e e was are we good okay it started right away okay good evening everyone I'd like to welcome you this evening to our Economic Development Authority meeting tonight is Monday July 22nd Audrey can you have the
record show that our City attorney planner all directors are present this evening along with our assistant City administrator and absent this evening is our city administrator our first item of business would be to consider our approval of the
minutes from June 24th 2024 have a motion M mayor I'll motion to approve the minutes I'll second right we have a motion by Britney seconded by Tina is there any to discussion all those in favor signify by
saying I I all those oppos same sign motion passes next item is bills and communication thank you mayor there is no bills or for review or approval tonight okay thank you moving on to item four new business a public hearing on
proposed establishment of an econom economic development at this time I will turn it over to Jessica Madame President Commissioners good evening good evening good evening as was just noted you do have a
public hearing is her microphone on I believe so there you go thanks good I'll get a little bit closer here so as you just mentioned um Madame President um you do have a public hearing that is scheduled for this evening the public hearing is meant to allow the Eda to
receive public comment on the proposed establishment of Economic Development District number 2 um here in the city of oo so the Commissioners will recall that back in June we had um an Eda meeting and we talked about um the need to call
for a hearing if the city council and the Eda wanted to move forward with perhaps the proposed issuance of lease revenue bonds to finance the fire and emergency services facility at that meeting it was determined that we would call for the public hearing to be
scheduled for tonight and as is required by state law we need at least 10 days um notice of that publication of the hearing notice that occurred on July 6th um so we are in compliance with those publication requirements um within that notice um we do have um an invite for
those to that aren't able to come to the meeting tonight to submit written comments um Northland has not received any comments directly but I'm going to pause there for staff to detail any of the comments that have been received yes uh mayor we did receive one that I believe was sent to All Commissioners
for this evening from um Miss Gina Norris who's a resident uh she was had written in favor of the development district from a personal statement of how or garage fire at her own house so that was the only written communication
we've received okay so then beyond that you do have a staff memo and then also a memo that was prepared by ta which is the bond Council for both the city and the Eda um describing sort of the necessary statutory requirements when it comes to the issuance of lease revenue bonds um
in order to kind of get there and utilize the full powers of 4 69101 um the Eda does need to establish an economic development district and that is what we are here to do tonight and then following the public comment period you do have a resolution before
you with the findings that creating that district is both proper and desirable so with that I will conclude my comments that said I'm happy to take any questions that the Commissioners may have okay anyone have any questions for
Jessica do we have Marin here too oh yes excuse sorry Mar Miguel from Taft is here as well so if there are questions related to Legal Authority or issuance of lease Revenue funds and kind of how that ties into the Eda act um we're happy to tag team those questions as
well okay perfect thank you all right at this time we will open the public hearing if you could come to the podium state your name and address and limit comments to 5 minutes or less at this time the public hearing is
opened any comments uh good evening my name is Joe Z I reside at 15377 84 support in here in notal um I'm here tonight to speak in favor sorry I forgot there they are
mind uh speak in favor of the formation of the fire district and eventually a full-time fire department I've been in public safety specifically fire and Ems for almost 23 years I work in one of the busier cities in the Metro and one of the biggest cities in the State the importance of having a fully staff fire
department is important out more than ever in a city like Ito 5,000 in the near future has no business relying on a tax cities such as Rogers o Elk River and Albertville this is in no way saying that they aren't doing the job it is simply saying that it's time to cut the cord and start
being self-sufficient objections that Chief Ros has presented indicate that the funds are there the amount we pay into surrounding departments currently and in the near future for Mutual Aid will be redirected to our own Public Safety Division with little to no impact taxpayers aside from some initial Capital costs in a fire station and
Equipment pinching pennies when it comes to Public Safety is simply irresponsible as places like Rogers Elver and Albertville continue to grow along with oo what happens when one or more of them are busy serving your their own Community when we have an emergency their answer will simply be no we don't
have the resources your next available Partners from Rigo for ATO will then come from even further out Zimmerman Maple Grove St Michael Ramsay feel free to Google their response times I bet you won't like it every one of those cities including our matri A Partners have a single responsibility and that is to
protect their Citizens first they will 100% tell oigo no if they don't have the resources to the mayor and the council working diligently on this project I applaud you for your efforts and look forward to working with you in the future to those of you actively working to impede growth and development I ask that you check
