Based on the context provided for the City of Richfield, here is the transcribed townhall meeting with speaker names and estimated timestamps. Note: Since the original text did not include timestamps, they have been estimated sequentially. I have also identified **Ben Whan** as a Council Member based on the dialogue, despite him not being in your initial list. *** **[00:00:00] Mary Supple:** I was gonna ask him and then he left before I got chance. All right, we all set? Good evening ladies and gentlemen, I'm going to call to order this November 26, 2024, meeting of the Richfield City Council. It is 7:00 PM. If you're able, please rise and join us for the Pledge of Allegiance. **(Council recites the Pledge of Allegiance)** **[00:00:30] Mary Supple:** Next, we'll move on to the open forum. Residents can share their comments in person, by voicemail, or email, or may also request to participate virtually. For more information on submitting comments, you can refer to the city website. Go to the council agenda and minutes page and then you'll be able to have the instructions right there. It's richfieldmn.gov/citycouncil. Is there anyone here that wishes to speak for open forum? Anyone here that wishes to speak for open forum? **[00:01:05] Mary Supple:** All right, since there is no one rising to speak for open forum, we're going to move on to approval of the minutes of the City Council work session meeting and the City Council regular meeting from November 12th, 2024. **[00:01:15] Sean Hayford Oleary:** Move the minutes. **[00:01:16] Sharon Christensen:** Second. **[00:01:17] Mary Supple:** It's been moved and seconded to approve the minutes. Are there any changes or corrections? All right, all in favor please say "Aye." **[00:01:22] City Council (Unison):** Aye. **[00:01:23] Mary Supple:** All opposed? We've approved both sets of minutes. Our next order of business is the annual presentation of the Human Rights Commission. So I'm going to call Chair Tyler Olen up to the podium and then just make sure the green light is on the microphone. If not—looks like we're good to go. **[00:01:45] Tyler Olen:** All right, awesome. Uh, first, I would like to thank the Council for hosting us this evening and giving the opportunity to talk through our accomplishments this year as well as highlight some of the great Commissioners that were doing some great work this year. For those who are unfamiliar, the purpose of the Richfield Human Rights Commission is to secure for all citizens equal opportunity in employment, housing, public accommodations, public services, and education and full participation in the affairs of the community. **[00:02:15] Tyler Olen:** We achieve this by taking action consistent with the Minnesota Human Rights Act and by advising the City Council and staff on programs and strategies to improve human relations in the city. This work is best done grounded in community, so I would also like to take this opportunity to make an appeal to anybody here in the room tonight: if there's any issues that you would like to see discussed, please feel free to bring those forward to the commission. We're always looking for any suggestions and ideas, you know, ways that we can engage with the community. **[00:02:45] Tyler Olen:** We have our meetings the first Tuesday here in City Hall, the first Tuesday of the month every month. You can also reach out to us on the city commission's page or reach out to the equity and inclusion coordinator, Britney Bartlett. All right, so recognition: 2024, our officers this year—it was myself as the chair, we had Tiffany Bigley as Vice Chair, and Valerie Hurst Baker was our secretary. Members this year were Caly Dennis, Tim Garvey, Mara Glupa, Carol Kelly Anstead, Dana Spec, Maddy Vsen, and Michael Zazar. **[00:03:30] Tyler Olen:** As you're all aware, the commission is turning over a decent amount each year just based on the nature of terms. It just really varies wildly, the experience from year to year, and this was—I just want to highlight—this is a really great group this year. We had a lot of fun working together, a lot of great ideas brought to the table, and some things that are setting us up for future successes. **[00:04:00] Tyler Olen:** Activities to highlight from this year: The Legal Aid Clinic. So this year, we continued our series of legal aid clinics aimed to serve underprivileged community members with free legal advice on subjects like immigration, family residential law, and more. This is done with pro bono attorneys—those just looking to donate their time to help residents in need. The latest was just held this past Friday on the 22nd with a particular focus this year on immigration law given some of the rhetoric nationally