because it's what we're doing. Nah. Just kidding. Yeah. I'm just saying that's a really good question as far as, like, what the what we're doing on that end of things. Right. So we'll, we're looking to create this task force again. So it'd be representation from Dilworth, Glendon, the county, definitely the county, Moorhead, and Holly, and the DNR. So you really get this group together and say, okay. What who's who's gonna be the lead agency? Now it's kinda fallen between looks like it might be Metrocog or it might be Clay County. So either would make sense. And so we're gonna have to figure that out. Now as far as participation goes,
I would say and we could split this group into different segments just like the trail is too. So say if we're focusing on the Western segment, it could be Dilworth and Morehead and Clay County, Glendon. But, yeah, I could see some type of participation, maybe even some who knows if there'd be any cost participation needed or not. But I think as far as the construction of it goes, that's when we'd look at all the different funding sources, most likely through the state, if that answers your question. Yeah. Absolutely. Thank you very much. Mhmm. Most likely state funded. Well, or depending if we go regional,
maybe there's a different opportunity for investments. And like and that's in your portfolio now, right? Heartland Trail. Okay. That was great. And I know I'm looking forward to the opportunity as that's going to grow and become increasingly frequent in our meetings and on our agenda. So again, thank you, and I look forward to seeing you again in the future. I want to ask you more questions. Thank you. So with that, it does move us to eight Charlie. We have our twenty twenty five local days festivities. We have our Co Chairs, Jim McLaughlin and Lisa Kildee, here presenting this evening. Gentlemen,
lady, the floor is yours. Thank you. Thank you, mayor and council members. Local days is here again if you can believe it or not. And I feel like we should play a game of, can you spot the difference of the agenda? Few changes this year. We, added a magic, factory show on our Saturday. We have our all all school reunion on Saturday as well. That was put together by the all school reunion team committee, but we integrated it into, local days to try to accommodate, everything altogether. We have some events that didn't show back up this year.
We're hoping to get them back again in other years, but, mainly, we got lots of lots of good stuff. Do you have anything, Jim, in particular? Well, I think the magic show is gonna be a nice addition. We, decided not to do the croquis contest or the croquis on Saturday afternoon just because there's lots of other croquis going on during the week, and we just kinda felt it was repetitive, and so we wanna change it up a little bit. The inflatable games, the plan is to go out of the east side of, the Silver Spike over there and the grass over there that's ready this year.
So our plan is to try to keep people kind of more in in the rail district itself. And, no. Other than that, things are, coming together. We're gonna have a coffee with Cashco again on Tuesday, so I'm hoping, mayor Olsen is on board for that and and stuff. So lots of good things and a lot of, you know, radio promotions and things going on. So, yeah, we're ready. It's, I think it's gonna be a good chance to pull again. So I'll just add to that. You know, in all the years I've worked and been on the localize committee,
we've had great community support from our community businesses. And, this year is no different. We've actually, I think, fundraised the most we that we've I've seen in the five years I've been on the committee. So it's just just great to see the continual support from our community and businesses. And, you know, we're trying to treat this with trying to get people into businesses around here and, you know, for our patrons of of Dilworth to support the the sponsors that support us. So it's been really great. Yeah. Allows us to do what we need to do and so and give this back
to our community to have the events for everyone of all ages. So Great opportunity as always to promote Dilworth, and so look forward to doing that. Awesome. Any questions from council? Or the I would Amazing. I I would just say my hat's off to these two and the entire LOPA Days Committee, frankly. But you get to see it at planning, but Lisa is a machine. Yeah. You know? Very organized. It's just impressive to watch. The way that these two and Peyton
steer the ship through I mean, I'm not kidding when I say that local days is a close second to We Fest as far as summer festivals go, in my opinion. So, hats off. It will be a success. It'll be great. And as you mentioned, you know, the whole the whole crux of it is to highlight and show off deal worth businesses and get community involvement for, you know, just the the, you know, the the civic pride to be,
you know, a part of Dilworth and a part of LocoDez. So thank you two very much and Peyton as well. Well done. Thank you, Kevin. Peyton? Yes. It's a joint effort from everyone involved. Obviously, our Co Chairs here are doing an amazing job, great ambassadors of the community. I did want to make mention that we are going to be offering the shuttle again this year. So encourage folks to take it. It'll be along the same route again. So, we, you know, hope to keep that organized. But, yeah, very grateful for the committee extends beyond just the collection of individuals that come to
the local days meetings, even though a lot of the work is done there. It also extends to, you know, all of our city staff. Jessica and Angela do a tremendous job as does Mike, the police department. Everyone, it's a it's a team effort to make this a go. And, yeah, and the business community has been great to work with. I think it's been a great integration on the part of the committee to host it in a different capacity than what it's been done in, the past years, but still preserving some of those traditions like the parade going down Highway 10.
So really excited about everything and look forward to next week. Anything else from Costa? Again, thank you both very much. I am really looking forward to local days, and I know it it is definitely, like I said, a team effort. And we've got a solid team from from top to bottom. Lottie, dottie, everybody puts their hands in and gets the work done. So I appreciate that. Thank you for coming this evening. Thank you. Got a lot going on. ABC. Crazy. I'll just be charging. That does move us to number nine, planning and engineering. Nine alpha, we have resolution twenty five thirty eight,
ordering preparation of report on improvements located West Of Seventh Street Northeast at that location you can see. Peyton? Thank you, mister mayor and members of the council. As Don and Andrew work their way up to the table here, I'll kick start this presentation on I I wish they could've did they did they hear Don's eyes roll? Collected eye roll. The area the the area to the west of Seventh Street Northeast, which I know we've discussed, before as far as potential for future development,
the developers and landowners of the area are ready to take that next step and see some development there, as you can see up on the screen. So the purpose of tonight's meeting is really an initiation of the four twenty nine process. There's a couple of ways these processes come about. Normally, when you'll see a local improvement, a petition can be brought forward by a property owner or property owners, and that kick start the process. Then Then at that point, we send it to more engineering to prepare a report.
