Welcome to the Mount City Council meeting for Tuesday, June 10th. Uh we're in council chambers and um please join me for the pledge of allegiance. Pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for it stands one nation indivisible with liberty and justice for all. All right. [Applause] Uh, we have our agenda. Are there any amendments? There's one amendment to the consent agenda which is in front of everybody. It is a a charitable gambling permit for Carbon's Pizza. There's a resolution attached to Well, it's for the the location is Carbon's Pizza. Mount West Honka Hockey Association is the um organization running it. Okay. And the resolution. All right. Um, can I get a motion to approve the agenda? I'll make a motion to approve the agenda. Um, we have a motion. Can I get a second? Second. Or did you want to pull something? Yeah, that's what I was trying to consent. Yeah, we're just we're just approving the main agenda right now. Agenda. That's what I um So, we have a motion. We have a second to approve the agenda um as written and then the amendment for the consent agenda will do next. Um all those in favor I I I. All those opposed? Motion carries. Um next we have the consent agenda. Um does anybody want to poll or discuss any of those items before we read through them all? Um, yes. I would I'd like to pull E and G. E and G, right? And discuss those a little bit further if I could please. So, what would what we do is then make pull those then consider consent agenda without those items. Okay. And then you can discuss those individually. All right. I'll try not to step all over this while dad's gone here. Um so we will um read the consent if someone could read the consent agenda items A through I removing E and G including but there's also an addition of J and including the amendment J for the gambling permit if anyone would like to read those items. I guess I could read them. Thank you. I'm so used to you doing it. That's kind of your gig. Yeah. Um, I make a motion to approve the consent agenda. A, approve payment of claims. B, approve minutes for May 27th, 2025. Approve resolution 2553, approving the liquor licenses. Uh D, approve resolution 2554 approving music concert permit for private party at 2460 Lakewood Lane on Saturday, July 19th. We're going to pull E F. Approve resolution 2556 amending and re restating resolution 24106 approving permits for 2025 Spirit of the Lakes Festival for July 17, 2025 through Thursday, July 9 through Saturday, July 19th, 2025 and waving fees. We're pulling G H pay request number two in the amount of $32,467 18 cents to Whitmer Construction for the water treatment infrastructure improvements phase one. I pay request one in the amount of $25455,000 to Concrete Idea Inc. for uh County Road 15 sidewalk improvements city project PW2508 PW2509 and J a resolution approving a lawful gambling premises permit for the Mount Westka Hockey Associ uh Petria Bar and Grill. Okay. Okay. So, could I get a motion to approve the consent agenda items A through J, omitting E and G? E and G for later discussion and adding J, right? Yeah. Adding J. Just need a motion to approve that. Motion to approve. Okay, we have a motion. Get a second. Second. Okay, all those in favor, we do a roll call. Oh, roll call now. Council member Heric, I. Council member Mcinany, I. Council member Pew I. Acting Mayor Costellano. I. All right, that motion carries. And we'll take E and G as separate items. So we can do E first. Okay. Yeah. Let's go down the list. Okay. Discussion on item E. Well, I just had some questions. Um, it seems like we get a lot of requests for variances from the planning commission and my understanding is that um trying to find the one with this one on there. Um, the form that was sent in to the council for review does not show a reason why this is a hardship on sorry 20. Oh, I see. I'm sorry. I was doing G. Um on E. Okay. On E. The Pike Road property. Let's go back to that. Sorry. Apologize. Well, if you I guess you want to do G already started. So do G. Yeah. My mistake. Okay. So with that document that was in our packet, it does not show what the hardship is on the resident. Well, it was in the planning commission notes, which I don't know if I brought. Um, let me see. Think he's working on those. And I'm not sure if I can recall what the hardship was. I know it was unanimous passed without any problems, right? Yeah, it's on 1439 is the page. Yeah, I Oh, that the actual notes minutes. Well, it's the request or the form that was actually submitted for the variance. Do you know is he planning on Is he present? Hi. Can you come up to the podium, please? Oh, this is this for the fence? Yes. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. This is item G, correct? Yeah. Timothy Williams, 2881 West Edge Boulevard. So, um, you're asking for a variance and our requirement for a variance is that there's some sort of difficulty or hardship on the um, property owner. Can you explain to me what the issue is or what the Yes. So, when the house was built back in ' 69 before all the zoning ordinances, uh the house was built uh about 16 ft away from the property line on the Pine Road side of So, it's a corner house, Pine Road and West Edge, right? So there's plenty of um front yard frontage u from West Edge, but from Pine Road it's less. And so the existing um backyard fence is chain link. I'd like to replace it with a a privacy fence. It's a it's a 5 foot chain link fence right now. Um but um without a variance um the side of the fence closest to Pine Road would have to be 4 feet which doesn't doesn't give any privacy. So um that was the reason for the request for the variance. Okay. And if I can ex I'm going to try to explain I wish Sarah was here but because it's a corner lot the front yard and backyard are different than a normal homeowner that isn't on a corner lot. If it were on a normal property, not being on the corner, the fence height would not even be in question. So, that's something that the planning commission has been discussing for a long time, trying to get some understanding of corner lots and trying to get some consistency going with homeowners that aren't on a corner versus and it doesn't uh fall into the sighteline at all, his fence for the traffic thing. Okay. And I know we all agreed that it would be a great improvement to the property. Um he's doing I think you said natural pine or uh yes cedar I think is is what Lowe's has quoted me. So and you're planning on putting the sixoot fence all the way around the corner of the backyard. Um yeah. Yeah. Along the back edge and the side closest to Pine Road. Okay. And so replacing basically the chain link fence. Uh yes. Okay. Okay. That's fair. All right. I just wish that the planning commission would be more thorough in adding this to the package. I'll take that for Okay. Thank you. All right. Thanks. Thank you. Appreciate it. Thanks. Thank you. Okay. So, that's G. Um, so that was G. And so, we can we should be treat them individually and the council needs to consider the motion on it each item separately. Yes. Okay. So, just make a motion to approve G. Yeah. Okay. Sorry, I got to send a word order. It's all right. Um, that's okay. So, I would be looking for a motion to approve consent agenda item G. I make the motion to approve consent item G on the agenda. I'll second it. Okay. And that was it because we're not it's not actually consent agenda anymore. It's an individual item. No roll call. No roll call. Even better. Yeah, cuz I kept messing that up last time. All right. Uh, we have a motion and a second to approve um item G. All those in favor I I I. Those opposed. Motion carries. Um we can move on to consent agenda item E for discussion. That was the 5240 Pike Road. Yeah. Sorry. That's all right. Yeah, I had a question about that one. Um I guess I'm a little concerned in I guess our process with the planning commission. I mean, we're going to give this guy a permit and we or, you know, approval and we haven't gotten approval from um LMCD and or not LMC. What is it? The water people um DNR DNR um MCWD, sorry, I'm alphabet soup here. Um yeah, DNR. Yeah, etc. And let's see on page 1410 line item number two. Um they're discussing that um we have I guess on our agenda for later discussion from the Harrison Bay group which has identified invasious invasive species which have been identified in the lake. Part of the approval process with the um watershed district and the DNR is a requirement about the amount of gallons that are actually being able to be used as well as if there has been an invasive species identified in the lake. Then there are some additional guidelines and restrictions. So I'm a little concerned that we might be approving something before we get the proper approvals from the governing entities that take care of the lake. I mean, I I feel like that would be something that um either Jesse, you can add to or we should get Sarah to comment because we do go through all the paperwork and usually we can't pass anything unless everything has been approved, right? Uh, I would add and maybe actually Matt might be able to speak to this a little bit too because we do that we on pretty much any of our permits and our projects there are those types of conditions and I think it would be so if you notice the NC MCWD I believe was involved in this one. They did they they've reviewed it, but um the practical nature of some of these organizations reviewing all of our permits prior to them being issued is I think a little more difficult. So we issue them with um um with conditions to say basically if you can't get these approvals if they're necessary because sometimes they're not. I mean they might go to the DNR and the DNR might say this is upland. It's not our purview. Um it's just more practical from our end to say here's all your things and we sort of put it on the applicant then then they need to demonstrate if they needed to get that permit that they've received it and if they don't then they don't they no longer have permission to operate underneath the permit that we've issued. So it could be a little chicken or the egg sounding. Um I don't know you know if we said you can't even apply to us until you have a DNR permit. They may not even be able to achieve a DNR permit. um without Okay. So, all of that, Matt, because that sounds about right. Yeah, that pretty well sums it up. Okay. And what records do we have or follow up to make sure that they do get the appropriate permits from the DNR? They would need to demonstrate that. So, that enter the file with the property file. They would send everything in. It all gets taken uh gets put in the jacket and stays with the property. And then if they lose that permit or if they don't meet those um conditions that may be set upon them by the DNR or the watershed or something, then we could pull that because they're operating within our public land. Right. On our public land. Okay. All right. That was the question that I had. Cool. Okay. All right. Um any further discussion on E. All right. Um, I will take a motion to approve agenda item E. I'll make a motion to approve agenda item E. Okay. Have a motion. Can we get a second? Second. All right. Uh, all those in favor? I. Those opposed. Motion carries. Um, so that will take care of all the consent agenda and the other two items. Uh we will move on to agenda item number five. Okay. Thank you, Ab. Yeah. So uh this agenda item is an open forum for comments and suggestions from citizens regarding any item not on the agenda. If you are bringing an any item to the city council's attention, please state your name and address for the record. Comments should be limited to three minutes. Please also note that if your comments relate to the Harrison's Bay Lake Improvement District, it is on it is an agenda item and the open forum comments are not the appropriate form. That's all. Okay. Can you explain that there'll be a public hearing? Well, there's going to be a public hearing probably in August. So, I maybe what I'll do too is I will provide the comment that I was going to do for that item eight. So um coming up later in the agenda there is a presentation of the lid petition a pet petition by the Harrison Bay association and related information. This isformational only and is not a public hearing. There's going to be no action taken by the city council tonight. It's all going to be information provided because this is not a public hearing and no action will be taken. It is not the intent to have any public comment. The city council will be holding a public hearing on this matter that is anticipated to be at the city council's first meeting in August. Um and uh at that meeting public comment regarding the matter will be presented to the city can be presented to the city council with public hearing. Uh please note that in the agenda there's letters and materials that are part of the agenda and that's justformational only. Um, I wanted to where was it? And under Minnesota and under Minnesota rules, um, at least 21 days prior to that public hearing, uh, notice is going to be given to, um, there's an attempt to give notice to every resident or every resident owner within the proposed district. So, notice will be going out um, at least 21 days prior to that uh, public hearing. um that as I said it was anticipated to be in August. Okay. And we don't know first or second meeting but just not a ways off yet. What but looking at because of the TW because of where are in the process and the fact that it's a 21-day notice period um that the first meeting in August is probably the most likely but notice will go out. Okay. Okay. Um so I guess we'll move forward with um number five. um comments and suggestions uh for anything not on the agenda. If anyone would like to come forward um now would be the time. Tyler Piper, 5504 Church Road. Um coming to you not at my uh parks commission um position, but as an adopter of one of the gardens uh in Belmont. I just wanted to note um and it's kind of a bummer. I don't see the police guy here today. Um Oro um uh several of the four of the metal poles put out by the city crew were snapped and this is the third instance. I put out two different sets of polls at the garden just to mark the not being mode over and there's just been a few minor things. So, was this just going to ask if it would be uh within their schedule to hopefully uh you know, don't have to do too much, but just maybe a few drivebys by the park just to let people know that you we have a a presence there just to um hopefully using a garden metaphor nip any uh further vandalism in the butt. So, like uh it was like they got snapped because they were mowing or someone broke them. Oh, someone definitely broke them, which was impressive. These are metal poles, so I don't know um how they managed to snap them clean, but um impressive or not, it is kind of a bummer. So, just wanted to pass