let's start 5:15 can we please call the workshop to order april 1st council member Nordby here council member Woods here council member McKenzie here uh so excuse me council member
Schwear is absent and Mayor Mongi here thank you very much all right can I get a motion to adopt the agenda please so move so move council member Mackenzie second second council member Woods all those in favor say "I." I i thank you very
much all right we are on to topics all right thank you Mayor we have two topics up tonight um first one is discussion of proposed ordinance amendment 117 of the North St paul city code which is consumption and display of permits it was a conversation we had at
the last council meeting we have uh attorney Jack Burksbank to uh discuss thank you Jack good afternoon Mr mayor members of council um can you can you hear me through here all I assume what can you hear me through the microphone i don't
know i can't hear any uh as long as I'm on the Oh that's better there we go just want to make sure I'm on the recording um so before you um we had a little bit of discussion uh on this matter uh at
the last council meeting uh although I believe Mr mayor you weren't present uh so uh we had um discussion with a potential local business owner uh who was um here in the audience then not here now um talking
about consumption and display permits uh as we mentioned at the previous meeting a consumption and display permit is a type of liquor license that does not allow a business to sell or serve alcohol but does allow people to bring their own um you know to the location
and selfs serve uh the council at the time had uh couple of concerns uh that we have addressed with an updated uh or attempted to address uh with an updated draft of the ordinance uh that I believe should be before you
and um of course my laptop has decided to freeze uh but uh uh handling a couple of um concerns number one uh that the council had asked for was uh making sure that there was going to be some kind of a uh you know
sober professional who would be in charge of um serving the alcohol now on the way that the law works this cannot be an employee of the venue um so it has to be sort of an outside person um but uh the draft in front of you would
require um some kind of an additional professional um with some kind of training and we say you know um MLBA or tips training or equivalent uh and then it's kind of on them uh we also require uh that the venue um keep proof of who
that person is and their um certification for 3 years uh the reason for that is there is a 2-year statute of limitations on um liquor liability claims uh and so that will make sure that if there were to be a claim the venue should have kind of all of the
information of the party and the insurance and everyone involved um and so hopefully that information would uh be easily accessible um there we go uh also restricted the available locations for these to
locations that would otherwise be eligible for a liquor license so that would be basically business district uh it would make sure that it you know it wouldn't be available too close to the school or in residential areas um believe those are uh kind of the the
main changes um from before i know you know there's still um potential for change this is still just a draft uh uh one thing I would note current draft uh so having talked with uh some
insurance folks as well as the potential business owner uh it is possible to get what's called event insurance so basically the venue would be carrying its own general liability insurance it would not be carrying um you know sort
of drram shop or liquor liability insurance because that's not really what's going right graham shop is for if you serve someone who is drunk and the venue will not be serving anyone it is possible for an event such as a wedding reception or a you know award dinner or
something to acquire their own insurance it's like a one-day event insurance uh this draft would require event insurance if you have an event of 25 or more people um that number of 25 people is just what I thought was reasonable on
the day uh and is fully up to council um you could require it for an event of two people you could require it for you know an event of 50 or more um you know that sort of uh at what level were we going to kick in a requirement that you have insurance and of course the venue can
always require you know more insurance than we do uh nothing in there would prevent the venue from playing it safer this is just what are the minimum requirements how involved does the city want to be in this as opposed to having the business managing
things um keeping in mind of course that these permits will be available beyond just the proposed wedding venue um although that is the impetus for the change um so that's kind of the uh kind of the
the changes uh I guess I'll run through a couple of um policy decisions as well that were discussed at the past meeting that Mr mayor was not at um eligibility uh so under state statute it's quite a broad eligibility it's anyone who hasn't
been convicted of a liquor license violation uh or a restaurant bar B&B hotel some list of businesses uh presumably the idea being that if you lost your liquor license as a restaurant you couldn't get
a new liquor license because you violated it but you could potentially get one of these permits to allow people to bring their own even if you weren't serving them um so the question is does the city want to allow the maximum statutory eligibility or restrict that further which the city does have the
ability to do uh the second item uh is the fees there is a statutory cap uh on $300 for the fee that would include um you know some background checks uh and the sort of the administrative process
of granting the permit uh there's also a $250 permit fee for the state so it will be a total of $550 uh which is similar to a um club special liquor license about twice what it get
costs for a 32 license uh and about 10% of the next cheapest liquor license so it seemed at the time that the council was interested in at least starting at the maximum given the amount of background checks that the city would be performing um but again
that is a decision that is left to the council uh and then finally um the draft in front of you uh would that would be a council procedure just like a liquor license um there would be an opportunity for anyone to be heard and then the council would make the final decision on
whether to grant the permit uh that again unlike with a full liquor license that is not a statutory requirement um so if the council didn't want to be involved you could decide um that that would be an administrative permit that would be handled sort of exclusively by
staff um or if the council would prefer to be kept more involved in the process we could leave it as a council decision that's kind of laying out where we're at what some of the changes have been since the last meeting uh and so at this point I would turn it to the
council if there's any discussion or any questions uh at this point thank you Jack thank you so much i really appreciate all the work you put on to this um I have two two questions I guess the insurance requirement that you are mandating do you believe that is
similar or the same and complies with these state shop laws i I know you said it's not the business yes yes i I believe it would be similar scope of coverage for you know you so you get invent event insurance for a wedding
