It's 6:30, so I'm going to call the Wilmer City Council meeting to order. Roll call. Mayor Promp here. Council member Nelson here. Gilbertson here. Gardner here. Davis here. Butterfield here.
And here. Mayor Ree and Council Member Faggerly are excused. So, I have seven present and two absent. Thank you. Please stand for the pledge of 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. There any proposed additions or deletions to the agenda?
Move to approve the agenda. Second. A motion and a second to approve the agenda as presented. Roll call. Mayor Promp. I. Council member Nelson. I. Gilbertson. Hi.
Gardner. Hi. Davis. Hi. Butterfield. Hi. And shoulders. Hi. Seven. Eyes, zero nos. Thank you. Uh, clerk Larson, will you present the consent agenda to us this evening?
Mayor Proemp and council members tonight for your approval I have the city council minutes of July 21st 2025 the board of zoning appeal meeting minutes of July 22nd 2025 as a draft the board of zoning appeal minutes of June 30th 2025 the Wilmer Municipal Utility
Commission minutes of July 28th 2025 the Wilmer Police Civil Service Commission minutes from May 19th 25 the Wilmer Airport FFA grant agreement runway 3-/31 Equipment accept and final project for
number 2401A 10th Street Northwest reconstruction introduction of an ordinance amending ordinance number 1533 a rescheduled for the public hearing the church of St. Mary's lawful gambling application and the accounts payable report from 71725 to 7:3025.
Thank you. Council members, anything that you would like to consider separate from the rest of this? Otherwise, I'm looking for a motion to approve the consent agenda. Motion to approve the consent agenda. Second. Motion and a second. Any discussion?
Council member Nelson. I don't want to pull them, but I'm just curious why we're just getting the Wilmer Police Civil Service Commission minutes from May 19th and why we haven't gotten them earlier. Chief, I didn't realize they hadn't been
presented yet. So, we'll make sure they get more timely. Thank you. Any other discussion? Roll call. Council member Nelson. I Gilbertson. Hi Gardner.
Hi Davis. Hi Butterfield. Hi Chelis. Hi Mayor Promp. Hi. Seven eyes, zero nos. Motion passes. Um, anyone speaking for the open forum this evening?
All right, then we'll move into regular business. The first item tonight is the consideration of the KEC Ed um budget. And so, um, Director Carr, Barbara, welcome. I believe this is your first time appearing before the Wilmer
City Council. This is my first time. So, thank you for having me. And I wanted to first uh say hello to some of you that I haven't met before, and I look forward to getting a chance to spend some time with you. I've been here since April 16th and um
there's been a lot of different changes that have happened within the organization, but I'm really excited to just share with you today the budget. I'm going to pull that up here real quick. So, I'm Barbara K. I'm the executive director for KCED
and our organization's been around since you tell me 2003 I think is when uh we originally uh changed to KCED's um current joint powers between the city of Wilmer and the c the county of Candy Ohio
and we've set up our mission to be a catalyst for economic growth for the greater Candio County area. that's what it currently states and I know that that's been some discussion that um maybe we'll discuss further as we go into our strategic planning but
ultimately the work that we do for the area is to meet with site selectors and developers connect them to suited areas for development work with property owners for redevelopment uh business attraction and our focus is on advocacy recruitment and retention
building collaborative relationships education and technical techical assistance. Uh we do that in a number of different ways. We work with businesses in industry development and we promote those developments of new industry and support existing businesses particularly in the egg innovation.
