Good evening, and welcome to the City of Falcon Heights regular meeting of the City Council on Wednesday 04/23/2025. We'll call this meeting to order at 07:04PM. Roll call, Gustafsson. Here. Leahy. Here. Meyer. Here. Melke. Here. Lawsonberg. Here. Linehan. Here. All right. Any changes to tonight's agenda? Do I have an approval, do I have a motion to approve the agenda? So moved. So moved by Leahy. Any discussion? Hearing none. All those in favor signify by saying aye.
Aye. All those opposed same sign. Motion carries five fold. Agenda's approved. Tonight, our first order of business is we are honored to have a presentation from our Ramsey County Commissioner and Ramsey County City, County Manager Garrison Mcmertree, I can't talk tonight I'll apologize and our manager Ling Becker. I'll bring you guys up to the, to the podium here and let you get started. Thank you and welcome. Thank you, mister Meredith and and members of the city council.
I'm Garrison McMurtry. I am the the newest, Ramsey County Commissioner for here, in District 3, and really appreciate you all, giving me the opportunity as well as county manager Becker a chance to share a little bit about what not only, who we are, but just the work that we're doing, at the county and and how we're looking forward to partnering with you all, for the betterment of the folks in our community. So, just wanted to quickly start with an overview of of, the county, and and we're gonna go more, into details on these areas. County manager Becker will speak more to our county's vision,
mission, goals, and values as well as some of our strategic, priorities that we have, as well as, some of the things that we do as a county. You know, one of the things that I came to learn, especially out, on the doors is that a lot of folks aren't aware of the the the work of the county. And and oftentimes, I'd say is that, you know, sometimes our work is overlooked, but we play such an important role in people's day to day lives. And so when we look at what the the county does and what the board does, here's just a couple of things. One, we provide oversight over the county budget and and ultimately approval of our over $800,000,000
budget here in Ramsey County. We're responsible for establishing, number of county policies, as we are in the midst of our legislations, legislative session now. Ramsey County plays a pivotal role in ensuring that our legislators understand, the role that we play in in in administering a lot of the things that has passed through the legislature, as well as being clear as our priorities and how we will, how we ask for their assistance in a lot of those different goals that we have. Additionally, we do, quite a bit when it comes, to, oversight over land use planning, appointments for officials. Of course,
social services plays a humongous role as nearly half of our county budget, and so ensuring that we have the, social services that are responsive to the needs of the folks in our community is very important to us as a board. Public safety, although the roles of our county sheriff and our county attorney are both elected, we do also play a role in oversight of those particular areas, and, of course, infrastructure. Tis the season for road construction. I'm sure you all have started to see it throughout the county, and that is an important, investment and, aspect of what we do at the county. For myself,
I represent District 3. We have a total of seven county, board commissioners in Ramsey County. My district includes, of course, here at Falcon Heights, as well as well as a number of northern neighborhoods in Saint Paul. So I have Saint Anthony Park, Hamlin Midway, Como, which is where my wife and I live, the North End, a little bit of Frogtown, and Payne and Phelan. So that's District 3. And then the last piece that I I would speak to of of our role as county board is making sure that we are representing, Ramsey County not only at the state level, but also at the federal level.
And we've had a number of opportunities these last couple of months to visit with folks in our delegation, in particular, Congresswoman Betty McCollum, to share, you know, some of the impacts of, a number of things that's happening right now on the federal level, some of the uncertainty that's happening out there, some of the cuts that are being proposed, some of the freezes to federal grants that we know are are pivotal to the services that we provide to the folks here in Ramsey County. And I know that, county manager Becker will probably go a little bit more into into those things as well. I went over this as this is, my district, and and the area that we that I represent on the the county board.
And then I won't go through all of these, but as a part of the board, we each commissioner, has the the pleasure of being a part of a number of boards and commissions, outside of those that we, do with the with with with the, with Ramsey County. So few that I just want to highlight. I am the chair of the economic growth and community investment, service team committee, as well as the vice chair for our housing and redevelopment authority. And then of the boards and commissions and committees that I'm on, two a couple I wanna highlight, Greater MSP, is one. I'll be representing Ramsey County on that board,
as well as our joint property tax, advisory committee. And then we have a few associations that we're also, involved with. One being, AMC, the Association of Minnesota Counties, where I am the Ramsey County Rep on our board of directors, as well as NACO, which is the National, Association of Counties, and I have the pleasure of being a part of the Community and Economic Workforce Development Steering Committee, for there. I'll get more into this. I wanna, a lot turn over to county manager, Becker. But for me, when it comes to the work, as I have started,
on the county board a whole six weeks in, a few of the things that I really wanna focus on. One, being creating more deeply affordable housing. We know that for here in Ramsey County, we're in a deficit of 15,000 deeply affordable housing. So I wanna make sure that we're doing our due diligence to to prioritize that at the board. Investing in economic development, this is a piece that's really important to me, especially as we think about ways to spur more economic growth throughout our community, especially as we, also consider, looking at other ways outside of,
you know, just property taxes as a way to bring in revenue for our, for our community. And then the last piece, which I alluded to before, are our county services that makes up a big portion of our budget. And I wanna work with the board to ensure that these services are welcoming, that they're assessable, and that they're responsive to the needs of the folks in our community. So with that, I'll hand it over to the county manager Becker. Yeah. Thank you. Yes, sir. Thanks for having us. It's great great to be here. I'll just take a minute to introduce myself. My name is Lynn Becker. I've been the county manager since September 1.
Prior to becoming the county manager, I was the workforce director for the county for the last six years. So I'm not new to the county, but newer to the county administrator role. Some background about me. I'm a first generation immigrant. My parents came to The United States when I was five years old. That's a picture of my family that's a little older than when we came, but my sister sister was only six months old. They came with a couple suitcases and, and an American dream in the late seventies. And so I'm really grateful for for that journey that they've taken. I have a very early history with public sector work and kind of been a
public servant my whole life. I started at the age of 15 working at a local community center, popping popcorn, serving hot dogs and pretzels. And eventually, by the time I was in, senior in high school, I worked in the city manager's office. And so, ever since then, I just have this passion for making sure that we're creating pathways for young people to learn about public sector careers. Most of my job was, throughout that time was a lot of people in city halls that actually took an interest in me, gave me projects that were big enough to feel important. I had a chance to do a city council presentation like this when I was
probably 18 years old on a project, but it was never a project so big that, you know, like, the whole world was resting on it. But, you know, just these opportunities. Right? And I've worked at every level of government, including the Met Council, the state government, federal government, throughout my career. So, I would say the county level of government is, is a really rewarding place to work because of the social safety net we provide for our residents. But it's also a place where we we get a lot of, ability to get something done. You know, I know as you get higher up in, like, the layers of bureaucracy, it can be a little harder. And right now,
we can take an idea to action, you know, in a fairly reasonable amount of time. And that's one of the important things for me is make sure we we we kinda get get rid of some of that bureaucracy and kinda have the momentum to get residents what they need. I have my background really is in, public private partnerships. I've done a lot of work with economic development, workforce development, school districts. Certainly very familiar with suburban Ramsey County. I did a lot of economic development in the Northeast Corridor, not quite as far west as this, but certainly all the way through, Shoreview, Adventist Heights,
White Bear Lake, that whole corridor along Highway 96. And, I have a particular appreciation for city county intergovernmental relations because of some of that background. I think it's really important and hopefully your staff and, and you will continue to see that vision come through from our staff that that that kind of mantra from me that we need to work in real partnership with our cities as you are our customers as well as, you know, we're partners. And so that's really important. And then, yeah. And I I, you know, I'm proud to be one of the fewer women who are running counties. We have 87 counties in the state of Minnesota and just really honored for the
privilege. It's, the board only hires one person, in our organization. So I take that responsibility very seriously, and then I'm responsible for the rest of our, 4,000, employees. So, let's see here. Wanted to share as mister McMurtry said, you know, our county is really driven around our vision, mission, and goals. And the beauty of that is I think as we do our work, there's a lot of clarity and that gets tied with that and our strategic priorities, which I'll talk about in a minute. But it's the combination of that when you, our staff working on really complex things to understand what your policy makers kind of
expect and what their north stars are. And as you think about the pandemic, you know, as a workforce director at the time and we were getting significant amounts of new, like, kind of federal dollars. As you can remember with the cares act funding, with American rescue plan act funding, there was not a lack of clarity about the things that our board valued. And I think that's one of the best gifts that staff can get is a lot of clarity from your policy makers about, the way they want you to, you know, disperse resources out to the community, what kind of, programs they want you to make and what they wanna see as outcomes as a
result of all that work. And so we really focus on well. So as I mentioned, we really are the social safety net of a community, the county level of government. So that focus on well-being, prosperity, opportunity, and accountability. These are our values. We like to call it the pickle circle. It's p I c e l. You know, not quite exactly the right spelling, but it's you know, we we really focus on making sure our work is always aligned with the people, both internal, external, you know, kind of have more of a human centric. Again, that social safety net making sure like, all the work we do is about residents.
Really doing that work with integrity, focusing, centering on community, making sure our work is, promoting equity. And then also, you know, that we're we're building leaders, and and developing our leadership and doing all that work, you know, from the frontline worker all the way up to our county board. You know, I as a workforce director, I had a lot of interactions with our 27 departments. I will say that, in the last eight months, I've learned even more deeply the complexity of the work of the county. You you name it, and we probably do it. We, off we do we're twenty four seven operation.
We have 27 departments. We run the nine one one call center as most of you are familiar with. You know, we have the adult detention center, the juvenile detention center, our correctional facility. We do all the elections for the county. We do vital records. We do veteran services. We do child protection. We do the libraries, the roads, you know, the county roads. We do parks. You know, it's just the the plethora of work and the job titles and the crisscrossing of how we touch individuals in in our community and your community is very complex. And so on any given day,
there's many, highs and and joys in that work. And there's oftentimes some lows because of the challenges. A lot of times we when we see people, it is their worst day, in a variety of ways. And so we have to make sure that how we show up as employees to make sure that, you know, we're getting people what they need and that's really important. And so the work is hard, but it's super rewarding. And so, and it's very complex. And so I just think it's important to recognize the critical work that the county level of government, really does. This is our kind of org chart.
