because my computer's not working. Uh --------- the 2026 road project open house um and members present for the work session are myself, Kathy Reken, Peter Vickery, Claudia Lacy, Brian Govern, Allison Fal
with WSB, Gary Peters, our director of public works, Jasper Krugal, our city administrator, and Brian Grim our finance director. Um Alison, thank you acting Mayor Refin. Um, appreciate the folks that showed up this
evening. Emily Brown with WSB. She's the project manager, assistant city engineer here for Minatrista. And she's present here to give a brief presentation on the proposed project and then available to answer any questions that um the residents that have attended and the
council may have. Thank you. Uh, members of the city council, happy to be here for the 2026 proposed street improvement project. No, I'm good. Uh, project background. So, the city of Minitrista focuses on improving their street conditions. As part of that, they do a uh program to
evaluate the existing pavement condition throughout the city and that those evaluations help determine what streets uh are priorities to be completed. Um, in addition, we uh did pavement cores on the streets that we're looking at for
the 2026 project um in order to evaluate their condition. So, based on that information, uh the project for 2026, maybe I'm just clicking too much. There will be just a little bit of a lag. It's on that computer over there. So, yeah, just give it a give it a
second when you hit it. Thank you. Yeah, I'll try and get back where we're at, but um the streets that we're looking at this year are Game Farm from County Road 26 to County Road 110. Uh we're looking at Lakeside Drive and Lakeside Circle,
Pinnacle Way, Willow Court, Maple Lane, North Saunders Lake Drive, and Cedar Court, and Basswood Drive, South Saunders Lake Drive, Bluffs Lane, Walnut Drive, and
Cherrywood Court. Uh you can see those up uh highlighted on the screen there in the orange and purple. Okay, so I talked about um when we're looking at these, we look at the existing pavement condition. So part of the pavement uh condition uh is an index
number. It evaluates the um condition from on a scale from 0 to 100. 100 essentially being a brand new road, smooth surface, no cracking, and zero being a street that needs to be completely reconstructed. Um, based on what we've seen, I'll talk
about the existing pavement conditions as we walk through, but generally they seem to be in the 80 to 90 range. Some in the 70s, some in the low 90s, um, which is essentially indicative of payments that's showing stress and wear, um, where the top surface of the
pavement is in need of some kind of repair and maintenance project. Uh, so looking at the two photos there, we've got Lakeside Drive, originally built in 1997. The surface is showing some stripping and some cracking. And Pinnacle Way built in 1999
uh again so showing some surface stripping and cracking. Lakeside Drive had a a index number of 86 to 88. Pinnacle had a index number of 89. All right, moving on to um the Basswood
area and Willow Court area. So basswood um was built in the year 2000 showed surface stripping and cracking and willow court was built in 2002 with surface stripping and cracking. The bassword uh condition indexes were rated
from 77 to 88 and the Willow Court area was rated from 73 to 86. All right. And then we're looking at Game Farm. Um I have two photos of game form up there but it built in 2010. Uh had longitudinal cracking, patching in
certain areas, surface stripping and alligator cracking. Um there is uh a couple areas on Game Farm that are definitely in worse distress. Those were rated about 70. Um they showed there's been a lot of patching, a lot of cracking on those areas. And then other
areas of Gay Farm had a PCI index in the 80s to up to 92. Sorry, just a quick question about that. Uh, is it just a function of the amount of traffic, why game farm is degrading so rapidly compared to the other streets
or is there something else at play? You know, there's a lot of things that go into cracking. Um, it can be related to the soils underneath. Some, um, soils heave and settle in different ways. Uh, traffic does play a factor in that. Uh, but it isn't necessarily the controlling
factor. Um, and once you start getting water cracks, water gets in there and it leads to more cracking. So, um, as part of the maintenance program, it's really important to get after that to get a nice clean surface. Um, we're after that. Can I jump in here too? Um, just there
the section of game farm um on the east west section that is being proposed for reclamation. Um, that section was never done. So there was a a project on game farm in 2015 n 2009 thank you
2010 maybe it was before my anyway so um so there was a project on game farm road um back in 2009 2010 and that section was not included in the project and so there is there is some some portions of game farm road that weren't done in that time
frame and so those those areas are ex exhibiting more distress than others and then there's also that north south segment just um past that 90° bend and and I think what what Emily was sharing there as far as soils and conditions there, you know, that one I I think we
can really attribute it to that, but that east west section is um it's it's I think a big factor is due to age and and if I may, the section that's by the lake there, Little Long Lakes right there, it was subject to flooding during the heavy rains in 14. So the um water
was up to the road and I think there's a drainage crossers was pretty high. So, I'm sure underneath there got really saturated, you know, more than what it does just because the water was so high for that length of time during 2014. So, good deal. Thank you.
Thank you. Um, so for the majority of the streets, we are looking at a mill and overlay. A mill and overlay consists of removing the top two inches of the pavement section. Uh, the pavement itself is approximately 4 in deep. So, it's not removing the entire pavement.
It's just the top two in. um and then repaving it with a new pavement section. Uh there are certain areas that we're looking at doing a full depth be removing the entire pavement section
and paving 4 in back um of new pavement. That would be the areas on gain form that we talked about. And then there is a um a portion on north north Saunders uh that was exhibiting some more distress than other areas. Uh but the
other areas on the project are all planned for a millin overlay. Uh street widths are remaining the same. Um street grades will stay the same with this type of project. Um there might be minor adjustments. um uh just to make
sure that drainage is consistent. Uh and then we'll be looking at spot curb repairs for the areas that have curb. So cracked, settled curve areas we would be replacing with the project. Uh the budgeted budget for this project is uh 4,400,000.
The funding would be um from the road fund midnot state aid uh portion of game farm uh is scheduled to be a state aid route and then special assessments um for a portion of game farm. Uh detailed information on the project cost will be included in the feasibility report which
is forthcoming. Um the city's assessment policy, a portion of the projects will be assessed to benefiting property owners. Uh according to the city's policy, um and Minnesota's state statute 429. Historically, this
has been approximately 50% of the um street project costs. Um the assessment is based on the surface and storm sewer improvements. Um hardship deferrals are available for senior citizens, disabled persons
memory, so the military um and payment period would be 20 years. Uh questions, specific questions about special assessments, uh can be directed to Brian Grim, the finance director. So looking at schedule, this is uh
essentially the first step in our project. Um after this we'll be preparing and finalizing the feasibility report to uh submit to council. Uh that is anticipated on August 4th. Um at that point in time, council would call the
public hearing um which would be held on September 3rd and council would decide whether to move forward production of plans and specifications. Based on that schedule, we would look at opening bids in January of 2026. Um
bids would be presented to the council with the assessment hearing uh and awarding the contract in February. Construction is anticipated between September of next year. Uh that said, with this type of project, we're not
anticipating that the full duration of the project would take that long. Let me rephrase. Um that would be for all the streets to be completed. each street area would take less than that time frame. Um because it's just a large
project area, we anticipate from start to finish should be from June to September, but each area would be much less time than that. Uh so the city wants your input. This is again early in the process. We like to hear from our residents and understand any issues you're aware of um or any
questions related to the roadway, utility work, safety concerns, um questions about the street section or funding. Uh website is up up and running for um general information on the project. You can also sign up for emails
uh that is more specific to construction. We provide weekly updates on what's going on on your street during construction. We also have a handout in the back um that includes some information on the project, driveway access, lawn
restoration, sprinkler systems, uh mail garbage, special events, things like that. Um and then also information on gathering your input. So, uh you can fill out a comment card in the back. You can talk to us about any concerns you have. Otherwise, you can
email You should have been talking to these people, not to us. Thank you. So, Emily, you're ask you're looking for questions from the audience. Yes. Yes. With that, that concludes the presentation. So, if any folks have
specific questions that other folks might have, we can come up to the front, have council hearing hear them. Otherwise, we have poster boards in the back that we can go and look at your specific property, your specific concern, and talk directly oneonone.
I had a question going back to Game Farm Road. If it was subject to flooding, uh, does it make sense to raise the level of the road as long as, you know, we're spending a lot of money on it? 2014 was when we had that 7 in rainfall.
We had wash outs everywhere. We had flooding on the island out there. It was just I mean there was so much water at that time. We haven't seen that again. Um the only other incident we had was uh when uh uh Mr. Clever Beaver there came in and plugged up the exit on by 15, but
otherwise it normally stays relatively low. But it's a that 2014 we had I think it was almost seven inches of rain that time and yeah we that was everything flooded then. So but we haven't not had anything near that bad again.
Okay. Thank you. Thank the gentleman. I just wanted to make a suggestion. Use a little bit bigger. That's my fault. I apologize. I sent this as a due the file size. It's not a PowerPoint and so it's not projecting very well. I I apologize for that.
Can we make it larger? Maybe it's on that computer which nobody's at. Oh, okay. But I don't know. Um, we can we can if we want you can we can email it out to you guys, too. I agree with you, though. Second that.
There you go. Uh, we don't have it loaded yet, but we sure can put that on the website tomorrow. Yep. So that folks have the information. any the way I see this you don't have any of
the assessment what the algorithm is going to be correct so um at this time so the the city's policy um Milan overlay which is the majority of the project is not assessed um the reason there is a
portion of game farm road um that's in poor condition that east west section over by the water treatment plant um so there is a portion of the that that road. Um that will be the full depth removal and replacement. And so at this time we're looking um for consideration
for assessing the properties adjacent to that section for the uh a portion of the project cost, but the majority of the project would not be assessed. Yeah. What's what's your address? Maybe we could give you a more I happen to be on that section.
Yeah. So, if you recall back in 2008 or 10 when we did the road, um that section was um left out of the um improvement area because it was quotes paved. Um and
so now we have we have to pave it. And so that's yeah, that section was not at some point. 2000 it was assessed at that time.
Okay. That's not in our records. So yeah, you don't your records don't go back 50 years. No, not 50. In 1984 that's about 41 years in the middle of that of that purple section.
Yeah. It was gravel at some point after that and I would have to look it up. We were assessed that pointing. Okay. Um and there was debate and negotiation
about how we were supposed to get assessed the the properties around there. Some have lots of road circles or road roadside. road frontage and very little depth.
Some of them have very little road frontage and lots of depth. Mine has just a corner of road frontage. Some of them are off of that road in side roads. They still use it. In fact,
most of that farm road uses that thing to get in and out of their place. So, most of the wear is not us. It's actually them. Well, we Yeah. But um also you should be aware. So what happened back when we paved game farm road um back in 2009
2010 um though the people that were on the um culde-sacs such as Fielding Trail and um I can't remember all the names of them but anyhow they were assessed as well. So they were all assessed.
Sure it is. Yeah. and uh whether you're dealing with added property value versus who's generating wear and tear
versus right curious when and how is that negotiation going to happen? So, um, we have to first determine which properties were going to would be assessed and they would be the ones that in 2010 did not
get the the, um, improvement. Um, that's kind of what we've talked about at this point. And then every property is assessed the same regardless of how much foot per foot frontage you have because if you have 100 ft or if you have 500 ft, you're still using the road. it
doesn't really impact the road more or less just because you have more or less frontage. So, our policy was established way back in the early 2000s and that's what the council decided to do is just assess on a per parcel basis.
Okay, that's good information. Yeah, back in the 1990s when that section was paid somewhere it was assessed by a different algorithm. or that going rap.
