Alright. Good evening. Welcome to the Northfield City Council meeting for Tuesday, 07/01/2025. It is 06:01PM, and I am calling this meeting to order. May I have a roll call, please? Mayor Zweifel? Here. Councilor Dahlen? Here. Councilor Holmes? Here. Councilor Ness? Councilor Peterson White? Here. Councilor Soukup? Here. Councilor Beamer? Here. Thank you. Our first item is open public comment. This is a time when the public can comment on things that are not on the agenda. You'll have two minutes to address the council.
I do have four cards tonight, so I'll call I think they got a little shuffled up when they came to me, so I'll just call them in random order. And, if you would like to speak and you haven't filled out a card, cards are located under the Cowes Colleges and Community banner, near the door. All right. We'll start with George Holt. Herbert. First of all, thank you. In this political climate, we have public servants. We should be appreciative. So no matter what you agree or not agree with me, I really appreciate what you what you've done for this city.
My name is George Holt, and I used to live on Prospect Court. I no longer there live there. I'm on Woodley And Hay Haywood. But these are my neighbors back here after twenty years in Prospect Court, and they've been concerned about the, the lanes. And generally speaking, they probably swallowed hard and accepting it. But now with the raised concrete curbs, that's enough's enough, and they can't seem to get their heads around it. And I don't blame them. In some ways,
yeah, I'm glad that this city, is bike friendly, but I don't see a whole drove a lot of people coming in for that reason. But they're leaving because of high taxes, and this is a costly endeavor. And I think if you'd went and drove by on Maple Street and seen the raised concrete, you'll see tire marks on the one side where people have actually hit the car, the embankment or you've seen this, perhaps the snowplows who have chipped away. So that's gonna be costly all along.
Plus, it's plain dangers. I think that when I say it about the tire marks, if you were an older senior driving down, driving south, and you have a perspective looking over the over the, the hood of the car, you might hit the hit the concrete and oversteer. I'm afraid some people have been doing that. If you're a child, like my grandkids, coming down and they meet with each other, sometimes your handlebars can get messed up with each other. And I don't want my my grandchild, they're all grown up now, but if they were small, I would want as much space as they possibly can to get down and break
their fall before they hurt themselves and before their head hits the concrete. Please try try to get some data. We have some raw data, wonderful data from the residents on Maple Street. Look at them, talk to them about what how they perceive it all, and also talk to the children themselves. Because if kids hate it and to say think it's stupid, then they won't use it. Thank you. Thank you, mister Holt. Next up is Ruth McCarty. Yes. I'm Ruth, and I live on Prairie Street. After attending all of your informational meetings and talking with cyclists and drivers and parents
and kids, a number of us got together, and we compiled a sheet outlining our concerns, about adding barriers to our street. We've given each of you a copy, and you can just read it at your leisure. I'm not going to read it to you. We do believe that the current bike, car safety and parking lanes that we have on Prairie Street are serving our neighborhood well. Everyone's happy. No one's complaining. We got used to the multitude of colors and signs on our street, and we're all good. Police records show one bike accident on Prairie,
in the last seven to ten years. We've had no reported accidents, since our current lanes were put on Prairie Street. On another note, several of us did see a young boy fall and end up under his bike after crashing into an existing barrier on another street here in town. From an aesthetic point of view, I'd like to emphasize the bright poles, the debris buildup which makes breaking difficult, and which the bikers tell me makes it more slippery when they get wet. And the patching of in the patching of the cement that invariably is going to
break, isn't pleasant to look like to look at. We upon hearing this, it's interesting. One, person said, Oh, no. It looks like it's gonna look just like a circus. And a driver said, seriously, one more one more street I have to avoid. And an adult biker said, we like to ride Prairie because it feels open. So in conclusion, what we're saying is perhaps funds could be better spent elsewhere. Edina, where my grandchildren happened to go to school, for example, ultimately decided against the barriers. Their biking coordinator cited the cost of maintenance as one of the main reasons for
going with the painted markings. And they've been very happy with them. And that's happened in other towns I contacted too. My neighbors, I encourage you to vote no on the proposed barriers. What we have is working just fine. Thank you. Julie Breen. Gotta get this a little lower. Okay. Okay. So I have lived on Prairie Street for twenty five years, almost twenty five. I've watched a lot of changes, and one of the biggest things I've seen is the number of new homes that have been built back there and the number of service trucks that go by construction
trucks and, you know, delivery trucks right now because of all the deliveries to the home. The other thing I've been talking to our landscaper, and he said he I asked him what his thoughts were. And he said they're very difficult when he he avoids Roosevelt and Maple as much as he can, and so are the other landscapers because with their big trucks, their equipment, it's very difficult to come out of a side street and make a turn. Also, a lot of times, they hit if there's somebody parked in the parking lane where they're supposed to be,
you know, then they have to either wait if they're meeting another vehicle or which delays wherever they're supposed to be next, you know, and their time and this kind of a thing. And one of the things that was really interesting that thinking about what I wanted to tell you is Sunday, I witnessed outside my, my house, a gentleman was hauling a big piece of equipment that I have no what it idea what it is, but he needed to stop to tighten it.
It took him half an hour. In that time, I watched what happened with cars, and everybody did the safety thing. They moved over to give him space. In that time, they and when they met a car, the meeting car had to go through where this cement barriers would be. And there was plenty of room for everybody to readjust. So, you know, when I just watch things like this, we have two hills, two curves. Those are dangerous to begin with. So thanks.
Paint the paint job is a lot cheaper than new concrete. Thank you. The next, commenter is Donna Jackson. Hi. I'm talking again about, the flooding on Spring Creek Road. Not enough has been done to address that. The dam that was built has fallen apart. The, culverts, it's not recommended to put extensions on culverts according to the chapter five in the Minnesota Department of Transportation culvert guideline. Is there any way that the space,
the green space along that road can be less than five feet? Because now with a five foot green space, a 10 foot bike trail, you are now taking my flood protection berm. And that cannot happen. The last time I flooded was because the city changed the elevation of the road. They changed where the flooding was gonna cross the road, which is not recommended. Eighty eight percent of deaths occur in flood zones where water is directed across a
roadway and people try to drive or walk through that. That's a big safety feature. I've chased kids off of that road when there has been flooding across the road. So I'm asking, please try to find a smaller green space between the roadway and the bike path or rebuild my berm. The city, during the dredging, took the lower level of rocks out of my rock wall that protects me from flooding from the pond.
