[0:00] Jennifer Arsenault (Mayor): an address on it, then these fine gentlemen up here will answer them for you after their presentation. So, I'd like to welcome you and I thank you for coming in on this beautiful day. Really wonderful. How are we doing? [1:02] Jennifer Arsenault (Mayor): [Music] All right, let's try that again. Thank you for joining us this evening. It's wonderful to see all of you here. I am so glad you came to hear about the different options available for Birchwood. Um, I'd like to begin by introducing those who will be speaking this evening. I'm Jennifer Arsenault, mayor of Birwood. This is Marcus Johnson, our city engineer, and Scott Hildebrand, our very brand new city administrator. Yay. Um, we are very pleased to have Mr. Hildebrand join the team of public servants here in Birwood Village. Scott brings 25 plus years of experience in local government. He has worked for the League of Kansas Municipalities where he traveled the state and helped many small cities with limited budgets address a variety of issues. He also brings with him over 12 years of city administrator experience. I suspect his expertise will be extremely beneficial to our city. So, I'm grateful to have both of these fine gentlemen here working for Bertwood. [2:14] Jennifer Arsenault (Mayor): I have heard some residents who are concerned about the cost and scope of infrastructure upgrades, and I appreciate that. They're big projects. They cost a lot of money. The previous council passed a road improvement plan, which is the current plan being followed. I asked Marcus if before we proceed with the current road plan and storm water management, if we should consider replacing the water manes, and that is where this alternate option originated. [2:45] Jennifer Arsenault (Mayor): This option may be more beneficial to the residents of Birwood. I will be asking council next week if they think it would be worthwhile to have a task force look at the current plan and this new option to garner their opinion and feedback. The last open house was to gather input from residents about the issues they see in the city having to do with the storm water runoff and the options to handle that. This town hall will address this new option and its costs. For the past month, Mr. Johnson has been researching grants and pulling together numerous numbers for us to make an informed decision. Mr. Hildebrand hit the ground running and on his first official day in Bertwood met with a financial advisor who works with many cities to finance capital improvement plans. I have spoken with mayors in the area to see what they have been doing in their cities with regard to a aging infrastructure. Marcos will get into the details of the option, but the basic overview is that the current road plan goes out about 30 years with some roads being completely rebuilt and others being milled and overlaid and keeping the batuminous curve, which is what we currently have. The total cost to the residents would be over $11 million. If we choose to go with the new option, the city could get a new water mane, new leads to residents homes, new rebuilt roads from the ground up, concrete gutters, and storm water management for around $3 million. [4:15] Jennifer Arsenault (Mayor): When Marcus presented that information to me, I couldn't believe it. That's an $8 million difference between our current plan and this new option where we could get so much more. Some have asked about the lifespan of water manes and when they should be replaced. As a reference point, Madameidi started replacing their water manes over 10 years ago. When we or if we choose to replace the water manes, they have a life expectancy of 80 to 100 years. As elected officials, it is our responsibility to plan for today and for the future of our city. We are right now reaping the benefits of those who came before us with their plans for the building, for the parks, and for the easements. It is standard practice for a city to have a capital improvement plan. Plans that go out five, 10, 20 years that cover roads, parks, and playgrounds, water manes, etc. It is important for taking care of our infrastructure and for being fiscally responsible to residents by planning for and spreading the cost out over many years. [5:32] Jennifer Arsenault (Mayor): With that being said, the for format for this evening will be to have Mr. Johnson re review the current road plan, its cost, scope, and timeline. He will then present the new option which includes replacement of the city's water manes. When Mr. Johnson has finished, Mr. Hildebrand will address the financing piece of the projects. To be efficient with our time, please jot down any questions you may you may have along with your name and address. I will collect them and have Mr. Hildebrand and Mr. Johnson answer them. At that time, if you have a follow-up question, you will have an opportunity to ask it. The purpose of this town hall is to disseminate information and answer questions about the optional plan. If you have other concerns you'd like to discuss, please reach out to me. I am here almost every afternoon. I'm available by phone and I am available by email. We value resident input. We value resident feedback. We want to hear from you. Do not be afraid to come talk to me personally. We want to do what's best for you. With that being said, go ahead, Mr. Johnson. Hit it. [6:38] Marcus Johnson (City Engineer): Is this Is this It is working this time. Thanks, Jennifer. So, I'm sorry you guys can't see this. I'm sorry you can't see the screen the greatest. Um, each everything that I have on the computer today is right in front of us. So, my goal today is just kind of briefly talk about what you're even looking at here, right? kind of like last time of what's on each sheet, why you're looking at it, and then at the end, you know, we'll have a Q&A and then just have a discussion um kind of walking through each one of these if any questions have or whatnot. [7:12] Marcus Johnson (City Engineer): So, the verse she sheet up on the screen and then on that first table, that's what we're proposing for this year's project. So, we had the drainage issue on Oakidge's Drive and the ultimate the ultimate thing assuming um we proceed with this water man project is to mitigate the drainage issues. Um so in the top right corner um looking at the screen right in here those black dots those are rough areas of where we're proposing to uh put ditches in. So, I'll field mark these for the residents that it affects, but essentially we're going to be the road grades really flat there. It's not not what today's standards are. Um, so the water comes down the hill screaming and it stops there because it's the road starts slowing down. So, temporary basis, we're going to put ditches in. It's going to vary based on the utilities and make sure we're not uncovering stuff that we don't want to uncover. So, it'll have to be a field fit ordeal. Um, and then we're going to patch in the asphalt curb. [8:15] Marcus Johnson (City Engineer): Um, further down the stretch, there's significantly more grade there. And it's just going to be milling overlay kind of expecting us to get another 10 years, which I'll get to later, of why we're looking at that, and um, kind of mitigate that corner of the city while we look at other parts of the city. So generally it's just going to be a an inch and a half o millon overlay across where we ended last year to um the end of both culvis sacks and then the ditching will be partially on this project and partially on last year's project. Um just again I'll I'll stake these out in the field. Um, and then with any questions or concerns and stuff, it's I call it a ditch, but in total it's going to be six inches deep and the base of it 3 ft wide. So, um, there's examples in town that I can point out of where it it once it's seated and the grass is growing, you won't even notice that it's there. And then beyond that, we're just mitigating broken batuminous curb and then it'll be a new mat on top. Any questions with that? Price-wise, it it we're roughly at $105,000. So, that's roughly the budget that we're kind of looking at without any increases and stuff. [9:49] Audience Member: So, at the last open house, we had feedback that it would be helpful to have the robotics. Uh, so good question. What is robotics? [10:33] Marcus Johnson (City Engineer): So, I think it was in 2023, we sent someone to out on a vehicle. They scanned Yep. 2023. They scanned every all of our roads, all 4.2 miles, and gave um pavement rating. So, you can see the red are going to be there, your your issues that you're kind of working working out. um the potholes are showing up some stress cracks or cracks whether it's horizont horizont or longitudinally or uh transversely um those kind of things. Um and so this has kind of been the basis of how the CIP started um for those that don't know. The next two as I mentioned there are CIP plan. So this this is that next one on the first second table first map. That's what shows the milling overlays. The reclaim, reshape and repave. Um so the milling overlay is what happened on the culac last year. The reclaim, reshape, and repave is what happened on like four or five oaks lane for example. And then crack fill and seal coat. I mean, that's where we're throwing asphalt material in the cracks and then seal coating it over top. And then yeah, then the last one is the years proposed at at this state. [12:10] Marcus Johnson (City Engineer): Um this [Music] Yep. Yep. So on this one, the colors represent each year. Um, and again, these are all up front. I'm I'm kind of just laying the groundwork out of what's on the tables. So, the green is 2024 yellow. Yep. Blue, the dark blue is 2026. Orange is 2027. 2033 to 2034. And this hasn't been updated since last April, so a year ago. And that's I think Jennifer kind of hit on that. We're going to be looking at updating this again because like Oakch's dry for example, we didn't have that this part done until 2030. So we're pushing that up because that's a a a high high issue right now. And then we have to adjust accordingly from there. So the second and third sheet, this has a cost. I believe this is still on the city's website. [13:59] Jennifer Arsenault (Mayor): 11 million. Okay. So this is the original that Marcus is going through this one with all the robotics information on it. Do you have the mic still Jennifer? So, this is the original um road plan that we're following currently. This is what Marcus is talking about in the years that it's going to occur. I just want to go back to this uh road roads thing. When you come up and look, you'll see that the red areas are the worst areas in town. If we followed this original road plan, I got the $11 million by adding up all the costs it would be over the years from well today until 2034 11 million. Okay. 34 36. Yeah, I can't can't read that either. 363. [14:58] Audience Member: Are you sure it's 11 million? [15:00] Jennifer Arsenault (Mayor): I am. I added it up those 10 years to 1136. That's the plan that was passed last year. [15:08] Audience Member: Is any of this available on the city website? Can we download this? [15:15] Jennifer Arsenault (Mayor): Yes. Download this. Yeah. And I can make you copies too if you want. I'm going to put together all this information in a handout and mail it to your houses so you can also review it at home. Okay. Sorry, Marcus. [15:30] Marcus Johnson (City Engineer): Oh, here. Okay. So last open house we kind of people were wondering well what this is what we're talk or we're talking about doing a 26 2028 project what's the whole city look like right so since then we've kind of looked at you know as the whole city trying to phase this out and similar sizes so funding um it's going to be um enticing for funding and then um trying to, you know, get through town in a reasonable matter without the whole town being ripped up. So the pink right here, this is going to be the first phase. And again, this is up front. We can we can talk about this past this. This is potential. This is potential. Yep. I mean, if if there's more issues that come up or changes or whatnot, please feel free to send them to me or the city. [16:40] Audience Member: And why are we here? Is there is there extensive water leakage from our current system? Um why are we here? What why is this relevant to how we're experiencing our water delivery right now? [17:06] Jennifer Arsenault (Mayor): Do you want to hit that now or later? I I can hit it too if you'd like, but Okay. Like I was saying earlier, I was reviewing the current roads plan with Marcus. And while we were reviewing it, I just asked him, "Well, if we're going to put all these new roads down, does it make sense to address the water man?" The water manes in town were installed in 1962. They're not going to last forever. These roads that we're doing here will last 50 years. So between now and the next 50 years, we're going to have to replace the water manes. So in talking with Marcus about it, I said, "Well, let's explore what the cost would be." And he did. And he came up with grant money, which is the difference. [18:05] Jennifer Arsenault (Mayor): So, this