Based on the names and roles provided, here is the transcribed townhall with speaker names added: [0:00] **Mayor Luke Hellier**: Welcome to the August 26 work session. If you’ll join me for a moment of silence and the Pledge of Allegiance. [0:17] **Mayor Luke Hellier**: 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, moving on to Citizens comments. Seeing none. Item number 3A, the Arts Center strategic plan. I'll turn it over to Joe Masiarchin. [0:42] **Parks & Recreation Director Joe Masiarchin**: And I'm actually going to turn it over to Nikki Prer, our manager. [0:54] **Art Center Manager Nikki Prer**: All right, Nikki. Hi, I'm Nikki Prer, Art Center Manager, most often known as "New Joe." [1:04] **Nikki Prer**: And just talking a little bit about the Strategic plan. So I'll just give you some basic information about what went into creating this strategic plan and some of the goals that came out of it, and some of the planned work that's coming up and the work that we've already done. So, the plan development began in Spring of 2023. City staff, The Advisory Board members, as well as the Friends of the Art Center board members got together. And also, a consulting company, Aurora, came in and helped facilitate those workshops in that process. [1:49] **Nikki Prer**: And so it was a two-day process with Aurora. The first day consisted of looking at sort of where we're at and what the vision was going to be for the next 5 years, and then the second day was identifying some barriers to those goals and then creating some direction and strategies to overcome those barriers and meet those goals. And the Strategic plan is a five-year plan. So, on that first day, determining sort of what our current reality is. You can see, and these are some of our accomplishments up to the point where the Strategic plan process began. This is just a few of them; there were a lot more. [2:35] **Nikki Prer**: The big one was the purchasing of that Fine Arts Building and addition to the Performing Art building as well that included a loading bay. The construction of that V-Shing amphitheater at Casperson Park, the "Live at the Lake" series that came along with that Amphitheater. Then a new event, which was the Art Fall, and then also just increasing the size of that Lakeville Art Festival—the largest Art Festival to date happened. Expanding community outreach and expansion and increase of programs. That new building came with like a 300% increase in Visual Arts programming, so that's a pretty big accomplishment. [3:20] **Nikki Prer**: The other thing that was looked at was some trends in our community here. What's changing about the participants that are coming into the building? Obviously, the population increase in Lakeville and the Tri-Area. And with the growth in the population, the makeup is becoming more diverse economically and culturally, which then of course creates growing needs for new programming. Social media, of course, is becoming such a big part of everyone's lives, and then trying to sort of connect out with getting people to come on out and have some in-real-life kind of experiences. [4:07] **Nikki Prer**: Next thing that the group looked at was both the strength of the art center as well as some gaps or some boulders to some of these goals. Of course: people, staff, the community, the volunteers, the boards—such huge support for the arts, which is amazing. Municipal support: the financial and philosophical support of that. The Lakeville Arts Festival is obviously a strength, always growing from year to year; it's really popular for both the participants and the artists. The location is obviously a strength. And then having 20-plus years under the belt of the Art Center of success—that's a lot of years of being successful. [4:54] **Nikki Prer**: And then some of the gaps or barriers, challenges, and opportunities maybe are just making sure that the public is aware—public awareness. And as your programming grows, then of course you have a need for more staff, more people to run all that programming. We're definitely in a growth phase, so that's always a tricky time figuring that out. And then questioning and looking back at: is the legacy programming still the best programming? Is it still effective, or are some shifts needed to be made? [5:40] **Nikki Prer**: And while there is that parking lot that's there, it has some good accessible parking close to the door. Easy access if you are in a wheelchair. However, when we have events on site—some of the large events—then the parking gets very limited very quickly. And then just a very competitive market, especially for youth programming. And I'm sorry, maybe I'm moving through this pretty quickly. Does anyone have any questions about anything so far? [6:25] **Nikki Prer**: So, once knowing what the strengths are and what some of our challenges are, then sort of determining what should our goals be for the next 5 years. This slide talks about overarching goals for the arts organization. Wanting to connect to a diverse community through accessible experiences—accessible