good evening and welcome to the Newport City Council meeting today is Thursday March 20th 2025 we'll begin the meeting with the pledge of allegiance i aliance 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 will staff please call the role council member Schmidt present council member Sum here council member Ingamman here
council member Taylor here mayor Elliott here next on our agenda is to adopt this evening's agenda do we have any changes hearing none I'll move the agenda thank you i'll second i have a motion from council member Sumar and a second from
council member Ingamman to adopt the agenda as presented all those in favor say I i those opposed the agenda is adopted next on our agenda is public comments as we have no members of the public in our audience this evening we will move on to the consent agenda
um all items listed on the consent agenda are considered to be routine uh by the city council and will be approved in a single motion there won't be any separate discussion unless a council member or a citizen so requests in which case it will be removed from the consent agenda and considered after the consent
agenda is approved is there anything to be removed from the consent agenda mayor I would just like to pull E and F just to mention what they are for people that are in the audience that wouldn't have a chance to see this okay anything
else so I'll move I'll move the consent agenda as suggested okay in a second so have a motion from Council Member Ingamman and a second from Council Member Sumar to adopt consent agenda items A through D any
discussion all those in favor say I i those opposed the consent agenda is adopted next we'll discuss the recycling grant uh Council Member Sumar I simply wanted to mention that over the years we have gotten a recycling grant it does allow the city to do some additional
mention and discussions about the things that we've done for recycling in the city of Newport and then the healthy living grant oh take them one at a time yep okay so we'll have a motion to approve the grant sure make that motion
to approve the grant i'll second so I have a motion from council member Sumar and a second from council member Ingamman all those in favor say I i those opposed recycling grant is approved member Sar okay and the healthy living
grant again this is another opportunity for things to be done in Newport it gives some brings some outside funding in to help us do activities that are associated with good living events and I believe that this one talks about things that are happening at our library and our library is an important part of our
city and our our librarian is a very valued member and she does a lot of things to bring opportunities for the kids that come to the library and the other members of our community to actively be
involved in the community at the library community center thank you great you want to make a motion i'll make a motion to approve I'll second the healthy living grant motion so we have a motion from council member Sumar and a second from council member Ingamman to approve
the grant all those in favor say I i those opposed and the grant is approved next on our agenda is the Washington County Sheriff's Office and we have Sergeant Leot with us this evening good afternoon Mayor Councel um I truly
do not have much to pass on to you guys today other than just uh be aware for people are out there on their bicycles one to wear helmets and two because the roads are sandy that they could slip when they're taking corners so you know other than that I don't I don't really have too much to pass on it's been uh
been very good out here so I stand for any questions you might have any questions for Sergeant Leot tonight looks like you're good okay thank you thank you next on our agenda is the fire chief's report um unfortunat unfortunately Chief
Wy is unable to be with us this evening so we will move on to our engineers report uh nothing formal mayor uh have a few uh work session items to discuss but uh happy to stand for questions uh for the meeting
I'll make Oh no motions i think we're good thank you John thank you um and I see our superintendent of public works is also unable to attend any any messages from him just a couple updates um first off uh we uh you may see some
work and some equipment down at the Cedar Lane Park uh they are beginning to prepare and and uh uh to remove and and uh do some work on the levey there and then also you'll see um some crews cutting some trees down there uh and then additionally we did just add some
new wood chips at Loveland uh at the park out there and it looks great i'll share some pictures with the council tomorrow but just wanted to share that with the community so go out and take a look at those wood chips and uh there'll be some activity down at Cedar Lane great thank you so much um next on our
agenda it question for the Oh yes when do they think they'll start at the levy i went there the other day and they had the heavy backhoe down there and I I was just curious when they think they might punch through that mayor members of the
council uh Council Member Sumar yeah I think they're going to be starting i I thought it was going to be maybe end of this week and very likely next week it's been a long time coming and uh
for the Cedar Lane project project Riverfront uh park at Cedar Lane um was the number one uh request or priority by the community so before we can get to that we need to get this levy breached
we've been talking about it for a long time and that is the next stage before we can move on to uh doing any sort of amenities there so okay um next on our agenda is the administration report uh Mr hatch mayor members of the council um
couple items here and the first item here I do have a presentation um I'm proposing uh a reorganization within the administration department um little bit of background uh here the city of
Newport is doing more um we have a very strong culture that we've built that's focused on service um staff have improved uh several areas uh for service this is with communication of course with code enforcement we've gotten more
