Time has Okay. Since the way it won't work. Good evening, and welcome to the City of Falcon Heights regular meeting of the city council on 11/12/2025. We'll call this meeting to order at 07:03PM. Roll call. Gustafson. Here. Leahy. Here. Meyer. Here. Melke. Here. Rosenberg. Here. Linehan. Here. Lynch. Here. Alright. Next order of business would be approval of the agenda. Any changes to tonight's agenda? None. None, Mayor. Okay. Do I hear a motion to
approve the agenda? So moved. So moved by Leahy. All those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. All those opposed, same sign. Motion carries five-zero. Tonight, we have a presentation, from our Saint Anthony Police Department Chief, Jeff Spies, on Police Services reintroduction and our partnership update at this time. Welcome, Chief Spies and Yes, mayor and members of council. I really appreciate the opportunity to come, for each other to relocate. Our policing service and our partnership with the city of Long Island Heights.
And, honestly, I don't think it could have gone any better than than the way it's gone. And we've been I've got such great feedback from our officers that are working in the community, and also from the community members that we we encounter whether that be while we're out of patrol or, engaging in different community events. And that was one of the things that we were we were really, really intentional about when we started back in with Falcon Heights is really, making sure that we continue to be very visible and, and really, built back into the community that we were with for such a long time.
And one of the things we're very intentional about doing is being visible in all areas of the city, in our residential areas. And I think we've gotten a lot of feedback from community members that have seen our squad cars up and down the residential areas in the alleyways. And we were very intentional about going into the businesses, introducing ourselves to the business owners and and the the the folks that that visit and pay and patronize those businesses. We wanted to be very intentional about being a part of of community engagement events, and we had the opportunity to be a part of community engagement events prior to, starting with the contract in March.
And also many different events, throughout the last several months. Some of those were the spring together event we were part of. We also had the opportunity to be a part of several copy of the cop events. There's there's, one that occurs every Saturday at, Falcon I'm gonna get the name wrong. The 1530 Larkin Nerd. And so our officers, we were in there for another event, and we were invited to come back every Saturday for coffee and donuts. And so there's a number of officers that were working that day. When when the, call load allowed, they'd stop in and and, and meet with those folks too, which I know the officers really enjoyed that. And I think the people that lived there did that did it well.
We had an officer go to Falcon Heights Elementary School and promote our annual safety camp that we do in June. It's a summer of survival school, we call it, and it's a joint effort with our fire department and with our police department. And it's just that every year, we we max out the number of number of attendees that we're allowed to have there, but we really wanted to make sure that we include Falcon Heights this year. So we had some some kids from from our community here. We attended the ice cream social, and we were also present, during Minnesota nineteen night. And that was a a really good time for our department as well to really
get in and, speak to community members and and get to know folks again and really kind of gauge what's what's important to our community members too. And we heard a number of things. A number of positive feedback about, again, the visibility that they've seen. We heard some comments about their concern on speeding vehicles on Larpenter Avenue and on Snelling Avenue. And so we wanted to make sure that we were responsive to the needs and the things that they felt were important. When we started just prior to coming back, I asked our our officers to be very intentional. We do this as a normal scope of our duties, but but to stop and engage people when we saw them on the street.
So So if we're cruising down California Avenue or or somewhere else, we see someone out, stop, have a conversation, and that's nothing that's that's foreign to us, but we wanted to we also documented that. We asked officers to be very intentional about doing that just so we kinda gave where we were at. And so, from March until till today, the officers documented 245, what we call, cop talks, where they stopped and and had an intentional conversation with with somebody. And really, that's not all encompassing because they don't document everything they do. They if it's something smaller, it's that that that occasional wave to people that that is meaningful.
That's not always documented. We're also responsive to the like I talked about earlier, our speeders, of the people that were driving in violation of the traffic laws. And our focus when we're out doing traffic enforcement is on those those types of violations that we know causes injuries and crashes on the roadways. And those types of violations that we know are are the most concerning for the people that live in our communities. And so we got feedback on stop sign violators in residential areas. We got feedback on speeders on Larpinger Avenue. We got feedback on congested traffic areas during the state fair.
And from March 1 until today, we stopped 820 vehicles for speeding. And it doesn't mean that we cite every vehicle. We look at those as opportunities to educate the public. We also look at that as another opportunity to, engage. And to us, community engagement isn't a program. It's a philosophy. And so every interaction with us that's on medical call or it's on a traffic stop, it gives us an opportunity to educate the public. And and that's that's usually our message. We get a lot of feedback from residents that are concerned about people driving over
35 miles an hour on Larkin Avenue. We got a lot of feedback from residents that were concerned about the stop sign in Aurora and Garden. We got feedback from people that were concerned about the crosswalk by Fall Guys Elementary. So we we had an officer we have officers that are intentional about being present when during pickup and drop off times at Falcon Eyes Elementary. Again, when when our call load, allows us to do that, we wanna be a part and wanna be responsive to the people that live here. We also ramped up for, large events at the state fair. Most notably well,
we don't want that one last, but, street machines. We we added extra patrol staff that could be present on the roadways. We know that that can people tend to increase their speed sometimes. We also have more pedestrian traffic that we wanna be concerned about. So we wanna make sure that we're visible. Also bringing more people into the community. There could be an uptick in crime. We also wanna be visible and try to defend as much of that as we could. Back in the fifties, was even busier than street machines, brought a lot of people to the community. I will say we had very little problems, as far as increased call loads or traffic violators and stuff like that.
What we found is there's a lot more congestion. But overall, it's it's a really nice community for folks that like old cars and and, like to enjoy the city here. So, but we did add additional staff so that we could be responsive to any public safety concerns. And then the Minnesota State Fair. So I will tell you, I was a little nervous about going in the fair. I've worked here a number of years when we had the state fair, but we did have the new parking, the new put new parking ordinance. And so that was a little bit of a learning curve for us. But I think we planned very well for that, and we worked very well with the parking ambassadors. I think they did a really good job.
