##VIDEO ID:-0RnXg7i6Zk## call to order the December 9th 2024 excuse me December 9th 2024 regular meeting of the East bethl Minnesota city council please join us in sing the pledge of allegiance to of the United States of America and to the rep for it stands one nation under God indivisible Li and make a motion to adopt tonight's agenda with one change item 9 C close session fire chief performance review to remove that from tonight's agenda second motion is made and second just as a point of information uh Chief sen let us know this afternoon he was sick so he couldn't make the meeting tonight so that's why we're having to reschedule any uh discussion of the motion hearing none all in favor say I I opposed none heard it was unanimous okay so the first thing on our agenda is under presentations and public hearings can you get the agenda up there or no go um we can't with the de there hold on a second all right we can switch it out here real quick very good as you can see there it's the 2025 budget presentation and we'll open a public comment period and then once we conclude that we'll vote on up or down in the budget and the other levies thank you Mr Mayor a moment here just by way of introduction Mr Mike dorski Deputy City administrator and the finance director for e bethl thank you thank you Mr Mayor members of council um I just have a brief budget presentation to uh go through this evening and then we can open it up for public comment again the city of East bethl has a year-long budget process that commences on January 2nd of each year when the budget model is created the budget model Chronicles the prior two years activity the current Year's budget and the next year's budget that is being considered for approval embedded in the model are updates to salary and benefit line items and debt service requirements for the 20125 budget from there the city has a series of meetings where the budget is discussed and modified the objective of tonight's meeting is to provide a broad overview of the 2025 budget allow public input following the review and then consider the adoption of the final budget and levies again before we get into the budget I wanted to go over some financial highlights looking at the city's most current year completed we note that the revenues came in at 113% of budget and expenditures came in at 96% of the budget the variance in the revenue budget was mainly attributed to the unexpected allotment of $515,000 in public safety Aid and $100,000 in conduit debt fees again this illustrates that our budget process and modeling does a good job in capturing the actual activity that occurs the city has a fund a formal fund balance policy that States the city should maintain a minimum of 40% of next year's budgeted general fund expenditures as its fund balance the city had a fund balance of roughly $4.7 million at the end of 2023 or 69% of the 2024 budget again given this strong fund balance the city was able to use $200,000 of that to minimize the levy increase for 2025 the city also has Capital funds or savings accounts set up for equipment streets parks and buildings so when Capital becomes fully depreciated there are funds available for those items to be replaced without the need to borrow funds from external sources and finally the city has the fifth lowest tax rate in Anoka County out of 21 cities again based on inputs from the finance committee department heads and the city council the budget model and budget book was prepared for the city council to review at tonight's meeting looking at the general fund budget from the macro Viewpoint we note that the 2025 revenues and expenditures are budgeted budgeted to increase by 3% or one $179,600 from 6,796 700 in 2024 to 6,976 300 in 2025 please note that in order to balance the 2025 revenues with expenditures the city is using $200,000 in fund balance that said the the city is still projected to maintain a healthy fund balance into 2026 the components that make up the $6.9 million in general fund Revenue are cable franchise fees liquor and tobacco licenses building inspection permit Revenue State aids for streets fines and forfeits inter inter intergovernmental charges Cemetery Revenue Tower site lease Revenue gambling contribution Revenue interest earnings and of course property taxes again the main objective of this slide is to emphasize that the city receives roughly 78% of their general fund revenue from property taxes and is by far the city's most important Revenue Source getting into the expenditure side of our budget there are two primary ways one can look at the city expenditure budget one way is to look at it by object or what is actually being purchased Personnel costs for salaries and benefits contracted Services supplies Etc the city's personel costs account for roughly 42% of the general fund budget the city budgeted for 22 full-time employees in 2025 six in administration five in Community Development nine in public works and two in the fire department of those employees nine are represented by a union for 2025 the Union contract called for a 3.5 % cost of living increase in salaries and the cafeteria contribution for benefits to increase from $1,450 to $1,475 per month for 2025 the mayor and Council pay are budgeted to remain unchanged but committee stiens are scheduled to be increased from $20 per meeting to $40 per meeting the city also budgets for 35 paid on call Firefighters two summer seasonal Public Works employees and roughly five winter seasonal Public Works employees overall salaries and benefits reflect an increase of roughly $113,000 over 2024 a summary of the city's contracted service budgets for 2025 show that the anoca county law enforcement contract is budgeted to increase by $73,000 or 5% the City Assessor contract is budgeted to increase by 2% or $11,000 the City attorney contract is budgeted to remain unchanged at 85,000 per year the internal transfers to the street Capital fund is budgeted to increase by $50,000 and the transfer to the park Capital fund is budgeted to increase by $10,000 what are the totals on the transfers is that the total amount that is going to be transferred into each fund um I will I will get that let me let me bring that up quick sure the trans transfers for building capital is $50,000 the transfer to Street Capital is $600,000 and the transfer to Parks is going to be $110,000 for 2025 okay yep thank you Mike you bet all right um the alternate way one can look at the city expenditure budget is by Department the general government classification captures all expenses involved with City governance city council City Administration Finance assessing legal and elections this classification is budget bued to increase by 4% from 1,368 400 in 2024 to 1,373 1800 2025 the Community Development classification captures all expenses involved with planning zoning and Building Inspections this classification is budgeted to increase by 19% from 57,600 in 2024 to 6789 2025 again the main factor influencing this increase is the addition of one more FTE with the within the department the city planner position the public safety FTE being full-time employee correct the public safety classification captures all expenses involved with police and fire protection this classification is budgeted to decrease by 2% from 2,510 700 in 2024 to 2,452 $100 in 2025 engineering expenses are budgeted to decrease by 33% and are budgeted at $20,000 the Public Works classification captures all expenses involved with Street Maintenance and park maintenance the Public Works classification is budgeted to increase by 5% from 1, 61,800 in 2024 to 1,685 in 2025 transfers to other funds again include transfers to Street Building and park capital is budgeted to increase by 9% so the total of those three um for 2024 is 700,000 and that is going up to 760,000 in 20 2025 shifting gears and on to The Debt Service funds the city will have two outstanding Bond issues at the end of 2024 with principal balances of roughly $14.8 million in total each year the city pays interest and principal on each of these bonds these annual principal and interest payments follow an amortization schedule that was determined when the initial Bond sale occurred the city also pays Fiscal Agent fees for each of these issues which is reflected in the budget the budget reflects an increase from 2024 to 2025 from $917,500 in 2024 to $943,000 in 2025 M could you say what those bonds are for those bonds are primarily for the water and sewer project along 65 so in total the 2024 or the the general fund Levy is projected to increase by 3% from 5,2 51,100 in 2024 to 5,411 500 2025 The Debt Service Levy is projected to increase by 2% from $962,000 9625 in 2024 to 981 in 2025 so the total Levy general fund and Debt Service levies combined are projected to increase by 2.9% again that's six it's going from 6,236 and 20 24 to 6,392 500 in 2025 the other leving authorities within the city are its Economic Development Authority and the housing Redevelopment Authority the goals of the Eda are to encourage and encourage Redevelopment activities achieve commercial development and encourage development of housing within the city the Eda Levy is budgeted to remain unchanged at $136,200 in 2025 the East bethl Housing and Redevelopment Authority's purpose is to provide a sufficient supply of adequate safe and sanitary dwellings and address substandard slum or blighted areas existing within the city the HRA Levy is budgeted to remain unchanged at $77,000 in 2025 again the city of East Bethal is a full service Community located 30 miles north of downtown miniapolis the city is 48 square miles in total area and has a population of roughly 12,000 residents the city delivers a variety of services including Planning and Zoning code enforcement Building Inspections police protection fire protection Park maintenance Street Maintenance and snow plowing the city has the fifth lowest tax rate in the no County out of 21 cities based on the 20124 tax rate a house valued at $400,000 would pay roughly $104 per month for those Services all stakeholders should have received their 2025 proposed tax statement in the mail from Anoka County a couple of reminders that your overall tax increase decrease is controlled by a number of factors including your taxable market value increase decrease in relation to the entire city the city Levy the county Levy and the school district levy staff recommends that the council open the floor for public comment on the 2025 budget and tax levies and then consider the adoption of the general fund budget and Levy the Eda Levy the HRA Levy with the resolutions presented in this report with that the city council will welcome any public input on the budget for that Mike I got a question somebody called me today asked me where we were at with the ice arena is that flat you the way we budget the ice arena is it's a uh it's a it's a budget neutral fund so the revenues that we take in support the expenditures that go out so it's a self-supporting fund and that covers all the equipment that's replaced correct excellent job as always Mike thank you thank you uh with that we'll open the public comment period anyone has any comments to make about the city budget to the Eda or H levies please come on up uh good evening mayor and Council um my name is Melissa newberger and I reside at 312 Ceda Road in East bille good evening I just have a few questions regarding the budget um one thing I noticed in the budget um for specifically for the fire department is that it's a 12% decrease from last year um and it appears that that's attributed to salary changes can you guys just confirm or give me some more information of why the fire department bud is decreasing so much and is it those salary changes from 239,240 from the prev that was uh that was a a position that was going to be created if a safer Grant was received and it wasn't received so we couldn't fund the position without you know creating a new budget it so that's my recollection am I mistaken wasn't a increase that it wasn't a transfer well I mean no that that is correct Mr Mayor he nailed it uh essentially we had that in the budget for 2025 or sorry 2024 to have an additional FTE added to the to the budget um based upon the approval of a a grant really to fund it so that's the primary reason the other reason is there is the the fire department the relief Association um actually transferred their uh retirement account to the state of Minnesota okay so a part of that is no longer does the city receive fire state aid directly it goes directly to the actual fire department uh pension fund now so there's $80,000 that is removed from the city budget again it was $80,000 in but then we actually paid it out through the fire department budget so those are the two primary reasons for the decrease okay so that $43,500 difference between last year was a position that was not filled is what you're telling me correct okay I just want to make sure I have all the information um and then uh I just wanna I just want to clarify also is is the um I'm sorry let me look um is Item B going to be voted on is this being discussed now too it Item B where in the consent agenda 4.0 uh the the fire department community response policy are are you inviting comment on that right now as well or not well as I understand it it was supposed to be a presentation by the enoka county sheriff's department in Alina and then will com I don't the council votes well we we'll have a public forum right after it okay but it looks like you have a signup sheet there I can't see yeah but it looks like in the agenda um in actually the documents it shows that you guys are going to to vote to adopt that prior to the public forum so I just want to be sure that adop what okay I'm sorry adopt what the response policy I didn't know I thought it was just information only that's information only so you don't again if I'm mistaken Matt you got a read on it yes so the recommendation Mr Mayor a city council after the presentation should consider the information presented by the sheriff's department and Aline as relates to our current fire department response policy and determine if changes are needed so it's mostly you know obviously you can you can pass anything you want this evening if you want okay so can I just address that right now just so that or is it not okay again again I I think Mr it would be appropriate for her to address in the public forum following that it'll be right after that would that be okay yeah I want to make sure that it's clear that I cannot discuss this or allow any input before you guys hold that vote no you you'll be able to speak at the public I will be able to okay awesome I wasn't planning on voting on it tonight because it's part of a bigger issue with okay you know with the fire department and what it's it was just in the policies going to be it was yeah Ved on so I want to make sure sure if you want to put your name in the public forum y it's on okay anybody else no okay we'll close the oh okay sure okay dinet Dino perfetti yeah 21034 Buchanan Street East Beth of course um I'm just curious on why you're budgeting 133,000 to the Eda again this year um this past year I think there's been maybe three meetings held with that committee um several members with six-year commitments you know a time uh for that and you're not utilizing it why would you budget again for 2025 is there any plans to utilize the etas well the the bulk of the Eda funds are used for supporting staff salaries and those continue whether it's it's continually transferred back to the general fund those funds are but the staff is still working and uh I don't know we didn't have any sta that no one on the Eda came forward and suggested we do away with it or anything I mean the the two council members two council members who are on the Eda are just two out of seven and there's a president and a vice president it's up to them to set the direction for the Eda so they're the ones that decide when the meetings are held it's not the city administrator that decides to cancel those meetings well ultimately they're the president vice president of the Eda okay I mean I sit on the Eda but I don't set the meetings Mr Mayor if if I can comment um yeah we do establish the meetings and Council them if need be if there's no topics to discuss um however they are established in January or you know in the organizational meeting as the following meetings throughout the year um if need be the as far as the budget um is concerned there are dollars that uh are kind of being banked that is for Eda and um and part of the goal of Eda is to to move from more of a dormant type of a committee to to maybe taking more of an active role in the in the community so what we've talked about in the past is what that might look like in terms of how do we how do we invest dollars to try and encourage development and that sort of thing those are those are issues right now that the Eda is is working on and and developing uh we'll be having a the next Eda meeting here on the 16th um we'll be uh having some presentations from various different people coming in to talk about about development opportunities so again it's it's um kind of a you know an opportunity to kind of look into what options might exist for the city and where uh where an Eda can be