your Egos and personal vendettas at the door and help move our community forward and provide the services that are warranted when it comes to fire response and fire suppression good enough isn't good enough thank you for your time thank you thank you any other comments
good evening mayor members of council my name is Bill abdal and I live at 7669 Padia Avenue Northeast not SEO um as as the previous gentleman said i' I've spent 21 years in public safety um mostly in the fire service actually
all of it in the fire service um I I specifically now work in community risk reduction and prevention um and there's been a significant movement towards the economic impact of those types of activities in the fire service the
problem with a fire a city that does not have a fire department um is that the fire code which is statutorily obligated by a city to enforce um without a fire chief in a fire department that code is not properly delegated to a fire code
official um without that fire code official the economic impact of fire prevention is broken so if you think of economic impact as a chain and continual chain and that's based on our our residential tax revenue our our business sales tax uh business property tax those
are all economic impacts that help the city grow and and stay profitable um nfba did a study years ago that stated that a a business that has a fire is 80% is actually greater than 80% likely to
not rebuild in the location the fire was um so what that basically means is that when that business has a fire and it relocates to another city you lose that economic impact right you lose the revenue generated by that by that business well the fire department is the thing that
comes and breaks that it disrupts that break in the chain for economic impact not only is it the response to that fire and putting it out but it's also the prevention of that fire in the first place so without a fire department there's no prevention bureau there's no arson investigation or fire
investigation unit that's the tip of the spear and find ing your fire problems in the city it it's all it's all not there without a fire department right so I think a fire department is like an iceberg and that 20% of its mass is above the surface 80% of what the fire
department does is not known to the general public because they don't see it it's not just red trucks in a building there's there's a lot of work that goes on behind the scenes in a fire department to keep keeping your community safe and that's what I do on a daily basis in a city of 75,000 people
who has less than 10 fire events a year because of the major investment that that city has made into fire prevention um the and people will often tell us that our city although we ramp up heavily on fire prevention that it you'll Drive Away business well that's
just not the case because business in development has not slowed down in that City and that offsets the cost of the fire department to the residential taxpayers so with the high ISO numbers that we have which will be low by a fire department because that makes up 50% of
your ISO score um that's what drives the premiums on your interest rates so if your fire department cannot drive those those score numbers up which drives your premiums down you're not going to bring in businesses that want to you know
you're you're just not g to get businesses because the insurance cost is going to be outrageous to the point where some business some insurance companies like FM Global will not ensure somebody over an iso99 um so those are things to consider
when you're you know when you're pushing the fire department away finally like like the gentleman before me said um good enough is not good enough in the fire service uh even though NFPA standards have not been adopted in the state of Minnesota The Prudent City
doesn't say we're not going to go with what NFPA says because we're not required to The Prudent city is going to do the best they can to meet those standards and right now in a Suburban city which is 500 to a th000 people per square mile uh you must have 10 people
at a fire event and that's a lwh hazard fire event so that's a single family home um you must have 10 people there in 10 minutes 80% of the time and I can promise you that your auto Aid partners are not doing that and it's at no fault to them because they've built
infrastructure to protect their cities nowhere are they required to build infrastructure that protects our city um fin the American government exists for three reasons to protect the lives property and rights of the people without that American government does not exist so if this government does not
want to protect the lives and property of the citizens I would argue that it's it has no purpose so um with that in mind I I'll I'll yield whatever time to the next person thanks thank you thank you any more comments
hello hello uh Dan fryberg 12577 96 Street Northeast oo um it's gonna say everything bill was gonna say but he got ahead of it just kidding it was very detailed I'm not much of a public speaker but I just wanted to say thank you to the most of
the city council members and All City staff for all their hard work on this uh fire department project it does mean a lot um you know I was born and raised here Noto been here for 35 years um I know that the fire department project has been on the discussion table for a
long time um I just want to know I just want to say that it's about time that we move forward on this matter I know that uh there may be some in the room that have um some Financial concerns of the fire department um but you know like
Bill had uh talked about uh the economic issues but U the totality of a fire department uh there's a lot to it um and as a first responder myself not in the fire not in the fire field but um maybe next lifetime but um but I uh just
wanted to say that the totality of fire departments there's a lot to it um it's not just you know responding to calls for service it's also about prevention um you know getting out in the community and being a part of um the city and then they also do a lot of a lot of things
