--------- Mr. Mayor, if you want to call the work session to order, we can go right into that. Let me get this going. Call the uh April 28th, 2025 uh work meeting to order.
I'll make a motion to adopt the agenda. Second. Have a motion and a second to adopt the agenda. All those in favor? I I opposed. None heard. Item one, zero. So, Mr. Mayor, we have a few items to discuss this evening under
the work session. We may not be able to get through all of them, but we wanted to make sure to have Jerry here to go through the top three, which are pertinent issues as it relates to um a new fire chief eventually coming on here. So, um one of the goals is to kind
of get things in order for them um so they know where they are when they come in. Anyways, I'll turn it over to Jerry. Chair, mayor, city council, good evening. If you could just give me a minute, I'll start up this presentation since it's not quite 6 yet, right? It's past six. It's past six. All right.
Well, there's my there you go. So, there we got that. And we will start. So, tonight I want to talk to you about four topics. Um and of course we've talked about them probably
in pieces but this will allow us to talk to them in general. So apologize for the packet coming to you tonight. Uh of course you had the topics but this is the more in depth information. Um if there's there's no request to make a decision tonight. Uh however if you feel
you would like to at the council meeting that's your prerogative. So today I want to talk about the East Bethl Fire Department. Over a year ago when I came and conducted a study, there's a lot of questions related to what does the fire department do? Uh what do our
full-timers do? Our budget is a million dollars. Uh where does that money go and so on. And uh as we've stated before, I I wasn't at that time expected to come in and have an intimate review of the organization, but um I have. So, I'm
going to give you the information that you're paying for. So, the agenda tonight, we're going to talk about the duties of the fire department so you clearly understand the role of the fire department and your role with the fire department. We're going to talk about what chiefs often talk about levels of
service, what that means to you, and um we're going to discuss uh sort of reorganization recommendations of the fire department that I see would add value to the volunteer model that you currently offer. Uh we'll talk about daytime response.
uh we're going to talk about in the end a the administrative recommendation that I'm making and then reclassifying uh one of the full-time positions to a different uh title. So, the fire department began in 1959 much like the
other 735 fire departments in the state of Minnesota. A local group got together wanted to provide a better service to the community. So they they started to form their own fire department and they got a pickup truck from Willie and they
bought a a six-wheeler from the military surplus and they ended up with a a fire department. And often times the fire department becomes sort of this ancillary city service that later blends into a a city service that in fact when
the city is actually responsible for it. But you currently operate what we call a volunteer model, which is the least expensive model you can get. But as we've talked about in the past, there's two definitions in state law that define
a firefighter. There's a career firefighter. You pay them benefits, overtime, FLSA, EEOC, all that stuff. That's defined in Minnesota state law. And then Minnesota state law defines the other type of firefighter as
a volunteer. And within that volunteer model, all across the state, in fact, all across the country, it may look different. It doesn't mean you're not paid for your work. It's just the definition under state law. You're not
full-time. So, because they're not full-time, your citizen responders typically have a full-time job. And because of that, they're only responsible for or only able to respond to calls during a certain time frame.
So, we have broken our time frames down 5:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. is the day shift and then 5:00 p.m. to 5:00 a.m. is the night shift. So, if you work during the daytime hours, the volunteer says, "I'm
I can respond on the night shift." and on weekends. And the fire chief is the one who determines the good standing of the firefighters participation based off the hours they can work on that shift.
Okay. The same is true for the daytime. I mean, we have paramedics who work for us, law enforcement, maybe there's a nurse, different people who work just odd shifts or they work night shift and uh they are able to respond during the
daytime. So our volunteer model allows uh the volunteer to be paid an hourly rate. The first hour is paid at the hourly rate no matter how long the incident is. So most of the incidents
are 25 to 35 minutes long but they get paid for that full hour. Any hour after that hour or any time would be paid the next hour rate. All right. than their hourly. And as you know, they're also
paid a pension. So, the city puts uh I believe the city puts in $14,000 a year uh for the firefighter pension. And then 2% of all insurance premiums in the responding area goes to
the department of revenue and turns around and comes back to the city of East Bethl, which in turn is then given to the relief association. The relief association is a nonprofit organization run by the same firefighters who are on
your team as employees and they manage their own account. uh we currently have ours managed through the uh PAR uh system. So as typically as the village or the township grows and there's more
levels of service and it's hard to find volunteers to volunteer, they start to uh as more laws come into place, as technology advances, as more stations need to be in place for better response time, they start to think about adding a full-time chief. You did that in
2007. At that time, there were three stations here. In fact, the mayor was quite responsible for a lot of those stations being constructed at the time. Um, at the time, there were 570 calls when the new chief started and we had 35
firefighters at the time. Uh, so today you have three stations. uh the value is low of those stations because you we're going off tax base value, but if we were to tear those stations down and reconstruct them,
you're looking at about a $24 million fee to rebuild the stations. We have two full-time positions. One is the fire chief who's been here since 2007 and five five years ago or a little bit
you you added a fire inspector because of the growth. Typically, a fire inspector enforces the Minnesota State Fire Code. That is in the definitions of state law. The fire chief is responsible for prevention,
investigation, and and uh so on. And they're the ultimate authority of the Minnesota State Fire Code. But in an effort to minimize or assist with the span of control, they hire an inspector. Inspector is a very technical position. There's a lot of it's like your building
official. Uh once the building official gets done with the new building, they issue a certificate of occupancy and it gets handed over to the building code for the rest of its life unless there's another permit that's opened up in that same building. Building code and the uh
fire code work hand in hand. We currently have 27 on call firefighters. Um we've lost a couple since I've been here uh for life life issues. uh our newer staff uh two of them have left. We're aware of some who
could retire at the end of the year, three to four uh uh because they want to retire. We have members that have been on for almost two years and we have members that are on the East Bethl Fire Department for 44 years and 37 years.
So, we have a lot of longstanding to me that means 10 years or more uh individuals on the department. We need, and you saw in my report, we need at least 40. I would even push 50. I think we recruit every day. And whoever wants to come on, we we
take them on and we figure out, you know, we don't let them sit in the queue. We take them in, we treat them like a a new employee, and we onboard them, and we get them involved. Uh, in fact, we have a recruitment session coming up May 14th. Uh, that pension
credit we talked about is currently at $8,000 a year. So every year of good service, good service is determined by that good standing, they get $8,000. When you take the $8,000 plus the annual hourly rate and
you divide it by the numbers they put in that it's it's a pretty good hourly rate. Uh but it's a long-term game to get the uh pension. Uh, of course, we're seeing in the generational differences of today, um, uh, you know, someone like
me who joined for service and wanted to do the job my whole life, um, it's different today because time is the new money and, uh, a town home is $450,000. So getting a higher level of hourly rate
for our newer generations coming in is going to be something really important and something that I'll discuss with the the new chief when they come in. Um it isn't uncommon to see, for example, Forest Lake is over $30 an hour right
now for their on call members. We start at $16 an hour. Uh and their retention is flat, meaning nobody's leaving. So, if you start to impact the pocketbook, it's still cheaper than hiring 12
full-time firefighters, three shifts of 24 hours a day. So, you know, our annual budget, we have a lot of equipment. Uh most of our costs in our budget are uh personnel just like the city budget.
It's the cost of hiring skill and people to to manage and to respond to our calls. But it's important to know that our volunteers have full-time jobs. They go to soccer, they go to hockey, they like to hunt, fish, go to the cabin,
everything we all like to do. Um, and they do it in their after hours. So, as I've said in the in front of you since I've been here, it's our job to make this easy for them to participate in. And as our community grows, uh, so
should our focus on how do we keep people here without burden them with a ton of calls and a ton of requirements, but still provide a quality service and and this this team does that. So in your handout, you'll see in the first packet,
you'll see the East Bethl duties and responsibilities. Um, I took the time to list everything that we believe we do in this department. Uh, this the fire department is the largest department in the city.
And if you look at all of the stuff we're required to do like like not only respond to calls, but two individuals in the fire department along with two uh volunteer district chiefs and the officers have to manage 35, 40, 45
employees. And because they are employees, we have to think about their safety and the OSHA rules. We have to think about FLSA and we have to, you know, all the other rules we think about just like our city administrator would. We have to manage incidents, go to go to
incidents and manage the complexity of that. I'll give a shout out to the city of Andover today who uh woke up at 7 this morning with a house fire baby trapped on the upper level and the crews got on the scene. They have a duty crew model, but the chief and assistant chief
and others got on the scene and went in there and grabbed that baby and and brought it out and they saved a life because time is of essence. So, uh, they're the same model we are with the exception of of the duty crew. And that
7:00 period, that 5 to 7 a.m. and that, I'm going to say even 3 to 6 p.m. when when our citizens are coming back home for work is a very critical time where we're short staff. So, as you look you look through this packet, you see
there's a there's a lot of stuff that this this department is responsible to do on a daily basis from managing our own budget to paying our bills to making sure three stations are equipped and maintained to making sure 35 to 40 employees have all the gear they need.
