I think so. Alright. Good evening and welcome. This is the City of Northfield, City Council work session for Tuesday, May 13. We'll start with a I'll call this meeting to order, and we'll start with a roll call. Mayor Zweifel? Here. Councilor Ness? Here. Councilor Peterson White? Here. Councilor Silkep? Councilor Beamer? Here. Councilor Dahlen? Here. Councilor Holmes? Here. Great. Thank you. Our first item on the agenda tonight is a strategic plan review of our strategic priorities outcomes, key outcome indicators,
KOIs, targets and strategic initiatives. And administrator Martig will kick us off with that agenda item. Thank you. Mayor, members, city council will have Craig Rapp, who's back again, come up to the podium and help, walk through this. You were provided the one page document. Craig's probably gonna cover some of this, but just as a reminder, the city council and the retreat that was along with staff helped to develop these strategic priorities and the desired outcomes and and initial, key outcome indicators. Then staff was working on the drafting up targets and strategic initiatives to come back.
Craig's gonna walk through, kind of at a high level this document, pause after each, strategic priority area for some feedback. Staff's available here to answer some questions if the council has specific questions around maybe what might you envision on the initiatives or what what were you thinking on the targets. We'll help support, mister Rapp on responding to some of those details. We'll we'll let him kinda take the initial shot at it, and then we can go as deep or not as deep on the items depending on the council's interest. As a reminder, they're putting together the full report, with the consulting company,
which is primarily background information. This is the meat of the document that's planned to be on the council agenda for adoption next week if things go well here this evening. So, mister Rapp, turn it back to you. Ah, we hear you. Yeah. I I can hear myself. Mayor, council members, I'm happy to be with you again. Glad to see you. This is the nearing the end of a six month process that started with a joint session of all the boards and commission members in October, where we, asked them for some feedback on your strategic planning process.
That was followed by a lot of other activities that went on in the early part of this year, culminating in a retreat that was referred to a moment ago by Ben in early April. That retreat took all of that detailed feedback, massaged it, and ultimately resulted in four strategic priorities. One of the things that I think you'll recall as we talked about this at the retreat, in past, strategic planning efforts, this is the third consecutive one using this framework,
it, occurred to pretty much everyone who was involved in that that the organization bit off a little bit more than it could chew, not for any other reason other than wanting to, do the hard work that everyone was pointing towards. Well, there were six strategic priorities in the last strategic plan that was narrowed down to four. And I think it was agreed coming out of the retreat that everyone felt that this was not only an ambitious, strategic plan, but a manageable strategic plan. And so I think, coming out of this for anyone watching tonight or ultimately viewing this,
these are, quite in fact, the strategic priorities that were the most important, but also something that you have a really good grasp on and I think will make a lot of progress over the next three years. So with that in mind, what is on the screen now is the accumulated one page summary of that. I'll I'll go one priority at a time. What we came up with at the retreat, just as a reminder, are four high level priorities. These are the areas of emphasis that captured the most important things. Let's go back to that.
That was improving financial strength, increase housing availability, achieve infrastructure sustainability, and enhance service delivery. And maybe I'll just pause at this point and reiterate something that we talked about at the retreat for the, benefit of others who are watching this at home. A city has really only two mandates. One, to deliver reliable, consistent services, and two, to create the environment for a good quality of life here in Northfield. And those are interrelated and I think are very well reflected by the four priorities
you have. So if you talk about improving financial strength, that helps you to create an environment in the community by having a strong balance sheet and strong financials. But it also underpins your service delivery because that's what citizens rely on day in and day out. Increasing housing availability, it's probably surprising to no one that that that's a challenge here in Northfield, and that was, reflected by all the feedback that we got. Achieving infrastructure sustainability. There's probably nothing more core to what a city does than provide good,
solid, reliable infrastructure, streets, utilities, the types of things that everyone relies on. And then finally, enhancing service delivery. That's the police, services. That's the park and rec. That's all of the things that you do day in and day out. So let's zoom in to that first priority of improving financial strength. Again, the way that this is laid out is you have a priority area, and you commit to three primary outcomes that you're trying to achieve in this three year period. Some may be a full three years in its implementation.
Others may take six months or twelve months. The the fact of the matter is, though, you identified as a group these three, increasing your commercial industrial base, increasing revenue diversification, taxation that's responsive to community needs and expectations. I think overarching, the conversation around financial strength was this idea of making sure that the community felt that you were, good stewards of the revenue that you were, getting from them, and that was reflected by not only the discussion,
but the outcomes that you identified. So increasing your commercial industrial base is one way of helping that. If you are bringing in more and broadening that tax base, you will strengthen then your, your financial strength as a community. Revenue diversification, I think, speaks for itself. If you rely solely or or, inordinately on taxation, that can, burden people in a very specific way. If you broaden it to other revenue sources, that can relieve some of that stress on individual taxpayers. And then finally, setting some limits on how high the taxation will actually go or how it will
affect taxpayers in general was the third area. If you go over to that far right hand side, what we did after the retreat, and I say we, I worked with your staff to identify initiatives. And again, initiatives are those activities that you'll undertake collectively to try to hit those targets and achieve those outcomes. And I won't go through them, chapter and verse here, but things like developing and implementing Northwest Area shovel ready plans.
So, again, that's for, broadening that tax base, creating a revenue diversification program, a five year financial management alignment plan. It's all the things that relate to those targeted outcomes that you identified. So I'll pause here, and, I'll take questions or any of the staff who were involved in that if you do have specifics on this area. Administrator Martin, were you This is just one category that I'm prepared to help respond to questions on, whereas we might have other staff more focused on some of these.
Yeah. You want councilor Beamer. Thank you, mayor. Mister Mardag, and, actually, mister Riley might be able to help with this too. One a develop, implement Northwest Area shovel ready and recruitment plan. Can somebody kinda let us know what is the recruitment plan? What do we what do we have planned? Who is actively seeking, you know, people to come into that territory or into some of our infill sites throughout the city? Those kind of things.
Who's who's in charge of that and what the plan is. One question for mister Rapp maybe before Mhmm. I could probably respond to mister Riley. Do you wanna speak a little bit at a high level first on the initiatives and kind of Yep. How much that's maybe all figured out at this stage or not, and then maybe that might help. I'll still get back to the question to answer, but maybe you could Sure. Let me let me talk briefly about the the whole concept of strategic initiatives. So once you've identified the importance of the outcomes and the legitimacy of the targets
that put numbers around those, then it's up to the organization collectively. And usually, it's the people in these the subject matter experts. So it would be someone like Jake or someone like Brenda in this particular area with with Ben, to identify broadly what we're going to undertake. And so an initiative is is a label that we put on, an action planning sequence. And so, for example, implementing a Northwest Area Shovel Ready recruitment plan would say would suggest to me, not being the expert, it would say,
Alright. We see some opportunities there, and so we wanna put a label on that. And then we will put together an action plan around that that would, in detail, answer one or more of the questions that you might have about that. That hasn't been fully framed up yet, but we think that our best effort should be focusing in the Northwest Area, just like, B, strategies to develop high potential CI properties. We know that increasing our commercial industrial base is going to be one of the
outcomes we're responsible for, we meaning the staff. So let's get out there and develop a listing or or a plan around that. It's it's very early in that process now. So what will happen is every time the staff tries to fill in those details, they'll bring that back and then the council will have an opportunity to debate that back with you at a study session or some other, place where you've got more details on that. So rather than, probably be able to give you chapter and verse about how that's gonna play out,
it's more of a placeholder for a a basket of activities right now. So Yeah. Do you want maybe I'll start with what I'm contemplating some of those basket of ideas might be, and then mister Riley can maybe add in oh, sorry. Did you wanna say something? Sorry. Just more of a follow-up comment. I mean, I would I would have to believe that there's something's kind of in place for this for that particular item already anyways. I mean, it it's not news to anybody that we've been trying to recruit and and expand our,
you know, commercial and industrial tax base. So, I mean, I would hope that there's something already somewhat in place as far as a plan for that. And and, you know, now we're able to just tweak it and maybe adapt it to the new strategic plan. I I don't know. Go ahead. I'll leave it at that, I guess. Administrator Martig? Yeah. So I would say the answer to that is yes. I would say so an example I would say is, on the infrastructure side, we do have,
for the most part, infrastructure ready to go in capacity with sewer and water pipes very near some of the properties that are out there. But we also have plans for the ability to add more capacity in the future. So part of it is our infrastructure and capital plan is is if this is a priority, making sure that the council has follow through and prioritizes in our capital planning some of these things that we have in the works. So the example, we're building a new water tower partly to help increase capacity for development out in that area. We're using some of that federal money. With the Highway 19 project that that's scheduled for 2028,
we're looking at water system looping that will benefit the hospital with redundancy, making sure that that's still a priority because that will also help us to be able to recruit new business and also help the existing hospital and some of the neighboring residential areas. So those are a couple examples on the infrastructure side. On the recruiting side, yes, we've done some recruitment, but I would say there's the ability to probably now ramp up now that we've actually rezoned property and we're working with property owners, ramp up some of our marketing with a new comprehensive plan. Maybe we market to specific industries a little more targeted to try and recruit ones
that both are meeting market conditions and also are a good fit for Northfield to meet our zoning code. So yes we've done some of that but we can do even better on it. So those are some examples I would say. There might be some more complicated planning issues that we've been working with Dakota and Rice County about the future, Cedar Avenue realignment. So working with the counties on that and when that might get scheduled in, is an example. So those are probably some tangible examples, but I would agree with you that we're really building this isn't something brand new. We're building off of some of the work that we've done before.
But we can at each step, I think we get more sophisticated as we go and opportunities, with that. Mister Riley, do you wanna add anything else that you might be contemplating in some of that initiative for work? Yeah. Thank you, administrator Mardick, mayors Leifel, and council member Beamer. I think that the the most important sort of word on the strategic plan here is shovel ready. You can't be shovel ready if you're agriculturally zoned and you're planning for an industrial Park. So now that we have the right zoning, I think we can have a more focused approach at our recruitment rather than
having to be a little bit more patient with recruitment because we haven't been as ready as we could have been. So I'm looking forward to spending some more time, over the next six months, working on a true recruitment strategy that addresses that shovel readiness that we are more close to today than we were, you know, even six months ago since the rezoning only went into effect at the beginning of the year. Thank you. So I have a process question. We have many champions up here for many things. And so as those items of passion come up,
what's your and we we haven't yet gotten to the point where we can really dig in to some of these. What's that process gonna look like? And if something pops up, I learned some information yesterday from Excel. How would you like us to, like, feed that into the information pipeline in our our council processes? Thank you, mayor, member, city council. Just a couple offhand. I mean, we certainly will be scheduling intentional feedback during, say, budget meetings or scheduling work sessions after this adopted. But I would say also informally, if there are ideas that are brought up, I think we'll also be finding ways with our different boards and commissions to make
sure that they're identifying these as priorities. So like on this one, really making sure our economic development authority knows that this is a priority and is helping us work towards this goal and what ideas might they have. So we'll be doing check ins as we develop this plan and getting feedback for strategy. So even though staff's taking some initial shots at the action, that's another area I would say on this new strategic plan that we're working to improve upon is checking in and also, you know, getting getting those good ideas or vetting the ideas. And then ultimately,
if there's questions about which ones make sense or not, the council might help us with with some of that particularly if there are, say, finances involved with it. And can you remind me sorry. I know you're you want because it's been, what, four years since since I've done this. How often do you bring back the the for a council check-in, the progress on these initiatives? We varied everywhere from probably a quarterly update to a couple of times a year. But I would say depending on projects, we might be having very regular monthly check ins depending on what projects are hitting the strategic plan.
But I think this last year, the the big picture updates have probably been a couple times a year check-in, but I think we'll be evaluating that a little more more formally. And I also a real priority, like I mentioned, is really wanting our boards, especially if it falls under them, like the housing one and the EDA are pretty clear ones that I think how might the housing redevelopment authority really be thinking about the goals of the housing section and the economic development authority? And there might be some other boards that relate to these as well. But, that's another area I think we'll be focusing on.
Counselor Holmes. Thanks. Just point of clarification or order here. Are we talking about anything within the improving financial strength bucket? Okay. And then high level question then with something a little bit more specific, but high level. Are we anticipating that by when when this comes to us, we will have specific numbers in here for anywhere there's a blank? Like, that's what we wanna get to tonight is discussion about what those specifics are. Like, for instance, the tax levy at or below blank percent so that we won't pass something that has x's in it or non numbers.
Thank you, mayor. Members of the council, I might be wrong, but I believe we've got it narrowed down to about that one that's left after mister Bennett had a couple of ads to your packet that we'll probably cover under the infrastructure one. Okay. Here's the reasoning why on the, it's probably a little bit of a tricky one. We're still trying to figure out I'm I've been help you know, working with mister Rapp to help me work through it, and I've had some staff weighing in with me as well. That taxation one responsive, I think when you look at that one, I'm envisioning that part of that is as we look at really working towards a
better two year budget and five year financial management plan that includes operations with that. We're working to enhance that to be stronger. So I think to put a number in there right now would be kind of arbitrary. So I think that's gonna be a process with the council to maybe look at multiple years over this four year strategic plan. We'll be working with you hopefully this year to start to get a bit of a better handle on cost of the tax levy impact, the, say, capital projects and operating to try and have a a goal that we would develop
to put in place that there's greater predictability over multiple years. We'll be working with you to understand some of those policy decisions of the of what are the what's the cost to the levy? Are there alternative revenue sources like we're talking about? And what is that dollar amount that we need to work within that the council would be having as kind of goals with the with the with the public. Part of that might mean too is is like some projects that we know are hitting like the ice arena is gonna have a pretty big hit initially next year, but then there might be stability off of that.