uh successfully applied to development in the city so yeah I've had the benefit of talking to several business owners while I campaign for city council the past few months and um there's some real concern by current business owners in our City and I think uh the Eda needs to talk to those people and bring it to your attention so I think it's a very important organization and I hope you continue to utilize it okay yeah I agree 100% I think the Eda should be meeting more is there any way we can bump that up they have two to three meetings a year for an uh Economic Development that's not even getting close to what we're supposed to do with it should be meeting every month we can certainly have meetings every month the issue is whether there's topics to discuss uh we need to establish the budgets those meetings are required you're required to have a final meeting that is going to be held on the 16th here but then it's really as a relates to what's what topics are out there to discuss if there's nothing to discuss we can call a meeting and adjourn a meeting and it you know it's somewhat of a waste of everyone's time but um well aren't they supposed to be talking with the different businesses out there and finding these topics isn't that what development's about talking to the different businesses and so forth rather than wait for them to call obviously people are frustrated with that yeah certainly if these businesses have uh ideas that the Eda can participate in we would we'd certainly entertain that um um I have not heard from these businesses and I'm not sure if other Eda members have either but it's certainly something that would be a topic of interest I'm sure for that for that uh committee anybody else if not we'll close the public comment portion of the meeting um so we have three resolutions in front of us first is the general fund budget Levy resolution at resolution 2024-25 I move to uh move ahead resolution 20 2479 adopting the 205 budget and Levy second 2025 2024 d79 is a resolution number I'm trying to pardon me I'm trying to find it here the actual resolutions there we are okay so 2024 79 is a resolution setting the final property tax levy and budget for 2025 yep we have a motion and a second any discussion hearing none all in favor say I I opposed none heard it was unanimous make a motion to approve resolution 2024 d880 setting the final 2025 Eda Levy and budget second again Eda being Economic Development Authority motions made and seconded any discussion hearing none all in favor say I I opposed none heard that was unanimous resolution 20 2481 adopting a 2025 H budget and Levy HRA being Housing and Redevelopment Authority motions made do we have a second second Jim Smith seconded all in favor say I I I opposed none heard that was unanimous next item on our agenda is item 4B that's as was previously referred to by Miss newberger is a community response policy who's who's uh the hallway weren't they Mr Mayor yeah we have um grab them real quick we have with us here this evening the sheriff and Alena and uh we want to continue this uh discussion about um fire response and and and what sort of models are out there right now I know that some communities have used different models we are um trying to speak in the microphone here we are um currently using a model where we respond to um uh medical calls and fire calls and and we we're averaging um just kind of ballparking around a th000 some a year and uh and so the the issue that some departments are dealing with is um is call volume we have a volunteer model uh uh for our fire department and and um and we have a requirement for our firefighters to to meet uh you know 30% of the calls throughout the year and um and I think you'll recall in the um in the fire department analysis report that uh one of the concerns was having firefighters available for or as they call it in their boots for the fires that are occurring um and somewhat of the um the risk of other calls that may not fall into that category and and kind of causing um maybe best way to put it is exhaustion in terms of the number of calls that they're going on um so uh some what some of the other uh communities are finding is by reducing to certain type of calls um that improves their retention rate and uh and allows firefighters to kind of specialize in in what they're trained to do as opposed to going to all the calls so that's your spectrum you can go all the calls or you can go to certain calls and that's really where I think the discussion needs to go uh we've invited the sheriff and elen here to to kind of speak to their um experience on the matter as it relates to other communities and what they've done and as it's stated in um in uh in the workup here um let me go to it quickly that's not cooperating is it one second as it as states in the as far as the recommendation goes for you to consider the information that's going to be presented this evening and kind of take into account what our current response policy is and if there's uh any need to change that or to um to consider any changes once we kind of understand what other communities have have gone to so anyways I will turn it over to you gentlemen if you'd like and um and Mr Mayor if it's okay if they can give us kind of a a presentation an informal presentation in terms of what they understand uh some of the issues are out there and some of the calls they go on and that sort of thing we would appreciate it please Mr mayor council members thank you for having me tonight um I did pull some you state your name uh my name is Mark Raina ambulance operation supervisor with Elena health I thank you and responsible for Cambridge down to Andover for all ambulance operations in that territory in that area I did pull all the Run volume for East bethl um for 2024 year to date um um year-to date you're sitting at 962 EMS responses uh for Medicals uh with that we are averaging a 12.51 minute response time um and that is from the time the phone is answered till the time our ambulance arrives on scene um that's how long it takes us on average now there are outliers where it takes longer than that some shorter than that but that is the average um out of the 900 out of the 962 calls uh we have transported 643 residents um 79 of those transports were emergent transports where it was a critical life threat to the patient um that is at 12.29% um that is our average for most communities is 5% so you are about 7 7 2 9% higher than most communities for emergent transports out of the city any particular reason you can think of rural community population density age of the community there's number of factors in that um that does take into account accidents on 65 um so any of those factors could be a huge jump in that um we can look at that data much closer uh if that's something the council or you Mr Mayor would like um I'm happy to do that uh this is just kind kind of a general overview okay thanks um out of out of that 962 560 were non-emergent transfer or transports were no license Sirens um patients still can have been very sick but we did not use our emergent mode to transport from the scene to the hospital um out of that four of the non-emergent runs we responded to we transported emergently so we came routine to the call based off call notes and what the caller was telling us uh for those calls we actually did upgrade because the condition of the patient was worse than what was um told over pre-arrival um I have been asked I have worked with other communities on their response models um some have went to only responding to the highest of Acuity calls um some communities have still responded to everything um like the city administrator said um that is something that uh communities have looked at um I have been part of those conversations and I would like to tell this Council and you Mr Mayor the same thing I told them um responding to your community is a city and you know fire department whoever makes that decision um they need to base that off of the service they want to provide to their Community um and you as Leaders of your community look at the risks and benefit benefits of that so um I I have been asked my opinion before um align doesn't have an opinion we will come to every 911 emergent call or non-emergent call in the city uh we are responding either way um it comes down to this Council you Mr Mayor on what you deem as necessity for your community um that is kind of a commitment that you guys make to your community that how you're going to provide care them any questions for me anything I can speak on do you see any different statistics between cities that respond to all calls such as yeast bethl versus the cities that only only respond to emergency calls well I can tell you in a true emergency uh the quicker Medical Care gets there the better outcome that that patient has um whether it be an advanced life support unit like Lina has as far as paramedics and um a full ALS capable truck um but most thing that saves people lives are BLS uh which is our basic life support skills um that quick intervention um that's what saves people's lives nine nine times out of 10 it's not the fancy stuff we can do on the ambulance it's that primary First Care um that really dictates the most outcome AED tourniquets things AED tourniquets um CPM CPR um actually bagging bagging a patient if they're not breathing those kind of things getting quick oxygen to the patient those are the biggest factors and outcomes of patients um you know when you're talking about a cardiac arrest you know within five minutes you're starting to lose brain function permanently so with that being said um you know again our average time to get a a truck on scene is 12 minutes um I don't know what the fire dep Department's response times are I can't speak to that I don't have that data um but um anytime we can limit that the better outcome what level of BLS because I got about eight years ambulance experience okay in shago winstrom that area but we were a BLS ALS even our BLS service we could do fluids and then we could get bumped up into intermediate where you could P ringers ceiling depending on the accident so yeah it depends on how fast you can get there but what level of BLS can ethyl do so I would have to double check your complete protocols but I don't believe they have any medication and or IV access uh but they do have uh correct me if I'm wrong do you guys have Nitro and aspirin Nitro ASP Nitro aspirin albuterol so especially like a difficulty breathing patient that albuterol that first line Med for a difficulty breathing as far as asthma COPD that kind of Med um that would be a big uh indicator how is all administered uh inhalation inhalation yep so through a nebulizer treatment okay but east bethl you guys can't do Innovation correct no they cannot for oral Airways nasal you're saying yes we can do oral Airways nasal Airways and ey gels yes they are variance by the medical director to do all three so uh if you're not familiar with an iel that is a inter intermediate uh Airway so it it's basically in between a oral Airway which is just a simple adjunct that's inserted into the back of the throat keep the tongue off uh versus actual intubation which is a sealed complete Airway um so that's kind of inter intermittent Airway okay so we pretty much package them up or use to package them up before a gets there or so I can speak for my crews in Cambridge specifically that respond to this area um most of the time East bethl is probably one of our highest performing communities as far as working with our Ambulance Service um they their reports are extremely thorough when we get there so that is also a decrease on scene time with the patient because we're not trying to find that out um I can speak for my years of experience I've been doing I've been with Alena 18 years I started as an EMT in Cambridge um I pretty much worked this area of my entire career um and I don't know if I've ever been on a call where they weren't waiting at the door with vitals and or a list unless we were arriving together so if the fire department's there on time like in before me right um they're saving me time um you know the one thing I got to say and again this is up to the Comm you know the community and this Council but um you know the Departments that are decreasing what they are going on we're finding that we don't have the relationships with the fire department that we used to um that would be one drawback um those mundane everyday calls um we get to know each other face to face who we are how we work um because a lot of our my Medics work the same area so a lot of the Medics that work this area um are people that work cons consistently in my area um they know most of firefighters by name they know our people by name and you go on that really bad call now everybody works much more smoothly together because they understand what each other are doing um you know East bethl fire follows align of Health EMS uh medical Direction and uh they kind of train with our trainers so they kind of get what we do a little bit better they still operate under the golden hour correct called the Golden hour yes golden hour yes okay thank you I don't any other questions yeah I'd like to know if if there's been any residents who complain when you switch from different services to full services to just responding to different calls those are those are not really complaints I would field um those would go directly to the fire fire service um they don't come to me I get all complaints based off of my Ambulance Service um not off of you know a decrease in service from the fire department I've never gotten one um and I serve obviously a lot of communities with Alena Mr Mar uh quick question for you Mark um so you have 562 non-emergent calls you indicated uh for the city of East bethl um can you talk a little bit to the topic good duplicity in other words so 56 those are transports out transports out okay yes um so 962 total calls okay so of the non-emergency ones that you receive of that 962 total so far yes um which ones would how many would you say um are there of the calls are um duplicative in terms of our fire department shows up but isn't necessarily needed at at the scene for th for that particular call those are our Alpha Omega calls uh those are like G2 Replacements nose bleeds uh very low priority calls um I would say out of that we're looking at about 280 calls 280 okay so currently today we're going on those 280 as well as yes all the others okay and again you know we have chest pains in there um those other calls snle episodes in there where um it may be a routine response because they're awake now but they are currently having a heart attack or stroke um that we find out after we get there um but pre-arrival tells us otherwise okay anything else forina did you know how the other cities received if they cut back on their calls how they reive that was it were there positives were there negatives did they like that I can speak to one community that it was very positive um and it was more on the fire chief side because he was going to every call um and then the other City it's a mixed bag um their firefighters were not happy with the change um and for my understanding they are still not but that is the city's Direction they went so why why were they unhappy do you know you a lot of our rural Comm uh communities really the firefighters enjoy going on the Medicals I think it makes you know the fire service has gotten um from my understanding and I'm not a firefighter anymore um but the amount of fires the true nature of the fire service um is decreasing um in the amount that they're actually going on structure fires um I think most rural pte on call Firefighters or volunteer firefighters get in it to serve their Community um and by doing those Medicals they feel connected back to the community otherwise not getting it from a lack of fire calls but makes sense and and that again I am not a firefighter I am not in the fire industry but that is kind of what I hear from Friends and yeah people in the business that are fir Fighters okay can we ask anybody in CR any questions well I don't I don't have a dog in the fight one way or the other but any residents have any questions so Mark Mark can you repeat the question into the microphone for because we have audience that aren't aren't here uh so the question was how do we decipher what is an emergent call versus non-emergent call uh when a resident calls 911 it goes to a NOA County dispatch uh that a NOA County dispatcher gets very little information and then transfers it to alinaa um EMS we do proqa which is a a pre-arrival questionnaire with the patient um we are a credit EMD Center um so we go through a list of questions at the end of those questions it tells us if it's an emergent response non- emergent response based off of cards um those cards are based in the system um also vetted by our medical director so that comes out with the response ofac what they need yes that is correct so whenever you call 911 it is rea in to what you're being they're being told on the phone by the bystandard patient Andor family member any true Mark though that once the Call's put in it goes through a 911 that's what the call comes out to what relay to your dispatcher and they're on the phone a lot