This transcript has been formatted with the names of the Lakeville Mayor, City Council members, and staff as provided in your context. [0:58] **Mayor Luke Hellier:** Good evening and welcome to the March 17th city council meeting. If you join me for a moment of silence in the Pledge of Allegiance. [1:21] **All:** 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. [1:37] **Mayor Luke Hellier:** Roll call, please. [1:37] **City Clerk Ann Orlofsky:** Volk, here. Hellier, here. Bermel, here. Wolter, here. Lee, here. [1:37] **Mayor Luke Hellier:** We'll move on to item three, citizens' comments. This is an opportunity for those in the audience to address the Council for up to three minutes. You can just approach, state your name and address. [2:02] **Kurt Mikas:** Good evening, first of all, happy St. Patty's Day. My name is Kurt Mikas. I live at 17265 North Creek Lane, and that's the famous North Creek trailer park—you know, the one that all the bad people live in? Yeah, that's me. Um, I'm here to ask the City Council to possibly put on the agenda a motion where we could get a jake break ordinance. I've been in contact with Dakota County because I already called the city and they said it's a county road on Pilot Knob and Highway 46. I'm asking you guys to possibly get an ordinance. Dakota County said if you have an ordinance, they will put the signs up and it'll make it a little bit more quieter for us residents on Pilot Knob and Highway 46 because we have all these nasty semis coming down with no mufflers. You probably heard them all the way down to first gear and it's not an emergency; they do it just because they love to hear their exhaust. So if you possibly could, I'd appreciate it if you could do something about this and make our lives a little more quieter. Thank you. [2:49] **Mayor Luke Hellier:** Thank you, Mr. Mikas. We’ll—I’ll follow up with you. Thanks. Any other citizen comments? Okay, moving on. Item number four, any additional agenda information, Mr. Miller? [3:35] **City Administrator Justin Miller:** Nothing tonight. [3:35] **Mayor Luke Hellier:** Moving on to presentations and introductions. So, I wanted to just take a moment... we're going to do a proclamation recognizing Kilo on his retirement and also honoring Sergeant Tom Danielson. I'm going to turn it over to Councilmember Bermel to read a proclamation, then I think the Chief had some remarks as well. [4:22] **Councilmember John Bermel:** Thank you. Proclamation recognizing Kilo the K9 on his retirement and honoring Sergeant Tom Danielson for his service. Whereas the City of Lakeville takes great pride in recognizing the dedication and service of its law enforcement officers and K9 units; and whereas Kilo, a valued K9 member of the Lakeville Police Department, has honorably served the community with distinction, loyalty, and unwavering commitment; and whereas throughout his years of service, Kilo has played a crucial role in protecting the citizens of Lakeville by assisting in criminal apprehensions, narcotics detection, search and rescue operations, and community engagement; and whereas Kilo's service has contributed to the safety and well-being of the Lakeville community, demonstrating the invaluable partnership between law enforcement officers and their canine counterparts; and whereas after years of dedicated service, Kilo is retiring from active duty and the City of Lakeville wishes to extend its gratitude for his commitment and performance; and whereas Sergeant Tom Danielson, Kilo's handler, has demonstrated exceptional leadership, dedication, and professionalism in his role, strengthening the effectiveness of the K9 unit and fostering positive community relations; and whereas Sergeant Danielson is transitioning to new duties within the Lakeville Police Department and his contributions to the K9 program and public safety efforts will be remembered with great appreciation. Now, therefore, the Lakeville City Council formally recognizes and expresses its deepest gratitude to Kilo for his years of service and congratulates him on a well-earned retirement. Be it further resolved that the City of Lakeville honors Sergeant Tom Danielson for his dedicated service as Kilo's handler and his ongoing commitment to law enforcement. And be it finally resolved that the Mayor and City Council, on behalf of all residents, extend their best wishes to Kilo in his retirement and to Sergeant Danielson in his new role. Proclaimed this 17th day of March 2025 by Mayor Luke M. Hellier. [5:56] **Mayor Luke Hellier:** Very good. Chief? [6:41] **Police Chief Brad Paulson:** [Laughter] That reaction meant a lot. Thank you. You guys come on up. So I just want to take a minute to further recognize Sergeant Danielson and Kilo. We have a plaque here that we'll be handing over this evening. So this is in recognition of Kilo's nine years of service to the Lakeville Police Department, 2016 to 