See this? We're live. >> All right, we're rolling. >> You asked for it. >> Okay, the time is 6:33. With us this evening is city attorney. I'm gonna let the city attorney say his
name so I don't goof it up. >> It's Gavin. >> Gavin. >> Gavin Kio. >> Thank you, Gavin. I also don't have my glasses on so I couldn't read on the screen. uh Kim Van Beck, Mike Roth, Patrick Knight, Michael Garary, Bill Loves, Ben
Peters, and Craig Schulty, and myself. And with that, excuse me, it is time for open forum. Is anyone here for open forum this evening? >> If you'd like to come and you can sit at the chair and just remember to provide
your name. I'm Sherry Fr and I'm here in be on behalf of the American Legion. We would like to have four bingos in January, February, March, April.
Um, upon microphone >> your microphone is being weird. I'm going to swap it out here. >> Nothing to do with you. Nothing to do with me. It's for the auxiliary. >> No, I meant the
>> Yeah. So, I am just here on behalf of them to see if we can get approval to have the bingos. It'll be a familyfriendly from 6:00 to 8 up yonder. It's for a
pro uh nonprofit and just because we lost our fund our place over here, we lost all of our income that we were making from bake sales and bingos there and such.
>> I'm assuming it just requires a an application >> which is in your consent agenda. >> All right, then. Oh, I see it. >> I did turn it in. >> Yep, we have it. All righty. Thank you. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Anyone else here for open forum?
>> All right. Uh and with that then we will move on to the consent agenda. Would anyone like to make a motion for the consent agenda including >> the fire department? >> Fire department. >> Fire department.
>> Fire. Yeah. I just Okay. Those that one's in there. >> What was the other one? And then the >> additional tobacco license was added as well. >> It's there. >> And then some conversation about the uh administrator review. >> Yes. >> Which is on the updated. >> Correct.
>> Oh, so not on this one, but should be on the one on your screen. >> It is. Oh, there it is. I'm sorry. >> Oh, okay. I'm going to also make a motion to move that to to right after
the consent agenda per um attorney request. >> All right, that >> motion to approve the consent agenda. >> I will second. >> All right. Uh all in favor for the consent agenda? I
>> I All right. And with that, consent agenda is finalized. Agenda item evaluation of the performance of city administrator under Minnesota statute 13D.05 subdivision 3A.
On December 3rd, the city council held a closed meeting to evaluate the performance of city administrator Mike Roth. In accordance with governing law at this council meeting, which is the next possible open council meeting following the previous mentioned
meeting, the city council is required to summarize the conclusions of the evaluation reached by the council. As chairperson of the December 3rd meeting, I will now provide a brief summary. Our assessment includes a scoring matrix with the following categories. Overall
leadership meets expectations. Effective communications more as expected. Staff engagement meets expect expectations. Work planning meets expectations. Operational responsibilities. Finance exceeds expectations. Operational
responsibilities. Communications more is expected. Composite score meets expectations. The council would like to thank Mike for his continued service, oversight of city departments, and valued work on city initiatives. And the
council looks forward to a very successful 2026. Thank you. >> And thank you. I appreciate all your feedback and look forward to working with you next year as well. >> All right. And now we can move on to the 2026 budget and levy public hearing.
That is Mike. It is. And I'm a little disappointed. We don't have a lot of people here. Hopefully, they're all sitting at home waiting for the budget and levy presentation. Bowl of popcorn in hand.
>> Yeah, actually that sounds really nice. Other than the budget and levy part, these most of these materials were included in your previous packet, so you got a chance to look at them. Uh we won't bury the lead. We are talking about uh levy increase of 2.99%.
There's a few spreadsheets in here. I won't go into depth on them, but I will cover each of them just so that everybody gets a chance to uh understand all the parts and pieces that we've been working on well most of the year and that we're going to be using next year.