longer get more information we do not get that no but you do I believe you do have CAD in your yep um so Anoka County and alinaa EMS they don't to that on on our dispatch and I don't know your side of it but so like if we when that pre-arrival comes through our computers with CAD to CAD you should be seeing that update as far as what our dispatcher is putting in um I don't know if it upgrades your emergent non-emergent status um on your end I don't know if it does that or not for us it does Lieutenant Peters do you want to speak to us too thank you very much thank you Mark thank you thank you hello again Council um thank you for having me this evening uh I didn't have any prepared remarks for us this evening I just wanted to make myself available as a member of the Sheriff's Office to answer any questions that anybody might have but uh i' I've been around for 20 years um I'm one of our Patrol lieutenants currently right now so I don't work Patrol like I used to anymore but when I did I spent most of my time on the night shift so for those of you that might not know night shift is a little bit more sparse than it is during dayshift hours we have less people out on the road we have less coverage out on our city streets and highways throughout the entire community so uh I will say that during my time on patrol it's important to note here that the men and women sitting here behind us are the true heroes they're the ones that are kind of the Lynch pin between us responding there first and then Mark's crew getting their third M um we're usually first there simply because we're out there we're driving around we're mobile um up and down 65 in our neighborhoods things of that nature when a 911 call gets dispatched um our dispatchers down in an NOA soon to be andn over answer that phone call they get approximately 15 seconds to determine what what the issue is is it a medical is it a crime who needs to be dispatched where do we need to start delegating our resources and no matter what it is it'll come to us and then we start doing our thing by sifting through some of the information that we're seeing we make the determination in our squad cars uh whether or not we're going to drive emergent routine based on policies and procedures that we've been trained on um and through experience and time and we're usually there first that's usually the no-brainer um but shortly minutes seconds behind us is fire and there has been times where if we didn't have and this is speaking from personal experience if I didn't have uh the services of the folks sitting behind us in the gallery here I don't know if we would have been as successful as we were on that specific call so I'm referring to cardiac arrests um I'm referring to uh simple Medicals where somebody injured themselves caught themselves whatever to stop bleeding um things of that nature high blood pressure calls you know heart calls we don't necessarily know um how dangerous this call could end up for somebody if we don't get as many hands there as soonly possible as quickly as possible so it's always nice to have more Cooks in the kitchen on something like that that's for sure um and again I'm speaking on from experience and personal opinion but um I will say that we've some of our other communities have been through this before um we we've been through this before no matter what decisions are made either tonight or later on down the road um Sheriff's Office will continue to work with the fire department we always work well together I've never heard of any complaints from our staff to them and from them to us I think that's important to note and I will say that we are not as effective in our job without the support that these folks behind us can provide so um I uh I understand the reason why we're having this conversation tonight but um speaking from my staff that I spoke to today and yesterday I took two specific phone calls um from two of our deputies that actually stated to me they like working this city because it's a full service fire department they actually seek this contract out because they know that the help's out there the help is minutes away when we get that bad crashed on 65 when we have that house fire when we have that medical um it's a difficult decision that Council must make but again like Mark said um our citizens and folks coming in and out of our city deserve that I know that you all understand that um and the Sheriff's Office will do whatever is necessary to help us reach that conclusion um it's best for everybody so I don't have a whole lot of data to add on top of what Mark uh had already said I know that we responded to thus far this year which would be just through um the beginning of December here or I'm sorry the beginning of November um over 600 Medicals in our city here and again those are anywhere from cardiac arrests to somebody with a nose Leed we don't know the severity of what that type of medical will include until we get there until we can until we can assess the situation but um our folks have crossed paths with the fire department at least 643 times on Medicals um you can add in the personal injury crashes currently sitting at 53 for the year um those are the severe crashes that are injury related usually on 65s some of our made thorough fares and then finally um our PD accidents at sitting at 162 um those PD crashes again can be anything from property damage to uh a call that's dispatched incorrectly again that dispatcher gets about 15 seconds to really articulate and figure out exactly what information is going to be populated into our CAD uh computerated dispatch system transferred to us transferred to Fire and then finally to align us so um it's a coordinated it's coordinated chaos is what it is when somebody calls 911 from start to finish and and I will tell you from experience working hand inand they do a great job first class um Chiefs chief on down from what I know from from the experiences that I that I've had with with these staff members here um top class first class from top to bottom so I can stand for any questions um I can give you some data um on anything you might have or answer anything from the from the public as well any questions is up here any questions from the audience 911 any 911 call whether that is a barking dog a loose cat or anything from multiple people heard in a crash any other questions I don't have a question but I got got to say I've been listening a lot I've had some problems last three years and uh I'll tell you something I had a heart problem and if it wasn't for the sheriff and the fire department I probably would be the live and that's Hest the fire chief is there within minutes I mean that 911 call is there between it's a race between these guys and that fire they were he they were there right now and I had it six they were here at my house six times wow yeah and three of them times I couldn't bre three of them times I was it was miserable and the other three times I finally got the stuff under control and but they were always there right away I mean I was so impressed of these guys it and yeah to me it'd be stupid to take them away from this because I'll tell you something this community is older you know and yeah we got some younger people here but I when you need them they're there there was no if ands or F all know I was very impress it wasn't just once it was like I said I had six times they at my house I felt guilty they at my house so much you know I got to know the I got to know the guy the ambulance drivers you know they knew they knew they knew my address yeah you know so I'll tell you something that if you want to cut a budget that is not the budget that that's a budget that I think we need especially with that Highway sitting out here yeah that that Highway 65 sitting out here if you cut that budget there's going to be a lot of how are you doing now huh how are you doing now it's getting under control good good I haven't I haven't had nobody at my house for about six months no companies good company it's great so I feel it's pretty good that way they are they're honestly I have never had problem and when it came I was glad they were there you know well I must be missing something because I don't recall hearing that we were cutting the budget to get rid of firefighters I just I haven't heard that yeah I just kind of read it in a deal saying that you're messing around with the online yeah social media no same people that put it out about we were going to put a federal jail in I don't know but I'm saying is that these guys shouldn't have to be looking for you know un beut you know they with all these new houses and stuff going in around here going to more well again I don't recall ever discussing anything about cutting the fire department out or cutting their budget because we weren't we since I know at least the last year we've been trying to figure out how to give the firefighters more money up front it hasn't been the discussion hasn't been about well how we going to cut some more out of the budget so we don't have to pay them I must be missing something and if you got a date of a meeting I'll go look it up no it's just something I've seen on that my wife seen on Facebook you know yeah not always cutting backs what yeah I'd like to say something to that when we had a report done it was done by an expert form or a firm that looks into the efficiencies and how well fire department's run that being said this was a suggestion and this is exactly how city government is supposed to work when a suggestion comes up that we're going to take a look at that may be good may not be good for this community we want people to show up and speak what they have on their mind this is how things get done and this is how things get done properly so I thank everyone here for coming in and giving their opinions this was never something that we said we're cutting tonight this is something we wanted input from to review and take a look at and make decisions based on it uh there's nothing we're going to do without your input not when it comes to stuff like this with our residents I can assure you that don't cut the services many we're just we're just talking about it this this is the kind of communication we want to hear somebody takes a suggestion we look at it we present it to you we try to get What the residents feel about it very simple process thank you appreciate it so Mr Mayor if I can um couple of comments that I want to um a couple of questions maybe for Mr Peters as well um but I think I think the gentleman in the audience is kind of referring to an emergent call this is a very serious call these are calls that that everyone gets dis dispatch to no questions about it there's I think the non-emergent calls are the ones we're trying to isolate here in this conversation to say um you know someone cut their finger you know does everyone need to respond to that call that's kind of the question um so we have essentially a call comes in dispatch 911 someone calls 911 they dispatch right now we have three entities converging on this location right and the question is what's the call for and what was indicated was there's 15 seconds that the dispatcher has to try and gain an understanding of what's going on they've got a lot of experience I've had a lot of experience with them uh at the county and um and actually they're as you indicated they're moving to a state-of-the-art facility that's going to enhance that service I think um certainly should for the 10 plus million I think that we're spending on that at any rate um so so the issue then becomes uh again as I as I mentioned earlier the issue of duplicity do our firefighters need to be responding to these calls for the non-emergent calls obviously Highway 65 accidents is emergent heart attacks are emerging the the I think the the discussion kind of starts to zero in on uh I got a dispatch call and um they gave some bad information turns out it's a serious call okay at that particular instance um whether it's a sheriff responding whether it's a l they can call out the fire department instantaneously and upgrade that call um to you know to a more severe emergent call at that point um the one concern I have though I think um Mark kind of eluded to it uh and maybe mayor elect also eluded to one of the concerns as I know when when I was at the county we spent an obscene amount of money on what what is called the uh public safety data system and the public sa safety data system was a system that was implemented because the sheriff would respond they'd be typing into their computers they'd have their information fire department would respond they'd be typing into their computers they have their information Al would respond they have their information none of the three matched okay so the purpose of the public safety data system was so that when somebody's typing in whether it's the 91 dispatcher or first people on scene or whatever the case is every one's working off the same sheet of music that they have the same information informed in the same way and the benefit of that was justifying that expenditure that was made very expensive and expensive to maintain um so if if I'm hearing that what aine is getting is different than what the fire is getting or is different than what you guys are getting I think we need to run something up the up the flag pole here to try and alert public safety data that maybe their system that we've paid so dearly for is not operating in the way it is or perhaps there's an understand misunderstanding as far as what information people have and whether they're accessing the proper information so that they can be in lock step you know with each other so I don't know I don't mean to throw you into the bus uh Mr Peters but um if uh maybe if you have any experience on that topic I don't know um you bring up a valid point and we have noticed this before right um on a 911 call it's Controlled Chaos dispatcher gets some information but they usually tend to keep that person on the phone line as they as they are transferring that call to the person who's actually dispatching it to our squad cars and to the fire department and to Alina they continually are updated they keep that person on the phone and it's a continual flow of information so I think um I think to address your question specifically Mr look um there is information that does change in the cad call um they're they're updating things uh they type it it's s it's gets sent to our computer I'm not sure if our other entities our other law enforcement and Public Safety Partners get that information but I know that when we're going to these calls we get audible clicks on our computer and when somebody hears an audible click I can look back down at my screen and see that the call has been updated so it might have gone from something very very minor I'm going routine um and I just left the fire station after dinner whatever and and now I need to go emergency because I heard that click I look down and 30 seconds has now elapsed since they answered that phone call down in in NOA and that call is now upgraded to a priority one which is which would um be our code three which is red lights the siren to this call so um you're correct uh I think that there is a a transmission of information that doesn't occur as quickly as it should sometimes but again we're working with the human element and I think that when you're dealing with people in crisis on the other end of the phone line I think sometimes it takes more than just that brief 15 20 30 seconds to um I guess um squeeze that information out of that person as much as we can so um I think the system works I think it uh is better than where we have been but I think there's also some improvements that probably could be made as well the week Lake seems to me that the person on site giving you the initial information is not a trained professional in determining what the problem is that's mean if you got a limb laying on the ground yeah that's easy to figure out but if somebody's you know and there's an emotional attachment there right and they're emotionally involved they're hysteric or whatever or somebody that they that they genuinely care about or I don't know how you can I don't know how you can take that out of the equation I don't think there is anyway yeah you can and just just by the not to be indulge myself in some personal stuff but I've in February 21st it'll be 14 years since I died driving to the airport down near the St Clair exit of 35e and I'm very glad that the state trooper had an AED and that the first person to get to the car and drag me out heart attack while my wife was hysterical you know and she told me I was she told me later I was the color of my blue jeans uh was a was a cardiac nurse from Regions Hospital where I wound up and she started CPR immediately otherwise I'd be even more brain damaged than I am now and I've also been the recip recipient of uh Emergency Services here I was talking to Paul Johnson the president of aggressive hydraulics in in his office we were going to take a plant tour this is a year and a half ago and I have low blood pressure and low heartbeat I have a 55 heartbeat heart pulse and I just passed out and when I when I came to they were putting me in the meat wagon I know you guys hate that the ambulance but