This transcript features **Mayor Mary Fasbender** presiding over a Hastings City Council meeting, with presentations from City Administrator **Dan Wietecha**, Finance Manager **Chris Eitemiller**, Community Development Director **John Hinzman**, and **Jessica Green** from Northland Securities. *Note: The transcript mentions "Councilmember Fulch" (Tina Folch) and "Councilmember Fox" (Jen Fox). While they are not on the specific list provided, they are recognized members of the Hastings City Council in this context.* [0:05] Mayor Mary Fasbender: …and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Welcome, and let the roll reflect so that we have—uh, Councilmember Leifeld is absent tonight, but we do have a majority for a quorum. Tonight we are going to have a recognition of the city's Double A Plus bonding rate, and um, we'll have an introduction by Finance Manager Chris Eitemiller. Welcome, Chris. [0:52] Chris Eitemiller: Good evening. Uh, well this year, as you all know, we were fortunate and very pleased to get our bond rating improved. It's the first time I'm told tonight since 2009 that the city's Bond rating has increased. So, uh, we're happy for that and it should—will help us out with our interest rates on future debts. It'll take a while for it to add up, but a little bit at a time. So with that, I'd like to introduce Jessica Green from Northland. [1:21] Jessica Green: Mayor, Council, good evening. So, um, as Chris mentioned, here tonight to revisit some of that very good news that the city received earlier this summer. So back in June, as we were preparing for that Series 23 Bond issuance, the city received a rating upgrade from Standard & Poor’s, so going from that Double A rating to a Double A Plus with a stable outlook. What that means ultimately for the city is that you have access to lower interest rates. So when we were looking at that 23 issuance, we estimated around a $40,000 savings. So again, as Chris mentioned, it all adds up over time—so some nice savings there as a result of that rating increase. So to commemorate the achievement, we have prepared a bit [2:07] of a rating plaque for the city. So what we've done is we've just taken the front cover of the official statement and really highlighted the fact that, of course, that rating upgrade has occurred. So we want to present that to the city. Before I do that, just a quick note—I know that you've all seen the rating report, so I won't sort of belabor the point and go through that. Ultimately, what we saw, of course, the city scores very well across the board from a rating perspective. What we saw really move the needle this time was the implementation of that long-range planning, and we saw that noted a few times within the report. And we've seen this with both of the rating agencies—Standard & Poor’s and Moody's—they just look so favorably on that long-term planning aspect rather than just sort of going through the budget process each year. So we really do feel like that sort of moved the city across the finish line to get [2:54] that rating upgrade. And in terms of the overall scale, really, that Double A Plus level is one notch below the highest rating that you could have of AAA. So a really, really strong rating. And again, just want to share congratulations to the city. I'm happy to take questions, but otherwise, I'd love to hand this plaque off to someone. [2:54] Mayor Mary Fasbender: Great, thanks Jessica. Answer any questions? Okay, if not, we would like a photo opportunity. Council, if you'd step forward. Absolutely. [3:37] Mayor Mary Fasbender: [Music] Three, two, one, right here. [4:15] Mayor Mary Fasbender: [Music] Okay, moving forward. Council, are there any corrections to the minutes from the meeting from September 5th and the workshop? Nope. All right. Council, are there any items to be considered? Okay, at this time, uh, comments from the audience. If anybody wishes to speak to the Council from the audience or by Zoom, please stand, step up to the podium, state your name and address. Anyone wish to speak to the Council at this time? Okay, no one on Zoom. All right, tonight, uh, we would—I would take a motion. Sorry, [5:19] lost my place there. Would take a motion to accept the consent agenda. [5:19] Councilmember Dave Pemble: [Motion] [5:19] Councilmember Jen Fox: [Second] [5:19] Mayor Mary Fasbender: Councilmember Pemble, Councilmember Fox. Any discussion, Council? All those in favor of the motion state by saying aye. (Group: Aye). Opposed to that motion state by saying nay. And that motion prevails. Under awarding contracts tonight, we are Highway 55 Trail reconstruction with McNamara Contracting. And this item we will get an update from our City Administrator, Dan Wietecha. Dan. [6:07] Dan Wietecha: Thank you, Mayor. This item is in the 2023 budget for uh, about $259,000. Um, the bid actually had four bids, but the low bid is higher than uh, the budget amount. In talking with that contractor, there's some ability to reduce some costs. I think there was an extra pedestrian ramp in there in the design, as well as a little bit of narrowing up a section of the Trailway. Even with taking that out, as we include construction management that's recommended through WSB, include a contingency because we never know quite what we'll find after we get into a project, it's still about $43,000 over budget. Our recommendation is to—uh, three parts [6:53] to it, but I think you could do them all at once: one, approve that contract with McNamara construction; two, the contract with WSB Associates for construction management; and the $43,000 budget amendment. And this would go forward for construction this fall. I'd take any questions. Thank you. [7:21] Councilmember Dave Pemble: Your honor, I move to approve. [7:21] Councilmember Angie Haus: Second that. [7:21] Mayor Mary Fasbender: And that motion prevails. Thanks, Dan. Today we are having a public hearing for a vacation of an easement on South Oaks Fourth Edition, and for this item we will have an introduction by Community Development Director John Hinzman. Hi, John, welcome. [7:37] John Hinzman: Thank you, Mayor, City Council Members. Tonight we have a public hearing before you for South Oaks of Hastings Second Edition—this is for a vacation of easement. The South Oaks of Hastings 2nd Edition is already developed, however, as part of that development there was an outlot platted for future development, which is shown here. Within that outlot, the areas in red were platted as drainage and utility easements in anticipation of future necessities for utility purposes. Now, [8:24] with the redevelopment of this Outlot A into South Oaks Fourth Edition, which is an active application that was approved—that is still at the Planning Commission at this point—we need to essentially wipe the slate clear on Outlot A so that it can be replatted. What we're asking for tonight is for you to hold the public hearing for that consideration tonight, however, to not take any action on the actual request until the plat for South Oaks of Hastings Fourth Edition comes forward to you. We anticipate that in the next couple of weeks. So tonight we're looking at a public hearing only. As far as effects on South Oaks Second Edition, there would be no effects on the existing housing that's around there. This site's generally located—here's 31st Street and [9:09] Century Drive—so the existing housing is not going to have an effect on this. This only affects that area which will be platted. So I could stand for any questions. [9:09] Mayor Mary Fasbender: Okay, thank you, John. Council, any discussion? If not, then I would accept a motion—oh, sorry, we have to open the public hearing. I'm sorry. At this time I will open the public hearing. Anyone wish to speak to this item, they step forward, state your name and address. Anyone on Zoom? Okay. Anyone wish to speak to the easement on—at this time? Okay. Right now I will close the public hearing. And Council, any discussion? [9:56] Okay, then I would ask for a motion to accept it—oh sure, sorry, I jumped ahead. Thank you. All right. Today we also have a public hearing for a reading to adopt the ordinance to amend the City Code chapters 156 and 157. [10:24] And this is property maintenance code and structural maintenance code. For this item, we will continue to hear from John Hinzman, our Community Development Director. [10:24] John Hinzman: Thank you, Mayor, City Council Members. On this item here, we work closely with the Fire Department, in particular Jamie Stevens, our fire inspector. We've got a couple of ordinances before you tonight which we're asking for public hearings and second reading final adoption. The first of which is Chapter 156 of the City Code, which is the International Property Maintenance Code. This is a very small section of the code—it essentially adopts that