And our communication with them, we had we kinda set up a program where they would text one of our our one of our police officers who would then disseminate to the rest of the staff that was working, where there was some parking enforcement issues. And so there was a number of I think we ended up writing about 400 parking tickets during the state fair. And that that did take up a lot of time for us. But we also were very, very, intentional about being present on Sallen Avenue and dealing with some of those, those traffic congestion issues and being responsive to the parking complaints that were called in by community members in different parts of the city.
So I think overall that the state fair went very well for us. And I got a lot of good feedback from community members that they they enjoyed the the increased visibility of the squad cars in the neighborhoods. And they also, thought that the the parking restrictions the feedback that I got, I know this probably you probably heard from both ways, but that it reduced the amount of traffic falling in the neighborhoods. And they were thankful for that reduction and that that added safety for their, around their homes. So we had some notable events that happened in the city, and I just wanna highlight a couple of them.
I know that the city council is aware of the first one I'm gonna talk about, so I'll just talk about it briefly. We had a call involving sergeant Jim Salve that occurred on Stellan Avenue in the area of Larketer with a, person that was in a mental health crisis and was wielding a large, a large knife. And Jim had coordinated with, Saint Paul Police Department and other responding units from our police department to deescalate that situation and bring that to a peaceful resolve. And I I really credit Jim and the officers there with being patient. Obviously, they had the concern for the for the individual and his his welfare.
They also had to be concerned about all the folks that are in that that that area that's usually very congested. There's bus stops and pedestrian traffic, heavy pedestrian traffic. But it really it was it really speaks to his professionalism and the professionalism of the officers there. They were able to give him some help, and that was resolved in the best way to give him resolve. And so we're very thankful for that. Recently, in the last three weeks, we had one of the officers, officer Trent Suter, that was working in the area of of Snelling And Marketer again at about 04:30 in the morning when he observed someone on a bicycle that was carrying a laptop
computer. And this kind of peaked his awareness a little bit because it's it's an odd time of day, and we've had some recent thefts around the area. And when they when the person on the bicycle saw Trent, he dropped a laptop, took off, and so they ended up locating him a few blocks down. He was in possession of that laptop was stolen, and he was in possession of two two stolen guns. One of which had been stolen out of the vehicle in Hogs Heights. They were able to tie that person back to a house that was, just a couple blocks in the Saint Paul that we think was housing a number
of people that were committing thefts in this this, this area. And, we worked with our our Visa officer, which is an officer that we have as part of a task force with Ramsey County. Visa stands for violent crimes enforcement team. They're a group of investigators that are, especially trained to deal with some more complex types of of investigative, needs and also to an apprehension techniques for for bringing, in people that are that are going to have a violent criminal history. So our detectives in in conjunction with the this VSED team,
served a search warrant on that house and were able to recover some additional evidence. There was a number of people in that home that had warrants, and, they brought Saint Paul housing with that ended up condemning that home because of the the the high state of disrepair that was in. So we're hopeful by by being proactive in that way that it will bring, it'll reduce the crime in this area, and I I absolutely think that it will. But I think that was just another example of an officer being, you know, in the right place and being proactive, and and being attentive to things that that seemed out of place. Yeah. And there's there's a number of these things I could probably tell you about,
but, Jack will only give me half hour. So I tend to be long winded, I've been told. So, the other thing, and I'm I'm I'm sure we spoke about this before, our strategic plan. When we go out on a patrol, but also on a larger and a broader, scope, there's a method to why we do the things that we do. And in 2018, we developed our strategic plan that involved all members of our police department, and members feedback from our city council and feedback from our community members. And at the time, there were nine goals, and there was a number of objectives under each goal.
In 2024, we've revamped that that strategic plan, and we've reengaged every member of our police department, and members of our community. And we've reduced some of these goals down to sixth. It didn't reduce the amount of objectives, but it really does guide the way we operate on a daily basis. And I just wanted to touch, if you don't mind, on a on a few of these goals and objectives that we have and kinda line them up with what we've been doing in your community here or our community, I should say. Our first goal is community engagement, transparency,
and accountability. And this speaks directly to the efforts that we've been making to reengage the community of Falcon Heights and being present in community events and the value that that place is on us really building relationships here. We're also very committed to transparency and accountability, and we've had a body worn camera program since 2018. And one of the things that when we were developing this program, that that we were seeing around the nation was that police departments had body worn cameras, but they weren't necessarily having them on,
when they should have been. And most departments did a great job, but there were some that were recently in the news that we were we were concerned that we wanted our our communities to know that we have cameras on. We have a policy and that we make sure that we're following this policy and that we report regularly to the public. And so we developed a, a a monthly compliance and audit check where we have supervisors that will check a random number of of, body worn camera videos for each person on their shift. And what they're looking for is are the cameras on when they're supposed to be on? Are they turned off when they're supposed to be off?
And is is the conduct of the officer in line with our core values of our police department and our and our policy? If if there's an issue with any one video, then the officer the sergeant will watch additional videos to make sure that there's not a pattern that's that's developed with with one single officer. And then we they they report monthly to me, on what our compliance check rate is, anybody that didn't pass it and what the reason and the resolve was. And then every at the end of every year, we also report on report on that as well. And we've had last year, we had a 99% compliance rate.