This one is gonna be similar in nature to what was done Fourteenth Street in the Keystone project out there, and it's a initiated project on the city's end. So we're really the initiating force behind this project, and the main reason for that is because of the extension of Eighth Avenue. Eighth Avenue is currently reflected as an area wide assessment, zone or district, we'll call it here. We I I know I put the special assessment district map in your agenda packet, but Andrew did update a little bit with the,
with the aerial mapping as you can see here today. So this is the area that we're referencing, Eighth Avenue coming across. And you can see currently how it is. It falls within this zone, up to here, bisecting this property and working its way down to almost Fourth Avenue. But a little bit about the project itself. The development, as you can see, is gonna be along what's on the South Side of Eighth Avenue, and it's a mixture of MDR, medium density residential.
That medium density residential is what's being proposed as part of the comprehensive plan update that we're teaming up with Metro COG and our planning commission staff, and that's been reflected as, medium density residential showing a combination of that missing middle housing, really strong starting to take an emphasis with it. A mixture of twin homes up to that eight unit variation, those numbers aren't specifically, nailed down yet with the developer,
but that's the intent of that, to find a mixture of housing. Working your way up to the north to this twin home area, then north of what this future eighth Avenue would be would more so match the integrity of what you would see in Summerwood, like a traditional low density residential subdivision. So a few things that I've asked the council to consider as this as we work through all this, you know, the extent to which Eighth Avenue should be extended over. You know, we're reflecting it right don't get caught up on where it's terminating right now,
but there's a few options that the city council will have as we work through this. It could end so this is our land right here that the city of Dilworth owned or that so the city of Dilworth now possesses, the the Northside Park addition that we've done over the past couple years. So terminating the road right here, terminating the road maybe on through our property or potentially going beyond that. Obviously, that would involve the work with another landowner and, and then Eastview Land Development again over by County Road 9.
Another question is about the scope and size of the regional stormwater pond. So the the thought process is within the Northside Park Edition land as part of a feature of what a future park would be, It would have a pond that supports that entire I guess that's a half section over to County Road or or that yeah. The entire section over to County Road 9, Fifteenth Avenue in between that entire,
general vicinity there. And if only the we'll say that the first phase could potentially of a pond could just support half of it, which would cover this. Anything north of Eighth Avenue, There's potential you could do the entire pond right now, and so that will be a question that the council will have to consider as part of this whole process. And, also, I wanted you to consider about the Northside Park addition. Is there something the city should be doing as the owner of the property to
get it activated more quickly? It's being farmed right now as part of our agreement with the individual farming the land as part of the contract for deed that we have. But there's nothing that prohibits that timeline being accelerated for us to if because the opportunity presented itself to go and get that space activated. So I'm thinking about maybe a path or something like that in the northern part of the property. Maybe that takes into consideration this pond feature or ponds,
however we wanna look at it up there just to get it activated. Doesn't have to be a concrete path. It could be a crushed concrete or something more temporary in nature or lower maintenance. Maybe some other natural features like some prairie grass, something like that. But just I'm just trying to get everyone's mind going as far as what this land could be used for. And, again, the purpose of tonight and and, also, I think the other thing too, we're gonna have to evaluate as we work through this. This special the this special assessment map was put together probably twenty five years ago.
It's not an adopted official map that the city must go by. Now that said, the times that we've done area wide assessments northern part, you know, encompassing Seventh Street, but also a Fifteenth Avenue, North, area wide assessment of that roadway up there. I'm not sure of how the community has evolved through the years. If it's not it's something that council may wanna consider, to modify this so that it encompasses this entire area right here, maybe just down to this point. Keep in mind,
this plan right here is reflective of no roadways coming up to the north, maybe a shared use path or something right here to add it in as a buffer zone, we'll say, a buffer to between the residential styles there. And, would that be a more appropriate area wide assessment for it to come down here? And then, you know, from this point on down would be the Fourth Avenue, area wide assessment district. So a lot going on. But, again, tonight, the purpose of the resolution that is before the city council is to
direct our city engineer to come up with a preliminary engineering report. And then from there, that kinda kick starts the 04/29 process. If everything went according to plan, This is about when these projects get initiated with hopeful bidding out of a project this coming winter and then when construction would start next April, we'll say. So with that said, and that was a mouthful there, but I'll let if there's anything else, Andrew, I missed or that you would like to cover as part of the presentation or
Don as well, please let me know or just your general thoughts about it. I would just echo Peyton's sentiments regarding the density and whatever. That's yet to be determined. So what you're seeing up there is conceptual. It may look more dense than probably you would anticipate, but then again to it, it's it's kind of reflective of just some initial thoughts working with the developer. I know Rick is here, and I know there's been discussion about the six to eight unit concept, and it's been utilized elsewhere, combination with an elevator inside the units. And my understanding is seniors as well as workforce housing first time
homebuyers or renters are using the it's being used elsewhere in the metro area and has been received well, it's my understanding. If Rick wants to comment on that or not. No, you did a good job, John. Okay. Any questions from council, Julie? So thinking about, again, since it's initiated, you said city initiated since we're the ones extending Eighth Avenue. But MetroCOG, we were working with the study on Eighth Avenue with the idea that it would priority would be, you know, from the West or that would be where the demand was when we were looking
at it. But how does the alignment plan to this, have we seen that final? No. It's a good question. So at through working through the comp plan process, that was one of the big things they were tasked with is trying to determine which alignment they preferred. And this is, I think, alignment option one, the northern alignment, sort of what you see right here, curving its way up being the northernmost alignment. There's one that went directly east west, basically, following the utility line, And then there's one that dropped down,
to it dropped all the way down, basically, to the southern, portion of Rick's land going across. But this alignment that you see right here is the preferred alignment that the planning commission would like to see. Okay. And I I was just gonna add, I do recall what you're talking about as far as the the phasing or the the Western component. But I think, the other half of that discussion was kind of demand driven. Right. Yeah. And that was just sorry. But, that's what I mean. Like, when we were looking at it,
we're like, okay. Making sure the West lines up with the East. Right? So we know the demand is also on the West side. So we got now we got the missing middle of the of the road. Right? But I was just remembering from the conversation when they had the boards up that the alignment with all the dots on was kind of the lower one or the lower of the two, and that's why I wanted to make sure that, we're kinda taking that study into you know, like, that we're considering that as part of the whole concept as well.
