##VIDEO ID:eaaj51NuACw## e e e e okay uh we'll call to order the October 20 8 2024 regular meeting of the East bethl Minnesota city council please join us in saying the Pledge of Allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the repblic for it stands one nation under God indivisible with liy and justice for all is there a reason why that that flag should be higher the American flag a little bit make a motion to adopt tonight's agenda I would like to add the Capstone public sector Solutions invoice to the bills list under the consent agenda second okay we have the motion made in seconded to adopt to adopt the agenda as amended all in favor say I I I opposed none heard uh just right before we uh ask Jerry strike to come up and give his presentation on the Capstone LLC his company's uh presentation of the fire department study that they conducted I just wanted to mention one thing um and that is that it's the city council's duty to do due diligence over everything paid for by the city of East bethl within the purview of the city of East bethl so that's what the impetus was for this study was just wanting to know from an independent highly experienced party are we doing all we can as a fire department as a city and all that and uh that was the intent just felt it necessary to say that um with that I'd like to invite up Mr Jerry strike of Capstone LLC to give us a presentation on the results of his study thank you Jerry all right mayor city council good evening uh back in March as you know we met met to talk about the Minnesota State Fire Service what it all entailed how it all functioned and worked and uh then we moved into an agreement and uh because of some personal commitments I started a scope of work related to your fire department in mid June so I'm here today to to talk about that with you all and answer some questions we're going to stay at a high level uh if you will and uh answer as many questions as I can in this in this 75 minute presentation I'm just so you remember the last presentation we had we talked about what law requires a fire department in the state of Minnesota and the fact is there's no law that requires a fire department to even exist it's a fire service and it's driven by the townships or the council City council's wishes to provide services to their community and in this case it's responding to fires and explosions entrapments rescues of all types in this community um smells and bells every medical call your firefighters on to the the national first responder day are rocket androll in this community every day when they get a 911 call but it's really important for the community to know that this this service and all it entails is driven by the city council and because there's no law that requires a fire department to exist there are laws that are required for a community to follow and one of those is chapter 12 the Emergency Management plan you're required by law to have an Emergency Operations plan uh for a disaster and a disaster would be defined as some sort of incident that buries your resources to the point you sort of fall to your knees and this is a time when city council stays at a policy level decision- making process during the disaster there's an emergency manager that's appointed by the mayor that happens to be the local fire chief that's been appointed that position and uh we work together with all of our resources in the community and then almost like an onion we we open up into like a regional response a Statewide response a state to state and a state or federal response there are some incidents that will go immediately from a a a local response to a federal response in a heartbeat such as an active shooter or maybe even a bank robbery a school shooting those kinds of things will ramp up right away to local law enforcement FBI and so on being involved there is a state law that requires that there is a a Statewide Fire code as there is a building code I'll call them the model of codes so you are all are using like the International Code Council model of codes and within that code is the plumbing code the electrical code the building code and and the fire code now there's a lot of data that says if you focus on prevention it'll actually have an impact where we give people knowledge about how to reduce fires from occurring and it will in fact work because knowledge is power and we don't know what we don't know but the state is a uh fire code that requires uh owners to meet it and your city has a fire inspector who goes out to ensure that the city is protected uh the best they can by conducting inspections now you look at that a couple different ways it's not only going to help save life and property but inspections also save your tax base because if you have a fire in your community such as a residential structure the structure is no longer taxed and assessor can come and they'll move that tax to property tax only rather than or the lot tax rather than the full value so fire codes fire prevention is actually really important uh criminal background checks are required on all your firefighters by state law if we do a recruitment campaign and somebody has a history with a felony or arson or a couple other uh things they won't be allowed to be a firefighter in Minnesota so that's a state law um you're required if there's a death in your community uh you're required to call the State Fire Marshall's office for an investigation of that fire Death typically the fire chief would learn of the fire Death along with the Sheriff's Office they'd work together notify the administrator ramps it up and we start to talk about communication planning and all that kind of stuff fire investigation uh you you're required by law to conduct a fire investigation for all fire loss greater than $100 so that means pretty much everything and that's been in place since 1901 and the reason for that is because the state and the nation wants they want to know what they figh problem is so your fire department after every incident fills in a report in check boxes that eventually gets uploaded into the state uh Mur system which goes into the national system which ultimately tells us what our fire problem is and then we give that to prevention people to reduce it to try to reduce it uh confidential data just like you in City Hall confidential data the fire department is required to protect that uh such as things that come on their phone and pagers we're not supposed to talk about people's incidents we're supposed to protect data hazardous materials investigate disseminate issues that's a state law you have to mitigate any kind of Hazard material and then of course OSHA has we're in OSHA state in Minnesota it's actually one of the threats that we need to talk about because OSHA is looking to forward their rules uh 40 years hasn't been looked at the fire brigade uh rules haven't been looked at for 40 years but they're looking to fast forward that 40 years because over the last 200 years we continue to harm and kill firefighters exactly the same way so that will put a lot of mandates on this community in the future uh so we want to make sure we stay a breast of that but the important part to note is there are some laws that you're required to have and when we conducted the invest there the uh invest investigation and the research on your community we can see that you asked me in the end of my contract to review your emergency operation plan you have a plan and uh that plan needs to be constantly updated and reviewed if if you have a plan and it sits on a shelf and you can blow dust off it it's not really a plan right so we need to continue to do some training I believe the fire chief said he recently did some training and you're talking about you know the emergency operation plan and so on so let's move into the East bethl fire department uh East bethl is unique in this County and probably in most of the metro in that you're one of the cities that are managing three fire stations with what I call a volunteer fire department so state law has two definitions defining a firefighter it's you're either a full-time firefighter in state law or you're a volunteer firefighter and within the volunteer definition this state and nation has many different models of how they operate and although we have the same Mission and purpose we operate differently and that's under your control uh no two fire departments are exactly the same but your model is of a volunteer fire department you have a full-time fire chief who manages those volunteers they get paid by hour and they get paid a pension pension and hourly equals total compensation when you when you take all that together and you you get to see the total compensation of that firefighter and what they're receiving we'll get into that in a little bit you recently hired a fire inspector and uh that fire inspector goes out does fire inspections but that fire inspector also does a lot of things to manage the daily operation of the organization so the fire chief is is appointed by you all and managed by the city administrator and he's tasked to manage a pretty complex system of emergency responders fire stations multiple pieces of equipment HR and so on WE we'll get into that later uh and the fire inspector goes through their inspections and I reviewed those and he's continually updating and doing inspections and putting stuff in reports and uh the fire inspector for one hour of fire inspection he's probably spending two hours on reports and catchup and code review to try to write the code and and come back and do uh inspections and reinspection uh at the time of the review at 31 volunteer firefighters and it's projected I believe at the end of this year will be at 1,033 calls 1,033 calls is a lot of calls to go on for 31 people uh that's a call 1.4 calls a day I believe it was that we're we're on we're in uh forward motion to meet so during this uh this review uh I met with all of you and as I told the firefighters because I met with them about the survey last uh Friday as well or Monday um is when I met with each one of the council members uh you all had the same the same thing to say are we doing it well and what can we do to support the firefighters and uh I think that's I'm it's very commendable for you to to be focused on this in my opinion uh because fire departments that go through this get an outside view of what somebody else sees and we can start to move the the the ship in a different direction if we need to to make it better I met with theity administrator on multiple occasions and in line with them met with the fire chief on multiple occasions the fire inspector I met with each of uh the fire officers uh and keep in mind the fire chief is the full-tim that there's a little branch of the fire inspector and then in order to manage the span of control of those three stations the fire chief appoints fire officers and this is known as our fire hierarchy firefighter Lieutenant Captain uh District Chief and then the fire chief right so you're supposed to go to your supervisors first and eventually it goes up the chain and if it needs to get to the chief it gets to the chief uh the chief is managing this the the largest Department in the city uh you know 31 people in it and the spanic control needs to needs to be shared um the firefighters I met with with half of the firefighters uh and and most of most of them in person so I met with a lot of people uh I met with the Anoka County Sheriff's Office we went and had coffee I met with Ela ambulance who provides your Ambulance Service and I met with uh through messaging and phone calls and email with all of the area fire chiefs that would come into your area through mutual a so we got a really good perspective of of the fire department and and how people feel about it we also put together a 75 question survey for the firefighters I I promised the firefighters that if they completed it and you know uh they're all professional with it um that I would come back and show them the commonalities of what their peers thought and that's what I did prior to coming here and because maybe because I promise that 80% of the firefighters responded to that survey so that is not typical we would you know hope for a half but uh 80% responded to it then the questions varied as you saw in the report from how do you feel about pumping from a fire Tru sort of giv an idea and a wide range for a bunch of people in the organization from the training officer can now use this report to say hey we could do some more training on Emergency Management or on pumping or on medical stuff and then you know how is our culture how's our leadership staff where do you think we need uh we need to work uh to to to have more fun and to stay here right and uh so those questions went all well but the firefighters are summed up when I sum up the report today what do they really want believe it or not one of the number one things they want is accountability and uh we talked about that the other day they want they want people held accountable they want to be held accountable and I always say that's a double- ed because when you're held accountable you never want to be held accountable right so uh they want good quality training they don't want to waste their time and we talked about this before but for the volunteer time is the new money today and uh I know we've talked about this in past but I for the last four years have conducted a Statewide Recruitment and Retention plan across the entire State I was contracted by the Minnesota State Fire Department Association and that ends next month and uh I'm likely going to go to another state and do the exact same thing but here's what I know is time is is changed from when I started in the 80s and I could just run to the station any time uh firefighters today want to make sure that when they come to training it's well prepared and we're not just wasting their time right they they want to be safe they want to make sure their equipment is safe that they feel safe safe their command system is working well that there's an understanding in the organization not just the fire department all the way up to the council there's an understanding that we're all human and I may not be able to make that event or life just happened and I couldn't make it um they want respect as we all do they want uh uh good quality leadership from the lieutenant all the way up to the fire chief to to the May they want quality leadership and um that's important to them I wanted to put this together because I think there's a misunderstanding of what actually happens in a volunteer fire department a volunteer fire department does not mean that nobody's getting paid and we're just sitting around uh not doing anything but these are just some of the high level things the fire chief deals with every day from recruiting and retaining people to all the data practices the flsa the OSHA rules the just all of the requirements related with human resources and fitness and who's fit for Duty and uh payroll and state reporting and on and on and on to managing every piece of equipment from a pump that doesn't work to a tire that's popped to a saw that doesn't start um all of that comes through the fire office and that individual has to manage it and quite frankly sometimes is just too much sometimes there's a lot lot to do with with for for one person all the agreements and keeping up with policies and procedures the budget purchases and and so on from a response perspective this community is a compilation of a lot of things that can happen uh I know from digging a lot of fire scenes here back in the day uh that you you've you've had a number of homes that have had fires you have Wildland fires that move into the urban interface and start homes and garages on fire you have a very active Highway 65 some of the most impactful crashes in our County have been on you've got a Waterway you've got snowmobile UTV through the ice it's there's you have commercial property you have a lot of things that can happen and every new home every new commercial building every new maybe even roadway creates or could create a new risk for for the community uh and we keep adding these risks on to the 31 staff members that we have and we'll get into that why that is so important to talk about and you may remember this response time Matrix when the Anoka County uh 911 communications center receives a 911 call the the telecommun communicator picks up the phone and they automatically get a automatic location indicator and number indicator if it's called from an identifi source and that call taker may take two minutes to enter that s into their CAD computer A dispatch system all of the calls are preloaded into CAD the fire chief works with the dispatch to determine okay if this incident type comes out like a CO alarm in a home we're going to send a duty officer there like a single unit with one person in it not an entire station but if this call comes in and they type in structure like a structure fire not only are all three stations going to come but if it's daytime we may call Ham Lake iany and and and our neighboring Departments of them help us at the exact same time known as aoid all right so when we talk about medical in a little while we'll talk about those codes and those IDs that that go into CAD well then there's a dispatch time where the dispatcher actually has to use the computer and dispatch it we're automatically dispatched by a computer