--------- All right, we'll call the uh July 14th, 2025 uh council work meeting this order. I'll make motion to adopt the agenda. Have a motion. Do we have a second? Second.
Motion second. All in favor? I motion passes 2026 budget. All right. Thank you, Mr. Mayor and councel. The uh 2026 budget process commenced on January 2nd with the
creation of our budget model. A series of other items were completed February through June as outlined above. And then based on inputs from the city council, department heads, and the union contract, the budget book was prepared for the city council to review at
tonight's meeting. Again, the 2026 general fund expenditures are proposed to increase by $479,400 or 7% from 2025. The 2026 budget model currently reflects
the following expenditure inputs, which are the primary drivers of that overall increase. Under salaries and benefits, an 8% coal increase for nine union, 13 non-union, and 40 paid on call firefighters. Again, this is based on
the Minnesota Public Employees Association's labor agreement that was approved at your June 9th city council meeting. Um, under contracted services, your law enforcement contract is proposed to increase by $110,000. And again, we have
representatives from Anoka County that will go line by line on their budget. Uh, the city attorney contract is proposed to increase by $10,000. The Metro Inet contract is proposed to increase by $13,000.
Your audit contract is proposed to increase by $2,000. Elections, again, this is an election year in 2026 is proposed to increase by 21,000. Um, under transfers, again, transfers
within our general fund budget. The equipment replacement fund, we're proposing to increase those transfers for $22,000. Street capital fund, proposing to increase that transfer by $50,000. Under Park Capital fund, we're proposing
to increase those by $10,000. Hey Mike, I got a question. Sure. On the election part of it, what was the normal cost? I couldn't find it anywhere. The It's an increase of 21,000. So what was it? You know,
last election it was 16,000. So 16,000. Okay. It's in the book. I didn't see it. Too much in the book. And then under other um we are budgeting a $24,000 increase
or a new line item for the Minnesota paid leave program that's going to be implemented and mandated by the state of Minnesota starting in 2026. There's also a line item within your budget, proposed budget of $40,000 for Civic Plus module implementation. Again,
we're still in still in a little bit of a a research mode for that, but we've put in $40,000 for modules for what is that? Civic Plus modules. Um I believe that software
that's that new software program that you guys were talking about, right? Different modules where that was in here. Yeah, that will help uh in terms of the uh website changes that we're going to have and people being able to search information, things like that. Uh recording um um social media,
which is a requirement by law. This does that for you. There's there's about four, I believe, four different modules that we're looking at right now of seven or eight. So, I thought it was going to be way more expensive than 40k, though. Well, the full amount's 80, but we kind of looked at needs versus wants and
said, "Okay, this is kind of what we need here." Okay. Um, again, that expenditure increase would then result in a corresponding levy increase, uh, general tax levy levy and debt service levy of $3.8% or
$246,100 in order to balance the 2026 budget. Again, please note that the city would be using $200,000 in accumulated general fund balance and initializing a $100,000 transfer from the water fund to the 2014
a debt service fund in order to balance the 2026 budget. Again, I just wanted to highlight that there are five different components to the city budget. The general fund, special revenue funds, debt service funds, capital project funds, and enterprise funds. The main focus of
tonight's meeting is the general fund as it captures all expenditures involved with general government, community development, public safety, public works, engineering, risk management, and transfers. We have representatives from each of those departments here tonight in order to provide a brief overview of
their budgets and to answer any questions the council may have. Can I ask a quick question before we go in? Sure. All the contracts that we signed, the police, the legal, the attorneys,
did those contracts include the monies that are increasing or is this an additional increase to those contracts? Yep. So, each one of those contracts is going to be different. The increase in the Anoka County contract is going to be
new for 2026 and in embedded in this model for 2026. your attorney contract actually is only running through the first five months of 2026. So, one of the, you know, um I guess work items
that Matt will be bringing forth is to examine if you wanted to bring that out for bid to see if you wanted to. I think we do. Yep. So again, that goes through the first five months of 2026 and then there's estimate estimates basically based upon prior activity in order to
kind of fill in your 2026 budget for the attorney fees. Got it. Thank you. Yep. Good question. Thank you. Um with that, I'm going to turn it over to um our representatives from the law enforcement uh department. We have Paul Lensmeer and Derek Peters here from
Anoka County. So, and what pages are those on? Can you This is page 29 of your budget book. Uh, good evening everybody. It's good to see everyone again in a little bit different capacity than usual on our
monthly council meetings. But, uh, as you all know, I'm Lieutenant Derek Peters with the sheriff's office. Uh, I have the distinct pleasure of presenting the 2026 law enforcement contract this year. Um, but before I start, off to my right, I think Mike pretty much hit on it, but I have three representatives
that are here with me. Um, all three of them have played a huge role in putting this together and making sense for people like me who is just not usually a numbers guy. So, um, Paul Lensmeer, commander, uh, Brent Ericson, commander, and Chief Deputy Bill Jacobson. And on
behalf of the four of us, we want to say thank you for allowing us to come up here and present the contract and thank you for your arduous support. Throughout the years, we've never gone unsupported by the city and um I think it shows in our word product and what we deliver out on the road dayto-day. So um thank you
to each and every one of you and without further ado, I'll get straight into it. Um I plan on doing this line by line and if you guys have questions as we move forward, you can stop me. Otherwise, I'll just stand for questions at the end. But, um, 2026 brought a few changes
for us on the, uh, contract side of things. The deputies were awarded a new contract, um, which included a 5% wage increase. We're going to see that over the next three years. So, it was a five, five, and three. Um, and our contracts will reflect that as we move forward
throughout the the future here. In that regard, um, as you can see, under personnel A for sworn deputy sheriff, we have 7.6 6 deputies at $9,733 per month. That's just strictly on wages. Um the reason why it's 7.6 uh is
that we have six deputies that are assigned to this contract. We have two that are working on the dayshift side of things, two that work midship, and then two that work in the over overnight shifts, one on each rotation, rotation one and two. The reason why we build in
that 7.6 or that 1.68 68 technically is to account for any vacations, sick leave, and all the other things that we need to cover so that we have coverage 24/7 365 throughout the city. Um, in addition to what we've got this year,
we have 10 hours of overtime that we built into the contract. That's a change from previous years of seven uh hours of overtime simply because we have statemandated trainings which would include the racial biases trainings, um driving training, um other trainings
that we must attend as law enforcement. So, we built that into each one of our contracts, 10 hours of overtime instead of the seven that we that we're used to in the past. So, we've seen an increase there as well. Um, moving down on the list here, you'll see
all of the benefits that are uh standard for what we're seeing in law enforcement here with the PER, the Medicaid, the severance allowance, and the unemployed compensation, things of that nature. We've seen a a bit of an increase there. We didn't see any changes on the life insurance side of things. That brings
our total cost for personnel at $1,325,13. So um obviously you can also see we don't have any sworn CSO coverage here which is represented by the zero on our balance sheet. So that's been uh continuation of I think two or three
years ago when we got rid of the the CSO contract. So that is currently where we stand here for 2026. Moving into vehicles. Uh the city of East Bethl pays for two cars. Um we have one car that runs 24/7. So that's the car that that runs during the day shift
hours from 6:00 to 6 and then they'll run the night shift from 6:00 to 6. So that car is running 247 365. The power car, which basically um adds to that power or to that to that dayshift car that works those overlapping hours, is a
12-h hour car, and that's going to be running 2:30 a.m. or 2:30 p.m. to 2:30 a.m. Um, our 24-hour car gets replaced every third year. uh I'm sorry, gets replaced every other year, while the 12-hour car gets replaced every third year. So,
that's articulated in our sheet here at 83 for vehicles instead of one. We don't charge the city for one vehicle every single year because we're usually rotating through um when when we're actually purchasing those cars. But we leave that number at 083 uh which this
year totals 45,650 simply to keep the contract consistent so that on years that we have replacements or need replacements, it's not increasing and it's not decreasing um drastically. Um state pricing on those vehicles uh for
our contracts has gone up. So if you look on the right side of the sheet there, uh the cost for that vehicle in 2026 is actually bid at 55,000. But as stated earlier, uh that 83 brings that total down to 45,650 for the purchase of a new SUV in our
city here. Um directing your attention further down on the sheet, um under vehicles there, you'll see the top total cost for maintenance of our squads is 52,500, which includes all the maintenance costs associated with the vehicle's usage. Um
and that includes both of both the power and um the regular contract car. So we come to that figure based on average mileage per squads which is combined per year 75,000 75,000 miles. Um we charge our contracts 7 per miles per the IRS
reimbursement figures. So if you if you do the math on that 75,000 times.7 equals the 52,500 that you see um directly across from number one there. uh vehicle. Uh moving down further there, emergency
communications and equipment fees. That's at 36,718. That's going to include our body warn cameras, our portable radios uh for the deputies, the mobile radios, and the squad cars, the miscellaneous communication equipment uh that we have to purchase and restock throughout the
year. Shoulder mics, batteries, things of that nature. Uh and then fleet cameras at approximately $4,500 per year. only last one year. You replace them every year. Not not every year, but um those batteries can go uh depending on how
much they're used. So people on specialty units that tend to use their radios a lot more frequently, people that leave their radios on, the lifespan of those lithium-ion batteries are decreased greatly. So we build that into the cost of our contract every year so that we can have the proper equipment to
outfare folks. Um the emergency vehicle equipment replacement fee uh is included just below that. That's that's uh at $3,000. And that's that's squad equipment, right? So we have um we have medical
supplies in there. We have um bunkers. We have other things that we need um to serve the public. Just odds and ends type things that that we do charge the contracts for, which is what's indicative there. So, uh, if you break that down, it's 1,500 per car. Times two
is 3,000 for both of our cars there. Um, can I ask another question? Now, if I if I don't ask, I'll forget. Um, if you don't use the $3,000, do you do we not pay it or do we pay it no matter
what, whether you use it or not? In this case, in this case, as it's included in the contract, that ask the city to pay for that just simply so that we can get those things purchased beforehand. We don't have to worry about back billing or charging the city later if we need more equipment. So, it's a standard flat
fee that we're going to be charging all of our contracts to. Um, that equipment is is imperative to our operation. It's very important for us to have those miscellaneous items in the car so that the car is properly stocked. Um otherwise, you know, we run out of
rubber gloves or we run out of any other supplies that we may need. It could create issues when we're actively dealing with scenes out on the road. So, um further down on that list, their insurance cost for each car combined is $7,000. And then phones for our deputies
in East Bele per year totals 4,500. The phones are critical to our operation, obviously, as you all know, emails, voicemails, communication with attorneys, communication with the public. Um that's where that bill or that's where that price point will stand
for those those deputies in 2026. Um administrative costs uh on number three um our PSDs costs which is our CAD system and our APS maintenance costs have gone up. We've seen a slight
increase there. The PSDS is our CAD system. So the computer AED dispatch um all the networking and all the software that's included in that package has gone up this year. that is uh a price point that's predetermined by Jaylick um our joint law enforcement council. So um
again that's another cost of our services that's required for us to to do business the way that we have been. Um unfortunately it's risen but um again a critical element of our operational status as it pertains to day-to-day
activities. Um APS stuff um that stands for automated pawn system. We actually use the lead system. So, Leads is an APS system. So, what it does, it allows us to follow up on theft cases. It allows us to track scrap metal. It allows us to
track items that were pawned. Um, it allows us to follow up on those theft cases that usually filter their way down to patrol investigations after our deputies have answered that first 911 call out on out on the street. So, um, very critical software that's imperative
to our success. We can't follow up without that software. Um it's very important that um we have the support of you know council and everyone else out there in in maintaining these systems because without it we can go
dead end on some of these leads that we get. So it's a very easy system for us to utilize. You sign in, you log in, you type in what you're looking for and boom, you got your results. So um it's a great tool for us. Um number uh nu
number or letter B, excuse me. Uh administrative clerical substation computer line charges uh have been listed at $136,361. Those uh are also up um this year just based on the fact that we had that wage
adjustment at the very first side of at the very top for our personnel there. Um that number is figured on 10% of our personnel costs at $1,325,13. Um that includes um staff, records staff,
records staff and support staff um included is included in that. So whenever we take reports, whenever we need processing paperwork on the back end of things, that administrative fee uh is what's included here. that is what we're paying those folks to do. So
process um our day-to-day activities whether it's in East Bethl or or or somewhere else. That's that's on that contract too. So that's an administrative fee of 10 10% of personnel cost flat across the board. So, um, that also that bottom line total
also includes 38 uh 30 $3,850 charge, which is a standard county IT charge that county IT determines for us, which covers our phone lines and computer services in the substation. So,
um, it's a brief overview of of what I have for council this evening, but I'm ready to stand for any questions. And like I said, I've got the brain tree behind me. So if I don't know the question, I'll phone a friend um and we can get through this. So any questions that I can answer for
anybody on what I have here? I do have one more question. So, we get texts from Anoka County for some of this for police administrative for different um for the new
building they have on Hansen, the new call center, the call center, the and I feel like we might be getting double tax. Like are you do you guys reimburse the county then for what we pay you or how does
that work because some of these things seem like it should be the county taxing us for and I feel like they are taxing us for some of this stuff. Sure. So from my understanding the 20 2800's new building is that's a county building that has nothing to do with the
sheriff's office. So what you're receiving from them is actually from the county not the sheriff's office specifically. And to answer your question of whether or not we reimburse, um I'm not aware of that. I don't think that we do. Um I I don't I'm not aware of any sort of reimbursement on that
side of things. But mayor and council, my name is Bill Jacobson. I serve as the chief deputy. Um council, I'll try to answer your question a little bit. So, uh, every, uh, every city in Inoka County does, um, part of the county levy does include costs for the sheriff's office, but
those are our countywide service costs. So, those include things, as you mentioned, the 911 center, our justice services division, which pays for um, civil process, paper service, eviction, stuff like that. It accounts for our jail division, which is our largest
division. We have approximately 80ome deputies that work in the jail. um our SWAT team, our reserve unit. Um we have a marine unit that patrols our waterways. Um we have a number of other specialty units. Um we have like a
mobile field force team that can respond if there are incidents involving, you know, mass um sort of public demonstrations to keep people safe. So we have basically two types of service. We have services that the entire county gets and that's part of that county levy you see and then services at the police
level for each city. So for example, the city of Blaine, they have their own police department. They pay their own police department. But when we have county services in Blaine, some other examples are like our criminal investigations division. They handle death investigations, sexual assaults,
major crimes. Our crime scene unit comes out, our our forensic lab. Those are those costs. The costs outlined here are the cost to have uh deputies on the front lines patrolling your community and keeping your community safe. So things like, you know, ha having traffic
enforcement, call response, um you know, having um having sort of directed patrol wherever the community feels it's needed. So there's kind of like two separate uh two separate types of service happen. Does that answer your question? It does. And I was mostly considering
the the computer um type stuff because I thought that was integrated with the county and I honestly I don't know so I'm asking. Yeah, council member that's a fair question. A question we ask. So we we basically when we build our our budget on a very similar timeline that the city builds their budget, we basically get we
we get a bill from county it comes to us. So for the cities that have squad cars with computers in them, that's what the county charges us to maintain those computers, modems, that technology. So
when we offer a contract, we have to include those costs because if a computer breaks down in a squad car, we we wouldn't call your IT department. We call ours and they come out and fix it. So, and I tell you, I don't know, has anyone been in a police car recently, in the front seat of a police car to look
the technology in the police cars? I don't know. Some some of the folks that have been, we've all been around a while. We've all been cops for a while. The amount of technology in police cars is crazy right now. You've got the cameras, the GPS, you've got license plate readers, you got so much technology that I tell you, the the the
software support and the IT support that we need these days to get our job done. I don't know, you guys, we've all done pen and paper patrol. I don't I don't know that our deputies these days um have ever experienced pen and paper patrol, but man, the technology is pretty pretty impressive out there. So,
you know, we have we have to support it. So, hopefully that answers your question. Thank you. Yeah, of course. And yeah, we're happy to stand for any other questions or any specifics about the details of the contract. I do have a question for you. I'm trying
to figure out in my head if we have a car that's out there 247 and one that's 12 hours times seven, you know, for the week. When I do the numbers on that, I come up with, you know, 168 hours of full-time work that
that car is 247 across the board and along with 84 for the 12. If you take those 40 hours when you add them all up, it equals 6.3 officers basically of full-time work. So, I'm wondering where
you get the 7.6 deputies. It, you know, it's not like adding up in my head here or on paper. So, I'm trying to figure out where the increase is there for hours if there's only so many hours that you can put into a car. Sure. You know, why are we why are we multiplying that out?
