For Wednesday, 08/06/2024. Could I have a roll call, please? Council member Voss? Here. Dodson? Burbank. Here. Bocke. Here. McCann. Here. Spendi. Here. Rainey. Here. And Mayor Jessup. Here. We have six of the council and the mayor present. Thank you. Would everyone please rise as a councilmember Burbank leads us in the Pledge of Allegiance. Alright, we had a great reception tonight for city administrator Busey and now it's time to go to work. First thing on the agenda tonight is approval of the council agenda. There are no changes or corrections.
With that I would look for a motion to approve. So moved. Motion by Dan Broke to approve. Do I have a second? Second. Second by Don, any further discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed? And the council's been approved. We are now up to Mayor Jessup and you do have some items tonight. Good evening sir. I do, thank you Council President Rainey. First off is a resolution declaring a state of emergency, so following the stormy weather, winds, and damage that it caused on July 28, the following day,
July 29, I did sign a declaration of a state of emergency and asking that it be ratified by counsel tonight. Thank you. Any questions on that? Hearing none, I look for a motion to approve. Motion to approve. Motion by Brent to approve. Do I have a second? Second. Second by Dave. Any further discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carries. Anything else is there? I do happen to have one more thing if you'd indulge. So I've done a handful of proclamations since being sworn in.
This one is a special one though. And Chris told me early on that you know we don't read them because it just, we don't want to set a precedent and it takes a lot of time. I'm making an exception tonight, because I'm the Mayor, that's why. So, it is my pleasure. Whereas Chris M. Busse has served our city as the city administrator since 02/2007. And whereas the city of Owatonna has benefited from the leadership provided by Administrator Bussey and whereas in February city administrator Bussey announced her plans to retire after the first
city council meeting in August and whereas tonight's meeting is the first city council meeting in August, tomorrow, August 7, will be the final day that Chris Ambussi will serve as Owatonna's city administrator. Now therefore I, Matt Jessop, by virtue of the authority vested in me as mayor of the city of Owatonna, do hereby proclaim tomorrow, 08/07/2025, as Chris M Bussey Day in Owatonna, and I encourage community members to express appreciation to Chris Bussey for her service to
the city of Owatonna. Thank you all very much. You guys are gonna make me start crying again, and, it means a lot to me. I've really treasured and enjoyed my time with all of you and this means a great deal to me so thank you very much. Anything else this evening? That's all. Thank you. Thank you Mayor. We are now up to the consent agenda items. 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 on this? Hearing none, all those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed? And the consent agenda has been approved. We're now up to action items. The first thing up tonight is the finance report and for that I turn it over to Vice President Doug Boss. Thank you President Rainey. Checks tonight above $20,000 for your consideration are as follows.
Dollars 23,520 to Crane Creek asphalt for asphalt, dollars 30,352 to Hawkins for chemicals, dollars 35,376 to L and L Street Rods and Sport Truck that is for the police fleet set up for three different units, dollars 109,197 in NERO Engineering that is for the wastewater treatment plant upgrade and expansion, dollars 970,412 to Rice Lake Construction Group that is also the wastewater plant, pay estimate number 37,
dollars 153,564 to the Southeast Service Cooperative that is the July 25 health insurance premiums, dollars 21,935 to Summit Infrastructure LLC for Manhole Rehabilitation, dollars 393,784 for other expenditures for a subtotal of $1,738,143 Add to that HRA housing assistant payments of $125,186
for total expenditures presented for your approval of $1,863,329.5 Thank you. You've heard the report. Any questions? Hearing none, I look for a motion to approve. So moved. Motion by Dan to approve. Do I have a second? Second. Second by Dave. Any further discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed? Finance report has been approved. We have six resolutions tonight. The first one is 3.20.138Dash25,
adopt Steel County hazardous mitigation plan. And with that, we go to fire chief Ed Hoffman. Good evening. Good evening. Thank you, mayor and council. Also with me, I have Kristen Sailor, the, Steele County emergency manager to answer any questions we have as we go through this. But what I have before you is the request to approve resolution 38 dash 25 adopting the updated Steel County multi hazard mitigation plan. A little background on this hazard mitigation planning and preparedness is most effective instrument to diminish losses and reduce the impact of disasters upon people and property.
