Welcome to the Mountain City Council. It's uh Tuesday, June 24th at 6 o'clock. We're in Mountain City Council chambers. Can we do the pledge of allegiance? I pledge 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. All right. Do we have any amendments to the agenda? No amendments. Okay. Can I
get a motion to approve the agenda? I'd like to make a motion to approve the agenda. I got a motion. Can I get a second? Second. Any discussion? All those in favor, please say I. I. Those opposed. All right. The agenda passes
and I got the consent agenda. Does someone want to go through those four items? Can take that. Um, consent agenda items A through D. A, approve payment of claims. B, approve minutes from the June
10th meeting. C, approve resolution resolution 25-59 approving public gathering permit for 2025 bass clash at Surfside Park on August 1st. D. Approve resolution 25-60
approving permits for 2025 Our Lady of the Lake Catholic Church Incredible Festival at 2385 Commerce Boulevard on Sunday, September 14th. Uh 12th through the 14th. 12th through the 14th. All right. Got the consent
agenda items. Does anybody want to talk about any of those? All right. Can I get a motion to approve the consent agenda? Motion to approve. Okay. Can I get a second? Second. All right. Roll call, please. Council member Heric. I. Council
member Mciny. Hi. Council member Pew. Council member. Uh I I'm sorry. Council member Castellano. Hi. Mayor Holt. I. All right. All that passes. So if you're here for that, those are all good to go. Uh number five, we got comments and
suggestions from any citizen that is present that the item is not on the agenda. If you want to come up, uh you can give you three minutes to talk. Hey, can you give us your name and address? Uh my name is Charles Warren. I
live at uh 4636 Hampton Road in Mound and I had uh delivered I talked in the past uh trying to get this letter published in your little local paper.
Yeah. Um city council members, I'll just read it. Um thank you for your time. I want to raise serious concerns about the new smart meters being installed by XL Energy which take usage energy readings
every 15 seconds. These meters emit a continuous electromagnetic frequency which pose two major risks, health and privacy. First, the health risk. Smart meters emit RF radiation similar to cell phones and
Wi-Fi routers. But unlike those devices, we do not have a choice to turn them off. These emissions are constant and invalatory in involuntary, excuse me. Studies from the instit in institutions like the bio initiative report and the
American Academy of Environmental Medicine have linked these prolonged EMF expo exposures to insomnia, headaches, heart rhythmia, and even more serious long-term health effects, increased cancer risk, vulnerable populations,
children and the elderly elderly and those with pre-existing conditions are especially at risk. Second, the privacy concern. Smart meters that collect data every 15 seconds build a highly detailed profile of when you're home, asleep,
cooking, showering, or away. This granular data could be analyzed to reveal personal habits and routines, essentially acting as a surveillance device on private citizens. This constitute
this may constitute a violation of the fourth amendment which protects against unreasonable search and seizures. Collecting such data without explicit informed consent could be challenged as unconstitutional. We must ask we are
trading our health and constitutional rights for convenience and corporate profit. I urge the council to consider a moratorum on mandatory smart meter installation until independent studies and opt out protections are fully reviewed. Now I
also included uh the web page of the of the AEM and also a bio initiative report which is the receipts for for these uh this
layout. Um, I personally have opted out of the Excel Energy and I re that they still changed my meter out to something that collects data every 15 seconds. Um, it states right on there none EMF that doesn't and
I have a meter reader that I can confirm this. I can go over to my neighbors emits readings every 15 seconds. But I I the the collection and I I just wanted to know I wanted to start locally. I
reached out to the to the uh I forget your name. I'm sorry. May um to put it in the newsletter, maybe have a public awareness uh maybe do a survey of whether people are even aware of this.
Um it's it's a concern and her suggestion was like we don't deal with that. We're not part of the state I didn't say that agency but I think mound should have a say of what's on our homes. Yeah.
So I thank you for your time. Yeah. We appreciate it. Again we just got this obviously tonight. So we'll have to take a look review it. Yeah. And then uh possibly I took the night off work. I work nights to show up and it's just I thank you for your time. Yeah, thank
you. Well, this is great info and I also opted out. And are you getting charged now to have them come read your meter? And that's where Yes, I get a 15 month or $15 monthly search charge for a meter reader guy to come out to the house and
actually hook up his little probe. And this this is where I was asking him. I said, "What is the purpose of this?" And well, we just need It gives the company the demand on the grid. And I I said, "What what does that serve?" And I'm an
electronics technician. Why couldn't you put one at the end of the island or at the substation? That would serve the same purpose as individual homes. The emissions also have been found. You know, if you have like a tree really
close or a bush, you know, you can see part of the tree that just is fried from the emissions. I have seen those video. There's there's reports that they start fires on the homes. I there's all sorts of quirkiness
with I just assume I my goal would be to get my regular little dial analog meter back. Yeah. Um but I wanted to make it aware to our town that they just it wasn't really discussed. They just put
it on everyone's home. And I find a problem with that. Yeah. So agree. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you. Appreciate it. All right. Number six, we got Orno Police Department with the May 2025 activity report.
Before you leave, we want to take a picture. Yep. I'll have him come up here and introduce himself so you guys know who he is. Uh I'll just go through this stuff. Uh and if there's anything you guys have for business with us. Uh I apologize for last council meeting. There was a priority call that we were
we had to be on. So um I had my deputy chief contact and I apologize. I don't like to miss these but I had to be there. So, um I looked at the calls for the uh month of May through June. Uh nothing
calls have gone up, but they're just more of them because there's more activity. Uh people are out of school. Uh people are out enjoying the warm weather and they're on our lake. So, you know, we have a few more calls for service now through whenever the weather decides to go cold again. So, uh but
nothing out of the ordinary. you know, we're same same responses, same everything. So, I think we're kind of even kill there and keeping things on the same up and up. But we are busier. We're busier throughout the day. So,
um [Music] nothing but more. Uh I the spirit of the lakes, I was advised by officer Schultz who works on that committee. She said everything is on task and I believe there is a website now that is announcing all your she wanted me to
make sure you guys knew that there is a website that's announcing all your uh events and everything. So she seems to be excited about that. So that'll be coming up soon. And then uh uh we have our new officer starting here now in July. July 7th will be our new officer
out of our cadet program. Uh his name is Colton Beck. He will be starting his phase zero on Monday morning the 7th. So hopefully he's very green just right out of school. So this will be a slow process and we don't expect him on the
road uh you know within the month or within two months. We're going to make sure we train him up and get him on the road with proper training. So you guys have anything for me? Any questions? Any concerns? Council have any questions? I had one question. One of the calls made
mention of a predator. Was that related to the previous issue about the person predator living in mount? Yeah, it said something about predator. Um Oh, it could be a P. Um so if there's a P living in our area, we they have to
report to us. So mostly it's making a report that they're in compliance. we get um updated information on them and it goes in as a report that uh one of our investigators will probably will will handle and deal with. So we have a
specific P officer that deals with them. Okay, any other questions? I didn't have anything this time. Um ebikes. Yeah, they're getting bad. We'll bring
this up in the police commission again, but let me I don't have this handy for anybody, but this is uh just something I saw from another uh police department kind of our neighbor. Mhm. And it was kind of like a
little chart that they put out on their social and it says, you know, do they have pedals? Yes or no. You wouldn't, you know, you wouldn't think of it, but if you don't have pedals, then you go, "Oh, it's a offhighway motorcycle." Yep. Right. My buddy's got one. Yep. He's like, "It's
awesome." He takes it on the the other trail north of here. I don't care. It's not our town. Yeah. But we see them all over. Right. Um I know all of us can attest to it. These kids just go, you know, right by us just, you know, 100 miles an hour without helmets. There's
two two girls, two guys on them, you know. Again, I'm not trying to have you solve our problem, but um we're going to we're going to talk in the police commission. Yeah. And I just sent you pictures. So, Friday night we had two boys um popping
wheelies in the middle of Surfside Park. Oh, on the on the grass. Yes. On the grass. And uh so I did call the non-emergency number. They did send an officer out. By the time he got there, they had left. And he corrected me and said, "That's not an electric bike. That is a um
motor bike. A Yeah, this is this doesn't have pedals in it. No, it's a dirt bike. They were driving right down the middle of Surfside in the grass. So, unfortunately, he said he would continue to look for them the rest of the evening, but I drove around up in the other direction from where he was going
and he didn't I didn't see anyone. So, yeah, it it is an overwhelming problem and excelsier to our our neighbors over here. They are battling it hard. Uh we are It just seems like guys, it's just such a problem that once we get to the
area to try to corral it, they're gone. I mean, they do they move pretty good and they they're agile vehicles and you know, we do have bike patrol. Um we are out this summer, so if you know, they can sneak up on them, you know, they can
grab them more. We just we need about 100 officers to catch, you know, just to be around and and catch them when they're going. But, you know, we have caught people like down here at zero gravity. They'll come flying out of here and the guys will be sitting here and we'll grab a few of them. So, so I
don't believe I asked Maggie late this afternoon and I'm sure she hasn't a chance to address it, but Scott, I think we should look at maybe passing an ordinance of some sort that restricts motorized vehicles from being on our public parks and um with some fines. And so that when these officers do, you
know, catch someone doing this, they can go give the parents a warning because they're mostly younger kids. And then the second offense would be something where we would actually apply a feline or a fee because I mean this is not only tearing off our private property but
it's also dangerous. There are little kids down there in that park playing and those guys were literally popping wheelies right through the middle of the park. And yeah, again that's terrible. I'm also just worried that one of these
kids are going to get horrendously hit by a car and a lot of seniors have complained about on the trail they're afraid because also the individuals don't practice the policy of saying on your left you know
so they they don't hear it because they're silent and then suddenly it's whizzing by and I've noticed even on uh commerce they're riding them on the sidewalks on the middle of the road only 40 miles an hour and stop at stop signs. I guess what we're saying and sounds
like we're on the same page. If you need to pull people over and give them a warning, it's you know I know you can't catch everybody and we're going to see things that you're never going to be ever see because that's just how the world works. Well, well, maybe we should do some preventive stuff. Is, you know, next
year at school year, should there be a program that talks about this biking and and the protocol and ethics of it? I mean, do a positive piece as well as have a punitive um
action for violating. So, I think we need to do both. And I'm going to share that picture with the police commission because I want to do some kind of thing on on our social minute. Yeah. And just say, you know, are these your children?
No. My I want Not your children are these people. These kids in the picture are your children. No, they're not my kids. No, I know they're not your kids. I would have Yeah. You know who they're I'd have grabbed one of them if it was yours. Um I I actually want a ebike and I know you have one. I sold it. Oh, we our officers
drive. We have ones too. I think they're awesome. But there's a big difference between that kind of bike and e assist. Yeah, that's Well, and yeah, I did through New York. You I was doing the pedal assist, you know, the city bikes, right? Through Central Park. I mean, it's fun. Yeah, they are awesome, but it's the inexperienced riders just they're naturally younger and they don't
Yeah. Well, their brains aren't developed. They don't know what to look out for or the fact that drivers aren't watching out for them. And there are some basic laws, aren't there? Aren't there some basic laws about certain age you have to be helmets that they
helmets? I never see any of them with helmets. But there's these new bikes that are there's not even pedals. It's a motorcycle basically, right? It's electric motorcycle. I mean, I think that and they rip down Dakota. We need to distinguish what's in the existing
laws. Maybe publish it. Maybe we need to have signs in our park about it. And we can't put up signs if we don't have an ordinance that says you can't do this. that it's well yes I know that too but I'm also saying I think we need to do a holistic approach not just you know do
the ordinance and be punitive let's try and be positive and educate the other thing I saw electric scooter this is as I'm coming by the new hotel right so I'm coming that way he comes over the the median or not like in between the it was
like an opening there and then he comes on and then he's going right by the the rail company, right? He's coming on the shoulder, you know, against the it's like, you're going to get smoked. Yeah. And he's going 30 miles an hour on the, you know, on the scooter. And it it's
not to the ebikes and all the regular bikers do this stuff, too. And we, you know, we try to grab them because I mean, they have to stop. They have to abide by all the same laws we do on the roads, you know, stop and stop signs and all this. So, there's times like you get these big groups out and they're just
taking up the road. you know, they're supposed to be as far to the right as as they can. Uh, but it's one of those things that, you know, it's just not that, you know, they might be singled out, but, you know, the regular pedal bikes are doing it, too. Yeah. I just wanted to mention, and again, we'll
we'll talk to the chief again a little bit more. And then on that note, um, I just want to say thank you and all law enforcement. You know, I got a call uh, Saturday morning. Um, and it's, you know, I'm sure you all saw, right? And I'm sitting there drinking my coffee and
like, "Oh my god, what is happening?" Um, and you know, then he, you know, he calls me and he says, "Hey, just, you know, FYI, you know, we don't know anything yet, but you know, and I appreciated the gesture." And then of course we forwarded to the council as well. And yep, appreciate you guys even
I don't know if you guys knew this, but they're kind of driving by all of our houses just as a precaution until later in the day we found out, you know, exactly what was going on. So, or what we think was going on. Yeah, we were on pretty much on alert until they got them until it was over on Sunday night. So,
Well, we appreciate it. Um, do you want to introduce us to your Yep. Uh, if you don't mind, this is our officer Braden uh and his dog. I'll let him do some talking here and he can give you what this dog's all about and what his program is. Cool.
Welcome. Hi, everybody. Sorry for all the noise. Sorry we made you wait. So, uh, my name is Braden Sherman. and I've been a police officer with Orno now for 3 years. Um, and this is the first time we've had a patrol K9 in a while now. So, and I got the opportunity to be a
handler for him. His name's Onyx. He's a year and a half old German Shepherd. He was imported from Slovakia. Uh, Onyx and I attended a 12week training academy um, and just graduated a couple weeks ago. So, we're learning the ropes and getting back into it. And he's doing a really
good job. He's certified in evidence collection, tracking, uh, narcotics detection, uh, obedience. Um, he he's a highrive dog and he he loves to work, as you can tell. He he wants to work. That's why he makes a lot of noise
back there. So, nice. Um, yeah. Oh, appreciate it. Um, his swearing in will be July 14th. Okay. Where we'll be giving him a badge and, uh, put his little paw print on the oath of office and welcome him to our agency. So nice. Nice. Cool. But that's going to be at
Orno City Hall. Yep. Orno City Hall. During a council meeting. So Oh, during a council meeting. Yep. Right at the beginning. Nice. Yeah. Welcome. Onyx. Can we do a quick picture? Yeah, for sure. You guys want to be
I'm not that much of a dog person. Yeah, I will. Let's go. Yeah, go ahead. You don't need I don't I'm getting out. I'll take that. I understand. If you want to move over, I'm just going to get out of the
picture. You're going to get out of the picture. You don't need attorneys in the picture. Okay. So, Oh, so I can stand you back here. We'll try to get you. Oh, that's so nice. Look at how well behaved the puppy.
Can you get a little room for cropping I know, right? Everybody Thanks for appreciate it. Thank you. Okay, that was fun. All right, number seven, we got Justin Wilson with APO presenting the 2024
annual comprehensive financial report. Welcome. Thank you. That'll be easy to follow that up. I don't know if it gets much more exciting. Bring a dog. Yeah, makes sense. Uh I'm actually Alex uh Alex Triple. I'm a senior associate with
ABDO. Um, I've been with them for 5 years now. Uh, working on the audit with you guys for 3 years now. So, got a good handle for what you guys got going on here. And, uh, excited to have some of your time tonight and go over this little introduction what we'll be going
over tonight. We'll start the audit results and then we'll dive into some detail on the general fund and then move on to the special revenue funds, capital project funds, enterprise funds, and then some uh, key performance indicators to wrap it up. Starting with the audit results we have.
We'll start with the otter's opinion here. We're issuing a modified opinion on the report for um the only reason we wouldn't offer a clean report here. An unmodified opinion is due to Gazsby 875 and 68. So what those are those Gazsby
standards that have not been adopted. Therefore we can't provide you an unmodified opinion. Everything outside of that 87 is for leases. Gazby 75 is for um other post employment benefits and Gazby 68 is for uh the net pension
liability. We don't report on those. Like I said, we can't offer that unmodified opinion. Everything outside of those three things is all fairly stated and all material aspects. We don't have any concerns there. Also, no internal control findings. Everything that is in place, every process for
internal controls is being followed to followed in here too. No issues there. Um, moving on to Sorry, we're still here. I'll go back up. No problem. Um, Minnesota legal compliance. We had no findings to report there either. That's
just making sure that payments are being made on time. Bids and quotes are being um the correct process is being followed there. Again, no issues. Moving on to the general fund, we have three lines here. That top orange line representing the budget for the respective year. down below. That middle
yellow line shows what percentage of that budget is made up of your unrestricted unassigned fund balance in the general fund. Then that 20% is the city's fund balance policy. Um so there's a healthy increase there from 51.3% to 64% in the unassigned fund
balance. And then that is well above your 20% policy goal of the 20% of the following year's budget. Um that cushion creates some opportunities. Um you can use it to fund other funds that are
maybe needing some cash. You can reserve it for future projects. It opens you up to a lot. Um it also gives you the opportunity to maybe revisit that fund balance policy to be more in line with what you're actually seeing throughout the year. If this is where you want your general fund at, it's not a bad idea to implement a policy that kind of follows
along with what's actually going on. Um I'm gonna stop you. Yeah. So, I'm sure I won't ask Noah to come up, but I'm sure we have a reason for our big increase and maybe we should talk about that a little bit more in our finance our next committee. That was our interest income
that we had that meeting. Oh, the interest income. Got it. So, we know what it is. Never mind. Moving on to the budget to actual statement here. We're still in the general fund. Um, you guys showed favorable variances in both revenues and expenditures. Um, revenues were able to
exceed that budget amount, about $164,000. Um, there are a couple different things that contribute to that. Um, like Noah just said, the investments were a lot higher than the budget amount of 20,000. They came in at around $300,000. And then, um, taxes, which includes fiscal
disparities, franchise fees, those also exceeded the budget amount by about $200,000. that total is about 500,000 but it's offset in a couple different places within the revenues. Um and then a favorable variance in expenses as well.
Um most of that is made up of less uh public works expenses in the general fund than was budgeted for. It's about 140,000 less than what was budgeted for. That leaves you with 1.1 million and um excess revenues over expenditures before
these transfers that budget transfer out to the liquor store. Um I mean that sorry that transfer in of $300,000 um from the uh liquor fund and then those transfers out about 300,000 to the seal
coding and then about 175 750,000 to uh fund the city share fire department services. All in all, creating that $358,000 increase in fund balance. Um, again, good jump up in fund balance from 23 to
24. These two graphs show your total revenues and transfers in in the general fund on the left and on the right, the total expenditures and transfers out of the general fund. For the most part, everything here looking pretty consistent. those taxes continue to increase steadily. And then the
intergovernmental revenue, you can see jumped up a little in 2023. That's from that public safety aid you guys received at the end of that year. And then the expenditures, again, super consistent. Um, public safety dropped down a little bit. Um, that's mostly due there were
there were less building inspection fees in 24 than there were in 23. So, you'll have that small decrease there. Moving on to the special revenue fund balances here. Um we'll start with that big increase in fund balance in the area
service fund. Um that was uh it without the transfer in to pay for the services a little bit of a decrease but that transfer in offset those costs in that fund. And like I said that was all budgeted for according to plan. So you saw a little increase there. Um the
dock fund didn't change much and the HA fund had a small decrease um due to that transit center PA replacement project. So without that it would have been pretty steady but you guys had that project that decreased a little bit. And then down here just showing that steady increase in total fund balance for the
special revenue fund. Um that one non-spendable bar in 2022 that's from that fire truck that was prepaid. And since that was prepaid, the funds are obviously non-spendable. So that'll drop off in next year's presentation.