So again, looking out multiple years, not just year to year, will be part of that. So I don't have that all figured out how we'll be doing that, but that's gonna be the challenge of our work is to get into better, I would say, starting with this five year kind of financial planning to get stronger with that more predictability as we work with the public and, getting direction from the council as we work with budgets. That's a good segue into my deeper question because it was kind of along those lines as as I was reading through this. I guess I'm just curious if that is actually a good target to have.
Again, you mentioned, you know, putting a number in there feels arbitrary. I I guess I have concerns about one, the arbitrary nature of that, but two, trying to set a target for ourselves that's just based on a number that makes us feel good rather than rather than something that allows us to look at the work that needs to get done and plan budget around that. So I guess my question would be for you, maybe miss miss Engleste, of do we feel good about that as a target? Is that an appropriate measure, or should we be looking at it differently? If I can mayor,
councilor, if I could respond to that. I don't have an answer to you, but I have a a comment based on what I heard at the retreat. And what I heard at the retreat was the group, I think, legitimately talking through the fact that you have real, financial obligations and needs and a message or some level of message that came in about being fiscally responsible. And there's always that tension, of course. But but I, I think the group as a whole was was debating that back and forth right
up until the last moment. And I think as mister Mardig points out, it's probably best reconciled during the budget process because you will have to confront, here's what we have to do this year, and then here's what our five year implication is. And so a new metric might emerge from that. And I think it's entirely appropriate to modify the metric as you have that more detailed discussion because this is, by its nature, very high level. And I think it's more of an expression of intent than it is to ground
it in a long term, metric that you need to live with, if that makes sense. You have a follow-up? I mean, I guess, yes, that makes sense, and I don't disagree with that. I guess I just am curious to our staff's feeling about, like, is this a is this a metric that, you know, obviously, you had a retreat afterwards and, like, does this feel like a metric that makes sense knowing that we can change it, but also this is gonna be out there in the public. So if we change it after we adopt it, what, you know, what what are the optics around that too? Yeah. That's an excellent question. Is it too high,
too low, too are we not being Well, it's blank right now. So I think we've got on the, tax levy one in particular. The tax okay. I'm sorry. I thought you were The other example, though, I would say and I would like to have the opportunity for our finance director to answer the question too. But the, there's a similar example on the tax based growth. We're working on I'm working. I think Jake might not even know this too. I'm trying to help update some of our internal metrics comparatively. So that 50,000,000 is kind of a placeholder right now that would be a significant movement forward, but I'd like a little more sophisticated analysis to say
what is a reasonable goal, how much will that impact our tax rate if we are able to generate some more tax based growth. But I wanted to have a number in there to start with, and that's a similar number that we had the last time. I can't remember exactly where we landed. I think we were at about 30% maybe roughly of our goal the last time around on that where we made progress. But I also think we have a lot like to Mr. Riley's point, we have a lot more to work with now that we've got more property opened up for that industrial tax base. So back to the open ended question on the taxation in response of it and
this metric. I don't know if Ms. Engel said you were asked the question, I'd say I'd be happy to hear your feedback too for the council if you'd like to weigh in on that. Thank you, Mayor and members of the council. I think it's a really good point and I don't think we're to a point where we can put a number in by next week to approve something. So maybe it's just changing the wording so that it's this is still going to be worked on through the budget process and whatever to determine what that target should be because I don't think we can put a number in by next week. Thank you. I had a follow-up question, to mister Beamer's question about who is leading each of these initiatives.
We may not all know that. And I don't think it should go on this very forward public facing document. But at some point, could we cover that in a work session where like who which staff person is leading which of these and which boards and commissions, are working actively on this would be helpful. And commissions, are working actively on this would be helpful. So then if I I I'll answer that, and Ben can reel me back in if I get too far out there. The, the way that the process is designed to work is to give you an identification of initiatives for,
at this level, at least, you to probe that and say, does that really make sense, or what does that mean? And then it gives the staff the opportunity to create if if you get if they get your blessing on the general direction here, they can put an action plan together that they will bring back to you for, general review. And all of the, quote, unquote, owners of the strategic initiatives would be assigned to that, and you'd see that so that you could have a dialogue about, the actions that are taking place.
And maybe going back to councilor Beamer's comment earlier, I think the idea here is and and I and I think he zoomed in on it. What's what's really below all of this stuff? And we're early in that process now. So, really, the idea is you're giving directional guidance to Jake and to Brenda and to Dave who will take these things and and run with them under your general you know? So there's a there's a level of understanding and trust that you're granting by by
saying, okay. This looks okay to us tonight. But knowing that it will come back for some additional collaborative work between the staff and the council once the action plans are are more developed. Thank you. Administrator Martig. Thank you, mayor. At a high level, and internally, that's another area that that can get more sophisticated, not hurt every action step might get more sophisticated over time or not. Sometimes there's a balance of, like, how level how detailed of a task do you get down to when you're trying
to do the work with a fairly lean organization. If you're spending your time writing every single task down, might be a bit of inefficiency there. But at a high level, I would say we can give you some pretty general probably won't be surprising. At a high level, the ownership will probably fall under the department director for the related department is kind of the overall. So obviously, like, economic development or housing would fall under the community development department. So Jake would probably be a lead, but he might have sub staff working on it. He might even have administrative support. Brenda and I are going to be key like leads on anything in the financial
management and the revenue diversification in this one. Dave Bennett's going to have a lot under the infrastructure category. Police and library might not be as prominently seen in that, but they obviously have a lot of important work, and those are two large budgets of ours that do have financial impacts that we'll be working with them on and have a lot of work too. But, we'll be happy to give you more information on kind of who's doing some of the work, related to the action steps. Thank you. Are we ready to move to the next strategic priority?
All right. Okay. Increased housing availability. The outcomes you are seeking are expanding the availability of single family housing, multifamily housing and the preservation of housing quality and affordability. So the first two are pretty self explanatory, but that third one, was one where, number one, you have a fair amount of naturally it's called in the trade naturally occurring affordable housing, and you wanna make a big effort in terms of affordability of doing the best you can to balance that, quality and affordability. So those were the three areas.
And as mister Mardig said a moment ago, there'll be probably a fair amount of input from advisory boards or from from, your economic development and and HRA on this. But the specific initiatives are both, you know, one for one trying to identify how are we going to deal with single family, how are we specifically going to deal with multifamily, how are we going to deal with the homeownership question and the disparities around that, and then how or if do we put subsidies into these equations along with,
dealing with high priority redevelopment sites, which may have some opportunities. There's probably lots of other things involved, and this is probably a good point for me to stop and point out that, there's I mentioned at the retreat, there's business as usual. Your staff, day in and day out, does a lot of this stuff already. By putting it into the strategic plan, what comes up, particularly in the initiatives area, says both to you and to the public at large, this is the areas that we are going to emphasize. We're gonna put extra emphasis here.
This will help us to achieve the highest priority things that we've identified. We're not going to abandon, quote, unquote, our business as usual activities. The, you know, streets will still get plowed and and they'll be patrolled and we'll, you know, cut the grass. We'll do all those things. But here, we're going to put extra emphasis, hopefully, direct extra resources through the budget process because it's in the strategic plan. So that's that's what we're trying to do here. And by your consent, it will empower the staff then to go in those directions and put that extra
emphasis out there. Thank you. Questions about this strategic, priority? Councilor Soukup. Yeah. I'm just curious. I know, the third I was on, like, the subgroup that dealt with this one. So I know the third section around Noah units was kind of a, how to target that and and choose, how you measure that was kind of a a question mark at the time. And so I'm just I'm honestly just curious how you came up with 30 units and, kind of how you're seeing that going in throughout the years.
Thank you. Mister Riley. Thank you, mayor and, councilor Silko. Well, 30 is essentially the number of, home improvement loans that we can do each year. So that's kind of the floor, and we expect to be able to do more. But we did wanted to make sure that the number was achievable, and we can revisit it as we move forward. But that's where the 30 came from. We should be closer to something like a hundred each year. But just in case with, sort of market forces being relatively less predictable than they have been in the past,
we didn't wanna make a goal that was absolutely unachievable. Administrator Martik. Mister Riley, would you mind maybe making a comment too on one of the metrics that was under that category that after you looked at it, you felt should be removed, as well and why? Yeah. So one of the last strategic plan goals was addressing, housing quality. And so that led to the development and sort of implementation of a robust, rental licensing program and nuisance abatement, and inspection program that's been very successful.
So the previous metric was number of housing, units that are, that are up to code, and we have effectively have none in the city, or we are actively working with those that that are identified as not being code compliant, to be successful. So I would call it a win for the previous strategic plan and for this group, and so that's no longer listed, in the forward facing document. And I also wanna just suggest that that shows strong support from the community, and this group is really great for community development,
because that means that we have lots of people who are in healthy and safe housing. And so just thinking about the future and the budget, ensuring that the building department stays strong and continues to be able to do that work will be important. Thanks. Thank you. Administrator Martig. Sorry. I wanna use the opportunity to plug further too. That's why I do appreciate that input that mister Riley had. I did also share with with him that, back in April, I was listening to NPR radio, and they were doing a focus on, Greater Minnesota rental standards and low income renter impacts,
which the legislature actually picked up on that news story. Basically, it found that a lot of communities in Greater Minnesota that if they had rental codes weren't being enforced, had a lot of challenges with it. And when I was listening to the story, a lot of Northfield came to mind because of the work on the strategic plan. We addressed a lot of these challenges that came up in some of this article and now, have some significant improvement. So I was proud when I was listening to that story saying, oh, we we do that now because of this work that we did checking the box on it. So I can share out a couple of links on those stories that might be
helpful too to show, you know, the work has paid off. It wasn't easy work, but I think there was significant improvements made with it. Thank you. Councilor Beamer. Thank you. Is it possible for us to add something similar to item a in the first category as far as a recruitment plan. I to sit here and wait for, you know, a builder to come to us that's capable of building 50 plus homes in in a year seems silly, when we could actively recruit.
I know, Jake, we've already done a little bit of work on that. But it just just so I I think we should have a plan for that. It just seems to make sense that instead of sitting here on our hands, you know, waiting for somebody to come to us, you know, let's let's actively seek that, and see where we can go. Mister Riley, would you like to comment? Oh, sure. I I think, I think if if it would reassure the council that, we include something in a that is,
sort of in parallel to the industrial side that seems more than reasonable. And just so that everyone is aware, we have been working to recruit other other and different home builders of various scales and sizes, whether that, through our own networks as well and in part thanks to council member Beamer. So it's not it's it's a both end approach, but I think it's reasonable to include something that talks about that recruitment in a, two. And the housing coordinator is watching, and she agrees. We've been marketing ourselves as a great place to work as a great city to
work with and in, and have have had some interest, outside of the, local Southern Minnesota ecosystem and then are working working to talk to some national developers as well. Thank you. Councilor Peterson White. But, yeah, it certainly it seems really clear that this idea of talking to builders should be a part of the the plan. In the interest of brevity and the right amount of information in the strategic plan, I guess I my interpretation of that first a create and implement single family home expansion strategy was that that was general enough
that it could include recruitment. But if it if we think it I I guess I I don't wanna get into, like, editing from the dais because I know you all have worked really hard on getting this to the kind of the right level of specificity. So maybe I'm just looking for clarification from staff that such a strategy that you have outlined here would include the activity that Councillor Boehmer is talking about? Or would that be deemed something additional? That's a great question because I also like having some predictability and sameness to our
initiatives in the different categories. Right? If we have recruitment in one area Right. Yeah. Thank you. Yes. Thank you. Thank you. I think that that's that's what I was thinking is that, yes, it is inherent. In our minds, it's inherent. That doesn't mean that when you read it, it's inherent in everybody's mind. And so I think that if if we add the recruitment strategy to the just add, you know, two words or what have you, we can make sure everyone feels confident that we're going to go forward in that direction. Thank you. Great. Alright. I think we're ready for the I'll I'll move to the next one.
And as I do that, I'll I appreciate councilor Peterson White's comment because that, in fact, is she was on target with that. And the the nuance to doing initiatives is not specifying tasks, but particularly just identifying what the initiative is, which encompasses many things. But it, by its nature, can be a little opaque if you think, well, our does that mean we're gonna do x, y, and z? Well, sure. But it's in that. And so, part of part of tonight,
rather than drill down on everything, it is to clarify that for you so that you feel a level of comfort that if you approve something, it will show up in there. So I want to I'm trying we're trying to balance that out here, but I want to make sure that I say that because that was a good example, of impact of that. Yep. Yeah. Councilor Peterson White. Thank you so much. That's really that's really helpful. And I think that in the past I don't have our former strategic plans easily at hand here. But I think that as we kinda went down this road,
you know, there's this there's a there's a strategy in the far right column here, and then we would staff would be responsible for developing specific tactics related to those strategies. But the and and that will happen. Yes? So that we don't actually we don't necessarily need to make sure that we're including every every activity or specific actions. Activities will happen. Activities and actions would kind of be more tactical than strategic. Is that how you would describe it? Yes. Absolutely. I'm not trying to put words in there. No. No. That's exactly right. Like, limit discussion or anything. But I just wanna make sure we're kinda keeping the discussion at the At the
right. At the level that's meaningful to the document that we have in front of us, I guess. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. Alright. On we're on to number three. Onward. We're at Achieve Infrastructure Sustainability, and specifically here, it's flood resistant community, improved pedestrian safety, and a dam free river. That were the specific outcomes that you are targeting. Obviously, those initiatives are going to respond to that. So pedestrian and biking crossings, safer streets, a dam removal strategy, making sure you have flood, tactics or flood plans in place,
so that you make various improvements. And so all of that, relates. I think it's fairly direct and specific. These were the highest priorities. There clearly are many, and lots of them are being addressed as part of the business as usual. But, as I'm recalling the discussion at the retreat, this these bubble to the top as being the ones that were most important. I don't know, Ben, if you have additional edits that were that you wanted to call attention to here. I'm not clear about where you wanted to go with that.
