##VIDEO ID:https://webstreaming.ctv15.org/viewer.php?streamid=7488## Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Good evening and welcome to the City of Falcon Heights regular meeting of the City Council on Wednesday, December 11, 2024. We'll call this meeting to order at 7 o'clock p.m. Roll call. Gustafson, here. Leahy, on her way. Meyer, here. Mielke, here. Wasenberg here Linehan here and a whole series of city staff that we'll be meeting as the evening goes on next set would be approval of agenda I think that we have an adjustment to the agenda is that correct yes correct mayor so we have two minor amendments one under the consent agenda we added item g15 which is authorization authorization of inspection repairs for plow truck units 18 and 16. We also, under policy items, added number H3, authorization of service order with Forest Lake contracting not to exceed $8,500 for emergency repair of six streetlights in the University Grove neighborhood. Okay. Any other changes to the agenda? None. Do I hear a motion to approve the agenda? So moved. So moved by Meyer. All those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. All those opposed, same sign. Motion carries 4-0. Tonight we have a presentation. We'll be receiving the feasibility report and ordering a public hearing for the 2025 Pavement Management Program, or our infamous PMP that keeps our streets going here in Falcon Heights. At this point I'll turn this over to our City Engineer, Eric Hendrickson. Alright, thank you Mayor, Council members. As the mayor mentioned, I'll be presenting a summary on the feasibility report that outlines the findings of the report and then at the end have a motion, if the council so approves, to accept the feasibility report and then order a public hearing for the project. The 2025 PMP involves two neighborhoods. Those are Falcon Woods and North Home. Falcon Woods involves the streets of Autumn Street, Prior Avenue, Summer Street, Moore Street, Garden Avenue, and Howell Street. The North Home neighborhood is identified as the East-West avenues of California, Idaho, and Iowa. A little bit about their existing conditions. Falcon Woods was originally built out and paved in between the 1960s and 1980s as it developed to the south, and the North Home area or the North Home neighborhood was, the pavement was originally constructed between the 1940s and 50s and slowly built up from there. The last major rehabilitation really was a seal coat operation that was performed in 2010 and 2011 in those adjacent neighborhoods. I would note that in the North Home area, the North South Streets also were rehabilitated through an FDR, a full depth reclamation. And that would involve Arona, Pascal, and I believe it's Elbert. The city of Falcon Heights did a contract with a consultant geotechnical engineering firm to conduct coring and boring operations to look at the pavement cores and the subgrade beneath these streets to evaluate best rehabilitation methods. Both neighborhoods were identified for a full-depth reclamation. Those not familiar with the term full-depth reclamation is really grinding up the bituminous or asphalt section and recycling it into the aggregate base below. This strengthens the base and doesn't require to do a full reconstruction, which can be much more expensive and costly. Both areas have been identified to be installed with a three and a half inch new asphalt pavement once the fold-up reclamation is complete, along with some other improvements. Curb and gutter spot replacement in both neighborhoods will be conducted. I would note that in the Falcon Woods neighborhood, the curb and gutter experienced a little more wear and tear, so about 35 percent has been identified through inspection to be replaced, while the North Home neighborhood still has spot curb and gutter repair, which is typical with a lot of road rehabilitations, but it's roughly in the neighborhood of five to ten percent, so a little less. So those curb and gutters have been holding up well. In the Falcon Woods neighborhood, there will be spot storm repairs, which usually just involves the rehabilitation of catch basins and the like that were identified again through inspections that staff has been conducting. No storm spot repairs are required within the North home neighborhood. As I mentioned, the North South streets were FDR'd and the storm catch basins and system was reconstructed at that time, so there is no need for storm spot repairs. In the Falcon Woods neighborhood, there are two stormwater BMPs, essentially stormwater ponds, that act to treat and control rates as it goes downstream into the surrounding stormwater system. We're going to be removing some of the sediments and other deleterious material that has accumulated over time there to take care of that while we're in the project area to experience some of those cost savings. And then in both areas, there also will be spot sanitary sewer repairs, which again is really just focused on the sanitary manholes. All manholes have been inspected and identified for the appropriate treatment that's going to be needed for those. May I ask a question? Of course. So the trail rehabilitation, are you talking about the trail that takes you from the neighborhood to the park? Correct. So in the Falcon Woods neighborhood, there is some trail rehabilitation that was identified. So from Garden Avenue connecting down to Prior Avenue, Cul-de-Sac South, That trail will be rehabilitated for a new surface, as well as a trail that extends westward from Moore into Community Park is in dire need. Since 1980s, when those were installed, they really haven't experienced a lot of maintenance, so those will be rehabilitated. That's what I was going to clarify. It's the one connecting the park to the neighborhood as well. Yeah, and just to clarify, please ask questions in a row. You know, if something pops up, I probably have about 14 slides, and if you don't want to wait until the end, I'm totally happy to address any questions. So thank you for that. With any road project, there's always a lot of coordination with public agencies. For this 2025 PMP, the agencies involved would be MnDOT. They supply the MSA funding and, as such, would be required to do plan reviews as well to authorize the funding from the MSA fund be used. The City of Roseville will be assisting with full engineering services as well as construction services such as construction inspections, surveying, and those types of things associated with the project. St. Paul Regional Water Services identified no improvements. We met with them late fall to go over our project, see if we could coordinate any work that they might want to do with our road project. You might recall in 2022 they did identify potentially some reconstruction of some water main after they've reassessed their asset management system and tools to identify critical areas. That's no longer the case as they feel comfortable that the life of the road, during that time they won't need to come and do any kind of major replacement. Usually you want to pair any underground utility work with road construction so that you're not cutting into a new road section. St. Paul Regional has assured us that their needs for rehabilitation won't be necessary for quite some time. And lead pipe replacement wouldn't get tied into this because that's a heavy lead pipe neighborhood. The lead pipe service or the EPA program to get that repaired, I know St. Paul Regional would be dealing with that resident by resident through the inspections and identifying that. That wasn't identified as a need or a coordination effort. I think that's a good comment to follow up again just with St. Paul Regional just to make sure, is there any other particular coordination? I did, again, reach out to them just to say, are you sure you don't need any gate valves or any other kind of pertinences fixed? And at this point, they've said no. Because a new resident has already had his identified as lead pipes in his home. In the Falcon Woods neighborhood? In the North home. Oh, in the North home. I'm sorry. I was thinking ahead to the North home one. No, that's definitely a good comment. Yeah, we had ours replaced some years ago. So they did not have lead running from streets to property line. It was from property line to house that was lead. And they did that by basically driving it through rather than trenching. Right. And when you're doing a full-depth reclamation, it's not a full reconstruction. So really your pay limits or your construction limits are kind of from the curb line. So we're not going to be doing any kind of rehabilitation, trenching, digging beyond that. So that kind of, I think, comes into play with how St. Paul Regional might want to facilitate the conversation with property owners because it would be going probably from the curb stop to the home, which is usually a demarcation point of ownership and things like that. The watershed districts within these project areas are both Capital Regional and Rice Creek. Rice Creek plays a smaller factor as there's just a small portion to the north of North Home that actually goes into the Rice Creek watershed district. projects. Either way, these projects don't have an impact that would trigger any additional stormwater requirements. Usually if you're doing or exposing soils, sometimes you have to meet water quality, water rate, these kind of things through their rules and regulations, but they're not triggered in this project. The only permitting or coordination would be through our erosion control permit, which is pretty standard when you're doing a road project. And that would only be within the capital region watershed district. Also some of these project areas do abut Ramsey County right away as with all projects within a lot of the cities in this area. So we will, through the design phase, recognize those impacts and coordinate with the county on the permitting requirements and get those dialed in. Private utilities always play a role with the road project. You want to identify those early and we always do that in the design phase because if relocations are necessary we have to let these small utilities or private utilities know so they can plan accordingly and that's really important for keeping schedule and keeping everything on time within Falcon Heights in the right-of-way we have Xcel energy for electric gas and then we have our telecommunication companies CenturyLink Comcast MCI and Zio and that coordination will be ongoing a little look at the project costs here which again is all outlined in the feasibility report for Falcon Woods the total estimated cost for the project including all improvements is approximately 1.1 million. This does include contingency and engineering costs. The full depth reclamation, which includes all street improvement costs, not just the active full depth reclamation, but potential soil corrections, curb and gutter, all that kind of stuff that goes or is pertinent to the road, is estimated at about $870,000. Storm sewer costs is about $155,000, sanitary sewer at $54,000, and the trail rehabilitation is $20,000. I think I addressed this later in the presentation, but storm sewer, sanitary sewer, and trail rehabilitation will not be considered for assessment to the property owners. And again, I'll get into a little more detail on that probably on the next slide. For North Home, the estimated cost is approximately $931,000 or $932,000 with reclamation at $915,000 and sanitary sewer at $16,500. The reason why this one's a little more is it really comes down to how much pavement you're actually doing a rehab on and I think North home is approximately 1.2 miles a street that's going to get rehabilitated to a new scoring of 