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good evening and welcome to the Newport city council meeting today is Thursday
February 6 2025 we'll begin the meeting with the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge to the flag of the United States of America and to the repblic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liy and justice for all will staff please call the role council member suner here council member Taylor here council member Ingman here
council member Schmidt here mayor Elliott here next on our agenda is to adopt the agenda I do want to uh let everyone know that uh Peter Leatherman is unable to be with us tonight he's under the weather so that will be uh one change to the agenda um are there any other changes to the agenda for this evening hearing none do I have a motion I'll move second I have a motion from
Council member Ingman and a second from council member suar to adopt the agenda as amended all those in favor say I I I those opposed the agenda is adopted next on the agenda is public comments this is where members of the public can address the city council about any local government topic that is not included on the regular agenda this is limited to concerns that are relevant to the City of Newport Affairs policies or practices we ask that you come to the podium clearly state your name and address for the record and to limit your comments to
about 3 minutes generally the council will not take official action on items discussed at this time but will refer them to uh staff for additional re research if appropriate is there anyone that would like to speak during public comments this evening mam mayor and Council my name is Tracy Ram 525 Century Avenue Newport uh just want to make a record that I'm here
for the workshop meeting which is later and so to answer any kind of questions help any way I can and making sure that everyone understands here that uh you know that again we got some new faces here some familiar faces that again I'm not against development at on the uh Sensor Avenue but I want to make sure that I you know everyone understands all the issues and so I can whatever help I can be so that's all I wanted to say thank you thank you um seeing no others that would like to speak we will move on to approving
the consent agenda all items listed on the consent agenda are considered to be routine by the city council and are approved in a single motion there will be no separate discussion by a council member or citizen unless so requested in which case the item will be removed and considered at the end of the consent agenda is there anything to be removed from the consent agenda this evening I'll move the consent agenda I a second I have a motion from council member ingan and a second from council member suar to approve the consent
agenda as presented all those in favor say I I those opposed the consent agenda is adopted next on the agenda we have the Washington County Sheriff's Office report and Sergeant legot is with us this evening good evening Madame mayor and councel it's good to see everybody um uh just a few things I thought I'd bring up today for the council as well as if anybody is watching we listening uh as I
referenced last time about scams uh they are still on the increase right now so I'm going to kind of repeat a couple things uh some of the scams that are being heard right now that we're getting calls for is that the sheriff's office is calling people and saying you have to pay stuff over the phone that is not Sheriff's Office employees do not believe that do not trust that uh just hang up on those folks and if you continue to get calls please call us so that we can report it and document it uh some of these scammers are getting very
good at even doing their research and using our names so that when uh maybe someone who receives a call is online and sees maybe Sergeant Joel leget they might believe it's real so no Sheriff's Office whatsoever will ever call and say you need to pay right now over the phone that is false so please do not do that uh if I could also pass on the IRS scams are also on the increase as mentioned last time gift card scams it's a whole thing where we'll put money in your account if you buy Us gift cards and mail back gift cards that is uh do not
believe that as well that is another scam and with spring break coming up scams of where people will call maybe elderly folks and say hey your grandkid is here in Mexico but they need money to either get out of jail or to pay for whatever and they get tricked because you be amazed how much you can find out about just yourself by Googling uh and they're very convincing so please uh encourage enage anybody who might be
more vulnerable to some of that educate them on that advise them do not fall for it and just hang up the phone immediately if they see someone they know or care about that actually is getting scammed help them to stop sending money immediately close accounts notify the sheriff's office so he can make a report and document as much as possible as well as letting the banks credit card companies know um uh just a couple other things to bring up obviously we know uh we've had
a little few snowstorms come about maybe potentially a bigger one this Saturday friendly reminder for those folks again listening when you're parking we are out there enforcing that we are writing citations so please do not park on streets especially if it is snowing out there um that is a huge hurdle for our public works department additionally with that uh please give our Public Works folks driving the snow plows uh a break it's a very difficult job they're up really early in the morning and late