Yeah. So the the short answer is you're you're getting you're getting cars that you're not being charged for. But I can Paul, I don't know if you want to comment a little more on that. Paul Lensmire, commander of the patrol division. So you're talking about the 7.6, right? Right. Versus uh the six deputies that you
have. Uh Lieutenant Peters touched on it a little bit, but that 7.6 Six represents um additional relief cars built into the schedules to accommodate for uh sick leave, vacation, ESST time. Anytime uh your core six have training,
uh we back fill with the deputy uh on the road. So you guys don't lapse in any type of coverage. Okay. In some cases like a city police department, uh let's say they're they're maximum of our six deputies. If their deputy calls in sick, they're down down five, right? But with you uh with that
7.6 that gives you an additional 1.6 that offers uh into the relief spot to cover those vacancies throughout the year. Okay. Is that where the countywide card comes in? That's correct. Thank you. Does anybody have anything else? I think
I used up one lifeline or is that two? I don't I don't know. I I don't know. Um if nobody else has any questions, I'll stop talking. But if you guys need something, please feel free to reach out and if I don't know the answer, I'll
find it. Thank you. Thanks. Thank you. Thank you, Derek. Thanks. Thanks for coming out, guys. Thanks for what you do. All right, we're going to be moving right along to the fire department. Fire department budget is proposed to
increase by 7% or $73,000. The primary drivers of that increase are salaries and added to paid on call staff and equipment. With that, I'll hand it over to Jeff Cloa of the fire department fire. And what page?
Um, we are looking at page 31. Mayor, members of the council, thank you for having me. Um, as uh Mike pointed out, our budget's going up by about 7%. A large part of that is uh the wage increase. Um, we are
also in the process of adding uh numerous personnel. Uh, we currently have seven that are in the pipeline for uh background checks, which come with added cost of training and equipment and that kind of stuff. Uh a few of the larger line items that
um on top of the wages that we are looking at um addressing are our uh turnout gear. Um, all of that was purchased in the year 2020 and it's all going to be coming due um or expiring by
2030, which means without purchasing a large amount in 2029, we're going to start to phase in new gear um and uh build up some of our reserves, but make it so that it's not a huge purchase in in 2029.
Um, some of the other stuff, uh, we're looking at, uh, replacing some, uh, small tools to include, uh, different types of circular saws that we would use on different car accidents and and, uh, medical or not medical, but, uh, 911
responses. Um, and then the other thing is, um, leaning into training, uh, to include emergency management training. um addressing uh council concerns that I've been told and
understood um to prepare uh the EOP and continue to move that forward. Um from from what I can gather from previous years, um those are the three
uh biggest line item increases. there haven't been everything else seems to be adjusted to cover for inflation. Um there are things that we're trying to start to plan for in the future um to
start to make sure um and as I have more time I'll dive into the CIP and stuff make sure we have enough money allocated for vehicle replacement SCVAs radios and all that kind of stuff. Um, we'll we'll be addressing that
in the coming years. Um, I don't have as detailed a presentation as the police department. Um, but right behind you. Mhm. Um, I I I would offer or open it up to any
questions as far as um anything that you see that you either don't have all the information on or questions have come up. Well, you know, I have questions. Um, I'm going to start with the fire pension
contribution because it's been 14,000 for years and in 26 it's going to 16,000. Why is that? I mean, it's it's not a lot, but I just noticed the difference in the consistency, but now it's changed. If I remember correctly, that's the 2%
money or Yeah, actually, it's historically it's been based on the number of proposed paid on call firefighters that the unit's going to have during that budget year. So, as we increase the number of paid on call firefighters, that number increases. Again, the way it's been done
in the past is $400 times the amount of paid on call firefighters. So, that is the $2,000 increase that you're seeing. All right. And then my next thing is on the clothing and personal equipment because when I did meet with you, you showed me how they're expiring and
this um $20,000 increase or thereabouts. Is that for a portion of them or is that are you is that for a whole bunch of them at once? Because I was thinking what you were
saying. Yeah, let's buy a few this year, a few next year, a few the following year so that they all don't expire at the same time. So each set of turnout gear um we're waiting on the official um quote uh but it was estimated to be about $3,200 per
set. Okay. So that does factor in purchasing some, not all at one time. Okay. Does that And that is just the coat and pants that we wear. That does not include the
helmet, boots, gloves, hoods, a lot of stuff that goes on with that. Um, not all of that has to be replaced right away. Again, that's something that we're going to have to inventory and see where we stand. Um,
but that's where that increase comes from so that we can start to phase that in. Okay. Yeah. Because I I know you guys it's OSHA mandated. You have to replace that. But I was just wanting to make sure you're doing a little bit at a
time. So it's not you're not having to buy 40 at once. And I didn't know what this cost represented. I think part of this is back in uh when we had co uh if firefighters were to get
contaminated, we went out and bought second sets for everybody. So, they had two sets of gear at that time. So, that will come into effect eventually where one set's going to need to be replaced for all firefighters. Yes. And that's what we're starting to address.
Yeah. Yeah. That was part of the co deal. My final question is why is there a $10,000 increase for conference meetings? Have the fees increased or are there additional conferences you guys
are going to be going to? It's the very bot almost the very bottom. So conference meetings is is the training aspect. So again, we're going to be leaning into that. We're going to be using that to make sure that our personnel are certified where they need to be. um that we can bring in outside
instructors as needed so that we have the best training possible for our personnel. Um there is part of that is reimbured through the MBFT. Um I haven't seen what that figure is for this year. Uh I
believe last year 8,000 8,000. We'll say 8,000. 8,000. Um but uh the state has not set the reimbursement per firefighter for this year as of yet. Got it. Okay, that's all my questions.
How many uh firefighters do we have right now? 28. 28. So with the addition, if we recruit seven more, it's 34. 35. 35. St. Francis math. It's okay.
Uh do we have a target goal for uh recruitment? Do is 35 going to be adequate if all these members um work out or are we looking to increase it to 40? So this is set at 40 which is where that
increase comes from in the in the pension uh that council member Urkl talked about. Um, with the addition of seven, I've we have potential retirements of long tenur membersh.
So, even if we have all seven maintain and work out long term, we're still expecting to have retirements. I don't want to put anybody on the spot and I don't want to put out a number, but but it's something that will happen eventually. Yes. Um, we're also working continuing
to work on recruitment and retention. Uh we're working on putting out a continuous posting on the job or on the city's website as well as utilizing the marquee that's on 65 and continuing to push our message of, you know, if you're interested, come out. We're going to let
you know what we stand for, who we are, why we're here, and how you can contribute to to the community through the fire department. Okay. So, this budget does take in consideration recruits up to I think you said 40 individuals Yeah, I I believe
actually it was it's 40, correct? Okay. I just want to make sure that that's covered. Yeah. As far as kind of projecting what the paid on call firefighter salary line item is, it's kind of a moving target because it's not only based upon the
number of employees we have or paid on call firefighters, it's also based on the number of calls, right? So, it's not as easy as forecasting what our full-time staff is. It's more based upon how many calls they're going to have and then how many firefighters we have too. So what we generally do is we take kind
of what a the histo history has kind of shown us as far as an amount and then inflated it by whatever the cost of living increase was for the the union contract. So okay chief we are working on them calls to reduce We are also working on that.
So that can help also. Yep. We are working to uh reduce the amount of calls that we go to um by evaluating the greatest impact that we can have. So that that will also have an impact on that final line item, but it
is still a moving target. We could reduce it by that many and it could go up by that many just based on the serious calls. True. Thank you. Yep. Any other questions? Thank you, sir. Thank you for your time. Nice job. Thanks,
Chief. [Music] Moving right ahead, we're gonna pass it over to Nate Ashford. He's our public works manager. Um he's going to touch on the streets and park maintenance uh
departments. That's page 38 of your budget book. Good evening, mayor, council members. I've got um seven budgets here. Mike likes to hear that, but uh go through them pretty quick. Um if there's any questions, feel free to interrupt at any
time on any of these. Um for the most part, all these there's really no big changes on there besides the wages portion. So there's uh not a lot of stuff to highlight, but the first one is the park maintenance budget. This covers all the maintenance of our city parks, all of our grounds on all of our
buildings. um a few rightaways that we mow and maintain with our lawnmowers. Um if you go to page 43, that's kind of the graph that shows all of our different um increases on there. But we've just bumped up a couple items. Um some safety supplies
that includes all the PPE for the employees. And then uh line item 223 is our building repairs budget. We bumped that up $1,500 to help cover the cost of some increases in things like irrigation repairs to buildings, that kind of
stuff. So, overall, not a big change in that in that budget. Um, Nate, I got a question on uh maybe 212 motor fuels and as of six months, we've used $4,4
and our budget is $24,000. So, we'll be be using all that towards the end of the year. No. No. So, a lot of that is because we didn't have to plow much this winter. These two budgets, the street maintenance and the park maintenance are kind of there's a lot of stuff that goes between the two of them. Um, for we have
four employees. Four of them get coded to this department. Four of them get coded to the street maintenance. Some of our vehicles that we plow with actually get coded to this too. So, the fuel that we use for those vehicles for plowing comes out of this parks budget. Whatever we don't spend goes back into the general fund, and that's what we're
using. Um last few years we've had pretty big surpluses and that's what we're using to offset the budget this year. Was it 200,000 I think is what we're using. So whatever we don't use goes back in there. But with both these budgets, winter storms have a big there's a lot of variability in what we end up spending. So okay,
we try and keep it as low as possible. We try not to spend everything out of there and let it go back in the general fund. I just question it because it was a big difference. Yeah, we're way ahead this year. So knock on wood, we got a nice fall and winter this year, too. Yeah. Okay. Thanks. Any other questions
on the park maintenance operations? Well, I do have a question. Yeah. Why are we budgeting 24,000 and not the 17 or 18,000 from what we actually used
in 2024? Why? Why is it so such a big increase for the same line line item? Yes, the same line item. Um, so if you go back to 2023, that was a when we had a bad winter and we were we were pushing up against that. So we kind of budget a little bit high to cover. We don't want to be searching
for money. We'd rather have a little bit left over and put it back into the general fund for the next year. So odds are we're going to be below it on that line item, but there's, like I said, there's a big variability. If we have a tornado or storm come through, heat set up real quick. Yeah, I think the general strategy when it comes to
budget is you want to you want to make sure that you're covered and you're kind of taking a worst case scenario on some of these line items from a expenditure standpoint. And then on the revenue standpoint, you want to be conservative. Again, these are budgets. You don't want to come at the end of the year and be ran out of money. So kind of
conservative on the revenue side. And then when you're budgeting for expenditures, if you don't have an exact number that someone's giving you for a contract, it's more variability depending on a bunch of events. you want to make sure that it's based on a worst case scenario or something that you can kind of base on what's done um in prior
years. So that's kind of where that number is coming from. Like in 2023, we did spend roughly that $24,000 mark. So that's where that budget was set. So yeah, I get that. I understand it. But there's also all these little things are
nickel and dimeming up the levy, too. So there's that. Yep, that's a good point. Don't overt tax. Part of that for motor fuel specifically is the last two winners have been very mild, right? And that's why those other two are so low. I think 24 is is going to be closer to a normal year,
but like you said, we don't want to overt tax, too. But it goes back into the general fund and it's helping pay this year. That's true. And that's and that's a good point. And I think Nate kind of hit it right on the head there with anything that is saved within these budgets is just put into our general fund balance and then that
goes we can use that then to offset the levy increase moving into 2026 which we've done I believe the last three years. So we're using again $200,000 in accumulated money that wasn't spent to lessen that levy. So it's it's it's definitely
it's been a useful tool I guess um as we've moved forward through these budgets. So, okay. Any other questions on that one? Moving on, we'll go to the street maintenance budget. This covers all of our um work that that pertains to the
streets, the storm water system, um any of that kind of stuff. There again, on page 49, kind of broke down everything, but there's not a lot of difference in any increases in there besides the fuel um besides the labor there. Again, the
fuel, same same issue there on line 212. If you look back to 2023, that's kind of our one we base it on. But with this one, we have some big variability in salt, um, road salt with years without without plowing. Same with some of our repairs on the trucks. Because the last
couple years we've had mild winters, we've pushed back the replacements on those plow trucks a couple years. So, that's going to save the city money as well. Um, no really big increases there. We've got a little bit in line item 221. That's repairs to vehicles that we take care of
inhouse. Um we're trying to do more and more of that over the years and um we've been able to to accomplish that. The pricing for parts has gone up a lot too. So all the all the regular replacement items on a vehicle has seen increases.
Um we did bump up, as Mike mentioned earlier, too, the the equipment replacement transfer fee. I'll go over that at the end, but um yeah, not a lot of nothing else has really changed in that in that budget. So, any questions on any of that? No, but I do have a question. Is this
the one where when so when roads are being resurfaced, the um material used is made out of oil and stuff and that price is going down. So are are costs somewhere in here going
down because of that going down or not? Most of those projects come out of the street capital fund and not this one. Yeah, this is more just maintenance. There's a little bit of savings in our patching material, but it's not very significant. Um, and yeah, most of that comes out of the street capital fund and
the state aid fund. So, okay, that's where you see savings on those. Thanks. Our salt prices for this year, they went up 4%. So, not a huge increase. $99 a ton. This year it'll be $103 a ton. So,
um we're we have a full salt shed to start out the year. So, we've lowered our purchase amount. So, we're going to have some savings there at least to get us into 2026. So, any questions on the street maintenance budget? I just want to talk to you about that
salt deal. What uh what depth of snow before you guys plow normally on our state aid roads? So our anything over 35 miles or 40 miles and above. We pretty much plow anytime there's snow covering it. We try and keep those clear all the time. No matter if it's a half inch or
Yeah. We try and we'll come in on the weekends and scrape those off. That's safety. There areas that are uh by the schools and the fire departments. We do those pretty much on any snowfall mount that that's sticking and causing issues. full neighborhood plows. Technically, our snowplow policy has two inches, but
it's usually an inch, inch and a half where we go out. It kind of depends on what the forecast is. If it's going to be warming up, we might not go out if it's going to be So, do you make that call? I do. Yeah. Okay. I was just curious. Thanks. Any other questions on that one?
A couple other ones that we do. I don't know if there's going to be any questions on them, but we handle the recycling operations. Um, most of this is funded through the grant we get from Inoka County, so there's this is an enterprise fund. Um, it's not it doesn't use general tax money. We use a lot of
volunteers for this work from the Lions and the East Bandits. They do almost all the work at the recycle center. What pages are recycling on? Uh, if you go to page 59 is the is the chart. I knew I had questions. There's no no increases on any of that. But, um, kind
of the big issue there is, uh, illegal dumping is is kind of our biggest cost right now. People dropping off stuff that they shouldn't be. Um, garbage, couches, certain appliances, uh, if they come out of an RV, they they run on ammonia and they're really expensive to
get rid of and those aren't included in what we take there, but we do get those there. We upgraded the camera system. Um, we've been able to identify a few of them there, but that's a work in progress, too. So, but the city ends up being on the hook for paying for that stuff. So, isn't there a cost for people
to bring stuff? I mean, at the end of the month, recycling or some things people have to pay. Is those revenues in here somewhere? This is just the expenditure side. Mike's got the revenue side, I think, too.
Yeah. Essentially, all of the the main takeaway, I guess, on your recycling fund is all activities within recycling are covered through the grant. So, um, anything that we do recycling related is reimbursed by Anoka County.