100 OCI or PCI which is a new condition and Falcon Woods is at about 1.1 miles. Project funding for this project comes from several sources from both neighborhoods. Obviously with the utility work, the sanitary sewer and the storm, Those come from the applicable utility funds associated with those utilities. There is assessments per the assessment policy, which we'll get into in a little bit, that will cover some of the cost of the street improvement, as well as an equal share from the street fund and municipal state aid funds for the city's cost for that portion of the street improvement project. It breaks down fairly evenly, I would say, between the neighborhoods. the approximate assessment for North home is a little lower and again we'll get into that here in a slide or two Falcon Heights assessment policy if we're in a residential area the street improvement cost is born 40% by the property owners the city covers 60% and that's the breakdown between MSA funds and street funds excuse me again in September of this year the council did re-evaluate or I should say clarify some of the points within the assessment policy, one of which is the difference or the clarity between doing a front footage assessment, which is streets are assessed by the front footage of each lot with a couple caveats, and then clarifying the lot unit assessment unit, which is really just the accessible cost divided by the number of parcels within a property. This is had typically when you have atypical lots with curves, and it's not your typical grid layout for block layouts like the North home area. When front footage assessments are used, residential corner lots are assessed 100% for the long side, 0% for the short side. So in the North home neighborhood, that accounts for about 440 of the 220 parcels within this neighborhood, which won't be assessed. I would add, again, those North South streets, and we'll see on the next slide here, I'll just move to it. properties, those 40 were assessed for that particular project. So in essence it's also clarifying that we're not double assessing a parcel. They kind of have paid their fair share for the the improvements on those north-south sides. We'll look at the Falcon Woods neighborhood. On the north side you'll see there's four properties that are not included, although they are considered the Falcon Woods neighborhood because there is no improvement abutting their parcel or property. Again, you can see from the layouts between these two neighborhoods the difference and why the assessment unit has been identified from a per parcel to a lot front footage. Falcon Woods, again, is kind of one of those atypical, I'd say atypical, I think nowadays a lot of neighborhoods are kind of built out in this fashion where there's curves. sometimes cul-de-sacs, other things that really impact how a front footage or a frontage looks, where the north home neighborhood, again, is that typical gridded-out section, which Falcon Heights precedent has been in this situation to do the front footage assessment. The proposed assessments or the proposed estimates for assessments for Falcon Woods, again, is pretty straightforward. It's per parcel, so you have an estimated cost for the street improvement. Forty percent of that is $348,000, and you divide that by 90 parcels. So you get a per parcel allocation of the assessment for that neighborhood. $3,850 is definitely within the goalposts, if you will, for what a typical FDR assessment would be for residential neighborhoods. The North Home Assessment Roll includes 181 parcels. which has a total frontage of approximately 12,000 feet. And again, with those 40 excluded, gets to an estimated assessment rate of approximately $30.50 per lineal foot. What that means for this neighborhood is the average, if you look at the average on the assessment roll, it's about $1,600 per property or $1,635. And the full range is anywhere between $1,525 to $2,750 for the properties based on the front footage calculation. One thing I actually, I do want to go back real quick to the previous slide. I just want to clarify there is a property identified, that was identified in the feasibility report that will be stricken from the assessment role when this is evaluated next fall. That would be 1525 Idaho. That does still, they were assessed during the north-south assessment roll in 2013 when those streets were done. And I just wanted to, again, make sure that that's clear, that that property owner would not be assessed for this parcel. It does not impact the cost per linear foot and all that kind of stuff, but, again, just for clarity. As you're aware, I think we just had an assessment hearing, but the assessment payment options are as follows. property owners can pay part or all of the assessed approved assessment amount up front interest free if it's done within the first 30 days of the assessment role being accepted by council if they do not it gets added the property taxes and that becomes due the following year so if the assessment role is accepted in 2025 they would expect to pay or begin to pay the assessments in 2026 through their property taxes or their county taxes the length of the payment period is determined by council, and that will be done in fall of 2025. It's anticipated. That's the schedule. And an interest rate set by council and for a payment period set by council. The policy reads that reconstructions and major rehabilitations can be extended between 10 and 15 years, but that will be a decision from council, as well as an interest rate that's 2% above the current rate of return on the city's portfolio. Through state statute, there's a hardship deferral as well. So if a resident has a homesteaded property, they own that property and it's homesteaded, and they're 65 or older or retired by virtue of a disability, they can apply through an application process through the city. I think that'll get into more detail as we kind of move along the project as well to offer that to residents who would like to defer. one thing to note with that process is that even though the payment is deferred interest still is accrued and and kept within the the property the tax roll a little look at the project timeline as with any construction and road project timelines are subject to change but we always try to hit the mark so if approved or accepted by council and the motions approved to have the improvement hearing that would be scheduled for January 26 through the motion. In February, we would present and go for an approval of the plans and specifications and then order the advertisement for the bid or the construction project. During March, we would be accepting the bids and awarding the contract. Construction always follows as early as we can, but we try to go for early spring. It's It's weather-dependent, as always, and really spring, summer is kind of when it starts with a fall substantial completion date. And then typically it's October once construction really wraps up, plants are beginning to close, it starts getting colder, contractors just want to be complete, and that's when we can get the final assessment roll and have a final assessment hearing. One comment with regard to the schedule. So it would probably be nice to have that finished up by the middle of August because of the fair. For the Northland neighborhood? Particularly for North Home, yeah. Yeah. I think it's a little early right now. I mean, we're still developing plans, but through the specifications, there are controls we can build into the contract to require a contractor to complete a particular neighborhood earlier, start and complete earlier. I'm thinking the state fair, the parking, the things that are there. That's definitely not off the radar with the design team. It's a great comment. I appreciate that. And I think that's one of the things we will plan on building out. When we present to you or have the plans for acceptance, we'll make particular note to outline how that got built into the contract and the requirements of that. Thank you. Yes. And then, as always, there's always some punch lists and final restoration that goes with that. Grass doesn't like to grow after a certain date in October, so we like to come back, clean things up. Anything breaks, we take care of that as well in the following spring. with that that's really the summary you do have the feasibility report within your packet feel free to and please review that have a review of that with that I take questions and right now is really just up on the screen is the motion if and when the time you guys see fit comments from council comments from public if you'd like to on this. I'll first ask if there's public comment that would like to be shared. Okay. Council comment? Yeah. Jack, were you about to say something? I was just going to ask, Eric, could you go over real quick? It's in the presentation, but a little bit more about the findings from Braun as to what led from the Millen overlay, which we originally suggested for Northome, to the full depth reclamation and kind of what was found and why we're making that recommendation. Oh, so we can see the pictures? Yeah, the pictures are in there. If I had some slides, I'd love to nerd out, and we can go over what stripping is and kind of some of the things we're seeing with these pavement cores. I think originally, while I was not involved with the original scoping, I think it happened some time ago, and that involves really kind of a desk survey at first. We do inspections within the city of Falcon Heights of our pavements regularly, and they get a score, a rating, 0 to 100. And I think at that time the scorings were fairly high. They're in that 50, 60 range, which through our pavement management plan, we indicate that's a perfect time to do a mill and overlay for a lot of different reasons. Those inspections are surficial. We're not going through and doing corings all the time and really getting – It just wouldn't be cost effective, and usually surficial inspections can really prove out pretty well. I think over time, and when those inspections were done, I think there was a fresh seal coat, 2010, 2011, which gives a, again, surficial or a look to a pavement that it's newer, that it's in great condition. That seal coat has raveled, and it's reflective cracking is coming through. So specific to the question about what Geotech and Braun found when they did the corings was a lot of moderate to severe stripping of the pavement. And what that means is your oil and your aggregates are degrading, so they're not holding together anymore. They're not holding up very well, and you can see that through a core, what looks like raveling or stripping of the core. It's not a solid-looking core. If you look at the cores that are shown, the best way I can explain it, there's a few that have low stripping, and through that core segment, it almost looks like a granite countertop. It looks really intact and firm. But if you look at other areas, it's degraded to the point where you're seeing that bituminous or the bituminous unadhering to the aggregate and is getting very crumbly, if you will. so if you do a mill and overlay in that situation that base layer of bituminous won't hold up it might not hold the machines it'll crack and also you'll get a lot of reflective cracking coming through in essence i think in short it's an indication that the pavement the bituminous has gone through its entire life cycle and it's time to remove it we did reach out to try to value engineer to say hey could we just do a full depth mill which would mean just removing all the pavement. What ends up happening, if you look at the cores, they're so variable in depth that a contractor, the time and effort that it takes to remove