Yep. I'd like to second all that. Thanks very much, Roland. It's been been been great getting to know you. I hope you and, hope you enjoy your your, your free time that you'll have now and, and put it to good use and, and we'll miss you. And, I met Roland, what, probably two thousand, I don't know, years ago because I needed to get a gambling permit for the carnival. And he said, you don't wanna do this. That's what you coach us. You don't wanna do that anymore. So, so grateful for that and for onboarding me when I came on council. And, yeah, we're going to miss you and go catch that muskie.
Yep. It's been great the nine, ten years that I've been on the council and having that first consultation with Roland and SAC about the, precarious situation that we were faced with back then and how we work together to, get us where we are today. Your guidance has been great. Thank you. Should we do a photo? Or How about tell you how about how about you like to say something too? I just wanna do my own comments too kinda here, at the city council meeting. We're kinda working together, staff, kind of figuring out this next chapter.
Roland's been such a key part, not just for the city, but also my own onboarding process. You know, one of the things as I took on this role is I saw, I looked at the finances and I was stunned when I was looking at it. I thought, this is a community that has fantastic shape, good bond rating, healthy preserves, and a finance director that knew what they were doing. And so for me, that was a big key part of wanting to come here, and feeling comfortable about coming in this organization. It's been proven true. So Roland's been a key part.
He's been a important part of our staff culture, and, we're wishing him the best for his next steps. Mhmm. Would you please Absolutely. No. For the public here, I cooked corn dogs for forty four years at the fair. And then I went and retired that retirement from that. So now I go out there and get my free corn dog. But the comments on the you know, the city has gone through ups and downs. And the future is really unknown because of what's happening in Washington at the moment.
And my only comment would be, be conservative and don't let the AAA go. And that is because if you do street projects and everything and you bond, that saves you money and it saves you money that you can prepay them. So that helps everyone. But it's been a pleasure working here and the best part has always been that it's considered a family community, where you at the ice cream social and I always kind of laughed a little
bit when we used to do the midwinter events and they had a kind of it's almost like an Easter egg hunt for a white stone falcon that was this big and it would be hidden in the snow. And then you gave clues which required a parent's help with the kids to find it. So I used to just enjoy that tremendously. But anyway, thank you very much, guys. You're welcome. Thank you. Roland in his proclamation. You want to take want to do a photo opportunity?
I know you were going to wear your tuxed and I see you didn't find it. But Well, actually, I couldn't find my tuxed tie. I found the rest. Yeah. There's a story there. I bought two complete tuxedos once at a discount store for $18 a piece. Wow. And then at the same time, I found a white dinner jacket for $19 that had never been worn and it's still never been worn. But I'm a jeans man. So let's yes, counsel, let's fly around and grab a photo with Roland.
You over there. Go like this. Well, let's see. Let me I'll hold this. You hold that. In the middle. Yep. Perfect. Okay. Oh, Melanie's here. Okay. Alright. As we settle back in, thank you all very much for, that for commemorating Roland's time here. It's amazing how easy it seems to be a council member or serve this city when you have such great staff as we do. And Roland is a fabulous example of what we've benefited from through the years and
provided great advice. We'll amend the roll call to show that Leahy is here. All right. So our next order of business is the approval of minutes for the 07/23/2025, City Council regular meeting. Any changes to minutes? Your motion to approve the minutes. So moved. So moved by Meyer. Further discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed? Same sign. Motion carries five-zero. The, public hearings, we don't have any tonight.
We do have a consent agenda of 10 items. First is our general disbursements through August 7 payroll through July 27 wire payments through July 2725, of $17,161.45 We have approval of Resolution 20 five-seven,
which is approving the Be Active, Be Green Park Bench agreement. We'll see more park benches. Number three, approval of pay estimate number three, to Bituminous Roadways, Inc. For the 2025 payment management project four, authorization of participation in Mission Square 401 retirement plan for the fine retiring department heads five, promotion of Assistant Finance Director, Alyssa Landberg, to the position of Interim Finance Director six, appointment of Administrative Services Director,
Kelly Nelson, as Falcon Heights Metro INET Board of Directors alternate seven, approval of Resolution 2,579, appointing David Smith to the Environment Commission number eight, approval of Resolution 2,580, authorizing the disposal of contents of that are inside a community park building as surplus. Nine, approval of creating Debt Service Fund three eleven for the 2025 general obligation tax abatement
and general improvement bond series 2025 and 10, the approval of a right of entry agreement settlement with a private residence on Moore Street. I'll move the consent agenda. All those in favor, signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed? Same sign. Motion carries five-zero. Do we need any comments on consent agenda for clarification for those who have not maybe read through the full packet and are just tuning in on TV, but all of the details are in the back.
I can walk through very fast a couple of the highlight items. Okay. So mayor mentioned kind of our be active, be green, paid number three for Potomac's Roadways. This is a good portion of their work so far. Likely one more pay estimate this year and then one final one as they come due touch up in the spring. You know, kind of the promotion of assistant finance director Alyssa Lambert, position of interim finance director. As we just saw, Roland's retiring. We're in good hands internally for our succession planning. Alyssa's been our part time accountant, promoted to assistant finance director this year to kinda prepare for this transition. So she'll be in great position to take that role.
She would have been here tonight, but she's also got roped in to be the treasurer of her PTA. So that one's tonight, already an obligation for that. And I think that one might be more contentious of a role than her finance director role here. And so other ones, kind of pretty straightforward. Number eight, just wanted to clarify, disposal of contents. There's a lot of junk, I would say, to put it lightly, in the community park building. We officially, you know, have to dispose of it just as it's our pop property, everything from old chairs to crayons.
So just kind of an official move there, creating a debt service for the upcoming bond series, and then a right away settlement. So as we redid the path from the Falcon Woods neighborhood to the park, we had to do a private right away agreement, to kind of go on to private property to do that. We damage a sprinkler on private property, not the right of way. And so we do a settlement essentially to to cover those costs per the contract. So Cool. I just want to give another shout out to staff. I love, the Be Green benches. Another example of how our staff is, especially with regard to parks, is doing a great job about finding what kind of grants are out there to,
and then very successfully getting them, especially for our parks, to help improve, improve our city for its residents, and with minimal or no burden to our taxpayers and our residents. So thanks very much to staff again for yet another grant. And they will look good at the Grove Park. Yeah. Yep. Have a nice place to sit down and rest. All right. Well, this brings us we'll move on to, item H, our policy items. Our first item of business tonight is approval of an amendment to the administrative manual
Minnesota State Fair guidelines to expand parking pass eligibility as found in policy h one. We'll turn this over to administrator Linehan to explain. Thank you, mayor and council. So back in May, we amended our administrative manual section on the guidelines during the Minnesota State Fair. Before May, this had largely been untouched. And so these are the general policies and procedures the city operates around the state fair. Everything from, you know, no lawn parking to, kind of our different regulations are all kind of housed in this document.
And so we did modify it for the upcoming pay by mobile parking, put in language in there about how to provide passes and kind of, what our process was for that to clear up a little bit. And then one thing though that it was stated and kind of planned through the process was that residents must be abutting a pay by mobile street. So they must live on the street that the program would be implemented in to be eligible for a pass. And that was something that had been deliberated through the process. I think one of the considerations and concerns was, you know,
everything from how, the streets are paid for. So our streets are paid for through via assessments. So that was one consideration that had been mentioned during the policy discussions. Another was also, you know, looking instead of trying to determine where people park based on where they live. So that was some of the policy as to why it was written as it was. But following that, as we kind of sent out the passes, residents on Hoyt, Larpenter, and there's others as well. There'll be residents on Roselawn, the selling snowing service Drive. Some of these areas that are ineligible that maybe rely on parking in the streets, they raise the concern that they did not get passes and that there really wasn't
a way under policy for us to even consider special circumstances and others. So kinda working through, individual conversations kind of with the council, giving us staff direction, we've revised the plan to include language to allow for variances in 2025. So that would mean that the resident would have to apply through the variance process. They'd have to come in, complete the variance, and then as part of that, they have to register individual vehicles. They would then get a digital pass if approved. That would authenticate their their vehicle in the program for however many days they indicate.
So that would be kind of a a short term solution. We're just over a week away from the fair, and so that'd be kind of our recommendation to be able to to do this in that amount of time. We have kept track of who's applied, and so we try to reach out or who tried to apply, and let them know. So that's kind of the overview of of the proposed changes. Okay. Comments from staff? Certainly. I appreciate that you kept the list of those that have reached out thus far, so that saves a little extra time on everyone's part. And I you know,
looking at this change, which is minimal, but it can have a big impact, I believe it creates a balance of the residents' needs along with staff time, and, you know, those coming into the office. So just having to balance those out in our first year of doing this, I think it was a good solution. And I appreciate that I had reached out as a liaison to the task force to Mona and Georgiana, who worked less hours on this plan and grateful for their recommendation to rather than try to do a whole policy change at this point,
do this for now and then we can revisit things next year. I agree with Council Member Milkey. I think we're going to learn a lot of things this year. I appreciate residents bringing this to our attention. I think we want I've kind of always said our intention is not to make any residents pay for parking. We're not going to try and take anything away from residents. So certainly not our intention. I think this will help remedy it for this year and then we'll address what worked well, what didn't work well when we and provided that we actually go ahead and do this again next year. So thank everyone for their patience. Yes. I concur with that.
Throughout the process, there were a lot of hypotheticals thrown around. I mean, what if people do this, what if people do that, how many spots are actually going to be available, and it's gonna be so nice to actually get some data on that after the fair, to base, you know, next next year future decisions on. But, yeah, I commend the task force and everybody who worked on this to get it done as close to right as we can get it without complete information. Okay. Yeah. I think that it makes sense to,
we've got an option here to help out in the exigent circumstances that people have and make it less, burdensome for residents and take all of those things into account. So thanks for making such a simple yet complicated nice amendment to the policy. We're also ready to so the so we have yes, so we have this amendment to the administrative guidelines here outlined in Resolution 2,581,
last modified basically to add the words to under seven pay by mobile e meter parking areas the city council may designate. But adding B, residents abutting the pay mobile designated street will be mailed one pass per household, additional pass available upon request. Residents may receive up to two additional passes if they are determined eligible after filling out a variance application at City Hall. That's the current reading of the parking area guidelines.
