--------- e e okay we'll call the uh workshop for J July 16 2024 to order uh city council Workshop uh reference Citywide projects in 2025 budget planning I'll turn it over to City
administrator thank you mayor and good evening members of the city council uh one moment while we I think we're up and running wanted to make sure the presentation was viewable by the public uh since we'll be going through a handful of slides tonight um tonight mayor Ryan has asked
me to provide an update to the council regarding uh Citywide projects with respect to as a city embarks on our 2025 budget planning process uh this will help to give you a refresher and an
opportunity to talk about our upcoming projects and uh the related components I think that are relevant to not only ensuring that the projects will be successful but that we are aligning our budget for 25 and even into the future
um appropriately with respect to the resources that we will be allocating towards the efforts to achieve them so the goals for tonight uh would be to ensure that city council has an understanding of um our current and upcoming city-wide projects uh so I will
go through the projects with you um and something that I will ask from the council um after tonight is to prioritize um the list of projects now some of them are in process and you should be very familiar with them but
aside from that it'll be the ones that we want to say okay what's the next sort of way wave of projects coming um from there it will that priority list will allow staff to develop timelines and processes for um how to achieve those projects and and bring them to
completion um and then the other component to tonight I wanted to talk a little bit with the council is in regards to the broad topics of operations capacity and level of service and we'll be talking about staffing needs and software needs because I think
they really align together and complement each other well when we're talking about all of these broad projects as I mentioned um we will be I will be asking for a list of priorities from each of you um by the end of the month other feedback tonight that I will
go through and then and then discuss and we'll get some feedback at the end is regarding our city hall Improvement project and then that priority list from the council um emphasizing on 2025 and 2026 projects specifically we will go
through all of that so that it's clear your feedback will be provided to staff as part of their developing their budgets for 2025 um as we go through the next four to five months with the budget process as an overview and a reminder so in 2023 the council for the first time
set um a two-year list of projects and I wanted to just at a high level summarize the list of projects that we were working on um takes two slides to kind of go through all of those items but we were very successful in completing a lot
of projects and or making progress in the planning phase for a lot of these projects that will carry on into the next couple of years and so as part of our strategic plan it's continuing to now take those projects that are in the planning phase and transition them into
the construction phase for the next two years Council might be familiar with this slide um as part of our truth and Taxation meeting and some other conversations we talk about how our comprehensive plan at a 30,000 foot level um we use that is our sort of
visioning document we take our city-wide budget which is our annual allocation of the resources that the city has available and we use our strategic plan to implement that long-term vision of the City by using those annual resources and the allocation we have in our
Citywide budget benefits of our strategic plan is just a reminder is we're promoting our best practices preservation of our environment allowing business to expand maximizing our services and revenues and
from a city P perspective it's providing that road map uh for what we're doing in the I'll say short-term and long term um so that the public knows what our vision is and how we can best provide those services our strategic plan specifically
includes our longrange infrastructure policy and ordinance synchronization ation employee retention and satisfaction safety plan and operations efficiency plan now the operations efficiency plan component of the Strategic plan has been probably the
least discussed since 2021 when we implemented the Strategic plan and I believe that this will become very important as we work on our 2025 budget and into the future is really looking at how are we going to most effectively and efficiently align our organization um to
achieve our goals so that's really the lens in which we'll be provide we'll be talking through um some of these specifics tonight I thought it'd be interesting to to kind of dig into some numbers and look at some information uh so nissa's population is we all familiar is right
around 2,000 year round residents our census from 2020 says 1967 but from the 2023 Department of Revenue information were right at 20 2,121 and 2022 we exceeded the billion
doll tax basemark for the first time and the information from the Department of Revenue includes 854 cities 121 of those cities have over a
billion dollars in tax base the average population of those 121 cities is 32,000 residents now that does include Minneapolis St Paul and Rochester if I take those out of the equation we're still at 25,000 residents so we're a far
cry from 2,000 year round residents to 25,000 seven of those 121 cities are under 5,000 population so we all know Nisa is unique but this is just another way to see that yes we are very unique where we have a small yearound
population and we have a significant tax base so what does this mean again it reaffirms that this was unique a unique Community we need to be intentional about our planning and our um strategic planning and the direction that we take
hopefully to achieve success for our residents our businesses our taxpayers our staff the whole organization with respect to that operations efficiency component of our strategic plan and talking about operations capacity and level of service
there's two components I see that are are probably top priority within that and talking about staffing needs and then software and systems needs and really what is the goal for the city for the council with respect to the level of service that we want to provide um what
we have been doing and then what our vision is for the future so first challenge number one is Staffing uh this has always been a small City and therefore we have had a small staff and we're a small organization as a result very um you know expected um
understandable consistent and we've operated the same way for many years but I think it's fair to say that all of us recognize the increase in activity and the requirements of each department and the needs and the demands that our departments are experiencing
within one of those significant challenges that I've seen over the last couple of years is really when we talk about our Departments of wand specifically it's becoming um a burden that feels um like we've sort of lived
its life life in that department of one component so for example we're in transition with Planning and Zoning uh while the office the staff that works in the office we can provide some baseline support and help for those who call or drop in was needed there's still not that person there to help provide backup
when that person is either no longer in that seat or if someone takes a vacation or has a sick day or is gone it also limits the ability for that department to be successful because there's no one else to really bounce ideas off of to talk through challenges
to work on tasks together when that is your focus of a job it's great to have someone to work together and to share those responsibilities into to you know have sort of a team mentality so it creates sort of a lack of support for one person when they're expected to know
really the you know the bread and the depth of of a position becomes very challenging Planning and Zoning is not the only Department I use it as an example um as just sort of to our articulate the point the other challenge to consider and to think about and something that
will come back to the council in more detail um as part of the budget process is really when we talk about our software and our systems our systems are Department specific pretty common um to have a A system that is meeting the
needs or the specific requirements of a department for example the pickle has a point of sales System rate very specific to that but we're getting into a scenario where our systems aren't talking to each other or we haven't set them up that way and so
it can lead to operational inefficiencies sort of lack of information sharing and and lack of ability to make things easy between Department sharing and the question really is how much do we want to um make P make it a
priority to embrace technology by making it easy for both the city and the users of the technology the public and what are the public expectations of our services provided through the lens of software and systems
and does that align with our goals as an organization that I mentioned a couple slides ago to say um what are our goals what are the public expectations and and how do we and how do we bring those together these are just a handful of examples that I put together as I was
thinking through sort of the software systems that we have opportunities to um create um a better bring in more of a broad umbrella for um utilization of technology I believe they've become more
accessible um I'll say less expensive than they were in the beginning that's not to say that they're inexpensive but I think there's been real improvements um another example um also from an internal perspective is a system in which we can share um HR information or
city policies or other things that staff might want to look at on a regular basis if we have a way to easily have that just there for staff that would be very helpful so as I wrap this piece of the presentation up um as I mentioned we'll
be talking more with departments during our budget meetings later this month I will um there will likely be more information to come to the council as part of the budget information but I think also looking at not only our projects but the staff and you're required and the systems and structure
that will achieve that success will be also very very important and very helpful with that I will transition into the Citywide projects component of this I provided a couple of pieces of information for the council uh one is on the screen um that
you see you'll see that in your information what I tried to do was I tried to just list out the projects that we have we are in process we are talking about we've been talking about we're trying to plan for try not to get too hung up on um the the calendar side of
that where I'm trying to just list out some ideas for planning it gives you a visual gives you an idea of what we've talked about um in the past but it's very fluid and that's part of this conversation tonight what I will do is I'm going to
go through each project most of them I will very high level just mention and move on to the next there will be a handful of projects that we will spend a few extra minutes on and discuss um but most of them I just want to make sure that you're familiar um and then when
I'm done we'll wrap up and ask questions and kind of talk through some of that now all of these have been as I mentioned have been they're on the list because we have been talking about them in departments or we're in the process of planning for these projects or
something like that um I feel and believe with the exception of the two at the bottom which we'll talk about most of all these other ones have been identified as priorities but timing plays a big role in that and
knowing how the council feels about which ones need to implement before others will allow staff also to plan so that if there is a transitional project or um some something that needs to happen in
between the we don't have the ability to make those improvements today or in the next five years but that's a longer term project and we feel it's important and we want to can keep it on the list then staff knows we need to create probably a transition plan to uh make that work in
the short term waiting for the long-term project the list here um is I roughly calculated the cost we're talking about $40 million worth of in ments now that includes City water which is about 10 on this list does include the hockey rink I
put it about seven but we still have a significant list of projects and even more the you know more important reason as to why we want to talk about this and have this in our minds as we talk about budget so the first handful of
projects these ones I'll go through really quickly um because the first five we have been talking about we have been planning for um and in process Mills Property purchase we're in our due diligence phase with that downtown master plan uh we are um embarking on
that um plan here over the next six months or so just a note the downtown master plan is probably the only thing on this list that isn't a tangible type of project it's more of a planning type of project but it does relate to so much
else on you know on this list so I thought it was important to Just note and to be aware of Parks we're working on our goal L Trail final project the 2025 and 2026 Road bonds we've been discussing lift station one rebuild the
council may be familiar with that if you're not please reach out to Tom blomer and set up a quick meeting with him to get get some of the specifics and the background on that lift station one is one of our major lift stations within our sewer system it has been on our
schedule the last few years when we go through our budget to um rebuild it um but we haven't had a lot of conversation at a council level yet about that so please feel free to reach out to Tom if you'd like to talk more about that these next two items I will spend a little bit more time in discussing with
the council so our city hall roof repairs and our city hall interior remodel conversation as I shared with the council uh sourcewell has approved our funding application so we will receive $50,000 from sourcewell
the improvements are specifically to go to um a new roof and the clar story windows and the question was raised at the last council meeting can we start to work on getting quotes for that project well those two items just alone exceed the statute requirements for having to
obtain sealed bids so we have to go through a full sealed bid process just for those two components and so with that I wanted to revisit um with the council um if you are interested in addressing additional building deficiencies at this
time I did provide to the council um a list of the cost estimates that width provided us last summer I think you see that on your um at your seats there and really that's just to sort of refresh your memory on the components but on the
back which is also on the screen is I summarize it by kind of specific area so I'll go through them really quickly so our new roof and clar story Windows is the $194,000 the other exterior improvements if you recall because the city uh the
council we did a kind of walking tour around the building and we talked about what the other improvements that were needed um were noted at 255,000 interior improvements um 149,000 um that's