The debt service funds, there's a lot here. I'll kind of just summarize what we're looking at up top. This is all of the debt service funds. This is just the governmental debt. So you see your total cash and your total assets right now. don't exceed those remaining bonds in
the governmental funds, but those will obviously be funded throughout the years um from tax levy and special assessment revenue. Down below you can see the schedule for your debt payments um decrease dramatically over the next 10
years. Um and after that 2028, it jumps it jumps down quite a bit. So trending in the right direction there. Moving on to the capital project funds that major capital improvement funds uh the
tax levy was able to cover all the costs incurred in that fund. So that provided a good increase in fund balance there. Um other things that stand out here is that big decrease in the capital replacement vehicles. Um lot of purchases this year they just exceeded that levy amount to cause that decrease.
Um and then that community investment fund received a transfer in from that fund you see at the bottom that tip 13 fund. The remaining funds once that fund was closed out were transferred to that community investment fund and able to increase that fund balance. Again that
graph below showing a steady increase and assigned fund balance and um looking good. Again kind of a lot going on here up top for the liquor fund. We're basically just comparing your sales, gross profit, all that good stuff ac across the past 3 years. When you compare it to your own
data from the past 3 years, the gross profit is steadily increasing. Um the operating income is steadily increasing as you would want to see. On the far right there, we compare it to the statewide average and you guys are also doing well comparing comparing to the statewide average as well. One thing
that's a little different in 2024 is you'll see that large due from other funds amount that 1.455 million um that was to cover a cash deficit and help fund the other enterprise funds.
Down below you'll see sales are steady and then we have graphs and bars down there kind of showing exactly what you have up top and just reflecting those same amounts. These next four slides will have the same graph for each enterprise fund. Up top you'll have in dark orange the
operating revenue and then in yellow the operating costs and then the black is the debt payments. Um a lot of these are going to look really consistent. Um you'll see that gap in 2024 between the revenues and expenses is growing a
little bit. Um, and that's reflected down below by that cash deficit starting to get further and further away from um, even. And then up top, that black line is your target cash balance. That line is 50% of your operating costs.
Moving on to the sewer fund. Again, costs are increasing. Revenues stayed pretty steady with a slight decrease. Um this fund has a significant more amount of cash in it. Um a big increase from 2023. A good chunk of that is made up of
um bond proceeds in 2024. About 1.27 million in unspent bond proceeds included in that total recycling fund. Super consistent. Everything's kind of increasing in line with one another. That gap isn't growing, which is good. And it is that
cash balance is well above your targeted amount. Storm water fund, you can see, yeah, those debt payments are far exceeding the operating revenues. I'm know you guys are all aware of that. um just again contributing to that cash deficit
down below as those uh revenues aren't increasing and the debt payments are staying pretty consistent. Here we have a graph of your total cash balances across the entire city. Um the colors represent different kinds of funds and how much is made up in each of
that. Uh you can see the biggest thing that jumps out in this is that large increase in capital project cash and then also that large decrease in enterprise fund cash. We'll wrap up here with some key performance indicators. We are comparing
that black line that is the city of Mound and then the orange bar is class 4 cities, cities with 10,000 population or less. And then the yellow is going to be Henipin County. Uh we'll start with the tax rate. You guys are right in line with Henipin County and well below the
class 4 cities and actually trending a little bit down. And the taxes per capita are going up in line with that Henipin County. We only get the data, this comparative data. Class four cities in Henman County. It's usually a year delayed. Unfortunately, this year it is
two years delayed. Um, but you can kind of see that graph is typically going to trend right in line with that last uh black bar we have going across there for you guys. Moving on to debt. As you guys continue to pay down those balances, that will
continue to go down. Right now, you're above the class 4 city and Henipin County comparisons for both the per capita and um total expenditures for the year. And then we have your current your total current expenditures per capita
comparing to the class 4 cities in Henman County again. and pretty steady and pretty consistently below the averages for both and the per capita and then well below the averages for capital expenditures um per capita sorry current
expenditures versus capital. That is all I've got for you guys and I'd be happy to answer any questions you guys have. Does council have any questions? I don't know if I have a specific question. Um but on page four or slide
four, if you can go back to that, did anything um does that look pretty typical like as a like the fund balance like in our city policy on what we want our reserves to be? Does that seem like um appropriate for our size and everything? I know like the audit said
there was no weird findings or anything, but yeah. No, that's a good question. Um, I think where you guys are at is typical. That fund balance policy we typically see between anywhere from 30 to 50%. So, it's not too far off from
that. But, I mean, you guys have a good enough cushion to bump that if you up if you wanted. Um, it's mainly to make sure that you have enough operating cash to continue funding the general fund operations. Um, that's not really a concern right now based on being at 64%
of the following year's budget, but just something to consider with that policy. I mean, there's really no risk if you guys are keeping a healthy fund balance, but just to be more consistent, accurate with what you guys have going on. Okay. I guess it was more of a question for for you and maybe for Noah, too. But
like, you know, we always want to make sure that we're over or adequately prepared for like spikes and CIP changes and all that stuff. But I mean, is there any, you know, concerning the slides where our debt is way higher? I mean, are there any adjustments here that in your opinion that we could
benefit from to help counter that or would that just leave us illprepared down the road? Yeah, I mean that is up to you guys and how you want to handle that. You can move money from your general fund to help with stuff, but at
the same time it's like that's your main operating fund. You want to be able to be prepared with that, too. Um, I'm sure you guys have had discussions about what what if what the plans are to help out the enterprise funds. Um,
Noah, do you have anything you'd like to add to that? The FMP's goal is to maintain between 45 and 55. Keep in mind we have 6.5 negative enterprise cash whether the do from other fund is in the general fund or in the liquor fund. It doesn't matter. We still have to cash
flow all 30 funds throughout the year. So that's why it's referred to that 20%. Is a minimum level. But the cushion difference is able to fund your deficit in the storm fund and water fund through. Okay. The cash flow January through December not necessarily an
accounting spreadsheet but in a bank and so that's where that comes into play. Okay. So as we unwind all this as we go through changing from the FMP this will normalize itself. So if you look at the FMP it's projected to spike in 24 and it's a slow meltdown. Cool.
Thanks. So are you saying would it be better to as a policy raise it to to like 30? That's what most other cities do. That's what we typically see. And I think there's there's exact numbers on the OSA for recommendations, the OSA's
website. Okay. Um, it's it's not something it doesn't matter either way. Correct. But it it's just a potential policy just in case so we don't get in trouble down the road. I don't think it'd be about getting in trouble. It's more so just like not having enough money. If you're having a
policy in place that isn't in line with what's actually happening. So, you're saying 20 is like way too low. Why are we that low when we're when we've been at 50 some? And we don't have a problem with it either. This is not something we have a problem with. It's just for your guys' benefit to more accurately plan
for the future. And it wouldn't affect like our bond rating or anything. No. Absolutely not. Well, well, Noah will steer us the right way on that, I'm sure. Cool. All right. Well, is that anything else? All right. Thank you. Appreciate it. Thank you. Thanks.
Could I ask um as we move into budget? Yeah. Can we explore that topic of increasing it to 30, you know, as part of our budget conversation for the next year? Um yeah, I mean, do you want the finance
committee to look at it or do you want to chat with Noah about it or Well, I I'd like finance to talk about it and as a council for us to talk about it. Okay. Yeah. Well, do you want to note that in our next meeting? Yeah. So, Eller's
recommendation is 45 to 55 and Maggie is actually working out that policy. Oh, so we're already working. That would be what we was what Ellers told us to. So once we're through the first year of the actual FMP, somewhere between 45 and 55
is what they they suggested. So it's actually higher than the 30% that you guys are talking about. And so we're working financial policies as we speak, but that's what we've come to. But and then how when is this going to happen? It would happen sometime throughout the year. I mean, there's a lot of financial policies they offer together by the end
of the year. You'll bring us a recommendation. You want to? Yeah. Okay. All right. Good. Unless you don't want to do it. You're okay with I I think we should be Yeah. looking at it. Yeah. Okay. Good.
Uh, number eight, we got Lost Lake Commons phase 2 design update. Welcome. Good evening, Mr. Mayor, members of the council. Brian Simmons, senior city engineer. Uh, what we have in front of you is the next stage of
Lost Lake Commons phase two. Uh, and if anybody was astute to notice, there are some graphics in here that are labeled uh, Harbor District. That is because they are old. And we are talking a little bit about where we've come from. Yeah. Uh but just to to rehash a little
bit, phase two is going to include uh lighting elements, landscaping, art installations, concrete paving, seating in the fire pit. Uh and we have a discussion here on all these things that have been considered. Uh I don't know if anybody followed the link here near here
at the bottom of the document. There's some pretty interesting stuff in there from the public engagement. If you didn't happen to look at that before the meeting, it's fascinating to go read those comments after the fact. And we've got some graphics. I don't know if they're in there, but we've got them handy of to just kind of distill some of
the comments into uh some takeaways. You can kick us. You're talking about that link right there. Yep. The the blue text is a link. If that wasn't if that wasn't apparent, my apologies. Blue text. Scroll. Scroll. Yeah, right there. Lost Lake Commons P2 design update. That
that sucker is a link. And one of the folders, one of the folders in there is the the engagement result. That's that's why I'm talking about it because it might it might have the other page. No, you're you're good. Mine worked maybe. It's it's a lot of
feedback. Okay. Well, I mean, we have we haven't in these processes before spent a lot of time asking the residents directly what they think unless they come up and talk at this microphone. Right. So, we usually do have engagement. Yes. Yes, but this was a
fantastic way to to weigh in on this next phase. I I was surprised we got 180 votes. There was more than one comment in there that said, "Thank you for asking what we think." Yeah. So, I I'll call that a success. Yeah.
You keep scrolling, Jesse. Okay. So, uh the reason this slide, like I mentioned, says Harbor District Park, just flashing us back a little bit to the path on how we've gotten here. This is from the HKGI study and uh the the park master plan. So, what we started
with uh before we've gotten, you know, to the meat and potatoes of how we're actually going to execute. Keep keep scrolling, Jesse. Uh and I don't intend to go through all of this, but this was just the initial phase of things that were suggested that could be out there, and I feel like
we're doing a pretty good job of of pinging almost all of those. Okay. So, yeah, let's stop there for just a second. There are some boundaries here between phase one and phase two and the things that we are working on. Some things that are still uh in the future
like the shelter and the performance area that we are going to set ourselves up to build in the future. We'll talk a little bit more about that in a second. Keep going. Okay. So, uh we've split the park apart into three
phases. Phase one substantially complete as you can see out there and now we're moving on to phase two. I guess I probably didn't need to read that list at the beginning of this because we had it in here, but it seemed important to kind of set the stage. Uh seating area at the harbor maybe wasn't
a thing that I specifically mentioned before as well. And then phase three again is that open air shelter adjacent to the plaza and then the additional performance area improvements. So the future the structure uh adjacent
to the plaza will require some footings. Uh and we we went back and forth on how can we put in plaza space? Do we plan for the footings? We brought in a couple of our structural engineers and one of our architects and talked about is there something we can do even though we haven't designed this yet. And
ultimately the takeaway was that um it wasn't possible for us to put footings in now. So we're going to set ourselves up to be able to do that in the future just because without it designed we didn't know exactly what we needed to do there. But we were trying to make sure that there was was as little rework as possible. We're not going back and you
know tearing up a bunch of new things. Uh so the portion of the plaza will be turf until phase three is constructed. So the plaza as built at the end of phase 2 will be a little bit smaller than the finished product at the end of phase three. Uh the performance area is
uh right down by the lake there near the dock. If everybody knows where I'm talking about um that will be set up so that we're going to take the pavers out. We're gonna have some seating around that and then there's going to be just sort of a grass area in the middle of that that eventually could be converted
to something else. Uh, one thing to note, we're getting rid of the boulder wall that's there and we're going to sort of a a multi-purpose. It's going to be wall and it's also going to be seating. And then there are two alternates included in the prices we're going to talk about in just a second. One of those is to repave the trail in that
area and one of those is to replace the boardwalk decking so that we refresh that with some uh nice new walking surface. A little bit more on that phase three and where the structure is going to go. That maroon blob on there will be the
future structure adjacent to the plaza. Also, you can see the fire ring area starting to come together nicely on there. Nice little visual. Uh, so Matt brought this and all of the concepts and the working pieces of this to the parks commission meeting. Sherry,
I believe you were there for that. Uh, and it sounds like there was some very good discussion about the elements there. Uh, talked a lot about the differences between the options and came away with some recommendations and the things we've got now. So the the community survey uh with the
questions about you know rotating or permanent art, do we do kid focused? Uh that was really good in helping us guide what we want to do for the art walk and also we asked for some feedback on the interpretive signs. Uh you know there's a couple of different ways that
that can go. You know there's only so much history. We can't put boards everywhere but also what are our priorities is what we ask the community. What do we want to communicate about the history of this area? History of Mound. So, that was a a that question actually in general had a lot of very specific
responses that you could tell came from people's opinions about the area that we definitely would not have heard had we not asked that question that way. So, I thought that was very useful. So, out of all the options for the fire pit, uh where we're headed right now is
the River Rock style. That is the same theme that we have going around town in a couple of places like the Ballards along Shoreline Drive are a similar, you know, tumbled river rock look. Uh after much discussion, we've decided that gas would be the preference there. It's the
lowest maintenance. It's the easiest. It's the one the fire chief will let us get away with. So that's that's a sort of an easy one to make, but it was a good discussion to have. uh the seating area near the future performance. Uh these are sort of those
attached bench seat style picnic tables and some of these will be ADA compatible. So if you see in the shapes there where you see what is essentially a table with four chairs around it. Some of them only have three so that they are ADA compliant. Making sure that we are
accessible to all of Mount's residents. uh out of the discussion at the parks commission uh obviously we pivoted to include some of the ADA and then those will also be able to accommodate umbrellas to provide some shade there because there's not any mature trees along that section. It's kind of a big
open space of sky. Thinking about sitting there baking in the sun, you know, I don't know, listening to some local jazz or whatever ends up in that performance space. So, umbrellas do kind of sound nice. Uh, one important thing there, no reuse of the pavers, just in general. I appreciate that you are all
supportive of our mission to try and do away with the pavers after all the problems we had with those around town in the last 20 years. Uh this is a different version of the same area, a little more schematic just to show uh what we're after with the
walking surface and uh some of the planting beds and things there. And then this is highlighting the removal of the boulder wall, turning that into a sort of a perimeter seating. So that will help both define the future performance area and provide some additional seating. And then for now the white void
space in the middle would just be left as green space grass. So through all of the feedback on the artwalk displays which there has some fun comments in there. Uh the the top choice was the rotating art. Uh and I
believe there was a a rotating art with a local emphasis I think. Was that how that was worded, Matt? Does that sound right? That's fair. That's fair. Either way, the takeaway is that uh people liked the idea of the rotating art so that they can keep it interesting.
What were the other top comments for that? They're they're they're all in there. You want to you want to hear a couple? Well, sure. Or should we wait till the end? We can wait. Let's wait till let's wait to the end. Wait till you get done. But yes, as that those I'm sorry, Jesse,
will you go back for just one second? that that uh that one right right there that's labeled changeable cabinet is one of the concepts that we used. The idea here is that it's lockable. You know, it's got a glass surface to protect or or some sort of surface to protect the
art, but that can be swapped out, you know, so we can get engagement from the schools, you know, boy scout troop, whatever it may be, whoever uh is interested in contributing or professional art as well. the monument sign. Uh part of what we
came away from this with is that there is a design guide um from some of the other park improvements that we have not seen utilized in all of the parks. Uh but we are going to be utilizing this sign style. And then in this case, we're
going to be updating the park sign with the correct name, all of those things, adding some plantings And then the interpretive signage, uh we're planning for three or four of those around the park. From the community engagement feedback, uh we
heard that people liked the historical focus. Uh so we've got a lot of places we can pull that from around here. You know, the history of Tonka Toys, uh the history of Native Americans in this area. Uh there's some very good comments in there about um respecting the history
and the importance of the history of mound to the residents which I I love to read. And then also we would be remiss if we wasted our opportunity to talk again about water quality you know and storm water management since we are all stewards of the lake being in mound. So
one of the signs will be about water quality. So, lighting and electrical because we're going to have a very nice community space. We're also going to have it lit so it is gorgeous and safe. Uh, we're going to have a similar style of light poles on the north and south
sides and that will be similar to some of the ones we have in town already. We will also have ballarded lights along the prominade. So, those are a little less impactful, you know, shorter but still provide some light for the walking path. We'll have accents on the art and
then thanks to Ryan, there will be sneaky outlets everywhere for Christmas lights. Sneaky. Okay, I'm hoping they're sneaky. I don't want them to be obvious. Don't plug your electric car in there. Uh plantings. Uh we came away from the
the parks commission with a a preference for native plantings. I I see that a lot around the area, around the region. We've done some of this. you know, we have an entire park uh not too far away that is all native and water friendly plants. So, we will continue kind of
that theme as well. Cost estimate. This is important. Uh so, the table there that says table two Harbor District Park improvements, that is the cost estimate that was used in the current capital improvement plan. So, the number that you have in the capital improvement plan is that just shy of $850,000
based on the 95% designs that are also in that shared folder link. Splashing some of those things up on the screen today. That design plus the two alternates that are to replace the boardwalk decking and to repave the trail or refresh the trail surface.
We're currently at $781,400. So, we're we're coming in under that at the moment. Not bid yet, though. So, we'll have some bid numbers to compare it to. Project schedule. Here we are on June 24th. We anticipate this to be a combination of this fall and next spring
wrap-up. So, that thing should be nice and green and usable for next summer. And I will pause there um unless anybody has any other questions they don't want to forget. Yes. um you know on the uh performance seating where we're going to use the
boulders. I'm I'm really concerned that we make sure that there's accessible seating because boulder seating is not going to work for people who have some physical disabilities. Sure. So we have to figure out how to incorporate the
others. So I I'm sorry if I was unclear, Sherry. the there's currently a boulder wall there that isn't seating friendly and our intent is to replace the boulder wall with something that has a flat surface so probably more modular block so that it is more friendly for seating
and then right behind that we will have the ADA compliant uh you know the picnic tables with the attached chairs and then also room for wheelchairs. Okay. Yeah. And then and then the similar format. So what's going on there
now? There's a you know path to go to stay up high and go around the wall. And then you should come up here, man. So you get the microphone. The two the two lakeside paths there are still going to be able to get
anybody down to the lower level. And then okay, this is where the boulder wall is now. That that that'll actually likely be a port in place wall. Just some space there. But then the grass will all still be, you know, pretty darn pretty pretty flat down there. Okay. Like it is now, similar to now. I I'm
confused with the seating. So are you saying that the seating is raised? So there. Yeah. So just imagine um a short retaining wall that you It's a short wall. So then the whole area. I wonder if we got a picture of that somewhere. I didn't see one. I don't know that we I
didn't see one. That's that's gr that grass area. That circle that's there has rocks all along the side. It's like a retaining wall, but it's not. It's and it's and it's about 2 ft lower than the concrete here and then all of the seating. Is that the current that's the area that we go out and look at the Yep.
Yeah, it'll be very similar. Are you redoing that whole thing or is it you're just adding a stone wall around? Yeah, we're focused. We're getting in this nice seating space here and then we're kind of redirecting the pads through there and replacing those.
A lot of those are the pavers now and kind of the what was left of the old shape going around the roadway is still in there. So, it looks kind of odd. So, we're cleaning that all up and making it look nice. We're reworking a lot of things that are remnants of having the road through there. And so we're we're
trying to not completely ditch what's there, but we are altering it so it's more friendly for the uses that we want to see in the park. Well, okay. Help me understand. So, let's say there's music in the park or something there. How where are people sitting in those little
tables or or can people still bring their lawn chairs to the yard or Absolutely. Yeah. So, okay. The general idea is a band would probably set up down here either on the boardwalk or in the green space there. And then whether they're that part is still to be figured
out, but assume they be on a stage. And then this is all sloping up. So everybody can kind of sit here and they should still be able to see them all the way. And are you creating this slope? Because it doesn't feel sloped to me right now. It's it's very gradual, but it is. Okay. Slope. There's quite a bit
of elevation there right now. I'm sorry, sir. And there's quite a breeze that goes through there, too. So, we need to take advantage of the breeze because it kind of comes over the farmers market lot across the top of the hill there.