today in fact your firefighters don't hear a human voice they hear a digital voice announcing the call when they go in service uh then they start to communicate with a human they do have your firefighters have computerated dispatch is your touchcreen working Chief can you go and Route and stuff now you can start okay yeah so but rather than talking on the radio and garbling all up you can just put in rou and on scene through a touch of a screen so you have a lot of technology in your uh your equipment here that's connected directly to the computer A dispatch so when dispatch types in something man with a gun blue shirt blah blah blah the firefighter can see it they can stage they can do whatever based off the information they see well then there's this thing known as turnout time all of you have a pager on your hip you're doing whatever you do during your life pager goes off because the 911 system activated you they typed in the address which says East bethl it it goes into a Geo file and says that's station two and you're all on station two your pager goes off you listen to the call and we know that we need an engine or two to go to that incident so you your firefighters right now your volunteers are trying to decide if if it's the right time to go if it's my anniversary that night it's not a good idea for me to go if it's at Co alarm you know what I mean if it's a structure fire maybe everybody's going to come but they have to make a decision if it's a good time for them to go or not if they decide to go the time starts for turnout time turnout time is from the time of alarm and that decis decision is made to go on getting to the station getting assembled in the equipment that you need with a group and then getting in the truck and driving to the seat all right so once you get that group assemble assembled and you're sitting in the truck now response time starts so when you get phone calls that say it took 20 minutes for you guys to get there sometimes as a chief I was like that's pretty dang good on a Easter Sunday you know when everybody's at church but it's important for the council to know you're not a f minute water on the fire kind of Department all right you're you're you're you're you're you have a longer response time because your fire service model is using volunteers who may be at home Home Depot on their snowmobile wherever they're at that turnout time matters and that can that turnout time can be up to 12 minutes there are some departments in this state that are up to 15 minutes because their volunteer uh recruitment is so low did you have a question mayor so then there's response time and once the uh response arrives then they have to set up the job the scene and the National Fire Protection Association says you should be able to do that in like two minutes pull the right line get the pumping gauge get water in the line decide if you're going in if you're going to make a grab whatever you're going to do you're going to cut the person out you should be able to make a decision on that and and the important part is uh those are handled by your your citizens in this community who have offered to do it uh in in their voice on the survey they're doing it because they want to do something bigger for their Community they're not doing it for the money right so um the response time is really important so the scope of work that you asked me to provide is are we doing it well and within the report it goes into much more detail but in the interest of time today I'm going to take you through what we know as a SWAT analysis A strengths weaknesses opportunities and threats so what are the strengths East bethl is very well respected the the fire department is very well respected everyone I talk to says when they get on the scene they know what they're doing they have the equipment they're excited to be there and and and they leave and that's all we would we could ask for is there I didn't hear one person of all those people I talked to say those guys are and gals are a bunch of Knuckleheads you're they're just well-respected fire department I've only known it that way and I've been in this County for 30 years longer so um the firefighters plan to stay you saw in the survey that most of the firefighters are going to stay here more than 10 years which is a positive um their your equipment is wellmaintained uh I didn't see a lot of equip equipment uh in disarray uh I know the chief wants to make a couple little tweaks to some response Vehicles which I think is a good idea it's actually going to save you a couple hundred, um but uh the equipment's in well well repair in fact when I asked the firefighters what equipment you saw it in the report what equipment do you feel you need right now most of them said I feel like we're pretty good we have enough equipment right now to do what we need to do the job people are well trained they like to be trained you use a variety of trainers in your community from the outside and inside and I'm always a fan of someone from the outside coming in to give us A New Perspective in our training uh just making sure as we talked about at our meeting that it's realistic for East bethl we don't have a Chicago Fire coming in here and talking about a 28 story highrise when we don't have a 28 story highrise so uh but but but they're well trained you have a variety of uh of you know just really good people and it's a really cool Department quite frankly uh what are some of the weaknesses I put leadership change in there and I've been part of this myself um when there's a new leader in the organization you can expect some sort of disruption right and in a new position and uh firefighters sort of feel that new wave you had you had the assistant chief here for 30 something years who was the chief I think almost in the same position and you had an outside Chief come in for a long time who had a lot of experience and connected across the state and when you leave use leave both of those at the same time there's a time to sort of learn and regroup and and connect right uh you're not going to capture all those years in whoever comes in you know and I've been hired from the outside several times um the department is complex there's there's three stations uh three stations sort of have their own cultures you know when you hang around a group you sort of get group thinking your station is better than the rest or whatever it is but we need to get together as I said in the report until the firefighters is one Department not three departments we need to be one but it's compl not only the incidents you respond to but the number of people that you have to a variety of of demographics then when we talk about generational differences although that isn't something I'm going to say that's the reason why but we know our baby boomers want a phone call uh but we know Jen's ears want a text so when you see in the report Communications terrible well from what I witnessed is we we we're sending out emails we send out text messages and we have a newsletter and I've seen on every event I have the chief or someone in front telling people about what's going on in the department so uh it's just a variety of of uh I'm going to say ideas of what good communication is um the stations are aging I heard a number of times that Station 2 is aging that uh there isn't a a lot of area for them to just hang out if they wanted to there uh there there's no capture for exhaust those kinds of things uh you can work with the chief on but they're they the station two is aging uh station three there's there's a lot of discussion about that station because it's hard to recruit for that station uh so we have to keep focusing on on on how Station 3 plays into it too um and succession planning I put and we'll see in the end here succession planning is really important it's really important to have a a number two after a number one because right now you have a full-time Chief and the next in the hierarchy with with the hierarchial power would be your District Chiefs who are volunteers so it's important to have some sort of hierarchy so that you can continue the progress within if you wish and you're not uh you know constantly looking for the next person so what are the threats the number one threat on my list is is retention uh we have a retention problem in the state of Minnesota and in this nation I'm not convinced we have a recruitment problem I think uh this Council and councils across the country can do things that will inspire people to come to this this organization it just takes time planning and it has to be a daily Focus uh to to keep people here and we talked about in the uh we'll get into it when we uh look at the recommendations but but because time is money money is money and with with Town Homes AT3 to $400,000 and homes you know just skyrocketing with interest rates and so on anything we can do to to assist our volunteers with some sort of monthly income to inspire them to come we help them even though some you know most of them will say I'm not here for that um the hierarchy jumping we call it is is when people you know just they go all through the hierarchy from they they bypass the lieutenant and talk to the captain and so on all the way up to the all the way up to the uh the council if you will but hierarchy jumping uh making sure and supporting a clear hierarchy within the organization is really important uh I've heard a number of times about call volume uh you're at 1,033 calls that's a lot of calls with 80% of those medical uh and if I I don't know and I will see that your fire department has a data expert on their team and they they have really good data and if you broke up the 80% I don't know how many of those calls we could determine as high priority versus low priority like I can die if someone doesn't come or I have a bleeding tattoo scan you know there's there's a high and a low priority where can we make the biggest impact as a volunteer department and what types of calls do you all want them to go to uh so we'll talk about call volume and then there's always threats of reputation of course you know what people say what goes on we're always protecting our reputation we're always protecting uh what what may come in the news or uh what happens on an incident uh so those that's a typical one that's put into threat is today especially with the use of social media and phones and everything else uh we have to protect our reputation but there are a lot of opportunities in this town and this is what's exciting about these types of reviews is your community is changing and I I've probably driven through your community 40 times and you have a lot of New Roads you have houses down the road that one's finally up wasn't up when I drove through there earlier it's all up you got lots of things happening new commercial area you just you just have a lot of opportunity with your demographics and the age of your demographics is at the perfect age for recruiting where people have a home they may have a couple smaller kids they know what they're doing they're going to stay here a long time and they're making decisions and and they can come to the fire station and say I can offer you some time there's a lot of opport opportunity for training you see in the report the number one request is for uh leadership culture um teamwork kind of training from the top all the way down to the bottom uh and there's a lot of opportunity and I don't know if you have received many safer grants uh have you ever applied for a safer Grant okay so the safer or afg yeah so if you haven't received a safer Grant um I'm willing to do that for you for free if look at your future your past ones and see how we can get you some money from FEMA it has zero cost to you over a four-year period and we should do that in 2025 um there's a lot of opportunity to save this fire service model this response model and uh I think through the recommendations we can do that and as I told the chief and the firefighters you know I'm a phone call away I'm on the other end of 22 and if there's anything you need for me moving forward you just call me and I and and I can help so we'll we'll get through the recommendations the number one recommendation was you know I you're at 31 firefighters typically stations have 20 firefighters if I could get you to 25 firefighters if you choose to go to 1,033 calls you're the more firefighters you have the less impact it has on the people's time and life uh if they choose to keep coming to all those calls that's great but there is a feeling in the volunteer uh fire service world or as a firefighter in general that uh I know there's a few staff that are here I I there's just this immense feeling that I need to leave and go help because we we know there's only a few people coming to this station um Recruitment and Retention in route with one is is is is really uh something we shy away from where one person persons driving the truck and there have been incidents over the years it's happened to me too where uh we just don't have anyone responding to the station and that is an unknown of this model is we don't know who's coming uh and when they're coming and until we got that new active 911 system and so on where we can see where people are uh there's a lot of times we would stand on the scene managing it and wondering if anybody's coming or or not and that's not that's not uh you can lose sleep over that but I'd like to get you to 20 per station for station one and two 15 for station three those are very very challenging numbers but I I'm I'm offering to help with that and can I ask you a question yes sir do you think that we have the right setup as far as having three stations or or was the third one not as necessary or whatever I live down near  Lake Beach so I'm familiar with station three down there but I just wondered is because it because the numbers seem to be driven by the number of buildings you have so what I'm asking is are the buildings the right configuration and the right places all that kind of thing so the buildings are in place probably to reduce response time right for sure so rather than everybody com into one station one from your location and then drive all the way back we put a station closer yep and um the only way and we've had discussion of this the only way and the other the other danger if you will I guess the other what I don't like to see is there's a fire in the in the community and that truck never comes out of that that fire station so it gives sort of a false hope if we don't have firefighters going to it but the community needs to know that is the model we have and they can volunteer we would love to have more people step up and volunteer for the community but um the the only way I would do that is if you staffed your station with a duty crew in the future and you eliminated that Duty that response time of that firefighter by having them in the station and going to Duty Crew model in the I guess what I'm asking is if you were designing it would you have built station number three right would you have pretend it's not there it's if would you in going back there may have been a a you you know a group of people that stood up and I don't know what the maximum number was at that station do you at any given time because you've been for many years there wasn't anybody there we actually okay yeah I with four people I probably wouldn't have yeah that's just a question that's come my mind since was built actually right anyway I didn't mean to interrupt your presentation question um we we can get staff in the fire stations we we we have to make it the number one m mission right now um I would also appoint a recruitment coordinator you can either appoint someone within who likes to meet people and know social media knows how to stream online because we're trying to get a hold of everybody on a flat screen no no longer are we posting on a in a bulletin board and finding a bunch of people there you know we're using flat screens so find get a record recruitment coordinator involved put them at the table of the leadership team and uh have them you know give them a stien or whatever you choose and have them start uh knocking it out of the park and you had a bunch of people uh two two or three people go through the the Minnesota State Fire Department Association training not too long ago but that needs to start right away in fact I've already had emails from some of the staff here looking for brochures and stuff to get it going the leadership training uh soft skills from uh just just what is leadership Theory human resources to how to be a good team member from the newest firefighter all the way up uh we need to understand each other we had a really good discussion about this is we're all different people come from different places and also if you're not feeling comfortable there or you're you know you're just not liking it there uh as I mentioned the other day it's okay to tap out and say you know I just have to this just isn't for me anymore but my fear is um when we have some contention in the station Stations and if that continues you know it people people can leave so we try to create an environment that that is very uh inspiring that you know makes people feel welcome and this is from the entire department you'll you can see it just in the in the survey it's it's it's not just one person there's a number of person in the organization that other people feel are uh having some