This following sentence will be added, after filling out a variance application at City Hall. Residents who are otherwise ineligible for a pass may also apply for a variance. So that's the, that's there. And we'll still keep with C handicap authorized vehicles, government vehicles, delivery vehicles, parking with warning lights on for under ten minutes are exempt from the requirements of pay by mobile parking. That did not change. So we just added that, residents otherwise ineligible for a pass, which was
the living on a street abutting in the parking area. Will now other residents can apply for a variance. So those residents who rely on parking within the parking zone on a regular basis, the net effect will be they can come to City Hall and apply for that variance following the variance policy that's also outlined in the state fair guidelines handbook as previously published. Is that clear? I have a motion to pass Resolution 2,581
authorizing the modifications. So moved. So moved by Wattenberg. Further discussion? Okay. All those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Aye. All those opposed same sign. Motion carries five-zero. We have approved the amendment to the for parking pass eligibility and variances. The I have one question maybe. Just curious, Administrator Linehan, if there will be an effort or if there's been some thought around making this known, that now there is some recourse here. Or if we're just gonna kinda wait wait and see and if people happen to
ask, then what's what's the thought on, like, publicizing this change? Sure. Yeah. At this time, it's too short notice for staff to be able to do any type of mailing or other other implementation there. We can include information. You know, again, it's kind of an outreach basis. People reach out. We can provide this. Again, we will reach out to those who've reached out and inquired about it, but other than that, the plan would be that we would, provide it as an option for those who request. Okay. So Great. Yeah. Yeah. I'm sure some of us can at least,
share it out on social media to some degree that, for those that need this option, it is available. Yeah. Yeah. And we have included that kind of as part of our publication for a weekly newsletter, just kinda information on the past distribution and that the variances are available, but we haven't specified as to, you know, the eligibility. Okay. Okay. All right. I think that the variance application procedure was hashed out quite a bit in council meetings, public broadcast availability, workshop and regular as we did that.
So and it's there and it's available and we put that in the weekly newsletter about every week since the, we kind of started forming this up. So people should be aware and look forward to following that variance to take care of their needs so that then they're taken care of during the fair, not any more inconvenience than you would be on a regular regular fair day in 2024, '23 and end there.
Okay. Our next policy item, number two, is approval of amendment to the administrative manual personnel policy to include voluntary participation in the Minnesota State Retirement System or MSRS health care savings plan. Administrator Linehan. Yeah. Thank you, mayor. So this one is brought as a policy item based on an amendment to our personnel policy. So it's kinda similar to item number four. It's all part of our early retirement incentive program as we kinda set up.
You know, we had offered that program in May, had our one, you know, one employee took advantage of it. And so as part of that, we have offered that we will pay single health insurance kind of for multiple years. So we need to weigh a mechanism for us to be able to put that into a fund to kind of keep supporting that. So it's important. It's not a post employment benefit that we offer. It's a direct payment into a fund. And so the best option in Minnesota is actually through the Minnesota State Retirement System, kind of essentially one of the large public retirement systems in Minnesota.
They allow PURA eligibility, so that's the Public Employees Retirement Association, which the city and all municipalities are members of, to participate in this. Basically just allows us to be able to put those funds as promised in our plan, towards an account for the employee. But the MSRS requires that you include language in your personnel policy. That's one of their requirements, is you have to amend your personnel policy to include language about this. We worked with the city attorney, got language on that, included in this resolution. And so should be pretty straightforward for that,
that we'll just kinda be able to, put this money, and it's eligible for retirement, health care reimbursement. So if an employee goes out, gets their own health insurance, they can then come back against this and submit for reimbursement. You know, I paid a thousand dollars last month for my own health insurance. They then would submit. Or other qualifying medical events and, you know, would would be eligible as well. Okay. Questions from counsel. Seems pretty straightforward and along our value of taking care of our staff. We reviewed it at a workshop doing as well or some parts of it. We maybe it wasn't our 101.
It was like we've had conversations already. I think that yeah. I think that we kicked it around when we were talking about the whole, retirement program and how we needed to to adjust for that. And and MSRS was, I think, discussed during that time. Mhmm. I know as county employees, that's an option for everybody and, so and probably state employees as well. So public employees through PERA and then this this group work with that. Yeah. And as we kind of a side note, as we take a further look into our benefits and other stuff,
this might be an option that we expand this to. If other employees have interest in kind of applying for this, you know, part of it is that we haven't had you know, it does require that retirement component, you know, with the city. We've had two in the last few years, but it has few and far between with the city of people that have retired here. So not everyone would have interest with it, but it's something that we could offer as well at no cost to the city, essentially. Mhmm. Okay. Do we have a motion to approve Resolution 2,582,
amending the City Of Falcon Heights personnel policy for, inclusion of voluntary part participation in the Minnesota State Retirement System Health Care Savings Plan. So moved. So moved by Leahy. Further discussion? Hearing none. All those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. All those opposed, same sign. Motion carries five-zero. All right. That takes care of our policy items. Next, we'll move to information and announcements. Should we go let's go this way, this meeting. Sure. The Environment Commission met on Monday,
continued our conversations on boulevard trees, reviewing codes, to have them align with the climate action plan that the council earlier approved. Another piece that we're working on, John Pellegrini brought this forward. So we've had a couple of discussions on creating ordinances that would require where anywhere where there's takeout food, be it at a restaurant, say, Speedway or that it would be green to go containers. And so we're working had a presentation by the sustainability director, Noelle,
from Roseville. And, there's things you learn, like paper cups with their wax coating are not recyclable. So switch to yeah. So, yes. Melanie, you and all those things. So, good discussion on that. So it's kind of a party projects right now with the environment question. Cool. Eric? Well, the planning commission, had a joint workshop with counsel last week to kind of talk process around the golf course and what the future is there. We're joined by, what was it,
Leslie Krueger Mhmm. From University of Minnesota. And, yeah, I guess I could just say, you know, there's obviously, there's years and years of of work and conversations to be done, conversations to be had on this. But we really got off on a good foot, and I feel like the the working relationship with the university, it's started off has started off quite strong. So, yeah, a lot to be hopeful and optimistic about, moving forward on that project. So that's it. Cool. Melanie? Yes. So coming up on Monday, August 18 at 06:30 will be the next meeting of the Community Engagement Commission,
and our two topics that we're planning on focusing on is Human Rights Day, which is officially, for our nation, is December 10. So we'll be talking about, what we would be doing around that time. And the second larger item is consideration of a food distribution event that we would have in the city, because we know there are food insecurities even here in Falcon Heights. So we want to take a look at some ways that, we can benefit our residents with those needs.
And at the same time, it gives people an opportunity to volunteer and serve a larger community. Excellent. Yep. So, I'll just say the Parks Commission met, earlier this month, the major topics. We're reviewing the annual park audit. So each year, members of the Parks Commission go, put on their, their hiking shoes and, go out into the parks and, just put a fresh set of eyes on what they think, needs to be, repaired, replaced, improved, and it kind of just spurs ideas for other amenities that could be provided into our parks. So there was a lot of discussion around that.
And then secondarily, we continue to also discuss opportunities for community programming. So it was a good meeting. Cool. The not having a commission. The joint commission with the planning, that was quite a deal. We had a lot of people here listening and I was very hopeful that we're taking a positive approach to it. We'll be working with the university with a subcommittee of planning commission and council to define our values that can be written into The U. S. RFP so that we're all starting on the same kind of page for the direction
that we'd like to go. And I think that's a real positive. The looking forward to let's see, a week from tomorrow, the great everybody in the state gets together in Falcon Heights to celebrate twelve days of, fellowship with us. And, so that'll be happening. The, e park the pay by mobile parking will be underway. Read through that, residents should have gotten their passes done that. City Hall has been working with those that need the variances and need additional passes. They'll be working on even more now that we've expanded that to accommodate readers.
So beware that there's going to be a lot of traffic in the city in, in another week, and that will go on for a couple of weeks as it does every year. Welcome people, as best you can and keep them, so hopefully, they come in as good guests and good neighbors. And that's kind of the approach that we'd like to take with everybody, and, we keep that keep that going. So, the additional noise and the fireworks and all of that, that schedule, I think, has been announced. That look for the for the mailer from the city explaining all of that.
We've had to wait for publication until, that schedule is available because that's the one that, people are concerned about with, animals that are frightened by the big sound and the children, not going to sleep due to that and all of those excitement things that happen there. Big children that can't sleep. Big children who just have to kinda go out in the middle of the street, see if they can find and see if they can look, look and capture that fireworks or crank their windows open to hear the band. But, anyway, so all of that will be happening, which is which is all good.
We'll be entering, tonight following, following this into a workshop for, for the budget, kickoff the budget, parts. Always the exciting part of the council and what we do is wrapped up as we get our budget worked out. So that's what we'll be doing now. Apart from that, just, thank everybody for coming out tonight to, to participate and and to watch. And, I'll follow-up and turn this over to administrator Linehan who with updates from the city. Yeah. Thanks, mayor and council. So as kinda has been mentioned, staff's been very busy getting ready for state fair preparations.
For the pay by mobile signage, public works went out, installed all the sign locations. So, installed the posts first just based on the utility locate needs. We got the signs up, but we didn't wanna confuse residents by putting up the signs early. Mhmm. But they will be going out Monday and Tuesday. So we can't quite, you know, get them out really early on Thursday. So they'll be up for a few days. The program, even if someone goes to try to pay, seeing the sign, it would say that there's no no requirement to pay at that time. So pay by mobile does kick off at 8AM on Thursday.