you know and there was Rod Santa right there you know so I I'm I I'm informed about what you're talking about and appreciate you sharing your experience and I'm glad to hear you're better too me too um but anyway just that was just kind of a byy the buy but uh do you have any other questions for lieutenant Peters uh as far as I saw this I just saw it as an opportunity to discuss the topic because it was in the Capstone LLC report and I've talked with the mayor elect Anderson about Jerry strike and he knows him and he holds him in high regard he's a very knowledgeable guy uh so he's he was just looking at our department throwing out ideas and so it's it's good to flush them out flesh them out uh with input from you and Mark and other people who are hand and including members of our own East Bethal fire department including Chief Sano just to you know analyze it for lack of a better term so any other questions for lieutenant Peters well thank you and thank you again Mark for your time tonight informing us mark thank you for what you do for the community yeah Mr Mayor if we can have our Department representative to speak to this that'd be great and then we will have kind of all three entities sure that respond Mr mayor council uh I didn't really have a lot prepared uh Chief Sano called me this afternoon and asked if I could step in and go through some of the numbers that we had been working on uh also due to the Jerry um strike Capstone report so a couple of things that we were looking at is um you had already mentioned that one of the I feel like the main reason that we're looking at this is to try to reduce the burden on our firefighters I think to try what to reduce the burden on the firefighters for the number of calls I mean is that correct that that's the main reason we're looking at this so we just I just worked with Rod we crunch the numbers so um you know we keep talking about a thousand calls which is a lot and don't get me wrong I also think that we should figure out a way to work together to figure out what we can reduce and what we need to keep the problem that we have to keep in mind and um it was mentioned here every time somebody calls 911 it is an emergency to them so when we look at these people that are calling this is an emergency now sometimes we get there and of course you know it's probably not an emergency and uh Mark had mentioned that there are some hundreds of calls that they don't leave that residence in emergent mode but they are still trans coring that person in the hospital so they're still having a medical emergency so we just number one we have to keep that in mind that we need to make sure that whenever we decide to do something that we do talk to the residents and make sure that they're aware uh of what we're trying to do which is go to less calls um I know that still the sheriff's department will go there I know that Al would still go there but we want we want to make sure that they understand that the fire department might not be going on these calls I also want to call out ala and the sheriff's department um they are awesome I mean I think that the three departments working together work very well together um as they mentioned they don't have uh you know they hold us all in the highest regard and I feel the same way with them topnotch we couldn't be working with better people um so anyway I crunched the numbers so uh on the fire department right now we required the firefighters to make 30% of the calls during their shift so I just want to make sure that everybody understands the numbers that we're talking about here so we're talking about a thousand total calls but if we look at station two nights the real commitment that we're asking for people to do if they make the minimum is about a call and a half per week if we look at station one nights which is station one station three it's about 1 and 3/4 call per week and the reason it's more because they're station one station three territory they have more area where the big burden comes in is during the day so station one days and station two days the numbers are very similar but it's more like uh two and a half calls per week that we're asking them to do and of course that's to make the minimum we don't want anybody to do the minimum we would like people to do more but that's what we're expecting people either one and a half calls per week one and 3/4 call per week or two and a half calls per week there are lots of different ways that we could reduce that burden on the firefighters we could introduce a do duty officer program during the day that would reduce the number of calls that they go on uh we could sure split off station one station three that would reduce the number of calls that uh each of those respective departments go on definitely just just to clear some clarify something when you say a duty that's a person who's on site all the time yeah like we have Monday through Friday with um Chief Sano and inspector UD okay all right so yeah we could expand something upon that we also have a duty officer I don't know if everybody knows this but we have a duty officer nights and weekends as well so it rotates throughout all of the officers we all take a turn it's every eight weeks we get that 108 hour Duty week where it's uh Monday through Friday from 5 until 5 and then all day Saturday and all day Sunday so that way we always know that at least somebody is going to be going to the call so those are the those are the minimum numbers that we're looking for um for Frid Fighters you know if you look at it on a quarterly basis we're looking at station one uh nights it's basically 21 calls per quarter you know for a three-month period for station two nights it's 18 calls per quarter uh during the day it's about 34 calls per quarter so um yes it's a lot of calls during the day especially but it's not a huge huge burden uh the other number that we uh looked at um and this came actually from Jerry strike when we met with him he was asking how often are we arriving on scene before EMS so we actually added a question to our records management software so that on all the medical calls we answer an additional two questions number one uh did EF you know did the fire department arrived before EMS and then the second question is did we have any patient contact and these numbers um we don't have a lot of data yet we just put this in place after the Capstone report um so we only have roughly four months worth of data so I'm not sure it's significantly um you know I don't know if we have enough data to make it statistically significant but we are still uh arriving unseen before EMS 65% of the time and we're having patient contact 69% of the time so we're still having a lot of patient contact even though um you know on those Medicals I mean 70% of the time we're having patient contact so I guess I just want want to point out those things we definitely want to work with the city and figure out what's best for our community what's best for our fire department uh we don't want people to be burned out so uh we definitely want to be part of the conversation and part of the solution well that was something that we were approached last year of fire firefighter burnout and that's when we well we've been trying to figure out what what to do about it it's it's not a just a East Bethal problem this is a nationwide issue and uh the the paid on call model it's working right now for us U because we have a bunch of dedicated people that are doing it but it's not a long-term solution this is not a model that's going to last you know you play the movie Forward maybe five years from now will be full-time maybe 10 years from now will'll be full-time but this model is just not going to work uh long term yeah it's an interim period That's a challenge it is Big Challenge and again that's not that you spal problem or a Minnesota problem no this is across the entire country yeah that's a fact all right thank you Troy yeah thank you you questions to who's asking huh I'm sorry I couldn't I couldn't see who was asking there that makes it easier I would like to reiterate with Troy on there with firefighter burnout that I am on days I work a 5A to 5p I this and espe behind I heard any one of my other firefighters ever complain about the amount of calls we do it because so I don't see theigh burn yes we do a lot of calls from to get okay thank you I'd ask you to come up and re reiterate all that for the record but one shot okay I figured as much nope you lost your chance okay any uh any further questions comments discussion that was informative I hope everybody else found it informative too the uh next thing on our agenda 5.0 is the public forum I don't know if we have anybody on our signup sheet up there or not yeah oh do you want me to pass it yes please sorry remember seeing I forgot thank you forgive me if I pronounce your name wrong okay Patty sa was that close sather sather okay anyways I just want to reiterate what my husband said but um yes um the sixth time times that they were at our residence one of the times was for me and chief Sano was the first one there and he looked at he looked at Jim and said you or yeah you not not not me not him but anyways um yes he's always been the first one and the yoka county sheriff's department is right there boom right there with them they're you know so I just want to say yeah they're the best popping out of his head yeah he couldn't believe it was me and not him so not just that my blood pressure was so high yeah he thought his machine was broken yeah honestly honestly blow the top off I think it was at 260 over it was high it was very high I mean so he just couldn't believe it he thought it machine was BR as a matter sherff the Sheriff Deputy you I nailed him already once already it's that high anyway yeah I just want to say they're the best and um we did we did bring a big meal over to the fire department and I'm sure all of them got to partake on a Monday night for their training um we did a whole spread and brought it over and then he had other he brought the rest from the fire station by us to the other fire station so everybody got to have dinner so we're very thankful for our department here and our sheriff's department and and our em yes our em our Al yes absolutely y thank you uh Mel Newberg you still want to come up sure okay I apologize I don't know I'm not familiar with the Forum so I appreciate you guys oh just your name address and you're doing great is Melissa newberger and my address is 312 Cedar Road East Bethal um one thing I just want to make a statement on is in regards to this discussion um I did review the recent analysis conducted by Capstone LLC regarding our fire department's operations and while I acknowledge the intent to enhance efficiency I'm concerned about the proposed changes to response policies our local firefighters possess invaluable firsthand knowledge of our communities unique needs and challenges um I think impling implementing standardized policies may not align with specific requirements for a rural setting so I really urge the council to talk to the fire department and and see what they think would be the best because I think us as Citizens would trust them the most to make these decisions um so really consider their input the other thing I wanted to mention is I know that um tonight we'll be discussing the possible oh sorry I don't have it um the pension increase of $500 per firefighter um and I just want to let you know that I strongly support the proposed $500 increase um discussions have highlighted that the pension fund is primarily supported by state aid City contributions and investment earnings and this would have a minimal impact on the current city budget um I think it would increase firefighter retention and morale without imposing additional Financial burdens on the city so I urge the council to approve uh this measure and recognition of our firefighters and their dedication and service um and that's it good job thank you very concise uh again pardon my mispronunciation of your names uh Janet Grotti good that was close okay yeah Janet gry I live on 194th Avenue Northeast and I'm here because we just found out a couple weeks ago what they're doing at Viking uh golf course now to be Viking Meadows we live less than a quarter a mile away from that property and so do 10 other nine or 10 other residents um I haven't talked to them but I'm assuming they weren't informed about any of this and it's very um upsetting to say the least um why we weren't informed about anything and then we were spending hours looking back on the meeting minutes and packets and all that and we found out that this started in January of 2023 maybe even earlier so we got to go way back yeah and we had no clue so I don't know if it's too late to say anything about it have you approved the final plat or plan or whatever yes you have okay so I had a few things to say about it um I don't understand why we weren't informed it seems like the only people who were informed were the direct property line people um and I know that they're not happy about it because that's how we found out about this from one of them which which place is talking about caps Viking Capstone yeah no Capstone the Viking Meadows yeah so in all of our research it's a little fuzzy in my head but it um it looked like the preliminary plan was going to have um a park Wetlands stuff like that now they're just calling it out Lots um it's not clear if they're going to do any preservation of existing natural features thousands of mature trees elevated Forest areas there's a large strand of 70 Foot Tall Pines and the plan is to wipe them out and just have houses on lots that look tinier than Minneapolis City Lots Aon can you speak to that mean you know more about that what's going on with that project it was Patty was that your first name Janet Janet sorry um how far do you live from the golf course proper property24 miles all right so we are obligated by Statute to only distribute 1,250 feet from the parcel or the property in terms of in your mailbox notices we do publish it in the local newspaper we do publish it on the uh reader board and we do publish it here at the info board so I'm not certain um how you how your address other than it was outside of the geographic boundary obligated by Statute didn't get a notice um and my question about that is so is that what this city does just the bare minimum when there's such a huge project like that that's going to affect people for sure a quarter mile much less miles away we're talking Viking we held um at least three Community meetings or four Community meetings about actually cut it down about 30 Acres didn't we and and we reduced 30 acres and we reduced the D it that they had or originally proposed uh from nearly 500 homes down to 242 and the outlet outlets that you're talking about that's just as they develop the property they're doing it in phases right now it's just pH it's a formal Declaration of future development land yeah or in this case uh there's a large portion that is Wetlands or trails that will be dedicated back to the city that is going to be left natural or or reeded uh to natural grass that is going to be an outlaw you're not going to see that until it's platted okay and so there's there's about five phases to this project so there still will be Parks as just as they develop it they develop it as they go okay and my question is are they going to do like a lot of developers just wipe it all out and then bring in this wetlands and re you know are they going to try to preserve anything they're actually going to en the wetlands they're they're removing enhancing is not necessarily preser they're adding more Wetlands okay but are they going to preserve it's not you know like I said there's there 26 Acres 26 acres of land that they're leaving untouched okay and I'm concerned about the property owners um it looks like houses instead of seeing what they are you why people move to East bethl is not to live on City Lots I I don't know who's going to buy these places by the way that's another concern but um I don't know if anybody on this current city council was here when that thing was first brought to lightstone in January of 2023 or before Gage came in Capstone was already being considered well it was it was and the way it was zoned it should have been resed prior to anything happening but it wasn't there was a previous buyer that wanted to do this exact same thing and that that sale of our transaction actually fell through so this has to your to your point council member der Ro been in discussion for some time before the existing developer who is making the purchase and has the final clat approval came forward with their plan so there hasn't been conversation for but longer by that point in time the city was in a situation either allow him to do it because that's where it's zoned or you get sued H well the situation tonight anyway is that we do have a lot to cover tonight and this is a done deal so to speak yeah I guess I just want to say that that's really upsetting because the traffic I saw some traffic study that was very hard to understand this is going to affect a lot of people the schools the city's attitude seem to be oh well they'll just deal with it oh yeah thanks that's really kind