And the typically, what the issues that we have when there's not a camera, or video present is when there's a it's usually a breakdown in in, hardware or software that that results in that. But we also look for patterns to make sure that we don't have one single person that's that's, not compliant. And we've we've never had that. And we we only have officers, especially for just since the inception of that program that they have told us we we don't wanna go on patrol without it. It's that it's that important to us. So we're we're lucky and we're proud to have that. The next one is equipment and technology. Just briefly,
we talked we talked, a couple weeks ago about our current state of our body worn camera program and the need for an upgrade in software. And that's something that that that we've been, you know, diligent in finding the product that we think will work for us long term. It's gonna work when we want it to work and when it needs to work. Another thing we did is we created a a DynaForm process that makes it easier for for our police officers to put put, call information into our workers management system and also sends pertinent information to each each
city to let them know if there's things that are of value to them. So an example of that would be our false alarm reports. It used to be that we had it was kind of a redundant process where our office staff had to report to each individual city when we had false alarms. Now it's a kind of a seamless process where the officers enter in something in the computer and it goes straight to someone at city hall. Training and professional development. As we all know, hiring in this this day and age for police officers, good qualified people, it's difficult. We've applied and we've received a grant through the state of Minnesota to hire individuals
that had a degree in any other field than law enforcement that wanted to make a career transition into this field. And, the state do the grant. They pay for them to be employed full time with us and pay for them to go to school. And then at the end of that, we would promote them to police officer and put them through our training process. So right now, we have two individuals that are in the ICF poet training. One is a former professor at the University of Minnesota, and the other one was a division one baseball coach. And I thought there's a lot of value in bringing people to have different life
experiences that want that wanna serve, and they were very well liked by our our staff, and we're we're hopeful that they'll be a good fit. And I think they will be. Our next one is, safe streets and safe communities, and that speaks to our visibility in our communities. We also report regularly on our traffic stop data, and that was something that was was an agreement between every police department in Ramsey County to report on the reason for a traffic stop. And we started that back in 2017, outlining four specific reasons for a traffic stop. Whether that's a balloon violation, a vehicle violation, Like, that would be like a headlight out or expired task.
An investigative stop. So if the suspicious activity or a a license plate is run and it comes back to the owners and have a license or the warrant or a a traffic stop as a result of a 911 call. So someone calls in a theft at at a speedway, person left in a certain type of car, and our officer intercepts that would be that. So in '2 I believe it was 2021, we decided we wanted to take a deeper dive. And this was a a decision by our agency to really break these down even more to make sure that we are consistent on our reasons for the stops across all demographics. And then we were stopping cars for the reasons that we knew predominantly for the
reasons we know are most likely to cause injuries and crashes. And so we expanded that four reasons for the stop and the 37 different reasons for the stop. It takes a significant amount of more work, but I think that the the data that we derive from that is valuable. It makes it, you know, it's it's a good check and balance for us. And, also, again, it's it lends to that transparency that we have with our community. Employee wellness program is our next goal, and this is something that's very near and dear to me. Our and this is something we've developed over a period of time to make sure that officers are well and and,
body, mind, and spirit. So body, we have we have a workout on duty program where if we have adequate staffing, an officer can check out, can work out for a certain period of time on duty. We also have a required annual mental health checkup where they have a meeting with the mental health professional. And that's that's a, a a private consultation. I don't know. I just get I just get the bill. We want officers to feel that they have that they think that they need some help, they need to talk to someone, that they that they're not being watched by anybody else and that there's there's none of that stigma.
We want them to do that. We also have an internal chaplain program. We have it's our internal chaplain is pastor Brett Miller, who has experience working working with Minneapolis Police Department and head of the county sheriff's office. He's been working with us for a number of years, and he comes to our police department regularly. Just kinda meets casual with our officers. I know we've got a lot of value from that. We also have a peer to peer program that we just launched this year where we sent officers to peer to peer training where they can, reach out to officers on our staff, that can be helpful for people.
And we also launched a Cortico Wellness app, which is encompasses all of our wellness programs into one app. And there's a number of police departments that use the same app, and it's good for, sharing resources. Roseville's on that that app as well. And it's it's nice. Officers can can, seek out different wellness, mental health, types of resources, and it's it's completely anonymous. Officers can choose a a peer to peer officer that they think that they work well with. And so if an officer goes to a difficult call, say they go to, you know, a a death scene or something else.
And, one of their partners says, you know what? I think someone should check-in on them. They can go into the app, and, honestly, hit, hey. Someone needs to check-in with officers so I think officer Jones. And officer Jones, peer peer reversal will get a notification, and they they can make that check-in. So I found in my career that the best thing we can do and and all these things are really good. But the best thing we can continue to do for each other is make sure that we're checking in. And we can all tell. We've known each other long enough on someone's storyline. And we have such a great culture that does that. And finally, recruitment. This I feel like since I've been chief and well before that, this has been my main focus.
Recruitment, recruitment, recruitment. And it's been it's been difficult. We were we formed a recruitment team, and we're we're, we go to all recruitment events that most police departments go to. And we found a few that are a little bit that are outliers that we found some success in being one of the only police departments there. We found some good potential candidates. But we, in May 2024, we had 17 police officers. And this is a major sticking point when we when we were trying to decide whether a partnership was a good idea for us for time because it was so hard to find police officers. And we wanted to do well.
Any community, we're committed to being the best that we could be. Since that time, just, two weeks ago, we hired our twenty fifth police officer. And we're on pace to have our twenty sixth police officer hired by the end of the year. And we're extremely excited about the success that we've had. And we've had success not only in in attracting new police officers, people that are fresh from school, but we've had three that left other police departments that come to us. And that's our newest one that started in, two Sundays ago. He came from Brooklyn Center. I don't know if I should have said that or not, but
Brooklyn Center is a great police department. He actually used to be a a reserve officer with us a number of years ago. He was a a resident of Lauderdale. Just I think he really liked the culture and the people here. Also, like, where he was too, but thought this was gonna be a good fit for him. And we have one officer, officer Kyle Rushton, who I think a lot of you have known he that left, went to the private sector, and then decided that you wanna come back to policing. He could've got anywhere. This is the place he wanted to go. Mhmm. And, so I think we have a history of of attracting good people and very high qual quality people. And that's the commitment we've made to our community,
and that's the commitment we've made to each one of the police officers that wears our our badge and our patch. We won't put anybody on the road that we don't think, is gonna be that's gonna perform in a very high level because we need that. And I was just talking to one of our field training officers who was trained in some of our lateral officers and said they know how to be cops, but we need to make sure they know how to be St. Anthony police officers. And that's in line, and this is specifically what we talked about. When we redeveloped our strategic plan in the 2024, I asked our officers to identify core values that we thought,
that they thought were representative of the culture and the type of policing we do here. And so the main the main values that we that I saw that were that kept repeating itself and that we that we adopted was integrity, courage, and compassion. And that's the way we should be operating in every encounter we have. And that's not only with the public, which that's vitally important, but it's anybody we encounter. It's our partners as well. And I think, again, that's why I think people that come to Saint Anthony, typically, to our police department, They may not always plan on spending a career here,
but we have a a long history of people coming here and spending a lot of years here. And, and that's something we're really proud of. Last thing I'll say about the the strategic plan, I got I got an email a couple months ago from the The US, Department of Justice cops office that took note of our strategic plan and are putting together a best a best practices guide for police departments on developing these and ask if we we would provide, some input on that. So I was really excited about that that that that, we've been recognized for the good work that we've been doing.