Uh today we had a meeting with our broadband and advanced technology to talk about the areas where there's gaps within the county and um the really excellent work that they've done to make sure that we've brought in as much broadband as we can to the area and we'll continue to do that. And we also
assist in creating a retaining workforce and we do that in a number of different ways. We work with housing, we work with training and we work with child care initiatives. And so that's kind of our current focus area. Um, we're looking at the industrial de development, housing,
workforce, broadband, the elevate community, business academy that we'll continue to do and then the marketing overall of the Candyo County. But the other thing that we plan to do going forward is to uh create our new strategic plan. Our ours will end at the
end of 2026. So, this is kind of a timeline for when we're going to be gathering information, a kickoff meeting, focus groups, and conversations that we hope will include uh many of you that are here in this room. And then at the end of that, we'll have our final plan to discuss with you. And that's
part of our plan starting in January. This came out today. Um workforce and economic development, just an overall changes that are happening with the funding that's available. Um, at the state level, we're seeing cuts in business and community development programs that deed of overall 6.5
million. We're seeing job creation fund going down about 6 million and we're seeing about a $2 million cut in redevelopment grant programs. The childcare grants are maintaining as a base fund, but this is just to give you an overall picture of some of the future grant funds that might may or may not be
available to us. And we've been discussing this with many of our partners about how can we provide an more regional um economic development path for receiving those funds versus applying them directly on our own.
So, some of the work that's been happening has been to increase the number of childcare providers that have been in the area. Uh we've got a a event planned on August 26th and 28th up in the Spicer area where we'll be um doing an appreciation event for the childcare
providers that we have. And then we have a staff member who works in our office that provides the mentorship. And just in general, these are the committees that we have at KCED. They include the agriculture and renewable energy again broadband business
retention and expansion with a focus on child care. We work with the Highway 23 coalition. Uh we've do a number of different workforce development finance committee reviews revolving loans and our marketing and public relations is happening right now up at Farmfest. But
there's also some other activities that we're planning going forward into the 2026 year which will be a lot more focus on how can we fill the vacant spaces that might be in our industrial uh sites that we have here in the city of Wilmer.
And this is just in general some of the things that we also contribute to. We give funds to um the central Minnesota tour of manufacturing that'll happen in October. We provide some funding for the vision 2040. Uh we also provide some funding to the tourism and that all
comes out of our budget. Um we also do some professional services. is we work with the city um on a couple of different uh projects that we're working on to uh move some uh infrastructure and uh provide some grant funds.
And I hid a lot of my slides because I didn't want to take up a lot of your time, but I know that you've received a handout that has our 2026 in a comparison to our 2025. and I'm happy to answer questions. Council members, any questions?
Go ahead, Council Member Gardner. Uh, good good evening. Um, 2026 is dramatically reduced from 2025. Is that just strictly related to the grants? It is that were received and you don't anticipate those same grants in 2026? That's right. We're seeing that there's
a reduction in the grants that are available. And I did not want our budget to reflect anything other than what we believe we have available to us to run the operations of the organization. So if we do receive the grants, obviously that's going to improve our ability to provide the programs that we'd like to
do. And we plan to continue to work with our partners to um apply for those grants. What's the impact on those receiving organizations? I mean, that was pretty substantial amount of money. It's the way that we operate is projects. So it's project based. So for
like for instance the child care grants that we've distributed one year in 2023 it was forgivable loans where we provided up to 40 um child care providers some forgivable loans. In 2024 we did a couple grants that we just
closed out in June 30th which would have been up in Atwater area and um out at Prairie Woods. and those were to provide additional spaces for child care and then we have uh grant funds that will end at the end of December for the child care. One will be up in the Spicer area
that we're still determining exactly how to spend those dollars and then the other is at in New London for um child care facility that's going to be in Peace Lutheran. So a lot of the projects are we come together with somebody who has an idea. We review their budget and
then we discuss how will you meet the 50% match or we may have some people that have helped to provide that match and we can move forward with providing them with the funds. Thank you. Council member Nelson. Thank you. I think you saw that you have