it on. Otherwise, thank you all for your work. Great. Thank you, Skyler. All right. If no one else has anything, we'll move on to agenda item number six. if there if we can move past that one or Yeah, it sounds like there was a a need for police presence in a different jurisdiction. Okay. So, if they uh so Ryan or Sergeant Spencer was going to make every attempt to be here, but it looks like he's still needed over there. So, okay. So, in the event that he comes in later, we can kind of fit him in or just Right. whatever uh however the council wants to handle it. Okay. All right. So we'll table number six or just kind of move beyond that for now. Um number seven uh touranka presentation. Good evening council members. My name is Jenny Bedurka. I work with Minnitanka Community Education and Tour Dunka um who puts on that event. So we will once again be coming through your wonderful city for our um event which will be on August 2nd. So, I have a short presentation just to give you some updates on that. Um, this year is our 20th anniversary of Tour D to Tanka, which is amazing. And so, we're doing some fun things to celebrate. We have some specific merchandise that'll be about the 20th anniversary. Um, we'll at our registration at Minnitanka High School, we'll have kind of an archive display of shirts and um, photos through the years. Um, and we also have a group of people that we call legacy writers, and they are folks who uh have been either a volunteer or a participant all of the events over the last 20 years. So, it's about 48 of them. Um, and so we will be celebrating that group with a big um photo at the at the start line of the event. So, if you go on to the next slide, um, as I've probably shared with many of you before, we have a lot of great sponsors that make this event happen. We try to make it um cost-effective for people to be able to participate and these wonderful sponsors help us to do that and they also um provide us a lot of support around the event. So Shields will have some bike mechanics out on the route helping support um and Domino's will be serving pizza at the finish line just to name a few. But a lot of great sponsor support there. You can go on to the next slide. Um each year we do have a new shirt. Um, and the the style of this shirt is kind of a throwback to the first year of the event that we held. Um, so we're excited about those. And all of our participants will receive a shirt. We also need a lot of volunteers to make this event happen, which I'll talk about in a little bit, but they also receive a shirt as well um that they can wear. So, to talk a little bit about registration, we expect about uh 2500 participants um on our different routes. Right now we have about 850 registrations running a little bit ahead of where we typically are at this time. Um riders from all across the country and 113 cities here in Minnesota. So we we draw a good crowd from afar. Um and many from right in our community as well. Um, we do have five ride distances for participants to choose between starting as low as 16 miles going up to as high as 100 miles. Um, and this is a little bit of a breakdown of right now who's registered. So, that's fairly typical. Most of those who are riding 100 miles are planning and training, so they have signed up and um, some of our shorter distances, they may wait till a little closer and see what their availability is. Um, updates about the routes. Um, again I said we have five distances. Um, the routes that come through this area are the 40 mile and the 58 mile. Um, and um, we also have a rest stop at Bethl United Methodist Church. And huge shout out to them because they have been a wonderful sponsor um, of that rest stop for many years and there many of their congregation members get really into it and they're out there cheering on the crowd and um, the riders. So, we really appreciate their support. Um, we'll be traveling through four counties, 25 cities, um, and riding on 143 unique roads. So, we cover a lot of ground as this map will show you here. Those shorter distances stay close to Minnetonka High School. Um, and then we spread out. Our 100 mileers are going all the way out to Delano and Winstead, uh, Wakonia, kind of making a big a big loop. Um and then you'll kind of see that that red is those um 40 and 58 mileers that'll be coming through this area. Uh volunteers, as I shared, um this is a huge undertaking. Uh and we need lots of volunteers in lots of different capacities to help support it. Probably have over 600 volunteers. Um whether it's helping with registration, standing on a corner, helping direct traffic, working at one of our rest stops, handing out food, or just cheering on the riders. um it's kind of something for everyone uh in terms of time commitment and activity. So if anyone is interested they can go to our Mitaka Community Education website, look up Tour to Tanka and there or scan this QR code and um there'll be a link where you can see what the opportunities are and sign up to to volunteer. Um, as part of, um, Tour to Tanka, we have a strong partnership with our local ICA food shelf. Um, and a portion of every registration goes to support them. And then we also have other ways that we connect and help support the ICA. Um, and to date, we've raised over $100,000 for them. And, uh, that has so much buying power for those who are kind of familiar with that. They get to buy at wholesale cost. So, we've been able to really make a huge um, community impact with that. Um, a huge thank you to our law enforcement and safety partners. As you can imagine, all of the miles we're traveling. Um, we're crossing some main roads and, uh, busy locations. So, we work really closely with law enforcement in all of the cities that we're traveling through to help support um, those key corners along with the volunteers. So, uh, lots of just comments from volunteers or from participants about their thanks for um, that law enforcement support. And those are really all of the updates I have for you. will be um August 2nd at Minnitankka High School is where we'll begin or at Clear Springs Elementary which is very close but hoping um those in the community and those here will be interested to join us in some capacity and thank you for your continued support and thank you for gift. It's fun to see each what you bring and we appreciate it. Thank you. Well, thank you. Yeah. Any questions I can answer? When is the deadline to sign up for writing? Uh you can register as as late as the morning of the event. So we do have on-site same day registration. Um and so registration is open now, but you can go register all the way through the day of the event. Cool. Yeah. All right. Thank you so much for your time. Appreciate it. Good luck. Thank you. All right. I think we can move on to agenda item number eight. Harrison Bay Lake Improvement District presentation. All right. Good evening, council members and Mr. Mayor. Do I need to put up quote fingers for that? Quote. Yeah. Playing mayor tonight. Um, thank you for the time on the agenda. How do you follow the the ride tonka? Um, super exciting. Although 100 miles seems a little daunting when I think about that. I was hoping maybe uh there's a loop that goes around Jubilee and goes back to our home on That's my loop. 5513 Sherwood Drive. See, that's my No, but exciting. Super cool to see that. I want to thank the council uh for your support for the relationship that we've been able to build over the last four years plus uh with the Harrison's Bay Association. It's been an exciting time. We want to keep that momentum going. Um we know that your agenda is always full. We saw it tonight and it was full. So, we appreciate the time. We're going to try to make best use of that. Um Sher Wallace, our chair, who's here tonight, uh came back in the early part of the year in January, kind of gave you a teaser that we were thinking about developing a strategy around a lid around a lake improvement district. And we're here tonight uh to do what Scott talked about earlier. Uh give you a little bit of overview of your packet with hundreds of pages of materials in there, give you uh some information around how that lid works, why we're pursuing it. Um we're going to talk through some slides. Uh Sherry's going to come up and share a few things as well. and then we'll obviously entertain questions along the way at the end, whatever makes sense for you. Um, do want to also uh thank volunteers at the association. We've benefited from a tremendously enthusiastic group of volunteers. You see many of them in the audience tonight even for a non-public hearing. They're here to show support, wear their Harrison's base swag. Um they've been out canvasing in neighborhoods talking about the lid initiative, educating folks, having great conversations uh for almost three months uh and really learning a lot about what the bay feels should happen, could happen, and what the future might look like. Um I also want to thank folks who have brought concerns or questions. We've had a really active dialogue and conversation over the last 60 days or so and even beyond that. And we really believe iron sharpens iron. uh we want to make sure whatever strategy we pursue is going to represent all the interest in the community. So that's something that we welcome as well. Um if you can move to that next slide. So why are we here? It's that beautiful picture that we see up there right now. Lake Minnetonka. Um you know it's one of the uh the most visited, most traveled bodies of water in the state of Minnesota. And we've got 10,000 of them, but we're distinguished to have one of them uh that's in our backyard that's one of the best. Um, it's really the center of lake life experience in Mound in a lot of ways. A lot of folks moved here to be able to experience lake life, whether you live on a lake shore, live close to it, don't live near it, but use it quite often. Um, it's one of those things that we believe is just a tremendous asset to this community. Uh, and we really want to make sure that we're protecting that. Uh to date, the responsibility for managing and trying to take care of that bay has really fallen on a few fallen on uh folks that use that bay, lakeshore owners. There really aren't assigned individuals who are out there doing actually what the DNR recommends that we do to try to protect that lake. So, we need some help and that's what we're here to talk a little bit about. Uh next slide, the challenges that are out there. If you don't know, Harrison's Bay is uh documented and tagged with the label of an impaired body of water by the MPCA. Uh and it really has been something that's been out there for quite a bit of time. There hasn't been a marked improvement in that tag as an impaired waterway for a long time. We share that with a lot of other bays on this end of the lake uh with uh West Arm and with Jennings uh H Hallstead several that really benefit or don't benefit from the runoff that comes from the west uh and a lot of that farm pollution that comes in and has been loading the lake for a long time. Uh we've got invasive species AIS aquatic invasive species. We've talked about that before over the last four years. Uh and we've had lots of opportunity to to try to attack those and try to learn more about what the challenge is. We know they come in the form of invasive vegetation, no foil, curly leaf, pondweed, things that are not natural to the lake and are attacking it. We know it comes in the form of invasive carp. Uh if you've been anywhere near the lake in the last 3 weeks, you've seen the carp frolicking quite actively uh in their spawning time. Zebra muscles. Uh and then all of those things uh lead to uh a challenging environment in that lake envir that lake habitat which drives low oxygen drives harmful blue green algae blooms that really make it difficult to use that lake the way that most of our our community residents think they want to. Um and the other thing that really happens is it's challenging for those native plants, native species to thrive, to grow. That's something that we want to try to have a positive impact on. Uh next slide. Why a lake improvement district? Uh I think if you talk to anybody who lives on the lake or near the Harrison's Bay, we really believe that the bay is worth investing in. Uh it's one of those great investments uh that folks make in coming out to Lake Country. We've talked to a lot of folks who say, "Hey, I really work on trying to improve my property, my home, my grass, my garden, my neighborhood. I want it to look great. I want to invest in my community." But one of those things that they just don't have control over is that body of water that a lot of us use. It's really difficult to try to have an influence and increase the quality of that water, increase the health of that water. Um, we really believe that one of the messages we hear over and over again is that this is a legacy experience. Folks want to have their home be two or three generations or four generations worth. Even if it's not them, they want the next family, the next resident to move in and be able to use that lake. This is a legacy strategy. Um, sustainable property and community value. There's a tremendous amount of property value in the community of Mound, but specifically around Harrison's Bay. You'll hear a little bit more about that later. Investing in that value, maintaining it, increasing it, uh, really benefits everyone. We want to increase recreation, whether you're out there kaying, swimming, fishing, just boating, just sitting and and watching loons. There we still have loons at this time of the year. Actually, I can't believe I thought they'd all go north. I heard one this morning out making calls on Harrison's. Um, we also believe that there's a benefit within a lid of being able to pursue grant money. You're going to hear me talk a little bit about the challenge around funding. There is grant money available, but it's scarce. Uh, and non-for-profit organizations are not as successful as organized, structured, LGUbacked organizations like a lid when you're out there talking about getting grant money for specific projects because they know their structure, they know there's oversight, there's governance, there's there's track record, um, and there's there's teams of folks that are helping control that. Um, and then, you know, certainly one of the other challenges we see is that there are limited viable alternatives. And we've got some some entities around the lake, the Lake Mitanka Conservation District, the DNR, the Lake U Mitankka Association. LMCD has suspended all of their grants for AIS uh an improvement on water quality for this year. So that that well has has dried up. The DNR is decreasing all of their funding for AIS projects in 2025 statewide for 10,000 lakes. And we all know that's a short number. and all the rivers and w bodies of water that we