okay we'll call to order this uh work meeting of the city of East bethl city council do a little adjustment on the agenda as it was previously written we'll changes change items number one
and two to items number four and five on the agenda so we'll start off with the HRA discussion on goal setting uh do we need to do an adopt the agenda motion and all that for work meeting no I didn't think
so so you want to kick it off there sure uh Mr Mayor and council members thank you we uh had a discussion before about HRA and I'm assuming that this will be um a multi-art discussion maybe as we kind of walk through some of these some
of these ideas on HRA what I did uh first of all here just to kick us off was to uh research Minnesota state statute as it relates to um HR that's 49.1 to
46947 and essentially an HRA is to provide a sufficient supply of adequate safe and sanitary dwellings in order to protect the health safety morals interesting and Welfare of the citizens of the State uh to develop uh uh to
clear and develop blighted areas to perform those duties according to comprehensive plans to remedy the shortage of housing for low and moderate income residents and to redevelop blighted areas in situations in which private Enterprise would not act without
government participation or subsidies and then it goes on to talk about cities of the first class which we are not but um it also kind of drills down a little bit on um substandard slum or blighted areas which cannot be redeveloped without government assistance there's a
shortage of decent safe and sanitary dwelling accommodations according to persons of low income and their families at rentals they can afford and shall declare that there's a need for Housing and Redevelopment authority to function in the city so this city went through that
process uh in establishing uh their HRA and um and essentially um you know it also goes on to say that you know in situations where buildings endanger life or property by fire or other causes and
the original land planning lot layout and conditions of title in the area and Continental communities kind of comes to mind you know when I'm reading that part of the statute um but at any rate um that kind of gives just a quick snapshot
of of what an HRA from a uh Minnesota State Statute standpoint is responsible for um so I know that there's some I think if I'm if I'm not mistaken it'll be somewhere in the $225,000 range
it's a a quarter Cent sales tax uh that is given back to communities uh for housing purposes uh low to moderate income housing so that's something that'll be coming available at some point I'm sure it'll be structured
such that if we don't have projects for that then that'll go back to you know the pool and um and then those communities that um that do have projects would be able to draw from that pool um and so so it really it boils
down a lot to uh policy and what policies you folks want to set and that's kind of the kind of setting up for what an HRA discussion should be is what should the policy be for the HRA in the city are there um are there sites that um you
know we can contact the the land owners and say are you interested in selling these are you interested in you know and getting rid of them such that the city could possibly buy him clean up make them available for a higher and better
use maybe than what they currently are um you know it's there's I think we've talked about a couple of properties around some will have gas tanks still in the ground and others uh that um that would possibly F fit this category
funding of course is is your primary concern is how do you then fund this you can you can bond for it if you want with the understanding that you know when you sell it you are uh going to rec recapture that money and essentially pay
off the bonds uh or if you have dollars uh put aside um such as either the State dollars coming in or H Levy dollars annually you would then you know build those up to a point where something could be purchased and then and then
turned and the question then always becomes for councils do you give that land away as an incentive then do you sell it you know do you sell it for more than you paid for it if you got a good deal on it um those are the questions I know we have right now uh the Taylor
Street property we've talked about that a little bit uh and and kind of the the goal of the council uh is to bring in um retirement home type of projects uh that you know kind of a a
structured setup so that they they would potentially move from those to the uh the apartment complex to provide a little more um help in in retire retirement years or memory care or whatever Services they offer there um I did speak with a a
gentleman who's looking to develop uh something about that size uh we've spoken with other developers as well that uh that have been interested in that Taylor Street property but that's kind of similar to I think that was acquired for the road project if I'm not mistaken Road and City and sewera went
through there so the city is an ownership of that but but then the discussion could go further into do you start proactively identifying bladed properties around the city that you would like to potentially purchase willing seller willing buyer scenario
and um and then set a set a goal of you know getting those properties cleaned up and on the market again so just wanted to kind of lay that out there for you folks uh kind of more of a conversation and um and see where you
potentially want to take it you guys have any thoughts on the matter well I was thinking about it and it's been discussed of if we get bonding from the state for water tower at uh
