This transcript features a Bayport City Council workshop involving the Mayor, City Council, City Staff, and representatives from Baytown Township. *Note: The transcript refers to the Mayor as "Mayor St. Ours," though the provided list identifies Michele Hanson as Mayor. I have used the name provided in your official list. Similarly, there is a "Councilmember Hanson" addressed separately in the transcript.* [0:00] **Mayor Michele Hanson:** So I'm going to call to order the March 1st, 2021 Bayport City Council workshop and Adam, um, please take the roll and kick us off with discussion. Thank you, Madam Mayor. [0:11] **Adam (City Staff):** Mayor St. Ours, here. Councilmember Hanson, here. Councilmember Carlson, here. Councilmember Call, present. Councilmember Gilmore, I do not believe he's here so he's currently absent. All right, um, because we do have one of the representatives from Baytown, we'll go ahead and get started with the water connection water service extension request for Baytown Township. Matt, if you want to go ahead and start. [0:47] **Matt Kline (City Administrator):** Madam Mayor, members of the council, I'm just going to go pretty much through my memo, maybe not quite as in-depth, but um, high level over that. And then if there's any questions along the way, feel free to just chime in and we'll go from there. Derrick Custom Homes has requested a water extension for municipal water at the proposed Hills of Spring Creek subdivision. I'm sure you all are aware of where that is, but if not, it's at the intersection of County Road 14 and Osgood, essentially where the railroad tracks go over Osgood—there's the corner property right in that location. [1:34] **Matt Kline (City Administrator):** The proposed development consists of about 102 homes. If you'll recall, some of you may recall this development was previously proposed for development back in 2018. And at that time, we actually contacted Baytown Township—actually, we worked through the previous developer really to kind of change the current joint powers agreement with Baytown. It essentially made it somewhat easier to connect future developments where we didn't have to keep changing up the joint powers agreement. And it also imparted an impact fee essentially for future replacement of infrastructure. I believe that that fee right now is 25 dollars per quarter on any Baytown resident. What that money is used for is any future replacement of infrastructure—so not necessarily general maintenance, which would include like fixing a water main break or replacing a hydrant, but if the whole system, like complete replacement of water main needs to occur while they're redoing a road, that's what that would entail. [3:08] **Matt Kline (City Administrator):** Then in the fall of this past year, fall of 2020, the city was approached by a new developer about the same property and about acquiring city water for that. At that time, as you all know from the previous city council meeting, the upper zone—which consists of Inspiration and the Miller Farm developments—does experience some max water usage during the summer months. Now primarily this max usage occurs in the mornings, roughly from somewhere like 3:00 a.m. to about noon, due to irrigation issues that we have out there. So staff recommended to the developer that there is the potential for them to connect, but they would likely have to come up with an alternative to serve their irrigation for the development. This current proposed extension to the Hills of Spring Creek is only for potable water only. They are seeking MPCA and DNR approval for a pair of irrigation wells that would be used to fill their reused pond irrigation system, and this wouldn't impact the city of Bayport in that way. [4:41] **Matt Kline (City Administrator):** Um, so what the developer is hoping is that we give them some direction on whether we would allow them to hook up just for potable water. They're also trying to move forward due to timing issues. You know, they have—they're going for preliminary plat at the Baytown meeting either tonight or in April. I know they're on the agenda tonight. They're also trying to get approval from the MPCA and DNR for the irrigation wells, and then they're also trying to move forward with a summer start date. So all this is just coming into fruition, you know, rapidly. [5:28] **Matt Kline (City Administrator):** I just want to talk to you about water extension impacts. So their proposal for just potable water—my rough estimate for their use on a daily basis for the roughly 102 homes is about 17,500 gallons a day. To put that in a little perspective, the winter usage for the upper water zone currently stands about 70,000 gallons per day. That's obviously on the low end of usage, or that's essentially residential no-outside-watering usage. On the high end, they're at about averaging about 350,000 gallons a day with peak days at about 450,000, I think, out there. So again, they use quite a bit of water during summer irrigation. [6:15] **Matt Kline (City Administrator):** So the question would be, what is the impact on that 17,500 gallons and connection just for potable water? I did run this by Chad Katzenberger from SEH, who's helping us out with a little water modeling to show us what our new pumps at the booster station would use or help us out with, and what this connection would do. And his opinion was that this connection, if it's just for residential use—no outside watering—that it would obviously have a minimal impact on water usage on a daily basis, essentially just given the small amount compared to what we're already using. [7:15] **Matt Kline (City Administrator):** The next impact would obviously be irrigation use. When city staff talked to the developer, we had obviously indicated that, you know, given our max capacities in the mornings during the summer months, there would almost be no way that we'd be able to provide you out of only potable water but irrigation water for all the residents out there. We just couldn't make that happen. So that led them to develop essentially a stormwater reuse pond system. This system is used up in Hugo quite a bit in some of the developments up there and it's been tried in a couple of places, but it's a fairly new system. Essentially, they're going to collect water from the watershed and off of roads in a two-pond system and reuse that and have all of the residents connected to that system. So they'll be able to use that water to irrigate all of their lawns. One of the issue becomes, of