This transcript features the Moose Lake City Council meeting from August 8, 2018. Based on the context provided and the names mentioned within the dialogue (which identify officials serving at that specific time), here is the attributed transcript. **Note:** While your context list mentions Ellissa Owens as Administrator, the 2018 transcript explicitly references **Tim Peterson** as the Administrator and **Katie Bloom** as the staff member assisting with credit cards and elections. *** [0:02] [Music] [0:08] [Music] [1:58] [Music] [Applause] [2:41] [Music] [2:59] [Music] [3:05] [Music] [Applause] [3:19] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** I'd like to welcome everyone to the August 8th, 2018, Moose Lake City Council and like to ask to go and do the pledge. I'd like to welcome all our guests here tonight, thank you for coming. The next item is the agenda. Do we have any additions or changes to the agenda? Any from the council? Other than we can move after number three—between number three and number four there's a 27th city of Moose Lake audit that was from the last city council meeting so we can cross that out in the minutes. I saw, will we accept the agenda with the change? I have a second? [4:44] **Council Member Douglas Juntunen:** I'll second. [4:46] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** All in favor say aye. (Council: Aye). Opposed? Motion carried. Number two, we have the consent agenda. 2A is the July 11th, 2018, City Council regular meeting minutes. Do we have any discussion or questions on the minutes? Hearing none, we have a motion to accept. [5:15] **Council Member Lou Ohly:** So moved. [5:16] **Council Member Kris Huso:** Second. [5:17] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** All in favor say aye. (Council: Aye). Opposed? Motion carried. Under 2B we have the financial reports. B1 is the city accounts payable for July 2018, B2 is the city financial statements for June 2018, and B3 is a liquor store profit and loss statement for June 2018. Any discussion or questions? Hearing none, I'm a motion to accept. [6:00] **Council Member Walter Lower III:** So moved. [6:01] **Council Member Douglas Juntunen:** Second. [6:02] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** All in favor say aye. (Council: Aye). Opposed? Motion carried. Moving on to number three, this is public comment. This time is reserved for comments from the public on matters not listed on the agenda and we ask that you keep your comments to three minutes please. Yes sir? [6:20] **Rick Adams:** My name is Rick Adams, I'm an agent for Verizon Wireless, and I wanted to come in here tonight to address the Mayor and the city councillors about Verizon's proposed sites in the city of Moose Lake. I have attended two planning board meetings and from those meetings I got some input on our proposed site. I got some input back from the board on a possible location at an old city water tower site across the street over here, but my main concern is I want to let the City Council know that Verizon wants to work with the city in finding a good solution. [7:18] **Rick Adams:** The main concern Verizon has is that we've heard the city is trying to adopt a tower ordinance. Verizon would think that would be a big mistake if the city went ahead and drafted that ordinance and passed it without input from the carriers. Verizon wants to give input on that ordinance change. The wireless facilities ordinances typically get to be very complex and there's a lot of federal and state laws that intertwine. I happen to work with a lot of cities on their ordinances so I know most of those laws and regulations, plus I've been in the industry for 25 years. I know the rumors or what I've heard—the input I've gotten from Tim was that the city was thinking about passing an ordinance only allowing a wireless facility in an industrial zone. [8:29] **Rick Adams:** At the last Zoning Board meeting I indicated that would not benefit the city; that would actually probably not work for most of the carriers. Verizon would like to see other solutions in the ordinance pursuit. They would like to have some input or at least have a seat at the table. A couple of things besides the macro site: Verizon is planning on doing some small cell sites at the high school, and depending how the ordinance is written, a small cell site could not be deployed out there if the sites were restricted to industrial zones only. [9:26] **Rick Adams:** Also, at the Planning Board meeting, I indicated that the city of Moose Lake was exempt from the small cell site legislation that the state of Minnesota passed last year. That statement was correct except it only applies to city-managed right-of-ways. The city of Moose Lake would not be exempt from that legislation on any state or county right-of-ways. You obviously have a state right-of-way right through the middle of your town. It's important to get good input from the industry and come up with the ordinance that works for everyone. Verizon wants to establish a relationship with the city and work with them on the location of a new macro site. I'll just finish by, I have some handouts, one for each of you. I don't know the best way to distribute them—if you want me to just give them to Tim or the clerk? [11:08] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** You can pass them on. Thank you. You got some work to do, huh? [11:18] **Tim Peterson (Administrator):** Mm-hmm. Getting this out. [11:21] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** Yeah, well thank you. We want to work with you, so thank you. Technology's important to us and our community. Any other public comments? Hearing none, we'll move on to number four, department reports. 