[0:03] [music] [1:02] Mayor Jennifer Arsenault: Good evening everyone. 6:45 and the meeting is called to order. Um roll call is next and we are all present and accounted for. Um the first thing on our agenda this evening is the public forum. Um would anybody like to speak? This evening? [1:22] Mayor Jennifer Arsenault: Barton, Kristen, are you here to speak? I have what you sent in. Did you have anything else on that? We've read the letter. Typically, when you speak during public forum, the council does not respond. So it's just like an informational thing for us and then we can consider it at a different time. So we have your information, but if you want to reiterate it, you're welcome to do that. [1:49] Kristen (Resident): Yeah, so I live on—can you come to the mic please? [laughter] It's okay. I've only been in the village a year and a half. There was an issue this winter in February where there was pooling of water; the storm drain wasn't draining. I think there might have been some frozen items in the drain. I'm not sure what happened with that assessment, but it went halfway up the neighbor across the street's driveway and I had pools in my yard and ice. It was there for days. So thank you, you came out and we talked and I appreciated your time with that. Um but I just wanted to know what action—cuz you've had people come out, Marcus was out today this morning. I don't know if that was related to this issue or something different. But there's been flags put up. So I know something's being planned but we as residents don't know—even my neighbors are like, "we don't know what's going on." Like is the road going to be fixed? Are they going to do something with the drain system? [3:06] Mayor Jennifer Arsenault: So I guess we're just looking for some answers there and then how are we notified to be prepared? Like if we have to move our cars to be off the road? What's the communication device there? We're still finalizing the road plan. In fact, that's what we were just talking about prior for 2026. But yes, your street is scheduled to be repaved. [3:27] Mayor Jennifer Arsenault: Okay. And as far as the timeline goes, Marcus will handle all that, notifying everybody when we get started or when it's time. [3:35] Kristen (Resident): Enough time if people are traveling that they can plan? [3:38] Mayor Jennifer Arsenault: Absolutely. [3:39] Kristen (Resident): Okay. And you know, is it milling and what type of repair do you think it will be? [3:42] Mayor Jennifer Arsenault: She's on Birchwood Ave. [3:43] Marcus Johnson (City Engineer): That's mill and overlay is what we're planning on right now. [3:46] Kristen (Resident): Good. So the curbing is huge because that's really the gateway to the water coming going into yards residential areas which is a deficit to me cuz I'm in the lowest part of the road and it's affecting my basement. So I definitely want that addressed if possible. Could we do different material like cement versus like just in that one section where it's the lowest part? [4:10] Mayor Jennifer Arsenault: I think um our plan was once we finalize the 2026 roads plan, we're going to have an informational meeting here with Marcus and then you can ask all your questions. [4:31] Kristen (Resident): Oh, perfect. Okay. Is that good? [4:34] Mayor Jennifer Arsenault: But we just we're still finalizing. So until we get to that stage we can't really share. You know what I mean? There's not enough information for us to share. [4:43] Kristen (Resident): Okay. Do you know when that might be? [4:45] Mayor Jennifer Arsenault: What do you think, Marcus? [4:47] Marcus Johnson (City Engineer): [Off-mic response] [4:50] Kristen (Resident): Okay. But the road will be done in the summer? Okay. Perfect. Thank you. [4:54] Mayor Jennifer Arsenault: If you want to stay and listen to Marcus's report, he's going to talk about—Okay, great. Um yeah, Barton. [5:05] Barton Winter (Resident): Barton Winter, 15 Oaks Lane. This is really a reiteration of what I sort of mentioned last time and I had a discussion with the mayor about things that I want to accomplish on the rink. And um first of all um got a one corner there, which is the far corner from the warming house, which I have two posts sitting there and I want to get at that. Uh remove the vertical boards so we can remove the two degraded posts there and put in two new ones. So that's one of the things. I've also got a number of vertical boards that I want to replace and this is all on my own money and using volunteer help. Chris Sorenson and his tractor. [5:53] Barton Winter: I did talk with the mayor and, you know, I asked maybe can we just continue what I had done with the previous arrangement, and she wants me to resubmit to the parks committee. So anyway, that's something that's ongoing and I'm hopeful that it will get approved as soon as possible. Another thing—we got the lights and I haven't talked with Alan yet. I don't know where we are but on the far light post away from the warming house, we have two fobs there that are going to be replaced. And um we've got arrangements and I'm hopeful that's going to happen soon. [6:35] Barton Winter: And as we've discussed in the past, we get a lot of absorption from the black surface especially later on in the season. So we want to paint the center crown where it's thinnest and where the sunlight tends to penetrate more. Uh that could be a fairly pricey issue. Um you know, I'm looking maybe two grand. Okay. So we've discussed that and hopefully the city can chip in. Hopefully the city can pay for that one. Um we want to do it right this time. Previous times we've attempted to paint the surface which is very irregular aggregate and it hasn't worked out well because we need to have something that's a heavy paint on the bottom to get a real smooth surface to put our top coat on. That's the way they do it on tennis courts. [7:28] Barton Winter: Um here's another issue I mentioned last time: new snow blower. I want to get a different snow blower other than the large one that we have which has been a continuing source of problems for us. I want to get people in the community and myself to chip in substantially or maybe all. But what I'm looking at is a Honda and with a tracked system. It would be slightly narrower but the best reliability cuz that's what I want. And then Chris Sorenson and I discussed the levelness of the pleasure rink and I can tell by flooding it that it's got some height differences there and that makes it much more difficult and time-consuming to complete the flooding. [8:20] Barton Winter: So he has some experience with using stakes and lines and things like this and anyway, I'm just letting you know this is what I want to do. I know some people have said, "Well, it doesn't stay level because of the ground water." I pretty much disagree with that, but it does need to be leveled. Anyway, that's the extent right now. I just want to say one other thing and that is the trees that were planted, birch trees. I mentioned in the parks committee—yeah, they're getting to be kind of intrusive. The one nearest the warming house is growing up towards the electrical lines and the other ones that are on the side of the pleasure rink are starting to grow into the rink and become a problem. [9:21] Barton Winter: So you know, it would be nice if we could get rid of some of those and I know people are against that, but anyway, there's my feeling. We could plant trees elsewhere but that park's primary purpose is for recreational hockey and skating. Thank you. [9:44] Mayor Jennifer Arsenault: Thank you, Barton. Is there anybody else that would like to speak? Yes, Therese. [9:57] Therese Bellinger (Deputy Clerk): Good evening, Madam and fellow city council members. Um I had initially thought that I would present this on paper and then we talked about it and thought it might be more helpful if I'll be here to answer questions. I have an idea that I'd like to present to you for consideration. Um first of all, my name is Therese Bellinger. I work for Birchwood Village as their deputy clerk. Recently, we received an opportunity—and I'm going to read the letter that I wrote for you. The city recently received an opportunity to apply for an Arts Grant through the League of Minnesota. [10:39] Therese Bellinger: With supporting permission from the mayor, I am the one working on this grant, but I also have solicited help through Sarah Nephew, a resident and coordinator at the White Bear Arts Center. Sarah