##VIDEO ID:6mHrFHsOGr4## e e e e e e e e e thank you all right welcome to the January 7th Workshop roll call please council member nordby here council member elect Woods here here council member elect McKenzie hello me here council member schwe here mayor mongi here thank you very much can I get a motion from one of the city council members for the agenda please so moved so moved council member Norby second second council member schweer all those in favor say I hi hi thank you very much topics thank you mayor um so our topics tonight are kind of council and its powers uh role of council members um open mean rules and I thought it'd be more appropriate to turn that over to Jack from Campbell Canon our City attorney and have him go over those um and then we also have uh Dan Finance director here winck who will uh be going over a high level of budgetary stuff and then what's left over we'll kind of talk about what current uh projects are going on around the city and uh give any time for Council if they have any requests uh or want more more information or good things that pertain to them coming on new that they could suggest and uh we'll accommodate so I'd like to turn it over to our City attorney Jack bur Bings there you go welcome quiet Ron you'll be up next if you peep up the mic's live all right Mr mayor council members um hello especially I introduced myself to the two new council members but I'm Jack Brooksbank I'm the City attorney uh Campbell cansen uh I'm here to talk to you about kind of some of the basics of um you know the the legal framework of your new role as council member or old role as council member uh in case you need any refresh on these things have few bullet points to go through here um you know kind of laying out the ground rules this is to be helpful to you so if you have any questions at any point um Feel Free Jump in ask questions um try and stump me it's always fun uh so just kind of dig in um overall I will you know kind of going through this open meeting Law data practice conflict of interest gift law um the overall theme theme of this is going to be kind of these are very kind of functional um rules these are sort of how you behave as a city council member uh and that it's based on sort of you know it's a hard look at what is happening with the actions more than you know sort of labels or that thing and it can be a little you know tricky a little counterintuitive if you haven't been in government service before um so again we'll kind of run through some of these things you know the goal of all of this is to promote transparency and good government um I'm going to kind of run through you know again I was with a lot of laws there's also a lot of exceptions and sort of specifics to a lot of these things I'm going to try and kind of run through at the high level give the general rules of this thing uh and then I also just want to just kind of keep emphasizing that if you ever have any specific questions specific things that come up if anything ever doesn't quite smell right um always free to ask um you know reach out to our office to send me an email give me a phone call um kind of get the get the specific answers for some of these things as well uh so starting with open meeting law uh and again kind of especially with the first two open meeting law and data Practice Act that I'm going to run through these are about uh you know public decisions should be made in public and so these are transparency laws uh and so it's always sort of the focus is on keeping that transparency uh so open meeting law the basic rule is meeting of the city council have to be made in public uh where it goes to get a little confusing is that again it has a very broad kind of functional definition of what a meeting is and what a decision is so a meeting essentially is anytime there is a quorum of city council which is three of you uh talking about something that could be related to City business City business is incredibly broad so that's basically anytime the three of you are having a conversation that's a meeting that meeting has to be open and noticed to the public uh again some specifics if you have questions about that but in general uh so that means that um you know other than scheduled City Council meetings and you know official city council workshops city council events we don't want the members of the council sort of talking to each other about City business um a particularly important thing to be aware of is they call you know serial communication or a Serial meeting which is you know if Jason sends an email to Troy and then Troy sends an email to John that's now three council members talking to each other about City business and that counts as a meeting so we particularly want to Beware of the reply all button uh and that also counts for social media post posts uh so again the kind of the general you know make your lawyer happy advice is try and keep communication about City business to kind of official channels um particularly you know uh yeah social media if you sort of run into people at events uh one thing that we will do frequently um is if there is a some kind of special event going on uh Fire Department open house or um you know some of the history Cruisers events some of the events around town if multiple council members want to go to that we'll just put out um a meeting notification that there will be members attending and so it's as long as we have advanced notice we can put out the notice and you can attend the events that you want to go to um but just make sure that you're staying in touch with uh you know with our office with Brian um if you plan to go to any kind of local events just to make sure you know we don't want to have there's an art fair and three of you show up and now whoops all of a sudden we should have sent a notice um so you know it's not if it is truly an incidental you're you all happen to be at the grocery store at the same time that's not really a problem but we just want to we want to air on the side of more transparency overall notice requirements um again it's just sort of it's a public posting of that a meeting will occur um it's usually at least three days in advance so we do have our regular meeting schedule so that's uh first and third uh Tuesdays of the month uh we just have that schedule that's posted we don't have to put any additional notice on that anything that's not one of those meetings has to get a special meeting notice uh and again that's you know we need to talk about something else that's three of us want to go to the same conference uh meeting is very broad uh there also there are some circumstances where you can have a meeting that is not open to the public uh a meeting that is not open is creatively called a closed meeting uh and then there's a certain sort of certain things that we have to do there uh I think there's a list in your materials here uh labor negotiations litigation stuff anything that counts as attorney client privileged um you know real estate uh counter offers sort of contract negotiation stuff uh in a lot of cases we can have a closed meeting where the uh the public is not present um we then have to record that meeting and then once the information is sort of over with so we can develop an offer if we're purchasing or selling real property we can develop an offer confidentially on what we want to offer to make sure that we can negotiate in good faith uh but then as soon as you know that purchase closes we then have to release the recording of the closed meeting uh and that's fairly common with um closed meetings the exception here is attorney client privilege we do not have to make any record of um because that's an absolute privilege um but just kind of to keep a heads up of even when it is um you know a closed meeting there is still the possibility that um you know that that will be made public and so we want to be keeping that in mind mind um there are potential penalties uh the penalties largely apply for intentional violations of the open meeting law um so I would ask that you please do not intentionally violate the open meeting law uh and that can be up to $300 per occurrence uh and that is paid by you personally the city cannot pick up that bill uh if that is assessed against you uh there's also some potential uh exposure for attorney fees the city can pay those but again the potential um fine on you personally uh if you're trying to get around open meeting law so again if you have any questions if you're not sure if it counts as you know is this a meeting do we have to post a notice to this just shoot me an email uh and we can figure it out and make sure that you know we're doing everything above board uh again three intentional violations of the open meeting law uh and you could actually be removed from office uh so it's you know $300 is not the most money in the world but it it can be serious and we want to you know avoid that where we can uh moving on relatedly so the next part here is data Practice Act uh so this is again this is a transparency um forcing kind of a statute uh the idea is that not only does the official