have, there's only $400,000 total for funding across the entire state coming from the DNR. Um, so a lot of challenges around alternatives to getting the community involved, building a reusable um sustainable funding source from that community and then going out and really tackling these these efforts with the guidance of the DNR, with the guidance of our subject matter experts. Right now, one of the frustrations that folks have, 0% zero dollars out of your property tax goes to that thing in your backyard or in your community that we call Harrison's Bay and Lake Minnetonka. Zero dollars go to try to improve that. And we can see the the impact when nothing happens. Invasive species get out of control, runoff gets out of control, water quality decreases, property value decreases. Uh, next slide. So, the objectives of the lid, we want to work, and this seems like a lofty goal, but we do believe it's very possible. Uh, it's happened in the past. We want to work on getting Harrison's Bay off that impaired list. Um, it's really challenging to to know that we've been there a long time and there's a lot of things that are out of our control. There's a lot of things that we have to deal with. Uh, but we want to have that aspirational goal of getting Harrison's Bay off the impaired list and improving that water quality. We want to align and continue to align with the MPCA, the MCWD for water quality strategies, what they're trying to accomplish, how they're doing it, what what they're suggesting for communities uh to pursue. Uh we want to make sure that that native native vegetation has a chance to grow by removing all those invasive species. We want to make sure native fish and wildlife surrounding Harrison's Bay all have a chance to thrive and follow DNR guidelines to to make sure that those those conditions are are uh present. Uh one of the other big components is uh critical here. This is community community education. Uh you're going to hear that we got 233 properties that are included in the lid boundary that we've defined. educating every one of those folks around how to better manage runoff, how to use rain barrels, how to leverage rain gardens, uh how to to manage effectively the runoff from their property, how to do sustainable friendly gardening for the lake. That's a big piece of this initiative as well. Uh we want to ma manage those invasive species again with the guidance of the DNR and the subject matter experts across the state. Um and then you we want to help promote uh healthy fish populations and wildlife around the bay. Uh, next slide. So, I talked a little bit about uh that impaired status on the bay. If you've been around for a while, you know that the MPCA uh and the Minha Creek wershed district used to use an A throughF grade uh for the waters. Now, they they use a grade that includes poor as the Dgrade basically on their schedule. Um that is where Harrison's Bay sits uh with the the most recent 15-year average water quality rating um at a poor status. Um so certainly we want to move from a D or a poor up the scale get get it to a better spot and we think that all those goals uh will improve. By contrast on the next slide um Carmen Bay uh has uh actually been able to deliver an excellent or exceptional water quality. So an a water quality. This is a bay if you're familiar with it that was plagued by invasive species. Uh they actually pursued a lid in 2017, established that lid and have actively been engaging the community to bring dollars into that lid, pursue strategies around invasive species, pursue strategies around water quality, and now they're seeing the results of that. Um and and we actually heard a lot of testimony directly from folks that are part of that Karns Bay lid and you you will be able to hear those folks as well. We've got representatives lined up for that public hearing when uh it gets scheduled with the Mount City Council. So, it can happen. Um and I'm not comparing those bays saying they're apples to apples. Every bay has its own challenges. We all have our own runoff. Uh we all have, you know, our own depth and shoreline and incoming creeks. But this is something that we should target. We should target trying to move up that chain from a water quality perspective. And it's possible. Uh next slide. Yeah. Thank you. Uh what we've done so far. Um, this was the thank you upfront. Uh, you've helped partner with the Harrison's Bay Association. Um, connected us with resources, listen to some of our strategies. Uh, we've really been able to get out there and work with the DNR, uh, work with the University of Minnesota invasive species uh, teams to say, how can we treat most effectively those invasive species? The first challenge was to go out there and find out how big the problem was. We've actively funded carp surveys, electro fishing to study karp in the bay uh as well as neighboring bays uh west arm uh and Jennings. Um we've actively gone out there and pursued and funded plant surveys and aquatic spec species surveys which you have to do as part of that DNR license and permitting process in order to actually treat and you can only treat where those surveys find those invasive species. We've partnered on the rain barrel uh initiative, sold over 324 rain barrels. There's 324 homes now that are taking 55 gallons at a time out of the runoff into lakes and filtering them through their grass, through their plants before they get there. Uh that's a huge win. We've got an educational website with deep links out there. Uh we've even got uh one of the head botonists for the U of M and the Arbreedom program, Julie Weisenhorn, um in our community and she's actively helping us with content on that education side. Uh and I talked about uh lake friendly gardening. Um one of the other big components of our precursor efforts here was to build partnerships uh beyond just the one that we have in the room here with you at the city of Mound. We've worked with the MCWD, uh the MPCA, the LMA, the LMCD. How many acronyms can I list on one page here? Um, U of M AS program, uh, organizations like two mics that take carp and turn them into liquid fertilizer, which is sold at True Value, uh, and around the state. Um, carp solutions, PLM, the Minnesota Bow Fishing Association. Uh, how can we go after costefficient techniques to reduce that carp population? Let's get bow fishing folks involved, enthusiasts involved, so they can go out there and reduce that carp for free. um and work work us out of a problem. Um so a lot of exciting partnerships we've been able to pursue. We think they're critical and on the right side in that box is an important piece of this. These are all funded by volunteer uh dollars coming in and activities from Harrison's Bay Association folks in the community that said this is important to me. But that is not sustainable. That's challenging. These are expensive projects and we've got some big ones uh in the future. Uh next slide please. proposed programs. Uh, as part of the lid proposal, the DNR requirements for putting a lid proposal on the table, you have to actually have pro programs out there. We had a nice head start because we've pursued a lot of these already and we've got some momentum around each one of these. But the defined programs that you will see in your packet include treatment uh of the or treatment with through a strategic invasive vegetation uh plan that we will develop uh with the DNR and LVMP um carp management bow fishing and other strategies around uh carp reduction. Um, we've talked about it a little bit before, but Harrison's Bay specifically through our electro fishing studies has four times the healthy population of carp uh in the bay. That's over 10,000 fish. Uh, and that really creates problems as far as water quality. Um, we will be actively pursuing grants. I talked about the fact that they're limited. The dollars are limited, but that doesn't mean we don't want to get out there and chase them. Pursue them actively. use the resources we have to try to grab those use those dollars, get them invested with some ROI into Harrison's Bay. Um shoreline restoration uh and runoff efforts. Uh you've partnered with us on those Cardinal Lane and many of the other projects around end of street rain gardens. That's part of this lid initiative. Uh how we can really pursue keeping that runoff uh on shore education on sustainable lakeshore management and then uh monitoring water quality. Those are the programs that we're proposing would be supported by this lid. Um if you go to the next slide. Yeah, this is another component of the proposal for the lid is identifying the lid boundaries. So we took a look at folks that have been participating in Harrison's Bay. We took a look at natural breaks across our body of water. Obviously, all bays flow across 37 different bays in in Lake Mitanka, but a natural break really occurs from that west side of Seat and Channel across uh to the point on Center View or on three points. Um, and you see the properties identified in a couple different categories. We've got lakeshore property owners or PIDs. We have deeded access folks who have access to a dock. We have associations and then we have our single marina in Metro Lakes. Um, incredibly important commercial partner. uh and the ability for boats to get in and out of metro lakes without clogging up their engines uh and run into invasive species is a huge part of their ability to be successful. So partnering with them will be a big part of our strategy as well. Um if you look across all the properties that are on that lid, the average property value is over a million dollars. A million56 and $114 to be exact. $111, sorry. Um, looking at what we're proposing for the annual assessment that would go to those lid properties, which is $150 at the high side for just the lakeshore, that's 014%. So, 1/100ths of a percent uh against that property value. So, we really believe this is a very reasonable investment for folks to make and that they might want to make to get ROI in improving that water quality. Uh, and it's not a burden that we're looking to place on the community. It's a way to invest, drive ROI, bring that legacy value back to those properties as well. So, I'm going to hand off now. Oh, actually, no, I'm not quite yet. Sorry. I got a couple more and then you could stop listening to me and babble on. Um, some other things. Some other things that are really critical um that I think we share in interest are uh the public entities uh the components of Harrison's Bay that are part of the city of Mound that folks utilize quite actively. We've got a public beach on Center View that is quite active year round whether we're talking about winter or summer uh or spring or fall. Uh we've got uh two parks uh 92 common docks and two launches. Um all of those fall within the property uh boundaries of the lid and would benefit from the strategies that we're pursuing and have been benefiting from the strategies that HBA has pursued with the community even without the lid in place. So we do think there's shared value. there's aligned motivation to try to drive a a shared funding source that can keep a consistent effort uh investing back in the bay. Um next slide. Uh a little bit about the process. Uh and this is a highle view. There's much more detail in your packet. Uh but really the the lid is a communityrun organization. It's a communitydirected initiative to try to bring resources together, decide in a common way what's most important and then pursue those things. The process starts out at a high level with the lid board and we'll talk about that in a second. Um working with the community at subject matter experts to develop projects and the associated budget that goes with those projects. Uh and then go out to property owners all on that map that you just saw. Educate folks around those proposed projects, what the budget is for that year, what that would mean as it translates into that year's assessment. This assessment doesn't remain the same every year. That's a misconception sometimes. um it can move depending on what needs to happen in uh the lid for that the lid property for that year. All the lid property owners are invited to participate and attend that annual meeting that where those projects are reviewed, that budget is reviewed and they're able to vote whether those are projects they want to support or not. And there has to be a majority support to get those projects and that budget approved. If not, go back to the drawing board, pursue adjustments to that budget and come back with something that the the lid property owners can support. Um pit allocation. So once that allocation is approved, uh then those assessments are set up through the two collections for annual property taxes in May and October. Those dollars come in just like property taxes would. They're pulled. The city would help out with some of the administrative funds movement to get that into a funding source that the lid controls and then uh projects would happen throughout that year and annual reporting would go back out to the city of mount and other uh interested parties and constituents. So that's kind of the basic process. We did talk with uh finance director at the city of Orino um who has experience uh with lid activities and she gave us an estimate that really management once it's up and running of uh a lid from a city resource perspective is only about two yard two year two hours annually. So not a huge burden from a time perspective. Uh it really is that oversight the pass through of the finances and then helping uh with guidance on partnerships. Uh next slide. uh annual budget uh expected revenue. So what we have been able to do again I talked about that head start that we've had uh with four years of activity on the bay we've been able to watch historically you know what does it cost to treat curly leaf pondweed what does it cost to treat mil foil what does it cost to drive education around sustainable gardening and why rain barrels make sense what does it cost to maintain a website what does it cost to get out and communicate with folks um and really get the word out uh and we believe that uh a budget of about 31 1,750 would be a starting place. Again, this can vary, right? But we've seen over and over talking with lids that are established like St. Albins's and Carmen Bay that if they don't need full funding that year, they could actually have a zero assessment or anywhere in between zero and and what the average might be. Um, this is a a ballpark start based on our historical information on what we've spent. um and we think uh represents the the key things that we're trying to pursue from a budget perspective. Um next slide. I talked a little bit about the different categories on the map. So looking at that budgeted amount that we're trying to pursue that would help support some of those projects. Um looking at an annual assessment that