Yeah, it could. Yeah. And I don't know. I know it wasn't paved after 99, so it must have been early 90s. Yeah. So, yeah, I'm sure I'm sure I can look at my old
tax record and see when the assessments. Okay. And I'm sure you could do the same. Yeah, we'll look that up. Good to know, Madame Mayor, if I may. I think the other question he had was as far as what the estimated assessments would be and
those um those numbers would be presented in the feasibility study and uh at the public and so included in the feasibility study and then there's also a public hearing associated with um the proposed uh assessments. Um so so there
will be notification to residents who are proposed to be assessed. So there's a process where you can pro that information would be provided probably that time that timeline show yeah correct assessments
yes so yeah the feasibility report we're slated for the August 4th meeting and then I think the public hearing was September is it the 4th that first Wednesday and 3rd September 3rd so that information um
the public hearing notices are sent to the resident including the time uh the date and time of that meeting too. So all that information is shared maybe for you you consider that particularly that section but um that
the substructure is adequate. Yeah. So we as part of this process to course um which is essentially drilling down and gathering a section of
road to evaluation material condition. I'm not sure there always is right at the edge, but I presume you guys have you're going to lay the paper down. You better have something.
Yeah. When we do this type of materials, Emily, aren't you planning on doing a reclamation project, though? A full depth. I think I misspoke. Yes. Okay. Okay. Yeah.
It's not the Okay. Any other questions regarding Yeah. just in general um I was curious the time frame it sounded like was next summer um June to September for the
whole project or you know any given neighborhood or something like that is is there a general estimate of how long that would be from start to finish uh for mill they go pretty quick so it's usually a couple days of milling and
then they um will pave it pretty quick after that the biggest time has a seven day care window. So I would say three to four weeks is longer. So
is the I I thought I saw in here that the the curve was going to be as needed, but are you considering just replacing all of it or No, generally when we looked at the curve, it's condition. So we're really going to focus on
subtle curve, crack curve issues. Am I correct? When you replace 4 in, you do it two inches at a time. Yeah. For the purple, they're called this. Yeah. What?
Anybody else have questions, concerns? Okay. Well, what we'll do is um I think Emily and maybe Allison will still be available back there in the foyer if you want to look at or ask them questions maybe that's specifically for your
property. Um look at the maps, talk to them, get more information. Okay, perfect. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. And with that we can be adjourned unless you have questions. We can ask questions
afterwards, too. Yeah. She was very thorough. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Thanks. Is there a second? Second. Thank you, Brian. All those in favor signify with I. I. I.
All those opposed. Motion passes. 5. So, I was told that staff would do a presentation open house forum and we didn't have to be there. ask me when that was. I can have them look it up. He did say that. He did say that.
So, I'm thinking I'll just show up at a quarter to 6, you know, shortly before six. That's still an I mean, so I didn't know that we had to I can come up I do see it on the website. Uh
you were correct. I was 2000 out there. So we all assume you were here somewhere. I thought I said no they have a list of like 80. He did say that too. He did say that it must not be they have
you're fine. I open the meeting but if you pronounce Alison's name presentation to the Yeah, it's hard to it's hard to tell. I'm like I know how to say your name. So, it's really hard to tell, you know,
what you know what's there. Part: 2
Okay, just a reminder, if you have cell phones with you, and I think I don't have mine with me, um turn them um silent so they don't disrupt the meeting. And if my cell phone goes off, I apologize in advance. Um I think it's in my car. Um so, first um I'm going to
call the meeting to order. It is 7 o'clock and we like to start on time so that you folks can get home at a reasonable hour. And first I'd like to ask that you join me in pledge of allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to
the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. So I want to welcome all of you this evening. Um thank you all for coming. I know there's different issues while
you're why you're here and um we're glad to see you here. We're glad to hear what you have to say and um and we'll be talking with our sheriff uh very shortly and welcome uh Sheriff Dit. And uh she's not here to keep everybody in line,
believe me. Uh well, we have Craig for that. Just kidding. Uh so first order um I'd like to make some introductions. I'm Lisa Whan and I'm the mayor. And to my left are council members, Kathleen Refkin, Peter Vickery, Claudia Lacy, and Brian Govern. And then on the end, we
have our city engineer, Allison Falski, and we have Gary Peters, who is our sup uh public works superintendent or director. What's your official title these days? It keeps public works director. Thank you. Okay, I got that one right. And then to my
right we have Jasper Krugal and he is the city administrator and Brian Grim is our finance director. David Ael is our community development director. And then we have our chief of police Craig Squires. I keep wanting to say Paul Fuzz and I have you know it's new training.
So he's only been our chief for um a couple of months. So um but that's everybody. I think we have a couple people um remotely. Yes. the city clerk and meeroff is remote. Okay. And then our city attorney um forget his
name. He's filling in for Sarah. Sarah. Okay. With um Kennedy and Josh. Thank you. All right. So, next on um the agenda is approval of the agenda. Is there a motion? Anything we need to add or change? Hearing none. Is there a motion to approve the agenda as presented?
So move. Thank you, Miss Lacy. Is there a second? Second. Thank you, Mr. Vicky. All those in favor signify with I. I. All those opposed. Motion passes 5. So we have several presenta uh special presentations this evening and again our first presentation
is from Henipin County Sheriff Dana Wit. And again, thank you for joining us. I will warn everybody that I think I'm absolutely hilarious. My family doesn't think so, but I don't do boring. So just bear with me. But again, thank you for your time. Who's my clicker?
Yep. Okay. Remember I told you my weakness is powerpoints. You might have to figure it out on your own a little bit. Yeah, we're all right. No, just kidding. Okay. Well, thank you all. Um Dana Wit, Henipin County Sheriff, I was um um elected into office in 2022, taking
office in January of 2023. Um it has been my goal to make sure that I get out to all of our city council meetings throughout the county as that's something that's really important to me. But um um um more importantly getting to know me in this small amount of time is
is something again that's very important but then also to help her understand maybe some of the decisions that I make in regards to Henipin County Sheriff's Office and um and public safety as a whole. So um let's go to the overview next one please. Thank you.
So again, my background um telling you about my background challenges that we're seeing in law enforcement and then the strategic priorities by way we did leave some pamphlets for the 2025 strategic priorities for the Henipin County Sheriff's Office as well as our 2024 stats that are on the back table if
anybody wants to see those later. And then county sheriff's activity and Minister Style will share some stats that I brought along with that as well. Next slide, please. I hate pictures. Hey, it's working.
A little bit about me. So, I was raised in South Minneapolis, graduate of South High School. I will tell you that I never saw myself in law enforcement. And in fact, I came from a very broken family, a very rough neighborhood, a lot of violence and things like that. Um,
which did not uh provide me a lot of um positive interactions or um or thoughts about law enforcement in general. And I always tell people that because it's important for people to know why it's so important for me to bridge the gap that's between some communities and then
policing. Um, as that's something that I had to learn along the way in my life. Um, but before entering law enforcement, I was a little bit confused. My first degree is actually chemical dependency family therapy. So, I worked nonprofits with our mental health and chemically
challenged uh, families for quite some time. Pillsbury Neighborhood Services and Ruben Lynn Family Services. Part of um why I'm telling you that is because that was my goal then. My goal now is always to be who me and my community or my siblings needed to see. Um and right now we have a big problem with chemical
mental health in in all communities. Um but uh to go a little bit further, people say, "Well, how is it that you had that background? You ended up in law enforcement." Well, I'm going tell you, be careful where you take your tours, all of you, because it started with a tour of the jail and now here I am 25
years later serving my sentence. But, uh, started off my career as a detention deputy at the Henipin County Jail. And then in 2004, I went to Dakota County Sheriff's Office. I was a licensed deputy there for 16 years, being the first woman to reach the rank of captain at that department. But um a
lot of things that I learned at Dakota County and which I think is very very prevalent to when we're talking about Minatrista is that there was a lot more rural parts in Dakota County than there is Henipin County. So I learned the the importance of having those connections no ho no matter how big or how small a
community is. Importance of making sure that you have relationships and um and just embracing working together because that's so important again no matter how big or small a city or a township is. Um, but through my career there, I've done everything from um deputy to
detective to um sergeant, captain, anything I can get my hands on. I I'm a busy body, but my best part of my entire career was being a school resource officer. Something that I have great passion for is working with our young people and trying to again be who I needed to see and making sure that our
kids have good role models. 2019, I was asked to come back to Henipin County Sheriff's Office in the position of a major um in overseeing the courts and jail. I actually turned the job down three times before I accepted it. I did I was very happy at Dakota, but
you know, it was one of the best decisions that I made um uh taking over the jail. We Henipin County Sheriff's Office has the largest jail in the state, the most populated jail in the state, by far the busiest sheriff's office in the state. Um, and so in 2019, one of the things you should know about
me, mother nature hates me and so does father time. Told you I was funny, right? Bear with me people. Um, but anyhow, um, you know, when we think about everything that has occurred in Henipin County between 2019 and today, we've been through a lot. and
to um be the one who oversaw the jail and the courts. When I say courts, thinking about like we've had the biggest trials um in history here and I was the one who oversaw this uh security and things like that through through that process. when we talk about COVID
um having the largest jail knowing that we did not have a single person um that died from COVID in our facility, we actually became the national um example for other sheriff's offices even larger than ours as to what are we doing there to keep the people that are in our
custody um safe. So, next slide, I believe, sorry, a little bit about the sheriff's office. You might have heard in the news um nationally it's a problem recruiting everywhere. Right now we are at about 840 um full-time employees and
60 part-time employees. Um you might might have also saw in the news that where there was some um uh uh license order issued by the DOC because of our population of um people in our facility and our staffing was not where it should
be. We are still under that CLLO order. But I will tell you now, I'm happy to say that we have more detention deputies at the Henipin County Sheriff's Office than we've had in the history. But one of the things we are trying to um that I'm trying to talk to our commissioners about is what we used to do five years
ago no longer works today. And that doesn't matter if you're corrections or if you're licensed. The job is very different. So one of the things I'm talking about are those approved numbers that have been the same approved numbers for at least 10 years are no longer sufficient to deal with the the cap
capacity and the population and the issues that we're seeing in our jails. Um, as of today, I would say that as far as our licensed deputies, we're about um less than 10 short, which is phenomenal. But again, the job is different. It's more tasking. And so, there are a lot of
conversations that I'm having with our commissioners um as far as what can we do to make sure that public safety is a priority in Henipin County. And not to just be reactive, but to be preventative, which means we need to be places everywhere all the time. And
again, it doesn't matter to me how big or small a city or a township is. Um the statutory mandate of the sheriff is the key piece within the entire county. So right now we do have six um bureaus investigations or administration um
services, court and field services, detention and public safety services, and lastly public affairs. I actually had to go to the legislature to get approval to add the public affairs um bureau. You know, when people asked me when I was running, what do we need to
do better? Again, we need to get law enforcement in places where we can be proactive so the relationships are already there so people know who's owning what business, who lives um in what homes and things like that. So public, when I think about community engagement and public affairs, something
that was non-negotiable for me is to go backwards. And so that was very important adding that um that aspect. Next slide, please. So, our current challenges, I can tell you, um, the law enforcement
pipeline, it is getting better. I also am a professor at Ember Hills Community College. I teach American corrections and juvenile justice. I can tell you at one point in the last five years, my class sizes were less than 10. Um, the last two semesters I've been close to 30. So we are seeing from my
point of view the pendulum swinging back and more people becoming more interested in law enforcement because that was a real concern is who are going to do these jobs um because the interest went very low for a while there. Um and then when we talk about the if there's not
enough officers to respond to urgent calls which you probably hear a lot in Minneapolis um we lose community connections. I will tell you that I have been asked and pressed about okay how many how much resources am I putting into Minneapolis. I will tell you I've been very creative.
We've um done I will get to some of that stuff later in the PowerPoint. We have been helping quite a bit in there because we can't afford to let Minneapolis go. But I have never said no to any other community. We figure it out. Um, and so when the help call
comes, again, it's my job, my statutory mandate to make sure that I provide public safety in every corner of Henipin County there is. So, we're making it work. I will say that I'm blessed to have people that still love to do the job and um they're hanging in there with me, which I think is a good thing.