course, is backup for that system just in case the ponds don't last for a certain period of time or a dry period. So that would be either city water potentially—and that couldn't be done unless there were severe restrictions on time of use and multiple other things—or if we didn't even allow them to use city water. That is always a possibility, too. Their preference would be irrigation wells that they would connect to these pond systems and only be used as backups to fill the ponds during dry periods. [9:19] **Matt Kline (City Administrator):** Okay, so staff comments on this request. The original JPA from 2006 was essentially to extend municipal services to developments in Baytown. This was primarily done because of TCE contamination and the ability to supply clean drinking water to those residents. And we were also worried somewhat about the plume being pulled in different directions because of those connections. The effect would be kind of the same here. You know, if we're drilling a hundred different wells in this area potentially—if they're individual wells—we're unsure of what effect that would have on the plume for TCE, and the DNR would reiterate that too. [10:20] **Matt Kline (City Administrator):** The other comments are: the developer would be responsible for all costs associated with installation of the system. Those would include the piping of the system, the city engineering costs related to reviewing and on-site inspection of the system. The developer is also responsible for the payment of required trunk area charges, water connection fees, and there would be a park identification fee split between Baytown and the city of Bayport for each lot that was developed. There are a couple of other benefits to the city potentially if this system would go out that way. The trunk area charges that would be charged to this system could very well pay for the mechanical upgrades that we had talked about to the booster stations from last month. And then there's also the potential—an ultimate build-out of the system would potentially be looping the system. So this system would go up Stagecoach and then over on 47th to the west. Looping the system could eventually include running pipe down to the new fire hall, which would connect the system that way. And actually, Adam, can you share your screen? [12:22] **Matt Kline (City Administrator):** I can share screen right... oh sorry, now can I? I'll wait, I'm just compiling a list here... Okay, so right here is the development in question. Everybody see where my cursor is? [12:44] **Councilmember:** No, your screen isn't on. [12:47] **Matt Kline (City Administrator):** My screen's not on? Huh. No, we just see everybody. Is it one of the pictures in the packet? No. You should be able to share... I know I hit share screen and it comes up, but you guys don't see any of this? Oh, it's trying to do something... there we go. Okay. So essentially, what we're talking about looping is—so right now, from the upper zone to the lower zone, there's really only one connection down here, and it's around the Inspiration tower. The plan for the development is to run water down Stagecoach and then over on 47th to development over here. A future connection potentially could be that we would run water all the way down to here to have another connection out by the fire hall. So if anything would happen to this connection here, we would always have the ability to push water up here like this. It's the same thing everywhere else in the city; you tend to loop the water system. So that's what I wanted to reiterate there. So how do I get out of screen sharing? Stop share. Perfect. [14:51] **Councilmember John Carlson:** Sorry, before we moved on from that part there—because one of my questions is specific to the looping—that wouldn't be part of what's being presented right now. That would be a future project, and would the city be responsible for that? [15:10] **Matt Kline (City Administrator):** Correct. We potentially... it's unlikely that we would require this developer to loop that at this point. That would be a future development at this point, yeah. And given that there's probably nobody connecting along that little stretch from the fire hall to where 47 turns there, I doubt very much that anybody else would pay for that at that point. [15:37] **Matt Kline (City Administrator):** Can I interject a clarifying point to Councilmember Carlson's question? This would construct, let's say, somewhere between a quarter and a third of that loop, however. So it would be on the developer's nickel to construct about a quarter—you know, like I said, a quarter to a third. I didn't do the exact calculations. So part of the point is that part of that loop would be constructed at the developer's cost and under the city's standards. [16:10] **Adam (City Staff):** Thanks for that clarification, I appreciate that. And just for the council, if I can interject, that redundancy—that water service redundancy—would also be a benefit for the current Baytown residents because they're connected to the same system. So that water redundancy is going to be mutually beneficial for the Baytown and the Bayport residents. [16:32] **Councilmember John Carlson:** We would have to pay for the finishing of the loop? Baytown couldn't help with that? [16:38] **Adam (City Staff):** We haven't had that conversation with them. That would be something that we would have to have... I have not had those conversations. Matt admitted that that just hasn't taken place yet. It's something we could look into if that was something the township would be interested in, then yes. [17:11] **Matt Kline (City Administrator):** I should interject here—the other potential when we would finish that loop, there's that corner section of like 40 acres there that was proposed for orderly annexation in the corner of Bayport just to the south of the new fire hall. If that were to ever get annexed into Bayport, it's likely we could complete that loop at that time. So that would be a good time to do that, actually. But again, we haven't had any conversations and there's no current plans. [17:56] **Matt Kline (City Administrator):** So, recommendation at the council meeting is probably going to be to: one, acquire direction from the city council on moving forward with this request. Staff isn't going to ask for any formal recommendation, but it's likely that we would bring a resolution back in April if the city council would prefer to move forward with this. Again, it's just for potable water