I guess the last thing I'll say before I I end my portion of it. When before we came in into Pelican Heights, we had a department meeting, and we talked about being the best. And not on a pride, but because we wanna be the best. And it's not we know that as a department of of striving to be 30 police officers, that when we go to recruitment events, we don't always have the big toys and the things that we can show these these new, law enforcement students. But what we do have is a commitment to providing excellent service. It's public safety and it's high quality service. And we know that to provide a high quality service that we need to have
a partnership with our community. And that's why we're out. That's why we're in the communities. That's why we're trying to build these relationships. And we're in the relationship business. And I think that in these last nine months, we've done a really good job doing that, and we've had a community that's been happy to have us, and we have a police department that's that's happy to be here. And, so I'm thankful for that. I'm thankful for your service, your leadership in putting this helping to put this together, and the leadership of our of our of our city council in San Antonio as well. And the police officers that that saw this as a wonderful opportunity that took a
chance, and we only had seventeen seventeen cops worked hard. And I think it's been a really it's been a win win for the city of Falkland Heights and for the Saint Anthony Police Department. So thank you for that. Thank you, Jeff. And appreciate that. Are you open to questions from council members? Council have questions of Chief's piece? Just very happy that you're here and we, I know we hear all the remarks and you forgot to mention the Sunday selfies, which I already have. It was a family on my street that was featured.
So, no, thank you for being here. Thank you. Thank you so much for your presentation. I did have just a couple questions. The biggest one is, do you have a PowerPoint or on St. Anthony Village's website, the strategic plan that we could look at or if people ask us, we can point them to the values and and these to the goals and then the values that you, mapped out for us here. That was really nice information. Yep. It's on the the San Antonio Village, website. Okay. And there's a spot on there about the strategic plan.
Okay. I'd be more than happy to settle into that too. It's it's it's probably displayed on there, but, yes, that and we welcome that, and we also welcome feedback from our community members on that as well. This is a living, breathing document. We we ask our officers to look at that, and and look at certain things that they can certain objectives and and goals that they can lead. Mhmm. Mhmm. Yeah. That would be helpful. Maybe we can create a link on our city's website so that residents can readily access that. The peer to peer program, is that something that is nationwide and you guys recently tapped into that or did
you implement your own? It's a I believe it's a national program. I know it's a for sure state program. Okay. That's that's been, you know, we've had some recent I mean, it doesn't have there's been critical incidents in law enforcement, and we hadn't had a peer to peer program set up. And we've had members of the the Goldsville Police Department that reached out to our team and said, hey. If you need anything, we have officers that are trained that are willing to to meet with any of your officers or just have conversation. Mhmm. And so now that we have our own team, that's something that we've been we've been working towards is is integrating our teams and
introducing our team with other other police departments around us that can be a resource as well. That's wonderful. I, few years back was at a forum and it covered a few things including policing and one of the presenters was from New Orleans and he talked about their peer to peer program and the difference in the shift that it made in their department. So that was something that I've been holding to see happen locally, so I'm really happy to hear that you have that in place and, and I'm happy that you guys are enjoying being in Falcon Heights as well.
I just have, have a question. Have you, I don't believe that you have. And if you don't, are you consider at all having a behavioral response team in addition? What we have and we have a, we work at Northeast Youth and Family Services. Mhmm. And we have a community case worker. I mean, we do make referrals. I was I didn't mention staff, but we had we responded to 87 mental health calls in the city of Faulkner Heights since that time. A lot of them are repeat. I I will say, the county has an embedded social worker at their dispatch center, which does handle some of that for us.
That doesn't necessarily need a police response, which I think is a really good resource. Because not all of them really require a police officer to come out. But as far as behavioral response team, we do when when they're available, we have reached reached out to, the branch county crisis. I we've had had we've had some luck with them coming out to the scene, but a lot of that's just dependent on their staffing. But I I think there are cities that that have that do employ, mental health specialists full time on their staff, and I I don't know if they I know that some of them do go out and respond with officers.
I think Roseville has a social worker as part of their police department now. Yeah. Eric. Thank you, for for coming back to, and rejoining and providing us with community policing again. It's, it's been a real pleasure to have, just high regard for all of your officers in the way that, the positive feedback I hear from from residents and the, the whole thing. It's just feels really good. And thank you for, for doing that and being willing to partner with us again,
and we hope to have a long and, collaborative, future, providing public safety for for our communities and, thank you. Likewise. Thank you. Thank you, everybody. Next to you. Alright. Alright. Next order of business, we have approval of minutes from our 09/23/2025 city council meeting with the planning commission. 09/24/2025 City Council regular meeting minutes and our 10/01/2025 City Council workshop minutes, meeting minutes. Any changes to,
any of the minutes? No. No. Do I hear a motion to approve, the minutes from September 23, September 24, and October 1? So moved. So moved by Meyer. All those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. All those opposed, same sign. Motion carries five o. We don't have any public hearings tonight. We do have a consent agenda that consists of, eight items. We've got our general disbursements through all the details are found in the packet available on our website. But general disbursements through November 7,
dollars 493,325.58 payroll through 10/21/2025, dollars 23,350.27 payroll through November 4 wire payments through elevenfourtwenty twenty five of $36,737.95 approval of city licenses that run the gamut to vault renewals. Thank you.
