Tuesday, 05/06/2025 to order. Can I have a roll call, please? Council Member Bokey? Here. McCann? Here. Spende? Here. Voss? Here. Dotson? Here. Burbank? Rainey? Here. And Mayor Jessup? Here. We have six of the council and the mayor present. Thank you. Would everyone please rise for the Pledge of Allegiance. Alright. Good evening on a beautiful May day today. I think, spring has sprung finally. We took the the plows off the trucks, so we're ready for summer. First up tonight, we have the council agenda. There are no changes or corrections.
So with that, I'd look for a motion to approve. So moved. Motion by Dan to approve. Second. Second by Brent. Any discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed? And the council is approved. First up tonight we've got Mayor Jessup and you have got a few things. I think it's fair. Thank you, Council President Rainey. First off, tonight, I have three proclamations to do. The first one is recognizing Frontline Worker Appreciation Month, recognizing the contributions of those that work in safety, health and education across the country.
It is my pleasure and honor to recognize them and declare May as Frontline Worker Appreciation Month. Next up, we have O'Connor Walk to end Alzheimer's Kickoff Day, recognizing again nearly seven million Americans living with Alzheimer's and recognizing those that take care of them. A pleasure again to declare May 7 as the twenty twenty five Owatonna Walk to End Alzheimer's Kickoff Day. And if you're able to be a part of that kickoff, they will be at MSP tomorrow night. And then third, definitely not last,
if you were in Owatonna this past weekend, you saw and understand the importance of tourism and people visiting Owatonna. So the final one is recognizing again, National Travel and Tourism Week in Owatonna, May. And a real honor, again, and pleasure to recognize the contribution of the people that visit our fair city. And then lastly, we have some reappointments to boards and commissions throughout town. First off, recommend for reappointment Tim McManaman and Matt Therno to the Airport Commission.
Cherry Hill to the Human Rights Commission. Tyler Cochran, Eileen Wollenhauce and Jonathan Teal to the Park and Rec Board. David Efforts to the Planning Commission. Julianna Sklizaczek to the Public Library Board. Jay Johnson reappointed to the Public Utilities Commission. Shade Tree Commission, Gary Schwartz, Ron Signer and Nick Dickerson. The West Hills Commission, Nancy Valancourt and Sarah McKay for reappointment. We do have one recommendation for a new appointment to the Human Rights Commission, that being Josiah Holt. And then a thank you to those whose terms expired this year and served our
city so well. Jim Gunderson, who was appointed to the Human Rights Commission on November seventh of twenty seventeen and Trudy Severson from the Library Board who was first appointed on May third of twenty sixteen. So you heard the Mayor's request for reappointments and one new appointment. With that, I'd look for a motion to approve those. To approve. Motion by Nate to approve by the second. Second. Second by Don. Any further discussion? All those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed? And they have been reappointed and appointed.
Do we have a swearing in tonight? We do have a swearing in as a matter of fact. Okay. Josiah. I. Josiah Holt. Do solemnly swear Do solemnly swear. That I will uphold the constitution of The United States. That I'll uphold the constitution of The United States. The constitution of the state of Minnesota. The constitution of the state of Minnesota. The laws of the city of Owatonna. The laws of the city of Owatonna. And that it will faithfully and impartially discharge the duties. And I will faithfully impartially discharge the duties. As a member of the Owatonna Human Rights Commission for the city of Owatonna. As a member of the Owatonna Human Rights Commission for the city of Owatonna.
To which I have been appointed. To which I've been appointed. To the best of my knowledge and ability, so help me God. To the best of my knowledge and ability, so help me God. Congratulations. Anything else at this time mayor? That concludes my business tonight. Thank you. And it is nice that people choose to not only be on boards but then also re up on boards. It's part of what makes our community a great place to live. We are now up to the consent agenda. Consent agenda consists of city council meeting minutes, other board commission minutes, licenses,
permits and miscellaneous items all grouped together for the council to review prior to the meeting and vote collectively. With that I will entertain a motion on these consent agenda items. So moved. Motion by Dan to approve. Do I have a second? Second. Second by Doug. Any discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed? And the consent agenda is approved. We're now up to the finance report and for that report I turn it over to Vice President Doug Boss. Thank you, Mr. President. Checks tonight over $20,000
for your consideration are as follows. Dollars 44,719 to Civic Plus annual fees from $6.24 to $625 for the rec department, dollars thirty eight thousand seven hundred and eighty seven to ESRI, annual enterprise agreement for software and annual ARC GIS enterprise mobile working subscription. Dollars $24,273 to Hawkins for chemicals for wastewater. Dollars 108,994 for Hydro Clean for the 2025 SIPs project, pay estimate number one,
dollars 30 thousand to James E. Elsbecker from 502 Maple Drive for earnest money, dollars 23,800 to the John Deere credit for a compact utility tractor for the Parks Department, dollars one hundred and forty five thousand nine hundred and three to Niro Engineering for the wastewater upgrade and expansion project from March of twenty twenty five. Dollars '90 thousand '8 hundred and '50 '7 original mechanics, Inc. For the TL 100 Versus track loader for the street department. Sixty four thousand three hundred sixty dollars to Owatonna Motor Company for your for a
