Good evening and welcome to the City Of Falcon Heights regular meeting of the city council on Wednesday, 02/26/2025. We'll call this meeting to order at 07:00PM. Roll call. Gustafson here. Leahy, not. Meyer? Here. Milke? Here. Watsonberg? Here. Okay. And Linehan? Here. Okay. So the, see if the four of us can hold the fort down tonight. Approval of the agenda. Any changes to the agenda beyond? I see that we've got an amended agenda from what was on the website,
policy item number H3, three, which is the approval of a resolution, authorizing to apply for a stormwater management permit with the Rice Creek Watershed. Okay. So we'd add that. Do we need to add that? Yes. We would. So we'll add that in. Staff just put this out, and so apologies for the late notice on this one. We just got this today. I'll talk about it once we get to it. But Okay. Yeah. So everybody okay with adding h three? Yep. Okay. Any other changes to the agenda? Do I have a motion to approve the agenda?
So moved. So moved by Wassenberg. All those in favor, signify by saying aye. Aye. All those opposed, same sign. Motion carries zero. We don't have any presentation tonight, but we do have, moving down to number e, the approval of the minutes from the 02/05/2025 city council workshop meeting. Any changes? Anything beyond what somebody may have, sent to staff for typos or anything? No? Okay. Do I hear a motion to approve the minutes from February 5? So moved. So moved by Meyer. All those in favor signify by saying aye.
Aye. All those opposed, same sign. Motion carries four o. We don't have any public hearings tonight, And it's probably why nobody wanted to come out on a beautiful night to, sit in City Hall. We have five agendas five items on our consent agenda tonight. The first is our general disbursements through 02/20/2025, of $264,932.13 payroll through February 9 of $24,905.08
and wire payments through February nine twenty twenty five of fifteen thousand eight hundred twenty two dollars sixty five cents. We have approval of city licenses as outlined in the packet and available online. Three, we have approval of resolution twenty five thirteen supporting the application to request grant funds through the Department of Natural Resources. Four, is approval of resolution twenty five fourteen appointing Jeremy Hollinger to the Planning Commission and five, authorization to close Fund three sixteen,
Series 2017A Debt Service Fund and transfer the remaining funds to remaining debt service funds. Motion to pass the consent agenda. So moved. So moved by Meijer. All those in favor, signify by saying aye. Aye. All those opposed, same sign. Motion carries four-zero. Then we'll move on to policy items. We have three of them facing us tonight. Our first one is the approval of Resolution 2,515, authorizing the call of the outstanding general obligation improvement bond series 2023 a.
Administrator Linehan, can you guide us through this one? Yeah. Thank you, mayor and council. So this is an exciting one. It's something we've been planning for for a little bit as we've kinda talked and the council's given us direction on our debt strategy moving forward. Essentially, if you recall, we took out our 2023, series a, general obligation bond in 2023. It was for 520,000. It was a five year bond, and the idea was that we'd pay that, annually. So as we're looking at our debt schedule and our available funds,
we have remaining funds in the 2017 road fund. So we just closed that through consent. We'll take the remaining balance of that, put it towards this, and then we also have about 285,000 in the 2023 capital fund. So that's kind of the active project fund. Between those two, that gives us enough to pay off this debt. This is our highest interest debt based on when the bonds have gone out, and it also is the only one we have that's callable. So it's the only debt we can kinda pay off early. By doing so, we'll save approximately $44,000
for the city, over the next couple of years. It's pretty easy for us. And, again, kinda looking at interest rates right now as they've dropped even since we had gone out for this bond, it does make sense to do. And then, again, we'll kind of do this rolling effect. And so the 2017 bond, we didn't levy for it this year, but now it'll be fully paid off. The 2023 bond, we did levy for and we'll be able to pay it off. So then starting in 2026 with property taxes, we'll be able to remove both of those bonds, reducing the debt service levy,
with the knowledge that we will an acknowledgment that we will be going out for additional bonds too, the 2025 project and the park project. But our goal has been to kinda keep that even so we don't have a big spike in property taxes for our various projects, So to kinda keep that as balanced as possible. So that's a little bit the history behind it. This action, what it'll do is essentially authorizes me to send a notification letter drafted by our bond counsel, and just kinda starts that process to pay it off early. So happy to answer any questions on it or any questions on our debt management process.