4A is the Police Department report for July 10th through August 5th, 2018. Just a statement for you—if you want a longer time, please call in and ask for an agenda item to be put on the agenda; that may give you more time to discuss for the council or the public. [12:15] **Rick Adams:** Correct. It would probably be just so you know, it'd be like normally 15 minutes if it's an agenda item. [12:24] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** Correct. Police Chief? [12:37] **Sheriff Kelly Lake:** Your council, again, another very busy month. Just want to report that Agate Days was very well attended, everything went quite well. The Stampede was excellent, very organized, no real issues there. Traffic was quite congested around the arena intersection, but didn't have any accidents or anything like that. I did hear a couple of people complaining that it took too long to get on the Arrowhead from Lakeshore, but there was just a ton of people in town. Art in the Park was packed. All in all, at least for law enforcement bodies, it went very well. [13:30] **Sheriff Kelly Lake:** We continue to be very busy with several different investigations that are pretty in-depth and very time-consuming. Last night we had the National Night Out and I have to say it was absolutely wonderfully attended. A beautiful night. We had several of our officers down there helping out cooking and talking with people. We went through over 300 burgers and over 200 hot dogs and 450 bottles of water. We got a lot of very nice remarks from the public, just very appreciative of the police department. It was nice to hear. We had a lot of generous donations from local businesses and people that helped contribute. We were able to buy a couple of bicycles and helmets from donations and gave them out as prizes last night. [14:48] **Sheriff Kelly Lake:** I'm still talking with the Fire District trying to come together and find a solution for our need for an interview room. They've been very willing to discuss it. I'm going to attend their meeting next Thursday. Hopefully, we can get that finalized, it's something that we need very badly. I think we did at least five or six interviews this week; again, they're just in the back conference room, phones ringing, radios going off—it's just hard to do a good interview in a big conference room that has three different entrances and not a lot of privacy. I think it's something that we really need for the victims and suspects. [15:52] **Sheriff Kelly Lake:** Towards the end of the month, Officer Jungers is going to be providing a full day of training to the whole Moose Lake teaching staff dealing with an active threat; it's called ALICE training. He and a couple of the Carlton County deputies went to a pretty in-depth train-the-trainer program last year and we have finally been able to coordinate a day where all the teachers can come in. I think that's on the 27th of this month. Barnum is going to be doing a program as well that Jamie will probably help out with. That's about all I have; we had about 162 calls through the month. Another very busy month. [17:15] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** Good, thank you very much. Good job. 4B, Public Works Superintendent report. [17:43] **Phil Entner (Public Works):** Mr. Mayor, members of the council. Like the Chief touched on, Agate Days was good. It was a lot of people in town. From my department standpoint, we had a lot of equipment running around and a lot of kids running around. It's good; no injuries, nothing happened, everything went well. From my department as well, the water department distributed 4.4 million gallons of drinking water in the month of July. Sanitary sewer collection was 17.8 million gallons of wastewater treatment. We did discharge in July due to the heavy rain; that was huge, that was like 41 million gallons of wastewater treated with that extra discharge. We're still on track to meet our phosphorus limit, which is huge because that's almost an entire another discharge that we're not used to having. [19:02] **Phil Entner:** Street Department: everyone has seen all the manholes in town tore up and all the patches. Today we're pouring concrete down a couple of them. We're just lowering them because, frankly, they're too high and they're breaking cutting edges on the plows, and they are expensive to replace. We did 12 here this last two weeks; this fall we're going to do another 15. That puts our list down to 35 left to do. Minnesota Rural Water and the PCA called me last week asking if they could host another wastewater training here in Moose Lake. With your guys' approval, I'd love to tell them yes because the last time we did this in 2017, that was a huge checkmark in the good column for Moose Lake. [20:01] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** Consensus? Good. [20:03] **Phil Entner:** Good, because I already scheduled it. That's about all I got. [20:12] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** Good job, thank you. 4C, Technology/Library report. [20:25] **Tim Peterson (Administrator):** Page 36 is the report. Biggest things are the muni cameras have been installed. Steve was able to talk to CW and have that thousand-dollar setup fee waived for the new way that we're going to handle our IT stuff. If you go down to page 38, there are three different projects that have to do with the campground because we have the fiber run over there. Project one is to add cameras to the campground—don't look at the price of that one, that's if we full-blown added cameras everywhere. I think we would add a camera