that's kind of really targeted this demographic in the years ahead. **[00:04:45] Tyler Olen:** This included a translating service, so we look forward to a full debrief from those in attendance at our December meeting and again extend an invite to any of those that are interested in hearing about how that clinic went. These clinics are becoming a staple in our lineup each year, an event that we all really look forward to, and we do see it as an opportunity to partner further with both the City Council and staff as well as community members just to continue to make more impactful events into the future. **[00:05:15] Tyler Olen:** Eight proclamations were drafted and approved this year: Black History Month, Asian-Pacific American Month, Juneteenth, Pride, Americans with Disabilities Act Month, Hispanic Heritage Month, LGBTQ History Month, and Indigenous People's Month. These proclamations serve as a vehicle for our community to declare values and promote greater understanding and connectedness on subjects important to us. The HRC recognizes that this is an opportunity to align more closely with the communities in question, and in the future, we want to continue to work towards having more community representation in these proclamations. **[00:05:45] Tyler Olen:** Gina and Mary Jacobson Outstanding Citizen Award: from a crowded group of applicants, the Richfield Human Rights Commission was pleased to select Scott Ramsey as this year's recipient. Mr. Ramsey's passion for his work during his many years as the "bee guy" at Wood Lake Nature Center brought joy and enlightenment to countless community members throughout his career. He was a fantastic recipient for this year's award. **[00:06:15] Tyler Olen:** This year we formed an Outreach and Engagement subcommittee just to aid, again, in trying to engage more directly with the community. We wanted to form a group that is specifically focused on that very end goal of drumming up ideas and avenues to reach out to people as well as starting to develop reusable things for social media to just kind of really accelerate down the path of getting the community more involved with the commission. **[00:06:45] Tyler Olen:** And the legal aid kiosk—which Mary, I'm glad that you stopped over to talk about that—we're very happy with the progress over the past year with the kiosk. This is something that a couple of years back the commission was involved in trying to bring to the city, successfully did so, and then there was maybe some stagnation in its usage. That finally started to turn this year. Word of mouth and that critical mass has been reached where people now are aware that the service is available. **[00:07:15] Tyler Olen:** Looking ahead to 2025, in addition to continuing these established initiatives, the Human Rights Commission is exploring additional opportunities. We've been discussing holding an immigration citizen event in conjunction with the U.S. District Court in Minneapolis. We are resuming a partnership with Just Deeds and eliminating racial covenants to help see what we can do to bust up some of the red tape preventing faster progress in that regard. And then other avenues—maybe we can do educational events to keep it at the front of people's minds. **[00:07:45] Tyler Olen:** Again, just closer community cooperation and engagement across all of our initiatives. Really want to focus and emphasize on getting more direct buy-in and ownership from the communities that we're serving. I just want to highlight this year's group is really a lot of fun to work with. I had, as chair, some personal stuff that kind of kept me out of commission for several months, and the group just didn't miss a beat. They did a phenomenal job; I'd like to say that there's more of an impact of me being gone, but they did wonderfully in my absence. **[00:08:15] Tyler Olen:** Finally, I just like to close by thanking the Council and City staff. It's very apparent that you all are very caring about these rights. Some of our national discourse right now is going to have direct impacts on human rights in the years ahead, so there's never been a more crucial time for these conversations. Thank you. **[00:08:45] Mary Supple:** Do any of the council members have any questions or comments? Council member Troutman is the liaison to the Human Rights Commission and he's unable to be at the meeting this evening, but I'm sure from what I've heard from him in the past that you guys have been a great group to work with. So thank you for everything that you've done and it's always fun to see the new initiatives that you put forward. Thank you. **[00:09:10] Mary Supple:** Next we'll move on to the sustainability commission annual presentation and