out um at events and you know car seat clinics and education and and most importantly um if something bad were to happen in this city it would be nice to have our fire department to respond to a scen than relying on other cities to do
it for us um especially if they have their own issues that are happening at the same time I would expect that our city Fire Department responds but um I'm in favor of this program or this project obviously and I hope that you guys move forward with it um and thank you so
much thank you hello I'm Greg hubard address 11432 79th Lane they all said it I just support the fire department so I agree with all the stuff they just said keep it simple thank you thank you juty cyber 9721 jandelle Avenue
Northeast here in ATO um I am fairly new to the city and a member of the public safety commission um I have a 30-year background in public safety the last of it as a an Emergency manager for the federal government I strongly support um the Eda and pushing forward with the
fire department um I think that in any widespread disaster such as a Cyber attack or a cyber event like we just recently saw in the news um uh an electromagnetic pulse um a an areawide power outage in the middle of the winter that goes on forong long time those
events that people don't think of very often but in any kind of an event like that if we don't have our own fire department we're not going to be first on anybody's list and um we need the fire department here in the city to be able to organize the city's response to
some kind of an event like that thank you thank you thank you any other comments any other comments El one more time final comments at this time we will close the public hearing bring it back up to
councel um as Jessica said we do have Mar here also from Taft if anyone has any legal questions regarding the ability to exercise our right to move ahead with this and then Jessica is here
and Sabrina you have any updates uh mayor or sorry president I just want to make note of the document that council member dlap had requested should be printed out for everyone just as a note that wasn't included in the original packet
okay Madame mayor yes I'll make a motion to adopt resolution 2024 d three establishing establishing Economic Development District number two second motion by Britney seconded by Tina is
there any discussion Madam president yes uh the statute requires that the Eda find that the establishment of the economic district is quote proper and desirable to that end I prepared a report of my findings to address this question this is a lengthy report I'm not going to read it here but I will
just Briefly summarize some of my findings on the question of the proper establishment of direct of District 2 the operations of the Eda are inconsistent with State statutes since we have not met in over four years we are required to meet on an annual basis
to establish a budget which is then approved by the council as part of its budget process we're also required to provide an annual report to the council and have not done so this leaves the status of the Eda in question I have been unable to find any similarly situated Cities next the Eda is being
used in order to avoid a citizen's petition to be clear this is an action that is allowed by Statute through derived Powers the action is completely unjustifiable just because the council can do it doesn't mean it should removing the Citizen's ability to petition does not increase transparency
or communication and it damages The credibility of elected representation finally it's important for residents to understand the fire study did not recommend starting in a municipal fire department an analysis was performed to determine what would happen if we abandoned the contracts and
put a standalone station at the location that is being discussed today the study found that this resulted in quote the poorest performance of all of the scenarios examined to match the performance of the contract providers four total oigo stations would be
needed the study identified the location of development District 2 as a potential site for a substation for the Albertville fire department to operate and manage to be built once the metrics for the response time supported such an Endeavor had the council followed that
recommendation the building would be much cheaper to build and operate because it wouldn't need an expensive training facility or Barracks for the reasons outlined above I find that the establishment of District 2 is not proper on the question of the desirable
establishment of District 2 the cost of owning an operating our own fire department will increase the total property tax levy by 22% in 2025 62% in 2026 and 46% in 2027 and for at least
the next 20 years a significant portion of that permanent 46% increase in the tax levy will fall on businesses and Industry and may discourage future development the fire study also provided an analysis on the coverage area of the contract providers versus a Standalone
station the findings note that the location of development District 2 would cover quote a region of the city that is currently less developed the analysis shows that the contract providers can cover the business and industry sectors within iggo especially on the west side this
makes it clear that business and industry would not benefit from the establishment of development District 2 finally the true costs of owning a municipal fire department have not been explored to match the service levels of our existing contract providers we will
need more stations more staff and more equipment the escalation of commitment will put future councils in a position to have to once again consolidate our fire services this is what the city of Falcon Heights recently had to do after examining the cost of Contracting with
their neighbors they found that they could provide a higher level of service at half the cost of what their Municipal Fire Department was able to do as a result they dissolved the city Fire Department which had been in place for 72 years with this plan the council has put