professional as staff and we've done quite a bit with economic development newport like other cities is experiencing demand for skilled talented employees unfortunately we did uh lose and bell uh and the market is competitive i do want to organize
administration based on what our needs and current talents are i would like to focus um really you know we've done this area study which provided I think a vision for economic development with 24 initiatives and I
think kind of looking at our staffing level and um not adding any additional positions but renaming some and uh doing a little bit of promotion um so I do want to add a community development specialist position this would be in uh
replacing the assistant to the city administrator position i'd like to promote Jill to a new position assistant city administrator deputy clerk position uh and I was hoping to get our accountant uh within the market recently
we hired a new accountant uh and I'd like to to keep that person for the community development specialist the focus would be obviously the area study initiatives um there are 24 initiatives and we've adopted I think
the top three within the last year to really focus on the number one item there is code enforcement um and I've heard feedback from the council about business retention and uh and development and I really want to have this position start building that for Newport i think it's a key piece for us
to continue to grow what we're trying to do with economic development obviously we have this trails plan that will be adopted soon by the council right now it's available for folks to review and provide comments on our website and then obviously we have a lot of zoning
priorities and issues there including a cup review we have a lot of conditional use permits and one project is to kind of get that in order other priorities that this position would focus on we do have a building inspections contract and making sure that is facilitated well
business licensing obviously customer service and filling in um we are a fairly lean staff here and then economic development you know support me and learn from me and and and help take some of that burden and then other projects as
needed uh for the assistant city administrator deputy clerk position of course this would be supporting me overseeing all the clerking duties managing our library staff uh I'd like to see continued focus on communication and improvement there special projects
uh a backup for me um a little bit of su succession planning and then some HR support then the last one here um I think I really want to focus on trying to have some stability especially with this critical position and making sure
that we're paying fairly within the market some costs here for the community development specialist uh this is a grade 10 so there's no additional cost frankly it'll likely be a decrease when we hire this for this position um you know I imagine we may hire at a a second
or third step and that would be some savings um based on uh where the assistant to the city administrator pos uh was um was paid currently Vades Heights was recruiting for a code enforcement officer position and the
range was 31 to $41 per hour for the assistant city administrator deputy clerk position I did create a new job description description and used the safe classification and compensation uh
system it did grade out to a grade 13 um uh this would be I believe a step two the initial cost for that promotion would be $895 there would be an uh additional step in July for
$4,700 total cost for the year would be $5,595 there is a tail on this for two more steps and that's about $4,000 each for the accountant position this would move it to a grade 12 step two and this wouldn't be effective until January
1 2026 so the January uh costs of in 2026 would be $520 difference with a tail of about $4,000 more for each step and there would be three additional steps looking at the total cost there um
it's about $25,400 going out over the next uh about three and a half years um we did have some significant budget savings right now especially if we didn't hire this position until uh I calculated May 1st
there's about $20,000 in savings for this budget um we did add a maintenance operator position in our budget and um as council may recall we did request to have some overlap um but Matt and uh
Derek have decided to delay that uh because we have some folks and some different things we want to look at down at public works so there is $25,000 in savings in the budget there and then hypothetically if we don't hire that position until um let's say June 1st
there would be an additional $6,000 per month so about $37,000 so for the year we're looking at about $57,000 in total budget savings um and the cost as you may recall is about
$4,895 for for Jill's promotion so we'd have about $52,000 going into our fund reserve this year as you recall that will be rolled over into fund reserves each year so total savings there um you know we we
would see that it could roll over each year eventually it would catch up but I think um you know this would cover us for for this would cover these changes for the next few years with that said um I do recommend
council approve resolution 2025-23 um this resolution would authorize the creation of the community development specialist position and the recruitment this uh would also authorize the promotion of Jill to the assistant
city administrator deputy city clerk position i did uh want to make this effective March 1st because she has been helping out and filling in since that time um and then this would also move the accountant position to a grade 12step 2 uh and of course this wouldn't
be effective until January 1 206 thank you um any questions from the council will now let the public know uh some extensive discussions on this in a workshop um to learn a little bit more about uh where we're at right now in
terms of staffing needs this doesn't surprise me that we're sort of shifting and kind of adopting different positions um that we need simply because we've had some long-term employees who have retired and then you have you know kind