Those have not been returned nor have I been paid for them. David Bennett has the bill from Mulligan's. I just spent a thousand dollars trying to remove vegetation and, paving stones as a Sorry. Please reconsider what you're doing and find some way to protect me from flooding. Thank you. Is there anyone else who would like to take advantage of the open public comment tonight? All right. Seeing no one, we will move on to our next item, which is approval of our agenda.
Is there a motion to approve our agenda? I move to approve the agenda. Thank you. Councilor Beamer? Second. Alright. All those in or any discussion? All those in favor, signify by saying aye. Aye. Those opposed? Motion carries. Our agenda is approved. The next item for us is our consent agenda. Not sure what that beep was, but, we'll just proceed. So you should now see the consent agenda on your screens if you're here in the council meeting. And, also, if you're watching online, you'll also see the consent agenda listed there.
These are items that we vote on all at once, by the council. And so I am looking for a motion to approve our consent agenda. Councilor Soeke. I'll move the consent agenda. Thank you. Council councilor Dahlen. Second. Thank you. All right. All those in favor of the consent agenda, signify by saying aye. Aye. Those opposed? Our consent agenda passes. Congratulations, Habitat. I see you back there. Yay. Okay. Great. Next up is reports from the mayor and councilors. So we'll start over here with councilor Beamer.
I have nothing new to report. Councilor Dolan. NAFR's met and all is in good hands. It's facing some issues with the purchase of equipment, but which is a important part of the fire service is the right equipment or the updated equipment, but that will be resolved in the next few weeks. Yes. I attended the along with a few others, attended the ribbon cutting for the transit, center transit hub. It was a great celebration. A lot of hard work has gone into that, and it was good to see the I don't want to say generations necessarily,
but the the the generations of volunteers within the community that have steward this project forward. So, so it was great to be a part of that and be there for that. And then, I know some of fellow counselors have have done their meet and greets with the CEO, Xander Abbott, from the hospital. And so I had mine yesterday and had some good conversation that I think will kind of is relevant too in terms of what we're talking about with the ordian ordinances tonight. So, I think that's all I have. Great. Thank you. Councilor Soukup. I had a EQC meeting on the eighteenth, which mostly consisted of just going through their work plan and reporting back on subcommittee
work. But I think a couple things to note, they are looking at hope, doing some research into data centers and providing it to council in an advisory role around best practices. So that was interesting in regards to the Northwest Area and what may or may not develop out there. And then there's also a couple of open houses coming up, related to a possible carryout vague ordinance, which is really in the beginning very, very beginning stages of just gathering feedback.
And and, so I wanted to bring those up in case anyone here is interested in going. The first one is August 13, from six to 07:30 in the Second Floor Training Room. And then there's one that's specifically geared toward businesses, and that one's on September 10 from six to 07:30. And then I had an HRA meeting just last night, and, the first couple items were, we asked staff to come back with some more information. So I'll wait till August to report on those and then created a subcommittee on
finance. And, community development director Riley gave us an update about the application for the greater greater Minnesota infrastructure grant program that would, help put in infrastructure and incentivize development, more on the south end of town. And that was it. So that's all I've got. Thank you. Councilor Peterson White. Thank you. I don't think we've done these reports since I attended an EDA meeting, where the agenda item was to discuss the financing for the ICE arena. There was, I think, a really robust,
well rounded conversation about that with a lot of great questions asked and addressed by staff and really thorough presentation that I think is more or less all the same material that you are all familiar with. And that that the recommendation for the financing passed the EDA. And then also last week, I attended a hospital board meeting. I would say that the, the most substantive thing there was that the, hospital board members of the hospital board voted, unanimously to direct, CEO Xander Abbott to address a letter on the behalf of the hospital trustees to
our members of Congress, that is our two senators, as well as the District 2 and District 1 members of Congress, explaining the extremely negative impacts to Northfield Hospital and clinics to our community's health and well-being, to the local economy. That will result from the Medicaid cuts that, were passed by the United States Senate today, which now have to go back to the House for reconciliation. So folks who are interested in knowing what the effects of that, big bill will be on your local healthcare, and as a result on the local economy, I would encourage you to check out that letter. KYMN did a nice piece on it that includes all the facts that were cited
in that letter. That's what I've got, I think. Thank you. The only thing I have to add is that today, I met with Carlton's, athletic members of Carlton athletic department, specifically, the cross country coaches because in November of twenty twenty six, Carlton is going to host the Division three NCAA National Cross Country Tournament here in Northfield. So, they reached out to us about collaborating with the city to welcome the athletes and spectators. So we have just started that journey, and I'm really excited about it. So yeah. Alright.
That moves us to our regular agenda. So the first the first and only item on our regular agenda tonight is to consider the first reading of ordinance ten eighty one, amending the city code chapter two related to boards and commissions. And, is miss Hoffman or miss Draper gonna kick it off? I will start. Great. And hand off to her. Thank you. Mayor and members of the council, as you will recall, back in May, we gave an update on the board and commission governance work, kind of little recap on what we've done, and then the next steps.
We're coming back to you tonight with a first reading of some code updates and I'm gonna kind of just do a brief recap of what's included and then I will hand off to miss Draper for more information on the one person for the arts which is also included in this ordinance. The main point as you recall last year we did some, code updates and added a standardized section of code for all our boards and commissions. This next phase was to look at the board and commission specific sections of code and update those as needed.
Most of the changes as you'll see in the red line are minor changes to standardize across boards and commissions, terminology, making sure certain things are included for each board and commission. And then minor updates to specific boards and commissions. A lot of the code was created in the enabling legislation which might be twenty, thirty, forty years old. So it's really just updating with our current ways of working. Some of the detailed changes include a change to the ACC, which will we are proposing, which is the Arts and Culture Commission. We are changing the name or proposing changing name to the Public Arts Commission to
align better with their work. A section of code has been removed because it was duplicated in the public arts policy, so there was really no reason to have it in two sections, so we proposed removing that. And then the 1% for the arts is currently under the ACC section of code and we are proposing removing it and placing it in a standalone section. As I mentioned Ms. Draper will cover that more in a couple slides here. And then the Northfield Alliance for Substance Abuse Prevention has recommended changing the name to the Youth Substance Prevention Alliance.