The first spreadsheet's entitled 2026 draft budget summary. It includes a history of our actual expenses by department back in 2020. It includes our approved expense budget in 2025 and our
proposed expense and revenue budgets in 2026. This is the spreadsheet that we figure out how much we need to levy to pay for the things that we intend to do. Uh I'll point out a couple of things. The
wreck park continues to be an excellent source of revenue. It's programmed to bring in $677,000 more in revenue than it spends in expenses in 2026. It's fairly significant. That's slightly more than
half of our levy, which means if we didn't have the rec park, um we would lose that million dollars in expenses, but we'd also lose the 1.68 68 million in revenues and our levy would go up quite a bit. So, thank you for all of the hard work
at the wreck park. Uh the customers appreciate it, the community appreciates it as well. Moving down, um you can see that we have our other not general fund supported um departments
um that that are programmed in here with numbers, but they're not there's no levy associated with the liquor store, the water, sewer, and electric funds. We don't use property taxes to support those operations. As a matter of fact, those operations actually provide support most of the
time for property taxes as well. We'll skip ahead now to the next spreadsheet, historical levy and spending report. This shows how much we have levied and what we spended on the the levy portion anyway. And it shows
what the percent increase is. There's a row called effective tax rate. We have a little bit of a delay on those numbers because that's coming from the county and it's calculated after the fact. But it's important to note that even though
the actual levy is going up, the rate is going down even faster. Um, that's is where it gets really hard to talk to people about property taxes because there's so many factors that go into what you should expect on your actual
property tax bill. You as a city council only have control over one factor which is how much you want to levy. This levy is proposed to be 2.99% higher than last year. That would make it 1,145,181.
Of that 812,000 is being spent on just general operations. And then we have some debt payments that total 332,000 below that. So that's a big change. If you look at the past two years, you can see that both of them are different from
what we're doing this year in terms of the debt levies. And we're going to look at a actual spreadsheet of what our debt payments are are being used for in a second. But in summary, you can see that the amount for the 2013 refunding bond
went down from 89,000 to 29,000 in 2026. It's because the refunding means we refinanced a bunch of different debt packages into one. And some of those original bonds get paid off and we don't have to continue that payment. You can
see that the amount for the city hall went down significantly as well. So the 2025 that's closer to a full debt payment for that. Um and it's almost entirely interest at this point because that I believe that year probably was
entirely interest. But starting in 2026, we have all the departments that are using the facility supporting it. meaning the utilities basically are paying for a significant chunk of the city hall side of the building. So that
makes a big difference in the amount of debt. So that's enough on that page. What's changed since the original uh levy that you preliminarily approved in September? You can see the September amount and then the current amount in
each of the departments in the expense side and then also some revenue changes. There's minor changes on the expense side to then the negative in almost all the departments. That is our assumption of medical insurance going up 10%.
Didn't turn out to be that at all. It didn't go up at all. And so that's the change in all those little pieces in each of those departments. So that's how much 10% of medical insurance costs for our levy supported staff. We have quite a few staff that
work in other departments. So it's not the entirety of our medical insurance costs, but there it is. The special projects line item was not funded in September and we added 15,000 back into it just to use for things like Coast Guard point or erosion control projects
or other things that are ongoing. but we don't really know or have an idea that they're going to happen yet. Just give ourselves a little flexibility. So, the net change is that that um actually just a little bit up the revenues. There's only one department that changed the the
clerk administration revenue line item includes all of our miscellaneous revenue. So, obviously the we don't generate a lot of revenue in the administration department. We don't sell things. We do have permit fees and other things, but most of this it comes from
payments from our other funds or comes from fees that we charge for permits or stuff like that. This $85,000 change is uh recognizing that we have additional money coming in from utilities to pay
for uh some of our items. And so we we took out the this placeholder was 85,000 of revenue that we replaced with the debt levy amount below of 113,000. So the revenues went down in the clerk's
department, but the revenues went up in the debt service department even more. And that's the biggest change. So that that difference between 85,000 and 113 is really most of the difference between your preliminary levy and this one. We do a look ahead every year just to
make sure that we are planning for the big things that are going to occur and so that we don't just pass a levy this year and not know that there's a big expense coming up in the future that we're not thinking about. So for 2026,
there it is. you know, 2027 and 2028 are preliminarily programmed in at just under three and just over four. You can see the big um change in 2028 is we're adding a new debt payment. There are some other debt payments that
are come off, but I suspect if we do reconstruct First Street in 2026 or 7 that that debt panel would be higher than 75,000. So, this is just a placeholder right now to make sure that we're thinking about that next big project.