I think the main thing would be questions would be primarily, mister Bennett, probably. One thing to note is that we did get some feedback on the initiatives that we got the order of those rungs. We need to match going left to right in the right order to tie across the so we'll fix that. Council Excuse me. Sorry. Questions can go to mister Bennett. Okay. Councilor Peterson White, you have to ask a question of mister Bennett. I will ask a question of mister Bennett. The question for mister Bennett is, how is b create a safe street for all plan?
How is a safe street for all plan different from or similar to a complete streets plan, which we already have? Mayor, council mayor Pearson White, that's a that's a very good question. I think what is what what has happened is, there's been federal money opened up really to create a safe streets for all plan. It is, a more in-depth planning document than just more of your complete streets policy. So I think it it just gets into to more depth, on on all different areas of of safety. I think we,
with many of our plans, touch on many components that would live within a safe streets for all plan, but it's kinda culmination and putting all that stuff into one document, is is really what that document would be. Administrator, would you like feedback from administrator or Martig, or would you like to ask your follow-up next? Maybe that'll answer. Okay. Administrator Martig. Sorry. I was gonna prompt a follow-up question for mister Bennett, which was, does that lead to more money from the federal potentially if you do that planning? Yeah, that'd be probably just clarification. Yeah. May I remember that is correct?
So that opens up you have to have the plan in place in order to get the funding, so it opens up for more opportunities for funding. Thank you. Yeah. Councilor Peterson White, did that answer your question? No. But I my question is more tactical. So I'll just I'll just wait and see what the Safe Streets role plan consists of. I'm sure it'll be great. Thank you. Mhmm. Councilor Holmes. Thanks. Kind of sticking on that, I wonder and I was in this group and, you know, we had time to think, but we didn't have time to talk about this altogether. So I'm just curious if improved pedestrian safety is comprehensive enough because we're we're doing
more than just pedestrian work there in our targets and the strategic initiatives. And I wonder if it's not just improved pedestrian safety, but it's improved Mobility? Yeah. I mean, something so that it includes, you know, when we look at Highway 3 for walkers and bikers, I drive Highway 3 every day, and I see kid a couple kids riding their bike. I almost saw someone get hit, from a truck turning today on Highway 3. So I think that it's not just pedestrian, but but biking. And we have that in the targets and initiatives. So I just wonder if it's can we be broader in our desired outcome,
or should we be broader in our desired outcome? Mister Bennett. Mayor miss Kinslow, I do think, like, can't we can be broader. I think the biking and is not is missing, and we could add that component and think about really other modes. I think when we when we talk about crossing Highway 3, a lot of the the focus and discussion that that I think we heard at the meeting was really focused on the the vulnerability of the walkers and the bikers and getting across. So we wanted to make sure that was the focus of the initiatives that would
tie back to really what we're hearing from from council and the community. And and I think, one other item kinda related while we're talking about this is, you know, more of a target on the pedestrian crossings and how many we have a we have an updated plan, origin destination study that was done by Alta, and that gets back to the implementing pedestrian crossings and really would be doing that work. And I think that's why it says to implement them, and and it would tie back to the strategic plan, what the amount that could be done.
So I kinda segued onto that. But Great. Thank you. You have a follow-up? Just just wanna say I % agree with that, and I think it's a both and. I just don't wanna limit ourselves just to be thinking about pedestrian safety, but that we can it's pedestrian safety doing these things and thinking about that anyone outside of a car. Mobility, if that's the right I'm not gonna wordsmith it here. But Since I'm agnostic about this, but I still have to put the plan together. So my question to you without belaboring this for a two hour discussion,
is it occurs to me hearing some of this that perhaps the priority, not, you know, not that you're not going to work on pedestrian issues, but the priority is much more around, Highway 3. And is that is the outcome you're seeking improved safe pedestrian or improved pedestrian safety on Highway 3 specifically so that what you're drawing attention to and potentially putting resources to is that? I'm asking this as a question,
not suggesting it as a direction. Councillor Holmes. I think that's what we initially had as our group. And then I I think we talked specifically about Highway 3 and improving the it was the East West connection. It is, I think, what we initially had. And then in the group conversation at the retreat, it got popped up a level to improve pedestrian safety, if I'm remembering that correctly. I'll just chime in. I mentioned a couple times at the retreat about, accessibility, and I actually like improved pedestrian safety. It gets when you design for the most vulnerable user,
you're often gonna get a safer street for everyone. And I'm also a little concerned about just focusing on Highway 3 because we've had significant pedestrian upgrades at two of our three elementary schools, but not at our third, which is in Ward 3. So, I like it at the improved pedestrian safety. Alright. Any other questions on that one? Alright. Let's talk about service delivery, enhancing service delivery. The outcomes are you'd like to have a capacity to meet your desired service levels. Community input guides your service improvements,
and downtown parking needs are met. So Sorry. I'm just envisioning a a world where this is I wanna live in this world. I'm hoping it all happens. But, I do think in in reality, this is where you live. This is what you're chartered to do is to provide service to the community. And it starts with having the capabilities and capacity to do so. So it's it's entirely appropriate that you figure out some, accommodation between what level of service and what capacity do we have.
And that's, to, that's targeted there in that first one. And then, really, I think it was I think I'm speaking as myself here. I think it was wise for you then to say, well, if we're going to struggle potentially with how do we pay for this, how do we deliver this, what's going to happen, that you make sure that the community input is guiding what you do. And and I think you've traditionally done a very good job of seeking community input. But I think in this particular case, you've very specifically said we will use that to guide that,
and that's what'll, drive this next one. And then finally, as everyone, talked about, you're shooting for a resolution here and all of the, initiatives, including creating a managed parking plan for downtown will hopefully get you there. Thank you. Mhmm. Comments about this strategic priority? Counselor Holmes? Thanks. Again, I don't know. I feel like maybe I'm nitpicking, and I shouldn't be, but I I guess the the outcome the key outcome indicator on capacity to meet desired service level level is
the number of capacity improvements implemented. And I wonder if a key OI is more about the service level we're meeting. Like, we're trying to achieve that, not the number of things that we've implemented. It just feels like that's a more powerful, and important measure to me. Yeah. To be very specific, if if you're gonna be successful, if you take it sequentially, you would identify service levels in various areas. And then did you do it, or did you not do it? Or can you make it to that level?
Did you have to back off? And I think that will be a detailed discussion. I've if I can digress for a moment. This is probably the one thing that every organization that gets into this in detail struggles with, because it's hard, with so many different services and trying to identify correctly the level of service, not only that you can accurately measure, but that also that you can get decent citizen input on, in an informed way. So I think, your instincts are correct that service levels is is really what you're shooting for.
I think at at the early stages of working through this, probably over a number of years during this plan, the early stages of that are going to figure out how do we build capacity to get there, and then simultaneously working to figure out what are those levels in in the various areas. So, yeah, I I would I would say that we could refine that to go with service levels versus capacity measurement. I I oh, yes. I might if you, I might like to just explain a little bit what's going on in because I
worked on this the first row in particular under the target full implementation of critical capacity building measures. We spent a lot of time agreeing that because service is so much of what we do as local government, besides probably the infrastructure side of the things is the other kind of big piece of what we we a lot of what we do. Trying to get our head around, like, what should be the outcomes and targets with that. The target on that first box, where we landed on thinking wise was the last strategic plan or might have been plans based on those departments.
We invested in some some significant studies with the police department operations, administrative services in parks and streets. So part of my idea was there's still a lot in there that we haven't done, and we might not be able to do all of that because we might not be able to afford that. But we've invested in those studies to be done. So for prioritizing, my brain said before we do a bunch of more studies, those are three really big operations, and we've made some significant progress, particularly in the police department over time. Let's revisit those as part of our budgeting process,
as part of our analysis to say, can we afford these? Does this make sense? Should we do them? And if not, some of those might also be right sizing expectations about what our service levels are if we can't afford the staffing levels to be able to do some of those things. So I was trying to build off of the last strategic plan and say, maybe that's something we can get our head around because we are really struggling with metrics that made sense. So that's what that's kind of what we came up with. And so, like, tangible examples might be, you know, on the parks department as an example. For some of you that watched that,
if you watched the video or the report, it talked about they actually had data saying how long it took us to respond to citizen issues. And then there was some staffing tied that, okay, we need this many more people. But part of it might be Well, if we can't add these, we might need to rethink what our service levels are or land that those are what they are, and we communicate to that to the public that that's the level of service that we have as the community and at this time, what we can afford. So that's a little more deeper explanation because it was one that we I spent a lot of time, like, what should be the metric on that?
How do we tackle it? It's what we landed on with it. But one of the things I didn't wanna leave with the strategic plan was on the initial draft was something that we couldn't all articulate to understand what it meant. And so at least that I felt was something tangible. Mhmm. So that's a little more deep deep thought on that one. Thank you. I was curious if, the second item, the citywide community survey, which Mr. Rapp and Ms. Kareem both talked about, at the strategic planning session, if any of those, standard surveys had questions that would get to the service level that they can one
is a feedback for the other. Yeah. On a typical national community survey, which I think you're probably gonna be doing, but in a traditional national community survey, they'll they'll have a standard set of questions that can be cross matched against other communities, both in the local area and nationally. But then you can also buy a, an additional set of questions that would be very specific to your community, and you can tailor those. So if you wanna dig in on, identifying how they feel about service levels or responsiveness or however that is,
you can put those in there. So I would say that that's a very useful way to, you know, do that community survey. Going back, if I might, though, and given what mister Mardig just said, you might want to reword that outcome, that first outcome. And and and perhaps it could be more about an improved capacity to meet service demands. And then I think that way, you're aligning it more with something that you're already on the road to trying to achieve. And now you can talk about how are we actually improving our capacity and and
what are we doing. Because you've you've invested a fair amount of money, I didn't realize that already, to try to analyze that. And it seems logical to me that you'd wanna pursue that strategically. Thank you. So that wraps up our priorities. What's next? We will take what we got tonight back. We'll tweak this. There's a report that's mostly completed. We'll try to turn this around so that you have it in front of you a week from tonight. And it's more with the narrative background about the community engagement process and the process
that you went through. And again, this, collective one page summary. And you will be promoting that, and the staff will be taking it deeper over the course of time. And you heard about some of that already tonight. But this next week, theoretically, if if all of that goes well, is, your public expression of the strategic plan and priorities, for the community's consumption. Great. Thank you. You bet. Thank you. Alright. How are we doing up here? We have the next is 1% for the arts. Are we good to move forward? Yes?
Okay. Great. Next up is, discussion of potential changes to our 1% or percent for the arts ordinance with, miss Draper and some help from the library board. Arts and Culture Commission. Sorry. Arts and Culture. Let me just find there we go. Alright. Good evening, mayor and members of council. I am presenting tonight with Paula Grandquist, chair of the Arts and Culture Commission, the percent for the arts program to hopefully get some direction from council to explore potential changes to how we fund it.
I'm joined by some other members too, at least one, Martha, vice chair, Martha Anderson will help with answering questions too, at the end. Do you, introduce yourself now? I do. Okay. So first, I wanna share a little background on the program. I realized that when we first brought this to council to adopt the ordinance with the percent for the arts, I think only one two, actually, two, counselors were on council at that time. So, for the rest of all of you, really, one of the key goals that was laid out in the twenty nineteen twenty twenty four cultural plan,
which was adopted by city council in 2019, was to establish a percent for the arts ordinance, which was ultimately adopted by council in 2021, March of that year. The city had been participating in the program voluntarily since 2018, setting aside 1% of all major capital projects into a fund designated for public art. Northfield's adoption of a percent for the arts ordinance shows that the city recognizes the valuable role art plays in shaping Northfield's identity and in reaching the lives of its residents and visitors.
So while the ordinance was adopted in '21, Northfield's first percent funded project was commissioned in 2018 and completed in 2019. That was the Natural Treasures of Northfield visitor kiosk near Armory Square and family fair, which displays news events and a map of downtown businesses. The base of the kiosk is constructed with locally sourced limestone from Mankato. The cast glasswork on the support pillars, displays a rich array of local native plant and animal species, and the textured surface of the cut cast glass blocks is meant to welcome the
hands of visitors, helping them explore the shapes of native species on their surfaces. Glass work above the informational panels and screen depicts the fluid ever changing scenes of the Cannon River. The pillars are framed in steel with a copper roof will age naturally with the elements. Rick Swire was the primary artist and fabricator on this. He has worked as a local artist in glass and sculpture with pieces frequently sold at the Northfield Arts Guild. Keeney Swire served as the technical designer. Keeney grew up in Northfield and developed his interest in art and design as an Northfield high school student. And Howard Osterre,
who owned owned, Eco Gardens across the street from the kiosk for many years, served as an assistant fabricator. The Northfield is a city known for its rich arts and cultural experiences and is a place where artists can live and thrive. And public art is one aspect of a local arts ecosystem that can make a significant impact on the perception of our community. Public art enriches public spaces, expresses community values, promotes civic engagement, and enhances the quality of life for residents and visitors by making art accessible and integrated into daily experiences.
It also has a potentially significant impact on economic development. And according to data that we cite in the annual reports, that is specific to Northfield, Two Point Two Million Dollars are generated by the arts and culture sector each year in Northfield. Fifty Nine full time equivalent jobs are supported by the arts and culture sector. And over 500 volunteers participate at organizations supporting arts and culture. Over a 70,000 people attend arts and culture events every year here. For every dollar invested in local nonprofit arts, $5 is returned to the local and state economies.