Yeah. If you in that the stuff that if you follow the link, uh the platform we use for this puts together some kind of neat, you know, if you don't want to read the whole thing. So, the couple of graphics that are in here are, you know, residents identified their preferred duration for selected sculptures within
the park. We got 75% said they preferred rotating, 25% said they preferred permanent, you know, and there's pros and cons and a handful of comments here. Overall, there was strong support for sculptures by local artists that blend in with and incorporate the local nature
and history of mound. Also included in our cost estimate right now, uh, is some money that the 120 is in the 741 in there. is include included in that number is a cost to commission some art. So for us to I don't know that we've hammered through exactly how we're going
to that's the art dealer chase that process. I guess I'm a little concerned too because I started looking at this data that was reported back on the um parks commission's uh last meeting and they're talking about the questionnaire. Now, I get that
you're doing the ones where they check the box, but I still see an awful lot of comments in other comments that are saying, "No art, no art, no art. What a waste of money." Um, we need more green space. Um,
I mean, there are quite a few on here that say no art. So, where is that displayed in your report back? If we're going to ask these people what what they think, we need to listen to them. that that's that's fair if we if we want
to take that feedback. I mean overall there's comments that are all over the place and so what that's true but I see more that say no art then I see anything other than local. What we've distilled out of that is is a preference for the improvements that we've been talking about that if we want to switch gears
and not do something, you know, we we've gone through the process here to select some things. When we ask for feedback and we get no art or no art commented with things like there's no dog parks in Mount, right? Like we're not we're not going to build a dog park here. So
that's what they asked for. So why are we not building a a dog park is what I'm the next thing. I mean, I'm not arguing with you. What I'm getting at is we need to have a meeting with the parks commission, and I would like to see this tabled before we make any decisions. I am not in favor of spending tax dollars
that we don't have. I know you've budgeted for it, but we have got a lot of things on this list that myself as a taxpayer, I don't think are necessary. The city is short on funds and we're committing $2.2 $2 million for an open
space park and putting in things like, you know, hammock stands. People are talking to me and they're saying, "What? Have we lost our minds?" And people are talking to me and saying, "That's just wonderful." Well, I can't wait. You know, we have people always we always
have people on either side. That's true. But I don't think so. Part of leadership is taking decisions to make this a quality livable community. People in mound always talk about the negative connotations made towards the town. The only way you get over that is for people
to then start. How do hammock stands for this community? I'm not just arg. No, I said it's been a request multiple times when we pay for these surveys and we don't listen to what the community is saying. No, we're listening. That was
part of the 2040 plan. Even when we go back to that, there wasn't a request. I mean, the dog parks are another topic. What I'm having an issue with is what we're spending on this open concept. You know, if we want it to be an open space and a green space, which we took away from Surfside Park, I think we should be
very serious about this. I'm concerned about this bandstand area. You know, if you want to use it for concerts, it seems like it's a very small limited area where we're going to put tables and chairs and the rest of the space is higher up. I mean, I don't know that we're going to have good sound acoustics. We're going to be blasting
music towards our Tessa, number one. I don't know how they're going to feel about that. Um, you know, a lot of the stuff on here gets back to the same thing that we found out from the original survey that was done. Um, I know that I participated in one before I
was on council at the farmers market. What happened to that in the recommendations that were made by those people? You know, I see another one on here that talks about a splash pad. I'm not saying we should have a splash pad, but I feel like we're ignoring what the people are asking for. We've already we've already done we've looked into
this. Yeah. Again, I know you kind of also haven't looked ever talked about this and well, the two of us, we've been around and we've looked at the splash pad. We We looked at the same splash splash and we looked at the dog park. I agree that in my opinion, you know, I
love what's been done so far. I love the prominade. I love the idea of the what what I'm to me there is nothing here that distinguishes Lost Lake Commons from any park any town
USA. That's true. I mean, you could go to any town and you're going to see a park like that. There's nothing unique that says we're, you know, we're trying to we're trying to blast out that we're proud of Mount. You know, we need a
landmark somewhere. You know, think about when you go to Rochester and you see the the corn cob water. You go to Brainer, do you see Paul Bunan? You go to Garist and you see the big fish. We have an opportunity. We are
working on the trunk of Troy truck. I did get the name of the people the context. We're working on that. That's a landmark and people said they wanted history in the survey and they're talking about having the the panels that tell the history. I I'm just trying to to give you my opinion. I feel like we
have really missed on an opportunity to take Bruce Stillman who is a renowned sculptor and get him to, you know, give give us some of his concepts so we can approve. I think, you know, if you did I'm not in
favor also of this removable art. I think it's going to be cost prohibitive. It's going to be it's going to be a lot of work for our parks people or whoever. I think also there's going to be a real issue we have to be careful of is who is
it going to offend? Um, you know, who are we going to pick? Who's going to I just think there too many elements. I'd love to see, we'll just use Bruce for an example because we already have a lot of his art around Mount to to throw us some
concepts for three fabulous pieces to put in the artwalk that can create photo ops that can get people excited. It's unique. It's different. It's original. It It's not everyday mound. and and maybe it's a dump truck, maybe it's
Hercules, you know, Kevin Sarbo, you know, we we're already attaching to the to the trail, you know, Andrews. I just think we're missing out on an opportunity to really really elevate this to to something that M goes, yeeha,
that is my town. Nobody has anything like this in my town. And and I'm talking that artwalk. I think we can re I'd like to see that refined. I want I think we're missing the mark with Hammock. Could Can I Can I clarify? I don't mean to interrupt. Council member
Mcini, can I clarify just one thing? Yes. We're talking about a combination of things, not just all rotating. And so when you talk about Bruce's kinetic sculptures, right? Well, he does things other than just kinetic. Abs. Absolutely. I I guess the bulk of his art is kinetic sculptures. That's why I
say that. I don't I don't mean to oversimplify him and his art, but there's still space for that here. In fact, we have the four spots that I was talking about for some kind of permanent, you know, display. And so, we're planning that so it works with the rest of the community pieces of this,
you know, so we can do things in this area like the farmers market, you know, like the Christmas tree, all of those things that we also want to hold in this space. So that way we get some say over what's the infrastructure around it, how can it be lit, here's where it goes, and then after that, as an engineer, I I I
want to show up and look at some beautiful art. that somebody else came up with. But we do have four places where that could be something like one of Bruce's sculptures or four of Bruce's sculptures, whatever it is. I mean, I I just feel like this is once again a little bit the I
don't want to run into the thing that we did at Surfside where we do the exact opposite of what people asked for. And if you actually take the time to read every single one of these comments there, I agree with Michelle. There's there's a lot of comments that people don't want art. I would like to I would
like to see the art unique to just mound where you can go to any other park and say I've never seen that before. That's so fabulous. And if you guys want to get inspired and if you haven't been down to the mini putt, you know, big stone lately,
we have a chance to make that area literally inspired and and just literally where nobody else in the world has anything like it. Because when you drive into Mount, you go, "Oh my god, that's Mount. I'm excited. I'm proud." rather than
just all this stuff that just feels like any park in the USA, any town, any park. I want to see a landmark. I want to see something that excites everybody and it isn't just, you know, hoham. We got
hammock cooks. We got a little bit of art walk. That doesn't say anything about mount. Well, I think you're just talking about something that's we're all on the same track. It's just scale. You want something that scales to the point that people visually see it as they're
driving in versus the parking garage. Well, I want some. No, I mean, you want But but you're talking about stuff that and those comments you talked about, people didn't want the art. So, I mean, there's like I agree with you. I like the idea of having a big piece of art
that's significant. I'm also concerned that we have to be very careful about it not being offensive and some of the discussions. How are you going to control that with high school? You're going to say no mega, no pride. I mean, where are you going to draw the line with what we set a criteria as a city
and you know, so you can have flowers because flowers can't Well, I mean, I'm just giving you I'm just giving you my initial thought when I'm listening to your thoughts and and I'm hearing them and I don't think that they're in conflict with what we're talking about.
I think that scale or size or positioning is part of your issue because you want it to be something that people see and recognize and identify with. Um
and you know the thing is we also need to you know sometimes when I go to the farmers market I sit and talk with the ladies who run it and just watch because for before we started doing this I used to watch how did people go across that field and there was an interesting
pathway that kids did across that field and actually our prominade actually follows the pathway that they did and so you So, I I'll give it to the engineers. They they they looked at it and they saw
what was going on. Um, and so I think that we have to think about how we how people go there, use it, and whatever. The other thing that we never talk about is the park is not isolated. The park is connected to the Andrews
Sisters Trail. It is connected to the Little League baseball field, is connected to the skate park. They're all in that region. And we need to understand that the park there there's this passive sort of event park, but there are all these other connections
that are there that make it vibrant and where families go and and and that's why that's why the kids tra traverse through that field to get to the skating and to get to the baseball. I I just I just really feel like we're we're really
missing out on an opportunity to to to stand out and not just fit in. I I don't I don't want to see just a little path of stuff. I I want less is more and I want the less to be in your face.
I want to be like when I go to Brainard and I my favorite thing is to see Paul Bunan and and Ox. We have nothing in mound that we show any pride towards. I agree, T. We need to we need to figure what that is. Okay.
But then where do we come up with all these like hammock hooks? I don't agree with any of that. I I also am I got to go down there tomorrow because I'm still a little bit confused about the seating. Although I love that area. I'm I'm not
judging the area. You need a place where people can sit and gather. People want picnic tables. Where are all these people going to sit? They just want to go relax for them right there in the sea. Yeah, but they're all down in that area. But what about open space? The rest of that
all day long. Again, we have nothing that is going to draw people attendance on a daily basis. Not one thing. We We need to give them photo ops or some reason to go, "Hey, my cousins are in town. I can't wait to see them go down and see, you know, well, have you really
been over there?" Because you know the the the limited prenat pro proomenade and the sidewalk which would be through the art area if you go down there people are walking that now it has become an extension of the Andrew sisters trail or
whatever but you see the side of the so don't say that people aren't there. No I didn't see we're only you said you said you don't see crowds or whatever you said something about people. No I I don't understand everybody's going to relax and chill. I I just Are they I think in a hammock. I think in in Yeah,
at a table. Sure they will. The council members to me it doesn't seem Are there any picnic tables at this place? There used to be like two or three scatter. No, I'm talking about for this version of the concept. That's what what he's talking about. the the tables that have the accessibility. They're all going to
be Yeah, but the show green space area permanent installations that part part of the and and I don't mean to sound contrarian when I say this, but we have been talking about this for a while, right? This is not the first time we we've all seen and talked about this
have not understood. So, and neither have I. One of the primary things that we have heard through the process with our Tesla, right? And what was what was concept? What does our Tessa have to do with our park? This was all green space before, right? Right. And so then when that started under construction, we got
a lot of feedback that was where is our green space gone? And so that's when we decided to that or that's not we, but that's when you all decided to dedicate this as a park rather than build something else there. It's absolutely fantastic. Absolutely. But so if we were to do permanently installed picnic tables throughout the green space, that
would sort of prevent us from doing other, you know, more flexible things there. What else are people gonna do? They want to go hang out. You're you're what? Are you gonna have a a a band playing all day every day? People, if you read when you guys read
all these comments, you'll be surprised at how many people go, I just want to have a place to chill, to relax, where am I going to sit? And those tables would not be my idea of comfort to go if you want to just go hang out and read a
book like people used to do down there prior when it was ugly green space. I just think we're missing a huge opportunity here to make this 100% mound
related related and and make people go, "God, that is so cool." When I drive into mound, look at that whatever we're seeing. I'm not really comfortable with the with the um I'd like to see a portable fire pit. The minute you have those built-in
things, they become right in the middle of your path, they're not going to be used for six months of the year, especially during the summer. I I'd rather see the rem a movable one. You know, I just I just feel like
there's some things that we can do to make this really elevated and really get rid of some of the fluff that I don't think is serving mound. And I don't think the people of Mound will be excited when they come down here and go, "Oh, there's
like glass walls with permanent art." I don't think people care about that. I mean, we had 180 people that took this survey. But if you go to our original, there was nothing talked about in ArtWalk. There were no hammock cooks.
So, I feel like I don't know where this came from. I like a point of it, but I don't I feel like this is truly truly everyday USA. There's nothing that stands out to me at all. And we are missing an opportunity to not have Bruce
Stillman. Be careful and Bruce Spelman is a wonderful artist and well known and he's from Mount. But I think that rather than getting into naming people, we need to say we want a quality artist and we will
look at people. But I think that you have to be careful about throwing out names. Well, I'm throwing his name up because he offered he came here and he he can certainly be part of it. He can join in and and be a part of it. He can compete for it. He may be selected. I'm
just saying in this formal meeting I think it's inappropriate for us to be naming Well, I'm throwing it out because he offered at our I know why you're doing it. I'm just saying that I think it's not appropriate. Well, again, that's neither here nor there. I'm just
trying to say I think we still have you want you want to elevate and I think that you have to remember this is phase two. This is putting in sort of basic infrastructure. It's a lot of money. It's a lot of money and I Well, I know it's a lot of money
that's developing the park so it's accessible. But but I don't I don't I don't think a good part of M is going to be excited about that side of I guess what I was trying to say is what you want to do this big image thing that you're looking for. It still can be a part of this. This is
only phase two which is doing sort of infrastructure setting down some of those things. We have to look at the bigger picture and well the bigger picture is there's still a lot of land there to develop to put your threetory monument if that's what they're totally doing the opposite of what people want.
They want more green space more green space. They just want to be able to hang. So that whole what's all going on in the middle of build are those all trees in the middle the green space and green space
I again I think we are completely not giving mound something cool unique original and letting us shine as a unique city. I'm just not seeing it. So Council Member Mcanini if I'll remind
you I work for you right? So if we want to do something different here, we we will do that. But then what we what we need is is clear direction on on what to take out or what to add. And this is what we have never talked about in a group with council to actually have
everybody take the time to review all this, take the time to come with our ideas to say, "Here's everything we love. I don't know where all this came from. How can we utilize some of it and still give us a unique feel that only is
that only Mound has? So, I feel like we as a council need to sit down together. We owe it to our residents for $2.2 million that the five of us have literally never sat down and gone through this in
because it was the previous council of which two of us were in. Well, but that so don't you have to remember that the council changes and so every time every time a new council person comes says I was never part of it that it has been
reviewed. I guess just don't say that the council hasn't reviewed it. It's not about being from the start. It's about we we as a responsible council now at this stage of game have never sat down and reviewed this to say okay I think
this works after everybody's read the comments and sat down together to say what works and what can we elevate what can we add to make this unique to so if we're going to do that I once before I said something about as a group we need
to go to the park we need to sit there we need to observe Some some of us need to do it if you're because you're talking about making it unique and addressing. We can look at the comments, but you've got to go and observe a space. Well, I've been you
have to observe and see look at a layout and and go you want to have this conversation without putting in the context of the environment and good design. Form follows function. Isn't that part of what they always said
in good architect? I think we've all gone down to to to to walk around the park. Have you observed it? See, some people do and some people don't. I mean walking in some places. For me, Sherry, for me, that is diddly squat to to how
it affects that side of the park. I mean, I I can visually understand. I do need to go back down there and really understand what's going on. Are you ripping out the old little dock area? I guess I'll call it gazebo-ish area.
No. Or is that still there? Resurfing the floor. Yeah, we just we just resurface the floor at this stage. But where the deck where the deck is? Yeah. Yeah, we would we're just ask we're just putting an alternate to get that resurfaced. Okay. That I this is where Sher I agree. I have to go down
there with this map to figure out that area. I'm not getting it. If we need to stake something or help provide a visual, we we'll gladly do that. No, I don't need that. I need to understand where the current docks and stuff are. They're right. Is that all them over there? Yeah, just the brown at the
bottom. Okay. So, the current I'm going to call it little gazebo area that has, you know, the kind of false ceiling. Is that going away? No, we we're not going to touch that. Okay. Because I love that. That's That's really cool. Yeah, we're just
we're just updating the flooring. is is all we're putting in there at the moment. So, it's wood and it's rotting. Not rotting, but it's rotting. No, no, I understand that. But where is it in in context of this area? Right where the laser is. It's right there. Oh, it's right there. Okay. So, I
just was down there yesterday when I walked around the lake, our lake, and then I did the little walk and um and then I think it was a few days before that, week before that, something like that. It was a hot day and everybody's getting ice cream, right?
And they were, as far as the the picture goes, there there's a little bench. Yep. Kind of in front of No, on the left. Top left. Left. Left. Left. Your other left. Down. Do
you see them? No. Left. Way over there. The left. Not right. Are they coming from the ice cream shop? You mean past our test? Yeah, right over there. Yeah, they're right in front of our Oh, no. Right right in that area. There's like a little bench. There's one bench. Not that we want to build a park
for an ice cream shop, but I'm just saying, you know, and the other thing is they're sitting in the street, too. Well, it's going to be a huge bonus for the ice cream shop. For years, my me and my kids, we would go down there. We'd take our boat, park there, and 100%. We go across your prominade, right? And,
you know, do the whole thing through the dandelion field. And during construction, people were at the ice cream shop and the kids would go up to the fence and look at the construction. So that that's already a pattern that's established. So whether this ice cream shop stays or doesn't stay, I don't want to build a park just
for a ice cream shop. But I will say if they're down there having ice cream or if you're stopping off your bike and you know they got the the sign on the top top uh the three rivers, they got their signs of you know where everything is and this and that. Yeah, that's a natural place where people are going to
come in all the time and check out this park. Um, the one thing that I noticed and I just walked, you know, I was down Dakota, then I went down the prominade and then went back around our house and back, you know, towards my house and well, first thing I noticed is the grass
is horrendous and I emailed Jesse and yelled at him a little bit. Uh, and and they're working on it, right? Or you guys are working on it. Uh, do not pay those guys until they fix that. Um, well, I guess we would approve it, but yeah, they haven't been paid. They haven't been paid yet. Yeah, they're not
been paid yet. So, and Julie noted they need to fix it. It's horrendous. It remember the dandelions before? It's a little bit of an upgrade from that. So, now I know they can't mow it because, you know, the grass itself is very short, but it is coming in. Oh, the
weeds are this. Yeah, they had a head start. Yeah. Anyway, um, that's another thing. But, you know, I kind of thought, okay, do I envision myself doing anything here right now? Again, I hammocks are hammocks. I don't really care. I probably would I actually go
down there and sit in a hammock? I don't know. Maybe not. Maybe. But I can see a lot of other people doing it and just hanging out. I see doing that. A lot of young college kids hanging out. I mean, they do that in Calhoun. I mean, because that's a whole Can I Can I talk or No. Yeah. I'm sorry. I just let you talk.
