we're on the air are we ready to go we all set all right good evening everyone i'm going to call to order this regular meeting of the richfield city council it is april
22nd and it is 7:02 p.m if you're able please rise for the pledge of allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the for it stands one nation indivisible with liberty and
justice for all all right thank you next we'll move on to open forum is there anyone here who wishes to speak to the open forum did anyone send any comments in ahead of time we have not received any
comments mayor thank you if you are listening um in the future you can share your comments in person by voicemail or email and you may also request to participate virtually for more information on submitting comments to the open form refer to the council
agenda and minutes page on richfieldm.gov/city councsel next we'll move on to the approval of the minutes of the city council work session meeting from april 8th 2025 and the city council regular meeting from april 8th 2025
i move approval of both sets of minutes second it's been moved and seconded is there any discussion or corrections go ahead council member hayford um i i do not have any corrections but i just wanted to give a special thank you to city clerk friedrich who spent a lot of time going through the work session over
and over again to get more complete minutes so just thank you for that work all right thank you any other discussion comments or questions all in favor of approving those two sets of minutes please say i i all
opposed and we have approved the minutes next we'll be moving on to presentations and we'll start out with the arbor day presentation so i believe city manager rodriguez is going to be accepting this
one so i will meet you at the front this is a proclamation of the city of richfield whereas arbor day will be celebrated nationwide on friday april 25th and will provide people across the nation an opportunity to celebrate the
importance of trees and forests to our economy culture history and future and whereas arbor month is celebrated in minnesota during the month of may to promote the value and planting of trees
and whereas arbor day 2025 marks the 153rd anniversary of the original united states arbor day celebration held on april 10th 1872 in nebraska city nebraska and whereas trees are of great
value as they provide clean air and water shade and energy savings wildlife habitat recreational opportunities wood products and jobs while reducing storm water runoff and capturing and storing carbon from the atmosphere thereby
offsetting greenhouse gas emissions and whereas properly planting and caring for a diverse mix of trees makes community forests more resilient by minimizing the impacts of diseases insects and other stressors such as climate change and
providing long-term community and environmental benefits and whereas thoughtfully choosing planting and caring for a diverse mix of trees now supports resilient communities into the future and whereas arbor day was
celebrated in conjunction with earth day by the city of richfield through park cleanup events at veterans park on april 22nd now therefore i mary suppel mayor of the city of richfield do hereby proclaim april 25th 2025 as arbor day in
the city of richfield as a way to promote tree stewardship and mindful choices to help preserve and enhance our urban forest proclaim this 22nd day of april 2025 thank you so and did you want to say something or uh sure uh i just want to
thank our forester joe clark who leads all of our preservation efforts and also the public works workers um that are doing the work on the trees and so thank you for this thank you thank you um our next um proclamation is going to
be about the role of therapy animals so we're going to allow danmeha and barney to come join us okay bud let's stand over here where they can see you
there you go and and i think some some of your other colleagues have joined us too so for anyone who's watching on tv if you can't see barney is a therapy animal oh it looks like they're now zooming out
so you can see barney there you go all right thank you whereas the city of richfield recognizes the vital role of therapy animals and their handlers play in improving human health and well-being through the human animal bond
and whereas communities across the united states have designated april 30th 2025 as the national therapy animal day and whereas therapy animal teams work to improve the lives of individuals in the city of richfield and the surrounding
community by providing comfort joy and companionship to people of all ages in schools nursing homes and hospitals and whereas therapy animal programs rely on dedicated volunteers who train their animals to meet
certification standards and generously give their time to support those in need and whereas these programs strengthen the community bonds and promote a spirit of compass compassion and civic pride throughout the city of richfield now therefore i mary supple
mayor of the city of richfield on behalf of the city council hereby proclaim april 30th 2025 as national therapy animal day in the city of richfield and encourage all residents to recognize and celebrate the important work of therapy animals and their dedicated handlers
proclaimed this 22nd day of april 2025 so thank you all and if any of you'd like to say anything thank you uh thank you so much uh we appreciate the uh acknowledgement and thanks to us uh city staff because i know it takes a little time to put these
um things together but it was fun working with mark and the folks over at city hall um getting the information and the stuff back to us uh barney and i have been doing therapy work for a couple of years my my colleagues here have been at this longer than we have and generally we are i guess under the radar people don't see us don't know
about us um as well unless you've put in the request to have the therapy animals come in but given the world situation with stress going everywhere we're getting more and more and more requests for animals to come in hospitals schools businesses so um we're hoping this will
kind of maybe raise our profile a little bit and a shout out to anybody who might think they've got a animal at home would like to do this kind of volunteer work we're always out there recruiting for uh more teams we we can accommodate all the requests that we get and i know that we
also have a uh i think city staff had indicated that they're planning on doing a wellness day um for the city later this spring or in the in the summer so that folks here in the fire station the police can come over and interact with the barney is well known to the emts at the fire station next door there's a jar
on their counter that says barney um and we are frequent visitors over over there so thank you again madame mayor it's nice to see you again and we won't take up any more of your time there's that well i think they she wants a picture here oh perfect does the rest of the council want to be up here