International Property Maintenance Code by reference. The existing code right now puts a specific date as to which code, the International Property Code, we would use. We are modifying that so that as that moves along, we just [11:11] have the most recent version of that as the adopted codes; we don't have to do further amendments to that. The bulk of this is Chapter 157, which is our structural maintenance code for rental properties. Council can recall that about a year ago, the rental responsibilities for housing were transferred from the Building Department to the Fire Department. As the Fire Department has taken over this, and Jamie in particular, he's looked through our existing code, found areas in which the practice that we're doing today doesn't match what the ordinance states, and looked at the ordinance for improvements. So we have a few amendments that we're looking at to the code. Generally, what we're looking at is to adopt the most current version of the property code by reference, update the definitions to be [11:57] consistent with other city sections of the code, and have some other changes there for residential rental properties. If you live in Saint Croix or Pierce County, Wisconsin, you no longer have to have an agent residing within Hastings or the seven-county metro; you can still reside there and not have that local responsibility. Ultimate responsibility for compliance is going to fall within the property owner itself. So regardless of what the tenant may or may not do on this one, ultimately we want to make sure that it is the owner of the property that is ultimately responsible. License issuance under the code states that they would be for every year; we're doing this every two years. We've done it that way for as long as I could remember, so we're [12:43] matching our current practice by amending that portion of it. We're also making the requirement that rental dwelling units for immediate family members are no longer exempt; they need to have rental inspections and code. We were having issues come up for situations in which you had non-conforming structures that were rented to members of the family and then went back to non-members of the family, and questions of whether they still held that non-conformity aspect of it. So this helps from our record-keeping and adds for its consistency there—a rental unit is a rental unit licensed. These would be invoiced 30 days from expiration. All licenses would be posted on-site instead of those that are for three units or more, I believe, are required today. And also simplifies the [13:29] ability of our housing official to revoke licenses if requirements are not met. This falls in line with some of the assessment abatement stuff that we adopted a year ago. So what we have before us tonight are the public hearings for these two City Code amendments in Chapter 156 and 157. So you may open the public hearing at this time and I can stand for any questions. [13:29] Mayor Mary Fasbender: Okay, thank you. Thank you, John. The Council, because they are closely related, will hold both public hearings at the same time. This time I will open the public hearing. Anyone wish to speak to the code ordinances at this time? Anyone on Zoom? Anyone wish to speak at this time? Okay, we'll close the public hearing, open the discussion for Council. Council, any [14:15] discussion? [14:15] Councilmember Tina Folch: I was just wondering, uh, John, has there been any outreach to uh, landlords currently to—to make them aware that we were having this change in the city ordinance? Do you um, send them a notice? I'm sure that you have a database of landlords who are permitted, correct? [14:15] John Hinzman: We do, yeah. We have not had any outreach at this time. [14:15] Councilmember Tina Folch: And so all right, and so what notice have we given to landlords and such to—what's our—what's our communications plan here for this particular issue? [15:02] John Hinzman: For the public hearing itself, we did provide notification on the website and in the paper. As far as the amendment itself, we would provide a notification of the changes upon passage. [15:02] Councilmember Tina Folch: So we'd be sending an after-the-fact notice to all the landlords to let them know that we've made these changes. Are you going to do anything more than that, like have a training opportunity or a PowerPoint presentation online or anything to that effect to assist in educating our landlords so that they're aware of these changes and how it is that they should be going about making any, you know, changes to any practices or who to call for questions and things of that nature? [15:49] John Hinzman: Sure. I think with the notification going out, if they were more substantive changes going on, then I'd agree that the education would be a more necessary item on it. I believe that we'd be able to send notification with some of the bullet point changes on there and provide a contact for questions, and that would suffice. [15:49] Councilmember Tina Folch: And so this really isn't that different from our current— [15:49] John Hinzman: Not really. I mean, the most—the most significant aspect of this from our current code is that if you're renting to family members, that requires rental inspections and permit now—that's one aspect of it. Uh, and then the issuance of licenses is unchanged. That's—that's probably the most significant aspect of this. [16:36] Councilmember Tina Folch: So the most significant aspects of this change are putting into practice, putting into code what we're doing as practice at the moment? Let me ask, how much does it cost to have a permit? You know, so if you had an extra house and you're letting your kiddos, you know, live in it or something to that effect—young couples, you know, places to live and families often bond together to help in those kinds of situations—and so I don't want to place an undue burden on families who are just keeping housing within their own families. [17:21] John Hinzman: Right, right. Councilmember, I don't have that information off the top of my head. I don't know for how much it is for a permit—is it like more than a hundred dollars, less than five hundred dollars, thousand dollars? I'd have to look that up, Councilmember, I don't know off the top of my head. [17:21] Councilmember Tina Folch: Okay, well I would really hope that we would be very clear, you know, to let folks know um, not only the existing landlords, but it sounds like in this instance that we'll be imposing new requirements on folks who may have not felt that they were a landlord in that position previously—that's what I'm hearing you say. So if I have an extra house and one of my kids are living in it, I'm suddenly an official landlord and that I have to get a permit to allow my own children to live in a house of mine? Is that what you're saying? [18:06] John Hinzman: Correct. Well, I—I don't agree with that really necessarily. That's for a rental unit. I mean, I've been in my own situation where I have adult kids living with me at the moment, and uh, it's not, you know, a bedroom that you have an individual living in. It's when you have a separate unit within the building—a separate kitchen, a separate entry, a separate unit on that. So it's a—it's a—it's a different threshold than, for example, my—my kids or a family member is using a room for a period of time; that would still continue to not be required to have a rental permit. But if you have a separate unit, it would be now, regardless of whether it was a family member or another member of the public. [18:52] Councilmember Tina Folch: So just last follow-up question then. So how are we supposed to be giving notice to people who are in this situation? Because like, for instance, the house that I bought actually has a downstairs that um, the folks who owned it previous to myself had the downstairs, they put a door on it and they, you know, they like leased it out. And I always figured in case one of those kids needed to come home, you know, after college and live downstairs for a while um, and so—so if I put it—what I guess what I'm confused about is when you say "separate unit." So if I were to, you know, allow them—because it has a door on it and it can have a lock—so that would be considered a unit unto itself and I'd be required to have a permit to let my children— [19:38] John Hinzman: Not necessarily. You would have to have a separate outside entrance to the unit itself. The unit itself would have to have separate kitchen facilities, eating facilities separate from the other house or the other portion of the house. So if you had a situation where, for example, you have a shared main entryway and there's a lock going to the basement, that would not count—that's still a situation where it was in a single unit. But if you've got a situation where you've