I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you everybody.
purpose tonight is we're having public hearing about ordinances 251, 252, 253, and 254. We've uh discussed them last month. We have them in front of us here tonight.
Um Ste, do you have anything to add to this? Um I do not. Yes. starting to change to the view on it of the 20 in the 21st century here. You know, that's what this no more may is
about. And that's what other towns like the city of Rochester after their normal May, they proposed a foremost summer, you know, just mow your lawn once in June, July, August, and September.
The city of Mano, you know, they have these yards where you can plant native plants and you don't have to do anything with it. You just leave your yard like that. You know, we're destroying the planet. There's not going to be anywhere for our grandchildren to live if we
don't change our ways with this. And I can guarantee you within the coming decades that there's going to be laws passed that are going the exact opposite what you're doing with this vegetation law here. You know, I personally would rather see someone that never mows their
yard, which I think is excessive, don't get me wrong, than someone that's out there two or three times a week excessively manicuring it, you know. Yeah, it's it's bad for the environment and there's going to be no room for our grandchildren to live if we continue with this.
Yeah. To each their own as far as their property that way. Um, as far as you're talking about weed killer, hey, you can fire up a a weed whip and knock it down just the same. How you choose to keep the weeds down is a weed whip is still polluting the
environment, you know. So is driving your car. Did you wash up here tonight? Yeah, you know, if you're worried about then everybody should be on foot. There'll be no farming. There'll be no trucking. There'll be no industry. There'll be nothing. You're going to die one way or another because you won't have nothing to eat. So then
I I do like the natural way. I don't spray my yard. I'm the only one in my cult that does not spray my yard. I I like natural as can be. I also like the min the native Minnesota. you know, you can have spots for those in your yard contained and, you know, you can do
things without looking with with being able to stay within these ordinances. So, I mean, I get what you say because I like, you know, my neighbors think I'm wacky cuz I don't spray my dandelions, but I'm I I think they're pretty and I like them. So, um I I think you can have
a little bit of both ways with I think you can stay within the ordinance and still still be somewhat well, it's going to go exactly the opposite in the future. I may not live to see it because I'm pretty old in near death. But I guarantee by the time my
children or grandchildren, it's going to be swinging the exact opposite way. Where do you think the farming industry would be without herbicides and stuff like that to take care of the weeds? We'd be a lot better off. We're overproducing in agriculture to feed
overpop populated places all over the planet full of people that hate us. It's a really dumb agricultural way to go. You know, we should just be producing enough food to feed ourselves here. We're poisoning the soil, the air, and the water and everything with this over
production. Well, I think the farmers do a very good job of managing their spring and keeping the weeds down. I mean, if you had a yard next year and he had a bunch of bull thistles about this tall, you know, and they all blow over on the next guy's
yard and they start growing. Do you think there's beauty in that? Beauty is opinion. Yes, sir. I just wanted to Your name is I'm sorry Dale Brick uh Holiday Street. Um just want to make a comment in
support of the ordinances. I moved to Good Thunder 25 years ago, June of 2000. This was a nice town. It's why I moved here. You know, I work in Mano. Nice quiet town. People took care of
their stuff. It wasn't too sightly like it is now. Since I've been here, things have changed drastically. It's on my lot. Now that the neighbors property is a rental, I have that grass that's only
been mowed once this year that I have to look at outside of my landscaping that I spend hours to try and take care of and try and make it look halfway decent. And I can't go outside without seeing that because that's right out my front door. So, I applaud the council for finally
doing something about this. Um, the town, it's just not the same as it was and it's in a much worse way than it was 25 years ago. All we can tell you there is thank you. Well, thank you for coming. Thank you for voicing your opinion. And if it is a
rental property, uh, right here, get a hold of Sue. Make your displeasures known. I have been in contact with the property owner several times. I was going to say as landlords person should know about that. Correct. Correct. And like I said, I have been in
contact with that landlord at least once or twice a week the last month. Phone calls, letters. Yeah. So, the landlord is very much aware. They all they do. Um sometimes I don't think they actually hear it, but I think this morning the
message got through. Well, yeah, it can lead to the point where they don't get a rental license. Correct. I mean, I don't know how many times you got to knock on the door or whatever, but
was such a nice was a decent wellap property, but the previous owners it's just gone and it's not the only place we got to walk around because and we've been battling this for many many years, you know. Um, if the city didn't mow the city park and
you had bull thistles and you had everything growing up in there, would people take their kids up there and play in that park? No. Would they take their kids up there and literally play in that park if you had thistles and weeds a foot and a half high? I don't know. I know. Probably not.