things like carpet and ex existing building interior improvements that were identified at end at end of life or other um improvements that were needed um the interior remodel conversation was 113,000 we'll talk more about that in a
minute access control and cameras we also looked at a couple of years ago um improving the building by going away from the key system and doing electronic access control so we looked at that and we looked at adding cameras for improved building security for City Hall
specifically that was 63,000 I did also provide information to you regarding access control and cameras for the rest of the city buildings um that is certainly something if you want to consider one component I wanted you to have information for all of it in case
you wanted to say let's just do everything I do believe that there were quite a few cameras as part of our first run at looking at that kind of idea of adding cameras to our city building so I'm guessing there's an opportunity to scale back but
I think in theory the question would be do you want to consider that or not in just City Hall and or broadly across City buildings I also include the last quote information that I had from a couple of years ago for a generator at City Hall
quite expensive at 115,000 potentially that could be combined with potential pickle building project for trying to you know split cost I included it here just for your information all in told an estimated cost improvements across the board for
this building is at $1 million to specifically speak to the interior remodel component um this was the proposed idea that we discussed last summer that was tabled and depending on the council's interest for some of these
other components looking at also saying how can we set this building up for success to get 10 15 potentially 20 years down the road and not have to really worry too much about it I would say out of all of these areas the highest priority is
really looking at that front desk customer service area and making sure that it is effective and efficient and would allow for additional staff to be able to provide service uh to those customers residents that are coming in
so certainly that would be something to consider as highest priority um all of the areas are important but again we have to Prior um as well so my recommendation for the council to consider here tonight is that staff building staff
would review and modify the improvements that we identified from last year and see what's necessary see what's not see what we can maybe schedule for future budget needs and and incorporate into the budget going forward we would bring you a final
recommendation to the council in August then we reach out back to Mike angland from WTH and have him help us to facilitate developing those plans present those to the council and then complete a bid potential bond issue
depending on what that dollar amount is um and construction process the sourcewell funds need to be spent by June 30th 2025 which feels like a ways away but as we all know time goes really fast uh so as I finish up a couple just a couple more slides we'll come back to
the city Hall piece specifically for for Council feedback just a couple more pieces of information as far as the projects as we continue down the list we've been talking about a new pickle building that planning is in process we've been talking about parks department pickle
ball and playground and how we can get some momentum going in those projects uh lift station 12 build and the 371 road infrastructure what I mean by that by the by the footnote there is specifically Focus on the roads that we
would need to build in order to make the potential um Highway Frontage property resellable um focusing on those two projects together to ensure that then those are um attractive for potential developers continuing on looking at the
parks for the hockey rink then backage road infrastructure City water system and then the last two that I had highlighted in blue because they might be a little bit newer ideas um just kind of float out there is we have talked about a public safety building I was thinking about this
specifically with respect to Fire and EMS services and the challenge that we have right now again back to Staffing is that if we were to grow our parks department we don't have a place to put people we don't have a place to put more
equipment um same goes with Public Works we are growing our staff in that regard and they don't have a good office space desk space area they're sort of allinone with this big break room that they use for multiple purposes and how do we
appropriately provide the spaces that staff needs to be able to again get on computers do their work and also facilitate um you know efficient work so if that building if the fire hall were to be freed up because we created a new
space for them um potentially that's a good reuse of that building um and potentially is an option just an option there's a handful of other options to consider the other the one at the bottom again just a maintenance building addition for staff to have more of a dedicated desk space office space
for them to do their work have their break room and then the other space that they already have for their equipment so those are just newer ideas something to think about but again it's more of the how do we plan and ensure that we know how to um address current needs and then
planning for the future future as we go through all of these projects at a staff level we will create a document that will look something like this for each project and it will identify each sort of major decision point or action item along the way not
everything but just to give the council and staff um a sense of where things will when things will happen and and who they will be engaging with along the way so last month as an example I had the 2025 Road Bond um on the screen the
preliminary Road list came to the city council in June you approved that and then now um Tom and Bill is they're finalizing the road list they're creating the updated cost estimates that will go to Public Works Committee in July and then so on and so on so this
will give you a visual will give you an understanding of the steps we're taking with each project a lot of them are very similar but sometimes they're you know unique in some of their nuances and uh we will then provide that to the council um as appropriate to keep you up to dat
up to date on the progress so with that perfect um I will turn the meeting back over to Mayor Ryan I would appreciate feedback on the city hall Improvement project specifically to know what components you would like us to move forward with and then um I
provided you a list of all of those projects and what I'm looking for is your priorities of these projects now uh some of them are already in process I think you'll know which ones those are and so just keep that in mind and you could potentially just cross
those off the list as sort of we're moving forward with some of those things but however you would like to prioritize them I would appreciate that you would do that and then you can drop this off you can email me take a picture with your phone whatever works to get me that information that will help us as we
continue to work on um our budgeting and create that 2025 2026 um project list okay with that I will stand for questions thank you thank you um I'll kick off with the city hall part um as
Le on to the uh City administrator office or the the the clerk's off the city administrator stuff this city hall area um I I think staff getting back to us and letting us know what their
priorities would be is important um putting you know for for that if we're going to end up having to take a bond out to do all the repairs especially if we include exterior repairs I mean the building doesn't get
any younger and it's you know it's just things certain things are just going to wear down we know what we have to get done um several conversations with um Tom um from public works you know I when
that wall gets opened up I'm kind of shuddered to think what we're going to find back there after all the years of leaking so there's going to be more problems a lot of issues that are going to come up so what do we do um what what makes
sense for a bond if we need to do that or whatever and so that would have to include for staff what do they need what do they need to be successful if we are going to add additional um Staffing Where do they they go how do they do what who you know
the shuffle so um I think that you know I like that idea um you know there we can't I mean it would be nice to just stroke a check and do everything but that's not going to happen so um I I would like to get staff's IDE I think that's an important thing to do for the
city hall because we know we're moving forward with part of it anyway we have to so um that's my two cents on the city hall part of it Mark I know there's a lot of things that have to be done
um but I think the staff has a best idea of what they think needs to areas of where they think the priorities are for the uh say Renovations of the city hall I'd leave it to
them I think it's important to maintain what you got and you know repair things and take care of the Leaky stuff just like you would at your own home you know Jesse I'm on board with getting the consensus of what the staff's desires
are it's always a not a terrible place to start but um in respect to everything that we know we're going to have to make difficult decisions on I think it's going to be very important for us to be cognizant of what type of dollar spend is going to be on the upgrade of this
place versus just the maintenance I think we all drive down County Road 77 and see if the city of Lakeshore has for a city hall and their taxpayers seem to shoot that down getting renovated every single time it comes on the ballot so with our
beautiful building that we have here it's a blessing um I think that it' be worthwhile to see what their staff's preferences I'm not in here every day you guys are so um taking that in consideration one with the dollar spend
on the back end of that as well I guess I guess for me we could hit replay of exactly a year ago in July um I feel like we're beating a dead horse a year ago we all voted down not to do the interior remodels and to focus on the
exterior at that time we had wsn come out we all t the building the outside leaking Windows the roof the gutters we decided that that needed to be done and go forward we voted down this other interior remodel because we have today still extra office spaces that aren't
being used um a little touchup on a countertop here there but looking across the Citywide budgets and projects and especially now with the purchase of the new property and the public admin building you know with the Fire EMS
police everything we have have no idea what's going to happen in this building and I think it's a pure waste of money to do a whole big remodel project in here at that price tag currently where we're at with the unknown and I guess
same conversation go back to last July we had when we voted down the interior you know and um said let's fix up the building last meeting we had a meeting here and it was raining in uh raining outside and it was raining inside back
there I mean we can't prolong this outside because of the wh ifs of we're going to remodel the inside no for an extra 600,000 700,000 next year's 300 some the quote was a little over a
million no I mean just because we're going to do a bond or borrow more money doesn't mean that we got to borrow double or triple of amount to fix what we need this is working this is step one but I cannot get behind at all spending
another five six 700,000 to remodel something on a what if we get more staff on a what if we do this when we don't know that we're getting more staff we don't know what these departments are doing sure the
department a one but it doesn't justify us we have 2,000 citizens does it justify us to have two plane zoning people sure maybe in the summertime but but there's also outside contractors we could help come in during the heavy times um and so I think for me we got to
step back and look at even a bigger picture of prioritize what do we want this town to be what's our Focus what do we want to drive but remodeling the inside of this is just a no-o I mean this might not even exist in five years as the city hall building with the
potential of what we have with that other property with police Fire EMS everyone moving down there and I think we have to have a little bigger picture before we just spend money foolishly here so that's I think we talked about it last year as well during this discussion in regards to what are the
root causes for the for the roof itself it was nothing storm related correct it was faulty craftsmanship if that's initial design it was Challenge from the beginning that wasn't I don't think really explored on how can that get remedied when the building was
constructed so we are here today can't file a claim right no but I mean it needs to get done we're here A year later and we're just kicking this can down the road I mean we need to get bids however that process needs to go and we need to get it fixed like like John said
it's only getting worse okay so what is if you're going to bond we're g to bond um for it versus stroke a check how much can what at what point does it not make sense at what dollar
amount does it not make sense to bond you would mention this before mean a level kind of lower I mean our financial adviser has said 750 probably is the lowest you want to go 750,000 to issue a bond just based on the cost Associated
things like that it's too low it's too is the lowest you would want a bond to issue a bond for um just based on the cost now potentially timing could work well with the property purchase you can you can issue two different bonds from two different statute authorities at the same time and have some efficiencies
with that because they're just doing it all simultaneously um but essentially really I think the question is um absolutely they understand that the cost are significant and just one component of this long list of of items um my biggest question really for the council was with
respect to the other exterior improvements which aren't insignificant um that I think are really important to to consider but that wasn't a part of that sourceable application project and so getting feedback from that but it sounds like what I can do is
just get staff's feedback we will prioritize um the highlevel important cause damage to the building type things and we will we will go from there um just want to make sure you have um a set of the information and you know
some of the challenges won't go away um but timing is important and wanting to be mindful of that so I appreciate that feedback and I think we can work towards ensuring that we know exactly what we want to do and do the right things for this building to keep it in good shape
is the important thing and it's an expensive building to maintain okay okay thank you aside from that really I'm looking for your feedback or comments on these projects I can put that back on the
screen um anything really oh I don't I my clickers work I just have a question and this goes to Tom and I can't remember you have answered this and I've probably asked you in the past but when we start doing the redoing the roads are we looking at putting in storm who at this
time or not I mean that I think that's one of the issues we have to address also is with runoff so this first round of bonds um there's not going to be a lot of underground probably no underground