Sims that there is a property there that and some people's opinion could look could be blinded and that uh if we do get that money from the
state that the H funds could go towards either dealing with that property or for something else in that area that isn't covered by any of the bonds that would help the city either
develop or otherwise so you thinking of the southeast Corner uh Northeast northeast corner well if the money's earmarked from the
state for the sewer water and whatever I don't think we can divert it into doing other projects to fix up blighted properties I mean say well hey wait a minute you guys we we gave you the money to do this and now
you're doing that I'm sure there's some kind of guidelines on there that Matt what do you think yeah no the the state would I you know in the in the bill it would identify exactly what you're seeking the money for and that has to be spent specifically on that if it changes it all you have to go back and get you
know new language on that yeah I'm not saying use the bonding money for this I'm saying in in conjunction with this project if we want to improve one of the corners there or something else that uh
is identified or the state money can't be used for that we would like to accomplish in that area to help improve it uh that would be one area that
uh me pull all all the money together can help improve a lot but now are you talking well whatever properties the city has we're kind of stuck with them because I don't believe we can sell them if they're tax forfeited if I'm not mistaken am I
correct in that are there's there's to my knowledge three types of properties that are municipal owned or local government owned some of them require a 25 year period of time elapse before you can consider selling them some of them
depending on how they were acquired may be able to be put back on the market and yet some of them you have to have an appraisal done and then sell it back to the state of Minnesota essentially purchase it to be able to turn around and put it back on the market so uh the
other item that comes to mind with the HRA purchasing properties is if we were to get into the negotiations of real estate u in order for that transaction to take place we're going to have to even up on taxes so if there are properties that are outstanding in taxes
for years and years and years and years it may not be beneficial for the city to want to get involved in purchasing that real estate because of the the amount of outstanding taxes so those I mean those are all very paral by paral yeah relevant considerations when you're
looking at utilizing money to to put stuff back on the market some of them are you're probably going to want to steer away from I guess when I I think I kind of brought this up this topic and my thoughts were twofold one is that if
you're going to have have a levy the monies for it should be used what the levy said they would be used for okay and I don't think that's been the case so far they've been diverted into you know no more sh adjacent uses
we'll put it that way but anyway uh the other thing is that unless I'm mistaken if you have a a clearly defined set of goals you have a lot better chance of leveraging whatever seed money you can put together into matching grant money
or more than matching grant money than if it's just kind of a loose you know amorphous collection of objectives you know the the clearer we can be about what it is we want to accomplish the better odds are whether
it's with our own money or whether it's with money leveraged by state federal whatever private interest you know you could throw in a couple Mill mat that would help yeah um you're good for a mill I should um I
should clarify too right now the state law for the quarter Cent sales tax that we all pay into for housing right uh has to go through the county uh HRA which this city belonged to at one point but then got out of um and uh and so some
cities are kind of caught in that that um in between right now heast bethl being one of them and and so there may be some uh legislative support on that coming this next season the next session rather for um uh getting that changed so
that the cities that are paying in East bethl being one of them has an option to get it out even though they're not part of um you know a county a county HRA uh if you get back into the county HRA you cannot ever leave it again so
well the the relief came because the city sued monoga County for $750,000 and the next year the legislature changed some laws so that that couldn't happen again right but initially in 2011 when I came
in we had looked at the HRA as a means because during the Glorious plans of the sewer water district that that area was our Main Street and so we should probably make that look pretty good so why don't we work with the
businesses clean up the frontages and you know make make the buildings look decent not necessarily change the businesses but clean the place up and over time the Shell Games began and the money started getting moved from here to
here to here and it as it stands right now the um the HRA dollars it's a pretty low Levy and the majority of which goes towards the staff time to manage 77k a year yeah so essentially that's um trading you
know you know hours essentially for what staff is putting into HRA and compensating the general fund for that so no shell games in the sense of money going anywhere else I think there's about I'm not mistaken around 12 thou $12,000 or something left over not a