and mill out that type of section would cost equal to doing a full depth reclamation. So when you're doing the full depth reclamation, you're getting a better end product. It would be the same cost of doing a full depth mill, because again, the full depth reclamation reincorporates and recycles the bituminous or the asphalt strengthens that base, that aggregate base that's supporting the road, and overall you're getting a better quality. So it's a long-winded answer for the change in scope, but through, I think, appropriate exploration and going through the steps on, you know, seeing what's going to be the right treatment, I think that was properly identified. I think I also recall that some streets in the areas on Iowa Street did not possess enough bituminous depth to actually do a regular mill and override. There were a few that, yeah, 1.75. Like 1.75? Exactly. It's pretty shallow. That's a little scary. They held up. I'd also like to highlight that when that north-south in 2013 when they did the rehabilitation there, they also did an FDR. And these roads generally were built around the same time. So I think it was just proper identification, the right treatment, once we did the geotech evaluation. I know you mentioned that the east-west had received an oil and, I guess, gravel back in 2010, 2011. Do we have any recollection or information on when the last time was that they were, if they saw a full-depth reclamation or a build? I found no records of a full-depth reclamation. I did pull a project from 2001 where there was spot milling done in the neighborhood as well as spot curb replacement. And I think that kind of lends itself to why there's not as much curb replacement that's necessary as well. It was, I don't want to say hodgepodge, but it was kind of broken out into different blocks, and some areas were skipped and some areas were done. And then a lot of the other surveillance that was done on kind of treatments and things like that were really taken from aerials and other records that we could find within the city. But I couldn't find a record of any FDR that was done. I think in urban scenarios, full-depth reclamation, I don't want to call it a new technique, but within the 10 years it's really taken off. It used to be more of a rural, long, straight corridors and counties, really simple to do. But the technology and machinery has come so far that they can now really do a good job of doing that full-depth reclamation against curbs, corners. They can even do cul-de-sacs, things like that. So, yeah. Mr. Okay. It sounds like the majority of the between-minutes layer on the east-west streets in North Ulm are in excess of 20 years old. Mr. Yes. Mr. Thank you. Female Speaker 1 Female Speaker 2 Mr. Okay. Other comments from council? The, well, to move the project along, I would Well, to move the project along, I would accept a motion for resolution receiving the 2025 Pavement Management Project 25-01 Feasibility Report and ordering a public hearing for the improvement. So moved. So moved by Wassenberg. Further discussion? all those in favor hearing none all those in favor signify by saying aye aye all those opposed same sign motion carries 5-0 thank you very much eric appreciate uh condensing a several years of of work and concentration and public hearings and everything else and neighborhood gatherings about this project well into a spot lucky for council We'll be having almost the same presentation on January 22nd now, but if there's anything new that comes up, we'll definitely make sure that it's available for that presentation. So I appreciate it, and I wish you guys a happy holiday season. Thank you. Thank you very much. With that, Mayor and Council, I wanted to note, too, one of the plans we're going to be having, and part of why we set the public hearing for a little later than normal, it's not our next meeting, is we do want to be able to have this neighborhood meeting so that we'll invite residents from the two neighborhoods early January to be able to meet and kind of review these plans as well. So they'll get kind of a chance to see it, learn a little bit more before the meeting, ask questions, kind of not as formal of a setting. That's great. Good. Thank you. Thank you. Next on our agenda, we've got approval of minutes. We have three sets of minutes here. It's been an active, busy fall. We have our October 9th, 2024 City Council Meeting Minutes, the October 23rd, 2024 City Council Meeting Minutes, and the November 6th, 2024 City Council Workshop Minutes. Is there a corrections, additions, anything for the minutes? Do I hear a motion to approve the minutes of the October 9th, October 23rd, and November 6th, 2024 City Council meetings? So moved. So moved by Wassonburg. All those in favor, signify by saying aye. Aye. All those opposed, same sign. Motion carries 5-0. Tonight we have, next on our agenda, is a public hearing on our 2020-2021 budget. 2025 Truth in Taxation and Budget Presentation, one of our big events of the year. I'd like to, at this point, turn this over to Administrator Linehan to go through and present this for the public and for the council to summarize the work we've been doing the last four months on budgets. Thank you, Mayor and Council. So kind of a little bit of order for tonight. What I'll do is I'll go through this truth in taxation presentation, talking a little bit about property taxes, how we get to our number, and then also our 2025 budget. After I give my presentation, the mayor or council will be able to ask some questions of me and staff, and then what will happen is the mayor will open the floor for the public hearing. So the public hearing format will at that point start, allowing residents a chance to speak on the budget formally before the council considers adoption. So a little bit about this process and kind of how we got here and how your taxes are determined. So there's a lot that affects your tax rate and what changes your taxes. So the first thing, and this is what we're talking about tonight, are the changes in the tax levy. These are decisions that the city, school, county, and any special tax authority has to make. So they work on this throughout the year. A lot of the work really goes in the... summer, and that's where they determine this. So I know the county, they had their truth and taxation hearing tonight as well, and the other agencies have these same meetings as we are. The second part, too, is there's changes in your market value of your property, and I'll go in a little bit on how that impacts your property value. There's also legislative changes. There hasn't been much significantly other than the change recently in how fair market value is determined, and I'll get into that in a minute, too. And then any new taxes approved by a referendum are applied to the market value. So those are the general ones. Here's what it looks like. So residents, what they should do is they should receive their proposed property tax. This comes from the county. This is set by all the various tax agencies at their, by, everyone has statutory deadlines for Met Council and the county, it's earlier. For the city, it's usually September 30th. So we have to get this number. We have to get an idea of what our preliminary levy is. One of the challenges cities work with is what you can't do is you can't propose a levy, have something come up, and then increase it at the actual truth and taxation meeting. You can approve the same levy you presented or you can decrease it. Those are your options. So this is kind of the proposal. This is what cities look at. And what we do a lot of times from September through December is we look strategically and see our revenues and expenditures coming in how we planned. And are we going to end 2024 how we thought? And then also our various expenses for 2025, are there changes we can make? The council gives direction to staff, and we look for ways strategically that we might be able to cut and bring this down. And I have good news that will be brought up later, but we'll get to that in a minute. When we look at this market value exclusion, this one gets very nuanced, but it's an important part of what determines your property taxes. So there's a lot of history here. Essentially, 2011, there was a change. Your taxable market value is what you use to calculate your taxes. And as your property increases in value, your exclusion decreases. And exclusion is a part that can help you. This only applies to homestead properties. So a little bit about kind of this amount and what happens. So traditionally, the amount that exclusion stopped applying to your property was once it got over around $413,000 of that market value. New bill, increase that amount to $517,000. That's a new change as of this year. There's a whole calculation if someone really wants to get into it. Roland's actually the expert, our finance director. He could break it down if someone has a question on it. But I'll kind of breeze through this for now. Maybe if we have questions later, we could get into how exclusion is calculated. Here's a couple examples of what it means. So if you're a property that has a $200,000 value, this is what your city property taxes would look like. So if you had, you know, kind of looking at the different values, we have $200,000, $300,000, $400,000. The important part to note is see this difference between the two bars. That gets smaller the further you get. And if we get up to $500,000 and $600,000, that goes away. The two bars are the same. So you aren't getting any benefit anymore as kind of a tax relief in Minnesota. It's kind of a unique thing on our market. Kind of show, too, another thing. This is how it changes even within one year. So in 2024, the median home value in Falcon Heights was $373,000. This year it's $401,000. So as that increases, the delta between the blue line and the red line gets narrower and narrower, and our residents aren't benefiting as much from this available credit or exclusion. So when we look at these kind of the change in home values, that's always kind of a little bit of a challenge. It's great when homes increase in value. It's good for the city for capturing. It's good for a homeowner if you're going to sell your property. It does create kind of some challenges, is even if your tax levy is similar, as the value goes up, your tax bill goes up. And what we saw this year, if you compare us to all the other Ramsey County cities, the exception being North Oaks, which we don't have on this one, we have the highest change in median value. Our homes in Falcon Heights increase more than anywhere. Most homes actually stay pretty consistent year over year. Falcon Heights, they're still going up. It's partially market. It's partially corrections from the previous years, but we're continuing to see this growth year over year. Another part I want to talk about is your property tax bill. So here's something that I think a little bit of confusion for some residents. I spoke to a couple this fall. The assumption is their property tax bill goes to the city. And it's true, we do get a portion of that, but we're a fair portion of it. But the two largest parts of your property tax bill are usually equally between the county and the schools. They're usually almost right around each other, right about the same spot. The school district is usually broken into their general levy and then their special referendums that they use for their capital and operating. And then the county has theirs. And then you have these special districts, everything from the Met Council. there's railroad districts. If you break down your tax bill, there's quite a few special districts. The city sits right around 26% of tax bill. So that's not