I'm on and on and on. So what we're doing and what I've been hearing since I've been here and we saw it in the survey is people want structure and they want to understand you know what's the expectation of them. So we've created this sheet
here. You've heard me talk about swim lanes in the past and this is exactly what this is. You'll see all the way to the left the fire chief's role. He's a departmental leader. He takes full responsibility for the entire department good or bad. He inherits the past. He
predicts, you know, he's responsible for the future. It's it's just that role. The fire inspector, uh, believe it or not, we didn't add anything in here other than, you know, some things that we'd like to see, but the fire inspector currently does a lot of work is tonight
managing the new records management system and teaching all of our firefighters how to do that. And, uh, you have to remember the past. We had a longtime fire chief in a position with with other volunteers supporting. Our call volume continued to grow. You had
the fire chief leave. You had his number one deputy leave. And uh you know, you just we've lost a lot of history and we've lost a lot of uh uh internal support and knowledge. So now we're building that up. You have two district
chiefs. one one manages station two, the other one manages station one and station three out on the island. And uh they basically start managing the people. And the reason we have what we call fire officers or supervisors is
because the fire chief just can't manage the span of control of this complex monster. So we put people in positions to help manage that span of control. They report to the fire chief. They're they should meet on a regular basis. We should send them the training to learn what they need to know because at any
time when we're all sleeping, the newest lieutenant on the job may be managing the most complex incident in the city and it may be their first one. So know that um training is really important. But all
the way to the right is the firefighter's role. The firefighter's role is to be a firefighter, be an emergency medical responder, EMT, focus on safety, make sure they get the location right, select the right piece of equipment, the right PPE, get to the
scene, size it up, pull the right equipment, and do what they need to do from everything from wildland fires to whatever we end up doing. So, uh, this is when we'll move into the discussion of the level of service. But
when I talk about swim lanes, you think about each one of these gray lines as a buoy in an Olympic pool. And uh we don't we don't need someone all the way on the right swimming all the way into the left's business, if you will. And I don't need someone on the left swimming
all the way over to the right's business. So when I say Jerry's not responding to medical calls, and they say, "Why?" I say, "Because I have you to do it." Because you're the firefighter, right? If we need a fire chief to go to every call, um I would
raise my hand and and and ask uh why that is. Now, the fire chief should be there to support the city and protect the city's uh uh uh public information. They should be there to support their firefighters on major incidents, but not on every incident. We need to stay
focused on this administrative role. Any questions on this real quick? Clear as mud. Awesome. So, now we're going to move into the levels of service. And as I travel, as I travel and work with organizations such as
this, I often hear my colleagues say, "The council doesn't know what level of service they want to provide." And I say, "Exactly. When was the last time you talked to them about the level of service?" And they say, "Uh, I don't know that I have." So, when I'm talking
about levels of service, I want you to think about it as like an incident type. And we have basically I'm going to put it into two categories of incident types. One is fire incidents. What does that entail? The other is a medical
incident. And remember that there is no law that requires a fire department to exist. It's the fire service determined by the city council. So when you look at the medical events list, when someone dials
911, the 911 communication goes to the Anoka County Communication Center, now located in Andover on Hansen and Bunker Boulevard in a new facility. They will the telecommunicator 911 dispatcher will
answer the phone. A 911 police fire, what's your emergency? What they're trying to do is determine what's the correct event type for this because each one of these event codes is tied to a response plan that the fire chief should
work out not not only what station should go there based on latitude and longitude but who may support need to support us if we have a big incident. So on that sheet you'll see some highlighted areas. I believe I had to
highlight them. Um, the ones in yellow are the ones that I am calling non-emergent, meaning they're non-lifethreatening. And as you've seen since I've been here, um, there's confusion on what I'm talking about when
I say we we should balance the organization out by looking at not responding to non-emergent calls. I'm talking talking about the cause of a fever, the cause of a back pain, the calls of dizziness, a cough,
diarrhea, sore foot, the things that wake, you know, we get get these calls all 24 hours a day. But my point is abdominal pain, um medical alarm, high blood
pressure, the non-emergent calls, a psychological hold, uh medical information, they tone it out, you know, maybe uh our duty officer may handle that. Lift assist is one. Uh I'm highly I'm highlighting the ones
that I recommend. If you decide to move forward with these recommend with my recommendation, I'm going to work with the chief officers to determine, you know, what the best ones are for the city of East Bethl. And I know these are non-emergent. I've recently spoken with
Alina, which should be in your packet again. There's another uh handout in there from Alina and they showed that their non-emergence calls from from the time they got to our area in emergent they left
non-emergent the the where there was only 1% of the 894 calls in there where they left our city in an emerent response. That's a that's a big that's a low number. And uh there's some
confusion of maybe the first meeting I had where Alina was up here and the sheriff's office were up here. They weren't saying they don't want us to go to calls. I've talked or or didn't want us uh that they couldn't handle it without us. Of course, they'll take as
much help as they can get. What I'm looking at is a comparison between a volunteers's time and what we're spending our time on. And because time is the new money, are there things we can do to balance it out
that are going to have minimal risk in order to give them more time? Lift assist is one of them. And like a tube out, like somebody's got a chronic care and a tube. But what you don't hear me say we shouldn't go to is like an
allergic reaction, an assault, a a severe bleed, choking, breathing difficulty, not breathing, diabetic, someone drowning, electrocution, a medical fall three times their height, a fracture, a heart attack, an OB, a
medical priority of any of the others, a medical seizure, a gunshot wound, a stroke, an unconscious, or a slumper, someone in a car that passed Well, I'm not saying don't go to those. We will continue to go to those. In fact, I've
speaking with Mark and the sheriff's office, the line in the sheriff's office. We're going to open it this way. If you need us, call us. But don't immediately tone us out. If you get information along the way that this fall turned into a fracture,
call us. We're going to come right away. But at two in the morning for I'm feeling ill and my doctor told me I should come in by ambulance because I don't have a ride. There's not much we can do with that. And in fact I we just disrupted the whole day sleep of a
firefighter who's supposed to be focused at work. So uh my recommendation is related to the medical calls is the fire incidents are the responsibility of the city. You you can't give them away. You can hire
someone to do your fire service anytime you want, but they're the only people in town that can uh go into an immediately dangerous to life and health environment. They're the only ones that can wear those air packs you see with the mask that have almost $10,000 in
gear on um with the air pack and the radio and everything. Um so the fire incident are the people the only ones in town that can do that work. And in fact, since 1959, you've been hiring people, you've
been building facilities, you've been buying expensive equipment, you've been doing all kinds of training and so on to ensure that you could deliver this service to your community for many years to come. And you've been doing an awesome job. And like I I've told the
candidates who've called me to maybe be the chief. I said, it's an awesome department. It it it always has been. That's the only way I've known it. And because the city grows and because uh times have changed, especially after the pandemic, because time is the new money,
it's time to regroup. Focus on what's best for East Bethl right now because I guarantee you anything you reduce in calls right now is going to creep up to that level in the future with this city. Uh because the city is going to continue to grow. Uh what we're going to talk
about too in in a little while is the daytime delivery model versus the nighttime delivery model. Uh because it's it's changed. So we talk about service levels related to medicals. Medicals by law are under the
medical director of Alina. The Alina ambulance and Alina overall is responsible for all the medical calls in our community. Much like the wildland fires we go to is a responsibility of the Department of Natural Resources. But we respond as a
quick responder to try to stop it, slow it down, put it out. But they come in route. They'll bring us air air equipment, helicopters, and big airplanes. They'll do all kinds of stuff, but we we get there and and we know we can make a difference. So, we go in route first. We try to mitigate the
incident as we could. But the Alina is by law responsible for all medical calls. and Alina is stationed in our station one off Bunker Bunker Lake Boulevard. So uh again uh my proposal
has been since the report to look at uh reducing the emer non-emergent incidents but continue to go to the ones where we can make a difference on and uh allergic reaction for example we just had a discussion about epipins. We don't have
epipins in our duty officer vehicles. Well, if that vehicle is the first one out from the home to the scene, my opinion is we should have epipins in it because you can save a life in a matter of minutes by giving someone a shot. So, we're purchasing uh new bags and we're
putting medicines in the duty officer truck so that they can make an impact uh that way. They have an AED. They have these little smoke grenades they can throw in houses. That little buggy can do a lot of a lot of damage. um know that a reduction in this call
type of call volume the non-emergent could be a 50 60% decrease in calls according to the numbers Alion is providing and so on and that's something new for us because we've gone to medical
calls for many many years I can't find anything in our history and of course the mayor is going to have an opportunity to speak on this but I have not found anything in history where we've been in front of you to talk about what type of calls do you want to go to
and the the the council made the decision. Um so the the request is going to be to reduce the medical side of the va the fire side will stay the same medical side will be uh reduced in to non-emergent
incidents and uh I want to make sure that I leave the recommendations to you to make a decision on uh because we've been working on it for over a year without a formal type of discussion on it. Let's talk about daytime versus
nighttime. We talked about the two shifts, the five to five and the five to five. Since I've been here, and we'll talk at 7 o'clock, uh to the to the community, we've had three structure fires that were in our town. Each time I
was there, there was one firefighter and one engine. And to me, that's a safety issue. Not only that, nighttime you'll get you'll get three trucks and tender and everybody. It's a little different in the daytime than or than than it is
at the night time. So, a recommendation based off the National Institute of Standards and Technology and the National Fire Protection Association who we look as a best practice. They do a lot of testing and
they make recommendations to fire fire departments and they have said years ago that if you were to have a 2200 square foot Rambler fire, you should have in order to be compliant with all the rules of OSHA and
the standards and all that stuff and uh uh you should have 15 people on the scene in a matter of minutes. and someone who's in my shoes running an on call volunteer model, we sort of chuckle inside because we're hoping to get five,
you know, on the scene in a lot of cases around here. And this is why auto aid, automatic aid is so prevalent in our area is because others are facing the same issue of the daytime response. And
uh because of that they're automatically dispatched at the exact same time we are for certain incident types. Like structure would be a multi- alarm dispatch where we already have the first alarm predetermined. Dispatch is toning
all them out at the same time. If I need a bigger response, I'd call for a second alarm. Second alarm would already have a predetermined status of rigs and what city they're coming from and so on and it just goes up the alarm uh uh chain.
But uh in the daytime, I'm concerned about the safety of the firefighters and I'm concerned about our inability to right now provide the staffing that we need during the daytime. Everybody's at work. We have three individuals in the daytime typically who show up.
Thankfully, they have over they have probably let's see, they do they have over a hundred years of service combined. Uh, and they know what they're doing and they do it really well, but it's just not sustainable. So, my job is to bring information to you for so you
can be aware of it. Um, I don't bring any of this to you lightly. Uh, if if I don't think it's needed, I won't I wouldn't be here. But, uh, I need you to, you know, understand where we're at. So with that being said about the
daytime response immediately and my number one focus would be to create a staffing model during the daytime. What does that mean? We call it a duty crew model where we take our volunteers and rather than them uh
respond to incidents by a pager or a phone and by the way we have extra pagers and I don't mean this in any but positive. If you want to experience what it's like to be an on call firefighter, I would love to have you carry a pager.