We we did. And to reiterate what Peyton said with planning too, they went not only the planning have a committee, they had a subcommittee that studied it at length to make sure that they were doing the right things that and make sure that, okay, how does this work? And and alignment is one piece. And, again, thank you. Like, the biggest part is demand because I don't wanna put a road where we don't need it. That makes zero sense. And now we have someone saying, hey. I have interest here. And okay. All of a sudden, there's there's greater demand on the Eastern Side. And I and I do agree in long term,
we gotta make sure east meets west and they come together. We can drive the silver spike and do all that fun stuff. But at the same time, my my concern too is, you know, the the missing middle sounds fantastic, and it's got a great ring to it and everything like that. But I think we have some missing middle housing on the West Side of town that looks like it's abandoned. So as we're looking at this, I wanna make sure that what's being proposed, right, is market driven. It's gonna be successful for the developer. Because if it's successful for the developer, that means it's successful to us. I I again, I'm I'm concerned with what is gonna fill in that new residential area.
I wanna make sure it works. Yes. I just wanna be crystal clear that whether eighth comes from the East or the West, I won't support any iteration that has anything but low density how housing abutting the established neighborhoods. That's your buffer. Then you can put your missing middle in the middle. K. That's fair. But the road is good? Yeah. The road looks fine. Because that's that's our first that's our first task of the day. And and that's and and so with that, when we're when we're looking at alignment and I I don't know if council has
any preference or anything like that, but what first popped into my head is if we stop the road short, how do we have access to the park? If we ran the road along to the west edge of the city owned property at least, then that would give us an opportunity for a branch off in a parking lot that's shown there, whatever opportunities. Whether or not we're at the step to jump into that when we build the road, I don't know the answer to that question. Ask me in a year or two. But if the road is there, at least we're ready to go that far,
and we don't have to build a road to get to the park. The road will actually be there. And if I'm wrong, please let me know. Yeah. I was going to Tell me That's a great point, and I was going to add to that. It's a unique opportunity. You get two things for, you know, basically one project. It's gonna give you area to develop residential, housing, Plus, it's gonna get you access to the the major park, major city park. And, that doesn't always happen, so you you gotta consider that as you look at it. So thank you. Kevin, was there what was what was the temperature from bringing Eighth from 30 Fourth Street to County
Road 9? Like, did we briefly had that conversation to go, like, from that stoplight by Aldi's and Walmart there to county or, yeah, like, to County Road 9. And now we're talking today about going from Seventh Street back to the west. Or, like Nothing to the day. It's developer driven. Right? And I think in an ideal world to have that segment over to 3030 Fourth and County Road 9, I think I think we could all agree that'd be utilized right away.
It really would. Mhmm. We have no demand to have anything either side of Eighth Avenue there at that point. Sure. For the time being, I would love that if someone came in here and said, let's do that. That would be the ideal situation for us to work the entire thing. Well, this works too. I mean, because It does. Let's not forget there's $600,000 of deferred specials on Mhmm. That side of Seventh Street. So, I mean Yep. It's whatever. I just have we made up our mind then, or we're just kinda navigating that?
I don't is that a question? I think it would allow it to phase you know, like, this is where we would see the demand go first, but it was kind of just a discussion. I mean Well, I guess, to your point, like, if the conversation previously was to go from County Road 9 back to the east for Eighth Avenue. Yeah. And let's go and my question was more like, I wanna make sure the alignment I want so so when we're talking, I wanna make sure that study we looked at because I knew there were three
options that they were considering. I wanna make sure the alignment from where we think the next probably is Sure. Okay. Eventually meet up with the I misunderstood. And and I think this is a lot like what we just saw with MetroCog and, alignment for the for the Heartland Trail. Like, here's the sections, and we would like it ideally. Like, it's be great if we go here, here, and here. We have an opportunity to develop, so we're gonna reorganize the order. Ultimately, that's what it boils down to. Works for me. Yeah. Okay.
So then, again, back to the question, and and my my perspective is is we have our engineering look to run this road from Seventh Street to the edge of our property at a minimum because that would be the end. Right? If you're wanting to activate that North Parkland. I think that's really the question. Right? You know, if you feel like you we yeah. Yeah. That too. If you're gonna if you're gonna if you're gonna activate the park because then the the question is, do we have to elevate Eighth Avenue so kids can so we can put a tunnel in to go from the north to south side so there's a less of
a traffic issue. Like, you know, again, looking at how are kids gonna, you know, ride their bike or parents gonna push a stroller or, you know, carry a a baseball bag across the street or whatever it is. I mean, so if we're doing Eighth Avenue Yeah. Now now is the time. Now is the time. And then how do we construct it, and what's the traffic or the pedestrian mitigation factor so we we don't have so we don't have a roundabout in the middle. No. Sorry. Did I say that? So so at least in the park area, there's a way to move pedestrian traffic without with reducing risk significantly,
for pedestrians and and automobile traffic. So What I Go ahead. So what I hear you saying is that so don't look at what's on there, but it's like like our our trails and our what everything could be to the south instead of the north. That way, they can still farm the north. We have access to this. We can put the trail on the south side and kinda look at that. Would trail have to run from I mean, well, I guess it wouldn't have to, but there there's just options. Yeah. That's what I was gonna mention. I think it brings about some possibilities in the sense that you could, you know, just activate the south portion of it where the baseball fields are shown for the
time being. And, you know, keep there would be some connection point, you know, right here bringing this across. And, yeah, there will have to be some level of connection, with it, and that's what we're gonna have Andrew do for us. Hopefully, provide some alternatives for us to consider as we work through this because we I mean, we've drawn some things up there. We don't know if baseball fields are going to go there. We don't know if anything is going up there other than we own the land. Right. And so we gotta do something with it eventually.