us in that same situation a permanent 46% increase in the tax levy is unsustainable for the reasons outlined above I find that the establishment in District 2 is not desirable thank you any other comments Madame mayor yes
Public Safety is about prevention I think we heard that tonight and it is our job to provide the city with Public Safety and that is what we are doing so I made a motion Tina second it no one has
anything else is there any other comments I have some comments Ryan I looked up because you had sent the email to staff this morning and I read your report this afternoon um I did look up quickly that Falcon Heights um as you said is not partnering with St Paul Fire
Station 43 which is located on the border of Falcon Heights in 2010 the population of Falcon Heights was 5,321 now they are 5,233 so they've had a reduction so to your point you're saying that they did this to save cost
yes because they lost residence there's not many people besides the state fair and U ofm campuses some Fields but the population of residents is very small obviously the state fair is heavily used they also rely on Roseville uh St Paul uh Falcon Heights is present or was
present they won't be there obviously this year but I mean I attend back to the 50s event and so there's multiple fire stations that come in to make sure that there's no issues um my comments are going to be the city council is elected to make decisions on behalf of the community
that is what we are doing this evening protecting the public is a is a PO function of city government and this is one that I will take very seriously establishing a fire department in ATO operated by the city is critical to meeting the needs of our existing and
future residents we the last fire study that we had was completed this is the larger one not the one that Capstone did but the in 2018 since then we have added 1,922 houses at a rate of 384 a year so
the study actually predicted lower than that um I believe this will improve response time the fire trucks will be on site we will have EMT responses with this fire prevention as most residents that spoke this evening talked about I
have been on the city council for 20 years and this is one of the most frequent concerns that I have experienced over those 20 years people have either emailed or called and when they and this isn't just when they've suffered a loss as we got the email tonight from Gina and Norris this is when people are the neighbors of those
losses or they're questioning that how long does it actually take for people to get there the Eda is a statutory Authority confirmed by our city administrator our City attorney and bound counsel this is an option for cities use
to use to finance projects I believe that you know you've made some comments in the past that this was formed and it should be for economic development building a fire station is promoting Economic Development it makes people in their homes continue to move
here and feel safe it also brings businesses in it lowers the iso rating um we have used the Eda in this financing formula to build our Public Works facility and this building that we're all in tonight um um our current emergency
services issues we have no control over Administration budgeting operation Staffing or service levels what we have is based on property valuations and not service levels of how the other communities are charging us physical distance is a concern also we have
Bridges rivers 10194 and I'm not saying that any of these other providers aren't doing a great job Mutual Aid will still continue when our location opens up in
ATO um when I look at the growth of ATO we can all say that things have been growing since 1960 anybody living on a one acre lot is part of the growth so when people say that well we just can stop building houses and we'll be able to help the the other cities can manage
it the do's been opened since 1960 yes has it grown at a faster rate but those services that are required to save people's homes homes and their businesses and their families is on our backs we have done four different
studies in the mid 2000s Elk River did a fire um they did a fire study for their city which involved looking at building a site here in oo or how that could work in 2016 we had a discussion about forming a jpa with Albertville that went
nowhere what the problem was is that the the city councils could not come to an agreement on how it was going to look as this strad no resolution was ever formed and no site was determined so to your point when you said that this could be an offsite sure but that helps that
western side of the city it doesn't talk about the center out when we did the study in 2018 we specifically said when we were meeting as a council with them we said we need to look at the center of our city and out and how we can meet the
borders so when the location was chosen that was the factor in it so you keep saying that that that site is terrible we went over and over it and we talked about it can go everywhere in the center of the city to out and then the mutual Aid if we need them from out to in and
so it still is an overlapping feature um then in 2023 we had the Capstone study which considered operational modeles for the fire station the council at that time determined that we would move ahead with emergency service director which we hired and that
we would be forming our own fire department so we have done our due diligence to look at this residents need to feel safe living in our community and Ryan I do not believe that you're qualified to make some of the comments
you did in your report I think that I I didn't see any comments that you've reached out to bond counsel our attorney our emergency service director or our finance City administrator these are just your opinion and they're not
facts uh I guess on that point I cited every single fact there is a it is very easy to validate everything that I have said I I read your report Ryan what I'm saying is none of have you reached out to the bond