The term abuse often applies that a person is taking advantage of something and the term substance abuse applies that a person is struggling with a substance abuse disorder and taking advantage or doing something willingly. The members of North Hill ASAP thought it was best to remove remove the term abuse, to better align it where the field is now. The next portion of code is to adjust for the council liaison roles. As you will recall we came back with a few options, in May. One was to only have council liaison roles in the boards,
commissions and committees that are where it's required. Another option was to have it in the ones where they're required and then have council agree to other boards, commissions and committees. And then the third option was kind of the current way of working, which is, the required ones and then kind of a more fluid, approach to appointments. So we are proposing to only have the council liaisons on the required ones that are required by, either, ordinance or, joint powers or other enabling legislation.
And that would include the Economic Development Authority, the City Hospital governance committee, which is currently required, on the playbook, which is, voted on by the hospital board and council, but that can be adjusted. The council employment committee and finance committee, the the convention or visitors bureau, the Millstown joint, powers board and the Rice Steel nine eleven center board. Another part of this is to update the appointment timeline. Again, we offered a few options last time and we are proposing shifting it about four to five months for each step.
It'll start in October where staff begins the review process and notifications. Vacancies are published in December, January through March are the interview processes for the mayor. Appointments are made in April and the terms start in May. And this would align with the youth appointments as well, they would move back a month, earlier a month, so, they would both align. If this does if the council approves this we will bring, action back to the council once the ordinance goes into effect to realign and readjust the current, terms. And as the staff prepared these based on council feedback from May and also there
was, it was brought up the HRA, they would, we would like to look at the HRA possibly merging either with council or EDA. The council can take on the role of either HRA or EDA. And so we will look into that further that was requested by a member of council. And I would also like to point out that in the last discussion council had some questions around other, parts of the governance work such as combining boards and commissions or eliminating ones. We haven't addressed that in this update, but we did, try to answer some of those questions in the staff report.
So and we will continue on with the governance worth after this phase. So if you have any further feedback on that, we welcome it. I don't know if you want to do questions now for this portion or do you want to hand off to Mr. Ebert? Sure. Let's see if there are, if there are questions for, this portion from the council. Councilor Holmes. Thanks. Just, for clarification on the liaison roles and the options, you said, you know, there were three options we're going with right now. We have the one where it would be on only required. The other two options are a possibility for us to discuss and potentially vote on
tonight? Yes. Correct. Alright. I didn't know. I'm trying to We can change we can make amendments to or changes to this, before the second reading if council chooses. Okay. Thank you. I had a question if you have a recommendation for liaison seems like not the proper language when we do if we go to a situation where it's the required and you're voting members, then you're you're no longer a liaison. You're a voting member. So would we change that language? Or We can do so. We've always used the term liaison just because it has been more fluid as sometimes
they're voting, sometimes nonvoting. We can definitely update that. Interesting. Yep. Okay. Is that yeah. Counselor Peterson. I find that confusing personally, but counselor Peterson White. I do too. In my twelve years on the council, I've always assumed that a liaison is not a voting member because if they were, you wouldn't call them a liaison because their job isn't to liaise. It's to vote. So are can you tell me specifically which liaisons are actually voting members? And these would be, I think in most cases or in all cases I can confirm that they would be voting members so maybe liaison is not the best term I think it's just kind of the term we were using as more of a broad term since one
of the options was possibly, non voting members as well. We can definitely change the wording on that though too, if this is the Choice Council, we'd like to go with. So can we look at that slide again? So I don't as an as an appointed member of the EDA, I don't think I've ever been referred to as liaison. And I think it's usually a member of the EDA. Likewise, with the hospital city governance committee because those are I mean, that's three members of out of six in that group I think so I just think it's a I mean I understand it's a semantic debate but it's a it's
a very important word. And it is a term that has been used for years long before, either of us were here and I think we use it more as a broad term of a council member who was appointed to the boards and commissions as opposed to, just a resident or a community member that but we can and I think on a like for the EDA, I don't think they're considered council liaisons once they're in the board setting. It's more of a overarching term we use for appointment processes. Thank you. I share councilor Peterson White's concern with I found it confusing.
I was, a liaison to the climate action plan group. And because I was named liaison, I wasn't really included in the discussions. Oh, you're here to watch. You're here to liaison. And then but then later, it sounded like the mayor thought I should have been contributing to the discussion and the roles, please? I'm breaking my own rules. Alright. Councilor Soka. I think my question slash comment is more around the combine the idea of combining the EDA and the HRA. I think if that because as you said,
that would be something we would discuss in the future. But if that were weren't to happen, and it's not right now, so I guess for now, I think it's pretty important to have a council member on the HRA. They do a ton of work, and I don't know that a once a year update from the HRA is keeping this body in the loop. If it's more if it would be better to have that person as a liaison and not as a voting member, that's I just think it it's the the workload that that body does is something
that council, in my opinion, should be more up to date on and is also, one of our few strategic priorities is around housing. And so I I'm curious if others kind of agree with that. I just think it's one of it's one of the most active boards, and I I I hesitate to add when when we talked about so much about subtracting. But, I just find that board to be a really active and important component of the
work that the city does. Yeah. Thank you for lifting that up, and I would consider a motion when we get to the, a motion, or an amendment to the motion when we get to that point with that option. Other questions from the council? Okay. We do have, one. Oh, right. We have arts. We have arts part two. Thank you. I was gonna go to open the open public comment is for the arts, so we'll take it later. Good evening, mayors mayor and members of council. Thank you for the time tonight. So this this part of the with the dealing with the percent of the arts is probably
a little awkward for the governance changes because it's sort of moving this from that section. But in, in May May 13, staff presented on the Prisoner for the Arts program, at the request of council and to get some direction on how we might adjust the program and how it's funded. Concerns were raised about some costly or larger projects, the water treatment plant in particular, that, might contribute a disproportionate windfall to the percent for the arts fund that might exceed capacity scale or practicality for for a community.