And I I would yeah. I I would hate not to do something with it. So I think sooner rather than later, that's a great thing, if at all possible, if it's affordable. But if it's not feasible at the time, yes, that's when you would sort of cut it off. And it would make sense. We can start having that conversation as we're developing that way, right? And that makes sense. So the second part you brought up, Payton, was this idea of the regional pond. We're using regional just as a relative term. But now that word really matters as I stole that line.
But and again, on our map, that's what we had just as a matter of of fact. But in the in the city owned property, we only have to worry about what we create as impervious surface. Yeah. Right? So as we look at this, I mean, like, that there's a lot of moving pieces. If we want if we're gonna have a retention pond that services that whole I mean, is it even possible for that whole agricultural piece? Like, how big would that pond have to be? Is that even something that we could consider? Well, yeah.
I mean, like, sure. But then we can't have anything else. I don't know if I can completely answer the question if it's feasible here tonight. That is a quite a large area to be serviced by one pond, and there's gravity flow that kinda hinders Sure. Some of what we do here in the Red River Valley. What I am what I am leaning towards is taking a kind of a phased approach to the stormwater pond, both the the size and and the location, with the idea that,
there's an opportunity here to incorporate the pedestrian trails and and some recreational amenities with the pond. And it can be built in a in a phased approach with with underground pipe connections so that the pond it it might look like it's one pond here, one pond here, but they can be connected and work together as a team, and they can be built in kind of a phased approach so that this pond gets built early on.
And when you go back and add on and enlarge the the storage needs, you don't have to disturb this pond because you've you've made the connection. And I'm I'm getting into some of the weeds here. But Yeah. Well, and I and I think it's important that every developer understands that they have to provide their own ponding areas. Right? And the council understands that as well. Like, that if we go back to what's proposed, and it's just a plan, but that has to include their own they have to follow MS 4 like everyone else. Right. They use MS four.
Not what I what I said. Yeah. MS four. So Like, they also have to have a park too. Right? Nope. They don't have to have a park plan. That that's part of our agreement. Right? They don't have to park plan. And they don't have That is part of our Yeah. So no park plan and no financial contribution. That was all part of like, that's the park in the center. So as we're looking at that, to me, I wanna stay out of the weeds because I I don't know that yet. Like, what does that what does that all look like? And then again, if if we did it in one corner, do we do it to the other corner? And how big does it have to be? The the biggest challenge here right now is to not put ourselves into a box.
That's fair. Yep. Could you run it all the way to the north side and then just keep building it to the south as needed? Or is that not That is that is a potential solution. It wants to go that way anyway, doesn't it? Yeah. There there is some I'm sorry. I didn't mean to interrupt. No. Go on. I'm elaborate. There there's, the very south edge of this property on the north end of the neighborhood, there is a drainage. It's kind of an under undefined, but it's there, drainage ditch that doesn't operate as well as it should.
And hopefully, we can improve the drainage in that area as part of this project. But point that I'm making is there there might be areas where we can take certain things, different directions, and try to accommodate the entire area in a multifaceted approach. Okay. The reason why I have this up on the screen right now, just to and you can correct me if I'm wrong, Andrew. But as I understand correctly, just to give you an idea of what the pond size would look like. So this Summerwood Pond that we have right here,
that is to support this entire development. So that kinda gives you a visual, which is fairly similar in size right there. Yeah. That kinda gives you an idea of what size pond would support approximately half of this space. All right. Thank you, Pete. And then again, like I said, as we work through this, I expect that our engineers figure it out for me, Opportunities. So what was the second bullet on that? Because and how we do that and then what's, like and I get it, but we only have to do a stormwater retention pond for deal with amenities whether
we you know, baseball fields fall into that or soccer fields fall into that or pickleball, man. If we don't have pickleball, I think we're missing the boat. But you know what I'm saying? You know? Who knows? So when it comes to that, I mean, that's gonna and if nothing else, I like grass and trees. Sorry, Mike. I mean, that that passive park areas is is okay too where we wouldn't have to disturb nature at all. Well, we would. I mean, I think up the agriculture field, plant some grass, whatever. So, Julie? After you. Like, I I just like, to me, that one, the Stormwater Retention Pond,
that's a hard one. Julie? I'm gonna play the other side of that. If doing the stormwater pond for the entire area gives us something we wouldn't have had otherwise where we could do recreational activities or something around it, then I think it would be worth doing it for the whole area because it would benefit the city to have something Bluemont Lakes. Yeah. You know, like, something where you they could take little paddle boat. I don't know. I don't know how big it would have to be. And, again, if I'm looking at summer wood,
you know, that isn't a hue to me, it doesn't seem like that big big of a pond right now. But I would say in the instance that that potentially could be something that could be utilized more, then I would be more in favor of doing it for the whole area because I would see the benefits of the city of doing it. You know? But that's just the other side. Yeah. So, maybe it could be bid with an alternate. I mean, the size minimum size of what we need to do the development than an alternate
to take more. But and and We don't need it. The developer would need it. Correct? It depends what you want. If you're trying to develop an amenity for the park, depending upon the bids you get, it might be you might get such a good bid, it's time to consider taking more than you you normally would have taken. I don't know. Andrew? I I understand exactly what you're you're getting at Yeah. Mayor. And I get, like, like and I get this too. So Yeah. Finding how we do this is gonna is gonna be key. Yeah. Sorry, Rick. It's not a public we're not doing a public meeting tonight.
So and and again, we can have that conversation as we go forward. Right? We don't need to decide that now. We come up with a plan and then Maybe we can help on it. Involved and then go from there. Questions. Yeah. It is Is there a second? I would think it'd be smart to continue the Eighth Avenue through the park. So you used to have it into the park, which makes sense to me. As far as the, pond business, I've seen Andrew's eyes just roll when he talked about using it for recreation. They try to avoid all that in other places. You don't wanna get into that water.