They'd want to sue you because the kids ran into thistles and cut or whatever in today's society. They'd probably be more likely to sue you over uh playground equipment in disrepair than they would over vessels in the park.
So, we have a a permit with the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency for our acreage out at the wastewater facility. They require us to mow and maintain fence to fence line all the way around the dikes and all the way out to the fences because tall grass and weeds
are a harborage for critters. Uh rats, muskrats, mice, all kinds of burrowing creatures that can ruin your facility. So that's a reason for keeping it low as well. You can see if you're starting to get a gopher mound, you can deal with it. Um things like that. So, and you have to scrape spray the inside
of the lagoon with remove all weeds because keep the weeds out of there, right? Can damage the liner of the pond. And there's a special spray that we use to do that. Yeah. Yep. So, there's a requirement from the government to keep that nice and neat and clean. And again, it does look like
a park when you look at it from highways old 66 and trees are down there. The lawn is all manicured. It looks very nice. So, I mean, it's to each their own, but I would say the minority the majority of the people in city of Good Thunder would love to have the neighbors
have their lawns all mowed and manicured. You know, that no mo to me is just nothing but an aggravation. You let it get this tall, especially this year now when it rained and then you got to get through that. How you going to get that cleaned up and mowed
up? Did you just leave it and then neighbor next to it don't like it? Where do you get a happy medium? I don't know. But you're not going to fight the no more may. It's part of where the society is going. Yeah, that's not in the right direction. Well, it's reality.
But the mandate's not I mean the there's not no mandate for the no more. It's just a an elective. Well, there was no mandate in Rochester neither for their foremost summer. It's just a progressive city that people are starting to realize that we cannot
continue to go this route. But there's not there's not an ordinance right now that requires you to spray any chemicals in your yard. It's just be it's just to be kept up kept within a day. Yeah. And I mean the city park hasn't gotten sprayed the last couple years and it's
more yellow than anything there, you know, the past two months. That season's over now. But some of us who live around there, we we don't like them. And we do keep our lawns clean and neat picked up. And uh I
I would say that we'd have more people complaining against non-compliance than the ones that are over compliance. I've never had anybody come in and go, "God, I'm pissed off because that guy's yard is so nice looking." And in the 31 years I've done
this, I've never had that. You know, it's always, "How come that lard looks so bad all the time?" And it's the same one for 31 years. So, it ain't nothing new. We deal with it every year. And we're just trying to
But it make it better. Mapleton does it. Amboy does it. Everybody's got a a code. We're going to update ours. And we're going to have a code, too. playing simple. Yep. I mean, anybody else?
I'm here as well. I'm Marine SP and I'm here to support the council on this this as well. The gentleman down here um specifically Main Street
commercial building on Main Street. Uh it's a shame. Yep. There's weeds growing up there now in the cracks. There's a 2 and 1/2t high weed there where the sign is. Uh we we offered a service twice now
this summer already. There's five gallon pales sitting around there that will probably never be moved. I I don't know how you get people to do it. I don't know how you get people to clean up a property. I mean, um,
I get a lot of people that ask me, um, when I do reopen my business, you know, people know that I'm going to be doing that and, um, customers say, "What is going on?" Yeah. town. Why
do some of these properties, commercial properties, rental properties, private homeowners, and it's kind of embarrassing to be honest with you. Oh, by far. I've lived out here for 32 years and I
agree with the gentleman down here. It has gotten worse. Yep. That's why I'm here tonight to support the doing something. The whole society has shifted to towards laziness.