So getting everything ready for that as well. Staff, sent out the letters with the passes, and then we've been processing these requests for the second passes as well. We're at about a 167 of the 600 that were mailed initial pass have applied for a second pass. We've gotten a very healthy mix of mail, online form, and a lot of walk ins, and, you know, just kinda coming in. We're able to process them over the counter for most of those, and get them the second. And then also processing these variance requests too beyond that. I wanna say we've received about 10 variance requests to date,
and so kinda working through those and and processing that. We're also getting ready to kinda train all these parking ambassadors, hiring 12 new employees for that, getting all the preparations, equipment, materials, insurance, so getting everything ready for that. Over at Community Park, so we just had our kickoff. We are preparing for the demolition of the community Park building and the building of the new community park. Demolition did get pushed back about a week. We're waiting for the water disconnect, permitting. So likely next week will into the the following week will be the demo. They went through and they've already gutted the building of kind of the various materials,
hazards, etcetera. They've marked trees for removal, there. So they've been kinda working through that plan, gonna begin the tree removal process as well. A big goal kind of of the program is to protect and preserve, mature, healthy trees when possible, but there's a lot of reconfiguration. We did our plans around that, but there are trees coming out, and there'll be more trees going in thanks to the, input of the park commission and the environment commission helping kinda guide that process. In addition to that too, the PMP, our pavement management program's wrapping up, finishing some saw cutting last week over in the Northholme and then Falcon Woods area.
Contractors doing final cleanup. We're trying to get them to get all of their final equipment and everything out, before their August 15 deadline. So working through that, and then preparing internally again for kind of a big transition of our small staff and our finance. And so working with our consultant, Abdo, on that. They did an assessment here yesterday, worked through and kind of developing a plan for us, and building internally kind of some of our plans, how we'll move forward with that. So and then as the mayor mentioned, we're kicking off the budget workshop tonight. So it's a very busy, period right now for staff,
but we're bringing everything, and everything's come going well. And I'm very proud of the staff for stepping up and and doing this right now. I have one question for you. Can you talk about the timing of the mailing of the state fair postcard outlining the regulations? Yep. So that should be hitting the post office tomorrow or Friday. So got all the approvals, got the the dates. So, post office then, depending on where you live, some people get it the next day, some people it's a couple days later. So Or weeks. Yep. Yep. Yeah. So again and we're working with that.
Some of it is waiting for the state fair from it, and some of it's, you know, just kind of sort of the nature of we're a small staff trying our best. A lot of change going on each one of these big projects, and so we're trying to manage this with the resources we have. And it's a lot on our plate right now, kind of as a small city to tackle big prod problems. So Cool. We can blame the band that canceled their concert. That threw some stuff off as well. Yes. Had to wait for the new band to pick its start and stop time so we knew when the fireworks were. Yep. So it all intertwines and things are going.
Okay. That's that's our announcements. At this point, I'll open this up to community forum. Community forum is a, opportunity for items brought before the council can will probably be later referred for consideration. We may ask questions for clarification, but no council action or discussion would be held on them. But you can bring ideas forward to community forum. We'd like to please hold your comments to three minutes per person. But we'll open up community forum. If anybody would like to stand up and say something.
Andy, did you want the remote? Use your phone? I'll use my phone for a timer. Hi. My name is Kristen Moller, and I have been a resident of Falcon Heights for thirty six years. And I enjoy the fair. I do. I'm one of the weirdos. But I, when I'm first of all, I want to thank Randy, Paula and Jim for getting back to me on my email about having parking passes for Hoyt. And I want to thank all of you for voting on having the ability to apply for a variance for a pass.
I did go and do some research on the map that is currently on the newsletter. I was not able to figure out everything because on the legend, there is no key for the yellow marked streets West Of Fairview, and there is no north arrow for people who used to be a cartographer and insist on that. But other than that, it was a very nice map. I have two questions. One, I think I know the answer to. The areas that are marked no paid parking, I understand. The areas across the street,
because on some areas, it's no parking across the street on the East West Streets and in some areas on the North South. The areas on the street marked no parking during the fair, are they receiving passes? Those residents? Yes. Yes. Okay. Then my second question is, why okay. Yeah. Why is a good question. But, you said something about residents on Haute not paying for the street maintenance. I have had to pay for that. I've had to residents on Haute Do put up with the brunt of a lot
of the fair traffic. We get those we get all the cars. We get the pedestrians to and fro because we're on the main entrance to the Hoyt enter you know, to the entrance on Hoyt. We get the police patrol. Thank goodness. More of those are needed. We get the police patrol sirens facing, you know, chasing down the dragsters. There are many dragsters on Hoyt. And we get the bicyclists, which are very cute and very clever, but they're very loud at night. Louder than the fireworks because they go on and on till the end of the,
to the fair. So all those things we put up with on Hoyt. What we're asking for is more equity. My feeling as a Hoyt resident, an elder Hoyt resident, was that my neighbors in the back all received letters with their passes with explanation on how this all works, and on Hoyt, I got nothing. A lot of us, although I'm very tech savvy myself, but a lot of us my age do not live and breathe technology, and we like the snail mail. We like it coming and looking at it,
and we got nothing. We were left out completely. And so when you say, well, just let us come to come to us if they want a variance, I don't like that. That is not equitable for people my age. It is not equitable to require people my age to come down and apply for that variance. We should get something in the mail to hang just like the handicap stickers in our window, and it should be able to transfer from one old parent to another old parent that is needed, not one car.
So we have to juggle all the cars on the busiest street during the busiest time of the year. So all those concerns are not only for myself, not only for people in my age bracket. Go ahead. Thank you, Kristen. Yeah. The, A lot of those questions will be answered. Please on that as we do the analysis after The fair of the program. So we can't answer those questions because we don't know. We know that we're trying our best to You are. To to to make this happen.
So tonight, we we made the possibility there so that you can get a pass and get get your passes, get those taken care of. Just come to city Hall, ask for the variance, and staff will take care of you. And the variance is for one vehicle only or can I pass it from one It's it's per vehicle? Per a variance is is per vehicle. So come prepared with your, license plate number of your vehicle that you need to park off of your property. And those with passes do not need to do that. Is that clear? The, is that true? The hand tag.
The Okay. If you have a hand tag, no. But if if you're looking for a variance, that is how the variances are done Okay. Five years. We're not quite equitable. Close, though. And we're trying hard to be equitable. We'll get there. That's been part of our desire is equity. Mona McArthur, 1412 Idaho. I just have one thing to say. I wanna thank you all for all your work. I was on the task force. One thing is that there was, something brought up about how people should put it on social media. I really think that we should have one person put it on,
come from the city because I've seen on too many different people. I've had people question me and ask me, so so and so said this and so and so said that. And I think that anything coming from the city should come from the city. And if people want to repost it, that's great. But I really think that we should streamline things. Again, thank you for everyone coming and thank you for all your work. Thank you, Mona. Thank you. Good evening. I'm Daniel Gardner. I am Kristen's neighbor. Pretty much everything she said,
I agree wholeheartedly. I'd like to reiterate as far as passes go. So I have a driveway that my driveway turns on from Hoyt. So every year during the fair, especially on the weekends, I have family coming in and visit. And then I only have, like, a single driveway that can fit, like, a couple cars. And so even when I'm trying to, get my family in and out, I've had, please, you know, stop me before and, like, you know, try to, like, move me along and hurry it up, especially in the mornings. And so, one of the things that Kristen said was,
as far as having a placard go instead of, like, a you know, like, doing it by vehicle, if we have, at least, you know, for, like, next year, a placard that you stick in the car so that I think that would make that would definitely make like my life and the other residents who have single driveways, a lot easier when family come visit. We also have caretakers. So we have, like, a lot of people in and out. And if my car is, like, in the very back, if I have to, like, move three cars out on the street to get my car on the street, so that's the only car that you know,
that's permitted to be out there. That's, you know, that that's going to run me a foul with the law. So or, you know, it's going to inconvenience the police and inconvenience me. So, going forward, if you could, like, consider that, that'd be great. Thank you. Thank you, Dan. Can may I ask, what what your guys' I didn't get, miss Kristen's address your two addresses on Hoyt. 1425. 1419. Okay. Just for the record, +1 425 and +1 419. Good evening. How are you tonight? Good. I'm a Larpinder Avenue resident, 1422.
We have four drivers in our household, and, one of those drivers is a, business owner in Saint Anthony who has a very large trailer that he uses to bring lawnmowers and snowblowers to and from people's homes. So parking in our lives is quite difficult as is. Our driveway does not fit that trailer, and vehicle, so we are very reliant on Albert And Pasco in order to make that, feasible for him and myself along with our other two drivers.
So I guess in looking at the map, I see we have 24 households that are being supported with these parking passes along Albert And Pasco on both ends. And I just think that there needs to be some consideration, when this is we get through the process and we assess this on how these side streets are gonna support the community truly, primarily in small business owners who have, a a genuine need for the space and obviously understanding that it is a two week period of time of inconvenience.
So we'll make do this year. But just taking into consideration how we're allocating this parking out in the future for residents, because I'm just struggling to kind of figure out how we're going to actually find parking even in those limited spaces that are provided to us as residents. So just say wanted to make point of that, here. And I really appreciate your time and efforts with this. I think it's a great option for our city. But, yeah, I think it does need to be taken into consideration. The limited amount of space as residents along the busiest streets that also pay for,
access to parking Mhmm. Going forward. So thank you for your time. Thank you. For the record, can what is your name? My name is Amanda. Amanda. Okay. My last name is Faber, f a b e r. Thank you. Mhmm. We will get our minutes straight. Hi. My name is Grace Wilson. I'm gonna do a tonal shift talking about something that's not parking. And I'm also going to be reading from a written statement, which isn't my favorite way to communicate. But given the nature of a shortened amount of time, I wanna make sure that all my comments are clear are as clear as I can make them. So excuse me while I look down and instead of all at all of you.
