All right. Okay. Time is 6:35. With us tonight is Ben Peters, Bill Loves, myself, Patrick Knight, Mike Roth, and Kim Van Beck, along with attorney Chris Hood. And
that's it online, right? All right. So, with that, we are just making our quorum. Uh, open forum. Is anyone here this evening for open forum?
And with that, I'm going to close open forum. Move on to the consent agenda. Would anyone like to pass? Motion to approve the consent agenda. Thank you. I'll second that. All right. Any questions around hires or
the fireworks permit or anything? No. All right. Uh all u in favor of the consent agenda. I I I Okay, with that we're done with consent agenda.
Um next up our uh renewal of our liability uh insurance. That's me. That's you with your own special chair in mind. Nice. Very nice. You haven't been in our new I haven't facility
yet, but it's very nice. It's a very nice uh conference room. Mhm. The building's just beautiful. Turned out I know it was a long time coming. It took a while to get things done and
few issues here and there, but it uh I kind of saw where when there was a big hole and it was really muddy in the spring. And now it's it's a beautiful building. So congratulations on that. That's very
nice. My name is Bob Cummings. I'm a manager at Security State Insurance. Um we have an office here in Grammar and our home office is in Aken. Uh we have an office in Moose Lake and and Isisles.
Uh so a few branch offices. Um I don't know if you all uh had an opportunity to look at the summary, a renewal summary. Um but this will kind of highlight some of the uh the different lines of insurance that we
ensure on this package and uh we can certainly discuss that. And then there were a couple of options I wanted to uh at least bring bring to your attention and and have a discussion. and I'm here to um you know answer any questions that you might have
and and and any discussion that we might have from that. Um we we go to the League of Minnesota Cities. I went back and I actually printed off some loss history um just to see how long we go back and I think it goes the loss
history goes back to 1986 uh with the League of Minnesota Cities. So it was I was I thought that was interesting that they'd go back that far. We've had very good loss uh um experience. I think the
last major one I think was uh in 2021 I think we had the library with some flooding um and that was substantial but nothing um earthshattering there. But in general uh you can kind of view this as
a very comprehensive almost like your homeowners insurance. It's it's got all kinds of bells and whistles and it's it's just a larger scale. Um uh we go through a a renewal process and Kim uh
does a nice job on doing a lot of that uh footwork on the renewal process. It's an application process online. Um this year we made some changes taking a few of the property coverages off. We're kind of in transition from a
rental uh the liquor store rental uh to the new liquor store and the new uh city hall here. So um few uh just a few minor changes on the buildings. We did add this building on once it was completed. So that's uh you're going to see a
increase in your property premium and the majority of it's from adding the the uh new city hall on. Uh we also they also requested that we bump up the value on the um
uh the power plant location. So, uh, a couple years ago, we had HCA, uh, um, a company that they use to do appraisals, and they'll come through, I believe it's every seven years, and they
do appraisals on all your buildings, and that's what they did a couple years ago here, is they appraise all of our buildings. We found a couple of structures that we needed to add on, but uh we we adjust the values to what their recommendations are and that way we
don't have a problem with any claims being uh short on uh value and and any penalties that we may have on a claim. We just uh take their recommendations and that's what we did. So, uh, we we bumped we had about two $2 million onto
that power plant building, and that was a letter that went out earlier, um, couple months ago regarding that. Um, so, uh, all in all, that property premium is up.
Um, I think we've added 8 to10 million of property onto the, um, schedule, which uh, bump that premium up. Overall, the the rates are down uh about 8% on the property and on the liability.
The liabilities premium is down a couple thousand dollar. And part of it due to that 8% rate decrease, but also due to an experience modification. And the league actually develops a modification
for individual cities and how their claims experience uh uh should affect their premium. So because we haven't had many claims, um our our modification is a is a positive. We're getting a credit for that. So that's part of the reason why
the municipal liability premiums are down. Um auto premiums uh pretty flat uh compared to last year. We haven't had many changes in auto. some of the coverages on some of the lesser value uh vehicles
I think we took off last year and uh um uh we have a $20,000 deductible and that's kind of across the board. So the property the the mobile mobile equipment and the auto we have a $20,000
deductible. So it doesn't make sense to insure vehicles that aren't uh don't have substantial value. Um, we also have a mobile property uh coverage uh and that's up a little bit in price as well. Um, we have a $250,000
blanket limit on mobile property. So, unless we have a piece of equipment that's in excess of that, uh, there's no need to schedule any mobile property, it's covered in the blanket. Um,
I guess there could be an a situation where there all the mobile equipment is parked in uh the shop and that could create an exposure, but we have a blanket of uh property coverage as well on the contents of uh
uh so there there are provisions in the policy that's going to be able to accommodate us if we have a like a catastrophic loss in that situation. So, um, crime, uh, we have a $250,000 crime, uh,
uh, coverage, and that's mostly, uh, for, um, people handling money, uh, uh, internal, uh, crime. So, that's kind of like uh, your bond on those people.