storm sewer but what there will be is curban gutter directing especially where we have steep hills don't wash off the wash out the shoulders we spend quite a bit of money repairing that and it's you're always chasing it so um and I think we talked
about that before but I just couldn't remember so there's there's a I think it it's in your Council pack for the meeting later tonight I have photos actually of all the spots for the 25 Road Bond where we have asphalt gutter
currently or no Gutter and I would like to to be able to replace that with concrete yeah cuz concrete would be better than it would last longer and none of that was really designed it was just kind of
Anderson Brothers throws a shoe on their um paper and they create a little bit of a garage where that spills out we would probably want to think about how that's done I don't think this is a a situation where we're going to have a huge amount
of right away we have to purchase or anything to do it because most cases it's spilling into existing swamp or something you know so it's just a matter of but there wouldn't there be some areas possibly where we might have to put like runoff ponds in or or maybe
yeah and that's for the engineers to take that information and give us what do we have to do because I know that's a big issue with lot of but the you know one of the reasons we want to address um the edges of the road with real curb and
gutter if you look at most of the city streets where are they falling apart well it's on the edge of the road people drive off the edge they they damage that asphalt gutter if it's even there or they just plain bust up the edge of the road and eventually the granular material that
makes up the shoulder washes away and and it just becomes this process where it just keeps eating into the road and causes further problems ideally and I know this is probably a never going to happen a NWA kind of
thing there should be Road ditches I mean if you look at our best roads that stand up they have actual Road ditches but there's a desire by a lot of folks to have trees right up against the edge of that
fa um I think I've talked to this group and then our Public Works committee um there's um the state and others are starting to look at what they call Smart salting technology well what I had explained was
is if sunlight can hit the pavement even a little bit we start to reduce the amount of salt usage that we that we we do that also adds to the deterioration of pavement the more salt we put on the faster it
deteriorates so I think you by having at least some minimal clearing we can one accommodate a ditch for drainage and to allow a little bit less canopy of the street to help us with with snow removal and
ice and I've given examples of where that looks the best but I'd be happy to talk to any of you and take you for a ride and show you some of this stuff too because I've seen it I think it I think it once you see it hard not to see anymore and you can
really see the opportunities I I think one of the the emerging concerns that environmental concerns that are going to come mountain in this Lakes area is road salt the tons of road salt that get put down is ridiculous um people demand it how how
do we mitigate know and still provide for a Scenic roadway and I think adding curb and gutter and smart and ditching in a Smart Way can be done without really detracting from the Aesthetics of the roadway um my best example of that
is is when we when the 18 was moved people thought that was going to be the end of the downtown it was going to be hideous the fall that thing opened it it became a picture site a roundabout there's people that take pictures on that almost every day it's it's gorgeous
that that driveth through there in the fall when the leaves turn it's beautiful it has full Road ditches it's it's a wide R away no way does that take away from the up North Field in my opinion I I would like to at least consider that as we're going through
these Road bonds especially the 25 because that's the more rural sections of our city the 26 Bond focus more on what I would call the urban areas the downtown Grand View those are the places where we're going to have underground sewer that we're going to want to look
at real real quick with that though Tom put together a real nice presentation at last public works with pictures of all these different areas and stuff so if all of you I'd recommend to see and look at that that really helps give a vision for it too but then also too in
conjunction with that just so maybe everyone's up to speed can you talk a little bit to the increase in the dollars for these Road bonds so you know when we did it last time or when you did it last time for a mile of asphalt it cost X and this time it's what's the
multiplier this time and the number has just gone oh yeah catastrophic on it yeah you know and that's it's significant um forgive me I don't have the exact amounts in my head but if you start thinking in terms of double
and triple what we spent on the last go round now uh you're you're getting close um and then on top of that you know we are building the roads to last so when we go through we're fixing base Corrections we're doing the drainage as
Joe is suggesting that costs more money per mile but it only makes sense but but in the long run it will save the city money and it will um give everyone a greater satisfaction I won't get flooded with phone calls every time we get a heavy
rainstorm the shoulders washed out and people can't understand why we don't deal with it in a more comprehensive way well we are trying and but it's G to upfront there'll be an expense to it now one nice thing is once we uh put in
concrete uh gutters you know they'll last that will will last more than one cycle of pay repaving so you know it potentially could be 50 or 60 years well that you we're giving our kids and grandkids a
great gift by dealing with some of this now do we have a I have a couple questions um for both of you I guess but Tom uh Road bonds for 25 26 um do you have a rough estimation as to what 25 would be we have a a very
rough estimate that we got from Joe deell a few months ago um I don't have that with me unfortunately I can provide it that's okay pretty Qui it was about 4 million four four yep four billion and I think yeah and I think that's low at
this point it probably is you know we I've added some some curb and gutter in places that Joe probably didn't allow for but I think it was a fair it gave you a ballpark you know we're not talking a million dollars we not talking
10 but it's and for context the road bond that was issued in 2018 was a million and a half what's the targeted area for the 25 Road Bond then so when we look at 25 we're looking at roads such as upper Roy we're looking at Edna
Lane um Roy Lane forgive me if I don't remember so you're targeting a kind of an area versus it's the entire city the entire city yeah there's roads throughout the city um and that's the same for6 government Trail Hulk
road yeah there's a list somewhere that I've seen yeah I provided you a list last month so Citywide too so basically everything outside of what I call Main we been kind of pretty well pretty much he's always kind of looked at
what's in the worst condition right is higher on the list unfortunately it's not centralized like this section of the town is in the worst that would be too so that is one thing I've been doing though as we've gone through with these road projects beginning with the last Bond we did for instance when we do
upper Roy Lake Road I'm trying to do all the corollaries that come to it so that they're all aging at the same time so that we can focus on one area with the next cycle it won't do you or I probably a lot of good right but the next group that has to sit here and figure this out
when they're doing a road construction project they'll be inconvenience for one summer not summer after summer after summer road construction projects is is the idea lift station one rebuild so what that is is no just
generalized cost if you don't mind I want to say that's going to be close to a million dollar yeah this year million for that yeah so the last one we did was lift station three and we're modeling this one after that so that was done during Co now it's possible it
would come under that but just to that was half yeah it was close to a half million and then to build a brand new one for 12 roughly 12 would be probably pretty similar because it's servicing such a large area Okay one
yeah okay now is that money bonded or is that coming out of the uh sewer fund so the lift station one rebuild we've been planning for that and so we have a good chunk of that money put away um I don't know that
it's a million dollars but it's it's significant um we've been trying to adjust that with inflation and we do look at that every year we'll look at it again this year as we go through the budget and so it'll be accounted for in that cycle I don't anticipate that we
bond that unless you try unless you're looking at um maybe doing list station 12 at the same time maybe you take that money and you do a bond for both and then you're using the what we have set aside to help Finance both I gu
okay um yeah backage road infrastructure so when M and doot came in here and presented to us on the tables out here there was discussion about col it what you want but I believe it was a a credit for every median that would be removed right do we have any additional clear
indication as to what they're thinking that dollar amount is going to be bucks it's not much I you know Jenny might correct me if I'm if I'm overstating this but I think the dot has moved away from that promise of
course probably fair to say that at least not to the same degree that they used to I think there's definitely cost sharing or opportunities um because they they want to achieve certain goals and certainly so do we so if we can align those I think they're more than willing to
discuss that so there's opportunity there just may not be as much as in the past um but that's a part of all of this conversation and um certainly um Tom was going to mention it um at the next meeting he could certainly do it now as far as getting your feedback about some
of these preliminary Concepts as they keep working through that is is important as well I mean a part of what I'm doing here is go as Jenny you presented speaking with you Tom and I know Amber and having you up here to be able to go through your part projects too but just in general outside of just
trying to ask something immediately because it's not it's not preferential or it's not timely perhaps it's trying to also come up with a notion of how would we if it was at the number one priority list how would we pay for that right we've spoken at the liquor commune
multiple times of if a new pickle came to be how could we go about it we've discussed multiple times a revenue Bond tied into the actual revenue of The Pickle Factory and be able to perhaps increase prices Etc so a lot of these looking like we can package them at together to one what's going to be sadly
one monster Bond that's GNA Encompass a lot of your projects to come up from your side too but when we look at 371 road infrastructure and Jenny correct me if I'm wrong but that is simply just for the road infrastructure on the new Mills Property that we're proposing yes uh
that yes that is correct just trying to align those two separately from potential the the other larger backage Road as we refer to it could could that and just in know could that not be packaged that infrastructure for that parcel or those Parcels be able to be
included in an overall bond for the acquisition of the property it could I don't know that we would be able to build plans and know what that looks like in the time that we're coming up to engaging the bonding process I think that would take you
actual quotes oh yes okay yes um or bids rather but we would need engineered PL two more questions MoneyWise Jenny for you then um what's the city's tax base at right now for for what we're what we're at
right now for our Levy versus what our maximum amount is if you have it off hand don't know that good one for you well I don't know that I'm following your question can you say that again our tax base uh when we've gotten down to actual Levy decision time I think our
total percentage amount is like 36% or something tax rate is that what you're asking uh basically I think you're asking how much can we bond for correct what what do we have left in our capacity to you're asking about the levy I'm asking
Levy because we're have to factor in the the bond payments into this of course right so two parts where we at with how much we're able to actually assess to our citizens in regards to Levy yep to then roll into the second question of
all what's our total bonding capacity what's our aggregate here um our total bonding capacity is very high because of our tax base it's a percentage of that uh we are nowhere near that I mean nowhere near that we have significant room not to say that we'd want to do
that in one swop but we have a large dollar amount I can follow up with the Council on that and the levy question maybe to getting to the new debt service that would be coming online with uh an issuance of a bond for the property purchase we do have Debt Service r off
of our schedules as well so the net impact right now is not going to be significant um probably I'm going to say maybe two to 3% of a levy increase um for that property purchase Bond because of the debt service that's rolling off
so we are in good timing with the road Bond because we know we have to bring some new debt service on online um so the impact and um our financial advisers can structure the debt to try to have as as you know level of an impact as possible so we're not you know kind of
Peaks and valleys as you know as much as we can avoid that okay um I saw an email from the league today yeah no oh no I just I just want to make sure I I saw email from the league that came through to our emails today in regards to uh apply now for the
or the windows open for the federal funding for and state funding I believe too for City water infrastructure projects to that extent okay I didn't I must not have seen it yet yeah and you saw that too I I I didn't have a chance to click it I did see it made note to
bring it up today because we talked last year you know trying to woo representative stobber and try to make a better case for ourselves for not just this but perhaps there's additional funding that he can pull for for this
area too we are looking into um a grant opportunity that might help offset cost for lift station one so bill is working with um their internal funding specialist um there's some grant money through the npca it will be very
competitive but certainly an opportunity if we can take a chunk of that out we would certainly like to apply for it and give it a try so and then going to the parks Gall Lake Trail the final section the grant expired um is that right at the end of June uh for the past one not
the final one the final one's the upcoming last half Mish segment so we do have funding allocated through that for this project yes well most of that is the grant funding that we will have some out of pocket City cost most of everything
we had went into the one we just finished right so y okay and do you believe for a public safety building that we've discussed on this new uh potential property acquisition on the Mills Property you think we can obtain from your experience