whole lot to do you know anything with um the the HRA the formation of an HRA essentially is a tool in the toolbox you the event it's needed you have that authority to
purchase a bladed property if you're faced with having to purchase that if you didn't have that tool in the tool box you'd have to go through the whole process of setting it up before you could purchase that so it's you know for all intensive purposes the HRA and East bethl has kind of been on you know um I
don't know life support maybe uh right now um and uh and not really being used and so that's that's kind of the the question I think you know as you enter off on 65 enter into East bethl I think there's some properties some commercial
properties that are maybe don't look the best and well that's that gets to the priorities right so what are the priorities are they priority commercial and secondarily residential or vice versa is it just to help clean up is it
you know beyond that architectural or whatever I mean let's say let's say a um a business business that doesn't look very well one of the first ones you see when you come into the city goes for sale you know does the city then want to step in and say yeah we'll you know
we'll entertain buying that um Can the city buy a property that's on the open market without any constraints yes sir okay that's a useful question to have the answer too yeah so
I mean that's not to say that the you know the private Market wouldn't step in and say I want that that business right there and I'm going to you know tear down and build this up and it's going to look great I mean that could very well be and that's and that's kind of where the it's not it's not something we want
to do it's not like right right you would enter into a competitive bidding war with uh a municipal unit of government and private entity that's probably got a little bit deeper of a pocket uh for investment so um that's
just a risk you take when you enter into those type of real EST transactions just like anything right there's always risk inherit purchase yeah I don't I don't think we're looking to get into the business of real estate development you know as a as a municipality what does
what does Cambridge do with their HRA you must have one right yeah we own an apartment building um we invest in other Senior Living uh so our money in Cambridge is utilized to repair the
apartment building uh maintenance what is the levy per year I don't know what it is I'm sorry I wasn't thinking I should prepare for this one so well looking to get some ideas I mean East bethl has been a weak Link in the
chain for years and if we're talking about subsidizing it or putting money in there to do something you know you got to know what other cities do I have no clue I'll be honest with you other C cities generally
get into um maybe slightly below Market senior housing you know like a apartment complex is commonly what an HRA gets involved in but do they bond for money or do they Levy for it no they generally
bond for it and then the levy pays the debt service for and that puts them in the business of property ownership and management and management yes so you're replacing appliances air conditioners doors uh we we continuously
in Cambridge have requests to new carpet uh new tile new electronic doors at again I'm revealing too much about my political bent I guess but I don't believe in government ownership and operation of businesses as a rule yeah I
think it's a an unfair competitive factor in the market right so that would be in a situation where the you know private Market is not engaging in that but you have an imminent need for something you know and private Mark just isn't stepping up um and you want to
keep your retired folks in your community my first inclination is to ask the person who's insisting it's an imminent need where's your checkbook that's my first question is instead of looking at us you know you're the one who thinks it's so imminent let's you
know pull out your checkbook yeah there's no doubt in a in a senior housing complex I know the county owned four of them four or five of them we were constantly replacing magic pack heating systems because they didn't make those anymore you had to go to a
different size one or it was a constant headache um and I can see doing that as a as a with a government ownership aspect like a utility utilities have defined rates of return on the invested
capital okay so there's no games of it it we're going to make more money if we play this game or that game you know uh so that's that's kind of I can see that scenario but it should be at a a higher level than just East bethl it should be
on a regional Statewide or Beyond level in my opinion so there is there is sometimes overlap a little bit with your Eda and the HRA when it comes to commercial type of you know work and um and either one can do the function it's
not you know the goal is obviously to to um identify those those areas where you want Improvement and to proactively go after them purchase them if there's a sale
that's languishing out there just not selling the city steps in um and uh and we often get times calls of what what does a city own and you know I might be interested in something um but that's kind of where an
HRA can can potentially go if you want to go there how much money are we talking about a year coming in like that well the levy is 77k at present yeah I mean we can run analysis
on that of what other hras are are doing but I would say it's probably 250 minimum 250 minimum for what for a levy as far as what it should be as far as if you're going to start building up a a
