all right we're live all right the time is 6:35 and we are on here in our brand new city hall headquarters council chambers on 15 North Broadway Avenue for our very
first meeting and with us tonight is Chris Hood Craig Schulty Kim Vanbeck um Mike Roth Michael Barry Bill Loves Ben Peters and Patrick
Knight and with that we're going to start open forum is anyone here for open forum this evening thank you the next most important is recognition of our first meeting and with that I had invited
um and um like all of our past counselors that we were aware of of whatever capacity if they'd been mayor council whatever because this whole project took many many many many years and lots of hard conversations and I thought everyone who worked hard here
before should be sitting here this very first evening in this brand new room so thanks to all of you who are able to make it this evening and appreciate all of your efforts and there's treats for everybody who's here tonight and plenty
of them and um I think I'd first like to ask us all to do um a little toast to a building that is gone but served us well as our fire department our police department of course our city administration
um it it had offshoot capacity for other organizations as well as an on and off sale um liquor operation for many many years and so a wonderful memory of a great MUN on sale and so a big toast to
what we had yeah here and thanks to all of you now we have a wonderful new building we can be super proud of i feel like when I drive by it looks like it's always been there and a great profitable liquor store which should be a great for all of the
employees there and welcoming to everyone and um yes enjoy and thank you yay [Applause] we're gonna do some photo ops so if you
three would like to come around behind here we're gonna take uh Kelly and Jan and Tim since you guys showed up we're gonna do a little photo op of all of us hey Ben would you grab Craig be careful with Craig yeah
make sure I get plugged in later here oh my only in a small town cheese i was thinking whiskey personally fits and I'd love to hear from any of you if you'd like to make a comment or whatever
makes Well I guess our mics pick them up anywhere huh but there's one right there so if any'd like to hang up to the mic while everyone's grabbing a cookie or a bar or something some snacks i will just say quickly because my grandfather was a
bartender at the MUN for many years um when they came back from Florida he served down there and he would go to work 3:00 p.m till close probably because I remember grandma making dinner was 1:00 in the afternoon
and then he would put on his white shirt and his apron and he would go work at the MUN and there are plenty of stories i missed going to the MUN i got grandfathered in the drinking age changed in 19 September of
1985 from 19 to 21 so I believe that closed before was it 84ish maybe craig do you remember somewhere in there because I know I did not make it to the MUN which I would guess grandfather
would have thrown me out anyway i'm sure 80s yeah so anyway it's really exciting to see the changes as somebody who worked in the liquor store um off sale at a young age came back again in the early 2000s served as city council to
see what's happened i'm really excited for our community um both working here in the hospital we know that buildings need to stand for more than 10 years and serve our community we're looking at another hundred years again so I'm
really proud of what became of this and where it ended so thank all of you for your hard work thank you thanks Jan tim and Kay welcome you just missed our big toasts but um your snacks and treats and
um Jan just touch it there it goes green wow that's lovely that is lovely as is it's beautiful to be in this new space but it also is exquisite space i haven't looked around
totally yet but the floor coming in is stunning that this wall is lovely so I'm imagining all these wonderful details are throughout this building it's fabulous and I also want to um compliment you all
on how well it was managed and came together very quickly and on budget from what I understand and all of those things are not easy to pull off so I want to congratulate you all for a job really well done so thank you thank you
for all your efforts and that leads us of course into a huge thank you with formac because this is the second time they've done outstanding work for us and made that part of it easier for us enormously so hey Tim yeah well you know I came on the council back in uh I think
it was uh 2001 um and at that time I was telling you earlier that uh Russell Zinc and I went over to the old forest service building and looked at that as a possible uh relocation place for uh for city hall uh we quickly uh decided that
that wasn't uh the direction we were going but the conversations kept on and and kept on uh going but but never quite got to to realization of anything that was going to be successful uh I think it
really was in the last seven to eight years that uh you know the effort really picked up pace and I mean the need was there it was always evident that the need was there but uh it took a lot of persistence and and and work with
councils that uh worked from uh for from a long time ago till today and here we have this uh fantastic building mike took me for a tour right before the meeting the back office space is uh great what a what a a
change from uh what there was before and you know I know that uh everybody should be proud of the accomplishment and getting this uh you know this is this is I was talking to Jan too earlier about this building's going to stand for another hundred years and tribute to the