reception if one of the guests at the wedding reception gets too drunk and then injures someone um the weddings insurance would be the coverage that would uh sort of provide for that so it it would be a pretty similar to a drram shop insurance for a bar except that it
would be held by the person throwing the event and not the venue awesome thank you um that answers all my question i guess the only statement I would have for the council is I believe the insurance should be acquired for any
event regardless of number of people um uh if they're if they're having an event I believe they should have to have insurance right uh the chances of one of five getting over served and injuring someone to me is just as good as one in 25 so that would be the only change I
would recommend to um the uh Jack's wonderful presentation i agree to that as it's common in most facilities that you have to have your own insurance for that yeah but other than that I I really thank you for all the hard work
makes sense thank you any other questions anybody if not appreciate it then you're going to be bringing that come up to the council going to be put in as a as an item yes so that will be an item then at the next city council meeting so we'll
um we'll get that uh draft we'll get the the change made on the insurance perfect uh and then we'll get that posted to the website and uh brought back for a vote at the next council meeting now will the business owner be in in attendance for that then or would it not uh potentially
it's not required um you know certainly it will be publicly posted um I guess we can I'll send her an email to let her know that it will be happening then um there's not necessarily a a requirement that she be involved yeah that's for
this whole city so Yep yeah thank you and um since you weren't there last meeting as well she did clarify that she will not be um available to open in the next couple of weeks anyway so it's not like we're delaying the business yeah I saw that video thank you thanks thank
you thank you Jack thanks Jack all right next topic is uh code compliance overview we have welcome appreciate you coming up and going over this with us this is been something we've been wanting to do so thank you so much for taking time yeah
welcome can everybody hear me great um I have with me uh firefighter code compliance officer McKenzie Foster and we'll just uh review uh some code compliance uh topics and uh at any point you have questions throw them out and
obviously at the end we can uh take some questions um but I put together uh just a a brief uh PowerPoint and what we're going to review tonight are uh co-compliance officer responsibilities uh the process
complaint driven and proactive inspections uh we'll review our 2024 code compliance numbers uh we'll go over the notification to the property owner uh time to correct violations
uh what a summary abatement order is and uh legal options uh when progress has not been achieved so who's enforcing code compliance obviously within the fire department uh during the daytime Monday through Friday we have the three uh
full-time firefighters but uh mainly McKenzie as the firefighter code compliance officer she is dealing with the code compliance owner occupied single family homes um also on her plate we won't get
into tonight but the zoning inspections which include driveway inspections fences and inspections um those things of of that sort of of nature as well and then obviously fire and EMS response
uh are two fire inspectors that deal with uh rental licensing they will deal with those properties that have code compliance issues uh directly although McKenzie and those inspectors do work
very closely on those issues um passing them back and forth and and discussing those uh but it just helps keep the inspectors in the know of what's going on at that rental property uh they also deal with the fire certificate of
compliance which is our commercial fire inspections so they will also deal with code compliance issues there um for instance if there's garbage and debris in the property illegal dumping things of that nature uh going on um and they
also obviously deal with the inspections at schools group homes and uh sprinkler plan review and fire and EMS response as well so how do we get notified of a
complaint there's multiple um ways to get notified throughout the city uh one of the main ways uh is called resident resource which is a um a way through our the city's website and and open gov uh
report a problem code compliance concern link from the website to open gov for reporting and the complaint is directly sent to staff obviously people can call in to city hall through the mainline uh we do have a code compliance
uh phone number as well as a code compliance tip line or directly to McKenzie Foster and others as as uh required um or email directly uh to staff as well uh proactive
inspections obviously staff look at and note code compliance concerns when they're out in the community doing inspections or even responding to calls i most recently we've been on a lot of
calls lately it seems like where we've been in the neighborhood and have seen uh quite a few of these and often um I'll come back go right into open gov and and dump them in there right away and then all of a sudden then McKenzie's got four or five additional inspections
to look at even though she probably saw them as well but we're always on the look for uh concerns out there and really all city staff not just us in in fire are encouraged to report uh code compliance issues uh to us most will
report to us in person um but they can either email or complete the form in open gov to jumpstart the process which is the preferred method for us uh some numbers from
2024 um so code violations entered in open gov by staff 228 and they're broken down as you can see 93 of them tall grass and weeds vehicle parking 48 um and and really we'll we'll get
into a a few of these but I I know some questions have been asked like what are the problem areas that we have dealing with and what help do we need with and vehicle parking definitely is up there
with one of the problems that we have in the city and it it uh obviously with winter parking restrictions which obviously help out for plowing it creates a problem for us in code compliance because the properties in the
majority of the properties in North St paul don't have large enough parking areas to provide parking for you know three four five vehicles plus trailers and and other things so those are some of the areas that um we struggle with in
dealing but uh back to the numbers uh 26 garbage trash debris 24 property maintenance 17 snow removal 14 other that could be signs trees depositing materials on streets uh four
unauthorized burns and this is not including the fire department response that uh somebody calls 911 for and uh two home occupation and also understanding
minimally all of these require at least two inspections so going out looking at the property making sure that there is an issue yeah if you want to talk about that a little bit oh
yeah sure uh yeah uh when I get the concern I will go out and take a look at the property and uh just see what problems I see usually when I get a concern about something I can usually find a couple more things um that while we're there might as well