Three, approval of Resolution 20 five-ninety seven to approve abstract of votes cast. Four, approval of Resolution 20 five-ninety eight authorizing change order number one with New Look Contracting for community park improvement project FH01. The, approval of Resolution 25.99 amending the City of Falcon Heights personnel policy to clarify participation in the Minnesota State Retirement System Health Savings Care Plan. Six, authorization of interconnect usage agreement with the City of Roseville to provide sanitary sewer service
to community park. Seven, approval of Resolution 20 five-one 100, authorizing acceptance of a proposal with Adabo, Workforce Solutions for full service payroll processing and support. Eight, approval of resolution 20 five-one 101 authorizing the application for the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources relief community forestry grant. I'll move the consent agenda. All those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. All those opposed same sign. Motion carries five-zero.
Items of interest off of the consent agenda that anybody would like to highlight for those who may not have read it and are watching attending, watching this meeting. Kind of managing the city and it looks like, yeah it's all all pretty straightforward and you can read all the details in the, in tonight's packet. Next we go on to policy items. We've got two of them before us tonight. The first is a consideration of a conditional use permit request at Falcon Heights Town Square for a child daycare center.
Administrator Linehan and or community development, director, Lynch. Somebody like to introduce this, this item? Yep. Thank you, mayor, and thank you, city council members, for having us tonight to talk about the conditional use permit application. So this is for a child daycare center to be located, in one of the retail spaces at Falcon Heights Town Square, 1550 Larpenter. It's actually 2 of the retail spaces, a double one, that would be converted into a child daycare center. So because conditional use permits are a little bit strange, I'm going to go through a very quick training on how they work,
just to make sure we're all clear on how that goes. And then I will get into the application itself. So a conditional use permit is essentially a permitted use of conditions. So basically it is a land use that's permitted in a zoning district. However, it might have certain standards that have to be met. Usually due to hazards, that come about as part of the use or special problems that might impact the neighborhood surrounding it. Conditionally use permits do run with the land, not with the property owner. So if Falcon Heights Town Square were ever to be sold to a different property
owner, that land use would still apply there. It would still have a conditional use permit on it for whatever the use is. But if anybody came in to do the use again, it would have to follow any of the same conditions that were originally put on it. And it can be revoked if conditions are ever not met. You have to have an appropriate notice and hearing for that. And then the city can attach reach the reasonable conditions to the permit. A reasonable condition would not be that to exaggerate, you have to paint the building pink.
A reasonable condition would be it has to only operate in these hours, to make sure that, you you're not affecting neighbors or anything like that. So the city's authority in granting a conditional use permit. So this is what's considered quasi judicial authority. So essentially you're acting as a court of law. You can only apply the standards in city code to the facts presented by the application. So essentially, if the applicant meets the standards, the conditional use permit should be granted. What that means is that lay opinion is not a valid basis for granting or
denying a conditional use permit. So if somebody were to say, this specific use is going to increase the traffic, then you need to have a traffic study and or a traffic engineer, somebody to come in and provide facts that that is a truthful thing. So and the same goes to the opposite. So, essentially, any of substantiated opinions or reactions to your to an application are not religious legitimate basis for a decision on the application. So a lot of the conditional use permit standards in city code do not apply for this project. Most of the standards that we have are for new buildings.
So as far as setbacks, screening, different types of finished materials, all of that, we do not have to get from it. The use does conform conform to the comprehensive plan after we've looked at it. So essentially, the comprehensive plan is just kinda talks about conditional uses and why we would have them. So sometimes they're considered only appropriate within the interior of a residential neighborhood. They might be a buffer, that sort of thing. So that's why we have them where we do. Mhmm. I'm gonna that's just kind of going over the same thing. So this application in particular, the pro proposal is for a child day care center.
The hours of operation from the application are supposed to be Monday through Friday, 7AM to 9PM. The capacity of based on the square footage would allow for a 129 children. The proposal is to allow 95 children. So 15 infants, 20 toddlers, 20 preschool age children, and 20 or 40 school age children. And then the tuition rates, would obviously follow the maximum for Ramsey County, might be under that, but they're obviously not gonna go above that. So Ramsey County does set a maximum rate on daycares.
Traffic and parking. So city code requires a minimum of four parking spaces for a child daycare center. The applicant has requested 10 designated pickup and drop off spaces in the shared Falcon Town Square parking lot. Discussions are still ongoing between the applicant and property management regarding final parking allocations. As far as parking goes, that would be a reasonable condition if you said that it has to have that, that sort of thing. And then additional city requirements would be they obviously have to get a city business license and have to get all of their state daycare licensing. I will note that the state day care licensing is a very stringent process.
There is a lot of, oversight in that. Lots of inspections throughout the year. It continues. All that all of the plans have to be approved before they can get that state license. So just for kind of an overview of where we're looking. So, obviously, right there at, Snelling and Larpenter and Falcon, Falcon Crossing is just in the North, Amber Unions to the West, Warner Stallion to the Northwest. This is the space they will be looking at. So it's gonna be on the, Larpenter side of the building and the north side of the building. This is kind of just another overview of the space. And then the next step. So we've had the public hearing.
The planning commission met at their last meeting and did hold a public hearing. We had one resident from 1530 Larpinger that came to speak, kind of an opposition, but the the main cause of him speaking was concerned about people exiting, Town Square going the opposite of the one way direction, and then also trees overhanging, Falcon Town Squares trees kind of blocking the exit on a Rona, making it different to look out. That was determined during that public hearing that that is more of a code enforcement
or a management situation. It's not relevant to a new daycare going in. Since that's already an issue, we can't say that this will or will not make that worse. So not really relevant to this case in particular. So the planning commission recommended approval of the application, six o, with the only conditions on it being the state licensing and the city business license. So we do have the applicant here if y'all have any questions. Otherwise, I'm happy to answer anything that I can. And yeah. Two questions.