got two main doors going into a structure, you know, one with each separate lock, and that one door enters into a unit that has its own kitchen facility and that's separate from the remainder of the house, that's where the differentiation comes in. [20:23] Councilmember Tina Folch: And so I get—I'm just—I'm curious, and so what is the problem that we're trying to—to fix here in that situation? If you have one—one residential housing unit, but you have separate doors and—like I can—I can think of folks that I've seen who have had like a mother-in-law, you know, little apartment that they created on the back end of the house or something to that effect. And so what—what are we trying to solve here in—in passing this? Because um, I'm just curious like how common is that to require families to enter into being a landlord and having to have a permit to have a mother-in-law in the back of their—of their house in a mother-in-law apartment? [21:10] John Hinzman: Councilmember, in a more broad sense than what we're doing here, a mother-in-law apartment may just be an area of the home that's being used by someone else in the family; it may not constitute our separate rental unit from our standpoints. We may be looking at two different things on this. I mean, with this—this again, the two differentiations that we have is separate outdoor entrance, separate kitchen and eating facilities on that. As far as the problem that we're trying to solve with this one is we've got situations within the city in which we have what's termed non-conforming uses, which means areas of the older part of town that have units, two or three units within a home, that under the current code would not be allowed to have that. But because they've been operating that way for a period of time, they're grandfathered in. In the chain of trying to document that, when you go from a situation in which you have people renting to the outside public and then people renting to families and then they want to go back, we've had many situations that have come up that have been almost prohibitive for people to do that until they can prove that this thing was continually rented during the family member's tenure on that one. So we're trying to avoid that situation, especially in these circumstances where we have these non-conformities. [22:42] Mayor Mary Fasbender: And can I just for clarification, John? I think, Councilmember Folch, I think it's for uh, safety issues, so they can come in and get inspected and—for—I mean, is that part of it, John? [22:42] John Hinzman: Yep, that's—that's part of it too. We—anytime you've got a rental situation in it, there is certain requirements that our Fire Department and building code need to do uh, to check out to make sure that they're in place, you know, from uh, exiting, from fire safety, those—those type of things. [23:29] Councilmember Tina Folch: Your honor, I would feel better if we were giving better notice to the public about this change because of it impacting families and their arrangements, you know, within their own households. You know, I can—I can imagine there are situations, like maybe you have a disabled child or um, you know, an elderly parent that you want close at home, and so that these, you know—like these kinds of units are created so that you're still kind of under one roof and you're close to one another to be able to help them. And um, and so I feel like we should be doing a better job of educating um, the public about this change and how then they're going to be required to have permits and—and that we should get more comments from the community. I just—nobody reads the council agendas, I mean, let's just be honest. And so just by saying that we put it on the council agenda and that um, that is, you know, sufficient notice to the public to give them the opportunity to um, you know, come forward and speak about it, I think um, isn't really—isn't really doing our part in letting, you know, the community know that we're having these changes. And particularly when it could have um, you know, a burden, and not knowing, you know, what a permit costs and, you know, what it is to go through the whole licensing process, and what does that mean then to suddenly have to have inspections coming into the house and such. I mean, I would like to know all those details before I feel comfortable in passing a change that would affect families in such a way. [25:01] Dan Wietecha: Councilmember Folch, I think we have an update on two—two things. The notice of a public hearing is published in the newspaper as required by statute; it's not simply a matter of on the City Council's agenda. The other question that I heard was the cost of a rental inspection is fifty dollars for a two-year permit on a single-family home. [25:01] Councilmember Tina Folch: So it is only fifty dollars for a permit for two years? Correct? Okay, okay. All right, thank you. [25:01] Mayor Mary Fasbender: And I think that fee is to cover our inspectors. And thank you, Councilmember. Councilmember Fox. [25:48] Councilmember Jen Fox: Thank you, your honor. Um, I—I agree. If this was um, particularly burdensome to families who are renting to their family members um, and it was targeted at that, I think um, we would need to do a little bit more digging. Um, I think one thing um, that we—we haven't noted yet is that the inspection file is actually submitted to the Fire Department so we could have a database of renters and rental units once people are actually filing these permits and these inspection documents. But we don't have all of those as—as Mr. Hinzman was saying; we—we're still trying to create that database of information so that we can share when we are updating the code and updating the—the information for renters. Right, um, there's—I was gonna update the—the cost of the um, fee as well because it's—right, it's stated right on the license and the premise to be inspected, which goes directly to the Fire Department. Um, I personally am really excited about this update. I mentioned it in our previous meeting a couple weeks ago that it's—it's a great thing to—to have our codes a little tightened up and a little more strict about our rental units because we do really appreciate having those renters in our city. We just need to take care of our space and the—the places that people are able to rent so that it can be healthy and—and good for everyone. Um, I very much support this moving forward, and I would like to make a motion. [27:22] Mayor Mary Fasbender: Okay, thank you Council—motion by Fox. Second with Councilmember Haus. Additional discussion, Council? All those in favor of the motion state by saying aye. (Group: Aye). Opposed to that motion state by saying nay. And that motion prevails. Thanks, John. Okay, under reports, under Administration, we have a utility rate study. For this item, we will have a presentation by Jessica Green from Northland Securities, and this item has no recommended action tonight. So, welcome again, Jessica. [28:07] Jessica Green: Mayor, Council, hello again. So for your consideration this evening—and as you noted, Mayor, we're not looking for any sort of formal approval—but what we've done is we've gone through the utility rate study and working with staff, and we have prepared for you a report with our findings. And that report is probably a good 75 to 80 pages, so we're not going to go through that tonight, of course; you have other items to get to. But what we've done is prepared a sort of high-level overview with a presentation with a few slides in it. So if it's okay with Council, what we'll plan to do is just go through that presentation. If you do want to dig into the report, happy to do that, but right now I'm not planning to go through that report page by page for the sake of brevity for your meeting. So does that sound okay to everyone? Sounds great. [28:54] Thanks, Jessica. So what we're going to be talking about tonight in terms of the utility rate studies is that we've reviewed the water, sewer, and the stormwater utility funds. And what we've done in working with staff is looking at the objectives for the utilities. We put together some conclusions and some recommendations, and we're going to talk about those early on so you can kind of sit with that information as we're going through each of the individual utilities. Looking at some key financial information for all the utility funds and then also looking at the utility rates and what our recommendations ultimately do for the customer impacts. With the study objectives, we are of course looking to provide the city with information so that you can take a look at the recommendations that we're coming up with and evaluate whether or not those work for the city in terms of those increases that are being proposed. We do look at the existing plans and projections for the