Laziness. That's the only word you can say is laziness. You can't pick up five gallon pills alongside of a building that chances are you're never going to use again. Or you can't simply pick them up and put them inside the building so the whole edge of
the building looks nice and neat, presentable. What what would you call it if it isn't laziness? I would call it an opinion on what you're saying it looks like. Well, they serve no purpose. It's still an opinion what you're saying
something looks like. Yeah. But I know I know we've talked about this before several times, too. It's probably back when you lived here. Not that we can go back to it, but we had our own police force which did enforce the city ordinances. And when we lost that, the
sheriff's, you know, they can't enforce our city ordinances. So, we did lose some, you know, some ability, which we're trying to change now. We, and like I said, we can't go back to having a town full-time town cop, but that's when there was a little bit of a shift in
downhillness of the city as well. So, now we're coming up with these ordinances to hopefully take it back. a lot more people had got the positive opinion versus the negative. And actually everybody in some are
thinking I just like to make sure that we realize it's an opinion. Yeah. You know, the way stuff looks. Is there um has anybody ever looked into um Minnesota Valley Action Council and Vine to help some of the elderly
residents of our city? Can we make some phone calls? And I've been told that they offer stuff like that. I think it's I understand when they're elderly and they can't do it. Um you don't have family maybe to come and help you do it
or they're too busy, too lazy, to whatever to help out. A lot of it is um the resident also needs to reach out too. I mean, I can definitely get that information and I can put it out there. We can put it into water bills. Put it in water bills. I just thought of that the other day. Somebody told me
that they do and I well let's try to cover any avenue avenue we can to get people some help if they want help keeping their properties up. Great. Anybody else in the community comment
then about the ordinances that we have here tonight in front of us? Do you have copies of those ordinances? I've never seen. Yeah. Got more s. Yep. I do have a few more. When she comes back, can you state your name for us, please? Tell me
one on the record. Yeah, we do. Yeah. It's been brought up at a couple of times. People come and speak and they don't know them. They'd like to know who's speaking and why. Yeah. Why? A very good idea. Yeah. And if you are not a resident of
the town, it doesn't matter. I mean, thank you. So, I'm Dennis Klein. I'm uh the owner of a couple properties in town here and uh I just wanted to kind of follow up with uh what you guys had going on because I had kind of gotten some
feedback from different people as to what was um being being done being changed and uh I guess I just wanted to see as a property owner um whether it's something that I've got a house sold on
a contract breed or a rental house um what's expected of my tenants. I mean, I try and keep a guideline with what's expected in my eyes. Um, sometimes it works, sometimes they're absolute passes crazy and you can't do nothing
about it. Yeah. Um, when your hands are tied, what's the legality and the ramifications of the property owner versus the person doing it? Well, it comes back to the point of where and thank you for coming and
asking those questions as a rental uh propri proprietor. Um, all it would do, yeah, you virtually are kind of the fall guy. If they don't, cuz the stuff comes to you and if it doesn't
get followed eventually, yeah, you could lose your rental license and then you're going to have empty houses, which nobody would want either. But if you're, you know, aggressive in the point of saying, "Hey, you rent my property. That's my
name. You're inflicting this on my, you know, my name. Uh, you're going to clean it up. You're going to follow their statutes. They're going to, you know, you're going to mow the lawn. You're going to not have 12 vehicles sitting in the driveway." Um,
that's kind of Yeah. Do you guys have anything in um the works for people that have multiple vehicles or something to that effect as to how they're going to be finded, removed, that type of stuff? Yes. Yep.
Okay. Yes. Going to have to sit on a like a gravel pad. Got to be currently licensed. You know, you can drive around town right now and you can find three, four of them. one is last time was
licensed is in 20. Uh there's another one or two that don't have any license plates. Uh they'll sit there until the weeds are 47 ft high. There's no intent to do anything with them, right? So call B&R, get 250 bucks for them
or Dennis and get rid of them. You know, it's different if you got some potential and you do some work and they but they sit there. They just literally sit there day in and day out, year in and year out. But you do have situations where the
property owner doesn't want to let go of them. I mean, you and I both know, and I'm not going to name names, but there's people that have sat on vehicles for five to seven years and and stuff should have been gone within a year or two.
