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Video-1: youtube.com/watch?v=7Ldh1lrkJlY
Video-2: youtube.com/watch?v=srojmMOTAL4

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--------- to you. >> All right. Call the meeting to order for the workshop. Roll call, please. >> Council member Nordby is absent. Council member Woods >> here. >> Council member McKenzie >> here. >> Council member Schwear is absent. Mayor Mongi >> here. Thank you very much.

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Can I get a motion to adopt the agenda, please? >> So moved. >> So moved. Council member McKenzie. >> Second. >> Second. Council member Woods. All those in favor say I. I. >> I. Thank you very much. Off to the Dan show. >> One topic on >> Oh, I'm sorry. We're going to go to this

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first. >> We got the 2027 levy general fund budgets tonight. Dan put together a really nice report for you and uh turned it over to Dan Winnick, our finance director. >> Well, thank you, mayor, council members. uh and city manager. Uh this is the city

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manager's uh budget. Um based upon the direction that uh we received from city council um and the city manager uh voiced that to all of our department heads. A lot of work has gone into this already. Um all of the department heads have submitted their budgets. Um they

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have all had meetings with Brian and myself. Um uh I think I've mentioned this to a couple of people. I think the mayor's won um and and also mentioned this to department heads. Um Brian's uh

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education on the budget has tr grown tremendously. He was asking questions and sees the whole entire picture. Um so clearly um was actually uh put a big smile on my face. Um he has done one heck of a great job of his understanding

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of all the ins and outs um regarding the budget. Tonight we're going to have the budget kickoff and we're going to go over budgets that have a levy impact. Uh so what that means is when we get together in August 18th, we will discuss the enterprise funds, internal service

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funds, and then the capital improvement um plan um that we have the 10-year plan. Tonight we're going to be covering um the uh levy budgets which include the biggest one is the general fund and then we have three funds that are impacted uh

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with levy because of our infrastructural um components that we have um made a big goal um in levying for being the parks um asset preservation which are our facilities and street maintenance which are our roads. Um and then in addition

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to that, we have the HR and the EDA um budgets. All of those together are all the levy budgets. Uh so tonight we're going to go over a little bit of uh fiscal information. Uh we're going to review the levy budgets. Uh look at what the what we're

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proposing, what uh city manager is proposing for the 2027 proposed levy, proposed general fund budget, the HA and the EDA budgets, and then those three infrastructural budgets. and then open it up for discussion, any questions, answers, what other additional

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information you may need um to make for you to make a a decision. Remember, um in September, we need to certify our maximum levy. Um means we can come down um before we do a final approval of the levy in December. Um but we can't go up.

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Um so, uh with that kind of walk through and give a little bit of fiscal information. It was last year's uh budget. Uh we talked about the state of Minnesota and and where they were at and some of the concerns that were were out there at that point in time. If you

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remember, they were looking at for the ban bianium of you know the 2829 that there were going to be you know like $6 billion deficit. Things have changed drastically. Um and you can see right now the you know the the forecast is

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showing a a surplus um that uh you know as of March 2nd um of this year the state's financial outlook improved 1.3 billion since November um but officials warn of a structural deficit in future budget cycles but they're looking right now as a surplus of about 3.7

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um million um dollars. Again, so much is dependent on how the election for governor and so forth um the in the legislation in the Senate um for Minnesota and how the impact of that um um takes place. But if you remember last

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year with those big um deficits um we kind of looked at one of the you know I always hate this this term lowhanging fruit for um a state to be able to reduce um and that's local government aid and we have a dependency on local

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government aid. You know we get about $1.6 million in local government aid. You know you turn that you know $1.6 $6 million into a levy increase which would have to be go go go out to the taxpayers and all of a sudden, you know, you're looking at about a 20% levy increase to

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be able to cover that type of deficit if they were to wipe everything out. Um but uh um right now nothing has has changed with that um in this past legislation. Um so we're still at that$ 1.6 u million

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dollar mark. um when we look at our own I shared a little of this information um after the uh presentation with the financial statements um and I and I purposefully have done this um I'm taking looking at

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um both uh of these levy funds um both looking at it from fund balance and cash and investments and I like the cash and investments more than I like the fund balance because the fund balance um has some other journal journal entries and

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some other components that are put into it that you know um you know they'll show assets, they'll show other components to it that really kind of impact um the the position of where they're at. Cash is cash. You got the cash on hand. And I

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purposefully um took it from the beginning of 2023 to the end of the last um audit period of 2025. The reason being is that we have a city council um board here that three of the members

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have been here starting in 2023. Um they deserve a lot of credit with the addition of the two new council members that we have um now because I'm going to show you some of the accomplishments and I and I believe they're big accomplishments for the city that that

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have transpired in that time since 2023. You can see where if we look at the our cash um our general fund has increased 50% in that time period. Um HRA is over 100% EDA 56%.

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Asset preservation uh 3% uh the park capital 55% and street maintenance fund 94%. We have really done what the city council has asked and that is to levy to try to move us into a cash basis where

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we can afford to do more street work. Um if you remember it's this city council that made the decision to add in that um alternate year of non-bonding for street work to put in a a payment preservation program where we're spending over $2

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million a year to be able to take care of our streets. Um those are huge huge huge things. I just took some just capital highlights and these numbers come from what we actually book into our uh fixed asset

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system. Um and so from 23 to 25 you can see that the there was a housy park um improvement polar park um playground equipment. You have the 24 the 25 payment preservation. You've got the 2025 uh street and utility project which

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was a bonded project. Um we got a a well roof um electric infrastructure. Um look at all of the equipment that we have put in. Um you know we had a lot of aging um uh uh vehicles. Um we've really

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brought our stock up to where it needs to be all due to the city council's support. Um some of the highlights that I really like to to look at um when we look back over the past three years is that in

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addition to these expenditures in the four years um you know um is that we have built a very comprehensive capital improvement plan um that really was non-existence before the city council um in the past three years. And I do have a

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a chart that later on I'll show you that we really have aggressively began to fund that infrastructure. Again, paying things in cash versus debt, debt, debt. Um, remember I've said this a few times. You go out and bond uh for $1 million

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over 20 years at a 5% interest, you're going to be making a principal payment of $80,000 a year. Um, that's 1.6 six million that you're going to pay over those 20 years versus the 1 million that you got. So, as we move ourselves into a

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better financial position, and I think you can see and you've saw when the year- end financial audit report came in that we have really seriously improved our our position, our fund balance position, our cash position. Um, you

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know, we moved our our fund balance policy, especially in the general fund, from 35% to 50%. At the end of last year, we were at 67%. Um, that's significant. Um, and what did it translate to? It translated to us

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getting a better bond rating, moving from a double A to a double A plus. And you've heard me say for a small city this size carrying the amount of debt that we're carrying, that is really an an astronomical accomplishment um that we did. Why?

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Because we have done such a great job of planning that you've directed the city manager, city managers directed me to take that lead into making sure that we're doing a better job of planning. And our department heads have done a

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fabulous job. They're all on board and we've just continued to just ride that movement and and trying to make it. I I know, you know, how we got there. Um to coin a phrase that was was was said by our our mayor, um show me the the good,

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the bad, and the ugly. And that's what we did. Um we showed some of those components that maybe just from a pure financial sense don't, you know, didn't make sense. Um, you know, not trying to get into things that may be controversial. There's always the the

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components that would be nice to have. Um, but, you know, it's kind of one of the bigger ones that just occurred this year again underneath this city council um, and the hard work that our city manager um, put into trying to to make it accomplished of getting um, those

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that grant shifted from one purpose to our water tower. Um, those are huge. They're controversial absolutely but they help us in a different financial u percentage and when we get into the enterprise funds on August 18th the preliminary look and and from last year

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I just kind of made the adjustment we were talking about that we were going to end up having some significant increases in rates across the board in our utilities with the exception of the electric um rate. um in the water we were looking at probably about six and a

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quarter percent um rate increases for the next 10 years. We're now because of that move we're looking at more of a 2 and a half%. Um so there's some significant changes that have occurred underneath the leadership of the city council. Um this is for three of the

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members here um uh council member Schweir and uh Mayor Mongi and uh council member Nordby this is your fourth budget year. uh for Council Member Woods and Council Member M Mc Mackenzie. This is your second budget year to it. Um you're hearing me kind of

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reminisce. As I get older, I reminisce a little bit more and bring some of these these points um up. Earlier this year, uh or earlier this month, I I I have made it five years in this wonderful city of North St. Paul and being your

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finance director. Um I love this place. um your leadership um has been fantastic and we listen to everything that you're saying to us in trying to make the city a better place from a financial position and from a budgetary position. So,

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there's a lot of great things that have been accomplished in the past three years as we're moving into the fourth year underneath the city council. Uh city of North St. Paul, you know, we're seeing for the first time all the way since uh 2018 that the uh market

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values are are actually decreasing. We're seeing that the overall estimated market values are decreasing. We're also seeing the median um value home um decreasing. It's decreasing from 310,000 to 307. There's a lot of speculation out

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there in the market that we're going to see housing prices drop even further um in the in the years ahead um as kind of a balance with the interest rates that are out there to make you know home ownership affordable. That's kind of how the whole economy kind of works. Um we

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wrote some very um high increases as far as market value is concerned since the co times. Um we're now seeing though that it started to flatten out. Now it's starting to go down in the opposite way. What that means is that as those

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decrease and we levy higher amounts, that puts that much more of a burden um on the taxpayers. And again, because our pool is over 90% residential and only less than 10% on

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commercial, it puts more of a burden on our um on the homeowners um that are in this uh city. the levy budgets that we're going to be I mentioned earlier that we're going to be looking at are the general fund. Um and that's uh that houses and and and

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the budgets that are underneath that are really basically for all of our basic services. Um then we have the housing redevelopment authority h the economic development authority EDA the park fund the street maintenance fund and the asset preservation fund.