good job okay not sure how we're going to do this but okay i i'll tell you what somebody if you want to hold this i'll get down with him and then height requirement here i can see everybody
accident of birth in the yeah that's right blame that one should have said barney for cute can i just say one quick thing
sure go ahead um so i just wanted to say that you know being a resident of richfield this is very very important to me um you know i've been doing therapy work for four years and whenever something comes up in the city of richfield i always try to jump on it
because it is my home city um we've done numerous things over at south education when um all that happened a few years ago so um just thank you guys for this proclamation thank you thank you
i did have one one comment is uh go ahead i want to thank you for what you do because i i work with veterans and i got to tell you uh you go to the va and you see the difference um someone who can't sit still or can't calm down and they get a therapy dog near him it makes
a tremendous difference so thank you for what you do thank you thank you so much all right and our final proclamation i'm going to invite up tim garvey the commissioner from the human rights commission so this is the proclamation for asian
and pacific american heritage month whereas asian and pacific american heritage month from may 1st through may 31st pays tribute to asian and pacific americans the fastest growing ethnic minority group in the united states of
america for their contributions to the united states of america and to celebrate the diverse culture and rich history they bring to our community and whereas may was designated as asian and pacific american heritage month because of the first documented arrival of
japanese immigrants to the united states on may 7th 1843 and the completion of the first transcontinental railroad on may 10th 1869 which was completed mostly by chinese immigrant laborers and whereas
the first documented arrivals of an asian or pacific islander to minnesota occurred in duth minnesota in 1875 and whereas minnesota was has provided asylum and relocation for many asian refugees from the vietnamese
leosians cambodians and mong in the 1970s and the 1980s and the tibetans and the karen peoples during the 1990s while other asian and pacific islanders have immigrated to minnesota in their pursuit of opportunities and freedoms and
whereas at least 6.2% of the population of richfield is of asian or pacific islander origin according to the 2024 estimates by the us census bureau and whereas asian and pacific americans have been subjected to discriminatory
treatment throughout their time in the united states including the chinese exclusion act which unethically prohibited chinese immigration and naturalization to the united states from 1882 to 1943 the immoral internment of japanese
americans during world war ii as a result of an executive order declared illegal by the passing of the civil liberties act of 1988 which included rep reparations and a presidential apology the systematic housing
discrimination in richfield as a result of racial covenants from the early 1900s until the passing of the fair housing act in 1968 and recent irrational and unsubstantiated blame for co 19 and whereas asian and pacific americans have
made the united states better through initiative creativity hard work and the sharing of their cultural heritage and deserve to be recognized for their achievements and participation in richfield civic life and whereas the richfield human rights commission
supported a proclamation celebrating asian and pacific american heritage month at its april 1st 2025 meeting now therefore i mary supple mayor of richfield on behalf of the richfield city council do proclaim the month of may as asian and pacific american
heritage month in the city of richfield and call on the people of richfield to observe this month with appropriate programs activities and ceremonies and continue to honor the contributions of asian and pacific islander americans throughout the year proclaimed this 22nd
day of april 2025 thank you commissioner garvey did you want to say anything only very briefly um i just wanted to thank you mayor and the city council for your continued support of both the human rights commission and the human rights of all residents of richfield no matter
their um race origin color religion or any other protected status thank you thank you oh i guess we thank you our next item of business is the approval of the agenda
i move approval of the agenda seconded it's been moved and seconded to approve the agenda is there any discussion all in favor of approving the agenda please say i i all opposed we have approved the agenda we'll next move on
to the consent calendar of city manager rodriguez thank you mayor the consent calendar contains several separate items which are acted upon by the city council in one motion once the consent calendar has been approved the individual items and recommended actions have also been approved no further council action on
these items is necessary on tonight's consent calendar item a consider a resolution accepting a grant from the minnesota department of agriculture in the amount of 75,000 to provide urban agricultural programs item b consider the acceptance of the quotation from
midwest playscapes for $26,852.50 for the construction of a natural playground at woodlake nature center and authorized the recreation services director to proceed with the project item c consideration of a resolution authorizing submitt of a
taxbased revitalization program grant application for environmental investigation on the american legion property 6501 portland avenue item d consider adoption of a resolution rescending a special assessment for
disease tree removal in the amount of $5,268.73 incorrectly levied against 6414 12th avenue south i'm not sure if i need to read the p number but i will uh 26-028-24-24-000030 in
2024 item e consider adoption of a resolution of support for richfield's community project funding grant application in the amount of 4,200,000 for the richfield emergency water interconnect project and finally item f consider a resolution authorizing
this mayor and city manager to execute an agreement with mindot mdot agreement number 1051546 for for the i9 i494 phase 1 maintenance agreement and i submit these items for your consideration as part of
the consent calendar is there a motion so moved second it's been moved and seconded to approve the consent calendar is there any discussion
um go ahead council member burke just one quick comment uh to assure the public that i have read all the details lengthy details about all these different um items on the consent calendar if i thought that there was a concern with any of them i would have
taken them off the consent calendar and i don't see no concerns at this time and i don't want to speak for anybody else but i would assume all all council members have done the same that's it thank you any other comments i did want to also thank all