This is from Americans for the Arts study arts and economic prosperity from 2019. So public art can attract tourists and visitors. It has the power to draw people in and make them want to explore a city. This can obviously record result in increased tourism and economic growth. And the farm art detour in rural Suck County, Wisconsin. This featured large lighted installations on farms, generated tourism in the area with an estimated 4,200 visitors, over 65% of whom traveled over 50 miles to see these installations,
which helped increase the revenue to many local businesses. Some of whom saw revenue increases as much as 300%. I would wanted to add a note here about the the these kind of late festivals. Are you advance I'm sorry. Could I are you advancing the five piece of information? The background. Okay. Just checking. Yep. It's this is I'm doing a lot of talking on this one, and then I'll I'll move it along. Sorry. I had to make sure I wasn't missing any beautiful pictures of art. Okay. I could have added more slides to this admittedly. So these kind of lighted art festivals have become very popular,
and you see them in a lot of, larger urban areas. Richmond and Cincinnati, Los Angeles, they have them. But this, this farm rural art, art tour that they they did was a, was a NEA funded Our Town project. And I think the reason a lot of cities are seeing the benefit of these is they bring so many people to the city for the events, and they bring a ton of attention to a community and a lot of revenue is generated in that. I was gonna list a whole bunch of examples of this, but at some point, I have to stop talking. I was doing a conversation with everybody. But, obviously,
public art can attract businesses and residents as well. According to a recent survey by Americans for the Arts, half of people with college degrees, a majority of millennials and Gen Xers say they would strongly consider whether a community is rich in the arts when deciding where to locate for a job. So the arts are just one lever available to us to impact quality of life in a positive way that leads to growth. There is strong evidence that arts and cultural places are associated with a higher quality of life, and micropolitan areas like Northfield with a higher quality of life experience both higher employment
and population growth in similarly situated communities. And this is from a Brookings Institute study that's recent. One implication of this research is that local leaders, businesses, and decision makers can identify and build on their particular assets and advantages that contribute to quality of life. We know that Northfield that arts and culture are central to Northfield's reputation and identity. And a public art program is a way to capitalize and expand their reputation. So public art can also encourage dialogue and interaction, social cohesion, and mental health. And there's are certainly things that we're talking about a lot now.
It's been shown to have clear public health impacts, including discreet decreased stress and promoting health behaviors. It has been noted that slows pedestrians down to enjoy their space and provides a positive impact on mood, which, Wednesday that I had found showed that pedestrians work 50% slower when there was public art around, which in a commercial corridor can have an obvious benefit to businesses. If people are spending time and they're in a good mood, they're probably more likely to spend money in that space and wanna return to it. They're also 77% more likely to tell people about that space.
And I found some of these fabulous data that I'm ever saying. I actually just got this today in the mail the Power Republic Art. It's produced by CODAworx at Madison, Wisconsin. And so a lot of the data is really new, and I wanted to pull in so much more for this because there's a lot of really good stuff in economic development. But, we'll have this on the city hall collection soon. So the areas with, lots of murals see three times as much weekend traffic as areas without. So there's, let's see. See. Oh, also supports local artists and local economy,
which I think is really important here. This is a place, like I said, where artists thrive, commissioning public art, provides a platform for local artists to showcase their showcase their talents and contribute to the community's cultural landscape. In Nashville, they studied their public art program and found that projects over a hundred and $50,000 are estimated to distribute two thirds to three quarters of the budget back into the local economy. I think in Northfield, we should be proud that most of our public art collection is done by local artists. And since we have been participating in percent for the arts, we have increased the amount of art, the variety of forms and styles,
and the diversity of artists in our collection, which you can see from the attached annual reports. Now I'm gonna change the slide. Yeah. Go ahead. I'm just gonna give kind of a brief introduction to and talk about, the arts and culture commission. So thank you for supporting arts and culture in Northfield and inviting us to join you tonight. And thank you, Natalie, for preparing a really comprehensive packet that tells the story and the history of the arts and culture commission, our community art projects, and the dreams of the ACC. Northfield is an arts town. Our community has been building this dream for decades, and I hope that the visuals in the packet that you got a chance to
look at those, and those help to find for you how together we are creating a sense of place that reflects our community and our values. We are lucky to live in a vibrant arts town that fosters creativity and enthusiasm for the arts, that allows artists of all kinds to to pursue their passions and careers in our community, that creates fabulous art experiences and build successful legacies, and values the economic, social, and cultural contributions of art to our community. Northfield values arts, and we hope that you'll join us as champions of the arts in Northfield so
we can build on the contributions of our living treasures and all of the arts and culture makers in our community for future generations. Last night at our arts and culture meeting, the commissioners supported maintaining 1% for the arts or increasing the contributions of the percent for the arts. As you will see in the presentation tonight, the work of the ACC has the potential to take building projects and improvements already happening in Northfield and to make them more dynamic, more colorful, more charming, and expressive of what it means to live in Northfield and visit our town. These projects become memorable places to visit,
take pictures, post online, hang with families and friends, and places that add a bit of joy to everyday activities. We hope that you'll consider how the city engages with the development of projects and how this affects staff time, our ability to pursue outside funding, and how not having reliable funding affects the possibilities of growing arts and culture experiences in Northfield. When we build up the arts in our community, we activate the halo effect, which Natalie just referenced, which is just dollars spent on art happenings add to the economic environment for downtown businesses, the energy and the vibe of our town,
and the desirability of the community for all. I hope we focus on dreaming big together, and we wanna meet the needs of our community and the city of Northfield. So we can only do that by working together to make arts and culture happen here. Alright. So this slide here shows, looking back over the years since we've had the ordinance, the first four years when we were sort of officially presenting on this, the years that you see where we've spent more than was transferred into the fund is usually due to the projects that were coded to the budget of that project rather than coming from the fund.
So occasionally, we've done that with the tunnel murals and with the kiosk. I believe both of those stayed with the project cost. So, oh, and I just point out, incidentally, 2021 was the year was actually the hundredth anniversary of what I think is the first truly public piece of art in Northfield, which is at least the oldest extant example, which is the Civil War monument in Bridge Square. So until the percent program, we had a number of projects installed. There weren't a ton of them, but there were some significant pieces that are still around and really formed the the sense of place in some of our favorite public spaces.
Two examples are the sculpture by Richard Field, which is right outside council chambers here. It was originally in the library's grounds, but in 1985 when the library was remodeled or ran out of room for it, and they moved it over here temporarily. And it's been here for forty years. So I think this is where it is now, but, and then the Sheldahl anniversary fountain by Ray Jacobson, one of our first living treasures, was installed in Bridge Square in 1980, and believe it's due for some conservation work this year. So on the next slide, we're gonna look ahead to what we have been anticipating, and talking about with the commission.
So the current fund balance is 262,000, a little bit more than that. The ACC has planned for plans for these funds, setting aside most of that. About 200,000 for the Bridge Squares project that has been approved and 55,000 for downtown murals to do this summer. The ice arena artwork will likely be coded to the ice arena project budget. I think that this six year projection is useful information later as we get into what impact that a potential cap on the percent program or changing the percent allocation.
But as you can see, it's actually it's obviously increased over time, but it has it's it's fairly it's a little it's up and down, but it's mostly been up, except we look at 2029. And that that would year is a little bit more like the first few years of the, of the percent program. One thing wondering if I might I know we didn't plan on the interruption here, Natalie, but I thought I would just put a little asterisk by our five year capital plan. When we talked in the strategic plan about getting a more solid five year plan, I would say that plan, particularly in later years, has had historically a lot of shifting.
So I wouldn't overly look at that as a real solid roadmap. Probably larger than what reality might typically play out to be. But I think that's a good to use that for purposes of saying what possibly could be based on, what we have as an adopted plan today. Thank you for mentioning. I had meant to actually say make a note about that, but this is a very, like, subject to change. Right? I think this is based on what we estimate projects to happen when they happen
and to happen at the cost that we've we we assume that they would happen, which, obviously, that could be kind of a moving target. But this kind of generally gives us a sense of what we can expect over the next few years, which one thing is helpful about this to have a projection is to think, like, if we're on a say, well, we've done this before. If we're on a timeline with a, like, a a larger federal grant, when are those available? The knowing that you have the match available or coming and being able to show a programmatic history for those grants is really important. So anything with the the larger dollar amounts is usually a much longer timeline and
a heavier lift. And so having having a fairly steady fund that we can depend on when we're not chasing little tiny grants all the time, which is first staff time not actually that feasible for us, because it's mostly just me. But the so but that does help us. And I think I think Northfield looking at this is very well positioned for an Our Town. We did apply for the GAP grant with the attention of going for the Our Town as well, but because of time, we weren't able to do both last year. And right now, the status of those grants is kind of mysterious. But but we have hopes that we'll get back to a place where we can
count on that too, and then we know that we're in a good position to go for it. So I wanted to share just a few case studies, and I'm hoping I don't run too long on time here. The, this is such a great example of community getting behind a project. So Detroit Lakes wanted to do something to bring people more people to the community. They wanted more repeat visits. This has been estimated to have raised $6,000,000 in the first six months that it was in place, in terms of just the economic benefit to businesses in the community. So, Detroit Leaks was approached or was approached by,
I'm not sure exactly how it started. Thomas Danbo was a Danish artist, and he's known for these really outsized outlandish Danish or troll sculptures made out of reclaimed materials. So all the wood is reused, repurposed wood. And in this, particular project that they did in Detroit Lakes, there is a big plastic rabbit that's sort of the villain of the story. And they created a whole story around this, and the trolls are sort of hidden around Detroit Lakes. And there's a game that you go on sort of a treasure hunt to follow the story and find the trolls. So it's been enormously successful and has a huge impact there,
and they've had a lot of repeat visits. It's just really charming and pretty brilliant. So small community is seeing huge rewards for, an investment. I think most of this was fundraised from the community, but, I'm pretty sure that it has paid for itself a few times by now because 6,000,000 would be a lot for the project. So the next one is the Sprout project in Harlem, New York. This is a neurodiverse inclusive playscape that was created with the Polo Grounds Communities. It's a housing project in Harlem to provide a safe space for all people to
play, dream, inspire, converse, and come together. The project is part of the mayor's action plan for neighborhood safety. It was organized by the Polo Grounds neighborhood stakeholder team along with the Center for Innovative Justice to create a community project reimagining public safety and well-being through space activation. So they co designed this neurodiverse playscape with the community who lives there through a variety of play workshops that were facilitated by the artists. Community members of all ages participated and shared their ideas, stories, experiences, desires,
and more to shape the overall design of Sprout. The project became not only a conversation around design, but also what neurodiversity, mental health, and safety meant to the community. And also, I I share this one part as partly as an example of how effective placemaking and designing public spaces and public projects with community input done with artists facilitating some of that process, how effective that can really be. So you have a community that's very invested and feels supported by this project. The Saco Lily Dam in Salt Lake City is an outstanding project. It's one of my favorites.
This may well be the world's first flood control project that doubles as a work of art. It is designed in the shape of a sago lily, which is Utah's state flower. The dam allows this is huge, by the way. It's kinda hard to tell from the picture, but, the dam allows floodwater to pull on the flower's bowl with its 30 foot high walls and then flow by gravity down the lily stem under an eight lane highway and into a nearby creek. So plant and wildlife purchase grease these sculptures' wells. During dry spells, the dam serves as a community park where pedestrians and wildlife can share space within
the city. When these huge volumes of rain and snowmelt descend from the Wasatch Mountains, the dam, which is designed to absorb a ten thousand year storm, prevents life threatening floods. The project honors local history too, so this igolili is a powerful symbol to many residents of Utah. And the project also respects the area's natural history and attempts to heal the ecological damage of the built environment. For example, by reconnecting natural areas on opposite sides of this highway that you can see in the picture, The project restores a wildlife connection that had been lost to urban development.
And the last case study I'm gonna share all these are my favorite. So one of my favorites. This project was another recipient of an IRTON grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. It accomplishes so many goals. This is the main terrain art park. It was developed in Chattanooga on a former railroad right of way. So the city had previously purchased the site as a location for stormwater management, and this neighborhood through public involvement process expressed the need for a useful green space and the desire for inclusion of public art while providing adult fitness opportunities. And the landscape architect was the prime professional coordinating the contributions of engineers,
artists, and play professionals. Their solution to storm management requirement, while creating a neighborhood open space focused on art fitness resulted in this sustainable and artistically interesting public space that addresses and elevates art and active lifestyles in a unique combination. So one thing it's a little hard to see in this is that there's there's a line of these sculptures. These really big, how tall plinths with portions of like old, maybe bridge buttresses. I'm not sure what's on the top of them. But they're controlled by these, wheels below so people can come and manipulate the sculptures.
And it's part of the fitness aspect of the park. It's not just a nice place to run, but it's actually a little upper body work too. But instead of having just like those kind of exercise stations along, it's it's built in and it's more engaging and a little whimsical and it helps people like get engaged in the artwork by manipulating it and changing the environment. So this is a I think a really outstanding project that conceals big stormwater tanks underneath of it is really the whole point of this. So, so I wanted to then no.
This is that was it. Oh oh, so thank you. Just a question that I want to I would like to ask the council to consider as we move into the next slide and discussion about the percent is what do we in Northfield hope to accomplish with the public art program? What is possible with this, and what are we maybe not accomplishing in its current state? And how we we make that possible? So I have here a list of options that, some have been presented by members of council. I not sure exactly how we wanna approach the discussion,
but I wanted to just point out one, option e. And I think these are sort of like an a la carte options too. That when I was doing a lot of the research into this looking for how other cities handle their public art program. Like, who has caps? How much are people putting in? There are 350% for the arts programs in the country. There are cities and, communities of all sizes, counties, states, and, transit. So, like, airports are really big. And they all go about it a little bit differently, but the kind of the the percent itself, I think that's
the the one that they've all settled on because it's essentially tied to inflation. Right? It's saying that we're taking this 1%, which feels like a small number, of what we're spending on big stuff and saying that that's what we're gonna commit to art. And so we're just basing it off of what we're doing, investing in the capital improvement side of the city. And we're taking this small number, and we're putting it into this fund for art. But one approach that a lot of communities have taken with kind of capping or making sure that you're not putting maybe a disproportionate amount into the fund at at different times is actually raising the threshold for the contribution where it attaches.