Discussed with them. It was that's why we're doing what we're doing. It's coming down to a per per number. You guys are putting teeth into this. Yep. There's going to be a number that you can have, but they have to be in, you know, proper. It can't be partials.
They got to be up-to-date tabs. It it we're done being a showcase of an extension of Buford to put it bluntly. I mean, there you can look across the street. There's one property over there. Well, that's two properties owned by the
same individual. There's like nine vehicles around there. There's 11 or 11, whatever. I mean, really, they haven't moved since they were parked, but you can physically count. It's right where people drive through Good Thunder. You know, the first thing I go, "How about that guy on the corner with all them vehicles?" Yeah. How about
him? You know, they haven't moved since they've been parked there. They're I get it. I I understand it. It's just what do you do in a situation where somebody's got a sentimental attachment to a vehicle? Yep. Then they need to put a building around
it. Either that or go get put a building around it. If it's sentimental, you think they'd take care of it. Yeah. And to a certain extent, they may not be able to. Yeah. And again, they might not to their whole life their intent was to rebuild this car. 1979. I'm going to rebuild
that baby because it's a keepsake. not 2025 and it's still sitting there. Um Oh, I know. I've ran into many of them. I mean, I guess they need to find a lot where
they can park them or there's a rent up here. You can rent stalls and you can park them inside up there if they're such a keepsake. You know, going to cost you $1,000, $1,500 a year to keep it, but you need to find somebody that lives in the country outside of the city limits. Good thunder.
And they can go deal with the county. We're not going to deal with it. You put them. The county is already Well, the county's Well, why would the county do that? They're just getting crazy. The g crazy lately. We're not crazy, but we're trying to get rid of some of the same stuff that just sits here and doesn't go anywhere.
But on the flip side of the coin, when the county's doing it, they're trying to get rid of these vehicles. And then the facilities are going they're going to it turns into a situation of now there's too many vehicles on that property. I mean it's a double-edged sword, you know.
I mean, so that's kind of where I'm coming from is you've got to have a reasonable amount of time to make it all happen. Yeah. Well, yeah, we're, you know, if the countyy's not going to be realistic about it, somebody's got to work with the people that are involved
as well. If there's action being done and some progress being made, that's one thing. Yeah. But like we just said, some of these vehicles have been sitting in the same spot for 25 30 years, that's that's not progress. No, understand that.
You know, and I guess if you if it's had a keepsake to you and we require to have a license on it while it's there, then that's just another part of keeping it. Get it on a gravel. And that's what I'm saying is if you guys allowed them to do a gravel spot for the parking and if
they put tabs on it or something to that effect, yeah, maybe it's not movable operational, but it's currently licensed. It's currently licensed. I mean, you working with them rather than jamming it down their throat that, hey, you guys own this property. It doesn't matter
what you're doing. You've got to abide by our rules and regulations because we made them. That's not really fair to a property owner. You guys have had a small town here. It's been I I grew up here. It's been awesome the whole way through.
That's why I bought property around here just because I don't want to see the town fold up either. But on the flip side of the coin, when you start trying to mandate rules and regulations like the big cities, certain people may or may not even want
to be around you. Yeah, that's true. But we're not doing anything different than Mapleton's doing, than Namboy is doing, that Slair is doing. Yeah. And I haven't followed any of that just because I haven't been involved in those projects. Because there's a difference between yard art. Oh, yeah.
And something that's actually going to turn into something, right? Have you ever been to the Walker Art Museum? U maybe. We have a we have a property down by the school that uh hasn't been lived in for
probably 30 plus years that the sophet is all hanging down and you can watch the squirrels go in and out of that. Now what do you think the squirrels are doing to the sidewalls the interior of that house left of that property? Why doesn't somebody buy it?