only. If the developer were denied the irrigation wells in the area, they would potentially come back and ask for a city connection to the two stormwater reuse ponds, but that can always be denied if that's what we would prefer. And the developer does know that that's always a possibility. I'm sure their preference is to have city water in place specifically for residential use and that they will move forward with some type of irrigation system after that. I'm open to questions. [19:19] **Mayor Michele Hanson:** Thank you, Matt. Questions from the council? John, you said that you had a number, so why don't we start with you. [19:40] **Councilmember John Carlson:** Yeah, I have several. So the looping was the one... did I thought I read somewhere in the packet that they predicted that they would be wanting to irrigate about one acre per property? Is that accurate? [20:05] **Matt Kline (City Administrator):** Um, I believe they're going to limit that. There's a couple of different things that they would do depending on the irrigation setup that they have. And actually, if I'm being frank, I think if they're going to ask for city water as a backup to their irrigation system, that we put all kinds of restrictions and stipulations on that. To that point, John, I believe it was a half an acre is what they're going to limit it to. And it's only, I believe they're talking only the front yard potentially of each property even that might even be in place just with their stormwater reuse ponds. [20:50] **Councilmember John Carlson:** The other thing—you'd mentioned early on in your presentation, Matt, that our spike is from 3:00 a.m. to noon. And I know you don't know what people are using water for during those hours, but I mean if people are doing a lot of irrigating from sun up to noon, that's a gross waste of water just in terms of evaporation. That's just kind of from my layman's perspective, but I know I've read different things about that. So just something I'm throwing out there. And then the only thing I've heard so far is just some concerns from Baytown residents, so I want to make sure we give the Baytown representative enough time to kind of frame the thoughts that they have, because I wouldn't want Bayport to be part of something that Baytown isn't in favor of. And then the other thing is—anything different from the TCE standpoint? Are we going back to kind of the original joint powers agreement to kind of get the framework out there for why we are doing things from a TCE perspective? Has anything changed from any of the science or that kind of thing that would make it more optimal for them to have individual wells versus city water for their potable? [22:23] **Matt Kline (City Administrator):** So from that perspective, all the individual wells would likely end up having to have filters on it, and I think that's one of the reasons that the developer would prefer obviously to have city water. As far as pulling TCE that way per se and moving it that way—obviously a hundred wells in that area would cause that to happen. Now I know that they are proposing to put two irrigation wells in there. The funny thing about TCE is that when you expose it to oxygen, it oxidizes into the air and becomes essentially inert. And so there's a catch-22 there: does the DNR and MPCA want water pulled that way potentially? Yes, if they're going to put it in the air and dump it into the ponds, because that would remove some of the TCE. But it would also cause the plume potentially—not for sure, but potentially—to move up farther to the northeast there. But that's a question for them to answer and not us potentially. [23:58] **Councilmember John Carlson:** One of my only other concerns is—and I'm not sure how... I'm very familiar with residential plumbing and irrigation systems and stuff like that—but if we move forward with something like this, in the residences that I've seen irrigation systems, it'd be a pretty quick afternoon job to plumb your irrigation system into your city water and start pulling from city water to irrigate your lawn, and then have a valve to be able to switch it over. Just something like that. [24:25] **Matt Kline (City Administrator):** You're entirely correct. We would see obviously a huge spike in their usage for that point in time. And so I think we'd have a pretty easy way of identifying any people who did that. I think we really need to think through all the stipulations that are going to be attached to this and some of the penalties potentially for doing something like that. So, yeah. [24:55] **Councilmember Call ("Connie"):** Fair enough, thank you. I'm good for now. Somebody else needs a chance to talk. John kind of asked two of mine—mine was about the irrigation with the two wells, I had some concerns about the TCE and John's other things. They were answered by Matt. [25:31] **Councilmember Michelle Hanson:** My questions were answered as well. [25:40] **Councilmember Ethan Gilmore:** Sorry, I just had to unmute there. Um, yeah, I think John answered or asked the questions and they were answered. I do agree with him as well—I've seen some people in Baytown that do not want this development. I think what he said about getting the Baytown people to make sure that that's really what they want is important to hear from them as well. [26:01] **Councilmember Michelle Hanson:** I think we have to talk about that, though. What is our role in that? I mean, do we have a say? I mean, if we can't say, "Okay, we're not going to give you water because we don't want you to do this development," I mean, is that really our place legally, or should Tom help us with that? I feel like we have a JPA with them. [26:22] **Tom Lunan (City Attorney):** With regards to your role in it, you do have the JPA; you have to comply with that and the restrictions that Matt talked about, the reasonable restrictions you can place on it. But as far as you guys having any ability to halt this on a waterfront, as long as it is feasible and there's a way to do it feasibly, you can't stop the development. That's up to the Baytown board and how they want to react to it. But yeah, there's no say from Bayport because the JPA would require that water to come in as long as it is feasible. [27:03] **Councilmember Michelle Hanson:** That's kind of what I thought. Me too. Which I guess is better than us getting in the middle of it. You know, I mean we have parameters, and we can put rules on how they can use the water. So I'm interested in having a more in-depth discussion on the