2025. He officially retired from duty on March 2nd, so a little over two weeks ago. But canines are such an essential tool for a police department, and Sergeant Danielson has put an immense amount of work into training and handling Kilo. I think when new officers are hired and come through and we ask them what they want to do in their career, K9 handler is one of the most sought-after positions—until they realize what goes into it. This isn't a tool that you tuck away in your locker at the end of the shift and come back the next day and grab. This is something that's with you all day, all night, whether you're working or whether you're on vacation. These dogs are there with those handlers all the time. Because of that, it is a unique bond that gets formed, obviously, and they partner up and do an outstanding job. I know it was highlighted, but the community engagement aspect—I think there's over 85 documented events and certainly many others that are just much less formal and undocumented, but just a great tool for us to break down that barrier and connect with people. Everybody seems to love coming up to dogs, and Kilo is a very social dog that has allowed that. But when it's time to work, he gets to work too. So, in recognition of Kilo and Sergeant Danielson's years of K9 handling service, we're here to present a plaque, and we're happy that we're only losing half of this tandem to retirement as Tom's official first day as a Sergeant is today. So congrats! [8:12] **Council / Audience:** Congrats! [Applause] [Laughter] [8:40] **Councilmember Dan Wolter:** Good boy! [9:07] **Mayor Luke Hellier:** All right, thank you Sergeant Danielson, Chief Paulson, and Kilo. Enjoy your retirement, buddy. Moving on to item six, our consent agenda. Any items you'd like to highlight, Mr. Miller? [9:07] **City Administrator Justin Miller:** Two tonight. Item 6C is a resolution with the Minnesota Department of Transportation; this is more commonly known as a Safe Routes to School grant. So this is a $615,000 grant that'll go toward the reconstruction and expansion of 185th Street this summer, so we're very appreciative of that grant. And then item 6P is a resolution appointing members to advisory boards, committees, and commissions. These were based upon decisions and interviews that the Council made a few weeks ago. So thank you to everybody who stepped up and volunteered for those. [9:54] **Mayor Luke Hellier:** Very good. I echo that. Any Council items you'd like to discuss further? Otherwise, I'll take a motion. [9:54] **Councilmember Michelle Volk:** I move to approve the consent agenda. [9:54] **Councilmember John Bermel:** Second. [9:54] **Mayor Luke Hellier:** Any further discussion? All those in favor say Aye. [9:54] **All:** Aye. [9:54] **Mayor Luke Hellier:** Opposed? Okay, the consent agenda passes. We'll now move on to item 7A, Marketplace at Cedar preliminary plat and conditional use permit. I believe we have the applicants here or a staff report? Who's going first? [10:44] **Community Development Director Tina Goodroad:** Good evening. Mayor, members of the Council, I just want to introduce Jay Moore with Oppidan. Do you want to say a couple things and then I'll get started? [10:44] **Jay Moore (Oppidan):** Good evening Mayor and fellow council members. My name is Jay Moore, Oppidan Investment Company, 400 Water Street, Excelsior, Minnesota. We've been at this now for over a year, but I think our plan is coming together and you know, in sweet time, things hopefully will come together as a nice project here for the city. And so we have been working with City staff, with Chris and Tina along the way. I do have Mitch from ISG Engineering if we have any technical questions, but I think the plan in front of you should be pretty straightforward tonight and we're here to answer any questions if you have them. [11:30] **Mayor Luke Hellier:** Very good. Thank you. [11:30] **Community Development Director Tina Goodroad:** All righty. Well, happy St. Patrick's Day. All right, so Oppidan Investment Company has requested approval of a preliminary plat for nine commercial lots and five outlots to be known as Marketplace at Cedar. They're also requesting a conditional use permit to have a lot without public street frontage. The property is located at the corner of 179th and Cedar, and you can see it's just across the street from Crossroads of Lakeville which is to the north of 179th, and then the Central Maintenance Facilities is just to the west of this property. Then there is a variety of different townhome developments around the area, and then the existing park-and-ride is to the south. The zoning on this property and land use is both mixed-use; so it's Corridor Mixed Use for land use and it's zoned M2, which is Mixed Use Cedar Corridor District. This preliminary plat is very similar to residential preliminary plats; it's basically just the division of