##VIDEO ID:https://webstreaming.ctv15.org/viewer.php?streamid=7421## On Wednesday, November 13th, 2024, we'll call this meeting to order at 7.01 p.m. Roll call. Gustafson, here. Leahy, here. Meyer, here. Melke, here. Wassenberg, here. Linehan, here. Here. Get our roll call. I'd like to... Do I have a motion to approve the agenda? So moved. So moved by Leahy. Any discussion? All those in favor, signify by saying aye. Aye. All those opposed, same sign. Motion carries 5-0. At this time, our next order of business is a closed session. The council will go into a closed session pursuant to Minnesota Statute 13D.05 Subdivision 3B for a Confidential Attorney Client Privilege Discussion regarding settlement of claims against the surety Granite RE Inc. under the performance bond for the project FH2102. Is there a motion to close the meeting? So moved. So moved by Meyer. All those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. opposed same sign this time we will enter a closed session and report back soon Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Welcome back to the City of Falcon Heights regular meeting of the City Council on Wednesday, November 13, 2024. We'll come back out of closed session now at 7.20 p.m. or 7.21. I just flipped over on my there. As we do that, one portion out of closed session that I would propose that we make an amendment to the consent agenda for today. Item number three, which is the consideration of settlement project Falcon Heights 2102. Make that to read approval of settlement project FH 2102, the Falcon Heights 2021 pavement management project performance bond dispute, bond number GM4A. to change that first word from approval to consideration. Consideration to approval. Yeah, consideration to approval. All those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. All those opposed, same sign. Motion carries 5-0 to amend the agenda. Next, we'll move on to presentations. We don't have any. Item next is approval of our minutes of the October 2, 2024 City Council Workshop Minutes. It's been noted that in part of the packet, it said September 4 versus October 2. It's been corrected, and that correction is made for what they are. Any other discussion on approval of minutes of October 2? Do I hear a motion to approve the minutes of the October 2 City Council Workshop minutes? So moved. So moved by Wassenberg. All those in favor, signify by saying aye. Aye. All those opposed, same sign. Motion carries 5-0. Public hearings tonight, we don't have any. Look forward to those in December. Consent agenda consists of 10 items. General disbursements through November 6, 2024, $408,579.81. Payroll through October 31, 2024, of $26,539.92. Wire payments through October 31, of $16,590.17. Two, approval of city licenses. Three, approval of settlement project FH2102, the Falcon Heights 2021 Pavement Management Project performance bond dispute, bond number GRMN44728A. Four is the 2025 PMP geotechnical work. Five, authorization of the 2024 general fund budget amendment to increase the police services line item by $88,000. Six, 2024 budget transfer of $25,000 from Fund 204, Water, to Fund 403, Parks Capital. Seven, authorization of intent to purchase John Deere 1585 terrain cut tractor and implements and surplus the city's 2013 John Deere 1585. 8. The 2025 Ramsey County Select Committee on Recycling and Environment, or the SCORE, grant the submittal and enter into agreement with Ramsey County for funding. 9. Authorization to apply for the Solar on Public Buildings grant program for City Hall solar panels. 10. The authorization to repair plow trucks for up to $12,000. Do I hear a motion to pass the consent agenda? I just have a comment question on one item. Okay. On item number nine with the solar panel, the proposal, if we're to get it, before we could go through replacing panels, they said there'd need to be a new roof. So that's what it said in his, assuming there'd be a new roof. My analysis of that is that they would recommend a new roof. Okay. And so this building long-term will eventually need a new roof. It's usually a best practice if you're going to do the panels, do the roof. Right. So I just wondered if we needed to make any adjustments to 2025 budget. Overall, I'd say no. We don't have an immediate need for the roof. So I'd say no to that. I will say what we are going to do is in the capital, we didn't include the money for the solar yet. So when we bring it in December, the solar part, we'll have that. But the immediate plan is not for a new roof in 2025. Okay. Can it remain on consent or do you want to move it to policy? Okay. Do I have your motion to pass the 10-item consent agenda? So moved. So moved by my mayor. All those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. All those opposed, same sign. Five-0. Policy items tonight. We've got a couple. We have the adoption of the Larpenter-Snelling Corridor Development Plan as our first item of the policy. And on this, we'll turn the discussion over to Community Development Director, oh, did you, Hannah Lynch, to introduce the topic to us. Sure, thank you. So in the comprehensive plan for the city, when that was created, the Snelling and Larpenter Corridor was not kind of fully looked at, and it was recommended during that process that a more in-depth study be done on it. So starting last year, we started working on the Snelling and Larpenter Corridor Development Study and have spent quite some time looking at it. The study area was down Larpenter Avenue and Snelling Avenue. On this map you can see the project location are the two red lines so the main roads and then you also see the State Fair property, University property