VRF Ford five fifty super duty flatbed truck for the parks. 965,889 to Rice Lake Construction for the wastewater treatment plant expansion pay estimate number 34, dollars 50 6 thousand 6 hundred and 30 1 to Schmidt Goodman office products, office furniture, dollars 47,000 for the wastewater treatment plant and $9,500 to the records department, dollars forty six thousand eight hundred and ninety four to SEH for eighteenth Street Reconstruction
Services, March of twenty twenty five. Dollars one hundred and forty eight thousand six hundred and forty seven is Southeast Service Cooperative. That is the April 2025 health insurance premiums. $21,600 the US Bank, the entire organization monthly credit card purchases from February March of '20 '20 '5, dollars '2 hundred and '50 thousand '1 hundred and '12 to Walbrand and Furness for the Ridge Road lot purchase, which is actually the 29,966
and 315 Lamont Road purchase of 220,146, dollars 20 2 thousand 6 hundred and 19 dollars to Ziegler for an 26 foot electric scissor lift for the wastewater treatment plant. Other expenditures tonight of $460,323 for a grand total of $2,544,413 Add to that HRA housing assist assistance payments of $101,591
for a total presented for your approval of $2,646,004.82 Thank you. Long list tonight. You've heard Mr. Boss' report. With that, I would look for a motion to approve. Motion to approve. To approve, do I have a second? Second. Second by Dan. Any further discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed? Finance report is approved. We have one ordinance tonight is 3.2.1, the second final reading
for the PUD request at 631 Cedar Avenue. We go to Mr. Troy Klocker for that. Good evening. Good evening. As you mentioned, this is the second reading of this rezoning request from an I-one light industrial zoning district to a PUD planning and development zoning district. This is to accommodate Choice Technical Academy to move into that facility. We went through the public hearing planning commission process which was recommended for approval and staff would recommend approval of the second reading.
Thank you. Any questions for Troy on this? Motion to approve. Motion by Nate to approve. Do I have a second? Second. Second by Don. Any further discussion? This, being an ordinance, I'd look for a roll call, please. Verboke. Aye. Anne. Aye. Spendi. Aye. Voss. Aye. Dotson. Aye. And Rainey. Aye. All six ayes. Thank you. We have six resolutions tonight. The first one is 3.3.1 to accept bids and award a contract and we go to Sean Murphy for that. Good evening. Good evening, Mayor and Council. Requesting Council's approval of Resolution twenty-twenty five for 2025 Street Maintenance Project Bid,
Acceptance and Contract Award. We received bids on April 30, this year for our 2025 street maintenance project and we received bids from two companies, Pearson Brothers and Allied Blacktop Company. The lowest bid was from Pearson Brothers for $210,696 which is roughly 2% under our engineers' estimate. The contracted project cost will be $210,696 and the twenty twenty five street maintenance project will be paid for with funds from
our street repair operating budget. With that, staff recommends approval. Thank you. Any questions for Sean on this? Seeing none, I look for a motion to approve. So moved. Motion by Dan to approve. Do I have a second? Second. Second by Doug. Any further discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carries. Next resolution is 3.3.2 to accept bids and award contract for the CIP overlay. And once again, go to Sean Murphy. Thanks again. Requesting Council's approval of Resolution 20 one-twenty five for our 25 CIP overlay project.
We received three bids on April 30 for our CIP overlay project. We received three bids. Those bids were from, Bituminous Materials Incorporated, Crane Creek Asphalt, Ewan Brothers Incorporated. The lowest responsible bidder was Crane Creek Asphalt with a low bid of $463,857 which is roughly 10% under our engineers estimate. The contracted project cost will be that $463,857 and the 25 CIP project will be paid for with current year bought issue.
With that, staff recommends approval. Thank you. You've heard Sean's report. Any questions for Sean? I look for a motion to approve. Motion to approve. Motion by Doug to approve. Do I have a second? Second. Second by Don, any further discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carries. We're now up to 3.3.3 resolution 20 two-twenty five authorization to execute the MnDOT grant agreement for federal airport expense reimbursement and we go to Troy Klecker. All right so since, COVID, the airport has received a number of grants through the FAA and MnDOT,
Three in fact, two of which we have been reimbursed for. The third one is before you here. City Council has actually approved the grant and it goes till July of this year for reimbursement. This would be a reimbursement of maintenance costs up to $13,000 in doing the paperwork. MnDOT had explained that they still need a agency agreement from the city in order to reimburse those funds. So what we have here is just approval of this agency agreement with MnDOT so
that we can seek reimbursement for grant dollars that have been approved already. So again $13,000 so staff would recommend approval. Thank you. Any questions for Troy? Motion to approve. Motion by Brent to approve. Do I have a second? Second. Second by Doug. Any further discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carries. We are now up to 3.3.4 resolution 20 three-twenty five Lakeside Foods. Notice of violation and we go to Sean Murphy for that. Alright thank you again Mayor and Council.