Um, we also have a $300,000 bond. So, uh, that covers, uh, people managing money at, uh, the relief association. I don't know if the fire department is still has a relief association or if they go through PAR.
Uh, is that where their funds are? So, um, there isn't a huge exposure there. Uh there's not too much money being handled, but mostly for internal uh uh people managing money.
Uh we also have a liquor liability policy for the liquor store and uh um that limit is a million dollar limit. It's separate from the municipal liability. It's a separate coverage alto together.
Our municipal liability limit is $2 million per occurrence in a $3 million aggregate. Um, our liquor liability is a million. Our auto liability is $500,000 per current and a million dollar $1.5
million aggregate. And the reason why those limits are are different is um an auto accident primarily is going to be a tort liability.
Uh and Chris probably can uh help me. I'm not an attorney and I I didn't stay at a holiday express last night, but um uh we municipalities have a tort liability limit uh and it's 500,000. we
chose that uh to wave that um uh or not to wave that limit. So, we are only liable up to $500,000 uh per person for a tort liability and 1.5 per occurrence.
So, um there are some uh protections there for municipalities. Um we did uh on the back side you'll see where we did quote an excess liability with liquor and that uh is a million dollar of
excess liability coverage and that premium is uh $6,613. Um I um we ensure um several other municipalities and some some municipalities buy that excess liability, some of them don't. I
normally recommend that uh excess liability um especially those uh um uh municipalities with the police force or um
some other authorities like that. Um because u um my understanding is that uh a civil suit or a suit that uh for um police brutality or uh
employment related practices type suits like uh wrongful termination, sexual harassment. Those are not tort liabilities. And please correct me, Chris, if I'm wrong, but uh uh you could
be sued for more than your limits with those types of suits. Um uh um uh ADA type suits uh um could could also
exceed your liability limits. So those are the reasons why people would consider or municipalities would consider uh an excess liability policy. Any questions on that? Um
I was not specifically what you just spoke about but one of the line items was fireworks. Where do we get that coverage or how does that fall in? We can we provide that coverage through the league and uh that is something that we have to
uh submit an application for each time. Each time okay which I'm familiar with that it's just it's you know on your on your column to the right it just says not covered. So that kind of alerts me like okay but I see what you're saying instead it's just each application
it's not it's not covered right at this moment. Uh I think you have a a display in at Christmas time or in December. Actually three alto together. Three. Yeah. Yeah. And we usually in Yep. And each one usually takes a
separate application. It's really simple onepage application. and they want a certificate from your pyrochnic uh supplier and then they uh issue the coverage and it's a separate coverage and and it does
provide that $2 million of uh coverage per occurrence on that. I believe the cost is about $250 per event. So, it's pretty pretty reasonable. I I see those each time. It just caught me. It's just the way it lists out. So, but now I get it. That's just separate
to each time. Yeah. Okay. Um also the liquor liability that limit is u a million dollars. So the uh excess liability um policy would cover a
million dollars in excess on the liquor. And um you don't have a you have a bottle shop or off sale, but I don't believe you have on sale. We do have some at the golf course. Yes. Offset. on sale at the golf course.
So, there's some exposure there that um I just want everyone to be aware of that um that we could help uh with that umbrella. So, um the other the other uh option was
equipment breakdown. We've kind of visited this also every year and um this does not include the power plant. Uh I think the last time we quoted the uh equipment breakdown coverage on the power plant is like $40,000
for the coverage and it it just seemed uh very excessive for what we we uh um do or what uh how that operates. Um, I don't with a $20,000 deductible, I
don't see a huge exposure for you here. Um, with equipment breakdown, you may have a cooler go out in your uh in your off sale, which could cost you some money or some spoiled product or
I don't know, maybe you just have to have a big party or something. I don't know. But that that would be an exposure. phone systems, computer systems, um uh something that uh you're you're not um something that's going to
interrupt your revenue source or something like that is not very likely um other than the power plant. So, um I I I unless you know someone has some
questions or some issues that of concern, I I don't I don't see the benefit of of uh spending $4,300 for the equipment breakdown, especially with a $20,000 deductible.
So, uh, you know, as far as the property rates go, I think I think the rates are still really good. We're insuring uh almost $50 million in property for $58,000 in premium.