Mitigation plans are key to breaking the cycle of disaster damage and reconstruction. The multi hazard mitigation plan is a requirement of the federal disaster mitigation act of February. The development of a local government plan is required in order to maintain eligibility for certain federal disaster assistance and hazard mitigation funding programs. In order for communities to be eligible for future mitigation funds, they must adopt this plan. Steele County and City Of Boonton is vulnerable to a variety of potential natural disasters, which threaten the loss of life and property within the county. Hazards such as tornadoes,
flooding, wildfires, blizzards, straight line winds, ice storms and droughts have the potential to inflict vast economic loss and personal hardship. In 2013, Minnesota had some of the highest weather related disaster claims in the country. This multi hazard mitigation plan represents the efforts of Steele County and its local governments to fulfill the responsibility for hazard mitigation planning. The intent of the plan is to reduce the actual threat of specific hazards by limiting the impact of damages and losses. So the budget of impact of this, there is no direct impact at this time. But however,
having this, as I said, makes us eligible for certain recovery funds, mitigation planning funds, and things like that. So so with that, staff recommends the approval to adopt the Steele County Hazard Mitigation Plan. And if there are any questions, I'd be happy to answer those. Thank you, chief. Any questions? Hearing none, 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? Hearing none, all those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carries. Thank you. Thank you. Next up, 3.2.2 resolution 39Dash25.
That is for a mini mini storage facility at 1980 Austin Road Southeast. And we go to community development director, Troy Kletter for that. Good evening. Alright. Good evening. Thank you. This is a request by Brent Caslow, Chris Baney and B3 contracting to construct a mini storage facility along Austin Road there. It's in a B2 community business district which does require this to go through the conditional use permit process. The site is shared with the neighboring property to the south and they'll have an
access and parking agreement between the two. They'll share the access and parking. It's a 9,800 square foot facility and they will change the interior walls depending on the tenant space once they are identified. They are proposing a dry stormwater basin on the west side of the property for stormwater management. This did go to planning commission at their last meeting public hearing there was no comments made by any of the neighbors and the planning commission did recommend approval with
the five conditions there listed in the staff report. So staff would recommend approval. Thank you. Any questions for Troy? Hearing none, I'd 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? Hearing none, all those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carries. Thank you. Next up we have 3.2.3 resolution forty-twenty five amend the twenty twenty five authorized signatures and for that we go to see administrator Boussey.
Good evening. And thank you. I guess the reason for this resolution is my fault. Due to the fact I'm retiring, you have to, designate a new, person to, take on my role as the city administrator. And so we will be updating that to, Jenna Tuma and staff would recommend approval. Thank you. Any questions for Chris on this? Hearing none, I'd look for a motion to approve. So moved. Motion by Don to approve. Do I have a second? Second. Second by Dave. Any further discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed?
Motion carries. We're now up to 3.2.4 resolution 40 one-twenty five Name responsible authority for data practices with Jenna Touma and once again, city administrator Ibucci. Thank you. Again, my fault. Due to my retirement, we need to name, your new city administrator, Jenna Touma, as the responsible authority for data practices for the remainder of 2025. Staff recommends approval. Thank you. Any questions for Chris on this? Motion to approve. We have a motion by Doug to approve. Do I have a second? Second by Dan. Any further discussion?
Hearing none, all those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carries. We're now up to 3.2.5 resolution 40 two-twenty five set of public hearing on 09/02/2025 for street reconstruction. And we go to Emily Burns for that, finance director. Good evening. Good evening. Mayor, Council, tonight we are requesting council approval to set a date for public hearing for comments on the city street reconstruction plan. And tonight I have Todd with, Eller's Municipal Advisors here to go over that plan with you.
Todd. Sure. Thank you, Emily. Thank you, mayor, council members. Todd Hagen from Ehlers and Associates. Nice to see you folks tonight. In in front of the council, we have a resolution, that sets a bond sale date, for various street reconstruction projects in the city, some of which are being constructed as we speak, and also sets a street reconstruction plan hearing date. So we also have a presale report, that you can see. Emily could send that over to you tomorrow just to kinda give you a background of sort of the road map that we're we're on here.