potential optional program, we haven't decided anything yet. I want to make that clear. Um, Marcus found three different grants. One to address the storm water issues in the city, one to address the replacement of water lines, and one to replace your portion that goes or the homeowner's portion that goes between the city water mane and your shut off in your front yard or your driveway or whatever it is. That would all be replaced because it has to do with water. We can get a lot of grant money. So when we were talking about it and we crunched the numbers, it would be the three million, but we would get all this new infrastructure and brand new roads. Bottom up, brand new roads, not milling overlay, brand new. It just didn't make sense to me. It wasn't logical to me to have us continue with a roads plan, putting brand new roads in place and continue to have water mane breaks where we go in and we tear up the road and then we have to fix the road. So the difference, you know, that $8 million just it really stuck out in my head like why are we doing this? Why not go for it for three instead of pay 11 and get not much? Yes. [19:20] Audience Member: Maybe you'll talk about this later, but I'm just wondering what kind of grants you're talking about because Northfield has just disallowed all the grants they applied for and they have contaminated water. So, I'm just wondering what kind of gr a lot of this has been frozen. So, is this something that you have a lot of confidence you'd actually get at this time? [19:44] Jennifer Arsenault (Mayor): Marcus, is that— [19:46] Marcus Johnson (City Engineer): Yeah. Um, so PFA, they have both water main replacement grants and then the part that I guess I haven't told Jennifer yet is they also have a water service replacement. So since the water man was put in in the 60s, none of this can be grandfathered in to be up to code essentially. That's why you guys have been getting mailer after mailer of the lead service inventory stuff and I understand everyone's sick of that, right? But um, for water loss... [20:20] Audience Member: We have significant water loss. No. None. Is there not water loss? Such thing as a leak proof pipe. [20:30] Marcus Johnson (City Engineer): I can't hear it. What did you say? [20:38] Jennifer Arsenault (Mayor): We have—I I kind of wanted you to finish your presentation before we just start throwing these questions. [20:44] Marcus Johnson (City Engineer): Yeah. finish up and then we'll do that. Okay. So, the summary of this sheet is we're looking at working from the city outside of the city in. So, we're hitting the edge of the the edge of Birwood right along here with the first phase that would be in 20 26 to 2028. Then we'd be looking at the light blue. So, continuing on and then hitting the Culvisac while we bring the new water pipes toward Cedar, hitting the orange um lake right now is in pretty good shape. So, I was trying to push that off as long as I could and and then hitting the remainder of the road right outside and then hitting what we're just got done talking about last before cedar. And some are going to ask why are we doing cedar last? And that is the the road that all the all of the trucks, all the construction equipment are going to come in and out on. So, it doesn't make sense to do it anywhere else but last when it takes all the abuse. [21:45] Marcus Johnson (City Engineer): And then I did add a for sure one year or no, I added two years looks like um of public communication of letting everyone know that I mean Cedar is going to be a big shutdown. Well, it's not going to be able to be shut down, but the amount we're going to be doing, we're going to need to have a lot of public communication. Um letting the county know all this stuff takes time. So I I pushed that out a few more years. So this is the same map that we saw last open house. This would be the current area of um what's proposed for next year's project. And again, so sorry I forgot to hit on the cost. $14.3 million is what it's going to cost to replace the water man. Now, if we choose to not do it for 10 years, I mean, the the price is what it is. It doesn't matter if it's going to be starting today or starting 10 years down the line. Um, the only thing you got to factor in is inflation. [23:05] Audience Member: what did you inflation the construction cost? because don't tell that for 10 years from now you get that certain unit for the same price as you got it 10 years prior. So I haven't finally this project and I don't— [23:25] Marcus Johnson (City Engineer): really good question. It is not 14.3 million is if we were today to go through and replace all every single water man in town. That's not including inflation because I I'm not an economist. I don't know what inflation's going to be when we're bidding cedar out in 2040. So, it's it's today's cost. So, you know, if this gets delayed 5 years, I I I couldn't tell you. [23:55] Audience Member: No, the only question I had that just looked at the very briefly the inflation roughly the construction in Minnesota for the last 5 to 10 years is about 5 to 7%. Y so if you it's a you know it's a very basic R70 is going to basically double. So I was just wondering if you postpone it for another 7 to 10 years, you're going to what you present those numbers are and you're probably not going to be here anymore, but those are going to be at least double. So we have to pay significant more. [24:34] Marcus Johnson (City Engineer): Yep. And we also don't know if the funding is going to be what funding is going to be available or or anything like that. So good question. Um, so kind of getting back to what Jennifer was talking about as far as costwise goes to date, you know, 14.3 million. Birchwood Village, um, would be looking at 2.9 million out of this. And then the PFA funding potential, um, assuming, you know, that we proceed with this and keep going, would be the 10.8 million that's funded, right? And then the Rice Creek Wershed District, they've had a revolving storm water grant um for quite a while now. And um across the projects um I'm looking at getting 600,000 from there roughly. [25:25] Marcus Johnson (City Engineer): So what are we looking at for ne for proposing for next year? So the area is in pink. That's roughly um this would be a 2026 to 2028 project. Um I'm kind of it's gonna have to be phased. So Wildwood I imagine is going to be one year and then Birchwood Village is going to be sorry um Birwood A is the next year and then the final course of paving would then go down in 2028. Everything underground would be done in the first two years um roughly and then the last layer of asphalt would go down in the third year um to kind of let all the settling come out and stuff like that. I'll I'll save you the details of the boring neess. [26:14] Marcus Johnson (City Engineer): Yeah. Yep. Yep. So, like for this year, that's part of the reason why I don't have set locations for the ditching because um there's going to be utility meet or quite a few of them to make sure that we're not conflicting them and we're getting the job done that we're trying to accomplish. Yeah. So, Excel um in this first location, they'll have a handful of relocations. Um do they there's quite a few steel gas main in town. Um and they're already planning on relocating some of that. The power-wise, I'm still kind of talking with those guys. Um they don't have any set plans yet, but gas will be right in front of us to get it out of the or get it out of the contractor's way. um and then be new services and and everything like that. [27:19] Marcus Johnson (City Engineer): But that doesn't include in this cost because that would be that's Excel doing it. Um and yeah, lines... [27:26] Audience Member: then they're digging up the road again. Yep. Yep. So they don't coordinate the gas and the electric then they're digging up the road twice. I used to work for Excel. I've seen it happen where the total lacks of planning by both Excel and the city was totally ridiculous because they dug up the same road three or four times. [28:05] Marcus Johnson (City Engineer): Yeah. Yep. And I know for at least this next phase, uh they're kind of just waiting for the city's green light to to keep going with the funding and stuff for this this project and they're going to um maybe even hit it this year. So they just need to know what what we're moving forward with with the plan before they do it. Total cost 4 million. Um assuming that the funding works out uh because this this project does rely on funding, right? Um Birch Villages total project cost would be 800,000. Um that's just for these two roads here. Just these two roads, right? Yep. And it's because of the population density. Yeah. There's a lot of services um in this area. A lot of services. And then having the split road um where it's just one way, you have two water manes, two roads to maintain. But so the PFA funding that I'm proposing would um cover approximately 3 million and then the Rice Creek wershed district grant would be 172,000. Um, yep. This is all obviously contingent on getting a funding approval and um those future conversations, but that is roughly what I'm looking at at at this moment. [29:26] Audience Member: is there any limit within the say the bylaws or the city resolutions village as to how much money can the city council approve for spending without going to the people that live in the city for a vote? [29:47] Jennifer Arsenault (Mayor): Let let's let these guys finish their presentation and we'll I'll come back and you can ask that question again so we can hear you on mic otherwise the people that are watching won't be able to hear you. [30:02] Marcus Johnson (City Engineer): I have the AC here so I'm having a hard time hearing but so what what's this covering right so sanitary sewer was lined a handful of years ago and we've been looking at you know s well originally it was going to be services within the rightway but um as of Thursday um PFA changed and now they if they're going to be funding it, they want the whole service replaced. Um, so that's another detail that what they'll kind of work through, but it'd be the whole service all the way from the water man. And then if you have a good material coming out of your house, you won't have to have a plumber inside. But if you have like ductile iron or lead mainly are the two that are coming into your house, um a plumber would have to come in and then plum it. Um it's usually to the meter to the meter and then put a approved material. So that's that's what PFA pays for as well, right? That was grant funding as well. So it's not going to cost residents anything to have that replaced. Like if you have lead pipes. [31:17] Marcus Johnson (City Engineer): Yeah. They want to know if the grants are guaranteed. Well, I mean, we got to get a we have to apply and then get it approved. But yeah, we we have a handful. Obviously, we wouldn't proceed if we didn't get the grant. I mean, we're not going to shell out $14 million. So yeah, we would have to get we have to submit a plan before we can get a apply for grants. Not going to get the grant unless we have a plan. So we got the plan, then we're going to apply for the grants. Get the grants. We're not going forward. Anoka's been doing this for two years. Forest Lakes starting this year. I know of probably another five communities that are doing the same exact thing. Um so the lead service inventory stuff doesn't look like it's going away. They're still mandating the cities to update their uh maps and this year uh there'll be more funding to start doing curb stop checks. Um but if we proceed with this, they will just put the money where it towards replacement rather than having someone come in and dig down at each curb stop. [32:31] Marcus Johnson (City Engineer): So talked about the the funding for the services. The water mane um is would be funded as well. And then with that replacement of those two, the area that you would need to dig up the water main and services. So that would be the, you know, the parts of the road, any curbs, um yards, that'll all be funded through PFA for replacement as well. [33:16] Jennifer Arsenault (Mayor): So that's kind of where Jennifer's saying that road costs would also be uh covered as well. That's going to save us $8 million because they'll cover it. We don't have to pay that because we're doing the water. The only way we can get our roads paid for is by doing the water mane. That's why we're going where we're trying to figure out cheaper ways to get our roads done because I know everybody wants new roads. That's what we heard over and over again. So, we were exploring cheaper ways to get to that conclusion and that's what we came up with. So, yeah. Who what are you asking me? They what? What did I just say? Oh, okay. Marcus, do you want to address that? [34:01] Marcus Johnson (City Engineer): Yeah. Um, Department of Health is the main one. Um, both at a state level. So, the state's actually a little bit more strict than the federal is, but um, federally, yes. Um, as you guys have said, the federal funding is uh frozen at the time being, but the state still has their funding and they're still proceeding to