decision has to be made in public but sort of the the underlying data and information um held by the government also should be available to the public uh again these are some kind of broad functional um type of definition so government data is all data collected created received maintained or disseminated by state or local government regardless of form so that includes emails that includes emails from your personal email that includes text messages from your personal phone if those Communications are about offal business so if you are texting another council member about what do you think about this Vote or something to that effect that is discoverable public information someone could request that we will have to turn that over um this is something that I won't say people necessarily get in like a lot of trouble about but do frequently um there there are some embarrassing stories that people have had uh from other cities about you know know um being a little overly candid or um you know making making jokes or kind of disparaging remarks you know between thinking it was between themselves uh and then whoops it turns out actually all of that is public and has to be released so again just being really mindful if you're communicating about City business as you know an elected official on behalf of the city just being mindful about the content of that um The General rule uh is if it is an official email assume that it will be read by the entire public uh and then you can sort of never go wrong with that so is the best practice there for all communication to be done through City channels then yes so that is the best practice is just personal email personal phones and things like that out of the equation yes that is the best practice and and that is why in particular we you have an official email address uh is so that you know it makes it sort of pretty clear that way that you know if it's sent on the city email address about City business that's sort of separate from your personal email and then if we get a request for your emails or your text messages if you can just say no I have never sent a personal you know I've never used my personal email about this um then it's much easier you know there's a lot less scrutiny I I don't have to go digging through your email inbox to see kind of what's going on with that um so that that would be the best practice yes for myself if I get emails that want to talk they ask me to talk to them I usually come in and sit in the conference room and call on the city phone oh okay just I don't get a lot of those most time it's just email responses but when it does come would you please call me I usually come into the City and call okay makes sense and if you do get um you know if you have some Community member who knows your personal contact info and so you get an email on your personal email um I would just forward that on to your official email and then reply from the official email okay makes sense um the way that these become um you know sort of available to the public is people can make a a data Practice Act request the city has uh forms that enable anyone who wants to um to come make a request they have to specify what they're asking for we put together the request um there isn't necessarily a specific deadline it's a reasonable amount of time but you know we try and turn these around as quick as we can uh to get that data out to people uh in general all government data is by default public information there are certain classes of information that are then restricted um so things like Personnel data um so employee performance reviews um that kind of a thing um that is the kind of thing that might remain um you know sort of sealed uh there are certain types of data uh including certain types of um law enforcement data that are available to the subject of the data but not the public at large and then there are certain things um including things like active police investigation data uh that are sort of not available to anyone um that sort of that analysis happens once a data request has been received that's sort of on the back end it's not necessarily something that you need to be aware of but again just kind of 30,000 foot view keeping that in mind that the general rule is all government data is public unless there is a specific rule that it isn't on conflicts of interest um conflicts of interest again you know this is kind of a broad transparency good government um the rules on conflict of interest are fairly straightforward fairly common sense um you know it is there's a statute that says if you have a uh personal financial interest in something um there's restrictions on what you can do in terms of official City business uh there's different rules for if the city is making a contract with someone versus sort of non-contractual situations difference there might be so a contract is if we're going to if the city is going to hire someone to uh um plow some streets or hire an employee or uh you know hire uh hire someone to you know run the um cameras for City Council meetings do sort of more contractual type stuff non-contract might be um you know um naming public facility if we're going to name a public facility after someone it's not necessarily a contract about that but it's still going to be an official action um so there's slightly different rules if there's not a contract involved it's a little bit um there's a little bit more flexibility uh but in general again just if you think you might have a conflict of interest talk to me about it let me know talk to Brian um we can figure out if it you know if it's within the definitions uh and how we uh respond to that in general there are going to be procedures where if you do have conflict of interest um that conflict will have to be disclosed then the remainder of the council will have to you know basically take a vote to say yes we can the rest of us can consider this without any you know bias and then the vote is made without any discussion or participation from um Whoever has the conflict of interest again that's kind of the in general in specifics can can vary so again just kind of letting us know um and uh even though the sort of the process to kind of mitigate a potential conflict to have that vote anyway will involve abstaining from the vote just AB you know just being here and saying oh I'm just going to abstain from this vote uh is not generally good enough if you have a conflict of interest so it does have to be disclosure action by the the rest of the council generally speaking you will have you go sit out in the hallway finish up whatever that thing is and then call you back in so just kind of a private I'm not going to vote on this one um usually isn't good enough uh and can potentially again have um you know damages for the city could potentially uh even invalidate um City actions taken uh if you are participating as an interested party uh and that interest is fairly broad so that in includes you know if the city is doing business with uh your employer or if you have an ownership interest in some entity that the city is doing business with um you know it's a fairly broad definition likewise kind of continuing this theme gift law um interested person uh which is just sort of anyone who might have an interest in City decision which again as I kind of mentioned earlier with City business is potentially anybody uh cannot give a local official local official is all of you um any gift cannot request any gift uh cannot give anything of value uh again this is kind of a common sense you know bribery we don't want um any kind of quid proquo happening um again sort of the pitfalls uh in include that this is this is a very broad definition so thing of value includes you know um travel includes paying for your food um can include uh you know um sending you to a conference or having you attend at a conference and again there are some exceptions for these things in general you know you're allowed to take sort of nominal if you're at a conference and someone has a bucket of pens you can take a pen that's not considered a gift uh but I believe the cap is something like $5 anything that could be worth more than $5 um generally no and even then you know we want to be good government we want to be good stewards we want to avoid even sort of accusations of possible um you know possible conflict of interest possible under the table dealing um this is not usually um again the kind of thing that people get in a lot of trouble about it's usually fairly clear but again if you have any questions um feel free to reach out let me know um uh there are exceptions again we can usually work with you if there's something you know they can't uh it's a gift if someone sends you to a conference um unless you are legitimately a speaker at the conference and then you can accept some kind of renumeration for that you know as long as it is if you're presenting on something you have some expertise in um you know we can kind of work to make sure that it's not overly disruptive of your life um but we just we need to know and be aware and stay on top of these kinds of