um well believe me that traffic study we it's it's for now place was ran went through a lot leading yeah I didn't just come in and do what they wanted we traffic studies and tried to do Environmental Studies and they just they did it so what are you going to do I well that's why I'm here I don't know what I'm going to do I guess I can just complain and tell you guys maybe none of you had anything to do with it but if you don't realize the power you have people are losing sleep over this I did and I just I don't live right there I'm not going to have to wake up and see someone's house instead of the res that I was trying to bring it to a close as far as I don't mean to be rude but I'm trying to bring this to and that's my Clos you guys need to understand when you do something like this okay the bare minimum we do understand the impact we did go over the study traffic study repeatedly I spoke to the president the company and we've been we've been from from Pillar To Post on this project and they were trying to sell that land for about 13 years too and they've owned it for about 30 in East Beth and the owners are all elderly and want to get out and uh the fact is that it was zoned for the kind kind of development that was opposed and if we told legitimate owners that they couldn't sell their land for a use that was zoned under our zoning it would have wound up in court and we would have lost for sure so yeah I mean it's you get to one of those point of view one of those situations you say okay maybe this isn't the perfect thing we'd all like but legally it's it's nothing it's not a hill you want to die on because you're going to die you know that's just the way some things are in life well it's just unfortunate that you can't require them to um to accommodate the existing homeowners there whose land is right there going to be you know facing um more traffic facing you know instead of a view they're going to have someone's rooftop yeah I know I that's the balancing act that anyone in this position will face until the end of time yeah I understand is you want to keep things you want to preserve things but you also have to respect property rights okay and that is a that is an ongoing battle that'll be going on as long as they people okay well maybe my husband can ask a couple questions that I didn't get to thank you and you'd be Mr Leon yes my name is Leon grothy I'm at 1909 194th Avenue and as an architect with over 35 years experience um I I saw this development plan that the neighbor showed me and it showed hundreds of small tiny lots and I compared it to what is there now and in order to fit all these Lots on there they would have to wipe out almost all the trees and I've worked on a lot of development projects and I I don't consider this a quality development plan because there's there's a lot of things you could do to keep a lot of the natural features without downgrading what you want to build um I I consider this a huge downgrade for um East bethl where it's an opportunity that could be a huge positive and they they seem to have chosen to uh maximize the number of houses they're putting there without a con ER for the natural features without a concern for you know all the number of mature trees that are there um I looked on capstone's website and it seems to be most of their developments um they wipe out the land and they do not have any mature trees on their on their developments and so my concern is that they're going to do the same thing here where they're going to cut out you know thousands of trees just like the the U the development right next door the the tow houses they cut down hundreds of mature trees it seems like they cut every tree down that was on that property and now I don't know if they're going to plant any trees there either so what was once a a beautiful landscape um I'm concerned that it's going to be a Barren Wasteland with ttin hundreds of tiny houses so my I I think East Bethell could still um insist that they keep a certain percentage of trees um as well as a lot of other natural features there so that it could be could be done with finesse and the development plan that I saw was lacking in finesse and creativity so okay well thank you for your comments with that we'll close the public forum and move to the consent agenda make motion to approve tonight's consent agenda second motions made and seconded I on a poll a anybody else need to pull anything I'm pulling m is that it so we're going to vote to approve the consent agenda as presented less items a and and M correct okay we have a motion made and seconded any further discussion all in favor say I I I opposed none heard it was unanimous Mr Smith Matt I got a question on page 106 it is on uh line five assessing on the Kenneth Kenneth TS tulman Ken tulman yeah it says fourth quarter 202 is should be 24 a it isn't he done this year he uh he has done this year correct so is that a just a misprint that's for this year not next year right so next year's contract uh Mr Mayor and council is with uh NOA County Al okay yeah okay but we do need to pay out the balance of the agreement for this year so then it says fourth quarter 2025 I can check with uh 24 I can check with the mic on that in the morning and and shoot you an email okay let me know that all right I'll make a motion to approve item a second motion made and seconded to approve item a of the consent agenda which is the approved Bill list any further discussion hearing none all in favor say I I opposed none heard that was unanimous okay item M there's a resolution 2024-25 fire department benefit level increase and I thought it was a good opportunity to just share some information there are people watching this at home and whatever and uh there's been quite a bit of strange communication um person could even say inaccurate and uh in need of correction or embellishment or something anyway uh excuse me my phone's buzzing relentlessly for some reason uh let's see just to explain a couple things so this is the East bethl firefighters relief Association was the correct name of the uh entity and Mr Troy Linsky is the very knowledgeable gentleman in charge of managing it I I think that's the correct way to say it isn't it Troy yes uh the the source of monies for the East bethl Fire Relief Association from which firefighter pensions are paid is under in in our state I don't know if it's true other places but in Minnesota it's 2% of the property tax or property insurance premiums do I say that correctly okay that's the primary funding for that this year that amounted to $99,000 and change almost $100,000 okay so that's one block of funds the second smaller block of funds is $114,000 a year that the East that East the city of East bethl gives to the association and it's been doing it for what seven eight years or 10 years or one time a while excellent support okay and then the other means of the kitty that's being managed of money growing is return on investments whether it's stocks or bonds you know primarily stocks or bonds mutual funds stuff like that okay so that's that's where the money comes from uh another another factoid that everybody may not know is while the pension pension payments per year of service per qualified year of service are made out of that fund uh one thing that is useful to know is that if there are shortfalls on that fund the city of East bethl on the taxpayers of East Beth will have to cover it any commitments that were made okay so it's not without any risk okay I just want to point that out and there have been two times I don't remember which years they were was it 2007 and 10 or something like that9 2010 after 2009 and 10 after the market Dove yeah and we have no the city of East bethl the residents have no say over how the monies are invested to my knowledge you know so I mean we don't make the determination we should invest in that versus that so it's just something to to bear in mind okay that's all um and when I mentioned uh when we tabled this at the last meeting I mentioned there are too many moving parts and all that and it it it related to you know having the review of the fire chief with him and unfortunately weren't able to do that tonight and the other thing what related to recommendation that were in that Capstone report just to give everybody up other people other people not you guys you know but uh we hired a gentleman named Jerry strike who's the former fire chief of Andover and who now runs a business that consults volunteer fire departments and cities on how best to operate the Departments and all that and he produced a report and so in that report it had recommendations like increasing the number of First first top priorities number one was to incre increase the pool of people who are in the volunteer fire department for East bethl currently we're running about 29 plus Ben and Rod is that correct and he was talking like 50 okay so maybe 48 or something like that so a bit much larger number because it because the monies that come to the east east bethl Fire Relief Association each years is based on the property taxes the if as the group receiving those funds you know grows from 30 to 50 that's less coming in per person who's eventually going to claim a a pension and uh of course you have the other thing of nobody says the stock market's going to go up indefinitely either right so these again are just things it's kind of like we were talking earlier where it's just stuff that you want to consider another thing is one of the recommendations in that study was to look at reducing the cuse for to lower priority and and Ro excuse me Jerry laid out the uh what are high priority calls like heart attacks like like what happened to me over at aggressive Hydraulics unconscious unresponsive but pulse is fine and breathing fine and all that limb chopped off you know the stroke you know those kind of things and so that's another item that needs to be discussed maybe not with me but subsequent other people will come in uh let's see I'm just trying to okay I think I basically covered some of the talking points I just want to bring those up for the sake of everybody's looking at this because there is a lot of Mis misinformation on social media sites people you know I I don't know what the motivation is but whatever that's the way they are and so that's why we wanted to buy some time to evaluate this thing and the other thing is that it's a year ago that we approved a $1,500 per year of service increase in the pension payout which is a 25% increase in one Fell Swoop and uh so we just wanted to point that out too and this will be effectively a 33% if you add the two together over where we started so it's a big increase just want everybody to be mindful of that okay so if it gets down the road and money is run out for whatever reason City's going to have to step up and cover the difference just want everybody ahead of time to know that that was a possibility that was mentioned in the past not that any of us well it shouldn't projected on you but I won't remember it so maybe you guys will anyway so that's the background the the uh the background I wanted to communicate with you guys so you have this resolution in front of you here city council uh what's what discussion or motions do you want to make about it did I cover that sufficiently your estimation I believe so question say what can I ask a question sure do you want to come up and just holler at me okay no I don't want to holler at you that's fine I don't mind it well I've been in a union for years and now I'm retired yep have a great tension yep for all the work I never had one problem when I was working I never went to the doctor I mean I went to the doctor noral all of a sudden I'm having all these problems because I'm more out yeah and it's the same stuff with firefighters anybody else Clos your your body becomes garbage after your after your years you know pensions are a big thing and Men I can't believe people are shutting them out now we used to I used to go up for I used to do a lot of negotiating on contracts and uh that was the biggest thing they always wanted to take away from it never happened in my ball game because a person sitting behind a desk and I don't say that he doesn't need a pension but a person that's out there working physically all his life when they're about 60 years old they're pretty wor out m you know and that pension is nice it's it's really nice that Happ and we were when I laugh we're putting $6 an hour into our pension every month so I mean we're putting a chunk of change in m and uh it's nice to have that it's nice to have yeah nobody's talking about getting rid of any pensions for E belal firefighters or anything no that is the but I but I'm I say that in light of some of the blather that's on social media where you know it's just it's just a bunch of made up stuff to me you know I mean the guys are working I just want to lay I just want to lay the facts out that's all we don't we're not we're not lock up up here we don't have to agree on everything you know so I just wanted to add just one more so um appreciate you looking into it Kevin um I'm not sure that's true everything you said I'm just falling your leg Troy I mean everything you said is uh exactly you hit all the points perfectly the only item that you didn't um mention is the reason that we're asking for a benefit increase again is because our fund supports it because we're uh over 110% funded even with the benefit increase and I know what you're saying you know if we're going to hire more fire Fighters that uh would come into account but the only reason we're asking for the raise again is because the fund supports it and very much so even with that $500 increase we would still be uh we figure at least 106% funded and we just got the statement yesterday that the stock market made another $68,000 into our Fund in the month of November so everything seems to be going the right direction still but anyway I just wanted to point out that just one other Factory sure no I'm glad you did okay thank you well I'm looking around at you city council what are your thoughts questions discussion anything make a motion to approve it I'll seconded motions made and seconded any any further discussion of the matter no all in favor say I I opposed none heard passed unanimously next thing on the agenda is new business wow pushing nine and we're just getting a new business so I imagine it's time for Mr Berg thank you guys thank you for all you do thank you guys thanks for showing up in the hall empty out okay so Mr Aaron Berg our community development director is going to introduce the topic of a setback variance thank you Mr Mayor members of the council I can uh in the essence of time here I can skip dazzling you and amazing you with facts statistics and statutes and give you the quick and uh even quicker rundown um the city's received an application for a new single family home at the new address of 3564 Edmar Lane Northeast this is just over a half acre lot it's located in the Lake uh District as well as covered by a Shoreland overlay um it does have shorelands and Wetland uh on the lake side it has a uh Wetland drainage ditch to its immediate right uh which creates a significant um set of setback requirements in order to make this lot buildable this lot has been bypassed many times because of the number of setbacks that would need to be considered sharper Holmes and I work together to come up with a proposal that could potentially work uh however they're going to need a reduction in the front yard setback from 10 feet to 8 feet in order to install a drain field on the property in order to make this a habitable home um I'm not going to give you all the uh statute stuff Regarding why a variance is needed I think we've discussed those in the past y um in addition uh they are interested in attaching a cement slab to the rear of the home however the back wall of the home will be be be built right at the 75 ft ordinary high water level setback required by City uh ordinance they are requesting uh a variance to reduce the 75t setback to a 61.5 foot setback to just place a cement patio slab out the back door of the home uh in order can I ask you something Mar yes did you look at the option of just a a built not a poured but a built patio just out of you know whether it's vinyl or wood whatever as opposed to just pouring a pad yeah this was the request of the future home owner M uh we had a number of conversations and the Builder wanted to put it in the variance request to see if it could be approved okay um to hear uh requests uh for variances from the literal provisions of the ordinance in instances where their strict enforcement would cause practical difficulties because of the circumstances unique to the individual property under consideration and to Grant such variances only when it demonstrates that such actions will be kept within the spirit and the intent of the ordinance uh consider consideration of variance requires a three- Factor test of practical difficulty the first factor is a test of reasonableness in this case septic systems are required for a home to be considered habitable the approval of the variance would allow this property to be used at as a residence the second factor is a test of uniqueness uh in this case the current setback