a relationship with UKAP. Um what do you do with them or what do we do with them? That's a great question. So we um have a fractional relationship. We have Tana for a couple days or a percentage of her time where she provides mentorship to
child care providers and um and then she's also running a couple programs for us. One is she works with real food and um childcare providers can receive a box of fresh produce and we're using some grant funds to cover that cost so that
the food that's coming into the child care is healthy and it's coming from our local farmers. So, that's still available next year. She's still going to be um an employee for us. Even though our grant funds will end in December, we still we signed a
two-year contract with her in March. And so, we'll finish out this year and next year, and then we'll find out where we're at. But we really love having Tana in the office. She's a great asset to us. Yeah. Thank you. Any other questions? Otherwise, I'm
looking for a motion. I'll make a motion to adopt the proposed 2026 budget for the Candyohigh County and City of Wilmer Economic Development Commission. Second. It's a motion and a second. Any more
discussion? Roll call. Council member Gilbertson. I. Gardner. I. Davis. I. Butterfield. I should. Hi. Mayor Promos. Hi. Council member Nelson,
I. Seven eyes's, zero nos. That motion uh is approved. Barbara, thank you so much for your time tonight. And uh over the the years that I've been part of the city council, anytime we see someone in your position, it's always good news for the city, it means that
there's growth and development. So, come back soon and often. We look forward to seeing you. Thank you. All right, Director Corbett, you are next on our agenda this evening. All right. Good evening, Mayor Promp and members of the council. Um, in front of
you tonight is your consideration to approve um, by resolution the variance request by Marcus Construction. And this site is also known as Legacy Commons on First Street. And this one was typically speaking the
board of zoning appeals would um meet on this and they did both on June 30th as well as July 22nd. They were unable to come to a decision so they did refer this matter to city council um and that's why it's
in front of you today. And the property was um previously granted similar parking variance on Monagalon. So, this street just south of here. Um, what we're looking for today from the
application is a variance request for Second Street um southwest. And so, some of the comments that came out of the board of zoning appeals on June 30th were was from the neighbors um basically
wanting to know the interaction between residential property and a commercial property. um by right the site and the developer can have eress and ingress onto Second Street. Um but because of those comments that were raised during the public hearing at the
board of zoning appeal, um Marcus Construction went back and re-examined the way that the layout was and they're proposing an entrance and exit onto Monagalia without disturbing residential properties on Second Street. In today's packet, uh you're going to
see a resolution, a drafted resolution of to approve or deny the variance request. Um the board zoning appeals packet is also identified. Um with minutes that were approved from our June
30th minutes and then tonight, you all just approved the July 22nd minutes in the consent um under consent agenda um items. The resolution uh has some attachments. So the parcel has the legal description there, the findings of fact
for supporting or denying um a variance request, an affidavit for the mailing that was done for the public notice as well as the um the variance application as well as the public hearing. And then we have the approved site plan. I want
to take just a second and take a look at what was being proposed um at June 30th at our June 30th meeting. Uh you'll see that east of on the east side of the lot here. If you can see that, that's the proposed fast
food restaurant. The drive-thru or this is a pickup window, I should um clarify. It is not where a customer will come and order their food, but perhaps using a mobile app or so will just come pick up their order that's already placed by
right. Again, this can they can enter and exit or exit onto Second Street. Um, but because of the comments that were gathered on the 30th, Marcus did go back and redesign the site and this is the site
that we're seeing now. So you'll see that traffic comes in and then it loops out and comes onto second I mean on monogelium. Um so the setback that they're requesting is to eliminate the 15 and go to 5 ft. So here you'll have a
smaller buffer here. Uh and then this is fencing and soft landscape to soften it. So think of the headlights that possibly if nothing was there would be um impacting residents nearby. Just a few things to mention at the um
board of zoning appeals meeting. Um all of the minutes that you approved and you have access to um those reflect the board members um position on it. Uh as well as some of the public comment that was documented too. Um we did have a
board member who um there's only two members. I should stress that too. So there's only two members on the board of zoning appeals. uh one of the members live in close um pretty a close a distance and that person felt that they couldn't technically really vote on it.