And when that p we'll we'll program it for your area. And when that pager goes off, all I want you to do is respond to the fire station any time of the day that you and night that you can 3 in the morning. Sign the sheet and then go home
and just do that for a month and experience what our firefighters go through. and you may have a different view of what what these people do. Um, they're very talented. They're balancing lives and and and and not only that, if
they don't make the call expectation uh that we place upon them, they typically get disciplined or they lose their pension credit. So, if they if they don't make their 30% uh they they get they get nixed. they may not get that
$8,000 or that share of those months for that quarter. And I don't know that's that's fair if we haven't come up with the best balance for them. So, with the staffing model, I'm proposing eight hours a day. We're going to offer it to
our volunteers. It's not going to be mandatory at first, uh, but eventually we have to put people on the station. And quite frankly, with no disrespect to anyone, um I don't mind if they're from somewhere else. There's firefighters
that are duty crew people and they they work for Plymouth today and they go to Roseville and then they come to East Bethl and then they go to Ice An, you know, sort of the Velcro patch. They're firefighters that make a full-time job out of a part-time job. Um, but we need
to find a way to staff it because the next level of staffing for you is a full-time daytime staffing model. So, putting the numbers together and talking about a reduction in medical uh
non-emergent calls, uh talking about the next uh step about reorganizing and reclassifying, we've come up with enough funding in the current budget where a daytime staffing model for East Bethl right now would cost about
$15,452, which is really reasonable. If you look at this page, you'll see in this box up above right here some of the things that we would move around within the budget. And I spoke to Mike about this
already. Um we would look at um if a duty crew were on scene in the green here, these are the type of things that they would be doing during the daytime. And we can manage day hours. We'll work with data.
Uh Ben and the chiefs will work and you know we'll work with the best time to put these people in place. But they'll be doing equipment maintenance. They'll be you know they can even train if they want. They'll be doing you'll see an exponential increase in confidence in pumping an engine and using the saw and
so on. This is my fourth time recommending this and implementing these programs. Oftenimes we hear people, you know, and next thing you know they're like, "Wow, this is this is awesome." You know, I get to schedule my time on the fire department. Yep. You
don't have to come back unless there's an all station call and that's where your percentage is held. And that's rare. Right now, every station responds in the daytime. We tone out every station during the day and we're ending up with a few. So, they'll assist with
admin. They'll do public education. We can even train them to do some low priority inspections. They can manage all the lock boxes that we have in the city. Uh the city has a very uh I'm going to say a highly secured lockbox
system with a special diamond cut key that's uh used to access buildings after hours. Um keeping those lubed and maintained and making sure those keys actually work. And what that does is it it gets us into the building quickly,
but it it it doesn't uh it doesn't require us to smash their window and door out to go check on a smoke alarm or something. So, it gives us access to different doors and so on. They can do that. They can go to the senior center and do blood pressure checks. They can
do fire safety stuff. Um they'll come in every day and do station inspections and make sure the truck works and make sure the water's flowing and so on. And then uh they'll be assigned duties every day just like you would as a a firefighter. They'll be in uniform. If there's a
call, the chief can take a breath knowing there's at least two people on a truck within a matter of a minute responding to the call. And the chief can get on the truck and the fire inspector can get on the truck. And now you have a crew of four who can make a huge impact on the incident in a matter of minutes rather than waiting the six
to 10 minutes to get to the station, assemble at the station, and then go out the door. So, it it greatly enhances the daytime response time. And from our uh estimated cost, 15 grand. Uh that's that's that's a pretty
good pretty good deal. And and what you see in here too is the total cost for the duty crew, 93,632. That's two people eight hour a day. But with the with the decrease in calls, with overtime, maintenance nights
kind of thing, we will be at 78,000 in savings to give back. And uh the the next step I know to be true, the next step, if you decide to do till 10 at night or whatever it is or weekends, you start you start to add more costs.
Weekends will probably cost you if you did a daytime weekend, probably cost you 30 grand. If you did a 12-h hour, it's going to be 50 something grand. But, uh, communities are moving to weekend duty crews as well. I'm not proposing that
here because it gives families time to be together on the weekend. They go to the lower priority calls. But in any duty crew case, the major incidents are toned out just like they are now, but we know there's two people
going. So, that's the duty crew model. Um I would like to start that ASAP. Um our new chief of course will be involved in all this uh too uh and aware
of it, but we can't continue to not provide this safety and the service just because we're waiting another month or or someone to get here. And this has been a year a year discussion. And finally, in order to
um reclassify a position that is doing more than what we believe that position is doing, and I I heard that when I first got here a year ago, that the fire inspector does fire inspection stuff, but you may recall me speaking to you. I spoke to that fire inspector at one
time. I said, "How how much do you actually work on fire inspection stuff?" And at the time, he said, "About 30% of the time. and he's doing a good job. I've looked at every one of the inspection calls. I've looked at the buildings they go to and what he's doing, the followup. It's in the records
management system, but we don't have a ton of buildings. But what he's doing on the uh on the back end is a lot of work that the chief would normally do and a lot of work that we could share. Uh, so
I'm I'm asking to move the fire inspector position to an assistant position. Um, and you can do this anytime or you can wait till the new chief gets here. But again, that was in my report. I just see it much more clearer now that I'm here every day and
I'm witnessing what's going on and I fully understand uh what's going on in the organization. So uh that those are my recommendations. I'm I'm requesting to one reclassify a job position. Uh that reclassification
would put that uh individual into the operations mode, responding to calls 24/7 uh in a buggy. Uh it would take away the overtime budget because they would be classified as uh an exempt employee.
That overtime budget would be used toward the duty crew. Um and duty crew would be providing a better service right now at the cost of about 15 grand if we if we validate everything we
decide to change and um and so on. So any questions from there? Jerry, I just got one question. Okay. On the calls, how long would it take you to put that together where we could reduce the calls?
Yeah. So, I would want to work with the chiefs right away. We could get that done right away. I would say uh you know, give it give it a month. We could have CAD we we have to go into CAD and talk with dispatch basically off off their schedule probably no more than two
months. Okay. Because what I see with the numbers that you put together here that I mean it it saves us money by getting a duty crew and having people available to answer calls. And a big
thing is safety. We can't have one person on an engine show up. I mean we could have three, four almost right away. That's important to me. So, I mean, I'm in favor of this big time, and
if there's no objection, I'd like to have it added to our council meeting uh on new new business and new business to get this moving as soon as possible. That's my opinion.
Okay. And I want to say I agree with um almost everything you've said. I agree. Um, especially on the medical calls, the non-emergency ones. I thought it was crazy that people were calling in for ab
pain and they could carry themselves to a doctor. I carry myself. I carry my kids to the doctor for years and if they can't drive there are medical transport companies and if we need to we could publish uh make it public all the
different ones that are available for people to use because I also think actually that some of our free services shouldn't be free but I think there's a law that they have to be. Um, I do have
a question on this 8 hour daytime. Is that going to help our firefighters get their 30% easier or is it going to make it more difficult? So, that's a great question. So the daytime firefighters
would go to hourly, like you need to make, for example, don't quote me, but 12 hours a month on a duty crew, and 40% of any all station calls, which would be the big the big calls, but we would
change their good standing by changing them to an hourly response. Now, the question I get too is, "What if I'm nighttime and I want to work duty crew?" Love to have you. come. Well, do I get credit? Yep. If you can come to daytime calls and you're off
during the day and you want to work a shift in the morning and enhance your skills and be better trained and serve your community, you can do it. Um I I don't care what shift you're on. If you can make any of the shift calls, come
and uh I would give extra credit. you know, we still have to meet your requirements for the shift because we're we're balancing how many people will will be on that shift, but the duty crew will go to an hourly type of good standing rather than a percentage.
Okay, great. So, I am a little confused on how things save because we are still going to need people to come at night
when and on weekends and we're not going to have anybody totally assigned for that if they're working the eight hour days. I'm How are you going to have the health staff to do all of this? So, in the city, there's a daytime staffing
crew. Uh, it was at six one time when I did the study. I think it's at it's it's at a good four with a couple people coming in and out, you know, because they work an odd shift. That's our day crew compared to our night crew, which is at
20. So, the night crew will still be there. This is only talking about daytime. So, only talking about a eight hour shift in the daytime. Okay. So, how was it
only costing that? I guess the only costing the 15,000. Oh, because because up here on this line, we're we are reducing the line item costs. It costs $93,000 to do this. However, by moving through the reduction
in the non-emergency calls and reclassifying and uh staying more focused in different areas, we've come up with about $78,000 the in the budget that can be moved somewhere else.
Okay. Okay. So, the 2026 budget I have pretty much done. I sent it to Mike already uh based off this and it's it's actually there's it's a little less than what it was this year, but I've learned some other things just in the last day
about what's in the budget and what we're paying for and stuff that I want to I want to talk about. So, I don't think we should continue to keep cutting the fire department budget. It's just it's there isn't much to spend there now.
And for the assistant chief position, is there if the chief actually does what he's supposed to do all day long and not go on all these calls, is there enough work for both of them?