meaning maybe there's programming for kids on the spectrum or with other different abilities, but also economically accessible as well. Pursuing different revenue sources to support the missions. Collecting and using data to inform decisions. Providing more opportunities for youth and for service organizations to engage with the art. [7:10] **Nikki Prer**: Enhancing all of the art events that we do and then thinking about developing new ones. Having a thriving state-of-the-arts program. Establishing engagement opportunities that create community investments and fostering an artist network. Those are some of the big overarching goals that lead to some of the specifics that I'll talk about a little bit next. [7:55] **Nikki Prer**: To break down some of those bigger picture items, the group came up with three strategies: Planning for facility development and community growth, engaging the community with new programming, and collaborating to strengthen arts in the community. And then those were broken down into three different categories too. I won't take you through each one of those as we're looking at this slide; we'll dig into those a little bit deeper in the next two slides. Unless anyone has any questions, I'll just move on. [8:41] **Nikki Prer**: So, thinking about the implementation plan. This is again a snippet; there was a lot more that is in each one of these slides. I'm just kind of abbreviating because it gets to be a lot of information. This group came up with a ton of ideas and ways to grow the art and make improvements. This implementation plan is split up into two categories: one would be the Friends of the Lakeville Area Art Center board and the other is the Advisory Board. So, trying to sort of split some of those tasks between those two organizations. And then of course the staff is working across everything. [10:16] **Nikki Prer**: For the Friends, they're focused on some of the facilities and the Art Festival, talking about events and the grounds and how those are used. Expanding the variety of the programming that we offer and exploring new program models. Finding new revenue opportunities. A big piece of that is developing new marketing initiatives to get more folks into the building. And then shifting a membership program that has been a part of the Friends but shifting it to the Art Center. Having a more vibrant membership opportunity for people. And then volunteers is a big part as well. [11:34] **Councilmember Joshua Lee**: So, is this shift from Friends to the Advisory Board? Would you move it over? [11:43] **Nikki Prer**: So, the membership wouldn't be shifting to the Advisory Board, but it will shift to the Art Center. At present, it's a membership like a "Friend of the Lakeville Area Art Center" membership. But now what it'll be is an actual membership to the Art Center. And the idea being that at the Art Center, we have a lot of programming where we can offer benefits. For example, in the summer some of our workshops are sold out very quickly and we have a lot of waitlists. So that's a good way to get a benefit for members—they maybe get a week early access to registering for classes. The Friends board, because it's its own entity, it's hard to offer that. [12:33] **Joe Masiarchin**: I'll actually add a little bit. The Friends membership, as Nikki was saying, there’s not a lot of benefits to it. So the thought process through this implementation plan is to do a joint membership. You'd be a member of the Art Center and the Friends, and we'll work out some type of a revenue split with them. That benefits both organizations but ultimately the intention is growing the membership opportunities and increasing the number of members. There's a lot of other models out there for membership programs. Over the previous 5 years' strategic plan, we spent quite a bit of time analyzing those. Lakeville's was always a little bit of an anomaly, so the new plan we're looking at some of those to try to grow those opportunities. [13:19] **Councilmember Joshua Lee**: Thank you. [13:25] **Nikki Prer**: And then the last under the list of things the Friends will be doing is to do some reviewing of Google analytics for both the center and the Art Festival. And then shifting over to the Advisory Board, some of the things they'll be focusing on: organizational planning, assessing our revenue streams, broadening community feedback opportunities, an internship program, and bringing into both buildings—the Performing Arts and the Fine Arts building—comprehensive volunteer opportunities. And finally, connecting with regional art organizations and local business organizations. Any other questions? [14:06] **Councilmember Joshua Lee**: The Friends are a foundation, right? [14:09] **Joe Masiarchin**: So, the Friends are a 501c3. They're an autonomous board with their own bylaws and structure. There is crossover with staff—Nikki is the liaison—but they do run their own programming. The Art Festival is their event that they oversee. But they do support the facility through donations and sponsorships. Pretty much