Either that or they need to have something checked. Um but then when I go talking about um building trust again, being proactive instead of reactive, which is quite important. Um we'll go to our next slide. Oh, well actually, sorry, stay
here. Go back. Yeah, making sure you're listening. Okay, no, just kidding. But you know, we've been hearing a lot decrease in crime. I can tell you the community people that I've been talking to are so tired of hearing about decreasing crime because we all know that the intensity of the crimes that
are being committed have skyrocketed. And so what I mean by that is, you know, anybody ever hear that analogy starts with a candy bar, then a bike, then something bigger, and you don't do anything. Well, now we're seeing the bigger things happen and um sometimes not a lot of smaller crimes are
happening. And so, you know, again, with my mandate, it is we are out there every day um figuring it out, trying to be everywhere that we can to make sure that we are holding people accountable. That is the job. That's the oath that we took and that's what we will continue to do.
But that's where I'm getting with the with the lack of consequences and placement options for juveniles. Um that is a problem for us. I will tell you my detectives, deputies are um a lot of times very frustrated with seeing some of the same people reoffent and and our
younger people. Um and then we also know that the challenges of the jail tell people all the time, largest jail, most populated jail, what you see in the communities is what you will see in jail in terms of mental health, physical health, and things like that. And so
when we're um having those challenges in our community, bet you about a dollar that you're going to see them kind of things in the jail. Now we can go to the next slide. Thank you. So priorities um violent crime um reduction, opioid overdose prevention
programming, autotheft reduction, recruitment and retention, and community outreach. We'll go and talk about each one of those. If you want to click one more slide, please. Am I talking too fast? No. I love it. All right. But um next slide.
So violent crime reduction has to be a priority. If we have people that don't feel safe to work or live or visit our neighborhoods, we are in big trouble. Um it affects everything else that we do. So, when I talk about the um Henipin County had the all-time record of number
of homicides in 2021, that was two years before I took office, by the way, violent crime had to be a top priority. While most violent crimes decreased in 2023 and 2024, homicides are still nearly double what they were 10 years
ago. For example, in our jail, the most population, the um largest populated jail, I will tell you our top three reasons that we're holding people all felonies are typically homicide, assault, felony assault, criminal sexual
conduct are the three top. It it's um between 85 90% of people have at any given time in our facility is there for violent felony crimes. We have less than 2% people at any given time held in our
facility for misdemeanors. So, um, again, times have changed. Once upon a time, we had a high number of people that were being held on misdemeanor. That is no longer the case. We have people being held for serious violent offenses. Um, but we know when I'm talking about
being proactive that while law enforcement has boundaries, we have we have uh rules to follow, we have statutes to follow while criminals do not. And so again, going back to um being preventative and making sure that we are everywhere that we can be to deter those type of behaviors is again
why violent crime reduction has to be a priority. In 2024, our violent offender task force, Southwest Henipin Drug Task Force, and our West Metro Drug Task Force seized over 17 pounds of powder fentinel,
opened 1,580 felony cases and made 256 felony arrests. Um, if we can go to the next slide, which brings me to the opioid overdose prevention. I have an initiative at the Henipin County Sheriff's Office. is called focus on fentinyl. That focus on
fentinyl initiative came after a mother came to me in tears about her 17-year-old boy overdosing on fentinyl when he thought he was taking aderal. This mother talked about how she felt like no one was listening, that people would call her son a junkie when what
she had was a kid who was an athlete who had injured and got sucked into using drugs to make him feel better. But then that wasn't enough. Talking to another mother who lost her 15-year-old daughter to fentinyl overdose. And what will
always stick with me with that mother is when she said she called dispatch and they asked her if she had Narcan and she didn't know what Narcan was. And so this mother will forever think cuz she had possibly saved her 15year-old daughter.
So when I talk about overdose, opioid overdose prevention and focus on fentinel, we have an educational piece, we have an enforcement piece, we have anformational piece and you know um educating the public about those things. So I don't have another mother who has to think like that
ever again. Um what I can tell you too is um currently if you haven't heard of Haida, it's highintensity drug trafficking area. Um I am the co-chair for for the North Central Haida which includes
Minnesota and uh Wisconsin. I will tell you that uh Minnesota is now listed as a corridor um for drug trafficking and human trafficking isn't too far behind it. So again when we're talking about the fentinel initiative and opioid
overdose prevention that is something that again it can't just be the enforcement piece. There has to be an educational piece. There has to be community engagement. We are one of the only public safety um agencies that actually go out into the community which we can offer here to to teach community
how to use Narcan again. I will never forget that mom and I will never forget how she feels. I can never imagine that if she would have only known. Education has got to be a piece of what we do. Um
next slide. Programming. So, some people ask why am I putting programs in the jail? Well, we know um that studies have been done. The more programs you have in a jail, the less assault you have, whether it's inmate on
inmate or inmate on staff. The people in our facility, and I should say the Henipin County Jail is a pre-trial facility, meaning people about 80% of the people that go into a jail go back into their communities. And this is before the term
revolving door became a popular term. It's a pre-trial facility, meaning if they're not sentenced yet, they can they're up for bail or released by some other means of the judicial system. So, um, what we did is we add, well, as the
major in 2019, I noticed that the only kind of education that we offered to, again, the largest populated jail was education for educational programs for people between the ages of 18 and 21 and they had to be a part of the Minneapolis public school district. That made no
sense to me. So, we added a program. It's called Hope, helping others by providing education where now if somebody doesn't have a GED or diploma, we offer educational incentives to everyone. I say jail time should not be wasted time because at the end of the day, when those adults go back home,
they're going home to kids. They're going home to wives or husbands. We have to think about the whole family as a whole. Jail time should not be wasted time. Glad to say that we've had quite a few graduates from our programs. It was not a part of my budget, but like I said, it had to be created where I had
to hire a full-time teacher to do this job. Could use a couple more. You got to start somewhere. The other thing that we added on to the hope program were um trade unions who wanted to come in and treat uh teach trades and things like that. Again, I don't know who's going to
take us up on these um resources, but I know the wrong thing to do is not to do anything. And so just hope that somebody at some point will grab onto that and and do something better with their lives. Um, next slide.
So you might have heard about this thing about adult theft um um in Henipin County. I know that uh Sheriff Fletcher likes to talk about our stats compared to Ramsey County stats quite a bit, but um when I think about the family
unit, somebody loses their car, don't lose their car, gets their car stolen, how does that affect the family unit and the amount of time it takes to recover um vehicles? and then the paying on top of that. Um, adding an autotheft unit was something that was very important
because it affects so many facets of the family life. Um, one of the things I can say is just putting out that unit and being able to get experienced detectives from other jurisdictions to be a part of this initiative has been great. They started in January of 2024.
Um, I can tell you last year, uh, our recovery numbers were a little bit over four million in vehicles. Um, and now we have started partnering with some other agencies. They they've caught on to this and liked it. And so sometimes we'll go do um, initiatives in other areas. So, it's it's it's growing
and until we have a steep decline in our um, these cars that are being stolen or carjacked, uh, that initiative, that priority has to stand. Um, I will say that a large uh amount of them are being committed by juveniles. And all last
fall and this winter, um, I traveled to the state capital to discuss initiatives that can improve youth interventions and placement options in the metro area, specifically here in Henipin County. Uh, next paragraph, recruitment and retention. I kind of talked about that a
little bit. It had to be initiative. We cannot continue to put ourselves in the position where we're just responding. Law enforcement is just one action of what we do. We need to make sure that we are truly about public safety, prevention, intervention, enforcement.
That spells pie, by the way. And if we can go to the next slide, please. Um, and then when we talk about community outreach, I will tell you that that's the best part about my job. I will tell you my assistance. When she see me um kind of in a grumpy mood, she
tells me to leave because she knows when I'm out in the community with my people, then I then I'm good. That's my that's my filler up cup, right? But community outreach is something that's very important to me. Um no agency, no law enforcement agency can do this work without working with communities. And
you know, I would like to offer this to to you all. When you have community events, we're coming. We just need to know where they are. I want to be everywhere. Um, and so I please offer that when you're having community events, we come out to Minister. Um,
it's very important to me. So, next slide. I was glad cuz you know what my talking point said? Uh, Champlain. I'm like, please don't have Champlain up there. But, um, just some of the, uh, stats
that we've had in comparison to quarter 1 of 2024 and, uh, quarter 1 2025 for the patrol hours that we've have. um logged in miniaturista and then the RFIs that's for um requests for information. So we have a intelligence uh criminal
analysis group that sometimes information comes intel comes into them from our various uh law enforcement agencies and um they help them kind of put their cases together. So that's what the RFIs are and um dispatch events as you know um we have we dispatch for the
area and the number of calls that they've got from uh this area quarter 1 2024 compared to 20 25 so and then jailbook with that being said is there another slide
thank you I want to give you all the time to ask me any questions you know I never go and figure that I know what people want to hear. Um, again, being this was my first time, I just wanted to kind of give like a a big overhaul of just high level of what we're doing and
I would really take like to take any questions if you have them and if we have the time. Mayor, we'll take a few minutes. Um, can you you talked a little bit about Narcan. Is that available to the public and if somebody wanted to get it, is it free? Do they pay for it? And what is
the lifpan of Narcan? So, I will tell you, um, it's free. We come out and we actually teach it because we we, you know, there's some places that do a virtual deal that it's that's it's more important for me to make sure we have people that come out to communities and they teach it. They give you um narcam
for free. No, it's no, it's not a lifespan on it. The only thing that we worry about is um if it gets too cold, you know, like leaving in your car or something like that. But we do provide all the training. We do it for free. We come to any community and ask and um we
would gladly do that here as well. Okay. When you um said that the jails have 80% of the murderers homicides those and not as many people with misdemeanor, is that because they're not being charged and they're just being let go or is it just completely being taken over by the more
violent crimes? It's being taken over more by violent crimes. you know, um, again, so when I was the major in 2019 and I came here, we had way too many people being held on misdemeanors. Um, and and when I say misdemeanor, it would be something like
fair evasion on the train or um or trespassing or things like that. Um, when we have people that are being held on felony, they're typically in custody a lot longer. That's why our uh our stays have went up quite a bit and our costs have went up quite a bit. Um, but
it's not dropping. I would say that we do need some expediency from the rest of our judicial partners um to move cases through. Um I do think that's part of the reason why we're being bottlenecked right now. Um something I should have brought up. Maybe you seen it in the media, maybe
you didn't. But right now, I think we are um annexing. That means sending some of our our inmates to other jails um because of the the order that's coming down from the DOC that um forces us to decrease our population, but that's
costing us um hundreds of thousands of dollars to do that. But I will not be a part of a conversation about letting people that are being held on violent offenses go just to keep our jail population down. I it's my job to make sure I do my part to keep our
communities safe. And while it cost a lot, um I'm not going to put a price on the the um safety that our communities deserve. I hope that answers your question. Yes. Thank you. Has the county been uh
proactive in giving you funding that you need or how is that? You said the f- word. Sorry. Um you know, county has been good um with with funding, but as I said before, things have been stagnant for a while, and the job is just very much
different than what it was before. the cost to do business in terms of public safety is very expensive. Um we are having those talks right now with expected um uh budget cuts and I'm going to tell you I am very worried about that
because public safety should never be something that's negotiated. Um and so I believe that we have our first budget talks with our uh county administrator and commissioners at the last week of July. But I'm going to be honest. I'm worried about where these
cuts are going to come from. We are not in a place where we can um take public safety in Henipin County lately. Sheriff Whit, first of all, thank you so much for being a public servant. Uh God bless you. Thank you. You can see the passion that you have for your job, your
many roles that you've played. Um do you I lived in Minneapolis and St. Paul for 10 years and I felt like incredibly safe and blessed and fortunate to live there. I don't feel that way now. I'm a little afraid to go downtown Minneapolis. Um do
you feel uh you know the whole defund the police? I find that so shocking because I think everyone in this room is so grateful for our our wonderful police force and and for all of you. Do you feel like that's
changed a bit now in Minneapolis? Do you feel do I mean do the police officers in Minneapolis feel respected by the community? And uh do you feel safe? And what do you think is your biggest hurdle? Um I I guess I want
to ask this question. when some of these um violent offenders are charged, do um you know, when it comes before a judge, are they punished accordingly or do you feel like they're not? I could tell you once upon a time you
could kind of tell what somebody was going to be sentenced to and now sometimes there's no rhyme or reason to it. Um again, and when I'm talking to my staff who feel like deflated sometimes by seeing some of the same people, it makes it very hard. It's like how do you I guess maybe that should have been one
of the difficulties is how do you keep people who have passion to do this work? Um want to truly keep people safe. How do you keep that morale up? It makes it very difficult sometimes. But as far as like um in Minneapolis, I will tell you, you know, I grew up in Minneapolis, so
for me it's like some of the things seeing is normal. Um and but it should not be normal. Um again I said earlier it's like yeah we we see numbers are going down but the intensity of crimes are going up very um sharply. Um I will
tell you that I actually moved back to Minneapolis um in Lauren Park uh where there's a lot of things going on there and you know some people even police be like what are you doing? Well you know you can't be afraid of the communities that you swear to protect
and serve. You have to be a part of it. Um, and you know, I've never been one to sit around and complain. It's like, okay, what are the solutions, right? Um, it's getting better. And that's so hard for if if you're if that's not your norm, it's hard for people to see that. But I will tell you, it is getting
better. The collaborations that we have worked with um Minneapolis Police Department have been quite extensive. But, you know, something else I don't shy away from, as I told you, as that small child, I've seen what bad policing is. So I never I never ignore the fact
that sometimes there are people that make us all look bad. And so we got to do a better job of making sure that those type of people do not exist because they are the ones that are hurting the relationships. Um and then like a lot of things, it's the negative people that are the loudest. I
can tell you I uh challenge some of the Minneapolis Rotary groups. It's like, you know, if I go to the suburbs, I see all these signs we support police. I have not seen one in Minneapolis. But they need to know that that people do support them. But because negative people are just so loud and then when
we're talking about elected officials too, it's like even they're just saying, you know, that yes, we support you. And then maybe speaking up to some of the nonsense that we hear for people who believe that um that this profession should be defunded or we don't need it. I don't know what planet they're leaving living on.