city. So we've taken [29:39] a look at the last few years of your city audits, we've looked at the city budget for the utility funds, and then we've also looked at your customer data—so the usage, the volume being used, the number of accounts—and really kind of got into a lot of that data over the past couple of years. And looking at what we're planning for projections, we've also worked with staff on what some of the development assumptions are going forward, and then looking at all the capital needs for the utilities and then giving a recommendation on financing—whether those are covered with cash reserves or if you're looking at bonding for some of those items. So again, we're going to talk about the conclusions and recommendations up front. With the utility funds, of course, those are those business-type [30:25] enterprises, so you want those user rates and charges to cover the operations of your utility, also meet your debt service needs, and then provide for the annual capital improvements—whether or not that's in terms of debt service coverage or if it's a pay-as-you-go financing where you're covering that capital outlay with cash. So based on the assumptions that we've made within the plan, we've got some recommendations for utility rate increases going forward, and the planning period here is 2024 through 2032. So within the water utility fund, we are proposing a three and a half percent increase, and that's on average over the planning period. For the sanitary sewer rates, four and a half percent, again over the entirety of that planning period. And then four percent for the [31:11] stormwater rates. And we'll talk about each of those individual utilities in just a moment. So we have looked at what the average user on a residential basis looks like, and what that amounts to is about 6,000 gallons per month. And we've extrapolated that and of course put that into the quarterly bill. So what you're looking at here is the combined utility bill for that particular residential home that's using about 6,000 gallons per month. And I'm going to peek at my notes here because I don't have this committed to memory, but what we're looking at is an increase going from about $165 up to about $240 over the planning period. What that amounts to is about a [31:56] $7.93 increase on each year. If we break that down by quarter, it's about a $1.98 increase per quarter, and that happens on an annual basis. So if we're looking at simply just year-over-year, it's about $7.93 for increase. And again, that's the combined utility bill. We also took a look at the city's development charges—so this is related to your access fee, so sewer and water access are referred to as SAC and WAC—um, and we have put this into a comparison with some cities of related sizes or around this area. And what you can see from this graph is that in the green on the far left is where Hastings [32:42] is sitting in comparison to development fees for these other cities that we've sort of plucked out and used as comparison cities. We've also assumed that there would be some increases into the SAC and the WAC charges, and what we've done is we've consulted with staff on both development assumptions for new units coming online and then also looking at the capital improvements that would be necessary to support just that development. So again, those SAC and WAC charges—and what we have arrived at is that we would propose that on a combined basis that we're looking at about an $837 increase, so going from about $3,500 on a combined basis to about $4,387. And what we've done is we've again—you [33:29] can see that the proposed rates for 2024 are sitting right in the middle there. If you do look out to that farther end, of course, and comparing from a dollar-for-dollar perspective, Hastings even with those proposed increases would still be kind of at the low end of what's being charged for development fees. So again, we've taken those capital needs and we've effectively inflated them by the timing of what is anticipated for when you would actually implement those capital expenditures. So some of the um, the capital outlay that's been identified wouldn't occur until probably '26, '27, '28. So we've inflated that by about three percent per year. What those actual amounts come to remains to be seen because we're several years away from [34:15] that, but we have done, again, some analysis on—on what we think those costs would do from now until when those—those costs would be taken on. In terms of the financial management of the utility funds, again, the utility funds are looked at as an enterprise fund. So you operate them in a way that the fees and the charges are covering the operations, the debt service, etc. of the fund. And when we look at the utility funds, we look at them a little bit differently than the general fund, for example, and that is because the utility funds have ongoing revenue because you're billing out on a quarterly basis. When we look at the general fund, for example, or other governmental funds, the biggest source of revenue there is is the property taxes that are paid, and those come in every six months. So that's when you're really aiming for that 50 [35:01] percent or six months of operations. Here with the utilities, we're looking at three months, and that is because again that you have ongoing revenue coming in. And then at the year-end, we would like to see that three months of that operations cash that is also sufficient to cover the debt service that is coming in the following year, and then any capital that you will be paying cash for, we'd like to see that in the fund the year ahead of when that's actually that capital outlay is occurring. Now we're going to get into the specific funds. So—and you're going to hear me say some of these same things over and over again, so the redundancy though is—is a good thing and it means that ultimately the utility funds are in good shape. Again, we do have some [35:48] recommendations here for increases, but they are in good shape. So the water fund is in sound financial condition. The revenues are sufficient to cover the expenses. We do anticipate, again, we're planning for a three and a half percent increase over that planning period. In our discussions with staff, what we've learned is that this city will likely have a new position for the utility funds coming in '25, and that will be split equally between water, sewer, and the stormwater fund. And then specifically to water, we've got a number of capital improvements that have been identified in the City's CIP, and we are planning on some debt issuance occurring in '25, '28, and '29. And that debt issuance is estimated to finance about $7.9 million of the roughly [36:37] $14.7 million that is identified within the plant. So it's a combination of pay-as-you-go—so using cash to offset that capital outlay—and then using financing where necessary. Here we're looking at that again, looking at that um, ending cash position and what we're looking at for that objective. So three months of operating your debt service, and then again your capital outlay. And what you can see here is that the desired minimum ending cash is in a position that it is below the actual ending cash position. So that's a good thing, because your desired is below what your actual cash amount is coming in. The one thing I would point out here is that this increase that you're seeing in the green line between uh, '25 out to '27—so the model is [37:24] anticipating some dollars being expended for the Highway 61 project, but what we've also programmed in is that the city would be receiving other resources to cover that project. So that's why you're seeing that correction and that green line coming down. Ultimately, for both water and sewer, you'll see this in the graph that corresponds with the sewer portion for the Highway 61 project, we are assuming that that would be funded 100 percent from outside resources—so no bonding, no cash used from the city for that project. This graph is simply to show you that we are anticipating that the volume of water that is billed and the number of accounts is going to increase over the planning period. So we've worked with [38:11] staff on some of the development assumptions that we've implemented into the plan, and on average it comes out to about 50 units per year. Some years will be more, some years will be less, but what we've programmed in here is about 50 units per year. And then this is specific to the water piece and what a—an average water user—so again about 6,000 gallons per month or 18,000 per quarter—and for that average user, this is increasing from about $45 per quarter to about $62.97, so just shy of $63. So over that planning period, so out through 2032, about an $18 increase ($17.94). So on average, you're looking at about a two-dollar increase