saying that we're not an important part or that we're a driver of taxes, but we are also, it's important to note that we aren't the primary payer or primary recipient of your property tax bill. All right. So here's where I talk about what does it mean, where are we at, and what are we doing? So this chart, there's a lot going on. What we're trying to show is from 2019 to 2025, the goal of truth in taxation is transparency in taxes. And so what we want to do is really show kind of how our tax is, a little history of us, and then tell kind of our story of what our budget is for 2025. So the median home value, as I mentioned, increased this year from 373 to 401. Well, what happens is after that exclusion, there's this discount. This is the number we have to use, this 391. You'll see that that difference this year, you know, kind of is actually better than last year. And that's because the new bill went into effect increasing that cap on median homes. What then we do is we're able to take 1% of your home's value. So for average home, that 1% of that number is just 3,914. That determines our city tax rate. So we take a combination of this plus the money that we need to run our operations the next year. This generates your city tax rate, and this generates what the city taxes are. So what we're proposing is the average city taxes for 2025 will be $1,401. This represents a $33 increase. Now, when we sent out the initial notices for truth in taxation, I'll get into a little later, One of the challenges is one of our largest costs we didn't have determined yet. So originally we proposed that this would be closer to about $131 of an increase, and we had a higher tax rate at that time. That was what was sent out. That was what we thought we needed to do in September, and now we have more information now. So as you can see, kind of over time, even recently, how our levy has kind of changed. It has gone up each year, different percentages each year. This year what we're proposing, so what we're going to do is we're going to propose an ad valorem levy. So that's the general taxes that support our general fund of $2,626,701. Interestingly, our debt levy is going down by $40,000 for next year. This is strategic. 2025 is the last year that we have to make payment on the 2017 street project. That's University Grove. There's enough funds in that that we don't have to levy for that debt. So we're going to pay that off in 2025. Additionally, and we'll get into a different discussion for tonight, we're on pace to also pay off our 2023 bond early as well. So we'll at that point be down to our 2021 as our only outstanding debt besides future tax levies. So long story short, what this does is we calculate this and work on this. This is where we get this total levy amount of $2.7 million, which represents a $74,000 increase from last year, or this final 2.77% levy increase. And that's what we are proposing that the council consider for adoption tonight. I'm going to talk a little bit about this history. I'll kind of breeze through this. But basically, as you can see, what's happened over time, our tax levy lately has been relatively stable since 2018. we saw a very large jump from 17 to 18. And essentially, I'll get into a little bit of the history out of that, kind of the cost drivers for that. But since that time, we've tried to keep stable or if even if possible, decreases. You can see a little bit, again, in kind of another numerical graph, the same effect to kind of occur where we've had these increases, but a lot of it was originally kind of a big spur in that 2017, 2018, 2019 frame. And this slide gets very into kind of what's happened since 2006. Our increases over time is we've grown as a government. We've grown as an agency. And so you can kind of see, I won't get into the detail of it, but there has been large increases, particularly that 2018, 19, 20, and that was associated with the cost for police services. And I'll get into that in a little bit. One of the nice things is the city has not had to transfer money from our reserves to our general fund since 2014. So we run a balanced budget every year. We propose that if our revenues are $3.6 million, our expenditures are $3.6 million. The good news is how it usually works out is we usually come in under budget on expenditures and either at budget or over budget on revenues. What that does, that creates a surplus we're able to put into our future reserve that can help us if need be. The nice thing is we haven't had to dip into that too much. We had one plan transfer in 2017 to kind of help with that debt levy, as I mentioned, that big increase that year. But since then, we have not had to utilize this overall. It gets a little bit too kind of usually we're looking at around a $22 per year increase. That was what we saw for a while. And then again, we had that period where it did increase a bit more and kind of continued on that path until we're trying to stabilize that increase. so now i talked a little bit about our history kind of what's gotten us here also looking a little bit about our neighbors and what this means too it's important to note that these levy increases it is important that if a city you know is increasing significantly or not increasing but what's really important too to see is how much is their levy currently what is that levy amount and you can kind of see how we stack up as the proposed for the 2025 levy with some of our neighbors. We usually have kind of run right around Roseville, Falcon Heights, New Brighton, Moundsview. We're all kind of right around that same mark usually. Then there's a couple of communities that have much lower levies as well. So we talked a little bit about what it means, kind of what does this mean for the tax bill, right? And our portion of that tax bill, you can kind of see where we stack up. We are a little bit higher. The city always has some challenges. Again, with kind of our tax base is different than other communities. We're primarily residential. It does require kind of homeowners to support our services without the business and other uses there. When you look at a total tax bill, it does paint a little bit different of a picture. We are one of the higher tax bills in Ramsey County. Part of that too is with the schools and the county's tax portion. We're obviously a portion of that, but as I showed earlier, I would argue we're not the primary driver. So a little bit about kind of what are we going to do. So that's a little bit about the levy. That's a little bit about the history. What's the plan and what is the proposal for the general fund? So the general fund is what drives the property tax levy. So we're proposing next year an increase of about 4% in the general fund. What that is is 1% of that's coming from property taxes The levy increases 2.77%. Now, this gets a little bit nuanced with the debt levy and other parts that leads to that number. We had some good things working in the city's favor. We received more in fiscal disparities this year than we had previously. Another role in question, if we want to get into it, fiscal disparities is something that's kind of unique to the Minnesota area. It's a general tax revenue sharing. So you're either a recipient of fiscal disparities or you're a provider. If you're a community like Roseville is a good example, they pay quite a bit in fiscal disparities. So because they get all this property tax valuation from the commercial areas, they have to send that to kind of a central taxing agency, and then they disperse. And so what we do is we net get money, and other communities that have a bigger, broader tax base, they have to pay into this fund. And the goal behind this was to increase the entire region through the Met Council so that we all benefit from economic development. Another increase we had is the MPCA. We got a climate grant of $46,000, so that's represented as one of the increases that drives this number. General fund expenditures, so increasing revenue by 3.97%, increasing expenditures by 3.97%. Some of the key factors are fire contract. Contractually goes up 2.25%. That's been consistent. That's one of the drivers of our increases. Some of our other contracts across the board are going up. We're seeing usually on average most of the agencies that we pay into, they're seeing about a 5% to 7% increase year over year recently with labor costs and other things driving that. We're proposing a 3.5% cost of living adjustment for all city staff. That's, again, area that's on the agenda later. It's between 3% to 4%, and so we're recommending 3.5%. So earlier I mentioned we got the Climate Action Plan. That's one of our increases in revenue. It's also an expenditure as well. So they basically offset each other. We have $3,000 out-of-pocket cost to be able to do our Climate Action Plan, a great win from Hannah and her team in the environment area. And then also some staffing changes, some new initiatives. We'll talk it into a minute. and then decreases. So we're increasing our expenditures. What are we increasing in costs? Well, we're actually going to be decreasing our police services costs by $84,000. That's the primary driver, again, of the variation between the proposed levy that was sent out in September to the one that is proposed for adoption tonight. So we talk a little bit about those cost drivers. What are these new initiatives? What is the city planning to do with this money? Well, that breakdown of that increase of the levy, We're proposing a brand-new website. So our website's coming on due five years. We're out of contract. It's time to renew it. We hear concerns from residents they want to have a more accessible website. There's also federal law coming down requiring increased accessibility of websites, ability to scale size of the parts. So it's pretty standard that we're going to need to redo our website in 2025. So we'll be working on RFP for that early 2025 if the budget's adopted. We're also looking to renew our boulevard tree program. So the city really slowed down our boulevard tree program during COVID. It never fully recovered, didn't have a full plan. We've been working with our Green Corps member, Olivia, on developing a plan as to where we're going to put it in. The Environment Commission has been working on this as well. And so we're hoping to get that not only back, but also bigger and better than ever in 2025. Other items, too, I mentioned the Climate Action Plan. That's a new initiative offset by the revenue, but it's still there. There's a new proposal, too, is in the budget in the general fund to compensate city commissioners. So the goal behind this one is to increase the attractiveness of commissions and also make it more accessible so that all residents, regardless of kind of their background, would be able to serve on a commission equitably. And then also another driver, too, is the reclassification of our part-time accountant to full-time assistant finance director. That's another one of our cost drivers. A lot of the costs are also shared with our enterprise funds as well. Thank you. So I mentioned our primary cost driver is our police. And so that has been kind of our experience. When we look kind of historically, that is tied in the levy increases and our costs, they go hand in hand. So kind of this breakdown kind of shows the history of what we've paid for policing. Dating back to 17, our costs on average were about $675,000. That was with St. Anthony Police Department. The switch to Ramsey County came at a cost, and the city had prepared for that. That was something that we knew. But it was a market increase. We saw increases most of the years with the sheriff's office. And then in 2024, we had a very large increase