would be uh less than burdensome and fair for those properties and maybe is a little bit different depending on where you are in the PID uh boundaries. Lakes Shore, we're recommending a $150 annual assessment. Uh channel ordeed access, a $100 assessment. Non-labing associations, uh a $50 assessment, and then our one commercial marina, a $500 assessment. Um we did also get a lot of feedback as we walked through. I talked about iron sharpening iron. One thing, uh and we're all residents, right? We all pay property tax that folks were concerned about is is this a neverending new tax that I've got to deal with? is there is there any is the track record I've seen sometimes of non stop increases the property tax is going to be the same with this one and we said we really don't want that to be the case. So we actually included in the proposal uh 100% max on any increase uh in the annual assessment from this first level that we're recommending over the life of the lid. So that lakeshore assessment could never be more than $300. If any change is pursued on that, you would have to go back and have a majority of the pit property owners to approve that increase o over that max level of $300. And we don't anticipate it getting there, but we wanted to make sure we leave room if the cost of treatment goes up, if the cost of materials go up. Um and again, uh our experience has been in talking to the other lids that those variances go up and down, but the better job you do at managing those invasive species, the more likely it is that you're going to have a lower assessment the year after the year after that, the year after that. Um so those are some of the the basics around uh the assessments. Um couple more slides here uh and then I'm going to hand it off to Sher. Um, as far as the board of directors go, uh, we're recommending, and this is in line with the DNR recommendations as well, 5 to seven, uh, volunteer directors. The initial board is appointed by the city council. You as the local government unit, the LGU, we would give you recommendations on folks that are interested, have experience. You can vet those uh, and then appoint that initial board. After that point, every year as part of the annual meeting, uh board members would have to be elected by the participants in the lid. Uh we're recommending two-year alternating terms so we don't have everybody in the board drop off in a given year. Uh we want to make sure we've got some carryover. Um that board of governors or that board of directors would be responsible for writing those initial bylaws uh in alignment with the lid. Um, we really feel strongly that they would need to represent all of the unique neighborhoods around Harrison's Bay. Again, one of the head starts we've had, we've identified 12 different neighborhoods around the lake where we have skippers, we call them skippers, who are really captains for that neighborhood. Uh, and we really believe that it's critically important that every one of those has some representation in general of that area on this board. And we're going to invite folks to be to participate in that. Um, we want the board to really actively focus on maintaining key partnerships. Um, there's going to be no compensation. This is still a totally volunteer board. Folks are investing their own personal equity in this effort. Um, and certainly this is going to be a key part of where the lid goes in the future. Uh, next slide. A lot of questions around well what regulates a lid. Um, there are a tremendous amount of guard rails around how a lid operates. uh the guardrails around how treatment uh is pursued within the lid. Uh this is not a group of community members uh going out there and on their own identifying how to treat and which chemicals to use at what concentration. Um all of those projects are governed by a partnership with the Minihaha Creek wershed district and their rules. The Lake Man Tanka Conservation District ordinances, they all have to be followed. City of Mound ordinances all have to be followed when pursuing initiatives regardless of which one on the list. Um and DNR as they have up to this point and with all of the other treating bays uh across Lake Minnetonka, they provide guidance and the permitting on that aas treatment. So this is again not the lid or the community members determining that we operate within the guidelines of those governing bodies. Um lastly, uh today we're going to be handing off signatures. That's part of the process, the hard work of the folks in the room and others who have been out pounding the pavement having those conversations, getting the feedback, answering questions, uh, talking about those concerns and challenges, um, has produced 60% uh, approval status and signed signatures. The bar to reach to actually present this lid was 50%. So, we've exceeded that. Uh hard to see the the legend over there, but 14% have outright declined and said, uh we're not going to sign that and this is why. Um 3% uh are neutral, have said, "Boy, we love what the HBA is doing, but we're not going to sign the initiative. We're not for it or against it. We're just neutral." Um 11% uh have not been able to make contact through efforts either mailing, stopping by, knocking on doors. We've got a lot of seasonal folks. Some people are coming back, second homes. Um so difficult to get contact with those folks uh but have made effort with every single one of the properties. Uh and then no response. We've made contact, had a conversation, but have not had a response yet back one way or another. So that's kind of the status uh of the signatures that you'll be uh reviewing and we're continuing that dialogue. We've got some time here between now and when that public hearing happens. We're having those conversations. We're inviting folks to open houses, sitting down, educating through our website. Um, trying to make sure that we're hitting every point of view out there and bringing that information in uh, as we fine-tune this proposal. So, I'll thank you for for my time. I'm going to invite Sher Wallace to come up uh, and talk a little bit about some of the concerns that we know have surfaced. Thank you. Thank you. Hello. Hello. Sherry Wallace, 2135 Overland Lane. Not sure if I need to do that or not. I think I do. Um, thank you all. I mean, thank you for your support. Thank you. I'm happy to be here today. I think I said in January, I may or may not be back. Well, I'm back. Um, so I appreciate your need for facts. Um, and I want to start by saying, um, in today's world, in our political, um, arena, if I have a point of view, um, and I wanted to support it, all I need to do is Google it, right? And I'm going to find information out there. I'm going to find both sides of the issue out there. And um we we believe HBA believes that it's important for you to hear this information from trusted partners. So who is that for you guys, right? Um in your packet I listed who we use, who are trusted that gave gave names and stuff um within the packet. um this might be something where you want to work a session on, you know, to deal with some of the concerns. But what I'm going to highlight here is maybe some of the things we have heard when we started this in January. We didn't know it was going to be so controversial. We thought taking care of the lake was just, you know, something people could get get behind and 60% of people have gotten behind it. Um, you also will find in your packet the get the facts document. So, what we tried to do is break it down. I'm not going to go through all of those, but there's links in there. Um, we even had an interview with um the expert consultant for AIS at the DNR and um we have the link to that video on harrisonbay.org. or um it was eye opening. So I was able to ask him questions and then you can hear directly from him. He also was a head researcher for AIS at the University of Minnesota Research Center. So um good information not you know knowing that you're not going to necess we're not biologists right and we recognize that um we need to rely on other people to provide information to us. So, so with that, I'm just going to start with a couple couple of things that have come up. Um, the first one, if you could go to the next slide. The first one is around um the bay treatments, right? So, right now, the Lake Minnotonka Association has um I don't know what the number is how many bays they're actually treating, but um I think it's 14. Sorry, it's 14. Thank you. And then ours is 15 or are we part of the That's part of the LMA specific. So you would get 15. We're so 15 bays. Um these baywide treatments have been happening over the last 10 years. And based on their information, um they have seen and tracked the return of the natives and the impact that these treatments are having. and they have exceeded expectations um as far as providing native plant diversity and and as a re rebounding um diversity. So the baywide treatments not only are effective with the Eurasian mil foil and the curly leaf pond weed, but every year plant surveys are done at the end of the season to see what is actually in the bay and tell us whether we're losing species, whether there we have new species within the bay. So those surveys um point intercept surveys are done every year. Um regarding the herbicides that are used the DNR only uses herbicides that are approved by the EPA and the Minnesota Department of Agriculture. And that's really important because they're the ones that have the scientists that have the information. They're testing it. In fact, on the video with Mike Verhovven, he says in regards to Daquat, because I think that's been one that's really kind of been the the big one is because it's banned in Europe. Well, it's banned in Europe in agricultural use. Okay. So daquat is used in in different forms, but there was a also a study done in 1990 on daquat that did show that the um concentrations on daquat that were used in the water were having a negative impact on walleye fry. And that was very very specific. And after that point, the label was changed on Daquat to reduce the amount of chemicals that are being used. So that the applicators that we're hiring, they are licensed applicators approved by the DNR and they have to and in your packet um along with our propos as part of the proposal to the DNR, there are all the surveys that we've done. So, we've we survey it, but you'll also see that the applicators have to track via GPS exactly where they treat. So, they're only treating the areas that are surveyed and approved via permit. So, it's a very precise treatment at a very precise concentration. And I think that's important to use versus um me trading the around my dock and having having hydro whatever hydrothol or whatever that aqualol or whatever they're called, right? And it tells me that per I gallon of water I can use so much and I'm supposed to figure out that concentration when I sprinkle this around my dock. So these are trained professionals. They're insured applicators. Um and the lid ultimately decides what type of control is being used. So let's say at a certain point in time the acreage comes down on what we're treating then maybe cutting it or pulling it becomes more reasonable. Right now, we took and extrapolated the cost of pulling for the acreage that we had. It would cost something like $900,000 for one treatment of pulling the curly leaf. I mean, it's just it's not it's not something you could ever afford to do at a lakewide level. So, um just some background. So, that's on the basically the the invasive weeds. Um, next slide. I wanted to show you, so Bart talked about this a little bit that over time the objective is especially with curly leaf because these pods live for a period of seven years in the bottom of the lake is to reduce the amount of of treatment that needs to be done. Joan um Joan Mayer was going to be here tonight, but she had a family emergency. She's uh St. Albins's Bay. She's on the board of St. Albins's Bay, and she provided this information to us. This is a survey of their curly leaf. In the spring of 2013, they had 92 acres of curly leaf mats in their bay. Um next slide, please. In 2024, they have just over 10 acres. And so they went from treating 94 acres to treating 10 acres. And the cost went down significantly. They've actually had years where they have had no assessment at all. So um that's the goal, right? The goal is to consistent management. um subspay, you know, if if the residents are paying for it and you can't raise enough money, oftentimes you'll decide to only treat certain areas. And that what they were seeing is that would the curly leaf would explode in the other areas that they're not treating. So, it's this consistent surveying it, watching it, and treating it. It's never going to go away because we're open to other boats coming into our bay, right? So, as long as Mitaka has invasive species, Harrison's Bay will have invasive species, but it's a a diligent monitoring that needs to be done. Um, next slide, please. So, there were some other concerns that were brought up. Um, I know the city is concerned about how many staff hours are going to be used. again. Um, Maggie Jyn helped us out here and said that initial setup probably took them about eight hours of resource time and after that you heard from Bart it's only a couple hours a year. Um there's been a lot of talk about the liability of the lid and I'm sure Scott can talk more about this um to you and advise you on this but um per the DNR and this was kind of a big thing because the question was okay now we're taking responsibility from the DNR for Harrison's Bay and in talking to the DNR are they still maintain responsibility for Harrison's. We are simply performing projects approved by the DNR to improve the bay. We will hire licensed contractors that carry their own liability insurance and follow all guidelines laid out by the EPA and the Minnesota Department of AR um agriculture. Currently HBA carries its own liability policy. Um I believe that is true with with a lid is a lid will be responsible for liability insurance and that'll be part of the budget um for that um use of experts. I mean, one of the ways that we get around or we get we get um good environmental practices is by making sure that we're consulting the resources and we've established those contacts as far as those resources are concerned. That's a guiding principle. you know, James Whisker at the the watershed. Um, I currently sit on the citizens advisory council for the watershed. We are advocating for projects at the watershed level that can benefit our side of Lake Minnetonka. Um, and then the concern of uncontrolled lid assessments. And I think we've we've addressed that in that um we have put a maximum on it. But the other thing is this is run by residents, right? So so me as a property owner, I don't want uncontrolled taxes. I don't want my taxes