good evening and welcome to the regular city council meeting for the city of St Peter Minnesota it is Monday July 8th 2024 at 700 p.m. we are called to order would all please rise for the pledge I pledge alance 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 uh you've all received a copy of the agenda are there any revisions or corrections to the
agenda hearing none is there a motion to approve the agenda as distributed so moved second all those in favor of approval say I I I any opposed the agenda is approved uh the minutes are printed on pages four through seven of the packet are there any revisions or
corrections to the minutes hearing none is there a motion to approve the minutes as distributed so move second all those in favor of approval say I I I any opposed the minutes are approved we have time on our agenda for visitors are there any
visitors who'd like to make comment on any agenda item hearing none we also have time for General visitor comments any visitors May dress the Council on any matter whatsoever seeing none we will move on to the approval of the consent agenda
the consent agenda begins with a with a memo on page8 and concludes with a resolution on page 28 through 29 of the packet uh the agenda the consent agenda approves the includes the following employee appointments Josie weebos as a
seasonal employer laborer in storm water at for 1425 per hour Caitlyn hofs part-time custodian at 1575 per hour the following Advisory Board appointments will be approved Miriam Andre at the tourism and visitors bu Bureau with a
term ending December 31st 20124 that is a correction to the printed packet which includ which says December uh 26 Corey Johnson to The Economic Development Authority with the term ending December 31st 2028 the following individual ual
printed in the packet will be excuse me will be appointed as election judges for the city of St Peter for August and November 2024 elections as well as the scheduled of dispersements for June 18th 2024 through June 28th 2024 is there any
discussion on any consent agenda item Brad um I would just like to make a note that uh with the approval of of uh Miss Johnson to the Eda I think the Eda will have a female majority at least for the first time in my memory so I think it's okay I think I've not
okay any other um questions or discussion on the consent agenda all right hearing nothing further is there a motion to approve the consent agenda as corrected so moved second we have a motion and a
second call the rooll please council member Pettis I council member r i council member weisenfeld I council member shrom I council member dasos I mayor Noel I council member Johnson I all right the resolution is approved we have no items of Unfinished Business
tonight we will move on to B uh new business our first item of new business is the authorization of a server bid mayor members you'll see information included in your packet starting on page 30 this information outlines the rationale for this which as you may recall was originally budgeted and
planned from a equipment certificate in 2023 we didn't execute at that time because there was concern about receiving some of the pieces and parts and as you know with the changing world that we lived in at that time um there was concern about the ability to see that and see it at a reasonable price
what you see in here is uh process that followed your purchase policy and includes servers software installation and configuration from pridal uh for $148,700 and again this would be funded from the 2023 equipment certificate
these are the main servers that provide for your finances your utility billing a lot of things that run on your system again the rationale for why we are purchasing new includes that your current servers are more than a decade
old and they are no longer going to be serviced nor can they be upgraded from a software perspective where we can purchase support for that software and so a failure could be catastrophic for some of your finance and utility bilding and other systems so we want to make
sure that's the case we did do an evaluation related to whether we should go with all of this to the cloud and at this time we believe this is the least expensive approach um but we would expect I would expect that in the next 7 to 10 maybe we'll get out again to 12
years that we will be needing to upgrade and at that time likely cloud-based solution will be less expensive over the long term um you might note if you're kind of a techie a little bit of an interesting twist here you will still note that we do backups of your servers
on tape um which is kind of old school um but it works very well for us it's very cost effective and it allows us to take those tapes and move them to a different location readily as compared to other modes of saving and so um that's been
what we've worked with for a number of years um our consultant says well it's kind of old school but it works well for you why why change it's cost effective and so I wanted to point out that kind of nuance if you're a tech person and read through that entire list um the resolutions included in your packet as
you know with this amount of money and certainly with an equipment certificate um your policy and your rules provide for a separate agenda item which this is uh included in your packet with the approval or the resolution providing approval on page
40 I'm happy to answer questions as best I can um but please don't answer a question or ask a question related to why ands ID 125 is better than a 120 because I don't know the answer to that but I can tell you of our consultants and certainly our Tech folks internally
have reviewed this and um this is the proposed solution all right questions for Todd Carrie it looks like on page 39 Todd we were looking at sale price versus monthly lease price um or is there some