of that turnover that happens and learning curves that happen and we're taking advantage of somebody has left we're going to take advantage of that and see where we're at at this point in time and try to fill positions uh for where we are today so I think this is a
a good strategy in terms of um not just filling the old positions and sticking to the old model but stepping back and saying you know what's the best fit for us right now um and that's uh what's going on here um and then I think the accountant position we can put it in the
resolution but it it technically won't get approved approved until we approve the budget later in December so we can we can signal an intent here but that won't override really the the budget approval um later so um questions uh for
our administrator on this at all that was a good presentation um Council Member Sar just to summarize this is going to entail hiring a new position that you've created the community development specialist which is focusing on important areas that you have learned
Newport needs to be addressing correct mayor members of the council uh council member Sumar that's correct um as council recall we did the area study and market study in 2023 um we learned a lot and those initiatives I think um kind of
give us a little path to what we really want to do which is bring more economic development bring more business to our community and I can tell you that's something that we we focus on and I have meetings almost every day in regards to trying to you know bring more business here bring more development here and
this position will help with some of those day-to-day tasks that uh council has directed staff to do so yeah so do you see an end date that we would have the economic development function filled out or do you think there's always going to be open spaces and so forth at some
point the available land within Newport is going to hopefully fill up and at that point would you have them focus on different areas of responsibility um uh mayor members of the council that's a great question i
think Newport is in an interesting place where number one we have a little bit of land that would be quote unquote green field development where it's that that land that hasn't been touched before and the biggest thing we're seeing here is of course brownfield development where we're we're a city that's seeing the age
of some of our buildings in particular in certain areas um and we've talked about that where we really need to pay attention and start um you know focusing on improving our our our our business stock our housing stock and then looking for folks that
want to come in and build something new here so I don't see that changing frankly ever every city focuses on economic development i think one element that we don't do and I'd like to do much better is the business retention and development um I think you know I think
we do okay there but I think we can really get more proactive we have our facade improvement grant i want to look at that and maybe expand it and I think this position also with those conditional use permits council does provide conditions for many many businesses and frankly I feel like many
aren't following through on those conditions for their approval and we need to do a better job as staff to go out there and make sure that that's happening so this position would also focus on that um I think going forward longer term um as long as I'm the administrator here I'm always going to
be strategically thinking about what our capacity needs are where we're going as an organization and frankly I don't think anything's going to be you know one way forever you know we're going to have different needs at different times and I you know I I I treat HR as a
strategic function um so so I I would look to change it as often as needed okay so it's it's a position we'd be approving with some with an understanding that there's some flexibility for the long-term establishment of this position
mayor members of the council council members yes okay and then the second position that we're talking about this evening you already determined that you would want to promote an existing staff member into that based on their
abilities and the needs of the community uh mayor members of the council yes absolutely those those were some questions that I just wanted for myself to understand clearly and hopefully help people in the
audience yes and um this city administrator deputy city clerk you know the individual's currently serving as a deputy city clerk so it's really it's an add-on to that position rather than all new job responsibilities so um because
over the over the past couple years we've had assistance to the administrator and names that sound somewhat similar and unless you tease them out a little bit people might be asking well isn't that the same thing that's been going on there for a while
it's an opportunity to redefine functionality and focus functionality i'll make a motion to approve resolution 2025-23 i'll second that one so have a motion from council member Ingaman and a second
from council member Sumar um this resolution is approving the administration department reorganization any further discussion yeah I had some questions yes Josh uh so if we go back to the slide on the financials that you show us you had
mentioned that there's 57,000 that's basically in excess and eventually that would be exhausted without projecting into the future too much when that's exhausted what is the net increase in total
compensation we're describing here the net increase for total compensation would be approximately 25,400 every year annually no no it would um it would level out and then after going into 2029 hypothetically it would be
whatever the cost of living adjustment that the council approved maybe to ask it differently there's there is a increase in pay for a promotion there's a proposed increase for accountant and then there's kind of
like a net zero for development manager the increase for the accountant and the increase for promotion what is the sum total of that amount um annually right here so for 2025 it'd be
4,895 2026 approximately 8,500 2027 8,000 and 2028 4,000 why does it go down um because Jill or the assistant uh city administrator deputy