everything they generate goes back into the space. [14:54] **Nikki Prer**: All right, and then so this strategic plan will run from 2024 to 2028. There are some things that we've already started to work on. This slide shows a few of the achievements that we've already had that were driven by the strategic plan. A new finance committee has been formed. More research and development for membership that's already being done. A grant for a new kiln was submitted. Picking up new sponsors for Art Fall. We've started some initial conversations about the property's planning and usage—research and design began in summer 2024. A joint membership committee has also been formed. [16:25] **Nikki Prer**: We started researching what other organizations are doing. New marketing initiatives—we've been looking into one of which is a photo opportunity at the Art Festival. And then more work on internships, and we'll start some new programming this fall: Theater Arts programming for preschool to 2nd grade. [16:54] **Councilmember Michelle Volk**: Where the grant writing is concerned, is this it with the Friends or is it with just your staff? [17:12] **Joe Masiarchin**: So yeah, there's two opportunities there. The Friends fall into a different category for grant writing opportunities than the Art Center does. So they have their own grant writer; they take care of their own grant applications. And then the Art Center falls under different categories. Nikki is the primary grant writer for the Art Center. Those two pieces have to be completely separate; they can't be crossover between the two organizations because of the way the State Arts Board manages those. [17:50] **Councilmember Michelle Volk**: Thank you. [17:54] **Nikki Prer**: And this particular grant—a member of the Friends board is writing that grant. Yes, it's not an arts board grant; it's a separate grant with an energy company. This last slide just talks about a breakdown for the first 18 months. These are some of the items that we're looking to do and the deadlines we're hoping to get them accomplished by. [18:34] **Nikki Prer**: So, the grant has been submitted, but hopefully by October of 2024, the Friends will have that grant secured. And then we'll have some internship documents—get some job descriptions put together. Some new marketing possibilities also in October. Evaluating the new programming that we're rolling out in September. And then we'll have some options for membership we can sort of report out and we can make some decisions in January. I don't know how much you want me to keep going through all of these. [19:15] **Councilmember Joshua Lee**: Could you talk a little bit more about what some of the options are for membership besides Early Access? [19:32] **Joe Masiarchin**: Yeah, so I think some of the programs that we've seen that have been successful—one reason a vibrant membership program is important is it helps to build return customers. It helps to give us a database for volunteers and all those things. But the programs that we've seen that have been very successful have provided Early Access for registrations, but also potential discounts for classes or being able to bundle pricing for things like season tickets. Those aren't really structured right now because of how it was structured—we weren't able to do any of that through our database because it was all through the Friends. By switching it, we're going to be able to utilize software that we already have. [20:34] **Joe Masiarchin**: Yeah, the "early access" item has come up quite a bit over the past few years, so people being able to commit in advance. [20:45] **Councilmember Joshua Lee**: Also a couple questions about the whole process. One: was there any kind of conversation about increasing daytime offerings, whether it's targeted to seniors or partnering with the Heritage Center? And I did see that I think Parks is going to start doing some homeschool stuff at Ritter. So, any daytime conversation? [21:20] **Nikki Prer**: We will be offering, starting in the fall, some daytime programming for preschool. And then the Visual Arts programming too—in the new fall schedule, there are definitely some daytime adult classes primarily, and I believe there's one or two homeschool-focused classes during the daytime. [21:51] **Joe Masiarchin**: Historically we've had a pretty robust daytime schedule for the visual arts programs. It's the performing arts classes—just because of lack of space when we had just the one building—that really did suffer with daytime offerings. That's something Nikki jumped on already and has some new programs scheduled for fall. [22:06] **Councilmember Joshua Lee**: And then my other question was, was there a conversation about just the site? Obviously, we acquired the new building. Is it working out? Do we need to think about facilities? We own a lot of land around there between that and the parking lot and then the lot behind it. Does it jive with the downtown guide? [22:36] **Joe Masiarchin**: Yep. So, that is one of the tasks on that first 18-month plan is that joint facilities