we'll turn it over to Chair Keeper. **[00:09:15] Amanda Keeper:** Thank you, Mayor and Council. Again, my name is Amanda Keeper, I am the chair of the sustainability commission. I just want to start by thanking our city sustainability staff, Rachel Lindholm and Zach McCarty; our Council liaison, Council Member Ben Whan; and all of our sustainability commissioners for all of their hard work this year. This was our fifth year as a commission. I think in wedding anniversary terms, five years is your wooden anniversary, and we talk about trees a lot at the commission, so it's a good year. **[00:09:45] Amanda Keeper:** We had a productive year; we met 10 times. At the sustainability commission, we do something a little unique: we have a commissioner-led annual work plan process where we talk about our hopes and dreams at the beginning of the year, and then throughout the year, Commissioners will lead different activities and action items. **[00:10:15] Amanda Keeper:** I'll just highlight some of our accomplishments. Our biggest focus was community outreach and engagement. Probably our biggest accomplishment there was we were able to finally complete our sustainability digital guide for residents. That's been a multi-year effort initiated by Commissioners. We relied heavily on City staff to edit and format it, but we were so excited to finally be able to share that with residents online. It's a landing page for how to sort waste, how to make homes more efficient, sustainable yards, and transportation methods. That’s at richfieldmn.gov/sguide. **[00:11:00] Amanda Keeper:** Some of our other accomplishments: we started a quarterly sustainability newsletter, the "Sustainability Scoop." We also created a sustainability recognition program that's going to launch in Q1 of next year to recognize residents that participate in city or county programs. We did some Organics program education at the Pumpkin Smash this year to teach residents about our curbside organics collection. A lot of people already were enrolled, but we want to increase those numbers. **[00:11:45] Amanda Keeper:** We had our first youth commissioner this year, so thanks to Helen for that. Some of our commissioners did an outreach event at RHS and at AHA, and they had several students show some interest, so we're hopeful we'll have two youth commissioners next year. **[00:12:15] Amanda Keeper:** Regarding City policy, one of our commissioners, Craig, worked with staff to lead a revision of the city's fowl code regarding birds like chickens, geese, and ducks. That revision is going to allow people to have a few more birds but also puts in place protections and permit guidelines. That is going to have some readings with you all in January. We also discussed opportunities to reduce plastic waste and working with businesses on that in 2025. **[00:12:45] Amanda Keeper:** We also use our meetings to hear staff reports from Rachel and Zach on county and federal grants, the annual tree sale, rain barrel sale, and solid waste. We provided feedback on the city's sustainability communications plan and brand. We also had special guests—residents from City Bella came to share about their "Green Team" and improvements to their buildings. One of those residents decided to apply to the commission and will be joining us next year. **[00:13:30] Amanda Keeper:** The City Manager also came and presented on the sustainability aspects of the three local sales tax referendums that just passed. We're excited to keep working on those. And some of our members attended a joint meeting with the Community Services Commission in April to learn about the storm water pond priority plan. Again, it was a productive year and we appreciate the opportunity to share it with you tonight. **[00:14:05] Mary Supple:** Thank you. Do we have any questions or comments? Council Member Whan. **[00:14:10] Ben Whan:** Thank you, Mayor. Yeah, as the liaison to this commission, I would just echo the thanks to the whole commission, to you Chair Keeper, and to staff. Both the HRC and this commission are topics that are just huge, and it's pretty easy to sort of get in a loop where you do a lot of talking and not a lot of doing. I've really appreciated from the sustainability commissioners the work plan ideas and the willingness to take initiative. I don't think things like the sustainability guide or the fowl code would have happened without commissioners deciding that they were going to see it through. So thank you, and I look forward to the future. **[00:14:55] Mary Supple:** Thank you so much for all your work. Next, we have approval of the agenda. **[00:15:00] Sean Hayford Oleary:** I move approval of the agenda. **[00:15:01] Sharon Christensen:** Second. **[00:15:02] Mary