Counsel, any questions? Who is the you said you said bond counsel? Is that just? Oh, you as in, as in, like, legal counsel? Yeah. Yep. Alright. So I'm with you now. Yeah. It's Taft Taft Law. So Taft Hollister sent so they're they're the city's official bond counsel. So they give us kind of the the legal framework of what to do. Okay. And then Ehlers provides the financial side to it. Exactly. So the two of them kinda work in concert. So we met with Ehlers back in, like, November and December to kinda talk strategy and see Mhmm. It was something Roland and I kind of worked out internally,
but we wanted to see, you know, is this something that is feasible and is there a benefit, right? And that was kind of part of that analysis is are we better off just paying this as we go or taking this $44,000 savings? In our analysis, even if you also include our return on our own investments and that funds, we are better off paying this off now. Yep. We did talk about it during the budget workshops and things like that. So the, good move. Glad that we were able to find the dollars. I can. Council Member Wasserburger, I'm sorry. So, if, from what we said in the consent agenda,
that we would transfer the entire balance of, from the, what, 2017 GEO fund, 03/16 to, 03/2006, I'm guessing, yeah, 2023. We'd have, like, $70.80000 left, something extra. Is that going to stay in that fund or are we then going to move that to somewhere else? Oh, in the 2017 series fund? Yes. So if we took everything out of the 2017 series fund Yep. Which is like $245,000 moved it to the 2023 fund. Yep. We only needed, like, a hundred and 76,000 Yeah.
Additional in the 2023. So we'll have some leftover, like, $7,080,000 dollars. So Yes. Exactly. Still sitting in that fund. And that's so that fund will stay open until such time as we want to move the funds. Yep. We'll keep the 2023 fund open. There'll be kind of further moves with that. So, yeah, most of the funding for this is actually coming. Some of it's coming from 2017, and some of it's coming from the 2023 project fund. So we kinda have that capital. We've kept that open because it's still pretty fresh. Usually, over time, we'll start to move that money into debt service, but it's all right there. So Mhmm. That was missing from my initial memo,
and that probably if you do the math of, like, how are we paying a $430,000 bond off with, you know, essentially 245,000. Where's the rest coming from? And the answer is the project fund. So lots of different you know, we have our different numbers too. It always you know, if if it's ever kind of a little bit, you know, I guess not always clear of what funds we have. We have our different series where we have project funds. Usually they start with a six for our capital and then a, the debt service are our three seventeen, three 16, those different ones. So just various funds for different purposes.
Anything else? Do I have any other questions, comments? No. Going to pay off debt that's over 4%. It's a pretty good deal. Okay. Do I have a motion to approve, how is it worded here, Resolution 20 five-fifteen, authorizing the call of the outstanding general obligation improvement bond Series twenty twenty three A or AGO general obligation bond. So moved. So moved by Meyer. Further discussion? It's been moved. All those in favor of approval of resolution twenty five fifteen signify by saying aye.
Aye. All those opposed same sign. Motion carries four-zero. Next we move to approval of resolution 20 five-sixteen approving the plans and specifications and ordering advertisement for bids for the 2025 pavement management program. As we have, our city engineer not here tonight, I'm gonna turn this one over to our city administrator and, to bring us up to date on this one. Yeah. Thank you, mayor and council. So this one's largely procedural. Historically, we've always done this as a policy item, but to be honest,
this could be done as a consent. Essentially, what we're doing is so we've already kind of, had our January 22 public hearing. That's kind of where we approve the project and the feasibility study. At this point, what we're gonna be going to do is going to be advertising for bids, getting those out, and also approving the plans. Now the plans again, hundreds of pages available at the city engineer's office. I've reviewed them with the city engineer. They're in great shape. Eric, Henriksen, our new city engineer, his attention to detail is immaculate. So they're very detailed.
Most of what the council was presented is how it's ended up. There's a few little changes that are kinda coming mainly in regards to stormwater improvements in Falcon Woods. We've added a little bit additional. In the southern side, there's a basin, and we're gonna be doing some work kind of in the basin, building up that stormwater pond with some features, and then removing some trees as part of that is is required. But overall, the plans and the proposal is very similar to what was presented in January. Okay. Thank you. Comments from council? Questions? We should get back three bids or just however many we get.
We got We have sort of a minimum we probably have to get. Yeah? Eight. Yeah. Yeah. I think we got eight in 2023. So we have a pretty good response. So it's pretty, usually pretty competitive for this practice. So, yeah, we do, Roseville does a bid through their they have an online bidding software essentially that accepts bids, and then we do the formal opening here at City Hall. And so all the contractors, they actually do show up because they wanna see it opened up and tabulated at at the time. K. So To see if they're working or not working and how to plan their summer.