get it cleaned up uh then I will head back to the station and uh while I'm out I usually try to get some pictures of it it's easier for everybody just to number one for us to have proof that there's an issue and number two so they know exactly what I'm talking about i like to make it as simple as possible and um go
back to the station uh get it uh loaded up in open gov and then get my notice kind of set up and what codes I'm using for what specific problems uh make sure pictures are good to go send it out and uh kind of keep an eye on it as it goes
by depending on the issue um I mean with the fire department we drive a lot of the main roads quite a bit um and if it's right off the main road sometimes on the way back from a medical call or something I'll be like "Oh yeah i'm just going to take a little
detour and take a look at what's going on and uh keep an eye an eye on the progress that's being made with whatever the issue might be and uh once I get uh once they get to their deadline on the notice which I think we talked about the
deadlines a little bit later um go back check it out see where we're at or if they contact me and say "Hey you know we need some more time." Or "Hey I got this cleaned up i got the notice um everything's fixed." But I go and make sure that everything is up to city
standards and um close things out in open gov and keep my notes as chill as possible so Ultimately those ones that follow up and comply those are the good ones um those that don't could require
multiple inspections i guess that was my main point so even though um there may be you know numbers of those there can be multiple inspections involved go ahead to the next one Jenny uh resident resource submissions so additionally
beyond the previous page of 228 these are the ones that are submitted submitted through open gov by residents uh so there were 121 of those in 2024 and uh it allows the complainant to
enter what the problem is in detail in the notes section and it allows them to click on a problem that's submitted uh so in 24 there were 19 of those that were garbage 17 that were other could have been the sidewalk obstruction
broken window construction trailers uh junken yard car parts illegal dumping to excessive trash and then there were 83 that did not click on the problem they just typed in the concern and then she would get that notification and go out
and look for it so this is a little bit different because we actually have a resident that's submitting it through open gov and it allows us or it allows McKenzie to update open gov and it will
notify them of any updates that she's submitted so when she's done an inspections what she's seen what she's doing what progress is or isn't being made and it's a way for her and the complainant to communicate on that issue
on ongoing uh the residents that submit this way they do have the option to um submit without giving me any idea who they are type of thing uh so a lot of them are that and I just kind of go
through the steps anyway um but uh they on open gov I have the option to let them see what I'm adding notewise or to keep it just so city uh just so like the city can see type of thing
internal staff yeah internal thank you and um with a lot of the detail type stuff I try to keep private uh the people that complain all they really want to know is is the problem solved or is the problem going to be solved so I do try to keep them as updated as
possible on things and appropriately how does the property owner get notified of the violation so during the initial inspection the code compliance officer obviously will take photos and attempts to make contact with the property owner and talk to them
directly that's obviously preferred but majority of people uh during the daytime may not be home or around uh but we will attempt to do that um and that's also a good time that during that conversation
that um we can provide them with resources if they are available to what's going on so whether it's through Ramsey County uh recycling and waste has a lot of uh available resources for residents to use um we have our upcoming
city cleanup so over the next month or more every property maintenance issue that we have going on or that comes in uh we will be directing them to the um cleanup as we have done in the pa past
or utilizing the city's appliance pickup uh program uh that's available so trying to find resources for the property owner to um help them out uh ultimately uh a
letter document and citing the ordinance is sent in the mail in in all instances even when um you talk to them in person just so that it it formalizes everything uh for snow removal and tall grass notifications a lot of the time due to
the high number of violations and the need to get a notice out quickly um we do have uh a notice that can be completed on site and given to the property owner or left on the door uh if you want to talk a little bit about that
uh yeah a lot of parts in the city uh have uh well it's supposed to be snowing today let's talk about snow a lot of places in the city have the sidewalks that need to be cleared of snow and I know kind of our problem areas that I will right after a snowfall go see where
we're at with the sidewalks and uh once that um 12hour mark hits uh I print off a good amount of those notices keep them in the squad with me and just start going door todoor uh if I
am able to catch a homeowner at home or on the property then I'll you know give them the notice and explain what the issue is and what we can do to fix it uh if they are not home then I will just tape it on the door for them time to correct violations um so the
time frame given to correct violations these are just examples uh but obviously we have an immediate um correction time frame meaning it needs to be done as soon as possible uh we could have somebody dumping in the right of way
could be illegal dumping in the street or right of way um sometimes that could be in the fall we have residents that will take their entire yard and blow all the leaves into the street and hope that the city picks them up and that's not
necessarily something you can do uh snow removal like M McKenzie said must be cleared 12 hours after the snow has stopped and uh illegal recreational fires uh the three to five day uh
garbage issues uh tall grass and weeds five to 10 days yard maintenance parking in the yard trailer parking uh 10 to 15 days property maintenance items exterior of the home 15 to 30 days could be a
tree removal um and all of these are based upon severity and a request to have more time can be uh granted on a a request when warranted as well so um the
biggest thing is the severity of it and uh we need to get it cleaned up for neighbors and people around uh the problem um but we also try to work with
the property owners and and uh work with them as the time frame that they may need to get it corrected sometimes especially with trees can be a money issue and uh a severe problem for most
residents to be able to to deal with uh summary abatement order so how does the summary abatement process work a summary abatement order can be used in extreme situation when no progress has been made and the city has the resources
to handle the abatement uh some of those examples could be a vacant property where garbage and debris need to be picked up andor uh needs to be mowed uh snow removal on neglected sidewalks those are some of the the most common
areas that we've used uh summary abatements in the past uh the code compliance officer mainly McKenzie works directly with public works department on this to complete uh to achieve the completion