committee. And part of that is to look at how all of those larger festivals are using the site, how the Art Center programs are using the site, and how it's working with the new downtown development guide and the parking study that planning worked on last year. The plan was to look at all of those together and try to create a site plan that maybe helps with the festivals and how we're using things. [23:17] **Mayor Luke Hellier**: Council questions? Okay, thank you both for the update. We look forward to hearing more. Moving on to the next item: City commission appointment process. I will turn it to Justin. [23:38] **City Administrator Justin Miller**: So, at the annual goal setting retreat, one of the items that you asked staff to come back with was just a further discussion about the city commission appointment process. I put in the memo what you've done recently. As you know, you changed it a little bit this past year and you held almost all the interviews on one day, on a Saturday. I think that worked well from what I gather. So, you can talk about if you want to continue with that. And then there's also just a request to do a little bit of research on term limits. Currently, we have no term limits on our city commissions. [24:26] **Justin Miller**: The only thing that we do have is a limitation on how many times somebody can serve as chair of the Planning Commission. I did put in the memo what some of our comparable cities do. It's all over the map. Some are similar to us; they don't have many term limits. Some have different staggered terms. So, I just wanted to bring it back to the Council and see if there's any desire to do any changes as we move forward for next year. [24:43] **Councilmember Dan Wolter**: I thought the single-day process was—I liked it. It's all in one, it was a lot easier to keep track of candidates, and it seemed to flow pretty well. So I would encourage continuing with that. [25:13] **Councilmember Michelle Volk**: Yeah, I think the only thing for me was if—and it's so hard with people's schedules—if we could do one board in a chunk if possible, like all the Planning Commission at one time. But no, I liked it too. It was better than spreading it out over multiple weeks. [25:40] **Councilmember John Bermel**: I think if you're going to do it that way, it would be nice to have just like a small break in there to be able to organize, because ultimately then we get to the end more efficiently. [25:59] **Councilmember Joshua Lee**: My only thought is we should continue to do it on that one day, but on a year where it's a very popular commission year where we have a ton of applications, that's when that will become really challenging. Some other county processes use video submissions so that there could be a first round review from home. If we needed to do some cuts before doing those interviews, I think that might help. [26:46] **Mayor Luke Hellier**: I did have some thoughts about term limits. I think in general something makes sense. The one thought I had was planning should probably be a little bit longer only because I think they should at least get through a comp plan and have some experience before that. So if you have like four three-year terms, that's 12 years. I don't know what you guys think about term limits. [27:32] **Councilmember Dan Wolter**: I was thinking about that, and I don't have an issue with them. I see that there's one city here, Bloomington, no more than six consecutive years then a gap before a new appointment. I encourage a longer one. I think there's some benefit to it. I like Bloomington's deal where it's like, okay, if you term out, that doesn't mean we're absolutely done, but you come back getting some fresh perspective. [28:19] **Councilmember John Bermel**: I think your comments on planning are critical. Having been on a Planning Commission, I know it takes at least a year to figure out what the heck's going on because it's complicated. But I think generally though, I'm not generally a fan of term limits. I think that's kind of our job to assess that. We haven't reappointed people with long longevity on both Parks and Planning recently. Finance is another good example where you need some unique skill sets that are going to be challenging to find. I think we're qualified enough to know if they're still bringing value. [29:51] **Mayor Luke Hellier**: Do you think somebody is not qualified anymore? I realize in a lot of ways it just works itself out—people's lives change and they don't come back. [30:40] **Councilmember Joshua Lee**: As I reflect on the conversation you've had, it's really hard to allow someone new into the process because we had such great people in these roles. When we start talking about qualifications, certainly the person that's been on the board longer is going to have the qualifications more so. So where I see the challenge is offering opportunities to newer residents or younger residents. As I look at the comparable cities, I really did like the Edina or Eden Prairie models where there was a gap because it allowed at least an