at night trying to make sure the roads are safe so we got to give them huge credit and give them some Grace uh for them driving around on our city streets um just so you know our troops have been pretty active I know you saw our report that we usually send out monthly uh in this month and I'm sorry in January alone uh we had 264 traffic stops made that is one of the higher numbers in the past five years so we're out there trying to enforce rules to make sure people are aware of speeds
um passing uh vehicle registration all of it you name it uh so we're out there enforcing those rules and uh I guess just so everybody knows we're being active even though it is very cold in the middle of winter uh additionally um just another side note we're going to be coming in spring break time for folks here's a little tip for folks uh if you are going on vacation and you use social media please do not post that you're going on
vacation additionally if you're on vacation don't take pictures and post it as well that's letting people know you're not in town um make sure your neighbors who are home are aware so that they can help keep an eye on your house and additionally another side tip is put timers on your lights inside the house so it appear someone is home in the evening hours have a plan so if it does snow so someone can drive up and down your driveway so it appears there's tire tracks or maybe a friendly neighbor gesture to have the just snowblower
driveway so couple few tips since we're kind of getting into that season right now uh hopefully if anybody has questions they always can feel free to email me or call me or any one of us we're happy to help them with some of that so with that I stand here for any questions that anyone might have well thank you Sergeant any questions for the sergeant council member suer I believe that the Sheriff's Office also would be interested in knowing if somebody's going to be gone to keep an additional set of on the property is that true that
is true council member yes we do uh we do offer vacation checks um and by doing so you just let us know ahead of time certainly before you go there's a few basic questions uh and there is a form I believe on the sheriff's office website you can fill out and submit uh I would also preface we get out there as we can uh it is not necessarily every day it could be periodically so um but it is another deterant option for citizens
seeing no other questions thank you so much for that report all right thank you have a good night well next on our agenda is the fire chief's report um and fire uh Chief Wy is unable to be with us this evening I know that they did respond uh to a fire dry pipe break at one of our apartment buildings and I do um want to thank them 55 residents had
to be displaced out of the building um it happened all fairly rapidly and I think what I was most um impressed with is we can teach skills and and training and protocols and processes but we can't teach empathy and we can't teach compassion and you know the stories that were shared with me about helping the residents get things so that their pet could go with them to
the hotel and the cat litter box and some other items that were just that evening going to make things better for them and that the firefighters were willing to do that and put themselves in the shoes of those that were displayed so unexpectedly um I just really appreciate that and I think it talks to sort of the small town nature that we are um here in Newport is we care about and we see the people that live here as being like our
family members so I want to thank them very much for their work late into the evening uh with that particular problem um in that building so um having said that I will move us on to the engineers report and we have John hergan with us this evening thank you mayor good evening uh I don't have anything formal but I have a a few project updates and then uh maybe looking for a little bit of feedback from the Council on one item uh so first our 2025 Street and utility
improvements project uh we are about 20 or about 60% done with the plans uh we're going to meet with uh Matt and his staff uh next week to uh to go over uh what we have uh and make sure that everything is in line with with they're expecting uh and then we were planning to hold a neighborhood meeting at the end of February uh we were targeting Thursday the 27th I know that is uh uh the same day today is the park board meeting so if
that needs to shift we certainly can uh our our goal was to have that downstairs uh in the training uh in the training room where we can set up tables lay out plans and and hopefully get a nice turnout um if the if there are council members I guess more than two council members that would like to attend uh we can always post that meeting um but uh if that is uh if the council is uh I guess supportive of that direction uh that's that's the direction we'll
head um we will uh we also received the uh the benefit appraisal um right early this week uh so I didn't have time to get that in or into the packet today um but I I plan at our next council meeting on the 20th to provide a summary of that benefit appraisal and some other items that we would like uh Council feedback on um particularly uh what we want to do about multiple driveways to park or uh
to parcels and kind of parking stalls that have been kind of created on some of these streets just so we're in line when we uh before we meet with some property owners and and have those discussions you know the last time we uh we had the uh members of the public here talking about that I think it was the um project hearing we had a project hearing um the assessment number was about $155,000 I think to not do the the end