things uh in general um there are also there's the ability for the city to accept gifts uh and that is it is it is the city that is accepting the gift so it is a city council uh it must be accepted by a 2/3 vote of the city council I believe that is 2third of the entire city council so if you are um you know if you're at a meeting and a city council member is not there uh you potentially could need all of the city councils who are there uh to get to your 2/3 um uh vote again it's usually not controversial um but that's kind of where it is uh where this one starts to you know kind of get a little fuzzy is the city can accept gifts no official or Department of the city can accept gifts so someone wants to give you know um Donuts to the police department or something to that effect they cannot give it to the police department they have to give it to the city and the city can you know then sort of accept it as the purpose being going to the police department um so it does have to be kind of routed through the city uh in that way so that's the kind of um you know that's the uh potential getting in trouble um you know I can come up here and wag my finger at you does anyone have any questions about anything at this point um I I I will ask you to expound expand upon the um open meeting law um just to um give an example um let's think of a positive example um it was it was my birthday on Saturday as long as no City businesses disgust are talked about and people happened to know I was at a bar could two other city council members have stopped by and bought me a beer uh I believe so yes so again sort of incidental purely social type events are generally going to be okay um you know again as long as there is genuinely no discussion and so again this is sort of where people get in trouble is you see someone out and about oh hi how's it going you know sort of the pleasantries and then you say oh how about that meeting last night right well now we have a meeting going right now um so just kind of just being aware of what's going on and and really being studious about not talking about City business thank you um and then uh as well so you know kind of going off that uh if you think you have something where there needs to be additional meetings if there's unfinished business if need more time to discuss something um City Council Members can call for another meeting to happen and then again we just we post that notice has to be at least three days of published notice um and then we can host another meeting so it's not that big of a thresh you know it's it's not a particularly disruptive or hard thing to do to get more meetings we just have to make sure that we're doing that in advance good all right now we can kind to move on to some of the less strictly legal but just kind of talk through kind of how some of these things go um so talk about role of the city manager um so North St Paul is a city manager system uh which is a um it's one of the ways that cities in Minnesota can be set up you will sometimes especially if you're talking um you know I work for a bunch of different cities you might sometimes hear me talk about city manager versus City administrator um City administrator is sort of the other main system that cities operate under North St Paul is a city manager system and that is sort of you know the manager has more Authority more responsibilities more power to hand handle the day-to-day of the city so in general you know it is set up so that the manager is responsible for kind of the operation of city government and then the council is here to you know kind of provide Direction and make those highlevel policy type decisions uh so the city manager is sort of the chief administrative officer um you know is appointed by the city council um can be removed by the city council uh and um you know sort of reports to you but other than going through the city manager you don't necessarily have any involvement in you know hiring um performance review any of the kind of day-to-day employment stuff going on at the city that's all Brian that's kind of her his purview and then your job is just to give Brian directions about at the high level where do you want to go um so you know Brian does report directly to you um there are uh you know you kind of do performance reviews um if you've looked ahead at tonight's agenda uh you will get a preview that city council does um city manager performance reviews and then um sort of doubling back then to the um open meeting law uh we then have to read a summary of that performance review Into the record at the next meeting um so that's kind of how this city council interacts with the city manager and then city manager is providing you know sort of information um you know helping to set the agenda for City Council meetings uh answering your questions um and so that's kind of the interaction between um city council city manager um city manager also handles sort of all of the department managers setting up managing all the Departments electrical public works all of that again that's s city manager side uh and then as well any sort of purchases and contracts anything up to $20,000 um is handled entirely by the manager anything over $220,000 then requires Council approval but it is still you know still signed by city manager on behalf of the city um anything you want to add while we're here Brian yeah so and again this is all kind of the high level um how everything you know Works uh on to my final topic of the evening everyone's favorite Robert's Rules of Order um this is kind of the procedural rules this is kind of the overview you know rules motions what order the Motions get resolved in primary and secondary motions other motions you know it's it gets a little technical uh in general the important thing to know is that uh once when you're in a city council meeting uh the mayor or acting mayor will be running the meeting they're sort of in control the chair of the meeting they're kind of in control of the agenda they will you know sort of call an agenda item uh there will be uh you know either a motion or some discussion um once there is a motion to make a resolution adopt an ordinance um you know direct send some direction to staff uh then that motion has to be seconded uh then there is uh opport another sort of final opportunity for debate and then you can call a vote uh there's sort of secondary motions there things like well we said we were going to do this but I we actually want to amend this or we want to table this to the next meeting or you know kind of modify it something like that um those are kind of secondary motions not all secondary motions need to be uh seconded many of them still do uh in general how it works is you decide on what you're going to talk about and then you talk about it and then you take a vote on it um other than that things can start to get technical and it's not really that important to you know um do you take a motion to limit debate before or after a motion to to a recess it's not really that important that you know that off the top of your head um I will fully admit I do not know that off the top of my head I have a nice little cheat sheet of what order we go in um so uh these really these rules are here just to make sure that everyone has an opportunity to be heard on everything that the council is doing as an official action so if you ever feel like you are not having an opportunity to be heard again there's various sort of procedural motions for that uh and that again is sort of a great time to look over my way um I get a lot of questions along lines of here's what I want to do how do I do that uh and ultimately the council as a body has the authority to set make and enforce its own procedural rules so something isn't working or you would like to do something a different way or um You' like to get some more Direction on something um for the pre-existing members you could set a rule on what it takes to add something to you know formal process to add something to council meeting agendas or something like that um that's something that you can do as a body so again if if the if these rules are ever not working for you let us know and we can kind of work around them but that's kind of the general uh again this is the 30,000 foot crash course about a lot of laws that you will hear about and talk about for the remainder of your time on city council um I know I've just thrown an enormous amount of information at you and I'm obviously I'm I'm always here if you have additional questions if anything comes up if you couple weeks from now you go hey Jack I just really didn't understand this other point I'm always here I'm always available to answer those kinds of questions help make sure that you know everything makes sense about your new role or your old role um so uh any have any further questions I had a quick question for you jack yes uh so it's my understanding that it's is it a general rule of thumb or is there an actual procedure as far as getting something on the agenda is it like two council members come together and if you have a two or more or is it so there's general