um challenges so for succession planning would be next we talked about uh adding an assistant chief at an operation level so the chief can stay high level manage the budget do recruitment get people in the door manage every day you know issues and have an operations person manage the the rubber on the road and the reports and those kinds of things pay structure for volunteers you're actually not at a bad rate our pay structure in Minnesota ranges from we do have some volunteers still all the way up to 35 bucks an hour so uh but it's really important for you to know that the pension along with the hourly equals the compensation so we try to give our our uh hourly rate a little bit higher to attract people in and keep them with us and when they meet the fiveyear mark they start to get the benefit of the the uh pension being being um at their 40% and now they sort of secured their their pension um I understand there's going to be like a a Ki increase this year but you're you're not low but you could be a little higher next uh probably the lot of discussion on this for me because I want to make sure I'm making the right recommendation with 80% of your calls being medical calls I'm making a recommendation to evaluate those medical calls and determine how many you're actually making an impact on I have done this myself and made 40% Cuts in the medical calls the idea of that is uh in in the three stations that I have managed on two departments chief for you know 15 years um I had one that was at 800 calls I had one that was at 450 and I had one that was at 200 to 250 I never had any turnover at 250 I had a little bit of turnover at 450 I had all kinds of turnover at 800 and if I send them to three medical calls they may not come back for that fourth which is the carire or the garage fire most will come for a structure fire a plane down people trapped in a bus they just that's po but if they've given three hours of a low priority medical call um and and Al feels comfortable with this because I spoke with them I spoke with the sheriff's office they feel comfortable with this recommendation in fact other communities around you are are are asking a line of the same question so I'm I'm making a recommendation to have the chief decide what calls high and PRI I gave him the top 10 which is like heart attacks not breathing you know birth of a baby of course shooting those kinds of things and and with this caveat ala and the Sheriff's Office can call you at any time if they have more information that says this is upgraded to a different call right came in as one that fell and this is where fire the fire service you know may not like this recommendation because sometimes we do have somebody who fell then the next question is why did they fall and then we learn they fell because they had a stroke or something so um but the dispatchers do a really good job of taking as much information as they can and asking those questions to qualify the incident um but uh this is supported and by Al and the Sheriff's Office and the sheriff's office here today I can talk about it if they wish number six if we're going to stay at the call volume or even be at 700 calls uh I think we need to start what I call a soft Duty Crew program not mandatory but we give people the option of working shifts like a 4-Hour shift at station one during the daytime with the chief and the inspector so rather than two or one in a car we have a full engine going out in a matter of a minute minute and while they're on the duty crew we can do maintenance of all stations we can train we can do fire prevention we could do maybe even some inspections and if the inspection looks like it needs to be elevated then it gets elevated to the inspector there's a number of things that Duty Crew can do and I'll tell you what it'll it'll incrementally make them a much better firefighter when they're on Shi and they have the responsibility of being in route right away and making that impact so we talked about that at our meeting as well and I would recommend you started uh start looking at it on weekends during the busy time so people can stay at home with their families and This Crew would go to all the lower priority calls all the big calls would get toned out as they normally as they normally do and on holidays whatever your holidays uh your 12 holidays or whatever you have in the city um fire department's working on upgrading policies and procedures you'll see in the in the report they'd like to know you know more about their policies and procedures that's an ongoing process and in the interest of time you know it gets time but then the widget broke so I got to go fix the widget and then the truck is down so I got to go fix fix the truck it's all about spanic control and uh and priorities but policies are work rules as we explained to the firefighters this is what's expected you at work because you're an employee of the city of East bethl so uh you need to follow policies and and procedures and then finally uh communication plan uh and that is you know from the chief on down meeting on a regular basis with the with the council majority want some sort of awards WS kind of you know they want to they want to pin the badge at the council meeting and they want the council to you know to shake their hand and they want to maybe come to the employee if you have a cookout or something but I think when we work together as a community you don't feel like you're in Asylum right we get everybody involved and and and get them together so that we can work together uh and conclusion is you know your community continues to grow uh we need to transform with it the fire service is not uh it's just not cheap fire trucks went from you know 550,000 600,000 5 years ago to a million dollar uh and it takes three years to get them today turnout gear for the whole fire PPE you know 7 eight grand per firefighter and if we take on a new firefighter and buy them new gear and they leave in a year I don't know if that gear can be used anymore uh who's it going to fit you know if we have a really small uh frame person or a really big frame person sometimes that just sits there in its eternity the other thing I did mention that I want to mention and commend you for is you have one of the highest number of females in your organization than most in the county you guys are you you're you're just different you're different 5% of the country has you know of of our firefighters are female but you guys are 30% it's just not heard of so it's important to continue and that helps with recruitment because when we have a group of strong females who love to be in the community that inspires others to come in which also ensures or or or makes me want to focus more on really good workplace policies and procedures with respectful workplace policies and all that kind of stuff and uh and so on the fire service is not cheap we talked about that stay focus on inspiring people that's everybody's job the firefighter's job too is to always recruit and there there used to be a rule back in the day that you filled your own locker before you retired or left you had to go out and find somebody to join the team and give them your locker and and and go from there but but all of this can be done uh and I I want to say it again there's a lot of really good people here who really like being here they're doing really good work they're coming to training and maintenance and prevention and you know I can't even I can't even get you to understand all the stuff that they do without even people asking they just stop at the station and roll hes because they know those five Links of Hose need to be rolled you know and they don't put time in for that that just comes from their heart but with a few tweaks I think uh there's a number of of things we can do to improve your Recruitment and Retention and overall the goal is to keep this model the way it is as long as we can and that's all I have thank you very much Jerry any questions guys any questions yeah I have some I've read your report two or three times every time I do read it I find more things that I feel I'm concerned with anyways but uh in a report in your report you mentioned some serious concerns are these concerns redeemable or for the sake of the fire department do we need to start making some difficult decisions so the what is what is that reporting to that you're you wrote down in your report on different categories of yeah leadership y one thing for sure leadership and teamwork together I think we need to like I said we need trainers to come in and talk about soft skills and we need to work on those together we need to work on how to uh how to uh work along all demographics and uh go from there but if they haven't had the training and we have this wide variety of demographics and and and and change of change of leadership not in a negative way but coming in coming in and you know maybe wanting to do things that have been do something differently that's been there for a long time it's it's naturally going to create some waves um but I think without providing the training and providing the expectations and good policies and procedures I everyone seemed to be very positive at the meeting the other day about working together to resolve these issues that's definitely important that we all have to work together otherwise we just have a disruption in the whole department that's right also I got how should we focus on recruitment whose job is it to be doing that yeah well ultimately it's it's the chief's job uh you know ultimately the chief would know what numbers they need to have you've always been I think 45 was the number that you've been trying to get to 45 is our approv is the approved so you your a previous leadership group of this Council uh capped it at 45 so we're going to want to revisit that because if if your policy or your ordinance says you can only do or a resolution says you can only do 45 and that's probably a I'm going to say an older decision when your department wasn't as busy and it sort of helps you balance the budget and sort of when you know if we're at 45 here's what we can expect payroll for and so on um but it's all of our responsibility you know ultimately it's the Chiefs right but it's all of our responsibility including the council to find people who want to serve our community right it really is if you if you have a neighbor who you think would be a good firefighter and they're looking for things to do I always say hey have you ever thought about being a firefighter most people don't even know they can be a firefighter because they think East Beth is a full-time department and they're just waiting for calls but we're not East Beth of uner Department any citizen in your community can become part of it uh through that process but right um how how the the F next question was how do we target it yeah yeah so we're going to Target it uh and we'll get some people together and I'll walk them through that I'll help them we're going to uh put up signs and we're going to Market through social media and like I said I'll I'll put on a class right in your training room and try to get other departments in there too and uh there there's funding out there that can help with some of the brochures and that kind of stuff but it needs to be visible everywhere we need to continually have an an election on recruiting firefighters and there should be signs everywhere that say we need you here's how you get there okay and also is uh what is the single most important thing the department needs at this time in your opinion um as I said in the top five they they want people held accountable they want the respect uh continue respect from the leadership uh Council on down um could you flush that out a little bit on the accountability thing what do they want what do they what there's people coming into the organization who are disruptive they they want they don't want that disruption they want the chief to deal with it they want the administrator whoever to deal with that disruption uh be enforce policy if you have a policy and you're not enforcing it um then it becomes what recommendation yeah right yeah so then uh in your opinion since you've done this is there respect in the chain of command that you see uh it varies it varies but but I will say that's not uncommon and I'm going to say that because uh you had a a major change in leadership recently and uh I think time and good direction could help with that right because I know that's important when I was on belal fire department for 10 years it started at the chief and it went all the way down and that is important if you don't have the right person in my opinion at the top that can ruin the whole department that's my feeling for it then also I got some more on page 34 I'm just asking you this Jerry like as far as all the officers that we have starting at the chief did you look at each one of the officers certification not at all no so we don't know if they have everything that's required to be that Captain tenant District Chief Duty Chief whatever so we don't know that we don't know that that's important in my eyes that we should because I know when I was on bethl it's like I went to firefighter one two three and you have to keep that up and maintain it because you're going to learn new stuff all the time I mean I've been out of it for 20 30 years but that's my thought is that I was thinking that would be an important thing for us to know you have job descriptions and within there are who you're looking to hire or appoint and um Sometimes the best move is to grab from the bottom and not necessarily the one who's been there the longest you know what I mean right but your firefighters uh and your fire officers have asked for more training I'm not convinced that having a certificate of Fire officer one means I'm a good leader right it's the elementary lessons of fire service leadership but um so you'll have to go through and I I didn't have I didn't have that information that that personal personal that's what I was just curious you know because I know I was a captain on bethl and it's like you're required to do this or that but also you have to have leadership skills and if you uh don't that can be big time effect on all the firefighters below you or above you so that's what I'm just reaching out to see if we checked into any of that at all or just but then you said you didn't so no Personnel files I didn't get any that's all I have for now I got a question Jerry in your report you say our trucks are wellmaintained but do we have the right equipment do we have the best stuff we can give our guys are we lacking in any areas or are we staying on top top of that yeah the the only thing that I would recommend in the future uh is you're in need of a ladder truck and that's a big that's a big piece of equipment you've been able to supplement that need because you have a multistory Senior Living Center that our ladders can't get to the roof on um but you were able to build an agreement and relationship with the city of Ham Lake to automatically dispatch theirs and that seems to be working and because of that you just have to keep an eye on that and that may have been a really good you know agreement we all talk about you know there's four Aerials around us you know why don't we share them and you guys are already ahead of that so that that's a good thing other than that firefighters you know I I I ask them and let them tell me um you have all the equipment to do the jobs for the incidents that we could predict in your community they would like to have different hydraulic tools jaws of life kinds of things there's new technology now that allows them to be lighter that allows them to have batteries that have lights on them you don't need two people to carry it and have this greasy grimy hose connected to a power pump you know that you got to get there so quicker quicker action on the scene to the patient to cut them out uh but outside of that and you know Wildland gear outside of their PPE try not to wear your personal protective fire structural gear all the time because if you wear it everywhere it reduces its life and that gets expensive so you find a lesser option so you can save the life of that that garment um second set of gear is always a interest because of the health interest and so on but I didn't hear anything that was like oh wow but I noticed the ladder right away and then when the chief said we have an agreement and I saw that I thought wow that's pretty cool because I think a lot of us should be looking at that and it's within mile and a half what they moved it up to their Station to and I think that two and a half for uh OSHA would ding you if it were further so you're actually that's a pretty good agreement in my opinion as long as they're willing to continue to send it our way and it's not often but if there's an incident on any your commercial or multi-story and keep in mind though aiel is not about going straight up it's about getting from the center line of the road to the roof Peak so I don't have to have put firefighter on the road I can cut a hole on the ladder I can take Mrs Smith off the deck without putting her on a ladder and trying to carry her down so uh and then you have uh well and overs there's a number of them Blaine there's a number of them that would come but do you know the current price of a l truck these days uh 2.6 now 2.6 so I I think a agreement is at this