of season Cliffhanger and make people wait what was the high-end number for the assessment based on the benefit analysis yeah the high-end number was about $9,500 is uh for a for a residential property okay so we're seeing that number go down um and I think the 15,000 was a drop and and so we're seeing another drop and we'll continue to have conversations about that and we continue to seek additional funding to try to bring that assessment
number down as well okay what else do you have our water main Sy or water system interconnect uh with Cottage Grove we're also we've finalized an alignment we're uh working on property uh acquisition we need some easements to construct this interconnect along Century Avenue uh our uh our property acquisition uh consultant is working with our City attorney to uh on some some back and forth with residents uh I think that we're making good progress
uh we're going to meet with uh Matt and uh and Derek to also review that uh alignment um there's um uh we're we're targeting the March 20th uh meeting to bring final plans to the council uh on that project we're trying to get that one in the hopper first uh a little bit ahead of the uh Street and utility project I think we'll bring that one to the next meeting your first meeting in uh uh in April um because I I have we're going to have a lot of a lot of different parties are going to need to
review these plans including Cottage Grove and and Woodberry Department of Health will have to take a look and so we will uh we want to make sure that we get those plans to councel get uh any feedback that you have and then start getting through that approval process is that the interconnect where we will be supplying water throughout the City of Newport or is that the interconnect for the development project this will be the uh the interconnect for Cottage Grove to Newports is supplied Newport uh the entire city with water
uh it is going a long centuries so it is in conjunction with the development it's going right through the middle of the development um and so that's that's another coordination item that we have to make sure that our water main um doesn't conflict with some of the other utilities going through that area and I just want to let the public know we had an initial plan to interconnect our water system with Woodberry and Cottage Grove to have uh clean water and this is related to the Pas um being found in uh
the water tables in the East Metro unfortunately the interconnect with Woodberry isn't going to work out and Cottage Grove has determined that they cannot provide us with this water on a long-term basis but in the short term meaning uh 3 to five years I think something like that uh we will be able to provide past free filtered water to Newport residents when all of that is said and done and in place so that is the short-term plan and then we are
working with the uh settlement trustees at the state level to work on filtration systems for the city's Wells or some other alternative uh that will Pro we will be able to provide our own clean water to Residents so this interconnect um is an important part of of that so thanks John that's really good news that's an excellent segue because my next update was the feasibility study that we're working on for our water treatment uh options whether that is
treating individual treatment at each of the city's Wells doing a combined treatment or other uh Alternatives analysis that uh that feasibility study was funded through the state trustees and is that first step to uh determine uh what is the best solution for Newport and then to also secure uh a portion of the settlement funds for uh whatever that selected alternative is so we uh plan to have a draft uh study uh for
staff review um as well as our Representatives the mayor and uh council member former council member chapter Lane uh to review uh in early March uh and then with the with the hope that we'll have that done uh late uh late April into maybe early May that we can submit for uh trustee review great and then uh last project update uh our Cedar Lane Levy breach
uh we finally got uh um well a permit from the DNR after creating a cricket frog mitigation plan uh for the work which took a little bit uh for them to uh respond to us but uh the plans for that are complete we just uh we have to make a few minor adjustments and then we're going to solicit quotes from uh hopefully about six contractors we won't necessarily put this out for public bid we have several in the area that uh are going to be capable of doing this work
um and then so we hope to have the uh bids uh in Hand by the end of February so Council can consider those bids at the March 6th meeting uh in advance of that work uh uh Public Works has a close contact with a tree removal contractor who's going to go and remove trees ahead of that project because we can uh get that work done for a very very reasonable cost so folks will likely start seeing some of those trees coming down here in the next few weeks um so
that's uh if if folks see that we'll we'll also try to remove some of the down trees if they're not frozen into the uh into the uh side of the uh um the Wetland there uh and then the last update that I have was uh at the uh City Engineers Association conference last week um Matt uh our Public Works superintendent joined me on a presentation uh to about regarding our lateral uh sewer lining project we did