Council have you reached I'm just asking the question it's a very simple question Bond counsel is not my personal attorney I wouldn't reach out to them to verify my position which I understand is a minority position on this commission I'm not going to to spend their time
confirming information that is plainly obvious and I felt in your report that you were picking and choosing some data so that's my comment and I can disagree with you on that I are there any other comments I don't think that that's appropriate I
just the the facts are very clear I didn't hear anything that addressed anything that I had said especially in regards to what the study found it should be plain as day and on the issue of mutual Aid I've heard this a couple times that we're going to have to
depend on Mutual Aid going forward and I would just direct everyone's attention to that study and the updated timelines uh the the maps that I provided we are not going to be able to get to three qus of the city of Albertville within nine
minutes and we are going to expect them to cover the Western portion of our city something that they do you just said we need to get to the city of Albertville yes for Mutual Aid okay just fing along so we aren't going to be able to get to three of their City within 9
minutes but we're going to expect them to cover the Western portion of our city for free something that they get paid to do today I have a sneaking suspicion that when it comes time to sign the the document on the dotted line Albertville is going to tell us you have to maintain
the contract I think the costs are going to continue to go up so Ryan if I may you're saying that Albertville is going to have us still as ATO maintain the contract with them I
think they are not going to be able to provide us the mutual Aid that is being discussed here is very unmutual they're going to be able to get to a significant portion of our city within nine minutes but where our station is going to be located this District 2 location is not going to be able to get to three4 of
their City Within 9 minutes and the quarter that we could get to is mostly water which we aren't equipped to deal with so like I said I think when it comes time to it Albertville is going to tell us to go fly a kite the study was based on our current roads and Dan you were in those studies yes and you were
part of it both you and Ron it was based on being in the center of our city using our infrastructure that we have currently now and what future development was planned out correct correct and it was based on travel time from Station to incident so uh director
Rous has talked quite a bit about the difference between response time and reflex time um because one of the other issues the study identified was the mo current Staffing models for departments and dispatch issues especially with Elk River and Rogers fire departments and
how that impacts the time before or the time between when a call comes in and when a when the trucks actually roll more to when the truck actually gets to the fire scene director Rous is here and could speak uh capably to those issues oh weer
discussion darl would you mind speaking and then maren would you mind responding to the comments about the Ed stuff thank you I would challenge director Don's contempt that we will not reach any areas of the city within nine minutes
I've physically driven to all of the city parks which are pretty well distributed you saw those times in the presentations that I did all of those times are less than nine minutes significantly less an important part of the plan that I put
forward is having career firefighters in the station which takes care of that six to seven minute response time that it takes for a volunteer department to get a truck on the road and those times are pretty well documented the the time that
it takes not criticizing them they're volunteer staff departments okay you may get a a career staffed SUV um quicker than that but in the model that we're putting forward you will have a fully staffed and equipped fire engine with
1,000 gallons of water on and a 1500 gallon minute pump within the times that I laid out in the presentations that I've done thank you and up until now nobody has come to me and asked me to verify that I'd be happy to take any of you go
drive around the city because I drove each and every one of those routes in the direction of travel making sure that if I stopped at a stop light I marked the time so that is actual response times okay and I used
a pickup and drove not over the speed limit but right at the speed limit because I thought that a 70,000 pound fir Tru has a little less pickup one of the things that you've heard me say before is roundabouts actually help that because we're not stopping at an
intersection waiting for a red light and we're not stopping a 70,000 pound truck and then restarting it from a dead stop so roundabouts actually improve response times between four and 7% all that was factored into the actual Drive times that I
did okay thank you thanl if I could just add to the study done in 2018 look at multiple scenarios I want to say a through G and each of those involved the existing scenarios scenarios involving new departments in Rogers and El River
moving those departments where the Departments would be in ATO absent any operational considerations but um and one scenario was ifo built fire facility and absent any other departments what would the response time be but the
assumption that the council use going forward is that mut a will continue to exist and that was one of the things borne out in the discussion of the 2023 discussion was that ATA would finally be in a position to contribute to Mutual Aid where they haven't it's if
you look at a map of the region and you have multiple departments in Rogers multiple departments in eler the one in Albertville multiple departments in St Michael there's a big area in the middle that there's no service facilities and