sort of lease component within there could be a lease component but we believe that purchasing at this point is the way to go because they're going to get their money and how the numbers work out so we feel comfortable with 148,000 700 I should also mention that this is a few thousand doll cheaper than we
originally anticipated as a part of that equipment yeah I think I saw that it was 4,000 plus um and so and we just um were advised to kind of go this route were there any other quotes was there any reason to look at other quotes So we did
have one other that came in but it came in after the deadline so this is the only one that met the criteria for the deadline got it thank you did you get a rough estimate of how much the cloud computing option was now and how much cheaper this is we did and so over that over the term of the expected life
expectancy about $10,000 less this is so that's where we were so the other one was 158 about 160 yeah I mean I don't I don't know I $112,000 to change to do the system that
we're going to up to grade to anyway seems like a better use of money in long term in my mind but maybe I'm not raing that quite right um I think no matter what you do in the future you're going to expend a certain amount of dollars so whether you're in the cloud right now
based on what we expect the life expectancy here you're going to pay a little bit more for that cloud um but no matter where you go you're going to continue to pay for that cloud so a cloud wouldn't be a one-time purchase that would be over the term so if you
changed in 7 years 10 years 20 years you're going to pay for that cloud service at that point too now it is possible that the cloud service becomes less expensive in five years seven years 10 years I don't know that I can predict that for you um but certainly um
the the memory cost per gig continues to go down yeah I was going to say I mean I guess my concern is if we spend $148,000 on this right now and then in six years or something we need to move to the cloud and then we need to spend
the 60 minus whatever it goes down by when we could have just spent the 160 now and paid a nominal cost for cloud space which is super cheap typically I I'm just I don't know I'm not going to hold this up but I I I think I probably
would have been I if if the difference was like 800,000 for the cloud verus 140 that was what I was expecting you to say and I was like of course but for 10,000 I'm I I lean more towards that we should probably go with the tech that's going towards anyway
and and Todd correct me if I'm wrong I from what if if I got what you were saying over the same life expectancy anticipated life expectancy the cost of the cloud over the 10 to 12 year life expectancy the
cost of the cloud subscription would be about $158 $160,000 so it' be about $116,000 a year is that what you were saying yes so over the same amount of life expectancy that we got out of our current server
mhm so after the end of 12 10 to 12 years when we think that this server will will end we'll have to move to something anyways so you be re buying or you'll be going well in any event you're going to be buying something some way to
store and software associated with that um the software for this is particularly the operating systems for the servers so that's the soft sofware component here it's not M well it happens to be Microsoft Project product but it's not Microsoft 365 it's server
specific software um additional questions for Todd hearing nothing further is there a motion to approve so moved second we have a motion and a second call roll please council member rant I
council member weisenfeld I council member charstone hi council member DeVos hi mayor Noel I council member Johnson I council member Pettis I the resolution is approved um we will move on to reports first up report of the mayor I
only would like to thank everybody who participated in um the Fourth of July celebration including the fireworks uh display here in St Peter and the parade of course and everything wonderful that happened uh down at the park so thanks to everybody it was a great great
holiday once again in St Peter so uh reports of council members we do have time for um council member Devas wanted to make a report so we'll go to you first Brad okay um so on Friday I was invited to a meeting um that was uh hosted by the Great Plains Institute it
was facilitated by uh two members of the Treasury Department apparently they talked at the LMC meeting the day before um it was on direct pay or elective pay and uh which is essentially a 30% credit
given to for uh for renewable energy projects this is a credit that used to only be available to private individuals or for-profit businesses with the passage of the inflation reduction act it's now available to nonprofits in cities uh they wanted to hear this was a
smaller group they wanted to hear from people who or organizations that were actually utilizing this uh which St Peter is one of them with our solar array we putting up at the wastewater treatment plant it's shifted our it shifted our process from using a an
investor previous prior to the IRA to actually installing it well through simpa but essentially simpa and ourselves were the actual owners of it receiving the direct benefit of it um as well as it we'll be using it at on the next uh 50 kilowatt project we've gotten
the works uh it was uh the uh the clean energy resource team and uh Minnesota climate City's Coalition they're they're affiliated with great ples instit they were really impressed with what we've got going on here uh it's something that we can be used as an example to other
communities um that are working through this process um and it's also it's also really encouraging when you go to these events and you see other cities that are working through the process as well realizing you're not alone but there's also room for us to grow so thank you