So I'm here today actually to speak on the issue of zoning the Les Paulsstad Golf Course. The likely change of use from this area from open space to development is a really important issue for me. And I'd first like to state that I'm very frustrated in finding any information about, plans regarding this. It feels like it's really difficult to even understand where and at what point to engage with the process, and it makes me feel more like, again, like a government that's more working less for me as a citizen, but working more for larger interest groups. That feeling is only increased by finding out that the initial discussions that you had
about this was inviting folks from the university to talk about their thoughts, but not inviting anyone else to talk about their thoughts. So in reading the notes from that meeting with the university, I can only interpret that the this council has no intention of pushing against the desired sale of this land for development. The only information that was given sites that the city code asserts that Les Bolesad will automatically revert to being zoned for single family housing if put up for sale. If it is your decision to accept this without any pushback, I believe that it shows poor leadership and shortsighted decision making. The university has allowed this piece of land to be utilized as a community asset
for a hundred years, and I think we all took for granted that they would continue to act in a way that benefits the community. Unfortunately, in recent years, the administration at the U has also shown poor leadership and a propensity to make financial decisions that are out of touch with their mission. This can be seen by their decision to cut academic programs due to financial hardships while simultaneously hiring their, I think, thirteenth vice president with an annual salary of nearly half a million dollars or even more obscenely by deciding to force students to pay a $100 a semester amounting to nearly $8,000,000 a year to pay for the multimillion dollars primarily of the football roster.
These actions should make it clear that for whatever reasons the university has given to you in your meetings, their main agenda in the sale is a quick cash flux in quick cash influx to help mitigate the administration's poor financial leadership. This is not an administration at the university that acts in a way that shows its values that shows that it values its students or the community, and this should be a key to any discussions you have about zoning the less bolstered land because it means in this instance, the university is acting as a special interest group who is out only for their own profit at the expense of the residents of Falcon Heights and the surrounding neighborhoods. From what I can tell,
you guys in the community, the city council make the final decisions about zoning, and you should be able to amend the comprehensive city plan so that the rules don't require zoning to automatically become single family housing. This doesn't even mean making the change to zone it to a parkland or open space at this point, but to at least not let it automatically revert to development. I'm asking you to, at the very least, just block that add automatic rezoning to housing and take the time to think about what is actually the best zoning for the community. And if you shrug your shoulders and say that you can't do that, then we do have real problems here because I would ask what is the role?
What is the point of electing officials if you can't consider all of the voices of your community when you consider how to best zone your community? Green space and open space has been shown over and over again to make a community more livable. It benefits our mental health and our physical health, and there is so very little of it left anywhere in the community. Every piece is constantly being snatched up for development, usually accompanied by a proud announcement that it will be used to help fix the housing crisis. That rationale might fly if we didn't have so many unused already developed spaces. For example, in some of the examples that you, had in your notes from the meeting, the Hillcrest development or Ford Parkway development in Saint Paul are touted as these great
housing opportunities, but Saint Paul's downtown area lies partially vacant with many towering buildings that aren't being used and with no plan for use. Why are we taking away our precious green space, which brings value to everyone who lives in the area for new buildings? Meanwhile, we already have developed areas just sitting empty. I have one last thing to say because this is most important. I came here today and it feels incredibly pointless because I really do not think that you will stand up for your community and even consider changing the zoning to keep it from automatically reverting to development. I have a small child, a full time job, and a very busy life, and it is a huge stretch of my time to come here today and sit
here for an hour pleading this case, that maybe you should try to do something to take to stop taking away whatever open space the community has access to, but I have never engaged with something like this before, mostly because it does seem so futile. But I feel that I owe it to my child to at least say that I tried to ensure a better community for their future because our community is more than just buildings. It thrives when we all have access to outdoors, green space and places where we can be outside and move our bodies. Thank you, Grace. Appreciate it. Thank you. Because those considerations have all been thought of. Can we have your address, please? I don't actually feel comfortable giving my address and a Or a street?
I live on points. Thank you. So we can get it in the record properly. Next. Anybody else for a community forum? As a member of the task force. Please introduce yourself, Georgiana May, 1477 California Avenue. So as a member of task force, I just wanted to thank JAC staff and the council for really, I think, the exemplary job handling quite a complicated project. That is the part Payback mobile. Randy made the comment that we'd had that this, for example, this variance policy had been hashed out in council meetings.
But boy, if you compare the council meetings to the what we went through in the State Fair Task Force, no comparison. We actually had quite a diversity of opinions there, and it was really important to come to consensus. So and I have appreciated the continuing support of the council from that work. And the additional work that some of the counselors have done, such as Jim with the economic models and Paula as our liaison, that so altogether, I think Jack and perhaps Randy also said,
we're doing the best we can at this point. We're only a week away from the fair rate or is it even less? And so I'm hoping, Jack, I have confidence in you to use this what is the best we can do in this policy, and I'm sure you're going to stick to it so that it is fair within the bounds that we've described. No doubt, and I'm sure next year, we'll want to adjust things when we have data. And I think we're all going to be really excited to get a hold of that data. So anyway, I just wanted to thank everybody for their patience in this.
It's been quite an adventure, shall we say. And I think we're getting somewhere and that we're going to have some new resources for our city, help pay for the expenses the city incurs in hosting the fair, which are considerable. So thank you. Thank you, Georgiana. Anybody else for community forum? Second call, community forum. Thank you all for coming and participating and, being willing to come up and talk. I know it's not an easy thing to do, on there. And, and as you say, as items brought up here, we don't do a lot of feedback on them,
but we do take them under consideration, and we will, we do take items that we hear from the public and from our fellow residents, very seriously. And that's kind of what we do as a council is we get as much impact input from the public as we possibly can to weigh out all of the decisions in this participation here. Thank you for bringing them forward, and we will work on those. I'll make a third and final call for community forum. Seeing no one, the, thank you for doing that. And, Make a motion to adjourn.
Yep. That would be next. Motion to adjourn has been made by Meyer. All those in any conflict? All those in favor of adjournment, signify by saying aye. Aye. All those opposed, same sign, it doesn't matter. We are adjourned. Thank you very much. All right. Let's call this, this workshop of the City of Falcon Heights City Council special workshop on Wednesday, 08/13/2025. We'll call this meeting to order at 08:16 no.
08:17PM. And, so call to order there. Roll call, Gustafsson here. Leahy? Here. Meyer? Here. Melke? Here. Wasserberg? Here. Linehan? Here. All right. We have we're going to address here our policy item. We have one on the workshop agenda, our twenty twenty six Proposed Budget Workshop one as A, general fund budget priorities and preview. And, take it away, sir. Alright. Thank you, mayor and council.
So I'll make this quick. Kind of our new format. I'm gonna try to do these workshops instead of doing special meetings, bringing you in an extra Wednesday. Our our room availability is pretty limited, so we're just gonna try to do these after the council meetings. So this is kind of our real high level one. Just kinda wanna talk a little bit about, like, what's the goals and objectives. So tonight, I'm just gonna walk through some of what we're working on. We have a very preliminary budget put together, lots of loose ends, lots of highlighted parts, lots of fill this in later. But kind of over the next month, we really adopt this and and get a lot closer to those next steps.
So kind of tonight, my goal is to get some feedback on the council on kind of some, you know, what you're hoping to see for various parts, projects, priorities. Start thinking about that so we can kind of include that if those are things you want. And I'll kinda go through here tonight a little bit. As always, in my presentations, if you're not familiar, red and green rep represent cash flow. Green means revenues going up and expenditures are down. Red means revenues down, expenditures are up. It's not good, bad. It's just kind of up. It's cash flow. So, you know, if if taxes go up,
that's green. That just means that revenue's coming in. It doesn't mean that it's good or bad. So just kinda wanna clarify that. So a little bit about the budget calendar. So tonight's workshop one, plan would be Wednesday workshop two on the twenty seventh, our next meeting. The the regular, workshop, we'd include a budget workshop item on that one. And then if we need it, we do the fourth and maybe we can move one of these around. Usually we need about three to get through this is what we've kind of found and worked out. Then we do the preliminary adoption. So it's required that we certify our preliminary levy. Reminder,
we can always go down from that levy number. We can never go back up after we certify that. The county uses that number though to send mailers out to all the residents saying, hey, here's what your proposed taxes are based on that number. So we like to get pretty close. We don't wanna get to a point where we way overshoot or way undershoot is kind of our goal. Then what we'll do is we do a couple extra budget workshops, capital. We dig a little bit more in there. In the future, we'll get kind of some of our rates set for our other things. But what the requirement is, if we kinda remember through kind of our audit process,
our general fund, that's where it supports the tax levy. That's the majority of our revenue for the year. That's what we're gonna focus on to start, just the general fund. And I'll talk a little bit later about some of the capital, but that's kinda that part. And then it all leads up to that final budget adoption. Our first meeting in December, it's due at the December, so we've always done it then. We could always kinda delay it till the second meeting, but we've successfully done this for forty years on this one, and hopefully this year is no different. So just a little bit about where we're at. So when we put all the numbers, we put everybody's general requests internally in,
looks like a total budget increase of about 3% for the general fund. But what that means and I'll kinda dig into a little bit more the very I'm calling this pre preliminary. So this is just kind of our estimate, of kinda where things could shake out. Anywhere down to 6% would be tight, fiscally cutting, lots of like, no to most new projects is 6%. That's based on our contractual costs I'll get into. Police drive our budget. Talk a little bit more about that. The second part too is we have kind of our staffing as our next largest cost and some of the costs there. And we can kinda remove that as we go forward.
So a little bit about the next slide kind of in revenue. So the key date is at the August. We get this kind of numbers from Ramsey County, kind of update that. We do know that our valuation has gone up. That does help us generally in kind of some of our, tax revenue. We can ride that to usually a lower levy increase. The challenge, and it's not as steep as it been in years past, when the valuations go up, your tax bill goes up too. So even if our taxes stay the same, if your property is now worth $50,000 more, your taxes are going up even if we didn't need more money in that area.
