pledge of allegiance i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all all right good evening everybody welcome
to the city of st paul park minnesota regular council meeting for monday april 7th 2025 um first item on the agenda is our new council member appointment um process and appointment um we are going to start that process by bringing forward all the
candidates who showed up tonight giving them two minutes to kind of just give us a brief overall about themselves and why they want to be a part of this council and then we will go from there after that so um let's start with let's see
we'll go by who's first in the um packet and patrick dins good evening uh patrick ds 1412 lincoln avenue um no i'm excited to be here excited to have an opportunity to be on the council
um i've been a 20-year resident uh st paul park um love community service i love giving back um i've been on the planning commission for four or five years been on the telecommunications commission the people who help bring us this uh video you know every month or so
um i'm a head election judge over at precinct 3 so i i really i just enjoy being out and helping people um i clearly think i have the skills to do the job i mean i i can sit up there i've run meetings um i hope the thing that sets me apart or maybe makes me
different is um sometimes being willing to take a vote take a stand or take a position that may not be immediately popular whether we're talking about something like the st thomas aquinus rectory building or we're talking about the csl position and how much should we be
paying them or whatever um i said on the one time on the planning commission which is if you're not ready to maybe be slightly unpopular or maybe catch a little flack right we don't want you in these chairs because sometimes you're just you're going to have to deal with it you have to ask hard questions or be
or answer hard questions so um i really truly would enjoy being a part of the process working with people talking through things um and again listening to people so i i i hope i have uh your consideration i'd love to have
your vote i'd love to be here you know two mondays a month and um just again just do the work uh show up know the issues be ready to talk be ready to ask good questions be ready to be ready to answer and and and fullthroated kind of
give your position so that people know what you want and where you stand so thank you very much thank you patrick all right next i believe we have jeff hagerty all right uh i'm jeff hagerty 1032 marshall
uh i've been on the city council previously uh was on a uh two-year term uh and then just missed it by 0.8% the the third time around i mean the you know the in 2023 um so you lived in st st paul park my entire life that's 63
years i'm not going to tell you my age uh and uh i've always enjoyed uh being on the city council i'm on uh three of the uh commissions right now um and enjoy serving on those um
uh and i'm particularly passionate about our police force roadways and our economic growth i am committed to listening uh to the concerns of all residents uh and working collaborative collaboratively to find solutions that address uh the needs of our diverse
community i'm a strong advocate for transparency and accountability in local government i believe that open communication and public engagement are essential uh for building trust and ensuring the city council represents the best interests of all residents um i am
committed to maintaining the highest ethical standards and making decisions that are fair and equitable and i'm eager to learn more about the specific challenges and opportunities facing our city and to contribute my skills and dedication to serving the residents of
st paul park and thank you for your consideration thank you mr hagerty all right robert nichols good evening council residents my name is bob nichols robert for long uh i've lived in st paul park for three years i
manage uh willy's restaurant in hidden harbor marina um put my name in the hat in order to help see the community grow i have children that go to school here and want to see the community expand and grow in a right direction before i ran
riverfund llc which is willy's restaurant and hidden harbor marina i've owned an excavating company and restoration company working with a lot of municipalities including st paul park back in 2012 i have excellent people skills and can relay things that
sometimes other people's miss so thank you for your consideration thank you mr nichols all right sharon norquist [Applause] council thank you for this opportunity and residents as well my name is sharon
orquist um many of you know me probably as the former city clerk here um which and served for about 22 years and retired in 2019 i also served on the park and rec commission for several years and volunteered countless hours along with all the other members to pro
provide activities for our residents um i feel that my city clerk experiences you know and the government knowledge brings a wealth of information and probably an easy transition to the city council member seat um as well as the
insight i've learned from people talking through park and rack um so my i'm my hope is that i can help serve the residents in a variety of capacity and make an easy transition for the city council thank you for the opportunity
thank you thank you miss oricquist kelly mullen good evening council folks my name is kelly mullen um i've lived here pretty much my whole life 1224 mullen court um i take a lot of pride in the town i grew
up in and there's a lot of lot to offer in this town uh a lot of people don't know where st paul park is you know they get them down here and they'll go "wow we've got a beautiful main street we got a lot of you know we don't have a lot for growth homewise right now but we do
have enough to uh get new folks down here and uh make our town a lot bigger and and profit profitable and and that so um that's why i'm running and and and to get on some committees and that so i
just wanted to throw my name into the hat and go from there and so thank you very much thank you mr mullen all right i believe that is everybody so at this time what we're
going to do um i think uh you look like you have a question if i may yes you may council member thank you uh question for you and city administrator walsh uh i remember we did
