Call the City Council meetings for the City of Boa Tonge, Tuesday, April First. Do I have a roll call, please? Council Member Burbank? Here. Bocke. Here. McCann. Here. Spendi. Here. Voss. Here. Burbank. Rainey. Here. And Mayor Jessup. Here. We have five of the council here and Mayor. Thank you. Everyone please rise as Mr. Burbank leads us in the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of The United States Of America. And to the republic for which you say, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.
All right. Welcome to a snowy, rainy, we don't know what's going on evening here in Owatonna. First up tonight is the council agenda. There are no changes or corrections, so I would look for a motion to approve. So moved. We have a motion by Don to approve. Do we have a second? Second. Second by Dan. Any questions? Seeing none, all those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed? Council agenda has been approved. Mayor Jessup, have you got anything for us tonight? I do, thank you, Council President Rainey. On behalf of the Owton Exchange Club, I have the honor of declaring April of twenty twenty five as Child Abuse Prevention
Month. Joined them last night at Central Park to do tying ribbons on the trees. It was a very nice little ceremony. Thank you. Anything else? That's it for now, thank you. Okay. We're now up to consent agenda and the 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 on collectively. With that I will entertain a motion on these consent agenda items. So moved. Motion by Don to approve, do I have a second? Second. Second by Dane. Any questions?
Seeing none, all those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed? Consent agenda has been approved. Now after the action item, first thing tonight on the action item is the finance report and we go to Councilmember Voss. Thank you. Checks over $20,000 for your consideration tonight are as follows. $23,175 to electric pump incorporated for the Riverwood Lift station replacement pumps. $31,041 to the League of Minnesota Cities Insurance Trust for the South Central Drug Enforcement Unit
property casualty coverage insurance premium. 22,437.35 to the Otana area chamber of commerce. That's the lodging tax from August and September, December 24 was $21.62, January of 20 5 was $20,274 50 5 thousand 3 hundred and 50 2 dollars to the Owatonna Motor Company. That was for a 2025 Ford F-one 50 for the wastewater treatment plant and some miscellaneous parts and supplies. $59,135
to Ramey Turf products. That's for a Bowie Victor Hydro Cedar for the stormwater department. One hundred fifty five thousand forty two dollars to the Southeast Service Cooperative. That's March 2025 health insurance premiums, dollars 22,688 to US Bank, the entire organization monthly credit card purchases from January and February of twenty twenty five. For a total, other expenditures, $171,113 for a subtotal of $539,985
Add to that HRA housing assistance payments of $102,761 for a total of $642,746.76 Thank you. You heard Mr. Voss' report. Any questions? Seeing none, 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 discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed? Finance report is approved. We have two ordinances tonight. The first one is 3.2.1,
it's the first reading of proposed ordinance 20 five-five charitable gambling and we will go to City Administrator Busey. Good evening. Yes, good evening. Before you, the council is asked to consider increasing the number of charitable gambling premise permits, from the current ordinance limit of five to eight, organizations per liquor licensed liquor establishments. We were asked to review this. Staff has, reviewed it. Concerns were raised that this limit of five was too restrictive.
And so after looking into it, staff found that increasing the number of permits per organization would not have a negative effect. The budget impact would not change. The organization's paying annual permit fee of $250 as a flat rate. It's not dependent on how many premise permits you hold. So staff would recommend approval and request a second and final reading of this proposed ordinance, to be held at our next meeting on April, is that sixteen or fifteen? Fifteen. Fifteen.