It's just kind of how it all shakes out. And our expenses. So the biggest things I said, police cost drive our budget. We are getting final estimates. Tomorrow is the date that I'm gonna get the next number. I really pushed for today, but worked with Saint Anthony on that. And I'll talk a little bit about what we're seeing. If I previewed before, to some of you as we talked in our one on ones, things are kinda coming down from that. So I'll get to that. It's important to remember kind of this number is every 25,000 in general fund. So our general fund levy is around 2,500,000.0 is for the general fund levy portion.
So 25,000 would be 1%, or a $15 per year me to median property home tax. So if we increase our general fund by all these projects we want, revenues aren't going up outside of taxes, that means we do basically a 6% levy increase or about $90 per household. That number is gonna vary a lot based on these other numbers, but that's my general napkin math for people just to kind of think about as we talk numbers, projects, and other other priorities. Yeah. Hi, Christian. On the previous page proposed, that's the total levy, the 3.765.
Right? That's not just general fund because 1% of 3.765 is 3,700. 30, 300,000. Yes. It's a good point. So that's the total general fund budget. So the general fund is made up so most of its revenue comes from No. But it's not all levy. It's not all levy. I think. So a portion of it comes fiscal disparities, portion of it comes from, local government aid. So about 750,000 from local government aid, 490,000. So there's all these other parts. And then all the permit revenue. Yep. Yeah. All that drives it too.
So that's yeah. It's a good it's a good one to to point out. So kind of talking revenue forecast. So as I mentioned earlier, kinda looking at about 44.4% increase in Ramsey County wide. We've usually been ahead of the curve. We'll know that soon. Fiscal disparities, I'm not gonna get into that now. How that calculation works, we get those numbers. Basically, we you're either a provider of fiscal disparities or you're a recipient. It's totally based on how big of commercial base you have. So the cities like Roseville, they pay they cut a check that gets distributed, and then all of us cities that don't have a lot of commercial base get
money. It's still better to be have commercial base, but it's, that yeah. And so we'll take we'll take that money. We are having a reduction, though. About 5% of our total are two 27,000. So that just means more more areas we either have to find find that revenue or, cut accordingly. LGA, no cuts, which is great. We got a slight increase in the certified aid, like, $500 increase. We do need to eventually think about one of these times is, do we want to put more into our capital fund? So historically,
this gets way into it. 75% of our our local lemonade we put in the general fund, 25% to capital. Couple years ago, when we had kind of the the tight budgets with, you know, kind of the police cost rising, other stuff, a move we did is we had a huge increase in local government aid two years ago. We took that surplus. We kept the same amount that we were putting into capital. So we put the same amount, but we kept more in the general fund. So we're more at, like, 85% stays in the general fund, 15%. The danger, obviously, is if we lose that,
now we're more dependent than ever on local government aid. So it's a way that we kinda were able to make this work without a 30% levy increase a couple years ago. But it's something that, again, we're not defunding capital. We're putting the same amount into capital as we were before. We're just keeping more in the general fund. So that puts us at risk if that ever got cut. And then ParkMobile too. And so this is one. It goes right into special revenue, likely for capital, but this is kind of the newest other revenue that we previously hadn't had. Everything else is usually kinda status quo. So this is kinda one of those areas where it's a significant enough revenue to
to discuss. Looking at the 2026 costs, so the primary, kinda looking through, police, as I said, is the top item. Kinda the first item I'll talk about, though, is our debt service. So we do have to as we've dug into this further and further, and I do apologize that even my own reflection of this is different than than how it'll be. For one year, we would have to, do essentially a double levy for that. We have to levy so our first payment for our new bonds is due in 2027. We have to levy that in 2026.
So we have to levy the new payment for the bonds in 2026. And then in 2027 and beyond, our 2021 debt service rolls off. So for one year, we're gonna have overlapping debt. We're gonna have essentially 60,000, for the old bonds, 180 for the new ones, one year of overlap, and then it goes back down. So for one year, we do have that increase of 60,000. There is flexibility, and there's ways too. There's enough in that fund. Something we've done historically too is if there's enough in the funds, you don't have to levy that amount. You could use some of that surplus in the future and buy that down,
or you could levy it and you could cut other areas too, accordingly. So there's ways we can kinda move around and and play with that, as we go forward. Our police costs, so right now, we budget 1,600,000.0 this year for police. That was based on the kind of max of the contract of the start up part for Saint Anthony. One of the discussions that they've had with us is, well, eventually they wanna move to the away from startup contract to the twenty four hour model, and we take shared ownership. So if we kinda recall back to when they originally proposed back,
a few years ago or a few years ago, last year, it feels like a few years, the the initial proposal was we want 30 employees or 30 personnel, most of those officers, but some office staff, and it would be about $1,900,000 was that initial number. As we dug into this further, got the ramp up, that didn't end up being the case. However, they still eventually wanna get to a point where they have 30 full time office or 30 full full force, and we pay our 33% of their total cost. What they're realizing though,
and so is that that's likely not gonna be 01/01/2026. They're nowhere near that level. And so realistically, they're looking at more like 1.7 to 1,800,000. So it would be an increase of about a 150,000. So we have some opportunity if we wanted to do. This is a good spot where and that's something that they're considering as well in Saint Anthony and Lauderdale for all of us is do they do you budget assuming how a lot of cities like to do and we like to do is conservative budgeting. Let's assume that all positions are filled for the entire year. That's fair.
It's unlikely. They're they're nowhere near the 30 mark. And so if they did that, likely all three cities would over levy, and then have kind of a surplus, which can be great, and that's what we're gonna have this year, but that over over budgets and over levies. So what they're doing now is they're kinda bringing that down. And then if, let's say, hiring is you know, they're like, okay. We got one in first quarter of this year, one in this year, and all of a sudden next, you know, the next three months, they get five amazing candidates. They wanna be able to go out and hire them. We wanna support them hiring them.
That would be where we could potentially use reserves for that as a special budget amendment and say, you're way above, you know, further than anyone had planned. We're not gonna stop that for that. We support it, but that's not part of our we're not gonna budget and plan accordingly. So that's kind of how we're working on that now. Yeah. So, with maybe you answered my question in your last paragraph. So they've hired two new in the last six months? Or how many what their goal of hiring have they added? Yeah. I gotta get I have a meeting next Wednesday as our quarterly group meeting.
Sure. And then I'm meeting with Jeff tomorrow to talk state fair. So I'll get a new number. They just promoted one of their cadets. They lost another one of their training officers in field training recently. So it's kind of a one step forward, one step back type of thing. I think they're right around 25. So that's kind of the number I've been hearing. So they started this at, like, '20. '20 or '22? '22. And so they've they're they've gotten about three over and it was it's going well, and that's helping them every officer they get. But the idea that they could get five by January 1,
they know that that's not gonna happen. Okay. Thank you. Losing an office cadet in field training sounds sounds pretty bad. Do do you have any more details that No. I said they gained it. They gained and lost. They gained oh, was it training officer they lost? Yeah. They lost someone in field training recently. Field training and gained a cadet. Get a different job or something like that. No. It's a it's a rigorous process, and they have rigorous standards. And so when they bring in an officer, it's something, you know, that if they don't meet the the criteria,
the culture, it's not a good fit, that's when they usually move on, when they're in that kind of probationary period and move on. That's actually good to hear that. Yeah. Okay. So when a hearing training officer, to me, it was the officer was one of the trainers. So that was the officer in training. Officer in field training. Yep. Yep. And then, yeah, just swore in a cadet lot. You know? So I can get a number to the council and share kinda where they're at totally, as the latest. So yeah. But, again, kind of some things are good, but it's it's not opt it's not realistic that they're gonna be a full staff
is basically where that would be. So and then fire, again, it's it's very it's on the contract. 2.25% increase. They've not indicated any changes in that. It works well for all the cities and moving forward, so that's been a good cost containment item. The class and comp study, so we'll get actually a presentation on that at the August 27 meeting. We have kind of the initial presentation. We've seen the initial minimal year one cost changes is the kind of the overview. It's not this massive, like, this is a big secret out there.
It's a plan, and it'll cost the city money over time to kinda implement this as different positions get brought up. And they'll they'll kinda show what that is. But it's I would compare it to, like, a COLA cost for total cost to the city budget. So it's not something, extreme in that regard. And then, again, kinda looking at some of our other things that we're considering is, like, we are bringing in new operations up at QED Park. So looking at, you know, everything from, you know, water usage, rental staffing, etcetera. So that won't be I'm not saying that's a major driver, but it's a change in our operations that we're planning and how we budget.
Another question. I'm sorry, did I cut you off if you're getting ready to say something? Okay. In regards to our finance department changing, and I know that that's being assessed by one organization, will that change those numbers as well? And will that be brought up in one of our other budget meetings? I'll bring it up right now. Yeah? Yeah. Yeah. So our my next, next one too. So I'll talk a little bit about that. So we'll get we'll get more in-depth. Avdo just did the assessment. But the current plan is to reduce. So to go from two FTEs in 2025 down to one FTE in 2026,
unless Abdo reflects something differently, and we'll have kinda good information soon. Basically, though, the idea would be that we would offset that with consulting costs. So we bring in kind of a firm. I've always kind of figured that would be the case. Two FTEs we knew was a temporary, you know, a temporary pain point this year. The finance department's kind of operated at about 1.5. So they'd always be role you know, our finance director and then an intern is how it was forever. Melissa then kinda got brought on as the kind of accountant at a higher rate, you know,
to kinda stop that cyclical nature. And then we promoted her just because we would've, you know, we would lose her if not, because she's, you know, a very talented finance person. Likely, she's gonna need assistance. The nice thing about kind of a consulting firm so how we're running it right now is we're saving 160,000 in salary benefits, other stuff like that, by reducing this FTE. And then let's say we're budgeting a 100,000 per consultant. And that can feel really painful to pay instead of paying a staff member, I mean, $60 an hour,
we're paying a consultant a 150. The nice thing is, though, is we can reduce dependency and up and down staff that. So one of the things that these consultants can do is, a, it can bring in somebody that kind of help Alyssa, not for forty hours a week. But let's say we're paying a $150 an hour for twenty hours a week, at a type of person that we could not hire on the free market for a full time employee, to be honest. You know, it's one of the the challenges to kinda get into it. One of the hardest things to hire right now is a finance director.