any other council members who' like to make reports at this time all right we will oh are we wa Todd are we waiting to talk about the league of Minnesota cities when I had it under my report but I was going to turn it over to all of you so if you wanted to do it at the mayor's
pleasure right now that's cool too whatever works for you guys sure we can jump into uh well you we'll have your own report I my anticipation was is that I would be silent and let the folks that attended talk about what they had going on in that case we'll give uh time for
uh council members who want to speak about the league of Minnesota City's conference yeah nodding at me so we had a couple of us um council member Johnson council member ramp and myself were in attendance um we got the privilege of hearing Todd host one of the breakout
sessions and quite frankly he he tore it up multiple elected leaders sought me out after his session and we're planning on reaching out to him and and we were kind of the the the talk of the conference after that one so tore it up
is a good thing yes yes it up thank you for the clarification yes Todd did very very well um another session that I attended was actually a community building session that was led by multiple police Chiefs um one being the first female Latina police chief from
lur who is just recently in the newspaper and she comes from St Peter and a lot of good ideas and things that we can talk to about talk with our police chief about of things we can do better and improvements on what we're already
doing thank thanks Dustin go ahead I I only have to add that it was my first time attending this conference and it's a really well done done conference um the breakout sessions were really interesting um my fellow council members and I who attended we were
strategic in how we you know who attended what just so that we'd really get around to all the information that was provided um also I think just the opportunity for connection with other council members other elected officials
the LMC staff um and then the city staff from all around the state is just so great um and we get a lot of accolades we learn things from other people um and it's just it's really um it's you leave
feeling very energized and very excited to get to work in your city after attending something like that so I feel really grateful I think we all feel really grateful that we get to do have these opportunities um and so I thought it was a great conference and especially
it was my first time um I was really impressed okay Ben yeah the conference is definitely very beneficial um tons of breakout sessions um from artificial intelligence and how we can use it in our city um to pass information on to
our constituents um by calling information that you know answers that we give um so that way if somebody asked the same question that somebody was already given the answer to that answer can be given to somebody quickly um just just tons
and tons of information I sat in the session um about the solar and renewable energy and just fascinating the way that they're uh just trying to gear things towards everybody and anybody being able to take
advantage of renewable energy not just private sector but public sector everybody anybody just a phenomenal of the networking be a super beneficial conference another piece that was not mentioned by um council member Johnson
or ramp that I do think is worth noting is the league of Minnesota cities lobbies and advocates for all cities and they do have a legislative update at every one of their annual conferences where they go through The Good the Bad and quite frankly the ugly of the previous legislative session probably
the biggest disappointment um that was shared was that the bonding bill did not pass and not only did that impact cities Statewide St Peter had a project that was in the bonding bill that did not get a vote in the final minutes so that was something that was on their radar to
discuss of a major disappointment of you know things they fought for that quite honestly we didn't accomplish well thanks everybody for attending really appreciate uh that you spend your time doing that and that you can bring all your your good information
and learning back to St Peter so thanks very much um if there's nothing further from Council Members we will move on to report from the city administrator if I could manam May I'll start out with flood wrap up even though I know for many folks it is not fully wrapped up yet but I'll mention about six or eight
bullet points give or take a little bit I do want to mention wastewater treatment to begin with I think that's an important factor for you as you know we did not have any systems failures whether there was water Wastewater related to backup in folks basements anybody that received water would have received water that was really from the
river or through ground penetration of their basement seepage we did not have any failures and at one point our wastewater treatment plant was treating more than 5 million gallons a day what that points to is that certainly it's important to understand how wastewater treatment plants work and we can't do
that 365 days a year but we can do that and certainly what was causing that major inflow as compared to a normal day which is a little bit over a million 1.3 is I think Pete told you when you were on your tour last time um was that it's diluted of course with river water and
other things um but I think it's important to note that that does have a real cost to your system and to your rate payers and so the continuation of tightening up our system making it more leak proof certainly in that area that is north of Union along highway or
within Highway 169 continues to be important um and we could talk about the U engineering aspect of that um if you want at a future date but we have a series of projects that we've worked on and we'll continue to work on and uh this just tells us the tale that there's