So, let's skip ahead to the debt service analysis sheet. This is one you haven't looked at before, wasn't included last time. This is all the city's debt. Um, how much the payments are this year, when they're done being paid, and where we're
getting the money to pay them from. So, the first one, the 2008 MMUA, that is Minnesota Municipal Utility Association loan. Uh, we're making a payment of $35,000 on that. It's entirely coming from PUC contribution from the water
fund. So, water rates pay that entire payment and their last pay dates 2027. So, we're going to make two more of those payments and we'll be done. The next one is 2017 a general obligation capital improvement plan bond. Lots and
lots of letters there. This is paying for the public works garage. And you can see we split it up. There's two different authorities that the city used to make this debt. One of them was capital improvement plan bonds. One of them was utility revenue supported
bonds. They're both general obligation debts, meaning that if for some reason our other sources of revenue weren't able to make the payment, we are obligated to levy the additional amount. But we plan to levy most of it anyway.
Um that pays the CIP portion. The PUC contribution of this is 186,000 about you can see the total amount is 299,937. And the last payment is in 2033, which doesn't seem that far away
considering how new that building is. That was a 15-year debt. and it it's getting, you know, have we're half done, which is great news. Um, in the meantime, uh, it's a pretty big payment that we're making on that facility. Uh,
next one, 2019 A EDA. This is for the business park improvements that happened in 200 67. You can see the last payment's 20 31 on that. I think this was a 20-year bond that we have refinanced at least once.
Um, it's a been about 120,000 a year for the entirety of the life of the improvements. We split the cost of this um with the county basically, but the way that we do that is by special
assessing and uh some the properties that are up there and then asking the county to make uh payment through the EDA to the city to to pay for a portion of it. So, we're levying about half the payment and then using other funds to make the rest of that payment.
There is some money, but not a lot accumulating in there. So, it's possible we'll be able to skip the last payment on that with reserves. Uh, but we're getting close to the end of that project as well. Next is 2021A.
Uh, we're refunding a portion of our old 2013, which was refunding a bunch of other stuff. And so it's hard to keep track now of all the projects that are included in this, but the way we are paying for it is uh 140 some or 110 of
the 190,000 is coming from utilities and that is water and wastewater for the most part. We're talk this is projects that replaced water and wastewater lines. It's got our downtown uh improvements, but those are paid off
now. It's got improvements that we made to First, Second, and Third Avenues. Um, it's got Sixth Avenue. It's got the in the Creechville area. There's a lot of utility replacements and extensions that we made that are included in this debt payment. Uh, there are special
assessments on a lot of those projects as well. So you can see there's a pretty decent size special assessment number that's going to be paid off in 2029, but it's also one that the amount's going to be varying as those components end their
20-year life. So it'll go down, I think, a little bit before we're done. 2023A, this one is Fifth Avenue uh reconstruction. the county uh came and did a great uh
reconstruction on Fifth Avenue. The schedule of it was probably a little quicker than we would have done the utility replacements, but this is how we decide to do utility replacements. When we're going to reconstruct the road, if those things are close to end of life, we got to replace them because we can't
come back five or 10 years later and dig up a brand new road and do it. So, this project is uh $160,000 of debt payment and I'd say it's probably
100 water and 60 sewer, that kind of split. And so, that's pretty pretty decent amount. It's entirely coming from our utility revenues and it's got some years left before we're done with that. And then last is the city hall project. You can see the total payment is
384,000. that's split up into the capital improvement plan debt and a liquor revenue debt as well that was done with on a property tax abatement authority. So we're using liquor funds
to pay that 157 and we're using uh a combination of levy and utility money to pay the 227 portion. That 113 number should look familiar. that didn't exist in September, but we've decided that's
how much the utilities is going to be paying. That's basically half of the city hall portion of the debt. And then that's further split up by the size of the budget through electric, water, and wastewater. So, kind of using their
their budget as a way to determine how much they should pay that. And we're just starting that payment, so it'll be there for a while. I don't even have a last pay date written on that one. So, there you have it. We have uh a total of $1.18 million in debt payments that we're
making on an annual basis. We're levying 332,000 of that. The utilities is paying 362,000 and then there's other sources paying the rest. You might notice that the total on the right hand side is different than the total on the left
hand side. When we levy for debt payments, we're often required to levy 5% more than the payment requirement because we don't always collect all the money that we levy. You know, there's some amount of property taxes that aren't paid in a year and we need to
make sure that we have enough money to actually make the debt payment. That's a requirement of the debt of the bond when we sell it. So, that number is a little bit higher for those that are property tax supported. That's our debt payment. So, any question about any of those?