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Well, we listened to you. Um, uh, the target that we were going at from from, uh, the direction from city council and the city manager was to bring in a 6% levy increase. The budget that we're going to show you

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tonight achieves that. Um, and it continues to fund the infrastructure, meaning the streets, the facilities, and the parks per our plan. the proposed levy. Um we're seeing uh when we look at it, the general fund is

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levy is going up about $176,000. The street maintenance 173, park 76, asset preservation 142. Debt's going down a little bit from from last year about 11,000. And again, the the debt is

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set um each and every every single time when we go out and issue bonds. Um we get what our debt payments are are going to be. And this just shows what our what we need to levy and and we need to levy 105% of what our payments are going to

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be. Um, so we collect the money in 2027 to make those payments in 2028 because the first the bond and principal payment in any in the beginning of the year is February 1st and then there's an interestonly payment that's um due on August 1st. Um, and you can see um the

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shifts the differences from the 2026 final levy to the 2027 of where we're at today. And overall um it accomplishes the 6%. What you are going to see here is to be able to accomplish this, we

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would have to reduce the levy um in the EDA by $40,000. Um so it would go the EDA levy would go from a almost 201,000 to 161,000. the city manager and myself believe that

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that's very possible and feasible because I'm going to bring you back over to here and if we look at what how the EDA has has done you've seen the fund balance since 2023 to the end of 2025 has increased almost $250,000 or 54%.

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Cash on the EDA has increased $234,000 or 56%. um the the levy at $160,000 for EDA will cover what we know of as definite expenses and then some, you

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know, some extra. It has been growing every year. Um and so I think we both believe that there was enough um that we could cut that back a little bit and still be able to provide all of the services that the Economic Development

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Authority needs. Um but again those are questions that you certainly can can ask or direction that you want to give to us. But that's how we achieve the 6%. Um if we look at the levy changes for 2027 personnel costs again are the biggest

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driving factor in the general fund almost $245,000 increase or a 2.84% levy increase. we in the 2027 this represents the third year of a three-year contract. So we know that the

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cost of living increase is a 3%. Um so if you look at all of of that plus changes we make estimates for health insurancees um their step increases and so forth. Um coming in at 2.84 is is

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very good. There are no new um FTEEs um positions being proposed um in this budget. Uh if we look at the supplies of contractual services and capital, there's a slight decrease. It's only amounts to about 48,000 um or you know about a half a percent

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levy decrease. Um transfers in, you know, is a little slight increase of about 10,000. Um and all other revenue um you know we have an increase of about 30,000. Uh the general fund increase overall is about a 2% and then we have

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our infrastructural components streets parks asset preservation and then debts a little bit of a decrease. Those amount to collectively 4.4% 4% and then if we took that decrease of the 40,000 from the EDA we come up to a total of a 6%

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levy increase. I'm going to stop right there. That's a lot of information that I've just kind of gone through. Is there any questions um with kind of our methodology of how we're going about um achieving a 6%.

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I guess I'd like to challenge the $40,000 cut from the EDA and what the EDA has, what their goals are and what their plans are. I understand that there is a um there's capital money there, but

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to take money away from the EDA that's supposed to help develop our city, whether it's beautifification, um bringing new businesses in. $40,000 seems like a lot of money to um come from a budget that could be utilized.

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So, I would want to know what the goals are of the EDA. Um, and was it discussed to cut besides between you and Brian, was it discussed amongst EDA to cut those dollars? >> That definitely still has to occur um to

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talk to the EDA. Um, it's it it's not a cut in in the budget, per se. They're and we'll get to look at their budget. their budget is still being set at basically what they've had year after year. Um, but their fund balance has

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been growing, growing, and growing. Um, so really what that gives, you know, an indication is that they really haven't needed to levy that many dollars. Um, it isn't a a cutting down. >> And I apologize. I shouldn't have said cut. Um, obviously we're not cutting.

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We're just >> reducing. We're reducing the amount that we would give them. um this year, but in 2027, excuse me. Um but I would want I would challenge and I would want to know what the what EDA has planned because that $40,000 that we're

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reducing essentially is they're not going to be able to utilize that obviously for next year. So if we have monies sitting there for EDA, what is EDA's goal with those dollars? I know that they've um done

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some beautifification uh between windows um roofing downtown, but what else are we going to do with that? >> No, very good question. >> Yeah, so the facade improvement program

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that you're referring to is the funding that we've made available for the business whether or not it's >> um it was focused more towards the facade like the windows and the doors and you know what kind of improvements they can make. um even for you know saving energy and costs that way. We did

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the uh parking lot for the downtown as well and we have talked about ways of even improving the facade improvement program with uh well which we did a couple of ways. Um initially you had to spend at least $20,000 first. We

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reimbured the uh $10,000 that was reduced. It was cut in half so we could have more involvement of it and of people doing the improvements. We have floated some ideas. We wanted to see how that took off first to see if we were going to have more people involved in the program, but potentially moving it on even further than the facade part. I

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mean, it's not it's one of the things we talked about. It hasn't been implemented, but rooftop units or, you know, AC or boilers or heaters or things like that that we can make the improvements because a lot of these are really small um local businesses that uh can't afford some of those bigger high dollar items. >> Completely. And I will say the antique

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shop, the the popular one I like to think. Um that's beautiful. The windows and that changes that brought a lot of life to that building. Um so I do I think that's great. I I would like to challenge though what what are we going to do to draw in our resident new

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residents um draw in new businesses. Um that's what some of these dollars are for as well. >> Indeed. Um yeah, and there's other ideas that are out there. We've talked with different firms uh >> about economic development and ways to improve. Um we did uh

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>> I mean I we don't have to talk about what we did. It's more or less I we're cutting $40,000 from the EDA to bring this levy down. That's all. >> And I guess I would reemphasize that uh you know their current funding at the end of 20

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>> decreasing not cutting. Let me >> right the uh that their fund was at over $700,000. So it wasn't uh like a major blow to it to us to reach the goal that council had set to try to get to that 6%. So it seemed like a lowhanging fruit

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if you will to to get us there that the fund itself wasn't hurting. So >> Sure. And I rebut that to if we're going to decrease that amount, what if we need that amount moving forward in the next

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couple years and we don't have those dollars? It was There have been things that have happened with past councils where we wouldn't have a levy and then we saw damage to

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what now is catch up to that. So it's one of those situations that we proceed with caution. >> Yeah. And is a onetime thing is not meant to be done year after year. We'll reanalyze the fund again next year and

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then see what the best path forward is. You know, I think you make a very good point and and again, this has not gone in front of the EDA at this point in time and so they they may have objections to it too. I am going to just jump way ahead here. Um, just because you have brought up that e, you know,

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excellent question to it. Um, so you know if if you look at the EDA budget and I'm being very aggressive to it and you can you can see so the personnel services they are what they're they are. Um we have reduced um per our agreement

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we've had with the EDA reducing the percentage of the economic development dire or the community development director's time um from where it was at. I think it's now down to what we agreed to, I think 20%. Um, and but you can see

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we've got $105,000 in the budget for contractual services. And we look at the actuals from 23, 24, and 25, you're going to see 9,2600, and 2600 is all that's been spent out of there where we're seeing that the net position, you

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know, when you know increase 72, 81,000, 94,000. Um so just based upon that um again and it and it does not um it doesn't address I think the more principle piece that council member mirror that you were

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bringing up is what is that plan and if you have that plan and it has a higher dollar amount to it and you're doing this reduction of 40,000 you're working against yourself. Um, and so that's really where that that discussion with the EDA, you know, um, really does take place because you're absolutely right.

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If if the plan's calling for in the future years much higher, then you don't yourself now at this point in time. Um, so, uh, point very well taken. Um, but we were looking at it from the standpoint of what we know as this point

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in time, it seemed to be okay to do. Um and just like our city manager said to be re-evaluated on an annual basis. Um but again this does need to go in front of the EDA to make sure that they um you know are in agreement with that.

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And then um showing what our debt levy um will be for 27 versus what it is for 26. And you can see there's slight changes um that have occurred with that. Um and again those are based upon um the bond schedules. Um some go up a little

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bit and some go down. Um they try to make um the payments pretty equal. Um you know they usually try to make them within you know a 5,2 or a even dollar amount. So then when you multiply it by

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the one and a half% you know it kind of comes up but you unless you're issuing another bonded debt or one falls off it doesn't usually change a great deal. Um, so you can see that there's a slight savings, not not a lot into it. And this is kind of the graph that I was

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referring to earlier. Um, that is really quite impressive. Um, taking from the standpoint that we were given the direction that um, you know, build a comprehensive capital plan, identify what needs are in the st in the city, and we saw those needs that are really

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the streets, the parks, and the facilities. and how do we fund those as we move forward and making sure that we're you know you know we're doing an adequate job of that. And um what you see in the blue is what what has been levied um you know so basically um prior

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to the payable year of 2023 there was no money going into the streets parks and facilities from a pure levy standpoint. Um that has changed over time. Um, and that's based upon those 10-year financial plans, based upon the capital improvement plan and trying to fund

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those as we're moving forward. Um, this pay uh this 27 budget um you know shows that it's now moved up to uh you know a total of $1.8 million um that's going to you know streets, parks and and

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facilities um just per our our capital improvement plan that we have had. Um so if you look at from you know the there's three members again that began in 2023. So you look at that pay 24 um number and

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you look at that the for the basic services that the city provides in other words administration finance police fire. Um you had a levy of a little over $7 million. You're up to 7.3. So really

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over a four-year period of only going up $300,000 in your levy um for providing those services is quite quite good. Um you know I you know think if we look at that that's probably you know less than a percent increase on an annual basis.