The fees that we charge on the end of the month, that goes to the vendors. So, the person who takes our tires, for example, we have to pay to get rid of those tires. It offsets where city's just kind of a pass through. Same with fluorescent bulbs, um, electronics, things like that. We
have a vendor that charges us back and we pay them from what we've collected. Oh, I thought we were making a profit on that. And again, I guess if you look at this, there's this line item that says fees for 2,000. Essentially, that is a a donation at the recycling center. So, if you dump off your oil, there's a dropbox
that collects dollars and we That's our profit. That's our profit. So, Oh, I get it. Yes, but it's uh it's one of the better uh recycling centers in an open county. So, we it gets a lot of praise and uh I don't if you guys know Dallas at all and
in the Lions, they do a lot of work down there. So, it's it's a big benefit to our city. Any other questions on the recycling? I'll run through the uh water and sewer expenditures just real quick. Um this is all funded by the users. So there again it's a it's an enterprise
fund. The uh the big change in the water fund is we just set up another category for water meters. In the past we had built that um this is on page 70. In the past we had built that under utility maintenance supplies and then we
charge that back to the uh builders and developers for the water meter. So we don't actually that sometimes that number looks big but all that gets build back to the the builders so doesn't cost the city or anything on those. Um that fund's doing well. We're using 100,000
of it this year to offset the levy. Um operational wise it it uh makes money for the city. So yeah, I think one of the big takeaways on this budget here is we're implementing a new line item and it's the last line item on here. It's that debt fund transfer. So essentially
um again if you take a look at the city budget, we know that salaries and benefits and the law enforcement contract make up the biggest part of your your budget. So when those line items go up 8% and your levy is only going up 3.8%,
you kind of scratch your head. And one of the ways we were able to do that is um taking some of these excess funds within your water fund that have been collected since the water and sewer system went in. Again, these are all the hookup charges basically
um that have been collected since the the the system went in and now using those dollars to actually pay some of this debt. So again, we've implemented it here at 100,000. So you don't have to levy as much. you're levying $100,000
less, but then it gets um expended right here in your water fund. So, I'm confused because this looks like it's an expenditure and adding to the levy $100,000, but you're saying it's
coming from Yep. all the payments coming in. Yep. So, essentially, that's not making sense to me. Yep. The payments happened actually in the past. So all these uh hookup charges that the residential units and the commercial units have paid over the
course of the last 10 years have been accumulated in this water fund. So now we're going to use $100,000 of that to pay the debt service fund. So it'll it will be an expenditure to the water fund but not the levy a revenue to your debt
service fund. But again, it looks like it's adding to the levy amount is what I'm saying. It should be a negative in here or something. Should it's a takeaway? Yep. I can show you just real quick, too. All All of this budget is p is not
coming from the levity. This is all coming from the user fund. So, none of this is coming from the levy. None of none of this is going into that. Correct. Oh, okay. This is all paid for by the users of the water system. So, Oh, okay. It's enterprise fund. So it's funed by
itself kind of separate from the levy. Yeah. So if we we kind of skip to the back of the book again kind of saying okay all these expenditures what does it mean for your actual levy for the people that are getting taxed right it's an increase of 3.8%. Well again your
general side of the levy went up 6%. This 2015 A debt service went up 3%. But again, because we were able to basically transfer $100,000 from the water fund to this debt service one, we were able to
levy that $100,000 less, which then, you know, I saw that. I now I get it. Okay. All right. These these items are a little bit separate from the actual general fund stuff, but I just want to go over them so everybody's kind of on the same page on how they operate. Yep.
The next one is the uh sewer budget. We don't really have a we don't do a lot with that. Mainly a collection system when we send it down to the Met Council plant. This is uh item 74 and we're not making any changes really on there at all. So, um we able to lower the loan payment a little bit I think on that one.
Yeah. I think one thing to note on this is okay so that your water fund is participating in paying back some of these external debt um bond issues. Well, your sewer fund is participating or is paying down that reserve capacity loan. I think everyone's kind of familiar with that we had capped at $2
million. So, you've got the water fund paying down this external debt to your bond holders and then you've got your sewer fund participating or paying down the reserve capacity loan with the Met Council. So, that's what that loan payment and loan uh principle is all about. Yeah, I do
have some questions on this though, even though it not really adding like on page 71, the mobile park, the base charge, is that it per month 1,190. Is that for the whole park or is that per house paying?
That was a little confusing. It's for the whole park. Y Okay. Y and then the park charges each correct. Yep. And we get that question all the time where they call us directly and ask what you know what their rate is and we we don't charge the individual customer. We charge the the park.
All right. And then on page 72 you know in 2016 this um professional services was $20,000 and now it's up to like 83,000. What is that all about? Yeah, that's a great question. So
essentially since 2016, I've been keeping track of how much the Met Council is charging the city to treat the wastewater. So in 2016, if you look back or think back, we didn't have a very large customer base. So as customers are getting added to the system, essentially our flows are
increasing and the what they're charging us is increasing. So essentially now we're up to I guess I'm not sure how many customers I have. I don't have it on the tip of my tongue, but Basically, it's just due to the amount of customers now that we have on the
system. So, and the flow that they're generating. So, as we add customers, that number will just keep on going up. Well, no wonder they want us to add houses to that. Oh my gosh. Okay.
And there again, that's built back to the users of the system. They're paid for by the And that's how we charge. I got it. Yeah. Good question though. Any other questions on those two?
Got two more quick ones for you here. Um the ice arena fund. This is page 75 in your pamphlet, your booklet. Um so this is the same thing. It's funded by the users of the ice arena. We don't use general fund levy money at all. In fact, we
actually transfer we increased the amount from 59,700 to 67,000. So that goes back into the into the general fund paid for by the users of Ice Arena. So that actually helped lower our our levy. Um we do have
we were a little bit short on some of the ice rentals last year from St. Francis Youth Hockey. They had a lot less teams involved in their in their youth program. And then they have some co-ops with other cities. um their girls high school team for example is half St. France is half Cambridge ice. So they
split their time between the two buildings. So it depends on where they have their games, who gets the the ice rentals and stuff like that. But we did rent to a lot more different organizations last year than we ever have in the past. We've increased our ad sales there, too. So that's increased. And we increased our dryland floor
activities. Looking into the future here, we do have a junior a men's junior team that's going to maybe make East Bethl their home. If that's the case, uh we're going to have a lot more ice and it's during the day and late at night when it's not going to affect um our youth hockey and
our high school team. So that's uh it's getting close to being finalized, but they've made that announcement already that they're going to be using East Buffalo as their home rank. So So that should increase revenue quite a bit at this facility. All the big repairs that are done there are funded from the this fund. So like
the the scoreboard, all that stuff is paid for by the users of Ice Arena. Um, we have a try and build up this capital improvement fund. We've kind of been whittling away at it. It's lowering, but as it stands right now, it's fully funded by users of the ice. So,
Nate, when that uh when and if that new league comes in, you want to let us know? Yeah. Yep. Their biggest concern was uh locker room space. So, we trying to still trying to iron that part of it out, but um we're kind of limited on the
locker room space in that building, but yeah, I think Nate did a good job explaining that. Two, one thing that happened last year, obviously, is we transitioned from Gibson management management to our own internal team. And I think that did two things uh positively for us. It basically
increased our service satisfaction level to I guess the highest that I've ever seen, I guess, here. So, just an exceptional job by our team uh maintaining the facility and servicing that entity. And then again, we were able to actually bill the arena um the
arena funds $67,000 basically for labor costs too, which helps bring down your overall levy as well. So, I think overall that transition was extremely positive for the city. Good to hear. And Nate, I got a question on this
professional or this hockey team coming in. Is that something that the community can get behind, go to the games and stuff like that? They're going to have they will have games during prime time, so that will cut in a little bit to some of the other ice times, but they're going to be um fully concession stand. The youth hockey is going to run the concession
stand during during these games. And yeah, it's a junior men's junior team. They're pretty uh pretty good athletes that play in that that level. So awesome. Yeah. Yeah, we'll we'll for sure hand out more information once we get closer and get everything dialed in, but it's looking good right now.
If not, we can still fun with with what we have to. It's designed to run off the youth hockey, the high school teams and stuff like that. So, any other questions on the arena? And lastly, just a quick uh overview of how our equipment replacement funds works. This is page 88. Each year we go
through and uh look at our needs for the next five years and actually going out 20 30 years. We have a spreadsheet that we uh set up what equipment we need to replace, how much money we need to save. Um for 2026, we have a plow truck that's coming due for replacement. This was
planned for this year, but if you remember last fall, we moved some stuff around to get rid of a couple diesel smaller trucks and we pushed this truck back. Didn't we just get a plow truck? Um, we we just took delivery on one. We ordered it in 2023,
2024, 2023. It takes two years once we actually make the order to get the truck. So, if we order this one uh later this year, maybe November, December, it'll probably show up in 20 late 26, early 27.
I think the unique thing about this city which I like is that again we have a comprehensive listing of all the equipment that needs to be replaced a schedule and then that really formulates how much we need to save each year. So that's the kind of the first part of this approval process by the governing
body or the city council. But then also throughout that process, Nate is still eval evaluating to make sure that that stuff, you know, either needs to be replaced that year or can be pushed back, right? So kind of the second part of it. And then finally, you know, when it's ready to be replaced, he brings it
to the governing body to say, okay, it this plan is actually going to come to fruition. We're going to need to replace this. And then you guys give the final. Okay. So, there's really kind of three different types of steps within this process in order to get these uh equipment placement items accomplished. And you guys are kind of in the loop
along the way, which I kind of like. So, what if we don't what if we push everything here from 2026 off a year? Because to me, when I looked at this list, I'm like, none of this looks like it's
urgent. It look all looks like it can wait. So, what if we did that? Wouldn't that like decrease the levy, decrease um give us a buffer in our our funding and for future emergencies, future levies,
future um necessities? That's my thinking. I I I just feel like we just bought a plow. I don't think we need another one. Um uh the U wood chipper. Do we really need a wood
chipper? I mean, can we borrow one? Um, this is awfully small. The I don't even know what a land mo a mower. Y I thought we recently got a mower, too. And when I was on the council last time,
um the mini pumper refurbisher, the Ford quick attack pumper refer I don't even know what that is. So, those are for the fire department. So, this has uh yeah, it has a fire department. The big ones are the fire trucks and our plow trucks are the big ticket items. So, for for snow plows, we
have six snow plows. One of them's brand new, just got delivery. One of them's 15 years old. That's the one that's getting replaced. So, and the longer we push them off, yeah, there is savings year to year, but the prices go up each year, too. So, it's not a dollar for-dollar savings. I thought we only had two plow drivers.
No, we have eight plow drivers. Nine. when I help. We have five single axles, one backup single axle, four um culde-sac trucks. We got 135 miles of center line of road that we plow takes about 8 to 10 hours to do a plow. So,
and the longer that we hold on to something that's 15 years old, there's the potential for breakage and costly repairs. And we sometimes can get more money when we sell it if we sell it while it's still got some life into it. So, it's it's a balancing act. We try and review this
every year. If we can push it back and save some money, we do. So, that's why like this one was actually planned for a couple years ago and we've been pushing it back. The wood chipper was planned for 2012 when I started working here. We've been pushing that back. We're actually going to probably do a uh recommendation for a forestry head
instead. That's an attachment that goes on the Bobcat. You don't have to actually physically manhandle a brush. You can just grind it up with the Bobcat. It's a lot safer and more efficient. essentially a large stump grinder or brush brush. Yep. Pretty much. Yep. So I And all this
money has been saved. It's we're not asking for additionally. We've already been saving for this in our planning schedule. So it's sitting in a fund right now waiting to be used. We don't have to bond for any of this equipment. Um we've been it's been planned since the last time it was purchased. So but there is savings if we can push it back
and we try and do that whenever we can. Sometimes you couple years ago we pushed plow trucks back and they went up $80,000 in one year and we did not save that money. We lost out on that. So So my other question is these two Fords on here, their fire equipment, correct?
So how come they're not on the fire department budget? Because I thought they had big equipment on their vehicles were on their own budget and I might be wrong but n that was my assumption. So, go ahead. Explain this to me. They're in here as well. There's a there's a line item in the fire
department for a uh equipment replacement. So, they they take a chunk of money out of their budget to put into this. It's kind of mixed into one big balance, but we separate what we have to pay in there between the department. Each one of those departments have their own equipment replacement line item
within it. So, Nate's parks has a line item within it that has equipment replacement charges. His street department has it. And then the building inspection um department also has an equipment replacement line item. So yeah, but then isn't this duplicated? I mean
this is just what we're going to spend it on where once it comes time to this is just a graph pulling everything together into one spot showing correct. You got to remember in today's fire service
they jump 18% every year. And I know their trucks are out and they're out two years or better to get them. Got it. When you order them nowadays. So that's all I have. If anybody has any other questions on that or anything
else. No, looks good. I appreci appreciate the fact that you assess every piece of equipment and get the best life out of it and work the balancing act that if we can save it for longer than we can and
save some money or sell it at the best selling point. So, I do appreciate it. Like you said, you took the uh wood chipper from 2012 and pushed it all the way to Yeah. today. All right. Well, thank you.
Thanks. 68. All right, we're running up against a little bit of a time crunch, but I wanted to just touch on general government section of your budget. So, again, that captures uh council, city
administration, election, finance, assessing, legal, government buildings, and risk management. Um, are there any questions I guess right off the top that we can answer for you in relation to those budgets? What page? This is just going to be
page 11 on the Well, that's for the administration on 11 kind of taking a big chunk here. It's going to start on page uh we can just do page five really and under general government.
I think the big takeaways again are a 15% increase to your city administration department. Again, that's primarily going to be your salary and wages, that 8% and the budget modules for civic plus.
Um a 525% increase for your elections. Obviously, that's a little misleading because it's an every other year type deal. So that goes from, you know, 4,000, which is just going to be the equipment lease essentially from the county, up to the
full operation of your elections, which is now budgeted at 25,000. Um, finance again is going up 6%. Again, that's primarily just going to be the wages. Um, assessing is going to stay flat at 63,500.
Your legal costs bumping up. Again, just kind of looking at history and what we're forecasting for um the first five months of that contract. Then for 2026, increasing that 5% or $10,000. Government buildings, again, that's kind
of uh your your cleaning, your your garbage, your electricity, all all that kind of things for your government buildings. And then under risk management, again, increasing that by 22% based upon that mandated
Minnesota paid leave program with the state, which we're still trying to kind of iron out iron out and get our arms around as far as how that's going to be implemented. So, are there any questions on the general government uh department uh budgets?
Well, I have questions. Why are elections like $10,000 more they than they were in 24? What's the increase in the cost that extra 10,000? Yep. So, that's a good question. So, essentially back in 20
24 there was a little bit of a issue um recruiting election judges. So looking back at that, we're going to we're going to do some research and figure out a good a good wage to raise that to moving
into 2026. So that'll help retain and help with recruitment of election judges. And there is some overtime that actually was recorded in administration that actually is an election um expense.
So, so all Car's time actually gets coded to administration, but if you broke it down by what her function was that particular time set, it it goes to elections. So, I got it. Yep. And then for the city administration,
the um cola was 8%, but why is the increase 15%? What else is included in that? Yep. though essentially we added a line item for the Civic Plus modules again which we're Yep. which we're still again
when everything is kind of set on that we'll distribute those to the actual departments that are benefiting from those modules but as we're still researching it and trying to get our arms around what modules are needed um they've all just kind of been captured within the city administration
department. Okay. And I'm guessing the big increase in the planning and zoning is that part of landform part of that or Yep. Yep. That's a good question. So going down to our community development
um section, we have planning and zoning and building inspection. Planning and zoning is actually going down 8%. And one of the ways that we again cushioned that levy increase into 2026 is we said, "Okay, we've had some kind of some challenges recruiting a
community development director." So again, knowing that there's some challenges, let's hold off into 2026 and only fund that position at 2/3. So again, um if we only fund it at 2/3, that means there's a decrease in that
actual department of 8%. the building inspection. Again, there we're fully funding all the positions and then that's where that 8% comes in. So, in total, it only increases that department by 5%.
Okay. All right. Now, down to engineering. It's a 10 It's a little over a $10,000 increase. So far we've only spent7,000. So why is it 20,000? I mean it was in 23
and 24 it was under 10,000. So far this year we've not even reached 10,000 but they've got it for 20,000. Yep. It's a it's a good question. Yep. So if you're basically just going to base the 2026 budget on the actuals of
24 and 25 or 23 and 24, you would budget it at 10,000. Um but again depending upon how some of these projects that we have in the pipeline are going. A lot of the engineering bill that comes in we actually can build back to specific um
other departments and and funds. Um but there are things that we can't. Um one of them is that water and water project u that Matt is looking to get bonding dollars for. So any kind of work done with that or any kind of work that you
know that's outside of a project that we can't build back to. So again just leaving ourselves a little bit of wiggle room with that. Okay, makes sense. The only other I guess department we haven't really touched on is your civic
events and that is your booster day fireworks. So again that we're maintaining that at $6,500 essentially. I think we tell the fireworks folks that that's the budget we have to work with and then they kind of work within the confines of that to produce the show.
Any other questions kind of on the expenditure side? We have a little bit of time. I'd like to touch on the revenue side of things too before we adjourn. But are there any questions on the general fund expenditure side of things? Okay.
So if we kind of just go down our expenditure, our revenue side of your general fund, again, the biggest component of your general fund revenue is your property taxes, right? So that's the one that's increasing by 6%. But again, if you add up all your leveies, right, that'll actually be on the tax
statement that your constituents get, it'll be 3.8% increase, right? your franchise tax. That's a monthly uh cash receipt that the city gets for franchise fees administered by
Midcontinent. So, anyone who has Mid-Continent pays a little bit of money, a little bit of additional money to Mid-Continent and they turn around and pay the city. Again, that's essentially based upon the amount of users they basically have or subscriptions. So, again, we're
averaging right in that $57,000 mark. um payment in lie of taxes. Again, that's the nexus agreement that was signed a couple of years ago that essentially outlines that instead of paying taxes, they pay $25,000
um to the city. Again, that's mostly used to um cushion any kind of public service or u um public safety um increases for that entity.