last year with the overtime model that we had to adopt based around the timing of our announcement as we were trying to find a new partner. So that was one of the requirements of the sheriff's office that we moved to this model. It also came at a cost. This was offset partially by the grant that we received from the state for public safety. That helped soften the blow. Without that, this increase would have been much more painful. And then next year, we're proposing a decrease. So originally, we had proposed $1.85 million, not knowing if we had a contract with St. Anthony or what the cost would be in September. since that time. We essentially have a contract agreed upon by both cities, and then we have numbers for that as well. And so as I break that down here, what we're using for our police costs is this number, this 1.615. That correlates with St. Anthony's model for 24 hours of patrol. So the idea is we're going to be doing two months of the Ramsey County Sheriff's Office at our current monthly rate, and we're going to be doing 10 months with St. Anthony. They're going to start us at this eight-hour model for about $878,000. If we went the whole year with that model, our savings will be significant and we will have over budgeted for police. What will happen though as staffing goes up is they will increase to eventually 24-hour patrol. We don't know if that's going to happen in 2025. We don't know if that's going to happen in 2026, but our suggestion is that we budget accordingly using that number as a guiding number to help us so that we don't under budget for police. So we talked a little bit about our various funds. I won't get into it too much. General fund is what we're talking almost exclusively about, but it's not even our largest fund. Capital projects fund, that's where a lot of our expenditures are. We talked earlier about where a lot of that's coming from, but we also have our community park project. All this is coming through our capital funds. So various capital funds, I think I've said this three years in a row now, largest capital program in city history next year. This year wasn't technically because we didn't build the park, But if we build the park next year, it will be our largest capital program in city history. We look a little bit about where are these expenditures going by department. If we are more traditional, we're a contract out city. We almost contract most of our services out. Public safety and police is the number one. Our fire contract is about 5% of our costs. Public works, general government, that's the rest. Now, if we break it down even further, if you want to get really interested, this is by the activity. So you can kind of see as we do various activities, various purposes of government, you can see our breakdown, police still being our largest cost, but everything from administrative costs to finance, legal, trees, parks, grounds, fuel, firefighting, inspections, communications, all the things that we do as a city. so kind of as we talk about a little bit about the proposed budget uh some key points there'll be no transfer of reserve for general fund operating budget so we're not drawing from reserves for this budget it's a balanced budget um that our receipts for the state for lga our local government aid stayed the same which is good it increased last year and it stayed at this higher watermark and our fiscal disparities increased by 95 000 and overall our general fund revenue and expenditures are at 3.652 million or about 4% higher than our 2024 operating budget. So for those who are interested, there's additional information out there. Ramsey County holds their public hearing today at 6, so they already had it. The Roseville School had theirs on the 10th at 6. And then different information about various tax refund programs and then also information on, you know, to contest your property valuation. and watch for those notices usually coming out in the spring. And then if anyone has any other information, they're always welcome to reach out to me. Happy to break down any of the budget stuff further in detail. Thank you, Mr. Linehan. Comprehensive at the budget and keeping to it and directing our city as a daily activity here and happens every council meeting and workshop, it seems. How we're doing on it. Did you want to take questions or do you want to hear public input first, open a public hearing, or do the council first before the public hearing? I couldn't remember. Totally up to council. My suggestion was just that, if you wanted to ask some questions first, but up to the council if you want to take questions from the public or commentary from the public first, that's okay too. Okay. I'm fine with that. Why don't we open this to the public? We'll open a public hearing. Yeah, Mayor, one comment I want to make, too, just with the note of the public hearing, is that maybe as an opportunity at the end for if council wants to ask questions of staff, we can kind of ask that, but not a back-and-forth process with the public hearing. Correct. A public hearing would be expressing points of view rather than asking questions and answers. I'd open the public hearing for residents of the city to come forward to the podium here, state your name and address, and address the council in regards to our budget and the truth in taxation presentation, if anybody would like to do so. I'll do a second call for a public hearing and for people to for residents to come forward and comment to staff. A third seeing no one I'll close the public hearing. I'll now open the floor here to council members to ask questions of the administrator and provide comment on our 2025 proposed tax levy and budget for anyone who would like to make comment any other questions I'm just relieved we were able to lower to two point seven seven from what we had proposed yeah yeah that is a good thing when people ask what's what's going on I had a little sticker shock when I got my thing from the county. But yeah, you look a little closer and you're like, okay, actually most of this is going to the county and Med Council and the city's portion is not as big and now it's going to be even smaller thanks to the strong work of our city staff, getting some grants, being really strategic about how we're doing our spending, where we're taking on debt and getting rid of debt and trying to keep things nice and stable and predictable. So all that work is seen and very much appreciated. I think you said it well, Mayor, when you said how comprehensive the report was that Administrator Linehan presented, and that's how I feel about it, putting that in layman's terms so that we can understand it as well as our residents, being able to understand it through the different charts and explaining the ups and downs of things. I just point out again what Administrator Linehan had mentioned. We are seeing, I wouldn't call it exactly a windfall from our work with policing, but we're seeing, I think, a better value proposition with the service and community-based policing that we'll be receiving for not really an increase in price. And I think we're seeing that here, and that was how the budget was stepped down from its earlier proposed levy. So congratulations to staff and to council and everyone involved and to St. Anthony for working with us so well. and to follow up on that we didn't approach the policing topic this year as a budgetary reason to go with the city of St. Anthony or a different vendor it was rather to make a policing services, public safety services in Falcon Heights what the community was looking for, what the community wanted, and the fact that St. Anthony is willing and able to help us deliver public safety services that work for the community is important. The fact that it's also going to be properly built and economically feasible is another factor. Carry on top. It's a benefit that you're going to have real cost analysis done of what your services are, which is something that we haven't had from law enforcement in the last few years. But anyway, apart from that. But thank you, staff. Thank you, Roland. Thank you, Alyssa, for putting together the materials. the materials, and thank you, council, for working. We've gone back and forth on many initiatives through here and how we can best serve the city. And during my tenure here, I'm glad that we're now doing a, that we continue to have a zero-sum budget, and we actually pay for what we're going to get. And I think that the citizens of Falcon Heights, the residents, get great value from the city, from the services that we have, the staff that we have. And I want to thank staff for their year-round efforts to make this city a great place to live and do business. Anything else? There are two requests for council action. One is to pass Resolution 2469, approving the 2025 tax levy. Resolution 2470, approving the city budget. and resolution adopting in a summary to put into the paper. Or is it the summary resolution solves that for 2469 and 2470? They're a summary kind of document, correct? Correct. those resolutions, adopting the budget and adopting the tax levy. Correct, Mayor. Okay. Would anybody like to close that? I suppose anybody can. I'd be willing to push forward Resolution 2469, adopting the 2024 tax levy for the City of Falcon Heights, County of Ramsey, State of Minnesota. And further discussion? All those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. All those opposed, same sign. Then I would propose that we pass Resolution 2470, a resolution adopting the 2025 budget. Further discussion? Hearing none, those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Aye. All those opposed, same sign. Motion carries 5-0. Cool. Thank you very much. Thank you for attending the public hearing. Thank you for your interest in the city of Falcon Heights and coming out tonight on a really nice, brisk winter day, as that goes. Next, we have our consent agenda. Didn't hear any motions to take any of these items off, So bear with me. We have one added. Pardon? We have the addition of number 15 as approved in the agenda. Do you want to pull it out at this time? Oh, I don't need to talk about it. Yeah. We'll acknowledge. Yeah, I mentioned it earlier. Okay. Given for accessibility reasons and for those with sight impairment, I get the great fun of reading the consent agenda item. Number one is our general disbursements through December 4, 2024 of $34,870.82, payroll through November 30 of $25,680.33, and wire payments through November 30, 2024 of $16,059.50. sentence. Item number two is approval of city licenses as outlined in the packet. There are about 25 of those. Thank you residents and businesses in Falcon Heights. Three, we have the appointment of Campbell Knutson as city attorney. Four, appointment of Kellyanne Lemons as city prosecutor. Five, appointment of creative planning as city auditor. Six, appointment of Roseville Assistant City Engineer Eric Hendrickson as City Engineer. 7. Approval of setting the 2025 cost-of-living adjustment for the COLA at 3.5% for all City employees. 8. Statutory tort limits liability coverage for the City in 2025. 9. Approval of the Northeast Youth and Family Services Cooperative Service Agreement for 2025. 