chest of money to be able to make these purchases and make some move some puzzle pieces around the board you would have to 12,000 a year isn't going to do it obviously 12,000 is because of the bed off of the other 65 you know even even
77,000 at today's price of commercial property I mean oh yeah I know if it's a million dollar commercial property you've got four years of banking some dollars to to pay cash on it it's project management money right put together the project package it and then deal with people who might want to do
something with it yeah and everything thing along the corridor I think is you know is not um that's not something that's going to languish necessarily if it's pad ready and you know available uh for development if there's you got to take a building down and clean up refu
and everything else people can't might shy away from that um but uh but there's properties that are selling out there right now I mean uh boat World purchased one right next door and there's some other ones that um that will probably be
going for sale at you know soon here um there's some that need to hook up to city sewer and water and that kind of changes the you know the thinking as far as ownership goes and so any other thoughts among council
members where staff I was just Matt I didn't confirm and I I remember early on in the conversation now the the the sales tax money coming for housing does not have to be spent it can be spent in I think it's just three-year window where you can hold on to it before you
have to spend the first year sure and then the you know then it would multiply itself out so you wouldn't have to decide on that is it 25,000 was that correct on that I'm not sure I was trying to find cambridge's number what we Levy just for to answer
your question but um and I'm not even sure if rules and guidance have come out on this how to spend and what yeah it's all again getting back to the starting points for me the starting points seem to be the priorities you know it was sold to the
residents of East bethl as an H not as a supplement to pay the staff specifically you know I don't believe so I don't recall it being sold as that sure and so it's just like okay well if that's what the priorities are supposed to be then what are our priorities as a
community first second third just three that's all it takes to accomplish 90% of whatever we're going to do and it's yeah it's not enough money to you know in and of itself to accomplish a whole lot but at least if we can focus on what our
priorities are that would be a helpful step so if with that what uh what's our next step on this topic as far as putting together some priorities would it be you and Aaron putting your massive brains together and coming up with a
list or well again again I I think you know one of your priorities is cleaning up right up bladed properties so identifying what those what properties might fit that category a second one would be housing you know low-income housing that may or may not be a
priority um but um for me it would be it's a priority in in the current economic realities it's just nothing it's not one that we can do in and of ourselves or that there's you know people in East Beth I can't imagine them
being you know you know being hot to trot on that one they're when they're having trouble affording their own properties yeah and then another one would be unsanitary or unsafe you know conditions like for example if if there
are septic systems that are failing and people can't afford to you know replace them we might you know invest in a line to reach them so that sewer can be hooked up you know or or something along that line you can you can look at those type of projects too um they can get
expensive though drag and pipe well why don't uh why don't we plan to have and whoever you want to participate just have a sit down sometime the next couple three weeks and bring it up with uh some ideas on the priorities where where would these
blighted residences with the uh resistance to improving the conditions where would that fall in this scenario you know people who you know there have been complaints of adjacent properties so it
is driven it's driven by complaints there they've been notified that the situation is not okay and there's no motivation or willingness or whatever to correct the situation does that factor into this at
all we're going to be talking about that kind of on the next two um items on the agenda why we just go into them then but I I think that's going to fall more into an abatement conversation right batement what I'm talking about yeah um but uh
but if there's you know say there's a um a known violator that's trying to sell their property or something the city might might step in and buy it and clean it and you know and resell it at that point that's an option
um well I I know the city used to buy properties on Lake at one point and they own one that's on Lincoln and Cedar got a garden in a park it's about all it's there or a park bench I mean the properties are so tiny
right yeah I was actually thinking when I brought it up we can go right into the other thing is like Bridge Capital so the city pays the cost of abatement and instead of waiting forever until you know the person decides to sell the property and it's attached to
the sale that uh you know you it provides Bridge Capital instead of waiting sure so but maybe maybe we should just go right into the next item so number two now is Jeremy fosa