rules of thumb um North St Paul does not currently have a formal rule about that um you could make one if you wanted to have a formal rule generally the rule of thumb is uh if somebody really wants something to be on the agenda and there is space for it on the agenda we should add it to the agenda is kind of the general rule of thumb if there want to be a more formal you know um submit something and is that seconded and you know that's sort of up to the council to decide if you want to make that a more formal process informally is nice because it's flexible obviously having formality gives a framework for you know if someone wants something to be on the agenda if someone else doesn't want or wants something to be on the agenda at a later meeting or wants to talk about it at a different time um having a formal rule sort of enables you know a clearer idea of what to do in that situation um I would again kind of leave that to the Council on if you'd like to adopt something like that um I would like to ask a favor from you um because the first time I had to email saor it took me a while to find his email would you please send us all an individual introduction email um just so we know um your contact information yes I can do I can actually um when I go sit down I have business cards as well so I'll make sure you all have my card um so you have a physical copy and then I'll send you all an introductory email as well just that you have um and that'll have my email and my office phone number on it just don't hit all yes no reply all start with yep all right we'll seeing no particular further questions and again I'm I'm sure these things come up there's not always clear answers um so just let me know if you have any questions down the road otherwise thank you very much for your time um thank you for running for office we appreciate it uh it's a it's a good Council they're fun um and uh I'm sure I will continue to see you at a lot of meetings thank you thank you thank you Jack there was one thing I wouldn't mind running through take a couple minutes is the meeting itself the agenda so for the council meeting not the um not the workshop here because it's I think it helps just to understand the outline before we start so you're on it there if you guys just want to pop open because this kind of screwed me up when I first started so of course we start out with the roll call and then we do the Pledge of Allegiance and if I get your names correct that's a win for the mayor because usually I mix them up so we'll start with that and then we have adopt agenda so then that's when I asked for the council members to adopt agenda so two of them do it then we vote on it then from there consent agenda that took me a little bit to figure out so this is all the stuff that the staff and correct me if I'm wrong please has done behind the scenes and they looked up stuff and it's stuff where it's ready to go so what I do is can I get an adoption to uh you know for adoption for the consent agenda if there was something on this list here you go well I'd like to have some more information on these you pull it so otherwise when we vote on it everyone that's there gets voted yay and we move on so if you decide you know I'm really want to talk about that HRA so then you'll say I'd like to pull D so then we adopt everything but D and then we go down through then we go to our are open to the public so we get our three minutes for the public and then we go down to business items so this is the business item so now D would fit right under a here so we would talk about the HRA part of it and then be able to go so we have to vote um specifically on each one of these so after we're done with this closed meeting one we get the update we vote on that and then we'd vote on the HRA because that's what we pulled from D onto here then that would have to have its up and down vote for that so I just wanted to clear that up because sometimes that consent thing for me it was just a little a little bit to get used to it so anything you look through that list we're going to go through it and you guys pull out whatever you want then it gets thrown down to the city business action items we discuss it we vote it up or down or whatever we need to do and then we move on to the reports from the city manager Department reports from us as a group here and then we do General so if there's something you want to bring like you know we're having you know a festival or something you want to bring up as far as general business or you want to say happy new year or something like that that would fall within the general business then I would ask for a an adjournment and then we would get that and then we'd vote to adjourn any questions on that I just thought I wanted to give that little clearity for you guys that makes sense all right good thanks that's a good point Thank You mayor I would like to turn this over to Mr Winnick our finance director to speak about a high level the budgeting process that we've just gone through mayor uh council members and hopefully this comes up I'm going to kind of give a real high level of some of the city council Financial authorities that you have and budget is a component of that um so managing the city's Financial operations the council has full authority over the city's financial affairs including but not limited to uh designated designating the depositories leving taxes adopting budgets approving dispersment of public uh money we call them claims um borrowing money or issuing debt in purchases or contracts over $20,000 unless Authority has been delegated uh so the depositories which will will be coming um up tonight at city council um you're required to um officially um designate um and and we've been using uh for a number of years now Premier Bank as the official depository and then we also have some supplemental ones that we use for investment purposes Morton Capital US Bank um RBC Capital markets and the uh 4M the Minnesota Municipal uh money market fund City Council approves levies the levies that we have um that we just got done passing this past year there's a general fund Levy there's a debt fund Levy Street Maintenance fund Levy Park fund Levy um Economic Development Authority Levy and the Housing and Redevelopment Authority Levy and then city city council um has the authority to approve budgets um we have a number of budgets uh we have the general fund uh we have the housing Redevelopment Authority The Economic Development Authority and then we have proprietary funds and then some other permanent funds and I'll get into those a little bit more um the proprietary funds are made up of Enterprise funds and internal service funds um and an Enterprise fund is basically a fund that accounts for activities that there's fees charged to the external user for the goods and services so they include our water fund our Wastewater fund our electric fund a surface water fund our Solid Waste fund and our fi optic fund our internal service funds um are where we account for the um is a fund that we account for the financial of the goods and services provided by one Department um to another department um within the city on a cost reimbursement basis uh we have information Technology Insurance equipment City mechanic and the building maintenance um internal service funds some of the other budgets budgets that we approve on a a pretty much a permanent Bas basis has been the community center fund um the community event fund the Fire Relief Fund the park fund and the Street Maintenance fund city council will approve the claims so Minnesota law provides that no order shall be issued for claims arising from the purchase of goods or services until the city council has reviewed and approved the claim so you will see that normally there on every one of your uh City uh Council agendas uh they're usually underneath the consent um agenda um and they're separated into claims for the general HRA and the Eda um and again um if you see something on there that you have questions about you certainly can pull it and um request um further information on that before you actually pass that city council approve proves issuing debt um kind of giving you some of the higher level examples of debt that there's a general obligation bonds um that are the most common type of bonds that are issued by cities um it's General obligation which means the obligations that pledge the full faith and credit of the city to their payment that means that the city must use any assets um it owns to pay the bonds including um the tax levy um when a city issues General obligation Bond it promises to Levy a tax tax in the amount needed to pay principal and interest on the bonds for their entire term um that tax levy is not limited by any law and is not affected by any other tax the city levies that's probably these two that I'm showing are the most common ones that we issue um we will be um starting the process shortly of um issuing bonds for the street um in utility project for 2025 so that's kind of why I wanted to bring this up so you're aware it's a kind of a lengthy process with a number of steps