continue to keep funding stuff. [34:36] Audience Member: So, predict that starting this year 2025 we're going to make deficits. So all the forgoing projects going either frozen or postponed. So just an FYI. [34:52] Marcus Johnson (City Engineer): Yeah. If they're offering funding then I I don't see a reason why the city should at least try because if they're going to get funding to some city then I why not Birchwood Village I guess would be the question, right? But again we're not going to go forward unless they need funding for this. there's there's no point to to do it. It's not in the budget at the moment. We I mean, but anyways, so at the last open house, we had some questions about, you know, curb why carbon gutter, why ditching? Uh there's I mean, we've known that there's drainage issues across the whole city. I mean, I looked at a handful of them today even. So, a little bit better example of the curb and gutter that we're looking at is more of a driveover curb. So, if you can see my mouse, it's going to it's going to be more drive over than what the B style what I showed last time. And I mean, we're not going everywhere, right? The drainage areas, they're not changing. [36:03] Marcus Johnson (City Engineer): And just for some examples. Right, this is the picture on the left is I think it's a block and a half away from Birwood Village and then the picture on the right is right down the hill of an area that could would benefit from having curb gutter. Um there's at the moment how wildwood sits, it drains right down the edge and I mean we've seen the erosion, right? We we filled in the holes that it erodess away. That that's all going to help with the curb and gutter. Um adding to it, we're not going to have to replace it every year like the patumus curb when it gets hit by a plow. We might have to replace it when we do mill and overlays just spot replacement, right, of concrete cracking or or or we not I mean it's up to the city in that time. But um that's just an example. We had got some feedback last time of seeing an example of where it would benefit to have curbon gutter, right? [37:07] Marcus Johnson (City Engineer): So then we had quite a bit of feedback of ditching, right? And wanting to see what that would look like. Um, and so like in Oakidge Drive, it's going to be roughly at three to four foot bottom wide where we can fit it. It's all going to be, you know, this is all just cookie cutter for you guys' reference. And a depth, you know, anywhere from, this says a foot and a half, but I did a a half a foot. Um, it's going to depend on, you know, your slope and what volume we need to hold. But that's going to be roughly what the ditching looks like. I mean, we have it on Cedar and spots. Um, I did take a picture of Oakidge Drive and this one could really go both ways. Um, you know, we could have ditching on each side of this or we could have concrete curb and gutter to help um to help get the drainage down there. [38:15] Jennifer Arsenault (Mayor): So, and I think that's pretty much all I had to present. Let's have um Mr. Hild debrand there talk about the research he's done and then we'll come and get your questions. [38:19] Audience Member: boundaries of the you know what are the boundaries of that and you have a picture of drive but you don't know where is that drive— [38:33] Marcus Johnson (City Engineer): roughly it's at the end of uh the median and then uh for Wildwood at least all the way to the east east county line yeah and then as far Whereas the road right outside, same same starting spot and then go all the way to just short of Cedar. So we we'd end at a spot where specifically like right out front here where it's going to be close where we're not shutting down cedar or any of that traffic, but we're not going to have to redig into either street really, you know, more than 5 10 feet to then hook up to the water man and continue. [39:23] Scott Hildebrand (City Administrator): I'm I'm going to back up and cover a little bit more of a holistic approach or educational and fantastic job guys. When you plan projects, the problem is a lot of times we think this is our project. This is set in stone and ultimately you have to be open-minded. You have to be flexible. So the plan which was presented from Bolton and Mink is here's a problem. Let's do our road rating system. And as we're doing our road rating system, what needs replaced this year? What needs next year? Is this Miller overlay? Is this a total replace? It exactly what was proposed. Our mayor was being open-minded saying, "Well, wait a minute. What about these waterline breaks? How can we help fund this?" Because ultimately, you need this capital improvement plan. You need to think about the big picture. This isn't just a road. What's underneath the road? Is it electric? Is it gas? Are there other issues? [40:24] Scott Hildebrand (City Administrator): You know, right now, as you're well aware, you know, lead pipes that go up to your house are a big thing for the state. And ultimately, even as we sit back and consider it, what options are there? Are there loans? Are there grants? You know, what is the state pushing? What is federal pushing? You have to be open-minded. You have to be flexible. So, while a grant may be available this year, it may not be available next year. Three years from now, it may be back. So, we're presenting this tonight, but I don't want anybody scared of, oh, this has to follow through 100% as presented. We've got to be flexible because it may take 7 10 years to complete this. [41:01] Scott Hildebrand (City Administrator): But ultimately, when you think about capital improvement plans and how do we want the city to look 10 years from now, ultimately what do you want? Good roads. What do you want to know underneath here? That your infrastructure, your waterline pipes, they're not going to break for the next hundred years. gas manes that they're not going to tear up the road to replace a gas man that electric is running there. So that's part of why we're here tonight is to look at that holistic approach. So funding sources as we go back again that's why you have staff that's why you have your engineering staff that's why you have city staff that's always out there looking for different funding sources. People change. You get different people in the state. to get different people in the federal and different funding sources open up. So you may be at a deficit one year, the next year there may be a surplus and it's being on top of that and I think that's exactly what we're trying to accomplish here. [41:48] Scott Hildebrand (City Administrator): So, are there options? Can the city go and do this all in one year? No. That's something that would go in front of the voters and absolutely. If we were going to do $11 million in one year, we would expect you to vote no. But do you want great roads? Do you want to know that your water is not going to break? Do you want to know that all this infrastructure is not going to be replaced right away? Absolutely. That's something you deserve. You know what? Why do you love your community? Why do you want to be here for many years? Because you know that these are the basic amenities that we have to offer. And it makes sense. So that's why you have your engineers that have that open mind. That's why you have the mayor that's looking for what are some other funding options. You know, we're here to look at those funding options to be open-minded. They may not always happen one year. And I've always told staff and other people I've worked with in the past, no doesn't mean no never. It means no. We can't do it this year, but next year we can afford it. [42:54] Scott Hildebrand (City Administrator): So ultimately, yeah, by presenting funding options and loans or whatever, um there's the ability to bond for this and it may be through an assessment. It may be something that is shared over time that is paid for by each resident over the course of maybe 10 years. There's grants that we may get this grant this year. we may get this grant the next year. Ultimately, if you come back and you show one specific entity that, hey, we tackled this chunk this year, they will give you a second grant that next year, they will give you that second grant maybe that third or fourth year. So, it's being creative and ultimately you've got to trust that your engineers working for you, that staff is working for you. The city council is not going to just jump into this whole, you know, whole hog without having a plan as to how to pay for it. They live here as well. and they can't afford this any more than you can. [43:41] Scott Hildebrand (City Administrator): But through that wise planning, through how can we properly fund this, how can this be great for everybody? So, I don't know that I have a whole lot more to add other than again from from outside experience. You know, I think the mayor, the council have done a good job with looking at other options. Obviously, your engineers done his due diligence. Uh we're happy really to address any questions that you may have, but it's something that you have to be open-minded. You have to realize most ultimately that the plan's not set in stone. That what we may hope to accomplish this year may ultimately be three years down the line, but your ultimate goal is one to get rid of the lead water lines to eliminate the water line breaks. You may not have leaking coming through there, but if you have old water lines, they're going to break eventually. I'd rather replace it with a water line that's going to last a hundred years than a six-y old line that's going to, you know, end up breaking and we have to tear open the road to fix that. So, it's it's ways of just being smart about your planning. It's ways about thinking about your capital improvement plan for the city to invest those funds and reinvest those funds so that you can keep the city great. [44:51] Audience Member: Can I just interject a quick question? We're talking about the water drakes. Is that because the pipe is old and it's failing? [45:00] Scott Hildebrand (City Administrator): So, water breaking because it's old. Are the water manes breaking because they're failing um due to age or are they failing because they're freezing or a variety of reasons? Water lines break for a variety of reasons. I'll I won't speak for the engineer, but maybe it's age. Sure. You know, you have heave through the frost. You have a variety of things. Sure. Sure. But understanding um what understanding uh the broader picture about why we do this project and when we do the different projects for a small community like Birwood um we need to understand a lot of those ancillary things. So if we're fixing water mains because they're old mostly always um because they're failing or are we fixing them because um because they're old I I would say a I would say a variety of reasons, but what I will say is your new technology with with the newer pipes that they have, they are meant to last many many years. So through the heave, through the thaw. [45:53] Audience Member: Are you an engineer? [45:55] Scott Hildebrand (City Administrator): They're meant to last. I've been through the experience. I'm an attorney by nature. [46:12] Audience Member: Are you an engineer? [46:13] Scott Hildebrand (City Administrator): I'm an attorney by nature and I've worked on many of these projects. I'll let the engineer answer if you like, but I've been through many of these projects over the past 20 years. Wastewater treatment, I can tell you all about that. Water treatment, I can tell you a lot about that. I'm always happy to talk about stuff. [46:20] Jennifer Arsenault (Mayor): I don't I don't think it's a question. Go ahead. Uh we have a question from John Anderson to White Pine Lane. Uh we need a task force to work through what we really need and don't need. Yet it seems like everyone is against this. Why? Uh, by the way, an open mic would have would be easier than these slips. So, yeah, we are going to task force. If the council approves it, what was the question? The the question was if we were going to form a task force, um, we will be forming a task force. um if the community determines that they would like to continue looking at this option. Um this is also from John John Anderson. Why haven't we heard any cost solid concrete cost yet? But it seems like we're close to being told all this is going to happen as we've stated through the meeting. It's not a definite yet. So I'll answer that one. [47:48] Jennifer Arsenault (Mayor): Another from John Anderson. Sewers are okay, water system is okay. Roads need a lot of attention, but why do we need these huge expensive projects in this bad economy when nobody can afford them? Um, I believe we're planning ahead is what we're trying to do here. Also, it's cheap. Also, I'll just say it again. If we go with this original roads plan, it's going to cost us 11 million because there is no grant funding for replacement of roads. If we replace the water man, it's going to cost us three million because there are grants for replacement of water. [48:13] Audience Member: Did you look at not doing anything with the roads and not spending the money? [48:16] Jennifer