Requesting City Council's approval to issue a notice of violation to Lakeside Foods for violations of the city's code of ordinances and, our industrial wastewater discharge permit that was issued to Lakeside with the effective date of 01/01/2021. And we'd like to invite, Daniel Marks with Flaredon Hood to come up and present to counsel, this violation. Good evening, Mayor and Council members. My name is Daniel Marks. I'm a shareholder with Flaredine Hood. And city staff asked me to provide a short presentation just to provide a little background
and context for this resolution tonight. And I have just a brief PowerPoint. And so I'm gonna walk through that and happy to address any questions that the council has. I will just at the outset, mention that this is an issue where Lakeside in a couple of letters has referenced potential litigation related to this issue. We don't have a basis for closing the meeting under attorney client privilege due to threatened litigation at this point because the city hasn't taken any action that Lakeside has,
expressed its opposition to that would result in, a justification for closing the meeting. But I will because of that, I wanna talk about this in an open and transparent way, but I also don't wanna get into a lot of details because it's not really the the setting for that at this point. But the basically, the goals for this, short discussion, I wanna just kinda talk about what the goals are for tonight's action. Give a little big picture background on the law and why the city is, why we're proposing to do this take this action.
A little summary of the specific violations at issue, and then kind of summary of what the resolution is and recommended next steps. So the goals in any NPDES or National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System, the wastewater permit that you have enforcement processes, first you want to make sure that you're following the law, that it's equitable, and that it's transparent. And those are things that are required by state and federal law. What we're asking the council to do tonight is simply commence the lawfully required enforcement
action by issuing a notice of violation. We're not asking the council to take any final action to impose, the potential user charges, the any fines or penalties or anything like that. There's no final action being proposed. All that we're asking is to commence the process, which you're required to follow, and I'll talk a little bit more about that. And the way that you do that is by issuing a formal notice of violation. Along with that, we're providing a draft or the recommendation is to provide a draft administrative order,
which is, like a legal order on a document outlining what the city would like to see in response to the violations from Lakeside, but that is a draft order. They're not taking any final action. So basically, it's an outline of what the city could seek and is seeking initially, but you're not taking any final action. And you're gonna provide that to Lakeside Foods and give them the lawfully required notice and comment opportunities so that they have that in writing and that they can respond to it in writing and,
request a formal meeting with the city to go over it. And this is the process that's, required, recommended as a part of the enforcement process under the procedures that you have taken on, as the MPDS permit holder. So again, we're not taking any final action tonight other than issuing the notice of violation and really kind of establishing the process framework and timelines to move this forward because it has been languishing now since 2023. So a little bit on the legal background. Essentially, we're dealing with the federal Clean Water Act,
and that is administered by the Pollution Control Agency. They're delegated that authority by EPA. And in 1985, the city of Owatonna won a prize by being asked by the Pollution Control Agency and EPA to take on what's called delegated pretreatment authority. So basically, through your wastewater permit, you have been delegated authority through EPA and MPCA to administer this federal and state program regulating significant industrial users.
And that happened in 1985, so you've had it for a long time. And along with that authority, there are certain requirements that go in your MPDS permit. And essentially, what it the the bottom line is it requires you to regulate significant industrial users. So facilities in town that meet the legal definition to be a significant industrial user like late Lakeside Foods, and it requires you to have certain authority in ordinance, and then it requires you to take action to enforce violations of those state, federal, and local regulations.
So your your permit specifically basically requires you to implement this program. This is the city's permit that the city is held to by the pollution control agency. It requires you to put specific regulations on significant industrial users. So your engineers have to develop limits that get placed on those users so that they're in compliance with those limits for pollutants like, CBOD or TSS, biochemical oxygen demand, and total suspended solids. It requires you to investigate noncompliance if there is noncompliance,
and it requires you to take quote effective enforcement action. So that's what the the legal framework that we're operating in. Standard best practices in this setting, and again, I wanna make it clear that because you're a delegated pretreatment authority under federal and state law, you have responsibilities that not every city has. So it's a little bit different than, some other cities, but that's what has come along with your MPDS permit and your wastewater treatment facility. Standard best practice in this setting when you're regulating significant industrial users,
like I said, you'll work with your technical team to put limits in place on those users to make sure that the waste that they're sending you is in compliance with local state and federal regulations and that they won't cause you to violate your permit, protect human health from the environment. And then state law requires, you when you're providing a public service to charge for that service reasonable, equitable, and rates that are based upon the cost that is incurred in providing that service. So state law requires you to provide service charges to users.
And then standard best practices in an SIU program is also to have surcharges in place. So if somebody violates a permit or sends additional pollution beyond what is allowed, you can charge them additionally. And then state and federal law also requires you to be able to at least have the authority to levy fines and penalties up to $1,000 per day per violation. All of those things are required for you to have in ordinance to have that authority to be able to implement the, delegated pretreatment program and and maintain compliance with your permit.
And the city in its code has authority to do all those things. You have a fair and reasonable rate structure. You have a process that you have to issue a notice of violation, which is what we're doing tonight. You have the authority to mandate what are called corrective actions. So if somebody's out of compliance, make them take certain actions to come into compliance or to assure compliance going forward. You can impose surcharges. You can levy fines and penalties. You can recover additional costs. And then if somebody was really a bad actor, you could suspend or terminate their service, for the wastewater treatment facility.