They don't want to sell it. So now as a city are we mean to tell them people you got to get it fixed up? No. That's not unrealistic. That's that. Okay. But that's not unrealistic. I don't feel Yeah. Because I mean, if you don't push
those people to upgrade their properties and make it fairly somewhat livable, live livable. It'll just sit there in disarray like it has for the last 30 years. And how is that fair to either person on either side of this?
It's not. No, it's absolutely unfair to the property owners on each side when you know I've seen the squirrel running in there. It's like, wow, what else is running in there? That's Well, yeah. I mean, you know, there could be raccoons getting in there. There could be all kinds of stuff in
there. I mean, uh there they mold the lawn. Yep. But the house is in disarray and it's it's going to fall in fall inside itself with all this activity of animals in Yeah. Yeah.
And I mean, why don't they sell it? Have no idea. Well, and again, as a property owner, that's common sense as to you're just going to allow your money to deteriorate on you. That's just stupid. Yeah. Yeah. And again, then we're the bad guys. If we call them up and say,
"Hey, you know, we're doing this with our ordinances. You got to get your house in compliance." Oh, boy. Why'd you do that? You haven't done it for 30 years. Yeah. Well, then you got it like the gentleman behind you. He said it was better 25 years ago when he moved into town what it is now. So, we're trying to
keep Good Thunder at least even keel. Maybe improve it then keep it even keel. You mean all these people that want all this stuff? What would happen if Good Thunder where their city shop is right now just had junk all around that building and the weeds
growing up and it it's set that's a very poor example. You come driving in a good gez the town can't even keep take care of their own property. Well, it's nice and weeds growing up around it. There's no junk around it. I mean
we're setting examples for individuals. you know this, you know, you don't have to be perfect, but a little bit better would help. I mean, when the neighbors complain to us and we don't do nothing that what did they vote for?
People that aren't going to do any tough decisions, you know, person that takes care of their property, if they decide to sell, it's going to drive their their value down. Yeah, we had an individual here at the last
meeting stating that the property that he lives next to is kind of devalued his property, you know. So, we're the bad guys. Well, we might as well admit it. We're the bad guys, but we're just trying to help out
everybody. I mean, making the yards neat. I I think that, you know, if you guys are open to a few little avenues, I mean, to me, anything that's ever been addressed to me by the city of Good Thunder has
always been workable. Um, I don't know how it's been addressed to everybody else, but um, you have to go in it understanding that it's a two-sided coin and and there's give or
take to out. And so I guess that's what most of the property owners need to understand as well. I'm not here to defend uh you know a mess or this or that type of thing. Um my questions are
just you know how will the process continue to change? More communication than probably what's been in the past. Okay. You're going to be involved as the property owner. Okay. more than your renter because your renter is going to get that little piece
of paper in the mail and they're gonna throw it in the garbage. Probably throw it in there because they know they it ain't on them. I'm I rent. It's on you. So, yeah. No, there'll be more communication. They have no problem talking with anybody. I'll sit down and have an intelligent conversation with anybody
when it gets to the point of where a case of um well, I'm I'm going to hence my words, but you only can go so far. If there's progress, if there's effort, we're going to get along just fine. If
you send out a letter sue to a property of 500 North Miner or whatever and it's a rental, could you just automatically send it to the property owner too? One goes to the property owner. Okay, perfect. Yeah.
Perfect. That way everybody's on the same same avenue. Sure. Yep. And you don't get blindsided by they've gotten six letters and all of a sudden you don't know a word about it, right? No. Yeah. No, I I had we had talked about that before that
a letter goes both parties. Yeah. Same thing with water shut off to, you know, not paying this bill or it's the same thing. You're you'll get a notice when the water to your property gets shut off even though you're not paying it. The renter
No, the the landlord has to pay it. Yeah, I know. But he still should get a notice before we would shut water off. Oh, yeah. Because he'll be the one that gets the bill to pay it. Yes. Yes. Because the landlords all the water bills all the renters are have the landlord say. Good.