point is much better than that depends on if it's a bucket or a stick um they're very expensive I mean I'm at 15 conferences a year looking at those trucks and they just keep going up did you have another question to well it was regarding the inventory at the firehouse wanted to make sure that we had not only what we needed on the trucks but what we needed back at the shop yeah I don't know if you had a chance to look at that or see how yeah every everything seems to be in order they have enough hose they have enough you know there's there's an extra trailer there there's there's actually some things are looking at maybe getting rid of or in you know getting out of the inventory because it's been there a long time and uh when we go back to the discussion of you know some of the contention that may be occurring when when I as a chief decide to switch a truck to maybe a smaller truck well we've had this truck forever you know it creates contention and they don't understand that you know that truck is carrying a medical bag but it's 450,000 to replace when I could buy one for 120,000 so um some of that contention comes from that as well yeah that's all guys yeah I had a couple things I guess what I was looking for in the report was something completely different the inventory and facts about the city and our growth and that's stuff we all kind of know um I'm looking at one of the thing most firefighters feel the Department's culture is negative M and by that I was kind of looking for an answer why is it negative now is it because out of the 30 individuals only 24 took the survey and the other ones did and if that's the case why what would keep them from wanting to take that survey and get that information out I mean if it's a hostile environment um I spent eight years in EMS and between firefighters police and well EMS um you got to depend on their person you're with and and if there's negativity I'm going to be a little nervous about you know is this person going to take care of business when they need to or are they not so I was kind of looking for a reason maybe you saw something or heard something that somebody you said this is what it is because I'm looking at your fair treatment question 33% say they're not treated fairly why not did I'm not asking you for their particular answer what I'm asking you is did they tell you why they felt that way and is there some way we could get that information otherwise because that's what's going to lose a lot of guys I think um 84% believe there's a bully in the organization that's really disheartening especially in a field where again you you got to got to depend on each other and people need to remember because I spent some years as training officer everybody's not born knowing everything and everybody that comes on maybe they're not as quick to learn or like you were saying well maybe not the certificate doesn't mean anything well you're right sometimes I would hire the C student and let the a student go because the a student thought they knew everything the C student was willing to learn and then the more they learn of how critical it is and risks they're taking they're going to be the one that's going to want to do it more if a person is ridiculed because they don't know something or maybe maybe they do it wrong the first time they have to do it two three times then they need that opportunity without somebody looking down on them or maybe saying yeah you know I work with so and so boy were they stupid um well 71% departments not working as a team I mean you already made that and and that's that's stuff that can be changed right I mean nothing's um 34 well I'm not going to I'm not going to get that personal into this stuff but again my looking at this was to say okay look you hear things some conjecture some isn't what's really going on on here because we have some firefighters in the neighborhood and one of them's got four kids yeah when he gets a call he's out the door could be Christmas could be Thanksgiving could be any H and that's any firefighter or police or EMS you get the call you're gone and people need I don't know how you get them to know that but education to the public I think I think is a big thing so that it's not oh GE Wiz I get to go down and drive the fir truck and and like you said there's a lot of hidden things that go on that firefighters do behind the scenes that just isn't taken so when you hear things you got to kind of take it with a grain of salt and say is this really going on um I just yeah so I was looking to try and find out if if a firefighter has has an issue and this is the dealing with the hierarchy and they have an issue they're afraid to go to their Captain they're afraid to go to the lieutenant the captain and they're afraid to go to the chief so they go to a city council person and I think that needs to be left open I I don't think it should be abused but I'll I'll compare it with people used to come in here at a public forum and they would say things and and if certain people didn't like it well they'd either cut them off or do away with the situation because people would come in and say they'd hear well you need to talk to staff and or in your guys's case firefighter says well you need to go talk to your lieutenant or your captain or whatever but what if they're the problem right who you going to go to and if they're afraid to go to a chief well for crying out loud he's the king he's the king fish so then they figure well my only option is to go go talk to a city council member maybe they can do something and I'm not going to get in any names or whatever but I know that environment exists and I think that's something more important than some of the other things I think that's got to be right on the top other than that Jerry I definitely an in-depth report the uh when we talk about opportuni I think when everybody looks at the survey and they say I'm not the only one that thinks that then we can start to come to Solutions on how are we going to fix this right and all of us have our own responsibility for our own morale but the organization has several people in it that are creating contention and I can't talk about personal issues here but but that's one of the Sol Solutions we need to we we need to look at and the firefighters are aware of that too you're right Morel that's the word I was looking Morel there you go you don't have Morel yeah and and especially in that kind of a field I mean it's you're going into somebody's houses on fire to save somebody and you don't even know them and you're being asked to do it and then you come back and somebody goes well you know you could have done that better well maybe I could have but there's ways to explain that debrief we just call debriefing I don't know if they do that here or not they do it much more than we ever did so all right I believe Bob's the only person on the day us up here has had military training as well and if you don't feel you can uh you're you can trust a person next to you to help save your life that's that's the worst situation Brian what have you well I uh this I think provides a lot of insight to the fire department and things that can be improved and I'm sure once that they have time to go through it digest it and uh come up with their Solutions and how to improve the fire department uh that can be presented to council uh but like what you touched on uh we need a accountability and this needs to come from the top down and the top is the city council on page 26 we have internal Communications uh where uh several firefighters expressed concern about the city council micromanaging and felt that the lies into the fire department has been less engaged than previous years uh how can we s solve some of these things how can you sell them how can we solve oh solve them yeah that's where the communication plan comes in uh I heard about the leison position because I asked about it what's the what's the role of the leison and uh how does it communicate information up and down the chain of the needs of the fire department and uh the discussion I don't know who the previous L is on was but there was discussion that the lay on was you know at every training and was at every event and so on but again time is money for you all too and you can't be at every meeting when you're a council member and a l but we solve it with good expectations and it starts you know what are you expecting of your fire department for your community and it resonates down right and uh I I think a lot of this stuff especially related to the the leadership training and and teamwork development and just everybody understanding we had really good discussion and training with them um that a lot of stuff happens on the floor and Bob you'll know this because I serve too but we took care of a lot of stuff on the floor and we we we recognized that uh we weren't going to go talk to our superiors we were going to say this is how our department rules right here on the floor and we just didn't allow some of that we just didn't allow it you just you just you tend to normalize it over time but I'm hoping that we can hit a reset with with this now this is why these are valuable you know and we're connected uh so you you can make a phone call but we can now start to say okay here's where we're at how are we going to get it in a Direction so that we can keep this model keep retention keep Recruitment and have a a fire department who really likes coming here and as I said in the survey majority said they just they love being here and they're going to stay here so would would be a good idea for the fire lays on to attend at least one training session per month in the quarterly meetings I I think the more the leaz on can sort of uh probably the bigger picture would be for the council to have a meeting with the firefighters and talk about expectations and the fire department and you know you can have a a workshop where you can hear from the firefighters but um most of those comments related to the micromanaging and so on are are related to the layers on of the past and uh what they used to do compared to what's happening now there is discussion about the council getting engaged in some of the Personnel issues which they some don't feel they had and then keep in mind you know half the staff are fairly new so they're so they're they they a lot of them won't won't even want to say anything you know because they're just new to this and they're trying to figure it out so you're year and above are probably where a lot of the you know experienced comments are coming from well just a touch on the Le on because I was the Le on my first couple years way back the Leon position is to act as a conduit between the fire department and the city it's not to get so engaged with the fire department that you become one or think you are one right and think you have all the Privileges and what not because I think if that happens there becomes too much of a bias and when you come up here whether you're with Parks Planning Commission whatever you at you're supposed to have a somewhat open mind you know what the commissions have discussed you know what their hopes and it's not I mean I don't think they should be a lobbyist I really don't I think because you get too close and you get too close and then you're not you don't don't think and I think that's what happened now the current Le on I mean he goes to the meetings what I know I I didn't feel that I should go to every single training because then I thought well gez you know they think I'm watching them yeah and that I don't think that should be all this stuff is a balancing act all of life is a balancing act yes so and that my my comments at the outset that this was our duty as a city council was specifically addressing that micromanaging comment M because if past city councils did not do their due diligence that doesn't mean we shouldn't okay and if if it irks people because we're actually paying attention because we have to manage the residents money I mean the residents are people paying the million doar a year uh so we have we have an obligation to do what we're doing my con concern uh or not really a concern a question was more about how the first recommendation begin an aggressive recruitment Campaign which I agree with because I have heard from a number of people it's just the the number of calls are exhausted I mean if you're going to keep the 30% good standing it's a a lot of calls yeah and it's um and B and balancing that with number five modify your Medical Response plan to critical incidents only which I've advocated before without any reception to the idea um but I understand that it's it's funny at first I thought well if you have a lot more people um it should it should and but you're going to reduce the number of calls I mean one seems to take care of the other kind of thing but then I realized something else for a while I was on the East bethle fire department trustee or trust Association whatever the correct term is and we in the past year increased the benefit per per year of Duty from $6,000 to $7500 and so now my question changes and it's if you do these both these things okay let's say we get it up to 40 or or the ultimate 50 members of the Bethal fire department and and you wouldn't even need to have a 30% you could have like a 20 or 25% maybe Duty rating can cover all the need if you're reducing the number of calls you're making would the pension impact be now you've you know in significantly increased the pension obligation of the city or the state fund however you want to put it do you do you understand what I'm getting at yeah okay yeah you you only get 2% of your insurance premiums so um the pool will get diluted or yeah that's what that's what I'm wondering about yeah but the pension benefit since the 1950s has been here to to keep people here yeah as a benefit if you take the annual hourly rate I put in 200 hours at this rate equals this plus the pension and divide it by that same 200 hours you get a a different hourly rate than what you see on the paycheck does that make sense I reiterate it please so we got a number of columns everybody's names on one I'll go this way column how much they make an hour how many hours they went on a year equals this much right that's their total now we add in the pension fund 7500 a year and that then gets divided by those same 200 hours you now get to see the hourly rate that these firefighters make because everybody gets the $7,500 well let me ask you something is there it seems to me there's something missing in the P pension formula and that would be let's say this person makes 50% of the Cs this person over here makes 30 that person over there makes 80% but they all get the same pension payout I agree that seems to be a missing piece of the formula I agree so it should be an experience rating should be or a participation rating however you want to phrase it would be part of you've advocated for that it should be an incentive to go to more calls you get more yeah the chief does monitor all of the people who are not uh meeting good standing and if you don't make good standing you don't get credit yeah so you're every year he has to say to the relief Association these people people get 100% credit for the year these people get 75 these get 50 but the fire the fire service model for you has to grow 31 people is a lot of people for 1,033 calls it is yeah it is well I thank you for I know we all appreciate the work you've done and uh we needed this because I mean Jim has fire department experience and so does Tim over in his hometown in Wisconsin and Bob has EMS but Bri Brian and I as far as I know don't have any fire department experience and I I was LA on my last term well I mean I mean on fire yeah not field out in the field actually doing it um and I haven't done that so we needed that objective opinion and you came highly rated and since then I've had other people tell me how much including a former fire Deputy Fire Chief and fire chief told me how highly he regards your experience and your professionalism so we appreciate it yes I know that I'm available after today so he has my number he said he's going to beat me in pool someday yeah he can he can do it well he can beat me easy enough anyway but if there's any questions related to this uh you know get in touch with me and we can yeah we will though we'll follow from the fire chief and the fire department as well yeah we'll follow up y um that's really not part of the meeting setup tonight I mean if you want to come up to the public forum you can do that but this was just for our our benefit and the watching public so Mr Mayor if I can just make a couple of comments sure um I um I recently attended a conference and one of the statements that really stuck out to me was a gentleman who said that um he came from a business background and he said you cannot afford to have a bad day and what he meant by that was your day could be coming apart Wheels falling off and your phone rings and you got to bury that and pick up your phone and answer it and be professional you cannot afford to relay that anger onto whoever your customer is and lose your customer whatever the case is you can't afford to do that and um and we have here a uh workplace policy we have a lot of U I think some of the concerns that have been addressed addressed in that policy as to respectfulness and harassment fairness and things of that nature and I think we