work that uh all of you and others have done so thanks you know it's going to be a great uh place to work and use as a government center and a liquor store that can be successful and contribute to the community um and so much more so
thanks for all you've done thank you for all of your time and effort too Tim yeah thanks yeah this was truly one of those once in a-lifetime opportunities for all of us for our community so it is quite a quite a big deal okay would you like to share
anything as a past council person as well i'm really impressed i feel like I'mwhere [Laughter] else right now yeah there you go well it's kind of
funny how the building layout really didn't change a whole lot i mean the liquor still over there and our council's kind of the middle and then office over there and bathrooms in the southeast corner still still gets the same view of the parking lot i do
well I switched I switched walls wonder if Stanley's ghost is roaming in here at all not yet yeah I can remember quite a few phone conversations in our household about dinner time like dinner's getting cold
can I get home there SH oh yeah well Craig any thoughts make you feel not so far away yeah I wish I was there um for sure um yeah I have a lot of memories of
the old the old building and um when I became a volunteer fireman of course that was the first uh that's where the garages were and uh I vividly remember your father's business uh the midway catching on fire there too
bucks business so um yeah I remember uh lots of things the old liquor store the old uh on off that was there [Music] um it's a big achievement I think for the city to have done this i know it
took a lot of time and a lot of preparation and a lot of looking at where monies can come from and budgeting and figuring it all out and I'm just glad that we were able to do this and uh accomplish it without being a burden to the taxpayers of our community i think
it's something we fit in quite easily for us and uh I think it's it's a it's a nice space it's going to be a great space moving forward really is and the liquor store is a big addition and it's good to have a nice big space there something newer um it definitely needed
to be upgraded and I think that'll be a good profit center for the city um yeah I'm just thankful for everybody who worked on this i know I'm just a little bit I'm a little piece of it but there was a lot of people that worked on this thing many many many years went by to
put this together so I'm happy for that i'm happy it turned out nice well we wish you were here as well this evening but of course we're going to have a big open house later in May which is really right almost around the corner really but hopefully you'll be for that
be in town for that celebration so yep anyone else have any comments mike nothing all good just all good trying to imagine actually sitting
well thanks again everyone and I'm glad we had a few moments to sit here and be thankful for what we have so excellent okay okay and with that we will move on to the consent agenda for this evening any questions about the
meeting minutes or bills or anything i'd make a motion to approve the consent agenda as presented a second to that i'll second it all right uh all in favor
of the consent agenda Craig i Ben hi Bill hi I mike hi all right and it's unanimous and next up is our dark sky presentation mark
thank you what a great building and to be the the first one to speak at it other than the uh honores it's really nice so anyway this is my third year thanks for having me um so just to update the council and the city on the
events that we've been participating in in some of our activities um as has been typical we've been um having tableabling events at the art fair in Hovind um fisherman's picnic and at the dark sky festival in December um upcoming ones
maybe this year will be the same and then also we've been talking with the Luden Winery about doing some things and then we're also talking about having a a star party maybe in August there's a statewide it's actually through the Bell
Museum that's um host a star party and u there generally for the whole state but we thought hey we've got great stars so let's try to get that organized um we had three uh presentations at the dark sky festival
last December um and then we continue to collaborate with Visit Cook County on that festival and and help them organizing and lining speakers up um just recently I recorded a little small piece on a podcast for Paddling Portage
Joe Frederick and then he's going to write up an article for his digital uh news newspaper so that'll be published um in April and kind of time to come out with Dark Sky Week um we're also talking to Chuck Olsen and WTIP about having
maybe a somewhat regular little um five minute conversation on some talking topic about dark skies uh several of us in the group now have um sky quality meters that we can um actually measure you know accurately
the darkness of the sky and so we're we're trying to set up some regular spots and just check it monthly when we're in the dark sky week of the month when the the moon is new um in in u
Luden area and Tafty we've got some members down there and then um Travis is doing some up on in Portage and in the reservation um so the really reason that I'm here of course is dark sky week is April 21st to
28 this uh year and we're hoping that Grand Marray will um declare that dark sky i sent the presentation to the board to Tracy and then one last thing we are starting in collaboration with the DUTH