We we understand that and that's part of the reason this is made it to city council too. I'll stop there and ask for any questions. We have Marcus Construction here as well and they can answer any other questions you may have too. All right, council members, what do you
desire to do with the variance request that is before us this evening? Council member Gilbertson Prom, uh uh curious on the design. Uh it looks like there's a door on the west side of the property. Um
will is that employee only? is that uh customers that will be coming in now that that uh pass through will be going in front of that door. Yeah. So the door that you're referring on the west side would be an employee only um door there and so um by code you have to have an exit as well and so that
would be accessed by the employees and then the main entrance um where the guests would come would be on the the east side. Okay. Council member Butterfield. on the corner of Second Street where we got the parking there, the force. How
far away is that going to be from the city sidewalk? That's a good question. I would the I don't know if I have the exact answer. You can kind of see the property line there, which is in the the dotted line there. And so we're at least five feet off of that sidewalk
sidewalk. It's almost like 10. It's going to be it'll be similar distance how it is on Monangle if you're thinking of Caribou and the distance between right on the parkings basically. Council member Nelson, I'm just curious. Did you lose parking
spots by redoing it this way? You know, we were able to maintain the parking spots. Um, you know, certainly the the configuration change, you know, with the with the pickup window coming around that that west side, we had to create a little bit more space just to
make sure people could come in and out, but we were able to maintain. I think we lost one spot possibly by doing it. Okay. I'm also curious. I would see myself coming out and still going down Second Street to come out and go that way versus going probably back the other
direction. And so I'm just I'm just curious about um I I think I saw something about a stop sign and some of those types of things. Is that something that'll be determined once traffic studies are done just like we do on others and intersections or
No, luckily um thank you for the question council person Nelson. Um luckily we have completed the safe streets for all. This is um our safe streets for all plan. It identified Second Street as being a parcel that we can start and installing a stop sign.
And so that was a memo to both public works as well as our city engineer. And we feel that if approved or not approved um we will move forward with that and be later this year probably um provide you all with more of a comprehensive list of other intersections to control.
Okay. Also curious, this isn't the first place on Second Street. um when you go down the streets. So, I'm just curious about the the concern because there are other businesses and food trucks and other things that are on Second Street. So,
just wondering why this seems to be a little different, a little different in which way you just just a concern about exiting onto Second Street. Well, by right um the developer can exit onto Second Street. That's the pickup
window, that drive-thru. Mhm. that can go onto Second Street. Um, but because we we heard from residents nearby their concern of having an increased traffic coming directly on from a commercial property to a residential street. Um, they were able
to maneuver the drive to come out on Monagalia instead. So, so this is your recommendation to approve this? Yes. Okay. Thank you. You're welcome. Council member Schulties. I'm just curious on the the green space, the soft space. Uh will the store be responsible
for maintaining that then or Yeah, absolutely. That's um would all be the the management of legacy comments there to maintain. And I'll and I'll note as far as the fence and landscaping goes, the city of Wilmer doesn't have a fencing or a landscaping plan requirement. And that's
something that we'd be open to putting a condition on. Um, just kind of in cooperation with the neighborhood, but making sure that we're meeting the, you know, what the intent of what we're saying we're going to do on on that side, too. Council member Butterfield, just from looking at where you got the
proposed fence, that would only probably be two houses across the street that would probably be affected by the car lights. I think it'd be probably three. Three houses, possibly. Two or three. Yeah. Council member Gilbertson. Uh motion to approve the variance as
requested by Marcus Construction for the development known as Legacy Commons. Second. Have a motion and a second. Is there further conversation? Council member Davis. I just have a comment. I want to thank you for changing your plans even though
you could have technically put your driveway out on Second Street. Thank you for changing and thank you for bringing business to our city. Yeah. Thanks. Yeah. Thank you to the to the department too for working through that process. I'll say that Peeles board did a a great
job too. It was a it was great to hear from the public and it was uh the Peeles board did a great job and hopefully if there's people out there that are interested in joining a board, the Peeles board could use a few more people and it's a great way to kind of take a step into either planning and zoning or
or just being active in the city. So roll call. Council member Gardner. Hi. Davis. Hi. Butterfield. I should. Mayor Prom OS. I. Council member Nelson. Hi.