Thank you so much, Miss Lynch. In regards to the 10 parking spaces, they only need four, so we're not requiring that they have 10. It's just that they're wanting 10. Yes, they are requesting 10. City code does require it. It could be a condition if you wanted to say that they had to have it or if you wanna do something like that, but city code does require at least four. And and they're granted that already. It's already built into that space being that that was a pediatric center,
I'm assuming. I'm I don't know how many are already given to them. Okay. Do you know how many parking you already have without the 10? 10 to 15. 10 to 15? Okay. So they're looking for 10 to 15. Is the property management have they agreed? Okay. Nice. Good. Okay. Yeah. Forgot my other question. Is again, because it was a pediatric clinic, so does it have the facilities for restrooms and things like that already in place? I looked at the blueprint,
but it wasn't quite clear to me. It does have restrooms, but there will have to be, a lot of work done inside to Okay. Bring it up to the standards for a day care. So they would go through the whole building permitting process and all of that, fire inspection and everything like that, depending on if this is granted. Okay. So we're not approving the final. We're just doing the CUP for right now. You're approving the use. After that, it would be out of it would be an administrative process after that, the normal get your building permit and go through everything like that. And even though it falls on the place of the building manager,
is there any way that we can encourage, strongly encourage, better signage? Because that has been problematic for people turning the wrong way out of that that parking lot ever since the building's been in that existence. Yeah. Absolutely. We'll definitely be talking to the property management over there to see if, when the trees can be trimmed back and if either potentially better signage or if there's a way to, I don't know, see who's doing it. But, yes, that is obviously a concern. There are multiple it's never been just one person that's exited out onto Larpenter Right.
From the parking lot. So and and there is a sign next to the 1530 Building, but there's nothing on the other side to tell people no. Maybe I don't know, I just think better signage needs to happen. We're we're all under signage overload, but we still need to try and improve that so that people don't turn Yeah. Absolutely. In that direction. Those are my questions. K. So those those types of conditions on the use aren't aren't necessary as as part of this to, for us to state that,
that in order for it to function, this they need to have an agreement in place on the parking or have a need to have an agreement in place to provide ingress egress for the customers of their business by the property manager. If the management wants that used there, that those that would be a condition? I think the property itself has that built into it. I think as far as the people going the wrong way, it's kind of like people's meeting. They're gonna do it if they do it. I think there can be,
like, she said, better signage for that, but I don't think we can put that as a condition on this use since it's already occurring. Since it's a, existing Right. It'd be kind of like saying we have to make people stop speeding in order for this to go in. It's it's it's already a Yeah. Problem, but it needs to be solved, but I don't think it relates directly to a new use. Okay. Alright. But we can encourage it at this time to put it in writing so that that gets to management and they're realizing the weightiness of it.
Because especially now that we're looking at more minors and small children in that area, you know. Yeah. I think, I can get in touch with the management over there, but I don't think we can tie that to a specific, like, written agreement between them and property management. Right. Just just noted as I guess that's my desire that that would be noted. Yes. Absolutely. Okay. I was told that the when the pediatric clinic was in that space, there were four parking spots in the ramp for employees.
So that might be something you can ask property management about as well. So you can save those spots for the drop off and pick up, the the street side level. Okay. I have one question. It's speculative, but as long as you hope to open, there's a it's a process there, a license to go through with your model of licensing. Are you thinking maybe six months? What are your hopes? Right. In in the planning commission meeting, I guess a consultant or an adviser of this project, was present, and he put the ballpark, time. It's like three three to four months for the conversion.
So Yeah. He's thought about February time frame. I see them one of them to come to podium? That might be better just for reference. Sorry. Rather than asking questions and from there because the microphones don't always pick up, so somebody wants to serve as the spokesperson for the group come to the, come to this microphone at the podium there. Are you the applicant, Nasid? No. Okay. Alright. Oh, welcome. Thanks. The, so with with passage of this, you hope to get going in a four to six month three to six month time frame then?
Yeah. Definitely six months. Okay. And, that makes And you were are you in the process of making the application for for the, state daycare, certification, or do you need to wait until the, the facility is complete ready. She did that from the from here. And she start application processing. Okay. So so if we pass this, we're not slowing it down. Appreciate that. Any other questions from from counsel to the applicant? In here does it say how many adults are,
I haven't seen it, how many adults are required per number or that will all be in the licensure that will be there. So we don't this is just for the use. This is just for the use. So State tightly regulates how many caregivers are necessary for giving other children. Yeah. Do you have an idea of how many, do you expect that a lot of the children that will be in the day care will be from residents who live within the building? I don't think so. It will never raise the capacity. With Right. Mean I know the main additional. No. I mean, it'll be wonderful for the families that their day care is right on-site.
Right. That's right. Yes. I used to leave that building, like, three years ago. Mhmm. Five years. And I used to take my children to another childcare in Minneapolis. Yeah. It would be good to have one house there. Right. Right. How will you be, getting the word out once the facility is set and ready to go in licensure? How will you be recruiting for people to sign up for the daycare? Taking applications. Yes. Probably she would make the flyers and, you know, book in the that's I think how she's gonna do it.
I don't know. So she's gonna add Yeah. Word by word, basically. Mhmm. Okay. Word by mouth? Word. Word-of-mouth. Yes. Yeah. Word-of-mouth. Okay. I would expect that you would see great demand for this very necessary service, especially since you are covering hours that are rare. I think in daycares, late late in the day and into the evening daycare is is not commonly provided. So I think you'll probably see a great deal of interest. I would hope so. So Most of the time, a lot of, I've seen a lot I work with a lot of jobs care centers in Minneapolis. The way they, the process is like Google. They make them on both sides and they do over there.