10. Approval of the Tubman Legal Services Cooperative Agreement for 2025 11. Approval of a Joint Powers Agreement with the City of Roseville for Engineering Services 12. Reclassification of part-time accountant position to Assistant Finance Director 13. Promotion of Alyssa Landberg to Assistant Finance Director Fourteen, request to close Fund 428, Amber Union Project Fund, and transfer the balance to Parks and Public Works Capital Fund number 403. And fifteen, is the authorization of inspection and repairs for plow truck units number 18 and 16, not to exceed $8,000. Details on all of the consent agendas are provided in the packet. In a consent agenda, all those in favor of passing these 15 items, signify by saying aye. Aye. All those opposed, same sign. It would be 5-0 because it was consent. We all agreed to it. So, thank you very much. I really appreciate all of the... work that Kelly's done getting people to get their licenses in and get those set before the beginning of the year and the response of our businesses and rental housing programs. Next we move on to policy items. Yes, sir? Oh, yeah. Other things? Comment on consent items of interest to everybody. Yeah, I had one. I just wanted to say thanks for approving the NYFS Cooperative Services Agreement, Northeast Houston Family Services, as continuing to become an even more effective and efficient organization. They do a lot of good work in the community, especially with their adding services, such as a restoring power program for domestic and sexual abuse survivors. And they actually are providing you more services all the time. They've doubled the number of appointments that they have held with their clients year over year since last year. And they're really continuing to undergo a renaissance there. And it's great to see them improving and growing and becoming stronger. And Falcon Heights is the beneficiary of that. So it's great that we're helping them out. Thanks, everybody. My comment. And I simply wanted to thank my team here, all of us, and our staff as well, that we continue to support Northeast Youth and Family Services as well as the Tubman Legal Services. Having these two organizations that we're seeing, that we value this part of the community in serving them and making life better for these individuals. I just mentioned I'm proud to sit on the council for a city that really invests in its staff. So I'm really, really happy to keep Alyssa around and moving up in her position here. I know, you know, just anecdotally, a lot of times for a smaller city like ours, the turnover of staff is really a challenge. And just having that organizational knowledge, I think, really serves us better in the long term to really invest in the staff we have here. And everybody's doing a great job, and very enthusiastically do I support a cost-of-living adjustment of 3.5 percent because, yeah, they're doing great, and I hope we can keep everybody around as long as possible. Okay. Thank you. Administrator Linehan, any further comment? Yeah, thank you, Mayor and Council. I do echo the previous sentiments. Thank you for the support of staff. Staff appreciates it. It's good to recognize that and continue to increase our cost of living adjustments. I also want to say congratulations to Alyssa Lamberg for getting the promotion. A little bit about a statutory Plan A community. Administrator powers there. The administrator is able to hire part-time employees, seasonal employees, but full-time requires council action. And so Alyssa has been with the city for a couple years, came on originally as an intern, got promoted to part-time accountant, and then now is ready to take that next step as the assistant finance director because, as we said, if we don't do it, somebody will. So we're really happy to kind of have her supporting Roland and continuing to grow in her career. So glad to see it. Congratulations, Alyssa, and we're excited to have you on full-time. You're here. You're here. Excellent. Okay. Next we'll move on to policy items. We've got three on the agenda tonight. Our first one is the adoption of Ordinance 2407, amending Chapter 14 of the Falcon Heights City Code to incorporate and establish regulations for registering cannabis and hemp businesses. I made the news today from the Office of Management there. And then we'll have, should I turn this one over to another capable staff member, our Community Development Coordinator, Hannah Lynch, who has been working on getting this figured out with the Planning Commission and with the council and all of our city attorneys for the last years. We've had to deal with this one. turn it over to presentation there to explain what it is that we're that we're doing here thank you mayor and council members so really quick so there are two policy items my presentation is going to kind of combine those items because this does affect both of them it's two chapters of City Code that we are going to be looking at changing though So to begin with, I'm going to be very clear, and you're going to hear me say this multiple times tonight, just so that I am very clear, and if you've heard this presentation before, I apologize. Thank you. We cannot issue an outright ban on cannabis businesses. The state does not allow it. So the law reads, the local Unified Government may not prohibit the establishment or operation of a cannabis business or hemp business licensed under this chapter. Additionally, we must allow at least one per 12,500 residents. So since we have between 5,000 and 6,000 residents, we do need to allow at least one cannabis retail business. So now that that's out of the way, where does this come from? So Chapter 342 was established in 2023. Cities were allowed to do a moratorium on new cannabis businesses until January 1, 2025 to allow for guidelines to be established. Falcon Heights did take advantage of this. The chapter was again updated in 2024 and established the regulations that we are now using to update our city code. Chapter 342 also established the Office of Cannabis Management, and they're the ones who are going to govern these businesses and issue licenses for them, amongst other enforcement activities, so they make and enforce the law. What does the licensing process look like? So businesses will contact the Office of Cannabis Management to apply for and submit their application. It'll be looked at for the minimum requirements, and it will be entered into the lottery system if all the requirements are met. If the business is selected in the lottery, OCM does a background check and issues a preliminary approval. The businesses will submit their location and amend their application accordingly. At some point in this process, so generally around that time frame, it's highly recommended that the cannabis business contact the city about their proposed location to make sure that they are locating in an area that is permitted for cannabis businesses. So this is where we come in. So all of this happens before the city really has any authority. The Office of Cannabis Management will forward the completed application to us. We sign off saying that the business is meeting all of our zoning regulations and registration regulations, and that's pretty much it. So OCM then will do a site inspection and issue the state license, and the retailers will get a registration from the city prior to commencing any sales. I will state so anyone if you do have a retail endorsement so micro Mesa business or a retailer again just to say they do have to have a local registration so what are we allowed to do as a local municipality again we cannot issue a ban we do have to allow at least one of these businesses if we are approached by them. We do not need to seek out the businesses but if we are approached and if the business meets our regulations they are entitled to a city registration. So we can limit the hours operation to between 10 a.m. and 9 p.m. seven days a week. We can provide buffers around certain areas so the state allows the maximum of a thousand foot buffer from schools or 500 feet from daycares residential treatment facilities and parks and we must conduct compliance checks at least once per year so those buffers what did they look like from our areas where we would have those different features so the red circles on here the smaller ones are 500 feet from our parks where you would potentially have a minor frequenting and a thousand feet from the schools so Chelsea Heights is in st. Paul but it's right on the corner so you can see a thousand feet from Falcon Heights Elementary does not touch any of our commercial districts a thousand feet from Chelsea Heights does touch right there at the corner of Hoyt and Hamlin one more time we cannot ban these businesses and I keep saying it So what are we proposing? On November 26th, the Planning Commission met and held a public hearing to discuss these different regulations. We are recommending a cap of one cannabis retailer, micro business with a retail endorsement, or mezzo business with a retail endorsement. The difference between these micro and mezzo businesses, think of them kind of like breweries, so where you grow, produce on site, and can potentially consume on site, and I'll get back to that in a few moments. The next thing we are proposing is that we do a buffer of 300 feet from any primary or secondary school, daycare, residential treatment facility, or attraction within a public park. So if you remember those circles, the 1,000 feet from the elementary school didn't hit any of the commercial districts. However, a 300-foot buffer would potentially protect Chelsea Heights Elementary a little bit more. We're matching the St. Paul buffer, so they set up a 300-foot buffer from schools in their city. This would kind of match that, so we're making sure we're being good neighbors, trying to kind of go with what they have decided as well. we are stating that they need to be in the B3 zoning district. So what is the B3 zoning district? If I go back to our map, the B3 zoning district is that pink area right at the corner of Larpender and Snelling. So it's going to be the northeast and northwest corner of Larpender and Snelling. So where the majority of our current businesses are, that is where we would allow them to set up shop. We are saying that the hours of operation be limited to between 10 a.m. and 7 p.m., seven days per week, so as the state provides. And we are stating... Nine or nine? You were saying nine earlier. Oh, 10 a.m. and 9 p.m. Okay. Yeah, there you go. Another thing we are proposing is no on-site consumption permitted unless, and this is where we're going to have an asterisk, No on-site consumption permitted unless it is expressly permitted by the terms of the state license. So micro-businesses and mezzo-businesses, if their state license says that they can offer consumption on-site, we have to allow that. In order to kind of combat that, though, and protect our residents who might be in the area around them, we are prohibiting smoking on-site. So that is including indoor as everywhere is, but we're also saying no smoking in outdoor areas. So if you have a patio, no smoking on the patio, no smoking porches, decks, parking lots, anything like that. We're also stating that operations must take place within an enclosed building. They may not share a common interest with a tobacco product shop. and if there is a special event there is to be no on-site consumption of cannabis or cannabis products including the lower potency hemp edibles or beverages so again very specifically this is for no consumption you could potentially sell at a special event if one were to be held within the city but you cannot consume just a side note this does not include the state fair or any events at the University of Minnesota because they are not within our jurisdiction. So that is what we are proposing. Here are some resources. These are links to the Office of Cannabis Management and the different laws. So what you have before you, and like I mentioned, this is kind of two policy items rolled into one. So the first ordinance, 2407, that you have in front of you is amending Chapter 14, which is our chapter around businesses. So this is going to add in all of the registration information for