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Um so pretty impressive. What the burden has been to the taxpayers in the levy has been what we've been putting into the streets, parks and and uh facilities. And you've heard me say it over and over again that that's what's so important when we look at that capital improvement plan because that's

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really what's driving um the levy at this point in time. Um and to make sure that we're in a good position as we move forward. Um and we have our road ratings have have increased. Um we're starting to take care of um the parks. We still have a lot of work there to do. Um we've

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had older facilities that are 20 plus years. Money wasn't allocated, you know, to that. We're trying to take care of all of those. So, you know, I give a lot of thanks to city council for giving us that direction and moving us forward in in that way. And I think this this graph really does illustrate that there's been

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a lot of work that's been been done um in the the you know, past, you know, since three of these members here on the city council um have taken over. When we look at the general fund budget, you know, we kind of look at again the

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revenue categories. And again, this is really it does it emphasizes it hasn't changed much from year after year, but it really keeps saying that look at our dependency on property taxes is 58%. Intergovernmental revenue 21%.

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So, you know, we're looking at almost 80% of our revenue is coming from, you know, property taxes and in state um funding. um that's a heavy reliance. Um

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you know, we don't have that other funding source that's that's out there in our general fund. And if you look at our expenditures, you know, if we look at it by category, it's our personnel costs in the general fund that are really driving it. That's 70% of the of

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the budget is um personnel costs. And then here's the numbers um that kind of back it up um that you can you can see if you want to look at the numbers and see how they've changed from one year to the next. And then if we look at expenditures by department, you know,

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you're going to see that our police um is at a little over 47. Our fire and code enforcement at 16 16%. So right there we're over 63% um of our general fund is um in public

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safety and that's not out of line. What you're going to see with with other jurisdictions um that provide um both police and and fire services and then you know followed by the next one after that is our street maintenance which is almost 12%. Um but again you're seeing

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on the revenue side heavy dependence on property taxes intergovernmental revenue and you're seeing on the expenditure side where you know two things one our biggest cost in the general fund is personnel by a long shot and then we're

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really have that public safety and then the street maintenance again all in line with with what you would see in in other cities and municipalities. Um, and here's the numbers that kind of um back that component up. HA and EDA. Um, again um HRA um if we go

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back and I'll pull back um all the way to the front part and again um this is kind of you know looking at it in the same way as we did with the the EDA. Um would we increase the EDA or the HAS's levy from 11,000? Um you know it would

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be a question do we even need that 11,000? Um is is legitimate because you can see that the fund balance has increased from 23 to end of 2025 a little over 200,000. You see cash has has increased $584,000.

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Um so again um you look at this and and what are you doing in your HRA um you know the student build um housing is uh the biggest component of that um which isn't requiring a a great deal of

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money um and um at least in the past couple of sales we've actually made a profit um so it hasn't been drawing it down um So there's really not a need to increase that 11,000. It does go to maybe you can

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reduce that, you know, to to zero if you if you so desire. Um and so we looked at the EDA in the same manner. Um and that's where we, you know, just, you know, made the decision of again, it's not a final decision because city council has that that final decision. Um

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but that's where we had proposed to to reduce it by $40,000. Um and then you can see um you know um the budgets um that are prepared for both the the um HA and the EDA.

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Um and then we have the infrastructural budgets um here for park funding. The capital has not been infused into these at this point in time um because we um department heads um had just gotten together uh last week. Uh we still need

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a little bit of information from our uh engineer um regarding some street projects so we can finalize the the CIP for proposed CIP that we'll end up bringing back to you and on August 18th and then they'll they'll be pulled into

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um all of these um budgets um and then you'll be able to see uh what the impact is and then with the 10-year uh financial plans and it really it doesn't impact the general fund but it will impact um the park fund, the street maintenance fund, and the asset preservation fund. Um because that's

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they're they're heavily driven by the capital improvement plan, but I also have provided here, you know, at this point in time, you know, what at the end of last year was the fund balance in the park fund. Um 830,000,

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what's the projection right now based upon this information? Um and then the street maintenance um fund um you know was over 4 million um with the projection here it would remain about that about 4.1 asset preservation

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um would uh based upon um the capital components that we had at the time still it was being discussed and worked with um the department heads um which will be again shown later um that one decreases uh from about 1.7 7 to about 700 uh to

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about $670,000. So, those are all of the budgets that impact the levy and we really want to open it up and give all of your thoughts, concerns. Um, we've already had a very good dialogue on the EDA very good points. Um, so we would like to

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continue that. If you have questions, what addition would you like to see regarding these levy budgets? Um again on August 18th you'll see the remaining budgets that we put together. Enterprise Internal Service Fund. We have just a couple of special funds. Um and then um

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the CIP questions, thoughts, are we close? Um >> this is a great framework I think to begin with. So I know that's where was started with was just to throw ideas out. So I do like um the framework to start with on this. So, a lot of see a

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lot of effort and a lot of time has been put into this. So, I appreciate it. >> I'll agree with mayor on that. I think you guys do with the fact that we discussed this as a council. What was it a couple years ago that we just said I don't think we need to have a billion

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meetings regarding the budget and we can put Brian and Dan and the um department heads together and we can start on that piece instead of starting early in June. I appreciate that. So, yeah, I'll ditto what the mayor said on that. Um, as

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we're talking about the HA, I um I would like to see that those dollars stay there um and to keep those dollars and not reduce it for 2027. Uh there's opportunities that may arise

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in the city that um for example, you know, purchasing of a house that we could or land that we could essentially build a new student build on. You don't know when those opportunities are going to come up. And when they do come up and we don't have the dollars or the funding

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there to purchase it, um we may be missing out on something that could be pretty hot for us. So, I I would like to say either we continue to keep that amount the same um

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or something tight to it. If there is a little decrease or a little increase, I am in favor of both of those, but we still should continue to build on that HR most especially if we're using these funds for some staffing. Um I

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I'm hardressed to reduce dollars if we're using these funds as well for and I know it's not a ton of money out of these funds obviously but if we are I would like to see that those remain intact because uh the last thing

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we want to do is reduce staffing that we're already tight on here in the city. In the last two years, it's been a little bit of a skew for the HA because we've had existing property. We haven't had to go purchase it. So, I think that's part of our number two is we didn't have the initial purchase of

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something. We're able to reuse some of the land we had. So, I think that's given us a little bit more cushion than we normally would have had to. >> Yep. Nope. Good points. Very good points. Yeah. >> I think we should keep the uh budget to say the same as for the H. Also, we

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don't want to miss out on any possible properties that we can obtain that student build housing is very important to the city. >> Absolutely. Absolutely. Dan, what does that 40,000 represent in a

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percentage? I if you were to put that $40,000 that you were going to reduce ED by back into the levy budget is a levy percentage. >> Yeah, about a half a percent. So you would you would go to from six to

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six and a half and again if the direction I I mean council member Schwer makes some excellent points. So um and and again you know remember this is this is the proposed um this is to get the dialogue

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going. Um so if you say and we hear uh clearly that you know we really don't want to reduce it to $40,000 um that our options then are we either raise a levy a half a percent or you

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direct the city manager and staff to come back and try to find ways to get that other $40,000 to get back to that 6%. Um, you know, that's that's that's how we do it.

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You know, we we certainly we we certainly want to be able to be, you know, trying to get to where the city council wants. Um and so that means we go back to the drawing board and and try to come up with uh either increasing in

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revenue um reductions in expenditures whatever to try to get ourselves back to that um you know that 6%. And >> well, and I should and I think it's important for the community to understand that as we all got together

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in the beginning of the year, it was a common agreement that we wanted to stay that as a council to stay at the 6% roughly around the 6%. So, um this is the first round. This was where um the two two of you and the department heads

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uh fit right now. Um and clearly this is just the beginning. >> Absolutely. Yeah. So, I'm I will throw it out there. I I think you are providing staff with

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direction to not use the 40,000 from the EDA and try to come up with some other options to get us back to that 6%. I would like to say that I would like to see not all of the money come from EDA

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and that we're decreasing it from other areas as well. >> Okay, that's a very fair way of doing it. Yeah, I like that. All right. Yep. We'll we'll uh certainly look at it that way. And I would say you two are best suited

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for being able to make that decision because one of the limitations that we have is we don't see what the proposals are from all these departments and everything to know exactly what the plan is with this budget. Um for us to say

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we're going to you know cut $40,000 from EDA or from parks or something like that. We don't know what the impact to their plans are necessarily. We know monetarily, but we don't know in terms of what the plan is. So, it's hard for

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us to just arbitrarily say, "Oh, yeah, take it from there or take it from there." >> No. And and and that's where what and and again, Council Member Schwar said um perfectly she's not suggesting that there's a a direct place that we're taken. That's

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she's leaving that up to staff that's in a better position to be able to do that. What's being said is that let's not take all 40,000 from the EDA. Um let's have this kind of a shared piece to it. So in other words, we may be able to increase some revenues um in our general fund.

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Let's sake a conversation$10,000. So that that reduced maybe we can reduce expenditures $10,000. Um so now we've got 20 uh maybe we can get 10 somewhere else and there's 10 that comes from the EDA and it's kind of a shared piece to it. But we would be making that

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recommendation to you for your final acceptance onto it. But I think it's pretty clear that um we did um earlier in the year and that's you know that's the direction that we walked into preparation for this budget with our department heads is that we were going to get this to 6%.