and I met this week. We are pursuing ideas that could be very beneficial, I think, for Birchwood Village. This grant would offer us funds to support art in the city for 2027. [11:11] Therese Bellinger: With that said, I would appreciate your consideration in allowing us to pursue an idea now that hopefully, if the grant is awarded, will be part of this grant. It doesn't involve money; instead, it involves space. During my years of employment with Birchwood, I have come to learn many residents are very talented here, especially musicians. I too enjoy playing an instrument, and what do musicians love to do? They love to play music together. Well, one way to make that happen would be to model a program after the city's Monday art group and Wednesday yoga. It could be called "Jamming at the Hall." [12:00] Therese Bellinger: An example of that might look like a dedicated evening for playing musical instruments. These sessions could be held on a donation basis as a form of community service. Office staff would assist with coordination and communication as we do now for all of the other events. I would welcome being that volunteer that organizes and coordinates our "Jamming at the Hall." Participation would be reserved for residents with an option to invite others as guest musicians. Clear qualification guidelines for participants and restrictions would be established and submitted for city approval. [12:34] Therese Bellinger: Potential benefits of this initiative include providing an inclusive opportunity for residents of all ages, encouraging community engagement and connection, supporting personal growth, creativity, well-being, and very possibly creating a foundation for additional musical programs and events if we are successful. I hope you will consider this program. Questions? [13:07] Councilmember Bridget Sperl: I have a comment. I love this idea. That sounds super fun. [13:12] Therese Bellinger (Deputy Clerk): Well I want to share with you that um Sarah Nephew is of great experience and help. She has already presented very interesting ideas and really hopes to partner with White Bear Arts Center. With that support, um we can not only do much bigger things than we may have ever thought of, but maybe we'll put Birchwood on the map. [13:48] Councilmember Bridget Sperl: Um because it's related to music, um you should reach out to Elliot Rouser, who is my husband, who is in charge of the White Bear Lake Music Boosters, in charge of all the schools' music. [13:58] Therese Bellinger (Deputy Clerk): Perfect. Yeah, the goal is to reach out to all ages. [14:02] Councilmember Bridget Sperl: Sounds amazing. [14:05] Mayor Jennifer Arsenault: Okay. I don't think you need my permission. I think it sounds great. [14:09] Therese Bellinger (Deputy Clerk): Super. All right. [14:10] Mayor Jennifer Arsenault: And thank you for being willing to volunteer. [14:12] Therese Bellinger (Deputy Clerk): Well, it's been something we've been talking about for ages. Um unfortunately, because the grant wouldn't—I mean, we have no idea if we'll be awarded the grant. Um my hope would be to start this right away. Why not? So, we're just asking for use of the hall. [14:29] Mayor Jennifer Arsenault: I think there's an exception in our policy that says that a community group doesn't need to pay for the hall. [14:35] Therese Bellinger (Deputy Clerk): Yes, and that's how the art and the yoga group operate. [14:38] Mayor Jennifer Arsenault: You know, I'm—I can bring all the citations, but it sounds fine to me. I don't even think we need a vote. I think you just do it. [14:48] Councilmember Kathy Weier: I thought you were going to say I can bring snacks. Oh. [15:00] Therese Bellinger (Deputy Clerk): I can eat the snacks. I mean, you know, you guys can't eat snacks while you're playing instruments. I'll help with that. [laughter] Great. [15:10] Mayor Jennifer Arsenault: Sounds great. Okay. Thank you. [15:14] Therese Bellinger (Deputy Clerk): Thank you. [15:16] Mayor Jennifer Arsenault: Lovely. Next on our agenda is the approval of the agenda. Um could I have a motion, please? [15:23] Councilmember Ryan Eisele: I would like to add an item to um schedule interviews for the city planner candidates. [15:33] Mayor Jennifer Arsenault: For our city business, number four? That's fine. Anything else? Okay, with that addition, could I have a motion, please? [15:47] Councilmember Bridget Sperl: So moved. [15:49] Councilmember Kathy Weier: Second. [15:52] Mayor Jennifer Arsenault: All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Hearing none, motion passes. Okay, um number one on city business is a report from our city engineer, Marcus Johnson. [16:23] Marcus Johnson (City Engineer): Perfect. Thank you, um Madam Mayor and the council. So, we did get um numbers back from this cleaning and televising and they were very close to each other, but very competitive. Um two of them came in—both of them are recommending that we go with Onsite Sanitation for uh 18,000 and change. Um otherwise, Pipe Services was the other one that came in at 20,264. So, uh I believe this is the last month we approved 64-65,000 dollars for this. And so, with it coming in so much lower than kind of expected, I added um—I guess any questions on the original at the moment? [17:22] Marcus Johnson (City Engineer): Okay. I added uh some proposed areas I think that the city should take advantage of the low pricing. What I added would be the remainder of the storm sewer in the town and then it would end up being about 40% of the sanitary sewer. With the pricing we got, we couldn't do all of the sanitary sewer without increasing that approved budget. And I don't think it's worth doing all the sanitary sewer one year because in 5-6 years we're going to be looking at doing it all in the same time. So, I'd rather break it up so we can in the future have the cost broken up as well. Um the areas I proposed is doing Birchwood, the remainder of Birchwood, Wildwood, and then those stubs off J Street. Um any questions or feedback, thoughts? So, ultimately, with the proposed area, I just got his numbers so I haven't fully reviewed them yet, but we would still be around 20 to 25,000 dollars under our budget by doing all this. [18:50] Mayor Jennifer Arsenault: So, since Kristen is here, maybe we could explain a little bit about why we're doing this, especially the storm sewer. [19:02] Marcus Johnson (City Engineer): Yeah. Yeah, good point. Um we're trying to just take a little bit better inventory updating our maps. As he's doing that, I'm planning on swinging out and just making sure our GIS is updated. Um especially by your house, we don't really know where the storm sewer runs. Well, we kind of do now, but um for what we have on records, it was nowhere close to what we expected. [19:35] Kristen (Resident): [Off-mic question about where it merges] [19:39] Marcus Johnson (City Engineer): Yeah, but that's not what our map showed. [19:42] Mayor Jennifer Arsenault: Oh, so you're updating your information, but the sewer is going to the right place, right? [19:47] Marcus Johnson (City Engineer): Yeah. Okay. Yeah. So, there's not adequate city records. At some point they had a product—well, the functional part comes next. With this we're just making sure that there's no issues with the pipe, cleaning it out. We want to make sure that it's in good standing cuz we don't want to put an overlay over a bad pipe, like a cracked pipe. So we have to make sure your pipes are good before we do the road. [20:19] Kristen (Resident): [Off-mic comment about inspection] [20:25] Marcus Johnson (City Engineer): Yeah, we just want to make sure there's no roots in there. We don't know when it was installed cuz I haven't seen any records of this addition. We don't really know quite the age, but we know when the road was built and stuff. Same thing with your sanitary as well. So, we'll kind of get both of those. [20:45] Mayor Jennifer Arsenault: And the plan going forward is to make sure the streets that will be mill and overlaid like in 2027—those will be all televised like the sewer part, just so we know what's under before we put new road on top. [20:57] Kristen (Resident): Do residents need to do from house to road? [21:01] Marcus Johnson (City Engineer): Um if you're noticing like issues with your—you'll know. [laughter] [21:12] Councilmember Bridget Sperl: I knew. [laughter] [21:19] Marcus Johnson (City Engineer): Yeah. You—I would say you should really have to. Some people are proactive