um so we will be issuing General obligation bonds it'll be in two components altoe but there's a general obligation Bond part to it and then there's a general obligation revenue bonds that's for the portion that um is going to be repaid through our Enterprise funds um mainly it's through our water waste water and surface water funds um as it relates to streets um this type of bond is actually just a subspecies of a general obligation Bond U these are issued when a law authorizes a city to pledge a specific Revenue Source again it' be from those Utilities in the city's Full Faith and Credit in other words if we don't gather the revenue from the water the waste water and the surface water then it comes back to the general fund um the city still has that obligation um to pay that debt this is just kind of a snap picture at the end of our financial statement for uh of 2023 um and just kind of showing you this is the debt that was out there at that point in time um just so you're kind of aware of that and that's part of what the city manager and I have been doing with some of these Levy changes for the infrastructural needs is trying to move us a little bit more to a cash basis versus a debt basis uh component and you've heard me talk about I use the rule of thumb that if I go out and issue a bond for a million dollar at a 5% interest um it's going to cost me $80,000 for the next 20 years so at the end of the 20 years I've paid $1.6 million but if we had that cash more up front um you would be able to get more of a you know a value for for your dollar so we've been trying to make some of the move over towards um U making that move over towards the cash versus the the debt um and then City approves purchases and contracts over $220,000 um we're a plan B statutory City and the city manager has the authority to make purchases and negotiate contracts for amounts up to $20,000 purchasing contracts over $20,000 unless city council has delegated The Authority will be brought to city council for approval and for the most part those will be underneath the business action items um unless you've been aware made aware through a workshop or so forth um on a contract and already had discussion then it may end up being in the consent item but for the most part um anything that's a large contract uh especially if it's like a street project or um and so forth will end up being in that uh business so you have an opportunity to kind of discuss it and to get more information on that and so that's just a real high level of some of the financial authorities that are granted um to you at the end of the day um it is your budget it's your Levy um uh city manager is the one who um proposes um a budget um with with support from staff myself and and the other department heads um but um at the end of the day it's your final decision to to make on that um and so if there's any questions or if you need additional information um and as we go through the budget process we go through the bond issues if there's any questions that are needed um I have no don't hesitate to reach out to Brian or myself and and we'll get you the information that you need can you give us a time frame for Budget how you started it as far as when it starts when your initial and kind of go through because it is biggest in yeah um yeah uh it's kind of a little bit difficult because of the financial uh system that we utilized and so um next week the Auditors will start their audit uh for 2024 we have till the end of March to close out our books um completely uh means we've got all final numbers uh by the end of March after we have that then it allows me to pull over all of the information to go in starting the budget process in other words I can give department heads city manager and department heads and and for you well how we actually did for 2024 um which is then the basis point to start building that 25 budget so um we usually like to start the process somewhere in the early part of April um giving our our department had some time to build their budget and then in an Ideal World by about the end of May you've are you you will have been presented the financial statements for 2024 you also you you accept and approve those um and then we usually start the budget process is is ideal is that we would start in may um and an Ideal World we have everything done by the middle of September in other words you've already seen not just the general fund HRA and Eda but you've seen the capital Improvement plan you've seen Enterprise and internal service funds unfortunately since we only meet um twice a month that makes it difficult at times to get through all of that um stuff but again that depends on how what type of level of information that you want to be to see and be presented with um I always caution um you know the city council that really don't want to get into I call it the weeds or down to the line item we want to keep it at a higher level to make sure that one that the money that we're spending is meeting your goals um that you set uh for the year and then two um where we're falling out as far as a levy or if there's any rate increases um in our Enterprise funds that um you have given Direction on where that should be and then it's really the onus is on staff to come back and meet that and if we can't meet that we better have a good reason um to why we can't and or what services would have to suffer um because of those um cuts to make that type of a levy or not to have a rate increase so ideally we'd be starting um probably about the early part of May um with city council and we voted on it the last meeting as far as approving the budget yeah in uh the middle of September um we usually certify the proposed um Levy um which sets the maximum Levy that we can can have um you still have opportunities to discuss it all the way till in you know in December um and um in December and I'd like to see that there's a truth and Taxation that needs to be conducted a meeting um that usually is um conducted um about the third week of November till I think to the first through the the first week of December is by Statute that time rough time frame that it has to be held I like to have that because that gives the proposed um the the truth and Taxation um all the residents have received their proposed property taxes for 2025 things can still change um they're based off of those proposed levies um that were certified back in September um you get to hear from them to comments concerns and so forth that may weigh your decision to change um some to some degree um what you want to Levy um uh for the following year um and so I'd like to have then the final um vote um to be the subsequent week or subsequent meeting after uh the truth and Taxation so like this past year we did it um the very last official meeting that we had scheduled in in December to actually approve um the levies and again the levies can go down after September but they can't go up so thank you I I'm trying to think of things that I was surprised when I started and just the amount of time we actually focus in the the different meetings and you know the different I call them milestones we hit at certain times you did a great job I appreciate that appreciate everything you do with that but I just it's just to understand that you know this is the most probably one of the most important things we do and it takes quite a while by the time you're wrapping up the year next you start up again we're starting up again and there's those so I that was just something that I was surprised at with how much time and and and and different steps we had that to go through so thanks for clarifying that for everybody that's new and and again it it it comes down to um you know that'll be a discussion that you'll you'll have with the city manager to what degree you want to get into things how many meetings the Cadence and then then the city manager and myself will set that calendar um for the year um and again I encourage not to get down into the line keep it up to where we're looking at what is the proposed Levy um what type of impact will that have on our residents um is it meeting the goals that the city has um for taking care of whether it's infrastructure Staffing all the way through it um and keep it at that higher level um part to it but um I give uh in the time that I've been here with the city the city council has been absolutely excellent to work with so and I hope that continues in the future and I see no reason why it won't so thanks kind of like off of yours we're the You Know Chief you know CEO of is Brian and we're the we're the board so we're up there you know looking at the 10,000 foot and trying to you know guide the best we can with with ours talking to the people out there our residents in understanding their needs and we bring them back and then you guys make the magic happen yeah exactly yeah okay D could I expand a little bit on the CIP and just explain how the capital Improvement projects fit in with the budgeting process itself and how we've put a lot of effort into a 10-year outlook on that yeah yeah so uh since the time that I've