to go up. And that's I think where electing the right leaders is important at the lid level. So um so what's next here? Next slide. Um we talked about it a little mentioned it a little bit but it's to schedule a public meeting. Um I have delivered um 140 well more than 140 petitions but 140 residents signatures um to Jesse um and and the job is to verify those signatures. Hopefully I made it easy for him as far as going around the the lake. Um the DNR has been the proposal has been submitted to the DNR. Their job is to review the proposal and provide comments to you. Is our scope right? Do we include the right things? Those kinds of things. An advisory document to you. Um, of course, we talked about announcing the meeting, getting citizen feedback, and then ultimately uh a vote um on the issue. So with that, HBA the board um believes that we've accomplished good things in the bay. Our focus is not just invasive weeds, but we're really taking a holistic view. We want it to be about water quality and the general health of the bay. We want this to continue for generations and that is why we're looking at a sust sustainable funding option. We appreciate your time, your consideration, and at this point, happy to answer any questions that you have. That was a lot. Well, I don't know where to start. Okay. Um, as expected, it's a very articulate and uh wellressearched presentation for us, which I appreciate. expected nothing less. Um I I guess my you know I've I've supported almost all of your efforts. Yeah. For me I don't live on Harrison Bay. I I live on Different Bay and we don't have a lid. I know that I would most likely I I don't know if I'd be supportive of of a lit, but but as a council member, you know, we're elected to represent all of the residents in Mount, right? My my concern is the governance of this. I I just feel there could be a lot of issues with conflict of interest. You know, um I'm concerned that if we get involved with this, it implies to our residents that we're comfortable with this new level of bureaucracy and taxation that we have no oversight over whatsoever. I'm uncomfortable like who would be electing your board of directors? You're asking us to. No, the residents would would elect the the first board is appointed by the city and at Subspay just I don't know if you know this, but Stubspay just passed it their uh lid last night. Yeah. And they had submitted a recommended board list to them. But, you know, that that that becomes the conflict of interest for me. Of course, you're going to be presenting us with directors that agree with your agenda. So, it all I just feel like it's a really slippery slope for the city of Mound to get involved with the lid. You know, if Harrison Cany chooses to do it, and I know that the structure of your of this lid you're trying to do has to go through Mound. I feel like mound is just a money clearing house, but it implies to all the rest of the residents that we agree with whatever you guys decide. And it's again, as I say, for me, a level of bureaucracy I'm I'm really uncomfortable with. So, one of the things that the DNR told me about a lid is that um it has uh the activities have to stay within the proposed scope. So within the proposed objectives um and there's oversight. So 60% of the residents have said they they like this idea. Okay. Um they those residents have a voice. They have a voice. So dissenting residents that want to run for the board and help set the direction of what we do and what we don't do that they can do that right um we're not I mean the only reason we would suggest a board you could appoint some you know somebody else right to be on the board that you felt would be able to at least for the first year could kind of oversee or you could even appoint someone as a at large member of the board. I just don't see we as a council have have any business being part of the lit you know we have how many how many bays does mound touch and two lakes Dutch and Landon I just feel like where does this end? It might not I mean maybe it's the new norm for Lake Minnetonka. Well, I know that the LMA wants it to be the new norm. You know, they'd like a lid on every bay, but LMA is out of it wants the lid. We are not part of LMA, just so you know. We No, I understand that. But but I also because I've done plenty of research, too. And I know that the LMA would like to see and and the LMCD a lid on every bank. So, it could become the norm. But I feel it should be structured in a way that the cities I I don't feel that our I'm very uncomfortable with the city of Mount being involved. What kind of Can I ask what kind of maybe two questions? What kind of come to the microphone? So, what kind of just to elaborate, what kind of oversight influence would you want to have on the lid in partnership with the community that's impacted by that? And then maybe give an example of a conflict of interest that you're concerned about. Well, first of all, a conflict of interest, for example, you know, where do you get your chemicals? You die quite. And then the other chemical, let's see, that I noticed was I got to look it up. Yeah, PCellicore, which is a forever chemical. It's a chemical and and it's also on the Minnesota Agricultures list of being banned in the next seven years. So, I don't I I don't like seeing chemicals in the lake. I hire, you know, people that come and pull them out, you know, local kids that come and pull them out for events that I have. Um, the conflict of interest I see as that, where do you get the chemicals front from? As I was going through a lot of my research, um, on the LMA newsletter at the bottom of it where it thanks all the community members and who donate, PLM is on that list. And isn't that where you get your chemicals? Is that who's it's a proven licensed provider of applications that the DNR endorses statewide, not just on Lake Minnetonka within LMA or a specific base. It's actually the entire state of Minnesota said these are the the hoops you need to jump through to be a proven licensed applicator. These are the chemicals that you can use within our guidelines, not for you to independently determine. So these these are not folks that are only determined by Harrison's Bay to use and that are going to get a benefit from the lid. These are recommendations from the DNR at that level statewide around which chemicals should be used at what concentrations and by which applicators that have appropriate licensing. I just start looking at who's in bed with each other and and I'm not I don't feel comfortable. You know, I'm not even sure. You know, I was on Minowashta for four years before I moved here and I've been on here for 34 years. And frankly, I haven't I'm not even sure if I feel confident that a lot of their treatments do what they should, you know, um they they start out working and then and then a new weed pops out or I think it's a great debate. Here's what I heard uh at the Stubs Bay discussion last week or last night. Sorry. I was there for three and a half hours listening to the whole thing, all the back and forth. tremendous amount of support from residents, huge support, 98% 99% of folks supported it. Um the conversation wasn't about which chemicals we're using to treat these specific weeds. It was our bay has an issue. Whatever solution comes up that is the most effective, most supported by the community, most aligned with the natural process that the DNR is trying to drive. Maybe it is just pulling, maybe it is, hey, driving down and and getting 100 people to go around the bay and pull the weeds. We want to have a structure that will support that. We're not promoting procelicore or diecut. We're promoting a community that says put a structure in place with governance with a repeatable funding source that's very minimal as far as impact financially on the community so that this can continue and the community can guide what happens. And you know, we we heard conversations from folks on Forest Lake last night. They got up and testified at the Stubs Bay meeting during the open public hearing. Um and they said, "Hey, we pursued treatments across our bay with even without a lid. Um we eradicated milof foil." Ah, everybody's cheering. Count, which is a na native species, came back into the bay, maybe brought in by a boat or maybe it just thrived because the my mil foil and the cool leaf are gone. You cannot treat cotail with chemicals. The DNR sets that guideline. So, they're adjusting their strategy and they're saying, "How do we harvest it? How do we pull it? How do we use wheat lake groomers?" Everybody's going to chime in. So I I don't want you to take the impression that this strategy is about Priscellor and Daqua and treating this not this is about finding a way to structure a a a arrangement that helps the bay actively engage and consistently engage and partner with the city and I appreciate like I said a lot of the efforts that the Harrison Bay has has done. Um, but you know, you know, I we're we're bombarded with with toxic chemicals in our food, in our water, in our lotions, everywhere. And I don't think I want to be swimming in a lake that's full of chemicals. And, you know, I see it as a landslide. You know, if all of a sudden a lid is on every bay and they're dumping chemicals in when I know I'm at priest bay and we all are very proactive with not using chemicals. Um, having either the harvester come out or have mostly scuba divers, most of us use, but I feel like there's nobody that has better vested interest than the homeowner on the lake. And I'm concerned a little bit with as I was looking at all your dots around Harrison Bay. Why haven't you brought um Spring Park, you know, the uh town houses on the channel into this at all? They're they're right at the edges. One of the big challenges is jumping to another LGU. So now you've got another city involved that has to go through the same lead process that we're going through now with that has very different characteristics than the city of Mount. Maybe different challenges in place. We're trying to keep it simple and focus on a very manageable. But all of a sudden, these people are exempt from a lid because they live in Spring Park even though they're on Harrison's Bay. It's like you're cherrypicking who's going to be in the lid and who isn't. Let me ask you this. When you have everybody that donate, you know, puts in their tax or fee for 100 or 150, are you doing that? Do they all get one vote or do do the votes split between, you know, like the marina? Do Everybody gets one boat, but but then they all pay the same fee and that you have some but some get maybe a better uh participation in the quality of the lake. Someone who has 150 ft of lake shore versus someone who has lives two blocks off the lake and has deeded access to a single slip on one dock. We we really believed as we structured the lid and discussing with the DNR and Kathy that there is some room for trying to create a gradient there because there is different values around the benefits you get that 150 foot lakeshore getting treated and having the ability to swim and beach and have grandkids frolic and have a healthy shore for fishing gets a lot more benefit than a single dock. Why should we charge them the same? We really believe that there should be some gradient in benefit. I agree that you should charge them all according to their property or but but then I question but then they all get the same vote. That that makes no sense to me. So the marina gets one vote and they're only paying $150, but they have x amount of number of boats that are out on the bay at all times. It it just I don't like the word fair because that's a place we take our kids in the summer, but it doesn't seem equitable to me. Sure. To involve all these people and the 60% of the people who are interested in the lid. That's great. But the other 40% suddenly they're burdened with a level of bureaucracy that clearly they don't want or they're not responding. These are really good challenges. I I think what we're trying to do is bring something to the table. What's the alternative? Yeah, the alternative right now is nobody's doing it. LMCD is not managing it. LMA is not managing. The DNR has no funding. The bays will go the wrong direction. They will. We've seen it happen over and over again. Sherry talked a little bit about bays that that have not been able to fund the treatments in a given and then explosion and six years worth of work goes out the door. You got to start over again with another sevenyear set of seeds from curly leaf pond. We're really trying to bring a solution to the table. If there's alternate solutions, man, let's do them. Let's find a way to do it. But if we don't do anything require chemicals, yeah, like like I I I maybe I didn't communicate it clear enough, but if chemicals are not the right solution for everybody on the bay, let's not do it. Let's we we're trying to look for a structure that helps the bay pursue solutions, not a specific solution. So we asked Mike Verhovven about this and it's on part of the video that we have on our web website but he said there are applications for the difference. So whether it be harvesting or pulling or or chemical treatments and depending on the situation it may be appropriate but when you're talking about treating 40 plus acres of curly leaf um those options are outside of what anybody could afford right on a a larger area and we're not looking to tax people out of their house with this initiative. We're looking at an options, right? And I think that's, you know, fiscally responsible. If you look at the information on these chemicals at the concentrations that they're used on, they disappear from the water within 24 hours. They're undetectable. So, they're contact herbicides. They put them in early in the season for curly leaf so that the natives can still come up even after the treatment. So there are there are studies done. These are the experts. This is the U of M, right? This is the the U of M invasive vegetation or AIS group that is saying that depending on the problem, you have to come up with a cost-effective solution. And I'm sure you deal with that all the time, right? How are we going to fix this pipe? You know, we could do it X or we could do it Y. You know, I it's it's all stuff that you have to consider. And so what we're talking about is a resident, resident controlled, taking care of the bay and increasing the the value, the recreational value and the health of the bay. No one else is doing that. No one else cares about Harrison's. Well, I mean, again, if if Harrison Bay votes for that, that's great. I am just I am I am concerned about the city of Mound being involved. Okay, that that fair. And what I encourage you to do is talk to Excelsier, talk to I have talked to to Greenwood, talk to Orno. Yeah, I mean those are all communities that have lids right now. Stouts last night was