chapter of Starry Skies a dark sky friendly business certification no cost to the businesses to be certified other than um them making good lighting choices um we have um there's three criteria basically no outdoor
fixture that is shining light up into the sky um no fixture that trespasses light past their property line so basically shielded lights and then um having the outdoor lighting with the
yellowish 2700 Kelvin temperature rating so um we're just getting started i think the Luth is going to have a press conference um in a you know later this month in coordination with the Dark Sky Week um they've got several businesses
and organizations that they've identified that are um compliant um and so I've been driving around the city in the evening and checking out and this building certainly looks like it'll qualify um Voyager North House um
several of the restaurants I think with um little or minimal um changes um would qualify for this so what do you get you might ask um basically a certificate just says that they're dark sky compliant and friendly and then also a
window cling that they can put on their door if they want so that as their customers come in they can say you know that we're dark sky friendly and and supporting the the dark sky and and the fight against light pollution nice so any questions that I can try to
answer well I know we asked you to reach out with our new apartment buildings coming into play and and it sounded like all that went pretty well yeah it did um I've talked with actually Gary a little bit and it looks like from what I can tell um we reached out on the
development up the hill on on Fifth there and view they're just starting to install fixtures outside and from what I can see from the road they look pretty pretty good so um that's real um real exciting so and then we also me and
another person um met with um Shane the other day in the city and just to talk to him and get get some updates maybe on some of the projects that are maybe starting to develop that we can uh contact so Sure yeah so otherwise I
think we've been pretty successful in that anyone else have any questions for Mark no it's great thank you for your efforts i appreciate it oh thanks and thanks for the great new building so take a window clean yeah we will and as
we um So they're having the mayor they're trying to get the mayor to do the presentation so maybe when we start kicking ours off we could have um Tracy present to some of the business owners so I'll be meeting with the Grammar Business Council I think next week to
kind of coalition back in this room all right thank you and then it's a proclamation await okay very good all right thank you and next up it's North House with their annual report
yeah everyone this is like a special night to be here it is come on up and I should just be able to share my screen y awesome well so first congratulations and thank you for having us here greg Wright with North House
Folk School i'm Carol Winter i'm the board chair at North House and um we didn't know there was going to be a party but we did bring a housewarming gift and I hope it's okay that it's cookies
sorry apparently this is the theme for the evening so and there's plenty even for the guests so can I hand these around does that allow in your space let's try and see how it goes okay we'll experiment like this oh my gosh
here we go patrick are you in thank you awesome fantastic so just to confirm since I'm having so much fun right now Tracy can I put one by your spot i just went to grab napkins okay enjoy and there's napkins too perfect thank you
awesome thanks a lot and um you know to confirm um we get to come and stay connected with you guys once a year it's a really important part for us are you guys interested cookies are good for you remember um and um and
we have some pictures of the past year and also some um some updates on kind of the numbers and how things are going so uh Craig I'm sorry um everybody online I apologize carol are you good you're okay we're not gonna eat and talk at the same
time okay all right well then let's just if we're ready we'll jump in is that okay let's do it okay great put to please okay okay so our annual report to the city of Grammaray great to be here um
honored and excited and especially on a night like tonight um obviously why are we here well you know our home on the harbor is a gift you gave to us a number of years ago 1997 when North House started we got to rent the space for six
months at a time don't know if everybody remembers this but we do for four and a half years we rented we shephered the journey forward for six months at a time and then it was five years and then obviously we moved into a next chapter so a lot has happened in those years and
um thinking about 2024 it's kind of fun we share something in common we both built things in the past year right and um and if we look back at 2024 it was a huge year for the school a lot of transformation a lot of really inspiring
progress and it's safe to say you guys love your building and and we love our building i don't know if you've been in it yet you're always invited um and if you're curious why is there a picture of cake being served well that's the night of the community open house the building opened for the first time to the public
on Thursday night of Unplugged we had a community open house we purchased 450 pieces of carrot cake and how do you deliver 400 or how do you pick up 450 pieces of carrot cake in the back of your pickup with a topper don't worry