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>> Um and so this was just like you says it's the beginning. Um, and that's where we thought, oh, you know, if we look at our fund balance and the history and how things have gone, we're not seeing, we're seeing in the past three years, it keeps increasing, keeps increasing all

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by more than $40,000. Hey, we could probably take that $40,000 from there. But on the flip side to it, there's an excellent point that's made and it was discussed on the HA. what happens if that opportunity comes up and you've you shortch changed yourself um in the years

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past and you know and I think that's it's a very good comment because I'm going to tie it into that's what started us all on in in and showing the piece to it that isn't that really at the end of the day what started this whole entire

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thing of of moving ourselves to being able to pay some cash and start taking care of things you know show the good the bad and the ugly building that comprehensive plan. So your point is what we've already done. So let's not let's not go the opposite way with it

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and hurt ourselves in the EDA. Um so absolutely again I'm getting older the I pull the things together and and so to me that absolutely makes sense. Um but there's not take it from here, take it from there. That'll be us to propose to you

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>> on the EDA. us when we got together as a group and discuss what um what that looked like the you know the interest rates doubled in how many months and we were had interest on the one across the way here on on Margaret and there was three of them and then boom everybody disappeared at once. So as far as the

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EDA we're looking at doing more along the lines put a little bit of a holding pattern for new and just take care of the things we are. So there's going to be stuff coming. It's just what's the cycle going out there right now when it comes to building and commercial space and things like that. So,

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>> Dan Dan, if you could help me, I just want to make sure I understand something. When the city puts forth their levy budget, the number you give the state is actually a dollar figure, not a percentage. Correct. >> Correct. last year

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with the percentage we gave, how how much of that percentage actually went to the resident versus and how much because of fiscal disparity did we save compared to where

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we >> said we needed to be. >> Mhm. No, very good. So, it's not the percentage, it's it's the levy amount. So, if if we're, you know, if we add, you know, these all up, we're probably about a $9.1 million levy. Um, that's

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what we certify. >> Um, I think we're at about a 1.3 million that we get from fiscal disparities. So, for the taxpayers, you take that n that 9.1, subtract the 1.3, so you're looking at, you know, 7.8 million is what

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they're actually paying for. The 1.3 comes from the fiscal disparities pool that includes, you know, is really generated off of commercial property growth since 1971 um for the metro area. So, yes, absolutely. They're not they're not

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paying the full amount, not city of North St. Paul taxpayers. So >> I'm going to have to email you. My thoughts are >> Yeah. So So one of the thing So one of the things that we have to be conscientious of is that you know we

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can't go through a huge because in the fiscal disparities pool we're a winner. Um we get money. Um we get you know you contribute part and then you get money back. we we end up being positive um about the $1.3 million um which has

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grown um and part of it grows is it's if the commercial if commercial values are going up higher around the region versus what our pool is and our pool is very small um that you you can increase from that plus it's multiplied by your prior

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year's tax rate um because it's a net tax capacity that gets shifted over that gets multiplied by your tax rate. So you you don't want to drastically drop your tax rate down. So you want to and that's one of the pieces that we show every

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single year. We're just a little bit too early for that. Usually in August we start to get information from other cities of where their proposed levies are. Um but we want to be somewhere in the close to where they are. We don't want to be um way low um because then

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then it ends up doesn't hurt us that year but it hurts us in a subsequent year um with the fiscal disparities that can turn. So then it puts more of a burden even though we would end up having not a high levy increase. it

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could have a higher property tax impact on our residents because we didn't get as much fiscal disparities dollars which then translates that more of the burden of the levy goes to them. >> And that happened one year for us was it that we that we got that because it was

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a 0% >> Yes. Yeah. >> and negative a million something the following year. >> Right. And if I remember from last year, we when we ended up with the levy, we were going to be kind of just either floating right above or just below the next three

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years out. >> Yeah, we we we've been, you know, with the exception of one year, um we've been right in the middle range, um with, you know, in comparison to cities that are in Ramsey County. Um, so I mean I think

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we've been very conscientious about that. We haven't gone, you know, wild. Um, and that's what's that's what to me is quite impressive. Again, in this graph illustrates it. You've done that. Um, yet you've put of your levy

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increases, 1.8 has gone to help your needed infrastructural needs in cash. and for your basic services, you've only increased $250,000. Um, that that's that's remarkable. Um,

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to me, what it means is that your department heads are continuously tightening up their belts um and their budgets. >> That is impressive when we're doing that. We're still getting the new equipment, everything we need, too. So, that is a win-win on both ends of it.

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Other questions, thoughts, additional information that you would like to see come forth. >> No, I think you've explained everything very well as always, Dan. Thank you. Okay. So, we will come up with some

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options um that we will present on the 18th in addition to the internal service fund, the enterprise funds and the CIP. Um and again, any questions that you have in the interim time, um if you want to reach out to the city manager so we can be prepared on the 18th to be able

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to answer them, um uh please don't hesitate. >> Okay. But again, uh it has been and it continues to be a pleasure to serve you. um uh you know, love being here in the city and as your finance director and I

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give you so much kudos for putting us in a very good financial position um as we move into the future. Um and um you know, hopefully this 6% um that you know it's in line with with uh what you know, city council's direction was. Um so

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we'll do our darnest to bring it in there without having it all come out of the EDA. Yep. So, >> okay. Thank you. >> All right. >> Thank you. >> Anything else from anybody? Are you good? Okay. All right. Thank you very much. Greatly appreciate you and the staff and all the hard work.

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>> Thank you. >> Thanks, Dan. >> Thank you. >> All right, that's it. So, we got uh it's 6:08. So, we got till 6:30. Can I ask for adjournment, please? >> So, moved. >> So, moved. Council member Woods. >> Second. >> Second. Council member Kinsey. All those

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in favor say I. I. See everybody at 6:30.

Part: 2

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All right, let's call the meeting to order. Let's stand for the pledge of >> allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America to the fories one nation indivisible

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and justice for all. Oh, I didn't see you were at your chair or something. >> All right. Roll call, please. >> Council member Nordby >> here. >> Council member Woods >> here. >> Council member McKenzie >> here. >> Council member Schwar >> here. Mayor Mongi

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>> here. Thank you very much. May I have a motion to adopt adopt the agenda, please? >> So moved. >> So moved. Council member Schwar. >> Second. >> Second. Council member Woods. All those in favor say I. >> I. >> Thank you. >> Thank you, mayor. On to the consent agenda. Item A, June 16th, 2026, regular

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meeting minutes. Item B, general claims of 2,78,64.37. Item C, general claims of 3,383,871.13. Item D, H claims of $71,34851. Item E, HR claims of $429,627.98. Item F, application for a temporary on sale liquor license and charitable gambling permit for the Church of St.

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Peter's Fall Festival, September 19th and 20th, 2026. Item G, special event permit, uh, Church of St. Peter's fall festival. Item H, special event permit for Ideal Credit Union customer appreciation celebration.

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Item I, 2026 to 2028, Metropolitan Council Clean Water Water Efficiency Fund Grant. Item J, uh, disposition of surplus equipment from public works. Item K, resolution accepting donations for June of 2026. And item L, building permits for June of

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2026. Thank you. Anybody like to pull any items at this time? If not, may I have a motion, please? >> So moved. >> So moved. Council member Woods. >> Second. >> Second. Council member Schwar. All those in favor say I.

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>> I. >> Thank you very much. We'll go on to meeting open to the public. John Schmall, Mayor Council, John Schmall, 2750 Chisum Avenue. uh about uh three meetings ago

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or the end of uh April meeting uh I had asked the uh police officer present uh because I started to get interested on this subject and the subject is flock cameras and uh I turned to the officer and said

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got any flock cameras and he went and I said how many went I said okay uh so we go on from there to see well what should I do? I already found out from Maplewood they have 13 and we uh have um

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uh I didn't have time to do anything but one day going to Cub Ariel and 11th looked up at the poll well I'll be damned there's one right there. So I thought, well, I wonder when they're

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going to tell me when or this residence when where the other one is. And nothing happened. Nothing happened. And I thought, how am I going to find out about this? Well, I came across the Minnesota BCA website. And on the BCA

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website are the locations of flat cameras. The only thing is you go down the line, nor St. Paul, NA, nothing. So it must be a situation of uh like uh who

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was it? Sergeant Schultz said uh what did he say? He says >> I know nothing. >> I know nothing. Yeah, I know. Thank you. and uh went through that and went down the line with NA and uh but did notice

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something about the sheriff and the locations that the sheriff has and there it was right up on the top was uh the uh location on Ariel and 11th stated to be

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in guess where Maplewood. real data. So, uh, but next to it was 2683, um, Mcnite. So, where the heck is that? It's right across from the Quick Trip.

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And there is one of them on a pole this time on the usual pole that they set him on. But that thing was broken off and it was taking pictures of the grass. and probably not a lot of grass because

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the uh uh solar panel was in the grass. So, uh what's the secret? What is the reason for all of this? Anyway, just as a short note, I know I'm running out. Southern uh Minnesota Municipal Power

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Association had a PSA on MPR Saturday and uh it was nice and they probably contributed to MPR in order to get that on. How about having the MMPA put a like item on that?

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>> Thank you. Thanks, John Dean. Good evening everybody. Thanks for letting me speak. Um, I do have a lot of issues, but I'm just going to touch on them real quickly here today. But uh

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back in September of last year, I sent a email to the chief of police about the traffic problems at 7th and McNight. Now, I've lived there 29 years. I've seen three people get killed in

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that intersection. The people are running the stop lights 5 seconds after the light is red. Um loud exhaust, so on and so forth. Unfortunately, I'm terminal ill and

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that's why I waited so long. So then we jump forward to the 16th of this or 16th of last month. I was cutting my neighbor's grass. Some lady says that my lawn mower hit a rock, went through her window.

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So she started jumping on my back, you know, and I told her to call the police. She called the police. three officers show up. They asked me what happened. They asked for my ID

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and I told them what happened and um they asked if I needed a report. Yes, I do. They gave me a card. Um they said so the next day, the 17th of June, I come to the city hall to get

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a copy of the police report. The lady tells me it's got to be done online. Okay. So, I do it online. So, I wait. I wait. She said it takes about 10 days. I still haven't gotten that report.

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I ask why. I've been back three or four times. I ask why. Well, we're real busy and that's low priority. We're talking six weeks now and I still don't have that. So, um, I was going to come to the last

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meeting and talk about it, but it was cancelled. So, I came to city hall. I wanted to talk to the city manager. >> Mhm. >> They said he was in a meeting. Fine. They gave me his business card, said,

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"Call him. He'll talk to you." That was on uh the 13th of July. I'm still waiting for a phone call from the city manager. So, I I am just really disappointed on

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how this whole thing is going through. There's no way that it should take six weeks to get it a a report. Oh, and the other thing is is I asked the gal downstairs. I said, "Here's the case number." I gave her the case number. She

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said, "You're not mentioned in that report." What do you mean I'm not mentioned in that report? He asked for my ID. He took my ID. >> Okay. >> So, she said to call the officer and he will

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call me back. Um, I called the officer. I left a voicemail for him. Guess what? Never heard anything. >> Okay. You know, I I don't know what a person's

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supposed to do. There's no reason it should take six weeks to get a report. >> Well, we'll definitely check into it. We got it written down. We have the We'll talk with the chief in the back there. He's the one responsible, too. We'll get to it. >> Okay. >> All right. >> And the email that I sent back in

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September of last year, >> I still never got a response from the the chief either. >> Okay. >> And um you did not provide us your last name and your address. Can you please do that so we have that for the record? That way we can get a hold of you. >> Oh, Dean Mat, 2096 Mcnite Road.