I hope not because I said a lot of stuff. Okay, I guess not. People are either extremely intensively looking at this or a little glassy eye. Part of uh what's weird about this process is that it is
now mid December and we're having a public hearing about our budget which we've been working on since June. Uh we're done, right? This is the end. And so if there's no questions, that's because you've done a lot of work on this already. You've seen this a number
of times. We've had the conversations. So, if there are folks that are watching this um and want to be more involved or know more about this, uh that's available. There's a lot of meetings that we've had and we've talked about this and they're archived and also next
time around uh just get in touch with us and we'd be happy to show you everything that we do here when it comes to putting the budget together. Tonight, you won't be asked to make any decisions about this. can't. As a matter of fact, we'll have to come back at your
next follow-up meeting where there will be a resolution asking you to actually approve this levy. And so, I would say if you want that number to be something different than this, then now is your chance to say so. But I think we hit the number here. I think we made our goal pretty well. It's right under 3%. That
feels really good considering uh what's going on with the economy and and how difficult expenses are these days. So, uh I'm really pleased with it. I appreciate all the work that department heads did putting their parts together and and being creative about revenues and keeping their expenses down and
still getting their work done. >> Yeah. >> Yes. Thank you. Thanks for the good explanation. >> Yep. It goes comes and goes from there little mini depart, you know, make adds together and takes a bit to think it all
through again. Appreciate it. So, we meet again, I believe, on the 22nd. Is that what we voted on? Yep. >> I think that's right. Then we'll do the final on that. Okay. >> All right. Uh, moving on to council and
staff reports. Mike, would you like to go first? I'd love to. On Monday this week, uh the personnel committee and myself met with Ask Me representatives and members of our staff
on their negotiating team because our three-year contract is up at the end of this month. and we were successful in reaching a tenative agreement where uh we'll be bringing that to their membership next week for a vote and then
to you for a vote at your next meeting. A three-year contract with uh 3% increase in wages and a few other terms that we're modifying as well based on requests from from staff. Uh it was a good process.
we it didn't take a long time. So, that's a good sign that uh we're all on the same page with them and that uh we've got a good program here that is working for the employees as well and fits into the budget that you've been creating. So, I'm really happy about
that. >> Great. >> The I appreciate the work you did on my review. We're in the midst of uh passing that down now. I'll be presenting reviews to the department heads this
month for their reviews. If you'll remember this year, for the first time, we're using these reviews to create performance-based uh wage adjustments. >> So, uh more on that
later, probably at your next meeting, we'll have that the results of that for you to approve. Uh, one of the goals with the schedule of this was to get all that work done before the end of the year so people could know what their increases would be before
next year and also so that we didn't have to ask Kim to come back and do back pay calculations based on any of that. So, so far so good. >> Great. >> And I think the rest of the things I
talk about you probably all have in your lists already. If you don't want them, uh, I'll bring it up at the end. >> Good. >> Must be the holidays, >> Bill. >> I don't want to have a whole lot.
>> No. >> Okay. >> No, I covered them. >> Okay. >> Excuse me. Yep. Had a park board meeting and a PUC meeting. Um, as far as the park is concerned,
um, of course, as as you all know, we did receive from the Greater Minnesota Regional Parks and Trails Commission the 1 million66,560 grant that can be used towards our phase one buildout
of our U master plan, which is going to include wayfinding uh, and signage and also So, a new bath house, which will be located in a more conducive
area within the park that it that it needs to be. So, that was kind of exciting to receive that. Um, now it just takes time to put put it all together as far as, you know, construction, uh, that that kind of
stuff. So, um, probably not building till, I don't know, 2020, late in 2026, maybe 2027. Um, uh, revenue for the park was just up 1%
over last year. Um, I think what had the deal what dealt with that was October was down a little bit because of the weather that we had. Um, one strong point that we did see a strong finish this year in the golf
course. That showed revenues up about $30,000 over last year, >> which is kind of nice for the golf course. Um, the course was in really good shape and it was used a lot and we're getting more members um, signing up and using it, which is kind of nice.