Um but we do need policing. We need good policing. We need good people to do this job. And um it's unfortunate that uh the ones the majority who are in this business for the right reasons and doing a good job don't get the credit that they deserve. Um and so again the
challenge is sometimes how do you keep people interested and how do you keep that morale up when all you hear is the negative naysayers that are constantly going at you. I have long answers too. Well, good thing you speak fast.
Thank you so much, Sheriff, for coming out to our far-flung uh corner of the county. Uh was really uh your presentation was really informative. Um I saw one slide you mentioned about the pipeline for uh future law enforcement. Is the uh what kind of stuff is the county doing, if anything,
to kind of help get young people interested in careers in law enforcement? Well, no, thank you for that question. So I have right now I think 21 interns working with our interns, paid interns to get them used to the culture of
Henipin County Sheriff's Office. Um getting to see all the aspects of the sheriff's office. So that's one of the things that I needed board approval um for that to happen. So I was very grateful that we've done that. Again, hoping that that does not go away because that is that is a very valuable
tool. um we can show some people that this is a career you want and we might show some of these young people you don't want this career, you know, but at least they have that that that experience. Um so that's one of the things that we're doing, you know, when it came to um recruiting for the jail um
for our detention deputies who are not licensed peace officers, but that's also one of the pipelines to get people licensed. Um one of the barriers that I had was that before they would even get to us, um they people were turned away from our human resources. And it's like, wait a minute, people take the time to
go through that very long application process, they must think that they're qualified to do this job, right? Um, and so after looking into some of that, finding out that um people maybe have like it's it's not black and white as far as what their
experience is. So now we started a program where we call the um Henipin County Detention Deputy Training Program, meaning we bring them in as trainees. We get them to where they need to be so that we can then hire them as a permanent employee for detention deputies. Um and again, we've seen a lot
of success with that. We will be hosting our annual um swearing in ceremony in September and I don't know how we're going to get everybody in that building, but we've been having some a lot of success. I shouldn't say some, a lot of success. But it's having those communications. And then I always tell
people in terms of female, we're part of the 30 by30 initiative. That means having 30% of your um workforce um be women by 2030. It's a national movement that's going on. So being a part of that has been something that's been really important. But just being in all those
places. I tell people if you can't see her, you can't be her. If you can't see it, you can't be it. So making sure that we're not just when I say we can't just be looked at as law enforcement, we truly got to be public safety. That means like I said, we have to be everywhere. You never know when you're
going to inspire somebody, whether it's a kid or somebody looking for a second or third career. You have to have that communication and those interactions. It's indirect recruiting. You know, we can't just focus on direct recruiting. It has to be that indirect recruiting.
So I just to add to this and this is where it makes me uncomfortable. I'm not I don't like compliments. I just do what I got to do, right? But when a deputy came to me one day and he kind of turns his head sideways and he goes, "You're the real deal." I'm like, "Oh, what's that supposed to mean?" But you know,
being approachable, asking people how are they doing, asking how you been, all of those basic human qualities that we have. It doesn't get erased because you have a badge and a gun and a uniform. Just you're good enough. And that's what I tell people. You're good enough. Now, how can I help
you get that? Thank you. Well, thank you um Sheriff. We really appreciate you coming out and lots of information, but um really appreciate and all the work that you do. So, thank you very much. So much. Thank you.
Thank you all. And again, we'll come out and do the Narcan trainings and when you have community events, please invite us and we would love to come. Okay, thank you. Thank you. Um, so the recognition for service, um, we're going to have to postpone that because they're not here this evening.
Um, so then then we're going to quickly uh something more important. Haha. Our financial update for 2025. It won't be that long. No, this should be a minute or two. So, um, thank you, Madame Mayor and Council. So, um, the information for second
quarter 2025, um, probably just summarize the memo, um, briefly. Um, our revenues are about at 46% of our budget collection. So, during the same time last year, we were at 44%. So, finally got most of our tax revenue in for first
um, half of the year here. Obviously, we get that in um, the two chunks uh, first and second uh, this time and then in December. um the building permit revenue has been doing pretty well still for this year. So I think you would saw that. So that's our other biggest piece of um revenue. And then on the
expenditure side we're at about at 52% year to date to our 2025 budgeted expenditures which in that you last year at this time we're about at 50% in that low 50s. Obviously some things we've paid for the full amounts like some of our our insurance and premiums and and
things like that. So really uh we are tracking pretty well at the mid mid year point here as far as um coming in with our revenues matching expectations and staying within our budget on the expenditure side. So guess I'll stand for any questions otherwise we'll have a
more detailed um at our August work session looking ahead to 2026 with our our talking our initial um discussions on the 2026 budget. So, how was water usage for quarter um two? Um with how wet it's been, it's I mean
it was it's pretty it was almost more comparable to 24 than 23 and 22. So, um it's something obviously third quarter is our biggest one. So, we'll see where July, August, September take us, but um it definitely um we didn't have too many
people with, you know, high usage or and then in in total um it was more comparable to to last year than than a couple two to three years ago. So, so the revenue probably will be a little down from quarter quarter from
a couple years ago. Any other questions? Otherwise, we're going to do a deeper dive um in August. So, thank you, Brian. Um so, next we have persons to be heard. So, we have a couple um we have quite a few people
signed up. So, what I'm going to offer here is um if if the council will um agree with this, if you could maybe have a couple of people speak uh for the because we have some people here from uh Bayside for the drainage issues and then
we could give you a little more time and then maybe we could have a little bit of discussion versus everybody getting three minutes and that's it. if you're okay with that. Um if you can kind of have maybe one or two people speak and then and same with the um the the uh
Woodland Cove people. um if you could have a couple people speak and then we could have a little bit of um discussion and some comments, a a little bit of back and forth rather than otherwise we're going to be here for 20 minutes and you get three minutes each and you're going to be here for about 20
minutes and you get also get three minutes each and then you can go home and you might not have any answers to your questions or concerns. So with that, I'm going to start with the Bayside um people first. the um come to the podium and then you have to state your name and address for
the record. 905 Bayside Lane. Is that is that better? Uh I am the second house on the right as you come into Bayside Lane. There's one house whose property is higher than
mine. It's this house. I brought this uh video just to kind of set the stage for what I want to talk about. It's going to take about two minutes. Go ahead. This was June 25th. That's the neighbor's water coming to my
yard. Wow. Now it's coming through my yard. Hence Bayside. Right. Actually, this is this is part of Jennings Bay. Yeah. Yeah.
It's a It's a 0.5 acre lot. So, it's a it's a pretty nice long stretch of water that we got here. It It's graded toward the south. If you want to move ahead just a little bit farther, maybe a half a minute. Good. Good. See that drain there?
Yeah. Here's a I submerged a a pause here for just a minute. My gosh. I I put a uh I'm sorry I can't hear you. Can you speak a little bit closer to the microphone? Thank you. I'm talking to the screen.
This is the far south end of my lot. At the end of it, at the end of it, I put a like a French drain underground about a 3,000galon drain to hopefully hold water and let it disperse underground over a few weeks
after we get rain. These swimming in their basements for sure. Yeah, they live in the house south of me and the second house south of me and they've been suffering the water water the whole time as well. If you play it now to the
end, you'll see just how bad it got. This is one rain event. It was that one day. It was that wind time. Wow. Three and a quarter inches over a period of about maybe 14 or 15 hours, I think. Just about to go over Gina's lawn here.
It's coming a little bit later. You can see that I have a uh a successful pump in there when it gets this bad. Pump it out to the street. When it gets this bad, you can stop it
right here. You can see now it's going into Jeanie Gina and Terry's yard directly. And uh that's a lot of water. It is. It's a lot of water. In fact, that particular time, I had my uh submersible pump in in one of the
bucket baskets and ran it for three days straight. And it pumps four gallons a minute, about 37 gallons a day, and it ran for three days. And I told you I had 3,000 3,000 gallons of of uh there's a lot of water that
comes through there. It has nowhere to go except in my system in Gina's yard, your pool. So, uh, let me just tell you a little bit more more about myself. That area that you saw where the water was running, that was the original driveway
that went to the cabin that was on the lake. It was supposed to have been the drainage area, I suspect, when this was put in. It just it doesn't enough water. There's not enough place for it to go. I had no idea how much was there because the last
20 feet of my lot when I bought it in 2002 was all buckthornne and dead elms and ash trees and I didn't have any visibility into it until I started clearing out my yard so I could have my whole yard and uh
we didn't really have any visibility into the issue until we did that as to how much water was standing there. All we had was mosquitoes, a lot of them, standing water. So over time, um, we reclaimed that whole corner and expanded
our our, um, our yard. And we have, we have beautiful yard. We love it. But for at least six weeks every spring and summer, we have this issue of standing water a couple two, three times. And uh the solution we had hoped would be a to be able to tap into a drain that's
across the the dividing line between Jennings Cove and Bayside Lane. There's a drain in the Thorson's yard that I believe is a 20 inch Gary. Is that right? A 20 inch. It's 20 in. Yeah. Uh but somehow nobody can determine if I
could tap into that. Okay. It's about 30 feet. I could do a horizontal bore right out of my catch basin and eliminate all the water that's going to these folks. So, do we know why we we can't he can't do that? I mean,
and if if I may, um, so we've had legal look into this and see if we have any easements or if there's any records of of who owns it. Um, I believe that the city did put it in um a while back. We're assuming that we did. We have no record of it, but we're assuming that
with the size of pipe, it would with the city. So, but it does hook into our infrastructure. Um, so it goes into our storm water system. Um, but we don't have any records. So, we we technically can't say you can do it. It would have to be uh permission from that private
property in order to be able to even though it's probably probably our So, we've we've had legal counsel look at it and and that's their determination. Um, you know, there is, yeah, I brought up, you know, is there a prescriptive easement right to this because it's been in there. We haven't
been using it for our public infrastructure. So, that kind of goes out the window. If we were using it to to to gather water that, you know, from from the area more so then we could maybe go down the prescriptive easement, right, which, you know, we've done for other
things. Uh, so, uh, right now that's that's what we've gotten from legal counsel as far as being able to access it. So, it's kind of a a private matter. Um, you know, the pipe from talking to to Gary is is fairly large and could probably take on the water that you're talking about.