about a 60-minute presentation to I'd say about 50 or so uh City Engineers public work staff Consultants about how our project went some of the Lessons Learned we had a little case study about how we can compare and contrast some of the uh um pre versus uh uh post project uh flows in our lift station uh our contractor actually a contractor representative came down from Milwaukee to join us as well so that was great
nick zilman uh did a great job of explaining the process uh we probably had a good 30 minute Q&A after the fact that spilled over so I wasn't able to attend the next session but that was that was okay but I wanted to express my gratitude to Matt he was he was great gave a great uh um city and owner perspective to the project it's not just the uh the engineer that's uh um boring the crowd Matt provided a great Insight so and we got our story out there and uh
hopefully it helps uh other communities that might be uh facing similar challenges that's wonderful um thanks for putting a good face on Newport out there with all the engineers I appreciate that any questions for John at all council member SAR you spoke about other cities possibly having similar problems roughly how many cities might that involve um well I maybe I'll answer it this way when uh when the me counil
uh um provides their grant opportunities for private inii they have a list of eligible communities and I think that's around 50 in the metro area alone and you know the this problem goes you it's it's widespread and and even some of the folks that attended our our uh our session they were from say you know South Eastern or Southwestern Minnesota small communities that have older systems you know like ours that are
interested in some or something like this and or we're also interested in how many services do you need to be able to to come up with to be able to actually make a project for the contractor to come out and so I I would say you know across the state you know there's probably hundreds of communities that are in a similar situation very widespread problem it is and is that because of the age of the plumbing it is age and material uh you know the how a lot of the you know the systems are are
constructed out of that clay uh uh clay pipe and it's it's reaching the end of its life probably past in a lot of cases okay any other questions for John okay well we'll move on to the superintendent of Public Works then uh good evening mayor Elliot and council members I have nothing formal this evening but I'd be happy to stay in for any questions any questions for man did you enjoy doing the presentation uh I'm I'm not quite as uh practiced at that as
uh John is but it but it was it was enjoyable and and I think it was good to see how many people were interested in the actual topic so it definitely felt like it was worthwhile and you know yeah uh worth the time well I did share this that you were there with our representative Rick Hansen and when I said there were about 50 people in the room he was like well that's a lot so um he was impressed and and glad to hear that funds he'd worked to secure were
kind of giving back wasn't just us we were using it to help other communities as well so thank you Matt um next we have the administration report and part of that is a closed session first I'd like to find out if you have anything for Open Session um just one item mayor um sad news um my assistant uh assistant to the city administrator and Bell has chosen an opportunity at a competing City I think
a lesser city um but uh they're all lesser compared to Newport uh but I wanted to thank an for her service to Newport uh it's just been a joy um an was by far the best candidate um out of a a good pool that we had uh you know it was about eight months ago and just very quickly you know we've we've had a lot of changes um and an has helped with that she oversaw a change and an upgrade
to our purchasing policy um which impacted Pioneer Day and a lot of our some of our our events in the community um an really jumped in and helped with our code enforcement and our area study um this was a number one one of our top issues here and she jumped on it and just did a fabulous job I think an really proved the case that as City staff here we can go out and really uh take charge and for a city our size to do proactive code enforcement it's quite
an accomplishment it's not easy to do I saw the work that she put in and um she she grabbed it uh and did a fabulous job um another thing that she uh just finished up and and it'll be coming out soon but just to announce it here we're gonna have a shred event we're going to make our community safer and folks can go out and take that paper uh we're going to have it here at City Hall there'll be more information coming out in in our newsletter uh and an spearheaded that and so you know just a
lot of creativity um a lot of hard work and I'm going to miss her tremendously so thank you for your service and thank you very much and I I do wish you were staying on but um certainly respect your uh decision to take a different position that better fits where you're going with your life so thank you see you in the supporter section yeah that's right at that Lesser City um
before we go into Clos session I guess I would like to just move on and do the mayor and Council comments and then we will go into our Clos session and then um probably we'll stop the recording uh because the Clos session can go on quite late later yes I see people already going there is a conference room in the back you can you can sit in yes um but I do just it seems it seems like it's been just a pretty busy busy two weeks we had