you think we can obtain uh federal or state funding or various grants to be able to cover that cost I think that Pro that type of project is always very desirable there's a tremendous amount of support for Public
Safety and for fire departments and and the like so it's certainly something that um there are opportunities out there we could you know say that that's really the the funding priority for something like that would be to achieve some kind of Grant or or other state
federal funds if that was the decision the council wanted to pursue in that regard and then say um kind of a Tob determined based on funding received grants received and then go from there okay and then lots to talk about on the
parks and rec side but real quick on the parks and rec side though you know back to the slide were what were we seven of Seven Cities in over a billion dollars category was that the number um yeah yes
seven under 5,000 populations and so I don't know I would still like to see the city somehow more formally engage with our community obviously um we're in a unique situation
with uh you know um people and resources here you know for you know large donations for projects like that you know and see a little bit more active outgoing you know engagement to try and
you know get more donations funds people like that involved you know just a bigger a bigger overall plan not even for parks and wreck but just there's a lot of people in the community that are willing to donate if if it's their cause whatever that is you know sure and just
tap into the resources that we have and that's the people certainly we've set up some of structure with the Community Foundation fund to provide that Avenue which is a good first step a lot of communities who are very successful um the nisell Lake Park the friends of
nisell Lake Park um activity for a handful of years was very successful because of their involvement and that's really the success I've seen in other communities is because they have that Community um organization that really leads the charge so that would be maybe also an appeal to the community to say
how can that be created or what does that look like to help offset the limitations we have as staff but if we can create some of that structure like the Community Foundation or some more of the informational piece to help with that engagement we're certainly happy to do
that any other questions okay then I know we're going to need to rewind or they're going to need to we should probably adjourn this meeting and get ready for the next one yes we will start at
a motion to adjourn so moved I'll second all those in favor I oppos carried Part: 2
e okay we will call the July 16 2024 regular city council meeting of niswa to order if you'd all please rise and join me in the Pledge of Allegiance pled Al to the flag of the
United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liy and justice for all thank you okay first item on the is to approve our amended agenda
Mr Mayor I'll make a motion to approve the amended agenda as presented second any further questions about it all those in favor say I I I oppose approved second item is our consent calendar Mr Mayor I'll make a motion to
approve the consent calendar as presented second any questions all those in favor I I opposed carried open form this is an opportunity for public comment um anything that is not on the agenda if
you have if you wish to comment on an item on the agenda we give you time when that comes up at that time to do so open form Andy good evening conso uh just going to report that we did pull all our te see from our shelves so that was what we
talked about last month and I noticed I wasn't on the agenda I just figured I'd give my two cents thank you very much Andy appreciate it yeah I asked Katie how it went today so she gave me the low down yeah yeah we we got another pre-book shipment in like a week ago so
it is what it is yeah okay there anyone else for public comment seeing none we'll close public comment uh next item on the agend uh open under open form is El Elizabeth
WAFF weel Waffle wael close w w yes wael okay from the Coalition of Greater Minnesota cities okay this is on and I'm gonna I'll just hand this down to you um I want to thank you all for allowing me to come and speak um I am as the mayor said
with the Coalition of Greater Minnesota cities and um I don't know who's controlling the up and down on this slide show thank you you are okay we can move on to the next slide but um for those of you who are not familiar with us we are an organization that's been around more than 30 years um of more
than a hundred cities across the state um Nisa is one of our newest ones but we are thing we have in common is we are all located outside the metropolitan area and our organization really focuses on the issues that unite us you know a lot cities in Minnesota have a lot of
issues in common but things hit differently when you're outside the seven County Metro area and that's really what we focus on our biggest areas are local government Aid and property taxes environment and energy which is what I primarily focus on economic development which includes
everything including Child Care housing building out infrastructure to support business um transportation and then annexation and land use which I also um work on at the legislature and we provide labor and employment services to our members as well um but we visit all
of our cities every summer to talk about what happened during the legislative session on our policy priorities um and also hear back a little bit from you in terms of what you're caring about it really helps us um figure out what we're doing we are a membership driven organization um just talking about last
session um heading into session we had fairly low expectations and I hate to say even those low expectations were not met um you know with the November forecast that forecasts very limited cash spending um and bills that they needed to fix from last year including
some mistakes in the tax bill dealing with the school resource officer fix and other issues that was on the list there um fairly list of short list of priorities that at least we thought going into the session um we were expecting a bonding bill because it was traditional year and it's also typically
a policy year the other kind of change that got thrown into the mix is that as session was beginning the dfl Senate majority experienced a new leader due to the um ongoing cancer battles of their um former Majority Leader the next slide you can see um if
I can remember what's on the next slide I believe it's our goals for the legisl oh excuse me this is the budget forecast and we bring this up because this impacted a lot of what happened at the legislative session what you were looking at here is basically sort of the budget surplus that we were looking at
when we were in the um uh the uh past legislative session and what is the projected balance sort of going forward um as you can see they are projecting a potential structural imbalance it's not a deficit it doesn't become a deficit until we actually hit the point of
because right now these are forecasts of both spending and revenue if obviously if the revenue is less than the spending then we hit a deficit but right now um they are potentially projecting because of estimated decreases in revenue and increases in inflation that we could be
seeing a structural imbalance we bring this up because it did impact everything from bonding spending to some of the requests that we made around EMS funding the next slide should have there we go our legislative agenda we worked on a you know we work on a lot of different issues but the some of the biggest ones
we worked on was pushing on the whole EMS issue which I'll I'll dive into a little bit um working on bonding and when we work on bonding we work on programs that benefit all of our cities things like PFA funding the business bdp program other um public grants that run
through deed and similar agencies that help all of our cities across the state we're also planning on P pumping the brakes on new policies and mandates CU quite frankly there were enough that was adopted in 2023 we were hoping to stop as many as we could in 20 24 next slide um I'm going to focus on
three of the biggest things we worked on WE handed out a report that gets a little bit more in depth on some of these I will note it also has all of our um our staff for the cgmc if you have questions about anything we're working on or want to get more involved please do let us know but EMS was a big issue
um this next slide kind of shows why um one of the challenges we are seeing whether they're owned by hospitals like they are in your area um or by cities um EMS providers in greater Minnesota are really struggling to operate because the cost of providing Services is exceeding the insurance reimbursements they're
receiving from Medicaid Medicare next slide really shows the numbers that we're looking at um you know if you look at what insurance revenues were there compared to operational expenses annual Capital expenses and sort of the cost of volunteer labor subsidy we you're looking at you know approximately
Statewide 120 million shortfall and that hits all across the board um the biggest holder of um ambulance licenses is local governments we also have like I said a lot of areas like yours where you have your local hospitals who are providing that support and you know regardless of who holds the license you can only go so
long where you are not getting reimbursed enough where it you know before it really starts affecting your coverage which is why we took up this issue the next slide talks a little bit about um what we were proposing looking at both a short and long-term fix trying to put in some money to stop the bleeding and then trying to look at a
sustainable funding mechanism trying to put in some policy reforms um that would benefit rural areas um and again looking at longer term reforms and funding to so that we are not facing the situation going forward next slide shows you a little bit what we worked on at the
capital but um we had we had a really you know bipartisan Coalition working on this um and we had some good reception in terms of getting uh hearings in both the House and Senate and multiple committees but leadership was a little reticent to go forward on it um because
of again that lack of a budget surplus as I pointed out um the other challenges we ran into was that um the governor did recognize that it was an issue but he wanted to take a slightly different approach and just fund $10 million to two regions of the state that wasn't good enough for us because quite frankly we're not going to pick one region to
help we thought the entire State needed the help we were also hoping maybe that uh the Republicans might do as they had done last year um which was basically say you know if we're going to get a bonding Bill done we need to get this done um which happened a little bit but not quite so the end the end results is
on the next slide um we were able to get money for the program for two different Pockets so $ 24 million in payments um to hospitals so the North Memorial which provides the ambulance service in your area is eligible I think it's to receive a couple $1,000 out of this pool um and
then there's money for Sprint medic pilot program which is trying to again look at some new and innovative ways to be providing these services but um didn't get everything we wanted but we really did bring a lot of attention to this issue setting the stage for next year because this is issue isn't going
to go away and it really hits Greater Minnesota hard so we will continue to work on this um next slide bonding um I probably don't need to tell anyone in the state that we didn't get a bonding Bill done the next slide kind of goes through um you can kind of see that's me a very grumbly look on my face trying to
get this across the the Finish Line it was a traditional year for bonding and it really is the only place that a minority party can have significant influence um because it does require a super majority vote to get something done um the state had a debt capacity for just
under a billion dollars and the governor came forward you know starting off with a um proposal that was very similar to that um proposing money in both General obligation bonds and other sources really focusing on state-owned assets and then some of the state agency Grant
programs um not a lot for specific local projects um in the next slide um this is what we were asking for there's a big X through it because again we weren't unfortunately able to get a bonding Bill done um couple top priorities for us is getting um money for the public
facilities Authority which is what you know the agency that helps us get Wastewater drinking water and sewer projects done trying to get money for child care housing and then the business development um public infrastructure program also trying to make some policy changes around the PFA again for water
projects um you know a lot of questions out there about why did the bonding bill fell I don't think there was a single reason um but I do think you know once it got to be April it just started looking less likely you probably heard about the arrest of Senator Mitchell down in Detroit Lakes um and that really
complicated things we had a quirky legislative schedule with not one but three breaks and honestly um there was a little bit of a hangover from last year's bonding bill you know they got we were off cycle already um they did a really big bonding Bill last year and so
I would say some of the people were not as enthusiastic as we would have hoped um and then as we were heading into the end of session there were other priorities that took precedence and we quite frankly saw that they ran out of time and between running out of time and just these sort of disagreements between
the two parties we were not able to get a bonding Bill across the um uh the the Finish Line very disappointing and is something we will be pushing hard on next year housing and Zoning um this is something you may have heard about as well um I think across Minnesota we are
seeing Challen es with the lack of housing at all levels um of you know of income and so the legislature several several legislators came forward with an idea to try and address the housing crisis by increasing density and addressing several other issues such as climate change and a mar space zoning
practices as well um The Challenge was is that they basically introduced a bill without really Consulting City groups such as ours which is I'm going to be honest not a great way to do legislation you know if you're going to be doing big controversial pieces of legislation you do better when you bring people along um
the original version would have been really challenging it would have required all cities you know even small cities in Greater Minnesota like niswa to allow up to eight plexes on land zone for single family housing it would have allowed accessory dwelling units by right and most residentially zoned properties it would allow multif family
housing to be built in most commercially zoned areas as well as adopting restrictions on parking minimums and design standards now you know we're already seeing cities make some changes in these areas but they're making those changes is adapted to the needs of their own cities but this bill and the bills
that were proposed forward would have really you know been a one-size fits-all situation which didn't work so of course we pushed back on it on next slide talk a little bit about it um you know again it was initially supported strangely enough you know bipartisan support um um