Supple:** It's been moved and seconded to approve the agenda. Is there any discussion? All in favor please say "Aye." **[00:15:06] City Council (Unison):** Aye. **[00:15:07] Mary Supple:** All opposed? And we have approved the agenda. Moving on, we'll go on to the consent calendar, and so I'm going to turn it over to Assistant City Manager Thongvanh. **[00:15:15] Sack Thongvanh:** Thank you, Mayor Supple. The consent calendar contains several separate items which are acted upon by the City Council in one motion. No further Council action on these items is necessary unless a council member requests an item be removed. All items listed are recommended for approval: (A) Adoption of a resolution accepting grants and donations for Richfield recreational services; (B) Approve a resolution for counting registered write-in votes for local elective office; (C) Set a public hearing for December 10, 2024, for the renewal of the pawn broker license for Metro Pawn and Gun Inc; (D) Acceptance of a quote from Northland Recreation in the amount of $175,000 for play equipment at Donaldson Park; (E) Approval of the first reading of the new ordinance establishing a local sales and use tax in Richfield. **[00:16:15] Sharon Christensen:** I would make a motion to approve the consent calendar. **[00:16:18] Sean Hayford Oleary:** Second. **[00:16:19] Mary Supple:** It's been moved and seconded to approve the consent calendar. Is there discussion? Council Member Hayford Oleary. **[00:16:25] Sean Hayford Oleary:** Just two comments. One: exciting to have our first reading of the sales tax item since that's been such a big item for so long. The other one is I was just glad to see this thing about the write-in votes; I was actually kind of surprised when we got the itemized sheet that we even did that. This makes a lot more sense, so I'm glad we're saving a little bit of time even though it is kind of a fun novelty to read through them. Thank you. **[00:16:50] Mary Supple:** Other comments or questions? I would like to thank all the people that donated and all the grant funders. I think Donaldson Park was partially done by a Hennepin County grant, so thank you to them, and thank you to the voters for authorizing that sales tax. Lots of gratitude. All in favor of approving the consent agenda please say "Aye." **[00:17:10] City Council (Unison):** Aye. **[00:17:11] Mary Supple:** All opposed? We have approved the consent calendar. Next, we move on to item six and I'll turn it over to Council Member Hayford Oleary. **[00:17:20] Sean Hayford Oleary:** Thank you. This item is to consider approval of the second reading of a new ordinance regarding registration of cannabis and hemp businesses. In 2023, the Minnesota Legislature legalized adult-use cannabis. Because the city's moratorium on cannabis sales will expire on January 1st, 2025, the city has developed an ordinance related to registration and renewal. **[00:17:45] Sean Hayford Oleary:** Key policies: we will process pre-licensure certification ensuring zoning requirements are met; we are allowing three dispensaries, which is compliant with the state's requirement; we have registration application processes and enforcement penalties; we have local compliance checks at minimum once a year; and proposed hours largely mirror what Richfield liquor stores do. **[00:18:15] Sean Hayford Oleary:** I move that we approve the second reading of a new ordinance regarding registration of cannabis and hemp businesses and related regulations, and a resolution and summary publication of said ordinance. **[00:18:25] Sharon Christensen:** Second. **[00:18:26] Mary Supple:** It's been moved and seconded and we're now open for discussion. Council Member Hayford Oleary. **[00:18:30] Sean Hayford Oleary:** I would say thank you to staff for getting this done in time. I know that this was kind of dictated by the state and our own limits on the moratorium, so I appreciate everything being in order. I feel really good about where we landed on these rules. **[00:18:45] Mary Supple:** I also wanted to thank everybody that was involved in the discussion—the Advisory Board of Health, the Planning Commission, and residents. I think with all of that input, we've come up with some good regulations. Any other questions? All in favor please say "Aye." **[00:19:00] City Council (Unison):** Aye. **[00:19:01] Mary Supple:** All opposed? And we have approved the new ordinance and the summary publication. Next, we will move on to item number seven. Just want to do a point of personal privilege—we had a really fun Saturday where we interviewed people from 8:00 AM till about 5:00 PM. It was very uplifting to hear all of the energy. Now I'm going to turn it