Arsenault (Mayor): Um, no. That we cannot do. No, we're responsible um for the infrastructure and to keep the city functioning and so doing nothing is not an option. Next question is why are we not seeking a second opinion? This is Tom Pauly one hall. [48:43] Scott Hildebrand (City Administrator): You know, let me get back to the funding also and the thinking ahead of time. Why I preach capital improvement plans is when you think about your personal finance, do you just go out and do buy a vehicle and make payments or do you plan on it ahead of time? A lot of cities don't have the ability to go in debt. they don't have the ability to get loans. So, they save that $10,000 over the course of four years, whatever it may be, and then suddenly they can buy that new vehicle. And that's quite similar with road projects, with weight, you know, with water lines, whatever. One thing the city has not done in the past is save money each year towards capital needs. And that's something that is very important. So, it's important in this case to while the economy may be bad, no matter the economy, you're always trying to save a little bit of money. Maybe when the economy is bad, you save less money, but ultimately you're trying to save a little bit so that when you need that, it is there and it's not quite the hit of this cost. You're still looking for alternative funding through the grants and whatnot. [49:50] Audience Member: Can you repeat it real quick? Um, next one. I don't have a name on it, but 430 seeking a second opinion. So, so when I get back to the second opinion, are you—what's your opinion? Are the roads great? You're talking about doing things other than the roads. And additionally, you keep talking about grants, you don't have— [50:06] Scott Hildebrand (City Administrator): You don't have the grants yet. [50:11] Audience Member: And yet you're talking about well, even if we don't have the grants, I can I'm asking two simple questions. Do you like the roots here? The roads need to be fixed, but we're doing more than that. Okay. No. Okay. That's first. Don't have the grand. Do you love the drinking water here? There's nothing wrong with the drinking water. Do you even live here? [50:33] Jennifer Arsenault (Mayor): Excuse me. No. No. No. No. We're not doing that. No. No. No. We are going to have civil discourse. You are not going to be yelling at—Nope. No. You're not going to be yelling at our city employee. What? You need to be polite. You need to be polite. You need to be polite, correct? [50:42] Scott Hildebrand (City Administrator): And my apologies. I I don't want to come across as condescending. What I'm trying to make clear is we're coming up with a plan. Nobody is here tonight saying we are spending this money tomorrow. We are here saying we are applying for grants. We are saying here's an option. Here's a way that we can accomplish this. But we have to look at the holistic picture. If the city fixes the roads and all we do is fix the roads, $11 million. However, if the city looks at the holistic picture, if you look at 60-y old water pipes that are going to break that again that need fixed, not just water pipes or gas pipes, maybe it's phone lines, maybe it's whatever that's all under there. We fix the the base, we go up, we fix our roads. It's going to be much less expensive. This will last many, many more years. We're trying to be wise with this. We're not saying we're going to spend the money now. We're saying we're applying for grants. We're looking for options. So, no, we're not spending the money now. We're looking at options. [51:47] Jennifer Arsenault (Mayor): I can address the portion about a second opinion. When we actually go out to request bids for things, we get options. We've never ever done one option for fixing anything. convinced 11,000 million. It's a it's an estimate for sure at this point, but if we haven't decided if we're even going to apply for the grants and we don't know if we're going to get those if if we apply for the grants, we don't get the money. We're not proceeding. [52:21] John Anderson (Resident): What's the cost all in on the application on the grant application? What's what kind of money are we talking about for the back of what we've seen presented here and all the work that's been done? How much are we? [52:36] Jennifer Arsenault (Mayor): Let me get this recorded here. So, um John is asking um what is the cost for actually doing the grant portion right now? How much are we into this or the grant application? Two questions I guess. Sure. Both be great. [52:53] Marcus Johnson (City Engineer): Okay. Into this I don't have me. I guess I haven't calculated my hours. But for the grant application, Rice Creek is the grant itself maybe takes about an hour. They then upon looking at your application, they ask for modeling and stuff like that and you'd be looking at maybe a day's worth of work roughly. Um, and then for the PFA funding that application, there's two of them. each take about half hour um a piece. So an hour total. Uh so like $150 for the for the two PFA applications. [53:30] Jennifer Arsenault (Mayor): And then Jennifer, I'm I'm just going to— [53:33] Mary Wingfield (Resident): May I borrow the mic for a minute? Because I I know this is Mary Wingfield, 7:30 Birchwood Avenue, and I know you started out the meeting saying it would be $11 million to fix our roads. And I mean, you and I ran on that issue and and my idea was to pay them all at once. And your campaign said, "Hey, if Mary does it her way, it's going to be 700,000." If you add up the numbers on Marcus' reports, it's 120,000, 150,000, 168,000 122,000 94,000 99,000 and 99,000 for the next 10 years. That's 857,000. It's not 11 million. And then 10 years out, you've got Paul Cedar being repaired one year, 400,000, and then it's going to be repaired again the next year, the same next year for another 400,000, which I really don't understand. Even giving you all that, you're only looking at 1.5 mil. So, it's not an 11 million project to go and overlay the roads. And I need to correct that now because it's skewing everything. [54:52] Marcus Johnson (City Engineer): I I can touch on that. So, the budget was really low when we created this. So, we we have come up with a plan to work within the budget um because that's what the last council asked for, but a mill overlay is only going to last 10 years, right? So, after 10 years, kind of like how we talked about this past year, that that road is going to have to be fully reconstructed. So the where Jennifer was going with that is the numbers show right and and the CIP plan that is giving us time to start coming up with these bigger plans to fully replace roads right I mean milling overlays your cracks show within a couple years um because it goes right through the pavement um that's just how the asphalt works right so even though the numbers only show that it's it's a bigger picture, right? That's how far out the the city is because we don't have the proper budgeting to maintain these roads. Every community I work with right now, we're working on continuing this, right? I know a couple townships right over that 50 miles, they're they are really bad, too. Uh these roads are digressing in a quicker rate than what cities and townships have planned for. And that's that's with Birwood. That's with every community in this area because it developed so fast. [56:15] Jennifer Arsenault (Mayor): All right. Next one is Kathy. I'm going to butcher your last name. Levies, three Oak View Court. If pipes are not bad, is this necessary? It seems like a solution looking for a problem. [56:31] Marcus Johnson (City Engineer): I I can touch on that. So, I think and I I I don't know if I I think we roughly spend $30,000 a year on brakes. Maybe I could be wrong about that. Um but so, you know, say we spend $30,000 a year on brakes. Well, what's it going to be in five years down the road? It's probably going to double. You know, if a water mane lasts on average 80 year or 80 years, whatever number you want to go with, right? Just like your high school classmates, right? Some are going to some are going to drop off at 20 years, 40 years. Water man's no different. [57:11] Audience Member: Like we studied that we looked at the last 10 year uh record on water mans. I don't think the last 10y I don't think the city has taken that good of notes in the last 10 years. [57:25] Jennifer Arsenault (Mayor): The city doesn't have any records available to us, but the last years that—Yeah, I do have the data for the last three years. I had Theres pull it up for me and it's approximately two to three water mane breaks a year costing about 30,000 just to fix the break itself. Um 15 each break. And then there's axillary damage as well. For example, we just had um a resident's driveway that was undercut when the water came through, you know, when the when the main breakd. So, we had to go ahead and back fill that and the the break that was on 120 on County Line Road there um when that broke in the in the winter left a huge hole. So, now we're responsible also for fixing that. So it's not just the break, it's also all the other damage it does that we are responsible for. [58:31] Audience Member: Yeah. But—Hold on. Hold on. I'm sorry. I'm talking to this man right here. 15 grand each is what you're approximately. [58:43] Jennifer Arsenault (Mayor): Yes. John all that information for the past 20 years. John knows about all the different breaks we've had. That data is available. Has anyone looked into how it will fund fund how how we'll fund what if no state federal money available? Then we don't proceed. We've answered then we don't proceed. We've answered that. Uh who determined that we need new water manes plastic? What would the new—Grab the knife. Grab the knife. What would the new mains be made out of? And are we guaranteed that they won't break? [59:22] Marcus Johnson (City Engineer): Yeah, the the mains haven't been decided yet. We haven't got that far into design, but it would either be ductile or or PVC. Those are the two that are PBC. I thought that was bad for you. P I thought it was illegal in some places. [59:45] Audience Member: Don't we have iron now? Isn't that what it—What is it now? Made out of currently. [59:49] Marcus Johnson (City Engineer): Yeah, ductal iron. Ductile iron. [59:52] Audience Member: And that's supposed to last how long? [59:53] Marcus Johnson (City Engineer): Uh well, it depends on what study you look at, right? I've been told um that they're expecting 80 to 100 years, but it depends on what study you look at. Okay. [1:00:11] Jennifer Arsenault (Mayor): uh has it been studied and compared to other infrastructure needs for Birchwood? Um I believe that's why we're having the meeting is to determine um infrastructure in general. So I'll answer that one. Has task force residents and volunteers been utilized vetted? Uh that would be a if we are interested in proceeding we would be creating a task force for sure. If needed, who would move on it? Has RFP been sent out and three to four different engineers? No, we haven't done the an RFP yet because we don't know if we're proceeding. Um, what are the competing bids? something. Um, again, it will determine what we'll get bids once we start um moving forward if we do. Um, we have one from Bill Hullisk, 290J Street. [1:01:32] Jennifer Arsenault (Mayor): What is the expected remaining life of our existing system? If we did 1962, it would be 40 years from then. So, we'd be at about 22 years. the low end, right? So you don't plan for the longest time, you plan for the shortest. So that would be 80 years. [1:01:58] Marcus Johnson (City Engineer): So one one thing too, um the 80 to 100 years that's that studies that I've seen at least those are for 8 inch water manes. So the background to that the larger water have that yeah the the longer the life lasts birchwoods is six six inch ours is a 6 in versus 8 in. Yep. So the the worst the worst case scenario um according to the studies I've seen is 20 years at the water man that 25% of the water main breaks um between 20 and 40 years and then beyond that the 50% is at 50 to 80 years. So that's you know your majority and then or the next 25% sorry 25% after that would be you know the next 20 years. So that that is something that too has been left out that 80 to 100 years is for 8 inch water mane and Birchwood village is 6 in. So it's a shorter life expectancy. [1:03:00] Jennifer Arsenault (Mayor): And just just so you guys know, Marcus can get us that information. And if there's additional information you guys want in the packet that we're going to send to everybody, we can definitely add it. [1:03:13] Marcus Johnson (City Engineer): All right. The second question on this one is what is expected life of of new pipe? Uh it would still be the eight to 80 to 100 years. PVC they don't or PVC they don't know the life expectancy of it yet because it hasn't been around, but they're expecting 100 years um or more. But um ductile iron's been around a long time. So they are pretty confident in that. Um one thing too is when the water man was installed in the 60s from what I've been told is there they didn't back fill how they