Correct? You You have people on both sides. Yeah. You have people on both sides of the fence there. I well, my my personal opinion is I I like the idea of having some water feature to be able to whether it's ride a bike or walk or or something of that nature. I also understand what you're saying about the safety aspect and and not wanting, especially younger kids, you know, maybe playing playing next to them. I'm not sure what Julie said was really what I heard,
but I don't know if you meant to actually you said a paddle boat or something, but that's kinda what you wanna avoid for the most part. Getting kids out there, getting kids because that's created lots of problems, in Fargo and West Fargo. I'm not I do like the path, the bike and walking and all that. It's it's a you know, you can light it up at night or fountains. But would you would you steer away from actually getting into the water? I'm not I guess I'm trying to think of where where we have that in
Fargo Moorhead, and it's not immediately coming about. Drowning. Yeah. And they're trying to talk about putting fences around to keep people away from that. And I know I I live in in an area where there's a pond within walking distance with fishing piers on them. And so, you know, we have that sort of situation. I don't see people actually on or in the water. But there's there's certainly, you know, fishing activity, which is it is possible, in a in a large enough body of water.
Blue Mount Lakes has fish in it. That's a that's a stormwater retention pond. Like right? It it's amazing they will find they will find water. Yeah. And and so I guess as we look at that second bullet, like, size and scope of the regional stormwater pond, because that is part of it. Like, there's a water feature in there. It's kinda always been in in that conversation. But what is the city's responsibility, I think, is the first question we need to ask. And then what's the appropriate potential for partnership? I I think looking at you to come up with with some potential.
So that that that's math. Right? I mean, you gotta figure out, put all that stuff together, the flow rates, all the environmental conditions based on the housing and potential housing, all other stuff and how we do it, and how you will tell us to do it. There's a lot of things that we've thought about in kind of conceptual form here now, and now is where the rubber kinda starts to meet the road. And we actually have to figure things out. I can't tell you that I've got this all figured out here as we sit, as you can probably tell. Yeah. No.
And that's fine. But I think, I think the important thing for today is to just kinda get a, maybe the outer boundary on on what you want to see from a scope and it's it's starting to be defined. I think for me the biggest question isn't the the stormwater pond. Yeah. It's a big question, but it's I think that will kind of become very apparent as we go through what the answer is. I think maybe a bigger question that I have right now is the question about the assessment boundary,
Because I think that one first of all, it's it's it's gonna become very important early on because one of the next stages after we do the report is to, have the hearing. And so that is going to come around very quickly. And so I think that that consideration, it would be something that I would like to see, you know, the debate or the the consensus, if you will, to get to where where do we want that boundary to be specifically for this project. Peyton was alluding to kind of the bigger picture,
but, I think that is an important one that we do need to get to the bottom of. Because it crosses over I think the other assessment. Go ahead. You're good. No. No. I I think for me, it's just, do we feel what we have right here is appropriate? You know, should this boundary again, these boundaries were drawn before anyone there was an ever an Eighth Avenue corridor study or Fifteenth Avenue and happened before Summerwood. Any of this was even developed. It's really questioning, as Eighth Avenue comes across as what has been presumably defined as the major East
West roadway right there. Should that extend down to here? I mean, from my vantage, I always thought I thought it was a little odd that the Fourth Avenue boundary and I'm sorry. I should put up the whole city because you can get a better glimpse of it. But should, like, these homes here, should this be part of the Fourth Avenue District? Oh, rather what so then the Eighth Avenue District would be north of right there. Starting here, then going north all the way up to Fifteenth Avenue. We're not sure what Fifteenth Avenue I mean,
we're saying Fifteenth Avenue is an assessed roadway just like our map as well says Highway 10 is an assessed roadway, and it's not. You know, that's a state roadway. So and we probably or I probably should've drawn up some lines, and and we can do that for an upcoming meeting. Just maybe draw up a couple different considerations for maybe what it could look like as well. Or if you're complete or if you're comfortable with this, this is the other option to go with what was originally shown out there. Again, I think Probably when the creators of this were doing it,
they were probably assuming these roads were going to continue on, and that's not how we had it reflected at this time. So they would not be everyone would be utilizing Eighth Avenue, obviously, but they wouldn't have the direct access that you typically would for. Julie? I think it's worth relook. I mean, it's been a while. And, I mean, like, some of our area wides include 30 Fourth Street Exactly. Which gets picked up by federal funding because it's sponsored by Morehead. So they don't even have a North South in their area wide,
really, unless that they are What we're doing, we are assessing that. Yeah. But, I mean, like, the It's in comparison to what everyone else is getting assessed for, the part they have to pick up is not comparable to what not equitable at all. Yeah. Mhmm. And so I think there's a number of these districts that in theory like, there was no Walmart when we created, you know, maybe potential Walmart when we created it, but I think it's worth I think that's right. Right? If you go back 25 ago. That far. I don't know.
Like Yeah. Because Walmart wouldn't have even been built when we created it if we did it. Well, that was, what, circa 1990? It would have been there, wouldn't it? The first one. Not the second one. Yeah. Oh, yeah. It's true. So it would have been part of the first one. So, obviously, if we're gonna continue to have this conversation, that's our next council meeting. Then you'd bring back materials for us to just review and discuss and just determine if changes are warranted. Does that give you enough time for the 04:29 procedure? Yeah.
I mean, for what Andrew's creating, it will he's still just gonna be setting up area wide assessments. So the PER is gonna say, you know, $2,000,000 or whatever the number is is gonna be specially assessed. And then that determination of how it should be drawn or what should be assessed as part of this is, yeah, sort of this secondary, component with it all there. But we can drop a couple of different options there. And the policy allows for the council to make these determinations as it goes along.
You know? Obviously, you wanna have as defined of a map as possible, but that's why this isn't a formal, you have to do it type deal. It gives you the ability to be flexible with it, considering conditions have changed over time. Again, this is really wonky here. You can see this is like the highway. I'm sorry. It might be a little difficult to read there. Yeah. So this is like the Seventh Street and Fourth Avenue zone goes beyond Highway 10. You know, it's just really bizarre. Right. And this is why we keep talking about just getting rid of special.
Well Because it's just not working the way that the city is developing. So, ultimately, if the avenue comes in, we just raise the levy. Everybody pays for the pays for it that way. I mean, that because that's ultimately that's the goal. Right? I mean, if that's thirty years down the road, we we're not overly concerned about the $4.29 because we're just paying for it through a Can can we can we redraw redraw the boundaries to something that's gonna work, or are we just gonna keep going through this every five, ten years? Right? Sure. As the city grows.