baitman so Mr Mayor the next two items um are people that um we've put together kind of a laundry list of times we've made contact with them over the years and um and the question becomes I mean
it used to be I think where staff used to direct legal you know at that point um and I think the new process that we have in place is to bring it to council kind of explain the whole situation lay it out and get your um Get Your Blessing
if that you know that is the case on whether we we start pursuing this the next uh in the next capacity that is a legal capacity at this point so Aaron's put together a rundown of these properties and
um do you want to switch over to my screen I can provide a little bit of History here so the first one um on the new agenda is 921 235th Avenue Northeast we were first the city was first
introduced to this property back in 2018 uh you can see we submitted a notice of multiple violations on October 30th of 2018 we provided a second notice because nothing had been taken care of uh on October 22 of a year
later um it appears that there was some um movement and so the city slowed down on um pursuing uh the cleanup however um uh looks like then back uh 2019 only a
month later uh there was was a stop in progress and we submitted a final notice for the same violations November of 21 um there so there's a a year or Gap or so there so there must have been some
cleanup uh and then we reverted back to the same behavior uh went back to storing of vehicles commercial vehicles uh very similar violations uh January of 21 we at the um
City administrators uh Direction sent the occupant a final notice because of all the previous history uh they were issued a citation March of 22 the first citation uh second citation April of 22 third citation June
of 22 uh it looks like all the citations were paid by July uh and things were cleaned up and now we're back to essentially the square one again where there's an accumulation of vehicles the
neighbors are now getting a hold of the mpca um and Anoka County due to antifreeze engine fluids potentially uh burying a car in the backyard near the Wetland um they believe that their water
uh tastes different now and as it continues so staff have periodically noticed the resident posting and selling vehicles and vehicle parts on Facebook Marketplace sites um he's been cited multip mle times for um not having a
home occupation um uh I did go out to the site today uh and took some photographs um here's the street view of the house you can see uh a stockpile of vehicles here off to the back
corner um he has a second driveway which he's been cited multiple times for he's not allowed a second driveway because of his residential Zone you can see Vehicles lined up here the city owns property across the pond so I was able to access the back side of the property and I count what I can count in the
picture is 11 Vehicles here there's a uh flatbed tow truck here's a skid steer another skid steer here's another truck a trailer there's a crushed vehicle on a trailer um there's more cars up along in the sidey yard here so clearly we're
back to the same behavior the city steps in we clean it up and then there goes a little bit of lull and then we go back to the same behavior again so we've reached the stage where we need to know uh is Council um comfortable with us
submitting this to our attorney for criminal charges or should we initiate the notice citation process all over again which we've embarked on since 2018 and haven't had Real Results can you email these to
us I would hesitate to do that well you don't have to email the pictures but I mean the the data that you were talking oh the calendar stuff I can do that yeah my brain isn't yeah keeping it all in quite that if if we decide to go legal these pictures would be used uh in
evidentiary uh light and we don't want to make them public at this point in a in a work meeting by Distributing them but I just wanted to show you what it looked like today when we were out there um have there been discussions with the occupant with the
homeowner not not during the most recent um stages but this is a uh overview of the property from earlier this spring where you can see the vehicle started to accumulate but then the pictures I took today there are significantly more this
property's only allowed one driveway access um he at some point reestablished Turf but is now back to using the driveway again we don't allow commercial vehicles in a residential Zone um you can see a bullpen here full of vehicle
parts um here's the commercial tow truck uh here 9 921 235th 9212 235th Avenue yeah is that like a drainage Pond back there
this is um yeah it connects to Anderson Lake this is our Anderson Anderson Park and this is the the next stop from Anderson Park really yep so um the neighbors are generating complaints CU they don't think the city is responsive
they're going to the mpca and Anoka County now environmental because the city isn't responding well we are responding and he's coming into compliance but then when we stop looking then he reverts back to the same behavior until we get another complaint
and then we start code enforcement again so um home occupation is a problem because we're not we don't allow a home occupation in the residential areas for uh Parts uh auto mechanics those kind of
things as you know on his uh social media sites he's got um as I mentioned he's selling cars selling car parts um selling
snowmobiles other items junked out cars which are all prohibited in our current version of a home occupation and this is a platted subdivision this is a platted subdivision don't you need a uh dealers license over