per year, or if you [38:57] want to average that out over a quarter, it's 49.5 cents. Any questions on water before we move on to sewer? Okay. Um, sanitary sewer fund—again, in sound financial condition. The revenues here are sufficient to cover expenses, with one caveat. So when we add in the depreciation—and depreciation is considered a non-cash expense—when we look at the revenues versus expenses with depreciation, we're not quite covering the total expenses. But again, you're not burning through cash there because that depreciation is a non-cash expense item. Overall, if you look through the report, what you'll see is that the trend is moving in the right direction. So with [39:43] the rate increases that are being proposed, we are seeing that moving in the right direction. And again, you're going to have some debt that's going to be retiring off throughout that planning period, so that will also help that position. But again, sound financial condition in the sewer fund. Again, in planning for this one-third position that would occur in 2025, looking at about four and a half percent on average. And we have programmed in debt in most of the years. So rather than using cash to fund the capital projects, we are looking at about $9.1 million in bonding and about $10.4 million in total projects. So from a cash perspective, the sewer fund will need additional borrowing without, of course, the city council could [40:30] certainly move to have higher increases to support the cash balance, and that of course would further support any sort of capital outlay. Cash position here again, what we're seeing is that the ending cash position is above that desired minimum cash position. So this is good news—we'll see the cash position grow slightly and then start to taper off towards the end of the planning period. And again, we're seeing that spike there, and that is due to the fact that we have the capital outlay programmed for the 61 project, but we're assuming that we're—we're getting cash from other sources to pay for that. Again here just looking at those 50 additional customers coming online and usage there increasing as well. And then from the billing perspective, [41:17] we're looking at a bit of a higher increase here, and one of the things that I would note about the sewer fund is that the—the biggest component of the operating of the—the sewer fund is the MCES charge. So this is the charge Met Council charges to the city for disposal fees, and we have seen double-digit increases in those MCES fees to cities throughout the metro in the past years. It's 6.8 percent going into 2024. Um, so this is one of those things where it's a little bit outside of the control of the city, but we just want to be mindful of that and pay attention to that as—as the years move on to make sure that we're planning for that appropriately. But that is really what's sort of driving this increase for the utility fund. So when it comes to the increase in the bill amount for sewer, what we're starting at is about $98.62 per quarter—so just about a hundred dollars—and then going up to about $146. So a change here of just shy of $48 over that planning period, which amounts to about $5.33 per year for an increase, or again if we want to break that down by quarter, it's a $1.33 per quarter. [42:39] Stormwater fund—again, sound financial condition here, and no caveats. Revenue is sufficient to cover the expenses. Planning on that one-third FTE being added in '25, and then looking at a four percent increase here for the stormwater fund. There are a number of capital improvements that have been identified for storm, and it sounds that when in talking with staff that we're going to start moving some of those storm costs um, into where when we're bonding for your neighborhood street projects, that the storm fund is actually going to start being responsible for that payment. So rather than transferring money out of the storm fund, that we're actually going to have the—the storm fund start to really cover some of those costs. So we've got some bonding anticipated here, [43:25] and then again we'll use cash for the remaining capital projects. But we have bonds that are planned in '24, '27, and '30, and then also '32, and that will finance about $6.25 million of the total roughly $5 million that is planned for the storm fund over the planning period, so through 2032. Again, ending cash position is above the actual desired cash position. So we do see that that spread starts to get a little bit um, thinner by the end of the planning period, but again still in a sound financial condition. And with all of the utility funds that we've looked at, again, the timing, the actual amount of these projects, the capital outlay will—will play into this. This is all based on assumptions, so this will change over time. Again, adding those 50 new residential equivalent units per year. Storm fees here, we're only looking at residential for—for the again purposes of brevity, but looking at low-density residential storm fees. The city has a [44:33] number of different classifications of properties, so there are certainly different um, fees that are charged on a monthly basis, but for—for most homes, you're going to see that increase from $21 out to 2032—you're going to be looking at around $31, so about a dollar per year. Okay, we're getting towards the end here. Just going to take a quick look at some of the outstanding bonds, debt service, and then we'll look at a quick comparison and then I will get out of your hair. So for bonds outstanding, based on what we've programmed into the rate study is we're going to see the outstanding bonds increase over time. We do see that start to moderate after 2029, but what you're seeing here is that we [45:19] are going to introduce some new debt, and here's where we're seeing that stormwater debt come on where the city doesn't currently have any. So again, we're just carving up those neighborhood street projects a little bit better and having the stormwater fund responsible for their portion. And then moving beyond that, looking at the debt service for the utility funds, again, that's going to grow over time. We see that sort of topping out in that 2030-2031 range and then starting to moderate after that. And then here's just a quick comparison for you. So as the city is aware, all cities have different tier structures, the billing frequency is different. So what we've done is we've said, "Okay, for someone that's using about 6,000 gallons [46:05] per month, where does this city fall in comparison with some of these other cities?" And Hastings really sits right in the middle of that. And the reason that when we looked at those SAC and WAC fees where we saw the current versus the proposed, the reason that we haven't introduced that here is because most cities are going to have some type of increase going into '24. So these are based on the '23 rates. As we mentioned, all of those cities throughout the metro are going to be dealing with that 6.8 percent increase that's coming from MCES, so we would imagine that all boats will rise here. So that's why you're not seeing that proposed, but even with these changes that we're proposing, um, we do feel that they're pretty moderate compared to some increases that we've seen for other cities. So we would [46:52] imagine you to be kind of right there in the middle going forward. And then just a couple of ending notes here: so just encouraging the city to, of course, look at these rates on an annual basis, so it's not really a set-it-and-forget-it type of situation. You want to look at your revenues, your expenses, again keep a close eye on what Met Council is proposing particularly for sewer, and that again keeping in mind that this is—the utilities are operated as that business-type enterprise and you want to charge rates that are sufficient to kind of keep you at that cash position that we've talked about. And then also looking at those net position targets and making sure that you're just mindful of those. With that, I am happy to take any questions that you may have. [47:39] Mayor Mary Fasbender: Okay, thank you, Jessica. Council, any questions? Councilmember Folch. [47:39] Councilmember Tina Folch: Thank you, your honor. I have more of a question, I guess, for staff as to what was included in there for major Capital Improvement projects. Does that include Well 9 being created and—um, and I know that it probably doesn't, you know, million dollars—um, so I was wondering what—what were the major Capital Improvement plan projects that were included within that? [48:25] Dan Wietecha: Sorry, Dan—you may. Without naming every project, it basically took our CIP and included all of those for looking at that planning period. Um, you—you mentioned Well 9 specifically—that would be um, handled a little bit differently