on it, but when there's an issue you know really quick. Your toilet starts backing up or floor drains, all that. Um I do have a question on this one. So, in since we're adding additional storm sewers and other structures, in the event you did find roots, does any of this include cleaning those out? [21:51] Marcus Johnson (City Engineer): It'd be significantly more, so I want to visit it once we know what's in the ground. Okay. So, we'd still have the 20,000 left over. This includes—he would make three passes with a jetter. That's typical. Um so, anything beyond that since we don't really know exactly, I didn't want him to plan for that and inflate their pricing. I wanted to visit it once we had an idea. The sanitary generally it's pretty minimal. [22:31] Councilmember Kathy Weier: I'm more sort of the storm sewer I assume we have—it's been a while since we had planned on having those suctioned out, I think. [22:42] Marcus Johnson (City Engineer): Yep. And they are—he's going to suction all the catch basins and structures out. That's what was in the original scope. I think we added in our like 18 structures, something like that. So, all those will get sucked out. So, all the storm sewer will be taken care of. Ideally most of the time that dirt is just stuck in the structures and doesn't go to the pipe, but we have seen worst-case scenarios. [23:16] Councilmember Ryan Eisele: Is there a contingency if all of a sudden we're like, "Oh, there's a labyrinth of storm sewers down here?" [23:22] Marcus Johnson (City Engineer): Uh I would be shocked. I've walked around town a lot. So, on that pipe that we don't know for sure of, I put contingency in that length. My goal is we're going to be under that. But um and the rest of them generally I've seen the outlets for the most part. That was that one and then the random structure in Polly's Park are the two I really wasn't sure of. Well, I thought I was sure of that one and then I found out I was not. [24:03] Mayor Jennifer Arsenault: So, when this project is done, we will have all the storm sewers televised and cleaned? [24:09] Marcus Johnson (City Engineer): Yep. Yeah. So moving forward we won't have to televise storm sewer unless we're planning a project in the street. We still will want to clean the structures, but that's significantly easier to do. So, this will get us on a rotation for cleaning, too. [24:26] Councilmember Bridget Sperl: Do we know when our last time the storm sewers were all vacuumed out? [24:32] Mayor Jennifer Arsenault: Well, that one was vacuumed out a year ago, wasn't it? [24:35] Marcus Johnson (City Engineer): Yeah, on Wildwood, right? I think one or two of them were vacuumed out on Wildwood, but I would guess it'd probably been a while. For sanitary sewer, White Bear Township, as long as they've been in town, they didn't remember a time when we've cleaned the sanitary. [25:03] Councilmember Bridget Sperl: Oh, the sanitary sewer. [25:05] Marcus Johnson (City Engineer): Yep. So, I would guess it'd kind of be a similar timeline. [25:11] Mayor Jennifer Arsenault: Don't know, but guessing. Yeah, so our end goal is just to put this out for 10 years and make our schedule and keep to it so we maintain what we have going. Sanitary is the more important one to clean and televise on like a 5 to 7 year basis. Sanitary storm sewer is not nearly as done as frequent. [25:40] Councilmember Ryan Eisele: This is a really good thing to do and my guess is residents aren't going to know about it. I would suggest that we do a letter to residents midsummer to say this is what's happening with roads. This is the reason we're doing it. This is what the long-term plan is. [25:56] Mayor Jennifer Arsenault: We're going to wait to do that after we get that solidified. But after it's solidified, I do think sort of a "see spot run," this is what's going on. [26:05] Marcus Johnson (City Engineer): That actually brings me to my next point is what do we want for notifications for the residents? Typically I could just go out door to door and just give them a notification. It would take you 15 or 20 minutes probably to do that. That seems reasonable. Cuz I mean I always see on Facebook the people who don't seem to get the emails. [26:41] Marcus Johnson (City Engineer): Yeah. I can definitely do door to door. I talked with them today and it sounds like with everything that's in front of you guys today including the additions, he figured it'd be like a 3-day, 4-day ordeal and he'd be done. It'd be in and out pretty quick, ideally. [26:55] Mayor Jennifer Arsenault: That's everything? [26:56] Marcus Johnson (City Engineer): Everything, yeah. Doesn't disrupt service by any means. The sanitary—the only thing that we would want to let them know is that they might hear some gurgling. [27:18] Councilmember Bridget Sperl: Okay. Yep. And an occasional like hand coming out or anything? [27:23] Marcus Johnson (City Engineer): Haven't heard of that, but— [27:25] Mayor Jennifer Arsenault: Um our next newsletter is June 5th, I think. So, depending on when this is planned, if it's after that, we potentially could put it in there. [27:36] Marcus Johnson (City Engineer): He wants to jump on it as soon as we get the contract. So it might be before that. It could be as early as end of this week, start of next week. But I gave him a 60-day timeline. So we don't necessarily want to delay it. [27:56] Mayor Jennifer Arsenault: No, we won't wait for the newsletter by any means. We can do a door-to-door thing. [28:06] Marcus Johnson (City Engineer): Just wanted to get you guys' feedback so that I can make sure he doesn't get ahead of me. [28:10] Councilmember Ryan Eisele: I'm only bringing this up cuz it's happened. Is there a procedure in place if residents have filled the sewer up with unwanted items? [laughter] [28:22] Marcus Johnson (City Engineer): That would never happen. Yeah. Um there are ways of going about it, but I wouldn't say there's a procedure. [28:34] Councilmember Ryan Eisele: Kind of deal with it as you see it. Since you raised that, I think there's probably a state law or something, right Alan? But I don't think we have a city code that actually addresses that specifically. [28:45] Alan (City Administrator): I don't think we have a city statute that says you cannot mess with the storm water or sewer systems. There are state statutes that would be violated, but I don't think there's anything that speaks to that specifically. [29:00] Marcus Johnson (City Engineer): You'd really mainly be worrying about—while we've seen like axes and stuff like that shoved down storm sewers, but for sanitary it's only 8-inch pipes and then it's already all been lined in 2018, so I'm really hoping we don't see any—I'm more worried about the sanitary sewers than the storm sewer. [29:18] Councilmember Ryan Eisele: It's the storm sewers where people put motor oil and some sort of lubricants. [29:25] Mayor Jennifer Arsenault: Okay, are there any other questions for Marcus? All right. Thanks, Marcus. [29:28] Marcus Johnson (City Engineer): Thank you. Yeah, that sounds good. And then um additionally yesterday we got another drainage thing on Oakridge I wanted to talk about. This is going downhill, literally. I think you guys were all in the email yesterday about the drainage on Oakridge. I wanted to just get you guys' feedback of your thoughts. I do have an idea that we could look at pursuing. Do we want to look at ideas or do we want to fill the ditches in? Are we okay with the ditches? [31:04] Mayor Jennifer Arsenault: While Marcus does that um we were under the impression when we spoke to those residents, Marcus and I, last fall—they did not like the ditches at the time, and we just asked them if they could just wait till spring, and then we would revisit it. Since it's spring, we're just looking at options. I would like to just sit down with the residents and see what they think. [31:49] Marcus Johnson (City Engineer): Yeah, so it's kind of a little sloppy, so I'm sorry. I made this last night. In blue is proposed aggregate curb and gutter pretty much from the cul-de-sac above running all the way down to the catch basins. And then the pink is a 3-foot strip of bituminous we'd pull out. Curb and gutter is normally installed with a slip form. So they have to pull out some of the asphalt to be able to get their machine in. It's not hand poured; it's all off a machine. So they need to pull a little bit of asphalt to get that machine running through. And then around the catch