I've got That's So, um, you know, I I I told Gary, I said, "Well, you know, I' I'd be petitioning that property owner as hard as you can to to get access to that." She uh she's not approachable. Okay. So, is there any other can he put
this water into the city's system some other way? Well, you've already approved if I would go from my southeast southwest corner with a horizontal bore to a bucket right by the curb in the front of my yard. Yeah. And then go south under their yard into
the storm sewer that's in the southeast corner of their yard. But this is about a uh 12 to$15,000 bill for me. Is there any possibility that the city could help? Oh, I like that a lot.
I I'm sure. I'm just When you see how much water went across their yard, out of my yard, if we could stop what was coming out of my yard, your problems would be diminished significantly. I don't know if it's half the problem that we had this this time around or or what, but uh
I don't think we can make a determination. And I don't want to put the council on um how do you say? Yeah. Um but if you know I know we talked about it once and there wasn't a appetite to pay for it, but I'm wondering if we could have a partnership
or something where maybe it's divided somehow between a property and the city and we use some of our storm water funds. How many on the other side of the fence is your property? Yes. So I put in our entire property line. Now, this is when Sheriff Fisher
was our neighbor. So, when we first moved in, so jump in here. Um, we've got the drain out along our entire backyard. So, it's whatever to handle any water. I run it around and I tied it into by
the fence. So, any water that could get to that drain and go towards the lake, it can. But it's blocked. in the city back then with the drain tile out a PVC to a catch basin in a corner of our lot
to pump water out. But the home was checked out and it was after it was completed in a built and they put in a PVC ting to the city system. That's why it's an easy access because it's already there's already where it's with this PVC pipe but that
PVC broke this winter. Okay. Now we are pumping water above 80% below ground along the top water and about 20% main comes from our lower level and that's added
anything you could do to help it be. So it's your home it's your home. It's your home. Is there just the three? There's a fourth one too. There's actually the one that's at the top. they're um they would like to participate if there was some way they could
going from their backyard to their their drain. That's that'd be a long long shoot. So, let's just say if if there's five entities involved, four homeowners and the city and we split the cost five ways and if it's 15 or
I don't go ahead. I'm just Yeah, go ahead. 925 Bayside Lane. So, yeah. So I think you can sense our frustration on right when we bought the house in 2000. It was approved. Our house was built too low. We've been pumping water since the
inception. We we've spent thousands of dollars on this issue. Cheryl Fish is a mayor. She approved the PVC pipe. Um now right now it doesn't pump. So it's urgent because come winter that water has nowhere to go and we're going to flood our basement. So you know there's two solutions. I
think the latter one that Danny said or be connected to the storm basin on Jennings Co. But yeah, it gets uh we're afraid to leave the house for extended periods of time, go on vacation because our base will be fluff. We're not there. So if you got the water pumping from underneath the ground plus water coming over and we've been after this for years
and it's like it's falling on a deaf ear. So I'm glad you're hearing us out because we just can't continue to live this way and and it, you know, we want a lot of financial help because we spent thousands of dollars already. I can't you could probably the price tank you put in just putting that catch drain tile in. So, you know, we want our tax
dollars at at earn helping us, you know, because we spend so much money trying to resolve this problem. It's not fixed. Well, the thing is we've been replacing pumps every year. Then you got to get a new pump,
right? Right. Like during the during dry periods, it it runs inside our house per day. What we'd really have to do is 30 seconds it's pumping. I think this is good because I I don't think we realized
how dramatic it is. Um I think what we'd want to find out from our engineer or um staff, okay, what what is the solution? Who would do the work? How much would it cost? Um and then the council can make a
decision. I I'm fully supportive of your ask. French all the way. Okay. And yeah. Yeah. And I think we we just one of the things
we'd have to do is just make sure that our engineer takes a look at it to make sure that if there's an investment from the city's part that that it's really going to work. You know, we want to make sure that it would work. Um I I have a question. Who would put in a
20 in pipe if not the city? Well, that's what we've been asking. Well, nobody, but if we don't when we did it, if there wasn't an easement or a contract and we just did it and let them Well, the the neighbor that's
non-compliant or doesn't want to help, does she have the right to say no, you we Well, that's according because we'd be going you'd be going under her property or destroying her. No, she has. She wouldn't have any. She's not even neighbor.
her leg, but it would go under her. She wouldn't go straight to a holding Why does she not want What is the downside for her protective?
It's not going to cost us. I can interject. She she said um you know at first she was saying she owned it and no and then then when Gene was communicating with her it was there already when she purchased home. the city built. Let's be honest, nobody else
put that thing in. She said, excuse me. Can we? So, the question is, I think Jasper was saying, is would it be a public project or a private project? And if it's a private project, we would still, my opinion, want our engineer to take a
look to make sure that it's going to work if we're going to have a private public partnership in it. So, um, I think maybe that would be the direction this evening that we could do is Allison, if you could come back or Gary,
put your heads together and come back at our next meeting telling us what the solution would be. maybe talk to the neighbors and tell us um if it's going to work. I want to make sure it's going to work. They want to make sure it's going to work. It sounds like we can't
use that 20-inch pipe. That's un um neighborly. But um if we can't, then let's see what other solutions we could come up with and then what the price tag would be a kind of an approximate uh with some of the numbers they have and then u bring it back and let's make a
decision at that time. Would that possible? And I have a quick question. Because we have no place to drain our water because we're built too low. It's it's documented um record was built too low. We can't pump the water to that basin
any longer. It has to go to the front of our house and then connect in there some way, shape, or form before winter. Once that freezes, we are all that water's coming right at us and we have nowhere for So that's why I'm saying if they could bring it back um at our August 4th
meeting and then we can make a decision. I would hope I would think August, September, October, November, we have three months before um freezing. So I would hope something could be done before then. Council
full. Yeah, it's underwater, right? You don't want to electrify the experience. I just have a question for Gary. Gary, the the neighbor who's not being cooperative with the pipe and it goes into a city pond.
Correct. It flows it connects into a city catch basin in front of their house which eventually goes to the uh pond by Jennings Cove Park which then flows out eventually to the lake. I don't really understand.
The pond by the park is a city pond. Correct. Correct. Well, we just tell her she can't do that anymore. Exactly. Yeah. We if if we did ask the attorney if that is a possible thing and it was denied,
said it probably is not something we can just, you know, shut off and just say you're not going to allow use of it. But the ultimate solution would be the easiest solution would be to use that pipe. Um, get these yards, have a drain tile system through those backyards to
that catch basin in that backyard and wick the water away. A 20-in pipe will not overflow. I mean, so to that, can we take out the their pipe and put in a city one that solves the whole area?
Like say we're we're removing your pipe. I don't think we can because we don't have an easement. See, we have take an ement through the whole like the whole area. Can't we take an easement through the whole area? Yeah, you you have to go through eminent domain to do that if they weren't willing.
Um, do they know about any of this because that's unsure. Unsure if they know about it or not. Um I'm not sure what they could do about it. Um it so what I'm gathering but do to do imminent domain would take
a lot longer than what these folks need. So that's the other issue. Um that's that's a process and it's a long process and then you have to prove public purpose which we probably could prove but um it's it's uh um and then you have you still have to pay for the land and
still have to pay for the easement. It would be it would be least it would be the most cost effective way to do it would be to go the other route there's no trees there's no obstacles already that's tied into that first city
system in the street so it's perfect right just one more question sorry um can we get an easement through their three properties and run a pipe next to the one that's already there the pipe that's Yeah, but
they they would have to agree to the easements. Um, but we wouldn't be able to gain access to where that pipe is because we'd have to go on that property owner who doesn't seem to be willing to gain let us gain access through an easement. Have we made an effort to contact this neighbor? We have. Yeah.
Gary has the right. Yeah. Through the attorney. What? Just out of curiosity quickly, what are the So, you're looking at your house, Danny. Your house. And so 865 9005 yours 925 and 945.
So all four of you 965. Y daddy's house probably 80% of the top that everything
to the lake where it's supposed to go. So I think the what I'm going to recommend is that our engineer and Gary work with the residents to make sure that whatever solution you want to bring forth on the fourth um will work number
one and kind of at least a approximate cost and then we can decide on on the city's participation. Does that sound like a participate? We'll we'll decide that. I just want to I'd like to offer that we
participate again we'll we'll talk about that on the fourth but um I would want to make sure that if it is a partnership that uh whatever we participate in that it's actually going to work. So all right that's the plan. All right thank
you. All right so next we have um people here for from Woodland Cove and I Allison is that do you want to who's going to be Gino. Gino. Okay.