a cero card if you sell five or more a year you should have a uh permission from your local zoning code or your zoning official uh to apply for a dealer's license with the Department of Public Safety what do the neighbors think of it the neighbors are the ones
making the complaints okay now you don't need no names yeah no um and part of the home occupation is noise and vibration and their complaints they're talking about the skid steers moving around all day unloading and loading of cars fluids uh all things that we prohibit in a home
occupation so again we are back to square one basically from 2018 when we were first introduced to the problem this is like the third third girl round and what's your recommendation or either one of you or both well Mr Mayor I'm sure we can make
contact with them we can spend the next three years trying to get compliance we probably won't get compliance uh and at some point we need to lack of a better term turn up the heat in order to get compliance on this
um it's um I if you if I was a neighbor looking at that I'd probably be a little upset too yeah yeah well other than the people on the other side of the lake looks like there's tree lines that kind of block yeah I can tell you the complaint came
from his immediate neighbor this last one to the mpca she was willing to leave her information with them um Anoka County contacted her and then she was relayed to us through Anoka County Environmental so we all at this point
kind of have a so a known person that signed a complaint with the state that there's a violation happening at her neighbor within her neighborhood so so from the county follow back into the city's lap to enforce yeah and if we wanted to turn this over to the county we certainly could um but they're going
to come to us every time they need documentation or assistance or help or I mean so we're kind of we're in the driver's seat at this point what we want to do well if the county took care of it they'd pay for it right and go after
whoever well once they I mean once the county exhausts the fact that maybe he remedies the dump of um antifreeze and oil we still have you know several city code violations multiple Vehicles junk
Vehicles no home occupation so their enforcement is limited to automobile fluids so we have a bigger uh horse in this race I think than they do but they also have some responsibility if we
asked them to would that be the County or the npca well so as far as the fluids the fluids went to the county they forwarded their complaint to Anoka County Environmental Services who handles automobile reduction yards and
fluid storage and Disposal you know what you know what I'm thinking of the business on 65 you know the one I'm thinking about that's how we found out that they were there too and this is not the same no people no yeah so Aon has anybody actually went out there and talked
physically or they just sent letters and stuff to him um he's been in numerous times not recently in in the prior cases he always comes in and Pays His fines and cleans it up and then goes back to run bus yeah I think that's the cost of doing business for him pays the fines
and then puts her on the back shelf for a little bit or does it starts again does it uh surreptitiously and then uh turns around and gets away with it long enough and gets uh Brave again or forgets yeah that the city was involved and uh uh here we are we're back at
square one like I said so and as you can see from that historical document we started in 2018 and it took us until 2022 to get them all paid up and and cleaned up so that's a lot of Staff time
unfortunately we'll have to do code enforcement uh inspections and generate letters and he's refused letters in the past from the city and then you generate another letter or we've used the Sheriff's Office to serve letters before and so I
mean it it it it's kind of I'm assuming it's a game for him to some degree if he can avoid it as long as possible well at this point he knows he's doing wrong he's been notified well enough by the
city that this is not allowed and yet he keeps doing it he's been given plenty of chances already so at one point what could are rules if we don't en force them well it's kind of yeah and it's
kind of like either you spend the money through staff time or you just bite the bullet and spend it with the attorney you know and uh you know the attorney we we spend a flat fee every month for prosecution so this would be added to
their list of issues they need to deal with and uh it would go to court and and a judge would decide what the um know circumstances would for punishment I guess somebody correct me but it doesn't seem to me there's much Choice
here because I mean I mean we can embark on another three-year journey to to clean up that's what I mean is on the regular meeting agenda a night is advertising for a city planner right and that's to lighten the load on you so you
can get more important things done than all the things that they could be learning on and and and all that and uh so it seems seems kind of counterintuitive to do one and not pursue the other you know that's my thoughts what do you guys
think no I agree with you Kevin no way that's your first mistake right there no no if it's if it's covered by our attorney on the podium there yeah I mean it's it's not extra cost of the city
correct no so in that nature I mean we have an attorney for a reason yeah in this case it's a clear reason yeah we should utilize I would anticipate we'll spend probably an eight hour day um doing the report to the attorney but