basin it's done by hand. So it would be curb and gutter all the way through. And then that would solve our drainage issues. The downfall of that is we'd be on Oakridge again. And we would have to tie in all the driveways. [33:04] Councilmember Bridget Sperl: How would you do that? [33:07] Marcus Johnson (City Engineer): Typically you go back to where the right-of-way is, 10 to 15 feet, and then it is just a straight line from that point to where the new curb is. You take the driveway out and then put it back because the elevation is going to be slightly different. Typically we don't go all the way to do the full driveway cuz that's outside the right-of-way and outside the city's purview. Contractors don't really like holding warranty on private work. And then the asphalt would be patched in. [34:14] Councilmember Kathy Weier: And those are the green? [34:16] Marcus Johnson (City Engineer): The green would be asphalt driveways. Yellow would be concrete. That would solve all issues. Um I could be completely wrong but wasn't some of the issue the actual elevation of the road? I can make it work. We'll probably have to pull out some of the asphalt in that spot. And then also I recommend we would raise the curb up an inch. Put the asphalt back in that pink area, and then we would overlay an inch on the whole road again. Otherwise, you're going to see that line 3 feet away from the curb until we touch the road again. [35:34] Councilmember Bridget Sperl: I can't quite picture it. [35:43] Marcus Johnson (City Engineer): We would only want to be pulling out this much asphalt to put in the curb. We would put this back in, and then we would overlay everything. [35:56] Councilmember Bridget Sperl: So you basically have like a little bump going into your driveway? [36:00] Marcus Johnson (City Engineer): Nope, it would be smooth. [36:04] Councilmember Bridget Sperl: Okay. [36:07] Mayor Jennifer Arsenault: Can you remind me what the cost was for— [36:11] Marcus Johnson (City Engineer): Yep, so I did break it down. So the top part is without doing the mill and overlay—so pulling out the asphalt, putting curb in, putting driveways in. So that would be 214,000 and then for the whole thing if we did an overlay on top of that, it'd be 225,000. This is based off of what Bituminous Roadways gave us last year. [36:58] Councilmember Kathy Weier: This is two years' worth of our budget. [37:02] Marcus Johnson (City Engineer): Yep. How many homeowners does this involve? 24 that'd be on the project. We would want to assess if that's where you're going. [37:15] Alan (City Administrator): I did glance at our assessment policy. That's what we did when Steve Thatcher was here with the sanitary. And the policy says if it's just a mill and overlay, we don't do assessments. Anything beyond that we could assess. Depending on—I think it said 50% or something like that. If we did 50% of this whole project, Birchwood would be at 125,000. And then per resident, it'd be like 5 or 6,000 dollars, 500 a year if you spread it out across 7 or 8 years. It would be put on their taxes. [38:12] Councilmember Ryan Eisele: I think the last time we had a big road project, it was actually Lake Iris. And the whole city came out and said that they didn't want to do assessments. The entire city wanted to pay for it. So I don't think we should change the way we do it. Is there another way around this that we can just drain the area that is actually the problem? [38:38] Marcus Johnson (City Engineer): I think every other way is going to be more expensive. I only say that because this is just generally what you see across every city. We can't do rain gardens as we saw—the ditches don't drain. So we'd have to do some kind of amended soils. I could run drain tiles, but then they don't like ditches. I could run a storm sewer to the low spot, but then we're still pulling out asphalt and putting it back in. This would be the least invasive and this will resolve everything. [39:27] Mayor Jennifer Arsenault: So you think this is the best option, Marcus? [39:31] Marcus Johnson (City Engineer): I think if we go this route, we want to look at it for 2026. If we want to fix drainage improvements that we obviously have, we should start considering doing this for projects moving forward. It will save our budget because everyone's getting improvements that are in the corridor. We won't have to keep increasing the budget as much to try to deal with inflation and issues that would come up. [40:07] Councilmember Kathy Weier: Why aren't these ditches draining? [40:09] Marcus Johnson (City Engineer): They have clay. The ditches were put in just to relieve water in the driveways. It wasn't to deal with storm events. In the bigger storm events, at that point it was still meant to push down the road like it would have with or without it. It was more or less just to relieve the water. [40:47] Councilmember Ryan Eisele: Marcus, I am by no means an engineer. I remember it was really only like two spots that were collecting water. Why were the ditches so expensive? [41:10] Marcus Johnson (City Engineer): I was trying to catch water upstream before it got to those spots. [41:17] Councilmember Ryan Eisele: I think you succeeded, but there's just another puddle somewhere. [41:20] Marcus Johnson (City Engineer): Yeah. There's a couple other points I want to bring up. This is still not avoiding the water main that we have in the streets. There is a new technology that we can look into of lining water main and I have a memo on that. I don't know if that's really the best option personally, but we just still have to consider that. If we do this, it would be worth considering looking at services because I would hate to put in a new street again and then have someone have service issues. They're digging up the storm gutter and so—if we're coming on a project and we're assessing, we're fixing everything out of the street. [42:31] Mayor Jennifer Arsenault: Just to clarify, the two options were dig a ditch or—the next jump up in price is $215,000. [42:58] Marcus Johnson (City Engineer): I mean I could have ran storm sewer down. That's more expensive, but there are a lot of options between digging a ditch and—right. In most communities, you'll see catch basins every block. At my most, you see it two blocks. Birchwood—unless if we find something different, I don't have catch basins all the way from Cedar all the way to the end of this cul-de-sac. It's a long stretch. [43:52] Mayor Jennifer Arsenault: No, I mean I get it. But okay, so what we talked about last fall with the residents is filling in the ditches. We cannot today make a decision with $215,000. This is just more informational for all of us. So when we talk to the residents we can say, "these are two options." I don't know that we're willing to spend $215,000 on that same road again. [44:26] Councilmember Ryan Eisele: I just don't see how you get around not having that be an assessment if all the residents were like "hey." You give them—that's what we've done in other places down on Grotto Street. We basically got resident buy-in that they wanted to split the cost. 24 residents is going to be a different number than four. But I mean it's worth at least giving people the option so it doesn't end up into a Lake Avenue fiasco where they feel like it's forced upon them. [44:55] Mayor Jennifer Arsenault: And I think though—is there more options between the prices of digging a hole and $215,000? [45:10] Marcus Johnson (City Engineer): I think that this is our cheapest option. I can look into and give you guys pricing for the other options. But I think this is going to resolve every drainage issue forever. [45:34] Councilmember Ryan Eisele: I mean I don't think we're saying the city would put in zero, but I don't think it would be 10,000 a person. Granted I think even if it's five, people are not all going to be happy. [45:51] Alan (City Administrator): I'm agreeing with you Ryan. I mean if you even set up something that's 70/30, 40/60, you're going to have to test your benefit accordingly. So that's going to cost a little bit of money to make sure you can justify the 50/50 that is in the policy. But again, if you have buy-in of the whole neighborhood and they want to do it, you can. [46:17] Marcus Johnson (City Engineer): It would be worth looking at cuz the 50/50—it wasn't super clear. And we wouldn't do it as a street 50/50. We test to see what that value is. And that 215 didn't include services, right? [46:40] Marcus