more to do in that area to reduce inflow and infiltration um but the plant worked effectively we met all our permit limits related to um effluent that goes into the Minnesota River and so we should feel really good about that you have really even though I'm talking about 1.3 versus over five um you have a very
tight system compared to most other communities and so we should feel good about that but there's always room to do more work um in relation to the direct flood response as many of you know Front Street was closed at the cor intersection of Walnut for a number of days um really responding and and that
water that's there is really coming from two primary sources one of which is it's groundwater from the river that's pushing this way but that's also a low spot within your storm water system and so as we receive rain over this time and it goes into catch basins and areas of our community and wants to go to that
point as well um so what you saw in the intersection there for water comes from a couple of different locations and so as you know we were pumping there um for quite some time and did a lot of work in that area I think there's some opportunity for us to think about possible changes within our storm water system within that area to help reduce
the amount or the level of pumping that's necessary and so I know the team's talking about that and thinking about that some of you may have heard differently but certainly in that area of town my understanding is from direct contact with folks is that we had less than a dozen homes that were impacted by
that se in their basements in that location so um we will continue to provide some communication to those folks we have received some requests related to what do I do with the stuff that's wet from my basement is there a place for me to take that um and because
or one of the reasons um that we don't have a place to take that um that the city will take care of is that Nichola County wasn't into disaster declaration and so we want to encourage folks maybe they have some drywall or they have some carpet or they have like we have City
Hall had a little bit of water in a couple spots in the basement there where it's sopped up in boxes right so maybe that's what happened in your basement um you can certainly contact any of the current licensed waste haulers within the community and they can help you dispose of that properly it'll cost
something there's no doubt about that um but that's certainly something that you could do and our recommendation would be is you let it dry out as much as you can CU certainly dry carpet is a lot lighter than wet carpet and you generally get not just on volume but weight when it goes to the Tipping station in Mano and
so if people have questions please feel free to give my office a call and we'll give them as much information as we can and put them in contact or at least give them the right data to contact folks that can that can help them out I also want to mention the the Highway 22 Bridge um which is on the south end of
the community that opened earlier closed later opened earlier than the highway 99 Bridge um we will certainly have some severe damage in that area um I think it's really yet to to be determined until the water goes down but there's a trail there and as you know there's dis Gulf and if you've watched that area the
secondary Bridge or the Press pressure relief the smaller Bridge there there was quite a current that was running through there and so if you walk down there now you can walk down there drive by not too slowly don't hold up traffic but you can see where the river has cut A New Path in that area right through that dis Gulf and so we don't know the
damage on that we'll continue to assess that water's got to go down a lot more before we'll be able to assess that well in previous years you know that trail has been damaged by the pressure the flow of the water in previous floods um so we're really anticipating that again this time the bridge is sound and safe
Do's done all of that work but it's those kind of Park amenities underneath that we'll have to do some work on I'm not sure about the parking area that looks mostly dry but it has a little bit more Dune in it than maybe it had before and so there'll be some cleanup and speaking of Dunes I do want to mention
the mil Pond Park um we expect some damage not sure about the full level of damage there and the cost of that on the Ring Road but certainly folks should anticipate that the boat launch there might not be available for a more than a few weeks um that partially has to do
with the height of the river um but certainly there is more river sand that's been deposited in that parking area you know people launch their boats than I I've seen in 27 years so there's some serious work that is going to have to go on we don't know whether the boat
launch is still in place as some of you if you've used it before know it's a cement railed boat launch and so it's possible that some of that's been damaged too there's a lot of flow in that area and so we'll see and we'll know better but um for folks that are
interested in utilizing that please communicate with us we'll continue to put out information as those types of things open and since I'm in that neighborhood I'll talk about the campground um Campground is not available and so anyone that had a reservation for that um we've alerted them that that we won't be able to host
them at the campground um we're hoping that it will be available for tram I don't want to make a guarantee but we're hoping it' be available for tram as you know that area was underwater we have restrooms and showers that have to be taken care of electric that needs to be taken care of
and tested and so there's some work that needs to go into that but we'll try and work on that quickly and efficiently and we're really trying to Target that event because we did have some reservations for that event Todd can you CL uh can you clarify for people little know what what's tra it's trail ride across Minnesota yeah the the ride across