Well, there's no more further comment. I got one more com about your fee schedule. You know, $1,000 fine in 90 days from jail for having an unlicensed vehicle in your yard. If someone was driving an unlicensed vehicle down the road,
it's not $1,000. Well, it says in your ordinance I rent them. No $1,000 fine on 90 days in jail. Never saw nothing. I didn't see that one. Fee schedule. I have the fee schedule right in front of me. It was it was a conversation that was at
the last meeting where somebody had said, you know what would be you want part of this? Which one? You know, if we could raise the fine. Yeah, I talked about raising the fine. All the the petty misdemeanor. Nope. It's a $50 fine for the first
offense. So, you're gonna the property owner will the property will get a letter. They're not in compliance. They'll have so many days to rectify the situation. If it is not rectified, they will get a another letter that states they are going to be assessed a $50 fine
if council approves that the next meeting. And they'll be invited to the council meeting to follow the next council meeting to state their case. Try to figure out there is a reference. I just got a phone. I read it in there. Or is it? Do you see it? It's available. It's I remember which form it was in.
It's in there somewhere. I know that. I'm sorry I didn't bring mine. That is directly from our attorney. That is our attorney's verb. Yes. Well, that's in the ordinance that the way I read it that any ordinance you're got in that there could be possibly get
90 days in jail and $1,000. Is that saying that as a last resort? Everything we do and then we turn it over to the attorney and the attorney takes it from there. That's where that plays into effect. It would be quite a few steps.
That would be an abatement process. Yes. That very excessive. Like I said, if someone was driving an unlicensed car down the road, they didn't have insurance on it and possibly even a first time DWI, they
would not get $1,000 fine in 90 days. And that's guy behind you. It'd be much more expensive than $1,000. Yeah, it would be. Yeah. Well, you lose your license automatically for 30 days, right? on the
without without any of the fine. The reinstatement fee for the license alone is 685 bucks. That's with no fines in the scenario you just mentioned. Yeah. And if that guy's driving through Good Thunder, just call them guys. Oh, I'm just saying an example, you know.
Well, for sure an unlicensed vehicle had no insurance on it, they wouldn't get $1,000. Wouldn't give it to them. Probably depends on your driving record history. Yeah. And the way it sounds to me, without knowing anything else, it sounds like what they had mentioned would be a
absolute worst case scenario if there were, you know, a series of documented non-compliance. Well, maybe this ordinance just has teeth in it. So, you know, boy, we better take care of it as $1,000 fine or 90 days in jail. Maybe, you know, it's just simple. You just you you don't go
that far. It's just that simple. Yeah. You know, and if you choose to go that far, that'll be on the property owner and the city attorney, right? If it gets that far, we're not involved. The attorney involved and that and that it says if any person
convicted violating. So that would mean you'd have to go through court process before that happen. Process of law. No, the fee schedule, that's where we're going to for the administrative fines. It's going to be $50 for a first defense, second 100 for the second. So that's
that's where we're starting. So anybody else with community comment? No. If not, then we'd like to close this. Well, we better pass these ordinances first, right? Do we do it individually or just all one, two, three, and four? Do it individually. All right. Somebody
somebody want to make a motion then to approve ordinance amending section 3401 schedule P uh 251. Make the motion. Someone second. Second. All in favor say I.
I carried and ordinance 252. Ordinance creating chapter 35 enforcing administrative offenses. May I make a motion to approve that? I'll make a motion to approve 252. Someone to second. No second. All
in favor? I oppose. Motion carried. 253. Ordinance regulating public nuisance within the city of Good Thunder. Let me make a motion to approve that. Make a motion to approve. 25-03. Somebody second. Seconded. All in favor
say I. I oppose. Motion carried. Um 254 ordinance creating section 117 creating regulations regarding cannabis businesses. Make a motion to approve that. I'll make the motion.
I move to second. I'll second it. All in favor say I. I. I oppose. Motion carried. All righty. Some may make a motion to close the public hearing on our ordinances. Make a motion to close.
I'm in a second. Second. All in favor? I I oppos. Motion carried. Meetings over. You said you needed a minute or two there. [Music]