in the—the—the calculus. Uh, Well 9 and pump house, an additional above-ground water storage—I don't know if that's a tank or—or more of a concrete bunker—lift station, oversizing pipes; uh, any uh, specifically development-oriented projects are a separate calculation for those SAC and WAC fees. So your question, Well 9? Yes, it's in the math [49:11] for SAC and WAC; it's not part of the capital list on the—the—the operating user fees. Well, I—you'll—you'll look confused, sorry. So there's—there's included—there's two calculations, real broad strokes. There's two calculations in there: one looks at uh, our anticipated um, capital projects maintaining the existing system—okay—get uh, calculated into that three and a half, four percent increases on the—the—the user rates. [49:57] A second calculation looks at development-related infrastructure, such as Well 9—okay—yep, or—or a new water tower on the west side. But for having new development, we're not drilling a new well or putting up an additional water tower. So those projects are used in the calculus for determining the SAC and WAC charges. So it's—oh, I see—they're—they're certainly taken into account, but depending on what the project is, it may fall into a one or the other formula. The question about new uh, water treatment plants for nitrates and PFAS—although there is an appendix section in [50:45] the report, if you look deep in your packet, I think it's like page 70. Really that is intended to be informational. It's—we're aggressively pursuing uh, outside funding to cover those, so we don't want to take that into planning for—for rates if we didn't need to. Um, but you can see the impact of those—those costs; uh, roughly $70 million construction cost spread over a few years, um, enhanced—so throw in interest and payments, the payment schedule. Operation and maintenance is about $800,000 [51:30] to a million dollars a year, every year, and increasing and out-out years. Combined those, if we had to pick up PFAS internally—if the city ratepayers had to pay it—I think it was around uh, 26 percent increase per year for the first five years. So 26, 52, 78… and then the next five years is around 15 percent a year. So just budget-buster. And that's why uh, Public Works Director Stempski and I are hammering so hard. We've had a few workshops with the Council on not just the health impacts of PFAS and planning [52:15] for how we handle the infrastructure, but really pushing to the—the—financial side of it also. But it's not—that's not in the formula here; it's—it's really just an informational appendix in the report. [52:15] Councilmember Tina Folch: Oh, wonderful, I'm so glad that you had that extra piece done. Thank you very much. [52:15] Mayor Mary Fasbender: Thank you, Councilmember Folch, and thank you, Dan. The other discussion, Council? As we stated, there is no action tonight. So we are having a resolution to approve the preliminary 2024 city property tax levy, the preliminary budget, and the setting of the Truth in Taxation hearing. Dan, you may continue. How do I do this? [53:06] That? How do I advance it, just a button? Yeah, perfect, thank you. Um, not fun, obviously. There will be some repeat for city council since we had a workshop on this two weeks ago, but I figured that it also—it's important in terms of communicating and transparency for uh, all of our residents. As former council member Balsanek would say: "the people out there in TV Land." So this is for everybody's benefit. I am not going to go through every line of the budget, but do want to hit some of the salient matters in it. Uh, some of the key changes on the revenue side [53:51]—and want to make a distinction between ongoing revenues that we expect to have year after year, and also one-time revenues that—appreciate having the money, but once it's spent, you can't spend it again. It makes some sense, but it certainly matters when—when uh, planning your budget. The proposal for ongoing revenues, the levy is $18.6 million. That is about a one and a quarter million dollar or 7.3 percent increase over the '23 levy. As a reference, looking at other Dakota County cities' unofficial preliminary levies—until they vote, it's just a matter of talking to our counterparts [54:38] next door—"Hey, what are you looking at?" Other county cities are ranging from 1.2 percent on the low end to 13.4 percent. The average is 8.2. So our 7.3 is in line, probably a little bit better than the average, but certainly experiencing some similar situations as all of our neighbors. Um, that impact, that 7.3 percent increase on a median-value household—so a house that's about $312,000—half the homes in Hastings are valued under that, half of them are over that. That uh, median-value house would see a $106 increase for the [55:23] year, uh, just under nine dollars per month. Um, also note that we have some other ongoing revenue: some additional money from the state, Local Government Aid. We negotiated higher contributions from the neighboring townships to help pay for fire and EMS service to those areas. The math this year actually, two years in a row now, was a significant decrease in our fiscal disparities—so some money into the pot to some other communities that may be faring less well on their—their tax base. Um, do want to note some one-time monies: I knew this year was nearly a million dollars of Public Safety allocation and, [56:10] as you'll see in a slide, it spends real fast. We're also using some general fund balance and some other fund balance primarily in Parks. Those are for one-time expenses. Our fund balance policy says if we have more money saved up above 45 percent, we should spend it back down and—and stay in that range, so that's what—what those are getting at. Some of the key issues on the expense side: you know, "Hey, that's a lot of money, where's it all going?" Rather than listing specific items, it really is going to inflation, it's going to good commitments—but commitments that we've made in prior years—and some long-term views [56:58] of how do we maintain our assets and, you know, spend a little now to save more later. On the inflation side, we're seeing, you know, extra cost for road salt or park maintenance, asphalt. You know, in our streets, parking lots, asphalt increased 50 percent in the last two years—that's an extreme example, but uh, obviously those costs have an impact. Uh, personnel—payroll is a big part of our budget. We're looking at a four percent cost-of-living adjustment, uh, maintaining our competitiveness in a very tight labor market. And just in the last two weeks, we [57:44] got news on our health insurance premiums increasing dramatically. Some of the prior year commitments: I absolutely think they were good ideas and support them, but realize that they have impacts beyond the—the year that we might have discussed them. So a couple of years ago we were talking about "We need to add some full-time firefighters in order to have more—uh, better consistency on—on coverage and response times," struggling with our paid-on-call model or paid-on-call aspect of our combination model. So we talked about: let's add six firefighters over three years. Well, you add two in a year, and you add two the [58:30] next year—well, that next year there's a cost, uh, and then the following years. So it's that ongoing funding for—uh, those firefighters to be phased in. Uh, similarly, we did a Compensation Study last year; uh, it was 20-some years out of date and we were wanting to make sure we were competitive in this economy. Uh, we got the results, we said, "Boy, that's expensive, we can't do it all at once—can we do it over a few years?" We've taken on the brunt of it in '22 and '23, but it still has a tail during the next couple of years. Asset preservation: I think it's a common theme you'll hear in a few of these slides. The past year or so, we've had increased attention to doing—attendance [59:18] to some of the deferred maintenance in our city buildings. Uh, the proposal here, the budget here, starts us—phasing it in over several years—so you'll see it again next year—but on a getting us into a five-year replacement schedule for our fleet vehicles. It's a cost-effective approach, and in the long run will reduce maintenance costs as well as just having safer vehicles on the road. And I'll get here in the next slide—a real example of the asset preservation is really pushing some money into road maintenance through Mill and Overlay and skim patch. A couple of highlights in the CIP/CEP—Capital Improvement [1:00:04] Plan, Capital Equipment Plan—I mentioned the street maintenance. We're looking at an increase overall of a million dollars, and here's why: about 40 percent of our roads in the city are right around 20 years old, so they're coming up on that birthday that they're needing significant investment. Uh, the budget request Public Works actually said: "Can we get $3 million a year for the next five years?" I said, "Go back to the drawing board, we—we can't afford that." I like what they came up with—proposing quarter-million dollars to buy used equipment to do our own paving, and the real magic piece to that is the flexibility it gives us. Currently, when [1:00:51] we do uh, the—the mill and overlay work, we rent the equipment for a week and we plan it early in the spring—"Hey, what week do we think is good?"