and um if the city corrects the nuisance the charges uh will include the cost of the correction inspection travel time equipment etc the rate is approximately $240 an hour uh per hour plus expenses
for abatement um reality is uh in 24 we only had one uh abatement completed that was a property uh cleanup uh we did have multiple snow removal abatements in
2023 i don't think we've had any yet this year snow removal um plenty snow notices but no have some snow on no no no abatements uh legal options uh so what do we do
when progress has not been achieved um again multiple inspections may need to be conducted um over the years working directly close with Campbell Canudson Saurin always
directing us to try to get achieve achieve our completion by working with them um instead of trying to go to the um le leg legal process and that's that's definitely what we do so um the
the difficulty may be is when no progress has been made but uh legal intervention is is needed when there has been no progress or we have people that outright refuse to make those requ um
corrections and we've had that whether it's been simple as parking on the grass and refusing to remove it from the grass multiple multiple times and ultimately we just have to go to a citation because
they're refusing they're outright uh refusing to work with us on it i'll go to the next one if you can all right uh again when progress has not been achieved we have the option of the
citation which we would use the police department we then need a sergeant or an officer to help write the citation through their um through their computer and their progress to be able to do that years past long time ago we be we would
be able to write out a citation um by hand um and previous to that when the city had their own administrative citations we use that as well but currently um in order to write a citation we need an officer to help do
that uh through the city attorney on the police side with Ericson Bell and Beckman Quinn PA and the time frame for that in in the court system can be anywhere from two to six months and the violation will still be active during
that time frame and the judge will determine the outcome based upon our comments to them um but sometimes it could be as simple as the removal of the violation a fine a
probation timeline or etc we're just at the mercy of what um is determined by the court excuse me a summary judgement order through Campbell Kukson so this is really a more
lack of a better term it's basically the city of North St paul versus the property owner um and the time frame again for that can be two to six months or longer um both of these take several months and
can get uh into the court system does not necessarily mean always 100% compliance in the end uh but ultimately it's an avenue that we are forced to go to because we have no other options um obviously there's additional costs
associated with them as well one extreme case that I'll share um I it's it's been um almost two years now i can't believe it um but in the spring of 2023 we did have a code compliance issue
uh with the authority from a judge to through the summary judgement order allowed us to go onto the property to clean it up uh we had the help of public works staff along with all of our staff and we filled multiple dumpsters over two days to get this cleaned up and all
the costs were assessed to the property for reimbursement this process through the court system took approximately 18 months and primarily that was due to uh COVID at the time because we started in August of 2021 and there were delays
because of that but again we try not to get to this extreme issue um but there can be extreme properties out there that require it um and that's
why you may hear from uh residents complaining about a property that could be bad for an extended period of time but this is also why the reason why we take pictures when we go out because anytime we see progress we consider it
progress so if it's really bad and we can tell that something has been moved changed or improved upon that's progress and we just keep working with them to get it completed um and some just don't have the resources to be able to
complete things quickly or on time i guess I went through that quicker than I thought uh questions for us i have one homeowner decides to take a tree down by themselves they get the lift they drop
the tree they leave it lay why how much time are they allowed to move that tree and that debris because that's a nuisance and when you lay all that branches and all that together you're going to create a mice
hole yeah definitely the It's you I'll I'll go and then you got something to say too i'll definitely say um brush um whether it's from a tree that's coming down because you cut it or an accumulation of a brush pile over time
it definitely is is a violation that would need to be addressed yeah uh absolutely uh we've got a couple codes for that and it off top of my head right now but um uh time limit um I try to be understanding these people most these
people uh they've got jobs outside of them um outside of you know being able to have time to cut down a tree and everything and uh the amount of energy obviously it takes to do that um weather obviously is a big factor here in the
state of Minnesota you never know if you're going to get uh 70 and sunny or uh rain and snow um especially today and I try to be accommodating to their ability to do things of course
also but also uh progress needs to be made on it um so time frame wise uh uh depending on the time limit I mean uh a week and uh if they need more time to
do it type of thing then hopefully they will contact me and give me a heads up like hey I'm working on it my work schedule got really busy give me what whatever excuse they want to give me and we can work with it as long as I'm seeing progress I'm happy well another
thing I'm thinking is do we have a list of like private homeowners that would like to go and take wood off somebody's property if they'd allow them to go take it that I got this tree down i don't have the equipment to move it you come
on my property take it and get rid of it as you want at least that'll help stop start cleaning some of that stuff up yeah we don't have anything like that yeah that's what I'm thinking i think that's a pretty great idea you
know get a list of guys that burn wood all the time and if they they instead of having to buy it sometimes they can go to homeowners properties and and uh hey I'll I'll take your wood if you're willing to let me come on your property and get rid of it you know it's one way
of uh speeding up a little process so if I could jump in on that so we used to do that once upon a time um down at the old shop and we would cut up wood and we'd put it out on the by the curb couple of issues that we can see with
that for one moving around ashwood um depends on what the wood is yeah yeah but then also we had people coming onto our property using chainsaws and uh it's it's making a big mess they're leaving the wood behind and you have potentials of getting hurt it's it's it's becomes a
liability yeah but it's a great idea because it's too bad somebody can't use it but right there just all the other issues that come with it okay well thank you very much for the presentation appreciate you doing it i'm not going to I'm just thanking them first so question