used to they do now today. So the how how it's required today is it has to be all the way up the sand well above the water the water man. Um and that kind of helps eliminates the brakes. So, if you dig it up today, I I don't know. John would know what what's down there today. But I mean, a lot of times I mean, you get rocks pushed up against it. I mean, it could be anything, right? I've dug through holes that I mean, there's houses buried. We found a hotel in Anoka that was buried last fall, actually. So, I mean, there's a lot more regulation that goes into what can be in the ground, and that also has shown to help the life expectancy as well. [1:04:23] Jennifer Arsenault (Mayor): All right, next one is has a financial plan been done? Has it been been how is it to be financed? Um, mostly grants is our hope. Uh, who has determined we need this to be done? Has there been a task force? Have we gotten a second or third opinion? Um, all will be done as we go. That's Noel. Uh let's see. This is not for tonight, so that's why I'm not reading it. Uh, how about another? I assume that's going to be opinion. I'm not sure. Uh I mean you guys had your sanity where relying but water man cannot be relied. No. Um next one is Ruth Jensen. Um how is need for new mains assessed financial an analysis including cost of money? [1:05:43] Marcus Johnson (City Engineer): Can you ask that question one more time? I missed it. [1:05:46] Jennifer Arsenault (Mayor): How is need for new main assessed financial analysis included in cost of money? Have we gotten that far? I don't think that we have. I mean, tonight's more about is the public open to this project or are we shutting it down right away? And that's that's ultimate. We have to go through funding for this. The city doesn't have the money at the moment. So, um, number two is how is bid contractor chosen? We do RFPs for everything when we do bids. Um, number three, does city engineer receive any money from anyone other than the city before after project decisions? We we hire the engineer to do work for us. We pay engineer for said work. I'm not sure what that question is asking though. I'm sorry. Is Ruth still here? I'm not sure. [1:06:34] Jennifer Arsenault (Mayor): Um, next one is 7-Eleven Hall Avenue. What are the areas of pipe that require constant fixing and what are the consequences, reasons for those areas breaking and cost to repeatedly fix? Um, what is life expectancy of replacement? I think we touched on life expectancy of replacement. Um just in the last four years I know we've had cedar several spots along this hill break and then directly in front of the hall broke. Um pine white pine and there was another one on Wildwood um a fairly large one that took almost a full day to shut down. Wasn't this a gas line too? Yeah, this was a gas line too. Um, it was all the underneath the parking lot actually all got washed out underneath there, which is why we had that hole for a while. Um, do you know why we're having repeated things at the same rate? Sorry. [1:07:43] Audience Member: Sorry. Um, I'm just curious if we know the reasons why those areas are repeatedly breaking and thank you for all the work here. I just want to say that thank you, John. Maybe John—maybe would know. I guess John, do you have an answer to that? [1:08:03] John Manship (City Water Superintendent): John, you want to answer? Not necessarily. Uh, for the brakes. have been doing this for in and around Birwood since 1965 when it was installed. And the brakes are pretty erratic. Um sometimes up on Jay, sometimes up on um Oakidge, sometimes more often on Wildwood. We've had like three along East County line in the last 40 years. It's not consistent in the same place. It's um it's a variety. We really can't uh can't tell you where. We talk about the old pipes, but I tapped water mane from n um 1801. That's old. Um so cast iron is pretty good. We do have cast iron pipes in the city, not ductal iron. Um cast iron was the the standard in 1964 65 when these lines were installed. And the same thing along Oakidge in the 70s, but they're not consistent u breaks in any certain place. [1:09:09] Jennifer Arsenault (Mayor): Um, could you bury phone lines when you do the streets and get rid of telephone poles? We are going to look into that. I know I know that's a concern for people on Wildwood. Um, and yeah, I've talked to a couple people um about that and I think what was the cost like 200,000 or something like that. So, electrical electrical. Yeah. So, we can um like Marcus said we can explore that if we go forward. Um I actually can answer a portion of this as well. Um two years ago I had talked to XL Energy regarding burying um electrical lines because we were having after that winter where all the trees were breaking. Um they do not do that unless you are replacing the roads and they get permission to do it because it's too expensive for them to do it. So if we are replacing big portions of the roads they would come in and assess what or determine what that cost would be. Not necessarily assess because that's actually saves them money as well not sending people out. Um, but you cannot have them quoted at all until they've actually had a chance to look at it. So, that's the info from two years ago when we were having the 60 inches of snow. [1:10:25] Jennifer Arsenault (Mayor): Um, full depth rehabilitation is not common on residential class roads. Based on your data collection and PCI, is there really a justification for more than mill and overlay? Um I believe we were told when we were doing the road um roadics two year well 2023 August so about two years ago um the life expectancy for a road in general is about 70 years total. Our roads have been mil and overlaid quite often. So the life expectancy for the total roads if we are needing to replace the whole road it will will potentially last approximately 70 years. Is that right? 40 40 4 sorry 40 years. Um justification for more than millan overlay. I assume it's because that lasts 10 years. Is that correct? [1:11:15] Marcus Johnson (City Engineer): Yeah milan overlays last 10 years. So even even at the surface um well you see the cracks but mill overlays generally I mean they last 10 years now you might have exemptions of that but that the part that you're not seeing is is asphalt has layers underneath that first second depending how many overlays are um those bottom layers they're eroding and all those cracks are showing right through and you might not see every single crack but if you add um add up the cost of what it what it takes to mill an overlay a road, you're saving money by just full rehabilitating it in some cases. So, I know the study I most recently just did, anything beyond 39 years, um it was only just we only looked at um reclaim, reshape, repave, and that was by the township's decision, not not by our recommendation. So, um just for just for reference, I guess. So, that even though what you're seeing on those on those maps, that's not telling the full true story. That's just giving us an idea without going out there and physically taking cores. [1:12:44] Jennifer Arsenault (Mayor): Um, let me let me repeat that for you, John. Um, so he was saying, "What's the maintenance cost for maintaining the roads?" Um, what we currently have planned, you mean? that we don't have a maintenance plan right now. [1:13:08] Marcus Johnson (City Engineer): Yeah, I think we're here today because they haven't been maintained. So, the what's what's on the first two pages. That's what we're going to do. That's what was approved last year to do to just keep the city going along. But then in the next upcoming years, that's where we're going to be looking at the full rec re reconstructions, whether it's a reclaim, reshape, repave, or if we're looking at a larger project or not. So, like an Oakidge Drive to reshape to mill and overlay that we're looking at $100,000, it would probably be four to $500,000 for reclaim, reshape, repave, I would guess, for a project that size. [1:13:55] Audience Member: Have you looked at the plants for example and and the bring out the pools about there's about a 20% 15 to 20% sand cost. So every year if you bring them up that's 50 and 20% added to the budget. If you do a one all around repair and we get the bond the municipal bond for 3%. That's pretty much close to the inflation. we would have to raise anything and we can actually just pay it over the next an average would be like 15 20 years. So for 3% right on the current benefit interest rates you could pay it off versus every year what you do is like a it's like think about build one side of your house next you build another house then the third year once you do the whole thing it will be one mess and then you don't have to deal with every single year a comprehensive plan correct have you looked at that good question [1:14:52] Marcus Johnson (City Engineer): yeah so um if you replace if you repair them all in one shot you can take a bond out for it. By the time the the the bond's over, you'd be looking at doing another bond to repair the whole road. So, by doing chunks of it, you can you can keep that budget or that maintenance within city budget. You're not having to go out get bonds. You're you're doing parts of it. So, as Oakidge Drive starts needing repairs, okay, well, the rest of the city is doing okay. We're going to do the repairs of that. Then you're moving to the next phase. That's generally as far as the communities that I've seen, that's how we have done it. Now, I know of a city in southwest Minnesota that did do the whole city full reconstruct everything. They were really bad and they drove on gravel roads for four years. And I don't want to propose that to Birwood Village because I don't think people want to drive on roads, gravel roads. But ultimately, yeah, it's it's that life expectancy. You don't want all roads to come in and need to be repaired in one shot. You want to you want to piece it out a little bit. Yeah, that is perfect. But yeah, I understand that. [1:16:03] Marcus Johnson (City Engineer): But the thing is when you look at all the roads, none of them use the same frequency. So if you look at maybe Whitewood, they're the most frequent versus the other street that's falling apart. They would not be utilized as much. I mean, five residents versus probably 100 outside people driving on see the day. Yeah. So, that would be a difference in Yeah. And that's kind of why we have different plans for each road, too, is because not every road needs the same maintenance, right? [1:16:43] Jennifer Arsenault (Mayor): All right. In the current funding environment, can we really rely on grants? I would not count on even on it even for grants already awarded. Absolutely true. Don't know. Um, I know we have the EPA grant that's going for the lift station. We are hoping it will still be there. That's all we can do at this point. Um, would a phased water mane replacement coupled with milan overlay make more sense? Maybe a mill per a mile per phase, sorry. Um, currently current cast iron 6 in is serviceable. So maybe 10 to 15 year phased plan makes sense. put together. Uh yes. So the this plan is for over 10 to 15 years to replace that. Um last one we have is Mary Wingfield 7:30. [1:17:35] Mary Wingfield (Resident): I have a series of questions for the engineer. Thank you. You know, I I appreciate all your time and it it just seems to me it' be very helpful again that we have a group of people who actually can analyze this and come up with a comprehensive um uh recommendation to the city. There's so many questions to ask, but let me let me start with the engineer. I'm willing to take your 10 years on a mill and overlay for whatever it is. I know we've gotten 50 years out of Hall Avenue. I've gotten 15 years out of Cedar Street, whatever. But let's talk about the service lines and I want to talk about the grants. So, the grants are being allowed or provided to us because they want to remove the lead that goes from the main to the house, right? [1:18:17] Marcus Johnson (City Engineer): No, they want to they want to eliminate the unknown. So in Birwood Village, the services since they're put in in the 60s, the records weren't as what they are today. So they don't have a material. And like so quick that we did the service records at the house this past year. Well, over the last 6 months, I don't know who made the decision, but someone within the Department of Health or or um the federal level decided that that's good information, but that isn't going to be enough. So, now they've switched to funding where if they're funding a project, it's the whole service the whole way. They want to know material. They want to have it listed. And if we don't do projects for this, there'll be projects, like I said earlier, of checking curb stops. Um, so what we did last year doesn't didn't do a whole lot of good. [1:18:57] Mary Wingfield (Resident): Okay. So whatever's on the web in terms of when you look at the website and says here's a lead pipe, it needs to be replaced and you can look at that at an interactive map. You're saying don't rely on what's on the internet in terms of what needs to be replaced. You're right in the sense