both dfl and GOP legislators as well as housing Advocates and developers but we really stepped forward and you know pushed back against it we testified and worked individual legislators both the house in the Senate and worked um behind the scenes with the housing chairs to try and amend the bill and try and find
a compromise um trying to also get them to recognize that this really hits differently in Greater Minnesota than it does in the suburbs that you know you can solve you need to solve problems a little bit differently ultimately there was a version that was passed on the floor in the house but it died in the
Senate um due to Suburban opposition and um we'll likely see this Revisited next year so this is something you know we're already talking to our the housing chairs about this um we're actually they're actually going to be at our cgmc conference next week to have a they'll
get to go before our M our uh members I'm sure that will be an interesting discussion for them but we are going to be pushing hard on trying to come up with a solution that makes sense for our communities um and is not a one-size fits-all solution other priorities we worked on quite a bit a different things
um just a few highlights local sales tax um as you may know there's a moratorium right now on passing a local sales tax we worked with other City groups to try and make sure that you know this could go forward but um quite frankly the Senate house the Senate house tax chairs
could not come to an agreement so it got kicked down the road to next year um we are working on some issues having to do with um prevailing wage and Tiff um small city streets has been a priority for us because we know cities like yours um it is hard to finance the streets um
and so there was a onetime bridge funding you know this is a program we helped created a number of years ago and have been pushing on funding and permanent funding ever since the permanent funding will be phasing in that was passed last year but there is this sort of dead zone where it hasn't ramped up so there was the push for
onetime funding that um you know which will allow about $50,000 um total coming to your city this fiscal year and then next year I think it kicks up to 80 um so something we've continued to work on continuing to work on trying to make sure that um transportation policy makes sense and
and um that safety is a priority and then finally there were some potentially problematic bonding policy language in the bonding bill that we worked on and pushed back on um and that did not go forward um that would really make it challenging for a lot of cities to do um
uh receive state bonding money whether directly or through grants so another top priority for us um this session looking ahead um next year you know it's an election year every house seat will be up for for election and you know
means two things um you know one we could see a change in control of the legislature I am not willing to make a prediction either way this at this point I was wrong on my predictions last time but the other thing I'll say is we we are seeing a lot of members retire and I think that will have an impact both
senior members of both Republican and Democrats particularly in Greater Minnesota so a lot of changes we could see a change in the um Senate majority and um we will be working even before the election to make sure that all of these candidates understand the needs of Greater Minnesota we send out candidate
packets and try to meet with folks in advance of the election or after the election to make sure they understand the unique needs of Greater Minnesota then obviously it's also an election year for other important seats but the legislature will convene on January 14th and we are already starting to get ready
for that um these are upcoming events um I would strongly encourage you if you have the opportunity to come to one of our events uh next week we'll be down in weight Park in St Joseph um in November we hold our fall conference after the election so that we understand and know who's going to be in charge because that
does Drive some of our priorities um but that'll be over in Alexandria at Arrowwood and we'll be spending a lot of time talking about the upcoming legislative session that our most popular event of the year is legislative action day down in St Paul go and talk to our legislators about important priorities and then cap the
evening off at manini which is always a favorite of a lot of folks so um lot of information even more in the packets um but I I want to thank you again for this opportunity and see if you had any questions question thank you so what did the state
legislature accomplish last year sorry um well we get $10 million more for small cities um I'll be honest sometimes it is uh for for us I don't know if I would say they accomplished it for us seeing things not I mean I hate to say
it but sometimes defense is a win so we were we were pleased to see you know we were able to sort of Tamp down on some of those policy changes um I think the biggest they didn't get a lot done I mean that's why I said our you know low expectations were not met we were
pleased to see funding go into the um uh the the EMS which we think was was a real significant priority I think you know the previous year in 2023 we did see significant funding put into um some of the programs that we do care about
like housing um and uh it's the PFA water programs but there's a lot of things yeah I'm not going to kid you this was not a great legislative session I can tell um on that note though being here taking your time to come here there's obviously something that we can perhaps do for you is there anything
that you'd like to tell us or suggest that we can do you know honestly the best thing you can do is stay engaged um and What Makes Us powerful at the legislature is our very engaged membership and so um on you know on one of the full handouts I gave you you'll
see for example a list of our committees um our committees start meeting um in September when I say meeting again our membership's from Greater Minnesota so this is all virtual meeting we do a lot by email but we are always looking for input on our policies we you know if there are particular issue areas that
impact your city we you know we bring in people to testify on our bills or help us you know shape our discussions I was explaining to a city earlier today that you know you persuade people a lot through stories and so helping us understand what impacting you is also really important because that helps us
go to the legislature and talk about you know this is how it's going to hit NWA you know this is how it's going to hit cities outside the metropolitan area so that's really you know where where I think we can use your help so we can tell you when you go back to uh Capital you can tell them that another lame duck
session would uh not be appreciated so okay I will do that we look forward to a more engaged and proactive 2025 we hope so to least yeah thank you thank you yeah great thanks appreciate
it uh next up on open forum is a City Chamber request to close Main Street for crazy days August 9th through the 10th mayor ran I will just take this one briefly uh first I'd just like to congratulate Cali Jay she is the new chamber president she's here tonight um
and is taking the time to be with us to be engaged with the city activity and also just to continue to build that relationship that the city and chamber has car and I met um today just talking about General items and um you know kind of just learning about how we want to
continue to engage um through our organizations and a conversation came about with respect to crazy days as the council may know um crazy days gets to be very busy and is a great event for a couple days where um businesses will put tents um along Main Street right outside
their storefronts and um as we've observed um from a staff perspective it does get to be challenging getting cars there there's lots of pedestrians in the area and we decided that uh we would bring forward the idea to close Main Street uh for
that event for those couple of days this idea has been discussed internally in staff but I have not reached out to staff about this um today since this just came up today so I would be happy to vet that question and make sure that
aren't any concerns about that but um as we do close Main Street for some other events throughout the year this would be consistent with that practice and we workout Logistics with staff certainly if there are issues we would we would address if needed but um wanting to
bring that request forward and certainly if there are questions for me or Cali we would be happy to answer them I know we close Main Street a portion of it for the lighting one year I believe we do yes we CL yes okay so it's a same same
but it would be the same so only it would be open at Main Street and City Hall Street would that intersection would be open three ways correct well would go downtown but you'd be able to go so it cross Avenue you
could go north yes okay yes Bas at Lakers Lane and the alleys would be left open correct yes I mean if EMS does if the fire and police don't have if they don't see their yes I'd verify make sure there
were no concerns just want to make sure there there isn't a council meeting before this event so we thought we take the opportunity to ask the question in all honesty most the parking's used up by the much of it is yes used up by the tents the only difference with this is
it'd be closed 24 hours like all night and everything or would it be open at 7 8:00 at night closed in morning I don't know why it would have to be closed all night great great question yeah we could really do it either way I mean I think it would be nice for some of the
retailers to be able to leave their tents and tables and everything out you know just because there's a 12h hour window when there's no shopping happening um do they leave them mountain now or do they take them down I don't a lot of the tents and stuff left up they
take product in correct okay but they leave everything else up they leave everything else up anyway right yep yeah guess be nice to have vehicles allowed but I would open it up at night be my thing maybe so people could get
through there just for emergency stuff yeah and I think that would work fine because the biggest concern is people you know a lot of times people are in the street while they're shopping and obviously at night that's not going
to be happening it's not crazy a roll let it open at night and see how it work there aren't any problems good to rock I mean I think it open most of the tents are left open I I know what everyone else think
F so what do we if I could ask for a motion just to approve the request to close Main Street uh pending approval by staff then that would be perfect I'll make that motion that um we allow them to close Main Street for crazy days as we've discussed leaving it open after
shops closed at night and then close it the next St again during the business hour um unless staff has an objection to it second anything any other discussion all
those in favor say I I I oppose Carri thank you yeah luck okay uh City reports City administrator thank you um just a couple of quick updates as the council knows we are are starting kicking off our 2025
budget process so we will be heavily involved in that the next couple of weeks from a staff perspective uh later on in our agenda we do have a recommendation uh for hiring a new city planner which is great news so I will go through that at that time later in the
agenda and also just want to highlight since by the next council meeting uh the filing dates for our election will be closed so uh it opens Tuesday July 30th through Tuesday August 13th um if you're interested please come into City Hall
you can see Kiki our city clerk and she can help you with any questions or filing um process that you need and the last item that I have is that I would like to um ask um Tom our Public Works director to give the council a quick
update on some mind do um related items because we had an update meeting today and um he offered to provide just a quick update to the council so I assume by now most of you have probably had a chance to check out the mapping behind you this is the the
concept of the what will be happening with 371 um moving forward um it's important remember that this is a concept um and each one of those little boxes for instance is um different ideas
for an intersection so it's not guaranteed that any of these will happen but they could happen um so um mot will be in town looking for feedback and so if one of those little boxes appeals to you or
really doesn't appeal to you let them know um they're going to be updating this um at least once or twice more before they uh give a final version of it I think um one of the things that came out of today's
meeting is the intersection um at Schaefer's corner there's been some recent accidents that have happened there and you may have noticed that there's some changes in the way the light behaves um there's a flashing arrow that you maybe noticed hasn't
appeared much anymore after the death yeah so what they said is that during the peak times that will likely you won't see that and and um that could go to a point where that it just doesn't isn't used anymore so so that's one
change that they've made with that um they'll continue to monitor the activity at the intersection and they'll do a risk assessment addressing the issue and if you have any concerns please give them a give them a call contact
m. if you can maybe route through you I think it would be good for us to know what your questions are you can do that too I guess yeah um um another item that they they uh brought up today is that they will be
doing a public survey in the next few weeks to get feedback on the corridor Concepts so if you get time you know if any of these things impact you check let them know um they'll there'll be a postcard that
they're going to be mailing out and the city will Pro promote the survey through our website and social media um they're also planning I believe to be here um one of the turtle race days in the
sometime in the next three or four weeks um I know that's a discussion that I think Jenny was going to have with the chamber as far as what date made the most sense but um that'd be a great time to talk to the engineers who actually are putting this together and let them
know what you think is it Bolton yes yes and the other person you will likely see there is Tom kushank with doc he he's a great resource on this and he's he's fantastic to work with I think
if any of you get a chance to talk to them you should so um yeah and I guess I just mentioned this but um are they looking at 2030 for a start date possibility so one thing to know
about this concept is it isn't one project right this this will be many projects and so what they're going to do is they're once they get this concept kind of settled on they're going to prioritize it so the the projects so there'll be some that are immediate say for instance
um the the intersection by uh Subway for instance you know where we've had these acents they'll probably be projects that come out for those first and then some of the other things that are a little less urgent might be a medium- range project and then they'll have some that
are very long range um how much control do we have with the influence of their scheduling I think you have some I mean I I you know obviously depends funding is the king and everything right so um