Thank you. Any questions for Chris? Motion. And I look for a motion to approve. Motion by Doug. Is there a second? Second. Second by Dan. Any further discussion? This speaking of an ordinance I would ask for a roll call please. Council Member Burbank. Aye. Ken Oke. Aye. McCann. Aye. Voss. Aye. Raney. Aye. All five ayes. Thank you. And the first reading is done. Second reading should take place in two weeks. Second one tonight, second ordinance is 3.2.2, first reading of proposed ordinance 20 five-six to adopt the S-eight supplement to the 2025
ordinance code. And we go to City Attorney Mark Walbrand. Let's get that out. Good evening, sir. Alright. I sometimes forget too. In any event, each year the city adopts a number of ordinances and, they exist, and, with the court of administer with the clerk, clerk, but they need then to be added to our our book, our book of ordinances. And so each year, we call on the, company who does that for us to, publish enough for the books that we carry and also for our online,
update of the, ordinance code. And so this is, we do this every year and the group that the staff recommend our approval of this. Thank you. Any questions for Mark on this? Seeing 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? This also being an ordinance, could I have a roll call vote, please? Councilmember Burbank. Aye. Mocke. Aye. McCann. Aye. Koss. Aye. And Rainey. Aye. All five ayes. Thank you. Now move up to resolutions. We have two tonight.
The first one is 3.3.1Fifteen-twenty5. It's a MnDOT variance for Eighteenth Street Southeast Trail Extension project and we go to Sean Murphy, Public Works Director. Good evening. Good evening. Good evening Mayor and Council. Yes we're requesting Council's approval of Resolution fifteen-twenty five requesting a variance from standard State Aid operations, requirements for the Eighteenth Street Southeast Trail project. If you recall back in May of twenty four we requested a very similar variance. Went through MnDOT's State Aid review committee process.
We're requesting a reduction between parking and drive lane. The standard for a street like Eighteenth Street was 19 feet and we requested a reduction down to 8.4 feet. The committee denied our variance application but with that said that we were meeting the intent if we were to change from pull in parking to back in parking. So this resolution is re requesting that variance and rewriting it instead of being pull in parking
to be back in parking. We've already received the approval with a variance letter that was dated 08/08/2024 and we're planning to make plan revisions to change what we had in plans which was parallel parking which is the only thing that met the requirement. Excuse me, sorry this was in front of the softball diamonds at Fairgrounds Park. So increasing our parking from what was currently in plan at 48 stalls to 101
going with the back in option. I know it's a new change but these have been implemented all over the state and proved to work very well. And we think from the amount of parking that can be accommodated from a back end option versus parallel this is a win win for the project. So with that, staff recommends approval and happy to answer any questions. Thank you. Any questions for Sean? Seeing none, I look for a motion to approve. Motion to approve. Motion by Doug to approve. Do I have a second? Second. Second by Dan. Any further discussion?
Seeing none, I'd look. All those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed? The motion carries. Now up to 3.3.2 resolution sixteen-twenty five request federal funds for Main Street County State Aid Highway 48 project. And once again we go to Sean Murphy. Thanks again. Yes, we're here requesting federal funds or an application, for federal funds for our Main Street project, also known as Casaw 48 that Steel County is leading for us. Steel County has indicated that they will be changing their Federal aid allotment for the
East Side corridor to Main Street due to delivery issues with completing the timelines necessary for that project and still meeting the fiscal year 2026 project timeline for those federal funds. With that, they will be shifting it to a Main Street and that would involve moving up the project timeline to 2026. We had it generally slated at 2028 with some flexibility there.