and then private ownership along those two roads. We had a decent amount of public engagement for this. We had a community open house October of last year. We had a good number of people come to that. We had a very well done community survey with lots of responses. We had an online comment map and a paper map where people could put sticky notes on it. The online comment map had probably a hundred comments on it, possibly more. It was a lot of interaction there. We also had a community meeting in February of this year and then a business meeting in March. Some of the things that people talked about were the businesses that they frequently visited, so Stouts, New Fresh Walk, Jimmy John's, Dino's, Merwin's, and BP. A lot of people like the idea of having a coffee shop, convenience stores, restaurants, bakeries, small businesses, small retail slash boutiques. And some of the location opportunities that were looked at were the shops between Stouts and Warner Stallion. They have since been filled by a tenant, but still, you know, looking at that area looking at the old dry cleaner location on Larpinder, the greenhouse on Larpinder, the U of M golf course, Falcon Crossing, and then the Spire site. However, that has been, again, since bought by Blaze and will remain there. And then a lot of people were talking about, you know, they want park space, open space, trails, single family homes, townhomes, and duplexes. They also noted what they like about the quarter and what they don't like. Some of the things that do like are the small local feel. A lot of people like Falcon Heights the way it is. They really like the feel of it. They love the U's open fields. It feels very rural almost in a pretty urban setting. So that's really great. What people are not liking about it are the congestion, safety concerns, noise, vacant buildings, that sort of thing. So here are the four main areas that were looked at for the study. The first one is the U golf course. The second is the greenhouse property on Larpinder. The third is the Warner Stellian Stouts area. And then Falcon Crossing is area four. So a couple of different ideas that came out of this for the U golf course. And I do want to make it very clear that the U, we did have discussions with them. As of right now, there are no plans for this property in the near future. It was shown as an opportunity zone in their plan. However, there are no hard set plans for them moving forward with selling or development or anything like that. So these are just kind of some concepts that residents were interested in. We had also brought it before council. So the first one is looking at kind of more of a suburban type layout with some curvilinear roads we've got single family towards the rear of the property town homes around the outside and towards the front and then some commercial and office on the front as well as multi-family on larpender and then up in the corner near community park very similar in layout too however we're more on a grid pattern to kind of line up with our existing roads in the city and both of these are including a lot of open space and trails Moving on to the second area, so this is the current greenhouse property right at Larpinder and Lindig. So there is a current PUD on this property. That is the idea behind the first layout here. So you have a four-unit apartment building with kind of a patio and then some detached garage parking with surface parking in the rear. So that is an approved PUD on the property currently. The second is a set of five townhomes with driveways onto Lindig, kind of making use of that long lot. And then the third is just if for some reason the lot next door became open and we were to combine or a developer would want to combine those two lots, we're looking at a larger apartment building with surface parking and detached garage parking, kind of mimicking what's further down Larpinder. The third area we looked at is the Warner Stallion area. So not too many changes with this one. The main thing that was discussed here is the difficulty of navigating that area, the parking. It's not striped super well right now. It's kind of hard to tell where there is a curb, where you can and can't go, how you get into BP. So this first part is really looking at leaving the building alone and just kind of cleaning up this parking area, adding some islands and just really defining where you're going to go. So the first actual picture on here is of the current parking situation. And the second is with it cleaned up. And then the one addition to the second drawing here is the addition of a proposed second building to the north of Warner Stallion with some patio space. So perhaps a cafe, a restaurant, coffee shop, that sort of thing. And then finally, the fourth area that we looked at is Falcon Crossing. So again, the main concern here with residents is the navigation of the parking area, the alley behind people driving through there, not sure what direction you go down the alley. So the first one was again, leaving the building alone, adding some planting beds and just kind of cleaning up the navigation pattern of that area. And then the second one were to be if a complete redevelopment happened of this lot. So we're kind of splitting the building in two. We have this retail restaurant space on the west side and then another one on the right side, a little bit smaller. You'd have some more parking and a drive path between those two buildings. Excuse me. And then both of these proposals do include removing the curb cut right at Larpender and Snelling just to make it a little bit safer for people getting in and out. You're not trying to get out right at