clerk would reach their top step in 2027 and therefore uh would not receive a step increase so um cities such as Newport have what's called a step-in grade compensation system so we have five steps within uh our grades and once
you reach the top step the only increase you would get to pay would be whatever increase council gave for cost of living adjustment usually that's paid out in January the reason strategically you have that kind of compensation schedule
is you assume folks are coming in at that step maybe know don't know the job so well kind of make it to that step three kind of doing it pretty good and then make it to the step five and they're they're super effective so that's why that's why it's only 4,000 in
that third year because the only one that would be getting that step would be the accountant position and and I think that clarifies then they would be maxing out effectively their pay at that position correct so once we've reached max compared to where we are today
25,400 annually roughly speaking is the difference between where we're at today and where we would be at that time correct so that's the total cost and there would be about annually though no no no no no the
annual cost is right here this is an annual cost would be 4,895 for 2025 that's the annual cost for this for for uh for Jill's promotion to the assistant city administrator position it
would cost $4,895 in 2025 and then and then the next year is she getting an additional $4,000 the next year approximately yes step value okay yep okay so so annually
speaking I'm actually seeing 25,000 annually is the max increase we're going to hit starting in 29 so if we spend Correct yeah annually annually correct so why I'm raising this is annually starting in 2029 we are going to have a
net increase in operational expense of $25,000 correct correct okay for salaries position yep but we wouldn't realize it because of the savings on the right i'm just articulating in 2029 we would have
an annual net change of $25,000 compared to today mayor members of the council correct okay yes for the community development position with the responsibilities you had a good slide earlier that listed out some of the
requirements or the the tasks and out of the kind of the area study initiatives and other priorities very roughly speaking what would be like a percentage breakdown in each of those groupings like do we have a focus more on zoning business retention do we have
a focus more on trails development like where do you kind of see that going great question uh mayor members of the council I think initially um you know a good more than half uh of that this person's time will be f
focused frankly on code enforcement for a city our size to have proactive code enforcement um you know Ann was spending a lot of time on that i think maybe 50% would be my ideal capacity
um focus for that position probably for the rest of this year and then probably in 26 I think you know uh maybe 10% 15% on business retention development trails development I think just monitoring it
and making suggestions zoning priorities I mean again that will be as time allows so not a lot of hours there I think longer term the building inspections contract again kind of just managing the contract manning the managing the relationships business licensing that's
very administrative um so not a lot there customer service we do a lot of that um we are you know we're open so you got to answer the phone you got to be at the front counter and that's the challenge I think I have with administration is just making sure that
you know we got enough folks because folks got to take time off folks get sick other things happen and and kind of covering that economic development i see that as the growth edge for this position i mean anybody who's going to come in and be a community development specialist you know ultimately maybe
they want to be a city planner maybe they want to be some kind of economic development person something like that so that would be the growth edge and I think you know where are the talents at what do I need you know maybe they kind of sit and learn for a year or two and then and then start growing um and then
other projects as needed you know we you know we'll just see how we go so hopefully that's helpful yes yes and sorry for the questions here the uh probably the last one I have here is the
u the accounting the accountant position if I understood correctly this is not a guaranteed promotion per se but it is moving us in the direction of doing a promotion in next year or is this guaranteeing a promotion
the mayor members of the council i think the mayor kind of clarified it well I think this is kind of nodding the head to it but technically we'd have to approve the 2026 budget which you know we're not we're not close to so there there would be uh another opportunity to review that i think the only thing
that's really before the council tonight would be the creation of the new uh community development specialist position and then authorizing the hiring which is budget neutral and then the promotion of Jill um you know we could talk about in the budget process but I'm
I'm kind of I I want to uh I mean we have a newer person been there about going on five months uh doing a great job and frankly we're we're paying not within the market and this person I I want to give them that opportunity to
really see that hey Newport is a place that you can come learn do a good job and you're going to have that opportunity to grow um so this is kind of like hey you know um and I I feel it's a little tough kind of dangling out because technically I think more money
would be a promotion but dangling that out in somebody's first year but I I feel confident of course this person does have probation for a year too so um you know we're going to we're going to make sure they're uh they're doing a good job but I I think they're doing a great job so no further questions thank
you yes and I think just I've said this before so I'm not trying to be repetitive but I worked in local government for many years and and every job is fairly fluid you know what Nathan was doing for us when he first started here is very different than the zoning