With that, the ATP District, so that is our district within MnDOT. So it's 11 counties in the Southeastern Region. And it's made up of state aid cities. We are allotted so many federal funds every single year so our 2026 Eighteenth Street reconstruction project that's being funded through this program through our ATP6. And this year or for the fiscal year 2029 there is a shortage of applications
and still $740,000 left in federal funds. And that is why we are trying to apply this project for those funds. We don't want those funds to go to other districts cause when we don't utilize all of our funds, that goes back up to central office and gets redistributed throughout the state. So all of those dollar or dollars matter to us and and whether it's a city like Owatonna or Faribault or Winona, we need to keep those dollars in the district. So that's the purpose of this application
and hopefully we put forward a good enough project with already it already being federalized with H SIP funds through a safety improvement program as well as if the ATB district allows the change from project the East Side Corridor to Main Street. So with that, staff would recommend approval of the resolution. Thank you. Any questions for Sean? Yes, Dan. Either I dropped the ball or just came to Council a little bit late. I'm not sure which. But this makes me think that we're pushing the East Side Corridor back and using those funds
to do Main Street? I wouldn't look at it that way. There's a number of steps throughout the federal process. And I think counsel is aware that we did have to go through an environmental document twice on that project. So we were all the way through the process. And then, FHWA said that we should go through it going from a programmatic categorical exclusion to a non programmatic categorical exclusion. That added about a year and a half to our process. There's been a staffing change through, Steele County's, consultant, WSB. Their lead,
environmental document writer has left and gone to MnDOT. So that coupled with a number of other occurrences within that project timeline, it's getting harder and harder to deliver the project and meet the specific deadlines, whether it's the environmental document or planned production that needs to be completed by 04/01/2026. With that, you can't submit plans unless you have all of the acquired right of way in hand. And that can prove to be pretty difficult if our environmental document isn't completed till,
towards the end of this year. So I wouldn't look at it as we're pushing the project back. It it's more so shifting funds to a project that's more ready and more deliverable. That has better odds of being delivered within the time constraints outlined by the federal process. One other question. Even though we're asking for funds, we're not asking the county for funds. We're asking for our own funds. The county is still the lead even that goes through the city of Owatonna. That's correct. So and and maybe I didn't explain it that well.
So the counties have their own pools just like, the cities do. So Steele County was awarded this for four and a half years ago, for the Eastside Corridor for fiscal year twenty twenty six. We're applying for the remainder of funds in fiscal year twenty twenty nine. So we wouldn't be able to get those funds until that year. And we've talked through with Steele County, there's a potential that they can float that money, that difference until we can pay them back once we receive those funds. Still a lot to work out through that,
but Thank you. We have questions for Sean. Sean, so what how much money is O'Connor itself putting in for this project? Do we know yet? Based on the feasibility study, it was estimated about 7,700,000 six point six million dollars of that is eligible for federal or state aid funds. The other 1.1 ish was either through our sanitary sewer funds or our sanitary utilities would be paying for that share or water main replacement and that's a reimbursement by OPU.
OPU. So of that 6.6% of eligible costs, per our agreement with Steele County, we pay 25%. And that's not including if there's any aesthetics, you know, streetscape design items that, you know, something similar to to Cedar Avenue if we had on top of that. So, it's roughly about 1.7 from eligible costs and then we would be paying somewhere between $500 or $600 of our sanitary sewer fund. Okay. And that depends on the option that's selected or?
Say that again. Would that be the option that's selected for the Eighteenth Street then or? Sorry, I thought you were asking about Main Street. No, you're fine. Go ahead. I got it. Any other questions? Seeing none, I'd like to confer a motion to approve. So moved. Motion by Dan to approve. Do I have a second? Second. Second by Dave. Any further discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carries. Three miscellaneous items tonight, the first two are kind of lumped together, and It's the CIP overlay and then authorization to proceed with crack sealing and we'll go
back to Sean Murphy for these. Thanks again. Yes we're looking for Council's motion to proceed with advertisement for bids on our 2025 CIP overlay. So this is in addition to our self performed overlays that our streets crew do every year. The total for this year's CIP overlay is roughly about 1.65 miles. And this would be paid for out of our street reconstruction bonding. With that
staff recommends approval. Thank you. Any questions for Sean on the overlay project? I've got it. Dave. Sean, which streets are gonna are due for that? That's not much of a 1.6 miles, that's pretty short. So this is, including Ridge Road, Riverwood Place, Tenth Avenue Northeast, Eleventh Avenue Northeast, Cotter Place Northeast, Mary Place, portion of Prairie Lane, and Leona Place and and again this is in addition to our self performed streets overlay. Thank you.