that the lead pipes need to be replaced so to galvanize, but now they're going one step further and saying any unknowns that are on the GIS map um need to be replaced. Is there stance? So looking at that information on the map, um you were the you were the agency or the the company that went in and looked at everybody's service line as I entered their house to determine what the material was, right? I think between me and John. Yeah. Did you do it? [1:19:40] Marcus Johnson (City Engineer): I didn't any specific house? No. [1:19:43] John Manship (City Water Superintendent): Okay. I just know the system having been at I've been on pretty much most of the houses in Birwood and know what's there. So I just know from history. [1:20:04] Mary Wingfield (Resident): Okay. So on the interactive map we we show absolutely no lead service lines from the main to the house in any of the houses here. You recognize that? I believe so. Yeah. And and then we we show nine galvanized pipes going from the service line uh to the uh the water man to the houses, right? Nine of them that we see in the house. Yeah. Yep. Okay. So, and and EPA wants to remove the galvanized for whatever reason. We're not going to argue with them. That needs to be going. And then we have a certain number of unknowns. You can you can figure out the unknowns if you go to the house, right? Not by their regulations anymore. No. John, can you figure out the unknowns if you go to the house? [1:20:53] John Manship (City Water Superintendent): I can. [1:20:54] Mary Wingfield (Resident): Okay. So, we actually looked at the map and and to find out how many houses had galvanized, which ones were they? And and the first one that came up on the map was 293 J Street. That's my area. Not a very old house. I asked the neighbor to go take a picture of that and it said it was galvanized on the map. John, did you get a picture of that? 293 J Street. That's Brenda Toes. We sent that to you yesterday. I saw the picture. Yeah. Was was the was the line galvanized or copper? [1:21:28] John Manship (City Water Superintendent): Copper. [1:21:29] Mary Wingfield (Resident): All right. And we did that again for 538 Hall even though it was listed as galvanized. Right. And we did. Yeah. And we did that for 430 Wildwood. And that again is not galvanized. It's it's all right. So, and we you just did that tonight for 203 Birchwood, right? Right. So now we've got nine service lines that were supposed to be replaced and it turns out they're copper. And John can figure out the weather ones that are unknown. And John, you don't think there's any lead pipe in Birwood, right? [1:22:04] John Manship (City Water Superintendent): There's no no lead in Birwood. [1:22:05] Mary Wingfield (Resident): So if we can verify that we don't need to replace the service lines because all the lines are good. Kathy, you may have one that's galvanized. You come up on the list as well. Okay. So, we may be talking about five homes that need new service lines and nothing more. And we're going to get like a a $13 million grant. So, here's my concern is I don't know how the state can do that when they say that there's a census block group service line replacement priority rating and Birwood rates low because that's on the same internet site. M and the reason why we rate low is because there is no elevated blood level and we don't have any people with a income of under 200% poverty level. One of the other analysis—you agree with that right we're rated low for priority for getting a grant. I mean I believe you. Okay. So in addition, the other thing that goes to priority is the whether whether the community needs financial assistance and you know this city doesn't have any debt, right? [1:23:05] Marcus Johnson (City Engineer): I'm not in charge of the city's financials, I guess. [1:23:08] Mary Wingfield (Resident): Okay. We don't have any debt. So the the point being that you have a $13 million project to replace five galvanized lines. Can a resident opt out because I have copper right now. Can I Can I opt out of saying I don't want my line replaced? [1:23:25] Marcus Johnson (City Engineer): I'm sure. Yeah. [1:23:27] Mary Wingfield (Resident): Because you know, for the first time tonight, I heard you folks say that this is going to be a plastic pipe both as the water mane and then the people who are getting new service to their houses. Right. [1:23:41] Marcus Johnson (City Engineer): I think that I said that the material hasn't been decided yet. If I recall, I said plastic and and ductile. [1:23:49] Mary Wingfield (Resident): I heard plastic from you, I guess, madam mayor, when I talked with you. So, I was really concerned about that because I think people really need to know that's a potential issue becausewards. Okay. So, if if we go with this route of now getting this this this uh subsidy for everybody in our town to get a new line from their house to the street, if someone had a problem with their service line today, it'd be a good time to upgrade and get it done for free right? [1:24:24] Marcus Johnson (City Engineer): Uh they could apply for funding. Yeah. [1:24:27] Mary Wingfield (Resident): Well, no. This is something that the government will pay a 100% of those costs to pay for the new line from the house to the street, right? Government wants these lines gone. So, they're willing to pay for that. [1:24:41] Marcus Johnson (City Engineer): I think I just said that they could apply for funding today. [1:24:45] Mary Wingfield (Resident): Yeah. And it's government. It has to be done through the city because it's not available through priv for private people. You understand that? I don't think that we said that tonight. It's on the website. You wouldn't doubt that, would you? If I do. So, if the homeowner has been unable or unwilling to fix a problem that has been going on for a number of years, they would save what, John? 8 to 10,000 bucks on a service line replacement. [1:25:05] John Manship (City Water Superintendent): 10,000. [1:25:06] Mary Wingfield (Resident): All right. And so, if that person would save 10,000, that'd be a heck of a deal for that person, wouldn't it? To get a free one and avoid the cost of their own co their own repairs. There wasn't a question there. So, here's my concern is that you're aware that there's one house in Birchwood that has a continually freezing pipe that the owner doesn't want to or hasn't decided to or or the pipe has not been repaired in the 30 years that this has been going on. You're aware of there's one residence in this town that would benefit specifically for having their service line replaced. [1:25:48] Jennifer Arsenault (Mayor): I Yes. [1:25:49] Mary Wingfield (Resident): Yeah. So the the point being you're aware of that because a person came to the city this winter and that person happens to be on the council. Are you aware of that? And so that would be a big conflict that we'd all want to know about that somebody's going to benefit from a a process such as this and and and they get a benefit and we don't need it replaced but somebody on the council can vote this through and get a benefit. Are you aware of that? That's a conflict. [1:26:15] Jennifer Arsenault (Mayor): To be honest, Mary, I thought you were talking about yourself this whole time. [1:26:20] Mary Wingfield (Resident): No. 138 wild. I do I do let's talk about the water main replacement and it comes out of the drinking water fund or the revolving drinking water fund through the Minnesota Department of Health. Right. Correct. Okay. So that includes 80% federal monies and 20% state matching funds if you will, right? [1:26:42] Marcus Johnson (City Engineer): Yep. [1:26:43] Mary Wingfield (Resident): Okay. So I looked online yesterday and WSB has a very helpful memo that says that those loans those that's monies that we get say we get the 13 million that's a loan that we get and that when we finish the project then we go back and get another grant to to pay off the loan. So, we have to invest in 13 million and hope that the government doesn't reig on that grant and left holding the bag on 13 million because we won't know until we finish the project. Do you realize that? [1:27:18] Marcus Johnson (City Engineer): I don't think that we've gotten through the the nitty-gritty of the funding. [1:27:21] Mary Wingfield (Resident): You should know. So, here's here's that's the problem. So, we haven't funding because we are just I I think people in this room get it. is that now in this day and age, nobody knows where money is coming from. We don't know if it's coming for the for the lift station and we don't know if it's coming for the water man. But here's the deal. Get back to what you said about we can overlay in another 10 years. Here's what's interesting about that revolving fund. If if you've had a chance to look at it, maybe you haven't, you can look at the long-term goal number four on their reports that say we want to manage the assets of the fund in perpetuity so that there is a permanent resource to assist water public systems in the state, public water systems in the state. So that means we can go ahead and do what we were going to do now and in 10 years we can come back here, the federal government be a heck of a lot more stable than it is now. We can get our funding money and we can say I'm comfortable with that. But we don't have to do anything right now because our water means are already in good shape. [1:28:28] Mary Wingfield (Resident): We already we're all in agreement. They're at 60 years old and they'll go to 80, maybe 100 if we're good. Who knows? But we don't have to we don't have to tick this box because we're not being forced to say we got to hurry up and get that money or it's gone. It's a perpetuating revolving account which is huge. So I will tell you this that Minatrista is number 981 out of a thousand requests for water manes 981. They want to replace their water manes at 4.5 million. We're in the same boat as Minetrista. They're rich. We're rich. They need to replace their water manes, but they're at the bottom of the heap. We're not going anywhere on this very fast because we don't qualify. [1:29:10] Mary Wingfield (Resident): And how you decide if you qualify is really simple. Let me ask you a f a question first. Have we put in the grant process for the PPL application? That's the project priority list. Have we put that in? [1:29:21] Marcus Johnson (City Engineer): I think that this is why we're here tonight to see if the city wants us to apply for funding or not. [1:29:28] Mary Wingfield (Resident): I wanted to ask that because the deadline was May 2nd of of last week. [1:29:32] Marcus Johnson (City Engineer): Yeah. [1:29:33] Mary Wingfield (Resident): Yeah. So, you've already started the process to say we're going to go for a grant. Okay. I think people need to know that that that's that's happening. Um so um one of the things that then happens once you submit that application is you have a priority point worksheet and the project must address existing problems directly and be assigned a point. So one of the first things that they're going to ask is um is the issue that was brought up in the city's email on April 11th to say our waters are unreliable. The standard for unreliable in that report is consistent. This the water supply is unable to consistently provide for domestic water demand excluding industrial and commercial use. So John, do we have a a situation where we're consistently unable to provide domestic water demand? [1:30:25] John Manship (City Water Superintendent): Water. Everybody get water today? Okay, good. [1:30:30] Mary Wingfield (Resident): Then I think we're there. I think we're consistent. What is the question? Okay, so I'm I'm just bringing up some information. Another claim. This is important for people to know. This is important for people to know. [1:30:43] Jennifer Arsenault (Mayor): This is a time to ask Marcus questions, right? [1:30:45] Mary Wingfield (Resident): I'm asking if he's aware of that. I just want to make sure everyone gets an opportunity to talk. Okay. So, the next thing that they're going to give you points for is is whether there is whether this upgrade is essential for public health. And that again was mentioned in the city's April 11th email. So, if something's going to be a danger to public health, it's because there's waterbornne disease, nitrites nitrits contamination having a boiled water notice in the last three years. John, have we had any of those issues in the last three years? [1:31:25] John Manship (City Water Superintendent): No, not in the last years. [1:31:28] Mary Wingfield (Resident): Okay. So we have a public health a healthy public water supply as far as the state is concerned. Okay, good. So the other thing is that water means are a costly burden. We've talked about that. We had two breaks per year, John, as a as the American Waterworks average standard. Is that a high number for for a system this big or is that a low number for the number of breaks per year? [1:31:55] John Manship (City Water Superintendent): My understand had 28 for the average over the last year. number we have 300 houses slightly larger slightly virtually have zero okay so there was