Pardon me. So, we went around Palhoon, right, and Lake Harriet, right? Did the whole figure eight. There's people just hanging out all over. That's kind of how I'm visioning this area as well as Surfside is, you know, it's a hangout, right? They tie a thing to one tree and another, you know, they do the line or
they do a hammock thing or they hang out. Me with a bad back, I'm not going to sit in a picnic table. That's for five hours. Right now, what I would say is we should look into more those nice uh, you know, plastic, you know, chairs that live forever, right? You know, those more durable, whatever they're
called, but the recycled PVC stuff, recycled PVC, whatever. Yeah. And Yeah. What is that? Aderondex. Yeah. Like those, you know, the ones you can still get out. Waterproof that are movable. Like, let's go down there and then I want to read my book, right? And let's have those in certain
spots. And let's because again, the the the picnic table is not going to work. the concrete wall. I'm not sitting on a concrete wall. I'll kill my back right now. Again, I'm not the maybe the person that's going to be doing that, but maybe some kids do it or something else, but that's not going to be an accessible
type of thing either. The I I don't know. I think we need to kind of go what can we go forward on if we want to go forward on anything or if we want to just kind of revisit this, but could we look at the lights? Could we look at some of these trees? You know, can we kind of do that? maybe regroup and say,
you know, the whole art thing, I I I could care less about the art thing. I I would never go to the park for art. I don't care. Now, looking at looking at the the surveys and stuff, you know, half of them want, half don't. Whatever it It's a bigger picture, Jason. I go to the 55. What I will say, though, is
remember when you did the thing for mount and you and you put it up in front of your face and you took a picture? That's what I would say. Or why with the big chair? Well, you could do take a deck that could be made by an artist with the backs being um Tonka trucks instead of just add, you know, we need
photo opportunity stuff. But I mean, what what can we move forward to now? We can we can always add this chair later, right? Or actually we have but it does have to do with lighting currently. Have you got everything specked out for, you
know, like for the food trucks, which is a huge important need. The food trucks are going to be in the parking, right? So, you're going to you've got all the electric going on on up there. And then what do you need down here for performance? We can go ahead with that because we're going to have a
performance area. Lot of plugins, right? And then you're going to have high voltage. The farmers market's phase three. Yeah. And I'm saying this whole phase three, just so you guys know, like phase one was paid for by the sale of the land, right? That's the 700,000. Yeah. Phase two, we we wanted to say,
let's do something and finish this thing so we don't have just a dandelion park for another five years, right? So, this is why we're doing phase two. I don't know if we'll ever do phase three. I'm being honest. Let's let's figure out a water treatment plan first, right? But I'm cool with doing that whole seating
area and the whole whatever you're doing in phase two down there. I'm I think we need to revisit that whole area up there. and and that does we have to talk about it because it has to do with lighting and where you're going to be placing all this permanent stuff. So, I
do think it's important to have a bigger concept of refining this a little bit in the pavilion area. I did talk to the um Three Rivers Park lady and she does have multiple concepts for the pavilion because that one that they put up in
Surfside is a joke and what it's used for is they're dragging the picnic tables over and putting them under there to have it was never ma meant to be I think a big pavilion. It was it was designed so that people could do exactly what they're doing. have a family picnic
under the shelter, but when they had the band there, but it was never designed to be a Well, Sherry, first I want to say this because I I I feel like you're really resistant to even tweaking any of this and I think I think I'm open to it.
You know what? I love open space. I I mean, I've done this for as part of my career and there are things that I would bring to it. The one thing I thought which was sort of cool was the hammocks and you slammed me for that. So don't because there's not one person we've had
conversations with that that think that mound wants that. Some sometimes you don't know what you want if you haven't. But when you have a huge expense like this, you need to start really examining what you have to go and look at other
parts too. Go to Excel and look at what happens in their part and look at what happens. Why don't Why don't you just finish up? We should table it and revisit, but I also want to
and it had nothing to do with this. I want to set up a workshop for us to discuss all of our parks and open spaces. We were fortunate enough to just get the reviews from
um the park commission. I had to take I had to go to every single park in open space, take photos for the website. I made copious amounts of notes. We have tons of opportunity to look at everything to say, gee, this could work better this way. We can sell
this to the neighbor and this side to the neighbor. Uh there's opportunities with a lot of green space that have nothing on it. Can we reinvent it? So, I'd like to and I that had nothing to do with this. I've wanted this since our
combined meeting. So, and I'm kind of glad it waited because fortunately all of that you your reviews came in from Yeah. all the commissioners. We didn't get through all of them because there was a storm and there's a good chunk of it in there, but everyone has done their
reviews and and they're all in writing and so so it' be nice to compare them and I'm going to the parks commission's been waiting. We've told them that that the council wants to meet. Well, we did and then only two showed up and so we just haven't set up the meeting. The last four weeks, somebody's been gone.
Jason's been gone. I was gone once. Anyway, can we find a day that we can all get together and uh go through the packets to evaluate the parks as a group so we can be a little bit more proactive with the the commission and give them
some direction on some ideas they can start working on. I think we should do it as a council first. I do too. And give them direction or give they they've had no direction from the council direction on what we want. I mean, some of it's like I agree. If we can get rid
of or separate it, remember the one that I didn't I voted against it. You guys wanted Oh, Edgewater. That's the first one on my chopping block. The one on the top top of the hill. It doesn't make any sense. But but there I'd like to see us really
look at the amount of time that's spent in every park. Now I was there a little early because I don't think all the planters were in place and I don't think the summer help has started but you know there's crooked poles there's bad weed whip. They look
really untended to be honest. So I would rather see where we can of focus our attention on Were you there in May or April? Yeah, I was there. Yeah, that was early. They're all looking a lot better. Matter of fact, there are new benches showing up all over the place. Yeah, there are I want to congratulate public
works of the park. We have a lot of opportunity as a council to look at that and be and give some direction to the plan. Is the council going to go and visit all the sites? Are we going to need doc sites, aren't they? No, they're
not. A lot of them are commons. No. No. How many are commons out of 30? Oh, there's a there's there's there's 19 playgrounds with playground equipment, but even a couple of those are questionable to be honest with you. A
lot of the open space is questionable. So, I have pictures of every single thing with everything mapped out so we can review it. But if we can pick a date, that'll give everybody a chance to go visit. I I'll have the packets out to
you prior so you can read through the notes that have been supplied and make your own notes and we can discuss what we'd like to do because I think we can save public works a lot of time um making some critical decisions that I
think is really long overdue with with regard to the parks. Part of this gonna is going to be an attorney question. If we can sell lots that are in between two houses, that might be easier. But some of these, it's like state rules where it's like you can
you got to have a park within so many. We've looked into this before. So, I'm just saying temper. So, expectations. Check with your engineer to make sure there isn't storm sewer there, too. And so you can identify well I I think before because part of
in general part of if we have any city property that you're looking to dispose of the first question is whether or not it's restricted or unrestricted and you only can do that through a title search that costs money and so I think what
needs to be done first is you need to identify which ones you want to do as a council y with direction and once we have those and the question. Then comes the question of how does the city hold that property? And that's before we see if there's any other restrictions that
are with there with without doing it. But we need to do some form of a title search. Um those at a minimum will cost uh they're 90 at a minimum $90. They go up between 90 and 180, but I've seen them around 90 right now. I've done I've
done a few. So that's the f that. So before I I it's kind of I wouldn't put the resources into my review until you know what you want to do suggest. Right. Right. Yeah. No, that
that's really good to know. Yeah. But you know, some of these could be maybe a community garden, some maybe could be a dog park. I I see a lot of opportunity to embellish the really I guess
the most I'm going to call them beautiful parks with three we have three parks which are large parks Surfside Philbrook um I guess maybe three points might and Highland so there might be four those are the four largest parks the rest of the parks are tend to be
basically one or two lots less than an acre well And like you said, more than the majority, more than 50% have play structures. Play structures are only good for children up to 10 years of age. 10. Okay. Yeah. After 10, they don't want to do Oh, they don't go after five.
Yeah. Well, probably they're on their phones at six, right? Yeah. They're all on a phone, I guess. Yeah. Get on the internet. Um and well, that that Dundy Park in between two houses. I mean, what is that and where did why is it there? You know, we have some we have some
questionable there's a lot of areas that that we should discuss some of the names that I don't know where the names came from. Well, the names came from either people's properties. No, no, Sherry. A lot of different things. Sure. What I'm talking about is the way we have
them named on our map that we send people to on our website, you know, to get a map, you know, like they call it I don't know where these names came from. Like we we don't have a park that's called I don't have my parks
with me here. Yes, I do. Here. Here. I do. Oh, I have my actual notes that I wrote this stuff, but that's a list I created. So I don't know here here it is right here. Okay. So
for example um Lost Lake lost lake shore. We have a Lost Lake Park and then we have a Lost Lake Shore that goes all the way out. But again, these need to be reidentified. There's a lot missing. And then there's a lot of things called
shore that aren't called shore anywhere else. So, we need to cross reference these names cuz somebody I think just came up with these, you know, like Twin Park. There is no Highland and Shore. It's always been called Twin Parks. You know, the one that goes, you can drop
your jet skis in that little ramp and then it goes up. So, I just there's a lot to review that we can tidy up. So, okay. I mean, I would agree. I I think Can we pick a date? We need to
look at the full process, you know, you need to look at all the sites. You need to look at the cost and the ramifications. Yeah. And locations and stuff like that, but you know, is are we as a council committed to going to all those sites? Well, I've been to all the
sites. You've been to all the sites, but everyone else has to go. I've started going to them. So, I've been out to all the otherise. You'll be surprised when you get some of these sites. You'll go back doesn't qualify as a green space. You walked over the whole town too. I'm
sorry I missed I guess. But yeah, that would be like a workshop thing and then separately maybe like the the order of events or like figuring out which parks correct are what or can be, you know, but that would just probably be a workshop or an agenda item. I don't know
what's best. That's what I'm asking for a workshop. We And you're right. There are strange names because I went to um what is it? Um C what is it? Cedar View Clear Clear View. Clear View Park to meet some friends
from the city and they knew it on their map. It said the Minnitaka Fishing Dishing. Oh, right. Right. And I went fishing pier. Where you down beach? I said no that's this park. And
ding's the same way it's spelled. Yes. I guess the question is so we can keep moving on. Can we find should we find a date tonight that we can have a workshop? A workshop? I mean you can call for a workshop of course but like
what um would it need to happen before that? Like we want to does it take some time to gather the I already have all the packet put together. I I I already had all the pictures. I have my notes. We have the notes from the uh
parks commission. We can get you the packets. You can look at it all visually on each page and then you can go, "Oh, okay. Now I see where it is, what it looks like. I'm going to go over and see it in person." You can read all the notes and then we can come together,
excuse me, as a group and make some assessments. You're talking like city council workshop, not parks and No, I'm talking just city council. Okay. We owe it to the parks for us to get together and re review
this so we can give them some direction. I can't believe for years they've had they just it's like pie in the sky. They just do what they've got to do without they do do that and they each get so many parks and they come back and that's what they're doing. But I know that the difference is you or me or you know we
might have a different view of they're parks people. They Well, these are the parks. They're good. Whatever. parts and and they go to little parts. We might say, well, why do we even have that one? Cuz that could be south, you know, or should we reposition it to a dog park, you know? Well, and that's what you're but that's why we have
combined. So, so we can all look at this and as a fiscally responsible group, we need to go gee, I mean, how much time does Ryan and the boys actually spend spend working at these? Dustin is working on that because I did ask him to
do that. And and some of them you would not direct anybody to. You just wouldn't. Yeah. But they're but they're on our map. They're on this map that you know you go to the website and it's like I would never direct anybody. Why don't we come up with a date that
could work but but we've turned this conversation to going to the parks. We haven't dealt with what these gentlemen are here to do with us tonight. Okay. Yeah. Let's maybe at the end of the meeting we'll look at our calendars if we can.
Um what are we going to do about this phase? Okay. Uh going back to this though what if what if we do just like the like the lights are going to be the lights. They're not we're not going to put a light in the middle of the grass in the middle of the thing, right? So we should
be able to look at the lights and figure that out, right? I mean that should be a normal an engineer thing, right? That's if we were Sorry, Jesse. Go back. Yeah, if we're on the My apologies. They do kind of need to be spaced out depending on where the arc and all that stuff goes
on that south side, but we can do for sure the prominade and the north side without having the rest of without having it all figured out. So, but would it make more sense to do it all at once? Yes. Yeah. Having one electrician out there making sure that all that power is figured out at the same time. So, then
we shouldn't do it. So, so from an engineering standpoint, I I understand that there are some very specific things that we may or may not want to change or we want included or maybe want excluded. The bulk of the costs have to do more with infrastructure. You know, we're
putting in some pvious surface with the sidewalk. We have to do some, you know, ponding and rain garden type things. So the so the the features, the impertinances, the amenities, you know, that yes or no to hammock posts, uh yes or no to to picnic tables, you know, it
makes sense through the process of city procurement and with our landscape architects and the crew that's been working on this for us to show you options and pick some and put them in with this. But but if if for some reason we said we don't know what we want for picnic tables, maybe we want portable ones, we can still put in the pavement.
It just means that after the fact then they won't be permanent. They'll be, you know, sitting on top of that. I'm I shouldn't say pavement. It's concrete and it's very decorative concrete. But, uh, you know, so this is more infrastructure to try to bring you to hopefully what should be a blank slate
for some of those other things. And then based on the feedback we've gotten and the planning that has happened, you know, the artwalk, the pieces of art, the the stands for the art or the concrete bases, those are planning for that stuff. If those are things that you want to take out, by all means, that can
be done. But the bulk of this is infrastructure to support the area, mobility around the area, you know, access to it, and to try and get away from what used to be auditor's road, right, and make it more of a park. So, in terms of dollars,
the bulk of the discussion has had to do with the very small pieces that are in this plan. And what we're we're cost estimating for you tonight is infrastructure, not some of those things that make or break the park for one. So within this 700 uh 814,
that's only the infrastructure. It's not only the infrastructure. I'm saying the bulk of the dollars in that are infrastructure. Yeah, we but you don't have Okay, this is so much money for I just don't think uh I just don't think it's going to
going to be 100% what what Mound desires that that's all I'm saying. It it's so much money and and we don't presume to know that on your behalf. That's part of what the engagement is about. Granted, you have to read the comments sometimes with a grain of salt and and I honestly
think some of the more ridiculous ones I'm not going to read out loud up here, you know, but stop building parks and treat my water. Yeah, we're working on it, right? But when you when you really read thoughtfully every single comment and I did, you get a a big picture of just who
Mound is and and this is only 180 people. At our last community engagement, we had what 850 people. So this is a very small percentage. And when when we sent this out on Facebook, let's be honest, it was kind of leading
questions. We will have an art walk. What you know, I mean, it's like, oh, okay. I don't know if I want an artwalk. Some of people did actually say things like that was purposeful because because of all of you know trying to respect all of the decision-m and the engagement that had come before was you know we've
been told this is what we're going to do here. We're asking do you want you know a gas fireplace or wood fireplace th those kind of things where we were seeking the input on on how the public is going to interact with this. The fact that we got comments on things like mountain doesn't have a dog park. I
think I think I view that positively because that means that people engaged and then they said, "Well, you're asking me this question, but then you gave me a box to type in I have something else to say." So for me, I we Matt and I have a specific set of marching orders that is to deliver this. If you all want to take
those comments and say, you know, out of the 60 respondents, three mentioned a doc park. If that's a directive for something else to happen, you know, by all means, but I don't know that that's a thing we're going to do here. And I don't know that that changes our path forward significantly here. Right. No,
no, no. I know. I know. I'm just saying. I'm just saying with an open mind, read every comment. I think you will be surprised to find out. Grass, grass, grass, open space, open space, open space, place to chill, picnic tables, or places to sit. Kind of looks like what
it is. Monument. That's what it is. But, you know, here's the other thing. Excelsier has a music place. I've been down to one of their events. First of all, we're going to put the band down lower than the rest of the crowd. which seems counterintuitive because the people back here aren't going to be able to see the band. You know, their thing
is raised up and everybody brings their own chairs, you know. I mean, are we going to permanently attach those tables and chairs down there in that area? I believe I believe those those tables are I mean, if we're asking for the concrete, but I believe they can be
moved. They're not going to they're not going to be bolted in. And then we've got we've got umbrellas obstructing views. I mean, I would think, you know, for a wheelchair, is that even accessible? I mean, it seems like that whole area would be more open and maybe we would spend more time coming up with
perimeter areas where we would put picnic tables or these concrete things because I get the wind and all that other stuff. Um, I just don't think that this has been totally thought through um from the standpoint of the city council. Um, that bothers me. The expenditure
bothers me. Um, I still think we have a lot of questions which I definitely feel like we need to have a meeting to discuss. And full disclosure, there is no resolution with this tonight. Yep. Because we are not asking for anything tonight other than
feedback. So So even even if you all feel like this has been contentious, right? This is exactly what we were here for is is to prompt the discussion. uh the intent is to come back in July with you know that's why we shared the 95% plans but the intent is to come back in
July and ask for permission to bid if there are changes to be made between now and then that is where I will go back to I work for you you have to give me specific direction you know we've brought our landscape architecture and design might to bear on this but also we don't presume to know what is best so we
need specific direction on what to include how to evolve if that's where we want to head so what happened to the original survey that we did a couple years ago that I participated in at the farmers market. That's how this got to do this. Yeah, that is how they they got to this. Remember, there were like four
different Everybody wanted there's a spat we edited that out because it's too expensive, which I still say there's nothing here that's going to bring a daily audience. Nothing. At at this point other than the ice cream, a daily audience for $2.2 million. I want to see
it used every single day. And there's no nothing that's gonna be exciting to to bring an active audience there every day. So I'm obviously not gonna take a picture of the same sculpture thing every day either. So what would bring them to come
every day? A playground. Okay. for 10 five year olds. That's gonna be Tim that's gonna bring when I the last four weeks when there's kids down there at that Surfside, you know, they're all young kids, but it's
bringing people to downtown mound. We need downtown mound. Why not bring them We need We need more reason to support our businesses. And yes, I but I've said this all along. It needs some kind of a play structure or something up there by
the corner to bring daily attention. And yet you're also saying that we have too many parts of play structures and we need to get rid of some of them potentially. Part of the analysis but you're speaking two sides of things. No, no, I'm not. I'm saying we need to evaluate all of our parks. I'm saying
this park for $2.2 $2 million has nothing that is going to bring people a daily audience down here. M maybe it's a splash pad. Maybe it's a playground. I'm I'm just saying what is it? What is going to what's going to bring people here every day? I will tell you a splash
pad would bring people in the summer. Absolutely. 100%. I drive by them every single day. And why is that a and and Delano you drive by them too, right? Kids all the time. Yeah. After work. Yeah. Now, what if what if we look at that again? I mean,
we batted out a couple years ago, but maybe we do a basic splash pad thing or, you know, now that's only the summer. What about the winter, right? I I Why do we need to have anything going on in the winter? What park has stuff going on in the winter? We live in Well, you want something that's going to
bring people to mound. You don't want them is going to bring them months. It's going to bring the ice cream. It's going to bring the Huh. Why wouldn't you want to bring them in the winter? Well, I just don't know. Too late to add a splash pad. It's never too late. I don't know why we have to work so hard at
worrying about the winter. It's winter. It's three months a year. It's winter. So, nobody goes to any park in the winter. Like even like why is that a little teeny? Okay. Splash pan's out.
Well, how much did he say? $2 million for a little talked to them in Delino and they are it's a it's kind of a scheduling nightmare. Um, you know, in order to when it's open, taking birthday parties and
cleaning it and and the uh it can get pretty gross. Code brown. Yeah, code brown. Gross. Code brown. I I'm just saying you guys, we got to open our brains and go, what can we do here that is totally cool,
totally just in mound that will bring a daily audience. So, I agree with that, too. And just for, you know, if you want more feedback, feedback away. Um, like to your credit before, you're like, you know, this isn't the first time we've talked about it. We've seen the plans again and again, but it doesn't mean that we can't vary. Never too late. You
have said on two occasions when we go, wait a minute, what's that? and you go this nothing's decided yet. So I go along going oh I guess the day that we need to decide it we'll be able to discuss it which I guess we're doing today. Well this is I don't like some of
it in various spots. I mean I kind of agree with what you had said earlier that less is more like I think we can meet residents expectations and people will hang out in just an open green space like look at the commons. I think so. And it's like what's the, you know, crawl before you walk, walk before you
run. Like I would say, if we don't do art, it doesn't mean that it can never happen. I'm talking to him. Maybe not right now. Like I would rather have green space with the lighting done. The What's the upper left extended concrete? You mean the what's the name
of the structure? Upper left. Sorry. Yeah. The pavilion. Like getting that done, getting the electrical done. you know, getting the trees in and having the green space and maybe a couple picnic tables out. And I think less is more and people will come hang out because they just want to come hang out.