And then there were some concerns expressed about smaller, more routine maintenance projects as well that were contributing to the fund. There was some support in seeing a cap placed, but I I didn't record any consensus on the actual dollar amount. I did take that to the ACC. And after discussion, we looked at a cap adding a cap if we were to look at a cap of $500,000 limit per project. So, that as you can see from this projection, which is an estimate assuming that all of these projects happen when they happen at the amounts that they happen,
this is roughly how much would be contributed from the percent if no changes were made. We're seldom getting above into that territory, with the exception of a a a few projects. So individual projects typically aren't that substantial. So we it's hard to pick an exact dollar amount for, like, what how much is too much. But what we didn't wanna do was rule out the opportunity of doing something that might be more, say, monumental, not necessarily monuments. But, but knowing that we don't normally see that much when what we were talking about with the water treatment. The other thing that was discussed was raising that minimum threshold at what,
like, what cost of a project would trigger a percent contribution. And it has been connected to the state's requirement for when construction projects need to go out to bid, which right now is set at $175,000 It's not necessarily adjusting as fast as inflation might be, so I think that might have been driving smaller projects into the percent. And so we discussed, raising that threshold. So so smaller projects wouldn't necessarily contribute below 500,000. So that helps, think about putting a $500,000 cap and a 500 doll thousand dollar,
minimum threshold would be what we would see contributing. So as I said, this one is the projection assuming no changes. I wanted to oh, one thing to note here is I think one at least one project has already moved off of this. So I think Bridge Square is no longer in that five year projection. So I think that's 2027 that would reduce that amount. So we we are always looking at that being fairly fluid. I wouldn't assume that this is exactly how much we're going to see in the fund, but it gives us a sense of what we can kinda plan for. And so the next slide everybody sees that.
Yep. This is the projection with the changes that I just mentioned. So that's the the cap and the and raising the floor, essentially. This is showing no projects under 500,000 contributing to the percent for the arts, which removes, about $11,000 over the next six years if you include this year. So it's not, you know, that's not a huge amount of money in the in the scheme of those, you know, five or six years in the CIP. And it doesn't affect anything at the higher amount because we just aren't seeing that many projects that are coming in at at a substantial amount.
So these were the changes that the ACC, after discussion, has proposed. And I think yes, I think with that, that is all I have to say about that. Thank you. Questions from the council about the 1% for the arts. Counselor Peterson White. Can you tell us any examples of projects that have been done on arts 1% for the arts projects that have been done on projects that are have been under half million dollars. Does that question make sense? Like, city projects under half million dollars that were eligible for arts that that contributed their
1% and then thus had art as a part of the project. Are there any? No. We, we have not my knowledge since I've been doing this. Most of the projects that we were doing and actually completing the project as part of the the city project. It might deposit something into the fund, so it's a little hard for me to answer because I don't know if maybe, like, $5,000 has gone in. But, but we wouldn't look at that. That wouldn't necessarily be enough to really do much art wise.
I if I can give examples of, like, budgets, like, a mural of of kind of any sizes around $15,000 to $20,000. So that's kind of that would be a bit more than, dollars 500,000 projects. Yeah. Thank you. That answered? Okay. Other questions? Councilor Darling? Yes. Thank you. Thank you for the presentation. And we've talked about some of this before, but could you tell us if we pause the discussion about 1% for the arts, whether we instituted a cap or just made it 0.5%
of the arts, however we could change it, how much would the city have at its disposal during that pause period to do arts projects? So how much is in the kitty now? And how long would that last for you while we try to balance the policy priorities. So currently, the fund stands around I pulled these numbers in March. I apologize. I didn't check them last night. But, about $260,000. $1.60? 260. Mhmm. And how would you put that can I ask one more question to that?
Yes. Just how long would you want that to last for till you would run out, so to speak? And then you would say, now the city has to pay attention back to if it makes arts, which is, you know, I'm a very big supporter of the arts in our field. How long would you expect that money to last before you would say to the council, it needs to refocus on what it wants for the 1% or half percent or the $500,000 cap, etcetera? Years or months or That's a little hard for me to answer as directly as I think you would like Councillor Galen. There we have a number of projects that are currently in the pipeline,
and we have some that are planned. So, essentially, what's in there now is is already kind of designated. So it's it's there, but it's gone, if I can put it that way, because we have plant project plans. But it it takes some time to get them planned and and if they're connected with another project that's happening. So does that Yeah. Kind of okay. One Yeah. Go ahead. One last follow-up. So in your, best world, the best of all worlds, when would you want the council to act on a revised policy or the current
policy? Well, this is the first reading. Correct? So if if there isn't, I think, action taken on this tonight, I think the ordinance changes need we'll have to all of this has to wait. Part of this was pulling the percent changes out was putting them somewhere else. So my understanding was all of these edits were kind of contingent on on each other happening at the same time. So I would say if there's not going to be action moving this forward, if there's specific guidance for for me and for the arts and culture of the
public art commission, if that changes, to then explore. Like, what are what are we what changes are we researching, and what are we gonna bring forward? Thank you. One more. Yeah. Go ahead. And what kind of time line would you put that on if you're in the best of all worlds? I I'm sorry. I don't know how to answer that. Yeah. It's a tough question. Been asked and answered, counselor Dalling, as to to the best of staff's ability. So you you've asked it twice now. Well, I'm I'm trying to get some more to the issue of just how much time we have as a council to agree on a policy. We're we have a policy before us tonight.
Ah, so we need to this is tonight. Okay. So I'll move into the discussion phase later. Thank you, Barry. Thank you. Other, questions from the council? All right. We do have one open public or a comment on this agenda item, and that is from Mr. Rich Graves. If you would like to come forward and speak on the 1% for the Arts. So I have no public comment on the, concrete monuments from a previous administration. Thank you for your service to the new people, Chad and Peter, as well as the continue remaining number returning members.