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>> Thank you. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Thank you. Okay. >> Thank you. >> Thank you, >> Dan Fischer. >> Good evening. >> I'm Dan Fiser, the chair of Veterans Park. been involved since 2010 when we started the project until we opened it

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up in 2015. Before I talk about what I came here for, I'd like to mention that uh Don Schroeder, a charter member of the Veterans Park Committee who stood up at this podium, uh has passed away on the 16th of July. He uh worked for Terry

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Furlong for many, many years. Wish he was up here right now. Good man and a proud Navy vet. Um, what I'm here for is that we're getting old over there. 10 years doesn't sound old, but it things start to break. Things start to

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malfunction. And when we developed our our corporate book, we hammered out an agreement between the city of North St. Paul and the Veterans Park, which we would comes under the name association. And we have that in our corporate book.

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And there is a copy up in the storage room up here. I think Brian found it up there. But what I'd like to do is say that this this agreement hammered out and signed by the mayor and by myself

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should be used when you're determining who pays the cost of a of something that breaks. And we tried to do that way ahead of time. And it's worked well for us. Just recently, we had a some damage that was happened by somebody who came

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through with a vehicle. And so, you have to find out who's going to pay. That's a tough question. Um, so I brought up a copy of of the uh final several matter of fact. So, if you ever want to know what we got to do and what

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you got to do, they're all right here and they're tabbed. And then we have our own co our own copy. Uh we've got a 10year 11-year running partnership with the city and it's been on the ups. Every event has been on the ups. City has been

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there to help us with materials, particularly Randy Miller and city crew. They love that place. It's a best grass in the whole Twin Cities. Uh, so we'd like to keep it going because it's the only place around that significantly

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honors the service and sacrifice of American veterans. It's right here in North St. Paul. So if you could take this sometime, it's not long. It's three pages. It's got a background and a them b us and you read through it and you'll

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get an idea just when something happens. If we upgrade or if we're repairing damage, it's right there. So, uh, but it's good to come up because all the faces up here are new faces from 2010 to 2015 and now. But thank you, uh, for

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listening. And, uh, I think I made enough copies for everybody to take. I want to welcome Dave to the committee. Dave is, uh, been a, um, a barntormer getting the legal stuff out of the way. So, thank you for that. >> So, thank you all of you.

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>> Thank you. >> Appreciate it. Thanks, Dan. >> Thank you for bringing it to our attention. um that that gentleman passed away. We are very sorry for the loss. >> I'm sorry. >> Thank you for bringing to our attention that of the gentleman that passed away. We're sorry for the loss. >> Yeah. >> Yes. We will we will do that. >> Thank you for all that you're doing.

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>> You bet. Got one more. >> Elaine. >> Okay. >> I can't quite read the >> Oh, there's one. >> Okay. Am I saying it wrong? There you Here you are. Come on up and state your name,

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please. Your last name, too. I'm sorry I can't read it. >> Eileen. >> Eileen. Sorry. And last name. >> Eileen Stever. Okay. >> 387 South Avenue, North St. Paul.

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>> I am here because of my the boulevard situation on my house. I talked to Mr. Friendle. Um, I I'm sorry I missed the last meeting of that month because I didn't know you met twice a month. I

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wasn't aware of it. Um, I uh he was I was told that uh you weren't going to ask the the public works department to mow my lawn because it would start a pre

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president precedent. Is that right? Um when originally in 1996 when the uh council asked the public works to do that boulevard it was because of safety reg

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reasons and didn't safety reasons the public it is the the u precedent more important than the safety reasons why it's being done you just did you just dismiss the safety reasons

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I I I just don't understand that. And if it's a precedent, I wanted to know uh how many people have come forward to you in the last Well, you're 30 years. You're not here 30 years, but in the last time that you're here, how many

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people have come forward and asked you asked to have their boulevard mode because you're mowing mine? I don't I don't understand this um if it's a precedent type of thing and but I

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think the safety reason is uh far more important. I one day I was watching uh as the uh city was out mowing the boulevard and a man on a riding war was riding was mowing

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along my fence line and um uh when he got to the bullet the part where the boulevard the alley is that hill by the alley is the steepest part of the hill and he turned instead

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of turning to the right and going into the alley and turning around and going, he went turned downward down the hill to turn around and go back. And as he turned, the wheels blocked and he

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skidded all the way down the hill. It took seconds and over the the curb and into the street. if there had been a car parked there or his the uh um

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I don't know uh where whatever they used to the truck or whatever they used to carry their if that was parked down there the city parks on that side of the street when that if that had been down there he'd have smashed right into them you know my time is up >> y

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>> yes ma'am >> so I can't tell you the rest of the story >> sorry time's up >> feel free to email it to Yep. >> I have another one. >> We already we already went through the last meeting, too. So, >> pardon me. >> We already went through of this on the last meeting, too. The last meeting you

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were here, so we have the information. We >> But there was another item that I wanted to just let you know about. >> Sorry, it's three minutes. >> Can you email it to us? >> Pardon me. >> Can you email it to us? >> Can I come in and tell you about it?

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>> Can you email it to us? >> No, I'd like to come in and tell you about it. Is that okay? >> Yeah. Yeah, that's fine. It's the public form is the three minutes part of it. So, pardon me. >> The public forum is three minutes. If you want to make an appointment and talk to somebody, that's different inside the city.

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>> Thank you. >> What was 2387? All right. Next, um, Rachel Lucas. >> Welcome. >> Hello. >> Hello. >> Hi. My name is Rachel Lucas. I'm on the

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parks and wreck board. Um, I'm here today to talk to you guys about the public land on Third Avenue. Um, I'd like to start off by saying I deeply respect the student build uh program we have. I think it's extremely valuable. I toured their build last year. great

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quality. I think it's an excellent program. However, I don't believe that program should supersede public land and giving up public land that was previously denoted to become parkland to privatize it for this program. Um, recent studies have shown that every $1

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placed into parks and wreck um comes back to the community in $3 worth of value. Um beyond building a sense of community uh it enhances the quality of life for citizens physically, mentally and socially for all walks of life. Um

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it also contributes an economic boost by attracting visitors, increasing local property values. And then you also have the environmental component of reducing air and water pollution um and lessening the uh suburban heat island effect so we can red reduce the strain on our

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electric grid. Um, I would like to quote the Trust for Public Lands article on the undeniable ROI of community parks and green spaces. Parks enable behaviors that improve public health and lower health care costs, create greater flood resilience, generate consumer value,

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spur economic development, and drive philanthropic activity and civic engagement. The economic benefit studies are among thousands that demonstrate that far-reaching collateral improvements, a single local green space can bring to a community. I believe obviously we should maintain

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that land that was designated as parkland to stay as parks. If the council decides that this public land should be privatized um for future student builds rather than finding other land for it, I believe it would be fair for the city council to refund parks and

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recck board for the amount of money they put towards HGA to create the plan that you'll find in your packet. That is all. Thank you for your time. >> Thank you. >> Thank you. >> All right,

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I think that's everybody. Thank you all. >> All right, moving on to city business action items and recommendations. Uh, first item up is from the June 16th, 2026 close session summary. So on June 16th, we did have a close session for

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the discussion um with city council to discuss the offer regarding a sale of city-owned property at 2300 North St. Paul Drive. Uh, as is required by Minnesota State Statute 13D.05, subsection 3C.

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And at meeting, the city shall summarize its conclusion. The city council directed city manager to and the city attorney to revise a signed letter of intent and submit it to the prospective buyers for approval. Upon approval, the formal purchase agreement would be

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prepared and presented at the later date. We are still working through that process. Uh next item up item B is July 16th, 2026 special H closed meeting summary. Um so at this meeting on July 16th uh

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this special HRE meeting was closed was was closed session uh discuss the possibility of purchase of a property located at uh 2119 Eldridge Avenue. Uh as is required by Minnesota State Statute 13D.05 subsection 3C at its next meeting the

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city council uh shall summarize its conclusions. the city council established and authorized an offer range for uh the property and directed city manager to proceed with negotiations and that is still in the

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process as well. Um so item C is a city-owned property discussion at the third street properties. Have Ken Roberts here our community development director to discuss. Ken, >> thank you Brian. Members of the city

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council, mayor, uh the topic for this evening is a have a discussion with the city council about the city owned property on Third Street North. What we're asking for from the city council is to provide city staff with

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some direction about the future use or uses of this city-owned property. It's on the east side of Third Street North, just north of 7th Avenue and South Avenue East. The property in question is here in the

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It's currently one, two, I think about eight small lots here. It's just over an acre in size owned by the city. Birdwall facilities are to the north. The most recent student build which is just getting completed is here on the corner

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of 7th and third. This is an aerial photo again of the same area. And u again the site is fairly heavily treed and has never been developed as far as we know. And uh again these are

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the lots in question that the city currently owns. The uh city in two 2024 did receive a report from HDA with concept plans showing potential designs for park facilities or

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uses on this property. And I'll put that up on the screen in a minute. They show walking paths, wood chip trails, benches, nature play areas. The estimated total construction cost of those improvements in 2024 was about a

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million dollars. I'll jump to that. This is the study. I know it might be a little bit hard to read, but this was an analysis they they did the HGA to uh help formulate their plan that they presented to the parks

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commission and to the city. This was the plan that was ultimately presented. Uh wh sorry, jumped ahead. Got too excited. There we go again. Showing the pass

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going through uh with uh some play areas and other uh seating within the site. The uh corner here is now where the student built