requirements for septic systems uh the ordinary high water level from the lake um the distance from any structure of a well and or um sep system as well as the um set back from the drainage ditch on the other side uh create uh a need a very unique need the third factor is that the variant would not alter essential character of the neighborhood uh in this case there are nine other properties on EDM Marlan that have septic Mounds in their front yard or their side yard which are visible from the right of way and the direct property to the West has a box Mound um that can be seen from the right away as well now a patio slab is not a minimum building requirement for a new single family home in East bethl it is an amenity or a preference of the landowner um my evaluation is that the ordinary high water level is 94.8 Ft above sea level uh with the elevation of the proposed extended patio slab of 909 that's over a 4ft elevation change from the lake level uh to the level of the patio um in additional consideration the Shoreland overlay requires or creates a 25% impervious surface lot coverage the total square footage of this proposed build including the patio is only 21% uh the Planning Commission met on November 26th and by a 5 to zero vote recommended approval of the variance for uh reduction from 10 to 8 in the front yard and uh reduction of the 75 foot set back to 61.8 that is resolution 202 24-9 city council should review the request the planning commission's form a recommendation and consider approving the variance as presented in 202 24-9 any motions yeah I moveed to deny it move to deny it you want the reasons feel free uh well part of my reasoning is someone who spoke up and testified at that Planning Commission should have shouldn't have even been involved in it it should have been recused because it was their brother this is a different one I'm sorry to interrupt this is a completely separate variance request okay second issue I have it's going to start out as a slab and I bet you with any well I can't I can see it three or four season porch going in and adding it adding in room on to it and once the slab is there it's there and I just living on the lake and I've just seen this going on and on and on people getting closer and closer and closer to the lake you have a party somebody's too lazy to go in the house so they go pee in the lake that's a real serious issue or neighbors are outside and I've seen where something started out while I just want to put a slab here and within 5 10 years you got an an exterior building that turns into a party house don't they have to apply for an exterior building excuse me they have to apply for there's a lot of things that should be applied for well I mean if you're building something you have to apply perit okay um you should do is there a second to the motion let's let's I'll second it for discussion yes for disc discussion okay if if you want to talk you want to come up and I'm sorry I just well I mean anybody watching this on TV isn't gonna going to hear anything so I'm just curious I've never I I guess in my opinion is if I want to build something on my property you have to apply for a permit right but we we're both old enough to know the oldest line there is and that is it's easier to ask for forgiveness than it is for permission but I do know something like that it happened to a friend of mine yeah he had two pole barns and in between he had a slab there and yes he built on his own he built that guess what he had to rip it down yeah that happens sometimes too don't we have of that I mean you know and if the person is buying the house he he knows that as well as can be no they're building it or building a house he knows that as well as can be so then maybe the plan should have went to move the house farther away from the lake rather than build it as close as you can and then get a variance and then go even closer to the so to add to the discussion the house is as far forward as it can possibly go the house has been the house has been skewed so that it will fit my name jimer I'm a represent of Sher Holmes and yeah we we got as creative as we possibly could to fit a home on that lot I mean we can't we can't go any further we're doing a minimal three car garage most our buyers W four cars just paying attention on previous surface ratios everything we possibly can to have a balance of what fits nice looks nice and minimally impacts the lot and in in the developments we're working it's really common to see like flood plane a flood plane B is in Peterson Farms and and in a development work and and over I mean it's normal to have an area where like you can make surface improvements but you can't make structural improvements so that's all like the I mean really the patio I'm seeing far more people want patios versus deck and structures because it gives them outdoor living space at $10 a square foot where decks these days are are 40 50 Grand all day long so like we're going to a very minimalist approach on like let's say this was a walk out lot it's really normal to see someone to a small deck down to a larger patio it's not as intrusive the cost isn't there you can have fire pits you can do many such as that so like I mean it's I I I understand your concern I and trust me I've been in the industry long enough to know your analogy of ask for forgiveness rather than permission but I mean this is a situation they basically just they just want a patio hey Aon what what the address is that the 30 it doesn't exist right now uh we will be assigning it as soon as we get a building permit um it is the only parcel of land down there on EDM we're also like we're limited to four bedrooms I mean we're not trying to get a five bedroom system on it I mean because the five b m system be far more intrusive and larger it's just it's really just trying to be as creative as we can to make a structure work on there without being egregious in what we're asking for do you do we have a satellite map that shows yeah can you bring up my screen I I do have a couple suggestions for the council to consider if if the patio is the the biggest issue either one make it a condition of an approval that nothing more than the patio slab could ever be built because it's a it's within the setback distance you're you're giving it a variance already you can put a condition on that number two allow a septic system in the front yard with a twoot reduction just like nine other neighbors have in that neighborhood and deny the patio slab so that way they can still build a home put a septic system but they can't put a an attached patio slab in the backyard maybe that would help them put it in putting an amendment maybe that would help them put it on the market and be taxable at this point that's yeah there there would be no certainly is not by us I'm just saying even risk of it down the line I don't see anything happen but certainly not by us we're not going to build anything on it's just it's just a patio I mean you're on a lake you want to try to have a little bit of the bity of being on the lake but not be egregious are impactful to the neighbors what's going on around it and I think the patio is probably the most minimally impactful thing we could suggest it's ACC great they put shrubs around it gives them a spot for tables and chairs and just just gathering with the community and stuff so Aaron I mean sherel overlay district is anything a th000 feet from the ordinary high water mark 75 ft the Shoreland overlay District 75 to build no that's that's oh yeah yeah yeah sorry yes the Shoreland over EXs beyond beyond this property correct so if you take a look at the at the map up here the original proposal had this house square with the front lot line they couldn't meet the sidey setback here they couldn't meet the setback on the uh 75 ft Mark which you see right back here after some conversations uh and con consultation with the septic designer they and and I I'll take some ownership of this suggested that we rotate this house in order to meet the SE the 25 foot setb here the 7 foot there it can be right on the line here but that's going to require a twoot reduction in the 10 foot set back here uh still giving them uh the same proposed structure that they had proposed that wasn't going to work you would have seen a much different variance today than uh you you are right now if we did come up with this concept that lot might not have been buildable what do you guys give me some input here I I don't have a problem with you I was out there today and I've seen where all the stakes you have I take it where the house is going to go about the middle y that lot looks like there's a lot of low is there swamp big time yeah I the the current elevations versus the elevations of billing pad I'm not overly familiar with okay but I do know it's got to come up I mean not educated that's what I was thinking cuz it's like yeah it's it's coming up in elevation I mean I think the footings the frost footings won't be a whole much lower than ex just grade honestly yeah CU I mean in the neighborhood if you take a look at everything that's there this is a lot lower than the other there's a reason this last right oh right that's what I'm saying you got the grading all figured out so you're not going to run off into the neighbors yeah that's all I mean that's real common practice for us we got I mean the city controls all that we got you can see water management plan grading plans I mean on our as built we got to hit all those marks and have all that checked out in order to even be able to sell the home and and be compensated for the work we put into it because it can't sell without a certific I'm I'm just asking because I know all the things that have happen oh yeah no it's fair question because it's going to be a slab on grade home right there got to be a slab on home there's nothing else that can work on the lot at this point if you did a perk test on the land at all or no uh the the owner of the company who met with trade well for the septic design might have a little bit more insight into that but I'm not prove that honestly I'm not saying it has been done I just I just don't know don't want to say yes don't want to say no mean towards there's some sort of perk testing done in there because they want to quantify those support stepic system oh right definitely that's what I mean because it looks like a lot of swamp I don't know still it has to be what three three foot separation yeah and it looks like here this um right here 48 that's a that's a 4 foot uh Mark right there so it looks like they found 4 ft of dry ground there uh in this target which is where they're targeting the septic system this one if this one's 48 feet that's 907 this one's a foot higher so I'm assuming that that's that's even uh 48 when I was there for the house it's a lot higher but it's still all of it yeah the developer knows that they're going to have to bring in about 2 feet of fill to make this thing work that's that as as we've alluded to there's a reason this is the last lot on that street because it's not going to be cheap here it is yeah there's giv be more site expenses in this than on a normal improved lot but I mean it'll be a nice lot when I mean we we pride oursel in in making a nice looking product we don't want a a house that looks on a pimple I mean we we partner with uh classic construction I mean you guys are familiar with them they do all that grading anding surrounding do great work for us and there's I mean we could probably find it cheaper I'm not going to say we're going to find it better but I mean that last 5% of what you investing these homes really honestly make them look and fit on a lot much better than projects we've seen all okay as to the motion that's in front of us right now are there any more any more further discussion of that well I was more opt with agreeing with Bob thank you by the way with Bob on this one based on what's what are they going to build build on it later M I feel more comfortable having explained what you're doing and putting some condition on that slab to prevent that so do you want to vote on your motion you want to withdraw the denial motion and go with a an approval make a new motion huh I will withdraw it okay the motion is withdrawn second so you got second and it's seconded okay do we need a vote or is that sufficient no then you'll need a motion to approve I'll make a motion to approve on the makes a motion to approve and we'll say Mr Miller makes a second as long as there's a condition what kind of condition would you like no patio no attached patio or patio without a future build without a future build okay so that'll be a condition the second condition in resolution 20 24-9 as in addition to an as built being required after everything is uh constructed that no um prohibiting a structure no future structures on this laab okay everybody on on board with that everybody understand yep any further discussion on it hearing none no good all in favor of approving resolution 2024-the vied say I I opposed none heard and it was so it was unanimous very well the next item under new business is second driveway variance and this is what you were thinking of before Oh on front Boulevard which is yeah actually had a couple problems with that one the neighborhood this one uh due to the complexity I intend on reading the whole thing so bear with me um on October 29th 2024 the city of East bethl received a variance application from Josh belany property owner at 19408 East Front Boulevard for the construction of a second driveway or access off of uh east bethl or excuse me East Front Boulevard in a Lake zoning District Mr Belfy and his brother who owns 19356 that's two doors down um acquired the vacant parcel from family which was located between their two homes in a private land transaction they divided the lot and adjoined their respective portions to their respective Lots Belfy subsequently applied for an accessory structure which was permitted and the project was complete during the final inspection Belfy was informed that he would need to obtain a permit for a second driveway or access Belfy indicated on his September 28th 2023 building permit application that he had no intention or there were no plans for a driveway city code does not permit more than one driveway in certain zoning districts of the city um I reference section uh 10 of the city code where it says properties in the R1 R2 and Lake districts are not are are allowed one access point from a public Street um let's see in addition all residential zoning districts driveways located on an improved Street require a binus or concrete driveway extension uh from the street a minimum of 75 ft to a garage apron or whichever is less um what happened wait a minute what happened to the RightWay yep if it's in a platted subdivision we want it to extend it all the way if it's in a non-planted we're okay yes um in all residential districts driveways created on an improved Street after the adoption of that ordinance in 2010 are required to meet the paving requirements no later than one year after the approval um in this case the septic drain field is located on the north side of the house I'll see if I can make this a little bigger so it's easier to see here septic systems located over here um and the well is located in the front yard right about here between the house and the tree um uh let's see forcing the placement of the detach accessory structure opposite of the existing driveway and therefore he's unable to use the existing access to access the new building in addition to the request for a second driveway access Belfy was requesting a variance to the Improvement or the paving standards as required in section 10 which states that parking spaces for heavy equipment would damage binus or concrete surfaces are exempt from the paving requirement belany reports that he owns a skid steer loader and he intends on parking it in the driveway and believes its parking would damage the paved surface city ordinance however does not define what or what is not heavy equipment there are three Parcels on East Front Boulevard that appear to have second driveways a historical review of the gis Aerials provide information that all three of those Parcels existed had second driveways existing prior to 2008 when the ordinance revision occurred um staff advised Belfy that the second access driveway and/or Paving standard requirements would be denied administratively if applied for and that a variance would be required before either could be applied for or approved again to hear requests of variances from the literal provisions of the ordinance uh the three Factor practical test has to be met the first factor is the test of reasonableness and I've provided a couple of options um in this case the property owners requesting a second driveway access to a detached accessory structure is reasonable as adequate Ingress and egress are necessary for a structure intended to store vehicles and equipment or alternatively the denial of the variance to place a second driveway on the property does not deny the land owner of reasonable use of his property as the detached as a detached accessory structure and subsequent access are not a requirement of development standards to a primary residence the second