Um, the other thing at the park, we did do a finalized basically a 3% across the board increase in rates. Um some other rates um were fine-tuned a
little bit that didn't really go up a lot, but certain rates like renting the pavilion and renting the the wreck building, those types of things. We also looked at all those things when we did that. So that was all adjusted and
updated for next year. Um, I think that's it on the park. Public Utilities, we had a uh we met, we're going to have another meeting on Friday to discuss sewer water rates. Um,
so we'll have that meeting on Friday, but we did cover a grant that um Shane had worked hard on getting for our electrical department. and it's a $50,000 grant that is uh
run through the Department of Energy program. And what it does basically that money can be used to work with a company that will help us look at how our load of electricity is
um used within our facility. We're right now we split it two ways. We can do it up to four different ways. We're just trying to look at in the future what we can do to
accommodate um more electric usage if it becomes more prevalent that we have more demand. So, it's kind of a nice uh program to have that looked at
and they concentrate on smaller remote towns. And this is I was kind of impressed that it's like all over the United States. And we're lucky to be one of those towns that picked up on this to do this. And it's no cost to us other than getting them information that they
need to study our electrical system. Um, yeah, like I say, I can't we didn't really set our electric rates or anything yet, but I can comment at our next meeting at what those may be or
have we have more questions about um ongoing maintenance things that we have to do out of our pocket for the water treatment plant and the sewer plants.
And so we'll have a meeting on Friday to finalize our water sewer rates and electric rates. So I guess I can bring that to the next meeting. I want to add on on to what you talked
about with the grant that we're receiving for the electric. >> The 50,000 is just what we're allowed to reimburse ourselves for expenses. the amount that the Department of Energy is paying to all the resources that are going to do the work. We don't really
know what that is. Probably quite a bit more. I would guess significantly more than that. So, there'll be a combination of scientists that work for national labs like Berkeley Lab and the National Lab of the Rockies that that are
actually going to be looking at our system and doing analysis. And then there's a engineering firm in Madison, Wisconsin that is sort of the regional coordinator for it. So there's a lot of really exciting resources that are going to help us answer some questions. I
think the best way to describe it is that they're going to create uh electrification scenarios. So what if this happens and what if this happens? And the two scenarios that we included in our application that I think they found intriguing were the idea of uh
load growth just in general and then is our system set up right to to deal with that. So that kind of sustainability resilience uh theme. But then also, what about if we get a lot of EV chargers or
the um Northshore Waste puts in electric chargers for electric garbage trucks like they talked about at one point or, you know, just interesting little scenarios like that where as a pretty small utility, some of those changes are are big to us. And so, it's really nice
to have these resources uh looking over our shoulder and doing some work on our behalf. This is a 2-year project, so 18 to 24 months they'll be working with us. >> We're just getting started. It's going to be a lot of fun. >> That's pretty neat that we were selected
for this. Um, I know it's, you know, minor to what they're trying to accomplish, but we really have had pretty high demand even just for our couple electric car chargers compared to other places,
>> you know, of our size or whatever. And obviously, this is for much bigger uses, but there's lots of potential changes to what you know, like better use of battery storage and lots of things coming down the pikes. >> Yeah. So, lots more to come on that. We don't really have a scope of work created with
them. That's something that'll happen in the next three to six months. And so, we'll come back to the utilities commission and talk about what about these scenarios? Do we want to have them study this? They're interested in this. And kind of work that out, really put together that scope of what are they going to accomplish for us.