the winter family fun night um good turnout a lot of fun I understand I I don't know do you deputize firefighters uh I understand several people had to get deputized that night anyways for the tug of war uh our firefighters were off at the apartment uh issue and couldn't be there so thanks to the volunteers that stepped up to make the tug of um a fun event um I also want to talk about a couple of things that have gotten posted
onto the city's website one is that uh the mpca had uh public meeting related to santax and santax is generally the odor producer that we smell in the Summers here and the air permit update question that the mpca is considering is they have purchased a new cooker that is more efficient and Cooks more uh product
um faster and they are also adding what is known as a scrubber which is to help uh reduce the odors that uh the facility uh causes so this is a rendering plant and um so the air permit is uh really about those changes and should the mpca approve that permit not approve it approve it with certain conditions and so on so what on our website is you can
link in and uh review documents related to the permit request as well as submit public comments on this um and they um are planning to do I think a second meeting a little bit later on and um I think what what I learned from attending was that there would be more um particulates as they call them in the environment and so you can learn more
about that uh in looking at those documents but if you would like to make public comments go to the city website um look under the events and you can um click through to the link and sign up uh to learn more and submit comments also um on our website is the in 2023 uh the state uh of Minnesota approved an odor uh statute and staff down at the state are ready to do Ru
making regulations and if you are interested in uh staying up to date with that they will also have a public comment period um but you can go to our website click the link and sign up for emails and you will then get uh information sent to you directly about when any sort of a public hearing would take place so I would uh encourage you to do that if you are interested in that um I've also had multiple conversations
with both our representative from the Met Council as well as our County Commissioner Carla bigum related to our Transit site we are scheduled to have Transit service return by 2027 and I am pressuring them to get drivers and buses operating there sooner rather than later as we continue we have an second building on that site now uh there is plans for a third building to go there
and if we're going to bring this kind of Housing and have lots of you know apartment type construction going on we also need to have public transit that can support that so um I'd look forward to that someday returning but hopefully before 2027 and then lastly um there uh we were approved um and it was the South Washington cares Education Foundation that did the work on this um um Dolly Parton Imagination Library and
our ZIP code was added to that um there's a poster in our lobby and we'll get something up on our website probably early next week and what this organization does is it gifts books to children from birth up to age five and each month they get a free book and so you can build a library and you can have books to read to your children and you can have books that they can they can read from and these books are at no cost
and um so I'm pretty excited that uh we can we can do this and so if you're interested in that again we will we'll get that information on our website if you can see the flyer and you don't have access to the internet at the bottom is an address that you can write to to get uh signed up for it and they'll need your zip code and a little bit of other information to do that so um I was very excited to hear us be a part of that they send out um around 2 million free books every month uh to children around
the world so they're in I want to say five different countries um so so I think that's all I have it's been a busy couple of weeks um Tom anything no I have nothing marf uh just note that before earlier today we had a joint Planning Commission council meeting where we took a look at the zoning code update that we're going to be starting to work on in the next couple months this builds out of our Market study for from a couple 2023 so just be aware that
there'll be opportunities for public input as we go further in this process thank you Josh nothing for me Bill I just like to remind people that the library and Community Center continues to offer many supportive activities for the children of Newport as well as adults so take advantage of a wonderful aspect of Newport thanks Bill so with that um we will move in into our closed session so
I need to make a couple of uh comments on camera and then we will uh close the meeting so uh the agenda item is the closed meeting pursuant to Minnesota statute um 13 d05 which uh relates to the sale or purchase of property so this agenda item for this portion of the regular meeting of the Newport city council meeting is to develop or consider offers or counter offers for the sale of real property located at 2133 3rd Avenue this portion of the
properly noticed regular meeting of the city council will be closed pursuant to Minnesota statute 13d .05 subdivision 3 C I will now entertain a motion to close this portion of the meeting so move thank you second second oh I have a motion of council member council member suner and a second from council member Schmidt uh to close the meeting he beat you into that and
now I've got a suer and a a Schmid I've got to keep track of which one is which um all those in favor say I I so the Newport city council meeting is now in Clos session so anyone who does not need to be here um should exit for