need to um we need to definitely uh refresh ourselves maybe on some of those things make sure that we're following that and the reason for this is because uh we are all on the same team MH we're on the same team the team is a service to the east Bethal residents that's what it is and uh we can't afford not to work together matter of fact it's in coming upon us to work together yeah and uh and that and that goal is a goal that I have um after reading this report uh to make sure that we're doing that and encouraging folks to do that so I just I I thank Jared for his comprehensive report um I know some of it might be uncomfortable but um but it's a report that may that hasn't been done maybe in quite a few years if at all ever and um and I think it it at least gives some insight and helps people kind of understand maybe some of their blind sides everyone has them everybody everybody has them and uh and so understanding that and then understanding how you can better yourself and for the for the purpose of bettering the organization I think is is something that's inval valuable so that's um I think that's one of the benefits of doing this and I want to thank them yourself mayor and the council for for hiring Mr strike and uh and for the report that we have here and uh and the the work that we can do to improve ourselves and also all the members of the fire department who participated in it yeah yeah to make their fire department the best it can be yeah and they understand it yeah all right thank you very much than okay the next item on our agenda item 4B the enoka county sheriff's office with Lieutenant Derek Peters how are you sir fantastic uh thank you always fantastic yeah always fantastic um excellent I'm doing well and I hope you all are as as well so September had a total of 462 calls for service for us which was our second busiest month all year uh we had one burglary six thefts and two damage to property calls that we handled we made a total of 33 uh custodial arrests for miscellaneous offenses and we performed 150 traffic stops on our city roads which resulted in the issuance of 39 traffic citations which is on par for what we've seen all year couple of our notable calls uh on the 2nd of September at 4 15 p.m. uh one of our newest deputies Deputy Martinez stopped a passenger car in the 3900 block of Viking Boulevard Northeast for Eric driving conduct while speaking with the driver he noticed uh that the driver smelled an alcoholic beverage and was having a hard time following simple instructions to produce his license and pro of insurance Deputy Martinez had the driver step out to perform standardized field sobriety testing which he did and ultimately failed the driver provided a preliminary breast sample which indicated a very high reading of 312 the driver was arrested and transported to the Sheriff's Office where he later submitted to a DMT test which reported a value of 0.24 having no uh prior convictions the driver was booked into jail on charges of third degree girl misdemeanor DWI so a good one for us to get off of the road there for sure can I ask you a question yes sir fortunately I've never gained knowledge about this particular topic but his third degree like your blood alcohol is extra high so that's third degree so is that how they measure it yep over twice the legal limit would automatically trigger the gross misdemeanor charge a third degree DWI um that's a gross misdemeanor yeah a gross misdemeanor um anything below that without any priors um would be just a fourth degree misdemeanor DWI so um thank you I've always wondered about that I just never asked yeah there's a lot to it that we cover in the in the training manual and it takes some time to get used to it but once you kind of figure it out the the laws are are uh are written in a way to uh prevent that recidivism we want people to stop doing that so the penalties are going to increase the more intoxicated you are and the more times you have an incident so um the day after that on the 3D at 7:27 p.m. Deputy sea folk was dispatched to a burglary report at an address in the 24300 block of Highway 65 the reporting party stated that a female who had been evicted by our Civil Division from her residence the week prior had been caught on a recording entering the home Deputy C folk spoke with the reporting party Who provided video of this female entering the home and showed him the damaged deadbolt from the door having been forced open our deputies determined that the female who is no longer at the location should be arrested for assault trespassing and damage to property deputies checked the area but were initially unable to locate her a few hours later we received a call to check the welfare of this female at a nearby location unrelated on arrival they arrested her on probable cause charges and attempted to take a statement from her the female did admit to entering the home in violation of the eviction order she was later transported to jail and booked on the applicable crimes above on the 9th of September at 2:37 p.m. Deputy quam responded to an open 911 Line near the area of Lever Street and East Front Boulevard information provided to our deputies responding to this location stated that a mail could be heard in the background of this open 911 line saying I see the 50 good thing we are only doing 50 mil hour we arrived in the area and began following a car which our deputies believe was um responsible and associated with this open 911 line a short time later Deputy kwam did stop the car for driving on the wrong side of a residential street Deputy kwam contacted a male and a female inside of the car who were unable to provide any proof of insurance on the car Deputy quam later learned that the maale passenger had provided a false name and had several outstanding warrants from Dakota maax and Scott counties the mail was transported to jail for the warrants and the female was issued a citation for obstructing uh the legal process which is basically obstructing uh our investigation roadside so and then finally on the 24th Deputy kwam again stopped a car on the 3200 block of Viking Boulevard for a vehicle that registered to a revoked driver as he approached the car the driver immediately told Deputy kwam that he had a felony warrant out of our County for a weapons violation but that he wouldn't cause any issues for him Deputy kwam took the mail into custody without incident confirmed that warrant the driver was transported to jail and booked on the warrant and driving after cancellation so busy month uh with Halloween later this week for everybody that's watching Everybody uh in the public here um visibility is key when we're out trick-or-treating on Thursday um traffic is usually high in the residential areas people are bringing kids in from all over the place trick- or-treating kind of um in some of the tightly packed neighborhoods that I live in we definitely see um a great increase in foot traffic and vehicle traffic as well so um if you can wear some lighted clothing um wear some of those um High visz cam lights um things like that help uh traveling groups and be familiar with the route that anybody is going to be taking um and and don't rely on passing vehicles to stop for you they're usually like I said before with the kids that they're taking around these these neighborhoods and they're kind of following along so um wishing everyone a safe and happy Halloween and I'll stand for any questions if we have any thank you very much D I got a question like on the assaults part 2024 it's like 44 versus 19 and 2023 anything that you can come up with what's going on there yeah our juvenile assaults our juvenile assaults at Nexus really is going to is going to that's it's going to drive that number very high um and like I said I think I mentioned it before at at an earlier meeting um these are the challenges that staff face that we're we usually are the last resort and I think in time if they can get this um if they can get those protocols in place and get their training up to where it needs to be we're going to see a sharp decline in those numbers that's my hope so has there been a follow-up meeting since the one we all had out there no um I have not been out there to speak with them since we met I don't know I think it was a month ago maybe yeah I'm mistaken do we need to do anything to let them know that we were serious about what we were talking about I don't think so um I I do speak with them often um when we have concerns I call um a lot of those meetings are not face Toof face very quick it's just confirming some details on some of the things that I read in the reports and then me just inquiring exactly what are we doing to fix these things so and they always seem to have an answer and like I said before staff is great to work with I think the challenge is is is very steep for them yeah so like Derek with the 44 could a bunch of them just be one person from Nexus that's possible too so you have one resident one client that's in there and they hit one person here one person there one person there it's a separate behavioral incident they'll be charged three different times that's increase yeah do we have any updates on that problem area where they were camping in the backyard yet yeah I think I talked to Corey two weeks ago Corey Jenson um three weeks ago maybe now he said it was quieted which I'm glad to hear um we've made three arrests over the last two months out of there so that was good three custodial arrests and that doesn't include any sort of other enforcement action that we've taken so um I haven't heard anything I haven't had that in-depth update from any members of the public but um um I know what my staff's doing I've got a big board in my office now where I can kind of see where everybody's at so we are still working that area it's on our radar so uh for next month's meeting would you be able to have a in-depth report on that to provide that to Mr Luke so he he can send that to council so that we can get a good idea what's going on there yep by the way um I might as well do it now you're standing right there uh today is National First Responders day I meant to say that at the very outset of the meeting I apologize and so for yourself and for Rod and his crew at the fire department the EMS folks are from Aline and all if you see them around town say thanks they do very important work and we appreciate it yeah we' got a couple in the crowd here tonight so thank you guys yeah thank you for saying so sure thanks for the report you well you can go out in the hall with him and ask him a question okay okay next item on the list is the East Beth fire department monthly report Chief Sout good evening mayor and councel I want to first start off by saying thank you to Jerry strike for doing the report um like you said 80% was pretty good on the response and that and we have already started working on some of those issues he's brought up and that um so with that like said we'll continue to work on them I got to meet with my officers to start getting the plan they did not get the report full report until yesterday when I emailed it out to them so they have not had the chance to look at it so for the month of September uh we responded to 881 calls 60 of those are Medicals five out accidents two fires and seven alarms as of 7:00 tonight we responded to 863 calls for service so far this year compared to 774 from last year uh our current Trend as Jerry Ed said is going to put us right around 1,33 and that and then just some reminders with the heating seeds season approaching have your furnace check to make sure that the proper working order also check the CO detectors to make sure they're working um properly on Saturday there was an incident in a neighboring city where three people were taken to the hospital with seal poisoning MH so uh make sure your vents are all clear from the birds making nest or hornet nest in there over the summer uh all three of those people are doing fine but it was like I said was in the neighboring city um with the change of clocks this weekend it's a good reminder to change your batteries on the smoke detectors even though they're hardwired most likely all of them are battery backup somehow unless and you need to change them unless they're the 10year sealed batteries so if they're that after 10 years you thr throw them away in that those detector and everything um the lack of rain has created uh seriously dry conditions for the grass around the area be careful with the fires uh you may have and make sure they're completely out before leaving them according to the DNR website we are in a restricted burning area which means there's no burning permits being given out the only fires that are allowed are recf Fires at this time which as a reminder is a 3X3 by3 3 feet wide 3 feet 3 three and 3 feet high that's all you can have in that um do not burn leaves or garden uh debris it is prohibited material from burning that's according to the DNR website these materials can be composted either compost them in your own yard or look on the no County website to find the compost sites uh as Lieutenant Peters uh said uh Halloween is Thursday drive careful when you're out there from 5:30 to 8 most likely that's going to be the busiest times there'll be a lot of kids out there and always and they don't always check before they run a across the street to get to the other house there also be a lot of four-wheeler spollen trailers so watch for them also on a notes of that um if I can get enough volunteers I do believe the fire department is going to go into with our smaller trucks or we're going to go into the neighborhoods and hand out the densely populated neighborhoods we're not going to go to Every neighborhood we're just going to go to them higher density neighborhoods and hand out candy so if if I can get enough volunteers to do that and then uh then with deer opener coming take the extra time and climbing into your tree stand to make sure your Firearms unloaded and always check to where you're shooting make sure there's nothing behind you and with that I'll take any questions I have a question and it's about what Jerry was talking about was about reducing let me see his recommendation number five modify your Medical Response plan to critical incidents only and he mentioned that we have a data is that Troy that he was talking about as far as the data analy within the Troy could probably pull it up actually on um that's what I'm getting is do we do we have the raw data that we could actually on that no because everything that we put into image strand is always coded as a 321 which is a medical call oh really yes uh I can look on um first do which is our how would we then it gets to how would we Implement that if we said yeah we want to do that yeah we could uh go to NOA County dispatch and they have some different coding MH in that um that they could put in and then we could decide what it is you want to and don't want to but with that being said the information that we're given is only as as good as the information that's being given to the dispatcher sure yeah so um we a year or two ago we had a person that we were called for a fall well he fil because he had a heart attack yeah so we were responding routine to that call and um we when the deputy got Scene he went in there and said oh man we need to start CPR so that's where we are hesitant to screen our calls based on stuff like that you know because like I said it's only as good where you have to depend on the other people and you have to depend on the person who's calling yeah to give you decent information or that not us oh absolutely a 2800 or dispatch or line the dispatching they all have to count on yeah that you know um I was just wondering about how where we stood as far as implementing something not you know not a huge list of things you wouldn't call on but just some yeah and we're starting to do something we're reducing um calls down by triage it's only triage of the calls you go on yeah we're reducing calls down by sending Duty Officers only like for Nexus is a duty officer only call yeah and that um and then we'll upgrade if needed um just all about optimizing use of the resources that's all and I I I need to get some numbers together but just off my head right now for a night responder out of station one or two they're actually only the due 30% that's 30% they actually have to respond to six calls a month our day people they have to respond to 12 calls a month that's just to do 30% in that cuz the Thousand calls no one's responsible for all thousand calls oh no no the only responsibilities for me is to make sure I have somebody there and we do want more because I what I have heard from some people like when we were all at the fire department the last time fire station one was that it's it's a strain when you have a family when you have elderly parents and whatnot you know and the things of life to have a lot of calls it's and you and like he said they want to be there they want to help yep so it's stressful even if they're not able to make go on the call themselves but I said if I can get the numbers together I do have a running of what each person is responsible up to I have to put these two calls in but right now our nighttime responders are right about 250 calls that they're responsible so they only have to do 30% of those those 250 costs right so you know okay and yeah you could miss a weekend that's good it's