Johnson (City Engineer): Did not. It didn't include any water. I'm just bringing it up to you guys that if we're going to assess, it would be a good idea to consider looking into this. Because to do services then you crack the curb again. So you don't want to do that. Projects moving forward like we have drainage issues on her street which is one we're looking at this year—do we want to run something similar to this the whole way? It would be worth having the conversation before we get a contractor in there. [47:25] Councilmember Ryan Eisele: Maybe we set up a workshop in a couple of weeks. Let's go through that. [47:32] Mayor Jennifer Arsenault: Okay, regardless of which option we pursue, would we fill the ditches back to do this one? [47:41] Marcus Johnson (City Engineer): You tell me what do we want to do? [47:45] Mayor Jennifer Arsenault: No, but do we fix the ditches regardless of what we decide to do? Do the ditches get fixed? [47:56] Marcus Johnson (City Engineer): I think the ditches are functioning as holding ponds as what they're intended to. So if we want to fill in the ditches and not consider any of this, I won't fill the ditches in until we decide. [48:18] Mayor Jennifer Arsenault: Cuz otherwise we're going to be paying for someone to come in, fill the ditches in and then paying for someone to shape around the curb and gutter. I mean if we're not even interested in this, then yeah, I would say we should have one of the other contractors that are coming in expand their scope and have them throw dirt and seed there. [48:38] Councilmember Ryan Eisele: I think it's all—we workshop with the residents, figure out what they want. [48:42] Councilmember Kathy Weier: Marcus, is the other—I kind of forgot to show you guys this too. So with just my thought process we wouldn't put the B-style curb and gutter except for on the catch basins. It would be like a drive-over curb. So you wouldn't lose street. [49:03] Councilmember Kathy Weier: On the other figure one I guess it would be—is the other little offshoot of the road? We've already done that one, but it's a higher elevation than down here on the cul-de-sac? [49:15] Marcus Johnson (City Engineer): It's just climbing up. So at this point I don't think it's worth it. [49:22] Councilmember Kathy Weier: But it's uphill as far as— [49:25] Marcus Johnson (City Engineer): It's all uphill. It's all draining. That's kind of why I ran the curb and gutter through. So we'd catch that and then it would go down. I just wanted to make sure we weren't going to end up with a big puddle. And even on this north side if and when we work up here again we would have curb and gutter that runs through this intersection and catch it all and then send it down. [49:48] Councilmember Ryan Eisele: Is there a storm sewer somewhere over there or are we dumping this from somewhere here? [49:54] Marcus Johnson (City Engineer): Everything comes all over here at the either side. So all this would come down to this curb and gutter and then everything on this cul-de-sac comes down this hill to our new community pool. [laughter] And then everything from Hall almost comes down this way, too. It's a lot more draining. [50:11] Councilmember Ryan Eisele: Where is this magical water going to go even if we've— [50:15] Marcus Johnson (City Engineer): There's catch basins built in here. So those have—we would tie into that. And with the design we'd make sure we don't need more capacity. [50:28] Councilmember Ryan Eisele: Can you just humor the dumb question of what do you mean by a catch basin? [50:34] Marcus Johnson (City Engineer): Um it's the thing that sucks in the water along the side of the road. [50:38] Councilmember Ryan Eisele: You're saying a storm sewer inlet? Is that what you mean by catch basin? [50:42] Marcus Johnson (City Engineer): Yep, storm sewer inlet. [50:44] Councilmember Ryan Eisele: Okay. [50:46] Marcus Johnson (City Engineer): Yep. And so that would be caught at the intersection of those two streets and then running down. Everything gets sent down to the cul-de-sac where it actually will drain out. That's where it is intended to. [51:15] Mayor Jennifer Arsenault: I know it will, right? [51:17] Marcus Johnson (City Engineer): Oh yeah, yes. Yep. [51:19] Mayor Jennifer Arsenault: All right, thanks. [51:24] Marcus Johnson (City Engineer): Perfect. [51:26] Mayor Jennifer Arsenault: I think they put sawdust down there. [51:27] Councilmember Ryan Eisele: That was a sanitary sewer. [laughter] [51:29] Marcus Johnson (City Engineer): All right, um a couple hay bales, that's all you need, right? [51:33] Mayor Jennifer Arsenault: We'll put something together with Marcus's figures and get it out to those residents. And then is that all right, would you guys be interested in holding a meeting then? [51:40] Councilmember Ryan Eisele: I think we need to talk about it first. [51:42] Mayor Jennifer Arsenault: Okay. All right, so we'll set something up. Um next on our agenda, number two is approval of small cities grant for 2050 comprehensive plan planning. [51:53] Councilmember Ryan Eisele: Are we going to address the bids? Oh yeah. That's the next thing on our list. [51:58] Marcus Johnson (City Engineer): We do have um two bids. I'm recommending we approve Nelson Sanitation's bid and then approve them to expand their scope to include everything that's on you guys's last three maps. [52:21] Mayor Jennifer Arsenault: What would be the amount of the— [52:25] Marcus Johnson (City Engineer): Regardless, we're going to be 20 grand less than what we approved. Would be 40-ish to 45. [52:38] Mayor Jennifer Arsenault: For how many? [52:40] Marcus Johnson (City Engineer): That would be all of the storm sewer and then 40% of the sanitary sewer that we have in town. Okay. [52:47] Councilmember Ryan Eisele: So I move that we approve Nelson Sanitation and Rental Inc. bid for up to $45,000 to cover the scope that Marcus has. [52:54] Mayor Jennifer Arsenault: I have a second. [52:56] Councilmember Bridget Sperl: Second. [52:58] Mayor Jennifer Arsenault: All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Hearing none, motion passes. Thank you. Thank you. All right, on to number two then. Um I received an email from Merritt Clapp Smith who works for Met Council. They had a grant available for small cities and we had qualified for that part of the grant. Um this 2050 comprehensive plan is required for all cities by the Met Council. But it involves a lot of studies, a lot of data collection and it's quite pricey. Met Council realizes that the small cities don't have a budget or the staff to put together such a huge plan. So they came up with this grant idea. [54:09] Mayor Jennifer Arsenault: So it's really they'll pretty much take care of everything. I've included in your packet our responsibilities along with what Met Council will be responsible for. Pretty much they'll just lead us the entire way. Our major responsibility is to hold I believe three community meetings on different topics and they will help us write the draft with our input. And pretty much um I think it's due on 9/1/2027 with the final plan due in May of 2028. So this is a year and a half type program but I didn't see a why we should decline it. [55:10] Councilmember Ryan Eisele: Yeah, there's no downside, is there? [55:12] Councilmember Kathy Weier: Do they assign us an individual to work with? [55:14] Mayor Jennifer Arsenault: Yes, it's going to be this Merritt Clapp Smith. [55:21] Alan (City Administrator): And for perspective council, I think the last time we had to do this it was about 10 or 12,000 out of pocket just for the assist. So this has got a real value to you guys of about that much if not more. [55:36] Marcus Johnson (City Engineer): For us to come in and do this for you guys it'd be cheaper obviously, but for communities somewhere like these larger cities, it's like 65 to 130,000 dollars to do these. It's expensive. Their requirements on the sanitary and storm sewer change every time, so it's kind of a cat and mouse game. It's worth doing. [56:11] Alan (City Administrator): Last one I did in Maplewood was 100 grand just for the consultants to come in and do it. Obviously, it's a very different community, but it's a big deal. So to get this is a good deal. [56:26] Mayor Jennifer Arsenault: Absolutely. [56:32] Councilmember Ryan Eisele: Are we going to submit to them some things like our road plan and all of our infrastructure stuff and just kind of have them incorporate that? It