I mean, that's what I did in Excelsier. I mean, it was like every day you just went to the commons and you just hung out because it was open space with a Frisbee and a picnic table, right? And college campus or somewhere. I'm not saying, you know, unpopular
comment, but like, you know, whether the art happens right away or it doesn't, I don't think it matters. And the hammock thing, if it happens later, like if we have this full budget, we can come and wait under. We don't have to spend it all. It can still happen, but we can we
can postpone and pick it apart. And, you know, can I can I probably not add a splash pad later, but can I add some context? Yeah. Yeah, what I mentioned before about infrastructure, things that I consider sort of hard limits, amount of impervious surface, right? So, total
walkway, whether we change it, put it in as is and then work around it like that, that's sort of one of the non-negotiables, right? Once we put in storm water treatment, that's for a specific size. So, if we said we want to come back and pave the whole thing smooth and black, not happening unless
we spend a bunch of money. Uh, electrical underground, the placement of the lights, that is very disruptive if we move or change those things after the fact. And by disruptive, I mean expensive. Yeah. I'm assuming we all want lights, we all want that to be. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, concrete basis for
art. Pretty flexible. If you want the art to be lit, starts to be less flexible, right? We can plan for some of those things, but the electrical and the lighting gets to be an infrastructure dependency. Does that does that make sense? Yeah. And I'm just I'm leaning, you know, my opinion or feedback is like
the less is more thing. I mean, uh, to what council member Herrick said before, too. It's like we just had a budget workshop and we have a lot going on on our priorities list that we're not getting to. This park would look great and I think residents would love it whether it has art or not. And maybe we
should take care of some bigger things first and get this park done and looking great. I don't know that we need to have everything that's in the design list, you know? Um because we did just nail down like three other
things that we want to look at and do financially that, you know, are more needs than than wants. So, I don't know. That's just my opinion. And I mean, it looks great, but I think we should just focus on the the fundamental stuff and worry about some other things later. I
know it can get So, we're going to have to put lining along that walkway anyway, aren't we? Yes, ma'am. Right. So, can we not run conduit underneath it just in preparation knowing that at some point we might want to tap into it and run electrical for If we run conduit without
bases, we run the risk of having stuff in the wrong place and incurring costs later. Mhm. I just say that as a caveat, not as a no. Right. I think we we put in a bunch of conduit in phase one. So it's already in there. Some in there. Yeah. Yeah. So that's along the
other spot already too on the last go back and look at the plans exactly where we got it. But we we put in all the irrigation, we put in the conduit so that in this phase we're hopefully disturbing as little as possible. Um besid but obviously there's a bunch of landscaping here and where all of those bases go exactly you know they're going
to have to cut into the conduit in those places. So you've already done that then? Yeah, that that part is fairly cheap compared to the wiring that needs to go in and Okay. and all that that. So the lines are generally there but where they got to break and you still have to pull conduit
through it or I mean lines through it. So empty plastic conduit is cheap completed completed circuits that are not right which is kind of like I did under my sidewalk. You know I knew that. So we put a conduit under there and then we eventually we'll fish line through it. Absolutely. I guess the last thing I just would want to chime in about is I
know like things could get more expensive later, you know, when you're redigging up and redoing it, but you know, like you said, every city or town has this park, you know, but there's kind of like a reason for that. Like it's I don't want to say it's nothing special, but it's like it's a very
simple just open hangout area. I don't know that it needs everything, you know? Less is more. Less is more. But it looks beautiful. All I'm suggesting is an element that is
literally only mount. And I'm saying like, you know, it's like, you know, crawl first or just start slow and like maybe take more time to assess what you really want to do. Well, I'm all over your I agree 100%. Putting a putting a pin in it and putting this on pause. Well, we can parts of it like we want like we all
want we want the lights the lighting and the sidewalk and the the crass and the The gas for the fireplace is another infrastructure dependency. If you're if you're going to have a gas fireplace, it's got to go in before the concrete. Yeah. Raise your hand if you want a
fire. My hand's not up. Okay. I want a movable. Yeah, we want movable. So, I don't think the fire chief will let us do that, especially now not with natural gas. In other words, we're going to bring one in and at the Santa deal and then we're done. I don't think we need one year round. I don't I don't either,
but but I love the seating. Oh. like theme around what would be a fire pit. I like that whole area up there. Is that is that feedback that you like the pattern in the concrete and the rest of it can go? Is that No, what pattern with with the pattern? Can you zoom in,
Jesse? I don't know how accurate that is. Is that like pear gravel in between or anything or what? What is that? Oh, just in between the stones or the stones. Yeah, I just want to make sure that that's solid. Yeah, it's solid. Yeah, just the hatch for our differential. It's going to basically
flip what's on the prominade. So the the color patterns are going to flip. I would expect that would be where from what the prominade would occur. Okay. Prominade's got tan I would expect that would be strips in there with with the browner stamp piece. So this is going to be brown strips with the with tan
stamped. So we could do some kind of plaza like that. Mhm. Buy some chairs that are comfortable and that brings people over from the ice cream shop or off the trail off your bike. That would be fabulous. So, we all agree that that part is okay to go potentially
forward on. Correct. Okay. So, that's one. Can I ask you one more comment? I talked to when I talked to public works that right there along the Dakota Trail. Yeah. I think they own a strip of that, but could we inquire and see if maybe they could give us some bike racks there? It's like 10 feet, isn't it?
quite I mean I think a bike thing would you know there's all these bikes out there on the trail I mean you guys there are two places too on the other end up by the ice cream shop but we would have to pay for these um bike racks up there we can work with three down isn't there
something right there by the restroom there isn't there one of those the the little I brought I brought my bike station the not wandering away tools on a tether yeah so are we talking about the fire pit or So, no fire pit. I would say no fire
pit. That'll save us quite a bit of infrastructure. But, but let's let's talk a little bit about if we have an event like the tree lighting. We can maybe have one made a really big cool one like the Minotarista ones and bring it in, right? Get a fire get our fire
chief to say okay. So, I guess what we've been saying we brought six of them in last year. We'll do that again. But if you had a big one for homecoming, the high school could come and have its big um whatever you call that night or they or do they do that anymore? Do they even
do that anymore? They burn pallets up at the after the football game. Yeah. Is that what they do? So I guess that's what I was kind of saying though. It's like last year we all want the plaza and the pavilion thing, but like we don't need a fire pit yet. We don't need art. Okay. So we like we like that. You like
the pattern. You like the pattern in the concrete but no fireplace? Yeah. So, can you come back with that now? What about keep the circle? Well, we have to, right? Because that's the water. It's the runoff thing, isn't it? Wrong circle. You You circled the wrong circle. Yes. Keep the pattern in the concrete. What is Keep that pattern
there. It's just a pattern. It's a It's an octagon. Why would we keep But we're not going to have a fire pit. I would just say take it out. Yeah, I would say no pattern. No pattern. If you don't want to have a place that's like, oh, this is where we put the fire pit, then we just run the pattern all the way through that. Correct. for sure you would th this this is for some intents
and purposes a blank slate. So if you would like it to be even more blank there and put something portable by all means. That's the feedback we're looking for. The only that's pretty See if you guys agree with this. The the blunt squareness. Can you not be so square and maybe round that corner to that? Yeah.
To go down to the left down. As an engineer, I'm mildly offended. No, like more down towards that bush. You're going to have to give that feedback directly to You want it to curve? Well, just like I like the bottom part, but I don't like the top part just seems so square up there. You want to Well, the top part is
where the signage doesn't look so hard. Yeah. Is that bad? Doesn't that connect directly to the trail there? Is that what you're talking about? No. Well, this is Oh, so come down come down on the right corner corners and giving it a little And then just kind of come back to the prominade just slowly. Yeah, like
that. Yeah, something like that. You know what I'm saying? And you might have to move it up a little bit and take a little space away or something. I mean, the area slip right there slightly. Yeah. The interpretive signs. Yeah, cuz the signs are up there. So, we put all
the gravel in here. Yeah. Oh, for this shape. So, that's kind of why it looks the way it does right now. Can you move some of it over? And I think if we we can put in more. If we arc this, it's gonna this part kind of maybe not look real maybe not drive real much there,
but I can uh we can look that over. I'm just saying make it a little less abrupt. Yeah. I don't know. It's just a thought. Um and then that where that basin is there. Are we okay as council to have those trees or bushes, whatever those are? I think if we can hide it,
all the better. Okay, great. So, let's keep keep those. And then if we go down those along the prominade, we're going to keep those trees, right? And then the lighting of you're going to light that, right? Okay. Then go down. Lights, right? What about the native planting?
Well, where's that? So the plants are kind of interspersed all over. Like even this darker green, that's a bunch of plant. That's a bunch of planting there. And then there's lots of plants in here, but then the green there. Let's We're on a we're on a roll here. So, let's at on
the bottom here. Y What about these Mac? Did you say you like those picnic tables or No, no, I don't like them. I don't I don't like permanent stuff in a flowy park. Okay. I think I I think we I think we established they're semi they're heavy. They're heavy, but they can be
moved. They can be removed if if you still want. Yeah. I think in the 95% plans there's a a sketch of what they look like. I think we need to be Is there an example where we could see these tables? I I know we have I know we have something. Yeah. And well, and that's something we can bid as an
alternate. That's something we can bid as an alternate. If it's if we don't like the price or we don't like the final result, we can when we come back with the final, we can take them out. Yeah. Like there should be tables there for someone to sit, but we can always look at what they look like and change it up later. Yeah. I mean, if you're having a concert,
people aren't going to want to be that's going to take up a lot of space to have an round top and all those chairs around there. So, we're going to have a limited amount of seating directly where the band is rather than having chairs that people could bring in and sit and it it's an incline. So, correct. It's going
to be a view structure. It's awkward. Have Have you all been to Starring Lake and Eden Prairie? Yeah. It's like an amphitheater. Yeah. And that that slopes down not quite as gently. It's good the way it's laid out. It's so you'll be able to hear everything. That that was a little bit what was being channeled here. And then imagine the lake is
behind the band right off the Lost Lake. Starring Lake Park. It's right off of Flying Cloud Drive. Oh, okay. You only know that because there's a Frisbee golf course. So, on these native plants, I uh I kind of have a little bit of an issue with that because I don't think we need more work for public works. I would like
to see very simplified plantings that are easy to maintain. The natives are meant to be burned every couple of years. They don't need to be mowed. Don't need to be maintained. Burned. Yep. You have to burn them to some of them to get them to seed. We do we do this already in a couple of the parks where we don't have to touch. We don't have to mow it. Every couple years it
get they burn the plants back. That's not the maintenance. Manicured or does it just look like a big fat mess? It looks manicured. Yeah, this will be manicured. The plants that are picked are like uh your I'm going off the top of my head, but like your black eyed susans. They look nice and like the vine did
something similar to that. I think of what you're talking about. They did a black eyed susans and they did some native grasses and it looks very organized. The stuff down by Surfside that we did that on against the road. Yep. Is now full of weeds and it looks awful. It's just so awful. I mean there's what I would call a a tobacco
plant growing out of the side of it. I mean it's a leg breaker. Yeah, that's true. It is. And I mean then we are asking public works to take care of that and they're already taxed and they are beyond taxed. What where are we talking about? So where where are we at now? Um,
native plants versus landscaping versus well, where are the native plants going to go? Just that little section right there. The they're kind of interspersed, but most like most of the bushes and most of the trees. Yeah. Are were chosen as
native? Why are you against native plants? It's not that I'm against native plants. I'm against the wild weed effect that we got going in some of these other parks. They look bad. They're hard for our teams to maintain. I mean, public works is fighting a weed battle non-stop. Look at Veterans Plaza. We've
got weeds growing out and trees, scrub trees popping out. There are weeds so infested in the middle of the road down through there that they don't even have time to get to them. We look sloppy. It's bad. I mean, if they're just going to put in blackeyed susans and some, you know, some grasses Vik the Vikings
campus did a great job at this, but they've got tons of money. So, I mean, I want it simple, organized so that it doesn't cost the taxpayers additional money and the public works group can handle it and deal with it. I mean, burning it, we're not going to want to
be burning a fire next to our Tessa so we can burn the weeds down and then we got trees. It's just more amazing control. Yeah, it's just it's just too much work there. There's What happened to the concept of something that's spectacular that people would come to see a fire in the park?
Yeah, they would come to see that. Yeah, but it's still landscaped. It's still supposed to be nice. The public works has weighted. They like the rock mulch much better than wood mulch. So So that will help hopefully with some of the weeds there. Um so maybe we can work with them a little bit and just review
the the number of plants that would go in there or or sizing some of it. I think we would still probably lean towards some kind of landscaping in this even if it just ends up being rock mulch here. Mhm. This I think we're we'll
tackle this last. Okay. Well, we'll stay down here. Yeah. So, so that whole concrete area is going to be the same as the square up there, right? Yes. Like this the same plug and that's going to flow all the way down to where that tree is down there to the left down. Yep. So,
so this is going to be different. So, this is going to be stamped and with ribbons in there. This is going to be smooth. And that was a request from the public works guys because they'd come through with a little bit different equipment as they're coming through there to plow. Okay. And then that ties into the wooden planks that goes out to
Yep. And that's staying for now. The wood we're proposing to replace the decking. Oh, you are right now. Sorry. Oh, to be like hardy maintenance. Oh, yeah. Good. But it's maintaining its current shape. Yes. Yeah. No, no changes
other than just swapping out material and and it's in there as an alternate specifically in case we don't like the dollar amount. We could say no thanks. Yeah, I'm sure that's going to be expensive. I want to be clear. I'm not against native plants. That's not it. I'm against the messy messy. I mean,
like at Edgewater, God loving Tyler's been working his butt off, but we still have this Well, I would like of being environmentally conscious in our decision making. Blackeyed Susanss are environmentally conscious and grass and they multiply. Do something
maintenancefree that looks nice. Yeah. Good. Okay. And then what about And then we're to the trees on the right side then. Can't we just do trees kind of like we did on the left side for now and then
come back later and do whatever else we want to do. Artw walk or I mean it mostly is right. Isn't it just the four? We took out. these and then the six smaller things kind of on the right side. Yeah. So I'm saying like let's keep the six, right? One, two, three, four. Yeah. Matt, is this the presentation to the keep those but then
all that other stuff we just scrap for now until we come recompete license landscape. I think it would be worthwhile to share the parks commission presentation because there are some dollar ranges for some of these things. Is there electrical and as well as the
couple of options that were looked at initially? Well, they're going to put it what what substrate are you going to put around the sign the the main sign? Is it going to be plants or is it going to be rock? Landscaping. Landscaping. I don't know. Matt, maybe you have some details
on exactly what the landscaping is. I know there's a picture in here somewhere, but I don't know that that reflects what's exactly what's currently designed. And sorry, I'm flipping on my iPad. You're While he's doing that, what do you guys think about the trees in the middle? Matt's going to pull it up. I
think it's fine. I mean, people wanted shade, right? Yeah, we need shade. Yeah. So, that's why some of those trees were added in there. So, the the big trees right in the middle. Do we like that? Are we going to do the Christmas tree? the Christmas tree is over in Veteran
Plaza. Well, the one the one that's there is smaller and I'm thinking we should have one prominent in the park that could grow to be a big tree. Just remember with Surfside, all the comments were they wanted the trees gone so they weren't interrupted with their
open green space. So, I think we need to be really careful at the placement of those to create the shade. So, they're more on the east side. Yeah, that thing. And well, this will take years, but once it's big enough, that could create some shade.
Yeah. Well, it's going to take quite a few years to create shade. Absolutely. I'm guessing we're not putting in mature trees. We're putting No. Did you just tell me to keep it cheap? Yeah, I did. Well, you're not going to buy It's going to be a few years. It's not going to be
a teens little twig, is it? those we typically get two and a half inch thick. How long is that going to take? Depends on this tree species. What kind of trees are you getting? We got to get a good Not in time for the photo op. Let's just put That's what So I got the
the 95% plans are in actually. There's a good chance of Here's kind of roughly what those tables look like. Yeah, there we go. You zoom in on that. So, they're attached and you can't really move the chairs around. The chairs swivel. Yeah, this is our
proposed. Yeah, I can I think that's so confining. I I don't like the idea of making that that Yeah. So, if we're talking about making things lower maintenance for the park staff, something that is permanent, they don't have to handle worry about stealing replacing like
Well, are there any benches that are ADA? I mean, most people are going to bring their own chairs. Not necessarily. Can we add cameras down there, by the way? We want I mean, I guess that's a lot of money. It's not going to be that much money compared to what I mean. My
god, you buy a camera right now for 39 bucks. So, I guess all day long. It's got AI. So, I I guess I agree. I I don't I'm not a big fan of these bench table things. There's got to be other designs. Actually, I think I I get the I think you get benches that have arms. Oh,
here. Right here. Send them packing. Actually, those are those are the benches that are kind of appearing. Haven't you seen We've got these new benches in town. They They look kind of like that. Yeah. Those are not things we we would need to include in this part.
So that Okay, we'll figure out they're along the street stuff. Um, even something like that would be better. I don't know. I'm just saying that looks I agree. It's looks restrictive. I don't
know. It doesn't look nice. What is if we don't have What's that green thing? Is that planning for some aderond chairs? Yeah. Fire pit. Yeah. Well, we could do that without a fire pit. Yeah. Yeah, we can just set them up. Have the chairs. Yeah.
Yeah. For sure. The anorand chairs are accessible for people with mobility issues. So, you just don't plan on an abundance of them because people with mobility can't get out of them very easily because the seat sit t s t s t s t s t s t s t s t s t s t sits down.
Sure. My chubby butt can't get out of them very easily. What about a few different What about benches around that area? You know what the arms like comfortable just with arms would be good because that works for elderly people in Northfield they have they have a shed in
their uh park and they have chairs in there. They're they they did it for the older members. They have red chairs and they pull the red chairs out for concerts and those red chairs everyone knows are for the older members in the community. So then they don't have to
worry about bringing their own chair to the park. Yeah. So that would be another thing to think about. This green chair isn't in the design now, right? It it was roughly shown around the fire pit, but we we didn't put it in your final quote thing. It it
can be in there. I think we had it as a as an alternate. It's one of those other things. It's pretty It's going to be pretty. It's not wood. It's actually the maintenancefree forever. This can't be. Yeah. Powder powder coated metal. Yeah.
You know what I'm talking about? Like the plastic stuff that just never by by the yard. Yeah, stuff like that. Yeah. Is it like that? No, this is powder coated metal. This is This is a little more permanent than that. It's going to rust. Uh powder coated shouldn't unless it gets the powder coating gets dam.
This is going to be nice to sit in like feel good. It should be versus the plastic stuff. Is it different? Plastic stuff would probably be a little bit more forgiving, but I I think it's it's a preferential thing. I wouldn't argue one way or the other. I would ask what what would you like? Well, I'd like the
plastic one that and I'd like not green. Maybe brown or something. I don't think we're focused on the color. But I mean, it actually says black. Well, and now we're spending money. What if we put a logo on each of them? You know, the mound logo on the back like do
blue or you know, again, then it brings into our our city. Yeah. Hey, this is Mountains Park. It's a blue chair. Our blue with the little logo on it. Yeah. Well, I mean, I don't know about ADA wise, but the like even Costco has aderond chairs that aren't as sloped in
the posterior end of them down there. That's what makes them difficult to get out of when they're Yeah. When they're sloped back like that, I have a hard time getting out of those. So, yeah. Um, but yeah, but I mean, the aderondex that they have, they're selling at Costco right now have a less, they're more
boxy, if that makes any sense. They're not as angled as an ador aderond a traditional ador there's thousands of options. Yeah. We just give us some quotes on what it looks like. Uh okay. So where are we now? Are we So I guess I guess yeah if
I'm if I'm listening actively please tell me if I've inter misinterpreted something but we like the shape of the concrete. We want to keep that. We do not want permanent picnic tables. Yeah. For now. Yeah. Can we do more?