the different lots to create the development. Each one of these lots will then go through a final plat process, just like different divisions of a subdivision for residential. Within this, they are platting the right-of-way and they will be building Glenshaw, that east-west roadway, and then that roadway will extend to the south and connect to 181st Street. All of the lot requirements are being met. Lot number eight, which is highlighted in purple, this is the lot that needs the conditional use permit as it doesn't have the public street frontage. However, on the site plan as in your packet, it does have access to the public street. All the right-of-way is being dedicated—easements and outlots—and park dedication for the various lots will be determined with each final plat. There may be some instances where a conditional use permit is required depending on the use, particularly for some of the drive-through uses, but for the most part, many of these will just go through the final plat and then the site plan review process as a commercial development under the M2 zoning. You can see on the plan they provided a site plan and indicated what some of those potential users will be. Oppidan has been working on those different agreements; we have another meeting coming up this Thursday to kind of take the next step and get some of these uses through the final plat process. But we know there's going to be some quick-serve restaurants, a grocer, daycare, bank, and so forth, so a nice variety of businesses within this area. Access will be from 179th as a right-in and then enter the development, and then there's that east-west roadway. There'll be cross-access easements that get filed with the final plat. And then there's a lot of internal—I'm going to jump to a different screen—internal sidewalks. We really wanted this to be as pedestrian as possible. So with the construction of Glenshaw, there'll be a sidewalk on the north side as well as the west side until the remaining outlots develop, and then the other dark black lines indicate either existing trails or new connections between the different uses to really make it as pedestrian as we could. Again, here is the plat; there's a couple of outlots. Outlot A, B, and C are for stormwater. The remaining Outlot D and E, the two large ones... Outlot E, I would guess, may still continue to be housing. Outlot D is that project that was approved for a senior building a couple of years ago and that did not continue their conditional use permit, so still up for—not quite sure exactly what those final uses would be. There is some landscaping that's required just as a pier buffering along Glacier because of the abutting zoning district to the east is residential, so that screening will go in right away. Each of the individual lots will also have landscaping. The developer has been cognizant of us wanting to have some cohesive building design and they've created some standards as well as some cohesive landscaping, so all of that will be looked at during each of the individual final plats and site plan reviews. So again, a very straightforward application. The Planning Commission did hold a public hearing at their meeting on March 6th; there was no public comment and the Planning Commission unanimously recommended approval and I would stand for any questions along with the applicant. [16:08] **Mayor Luke Hellier:** Okay, thank you. Council, questions or comments? Joshua? [16:08] **Councilmember Joshua Lee:** Just a comment to say that it's exciting to see this corner develop. I think Council has had conversations numerous times about the need and want from residents to have more commercial and retail, and so this is definitely filling that need. And a thank you to the Planning Commission for their thorough review. So, no questions for me. [16:53] **Mayor Luke Hellier:** Council, if not I'll take a motion. [16:53] **Councilmember Joshua Lee:** I move to approve: (1) a resolution approving the Marketplace at Cedar preliminary plat, and (2) a conditional use permit to allow a lot without public street frontage and adoption of the findings of fact. [16:53] **Councilmember Dan Wolter:** Second. [16:53] **Mayor Luke Hellier:** Any further discussion? I'll echo Councilmember Lee; we're excited to see this progress and have a lot of new business neighbors, so we're excited for that. So with that, I'll take roll call, please. [17:39] **City Clerk Ann Orlofsky:** Lee? (Aye). Volk? (Aye). Bermel? (Aye). Wolter? (Aye). Hellier? (Aye). [17:39] **Mayor Luke Hellier:** Okay, congratulations. Look forward to the partnership. Thank you. We'll now move on to Item B, a resolution authorizing issuance, awarding sale, prescribing the form and details, and providing for the payment of $22.25 million in General Obligation bonds. I will turn it over to our Finance Director. [17:39] **Finance Director Julie Stahl:** Thank you, Mr. Mayor