opportunity, but not a definite end forever. [32:14] **Mayor Luke Hellier**: I'd be open to the gap concept. It would be nice for some openings to naturally happen. We do that sometimes with the alternate terms where they at least get a taste of it. [33:02] **Justin Miller**: Not all of them have alternates, right. [33:06] **Councilmember Joshua Lee**: I was intrigued with the ones where they said, "Hey, we do have a term limit, but with a unanimous vote we will overturn it." Almost to your point, Michelle, that we can make that decision. If there's somebody that we feel is adding a ton of value, we'll keep that person on. Because for me, it wasn't as much about value—I think anybody serving is committing—a lot of it is just providing opportunities. But I would like to have some options because there are some really specialized committees. [34:34] **Councilmember John Bermel**: It'd be interesting to see how a city that does have that unanimous vote extension works. Is that something you do before the process or after? [34:47] **Mayor Luke Hellier**: What's our chair limitation for planning? [34:50] **Justin Miller**: I believe it's three one-year terms consecutively. [35:59] **Councilmember John Bermel**: I would want to do something if we established term limits—longer possibility of service and the ability to say, "No, I think somebody needs to stay on here." I would hate to have some high level of expertise walk out the door because we said a term was up. [36:06] **Councilmember Michelle Volk**: The other question would be if there were a term limit and you finished your one term, and now you would like to do the second term, do you reapply to the council or do you just give your ability to dedicate your time? [36:40] **Mayor Luke Hellier**: I wonder if these cities don't do interviews in between terms? [36:46] **Justin Miller**: I don't know for sure. Anecdotally, we're one of the few cities that interviews incumbents because we don't have terms. [36:51] **Councilmember Joshua Lee**: I'd be in favor of moving that direction—of not interviewing assuming there's a favorable record for the term. Over the past few years, the incumbent always has the advantage. [37:38] **Councilmember Michelle Volk**: So do you have, let's say the finance committee—if the incumbent says yes for another term, that doesn't leave any opening for that committee. [38:24] **Councilmember Joshua Lee**: No, I think the Council should still say, even without interviewing, we're going to move in a different direction. You still have to apply. So you're going to come back, but you wouldn't have to interview. We'd interview just the new people. A term limit doesn't mean that I'm on for nine years; it's the term, and so we still have that decision-making voice. If your performance might not have been up to snuff, we're going to go a different direction. [39:11] **Councilmember Michelle Volk**: I still like getting the interviews because I feel like we learn a lot on advice from those people on what they think we should be focusing on. I actually appreciate the one-on-one time for 10 minutes to get feedback. [39:59] **Councilmember John Bermel**: I don't know where we're at with the majority, but on the hybrid model, I'm in favor of that. [40:47] **Councilmember Michelle Volk**: I think I'm still a no unless the only thing I would support would be there would be the gap. [41:14] **Mayor Luke Hellier**: I would go one more step and make it a triple hybrid. I just don't want to lose the ability—some circumstances where somebody brings something that nobody else is going to. So, the Bloomington/Edina with terms, the one-year gap, but also that we have the ability to extend the term by unanimous vote. [42:20] **Justin Miller**: Okay, so just so I'm clear, I heard exactly how Edina is: two three-year terms; Planning Commission is three three-year terms; a one-year gap if you've maxed out; and anybody can be extended for another term by unanimous vote of Council. [42:36] **Mayor Luke Hellier**: Yep. We will work on an ordinance. Let's try and get through the budget stuff with Julie. Julie, you're seven minutes ahead. [43:07] **Finance Director Julie Stahl**: Going into this budget season, you had the challenge of the tax base not growing all that much. 3.4% for tax capacity, 2.8% that was in construction. Not a lot of pushing there for all the growth things that we'll have—the fire department model and adding those 10 firefighters. The way we have positioned the budget, we are not including the requests that were just developed. We did include the six full-time firefighters that Council already approved. [44:41] **Julie Stahl**: There were four in the last budget cycle that were to start November 1st. Instead, we're going to have two starting November 1st and the other two starting in June of 2025. Timing issues and just the way filling a position has gone, that even seems more feasible. When we look at the expenditures in the general fund, there are some one-time costs like supplies of $245,000 and the BMA implementation of $370,000. [46:14] **Julie