—and hope that the weather is favorable. Uh, like it or not, that's the time that we have uh, available. If we have the equipment ourselves, we think that going from—as well as some additional money for materials—we think that we can go from one week's worth of mill and overlay work per year to four times that—four weeks worth. Greater flexibility to get at it earlier if the plants are open, ability to adjust based off of the weather, and potentially pick up some later in the season. So the ability to schedule more work. We're also [1:01:39] simply increasing the funding for materials. Asphalt went up 50 percent, but more materials to do that mill and overlay, as well as additional skim patch. And really the key pieces to these are: it's looking at a cost-effective approach to these 20-year-old roads—how do we extend their lives, depending on the—the—the work, another 8 to 15 years before they need some significant investment? And really just—I want to say buying time, but it's allowing the CIP to catch up instead of 40 percent of our roads needing work all at once; let's stretch some of that out. Other key CEP item I want to point out: [1:02:26] uh, we're setting aside nearly a million dollars—$900,000—for a new fire ladder truck. Ladder truck's 30 months out. So if we ordered it today—and it's not on the agenda—but if we ordered it today, we're not getting it for a couple years. It's not part of the '24 budget; uh, we're looking at '25, maybe it's even '26, but seeing how expensive it is, let's save some money towards it. If you remember back a couple slides, we had some one-time funding from the state for about a million dollars—it gives us some ability to set aside this—this kind of money towards this. So it'll—it'll save us in the future, or just a couple years of the future. Other aspects of this ladder truck aren't just replacing it, [1:03:14] but a matter of better suiting the—the equipment to our needs. The ladder we have currently has a bazillion—I don't know the number—but tons of sensors and computers all over the thing, and it's complex to learn and operate. It also is some real high maintenance to—to keep it up. So if we go with um, a smaller, simpler ladder truck that meets our needs, we'll see less training, more user-friendly, reduced maintenance costs, and having that—that item. The other piece is we're looking at being [1:03:59] easier to operate—something that can go out more regularly as an engine in addition to being a ladder. So it allows us to get rid of one of our engines. So instead of oversizing our fleet, let's sort of combo some of those vehicles together. So it's improving our operations besides saving for an expense in the future and not replacing that engine—well, that's a million dollars saved there, which it's—not in the budget yet, but it would have been at some point. We do have two bonding projects planned for next year: our annual neighborhood project—uh, I think it's over on Highland on some side streets—but the streets and—and [1:04:47] utilities under portions of that for about $4 million, just over $4 million. Uh, the other project is our Arena project, which is price-tagged at $5 million. That is replacing the refrigerant system and also the roof on the west rink, including solar panels. We are—we have applied for funding through the state's bonding bill. We won't know about that probably until May, but it had a favorable audience a couple of years ago. We're also looking at potentially some tax credits that might buy down portions of that—that project cost. But full—full project's $5 million; we're hoping it can come in much [1:05:34] less than that—needed project. Other piece I think is important to note with the budget is its relation to our Strategic Plan, which Council had on the agenda just a couple of weeks ago. Although there were a number of different uh, priorities, a few of them I think really show up in the budget here. So in the Strategic Plan, we said a priority is Better Asset Management; uh, uh, we're addressing deferred maintenance in City buildings, uh, the additional attention to road maintenance and how do we handle 45 miles of—of roads coming up at the [1:06:21] same time and extending those—those lifespans. Initiative—a priority of Operational Effectiveness: a couple of those line items—I said I wasn't going to read every one—but a couple of them were some improving our systems for digital plan review in the Building Inspection Department, as well as some software upgrades for our records management for our Fire Department, which you might recall from the workshop this spring when we saw the fire study—there was a matter of: we need to have a better handle on the data for our calls and our response times and things like that. So the records management feeds right into having a better handle of our information. Uh, had a strong priority of Strategic [1:07:07] Park Investments: a couple to note—mentioned the Civic Arena project with the refrigeration and the—the roof. We've also got a multi-year approach, but Phase One of improved wayfinding signage along our trail system. So again, addressing some of those priorities—at least a couple of steps towards those priorities in the Strategic Plan. We also had a significant discussion around Communications and Community Engagement, and every three years about, we've done a community survey; it's in the budget to do that again early in '24. [1:07:46] Adding a part-time position to help in the Communications Department with some of the website and social media maintenance and free up some of Dawn's time to do some higher-level work. And then the other one I think is important: the last two years we've used one-time funding for the Community Investment Fund, which has done some fantastic partnerships with the community, engaging with the—the DBA or the LeDuc, the hockey boosters, the Hawks BR4. We've got it worked in the budget here as ongoing funding, so that uh, you know, mentioned earlier that one-time finding—you spend it, you can't do it again. We've got it into the ongoing column so that [1:08:31] it is something we can continue—continue having partnerships like that uh, in '24 and going forward. Um, a couple other notes: uh, if you're ready tonight, we can pass the resolution setting the preliminary levy and budget and scheduling the Truth in Taxation hearing. If you need some time, if you got follow-up questions, you need to do it by the end of the month—so plan on a special meeting. But the other caveat to that is that preliminary levy sets a cap—so a matter of whatever it was, $18.8 million, whatever it was, don't quote me—um, between now and December, if there's other thoughts, it could come down; it can't go up. Uh, but you could reduce it [1:09:18] if there were some—some adjustments that were appropriate. Uh, traditionally we schedule the Truth in Taxation hearing for the first meeting in December. That allows Council to potentially act that evening, or looking forward to December if there was a need for additional time beyond the public hearing, we've got that second meeting, so it sets up well there. But those are the next steps. With that, I can certainly take any questions. I know we've got our Finance Manager, Chris Eitemiller, in the audience too. If there's technical questions, I've got some backup. But with that, I'm happy to uh, turn it over to Council for discussion. Thank you. [1:10:04] Mayor Mary Fasbender: Thank you, Dan. Council, any discussion? Councilmember Folch. [1:10:04] Councilmember Tina Folch: Thank you, your honor. Thank you, Dan, for that very well-said overview of the budget. We, the Finance Committee of the Council, did have two meetings where we met specifically with staff and heard their detailed overviews over the budget proposals within their departments. And every year our departments are very conservative in what their asks are, you know, of the City Council. And—and I have to say that I thought that—that staff have been very prudent in the manner in which [1:10:51] that they've brought forth the Capital Improvement purchases and such, and the personnel increases that they've requested. Every year there are many more needs that our departments actually do need and—and—and so they're bringing forward uh, you know, their—their biggest desires, and so the list could be much, much