Hi, my name is Jeff Martin. I work um I I live in Orno, but I'm working and have been working for quite some time in Woodland Cove, the woods at H Hallsteads Bay, the Cove, and most recently the Meadows at Holsteads Bay. recently I was contacted by the homeowners um
specifically along u uh Wolfberry last Thursday night that a road had been proposed in the uh Three Rivers Park property to access the proposed wellhouse which caused us to have a
meeting today them to have a number of different conversations and and myself as a representative with Stonegate and Gonnie Holmes to have a discussion with the owners and the developers of uh the meadows at H Hallstead's Bay. Quite
frankly, I'm um recommending or hoping that the council um direct staff to uh push the pause button on the the building and the park uh uh access and um create some dialogue inepth dialogue
within staff uh with these homeowners and also um Stonegate Builders and GA and the developer. We've got a quite a holdings there as a company number one and a great neighborhood that we have really we're really proud of and and uh
we have these home homeowners that um I've become very close to that have built substantial homes and um uh having um a benefit of the Three Rivers Park behind them and obviously has been a draw for them and a draw for the
neighborhood. So, um, that's why I'm here today is to support the homeowners and the neighbors and also be an advocate for Ga Homes and, uh, Stonegate Builders. Thank you, Jeff. Um, so I should I just want to make a couple of comments. You
can sit down if you want. Thank you. Um, so our staff has been talking with um, Tyler uh, Tyler Winkis. Tanker Winkas. And so, uh, what staff would like to do is, uh, so, first of all, we're not going to put a hold on on
this, uh, project because it has to go forward. We're waiting for the, um, it's gone out for bid. Um, but we could make some adjustments. So, um, we're not, um, adverse to doing that. and um staff has been trying to get a hold of this Tyler
person and hopefully uh create uh have a meeting with you folks as well as Tyler as well as our staff to come up with some alternatives. I understand that there might be an alternative for the road. Do you have that to could you bring that? Um, and I point of clarity,
I did talk to Tyler this morning and I think we had a good conversation and um, you know, I think he's going to circle back either tonight or tomorrow and and I think the idea is that we can all get together and look at the plans and maybe come up with an with what works for the group. Um, and I can pull up there's
there originally the original ingress egress point was in a different location. I can pull that up. Um and you know we can easily just I'm telling city council we can easily pivot to that if we need to. So just it's not a beall end all that that road will go through. Um
but that's what um you know we started talking to GA back in September of last year about this and that's what we proceeded with but we can pivot. There is some time. So um I'll try to advance not on the building but on the road. So the building is going to go up one way
or the other. Um, but the road might uh we can maybe pivot on that. If you can see, this was something we just kind of put together quickly or Gary put together quickly. So, the road that I think you guys are have issue with is the one on the right um to the to the north a little bit here. Um the
other one was going through where the where the trail connects to Wolfberry and kind of goes along there. Um, we we ruled this one out originally because of the size of the the vehicles that might be going on there, but we we changed some things with how the plant operates and now those larger trucks won't need
to go through there. So, that that could be a feasible location. So, um, we've talked to Tyler about this. Hopefully, we can get together really soon and and work some of these things out. So, I I thought maybe that might help a little bit. I know some of you also um
had some questions regarding um some of the public meetings that we've had. How come you didn't know? So, first of all, just for clarification, the city council is not required to hold a public hearing. Now, there's there's a difference and I want to clarify that
just briefly. A public hearing is when we post we have certain posting requirements and we say, "Okay, there's a public hearing. you come into city hall, you you are allowed to speak for or against something. But when we do a project like this, this is a necessary
must-have project that the city has to do. And so we are not required to hold a public hearing. We have had many, many public meetings regarding this issue. We have been studying this and working on this for over three years. And we have
had numerous meetings regarding this. Not to mention, we've also held two town hall meetings where all the residents in Woodland Cove have been invited. And recently, our most recent one was on April 14th, I believe, where we invited the residents in Woodland Cove to come
and talk to us regarding our water treatment plant and our our water rates. We had 10 people 10 people come to that meeting. We also um post on our website information and we also post um on if
you look at your water bill and your utility bill, we have information on the back of that. So, we're trying to reach out. We're trying to be transparent. We're trying to get information out to all to our residents when it pertains to water or water treatment. Um having said
that, um we've put out this uh we've the plans and specifications have been done. Uh we've paid a lot of money for that. Over a million dollars and they're out for a bid and we'll be opening those bids on August 4th. How 7th? I'm sorry.
Yes, 7th. Um so if those bids come back fairly decent, what we expect, we will be awarding that um contract um at our second meeting in August. With that said, there's still a few tweaks that we can do. Um, I know previous to the
meeting we talked about this burm. The burm I don't believe is on city property. This large burm that um I believe one of the young ladies is talking about, but um we could add to it if the owner of that burm is acceptable.
We do own it. It is on our property. It is. It's the one between where the uh pickle ball court and the new water treatment. Okay. Then then it's ours. Yeah. I'm sorry. we can add to that burm. Um, if that's an option, uh, we can look at that to add more trees and to kind of screen it a little bit better. In fact,
adding to the burm might actually reduce our cost if we don't have to haul all of that soil away. Those are things that we can look at. Um, the building's going to be there. It's going to be in that location. I'm not going to mince words. I'm not going to tell you something that's not true, but uh we can try and
uh screen it a little bit better, too, if that's something that will be of um kind of that you might like. So, with that, um if anybody else wishes to speak at this time, you're welcome to do so.
I'll give you a few minutes. Sure. Yes. So Jasper is trying to set up that meeting and he's trying to set it up with um this with Tyler as well as with residents and then he also suggested maybe with our engineering.
Yeah, absolutely. So I know Tyler's on vacation right now, so I appreciate him reaching out to me today. Uh so um I would work through him and if there's a conglomerate of of people from the neighborhood that can help guide where this goes, I think be part of that. Um but I think we we need to try to do it
as soon as we can. Mr. I'm not sure what your name is. You can come forward. Yes. My name is Dave Carl. I lived at I live at 4622 Wolfberry Court with my wife. And um first of all, thank you. We we really hoped to have a working
relationship with the city on on these issues. And believe it or not, um I mean we're not longtime residents. We've been there a short short time. And prior to purchasing the lots, we did call M talk to park reserve. We talked to GA homes. We called the city. Is there anything
planned in the park? We want to buy that lot, but we don't want to have something developed behind us. And every time the answer came back, no. So, we bought the lot. We built the homes. And now we saw Thursday night, just 96 hours ago that, you know, this plan was in place that
got us all looking and looking deeper and deeper. So, we really appreciate the fact that you're willing to take a look at the Woodbury curve option. I went down in and measured it all out. There's lots of room. I assure you there's lots of room. Um, the BM is good news, too.
We really appreciate that. Thank you. And I we really appreciate GA and Stonegate Builders for their support with us on and, you know, being a good partner. The one question I have um on the facility, we get it. You're going to
build it. It's needed. Not a discussion. The parking lot the way it is right now is in front of it. And I know you've got the storage tanks behind it. So, you can't put it there. Is it too late to just simply flip-flop it? Make it a
mirror image facing the road versus us. It wouldn't change the building at all. Well, it I think there there was a reason for having it the way it was. If I can give a little history on the whole driveway situation here, it might help clarify things. Originally when we were looking at the design of this plant, it was not going to go here. It
was going to a different location um ended up with bad aqua first. We needed to put it here. The driveway was going to go off a Wolfbury curve, but at that time when the plant was designed, it was going to use um one ton chlorine cylinders, um which is very common in
water treatment plant. Ours currently uses a smaller 150 size. The one ton was going to be used because he wanted to change them out so much. um with that it comes in a bigger larger truck and we did not want first off that large of a truck or we did not want chemicals at all going through the neighborhood. That
was one thing we were trying to eliminate. That's why this road was developed because it was a larger um 40ft semi basically that would be coming in with these tanks. Thus the larger drive would come in. We need to have that area back into the delivery area
and then drive out. Um, with the changing of the size of the plant, shrinking it down just to compact a little more, we got away from the one ton cylinders back to the smaller 150s. Um, which is uh basically like your gas
um your grill size, you know, probably 6 feet tall, 5t tall size. So, we're back to those. So, it comes in a smaller delivery truck, not um it's not a semi, it's a box truck. It's not like a UPS
truck. It's slightly bigger than that. Um, and yes, we could bring that through the neighborhood, but again, it's delivering chemicals. We kind of like to keep it out of there. That's why we just kind of left the driveway where it was coming into that way. Um, it's, you know, it's, you know, was it seemed like
the best option at the time. We could not do Highway 7. Just, you know, just let you know because there is a big coalition right now, safety coalition. They're trying to eliminate, make it safer. They don't want any new entrances off Highway 7. can understand that we did pursue that route. We have a temporary construction easement so we're
not getting that construction traffic through there through your neighborhood. Um so we'll be using that interim. Um and the the fact that we chose this area and the size of the plant the way it sits. We did try different alignments
with the parking lots and however they could come in. This just made the most sense to have vehicles come in with a different truck. Um I'm not certain if we, you know, and that's a good question I can look at. We may be able to shrink down the size of that parking lot a little bit with a smaller truck coming in, but they still need to access coming
in. Um, and if they come in from Wolfbury, we may have to redesign that to have a little hammerhead for them to back into and drive in and out of. Um, can it be done? Yes. Is it a shorter distance? Yes. Um, we'll have to add some new engineering sheets to it uh to
add that in. I There's 65 ft. I just looked at 65 ft of right away through there. So, we have plenty of room. There is I I thought it was a fire hydrant. It's a light pole that would have to be relocated. Not a not a big deal. We can do it that way. Um the issue would be the pickle ball court would um be
hampered. There would we'd have to make some kind of a temporary entrance to that for everybody, but we could, you know, sneak by there. The the cost probably in the long run might be a little cheaper. It could be a wash until we find out, but we can explore that if that's the sole wish of you guys. So,
but just give you a little history of why that driveway was placed there. That area that we have there is um an easement array through there with the city and met council. We have our uh gravity sewer main uh sanitary sewer that runs through there. So that's collecting all the sewage from your
homes going through there along with two 24-in force manses for the Met Council. That's what that easement and that's why that's open through there. Uh we do mow it twice a year. It's pretty wet in the one area so we have a hard time but we do open that maintain it. we do have to
have um a contractor come in every four years and clean that line section of line for us. Um so we try to maintain that. This would actually make it a lot easier to clean that too. But um we can make it through you know we can go that way if you know if it's feasible too to
keep it where it is and add to the burm, add some trees here or there, we can certainly do that. So that's kind of the history behind the driveway. Um, we would have liked to have had it directly off Highway 7. That that that just didn't that was first option. That was our first option. But
and did the state respond that they didn't want a public uh exit entrance to the highway even though it would be Have you ever dealt with Mindot? They don't want any. They're they're eliminating as many as they can. When I was at Chanhassen, um, and Miss Folski
can she can attest to this too. There was several uh farther down in Chanass that they eliminated the access to Highway 57 just in preparation for what's coming. So I mean they're they don't even like city roads. Yeah, they don't like our city roads. They're going to eliminate a lot of them and put, uh from what I understand, if they have their way, it's going to be
front roads and stuff like that. So uh just to get a temporary work access there was pretty tough. So Okay. Thank you again. So I think and so okay next real quick.
Oh my question feel like all resil you get it from the board. Um the um FSR sent it out too about the town hall. Yeah. Yeah. It would have come from Karen. Um
you get them when you sign up with your HOA. You have to sign up. Okay. So if you're not getting you get you don't get any emails from SSR. Okay. So they might go to your junk. Yeah. No.
Okay. So reach out to Karen at the HOA and then you'll get on that list. It was also posted to the Facebook page for Woodland Cove. It was on the back of the water bills. It was in the messenger. It was on the city's Facebook page. It's it was everywhere.
We're brand new to the area. You move and build a home. There's a lot of with real with moving companies with getting our mail in the first place was like three month process. So, if there's any way you guys can further on board or
educate with HOA to be like, here's what you should be looking for and keeping up. Like, it's really hard. Like, we're busy people, full-time jobs, full-time kids, just school a day. So, I just like I don't want to miss anything. I don't know what I don't know. I don't know what emails I should be getting, what I
should, shouldn't be getting, how checkup. So, I think like Well, Alison Allison, here's the thing. I have to I'm going to have to differ with you. the city has made and bent over backwards in terms of communicating and um with residents. There is some
responsibility on the residents part to also take some responsibility on that. Now what I would say is um contact your HOA person and let them know that you need better communications because we we try our best. Um, we have so much money
for communications and uh we we do as we we have we do uh all of this stuff uh website um newsletter um email alerts. If you haven't done that, you should do that. Check on our website. You can sign up for e alerts. Um we do um the town
hall meetings. We do uh state of the city addresses. Again, just trying to reach out to our residents and if there's something else that we should be doing that we're not, send us an email and let us know what that might be because um we we have
truly tried in the last number of years here to really reach out and and so contact your HOA person. Um that would be the first step and also sign up for our e alerts and check our
website um regularly. Jeff quick we can't change what already happened but my hope is that we really set up the meeting with the homeowners right as soon as possible to sit down and talk about the proactive solutions that have
been mentioned tonight which I think are really really uh fruitful and I appreciate everything that you're doing I I shared with them I've had a relationship with you in the past on another development event right you are very sensitive to homeowners along with the people on the council
side. I want to thank you for that behalf of these homeowners and stone builders. Yeah. But also, yes, but we really thought I'll be talking to Tyler today. If we can as soon as possible set up that meeting, have an internal meeting with
the staff and and discuss this and and work to a solution that really works. That would be great. We will do that. I will be contacting the HOA on that. Yeah. Yeah, we'll we'll we'll do that. I know Jasper's real good about that. He's on
it. All right. Thank you. And I'm I'm certain. Okay. Three bars on the BM and I uh but we'll take it to the offline meeting. I just I don't know if you guys have seen the Burm, but it's in my backyard. We moved
in 3 months ago. Um, I'll save you all my emotional story about why we chose it, but the burm's about six feet tall. So, it current state won't cover the park the cars in the parking lot. So, and we're taking away half the burm
to create the new basin. So, I just would really appreciate anything we can do to make that burm bigger. There's there's some deciduous trees on the burm that won't do much in the winter and the there's four evergreens at the top of the burm and and two are dead. Um so
I'm sorry, what was your name again? Yeah, Kelly Ers 4654 and we're and our staff can talk to you about that because that's Sure. We didn't we didn't really have any say that the trees got that got planted on the burm initially. So, but we knew that they were going to have to
get removed, so we can put in there whatever we want now. Like a forest. And I I love screaming. I I I hear you. So, I think I think we'll come up with a a solution that that people can live with. Really, I'm I'm Our staff is really
good. I I I believe it. Thank you so much. Thank you for being here. Thank you. And I do want to say thank you for coming. Um, and I I'm I'm positive we'll be able to figure this out, um, to your satisfaction. So, um,
with that, uh, nobody else has signed up for any other issues. So, uh, with that, I think we'll move on to our consent agenda items, but again, thank you folks for coming. You can stay if you'd like or you can leave, but feel free to stay.