parameters. You know, because we have kind of a challenge right now enforcing our current ones, especially in the upper zones, so making sure that that language would be strong enough and enforceable would be something that I'd want to take a look at. [27:51] **Matt Kline (City Administrator):** For example, I don't think I saw anything in there about every property having an irrigation system that's hooked to those ponds. That will be how they will hook it up—every property will be connected to the stormwater reuse ponds. [28:00] **Mayor Michele Hanson:** Okay. With that and with Tom's guidance in mind, are there representatives from Baytown that would like to address the Council with items that are pertinent to our decision-making? John or Rick, would you like to address the Council? [28:38] **Rick Ware (Baytown Township):** This is Rick Ware from Baytown Township. I don't really have anything additional. Everything I had for questions or concerns has been addressed as well. [28:51] **John Hall (Baytown Township Chair):** Mayor St. Ours, John Hall, Baytown Township Board Chair. I appreciate the Council reviewing and looking at this. You've pretty much answered a lot of the same questions that I had. We're not looking for you guys to get in the middle of this development, but we want to make sure that we do the right things for both the City of Bayport and Baytown Township. We want to make sure that we work together and that we don't stress out the water system and put you guys in a bad position. We want to make sure that we follow everything properly and our developer follows things properly and that we continue to have a good working relationship. It will be discussed tonight; we'll probably look to some kind of a vote on it in our April meeting, what I'm anticipating. So we still have a lot to talk about, a lot to do, but again, I appreciate the Council going through all this trouble. [30:08] **Mayor Michele Hanson:** Thank you for joining us. So, the one thing Matt, if I could circle back: we're talking about potential of the trunk fees helping offset some of the immediate costs of the pumps. What about long-term costs? Is the 25 dollars per quarter enough to sustain us with the various developments that are up in this upper zone? [30:32] **Matt Kline (City Administrator):** So if you'll remember back, I believe that 25 was a starting point that would be increased to an amount determined in the future essentially. Now this development per se, as far as replacement costs, you're talking 75 years down the road before any money would need to be spent. And I believe we did a rough calculation—and 25 obviously per person didn't cover it in long-term future—and that's why we kind of did a sliding scale which we haven't increased yet, but we do have the ability to do that. [31:07] **Adam (City Staff):** It was actually 20 where we started. We did the calculations and we'd have to recalculate those to see what that would be. This, as Matt said, is 75 years off for this new development. We were looking at between 50 to 75 years for the first sets of developments that had gone in—the Miller Farms. Those we had indexed... you know, how much we're gonna have to increase it every so often to get to that end result 50 years from now. Obviously there's a lot of factors that are not taken into account with that much amount of time, but we did come up with the estimates for the long term and we settled on the 20 as the starting point. So we'd have to redo that with this in addition. [32:04] **Mayor Michele Hanson:** It's been a while since we discussed the Miller Farms in that agreement, so let's just keep that on our radar because it's a lot easier to go in small increments than, you know, at some later date jump things significantly. [32:30] **Matt Kline (City Administrator):** Madam Mayor, if I could add another thing. Essentially, if you look at water production and the cost to produce water and the effect of high irrigation, essentially you put more stress on the system for that than like this development, who's going to be only using residential water. And so really the cost to provide them just residential water is going to be a lot less per capita per se than what it is for the houses in the Miller Farms neighborhood, especially given that the houses will be essentially a lot closer—they'll kind of be like an Inspiration neighborhood—whereas out in Miller Farms, they're slightly bigger lots and farther apart. So on a per capita basis, they're way more expensive than what the Hills of Spring Creek would be for a full replacement. [33:28] **Councilmember John Carlson:** So I have a question kind of along those lines, and I guess I'd probably address it to City Attorney Lunan. First of all, the beard is phenomenal, looking really sharp. Secondly, um, so in terms of the joint powers agreement—what kind of things would preclude us or what would we be able to use as a reason to not connect? You know, if we don't have the capacity, but we're required to meet the extra capacity... I'm just trying to get a general feel for it at what point we can say, "well, we can't because of X, Y, and Z." [34:14] **Tom Lunan (City Attorney):** Yeah, and I'm trying to pull it up here. We had a little bit of back and forth with Administrator Bell and Matt, and the capacity question is the primary question. My understanding is that there's ways that the project has been proposed, particularly with the stormwater irrigation, that would make it feasible and allow for that capacity. So in reviewing it, if the capacity is there, if there's an ability to connect the water without overrunning your system, the joint powers agreement would require it. The proposal, as I understand it, would allow for that as long as they comply with sort of these restrictions and ideas that have been put into place. [34:55] **Tom Lunan (City Attorney):** We had a little bit of back and forth about making sure—and Matt alluded to it when he was talking—to make sure that the wording of any resolution granting this is clear about the requirements and what they need to do to make sure that they don't over-overuse the water that would exceed the capacity that we have. It really comes down to the capacity, and that includes the long-term modeling that Matt was referencing that we were in the process of updating. That's really the big catching point. That was one of the first questions that we had to answer when we were first contacted by the developer is whether or not we even had the capacity. That's always