So currently, we use the state's bid minimum, which is a hundred and $75,000, which feels they're like that might be a little bit low. So I think that's the one part of this that isn't connected to inflation. So as smaller projects become more expensive, you start to push that up more. So, I just wanted to put this option on for council to discuss to you as a possible, point of consideration is looking at what makes more sense for that floor. So we were talking about a ceiling, but I just wanted to add that too.
So as I said, the nice thing about percent programs is that they're tied to inflation, so you're not kind of going back year after year trying to assess whether or not you're spending the right amount of money on something. And I think that's where I would like to pause for thoughts from the council on this. Thank you. Thank you very much. Are there questions? We want to start with questions. Anyone have questions for Natalie or any members of the ACC board? Counselor Holmes? I this might be for miss Draper or staff, other staff. I I'm until this came up, I hadn't really thought about this.
Does the money come for a project, say the ice arena? Does that money all come in one lump sum? Or because the project is over twenty years, is it spread out over over time? Mayor, mayor's council, it all comes at one time lump sum. Okay. So So at the start At the yep. The beginning of the project or, like Yep. Usually, right right when we award the project at the beginning, those funds are in the resolution of where they're coming from and called out and set aside at that time. Okay. I have one more question. And this might be for mister Martig, or for anyone here,
in council. To change the ordinance, how many votes does that take? Five? I don't remember if the ordinance is a regular majority or super majority. I don't recall. I just well, we'll get our That's fine. I just am trying to understand how we get to agreement together and how much of an agreement we need to get to. That's it. We'll we'll have that information before we get to the voting part of this. This is this is a work session tonight, so we won't be taking any votes. I know. I'm saying it for the public. Not for you. Not you.
I know you know. Saying it for the public in case anyone starts to panic that, wait. I thought it was a work session. It is a work session. We'll get that information before we get to a vote. I'm gonna go with councilor Dolan and then councilor Beamer, I see you as well. Thank you very much for the presentation. So I'm a supporter of the arts as a private person. But, I think when you talk about expanding the debate to include economic benefits or who's involved, what kind of community we have. That's really bigger to me than just saying we have public works projects and a
certain percentage of that public works should automatically be used for public art because it's a public works project. So if we go down the road of a larger discussion, I think it needs more study. But if we go down a more narrow path, I think there might be more consensus about what to do. The other thing I just would I have a series of questions, but I want to send them to you on in an email because they take quite a bit of time to answer. At least I could have multiple answers to my own questions. So I'm going to do that instead. But I just want you to know that if you expand this debate for all
in a wonderful presentation, I mean, this is the full 180 or whatever, 3,160 view of it, it's going to really complicate our decision up here. As opposed to just saying, here's a public works project. Here's here's the percent that we're going to say it's not just about x. It's about also public art, perhaps at the x public works facility. Anyway, even though you can use it on another way beyond that facility, but I just leave it with you that that's going to be a more difficult vote for all of us if we have to address all of
that expanded debate, which I never even thought of because I look at this more from a private sector perspective because that's the world I've come from on this. But I will send the rest of you my questions, and I really appreciate that you put this together. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you. Councilor Beamer. Thank you, Mayor. Probably a quick question more for staff. Just I looked through the policy, obviously. I've looked through it several times, and I just want clarification. This policy doesn't apply to anything that gets
TIF or abatement or anything along those lines. Is that is that correct? Thank you. Yeah. It's, TIF and abatement, don't apply to the policy. Counselor Peterson White. Are you looking for Yeah. We're still looking at for questions. Questions? Counselor Holmes. Yeah. This question kinda came to my mind when miss Draper asked us the question of what do we want to accomplish in Northfield. And it got me questioning, the cultural plan was through 2024. And I'm wondering if the ACC or if there's been thought of creating a new
cultural plan, especially if, I mean, this is about four times right? We're looking at about four times increase of funds. And so it seems like a different I mean, it's a different time. It's a different plan. So I'm wondering, one, I'm wondering, has there been discussion about looking at a new cultural plan to help think about and define those things? And I think a secondary question is chicken and egg. What comes first? A cultural plan or or change the ordinance? And and and how how should we think about that? Because I don't think we are the people that should be
having all of the say on what the what what art is. Right? The the people up here, I think that that's that's important for using the community and using the ACC. So I guess just thoughts on cultural plan and chicken and egg if you have them. Yeah. I I I'm happy to answer that. I think we have discussed a desire to do a public art master plan. So a little bit more specifically focused on that because that is what the funds are for and fairly narrow on what they can fund. I think another discussion might be expanding a little bit the definition of what is
allowed for that funding. For instance, do we wanna consider conservation, like, the more in-depth conservation work on existing works of art? Do we wanna maybe allow for planning through the percent? But I I do think as you noted that that fund has increased, and so it's other you can't necessarily depend on that. Right? Because it's sort of a moving target. But having a plan for how that is spent over time does help us kind of talk about what our long term needs are for that. So the short answer is yes. We would love to do a public art plan.
We don't have anything currently in place to move forward with that, though. And chicken and egg, do you I mean, what do you I guess, what do you think? What does mister Marteager's staff think in terms of that? If it's ordinance driven and then the plan comes or if we were to change the ordinance? Or or is there a plan and that helps us decide on the ordinance? Jake had some thoughts. Oh, yes. Sorry. Mister Riley, I can barely there's so many computer things between me and you. I can barely see you.
Maybe you can add in your research on the ordinance answer too in addition to whatever you're gonna respond to on that question. Yes. Thank you, mayor. And, council member Holmes, I guess, miss Draper and I have discussed the 1% for the arts a lot since I arrived. And I would say that it is a very well written ordinance that is potentially ineffectively used. And that the problem isn't the 1%, and the problem isn't the need for art. The problem for you all to consider is when
asked to include an art project in a capital project as the 1% for the Arts Ordinance recommends, you have the power to say, You know what? For this one, we can't make it work. Right? You have the power to make a decision about whether you're going to contribute to the pool of money. So that's that's one thing. So that goes back to that potential, ineffectively applied, well crafted ordinance. 1% for the Arts ordinances are in place in many cities across the country to great economic benefit for those
communities and for the artists within them. And this community has a very robust artistic community, not just because of the colleges, but also because of the colleges. And artists are workers. They make a living doing art. And if we are to focus not just on, like let's say, we stick to the 02/2008 comprehensive plan or the city's economic development strategy from 02/2006, both of those include art and creative the creative community as part of economic drivers.
There's an entire store, at least one anyway, but there's multiple stores in town that are dedicated to artistic endeavors. Right? Northfield Yarn. One could argue the bookstore. Right? The folks at all those other creative places, that offer things for artists to do. The entire Northfield Arts Guild supports multiple artists. The entirety of Riverwalk Market Fair is artist driven. So I I think that really it's about how we think about implementing the dollars and being more thoughtful,
perhaps about a public art plan, a way to implement those dollars and use those dollars so that it's evident that they're being used for something that is meaningful to the decision makers. And remembering, too, that you can decide whether in order to cut costs on something at a time when things are stressful and economically challenging, that maybe at this time or that time, the, the 1% for the arts has to pause in order to help the rest of the communities thrive and six and succeed.
It's a sketchy artist is what I was trying to think of, so sorry about that. I didn't mean to that wasn't like I wasn't trying to pick, like, a list. I just of all the things that there are, there's lots of ways to support the arts. And this is one of them. And I think it's helpful to see beautiful buildings. We have an entire historic downtown of beautiful buildings. We have homes that are beautiful. And sometimes you, it's kind of nice to have a beautiful element of your, your facade or your facility when you're when to the points that Ms. Draper was making, to slow people down and to think and to take a breath.
So I'm not sure that the ordinance is the problem. And I'm not sure that the existing cultural plan is the problem either. I think it's, you know, going back to the strategic plan, what are the most important things of the next three or four years? And how can this fit into it effectively in a way that meets your needs and the community needs together? And thank you. We've done some other research. And one of the things I just as we're thinking wrapping it going into budgeting, I think it could be beneficial for the public art program to move into a
different department and to work with other members of the community and other groups in the community like the arts guild to be more effective champions and users of the ordinance. But that's just my Yeah. Thank you. Thanks. That's that was perfect. I'll thank you very much. I'll I got through a makeshift out there if you're listening. You know? My bracelet's from makeshift. Yes. Right? Okay. I had a question, but you wanted to say something. I just want to make one clarification on Mr. Riley's statement, just to make sure it's accurate. And then one comment,
it looks like our I wanna verify and do a deeper dive, but it looks like this type of an ordinance would just be a simple majority amendment. I'll verify that. But for tonight, I'll probably just leave it at that. I did have a question though just to make sure that does the cur is it accurate that the if I understood mister Riley right, is it accurate that the current ordinance does give discretion? I don't believe that it does currently, but that could be an option to add into an ordinance amendment to give some discretion maybe at a certain threshold or something. Could be a nuance, but I don't believe it is discretionary currently. I I I don't think it's worded that way,
but I'd have to look. I feel like I've committed it to memory by the now, but, but apparently not. So I would have to look at it again to see if there's is there room for council discretion? But that was something that I think I was thinking along the lines too when I was building this options was if there is a cap, is there a space where you could say at council discretion that could be, you know, moved? Or is it council discretion to say, like, this is too much. We wanna bring that down. So, like, that could be some space in the ordinance to just give more ability for us
to just bring forward. Like, if we wanna say, like, we really need this much for this because we have some reason for that, then we can come forward with that. Right? But, yeah. So my my question was, about you talked about some years there are large projects and some years there aren't and stabilizing the funds. So that's why I was curious about a 2% with a cap, which would, stabilize more stabilize the fund, year after year. But I'm also curious about the threshold that you mentioned here.
So what how do how do each of those accomplish the stabilization of the fund? I think it's gonna be hard no matter what to have it be stable because it's so dependent on what we're spending on other things. And I think when I thought that over after we had that conversation, I feel like the spirit of it is that percent of what we are spending on these projects goes to art. So, I was last thinking about that with raising the floor for it. It was more about being mindful of how many projects might be considered, like, small projects that are now becoming much more expensive.
And they're sort of hitting that. And so are we competing with ourselves in a way Yeah. For funds. And that doesn't quite feel like the spirit of this either. Yeah. And most, like, I was looking for kind of pure communities. It's hard to find communities of a similar size that have very similarly worded ordinance or a structure. You know? But Olympia Washington is one I'd come across as they're a bit bigger than we are, but they're not so big, so much bigger. I know in Richmond where I've worked before when they had the percent program, it has since gone away, which is unfortunate. But there, the threshold was a million dollars for projects.
I think they're much bigger, and so that made sense. Olympia was 500,000. So I was just looking for some examples for where cities placed it either the bottom or the what was the floor and what was the ceiling for some of these. Great. Okay. Question? Mhmm. Alright. Councilor Sogo. Thanks. I'm curious kind of along the same lines as councilor Holmes is asking questions, And this is not a I hope this isn't taken as a judgment of what you've spent so far. But when I look at the, like, years out and what's projected to come into the fund, and then it looks like your average spending over the last four years is around
$40,000. And I understand it's also a new program, so it's not like you're gonna spend all of the money right away. But do you all when you're when you're planning for the future, are you thinking about how to if there you know, there's quite a fun balance right now, do you kind of envision being able to use all the funds that come in? Or I think that's the hard part for us when we're not engaged in it is, like, see or at least for me, is seeing, like, large fund balances,
like in the climate action. But, what is that fund called? Climate? Carbon reduction. Thank you. It's like a larger fund balance, but they have plans for all the money. And not to say that that's right or wrong, but I'm just curious. It it's I think it it would be helpful to know, are you able to do you have the capacity to award more grants or more produce more art? Or I know there's a ton of artists in the community, but it also is, like, a huge administrative lift to do Yes. To get it to the point where you're actually the artist is on-site installing or
making something. And so is there capacity there? I guess it's my question. And how do you kind of see the future use of a larger fund balance going? I have got two answers two answers for that, actually. It is challenging. So some of what you what you don't see because it was a very small amount. So last year, why we only spent, like, $20,000 because we spent so much time in planning for larger projects that take multiple years. So when we paid, you know, I think it was maybe 6,000 in artist stipends for it was for the water treatment plant.
So it's a lot of time and months spent. Right? And that's fine because that's just that's just how that happens, but that was a much larger project that would have, you know, been reflected in that. Bridge Square is another one that was months and months of meetings and working with the artists and working with the commission and working with the landscape architects and the, the archaeologists on the site to do something that was mindful and respectful and intentional about honoring the land acknowledgement statement. So that was probably, I don't know, six months at least of meetings that were leading up to that.
And so that is representing, like, most of what's in the fund right now is for that. The reason it hasn't we haven't actually started working on this one. We're waiting for kind of the the go ahead on Bridge Square, but also, we had applied for the GAP grant from the NEA, and you couldn't spend any money at all until you were notified of that, which was supposed to notification was supposed to come in April. And it never came because it's not going to. So but with nothing could be spent until July because it's not a fiscal year. So that's we're now, like,
eighteen months worth of work leading up to something to start. So the planning has been done, and the money is essentially spent that's sitting in the fund right now. It was, but the excuse me. The match needed to be available to be able to start, spending money on that project. So but, also, the more that gets, if if if, you know, if I get behind, there isn't actually another person who's really working on that. So I think one thing that I've considered with the percent that might be establishing a local arts agency or designated the local arts agency.