this exercise a couple years ago is that correct and i don't remember if it was a consensus at that point or did we do a vote or did we do a uh a tally i don't know know if we took each
candidate as a to see if we they would pass the with a resolution or how did that work house member swanson uh good question i don't know if i recall exactly um i believe there was a vote taken again we've done this a few times
um with people moving out of town or leaving the council um and i believe it's just been a motion to approve um and with four members this i think state statute says that um if there's a two to two tie then the mayor makes the
appointment himself okay all right well thank you um mr mr mayor i'll start the ball up here if that is okay council member swinson all right thank you then i'll make a a motion for one of the candidates but first i'd like to uh to
to address this good-looking audience today isn't it my goodness but uh i'd like to well first of all five great candidates and i would highly recommend the four who don't get elected today or move on uh think about running
in november uh love to have you thank you all for being part of the uh the process and wanting to help the community i know mr nichols and miss mr mullen i don't know you personally uh but great to hear your stories and again
uh please stay stay in touch here with the city and try to help out but i have three individuals here who i've worked with closely for many years and it was a tough decision to decide between all of them because again
they all would have been great choices um but i uh would have to nominate today uh jeff hagerty and the reason i nominate mr hagerty is is because i worked with him for two years and he is second to none
as a council member uh his community outreach his his uh uh communication with the residents um you know he and i didn't always agree on every vote but when we didn't agree he would come and he would tell me what what his thoughts
were uh i just think uh he is also uh the kind of a quality person who i think would be if there's ever an opening for mayor i think he'd be a perfect mayor for this town so i can't recommend him highly enough it's just that it's sad that four i can't
recommend is he trying to get rid of me can't say so would that be a motion council as a motion yes all right um i'll second that motion for jeff hagerty um and then we'll move on
to discussion um so i have a first and a second and let's move on to discussion um anybody have anything to add one one more thing was that i think mr hagerty stated it that he was i think he missed the last vote by about six residents if
that was what is six or seven and so i think he also has the backing of the residents all right thank you council member anybody have anything else to add like to nominate no right now we have a
motion on the table if this motion fails um then we'll move on to the next nomination so that's kind of the process okay um anything on this motion no and this is
kind of where i'm going to get into my part of the discussion um and and why i kind of agree with council member swinson um very hard decision for me i mean such great candidates um and i am for full transparent purposes going to
go a little off script here but i have respect for all of you mr nichols i don't know you um patrick when uh i will say that i enjoy watching you run your commission
meetings people you know and and i'm going to dole out some respect here just because i know that it probably might not go some people's way but i think you deserve that honesty from me and that transparency because i think all of you would do a great job up here with us um
just for right now and i will list out the reasons why i'm going to make the decision i'm going to make um i the for instance the st thomas i watched that entire meeting and i really appreciated the way you ran that meeting
the transparency and like hey this is our position we aren't here for this we aren't here for that whether the people on your commission agreed with you or not i really enjoyed watching that and i was very impressed by how you run your
commission meetings um and sharon you you've great for this city your heart is 100% within this city um and i hope to see some of you on the ballot come november um because i'd be very honored to work with all of you and i think we
can do some good things going forward for this city um once this council gets on the right path and we get together and can work forward on several different issues that we're going to be facing coming up um so it's it's with a
heavy heart but so then for me it came down to all right i have a few favorites how do i make this decision because ultimately i know it's going to boil down to me and like you said this is the tough place that sometimes you have to be in on this council and especially
being mayor um and i haven't spoken um with mr hagerty but i'm going to support him in this vote and part of the reason is is so how do i make that decision when we have such great candidates with such great things i will say mr hagerty
submitted okay this might seem small but he submitted almost a sixpage application with just about everything so to me that's an attention to detail i did not serve with mr hegier so i don't know so then i look at that um i've
actually had past uh mayors and council members reach out to me and say "this guy did good work i think this is what the council needs." um and he has our respect um i've had staff members reach out to me and say that um mr hagerty was
a delight to work with um very inquisitive and very smart so then there's another notch um so i'm going to support mr hagert's nomination but i al will also say that
going forward i think this council needs to look at adopting some type of a policy because over the last several years we've been in this position for one reason or another and i think some type of official process and way we go about this so that none of us feel put
at an imposition for people that we care about and are so closely um work with whether it's for the city or within the city that kind of sets that process out because right now i kind of feel like i'm winging it and
trying to make the best decision i can for this city um and moving forward so i would like to you know in the future work with staff to set forward some type of a policy i know i've talked to some other cities because i have reached out