So, our um, our consent agenda items You're doing good. No, I didn't. Surprising. Thank you. Why don't you hand that to Gary? Um, I can take it. Jasper, I'll give him to Gary. He can
take care of it. Yeah. Thank you, Allison. All right. Um, are you folks here for some other reason? There you go. Might as well stay. All right. Well, thank you for staying. I appreciate that. So, next we have a
consent agenda. It's approve our work um are there any you wish to remove? No. Okay. Otherwise, it's um approve our work session meeting minutes from June 16th, 2025. B is approve our city council regular meeting minutes from June 16, 2025. C is approve our city
council meeting minutes from July 9th, 2025. D is a resolution to approve claims. E is a resolution approving a setback variance at 7610 County Road 15. F is a resolution approving a setback variance at 5962 Hard Scrabble Circle. G
is a resolution authorizing execution of a previous pavement agreement at 5804 Hearts Scrabble Circle. H is a resolution to accept resignation of Brett Hughes from our park commission and promote Carissa Garing to park
commission. And one more a resolution to approve purchase of the replacement of street department two-tonon dump truck. Any questions? hearing. None. Do I have a motion to approve consent agenda items A through I?
Oh, Brian. I think Brian, I'll give that to you. Brian Kein and Kathleen Rkin seconded that. All those in favor signify with I. I. All those opposed. Motion passes. Gary, I just want to say thank you very much for your efforts on that dump truck and
uh your recommendation to reuse the existing equipment. I thought that was very, very good. Thank you very much for that. Good job. Um, business items. Motion to approve a purchase of the Milo training system. Is that going to be Craig? Yep. All right. Thank you.
Um, I'm excited about this. Me, too. U madam madam mayor and members of council before you use a resolution to purchase the Milo training system. Um this is a followup from our work session where we had discussed the Milo and the benefits
uh for us as a police department as a city. Um just to review some of it as we talked before. Milo is a multiaceted trading system that approves our interaction with both adult and juvenile offenders as well as people in mental crisis, people with special needs and
people with diagnosis such as autism and PTSD. There are over a thousand scenarios that we can train on and each scenario has different levels of uh complexity and difficulty. Uh the system also helps officers with stress management during
both during and after calls. Uh besides the scenarios, the system can be used as an electronic range where we can practice our skill building and increase firearms proficiency without the expenses of ammunition and the hazardous cleanup of lead among other things. Um
the plan is for the system to be paid for using public safety grant money as well as DTF forfeite money. And I'll stand for your questions. Can we get a um once it's installed, can we use it like practice, you know, just kind of see how it works?
Yeah, I want to tour. Absolutely. Once we get trained, I will send an email out and you all can be the first to to join. I think this is great. Um Chief, can I ask you how many other cities have this?
Off the top of my head, I'm not sure. I believe Champlain has it and a couple training centers have it. Um there's different types of system like Milo. Um this is one of of many different types. Um but I I unfortunately can't tell you how many cities for certain have it.
I mean I like where the money is coming from, but I'm wondering like um could we share this with other cities? Oh, we could we can certainly look at a pay schedule to um to invite our partners in the area. I have no doubt that we would make some money on this.
Um, I might have to invite them in for free and then uh they'll come back after that and I'm sure and pay. So, yes, we'll definitely be looking at that. Thank you. Thank you. Good question. So, the annual cost is I think about 4600 or something in there.
Well, it it uh correct if we got the extended warranty, but without that it's just electricity and if something breaks, then we just pay it as it goes along. But other than that, um there's no um Milo provides additional scenarios for free as as they create them. So
really Oh, nice. We're getting the extended warranty. Correct. Do you guys want us to get the extended warranty if we can rent it to other cities? All right. Um one one point of clarity, um the the funding mechanism will be the
DTF money and then maybe some other the public safety money if if that's available. Um we we may uh tie this into the equipment certificate and use that money to pay that portion of the equipment certificate that we might sell just because um there's some accounting
things going on with fund balance and things like that with the amount of the DTF money. So just for the future, we don't know. Brian and I are going to work through that um as far as the budget goes as we're doing the 2026 budget. Uh but that might be the funding mechanism is to do an equipment certificate and then use the some of the
DTF money to pay that equipment certificate over five years. That makes sense. Um otherwise we could pay for it all but then just be prepared that our fund balance will drop probably lower than what we feel. Um the DTF money is in the general fund is basically what you were saying.
Thank you. That was easy. That was a lot faster. So that's why so you know we're at we're at 39.9% right now and if we spend or 100,000 out of that you'll see it go drop down. So we might phase it in um it's up to it's up to the group.
I I think that's a good idea. Um especially if we can um offset those um annual costs with other um um other departments participating and maybe paying a small fee or paying a fee
of some sort. So, um, all right. Any other questions? Otherwise, is there a motion to approve the purchase of the Milo training system? So, moved. Thank you, Miss Refkin. Is there a second? Second. Thank you, Mr. Vicky. Any other questions? Hearing none. Motion to approve. All
those in favor signify with I. I. All those opposed. Motion passes 50. So, next we have our security system quote and package approval. Yes, I'll take this one if that's all right, madame mayor and members of city council. So, um after kind of a a long
process to to figure out what we actually want, um the direction that we got from city council was to proceed with the the system that was um kind of pitched by security 101. If you remember that day, I think we had a little uh some thunderstorms going on.
Uh but uh so that that's the system. That's not the vendor. Uh, so there's other vendors that sell the components that security 101. So I just want to make sure that's clear. They will no doubt provide a quote. Um, and there they're they're at this point in time they are the most involved in knowing
our system and things like that. So just, you know, just so full disclosure. So um, there are three other vendors that I've identified that in Minnesota that sell Brevo and I've reached out to them. one has responded said they're probably interested in in submitting a quote, but I'm a little skeptical just
from the the previous exercise with people coming in and then not providing any information. So, I don't know if this is I don't know if this is a big too small of a project, too big of a project. I don't know. It seems like um it's hard to get some of these security firms to really um to to to figure this
out for us. Um USA Security uh the previous vendor may look at doing something too as they I think have access to Brevo. Um, you know, you might get a vendor since we're going to put this on our website for the quote package to say, "Hey, here's some comparable stuff." So, if we get that,
we'd have to do an evaluation, but I don't I don't see that happening just from the the feedback that I've received from other vendors just as far as the price. Security 101 say that they would be um that they're interested in quoting it with the Brevo. Oh, definitely. Yes. Okay. They're one of the ones I mean, they're they're the
ones that that's what they're going to quote and they're they're ready. They're basically ready to go. We've already gotten their quote. Um but we're so the idea is that we'll open this up if approved tonight. Um we'd gather quotes I think I have in the quote package until um the Wednesday before the
meeting on the 4th and then um I'll compile the quotes and then on the fourth we'll bring it back and and we can evaluate if we want to proceed with with awarding that quote. I keep using quote because it doesn't meet the the bidding threshold of 175. I did ask the question if for whatever reason tariffs
something else the the the numbers go above 175 and that's you know our lowest quote number comes in at 180 we would then have to start the process over and then bid it. So just so everybody's aware um that's something that might happen may happen. I don't think it will, but um it could if if for whatever
reason things outside of our control drive the prices up and they came out and you guys saw like how the Brevo cameras would work or did that little like walkthrough happen? We we did a demo. Um so the software and
it was virtual so they had they they actually brought I don't know how many people were on that call. There was probably nine or 10 people. Yeah. Way overkill. Um they answered all of our questions and you know Craig and I have had a lot of conversations about this and um you know the system that we
were originally pitched the Vicata system yeah that would work definitely but you know this Brevo system definitely will work too um and but at the end of the day well yeah it's a lot cheaper and at the end of the day it's it's light years ahead of what we have right now. So it's all it's all
beneficial. So um you know I think Craig I Gary we're all on board with the system. It'll definitely be an enhancement. Um, you know, same with the door access. We're gonna We just have to get it. We just have to get it if it's approved. Uh, so, um, we're we're all we're all on board with it. And there's some
definite, um, enhancements to some of our utility infrastructure that should have some security that doesn't currently. So, yeah. Excellent. So, what I'm looking for today is just authorize uh us to go out for quote package
and then report back at the August 4th meeting on the the results of that. Okay. Motion to um approve a um security system code package or for staff to go out and develop this and bring it back to the
August 4th. So moved. Thank you, Mr. Vicky. Is there a second? Second. Thank you, Miss Refkin. Any further questions? Thank you guys for doing all the hard work and all the meetings and reaching out to all the companies. Thank you.
All those in favor signify with I. I. I. All those opposed. Motion passes 50. So next um hopefully a quick one is the ordinance 500 amending section 200.01 of the city code regarding regular and special meetings.
Yes. Uh, Madame Mayor, members of council, this is uh based on just a conversation at the last work session about uh mostly we talked about starting the meetings at 6:30, but what this does is gives us the flexibility to start it when we want to. So, and there was a uh
Sarah Sala had looked at this and she cleaned up a couple other things that should be should have been cleaned up um you know should be cleaned up as we go through these or or through the code. So, there's four major points. Um, if this ordinance is passed, we can start
the meeting whenever we want as long as we notice it correctly per open meeting law. Um, we changed the requirement of having uh three members to call a special meeting. I thought that which is a violation of the open meeting law. So now it's just two plus the mayor. Um, or it's just two. It's just
two. Or the mayor. Yeah. Or the mayor. So um so we're not in violation uh if we ever call a special meeting. Usually the mayor has called those in the past if we need them. Um, and then requiring the meeting to be moved to a Tuesday if it's on a holiday. We've changed that
from time to time went to a Wednesday. So, it gives us the flexibility to to move it to Wednesday if we want per code. Um, and then we added the the stipulation about the close closed meeting per the open meeting law. So, those four things. So, um, and just some
pretty straightforward. Yeah, pretty straightforward semantics of this. this wouldn't go into effect until after seven days after it's published um which we would publish it in the paper. Um so the earliest we could likely um notice a meeting earlier if you guys would like would be the August 4th meeting. So if that's the
case um if this is approved, you know, we would we would start the work session at 5 and the regular meeting at 6:30. Okay, sounds good. Good. Any questions? Nope. All right, then. Is there a motion to approve uh the change to ordinance?
Let's see. Ordinance 200.01 of the city code regarding regular and special meetings. So moved. Thank you, Miss Lacy. Is there a second? Second. Thank you, Miss Ruffkin. All those in favor signify with I. I. All those opposed. Motion passes. 50.