a little less stressed yes yeah you could miss a weekend where your your station is going to get hammered yeah and then you're behind on percentage so now you have to look at a way to make it up you're going to be going when you don't want to go but but in that so but 30% I do hold people accountable for 30% well to segue off of that where did the 30% come from it's basically a standard across the the city it's either 25 to 30% percentage in that it's just you got to have something to base your pension off of because if you say okay you're going to give a guy $7,500 a year and he only comes with 10% of the calls is that really you know not fair earn it yeah Fair fair to the person that's doing 70% right well I I guess my I don't was an issue or a question being 30% some people in in a voluntary Department with as few firefighters as we have and to say well you got to make 30% or minimum or you're done basically well aren't we pushing people out the door I mean can't that just as a recruiting thing figure out some kind of a system answer that question there's never been anybody fired for percentages well I got to ask our policy you have four you have four chances and they have to be four in a row there's no one that has ever went four in a row below 30% all right okay so and also at 30% of pension let's say a person does 25% one quarter because we go by the quarter we don't go monthly we go by the quarter and they have a chance to make it up the next quarter by doing 35 they get 30 they get the credit for the whole year or they get the credit for the pens the quarter they miss as long as they make it up the following quarter if they don't make it up yes then they don't get credit for three months well give the scenario like Kevin said you know maybe somebody's got some older folks living with them it's a bad month I mean I guess if it were me I'd take my family over yes say it but yeah like I said we do that and if it's like I said they get a chance to make it up the following quarter we don't do monthly we do quarter so every three months is how we would run our 30% so you could have 5% the first month it's just that you have to make it up in the next two months if you choose not to respond to anything in the first month that's fine you you still have to make it up or get a bad quarter if you don't make it up the following month or quarter all right any other questions for Rod yeah Rod we met last year about talking about getting the firefighters arrays and when we talked about the budget when we came up to the Firehouse we'd like to redo that again and sit down and see if we've found any creative ways to make sure this is happening cuz I don't want to just keep talking about trying to find a raise for these guys I want to try and find a raise for these guys okay they are going to get 3.5% this year um that'll bring the fir Fighter 3 which is the highest paid ones just about to $20 an hour okay in that then um you also then your probationary firefighters they start at 1563 right now so that 3.5% I can't do math real quick but that puts them somewhere right around $16 and as they finish their classes they get moved up in progression to get to fire three you have to do another 150 hours Beyond fire two or be on your um firefighting fire one Fire 2 hasmat and pumps now you have to do another 150 hours of some type of officer or um any some kind of leadership classes that's where we're getting in to get to our fighter fighter 3 level MH and that so we have probably half our firefighters are at the fire three level okay in that that's good yep so any other questions guys comments no just thanks for all you do thank you and um I'll hang out for the bill in case unless somebody has a question on it right now and that any question on any of the bills I have on there otherwise I had go back down I didn't have any I know about you guys I go and try to catch my firefighters before they leave from training well as far as I know you're good to go okay thank you guys have a good night and have a safe halloweeno thank you Chief thanks again Lieutenant Peters did you okay that brings us to item five which is the public forum has anyone signed up yes Tammy Tammy gimple Tammy GLE you know where I yeah can you put your microphone closer something Tammy gimble okay for for one we've always let the public a ask questions I don't know is it just because it's me no or is it I mean why would you treat public that way I I get it your Council but no we're trying to conduct a meeting it's not it's not a free-for-all whatever whoever shows up CH the meeting we change the meeting format to everybody who shows up I know that the public has asked Derek Peters questions and it's been allowed I know they've asked the fire chief questions he anyway you're up here now in the public forum and it's three minutes I'm just saying that well you can complain about anything Tammy I wasn't complaining I'm asking why you would treat somebody that way well that sounds like complaining anyway anyway do you okay so that act of 911 we just heard Jerry strike say that that was confidential data that is the duty of the chief to take care of that to where is that sitting with you guys cuz I know I don't know does anybody else know Mr Mayor and Council the uh information that was um transmitted to a private resident and then put on Facebook was in fact not private information it was a um um kind of a cut paste cut kind of image um it was like a screenshot was it right like a screenshot so it was not private information we and we know that looked at it I read it um but uh but it brought up the bigger issue of if it is private information this can't ever happen again type of scenario oh yeah so does that answer your question what do you mean it isn't private inform active 911 is a private app I think I think the confusion is that first do is private complete private active 911 is a private act okay that the public can't get it a lot of the information on act of 911 Mr Mayor I'll I'll talk with you as opposed to uh is um is very similar to uh the prior app I forget the name of that one perhaps you remember um but uh at any rate very similar information to that that the public can get access to on a regular basis and you would find that the information on the screenshot was identical to what they could get on pulse point I believe is the name of it so okay but it was an active 911 app that went out to the public it was a screenshot correct which is someone on the fire department sent it to somebody to post it was still a private app from the fire department that went out publicly I mean twisting it doesn't make it any it doesn't make it okay I'm I'm sorry Tammy don't don't talk to me about it you're addressing the council at this point you talking to me you're looking at me and that's why I said I'm trying to address the council at this point wow okay so moving on so it's nowhere is that okay so remember the rules 3 minutes and so it's already like 4 and A2 five so can you kind of kind of move it along please you're you're the only person on the public forum tonight so we're going to cut your slack but please uh okay so comparing what what Jerry had for his report if you go compare Ham Lake to East bethl and Ham Lake is probably the most comparable those Medical Medicals that you could cut down Ham Lake has almost 177,000 people they have 360 some calls because they do M only the critical and you can do that very easily through um Communications so dispatch dispatch would have a list they can do it it's not that is easily done as much as okay uh the chief thought it wasn't so okay um I hope I hope that's true that's what I'd like yeah the um the conflict I mean I know it was glossed over like I know he said this is a cool City and it's cool and all the stuff he went through but he was hire because there's conflict in the fire department and he did glass over the the 85 or 4% bullying and that sort of thing in the conflict to do retention and Recruitment and bring people people into a place that is in conflict that way with people feeling bullied people are bullied from the top down so the leadership is is bad bringing in classes having classes and I know he said it was a a change in leadership it's been two and a half years that he's been here and I don't know who asked about the qualifications inside of their folders that should be looked at very closely and starting from the top that's I can say it over and over he wasn't qualified he is not qualified he's proving it himself and that's that's the only way you're going to change that bringing in people to something that is already in conflict is not going to keep recruit recruitment or retention and and we have one station we have two substations I don't know how you're going to fit f 15 people at Station 3 and to make it safe you at least need to have an extractor an extractor at Station 2 make it safe for them before we bring in more people that's I I can say more I mean he was hired everything that was in that report should have been done could have been done by a qualified Fire Chief and I mean it's right in his job description in position we pay him 120,000 a year okay okay okay and you're going to my time what go ahead I'm going to what go ahead you're going to throw me out is what you was saying what no I'm just saying is there any more I have a lot more but that's well you want to wrap it up or what Mr May perhaps if Miss gimple wants to put this in writing she can submit it to me and I'll make sure it's distributed to the council and make sure that you guys are aware we do have the earlier remember the white right white folders you gave to us we still have those and uh you know we've read them did you read the email I sent I read that okay formal complaint the one entitled formal complaint yeah yeah we do pay attention to stuff okay yeah we do I'll doe respect I respect you guys I just don't think that we should be treated that way and as far as is what's going on at the fire department obviously it's very near and dear to me I know and I would prefer it were safe to the those guys and not they be bullied 84% that that should be that's alarming that's alarming and and to bring in new people to have to have 84% of them already feel bullied it's you're going to we we haven't we haven't said the matter is all complete and we just wanted an independent party to do an assessment give us their appraisal and they did that and we accepted it tonight and paid him and that's good and that's one step in a process so thank you for your input and we know you know we respect you too we know you have a firefighter's lot of years experience we do respect that just so you know thank you okay thank you the next item on the agenda is the consent agenda and council member m mundle already added an amendment to it we agreed to that when we adopted our agenda for the meeting tonight and that was to add payment of the Capstone LLC Bill to the approved bills list so we're in good order our parliamentaria is giving me the nod so so I'd make a motion to approve uh tonight's consent agenda second motions made and seconded any discussion like pulling items well that's a first seize the moment mayor what's that let's quick vote on it before anybody can seize the moment that's what you said yes okay I will seize the moment all in favor of approving the consent agenda say I I I opposed none heard okay I I sense that Mr Berg's going to be talking at us pretty soon uh number item seven on our agenda is new business and 7A is Planning Commission and the first item is variance request Aon thank you Mr Mayor members of the council uh just to properly introduce you for folks who can't see your name tag there Erin is the East bethl community development director thank you uh thanks again uh Mr Mayor members of the council uh this is a variance request for the placement of a detached accessory structure uh nearer the front lot line than the primary structure uh the applicant's property is located in the Oak Ridge Acres development and within a single family R1 zoning District the applicant's property is three acres in size however over one acre of the rear yard is Wetlands lowlands or a platted drainage and utility easement as well as an easement for overhead utility lines the property owner is requesting a variance for the placement of a detached accessory structure closer to the street than the primary structure due to the drainage utility easement in addition to the septic location on the property um I'm not going to bore you with the zoning code as you know um this one doesn't meet the standard to be have the garage placed in front of the house that's why they're asking for a variance uh the consideration of a variance requires the consideration of a three Factor test for practical difficulty the first one is reasonableness which means the land owner would likely use the property in a practical way but cannot do so under the rules of the ordinance in this case the property owners requesting uh to build the detached accessory structure in which she may keep Lawn Equipment in general storage uh this use is listed as an accessory use approved in a single family R1 zoning District the second factor is that the land owner's problem is due to circumstances unique to the property and not caused by the land owner excuse me in this case the property is unique in that it is divided in half by an foot wide overhead power line utility easement which is located behind the primary residence the rear yard contains a 75 acre Wetland or lowland platted drainage and utility easement which covers multiple properties throughout this development there are also topographical challenges limiting the placement and orientation of a newly proposed detached accessory structure on top of the lot being wooded uh it has a 10-ft elevation change from the front lot line to the 10- foot overhead utility easement line in addition the septic drain field is located directly south of the primary residence in the area in line with or behind the front line foundation of the primary residence the third factor is that the variance would not alter the essential character of this neighborhood the proposed structure would be uh replace a temporary tarp building which does not meet city code standards the proposed detached accessory structure would not encro on any other required setbacks the construction of the newly uh detached accessories structure will provide an enclosed structure in which the property owner can store personal property screening uh all items from adjacent properties which is required by code and standing tree growth between the proposed detach accessory structure and the front property line will Aid in screening it from the right uh view of the public right of way on October 22nd the Planning Commission held a public hearing which there was no public comment after a review of the material and hearing from the applicant the Planning Commission by a 4 to zero vote recommended approval the variance for the placement of a attached accessory structure nearer the front lot line than the primary structure with conditions in resolution 204-7135 by 24 so um this drawing um I completed for the applicant um and that is to scale uh to the house so the red uh 24x 24 is the proposed location of the building this is the septic drain field and the tank just south of the house here is the driveway as you can see there is no possible way for her to place a building behind the front line of the house without putting it into the drainage utility easement or the overhead utility easement in addition I have the elevations map here where you can see um near the cesac on the street is about 9116 ft above sea level and before you get to the Trin or the overhead utility eement it drops to about 906 which is a 10 foot elevation change over probably 75 yards which would make it nearly impossible unless she was doing a walk out right I know I was out there today and I took a look at it and it's you can't hardly even tell where she's got the existing plastic thing now so I mean I feel that's the only place that she could put it and personally I don't have a problem with it I move we uh now I'm looking at resolution 2024 37 but that's the denial where's where's the accepting one d71 71 20 all I move to uh approve resolution 2024 d71 variance second that'll be granting the variance any further conversation all in favor of approving resolution number 202 24-7 granting this variance say I I opposed none heard the next item on the agenda is another variance request for 4806 239th Avenue Northeast about sidewall Heights thank you Mr Mayor again members of the Council on September 25th of 2024 the city received a variance application from Mr flagstead who wishes to build a 36x 60 detached accessory building at his property at 486 239th Avenue Northeast Mr flag saids property is 4.66 acres in size and is in the rural residential zoning District of the City Zoning code would allow Mr flagstead an accessory building as large as 2850 ft in size the proposed detached accessory structure would um fall below the maximum building size requirement for a detached accessory structure however Mr flag said would like to increase the sidewall height from 14et to 16 feet to install an Overhead Door high enough for him to get his camper inside and therefore is requesting a twoot variance Mr flagstead met with City staff and was advised that current detached