Can we have a water fountain? That was something I saw in here. Bubbler. There is. Bingo. Okay. Although right now our none of our water fountains are turned on, are they? Because of our water. Well, are you talking about water fountain for drinking or for looking? It's a water fountain for drinking. Oh,
we don't we don't have because of the water issue. Manganesees. We can't turn them on until So, of course. Okay. Yeah. Got it. Okay. Out there. So those dark spots there, that's where the proposed anoronic chair. Yeah, you could just put
them in a circle over there. Yeah. So we'll include those. So do we finish on the right side with the trees over there? Do we want to double up the trees and just worry about art and hambox later? Yes. But we like the the design
there. I like the design. Well, it has to kind of go along that sidewalk, doesn't it? Well, we again we can add the other stuff under there wherever. So, okay. So, if you come back with I mean remember we don't want to be asked
backwards like half of mound has been planned. I mean if we really are going to discuss what we want over there we should we should get a plan and and do it right and not work around because we already had trees planted there because
we couldn't come up with a decision. I mean, we don't have to have that side done right now, do we? I mean, if you have lights and stuff. I Yeah, I think it's gen We generally know what we want there and like the conduits are there. If we want to skip the landscaping along
that path, we we skip it all. Can we put the trees in at least because those will take a long time to mature and you want shade and we want shade. Yeah. That So, we got they will restrict any big changes. So, we got the six trees and then we got the other four big ones or
whatever. Is that trees? These are Yeah, these are all trees. Nine. Okay. So, we agree with the trees. Put the trees in. Yeah. Great. What are the lime things lime colored to those bushes? Are they small trees or something? Those things
trees and that and that's electrical stuff. Okay. Then those other trees on the middle of the whole grass. Yep. Are we comfortable with that now or no? Or do you want to move them over to the right or
add them later? I mean, you want open space, but you also want some shade. So, I I I guess I think it's kind of okay the way it is, but I don't have a strong opinion on it to be honest. Matt, am I okay with I'd keep that really big tree and those two? I'd get rid of the two
next to the big one. I think it's going to get real the one that exists and the one on the bottom. There's one and then the big one. And then get rid of those top two. Keep the three. You're saying keep the three that are touching each other. Well, you could do that and get rid of the bottom two. The bottom and
the left. Yeah. Yeah, that one. I agree. I agree. Yeah, because these other trees will mature, right? And you've got the bushes around the water shed area. So, get rid of this one. Yeah, you have the red dot. Get rid of that one. That one and Which button do I press? And the one
below. Tree number, I think, is more important than actual tree placement. So, You're saying this one? Yes. And this one? Yes. Yeah, I think that's good. Okay, so those are out. And then what about those bush things on the top? These are
mix of three smaller. See if I can tell you. And those they're supposed to be smaller smaller evergreens. There's power lines there. And so those are they need to stay low enough that they're gonna stay underneath there, but there's potential
they could be lit up like arm mighty or whatever. Yeah. Are we gonna have to wrap them in the winter so that mana doesn't kill them? They're awful close to that. They're awful awful close to that uh bike path. That's why they're there. Yeah. But when they get hit with all the
snow and all that crap, I mean, and the wind, you know, that the salt is harder on them than anything. That's awful clo. I don't think we saw that though, do we? Junipers need something to fall into when I fly off my ebike. I mean, I'm watching the wind fall off your ebike.
When I fly off the ebike, I need a bush year after year because they don't have them there. Yeah. Oh, 6 to8 ft. Okay. Okay. So, that's what those is. So, we are good with those or not? Arbor bitey. I think they're going to be tough to maintain. I do too.
Those are like the ones in between my house and my neighbor and they're dying. Half mine has died. Yes. The deer ate half of them and or they ate them all and I got tops of some of them. He does have deer. We just pulled half of them up. These aren't every bite. These blue point juniper is one of them. A Norway
spruce and a black hill spruce. Okay, that's way better. Look. That's way better. Okay, those were Do we like those then or? Yeah, I think that's cool. Okay, so leave those in. They'll So, is there a way without spending too much work on this that you can just somehow delete the things that we asked you and then
come back next week or two weeks? Okay. So, we can actually see what we just did. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. And then and then you can tell us you could let us bid bid it or if we need to wait another two weeks within final two weeks or you tell us we completely missed it. Go back to the drawing board again. Going to also
whatever it takes. So, we could say well that's what we like. Go start bidding it. then actually just bring it back. Uh, no. What's show it to us first. Show it to us first and then we'll go. But yeah, procedurally we could do that, but based on I think we want to be clear
about making sure that we've checked in with you that everybody agrees on the changes we've made. Does that make sense? Okay. So, can you make the changes, bring it back to us, give us an updated price list, updated graphics. We'll vet that out again next time and give you the okay or not, and then
you'll go bid it. Matt, are we done yet? in front of public works too before they bring it back. So Dustin or Ryan can look at it. Can you run it by Dustin and Ryan, too? They're they're Yeah, they're looped in. They know about it, but they're looked. All right. Well, let's do that. And then uh remember phase three, we can add more stuff or even if
we want to go to two and a half and add uh a local artist, whatever, or you know, welcome to mount. I mean, I'm totally open for you that depend on what it is, right? So, just this finished will look lovely, right? Okay. So, let's do that for now. Yeah. So, I just want
to be So, we're just going to do the trees in the space. None of the landscaping art or lights. No. On the side. Well, lights. Light poles. Yes. Light poles. We'll put it. Yeah. Okay. For the walkway. Yeah. We're not going to do like prep the up lights on or
anything. Conduit, not circuits. Yeah. Yep. Conduit. Yeah. Continue with the landscaping. Oh, so the the the sign we didn't talk about that. You guys good? Can we use the existing thing mostly and just
change? That's all we're planning to do there. All you're doing is changing the text. Okay. Yeah. All right. So, it should be cost. That's what they said here. Update name plate. Yeah. Okay. And then this we will likely keep. We'll just make sure the Oh, we're going to use some boulders. Put those in there.
Yep. So, couple more things I want to double check on is the interpretive signs. So, we had planned for Oh, yeah. three for four of those to go around the park. We would we will actively bid the structures getting put in. We we're going to workshop the information that
goes on them yet. So if you guys are in still So you're just giving us a quote for how much they cost and then we can decide where to put them later. Well, we can move them for we can rearrange where they're going to go. I think once you put them in, we just leave. Don't you want permanent like metal that matches
our sign and looks good? Yeah. What I mean is we before they put them in, we can move them. But uh yeah, between once the contractor's out there in Weisetta when they have on the hill going up to the library, they have a couple of those
signs and then they have a bench sitting in front of it so you can sit and read, which would be a nice thought for a feature. So we have a stockpile of boulders and then we got boulders we're going to take out of a wall. This drawing for the monument sign says we're going to put boulders around the
monument. Okay. That's not anywhere near the amount of boulders we have save. What are we doing with all these boulders? Yeah. Are they in the landscaping or something? We're going to go in the landscaping. Okay. So, that gets we have to figure out if they what to do with them if we're not doing the landscaping. Oh, that one side. Yeah.
We're flush with boulders. Yeah, we got uh public works said they'd take they have uses for the other ones that's down by the seating area. There's plenty of places that could use some actual altars along the erosion of have the
little parks. Those would be nice size too to there's leftover. And then the last part we didn't really get two in the weeds on. There's the the wayfinding signs where there's one up here. There's one down down down in this
space and then one recently off by the the 110 trail crossing. Do you have that? Yeah. Yeah. Let's just refresh what that looks like. Permanent benches anywhere? There are benches. Yep. Because as Sher said, benches next to
the wave clearing signs would be kind of nice. So So in that landscaping along the trail there that we just did away with, there are two benches with trash recepticles planned there. Okay. And those can still go in without the landscaping obviously. Well, we'll have
benches along the walkway anyway, right? More than two. There were some you already have. We're going to include those. So, they're not green. Trash receptacles are interesting. So, how many did you say that we included? Like I think we need one up by the These these are just these
are just permanent ones that go with the benches. Not I I think we have lots of options for other stuff. Okay. I'm just thinking up there by that pavilion thing. I I just Yeah. bench seating with waste receptacle. So, it's on a little concrete pad. Does Three Rivers provide Well, they have a few trash cans, I
think. No, they they don't provide outdoor stuff like that. I know Henipin County gives out some recycling stuff, but I don't think that's what we're after here. I would just be happy if they'd put it in the trash can. You know, one of the things we never talked about is um you know, we have the water
closet building there, but sometimes I know for the farmers market, it hasn't been operable. Are we going to have that as the public bathroom for the park seven days a week or do we need to plan
for portable units? So, that's not ours. More of a Jesse question or our question, I guess. Well, your locked in specific. I think it needs Well, it's already there. I think Yeah, we have
fun. Yeah. Yeah. That's more of a US question on public works. I think it's like on the other side of the on this the one on the other side of the trail, right? Yeah. Right. Yeah. No, it's a different It's a maintenance issue. It's the white building. Well, no. Ryan said that he told me that they
had just recently cleaned it all up and done all the, you know, changing it from winter to summer. Yeah, re-checking all the lines. The water heater had to be replaced, I think. Does that sound right? And then, um, the locks are locking at a specific time, and we may want to extend that in the summer to
9:00 versus 8. Yeah. Um, I think they've had some vandalism, so that's one reason why they're locking. But to Sherry's question, too, I mean, I don't think my question is, do we want to keep it open seven days a week, or do we want a portable system, which maybe is easier maintenance? I don't think port No,
we've put a lot of money. In fact, they're getting ready to do the the outside brick. They're going to redo all that. I know. So, I think we need to use it and leverage what we've already got. Yeah. Then you've got to have a cleaning plan every day in it. Who cleans now?
Well, that's public works. It's Yeah. Um Matt does. He does. Well, I know he was out there Saturday because I was out at the farmers market a couple weeks ago and somebody had thrown a boulder of concrete, you know, and it had fallen apart and went all the way down our sidewalk and thank God it
was in the section that's cracked and has to be replaced. But I was over there with a broom. I borrowed a broom from True Value and went over there and swept it up to the pile and he came by and he helped me get it all cleaned up and we threw it into the gravel pit that we've got going right now. I mean, but that's the kind of vandalism nonsense that, you
know, it just happens, which is why I'm asking maybe we need cameras once again. Uh, so we got your orders. We're good. I think so. And then you're going to come back at July 8th with the plan. Okay. So, we'll come
back with a revised plan. We'll update the cost estimate. Thank you. We will intend to be asking for permission to bid at that time. Okay. and and you all will do what you want to do whatever work doing a workshop with you know adding more attractions to to the plan.
Okay. Yeah. There can always be an interim phase. Yeah. All right. Thank you. Thank you for Thank you for all your work and patience. We work for you. That's I keep reminding you that. And you're not moving. So number nine, city hall and centennial
building evaluation. Good evening, Mr. Mayor, members of the council, Brian Simmons, senior city engineer. Uh what you have in front of you is a letter proposal from me to have the Bolton and M architecture group look at uh this building primarily. This is in response
to uh Jesse passing on that there have been discussions about the potential for maybe parting ways in the future with the Centennial building. Uh and so there's a number in here. I believe it's 8,500 bucks, but to bring uh Adam Lockheart is the head architect for Bolton Mink and a couple of other
architects uh to look at what the city uses are of this building, evaluate if there are any needed code updates or recommended maintenance that you would need to perform if you were ever to theoretically put this building on the market, and then do a very preliminary
look at just trying to round up a need statement for the things that are happening here. primarily it's this space right the council chambers and then we we're going to take a very preliminary look at how we could repeat those needs in the existing you know former public safety building now city
hall right so we're not going to do a lot of time spending putting costs to that because there are a lot of pieces to that but this is an initial study focused mostly on Centennial in response to being asked you know what what would it take if we wanted to sell this building okay so I'm I'm open for questions
discussion yeah I do Okay. Of course I do. Um I'm a little curious. You know, when you sell a house, you sell it as is. Why are we going into all these details about finding all the faults and the problems with this building? Isn't that the responsibility of the purchaser? Well, I had the same thought,
too. And I mean, am I missing this might be torn down, right? That's what I mean. That will be I think I'm more concerned. I'm more concerned about Yeah. over there. Is that going to work for this? But he just said he's going to spend more time over here than over there. And I think that needs to be the priority.
Part of that is that over there is far more complex. Okay. I think we need to start here with what are the are there any other needed city functions happening in this building still. I think we know that. But we kind of know all that. That's fair. We just need to quantify what is happening here. Also,
we're not we're not looking at just that. There is some weirdness with uh this is all one piece of property. So, we need to look at at titling and splitting it. Uh part of part of the study dollars would be to bring in our surveyor, do an initial title search and determine uh what's a cost estimate for
us to split basically to plat it to split this so that this could be sold and then we need to look at do we need to do anything different with the roadway you know or driveway access because of the sort of integrated nature of the two buildings. What do you mean plat it so that it could be sold like or split it separate? You would need to be
able to sell the piece of property that this building is on without accidentally selling them city hall. It's all okay. Yeah, I thought you piece like a and access for each. Got it. Yep. And and how and how that would be described. Do you create the driveway in between as a
public street? Do we not want it dedicated that way? Do we leave that on the other parcel and then just give them an easement over it for driveway access? Do we just sell the building itself and keep the parking lot? There's a lot of nuances to things that I feel like are open questions. This is part of that
8500 or this is separate for No, this is part of that 8500. giving you a cost estimate to either build or repeat a council chambers in the other building is what is excluded because there's a lot more time and effort in that. So I'm guessing the code updates or checking
whatever needs to be fixed if we were to sell it is pretty minor. It's the platting and all the other stuff that's the majority of that work. So we've been talking about asset management in the city as a whole. And I think this is going to sound like I am being judgy, but there are some deferred maintenance things. You know, we've done a lot to this building and all the buildings that
the city owns, but I don't know that we feel like we have every box checked. So, it's just sort of rounding up, hey, do we know how to hold the furnace? Do we know how old the air handle, you know, all those things and we have we have all that kind of with them where that's the job of the purchaser, but if it's like a
minuscule part of you need to care because that the buyer who you're staying takes on all those cost, they can do the study then. They'll also say that's where you're going to lower your price. You're going to give it to They need to figure it out. Then we won't sell it. I I wouldn't pay you for it. I
I' I'd make you give it to me for free. I'm envisioning this place being bulldozed and a development being here. Well, that's going to be whether this road is here or it's right where I'm sitting. But then we have to decide or it goes like this. We have to decide what can be developed here, too. Well,
yeah. And that's there's Brian, once you do the evaluation between these buildings, is our job then to look at that and say, um, yep, we think it's it'd be great to sell or I mean, what's the whole purpose here? Your your job would be to take the valuation and use
that to make decisions for the future. If if we want to keep the building and continue maintaining it, then you have some idea of what you know future costs are going to be or if we need to sink a bunch of money into maybe it's it's not a money pit, but making sure that there are no red flags or what would it take dollars-wise for us to separate
ourselves from this. Okay. The the idea of what's the impact of what is here later that that's sort of a beyond this study. you know, I I just am bringing to you the proposal for this study to tell you what it would cost to separate
yourselves from it. So, that's fine, but I don't want to pay to have that checked and then six months from now or a year from now, we decide to sell it and then we still have to go back and figure out what we're going to do over there. So, we're we're going to do the first half of that. Okay. I I proposed it's in the letter, but I proposed that we would
actually scan the interior of that building, right? And that's a thing that I sometimes am away from here doing for Bolton Bank is managing all of that scanning stuff. So, I put in the letter that we would just do that, okay, for free. It's not included in the fee, but so that our architects have all that information. Jesse and I have talked a
lot about some of the weird unused space in the basement of that building because it was originally configured to be police and fire, but what the architect said was 95 or $8,500 is not enough to look at this building and to give you all of the details on, you know, are
those walls structural or not? Can we move things around? Can we move doorways? So he specifically said cost estimating future improvements to the existing city hall is excluded from this. We will take a preliminary look and we will give a narrative on exactly what the book. So you could take that and you could say Brian tell me exactly
how much it is to deliver this and and I could give you a accurate dollar amount of what else would the study be above and beyond that to build you know council chambers and reconfigure portions of the city hall. Just remember that this this was brought up by me and
former council member Larson and uh we uh we've been have we've had this building for years right and now we have a lot of NOS's basically that are you know here or not NOS's geos
government organizations whatever you want to call them QGOs quasi government yeah and when back when Eric was here too and I said, you know, I don't want to do renew any of the contracts if we can't ever get out of this thing, right? Um, and so from what I understand, the
contracts have a verbiage in there that says, you know, when we say, "Hey, we're going. You're going to have to find a new place." And I don't there's some probably a curious period or something, but um remember no staff staff's here. No staff actually has an office in here.
They they all office over there. No, you know, we made a comment about a window. You know, again, there's maybe some design things that we want to do down, you know, down the road, but if you do a tour of the basement, I mean, the whole basement is basically nothing, you know, not used. And there's like the
whole police department, and I'm talking like the conference room police department. God, you could put lots of offices down there. I mean, if you wanted, right? And you could you they could finagle that out. What I'm concerned about is can we get this this
whole room upstairs over there for a cop and parking and parking, you know, because there is no parking. Yeah. Street or, you know, with with the festival, they all parked at the school. That's where they all park. They walk across the street. Um, you know, I mean,
we have two people in the audience, but I know sometimes we have people that come out. Um, so how can we Does that work over there for for long term? We're not growing really as a city per se, populationwise,
or really even city staff-wise. A lot of people work from home nowadays. We could even loosen that rain if some people needed to do that if we somehow got more staff. We just talked about our budget and that's probably not going to happen for a long time. This property here, I mean, we're we're spinning the wheels. I
mean, we've go through the budget and, you know, it's not like we're losing money. We're not gaining money. they're just paying the bills and you know new elevator or you know elevator um maintenance or whatever you know it's 10 12 grand or whatever you know we're just doing the things and you know we're getting paid from them and we use this
obviously and other commissions but can we just use that we have an elevator we have stairs we have some parking the front we have some parking the side of the fire we park on the street um you go to other council um places you know even around here. I
mean, some are very nice, um, but some are car tables and they just, not that I want to do that, but just saying, um, we need to keep a level of professionalism. That's what we got going for us here. But I'm just saying like I think we could recreate something nice, right, in
that room up there. Uh, Jesse and I counted the chairs and I think it was either the same or more uh that you could fit of of people up there. And so, again, I've been harping on this for a couple years now. And I'll put in the the white flag if
you want me to and just be done with it. But I I just don't understand why we have this whole building just because we have it, right? We have a water issue. We might need some money. We have a huge debt issue as it as it is. Uh we could sell this building, do something else.