So possibly working with an art field arts skill to help with the actually arts management. And then that is support for a local arts nonprofit that really does a lot to uplift arts in the community. And then if they can take on some of that working with artists and putting out the calls to artists and going through the process and sort of refining these projects. And we work with them then to kind of plan how those get integrated into city projects. Other questions? Alright. We'll move into discussion about this, so we can get, kind of a feedback from the council about what direction we're thinking about going in.
And I really liked, miss Draper's prompt to talk, about goals. If we can talk about the goals that we have, for art, and then we can talk specifically about this ordinance too if people want. So, I'll go to councilor Pearson White because you asked a while ago. Thank you. So I'm one of the two counselors who was here when we passed this. It was, I would say we got really strong support for this ordinance from the public. I don't recall it being particularly controversial. I, and from my perspective, it's been effective. I think that there is room for us to maximize our use of these funds
in some interesting ways that I've talked to Natalie and Jake. I'm sorry. Miss Draper and mister Riley both about. And I think when we hear about some of the ways that larger communities are able to use funds like this, it it largely has to do with staffing and the ability to have more dedicated staff, which is not likely in the future for Northfield, that we do have amazing staff who care a lot about public art and know a lot about public art and know a lot about the economic impact of public art. So, I I from my perspective, I I guess I'll first offer my comments on the ordinance itself, since that I think is what we're here to review.
But, personally, I would support either no change to this ordinance or, to increase the contribution but impose I think I think it would be reasonable to have a cap on individual projects. I think we saw with the water treatment plant, which, of course, isn't happening anyway. But if it were, it would be a very large amount of money, out of a budget that size. And I think that that's a good example of a case in which it might make sense to have a cap. As far as raising the threshold, kind of raising the floor, sort of agnostic on that point, I there's a part of me that thinks that ain't broke. But if, if it if it were to seem appealing to my colleagues here to raise that,
to $500,000 or something, I think that would be reasonable. And I, you know, I think in terms of what we what what I would like to see out of this fund, first of all, I wanna say, to me, I don't I don't need any additional information to know that the arts have incredible economic and cultural impact on our community. They're a huge part of what makes Northfield so livable and makes it Northfield an attractive place to live. In addition to the businesses named by Mr. Riley, I can count just off the top of my head five separate businesses on Division Street that primarily sell products made by local makers and artists.
At least five. Makeshift is one, but I think there are at least four others. And, everyone else on Division Street benefits from those businesses thriving and from the fact that they have interesting unique products to sell. People don't come to Downtown Northfield because they want to find the same things that they find at the Mall Of America. That's not why people shop here. But people do come from all over to shop in Downtown Northfield and I see them every single day I see them on Wednesday mornings and Saturday afternoons Every month of the year and a huge part of the reason why they come and spend money here is, because of the arts.
And not just the fact that they can find these unique locally made products in the downtown, but because they're coming to see performances or to come to author events or to, enjoy our public spaces which are in some cases beautifully adorned with public art and are places where people want to linger and spend time. To me the economic benefit of that is extremely obvious. I'm not And there and there is also a a copious body of work. Like, there are there are people who research public art for a living and they they have they have demonstrated, in fact, that there is a measurable impact that is positive. Also,
I believe that art should be work that is compensated in a just and welcoming and, inclusive community. And, personally, I believe that if all we did with this fund was take 1% of it and buy art that artists have already made and use it, put it where the public can enjoy it, that would be a good use of this fund. If we spent 1% doing that, that would be a tiny drop in the bucket of our city budget each year that could make a huge difference to the viability of making art for a living
to numerous people in our community and elsewhere. And I think that is, a really important thing for us to choose to do. I can certainly imagine circumstances in which, should the second Great Depression descend on The United States, we might wanna change this policy and decide that we can't afford that 1%. But right now, we can. We can afford this 1%. And to limit that investment would be, in my opinion, shortsighted. It would mean that we are not investing in a community that, that that has kind of a thriving cultural life.
Right? And I I think anybody who lives here visits Northfield knows that this is it's very obvious from the moment you come into this community that this is a town with a thriving cultural life, and this is a really important way that we can ensure that that continues to be the case. So I'm not interested in option a. I'm not interested in option c. I do think that it's real Interesting to me to think about using these funds to create art or interpretive spaces or, other things that are really deeply integrated into public works projects. I think when you look at the projects that we've done,
some are really some is work that's really meaningfully integrated into these spaces in a way that actually changes the function of the public space. And others were decorating and I believe the decorating has a ton of value also. Right? I really do. But I think that when we start, like when we were talking about the water treatment plant, thinking about how we could use this fund to create, to make that public building more public facing and more informative and engaging to the public, because it does in fact belong to them. That is the kind of thing I'm really excited about, and would love to see in a cultural plan going forward.
I'm also I should have asked this during the question section, and we can talk about it later, but I'm I I do think that we've obviously, this has been primarily focused on the visual arts. Some static visual arts, some interactive visual art, but mostly visual art. And we have a lot of other kind of thriving arts opportunities in our community and many that could use support. I don't know that I think we should get into sort of funding performances or anything like that, but there might be, I think there may be other ways that this fund could be invested to ensure that our support of the arts is well rounded across the disciplines.
So thank you. Thank you. Had I known the conversation was gonna go this way, I would have worn my earrings from Mercado Locale. But that's number six. Councilor Beamer. I'm gonna try to I'm gonna try to work one in every time I talk. Councilor Beamer. Thank you, mayor. Miss Draper, Jake, thanks for the information. Miss sorry. Mister Riley, thank you for the information. There's a few things why I brought this up and and, talked with, councilor Dolan about it, so that we could get it on the agenda.
I I agree with everything that councilor Peterson White stated. This is an arts community. It always has been. Having lived my entire life here, it always has been. And until just recently, was never really supported that way. My my main concern is is the dollar amounts that get attached to projects, such as the water treatment plant. I believe that number was somewhere around 600,000 if I remember correctly. Is that right,
mister Bennett? And I think we're at a hundred and was it a hundred and nearly a hundred and 20,000 or something like that? Or no. It's hundred and 90,000 or something like that for the ice arena. Somewhat it's pretty hefty numbers somewhere up in there. Is that about right? Mayor, mayor's council. That's correct. More interested in in, you know and then back in Jan I think it was January, I think I had sent something to mister Marta. I was going through disbursements. Yes. I do actually read all of the disbursements that come in the packet,
believe it or not. And there was a project to replace, I think, three or four street lights that needed replacing out on Highway 3 that had it tagged to it. To me, that's our maintenance project. Just a routine thing. You know, the street lights are damaged from salt and corrosion. Time to put some new ones up. You know, we gotta pay an electrical contractor to go do that. I wanna say it was somewhere in a hundred and 30 or a hundred and $40,000 and tacked on an additional 13 or $1,400
to it for the 1% for the arts. Something like that to me doesn't make sense, you know, it's a routine maintenance project. Does that mean if we pay a mechanical contractor to come in here to City Hall to do something with the air conditioners that we're gonna we're gonna have to put it in there too? I and kinda to try and pick and choose what we attach it to and what we don't attach it to and potentially come up with some sort of a cap, on these larger projects. I'm sure a lot of these larger projects were kind of being thought about when
this was implemented, but nobody would have imagined that we were looking at an eighty three million dollar water treatment plant or, you know, a $25,000,000 hockey arena. Taking on rather large sums of money, when the reality is we're trying to keep those costs down and and trying to help the taxpayers out a little bit. So my thoughts personally would be to leave it at 1%, maybe raise raise the starting threshold, and then and then come up with a with a cap that everybody can agree on.
You know, is that cap 50,000 or is it a hundred thousand or where where where is that? And that, you know, obviously open for discussion. I'm not closed minded in this thing at all, but I just, you know, trying to keep things in check to some extent and and, you know, not not come up with another project that we're looking at, you know, a 600,000 contribution to it on a building. As I've stated before, in my personal opinion, shouldn't necessarily be a public attraction,
but more of an area that, hey. This is what the purpose of that building is, so let's just leave it at that. So that's my comments on it. Obviously, all ears. Not a not anything that I would like to see go away because I I'm smart enough to understand the benefits to it and in the community that we live in. Now if we were in one of our surrounding communities, it probably wouldn't be as high of a priority. But, Northfield, the the arts is a huge thing here, and it always has been. And and I'm fine with the 1%.
I just I'd like to see maybe that that what it gets tagged to raised a little bit and and maybe put a cap on it so that we're not adding massive dollar amounts to to the projects. Thank you. Great. Thank you. Who yes. Thank you. Councilor Holmes. Thanks. I just wanna clarify what councilor Peterson White said, because she said at one point, you're in favor of no change. And then at the end, you said, I'm not in favor of a, but I think you meant b. No. I meant b. Okay. I just wanted to correct that for the record.
So because I think that's right. That's right. I interpreted, but but yes. I misspoke. Thank you. You're welcome. It's easy to do up here. I know. So I would say, you know, thank you. Thank you for the presentation. Thank you for all of this information. And, thank you, Councilor Beamer, for sharing your reasoning for bringing this forward. I would say that I'm most aligned with, Councilor Peterson White in terms of having no change, maybe increasing the contribution and having a cap, but I I think that would require big conversation. I understand.
I understand when we look at a project and we see and we're looking at line item by line item that, oh my gosh, this is $600,000 or oh my gosh, it's a hundred and $90,000 But I think what's important is if we zoom out, we look at over six years, we're going to invest $1,100,000 if all of these projects come through come to fruition. I don't anticipate that they all are. But so high end $1,100,000 to support the arts. That could be seen as a lot of money. We are investing $21,000,000
into the ice arena and into a portion of our community. I don't If we look at the big picture, the investment isn't doesn't balance out. We're investing in the arts and I think that is important. And I think it's okay that sometimes we have these big projects that then allow us to invest more in something that is there for that might support local artists, job creation, etc, but also is something that is lasting and open to everyone. And I feel like it's important as we move into the budgeting discussion,
when we look at wanting to save things here and there, we just voted on something that was really big. And if we wanted to save a lot of money, we wouldn't have voted on that. We feel like it's important. It passed. I supported it. And I think that we have to look at where are we trying to what are we trying to cut and what are the impacts gonna be? And I feel like the impact will be felt deeply within our arts community if we strip things away. And I know we aren't talking about completely stripping things away and we want to
still have things, but I think it's important, especially as we look at the NEA maybe not having grants in the future, that where will this come from? Again, it's something that only that I think we locally have a responsibility for. So I, I'm in favor of no change, potentially looking at a cap. But again, I think that that's it's gonna take a lot deeper conversation. I'm gonna go to some people who haven't. Oh, a quick follow-up? Okay. Just a really quick follow-up. Thank you, mayor, for allowing it, me to the other the other thing that I would also like to toss out
there would be to revamp the way everything's worded. So we do have the opportunity if we have a large project come up to as a council to talk about that and say, k. Are are we in a position right now where we should maybe look at taking that out, you know, come up with another huge project. Like, you know, we all know that the water treatment plant's gonna come back up at some point. Okay. Should we maybe look at taking it out of a project like that?
So maybe reword the the, policy so that it allows us to at least have discussion and say, okay. Maybe this particular project, we take it we take it out of that. That's kinda what I'm looking at too. Okay. Thank you. Councilor Ness. Thank you. I need a little more time to go through all these numbers and figure out where I'm gonna stand on this, but most of you know I live with an artist. And we are seriously conflicted because she got a bachelor of science degree in art,
and I got a bachelor of arts degree in science. So so, like I say, I don't know where I land on this yet, but by the time we vote, I will know. Great. Thank you. Councilor Soukup. Thanks, thanks for all you do and, being here and presenting and, but mostly for everything you do in the community. I really I don't support decreasing the percentage, at all. I think it's really important to have the 1% for the arts ordinance. I do think it's worth discussing,
like, a floor and a ceiling, but I think, to me, that the ceiling would be I mean, to me, this really came up because of the water treatment plan. And I was like, is there even capacity to add 600,000 to the arts fund? And and actually see it you know, miss Traver, if you're the one doing all the administrative lift on this, maybe with help some other folks. But, when you mentioned kind of, like, finding different ways to use the money and making it you know, pulling in the arts guild or,
you know, I think that's really exciting because, what I wanna see is, like, the the the amount of money increasing and then the amount of art increasing. Like, I I really do support that. But I think when it comes to really large projects like that, I would support a a cap. I don't think it should be anything like a hundred thousand dollars. I think it should be, like, you know, 4 or $500,000. Like, something that is like, okay. Let's let's be realistic about what this fund can do and, and how can it respond kind of in a good amount of time to what
we're doing. But, also, like, you know, you should have the ability to have some reserves and with what's happening federally, kind of depend on funds that you can no longer seek. So, yeah, I kinda go back and forth on this, but really came up. This ordinance, to me, was not something that needed to be would need to be changed if it wasn't for those in incredibly expensive projects that we've been discussing. And kind of to councilor Holmes' point that I I do agree with, you know, if we're going to spend $25,000,000
on a nice arena, I, for one, who who did not support spending that much money on one on that project, I'm happy that a hundred and $90,000 of it is going to the arts. At least there's that, and that that will benefit more community members in my mind than anyway. So I think it's important to have those larger projects that do kinda give you a fun balance. But, when it gets to the point where it's, like, $500,000, that seems like just a huge amount of money to me. And also just to make the point that, like, if we change an ordinance,
we can always change it again. I don't know that I that I'm I kind of hesitate to make the ordinance adapt or or open the question of voting on amount of money per project. I worry about what that could look like for the sustainability of the fund and what future councils may decide isn't you know? We can never know that, and that's okay. But I think the I worry a little bit about having one more about being able to debate the
importance of art with every large project we do. So to me, a a larger cap makes sense and and having a floor makes sense. But, yeah, in terms of the larger question of kind of what goals and what we wanna see accomplished, and I just kind of wanna reiterate something that people have touched on up here, but also that you all touched on that it's it's really excuse me. I wanna make sure we're supporting artists and that we're a place that artists can live.