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uh project is getting completed that was included in this original study but uh not it will not be going forward. the again and so again a little bit of other history. Just about a year ago,

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the city council approved changes to the future land use plan and the zoning for properties in this area. And if the council recalls, it was changing the zoning and land use designation for these properties just east of the site

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we're talking about tonight and across uh 7th as well. And then some properties down here. They're all zoned right now and planned for mixeduse residential or mixeduse development, excuse me. And the city

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changed those designations to uh resto single or single and double dwelling residential. At that time, and it's still in place today, the city did not change the land

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use plan or the zoning of this site again that we're discussing the evening this evening. Uh so again, as I indicated earlier, it's just over an acre in size, 1.07 acres,

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429 feet of frontage on Third Street. There is uh some slope and contours through the site. This shows it somewhat well. It generally goes higher at the south end and generally drops

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to the northwest. There's a about an 8 to 12 foot tall embankment along this side. the the is a predominant feature on the site and uh

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again I talked about the student built home to the south and was indicated by one of the speakers that came up is a primary reason city staff is bringing this to the council is to have again discussion about the

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future use of the property and the potential for having student built housing. on some or all of the property. Uh at this time the city does not have a site identified for the next student built site. Uh we are we have been

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investigating the city manager has been investigating uh alternatives and looked at several options but uh at this point in time we do not have a site that the city owns right now for a student built

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uh home of any type. So again, the goal for tonight is to uh review the situation with the city council. uh discuss options, interests,

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preferences with the city council. And ultimately, we're asking for direction from the city council uh as to what direction or future uses the city council would like to see for the city-owned property, including the

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possibility of park or open space or residential land uses. And with that, I'll turn it back to the council for discussion. >> So with that, um, there needs to be

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resoning. You said >> if if the >> if it decide to go for housing needs to be resoning, right? >> The reasonzoning and the comprehensive plan would have to be amended. >> And that's a super majority >> for the comprehensive plan amendment. So to to change it to get to that, you need

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to have four people that are in favor of changing the the comp plan zoning, right? >> Yes. >> I just want to be upfront with that because I don't think that was mentioned. >> Correct. >> Okay. >> Um I'd like to bring up a few things. Uh

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this is I'm going to I sit and help and listen with the parks and rec w Rec Commission. I sit on there to support them as a council member. This is really disappointing as I received a call today saying this is what we're going to discuss on this topic. A year ago, the

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parks and wreck, not a year ago, more than a year ago, the parks and wreck paid HGA to do a park study on where areas that we can improve our community. A year ago, it was decided that in the area that HGA did a study, without

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talking to parks and recreation first, we're going to build a student build house there. No communication to parks and recreation. Now, the same topic is being brought up again, indicating that we're going to

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exercise thought for student builds on the same land that HGA developed and create a plan for us with potential park without talking to parks and wreck. Again, M&I Homes originally had this area and

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purchased this area. They said due to the slope of that area they could not develop housing there. They didn't feel comfortable. They didn't say they cannot. Excuse me. There wasn't a comfort. They weren't comfortable with building there because of sloping.

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So why would we consider housing right there that a developer said we don't feel comfortable putting housing here? Not to mention

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the individuals that we are giving these experience this incredible experience to. I will say I too am in favor of this of student build homes in our community. There isn't communities that are like ours that do this.

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But I don't believe that if a developer said that they didn't feel comfortable building housing right here, why would we put that on students to gain experience on building homes in an area that even a developer said that they weren't comfortable building there?

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>> Do we have a staff go do we had some group go out and look at the property? Correct. Just to verify anything like that. Yeah, we got um we had um we have people that are experienced in building that work for the city that looked at it and looked at the possibility of it. The concern of the developer at the time was

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potentially a rather extensive retaining wall that might have to be built on the back side of the properties to make it work and it was just easier property across the street to continue over there with the M&I development. But uh that was their concern with that the slope in

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the back of the properties. As far as the property itself, was that owned by somebody? Who how do we acquire that that property? And is it was it dedicated as a park to begin with or did people just look around for property that was empty in the city to do a park

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study? How did that work? >> It was my understanding that this was a feasibility study of a possibility of parks. Um >> Okay. So, I don't I don't know how maybe we can ask you on the parks committee. How did they determine the different properties that they were choosing like

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the one down on first or North St. Paul drive and on third? I mean, Mcnite makes sense. Clearly, it's a already a park. >> Like you said, it's a feasibility study. So they looked at the open areas and said these are areas that we see the ability for parks. Something that parks

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and wreck paid for to say this is what we can do with these areas. >> It wasn't dedicated park land. >> We did not dedicate. No, there was no dedicated >> not like it was can set up for bark. Okay. >> Correct. What is the slope

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from the south down to the north? And would is it a feasible area to provide safety for spe people with special needs and

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disabilities to be able to travel down that sidewalk if there's going to be a park in there? Is it a oneway down? How are these gonna folks going to get back up in a wheelchair if it's that large of a because I've got a special needs daughter. So, I mean, I'm looking

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at it both ways, >> you know. So I would I would have to study or have conversation with our city manager and that how how the degree of angle is for someone

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to go down the ramp or the slope to get back up to the south to get back up to the on top of the hill at South and 7th. I'm not opposed to this. I I think

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we should have a little bit more study about this and like you say, I'll come to your meeting tomorrow night. >> Yeah. I I mean, tomorrow is our parks and recck meeting and I invite everybody on council to go to parks and wreck tomorrow to discuss some of this >> is housing park.

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>> Yeah. >> So, all that said, no, it's not dedicated parkland. there isn't any any area of this city that's dedicated park land that was in this feasibility study. But

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the point I'm trying to make is why are we not being transparent with the parks and recreation committee that are volunteers that spend their time to enhance our city then go ahead and say we're going to do this. There's a reason

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why Rachel's here tonight because she saw this on the agenda and was upset about it. And I think we owe it to parks and recreation to go to their meetings to revisit this feasibility study and say this is this is what we see with it. This is what we would like to propose.

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We appreciate the the information that came back from HGA. However, Dave makes a very valid point too. And Dave, you are very transparent about your daughter being um handicapped and special needs. All that said, when we build a park and

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a new park, it has to be ADA compliant. >> Absolutely. >> So, all that too, like that would be in if considered, that would be in the plan and or future plans of a park. We and any work we do in a park, we actually

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have to go back and make it 88. >> And I I have one more question and this may be in full with Morgan down the road here. has anybody I realize they say it's a million dollars in cost, but for the contractor to come in and provide a

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service like this, we need to know the cost of the amount of concrete needed to put this park in to make it a feasible park on a grade going down. And if if we were to take the study and take the

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money you're going to put into this to put it back into the Mcnitefield project, which I suggested, city manager Froring out in those outfields out there for Mcnite Fields.

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>> And I hear I hear you on that and you make a valid point with that. And I think the council would also say up here that that that could be something considered. What what we're discussing is this piece of land right here. No, I really whether it's a park or not, we're talking about housing, a park. What is

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>> what should we do with that area? Staff is looking for direction. >> I my personal opinion is this this needs to we need to have more discussion with it and we also need to bring it to parks and wreck out of respect to them to let them know that this is the plan instead

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of >> presenting it tonight and in a packet >> for council. I think where we're at right now is we have a good program going on with the student bill house program. Um if we do

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not have properties that we can continue this program with, we are in danger of losing the program. >> Right. That's the only thing I'm worried about. >> And so we're exploring other opportunities right now. But this is a city-owned property that at this time

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there was a feasibility study done to say yes, we could put a park there. Other option is could we use this for housing? I think where uh community or community development manager Ken is coming from is could do

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we want to pursue looking at this as a housing opportunity. Not necessarily we're going to start building houses on it, but do we want to explore this as an opportunity for these student built houses in the future? And I guess from my perspective, if we want to continue the student built

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housing program, knowing that we don't have any other properties in North St. Paul that the city owns that could be used for housing, this is an opportunity that we have to at least explore. Period. So, >> and part of it too is just the amount of

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money that for parks that we have just as a general fund, just the the study we had with what it's going to take. We don't have enough money to fix up the parks we already have. So, how do we keep adding parks when we can't even maintain the ones and we have so much work that needs to be done on them too? That was one thing I had a concern

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about. >> My my thought is somewhat different. Um, in my opinion, it's just my opinion, North St. Paul has a history of encroaching upon industry. Um, there's an industry to the north. Personally, I don't have any desire to

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put homes that close to industry. So, I I would not be in favor of whether it be student built um or professionally built or anywhere else. I I I don't really have interest in putting houses that close to the industry. Um whether we

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leave it a nature area like it is or put a park there is a separate conversation in my mind, but I I don't have interest in putting housing there for from my opinion. Right. >> I don't know if there's much of a It takes a majority, supermajority to to do

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anything for it. So, I don't know how where we could go with it. So, >> I think we should do a workshop on it. >> I would like to see some council members go to parks and recreation >> and say, "We are interested in doing

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this. It's the lack of transparency is the point I'm making. We are interested in doing this. We would like your support with this. I would like to make that recommendation. I am neither here for or against it, but

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it's the lack of transparency. I'm done. So I don't as far as going forward just to do a workshop or just to keep as far as that or I'm just trying to get some ideas.

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>> Yeah, I again I would like somebody to come and go to parks and recreation and say this is our plans. This is what we would like to do. Not have Sarah the city staff come because she's aware of it. I want somebody from council besides myself to say this is what we're

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interested in. And beyond that, I'm happy to have the discussion. Let's talk about it. Let's revisit it next workshop, next meeting, whatever we need to talk about. But it's a lack of transparency. >> Okay. >> Do you want table discussion at this point? >> Yep. I think so.