It's, we have four four service teams. Those are the colors and then we kind of have a strategic team that goes around it. This is important because at one time about ten years ago, there was a county manager who had 27 direct reports. We all know that would be a terrible idea now, you know. And so what creates with that is a lot of silos because you're only getting so much time with, like, a leader to be able to say, hey. You should be crisscrossing your work. You should be checking in. Right? So about ten years ago, we created this service team structure. So there's now, deputy county managers that oversee,
like, bodies of work. And that helps me to be able to sort of not only manage the work of the county, but I'm also spinning the plates of, like, you know, the seven commissioners at the same time. So, you know, like, I'm trying to, like, balance the operations of the county in addition to all the needs and, like, the work of the commissioners and making sure all that is sort of held in a single container. And so it's important that we sort of have alignment. We are currently going through, some work this year as part of our budget. We have a biennial budget process of realigning a bit of the organization.
This is a ten year model. We realized that some of the the the alignments aren't exactly where they should be. Our human services area, which is the the orange area, even though it's it's it's not showing up as extra big there, it it's actually half of our employees. And so we need to just shift that a little bit so those teams get a little more leadership attention. And so we're working on that right now as continuous improvement. These are our strategic priorities. I will say that, we used to have probably double the number of strategic priorities. I think it's really important that we do get tactical and focused.
And so over time, we've sort of rolled those up, But they really focus on, as commissioner McMurtry was saying, really making sure we're putting residents first in terms of the way we deliver services. Our buildings are accessible, the programs themselves, hybrid, virtual, in person services. Where do people get them? How do they get them? The customer service as you receive, as you, you know, receive them. Also, we are always, you know, we're the most diverse county in the state of Minnesota. And so, we're always trying to think of how to advance not only outcomes based on race so that everyone has equitable access to resources,
but there's a health equity component as we run our public health services and other social services, mental health services. We're a large organization. So in terms of, you know, 4,000 employees, we're always working to, kind of develop this more strategies on how to retain, attract, good public servants to do the work. And so that's a strategic priority. We're we're doing a lot of work about with our youth justice transformation system. Lots of young people who are part of complex situations in their family, how to ensure that when they have interactions with law enforcement, like how do we help them early and often on more,
holistic ways and prevention ways to not get further into these systems as older child young people or as adults. We partner with schools. We partner with mental health. We we try to get young people what they need instead of assuming that it's, you know, you're kind of on a course for being, you know, justice involved for the rest of your life after, you know, in their interaction at the age of 16 or 15 or something. And then the holistic, approach to serving families is really important. You know, families aren't complicated and they're more complicated than our silos.
And I always describe, like, when people need things from the county, it's because they have gaps in their family or in their individual lives. And sometimes I I described county and government services and bureaucracy as going to a grocery store where you're making a Thanksgiving meal and you can only go on Monday to get some part of your meal and, oh, it's only on the second, like, you can only go on Aisle 2. And then the next day, you can only go dial 4. And then the you know, we make you sort of do this, like, plug and play all all week long.
And by the end of the week, you're like, I didn't actually have what I needed exactly when I needed it. And so I'm back to the beginning, you know? And so we really have to think about how we serve families, not in, like, like, when I was the workforce director, we give you workforce services. But actually, to be successful at work, you needed to have childcare. You needed to have mental health services. You needed to have other things to be successful and how to make sure we're thinking about people and families as whole human beings and whole family units and not so much as like, okay, this is this is just what you need today, but you actually have a much more complex set of needs that in order to
help you move ahead. And our goal is not to have programs just be band aids. We're really trying to advance people to be homeowners, to be self sufficient, to earn family living wages, you know, be able to be successful and thrive in our community. And and and sometimes the government systems and the way we do dole out programs isn't designed to help them do that. So we have to push ourselves as the most diverse county in the state of Minnesota to sort of reengineer some of those traditional programs and think differently about how we get those to people. Where do we fill in some gaps with some of our flexible money and and
what are the partners we need to work with to get people further faster? We also are doing quite a bit around climate change. We have a climate equity act climate equity action plan. I'll talk a little bit about our new, environmental service center in a minute. And then we also do a lot of work around intergenerational prosperity and wealth. And and a lot of that comes from like a a a a belief that we believe more people need to be homeowners. People need to go pass on, like, intergenerational wealth. I did a big program around driver's licenses when I was a workforce director, and I had a moment that even vehicles and cars are actually a way to
pass on intergenerational wealth when you think about it. How many people do you know that actually got their first job or able to take an internship because somebody, you know, like a parent or a grandparent let them use a car or sold them one at a cheaper deal or paid for an insurance for you. Right? So those types of things, they don't feel like how we transfer wealth, but they really do transfer wealth because they open opportunity and create different access for people. And so thinking about mechanisms and things in our community that can help accelerate people's, wealth creation. It's sometimes it's more than what we think it is,
you know? So, I think I, you know, that's something I really think as a county we, we do well working on. I wanted to give you some updates about things that are going on. Obviously, we've had a lot of leadership transitions. You're meeting commissioner McMurtry, who's, like he's our newest commissioner. He kind of, you know, just, started in about March or so, pretty pretty early late. And, you know, I'm a new county manager, but, you know, of the picture he showed of our seven commissioners, commissioner Ortega, commissioner Maguire have been long term, county commissioners. But even, two years ago, we had new commissioners, commissioner Moran and commissioner Zhang,
you know, very, you know, we have a lot of firsts in our county as commissioners, and we should be really proud of that. You know? Commissioner Zhang is the first Hmong commissioner ever in the state of Minnesota. I think that's amazing. You know, with this last round of commissioners, we had, commissioner Kelly Miller, commissioner Tarjupin Singh. Kelly is the second Native American commissioner in the state of Minnesota ever. People are always shocked when I announce this, but we have the first black man who is the commissioner in the state of Minnesota. You would that you would think that in the state of Minnesota, that wouldn't be the first, but it is a first. And it's, and we're honored to have a very diverse board.
And why it's important is, you know, lived experience. It doesn't necessarily mean that, you know, any one person has a better perspective, but it definitely means that we bring different perspectives. And I even think my parents having been immigrants and having waited in line for public assistance, like, that changes the way I think about the work when I see people waiting in line. There's just no way that it doesn't change the way you think about access because you've seen it a little bit differently. And so I always kinda think that prism effect of the multitude of experiences both
on our board, in our leadership, in our staff, it it really does bode well for the community because we're able to sort of bring forth some of the you know, if you've worked, if you've struggled with housing or as a renter, you're gonna do something a little differently when you work in our housing stability office. So I think there's a lot to add there. As commissioner Umerty said, we have a lot of uncertainty right now. I have a next slide that I'll share with you from the state, but we're we're really, focused on some federal executive orders right now and what they mean for our local community. The county actually in our calendar year 2025,
we have about 90 federal grants. We still have about 100 and almost $50,000,000 outstanding from the federal government for the year. And so as there's kind of different orders, it puts pressure on some of our work to understand what where we're gonna land on some of the the executive orders. And so we have had some, grants taken away or fork sappages, particularly around public health, which is our largest grant funded area. The other thing that I was telling our board yesterday is, you know, those are direct impacts of the federal funds.
But there's also indirect impacts, and indirect impacts are probably more likely to affect your community. There are things like money that's now not going to MnDOT to fix a certain road or a bridge or there's there's quite a bit of that that has been going on. And so those are indirect. They're not taking money directly from the city of Falcon Heights, but they're disinvestments from your community. And then there's the collateral impacts, you know, when they, they've removed some employees at like so you hear about at the Department of Veteran Affairs, for example. Well, that doesn't feel like a direct impact,
but we're trying to process veteran benefits. And so without the right people at the federal level, things get delayed. They get sidetracked. They so so those are collateral impacts. Also, when they've removed quite a bit of data off systems. So one idea is like, you know, one thing is like moving a lot of health data away from systems that we rely on to determine how we write grants, how we figure out where to put money or not put money because of of gaps, right, of of of immunizations or different things. That that has collateral impact on our community. And then on top of it,
you know, as as you heard, one of the my passions is public service. And I think, you know, as people people who really, work hard for our communities, there's there's a lot of, a pressure right now or a dis disenfranchisement of kind of making public service seem like it's a dishonorable profession when people have worked really hard for many years trying to make our communities better. And so, you know, we might have a hard time. You know, I was on a mission to build up public service, get more young people involved in working in cities, working at counties. Like, people are getting a different perspective right now or even running for local government.