I don't know. Yeah. Well and, I mean, it it worked for twenty five years. So, I mean, we didn't we haven't redrawn them every you know? But, I mean, I think probably the larger question is, does it still work for our community? Right? So when we're looking at assessment policy, I don't know. We might be atypical having area wide. I'm not sure. But I wouldn't say that's atypical. It's not atypical? Okay. But I I think it's worth reexamining, if nothing else, to make sure it's equitable.
Sure. And I know people have a hard time, like, why if I were I live South Of Highway 10, am I paying for Fourth Avenue? And, you know, we've always been well. We tried to come up with these equitable blocks so that everyone pays a portion, but now kinda looking at which streets are paid for this way or that way, I think it's time to reexamine it. Whether it's Highway 10 or Second Avenue, I mean, there's kind of a set it's a county road and a state road. There's no assessment from the city door for maintenance on those at all. Yeah. Right. And Main Street is kinda short.
So I don't Well, let let's have the conversation Yeah. And at least begin that process if that's like, it's funny because the engineer is worried about the financing piece, and I'm worried about the water piece. I feel like the role reversal a little bit. But and I think as as we have that conversation, I I think we can figure it out. I think we'll have answers to both of those questions. And does that give you enough direction for those three bullet points to move this forward for our next meeting? It does. I think Andrew has enough information to go and start working on the PER. That's not going to really impact with what he's designing.
And then the whole other policy decision about what's an area wide for this project is the another determination Andrew will just need. And that's just a simple matter of him inputting it in as far as who gets assessed what and how much. Sure. Okay. Any other questions, comments or direction for Peyton and staff as they move this forward? It's going to be a multifaceted approach. It's going to be fun. It's going to be fun. All right. Thank you, gentlemen. We appreciate it. Thanks for moving that forward. I appreciate it. So with that, we do need a motion for Resolution 2538,
ordering the preparation and report of improvement, located West Of Seventh Street, given that location. So moved. I have a motion by Peterson Second. And a second by Nash. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carries. So with that, it does move us to number 10, police department. 10 a authorize the hire of a full time police officer. The day we have all been waiting for. I wish I had music right now. I wish you had music right now. Well, that'll come up at some point. Alright. So here we go. Alright. Thank you.
Alright. Mister mayor, council members, management staff, and all those present and or watching remotely, I sit before you this evening to request the conditional job offer for Joel Bralt for the position of peace officer or police officer. I can barely contain my excitement at the prospect of having a fully staffed police department. That'd be cue for some music. That's later. Candidate Joe Bralt was initially interviewed on 06/12/2025 by basement vice mayor Nash, city administrator Peyton Mastair, investigator Elias Overston,
and myself. After successfully navigating the interview process, the crucial background investigation was assigned to sergeant Ross Danoff. It's important to remember that per Minnesota statute, those who participated in the interview process are not permitted to conduct the background investigation. Sergeant Danhof completed the investigative background during my absence, and a memo outlining some of the key highlights was included in your counsel packet. I'd like to reiterate those highlights and add a few more that I believe underscore why Joel Bralt is an exceptional candidate. Candidate Bralt grew up in Alexandria,
Minnesota and developed an early interest in law enforcement. Believe Renata, at a tender age of eight, a career test he took highlighted law enforcement as a potential path. Now while I admit, at eight years old, I was most likely watching Master of the Universe. Cannon brought recognized opportunities and experiences related to law enforcement that continue to present themselves throughout his years. During high school, Kenneth Broult toured the Alexandria Police Department, which, fun fact, over you know, overlooks a beautiful lake. Just letting that marinate for a second if we're having a pond. Strategic plan. Not saying.
This visit truly solidified his ambition to become a law enforcement officer. He went on to become a first high school student to participate in the Alexandria Police Department Citizen Academy. Beyond his academic pursuits, Kenneth Broultt was a dedicated athlete, participating in cross country, swimming, and track. His commitment to academics and athletics was recognized when he was awarded the AHS Tri sport Athlete of the Year. No one? Okay. I had to look it up myself. For those unfamiliar, AHS refers to Alexandria Area High School Minnesota, where this prestigious program acknowledges senior students who excel in academics,
fine art activities, and Minnesota State High School League athletic programs. Furthermore, Kenneth Bralt received an achievement award for cross country and track in 2020, 2021, and 2022. Kenneth Bralt continued his education, earning a Blanchard's bachelor's degree in criminal justice from MSUM, where he made the dean's list in the fall of twenty twenty four. He also received a recognition a letter of recognition from MSUM Public Safety in March of twenty twenty five, further demonstrating his dedication and aptitude. As a licensed peace officer in Minnesota,
Kenneth Bralt, candidate Bralt began his law enforcement career with the Morin Police Department on January fourteenth of twenty five and concluded his position on May twenty seventh of twenty twenty five. He expressed, and I quote, I feel with all my past experience, I know I can be an asset and become a police officer I and the city of Dilworth can be proud of. This statement truly encapsulates his commitment and desire to serve our community. Therefore, I am confident in asking this city council to extend a conditional job offer to candidate Joel Bralt. His strong background, unwavering dedication,
and genuine enthusiasm makes him an outstanding prospect for the Delworth Police Department. Any questions regarding Kenneth Veralt's qualifications or my recommendation? I have no questions, chief. Anyone? Questions for chief? Hearing none, I will entertain a motion for the authorization to hire a full time police officer. Motion to approve the authorization. I have a motion by Nash. Second. A second by Borra. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carries. And as of seven forty and twenty seconds,
our police department is fully staffed. Yes. Pending all background investigation and all that stuff. We did all that already. Yeah. Background investigation, are you complete? Wouldn't bring it. Yeah. So solve some other stuff to do psych and all that other stuff? Correct. I I hope I'm just knocking on some wood, chief. I think we're fine. Alright. Congratulations, and thank you. Alright. Thank you. That does feel kinda good. Like, I heard that was like, that's outstanding. So here we go. With that, it does move us to number 11, council members' concerns and committee updates. Kevin. My brain is mush. How about Choice Bank? $12 to the police department.