factor is that the land owner's problem is due to circumstances unique to the property not caused by the land owner this case the property is triangular in shape uh limiting buildable areas for construction the location of the septic drain field on the north side of the lot as well as the well in the front yard the layout of the home placed the attached garage in its existing driveway on the north side of the house away from the newly constructed accessory structure and the third factor is that the variant would not alter the essential character of the neighborhood as I stated there are three other Parcels with existing non-conforming second driveways on East Front Boulevard or alternatively you could find that properties in the R1 R2 and Lake are not are only allowed one access point from the street in this case is the opinion of City staff that this very request partially meets the standards under the Practical difficulties test uh for additional consideration belin's lot is in the Shoreland overlay District which has a maximum allowable impervious surface of 25% as we talked about earlier belin's lot based on acreage would cover uh I'm not going to give you all of the Dazzle you with all the details um he has what would be left um 1,110 Square ft of of allowable coverage uh driveways required to meet a minimum of 12T wide but cannot exceed 24 ft wide at the union of the pavement to the RightWay based on minimum Paving standards if he laid in a 12ft driveway he would add an additional 650 Square F feet he's got 1110 to work with can I ask you a question on that yep as as it's laid out if we approve the resolution are we approving a 12T wide driveway you can approve whatever conditions you want I know but as it's written right now no it is not it's not specified no um take that back the Planning Commission made a recommendation very specific uh but I don't know if it included the wi I think it included they approved a second access and they improved the homeowner to use whatever surface they wanted to cover and he was interested in put using millings I believe correct it um it looks like an attachment for that uh they have a drawn in driveway uh 20 foot 20 foot width and 50 foot length th000 square feet he still has 110 to work with if he does 1,000 square feet if it's paved and if you consider asphalt millings impervious that's a whole another argument they're not impervious they're not not inov okay um I mean I'm is that widely considered it that way right uh so getting to that point uh section 57 the area of a lot above the ordinary hot water level coupled with buildings including apperances driveway sidewalks and similar impervious materials for the purpose of this section which talks about Shoreland overlay driveways that have a gravel base shall be considered impervious because of the compaction on November 26th 2024 the Planning Commission held a public hearing which there was no public comment after a review of the material and a discussion and hearing from the applicant the Planning Commission by a 3 to1 vote with one abstain abstaining recommended approval of the variance for a second driveway access with the surface to be up to the discretion of the owner as written in resolution 2024 d91 the city council should review the request the planning commission's formal recommendation and consider approving the variance request as presented or approving with an alternative condition or denying the request okay thanks Aaron what do you think guys I think he's already using it as a driveway and he needs to put something on it to enhance the neighborhood from that picture yeah I think this is still in the middle of construction actually on the haven't we denied people two driveways with a lot more property than that this guy wants two on that short little road no yeah it's just I mean that's the whole point we have variances because properties tend to be so unique right you can't just give blanket rules for everything and you know and this is just an odd situation where this property popped up and was split by a couple of brothers and and it's on the wrong side of the house if it were on the other side it would be a non-issue give it to them so yeah that's only question I have was whether was there was any restriction on the width of it and whether it matters you've been out there you've been out there Jim doesn't matter one way or the other well he can exceed the impervious surface on his life so he's going to have to be under 20t in width I so you just put down just the question we were talking about if you put down millings forget about the gravel underneath just millings is it impervious or porus depends on which part of Google you believe not because it's packed you should be an attorney we got we've got a public works director here that might have a little bit more uh experience with asphalt and millings he could maybe give an opinion I'm I am not a asphalt millings uh expert you mean we found an era that you're not an expert well if you got somebody with more knowledge than me I would take that that's a fact he's got more most of us well we could put a condition on it driveway not to exceed 20 foot width 50 foot length to meet Road no matter what material he uses that that way that's pretty much what they approved that the Planning Commission yeah that way it doesn't matter if it's considered impervious or not and and again driveway can only be 20 by 50 getting to at least the current council's approach of if if the local people most affected by the property are amb ambivalent about it they don't care uh they're not you know in opposition or anything then why should we be opposed to it we don't have to live with it I just want to point out that the council did make a uh approval on a variance for a similar situation regarding driveway non Paving there was a condition put on that one in particular on Durant that if it's deemed that the material that the driveway is made out of becomes a hazard in the roadway that the city could obligate them to then pave or or uh put asphalt down I think we should add that as a should consider that because of the location in the bend in the road yeah um somebody might come around that corner or be heading around that corner and and end up running through some loose material that should driving that fast diligent with a broom give uh give the city a little bit of of uh leverage to to address a problem uh down the road should become a problem that's good thinking and that is not in the resolution however we could very easily put that in and um do you want to read this back the way it where we've cooked it up now and then somebody can move whatever it sounds like you just want to approve resolution 20 24-h I believe1 91 with an an additional condition that if the material um used on the driveway um is deemed a road hazard um that the city can enforce the paving standard and I'll copy that language right out of the last resolution that you passed so that they're consistent language the condition would be the same who would like to move that as summarized by Mr bur I got another question on the apron that's existing right there do we know the measurements of that right now or no uh which one are you referring to Jim I'm sorry right in front of the garage itself they got like a an apron that goes to the right of the garage if you're staring at it yeah I don't have and um I know I was just looking through the paperwork to see if there's any yeah I I don't have anything I guess what what happened was our building inspector went out there to do a final and saw some 2x4s and it looked like the driveway was being framed up and it might have been the apron um and then he put a stop to it and actually came to me and then I got a hold of this applicant and said whoa wait a minute what's Happening Here I what I was wondering if so but the apron itself if that's the apron to the garage can be whatever with they really want it but cuz you're talking 20 by 50 so what where are you taking that measurement from is what I'm kind of getting at yeah um that's a great question let me see we knew the width of the garage right now I didn't get out and measure the garage is 28 ft wide is it yeah okay so it'll be narrower and the way it's drawn it looks like it pulls to the north of the of the existing yeah foundation so it's 28 ft now the garage is the garage wall where the door is is 28 ft wide the door itself or with the both side walls I I'm looking at um do you want to bring up my can you bring up my screen this is uh this is the plan that was submitted the site plan which shows a 28 by 34 garage okay so this is okay so then the 20 okay that's how I was getting at where he's going to put his new mailings area right here apparently okay thank you yep so what's the driveway notes the driveway 50 ft long 20 ft wide so from the from the p pavement well from the property line it looks like here um to one side because of the angle it's 50 ft on one side but it's probably 35 or 32 on the other angle because the angle of it but for impervious surface calculation it's easier to do a rectangle than to try and figure out a trapezoid true I didn't do well in Geometry that's another thing I didn't so do we want to set another condition on the size of the driveway are are these the dimensions that the client this is what he this is what he submitted for a site plan okay currently it says like not to exceed right yeah and he'll have to also apply for an applic he'll have to put in an application for a driveway and at that point then we now have control over what can and can't be approved from dimensional standpoints impervious surface Square impervious or not technically they're not consider impervious but they seal up and so if he stays within his allowable impervious surface and he puts down um millings and they compact he's still within the 25% if he stays at this width okay so where are we at right now do we have a motion I not not yet no so I can make a motion to approve resolution resolution what's here 2024-25 50 size no greater then yeah yeah no greater second okay motions made and seconded to approve resolution 2024-the in none all in favor say I I I opposed none heard it was unanimous good are you going to be involved with the property split too yes well it's just man of the hour tonight aren't you land use that's what they all come to me for yeah so the next part of the agenda 8.0 Department reports item a Community Development item one property split consideration 426 Birch Road Northeast on Lake Beach thank you again Mr Mayor members of the council this one there's a little history lesson here but I'll make it as brief as I can uh you're considering a a formal request from Brandon hilard to allow um a parcel to be two Parcels to be sold independent from a third parcel uh the other parcel is 426 Birch Road Northeast as required by by recorded warranty deed and there's the Deep number it was included in the packet on March 3rd uh melbran LLC purchased 426 Birch Road Northeast which included two additional vacant Parcels Mel Brand LLC is in the process of attempting to sell the properties independently and during title work this warranty deed from January 15th of' o02 uh recorded on the property states that it is a condition of this conveyance and no Covenant and Covenant that shall run with the land burdening and benefiting the party's successors and signs that the two vacant Parcels by prop description shall not be conveyed separately from 426 Birch Road Northeast by description without prior consent of the city of East bethl that's why it's in front of you City staff with the assistance of the enoka county assessor office staff have searched City Records and County records to determine what caused the Restriction to be placed on the land it is not clear how leavon Alford acquired those two extra Parcels of property however in her April 2012 will upon her death gave devised or bequeathed the three properties to her successors there's language in the W the will that I've included uh in the report I'm not going to go through all that because it talks about all the minuscule teeny tiny Lots in Lake Beach that make up this property uh but in 2017 leavon um Alfred passed away and her son John was awarded and as the formal appointee as successor interest in the property was divided in three ways uh in the will uh to lavon's Three Sons how convenient three lots three kids uh in 2022 one of the sons sold his interest in one of the lots to the brother owning the third lot leaving the property in the interest of only two siblings in June 2024 the two brothers sold the properties to a new buyer who subsequently put them back on the market and sold them to melbran LLC who would like to sprit the split the property separ L uh which led to the discovery of the Restriction of separation due to the small lot sizes in the neighborhood City staff requested that milbrand LLC seek the advice of a septic designer to determine if lot 20 uh lot the lot at 426 Birch would a be able to support a replacement septic system should the existing system become non-compliant melbran LLC conducted Casper Excavating Who provided the opinion that the replacement system could be installed in the existing area and still meet all of setbacks when 426 Birch Road Northeast was built in the 80s uh today's setbacks were not codified by ordinance or in the zoning code according to section 51 um that requires New Lots uh without sewer and water be a minimum of two acres uh with a buildable area for New Lots at 23,000 ft which is just under half an acre the total combined square foot of these two vacant Lots if separated from 426 Birch would be approximately 19,166 Square ft the city has uh approved buildings on smaller Lots existing smaller Lots than two acres in the past City staff have mapped out the current setbacks on the vacant Parcels for a visual representation try to get to those for you here I may have bypassed them already um here we go these two lots uh okay these um here we go the city has approved as I said buildings on existing lot smaller than two acres in the past um I've mapped out the current setbacks on the vacant Parcels for visual representation which is on the screen uh these setbacks leave a maximum buildable area of approximately 8,664 Square ft these two lots in addition have a depression or low land area of approximately 2,649 sare ft which historical mapping shows that there is visible water ponding in that depression annually although not defined as a wetland this area should be surveyed to determine its border and dimensions as it's included in the build buildable area surface mapped out in addition the  Lake District has a Shoreland overlay Zone limiting impervious surface at 25% which for the two vacant Lots would be approximately 4,791 Square ft and in addition the Lots would need to have a septic system and meet all required setbacks by code in order to or have approved variances for said reductions if the division is approved City staff recommend a certificate of survey and a lot combination be required as a condition of approval to avoid the possibility of future divisions of those two lots creating the need for additional variances and to best meet the requirements of today's zoning code city council should review the request consider approving or denying the request as presented in resolution 2024 92 I think i' gave you a or b as an approval or a denial I move to approve 20 24-9 two or what did you say 92 92 second is there any further discussion about this uh Aaron my question is is pretty much only one question and it looks like you've investigated it well with these two lots there's buildable buildable area to build a house and a septic without getting variances from the city so our minimum building standards require that 60% of a primary structure be at minimum 20 ft wide uh we require a 24x 24 two-car garage this is 52 and2 ft approximately deep this blue zone is your buildable area with the setbacks in it so at 52 ft if you built a 24x 24 garage right at the setback line and offset by 4 feet to 20 foot wide by it's 168 ft of length there and that's why I requested or suggest that you request what that Wetland is because that may cut into some of the buildable territory but I think um for we've actually approved um primary or residence being built on lot smaller than this yeah with the buildable territory that did require a septic holding tank however they were still able to make it happen MH and that had a lot less territory than this my only concern would be the Wetland in this case but the short answer is yes they could do it without getting a variance from the city they could snug it up 7 feet from the property line on this side which wouldn't make the neighbor very happy but they certainly have that right uh and then leave this for front yard sidey yard um a buffer from the road whatever they wanted to do this is this does have some trees in it um but I think this this parcel right here for the most part is definitely buildable okay just how big or how small of a home can we get in that allowable space Oh yeah we we've let people build on smaller Lots than that that answer your question yeah I just want to make sure that by allowing them to be sold separately that we aren't creating a future issue