code update that he's doing now you know John is working on projects and things that or his company is like the trail are you doing the trails plan you guys have got Cedar Lane you know they're all taking on different responsibilities as
the need arises and that's very typical within government that it might be a new law that does it it might be you know something that we think is of higher value the business retention is something in economic development that's you know that's never going to go away
and and as the administrator said we'd like to be doing more work in that area once we've kind of got some of these other priorities completed so um any other questions council member Ser it might be helpful for people that don't see this but a market study was done on
the accountant position can I just reference this uh may or may that's part of the packet so mayor members of the council there is some data that was part of the packet so if folks want to look at any of the data it was there and you know that's that's been out there previously too so yeah okay yep you can reference that it's in
the Okay okay so currently the Newport position is noticeably under the range of comparably sized cities in by and large so and I just remember from previous
previous employment accountants were sought after eagerly and they were poached readily by other organizations so we don't want to train this person in and then lose them we're we're fortunate to have hired a very good person we're training that person we want to be able
to retain that person there's a lot to learn here in Newport and we want to make it possible for for that individual to see a future here in Newport thank you so I have a motion from Council Member Ingramman and a second from Council Member Sum any further
discussion all those in favor say I i those opposed the resolution is adopted um I am going to move the close session to the bottom of our agenda so we will move on to uh council member comments um I had the
pleasure today of speaking at the um Cottage Grove area chamber of commerce for their state of the city's uh lunchon that they do every year um the mayor of Cottage Grove also joined us Myron Bailey and so it was a great chance to connect with the business community to
talk about our 2024 projects what we have coming up in 2025 um I talked a little bit about spaces for lease land for sale um some of our new housing and it's just a great chance to promote Newport uh within that business community um I've also spent some time
uh this last couple weeks doing a letter of intent for what's known as the 3M Priority 2 settlement fund and this is to seek funding for the Riverfront Park on Cedar Lane and um this is sort of
this letter of intents the first step in the process it's where you have to establish that you are actually qualified to get this money and step two will be a deeper um application form uh for the grant and if we don't get the
funding the amenities that we would be able to be put in at Cedar Lane would be pretty restricted um because we don't have a whole lot of money um sitting in our in our Newport fund and then uh lastly I just it was mentioned earlier um our trails plan is up again for a
community feedback so this is our third um community feedback option or opportunity that we've had they've got the plan out there please be sure and go online and leave comments and um rank trails and get that feedback to our
consultants because we rely on that as a city council for where our priorities should go and where we should be seeking funding which our new community development person will be looking into when they get here that's it for me council member Ingamman no I have Thank
you Council Member Taylor council member Schwitz council member Sar oh yes i want to remind people that our library is open and it's very active and there are opportunities to volunteer in many different aspects you can volunteer with
the kids either as a as a mentor and as a teaching assistant you can also help out with folks that are longtime residents in Newport there's a club with people that come down and just work on crafts and it can be your choice of
crafts you can bring it in and just enjoy the company down there and also the librarian's assistant husband was the volunteer of the year so you get to work with somebody else who's very high
quality operating under volunteer semi- status and also as we begin to spend more time outdoors and if we encounter the odors that come from the rendering plant there is an opportunity on our
website to report that and it's very important that these reports are put in the in the database because the decisions that are made regarding improvements that have to happen at the rendering plant heavily
rely on the number of complaints that are reported so as you go outside and enjoy the summer make sure that we can enjoy the summer more fully into the future thank you thank you so then um that leaves the next item on our agenda is to
move into close session just for um a process understanding we'll probably send the camera crew home uh there may be a resolution that gets adopted uh following uh coming out of close session and also a motion for adjournment um and
that resolution uh will be made available should it be um adopted so with that um we're going to move into close session under Minnesota statute 13D.05 subdivision 3C to develop or consider offers or counter offers for
the sale of real property located at 15457th Avenue in Newport um the agenda item for this portion of the regular meeting of the Newport City Council is to determine the asking price uh for real property and to develop or
consider offers or counter offers for the sale of property at said location this uh portion of the properly noticed regular meeting of the city council will be closed pursuant to the statute previously listed 1305 subdivision 3C i will now entertain a motion to close
this portion of the meeting make a motion second i have a motion from Council Member Schmidt and a second from Council Member Sumar um all those in favor say I i those opposed the city
council is now in close session