Exactly. Yeah. Yep. So that'll be cool. So and that, bid opening happens fairly quickly, doesn't it? It's like, Yeah. March? It does. Let me Or I'm trying to think what I saw in here. The, Yeah. It was March 20. March '20. March '20. Yep. Right? Okay. So all of the construction contractor companies that do road work and reconstruction that are watching tonight remember to possibly, to bid on the project. We'd, love to have a good, good person do our roads. Do I hear a motion to, approve resolution fifteen sixteen,
approving the plans and specifications and ordering advertisement for bids for the 2025 pavement management project. So moved. So moved by Melki. Further discussion? Hearing none. All those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. All those opposed, same sign. Motion carries four-zero. Our third policy item, the one that we added, approval of resolution 20 five-seventeen, authorizing the city administrator to apply for a storm water management permit with the Rice Creek Watershed District for the community park renovation.
Administrator Linehan. Yeah. Thank you, mayor and council. So this one, apologize, it's kind of last minute. We just got noticed today, to be able to get on the April Rice Creek Watershed Board of Trustees approval for the watershed permit. We have to submit it forty days in advance, which is the deadline's Friday. This is one, you know, kinda falls under that. Can I just approve this administratively? Should I bring it to council? One of the considerations, if the Rice Creek Watershed doesn't waive the fees as municipality, it would be over my purchasing authority. So safer to do so. I do hear that they usually waive fees,
but this also provides a little bit extra strength with the council just to authorize it and allow me to sign this permit application. So it's two pages at the very end. Promise there's nothing hidden in there. It's just a a procedural process as we get our stormwater permitting approved. Okay. Comments, questions from counsel? It's just confusing on which watershed we're working with. We we have three, don't we? Or do we have all three or just the two? Cap just Capital Region and Rice Creek. Okay. Now with this parcel, it's kinda gone back and forth, that was a lot of the confusion.
And it The capital thought it was theirs. Capital thought it and it was. So Capital Region, had that parcel when it was part of, before we split it when we purchased the park. When was part of the building? Part. And so now it's kind of that trading. Rice Creek gets the northern one, and then the farm field went to Capa Region because they drew their lines as to where the watershed is, and it kinda splits right right in the about where our boundary is. Obviously, not as clean, but that's their their watershed delineation. It does get confusing too because the watershed and the state is still reviewing this,
but I think that they've worked out talking to both of them. Everybody agrees that it should be through, Rice Creek. Okay. But it took a little bit of it took it took a lot of, going back and forth and figuring out who would be the appropriate party. Yep. Well, it was quite conflicting when they were changing the border that kinda runs east runs to to the east there for some portions of the city moved into moved from one to the other in neighbors and backyard split.
You know? Right. Like Falcon Woods area? Or No. Further in Snelling West. Oh, okay. Yeah. So and also because of the u portion. So, anyway, so it was that was fun. I came before us twice, I think. But, anyway and I don't know if they've resolved it. I see I see in the application that you're proactively informing Rice Creek that, our fee is zero. Yeah. Yeah. I guess we'll see. That was the it's an automated form, so it totals your amounts based on what boxes you click. Can you click your boxes? I'm not clicking the boxes.
I'm letting the engineers do that. So, yeah, that will we'll resolve that. Again, I just found out, like, at 06:00 that they think that it'll be waived for us, but I can't guarantee that. So it might fall under that, you know, the stormwater management fee, rule c, or a 5,400. So we just aren't quite sure as to what the cost would be and, again, also the authorization to apply for another permit. Last minute request, and I kinda fall back on I'll ask counsel and Mhmm. Yep. Rather be safe than sorry. Yep. Yep. It's okay to ask permission rather than forgiveness.
Yes. Probably preferable. Right? Correct. In the long range. Further comments, questions? We're okay with that? Yeah. Do I hear a motion to approve resolution twenty five seventeen on the watershed, or stormwater management permit? Some of it. So moved by Wassenberg. Everybody got one today. All those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. All those opposed same sign. Motion carries four o. Information and announcements, we can start with you but we'll start over here okay there we go that worked out councilmember Meyer I can't think of any either yeah nothing councilmember Melkie sure the
state fair task force spat last week had a good discussion. My North board meeting was on Thursday. Friday and Saturday, went to the league's elected leaders institute, which I always value. Those are like talking to council members from other cities. And then when I left it on Saturday, it was so close to the, the nature reserve in Saint Louis Park that has the prefab building that we Oh. So I went and, looked at that, took a few photos. Looks How cool. It's a real it's the shelter part is beautiful with the the wood ceiling. Yeah. And otherwise,
I stopped at the school board meeting. Families were there to show support for the district's work on inclusion and equity that was tonight. And, yeah, otherwise Ramadan starts on Monday, so blessed Ramadan to our Muslim families. Good. Thank you. I haven't got much. I also, did Friday and Saturday at the League of Minnesota Cities. Always enjoy that. Those meetings are great, other council members. And they had fabulous, fabulous content this year that, we'll be sharing in workshops, I imagine. So, so that was really good.