Shout out to Steve Jasmine and them, and congrats to you guys. That's that's that's amazing. That's that's not a small chunk of change. So, again, thank you to Choice Bank for investing in Dilworth. Just wanted to touch again. It was mentioned about the, shuttle for Loco Days. I would highly recommend people utilize it. I know it went by my house more than a handful of times last year. I didn't get the opportunity to ride on it, but, I'm gonna make it a point to do that this year. You know,
leave your cars at home, and they'll get you wherever you need to go at making rounds all the way around town. So, congrats to PD for being fully staffed for the first time in quite a while that I can remember. It's been a long road to hoe, so that's that's that feels good. That's awesome. I'll leave it there. Alright. Thank you. Yeah. Congrats on having your fully staffed department now. That's awesome. And money. Just crazy. That big old check. It's fun to see. Park Board met. We did set the date for their part Paws in the Park event.
It's gonna be September 11. Farmers Market will be there that night too, so we're gonna start planning that stuff. So if you guys are free, put it on your calendars. Okay. You're getting about that? No. Thinking good. That's all I got? Alright. Thank you. Mister Stack. Well, it's exciting to hear the police staffing and and all that. So I could see, chief was excited about about that, so that's great. I know Mike's been busy and his crew's been busy getting doors ready for local
days, getting it all looking nice and shaped up. So I do appreciate your work, and you pass it on to your your workers there. So, I did take the shuttle last year at local days. Yeah. It worked well. It really did work well. So I think it's a great idea. Yeah. It's good that, that's gonna be available. So hopefully people make use of it. The, thanks for sending me and Julian, Mayor Olsen to and Peyton to Duluth. I'll let, Mayor Olsen talk about the the big event on,
Thursday evening. So but, for what I did, I did go on a tour around town, and they call it the housing tour. It really wasn't too much that, I could bring back to what we're doing here, but it's still exciting to see what other towns have done and what's been available. I mean, Duluth is a, you know, it's a beautiful town to visit any time of the year. And they got parts that they've, developed, one very high end homes on an old golf course,
which is neat to see. And it was an old high school that was converted into apartments, I guess, of different sizes and all that. So it's an old building, looked beautiful from the outside, and takes a lot of money. And they're converting the city. The city utilities has steam heat energy for down for a huge amount of downtown businesses, and that's being converted to hot water. So heard about that. Got to see the Carnegie Library that's still standing. That was repurposed for some
social service type uses. So it's nice to see these old buildings that are still standing that's meant to last a long time and not be torn down every fifty years. So, that part is good. I'm not gonna talk too much about the, you know, all these meetings you can go to at the League of Minnesota Cities conventions there. But in Rochester last year, we were introduced to lots lots of different ideas as far as, being, well, hopefully, take take advantage of some of the programs out there for efficiency and heat energy
and all that. And I I'm not sure if that's relevant to what we're doing here, but, they did touch on that again this year. And if the if the funds are still available, there's lots of things that people are promoting that a person has to tap into to see if there's a chance. I'm still amazed by electric windows, how they can produce energy at night. I mean, I I should have done more research on that, but I'm just amazed by electric windows, how they can power your building even at night.
So I just leave it at that. The sessions I got the most out of was well, I mean, this ones that stuck in my mind are the ones on communication, and, you know, they they went into pretty in-depth, and it's it's always good to have a presenter that's that fits the role quite well, and we did have one that fit the role quite well. And it ended the last day ended with a great motivational type speaker too. And this is what I took away from that.
I mean, it's it's, you know, you can you're gonna condense, you know, hour or two into one minute. It's on communication. Make yourself interested and not interesting. If you make yourself interested in someone else's whatever they're doing, then you will be interesting. But don't come across and try to be, I'm the interesting person. So, that's what I took away, and I thought that was quite valuable. So, take that extra time to, you know, hi. How are you doing? Good. Good.
Good. Good. Good. Take the one extra step and say, well, what you got going on? What's exciting in your life? What's whatever. I mean, I think you get the gist of it. So by making yourself interested, you become interesting. So that's where I'm gonna end. Thank you, mister Steichen. Sounds like that may have been a presentation, Dave, with giving instead of, like, listening to seems like that's how you interact with everyone you meet. Mhmm. Anyway, so not stealing. Okay. That's your job. So because we publicly can say
congratulations to Peyton for the James f Miller award. F, I believe, is the middle in his what was it? The a or a f. James Miller. James Miller award Yeah. Which is, you know, it's the League of Minnesota City's highest award for an appointed city leader. Mhmm. And that's what Peyton received and why we went to celebrate him in Duluth. And it was an amazing opportunity, and I'm so glad I got to be a part of it. It was amazing, if I can say amazing any more times.
Amazing. It was amazing. Well deserved. Well deserved. That's right. So I'm glad that they, saw what we see every day. Okay. Some updates from our police department. I it was a long email. There was a long email? Oh, you oh, you're laughing about my updates from the PD. Yeah. I was laughing at that email. I was just gonna say, in addition to the police department being fully staffed, we also have the CSO that's gonna be going out on his first, shift as well. So we are truly fully staffed at the police department.