to other mayors and been like "okay i'm in this position how have you guys handled this and what have you done?" and i've gotten a lot back well you know we kind of ran into that but now we have an official policy an official procedure and i think that's something we need to look at and i'll be directing staff to
look into going forward but um so that's where we're at so i have a motion and a second um and we're going to take a vote so all those in favor say i i all those opposed i
so i have three eyes and one nay motion carries congratulations mr hagerty so we're just going to start the ball off there's no name on here yet so we'll get that but i'm going to come and swear you in and then you can take your
seat does that sound okay speed oh we're not messing around here we're putting these people to work i wasn't sure who it was going to be but so don't be offended there's no name no no worries all five yeah great candidates all right
repeat after me i i state your name jeff haggerty do solemnly swear that i will support the constitution of the united states i thank you i jeff hagerty do solemnly swear that i will support the constitution of the united states and
the constitution of the state of minnesota and the constitution of the state of minnesota and faithfully discharge the duties of city council and faithfully discharge the duties of the city council for the city of st paul park for the city of st paul park in the county of washington in the county of
washington and the state of minnesota and the state of minnesota to the best of my judgment and ability so help me god to the best of my judgment and ability so help me god congratulations thank you sir thank [Applause] you all right well once again thank you
everybody and thank you for the enthusiasm of all the candidates who applied and um i do really respect all of you just not only for what you do now but for even having the you know stepping up and putting your name in the hat so thank
you all right we're going to move on item number three items from the public is there anything on the agenda or on the list no mayor all right thank you council member swenson item number four the consent
agenda this evening on the consent agenda we're going to adopt resolution 1741 expressing the acceptance of donations and we those donations came from where'd it go want to make sure to
recognize these guys uh the parks and recck commission $220 for the veterans park mural coke funeral home $100 for the volunteer appreciation dinner wsb $500 for the volunteer appreciation dinner for a total of
$820 so thank you to those organizations for their donations we will also be approving a grant from the met council for inflow and infiltration um we'll be approving the hiring of our new public works director anthony
brinkman otherwise known as tony um to the supervisor position for public works and he has graciously accepted the offer um we'll be paying the bills we'll be approving lawful gambling permits for ducks unlimited on may 4th lawful
gambling permit for the sons of the american legion post 98 july 26th um approving uh municipal recycling grant from the county and then on to number eight we will sadly be accepting city
administrator kevin walsh's resignation effective july 31st 2025 um i have half a mine to pull that but i won't uh approve the proposal from drown
associates to go out for public or for the city administrator's position and adopting resolution 1740 restricting parking along third for the reconstruction project and just to make
sure everybody understands am i correct kevin in saying that that's just temporary during construction uh mr mayor and we if the city engineer who is here would like to answer that but i believe it is part of the uh it is part of the design for the project so
there will be restricted there will only be parking on one side of third street so so it is a it is permanent and it's required by because it's a state aid street it's a requirement so that would just be is it both sides during construction or is this just
doing the one side because it doesn't really specify here in the uh mr mayor members of the council so the the no parking resolution is a requirement of the state funding so normally a city might have a little more latitude to do
what it wanted wants to do could change it over time it's just kind of a long-standing condition i guess of receiving whether it's state aid funding or um uh legislatively uh designated funding like what was received for this particular project as you go through the
state aid review process they require a resolution that defines the ultimate end parking arrangements um for the project so knowing that you know we're incorporating a trail the road is not going to be the exact same width as before basically what we're setting
forward here is um parking on one side only on the west side on the east side which mostly corresponding with the fact that we've got two large blocks there without any residences there um that was the side designated with no parking um that's also the side with the uh new
pedestrian facilities or the trail um and during construction certainly it will be probably necessary to not have any parking on both sides so that the contractor has plenty of room to work in there but the new parking signage and regulation um and certainly any sort of
enforcement probably won't happen until next year um this is just a requirement of getting the funds approved and designated uh for the project that they have that resolution in hand and the reason why the resolution is so wordy is that we do have some tapers and some
areas adjacent to each uh intersection there um where there can't be any parking a little bit further than the statutory requirement to not park within i think it's 30 ft of a stop sign or an intersection so there's some uh definitions there now once the project's
all done the signage goes in the city if wants to make some minor adjustments i don't think that's a big deal right but this is just something that we have to hand in ahead of time the resolution um before the project's approved sounds we kelly sorry we don't you can
ask him afterwards yeah i'll i'll i'll hang out yep all right thank you yeah no problem all right that's the consent agenda this evening mayor frankie yes council member swansson i move that we approve