There's where that $200,000 in fund balance comes from. Again, that's what we've accumulated over the years with potential savings or savings that we've had. And we say now that we can use some of that in order to cushion the levy. I'm going to make this a little bigger so you can see
I can't use what are some other big ones. Building inspection uh permits. Again, these are all the permits that our building inspection folks do and just basing it on kind of what we're anticipating and what has
happened in the past. We're increas we're increasing that by 12%. State aid um again that's an allocation basically from the uh state of Minnesota for your roads. So each year we get two different
uh payments from them and we're anticipating that being a 12% increase or 263,000. What else do we have? So when you anticipate does that usually come to futition or do you end up getting less or do you end up getting
more? Yeah, good very good question. So recently obviously the state has had some pretty big surpluses but as we all know now they're facing some deficits. So, you know, I don't have a crystal ball as to how that's going to affect streets, but I know in the past that the
first thing that they usually touch is LGA, which is local government aid. And I guess the city doesn't actually receive any of those dollars. So, that's one benefit of not even getting any of those. But, it is somewhere on the pecking order of things that they could adjust to make their budget work. So,
but it hasn't happened to us in recent years. So, but it's a good question. Intergovernmental charges. Again, this is a this is the line item where the general fund is actually billing back these other funds for services provided.
So, for example, when the city took over the arena, the general fund can bill that arena fund money in order to service that entity. And again, so you've got the water fund, the sewer fund, the arena,
um the EDA, and the HA essentially getting services by your general fund staff, and then it's build and received here. Another big line item, I guess, is your interest earnings. Interest rates continue to kind of stay, I guess,
relatively stable right now. And again, that's just a forecasted number because we don't know what interest rates are going to do in 2026. But again, looking at kind of the history of what our portfolio was produced, we're comfortable raising that up 50% orund to
$120,000. So again, you add up all those revenues and that's what funds all those expenditures again that we had discussed previously. So $7.4 4 million in revenue then balances your expenditure budget to
zero. With that, are there any other questions or concerns on anything that we can answer? So, overall, we're looking at a 3.8% increase.
That is correct. So one of the things is is I put the back of the book actually on page one of your book. So all that stuff taken into account we are proposing to raise your levy
3.8%. So going from this 6,392,500 to 6,638,600 or 3.8. So then the next question usually is asked, okay, so what does that mean for my property taxes? Well, for the city
portion, right, if all your values stayed the same, right, your house value and every value in the city stays the same, your property taxes would go up 3.8%. But we all know that that's not how it works, right? There's other factors involved, right? It's what your
value is doing in conjunction with the city as a whole, right? But on average, your constituents would see a 3.8% 98% increase to just the city line item within your budget or within their tax statement what they see which they would see in November.
Traditionally, I believe we've usually try to get between two and three. Correct? Yep. I've got a nice chart that I can show you. So these are our levy trends from 2014 when I showed up.
2014 was that standing room only meeting that we had. It was I'm not sure how many weeks I was on the job, but it was basically a recalibration of your levy in order to get it so we could maintain this, you know, modest increases as we as we go. So we've averaged anywhere
from we'll say.9% increases now to 3.8%. With obviously this high water mark was just to recalibrate your levy and that was basically to start funding for the the debt service on the water and sewer project on 65. And I know you don't have crystal ball,
but if we did the 3.8% for the next year, would that be a trend that it would keep going, keep increasing or Right. Actually, yeah. Actually, one of the drivers this year was the union
negotiation and kind of um the wages that's been talked about this evening. Those are in a three-year contract, so they'll be going down to 3% for the next two years. So, we'll be able to stabilize a little bit from there short of unknown expenses coming in, you know.
Yeah. I think the the long-term strategy obviously was to have a one-time market rate adjustment for the salaries and then get back in line with what a standard inflation would be. So, that's going to be in 2027 and 28. And then using $200,000 in fund balance, but
slowly whittling our need off of that. So whittling our way off of it. So going from 200 to 175 and and and all all at the same time keeping the levy increases to that zero to 3%. I think has been the overall strategy since I've been here. So
So we in the future would be we can consider this a one time and in the future will be reduced down to Yeah. I mean, each year kind of brings its own challenges, but the one big challenge this year was the the wage correction and then but um I think the
goal is to keep it in that zero to 3% each year. So, all right. So, if we put off that snow plow for one year, would it be would that bring it down to closer to 3%. the mechanically? No. But one of the
things is is that transfer that equipment replacement transfer that we would do, right? You you would have to reduce that down in order to actually affect your levy to think about this. I know 15 years on a plow truck is a
significant amount of time. Um I think that they do a pretty honest consideration of where that vehicle is at and how much life is left in it that um I would defer to them on that and their expertise on
that one. Okay. So, just want to go over one more slide here. Get out of here quick just to make sure we're all on the same page. So, we'll go back to this budget levy
and timeline. So, again, we're at uh July 14th where we're kind of discussing all the inputs that went into this budget model. We had presentations kind of by your department heads and leads. The next item then within our budget process is our September 8th meeting
where we will consider the adoption of the preliminary that should say 2026 budget and levy. And then again depending upon how that goes um the one thing to note on that is the levy can no
longer be increased at that point but only decreased moving into December. So but that's kind of the timeline and obviously Matt and I are available anytime that anyone wants to sit down and go through any of these budgets in a little bit more in depth. We'll we're
happy to uh to do that as well. So, okay. With that, are there any other questions or concerns? Yeah, I have a question. When we talk about this $200,000 general fund transfer, you know, to cover some of the
costs of this levy, how much money is is that the max we can go? Another good question. And so essentially we set we set that based upon if I just kind of look at uh if we just want to look at the fund balance.
I'm just going to bring it up because it's just easier. So one of the things on the the timeline is essentially completing your audit and that gives us the starting point for what your fund balance is. So we completed your 2024 audit and the
audited figure was a 5.2 2 million fund balance at the end of 2025. Then we have to estimate because we don't know how we're going to end. But given that we're planning on using $200,000 in 25 as well, we'll just reduce it down and say
that at the end of 25, we're we're thinking we'll have about $5 million in fund balance. That's where your policy then comes into play is our policy says that we need to keep anything we need to keep 40% of next year's budgeted
expenditures. So again the 2026 potential use of fund balance is $1.3 million. But again, I think the long-term strategy is to use 200,000 and then just slowly whittle our way off
of it until all that excess fund balance is kind of used up, right? Because as we're increasing our um expenditures, then the requirement for fund balance increases as well. And then just a reminder too on this
2026 category right here, if you go if you see a number over here like $4,700, you can find that number on this side and it'll give you a little more detail as to what that number is all about. You have any questions on that. But again, we're available if you want to sit down
and chat and dig into this a little further, we're certainly available for that. So yeah, this fund balance item can get a little confusing. So if you want to sit down and and discuss a little bit more in depth, we can. Any other questions? No. Thanks for putting all this
together, Mike. Yep. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks. Entertain a motion to adjurnn. Make a motion. Second. Motion and a second. All in favor? I none. Meetings go. Part: 2
part of it next year. And what time is the parade? The parade will be at 400 p.m. Um so it goes from down just down the length of Palisad. Uh most people tend to park here at either park or the um city hall
parking lot and then watch it along um here right at Booster Park East. So, are you taking like any, you know, drop in spray things? And are the cards going to be in the the cars cars from the car show tend not
to be in the parade. Uh, most of the drivers don't like idling their cars um on on a parade route. So, usually um we don't have the cars from the car show in it, but yes, there is always room for last minute dropins. They can always um fill out the form on our website uh the
parade website um or east bethylboosterdays.com on the parade page. They can do that or they can drop myself an email um at coordinator eastbloosterdays.com. But yeah, we'll always take last minute parade editions and it is always free for participants to be a part of it. Um
so in addition to Paula, we have um Bruce. Bruce is our treasurer. He works uh really hard to keep um all of our finances and accounting straight for us year round. His wife Nancy is an integral part of our Saturday. She helps with the vendor check-in. Um and I will
tell you I work full-time. I have a part-time job and these two run circles around me usually at booster day is um they are so so helpful um not only uh year round but the day of there
Bruce is always helping making sure everything's in place. Nancy keeps those vendors uh you know coming in and getting to where they need to go. Um in addition we have Ricky Snider. Ricky is our artisan market coordinator. A few years ago, she joined as and that was
her idea was to kind of start bringing in more artists and crafters and she does a great job bringing in a wide variety of vendors with that. Uh Scott Snider is my entertainment and logistics guy. Uh Scott joined in 2021. I had put
a call out for volunteers. Um, and that was the year that it we didn't know if we were going to be able to have an event because the governor had, you know, of course everything was shut down. And so we were kind of coming into July not into into 21 not knowing what
exactly we could expect. Um, but Scott, Carrie, and I were the main three that pulled off the 2021 Party in the Park. And so Scott has stuck with us and he books our entertainment. He works uh very closely with Nate and public works
to make sure everything's in place that we need. Um and so I this event wouldn't happen without um his dedication. And then of course, as if she needs any introduction, Carrie Frost um is our city uh liaison. I like
to refer to her as she is valuable and uh she works um to make sure that any permits or licensing that anybody needs is taken care of throughout the year. She is also the one who writes the medallion hunt clues. So um if you know if it's too hard to
find the medallion, that's who to turn to. Um the medallion hunt is back this year. It's a one-day only medallion hunt. The first clue will be posted at the City of East Bethl booth. Um, and then they'll be at 11 o'clock and then they'll be posted every
hour until it's found. And the prize this year is a fourack of Minnesota Renaissance Festival tickets. So, that's a really fun thing to do. I have no idea where it's hidden. I usually don't know until it's found. So, um, but we
switched it because sometimes we were ending up where we would have our Monday night meeting and the medallion was found the first day. So, we switched it up and we decided that we would make it a one-day hunt. So, if you're looking to search for that, be sure to be in the park at 11:00 a.m. for that first clue.
Um, the rest of the things that are going on are the pancake breakfast starts at 8:00 a.m. here in the senior center. Um, that goes until 11:00 a.m. Then the car show is from 9 to 1. And then everything else really kicks off at 11:00 a.m. And that'll be the
petting zoo, the inflatables, which are free. Um, we are going to be doing bingo this year. It's $1 a sheet. Kids under 18 can play with a parent present. Um, and our pots for the games. Um,
because this is something that we're doing this year. It's our first year doing bingo ourselves as a committee. Um the pots for the games are $25 and then game 10 is going to be $50. So, um it's not high stakes bingo, but it's enough that especially for the kids who play uh
should be happy if they win. There's also a cornhole tournament and I believe there's still openings for that. Um the cornhole tournament, the registration, you can see that on the website. Um that starts at um registration and warm-ups at 11:00.
cornhole tournament kicks off at noon. Um the NOA County Sheriff's Department will be back with a K-9 uh demonstration. Um there's a variety of entertainment um right out away at 11:00. Um Harrison Daiko, which is a um
drum group um Japanese drum group um plays at 11:00. that noon mariachi a mariachi band will be playing at 1. Um the chops Inc. is bringing um their p um steel drum duo will be
playing and then at 3:00 we'll be um two local uh high schoolers um will be performing some dance. Their dancers out of Jam Hops and Ham Lake and so they had asked if they could have some stage time. at 6:30 p.m. will be the dance um
with the express band. There's no entry fee for any of this. Some activities will have a low cost. Um and Route 65 will be on site uh with um food and beverages all day along with some other um food vendors. So, please, please,
please tell your friends, tell your neighbors, tell your family members. We hope to get a really good turnout. Um we, you know, working hard to make this event um bigger and better each year. Um, and then I do want to encourage community members that going forward if you look at booster days and go, you
know what, it could be more or they should do this, please consider stepping up and joining our committee. When I say this is our committee, this is our committee. It's a lot of work. Um, and uh, you know, we could use all the ideas, the skills, the talents that the
community has to offer. Um, and in addition to that, one last little, um, if you are free on Saturday and would like to help out throughout the day, we do have some spots for volunteers. And again, on our volunteer page on our
website, eastbloosterdays.com, you can see what's available and what we need. And what's going to end the night? Oh, sorry. And the night of course will end with fireworks prevent presented by the city of East Bethl. So, thank you. I know we were promised that it was going
to be as good, if not better fireworks than last year. So, we hope to see everyone there. Thank you, Stephanie. Thank you, committee. Item 4B, IUP 2021-74 hearing. Matt, you want to give the
update? Sure, Mr. Mayor and Council. I'll kick this off. Um, the council first uh considered this IUP uh back on May 15th and at that time it was asked by the holder of the IUP if we could hold off on this until first meeting in July. Uh
that was honored and uh this is now the first meeting in July and we're bringing this back uh to you now for consideration. Um, this is uh I want I want to clarify this is about uh an interim use permit and it's about
conditions set forth in an interim use permit. Uh conditions that were agreed to by the by the applicant at the time and the city. It has nothing to do with care of animals. It has nothing to do with whether you like somebody or not,
anything of that nature. It strictly has to do with these are the conditions. Have the conditions been followed? And uh and last time we we spoke a little bit about um uh conditions. There are three conditions or two in particular that were that were identified. Uh the
first is that the city's designated inspector and all personnel under the direction and control of the city whom the inspector believes necessary must be allowed access for inspection purposes upon 12 hours notice to ensure compliance with all applicable conditions. Uh and then uh condition
number nine uh I can go to the page here as well. Condition number nine is uh is that all dogs must be confined to the premises. And uh essentially what happened is we have included in the case here uh this is a public document from
the nook county district court uh kind of detailing uh some of the charges right now uh that the IUP holder is is dealing with. Essentially, there were two dogs that were picked up from uh Lynwood and were brought to uh the
location here uh in East Bethl. And there was a then a necessity for the county to do an investigation to determine the level to which these two dogs might have been abused and if there were going to be additional charges that
would be um issued to the original dog holders, owner if you will. And uh and this kind this document you hear kind of goes through from January 31st um to to February 6th where Deputy Merritt was trying to get access to
these dogs to take the pictures to do the necessary investigation uh for their end and was prevented from accessing seeing um uh prevented from gaining access to the property. It then
required a search warrant to be obtained for that address and the search warrant. Uh they went in for the express purpose of um uh determining um the if the dogs were there, business records pertaining
to the dogs conditions and their locations. Um the defendant cooperated with turning over his cell phone laptop, but the deputies search for the property was not able to locate the dogs. It goes further on then to identify that the dogs had been moved to other locations, but uh there was not a willingness to
disclose where those locations were. And and I think that has led to, if I'm not mistaken, the obstruction of justice. Um uh that's the obstruction of legal process. Um that is the uh charge right now that's on this.
But essentially, um, when we have a, um, we're a complaint based city. In other words, you're you you have a property, your neighbor has a lot of junk in their property, you file a complaint on your neighbor, the city then follows up on that. The city is not
actively going out and saying, you know, trying to identify neighbors with junk so that we can we can um, uh, follow up with them. It's complaintbased. However, this is not that category of a of an offense. This is an IUP that is think of
it like a contract between the IUP holder and the city. Conditions are set forth and um and if the if the applicant doesn't want to agree to those conditions, the city doesn't have to issue the IUP. There is a process through which um an IUP can be modified
uh if some of those conditions aren't working. and uh and so there is that uh that ability for uh recourse if if there's an issue that comes about. Uh but at any rate um this is uh essentially again at the request of the council bringing this
back here in in July and um and again as mentioned the first go around it's it's incumbent upon the council now to determine if one violations existed uh and two uh what sort of remedy um there should be for this. Um there is um you
know there's been a lot of chatter on Facebook. There's been a lot of um I I think kind of confusing the issue. Um and I want to stick to strictly the conditions. These are the conditions. Were the conditions violated? That's it.
And uh and again the spectrum on this is um you know can range from anywhere from don't do it again to you know rewriting conditions to to revocation. Um and uh and as always, the applicant has an ability to, you know, come back and
reapply for another IUP and the council can can address that at that point if ultimately there's a revocation uh that's issued. So, uh bringing this back uh this evening and um like some direction from from council as to what
staff should do on this. Okay. Okay, at this time we'll uh bring the public hearing to order. Um I'll let Tammy come up first. State her
case. Good evening. Okay, so as Mr. look has stated this is this is about just the IEP right so those 12 conditions um
I I can't speak on the rest of this is so ridiculous on the rest of the district court stuff that's in court it's district court so I'm I'm not even going to speak on that Um, I will defend
the IUP and I will answer absolutely any questions on the IUP. Um, what I want to know is a a couple things here is that um it I want to know who filed the
complaint because the this complaint that that was up there, the district court complaint is not the city vessel complaint. Here's the city vthyl complaint form. I've filled these out before. This is you guys have a form and
there's nobody else that has a complaint in the city of East Bethl that can do anything other than this form. So why was this form not filled out? On top of that, it says maybe violated. And then there's I I would like to know
who actually wrote this. Was this you, Mr. Luck, that wrote that first whole page? I can't read what you have but I believe so. So in that um there's
in this what you wrote about my IUP and then that complaint. So there's two things in here you say may be violated and then in the complaint those two things don't even they don't even match there. One has nothing to do with the
other. Absolutely nothing to do with the other. Um, number five that you said may be a violation. The city's designated inspector, that is Nick, right? Is that still Nick?