and members of the Council. We had a very positive bond sale this morning for this $22 million, and um, just reiterating that Moody's did confirm our AAA bond rating, so that of course helps. We had several bidders—13—which Jessica will allude to. The last time we had this happen, I think it was in 2020, so there's a lot of action. This is paying for portions of the 2025 Street Reconstruction project, some of the collector rehabilitation, and the largest portion is the CIP bonds portion for the first training facility. So with that, I'm going to let Jessica Green, Managing Director at Northland, give you the details. Welcome, Ms. Green. [18:24] **Jessica Green (Northland Securities):** Good evening, Mayor and Council. Good to see you again. As Julie just mentioned, we had a bond sale this morning for the city, and she stole my thunder a little bit—I'm kidding. Really, really good results. A lot of interest in the city's bonds today. It's not a record, but we're one shy of a record. Back in 2020, you had 14 bids, and this time you had 13, so really nice results today. So we do have a sales summary for you, like we normally do. I'll just plan to go through the high-level details of the sale today and then, of course, happy to answer any questions. Proceeds of the bonds here will be used to finance, of course, the 2025 street reconstruction activities, and then we also have a CIP portion which will go towards the construction of the First Responders Skills Training Center. The bonds were also sized to include cost of issuance as well. Related to the structure and the finance plan here, we have a 10-year structure for the street reconstruction activities and then a longer term here for the CIP portion for the training center at 20 years. Security here is the General Obligation pledge of the city, so the city will pledge ad valorem taxes to the bonds. That being said, we do anticipate that the city will be eliminating the CIP portion of the levy with your franchise fee revenue, so that is not directly pledged to the payment of the bonds, but it can offset. Moody's did, of course, confirm the AAA for the city. They continue to mention the strong and growing economy here in Lakeville, the strong residential income ratios, and then also just overall financial performance; so you have ample reserves and very strong liquidity. So, all very good marks in terms of how Moody's is rating the city. Method of sale here: competitive. Again, 13 bids. Piper Sandler out of Minneapolis—so a local underwriter—is purchasing the bonds, or they are the apparent low bidder. We have a final maturity of February 1 of 2046, and then you have the optional call date beginning February 1 of 2033. So at any time thereafter, you can call the bonds in, whether that's to restructure, pay them down, etc., and you can do that in whole or in part. And then finally, at the bottom of page two here, we just have a comparison between the finance plan and the final. I did notice a typo here; we did not drop from 22,250,000 down to 2,250—we stayed at that par amount of 22,250,000. The only change here really is to the true interest cost; we had been estimating 3.88% and that came in at 3.85%, so very, very close to what we had been anticipating. Your bid tab is found on the third page, so you can see Piper, the low bidder here, and then the cover bid, sort of the next in line—really, really close. So Piper coming in at 3.836%, Raymond James coming in at 3.841%, and you can see sort of just the ascending rates here. So really strong covers, especially in those first several bidders, so a very, very interested market today for Lakeville's bonds. So again, really nice sale results. From there, we've got the sources and uses on page four along with the pricing summary. The pricing summary Council will probably remember: when we go through these bond sale results, you oftentimes see premium on the bonds, which just means that investors are looking for a higher stated rate or interest rate on the bonds. They're willing to give you cash upfront to do that. So that pricing summary in the middle of the page simply compares the stated coupon rate—so you'll see in the very beginning you've got a lot of 5% rates—and then with the cash contributed, you can see what the actual yield is on the bonds. Nice amount of premium today, about $1,031,000. And that is because of the fact that the yield curve has changed from the last time that you issued bonds. It used to be inverted; we're now coming into a more normal shape for the yield curve, which means overall that your yields on the early years is much lower, which again is driving up that premium because we're still seeing 5% coupons here. You've got a debt service schedule on a combined basis on page five; those are broken out separately for the street reconstruction and the CIP portions. We provide those schedules to staff so they're able to manage