>> Cool. Cool. >> So, that's all I have. Um, I don't have anything outside of what Ben mentioned. Um, >> your microphone. >> Oh, that's right. I don't have anything
outside of what Ben mentioned. Um, just like to say that the O only night festivities on the Friday after Thanksgiving went well. So, thanks to all the staff who put together the Christmas tree and got all that and now all the other lighting down there in
Bear Tree Park. It looks really nice. Um and we those communications as you all know went out and you've gotten fast responses and I think um be probably
best just to uh invite those developers to a to a meeting whether it be a remote that you it doesn't have to be in person and then if we have questions or whatever then they can give us you know just let us know and we have not yet heard from the county commissioners, right?
>> No. >> Yeah, that might be a little bit more delayed. So, yeah, that's all I've got. >> Okay. Well, then let's just cover a couple of things that will come up, but we don't have to talk about tonight. The county's moving forward on Sawtooth
Bluffs. You probably all seen some coverage on that. We have received some communications on that from county staff. And so we'll need to have a conversation about what we want our role to be and and what we can do to make that move forward. We'll probably wait till January.
>> And then uh Third Street, you saw that we were unsuccessful in getting R grant to pay for the third street improvements. That was the bad news on the good news, bad news when we heard about the wreck park. Uh we'll need to decide how to move forward on that
project. So, the place we're at right now is you've held the improvement hearing. Um, we need to order the improvement and then move forward and do the real engineering and then talk about assessments again with the property
owners. And so, that's something again will probably come up on your January agenda. We'll talk about what are our next steps to move forward on that. >> And so, Mitch Travis sent their latest RFP
um out, but I think that's looks somewhat familiar to what we had earlier. Or is that my imagination? I realized that later looking at notes. >> Yeah. What he had sent what what I saw him write was they're just going to work with HKGI. So, >> yeah. Oh, yeah. I'm sorry. It's not
really that. Yeah. It's more just developing a redevelopment on potential proposals. >> Yeah. So things we'll need to talk about are the joint powers board agreement that's been sort of
sitting on on some shelf somewhere for a long time now waiting for the project to get started again and then our financial commitment if we want to make one towards the work that they want to do >> which you've had placeholders in the past right >> yeah has it has it kind of has it
already been decided that the city wants to do that >> no >> that's what he's Okay, >> we'll have that conversation. >> Good. >> No, we haven't made any decisions. >> Okay, if >> you want to, you know, part of that and
>> there's a meeting I will be at, just so you know. I haven't been going to those uh uh parks and trails meeting, but there's a meeting December. I don't It's next What is it today? It's
next week, I think. I've got it at home. Yeah, I don't have a I don't have a calendar for that. >> No, I don't. So, I'll find out. I think the biggest thing is they just they probably want to know information on what we're thinking, what we're going to do, and so on and so forth. So, right now, I mean, it'd be the same thing that I discussed before with them when they
always bring it up is we're not I mean, you know, if the county is going to take a dive into that, then we have to look at we haven't even talked about that yet. So yeah. >> So yeah, they did send out that proposal that they've accepted. Is that how I
probably should say that? >> That's what it sounds like. Yeah. >> From that group and the the ask for us is next steps. Mitch has sent out that communication. >> Yeah. >> And of course, as we said all along, we would need a joint agreement >> and we know where those sit um as far as
all of those. And I would caution I don't know where the county commit, you know, the county attorney would even be at with that. >> Yeah. >> Timewise, you know, with all their work. >> Sure. >> So, but those are the next steps. Um, and that that is what they're asking now
on that. And so, it would be a topic of discussion, but as you said, January. >> Yeah. We're not going to try to tackle this at your next meeting, which is the last thing I want to talk about. We have it on the calendar now for 6:30 on the 22nd. Um, this is typically a short
meeting and we've often scheduled it earlier, as early as people can make. So, is there a time uh like we cannot have it before 5:15, 5:'lock, 5:30? What What's the time of that day that that
>> I I can do five. That would be I can do it >> easily. is better. I have to rush all the time to get done at 6:30. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. I'm fine anytime. >> What's your schedule like, Bill?
>> Oh, five would be fine. >> Okay. >> I'm just double checking in case there's something weird. >> Yeah. Okay. >> So, we'll have a few items of note on the agenda, but none of which probably need any significant discussion. So, hopefully it'll be brief.
>> We'll schedule it for five. All right. Thanks everybody. >> Thanks everyone. >> Thank you. Like you said, >> these are clean.