and how many were left at the end of two hours zero absolutely correct so over 400 and not that many of us ate more than one piece so it was great community turnout it was so much fun and you know and that
said have you know is that the only way we get people on campus well no i mean I think you understand that we're a place where the community gathers and um one of the really fun things on the right with the flowers um one of our traditions at Unplugged is we've been having a family concert Saturday morning
really cool to have kids loving music on campus in the middle we've hosted now we this winter we hosted a first Friday series square dancing to contra dancing to a talk by a guy named Lonnie Dupri right who's sailing north to sailor on
Greenland or sail out to Greenland um pack house over a hundred people there and uh f first Fridays also include dinner on a stick and if you were curious what do they mean dinner on a stick this is an advertisement that's what you mean we mean and last Friday
there was everything from marinated chicken and broughtwurst to shish kebabs so if it's a pretty good eat um and that said of course a lot more than just shish kebabs at North House we we connect the north and this is one of the
things we get to do in Grand Marray because of the people we bring in um uh uh Suji Nakagawa from Japan in the middle um our featured instructor during unplugged uh oh nila Uma from uh Sami
knife maker from northern Scandinavia uh last year in November at Winter's Gathering and on the right Barn the Spoon probably the most famous spoon carver in the world um his second time on the North House campus and his question is when do I get to come back i
mean these are the kind of friends you want all around the world um and that said it isn't just about fancy instructors from everywhere it's about us and like and I don't know what could be a better example of that than our partnership with the good heart rail players one of very many different
nonprofits we work with uh the solstice pageant uh um every year is like this quintessential moment in the north kind of the kickoff of summer and just this joyous gathering one of many different seasonal gatherings we host and of
course I think you all appreciate we're incredibly committed to serving local youth um I don't know how many years now we've done free programs for every third fourth and fifth grader in the community um similarly uh we do a timber frame program which will start this Monday
that free um that kids participate this year 12 different high school kids coming down um to campus um you know but we also do clogging workshops for kids that are much smaller than the timber framers have come so lots of cool things that we do for local youth after school
summer camps spring break camps etc um are there still things looking forward i mean what what else is happening you just built a building and the answer is actually a lot is happening um uh over to the right in um on the lower part obviously you
recognize that green building um this spring we'll be installing two more solar arrays one which will cover the western part of the green building and one that'll be on top of the new building my understanding is we will be the largest producer of solar electricity in the in Grand Marray i I
think this is correct mike maybe can correct me but I'm my understanding is we're going to break the 40 kilowatt um threshold which is pretty cool shane's working with us on that um also as many people may know to the right in the upper side um that's the intern space
the interns now live in the western part of the green building we've expanded our program to five people um and this how do we meet future makers how do we grow future staff how do we find future Cook County community members turns out the North House program is one of them um
but we're also remodeling the eastern side of the building now for instructor lodging because where do instructors live while they're on campus teaching and the answer is not enough room upstairs in the fish house anymore so we need a little bit more space and this
week is our instructor retreat 70 of our 160 artisans 70 of them will be on campus this week for coursework professional development uh I know of no other gathering like this in the nation how many how often you'd have 70
blacksmith to sausage makers to weavers all in the same place doing professional development it's it's almost unheard of so um I think this was in your packet but I want to confirm um if you want to look at the numbers we're happy to do so
um we've exited the 2024 in a really strong financial position we've paid for all of our construction with cash um that's pretty good for your balance sheet you can see growth in pretty much every area on the left side and you can see obviously uh increases in expenses
of course um but most of that increase in expense is centered in the realm of programming which is the core of our mission the core of our work um obviously just want to make sure and also in the packet performance criteria part of what we promised to do for you
is run a great organization financially we promised to grow for you that was one of the things you asked us to do and we promised to take good care of campus our guess is we may be invested about a million dollars in the campus space we rent from you and those
are assets just to confirm that you own and that we care for so um if you're curious the only other thing we included in the um in the packet was history of student