So it uh it uh it's about a 10 cent rate which is very um especially with the larger um expansive metal roofs now the insurance companies are really struggling with
that. Um and that that reminds me to bring this up. Um, I should mention also that they do have a cosmetic a cosmetic exclusion or not an exclusion, but a a co- insurance on a metal roofs. So, they
charge if you have hail damage on one of your metal roofs and there's um uh it's just cosmetic. It's not uh leaking. It's not a material type damage. they charge
30% to replace that roof um on metal roofs for cosmetic damage. So that uh that's been new for a couple years now. And uh
um for some municipalities that's kind of a big deal because there's a lot of metal roofs and and you you have you have metal roofs also, but it's a co-pay. It's a 30% for aesthetic. uh u repairs. Um
there's some limitations on vacant buildings, too. And I I don't believe you have any vacant buildings, but there are some municipalities out there with buildings that don't get used and they're vacant. So, there's some limitations on those. But other than that, um the only other thing
that I wanted to mention again is the cannabis uh sales. Um the the liquor liability includes uh low potency cannabis. Um nothing high potent. Uh it's just uh that's not they're not able to provide
that coverage at this time. So any questions? Thanks Bob. Yeah. uh any uh discussion on the umbrella policy or is that would that be something that you'd want to discuss later and uh we can always issue that uh
if if the council decides that they want to purchase that. Um but I know it's it's it's extra money. It's $6,600 and comparatively speaking, uh, it's about 50% of of your general
liability premium. Uh, but it does include, uh, that excess on the liquor liability as well and auto liability. So, it covers all of those liabilities. Okay. Well, we can take that up at a work session.
Yeah, take it up. And if you have any questions, Kim, you can shoot me an email. I can answer any questions that you might have and if you're interested just let me know. All right. Okay. Thanks a lot. Thank you. Thank you for the time. Next up, our urban forest management
plan. Shane All right, let me join the meeting and share my screen here. [Applause] All right. So, thanks for having me to talk about the
urban forestry management plan. Um, just a a like brief background on what we've done here. the the city got a grant to do some tree removals and replacements
from the relief program from the DNR. We didn't get the funding for the tree removals. We got funding for writing an urban forest management plan. We contracted with EO who did our storm water plan to do the the forest plan.
And then um we seated the tree board. Three members are Sarah Waddle, Scott Milhof, and Bill. And EO worked with us for the last uh about year and a half to come up with
this plan, this draft of the plan. and uh they started with uh uh inventory of the trees in the city and then we moved into kind of making goals for the plan and coming up with actions and stuff like that. Um,
interesting things from their their inventory. They found 50 species of trees in Grand Marray. Most common species was white spruce. There's 20% of our trees are white spruce. And then red pine, birch, aspen, and maple. Uh, 90%
of the trees are in great shape, good health. And and also 90% of the trees are pretty young. They're they're not uh saplings, but they're, you know, less than 18 in um
diameter at breast height. Um 87% of spruces have spruce budworm defoliation on them. Uh so 20% of all trees are spruces and 87%
are getting eaten by spruce budworm. um 84 conflicts of trees and structures and half of those are overhead wires. And then EO's uh inventory, they projected that we'll
lose 1,900 trees in the next two or in the next 10 years. So that's across the whole map, right? Their whole area. Yeah, they they they did some, you know, some some um like
actually hands-on trees in in the areas where we have like prominent trees and then like the Sawtooth Bluff area, they just did some like remote sensing stuff to try to determine the the tree um like health up there.
So yeah, you only got this plan on Friday, right? the draft and it's like 60 pages or something like that. So, I did suggest just a couple of sections to to read. Um, but hopefully these slides
can give you like a an easy introduction into what's all in the plan because EO they're very complete. They they they uh they go in depth into all of this stuff. Um,
this graph is just a a way to show the pink lines are how many trees we should have at those different ages and the blue is what we have. So, we don't
have enough young young trees and old trees, but we do have plenty or more than more than we would need of of the like middle age, middle young trees. And so as those trees age, hopefully they
would they would become older trees and we could get a get a more even distribution. Uh but right now it's it's a little bit off. Or you could look at it and say we've got, you know, just a few old trees and lots of young trees to
fill in. Other things they found were um you know trees over 50 feet tall and near buildings. We have um quite a few instances where there's potential for trees to fall in buildings or damage structures. And so they they
had an eye for that because they knew that when we applied for the grant, we were specifically looking at trying to help address that issue. And so they tried to catalog that for us. Um so in the plan it's broken down into
different areas of the city. So we have downtown and highway 61. We have the residential areas um the private property kind of residential streets and then the all the public property campground and and other
public areas. And then the two large forest stands they talk about are Sawtooth Bluff and Sweetheart's Bluff in the campground. What's the When it says tree stand that's purple, what do they mean by that?
Yeah. So, in the original version of this map, they called those wood lots, which were just those are public parcels that have trees on them that aren't that haven't been planted.
They're just there from from before the property was even developed. So, it's showing that most purpley spot is the um the public works garage before it was developed. Now, there's almost no trees on that property, but
well, there are some kind of right as you drive in, but um yeah, it's just it's not raw land cuz it's been developed, but there's trees there that nobody planted them. They're just there. They're just they exist.
Okay. So the plans goals and this was kind of e and the tree board we came up with uh number one no net canopy loss of trees in the city.