And Dan. Do you expect there will be a successful low bid the way you handled the pipe curing? I hope so. I hope we get something 45% below, engineers estimate. No, I think we have a little better bead on, cost of payment. There's not a lot of items or pay items within a project like this and a bulk of that is putting down bituminous. So I think we more than likely be a lot closer in that one. Any other questions for Sean? Seeing none, I'd like to 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. We're now up to 3.4.2 to proceed with the crack sealing and seal coating project. Back to Sean. All right. Thank you. Yep. This is another one of our annual projects, our seal coating projects. So we do these two roadways you know, anywhere from one to about three to four years after new pavement is put down, to route out any developing cracks over freeze thaw cycles,
putting down an an entire seal coat of the bituminous surface and putting chips down to help protect that pavement. This year we're going to be doing a little over five miles. We're looking for bids to be received April 9 and then brought to council. Nope, this is not accurate. I don't believe this is updated. I'm going to have to get back to you on the specific date here but the anticipated costs are in line with the 2025 operating budget for for the crack ceiling. So. Okay. Thank you. Any questions on this for Sean?
Motion by Doug 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. Our last miscellaneous item tonight is 3.4.3, the twenty twenty five year management program and we will go to Parks Director TW. Good evening, sir. Good evening, mayor. You and your staff come to city council on the city. Minnesota DNR's, deer culling program permit. That is our purpose this evening. Twenty twenty five program will run similarly to the 2024 program, with a few slight changes we present.
They will also pass this part. That presentation as well as the yearly data program. Budget, in fact, it's a $20 application fee or application. Thank you. Any questions for TW on this? Seeing 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? Seeing none, all those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carries. We have one staff report tonight. It is our chief of police, Chief Jeff Mundell. Good evening sir. Good evening, Council President Rainey.
Thank you. Good evening, Mayor, City Council. Just a few updates, excuse me, from the Police Department. We hosted the Ortona Community Leadership Ortona Day, Public Safety Day rather, on March 11. And some staffing updates, we still have two officers in field training. We just made a conditional job offer to a part time CSO. And we're using the CSO as a new recruitment strategy for police officers. So we're trying to attract people that are just entering college or somebody in their first or second year of college. And with the support of Ms. Busse, we're allowed to go up our,
up above our regular staffing levels for CSO in an effort to do some recruitment for police officers. We are currently three short of police officers. We happen to have an open and an open process for police officers right now and we're gonna keep that just open and reoccurring until we decide to take it down, but it'll give an opportunity for our staff to direct, potential candidates that we do some internal recruitment efforts for that. There happens to be some police officer applicants now and we're screening them for, as future candidates.
Our police explorers are gonna be competing in the fiftieth annual police explorer conference in Rochester. So they've done very well in the past. They've brought home trophies. This will be a big event because it's a fiftieth year. There's teams from all over the country and this will be a really big event. So I'll be going there to cheer them on and participate in the award ceremony. Myself and the two division captains will be participating in ETI, which is Executive Training Institute through the Minnesota Chiefs of Police Association. We'll be in Rochester for a conference on, next week,
April seventh through the ninth. During that time I will be presenting our experience with the IC POET grant. In addition to a couple other chiefs, some of them had successful experience with reaching applicants and sending them through the academy. And we are one city that's being represented on the panel that did not successfully recruit a candidate and put them through the program. There is going to be a grant opportunity coming up regarding that IC POET. It will be probably offered to request for proposals sometime in April or May.