talking about the number of bodies of water that are around Stubs Bay and in the community of war. No, there are 40 or 50 bodies of water plus rivers and streams and creeks. It was one of the concerns the city council and the mayor came up and and said, "Well, you know, this is an expansion concern. We need to think about this." and they unanimously approved it across the board without I'm aware and and you know stubs bay is is worlds apart from mount in in terms of exposure and what they can all afford whether or not any of them are even interested other than allowing other people to take it on but again I I appreciate valid I mean valid concerns right Kathy I'm not trying to invalidate your concerns this is what we were hoping would happen tonight Kathy I just want you to make sure you're getting that this is the conversation that needs to happen between now and the public hearing to to really hammer out things that you're concerned about. We want to have that working session or follow up from tonight to talk about the specific um you know uh concerns that you've got, the the conflict of interest that you might envision and kind of what we're doing to make sure we can control those and manage those uh adjustments to to what the specific LIP proposal looks like. You're going to get feedback like Sher said from the DNR that says here's where they're off the mark. Here's what this lines up with the other 54 lids that are up and functioning and have been since 1973 in Minnesota. There's a lot of track record on these things working and not burdening or not creating undue challenges for the the LGU that supports them. In fact, there's support from the LGU to say, "Hey, we improved our asset. We increased the value of the community. We increased our tax values. Our property values went up. And we got happy people who live. We have 233 residences now. They're saying, "Wow, the city supported this. They helped us put a structure. They trusted us as residents to go out there and do something for the bay that no one else cares about right now." Um, there's a lot of good value on the flip side of some of those concerns, too. But we want I've heard some mixed reviews on on how you've been getting your 60% of people, but that's your moral compass, not mine. But I'd like to address that, Kathy. like to hear what we have a lot of people in this room that are involved in that process and we love I mean I'm glad to hear that. I just know some people who have been contacting me have been have felt very pressured into feeling stronger and and that I don't feel good about hearing that at all. And did they sign? I have I didn't ask them if they signed their texts and emails and Okay. We we've had so many people respond to this. Well, I'd love to know the numbers, right, of how it feels that way. Has it been overwhelmingly negative the response you're getting or has what's the balance been? Because this is stuff that we want to learn about, right? I I would say the overall response has that I've received has been they're not in support of the lit. So, I've tried to take every, you know, I've gone through your website. I've I've taken all the uh research and really trying to understand both sides. True. Because obviously when you're trying to do, you know, it's the road of good intentions. I know you want a clean lake. We all want a clean lake, but it's again for me it's do I want the city of Mound to be Yeah. Well, but you threw out a whole different thing like getting petitions and that's that's kind of at the heart of I think people in this room that have been involved in that process and again I'm not on Harrison's base so I have no no think I have nothing to say about that too except for what people have been concerned about. Well, I would love for any of those people that you hear those concerns with if they sign the petition then they should be pulling their name back, right? Yes. And I have never had someone come to me and say, "I signed under duress. I don't want to Well, I don't expect you would get that kind of feedback. Well, then I want I want to pull them out of the petition. And again, I know you you're morally a a great human being. So, I I didn't say you are or aren't doing it. I'm just saying, you know, we get all kinds. That was a hard That was a little I'm sure I'm sure that did hurt. But we do get a lot of calls. Can you hear the negative at this point? Because our positives, we haven't asked them to reach out to you. You know, all the all the 140 people that signed the petition, they're not contacting you because they got no problem with it, right? We have had at least I have had a couple of letters saying we're completely in agreement with it. So, no, not every single comment is negative. Well, I just want to clear the record there, right, and say, you know, if there's anyone that comes to the city and says that it needs to go on the record and it needs to be pulled from the petitions. One other bit of peel the back, peel the onion back that I would recommend to, and maybe that's something you're already doing, when you get feedback that's negative uh or derogatory in that way, look at where that individual is. Are they part of that lid boundary? Are they part of Harrison's Bay? Are they part of Mount? Because the other thing that we've seen over the last 60 to 90 days is people that don't even live here creating very very verbal feedback that gets raised up in the social media atmosphere. It gets discriminated very or distributed very quickly. U but you have to look back purely on the back on the motive where they're coming from. Are they part of the impacted properties that are here and and what's what's the background? And to tell you the truth, I know Mr. Rockwell is in the audience. He started a a petition and a website. Uh we didn't know who was running it, the anti-lid website. Um and and we actually reached out to him via email. We didn't know who we're reaching out to, but said, "Hey, let's have a conversation about this with all the residents. We have wanted to have a conversation. What is this about?" Right? Instead of going to social media or to going to these other ways of doing this, let's work together as a community to figure out what the solution is and not take it to to um other social media or anonymous uh posters or whatever you do, right? Say who you are, say what your morals are, and put them out there for for people to actually address and have a conversation about. So, we just want that, right, in our community. We we have been wholly focused on community within HBA. How do we pull these people together and make a true community of people that are all working together to improve the bay? That's what that's what our vision is with this and not, you know, to cause division. We do not want to cause division. So, but appreciate the challenges. That's, like I said, iron sharpens iron, right? We want to know what the concerns are and and we want to take those concerns to the experts, too. If you feel uncomfortable with something, then don't take it from us. take it to trusted experts, right? Ask the Department of Agriculture why they're researching Proyicore and the chemical in Proilicore because it was something that was initiated by what a senator, right, that said this chemical is wrong. And there are a whole slab of chemicals that fit into that. And proilicore is one. We've used proylicore once to treat mil foil. It is not something we use on an annual basis. And we can change that, right? If that if I mean I didn't know this before that that this was a possible issue chemical. And those are the types of conversations we need to have with our applicator. there are other alternatives. So, I I'm just asking for a conversation and a work session and really to be able to dive into what concerns do you have as part of the city. So, thank you. I mean, again, great presentation. Any other questions? Cross and drive questions. Yeah, I have some. They're kind of slowly getting answered as you guys We're wandering through the We know you have a vested interest in Harrison. I don't want to jump in front of anybody else though. I mean, do you guys have questions you want to ask first? I had questions because um emails and calls that I got concerns of the governance structure and what are the implications? We're only mound, but there there are other cities on Harrison Bay. So, does each lid operate independently? Do you collaboratively work? How does that governance structure? Well, you would Harrison's Bay just just mount, right? Right. Right. Now, the the boundaries that you saw on the screen were purely inside the boundaries of the city of Mount. So, they did not breach any additional city boundaries. So this lid would be contained for the city outbound. There are other lids on Lake Minnitanka. One of the visions is coordination across those lids to say what's working, what's not working. What are you seeing in your bay? We believe that there could be an association of lids that share best practices. Talk about harvesting. Talk about pulling. Talk about soil changes. Talk about carp. How do we manage carp? This is not a lake that has gates at every bay, right? It's a it's a body of water that has 37 different unique bays and a lot of little offshoots and channels. Uh right. So it's our best interest across 14 communities that surround the lake to try to find a way to work together and solve problems that are common. We think this is a structure that concern that there are no walls. There are no walls to stop this. So once a treatment is applied even though I know it it um it becomes diluted it still can travel to other areas and so you know what's the impact on that um the other thing I got in letters was um individuals concerned about the cost and controlling the cost um and um not happy about that. So it was governance, it was cost, and it was um I think you covered it in Kathy's comments. So the cost part of it, we heard that, you know, um what's to stop it from being $500 a year? What's to stop it from being $1,000 a year? Whatever. And that is why we capped it. And we said based on our proposal here, you are capped at whatever the double is of what you're paying initially. So over the life this lasts for 20 years, 20 years from now, the most they can charge is $300 a year for Lakeshore. Yeah. For the Lakeshore person, less less for the others. But what that says then is if say costs go up and there are bigger needs then the lid board would have to basically do what we did which is get more than 50% of all the residents to approve raising that cap. So that was that was and not 50% of folks in attendance at an annual meeting 50% of everyone in that lid bounty. So, it's it's a high bar to try to raise that and we wanted to be very intentional about that. You know, let we know costs might increase, but hey, we're setting this thing with an absolute ceiling on it. It's not going any higher than that unless the community says, "Hey, we want it to go higher because we've got problems." Yeah. Well, in response to Sherry's comment, I think that's what I've heard a lot of, too, because I think all of us realize things never go down. They only go up. So if treatments aren't working for you and you're getting no funding because the DNR isn't getting funding or whatever in order to be effective, you'll have to raise it in order. Well, I showed you the picture of St. Albins, right? Where they went from 92 acres to 10 acres or whatever. That's the ultimate goal is is the management of it is going to help us keep it at bay. But what if the cost of continually doing that exceeds? Then we're shooting oursel in the foot. That's what people are concerned about. We we're concerned more about the community and their expense burden than the risk of of input costs going high. Right? So we're saying regardless if if the chemicals go through the roof thousand% more, guess what? You're not going to get charged anymore because we got to find another way to do it because because the biggest thing is no burden on the community because otherwise people won't engage. I don't want to engage if there's if there's a neverending increase ability for this lid. I don't want any part of it. I don't want to be in it because this is a legacy home for my wife and I and our kids and they're going to live here and their kids are going to live here and we're going to continue this down the road. I don't want them to have a 600% increase or you know 50 years from now and maybe shooting ourselves in the foot. I mean, we talked we had lots of conversations about this, right? are we shooting oursel in the foot and that we won't be able to do as much as we would want to do. And I guess that what that emphasizes is this need for partnerships, right? Is where we're out there hitting the pavement and working towards getting support from other agencies to do what we want to do. And this is this is what the lid is, is an advocate for Harrison's, right? They're out there advocating. I'm hoping to not be on the board of the lid in the near future, right? I want to I want to I want to get that off onto another set of people to be working. Other questions, concerns? Thank you, Sherry. Those are good ones. Go ahead. Um, what I will say is I do own shoreline on Lake Langdon. I do not own it on Lake Matonka. Um, what I struggle with, um, is the fact that I've looked into trying to get assistance for Lake Langden. So, I feel your pain. Um, I think what's difficult for the public, for us as a council, is, you know, we are, if we're on the shoreline, you are taxed at a higher rate. Where does that money go? Why is, you know, it feels like LMCD, the DNR, everybody is passing the buck here and saying, "Hey, go create a lid and take care of this problem when they should be responsible for taking care of it." The city of Mound, as far as I know, has no control over that lake whatsoever. Correct. I mean, we don't own the lake. Correct. We own some of the shoreline in our commons program, but yet we have to be responsible for collecting your money, which I know that's the way it's been designated by the legislature or whoever came up with the lead program. Um, and that's where I think I struggle and I know that's where a lot of people as they find out about this are going to have a difficulty understanding, especially those in other bays or like myself on Lake Langon or Lake on Dutch Lake. Um, not that I feel like we're left out in the cold. I bought what I bought and I know what's in that lake. It's nasty. But at the end of the day, um it's very frustrating as a taxpayer taxed at a higher rate that these other governmental bodies are not taking care of what they are being I would assume they're getting some sort of support from those taxes or where is that going and how do we get that money clawed back so it goes to take care of the lake. And honestly, I totally agree. In fact, you