I've been here we've developed um there wasn't a fully comprehensive Capital Improvement plan we have developed a 10-year Capital Improvement plan which allows us to give an Outlook um and to see what some of our needs are um which better positions us um than to develop um which we've um done since I've been here um I've developed um for for the all the major funds um a 10-year financial plan um so I roll in that Capital Improvement plan because a capital Improvement plan is is really a huge dollar amount of of spend um that the city's going to have um and roll it into those 10e plans it allows us to forecast outwards see what kind of moves we need to make today whether it's increasing levies whether it's increasing rates um trying to identify the needs that the city has um based upon you know your your direction your goals that you set for the the city um but it's to make us more aware so we're not caught at the at the end that we can't afford this we can't afford that or we're forcing ourselves unless that's the direction city council wants to always issuing debt you know you can you can issue debt year after year after year you have to remember it's there for Mo most most Bond issuances are 20 years it's there for 20 years it starts to accumulate more and more and more um I'm not concerned about us hitting the debt limit I'm I'm I'm concerned about um us uh undermining our um Bond rating um which will then drive up um interest rates um and it puts burden that we can't get out from under um with our residents as far as um property taxes um because that's you know one of our main sources that we have for for a revenue um unfortunately um but uh the department heads um all submit um their um Capital Improvement plan um items a lot of it will come from the different commissions the U Park and wck commission um it'll come from um can come from the art and culture commission it'll come from the Planning Commission that all gets rolled up um into one um complete document underneath a number of categories and so we do spend uh quite a bit of time um on that just because of the significant impact that it has um overall on the um finances of the city does that cover and then cover like you know high dollar pieces of equipment it might be a plow you know that might be a quar of a million dollars or we just recently did a building assessment and you know the ongoing needs money that's going have to put back into the buildings to keep them up that we own so yeah the high dollar items really what fall under that another thing that helped me too when I was gearing is were considered a bedroom community which is we don't have much commercial so the the bulk of the tax burden goes onto the residents we don't have commercial shops we don't have malls and things like that so that was something too that was my opener as far as just how we're described as a bedroom community too I I Echo that the I I started in July of 21 um we went out for a bond issuance uh so when you do a we were doing a refunding of a bond and when you do that you have to meet uh we met with uh S&P um they have a whole bunch of questions they do the rating they give you a preliminary report of what their issuance or what their going to rate you and their reasoning behind it and they use that term bedroom Comm it struck me wrong and I and I was and I'm I'm was upset and then I then I I cannot I then it after a while you started to understand what it is when you see that you know we're over 90 some per of residential versus you know a small piece of commercial we have a great INF uh uh we have great roadways and in infrastructure all around us um that that have great access for people to go to and from work um and that's where I think you the city's done an excellent job of of of having the the downtown apartments and some of the complexes that have been built in in the more recent years but it truly is that I I see why they called it that but at first it just bothered the heck out of me I was like how dare they just a higher level of residential over business I think some other cities that have a lot of that they have a lot better income for their cities well great uh that leaves us a little time to kind of go over maybe what current projects are with the city that we are dealing with now um so the property just crossed the street from City Hall here we named it Market Street Commons um we went out for an RFP out there to see what we could get for any kind of bites on some kind of development there um uh the current theme lately has been kind of residential with maybe uh commercial on the bottom if you can do that we also tried that with the um the article 7 downtown uh the lower level was going to be kind of work live units um so whether or not it it's an artist or an insurance agent or something to that effect and then they could have living quarters behind it um they had a few people or businesses look into that unfortunately uh they didn't get any bites um we did turn one more on to them that hopefully that got some traction as my understanding last I checked they had uh they're over 50% for filling the place up now which is great um and they do actually have three of the nine on the lower level that have been uh rented out for residentials but um but anyway across back to across the street for maret Street Commons um the RFP came down at the end of December of last year um we've had some interest in it uh nobody really turned into an official RFP um the Market's pretty tough right now um interest rates are still High um um we've asked for you know maybe put a moratorium on it for a while until uh maybe the markets come back around um we've done that before for maybe as much as a year but um the time that line that was asked for was uh much longer than that so I think it's just going to probably write it out for a while to see what our uh what our economic um Outlook is going to be for the city and for the banks and for people who making loans in the cost of doing construction now so that's kind of where that one ended up um we do have another student built house that's being built right now it's a cross from Webster School at 2007 6 Street um they're moving right along they got it uh had the basement poured they framed it got the roof on I believe they got the uh shingles on it as of this week end of last week um so it'll be moving on for interior they're working on the siding now I believe um and then just to kind of give you an idea that project has been really good for the city I mean it takes care of get rid of some blight and increases uh property values around that area um good home for uh families coming in um and looking at the last two projects we did there was uh a piece of property down on Eldridge and we bought it split the lot and created two different homes there um the first project that was done there they it was almost a break even as far as cost um goes we came out to about $1,500 to the good um and and the house sold for $480,000 that property kind of took on some additional cost that maybe the second property didn't uh like surveying um some other things that we had in there the last house that was just sold there um sold for 480 as well um but we had $436 $437,000 that we were into it on so that one was a little over $443,000 to the good on that one that we came out but between the two as it was as a single lot then split um had a total cost of all of that for about $445,000 between the two that were sold uh the next one that we moved on to over across from Webster um there were some costs that were saved already I believe there were already utilities that were cut into the property which is a decent size dollar amount so that will help with that project um it was a little unique property um that changed the design on to get it to work there but I think it's going to be a good project um moving on to the development we have up there on Delaware and 17th Avenue um we have a local contractor that is building five Twin Homes up there it's all going to be single level which will be nice with our aging community that we have I think single level will be pretty good for some people um units N9 and 10 which are next to the existing house on the 17th Avenue side um that one's framed roofs on um believe they're doing interior now is that all closed in with the doors and windows yet there Ron it is um so then they also have the next basement poured um so when that one's when they get to that point they can start Framing and going on that one as well so they just started framing a little bit today oh they did okay great um and the road reconstruction uh that we will have that will start this year for 2025 um I did send out a just a map of that it's also online we had um wsp our engineering firm they had a meeting that they held over to the public on the 11th of December um they kind of explained it all um specifics of what they're doing in there as far as sidewalks Road reconstruction uh sanitary uh storm sewer um so a lot of good information on there for that um and with that I just kind of want to leave a little time at the end there that uh