seems like they would do that for us. It seems like we've probably done a lot of the work. It's just going to be like filing taxes and filling in the bubbles from the forms we made ourselves. [56:56] Alan (City Administrator): It really is because you're largely developed and built out, so it's just basically updating what you did the last comp plan. In your city it doesn't matter much. There's not a lot of change. I know this city struggled with it over a couple of items on the map because no one really knew what to do. You won't have that problem this way. [57:48] Councilmember Ryan Eisele: What were the colors? [57:51] Alan (City Administrator): Well, look at your comprehensive plan. No, there was some question as to whether or not there was park or institutional. In reality it's all just public property. So it didn't really matter, but it hung up the finishing of that project by half a year. You won't have that problem here. [58:05] Mayor Jennifer Arsenault: In your packet on page 26 and 27, those are our responsibilities and the calendar for when they would like it done. Tonight I'm just asking for you to approve the resolution that they've drafted. It's Resolution 2024-6 authorizing participation in the Met Council's small communities planning program for assistance with preparation of the 2050 comprehensive plan. Once we approve that, they will send a contract to us that needs to be signed. After that, we are supposed to find point people either on council or in the city that are willing to work with the Met Council. [58:56] Councilmember Ryan Eisele: I move to approve the lengthy resolution just stated by the mayor. [59:05] Mayor Jennifer Arsenault: Can I have a second, please? [59:08] Councilmember Kathy Weier: Second. [59:10] Mayor Jennifer Arsenault: All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Hearing none, motion passes. Thank you. Number three, review bids for lawn care. We have White Bear Lawn and Snow and Top Green Auto Renew option. Those are on pages 30 to 38 in your packet. Um I looked over them and it looked like White Bear Lawn and Snow was just a bit cheaper than Top Green. [59:43] Councilmember Ryan Eisele: I would not pick Joe from—I would agree with— [59:46] Mayor Jennifer Arsenault: Is this Joe? Joe is from White Bear. He is here to answer questions. And from what I understand, Joe, you've been super helpful with Therese. So thank you. Um did you guys have any questions? [1:00:01] Councilmember Ryan Eisele: I'm trying to get to the actual bid portion. [1:00:08] Mayor Jennifer Arsenault: It's on page 35. Page 37 if you're looking at the general. I just wanted to make sure that this does not include any of the fertilization, herbicide, etc. Most of these are too close to the water to actually put something on that's going to run in the water. Is that correct, Joe? [1:00:26] Joe (White Bear Lawn and Snow): Correct, Mayor. The proposal just gives that as an option. So if you guys were to get a complaint about weeds, dandelions, etc., you guys would have the option to say, "yes, please spray this park," but it is not included in the actual bid. That's something you guys would request. [1:00:49] Mayor Jennifer Arsenault: Okay. And then the other one—is this on the same schedule that we had last year with TruGreen as far as every week was Ty Schmidt and then every other week was all the other parks? [1:01:06] Joe (White Bear Lawn and Snow): That's what it says here. Is that right? [Nods] [1:01:08] Mayor Jennifer Arsenault: And that includes all parks, all easements—Ash was just maintenance. I don't think there's actually mowing there. And then the city hall. Right? [1:01:21] Alan (City Administrator): Yeah, I believe it's like-for-like, Joe. You went off of what happened last year? [1:01:25] Joe (White Bear Lawn and Snow): Yes. [1:01:26] Mayor Jennifer Arsenault: Excellent. With the addition I see of spring and fall cleanup, which I really liked. [1:01:30] Councilmember Kathy Weier: Yes, cuz we were hiring someone else for that. [1:01:34] Mayor Jennifer Arsenault: That'd be nice. [1:01:36] Councilmember Bridget Sperl: Are we relying on volunteers? I was just down at Ty Schmidt and it really needs to be raked. There's a lot of stuff. [1:01:45] Alan (City Administrator): My recommendation is that we go with White Bear. It's like-for-like. I would recommend that and go from there. [1:02:03] Councilmember Kathy Weier: I know we didn't ask for this in the bid, but um we need to clear the brush on the sides of many of the roads. So is that something, Joe, that you do? [1:02:13] Joe (White Bear Lawn and Snow): Yes, it is. And I can work with Therese on that. Do you guys have a map or something? [1:02:20] Councilmember Kathy Weier: Give us a quote on that. We can all chart that. I think that would be helpful. We got to get that done. I agree, there's a lot of debris there. [1:02:43] Alan (City Administrator): We do have a bid for collection of some of the asphalt that you've noticed. We're collecting that up and we have a bid in there to have Joe help us out with that, too. [1:02:46] Councilmember Bridget Sperl: Is that you, too, Joe? [1:02:47] Joe (White Bear Lawn and Snow): Yes. [1:02:48] Councilmember Bridget Sperl: Okay, I know it's in the consent agenda, but I was going to pull that out anyway. Could we put the asphalt curbing in that dumpster or no? Is that separate? [1:03:00] Joe (White Bear Lawn and Snow): Usually not. Stuff we want to put in the landfill—where we break down our concrete and asphalt, they recycle it. So we prefer to do that rather than putting it in the landfill. [1:03:13] Councilmember Bridget Sperl: Okay. [1:03:21] Joe (White Bear Lawn and Snow): And then depending on how much you guys approve on that curb removal, I know part of the bid was to go around the town and pick up pieces. But that's up to whatever you guys decide to do. [1:03:25] Councilmember Bridget Sperl: Well, Therese and I had actually driven around and there's not too much left. There's a lot of it stacked here. And I saw in that bid that it was a 5-hour minimum. [1:03:37] Joe (White Bear Lawn and Snow): We can adjust that, I guess, as needed if we're just going to take the pile. [1:03:41] Councilmember Bridget Sperl: She made it sound like we were going to go around the whole town and pick everything up. Right now, I noticed there's still quite a bit of loose stuff. 5 hours seemed like a lot of time for what we saw was left on the roads. [1:04:10] Joe (White Bear Lawn and Snow): Sure. I mean, you think of the time to drive every road. [1:04:16] Councilmember Bridget Sperl: Okay. So maybe we can talk a little bit more about that. [1:04:22] Alan (City Administrator): We can discuss that. If we can go around and have staff aggregate it and make it go faster, I'm sure Joe will work with us. The reason he's here is because I was horrified to find out that we were just throwing this stuff into a regular waste collection. [1:04:39] Mayor Jennifer Arsenault: Okay. All right. Um then let's stick with this lawn care and maintenance. Could I have a motion to accept White Bear Lawn and Snow their bid for our lawn maintenance and spring and fall cleanup. [1:04:58] Councilmember Kathy Weier: So moved. [1:05:00] Councilmember Ryan Eisele: Seconded. [1:05:10] Mayor Jennifer Arsenault: All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Hearing none, motion passes. Thank you, Joe. All right. On to number four—schedule interviews for city planner. I was just going to propose that we schedule that for the May regular meeting and have them come in here and hear from the candidates and maybe make that available by Zoom. [1:06:27] Alan (City Administrator): We'll schedule it. I know the folks that are represented by the Falls Agency. Since we didn't really set it up to interview, I sent everyone all the materials. I have talked to Craig, who's the one who's farthest out. And I can assure you that he would come down personally. [1:07:05] Councilmember Bridget Sperl: Well, and if for some reason the time doesn't work for somebody, we can figure something out, but hopefully next meeting. [1:07:16] Councilmember Bridget Sperl: The only question I had about that, Alan, is one of them seems very far away. One of them seems really expensive. So are we seriously considering those two? [1:07:27] Alan (City Administrator): That's the reason I didn't schedule something right away. I think the question of expenses—that's the going rate for somebody who understands shoreline zoning. I