Plus, what if we turn this into a nice little town home development on on the lake, right? And then all of a sudden, you know, we got tax revenue coming in and this and that. So there's developers that want to talk about it. So No, no, I know. I'm just laughing at the on the lake part. Well, it's on the lake. I mean, it's that's a that's a cattails,
but yeah, if you cut some of the trees down, you can see the For me, it's no different than the first time we discussed this. It it depends on what we can get for it. If we get a minimal amount, I'm not interested in selling. Have we had an evaluation done by a commercial real estate? There was a
Yeah, I mean, there was a It was very preliminary. I mean, it was it's not it's not a it's like a market analysis. Yeah, we we have that. I can't I I don't know that was distributed to the council previously. I mean that I agree with coming up with the real estate stuff and I don't know if you would have do that or if they would do that but this road
here obviously is going to be something we're going to have to deal with. Um not only does it provide access to the parking lot that Jesse and them use, but also the fire people come. We have to have in and out for the fire apparatus the way the fire station is set up. So we have to have something that comes around the back. Even if we call this a
road. Yeah, you can. That's that's all you got to do. They can use it. these people can use it. Maybe this building stays here for 100 more years and they turn it into maybe they keep it the same. Someone just wants cash flow. And I think part of the analysis are looking at is what because if we're if we're
going to sell this property, it needs to be subdivided. Um and through that subdivision, right? You know, part of the going to look at is it makes sense to have a dedicated public roadway um through there. Part of it is is public safety is that access. They're going to
go through that analysis it sounds like and figure out what is the best way to get access because I you can visually look at it but you know they're going to actually see what options are out there and what would work the best. So the one more one more thing the only other the
other thing I would say too because I I hate these you know paying fees to do studies but I just this bothers me but but remember these are consultants right we don't have staff people to do this right if you think of 8500 I mean that's whatever
divide that out per hour for you know if we had someone on staff and you know we're not paying insurance and healthcare and 401k yeah I don't think we should spend a lot of time picking and choosing what the problems are over here. I don't I agree with this. Yes. I mean, I want to see what's the opportunity there plus how do we
subdivide this and what are the goods and bads of that. So, full disclosure, I was trying to keep the cost down because I when I talked to the architect and he came back with the number to fully study both things. Yeah. I said they'll laugh me out of the council chambers at $25,000. Right. So, I said let let's
sort of take a staged approach here. Well, but it has to do with the number of hours that it takes to evaluate something. So, let's take a staged approach. That's why I'm coming to you with this with some specific exclusions. I'm describing it as a as a mini needs study. Can we maybe again, let's look at
this building because we're I'd say less concerned about this part for now, but how do we subdivide? Can we do it blah blah blah and then do your little, you know, the part that you're going to do over there anyway? Yeah, we're going to scan that. We're going to look at the floor plan. We're going to look at how the spaces can be reconfigured. We're not going to do any structural analysis,
right? So looking at getting rid of walls or things that are look because that's mostly a concrete block building downstairs, you know, so that's that's a problem because structural. Yeah. Yeah. A lot of it can be structural and we have plans for that. You know, it's not that old of a building, but that's got to be looked at and that so the
specifically what would it cost to recreate council chambers over there is a thing that I think you all have a lot of input on and that that would be more of a collaborative process further down the road after we deliver this. Okay. Does that make sense? Yeah. Because I I think you could exist in that space now
whether you like that or not. You could raise the roof, recreate something like this with a deis, you know, that at a certain number of dollars, you know, you can do anything with money, but what's the responsible cost? And and how do we get what we want for the the least amount that I think needs a little more
input to get there? And remember all the money that would cost to upgrade that to look like this. And we we need more better technology as it is. people in the audience can't hear anything anyway. Um, and by the way, I was watching your video. Good job last time, by the way.
Um, being doing this. Oh. Uh, if you're not in front of the mic, you can't hear. Yeah. Yeah. You got You cannot. And I should have said that. I know you told him to come up. Um, I do a better job at when people are yelling from the audience or, you know, they got to come up because you literally cannot hear.
Well, that's why I tell you sometimes. I know you do, too. You know, you what part of what we were doing, too, is creating create the record. True. you know, and and you and you can't see anybody in the audience. They never pan to the audience. I watched three hours. I watched I watched the three-hour video. You see? You see him, but you do
not see the chairs and who who's in the audience? That kid. I'm just saying. Maybe that's cuz he's not doing it on purpose, but it's a discussion with our camera. It's the the angle means nothing else but the poke. So, if you take out the the you know, looking deep into this, I mean, then the cost should be a
little bit less than, right? I don't think so. No, the 8,500 bucks is is kind of where we're at between the preliminary that separate from this. So, I guess I'm kind of on the same page as council member Mchini too, though. That we want to know a better picture on what we can get for this place first. Well,
we did that. We had that from Scott, but that was that was over and I don't remember I don't remember recall. I know there was a they sold the building right over there. Um and so CBRE did and so they were looking at well the sale of the building but it it was a quite a
wide range. It went from 600 to 2 point something. I mean and they're looking at properties like in Burnsville and so I mean it was that's why I say it's not free analysis too. Yeah. It was free comps are hard but I'd rather get I'd rather spend a little bit of money
getting a better picture of what we can get from this. But but I think the discussion too was what because this is a redevelopment. Sometimes with the redevelopment, you're going to get somebody coming in saying, "I want to build whatever, say town homes, but in order for me to do that, you know, first
of all, I don't, you know, I need a little bit of help." And so there, you know, there's always that I've seen it before where they're looking for some some, you know, maybe reduction in price, but what you're getting in in return is that tax base. And so we'll do all those numbers later, but yeah. So, but still
don't don't be surprised that you have a certain price, but that's not what but it may be in the in the end run lower, you know, lowered because you're trying to get that gain in. Depends on what UC went in there, too. In in your
in your work, will you give us the steps that we'll have to go through to sell this building? Yes. because I think that understanding all the things we'd have to go through and the kind of timeline that will take is important to know. Yeah, there there is some, you know,
recording times and things if you're going to plat subdivide it, plat it, you know, and then get it recorded to county before you could separate from it. We we went through a lot of that or Tessa and and Council Member Castalone, to your point, this is not a construction bid.
There is no urgency. If if there's no action on this tonight, that's okay. you have the proposal for me, you guys could, you know, table it tonight. You could pull it out at any time and tell us to go. Or if this is something that you're interested in getting the answer in, you could tell us to go. That it's just information for you to know. You
know, normally I don't bring you guys proposals because you just tell us to go. But in this case, we needed to be transparent about the dollars to take the look. I know we just talked about spend a lot of money on a park, right? Um, but I will say I get a lot of comments on water. Yeah. What the hell's
downtown dandelions, right? And now at least we don't have we have weeds, but we don't have dandelions anymore. We're actually doing something about that. They're working. People like that. And again, if you build something nice, people are going to go, "Oh, wow. I'm glad to live here." I was at church and ushering in one of the guys comes up to
me and goes, you know, your sidewalks looks like a third world country. It does. And this is before before we fixed them, but you know, we're doing these things to make this look better. So when someone and especially in July 22nd when we talking about water, I want to be able to tell the public and say, "Hey, here's the deal. We're looking at all
options and we're sitting in one of them and if we can get something out of this and help reduce your water bill rate, you know, when we if we do, you know, go forward with this, I don't know. I mean, we I think for eight grand or whatever, I think it's worth we need to look into it or we need
to just I just need to let it go." Well, I think it gets down to too what it will it cost us to renovate that building to meet the needs of city council and the staff, right? Versus what are we going to get out of it? Yeah. You know, are we going to make enough to even cover the cost of Again, I'm not a contractor, but
I know I'd imagine you can get a couple contractor bids for free. Um people, you know, well, if they want the job, that's fair. You know, here's the deal. It'll cost you 50 grand and we get a million, you know, whatever. No, I get So I I I think we're going to make out great. I
think why are we even have this building? We have it because we just have it. We just we never And it is paid, right? It's paid for paid for and we just Yeah. We're not We're spinning wheels. I mean, we're not losing. We're not making. We're just doing We're spending We are spending money maintaining it. But yeah, but you know,
that's Well, we could be shorting ourselves in a different way, too, by just sitting on it. So, I mean, I'm not super thrilled about spending the eight grand. I just kind of But I don't want to I don't want to do nothing and I don't have any better ideas. All right. So, are we okay just going with the study for now?
I think so. Mostly I'm going to get a yes out of you eventually. What am I? I'm going to get I haven't been a no person. I'm not a no person. I would agree with it based on what Sher said, Council Pew. Um I think we need a timeline, a very valid
timeline of the different steps that we need to take to Yeah, you said that. Yeah, that's I'll lay out. I'll lay out a path for a potential sale of of Centennial building and and the property identified that we want it to sit on. We can we can include some discussion on redevelopment
um up to Scott for what that would look like from a legal standpoint. You know, what any guard rails I we also have probably a little issue over here with I think the skate park comes out part of this property. So, you know, again, we're going to have to separate from part of it and make sure it's road
fronted and all that, but yes. Yeah. Okay. I guess I I'll go with it. But, you know, I my greatest concern is that we won't get enough out of this to make a difference in paying any bill or even fixing up the place. It might be a wash and maybe that's okay, too. Yeah. Yeah.
But, well, again, we don't have to say yes until Yeah. I mean, again, we're spending this, but we need we need all the information. We need this is what we're going to need to know. And I'm guessing it's going to bring long-term benefit, but we'll see. So, I I will I
will say that you know we've between myself and then we run in that do the market analysis you've done a lot for at at a at a like a at a free level you know but at a certain point you need to get a deeper analysis of like I said
it's no different than if this is this is um this is a true redevelopment project that you're looking at um that I've been involved with other cities too Um and there's a lot of times that the cities will have to through economic
development or whatever else will have to do what they're talking about um to make it marketable because um you know you may they may come up with the idea I would say for like here's how here's how you can do it make it marketable and then maybe the developer
will come in and be able to pay for like the planning and other things like that but that's that'll come later in the negotiation part but in order to be marketable income with a plan. Um, you know, we've I think we've come to the point where the
the inexpense the free advice kind of is what is hit as far as you can go. Yeah. Okay. So, do you need instructions? I I I need I need direction to pursue it if that's what you would like. Can someone make a motion? I'll make a motion to move forward with proposal from Belton
Bank. I can't talk for the city hall and for the city hall Centennial building. evaluation whatever. Yeah. All right. We got a motion. Can I get a second? Second. All right. Any other discussion? Sorry. All those in favor, please say I. I. I. I. Those opposed. All right. That
passes. Thank you. Thank Thank you for the feedback on that. We'll we'll take that and integrate it into the report. We'll plan on bringing that back. Maybe I'll even introduce you to Adam because he's a very likable dude who talks about things that are more curved and square. So, he might. Are you bringing this back next time or? No, you're a couple times
from now. Couple times from now. Yeah. Okay. Um by the end of summer. Yeah. I can't decide if we want to do end of July or beginning of August, but that's what I'll shoot for. I'll let Jesse know so we can plan for it. Okay. Thank you. And there's just something too on as part of this. Maggie had provided me with like the plans for this building. I
don't know if that's helpful. And I digitized them. I mean, if you've got them scanned, send them over. Yeah. I didn't. Yeah. So, I can I have I can send I can send them over to you. I I one other thing that after what you were just talking about, I think we need to include a cost estimate for a demolition of the building by the city. If you were
to pursue that with a contractor yourself in the case that when when if you do any additional market analysis, it might be more marketable with the building gone. Depends what they do. That way, at least you have a dollar amount either way. You have a dollar amount to make that decision. Yeah.
Okay. All right. Thank you, sir. Thank you. Appreciate it. All right. Number 10. We got four-year mayoral term consideration. So, this was on our uh priorities list of discussion items. And
I'll let uh you take it because you mentioned it cuz I ran my mouth. I think I brought I brought it up for our priorities. I'm not I don't know what your guys' opinions are on it. I don't I don't really have strong opinions either way, but it seems beneficial to get a
serious candidate for someone that wants to do it for a full four years and for continuity of projects for for staff and council. I think it it's probably beneficial. I know we talked about it, I think, in our workshop a little bit and I think we're all kind of like I couldn't think
of any cons. We didn't see much on the count side, but uh any other opinions on I mean we've been two years forever, right, since the start. Uh you can see other cities that um that are four years and then of
course I know I know one for sure just changed. I don't know how often which has changed. Or the most recent oral is the most recent. Oh yeah. Um just again a a caveat to this. This wouldn't be until the next term. So, the next person
to run and get elected as mayor, me or whoever runs, it'll be that term. It's not this term that I'm sitting at. Uh, as you can see in the memo, it's next 2027. 2027, January 1 27. So, um, you
know, I'm going to speak to it because I think that one of the things that we don't talk about is that I know when I came on council and Paula came on council, we've represented a real change in Mountain City Councils because it had
been the same folks for 50 years. You know, it was like it just got passed on within a certain group and so we rarely represented a change and new people. Now we sit in a council, you know, half of
you have lived here less than 10 years, you know, and I I'm the longest liver in mound, but you know, the council's changed. So you've new people, you don't have necessarily the historic always nuances. So one thing in your leadership
I would say it does benefit an organization if the leadership being the mayor has a little bit longer tenure to carry out because the council 50% of the council can change every two years
and how do you keep that congruence tonight we talked about you know that decisions were made by the previous council and half of this council wasn't there and so you didn't have input into things. So, I guess I'm speaking in favor of looking seriously at you doing
a four-year term for mayor for um continuence and continuity. Um I say if it ain't broke, don't fix it. As a resident of I've had I don't know I've been voting since 1990.
Uh there's I have appreciated the chance to be feel to vote somebody out. I mean, we've been lucky, you know, with our mayors. There have been plenty of mayors as I I actually wrote down all the mayors and went, "Okay, which ones have I I like
the the opportunity and not one of them only served one term." So, I want them to earn their earn their vote. Some of them were eight years and then you Rey and is it Wagshide were two years. So I'll be honest, I didn't think of it
that way. I I like I like as a resident giving me an opportunity to say you didn't earn it. I'm not voting for you this time. And you know because they've every single one of the mayors had also served on the council for numerous years. So they already know they have a
legacy what they're doing. And and the the other thing I I worry about is you work your tail off. And I think that there are some people that may be not attracted to a four, you're working your tail off. If you
work for two years and go, you know what, I love it. I I I I think I've earned the right to run again and get reelected. They already know what they're in for. And we get good candies. I'm against it. I I
like the two-year a lot and and I've appreciated being able to vote every two years for a new mayor and as I look back I I did change over a lot over all the years. I didn't think of it that way to be honest. I mean, like you said, I mean, the being able to vote someone
out or keeping someone in that's doing a good job. I mean, can go both ways, I suppose. But yeah, well, the public will tell you how much you earned it. I think that became evident this time for Jason. I mean,
you've done a good job. People respected you. They wanted you to stay. No one ran against you. So, I mean, yeah, I I think I have to agree with the two-year thing as well. That's my opinion. Well, I'm not going to be the deciding
vote on it. So, well, we don't I don't know. I mean, I just make the argument for that, but you know, I I can say that um you know, the majority of cities in this state have two-year terms for mayors, and so why should we deviate
from it? I gave the the point of continuity because there has been a change and you know so this is a new council new people in the community and that's not to say that that there's not
value in that you know and strength and and and the skills that people bring but it maybe also encourages more people to think about it. I had in my head that I just wanted someone that was you know like four year. It would uh lead me to
believe that you get someone who's just really locked in and serious about it. And not that someone that's doing it for two years, you know, can't be or isn't, but um what if you get a really bad one? You think you're going and then you're like stuck with them for four years. Four
years. Well, you know, at least I agree with your point, Sher. I mean, as a council member, I'm sorry. You're okay. It was always when you sat there, I feel like I'm ignoring you. You know, there's a huge learning curve to being
becoming on the council. I think true. Now, yes, there's a learning curve to being a mayor, and I know you work your tail off, but you've also had the experience the two years you were on council to already see how hard Ry worked and how you want to do things
differently, you know, and so I think that I think the newness with council is much more critical for a fouryear than than the mayor because I think that again we get to replace you as
community if if you haven't proven you got the what it takes. Yeah, it's kind of the whole term limit discussion. You know, every is like, oh, we you know, they should have term limits for senators and I was like, quit quit voting for the people. Why are you voting back in? That's the problem that
the majority of people vote them in. So then they're back. If you had ter you know what's what's the term limit is an election. Yep. I I I don't I don't know. So So what do we need to do? Well, we had a resolution on here if we were
going to be prepared to vote on it or not, but I guess I'm just Let me just say one last motion. No, there's a whole thing if if you do want to do it ordinance. Um if no one made the motion, we don't have to act again. I don't care one way or the other. And I even
I've talked to him too and I was like, "Should I even vote?" He's like, "It's technically yes, you could vote because it's for the next term. It's not doesn't affect me, but I know how much Orno got crap for this." So, I just I said, "This has been brought up not just by him. It's been other people in the past that
said, "Oh, you should really make it." And I'm like, "I'm not bringing it up." So, you know, someone else wants to bring it up. There's never a not awkward time to bring up this, you know, but I guess to the point of it of what we're doing tonight is like if someone needs to make a motion on it, I guess I now I
I don't even really know if I have a preference enough to change it to four years that I want to make a motion on it. If I could just jump in quick too, prior to adopting ordinance, we'd need to uh like put on the website for a couple weeks anyway. So, I sort of came
here tonight be trying to check off one of our several priorities priorities. I didn't come expecting I didn't come expecting a vote necessarily. I mean, you could certainly say scrap it, but um if you want to do it, then we would notice it and then bring it back in a
couple weeks. And um it's not like it's not one that we have to send to the paper or like we're not sending to residents or anything, but so I guess if you don't want to decide then, you certainly don't need to. Uh but if you
would like to pursue it then you were I was looking more for direction to staff to prepare it, number it, put it out there and then bring it back. So you could do consensus one consensus one way or the other. Consensus we could remove it from our priorities list as well and just not act on anything and table it or
I don't know. That's Well, I'll make a motion to table it on our priorities list. you remove it. Well, oh, from this year. Well, if you table if you table the matter, then it's still out there and you may bring it back at some can be
removed from the table if you wanted to. And I don't know if you need to because you never voted. I don't think you ever voted on the priorities list. It was just more consensus. So, if there you can go, you can have a discussion say, well, maybe you just remove this from the priorities list and it won't come back again. Then maybe the motion should
be to just take it off of our priorities list for 2025. for 2025. Yeah. Okay. I'll make that motion. I'll second it. All right. Any other discussion? All those in favor, please say I. I. I.
Those opposed. All right. That's And related to that though, another issue we haven't dealt with, and I'm not going to run again, so I I can say this is looking at salary increases for the council and mayor. Yeah. You know, because we we have to do
that in the non-election year, right? Well, so it would be this year. You can Yeah, you what you have to do, you can you can increase your your salary, but it would go in effect um for the next elected person for the next person in your seat in your seat.
So, so, so if you if if you're a because some people just got elected, so you got you still have four years left. It wouldn't go into effect until four years. Yeah. So, it's it would be staggered. Yeah. So, so like I guess to make it clear, it's like if I were to speak to that, it would be for the next
person in each person. Well, and we'll double check that. But either way, it's not going to be it's not you don't vote you voting yourself for raise. You're voting the next person raise. And and if that's something you want to look at, we can provide information on how that works. But it it it's there so it doesn't look like you're doing
selfdeing. It's the same the same issue situation. And I remember in the last comparison uh even with our increase of where we're at now, we're still one of the lower rates. So it's not but it's it's just
something to raise because it is a lot of work and for some individuals they may appreciate or need that um that small increase in compensation. And I I would I would only be proposing
probably a $100 increase. So each category months 12. So we all make what? That's a lot of money. 350 grand. 350 and then 450. 450. But that is that's a lot of money over a
year and we don't have excess cash to burn. I I don't feel like I need a raise. Let's just put it that way. I would do it for free. I mean, yeah. I feel I feel like this is more of a volunteer from day one. I said you don't have to pay me. You're not getting paid? No. No, I I do, but I said you don't need to
pay me. Well, you could defer it and go to the water treatment plant. Well, you know, I wanted to bring it up because I thought That's true. 300. What did it What do we get? 300 a month. Well, people say you get what you pay for. That's true. Four years that could I don't know. I'm a professional
volunteer. So, so what I donations money I I work three full-time jobs volunteering. So, um Okay. Okay. Well, anyway, I just wanted to bring it up because I thought this is the year in which we should, but sounds like the consensus is no one's necessarily
interesting it. So, I won't Yeah, I take it any further. When I put in my name for councel, uh I think whoever at the office gave me the packet and they're like, "Oh my god, I could pay to do this." Yeah. I didn't think I was like, "That's kind of nice." Something, you know, someone in the seat in the future
can bring it up if they want to. But I will say, mayor, it's a lot of work. Yeah. I mean, it's hours. And I have clients that in are in different states that they have smaller towns than us. And I'm talking a lot smaller. I think like 30 grand a year to run the to be
the mayor in very similar. Yeah. Just smaller towns. And like, well, God bless you guys. But, and again, that's, you know, you got to think about that if you're, you know, for the next person, uh, for the next council. If you know we all don't don't do it for money but
right you know maybe that's the cream of the you know do we want someone that would want to do it for you know nice retirement job or you know and then you know they get money to come to do this so donate my income to I know I know uh
you know and the senator I mean they don't make any money either I mean for all the work they do and even with the pdiums and stuff you know it's a true labor of love and commitment it's public service y Mhm. So, okay. Okay. What else are we doing?