One thing I noticed in the 1% for the arts is so I know there are a lot of fiscal challenges that everyone is thinking about. One thing I wanna make sure you think about is ongoing maintenance. There is something there is some legacy language about ongoing maintenance, which sometimes has been problematic, because we want to continue to fund the arts, but also be careful to maintain the arts. There's this lovely sculpture garden, I don't know if people know about it, by Door 42 of the, high school or middle school. Like that's where the art that used to be in front of the library goes
to die. And the titles of those unlabeled art pieces are Under the Sea, Life on Mars and Something Art Recovery and there's a fourth one that they're all unlabeled. So think about what will happen to the art in the future, not just the current fiscal emergency. Also in front of the library right now, there are, I'm not sure if they're official works of public art, but the painted steps. Wow. I bet that didn't cause that is a welcoming face of the library and of the Northfield, right on Division Street. There is some other stuff in the front of the library that unfortunately is not maintained, like that lovely pedestal of the bike maintenance tools.
It's kind of an eyesore, so think about the future. Thank you. Thank you. Alright. So I am looking for a motion on ordinance one zero eight one. Anyone interested in making a motion? Oh, yes. Counselor Saugup. I'll move, first reading of ordinance one zero eight one. Thank you. Is there a second? I will second it. Alright. So, council, discussion and, amendments are welcome at this time. No one's moving it. So I know this is Oh,
hello. Is there a reason that our city our council council is on the on the screen? Okay. We're we're just seeing a picture of, of David. So it's hi. Hi, David. I wasn't I wasn't sure if, there was a comment that needed to to be made to us. No? No. Okay. We'll we'll continue, on with, an amendment from councilor Holmes. Sure. I, appreciate all the work that's gone into this. I think this might align with what councilor Slocup was talking about in terms of
an amendment. And as we look at whatever language we wanna use, council members participating in boards and commissions. And, specifically specifically, I was looking at, HRA. So on that slide, I don't know if we wanna pull that slide up, but the having council members serve as nonvoting members on the HRA Planning Commission Parks and Rec advisory board. I have NAFRS down because I don't know how I don't know.
I I feel like it's probably important for us to have representation on NAFRS, but I'm I've never sat on NAFRS. Is it so but but it's not on here. I mean, Milltowns is a is on here as a joint powers board. So to me, it feels like HRA planning commission parks, NAFRS are equally as important to these ones. So I would like to propose well, I guess I'm gonna get clarification on what amendment I should propose. If we should propose that we add those items I don't know if I wanna add those items to that list or if we go with the option that Ms.
Hoffman said about I want to say the way the ordinances themselves read to me early in the ordinance when it talks about the mayor can appoint people that it kind of leaves it open to an appointment to the boards that the council feels are important. So I don't know if it's more important to specifically list those as an amendment here, and and we wanna put those in writing in the ordinance or if it's left open to council to determine the so should I just make an amendment, and we'll see if that one passes and then go the other way?
Or I guess what Yeah. If you yeah. I'm gonna pause for a second. Councilor Peterson White, did you wanna weigh in? Yes. We're all I don't know that I really understand what your question is. Well, I I think we need to have more representation than just what's represented here. And we had three options. This is one of the three options that we were able to go off of. One being no change. Right? One or what can you share the three options that we the three options we came forward with last time was this option here,
which is only the required. The second option was required and then other boards and commissions as deemed, like, so voted on by council and that would not change until council changed it. And then the third option was the current ways of working, which is the required and then a little more fluidity. It may be part board and then something might be coming up in EQC where someone is appointed. It's really a little bit to the mayor's discretion with council approval. So I guess what my amendment is is either add more to this list or
go with one of those other options. Councilor Peterson White. I I think that without seeing, like, I I don't know where like, if this is in the packet somewhere, your description of options two and three, it's difficult for me to understand really what I'm agreeing to from your verbal explanation. If it's sort of at the mayor's discretion, I don't know what that means. I This matters a lot to me. I think that in my twelve years on the council I've seen a lot of situations where had there not where for for a while we didn't have as many council liaisons and sometimes that created more work for everyone in the long run.
Right? I am not convinced that efficiency is created by having fewer council less council representation. So however, I understand people want to have a manageable role. I've been doing it this way for a long time. I find it manageable. But I think that so the difference between I I'm open to alternatives to how we're doing it now, But it is not crystal clear to me what the difference is between two and three unless I can sort of read what it would say. I can try to clarify that a little. I think our thought was that it would be the required ones and then maybe
the council votes on planning commission HRA park board. That would be from year to year it would be those. The current way is not quite that solid. For instance, the mayor may say, well, there's something coming forward to the park board, which might not be a great example now because we do have a council represented on the park board, but we didn't in past years. So it might change from year to year or it might change in four years or so it's not quite as solid. It's not that the council is voting. It's going to be park board planning commission,
you know, HRA in addition to these required ones. So it just has a little more fluidity. Yeah. Councilor Peterson might Are we in discussion? We have a motion on the table. I think we're in discussion. I don't think councilor Humps has made I don't I haven't has moved an amendment. Right? Around them. I will make an amendment. I'm guessing my question was around the amendment of Okay. So may I comment with this now? Would that be appropriate? I think it's I think it is appropriate because I I, think councilor Holmes is asking for input about how many of these to add Mhmm. To the role or to the list if we go with option one.