Minnesota they don't call it Ram um but it's for I'm trying to think of the organization that supports it maybe one of you remember I don't remember Ms Ms yes it is thank you yeah Ms multiple sclerosis and so that event is in Minnesota Square Park but we usually
host a lot of campers for that and we had campers you know for the Fourth of July and other events that we've communicated with and again we couldn't host them because the water that was in in the mil Pond um those are I think the eight bullet
points that I had I'm happy to visit if folks have other questions um we did or will include as you may or may not know um the hot sheet is going to be starting up in the next week or so or two here and so we do have some information and we really hope that folks that had
serious damage communicate on the Nicola County website and put in their amount of damage because that does go towards FEMA eligibility um I I don't know that we're going to make the the threshold of over $10 million in damage um to meet that
threshold maybe but it's tough for me to see that right now and that's Nichola County as a whole correct that's Nichol County as a whole um and so we'll see um but I I from my perspective um with consideration to previous floods um and
certainly consideration of the folks that had water in their basements which I get I've been there in the past myself so I get what a problem that can be we probably fared pretty well as compared to other communities in our area and I think some of that is has to do with council's planning in the past acquiring
properties that were flood prone um I will mention and I don't know that this will go any place but I have been talking with some of our neighboring communities and with region N9 about sponsoring an application for funds to potentially again continue to purchase property that where we could mitigate
damage in the future I don't know whether we'll have any luck I don't know if we'll be excluded because there's not a declaration in Nicola County all this is kind of new um but but it's a good thing I think for us to think about and consider if we have the opportunity so again I stand if there are any not too
technical questions I'm happy to answer as best as I can any questions for Todd I will mention the number one question that I do get from community members is is this the highest water has ever been um we don't get to decide that but it's certainly top three I would think um
certainly top three and um our friends at Dot and others have been super cooperative and helpful and um anyway good Partnerships helps in recovery yeah yeah that's all I have M there on that one okay um the next one that I have is
tangentially related but certainly um thank Curtis and the team from Public Works Kurt is Curtis's um the Water waste water storm water superintendent and put a lot of work into the response here in pumping the crews were working all all times of day and night during
the pumping scenario doing a lot of work related to ensuring that Wastewater and other facilities operate appropriately electric all those things and communication with the neighborhood down there and so we want to do a shout out to them certainly a lot of work PD did a lot of work on informing folks and
helping folks helping steer them in the right direction so want to thank those folks as well again from my perspective we feared much better than many other communities within our neighborhood so and then LMC conference you guys stole my thunder I do want to mention though
just quick um that the presentation that I participated in is really about you and the processes that you use to keep the grass green um and by that I mean not allowing things when you have a have a little fire letting a spark go someplace else and letting it get out of
control you do a lot of things in working together as a team and in communication and the processes that you use to keep the grass green and um there again we to Fair better than many other communities and that's why a lot of people it's fun it's great to hear that
people were coming up and asking you I appreciate that I didn't know to of the council members were going to be there so I had to be very cautious on my [Music] commentary but it's great um that you guys can be recognized for those processes that you go through to help
serve your community above politics so anyway that's how I think about it and that's some of the message that I think we were able to get across as a part of that session so but great Partners in that um certainly Kathy lundine from gustavis was one of the presenters and then Amy gorley from League of Minnesota
City so you are known for the processes that you go through it's it's it's you should it's cool it's cool so anyway thank you thank you um if there are no further reports we have an EXA a resolution calling for a closed session
Madame mayor this is a request by the city administrator to discuss um the potential to purchase or sell real property located at 107 West Nassau um we would not I do not anticipate coming back into Open Session to take any action other than to
adjourn um and the resolution is on the last page of packing and will we have our close session in here will we go downstairs we're going to go someplace else um so the team can clean up here since you're only going to come back into Open Session to adjourn all right any additional questions
how about a motion uh to approve the resolution so moved second we have a motion and a second call the rooll please council member weisenfeld hi council member shrom hi council member DeVos hi mayor Noel hi council member Johnson I council member Pettis I
council member r i the resolution is approved it is 7:30 p.m. and we will uh move into executive session