going to be the bottom line. [36:00] **Councilmember John Carlson:** And so, if say the state doesn't approve them putting in the wells for the irrigation, could they still say, "well yeah, if you upgrade to X amount of gallon-per-minute pumps, you will have enough to meet our needs," and then are we on the hook to do that? Obviously having their portion paid by this project, but just trying to get a feel for it—trying to extrapolate out to the next steps. [36:31] **Matt Kline (City Administrator):** Um, as far as capacity, like I had indicated, there would be a chance that they wouldn't be able to acquire those wells and we would have to run that connection through the water model just to see what it would do. I think it's going to be inevitable that we have to upgrade the booster system pumps. I just don't think that water conservation—although, to let you know too, I've already contacted St. Croix Prep, and they're actually doing some things with their irrigation system already to preferably use less water, and I've been in contact with the irrigation guy who does the stuff for Inspiration, and both of them were more than happy to try and work with us on stuff like that—but even with that said, given that we haven't had a really dry year, I think the upgrades to the booster station are inevitable. [37:37] **Matt Kline (City Administrator):** Now with that said, I still don't think that it's a foregone conclusion that we would be required to connect city water as a backup system to the stormwater reuse ponds, especially if we're concerned that we may not have enough for there. And really you can do all the modeling in the world and it doesn't really tell you about human behavior. Even in an emergency, people are still going to use water. So I think there's enough doubt there that unless they would agree to some huge parameters on that... and the difficult part is that when they're going to want to fill their ponds is likely at the end of like a two-week drought where they've gone through all the water in their stormwater reuse. And the rest of the residents up in that area are going to want to use water at the same time for their irrigation, and I think that would be shown in the water model as essentially exceeding our capacity. [39:03] **Matt Kline (City Administrator):** And I should say—there'd be two things of capacity here. One would be our full capacity, which we're at now during mornings in the summer, which is not something that we'd prefer to be at either because of emergencies. I'd prefer that we'd be pumping two wells with a third for emergency or a backup in case one of the other wells goes out. So really we should be talking about capacity at two of those pumps rather instead of all three. [39:40] **Matt Kline (City Administrator):** So then moving forward, John, to your question about the future and build-out in Baytown. Essentially along Osgood, there are quite a few lots that are quite a few larger acres there that could have development placed in them. But without the potential of a new well and potentially a new water tower somewhere out there, the capacity would not be there to hook up another development likely, and that would likely be so cost-prohibitive that all of those property owners along Osgood would likely have to combine all at one time to put in a water tower and potentially a new well just to make that happen because of the cost of it. [40:41] **Councilmember John Carlson:** Just curious, why is it Bayport that they're hooking up to instead of Oak Park Heights, when they're getting that close to Oak Park? [41:00] **Matt Kline (City Administrator):** Um, I believe we ran into this two years ago and Oak Park Heights doesn't really have a close connection. They have the DNR land between them and so there's no easy connection, and I don't think Oak Park Heights was interested in providing water either. And the fact that Bayport water was already out there made it more feasible. [41:25] **Councilmember John Carlson:** What about that Osgood stretch you were talking about? Is that feasible that they could hook up to Oak Park Heights instead of Bayport? [41:33] **Matt Kline (City Administrator):** The Osgood stretch is actually the south stretch of Osgood, south of the railroad tracks. They'd connect to the Audubon development, essentially. [41:50] **Adam (City Staff):** Madam Mayor, if any of the council members had any other questions right now, we do have another topic for the workshop. We've kind of come up against the allotted time we were going to discuss this. If there are any other questions that the council wanted to just ask to have staff work on otherwise, any further questions or discussion can occur at the regular meeting. We were just going to give a brief recap of what we've discussed here and give a status update at the regular meeting. [42:19] **Mayor Michele Hanson:** Okay, if not, then thank you to all of our participants from Baytown. Adam will be back in touch. So that takes us to our second item. [42:31] **Adam (City Staff):** Yes, thank you Madam Mayor. At the last city council meeting, the traffic speed limit and stop signs/yield signs—the whole traffic discussion—was had by the council. At that time, staff was instructed to do the public engagement, do some surveying, get the public feedback and to make it available for the May 3rd meeting. The question was whether or not to hire/consult with SEH to conduct a full study to lower the speed limit to 20. If it was only to 25, a full study was not required, but we still had to determine where the speed limit signs would need to go, so there'd still be some work in there. Since that time, staff has been working on the survey process. We've also been doing some other research and getting some more information on the issue. [43:52] **Adam (City Staff):** One of the items regarding the public engagement is we are going to have a SurveyMonkey online survey. We're also including information on the website—this is all the data, the facts, the discussions that we've had available. We won't have all of it in the newsletter, but we're going to have a page and a half of the newsletter with some of this information and a cut-out survey portion so they can turn it in. We'll also be making it available to the public to be able to call in or email and we'll be tracking that. Councilmember Hanson has provided some information on the actual survey that I'm working on. [44:38] **Adam (City Staff):** The other thing that we are going to do is send out a direct mailing. It