I don't even know. Is Nick the designated and city inspector still? I believe so. Okay. So, Nick and all the personnel under the direction and control of the city whom the inspector believes necessary must be allowed access to
inspection purposes upon 12-hour notice to ensure compliance with all equitable conditions. So, it would be inspecting for the IUP. Correct. I mean, that's what the IEP is for, inspecting the IUP. I was never I would was never given a
12-hour notice about an inspection from anybody. I still haven't from nobody. I got a warrant served, which had nothing to do with the IUP, but I'd like to see the 12-hour notice inspection. If that is truly what
someone is saying, which it looks like Matt Look is saying in this, that if it was violated, I should have I should have a 12-hour notice, right? I mean, that's we it's why we wrote the IUP, right? The city wrote it. Staff wrote
it. And And it's here. It's So where's the 12-hour notice? Mr. Mayor, do you want me to answer that or do you want her to finish her comments? Just let her finish. Okay. Okay. Well, okay.
And then all dogs must be confined to premises. All dogs that I get through animal control are confined to my premises. They're all they're all there. It's that's where they I bring them is to my
facility. That's where they stay until they are either surrendered or the five or 10day hold is up. and that is where they stay. So, I don't know where that could have possibly been violated.
I have statements and I have things I can say, but it helps if I can get because otherwise you're going to talk and then I'm going to go sit down and then I'm going to have to come back up here. So, I mean it's public it's not public forum. This is a public. You guys
brought me here for this. So, it's a public hearing, right? You can talk to me. We We'll talk at the end during our discussion part of it. Okay. Do you have any questions for me?
Not at this time. I I don't Do any of the council have questions? You must have a question if this was brought for you between for you this way. I I was part of the fire department
obviously. So I was part of doing I shadowed a couple people doing inspections. I don't know about city inspections but I did fire department inspection shadowing. And when we would go in there, we'll pick any business,
right? Gratitude Farms is a business. pick any business out there and you go in and you know the exit sign isn't lit, right? So, what did they do? They wrote it up on a form. If it wasn't correctable immediately, they would
reschedu and come back. It's a violation, they'd come back and, you know, they tell you, "Here you go. Come back and reinspect and make sure that it was done." I don't understand why I am being brought here in front of you. I don't
even This is a complete waste of my time and it's a waste of your time to have me come here instead of have this taken care of with staff the way it should be done. I know I've talked about policy here before and Mattlook doesn't seem to
want to give me policy on how things are done, but is this how all IUPs IUPs in the city of East Bethl are handled if there's a violation? I can't imagine this is how they're
handled. It's so much easier to do things without having someone come in front of council and berate them and invite other people to berate them when it's when it is nothing. I have
never I have had this IEP from since 2009 and I have never violated the animal control contractual service IUP. I have proof of everything that if you need if you need to see
anything I have proof of it. I do want to say just one thing. I I served the residents in the city of East Bethl for 17 years on the fire department. I know you guys know this. And I was
I was an EMT and a captain and I was very good, very good. And I ended up getting multiple myoma cancer from being on the fire department, from being part of it. And I I mean I have a 38 page
doctor's, you know, from Harvard, so it's proven. You again also probably know this if you're part of the lawsuit that went on. Instead of saying, "Tammy, what can we do for you?"
I was brought here. I was fired. I was bered. I was called all kinds of things, told, you know, lies about how I didn't do my job. And so since then and having cancer and
having to deal with it and doing what I do every single day, I don't want to deal with this anymore. I don't want to deal with this anymore. I want to live my life. I have some beautiful grandbabies and I just want to enjoy
them. This is a complete waste of my time and I'm I'm ashamed of the city of East Bethl. I'm ashamed that this council is in charge of that gentleman and that you're allowing him to do this because that's where it started. That's
where it's happening. That's where it starts. The craziness of Christine Dolman and Ham Lake and all her stuff is meaningless. It means nothing. She's been doing it for so long. It's it doesn't mean anything. But when she can talk somebody that
Please wrap it up. Don't tell me to wrap it up, mayor. And all due respect, you brought me here. You brought me here. I shouldn't be here. Three minutes. No, it's not three minutes. This is a public hearing. This is a public hearing. This is not public forum.
We can set the limits. Wow. If that doesn't say anything to the rest of you and you out there in YouTube world, how disrespectful. And you know,
you know, one of the other reasons I was fired was because I came up here and I talked about your pay stubs. You remember that? Yep. No, trust me, that's probably still coming. I don't know what the statute of limitations is on, you know, fraud.
They're all done. Isabelle Martin, that is public forum. What you're reading, this is a public hearing. No, it can pertain to a public hearing also.
No, actually, you're supposed to call up people who want to speak in the public hearing separate from the public forum. That's fine. Anybody else want to talk at the public hearing here? But correct me if I'm wrong.
Uh you can either it can be limited to three on the public hearing. Pardon Mr. Mayor Council um you are in charge of the meeting and therefore you are in charge of the public hearing. Now the rules need to be
reasonable and applied equally to all participants. Typically um the city gives more deference to the applicant or you know however the posture is but the person at issue is usually allotted a time between five and 20 minutes depending on the the complaint or the time or what there is to talk about but
the the comments need to be relevant to the action at hand and you are in control of the meeting and you can curtail comments when they uh drift off topic. All right, thank you. Okay, Renee Beckman. Um, he spelled the you said you'd never been in violation
of your IUP. It says that a commercial kennel is any uh place where a person accepts dogs from the general public in which to be kept for the purpose of boarding. She has been boarding since I don't even know well over 15 years.
She advertises for it. And then it later says that no commercial kennel license shall be issued in zoning districts other than commercial industrial. The city shall not approve variances on in or other uh zoning devices to allow commercial kennel licenses in zones other than commercial and industrial
districts. That's it. She is not allowed to operate there. She is boarding. She is advertising boards. She has a long history or um history of Google reviews. Okay? So, it can be proven she's been operating illegally. And if we continue if the city continues to allow her to
operate legal illegally, we are liable for it. If something happens, we can be sued for neg negligence and then we have to pay back. That's not just the residents of East Bethl. That's every person. She holds a contract with every residence. All it takes is six of those people to get together and you've got a
class action suit on your hands. We have to pay it as residents. I don't want to stop it. Next. Anybody else? Can I speak? Thank you, mayor and council members, for the opportunity to speak at your
forum. You observed directly that Tammy cannot follow animal related policies when you revoked her horse IEUP at the May 28th council meeting. You witnessed the concern from several community members then regarding Tammy's animal
violations related to both horses and dogs during the IEP hearing and public forum. Tammy demonstrated her inability to follow the rules by violating her expired IEP. We agreed eight horses does not equal two horses and expired equals
non-compliant. Why would you allow a person who cannot follow animal related policies to hold an animal related government position of authority in this community? Policies and procedures exist to protect animals such as number of fence stakers
required per horse. But Tammy has demonstrated she cannot follow the policy nor procedures when it comes to her own animals. If Tammy can't follow animal related policy when it comes to her own animals, why would you give her authority and responsibility for other
people's animals in East Bethl? Have you done your due diligence regarding the dog related allegations against Tammy and Gratitude Farms? I think it's only fair to ask that you do so if you're considering giving her this authority and putting your own community at risk. As council members, you
represent the people and it's your duty to do right by your community. By allowing Tammy to continue as acco for East Bethl, you're putting trust in someone who simply put cannot be trusted as proven by her actions. Tammy obstructed justice by preventing ACSO
from executing a formal animal cruelty investigation through veterinary evaluation of those dogs brought to Gratitude Farms. Tammy refused to allow the dogs to be seen for veterinary evaluation as requested by the Inoga County Sheriff's Office. Isn't what's
best for those animals to see a veterinarian who can collect forensic evidence to carry out justice? Do you want pets in your community held hostage from critical veterinary care? Do you want animal cruelty investigations to be obstructed? Do you want someone who
doesn't cooperate with law enforcement holding an acco title in this community? Would you want this for your own pets at home? Animal rescue organizations are typically nonprofit dedicated to providing shelter and care
for animals in need. I've supported several reputable animal rescue organizations in the local community as a volunteer for 10 years. As humans, we have to advocate for animals. They're defenseless and they rely on us for protection. Animals in
need should be brought to safe and reputable animal control organizations that truly seek to reunite people and their pets and have the best interest of animals, people, and the communities we live in at heart. You have the power here to do the right thing for the animals and people in this community.
You can make a difference and what happens here today sets the tone for East Bethl and surrounding communities. Anybody else? Okay, I voted everybody. I've never been to one of
these meetings. I'm here to support Tammy. She's been very helpful and I think her job's very difficult and I think she's good at it. I can tell right now just by listening who I would and wouldn't vote
for again. And I hope you know who you are. Anyone else? My name is Christine Dolman and I'm here tonight to address Tammy's violations over IUP.
I have seemed to be the target for Tammy. Everything she does is my fault. It is not. What I want to address here tonight is that I actually copied the resolution that you have here tonight and you only have the two that have to do with the
pending charges for Manoka County Sheriff's Department. No other of the of her violations. We and I have filed multiple complaints over eight years against Tammy Gimple for her non-compliance with their IUP.
Nobody's done anything. So, I'm going to address a few of them tonight. Renee hit on the boarding. She is definitely boarding. It's on her page. It's on Google reviews. It took a year and a half for the former city administrator to even get her to take it down from her
Facebook page and from her web page. Contracts on on file. They're supposed to be on file. She takes the dogs out of anywhere. Recently, she had one from Cass County. I didn't even know where Cass County was. I had to look it up. That's way up north. Pine County, Cass County, out of Wisconsin. She takes dogs
from anywhere. She's acting as a rescue. She says it all the time. You guys have documents that are submitted in your files for her surrender papers or whatever it is, the impound slips where she calls herself a rescue. She has yet to bring come back to the city to modify
her IUP. The site will be inspected annually and those inspection papers from the board of animal health are supposed to be on file with the city. You have one and the only one that you have is because Aaron Burr, your former city employee, actually he himself contacted the board
of animal health. Tammy Gimple never did submit those to the city because I've got a copy of those. What she submitted to you was her license. That is not a board of animal health inspection. This needs to be done. She continues to sell dogs. She was
taken off the reservation as a rescue saying that the money was going back onto the reservation to spay and neuter dogs. Did that happen? We've only found three and she's had 20, 30 puppies. So my question is, if not for Tammy
being charged by the sheriff's department, were you ever going to look at these other complaints? Anyone else? Um, I think the hatred of that one lady shouldn't dictate what happens here. Um, Tammy does amazing things with the
animals. Um, this is one of the dogs that I've gotten from her. She does amazing rescue. She cares for those animals. I would trust her dearly with any animal. I go to her for any questions that I have. She's always available. Um the hatred of that group over there is insane. She just admitted
that she's been harassing that lady for eight years. Like get a job. Get a job. Order. Freaking. Mayor, do you mind? Tammy Gimple, you had me in court twice trying to get an
HRO harassment on me. Both of them were dismissed. So for you to sit there and slander, liel, and defamate my name, saying that I harassed you, you're dead ass wrong. What I do is I bring Christine, address the council or sit down.
Yep. I do not harass Tammy Gimple. It has been proven twice in court already. Both of her harassment petitions have been dismissed. What I do is I take the documentations that are on
her page and I post them publicly. Everything that's on that DUP page, trust me, Tammy Gimple has threatened to sue me for slander, liel, we've got cease and desist orders in the mail. She's never done anything. The same pertaining to the between you two. Let's
That's right. My point is, mayor, if what I had posted and said were untrue, she would have had me in court cuz she already tried twice and lost. Let's move on. I think we just need to put aside the feelings. I got involved in this with um when with when she failed to return
Duke. Okay. Then the continued violations over and over again. I didn't want to be involved, but she just continues to do it. So, let's not put the ceiling feelings aside and just look at the facts. She's in violation just with the boarding alone. It says in your ordinance that no device or instrument
can be um created in order to get around that commercial boarding has to be done in a commercial or industrial zoning. That's it. She lives in a residential. So, that IUP should be pulled. Period. So, and that has nothing to do with any feelings, anything. That's just what it
says on paper. That's what that's the law. follow it. Any others? Hello. Um, my name is Katie and I am a volunteer with the local lost dog group and I would encourage the city and Gratitude Farms to sit down and figure out a way for them to become compliant.
Um, animal control is a thankless job and if Gratitude Farms is unable to continue operating, the cities and counties who contract with them will have no animal control officer. Thank you. Hey, no comments from She's got the podium.
Thank you. When I'm asked to step in and trap a stray dog, I can't do that until I find I have lined up a place for that dog to go. So, um, humane societies are full, rescues are full, it's very difficult to find a place for a stray dog to go. And while I've never had to bring a dog to Gratitude Farms, I have
reached out to Tammy numerous times when I've been looking for a place to go, and she's always said yes. Um, like I said, I've never had to bring one there, but she's always available for to let me do that. Um, and it's, um, a really important service that she provides. So, um, it's my hope that the city and
gratitude farms can kind of come together, work together to find out, um, some kind of resolution that would allow her to continue to, um, help save animals. So, thank you. Anybody else? just to address something that is
um false. I I'm being taxed commercially. I've got my taxes right here. It's they're commercially taxing that portion of my kennel. So that's that is no comments from the audience, please.
So I am being taxed commercially. Am I a commercial building? know am I in a residential I mean we all knew this in 2009 when I did the IUP but I am being taxed commercially on that section. So
anybody else? Good evening. My name is Nicole and I'm talking on behalf of Tammy. I recently donated about 8 to 10 kennels to Gratitude Farms because we have an overabundance at our house for that. I didn't know Tammy personally at the
time. I had just been following the Hamley community page and had seen her posts about the great things that she does with helping animals get rehomed or lost dogs get, you know, getting found and reunited with their families. What I'd like to say and what I'd like to see
is as the last woman um said, it would be great if everybody instead of arguing, having this ruckus going on, which is by the way disrespectful in a city council meeting, but it would be
great if everybody could sit down with Tammy and or come up with some kind of mediation so that both parties are happy with what the end result is. But I can tell you personally just with my small
interactions that I've had with her, she has been very helpful and I was at her house. I saw her facility. It's great. Um, so I just wanted to mention that. I know it's very little interacting. Um, but I feel like
I feel like from what I've seen, it's very one-sided. And I think obviously, um, with legal things like this, um, there has to be one side story and another side story to be able to come to
a final agreement. Um, but I think an agreement should be um, you know, made instead of this back and forth craziness. Like she said, it's a waste of your time. It's a waste of her time. It's a waste of the community's time.
Um, and so I just wanted to put that out there. So, thank you very much for my opportunity. I just want to get it on record that she's not our acco, right? No, she is not. No, we chose to get a different acco and
we found one just like other communities can. Thank you. Anybody else? Seeing none, this part of the public hearing is closed. Staff is looking for directions. Council
discussion. Mayor, do you do you want me to follow up on some of those? Yep. Issues. Is it all right if I go at this point or do you want to Yep. Go ahead. I just wanted to address kind of the um maybe the attacks that we're seeing here. The allowing this
gentleman tack while she was pointing at me. I think it needs to be maybe reminded of folks that I serve at the will of the council. This council asked that we bring this back in July. We're bringing it back in July. Uh my job is to protect the interests of the
city in every agreement that we have to make sure that all agreements are followed and that's the purpose of doing this. Now, there's a question that was raised about a 12-hour notice. If you read the um uh if you read the report
from the deputy, it contacted um uh the defendant, in this case, Ms. Gimple, on the 31st of January. Had the dogs been there on the 31st of January per the 10 days required to be on hold, there would have been no issue. There would have been no court case whatsoever. They
would have come in, they would have conducted their investigation, and would have taken their photos, and that would have been the end of the issue. But they tried till February 6th. Again, if the dogs were held there at a 10-day hold, they still would have been there on on February 6th. They needed to be there
till February 9th. And the and the um the IUP is very clear that after a quarantine period of 10 days, the dogs will be required to move to an offsite facility. They were not there. Matter of fact, they were moved about three times
from what we can estimate as they were identifying certain veter veterinarians that they were at. They were moved around and and it was not disclosed where they were at. This is not about um the quality of care has nothing to do
with whether she's a good person or not. Um it has nothing to do with whether she served the city as a firefighter in the past. That's all well and good. uh has nothing to do with the trust that people have with her and caring for animals. That's great. That's wonderful. Um
commercial taxing that is standard. That's what happens when you run a business out of home. Uh they will tax you on a commercial basis. Um and that's what this IUP is is a is a home occupation on the property located at 22359 Baton Street Northeast. So again,
um why why did we not bring up all the other complaints and some of the questionable facts and maybe there was evidence, maybe there wasn't? Um this one here rose to the level of gross misdemeanor and misdemeanor. Uh and that's what the charges are. So
now we're going now we're going to respond and uh and that's where we're at today. So again, has nothing to do with place anyone else's name in it. John Smith has an IUP. John Smith potentially violated his IUP conditions. John Smith
would come before this council to to have those conditions addressed. So, um I think at the very least if we if we don't hold our IUP um holders accountable to the conditions that they agreed to, then why would
anyone follow any of the conditions? Any discussions? Jacob, you heard this. What do you think? What are your feelings? Mr. Mayor, council, I think that Mr.