So that's just a little background information. I wanna just quickly summarize, the Lakeside Foods matter. So this particular instance as, mister Murphy mentioned, Lakeside Foods meets the state and federal definition as a significant industrial user. The city issued them a significant industrial user permit, which you're required to do by law that expires in 2026. That permit has certain limitations and regulatory requirements built into it. In August and September of twenty twenty three, the city's facility started to notice that it was receiving uncharacteristically large pollutant loading of
what's called TSS or total suspended solids and biochemical oxygen demand. Essentially, it's high strength wastewater. So they were receiving that it was out of character for that season. It was having a significant impact on operations. It required them to put in a blower that they hadn't run for thirty five years. I think it was the one of the most significant loading events that the plant has seen for thirty five years. And the city in responding to that incurred a bunch of additional treatment costs etcetera. Initially documented to exceed $85,000
Initially, the city didn't know where it was coming from, so as they're required to under law, they, conducted a detailed investigation about where that pollution was coming from, and determined that the source of that pollutant loading was coming from Lakeside Foods and in that investigation determine that violations of that, user permit had occurred. And so given those findings and following the process that you're required to by law, you're required to issue a notice of violation, a formal notice of violation basically informing the significant industrial user the findings of the
city's investigation, what those violations are, and what those violations could mean given the city's authority. And that's what we're doing tonight. So the initial city response, you know, often these matters kinda get handled in discussions on the front end. But it's really important as this hasn't happened yet is that a formal notice of violation is issued so that the city can say that we're at least minimally doing what we're required under law. In some initial discussions between the city and lake Lakeside, the city had proposed to address the violations by charging Lakeside Foods based upon the
adopted standard industrial user rates for the loading event. So the city has, rates adopted in ordinance that apply to full class of users domestic, commercial, and significant industrial. And so basically, the city determined that based upon the pollution loading that it received, the applicable rate adopted in city ordinance, if applied to the fullest extent, would be $282,000 and some change. And that's a a rate structure that was developed by the city when you updated
your rates, structure in 2021, and that's based upon a detailed cost of service analysis from your city from your consultant. And before those rates were imposed, you know, you had to have two public meetings to adopt them. Specific notice was given to Lakeside Foods. Lakeside Foods has paid those rates in the past, just not this extent, because they haven't sent that much pollutant loading to the city in the past. And then the city also proposed, corrective actions. Basically, that Lakeside takes certain actions to change,
processes or do certain things at its facility to prevent and ensure future compliance. The city did not and has not proposed to issue any surcharges or fines and penalties and basically made all fines and penalties forgivable upon completion of those corrective actions. So the city would rather see Lakeside invest those resources in taking the actions necessary to ensure future compliance than to impose those. So that was the city's initial response and discussions with Lakeside Foods. Lakeside Foods response so far as you're aware is they've sent now three letters to
the city basically laying out kind of their objections and their view of the matter. In earlier letters, they, the January and April letter, they did reference potential litigation if the city took final action here. Again, we're not recommending that you take any final action tonight, just starting the formal process. The city has engaged since January with multiple good faith meetings with Lakeside Foods and exchanged information. And in that process, the city agreed to reduce the additional cost assessment. And again, to be clear, those those additional costs are costs that are above and beyond what is covered by
the city's standard rates. So those standard rates are based upon certain things. We're not gonna go into detail about that tonight. But those that cost assessment was the cost that the city incurred that would not covered by the things that those rates were determined by. The city agreed to reduce those from 85,000 to 44,000. Lakeside in its most recent letter essentially offered to pay those additional costs of $85,000 but objects to paying that full user charge. Lakeside in the most recent letter has stated that the city is imposing punitive surcharges.
Again, I think that's based upon a miscommunication. I think some of the earlier communications called the user rates surcharges. But in reality, the city hasn't proposed and isn't proposing to impose any surcharges. It's just simply the adopted user rate. As I mentioned before, the city has the authority to impose surcharges that would, be up to twice the user rate if if you wanted to do that, but that's not what has been proposed. So there's no punitive surcharges being proposed and no fines and penalties being proposed.
The city has elected thus far to not pursue that and make all of that forgivable based upon completing the collective actions. Lakeside Food Advice has also argued basically that the the the waste ended up flowing to the city and as a result of the fault of the city. And without going into details, I would just say that the city's investigation has determined otherwise. So that that contention in the most recent letter is not consistent with the city's investigation. So the recommendations tonight and what we're asking the council to do is issue the
formal notice of violation that's included within the resolution. And again, this is kind of minimally legally necessary step to comply with the NPDES permit and the delegated pretreatment obligations. We all recognize that Lakeside Foods is an important community member and employer in the community. And none of this is geared toward seeking to unfairly penalize them or burden them. At this point, it's simply just following the lawful process that the city is required to follow, as it's, to pursue its delegated pretreatment authority.