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>> No problem. All right, moving on. Uh, discussion review of the Hung Hung House Restaurant and Banquet Hall LLC liquor license. Um, Jenny's the one who processes the liquor licenses. So, were you going to speak a little bit to the process of how we got

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here? >> So, the start of the process for the liquor licenses is back starts back in April. Four separate emails are sent to each business um to their uh email address that they provide um to renew their liquor license. Um once we receive

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their application, it goes to background uh city attorney reviews and signs off on it. Um which we did have a number everybody had signed off on and uh the process went through and the chief of police signed off as well. Um, the Mung

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House did not have start their renewal process. So, early June, I believe it was. I had reached out to them um, personally through email and a phone call and never got a response. So, I feel like we did our due diligence

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trying to get them to um, renew um, with no contact uh, back from them. Um, and then their license then did expire June 30th. Um and Sue had come in um the

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following Tuesday, June Wednesday. Yes. Um to start his renewal process um and at that time I had was not aware of what had happened previously but that that's the process that we go through and um so he has

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started his renewal process and I has submitted all his paperwork. I did go out there with the chief and myself. Um we administered a cease and desist letter to them for the serving of alcohol. U they had gone in there the

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Tuesday before and um found that they were still serving. We told them that they didn't have their license. Um they had thought that they did. They said that they turned in their information to the state, but that was just their ability to buy the alcohol um the buyer

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card. Um he said that they had a business partner that had handled that part of the liquor license the year before. So they were unaware of that. Uh once we made them aware of that, they did stop. They came in the next day and um talked with Jenny to fill out the

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paperwork. Um I said that the next step is they need to come to the council meeting and discuss with you guys. It's up to you on how you want to proceed and move forward. um you have the option of revoking or finding or suspending or um

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readministering it at this point. Um being that they have been almost the last two weeks not been able to sell. Um but that choice is yours. Um we have Sue here this evening. If you'd like to come up and make a comment. >> Yeah. >> Like >> please do.

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>> Hello. >> Good evening. >> Good evening. Um so thank you mayor uh city council members um for allowing us to give us this opportunity to uh speak today. Um first we sincerely apologize

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for allowing our Lego license to um expired. We understand the importance of following the city licensing uh requirements and we take full responsibility for making sure this never happens again. We would like to explain how this

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happened. Um when our business was first established, our business partner um handled the entire liquor license applications and renewal process. All renewal emails went to his email and phone calls. So it was sent directly to

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him, not to us. So we were never aware of that. We needed to renew the liquor license separately through the city. Our renewal we had ever we completed um

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ourselves was the buyer's card which we um uh renewed around in May and we genuinely believed it was our the same renewal uh required continue selling alcohol. Um, and on July 7th, uh, the

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police officer came, um, to our business and asked if we currently had our liquor license. When we looked it for it, uh, we realized it was only um, our expired license. We um went uh immediately to

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the city hall to uh on July 8th um where uh where we learned for the first time our liquor license had expired and had not been renewed. Um that same day we

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worked for with this with Jenny um with the to complete and submit our renewal application. Then on July 9th we received the notice of um instructing us to stop selling alcohol. So we

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immediately informed our employees to um seize um alcohol sales. Um, we fully complied for with every instructions given to us. We understand why the city has procedures in place and we are not

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asking to avoid responsibility. We are simply asking uh the council to consider that this was an honest mistake um uh not an intentional violation.

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As soon as we became aware of the issue, we act immediately to correct it and have crop cooperated every step of the way. And the delay of renewing our license has already had a significant financial

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impact on our small business, our employees and customers. We we respectfully ask for our understanding and ask that our renewal u be allowed to move forward so we can continue serving our community as

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soon as possible. Um and thank you for your considerations. We appreciate the opportunity to explain our situation and answer any questions you guys may have. >> Thank you. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Is this the first bar you've ran with

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Sarah? Is this the first bar you've ran? >> Yes. >> Any questions, Jason? You're our bar expert. >> I mean, I if he said no, this was the third bar I've ran. I I I would be a lot more concerned. Um, it's the first bar

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he ran. His partner set it up. In my mind, they've faced hardship by not being able to sell alcohol for two years. Um, it doesn't sound like it was malicious. or I mean two weeks, sorry. Um it doesn't sound like it was malicious. I I

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would be in I hesitate to find anyone without a set schedule of fines in front of us. So in my mind, um uh I I I would I will be voting or pushing uh just to go ahead with the readministration

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process. Um like say I I didn't I don't from everything I've been told and from their story, I I don't see any ill will. I don't see any um you know intent to deceive. >> Um so so I I I don't see any reason to

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suspend further fine or revoke. >> I agree. That's why it was important for you to come because we wanted to you know introduce to you and just understand the circumstances. So it was very important for you to come for to see your you know you're generally you know upset that it happened and you know

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moving forward. Of course, we have these these things in place just because, you know, we had to wait till the next council meeting. So, yes. So, we uh I'm in agreements with council member Norby as far as uh we just move. We want you to be successful. You're a business in

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North St. Paul. We want you to, you know, we the police, you know, we check and you guys are are good. Nothing nothing out out of the ordinary from your bar to another one as far as you're there's a lot of calls, a lot of trouble. So, you're being good citizens. So, we want to make sure that uh you

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know we take that in consideration too cuz that really does help for you know you're in close close by to a bunch of homes. So, we appreciate that too on your part. >> As long as we have good contact between our city staff and you guys down there, it's it's important that you guys are up

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on the notifications of all your liquor licenses. As long as you keep up with that, I'm fine with it, too. >> Council member Schwar. Yeah, I I said otherwise when I learned about it, I thought a fine or um revocation, which

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it's part of having a business, serving alcohol, maybe serving under minors, we don't know. However, after sitting on it and after I learned of it, I do believe in grace and that obviously I understand because I'm currently going through a situation where um a predecessor of mine

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had made a lot of mistakes and I'm seeing them being cleaned up and they weren't which when you hold accountability to somebody and they're not upholding it, you don't know. So, you don't know what you didn't know and you did what was best that you thought. So I I believe in grace in this manner

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and I will be in favor with the remainder of the council as well. >> Council member Woods, anything, sir? >> No. Okay. >> I've got nothing to add on top of what everybody else said. So >> Okay. >> And we did look into the background as well. I mean, they haven't had any inactions of selling to minors.

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>> Okay. Good. >> I said they're being good neighbors, so >> we'll be good neighbors. >> Thank you. >> So, >> okay. To vote on it, >> I would propose that we just reinstate their license. >> Okay. That's >> I'll make a motion. >> Motion. Council member Swear. >> I'll second. >> Second. Council member McKenzie. All

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those in favor say I. >> I. >> We wish you the best. >> Thank you for your time. Good business. >> Be in touch. >> Here comes money. >> All right. Next up, item 2024, Pavement Management Project. Uh, city project 24-01.

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Accept project and approve final payment. We have city engineer Morgan Dolly here just to discuss. Dan here with the levy again. >> Uh thank you Brian, Mr. Mayor, members of the council. So I've got a three different items for you tonight. The

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first one is a bit of a housekeeping exercise wrapping up and accepting for final payment the 2024 payment management project. As you recall, on the eve uh even years within our capital improvement plan, we generally have some

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uh project that is focused more on on pavements and roadways uh less so on utilities or underground work. So in 2024, that project included several streets throughout the project or throughout the city. And um there were

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quite a few punch list items that the contractor had to address that they did not get to last year in 2025. That would have probably been the typical time frame where I'd be before you with this item to close a project out. So, uh they didn't quite get to all

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of the um punch list items last year. uh they wrapped up a couple remaining things earlier this year and then there was some delay for them to get the required paperwork to us to review to uh officially close out the project. So now

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all of that has h actually happened. I'm pleased to report to the council that the contract was completed um if this final payment is approved here tonight. Um just underneath the contract amount, about 3% under the contract amount of

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$1.5 million. So that's good news. We finished everything up with a little bit of cost savings there for the project. Uh everything's on file and again like I said, we probably would be closing out a 2024 project in 2025. This is a little bit of an anomaly, but it does happen

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sometimes. And we are beholden to the contractor's motivation to actually get things wrapped up. And if they drag their feet, I mean, it's kind of it works against them. Uh, right. We're holding money and we don't release it until they finish all the requirements. So, but we've gotten past that point. Um

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and we are recommending uh final um payment and accepting the project into u perpetual maintenance I guess is a way you could call it. So there is a resolution in your packet. The recommendation is to adopt a

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resolution approving pay voucher number five and final uh for Aztec Corp. in the amount of $54,673.92 for the 2024 pavement management project. Uh, with that I will stand for any questions the council might have

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before considering action on that resolution. >> Any question? >> Seems so far ago. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. Lifetime ago. >> I do have one question. I I don't know if you're going to be able to answer it. Um, just because we had budget

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discussion earlier. Is this what budget would this be a part of? So, this would have been the 2024 project um would have been in the uh I don't know the ending year because it's a 10-year capital improvement plan, but

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it would have been contemplated within the 24 to 34 presumably or whatever the end date of that CIP is that would have been uh adopted by council usually at the end of the year like the final meeting in 2023. And so those funds that

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were dedicated within the 2024 year period, you know, some of those expenses get incurred ahead of time for like plan preparation. 2024 would have been the construction year. And then, you know, some of those funds allocated in 2024 are still being spent in 25 and

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obviously we have a a release of the $50,000 approximately of retainage happening in 2026. But the dedication of those funds uh are and they are pavement rehabilitation funds if I remember the correct terminology. So um they come

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from the levy. It's not from one of the enterprise funds or utility funds. So they're dedicated within the levy for um capital improvements mostly to to pavement pavement maintenance or pavement preservation and that's what these projects are are kind of focused on. So, but specific to 2024 budget,

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that's would that would have been the dedicated year and the funding source would have been pavement preservation funds. >> Thank you. >> Yep. >> No other questions. Can I have a motion to pay the 2024 bill? >> I'll make a motion. >> Council member Schwar.