You know, those those things become hard when we don't have people that wanna do that because they feel like they're under a different microscope now and even doing good work. So, and then the state budget is very difficult. I will say all three budgets as proposed, the governors, the house and the senate are very hard on counties. There's a significant amount of tax, or shift of disability human service class being moved over to counties unlike ever before. If if some of the governor's budget happens, in one area, particularly in disabilities by the by 2027,
we might be looking at a $17,000,000 shift in the county. So that's a very, very significant, amount. So we're we're fighting hard to kinda share the burden and talk about it. We are not alone. Counties across the state are talking about those cost shifts. But, you know, the reality is the state's got to balance the budget and there's hard things to cut and, that's going to be very difficult and same with us as a county. So for me, I'm really focused on county responsible services. This is not the time for shiny objects and we need to really focus on
the things that counties are mandated to do. Sometimes we're mandated and we get some funding or adequate funding. Sometimes we get mandates and we don't have enough money. But we have to do those things first. Things that nobody else does. Like no one else is running the 911 call center. No one else is doing elections. No one else is helping people get food stamps. Right? There's certain things that we have to do. Now are there some other things that become more, you know, vulnerable on the table because they're not county responsible. You know, it's hard to say that that there are things like that, but, of course, there always are. And so those are hard decisions as organizations have to deal with this new budget
pressure. So as the state federal government has all this budget chaos, you know, created or just natural from, you know, not enough funds. It's it all puts pressure down at the local level and that will put pressure, you know, something for you to keep watching as well. Post COVID, you know, I've been a big researcher, study or observer of workforce anyway, particularly during that COVID time period. I think businesses are still trying to employers are still trying to understand the impacts and the pivots. We've done a lot of, like, business retention visits to ask questions like how many hybrid employees do you have versus
in person? Like, we're trying to understand what who's gonna disinvest from, like, their properties and things as they, you know, make shifts. Because if you're office workers, you know, you might need less than you needed before. How does and then that has impacts on your tax base, our tax base. And so these are and if you've been downtown, we have we have issues and we have probably not quite bottomed out yet. So you can read about it, I'm sure, in the news or if you've come down. But we we definitely and and, and at some point, I can, you know, talk to your city administrator. We are in the process of renewing what's our fiscal health analysis where we hired
urban three to do some, analysis on, like, the fiscal health of the county and where, like, the tax drivers are in terms of the tax base. And I think it'd be important for you guys to see some of that data when we have it. But ultimately, we all need downtown to be successful. Do not think that by being further away, you know, that it's somehow you're immune because that tax base driven out of downtown really reduces the tax pressure off of the rest of the community. And so we all should be interested in what's happening in St. Paul, every day. In terms of changing demographics, you know,
particularly in some of our northern, suburbs, we definitely see a little bit of a old more aging population. But actually, Ramsey County in general, we have the youngest, most diverse workforce in the state of Minnesota. And so, you know, that's no surprise. You know, the state public school district has a 50 languages. I mean, I always think if the state is gonna reach its equity goals or if we can advance as, a workforce, like, Ramsey County has to get it right. I mean, for our state state to do well, Ramsey County is gonna have to do well in all all metrics and all goals.
I talked about, you know, the county responsible services. The other thing I need to talk about is kinda operational excellence. Like, you know, it is definitely something I'm very focused on is, like, we don't we make our work way too complex. We don't need 15 people to touch a check before we send it off. Right? I mean, it's just these things have, like, kind of grown over time where the government sort of, you know and so while in an era of efficiency and some of that conversation is sort of a little nervousness right now, it's also still very much needed. And I have no problem with saying, you know, we need to do better.
There are more efficiencies we can achieve as bureaucracy. But we also do really important work and we it's more of the scalpel sort of method instead of the hacksaw. Right? Or the chop. Right? And so that's the hard work that you gotta be willing to do and roll up sleeves if you wanna get better. The the kind of hacksaw method just hurts a lot of people along the way. So, and then lastly, I'll you know, I wanna talk about our budget. So at least I have to make sure I have all the right slides. Okay. So our budget I thought I have one more slide in here, but I can get it to Jack, the timeline. We we have a biennial budget. We are in the process right now.
So the county is the way we do our budget is I I make a county manager budget. It's an organizational budget. I do with all our departments, and then I present that to the county board. So that'll happen on August 26. They will get the levy for the next two years along with my my budget, and then they have that fall until they do their you know, they'll do their max levy. They'll do their final passage in December to kinda get us to a point where they feel comfortable. I know you guys need things from the county to make the decisions you need to make, and we are trying to do better at expediting some of that for you.
I've heard that from cities and we are working on it. But, you know, it's important to us to be good partners knowing that there's kind of a chain of things that have to to happen around valuations. And so we'll we'll do our best to get you what you need as well as you plan your budget. We I think that's probably kind of what I have to share, but we'll have more budget information, as you guys and if you have more questions, I can you'll get the full timeline to you. We're opening a new environmental, center. It opened on April 1. It's actually in Roseville. Beautiful, center. You can actually, drop off lots of things through,
drive up, reduce, you know, self-service on household, you know, postcode recycling, scrap metal. It's, we have a fix it clinic. That's very popular. People bring in things and people fix it on Saturday for you volunteers. It's a great reuse. And we have a reuse room. It's almost like a little store and you can put stuff there based on after they review it, that it's okay. And you can take things and everything is free at this environmental center. And, the one important thing for your everyone to know is you don't actually have to live in Ramsey County. We have a reciprocity agreement with all the other counties in the state of Minnesota.
So you will be asked to give an ID, but we can bill, like, the other counties for, like, the work. Right? So you can anybody can come here. It's free. There's a grant, kind of a community event actually tomorrow night from six to eight, if you wanna go check it out, but it's open, you know, now it's open permanently. So there's some information here, but it's, it's located on 1700 Kent just off of Larpenter. So, I wanted to talk a moment about Rice Creek Commons. Again, we're really working on trying to, increase our tax base because that helps everybody. Right? And so, many of you heard about Rice Creek Commons for a long time.
It's gonna be the TCAP site. We've been pretty, I wonder what's the word, persistent in trying to get this project done primarily because it's estimated to unlock about a billion dollars of tax capital. And I think it's important because when you think about Ramsey County, we're the smallest square mileage county in the state of Minnesota. And we have a lot of schools, a lot. We have the highest level of like, post secondary or like educational institutions like colleges with the highest number of churches per capita in Ramsey County, and we have the highest number of nonprofits.
And so when you take that land, that that smaller piece of land we have where we jam all our half a million residents and you put all those non paying, no tax bearing buildings and spaces in there, we are kind of landlocked literally in terms of trying to build out more tax base. So we we have to do redevelopment projects. It's our only way. We are not heading up in. Our tax base doesn't look like that. And so, working on this this rice fruit common site is, is really an important thing. So we call this there's two parts. The the red is what we call the thumb parcel and then we have the
California parcel. So the thumb parcel is about it's 40 acres. We actually are doing a groundbreaking next week and we have our first, manufacturing firm going in there. So after all these years of cleanup, we're going to unlock that spot. The other 30 acres is in high demand. We've been talking to folks. I anticipate that to happen fairly quickly. And then we, you know, we are under a joint development agreement with a lattice, around the California part parcel. We have, synergy, I would say, with the city of Arden Hills right now. If you've been tracking, there have been times where that synergy hasn't always been there.
So that joint powers, table between the city and the county and the city is is is in alignment right now. And so this is our moment to try to get something done. And we've had some issues around the housing density if you've been tracking and other things, but, we're we're very optimistic about this about this area now. So and then, we also have a big project, the park at River's Edge. You know, it's right. If you've been down Tonnam Tree, you used to know we used to have a juvenile detention facility along the river on the bluff, in the West Publishing.
And this is the site of that. And, we are one of the only cities where we are on a a beautiful river, and we are not developed along that river in a way that's really, like, accessing it. You know, my son-in-law lived in San Antonio, and I'm like, look at all these hotels and restaurants along the stream. You know what I mean? We have the mighty Mississippi River and I can't even invite you to have lunch, you know, along the river ever. You know, we don't have a spot and that is crazy. So we are really working hard to have a start with this kind of park public realm development to get people down to the river.
And then the goal is to have some of these high rises with office, you know, and retail and other things. But, we we are pretty positioned to, move on it. It's part of our bonding app, but we as a county have been trying to think of other ways we can unlock some funds to get this project started. I actually think as part of the downtown revitalization, we have to add the riverfront strategy as part of the downtown strategy. They just can't be separated because the river itself is just so attractive that it will probably get people to reimagine downtown in a way that differently than just like
like, you know, kind of the downtown as it was. Because in reality, the downtown as it was will never be back. They're trying to work a lot on, housing conversion. But if you put more residents in the downtown, which I hope they do, they're gonna need a place to go and they're gonna need amenities because people don't wanna live there. There's no grocery store, no park, no places they can walk that they feel safe. So public safety is a big part of it. And we've been working a lot with the city to really talk about homelessness and talk about drug use and what's enforceable. Like, we can't make it not safe, you know? And I'm very comfortable downtown,
but there have been times I don't know if you've come you got gone to, like, a a Saints game, but, you know, they're great. Rice Park is great. But, like, the the the the lull in between walking between the two ends of downtown, it's a problem. And so we continue to work closely with the city on on all of that. And then I just wanted to call out the appropriate response initiative because I know your your, police department have been involved, but we've been working really hard on trying to create other ways to respond to 911 calls besides just the law enforcement response.
And I will say some of the work has evolved since after the the death of George Floyd. I think there was a real push to say, you know, public we don't like almost like we don't want public safety. And I think it's evolved a little bit now to say it's a it's a it's probably a melding of a response of needing public safety while also needing a different type of response. And so where we've seen some momentum is embedded social workers at the 91 call center. They are actually talking to a lot of people every day. There are some people that, believe it or not,
when I went to 911 call center, that they call the 911 call center 20 times a day. And you don't want your 911 person calling that place 10 or 20 times a day. You want a social worker talking to them because they have crisis issues. We also have crisis mental health that, like, will now go out. And I think it's just this ongoing partnership with law enforcement so that they feel comfortable with, like, different types of responses and communities feel comfortable and hopefully getting better outcomes for everybody. And so this is a work in progress. It's not perfect, but we are trying some different things and we continue to sort of work through
it because it is true. Not all situations that people call 911, like graffiti, loud noise of my neighbor, something, you know, like, there's there's just things that people call 911 because they don't have anyone else to call. But they actually don't need 911. They just need a helpful community support. But we also wanna be cautious because sometimes those things that seem like noise or graffiti, they end up being a domestic. Right. And there's a weapon involved. So we just it's this constant recognition of, like, the balance of community safety and recognizing how community safety looks different a little bit
in different situations for different people while minimizing, you know, the risk for everybody and the safety of and maximizing the safety. So oh, I did have the budget timeline, so it just was in the wrong order. But as you guys will have the slides, but you can see kind of how it works through the county, the the timelines and things like that. And, I don't know. Commissioner, you want me to do this one? Okay. I just wanted to talk about have our teams been out about the EDA at all? They have not been here, but we did approve a resolution. You did? Okay. Yeah. I just wanted to make sure you're familiar. We have some legislation,
trying to create some flexibility in our HRA, to get some EDA authorities to be able to do some more small business support. I think in this particular time, we just know that the more flexibility is better and to be able to help businesses, as they and and also to create some abilities as we do housing projects to be able to add some retail, opportunities as part of housing projects. And so this just creates flexibility. It will always be done in partnership with the cities and you have to approve things before we can do them. So, it sounds like you guys are familiar and have heard about it.