We are also recommending rather rather than taking final action tonight, you know, imposing the full user charge or imposing the costs or imposing the specific corrective actions that instead you send Lakeside Foods a written draft administrative order. So basically a proposed enforcement response in draft form so that they can have something in writing to respond to, and then provide a thirty day comment period for them so they can review it,
provide comments, and request to provide additional information to city staff and council. So kind of the standard due process requirements as a part of the delegated pretreatment process. And then we would also recommend that, you know, you keep that, timeline, short to that thirty day window. This has something that's been going on since 2023, and it is important to have some parameters and keep the process and the discussion moving. And then after that thirty day period, then we would recommend that the staff and council bring forward an amended or an
existing administrative order that then the council would then issue and finalize. Now at that time, that that final order would be based upon additional input from Lakeside Foods, additional input from the city, potentially from the public. And so you have time to adjust anything within that order. So I wanna make sure that that's clear. You would also, depending upon how the discussions and further communications go with Lakeside Foods, have discretion to adjust that order if you so choose to impose surcharges or impose
fines and penalties. So you you there's no final action being taken tonight by issuing this draft administrative order. It's basically giving Lakeside Foods an opportunity to review and comment and provide further information through this public process. So no final action. That that's essentially it. So what the resolution is basically asking for is authorization to issue the notice of violation to provide Lakeside Foods a draft administrative order that, proposes to, ask them to pay the lawfully adopted user charge based upon the waste that was
sent by them to the city and a reduced assessment of $45,000 cost. Again, that is just proposed. And then, authorize the city to send them a letter responding to any of their letters and provide a thirty day period with which Lakeside Foods can provide additional information, and can request additional meetings with the city, etcetera, to try to resolve this matter going forward. So with that, I will end my presentation. I'm happy to respond to any questions from the counsel. Any questions from counsel?
Thank you. All right. Thank you very much. Sean, do you have anything to add? No, not at this time. Okay. Thank you. So you heard the report. And with that, I would look for a motion to approve. Motion to approve. Motion by Nate to approve. Do I have a second? Second. Second by Doug. Any further discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carries. Thank you. We're now up to 3.3.5 resolution 20 four-twenty five appointed fiscal agent Bond Trust Services Corporation and Emily Thamert.
I'm sorry, Emily Burns. A lot of Emily's. Good evening. Alright. Tonight, we are requesting council approval of resolution 24 dash 25, appointing Bond Trust Services Corporation as fiscal agent. A little bit of background. The city of Owatonna has contracted with Baker Tilly for municipal bond issuance arbitrage services and advising for nearly fifteen years. Due to the resignation of the city's longtime Baker Tilly director in March 2025, other municipal advising options were explored by the finance director and city administration through the
month of April 2025. After careful consideration, city administration determined Ehlers and Associates Inc, based in Roseville, Minnesota, has a comparable fee scheduled to Baker Tilly For services, it meets the city's municipal advisors needs, specifically in bond issuance, arbitrage services, as well as financial management planning and advisement. The transition comes at a critical time for the city with 2025 capital improvement projects on the horizon and the start of phase two of the public safety center project.
By entering into this agreement relating to paying agent registrar and transfer agency, The city authorizes Bond Trust Services Corporation, a wholly owned sub subsidiary of Ehlers and Associates. The city authorizes the issuance of all current bonds and designates BTSC as the paying agent. The budget impact is the same as Baker Tilly as the expenses are already accounted for in the current year's budget and staff recommends approval of resolution 20 four-twenty five.
Thank you. Any questions for Emily? Seeing none, I look for a motion to approve. Motion to approve by Doug to approve. Do I have a second? Second. Second by Don. Any further discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carries. We're now up to 3.3.6 Resolution 20 five-twenty five preliminary plat for Randenburg Hardwoods addition and we go to Troy Klecker. Thank you. So this is a request to combine three lots into one. Rentenburg Hardwoods is looking to construct a 12,000
square foot facility on State Avenue. They did purchase two properties from the city and those are the two western lots and then they also purchased a lot to the east there and they're looking to combine them under one plat. It would be a 3.6 acres. There are some renderings in the in the report there of what the building footprint would be. They would need to construct a pond and they do want some additional land for
future expansion which is why they're adding that extra lot in there. There is a utility disconnect agreement so with the three lots there's utilities three separate utilities. Typically we would say you have to remove those if you're combining them that requires them to go into the street put a hole in the street cut them and with in some situations here we like to not have that done. This is a concrete street that we're probably better off not cutting into and so
we the way to resolve that is we have utility disconnect agreement which which was part of the consent agenda that you did approve. So that's how the utilities are being handled. Obviously they will be using one set of utilities into the lot. We did have a public hearing at Planning Commission. We had no comments from the neighbors on that and the Planning Commission did recommend approval and therefore staff would recommend approval of this preliminary plat as well. Thank you. Any questions for Troy? Seeing none, I look for a motion to approve.
Motion by Nate to approve. Second. Any further discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carries. We have seven miscellaneous items tonight. The first one is 3.4.1 University of Minnesota local option sales tax study agreement and we go to assistant to administrator Jenna Tuma for that. Good evening. Hey, thank you. Yes, this, agenda item here is about our community center. Last spring summer, this council tasked the staff to kind of explore what a community center might look
like here in the city of Owatonna. And so we formed a community and we've been working pretty hard, for the last ten months of working, kind of scoping the project out. And as we're now coming to the next phase or the next steps of, kind of scoping it and getting, ready to see what we can spend, we need to come up with a funding source. And one of the goals or one of the options for funding the community center is using the local option sales tax, to be able to fund this project. What we'd like to do is do a study. It's a well respected study that's used,
on these projects, and through the University of Minnesota. And they do a study and they'll go back, I think it's like ten years. They'll do, like, I think, 2013 to 2022. They'll study that. And then they'll also go forward and use '22, '20 '3, and '24 and assess and look at what kind of sales revenue we did bring in. And then they'll also tell us where that revenue is coming from, if it's from within the city, if it's outside tourism, short term stay. So we'll get a really good, report where what they, feel that the city potentially can make off of 2024 using that to give us
kind of some parameters on what that could be used for to build the community center or what we could use up to. So this study is, that it takes maybe four to six weeks to complete. So we're hoping that we'd have some pretty good data by the middle of summer to kinda start, understanding what those parameters would look like using WAST. Thank you. Any questions for Jenna? Seeing none, I'd look for a motion to approve. So moved. Motion by Dan to approve. Do I have a second? Second. Second by Brent. Any further discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor signify by saying aye.