registering these businesses. So it has a very comprehensive definition section. It talks about the process for becoming registered. It does state that you have to have a state license before you come to us to receive a registration. It talks about how it can be revoked, reasons for denial, goes through those different prohibitions about on-site consumption, that sort of thing, looks at compliance checks. As I mentioned, we do have to do a compliance check at least once per year. And then if there were to be violations, how we could potentially revoke that registration. So we have Ordinance 2407 and Summary Ordinance 2407. And then jumping to the next policy item, This is Ordinance 2408, amending Chapter 113 of the City Code, and this is our zoning chapter. So this is where we are putting in those rules about the 300-foot buffer. Again, no smoking outside, no consumption on site unless they have that special license from the state. The hours of operation, no consumption in special events, and that it must be located in a B3 zoning district. At the public hearing, we did have one resident who came and expressed her concern over it and expressed concern for residents around where this business could operate. And I did receive two emails from residents that were read into that record. They were also in opposition, just concerned about if the business, one person was saying that they thought the business might go under and that sort of thing, but just in general opposition. I did make it very clear to all residents that we spoke with about this that we cannot ban them, so it's a matter of picking the best location in the city for them, which I believe the Planning Commission has done a good job of placing them in an area where we already have businesses, we already have a liquor store, we have a bar, or a restaurant with a bar, kind of fitting in with those general regulations. So what staff is requesting tonight is a motion to adopt Ordinances 2407 and summary ordinance 2407 and ordinance 2408 and summary ordinance 2408 amending the two chapters of city code relating to businesses and zoning. Okay. Questions from council? Yeah, I do have one. I think we discussed this earlier. It was between me and the administrator. the summary ordinance 2408 and as mentions as you had said that retail establishments are limited to the b3 zoning district I was not able to find that actually in ordinance 2408 and all or is that taken care of somewhere else? Yeah, sorry, Anna. I'll take this because Jim related to me. I did not relate to you this morning. Jim, I did confirm page 227 of the packet. Essentially, it's section 2 of the ordinance. What it does there is it amends the section of city code, which is 113.79C, and it adds these definitions into the B3. So that's what it's doing. Even though it doesn't say adding these to B3, that's what it's doing. It's adding it there to B3. Okay, so it goes back into a different section of code, which is zoning? Yes, so into 113. It's a reference. Great, thank you very much. Thank you. Okay. Did we have any public comment on this as it goes? Before I call for that, because we usually do open up our policy to public comment. Anything else from council before I do that? I have two more questions, additional questions. One is regarding the mezzo and the micro business. Could you clarify the difference between those two? Yes. So the micro and the mezzo businesses, it has to do with the amount of product that they are producing. I don't know the exact amount, but it has to do with the amount of product they're producing and the size of the business, essentially. I can look up the exact. Like the square footage. Of the whole operation, yeah. Okay. And then my next question, how does this come into play with restaurants that might have THC products and liquor stores that might have THC? that constitute one of these locations? So essentially our current restaurants are within the B3 zoning district and we are adding lower potency hemp edibles as a permitted use in B3. So they would be allowed, as long as they get a license from the state and register with the city as one of these retailers, they can sell that there. The lower potency hemp edibles and beverages are allowed to be consumed on site. We're not prohibiting that in our ordinance. We're just prohibiting smoking outdoors. So the edibles and the beverages can be consumed on site. If a restaurant or a cafe or store were to come in outside of B3, they would not be permitted to sell or consume on site. And those are a category different from these ordinances? They're part of it. They're part of it? Yes. So we have defined cannabis retail establishments and also lower potency hemp edible retail and beverages. So they are defined separately, but they are both as part of this. So we're looking at both of them. Okay. In the ordinances, but we're still required to have, allow one mezzel or micro business. Or a retailer. Or retailer outside, not including restaurants and liquor stores. We are required to register one retailer. So if they get a retail, mezzo, or micro license from the state, so if it is a restaurant and they were to get one of those three licenses from the state and we registered them, that would count as our one. Okay. But that does not include the lower grade? Right. No, if they're just doing the lower potency, that doesn't. It has to be the big stuff. Okay, great. Thank you for clarifying. I know it's been a challenge to figure out how this cannabis rule is going to work ever since the legislature in 23 decided to just throw it out there for everybody to figure out, and then they said that they'd come back this year and get it straightened out, and they are still waiting to do that. But they're close. But anyway, so we've been in our moratorium that we put in until the state happens, runs through December 31 of this year. So we have to have something in place by January, and hence tonight's action and the last month of frantic activity by the Planning Commission to make certain that we dotted I's and crossed T's properly. and thank you, Hannah, for guiding that through, and thank you, Planning Commission, for making that happen. Public comment, I'd open it up for a quick thing. If somebody wants to weigh in, maybe while you're here tonight, but if you would so like to come up to the podium and address the issue, you can. Okay. Okay. So, further comments from council? I know that the St. Paul City Council President Mitra Jalali and Wan-Jung Kim, Vice President, will be happy to see that we match the buffer along with Chantel Allen on the school board. Thank you. Try to be good neighbors wherever we can. So do I hear a motion to adopt Ordinance 2407, amending Chapter 14 of the Falcon Heights City Code? So moved. Okay. Okay. Do we want to take each one of these separately, or do you want to take them all at once? With the summaries, is it cleaner to go one at a time? I recommend doing each ordinance and summary together. Okay. Two motions would be enough. Two motions. A motion for 2407, amending that, and summary ordinance 2407. Both are ordinance amending Chapter 14, Falcon Heights City Code, to incorporate and establish regulations for registering cannabis and hemp businesses. That's been moved by Council Member Meyer. Any further discussion? Hearing none. All those in favor, signify by saying aye. Aye. All those opposed, same sign. Motion carries 5-0. I'd like to hear a motion for the adoption of Ordinance 2408 and Summary Ordinance 2408, amending Chapter 113 of the Falcon Heights City Code, allowing and establishing regulations for cannabis retail establishments. So moved. So moved by Wassenberg. All those in favor, further discussion? Hearing none. All those in favor, signify by saying aye. Aye. All those opposed, same sign. Motion carries 5-0. Thank you. We now are statutorily in compliance with the state regarding the sale of cannabis and registering the businesses in Falcon Heights. Thank you, Hannah. Thank you, Planning Commission. Thank you, City Council. We have discussed this issue multiple times during the course of last year, so thank you very much. Number three, our policy item, is the authorization of a service order with Forest Lake Contracting not to exceed $8,500 for emergency repair of six streetlights in the University Grove neighborhood. Administrator Linehan. Yeah, thank you, Mayor and Council. So this was introduced as a new item as we just got this price. And so one of the considerations we had for staff, we didn't want to put this out as a surprise to Council, but at the same time, too, it didn't make sense to wait on this until our next Council meeting. So we have Forest Lake ready and available. But to kind of give a little bit of history of this, early December, residents called, letting us know. This happens frequently. The street light's out. We go and investigate. We discovered that copper wire had been stolen from the lights. And so working with the City of St. Paul on this, it took a little bit of determination. It's kind of the lights in this area are unique. They were all installed by the City of St. Paul through a cooperative agreement in 1998. They installed lights in Falcon Heights, the St. Anthony Park neighborhood, and then in Lauderdale. Same light style. We have a maintenance agreement with St. Paul for these, so St. Paul Public Works crews come and maintain the lights. So it took a little bit of time determining ownership, determining the extent of the break. We filed a police report on this, but at this time we do need to repair them. And so usually St. Paul would come and repair it. They have such a backlog of stolen copper wire that they said realistically late spring, early summer was when they thought they could get to it. So we have a consideration. Do we want to consider a quicker fix? Likely it's a little bit more expensive than St. Paul. They thought it was a reasonable price compared to what they would charge us. There's probably St. Paul's being lower. However, there was a couple fixes in this quote, too. They're going to switch the bulbs from high-pressure sodium to LEDs. They'll color match them and brightness match them. That was my concern. I didn't want six lights looking like one way and the other 75 are not as bright and nice. But they'll color match them. And then what they'll do with this, too, is when they replace the conduit inside, they put a sleeve around it so the copper is in a sleeve. Harder to just kind of yank and grab, which is the style of what's happening in a lot of these thefts. So I'm not going to say that it's going to make it theft-proof, but it makes it more difficult to do that damage. Long-term, we're going to have to want to consider what we want to do with these streetlights. They're coming up on 27 years old, and so at some point they likely would need a larger repair. But in the short term, we hope that this repair would help and that this is something that we can do. Hopefully it's not something we have to do repeatedly. so happy to take any questions on it and also seek direction from the council on how to proceed yeah it's unfortunate this uh this form of thievery and vandalism takes place it's the amount of money gleaned is is small compared to the damage that's done in the process is there a looking at our other lights since we had some that were affected um is there a way to do a little bit more to theft proof those i'm assuming these are ones that have a lower access panel is there a way to secure that spot weld them in place i mean something like that make them very difficult to get open yeah i can't answer that at that time but it's a good suggestion something we'll have to talk with saint paul too and see you know they're