days o since before the pandemic and spanning this p the p uh into the present year so how does this graph work um the graph below shows you the number of student days in each month for over a series of years a student day is the
number of days any single student is in class so student one day one student in a three-day class is three student days three students in a one-day class is three student days very good Kelly
i'm proud i'm gonna Absolutely so so for instance 591 student days in January of 2025 isn't three students in a one-day class that's a lot more than three
students right and so up above is the graphic representation and you can see it reads the blue bar on the left is our goal for 2025 the next bar in red is the
actual and then gold is actual 24 green is actual 23 right and you can see can you see the pandemic right there in the middle the drop off absolutely have we returned to levels at or above
2019 yes you know we're past the pandemic we're very strong last year when um there was no snow that didn't make a difference at North House we had waiting lists this year when the Canadian visitors are less
you know there's some some friction there right um we're really strong so I don't I'm sorry I don't have the 24 March 25 March numbers in there but I think the core thing is um fiscal strength programmatic strength uh taking care of the facility we like to think
we're doing good work just like you asked us to um so we're here also for questions i tried to do that fast hopefully not too fast but also hopefully not too slow um questions or needs that we can
address for you otherwise no just Okay I have just um one one comment just to kind of double check on because as you know I've taken the Zillian courses over
many years and one thing that I know you do very very well always as a great welcoming to everyone who comes there and you also provide really good information for guests and students about what to expect around North House and in our community at
So I'm guessing you do this already but with the concern we have around parking in that whole area between all the various businesses and everything in this it's an area we never envisioned would ever grow like this but it really has right like who knew there's lots going on right in there and
Highway 61 clearly did not totally as you worked hard to as well fix our parking and traffic issues so my only question is then getting back this so when you write up those nice sheets and let everyone know are you making sure that all your guests are aware that
there is no overnight parking during our winter season on Highway 61 and the First Avenue or Fifth Avenue from First Down that the county asked us to make sure there was no parking on during the winter as well that everyone knows they
shouldn't be parking there as so that's my only ask and and the simple answer is we regularly communicate with all of our students in advance in multiple ways um we for instance will often have signage on our front doors confirming
please don't park on Fifth Avenue West um uh you know having said all of this um um did I witness a car totally buried in the snow on Highway 61 after the last blizzard i sure did and I was glad I wasn't shoveling that car out but
somebody was i don't I don't I don't believe that happens all that often um um we can we'll try harder to make sure people get the message i think it's a Yeah so well and I just figured because I knew you did that you know for for
that's why I say taking person took classes i knew that that was a thing you're really good about is letting everyone know about the community and your things so I figured that you were just wanted to double check yeah um because it's a change yes yeah and pedestrian traffic I mean is another the
safety of that corridor is another real key thing mike and I have talked about it we've talked with Robbie um as well you know so the you know how do we how do we make sure that space is as safe as it can be is another key question yeah anything to add
not not directly related to that i just told Greg at the beginning when we were talking that we keep saying that our new building came in on time on budget and on target and if he says it in the report you received what what do we mean by on
target but it just means like this building it got all the things in it that we wanted it to the replacement classrooms but which are much much nicer than what we had before and the store space and the elevator that gets people
easily down to the rest of the campus and bathrooms so that's the target absolutely thanks for having us thank you thank you guys thanks all right yeah thanks a lot thanks for the treats yeah appreciate it
there's more okay stop sharing right Patrick stop sharing sell those at the store these are from Crosby Bakery just to confirm a store a store we do sell them at our store too
so are those lights on a timer yeah okay in the hall all the lights except in here are they motion yeah cool all right so next
up is the Heights Development Agreement okay yeah so a little brief memo in your packet so for those paying attention at home we're doing a development agreement with the Heights for a few reasons there are
some improvements that they're making that are in the public space and that are really designed for potentially more than just this phase one owner and so we want to make sure that those improvements are sufficient for that purpose they're also making some