It's got, details of the bond issue, and it actually has a schedule of events on there, also, and some preliminary, bond numbers, for, for the bond issue coming up. So from, we did talk to, Shannon and and Sean, about, various parts of the streets, being reconstructed and the reimbursement, of those some of those costs, for the projects as well. We're still working through some of that with, bond counsel, but what we've got in front of you for the resolution, I think you're good to go, for that tonight. From our initial review, looks like your current street reconstruction plan only authorized $2,000,000
of bonds in 2024, and only included the Lynn Drive Southwest project in 2025. So we're recommending you approve a new street reconstruction plan, which will draft with, your bond attorney and for staff review. It's a pretty simple, financing street reconstruction plan, that will include all of your twenty twenty five street projects. This will also allow you to issue the bonds under one, bond issuance authority, so much more efficient, going through this process. Again, we'll prepare the street reconstruction plan for public hearings, that you'll set,
via this resolution for September 2 at 07:00. We'll be there for that to answer any questions, introduce the public hearing, as well for you folks. And then we need to wait for a thirty day reverse referendum period to end on October 2 before bonds can be issued. So again the new street reconstruction plan hearing will allow you to finance all of your 2025 Street projects under the new plan. So moving forward then, just FYI, depending how staff would like to work this,
and also your engineers, you might wanna consider holding a new public hearing at the beginning of each year, to approve a new plan each time you're financing a street reconstruction and or overlay projects. So, we've got, the road map basically, some of the details of the bond issue, are that, we will, be looking at, issuing a ten year bond, which is typical for Owatonna. The bond can be prepayable at your discretion, on 02/01/2020 2033 or any date thereafter without penalty. It's gonna be bank qualified tax exempt,
both federal and state. And we will ask for a rating from Moody's again. You currently have a double a one bond rating, one notch below a triple a. So good there. We're hoping to keep that. So, we'll have staff on, the call with us at that point. They'll give us the questions, which is nice these days that they do that. So we'll be well prepared to answer their questions, and our allies will throw as much data at at them as we can just so they can get get that, that through their committee.
Again, this will be a general obligation bond. It's a straightforward approach. OITAN has issued these, so it's nothing new for you folks. And, it's generally the most cost, overall cost effective option, out there. Let's see. So the rest of this, you folks can kinda take a look at. We'll use your bond counsel at CooTek Rock, paying agent Bond Trust Services, and the rating agency of, Moody's Investors Service. So tonight, I'm here for the presale, to set that public hearing and to kinda move forward with the bond issue. You'll see us again,
on September 2 for the public hearing, and then you'll see us a third time on October 7 to award the bond sale. So in between all those dates, there's lots of work to do, so we appreciate staff time on this, and, of course, your time to see all this through. The estimated closing date would be October 30. So it's a little slower process than, just sort of issuing the bond. We do have to go through this street reconstruction hearing and then kinda wait those thirty days. So it's like an extra month, that would normally not have to be taken. So,
I'll yield for questions. Lots lots for you to hear from me. You've done this before issuing bonds, but, we'll, just we'll walk you through all that, the process as we move forward. So I think we should be good to go. Any questions from you folks for me at all? Thank you. As it's stated in the reports, staff recommends this hearing be set for Tuesday, 09/02/2025. Are there any questions from counsel? Hearing none, I'd look for a motion to approve. Motion to approve. Motion by Brent to approve. Do I have a second? Second. Second by Doug.
Any further discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carries. Thank you. Thank you. And I'd like to wish Chris a bond voyage. Next up we have 3.2.6, Resolution 40 three-twenty five to set public date for public hearing to consider establishment of a development District 22 and adoption of a development program for Development District 22 and with that we go back to Troy Kletter. Alright, the city council did approve a financing incentive program for developers to help encourage single family housing.
We did agree that the way we would provide that financing would be is upfronting the cost for the hard surfacing of streets, curb and gutter and sidewalks for development up to five years. And we were kind of waiting for a project before we actually technically put it all together here because we knew it was going to be a difficult way of doing it. So with our bond or with our legal counsel the best way to provide this financing is through a loan agreement, and that would be you know paid back as lots are developed on an incremental
basis with a balloon payment of five years. In order to provide a loan for housing development the city must establish a development district for the entire city where a public hearing is required. So this resolution is to set a public hearing for August 19 which will be the next City Council meeting. Again this is just to set up the district, I think we've got a template here to use for other projects should they come about. Separate loan agreement then will be provided for the Council to adopt here once the
district is established. So staff would recommend approval of this resolution setting the public hearing for August 19. Thank you. Any questions for Troy on this? Hearing 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? Right. Hearing none, all those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carries. We're now up to the miscellaneous portion of the council meeting. We have eight miscellaneous items tonight. The first is three point three point one garbage refuse hauler permit, junk solutions LLC,
Canada last meeting without talking garbage. We go to Sid Mr. Abbousi. I get all the good ones. So we have received all the necessary applications and fees and staff recommend approval. Thank you. Any questions for Chris on this? Motion to approve. Motion by Doug to approve. Do I have a second? Second. Second by Don. Any further discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carries. Thank you. Next is 3.3.2 on sale wine and 3.2% malt liquor license for Little Theater of Owatonna. And we go back to city administrator Bussey.