think we're likely to save money. One of the things I do think we need to do—we had an agreement with Ben that he would bill back to the city any amount that he spends with a homeowner greater than 30 minutes. And he's never done that. I've never seen a bill. [1:08:14] Alan (City Administrator): So we're spending significant funds to him on retainer that are never getting billed back to people. I didn't see him bill anything back for the work in Glado. So I think this is actually even at a higher rate, it's probably a savings for taxpayers. [1:08:33] Councilmember Bridget Sperl: Okay. I just raised it—it's a fair question. [1:08:46] Alan (City Administrator): So the question then becomes, do you want this as a presentation or do we want to come up with a slate of questions? And do you want the current provider to be part of the pool? [1:08:58] Councilmember Ryan Eisele: I like the presentation idea. [1:09:02] Councilmember Bridget Sperl: And then maybe small time after presentation for a couple questions. [1:09:05] Councilmember Kathy Weier: Well, it'd be nice to tell people that this is what they're going to get as questions, too. Just to keep it even. [1:09:22] Councilmember Bridget Sperl: Alan, would it be possible to get a summary of everything that our city planner has billed back? [1:09:30] Alan (City Administrator): I can certainly ask. [1:09:32] Councilmember Bridget Sperl: That would be good to find out if we're just basically subsidizing this. [1:09:38] Councilmember Kathy Weier: Um could we—have we already provided the planning commission's workflow document to these individuals when they were reviewing when they were bidding? [1:09:47] Alan (City Administrator): No. The folks that bid basically looked at the city, watched some city council meetings, looked through the ordinances. [1:09:55] Councilmember Kathy Weier: We put out an RFP saying, "These are the services we want. This is the size of the community." [1:10:02] Alan (City Administrator): What document is that? [1:10:04] Councilmember Kathy Weier: The one that we use when we have a variance cuz I think that's going to be the main thing that we're going to be discussing. So if they have a chance to look at that. [1:10:15] Alan (City Administrator): Yeah, I can send whatever you want as informational. [1:10:27] Councilmember Bridget Sperl: That sounds good. If we have specific questions, can we just forward them to you to send out? [1:10:35] Alan (City Administrator): I'd prefer that, so if we can kind of accumulate those so they aren't leaked out. [1:10:48] Councilmember Ryan Eisele: So what do we decide? Next meeting? You're not going to be here, but I'll be here in May probably, but not in the two-week workshop. [1:11:06] Alan (City Administrator): Part of the meeting is fine. We can just do it right at the beginning if that works for people. [1:11:15] Mayor Jennifer Arsenault: And last but not least, you want the current provider and the two bidders or just the two bidders? [1:11:21] Councilmember Ryan Eisele: It would be fair you should probably have all three. [1:11:24] Mayor Jennifer Arsenault: All three. Okay. All right, we'll make it happen. Thank you, Alan. Um if everyone could get me questions that they would like to see maybe in the next two weeks would be nice. Thanks. Okay, we're on to the consent agenda. And I would just like to pull out the dumpster—that would be number six just for a date clarification with you Cathy. Um and I just want to make one comment on the March Treasurer's report. Okay, so we'll pull out two and six. Anything else? [1:12:30] Councilmember Ryan Eisele: We discussed four but didn't approve. Do we need to pull that out? [1:12:35] Mayor Jennifer Arsenault: Um you know what? We'll just—we can approve it and then we'll talk to Joe about it. I would like to pull out number nine as well just for a clarification. Two, six, and nine. Anything else? Okay, with the exception of two, six, and nine, could I get a motion to approve the consent agenda, please? [1:13:00] Councilmember Bridget Sperl: So moved. [1:13:02] Councilmember Ryan Eisele: I'll second. [1:13:03] Mayor Jennifer Arsenault: Thank you. All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Hearing none, motion passes. Okay, number two is the March Treasurer's report. [1:13:13] Councilmember Ryan Eisele: Yeah, I just want to make the point that hopefully you've noticed that we continue to reiterate it and that it's becoming clearer and clearer about where our finances are. Marsha has been great about continuing to reiterate it to make it better. [1:13:37] Mayor Jennifer Arsenault: It looks good. Much easier. If you talk to Marsha, tell her it's excellent. [1:13:46] Councilmember Ryan Eisele: Excellent. I think it is, too. [1:13:52] Mayor Jennifer Arsenault: She's very conscientious about this. I just think it's much clearer than we've had in the past. [1:13:58] Councilmember Bridget Sperl: So I really enjoyed the monthly Treasurer's financial summary. [1:14:02] Mayor Jennifer Arsenault: So did I. I did. That was nice. [1:14:06] Councilmember Kathy Weier: Me, too. Words. Things lined up. It was good. [1:14:15] Mayor Jennifer Arsenault: Okay. Um number six—Joe's going to provide a dumpster so we can clean out the shed in the garage here. And I was thinking for it where we get it for a day, so I was thinking of doing it on the spring cleanup day. So we also would have people. Would that be okay? [1:14:40] Councilmember Kathy Weier: Yeah. Okay. Um so that's April 25th? It's the Saturday. It's the 25th. [1:15:00] Mayor Jennifer Arsenault: It's the same time and day as the dock association meeting actually. That's all right. It's going to be busy up here. I just thought it would be good if we had more hands to help carry things. Okay. And since we will have a dumpster here, do we want to bring in a document shredding service? [1:15:19] Councilmember Kathy Weier: For the city or people bring in their own? [1:15:21] Mayor Jennifer Arsenault: Just to bring things here. A lot of cities do that just because it's cleanup day. [1:15:28] Councilmember Kathy Weier: Um are we also looking at the shed down at the rink? [1:15:34] Mayor Jennifer Arsenault: Yes. Not at the rink—the warming house. [1:15:40] Councilmember Kathy Weier: Well, we would have to bring the stuff up here cuz the dumpster's here. I'm not sure how much is in there cuz Jim's been sort of systematically cleaning out. [1:15:50] Councilmember Kathy Weier: It was messy last year when we had tried to get stuff in there, but I'm not sure if the broken snow plow or whatever it is that was in there. [1:16:03] Mayor Jennifer Arsenault: We'll tell Jim and if there's stuff down there, we'll make sure it gets up here. And then um can you ask if he is available to come on that day as well? He typically has come to haul away logs and such. [1:16:21] Alan (City Administrator): Sure. I doubt he has a date yet. Um I believe we had sent a message to Therese to get it in the newsletter, but it just says "more details coming." [1:16:35] Councilmember Kathy Weier: I'm just curious what's in the sheds that need to be tossed out. [1:16:47] Alan (City Administrator): At the risk of sounding kind of glib, I would just say "stuff." There are things downstairs—there was a desk for example in the office, one of those big old like partner's desks. And so the request was make it go away. Well, it went away as far as that room goes—it takes up a whole corner, like an old golf cart sitting there. And there's a lot of old lumber. I won't even talk about that shed cuz that just looks like every spare thing that gets picked up just gets thrown in there. It's like a scene from American Pickers. [1:17:34] Councilmember Kathy Weier: Can you watch for the custom paint that we have for the outside of the building? [1:17:40] Alan (City Administrator): It's downstairs. Inside. [1:17:43] Councilmember Bridget Sperl: If residents would be interested in any of that stuff. The desk, the— [1:17:51] Alan (City Administrator): Well, the desk is now in lumber. I don't know. It's beyond American Pickers. It's garbage. It needs to just go. I think that staff just hasn't had the time to do it historically, so this is a chance to put the dumpster right there. [1:18:12] Mayor Jennifer Arsenault: Okay, with that date, you said the 25th, right? [1:18:15] Councilmember Kathy Weier: Yes. [1:18:17] Mayor Jennifer Arsenault: Okay. Can I have a motion to approve—Actually, we just take care of number nine and then we can