once we turn it over to the attorney then it's done it's out of our hands and we need to you know generate a report based on the historical record so that when it does get to court the judge can see and we want to make sure we have accurate facts in there and and not generic dates because they're going to want to
know are we in agreement that long as it don't become a slippery slope and it's found that well this is kind of easy way to do it let's eliminate our normal steps now and let's just go right to the attorney no we'll continue the process this was at yourg guys's request to
bring these when bring it up when they get to thisel to come to you we take the next step so that's that's why we're here today this is the first one since uh since you introduce the new idea of wanting to see the cases this is the first one that's reached that stage
apparently with the past history we appear to be in agreement okay okay very good we have no choice all right okay the second one is the item three or the Magnuson rental property there's a um rental property along 65
that um we have been communicating with trying to communicate with trying to get them to comply with the rental ordinance um trying to inspect a property make sure it's safe living conditions Etc uh and there's been a failure to return any sort
of uh letter sent out no one answers the doors did you say this is on 65 I believe it's on 65 yeah yeah right next to there was a gentleman that came in here the Greg I can pull it up here
yeah it's a house a business it's a house it's a house okay if you want to bring up my screen I can so the complainant lives here this house is what he's identifying as a rental house it's owned by someone else not in
our city but there are people living there and whereabouts is this approximately um across from just south of Cooper's Corner cross from the the trucking facility there or North County concrete North yeah North Country
Concrete yeah um D and D Trucking uh it's on the service road yeah almost up to council member Miller's neighborhood there a little farther up how would that
up but yeah we get uh we sent a certified letter saying hey we've got uh junk and debris in the yard that we need cleaned up and we have a rental ordinance in the city of East bethl you don't live in the home you live in another city uh there's occupants of
this home it appears to be a rental please fill out a rental application and we got a signed receipt back that the letter was received but no one reached out to us so by the end of the month we will be um sending another letter trying
to get a resp response before citations start getting issued for non compliance how long has this been to deal with that um Greg's been complaining for some time um who's been who's been Greg the neighbor oh okay um my understanding is he would only meet with the city
administrator the previous City administrator when he came into the building um and so now that that administrator is gone we have a new city administrator um we've we've had our department has met with him now and he's about formal complaints and we're moving
forward with the new process so this is the first return since we've sent the letter out does the person who owns the property they live in Minnesota they do Ham Lake y Ham Lake so this boils down to kind of a public safety scenario I mean there can
be some unsafe living conditions electrical conditions things of that nature that right is one of the I was I was a landlord at one point I never cared much for the um uh rental licensing because I ran a a decent house a nice house um that's not
the case everywhere and so um it's there for a reason uh if there's nothing to see they come in they check I mean they're out just that quick yeah if there's things to see uh and things that are mold in the basement or hanging
electrical wires or you know leaking pipes or whatever the case is uh something where um people can get injured or sick or ill from it um those things have to be fixed if they want to if they want to rent and um and so this
is you know again we can we can go through this process of sending letters and citations and they probably won't get paid and we I mean um it's it's kind of at kind of one of those gray areas now of do you do you engag the attorneys
to send you know documentation that's a little more serious now how long has this been going well according to the complaint it's a long time but um we got his formal written uh complaint early
July so we started Jack was here obviously but yeah it's been going on for much longer he was only willing to meet with Jack until now so I have no idea and none of that was ever documented we in our in our code enforcement system
there's a complaint about work without a permit at that location um but nothing else regarding a rental license so what are what are our options as far as assuming you have a persistently uncooperative property
owner what are our options as far as calling for an inspection of the property just like a welfare check just we just want to make sure the the place is safe you know so the complainant has called the Sheriff's Office multiple times and the the deputies have
responded and been there for a variety of things in like I think the last one was because there were kids yelling or something so yeah I mean he's he's doing whatever he can to to get people there to understand that this is not
uh shouldn't be in his neighborhood so we've gotten no response from this guy at all nope the the uh receipt was actually the receipt wasn't signed for so the Postal Service just delivered um we have no proof that was delivered of and the receipt came back