know what? We've got a lot of people that are coming in and using the lake and then leaving. Right. That was another complaint that we had and in some cases polluting and doing other things to the lake. I would love to see the DNR charge a some kind of parking permit, right? That can go back into Lake Minnetonka, right? Specific money that can go back into the lake. But we're not seeing that, right? We don't see that and the traffic since co on the lake has just ballooned right as far as the number of of boats coming into the lake. So do I wish that there was another option? Absolutely. But does a lid give us an opportunity to potentially advocate more for that? And if we combined efforts with the other lids to really be able to advocate and honestly Michelle if I if I personally say let's wait until let's wait for the state to figure out how to fund Harrison's Bay and the the invasive species that we need to to challenge in this bay and try to improve the quality. I'm going to be waiting till my kids kids kids before anything makes it. And I'm not I'm not disparaging the state. I'm just saying there are a lot of competing priorities. There's a lot of things out there. Um we just really believe that a locally controlled, managed, directed, concepted um group of folks that all care about what happens in front of their 233 properties and on that lake um is the best way to get resources to things that are important to those folks in that bay. And guess what? There's a lot of other people that benefit from that. Everybody that comes in for the day, every ice fish, every ice fisherman that parks on Center View Harrison has 60 to 65 ice homes that are out there for two and a half months every every winter. And I guarantee maybe 5% of those are folks that live on Harrison's Bay. They all benefit from higher water water quality, no invasives, great fishing. Um, and you know, there there's just there's a lot of folks that would benefit from this, but why not have the folks who who are directly connected to it decide what needs to happen? And if that's treatments with chemicals, let's follow DNR guns. If it's not, let's go out and pull weeds together. Let's figure out a way to do it. So, you come pull my weeds. Yeah. I mean, it's like if if not us, then who? And right now, there's no who, right? There's no one. It's unfortunate, but I get it. Start our own weed and go business. Um, I just have a few questions on stuff that I've kind of absorbed over the last couple weeks, I guess, and they're not some my personal questions and some just based on a lot of the people that we've heard on both sides of the issue and been contacted. Um, so the original proposal, is that what it's called? Like the original formation of the lid? um kind of establishes like the cost and like you said it can only it can't go up more than 100%. But that could be amended or voted to pass later. Um can the original proposal be modified or it's the same process? The DNR has a process for um ending the lid and also changing the scope of the lid. And again it's the 50 plus mark. Okay. So I guess um what I was ask kind of trying to say is like you had put up before like the agencies that control the regulations you have to follow as a lid and the project scope that a lid could perform. Uh that wouldn't change or could could the board vote to We can't change. Yeah. What what the agencies said is the guidelines and the guardrails. We can't change those. We can't influence statewide guard rails. All we can influence is what we would partner with those state entities on to execute for projects. Okay. I heard a lot of um so in the proposal on p on the third page the objectives that we listed here um that's our scope. Quick page um is page three of our proposal. So could the scope change if the board is wants to add something to their scope? objectives only not without 50 plus%. Okay. So what you see so it could but not without 50 but it needs support from the community from the properties the residents would have to decide where that makes sense. What you see and what we've seen in feedback on some of the lids is that they will create a very narrow scope and say we want to treat for invasive wheats and that's it. And the DNR is not hugely in favor of that. Right? because it is not a holistic view of the health of the bay. You're not thinking about runoff and shoreline management and rain garden, all the things that that kind of encompass the health of the bay. You're thinking very myopically about one topic. So, they actually discourage very narrowly focused. But on the flip side, they also say you can't try to boil the ocean, so to speak, or boil the bay, whatever you want to call it. Um, let's not make it so crazy broad that anything can happen in there. So that's where we're going to get a lot of good counseling also from Cassie and the DNR around how does your scope look? Yeah. Is this the right kind of funnel for project the comments that we get from them will be around this particular proposal, our scope, our boundaries, all of that. Whether that's and we've done some pre-re at least with Cath Kathleen Mezer. However, she has to take it to a whole board for review. And as Kevin kind of was touching on, I think that's part of why people are scratching their heads because not everybody is in agreement with the direction the DNR is going. So if you're taking all direction from the DNR and not trying things from any other trusted sources. Well, there that's not that's not our only source of information. I mean, I told you I'm on the Minihaha watershed um citizen advisory council, James Whisker, and what they're doing on water quality has been really present. They're going to work with us on water testing. How do we get good water testing so we can look at runoff and testing the the composition of runoff that's coming in? You work with the MPCA on setting a budget for phosphorus in in the bay. Many of the bays have done that as well to say, "Hey, this is the phosphorous load that that bay can control and manage effectively. You get above that, we've got serious issues." So, it's it's not singular. It's not just the DNR is just the governing like they're the ones this program goes with. Yeah. And I don't know the state decided that, right? the state decided through statute or whatever that they administer at least the proposal and the give guidance behind the proposal. Um but ultimately, you know, they're just advising on the proposal. Um, can a city vote or have an election to like dissolve a lid once it's formed? Like if it's not going well or the city like so Stubs Bay passed last night. Yeah. Um, you know, if it's going great, it's going great. In a couple years, if it's just residents aren't happy, is it just a self-contained the residents need to dissolve it or can the city I I don't know the answer to that question. I I heard that it was 50 plus, you know, residents could say, "Hey, there's no need for it anymore. We want to get rid of it." But I think it follows this a similar process, Kevin. So those residents then would have the they'd reach the hurdle 50% plus to come back, bring it to the city and say, "Our proposal is to disintegrate this lid, dissolve this lid. It no longer serves our purposes." And then you have So what if let's say I'm just going to use Stubs Bay as an example, like if they're all gung-ho and they love their lid, but the city does not. Oh. Oh, I don't think the city can independently else. Yeah, I don't think the city can independently resolve it. It's the res. It's the residents in the lid that would bring it to you and then you would vote. So, the city couldn't just say we're done because if the city's done, you have no lid because you have no clearing house for your money. I I don't know the answer. We'll clarify that. Yeah, that would be great. That's a great question, Kevin. First involved in that. Okay, we'll confirm that. who holds who would hold the election for the like every two year you know kind of like the city does every two years you have two new directors so the the current board is responsible for arranging the annual meeting and by statute I think it's has to be scheduled in like August July or August every year so it's actually defined in the statute when the annual meeting is okay and and rules around notifying people people have to get so much in advance In our proposal, we talk about absentee voting for a household. So, if you can't make the annual meeting, the budget is part of the packet that goes out. Here are the projects we're looking at doing. Here's the budget. And any project over $5,000 has to be specifically approved by the annual meeting. So that is arranged by the current board and then nominees come in up to a certain point for the board positions from residents and then at the annual meeting or via absentee those folks come in as to who they want on the board. And I suppose it probably makes sense to do like a hey the top three vote getters are on the board kind of thing, you know. Um, so that's what I understand about it, but obviously as we get into this, there'll have to be some guidance, right, from the DNR that's managing the statute or whatever because it is in the statute like what the rules are around the annual meeting. Okay. And then um some of this isn't really all a question. And it's a lot of feedback, I guess, for you guys at the same time, too. But over the last couple weeks, it's like a clean sly lake means different things to different people, you know, like some some people want it to get cleaned by chemicals, some do not and or like manual, you know, weed pulling and all that stuff or just let it be. Some people don't care about the chemical part at all. they care about the tax or the I mean tax isn't the right word but the annual dues part of it and how that could change. Um and then I think I mean what I've heard most is people care about how the scope or from the original proposal could change over time. Great. You know that was the main thing. That's a great question for people that are smarter than I am. Yeah. And I'm close proximity to it. I'm not one of the affected or impacted properties. Yeah. But, you know, whether you're for the lid or not, that was one concern was, you know, how, you know, if when can it change? And well, and that was one thing that Kathleen told us very specifically was that what you list here is what you can do, right? So, if you start thinking that you're going to do I don't I I can't even think what it would be um retaining walls or something. Retain oh. Oh, pay for a new seaw wall or pay for dredging right of of a lagoon or whatever. That's not in our scope and that's not something that can be changed at this point. Oh, good good points that we'll have addressed in the FAQ. So, folks have got good information. Well, and that's where, you know, having and and Kathleen seems to be pretty good with the statute, but even Scott, you from that standpoint, any advice, you know, that that you have after looking over what the statute said, but there is a lot of information there and governance around this within the statute. Okay. And then um I mean, I think you guys kind of answered this before, but just because I've been asked about it multiple times. So, like lids are or aren't affiliated with LMA? No, they're not. They can be, but they don't need to be or how does that AID could pursue a membership with the LMA? I I no I don't know if they so how that would work. LMA is a nonprofit, right? So it might be a conflict of interest at that point, you know, to I I I don't know exactly, but they oftent times start out as part of their bay treatment plan. And the reason why we weren't in the bay treatment plan is because they wouldn't entertain talking about water quality, storm water runoff, and carp. So they wouldn't let us even speak to it in in our um newsletter. And that was really our objective was a holistic look, hey, we know we have a car problem. We know we have poor water quality. It's not just the invasives that are an issue in our bay. And so we wanted that holistic approach. And that's why we went off, Jane and I went off and created a nonprofit ourselves so that we could we could uh elect a board and people I think the utility of of a lid would be partnering with LMA for information sharing, best practices, what's working, what's not working, because they've got 10 years plus of working with 14 affected bays and all the communities that surround those bays around how to address these problems. So we we'd never want to hold back that information source. We want to find best practices and we're going to tap into anyone who's been able to build those. So Okay. Yeah. And I think I'm echoing what council member Mcannini said earlier about like we need to feel 100% confident that it's not going to cost it's not going to add um expenses to the city of Mound too or you know anything like that because we just have we have this long list of council priorities and you know a lid is not on it. Sure. Yeah, understand. But we have a priorities list every year. I mean, is water quality on it? Is storm water runoff as part of your your storm water management plan? Right. I know you've used some of the things that we've done as part of that plan. Water quality is definitely on it. This would different water quality. Oh, yeah. We all know about that. Um, but those are things that are activities would then kind of feed into stuff you need for your permit. So, what does it look like when um there is a lid and you guys have a project or a treatment that you know you have to follow the DNR, MCWD and LMCD regulations. Is it something that can just happen and be facilitated through the lid or does it need to come to like a city council meeting? does not need to come through the board, which that bothers me. Me too. But it's like self-contained kind of like you guys can I mean that's what I I understand it's you're not you're using approved chemicals. I don't mean it like that. Like yeah, we can just do whatever. We're going to do this project. Do you guys approve kind of thing? And my understanding is we need the approval from the residents and and not but but Jesse maybe you can find out more maybe know more. I know you've been talking to some other people about it. I'm just curious like the ongoing process for that you know if it's something that it's not that I understand but I know that um I think at St. Albins's Bay. I think Greenwood actually puts a a at large like member on that and maybe they're responsible for periodic updates. I'm sure as an LDU you guys can set your own what you want from the list. That that's the flexibility too as we design this together. um you know within that proposal as we get closer to that to finalizing that if there's something that you want to see report outs at every other council meeting. I mean I hate to do that but if you're concerned you're