Yeah. You're working me hard my last meeting, I would say. So the LTO, as you know, is our community theater on the West Hills campus. We have recently made some renovations to Merrill Hall, and they have some additional space that they'd like to use, as a lobby reception area, and that is the premise they would like to use for, the liquor license and have some, cocktail receptions there. So we have the background check was completed. The chief has no objection, to the issuance of the permit and the license and we have collected the fees
of $375 and staff would recommend approval. Thank you. Any questions for Chris on this? Hearing none, I'd look for a motion to approve. So moved. Motion by Dan to approve. Do I have a second? Second. Second by Doug. All those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carries. Now it's The Sean Show. 3.3.3 Street and utility project change order number one with Wenzel Construction. Sean Murphy, Public Works Director, good evening. Good evening, Mayor and Council. Yes, we're asking for approval of change order number one for our 2025 Street utility
project. When this project was awarded, Wentzel Construction came in with a low bid of $1,809,000 and some change. It was roughly 17% under the engineers estimate. Due to that lower than estimated project cost and Otona Public Utilities requesting to add on additional water main work in Second Avenue Southwest going from Oakdale Street South to Oakdale Lane. We negotiated some contract pricing with Wentzel Construction to take that on as part of
our 2025 Street Utility project. With the water main being replaced in second, it was also a good candidate for the city to replace our sanitary sewer main as well. So we're adding that in as part of this change order as well. So the budget impact is an increase in our total contract value by $135,170 Majority of those funds will be either reimbursed by OPU or paid for out of our sanitary sewer fund. There's some minor costs that will be attributed to
our operating budget. With that staff recommends approval of the change order. Thank you. Any questions for Sean? Hearing none, I look for a motion to approve. So Motion by Dan to approve. Do I have a second? Second. Second by Dave. Any further discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carries. Thank you. Now we're at 3.3.42025 CIP overlay change order number one with Crane Creek Asphalt and once again John Murphy. Thanks again. When this project was awarded to Crane Creek Asphalt in May,
they came with a low bid price of $463,857 roughly 10% under engineers estimate. Since bid was lower than the planned cost, we had a cul de sac Ridgeview Place adjacent to the project that we had deemed not suitable for a two inches mill and fill is what we're doing for a majority of the project. After working with the contractor and doing some investigative work, we agreed to or contractor agreed to a $30,697
increase to have a full pavement replacement as part of our CIP overlay project. The total cost with this change order would be $494,554.94 it is still under our engineers estimate in line with our budget amount for our 2025 CIP overlay. With that staff recommends approval of the change order. Thank you. Any questions on this? Hearing none, I look for a motion to approve. So moved. Oh, I'm sorry. Dan had a question. I just have a comment. I like these last two miscellaneous items where we're getting more done for the same
amount budgeted. Unlike the next four items. Nice job to Murphy. Thank you. Thank you. Any other questions for Sean? Hearing none, I look for a motion to approve. So moved. Motion by Don to approve. I'm thinking Dan here. Do I have a second? Second. Second by Dave. Too many D's. Any further discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carries. The next three are change orders for the wastewater treatment plant versus 3.3.5 change order number 22. Sean Murphy. Thanks again. If it works for counsel we can present all four change orders at one time
and then follow-up with questions after. Perfect. So we have four change orders in front of you here tonight, counsel. Our change order 22, 20 '3, 20 '4 and 20 '5 for our wastewater treatment plant expansion project. Our first change order is a combination of multiple work change directives throughout the project some credits some increases that we had prepared in over the last month. Change order 23, we as we set out on this project,
we plan for a significant amount of price escalation, I think when we went out to bid and wanted to document these differently. So we have some price escalation change in change order $23 that total increase is roughly $30,607 Change Order 24, this came in towards the end of our project. It was a unique situation in which our primary digester lid removal that was a bid item in our contract.
It was a unique I don't think it was a fastening but we have a two layered roof structure on our primary digester. There's a steel outer structure and then a diaphragm structure underneath. The two two roofing systems were adhered together using liquid tar. Very unique application not seen before by our engineers nor the MPCA and our representatives thirty five years of working through wastewater treatment facilities. This was not seen during
initial assessment it would have taken destructive means so either puncturing the diaphragm to investigate or making part or removing part of our existing roof structure. It's a very unique removal. There's only a few contractors that will perform that work due to being a confined space working with a flammable liquid that is more than likely going to be removed by burning off so we reached out to four contractors two refused to put in
bid numbers for it. One was not able to get to it until I believe either October or November and the remaining contractor could come within two weeks. So the budget impact for that removal is going to be $231,806.8 And finally change order 25, this just came in at the end of the week due to an unknown condition of power feeding our sludge storage building. And there's an eight week lead time, so we wanted to get this change order in so we could get the contractor
moving on being able to order that control panel. The increase for change order 25 is 33,434.09 and the total contract change sorry, the total contract value would be $58,968,775 which is roughly about a 5.8% increase from our original contract. Just going back to some of our previous change orders, a lot of these are some unknown conditions things we did not know just like
the unique situation with our primary digester lid. We've had roughly $300,000 to $350,000 worth of price escalation throughout the project when we were based on our engineering staff which we do have Eric Meester here to answer any questions about these change orders and provide a quick update on the project. We've also been able to maximize down equipment time throughout the construction and rehabilitation of a lot of our process buildings so the 5.8%
is definitely within line but when we have some of those big ticket items of unknowns like our blower piping which was roughly $460,000 a failed retaining wall system that was a little over $400,000 from the project itself those cost increases in terms of change order percentages is fairly minimal. So I'm happy to have Eric come up and answer any questions or answer any questions on any of these change orders. Any questions for Sean on these change orders?