a talk about leaks I guess I heard tonight that there's no leaks so I'm not going to get into that because we don't have any leaks that's another thing they're looking for we don't have any leaks we'll check that box and move on uh water man pressure so water man pressure are you aware what that number is for PSI John's the one that manages the water man [1:32:27] John Manship (City Water Superintendent): John 75 PSI Okay. Roughly 75. [1:32:29] Mary Wingfield (Resident): Okay. Wait a second. There are homes in Birwood that don't have—they have issues. Are they down by me? [1:32:38] Jennifer Arsenault (Mayor): Yes. Right. Right. [1:32:41] Mary Wingfield (Resident): So, we know that there's four homes in Birwood that have a Birchwood address that have low water pressure. Are you aware of that? [1:32:48] Marcus Johnson (City Engineer): That was not brought to my attention. No. [1:32:51] Mary Wingfield (Resident): Okay. But Ron knows it. I know it. Fleck knows it. So the point being those people all had have water meter uh have manamed eye water. Are you aware of that? [1:33:04] Marcus Johnson (City Engineer): You tell me today. [1:33:05] Mary Wingfield (Resident): Yeah. So you know they're not in our system. So they they and Monita I just put a new—Yes. Yeah. And so Monita just put in a new water man break a couple years ago, right? They put in a new water man break. I'm sorry. Sorry sir. New water man in that area, didn't they? [1:33:25] Marcus Johnson (City Engineer): I'm not their city engineer. [1:33:27] Mary Wingfield (Resident): I guess I will tell you they did having lived in that area for a long time. So you're not asking us to upgrade our system with new water manes and new service lines to every house because of a problem that exists in Monomidi, right? Though that that that Monomidi stuff doesn't is not relevant to us, right? That's not relevant to our plans of what we should do with our water, right? Why are you asking this question? I'm just asking if he because it was brought up. It was brought up in in the email that said this is why we need new water manes and the and the question is need. That's really why we're here. It's the need and it doesn't— [1:33:58] Jennifer Arsenault (Mayor): Can I address that? [1:34:00] Mary Wingfield (Resident): Yes. All right. But let me finish up and and then you can have it. So, um the thing that I will also mention tonight is is for the first time you brought up PVC pipe. We talked about that. It might be HDP, right? If you not HDP, that's not a legal material for your water man. But okay, so PVC would be it. C9 C900 class actually to be specific. But so if you Google plastic water pipes, they say they're safe, but they're continuing to research it. So, we've been told that with regard to PFAS, they're in the news of late and we now realize they're they're dangerous. [1:34:41] Mary Wingfield (Resident): We've been told that with regard to plastic water bottles that they're safe, now we know otherwise. We've been told that with regard to Teflon, we've been cooking on that. Now, we find otherwise. We've been told that with regard to cooking with gas in our kitchens. We've been told about that's no longer good for us. I'm telling you, I don't want to be a guinea pig. I don't want to turn our nice Ford truck into a Yugo for water manes. I want something that's solid and reliable for something that is going to be toxic going forward. Don't want to do that. And that's I think a really important thing because when I've talked with people around town, they're kind of a gasast that we would go to plastic. [1:35:15] Mary Wingfield (Resident): I think the city needs to look into that. Asked what materials were used in the alpha water means. He said ductile iron and PVC are the two materials that are used. never said that we were going to use PVC for anything. I heard I heard PVC because he was asked what materials were used for water means. He said ductile iron and PVC. But you had said that we're not going to have any more breaks. And so the ductile iron if you replace it with ductile iron, you'll continue to get breaks, won't you? [1:35:47] Mary Wingfield (Resident): Okay, I think I already hit that. Yeah. So here's here's the bottom line. Here's the bottom line I want to make a comment on. This is a really expensive project and at least one person on the council will benefit from it. A city engineer is going to benefit from it. It's just a fact of life and the city is relying on that and and we don't even have proper documentation of what actually we have in our town right now with regard to the service lines that go out to the mains that they're wrong in in even their initial analysis. So that obviously needs to be redone. This is a situation that calls for an independent analysis. It calls for a group of people who are really interested in this in our community to help. And it's really sad that we'd be looking to take 13 million 14 million dollars from the state of Minnesota where there are legitimate communities where kids need help for not drinking out of leaded pipes and not having to have safe water. And that bothers me and I hope it bothers everyone else because that's not what we should be doing with the general with the general welfare of our community. So in light of this, I'm asking that there be a task force and let the residents have a voice in light of the information that I think they need to know that I spent a day looking at trying to figure that out for tonight. And I think we can do a lot together, but it's going to take a lot of time. So I appreciate you letting me say that. [1:37:11] Jennifer Arsenault (Mayor): How much does it appreciate all your research? Thank you for sharing that with us. Why—been cut off? Thank you for sharing that with us. Um I don't know why this has to be contentious. Um we were talking about repairing the roads and I'm going to get back to that again. This all came about because we were looking at the road repairs and how much it's going to cost residents. We were looking for a more cost-effective way to get the roads done. And the way that we could do that is by replacing the water manes. [1:37:53] Jennifer Arsenault (Mayor): Now most cities the standard is that they have a capital improvement plan. Most cities have capital improvement plans. Birwood does not. Birwood has not had a capital improvement plan for as far back as I can see. Spoken with former mayors here, they have no they have no idea if there's been capital improvement plans, which tells me that there hasn't been because there has not been a capital improvement plan in place for the last 40, 50 years, whatever. The city's infrastructure does not have a plan going forward like a cycle of this is what we do to maintain what we have in the city. We don't have a plan like that. [1:38:32] Jennifer Arsenault (Mayor): Most cities do. Most cities plan 20 years down the road and say, "Okay, we're going to do this portion of the city this year. Save money. Next year we do the next portion." Following a plan like you would for your house. If you know your roof is 25 years old, you know you're going to need a new roof in the next five years or so and you're going to plan for it. This city hasn't done that. We have not taken care of what we have here. I live here. I pay taxes. I'm willing to spend money to fix our city. The way we can get around paying for it for new roads out of our pockets is to get the new water man. We're going to need it eventually. We're 60 years into an 80 year lifespan on a water man. We have 20 more years left. Are we not going even address it? We're just going to kick it can down the road for the next person that comes up here and tries to, you know, do make the city better? Is that what we're going to do? just keep going kicking the can down the road. That is not how you should run a city responsibly. It is not fair to the residents. That is not good governance. It is not good governance. The people that you elect care about the city. They are responsible for taking care of you and for taking care of the city. Eventually things wear out. You know that. You know you have to replace things in your house. A city is no different. We're going to have to deal with it. Whether we deal with it this year or whether we deal with it in 10 years or whether we deal with it in 20 years, it's going to have to be dealt with. So I'm going to pass the mic around. [1:40:48] Audience Member: Um, I was just wondering then, do we have, this was back to my husband Joseph's question, do we have like a 50-year comprehensive projected road plan? I wasn't here a lot last year. was traveling a lot, but it sounds like you're doing something with the rose, but from the little I've seen, it seems like kind of a mishmash thing, like you're just trying to do something short term, but it doesn't look like you have a long-term plan. And can't you do something like get a really long-term, you know, project over 50 years, this is how much it's all going to cost and then get some sort of um long-term bid to work with one company to do it all and get the costs kind of controlled upfront. Can't instead of doing these little this that this that this that like Lori's building under her house a new thing every year, you know, something like that. It's kind of expensive. it gets kind of expensive, you know, it doesn't seem like that's a comprehensive plan and so what I mean is there any kind of comprehensive plan? Is this a priority of all the other needs in Birwood? And what are the other needs? How does this rate what other things are happening that we should be aware of? [1:42:05] Marcus Johnson (City Engineer): So, Scott can maybe touch a little bit on the leg legality of it, but um in the past uh one contractor did the maintenance. From my understanding, this is before my time within Birwood. Um I don't beyond that. That's that's as much as I know. I asked um that contractor who is no longer in business or they switch names, whichever. But if they had records or anything that the city could look at because this to my knowledge, the city didn't have anything um as far as what's been done other than invoices maybe. But um so like I said earlier, this is the start right of just trying to get the get it going while we can see how quick these roads are breaking down as we're as we're kind of actually starting to take a little bit more notes and stuff like that. [1:43:01] Marcus Johnson (City Engineer): Um, but as far as your comment about one one contractor doing everything, um, 175,000 is your cap of being able to go for quotes to bids. And so the quoting is you send it to select contractors. Uh, anything above that has to be closed sealed bids. You don't know who's bidding on it. Um, everyone has to submit it by the same time. um on a comprehensive plan like that. I I don't imagine that you can get away with that. But I don't—It's really expensive to do little bits and pieces and then change the plan and update it this year. It doesn't seem like it's very it doesn't seem like it's just my background. I work in a completely different business. [1:43:46] Scott Hildebrand (City Administrator): It it is well thought out because you can't put that burden on the community all at once. I think where the disservice occurred is like you said, this is our start. This is what our plan is. The disservice is the past 10, 20, 50 years when there hasn't been this plan that's been followed. Oh, the roads are good. We don't need to tax. We're fine. You need to plan each year. You need to budget each year. If you're doing home improvements, you you know that you've got a roof that's going to go out. I need to start saving for that roof so I can I can afford that. You don't just in one year cover that. [1:44:26] Scott Hildebrand (City Administrator): And again, like we've said, nothing is being spent tonight. Nothing may be spent next year, but here's our plan. Here's our option. We're coming up not just with a project, not just with a vision of here's streets one, two, three, four years, what we can fix. Here's water manes one, two, three, four years, what we can fix. It's also how can we fund. So it gets back to that holistic approach. All this is transparent. it goes out to bid, the council's gonna be very transparent with we're going to do this, we're going to not. If the bid doesn't come back where it needs or the funds aren't there, maybe the grants's not there, the project's not going to be done. But if it all comes together and we can continue that and we can continue with that plan, then it's going to make sense and then it's going to roll into 30 years down the line when that road needs repaired again. We've already got the funds there and you keep you keep that vision, you keep that momentum. that capital improvement plan was ultimately going to build upon itself. But this is the start. This is start with one. This we're trying to rectify a situation that's been wrong for many years. This is kind of our our plan. This is the vision. [1:45:31] Lori Carter (Resident): Thanks. What is your name? I'm Scott. Scott. Um my name is Lori Carter. I live 210 Birch Street. Thank you for the information. Mary, thank you for the information. I