the bond issue. And then you've got just some information related to local issuance and also national issuance this week. Busy week for the bond market—not a whole lot going on here in Minnesota, just three sales this week—but Lakeville being the only standalone sale today. And then finally, as we always do, you've got a couple of graphs here. This is really meant to give you sort of the five-year versus 25-year snapshot so you can see kind of how interest rates are behaving. And with that, I will stand for any questions that you may have. [23:08] **Mayor Luke Hellier:** Okay, very good. Council, any questions or comments? Mr. Lee. [23:08] **Councilmember Joshua Lee:** Thank you. Couple questions. One, when it comes to the bid tab, is there anything we can glean about perceptions of our city based on who's here? Is there anything we can think about, or why is it such a popular day for us to receive these bids? [23:54] **Jessica Green (Northland Securities):** So there's a couple of things going on here. One, the size of the bonds is very attractive. So when you get over 10, 15, and into the 20 millions, you're going to see a lot of national attention. What I would say is, based on again the cover bids and how these are stacking up, they're just so close to each other. In a strong bond sale, you typically will see four or five bids. The fact that you're getting 13 bids is really indicative of the fact that the city is just very strong; your rating obviously reflects that. So in terms of positioning the city, I really don't think that there's a whole lot of work to do here; you're doing a great job. And then what I would just say is that some of these that kind of fall towards the end, where we're seeing Bank of Oklahoma or BOK Financial at the very bottom, we wouldn't necessarily call those throwaway bids, but they're putting something out into the market and just kind of hoping that it sticks. But in this case, you've seen that there are a number of different underwriters that were certainly willing to sharpen their pencil to be the most competitive. So again, I think the city is just very well positioned. [24:40] **Councilmember Joshua Lee:** One follow-up. You said Lakeville's bond sale was the only standalone today for Minnesota issuance? [24:40] **Jessica Green (Northland Securities):** Yep. [24:40] **Councilmember Joshua Lee:** Gotcha. So is there anything to be said about the timing of when we decided to go out to the market, and for future bond sales, the strategy around that? [25:27] **Jessica Green (Northland Securities):** This is interesting. Normally Lakeville sells their bonds a little bit later in the year, so typically we're doing this in June or July. It just so happened that you've got construction projects to deal with, so that was sort of forcing the earlier timeline. So that could certainly be working in your favor. Obviously, in Minnesota, we have a short construction period, so oftentimes bond sales are starting to show in May, June, July. It could just be that because we're a little bit earlier in the year, that's working in your favor. It's tough sometimes when you're trying to set an issuance schedule just because you're lining up your date of sale with the council meeting date, right? So you don't have a ton of control over when other cities are selling, and there's a lot of cities that tend to meet on Mondays, so sometimes those can stack up. But in this case, it may be helpful that you're just selling earlier in the year. So, not a definitive takeaway there, but... [26:12] **Councilmember Joshua Lee:** Yeah, appreciate it. Thank you. It's great information. [26:12] **Mayor Luke Hellier:** Okay. Any other comments? If not, I'll take a motion. [26:12] **Councilmember Dan Wolter:** I move to approve a resolution authorizing issuance, awarding sale, prescribing the form and details, and providing for the payment of $22,250,000 General Obligation bonds, series 2025A. [26:12] **Councilmember Joshua Lee:** Second. [26:12] **Mayor Luke Hellier:** Any further discussion? Okay. Roll call, please. [26:12] **City Clerk Ann Orlofsky:** Bermel? (Aye). Volk? (Aye). Lee? (Aye). Wolter? (Aye). Hellier? (Aye). [27:00] **Mayor Luke Hellier:** Thank you very much. I'm glad that passed because we were already at the groundbreaking today, so... wasn't worried, but you know! With that, any unfinished or new business? Seeing none. A couple announcements: our next work session is next Monday, March 24th, right here at the Lake Marion conference room. Our next city council meeting is April 7th, back here in the council chambers. And with that, I will take a motion to adjourn. [27:48] **Councilmember John Bermel:** I move to adjourn. [27:48] **Councilmember Joshua Lee:** Second. [27:48] **Mayor Luke Hellier:** All those in favor say Aye. [27:48] **All:** Aye. [27:48] **Mayor Luke Hellier:** Opposed? We're adjourned. Good job, everybody.