it's as was stated in the 2018 stud stud separated by physical barriers and barriers that can be obstructed uh which was a concern in the 20 uh 2000 study without gber uh as to why there was discussions about a facility in oigo because of uh the limitations of the
highway 10 Crossing and the railroad that could impede El River fire from reaching the site um in with the Albertville Department you have 94 and the two Crossings in Doo plus Burlington Northern now talking about increasing usage of that rail Cor Corridor through
their community that impedes access and then of course Rogers has the situation where they're covering former Frankfurt Township um and the concern there being County Road 36 being the primary route in and out of that area especially to the residential neighborhoods for the
quickest response which as we now know is frequently obstructed by flooding um so the Assumption and looking and the conclusions that the council used from the 2018 study was to say where do you best locate a facility in SEO based on
the primary assumption that this will be the first response but also recognizing that these surrounding departments will contribute to Public Safety in the region including out SEO going forward mam president yes just really
quickly on that I think that's the key that everyone needs to understand this District 2 location that we're talking about we will not be able to provide Mutual aid for the other agencies in a timely manner they will be able to get to our city we won't be able to get to
theirs within nine minutes all of the all of the studies that we've looked at all of the time studies the driving study that the chief has done shows we cannot provide the type of service we would get in return because of the location of this station I would like to
address that comment um having career staff in the station we we take off that volunteer response element we will immediately dispatch our career staff on on Mutual Aid calls and then backfill the station using the paay on call staff so the
response will leave the station at the same time frame that it does when it goes to somewhere in not seagull that said Mutual Aid is rarely as emergent as that first response our engine is going to have a th gallons of
water out if your house is on fire we're either going to put that fire out with the first four people there and the Thousand G water or it's probably going to be a significant loss the Mutual Aid in many cases is used for rehab and for restaffing when that first crew uh is
worn out that's a well recognized process throughout the fire service and any community that uses Mutual Aid as the initial response element for a structure fire is not doing their job and the council that allows that to
happen is not Staffing their department at an appropriate level our plan is to put four to five people on those engines every day using a combination of career people and and part-time people and interns which will leave the station in under two minutes uh the department that
I came from when I came here their average response time in 2023 was in 1 minute 56 seconds but if you take out the non-emergency calls that time was 1 minute and 14 seconds that was in a two-story station okay this is in a on
story station the dormatory is located very close to the apparatus Bay purposely to make sure that the response times are good and they will leave the station immediately another element of that is if you get there quickly rather than
arriving 19 20 minutes after um the incident the fire is much small so it's much easier to deal with so I think the plan that we put forward actually makes sense it's very effective but it's also efficient um it does give us significant
ability to provide Mutual Aid to our neighboring departments we've had discussion so far with six of the neighboring departments all of them have indicated a willingness to be part of a mutual Aid plan for the area I would expect that we will see the
neighboring departments over a period of time at least some of them will will uh convert to uh a volunteer career staff model much as we are building uh and I think when that happens the response times from them as well become better
for the onet new Sor thank you Chief I would just say that the response time is a separate issue what I'm really talking about is the drive time right having more people at the station or having them full-time
employees doesn't improve the drive time so we aren't going to be a I can be anywhere in this city drive time in nine minutes you may disagree with that but I have driven them each of them individually I can be virtually anywhere in the city with the exception of maybe
Norris Landing um in under 9 minutes right in my talking about drive time right Drive Time Elk River Albertville Rogers Well Parish Avenue um I probably I I didn't actually drive um to Elk
River because that's not the area that I was charged with working on I think that I could probably be in the South and Vel River in 9 minutes as well and certainly can be in Albertville um Costco was a 6 and 1 half minute
response time 4 and a half minute drive time okay thank you any other questions thank you Chief than darl Marin M president I don't know if the questions relate to bond issuance or other matters but I'm happy to step in if it's a question more suitable for me
or I'll let Mar take it if it's related to bonding okay I could start and then if you want to jump in yeah certainly um good evening Madame President and Commissioners um so I think there's a few um points that I'd like to respond
to in commissioner dunlap's report that was distributed today um the first is the point that's been discussed commissioner dunlap's argument that the oo Eda um its operations are
inconsistent with Minnesota statute um and that's just not true and commissioner dlap doesn't really provide any evidence for that statement um the oo Eda in 1992 was properly established by