but accidents drive a lot of what they're doing y um if you'll notice throughout these Concepts they add more J turns and one of the statistics they brought up today they were talking about the J returns that were added by birir
and I can't remember the exact time frame that he gave but um there were 25 I believe was 25 right angle accidents at BIR during that time frame well they had a similar time frame that has passed
now with the J turns in place about zero the right angle accidents are where people die so that's why that's important and so you will see them just like roundabouts they're a tool that they're going to use more extensively in any project that they work on and it's
spread throughout on this so there's some good things too um I think this might be one of the longer term um projects possibly middle or longer term um down by Gull Lake Drive if you're
familiar with where the fishing contest leaves to go out onto the lake they're going to Gravel Road through there yeah they're going to pay the area what's that they're going to pave the Culvert yeah they're going there'll actually be a frontage Ro that connects all the way across through their that's one of the
concepts that they're pursuing and I think that'll be a great addition for us and part of that will be doing some mitigation to keep snow that blows across the road in the winter time um so I think they've got a lot of good thought going into some of this stuff but no this put us in a push for backage
roads or not it really depends uh development D will drive it and they've said this too so for instance if any one of these intersections in our that we've been talking about if all of a sudden that development starts to
happen you will see projects that they show here related to it start to happen um one urgent one that they did discuss was um if you're familiar with the public access that goes down on the Gul Lake there's been some serious accidents
there I think there's been at least one fatality that I'm aware of um that intersection will probably be a priority um and likely what will happen there is the leg coming off of the lake will be closed and you'll be forced to go either
north or south to get back on the 371 and they have a couple different options I believe here for how they would treat that but that's one of the ones where it would be probably one of the first projects you'll see coming out of this um one statistic they brought out
of that and I hope I don't get this wrong so don't hold me to this but a fatality avoiding a fatality allows them to budget up to $4 million to avoid that
going forward do a project um but between um Emergency Services responding to the accident the death of the individual or individuals other things related to it but it can have an impact on justifying
a project up to $4 million on a roadway so now wait for clarification did you say to avoid a death or is that a per death I think it was per death or a death I think that's been shown to be the cost when that happens and so then
they use that and say well in similar areas where maybe a similar you know pattern is happening we know that if we don't address it potentially here's the cost of a death in that area because of what we've seen in other areas $14
million basically the engineering of the intersection and say was the blame so they want to fix those yeah typically that's when you do an accident report you typically if engineering was a problem my interpretation of that would
be if you ever see LifeLight landing at or near one of these intersections there's probably a high motivation for mot to to address that and so you'll see one of these solutions that they've proposed probably coming to fruition sooner rather than
later um one last thing I've have to mention um the city staff will be meeting with mot and croen County to discuss local Road Connections the backage roads um next week um and this is to
ensure that our planning aligns with what mind is proposing you'll notice they they um indicate the backage roads with a thin black line on this concept and they don't exactly line up with what we've been showing that's why
I asked that so I think it'll it likely would end up closer to what we're showing I think that they just drew that in as kind of a placeholder that show that there will be some kind of roadway that goes in there well it seemed like they'd work with us on that when they were up here
putting it out but just wanted to make sure well I think what you need to know too is the group that's probably been working with us more closely probably understands that but they do delegate some of this design work to Engineers who are in St Paul or you know wherever
the head offices for Bolton and think and it comes back a little different so the meeting we have next week is to try to get some of that to look more like what we've been proposing um with that I guess if there's any
questions that I can try to answer or did good I like that when is the next meeting for people to comment with them is there like a public meeting coming up um there there I believe there is but I think the next
closest thing for public comment would be the um the uh session where they're going to be at the turtle races they're going to have like a desk set up and and one of the engineers from M and then probably Tom kushank that I was talking about or
you know one of the mot folks will be there great time they'll have the latest concept they'll be able to answer your questions more directly than I can we were just talking about that today they said they would let us know when that's determined so I'll make sure
the council's aware and also I think in the next weeker so that survey will be out they said there was great response the first time around so certainly we want to encourage particip ipation in that as well and then I do anticipate they'll come back to the council sometime this fall with additional time to talk to you and to get your feedback
on the plans thank you Tom I appreciate the update thanks Tom thank you yep and that's all I have thank you City attorney good evening everybody I have no report here tonight city
engineer uh good evening everybody um I guess my reporter is I've been working with um Tom and uh amber on a lot of the different projects around uh nisah such as you know creating a lot of proposals and trying to get everything finalized
and completed such as gold leg Trail thank you okay new business first item under new business is the Verizon cell tower site plan I can kick this off and then we do have representative here virtually that we will bring on the screen for you as
well um so in 2016 uh conditional use permit and variants were approved for a cell tower to be located on city property in the central business district that Tower was never constructed since that time the city has become aware of Park grants both through the federal and state um DNR that were
given to the city the construction of a cell tower on Park property would violate the conditions and requirements of these grants uh Verizon uh through bu Consulting recently contacted the city once again to obtain the necessary permits and variances to construct a
cell tower in the central business district they would prefer to construct the tower as close to the original approved location but would proceed with an alternate location should the city deem it favorable and tonight we are here because uh Bethany soerin advised
um bu Consulting we have Mr krog I hope I'm pronouncing that correctly um here to to discuss their proposed location provide some information to the council and then hopefully the council can provide us with Direction uh to move forward and and assisting in this
process uh we also have a Communications ordinance and can maybe work through some of those Logistics but I think for now we will just turn it over um to the applicant to talk about what they're proposing and provide us a little bit of
background which will um then help our conversation moving forward yes thank you and good evening everyone can you hear me okay yes yes okay good thank you um right so uh several years ago about six years ago
Verizon signed a lease with the city for the proposed Tower site there was the plan at that time was to replace a uh light standard at the ball field with a a poll uh that could handle cell phone
antennas as well as the lights for the ball field um in uh they got the uh uh uh conditional use per I believe they went completely through the conditional use permit process and had all the had everything in line but for probably for
financial re funding reasons the site got put on hold and uh it didn't come back to life until uh late last year or early this year when I reached back out to the city so so in the meantime the DNR and other
whatever other Grant situations uh came to light I guess that's uh the Silver Lining here is we didn't build something where we couldn't build it without permission um so our we have redesigned
so to speak the the site to it appears from maps and uh surveys surveys that Verizon did and maps the city provided uh one in particular that
showed a roughly drawn Grant area on a map uh around the ball field that kind of the some of the lines lined up with uh uh uh parcel lines uh from the
surveys that uh Verizon conducted so I put two and two together and figured well our uh the equipment area uh was originally appears to be outside the DNR Grant area but the the pole would have
been inside the grant area so our proposal now is uh hopefully the least uh uh amount of uh uh you know the path uh with the least uh uh reject least
resistance I guess you would say would be to move the pole uh in instead of replacing a light standard move the pole outside of the DNR Grant area and put it adjacent to Verizon's equipment area
which to me from the maps that we've seen appears to be outside the DNR Grant area so what I guess what we're requesting the city to do is take that site sketch that you have in your
package I believe it's page 23 or 24 maybe both of those pages uh that shows the pole adjacent to the equipment area and uh if the city could take that to the DNR and request I guess it's a
determination uh as to you know confirmation that everything in that location is outside the DNR or whatever other grants the city has received uh
area so hopefully that makes sense to everyone so we're still not sure if the DNR is GNA if we're where we need to be we're not 100% sure right and so
we need that we want PN the city to verify this is what you're asking yes sir if the if the city council was agreeable to this proposed idea this location as an idea then yes that would be one of the steps
that we would want to take is to ensure that is outside of that Grant area I don't know if that's been verified um Amber's here if we want to ask but that would that would be one of the steps yes um I think there are other considerations with respect to the
location of this with the with some of the improvements that we have been talking about with the pickle um and I do also have a question regarding setbacks for the City attorney um with respect to proximity to the ohw that's in our ordinance so there are some
questions that that we do have but to answer your question yes but Jenny to be clear in what you just said or I shouldn't say to be clear but maybe just to clarify what you just said is and what what he was talking about is let's find out from DNR what they think about this perspective site and how it may or
may not impact that Grant process but if you approve that process to go forward today you're not is it on okay thank you you're not approving this site we're not we're not asking you to approve the site correct just the site
plan just a concept um enough to drive forward of DNR to determine whether or not it interferes with the grant process do I have that right yes oh you're not asking for approval of the site contingent on DNR saying it doesn't interfere with no no no no certainly
not yeah this is going to this could potentially impact future pickle or other things part two yes so because other things have changed since this was initially brought up on our end too yes so if you're comfortable with even considering this as a site then staff
will go forward to investigate with DNR so I would say no to the site for all those reasons you know with what's going on with the pickle you know even currently right now with snow plowing stuff like that that's that's the big
pile for the snow and everything but the concept of having a tower in town yes but not in that location I think we also have a consideration of this land acquisition where that being ironically also the highest point in city um I think there
is a strong need to have a small cell tower in this area commercial business district I think it's a matter of boosting signals I know like down even by where I'm at right it's
goofy very lacking service yes yes but what about there's behind the uh fire department where we already have the repeater tower and all that stuff put all the towers in one spot right exactly what I was thinking that
would be potentially a better spot for all of us because it doesn't hem Us in here or where the recycling was or something no it can't go there it can't it can't go there that's part of the grant property all right sorry that's a grant
and then um one comment I know um fire chief Bailey um has done some research on this topic specifically and how the helicopter would access from the north um and so kind of like the North End of the fire tower thing or the fire hall
was not a preferred location along with the east side where the recycling was that now is part of the park boundary line that would need to be verified um as we're just discussing the city did uh Bethany did
speak with Woody about potentially some space that we have in undeveloped our undeveloped Cemetery area I don't know if Tom was involved at all in any of those discussions I don't know if that was viable or preferable not sure the reasons if not but we did provide a
suggestion as far as that location because there's you know potential for kind of making that work um without a lot of other things in the way but um well if we move forward that let's
just for discussion sake if we were to move say yeah let's find out if this is okay with the DNR does the conditional use permit and stuff that we discussed in the past bind us in any way well they've all expired okay because I I kind of think it would be
nice to find a better spot we can we can move forward but I yes I I agree with mayor Ryan is to find a better spot for this because there was even discussion with Park if at some point in the future the baseball team had even said if we
could ex make the field a little bigger so it would qualify as a different size League or whatever that was I can't remember exactly and how much land is need for this whole well you're looking at 559 Square
ft am I reading that right yeah am I reading that correctly 5 basically 60 square feet yes sir I I was just looking at the the sketch myself and yes that is exactly right is
what they're showing in that area for the uh the ground equipment as well as the proposed Tower um I can uh address the other location this that the city has of I guess you
all know what I'm talking about when I say the cemetery area um that we had Verizon's RF Engineers look at that area uh preliminarily um they don't like it
because it's it's really too far away from where where they really need to be to efficiently cover the the downtown area um you know so for what it's worth that they're at this point Verizon is