Stahl**: The other thing that is also affecting the increase is having to add dollars into the building equipment and technology funds. Those three together is $600,000 worth of our levy, where last year we weren't having to add anything. Of course, the big piece of the whole levy increase is the part of the referendum levy. As noted in the council packet, of the 13.4% increase, that was 2.4% of it. And we knew going into this budget that this was going to be our big hit year. [47:49] **Julie Stahl**: The good news is the way we have it structured right now, our tax rate would still be less than what the tax rate was in 2009. And there's another question for Council: do we want to have comparative information of the other County cities or our comparable cities and what their tax rates are? Because we're not the only ones that are seeing double digits, especially cities that also blossomed those for fires. [49:22] **Julie Stahl**: Just a thought, hoping to get any feedback on sharing that kind of information. I know it's not always apples to apples because we all have different needs. Just looking at that median home value, if we put the budget in place that we've got, not adding new positions other than the firefighters, a median home valued at $411,000 would be a $151 a year increase. [50:54] **Julie Stahl**: The other thing I just wanted to mention: the SAFER Grant. We did apply again for this second round. What we would get in the first year is $1.7 million. We're not suggesting using any general fund reserves; what that would leave us at the end of 2025 is a 48.5% fund balance. Council has any strong feelings about possibly using some fund balance? I’m not saying it's something I recommend, but it's an option. [52:19] **Councilmember Dan Wolter**: Can I ask a question about the debt service portion? If I'm reading it correctly, 3.5% of that 9.63 is just existing debt service, is that right? [52:33] **Julie Stahl**: The park referendum is 2.41. Our hands are tied on that. And it should be noted that starting with the 2026 budget, that number will be built into the levy so we aren't going to be issuing any more debt for the Park Bond referendum. [53:14] **Councilmember Dan Wolter**: To answer your question earlier, I think it would be helpful just to have an understanding of where we are in the county because people always ask that question. Clearly, the economy is slowing down and it's impacting our ability to generate revenue. When you don't have a single apartment come in this year other than Astoria, it's a signal. [54:00] **Councilmember Michelle Volk**: Well, and for me, I think also on top of the franchise fee discussion too—two years of 10% increases. I'm getting older, the income in my household is going down as my husband's now retired. Getting that property tax bill is always the killer. We've known for years this was going to be the tough year. But I don't want to jeopardize our credit rating by messing around with the debt. [55:32] **Julie Stahl**: I would never risk that. There's some pushing in a couple of Debt Service funds we could use that still not jeopardizing any of the bond issues. [56:55] **Councilmember Dan Wolter**: What’s the timing on getting the SAFER Grant? [57:02] **Julie Stahl**: November. We did get a request for more information this time, which we did not get last time, so that's a positive sign. While we would receive $1.7 million for next year, we would want to work out some sort of schedule so we wouldn't have a massive cliff at the end of three years. We’d probably "feather in" that levy increase. [58:11] **Justin Miller**: Just a reminder, this is the preliminary levy that we have to adopt by September 30th. The current plan is we'd bring this back at your next week's meeting. We always try to figure out ways to lower it between the preliminary and the final. Some of the big changes in this are the increases in the equipment fund, facilities, and technologies. One, because we have some needs, but two, it's also to preserve those fund balances so we don't have massive spikes. [59:52] **Councilmember Joshua Lee**: Looking at the increase—I hold harmless the Park referendum because that was voter-approved. But the remaining increase—I think all of us would be more comfortable if it wasn't a double-digit increase. That requires at least a $500,000 cut somewhere to get under. So to me, that's my target. [1:01:41] **Councilmember Dan Wolter**: It’s a double-digit increase; I don't think it's a surprise to anyone. It will be helpful to have that tax capacity rate information to provide a case for reasonableness. We're funding Public Safety, we're funding additional parks and personnel. I don't think there's anything in here that's not reasonable—we aren't gold-plating the toilets. I would really think hard about the fund balance; the higher the better for that, especially when we start thinking about our bond rating. [1:05:41] **Councilmember Michelle Volk**: About the six firefighters—is there a reason we have to do all six? Can that be stretched out more? [1:05:54] **Fire Chief