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>> Second, Norby. All those in favor say I. >> I. improvement project professional service proposal, excuse me, professional services amendment. >> Thank you, Brian, Mr. Mayor, members of the council. So, um, this next item

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before you, this doesn't happen very often. Uh I don't think it's I can't recall the last time I've done this, but uh this would be this amendment um consideration or amendment request would be professional services in terms of the

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arrangement with between WSB and the city of North St. Paul to provide construction administration services, oversight, quality control, observation, materials testing, the all the things that go into making sure that the contractors that complete our capital improvement projects that they're doing

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right by the city's standards and the city's expectations. So, um, as you recall, when we get to certain points during the project, I, um, staff brings forward, I present, uh, there's a professional services proposal. Uh, I

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can't make recommendations on that. Certainly, that's handled by another member of staff or a department head. Um, but for this particular project, for the 2025 project, we always have to going into construction after we've taken the bids, we have to assume a

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certain time frame uh for the length of construction. Um, and we're assuming we're going to do kind of all the typical expected things on the front end. So, there's some things that are out of our control. And on this particular project, you may recall that the pond construction was happening in

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the spring of this year. The original plan as presented by the council by the contractor was to do it in the fall of 2025. There's also some some date uh misrepresentations in the memo here. So 2025

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um was when the the contract was let and awarded by the city council for the project and for the improvements. That was when we started this process. the change in schedule and the delay of the um uh delay of the pond construction was

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one component that kind of expanded the number of weeks that uh it took to construct and certainly with full-time construction observation or all the things that go along with that there was a little bit more time for for the WSB professional services to be occurring. Guess the other thing that maybe was a

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that was a contributing factor um or the ma more major contributing factor was that the contractor had proposed a switch from sewer lining to s sewer open trench construction. You may remember that I brought forward a a change order that actually was a a savings to the

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project to the tune of a little bit over $100,000. Uh and that was an end product that public works was in favor of that they thought that that would give them a better product. And I think it it was a good choice to make. We did have to do a little bit of extra engineering, if you will, to make that change. We had to

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repreprepare plan sheets to switch things around. And so at about uh April of 2026, we realized that we were not going to quite have enough authorized budget for us to finish the project. So we prepared kind of an estimated

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amendment to expand our uh not to exceed amount for our cont for our contract for this project. um in the amount of about $35 $36,000. $518 $518 is the proposed number. And so

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we're um we put this together, put it on a council agenda to be able to consider um authorizing that minor expansion of the overall budget. Um, and I think that I provided in the packet just some

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illustrations here to show that even with this uh the requested additional 36,000 with the WSB professional services amendment, the project will still come in under budget with the available funds that were provided with the bond sale for the 2025 project. So

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there even though we were we were under budget before um with the change to the sanitary sewer with the change order even with this additional 36,000 we are still to the positive u pretty substantially about at least 10% is is what the calculations show under the

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bond the available bond funds amount. So um it appears to be within budget. I guess I'll just leave it at that. Uh, again, I can't make a recommendation on WSB's um professional services, but u I'll maybe refer to the city manager if

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he'd like to um remind the council of of an a recommendation. Right. Uh but that's that's the facts. Um happy to answer any questions that the council might have. >> I would recommend that uh

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service um recommendation action for them to >> Yeah. A little bit here, a little bit there. We're still under. We're good to go. All right. Do I have a motion? >> So move. >> So move. Council McKenzie. >> Second. >> Second. Council member Norby. All those in favor say I. >> I.

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>> All right. Last one. 2027 Street utility improvement project. Uh, city project CP 2701, authorized professional services, uh, proposal from WSB. Over you, Morgan. >> Thank you. Uh, Mr. Mayor, members of the council. So, this is the next one.

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Um, so this would be, I guess you could call it phase two in the Casey Lake neighborhood. Um so within the capital improvement plan uh the 2027 street utility improvement project that would be next year for the construction year

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is proposed to take place on uh Chisum and Msabi Avenue and the northern portions of Gerald Avenue uh to finish out the rest of that neighborhood which was started in the 2025 street and utility improvement

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project which we just finished talking about um and similar scope. So, streets, curb and gutter, uh sidewalks, uh sanitary sewer. So, we're going to we would move forward with the open cut uh

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process rather than lining because that was actually achieved on this last one and everything worked out because the soils were really good, probably the best soils in the entire city of North St. Paul. um and we would start the design now. So that's why we wanted to

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bring this forward uh to get a jump on it again, hopefully finish plans and specs and get into a bidding scenario very very early in 2027 to reserve kind of that the contractor's spots, get competitive pricing with the the bids

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for the project and hopefully similar to last time um come in under budget and hopefully be able to realize some cost savings overall on the project with some really uh good competitive bids. So, uh WSB has put together professional

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services proposals for final design. So, this is just to get us through bidding. There would be another uh action or consideration for further continuation of professional services if the project moved forward and a construction contract was awarded. So, that would be

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probably something that would be come coming before you in um March or April uh of 2027, something like that. But if authorized uh for design for the 22 27 project, we would get started on that right now. Again, uh probably be in

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front of council in the fall with a report on updated estimates uh and um just to confirm the scope and that sort of thing. That's typically what we will do in front of the city council before we move further. Um, but again, getting started now just gives us a

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better opportunity to finish earlier and bid things uh on an early calendar when contractors have open schedules and are hungry to to load that up by giving us competitive bids. So, uh, with that, I'll stand for any questions. Again, uh, I don't have the recommended action

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here, but, uh, city manager Brian Frandle can reiterate that for you as necessary. I did include u a snippet from the 2026 to 2035 capital improvement plan that shows uh the planned year and the

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planned funding. So 2027 is going to be a bonding year for this proposed project if it moves forward uh with funding categories with streets, water, wastewater, and surface water as indicated in the capital improvement

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plan. So with that, I'll stand for any questions the council might have. There's not significantly different type of scope items um from the last project. Very similar. Um and again, this is uh intended to get us from uh final design

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through to plans and specs and uh bidding to occur early 2027. >> Aren't any questions? I'd recommend approval of professional services proposed by WSP for final design for the 2027 street and utility improvement project.

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>> No questions. Ask for a motion. >> I'll make a motion. >> Council member Schwear. >> Second. >> Second. Council Mackenzie. All those in favor say I. I. >> I. >> Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Appreciate it. >> Thank you. >> All right. Moving on to reports to the

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city manager and departments. Um talked with the college. They're looking at the potential date of August 20th for the open house for the new student built. That'll be from 4 to 6:00 p.m. Once we confirm that, we'll get invitations out. Um,

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department's been busy with their underground projects this summer. Um, they've had one in the Northwood area. They've also had one in the Tower Park area. They've in the Northwood area, it's well over a mile of primary that they've put in the ground, 6,235 ft, and almost 1,000 ft of secondary

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wire. um Tower Park area. They've put in over 7,260 feet of primary one not and 4,500 ft of three-phase um primary um which is replacing old um it's

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creating loops out there. So any kind of power outages that could happen, you can get the power back on by feeding it from multiirection. So, they've been busy. Um, finance clearly has been busy with the budget. Um, working on the general fund and the levy and, uh, coming up next is the SIP

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and the enterprise funds after a bit here. So, uh, PD is still working through a couple minor issues with the, um, Motorola with some IT issues. Um, I believe they did nine interviews for the two positions they have open for police officers. They got two of them that are being

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backgrounded right now and they also passed their postboard audit. So, good job to them. Uh, public works, uh, staying on top of the student builds. They're getting close. Painting was done today. They're looking at irrigation and potential sad

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if they're on top of that tomorrow. So, hopefully with any luck, uh, early August, we'll have that finished and get it put on the market. Um, Casey Lake had the final lift on the road today. Is that correct? And uh they've also been

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out in the parks putting wood chips out there for for the playground equipment. Uh community development's been busy with the comp plan and that update that uh is coming up and due. Um

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and that is all I have for you. >> All right. Thank you very much. Council member Sher, anything? >> I don't have anything to report but the meeting will be held tomorrow at parks and recreation. excuse me, will be held tomorrow at Howy Park at 6:30.

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>> Thank you very much. >> I have nothing to report. >> Um I will just say that uh Arts and Culture represented uh had a representation at the Silver Lake uh beach party. Um so we had an event going

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on out there. We also had the um new trailer uh down at the big truck at the car show a couple weeks ago and that went really well as well. So, >> thank you. >> There was no planning commission in the

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month of July for the month of August. The planning commission will be on Thursday um August 6 at 6:30 right here in the council chamber. >> Thank you. Any general business? Not at this time. >> Okay. I approached the I went to the uh

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Boy Scout Girl Scouts Museum and I gave them some information about our facade program and I told Ken and I see that they've reached out to see they one question they had asked is they'd like to know if the facade program would

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include a handicap accessible door in the front which they do not have. And they also wanted to know being that the setback from the sidewalk to the front of their building would be included in a new concrete sidewalk

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part of that facade program also because that's where the capsule was laid for the last 50 years. So, if those beings, we might be able to get the Boy Scout girl, the Boy Scout uh museum to go in

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on a facade program. And they'd also like to put some new fresh lights up in that to brighten the whole corner up. So, >> very good. Thanks for going out and talking to them. >> Anything sir? Um, I would just like to

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say uh with uh Chief Ray here um and hearing the news about the officer that uh was injured in the line of duty in Maplewood, I just want to say our my thoughts go out to them >> and all of our officers in the line of duty. So >> I did talk to

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>> Okay, good. >> Oh, good. That's good news. >> Anything? Um, there is no council meeting on August 4th, which would be the next normally scheduled because it is national night out. I encourage everyone to go out and meet your neighbors. Um, and just also want to

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remind everyone that if they choose to want to run for a local office, they have one week to register. >> Great. Yes. Thank you for the reminder of that. Uh, for the next meeting and the national eye out, it's always a good time to get out and see people be able to do that.

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>> Yes, sir. One thing as our city attorney welcome >> didn't keep you busy this today. Sorry. >> Quiet is all right. >> That's all right.

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>> Well, yeah. Ease you into it. Exactly. All right. If there is nothing else, August 18th is our next meeting. I'll ask for adjournment. >> So move. >> So move. Council member Woods. >> Second. >> Second. Council member Sheer Swear. Sorry. All those in favor say I.

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>> I. >> All right. Thanks everybody. >> Thank you.