This is option one. Okay. What what we have on the table is option one, which is what is in front of us on the slide. Option two would be adding some specific set. Maybe HRA park board and planning commission. Maybe not. Option three would be to leave things the way they are, which gives us flexibility in appointing liaisons to other boards and commissions. Correct? Is that a fair word? I would say maybe option three is and maybe option maybe option three is we leave things the way they are. Potentially option four is things are similar to how they are, except we would maybe declare at this date,
the the the council will always vote on what are the ones that we're when when we go into the appointment stage that Mhmm. Vote being more clear and explicit about which ones we will have council members on as opposed to what it is now is a little loose. Sure. Correct? Does that make sense? Mhmm. K. That's helpful. So, my thoughts on this are as follows. I understand I I've heard a few times in the course of the rounds of discussion that we've had about this that part of this has to do with the time commitment of being a counselor. I think it is an appropriate time commitment, personally. I think it's a major commitment to the community. I
I I under I have I myself have three young children. I run a business. I have aging parents. We all have a lot of obligations in life, right? And nobody is looking to go to more meetings. But, I think that our highest responsibility is to ensure the best possible functioning of the city and that these boards and commissions are responsive to the community's needs. I think a lot of good things have been said about making sure that other community members are on these boards and commissions besides us. Right? I think it's good to avoid the situation that Councilor Holmes has cited in which she voted three times on the same thing on the park board,
the planning commission, and the council that nobody needs that. Right? And it's not appropriate. It's not an appropriate role for the for a counselor, I don't think, to be to weigh in three times on the same issue. That being said, I am concerned about simply saying we're not gonna have any liaisons to any but these because there have been, in my now many years of doing this, many situations where it was extremely important that the mayor be able to appoint a liaison to a given group. We have been in situations where,
this is not our situation now by any stretch of the imagination. And I don't wanna, like, raise the specter of past bad experiences as guidance. And I don't think that an incident should be treated as if it is an ongoing problem. However, in the pa with a with an organization that doesn't even exist in its past form anymore, the Northfield Downtown Development Corporation. I spent the first several years on the council with a majority on the council that wanted very much to defund that group. And, a minority of us who did not want to defund that group, staff were between a rock and a hard place and did not,
therefore, dedicate staff time to liaising appropriately with that body. And it hamstrung that body and made it significantly less effective as a result. Right? And, having better council representation on that board so that there was someone showing up at the meetings to know what was happening and to connect council work with the work of that group would have strengthened strengthened the relationship significantly. And now under the Friends of Downtown, that liaison position, I believe, does that. Right now we also have a great staff member in the form of Emery John who attends all of those Friends of Downtown meetings and does a fantastic job of
connecting, the Friends of Downtown with council policy direction and strategic planning and all of those things. Right? But that might not always be the case for a number of reasons that we can all imagine politically. Right? And I think it's important in that case, or in the case I can think of so many other examples in which boards and commissions, due to a lack of connection with the council and their in the council's strategic priorities, brought forward to the council policy ideas that were not related to our strategic goals, That we spent a lot they spent a lot of time on them and then
we spent a lot of time on them and staff spent a lot of time on them because there wasn't sufficient communication. Likewise, I think that there can be, that it's it's just possible for things to go sideways and for people to not have the information they need to make good policy if there isn't sufficient communication. And, personally, as a counselor, I am willing to be a conduit for that communication whether or not I get to vote on what is happening at a meeting. But I understand that, we also all have too much to do. So I'm hoping we can strike a balance. I'm not saying that in this moment, we need a liaison to the friends of downtown.
That is not the argument I'm making. I actually don't think that's necessary in this moment. I think we could all vote to not have a council liaison to the Friends of Downtown right now, and that would be completely fine. However, I can imagine a circumstance in the future in which it might become important again, and I would want us to have the flexibility to do that. Thank you. Okay. Yes. Counselor Holmes is ready with an amendment. I have an amendment. We might revise it as I'm speaking, but I would like to propose do I move? Do I just propose? I move I move to amend the motion
so that we maintain council members on the required boards and have council liaisons to boards or commissions that the council deems strategically important for the given year with specific times that we would discuss and debate and vote on to be determined. Second. Do you wanna comment? Sorry. I'm just I'm yes. If if you don't mind, I'm writing down your amendment so that I can lead the discussion. Yeah. So thank you Here we go.
For that. Would you like to read that back, miss Peterson? We have an amendment by council member Holmes, seconded by council member Peterson White. Let me get that in there. To amend the motion so that we maintain council members on the required boards and have council liaisons to boards and commissions that the council deems strategically important for the given year with specific times to discuss and debate to be determined. Thank you. Alright. Quest any questions about that motion before we get into discussion? Does anyone have a no?
If I may, I just think Counselor Peterson would it be okay to let the maker of the motion sort of explain her reasoning? I just wanted to see if anyone had a question first about that specific yeah. I will let counselor Holmes speak first. Alright. I mean, I think this kinda came out in my walking through which amendment I wanted to make, but, hearing Councilor Peterson White discuss share her thoughts makes me feel like, I agree. I don't wanna necessarily add more meetings, and I think of the bore I think boards that we've discussed,
right, NAFRS, planning commission, HRA, parks, depending upon what's happening, are equally as important to these. And I know firsthand I know I have worked very closely with the friends of downtown when it used to be the Northfield Downtown Development Corporation and where things are. So the what, what councilor Peterson White brought up, I think, is very important. I also agree that we might not need a liaison because we have the staff relationship, but I think that the fluidity of that should be something that the council discusses. I can also speak to the fact that sitting on Parks Board as a liaison, I wasn't a voting member at that time, when the Hauberg Woods
changes to Halberg Woods that, that, you know, that we thought were okay, but then we looked deeper into the planning. Like, the Parks Board was able to really come to that. And it was because I was able to help with as a council liaison to talk about what things were happening. I also was able to help to facilitate the meeting in a more effective way for a board that hadn't had the that many people in a room before having these discussions. So I feel like there is a really important role that the liaison can play to help us so that it doesn't have to come to council and then become
a huge council issue that then we have to go deep into. So I feel like there's when we look at some of these other, when we look at our strategic plan and we look at some of these other boards and commissions like the planning commission, that's going to be the work that's going to be happening there is hugely important to both housing, expanding our tax base. And so I think not having someone attached to that going back to what Councilor Soakup said about, you know, the importance of having someone at the HRA and being able to be that tie with counsel, I think, is important. And I think we should be able to decide that and not just be limited