was something that I talked to Councilmember Hanson about, and the last mailing we did was about 350 dollars to do basically every residence in the city to send a postcard to. That was something because some people may not see the newsletter, and we just want to make sure that everybody is aware of it. That was the big part of the statutory requirement—to notify the public that this was taking place. It wasn't specifically just to garner feedback, but obviously that's an assumed portion of it. The newsletter is planning to go out by mid-March. We plan to have the survey done within the next two weeks to be able to start soliciting that feedback. [45:54] **Adam (City Staff):** I did pose some of the questions that staff had on the city administrators listserv through the League of Minnesota Cities and I got a little bit of feedback. I received three inquiries who want the information that I get. I only had two responses from other cities that have looked at it. One was in Breckenridge, and their only feedback was that it was really difficult for them because the border from one city to the other—if they were closer to Hudson and one was a different speed limit, it made it confusing depending on which area of the city people were in. One of the other ones—there really wasn't a whole lot of help, but I can share that with the Council if they'd like. [47:20] **Adam (City Staff):** One of the legal issues that we had some information on regarding the enforcement of the speed limit: Chief Eastman, Attorney Weidner, and Attorney Lunan all worked on it. The criminal enforcement because it's a strict liability crime—that is not an issue. The potential issue is if someone could claim civilly that the city didn't follow the statute regarding the notifications. But actually enforcing the speed limit—the sign placement doesn't really matter. But with that, we determined that if we only go to 25, then we need to have transition zones—basically a sign at every intersection for those transition zones. If we go to 20, we are able to do the gateway signs. Councilmember Hanson, I know that was something that you had seen. [48:19] **Adam (City Staff):** So it's a strange idiosyncrasy, but I think Attorney Lunan and I talked about it—we think that the legislation itself was just drafted poorly, kind of rushed and not thought out as well as it should have been. They didn't catch that, so there's actually... it's easier to sign the 20-mile-an-hour speed limit versus the 25. So if the issue is the cost, well then we're going to have to spend the same amount of money in just the study for the signage as we are for 20 as we are for 25, just because of the vast number of signs that would be required. So with that, I'm just wanting to give the council an update on where we're at and any further direction. We're still planning on doing the public engagement over the next couple weeks and then bringing it back to the May 3rd meeting. [49:40] **Mayor Michele Hanson:** Thank you. Council members, any comments, discussion, questions? Adam, have you had since our last meeting, have you had many residents contact you at all on anything? [50:00] **Adam (City Staff):** No. We had one on the listserv—there was one resident who's actually an administrator in another city, she did respond to my questions that she didn't want it. We did have one other resident who had spoke to Miss Gillette on the phone; he said we only need four signs and gave us the locations he thought they should go. But as far as the amount of pro versus opposed, we haven't solicited it yet. [50:50] **Councilmember Michelle Hanson:** I have a couple things. I guess I first want to talk a little bit about the method for doing this survey. I thought Adam and I were maybe going to get a chance to talk about that but we haven't yet. I'm not sure that it's fair to give the background information only in the newsletter to those people that might see that. I think we need to talk about what kind of information you're going to provide and the purpose of it. I just didn't know that that was part of the survey process; I feel like not everyone's gonna have equal footing when they're answering the survey if you do that. And is the postcard intended to have the survey on it that they return, or is it a link to the online survey? [51:50] **Adam (City Staff):** It would be a link—a notification saying there's this traffic issue, this item the council is discussing regarding speed limit changes, go to the website for information and to participate in the survey. [52:12] **Councilmember Michelle Hanson:** I would say when we invest in a postcard, maybe we use it as a reminder to the newsletter survey, so we're hitting them twice. Hopefully they don't do the survey twice because everyone in town gets the newsletter, right? I mean it goes to every house. The postcard, we know we've had problems with postcards being delivered, so I wouldn't rely on the postcard alone but it could be a reminder. I'm not sure it's necessary to be honest. I think we should see what kind of response we get from the newsletter and from social media postings. I mean, this whole thing total could cost about five thousand dollars and we're going to invest 350 or so in a postcard—it just seems kind of like a little overkill to me. [53:06] **Councilmember Michelle Hanson:** And I talked to the woman in Nevis, which is one of the first small cities to actually change their speed limit, and she said it was really easy for them. She said that they don't have any intersecting county roads or state highways, which unfortunately we do. But she said all they did was have the Public Works Director basically just set the limits; they didn't do any kind of study or reporting or anything. And I also talked to someone at the League of Minnesota Cities and he was saying it's pretty wishy-washy the way everything's written and it's kind of up to the cities to basically make sure that the word is spread to the community if you do change it. [54:58] **Councilmember Michelle Hanson:** And I think the city itself could do its own study—we don't necessarily have to have the engineering company or an outside company do it for us. But they said the best practice would be to have someone else do it. I guess I'm not sure what that study is going to give us other than information that we already have kind of collected into one place, which I feel like we could do ourselves. You know, we have our traffic data and then we give it to them for them to use—I don't think they're going