And if that opportunity exists, again, depending on the governor's budget, I am interested in pursuing that opportunity to look for that lateral career, police officer candidate. Just to go back, even though we didn't fill the position, I think more or less we just ran out of time. We identified some really good candidates. They just didn't happen to pass the conditional background steps of employment. Otherwise, we did identify some really good people. Thank you for approving FLOC. We'll be moving on that program. I'll keep you posted on that. To get back to some of your questions,
President Rainey, on FLOC, weather and visibility does not affect the affect the cameras. I spoke to Fairville PD. They have some really good success in their program. They've had some, important, I don't know if you want to call them arrests or incidents where they were able to use the flock system to apprehend some dangerous offenders. It does take a little bit a while to get some staff buy in and get used to the system, so just be patient as we start looking at the data that will be on our website for our transparency portal. It'll take a little bit of time to develop that program, but they are very
pleased with the service. Communities like Mankato and Albert Lea are also exploring and they're close to signing up as well. So once again there's about 53 Minnesota police agencies that have the LPR system. Couple public engagement opportunities. Officer Casey Martin, K-nine Vegas, attended McKinley's elementary school SAC program yesterday. He demonstrated to the kids some obedience and some apprehension work. Usually K9 Vegas has a strong following and he's quite a popular hit.
And unfortunately he was not able to attend a Otona Leadership Academy because they were ill. The other part of the other piece of community engagement is detective Berg will present at the senior place regarding fraud against seniors. That date is yet to be determined. Then lastly on my list, the Moonlighters Exchange Club is hosting another police officer of the year banquet, and we've determined the date to be May 15. We're working on identifying our twenty twenty four police officer of the year, but the banquet will occur on May 15.
That's all I have. Back to you. Thank you. Any questions for Chief Mundell? Got it. And one, I know in the past we've had some, extremely talented, dedicated CSO officers. Have we ever had CSO officers advance to become a police officer? Many. Many of them, yes. It's a super opportunity to look at these candidates and without really getting them too scared, every day is like a job interview. It's an opportunity for us to look at them versus relying on a fifteen, twenty minute job interview. You can really assess their skills,
and just kind of grow them into our team and groom them how we want them to be. So, there's been a handful of officers that we currently have that came right through the CSO position. Perfect. Thank you. It's a good investment, very good investment. Any other questions for the Chief? Thank you, Chief Mundell. Jenna, as I'm reading our public comment, can you make sure the mic is on please? Thank you. We're now at the public comment portion of our meeting. Please limit your comments to two minutes. 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 hold up a hand after one minute forty five seconds to notify the speaker they have fifteen seconds to complete their commitment 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 it I open up the public comment portion of the meeting. Hi, my name is Gail Jorgensen. I have the historic home on the corner of Main And Grove. I wanted to speak about the upcoming Main Street project, and that I ask that the design portion takes into consideration the homeowners on my block, the residents of my block. For me in particular, I am against eminent domain and then lopping off part of my lawn, and it would impact my accessibility to my house from my front entrance,
my new side entrance, getting into the alley for my garage, and it would impact my neighbors for the, Quinn on the, and the other neighbors for accessing their house as well. So I would ask you to really consider how the design process proceeds. Thank you. Thank you. Melissa Zimmerman. Twenty five twenty five Stoney Creek Drive. I had a nice speech already with you guys, but we kinda got some bombshell news here. I guess I'm here to say, this news was new to us as well as it appears to you guys.
We would just ask that if you guys could keep us up to date on what that means for the East Side Corridor project, if that means that we're pushing it out indefinitely, if that means we're slowing it down, just keeping us in the loop would be ideal. Thank you. Thank you. Anyone else wish to speak this evening? Seeing no one approaching, I will go to counsel comments. First up tonight is, Mr. Burbank. Nothing more to add. Mister Boelke. Nothing more. Mister McCann. Nothing. Mister Boss. Nothing to add. Mister Boosse who after this meeting has approximately eight meetings left until her retirement.
That is kind of crazy to think, right? And I I have nothing more to say. We're good. I have nothing to say as well. Oh, I'm sorry. Mayor Jessup. Nothing tonight thank you. How did I miss the mayor? With no other business before us I would look for a motion to adjourn. Motion by Dan to adjourn. Do I have a second? Second. Second by Dave There will be no discussion. So all in favor say aye. Aye. Or adjourn. Thank you, everyone.