Um, and that kind of ties in with goal six is if one of our goals in the plan is to help people remove trees from their property that could be hazardous, then let's replace those trees with something because people people either
have a few trees in their property or maybe just one or two. They may have a lot of trees on their property, but um if we're going to take a tree, let's replace a tree. And then goal two, increase the canopy by 10%. And I think that goal also ties
in with um goal four, which is increase the diversity of the city's forest. So we have trees that are susceptible, for example, spruce budworm right now is is an easy one to pick on. Um lots of spruces susceptible to spruce budworm.
Nobody maybe planted those trees, but they just kind of pop up and they grow really well here. Um, but lots of them are aging out. And so if we can plant trees that are going to be resilient to whatever hazards um are are common in
the urban forest setting. If we're going to plant trees, let's plant those kinds of trees. Um, new trees planted in the downtown area. That also ties in with that. um goal number six or uh goal number four, but also I
think it ties into goal number seven to have maintenance protocols and planting uh protocols for for our trees so that we're not randomly planting trees that are going to get taken out by by Lenny's snowplow or by uh you know excessive
salt on a sidewalk or something. something, a tree that gets planted should be able to withstand, you know, in the downtown area especially. It's not a it's not a normal place for a tree to grow. So, have it be a tree that can
handle that environment. Um I also note that to not lose canopy we need to plant 200 trees a year but then also to grow the canopy by 10% we need to plant 200 trees per year.
So 400 trees per year that's a big number. Is some of that still going into the hillside or are we still talking within sort of the city proper? Yeah, I should note I didn't even mention number five is talking about those large forest stands, the Sawtooth
Bluff and the Sweethearts Bluff. And in the plan, there's not a lot there for those stands because one, the Sweethearts Bluff is kind of a like not we're not we're not specifically
managing it. We're just letting it be. And then Sawtooth Bluff has, you know, there's the Sawtooth Bluff plan that the countyy's trying to develop. And so it doesn't seem like a good idea to be doing lots up there when there could be
there could be other things happening up there in the future. So I just say with a light touch like there it's in the plan. There's not a lot in there. So when you see yeah 400 trees that's mostly in the residential areas and then just a few down here in the in the
downtown area but yeah mostly residential. Okay. Um, getting to the costs in the plan, it it's it's easy to see there's, you know, 10-year implementation period, um, a million
dollar price tag if we pursue everything that's in the plan. And it's important to note that almost half of that is for tree removal, which is extremely expensive to bring in an arborist and take a tree down so it doesn't hit
someone's property. So like one of the main goals of this grant of this plan is to then go pursue the relief grant again to get the money to help people take the trees out that they don't want to have fall in their house.
And then the other 40% of the of the cost is maintaining trees and planting trees and helping people plant trees in on their property. But then also big trees
are bigger trees are more expensive more expensive to plant. And then there's a few other things associated with, you know, code updates and and education and outreach for for people so that they understand how to care for trees if we're going to give them a tree to
plant. I noticed in the back your schedule of grant sources, there were a variety and we we've been focused on the relief grant, but I noticed there were other ones you listed. Yeah, EO found some grant opportunities for us to pursue to
to achieve some of these goals. Yeah, the maintenance costs are a challenge to really nail down exactly how much it's going to cost to care for all these trees. Um, so it's a it's like a educated best guess based on how much
time is spent caring for some some small trees or some some young trees in a campground and then how much would that cost to to care for for trees that were planted throughout uh the city on public property? Does the campground
when think of all the different campsites, is that sort of a plan to get them more treated or more separation between campers that way? And it's not separation, but guess it's like privacy between them or
how does that land? It's more just in the general open area of the campground. Yeah, the trees in the in the campsite areas themselves are already pretty constraining. Mhm. So, I think we would probably look at manage remove some and replace some, but
I don't think that we're going to look at adding a lot in and amongst the campsites. There's quite a bit of other property in the wreck park though that we do look and have planted quite a few trees on. Okay.
Younger trees are good. I mean down there I mean you start looking at older trees and you start looking at risk of these trees falling on campers and those kinds of things too. So that's the other issue of lots of trees in a
campground. Yeah. You know quality of them is is a big thing. Yeah. And then just trying to break down the cost of planting 200 trees or 400 trees
a year. Uh and helping people um replace trees if we're taking trees out. Um you know, you can see the numbers there. the the costs are higher for the boulevard trees because we would anticipate planting
bigger trees in the boulevard areas, the prominent public areas where we would plant 25 trees. Um, and then yeah, planting smaller trees in people's yards and then they would take on the the maintenance of those trees.