So it'll be open to the public to apply. Okay. All right further questions? Council action that that we need to provide. Do you have any questions of of the council or of the city at this time? Should ask same part there. Hannah's got it covered already. I do have one more question, if I may. Looking at this, the rough draft of the blueprint, will there be a more official blueprint going forward of the of the build out? That'll be required as part of the building permit Okay. When they start,
redoing the inside of it. Sounds great. Okay. I'm sure, once it's complete, if, if you, feel like inviting, any city council members to come check it out, I'm sure we'd be happy to celebrate it opening. Okay. Thank you. Alright. So I'll make a motion Alright. To pass. Resolution twenty five one zero two? Yep. Additional use permit for the Falcon Heights Town Square Child Daycare Center. There we go. Conditional on The conditional use permit. Got all my pages turned around. Yeah. Well, that's what it says on the back of this one. It is still a 102.
Right? 25102? We have it as policy h one. Yep. Policy h one. Actually, This is RC, it's on RCA. Okay, yeah. All right. So we have a motion to, from Council Member Melton to approve resolution 25.01. Any further comment, concerns, comments in there? Hearing none, all those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. All those opposed same sign. Motion passes five-zero that, we've got the, conditional use approved for 1550 Larpenter Avenue West Child Daycare Center.
Thank you. Good luck in your new enterprise. Yeah. Good luck. We have one of our communities. We're providing a good service to the, or what we hope is going to be a good service to the community of Falcon Heights and, and for that. So thank you. Best of luck. Our next order of business is approval of edits to the Falcon Heights administrative manual regarding, commissioner's stipend. Council member or I mean, city administrator, Lina Hahn, do you want to explain this one at your time? Yeah. I'll, I'll I'll kick it off and then just throw over to Hannah.
Hannah kind of has led the way on this. She's our one of you know, we have our our three staff members doing four commissions. Hannah does, two of the commissions as our staff liaison. And so we noticed this a couple months ago, kinda with the new introduction to how our commissioner pay operates. We found just a couple of challenges with it, and so we wanna bring it to council's attention, see if we can clean it up to what we believe the intention was, but wanna make sure the policy and intention match up. So I guess with that, I'll kick it back over to Hannah to talk a little bit more about the
specifics. Sure. Thank you. So, yes, like administrator Lenehan said, we noticed some confusion between what city code was saying and what the admin manual was saying as far as when we pay commissioners. So one was saying that if they notified us by 3PM that they were gonna be out of a meeting, and as long as it did not affect quorum, that it it sounded like they would still be paid for that. And then another in city code, I believe it was, it said that they would be paid per meeting attended. It felt like the intent was to pay them for meetings attended.
So it's been edited a little bit to try to clarify that, essentially to say that regardless of it being an excused or unexcused absence, and an excused absence would be that they notify us by 3PM on the day of the meeting. And there is a slight change that we need to make that it's would take out the part about it affecting quorum or not because that doesn't really concern it anymore. But as long as they notify us by 3PM on the day of the meeting, that is an excused absence, and it wouldn't count towards the number of absences that would allow us to remove
them from the commission if they're not attending. But, essentially, you have to be at the meeting to get your stipend. So that's how it's been rewritten with the one change that we need to fix on there about the quorum part, just taking that part out. But, yes, I just edit it so that those two places match and then moving forward. So we have been paying the commissioners if they are not in attendance, but they have let us know. So moving forward after this change, it would then change to only paying commissioners if they are in attendance. You're right. That was the intent. Yeah. Yeah. Good catch. Okay. I think this clarifies very nicely for what kind of what kind of meetings and
what kind of attendance, commissioners will behave. There are a couple of comments that I have on page one forty four that I'd like to some suggested edits here just to clarify. Yes. A couple of other things about excused. What is an unexcused absence? So, top of one forty four, item number one. I think it would it says, missing more than 25% of scheduled meetings or three consecutive unexcused absences may result in removal. It might be nice to say, like, in what kind of a period. So you're not saying, you know, 20 if, if there are three meetings and you miss one of them, that's more than 25%. But that's not really a reason for removal.
I think we're we just wanna say that it's over an extended period of time, such as twelve months. Right? And then in item number two, I think it, the goal there is to sort of, define what is an excused absence. And as part of that, the second sentence, if an absence is not communicated to the staff liaison by 3PM of the meeting, it says, end results in a meeting being held without a lack with a lack of quorum, absence will be counted as unexcused. I think probably the part where it says, and this absence results in a meeting being held with a lack of quorum probably
should be struck because I don't I think it's still unexcused whether there's quorum or not. I see. Okay. Those were my two comments. And to me, that's what I thought she was referencing a few moments ago, even though it was not struck on here. Is that correct, Hannah? Yes. Okay. Yep. So we'll just have to edit that a little bit more. Yeah. Mhmm. Okay. Great. That's all. Thank you. That again, it's quite clear. Mhmm. With with that, would counsel consider both of those friendly amendments to the proposal so that staff could make those corrections and still consider adoption if with those corrections as as stated?
Absolutely. Yes. I think so. Okay. Further, comments from counsel, observations. Good. The Good. So we have a motion to approve to modify the administrative manual with the drafted edits section two city commissions as further noted for minor making comments from counsel included in that. Asking for the motion? Yep. So moved by. So moved by Wattenberg. Okay. Other further comment? Hearing none, all those in favor of approval of edits to the administrative manual signify by saying
aye. Aye. All those opposed same sign. Motion carries five-zero. The, next we have, information and announcements. Who wants to start? Okay. Council member Wasserberg. Thank you. Thank you. I want to thank, city staff and the parks commission. The game night that was held last week was really fun. If you weren't there, you missed out. The pizza was great. The camaraderie was nice. And there was a pretty loud game of eight person pit going on later towards the end of the evening. So, yes, well attended. This room was fairly full, and so thank you very much.