Doug? Sean, you are showing an incredible amount of patience with this. I think most of us are losing our patience with all these work changes. There's not much we can do about you can't finish it. So but I'm sure hopefully you're putting the screws to them a little bit on some of these things. And Eric can attest to it. Our lead project engineer, she's actually on vacation this week but Jennifer puts a lot of time into to ensuring that the city is getting every dollar that they deserve out of the contractors and that we're not giving anything away.
Every change order that we bring to you is fully recommended and vetted out by our engineering staff as well as our wastewater treatment staff including Andy at Better Wastewater Treatment Facility. So at some point you're going to come and say it's finished, it's done, there's no more. Do we know when that might be? So with change order 24, it does increase our completion date from the October to the December, but substantially complete having everything in really hoping towards the November and then working through
close out and punch list items from there until early twenty twenty five. Are you going to make it? To complete the project? Yes, we will. We're good. Thank you. You mean completion hopefully by January 2026. Sorry, 2026, sorry. Yes, correct. Don McCann. Just a quick question, John, in that work order change number 24, you kept using unique, unique, unique going forward in the future, are we going to have potential issues if we have to fix something because it
is so unique? So we're getting an entire new lid for our primary digester. So it's the act of removing it. So this is, Eric can probably fill in for what we did on our other digester and the fastening method. But no, the idea is that it's being fully removed and we're building an entire new lid so that we won't have that issue going forward. Okay. That was my major concern if we're so unique. And we won't be filling the annular space with tar.
Yes. A lot of these, Doug, the back half of this, probably the last six, eight months or so, we're getting into the rehab of the existing facility, and we're finding these kinds of surprises with the leaky air piping. And I mean, never seen or heard of filling you know, to seal a digester, cover with tar like they did. My suspicion is that the original contractor probably got a little lazy and they were putting tar on the roof and said, boy, what an easy way to just fill in the space was fill it in with
tar as opposed to how they probably should have done it, which is with a lot of sand and just a little bit of, you know, maybe six inches of tar to seal it off. But they filled in all, like, six feet of depth in that lid. So it's a really it was a really big surprise. And we've been vetting this for like a month trying to find people that could actually do the work because it's such a different challenging scenario to deal with. Most people have never even seen that before, that kind of construction method.
Yes. I guess I was just surprised that it's so unique that with all the engineering drawings and everything that's going forward, that somebody kind of just better I was up there when the contractor was doing the sample, trying to figure out what they had to do to take that cover out. And I was actually up there helping them. And I couldn't believe, that the deeper we'd go, like every six inches, we'd take some out and we'd pull it out and clean their little makeshift core sample and more more rubber and tar. Put it back in, take another it was just all the way to the bottom.
All it was was solid rubber tar. It's really unfortunate. What do you do? I get it, Doug, right? And to answer your question, too, I would say, Don, there's certainly things that we're implementing in this project and you guys are seeing it with 160 some odd work change directives. It's trying this time around to do it right so that, you know, our predecessors aren't asking some of these same kinds of questions like what the hell were they doing. Okay. And that's kind of where I'm headed to is, you know, with all the engineering drawings and all the things that we end up doing and
your guys are doing, that sometimes people cut corners. And as long as you're doing it right, you know, we can assure And documenting it too, that's a big part of it. Right? So sometimes it helps if you know. Right? You can get them addressed in the documents and the contractor knows and you can, you know, get it as part of the project and not have to deal with it like this. So that's something that we've been really focused on is doing a much, much better job of documenting what it is we're doing, why we're doing it, so that, you know, staff and everybody moving forward knows what's there and then they can they can rely
on it. Any other questions for Sean? I would agree with Council Member Voss. Change orders, my expectation is they're going to become fewer and fewer. That's my expectation. We'll see what happens. I would say one last thing, Kevin, on that is it, I don't I think we've uncovered all of the scope of the work, I think has been uncovered now. So I don't think we're diving into new uncharted territories with the remaining works. I'm not saying that we're not going to have no change orders, but I don't know that we're going to have big surprises now that we've got pretty much every aspect of the project exposed.