wise I have is when it um when it comes to this you know no mo and different things like that is and part of it is you know you're just out there doing what the city and the council are asking you're not out making up stuff at night that's going to be your violations for
the day so we want to make sure that uh as as us as a group and as a city that we're having realistic expectations we're understanding the codes is there things that are codes that you know are antiquated i know that and the driveway
were the two that when it came to it that but we do have limited parking of course and you know having the streets clear so my big thing is you know can we do you know right now you have the no with about the mowing and things like that is there something we could do as a
city cuz I know there I can't remember if it was talked the last time Cassidy or not when they were somebody discussed that you have to like go to the to city hall and register to be you know have a garden of some or whatever it is
plants so is that something that uh garden yeah somebody wants to really have and instead of looking out and say you know I don't want to mow in January or excuse me January we could have mowed January i want to mow in May so I'm just going to say I'm letting it go to the bees you know that's that's not what we
need to have around here we need to be able to have if it really truly is and it takes a lot of care to do something like that so my question is you know how does that approach how does that nom affect you and different things like that because I don't think we have
anything that we talk about as far as how the city handles that yeah correctly we the city of North St paul we do not have anything specifically for Nomo May and just because a resident may feel
like they want to adopt that and do that I can understand their feelings on why they want to do that but it's still not allowed in our city so that then falls on correct McKenzie to deal with talk a little bit about those native and
without a special circumstances it shouldn't be allowed because it's sometimes it's just a way to get out of mowing absolutely and I I've even had a couple uh residents tell me "Oh I was doing the no mo why can't I do that?" And I explained the city of North St
paul we've got the code uh 6 in has to be under six inches for the grass and uh there are some times in the summer that you can definitely get by with no M without having any sort of issue but there's times that you can't and that's
when I explained that that's still needs to get done um they're usually pretty compliant at that point and get it mowed and everything's good to go uh native gardens um I I don't have an exact answer for
that but I mean we drive around and we can point to a garden oh that's very clearly a taken care of well garden and that's just weeds that they're letting overgrowth um uh the idea for the native gardens is
um a lot of people will grow them for you know pollinators and um and stuff like that if you just have a bunch of overgrowth of uh that's clearly not u landscaped type of thing not well taken care of you can definitely see the
difference sure um and if it's taken care of uh uh well-maintained and um is that something where we need to have them you know come in and have something where you know as far as this
is what I'm you know doing because it makes that make it hard for you and another thing I would like to see is for any of the boulevards in the city not be able to do that because the boulevards people can't get in out of the cars and it's one of you go to St paul especially too when you you know you're going into a jungle when you're trying to get out
of the car and the boulevards are city property really well they own the city owns 5t behind that curb line also so I mean technically that five feet they can't grow they shouldn't grow their gardens within that five feet that's
visibility for commerce and cars uh if I can just jump in really quickly Mr mayor uh just a couple of points to make number one you mentioned sort of um you know registration for native landscaping uh that's actually an area we've been preempted by state legislature uh so there's a state
statute that says we have to allow uh the specific term that they use is managed natural landscape um which they define as a planned intentional and maintained planting of native or non-native grasses flowers ferns trees etc then um so it's
essentially up to judgment on what counts as planned intentional and maintained it does specifically say uh managed natural landscapes does not include turf grass lawns left unattended for the purpose of returning to a natural state
so somewhat in the eye of the beholder some gray area there between just letting it grow and you know an intentional perennial garden um but that's kind of in general we have to allow it secondarily to that you mentioned the boulevards um so again
the city has um usually some easement rights there so that's actually the city you know city as sort of controlling property owner um this was recently a big fight in the city of St paul which I know because I live there um where they will
allow certain types of plants without any kind of permit and then you can get an obstruction permit to allow like a raised bed or something right the conditions for all of that is that they have a um you know a defined like a clear view area um which is I think 30
feet back from a stop sign or something like 30 ft back from a an intersection or something like that um that's on my street yeah so looking at a photo of some obstructed views from grasses there um generally
how that's handled is there's it's not necessarily have to have grass within that area it's just cannot have vegetation higher than however high you want to set it you know a foot or something two feet um
foot or 18 inches two feet however however how you want to put it uh within some you know sort of defining a triangle around um you know sort of at the corner of an intersection and so it would be you know 20 or 30 feet back from the intersection on both sides and
then the line between those points that's usually how it gets handled there is um you know instead of trying to regulate plants we we want to be directly regulating visibility that's what it is that's what we want mhm it's so hard when it comes down to perceptions one man's trash is another
man's treasure how many times have we heard that and it makes it real tough on you she's never been yelled at i guarantee you that thank you today so I don't know awesome oh that's good it's a good day um two questions uh for you if you don't mind
um is the 12-hour snow removal standard for the around area and is that too fast and what I think of is I'm very proud of I keep the fire hydrant by my house clear but I work a five a 12-h hour shift so if the snow
stops at 1:00 a.m I'm not getting it to till 6:00 p.m when I get home to clear it um so are are we creating I is that realistically too fast for our residents um that that 12-h hour and is it
consistent with um surrounding areas and then B um one of the things it might be somewhat unseen but I believe one of the biggest code violations that uh there are is the lipo batteries and the all the batteries that we are not supposed
to put in our trash in the trash has the fire department ever thought of having a battery receptacle at the fire station for those re recycle yeah both good questions uh the snow uh with the snow