Let's see. So this is kind of what it's about. It should add about almost $350,000 of business programming out into the suburban areas. We have lots of other business support, programs. You know, we help people with entre, loans, technical assistance. We help like kind of like people like next generation businesses get some technical support. So we have, you know, commercial corridors that people can apply for dollars to improve like a commercial corridor. So I'm sure we can get you more information if you're interested in that. And then I think that's good for me. So do you have any questions before we pop out or anything?
All right. Thank you. Do you have any? Go ahead. Nope. Thanks, Lynn. Oh, I had a quick one. Maybe you know actually. The manufacturing facility that's going in, what will they be making there? The manufacturing Oh, up in Arden Hills. Yes. Yes. Yes. I can get it. I don't know the exact thing they're making, but we have their names and everything. I just need to know what's up. Okay. I think she'll have them all there. Okay. Any other questions from Lieutenant Manager Becker? Yep. Can I ask my name? Well, I I won't take too much longer. I just wanna provide a few, updates for of a couple of things I've been working on.
I know I mentioned, some of the priorities that I'll I will be, working on, under, as I'm in in coming into this new role. Housing, of course, being one of them. I mentioned the 15,000, deficit of deeply affordable housing. So there are a couple of different areas that I want to highlight that that we're working on and that I'm continuing to push the the team on, when it comes to housing. Housing stability is a really important piece, for the work that we do at Ramsey County, and that includes a myriad of different components, including heading home, heading home Ramsey, which, focuses a lot of the effort on homelessness, within the community.
But there are a couple of different things that I wanted to highlight that we've been working on, one of of of which being, Kimball Court, which is a long, Snelling, university in the Hamlin Midway Coalition, this, in the Hamlin Midway neighborhood. But Kimball Court is a supportive housing, for folks who, are transitioning out, and need a a number of different, resources for for them to make sure that they can continue on their journey, to to safe and permanent, housing. And so the county is is has been playing a a a pretty important role in the work that that they're doing there, specifically around some of their wrap around resources,
whether it's, through mental health or workforce or, chemical dependency or all the different things that we know that a lot of the folks who are transitioning into this into this support and supportive housing, is in need of, the the, Ramsey County team. The housing stability team is playing a role there. Rental assistance is another, important piece. I think as we speak to, housing stability in our community, prevention is an important aspect of that. So having a program in place through the county where we can provide folks with rental assistance so that they're not just one accident or one bill or situation away
from being put out on the street is really crucial to this work. So prevention is gonna continue to be an important aspect of our housing stability plan. Prioritizing deeply affordable housing. And when I speak of deeply affordable housing, I specifically mean housing with 30% AMI, or less is what, we are are hoping to to really start prioritizing as a community. And as we see developments like Rice Creek Creek Commons and other opportunities that arise throughout the, throughout the county, ensuring that they're incorporating aspects of of that housing,
for, to to reach that criteria, will be important to me and something that I'll be advocating for, at the board. Stabilization and preservation of affordable housing. We recently, as a board, approved, nearly, $5,000,000 of, funds for different, organizations who are assisting with the stabilization and preservation of existing affordable housing, Kimball Court being one of them. And there is one other facility, I'm blanking on that's in our, that's in, in my district that was also approved there. Also, the the other piece that's coming specifically to District 3,
is, 1,000,000 that our county board approved for, Interfaith Action who will be taking over the old Best Western Como Park, right off of, Vandana, Avenue that's gonna be transformed, into, Project HOME, which is run by Interfaith Action of Greater, Saint Paul. And they specialize in, shelter for families. And they are doing amazing work, and it's just gonna be great to see them not only come to this neighborhood, but also, get the ability the the opportunity to expand the work that they're doing to more families in our community who are in need.
And then, of course, pathways to homeownership. Ramsey County has their first home, program, which is centered around providing support for first time or first generation, homebuyers of low or moderate, incomes and just providing them with that assistance so they can, get, their first home. And this, program in particular is is geared specifically towards homes purchased in suburban Ramsey County. Economic development and and county manager Becker kind of alluded to this. Downtown Saint Paul will be a tremendous aspect of of what I will be working on, in collaboration,
of course, with, our board chair Ortega whose district is in downtown. But as the county manager, I've mentioned, what happens downtown, we receive the ripple effect across our community. And so, I'm excited about, the prospects of working with the Downtown Alliance, as I mentioned, with greater MSP, to really determine how we can, spur more economic growth in Downtown Saint Paul and and really focus on revitalizing it in a number of ways. Of course, we have our parks of our rivers edge, and I think that could could really serve as just one symbol of of a
new resurgence that's that that could be coming to Downtown Saint Paul because we so need it, for, the the work that we're doing across, the county. Small business support is something that I'm also really passionate about. One thing that I'm gonna be starting, next month, is a small business advisory council specific for my district, to start. And this is something that, I I I wanna do just to Bring together small business owners from across, District 3 to do a couple of things. One, to share with them all the different programs and services that we offer as a
county. We saw a number of the things, whether it's open to business, CEO next, CEO now, all these different things, to to ensure that they are fully aware of, these opportunities, that that they could be a part of. But, also, I wanna get an opportunity to hear directly from them on, what are some of the challenges they're facing, as well as how we as a county can be a better partner with them in the work that that they're doing. And so that'll be launching, next month, likely during Small Business Awareness Month, which is the May. So I'd say if if you know of small businesses,
specifically in Falcon Heights that you think would be interested, please let me know, and I'd love to, include them, a part of this, inaugural, council meeting. And then finally, workforce development. And I know this is a a passion for, for the county manager, but this is something that, I wanna make sure that we're leading on, working with our workforce solutions team to, ensure we're getting out there in in the community and and also looking at partnerships that we may not have leveraged before. You know, one thing I think is really important, coming from I'm from Mississippi originally. So coming from the South,
I know just the impact of our faith based communities, and the influence that they have on folks, especially who attend their services. So how we can better partner with groups like our faith based, organizations to, share a lot of the opportunities that we have from a workforce perspective, at the county, is is something that I'll be working on as well. And then the last thing I'll I'll finish up on is, public works. We have a couple of big projects that's happening, in District 3. First, Dale Street, is going through, a bit of construction that's happening between Highway 36 and North Of Como Avenue.
And what they're doing is gonna be enhancing, the safety and the infrastructure of that particular stretch of Dale Street. This construction has already started. It is going to be, it's, scheduled to be wrapping up, in July of this year. And even during this time, through traffic, we'll be able to still operate as this construction is happening. But it's gonna do a lot of great things of of making this the road, much safer. They're going from a four to three lane conversion, providing more opportunity, better, pedestrian, islands that make it a lot safer for folks, as they're getting across the street.
So that project is is happening now as long as well as, bike lane enhance enhancements as well will be, included in that project. And then the big one that's happening, is Wright Street. So this is a a a project that has three different phases that will be taking on over the course of a a couple of years, that also has already started. So the first phase of the Rice Street construction is happening from, Wheelock down to, I believe it's Nebraska Avenue. And that construction, is is gonna be a huge endeavor.
It's gonna include new pavement, safer intersections, a bridge rehab, better pedestrian crossings as well. And, this project, at least the first phase of it, started, or a couple of weeks ago, will go through August of this year, and there there are gonna be two more, phases after that as we move further down, Wright Street. But this construction project is, has been years in the making. And since joining the board, it's been really fascinating. I was just out there, two weeks ago walking Wright Street and and looking at the, start of their construction with some of our public works teams,
and meeting with local businesses along Rice Street. And it was great to see firsthand just the engagement that our public works team has been having with, with businesses along that stretch just to ensure that they are businesses and residents ensure that they're, aware of the project, that they understand of the different, updates when it comes to development, if there are changes, keeping them in the loop. We have a specific specific, public works staffer that's dedicated to being kind of the liaison between businesses, and the county. So if folks have questions,
they can reach out, and there's also, on the county website, a section for Rice Street construction where folks can, sign up for updates as well. So I'm I'm really, really excited about this. This is gonna be a huge North End, community. I was just there, earlier this week for the the mayor's, State of the City and our and the new North End Recreation Center. And that coupled with this construction, I I think will start, a significant revitalization to this important corridor, in our community. And so and for ongoing maintenance and repairs,
I'll for sure keep you all updated, especially for those pertaining to any parts of of Falcon Heights. That's it. So I wanna open I will say before I open up for questions just to to, piggyback off of what county manager, Becker stated. I'm you know, we are entering, some very challenging times, as a board, but I'm really excited for the folks that we have, on this team. I I think that they're an incredible group of people, and I I believe we are the most diverse board in in the state. And I I'm even gonna say we're the youngest. There are at least three of us who are 40 on the board.
So I'm gonna say Oh, fuck. So no shame. A micro control company. They make microchips, and they're moving from Okay. The building. Alright. Take that, Fridley. I said take that, Fridley. It's Hennepin County. Right? Yes. Anoka. Oh, Anoka. Okay. Yeah. Any any any questions? You know me, I always talk about pedestrian lights on Larpenter. Mhmm. Mhmm. I I know. I trust me. I have it on my list. I I had a couple, other ones. I guess, yeah, I was just wondering if you could say more about that that ripple effect, and you know revitalizing downtown St.