As long as we get a rebate at the end of twenty four point five million dollars I think counsel will be happy. I couldn't agree with you more. We're working on it. With that, we will take these one at a a time. The first one is 3.3.5. I would look for a motion to approve. So moved. And to approve, do I have a second? Second. Second by Dave. Any discussion on that? Hearing none, all those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carries. Next one is 3.3.6, order number change order number 23. Motion to approve. Motion by Doug to approve that. Is there a second? Second. Second by Brent.
Any further discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carries. Final one is 3.3.7, change order number 24. I would look for a motion to approve on that. Motion to approve. Motion by Brent to approve. Do I have a second? Second. Second by Doug. Any discussion on that one? Hearing none, all those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carries. Thank you, Sean. Our final item tonight is 3.3.8. I got one more change. One more change. Did I miss one? 25. Oh, I'm sorry. 3.3.8, order number 25. Look for a motion to approve.
Motion to approve. Motion by Doug to approve. Do I have a second? Second. Second by Dan. Any discussion on that? Hearing none, all those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carries. Now we're up to 3.3.9 and the user agreement with verified first. And with that, we go to Emily Famert. Good evening. Mayor, council. Tonight, I'm requesting council to approve the verified first end user agreement. Currently, we have our local law enforcement do our preemployment background checks. And,
with some increased recruitment efforts, we are seeing pulling applicants from out of state more frequently. So we wanted to revisit that. And, verified first is a service that will allow us to tailor our background check processes to the position that we are hiring for, and it does integrate seamlessly with our recruitment platform, NeoGov, as well. So it will expedite the consent process as well. And the background checks will be more thorough.
So, the budget impact, will be based on the number of background checks that we actually run through Verified First. And with vacancies and things like that, we're anticipating that budget impact for this year to be approximately $1,500 Staff recommends approval. Thank you. Any questions for Emily on this? Hearing none, I look for a motion to approve. So moved. Motion by Dan to approve. Do I have a second? Second. Second by Dave. Any further discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carries. We're now up to staff report.
Jenny do we have a staff report tonight? Okay, thank you. So staff report tonight is IT, Head of IT Operations, Ryan. Good evening, sir. Good evening, Mayor and Council. Just a few things I wanted to update you on as far as what we're doing in the IT department. With the news items you've probably heard with St. Paul and some of the cybersecurity things that they've been dealing with, I just thought I'd share with you some of the things we've been working on in that direction. It's obviously a hot topic and something very important that we'd be working on.
One of the things that we've been doing that you're well aware of is things related to multifactor. You've worked with my staff getting yourself set up. We've also been deploying an endpoint detection and response system. So that's basically just a little client running on the computers to look for and to report back to us if it sees any suspicious activity. And we're getting very close to getting that done. I'm also a part of different groups, through League of Minnesota Cities, the IT Professionals group, and also through,
Minnesota whole of state cybersecurity group. And so I get a lot of updates on what they're finding now through the St. Paul situation. And so we've been taking that information, double checking it against what we have in place. And I'm happy to report, as of right now, we're checking all the boxes and we're good on all the things that they've seen happen with St. Paul. We hopefully should not see that because we've got our systems in place. Also, there's also, a list of what they call indicators of compromise,
and they give that to us. So we're using that as well to check our firewalls and different things to make sure we have everything in place. Another thing that's been kind of coming to the forefront in our department is data requests. So with that, we are streamlining our process, looking at how we use our system to pull that information in a timely manner to be able to give those responses back to the public. Also, we're reviewing how we store our data, how long we store our data, all those pieces. And we work with the other departments to kind of establish how that's going to
look going forward. And the last thing, that I just wanted to mention is we've obviously been doing a lot of work with our city administrator as we go through this transition period, trying to look at how we do our operations, where we store our data to make it easier for them to share information and work more efficiently together. So we've made a lot of progress in that area and so hopefully those transitions will go better in the future. And that's it. Thank you. Any questions for Ryan? I've got one. Yes. Dan? You had mentioned different data requests that we've had.