Mike Meyer**: So, the current six that you have right now are two per shift, which creates three shifts covering 24/7. The next six are adding two to those. Our goal is to staff one truck and then follow by staffing the second truck. The next six gives us two full-time to staff the second truck, and then we backfill the next two positions with the paid-on-call. [1:07:14] **Fire Chief Mike Meyer**: In the first quarter of this year, we were at 174 calls that were simultaneous. The second quarter it doubled—went up to 275. We had up to three incidents occurring at once. Today has been a rash of fire alarms just due to the heat we're having. [1:08:01] **Councilmember John Bermel**: Public Safety is the priority. I think we have not overfunded that in the past, so some of it we're playing catch-up here. I’m not happy with that double-digit increase, but that's where I land. [1:08:46] **Justin Miller**: And just as we're talking franchise fees, the current plan is the first project that would be funding is the Heritage Center, which would start construction next year. We would issue the debt next year, first payment in '26. You don't have to levy for that in '25. [1:09:41] **Justin Miller**: So, I heard to try to get it down basically a percentage point or so. Final levy 12.41? We'll keep looking. [1:10:13] **Mayor Luke Hellier**: The story you have has to be explained very simply. [1:10:59] **Councilmember Michelle Volk**: In the future I want us to think about—I don't want to be setting up a system where we're always expecting cuts. I feel like in the eight years I've been here, staff doesn't come to present cuts. Usually we are the ones adding officers or employees. [1:11:45] **Mayor Luke Hellier**: Okay, thank you. Do we want to get into the CIP? [1:12:12] **Julie Stahl**: I’ll just kick it off. The financing plan for building equipment and technology is in there. The facility plan right now stands at $100,000 in the levy for 2025. Equipment plan is $200,000 and Technology is $300,000. With that, I'll turn it over to Zach because he's the master. [1:13:30] **City Engineer Zach Johnson**: We did do a couple of things. We did push a project back another year—this is Dodd Boulevard, south of County Road 50 to 210th Street, recognizing some of the budget constraints. We also pushed back a highway bridge crossing the North Creek in the northeast side of town. The other significant change is the County Road 50 and I-35 interchange is looking more like a 2028-2029 construction. [1:15:39] **Councilmember Dan Wolter**: The 202nd Street, what’s the '26? [1:16:06] **Zach Johnson**: That is an addition. It is the roundabout. The county is leading and funding the vast majority of a roundabout at the intersection of County Road 50 and Hamburg Avenue. Our costs are really limited to street lights and operations. The goal is to complete that towards the end of next summer. The other items you'll see are the Greenway Trail projects in partnership with Dakota County. [1:17:11] **Councilmember Joshua Lee**: You said 2510 was delayed? Is it a challenge to have back-to-back projects on that road? [1:17:28] **Zach Johnson**: 2510 is a county-led project; it's a mill and overlay, not a reconstruction. It generally takes about one to two weeks. [1:19:09] **Mayor Luke Hellier**: Any other questions? All right, moving on to items for future discussion, committee, and City Administrator. [1:19:40] **Justin Miller**: I just have one update. Myself and Tina, Chris, and Dave met with Builders [Builders Association] today to talk about how the city and the development community can work together regarding housing legislation. We're going to have them come and give us a little bit more information about building strategies. [1:20:25] **Councilmember Michelle Volk**: Personnel committee—two major points. One is we reviewed the health insurance premiums. Those rates, the increases were much less than anticipated, so that is very positive. [1:21:11] **Councilmember Joshua Lee**: Can you highlight the expense related to paid leave that the state is mandating? [1:21:28] **Justin Miller**: That starts in '26. [1:21:38] **Councilmember Michelle Volk**: We did get a better rate for health, but we had to increase the employer share of the contributions to be more competitive. The other thing we started discussing is the City Administrator evaluation process. We asked for a little bit of a look at consolidating some of the questions. [1:22:45] **Mayor Luke Hellier**: Do you guys have any input into that process that we should be aware of? [1:23:05] **Councilmember Michelle Volk**: I think it's a smooth process, but it's always good to look at the questions. [1:23:33] **Mayor Luke Hellier**: Okay, our next meeting is Tuesday because Monday is Labor Day. With that, I'll take a motion to adjourn. [1:23:45] **Councilmember Dan Wolter**: So moved. [1:23:46] **Councilmember John Bermel**: Second. [1:23:47] **Mayor Luke Hellier**: All in favor say Aye. (Council: Aye). Opposed? Just to give you a heads up, the weather looks really bad—good thing we're moving.