And so I'm really curious about your feedback about what kinda comes out of this discussion and what comes forward. I wanna feel like, you know, maybe not everyone supports it, in the arts community, but I am curious if it if it is something that makes sense to you all, because that overall idea of, like, having a lot of art in our community, having a lot of artists who live here and feel like they can live here and continue to live here and that they're part of not just, like, an arts community, but they're part of our workforce.
And that that financially makes sense for them too is super important to me. So, thank you for again, and, thanks to councilor Beamer too for for bringing this up because I think it is a a a valuable discussion to have, and I hope we can find the right numbers and and move move forward in a way that makes sense for everyone. Thank you. Councilor Dolan? Yeah. I I just would comment on the fact that it's public art. And when you have public works facility to make it look better,
we have public art. In a nutshell, that's it for me. I think the private sector has to pick up most of the cost of the arts in this country. And it always has, always will. So when you come down to the local level, when we build something, if it is just going to be a nondescript building, then having some set aside for the arts, public art, makes some sense. Then I guess they would leave it there because I can be open to supporting most options to this. And I think it would be fun to have the support of the arts community
in whichever way we land. So if the dialogue continues, that's great because that's what I need in order to decide what's the best outcome for the city. And so I would just leave it with that. Thank you, Mayor. So yes, I'll weigh in here. I haven't spoken yet. So I'm going to start with the goals. So in terms of the goals, I would really I love the economic impact of the current plan, and I think I would like to lean into it more being an economic driver. I'd like some of the examples that you gave in your presentation where people are
coming. It's it's it's a destiny. It's creating a destination that, people want to come to Northfield for. And so in that end, I'd love to be more strategic about about that and thinking about are there events that where we want to strengthen, that pull to Northfield. We've mentioned Riverwalk Market Fair, which is already supporting artists. But is there, anything there working with the EDA, the Chamber potentially? We've got our Winter Walk. Thinking about when when is the capacity of Northfield for, tourism
under utilized, where we could support something. I've often thought we should do our fireworks display on Winter Walk evening instead of the July 4, although I'm environmentally opposed to fireworks. So our drone show, should be on Winter Walk, instead of the July 4. So, but I'm so I'm curious about how we've historically linked the art directly to the project and wondering if there's a way to decouple that. And so thinking about, in in in the future when we do have a dam free river and we
remove the dam, I'm not sure if that's a project that will generate any funds or not. But because you gave the example of art incorporation into the built environment and the wildlife connection. And, so we have some things going on with our river that are really interesting. So I'm I'm very curious about that art wildlife river connection. So, yes, I I thank you for that. Those are some of the goals. Yes. Leaning more into it as an economic driving driver and just kind of thinking about
does does the money generated, say, from the water treatment plant, does it all need to be spent on making the water treatment plant look like a water a destination place? Or can is it can we think beyond that? Can we think about health and what what is the water treatment plant getting us? It's getting us to, water quality, health equality, things like that, thinking more broadly potentially about the, how we use the funds. So, I am of thinking, I think I'm most closely aligned to councilor Soukup in terms of,
action, thinking about the current policy and rethinking about adding a floor, a ceiling, and potentially some discretionary language. I think councilor did Beamer did you yeah. He and then I'll get to you. Just a quick question. From my understanding, the the whole policy is kinda geared towards local artists. Is that correct? Trying to trying to help local artists or do anything like that? Sorry. I wasn't sure if I'd get more questions. So councilor, we know that, I think that our emphasis on local artists is mostly just responding to local values,
and supporting local and being that this is a community that produces a lot of artists and a lot of working artists live here, and we want us to see a place where they thrive. So I think that's just been the work of the commission has been mostly in focusing on working with local artists. But, with larger projects, one thing that we have the ability to do, is put out national or inter international calls for artists for kind of working toward those destination projects. So, we we do open up the possibility to work with artists from around the world. In fact, with the water treatment plant call,
we had over 50 artists respond. And, two of them were international. Or three, actually. There were two, one in Mexico, One in Canada, One in Spain who had responded to that call. So I was really excited to see that actually get, as much, spread as it did. So, yeah, we're open to to both working. We love to work with local artists, but also working with artists in Greater Minnesota and, the rest of the world. Thank you. Alright. Councilor Holmes. Yeah. One thing I just forgot to say is that, I would support us looking at a more comprehensive plan for the,
public art, and the support, the administrative side of things, whether it's bringing in outside like, working with the arts guild or as mister Riley said, looking at, you know, where does this live within the city just in order to enable? Because I think as we look at having having potentially more funds to work with and and having more opportunities there, just how can we set staff community up for success? And so I think in looking at whatever we decide to do here, I think that that I hope that that's something that that work moves on to
so that we can build for that. Councilor Peterson White. Thank you. I just wanna add one thing since I think I maybe wasn't clear in my initial comments about my position on this piece about sort of making the funding more adding language that would make this more discretionary sort of on a project by project basis. And of course, I haven't seen any language like that, so I don't know exactly how it would work. But generally speaking, I I think that what's effective about this ordinance is that it's the same for every project. And that it's consistent and that it doesn't require debate and deliberation and that we
as a council are a, not in the position of deciding what's art or what's good art, and b, not in the position of deciding when we wanna follow this and when we don't. I think it it really works best when it's consistent. So, I like I said, we haven't seen any draft language to the effect of making it sort of debatable for a given project, but I think that's maybe what's being suggested. And I would I would be reluctant to do that because I just think it capital projects are hard enough, without, getting into debating about, this small piece of each capital project.
And again, I I will reiterate, I do think it would be reasonable to have a cap, but I don't I think that should a should a future time come when the council really needs to address, should we be should we feel the need to do belt tightening to the degree that we really think we can't afford this across the board, then I think that is the conversation that we should have rather than taking it sort of case by case. I guess that's what I'm trying to say. So thank you. Yep. Thank you. That that's a a great point. If we have a good floor and a good ceiling,
do we need discretionary language? That's a a good question for, probably when this comes back to us. Other comments? Do you have enough, Natalie? Ms. Draper? Thank you, Mary. Yes, I think so. Okay, great. Then oh, hold on one more question. Make sure we say congratulations to you too. Yeah. The mover the mover and shaker. Alright. I'm gonna suggest a five minute break. Thank you. We'll be right back. Okay. All right. Music has stopped. That must it's musical chairs. It's time to take a seat. Yes, except for you.
All right. We're on to our last item of the evening, which is to discuss the discussion of potential 2026 State Capital Bond local project requests and preliminary budget review and discussion. Mr. Martig? Thank you, Mayor. Member City Council, the latter of that introduction is not going to get covered tonight. I got a little I got spread thin. And so we're going to focus just on the bonding, which does have some budgetary impacts, but we'll be ramping up more of that budget work either well, in June for sure at the work session, but possibly a little bit earlier.
I do have some information that I'm gonna jump to some slides that you don't have in your packet to react to if you're comfortable tonight. It's not real substantive, but if you look if you've had some time to think about the capital plan and whether there are any potential projects that are on your mind, basically, I've kind of brainstormed if there are any that I think are maybe obvious to get into. And some of these might generate a lot more discussion too, like things around the water plant and potential options with that. But, I think we can jump in. I can be short with it and allow you sometimes as a group to at least have some initial deliberation,
and we do have a little bit of time before the deadline of the state request to come in. So do you is the slide up on the screen? So this is the new slide that you don't I've got a few slides here, and they're not super substantive. I'll resend them out as soon as we're done with the meeting, and then we'll republish them for the public too. But I've pulled a little bit. We I gave a presentation previously, so I won't recap that, but I did capture some slides from now the state of Minnesota has pushed out now the process details for all of the staff, like how to get into the state system and things. So the slide that you're seeing before you,
really, it initiates, from the governor's office making this capital budget request. So it gets submitted. The governor can call out specific things that he, is might be looking for for priority. So on your screen, it identifies some of those. Ultimately, though, you know, the the governor comes out with his proposed budget first and then the house is really the lead in the legislature and then the Senate kind of follows that. And then it's a negotiation where they need a super majority within the entire legislature to improve any bonding bill. And then the governor has to ultimately approve it. So just this is something to be aware of that this is the governor's goal.
But on the earlier slides that you had, ultimately, those things around regional significance are always gonna be a key thing on projects that it can't just be purely a local project. We're gonna run into problem with that. I would note too that I've talked about it before. I just add a little note on the bottom of the screen there that, I think it's always best to the ideal situation is is you'd have support from both your state representative, in the house and in the senate is the ideal situation as well, as as we might have interest from some of them. And I'll give a little bit of input from them.
But based on the council's feedback tonight or in the future, I'll be doing some follow-up with our representatives as well. Here's just again, I guess some of this was in there before, but there is quite a bit of detail that has to go into these bonding requests now through the state process, through the governor. And that's new in the last five or so years that this has been ramped up. So we do have to if we have more than one project, we have to list the priority. You would have to pass a resolution with priorities. I have to attach that. We do have to give a description of the project. They have specific guidelines on inflationary estimates to use if it's gonna take a number
of years, and then we have to also have, like, estimated operating costs that we'll have to do. So as a matter of timing, staff's gonna have to take some liberties on writing that narrative, where we won't have probably all of that figured out, when you come back and if you wanna pursue one of these to vote on it. But just be aware as there's quite a bit of detail, and I would say probably requires as well to have a project that's a little more ready to go than ones that are more in the idea phase are gonna be be much more challenging. So we kinda pulled out some for you to react to in a few slides here that that might come up.
So June 13, we have to have initiated, in the system, hit submit for all of the background information. So we're gonna be getting registered and all those things that have to be done. That leads us to two options for the resolutions to be passed if the council's interested in pursuing some bonding through this process. You can come in later, but it doesn't work. It's not it's kind of frowned upon or it's not gonna be as good If you wait and and submit something directly as a bill and go around this process, it will it causes a little bit of confusion. This is pretty much the gold standard of how cities are submitting requests.
Now it doesn't say you can't submit one later, but I think ideally that would be the case. Trying to get the packet processed tomorrow for the council meeting next Tuesday. I'm kinda thinking to be realistic, probably your first meeting in June will give a little extra time. Might also be if you don't have feedback tonight, that could take some feedback outside of the meeting if you want to think about some of this, especially since some of it's new. But that's kind of the key deadline is is looking at the June 3 meeting is the date that I'm thinking that we would land a resolution or more than resolute one resolution if you wanna pursue a state bonding request.
So the and looking at the capital plan, these are kind of the ones internally that brainstorming that are probably, you know, in some ways ready to go for the bonding request to pursue some funding potentially. But if you looked at the list, if there's any things that come to mind for you, we can try and react to those or do some research to look into those. So one would be the water treatment plan. I've got some, like, based on the previous discussion, some thoughts on that. Due to time tonight too, these other meeting items went a little bit long, so I'm gonna probably have less framing here. It's gonna probably cutting try and cut to the chase here a little bit more
on some of these. The NCRC buildings and other project, I'll go through some of these in in detail. We have some HVAC system and things you all toured that as part of our paired meetings, so you know some of those issues. Bridge Square, we do have a pending request there. I'm not overly optimistic on that one. I can talk a little bit about that one in a minute. Or are there other projects that you are thinking of, or does the council not wanna pursue any request for state ponding? So the water treatment option, I would say kind of at a high level, are my kind of initial conversations with our state senator was basically really liking projects
that are clearly, you know, benefiting a broader section of the community and infrastructure related or a couple of things that, he indicated that he would like to advance, but he'd always react to any community request. But I would I so I think, like, the water treatment plant is one that he pretty much said point blank. I would support pursuing that type of an infrastructure project. Our representative had similar feedback related to this project around the water quality issues on the plant. So I think this would probably fit within our our legislative support.
One of the things is we kind of pick up the pieces of where we are is like to a certain degree, we gotta look forward, you know. Yeah. We can carry a little bit with behind us and where the project's been, but in some ways we got sunk cost. We got, you know, processes. We gotta look really forward. Is there some solutions potentially on the water treatment plant? I've had some individual discussions with council members, not all of you individually. And I've had a lot of discussions with staff about possibilities. But back in February, we did bring back kind of staff, brought back with consultant rough costs. Now again, they did some estimating. It is what it is,
but I think one of one of the things I think might be an option to kind of reactivate our water treatment plant project would be to look at doing some redesign with possibilities of different components that would allow us to potentially have a design that can kind of have a base project with the possibility of ads, either as ad alternates or we're not doing this one and we can maybe do it later so that you can kinda get the core function of the plant of a gravity filtration system that I generally think there's support for to look to go back to the drawing table to say,
could we design kind of a base plant, that would have gravity filtration, try and seek some grant funding, potentially responding dollars with the ability to add in the future, an office and garage space potentially. Within the future, the ability to potentially add a reverse osmosis system that you wouldn't have to have as the core project as part of that. I would say we're gonna have to have a lot of conversations about that, but generally, I think if there's interest to pursue bonding, we probably, are gonna have to make some assumptions about those cost estimates in order to submit the request. And if we're high, that's fine.
But then we're also gonna have to go through a participatory process to, you know, go through a value engineering kind of review of the plant design and and and do some redesigns on the, in the project scoping with that. So as an example, I got a couple of options. A would maybe, you know, based on the twenty twenty seven numbers. I don't really wanna get into a lot of debate because of the timing that we don't have. But if you initially say submitted and the council said, yeah, let's let's apply for a gravity filtration base plant that would take care of that
manganese in the system, which is the primary issue for those infants under one. We could always after the request goes in if we can find cheaper ways to do it, you can always amend that through the process legislatively later. There's an October date where staff can do amendments to what's already been submitted And then even as the session started, if you're in the system and we found out things along the way that it's a little bit different cost or things you can adjust it, it's probably harder to ask more from the state of Minnesota than to ask less at that point, but you could certainly decrease it. Or they typically like to see a 50% cost match as you can see in
a lot of their application materials. Maybe you keep the state at that level. Maybe they're a little higher percentage, but ultimately, there might be a negotiation where you you might not get that full 50% anyway from the state, and hope for the best with some of that. Another option might be to include, office and garage potentially with that. One of the things to keep in mind too with the state dollars is there are some, like, additional regulatory requirements that come with state money. So you also want a project that's big enough to be worth the time. So I think, like, projects that are any, you know, million dollars or less might sound like a lot to ask from the state.