removal 12 hours is when I start handing out the notices and that's just I think of the notices as a reminder um nobody's getting tickets nobody's getting any fines or anything like that not yet at least this is just a reminder this is the city code just letting you know this
needs to be done and then with that uh they've got a couple days to do it most people go grab their shovel right away and are clearing the sidewalk before I get in the truck and usually
it's that easy um I'm not super duper sure on the surrounding communities time limit on snow removal that is definitely something that I will check into yeah we can we can look into that but I would say um I would imagine we're fairly
consistent with what we're doing but I can totally understand what you're saying council member um and definitely um we're going to uh give plenty of time for people to clear it
off um before we get to an extreme point but uh and the way I look at it is I want to be respectful of your time and your energy where I it at 300 p.m is it worth it to put stuff on people's doors when most were getting done at 5:00 p.m
right and and a lot of times say if it it did stop some you know snowing earlier this morning i mean we wouldn't be out any time on the same day to do the notices it's usually more than a day later and sometimes even if it snows on
the weekend we're well after um when the snow has stopped um by the time we're giving out notices um with and along with the snow removal um I do tend to focus on I've got a couple commercial properties that are
have some problems with that and I do focus on the commercial properties and um kind of the main sidewalks and the main streets and uh definitely leading to schools so um those are the ones that I kind of focus on first and get the
notices out first i had to walk you know through snow uphill both ways to school like everybody else and uh just trying to keep uh the city looking good with the snow and keeping everybody's boots dry
um and then uh the uh other question with the batteries I'm not really sure if that's something we've talked much about i'd have to look into that because I know internally we used to collect uh u batteries and recycle them and I know
um there are limited places uh to do that i would be all for um finding a a resource to be able to get rid of that so I've I've written that down and something we can look into because I agree a lot of these are getting tossed
into the garbage nowadays then anytime we can recycle it's going to be a better option can I jump in there a little bit so we do that clearly at the public works building all the car truck batteries that we have and
uh for when they first remade it made it a requirement that you need to recycle them um it was any vendor was supposed to take them well then they had issues because their trucks were starting on fire cuz people didn't properly cover the leads on those um which I one of
those before and and that becomes the issue if you have a public drop off place um if you're not watching all that and being on top of that then you can have that same issue and when you say the batteries that need to be recycled um even the recyclers themselves like
the regular household batteries the AAA DS they're saying you can toss those it's the rechargeable ones for the most part or those little button batteries that those ones are supposed to be brought in but you could have the issues with potential fires and so we've tried to look into that ourselves before
otherwise you can take them all every all your D's A's and B's you can take them all out to Battery Plus recycle them there they'll take everything yep easy peasy and then I I guess my final thought would be for my fellow council members and mayor it um with the
discussion we just had do you feel that it would be warranted to ask these fine folk to review these St paul ordinance and give us their recommendation on if that would be something we would want to adopt um is a similar standpoint
i I guess as far or for as far the the the wildlife to curb the ones Jack the boulevard management yeah well I think we should look into it well I would say we would pick something more comparable to our city not city of St paul white
Bear or something little Canada y I agree with that some other suburbs because Yeah st paul is St paul is is Yep all right we will we will look into some see what is out there in other communities
as it relates to this because definitely over the years we've seen an increase in what we'll call native vegetation being added to um people's yards and where they're putting it and it being a concern ultimately
um it seems like um when they add native vegetation you know it's just like anything else but you have to maintain it from the beginning and as soon as it you've lost
that maintenance it it goes away very quickly increases mice VO everything i mean it's just a breeding ground for all these little critters how about sheds that have roofs caving in on top of them well I mean that would definitely be um
a property maintenance issue that that we could address to tell you the truth and you know should be addressed on that with you send it to us we'll take a look at it um but that's definitely something that we can look at and
ultimately on something like that since it's it's not necessarily uh a structure as it relates to a house a home or detached garage um we would allow them to make necessary corrections on the shed um anything else we would
definitely get uh our our our inspectors involved and our building official involved how many sheds are allowed to be on a property put me on the spot uh shed on a property shed would be an accessory building and
I it's not a lean to either it's a shed shed so it's built off the side of a garage i believe they have I think they have two for sure and I think they might have a smaller third one i believe it's two i will have to look into that
um I think it's two does anybody else know no okay uh I think it's two but I will double check that on another note you had indicated that um city uh staff had entered or has
reported not entered excuse me has reported uh code violations as well are those entered into open gov so that's how we're tracking it or do they just email you we get notifications many different ways so a lot of times
um McKenzie's in communication with the community development staff so if they get a phone call in to community development a lot of times they'll either talk to McKenzie in person who will then enter it or
if she's not around they can enter it directly into Open Gov or they can email her the information um if we have a voice message a lot of times they'll just forward it to her as well um for handling those are some of the different
ways how else are you seeing them all the ways um yeah somebody will call on to the city and they will either forward the message to me or forward that person to me um I get emails quite a bit on
um different things i've got public works that'll go out and be like they'll shoot me a text saying "Oh I drove by this tree this tree is dead you need to take care of it." Or get them to take care of it um so those are all being tracked though right so we're those either city staff's
doing it or if it gets emailed to you or it's a voicemail it's all getting tracked through open gov correct okay perfect the only thing we Well I I say we have two different categories the resident resource that we know are coming