I think it's a nice, nice opportunity to get out and meet your meet your neighbors and, spend some time on a on an evening with friends and family. So we should like to see more of it. When's the next one gonna be? I think this was a trial. Okay. But I would guess there will be another one because it was pretty successful. It's great to have a cooler weather activity to be in the city. Yes. Yep. Fun. Councilmember Leahy. Yes, a couple items here. First of all, the Community Engagement Commission will be meeting on Monday, November 17 at 06:30,
and our order of business is going to be primarily, unless there's, any changes, regarding our human rights day. Human rights day falls, international human rights day falls on December 10, and we will be observing on Tuesday, December 9 here at 06:30PM. And the focus will be on food insecurity. And we've been talking about this since the summer, and lately with the it's become a very real issue for more than, those that we don't hear about.
Now all of us are hearing about the food insecurity and the need to, help our neighbors and treat people with dignity no matter where they're at with their food needs. So and with that, it will include, an aspect of a food drive as well since we're gonna be gathering. So again, that'll be 06:30 on November 2330 on December 9. I want to just commend our city staff for coordinating our rental license, holders meeting that took place today as an open house.
Not not a big show, but I still think it's important that our city is valuing those that have the rental properties and making sure that they have the information and can bring those questions up, and the resources that went out very transparent, to do that in a couple of different formats to invite people to today's meeting. So just wanna commend the staff, Jacqueline Hann and his team for doing that. And, thirdly, I just want to, thank all three of well, we had four, but three of our our candidates for our,
election for, next year starting, January 1, our our new, newly elected council members, who are both here tonight, and also for Jeremy Hollanger, for just the courage to step in and and run a candidacy. And just appreciate everyone and congratulate, both, Georgiana and Jim who are here tonight. Okay. Council Member Meyer? Yeah. Let's see. So, yeah, planning commission, we talked to we we approved, what the planning commission worked on, a couple weeks ago, and I'm excited for
the daycare to eventually make its way to Falcon Heights here. It's gonna be a really great great service. Maybe I don't know. I have a a kid that's about the right age, so who knows? Maybe it'll help me out too. But, yeah. Other than that, I don't think I have any other announcements. That's it. Good. Environment commissioner met on Monday. Hannah gave us an update on progress in the partners in energy plan, the planting of boulevard trees, 24, planted within the last few weeks. And, we brainstormed the commissioner's brainstorm on how to use money from the county that can
be used for encouraging and increasing recycling between now and the end of the year. Mhmm. Cool. Eric, I really I don't have anything other than, congratulations as well to, Georgiana May and James Mogren for stepping forward and collecting enough votes to be able to join us up here on the diocese in January. Looking forward to, to that. And thank you everybody for it was a really good voter turnout too. It was, what did we say? We had 3,200, registered voters and added 32 more.
And then, 1,400 and some showed up to vote, which is excellent in an odd year and shows that, efforts were really made to get out to vote and good campaigns were run. It was great. Look forward to, you joining us. Administrator Linehan and, there's Director Lynch. What else is going on in the city? Thanks, mayor, council. So street sweeping is going on this week. Public works kind of been working their way, from west to east, going through getting all the leads. The community park is doing great. So if you're kinda able to go up any chance you get,
the roof is on. The building's getting framed in. They're gonna start siding on Monday, it sounds like, for the new siding, and then stain and trim is coming with that too. So, continuing to make good progress on that. You'll see the splash pad is fully formed, and so that's going really well. We have new, new lights at the gazebo as well. That's been a project that Public Works worked on getting it sandblasted, painted, through a contractor, and now there's new lighting there. Working kind of on some of the ice rink lights, other lights as well. The Snelling And Hoyt monument, we had a solar light installed.
We really struggled getting, electrical to a lot of our monument signs. Extreme cost to put electrical in. That's one of the more expensive parts usually with these, so, it's been good to kinda have an opportunity where we kinda monitor and see how that works. And if it's an option for other lights, it's a good low cost way to, light some of our monuments. We unfortunately did have some people noticed two of our street lights got taken out at, Larpenter and Snelling by a motorist on Saturday. Oh. So at Falcon, Town Square kind of area in that Southeast corner. So we're working on the replacement of that, working with insurance to get those replaced.
It probably will be a spring replacement. Insurance will help us, and, we'll be able to get those replaced, but it is a little bit of a bummer as we work towards that. That covers it. Staff, otherwise, accepted assessments, and we're continuing to accept that there's last minute assessments. This week, we're still accepting, assessment payments for the twenty twenty five PMP. Closes Friday officially. So people are still getting those into us. It's been really good turnout for that. And our license process has gone well. And as you can see today, we're getting kinda good renewals and getting into a process of, getting it kinda very familiar with our license holders.
So kinda cover some of the general staff and, citywide business. Mhmm. I did see that, the Lions Club has started to, prepare for their, for their sales, which will open up, Thanksgiving Friday, usually. Yes. I think, yeah, week of Thanksgiving. The week of Thanksgiving, which, is just two away. Two weeks away or so. Maybe three. So anyway, you forget I forget what day it is. But, but that looked like they were they were cooking along. Follow-up announcements. Okay. Next, we'd, have, community forum. Here's an opportunity for people to,
speak before the council, give us ideas, feedback, and, things that they'd like to bring to our attention. We won't act on anything, but we certainly will ask questions if necessary. But, so doing that, I'll call for community forum. Either one of our want to say anything, we can. I'll do a second call for community forum and a, third call for community forum. They're gonna be shy for just a couple more months. So following that, next we're going to be, city council will be going into closed session pursuant to Minnesota statute 13.
I gotta get better glasses, statute 13 d five three a to evaluate the performance of an individual who is subject to its authority. The topic of discussion will be the annual performance evaluation of City Administrator Jack Linehan. State statute requires a performance evaluation to be an open meeting at the request of the subject of the meeting, which City Administrator Linehan has declined. Following the closed session, there will be no formal action or business by the City Council other than the
adjournment of the meeting. The adjournment vote will be open to the public and recorded in our meeting minutes, but will not be televised on True North. At our next open meeting, the city council will summarize the conclusions regarding the evaluation pursuant to state statute. So do I have a motion to enter closed session? So moved. So moved by Lee. All those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. All those opposed same sign motion carries five-zero. We will be going into closed session. Thank you for attending today for the amount of time that you did.