So some of those you present as a cost share and I can remember that part of that relief grant were would cover those. Yeah. So the the specifics of the grant you know we when we applied for the
grant we asked for $300,000 to do was it 100 trees? I can't remember exactly how many we asked for but it was to replace. So take the tree out and then plant a new tree there. And yeah, the cost the the planting of the
small tree is is a fraction of the removal, right? So, in this illustration, we're saying it's a shared expense, but it would be a matter of reapplying for like the relief grant or one of the other
grants that then would remove some of this cost for the homeowner ones. Okay. Yep. And then a similar chart for maintenance. um bigger number, but also note that most of it, twothirds of it's
coming from hopefully a relief grant to to remove trees and then yeah, maintaining trees in the boulevard and downtown area and and yeah, having that maintenance plan
for our trees that are so prominently, you know, people walk past them every day and they they they note, you know, hey, these trees are I mean, when when Aaron was doing mulching around some of these trees earlier this summer, people were coming into city
hall saying they're not doing it right because he wasn't done yet. You know, he hadn't he hadn't completed the process, but but in the in just a few days that he was doing that, you know, people had noticed and they were telling us, hey, you know, I don't think you're doing this right. You need to, you know, move the mulch away from that. And he just
wasn't done. And so, um, people care and they comment. People care and they comment and they they they show up and ask us, "How come you're not mulching?" Right? So, I think the other important part of that story is this isn't all new money that we're talking about for maintaining
trees. We already have staff time that is dedicated to tree maintenance, but if we're going to plant a lot of new trees that we're maintaining, I would expect that amount to grow. And we don't have a great idea yet of how much that would be, but if we're
planting a few hundred more trees that we're going to take care of could be significant in terms of staff time. Yeah, I think there we're trying to identify that here. 120 trees planted for the highway 61 project like trees trees and so yeah,
adding 25 new trees to that each year for that's hard to even envision. That was good to hear because I would have never guessed that number for Highway 61 was that large even close. Like where are they all? Yeah, there's more than you think if you
if you if you walk the full there's it's like oh there's like three or four just like right right in a row. So yeah, but yeah, it's harder to imagine where 25 more go. Um along along 61 can be
easier, but like if you picture like we looked at tree wells in the downtown area, there's only three that don't have trees in them. Um yeah, one out here. Well, there was one out here. Yeah, there's a few that used to not have trees in them, but they don't exist anymore. I mean, the iron the cast iron grades.
Yeah. Yeah, we've removed a few of those. And one of them is like right at the end of Wisconsin like where you know it just doesn't seem like a great spot for a tree well with all the storms that smash into that in the winter time. So um fake
one or a metal tree or something. Very durable tree. Yeah. Did they stone give a guesstimated number of how many trees? How many total trees? I don't know if they did. They they've
surveyed like individually, 1100 trees on private or on public property in all of, you know, including the campground in all the downtown and Highway 61 area. And then and then they just kind of drove along this the residential streets
looking up and trying to determine kind of the mix of what was growing in in in the residential area. 10% increase in the canopy is 2,000 trees. So that must mean there's 20,000.
Yeah, it's kind of amazing. I mean, it's way bigger numbers than I would have Yeah. thought. How many blocks are there in Grammar? About 100. 100. That's what I thought.
So figure most of those trees are not in the neighborhoods. Most of those trees are up on the hill just from straight up count wise, but we're talking about planting 200 trees in the neighborhood every year, maybe 400 trees in the
neighborhood every year. Another way to think about that is uh there's about a thousand properties in the city, too. So, we're gonna have to put one on every property every two years to
right meet that goal. But there's a lot of trees, too, you can drive around identify that need to be taken down. There's quite a few. Mhm. I've got like six on my property in my backyard just and I can
look down the alley and I can see quite a few. So, so if you factor in those numbers, what we're taking out, what we're putting in. Yeah. The the trees that we take out would be replaced. And probably not a
one to one, but like if we took out six of your trees, maybe we plant 12 trees in your backyard and, you know, three of them end up as adult trees and the rest smaller, whatever. Yeah. Different species. Different species. and and you know as
as time goes on maybe some don't make it but others do and so you hope that eventually some kind of like that distribution graph you have lots of young trees and hopefully a few make it to become adult trees that actually provide some canopy. So, last slide here is is just, you
know, what would we do with the plan if we if this became a city policy is first things first is we'd go right back to relief and say, "All right, we wrote the plan. Can we can we do this? Here's how much money we need." Um, and then the other
thing is we'll do have a a good tree maintenance protocol for for public trees so that any tree we plant, we have a a really good, you know, documented this is this is how we're going to care for that tree so that we're not planting trees and
then letting them be neglected. and then um working with partners to come up with education for and outreach for people who are going to have trees planted on their property. They'll be responsible for caring for them. And so here are the
best practices for how to how to care for those trees. And yeah, it's a lot of watering and and hoping that it rains so that you don't have to water and you know, all that kind of stuff. So it's not it's not something like a a set it and forget it like it's it's it's a
tension for a few years to keep them keep them growing. So, um yeah, I I guess this is the draft first draft or uh or you could see it as kind of like the the tree board's draft and
um you know, we could take comments or we could give you some time to to read through the whole plan and mark it up. Um can ask questions. I did highlight some things. I just want
to page through to see mostly it was just noticing. So what did I've listened to Sarah Waddle give her presentation on spruce budworm but what's the likelihood of all
does that mean most of those are going to go? They certainly be more fire susceptible, right? I mean, at that percentage they what is your percentage again? 87% or I Yeah, like not every tree is going to be
defoliated the same. So, some trees may survive, some trees may die. I if you take the the most drastic point of view it could be that you know we do lose 20% of the trees in Grand Marray in the next five years or something like that and then
we have no well we 20% fewer trees. Yeah. Um and spruces are can be big and tall. A lot of those are the ones that we want to remove and so if they're dead they're more likely to come down.