So, um, next we have, uh, so then, of course, because of that, we will have to, um, make a motion to approve the amended city calendar for 2025 if we're going to start this in August. So, is there a motion to approve the amended city calendar for 2025? So moved.
Thank you, Brian Govern. Is there a second? Second. Thank you, Peter Fickery. All those in favor signify with I. I. All those opposed. Motion passes 50. And then approve offer of employment for Paula Bowman as assistant city administrator.
Um, as you all know, we did um have um interviews and finalists and we all unanimously agreed to offer the position to Miss Bowman and Jasper's been working on that and I think he came to a positive conclusion to a good solution
conclusion. Yeah, I think everybody's uh excited uh if approved to to have Paula come and work with us. Um wanted to thank both city council and staff for putting in quite a bit of time. you know, we've had quite a few meetings and interviews and and I think it was all uh for the
benefit of really finding a good candidate. Um I was given some terms to negotiate with and I believe that the offer fell within those terms. So happy to not have to come back and say we need this or need that. So it was it was great and Paula was great to to work with on that.
So um I did get some information her potential um if approved tonight uh start date would be August 25th. So it' be a Monday. um nice clean right before uh right after a meeting but right before our next meeting. So it would work out well. Um so
uh the offer letters in the in the package she would start off or in the in the package she would start off at a step five. She does have roughly almost 25 years of of uh public employment experience. So um I think it was a appropriate place to place her. Um and
then and then some uh PTO in the bank and then starting with uh 9 years of service uh for PTO acral purposes. Right. For PTO. Yeah. Sounds good. All right. Did uh did you guys discuss whether did she anticipate uh her current city uh
trying to match her to the offer to retain her? Yeah. So um we did and they didn't. Uh, so they I think I think I think it was a it was more of a professional advancement than a you know I need more money situation.
So at least I she she signed the offer letter. So generally if you do that they're not they're not countering I'm not being stopped in the grocery store by Yeah. Well she can still be stopped but then she could say I have no idea. I don't want there anymore.
Yeah. What we're looking for is just a simple motion to to approve this and then I can uh send Paula a text tonight and let her know everything is is a go and we can start the onboarding process. Good. All right. Is there a motion to approve um employment for Paula Balman as assistant city administrator? Thank
you Lacy. Is there a second? Refin. And I also want to thank um Peter and uh Kathleen and staff for their extra meetings and extra time because I know that it's especially in the summer that's that's a lot. So thank you. Thank
you to you and staff as well. So all those in favor signify with I. I. All those opposed motion passes. Uh staff reports. Do we have staff reports? There will for sure be a planning commission meeting, but it possibly is going to be another short one based on some of the
comments on our pending land use application. So, we're still not sure whether we're actually going to have a review. Um, and we're still working that out. So, we do still have to have a meeting though to continue on the public. Is this the um regarding that? Correct. That would be the only item
that is set for the the meeting though. So, I do need someone if they're available. I'm out of town. I might I will say the last one was really short. Yeah. But and and you could you could probably participate remotely, couldn't you? Could could the council
what date is it? It's um Monday the 28th. 28th. 20 What is it? Just look at the calendar. The 28th. Yeah. Yeah. The 28th on July 28th. July 28th. Do that.
Okay. Thank you. Thanks. Um, all right. Any other staff reports? Craig, you sent out an email. Um, so National Night Out, if any council member would like to participate, let
him know, please, as soon as possible. I I will just to that point, the the newsletter that Amy sent out, that was awesome. Oh, I I'll I will let her know. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you. Yes. And uh yeah, to
that point, National Night Out's coming up. So, if anybody would like to go out with an officer, um it's it's a great thing that we have 20 parties. It really says something about our city, but it's a bit of a mad dash in our end because we want to hit everyone and and chat
with everybody and get Mcruff, the crime dog, out there and have a good time. So, all right. Thank you. I'll be talking to you later on. Um so yeah, so um any other council or staff reports?
Okay, so now we'll move on to council reports. Um so a couple things again, our fire partnership meeting was cancelled and primarily it's due they're trying to work out how to figure out the fire relief.
it's the um between pensions between the two organizations and it's uh it could potentially be very costly and so they're just trying to figure this out. Um and it's taking a lot of time and a lot of people and a lot of input. So um our meeting which was scheduled for
tomorrow um has been cancelled. So we're going to see it might maybe we'll have a meeting in August. We're not sure. We're just going to wait and see. But that that's kind of the the there's two kind of sticking points right now. And that one is the formula. We haven't decided
on that yet. And then also this uh um pension issue. So how we're going to merge the two. It's more complicated. And if you want more information, we could put together a a a more thorough report maybe at a next work session or something like that if you would like
more information. Would you like more information? Well, I'll just ask. Oh, okay. I'll do that and I will happily ask any answer any questions. All right. Um and then uh let's see what else. Uh Northwest League, there is
none. Um we kind of take a break for a while for July and August. And then um the regional council mayor's meeting I haven't been to and they had one today but it's just impossible to go to that as well as have council meetings. And then I was going to ask Jasper, what do
we have in our work session and um next agenda? Do you have any idea? Yeah. Um, I do. There's a few things here. Give me a I had it pulled up and then I closed it. One thing I should mention too, I got a phone call from a resident um and uh
former mayor Paul Pond and he would like to have a meeting with myself and Rhonda regarding the Gillespie Center. And I just and I know that I won't be able to do it before the next meeting. So if I know we wanted to have another
discussion on that if we could have that at the second meeting in August. So So I'll answer the first question first. The other one's up to you guys. Um so we have Wood Edge Road Construction. So, if you remember that to give an update
about the cost to pave all of Wood Edge, uh that resident came in. So, we had that on there that was back from April. Um and then, uh Craig has a police workout on duty policy he'd like to talk to the group about. Uh it's something that's starting to or it's it's occurring in a lot of other
organizations. So, he's drafted up something I think that is um you know, doesn't impact us much at all if if at all. Um but we we'll that's on there. And then the payside update for the storm water thing that happened tonight. We we'll provide something at that.
We'll depending on the cost too. Um you know we might have something ready to put on the regular meeting agenda. It sounds like time is of the essence. So um we can look at that but we we'll probably have to have probably not unless it really it's really clear and easy. Um but we'll have to have some of
those questions answered like you know do you want this to be public infrastructure or private infrastructure? And if it's private, you know, if we contribute, we have to kind of make sure that that has a public purpose, you know, and then um you know, who maintains it into the future is, you know, those types of things. So, um if
it's public, then it's just us. We do all of that. And um so keep that in mind if when we when we come to that point. So initial budget discussion. Yeah. Yeah. Add that in your Okay. Initial budget discussion too. So um 2026 levy
discussion. Premature levy. We have to do it then or can we do it in the second meeting? We could do it either. I mean do the second I won't be at the one on the fourth. Okay. We could Yeah. Usually we've been able to get through it in in one meeting or one or two. You don't have the initial one anyway because you can
always change it. You've given us Yeah. pretty good direction as far as where we should fall with the levy and I think it' be better on the 18th for that. I'll put it on the 18th. Thank you for that. Okay. Is everybody going to be u at the
meeting on the 18th? Because I think it'd be important that I am not going to be at the meeting on the 18th. Where are you going to be? I'm going to be at a family reunion. Why don't you um maybe just give us some
highlevel numbers at the 4th and then we'll have then we'll have another discussion on the 18th because I think it's important to get everybody's input. And actually, I'll be out of town the 18th, too. Oh, no. Okay. So, we'll do the discussion on the 4th and then we'll
kind of listen in. We'll finalize it. We'll finalize it on the or we'll kind of maybe go over it again on the 18th. Would that Are you here on the 18th? Otherwise, we don't have a meeting. I will miss September 3rd. So, just in case you were thinking,
um, and and I'll I haven't nobody knows this yet, but we did receive uh request from the Gillespie Center, and that's kind of what Lisa's alluding to. Um, at some point we have to talk about that. So, that's we received that last week, I
think, on Thursday. So, the idea was to put it on potentially a work session or the regular meeting or or whatever the group directs me to do as far as that. And the date is what I'm looking for. May I May I Madam Mayor? Of course. May I Jasper? Um I've been working on
this for three years and my butt off and I don't think we need to talk about it at the work sessions. Just me, but I'm I'm again I'm a neoight here. Um I kind of have my new revised piece to say quickly. I for
you know all due respect for everybody. Um I have my bullet points. I'd like to state them. I think Mr. pond can write you a letter. Um, I know you're so busy, Lisa. I mean, I I know what you do for the city. I know how much time you put in. You are a public servant.
So, you want it on the regular meeting on the 4th. I want it on the regular meeting. Let's the chips fall where they may. You know, if if what I have to say uh resonates with the council, great. If it doesn't,
I want it to be done. I'm done. We don't need to talk that much more. I mean, there's I have the facts. I'll have them for you. I can say state them quickly. And I don't know that we need to just keep going over this. I think it's really exhausting dragging this small ask on.
So, so um who wants it? I mean, give me your input here. So, I have no input on the fourth. Would you want it on the fourth? Would you want it? And you're not going to be here on the 18th. So then it wouldn't You're not going to be here on the 3. So
then you'd have to put it off. Are you here the fourth? I'm here the fourth. Are you here the fourth? And you're here the fourth. I'm here the fourth. Yeah. August. So you want it on the regular meeting on on August 4th? Yeah. That's I'm That's not here. I don't care. Okay. Brian,
you have to nod in agreement or say no. All right. Okay. Then we'll do it on the fourth at the regular meeting. All right. Um, and let's see what else. Anything? Um,
Kathleen, do you have anything? Um, I attended the planning commission last month. Uh, we talked about the two variances that got approved and continued the Cardinal Cove project. Um, that's all I've got. Oh, and I had the personnel committee personnel committee met with candidates. Right. I think
Peter and I did that. seems like so long ago. Um, at the Pioneer Sarah Creek wershed, we approved our uh budget for next year and um so our contribution is going to go up by $699.77
about 15,000. So, so that's about half a percent increase and it's all related to the Henipin County raising their cost of monitoring the rivers, streams and lakes. So, um, so pretty modest increase. It is. Yeah.
And Peter, that comes out of the storm water fund. Is that right? I don't know. Oh, I think that's a g is it general? That's a general What's the general fund? I think actually several years back, I think we switched it to come out of the the storm water. Oh, really? Okay. I'm sorry.
I didn't know that. Well, that 4hour meeting that I had, I learned a lot. You learned a lot. Why do you think Peter missed that meeting? No, I'm just kidding. All right, Claudia, anything? Oh, yes, just a very small thing. Um, the
Gillespie Center's facade has, you know, uh, been completely redone. It's fabulous and it has the brand new giant logo that was just hung the other day. So, if you're driving through Mon, please slow down and look at the building. It really is beautiful and it
looks spectacular. It's kind of got like new instead of particle board uh board and batten, it's got these beautiful hearty shakes with a big new logo. So, it's it's a beautiful addition to the community. Are they getting a new sign? Yes. And it's on the building. It's
fabulous. Oh, they're taking the electronic that big. No, the electronic sign will be refurbished, but you know, we're doing things in a very modest and economic way. But wait till you see the front of the building. Looks terrific. drive-through man.
Brian, by the way, city hall looks really beautiful. Really proud of it today pulling up. Go ahead. Nothing for me. All right. Okay. With that then, if there's a motion to adjurnn, we can be journed. So moved. Thank you, Mr. Refkin. Is there a second? Second.
Thank you, Mr. Vicky. All those in favor signify with I. I. All those opposed? Motion passes. 5. Have a good couple of weeks. Thank you. Be back here. Paul, are you responsible for all the flowers? Mr. Are you Paul? Is that you?
What's that?