and the letter has not been returned to us as on deliverable so in our world that is as good as delivered but we don't know if they actually signed for it or not I mean if they if the person we were intending it to get to got there or if it was just delivered to the mailbox because there was no one home
are we sending it to that house or we sending no we're sending it to the owner's house y so what would our next step be to have the attorney send a letter to the owner's house or we uh generate another letter letter and have the Sheriff's Office deliver it for us to we that way we verify that it's been
hand delivered to would it hold more ground though if we had the attorney's name on it versus just us if they're not responding already to us possibly yeah yeah I because I think is this also also included on our monthly my opinion would be that I would
think they would act a little different when they see an attorney's name on it right you know maybe but then maybe not I'm sorry this also included in our monthly stifen with the attorney yes this would be prosecution as they as they say in parts
of the country it couldn't height you know I I I mean if and and if they come into compliance obviously prosecution's dropped at that point oh yeah so I'm not looking to get into it no one's going to pursue it when there's compliance no judge will take
that I mean nobody's saying it but we're you know oh all we want is compliance right if it's a rental just fill out the license it's a good it's a two-year license let us come and do the inspection make sure things are safe and we walk we're done yeah L attorney
Larson hello I want to be interrupting are you still working on your work session yeah come on in come on in come on in make yourself to um so if if that's the will of the council we can certainly have that letter drafted and see if we can try
that angle to see if that up a little bit Yeah know it's not that you know it's not that we enjoy doing this that we would rather have full compliance and just make it easy but um yep but unfortunately there's
some lack of willingness to comply here well I mean rental properties and maybe it's my bias from living near Lake Beach for 28 and a half years but rental properties are often rented for purposes that aren't exactly
up and conforming with current laws you know put it that way and Mr Mayor that may be one of the fears that that is you know in there right now is perhaps there's there is people that shouldn't be in there whatever the case is that's not what the city is looking for you
know we're looking for safety related I know on Lake Beach it was meth houses right 20 years ago and sooner people would run a house and next thing you know there's odd smells coming from it and people coming and going all times of the night and didn't take a whole lot
of time to figure out what was going on it wasn't good that seems to have run its course thankfully well unfortunately people who get involved in that tend to run their course right you know and it's not it's not
good and and I don't want to give the council the the the you know the idea that we have an infraction and we just want to go legal on it you know we we we'll go through the process of sending letters and yeah and um and that does take a significant amount of staff time
to do yeah we can't waste documentation and everything and um can't waste our staff's time but when I when I bring some of these up to Nick and Nick kind of hangs his head from a history of non-compliance I it's pretty easy to pick up what he's laying down that um
that it's my God I have to work yeah what the heck's wrong with me well it's uh you know I can see I can see where it's challenging and and um and frustrating can be yeah right because there is a difference when we
want to try and work with the residents or we want to be ignored right and we can't be ignored yeah our code enforcement letter the the end in our code enforcement letter is encouraging them to reach out to us so that we can facilitate conversation
about how we can help them make their property legal you know it's not a it's not a heavy-handed enforcement letter until we reach letter number four then a citation of company's letter number four that's when it gets a little more serious so we we take about three months
to try and help them come into compliance before we get to that language so okay all right everyone everyone's okay with that one yeah okay well Mr Mayor we've got
um very little time left here um and uh the next items we may want to push to the next meeting if you would like I I would like to know one thing and that is because I looked at our ordinances and I looked at the last time they were changed and that's not a very good
indication of the dates things occurred but if it's possible it would be good to know the dates of the last time the uh compensation for council members
and commission members was changed y That's a simple question I staff can certainly research that we can we can bring that back and um put this on the next work session that we have whether it's the next one or the ones following just a piece of information we should
know and we can uh we can add to the work session too because we'll have more time probably to deal with other items so okay and that's about it anybody else got something for the work
session no good to adjourn now we can uh adjourn and we'll reconvene at 7 o'cl for a regular city council meeting okay