But in some ways, you have to do prevailing wage rates and you also have to meet the state, design standards related to b three benchmarking, which is one of our sustainability standards. So by kind of segregating the base gravity filtration plant, that also might be a way to have maybe the local part to be these other add on pieces in the future potentially to not have those additional state requirements as as part of that. There's a lot of discussions that would be had if the council wants to pursue this option. I certainly envision if we go back to the drawing table to look at some
redesign of the current plans, a more participatory process that would include probably council people, maybe members of the community or something at key points of the design phase that we can get more broad support and education amongst the community as we go back to it and through that process, I think would probably be part of a good solution to that. But I think also, so I think this could be a potential project, but I also know this is still fresh and we haven't had a chance as a group to talk about it. So you might be okay to have some preliminary conversations about that. But I think this might be might be a solution to go forward to,
again, to kind of have some base projects with the ability to add pieces in the future and a more robust review on that redesign work. The NCRC project is another one I think probably is could potentially be included. I include $5,000,000 on the estimate here as a total project cost as a possibility. I think it's about 1,700,000.0 that's actually, I thought I had this in the slide, but I must not have saved it. Just trying to remember, Dave, the total of our actual in our budget of all the HVAC and all these
other improvements I was thinking was around that $2,000,000 mark. We had been seeking some potential congressional, designated projects for the community that will be coming back to you to act on, but we had some deadlines to submit, so we didn't have time, but we'll probably be looking at adding that. Basically, we sought some federal funding where we could get a % of the project cost potentially funded. So that was the same process that we went through that got us the money for for the, initially, the water treatment plant that was then later used for the water tower. We did get a response back from our representative,
at the federal level, Craig, that, we did not make it to the next round in her recommendations. She said she had a lot of great projects. This was one that was interested, to her. The issue, though, was the last funding round that they did, none of them were approved at the federal level. So they wanted to they had a number of projects in the queue that had already been asked for that didn't get funded. And additionally, I think they said we're trying to spread the wealth on good projects too. And Northfield did get an allocation from the federal community funding fairly recently. So they also take those things into consideration. We are still live on the Senate side,
though, and the Senate has more funding options. So there is a possibility this project could end up getting some federal funding. We did round up, just because, again, even at the federal level, you know, you get to a certain dollar threshold where it's too small. They almost look at it as they don't want too small of projects. We do know there were some projects that, hey, if we get federal money, maybe we could round up, include some other things. We know the food shelf has been looking at some challenges with, delivery and an extra storage space that they would like to have to have some improved efficiencies. We also know when we did a building study a while back,
there's some office space on the upper level that the CAC has that's not particularly laid out very well. There could maybe be some things that would be done with that remodeling as well. So I don't know for sure if 5,000,000 is the right number. It could maybe be less on this one. But, generally speaking, when you look at the types of uses in that building, with social service programming, with seniors, with early childhood development, I think this is going to hit. And also we have the idea of potentially some solar on the rooftop to get added with this project too, so that we could decrease the operating costs for those users and tenants that are
in there that are concerned about the rate increases they might be seeing with, you know, pass through of some of those costs. This might be a way if we got solar in the building to bring their energy costs down and get some of this remodeling costs covered by the state where most of that project cost was probably going to get passed on to tenant leases. It might be a way where we help our community partners to not absorb that full cost. I do expect the city probably would have some component of that cost, but this might be helping out a lot of our community members. This one, I think, would hit a lot of the, like, rankings, and I think would speak to a lot of the legislative folks related to this
type of a project. Our senator said that he would definitely be open to a conversation about this one. He's, open to that discussion, and, our representative, I think, are supportive as well. Bridge Square is one that we have active. I'd say this one has kind of landed a little bit cool at the legislature. I think some of the challenges we had was his perception or reality of a little more of a local project. Of course, I would argue Bridge Square is a, you know, Northfield's a regional draw with this historic district, you know, defeat of Jesse James in town with Bridge Square right out there. I think was part of the message that Northfield draws internationally,
even people to come visit our community, whether it's the colleges or the, history of our community. But we did we have had challenges of both at looking at it was like kind of a park project and maybe a little bit more of a local project. So this might be one that we we could still apply for. I think there might be challenges with that. HPC did recently approve the certificate of appropriateness. They did bring it back for some lighting and, like, furnishing reviews. But I believe this week, I don't have the details yet, but it sounds like that one's getting done in the construction documents or nearing final design. So this could be another potential project.
Does the council not want to pursue any projects? Just nope. Decline. We don't let's not apply for any this year. That would be another option. There is staff time that takes to do this. We will have to probably work out some details and work with all of you if you wanna pursue some of these. The NCRC building one in particular might delay it a little bit. But again, we haven't talked budget yet, and we'll be talking about timing of that. But if you can get a large chunk paid for by the state, probably is something that we could defer it a little bit on the timing of that one, as well. So I I know this is all new information for you on calling out specific
projects, but I also thought by including the packet of capital plans, you might have been looking at some of these as well. And so I guess I'll use the rest of the time to, turn it back to you, mayor, and Right. We'll also deliberation. So, yeah, I'll turn it I'll ask you start with a question of you. What is the most helpful type of information that you'd like from us tonight? I think the main thing is is are, are any of these projects or others ones you think you'd like to be, you know, off the cuff as having some of this new information? Are any of you comfortable to react off of it?
Like, these are ones I definitely like realizing there might be more conversations or other ones, like, I don't think that one I would support at this time. Probably, being as direct on that Okay. We could probably continue I could put this on the agenda for next week more as an open discussion potentially, but probably not be ready for acting on a resolution. That could be another alternative, mayor, that, that we could do as well if you think that you wanna think on it a little bit more. I do I do like the idea of a placeholder on the agenda next week in case there are follow-up questions since it is coming kinda quick.
But I would love if people have some direct comments tonight. I think that would be helpful. Are you Sure. Director. Councilor Soka. Okay. Thanks. I would really support the water treatment plan. Surprise. Surprise. Getting state funding for that would be excellent, and I think that's that project should move forward. And the biggest obvious complaint about that project was the cost. And so if we can get help with the cost, I would appreciate having conversations about what that water treatment plant looks like, not physically,
but what it includes. So when you break down, office space and garage and RO and all of that, like, I know we all I've all had this conversation many times at this point, but if it comes down to in terms of feedback that you need, that to me is a clear rises above anything else. And again and I've said this, you know, Bridge Square is something I've supported a bonding request for in the past because if we can get a 50% match from the state,
it helps us. It doesn't mean that we have to say we are doing Bridge Square. We still have to approve it, but, I think putting in a binding request is worth the time. And so I would appreciate looking into using getting a significant amount of that funding covered by the state if possible. Councillor Dolan and then Councillor Holmes. Yes. I would put all my eggs in one basket, that being the water treatment plant. Same position I took at the first day that I took office January 8 and sent you the memo that I supported the water treatment plant with gravity filtration to
take care of the manganese problem. We're halfway there. So, I would just support that, of course. I think in my conversations with political leaders, it's really a two step thing or two factor thing. Central water treatment. So you're bringing out all the water to one plant. That's a big sell, to our state rep. And then treating for manganese, which we have. So that would be I think if if that can be the winning card, play it. Thank you. Councilor Holmes.
Water treatment plant. I mean, I think I would go for I I I would prefer for us to go more than just gravity filtration and to try to future proof it. So to go as much as we can, but knowing that, like, whatever we can get is better than nothing. So, I I think that's the most important thing on this list. Thank you. Councilor Peterson White. Thank you. Yeah. I I agree that it's the most essential thing on the list, and the thing that we are least likely to be able to do without this kind of support. It also seems to me like it ticks the most boxes on the governor's list,
like, maybe all of them, I think, on some level. And, yeah, and as far as, I mean, the scale of the project, I don't know how detailed we need to be about that or if you I but I I would be flexible on what we can get done. Politics is the art of the possible. So I would like a water treatment plant. Most of all, I think that it would be best to, as counselor, Holmes said, to future proof it and include the, reverse osmosis because I think that it is the, right technology for the community. And there are a lot of good reasons to do it.
And the marginal cost of adding that after we look at the rest is reasonable. But, I know not everyone may feel that way, and I, certainly flexible on that point. The most important thing is to remove manganese. And I think that, I mean, it seems like there's, like, looking at support in the community for it and support by the local governing body. And there's a track record of our having worked towards this for a very long time and then really struggling to pay for it really essentially is the barrier.
So it seems like a perfect bonding project to me in that sense. Thank you. Councillor Ness. Can you just explain Bridge Square? Did you say that is still in the queue in the state or? Thank you, Mayor. Councillor Ness, the state hasn't ended yet. We weren't real successful politically this session, but it was also spread thin on a number of different things that maybe couldn't add as much attention as it could add to it. But until the session ends, it still is a possibility.
But yeah, we only had the house side, on the Bridge Square project. K. I don't know what my priority list would be. I'll let you know. Councilor Beamer. The one that nobody's mentioned is the NCRC Building. I know we all toured that. And, you know, dollar wise, the, you know, maybe if they're looking at, you know, okay. We have this much left over. Well, oh, there Northfield's got a project for 5,000,000. That works well. You know? I and I think that that one is a reasonable request as well.
Since it is technically probably our most used park building, park facility. Services 2,000 plus people at 50 North, food shelf, everything that goes along with the building. To me, that that one seems to make, you know, perfect sense. I don't think I need to repeat where I sit with the water treatment plant, so I'll just let that one go. Thank you. Alright. I'll stay, I'm also my top priority is, the water treatment plant And just add that I think a silver lining of the
press release was that it garnered, regional interest and that more cities have come forward and there's now, raised awareness around, manganese and this water quality issues specifically. So I think it's almost expected of us to put in a bonding request for this, specifically this year having, as just councilor Peterson White said, having gotten it this far and the stopping point was costs. And I think now the city the state understands that other cities have come forward
and said also the cost was too much for them to do this. So, I think the timing is right for the water treatment plant. I am also really interested in finding some funds to help with the NCRC. I'd hope that maybe that would come at the federal level, but we don't. Maybe it will. We don't know yet. But, yeah, my number one, would be the water treatment plant. And councilor Soukup has a follow-up. Is the can you remind me, administrator Marta, if you mentioned this, but is the does senator Liske seem to only be supportive of the water treatment plant just because I used I
think you said he was open to the NCRC, but I do think it's is really heartening to hear that he's supporting supportive of something on this list. And, it is meaningful to have both the senate and the house representatives from a district be carrying the bonding bill in support of the governor's bonding budget. And so that has not been the case, like, for a very long time. So having bipartisan support and the regional representatives is really great,
and I think that that also helps me feel like well, I think the NCRC building is important. It it's also important to have both of our reps supporting that. So if they both support those two things, I don't think it hurts to list those in order, but, that's really great news. So thanks for that update. Yeah. Thank you, mayor Sundar. Or excuse me, councilor soak up. My my brain was jump my brain is jumping head to senator. I don't wanna put words in the senator's mouth,
but I would say the conversations I had with him as I would interpret it would be his position related to capital bonding request is evolving, and it has expanded from last year to this year as he's continued to do work at the legislature and get got a more global perspective of kind of projects and how the politics of everything works. So he Related to me that some of the last previous years conversations he had to me is is changing a little bit, and he's more broadening his support. He did share some specifics around,
New Prague that he has supported a bonding request for a police station, which could be interpreted to be more of a local project, but he has supported that. I think he emphasized a couple of things, strong communication with him, and vetting as part of that early and being committed to it and being a regional project. And again, yeah, I think there's some openness there. The other thing that the mayor alluded to, too, is I spent some time up at the legislature on an unrelated kind of issue. I was using that time to have some of these conversations. And, I had my eyes open to the to the number of communities.
In fact, in talking to a lobbyist representing Greater Minnesota cities, they were working to try and actually get some specific earmarks for manganese projects because of the 30 plus some cities that are dealing with some of these similar treatments and then cost challenges. And so that's probably one I didn't at the time have as strong of a pulse until there's more conversations going on about this to see how many other communities are getting or having challenges with this. That means there might even be some broader programming opened up.
But I still think we should don't let the guidelines that they give us stop from asking for something because they typically do say if there's a program that already exists, don't ask for an earmark, basically, but it happens all the time. So we if that is the council's will and interest, we shouldn't allow that to stop us because even if there is some broader program that opens up, we can always apply for that. And then just one thing back, and I know we have a lot more conversations that I can have one on one. And as a group, we need more time on the water plan is, again, I think part of the path, I think, to potentially solutions here to try and get some consensus to get it moving forward
might mean making sure that we're kind of doing the most critical pieces first. Back when we did that initial study, the gravity filtration was kind of the primary components and have the ability to maybe add on other projects or have the ability to add on pieces so that you could add in the future offices and garages or add in the reverse osmosis so that we aren't designing something that can't have expandability. So if you're building a house and you can't afford the garage right away, at least plan it so that you can add it later or that kind of
a thing. I think those will be the more detailed conversations based on the feedback we got here tonight that we need to have with all of you together with that. So I think that meets my expectation, Mayor. And then you and I can talk about whether we keep a placeholder on this on the agenda or not for next week. We can follow-up on that. Great. Thank you. Anyone else have a Alright. I'd be looking for a motion to adjourn. Councillor Ness. Move to adjourn. Councillor Holmes. Second. All those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. We are adjourned. Thank you all very much.