Paul, how that helps, the rest of the County just to kind of spell it out for the folks at home, I suppose. Yes. And and county manager Becker kind of alluded to this of looking at our current tax base in Downtown Saint Paul, for example. We have not only, you know, academic institutions and nonprofits and churches, we also have a number of government buildings, and that's none of that is adding into our property tax base. And so we when we look at trying to revitalize Downtown Saint Paul and spur more of that economic growth and development, that will be a tremendous help to ensure that,
you know, we're not having to raise our property taxes, throughout the rest of the community, at at levels, because we're seeing such, a downturn in our Downtown Saint Paul area. So it that that's the ripple effect as as as we continue to add to our tax base, especially in the tremendous opportunity that is Downtown Saint Paul, it will alleviate some of that stress on property taxes for folks, throughout Ramsey County. So yeah. And we'll get I don't know if you would add anything to that, front manager. Thanks. I did have a couple of questions.
First, I'm so glad to have you guys here today. I love getting the updates and just hearing firsthand what's going on on the county level, and there's so much that you guys are working on. I'm really appreciative of you taking time out of your evening to come and present to us. And this is just a there's lots to comb through and take it in a little bit deeper. But I did have a question regarding the pathways to homeownership. You mentioned that that's for first generations. What is the pathway? Is that for first generation immigrants or first generation homeowners?
It was That could be two different things. I think it's first time First time homebuyers. Okay. And I thought that there was a section as as well that I spoke with our housing stability team that was, a first time generation for a first time generation component as well, but don't know the specifics of, to to your question of Well, yes. So what does first time generation mean? Is is it first time generation immigrant or first time generation homeowner? I believe homeowner. Okay. That's good to know. I appreciate that clarity. I had another one. Yeah, obviously, the county sheriff helps a lot with public safety at the state fair.
I was curious if there are other ways that the county interacts with the state fair. That's a great question. We I I think the only other connection might be through extension. You know, we have some role on the U of M extension committee, and we run some extension programs and four h programs. So that would probably be it. Cool. Yeah. And I think any other thing would be related to public safety in the past where they've you know, I think currently, maybe the sheriff's department has done some support. But, you know, there was that time when there was a gap on our police chief,
and we had some conversations at one time too. And and and I'll I'll also look more into the extension piece because I that's one of the commit committees that I also work on, is the extension committee. So I can go back and check and see where there's overlap with what we do and and as it relates to the state fair and But for sure, the four h program and the master gardener program, you know, all the stuff that's under extension, we sort of have some programmatic connection through our public health department. Yeah. Yeah. That'd be more with the U of M. Yes. Right? Yep. Rather than the state fair.
Yeah. But I think, you know, they But They have a big You know, both of our Vatican's inside the city. Yeah. And, are are you guys able to get any funding from the state fair? You mean, like, tax wise? Yeah. I don't believe so. I think, off the Space Needle is when there's a couple of private label properties on that you you're the only one to get some property tax from. The Space Needle and a couple other privately owned businesses. If you could charge for parking on the county roads. I hear that's a big topic here. I have another question. As you mentioned, the worker development along the Mississippi Mhmm.
And I think of Harriet Park, but that's not on the downtown side. So you're thinking more on the downtown side of Yeah. The downtown side of Yeah. Know, some place making. And even over there, you know, it's a good picnic spot. They maybe have had a few music festivals, but I think it's that ability to connect to the downtown and then having more commercial and For ongoing. Kind of along the river. Mhmm. Yeah. Thanks so much. Yep. Yep. I wanna thank you a lot. It seems like for for people who don't,
you know, who are sitting through this and going, wow, look at all of the things that the county's doing, but it it is amazing how much county government impacts the daily lives of the residents of the county as well as our citizens and what we do to know where the rubber meets the road. That's where the county is at. It's where your city is at. And those delivering the public safety services or the safety net of our income distributions, our all of the programming happens at the county level.
And wanna commend you all for doing a great job and staying on top of it like you're doing. Thank you very much. Well, thank you. And the partnership's really important. If you guys ever have a county issue That's right. You know, Jack knows how to get ahold of me. So Mhmm. We'll see you tomorrow even. We've been trying to, you know, we've been trying to get all the county together on a regular basis and, you know, answer questions, meet key county staff. We wanna make it where, you know, it's very accessible for folks to solve problems, you know, locally. So Absolutely. And, of course, my my office is available. And and if there, are opportunities that you think will be helpful for county staff to come in to
assist with, whether it's talking through public health, opportunities or workforce opportunities, please do let me know because I wanna make sure that we're getting out there. And, you know, the the biggest battle is just making sure that folks are aware of the things that we offer. There's so much out there, and I don't know if everyone knows. So please do keep me, in the loop on community events or just opportunities that's happening, throughout Falcon Heights that I can be a part of and and also have the county come be a part of. Thanks, Garrison. Appreciate it. Thank you, Lee. Thank you so much for coming out and taking time to,
get us up to date. All right. It's amazing what goes on in our world that we take for granted, right? Next, we have on our agenda, approval of minutes. We've got the 03/05/2025 City Council workshop minutes, the March 12 City Council regular meeting minutes, the March 12 City Council special workshop minutes. Any changes to the minutes as we've, that may, for typos or whatever that haven't been communicated to city staff.
Do I hear a motion to approve the minutes of March 5 and March 12 and March 12? So moved. So moved by Wassenberg. Any further discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor, signify by saying aye. Aye. All those opposed, same sign. Motion carries five-zero. Public hearings, don't have any tonight. Moves us to our consent agenda where we've got five items. We have our general disbursements through '17 '70 thousand '8 hundred and '90 '9 point '8 '4 dollars payroll through April eight of twenty five thousand and ninety five point
nine eight dollars wire payments through April eight of sixteen thousand eight hundred and thirty five point six five dollars approval of city licenses as noted in the packet number three, approval of change order with American Environmental and Budget Amendment for Sewer System Maintenance four, approval of transfer of $100,000 from Fund four twenty six to Fund three thirteen and five, approval to award contract to Goodpoint Technology for pavement condition assessment.
Any items need to be taken off? Do I hear a motion to pass the consent agenda? So moved. So moved by Meyer. Further discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. All those opposed, same sign. Motion carries five-zero. Is there anything in the consent agenda that needs to be brought to special attention, Administrator Linehan? I was Or council members. Sorry. I was, hoping to ask if, administrator Langhan could speak to the transfer from, fund 04/26 to fund 03/13 so that is,
clear for people. Yeah. Thank you. So mayor and council, the transfer that we have of a hundred thousand dollars from our funds, we kinda label them by their number. I know that's kind of an internal use. But essentially, we're transferring over some of the project funds, which are the 04/26, into or sorry. Yeah. From project funds into debt service. So kind of a internal move. We can't just move the money over operationally. We do have to have counsel approve that. This has to do with, kind of our our different capital programs, 2021, project budget and essentially just moving those funds from the project,
which is wrapped up. We've completed the work, has leftover funds there. So we have to dedicate that to the debt service. So this is just moving money, from project work to debt service at this point. Thank you for clarifying. Okay. I'll I'll go ahead. Sure. I'll call out. Then the other one too, we had the change order with American Environmental, and budget amendment. So we have our contract with American Environmental. We've had a contract with them since 2014. It was the last time the city competitively bid it. Last approved again a new contract in 2022. So we've been doing three year contracts just kind of extending it each time.
This last time is kind of the final year this year of the, latest contract. With that, what they do is they go through every, you know, one year they do East Of Snelling. Next year they do West Of Snelling. And then the third year they do the whole city. So they go through, they, scope the entire systems. They run cameras through. They provide that data to public works so they can see all the spots. They can see weaknesses in the sewer system. They can see blockages. They can see where a telecom provider will bore a hole right through our sewer,
and put their fiber through. Happens more than you think. So they do quite a bit of that. And then what they also do is they clean it primarily through jetting. So high pressure water goes through, does it jetting gets almost everything, but what they can't fully do is if there's really bad tree infiltration, they have to go through and kinda cut those out and treat them, so they stop the growth. So but that's not included in our pricing under this eleven year old now RFP. So that was a change order. We also had them come and clean out our lift station at Kaufman. So we have the lift station there. It needed to be fully drained out,
cleaned, and just keep it up and running. So both of those are outside of contract. They charged us market rate for that. So that's what that change order is. Moving forward, Colin does is aware that we do I want us to go out and bid this again. It's been a while. It'd be good to bid it out and then get in the contract some of these other additional services just so we have that pricing. It wasn't anything extreme, but it's just good to have that pricing and then then we know for budgeting purposes as well. It was about $13,000 if my memory serves reading it, right? Yep. Yeah. Correct. And,
what do we do when they run a fiber cable through the Thank you. Through the store? Do do we ask them to, remedy that situation? Yes. Correct. So they have to fix it. So they have to make it better or potentially compensate us. But most of the providers will go through. They'll, relocate their fiber, and then they will repair the sewer line. So that's happening right now in the Falcon Woods project. There's two as kind of part of the PMP project, there's two spots that they found that that happened. So we've contacted both of the providers. They then it's usually subcontractors.
They come out and they try to rectify it. So Okay. So while the, street is being repaired, they're gonna go down and work the sewer line and Before fix it. Or before Yeah. Before the, before that point. Yep. So they're out there actually, I think, like, this week. They're doing some of that work right now. Okay. And this work that they're doing helps, prevent as much as possible issues, especially with the lift station that's over at Kaufman because we had some issues with that in in recent years. So this probably helps keep that from happening as well.