does council have anything that you want to add that um I know You' kind of speaking up as we go along too but uh anything relevant or anything more that you can think think of that would be good for the new council members no not yet so I'm just listening here yeah it's going to be good absolutely so we uh just went out for uh a feasibility study on that um uh eapc is the architect engineering firm that got that um Riley and myself will be meeting with them this the first one will be um just a online conference that we'll have with them just to get the wall rolling introductions we made um kind of how they'll start lay out the project of you know whether not it's reaching out to the public um getting information that way information that we have then give to them to help the process move along um that'll probably be they're starting it now it's probably be a good four four and a half month process they will bring back the feasibility of the project back to council um and lay it all out for your guys' final decision on where we move from there um to the amount of money that we were awarded by federal yeah we um lobbied uh the local legislators um and we ended up getting a 400 or $4.5 million um Grant from the state and we got $850,000 Grant from the federal side um so that money is available for this project um right now we have the library that's in there um they have expressed interest interest in potentially more space for what they use it for um and then some of it will just be uh different ideas coming in from the public that we've had already meetings of uh possible interest of what they could use the building for as well so they will compile all of that information and bring it back to you guys to make that final decision so it's going to be good process okay one other thing if you don't I would like if everybody can we used our last piece of property for student build so we were able to fit this one in we got one more where's that at down there on Third and Seventh Avenue we weren't sure if that would work or not good think so all right so third and where third and Seventh Avenue it's up at Five Corners up there um that one on top of the hill yep so we weren't sure if that one would go so it's long and it goes straight down so could be a walk out with the 12T ceiling could be yeah all right good so I'll just keep an eye out for anything that comes along as far as we want to put the keep the going we need to have some property and I know former mayor um furong found the one as far as when he was driving to one we split the two lots to be able to do do the homes on it so y eldri so I think that's a good for all of us to just kind of keep an eye out if we hear anything as far as I have a possib I have a possibility of one but it's going to be some work to work it out so that's fine we just keep it in the hopper we just keep it front of mine because this has been been a great program when it comes to for the community and everything else so yeah all right please that is all I have for you right now um I think we'll and I've sent all this information out to especially the our new council members um you can review some of that we can get more into details um we'll probably set up weekly phone calls uh and try to get into the weeds of everything so that's it uh can I get a call for adjournment please so moved council member Norby second second council member schweer all those in favor say I I all right thank you we got five minutes --------- ##VIDEO ID:cwJhiMYg6vg## e Booth ready all right Perfect all right I'll turn it on welcome everybody we're here for the first January meeting of the council we're going to go down and do the oath of offices and then we'll come back up and uh log in all right everybody head down okay all right yeah that's true that's true thank you all right all right this for your oath of office Dave so I Dave Mackenzie I Dave McKenzie do solemnly swear do solemnly swear or affirm that I will support to air or I support the Constitution of the United States Constitution of United States and the constitution of the state of Minnesota constitution of the state of Minnesota and all the laws all the laws ordinances and resolutions ordinances and resolutions of the city of North St Paul the city of North St Paul and that I will Faithfully I will faithfully and impartially impartially discharge the duties discharge the duties of the office of council member of the office of council member for the city of North St Paul city of North St Paul in the county of Ramsey in the county of Ramsey and the state of Minnesota state of Minnesota to the best of my judgment ability best of my judgment and ability and ability thank you congratulations we will get copies of this to you congratulations thank you very much next up sir that's your family isn't it come on up yeah everybody then shoot hey Dave like to get pictures of did you get pictures no okay thank you perfect come on around guys come on over guys please yeah getting us raise your hand please I Troy Woods I Troy Woods do solemnly swear do solemnly swear or affirm or affirm that I will support the Constitution that I will support the Constitution of the United States of the United States and the constitution of the state of Minnesota and the constitution of the state of Minnesota and all the laws and all the laws ordinances and resolutions ordinances and resolutions of the city of North St Paul of the city of North St Paul and I will faithfully and impartially and I will faithfully and impartially discharge the duties of Office of the office excuse me impartially discharge the duties of the office the duties of the office of council member was for the city of North St Paul for the city of North St Paul in the county of Ramsay in the county of Ramsey and the state of Minnesota and the state of Minnesota to the best of my judge Jud and ability to the best of my judgment and ability thank you sir congratulations please yeah look at the pictures want a picture with the family all us there you go right thanks everybody um let's do the call to order and then we'll do the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge Al to of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation you very much all right roll call please council member nordby here council member Woods here council member McKenzie here council member schweer here mayor mongi here thank you very much can I get a motion to adopt the agenda please go ahead I'll I'll motion okay there you GOC McKenzie second I'll second council member Woods all those in favor say I I I thank you very much all right consent agenda item a December 17th 2024 Workshop minutes Item B December 23rd 2024 special city council meeting item C General claims of improving appointment to The Economic Development Authority item F reappointment to the police Civil Service Commission item G 2025 city council appointments item H 2025 annual resolutions for investment committee official depository City attorney retainer legal newspaper for Publications item I North Suburban access professional and Technical service agreement item J ramsy Washington Metro Watershed District memorandum of understanding for removal of settlement in North St Paul Pond 9 and item K approved the 2024 MMP weighted member voting Amendment thank you very much so now this is the point where anybody wants to pull any if not can I get a motion to adopt the consent agenda so moved so moved council member schweer second second council member McKenzie all those in favor say I I opposed none thank you all right so now we will work our way to open to the public at 6:39 Dean ma up in three minutes and if you just name an address please evening my name is Dean Matson I live at 2096 mcnight North St Paul I was here about two months ago about uh the traffic complaints of mcnight Road uh with big trucks coming down and so on so forth I live right on the corner 7th of mcnight and uh I express my concern that uh you know somebody's going to get hurt big time there so um I haven't seen much traffic control with Police Department there or not at all um on November 30th about 6:50 in the morning I was going south on mcnight uh south of 7th Avenue there was two dogs running loose I witnessed one get hit by a car the car never stopped kept going north phone I turned around went after it to get the plate number called 911 the dog never made it um but unfortunately nobody seems to know what happened to the 911 call that I made you know so the owner wasn't able to find out the plate number of the vehicle or anything like that so then on the 17th I would was going Southbound on mcnight again and that's a single Lane North and South plus the center turn lane a car come up on my left hand side and pass me in the left turn lane and just kept going you know there something's got to be done they they just drive like they crazy out there you know so I'm just wondering uh if somebody's I know some of you guys weren't here the last time I was here but uh you know I just like to see some traffic control out there you know and it's not any special time either both of these incidents