Um, yeah, overhead wires. I've certainly had some in my neighborhood and by the time they get done pruning them, they don't they're pretty sick looking trees when they're just trying to get them out of the way of the wires. It's It's no longer an attractive tree either way. Um,
I was, this is sort of a subnote, but in with talks about sidewalk damage. I was surprised like um the silver maple they list as a potential tree, but it's just notorious for whatever. I mean, I I read through your list of
what they recommended and didn't. But I noticed they had all the different things, pests, and all the different considerations per tree you would want to think through before you chose to plant it. Anyone else have any questions?
You've got it fully assessed, right? No, but I've heard a lot of it. I mean, part of the process. Okay. Yeah, I I've been trying to put it into the context of the storm water management plan. Um, you know, we have
that plan. We've had it since 2018 written by the same consultants and um we haven't done everything in that plan. It was like here are the things that we really should focus on and what we've done with that plan is we've used it to
go get grant money to address the things that that we can within that plan. But having that plan has been so beneficial in going, you know, just for example, like the the the co-op storm water pond project, like when I go apply for these
grants to get money to do that, I'm always referring to the fact that we have a plan. We we know where we want to be in 10 years or in 15 years or whatever the implementation period is. And the grant providers
like that. They like seeing that we have a plan. And so that's kind of what I see this as too is like the way we've been de been developing is we want to manage the trees in Grand Marray and we're looking ahead to the future 10 years
down the road. How do we want to have managed the forest the urban the urban forest? Well, and I'm assuming that's exactly why we only got half that grant to begin with is they wanted this background stuff before they'd let us take action.
Right. They specifically said, "You don't have a plan, so we're not giving you any money or we're giving you enough money to make a plan and come back." Yeah. Right. And then it looks like other options as well, like you'd listed for other
agencies or organizations, not just the relief grant. Okay. All right. Well, this is super helpful and I really appreciate all your effort in getting that grant and leading that committee and getting them all in place. And you
got a really good group for that. Yeah. Both with good skill sets and knowledge on that. It's been a good group. They're not here tonight, but you know, there were there were some issues with their schedules um and some some things going on. So,
No, hopefully they'll be here at the next one. Yeah. No, I think you guys have done a lot. Moved this quite a quite a ways forward and just help us understand to even where we're at to begin with. So,
that's important. So, yeah. Is that it? All right. Thanks, Shane. Appreciate it. Thanks, Shane. All right. Um, next item is a refresher to the rest of the council on our annual
review process for this year. The HR committee has been meeting and getting with a variety of topics, but one of which is getting ready for the um starting that process again. And one of the things we identified last year was one more time tweaking the timeline for
that. So Mike had a good idea of what he thought would work well this year. So this is the same chart we used last year. Um but Mike's updated the timeline and um has that set everything's happening a little earlier
this year. We we backed the goal up because we're going to be using department head reviews to inform their increases. I wanted to be able to do that so that they would know before the year begins what their increase was going to be. So
that's what the aiming point of the dates. First thing that you'll need to be aware of is your own annual goal conversation happens in early November. And
maybe the next important work date for you is the second mid November. You're providing your feedback for my review. So you'll have some time before the holidays begin to collect your thoughts and report
those in. And then you'll meet in early December to finalize my review. And that'll be the end of your role in this. And the rest of the schedule is about me and the department
heads. Oh, and then we're going to change um the form we you use as well a little bit because this felt a little confusing last year and hard to fill out. So, Roina is tweaking that a little bit, right? The two of you got it. Got it.
So, hopefully that will go a little bit better for the council as well. And um yeah, any questions? Okay, silence is golden, I guess, on that one.
So, that should be good. Um, is there anything else we're doing around this, Ben? Really, to get ready for this specific I'm trying to think in our HR committees if there's anything else. No, no, I don't I don't think you missed anything. I think that's that's this is
helpful. Um, I think maybe one thing that might be helpful in preparation for setting council setting goals would be maybe a some sort of a a recap of what last year's goals were and maybe where we're at on them.
Um so that might get people geared up and thinking about, you know, what do we want to do next year? What do we how does that inform administrators functions next year? So, it's a good idea,
something to think about. All right. Uh, and the other thing is, um, when we when we get those reviews, uh, the administrator like getting those in a timely manner and being, you know, if
you have questions on something, reach out to Rava. She's awesome. She'll get back to you right away if you had a question or needed something. Um that way it can really keep this on track because I think a lot of this is relies on us getting our job done quickly and
efficiently. Um that'll just help out Mike and everybody downstream. So yeah, Rich, it every you know it's the holidays and we re that's another thing that sort of helps is hopefully gets this done before everyone hits that holiday pinch time.