Yeah. Exactly. So we've been doing some, investments in that lift station. We upgraded the telephone system. So essentially it has an auto dialer. So if there is a problem, it dials out, upgraded to a more modern SCADA system, last year, and then now kind of the cleaning as well. And then as you mentioned to council member Leahy, also the clean out of the lines is really important. Just making sure that we're going through cleaning them, keeping them up to date. So this is kinda separate. We did our relining project where we've been kinda working. We're going through the city and relining them with a more modern lining.
But what this does is also just make sure things are flowing. And if there's stuff that starts to accumulate in the sewers I don't know if anyone's ever seen the televising. If you're had a sewer company come in and you look at the video, there's a lot that goes on down there. So, you gotta keep it keep it cleaned out and keep it flushed. So this helps prevent backups. Part of our insurance requirements is that we do this as well. Okay. I think it it's a good point. How let's see. We're only a few years away from being able to to resurfaced all of our, sewer system, haven't we? Aren't we? Or Yes.
How to best put that? We're either in the last year or there's one more year. I get kind of thrown off because some of the years kind of blended where they would have to do work between, but we're either the final year or one more year. Or one more year and then Yep. We'll we'll have that going. Cool. Alright. Next, we'll move to our policy item tonight, which is to look at Resolution 20 five-thirty six, asking for approval for the final site plans and authorizing release of bids for the community park renovation project. Right? Okay. Yeah.
It's the same document. Yep. Yeah. It's it there's just two here. There's just two of them, so apologize. So So And we got that's the same Or are they, like, multiples in the same thing here? No. Yeah. No. It's three different there's three different plan sets. They're in the packet as well. Oh, they're in the packet. They're small. Oh, okay. So these are half big ones. Yep. So I have 3,000 blow ups of it. So sorry. I should have explained what I was passing now. Okay. Mayor and council, if you don't mind, I'll I'll kinda start with this. So, essentially, what we're we're at the point now that we're ready, the kind of the summary of of all this is we're ready to release bids.
Been working with WSB. You know, we kinda got, you know, change the direction of the project last year, came up with kind of a new model, have worked with WSP through this. If you recall back in February, we approved the 50% plans. That's where we're kind of we know where it's going, but there's still things we're changing. We're adding stuff. We're adding detail. We're at the point where the plans are finalized, ready to provide them to contractors, with the bid pricing and get ready to go. So, what we have tonight for request is essentially we're requesting that the council authorize us to release these bids.
So they'd be going out after today, likely tomorrow, I believe. And then what they'll do is they'll run until May 21. We'll be advertising it in all the newspapers and online through a bid quest. WSB will manage all the tracking of the bids and accounting of it. And then in late May, we'll award the bid for the park. So we've already awarded the, playground to Northland Rec, so that one is done. We've also awarded the construction of the shelter to Cedar Forest. They're gonna create the shelter. So then kind of the next part is we're gonna go out this is all
the site work, the parking lot, all the utilities, all the stormwater improvements, which there's pretty substantial stormwater components to this. And then kind of, I guess, the final part that'll come, there'll be another bid that'll be for the installation and construction of the shelter. The vendor that is that does it, that from Cedar Forest, they could construct it for us, but state bid requires that we go out and bid that project. So we're gonna bid it. Someone can come in and take their plans and build it if they wish or, Cedar Forest may be bidding on that as well.
So with that, we're pretty close to finalize. One of the final parts is we do need to find out if we get this DNR grant, we're in for. We'll know in mid July. Contract documents get signed. They they said usually a couple months if we do get it. So in August or so, we'll have a contract in hand, then we could begin the playground work. But essentially, this we're kinda kinda like calling it phase one, phase two. Mhmm. Phase one will be everything but the playground, but they'll get the container and the site already, put up some construction fencing around it, then phase two will be construction of the playground. Schedule wise,
we're on schedule to do everything this year. The final step will be, as I said, the playground. The one kind of caveat is the rubber surfacing on the playground. If we do get the grant award, that does require us to, it has to be warm enough to pour the the rubber. It has to be above 50 degrees for five days. So if we build the playground in November, we might not be able to put the rubber surface. So if we do that, they'll put a construction fence around it and there'll be like a new toy for everyone to to see and look at and wish for. And then in the spring when it's warm enough. And I mean, we're still not there right now. Right.
April of of that kind of temperature mark. So maybe in early May of twenty twenty six, we'd have the surfacing but, hopefully, if everything kinda moves ahead, grant documents, everything goes well, we can move forward with that. So that's kind of the schedule of everything. I do have the budget kind of as part of the back. We had, another budget estimate done by WSB. So you'll see, you know, kind of before that, I guess, as I kind of lead you there, we have all the different site work, call outs for different spots, kinda see the the amount of work they're doing, the reconfiguration. It's pretty exciting.
A lot of the work that we're working with, even if you're just going and you love the park just to go walk, we're gonna improve the walking access throughout the park. So better better access, really good gathering spaces throughout the park will be kind of one of the components of this. And then also, you know, the splash pad component. It's very cost effective. It's not extremely expensive, low water use. And then it also can kinda create a nice gathering place for people even off season. So the nice thing is the splash pad will be kind of a a cement area. We could do a farmer's market, a pop up shop,
or, you know, music in the park all there, run string lights above it, and it'll be a nice kind of third space for people to come and enjoy outside. Mhmm. So that's kind of some of those plans. So I can answer any questions on the plans. And then kinda page 91 is where the budget starts. This is the itemized full list, kind of everything. You'll see the base bid, on page 92. We're looking at about $787,000 for this. And then when you add in then on page 93, that adds the other spots. So, we have two alternate bids that we're asking for this.
First one is primarily the concrete curving for the play container, and then the second one is the mobilization, kind of for getting that play container all built. And the reason we're separating those is we wanna award the contract, but we don't wanna award the the play container until we know the grant. So then we could come back. We'll already have that pricing, and then we could go back and award those ones in July or or so once we know the status of the grant. Then at the bottom of page 93, you have the indirect expenses. So some of this is like the restroom shelter. You know,
we know that the about 600,000 is the total cost for the the shelter and the the restrooms. That includes the construction and then also the delivery of the actual product from Cedar Forest. We have the play equipment, so that's our contract with Northland Rec. The rubber surfacing, that's what we're asking for, kind of part with the grant. Then we have the splash pad bench, etcetera. These are all gonna be done if they're kind of outside of here, they're not part of this bid. They're either being awarded separately, so they're separate contracts, or,
you know, like the splash pad, for example, is under state bidding requirements. So we're working directly with a vendor to provide that that's kinda specializes in that. Same things also too, benches, picnic tables, bike rack. We save if we buy them. We don't pay sales tax. If they buy them, they pay sales tax. And if we put them together, public works does, we'll save, you know, instead of paying somebody hundred and $50 an hour, we can do it ourselves. Yeah. It's good. It's good we're not putting them together. Public works is putting them together. Right. So some other stuff. And then you have WSB's fee as well.
It'll be done Saturday. With kind of WSB's fee, part of that, that's why I'm presenting instead of WSB. We've gotten to a point in the contract. You know, we're in good shape with WSB, but they did originally kind of ask, and they've had major change orders there as well, kind of as they built plans for one design. It didn't work out. Part of that agreement, though, is that they committed to us to build this park, and so I've kind of told them we're not we're not paying any more than the contract. We're not gonna do a change order. They understood. So we're just trying to find ways to kinda cut costs otherwise,
and some of that's kind of in the staff presentations and other stuff. Mhmm. So that's the total cost. And so the total cost for the whole project all in, 2,470,000.00. So we budgeted 3,500,000.0, in good shape as kind of pricing comes in. Now, obviously, there's contingencies built throughout this. But at this point, they feel pretty confident that these pricing is fairly accurate. And hopefully, like our most of our recent bids, hopefully, it comes in under bid. Mhmm. Kinda like the, best case scenario estimates with contingencies built in and then think in case it goes higher?
Yes, correct. Yep. So the contingencies are in there to kind of build that in that maybe there's some pricing fluctuation. Obviously, pricing's kinda crazy right now just with, markets, tariffs, etcetera. So there's some uncertainty there, but they're seeing kind of that. Nice thing is sometimes when that does happen, you know, if you have kind of economic difficulties in in the national sphere, building kinda shuts down. And so that that brings pricing down, contractors won't work. So it could kinda work both ways for us. Okay. Is the plan still to, keep the old playground in place?
So there will still be a playground, it just won't be the new playground. Yes. Until until the new one is built. So then that would be the final demolition part. Okay. So, yeah, so we will remove that playground once the new one is up. Or we could keep it up if we're got the construction fencing around it until we get the Exactly. Yeah. We'll try to keep a playground open. That's that's a a good point. So we will try to keep the playground open, until the new one's ready to go. But then once the new one is ready to go, we will demolish that and that'll become a green space. Yep. Okay. We'll we will maintain the shelter that's up there.
Kind of one of the you know, there's kind of some concepts that we never put into this to kinda save costs, but there's some ideas of kinda making that like a family barbecue area or other opportunities there. One area we're not doing, we're not touching the basketball court. It needs work, so that's something that we'll have to consider for the future. You know, kinda cut some of those other amenities is kind of trying to keep this within budget. So I'd say that entire West Side, there's opportunity to or East Side of the park, there's opportunity to do something in the future. To do something future to add to it because we're just going more or less as is on that
side until we're built on there. Okay. I did have one quick question. It's a minor detail, but on the blueprint here or the draft, it speaks of future EV charging station. Did we already select what type of EV charging, or we're gonna wait till the time that we're able to install it? Because I know there's some changes, you know, just not just locally in regards to that type of equipment.