Because in the way I'm thinking that if they're not going on 800 calls and they're doing their job, then assistant chief might not be necessary. Yeah, it's nice to have the two
positions. One is there's plenty of work for them to do. The skill sets are different for between two people. One's a real techy person who wants to do data and, you know, wants to order all the equipment and so on, where the other one's more focused on budget, relationships with the council, coming
to these meetings, you know, that kind of stuff that we we may not have been doing in the past. the fire chief's role isn't always about um uh you know staying in the station and work work work. It's about it's about addressing
and the community and attending events and so on. But are we getting short on time? Got eight minutes. I got eight minutes. I'm done. I've got a question. I think one of the biggest things that um we're going to hear from doing this
move on less calls is residents might say, "Are we in jeopardy? Are we not safe? Are we not covered?" I mean, it's come up before. Uh I know Ham Lake has got a system that they went to and they seem to be doing excellent with it. Um
what do I say to someone that is worried about something like that? Yeah. What we what we can never guarantee is that a fall isn't a heart attack, right? It came in as a fall, but it's a heart attack. What we can say is our
telecommunicators are professionals. They ask a lot of questions. Their call gets transferred directly to a lineup dispatch paramedics who ask questions and then they say, "Step them up, start
them, add another ambulance or so on." Um, but there's there's no guarantee the fall isn't a heart attack. But the as you see in the Alina report, that's from them yesterday, 1% of their response
left this city in an emerent mode. So, we're not we're not seeing a lot of those, but you we we're talking about a fever and and do we want to subject our firefighters to a fever and to COVID and everything else, you know, when most of
us uh and I I won't ever judge anyone's emergency, but um as I said last time, um these people will end up in an ambulance and get to the hospital in the emergency room and wait just like the people on the other end of the wall in
the emergency room for a doctor. But anything that's said to be mergent, we can make life safety and we can we can go in. We'll do it. So, I got uh two questions. Uh first with the fire inspector to assistant
chief. Um I assume you've talked to the fire inspector about this. Yes. And what's his feelings on that? um he's he would be elated to have that position. Uh he's not interested in the fire chief's position, but um he feels he's
doing what we've defined in the work and uh of course he's willing to step up and and do the work. He lives right down the road from the station. He's a longtime member here. He's a paramedic. He's got a degree. You know, he's he's a sharp
he's a sharp kid. So, uh, if I didn't think he was the right guy for the job, I would mention, you know, we would post for it. Just want to make sure it's good by him before we take any action. Uh, the second is, um, have you talked to the fire
department as a whole about making the changes to the call responses? Because I have talked to firefighters in the past that they want to go to a lot of the calls because some of them change. Yes. Yes. I
understand that. My wife even informs me that I used to love going to all those calls. You know, uh I'm in a different position. I'm bringing this to you today without the firefighters maybe having all the information. Uh but once we get an understanding of what direction we're
going, I can present that to them. Um, we don't have to make this uh like overnight. I would I would definitely ask about uh we we work on staffing first, but um they're aware that I've been talking about this since the first
day I stepped foot in this city to do an evaluation. It's I I think having their opinion because they will actually be doing the work. Absolutely. That Yeah. council is telling them while council sits here in
a separate building that yep does nothing there and we're telling them some might have the feelings that they think council knows better. Well, I want to know what the fire fighters themselves think and to have their input
on that and uh with that that may have a smoother transition to um for these changes. Yes, I understand. I'm speaking to you as a professional who's been in the business for a long time, who's implemented this program before, who
understands the balance of this this volunteer model versus the next step. Eventually, over time, we're going to be moving into models. Um, uh, and you can go back to the study that was, uh, the capstone study where it talked about
non-emergent low priority calls and the number of people that said we go to too many of them. Now, you know, you three may love them and you three may hate them. So, it's it's what's best for the community overall to keep that model as long as we
can, but I certainly understand your point. We'll have more conversations tonight because I'll go back. There's training tonight and I'll go talk to them about it. Okay. Yep. I'll make a motion to adjurnn the Oh, never mind. Sorry. So,
uh, as far as the assistant chief deal, I don't know. I'm a big opponent for that because when we hired our first full-time chief, I was the chief prior to that. And Mark took
the role as the administrator of the department, dealt with the politics, dealt with council, and all the state issues. And it's a big obstacle just doing that. My job was just to handle operations of the whole department, all
stations and that. And that's a big job. So there's plenty of work for two people there. I I guarantee you that it's it's a lot of work, a lot of responsibility. So I'm all for that part of it. Um
so we're here with three recommendations. What does council want to do? Mr. Mayor, we can bring that to the council meeting tonight to discuss under new business if you'd like. Okay, that's
fine. So, motion to adjurnn. Yeah. Second. Have a motion second to adjurnn. All those favor? I I pass couple minute break. Yeah, let's take a couple minute break quick. Part: 2
30 seconds. computer crashed. Oh, wait a minute. Put the packet down there. Is it working? I know you shoot. Okay, let's call the April 28th, 2025 uh council meeting to order.
To the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, liberty and justice for all. Make a motion to approve tonight's
agenda. Second. Have a motion and a second to approve the agenda. All those in favor? I opposed. Unheard. That pass. Can I bring something up? Aren't weren't we supposed to change the other to add the fire department? We supposed to do
that now? That can be brought up under new business. Uh Mr. Luke wants to bring it up in a staff report. We Mr. Mayor, we can bring that up under other number nine. Okay. Thank you. Okay.
Uh, presentations Noa County. Good evening, mayor, council members. My name is Scott Wickland and I am a sergeant in the patrol division. March had a total of 371 calls for service. Deputies handled three thefts, two burglaries, and two damaged property reports. Uh, deputies made a total of 34
arrests uh for miscellaneous offenses, 242 traffic stops, resulting in 43 traffic citations. Um, some notable calls that our deputies made. First one, on March 1st at 9:54 p.m., Deputy Petri stopped a vehicle near the area of
Viking Boulevard Northeast and East Bethl Boulevard for a driving conduct. Vehicles also called in earlier by a concerned citizen who believed the driver might be impaired. While speaking with the driver, the deputy noticed signs of impairment consistent with the consumption of alcohol. A driver
admitted consuming one beer before leaving work. Deputy Patrick had the driver step out, perform SFSTs or the field society tests which he ultimately did and failed. The driver refused the PBT and was subsequently arrested. He was transported to SCSO where he
provided the breath test which resulted in a BAC of 0.20 much more than one beer. Uh the driver was transported to jail and booked on third degree DWI. On March 7th, 2025, at 9:49 p.m., Deputy Graham stopped the vehicle on Highway 65
near Sims Road for an equipment violation. Deputy Graham spoke to the driver who had no identification or registration on the vehicle. The deputy collected the driver's name and date of birth, began running checks on the driver and the vehicle. Upon running the driver, Deputy Grahams noted that the driver didn't look anything like the
picture of the person who he said he was. Deputy Grahams later learned the correct identity of the driver and learned that he identified himself as his brother because his license was revoked. Uh deputies arrested him and transported to jail where he's booked on gross misdemeanor false information. On March 14th at 117 a.m.
Deputy Martinez stopped a vehicle near 189th and Buchanan Street uh for suspicious activity and a moving violation. While speaking with the driver, Deputy Martinez recognized both occupants from prior contacts and believed that neither had a valid driver's license. Deputy Martinez ran checks on
both drivers or both individuals and confirmed that the occupants did not have valid driver's licenses. Deputy Martinez decided to tow the vehicle and began an inventory of the interior of the vehicle prior to towing it. Inside the vehicle, Deputy Martinez located a scale, several baggies. In one of the baggies, he located a white powdery
substance that field tested positive positive for the presence of cocaine. He also located other baggies that contained a similar substance that tested positive for the presence of methamphetamine. A gun $1600 in cash was also recovered. Uh the occupant was
arrested and transported to jail. The total weight of their narcotic seas was 4.31 pounds. On March 20th at 900 PM, Deputy Forest stopped a vehicle near 229th in Durant. After running a plate, he learned that the registered owner had a probation
warrant issued by the US Marshall Service uh for possession of dangerous drugs. Deputy Forest contacted the driver who matched a description of the male with a warrant. He advised the male he was under arrest and took him into custody for the act of warrant. During the search of the arresty's pockets, 10 grams of a white powdery substance that
later tested positive for methamphetamine was located. Uh several other drug rellated items were recovered from inside the vehicle and replaced the evidence. The male was arrested and transported to jail and booked on the active warrant and thirdderee possession of a controlled substance. We responded
to 10 vehicle crashes last month which was significantly down from the past months. Uh with the warm weather fast approaching, we anticipate we will see more vehicular traffic on the roadways. So everyone buckle up. uh stand to this speed limit limit and call 911 to report
any egregious driving conduct. So on the the drug stop, I'm assuming 4.31 pounds is uh a lot of drugs. That's a significant amount. Yes, it's much more than um a normal traffic
stop. That's very rare. or might have a couple baggies of something and so 4.31 pounds is a good score. Yeah, usually it's 4.31 grams. Uh this one is pounds which is
Yeah, it's a rare rare stop and a good job of the deputies who are always out working and trying to find this kind of stuff, get it out of the city. Good. Is there a dollar value on that? What's that? Is there a dollar value on that? Uh don't know. Tests haven't come in. So a lot of that had to do with like fentanyl pills on that one. There was
also like that bound in the car. So, it it was a large I had to look at the report to make sure all the weights were right when I read this and I had to double check to make sure there wasn't a typo and there was not a typo. Oh, good job. Any other questions from the public or anything?
We appreciate We appreciate you. All right. Thank you, sir. All right. Thank you. Fire report. Mayor, city council. Good evening. My name is Jerry Strike. I'm assistant administering the fire department. Uh so
far in April, we've had 58 incidents. We've had three daytime structure fires. The first daytime structure fire was involving a recreational fire that was left unattended overnight. the wind swept up, burnt their grass to their
very nice pull barn and burnt it down, lost everything inside it. The next one was a chicken coupe fire, which was a larger chipper uh chicken coupe fire and one recently we had on the island at station 3. We had a cabin fire there. Um
the chicken coupe fire was caused by a heating lamp. If you have chickens, I've been in the business almost what 37 years now. I can't tell you how many times the cause of a chicken coupe fire is a heating lamp. So, do everything you can to make sure
that that heating lamp is secure, that there is a three-foot distance from any combustible. Uh, and make sure your chicken coupe is away from your primary residence because if that starts on fire, so too will your primary residence. Uh recently the the cabin
fire on the lake uh was caused by a space heater that was uh underneath a kitchen table. They set their clothes on top of a chair which fell onto the space heater and after a period of time we ended up having a a structure fire.
We've uh assisted with two structure fires. It isn't uncommon for our fire department to assist other agencies primarily with water because a lot of the communities don't have hydrants. When they don't have hydrants, we bring them a portable hydrant on wheels. We
call it a tender and we get a bunch of tenders in a row and we drop water in a big swimming pool and the truck sucks water out of the swimming pool. So, the goal is to keep the swimming pool full so they call their neighbors. We went to two personal injury accidents. 65 is a
culprit of a lot of those. Uh seven grass fires this month, wildland fires. Uh and I've said this before, but I'd rather be inside of a structure fire than have to be on my in the woods fighting a wildland fire. They're they're very physically demanding, but
we work closely with the DNR and our partners. East Bethle is equipped to to fight wildland fires. The rest of the calls were medical related. I do want to let everyone know that we're having information session on how to become a firefighter for the city of East Bethl
on May 14th. It's a Wednesday. It's going to be at 6:30 p.m. at our station 1. If you're interested in being a firefighter for the community, bring a significant other. No children, please. Uh because we're going to talk about the reality of what the firefighter does.
put you in gear, show you how to how to stay in good standing, how all that how training works. We pay for all the training, all the equipment, and uh we'd love to have you there. So, if you're interested or know someone in the community who wants to be a firefighter,
minimum age 18, we don't have a high-end high-end age on it. So, um if you're sitting at home looking at Tik Tok videos and wondering what you could do to add some purpose in your life, here you go. come on and join our team. Um,
we are currently implementing a new records management system. So, the reports that you've seen in the past and the the information we're sort of trying to get good data in this new system. So, drawing it out. Uh, in fact, all the firefighters are at the station right now learning how that new system works
because after every incident, we report everything that happened. We have to put names and everything in there. So, this uh this month we've had a total dollar loss of approximately $370,000 uh in fire loss. Any questions?