accessory structure regulations increase the sidewall height from 14 ft height to 14 ft and that the city has not granted variances for sidewall Heights higher than 14 ft and the previous applicants have utilized vaed trusses in order to achieve overhead higher Overhead Door Heights Mr fleg said wants the extra height to afford him the opportunity to place two taller Overhead Doors side by side on the front of the detached accessory building staff verbally denied Mr flag Dead's original building permit request but did tell him that he had the option to apply for a variance between 2014 and 2020 uh the Planning Commission and the city council reviewed and made multiple revisions to detached accessory structure regulations including sidewall Heights raising sidewall Heights for detached accessory buildings from 10t to 12 feet and from 12T to 14t in all residential districts of the city over this time City staff were unable to locate the approval of any variances for detached accessory structure sidewall height after 2020 when the increase of 14 ft came into effect to hear requests for variances from the literal provisions of the ordinance in instances where their strict enforcement would cause practical difficulties because of the circumstances unique to the individual property under consideration and to Grant such variance only when it is demonstrated that such actions will be in keeping with the spirit and the intent of the ordinance practical difficulties also used in connection with the granting of a variance means that the property owner's purpose to use the property in a reasonable manner not permitted by an official control the plate that the land owners due to circumstances unique to the property not created by the landowner and the variance if granted would not alter the essential character of the locality economic considerations alone do not constitute a practical difficulty the consideration of a variance requires the consideration of a three- Factor test of practical difficulty the first factor is a test of reasonableness which means that the landowner would likely use the property in a practical way but cannot do so under the rules of the ordinance it does not mean that the land cannot be put to reasonable use whatsoever without the variance the second factor is that the landowner's problem is due to circumstances unique to the property and not caused by the land owner this uniqueness generally relates to the physical characteristics of the particular piece of property that is to the land and not the personal characteristics or preferences of the land owner and the third factor is that the variant would not alter the essential character of the neighborhood this factor is used to consider whether the resulting structure would be out of scale out of place or otherwise inconsistent with the surrounding area in this case it is the opinion of City staff that this particular request does not meet standards under the Practical difficulties test on October 22nd 2024 the Planning Commission held a public Hearing in which there was no public comment after a review of the application materials and hearing from the applicant the Planning Commission by a four to zero vote recommended denial of the variance request to the 14ft sidewall height standard city council should review the request the planning commission's formal recommendation and consider approving or denying the variance as presented in resolution 20 24-72 excuse me sir do you happen to be Mr flag said did you want to say anything I or maybe we could ask you some questions or come here yeah right up there state your name address and we'll hold your right hands SAR to tell the truth Jason flag 4806 239th Avenue East Beth yes sir um yeah so I've got a large camper that requires a 14t how big is it it's it's a 13' 7 in 137 so you barely clear most over PES oh no it's fine it's fine it's it's it's actually fairly common size for fif whe camper but um it requires a 14t door at least since it's small is that the top of the air conditioning unit yep yeah yep exactly and I want to get it out of my yard I want to get it in the building so I designed a building I was hoping to put it as close to the ball as possible instead of having to use a vault and Truss and park it in the middle of my building so that's the whole reason for pushing it to the side to do that I need a 16ft sidewall I mean I can probably do with a 15ot sidewall but regardless I mean twoot increments I just figured 16 would be fine but um to get a 14t in there you need a you need a 12 12 in head space for the for the Cur why did you want two doors just to make it look nice oh so they'll be have an offset door yeah it'll be symmetrical right on the front of the the what are these 10t Wide Doors 12T 12 wide 14 high Y and the building will be all I mean it'll have R scouting on it and it'll have the sof so it'll be a very nice what's the length of your RV or whatever the term 35 ft 35 I've never owned one Tim owns one this is my third one actually it's actually my smallest one I've had so we got rid of the biggest one so but I just I want to be able to keep it out of the I'm yeah you guys have questions I know I was out to the his home today and it's very nice set up nice your we have to um first before we do discussion we have to make a motion well I you're standing it right there so maybe I can grant me the Liberty to let's just you have any questions so I mean I I have no issue with it myself I mean I was looking at your place and to the West is a Housing Development but there are ways away from you to the east there's nothing and I mean I I have no problem with it all I think it would look fine yeah the building the closest point of the building is 400t from the road right it's a long ways way off the road and it's my closest neighbor is my brother and it's 168 feet from his line so it's basically right in the middle of the property yeah like I said I was out there and I don't see a problem with it myself that's my Aon what what was the reasoning with the Planning Commission for denial other than it's the ordinance uh ordinance based yeah I mean the council as I said in the report has made numerous changes in the last since 2014 to continue to increase sidewall height involved in them too and now we've reached the Max and now we want to exceed the max again so at some point you find the ordinance and work within it or or you change the ordinance or allow variances that's an important thing just for the anybody watching what Mr Smith just said it's it's one thing to just look at the documents but to actually take your time your your time your expense on fuel and everything and go out and look at sites to make sure that you have an informed opinion when you make these decisions that's an important part of being on the city council you don't just sit here and look at documents or look at you know aerial photographs you actually go out and look at it so that's that's important um so any any further questions comments or what have you well being out at the site you can see that it has a minimal impact on the neighborhood nobody's going to see it uh having owned an RV I'd like to have my side uh my pole bar is a little bit higher I can't get mine in so mine sits outside and it takes its toll um I think I think by allowing this it allows you to use your property to its full extent and and it is a different circumstance yes you've got a unit that you can't fit in a normal size one that's something we need to take into consideration moving forward because they're getting more popular they um so uh I'm with Jim I I I don't see an issue with this whatsoever I I think it's the right position the right scenario to Grant the variance for something like this well I was involved in the 14th maybe it's time to bring it up a couple feet I figure as long as it's structurally sound and everything is fine yeah you know an extra two feet that's that's the requirement if you go over it I have to provide engineered drawings right that's what I figure what are the architectural that's the engineered drawings will have to be supplied if I go above 14 so I'll have to pay the supplier the build right pay the trusses well it's the sidewall more than anything engineed overall so lost my train of thought what kind of construction is it it's a pole bar oh there we go that's what I was going to ask been a long n y Brian did you have anything you're in the construction Biz well if Council wants to look at sidewall height again that is have Improvement this experience we should change the ordinance again rather than allowing this because I agree with staff and the Planning Commission that for a variance this does not meet the standards for approval as a variance it has been brought up before in the past by people that want to exceed the 14 ft and it did not meet the Practical difficulties because this is more or less a want and a need look at uh uh the agenda item we just looked this woman wanted to have an accessory structure on her property which is allowed by ordinance but she could not because of all the issues that she faed with her property that this was the only place that it could go so this was an exception this would be asking I want an exception from the rule just because I want with I I I don't blame you for asking yeah I don't blame you for asking I understand is Trivial compared to what I listened to earlier yeah I I understand your want and it's absolutely nothing against you that I'm just looking at it as these are the rules I why should we make an exception I see your I see your point and what and I was I'm kind of not loving it myself but but again uh I I think about one what do we complain or what do we act on in terms of zoning violations or whatever it's complaints it's whether the neighbors if it bothers adjacent property owners and based on what I've heard about this particular situation I don't see a way it's going to bother the adjacent Property Owners if it was they'd be here tonight saying something or they have been at the planning meeting Commission meeting uh so I'm you know and I don't like to go against the Planning Commission unless it's you know absolutely necessary I think in this case I'm I just being and also being rural residential which is you know just short just north of rural where it would be allowed it's kind of like I think we're going to let this happen and then maybe revisit the uh ordinances and and kick it up to 16 or something or or 15 or just continue to take it on a Case by case basis because they're not pretty they're pretty rare if I could make a suggestion given the fact that you've had uh all the council members such as yourself weigh in on this issue I agree with council member D Ro that now might be a time to actually make a motion for in a second either uh granting the variance as requested you want me to continue to talk about it all night a Robert rules well do we have a motion in a second then I'll make a motion to approve the variance for this pole building property address 4806 239th Avenue Northeast pin number 253 423 44003 I was thinking that that might be the motion I I have a question for commit development director CU that might just change the motion a little bit at least a recommendation by myself is there a resolution in the packet granting no this particular there's not so I will need to creatively draft something and bring it back to the so that that was going to be my consent next time right that was going to be my suggestion if the uh council member Smith could make that motion but also add that that staff be directed to bring to the next city council a resolution granting the variant to be placed on the consent agenda yeah I'll I'll put that in there we need a resolution number for approval so the number 202 24-37 is only fur the denial right it'll be 72 okay 72 will Circle back as an approval in the consent agenda for in two weeks okay second it so the Motions made and seconded to approve this yet to be numbered resolution uh all in favor say I I I opposed I let the record show that council member mundle opposed it wasn't imp personal just that's fine Bri yeah yeah okay well uh item 9A staff report you got anything you want to yeah Mr Mayor um couple of items wanted to um say that uh as of today uh 14.5% of our registered voters have voted absentee wow um we I think we're in the 800 neighborhood right now wow um and what I the reason I want to mention that is because it is a um it is a tremendous strain on staff right now yeah it is in terms of the hours that they're putting in um as you know the state legislature kind of changed the available hours you can come in and vote in person for absentee in person and yeah and on weekends as well and and so that's um that's creating a a scenario which will either end up in overtime or for those that are hourly or comp time so that'll be up to them to decide how they want to handle that um but uh it could have some budget ramifications none of which the state compensates us for of course not so uh but it does give folks the opportunity to come in and vote and we're thankful that they're exercising the right to vote so yeah that's a good thing um did you Mr Mayor want me to touch on the Broadband yeah please okay um so as council is aware there was a um an effort by midco to going back even further the county uh when I was there we set aside 8.5 million roughly for Broadband expansion in in NOA County mostly in the Northern areas of inoka County because we knew that there was connectivity issues um to include East bethl and um and so they set it up as a um an RFP process whereby providers such as midco could send in an RFP the county then uh changed request for proposal yep the council the the county then changed to a grant process where they were going to Grant dollars to the uh providers so the P providers quickly filled out their Grant applications sent them in none of the providers met the qualifications interesting enough and um and then it kind of languished for a bit and and the dollars then I will call it parochial political games that were played in other words those uh Commissioners that didn't have areas that had connectivity issues really thought there were maybe more creative ways to use this money uh which was a the wrong direction for communities such as East bethl and I know that Paul Johnson um aggressive Hydraulics weighed in heavily with commissioner brastad um I have a relationship with the uh new County Administrator Jim Dickinson in combination we kind of descended on them and said you know what really this doesn't make any sense uh dollars should just be granted to the cities the cities should then contract with their respective providers agree on what their projects are going to look like and um and make these Investments that are absolutely critical number one question I think a lot of our builders get uh is what's the connectivity in that area y you know are people are going to work from home or school from home or whatever the issue is they quite honestly that's just the form of entertainment today is to yeah to down screen yep stream it and uh and so that that's a pretty important issue and and uh it's certainly important to us as it is to every other uh City within this County so good news is um we are looking at a million dooll Grant which is going to leverage 600,000 from uh midco so 1.6 million which if you divide that into our annual budget of 6.6 million it's about a 25% of our budget that we are in getting invested now in the city of East bethl and uh and I have I can pull it up here these are the areas in which uh the Investments are going so uh what you will see coming to you in the not too distant future is a joint Powers agreement whereby the city of East bethl works with the city of bethl and the uh Township of Lynwood um to to let a project with midco that's going to basically cover all these red dots that you see this is Beth over here this is Lynwood over here so Lynwood has a good chunk they're getting a good Chun chunk of connectivity but we are as well in these areas here down here is uh where Mr Johnson is located and Brierwood and um and I have the um actual areas that are being impacted here uh 239th Avenue in hup Street Brierwood Lane and Brier Creek development Oak Glenn Estates development 226 Lane 241st Avenue and London Street 2 45th Avenue Wagman Woods development and Sims Road and University City Avenue so um good coverage well it may not cover every area it certainly is a nice downstroke in terms of some of the issues that are out there right now and um and like I say i' I've kind of introduced you folks to the concept of opium or other people's money and that's precisely what this is is other people's money um but uh and it is federal dollars that have come through uh and should be used uh for this purpose I know the state has additional grants that are out there for this they've taken an aggressive approach to to trying to connect folks that are out there as well uh realizing the economic benefit to it and and educational benefit and everything else uh so this is a I think it's a I wouldn't say It's a grand slam but probably a home run so it's a good thing for the community no it's great news Matt thank you so the red lines are those areas that are going to get it no these red lines currently have the backbone uh but this this area here it's actually green it's going to be difficult to see in this