Correct? Yeah. Correct. So the idea behind it is as we're we have to move a lot of our electrical through this project. So kind of moving, where the power is, where the power connects, coming off a lot of it runs off the building, the existing building. And so we're kind of improving a lot of that. So one of the improvements is we do wanna run the underground conduit to the parking lot to be ready. So we're ED ready, I guess. Okay. That if and then what we'd likely do, I'd like to be able to get grant funding to do that, you know, if we end up building something so it's not a significant cost to the city
to build. But, yeah, we'll be ready to put in EV stations. So the infrastructure will be there when we're ready to do it. Okay. Thank you. Just conduit to run the the high amperage two forty line. Yeah. Right? But not actually even running the line yet, probably. I think we're gonna run the line all the way. Yeah. We'll run a line, kinda have it capped off underground and ready to to install when we're ready. Very, very large thick wire. Yes. Yep. 200 amp. And and that'll be I I do wanna comment kind of where does the cost come in? It's the site work. There's gonna be site work's expensive. The demo of the building's not that expensive,
so they're gonna demo the building, and that moves really fast. I mean, it'll be, like, a day or two to get everything torn apart. But it's a lot of that kind of landscape maintenance work. They're putting in a new BMP with a I'm trying to remember the BMP right now. A basin essentially for stormwater protection. So they're gonna take out one of our stations for we have our fitness stations. We're not normally touching them, but we are the Northwest 1 that's kind of by the Cleveland And Rose Line Intersection. We are gonna take that one out. They're gonna have to remove some trees,
and they're gonna put kind of a stormwater pond there. That's one of our stormwater requirements. So there will be it'll be a dry pond most of the time. So that's one of the the stormwater requirements for that. So stuff like that is where a lot of the costs come in. It's kind of the the re landscaping and moving stuff around. Mhmm. I mean, is, did you bring up the, the stormwater pond? Is there a way to actually landscape that with with water plants that so that it's not bare? I mean, basically, like a lot of the linear water features that have gone in, like, for example, Long Hamlin and Como Park, so that some they can hold water when it holds water,
but the rest of the time, it can be vegetated? I believe that's a plan. So I believe it'll be it's just for, essentially, you know, when there's a stormwater event that it can capture it. Yeah. But the idea is that it'll it'll probably be multipurpose. Would perk out pretty quickly. A grassy spot. Yeah. I had a couple questions. The things that are in the base bid, I'm assuming that those are not all going to happen at once. They're gonna be integrated with the other bids. It's like they're not gonna go and plant little trees while we're still getting ready to bring concrete trucks in and things like that. Yeah. Correct. That'll be kind of the once we have a contractor, we'll bring them up. It'll be kind of kind of like this this the road construction.
We'll probably get a a prime, so a primary contractor, and then there might be 15 subs underneath them to kind of work through that. And so then they would then, you know, we'll have our kind of construction coordination and make sure we're all working together at because sometimes, like, they need to go in last, like, even after the the building and the splash pad and the playground are all done. So Okay. Yeah. Correct. The playground or the playground. The, parking lot is one example too. Right? You know, you don't wanna put it in a brand new parking lot and then drive all the equipment right over it. Yeah. So And could you clarify again about what we're actually bidding out?
We're not bidding out the things that are listed in indirect expenses. Yep. Are we bidding out some of the things that are in alternate two because some of those things appear associated with the playground? Yes. Correct. So we are bidding out everything under the bid and the alternate bid one and two. Mhmm. Bid one and two are related to the playground. And so what those will be those those that gives us flexibility to award based on contract. So one of the requirements of the DNR, we can't enter into contract for anything, until they award the grant. Right. So even our Northland rec,
they kinda have everything in the background. Mhmm. We approved it, but we're kinda holding on that k. Until so they have the equipment. They are good. But the playground, you know, anything that's associated with the playground can't happen until we know the grant. And then once we know the grant, we can kind of elect, hey, we're gonna do x y z. And if we don't get the grant Mhmm. You know, we'll come back to council too and kinda bring that as a a value proposition. Do we wanna do mulch? Save quite a bit of money, not do the shade structures and not do the ornamental fencing Mhmm. Around the playground or, we could bring those and we'd know the exact pricing.
We have estimates, but then we'd know exactly, do we wanna award this as a separate, if we don't receive the grant? Yes. So we can accept bids for alternates one and two. We just can't award Yeah. At this time. And then and that's part of the bid. Right? There was we're not going to award until x eight. We just so they know. Just so they know. Just so they know. Yep. Bidders know. Exactly. So that kinda gives us the flexibility of awarding or not awarding. Okay. Great. Thank you. And then this addresses the water challenges under Roselawn? Or Yes. Yep. So that'll be part of it. So, under Roselawn, we have our kind of our sanitary connection,
that collapsed. So we're gonna be replacing that, working with the city of Roseville. One of our many steps with this is we will have to do an intergovernmental agreement. For a long time, we've connected to Roseville sewer. So we run our sewer under Roselawn over to the North Side where Roseville sewer is. We have sewer obviously in the area in Falcon Woods, but it's hundreds of feet away. I think it's the autumn autumn entrance, I believe, is where the nearest manhole is. We looked at that and said, okay. What if we run a lateral line for 400 feet under the path,
to the sanitary sewer system? Much more expensive. And so we're honestly better off, well, to back it up, we don't pay Roseville where it's a legal connection. Once upon a time, we connected in a handshake agreement when we built the park in the eighties. But we've been just kind of doing our sanitary sewer into them without being charged for it. So they will charge us in the future. That'll be part of that agreement is that we'd pay to connect to them. But we ran kind of a cost benefit analysis, and it would be hundreds of years of sewer charges to make up the difference of running a new system. So if they're open to it,
luckily, we share an engineer. So Synergy. Mhmm. Synergy, it's called. Yes. You're you're saying a little bit about how the splash pad could also be used, to have events on it. It's my understanding there's, like, a a button in the middle to activate it. Is that can you remove that or disable the button? Yes. We can. So the activator so that's one of the things that we had kinda considered through this. If the activator is in the center of it, is the lowest cost. The middle cost is if you move the activator outside of the kinda center to
the side. And then the highest cost is you could actually put it on the building, and instead of making it a mechanical system. So right now, it kinda works with, like, a gate valve. You push it, and then for five minutes, a gate, like, a bearing slowly closes and opens again when you push it. You can make an electrical system, which has a much higher cost. So we've opted to go for that second route. Yeah. Yeah. Other benefit of that, the I think the design flaw of an activator in the middle of it is parents of everyone or anyone who's been with a young kid at a splash pad that requires you to go into the splash pad and turn it on for them
and then run out. So the nice benefit will be is that it keeps it, you know, so you can turn it on without getting wet. Nice. It's also something to run into if you're running around crazy in the water and not paying attention. Yeah. Yeah. This this splash pad, design that the parks commission kind of talked about too is that, instead of going there's not gonna be above ground features. So it's all it's the lowest water use system that's on the market. That's kinda why we're going with this company that does it. But, essentially, it's Flagship, who was one of the ones who bid on our park, but sent or on our playground.
But, essentially, it's all all in ground. So it's just kind of like a fountain system. So you push it and it sprays water, and some of it does fun stuff, and it'll still be fun for people. Low very low use water compared to most systems was kind of our goal. And it's still the only one in the area. Mhmm. Great. Mhmm. I was happy to see the the bike racks in there, in the plans. That was Seven of them. Was that or five. Five, I think. It was seven of them. Five. Yep. Two. One thing I'll mention, I don't know. I you know, when when we're kind of redoing the whole park and it's it's gonna look amazing,
if folks are walking on the trail, and they see somewhat, let's be honest, dilapidated exercise equipment, that that that would sour the the aesthetics a little bit. So I I would like to, see you know, maybe it's when we tackle the the basketball court. I don't know if it, you know, if it's something public works would even take a look at if they're in the slow season. But I I would like to see something happen there, whether it's, replacing or removing. Yeah. Mhmm. Definitely. I'd say there's opportunity what we'd call phase three then.
Right? Is some of the kind of the project scope. We're trying to keep everything the baseball, north of kind of the baseball Diamond is where kind of the project ends. So if you kinda wanna visualize where the playground's going in, it's north of the baseball, so everything kinda stays north, but we're really not touching too much in the southern part. And that includes obviously, there's some fitness equipment up there, but we're kind of including kind of the the ancillary stuff as not part of this project. So there's definitely opportunity to kind of look at that in the future for the city based on, you know, pricing, available funding. Could be a couple different ways that the city tackles it.
Currently, you know, we're gonna be talking to our bond consultant between our PNP project and then this one to kinda get bond strategy, but we're in good shape with cash on hand. So I don't know. You know, we might still wanna take out a reasonable bond for the park, but it could be quite reasonable in that regard just to help us with cash flow. And free up future cash flow for doing a Stage three. Correct. Okay. All right. Well, I would make a motion to approve Rev. Solution 20 five-thirty six to approve the final site plans, authorized release of bids.
Alright. Hearing the motion, further discussion? None, Mayor. Hearing none, all those in favor of resolution twenty five thirty six, signify by saying aye. Aye. All those opposed same sign. Motion carries five zero. Thank you Paul. All right information and announcements. We've got a preference on which way to start. Council Member Melkie. I was out of town but I know the Environment Commission met and finalized details of the sustainability fair, which we've been talking about a lot, but it's finally happening on Saturday,
eleven to two. So bring your old technology equipment, your old textiles, bring items to shred, and make sure you spend time inside because there'll be a lot of groups tabling. And then, I know otherwise we're telling everyone to buy a tree for your yard, and it's been great having Olivia on board as the Green Corps member. I know she's been working hard on that tree inventory. And did you map it with GIS? Yeah. They were self teaching themselves how to use GIS so they can map our trees. Nice. Cool. Yeah. But did you say they accept appliances at the on the twenty first?