here and a camera there as we can expand. Project two is setting up computer and phone stuff in the manager's office. Project three is Wi-Fi at the campground. I know the campground would benefit from that. [21:40] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** Right, I know they've been asking for it down there. There's a need for it for sure. Are all these going into the 2019 budget? [21:55] **Tim Peterson (Administrator):** No, just partial. Project two we will be working on because that's the next important part. Project three is probably the next one we will look at doing. With the Mediacom funds that we have, most of our technology money is basically going towards the cameras. The five-year lease was signed for our cameras, and we have one year left on that lease. Once that is paid off, it will free up over twenty thousand dollars each year that we can spend on technology. [23:25] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** All right, this is just for planning purposes and requests typically. Questions by the council? No? Pretty good, thank you. Moving on to 4D, City Engineer. I believe we have a handout that was given to us from SEH. [23:50] **Tim Peterson (Administrator):** Through that, we had the water tower inspected—the inside was inspected. [24:08] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** Did he go scuba diving? Is that basically how that happens? [24:14] **Tim Peterson (Administrator):** Well, they did the outside too. Our engineers were telling us that the paint on the inside can last right around 15 years. We're right at that 15 years and they think it looks pretty good actually, so we're hoping that we won't have to do anything with that in the immediate future. The next one is the televising of the 21 and 24-inch line—that's the main sewer that runs through downtown. That one we talked about being a really good candidate for lining, which is cheaper than digging the whole thing up. If that pipe should fail, that would be really, really bad for the city. There is a stretch of it that looks like it's about ready to collapse that we're working on finding out just exactly where it is. [25:35] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** Did you have that televised? [25:38] **Phil Entner (Public Works):** Tomorrow morning we will find out just exactly where it is. We're hoping it's not under the highway, but it kind of seems like it's under the highway as it crosses going towards the arena. [25:56] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** Is that where you're talking about lining? [25:58] **Tim Peterson (Administrator):** No, that can't be lined; that's a dig-it-up-and-fix-it. Once we find that out, that'll be the first project. The water model project is the first step for the well project; they're getting closer. We talked about the capital improvement project for roads—how we would go through and rank roads and what the process will look like. They will begin putting all of that together and working with Phil on driving road by road. [28:16] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** Be sure to contact the guys on the council that are on that committee. [28:22] **Council Member Douglas Juntunen:** Mr. Mayor, there's criteria they set already for evaluating water, sewer, and road paths that could be reviewed if we want to send that out. [28:38] **Tim Peterson (Administrator):** They were going to drive with Phil, come back with a list of roads ranked by those criteria, and then look for input on things like traffic or where roads wash out. It's more of a "this is how it's ranked, now let's sit down and evaluate it based on a more comprehensive look." [29:32] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** Questions for the council? Thank you. Chamber of Commerce. Thanks, Louis. [29:59] **Council Member Lou Ohly:** Our events sponsored by the Chamber are winding down for the year. We've got the Nine and Dine golf outing on Friday at one o'clock. On September 8th, Saturday, is the Brewfest at the Doc's Pavilion from 4:00 to 7:00 p.m. That's where we'll do the drawing for the raffle. Tomorrow is the Chamber Board meeting at the Squirrel Cage at noon; everyone's invited. [30:57] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** Thank you, Lou. Moving on to number five, previously discussed business. 5A is a gas franchise fee. Any new data? [31:16] **Tim Peterson (Administrator):** I have a meeting set with MSOP and DOC to discuss the gas franchise fee. I'll let everyone know how it goes. That's next Thursday the 16th at 10:00. [31:53] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** Moving on to 5B, animal control. [32:00] **Tim Peterson (Administrator):** A bunch of the local cities, the County, and Friends of Animals all sat down to discuss a plan. It frankly didn't go particularly well. Most of the cities are requesting that the county take on levying for any animal control because it's a countywide issue. We're all saying that we have a problem with the current contract where people in Moose Lake are being taxed twice for animal control. Friends of Animals requested—it sounds like their last request was about two hundred and sixty thousand dollars, so we're a little ways away. We suggested that cities and the county get a seat on their board, but that was not very well received. [34:04] **Council Member Kris Huso:** So what's happening to the animals that are turned in now or picked up? [34:07] **Tim Peterson (Administrator):** Well, right now you can't turn them into Friends of Animals because they're closed. But in the city, we still have our kennel that we can use. We've been having pretty good luck getting animals back to their owners. [34:44] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** Moving on to 5C, joint meeting with Moose Lake Town Board. [34:52] **Tim Peterson (Administrator):** They still have not sent new dates. [35:27] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** Moving on to 5G, striping parking spots. [35:31] **Tim Peterson (Administrator):** The striping has been done on 4th and on Elm. I think it looks awesome; it looks really bright and clean. [35:50] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** I noticed all the parking for handicaps too, so it looks great. Moving on to six, new business. 