improvements that are planning on living in our public space in perpetuity like the storm water pond is the best example of that which we're going to need to establish a relationship of who's going to be maintaining which you'll see that agreement in the near future so we have
this development agreement this is the template that we use for you'll see it typically subdivisions that are building new streets and utilities it's really the same deal with the same terms other than the ones that aren't relevant to this so it's a little bit stripped down but otherwise the same as the ones that
you've recently seen um all the terms are agreeable to the developer and to us we just heard from the last party about that a couple hours ago that everything's good to go so if you wouldn't mind please approve the attached
agreement if you do we'll get the signatures in within the next couple days or week get it recorded and maybe you want to tell us a little bit about your construction schedule you do that on purpose thank you
Mike we are prepared to start any time and in fact if we hadn't had the snowfall last Wednesday we might have already started uh it's just a question of getting equipment up and on the site and and moving so um we intend to have a
groundbreaking ceremony um some we will already have started construction and then but then we'll have a groundbreaking ceremony sometime in May to late May maybe tying in with the event you talked about a moment ago Madame Mayor um just because a lot of
people will be in town for that so um any at any rate uh our plans are being approved at this moment by the state of Minnesota they they have to be reviewed and since there is no building inspector here the state does that for apartments
so that that is underway and some back and forth that has gone and we um made some adjustments based on their comments uh targeting that our time in the factory remember this is a modular construction and so booking time in the factory is really critical and we are
booked um and we may be able to accelerate that timetable by a couple of weeks the way things are going at this moment also so there's going to be a flurry of activity and you're going to see a big building there sometime in in June or the beginning of July and then
it's just a matter of how fast we can button it up and get it open um we will begin marketing the the the the project we've been very quiet with it so far simply because there's been so many other things going on but um Monday we
have we launch our marketing efforts with a with a major meeting with all the the the players and we will refine that program and it you'll start seeing seeing noise um which will be let's change the word
noise to music and it it should be very exciting and uh we're looking forward we know the competitive project is doing extraordinarily well um they are actually we had projections for absorption they are surpassing the
projections that we had um meaning you know they're they're doing well they're going to open up practically 100% full uh they'll be very close to that number which is good because that gets them out of the way for us and and uh and there is demand i mean the the study that the
the county did back in 2022 is um is still very valid i mean we these two projects together do not meet the demand so um our project we're we're looking forward to being a very very competitive alter alter alternative
project in town and um again this there will be people moving in this year so right any questions further okay all right we thank everybody on the city council for your your help over the long period that
this has been developing and you know you know I I I've said this many times we've never received any real obstacles from from anybody in town um in including city city hall uh you guys have always been supportive and uh you
have ways you want things done that's fine uh we're we're meeting those those uh requests and requirements and you're not putting up anything that that's an obstacle to us so just a long hard process to get here
but Mike and I have finally got here ready to go so thank you thank you yeah well this is quite a deal as you know Greg said North House has put up a brand new building and the city hall i mean there's just been a lot of new things going on in our
community and it's not something we're used to managing from a city as you know all these bigger projects it's a lot there to do so it's a big learning all the way around but a lot of lot of change and positive one
I would like to motion to approve the heights development agreement as presented second I'll second all right any further questions or comments anything from Craig no
i'll take a roll call vote then uh hi hi hi ben hi greg hi that is unanimous oh yes
just trying to make sure I didn't cough at the wrong moment all right all right we're all set then for this evening we'll move on to council and staff reports uh Craig would you like to go first
uh yeah that's fine we had a uh park board meeting April when was that second first second um we had discussions uh uh reservations are tracking up upwards
they were back behind a little bit last month but this month they're tracking upwards we're seeing um people booking reservations that that are actually staying longer which is kind of nice um we also had a discussion talking about uh doing improvements on bath house 3
and looking at that area where the recall sits and what we may um talk about what we what the need that recall renovation might be um and so there's going to be some um talking with
LHB designer on the bath house anyway moving forward and then Tracy came to our meeting and Mayor Benson came and met with us and we talked about the the barcord's role in reviewing proposals um for public art