Lucas summarized the procedure in front of you very succinctly. At the end of the day, this is a public hearing related to the compliance of the conditions of the interim use permit. And so your task is to give staff direction or to take action as to what to do with regard to the alleged
non-compliance. Well, I'll start. I'll make a motion to revoke the IUP. We have a motion. We got a second. I'll make the second just for discussion. I have a motion second. All in favor or
discussion? All in favor, I should say. All in favor? I I. No, there's we're we're in discussion right now. Not Oh, okay. Yeah, that's right. Um, I'm I'm just going to say I think Tammy does have a heart for animals and
I can appreciate that. I think um but I also think that through the years she's not taken the heart of the animals owners into consideration. um which led to multiple violations
which led to this gross misdemeanor of a violation and we just people have to follow the rules. I am I I think this is a hard thing for me to have done, but I am um
in favor of following the rules and following the IUPs. And I think it's extremely important that um the stipulations and IUPs be adhered to. And I'm also going to say in the past
I've taken dogs, stray dogs in from that have wandered onto my property and I've called the owners and they've given me their address. I've taken them to the owners. I have um posted it on Facebook
and next door. I have um walked around, knocked door to door, asked people if they knew who the dog was and found the owners to dogs. So, I think that's something all community people should be doing, trying to find the owners of dogs and not charge the
owners either. Uh, Jacob or Mr. a look. Um, these the potential violations that are put in here are based upon the sheriff's investigation
and the current court case is correct. On this sheet here, yes. Yes. Uh, so and as it is right now, it's currently in court.
That's correct. So my my question is depending on how the court case works out if we pull the IUP but it's been found that these counts are dis are dismissed and these core
cases are dismissed what does that do to the basis of this evidence? Mr. Mr. Mayor and Council, as I as I indicated on the back on May 15th, I do not believe the two are related in the
sense that this is not going to impact a court decision. The court is about obstruction of legal process. I I'm not an attorney, but um theft and obstruction of legal process. So essentially saying, I'm going to hide
evidence that you need is an obstruction of legal process. I'm not saying she did that. I'm just just using that as a hypothetical. Okay. Um if they determine that that's accurate or not or if she's guilty of that or
not. I mean that's that has nothing to do with uh conditions five and nine. But we're based in this investigation, the sheriff's investigation for right because the sheriff was not able to identify any dogs on the property. So
they had been removed in violation of five uh in the violation of nine ini in item number five. It says the city's designated inspector which would be Nick. Okay. And all other personnel please
please no comments. It says the city's designated inspector and all other personnel under the direction and control of the city. That is the sheriff. We have a contract with the sheriff. We're We have control of what they do within our city. We pay them for
it handsomely. We just looked at the budget tonight. Um so yes, they have they have certainly our our blessing to go in and inspect if inspection is necessary. And in the case of uh of prosecution uh or an investigation, it's
absolutely necessary for them to conduct their work. And to obstruct that is probably not something I would do or anyone else should do, but um it's certainly a breaking of the law if they if found guilty in doing so. But that has nothing to do with whether the dogs
were there or not. We know they're not they weren't there cuz they they couldn't find them. And there's seven days, not 12-hour nose, there's seven days of trying to get a hold of this individual and get in there and gain access. had to go get a
warrant at the expense of the taxpayers. So, I don't know how else to Yes, it's based off the the findings which is a public document. Um, yeah. Jacob, do you have anything to add?
Uh, Mr. Mayor, Council, uh, I really don't. I'll just reiterate that the standard of review for a criminal charge is different than the standard of review here for the municipal decision. And so you really are looking at whether or not there have been any violations of the conditions of the IUP that can be
satisfied uh by the findings that have been put forward. Uh but you have within your discretion to evaluate whether or not the IUP has been violated. You know, I apologize for sounding technocratic in my response, but I don't want to make a decision for you or push you one way or
the other. Simply to say that the statement of probable cause included in the staff report uh does appear to include findings that may or may not have in indicated whether a violation of the IUP occurred. And the decision as to whether it occurred or not is yours
alone. And that has no bearing on whether or not a court will find criminal conviction for the same behavior. Okay. Thank you, Jacob. Any other discussion? So, we got five and nine which actually
turned into 4B. the there is a non-compliance of the I conditions for permit will be expired. So if we accept five and nine permit can be expired for the non-compliance
under 4B and revocation would be that vehicle to remove it. Right. Sheriff is considered an inspector through the city. Any further discussions? We have a motion and a second.
All those in favor? I I opposed. Motion passes. immediately. There's generally 30 days to 30 days. public forum. Uh Isabelle Martin
Now, she's going to reapply for an IUP. It needs to be addressed. There cannot be any boarding there. If she's boarding, she's operating illegally. It's not down there as one of the violations. It's the biggest violation. It says in the ordinances that you can there is no way around that. If she's
going to be boarding, it's considered a commercial panel. Period. No instrument or device can be pinned to change that. So that needs to be brought into consideration when you go to reissue the IUP. The boarding has got to stop.
Is there anybody else on this list of the public form that still wants stock? You said it's usually 30 days. Um her other actually had in their 30 days. This one does not. This IP does not say that there's a time limit once it's revoked. If it's revoked, it's revoked.
This should be revoked immediately, not 30 days from now. And remember, if she does reapply, you have planning and zoning meetings where she actually said that she got her Bed boarding permit in 2009. You need to keep that in mind. You know, to say, I get why you went with
the sheriff's department. What I don't understand is how you all can sit there and have ignored all the complaints over the last eight years. Some of you are new, some of you are not. Anybody else on the public forum list? Um, I'm here to talk about um,
Councilwoman Urkel's comments following the tragic June 14th shooting. Um, they were factually incorrect and deeply callous. To imply that Melissa Hortman and John Hoffman were attacked because of a vote they made is danger dangerously misleading. To claim they were attacked because of these actions is irresponsible and inflammatory.
I'm sorry. Can you can you identify yourself? I'm sorry. Katie, last name is T E R H E L L. Sorry. And your address? I'm sorry. Yep. 13418 Crooked Lake Boulevard Northwest. Um that's a city band. Yes. Sorry. Yep. Andover.
Um so during the council woman's comments online and during the over five minute public statement at the last council meeting, she never actually said she was sorry or apologized. Um you shifted the blame to other people. Um you never took accountability
for your words. Um and it's super important that you do. Um, you failed to directly acknowledge how your comments may have hurt others or contribute to misinformation or fear. Your words can create fear, especially for those who knew the victims personally. My own parents had dinner with the Hoffman's
that night. The Hortman's had also attended that same event. My parents dropped the Hoffmans off at their home that evening, and as a result, the Noa County Sheriff placed two units at my parents home. The fear we felt was real. And while I don't believe that you intended to hurt or intended to cause harm, words like that can inspire
others, violence on others. Um the f so after that meeting um you shared a um the counciloman Urkl shared a video to her Facebook page that was very disturbing as well. Um among other things that were mentioned it accused Governor Walls of pedophilia and called for his execution. By sharing this you
contributed to the same toxic ecosystem that radicalized the man who carried out the attacks on June 14th. Sharing this type of content isn't harmless. It's it normalizes violence and turns conspiracy into moral obligation for unstable individuals. A true apology doesn't come with justification. It's very simple.
I'm sorry. I was wrong. I hurt people and I take responsibility. Um, you there hasn't been no accountability shown. She's been defended by fellow council members, had her words minimized, and been shielded from criticism, even by the city administrator, who falsely claimed that this was all orchestrated by known DFL operatives. That kind of gaslighting is
an insult to every concerned resident and makes the entire council look like a bunch of partisan hacks, which I don't believe that you are. Um, the words were the comments were harmful. The follow-up was worse and the Facebook activity revealed that this wasn't being taken seriously. To be very clear, public
politically motivated violence is real. Spreading conspiracies creating creates real danger and elected officials should be held to a higher standard. As someone whose family is deeply connected to the victims, I urge this council to stop dismissing our pain, our fear, and our very real concerns. And also, I I apologize if for the threats that you
received. That shouldn't happen either. Um I'm sorry that that happened to you. So, thank you. All right, moving on. Uh, consent agenda. Make a motion to approve the consent agenda as presented.
Anybody pull in anything? I want to pull seat. Do we have to do something with those minutes that was on our table? This which meeting was uh June 23rd work meeting.
So that be item B. Okay. So item B and C are being pulled. Is this submitted by you or by city attorney? Okay, I submitted that, Mr. Mundle. Just um upon review and looking back at the the record, I wanted to make clear um while
I said too many words that uh it left the door open to the full point of discussion I made. Okay, I'll I'll pull item B for that correction. So, we have a motion
and I'd like to I'll make a sec second, but I'd like to pull D, E, F, and H. D, F. All right, I have a motion and a second
with the rest of them. All All in favor? I opposed. None. Item B. Make a motion to approve item B with the changes that were submitted by the city attorney Jacobs. Hopefully
second. We have a motion second. Any discussion? None being heard. All in favor? I I opposed. None. Motion passes. Item C. On a table the minutes for item C. I went through the minutes. There's a lot
of corrections that need to be there and I didn't have time to label every one of them. So, I will do that. So, I want to make a motion to table item C. Second. Have a motion. Second, discussion.
None being heard. All in favor? I opposed. None heard. Item D. Item D. I got a call on this and there's a misunderstanding. So, I just want to clarify. This is um pretty much a
promotion of a public works position, not a new a whole new position. That's correct. Right. Right. Okay. So, going moving from grade six to grade seven. Correct. So, it's not a new position. It's a promotion of a current employee,
which is welld deserved. With that, I'll make a motion to approve item D of the consent agenda. Second. Motion second. Any discussion? None being heard. All those in favor?
I opposed. None. Motion passes. A E. Item E is I just want to bring it to everybody's attention because I know everybody doesn't read what's on all the consent agenda items, but this is for a
um zipline at Booster Park that's going to come sooner than later. They're moving it up to 2025 instead of 2026. So, I'm excited for the zipline on um at Booster Park and I just want all of our
public people to know about it because it's exciting. With that, I'll make a motion to approve item E. Second. We have a motion. Second. Any discussion? None being heard. All in favor? I. Item F.
Item F is for a lift gate and um I just wanted to know what it takes to put it from one vehicle to another because I think this said you can flip it from vehicle to vehicle. How is that
an electronic procedure or is it uh manual? I It's something I kind of wish there were pictures for this one. Good evening again, council. Um, so this is a sometimes called a Tommy gate. It's a tailgate lift to help save the backs
of employees lifting heavy objects into the back of the tailgate. It bolts onto the back of the truck. You take the tailgate off, it replaces the tailgate. Um, there's some wiring to run for the electronics to run the hydraulic cylinders and stuff on there, but it can be removed from truck to truck. We're paying for the initial installation by the company, and then if we change it to
a different vehicle, we we'll do that ourselves. And I mean, how long would it take to transfer it? I is it uh complicated or is it just something that kind of snaps off, snaps back on? Bolted on some wiring. They could probably do in a day.
A day. Okay. Our staff, I was just curious how this whole thing worked because I don't think I've seen them before. With that, I'll make a motion to approve item F on the consent agenda. I second. Have a motion. Second. Any discussion?
None being here. heard. All those in favor? I opposed. Motion passes. And item H is for approval of a application for a raffle permit. And is this because it's considered gambling
that we need to do this? And what does TVF stand for? Be a good question for Carrie. I'm not sure what that exactly stands for. Oh, okay. Well, maybe she could get back to me because it's probably not important,
but it's a nonprofit, but I just wanted to know which nonprofit it was. With that, I'll I can get that back. I can get that for you. Item H with a consent agenda. Second. I have a motion and a second. Any further discussion?
None being heard. All those in favor? I motion passes. Okay. Item 7 A1 variance Elvage commercial. Good evening, Mayor Council. This is a variance request for a development
monument sign at the Elvage EB second edition subdivision outlaw A. Alec Jensen of Elage Development Group is the applicant for this variance request. This variance is for the location of a development monument sign within 20 ft of public rightway on
Outlaw A in the Elage subdivision uh for the Sand Hill Parkway town homes. Uh this lot is located east of Sand Hill Parkway and north of 189th Lane. This property is zoned and guided mixed use. The surrounding properties are guided and zoned the same. Uh for some greater
context here, this is uh west of Highway 65 and uh the Viking or this is east of Highway 65 and the Viking Meadow subdivision is to the north of this property. Uh this lot is 5.61 acres. Uh and it is an outlot. As a reminder, an
outlot is a parcel of land that is part of a subdivision but is yet to be subdivided into lots and blocks. So it will need to be platted in order to be developed. According to section 12-1C of the code, outlots are unbuildable. Um so a condition of approval of this variance
would be that city council is authorizing the applicant to build this development monument sign on this lot. Uh outlaw A has been identified as a place for commercial development in the future, but staff is unaware of any current plans to plat and develop this site at the moment.
The request is to allow the placement of a development monument sign 3 feet from the property line along Sand Hill Parkway Northeast and 4T 10 in from the property line along 189th Lane. Um, this variance is necessary because the city code requires that development monument
signs be placed at least 20 ft from the public ride. That's the justification for this variance request. Um, as seen on the site plan below, um, this monument sign is situated behind the property line. The property line itself is about 20 ft from
the curb. Um, so the development monument sign would have to be 40 ft from the curb to comply with the zoning code. Um, this is an encroachment of approximately 17 ft uh to Sandhill Parkway and 15 ft to 189th Lane. It is
worth noting that this sign is outside of the 30-foot traffic visibility triangle that staff uses to assess whether uh a item near the corner of an intersection will be in the way of drivers looking to turn or uh move at that intersection. Uh so this is outside of that site visibility triangle and
should not impede visibility. Um also not pictured on the site plan is that there that there is a utility easement 10 ft west uh and extending 10 ft west and 10 ft east of the fire hydrant. um towards and away from Sand Hill Parkway.
The city engineer has stated that the proposed location of this sign will be out of that easement. A condition of approval of this variance is that this easement or if this easement or right ofway were needed to be extended at some point in the future and the sign were need to be removed or
moved, um that cost would be charged to the applicant and not the city. Uh staff has worked with the applicant to look at the possibility of reorienting the sign to possibly reduce this encroachment. Uh but the applicant has stated that the position of the sign will allow it to be seen by drivers going north and south on
Sand Hill Parkway and that is the applicant's preferred position. Uh they did not submit alternate plans. This is a quick look at the sign. It is quite standard for development of the scale um that this one is. It meets all the sign standards established in our
sign ordinance. Uh it would be double-sided for visibility again for drivers going both north and south on Sand Hill Parkway. When reviewing a variance, the burden of proof is on the applicant to show that they have a practical difficulty that can only be remedied by the granting of
a variance. Staff uses three standards to review a variance request. Uh these are known as the practical difficulties test. Uh the first is that the request is reasonable. So the applicant is uh proposing to use the property in a way that is sensible but just not authorized by the code. The second is that the
circumstances are unique to the property and not caused by the land owner that are requiring this variance application. This is often things like sloping topography, the pres presence of a wetland or the sighting of a septic system um that limit the applicant's ability to use their property. The third
is that the variance if granted will not have a negative impact on negative on on neighborhood character. um you know the variance won't make something look out of place or out of scale in the area. Uh the finding of findings of fact have been included for each of the three
standards um within your packet. Planning commission reviewed this item at a public hearing on June 24th. A member of the development team was able to speak to the item and no other public comments were received. The planning commission voted unanimously to recommend approval of the variance
request. At the recommendation of the planning commission, uh the recommendation is for the city council to move to adopt the resolution approving the variance for the location of a development monument signed on outlaw A of Elvage EB second edition. Council may modify the draft
resolution uh with any conditions that you see fit. I'm happy to answer questions. See, I do have one question, Grace. I'm looking at the uh page 70 of the packet that shows the
placement. Yes. One moment. Okay. I'm not sure if I'm able to switch that over, but I see it. Okay. Um so we have from 189th lane we have uh shows a 20ft
marker from the curb then 4T 10 to the monument uh to sandill we have 20 ft from the curb and 3 ft to the monument. So would that total
23 ft and 24 ft 10 in? Yes, those are the distances from the curb. The property line is set back about 20 ft from the curb. Okay, so that's the difference. Okay, thank you, Grace.
So I have a question. So, because we don't have actual photographs of what this would look like um in real time, if it gets put up and it's not it's
impeding some vision or it's um just one of us finds something wrong with it, are they going to relocate it so that it would fit or is this set in stone once we approve it.