the people that did all the background work in all of this i know it's been years putting together all of the maintenance agreements for the 494 project um i know that we've been working with um congresswoman omar's office on um the plan for the water
interconnect and there was a lot of planning before that even got to this point because you have to be ready to go to put in the grant application and i know there's been a number of other things like the community services commission has worked on the playground plans and so there's been a lot of background and work sessions and time
put into all of this and i think we just need to make sure we say thank you for all the people that put the time in for that and so i do appreciate that any other comments or questions okay we've had a motion and a
second to um approve all the items on the consent calendar all in favor please say i i all opposed all right and we have approved those next we'll move on to the city manager report city manager rodriguez
yes thank you mayor um at our last meeting we had two speakers at open forum uh the first speaker was kathleen baliban and she was pleased to see that we were updating the procedures and decorum document that guides um our our
meetings and processes around those meetings she wanted us to review it for a longer period and actually uh attorney teach is going to take a longer period to review it it should be presented back to you for approval at one of the main
meetings um also blue deluquante and i'm sorry if i'm saying that name wrong um she had emailed a message advocating for more affordable housing uh neither of the speakers asked a specific question so i don't have follow-up information and that's all oops thank you any questions for the
city manager then we'll move on to claims and payroll i move approval of claims and payroll second it's been moved and seconded to approve claims and payroll are there any questions or discussion
all in favor please say i i all opposed and we have approved the claims and payroll next we'll go to hats off to hometown hits um council member christensen yes thank you mayor i just want to give a shout out to the uh city employees who came out to veterans park
today to work on um cleanup of the various items that we found throughout the park and through the pathways and down near the swamp type ponds area or whatever and um it a lot of unusual
things we found but pretty common things that we found also so it was it was a good time to uh to come out and um on a personal note i would like to thank three of my colleagues who shall remain nameless but who knows who they are uh
when i accidentally uh got too close to the pond and i decided to uh take a dip into the mud in the mud that was there and uh they were very gracious about it and it it was fine so it was we continued on with picking up trash and
uh it was a very delightful afternoon so thank you thank you council member coleman woods uh you know what this might be a shameless plug but um may is national foster care month um and organization
that i work for full-time is actually having their annual fundraiser surrounding the kentucky derby may 3rd at the mosaic venue for all those that would like to attend uh tickets are available at www.c2 youth.org um this is a um
organization that has been in operation for 15 years helping kids in henipin county who are aging out um with helping them with independent living skills um personal wellness health and um um sorry personal finance as well and their
education and employment so i think that this is a huge um accomplishment for them to have been um in operation for this many years it's 15 years and it is a good it'll be a good time and a great birthday celebration
thank you council member hay for larry um i just wanted to say that i'm excited for a toast to richfield by the richfield foundation in a week apologize if i took anybody else's item on that one um but tickets are still available i did just double check that um i've got i got my tickets and i look forward to
seeing many folks there next week all right council member burke i walked past uh or walked around adams hill park uh recently and saw the continued progress of the pond there
it's actually looking like what it's supposed to be i believe and it's nice to see it getting into the home stretch and i want to thank anyone and everyone who's worked on it really appreciate the hard work speaking of you know mucky waters that's uh that's going to be hopefully greatly improved so i
appreciate their efforts all right thank you um and i want to and join um council member christensen in thanking everybody that was helping clean up the park and one of the staff members gave me a tip that really um was brought home today as
we're picking up trash when if you're throwing away or recycling a plastic bottle please twist the top on because the number one thing we were picking up today were little um bottle caps plastic bottle caps floating around in the water and i can't believe that that is good
for nature so just make sure when you're disposing of it in the recycling that you twist your bottle cap on so that's my public service message after being out there seeing all of the bottle caps floating around veterans park um and i'm glad that council member hayford larry
mentioned the toast of ridgefield event on may 1st and i'm hoping that you'll all join us there i was able to visit the families and students at seven hills preparatory academy for their sevitas fair last week and it was just fabulous
and um the kids had like an art show um several people were um doing um displays and presentations and food samplings for their ethnic background so i think i tried tibetan german
lithuanian filipino and mexican food and i'm sure i missed something but it was all very delicious so i just want to thank everybody because that was just a fabulous time to see all the kids and the art show was amazing so a lot of talented artists uh augsburg library is
now open so i haven't had a chance to stop over but i'm hearing good things and they're gonna have um a celebration event on may 3rd from 10 to noon and lastly i want to do a shout out to our public works department there's a little thing on the website under public works
that says report a problem and there was a pothole on 73rd street and i typed it in it took like 30 seconds and within three days that pothole was filled up so if you see something make sure you report it like if there's a um street light that's out or a pothole that needs
filling or something that they can help us with it's a really simple process just look for report a problem explain what it is and they will help us out so hats off to public works with that since we have no further business i would entertain a motion to
adjourn the meeting so moved second it's been moved and seconded to adjourn the meeting all in favor please say i i i all opposed we stand adjourned thank you everyone