It's just hard. So, we'll line up on that. And now we're in the third year of this. So, hopefully we're getting the swing of it. You don't get enough practice. It takes takes a while. So, okay. Thanks,
Ben. Um, all right. I think that is it then for this evening. We can move on to council and staff reports. Um, Mike, how about you go first and usually swing around to you last. So, guess
what? You go first. I'll be meeting with the county administrator tomorrow for our first official regular monthly meeting. Sweet. Which is nice. Um hopefully she's had a chance to get her feet underneath her and we can start talking about some
of the priority issues that have been under discussion between the city and the county and kind of set aside during their staff transition period. and we can figure out how to pick them up again. So, that'll be nice.
Like our joint powers. That's kind of the biggest ones at the top of the list. Yeah. So, I'm not sure what her awareness is about that yet. We'll just try to figure that out tomorrow. That'll be good. Two weeks from today. Quick reminder. I'm sure you've all got this at the top of your
head. We're getting visited by the House Bonding Committee and then the following day, the Senate Bonding Committee. Really big deal. Lots of planning happening locally about that right now to make sure that we use our brief time
with them as effectively as we can and looking forward to that happening. So we hope if at all possible that is blocked on your calendar. Um, we got name takes coming, but our time is really limited with them. Their
buses, but um, should all be here for that. We're all get it'll be nicely decorated. We'll have a little bit of food and then the same thing the next morning. And that's an even shorter time on Thursday
morning, right? Yeah. Yeah, Thursday morning. So, um, have we sent that? Lind Linda just sent out the got the final confirmation for the Senate, but we need to get that in writing out to everyone here when we're
doing what, where, and whatever. Um, and they'll she sent out a pretty broad invite to the larger community, too, if they wanted to to come that afternoon. Certainly like the county and the EDA and the H. Um,
yeah, all of our close partners like that are invited and hopefully they can come. Our job here is mainly to show support. There's really not a lot of even chance to do a lot of interacting. There won't be any other issues to be
brought up back and forth kind of thing. It's not a 4 hour thing. There's a different time for legislative lunch for our local folks. This is just a say thank you for their coming and make sure that they have all their questions answered about our project and off they
go. Yep. We'll have three slideshows running if they're bored as they're putting food in their mouth and they want to look and see. One will be a larger one about our county in general. One about the wastewater treatment plant. And then another quick one that just shows all of our other harbor and
water related projects and upcoming like the Coast Guard, Boulder Park, East Bay, and a mention of the master park plan for the Rock Park and just showing all the other things we're doing around the lake and the harbor um as well. So if
they can't find anyone else to talk to, they can stare up at the screen. So um yeah, it's a pretty big deal. this they've never we've never had um an instance where both state and I mean the senate and the house come to
the same location. So and they'll be coming from opposite directions. So the house will be heading back up to ele when they're done here and the senate will be coming from ele back down to here the night before. So,
one more quick note. Uh, two of our recent applicants for public hearing issues and one previous one from a few months ago notified us that they are being contacted by scammers who are
trying to get them to pay fees. Uh, it's pretty sophisticated in terms of what's involved. If it was not such a small town, you might even be able to get away with it. but nobody buys it here. However, uh that's just because we've
been lucky so far. So, we're going to be adding into our application process a notification to our applicants that when we publish your ad that says you're having a public hearing, expect about a month later to get an email that's not
from us, that's trying to get you to wire money to somebody for additional fees. got one from you, Tracy, asking for uh iTunes cards or Wow. Yeah. Yeah. I So, I bought a bunch of them and I was
like, well, she needs these, but must be really bad with that Benson nozzle. No, we've gotten some weird ones, too, off one. I've got one. Yeah. And it it went to Lynn actually.
Yeah, it went to Lynn and she was I said I looked at him going that's not from Tracy. Just my favorite one is that um Michael Gary of course had variance not that long ago, right?
And so they sent him this email, dear Mr. Gary. G A R Y. That's how you spell his name. Uh, it's signed by Michael Garary. That's awesome.
G- A R Y, director of the City of Grammar, Planning and Zoning Department, except department is spelled without a T at the end. It's really just like really close. Uh, but not quite. And we're just there's probably not enough of us here
that you can get away with that. But yeah, you know, the things are automated. So, you'd think the one thing they would do is like a spell check because you see those like old funky typos a lot and those weird things you How can you get not get that,
but whatever. Get better at it. Yeah, right. If you want my money, you got to do a better job. It's almost like you're running through spellch check first. Waiting to see. Yeah. Like, are you really reading this?
That's it here. That's it. Really? It's everything. Wow. Okay, Craig. I don't have anything. Nothing for me. Holy smokes. Just wait till January. I have this feeling we need to do a realignment.