Aye. Opposed? Motion carries. Thank you. Thank you. Next up is 3.4.2, accept proposals and award contract for the overlay prep project and back to Sean Murphy for that. All right. Thanks again. We're requesting Council's approval of our overlay prep, proposal and acceptance and contract awarding. We did receive two quotes for our overlay prep project, one from Steve James Excavating and one from SL Contracting Incorporated. The lowest responsible bidder was Steve James Excavating of Oatana. The bid was $53,000
lower than the engineers estimate or about 46% under. We did have some follow-up conversations with Steve James Excavating to ensure that they were fully understanding of the plan requirements. They have done this overlay prep project for us in previous years. So they're fully aware of the city's needs and went through our plan. Did not feel that there is anything that was misread or mislabeled. And being a local contractor, they felt that with the bidding climate as it is today with a lot of not necessarily
on this project but a lot of our other projects within the area. There are a lot of potential bidders. There's a lot of bidders out there looking for work. They wanted to be aggressive and that's why they came up with the bid that they have. I think they had an advantage over the SL Contract Incorporated being from outside of the city. So with that the contracted project cost will be $46615.5.20 25 overlay prep project will be paid for with engineering stormwater and sanitary sewer operating
budgets. We'll also be expecting some reimbursements for from Owatonna Public Utilities for some of the water work on it. With that, staff recommends approval. Thank you. Any questions for Sean on this? Seeing none, I look for a motion to approve. So moved. Motion by Don to approve. Do I have a second? Second. Second by Doug. Any further discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carries. We're now up to 3.43, except the poles install installation of fiber optic cable Central Park Bandshell.
And we go to Jeffrey Lauchs, our Facilities Manager. Good evening, sir. Good evening, Mayor and Council. Requesting the Council to accept the bids from Coles Electric and the phone station to install fiber optic cable into the band shell at Central Park. A little background is the security cameras at the park no longer work. Fiber is needed to update the cameras and incorporate them into the city's camera system. The bids that we received were from Kohl's Electric for the directional boring for 11,200 and the phone station for installation of the fiber cable itself for $10,250
so $21,450 we were awarded a grant from the Otona Foundation that will cover $20,000 of that cost. So the remaining $14.50 dollars we're going to take out of their operating budget. Staff recommends approval. Thank you. Any questions for Jeff? If not, I look for a motion to approve. Motion to approve. Motion by Brent to approve. Do I have a second? Second. Second by Nate. Any further discussion? Doug. Just want to thank the Owatonna Foundation once again for a nice grant to help us out with that project.
They do a lot of great work for our city. Well said. Anything else? We have a motion and a second. So all in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carries. Thank you. We are now up to 3.4.4, the main lift station improvements and we go back to Sean Murphy for that. All right. Thanks again. Yes, we're requesting Council's approval of an agreement with neuroengineering to provide professional services in identifying alternatives for improvements to our main lift station and grit removal system.
As everyone is aware, we're going through a major renovation and expansion project at our wastewater treatment facility and a goal to increase our capacity and help maintain our direction for growth in the city. What comes along with our wastewater treatment capacity is also our conveyance. What allows all our wastewater to get to our wastewater treatment facility. Council reviewed and approved a sanitary sewer study in 2023 that identified
needs of our overall system from a potential future build out of the city and recommended priority projects in the near term. One of those projects would be increasing our main interceptor or what comes into our main lift station at our wastewater treatment facility. The study is going to identify alternatives for improvements needed and not only to accommodate a larger sewer with higher capacity but the ability to screen waste water prior to
pumping and further processing. This study will also evaluate feasibility of grit removal improvements. Some of our grit removal processes that were installed in 2010 aren't performing as we would like, allowing a lot more grit, to come through in our later treatment processes and become a much bigger issue. I think council approved a $150,000 digester clean out that is a major source of our poor performance in our grit removal. So with this study we're proposing
a contract to not exceed over $29,680 and be paid for using our sanitary sewer funds. With that staff recommends approval. Thank you. You've heard Sean's report. Any questions for Sean? Comment? Question. Question. I just wanted to thank Sean. The we take for granted when we hit the flusher. It's a highly complex, complicated, and really amazing system the way this works. It's never been done, I think, in the history of mankind to have something like this before. So it takes a lot of thought and ingenuity to make it all work.
So thank you for that service. Thanks for helping us invest in it. It's much needed and we're setting ourselves up for the future indeed. Any questions for Sean? Ian, I look for a motion to approve. So moved. Motion by Dan to approve. Do I have a second? Second. Second by Don, any further comment? Seeing none, all those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carries. We're now up to 3.4.5, the Kinneco six hundred Street sweeper purchased. And once again, Sean Murphy. Thanks. I think this is my last one. So, requesting Council's approval of the purchase of a 2025 Timco '6 hundred Street Sweeper.