So, the variance would grant the applicant permission to locate the sign um where it is noted in the resolution. Um I correct me if I'm wrong um city attorney, but I don't believe that
um we can move the sign based on direction from the council after a variance has been granted. Um but we have mechanisms in place to review um whether something would be out of place or cause cause harm, impede
visibility, anything like that. One of these things is that 30foot sight visibility triangle that we use when we uh look at uh visibility around intersections. The sign is well outside of that triangle. So we can pretty safely say it's not going to um impair
how drivers see that that intersection. Mr. Mayor, council, I'll step in just quick to clarify that when you grant a variance, you are granting that variance without regard to what the item actually looks like. And so, um, depending upon the way the variance resolution is
drafted, you might be determining a specific location for the item or you might be considering a general range of where that item could be located. And so it it does depend on the the specific language of the resolution as to whether you're looking for an
alignment that goes perpendicular or parallel with Highway 65. Um with regard to what does the sign look like, uh you certainly could you when we look at site plan, you might request elevations of
proposed signage um facing. Um that's not provided here that I know of, but that's part of the toolbox that that is available. I was out to the site the other day and I looked at it where they're going to place it. I think it's fine.
It's going to be in a great place for people can see both ways. That's all I got. So there's no uh vision impairment? Not at all that I could see. They don't have a lot of choices.
What about considering the people's homes there? Is it going to I mean if somebody looks out their window, is that going to be all they see once all the homes are built? It it shouldn't be because the way they they're placing it there. It's out by
the road by Sand Hill Crane big time. So the the houses that are being built or the town houses set back quite a ways. So, they shouldn't be able to really see it. They'll see the end end of it. Actually, unless they're on the very south side, they might be able to see
the sign possibly. Is this where those big rocks are? No, that's where uh Mikey Meadows sign. This is south of there. Grace, can you pull up the image of the the sign?
Um, on the layout it shows the sign is 15 ft by 2 feet 8 in. So rounded up to 3 ft. Is that what uh the dimensions show on
this? Um yeah, staff during our review we um did do the math to make sure that the site plan and the sign um that was submitted um are consistent. So the the sign will only be call it 3 ft tall.
Uh the height of the sign my apologies. I cannot see my screen very well. Um way out to the left there. Yeah, it's way out to the left there. It's way out to the left. You got to zoom in on it or something.
One moment. My apologies. I'm having some trouble pulling that up. Um, there we go. There we go. Sorry about that. Um say 6' 7 in on that side. Um yes the the
sign itself so our code is written in a way where we consider um this middle part to be the sign. Um these are not a part of the sign according to our code. Um okay. Yes. Plus you have a brick pier on each side
also. sign will fit in between. So, it's not a huge huge flashing sign out there that should distract from No. No. Yeah. It's only 6' uh 7 in tall. So,
okay. And it's how far off the ground? I can't see those numbers. It is. Let's zoom in further. It's about two feet off the ground according to this. Okay. All right. I'm good with it.
Is it illuminated in any way? Is there a light single light on it or anything? Uh there is not. Um it's noted in the site plan and the uh developers noting that there's not. So, do we have a motion on this yet? No.
All right. I'll make a motion to approve the variance. Let's bring it up. Second that. Uh so approve the variance for placement of
development sign within 20 ft of public right away for property located out outlot a Elvage East Bethl second edition. Second. Have a motion. Second. Any further
discussion? Hearing none. All those in favor? I opposed. None. Motion passes. Item uh 7 A2.
Tom or Pino. Uh this is a uh variance request for front yard setback reduction at 239 Aspen Road Northeast. Uh Tom Babino is the applicant for this variance request. Uh this uh variance is to reduce the front yard setback for a
new home construction at 239 Aspen Road. This property is zoned and guided Lake within the Shorland Overlay District. Um this property is the western edge of this property is approximately 45 ft from the shore of Lake. So it is quite close to that shoreline. Uh the surrounding properties
are guided and zoned the same. This is a 4.2 acre through lot with frontage along Aspen Road and Lakeshore Drive. Uh the home would face Aspen Road. The applicant is proposing to demolish an existing home and accessory structures which are in poor condition to build a
new single family home on this property. The request is to allow a front yard setback of 15 feet along Aspen Road. This variance request um is uh was applied for because our code requires a front setback of 25 ft within the
shoreland overlay district for pro properties zoned Lake. Uh the survey for this site and the site plan is provided below. Um, for some greater context or a greater view at that, um, the garage portion of the home would be 15 feet from that property line along Aspen Road, while the rest of the
structure would be 23 ft from Aspen Road, which is more in line with that 25 ft uh, standard that the code establishes. Uh, the well is located in the northeast corner of the lot and the septic site is located to the south of the proposed home. The applicant has been working with our building official
to resolve concerns about soil compaction around the septic site. Uh the lot does have a significant slope towards the lake. Staff has found that there's an approximate grade of 30% um going towards that lake. Uh the proposed structure does meet all of the other
setback requirements within the zoning district. For example, it is 35.7 ft from that rear property line where 25 ft is required and it is 77.3 ft from the ordinary high water level where 75 ft is required. The structure also meets the
25% or it's below the 25% threshold for imperous surface within that shoreland overlay district. Uh since this property is within that overlay district and so close to the lake, it has been sent to the DNR for comment. Uh to which the DNR replied stating that they did not have comments on this site.
Similar to the previous variance, the burden of proof is on the applicant to show that they have a practical difficulty that can only be remedied through the granting of a variance. Those three standards for practical diff difficulties are first that the request is reasonable. Second that the request is due to unique circumstances on the
property that are not caused by the landowner. And the third is that the variance if granted will not have a negative impact on neighborhood character. Findings of fact for each of the three standards have been provided within your packet. This variance request was reviewed at
the June 24th planning commission meeting and a public hearing was held. Uh during the public hearing, uh one neighbor spoke um um one neighbor spoke uh with a comment from another uh neighboring property owner with a concern about the sideyard
setback for this property. As noted before, um this home does meet that sideyard setback and the applicant was present to have that discussion with the uh with the neighbor at that public hearing. uh the public or the planning commission voted unanimously to recommend approval of the variance
request as uh written or variance uh resolution as written. Uh therefore uh the city council recommendation is to move to adopt the resolution approving the variance for a front sub setback reduction for a principal structure at 239 Aspen Road Northeast as recommended
by the planning commission. Uh this resolution may be modified as the council sees fit. I'm happy to answer any questions. I will make a motion to approve resolution number 2025-43
granting a variance from section 51-7 subdivision B of the city zoning ordin ordinance for the location of a principal structure within 25 ft of a front property line on a property located at 239 Aspen Road northeast pin
36-33-23-22-000093 Three. Have a motion. Do you have a second? Second. Further discussion. I just got one question, Grace. The house, the garage, and then that little shed, they're all going to go, right?
They're taking all of it out over there. Uh, yes, I believe. Um, there is one existing building that will be remaining, but that is a um that's a legal non-conforming structure, so that is allowed to remain on the site. So, that little shed's going to stay.
Um, I believe last I talked with the applicant. Yes, cuz I was out there and there was a garage and a house and a little shed. Yes, the um the existing building towards the uh towards the lake will remain, but the garage, the house, and then the uh building to the north, I
believe, will be will be gone. That's it. Any further discussion? Have a motion and a second. All those in favor? I I opposed. Motion passes.
Item 73, zoning text amendment. Good evening, mayor, council. Uh this is the zoning text amendment for the barnaminiums. Earlier this year, we met three times to work through the ordinance and develop an ordinance that the council was comfortable with. You
then directed us to send it back to or down to the planning commission to hold the public hearing. The planning commission at their June meeting held the public hearing, had a robust discussion on this item. They made one change to the draft that the planning commission or excuse me that the council
had sent them and that was to uh include ai a condition that would allow uh 16 ft sidewall height for barnaminiums on parcels of 5 acres or more. And their feeling was that people who are building these are building them
because they have either large uh um RVs or equipment or uh home occupation and that rather than coming in with a variance, they felt that that should be built into the ordinance itself. Uh there was significant discussion
about the minimum lot size as part of that and ultimately they uh settled on the 5 acre minimum lot size for that larger sidewall height. No other changes to the draft that you saw at your uh March last March meeting. And this draft
ordinance or number 25-03 uh was recommended approval uh by the planning commission unanimously with that one change. because you've looked at it so many times, I'm not doing the full review, but happy to talk more about any specific items that you um
prepared for the draft. So, the 16 foot's just for the garage part or the whole building. It's a 16 foot sidewall height for the whole building as currently uh drafted as recommended by the the planning commission.
It allows uh under the code everyone is allowed a 14 foot sidewall height and they just felt that the nature of the type of things that would happen if someone wanted to build a barnaminium. They felt
like that was a way to avoid a variance process. So if somebody with who bought three acres and wanted to build a twostory barn dominium, they couldn't do it. You could not.
Oh, in terms of the sidewall height, I mean, there's certain This is intended for the sidewall of the garage. The if if you did a twotory house, yes, you could do that. So that you need a taller sidewall to allow for
a larger garage door so that you can fit an RV in. Right now in our code, they're maxed at 14 ft. I understand that. But when I'm thinking of the pictures that we saw barn dominiums and some some of them look
like they had two stories to them um and that would be more than 14 feet. And I would think somebody with three acres should be able to build a four a twotory barnaminium if they want to have a loft or something like that.
You you would. This is just for the garage. No, it's for the whole thing. Any part of it is what she's saying. Yeah, I think we should probably That's a great point that did not come up at the planning commission while we were doing this. and and so I think um
to just clarify that to your point in the packet there are twostory homes and those um uh homes are going to exceed a 14t sidewall height. So I think um what
I I'm just trying to think of this this would just be a variance then on a three acre if they wanted to do that. Uh correct. On anything less than five acres, the taller sidewall height would be a variance. But in terms of the depending on depending on the numbers
that would come through, that may not be that many, but we could certainly accommodate a request. We could simply put in uh 16t garage sidewall height. Uh building sidewall heights are fine
for two stories or whatever. I don't agree with that. You can come in, you could have two acres and you could have 16 foot sidewalls. It doesn't matter. It'll fit right on there perfectly. I don't want to limit our residents for coming in and have to get a variance for
something that you don't need. If they want to build 16 foot sidewalls, I have no issues with that. Yeah, just to be clear, right now it's 14, right? But I don't want to limit it to five acres. Then we're going to have people coming in. I mean, those
barnominiums are really cool. The way they build them, they're super looking. So, I don't want to have our residents to have to put up with comfort varants for this or that. And our rural residential lots are around 2 acres. So, it's not right.
Exactly. Question for the attorney. Can they make that change right here without going back through planning? We're holding a public hearing. I can defer to Kendra, but happy to answer if uh
I was just going to say I don't it doesn't have to go back to planning commission, but I'm a little nervous about doing it on the fly because I want to think about unintended consequences. I think, you know, initially I was thinking we could modify just the footnote in the in the table, but I feel
like we should probably get the direction. And as much as I hesitate to do this, revise it and bring it back to you. I I'm just not I think do we all want 16 ft sidewall heights for barnaminiums? because then I think I might not change the table and I might
take the asterisk off and uh put it somewhere under the general regulations for barnaminiums maybe on page 95 or something if it's all barnaminiums can have a 16 foot sidewall height that is a little
bit different than this table I think I have no problem I think they should be able to be two stories if somebody wants an upstairs they should be to have an upstairs a loft or whatever. I agree. And it should be two acres at least, not not five.
Right. So, the uh we had some just so I'm hearing you, we had discussion in the past at the council and again at the planning commission about our barnaminiums allowed on any size property and we didn't put a minimum lot size for barnaminiums.
So, right now we're just talking about allowing that larger sidewall height for a barnaminium if it's at least two acres is what I think I'm hearing. I just want to make sure the whole council's No. Well, if if some if this people who just
bought this lot on Lake and they're going to build a two-story house, why can't they have a two-story barnaminium? I mean, if we approved that before, it we should be consistent and continuous. So, just to clarify, the intent of this
is the sidewall height for the garage portion of the barnaminium, not the the home portion. That's what the point I was trying to make. Yeah. So, if you look at page 10 wrong six 16t wall doesn't matter, not just the garage. I don't want to limit it to to
that. Yeah. I'm not being very clear. I guess the code right now only limits sidewall height for the accessory building portion, the garage portion. There's no limit to the sidewall house height on a living space.
You have a building height for living space, but you have for accessory buildings, a sidewall height, whether detached or attached. Let's just make it 16 ft then. If it has to be a sidewall for the garage 16
Y to 16 feet two acres or if that's what you want. Yeah. Right. That's what I thought I was hearing from some of you was. Yeah. I was misunderstanding you. Yeah. The sidewall height for the garage portion you want to be 16 feet
up to up to 16 feet. Yeah. Up to 16 feet as opposed to 14 which it is now. on I'm this is where I'm kind of losing you guys. On all lot any lot size what
on two acres or more planning commission said five but under two acres even it's like I got 1.84 need four. I could put one of them on there easy. Tear my house down, redo the whole thing. I think we're making a big deal out of nothing. We're having
restrictions on our residents that we don't need to do in my opinion. So, I mean, it could be could be any come to any development, they're all different, so it doesn't matter. That's my opinion of it.
I don't have a problem with that. any. So the question is Kendra, do you want to write something up and bring it back to us so that it clarifies the language? Okay. Or can we modify it right here? Let's just do it now. Yeah.
You're ridiculous. When you do things on the fly, sometimes you have unintended consequences. So I'm the thing is if I did stuff had to think about it 50 times I would never get nothing done. So I mean
you can ask for forgiveness if you need to. But it's like this is ridiculous. It's like two years of working on this. If it would have been done with Mr. Miller's first thing we would have been done already. But Aaron Berg stuck his nose in there
and he kept changing stuff. So it's like enough is enough. Um, okay. So, if you want to do something tonight, here's what I'd suggest you do. On page 97, again, God bless. I I think this will work. Uh, the two asterisks I would change to say for
barn miniums on 2 acres or more, 16t sidewall is permitted for the accessory building portion of the structure. We don't want it to be two acres or more. We want it Oh, you don't want any acreage.
Yeah. No, because for barnaminiums, a 16 foot sidewall height is permitted for the accessory building portion of the structure. There you go. Is that the direction? Yes. Make a motion.
Then I would recommend approval of ordinance 253. With that change uh on page 97 of the staff report, like to make a motion that we approve uh 253 with the changes on page 97 as
discussed. Second. We have a motion and a second. Any further discussion? None being heard. All those in favor? I I opposed. Motion passes. Done. Done.
Item 8E. Looks like we're emergency backup generator. I'll be abstaining from this item. Item 8.01. This is an emergency backup generator and transfer switch for wells one and two. Um, right now the city has
emergency backup power for wells three and four. It's been identified in a few emergency management plans and our department of health review that we have emergency backup power for wells one and two which serve the northern portion of the city. Um, if we were to lose power there, it's just kind of like your home
with a pressure tank. You you have whatever's left in that pressure tank and then the water supplies is gone. So, we applied for a $10,000 source water protection grant and and we're awarded that. The issue we have up up there, though, is that there's two services
that run the water portion. There's a 480 volt service that runs the actual wells and then there's a 120 volt service that runs some of the auxiliary stuff, the chemical pumps, the um fluoride chlorine pumps that are required in order to treat the water before we can deliver it. So, we looked
at a couple different options. We got two quotes. One was to put in one single transfer switch with a transformer um to to scale it down from 480 to 120. We'd run everything with one transfer switch and one one generator. That cost
came in at $40,000. So with the $10,000 grant, we'd still be on the hook for $30,000. Another option we found was to maybe just do two transfer switches with two smaller generators. Um so the transfer switch for that for both of them was
around $12,000. $12,279. So, with the grant money, we would be on the hook for $2,279 to get that first portion set up. Um, I guess what I'm looking for tonight is a approval to go ahead with that portion of it. Once that part is done, we can
apply for the actual grants that cover the generator themselves. with the um cheaper two two transfer switch opt option. Um the generator total cost was uh $52,680.
So if we were to get those other two grants for 20,000, we'd have to pay 42 uh $32,000 on top of that for the grant. And that's coming out of our general fund. This is coming out of the water fund. So this is the fund that's enterprise fund
from sack wack or wack charges and water users. So the users are actually paying for it. Yes. Yeah. It's the cheapest option we found. We we've looked at this before trying to funding it ourselves. If we're able to get $30,000
um to help help pay for it, I think it's a good idea if if we want to go that route. Yeah. I appreciate you're finding grants because that's a and we're not guaranteed the 20,000 but it sounds like once we're in the pipeline they don't they want to see the product the um project finished. So we
get we'll score highly for the competitive process and from people we've talked to it's not guaranteed but it's almost guaranteed. So So this is just at the community building. This is run wells one and two on the north part. Correct. Do we have something there now?