picture do you can see the green there can you send this map to cons yep I will forward that to you the green is kind of the the loop that's being installed and um so some small little areas but be it small or otherwise they're they're connecting so it's it's important where I'm looking at is around the Lake area over here so you guys have connection already um in this area here um so if there's other areas and and this is the thing I mean I I know that uh midco is kind of thrown a figure out there I know they want to connect every place that makes absolute sense to do so so if there's some area that you guys are aware of that would be an easy Connection by all means pass it along and we'll we'll work with Medco to try and figure out how we can get that accomplished maybe the city puts up a little bit of money who knows how that works we have some we're going to be going into HRA here in not too long long but this would be a Housing and Redevelopment type of expense eligible expense as well so um if there's other areas that are critical and should be uh considered in connection like for example your Viking Meadows gulf course here that'll come off of this trunk line more than likely and feed in there yeah um so um making midco aware of projects that are happening helps some kind of plan as well so we're working hand inand with them so what are the rates that midco is going to own up that they're going to raise them I mean nothing's free in this world well I'm I'm assuming uh you know C member de BR that they're going to recapture their $600,000 in one way or another because they're a business uh I don't know what their current rates are I would assume they'd have to be competitive with you know probably other providers that are out there um but uh but you look at the alternative what's the alternative uh starlink not cheap you know um you look at I forget the other one um Century Link well it's a it's a satellite based one as well um very in very expensive uh but this might be more affordable than maybe some of the other options that people are you know so is this going to benefit aggressive hydraulics on 65 they're already connected yeah they well they got starlink right I that's what said I don't know what they I believe they're already connected I thought they so they're down in here they they a High Speed Line brought in just for them yeah Starling I think they paid for the whole area to be brought in he doesn't have it at his residence no no no no I'm talking his business no his business is connected yeah yeah okay well that's good news yeah I I I sent a message to Mr Johnson said great work on this and and truly it's um I want to thank commissioner brastad she she worked behind the scene uh scen uh you know administrator Dickinson he's he's a heavy hitter when he wants to get things done so so I really appreciate his hard work on this too um and he he sees the benefit of you know and something other you're not going to say it so I'll say it it's nice to have a city administrators the former chair of the Ino County Commissioners and knows all those people well get things done that doesn't always mean things get done but it it is help it doesn't hurt anyway yeah doesn't hurt yeah okay well that's great news do you have anything else Matt no for the sake of time I will stand uh stand for questions if there are any so okay all right as far as Council reports go I'm going to get kicked if I don't mention Tim Miller first because I failed to do so at a recent meeting well I know we got a big election coming up and uh I've heard that yeah yep yep and uh want to encourage people to vote just get out and vote um it's been a wild first two years here on Council uh started out by when we brought back the the public forum and gave the resident a voice back that was key when we came into office we opened up some large portions of 65 Corridor for Steel Pulse construction and steel sided panel buildings to allow businesses affordable options to build here to exist and expand we changed some security features for businesses so they no longer have to have the side windows and glass rear doors helping make our businesses safer we opened up the amount of storage space that business can have behind their buildings so they actually can have inventory we did away with an ordinance that required you to update your septic system when you change your doors and windows and siding we worked with or granted variances to local businesses like North Country Concrete a blast powder coat washing commercial painters bolt World um they all are expanding right now in our city and not going anywhere uh we even worked out a deal with uh was it BR Rock Auto to keep their doors open in a residential area by brokering a deal with them and the residents um we negotiated the best deal we could with Nexus making sure the city received the max amount for the loan which was 100,000 along with uh money every year with 2% increase on that instead of tax they told us they were coming here with or without us and we did our best when we found that information out to get the best deal possible for the city and they're now a part of our family here in the city we removed the permit fees to have chickens six chickens was 150 anything above that was 300 you no longer need that anymore we uh have temporary storage buildings that can be used in rural areas along with storage containers we now can clean up some areas have safer options for storage something we never could have before we worked with staff on our budget and expectations coming in for the second straight year in a row we're going to have some of the lowest increase in taxes in the whole County that's phenomenal we changed the complaint procedure to move efficient and be more genuine to keep Anonymous that feature but it gives us a way to track and identify and Undercover the root caus a lot quicker while updating the persons who's making the complaint so it's a much simpler program should help us out in the long run it's going to help us identify areas that we need to concentrate on Kevin mentioned it earlier we drive around the city we look at these variances we visited your house today and drove by and saw what it was like it's very important that when we Grant variances we keep in mind that what kind of impact does it have on your neighborhood your neighbor itself and is it the right thing to do in your case you think it's the right thing to do um but we try real hard to make sure that the residents and businesses have a chance to either expand build and or grow here so we're going to try our hardest to do what we can it's about value to your property it's about preserving value to your property and and that's key in every situation that we we're taking a look at we've approved a number of developments we've even bued heads on some of them one development when when it's going to be done it's going to be the biggest one the city's ever seen one big issue is that we like to table things that we're not sure of if we don't have the right information or feel we need more information doesn't matter to the subject we'll table it we'll come back another day once we have the information we need to make the right choice or at least make the best choice we possibly can um currently right now we're we're trying to figure out a drop site for for trees we don't want to get caught what happened to us last time with the storm that came through and and a residents didn't have a place to go with you know what was left over and the Damage uh and hopefully we can do that you'll see a barn aminium ordinance coming out shortly we've been working on uh it's new it should be uh coming out shortly we're putting the final touches on some of it and it's going to give our residents and our people coming to this city uh another opportunity or a chance to do something new uh stay with the country feel and it should give a the city a good look a good feel and it should look great um we're working on some safety protocol issues for some of the buildings here in the city uh we've got some liability issues that we got to clean up once those brought to our attention we're not going to let it go we're going to stay on top of it and make sure that it one liability issues or that we're exposed to as a city are limited um and we've overcome a lot this year we had a mayor uh drop out on us and uh for no reason and Kevin Lewis stepped up and and did I think a great job for this city um Bob stepped in as a cman and answered the call thank you uh We've added a great City administrator with a ton of knowledge and uh right now he just proved why he's here so thank you Matt but it's been a F two years so thank you guys thank you thank you anybody else have a council report just say hope everyone has a safe and happy Halloween and if anyone's going to your hunt and stay safe out there yep well I'll entertain a motion to adjourn moved second and I should mention after this we're going into Housing and Redevelopment Association Authority excuse me Jim's the president isn't he yeah he's the he's the Big Kahuna Okay so we've got a motion made and seconded to adjourn the city council meeting all in favor say I I opposed none heard do you want to sit in this seat or you okay where you you want the hammer yeah throw I'll throw the hammer at I'll call the HRA thank you guys meeting to order October 28th 2024 can I have a motion to adopt tonight's agenda make a motion to adopt agenda second okay is there any discussion I have a first and a second hearing none we go to the vote all in favor say I I opposed none Heard done like a real trooper I think he's done that before yeah number three approval of minutes July 22nd 2024 HRA meeting any uh approve or do I have a motion make a motion to approve the minutes have a second second is there any discussion hearing none proceed to vote all in favor say I I I I opposed hearing none Number Four Financial update your Mr President president and members of the uh uh commission uh I um have before you here the financial update per Minnesota State Statute 46933 subdivision 6 the East Bel H must prepare and file a budget in accordance with the budget procedure of the city the city and the HRA approved a preliminary Levy of 77,000 for year 2025 and uh and to ensure the continued legal status of the city HRA as a standalone Authority and to provide HRA funds for eligible projects as you know uh staff time uh we we transfer $32,000 of that 77,000 for staff related functions here uh into the city General funds some people ask why we do that well um it uh it's either you increase the general fund or you take it from an H but it's the same cost it equals all the same uh so you'll see for the 2025 expenditure budget um there's the uh general fund transfer for staff supported activities of 32,000 H projects and GAP uh financing of 45,000 total Levy of 77,000 and uh the total un audit un audited HRA cash account balance as of September 30th 2024 is $269,700 and uh the remaining amount of $45,000 will go into that HRA cash bringing it to a projected 38,2 67,000 $ 38,2 67 by year end of 2024 unless we have no unbudgeted expenses um is that net of monies given for staff salaries yes that's with the Mone that's free and clear y um so starting in 2024 the city began receiving metro area sales and use tax for housing the city has received $1,733 thus far in 2024 and that's also reflected in that that cash balance so um again it's um you know we talked a little bit earlier about connectivity and broadband and um this could be a possibility for some from Dollar some dollars to be utilized I'll have to double check the legality of it but I believe um that it can fall under HRA um and uh if it's used for housing type of projects we can get a legal uh look at that but uh at any rate those are kind of some of the you know the dollars are in there they can be used uh if they're not used they they continue to roll over until there is an uh you know a project that comes about some of those uh metro area sales tax has to be used for housing there's some uh limitations on that and uh and so you'll recall we had some discussions earlier of The Color of Money and how do you maybe work with some projects that are out there um you know to if you put some money into housing well they then cover the the roads that the city would otherwise you know generally cover you know that type of thinking outside the box sorry I just said yeah um I I heard it over here you [Music] must practicing my Vil no no no anyways uh so anyways uh this is uh just for informational purposes only but I wanted to uh um giving update on the current uh financial status and update of the HRA if you have any questions do we need a motion on that or anything or no no it's information just for informational purposes I'm a big fan of using Monies to leverage into bigger monies yep OPM whatever you want to call it U but we do have enough we don't have enough money to do major projects or anything no none of us is delusional about that but we do have enough money to do Grant applications and get some serious money lobbying going anyway right I'm sure you know some of those folks from your time at the state capital the people who hang around hang around that neck of the woods yes I do uh there's there are some people we will be working very closely with as the legislative session starts here so My Hope Is that um you know maybe from an Eda standpoint that we have more success in that area yeah um HRA is you know maybe a little more of a challenge for this community perhaps um you know some of the HR housing goals that the state has might not be in line with you know some of the goals that the city has so we have to look at that and um and consider what limitations they screw them down pretty tight but what limitations there are and if that's something yeah that's counil wants to invest in all right number five Mr President members of the commission um item five is a resolution 202 24-4 setting meeting dates for 2025 and uh we have to set those dates U by our bylaws require that we hold um an annual meeting prior to or proceeding the second regular city council meeting of the month of January in in each year in the HR must also hold regular meetings for the first month of each quarter prior to or following the second regularly scheduled city council meeting or at such other time as the board May determine so you'll see the resolution here um that's attached for the um January 7 27th 2025 annual meeting April 28 2025 regular meeting July 28th 2025 regular meeting October 27th 2025 regular meeting and that um that would be adopting those dates as of now and um I'm not sure if everyone knows what their schedule looks like going into 2025 but um but I there's some flexibility perhaps if we need to change that but this is just setting those meeting dates by resolution here tonight would you like a motion Mr or president Smith yes I'll make a motion to approve resolution 2024 d04 sign h meeting dates for 2025 I'll second in the motion we have a first and a second on the resolution any discussion Mr look I assume that these states have been set up as always to follow Council meetings yes okay yes sir all I need know any more discussion we'll proceed to vote all in favor say I I opposed none heard so any want to make a motion to adjourn I have one can I can I ask a question you're in order I'm in order okay at our at our July 22nd meeting which is the last time we met I believe we talked about having a conversation at the next work meeting which was August 12th about setting goals for the HRA and we talked about talked about a little bit and then we said we need to have another meeting re in the near future I don't recall that happening did that happen and I just don't know about about it Mr President says look stated they can run an anal two things look stated they can run an analysis of what other hras are doing but it is probably $250,000 minimum for a levy if you are trying to build up a chest of money to make these purchases but did we ever do a survey of what neighboring communities are doing with their hras if not I would like that to be something that we undertake after election and when the staff is fully recovered from this and and Aaron has help in the Community Development Department with the new employee who I'm happy to say is an East bethle resident that's kind of nice too but it was that thing and then down at the bottom these are the work meeting from the work meeting minutes Lewis suggested having a sit down in the next couple of weeks with whoever would like to participate to discuss ideas for the priorities for the HRA did that ever happen because if I did at my age you got to ask of these things huh it's your meeting your meeting you sit down oh yeah I sat down with myself but no results were produced yeah it didn't produce a thing yeah no anyway anyway I guess what my point is is is uh I still want to get serious about setting some clear clear goals for the h and I'd like to know what other you know what Ham Lake Oak Grove St Francis in particular are doing with their H I don't do I need to make a motion that we do that or just I don't think so we can direct staff to take care of that y research that just tell me to shut up it's another option nope never would do that okay do we have a motion to adjourn yeah second motion any discussion all in favor say I I your m is on the floor I think that's yours any stop working