to these to to what we have listed here on the screen. Thank you. Councilor Peterson White. Yeah. I agree with all that wholeheartedly. I think that, I think this strategy also gives us an opportunity to prevent the sort of snowballing of council's individual work, which is one of the problems that we are trying to address, which I think makes a lot of sense. We don't need to just always be adding more to our individual plates or to, the sort of collective reach of the council members. And I think reviewing it regularly is a is a good way to prevent that. And,
actually, it's very similar to how this was done when I served on the Rice County Board. It was kind of an annual review of who's gonna do what and which things are we gonna do. Right. So if I can if I could just chime in here for a second, on that thread. I like that thread. And from for me, I would like to, send this back to staff if that's the route we're gonna take because I'd like a little more information about, you know, I agree, like, because of our strategic plan that we just adopted, HRA EQC because of the dam free river. We haven't even talked about the EQC tonight. So,
I I if this is the route we're thinking we want to go, I would want it to go back to staff to, flesh that out a little more about the timing, of of when we can end when we insert the does that make sense to, miss Hoffman? Yes. My initial thought on this is prior to the to the appointment process. So it falls around the October time line, right, before the appointment process starts. So where does sorry. Follow-up. Where does that leave us right now given that we've adopted a new strategic plan? And, what what was what would the transition look like,
I guess? I'm curious about that. We're in the current situation right now. We would stay in this current situation until Yes. That was the thought is that we would extend all terms out until the April for whatever year the following year. So anyone whose term was supposed to end at the end of this year would be extended on to the April. Might be a little, bumpy this first year because there might be people who cannot continue on for one reason or another. But I think going forward in future years,
it will be easier. Right. Okay. Sorry. Councilor Beamer. Just a quick comment. I I think some of this stemmed from, for example, when when I was appointed appointed by the previous mayor as the council liaison for the planning commission and councilor Holmes was appointed as a voting member of the planning commission. The redundancy there is is an is unnecessary, and I think that's where some of this conversation probably stemmed from. Just to try and avoid those types of situations where,
you know, we might have two reps on there that don't necessarily need to be on there, you know, where there could just be one. Thank you. Is that you? No? Councillor Donlin. I would also support sending this back to staff, but not just the wonderful points made by Holmes and Jessica Peterson White, but also that the arts are very important in our field. It's incredibly important. I've communicated this to the wonderful director of the library on the same thing. If we're going to touch this field of 1% for the arts,
we should do it in a very measured way because of the importance of arts with two major colleges here that have wonderful art departments with art that's very much a part of the tourism, part of our identity as a city. And so I would like to have it go back to staff so that we have two separate discussions. One about the governance of and council liaison roles, but then also on the arts, 1% of the arts. To have two discussions, even though I understand this connection to our topic of the day or the ordinance,
I would like to just make sure that we have really talked more about a floor and a ceiling or whether it's 1% or 0.5% and that we can fine tune it with the ultimate message that we care about the arts as many of us do in our private capacity as a public body, we also care about the arts. Thank you. Thank you. Would you like to weigh weigh in? Well, we're still on the amendment. So if it's sounds like there's support to send it back, do we need to withdraw the amendment and move to postpone?
I I don't know that we need to withdraw the amendment. Can we postpone in a in an in an amendment versus, the act the original motion? Mayor, members of the council, I would ask, attorney Asoff to answer that question since he is online today. He's looking at I think he's looking it up right now. Yeah. Thank you, mayor council. If you'd give me just a second. I I mean, yes. Thank you for looking at that. And I would I my I'd my preference would be to leave the amendment on the on the table, so to speak, so that staff had I mean,
you have it to refer to. It's part of the record now as the recording of this meeting. But Yeah. Sure. Councilor Soka. Is it if we are voting on a is it a conflict of interest to argue for whether or not, council member should be a voting member or not if you're the voting member? Yeah. Does that make sense? Okay. I just wanna make sure. Counselor Peterson, wait. I'm not an attorney. We have one. He could answer that. My inclination would be that a conflict of interest is when you stand to personally benefit. Mhmm. And that is not material here.
Thank you. Mayor and council, I'd motion to postpone can be made, at this point. Okay. Councilor Beamer. I'd like to make a motion to postpone, further discussion, and send it back to staff and to bring to represent it, to counsel. That work? Based on the amendment? Based on the amendment. Great. Is that clear to staff? Yes. Great. Thank you. Just for clarification, regarding the 1% for the arts, is there a consensus on whether that should be separate in a separate ordinance? I know that was brought up by councilor Dolan.
I'm sorry to interrupt, but we have a motion to postpone on the floor with no second. Okay. Yeah. I'll second it. Okay. Thank you. That's councilor Peterson White seconding, the motion to postpone. Unless unless we were to have it off tonight, it's also postponed. And, I guess, how do we feel? Do we want to receive that separately the next time it comes around? Councilor Pearson White? I think it would be great to move these forward as together as staff have brought them even though they are somewhat separate issues in my mind. But here we are. But it does seem like if we're going to send these back to staff that
if we have comments on the proposal for 1% figure, it would be better to give them now than have another go around. Yes. I'm seeing some nods. So, yes. So as as we, discuss the postponement, we should, speak up about our 1% for the arts preferences. Councilor Beamer. Thank you, mayor. I actually was going to make an amendment on that, but, since we're gonna we're potentially going to postpone, I'll just bring it up. This is probably not ever likely to happen, but I just was thinking,
you know, there's probably a very outside chance that, you know, we we could be looking at two massive projects in the same year, you know, where where the water treatment plant would maybe come back up. And and, then we're looking at development of the Northwest Territory, which would be two very large expensive projects. So I guess I would like to maybe see some verbiage in there that that the $500,000 cap is maybe for,
to also have one project versus multiple projects in case we came up to a situation where we could potentially have 2 $500,000, you know, kitties going into that going into that fund in the same in the same year. Not not that it would ever likely happen, but just, you know, that'd be a million dollars into the 1% for the arts fund if two big projects like that came up at the same time,
which is the only point that I'm So if I could clarify what I I think I'm hearing you stay say is instead of a cap of $500,000 per project, you would prefer a cap of $500,000 per year? No. No. No. No. Not per year. Just I would say just for one project. So if if there was a second project that came on line in the same time frame that could potentially get to that cap, that we wouldn't include that second project in in the 1% for the arts.
So we're not looking at dropping a million dollars into the 1% for the arts in a single year. You know, where the other because I don't wanna do that because then the the smaller projects you know, if we capped it if we had a $50,000 project come up and we capped it at 500,000, then the smaller projects would also, you know, would also be void from contributing to it. I my thoughts are, you know, one, just one large project. I'd does if that makes sense.