things like that that comes before us to be put in place on city land and um I think a big help a big help that's come out of the public art with working with the CEC is the fact that we now
have a a public art policy and an application process so if anybody's coming who wants to place art on city land or or or park land um they have an application that they can fill out and that'll help
um get the project moving instead of um the way it was handled in the past where sometimes you know it can get pushed back to the city back to the park board back and forth this way we have an application
that states out and lists out um how the process is going to be achieved in order to accomplish that so it was good to have that discussion and also I think the park court will have some more discussions on what more role we can
play in helping that process be um worthable with the CC and and and also the city itself um uh let's see i think that's uh pretty much everything we had on the agenda i didn't have a golf report this
month so we'll wait for the snow to melt that's all I have all right thanks Ben i didn't have anything we didn't know um planning and zoning we haven't met we'll start this next week
yeah okay all right bill I have nothing must be April michael I have one thing from the library board which we met um much of that you guys probably saw on the update
from the library but uh one thing we were discussing is uh putting in cameras um it had been recommended that we have those for safety and we got a couple of bids they were expensive um and we
really didn't have that in our budget so we um asked Amanda to look for some other alternatives so maybe we'll still have it uh happen yet this year but we're just going to wait and see if we can get a a
price we can afford so that was So we didn't end up doing it it was kind of there could have done it but the numbers didn't just pan out we couldn't afford it so we still want to do it we understand that it's you know a basic safety thing nowadays to have cameras
and so we're still pursuing it but Sure we'll see what happens hopefully we'll get another broaden your net maybe he'll Yeah i mean it what we're what we're really doing is going to ask Mr hour if he had any ideas about something he might be able to put together for us
sure that he would also be willing to then you know be you know be the maintenance person for as well got it so that's kind of our hope is that maybe that'll work out but we'll see okay cool all right
um so just to touch again on what Craig said I went to the park board and I talked to Dave Tierig beforehand and I said I think I that the city council and maybe it starts with the HR committee um
a little bit broader conversation about the various boards we have because they serve a very important function they all operate a little differently and different roles and responsibilities but maybe we should kind of just take a broad fresh look at all of them and um I
thought this was a great time with with how all that went with the last art uh project but just really at a broader look and because that board in particular really they run they help run a major business operation um they have
a lot on their plate i would love to get some feedback from them about their what how they feel about their roles and responsibilities on their board just to kind of start thinking about all of that i would like to reach out to other communities and get an idea about how
they operate their various boards um but I thought this was a a good first step just to gather information so I just presented that and since Dave had put the art policy on there then I handed that out to them and we talked a little bit about it um and about this last
process but I said "Please read this and absorb it and then we can talk about it another time rather than trying to read something for the first time because I was unaware that that had never been shared with them." And we approved that several months ago but it didn't reach them so I thought you need time to
absorb this and then if you want me to come back another time we can you know talk it through or whatever so anyways that I thought was really good and I you know they made some really great comments it didn't even dawn on me even that night that like some light bulbs
went on for me to think about so it was a good meeting um we had an East Bay um project update meeting shane called for us uh because with um the uncertainty at the federal level we
weren't sure where we sat with the Army Corps of Engineers on that work we were ready we had our finances lined up we've been awarded a coastal grant as well to help with those that funding for the design work and to get get those um
guess they're meters i don't know what you call the systems they were going to check and monitor all the wave action for you know the winter months anyway so and that's on the East Bay yep that's for the East Bay and um their funding at the Army Corps what they have available
now has already been allocated and they have no certainty about what's coming their way in the future and hopefully plan to know by October if they'll have dollars for us again and the coastal grant program said that our grant is
secure they can wait um to see where we sit with that so that was good news in the meantime Shane will um we were just about ready to finalize the so with them so we'll still want to get that finalized and then between Shane and