of having come back for variances and etc etc yeah we don't have any soil testing so I have no idea what if it could support build or not in terms of oh sizewise zoning wise we could put something on there it's cool Lake Beach it's all unique Aaron I was out there today too and there there's a house that they're remodeling on the larger lot yeah that's 426 right yep and these are next to that there's a garage and a trailer travel not a travel trailer but a pickup trailer on the lot that they're talking about there also or is that on the 426 um well because they own all three of them I if they're doing a remodel here we would let them stage equipment on the lot next store but okay um I'm just trying to figure where your lines are where they're talking exactly they're splitting it three three ways two two ways these two lots here will be one will be I I would they're both almost two acres no they're quarter of an acre okay 22 coming from uh L Road I guess so here I know where you're talking I seen that low area thereo yeah so there's a lot here that's almost quarter of an acre there's a lot here that's almost quarter of an acre and then this is 426 which is also a quarter of an acre with the existing home on it okay so I would recommend that if the split does happen that these be required to be combined so we don't deal with right otherwise variances down the road due to that wet land uh Low Land There it actually stretches across the lot here and you can see it exists over here on this lot as well okay yeah that's why I suggest get having a survey done a certificate of survey so we do know where the borders of that low land is yeah because I see Casper Excavating they said that if the septic failed they do have room that they could redo it even that's the one here that's the 426 so I'm assuming it's here in the backyard and they can put it in an additional spot or technology has actually upgraded since then and they can dig out the existing system and put all the soils in so that has changed as well all right thank you that's all I got okay so I have a motion are we seconded yes okay any further discussion hearing none all in favor of approving resolution 2024 d92 say I I opposed none heard so that was unanimous thank you guys thank you Aaron have a good night's sleep we'll do it all again tomorrow mhm didn't think I had I covered everything this stuff okay administrator review summary statement and uh from our closed session on the 25th of November and then the approval of the 2025 administrators contract will be on the next item on the docket so yeah good evening Mr Mayor members of the council I'm Christina Benson sitting in for Eric Larsson um there's two items under the City attorney Agenda Report this evening and the first one is that um kind of a matter of process adoption of the summary that's of summar um summ mizing the close session that was held on November 25th um regarding the city administrator review so you've all received the copy of that as part of your materials for tonight and once you've had a chance to take a look at that we just need a motion to adopt that summary from the closed session okay have you folks already looked it over did we get a closed session summary I saw it ER sent it to me huh I have it pulled up here and Mr Mayor members of the council I can just add um both um City attorney Eric Larson and I have reviewed this against statutory requirements for your summary for such a um close session um for meeting the legal standards you guys reading that now or do you want to read it or maybe we should wait until Mr D Ro is back okay the first thing we're looking at here Bob is a summary of our uh close session meeting on on the contract so have you seen this yet yep that summary yeah I read it okay I have too so are you guys I'll read up on it so I see the employment agreement yeah so as the summary um provides there is a um direction that was provided during the close session to prepare the agreement with the matching of the salary increase and extending the term um which will be the next agenda item before you this is not a approval of the contract at this point so can I get a motion to approve the summary motion to approve the summary second okay we got a motion and a second to approve the summary of our Clos session meeting of November 25th regarding the City administrator's contract any further discussion hearing none all in favor of accepting it as presented say I I opposed none heard it passed unanimously all right and Mr Mayor members of the council um the uh City administrator contract was also sent out for your materials for tonight with the two revisions that were reflected from the direction at the November 25th meeting and at this point you can motion to approve the uh 2025 City administrator's contract and of course you always have the option to hold discussion and continue the discussion to December 23rd should you not be able to come to a decision tonight okay can we have a motion to approve the contract as presented so moved second Mr D Ro motions and Mr Miller seconds that we approve the city administrator's contract as presented any further discussion hearing none all in favor say I I opposed none heard it was unanimous and that concludes the City attorney Report with that I stand for any questions that you might have hearing none we thank you for your time no thank thanks for uh being here in Eric stad the next item on the agenda we go down to under Department reports is resolution 2024-25 right 93 that's what I get for printing off the agendas too soon as soon as I get them Mr Mayor uh County brought band infrastructure grant program yeah before you is the uh um receiving the Grant from Anoka County um Thea county has by way of History had set up a um a request for quote and and um and other methods of working with midco all of which fell through and ultimately decided uh to uh to Grant dollars to the cities uh that have areas that are underserved we've talked about this project before this is actually the receip of those Grant dollars that needs to be done before December 31st of this year uh in order to be eligible to utilize those uh dollars in 2023 in NOA County designated arpa dollars to be used for broadb band expansion in NOA County uh to those underserved areas as indicated and um the um the county put one condition on this and that would be that midco when they submitted their project included East bethl bethl and Lynwood uh town Town ship of Lynwood and uh one of the conditions is that one of the three would need to step up and uh and project manage that uh the project and so we met staff met and we we decided that we'd be able to handle that uh reasonably and uh and so I then uh reached out to uh the um administrators or Clerks of the following the other two cities and Township the other city and Township and uh they were agreeable to that so before you here is just the approval of the receip of that Grant uh to to um be eligible to receive those dollars and then on the 23rd we will have the um uh the cost share agreement uh basic with midco essentially saying that we'll give them the Thousand uh 1, 19 ,800 for their work with their match of $600 some, and that um that you know then they have access to RightWay and that sort of thing within the communities to do this this work uh so there's there's that that's coming forward U on the 23rd so that's different than receiving the dollars obviously with the county that's more on our end of things and kind of setting up that uh joint Powers agreement so there's some kind of there's some reason I'm looking for bethl on here and it's not listed we've got bethl um Cedar Stacy Wyoming I think that list is going by ZIP code you're you're referring to the addresses the address list that's in there yes yeah those are the specific addresses um that uh that we included so that Folks by way of record would know hey this project is happening in my area or I should anticipate this coming to my area that sort of thing so um it is it is East bethl we are receiving uh significant um uh you know coverage as well as the other communities so all in all this this project for $1.6 million which quite honestly that we're getting quite a big bang for the buck in my opinion uh putting cable on the ground is not cheap and uh so these the midco is is able to do it reasonably and um and we're able to partner with the county to provide that connectivity to people that you've probably heard from before in terms of their options for uh for um internet service or at least reliable high-speed internet service okay is there this Falls in that category of opium other people's money right yeah so we need a motion to approve this then yeah to approve resolution 2024-the any further discussion hearing none all in favor say I I opposed it's unanimous and the last item I see here before staff report and Council reports is uh Whispering Asen Redevelopment status report I'll be abstaining from discussion in any direction or voting for this agenda item okay okay uh Mr Mayor before you hear this evening there's been a lot of uh discussion uh about Whispering Aspen about a contract that's in place about use of uh Community Center and things of this nature um and this evening uh staff is seeking Direction and guidance from the council uh to empower the administrator and the City attorney uh to u to address what we're going to refer to as open business issues um not identified in a contract or um kind of expenses that have been generated from that facility expenses in regards to um electricity DSL water usage sewer usage those sorts of things um in addition to that is um uh one one item that came up was a sign placement uh that is not specifically defined in that contract either uh and a final issue is a um uh outstanding Road Improvement cost uh uh members may recall that uh as part of the agreement it stated that uh each property would pay $2,000 for the Improvement of a roadway system in there uh those payments have been made and uh but then additional component in that contract states that anything above and beyond uh the cost to to upgrade that road would be covered by um Firebird LLC or BDM construction same same entity uh and so uh that's a an outstanding issue as well that we need to um handle so uh again we're we're just seeking uh for the uh Council guidance to empower us to uh work with the city attorney to draft a letter to the principal uh Mr mundle senior and um and address some of these open business issues and uh and go from there you'll recall also um the direction was given to uh draft a letter to the attorney general that is currently in process um has there been a letter to the county attorney the letter has been sent to the county attorney the County Attorney has yet to respond on that so I'm I need to follow up with Mr Johnson to uh to get uh his input on that but then that I assume what's that you know him well I've gotten to know him well yes um he's very busy though uh and so this might not be the top of his uh to-do list but that's a separate unrelated issue to what we're going to call open business issues here um or issues that are not identified in that contract so um again I think the the goal here is to um you know to work with Mr senior Mr mundle senior and uh to find resolution on these issues put it to bed once and for all uh I think that this has been this issue has been kicked around like a political football for many many years um after talking with the mles it's not an familiar topic that they that they've dealt with uh and so trying to should we say land the plane uh you know is is the goal here and uh kind of find a resolution to all these issues and and move on from there and from a community standpoint so okay be looking for a motion Mr Mayor to empower staff to work with the city attorney to draft a letter so moved second moved by Ro seconded by Miller any further discussion hearing none all in favor say I I opposed obain opposed it was unanimous except for one abstain by Mr mundle let's see brings us the staff report yeah Mr Mayor just a a couple of quick items to to address here I wanted to get back to this kin tolzman a question that was raised on the uh bills it says fourth quarter 2025 in there uh and it is um it's a fourth quarter 2024 for 2025 assessment there in lies the confusion but uh anyways it is part of his contract uh the the final part of his contract and that we're paying out on that so um there was a small little area in there to write a note and unfortunately it's not large enough to uh to write all of that so wanted to clarify that um wanted to also say that we had a successful first annual tree lighting uh here at uh East bethl and uh and I want to just really give a shout out to Dallas and the lions for the work they put together I I think it was very well attended uh with folks here and of course there was plenty of cookies and and things that probably shouldn't have been consumed but a lot of people did and and it was a good time I think by all and uh and I think it's it's their intent to have this every year um and uh and I know there were there were um food uh items that were brought for for uh the needy as well so that that was a win-win in that area so wanted to just report that I thought that was very successful and thank them for their hard work on that y I'd second that Dallas always does a great great job with that Lions yeah um I uh also wanted to just mention that uh we're we're getting things kind of wrapped up here into the year that's why some of these uh Council meetings are running along we'll have another probably lengthy one on the 23rd so just want to make you aware of that as well uh part of that uh discussion and we uh have Christina with us here this evening who has been working day and night I think on the Cannabis ordinances um and uh it should be set for adoption at that point um and uh basically there's other communities that have adopted and orn her work that she's she's worked on and and they feel very comfortable in some of the ordinances that these other communities have adopted so essentially what that does is it helps toine uh you know a control mechanism zoning where would it be located how big a sign Can it have um how close can it be to schools how close can it be to to uh you know daycare facilities things of that nature do I understand correctly it's basically the state abdicating any responsibility for for doing any of this that it's fallen on us is that yeah I think I think the Hope was the state would would drop some rules on that and and provide some clarity on that I'm not sure that that's happened um I think that the whole Genesis of this conversation was let's do it and that's about where it ended yeah um and so you're you know from Public Safety standpoint to cities to I mean everybody's kind of going what in the world you know is going on here so um we need to kind of address the smells and and uh you know other concerns that might come up with to try and get some control mechanis mechanisms around this there's a there's a requirement per population level that you have to meet I mean there's all sorts of um you can't deny type of Provisions in the in the law uh and so we thank thankfully have somebody here who's an expert in the matter uh or has become an expert Maybe by default no one else in the office wanted to I don't know but anyways um we're very thankful for work on that U so that should be coming forth on the 23rd as well um I know we've talked about that in the past uh but hopefully we can we can land that plane too uh and then the final item I just want to say is we um we we had a um uh our our engineer um was out with the flu and now we have a fire chief that's out sick and I just want to encourage people to stay healthy during this uh during this um you know Christmas season or whatever I think a family gets together fly in from out of town everyone gets sick type of scenario so please try and stay healthy and do what you can to uh to minimize that from what I understand it's not pretty uh what's going around so anyways just want to make people aware of that that Health Initiative hopefully to tr stay healthy during this time but aside from that stand for questions if there are next thing you know you're going to have us doing Cal athetics like that movie gungho remember uh okay that'll anything from you Nate I've got enough okay uh Council reports yeah there were some people that had the misfortune to going out on Lake yesterday and falling through no I know it's hard to standing water on the surface 48° I don't get it everybody get out all right yeah couple couple kids went through a couple people went through and then some other people ran out there to get them off uh couldn't understand how they did I mean no no flat bottom duckboat no ladder no life jackets on they just ran out there to yeah save the day luckily there weren't more casualties or any casualties other than something I'm sure got pretty cold stay off the ice let it freeze a 4in sunfish just isn't worth your life I mean I never saw it I I never understood that anyway um is there anything else anybody thinks of yeah I move to adjourn second we got a motion made and seconded to adjourn all in favor say I I I opposed vote was unanimous that's thank you all for coming