All right. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Item 50, public form. Uh Derek Lint. got paper copies. Uh, thank you, Mr. Mayor. My name is, uh, Derek Lind. I'm
with ASIT, Noa County Election Integrity Team. Some of you I recognize from being here in the past. Um, we've been operating for three years now. We started, uh, Matt members us from three years ago, March of 2022. Reason I'm here tonight is to talk
about just your pole pad agreements. The poll is what you check in on on election day. Uh it's an electronic roster. Uh these came out in 2018 and there was an agreement that was pushed out. Our recommendation to you is that you cancel
that agreement. We think it's a a bad deal. Um I'm also asking for the opportunity to come back and be a little more specific as to why we think you should cancel that. I can't really get a lot done here in the public forum. Depends on how much time you give me. But we just kind of gave you the short version here. If I could run through
this real quick. Uh, so this agreement that you guys entered was back in June of 2018. Two cities in Anoka County have already canceled this agreement. Oakrove and Ramsey cancelled this agreement. Um, Ramsey is saying they don't want to go
back to use the pole pads anymore. But if you could turn to the first page there. The pole pad agreement was never properly approved. The vote from the um Anoka County Council Board of Commissioners was to purchase the pole pads, but they
never took any votes after that. And then you guys never took any votes either. And this is something that um both parties should have voted on. So that's one reason we think you should cancel as as of right now. We can't find any vote that you guys ever took on this. If you can look at the next
page, there's some risk associated with that. Um, and because of that, we think you should cancel this and start over. You know, take a closer look at it. Uh, the Ramsey County Attorney, he said, if you look at the bottom there on the bottom left hand side, he said, "This agreement is very one-sided in favor of
the county and not a good deal for the city." Uh, you know, just one one comment on that. I think what happened is in 2018, of course, I wasn't there, but you know, the the pole pads came out, we didn't know what it was. It was new technology. the state was offering
Monday or money for this and it was just kind of pushed out and everybody said, "Yeah, we'll do it." So, it was kind of a sloppy deal. That's what we think. That's why we're we're going around now to all the cities saying, "Hey, take another closer look at this." If you can look at the next page, there's a lot of statutes that
govern the use of these pole pads. And there could be some liability there, and those are some things that that you may want to look at, too. That's it. If you want to get a hold of us, contact information is at the back of this. One other point I want
to make and this is very important. Uh the ina county board just voted on this a couple of months ago. I think it was in January, January 29th. Two commissioners voted no not to purchase the pole pads again. It was Commissioner Heinrich and Commissioner Reiner. Third
commissioner did not vote. I believe that's your commissioner Roststead. Does she represent this area? So the politics is changing on these pull pets. They're not real popular right now. So, just asking you to take a closer look. Want to bring it to your attention in person. You guys have any questions for me while I'm
here. If you want to bring our our group back, we can we can go more in depth on this. So, thank you. What other options are there? Paper. In fact, in the Sani County, um they have 19 precincts. 17 of them are paper. You use paper until
2018. So, through the 2016 election. Our recommendation is go back to paper. But for this purpose, we're just saying cancel the pole pad agreement. Maybe you decide you want to continue to use these electronic pole pads. That's up to you. Get yourself a better agreement, though. You got to represent your city. What
happened before it got pushed out by staff and it was meant by staff on your side. We think in most cities, every every city was a little bit different. At one time, we thought 20 cities hadn't voted on this, but this was a major change to the election system. You guys should be voting on it. They should be voting on it. And it was just kind of
rushed through. Again, I think it was just sloppy. Everybody thought it was a good idea and it was free money at the time. So, any other questions? All right. Thank you. Thanks for your time. Have a good night.
Uh Sarah Mclofflin. Thank you. Um Sarah Mclofflin 1148 231st Lane. Um I am back again um just to uh follow up in regards to the last meeting on the 14th um regarding the neighbor
that I have and the um issue that we were having at the address 120 231st Lane since um I was last here. I am not sure if you council members have come up
with any solutions or any courses of action to take towards this whether or not that's something we can discuss now um or if uh you just want me to go forward with the information that I gathered in preparation for this um
second attempt to talk to you guys to give you an update. I have talked to the deputy and deputy has talked with the fire chief and the city administrator. Um there is a plan of action that is coming together. Uh I'm not sure if we
want to discuss that in public, but uh I'm sure you could be updated privately on that. Okay. I would I would appreciate that. Um as I received all of the incident case reports from Monoka County Sheriff that have been had at
that location since 2023. and the findings in here and the information is just it's mind-boggling to me. Um the information that I find and the things that I see um stated were passed over to
you guys uh for evaluation and that is starting back in um February of 2024 and we still have no resolution. I know that we're working on it, but
expediting it would be um something I know our whole neighborhood would be begging for. Um when looking at these reports, 32 of these reports had nothing to do with the homeowner out of 53
reports that have been filed since 2023. Um today, this evening, it looks like there's already four more people moving in um as they have brought two more um trailers full of junk and are unloading them in the back where the police can't
see them as they drive by. Yeah. Um so I I'm glad to hear that there was a resolution or there is something being worked on. Um, we did have a deputy tell us that, but I will say um, I have been told that uh, for
the last two years and um, I just really haven't seen any action. So, I am going to keep these give these reports to you council members. Um, and just know that if you would like that living next to
you, maybe you can we can move a little quicker on it. Yeah, they're all colorcoded. Sarah for a year. Sarah, I've talked to Deputy Peters also. Okay. And believe me, if there was something
that we could do right now, we would do it. It's unfortunate in my opinion the way our laws are. It's sad that it appears to me that the people that are doing stuff illegal
have more rights than us. and total totally wrong in my opinion. But believe me, whatever we can do, we are working on it for sure. I know we talked to uh Corey on the planning commission. He brought that to us as well. And we are
aware of it. And if I could do something like right now, I would. But it's unfortunate that our laws protect the bad guys in my opinion. But we aren't going to give up on you. I let you know that. I appreciate that. I think reading
some of those incident case reports um it seems that sometimes there was just an assumption made of who was allowed to live there and who wasn't um due to the severity and the you know drug use that's happening at the residence. Um I
know the officers put themselves at risk every time they walk into that house. Uh but it just really seemed unfortunate reading through those the that detail was sickening to me and my husband um just to really understand what's
happening next door to us. Mr. Mayor, just by way of an update, I did speak with I believe the owner is Dan if I'm not mistaken. His brother has been heavily involved in this. Um they are looking to potentially form an LLC
and put the property in an LLC. So, there's a board now that can make a decision in the event that the owner is not on premise or in jail or whatever the case may be. Um, and um and they're actively looking to trespass people. Some of the trailers you might be seeing
is actually stuff getting hauled out. Um, no, they're they're dropping them off. I Yeah, because this gentleman told me that he is actually in there with trailers removing things as we as we speak. Yeah. Um that's not the case unfortunately. Um I I I'm right next
door and I can see it clearly from my balcony, my deck that um they're just pulling it in there, dropping stuff off and then leaving and then having trucks full of stuff, unloading it and leaving it. Um and then there's three pickup trucks
there that are all, you know, just not not welcome, shouldn't be there. Um currently, like at this moment, like before I came to this um meeting, we were watching them. Okay. Can uh I
talked to an attorney and I don't know if this is accurate. Maybe this attorney knows and I think I messaged you this, but the owner can get a eviction and within a couple of weeks based on illegal activity
and then give it to the police and within a couple of weeks that place should be able to be cleared out. Yeah. there. Um there's in the in the case reports it it states that um they lost
their eviction notice in 2024, but they didn't do it they did it based on in a 30 squatters and but they they don't need the 90 days if it's based on a legal activity. They can immediately evict. It just takes the courts a couple
of weeks to get it all processed. I think they're a little uh timid from losing their case, which they were under the assumption that this was the appropriate course of action um in the first time and then the money wasted and
the loss of the case and allowing more people to move back in. Um I get it. Yeah. So, if you want to talk with the fire chief privately, uh he can update you on what's been happening and uh inform you
and hopefully within hopefully soon we can have some resolution here. Well, you'll see my shining face until then. That's fine. That's fine. You come to every meeting. All right. Thank you. All right. Uh Dave Kefir.