that intersection. So those were kind of the four concept plans that came out of the study. If you have any questions, I'm happy to answer them. But the final draft is in front of you. I think WSB, I'd like to thank them for all of the work they did on it. It's a beautiful plan, and we're really excited about it. Thank you, Ms. Lynch. Comments and questions from council? I just... I want to have you add the comment that Ramsey County, you funded it, did not allow us to look at traffic because that was a big issue that came up in comments. Yes, absolutely. So, yes, Larpender is a county road. Snelling is a state road. So, yes, the county asked us not to really look into Larpender traffic that much or navigating that as it would be a part of a future land, hopefully. but there are comments noted in the plan that our residents are very concerned about safety along there. Thank you. I like how the plan puts in place that we weren't allowed to look at traffic as part of the funding. We wouldn't get the funding if we had traffic as part of it, but it is noted in here in various spots. I'd like to thank all of the citizens who came out and worked on this and staff and the folks from WSB who facilitated the meetings and got them going. It was a year-long process and it's a start, gives us something to work with and so that we won't be going blind into whatever the future holds. We kind of have a plan and we've thought about something to the future. So I'd like to thank all the residents who participated and the business owners and property owners along the corridor and off the corridor. Yeah, it's very nice. It's great to have an expression of community desires and interests put down into a formalized plan. Obviously, there are many different ways that land could still be developed. but this gives an idea to us of what we would like to see, what the desires are, as I said. And that's great to have written down. Okay. At this point, for council, a resolution adapting the City of Falcon Heights, Snelling, and Larpentier Corridor Development Plan would be your order. Resolution 2466. Do I hear a motion to adopt Resolution 2466? 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 5-0. Next, we have a policy number two, authorization for a contract amendment extending the agreement for law enforcement services with the Ramsey County Sheriff's Office for a period of January 1, 2025 to February 28, 2025. Administrator Linehan, can you help walk us through this proposal? Yes, thank you, Mayor and Council. So this one's listed as a policy item, primarily because we didn't have a chance to talk about this at a workshop. Working with the Sheriff's Office, they have a deadline with the county board. But it's a fairly straightforward amendment. So essentially we had requested with the Sheriff's Office if they could extend services to help us to get St. Anthony. They had offered these two additional months. And so this is kind of that contract amendment to the existing contract. Again, fairly straightforward. Basically just clarifying when it ends. and that it will be February 28, 2025. Not a leap year, so that's a good one. And then it also has kind of what the valuation is and then, again, pretty much just clarifying when it ends. So fairly straightforward. Happy to answer questions on it. No questions. I'm feeling pretty good about St. Anthony for March 1st. Everybody's confident. Yes. All right. Great. All right. Do I hear a motion to approve Resolution 2467, the amendment to the Agreement for Law Enforcement Services with Ramsey County Sheriff's Office, and authorize the city administrator and mayor to execute all necessary documents? So moved. So moved by Wassenberg. Further discussion? Hearing none. All those in favor, signify by saying aye. Aye. Aye. All those opposed, same sign. Motion carries 5-0. Next, we move to information and announcements. Which way did we go last time? We'll start over here with Council Member Wassenberg. I'm sure. JUST UPDATES ON PARKS. WE MET EARLY IN THE MONTH AND REVIEWED THE FALL, THE RESULTS OF THE FALL PROGRAM, THE FALL GET TOGETHER, WHICH WAS VERY NICE AND SUCCESSFUL. I THINK WE MAY HAVE MENTIONED THIS LAST TIME AND DID SOME PLANNING FOR NEXT YEAR. IT WAS NICE LOOKING THROUGH SOME OF THE IDEAS FOR 2024 AND SEEING HOW THOSE WOULD HAVE BEEN MET, LIKE MAINTAINING QUORUM EVERY QUARTER. quarter. I'm not sure we actually missed quorum once in the past year. So that's good to see a good revitalized Parks Commission. And they're doing nice work. So that's all that I have. Good. Thank you. Council Member Leahy. I want to thank everyone for their role and participation in our 75th anniversary of our city of Falcon Heights and being a unique city that we are. And people are proud to live and participation during our event here on the Saturday and also the gathering that we had the following Tuesday just really delightful and we had former council members participate and want to thank our mayor for his work with the other mayor's on the video that's still available on nine north if you want to watch some history and some thoughts from our our mayor's in previous years and also for Councilmember Mielke and Myers for their roles. And, yeah, it was just a delightful week of celebrating our city. And former Councilmember Risa Davis, as she participated quite a bit behind the scenes as well. So thank you, everyone, for who came out, participated, gave their input in just celebrating who we are. Secondly, I want to commend our veterans. My father is a Vietnam Marine veteran, and so my gratitude to him and all of our veterans for the different wars and services that they have provided. Thank you. Council