Mhmm. And small cities really struggle with it because it's, you know, in the market, we just can't compare to what the the private sector pays and what others do. So likely, what the last of these will happen is, you know, the person they get is good, but doesn't have this the people who are really good in finance are really good, and they're worth it. And so that's what you get from a a firm, is that you get someone really good for a little bit is worth that fifteen hours a week or so that you need. And over time, you could reduce dependency.
So instead of, you know, kind of like, if you hire a new person, it's forever or until they retire or something. For this, it gives you kinda let's say year one's a 100,000, year two's 90, and you can kinda decrease that over time. And eventually, maybe what ends up happening is we don't need that high level because we have that internally with, you know, kind of, our own financial staff's capabilities, we could then hire a part time, accounts clerk, you know, that can kinda help with the paperwork and the day to day. Maybe we don't need that. So there's a lot there, but that's how we're budgeting it right now.
Thank you. Yeah. Consultant. Like, what what's the nature of the work? Is it is it just the the volume of work or, you know, losing Roland's expertise and Alyssa will have questions to try to answer? So that's what the the consultation will determine for sure. That'll kinda help us with that. I would say it's a it's a combo. We know we can automate, digitize, save a lot of efficiencies in that way. I think there are some these high level, stuff that Roland does very well. I mean, moving money, you know. I mean, daily investments, other stuff like that.
Having kind of a contractual you know, a lot of cities, for example, they they don't have any financial staff. They contract it all out to an outside firm, and they do it. So you can kind of flex in that regard. But maybe the assessment is we don't need that. We might need the day to day bill processing. Right? We need somebody to kinda take a payable and process it. Yeah. Then that's a lot easier to find a staffing agency or something or Yeah. Hire a part time employee to do. Does That makes sense. Administrative. Yeah. Yeah. Yep. So we'll kinda find that out as to what our weakness is.
What I believe the weakness is is just getting that kind of, the support, the help, the having a a contractual financial person at a high level would be helpful. Yeah. I could I could see a great benefit down the road for a period of time with a consultant that has had experience across a lot of different organizations, understands what best practices are now, what automation opportunities are, other modernization opportunities that might save us money down the road, things we just don't have view into right now with staffing as we have it.
So it's a little little broader scope and bringing some more some more knowledge and some ideas in. Mhmm. Can be handy. And that's kind of it too. And I'm dancing around it a little bit, but just bringing in outside, you know, and even from a for Alyssa's standpoint too. I mean, there's a lot of things she runs into, and she's like, this is how we do it, and this is just how this is the Falcon Heights way. That's how she got kinda trained up in. It's good. It works, but there are other ways to do it. And so bringing somebody in who's, most of these people are retired finance directors, you know, or or they just lead finance.
Right? And so, like, the Abdo firm that was here, you know, is is an auditor. Right? A former auditor actually that previously audited the city. It's a role in new kind of one of them. But, I mean, they are asking questions, seeing what we're doing, and kind of seeing ways and saying, you know, how do you do it? And the audit will just say, yeah. That's great. A consultant might say that works, but there's a significantly easier way to do that versus Right. You know, how we do it. So so that that might be part of it. It doesn't mean we're doing it wrong. It's just there's there's other ways to do it, and it might be helpful to bring in an outside eye to help that.
Mhmm. So but that'll that will lead to short term savings unless again, unless it is, the the increased need. I would say if we outsource two financial positions, it would be harder. But having one person in, the expensive part is is honestly trying to get somebody on-site. So likely that they might not be on-site a lot. It's helping digitally. Okay. So Got it. So currently, this is such a wild card. This is also another one that we can talk about further. Les Bolstead, what we do with kinda planning, consulting, million different ways to do it. I do think it makes sense to put money in the budget for placeholder for
it just in case costs come up. Other option is that that could be a budget amendment type situation, but we do kind of know that something might come up, so it might make sense. We've put 60 k in the budget right now. Ideally, you know, that there's, that's not on the city to do, but there might be parts we wanna do wholly without the developer that's our own. Mhmm. So that's how we're putting that. Another one too that we have here is I'll get in the Before before I move on from the Les Poste, I was could you remind me when the, like, small group meeting to kinda articulate our values and goals was gonna be?
Friday morning at nine. Friday. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. So our yeah. The visioning meeting's on Friday. And there'll be probably more with that, but Cool. Yeah. Nice. Yeah. Just note to myself if I wanna, you know, share any thoughts before before that with you all. Cool. Thanks. Yeah. So that social services. We'll put money, hold in there. And then yeah. So this I have not met with NYFS as it, so I'm putting this as a placeholder, for expanded social services. It's something kind of we talked about through the goal setting in the past that,
it might be helpful to have, whether it's NYFS or another contractual partner, helping for these areas where police and others can't. Right? We face these with our multifamily mostly. Could be for others as well. But knowing kind of we run into the walls of, like, this is the best we can do under ordinance, and these people need a lot more help than government can really provide them. And we're not a social, services agency with the city. It's not a simple service that we have. It kinda falls under the county, and the county has gaps in that area.
And so, really, it falls under these third party nonprofit organizations to really, help with that. And so this would be the city supporting that. So we're putting money in for that as well as kind of our current budget. Could I share an example of how that works? So with my background, I'm used to doing community service and a lot of that. But when I'm running a coffee shop, my focus is on the young people that I'm mentoring, and it's hard to serve and run a coffee shop and deal with the mental health and, on house issues that might come through the doors.
And so I have, various agencies and some people within a phone call that I can contact and they're available throughout Downtown Minneapolis that I reach out to them, and then they can meet that person's need, right there instead of them just being ignored because I am not at capacity time wise to meet that need at the same time of running a coffee shop. So that Gives an example of how we can continue to do our part well, but still have a partnership with someone like NYFS so that our community needs are
still being met. Makes sense. Is that helpful to hear that you guys? How that works? Yeah. And we had talked before too. It's another example is what happens at the libraries when they have scheduled hours with social services there. Well, yeah. And that's where I'm at. I'm in a library. Yep. You're in a library. So placeholder for now. Okay. So then also I asked staff to kind of think of some of the projects that they wanted to see. Overall, I mean, they were very conservative in some of these, which was good. But, basically, some of them so it kinda the the environment side, energy rebates. I don't know a lot more about this than that. So that'd be kinda more.
The signs for the kind of talking about that, so they put some money in for those. Comprehensive plan consultant. So, planning put in some money. The Met Council's kicking off the 2020, 2050 comprehensive plan is gonna be due 2028. And so cities have to kick it off 2026. So we'll likely have to put money into that. And that might tie, obviously, into the Les Paulstead planning, but there's other areas there. So we got money in for that. Water source at Curtis Field, this kinda comes from the Parks Commission, want for, you know, kind of drinking water at Curtis Field.
So we don't have any drinking fountains at Curtis Field, so the ability to kinda get kind of a a cost there. Public Works has kinda requested they really wanna sandblast the, picnic shelter at Community Park. Looking a little rough. They've done that for the gazebo, but they wanna kinda add that at the community park one as well. And then kinda ADA bench pads, at parks as well in house. So staff, I gotta ask them, challenge them, find stuff too, ask for it. I can be a bad guy later, but I'll get it until you ask. Right. A lot of the ask kinda come here.
And I so I know I said that we aren't talking capital yet, but we kinda have to talk capital as we talk stuff too. So as we're talking vehicles, one of the challenges that we're gonna face in the future is our street sweeper. The street sweeper, we bought in 2013 with the City of Little Canada. We did a split on it where we owned a portion. They eventually were like, never mind. We don't want this thing. You guys buy it from us. So we bought it from them. It's actually been great for the city to have our own street sweeper. Long time residents will kinda know how the old process was where we would, like, go out, like,
twice a year. And if you if there's a car on your street, your neighbor doesn't move their car, like, tough luck. We're not coming back. Now what we do is, like, if it was windy, we go out and bring the street sweeper and, you know, pick up a little bit of debris. So it's a nice service. One challenge we're gonna have to think about is, new models, about 350,000. And oh, sorry. To get back to it, our current one is not just old. It is constantly, you'll see it here at City Hall with its hood up as they're working on it. Lots of problems with it. It's dying. They're limping it along. A new model for diesel, we're getting pricing on it.
Which the current one is about 350,000. Electric is more like 700,000. But that might come down in the future. There's an opportunity to rent, electrical. So there could be electric renting type of lease agreements, which would be still very expensive per year. But But as we talk about the climate action plan and kind of challenging public works to add more electric fleet, street sweepers the perfect thing to do, is the hard part because it's not, an you know, it's not a plow truck. You need an emergency. Right. Right. You know, an additional one. It moves very slow, kind of a you know, it'd be perfect for,
like, the low emissions because the current one, even from just a you know, we drive by your house at, like, a couple miles an hour, and we're providing a lot of toxic diesel fuel. Yeah. It's been a probably runs a number quite a lot of hours. Right? Yeah. Yeah. It runs a lot. They run it all week long, stuff like that. So from an environmental standpoint, there's something to be said. This ties in kind of with another one of our goal setting items of kind of contracting services to nearby cities, whether it's Lauderdale or others. So there might be an option for, like, a shared model or something like that. So, no decision need to be made.
I'm just kind of throwing those out there as something we're talking about internally. Sure. So, mister Linehan, if we do go that path, will it be similar to when we had joint ownership with Little Canada? Could could be. Or we could do a model where we get another partner to help finance it with us, and we do some sort of service agreement with them. Like, we'll use our crews, our staff time. We do a number, or we kinda figure out what that cost is Okay. And we cost it. Or it's just one of those, like, we take on another service, and part of that goes towards the the debt service repayment on this.