take care of them. Number nine was the approval of Ty Schmidt's field rental. [1:18:50] Councilmember Kathy Weier: Yes. So um I don't have any issue whatsoever with their document in general, but we did get information regarding our park project—it's going to be end of June, July is when we're going to be breaking ground. It should not be affecting the actual field. Marcus is going to be working with the team to make sure that they're not working in a way that's going to cause issue with that, but I just wanted to make it clear that there will be some work happening down there. [1:19:18] Councilmember Bridget Sperl: Are the soccer team aware of it? [1:19:22] Councilmember Kathy Weier: We had mentioned it last year. I'm not sure if that has been brought up, but I would like them to be informed of it. [1:19:30] Marcus Johnson (City Engineer): We can let him know. It shouldn't affect them. [1:19:33] Councilmember Kathy Weier: I'd rather just tell him before like having them find out. [1:19:40] Councilmember Ryan Eisele: "Oh, hey, one of the kids drove the excavator into the lake or something." [laughter] That's a whole other issue, for sure. [1:19:47] Mayor Jennifer Arsenault: Are you still okay with the $2,000 for the rental fee? [1:19:53] Councilmember Kathy Weier: Yeah, cuz that was mostly covering the mowing. With our new bid, I think that the mowing is going to be about four grand. We were covering half of it last time. Nice. [1:20:14] Mayor Jennifer Arsenault: Okay. Any other questions for Kathy? All right. Um then, could I please have a motion to accept number two, six, and nine on the consent agenda? [1:20:30] Councilmember Ryan Eisele: So moved. [1:20:31] Councilmember Kathy Weier: Second. [1:20:32] Mayor Jennifer Arsenault: All in favor? Aye. Opposed? I'm hearing none, motion passes. Would you like to do the announcements? [1:20:47] Alan (City Administrator): Yes, Madam Mayor and Council. Announcements—of course every month you get the Washington County Sheriff's report, which is included. Um you've got the Association of Small Cities Legislative Agenda. I had printed off and you've got one in front of you here as well. This one actually covers what they're going to be at the capital talking about in this legislative session. Your sanitary sewer survey report is in there. Um Council Member Eisley asked about resolutions and whether or not they were in good shape. Genevieve Abbott went through and we got signatures everywhere that those were needed. Um your handout from animal control is there—that's really an FYI. And finally, the music in the park lineup is there for 2024. [1:22:05] Alan (City Administrator): Uh one last thing—there's a policy here regarding rental of the city hall. A request came in from a previous resident. Basically, it's a request to use the hall—this particular person, although a past resident of 30 years and a former deputy city clerk treasurer, lives in rural Minnesota now. Her grandson is graduating from White Bear Lake. His mom is in Texas. They'd really like to have a graduation party for him, and because of the long history in Birchwood, she's asking if we would make an exception to the resident rule. Assuming that the date is available, would you guys mind if we did that? [1:23:05] Councilmember Kathy Weier: No. [1:23:07] Councilmember Ryan Eisele: Yeah. [1:23:08] Councilmember Kathy Weier: All right. [1:23:10] Alan (City Administrator): And with that, we would stand for questions. [1:23:14] Mayor Jennifer Arsenault: Are we going to update everybody on the Happy Dog hire? [1:23:20] Alan (City Administrator): Oh, the website. We've hired the company to do that. [1:23:40] Councilmember Bridget Sperl: Yep, so we've hired—I looked at four vendors, and we hired Happy Dog, who is local, actually. Um they had the best and most thorough process for developing a website. They have a prototype. We're going to meet, Alan and Therese and I, this Friday. We're hoping that we will have a website prototype to be tested probably in 4-5 weeks. [1:24:15] Alan (City Administrator): And a lot of credit goes to Council Member Sperl for basically pre-constructing all this. We are going through some artifacts and some things that just don't make sense. One of those was we discovered this odd tiered dog licensing policy. [1:24:47] Councilmember Ryan Eisele: Yeah. [1:24:48] Alan (City Administrator): So some of those things as we find them, we're going to bring to Council. [1:25:08] Councilmember Ryan Eisele: We should just get rid of dog licenses entirely, like Oakdale and Woodbury did. I don't think we need that administrative burden. [1:25:20] Alan (City Administrator): You've now heard more than you wanted to hear of my opinions. What we're proposing as a policy shift is just a single fee instead of this tiered structure. But if it becomes sort of a "why are we doing this," I'm not going to object. [1:25:40] Councilmember Ryan Eisele: It's not a big money maker. [1:25:41] Alan (City Administrator): It shouldn't be making money, it should be even. [1:25:45] Councilmember Ryan Eisele: Was it covering our animal control? [1:25:47] Alan (City Administrator): No. It covers the license. The reason we do this is so that we know who has a dog and to ensure that it's got a rabies shot. [1:26:14] Councilmember Ryan Eisele: They're for the people that follow the law. If you're not going to get your dog the rabies shot, you're probably not going to be getting him licensed anyway. [1:26:27] Mayor Jennifer Arsenault: All right. Something to look at. Um I did want to bring up the MDH sanitary service survey report. It lists my house as one of them, but no one has come out to my house to do a water sample. Um I would like some more information as to what's going on with that, cuz I know he got paid to do it, and has not been at my property. In the report, it does list that it has a deficiency. If we didn't do it right, what are we doing to fix it? [1:27:14] Alan (City Administrator): I will ask and probably email you guys what I find out. [1:27:18] Mayor Jennifer Arsenault: Okay. Um and then I did have two announcements. The Ty Schmidt Park will be having some work done around the back of the hockey rink. It should not affect the music in the park area or the field itself. It will be behind the playground area to try and manage—it's a little wet right now. This is going to hopefully help alleviate some of that. That work is going to be starting end of June/July timeframe. [1:28:13] Mayor Jennifer Arsenault: And then, we have a cleanup day for the city. It's April 25th at 10:00 a.m. We will meet here at the city hall. We generally have donuts and coffee. [1:28:44] Alan (City Administrator): And of course, last month Mr. Hankins brought up the fact that we didn't have the resolution authorizing Genevieve, which is our new office assistant. Well, we took care of that. I did email the state auditor, and they said that resolution was fine. I'm more than happy to email that around as well as Genevieve's CV. [1:29:40] Mayor Jennifer Arsenault: I think it's taken care of. Thank you. [1:29:43] Alan (City Administrator): I will speak on behalf of myself and Therese—Genevieve has been a great hire. Delighted to have her downstairs. Couldn't have done better if we tried. And I've identified a young man that will be working with us this summer part-time. [1:30:21] Councilmember Bridget Sperl: Alan—don't let this go to your head, Alan. [1:30:26] Alan (City Administrator): [laughter] [1:30:28] Councilmember Bridget Sperl: I was just going to say with as much change that has happened in the city, I feel like we finally have a sense of stability and I feel like the staff is doing an amazing job. I just want to give you guys kudos. [1:30:48] Alan (City Administrator): Thank you. We'll be setting up the biometrics on our new lock. It's got a hard key, but it is set up to actually do that for all of you who don't want a key. As long as there's battery power, we should be able to set everyone up. [1:31:21] Mayor Jennifer Arsenault: I think the key is still a good option since it is a rental space. [1:31:26] Alan (City Administrator): If you haven't been into the kitchen lately, that's come a long way, too. [1:31:48] Mayor Jennifer Arsenault: Okay, um could I have a motion to adjourn, please? [1:31:51] Councilmember Kathy Weier: So moved. [1:31:53] Councilmember Ryan Eisele: Second. [1:31:54] Mayor Jennifer Arsenault: All in favor? Aye. Meeting adjourned. Thank you, everyone. [1:31:56] [music]