Is that it? Okay. Comments. Are we done with that? We've We're done with the So, two years for for now on, right? Yeah. Uh 11 comments and reports from council members. Council member Pew. Well, um I went to my favorite farmers market, our
favorite farmers market on Saturday. It's a great day. um they're um in search of getting more produce pro risk be but you know this has been a strange season but it was really a good vibe as always lots of people mingling there's a
new youth uh marketing group some girls who are making I don't know bracelets and things and they they seem to have quite a little tent there's a chocolater person there and another woman who's making scones with natural flowers on
So, there's some new vendors. Um, but all in all, it's um going well. But, you know, it's hard to sell the hot coffee when it's 90 degrees. It is hard to sell that chocolate, too. I bought some it was like melting, dripping out of my finger.
Yeah. So, um but they're doing well and glad to see it. And they said that um they got a lot of the folks from our Tessa come over and I said, "Good." I said we wanted them to feel like they should be patrons and uh they really are
taking a place there. Gillespie is going to be um a a formal participant this year in Festival of the Lakes. They're going to have some family games on their site. So afterwards they're going to have that what do you call it? Corn be
toss the toss. They're gonna have that and some games for kids. So they'll be doing that. um you know starting around 1:00 on their site. So that's good that they're getting engaged in Festival on the Lakes. And I think that's all other
than you know I was there for the legislative session. Unfortunately um Hoffman was the author of the bill that I was working on on aging and um you know I'm really sorry to hear about him and his wife um and just pray for them
that tragedy that they heal and do well. she's home now, but he is still sick. So, that was very unnerving. And I did appreciate the the email from the police officer when I saw it um that
they did kind of reach out to us and sort of say, you know, they were thinking about us. So, that's all I have. All right. Council me, I'm good. I have nothing tonight. Thank you. I already said enough. Okay. Council M.
I'll just echo council member Pew's statement about um I bumped into officer on Saturday too and he had already given me an update and he just like they had inventoried the all their cars and were patrolling certain areas more and just
kind of I was just really impressed is the right word but thankful I guess too. They were was very um I don't know. I was just impressed on everything that they had already gotten done. So, yeah. Yeah. But I don't have
any updates or anything. Um I'm trying to think. Okay. So, let's see. Ryan and them are still working on getting the flags that we request. I don't think you were here when I talked about that, but they're working on getting some donations from the Legion as well as finding out how many more we
would need to bring them from the front entry. Well, the entry sign here and then to three points to the traffic light and to Surfside in time to have them up and placed by the time we do Spare the Lakes. Um, they are also working on giving us an estimate on the
time it takes them to cut and maintain each of the parks. Um, there's a spreadsheet that they're working from. He said he should have that completed pretty soon. I don't know. Has he said anything to you, Jesse? I know he's working on it. Well, it sounds like we're going to get
25 flags a year. Oh, that's so great from the Legion. Yeah. No, no, no. I meant the um Right. Dustin was working on that. Sorry. Yep. I I don't have that, but I I do have the flag. I have the flag info. Um so, anyhow, yes, the flag info
they're giving us. I think it you're right. 22 or 25 regular flags and then four PS that we'll use, you know, so that'll be nice. Um, also I know that u Maggie and I talked earlier today. Artessa has volunteered
to also take care of the um veterans plaza. Um, the Legion is also working on a plan to help as well. So, I think we can leverage both groups and try to get that because it's a bigger area and it needs a lot of love and it's the first thing you see when you It's the first thing you see when you come into town
and as you noted, Brian and them are working on the downtown area. Um, especially there around True Value. Um, also the Ballards and stuff that are in between on the roads. We've got a lot of them that he's working on getting some estimates. He'll have to put that out for bid because a lot of them either
need to be replaced or just totally removed. Um, so we may need to provide some input on that at some point. Um, basically we just look sloppy. So we've had cars hit them. Um, I'm not really sure, Jesse, I was going to reach out to you, but if the county commissioner for
Henipin County can work on getting somebody out here to help clean up some of their signage, they're bent. People have hit them. They're rusting out. They're leaning. I mean, it's not a good look. Um, for whatever reason, I've decided I want to make sure our downtown
is hitting all these signs anyway. I wonder a lot of it is like when big trucks turn like they'll clip them to them like the ballards and they're turned and twisted and just get rid of them because it's I was looking at is the post office, right? Have you noticed when you're in the gummy in the drive in the post office? You know, I thought
about that too. It's like when you drive into town, the first thing you see is the veterans park and then the other side is the post office front landscaping. It's just like overgrown. Yeah. Well, they used to have a group. Yeah, they used to have a group that took care of it. I don't know what that where that is. That's right. Can we ask the shopping mall to across to do
something about their mess up there? Across from Paul, the one Wells Fargo, what's the saying? And then also the traffic, you know, the edges, the weeds growing, they're all the paints falling off. They need to clean up. Those belong
to Henipin County as well, don't they? I would assume so. Jesse, were you able to find anybody who volunteered to straighten out that flag pole down at Jennifer Plaza? Uh, it wasn't straight today when I drove by. It's definitely
on their list. Is it in front of the post office? Our is that like part of consider the sidewalk? Is that ours? When I talked to Ryan, it's like the first 10T or something and so the rest of it belongs to them. So, I noticed that same thing with the um people that own the shopping
center. Yeah. So the front part from that little wall thing that we've got there that's got wall and rot rod iron that mulched area belongs to the city the rock area with just one tree left in front of the post office it's like last fall's leaves and see and I'm guessing I
don't know there used to be because there was a sign up there that said that volunteers took care of it so that's something we would probably need to reach out to the post office and discuss we don't have an IR list for volunteers for parts but we don't no no but I think there is a group though that volunteers
with post office that used to take over. There's a sign up there that says in memory. Oh, it was the garden group. Yes, they have a little Yeah, a little thing there. So, um yeah. So, anyhow, that's all kind of in flight. Um I have some ideas and I'd like to discuss with
the parks when we have the parks meeting. Um I've been going out and looking at some of the um property and u making notes as well. So, to answer your question, yes, I've looked at some of them, but I still have quite a few to go. Um, and that's really taking a
visual and looking at what's there, what's not. There's a lot of differences partially because the list that was in the 2040 plan obviously hasn't been updated. That needs to be corrected and updated. There are um another list which was the volunteer list that we were
looking for volunteers to, you know, take care of individual parts. They don't sync up. So, um I don't know. We're claiming we have 38 parks. I can't get to 38. You know, I think we need to step back a little bit because it sounds like there's a lot of duplication and how how is this happening with staff
because the parks commission has been working in the last couple years about updating the list of who's adopted parks and we recruit people. Correct. For adopting parks, but then but then you're doing something on this now, too. No, I'm just using it to create a list. I'm
not doing anything with it other than the veterans plaza which was about getting the veterans in the Legion to work on it. And then I heard that Artessa was stepping in as well because that because you know that's a park that the park commission is also recruiting people, right? So, you know, we need a
little bit more communication, right? Which is why I was talking with Maggie what we're doing and stuff. So this is just what is that? You know, I want to comment on you when I said before I went to
why why can't I think of the name of this park? Clear view whatever the park city view center View and I was on that dock for two hours with my friends. They were fishing. I'm not a fishing person. So I just talked to the fish and and the
blackbird that kept s landing on the thing which is beautiful. But there was one of those boats with the what do you call it? The wake thing and when it went through it rocked that dock.
I mean can we ban those things from the lake the lake conservation district they voted in I think it's is it 200 feet now? 300 300 water patrol now it's 300. Yeah but I mean it was terrible.
He was way across on the other side. He wasn't like up near us, but the wake that he created shook that whole dock. Yeah. I mean, it was So, I go out and fish, you know, by myself. And I'm on my 22ft boat. Uhhuh. And I'm just about falling off. Swamp your boat. Yeah. And
I'm not even talking the wake boats. I'm talking the yachts, the you know, I'm on hooks, right? Yeah. So, I'll be over there go fishing and I about fall off the back of my boat, but that's it's legal. Here it's a beach. We could talk to Ben classified
as a beach. That's we have a huge Well, you know, you just think about what is it doing to the lake bay? It has to be just really tearing it out. Making that much. Call me at 7 in the morning. I'll uh I don't know if you heard her say
weeds at the strip mall by Wells Fargo. Yeah. Okay. You can look into that. Well, and I was going to reach out to the Wells Road maintenance team because they've got three dead trees in their planter boxes, which and they used to keep that so neat up there. Well, and they have a department that does that.
So, I just have to get somebody on the phone. All right. I'm going to go through my list. Oh, yeah. Go ahead. Get ready. Get ready. So, uh, Met Council by your house. Yes. Oh my god. It is. I just took pictures. So, it's it's up to
here. It's It's over the top. It's over my head. I didn't climb into What is it? What are you talking about? The natural weed prairie grass. Okay. Anyway, just so just so you guys know, I reached out to Dr. Carter council rep and actually
Jesse and I met with him at Caribou a couple weeks ago and we said he said, "What are your top three concerns about mount?" And I said, "Well, number one is your front lawn." Like, I'm not kidding. inspired. Uh anyway, so they have no mo signs. Yeah. And then they put the no mo
signs and then right when you get to Minatris, it's beautifully grown. I know. I know. So, we're you're working on it and I did uh email him as well and I said, "You got you guys got to come up with a better plan because this isn't working and then I talked to you and I don't know if I should be saying that,
but anyway, you're looking into ordinance. I'm looking into it." And I'm also talking with Jesse. So, okay. All right. Full circle. I'm sick of it. You got to team up. Do you remember too Jason or Mayor Holt and I think Paulie you might have been there when we went to the open house when they first
started that supposed to be beautiful. No they promised us that they would at least do a strip because we were already complaining about the no mo and they did a strip for about six weeks and then all a sudden it went to it's they're going to have to this is not a prairie grass. It's just a thing.
So, they need to fix this. Yeah, it's totally uh Spirit of Lakes is coming up. This We'll meet again before that, but uh for calendar purposes. Um I think Did you say you can't do it now? No. And I'm sorry because you guys weren't going to
do it and I said, "Oh, I'm going to be in town this year, but it's my 50th and I got talked into doing the golf thing on Saturday morning. So, I I just got to go be my big day. So, I I apologize. No, I won't be there. Okay. Um,
you going to be there? I think so. Yes. Okay. Are you willing to work the tent? Yeah, I can come help you. Yes, I can. Come help or work it because what's the difference? The difference. The difference is the three of us were there last year and that's it. The whole time.
And the whole time. Yeah. And it was Well, you don't have to stay the whole day. Just do the like the morning or something. I'm going to do the morning and then I'm going to do the in the afternoon. What's that? I'll do us in the morning and Gillespie in the afternoon. Okay. So, you'll come in the
morning. Um I got a What is it? Go to five. I don't remember, but we did it for both days. No, just Saturday. Just Saturday. Just Saturday. Anyway, I'll I'll kind of hang out after the parade, maybe for a
couple hours, and then I do have to go to a different event and then come back to town. So, um Okay. And I'm not sitting there all day by myself. Let's just get that straight, right? I I really don't the last afternoon. What are you gonna do? I don't think it's a
city. It's a city council. Okay. No, I'm just saying it looks bad when it's just empty though. It really does. Yeah. So, of course it would, but take all the stuff down and leave. Well, we we ended up doing that half hour earlier or whatever it was. But, um I'm just saying if we could kind of like, you know, you
know, split it out a little bit so like we don't all have to be there at the same time and sit there. But like you know if you take it you know when right when the parade is done or whatever and then you know I don't know if you guys want to think about it we can talk about next time but and the purpose of this
table is to do what to be connected to the city that we're there to talk about the city and we had those beautiful boards that Kathy made about the water system. We could put those out again. It's been three years. Yeah. Yeah. So we and we still have them. I actually have
an extra one that Matt just gave me for whatever reason. So, so we had a lot of conversations with that with the park. What you know, a list of what are we doing for the water treat? You know, hey, by the way, come you want to come out on July 22nd. We're going to talk a little bit more in depth. That's a good
idea. Blah blah. So, it it was just a great she you know, you were there two years ago. Um, we had a I think we had a great time. I mean, I think it was kind of fun actually talking to residents. No one really complained like really bad. Mhm. Um, so anyway, I'm just saying, you know, if
you're in town, you can help out. I can help. Um, we'll kind of try to split it and then if we all want to leave, then we just shut it down. So, uh, I know Ryan, you know, he was helping us at the end, I think, shutting it down. So, uh, did he put up the tent last year? And I think he did. Yeah, they were all just
ready to go. We're in a little different area, which was good. It was a good area. Like the other one was, we're kind of on the end and it was Well, that's where everybody was that year. They kind of shuffled. Last year we were in front of the playground. It was great because it was it was sort of a lot of traffic
going through. All right, I got like six more things. Uh pedestrian crossing uh the trail crossing on Dakota right by Dakota Junction, right? Um again, I think you guys know this, but it we're going to they're going to redo the road a little bit right there, right? To make
it uh easier to cross, doing a a pork chop in the middle. My whole thing is we want to make sure that we're going to get an actual flasher. Um, so I reached out to the uh well both of our county commissioners and they're looking at it to see what you know what we need to do.
So there's going to be a pork chop right there by Johnson. I have like the engineer version from the county and I've and I can you know Jesse can share that with you. So it probably means you won't be able to turn left. You can still turn left, but it's gonna be You can still turn left out of It's gonna
The trail's gonna be there. You're gonna have the pork chop, but you're still gonna be able to turn left. Oh, that is gonna be That's gonna be a mess over there. I hate pork chops. The county is doing it. We've complained about it. This hopefully will be a better thing anyway for safety. What about the businesses? Are they aware? It's fine.
It's just going to be like the other one that we have. Yeah, it's all one way anyway all the way to with turn lanes. Well, I know the few times now that I'm not driving at all, but before I quit driving at all, when I'd get to that light going north on Commerce, people
would get they'd be in the turn lane to Jubilee and and they would speed ahead of me. So, we're fixing that, too. Turn to be a mess there, too. They're fixing that, too. They're putting a park there. I don't know. It's hard to re He's going to get a better He's laughing. He's
going to get What a mess that's going to be. First of all, don't blame me. It's the county. I'm not I'm looking at you because you know what a mess it's going to be. School mornings. And I know Katie, my wife, was complaining about it for I said, you know what, for five minutes on, you know, in the morning,
whatever. I mean, CO was really bad because everybody was staying at, you know, working from home, taking their kids. And I was like, why don't you just get have the kids go on the bus? They get whatever. and you don't have to worry about it. Uh anyway, again, the designs, it's a little hard to read, but you're
going to get a colored version of it so we can actually understand what it looks like. It's literally engineering. Like, are they going to get rid of the parking? I mean, there's that's a lot. Yeah, because it's a really narrow I don't know. Just move. I'm not excited already. Uh Well,
again, I wanted to make sure you guys know. I'm not mad at you. I know you have nothing to do with it. I've been dreading this day for a long time. We've been talking about pork chops down there. Yeah. Yeah. The one thing is I I do agree with the safety of having two people on two lanes both sides and
someone's going to get smoked eventually. So again, our new crossing is phenomenal. So uh library July 5th is closed. Uh I'm not going to go through all the water stuff, but um you know, just high
level, we've submitted uh to the uh Senator Smith 15 million and then uh uh Congressman uh 7.5. What's her name? Morrison. Morrison. Morrison. Uh 7.5. Uh now remember, you don't have those two
together. We're probably going to get You went through all this with us, remember? Well, I know, but not the public. on the public. Yeah. Pardon me. Well, one public and then whoever's watching this later. Um and then uh [Music]
how much through 4 million through um what is it called again? I'm getting tired here. I could just rip through quick. We so we submitted for congressionally directed spending through the Senate for 15 million. um the community project funding through
the house for seven and a half. That was sort of the compromise in between. So th those will have to get reconciled, right? Hopefully in a bill that gets passed if the if the government or the federal government manages to pass a a funding bill before the end of September,
um we are currently eligible for three million for uh emerging contaminants and then up to five through water infrastructure fund. um in conjunction with any PFA loans we might take out in the future. Yeah. And again, more to come on
that on July 22nd. Uh parks. What about parks? Oh, uh oh, parks. Uh do we want to come up with a workshop? Uh we have another workshop this next council meeting on the 8th. On the 8th
already. Up July. Yes. At 5. Well, then can we do the next one? Sure. 22nd. Uh, remember that'll be the water meeting, too. Oh, gosh. So then Michael will I don't know how many people come out, but I don't know how I mean, we can pick a
different day. I think we like doing it, but do the first meeting in August or we could just I don't know. I don't know. You want to do that and that gives us time to Can we just go and do another meeting in July? So why do we have to do it before any other city council meeting? We don't have to. That's just
it's a lot easier. Kind of preferred. I guess since we're volunteering, let's find a day that can get it done sooner because I think the park want to do it on the park commission's day. I personally I like doing it before meetings is it makes us like get a lot
done in an hour, you know, but we don't have to do it before a meeting. I think this is just I'm talking about the city council version of discussing. Yeah. I don't want to do it with parks yet. Yeah. Well, we're not ready for that. Yes. Um, so we could do it the 22nd or if you
wanted to do it the first August. What's happening on the 22nd? I'm sorry. That's the water that we put in the newsletter. Yeah. Well, yeah, we're just going to give an update. So, again, I don't know. Maybe nobody will come. Well, I mean, why can't we do it before that? We
could. Yeah. Well, I I'd vote on that. All right. You good with that? Yep. That's the 22nd. Yeah. Okay. Okay. So, the next two meetings were coming at 5. uh for a workshop before. Okay. Uh and then well I just said that uh new
website. Thank you. Looks great. Uh it looks phenomenal. Um and then all I think it's your art right on all the Facebook and stuff. Very nice. So good job and thank you Maggie. Thank you. All your work on
the website and it was a labor of love between us. We became best friends. It does look very good. Get it to be done. Well, it's always little things. Well, you're going to find little things here and there, I'm sure. But, uh, I
just signed up, just so you know, for the notify me. I did that already, too. So, and I've already gotten a notification. Did you? I haven't got any. I just did like last night. I did when you posted the uh open or the meeting notice it came right to my
phone. Is that different than the other notifications? Yeah, this is a new a whole new So, we need to broadcast what you know. This is a new one online. So, remember we wanted to push information to people. So, what's the difference between the two? They want to go out there and give us our email. They have
rings and so we so people can I think you just put in your name and then your email. You go to our website and do then you can pick all the different things. I have problems. I've never been able to get cold cuz for some reason it just Yeah, that's
sometimes. Uh and then last thing on on our fire uh partnership thing that we're trying to work on. Um it keeps getting pushed right now. Yeah, we're trying to figure out um there's some tension issues with with them and then with us and we're trying to see if that can work
out and then plus the budget. Uh you talking about that too. Hopefully more to come in August. I think we're meeting in July, right? Are we meeting July? Yeah. Well, me and you and him and the chief will meet the next couple weeks and then I think the
group meets mid July. Okay. Um we put punted a couple of them because we weren't really prepared to talk about anything yet. That's it. That's all I got. All right. Anything else? Hearing none. I'll take a motion to adjourn. So moved. All right. Can I get
a second? Second. All right. All those in favor, please say I. I. I. Those opposed. All right.