directly from the residents as they're being entered in and then all the other code compliance ones um that I separated out the 228 are definitely um entered in
uh by staff the only specific thing related to those um I don't necessarily break them down to know if how they came in if it was a phone call and email or um city staff or if it's something we
found proactively on our own but definitely um yeah a lot of different ways and we've been using obviously open gov for a few years and we continue to evolve and change with it to make it
user friendly i know McKenzie has changed it over time to help her with snow and and lawn maintenance because those are the high priority or the high issue high frequency I should say that
she deals with so just tweaking um open gov with McKenzie and staff and community development to help uh better us and then to be able to pull those reports and see what's going on and and
what's happening out there so I guess I have a couple of questions one um my assumption is that at any given time there's multiple code violations that you're dealing with McKenzie and given that is you know how do you
prioritize you know not not to call out anybody or anything but I mean how do you do you prioritize based on public safety or you know what is the biggest risk to public safety or you know things like that yeah I I safety is definitely
a big concern um whether it be somebody dumping a bunch of trash in the street and that's going to affect other drivers and potentially cause an accident um you know that's kind of a big one but uh
obviously slippery uh snowy sidewalks is also very important okay safety is a really big thing but also um just uh just trying to keep everything kind of moving with it you know yep fair enough i I know you mentioned like the schools and things like that i mean
obviously access to schools and access to you know public areas and things like that are probably you know my biggest push for her and staff is when we have garbage and debris and a lot of times we'll have whether it's a rental property or
not um a lot of people will just pile out garbage and debris at the front of the yard and just expect somebody to pick it up or the garbage company to pick it up and sometimes it can be out there for a few days I if it's in an
area that we're not normally driving by um so we do rely on our residents to let us know what's going on but definitely when we see something or we're made aware of garbage and debris we want to take care get that taken care of right
away um and if it isn't that's something that we would move into you know an abatement process with for sure so that's really a priority okay for me I guess my second thing is um what can we
do as a council and I guess as a community to assist you you know you mentioned reaching out to you and making sure that you're aware of any potential code violations obviously you know you want to be um you don't want to over report and
things like that too but um what can we do as a community what can we do as you know city council to assist you to make you your life easier in this case i'll let you go in a second here but resources have been um a major impact
for us in dealing with a residents on on certain areas um and it's all dependent on on the issue so if we're dealing with a property because they have broken windows uh you know chipping and peeling
paint siding those types of issues they have a different resource that they need to um be able to to complete their their project unfortunately there's not a lot out there you know I wish we had some to
some type of fund that would be able to help out residents in those situations um but when we get to uh a cleanup of sorts garbage and debris those types of things or even tree removal it's it's
just having an answer for them um so we've are trying to do uh a better job of providing resources um out there in newsletters to provide let our residents know so that they can be a little more
proactive pro proactive and dealing with the issue um one of the things we talked about earlier today and was talking with McKenzie and we it it's the code has changed or evolved over the years as it
relates to parking especially to uh trailers on a property and that's parking on a driveway and in the yard as it relates to vehicles and trailers is
really the most difficult thing I think she probably has has to deal with because ultimately um when they run out of space and they have too too much stuff they they it you're kind of like this you're going back and forth and
that that is really a difficulty and I don't necessarily I've been doing this plenty of years and I don't necessarily have have the answer for that you know um people want their toys uh but they don't necessarily have the p space on
their property to be able to store them properly um trailers used to be allowed to be uh in in your backyard on the grass depending on the size code changed a few years ago now require them to be
on a approved driveway service right um and so however we still have people with small trailers and boats and those types of things that are in their backyard that now we're having to address those issues but we don't necessarily always
get compliance out of it because we don't have they don't have a place to move them mhm a lot of times I'll be honest we're notifying people of these issues but I'm not going to give somebody a citation for having a utility
trailer in their backyard um but we also have to deal with a a neighbor that may be complaining of those types of things and and work things back and forth so those are the situations that um can be difficult
yeah so right now the uh parking code uh states all vehicles personal recreation or commercial shall be stored or parked on a driveway surface uh driveway surface um is ultimately uh asphalt concrete or
concrete brick uh city no longer recognizes class 5 as a driveway surface and I think that's thrown a lot of people off mhm um I've had actually two people today just tell me "Oh I'll just throw some class 5 down and it'll be good." And it's it's not good um did you
have a question no I I am looking at obviously at you as a surprise and I say that because concrete asphalt all of that is very expensive and if you don't have the dollars for that to fund that I think we should definitely reconsider looking at that because class 5 I mean I
I have a I think that's I think we should revisit it because it's a very expensive especially these days now concrete and asphalt are very expensive for residents and we don't live in a high-end neighborhood that people can afford that kind of stuff so I I would like to revisit that at some point if we
can yeah and that's absolutely part of it uh people don't have money to expand their driveways appropriately to become in compliance um not only paying for the work to be done they also have to pay for the permit hopefully they're doing
it correctly right um and pay for somebody to do it and the materials it all adds up and not everybody has that am that that type of money um could could I would make could we uh
instead of the class five I think the reg grind product that they put as a road base would be a better material because you won't get that mud as you would from the class 5 come
draining off onto your your soils and your basins and that down there that reg grind is a lot better and more dense where it's mixed with concrete asphalt and whatever's in there you know I think that would be a