This is our regenerative air street sweeper so it's got that vacuuming ability. With the heavy use that we have with our street sweepers, we have a five year scheduled replacement plan. This helps lower the overall cost of ownership minimize maintenance costs with those street sweepers and capitalize on higher trade in values in that short turnaround those five years. The purchase price of the Street Sweeper is $367,615 Our existing sweeper, which has a trade in value of $150,000
will be put on min bid with reserve of that same price with a resulting cost of $217,615 With that, staff recommends approval. Thank you. Any questions for Sean? They're not getting any cheaper and all that. To be fair the price we were quoted it did go down about $30,000 so what we purchased at for what we were planning to purchase it did go down $30,000 so there's some grace in there. All right. That makes it lazier as well. We're saving all kinds of money. Sure.
Any other questions? I look for a motion to approve. Motion to approve. Motion by Nate to approve. Do I have a second? Second. Second by Dan. Any further discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carries. Now we're at 3.4.6 to appoint a municipal advisor Ehlers Association and back to Emily Burns again. This is kind of the second piece to what we talked about earlier. This is just to appoint Ehlers as the city city's municipal advisor. A little bit of background, the city must comply with all continuing disclosure obligations outlined in the continuing disclosure agreement,
certificate, and undertaking associated with each issuance of securities subject to rule 15 c two dash 12 of the Securities and Exchange Commission. The city will now work with Ehlers, to meet all CDU obligations as the dissemination agent. This responsibility entails conducting research, preparing and filing disclosure reports within the specific specified time frames, the letter of engagement, which outlines and clarifies the terms of the city's engagement with Ehlers as the issuer's dissemination agent, was attached,
to this memo. And in this regard, Ehlers agrees to provide the city with the services described in appendix a and the scheduled fees for service outlined in exhibit b. The charges for or the budget impact, the charges for this are primarily connected to the city's debt issuances and are paid as part of the debt services obligations and staff recommends approval. Thank you. Any questions for Emily? Dan. How many firms were interested in representing the city in these sales? We met with, well, there was Baker Tilly,
the original one. We briefly talked to them. There was, one that was just getting started and then Ehlers. Any other questions? Seeing none, I would look for a motion to approve. So moved. Motion by Don to approve. Do I have a second? Second. Second by Dan. Any further discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carries. Now the final miscellaneous item is three point four point seven personnel policy revisions and now we'll go to Emily Famert. Good evening. Good evening,
council and mayor. So what I have tonight is a proposed revision to one of our personnel policies. It is personnel policy 7.1 regarding health insurance. The way that the policy currently reads, our employees are eligible for health coverage, the first of the month following a thirty day wait period. And what we are doing is we are proposing that we change that to, being eligible for coverage the first of the month following their first date of employment. Eliminating that thirty day wait period is,
a standard best practice in the industry. Most employers, when an employee exits, their coverage covers that employee through the end of the month. So having this policy revision, will allow our new employees to, avoid any type of gap in coverage. So and it aligns with, like I said, best practice. We did bring this proposed change to our employee health insurance advisory committee for discussion. That committee does have representation from all union and nonunion employee groups,
And they're in full support of this proposed change. So, the budget impact to this personnel policy edit, would simply be an additional month of employer premium contributions for those new employees. Staff recommends approval of that proposed personnel policy revision. Thank you. Any questions for Emily? Being none, I look for a motion to approve. Motion to approve. Motion by Doug to approve. Do I have a second? Second. Second by Nate. Any further discussion? Being none, all those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carries. Thank you. Thank you.
We have staff report tonight and that is Emily Burns, our finance director. How many times are you going to make her walk up the grass? She's on the list eight more times, so. Yes. And I don't know. I'm guessing by now you are well aware that we are pretty excited to be working with Ehlers. We've got some meetings scheduled with them in the next couple weeks or so to work on our financial management plan, which will help with our bond rating. It'll help us, keep tabs on our debt. It's it's going to be a pretty in-depth process getting that organized.
But once we have it compiled, it's something we can add to and modify as needed. So we're pretty excited about that. Personnel, we are onboarding with the help of HR. HR is taking quite the load off our shoulders during audit season by helping us onboard all the seasonal and temp employees. We've got, I would say, what, half, maybe half on board, which was no small task because, we are actually short a payroll specialist now in finance. So, HR has been helping out with that.
We are also beginning the 2026 budget preparation. Department heads were kind of briefed on the process today during our meeting, and we will begin that process. One thing that will make it a little easier than last year is we have our union contracts, figured out for 2026. So our salaries and benefits are already figured. So that should streamline the process a little bit. And last but not least, this week is our annual audit. So we have Clifton, Larson, and Allen, auditors on-site today through Thursday doing both HRA and Citi audit.