And Gilbertson. Hi. Seven eyes's zero nos. Thank you. That motion passes. Thank you. Mr. Vokei, you've got a couple change orders for us this evening. Good evening, Mayor Prom, members of the
council. First item 9C is related to the technology drive improvements project. Uh, as you indicated, this is a change order for additional signage and striping. Uh, which has been requested by management at Minw Midwest Technology
Campus. Um there is a figure included in your packet this evening that identifies the additional signage and striping uh that will be completed and management felt that it would better direct um
patrons and uh existing business employees to their locations during the project. Uh we have reviewed this um and it is being presented to you this evening for approval and I'd be happy to answer any questions that you might
have. Questions, comments, motion? Go ahead, Council Member Gardner. Mr. Vogging. Good evening. Is this a normal part of a change order for um when we're rerouting traffic like this for private businesses to come and
request signage that adds funding to the project or adds cost to the project? Uh often times we do see that businesses request additional signage. Um the plans themselves, this is a what what's referred to as a state aid project. So
the project was designed according to state aid standards. Um management like I mentioned management at Minwest did request some additional signage. We get this often times um on corridors or locations where there's a high volume of
both employees and patrons at business locations. Um typically we don't include specific business names on signage because it can get excessively costly um during the bidding process and so we evaluate them on a
case-byase basis. Thank you. Other questions, comments, or a motion? Move to approve change order number one. Second. Motion and a second.
Roll call. Council member Davis. I. Butterfield. I may promos. Hi. Council member Nelson. Hi. Gilbertson. Hi. And Gardner. Hi. Seven eyes, zero nos.
Motion passes. The next change order, next item is related to the first street or business highway 71 um improvement project. This is very similar to the change order that was just approved for Technology Drive. Uh as you're aware,
that project's under construction and access to the businesses on the east side of the um of business 71. There is signage out there that and which was included in the project. However, a couple businesses along that
frontage road reached out um and indicated that they felt that additional signage would be of value um to direct their patrons to them that might be coming from out of town and not familiar with the area. So, the change order
before you is for that addition additional signage um to be installed at the um along the project to direct them more clearly to their businesses as requested by those business owners.
Council motion to approve. Is there a second? Second. Is there any conversation, discussion? Roll call. Council member Butterfield. Hi. Child. Hi. Mayor Prompa OS. Hi.
Council member Nelson. I. Gilbertson. Hi. Gardner. I. And Davis. I. Seven eyes's zero nos. The motion passes. Thanks. All right. Our the last item under
regular business is um an application. Miss Larson. Thank you, Mayor Protemp and council members. Tonight I have an application for approval from uh Leafline Labs LLC doing business as
Rise Wilmer. They are in the process of applying for a um combination license with the state and so their intent is to sell medical marijuana,
adult use cannabis and THC products. The state has notified us that they are requesting zoning approval through the state's process. We have 30 days from notice to respond. zoning has approved their site plan and
fire department did a inspection and they passed fire code. So we are looking for approval from the count or from the council tonight to approve their zoning of their property so they can continue with their uh application with the
state. If we do not respond within the 30 days of notice, um the site the state assumes that we approve their zone have approved their zoning request and they process their application or continue the application process. But um and
we're about halfway through that 30-day notice. So tonight I'm just looking for approval for that property. All right. Thank you, council members. What is your desire? Motion to approve. Second. Is there any
conversation with this um approval? This will uh take up one of the two slots that are available for No, it does not. A combination license does not factor into the two slots that we have for retail u businesses.
Medical specifically is on its own according to ordinance or according to uh state statute. Other questions. Roll call. Council member Schiz. Hi. Promosque.
Hi. Council member Nelson. I. Gilbertson. I. Gardner. I Davis. I. And Butterfield. I. Seven eyes, zero nos. That motion is approved. That concludes
our regular business. Are there announcements from council members this evening? Y'all are so quiet tonight. Council member Gilbertson, hope to see everybody out at Rock and Robins tomorrow night and no more rain. Yeah, it's the last one.
Anything else? All right. The next agenda item is a labor negotiation strategy. And under Minnesota statutes section 13D3, subdivision 1, clause B, a portion of the meeting will be closed. Pursuant to
the statute upon a duly approved motion of the city council. I will now entertain a motion to close this portion of our meeting. So move. Second. Any discussion? Roll call. Mayor Prompos.
Hi. Council member Nelson. Hi. Gilbertson. Hi. Gardner. Hi. Davis. Hi. Butterfield. Hi. And Shelies. Hi. Seven eyes. No. It is 7:02 p.m. The city council will now
go into a