better base i would agree with that um as it relates to you know having a permitting process for it I think would uh help guide that process it might be a little cheaper than class 5 it would
need still need to be done because ultimately a person cannot put gravel or class 5 or whatever down throughout their entire front yard right no I realize that area but we want them to go through the process and do it do it properly um through the permitting
process system yeah yeah but I I would agree with that ultimately it it doesn't matter what the product is um whatever is there depending on um you know the weather if there's a
heavy rain and it's washing out then that's an issue that again we have to follow up right if it's coming out into the uh the street and in and the drains and deal with that but um those those are some of the wise obviously that it
is it you know um but it it's definitely uh one of the bigger issues that we we deal with and like well I don't think we're when you look over at uh Margaret over across the street and between the buildings we're not in compliant in our
public parking lots right now so kind of hard to turn around and tell somebody else something different very much so i have one last thing hypothetically speaking this is for city staff if any resident wants to um make a ordinance
claim or uh concern where on the website do you go yeah so at the very forance Yeah if you go to the city website and Hold on am I Am I up there
we go if you go to the city website and citizen concerned I believe at the top it'll it'll there should be a tab that says report uh code compliance issue okay yeah it that should bring you to open gov and fill out some information
go from there excellent i say that just so anyone watching or references this again there's also a phone line for code compliance too that they can leave a message so overall as a council would we want to look into that with the this type of
different circumstant besides the gravel besides the um cement and the and the um black top certainly can i know make sense to the council yeah I think so i think we look into it but I would still prefer to be black top or concrete but scenarios make people can't afford
everything so at least if they would dress it up around their pad with the reg grind or whatever they're going to use as long as it's nice and grass and green along the edge it's taken care of that's all we're looking for too property looks good is that acceptable i
think you have to have a permit to do it 100% that way we can be able to say "No you can't put it right there you need to be able to have it you know a little farther behind and pull a permit where we're following all the requirements as you install a driveway so that the
percentage of driveway is correct to your lot i agree and we did have a gentleman show up here I think it was last year the year before and he's had a little pad alongside his garage with you know with gravel and for years and all of a sudden somebody came and complained about his
trailer on that and he came in and said you know it's taken care of and it's neat how come this is an issue now so it' be good to address this be able to help out how about pavers we could have even suggest pavers too would it be a good deal pavers are allowed yep so PA
concrete and black top are good right now anything else because you're our you're the feet the boots on the the street and we want to make sure we give you what you need and understand you know if there's think something that you go I
can't believe this is even an ordinance or is there something that really you know that you would like to bring up because this is the time and plus real quick we learn now that good neighbors need for reminders they'll take care of it but I get quite a few emails you know
this has not been taken care of what are you doing as we can see two to takes months so if if you're not playing nice nothing's going to happen quick and we do get multiples we get emails where it becomes it's just time so thank you um
my last item on here was more just kind of a language error or editing editing error maybe I guess but um in the definitions uh 154 uh 0003 the definition of a
carport is an automobile shelter enclosed on not more than two sides a carport is not a garage right remember that last part so garage definition detached accessory building or portion of the principal
building including a carport no okay we'll get stole a carport is that's attached to the garage that is not a legal deal is it well they're saying two different things in saying the definitions are carport is not a
garage of course it's a carport or can be a carport something to look into well can we write that yeah it makes sense what you're saying because on one side you can look at and the other side's opposite now you cannot have a separate shed to protect your car
on your property either though right uh are you talking a shed versus a carport um you don't like a uh aluminum shed from Menard's Home Depot wherever you know now is that the legal piece on your
property so those could be allowed again through the permitting process and they have to be vetted and approved by the building official they'll need details that they're going to withstand certain requirements to be able to do that okay
um the difficulty for us is um you know if if something's there and uh we don't necessarily go through the inspection process on that through the building official and we're not made aware i mean
we can track through the property and and look and see but uh a lot of those um could be just added and and not properly inspected and then we could you know advise building official if needed
as well to take a look at at those okay i would like to request that about every six months if you wouldn't mind coming in and sharing and keeping us up to date what's working what's not working i think that would be great because if if you see things that are changing and one
like you mentioned the ordinance there and different things I does the council agree I I agree yeah i you know Yeah i just think it's just nice to keep up we get there's as you can see there's a lot of people concerned 94 emails about the lawn this much for the for that so I think it's something where it's very
visible and we want to be able to keep an eye on say people I don't know people can come in and uh voice their opinion or if they have a statement to make uh whether they come to see you folks or some council people I you know yeah we
welcome you know we have um members of the community that will come in directly and talk to us about properties next to them or something that's going on if they have questions so anytime they're have any concerns they're more than welcome to come into city hall and ask
for us okay Brian I'd like to add that this would be a great topic for social media just to hit on where people can report what as we're changing seasons that kind of stuff been in discussion with Ava on Yeah you
mentioned that to me the week that'd be so we'll try to get some more out there just keep it on there because I know you mentioned um Brian about maybe having like a questions of the month or something like that we were able to do that so all right well it's our time is up if
there's nothing else council all right well thank you appreciate everything thank you yep and I ask for an adjournment so move council member Schwar seconds all those in favor say I i give us five minutes and uh we'll be back at 6:35