And, other than that, life continues next Thursday. We'll be at, the, legislature doing League on the Hill. So it was nice to connect with, get that kind of league thinking focus going with with people as well and shared, shared issues and new ones and things like that. Networking is great. So we'll see how that goes. We do have an appointment with our state rep, so we'll be okay. Oh, just one other thing too. I'm I mean, follow us. It was great to see the letter of welcome from the chief in our city's
weekly Oh, yes. Newsletter. And I heard from their counsel that, he's eager to show our city what community policing looks like. So nice. It was nice. And, as chief speaks, he's a class act. I I think that we're going to really like community focused policing again in Falcon Heights or to see it happen here. But and administrator Linehan, what else are we missing out on and need to know? Thank you, mayor and council. That's the perfect transition into my, first item is the Saint Anthony Village Police transition.
So we've been working with that. And so, information in the newsletter, in both weekly and then the physical newsletter that residents we got it here at city hall, so it should be the next couple of days residents will get it. But essentially effective 12:01 on Saturday, Saint Anthony Police Department will officially transition as our primary agency. So dispatch is set up. They understand, you know, when calls come in, they'll route them to the correct agency. As part of the contract, Saint Anthony will respond for all calls for service 247365. So it doesn't matter if it's fully an emergency or a non emergency,
if there's a request for service, a police officer will come. So even if it's outside their normal patrol hours, they also always have squads available in Lauderdale and Saint Anthony Village too to kinda help provide additional backup, and also provide the quick response. And what they're gonna do is they're really gonna dedicate time each day for active patrol, really getting through the neighborhoods, building relationships. They're really excited to kinda get out there and start meeting people. We had our first, coffee with a cop on Wednesday or today's Wednesday. On Tuesday over at the Hendrickson,
which is a building that they hadn't really been in before, kind of as a new construction since the last time the contract was there. Really good response from the residents there. They brought their full, you know, very full contingent from Saint Anthony and had really good dialogue with the residents. So they're excited. We're excited. We're continuing to kinda work on this transition. A lot of the stuff in the background, just making sure everything's gonna be nice and smooth. Working still preparing the substation office here. That's gonna be, we're we're we're all pretty much there. We're just waiting for some IT stuff. And so once that's in, we'll be able to show everyone. We got new lights,
and it looks really nice. So once we're done, we're gonna show it and let the council come take a look. Making connections too with everyone from, like, our city prosecutor, making sure they have those relationships built up, the multifamily housing contacts, so they're familiar with, you know, who the property managers are, the building layouts, things that maybe have changed since they were here prior or new officers come in. And then also just stuff like ensuring all the fire safety boxes. Those are the boxes that are on every commercial building and multifamily. They have a key essentially to them, so making sure that everything's working and they have all the right keys,
so stuff like that. San Anthony Police, they had a really good meeting, I think, last week with the Ramsey County Sheriff's Office patrol leadership team. So to kinda talk transition, talk about, you know, things maybe that they should be ongoing cases as detectives kind of transition that over, making sure that things don't just drop off with that. So, thank you to the Ramsey County Sheriff's Office too for continuing to be part of the transition. And then we had our first joint city city administrator manager meeting. So if you recall in the contract, that was one of the things we strengthened is making sure that we have a very active role in that.
So I had our first one, went great. Got a lot of information. One of that is kinda talking about staffing, and so we know that was the biggest question mark with this contract is can they hire enough? And, you know, without kind of overselling it, if you ask them about it, they put a smile on their face because they're very excited with how their staffing and recruitment's going. They filled all their retirements that they had, and then they're over, so they technically have 22 sworn officers ready to go. That was their full authorization prior. But then since then, they've had a couple others. They have, officers coming in from laterals that are ready to go.