Because we'd likely have to bond for if it's that. Right. I just meant in regards to if if we're renting, it could be similar to when we were, co owning it with Little Canada Yeah. And couldn't get it out there as often. Or maybe renting it is not that big of a deal. Like renting a car, it's available. You take it and return it. Yeah. Yeah. We we basically, it'd be a lease. So we would lease it. So instead of paying, like, 700,000 over ten years, we'd pay, like, 120,000 a year for,
you know, however many years Got it. Thing. We'd lease it and have it on-site. Perfect. Thanks for clarity. Yeah. And that's always our emergency option for plowing too. It's like Boyer trucks and stuff out of Lauderdale. They lease plow trucks to cities. And so it's very expensive, but if in a pinch and it's the only way to provide crucial services, it's an option. So Allows you to cover in case you have two snowplows go down in one night. Yeah. Yeah. Yep. Absolutely. So a little bit other. I'll kinda dig in. We'll talk way more capital. So this is just, like, I am aware,
or we are aware. Mhmm. Hoytland. So this has come in safe routes to school request, from Saint Paul. They're working with our engineering. They're requesting kind of for, the Chelsea Heights, you know, school. Obviously, it's not our students crossing there as much. But it's also just they wanna provide push button intersections at all legs of, Hamlin and Hoyt. And so we would be responsible for the Northwestern corner cost. So that's just something that we we have earmarked and budgeted in our ten year capital plan now. And would the county be involved too?
Because Hamlin's County. Right? Not so. That section. It's actually in Saint Paul. Because when we did it at Hamlin And Garden, it was Roseville County and Fountain Heights. Saint Paul owns it north of, all the way I think all the way to Larpenter. All the way to Larpenter. Okay. Yeah. At Blarmeier. Yesterday. I know a lot sometimes, but that was one I did not know until Yeah. That's crazy. Yeah. So a Larpenter fry Larpenter paschal. This is another, goal setting one. Mhmm. You know, kinda we had sent that letter to the county. I've been on them about it, and I told them I said,
we want this, and this isn't just a we want it and you do it. We will cost participate in this. Right? So we will we will partner with that. Mhmm. Because this is important for our student crossing and also, you know, kind of the Larpenter Frei, for FAIR and other multifamily and a lot of population in that area. Mhmm. And, Minneapolis is testing, and they're doing, a raised pedestrian crossing. So it's curb height across, so that also slows you down. So it's Yeah. I don't think they can count on that. Yeah. But it's an interesting way that it's being addressed to now.
Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. But, basically, they might come to us and say, hey. We'll do it, but it's gonna be a 125,000 for these crossings, and will you participate? And that might move us up their capital plan from a twenty thirty five to a 2026, 27. If they have a cost partner, that's what we're gonna do. Mhmm. So we're putting money in, kinda planning for that. Okay. Roselawn from Snelling to Cleveland. So they've done the other section in '24. It was supposed to be '26. They're moving Roseville's moving that back likely to '27, it sounds like. So just a heads up,
but that's a capital item we have kinda planning. And is that That's from Snelling to Fairview or from Cleveland They're doing that. Cleveland or Cleveland to Snelling. The Sure. If you're going that way. That whole one Yeah. Okay. Yeah. That whole mile. Yep. The whole section. So they have to do the whole part. Okay. Then we So because they already they did the, Snelling to Hamlin already. Okay. So now they'll do Snelling to Cleveland. Okay. The Cleveland, not Yep. Not Fairview. Is that just a Millen overlay? Yeah. Yep. Millen overlay. We own the South Half again.
So it'd be kinda like the the Roselawn project last time. Got it. So they're pushing that back. We're getting more cameras, so we're gonna put in some money in that. It's kinda part of the capital. Community park, we're kinda for that project. There are cameras as well just in, like, to kinda help with that. And then also kinda requesting more here for city hall kind of as we continue to upgrade. We have gaps. We don't have the see who's stealing all the bags at the compost bins. So one of the Is that happening? What's that? Is that happening? It's I I just It's happening forever. Yeah. Yeah. They take the whole role.
Yeah. Yeah. Well, we just we don't have any any video access. Right? And so I kind of Well, what would we do if we even found it? We wouldn't do anything. You say no. You gotta get a standing up to the undercover. Yeah. I'd be in a bush or something. Yeah. But it would back from everything from, like, a liability perspective, honestly Yep. To be from my the real reason is, like, you get a slip fall on the ice, it's good to have the video evidence, break ins, employee safety, visitor safety. So Nobody can pay for the one at the compost. Yeah. Yeah.
No. These are valid. Very valid. Yep. Yeah. It's theirs. Would we have, more cameras at Curtis Field Park as well? We don't have any We don't have anything there, should we have? The hard part is it'd be hard to get Wi Fi up there Oh, okay. To get the connectivity. So we'd have to run cable. So we have cable up to community park, so that's what makes it a little bit easier to get all this. Okay. And they're like wireless hot spots. You could buy a hot spot. Mobile data. Yep. Yep. Yep. Eventually. Yeah. About 250 a month is the current, because I got a price estimate on that.
Okay. So It'll be your homework. Yeah. Yeah. Depending on how expensive to run cable. Yeah. Absolutely. So but right now, it's a good one. It's a good one to put in because we are having problems with, some problems with Curtis Field. Don't think cameras could be good Yeah. In the near term. Yeah. And so then other one too, kinda coming from the full setting is council chambers, space analysis. How do we wanna do that? So that's one we'll probably put in the multi year. It's just likely not gonna be a 2026 project. Mhmm. But we still know that there's a need to do kinda some sort of space
modification and kind of creating the you know, we still have the existing issue that we don't have this kind of space for even our own meetings or it's challenging to to add on additional. So that's kind of out there, get pressed. So I'm just putting that out there there. I have no updates for the council on that. So offer is out there for that, but, yeah, we have it kinda continuing in case that's a budget item for 2026. Likely, any type of movement will be in 2026. Do you know anything about there were some flags out there. Flags? Stakes. Yellow. Oh.
Likely is for the utility locates for the signs, I guess. Yeah. Yep. Are they putting no parking signs in the lot? More? Yeah. They might be. I don't know. No. For us, we've I I don't know. I can't. I guess I will not comment. I'm just there a lot of the utility locates. Yeah. They couldn't have maybe just overdid it when they're out. The sample water was out. They do. Doing a lot of Okay. Flags in our neighborhood. A lot of money on here. Could be something else too. I guess, I don't know. Yeah. Okay. The other modules, other improvements in the website,
user experience. So we have kind of that out there. Those are low cost, but we're putting money in there. And then the solar panels. So we have the grants. Everything's good. But now it's looking like a 2025, so they're gonna remove it and install. And so it's everything's still the same. It's just the the timeline shifting for the state and others. So Okay. Going back to Get Press for a second. It's my understanding that that is a no parking area during the fair, or is it sold out? For the for The owner? He let a new he lets a resident sell parking. So it's Yeah.
It's zoned commercial. It's zoned commercial. So Technically, it can be a paid parking. It just depends on what the owner wants to do with it. Okay. He basically had not. I think he didn't see that there was a market for it. But then he had his a neighbor had asked, and they did. And as long as the property owner or they have that agreement, there's nothing that would stop it. They can't use the building. So if they try to get into the building, it is effectively on fire marshal order that no person can occupy the building. Mhmm. But the parking lot is They park in the lot.
They park on the paved area. He just has some agreement with a a neighbor to to staff it. I think they do just once. And I think since then, they don't, but they do get people parking there every now and then. Okay. In the new parking guidelines, do we have a because we can if you have the commercial parking lot, you can park cars on it. Do we have a does the city have a tab of who's who's doing that and the an acknowledgment. So that is there a permit to that they need or anything yet?
Not yet. No. So we have that ordinance. We have to prove the ordinance. So Okay. Council has to approve it. And before that so we haven't brought it, basically. Workshopped it back in, like, February. Yeah. State Fair Task Force talked about it. Then paid parking kinda became the focus. And so we didn't want, to be honest, some of it's the delicate balance of these business owners, and basically come into them and saying, we are gonna start charging on our streets, and you are gonna limit your ability to do so. We can do it. It just requires kid gloves, working with our business community with,
Warner Stallion, Cox Insurance, the others who do it. So we just wanna do it. Right? So, basically, we put it on hold with the other stuff going on. That's right. So we don't and the answer is no. It's no different than the last forty years. Okay. Just wanted to to clarify. Yeah. Can I just Nope? It was a question that I had. Yeah. And I mean, I'll I mean, it's also my time and stuff too of, like, the amount. I I have to set up a business meeting with them, do it, and other things just to priority in 2025. Okay. Makes sense. Yes.
I have a non budget question. Proceed. Okay. The food truck licensing, I mean, would that food truck be over the state fair? That's a little tricky. Nope. So we, a, state fair would not allow. So the state has a '21 Could could I'm sorry. I couldn't hear the There's a food truck at BNP. We don't and just what is our licensing. Yep. I presented that to Jack as well. So Yeah. The, so food trucks can stay up to twenty one business days. So long story short, we do not have a license there's no license in the Falcon the city of Falcon Heights. You can operate a food truck,
unlicensed. We've never licensed it in the past. I thought that meant that you couldn't operate one in the city because we didn't have a license. No. No. Yeah. We don't have a pro I mean, we yeah. We don't have we have to have some sort of that we had a prohibition. No. That's what others have said and staff That's what I would be. Staff hasn't found the prohibition. No. Okay. Nope. But there are prohibitions. They can only be in one spot for twenty one business days or twenty one days that are coming up on that. And we do prohibit, commercial operations, from selling during the fair. You can't have a pop up stand.
You can't have a food truck during the state fair. Okay. We've always shut that down. So they have a letter out already to To the Let them know. The truck. Okay. So that that applies even to business owners, what pop up size? Yeah. You can't do a sidewalk sale during the state fair. Nope. And then is it twenty one consecutive days, or is it twenty one days? Twenty one days. Twenty one calendar days in a year That's a three and three sixty five. Okay. So Okay. So it's not I don't know. I I guess I am not prepared to answer that.