Mhmm. Could you give me an idea how much that's cost? I can't give you a cost estimate. I mean, I can say for my self, time wise, over the last few weeks, I've probably spent anywhere from three to five hours preparing those requests. Okay. And that's over a small period. So if those increase or if those however that works out, it could increase or decrease over time, depending on what's going on in our community, what people are looking for. But there's lots of different departments that get requests that I don't know about or
see, so there's a lot more going on behind the scenes than just what I deal with. Thank you. Yep. Anything else for Ryan? Thank you. Alright. Thank you. We're now up to the public comment portion of the meeting. Please limit your comments to two minutes, 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 hold up one 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. City Council will not respond directly to comments in this venue or take immediate action in response to them. With that, we are open for public comment. Oh, David Herrenan. 757 Churchill Drive. Good evening. Good evening. Mayor, city council, on behalf of the Little Theatre of Otona, on behalf of their board of directors, on behalf of all the patrons, the management, and everyone,
I just wanna say thank you all for your continued support of the little theater as well as the arts in the city of Otona. We just we're just entering our sixtieth year and we look forward to a continued partnership and at least 60 more so we look forward to continuing to serve and entertain the city. So So I just want to say thank you all again. Thank you. Chris, now that you're retiring, there's an opportunity for you to be on stage. Maybe I could be I could be a stagehand. I don't know about that. Yeah. We need those two. I might call you.
Gary Jones, 995 Ridge Road. Good evening, Gary. Good evening. Since last year, we made some great headway in trying to keep the public safe during the archery hunt. And one big change was the elimination of Manti. Now it's only point nine one acres. When you look at it overhead, you can figure it out on the GIS tool that we all know about. Now looking at Mineral Springs, from all the overheads, I looked at the north and south stand locations for the park. Now one big improvement over for 2025 over last year, we're now 150 feet instead of 100 from mowed grass, trails,
maintained trails, or also from the edge of the park or public or, you know, private property. And when we looked at that, when I look at the season two stand at Menlo Springs, it seemed to kinda squeeze it down. I was not able to find any huntable space on that. Now they probably will, but just on my very first look at it, I could not find that. When I looked at the at the, the, first season stand, which is farther up the creek, I found huntable land there using the GIS system, taking back all the setbacks, the 150 feet and,
you know, from all the boundaries and that. But I only found 1.31 acres. Now when I look at that and I look at 0.91 acres of manthi, it's only bigger than manthi by about the size of my backyard. So it's bigger, but not very much. Now I know this reason for the hunt is reduce the size of the herd. I'm from a farm, I know culling, I get it. But if the only place you could get those deer was at 1.31 acres at Mineral Springs, I could kind of understand it more. But right now, you're taking them all out of Creasel,
Hammond, and Naas. You guys, get used to watching me stumble up here over a minute and a half, but Deere can go from Creasel to Naas in minutes. And so I humbly ask, to try and vote again to remove the hunt from Mineral Springs. We're getting the deer anyway at the other parks. Thank you. Thank you. Anyone else wish to speak this evening? Seeing no one else approaching, we are now up to council comment. And first up tonight is Councilmember Voss. Thank you, president Rainey. I do have a few things tonight.
First of all, I wanted to thank OPD and the Owatonna Fire Department for the night tonight last night. I went out with a officer and she was fantastic. We had a great time. So many nice people in this town. It's fun to go meet them. So that was a great night, perfect weather. So that was great. Second item I wanted to mention was, roughly a month ago, there was a little ditty in our local paper about, the cannabis issue going on right now and I just wanted to respond a little bit. Obviously nobody's that excited and thrilled about that legislation at least I wasn't.
According to our legislators it was poorly written legislation which is evidenced by the fact that it's two and a half years and you still can't buy anything. We've seen Albert Lee and Red Wing in the news in the last week at least I did if you guys followed that. They've had some issues. I recently attended a seminar in Duluth on cannabis and the moderator's most usual answer was I don't know, we'll get back to you. So that's where that legislation is. So I guess what I wanted to really let people know per the article is
the RPG Group is something we have been working with. We're talking about it. It's an option that we can do. There's numerous other options. We're not 100% committed to it yet, and we're doing our best to keep up on it. It changes every day. So we're trying hard to keep up with that, and I think we'll make some good decisions hopefully. Mr. Walbrand will help us make good decisions and so will the staff. So that will be dealt with at a little later date. Last item, obviously, everybody is going to say congratulations to Chris.
Thank you very much. You've done a great job, and it's been a pleasure to work with you. Thank you. Well said. Call center of Burbank. Pretty difficult to say any more than has already been stated. But Chris, it's been a pleasure to know you and to work with you. And, I saw your daughter is expecting again, so you've got another grandchild on the way. So enjoy. And if I can give you any advice as a retiree, don't say yes to anything for at least six months. Enjoy yourself. Thank you. Council member Boehlke. Nothing further to add. Council member McCann.