There's there's no backup power there now. And we wouldn't be able to power the whole building. This is just to run the well system of it with these generators. They would have to move a couple items over to a different panel in there. That's included in their quote, too. So,
so we'd get a out the door. We'd have a $64,000 project. We'd get 30,000 undercover with grants. Hopefully cost the city $34,000. We'd have a little bit of cost running some gas line. And we have to run natural gas lines to the to the generators and then our staff would do
the cement pad work ourselves. The generators just sit outside then they're outside generators. Yep. It'd be two two different size gener. But um the negative is we have two generators to take care of and going down and you know in the future we have
to change oil on two generators. But it's uh what $70,000 cheaper to go that route up front. Worst case scenario, we do the transfer switch cost us $2,000. We don't get the grants and we just the project installed
right there. So, we we come back to the council with the generator portion later once we apply for those grants if we're successful. So, there's still a chance to pull a plug on the project at that point, too. So, How many homes does Wells one and two serve?
Uh there are you know off the top of your head up there right now. It's also going to have 21 acres will have more homes and
possibly the capacity of those wells is equal to what we have on the south end. So you could you could have the whole area could be developed at some point based on those two wells. Do these wells cover the trailer court too or not? They have their own private well in there still.
Okay. We do have a connection to them. They had some issues in the past with their well. We can turn that on for them. We charged them for a while whether they used our water while they were fixing their well, but they're on their own private well still right now.
So, how long have we been doing this without generators? 200 four well four back in 1985. If you go back to the original wells Yeah. Really?
So, I guess my question is what brought it up now that we need them? Uh, the emergency management plan and the Department of Health review of our of our water supply state. Is that state stuff? Yeah. Yeah. We've been looking at it for a couple years. We got quotes back in 2023, but
we didn't have any grant money at that time. So, was too expensive to handle all. So, if we approve this and we don't get the grant money, then we just wait on the generator part, right? So, we'd have the transfer switch in place. we'd be out whatever $2,279,
but the transfer switches would be in there ready to go. Well, I'll make a motion to in uh approve the installation of a transfer switch along the with the acceptance of the grant.
Do I need to add the and the purchase of a generator? Authorized to apply for the remaining grants would be fine for now. And authorized to apply for the remaining grants. Second that. Have a motion and a second. Any discussion?
So, we're approving the second option. Cheaper option. Yeah. Second option with uh uh go ahead with to go for the grants. Okay.
All right. No further discussion. All those in favor? I I opposed. Motion passes. Thank you. I heard the fire station floor is on board. Yeah. Mr. Mayor and council members, we would ask that you um make a motion to
postpone the discussion on the fire station project until the date certain, which would be the 28th. We'll have information back. There was some question as to the um uh warranty. We've had some issues in the past with cracking and so we want to make sure we
get a accurate warranty on what this is going to be. Um that's what I say because the three contractors only one that's given a warranty. It's 25 years. Yeah, they all have a warranty one or twoear warranty. The other one was 25. Turns out it's
uh 25 for residential, not commercial. So there was some miscommunication there and they're we're going back to them to say okay if you're not you know we'd like you to honor that but if you're not going to what you know what are you going to do and and we may
consider other options. So good idea. Okay I'll make a motion to table this till further second. Have a motion second. Any further discussion? None being heard. All those in favor I I opposed
passes. city administrator. Uh Mr. Mayor and council members, we have been talking a little bit about this uh digitizing of information in our in our files. Uh I know staff is very excited about trying to get a lot of this secured into a format that will
preserve it for many years to come. Um I was approached by uh Anoka County um regional economic development and they had a request from two individuals uh that needed to complete internships um for their four-year degree. Uh we met
with one gentleman and um did not hear back from the other one. Uh George Angala Angaga sorry um is uh very very interested in this project. Um the project of course is learning kind of
all documents you know for properties whether it's septics or whatever the case may be. Um he's going to be processing that and and and digitizing it and and format formatting it into files for us and um he comes with a a
strong background in computers. So he's um he's actually very interested in hitting the ground running. Um, we have an interest to have somebody come in on an temporary basis or an internship basis of less than 6 months so that
we're not required to provide uh benefits. And um and we're proposing a recommended $15 an hour for this person. This person would help uh coordinate volunteers if there were some that would become available. um they would kind of
be over managing the project and then Carrie Frost would oversee them as well. And we kind of it's that um you know you know it takes the first step of a journey of a thousand miles. I mean you got to you got to get this thing
started. You have to um you have to start getting this information um in a usable format. And um and this gentleman seems very excited. He lives in Fidley, I believe. So not not too far away from us. Uh he goes to school in St. Cloud.
So um this will be a project that would help help him complete his requirement uh for his schooling and um and help us in a kind of a special project need that we have. So bring this before you if
that's um if that's uh something you guys would like to consider. We just look for a motion on that. I'll make a motion to approve the hire of this intern. Second. Have a motion and a second. Any further
discussion? Yes. Um, what are his is he going to be working Monday through Friday, eight hours a day, or is it flexible? How how is this going to be? Is he in school during the summer or is he off in the summer? I have a lot of questions.
Yeah. So my understanding um um is that uh he has a summers off and that um he has to finish this project as the final piece of his four-year degree. So um I'm I'm going to somewhat leave it up to him to decide how many what sort of schedule
he wants. Obviously it has to be during office hours so that he can have some oversight. Um but um but I I would assume that he's probably gonna work as many hours as he can to get this done and uh and meet that requirement. Um we
haven't nailed it down specifically of you know you know do you just want to work Monday, Wednesday, Friday? Do you want to work you know Monday through through Friday type of thing. But um I think I think we'll we'll be able to once he gets started and once we get
that process and understand the timing, we have estimates right now what we think it'll take for time, but we haven't done it yet. So, uh once we start actually digging into this project, we'll be able to understand how efficient he can be, what systems can be
set up, um and um and that'll help dictate, I think, the hours that he he'll need to put in. Do you think he'll complete it in the this summer or do you think it's going to be something that because I know there's a few files?
This is our hope, right? I mean, we're setting that as the goal. Um, and if we can get volunteers coming in, I know u one of the the um the newest planning commission member had indicated an interest in in volunteering. So, we'll reach out to her as well. Um, but there
may be other people too that that are, you know, want to want to contribute to the community and help in this special project getting this done. Um, but yes, it's um it's not a small task. Um, evidenced by everyone who's kind of kicked the can down the road over the
years. So, uh, it is, you know, I hate to use the term grabbing the bull by the horns, but it is somewhat, you know, similar to that in terms of undertaking this. So, we're I'm I'm excited that he's excited because um because that's somebody somebody that we need with a lot of energy in there to get this done.
So, not to mention this is pretty important for bringing this up to speed. Yeah. With everything from imperative. Well, this will help us um as we start getting into uh meta meta tags and metadata and and being able to search um
having people search information online. Again, this is kind of the steps we're taking as we're updating the website. Um, the more we can get people to do their own re research on properties, the
less calls come in, the less disruption, you know. So, it's a goal we're working towards. It's going to take a little while to get there, but I think um um I think it's the right step, you know, a good step in the right direction. So my thought is you want Carrie to be in
charge of this, but I'd like to have you in charge of it as well or to be in charge, but because Carrie's got a lot of stuff going and I mean truthfully, we can't even get a bulletin done and we've been
waiting a long time. So I just have you be in charge of it. Okay. I can oversee it as well. I know she's working council member on the on the website. So having her involved is going to be critical. Sure. Making sure it's done right. But um but yes, I can oversee that as well.
Okay. Happy to do so. That's all I got. Any other discussion? I have a motion and a second. All those in favor? I opposed. Motion passes. Staff report.
Uh Mr. Mayor, just have a couple of items um to touch on. I wanted to give an update back here. There was a request for um um the senior center and the ability to sell alcohol at senior center events. And uh we did we checked with um
all the controlling agencies on this. Um we estimated around $3,000 it'll take to change the ordinances to accommodate this. Um, one of the specifications would need to be that you that the seniors would contract with a caterer permit and we have two caterer permits
in the city. That would be Smokies and Route 65. So, they can chat with either one of those and determine who they want. It's already been determined Route 65. Okay. And there's a just a requirement that food is provided at every event that they're selling alcohol as well.
Um, so that's a requirement of the state. Does it have to be from the caterer that or Yeah, the the the the permit the caterer permit that's selling the alcohol has to provide the food as well. Um and uh and so the only question we have
on this, we can certainly if you give us direction to proceed with this, the only question we have is the $3,000. Would it be a city born expense or would it be an expense that we would uh ask to recoup from the sales of alcohol over doesn't have to be all in one year, it can be
over a couple years or whatever the deal is. That would be my only question on that one. Um so we still got to spend $3,000 if we use Route 65, right? In other words, in order to change the ordinance and go through all that uh planning and zoning and everything else, we have to do that.
Can't we just use road? We just can't. No, because we have our our ordinance says we cannot we our ordinance says we can sell alcohol on s such as booster days, you know, on a specific day specific event. And so we'd have to literally come
through council every single time the seniors wanted to sell something to give a specific permit for a specific day on a specific event. um on city property. So um so this would be just kind of going through and making sure the um the attorney is certainly
comfortable with the language and changing the the um uh the ordinances. So staff time, attorney time, we're estimating 3,000. It could be a little less, but unless we have Jacob do it on a meeting night like this, unless we have him do it while we're in
council. Okay. Um I plan on staying late one night. wanted to give you an update on uh road repair. Uh Jackson Street, we had a culvert fail and uh had to shut the the street down. Um Nate's been working on it tirelessly to uh to get us back
online. We were getting estimates. I think it was 180,000 or 160,000 183. Enormous. We were getting prices for $60,000 pipes the cost for the piping alone. and
uh one of our local companies um Classic Construction, thank you, uh is uh doing it for us. We're at about $61,000. So, he's helped the city out tremendously. It is gravel right now. The road is open. We will be paving it after the um curb and gutter uh gets
replaced. So, if anyone asks, they can still drive over that, but it's work in progress, and it'll probably take at least another week or so to get that completed. Another how long? A week or so. Oh, yep. Uh, TVF is Traditional Values Foundation.
Uh, they are a nonprofit that helps applicants uh with their filings and that sort of thing for those type of those type of uh events that they have. So, wanted to get back with you on that. Uh and then finally, we just uh the mayor and myself uh met with um uh the
school district had a good meeting about the project we're looking at uh for Cedar Creek Elementary and um and East Belt Elementary. They they want to get hooked up to City Sewer and Water. We kind of discussed the the age of their infrastructure over there, some of the challenges that they're having. We have
a game plan moving forward. I think they probably will be sharing some cost and trying to get this through the legislature as well. Uh we've had two very unique disappointing unique legislative sessions. Um and uh and I
think everybody I was just I was reading John Jazinski. He's a senator who's heavily involved in roads saying he was very disappointed the amount of dollars that were put into roads this year. Um so everybody's kind of reasonably unhappy you might say with with the outcome of the of the last legislature
session. Uh so this next year may be although it's a policy year and typically not a year for bonding uh may be a year where there's some bonding as well. So we're going to try to hit the ground running if not successful this year. The following year will be a a bonding year. So we're getting our ducks
in a row and trying to get uh these folks hooked up. And as you know, that would go right past the new proposed uh industrial park uh which we would then be able to feed any uh industrial commercial development that that would happen there. Uh aside aside from that,
those are my updates unless you have any questions. Council reports. Jacob, I got a question for you on the IUP that we took away tonight when Christine came up there and said that there's not a 30-day.
Do we know is that true? Mr. Mayor, council, um, off the top of my head, I I do not recall, but in enforcement actions, there's usually a windown period that you can work through administratively to make sure that everything just gets smoothed out. Um, you you could decide that it happens
tomorrow. you could decide to give them 30 or 60 days. You could defer to staff to just work it out. Um I think flexibility and um what would you let me let me back that up and say keep in mind just the practical realities of any decision you make whenever you revoke something and how long it may or
may not take to wind down an activity. You know, it might require a few days. What would you suggest? I think that's a policy decision, Mr. Smith. Um yeah, but you're the attorney. At the end of the day, you know, from here on out, the activities uh would be
the IP is revoked tonight. An absent language that would say, you know, give it 30 days, say with the the horse IEP. Um, anything that takes place after today is conceivably unlawful and in violation of the city code. Um, that
said, you know, policy decisions about enforcement are really up to the council to make. Mr. Mr. Mayor and Council, I I will say that the horse IUP does give 30 days. This one does not speak to that at all. Um the applicant may have animals there
that she needs to, you know, find a home for. I would I would suspect some time would be reasonable to allow her to to wrap that up. Again, I don't know what that time frame is, but we would also generate a letter, make sure it's certified and sent out, and so maybe
it's a week or two weeks. I It's uh it's up to you guys. Whatever. Whatever you want to do. She still has another IUP, right? For for dog food sales. Oh, but I thought she had one for breeding or something.
Uh for for Yes. For um puppies. Yeah. Yeah. So, I think there's two two IUPs. Yes. Not including the mysterious six horse that we can't seem to locate. Okay. So, should we just leave it for
staff then to do their thing to send a letter to her? Yes. End it. Yep. They can come back to us next month and inform us of update us that it's all closed out or not. Sure, we can do that.
Next meeting. Oh, the horse one's passed 30 days already. Nothing's happened. The horse ones. Right. Right. the the the options now are enforcement, you know, which um
which gets a little bit more tricky. So, anybody else? Okay, I have a couple of things I want to bring up. My first thing has to do with I I really didn't want to bring this up during the consent agenda on the
budget on the expenses, but I think that we spend too much on for ACE garbage. I I just see all these huge fees for all these different buildings. And I'm just wondering if you guys if we have a
contract, if it's something that we can go get quotes from one of the other five or six garbage people we have out here because I I just feel like I feel like we're being nickeled and dime by all these different things. So, I'm
nitpicking on that one this month. Um, the other thing is when is the next newsletter going out? Because I feel like it should have gone out for booster days and and the booster days agenda should have been in it and it didn't go
out in July. So, I'm really disappointed. The newsletter is either at the printer or at the mailhouse right now. So, I'm not sure the exact um stage in which it's at right now. I will confirm that and I'll email everybody on
that. Okay. Is booster day stuff in there? Because if it comes out next week, it's too late. I will clarify that. Um my next thing is for the attorney. When I was on the council before, every
June we would do a annual evaluation of the city administrator. And I don't think he's had one done yet. And I think that should be coming up. I think he needs to have goals and um be evaluated on the different things that he's
supposed to be doing. Okay. Uh noted. Okay. So, you'll get back to us on that. Um my next question is, is the city council going to be in that parade? Are we has that been discussed?
because I know in the past we've they've done it and they've all been together except for you know I I know that the mayor will be riding in a car and traditionally uh council if
they so choose uh the city provides one of the public work trucks for council to ride in. So, are we doing that or I mean it's this coming Saturday, so we should
decide. It would be nice to be have a unified front, you know. I don't know. No comment. We're not doing it. Okay. I don't know. Actually, I can I can comment on that. prior cities that I've been in, if if
council members choose to be in the parade, you know, and they bring their supporters or people wearing their shirts or whatever the case is, um, you know, they would they would just have to work with the parade coordinator to get a slot for that. I don't know if there's a fee or not. Um, but um,
fee. Yeah. So, so I'm sure they can accommodate you for that. I know in other instances they've ridden on firet trucks or in firet trucks, you know, in other instances someone brings a convertible, you know, I mean, it's just it's really
kind of across the board on what you may want to do or participate in. Okay. It sounds to me that they have plenty enough to do, so we don't have to burden them with that part of it. I mean, the mayor can just ride around and wave at
everybody. All right, that's fine with me. Have fun, mayor. Bring your call. Um, and my last well, my second to last thing is I'm feeling like we should be
done with land form right now and Grace should be on her own to do her extended period before her to her what is it? three months, six months
of successful completion of uh probation by herself without land form. So I am wondering what we need to do to just use landform as a last resort emergency. Hey, what do we do in
this unique case kind of thing. Okay, we can look at that. And I I expect the rest of the council to input on this because I don't want to be the only one that thinks this. So, I don't know. What do you guys think? Should we continue or should we
I agree? Because it's expensive. I agree. I think Grace, what I've seen that she's done so far and I've watched planning meetings as well, I think she's a smart gal. I think you're doing an awesome job. I think you can handle it. I really do.
And I I just think we can have landform as a consulting if we need them, if they're willing to do that. That's my opinion. I do believe that was the goal we had set up originally, wasn't it? It is. And there's been a wind down. Yep.
Maybe not to that extent, but And finally, I'll be at the pancake breakfast Saturday, so and bake sale. So come and buy some cookies and breads and have pancakes and sausage. That's it.
Anybody else? I entertain a motion. Make a motion to journ. Second. Have a motion. Second. All in favor? I