Yeah. Because if it's twenty one consecutive days, they've been smart to not be there of solid stretch. They've come and gone. Right. That's why I'm asking. Yeah. Yeah. What I mean, is '21 a calendar year? Is the 21 consecutive? What is the 21? Yeah. It's worth I mean, it's something that I guess we'll we'll continue to dig in. I had staff dig into it, and that's what we've came up with. There's nothing in city code that says that they cannot. I mean, even we'd be in constant violation every time we do a community event and we have a food truck, there. So there are restrictions on city streets,
but on private property, it's kinda limited. So that's it. There is a restriction on city street. So maybe that's the one that has existed. And what is that restriction? Essentially, we can stop peddlers and vendors from selling on city streets. Okay. And that's year round. Yeah. So Yeah. Because anyone who owns a food truck, they have to be licensed with the state to begin with anyway. And a a lot of times when they're in a parking lot of of that someone else owns, they pay at least to be there for that amount of time that they're there. So That's our assumption is that they have some sort of agreement with EP.
So send letters to both, is our goal. Yeah. I drove by it early one morning, and they were cleaning it. I mean, it wasn't open that they were Yeah. Yeah. Prove they're cleaning. But Yeah. That just feels yeah. Yeah. So, yeah, definitely during the state fair, but around it, it might be a future workshop topic for sure for the council to shore that up as a lot of cities kinda look at it and see. And, because it is. It's kind of a loophole around city licensing is that because a lot of the business licensing, we can't really get them on that. It it kind of circumvents a lot of that. Yep.
So but they can do that. Okay. So yeah. Do we not like food trucks? Or Well, I guess one argument would be is, like, there's a lot of a lot of, hurdles to operate and open a restaurant. And so if you wanna open a restaurant, you have to fall and you can just get by it with a truck. And it's a food truck comes in for a pop up event. The school does a two day festival. They got food trucks there. It's different than now kind of a permanent business establishment would be an argument. Right outside of St.
Paul's. You could look at St. Paul's because the place ah, well, it could have its own tricky rules, but there's always a lineup of food trucks outside the capital. Mhmm. Mhmm. So Yes. But is that capital state, Saint Paul? Or is that state what is that going to have its own funky roads? The larger cities do have, licensure to have them. If it's going to be parked for a stretch. Yes. Yep. Because they're usually parked on a city street. Yeah. That's true. You know? Yeah. Yep. And we can and, again, that's kinda where we can get kind of peddlers and stuff. You can't you can solicit money for for free,
but you can't go in, like, solicit or sell at on a street. But this is on private property. So it's private property operating you'd argue a business, but they're licensed through the state. They have all their licensing. So it's like, is it an unpermitted use in that area? And so there's some kind of we dug into it a little bit and couldn't find, anything besides kind of the twenty one days and at the state fair, they can't operate there. Yeah. Well, and one of the benefits for checking into this in the future at a workshop or whatever is being respectful of our
brick and mortar businesses that they're we don't want to not that it's going to take that much business from them, but still there are other food choices in the city. So and if we just start letting a lot of food trucks be here, we're not even at that point, but I'm just saying that's the value of doing a workshop on it. Especially when this one's allowing setting up outside dining too. Yeah. It It's got a table and tent over it. So Oh, yeah. Yep. So it's yeah. I don't know. Flowerama, egg roll queen used to be there.
I wonder what that arrangement was. Yeah. Mhmm. There's a few examples. Yeah. In different cities, they have different regulations, so it's ways we could and some allow it. Right? And, I mean, Roosevelt is pretty relaxed on it, I would say, compared to some others. Lauderdale might be too with the BNP. Yeah. Yep. Mhmm. Truck down there. So Yeah. Mhmm. Do they have a food truck at theirs? At BP? Yep. The Taco Truck. Okay. It's changed. Either they got a different truck or it's changed between a couple different vendors. So at their BP. Catching the the twenty one day rule to, yeah, I've been surprised that it's been consistent for Yeah.
That's Flowerama would come and go. She I mean, she would put up that schedule where I am and then it would be Yeah. More typical. You know, an egg roll queen has been at the BP once or twice in the last couple of years. Yeah. And, again, one offs, it is what it is type of thing generally and especially, like, there's nothing you can really enforce on it. I'd say the fare is a bigger concern because it creates a ripple effect, you know, of, like, well, they're doing it. Like, I shut down a food truck last year that operated in the Hendrickson parking lot.
You know, and the and the residents of Hendrickson are like, what are they doing? And they can't operate. Put the Hendrickson suit to do? No. Then the management told them they could. Oh. So and so we told them reminded them our rules. Like, you can't operate, like, you know, it's not allowed during the fair. So it's a little bit more buttoned up. Especially when they had such crazy parking over there. Yeah. Okay. Yep. And so then they pop up sidewalk shops, access limited, and just further gets down to, you know well, they're you know, it just kind of mimic effect. So, Jack, when those have come up,
have you personally had to do it, or have you had staff go and encounter them? It depends. I mean, again, we've had a couple of pop ups. Like with hundreds and with that food truck, did you go and talk to them? During the fair, I contacted management. Yeah. So and we've had some. We had the, other calling them out by name. There was a a residential business that operated on Hamlin Sure. During the fair, that sold certain industries, fake goods. And so we sent them letters letting them know that that's not allowed.
Right. You know, type of thing. Region in Europe. Yep. Because it creates kind of a they each other point to each other, and it becomes more of a bigger problem, and it's a violation. We have a policy that says during the fair they can't do it, so we enforce it. But, again, if they don't have a policy, it's kind of a Right. Yep. And then I would, at some point in the future, like to kinda dig into the reasoning behind that. It does I don't know. I I just would like to know how that came about and specifically the the stipulation about during the fair.
Like, was the fair involved in that as like some kind of protectionism? Or are we worried about traffic? Or like how did that come about? But we don't need to hash that out tonight, certainly. All right. Mhmm. Cool. Anything else on the budget questions at this? We had another slide of your next steps. Oh, okay. Next steps. So that's kind of the overview of the preliminary budget. So I guess kind of not necessary right now, but start thinking about if there's other things in and really wanted to dig through kind of the the keeping it to the goal setting as much as possible.
But if there are other new I mean, obviously, we know things developed since then, like Les Bolstad's a great example, which was in the goal setting. But if there's other things that kinda come up to, or other projects, areas, let's think about it the next time so we can kinda include it and build this preliminary budget. And then, again, with the goal of kinda building it up and then cutting it down if we need to over time. Jack with Les Volstead, and forgive me if I haven't done my homework to see if it's on the city's website, Is there a page or a document that people can go on the city's website and see
the process and the steps we're going through? Like we have this workshop, now we're going to I'm just thinking we might save staff and counsel. Point out the relevant sections from the study. This is where we're at because the agenda for when we met with the U of M, I think, was really helpful to read through that because then people could grasp and they can go, oh, this is what the U of M is doing, and this is their, you know, FAQ and, you know, those types of things. And that might save some people some some grief and questions,
you know, because it's right there for them to do their own research. Then when they call your staff, you can say, let me direct you to this point in our website, and, that has a variety of questions and shows you where we're at in the process. Yeah. I'd say the best we have, we do have a landing page for it to kind of our news update. Yeah. It needs to be built out. It's kind of an initial one and, like, some additional information. We should build it out over time. We have not. Not. Yeah. Just even if it's gradually, I think that it it's a pointer for your staff to Yeah. Get people. And even when we get calls or emails,
we can, you know, hyperlink that to people. Yeah. Absolutely. Especially once we kinda have a public engagement or some some sort of plan for that, putting it out there would be great. Mhmm. Right now, it's so don't know. You know? It's like it's anybody's best guess about what the future is going to be, you know, and it's how do you look into the crystal ball and explain to people. We're trying to look into the crystal ball to determine what the future might hold. And how do you say that without appearing like you don't know what you don't I mean,
we're trying our best to figure out what it is that's gonna happen, but we don't control it because we didn't buy it. We're not selling it. And we're not selling it. As one person suggested, so Yes. And, And that's what I mean with that landing page of just saying, we have this workshop, this is these are the agenda items from that that can answer some basic questions, and this is where we're at. We're getting ready to, you know And maybe there'd be some points from Friday's meeting as a starting point. Exactly. That's it. I mean Could even just be meeting summary.
Yeah. Mhmm. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. So Okay. Yep. And that's right in line with my thoughts too. I just say right now, and I know you I'm trying to get I feel like I'm saying excuses, but, like Yeah. But you You don't have a fair is the law. And it's Yeah. What did you get? Getting the, like, the resource guide, for example, and, you know, I mean, how it could work super hard. So, like, we're we're getting there. Yeah. We just we bid off a little bit more overall, so we're trying to just, like, catch up. So we will catch up. Things will will get there. Yeah. Pedicab inspections.
That's been that has taken up that has taken Kelly out of commission as Yeah. As she's doing So much right now. Pedicabs. So Oh, man. Yeah. There's A lot goes into that. So Yep. I know your your team's working really hard. Yep. Yeah. And and then still trying to stay focused on the future and the immediate needs that are coming up. Thank you for doing this Yeah. And getting this started. Yeah. And thank you. It's really good. Thank thank you for for doing that and to keeping all of these plates spinning. Yeah. Yeah. No. And appreciate you guys too with kind of the,
you know, providing that support, the feedback, and we'll yeah. We'll we'll be okay. Once the the fair is just always The fair is the fair. Yeah. This this one, yeah. Yeah. This one added a whole new enterprise thing. Yes. I was expecting you, Mayor, to say, when you were giving your updates that the Minnesota State Fair is ranked number one in the nation now. Or are they? The recent report that came out. So I know it's gone back and forth, but that's the recent So there we go. All the people attending the number one fair in the nation passed through Falcon Heights.
Well, I think it was in our twenty twenty three state fair task force at the director of the district ten council, he thought we should have our city, should have our own pop up sale of T shirts. And a few slogan ideas. There we go. Yep. Alright. Well, I'll make a motion to adjourn. Okay. All in favor? Aye. Aye. I'm a I'm a Thank you. Okay. Thank you very much.