Member Meyer. Council Member Lee took a few words out of my mouth there, but I'll just double up. Yeah, just a big shout-out to Council Member Mielke Melky for putting together a great trivia night. I learned a ton about our city. And there was some incredible trivia where you could probably, the amount of people in Falcon Heights that would know the answer to a couple of those questions is like maybe single digits. You've got to have questions. You've got to educate people. Exactly. And you've got to have questions like that to humble people who go to trivia and think they know everything. That was fun. and it was an honor being asked to emcee that, and I was thrilled to have an excuse to sing a little bit to a group of people. So that was a really fun night and hopefully a tradition that can continue. Absolutely. I need help with questions. I'm still waiting to hear a recording of the song on our website, or at least available. Yeah. Yeah, maybe we'll have to. Beautiful. Maybe we'll get in the studio. Get Lloyd. Very good. Council Member Malky. Yeah, I just wanted to thank the brave people who formed teams to be part of Trivia Night. And thanks to Stout's Pub and Grill for hosting us. Yeah, and Eric for emceeing. All went well. And the Environment Commission, we did not meet Monday evening with Phil on Veterans Day. All right. I haven't really got much. I just want to thank everybody for participating in those. Making the 75th anniversary a special event and the trivia. And to Parks and Rec for putting on the fall festival. That was a blast. My grandkids had a good time. I got to chase them around. The bouncy houses were super. Thanks to staff for putting it together and for everybody doing it. It was It was great. Look forward to more of those coming up. It's kind of fun to be part of this city. Administrator Linehan, what all has really been going on in the city? Thank you, Mayor and Council. That covered it really well. I'm kind of echoing the sentiments from previous two about how nice that week was of 75th anniversary celebrations. Thank you, Council Member Mielke, for your help kind of behind the scenes, helping us plan some of that, getting the history together, you know, resident Risa Davis for participation. And then for the fall event itself, I have to give a shout-out to Kelly Nelson and her work for that. It's a lot of planning that goes into these events, and she executes it very well. So that's been very good to see. It was a fun event, and as I said, we're going bigger and bigger every year. So watch out, Madison and Anoka. A couple of the other updates that we have, so different commissions, most covered them. State Fair Task Force, we're still deciding if we're going to meet next week is our November meeting, and then we take a break in December and on to January. Staff, what we're working on, really busy in the license renewal phase right now, going through that, doing the inspections of all of our businesses and our apartments. So that's a very busy time for staff as we kind of work with that. We're also getting ready to mail out, working with Just Deeds on our racial covenants. So letting the homes that have a racial covenant on the books, let them know that they have it, and then how the steps that we're going about to help get it removed. So special reminder, Human Rights Day, it'll be included in the letter, but it'll be Tuesday, December 10th. 11th? 10th. It's the 10th. Okay. I realize I don't have it written down. It was the 10th. The 10th. will be Human Rights Day and that'll be a chance that people can come get their covenants removed and then we're also working on the plan on how we would continue to build that over time too so that if they aren't able to make it that night there's gonna be other opportunities too that we'll work with them on that staff also Public Works has been very busy they're gearing up for snowplow season so we're into the window preparing everything making sure equipment's running they've been out street sweeping as well I always remind people the goal is as unless there's snow they're going to keep going through to get it so I know it's always super frustrating when there's you know cars parked or leaves a tree hasn't fallen quite yet but we keep trying to work through it's a little bit different than the past I know the city when we rented it it was a once they're through there through now our goal is to try to go through as much as possible because it's our best interest to get those streets clear before winter too so we'll keep working with them on that and then public works again just kind of getting everything ready looking at lights for city hall um and then working on a couple other projects as well so that's kind of the gist of what's going on outside of what was mentioned cool good thank you administrator linehan uh next would be our community forum an opportunity for members of the public to address and issues of importance that that you'd like to bring before the council. It's an opportunity granted at each council meeting. So unfortunately tonight we don't have anybody here to tell us their thoughts and ideas and share them with the rest of the city and the viewers of the afterwards of council meetings. I'd like to thank everybody for turning out, made it through the drizzle and rain and uh hoping fresh uh warm skies are forecast coming up but uh thank you everyone for for coming tonight uh next would be item l on our uh uh on our agenda and uh somebody like to make the motion so move so move leahy his motion to adjourn in this meeting. All those in favor, signify by saying aye. Aye. All those opposed, the same sign. Motion carries 5-0.