Yes. I was before the council last May the towards the end of May about a neighbor with roosters and I don't know if you remember me or not. We have nine complaint forms filled out and we left them with you last time. I kept copies
of them just in case you didn't have them anymore from our neighborhood. We're in a development and these roosters crow night and day. I mean, two in the morning, I've got audio tape and from we have we we ended up having to
put out uh trail cams because to get proof that they're growing at 2 in the morning, they're growing at quarter to 6 in the morning. They're, you know, crowing all during the day. And last year when I dropped these off to you and talked to the
council, the consensus with the council was you it was a it was a noise nuisance and noise pollution whatever the the noise ordinance from from the city would go in there and say look you got to get rid of the rooster once and for all. This was towards the end of last May
May. Is this in the area of uh Viking and Jackson 92nd and Jackson Street? Okay. Yeah, I I remember it. And I have I have these. Oops. I'm sorry. I'll pass those over to you. I have those. Those are the complaint forms from the different neighbors. I think I believe
there's about 22 25 houses. And I've got nine of the neighbors who, you know, wanted to put their name on the complaint form and complain to the city council so that something could be done because especially now that it's getting nice, you can't sleep with your
windows open. you I mean they're just all night long and we are we implore you to please do something and now this this winter we there's often times we can see with our binoculars there our properties
butt up each other and I've got two and a half acres I think they have five acres or something there it's 716 192 it's on there I think lane or avenue and it's
4.87. Yep. And I'm not I'm not prejudice whatsoever. I have my the best man for my wedding was Mexican. And so that has nothing to do with But it's a Mexican family. And we've had the sheriff go over there. We've had the city go over
there. And um you knock on the door, they don't answer. They won't answer their door. They're home. They won't answer the door. And and they only speak Spanish. So the only way I mean I I don't know if you guys sent a notice to them or if you talked to them personally
or but I know that the city was over there and then they ended up whoever it was ended up saying, "Oh, you can keep one rooster." Well, now they're up to two or three roosters again and it's worse than ever. And in in a in a
development like that, they should not I mean, they there's no reason to have roosters. First of all, the the the chickens can lay eggs without the roosters. So, there's no reason in a in a housing development like that to have roosters. Dave, last year when you were
here. Yes, sir. And you had your complaint there. Myself and Councilman Miller went out there. Yep. And I know what you're saying. We knocked on a door, nobody would answer, right? But we couldn't find a chicken nowhere. Yeah. That's I mean, do they hide them or what? They they have them way out on the
back of their property. And of course that's right by mine. But but the neighbors on either side and even the neighbors across the street 192nd and that kind of curves round up to Viking Boulevard again. That's where a lot of these complaints come. They can hear them there. Really? But yeah, they'll
hide them in especially if they know that somebody's coming to inspect their property. Yeah, cuz we never told them. We just showed up, but we couldn't find a chicken anywhere. No, they're and they let them run loose out in the back there. uh they usually stay on their property, but now in December, we had
one on our property, and I've got a picture of of that, and I've got a picture of what that rooster looked like, and it was in horrible shape. It was uh all the tail feathers were ripped out of it. It had lice. It could It had
been out for at least a week in my yard, and it was eating bird seed, which is not good for chickens. We feed the birds and the bird seed falls on the ground, and that's the only thing it had to eat. and they never came looking for their chicken. And so we called the sheriff to
try to we didn't know what to do. You what do you do? You got a chicken running around your yard and that's freezing cold outside. This was December 13th, 15th, somewhere around there. And had the sheriff out and he said, "Well, if you catch them, call me back." You know, and he documented that he came out
and saw the the chicken. And we've got I've got pictures too if you want to see the the condition that the this poor chicken was in. I mean he So we ended up we finally caught him about 3 days 4 days after we tried you know catching them. We finally caught them and we had
brought it to us a sanctuary where they get them bedded and they put them on a farm where they can't be abused anymore. And she said she had I have a report here from her. She said uh this We we
named her Glattus and she we love animals so we hate to see this these animals being treated like this but she said this it was covered in lice and suffered frostbite. This is from the the lady with the chicken sanctuary that we brought it to. She said it was covered
in lice and suffered frostbite uh before we rescued her and all of her tail feathers were pulled out and she was infested with round worms. And she said she she weighed about three
three and a/4 pounds or 3 lb four 4 oz or something like that. Um she also said it lost one of its toes due to frostbite because it had no shelter. It had no water. It had you know it was just and they didn't they had no concern about
where it was. They never looked for it. And our like I said our properties but up to each other. Um, and I wasn't going to bring it back over there cuz I've seen the condition of from my yard. I I haven't been inside their barns, but I
see the the way they're being just left to run all over the property back there and onto our property. And so, uh, they also she also said this is a a game hen, like an old English or an American game
hen. And they're not really, um, egg laying chickens. They're they're she says they are uh they only lay typically 120 eggs per year where a good laying chicken a good breed of chicken will lay
anywhere from 250 to 300 eggs per year. So she said these are typically um let's see what she say here. She said they're typically used in cockpit these this breed in particular. They're not they're not used for anything but that. Now, I don't know
anything about what goes on at the property. I know they have big parties on a Friday night during the summertime every so often and they've had where they had a vehicle out back that started a brush fire. I know the fire department showed up to put that out and the car
was just buried back there in the tall grass and started the fire from the the mufflers. But I don't know what goes on because I have not been on their property. You know, I I've seen it from my property because we butt up against each other, but I I don't know what goes on inside the barns and so but I do I
I've seen the condition of this poor chicken and they let their dogs run constantly. They the garbage cans are out front of their house and they leave them out there. They own a they do own a Mexican restaurant down in Blaine right off by by the police department in
Blaine. And I don't know, you know, I know that One of the neighbors says they're bringing all the garbage from their their business out here so they don't have to have a garbage disposal at their business. But they leave the garbage cans out on the street all all
week long and this stuff is blowing onto the neighbors property and all around the neighborhood onto the street and and that I know that two neighbors on either side are just beyond frustrated with that and the the noise from the chickens, you know, the roosters, but
their dogs run loose. Couple of the neighbors on a complaint form said they've they've brought the dogs back to them number of times before they ran out onto um Viking Boulevard up there and you know the the two young kids speaks a
little bit of English and you know just said we're not supposed to tell you about those people in the basement whatever that meant. I don't know what that means. But so I just the big thing for us if we want to be able to open this has been three years. Three years
that we put up with non-stop roosters, you know, day and night. And I've got audio that that's timestamped here if you want if you want to hear it. 2:30 in the morning, the rooers cone. And I can play it for you if you want. We've got We believe you. I I that's why I brought
this up. We got our game cam stuff and you know we we've got them on 2:30 in the morning, you know, crowing away and it's loud and you know, so if you could address that and please don't let them keep even one rooster this time. Last
year they were allowed to keep one rooster, but there's no reason for them to have a rooster. Not not a development. So please please give us some relief in the neighborhood. you know, the neighbors on either side of of that property, they're the ones who are the
closest to the noise. And the one just died, not just recently, passed away from a heart attack. And I don't know if this was part of the stress. He's been fighting it for three years, you know, and and the other one is has wits end
too, you know, with with the noise. And Dave, your property butts up to them from the rear. Yep. Yep. So then the front of your house and which road is Jackson Street. So you're on Jackson? Yep. I'm on Jackson Street and my property goes all the way back and our
properties but up against each other. Okay. And then the neighbor the the neighbor who lives it would be towards Jackson Street on 192 there. His property comes
butts up to mine and runs along part of his too. So then do you face Jackson? I do. You do. Okay. So, that comes in now. Yeah. Goes to the west. Y Okay. Your property. Yeah. That's Yeah. He's He's on the west side of my property. The front of my house faces street. Okay.
Even with our windows closed during the winter, we've got we just put in triple pane windows last last fall and we can still hear them through the windows at night. So, yeah, it's just it's really frustrating. And who wants to run the
air conditioning and and the furnace all the time? You know, I when it's nice out, I want to have the windows open this thing and my neighbors do too. You know, there's like I said, there's nine of us here on the complaint forms. A lot of the other ones said, "Oh, no. I don't want to get involved. I don't want them to come after me and this and that and
the other thing." And I I tried to assure them that these won't get back to who to the the family that have the the roosters. Please help us. All I'm asking is to to do something to give us some means in
the neighborhood. Mr. Look, can we take some action on this? Mr. Mayor and Council, I know that Nick has been out to the property. I think he experienced something similar where there weren't any chickens around, people weren't answering. So, um, we will address this in the next, uh, staff
meeting and see what options are available. If if you need proof, I've got I've got the the audio, you know, and it's all timestamped, the dates and and the time of day it is. You know, we have 2 in the morning, quarter to 6:00 in the morning,
3 in the morning. It it might work best to uh come by during office hours and and give that a copy of those to staff. Sure, I can do that. I like I said I it's just so frustrating because I I
understand you know it's been three years now and we're not able to enjoy the you know and I love the sound of the birds and mother nature and all that stuff. We'd love to hear that but we can't even enjoy that because the rooster is gone. So the rooster is running around in your yard even. This
was this was a chicken that was in our yard, but we've had where they've just not they're not always running out loose, but there's been at least four or five times where we've seen them though. All of them just running around the roosters and the chickens running around. How many would on the back of
our How many do you think they have? Do you have any idea? I was going to ask how many this much. So I saw five huge. I mean I was with my naked eye from
my window. This was from our living room window out to the trees on their property. And these these birds looked as big as turkeys. I thought, "Oh, those are birds." But they were roosters and they were running back and forth. So,
they weren't on our property, but you could clearly see them running under the trees out there because the deer eat up the pine trees. So, do they have a chicken house behind them? Way in the back. Yeah, it's right directly behind. I didn't see I didn't see nothing in the back. She has
pictures of the the barn and stuff if you want to see from our house. Yeah. You pull it up on the GIS, you can see. The barn you can see if you're looking out our window, the barn is just this big white spot right behind some trees and that's where the chickens are
housed. The roosters they move because you can hear it one sp they'll crow back here and then all a sudden they're crowing up here and then when they have their parties it's right usually right next to the the barn where the chickens are and we have I mean you can see the flames they go almost as tall as trees
that's how big these fires are. I was like if I see it again I'm calling the fire people because that's insane. That's all dry grass back there. Yeah. And when our property backs up to them, we've got outuildings back there, too, that we don't want. We've had it burned across our property when somebody left a
a fire unattended years ago. And and to see those flames shooting above the 30 foot trees up there, you know, it's it's scary. It's really scary. My guess is they probably have 20 to 30 chickens and probably my
guess is maybe three to four roosters right now. It did go down to one when you guys somewhat addressed it, but it never went away. And now it's slowly creeping up again. Now we're up to three. And I can distinctively hear, you know, one crawl here and all a sudden another one call here. And then another
one called you can hear in a different barn. So they have different buildings, but the big barn is where all the chickens are. And you can't see that from the road because they're like up here. Mr. Mr. Mayor, I know that the council
has discussed chicken rooster ordinances in the past as it relates to how many roosters you can have per acreage and the unfortunate reality with roosters is that they will fertilize eggs and within two to three months you'll have more roosters. Just the way it works, um so
when you have a situation where people might not be managing their flock, so to speak, um who knows how many roosters you're going to have, you know, eventually. Um so it's this is the challenge when we when we bring these type of ordinances forward for you know
analysis on determining how many roosters if there should be roosters at all. These are the potential problems that we're going to be facing at some point down the road. I mean there's some that will comply and there's 99% that
won't. So it's just it's frustrating especially in a housing development when you know one house is going to ruin the whole neighborhood, you know, for for having your windows open. Even even if you're just during the day, I mean, it's non-stop and at night, especially
when you want to sleep with your windows open and this thing is just growing 2, three in the morning, midnight, we've heard at 11:00, 12:00 at night, you know. So yeah, and I do have the report from this this uh chicken sanctuary, the
lady who's a specialist if you want that too. Um we can leave it with Mr. Look for the record. I thank you. I appreciate all you hopefully we can get some resolution on this. Yeah. Thanks.