enabling resolution we've reviewed that resolution and bylaws that were later adopted very closely several Attorneys at my firm have reviewed those and the Eda was properly established it is true as commissioner Dunlap States in his report um that the Eda has not been in
perfect compliance with the statute since the Eda was established in 1992 um it is correct that the Eda hasn't submitted annual budgets um hasn't elected its officers hasn't provided an annual report that's true but there's
nothing in the statute that says if the Eda is not in perfect compliance with those different requirements that the Eda is invalid as a public entity and an illegal entity um
commissioner Dunlap references Minnesota statutes 469 um with hras house housing Redevelopment authorities um and the law by which an H
would be dissolved um none of those those facts exist here um in that statute and HRA is dissolved and enactive when it transfers to the city all of its property asset asss cash or other funds um a public hearing has
to be held with 10 days published notice and a city council resolution affirming that the HRA is dissolved has to be approved by the city council um here the the Eda has H HRA Powers but the Eda exists under the Eda law um so this
wouldn't exactly be dispositive if those facts had happened but also those facts have not happened um a public hearing has not been held the Eda has not trans transferred to the city all of its property assets or cash um so
in summary just because the Eda is not in strict compliance with the Eda law that does not invalidate the Eda as a legal entity um there's nothing in the statute that says that that it's invalidated if it's not in perfect compliance um and the Eda in the last
month has done a few separate things to bring the a back into partial perfect compliance with the statute on June 24th officers were elected um official newspaper was set this public hearing today was properly called um and in the
future I'm sure that an annual budget will be submitted to the city um and an annual report will be submitted as well um but today this Eda is a valid public entity under the Eda law and has the authority to establish this development
District secondly um I just want to note this is something that I noted T noted in our memo to the Eda that today the Eda must find an order to form the economic development District that the establishment of the
district is proper or desirable the Eda does not need to make any findings in order to make that statement you can just make the statement in the resolution there any other questions or David would you like to comment on the
Eda I don't think I have any further comment unless there's questions can answer those anyone have any questions just a a quick one um I mean you made the comment that I
didn't cite anything and then you listed where I had cited things I am kind of curious to my point I have not been able to find a city that is similarly situated where they have not done a budget on a regular basis for the Eda it is not met on a regular basis are you
aware of any other cities that are in that scenario lots of cities do you have any examples that I could reference Jessica probably Jessica Green from norn could probably comment on that agree with baren um we do a lot of
financial planning etc for various types of cities um I'm not going to be able to give you one off top of my head but there are plenty of cities that don't budget for their Eda for their Planning Commission for their utilities for example um but it does happen very often
um and there's lots of cases where we've seen cities that do have an Eda and they don't meet often they meet as needed um very common because the problem that I'm having and one that really hasn't been addressed is if we don't have a budget
and the Eda Commissioners are required to be paid out of the budget what can we do we can't meet in order to set a budget if we have to pay ourselves from a budget that doesn't exist and I just I wish that could be resolved somehow uh commissioner Dunlap
I believe um uh Adam had talked about at the last meeting that there is a contingency budget within the council's budget and there could be transfers made the other thing with accounting is that you can always set up an interfund loan that could be um sort of addressed with the next budget for the following year
um so there's a number of things that you can do if for some reason you are to have a deficit position or deficit cash position due to those payments to the Commissioners um but again to maren's point just not having the budget or not meeting on a regular basis does not
invalidate the validity of the Eda sure Madam president I would just add one more thing which is I'm aware of multiple cities during Co and immediately after Co where the edas or H did not meet for an significant period of time due to the chaos caused by covid
I think that may have partially been in play here I don't know for sure but I me that was a reason that a number of cities edas and hras did not meet for an extended period because Co you know only essential meetings happened during that time frame and edats were not at the time considered essential so a lot of
those meetings kind of fell by the wayside during Co any other comments otherwise we have a motion in a second call all those in favor signify by saying I I all those oppose same sign I
motion passes 4 to one moving on uh old business we have nothing listed Sabrina do you have anything no mayor no president next is reports nothing listed right a motion to adjourn would
be in order the moved second motion by Tina seconded by Jeff there any discussion all those in favor signify by saying I I all those oppose same sign meeting is ended okay and I will make a note that
as if they probably didn't pick it up but that um information is up front on the leftand side um but the meeting is ended you are welcome to go up to the front and look at fire station items is that what he said I couldn't really okay sorry okay
right design