Yes, Bill. Um, a there's some issues with progress that has been made versus where they'd like to be and then concern over how much has been spent and how much needs to
be invested to get to where they want to be. That's kind of real basic. Do they still meet regularly? Yeah. Okay. We just met on Thursday. Okay. All right. We'll wait for more,
you think, or Yeah. Yeah. All right. Uh, since we last met, we had our community leadership meeting, which of course all of you are invited to. Um,
and Bobby hosted it up at the new um ferry terminal at Portage. So that was neat to to get inside that building and see all of that. Pretty good turnout and everybody gives their little updates. And that was the new county
administrator's first time with all with the group and leading the group and just some nice updates uh on different projects. You obviously the school wants to talk about their bonding. The hospital talking about you know the potential issues they'll in
front of them. um think anything else really stand out. We talked about our the bonding visit and um they sent out a survey today asking what kind of format and things are of
interest to people and then um next time meeting. So I offered default if no one else you know they can always come here. So we'll see how that goes. The next meeting would be November. uh Northshore Management Board had a
work session then that Friday. We're still working on the plan update. I basically spent several hours after that editing the update. Um and then we're still talking through membership criteria
and um voting members and a few things like that. just really trying to tighten up the board how it operates. Um because their long-term if they want to keep operating well, we've got to start looking at funding sources and grants and things and and
maybe a broader um purpose. It has a very important purpose now and if it's ever relinquished, they'll, you know, it won't come back. It'll be governed by the DNR like all the other rest of the shoreland. Lake Superior's north side is the only one that's set by its own
separate board. So, it's important for them to figure this out in the long term. Um, we had the haz hazard mitigation plan review that's done by my key ports group
through and that goes back through FEMA, right? Am I saying that right? Yeah. And there was a different group running that meeting. Yeah, their their UMD group that's facilitating the rewrite, right? They
they ran the meeting, but that's what it's for. It's for our county's hazard admin, which does it's our shoreline and everything. So, it's definitely in the city of Grand Marray and that's we've already put all our input. Then, was
this the final review? I think maybe this time. I mean this is something that we're always coming back and redoing this plan. So yeah but for this version I think this was our last chance to comment. Yeah. So but yeah it's run by a group out of
UMD is rewriting it. Then I'm um had the opportunity to sit with uh um on the panel with the World Press World Press Institutees journalists that were here for several days and that was really fun
and listened to their questions and describe our community and um all about us. That was great. Um then we met with Stantech for the Boulder Park plan and they're they're
busy. We're meeting with them tomorrow, right, to see what they've got so far. They're just starting to do testing, get assessments going, but at least it's going. The project is no longer just a thought. It's happening. We also met last Friday with the Shipo
architects from Mano and so they're ready to get rolling. I spent a lot of time getting them introduced and connected with different people who have a good history background. Rick Anderson, Stacy Drew Lard. I'm still trying to get a hold of Tim
Cochran. Just O'Brien Tafty, different people that they can start interacting with to start their work. They're going to do a lot of modeling to figure out areas they think might have interesting pieces to them. And so that project is also finally up and running. They'll be
here tomorrow to begin their first drill work for Thursday through Sunday. And if anybody has any extra rooms or openings they're doing camping at the rock park this time, they'll be here till the ground freezes, but they're looking for more affordable places to stay when they're here and they aren't adverse to
camping. When are they Well, they'd be coming and going, you know, I don't know their exact schedules, like into the fall or beyond or Oh, yeah. Until the ground freezes like So, they could go a while. Um,
but then once everything freezes up, then they won't, as far as I know, do right. They wouldn't do anything literally up here. They have other things to do. Yeah. Yeah. Put them put them in contact with me. Okay. Well, I know it's another source um as well. Thank you, Ben.
Um, we had the EDA meeting. We have decided that we will post the executive director's um, position beginning December 15th and run it through the end of January. We didn't felt it would be ineffective to do that over the holiday
time frame by the time it got posted and going and we're okay as for administration right now. And we got it all cleaned up the way we want it and all of that. So, we're good with that. And then the we gave the last grant for
this funding cycle and that went to the Beaver House. It was not the full amount they asked, but it was the the rest of the dollars we had available. And we told them when we get refunded, if you'd like to, you can come back to help that project get started.
And I only have one last thing which gets back to meetings. Um, so once again, our meeting at the end of November falls on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving. Would you like to switch that to Tuesday or another date? Um,
last year I know we did Tuesday. I think Tuesday. Um, does that work better for people? It work better for me, but I'll be gone that week. Okay. So, you end on the whole week. Okay. Tuesday is fine.
Okay. Craig, I have no idea. It's fine. Whatever day. Okay. Let's just plan on Tuesday then to help everybody. Okay. I'm assuming some of staff might want to not be tied up the night before.
Yeah, it be much more convenient. Yeah. Okay, let's shoot for that then. Okay, that's all I had. We're done. Yay. Um, thanks Chris. Thanks Chris. Thank you. Have a good night. Double two.