Thanks for coming forward. Thank you. All right, moving on to 6.0. Make a motion to approve the consent agenda as presented. I'll second and I'd like to pull item G.
Have a motion and a second. Any others need to be pulled? Okay. So, we have a motion to approve this. All those in favor except for G. I I I opposed. None heard.
Item G. Item G. I just have two questions on this um JPA with the BCA. Um the first question is, is this a renewal of this contract or is it a
whole new contract? because I thought if it were a renewal it would say renewal but it's Mr. Mr. Mayor and council members, the best of my knowledge is this is a renewal because it's a um joint powers agreement for the city of East Bethl that our city attorney uses. And I don't
know if our city attorney can comment on this, but in order for them to access the information from BCA, they need these following agreements approved um so they can act as an agent on our behalf for prosecution. I I figured
that, but I've just wondered if we already had this agreement and it's an an a renewal. And then my other question was, is there is it there a cost increase or is this cost the same as it was because I didn't see that in there
when I was looking through it. Mr. Mayor and Council, my understanding is there's no cost to this. It just is the authoritative vehicle to allow Ecber and Lamers to access the information they need for prosecutoorial services. Okay, I have to check something else
before I go because I had another comment. Um, nope, that's all I had. I thought there was it was talking about a cost in there, but I didn't see any dollar signs. So yeah, call reading that. With that, I'll make a motion to
approve item G on the consent agenda. Second. Have a motion and a second. All in favor? I post none or item 7 A final plaque. Uh good evening, council and
mayor. Uh I did not prepare a slideshow for this as this is a final plat and development contract agreement which is all provided for you in the packet. Um keep it short. Nothing has changed from the preliminary plat that you approved last month or two months ago now. And uh
everything meets code. Anything that needs to be resolved has been added to the resolution as stated and has been reviewed by the city attorney. Um, the development contract would still be negotiated as still working on what's included since there's no public
improvements proposed with this small subdivision of three lots. I'm available for any questions. Thank you. make a resolution or make a motion to approve resolution number 20 25-23
uh final plat and development contract for Blanco Dola Praa for three lots located at P 2633 23 320012 and 2633 232 23001.
Second. Have a motion. Second. Discussion. Okay. I just have a comment. On page 41, it says the planning commission held a public hearing to review the preliminary plat at their XX
meeting. I don't like that XX meeting. Yeah. Yeah, that's been noted. I will add that to a review for staff to look at before the reports go out. I apologize for that. Thank you. That's all I have. I think that was to remind someone to put a date in there. Our
apologies. Any further discussion? All those in favor? I opposed. None hurt. Motion passes. Uh staff report. Mr. Mayor have a few items to uh
to to cover here uh this evening. First of all, just want to say that we've started our union negotiations and uh we've had a first good uh meet and greet meeting and uh kind of chatted through some of the issues that are out there. We're going to be bringing this to the finance committee uh to um to discuss
the proposal that they're going to bring forth. So, more to come on that. Um the uh I want to give just an update too on the abandoned house that is at 105229 229th Avenue rather northeast. This is behind I believe the the house
that was in question here this evening. Um we I did some checking with the county and in fact um the the owner of the house passed away. His son then took ownership of the house and um passed away from an overdose and the house is
currently in um uh behind on taxes and it'll it has to go through its normal process of tax forfeite and and uh and everything else and uh before the county can step in and sheriff sale that property. So unfortunately there's the
law requires a time frame for these things and um and so in the meanwhile uh we would just ask the neighbors to keep an eye on uh on the property, make sure there's no nothing funny going on around there and that they would call the
sheriff in the event that there is. Uh again, we would love to post a deputy out in front of the house, but that would burn up resources that we can't necessarily afford. Uh but we can respond in case there is any sort of nefarious activity going on.
Um third item is uh uh the finalist the fire chief candidate uh that will be meeting uh tomorrow with the uh firefighters. Uh we'll take a kind of a tour of the station the equipment uh stand for questions of firefighters. I think this is a good opportunity for
folks to get to know him and uh it is uh after a successful negotiation um we're looking at about a 27th of May start date. So um but there is a lot of positive feedback we're getting uh changes that are happening at the fire
department and um and kind of people at first didn't quite know the need for it but are kind of starting to realize that these are positive changes, good changes. So, that's a a good thing that will help kind of pave the way for the new individual as he comes in. Uh, I
want to also mention uh with regards to landform uh that we just met uh today and we're going to be kind of transitioning away from the officing on Mondays um and uh moving to more of a remote uh meeting weekly uh for for
Grace if she has any questions on some of the um uh the uh cases that she's going to be working with. So, we we kind of started off with the um Kendra was here every Monday, meet with residents that would be coming in, schedule those meetings, then we'll move to more of a
phone call uh with Grace so that uh she can run through these are the cases I'm working on, make sure everything is set up and ready to go. And as we start to phase phase out to um to then finally a an on call type of need. So if if let's
say down the road Grace has a issue that she just does not know how to deal with, she can reach out to Kendra and Kendra can bill us on an hourly basis for that. Um I think uh I think that is all that I have for
updates today request that'll be under other All right. Thank you. Council reports reports. I have some things to say. Um first I want to say uh talk about
senior stuff. I would like on a future um agenda put on there the approval of serving alcohol uh wine and beer over in the community center area. Um last time it went
through all the stages and the council approved it, but then when it went over there the seniors disapproved it. So this time we got the seniors to approve it. So now we want the council to approve it and then
we're going to get into the the cost of insurance and licensing. And for right now we have um route 65 going to be the sole provider. So anybody who wants it, we
also got our our mill a million dollar insurance uh policy for over there. So now when any resident in the past any resident who wanted to use it had to go out and contact their insurance company
and and get their own additional one mill $1.5 million extra insurance and they don't have to do that anymore because the seniors got that insurance policy. So I wanted to talk
about that. The seniors would also like it to look over that copy of the cleaning contract just to make sure that because they're feeling like the guy is not doing what he's supposed to be doing and I told them because I looked at
yours but they want to see it themselves. So maybe if you could email that to me I can bring it to the next meeting. Um May 3rd, that's this coming Saturday, I think, um is going to be the fix it clinic up over here. So if
anybody has a small 25 pound or less item, a microwave, a vacuum, a toaster that you need to have fixed, bring it on up and put those guys to work. Um the senior dance is Friday, so if you're a senior, please come. Well, you don't
even have to be a senior. Come and dance. It's old poker music and stuff. It's country. It's a lot of fun. So, come on up. There's refreshments and um I'd love to see you there because I'm going to decorate and if you're a mom,
you might get a rose. Um and that's all I have. Oh, and I did get a few complaints about the town hall meeting and I think I will talk to Mr. Look oneonone with those complaints and maybe we can spoof up the next one a little
bit. That's all I have. Anybody else? What time on Friday? 1 to 4. All right. Nothing else being heard. Let's move to other. So, uh, Mr. Mayor, this evening,
uh, um, acting fire chief Jerry Strike presented, uh, three proposals for us, um, to, uh, to consider. Uh the to the right page here. Uh the first is uh to uh
essentially move to a duty crew model uh with during the daytime hours and uh and transition. The second one is transition position uh Ben's position fire chief to deputy chief uh by removing the uh
overtime that hourly gets paid moving to a full-time and then also reducing medical calls uh by the calls that he had indicated highlighted as the um non-emergent calls. He believes that uh
those those last two by reducing the calls and and transitioning that position that there will be a cost savings uh to uh employing um a a duty crew for the daytime hours. Um, again, one of the the reasons for that is uh
the responses uh during the daytime have in his experience have been one firefighter in a in a in a truck and um and he doesn't believe that that is um adequate enough to once you get on on scene to be able to operate that vehicle
by yourself and and effectively uh take care of that uh situation, gain control of that situation. So um essentially under other um the if it is the will of the council uh you could motion to approve uh one or all three of these and
um and staff will start that and if that passes staff will start the process of implementing that. I want to remind everyone too that um everything is is fluid here in terms of we can try this if it doesn't work we can we can try a different model or go back to the old
model or do whatever we see fits. Um I think um I think in his experience he's seen these models work. Uh again he's indicated that as as we grow as a community as we have more and more demand you move from the volunteer model
to the duty crew model. the duty crew model if you're doing both um uh daytime and evening can be very expensive or a lot more expensive than we are currently covering for for volunteers. Uh but a lot of communities are in fact doing that and so you have you have
firefighters that live in Golden Valley and essentially work on duty crews in different communities. So, um, if this is something that the council would like to, um, pursue, uh, we would just need a motion, second, and and vote on that
this evening. I'll make a motion to approve duty crew, deputy chief for Ben, and reduce medical calls. Second. Okay, we have a motion and a second.
Discussion. Uh, I do have a question for Mr. strike. I didn't see him there. Uh wi with making this change and as you've probably heard from
uh rumor mill or otherwise that obviously people are very concerned with an appearance of drop service, change of service. Um, can you put out some sort of education for residents to explain
the changes that the there will not be a um a lack of service? Uh, because we I think with the change like this that there needs to be some education put out there to explain
what's going on and that there is not a lack of service. Sure. We're actually reducing what we are calling a service, a non-emergent service that's been in place for many years in order to save
the service in order to actually balance out the volunteer model so we can hold this model as long as possible because time has become the new money. We'll balance it out. Now that or if you all do decide
that this is a avenue you want to go down, I will then have permission to work with the staff to figure out what's best. And maybe it's gradual, you know, but but uh having permission will allow
me to help find the balance. So when the new chief comes, they're taking over a program that is balanced with a council who understands the service delivery model. They've got a report that's a year old that's making
recommendations. You're educated on it. You're brought up to speed and you just made a vote or about to make a vote on this is the service we want to provide our community. And based off of that, it's always monitored. There's no
greater bear uh weight on a a shoulder of a department head than of the fire chief. They're up at night wondering who's showing up, what's the storm going to bring? You know, we've been talking about that for days. But uh because the
responsibility is the community expects the service even though most of them will never use it. No. But yes, we can market it. We can talk about it. We can Facebook it. We can have a video on it. Yeah. Even put together something that
you can provide to the city that they can absolutely advertise it. Y Mr. Mayor, and what I'd suggest too is before we get our newsletter out here, maybe we draft a an article on that kind of detailing some of those changes. So, and we can pick a date to, you know,
this this won't happen tomorrow, right? But it gives the new chief and I an opportunity to talk about everything we just talked about and the the council's wishes and then we implement it over time uh for better service or at least
the equal service. It's not fair to have 20 show up on on one, you know, at 5:00 and two show up or one show up at 5 a.m. So try to find that balance. Your call volume is going to continue to go up. If I didn't say it, I know I said it at the
pre uh previous meeting, but since 2020, we've had a 47% increase in medical calls since 2020. 47%. That's a lot. I think uh my opinion, Jerry has
explained it really well. I personally have talked with Jerry with different things here and definitely when I hear we have one firefighter show up with one vehicle on a fire that's not good at
all. I mean that can go south even when you do have multiple firefighters. one is the safety of the firefighter and the safety of the residents big time in my opinion that so I think the duty crew thing I was kind of against him at first
but then I didn't really understand him until Jerry and me have talked about it and it makes sense plus he can save us money by reducing the calls that we don't need to go on but if they do
change we can be sounded out right way and we can be there. So the residents need to know and I want them to know that we are going to still provide the service for emergencies, heart, breathing and stuff like that. We are not going to ignore that. We'll be
there. So this is just a way that we can make our department better and safety for our firefighters and safety for our residents. Mr. Mayor, could I just make a comment to saving money?