to do their own study. So I was curious about could we avoid the cost of doing that study altogether? And then I also did look into where would we have to post the signs—any residential city street is 20 miles an hour as you come into town, that would save us a lot of money. [56:32] **Adam (City Staff):** If I could just respond to one of the questions, Councilmember Hanson. The newsletter is going to have kind of just the high-level background summary of where we're at, and then it's going to direct people to the website for any deeper backup data. Everybody gets the newsletter, so it's going to have the high-level bullet points. [57:15] **Councilmember Michelle Hanson:** I mean I guess you could direct people to go watch the council meetings and everything, but I think it's not sure anyone's really going to do it anyway, so that's probably fine. [57:30] **Mayor Michele Hanson:** If I may, um, you know, I just want to take just a step and just walk through the steps of where we are so far. You know, we obviously all care about safety. We have taken steps over the past 10 years to do that on Highway 95 and the pinky bells intersection. And we all agreed in October to explore different options with SEH—bump outs, speed bumps, speed signs, traffic studies—and they came back and they presented their information to us. We also have taken the time to look at our own stats and you're right, Michelle, we do have our own data. Our accident history on our city-controlled streets does not indicate that we have a need to change or support the change. [58:24] **Mayor Michele Hanson:** Our Bayport police department did a speed study and it did not support any changes. Chief Eastman acknowledged that we do have a few repeat offenders, but it's not a pervasive problem. And we heard from staff that they don't recommend or support this change of speed limits, although they would enforce it. And MnDOT does not recommend this change—that if they did the speed studies, it would not support us changing it. Those are the data points that we currently have in hand. And Chief Eastman did state that the police department will, regardless of what this outcome is, they will enforce it. And they typically enforce anything that is five to eight miles an hour over. So anyone who's going 35 to 38 miles an hour will be subject to be pulled over and cited or warned. [59:27] **Mayor Michele Hanson:** And we're not planning currently to increase our police department. If we have a problem—which I'm not seeing any data that even says that we do yet—we do not have any additional ways to enforce. We have a 30-mile-an-hour speed limit right now and we have no additional ways of enforcing if it goes to 25 or 20. There is this requirement for us if we want to go to 20—if the council were to want that—to have to do the survey with the engineering firm. But they are not going to do a speed study as part of their current proposal to us; they would do some basic traffic counts for a short period of time but not a speed study. The survey has been indicated by SEH that it's basically a rubber stamp. So they do a survey, it says if it's changed from 30 to 20 that's safer—and that's probably true for pedestrians, but so would be 10 miles an hour or banning cars. [1:01:10] **Mayor Michele Hanson:** I'm just trying to figure out yet: what problem are we trying to solve? Where is the data that supports if this is a change that must or should move forward? And if it's going to be still in the conversation and moves forward, then I am very adamant that we take every step possible to inform all residents and businesses that this is a topic that's being discussed. I'm very data-driven; I'm very much not into emotional or anecdotal decisions. I'm just posing all those questions again, but I very much strongly support every kind of communication vehicle that we could possibly pursue to get people to be informed. [1:02:20] **Councilmember Michelle Hanson:** A couple things. First of all, I don't recall MnDOT saying that they didn't think it was a good idea to decrease the speed limits. I don't remember where that data point came from. [1:02:40] **Adam (City Staff):** They were opposed to the statutory change. They said that if they did the study for us, we probably wouldn't like it because it wouldn't have the results that we wanted. [1:03:00] **Councilmember Michelle Hanson:** But anyways, okay. The point is, and the fact is, that 30 miles an hour on a city street in Bayport—a residential street—is too fast. And the problem is when you get someone... listen, you said okay, they're gonna enforce it going five to eight miles an hour over the speed limit. That's someone going 38 miles an hour before they even can get a ticket or get pulled over. And that's the problem. That's what we have to nip in the bud before it does become an issue. We already had a couple different times where we've had issues, but it really is just too fast to safely drive through streets where there aren't any stop signs. You know, we have very few intersection signage; it just makes... and I know you think it's an emotional thing, and part of it is, but you have to think about that. You can't just strictly go on data; you have to go with what your gut tells you makes sense. And 30 to 38 miles an hour is way too fast for our city streets. We should be able to ticket someone who's going 25 to 30 miles an hour because it's too fast. [1:04:10] **Councilmember John Carlson:** Yeah, I invite anybody—I live on the corner of 3rd Avenue North and 8th Street—drive 30 on either of those streets. You'd be within the law to be driving that speed. Try it and see how safe you feel driving that speed. And the people that would drive that speed are going to say, "Hey, I'm driving the speed limit." Another example—I deal with electrical code on a daily basis, and here's how I look at it: electrical code is a bare minimum set of guidelines set forth to meet a minimum safety requirement. Any homeowner/business owner is allowed to go over and above the call of duty, which we do at my employer very often because it makes sense for a variety of reasons and it gives you an added level of confidence, safety, protection, and peace of mind. So yeah, I seriously would invite anybody to jump on these streets and drive 30 and see how safe you feel. If you feel safe driving 30, I think you should question your driving ability because you're not safe driving 30 on these streets. It's too fast. [1:05:45] **Councilmember Michelle Hanson:** Exactly. And we aren't