Stephen Janice is his role as county soil and water keep that front of mind with everyone from the Army Corps and along with the DNR because they're very supportive of this project and one of those gentlemen was actually on the board that approved that grant for us so
we have a lot of support for this project but like so many things right now we just don't know where the money sits and it's been really nice to have Margaret Watkins and Krishna um Warhardy with us from Graham Portage because of their expertise about water so they've
been great to have at the table for us too super helpful and we hope in turn that this will be helpful for them because they have a lot of projects up at Portage in the harbor too that they're they're trying to figure out they've had a lot of the same erosion and storm issues so hopefully all the
way around this ends up being beneficial for everyone um just as Oh and of course one more time opening on the PUC board just want to say that publicly to anyone out there who's joining us this evening you could use another member on the PUC board and
then finally maybe speaking of all of our potential new rental properties did anybody read the NPR story today about especially in rural Minnesota the problems with rental uh properties when you don't have always the you know the
employee and staff time or inspection processes in place to monitor apartment buildings now granted we're going to have brand new apartment buildings we've never had them before and we are going to probably have more and so it's a topic I thought maybe we'd want to talk
about at a work session how do we keep track of those and we already know kind of what happened with Birchwood so we know things can happen a mess um so when everything's new and shiny you're not thinking about it but it might be worth some conversation for us so I can send a
link to that article to Patrick if you want if you want to read it but um it has several different communities and where they're at biji was one of them to read about so just food for thought that might be a future topic conversation okay that's all I had mike well it's
been a while since we've talked about building inspections the actual factual building code inspections but it seems like that's where that conversation might creep into a little bit so I'm surprised it's been a while seems like that's something that creeps up every
couple years and we've taken six or seven off since we really had a in-depth conversation about it uh I'm glad you updated us on the East Bay i was going to mention that if you didn't I'll just mention a couple other things um the county is going to meet with us tomorrow
with some preliminary planning for their law enforcement center project and I just want to say thank you county for reaching out to us early on in your project to try and understand what our approval processes are and to look at our policies like for instance dark sky
or our sustainability programs or everything else it's really a good idea um on their part to reach out i appreciate it and we'll try to be as helpful as we can with them and then I'm meeting with Jeff Bran the H director tomorrow to talk with him about how to
move forward on the next apartment project if you'll recall we are going to be involved in another potential apartment project on the property that's adjacent to our public works garage so Jeff and I will be figuring out how best to get that
back on your agenda and continue the conversation so they heard from the architect the he's had conversations with the developer and so it seems like it's time to get that back on so perhaps uh that' be a topic for your next work session in a couple weeks
uh if if we've got a lot to talk about um otherwise we'll just get it on a regular agenda if there's some information we can share and action that's required to move forward okay and uh thanks a lot for the new building
i I think this is working out just how we had hoped tomorrow we'll have um our first outside group that's in here organizing a meeting uhhuh starting to fill up of course we've been asked what our policy is and we don't have one
yet for how to reserve this space but we're working on that we're just figuring out how to operate it so uh lastly a big thanks to Patrick for a lot of hard work last week when the AV was installed in this room and you know
it seems like it's working out pretty well so hopefully for the folks that are watching this on live stream it's also a good production was really one of the things we wanted to focus on with this space was making sure that this meeting was something that would be professional
would be available uh for folks to come in but also for folks who want to watch on the live stream so look for feedback on that but once again thanks Patrick for all the extra work thanks Patrick we're all set is that it wow
first meeting complete check more cookies and brownies well thanks everyone all right great thank you have a good evening everyone good evening thanks Craig thanks Chris i have I have one question before you go
which is is it still possible to open the outside door so that I can hear the seagulls [Laughter] cuz I I I honestly it reminds me of home i loved I always loved hearing the seagulls so thank you i don't think I
remember i think we need to we need we need to install a live we need to install a live cam on the building there we go people can log in see the seagulls circulating cam have a good night put them on top all the street lights on top
of our beer can sign oh it just gets better i'm still waiting for that