really not interested in that Cemetery area thank you that's helpful can I ask a question of the City attorney Tom did you get a chance to look at my question regarding the ohw our ordinance references under no circumstances is
that meaning prohibited or can you is that how we want to interpret it because thank you so currently the location proposed is within that quarter mile setback of um the ohw of um a lake yeah so that will have to be taken into
consideration um to say basically it's a prohibited use in that area have to draw a circle around that and make sure that that doesn't and if I understand correctly the original location was also within that uh quarter mile ohw
setback that's correct yes okay but I don't know if how ordinance read in 2016 vers potentially right so what's the council's wish I guess I have there have there been other have there been other
targeted sites a option A B CDE e are we to discuss amongst ourselves what we can find I mean I'm looking at L here showed mayor Ry potential location next to the the West Northwest side of the roundabout that we just constructed on
18 for example City on land the north yeah basically your head yay you're talking about that one off of but we still have the same quarter mile from the ohw issue which would be a
variance no well if it's a prohibited that's prohibited which means you can't yeah do it and we don't have much of any control that's the state right do we have the donation consideration from that family that's east of the cemetery
still or is that too far away too far away but he just said that wasn't due to their RF that over there there wouldn't be so basically you're talking about the property that's out there just to the have at there's not an option within downtown that's more than a quarter mile
away right from the ohw so possibly the far end of our parking lot but I haven't explored that in any serious way and replace one of our light standards here on the parking lot that's is that in the
park there's not a lot of City owned property that really meets a need though we do I think recognize and acknowledge that there is a need and so that's certainly what we want to try to assist with um how close to downtown are you
looking to have it yeah well that's why it's like St Christopher's Church property right yeah right so at this point in time we have only looked at the City properties the the the original
proposal um then uh you all were discussing the fire station behind there uh but apparently as as y all as was stated the fire department was against that and uh
and it also was in the the grant area um and then the so the the third would be the property by the cemetery is the only locations that have been considered at this point um um
let me say this um I mean I guess if we have to if we can find a spot that is acceptable uh to the council um that is in the grant area uh and correct me if I'm wrong Jenny I
guess but if there was a spot that was acceptable it would entail the whatever uh forgive me I don't know the exact terminology but whatever some sort of
application or whatever with the DNR to allow for the the uh prohibited so to speak use in Grant area what's your what what you have we have we were informed we have to do is if we were to get the
approval to use a piece of that property for something other than a park we would then have to replace buy another piece of property somewhere and dedicate it to the park but that's a process to get the approval that's only if you get the
approval from it's not just the DNR but it's also Federal feds the federal government as well because it was a federal state Grant am I correct in that Amber yeah um all of this is correct so whether it's the park boundary that we need to verify and connect with the DNR
or if um the council did want to assess anything within that boundary there is a conver process um that everybody's talking about here that does take several months um all other areas have to be vetted and
explained why um it's not feasible um for the conversion to go through and then it does require those state and federal approvals as well as the purchase of replacement land any knowledge on school on the school location looking at it on the
plot there's a snippet on the East s side that is touch at the end of school street it's got to be half mile past well I be where are you looking at behind the school east of the field
at this Elementary I'll just say are we at a point where maybe with City just can't do this on city property downtown because we don't even we're already in that within the ohw anyway which was something that our ordinances weren't up to Snuff back in
2016 I think that's safe to say possibly I think the uniqueness of this would then be we would need to change our ordinance to expand that I don't even know if that's allowed I'm looking at Tom we probably don't know off the top of our heads but I mean that's the requirement now is at a Beyond city
property so um we'd have to explore that a little bit certainly could do that and if the council why don't could we table it until the and have staff do that find out I mean if it if it's get
in the ohw and stuff then it sounds like we got more questions and answers before we make a decision sure I don't know what everyone else thinks I'm just kind of the and we can't let it be built in the ohw we don't have a choice in that
matter that's not up to us yeah that's what that's what my question is about the ohw so if I'm hearing you all correctly um uh there's no possibility of a variance or whatever was used previously
to allow for placement in the ohw that's that's out the window correct um I believe that's correct we just changed that that was a be yeah the state doesn't allow us to do a variance that's where that came
from okay so so sure that I'm correct on that so anything that's within a quarter m of the ohw is automatically out the window no ifs hands or butts Ian that's how I read the the ordinance language but that's what the
language says there's if that's a question of whether we'd have the discretion to modify that yeah or vary from it somehow is something we'll have to look at but yeah let's look into that because it's our understanding we can't but if we could look into that that would give us could we do that by next
meeting mhm yep also look at and then you know there's other opportunities maybe private properties or like the school district might have you know I mean now let's look into different A and C where we can get this
done whether it be Anderson leers public or private they'll say'll say I know is it a fair assessment of the council's feedback to say you would uh prefer it not to be in
the proposed location due to the potential improvements that we're looking into at this time or do you want to keep this correct so we will look into the ohw question and some alternate sites we'll work with them to talk about that
some more and come back next month yeah so we'll table till next month do you have question well I just quick question question maybe just my understanding so I know height is probably an issue but we do have the chamber property the
Gazebo that sits there is it possible to S could somehow be there I don't know it's a great suggestion we have to answer the ohw question yeah because that's within that area but but if there was an 80 foot taller sitting there would that be a no
for I think I think that's still would that may interfere with flight but I don't know I think there's that would look right downtown you mean where the Gazebo is no you know I I'm just throwing it out
there as a possibility it's in the very center of town it's City owned property does this does this Tower have the design for to be blended into the natural wood um wooded surroundings like some of
these cell towers that have been constructed in the Mina I mean it's actually required to be painted blue light blue or other color that is demonstrated to minimize visibility so there are requirements within because if you think of we go highing up you're looking up at the sky and they're trying
to yeah blend it in so can the chamber hang Christmas lights from it put a star at the top can we just put it on top of the new water tower can Mike and the guys hang this this needs to be tabled until
next to conclude this so we can keep moving forward for table or next month next month and uh any follow with with Woody on this um so just need a motion to table till August yeah I so
move all those in favor we need a second I thought you said it and he second it okay good okay okay than one final question I guess just so I'm clear on what was just voted on um you all are
going to re look at this next the the proposed location and possibly any other new locations that you come up with next month is that yeah the city administrator will get with you and and we'll fill you in on where exactly that
and then we'll look into what we can or can't do and then we'll revisit it next month very good thank you so much appreciate it thank you thank you have a good evening um next item on the agenda recommendation from the Planning Commission reference
zoning map Amendment uh thank you so uh property owner niswa Co LC is seeking to rezone two Parcels from Urban residential to Highway business uh our um interim city planner has provided the council with a
staff report that details all of the um questions ordinance requirements for consideration the Planning Commission did move to recommend to city council the approval um of this request um to change the zoning district from Urban
residential to Highway business district um this does align with the city's comprehensive plan and our future land use map um showing these Parcels to be included in the desired Highway commercial area um
and so staff also did bring forward a request to the planning or a recommendation to the Planning Commission to approve that this request I did also want to just briefly note we did receive um one comment from Kurt and
Brenda laner it is um included in the council packet um their feedback came um after the Planning Commission meeting so the other comments at that meeting are provided in the minutes the draft minutes uh from that um otherwise the Planning Commission recommends the city
council approve the ordinance zoning map Amendment change as presented for partials for the record 282 30531 and 28230 517 a representative of the applicant is here tonight if you have questions
otherwise we are just looking for a motion to approve well you know me I keep wanting all that buffer zone natural buffer zone between 371 and anything that goes in there and I just want to make sure that we keep on top of that understood that would be a component of a specific application that
would come forward to the city and we could condition that application to include certain buffer zones or other requirements that we would deem appropriate y okay does anyone have any questions or there I'll entertain a
motion Mr R I'll make a motion to uh approve the recommendation from planning zoning uh excuse me from Planning Commission regarding the zoning zoning map Amendment for the I'll second or do you want to put those
in uh to Res Zone Parcels 282 3531 and 282 30517 from Urban residential Highway business my second any further discussion all those in favor say I I I
opposed Carri mayor ran can I also please have a motion to publish the summary ordinance in the newspaper so mooved second all those in favor I I opposed carried uh gake Trail final pay
request uh thank you so this information it was noted in your packet this information will be provided prior to the meeting um it is not complete and Amber bill and I are working to ensure that we provide the council with uh the correct information and getting all of the quantities finalized before we bring
this to you with that we were informed by the DN are that we need to have the final pay request submitted by August 9th so my request to the council is to schedule a special meeting to approve the final pay request because we don't
have very much time and uh unfortunately we just need to get that done so I'm hoping um Tom you have a comment do you need a special meeting or can you just continue this one this agenda item too so you don't have to post and everything else either either way yes certainly we
can accomplish I'm just making sure I'm just stating we need to schedule separate time to to finalize this so um my suggestion or ask is August Monday August 5th is that okay for you
ear I'd say the sooner the better I just don't know I don't know when we're going to have things finalized so we can come we can follow up with the council I'm just figured that would definitely give us enough time but if we table we have to table to a specific date so that's the question if
you want us to wait until we're done and then schedule a special meeting or if you want to pick a date now what's all left to do WTH is working with Anderson Brothers to finalize the quantities from the
final set of work that was completed and make sure that all of the change orders are recorded properly and kind of wrapping all that up is that fair Bill yes I would just say email all of us when you have the when you have it prepared with option A B and C we can
get back to you accordingly as we have in the past that's what we're going to have to do yeah yeah for a for a special meeting and since you're gonna have all us together if there's anything well we just uh Workshop wise why
not what was the other option Tom I'm sorry I'm TI did just just continue the agenda item to an ascertained date but we might not be able to do that since we don't kind of know when we're going to have our information so if we knew that we could do that but it sounds like we better just wait well unless we put a
date of August 5th as as Jenny but if it gets done sooner than that special meeting so that's what he's saying just when it's completed submit an email to all of us of three dates times I think the council
can just take no action on this item and can move forward okay thank you he uh Parks letter of completion for go Lake Trail project this is part of the requirement for our final reimbursement so um we just need to certify that it is complete
and this is just part of the information so if you guys want to do this tonight or if you want to do it with the pay application either one works we just need to have it done for the reimbursement okay we'll just do that we'll just we'll move three and four together yeah
to the next meeting the special meeting okay uh actually at4 still Community impact funds yeah I think our numbering got a little bit mixed up so apologize for that so um we
are turned around the letters to the next meeting we'll wrap that up uh yes the item for Source Wells Community impact funding agreement this is just the agreement source well sent over to us to accept uh the funds and as we then work towards finalizing the specifics of
that project okay number five approv sourcewell Community impact funding agreement as a Jenny just said so I'll make a motion to approve the sourceful community impact funding agreement as discussed second discussion
any I don't think anything hasn't been is said already in regards to all those in favor I I opposed carried number six approve early retirement incentive program this has been discussed as part
of the employee retention committee um and Personnel committee conversations with council with staff uh so providing something for the council to review and if you wish to adopt uh assuming you do adopt that would make that effective