having experience one thing saint paul is doing with a lot of their lights that i haven't seen in this neighborhood is they energize their lights 24-7, so they just leave them on all the time. And so Como lights, other lights, they leave them on, and so that you can't take the copper or risk electrocuting. So not the best solution. It's one that, as we are aware, when we installed our new lights on Larpinder, we went for the access panels at the top that hopefully requires a bucket truck or it's a little more difficult to get. So, yeah, it would be worth looking to see how we can protect these. Yeah, it might be nice. I don't know, but I could imagine that some spot welding would deter because we don't really have to service these very often. I'm assuming the cost is higher because the quantity is lower than all of the ones that need to be done in St. Paul, where if they got a bid for a larger amount, they were able to get the price lower. Is that what you're thinking? I would say probably so because what this still requires is mobilization of a crew. And so they come out. I mean, if this gets approved, they might come out Friday and do it. So they'll move quick. They're the professionals. They're the ones Forest Lake installed our lights. They also did all the ones on Cleveland. So they're very familiar. But, yeah, I would say, yes, the price per light is high. That's something we internally weighed too is that when you're talking over 1,000 per light, our new lights were about 10,000 a piece right and so at some point where is that replace you know you have a 25 year old light what's that replacement value but then that kind of becomes a difficult the long term would be to replace all the lights but the short that might be you know two years out at least so what are you doing the interim right I feel that this is a safety yeah we need to do this for the safety of our residents and their guests. Especially now. We're running about 15 hours of darkness right now. Did you say there were about 70 other lights similar to these? That is a guesstimate for me. Yeah, from seeing in the neighborhood. There's a lot of them. So in the St. Anthony Park side, for Falcon Heights, they run all the way along Hoyt and then up Fulham. And so then on the south side, they're in St. Paul running along Hoyt and then down a lot of the side streets. And then on Fulham on the west side is Lauderdale, and Lauderdale has the same lights. So at some point in 1998, they did a big project kind of cooperatively between the three cities, and they probably said, hey, we'll put these lights in and take care of them if you help pay for it. so I don't fully remember how many I did count while I was out there trying to determine the damage that was last week we probably have I'd say 30 30 lights would be my guess okay got it yeah I'd be curious if there's a way to buttress them a bit against the theft it's a good idea I was ready to make a motion to go forward. Okay. Motion's been made by Council Member Mielke to go forward with the authorization of the service order. We'll fill in the proper code number into the minutes. Further discussion? Hearing none. All those in favor of authorizing the emergency repair of the streetlights, signify by saying aye. Aye. All those opposed, same sign. Motion carries 5-0. That brings us to information and announcements. Left to right, right to left. Council Member Mielke. Sure. Environment Commission met on Monday night and there's a lot of great things going on with talking about trees increasing tree canopy a great possibility of plastic recycling and I think residents will be really excited about and how they're working hard and Hannah you said 18 people on the climate action team yes I believe 18 and then we have a lot of other partners we have a the Somali organization from St. Paul. We've been in touch with Hispanic, African-American, different organizations out of St. Paul that have residents that live here that we're going to try to get to come to our third meeting, along with the county, the watershed district, and a few other large, the state fair, and the U, to come to our third meeting to provide feedback as we move forward with this. Awesome. Yeah. All right. That's it for me. I sadly missed Tuesday night's event, recovering from a bad cold. Council Member Meyer. I was able to make it last night to the discharging of the racial covenant event for Human Rights Day. And, yeah, it was very well attended, fantastic presentations. I'm glad that this is something our city's doing to discharge It's incredible when you see the map and how we have per capita the most racial covenants in our deeds in our city That's something we need to take care of. So glad the residents are taking it seriously. And yeah, it was great. Tasty pizza from toppers, Falcon Heights business. So yeah, I appreciate the city putting that together and all the work. I think Kelly was kind of the... Elka. Oh, Elka. Okay. Elka Community Engagement. All right. Good job, Elka. That's it. Okay. Council Member Leahy. Yes, just continuing regarding yesterday being Human Rights Day, International Human Rights Day, and that was why it was decided then to have the racial deeds, not only the presentation but an opportunity for residents to have that portion discharged off of their torrents or abstracts. And at least 100 people signed up that did not have to come in person, otherwise the room probably would have been totally packed, even though the people that were here, it was a decent size of those in attendance. And that's because the torrents were much easier to process that discharging. And just a really excellent presentation by both of the ladies that presented and just clarifying things that I had personally thought that the racial covenants was the same as the redlining, but the redlining is the opposite part of the problem. It's like a two-sided coin of a very big problem that a lot of people in the history of Minnesota thought was a benefit to have these things going on. And I'm grateful that my parents were able to purchase a home when I was a child in South Minneapolis. And just seeing what took place in North Minneapolis because of this redlining and these racial covenants, which is just horrible. You saw two people groups literally warring against each other because of land and how that creates tension in a community. And being a resident in Falcon Heights soon after, literally as I got married, and being welcomed in Falcon Heights just makes me proud to be a part of this city, to see what people have done to welcome me and my husband and other people of color into our community, but not just to do the things of inviting to a block party where it's collectively community, but doing the personal work such as this just really makes me glad to be here. So as much as it was hard to hear the information, I was really proud to see what took place last night. and want to thank the CEC for their work in doing that and ELCA and the staff and their being available, the volunteers that came, even Jack Linhan, our administrator, was present as well, and all of the residents that have put in their time in researching this and learning more. So thank you, everyone. Thank you. Council Member Wasenberg. Thank you. I'll just comment that the Parks Commission met earlier this month. they're doing a fair bit of heavy lifting on continuing to plan for the park and this focus for this meeting was on playground equipment we looked through a lot of proposals people gave a lot of input and a lot of thought and recommended a proposal which i think is really great it's got a lot for the kids it's got some for younger kids older kids and it's mobility accessible so i think it's going to be a beautiful beautiful playground and probably a good candidate for receiving funding to support the accessibility elements of it as well. So that's it for me. Cool. I haven't got much. I want to thank everybody who did come last night and who was part of the planning for that and all of that. We've been talking, eliminating these hateful things for a long time. And I'm glad we're doing it. It just needs to be done. I want to thank everybody for all their work putting the budget together so that we can keep the city moving and growing. It was fun this morning. I thought I'd get out and get my driveway clear at 6, but I didn't beat whoever was driving the truck. I didn't get outside. I was ready to go out my door and say I beat the salting or the putting it down, but Colin or Dave were out there. But anyway, and making the road safe for that little bit of snow that was out there. Just great service. Wish everybody, again, thank you for coming out on a nice brisk night and hope for a safe holiday season. Council will be meeting in December, I don't think, on the 21st. Third. Third. Monday the 23rd to wrap up some last-minute business. I think that Mayor Pro Tem Meyer will be presiding as I've got my children in town. Administrator Linahan. Yeah, thank you, Mayor and Council. Everyone covered everything? I'm going to be very brief. Staff has been working on the various events, getting businesses licenses finalized, inspections and then Public Works has been working on flooding our ice rink liner so new this year is that we're doing a liner at Curtis Fields Public Works and staff kind of came to us and said look you know for a small investment we think that this would really improve ice quality and make it so we can fill this because usually what they'll do to fill the ice one without a liner is they have to do a layer let it freeze another layer and they have to do that maybe 50 times to get enough ice to build. With a liner, it's kind of like filling a pool. They can kind of let it go. So we're hopeful that hopefully we can get a little bit more snow or a little bit more of the season. We will not have the ice warming shelter out there this year. So with some of the challenges of the site, we have to find a long-term solution for that. Short-term didn't make sense. So it'll be kind of a skate at your own... Comfort. Comfort. Comfort. Risk to your comfort. We'll have some pictures to sit on. Skate at your own comfort. And then other than that, again, staff just working, getting everything ready for the holidays, and I'll leave it at that. Administrator, let me hand you an estimate on when that ice is going to be ready with this brutal cold, like tomorrow morning? I think it probably will be. I know they were out filling yesterday when it was a little bit warmer. I'm guessing probably soon, but I can't afford it. Isn't it 40 again by the weekend? Yeah. Yeah. The nice thing is the liner will also be more forgiving if it may have a little bit of a breeze thaw. So hopefully we can extend it. That's what we'll see. We'll be down there checking. Yep. Get down and check it out. Go skate party. First tracks. Yeah, okay. Get that. Record engine. There you go. Get that first shh, shh, shh. Yeah. Don't put too big of tracks in it if it's soft. Okay. And now I'd like to open this up for community forum. If somebody would like to come forward to address the council for up to three minutes on a topic, not for earlier discussed, but something for future. If you'd like to say anything, you're welcome to do so. If not, you're welcome to not. So I'll close the community forum. Thank you for coming out. Thank you, everyone, for what worked out to be a pretty quick meeting with a lot of meat in it tonight as we move this city forward and keep it growing. So I'm here for a motion for adjournment. So moved. So moved by Lee. No key. Yep. Here we go. All those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. All those opposed, same sign. Thank you. And a vote of 5-0. We are adjourned.