We're actually not saving money. It costs $93,000 for the duty crew. However, the the overall impact in the budget because we'll be moving line allocations around is $15,000. So, we're not saving money.
We're but we're taking line allocations, moving them around to pay for this new delivery model. And keep in mind, we're we'll have a faster response time during the daytime. And uh it isn't uncommon to see duty crews save lives like right
away because we don't have that turnout time from home to the station, assemble, and then go to the call. They're out the door in one minute. So, they're doing CPR in a matter of minutes. We're not waiting. In fact, I think our uh our
well, I know our policy says you have to live within 10 minutes of the closest station. So that means you can live as far as 10 minutes away just to get to the station. And we're brain dead in six minutes. That's that's
science. So time is important. So So out the door right away. Chief can rest a little bit knowing they have people coming. They're they're at the station. They're going in route quickly. And uh much like everything else in life, it's a it's a
revolving monitored system. And to to the administrator's point, we change it when we need to. And that's why you have department heads to bring you expertise and opinions and recommendations and you get to make the choice on the best
delivery you want to provide. So, so I do have a question on the um inspector to assistant fire chief. Is that going to be the same rate of pay that he's getting now or is this a pay increase or and is this all budgeted
already? That kind that's information is needed. Uh Mr. Mayor and council members on that sheet that was provided uh to us this evening believe it's this sheet right here. Um it shows that he is currently I
think he's currently making 38.92 an hour. promotion would be to 40 48 um and then start on a step system at that point. So, uh there would be you know the the challenge that we have
right now is we have a a fire inspector doing a lot more than a fire inspector should be. So, he's not being paid for the work he's doing. So, this would more accurately reflect what he's currently doing um and put him in that job classification that that he should be in
as it is right now. Uh the other the other part of this too is um you know I think the you know Jerry and I have spoken about this and and perhaps others as well but um you by doing this also you have a continuity plan. Say say the
new fire chief comes in and says you know I'm moving to Florida. Sorry folks. Um, you have a continuity plan where you have a deputy chief now that can he's kind of been in these roles. He's been brought into that that inner
circle of of managing and controlling department. He can now step more seamlessly into that fire chief position if it's the will of the council at that point. So, so and is this coming out of the fire department budget? Is this budgeted for
already or do we have to get some more money from somewhere else? So, this is this would be part of the fire department budget. This these are dollars that are as the assistant interim chief assistant the chief Bob the temp guy
as he indicated we're kind of moving pieces around the puzzle board to account for these increases that we're going to see so that it's not an increase to the levy. So, if you're saving on overtime, but this cost is going up, you know, you're
saving and kind of you're kind of breaking even. Yeah. Okay. Thanks. I'm good. Any other questions, M? I'd just like to make sure that uh down the road here, maybe six months or whatever, we get a progress update on how this Absolutely.
lease is all going, right? So, we're all on board and keep going forward. I agree. And uh I'm I'm hopeful you'll see the fire chief in front of you more than they've ever been. And the assistant chief deal was part of the survey
recommendation, too. So, yes. All right. And Mr. Mayor and Council, I think we're all proposing this because we feel it will be a better system than we currently have, and we intend to make sure that that's the case.
Any further discussion? All those in favor? I I opposed. None heard. Motion passes. Entertain a motion to adjurnn. Make a motion to adjurnn. Second. Have a motion, a second to adjurnn. All
those in favor? I I meeting's closed. We have an H meeting. Yep. Yep. Okay. I'll call. Thank you for coming everybody. Pull it up here real quick. Thank you. Uh, I'll call the H meeting
to order. April 28th, 2025. Thanks. Second. Can I have someone? I'll make a motion to adopt the agenda. Second. I have a first and a second. Any discussion?
All in favor say I. I. Opposed? Motion passes. Minutes number three, approval of the minutes. Make a motion to approve the minutes. Make a motion to approve the minutes from January 27th, 2025.
Second. We have a a motion and a second to approve the minutes from January 27th, 2025. Any discussion? Hearing none. Proceed to vote. All in favor? I opposed. Hearing none.
Mr. Look, number four. Mr. Chairman and members, um I just wanted to bring up a preliminary budget proposal and financial update for uh 2026. We have to put in a uh a budget in accordance with a procedure in the city here. The HA
levies an amount of $77,000 in 2025. And um in uh you know as far as the expenditures go um we can I can just get into this. The maximum amount that we can levy uh is uh um
$345,000 600 $345,631. We levy $77,000. So um again we we've had these conversations before of you know functions of HR and and
limited uh resources. So, um uh you can levy up to that amount. I don't know that that you would necessarily want to, but um as far as 2025, uh 32,000 of that 77,000 gets transferred to staff uh for
time spent uh both uh in setting these meetings up then also for uh the finance uh requirements to manage the uh the finances on this. And uh essentially we are left over right now with a a balance
as of uh March 31st, 2025 of $292,685. You'll see here the 32,000 the gap of 45,000 would go into that account. Um so uh essentially what we're looking for is a direction and approval of the H levy amount of 77,000 be
included in the preparation of the 2026 city budget. This is the same amount as 2025. Make a motion to approve a H levy amount of $77,000 in preparation of the 26 budget.
Second. We have a motion and a second to approve the $77,000 amount. Any discussion? I go ahead. I have a question. If we have a balance of
292,000 plus, why do we need to levy anything? Uh, it keeps the H active and it builds up a fund for future projects. I just don't think that's a good enough reason to levy anything. if we have a
balance. I could see if we had a something a line item to spend that money on, but we don't and we have a a healthy balance. So, why levy anything? Well, when
uh oh, I think it was when we did Taylor Street that opened up that property by the church there. H funds were used
and it was able to be feasible to open up that and do that project because there was a substantial balance in that. So rather than putting out a levy that well we need to levy for a million
dollars put this road in those funds were available and they were acred over time rather than all at once. That put a burden on the residents. I'm not aware of that at all. Mr. chair and members that was before my
time here but um but just an example yeah I you know I I always use the um is it every man's treasure is that I think it is you know um what if that were to become available you know with the city move in
and buy that raise that and make that available for an Aldi or this is just crystal balling it right um how would you do that you need some sort of dollars to do that And does $45,000 get you there? Maybe in 50 years it might,
but it that really doesn't give you a whole lot of um flexibility uh to to kind of um uh take control of a property like that. Now, you could say, well, then you're competing with the market. Uh
that true. Um essentially, the market could come in and put a used car lot there because it's zoned for that, you know. um that may not be what the city ultimately wants there, you know. So, the city may want to be in a position where they could take control of a of a
parcel somewhere um and and make it available for something that they get from their, you know, feedback from the residents. This is what we want here. You know, you hear a lot about grocery stores or whatever. Um, you know, maybe it's a, you know, maybe it's a splash pad or
maybe, you know, there's all sorts of different projects, you know, cities can get into, uh, and spend money on, but, you have to have that money to spend. And it's not that you're levying dollars for the sake of levying. I think it is good to have uh,
goals of of what um, you know, what you want to head down the road and try and accomplish. she set a goal out there and and achieved that goal. Um I think this is just somewhat of a lifeline right now. Just keeping it going, adding a little bit of dollars every now and
then. Um but if the city were to take a stronger um position on housing and redevelopment, they would have to levy more dollars in order to do that. Okay. And otherwise, you're going to
bond for it, right? take out debt which is what is um exactly what staff support activities is this 32,000 going to
well um some of so the time essentially it breaks out the amount of time that staff is involved with the HR so it's putting together these packets it's um it's managing the finances it's um uh presenting here this evening. Well,
whatever time is involved, um, you know, we we we take that and we put a monetary value to it, which is the 35,000, if that's correct. 32,000. Um, and and I want to be clear, this is
not Well, you guys are already getting paid. Why are you getting 32,000? because we're we're paid in the general fund budget and that's reduced by 32,000 because you have HR dollars coming in. If HR dollars weren't there, your
general fund budget would have to go up to offset that difference. Um so it's taking money from one pocket and putting it on the other. There's no additional monies uh involved here. Um, but these services uh are something that can be
build to the HR by law and um and it's been standard practice in the past. Does that answer your question, Suzanne? Mhm. Okay. Okay. This is just new to me, so I'm just learning this stuff. But the only question I have is
it says it's unodudited. Why would this be audited? Because I would You know, there's since the audit, there's been additional cash or interest on that account. And so once that account is audited next year, then that would
be considered audited at that point. I just saw the unodudited. It didn't make much sense. I think that's that's just the the official way of saying that, you know, as more dollars go into this account, it needs to be audited again. Okay. In the
next sequence of audits, which all these accounts go through audits. Yeah. Um, it just threw me for a loop. Does that answer your question already? Yeah. Any more discussion? We need a motion here to approve this already made.
Okay. Motion's been made. First and second. All in favor say I. I. I. Opposed. I. One opposed. Motion. Motion passes. Make a motion to adjurnn. Second. Motion's been made to adjurnn.
first and the second. Any discussion? Proceed to vote. All in favor say I. I. Opposed and unheard.