I don't think they're big appliances technology. Yeah. Oh, e e waste. So I know that they take electronics. I got an instant pot that, no longer works. Oh, we could check it and see. I'm taking whatever it's through Repowered, I believe, is the firm that'll do it. So I believe if Repowered takes it, we would they would take it here. So Wow. Worth a check. Alright. I'll check, and I'll let you know. Okay. There you go. Sounds good. And then, otherwise, the state fair task force met as well. But that's it for me. Yeah. Okay. Eric? Yeah. I, I don't know. I guess I didn't have anything else to do that night,
but I I did decide to go to the state fair task force meeting. The, you know, the parking, question around the state fairs. Been really interesting thing to explore, and I wanted to kind of see how the the sausage was was being made at the in the task force level. Get a get a sense of their their thinking, as their recommendations come up to counsel. Yeah. I feel feel really good about the the folks on on that team and just, I guess, the decorum and collaborative spirits and, yeah, makes me feel good about living and and serving in our our fair city here.
But I'm sure Good pun. Right. It wasn't it wasn't intended. I wish it was. But thank you. Yeah. So I I know I saw some of the minutes being released and there was a story in the bugle today kind of about the discussion. So I'm looking forward to getting some more info out there as to where the discussion is on the parking. I think maybe the biggest change that I think we can feel pretty solid about saying aloud is that we're we're moving to a hang tag, system. There seems to be a pretty,
quite a bit of, consensus around that. So that'll that'll be a that'll make it a lot, I think, more convenient for residents, more flexibility there. Yeah. In addition to that, we had the planning committee, the planning commission, last night, and it talked about some code changes. Just kinda common sense stuff, clean clean things up. Yeah. It's, got good good staff that's willing to dig in to the nitty gritty things, things that haven't probably been examined for decades, and make some some common sense updates. One of the ones was it's,
currently, it is not allowed to have a driveway that is permeable. And, so we're looking at ways to make, make that an option to have a driveway that that can, can drain a little bit, but also balance that with aesthetic choices. You know, there's on the on the planning commission, there was some resistance to the idea of anything that looked like a gravel driveway, but a lot of support for other types of, paving that can let water through. So I think that's about it,
and we'll certainly see that at council in a couple weeks or months. Nice. The Community Engagement Commission met on Monday. I was unable to participate due to work responsibilities, but they had a fruitful time of meeting. And our next event that we have will be on May 17. That is the spring together. So be watching for information on that coming up. That's it for me. Okay. I don't have any additional announcements, but, yeah, Mark, May seventeenth on your calendar.
More more details coming. We'll remind you again next month. That's right. We'll, we'll keep reminding you. The flyer is, out and ready, and you'll see it in your, city newsletter or versions of it. So get Saturday, May 17, '3 '30 to '5 pm at Curtis Field Park marked on your calendar to bring your family out and have a good time. I don't have a lot as mayor. I did attend the Metro, Mayors Association meeting, briefly on my way here tonight.
We got to talk to other council people and mayors from not only, Ramsey County but around the state. And I got some positive feedback from, from a council member from a Western Suburb who said that, the charging for parking sounds like a good idea. So there's, you know, as a thought that there is support and broader in the community for, for doing that. So that's a, it's always a positive as we we work for trying to figure out how best to, to do that here.
But apart from that, yeah, just kind of watch your safety with you know during the holidays when you don't do a lot of food prep, your your mayor has learned to keep the guards in place. Anyway so, administrator Linehan, how, what else have we got going on? Yeah. Thank you, mayor and council. So, had our pre construction meeting today for the 2025 pavement management program. So reminder, we're doing Falcon Woods and then the North Home East West Streets, full depth reclamation.
So big projects, one of the biggest kind of total in city history. With that, kinda start talking about timelines. So they're gonna start. So it's a Potomac roadways is the contractor. I feel like we're in really good hands having met with them. It's a it's a meeting that kinda brings all the different agencies and partners. Saint Paul Regional Water, MnDOT comes to the meeting, you know, city staff, engineering. It kinda coordinates schedules, looks at everything. The current plan is they're gonna start on, May 5, so Monday, May 5 in the North Home neighborhood. They're gonna go, try to make their deadlines.
They're gonna start a little later in Falcon Woods, but, like, mid May in Falcon Woods. And both projects are on track to complete at the same time, which is early July. So early to mid July is when it's scheduled to go. They're aware of our our dates. So made sure, you know, kind of that we looked at their schedules, making sure that they're aware of back to the fifties, spring together, ice cream social, and other parts. So kind of worked with that. Residents that live there were, sent a newsletter, kind of the first one of the construction one. I believe last week was when most people got it, kind of outlining the program kind of information.
So it should be a successful project. It'll go nice and quick. The nice thing, again, there's not a lot of utility conflicts in this, which is good. So that should help kinda speed up the project. Saint Paul Regional Water has been doing the lead service replacement. Six homes in the North Home neighborhood have had replacements done through this. So it's been good that we're getting out there or that they're getting out there and doing that. So we still have some in the Northeast Quadrant area, and those will hopefully be tackled by them as well. So that's been good. Forest Lake contracting, for a call, we approved that contract back in December to do the emergency repair of the Hoyt
lights that were a victim of wire theft. Conduit was frozen until temperatures rose. They were out there this week repairing. Came in well under our budget and authorized amount. So what they're doing too is they're replacing a lot of the high sodium bulbs, very inefficient old bulb technology, replacing them with LEDs. But the problem is they did the seven lights that they fixed, and then the rest of them are a different color. So they're kinda going through and trying to color coordinate it and get the rest of them all on the same same LED within that contracted budget amount that the council authorized.
So, going through and getting that all done. And then kinda mentioned, by a couple previous council members to the state fair task force meeting, April sixteenth. They did three actions that they're gonna be recommending to city council. So city council will next talk about that at our May 7 workshop. So that'll be where the council will be able to review the task force recommendations and kinda either modify them or approve them, and make or suggest kinda how to move forward. And then likely council wanna make take action in May,
on this. Just so that if, you know, we are moving forward with this program, buys us enough time to start hiring and getting all the signs and everything ready to go. So we're looking at that time line. With that too, I know there's been some kind of communication why is it not updated at this point. One of the challenges is we don't really have a you know, we have state fair task force recommendations. We don't have council direction on that. So once we have that council, direction, we're working with Goff public on that too. When the packet goes out for the council agendas, they're gonna kinda put a one pager kind of like what's happened today.
Here's what's happening to kinda explain if media members or others are trying to kind of follow along just so that it gets clear. One of our concerns is that we just don't wanna have it run with this is the program, based on the task force recommendations just because if there are changes, that could create confusion in the the future. Mhmm. And then whenever it's brought to a council meeting, for kind of those those final action steps, Goff will also help us with the press release and everything ready to go too. So we have that information ready at that point, and we'll update the website with that new direction. I wanted to comment and just thank you,
For making sure that there are links on the city's website for residents to access regarding the discussions that have come forth, the questions, and the FAQ as well. So that has been put together very, very well. So thank you so much for making that available to our residents. Okay. That pretty much sum it up from there? We should take credit for installing LED street lighting for our towards our sustainability goals as well too, even though it was kind of a little color coordination as much as anything, but it's energy efficiency.
It's about a 50 per bulb to replace them, and the return is pretty good on that. Yeah. That is that's fast. That'll come fast. Yep. Okay. Those those lights need work. They've kind of been, you know, installed and then just kinda left alone for for thirty plus years until somebody got into them. That tells somebody stole the copper out of them. Yep. Yep. And and I guess a good opportunity for me to mention too. Now what Public Works is doing is they they temporarily banded all the lights. They put a band on it to make it harder to access the the copper. And then now once,
Forest Lake's done with each light, they're doing aluminum welding. So they're welding shut the access panels, to kinda further prevent it. So then when we need to get into it, it's, you know, it it takes a bit of manpower to get into the lights. And if anyone is doing that in your neighborhood, you see someone with a grind saw in your neighborhood You're gonna hear it. Please call, 911. Yep. Please call 911 and let them know. So are we replacing some light bulbs then on the other street lights along Hoyt or in the neighborhood? All of them? All of them on Hoyt,
at least. On our side. On our side. On our side. On our side. Yep. Okay. Yep. So we're doing all of Hoyt, and then it goes up, Fulham as well. Yep. So kinda lights go up, and so we'll kind of kind of looking at it on a budgetary consideration. And if we wanna do more in the future, we'll maybe bring it back to council for that. Okay. And we should just clarify for anyone that it's Hoyt West Of Cleveland. Yes correct. Yep, quite West Of Cleveland where they where the copper thieves, darkened the neighborhood for us. Okay well that's good. Lower our cost of operating and
save on electrics at the same time. Cool, well at this time we're done with the everybody? I'd like to open it up to community forum and those that have stayed around long enough to Yeah. There and participate if you can, come up and I appreciate it. Bring it to you. I wanna thank y'all for what you do. This is only my second meeting that I've come to because I have issues, but y'all work so hard and I just really wanna thank you for what you do for Falcon Heights. Well, thank you. My name is Cathy Weidler. It's w e I d l e r.
My home is 1755 Simpson Street. I've talked to some neighbors, and we have a few questions that we would like addressed at some point in time. One is how will ePark notify that the parking is at capacity? Two is how were fare administrators involved in the idea of the e parking? When did ParkMobile get involved? And the last one is who would be available to repair any problems during the e park? I appreciate it. I look forward to hearing the answers, and I appreciate your attention.
Thank you so much. Well, thank you, Kevin. Thank you. We have clarity on all the questions. Yeah. Did we get all those? No. Necessarily. That was the whole process. It's recorded. It's recorded when it won't catch you. I spelled my name. Yeah. Yeah. I didn't think you'd get my last name. Well, Kathy, thank you so much for coming forward. I appreciate it. Thank you. Cool. Anyone else for community forum? Marissa? Rissa. Rissa. How many about that. I don't know. It's been years that I've been mispronouncing it. Yours isn't the only one that's been mispronounced. Good, all right,
second call, third call we'll close community forum and I'll make a motion to adjourn. Okay motion has been made to adjourn, thanks everybody for coming out. All those in favor of adjournment signify by saying aye. Aye. All those opposed, same sign. Thank you. We are adjourned.