longer if we were to be fulfilling all of those needs. And so um, so we—I greatly appreciate—I'm sure we all greatly appreciate—the work that they all do in preparing this information to bring it forward. None of us are uh, excited about a seven percent [1:11:38] increase in the general levy and what it is that we're going to have to be asking of our residents in—in helping to fund the gaps where we're seeing, you know, inflation going up and um, and also we've really had a strong commitment to public safety in supporting our Fire Department and Police. And so we feel that, you know, our priorities are very strong um, you know, and—and doing our due diligence to ensuring we have a very safe community um, to the—the greatest extent that we can provide with the limited number of resources that we have—we have here. And so um, I at this point I feel comfortable in [1:12:26] moving on on the preliminary—setting the preliminary levy. But the only one thing that I've given a lot of thought to just recently, just watching, you know, the news and where we are at in the state of affairs in our nation—and it's just that we have this, you know, presidential election coming up next November. And one thing that we did also do was slightly increase the pay for our election judges, so um, you know, to make it worth their while a little bit more, so considering the last couple of elections that they have unfortunately had additional levels of stress—stress and anxiety and uh, [1:13:12] disrespectful comments made from some doubting, you know, their integrity and ethics and such and the service that they're providing to our community. And so um, you know, and the more I think about it, I just feel that we should also give some thought about providing, you know, greater security. There's going to be changes to how um, how the election—how the—the voting period will be longer and it'll put additional, you know, stress on our—our staff. And the county is thankfully stepping up to help provide um, some greater uh, resources and being able to fill the longer period of time to vote and such. But just with everything that's going on with the presidential politics right now, I think [1:13:58] that we maybe should be thoughtful about, you know, planning for maybe additional security and policing services and budgeting around that just to make sure that we have a secure and safe election for our—for our staff, for our election judges, and for the public who do come in to vote early. So that—those are my closing comments. Thank you. [1:14:15] Mayor Mary Fasbender: Thank you, Councilmember. Any other discussion, Council? Councilmember Haus. [1:14:15] Councilmember Angie Haus: Thank you, your honor. Dan, I also just wanted to say thank you so much for thinking of creative solutions towards saving money in the future, like buying that old equipment so that way we can save money. I think it's really great to see creative solutions like that made by staff and between you. So thank you for [1:14:45] thinking outside of the box all the time. [1:14:45] Mayor Mary Fasbender: Thank you, Councilmember Haus. If no other comments, I would accept a motion to approve a resolution adopting the preliminary 2024 city property tax levy. [1:14:45] Councilmember Tim Lawrence: [Motion] [1:14:45] Councilmember Dave Pemble: [Second] [1:14:45] Mayor Mary Fasbender: First and a second. Any other discussion, Council? All those in favor of the motion state by saying aye. (Group: Aye). Opposed to that motion state by saying nay. And that motion prevails. Thank you, Dan. We also have a resolution tonight to approve the 2024 HEDRA HRA special tax levy. This is going to be the lengthy presentation… I'm kidding. [1:15:33] [1:15:33] Dan Wietecha: HEDRA, as you know, handles the brunt of the economic development work. It is funded partially by a special levy as well as some additional funding directly from the uh, the—the general taxes. Um, it also does a pretty good job at scrounging up some grants for specific projects. Our maximum, which we traditionally do uh, for uh, HEDRA's levy, is uh, 0.0185 percent of the taxable market value. And that is recommended this evening. If there's any questions, I can certainly take those also. Thank you. [1:16:22] Mayor Mary Fasbender: Okay, thank you, Dan. Council, any discussion? [1:16:22] Councilmember Jen Fox: Your honor, I would like to to move to approve this resolution. [1:16:22] Councilmember Angie Haus: [Second] [1:16:22] Mayor Mary Fasbender: Okay, thank you Councilmember Fox, and Councilmember Haus second. Discussion, Council? All those in favor of the motion state by saying aye. (Group: Aye). Opposed to that motion state by saying nay. Great. Thank you, Council. Any announcements? Councilmember Folch. [1:17:10] Councilmember Tina Folch: Just real quick. Uh, today we had, at the League of Minnesota Cities, an Improving Service Delivery Policy Committee meeting—it was the third of the series. And uh, I just wanted to give a quick update that the League did uh, act. We are requesting uh, to the cannabis legislation that has been passed—we're asking that uh, that—that there was a gap between the city's ordinances uh, sun-setting and when it is that uh, the new laws will be enacted. So the—more—it—so that our moratoriums can be extended um, and until new regulations at the statewide level are—are put into enactment. And so um, that will be moving forward and going to the League board. Another issue that um, there's a lot of conversation about is ambulance services. And uh, and there's just a whole array of issues from uh, [1:17:55] ambulance services not being reimbursed at a rate from the federal government that covers all of our costs, and so in some cases we're running in deficits for uh, um, for patients who are on federal Medicare/Medicaid uh, policies. And so—and then not to mention there's a lot of discussion about response times and what data to be gathered and such. And so what the League has done is they've created a Minnesota EMS Sustainability and Task Force, and so they are going to—they're bringing together, I think there's 12 members to this task force representing various cities, [1:18:42] Fire Chiefs and such, and ambulance providers. And so they're going to be meeting bi-weekly until the legislative session to come up with recommendations for uh, for the legislature to consider on our behalf of the cities. And so that's something new. That the whole entire legislative policy uh, draft book—it's, God, I can't even remember, I think it's about almost 200 policies in the end—will be made available for comment to all of the cities; that will be coming out shortly. The League board will take into consideration the legislative policy slate, and that'll be [1:19:27] I think it's October 12th. And so they will be taking comments from cities if we would like to provide that. And so I'm sure Dan will have his eye out for that and uh, and there may be things that we want to consider and making policy suggestions on, or of supporting them or asking for reconsideration. As I've said before, I know our own attorney Land has had some—some reservations about things that have been brought forward. And so for us just to keep an eye out for that in the next couple of meetings if we want to have conversation about that further. Thank you. [1:20:13] Mayor Mary Fasbender: Thank you, Councilmember Folch. Okay, I have a few announcements. We know at the end of the year our list gets shorter and shorter. So bring your donations for secure destruction to the paper shred event on Saturday, September 23rd—free for residents and no business items please. Paws in the Parks is Thursday, October 5th at RiverTown Dog Park. In recognition of National Fire Prevention Week, the Fire and EMS Department open house is Tuesday, October 10th—meet the departments, learn about fire safety, and see the trucks and equipment. All ages are welcome. Happy birthday to Councilmember Haus last week! And meetings coming forward: Tuesday, September 19th, 7 PM Heritage Preservation Commission; Wednesday, September 20th, the Parks [1:21:00] Recreation Commission meeting has been canceled; Thursday, September 21st, the Public Safety Advisory Commission meeting has been canceled; Monday, September 25th, Planning Commission at 7 PM; Monday, September 25th, Parks and Recreation Committee at 7 PM; Monday, October 2nd, City Council—we have a Legislative Workshop and 7 PM Council Meeting at Monday, October 2nd. With that, I would ask for a motion to adjourn. [1:21:00] Councilmember Tim Lawrence: Motion to adjourn, your honor. [1:21:00] Councilmember Dave Pemble: Second. [1:21:46] Mayor Mary Fasbender: No discussion. All those in favor of the motion state by saying aye. (Group: Aye). Opposed to [1:21:46] that motion state by saying nay. And that motion prevails. We are adjourned. Thank you.