thought it was very helpful. Um, I was not at the last meeting. I have quickly been brought up to speed as much as one can. I will say a few things. Um, one, you kept saying open-minded, keep an open mind. I've lived here for 20 years, and I think this is the most open-minded community I've ever lived in. So, I want to acknowledge my neighbors and my friends. [1:46:15] Lori Carter (Resident): It's a very conservative community. We are a small community. We have to be very mindful of this kind of spending. It's not contentious. It's just looking to find the best answers with the best most well-informed group of people. Not just a couple people, but a well-informed you did a great job. No one's doubting that. I don't have a a question. I have a comment. And I do have one comment in respect to what was done in the past. There was money set aside and I'm not going to debate that. But we've run very well, very very well. And yes, our roads need some work and maybe the water manes needs some attention. I don't I'm not sure about that. [1:47:05] Lori Carter (Resident): All I would like to comment is we should proceed with extreme caution. I hear what you're saying. this is just a grant. But it does put enormous fear, apprehension in my mind about grants and going forward and you might get it and you might not get it. That's a huge concern for a little village. So what I'd like to just say is proceed with extreme caution and and get a group together and make sure that everyone's informed. Everyone wants to take everyone in this room, whether you agree or disagree with you or whoever, we want to take care of this place. This is a precious place. We'd all agree. Nobody wants anything to happen. But it's a lot of money. And so I just want to make sure that you hear me and I know some of my friends. Um, and let let us work together to get the right information. I think we see there's some information that we didn't have before that is helpful to know tonight. Let's get all the information and let's get a group together and let's do the very best thing for this village. And I appreciate the work all of you have done. It's important. Um, I feel like I'm Norma Ray right now, but I feel like we just I mean, we we love this place and let's work together and let's not argue. It's not an arguable thing. It's what is the best thing and what is it going to take to get that done. So, thanks. [1:48:47] John Anderson (Resident): I'm John Anderson. I live on Two White Pine Lane. We've been here for about 33 years. And the reason we moved here is because we like the rural feel. We like the roads the way they are. Uh if I wanted concrete gutters and curbs and stuff like that, I'd move to St. Paul or Minneapolis. I don't like either of those cities. I spent 30 years in St. Paul and uh I just like the feel of the city. I like the people. Um in 2012, the city council created a roads committee and uh Tom and I were both on the original roads committee and the roads were anybody that's lived here a long time knows that the roads back then were in pretty bad shape and we got really creative with, you know, hopscotching here and there and patching this and patching portions of that. [1:49:40] John Anderson (Resident): There are a lot of ways to maintain pavement for 30, 40, 50 years if the road repairs are done properly. And uh we sent a plan to the city in 2018, 2019. It disappeared, our rolling maintenance plan uh and we were disbanded. But just so you know, I looked for that. What's that? Yeah. When you mentioned it to me and I found reminder that said um it was from 2013 or 201 Yeah, 2013 and it had two things in it. An agenda from Oh, sorry. An agenda from 2013 and a letter from you and then one from 2018. That's the only thing I found in there. 2018, nothing. I think it was like 2020 before we were disbanded. presented I think it was Gene uh Tom Stangle was the chair at the time and he presented that to the city council and it disappeared and there's some minutes on the on the website here and there stuff like that but there we spoke with a lot of really good people at the Minnesota DOT and and uh we were using mainly Shiffsky for uh and they're not in business anymore those people were absolutely wonderful you know working with us [1:51:00] John Anderson (Resident): And uh um but we've got a lot of information and I think the roads uh you know I could have saved the city a lot of money. We drove around the other day. My wife and I drove all the city streets and I looked at them and I thought yeah this that and when you put the map up on the thing I thought yeah you know that's that's exactly what we found. But I think a lot of those sections of those roads that are slated for, you know, total resurfacing could be saved for quite some time in the interim. U there are a couple culde-sacs on White Pine Lane. There's a the uh the lakeside of Wildwood. There's Birchwood Road where Mary Mayor Mary lives. And uh some of those are in pretty bad shape. Nothing says we got to resurface although you mentioned Okay. Well, you know, you you get a better price if you do the whole thing all at once, but we don't need to. [1:52:05] John Anderson (Resident): They can move equipment back and forth and and uh you know, if we can resurface the sections that need to be done and then chip seal and uh you know, we spoke with a guy from MIDOT named Tom Wood. He was an engineer uh and he collected statistics on how to make roads last forever. And uh he said, "Yeah, chip seal them for uh every three years for about three or four cycles and then five years for a couple cycles and every seven or eight years after that." And he says they'll last for a long time. You get a crack, you don't pour a little tar in it and put some toilet paper on it. That's yeah, worthless, you You know, I don't disagree with you on that, but um I guess we're trying to look into the future as well, right? And if we're going going to have to start replacing the water manes, which we are, we are they're coming to the end. They have 20 more years of life in them. I I I totally understand that. [1:53:00] John Anderson (Resident): So, like my my ultimate point is we got a terrible economy. We got a federal government that's pulling back grants. We got a state that's, you know, uh what 1.6 six billion dollars with a B in debt, right? And I don't think anybody's going to be giving us any grants right now. We can the only thing we can do is try, right? And if we don't get the money, we don't go forward. I mean, that's the plan I hear from the city is is kind of like uh you know, a doctor telling you, "Well, your knee is a little wonky, so we're going to amputate your leg." I want more opinions, you know. I want to look at it creatively and just see, yeah, what can we do to stretch this out, right? Maybe 10 years from now, things will be better. U, you know, my wife had a stroke a year and a half ago, and I'm looking at just this side shy of $100,000 in medical bills, right, that we've paid. I can't afford uh well, at three million it would be about $8,000 a household. At four million, it would be about $11,000 a household. plus financing. What's interesting now? It's higher than it's been. You know what this is? I I hear everything you're saying and I don't disagree with any of it. I don't I'm just looking at ways to right to extend the life and Right. Right. Right. It's you know, we're looking at ways too to cover everything that needs to be replaced. So, we're just trying to do it in the most economical way possible. Well, I've got a lot of good ideas and I'm willing to work on a task force. Perfect. To try and get our roads back in shape and uh Okay. We'll be in touch with you. Okay. Thank you, John. [1:54:34] Audience Member: Um I just have a couple questions. One, does that work now? Hello. Okay. Thanks. Um John, when we did the roads or the water man replacement, there's certain parts of our community that were obviously older and some that were newer. And we did it in was it 1962? Did we do everything? No. Okay. Well, we did everything that was there. They did in 1962 64 65 he did the main strip avenue on up to hall then we had the development oak bridge area in virtually a bridge court those are the— [1:55:12] John Manship (City Water Superintendent): okay so that explains to me is that basically we have a new um system as of 1962 and the 1970s throughout throughout our entire community pretty much. So that's one thing. [1:55:30] Audience Member: The other thing is I think Jennifer, it's really good that we are looking ahead because I I think we do need to look long term. I think also from the aspect of grants, yeah, they may not be available now. John John sat on that committee. I think Gene Roie did also. Bottom line is that we have a lot of very talented um individuals in our community, whether they're past engineers or whatever. Their resources are really quite broad here. So, I think that it's great that we're doing the long-term planning and I think it's good that we're we're doing the potential for grants. Uh if they don't happen, they don't happen. But the bottom line is at least we tried, right? So it may whether or not we taking money from somebody else uh I'm not sure that's the case u but bottom line is that we should try and get that if it's a you know we get uh what was it 13 million of 14 million terrific but if we can't get it then we're at 11 million and somehow we have to do it every year a little bit of it right I don't I don't think we can afford it to do anything at one foul swoop. Thank you. [1:57:19] John Lund (City Tree Inspector): Hi, John L. 612. Um hear you. I've heard um what I've heard it's not going. Okay. So, what I I've heard tonight is um we need to do a bit more organizing with the financial side of this before the train leaves the station. And I'm hearing um no discussion on curb and gutter. Reason we don't have curb and gutter is because we live within a lake shore management act zone and all the water runs off the street into the yards, filters down and into the lake, keep it pure. That's why that is that way. And um as far as the water runoff, I don't see where we have a problem. Is um I've went through this with Washington County years ago and um I understand where all our rain gardens are, where all our water runs to in the city and we're pretty good. There's one pipe on Wildwood that goes direct into the lake which should be addressed is the only really bad um water runoff situation that we have and all the the Yeah. So that's all I got. Thank you. [1:58:43] Jennifer Arsenault (Mayor): All right. Last one. Mary Sue, do you want to talk? Thank you. I know. Thank you. A little pressure. [1:58:55] Mary Sue Simmons (Resident): Um I'm Mary Sue Simmons uh from Birwood Court and I'm on the uh parks committee. And a lot of you came when we had a a public forum on what we should do with Tai Schmidt's Park. And we had wonderful ideas and you get excited. We want new playground equipment and we want community gardens and shade trees and a better looking hockey rink. But what we ended up with and the people decided we had serious infrastructure programs because the damn park floods and it just doesn't serve us well. And we discovered that we had to fix the drainage problems underneath the surface and the surrounding structures before we could even begin to think about putting anything on the top. and they're granting we, you know, we got the $85,000 from a conglomeration of state agencies to work on the water issue because every drop of water that comes down in Birwood ultimately is pretty much ending up in that lake. We have the worst drainage all over this community. Yards flood each other. The village hall is flooding down there. Um, and our roads are flooding our parks. Pauly's park is a disaster when it rains because it gets water from both sides. So, we have to look at what's underneath before it with park. I'm speaking for the park now. We can't do anything decent and stable and long lasting on top of the park until we fix the bottom. And we have found um catch basins, broken pipes, broken drainage tile. There's a mess under there. And we will be working on that. We're going to get we've got the grant to fix it. We got another grant to put flowers on top to do rain gardens. So if you get a grant, it will be big. And if you get one grant, you can get other grants because it's just easier. So I'm applauding these people and I think we ought to take our time, get get more advice, and figure out how we can go forward that is a longlasting plan and gets us where we want to be without breaking the bank. [2:00:58] Jennifer Arsenault (Mayor): Um, thank you for all of you to all of you for coming. We really do want your feedback. We do appreciate it. And you know, I'm speaking sincerely. I am a resident like you. I want what's best. I want what's most economical for this city. Come talk to me if you have ideas. If you want to go in a different direction, come talk to me, okay? You don't have to talk. You don't have to do back channel stuff. Come talk to me. Come talk to any of the council. We're all open. We all want what's best for all of us. Okay. Thank you so much. Freezing. [Music]