They go through really short field officer training just because they have that training from another agency. Had a couple of those. They had an officer, return who had gone to the private sector for a little bit, Kyle Rushton. He's back with Saint Anthony. He was well known. He kinda does a lot of their community engagement. So he came back. They just had two new hires that just started, but they're both other law enforcement. I know one comes from, like, the, correctional side, and then I can't remember what the other one did. They're both doing field training. They got one cadet finishing school, and then another one starts FTO in May.
And they're in the process of hiring, their office support specialist as part of the contract to kinda help with all the paperwork and scheduling and stuff. So they're in really good shape. Hiring has been going well, and, people wanna come work for their agency. And part of it is the Falcon Heights and the growth that they have. They're one of the fastest growing agencies now in the Twin Cities. So all of that's really appealing to a lot of candidates out there. So they're excited. We're excited to kind of, get that contract going. Mentioned earlier, spring newsletter went out. People should be getting it today or the next couple of days. Community park, Community park, we had our 50% plan meeting.
So it was a multi hour meeting where we went through all the big sheets. We're at 50%, but some items are at, like, 85% and some are at 30%, you know, as we kinda build this out. Went through, made sure all utilities, everything's ready to go. Really getting into details on that, but things are good. One of the things is the prefab shelter. So you'll notice that we haven't brought that to you yet even though we had discussed it back in February. We're finishing up some of the touches on the purchase order. And then the second part is the city attorney weighed in. They do want us to go out to bid for the installation contract.
So if you recall, there was kinda two prices, one for installation, one for materials. We're working that without Cedar Forest. They, you know, usually, they do them together, but basically, because it's labor and it's over a hundred and 75,000, we do wanna go through the bid process. Better and, again, kind of that the men the motto of better safe than sorry. So we'll go through that process for that. Still on track. So what we'll do is we'll be able to place the order likely in March to get that kind of going. That's about a seventy week process to manufacture. And during that time, we'll handle the bid for who will construct it. And if, you know,
someone else beside Cedar Forest wins the bid, they'll kind of be able to have the plans in place and be able to construct it that way. So that'll be part of that. Speed trailer, we have it up and running, and it's out on Arona near Idaho, Iowa Alley. So Saw that? Yeah. So I was kinda taking some data and ready to go. That is primarily what I have. A crawled pest. Did did you They were putting it up this morning. Did you get one twenty on this one? They they were installing it when I drove by. It was Dave and yeah. The pickup was there. I was like, oh, this is a curious spot.
So somebody wrote to work. The preliminary data looked really good. They They they ran it for about two hours or no. It was four hours this morning and kinda had the preliminary spit out. And median speed is under 20 miles an hour is the good news. So we'll kinda see There's a lot of stuff. I don't know how you could get any higher. Yeah. 20 is plenty, as we all know. Yeah. That's right. So, yeah. So we have a list of kinda where it's gonna go in the next couple. So, you know, a couple of them are on our radar that we've heard. So if there's others that come up or other residents the list. Crawford is on the list. Yeah.
So watch the rest of your people. Resident wants to be in a Crawford tomorrow. Yep. Mhmm. I told her that it's on the list. Delivery drivers? It's a long stretch from Arona to Pasco with no stop signs. So, yeah, it's a way to bypass the lights on a, barpenter. Yep. Yep. Or just a quick tap if any of the everybody watching it? Yeah. Well, there you go. Sorry. I thought you were just calling me to stop. See the speedway portion there. We're gonna target that street. Yep. There's, always traffic is always fun Yep.
To, it's always a problem. Well, thank you, Jack. I wanna thank, Public Works for a great snow season. Hopefully, they, they'll be watching the long term forecast just in case they can grease up the equipment one more time and and then have to re re clean it again, but we'll hope not. We'll hope that, that worked, and it was a lot of fun to be able to brag that we were done with, plowing all of the streets of Falcon Heights and Lauderdale before the sun came up the next on Saturday,
and other cities were just thinking about what they were gonna do. So thank you to Colin, Dave, Dave, and Dean. So and, so at this point, I'd, open it up for community forum, opportunity to address the council on an item that, you have on your mind. Seeing nobody here at the time, I'll for those watching, online or watching, on their television sets. It's a great opportunity to, to have your voice heard. The, I think we can make another record record council meeting here.
So thank you all for coming out and spending a Wednesday night with, this. I'd go for a motion to adjourn. So moved. So moved by Meyer. All those in favor, signify by saying aye. Aye. All those opposed same sign. Motion carries four-zero. Thank you very much. We are adjourned.