6A, water main extension request from Knollwood Drive. [36:13] **Tim Peterson (Administrator):** On page 37 is a letter I sent to the homeowners on Knollwood requesting input on the project and whether they are agreeable to being assessed. This all started with the Carlson family; they purchased a home and they really don't have water right now. 130 Knollwood stopped in—they are not for the project. Pamela Vargas is for extending the water line but does not think they should incur the expense because it should have been done when the sewer line was completed. Joel Michalski is for the project and any assessment. Brent Larson is for the project but opposed to the assessment because the water main is already really close to his property. [39:19] **Tim Peterson (Administrator):** To me, our next step would be the feasibility study. That puts the project together: how it's engineered, the cost, and the assessments. We would get an appraisal of each property so we know the legal limit of what we can assess. I also think it's very strange that we don't have a water main on this road. If a group of people test their wells and they are contaminated, we're going to have a larger issue. [43:08] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** Would you come up to the podium please? [43:34] **Unidentified Resident:** Just a quick question, just wondering what the time assessment would be for the term—how many years that might be? [43:45] **Tim Peterson (Administrator):** The council would need to decide. We've done 10 years in the past. I think for a project of this size, we'd be looking at 5 to 10 years. [44:31] **Unidentified Resident:** Out at Wyndemere, they did a 30-year on that. [44:36] **Tim Peterson (Administrator):** If we're going to do 30 years, I would say the city should just pay for it at that point. 10 years would be a max. [46:15] **Council Member Kris Huso:** I'll make the motion that we do the study on Knollwood Drive. [46:25] **Council Member Lou Ohly:** I'll second. [46:28] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** Open for discussion or questions? Hearing none, all in favor say aye. (Council: Aye). Motion carried. 2018 Flood? [47:24] **Tim Peterson (Administrator):** The 2018 flood wasn't so much of a flood in Moose Lake as much as it was in the rest of the county. It's actually been turned over to FEMA. We met with FEMA to present our flood damages. On page 45 is a list—we have about sixty-nine thousand dollars that we submitted for flood reimbursement. [48:40] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** 6E, City Hall credit card processing. Katie's going to run through this. [48:53] **Katie Bloom (Staff):** Starting on page 46 is a merchant agreement for a credit card processing company. Basically, the gist of this is that the fee would be on the customer, not us. This would be used for mainly like our building permits. I think the fee is four percent with a minimum of $1.00. Tim and I did a little webinar with them and it's really easy to use. [50:40] **Tim Peterson (Administrator):** I think we just need to be able to take credit cards. Every single contractor now uses a credit card. It's a benefit to the customer. [51:24] **Council Member Douglas Juntunen:** I so move that we start using credit cards and charging that directly to the customer using this GovPayNet. [51:35] **Council Member Kris Huso:** I'll second that. [51:38] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** All in favor say aye. (Council: Aye). Motion carries. We have a guest here today so I thought we would jump ahead to number 6J: Library staffing discussion and Library Board recommendation. [52:34] **Tim Peterson (Administrator):** The Personnel Committee met with the DMV to bring forward the idea that we hire another person within the DMV. We looked at how we can pay for an additional position and reduce costs elsewhere. The recommendation was to change our technology setup, freeing up Steve’s time (who was the technology coordinator), and making him a full-time Library Director instead. However, the Library Board met with staff who expressed a need for coverage. The Library Board now recommends continuing to have a part-time Library Director rather than a full-time one. [56:35] **Tim Peterson (Administrator):** If it's part-time, that would change Steve's position from full-time to part-time. The technology piece is going to go to CW. [57:42] **Eleanor (Library Board):** Having a full-time director with health benefits will cost $74,483 a year. Having a part-time director for 30 hours with no health insurance costs $42,000. That's a difference of over $32,000. We felt very uncomfortable laying off a married man with health benefits, but if there's a good time to look for a job, right now is it because unemployment is way down. [59:16] **Tim Peterson (Administrator):** We definitely agreed that increasing the levy was not an answer for taking care of this kind of a problem. [1:00:27] **Council Member Douglas Juntunen:** Does