immediately uh but certainly the council has your discretion as to when you would like that effective anyone have any questions or I think it was a great opportunity to be able to sit down with them and I bought pizza because I had to accidentally
cancel the originally planned so sorry guys again but um I think it was a great discussion from the Personnel committee with the heads or actually the the RC and and Jenny so went good I think did and the next few slate of of policies
and and so I'll make a motion that we accept the policy as presented I'll second any further discussion questions okay all those in favor say I I I opposed
Carri uh number seven employee recognition plan policy update uh some yes so I did present a draft of this to the council in June uh you directed it to be incorporated into
the employee recognition plan I did discuss this um with staff at a department head meeting and they provided some feedback that suggested the Personnel committee be the group to evaluate the nominations for employee of
the year so I made that change uh I also adjusted per conversation with council member Zan um the cost of the event to a not to exceed a $5,000 and also left the location open to where this event might be held
thinking you know certainly somewhere in niswa but could be the community center could be the pickle um as Jesse suggested maybe as an option uh some other things like that uh so that could be flexible that could change every year depending on on on what the event might
look like the one component I did not incorporate that I would ask for Council feedback on if you would like to incorporate that into the policy is if you would like to include a cash award to the winners So currently the policy reflects a plaque would be presented I
did verify with our Auditors that a cash award is possible if the amount is specifically noted in the policy so whatever that amount is we would specifically say what that is um and then the cash award would be considered taxable income to the winner subject to
applicable withholdings so just as a just as an FYI so that would be one question I have for the council if you'd like to incorporate that um otherwise feedback or suggestions on the policy thank you I know the $5,000 seems atrociously high for a party by all
counts I don't think yeah not anym right but I I don't think that we would really be scratching close to that I think we'll do our best to try to keep it inh house chief Bailey is a great cook if any of you have have the opportunity to have his food and and
again this would be able to encourage the employees to be able to bring their families try to take advantage of this opportunity to bring everybody together and to be able to praise those that are are going above and beyond so it's a cultural aspect I think it'll provide
Great Value to us and start a good tradition for many many years to come how does the uh voting process on this work so nominations would be S uh would be anyone could nominate someone um
utilizing the criteria to explain why that person um should receive the award and then those nominations would be sent to the Personnel committee to evaluate and would look to those five criteria to um determine the winners for that year
what happens if somebody is on the Personnel committee well that person would have to step off the personnel and they would have we wouldd have to substitute a different member for it and more than likely because it's two council members and
myself none of that group would be nominated um I guess if one of the council members submitted a nomination on behalf of someone yes we'd have to adjust and make sure that we're being fair and and addressing those nuances if they come
up I think the emphasis is for Citywide leaders lead but see what we can do to try to show some appreciation to those in all departments open for feedback well so this is does this cover what you wanted
it to cover the criteria right the criteria and stuff yeah actually I took a good snippet from uh the Rainer chamber I believe it was for the war under 40 award that had some
criteria and ushered that over to Jenny and streak a little bit be more applicable for ammun but again open for feedback I'm just I had start we had start somewhere what's
the staff feed back been on it good I mean like what was it you positive and appreciative of the idea and the effort um that I think you're looking to to put forward for something like this so um
definitely uh thankful to to have a consideration for something like this was the the sentiment feedback was good now when is these Awards will be handed out or did I Buzz past that we would
um hold the event in the fourth quarter so again I left it broad just to make sure they pick timing that was appropriate so nominations would actually be due here at L August 15th on a normal year when this is AA estblished and and people expect that so maybe this
year we would adjust to allow for additional time to submit nominations but then the event would be held sometime in the fourth quarter of the Year and have the Gathering at that time and the awards okay well I'm good with it would there
be a party planning committee then yes Committee of one me we're having ribs well she Bailey come on um Mr May I'll make a motion to approve the employee recognition plan policy update as presented I'll second any
further discussion questions all those all those in favor I I opposed carried next item is the non-union vacation leave schedule as presented this was another idea um
proposed to help kind of improve the um benefits provided to staff it would provide um an initial uh set of days for new hires um because it is a challenge to come on board to a new job and not have any vacation leave when you're hired for
quite some time um try to reduce the number of tiers to simplify the structure and mirror a little bit of the other groups um number of days just to try to be as consistent as possible
um across the board and certainly um open to feedback was looking at this from a non-union employee perspective um and as my note references um this could then be made available for unions if they wanted to
um adjust to the schedule that would be up to them there's no obligation if they like one better versus the other the last piece that we will continue to look into from a staff perspective is U modifying how we earn vacation leave um and looking at if we
go to an acral system if that would easily work for our payroll system what does that transition look like and potentially looking to do that around January 1 if that makes sense and we would want to get more staff feedback on that and talk through that in more
detail but we would bring that forward to the council if all signs really looked like that would make sense to do and and transition that so you'd earn a little bit every month with every paycheck as oppos to the large chunk at the end during you know at each
anniversary date why don't we just you know I mean with the state's you know criteria it's all acrel you know and it goes on that why why don't we just try and follow
that policy with that you know so many days are cred for time work that seems you know I mean just just given this blanket day thing seems like it's been a little bit of a broke system here with staff and you know even now the
state of Minnesota has said you know it a cruise on hours worked and stuff and I guess I would prefer to see some sort of system like that versus just a blank number of days I think that's I don't know a little bit more
fair and getting in line with the way that this sort of thing is being done even from the state level that that's what I was just mentioning is that we I want to make sure that we can easily transition to that and we don't cause any other hiccups or issues with that um
I know it's not everyone's experience my experience um previous work has been very consist consistent with this setup but I certainly think that that is the acurel system is a great idea and I don't know so long as we verify that the
process would work out well and everyone understand what that transition looks like that we can't move to that sort of setup so it will take just a few months and to look into and make sure that that makes sense to do I agree with what Joe's saying yeah so then we went but it
would all have to be renegotiated with the Union so yeah because I want to make sure that there's no objection or concern on that end we haven't had those conversations but you still have contract negotiations coming up and that would have to be changed per Union contract so two so it would all fall
into place at the same time but you I don't know of anyone else but you know I've started new jobs and it's you know you have a have an emergency come up and you're taking days off Del P that can hurt so
that was just kind of the idea that was kicked around this was something that um the Personnel committee brought or not the Personnel committee the uh reten well yeah but we all we both did the employee recognition commit the employee the
employee commission uh excuse me retention retention committee and us when we were talking about it so I mean they were they were in favor they didn't have a problem with this did they or did you not did we I thought we
discussed this with the employee retention commiss committee I I did provide it to the chair I know they talked about it as a committee I'm I don't certainly there's some members here I mean this certainly improves the vacation um for staff and there's no negative downside you can certainly
table that if you want um the goal of this though is to help promote new people that's that's what the motive is though well there's also increased vacation for longer tenured employees here as well so both ends I think adjust
um and you move up faster you get more days faster as you go with this as opposed to the current structure does any staff want to put input it this is a greater benefit to staff
than the current system right right I can't speak for the entire Union but I can speak for myself I think it's a fair offer I've worked with both systems of cruel and or this is what you get per
year um and the funny thing is acral when you acrw that hours per how many hours you work works out the same as to if you get X days per year um and all of them
always did the January 1 well I shouldn't say that one company you got it on your higher date was your year um the others it was on January 1st of the year is when they put everything in but um in reality crewing and and or here's
what you get it it works out the same um but if the idea is though is that if you acrew you get a little bit along the way so that's correct better benefit lens from that yeah maybe I didn't explain that right
so like on January 1 you would get all of your days and then when you did acrel when I went to that it was you acred so you'd have some for each week but number hours per hours right so I guess with creel you can set it up with after 10
years you crew at a higher rate or different years marage then you you have to yeah yeah yeah I just in under in this case you do would have to the way ours is set up you Maggie my major feedback comment would
be to work to an a cruel basis it would eliminate some of these newer staff that are coming that have nothing yes they will start with nothing but then after their first payroll they'll have three hours or six hours or whatever it is and it eliminates that
initial 5 days or whatever the policy states that we're giving them upfront okay I guess with that can we table this and uh reevaluate this at a later time maybe is there something specific you're looking for
well or you just want to have us go through that acrel a lot of objections to it I yeah I think the whole point of this which I think we accomplished a good amount was to here solid feedback I want there to be Buy in across the board yep that's all
um and you know being on personal committee I'll take responsibility I mean we I want to hear by next meeting I want to hear what an acral system will do we should be able to figure it out within a month I would think if the if our software can do the acral system
yeah but then let's just see how that looks then okay we'll put some we'll make sure we go through the details and the conversion and all of that that's what I really wanted to make sure that we translate that correctly and then the unions will have to be notified if that we do vote to do that then when we go to
contract negotiations we don't end up with two different ways we don't want two different ways of doing it the city wants one way the state's already requiring us to track at the Cur way for not for not for vacation though no but for everything else for the right so I
think there would maybe be um would it make more sense to with contract negotiations just incorporate that into that conversation and make sure that all is worked out that's what they want do it we can be ready to implement yeah okay so we can
bring it back to you at such time as we're in that we don't need to table this we'll just because if we table it we got to BR back next month correct yes so we'll just strike it for now very good okay next item uh additional Severance
six pay leave payout questions Mr R I'll make a motion to approve the severance pay SI leave payout update as presented I'll second questions all those in favor I I I uh number 10
conditional offer to city for the city planner position yes so I'm pleased to bring forward a recommendation to city council to approve the hire of Steven Timlin as our city planner uh he has bachelor's degree in biology and currently works for Coen County as an environmental services
specialist um he uh has uh definitely uh experience and knowledge that we're looking for he's completing his ssts inspector certification and is a Minnesota wetland delineator in training um his references notice noted that he has strong communication skills he
provides a high level customer service self-motivated thorough and Comm manage a variety of tasks without issue uh my recommendation would be to offer a starting salary at grade 15 Step One of the Minnesota Public Employee Association supervisor Union contract
which is 7357 uh included in this recommendation is of course uh approval subject to a con successful completion of a background check and his start date will be August 19th I'll make a motion
to approve the conditional offer as presented by staff a second discussion can I ask how many years has he been with the county do we know two years any further question all those in favor
I opposed car uh mayor and council member reports if there's anything that anyone has Joe no Jesse sir Bruce yeah I'd like to make a
comment at this time about the Fourth of July celebration up here and all the great work that the city staffers did and all the volunteers and the people from the chamber I was up here and witnessed it myself and things went pretty smooth thank you
all Mark I don't have anything okay and I don't either uh next item is a recommendation to move to close session presu to Minnesota statute 13 d05 subdivision C reference consideration of offer for property
purchase um when we return from closed session we will be simply to adjourn yes and if I can add to your uh motion I apologize mayor right I forgot to give you this piece of paper so we do have to identify the property IDs that would be for
28150 636 28150 637 281 5547 and 28150 604 I'll amend my motion accordingly all second all those in
favor all I oppose we are now in close session we'll give and few minute recess to reset yeah thank you