Let let me just check-in with staff to see if they need clarification on on your preference for the 1% for the arts. Councilor Beamer, I do. And thank you, for that. I I'm only I'm thinking just for the purposes of, like, word men's language, how to actually get to to that. Like, we would have to define, like, large project and where those kind of cut off. So I think it's I think it either needs to be I will say this. The reason that percent for the arts is used as much as it is and has been since late sixties is because it is you don't have to go in
and tweak it all the time because it's just kind of tied to inflation in a sense. Like you're saying that, you know, this is this is 1%, so we don't have to go back and revisit it. Same thing with the kind of the threshold for where projects attribute so or contribute. So if we can kind of identify, like, if it is an annual cap going into the fund, then and that that's something that we can certainly we can take that feedback and explore. Or or if there's, like is yeah. I'm just trying to think of, like, how how to actually get to that, which is just the work that I have to do. But if I'm understanding you, if we have a project that contributes that number,
that cap, nothing else beyond that over a certain amount would contribute? Is that Yeah. You can answer, miss Draper's question. No. My my thought is if we had if for some reason we came to a year, and like I said, probably not likely to happen. But if we had a year where we were doing two large projects that could both meet that cap, Mhmm. To not include one of the projects or maybe if that's the scenario, maybe we do we drop it down to,
you know, a 50% or a 25% on the second project just just to try and keep the number down to some extent. Okay. Thank you. Does that make more sense? I think so. It could have been something where maybe over a certain point, it drops to half a percent. Is that Yeah. Okay. I think I can I can I can find some cases of that? Thank you. Thank you. Councilor Daum. Director Draper, you hit upon it because we're dealing with two figures, right? What percent, 1% or 0.5%?
And I know your preference to stay at 1% because of its origin. But when I read the ordinance, it's confusing to me exactly which which is the ceiling and what is the floor. And I just wanna have that discussion with you and and others who who really care about the arts So we know what we're going to agree to in this language. And and so it becomes two moving figures that we have what percent and then what the floor is and what the ceiling is. And and that there's a lot of policy discussion in that for me anyway.
So and I'm not sure it's clear right now where that's going for me. And I'm sorry, I'm just reading the language and I'm thinking I could interpret this language two ways, but I don't think that's how it should be interpreted. But maybe we can achieve some clarity with that, the ceiling and the floor. Thank you. Councilor Peterson White. I'll just chime in to say I don't believe that we need any changes to the 1% for the arse ordinance. I think it's working great. I would not likely stand in the way of, I mean, it sounds like setting a a floor on smaller projects might simplify the implementation somewhat.
And I would be okay with that. I have not yet heard a proposal for putting a ceiling on it that I feel totally comfortable with. I don't I don't think it should be about how many projects in a year because the arts are forever. As our water treatment plants and all other kinds of projects that we do. And just because those two projects happen to come in the same year, I don't think diminishes the community's need for the arts, personally. I would be more amenable to some sort of cap for very large projects,
that I don't think is in here. Is that true? Or is it? Is it in there? It is in there. The 500000. Right. I'm sorry. It is. It's the 500000 floor and the it's it's it's got my head spinning a little bit. But, yeah, I I do feel comfortable with that. But I I don't think that sort of trying to constrain it during an annual period just for this because we might have two big projects in a year. Because I think that it's, you know, if we were spending all that money on, like, concerts that are gonna happen in that year, that would be different. But we're not. We're spending it on it it gets spent over a period of time on art
that presumably will last the community for generations. So, that time frame doesn't matter to me as much. Thank you. Councilor Holmes. Yeah. Thanks. Thank you for all the work that you put into this. I feel comfortable with what was presented here. I don't feel confused about the ceiling and the cap and feel like it was it's not gonna drastically putting up both the ceiling and the cap, the 500,000 floor sorry. Sorry. Floor and the cap of the projects under 500,000 not getting the not getting the 1% and then capping it at $500,000
feels appropriate to me. It didn't impact I mean, it was $11,000 over six years, so that feels like it's not hamstringing anything. So I feel comfortable with how it is. I'd be open to further discussion, but again I think to making it as simple as we can. Additionally, art projects aren't aren't necessarily paid for all in in or happen in one year. Some of these big projects also kind of span over time, and so that I I just feel like that could add to a lay a layer of complexity that we wouldn't necessarily be intending here, but that that could come into play.
So I wanna keep it as simple and clean as possible. Thank you. Councilor Socha. Thanks. Thanks for the information, and I agree that, I'm in favor of the the cap of 500,000. I think if the council's in a situation where we're moving forward with multiple projects over $50,000,000 in one year, we're in gonna be in really rough shape. So I don't see that as an issue, but I respect I totally respect where you're coming from of where is the cap
and what does it mean and when does it happen. Yeah. So that I think that's all my feedback. I I think the cap is appropriate, and, I liked it was helpful to see that it doesn't drastically impact your bottom line, the work that you're doing. And it sounds like it's already administratively, like, adding a lot more to that fund. There might be, like, administrative shortfall there. So I liked seeing that it's kind of a consistent number even if the, if the cap does come into play. So, yeah, I think that's it. And then I just wanna say too,
since this is our last chance to speak on this, I think, If we are gonna talk about the EDA HRA merger idea, I would love to see that in a work session. I think that's a huge deal that I, in a gut reaction, feel really negatively about. So, yeah, talking about that in a work session would be great if it's something that comes forward in the future. Thank you. So I am comfortable with the 1% as presented. I am open to lowering the floor. It seems like going from one seventy five to 500 is a big leap.
So I I'd be fine lowering that floor, but I'm also fine with it as as presented tonight. So, right, that brings us to a vote on the postponement. And let does staff have any questions or I I see some looks. No? No looks. No. I think I I think I know what to do with that. Okay. Thank you. Alright. Then, we will vote on postponing ordinance ten eighty one, including the the amendment on the table,
until staff can, bring that back, and we can see it written up and what it looks like. Great. Thank you. Okay. All those in favor, signify by saying aye. Aye. Those opposed? Motion carries. Is anyone, giving the administrator update tonight, or are we just going sans update? Okay. Alright. So, then oh my gosh. Councilor Ness is not here tonight. So councilor Holmes oh. God. She checked. Yeah. Councilor Holmes. We're to adjourn. Councilor Beamer. Second. Alright. All those in favor, signify by saying aye. Aye. Thank you, everyone. We are adjourned.