over to Council Member Hayford Oleary to do the formal appointments. **[00:19:30] Sean Hayford Oleary:** Thank you, Mayor. Yes, it was really the hardest thing, picking between great candidates. I will read the list of our appointments now and thank you to three of our new members for coming to the meeting tonight. **[00:19:45] Sean Hayford Oleary:** - Advisory Board of Health: Marcel Johnson, Rebecca Case, and Rachel Decker (Alternate: Jim Mahoney). - Arts Commission: Christina Clawson, Stephanie Jacobson, and Eric Banuk. - Civil Services Commission: Jeffrey Brusek. - Community Service Commission: David Sperling, Susie Lutenegger, Grace Bronan McCarthy, Tessa Johnson, and Husia Dent Bradley (Alternate: Kimberly Land). - Human Rights Commission: Michael Zera, Dana Spec, Timothy Garvey, and Chris Axelson (Alternate: Tyler Burbach). - Planning Commission: Ben Surma and Eddie Hol Johnson (Alternate: Kelly Witell). - Sustainability Commission: Craig Heinen, Katie Boon, Christopher Donner (Alternate: Alexa Wosnac). - Transportation Commission: Lou Zac, Stella Yang, and Brendan Kista (Alternate: Jacob Olen). I move the motion that we appoint the list I just read. **[00:20:45] Ben Whan:** I'll second that. **[00:20:46] Mary Supple:** It's been moved and seconded. Any further comments? Council Member Whan. **[00:20:50] Ben Whan:** Just again want to echo a thank you. We have a lot of very eager and very talented people. This year was one of the harder ones to decide who could fill the limited spots. So thank you to everyone who applied. **[00:21:05] Mary Supple:** Any further comments or questions? All in favor please say "Aye." **[00:21:10] City Council (Unison):** Aye. **[00:21:11] Mary Supple:** All opposed? And we have appointed the Commissioners. Congratulations. Next, we will move on to the City Manager's report. **[00:21:18] Katie Rodriguez:** No additional updates. **[00:21:20] Mary Supple:** Claims and payroll. **[00:21:22] Sean Hayford Oleary:** I would move claims and payroll. **[00:21:23] Sharon Christensen:** Second. **[00:21:24] Mary Supple:** It's been moved and seconded to approve claims and payroll. Is there any discussion? All in favor please say "Aye." **[00:21:30] City Council (Unison):** Aye. **[00:21:31] Mary Supple:** All opposed? And we have approved claims and payroll. We'll start off "Hats Off to Hometown Hits" by turning it over to Council Member Christensen, who has a report for us from the National League of Cities. **[00:21:45] Sharon Christensen:** Thank you, Mayor. I just wanted to give a "hats off" to my colleagues who approved and voted favorably for me to attend this conference down in Tampa, Florida, a few weeks ago. It was very interesting to see cities of our size, smaller cities, and larger cities talking about varying issues very similar to what we're dealing with here—the unhoused, immigration, human rights. As Richfield is considered a "first-tier" city, they were talking about how we need to protect our infrastructure and housing to keep people staying in the city without moving further out. I would highly recommend that our new council people might be interested in going to this in the future. **[00:22:30] Mary Supple:** Does anyone have any questions? Thank you for that report. Council Member Whan. **[00:22:35] Ben Whan:** Just to say Happy Thanksgiving, everyone. That's all I got today. **[00:22:40] Sean Hayford Oleary:** I was gonna give hats off to the participants in the Safe Routes to School virtual retreat. We got to talk about a lot of Safe Routes to School issues; we're finally starting to see some of that concrete stuff on the ground on 71st Street. It's just great to see a bunch of people both from the city and the school district at that event. **[00:23:05] Mary Supple:** I'd like to do a "hats off" to a group called Every Meal. Residents from a lot of different groups here in Richfield got together and packed bags with meals to leave in children's lockers on Friday so they have something to eat over the weekend. It's done quietly while the kids are in class. The other thing is I was able this past week to go to an Eagle Scout ceremony for two of our Richfield residents. It was really cool to see the kids at the end of that journey. Hats off to all the Boy and Girl Scouts that are out there. **[00:23:45] Mary Supple:** And with that, we have finished our business. Is there a motion to adjourn the meeting? **[00:23:50] Sean Hayford Oleary:** So moved. **[00:23:51] Sharon Christensen:** Second. **[00:23:52] Mary Supple:** It's been moved and seconded to adjourn the meeting. All in favor please say "Aye." **[00:23:56] City Council (Unison):** Aye. **[00:23:57] Mary Supple:** All opposed? We stand adjourned. Thank you.