So it's kind of a busy time for finance this month. Thank you. Any questions for Emily? Thank you very much. We're now up to public comments. You'll be limited to two minutes for your comments. Please approach the microphone, sign in and state your name and address for the record after being acknowledged by the council president. Speakers will be limited to two minutes to deliver their comments. Council Vice President Voss will be timing and holding up a hand after one minute forty five seconds to notify the speaker they have fifteen seconds to complete their comment. Those speaking are asked to conduct themselves in a respectful manner as they deliver their
comments. Audience members are asked to refrain from reacting to comments. The city council will not respond directly to comments in this venue or take immediate action in response to them. With that I will now open up for public comment. Good evening. My name is Mark Enter. I'm with Lakeside Foods. I appreciate the opportunity to speak to, you, President Rainey, and, Mayor Jessup and the rest of, the council. This took a bit of a twist tonight for me. I I thought a bit about the, possible outcomes and I didn't expect the one where you would
where you would move to, levy the, sorry, the notice of violation. I thought about a few other outcomes and so now I'm scrambling a little bit to explain my emotion. I think it's most hurtful to have been issued a notice of violation because we try so hard to be a good player in the community, in the industry. We work incredibly hard to protect the environment. We are concerned about our employees. We're concerned about the land that our farmers use to grow our crops. We
think of ourselves as a great business partner in communities. And to be issued a notice of violation is to say that we did something wrong. The problem here is that what happened was and attorney Marx said that it wasn't the failure of a city pipe or it wasn't the failure of city infrastructure, but in fact it was. It was a connection that existed in a city manhole. And that connection may have been created, I don't know, seventy five years ago, one hundred years ago. It was, it was our forefathers,
your forefathers and mine, ours, that did that. And, there's no way that we could have seen that coming. And so that's particularly difficult to hear that there's a notice of violation. I hope that you will establish a subcommittee to work with us as we come to an agreement on what the fines will be. Thank you. Thank you. Printer malfunction, so here goes. Okay. Gary Jones, nine nine five Ridge Road. Good evening, Gary. Good evening. What I'm gonna talk about tonight is a kind of a a plea, I guess, to change the hunting times.
Just just in by half hour at Mineral Springs, we're not hunting in the dark. Let's do sunrise to sunset instead of a half hour each way. The DNR, kind of touts, and I agree with them, of a pretty clean hunting record for safety, for the state of Minnesota, over many years. However, that also encompasses 89,000 square miles of Minnesota. And a 70,000 deer taken in 2024, very few of them were in these little special hunts. So when I look at the safety record, compare it to hunting in the little two acre strip in Mineral Springs with the
last half hour kind of after dark, they don't really jive to me. When when I look at this, okay, if I take a safe sport, let's compare it to safe sport, soccer. Well, soccer is not always safe, but it's safer than many. Okay. Now take four high school soccer players and take them off a field and put them in a 30 by 30 foot church basement. Now let's take some people from the park. Two moms pushing strollers, a dad with an infant in a chest carrier, and maybe a guy walking a poodle, and three three Frisbee folks. Let's keep keep them in there too. Put them all in the church basement. Shut the lights off, of course,
because we're hunting in the last twenty minutes of the day when you can't see. Somebody blow a whistle and away they go. Start kicking those balls. Well, what's gonna happen? You're gonna have injuries because you have changed the parameters of something that is safe, and you have reduced it into an area where now it's not safe anymore. So something that was safe has been changed just because it's in a smaller area. You know, it it sounds kinda ridiculous. But when you look at some of the safety standards and then look at the size of Mineral Springs,
it goes down very quickly. And I so I do ask that you please change the hunting times to thirty minutes into from thirty minutes before and after sunrise and sunset to sunrise to sunset at Mineral Springs for 2025. Thank you. Thank you. Anyone else this evening? Okay. So seeing no one else is coming up, we'll close the public comments. We are now up to council comments and first up tonight is Councilmember Bocchi. No further comments. Councilmember McCann. Just a couple of words I guess. I've tried to attend some of the boards and commission meetings that are going on.
Those folks do a lot of hard work that make our jobs much, much easier. I just wanted to kind of give them a little shout out because they do a great job. Thank you very much for your service. Well said. Not paid like we are. Councilmember Svenby. Nothing to say. Councilmember Voss. Yes. I do have one item I'd like to mention here. Last Thursday night, Mayor Jessup, myself, Brad Meyer, and a contingent of gentlemen and a few ladies went up to the Minnesota Real Estate Awards in Bloomington, which was really a great night.
A big deal, some really nice awards. And we had a couple of winners, and I just wanted to congratulate them. CDI Tom Peterson, their project was named the best large industrial project in the state last year, So that was a nice deal. And the other winner was the Owatonna High School was the best large commercial project of 2024. So congratulations to them. They got some beautiful awards and it was a great night. Good. Councilmember Dodson. Nothing to add. Mr. Mayor. I just want to echo what Councilman McCann said.
Those boards and commissions that we have and the volunteers that are a part of it, we can't do this without them and their love of the community is reflected in their willingness to participate and serve. So to all of them that currently serve that re upped into Josiah for joining Human Rights Commission tonight, I want to extend a thank you. Thank you. In case people have forgotten, Mr. Busse has seven meetings left. Seven? Six. Seven. One more than me. Got to add and just keep adding. Do you have anything tonight Chris? No I don't.
Okay. Alright. Myself, I just welcome former Council President Greg Schultz. It's good to see you here tonight and pay close attention watch how we adjourn a meeting more efficiently now. No other business before the council. I'd look for a motion to adjourn. So moved. Motion by Dan. Do I have a second? Second. Second by Doug. Any further discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor signify by Pizzing. Aye. Aye. Opposed? We're done.