council have any questions for Eleanor? [1:00:33] **Tim Peterson (Administrator):** I don't think that this is a very easy decision to make and I wouldn't want to push all of you into a decision on short notice tonight. [1:01:25] **Council Member Lou Ohly:** Have you looked at the last three to five years to see if you're trending downward as far as money coming in? [1:01:52] **Eleanor (Library Board):** We fund it through our levy, but in this case, we would be taking an extra twenty thousand out of our budget to pay for the full-time position with no extra money coming to us, so we would have to cut $20,000 elsewhere. [1:05:09] **Council Member Lou Ohly:** I guess only comment I want to make is we do create boards for a reason and they're in the position to know what their needs are. [1:09:40] **Council Member Kris Huso:** I've been someone that's stated that looking at the heads of our department, we have some very dedicated people. I just think that we do pay less than other cities our size—just say the Police Chief or Phil—those positions have been consistently paid less. I just want that to go into the thought process. [1:13:28] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** I think it's the consensus we have a month to think it over. Thank you Eleanor for being here. Moving back to 6D, fee schedule. [1:14:31] **Katie Bloom (Staff):** Included in the packet is the new fee schedule. The highlighted ones are the ones we suggest changing. Cigarette and liquor licensing—$150 was where most cities our size are at. For public utilities, Phil requested a $200 fee for "snowbirds" who request to have their meter taken out and then put back in for the winter. It's a lot of work for them to take that meter out. [1:19:50] **Katie Bloom (Staff):** Also, sewer dumping for holding tanks would be $30 per 1,000 gallons. Sewer and water hookup fees—we are super low. We upped it to $1,000. We used to be at $250. Carlton charges a thousand; the highest in other cities is two thousand. [1:23:53] **Council Member Douglas Juntunen:** I'm okay with that. The EDA has made some major changes that entice people to come to Moose Lake, which will offset this. [1:24:15] **Katie Bloom (Staff):** We are also asking for a $50 right-of-way permit fee. This is when the gas company comes in and puts holes in our roads. We don't charge anything right now. [1:26:00] **Tim Peterson (Administrator):** Regarding zoning fees, we aren't even covering our cost to have these meetings. We're raising them basically just to cover our costs for having the Planning Commission meeting. [1:27:00] **Katie Bloom (Staff):** Andy Sharp, our building official, requested we go to the 1997 UBC fee schedule, which is what many cities use. Our current schedule was four or five pages long and confusing for everyone. [1:30:25] **Council Member Douglas Juntunen:** I move that we approve the fee schedule with the change to the reconnection fee and excluding the cigarette and liquor license for now. [1:31:01] **Council Member Lou Ohly:** I'll second. [1:31:03] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** All in favor say aye. (Council: Aye). Motion carried. 6E, Resolution 18.08.01 approving final payment for 3rd Street and Kenwood. [1:31:16] **Tim Peterson (Administrator):** This is just to close out the project. It cost us $37,000 to do two road projects. [1:31:49] **Council Member Kris Huso:** Move to support. [1:31:52] **Council Member Douglas Juntunen:** Second. [1:31:53] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** All in favor? (Council: Aye). Motion carried. 6F, Resolution 18.08.02 approving election judges. (Mayor reads names: Tim Peterson, Katie Bloom, Caroline Lavanier, Don Hayden, Sharon Hoppy, Jim Mackay, Keith Carlson, Pat Sgogi, Johnny Morrissey). [1:33:14] **Council Member Walter Lower III:** Motion to approve. [1:33:17] **Council Member Douglas Juntunen:** Second. (Council: Aye). [1:33:40] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** 6G, Resolution 18.08.03 certifying TIF number 1-3. [1:33:53] **Tim Peterson (Administrator):** This is to decertify the TIF district for the post office. [1:34:04] **Council Member Lou Ohly:** I'll make a motion we approve. (Seconded by Kris Huso; Council: Aye). [1:34:17] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** 6H, reimbursing excess TIF funds. [1:34:25] **Tim Peterson (Administrator):** We collected more than our expenses. Because these were in our general fund and not a separate fund, we have to cut a check for $38,000 back to the county. If we don't, it'll continue to get worse. It's a hit to the general fund. [1:39:10] **Council Member Douglas Juntunen:** I'll make a motion to pay back TIF districts 1-3 and 1-1 to Carlton County. (Seconded by Kris Huso; Council: Aye). [1:40:07] **Tim Peterson (Administrator):** 6I, set special meeting for budget review. How about September 5th at 4:00? (Council agrees). [1:42:11] **Tim Peterson (Administrator):** 6K, DMV hiring. We recommend hiring Jennifer Johnson. [1:42:48] **Council Member Kris Huso:** I so move. (Seconded by Douglas Juntunen; Council: Aye). [1:43:46] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** Announcements: regular Moose Lake City Council meeting will be Wednesday, September 12th. (Mayor reads remaining board meeting dates). With that, we have to recess to close the open meeting for discussion on an employee. Do I have a motion? [1:46:44] **Council Member Lou Ohly:** So moved. [1:46:45] **Council Member Walter Lower III:** Second. [1:46:46] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** All in favor? (Council: Aye). Motion carried. [1:46:53] [Music] [1:56:26] [Music]