the only city to consider this; this is like a widespread thing now that lots of cities are doing because it makes sense. It's not like we're some crazy renegade little town. Minneapolis and St. Paul decided that 30 was too fast for their streets, Rochester too. I don't understand why... I know there's all of the data that you're saying, I just don't get why you think it's not a good idea. What's the problem that you see with it? [1:06:50] **Councilmember Call ("Connie"):** Well no, I just wanted to reiterate what Susan said—I would like to hear from the residents. I mean, I know Michelle you're very, and John I know your hearts are in this, and I'm not saying I disagree, but I personally think we need to hear from more residents. Because I have had residents tell me the opposite—that they don't think we need to change anything. But I've told them, then you let the city know that. So I want to hear both. I guess it can't be just our heartfelt emotions; I think we need to hear from the residents. [1:07:44] **Councilmember Michelle Hanson:** Well we already decided we're gonna do a resident survey. I feel like we're just rehashing what we already did. [1:07:56] **Councilmember Call ("Connie"):** I guess I trust the city staff to make the best decision on the cards/postcards. [1:08:14] **Councilmember Michelle Hanson:** I hope someone trusts my judgment on that. [1:08:21] **Councilmember Call ("Connie"):** Oh I didn't mean I didn't trust your judgment, I'm just saying that's why we hire Adam and them to take it. [1:08:26] **Adam (City Staff):** About the postcard—it was going to be a second thing, it wasn't going to go at the same time as the newsletter. We want to make sure it goes out with enough time closer to May to be able to compile the data that we receive but also give them enough time to respond. [1:08:52] **Councilmember Michelle Hanson:** Do we have a SurveyMonkey account that we're paying for? Because we don't really need that—you could do it in a Google Form or something. I'm not a big SurveyMonkey fan personally. [1:09:20] **Councilmember Ethan Gilmore:** I live on 4th Street North, the street that the school is on. Now this might be something that Chief Eastman would have to chime in on, but if I'm correct, that means you could drive 35 miles an hour while kids are getting out of school down that street before you would really get a ticket. I hope not. Exactly. If we have lower speed limits by schools to protect kids, in my book we have lower speed limits in town because kids live in town. There's nine kids that live directly next to me—five in one house, four in the other—all under eight years old. And I see people continuously driving down 4th Street at 40 plus miles an hour and it's insanity to me. The fact that you're not really gonna get a ticket until you're going 35 or 38, that's just crazy. But if it goes to 20, when somebody's going 25 to 28, now they can get pulled over and they're probably going to get a warning saying "Hey, we change the limit here." And that's fine with me as long as people start slowing down. Driving 30 miles an hour in these side streets is crazy with the alley parking and cars parked in the street—it's way too fast. [1:11:01] **Mayor Michele Hanson:** Again, if this is something that the council wants to pursue and invest in, it needs to be a sound survey and an opportunity for the public to have their voice heard. We've had discussions here where council members have said "We know what we want to do, let's just do it," and that is not representing the people of Bayport. [1:11:47] **Councilmember Michelle Hanson:** When we're elected, we make decisions every month that we don't go out and ask everybody "how should we do this?" I'm fine with doing the survey, but I'm not going to be happy if it comes back and you have some way to say "oh well, it's not enough people." [1:12:15] **Councilmember John Carlson:** One of the numbers could be a cost-benefit analysis. It sounds silly and it might be different if we were talking about a million dollars, but I think we're talking about a pretty nominal amount of money to exactly make the city safer. There's nothing bad that can come from this. I don't see how there could be a negative outcome—nothing other than people driving slower and being safer. To me, it's like one of the most no-brainers we've had since I've been on council and I don't mean that as a personal attack, I'm just stating my opinion. [1:13:09] **Mayor Michele Hanson:** I respect that, John. Thank you. All right, well is there any other discussion on this or Adam, do you have any other questions or direction that you're looking for? [1:13:22] **Adam (City Staff):** No, I just want to give the council an update on where we were, that we were still on track. Tom, did you have something you were wanting to say? [1:13:30] **Tom Lunan (City Attorney):** I just simply wanted to say that our law firm is the prosecuting authority for your city. And I know Chief Eastman didn't chime in, but the speed limit is the speed limit—it's known as strict liability. Certainly we give our police officer discretion, prosecutors have discretion, but one mile over the speed limit is over the speed limit. That is a prosecutable offense. Because it's a strict liability—if you're over the limit, you're over the limit. The discretion is there, but that is the reality of the law. [1:14:15] **Adam (City Staff):** Thank you Tom. And one last thing—the state statute allows the law enforcement to write a ticket if they believe a vehicle is not driving appropriately for the conditions. So regardless of what the speed limit is—if it's in front of the school and there's a bunch of kids—if they're not driving safely, they can still issue a citation. [1:14:51] **Mayor Michele Hanson:** All right, thank you for that. Is there anything else that needs to be discussed at the workshop? Otherwise we'll take a brief break and resume for our meeting. If not, you'd like to make a motion to adjourn the workshop. [1:15:15] **Councilmember John Carlson:** I'll make a move to adjourn. [1:15:18] **Councilmember Call ("Connie"):** I'll second. [1:15:20] **Mayor Michele Hanson:** Thank you, John and thank you Connie. Adam, if you please call the roll. [1:15:25] **Adam (City Staff):** Councilmember Dahl (Carlson), aye. Councilmember Carlson, aye. Councilmember Gilmore, aye. Councilmember Hanson, aye. Mayor St. Ours, aye. [1:15:37] **Adam (City Staff):** We need to leave this meeting room right? Yeah, there's another link. Okay, thank you. All right.