happened in the morning like 6:00 in the morning 6:30 in the morning you know but uh I've been there 29 years and I witness like three people get killed on that intersection so yeah it's a big concern it can be brought up by city manager to the police chief again have a discussion with him again yes yeah we've had all right thank you thank you appreciate your time y thank you John schul John schal 2750 Chisum Avenue I thought I was going to make a New Year's resolution to to hang it up uh doing this useless exercise but at the last meeting I had this woman come up to me I didn't know who she was but she uh said to me I've been watching you for five years and you've never said anything good about North St Paul at least I'm consistent anyway and the uh the idea of uh uh I've got a follower now it's like ticktock or tick tick whatever ticktock tick tick whatever so uh I just thought I'm going to keep her happy so we'll start a sixth year on this and the subject that I I have is uh uh two of them that uh started by my uh neighbor who said uh I said did you watch the meeting and that would be on the 17th and he said he did and I said you know only 13 people were on that uh Zoom call for this massive multi-million dollar project 13 people and he said no it wasn't 13 people it was five people because the other n part of that 13 were people that were on from the engineering and whatnot so I have no idea I don't know how Zoom works but he felt that there were five residents on that Zoom call the covered uh this project multi-million dollar project I know you got scared your life out of you when you took on the people on uh uh Lake Boulevard man that they let really ran you people ragged not that there's anybody here that actually experienced that but uh you have to deal with the people in person when you make a project like this second item was I said did you hear what Dave Nelson said about code enforcement and the neighbor went and I followed his finger and he said and I he said see that and there were two containers out on the street uh right on the sidewalk and he says they've never been moved they get pic he moves them to the curb from the sidewalk and then moves it back and uh he said I've complained to code enforcement neighbors have complain to code enforcement zipple nothing gets done so uh I would say as I was told by a friend one time uh about I think he was even saying about me something about uselessness tits on a Bor hog and that's what code enforcement is thank you thank you right 645 we move on to business action items please yeah Jack and I have turn that over to you for the uh December 23rd 2024 closed session meeting summary for the performance on city manager please for their review uh mayor members of city council um per uh Minnesota statutes we have to read a uh summary of closed sessions into the record um normally um with the holidays we've got a little behind the ball so we have the summary U we don't have a printed copy of it uh so for tonight what I'm going to do is I'm going to to read it uh and then I would ask that uh if the council agrees with this summary uh that it make a motion to that effect um summary is uh at its meeting uh apologies that was the wrong one uh at its meeting on December 17th or 23rd 2024 the city council in closed session conducted a performance evaluation of city manager Brian frandle as is required by Minnesota statutes section 13d .05 subdivision 3A at its next meeting the city council shall summarize its conclusions those conclusions are as follows the council reiterates its conclusion from December 3rd 2024 that Mr frandle is respected trusted and supported by City staff Mr frandle has done an excellent job managing the internal affairs of the city city council wished to set goals for the coming year the council expressed a priority for Mr frandle to pursue additional Public Communication and engagement as well as streamlined communication with the council members do need approval of that check yep is there a motion to adopt is that what you need right yes that would be correct yep is there a motion I'll make a motion all right council member McKenzie is there a second second second council member Norby all those in favor say I I I opposed thank you all right reports from city manager and departments so we had a staff meeting today and got updated from the Departments uh electric has been busy this time of year as they always are for doing line clearance and cutting uh trees back from the power lines um they're out doing poll inspections as well found maybe a dozen or so so far that need to be replaced um also just doing General system inspections on the distribution system um Finance has been busy with the Auditors they will be back out uh next Monday and Tuesday they'll also be doing the electric inventory at that time um and they will be back on February 10th through the 12th and then March 12th through the 14th to finish up um Community Development is busy with uh cannabis registration information for the new laws that are out there um Public Works has been getting the rinks up and going we do have the Rinks at Northwood Casey and kobby Hills up and going um the lights are on at the park or for The Rinks from 4:30 to 9:00 p.m. um they're also busy still removing ash trees from around uh the city but at Casey Lake right now um so fire uh they had a couple people that went down to over to Wisconsin because they got that new engine that was ordered a while back uh they're working on the chassis they're hoping to see that truck back probably Midsummer uh sometime June June is July um also working on code compliance with parking issues around town um PD had uh a year of just over 7,000 calls for the years for the year and uh they were doing interviews again last week they had three interviews and uh they're work through them right now so looking to get it pack up to full staff that's all I have good thank you I guess reports uh for um commissions and Council and committees we can do you have anything council members S I don't have anything the next meeting for Parks and Recreation is here in Council chamber 6:30 on January 22nd okay thank you council member Norby uh I attended the Planning Commission um the Planning Commission was um on Thursday uh January 2nd um the topic of the planning commission's meeting was approving the 2024 CIP items um it seemed a little backwards as all those items had already been budgeted for and passed um so we talked about moving that to the um mayor June meeting of this year um in order to review those in a more timely manner where input could be more um proactive rather than reactive um overall I thought it was a good meeting good thank you very much as far as ours for I'm on the Eda and um Eda we met in December we are going to be meeting quarterly again we voted on meeting quarterly so the first one is going to be in March unless there's something else that comes up as far as any special so we're we're as a group we're going to be if there's needed needed meetings if there's anything that we're coming along with the facade and different programs like that where we're getting as far as mean getting some uh forward movement then we'll meet before that otherwise the next meeting will be in March thank you if there's we'll go down to General business council member schwe I welcome the new council members it'll be uh a fun ride I look forward to working with the two of you if you guys have any questions please don't hesitate to reach out that's all I have thank you member Norby um I I would like to um Echo uh council member sh's um comments um any questions don't hesit to ask and also um I found out through personal experience the staff here um also very um happy to answer any questions so don't hesitate to rote to Brian or Dan um or or Jenny um if you have any questions um that they are a wonderful resource thank you excent thank you council member Woods would you like to say anything with the first day and anything else you'd like to bring up you can feel free during this time well I just wanted to say thank you to everybody uh for having your faith and having faith in me and um my goal is to represent well great thank you McKenzie I guess that's the same for me too I thank everybody and uh I think this is going to be a learning experience for me and uh I got a lot of questions and I've already talked to city manager frandle and we're going to work this out okay thank you for me I just wanted to welcome everybody and I appreciate you new new members I also look forward to continue our success with the members that are already here so I think we have a a great Council moving forward and I appreciate everybody and being able to do this for the city is a is definitely an honor and a privilege for all of us to be able to do that so I want to thank everybody and uh the next meeting will be January 21st and if I can get a motion for adjournment our motion oh council member Woods I I'll second council member McKenzie so far so good on the names you guys got to be pretty impressed all those in favor say I I I thank you thank you it's not like