So that's pretty exciting as well. And they you have a bunch of training opportunities, especially one for officer Mitchell that we should be seeing proposed coming up soon. So I hope you guys will support that, as well as opportunity with Red River dispatchers to come and do some ride alongs. And then, you know, we got night to unite coming up and right at always on the tail of local days, and so a lot of activities. Okay. And, additionally, I went to the community center open kinda thing where people could come and see
the concepts and give their input on, where they thought rooms should be. Let's just say, besides my husband and myself, there were two other people and Peyton that showed up for this. And so I hope when they come for another time that everyone in the community I just was surprised that we didn't have more community members who seem so invested in this community center and making you know, like and especially with the loss of our old one, that we didn't get input from more of our community on what they would like
to see it look like as we're going through this design phase. And so, but on the other side of that, they've got some great ideas, and I'm really excited about what they brought. And they did a good job and some real interactive opportunities to kind of think about what you wanted and then what they were kinda thinking in their head. And and so then you take what we thought we wanted and you saw what they were thinking. You're like, oh, yeah. That's much better. So I think we hired the right people. So that was good. But it was still an interactive where they're taking and and listening,
and I really appreciate that about what they're doing. And the same with the railroad, the opportunity to go kind of visit with them at the depot before tonight. So I think that's all I have. Awesome. Thank you, Julie. Peyton. Thank you, mister mayor. And for the community center, they'll actually the architect designers will actually be for the city council next meeting on July 28 to talk through some of those concepts. And it's really cool some of the ideas that they are coming up with. I wanna make note of the 30 Fourth Street reconstruction project that just got underway
this morning. I did some outreach to all of our businesses East Of 30 Fourth Street to let them know what's going on. It it just kind of sprung upon us last minute that the frontage road off of 30 Fourth Street is completely shut down for two and a half plus months. We don't know how long it's gonna be shut down through, construction there. So I'm trying to work with the city of Morehead and the, to to see if maybe we can find a way to keep it open. It's gonna be utilized for some staging areas.
I understand it can't remain open the entire time, but that is something that, we're gonna be hopefully trying to address as part of this. Can I get a quick they shut down the frontage road too? It's just access. It's the access to the frontage road. Oh, got it. Cut off right out of highway then. Oh, okay. So, like, I can still drive to the Dairy Queen on the other side. Our road down. Yeah. Because that was where I was doing. Like, how did they shut our road down? Because we're gonna have that conversation quickly. Okay. Access to it is different. Okay. I think I'm I'm also It's the same on their side too. Right. On Moraes, I'm not casting aspersions or anything.
I'm just trying to see if there's any remedy. It may not be possible to do anything with construction projects comes inconvenience. I think we all know that. So, hopefully, we can try to make the best of the situation over there. There's also gonna be some culvert replacements, finally, we think, along a ditch 50. It's been slated for a couple years now. So I think we have it at Fourth Street Northeast, Fifth Street Northwest, and Second Street Northwest. When they're coming to town, we're not exactly sure,
but that should be upcoming, here in the next week or so. Yeah. Exactly. Here in local days. And, We're all afraid. Yeah. Yeah. And and thank you for the support for everyone for receiving the James f Miller award. It was, yeah, truly a humbling experience. We do have, representatives coming from the league at the next meeting to do a formal presentation, so I don't wanna get you know, discuss it too much this evening. But, I attribute the award that evening, you know, to all the people at Dilworth and, you know, all the staff that I've had the honor to work with, you know,
really accepting it on their behalf. But it was a tremendous experience and night, and so I was proud to be there and have, you know, team Dilworth represented and shown on a map. It's kinda cool. So thank you. Anything else, Pete? No, sir. Thank you. Just quick. The I wanna start with the shuttle. It's a shuttle. Right? It's gonna operate on a fixed route. On a loop. Yeah. It it's not an Uber? It was last year, but this year, it's a we're we're gonna work with it a little more closely. Yeah. And may maybe we can I I think having that, that would be a good distinction to make because it was a fantastic service?
But I think that loop would be, Stick to the plan. Yeah. Stick to the plan. With regards to the league and the award or whatever, Julie, you know, thank you for making that happen. There's a lot of I mean, it it takes effort to for the nomination, and the it's quite extensive what they want wellness want you to do and and what we need to fill out, from our from the city's perspective. So thank you for doing that because it did highlight, Peyton's skill set and his ability. So thank you, Julie. Oh, yeah. And congratulations, Payton. So I attended the c CJMC,
meeting last week as well, which I I wanna thank them for bringing back that regional meeting. So I just had to make a I made a quick trip to DL, and it was great because I talked to the mayors and and council members from Perham, from Pelican, from DL, from Manoomin. And in in an an hour and a half meeting, it was great. Their presentation was good. But the great part about that was sitting down and talking about the mayors and the like, what what are what are their cities dealing with? And how are they how are they coping, and what's their strategy? And and then it was just an opportunity to say, what am I missing and how are you doing it?
So that was great. I I I appreciated that. And yeah. And and so and which transitioned us into the conversation with with the mayors in our in our neck of the woods between here, Glenden Holly, and Barnesville. We met with the county, last week as well. And in our current agreement with, the county and regional dispatch center, we are about one and a half years in with a three year agreement. The proposed the next proposed agreement's coming out. There's increases, actually, which are, I think are fair. I I do. It's it's in line.
But, again, we're we'll be paying out approximately $86,000 in dispatch fees. And, the conversation at the beginning of this three year contract was how are we going to phase out the small cities, and really turn that over to the county. And, as the mayors were having the conversation, we are all in agreement. We would like to see this phase out. Our chief is not in with us in agreement. And as we we're gonna meet on the twenty third, the mayors and some city staff, to put together a plan to to create this exit strategy.
We're as as I I presented it is we need to make sure that we're gonna come up with a solution where we can work with the county to step away from the financial agreement, and they can just, honestly, levy taxes, and do it in in such a manner where there's time for everybody to, like, make the moves that are appropriate for their particular jurisdiction. And, I think everybody logged in and said, yes. They're all gonna meet, and we're all gonna and just stay tuned, because we will have a plan that,
obviously, city council will have to approve. And we'll probably look at doing something within the four cities, all point you know, looking at, how do we do this, what can we all agree upon, and then we'll present it to councils. And then as we move, into the final, what I would call our final contract with the county, it'll be presented to them and we'll transition out. So, it's it's been busy, but it's been productive, and it's really looking optimistic, I think. So that's all I have at this time. With that, we do have bills to pay. Any questions on the bills? Bills always get me a little teary eyed.
No question on the bill. I will entertain a motion to pay the bill. Motion to pay the bills. And a motion by Nash. Second. Second. Why can't I keb second by Kevin. I'm writing Peterson. I can't say it. Second by Kevin. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carries. With that, we are not quite done, but we are, moving on to number 13. 13 alpha is our closed session. And pursuant to Minnesota statutes, 13 delta zero five zero three, subdivision three Charlie, we're going to discuss labor negotiation strategies with the operating engineers, local forty nine,
and law enforcement labor services. Thank congratulations, chief.