tonight's consent agenda can i second all right i have a motion a second to approve the count the consent agenda any discussion yes yes mayor uh on three points here uh first of all congratulations tony i'd like to
congratulate you on uh uh your new position yes uh secondly on agenda e approved lawful gambling permit for ducks limited can you tell me more um i believe that's a function that's going to be held at willies hidden harbor through their uh is it the the
bingo thing yes okay i'll be sure to make that and then finally i i just want to make it sure that it's on the record because i'm the only one sitting up on this council that hired kevin walsh in 2006 and i said then that he wasn't
going to last so i just want that put on the record i think it was 07 so that's all i have mayor thank you council member spencson so are you saying it took 17 years for you to be proven right yeah yeah but it came true
yeah your wife said the same thing all right sorry everybody we just all right motion in a second all those in favor say i i i opposed
motion carries 5-0 all right on to item number five um we need to update the mayoral appointments um for the new council members so we will be appointing jeff hagerty i will scratch
out new council member jeff haggerty to the public safety commission for now to replace council member zenner along with mike kraber and chief danberg item number b under item number
five is the cars in the park special event permit um having some questions about this just so the council knows um i've been in discussions with public works and um
the cars in the park about this um seems to be a lot of questions about uh costs um usages um things like that um and i did not have the packet did not
come with the full permit and i've stopped down and talked to our new public works director and i've i've talked with cars in the park so um there's just a little bit more work that i personally want to do on this um to make sure that um going forward it's fair um everybody is on the same page
and um there's no miscommunications with how this is handled going forward because this is a nice event for the city um i just think that there's some things that i need to get together and i'm working with everybody on it so i'm going to make a motion to table this at
this point instead of approve it so i'm asking for a second second i have a motion a second to table this uh approval of the special event permit for cars in the park all those in favor say i i i
opposed motion carries mr mayor we didn't get a discussion oh discussion just quick is that a lions uh event you know i thought it was but that's another question it says um cars in the park car show under event
name and date and i don't see anywhere on here i think it's a lions event council member can you answer that it is not a lions event they're usually participating they participate on wednesdays yeah no um i just want to
make sure all the tees are crossed and the eyes are dotted and everybody's happy when it comes to this um so i'm going to be earning my money as of late on a few things so yeah any other discussion on this all right let's vote
again all those in favor i i motion carries all right reports from the council council member swenson public works commission thank you mr mayor uh no activity from the public's works
commission since we la uh last met our next meeting is set for tuesday june 3rd here at uh city hall at 5:00 and we have a full commission what do you think about that char it's great you're lucky thank you
council member swson say thank you council member whipped hemson for helping me do my job thank you now you know how i feel sure all right council member whit hemingson parks and recreation commission okay our
next meeting is this this thursday at 6 o'clock um this friday we have our bunko um we're having it out of out of town this time cory alaska has let us use her place over 103 conquered exchange it's her floral business place uh doors will
open at 5:30 we start playing at 7 we'll have snacks fresh carbon pizza lots of prizes and this we all our money that we raise for this will go to our garden party in honor of andy cyson and our garden event is still on
may 3rd and we have uh our our events keep adding so if you want to check out our facebook page we have lots of events adding added to that so hope we can see you guys at bunko this friday
that's it that's it all right thank you council member fred hamson um council member conrad was there anything for um planning commission no ping
commission last meeting was um cancelled due to lack of agenda and uh the one for this coming is canceled also all right well we'll try and get working on that give you guys some work mhm all right thank you uh administratively
um you know we've been dealing with a few things um working with kevin on finding out about this transition um also kevin and i have also been doing some work um around some potential development but it seems like it's constantly being promised and discussions constantly being happening
but um trying to work together on some potential things there uh um kevin and i met with the city of cottage grove over ambulance services in the last couple of weeks um we will be inviting them to have a discussion and then we will probably be workshopping
that um once uh vacation periods are over and and we have the time and um we set that up with cottage grove to come before us to give them their presentation um we're also probably going to be working on a council code of conduct um and we'll probably be workshopping that
and moving forward with that so a few things lately um and then yeah just moving forward and i think the big thing administratively is to uh going to be working to fill kevin's position so that's going to be some
tough shoes to fill mr mayor yes council member if i can just state uh david drone associates is a well thought of organization and they have a lot of good uh candidates already at their call and i do know that it's a good market right now i don't think we'll be able to
replace kevin but we'll get somebody in that position all right thank you council member all right do we have any other comments or requests from the council this evening nothing further this meeting's adjourned thank you