I just want to kinda reiterate what, councilman Voss said about the night out. It was a a good time. A lot of nice people. I wasn't actually in my ward. I was in another ward, but, very open, very receptive. Final thing is related to Chris. Thank you. I haven't known you that long but thank you for your leadership and guidance. You will you will be missed but, the new general will do a great job. Council member Spenby. Chris I remember sitting back on the interview committee when you were hired back in 2007 I was thinking who is the city administrator from Waseca and what can she
bring to the city. All I can say is that you brought a lot to the city, and I won't go into detail everything that you brought to the city, but you are leaving the city in a better position from when you started. And, again, I just wanna thank you for what you've done for this community and how much pride you have taken in in your job and the culture you have built for the employees of the city. So thanks a lot. Thank you. We'll start. Appreciate it. Mayor Jessup. Yeah, I just wanna echo what was said last night about the Night to Unite. I got the opportunity to ride with, Captain Sorensen. We had a great time.
We had 27 to pick from and turns out we were really social. We only got to three. But it was a lot of fun. So a great show of community in Owatonna, which we expect nothing but. And again, Chris, thank you. You know, again, like I said earlier, coming into this role, you know, following in the steps of someone who has been here for a long time, it it can be a little daunting. But your availability, your advice, your willingness to listen to me and respond to me, treating me like an equal when I had no business being treated like an equal,
you helped me to find my footing, and I owe you for that. And for every day that I'm here, a little bit of you is here. And the same can be said of every person sitting up here, everyone that's on your staff. As long as they're here, so are you. Thank you. All said. Brent you forgot to mention one thing, we got a big event that starts next week, the Steele County Free Fair. With with the fair, it it attracts a lot of people to our community. If you are choosing to drive out to the fair, please drive with caution.
I don't care that the speed limit is 30. Slow down. Kids are excited to get to the fair, to get on the rides. Be extra vigilant, please. It's it's a great event. It's a fun event. Last thing we want to do is hear about an unfortunate accident after the fair. So please, please, please be be aware of your surroundings. With that, let's see if missus Bussey Yes. And I don't say that lightly. You've been so so terrific. You administrators don't stay in a community
for over ten years. Most don't last after seven years. The council gets sick of the administrator, the administrator gets sick of the council, what have you. Chris has been such a complete team player with staff, with council, with individuals for all of these years and you've always stayed above the fray. You don't make rash decisions, never have. Your heart is with Oatonna. Absolutely. Your time here is appreciated so much. The community thanks you for all of your efforts and energy.
You will be greatly missed. I am excited for the for us moving forward, but there are some very very big shoes to fill. God bless you. Have a long healthy retirement. I could not ask for anything more of you. With that I turn the comments to you for for, the final time. Alright. Well thank you mayor and council and wow. What an incredible night and afternoon it has been for me. I can't tell you how, wonderful it is to hear from all of you,
all of the people who came to my reception, all of the great things that the mayor said, that Kevin said, that, Mark Walbrand said about me and Greg Schultz coming out of retirement to give me his 2¢, which is always welcome. But I mean, I I feel so very blessed, and I had someone say to me, you know, you don't always get to retire. And so this is an incredible blessing, and, I'm very I'm just filled with gratitude and nobody you know,
everyone's thanking me for all of my work. Well, you don't do it alone, right? I have been very blessed to have a wonderful staff. All of my department heads, and Jenna has really pitched in to to, step up to be your next administrator. I mean, everybody on this team works hard every day for you and the community, and it is, a passion of our employees. And this new culture that this council started is really a game changer for the
city, and I think it's gonna take you folks into the next level, and you guys are gonna do even better and better things. And I know Jenna can get you there, and I just can't express my gratitude enough. It's meant so much to me, and I I I'm just overwhelmed with gratitude and thanks to all of you. Thank you, Administrator. And I didn't cry and I thought I would. With no other business before us tonight, I'd look for a motion to adjourn. So moved. Motion by Brent Spenby to adjourn. Do I have a second? Second.
Second by Dave Burbank. All those in favor signify by saying aye. Opposed? Aye. Aye. With that, I turn it over to Vice President Doug Boss. Some parting words, Chris, on behalf of the council, we congratulate you and wish you the best on your retirement. You have performed your duties with class, poise, dignity, honesty and dedication and the city of Owatonna will always be better for it. So we thank you for that. And with that I'm going to make another motion to close the meeting. We have a motion to adjourn. Do I have a second? Second. Second by Dan.
Any further discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed? We are adjourned. Thank you.