concerned about I want to know about those projects and if they're happening and I want some oversight to say no uh or I want to at least understand what the impacts are and what you did to get to that decision. That's legitimate. That's I understand that you're representing the city of Mound and all the residents in it. So if that's part of the structure and that communication and report back needs to be in this to be supported, we want to talk about that. And there is an annual report that goes to the LDU. Okay. And as well as the DNR and and that kind of thing. The only other feedback I got was really like wanting clarification on which I don't I don't know. I'm not necessarily asking for an answer now, but saying who's responsible and who's liable when there is a chemical treatment in the bay, you know, if something happens or, you know, whatever that the city the city's not responsible for that. Yeah. And I think that's something that Scott can maybe advise about or your insurance agent or what what whatever. But liability insurance would be something for sure for a lid. for the lid would maintain liability, but also every contractor used by the lid must be insured. Um I just have a couple more. Um the impaired bay list, what is needed to get I mean other bays too, but Harrison Bay in particular off. Is it more of like a weed or a carp thing? It's it's a multiaceted water quality measurement, right? Um, so and every, like I said, every bay is a little bit different. You know, if you go over to Weissed Bay, you might not have the turbulent water that we get from carp on this side and the shallow and the muddy bottoms. So, every bay is a little bit different on that. Some strategies, but the measurements that say this is an Aquality bay versus a Dquality bay or a poor versus an exceptional, those are managed by the MCWD and the MPCA. So, they kind of set the metrics. Those don't change. We don't influence those. So what we'd be trying to do is move those metrics. Quality on water, parts per million, phosphorus load. There's a there's a variety limited in what we can do, right? We can um if you talk to the watershed, the the load into Harrison's is really small based on the number of people around the bay. But the problem is more weeds are more painters. It's brings in a lot. It's a combo. Okay. Right. So, the carp are turnurning up the internal phosphorus, right? But right now, we have a lot of external phosphorus that's coming into the bay through Painters's Creek. And there is a visual. It's it's actually the LA very last page that the watershed did for us, which kind of talks about the balance between what's coming in and what's already in the bay. um we have to reduce painters creek and and that is a partnership thing with the wershed is to get priority on the painters creek projects. Um the other thing that can be done is um alum treatments in the bottom of the bay to bind the phosphorus so that the carbon can't release that. They did that to Langden. I don't know it was probably 30 years ago I will say it hasn't done anything but if you're not reducing what's coming the load coming in then the trees really don't have an impact and so it's really it's really goes back to those partnerships right we can help residents to do clean water practices right and keep their water on their land moving the needle is a joint effort with the wershed I don't know. I don't think I have any other questions. Can you give us an example though? I guess I'll speak up. Sorry. Um, let's say you go from 150 and I'll just grab that one number. And it's going to raise up to 200. Do you know how that flows through? Does the city have to notify the residents or how does that actually get increased on their taxes? Oh, so what we would do every year is we would give you a list. So I I gave the list I gave Jesse. I have a whole list of all the properties and their PIDs. Okay. And we would actually put that together, right? By property. Okay. What the assessment is. So basically it's the P and the amount of assessment. I saw the St. Albvin's Bay one. It's just pretty simple. Two columns. P assessment, right? And we provide that to the city. And again, any increase has to be approved by the lid community, right? So, yeah, I was just curious on how it actually flipped through the system and the taxing authority gets it too. Okay. Yeah. Pretty all right. Pretty simple, man. Okay. That's all I have. I'm grateful for all the work you guys have done in the projects on the bay. It's just I'm regurgitating a lot of questions and Oh, sure. have 10 more questions next week and 10 more after that. Well, and honestly, I mean, we want to help in any way with those questions, right? And and however we need to connect up with experts. I just I have some questions, right? And we've tried to really talk to people about this and I don't know. I mean, it's it's something like when I'm not doing this anymore, it's kind of a legacy thing, right? who who is who's going to do it. I think the other thing our hope is that that public hearing you're going to hear a lot of the the positive support as well because as Cherry said, people generally don't send those support emails unless they've got an issue or they got something they want to solve. So, um you know, you may see different perspective between here and the public hearing and then certainly on that day. And again, we welcome all perspectives. And like I said, Kathy, if anyone wants to pull their signature, I hope that they're being vocal about that. I have no problem directing them back to you. Sure. And I have That's where it should go. Again, I'm not uh pointing the finger at anybody. I have no idea what what you guys do. I don't live on Harrison Bay. I'm just sharing some of the feedback I've gotten, whether it's false or real. It's none of my concern, but to pass it along. We've heard a lot of it. We've heard valuable. I appreciate it. We've heard a lot of it and we want to address it, right? We want to have a conversation about it. So, what's our alternative if we don't do this? I I guess that's the big question, right? Thank you. We a lot of time you guys hopefully uh you take the invitation to reach out to any of us between now and public hearing. Oh, do we have a date for a public hearing or is that something we you will let us know because I think the statute says 30 days, right? We have to notice for 21, right? Right. So, we need to give 21 days notice to the residents and the the various organizations. So, we're waiting, we'll be waiting for the report from the DNR for verification, as Mr. Landman said, more than likely the first meeting in August. Oh, I thought you had said you thrown up out a different date initially. I thought because our looking at the statute for a normal public hearing, we only need 10 days, but uh I think Oh, the notice that needs to be done and and the rules from the DNR that would make more sense. And the DNR, she had no problem getting you comments by July 8th because I threw that out like it's just too quick. I wanted to ask her and that's going to be really helpful just to have this all organized that way. We want to make sure that when we schedule the public hearing that we're not waiting for anything. So, when do you think we'll hear about that? But that date couple weeks we'll need to get them directly to the res. Yeah, just the date we just need. Yeah. Uh the second Tuesday in August would be our target date. So thank you for coming everybody. Um I think we'll move on to our next agenda item number nine. approve resolution uh for awarding bid for sewer televising project. Thanks for your patience. What's that? Thanks for your patience. Yeah, no problem. Thank you, acting mayor, members of the council. Uh Matt Felman, city engineer. So, uh we on June 3rd, we requested quotes from several contractors to televise a portion of the city's sewer system. So, on on an annual basis, the city does about a fifth of the city. So that um just kind of I think it's um met council statute is that they're supposed to maintain everything at least once within every 5 years. So that's that's kind of our target here. Um we received three quotes back and pipe services out of Shaka was the low quote at 42, $2349 and they've done work in the city for um several times before. So we would recommend awarding the the contract to them. Uh so on the next page you have a resolution to award the quote to pipe services. Let me know if you have any other questions. Not second to catch up here. Thanks for closing the door. Um any discussion on this is on page 1561. I don't have anything personally. No. Okay. All right. Look for a motion to make a resolution on 1561. Have it be a motion to a motion to pass resolution number 25-58. A motion to pass the resolution 25-58. So I make a motion to award the resolution contract for 2025 sewer televising project PW2504 resol and which is resolution number 252 which is resolution number 25-58. Correct. That's good. All right. We have a motion. Do I have a second? Second. Well, you made the motion. Second. I'll second it for you. Okay. All right. We have a motion. We have a second. Um, all those in favor? I I. Those opposed? Motion carries. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for waiting through all that. So, if you ever want to clear a room, we'll bring that up. I was going to say, did you take away? We should had him start first. Hang on. Listen. Yeah. I had thought about, you know, just saying we should reverse these items and I'm like, well, someone's going to ask something and we're going to need come up and I'm going to need Yeah. Well, thank you. Um, all right. Quickest agenda item of the night. Uh, number 10, updates from council members. Just go down the list and order on the agenda here. Council member Pew. Um, I don't have anything. Okay, Council Member McKini. Well, I just have a a request. I can't take driving by our three flags down at Veterans Park and seeing the pole that the mound flag is on is not plum. It's so crooked. It look And no, it drives me insane because it's it's like our m you know, all the flag poles are straight and then there's the one that the mound flags on and it's like somebody hit it or something. So, this is Veterans Park. Um, correct. Across from Surfside or Veterans Park by the parking ramp at the main parking. I think they're both called Veterans Park. One's Yeah, they I think this is Veterans Plaza. Yeah. Okay. Pardon me. The flag pole and Veterans Plaza. Can somebody please get that flag pole straight? It looks just really tacky. And then to throw salt into the wounds, it has the mound flag on it. You know, typical. So typical. That's all I have. All right, Council Member Heric. Okay. To shed a little light on your request and Jesse, you're aware that I met with um Ryan this morning and um I guess Dustin was out ill. Um, and that was part of the discussion that we had was that particular part because it is in dire need of some love. So, I have reached out. Yes, it's uh a lot for our staff to take care of it. Um, and there's other parks obviously in need and I know Maggie's reached out and they're trying to track down volunteers to work on that. Um I did reach out to uh Cindy Palm and I'm hoping we can get the um auxiliary to actually come and spend a day to get that thing into shape. Now they wouldn't have anything to do with those flags, but there are additional yes, the poles, but there are also we have other flags which I did address with Ryan this morning. Um he's going to get a bid or a cost on it. We evidently go through quite a few flags because of the weather. You know, they get torn up. Um, I was requesting I would like to see more of them going down towards Surfside. We're getting ready for a Spirit of the Lakes parade, uh, Fourth of July, so on and so forth. We do have some mechanisms to actually put those on the poles, the light poles. Um, there are also some other polls in there, which he's going to get us a bid on what it would cost to put flags on those rather than adding the flag poles. But for consistency, I think he suggested possibly using just the the little I don't know what it is, the bracket that you put like the tent off, right? And then get those restored this way as well. Um, so that was something we were talking about. He was going to get us some, you know, a cost. Obviously, I can't approve it, but if you know, we could get that information and put it in front of the council. It will be an expenditure, um, which we probably haven't budgeted for. I don't know. Um, I'm hoping that we can get that added to the budget in the future to make sure and to address your veterans park issue. That is something that is very um vivid when you come into town. That is something that the first thing you see. The first thing you see is the crooked flag pole. Well, maybe it's the same people snapping off the post at Belmont Park. Yeah. And they are metal. I mean, and our, you know, public works department does a tremendous job. They are tasked with taking care of a lot of parks and a lot of public spaces. Um, they did just I think he told me they just got the kids on board. Jesse helped me out here. I think they got them on board last week and they're still coming on board. The seasonal seasonal seasonal. There we go. Sorry, I shouldn't call them kids. Um, and so that'll help, but they're trying to get up to speed. And he's also going to get me a timeline of when the whole area as we come into town will be completed because there's a lot of dead trees, um, weeds, so on and so forth. It's beautiful. The flags look so great, you know, as you're looking down, all directions. It'd be beautiful to have them go down a little bit further. And that is the center of town, you know, and we want Surfside to be our premier park. And that will help make that whole area look nice. Yeah, that's really good. Oh, do we have a date yet for We were talking about doing a public I mean a combined meeting between the parks and open spaces and the council again. Do we have any idea when we're going to do that? I know we talked about it, but I don't think we got confirmation. Well, so we did that. When was that? Um, last month. Just last month. So, say about a month ago. Once a year. Is that what we're doing? Well, no. talked about doing an additional because we ran out of time and there's some additional topics. Thank you for bringing that up. I actually I wasn't at the last meeting but I had emailed Jesse and asked I didn't see it till after I included Jesse on that. I wanted to call a special meeting a workshop together for us. I have a whole list of stuff while I was out having to take photos of all the parks you know for the website and stuff. I have a whole list of things that I think would be relevant for all of us to talk about prior to our uh meeting with the parks so we can actually give them some reasonable direction. I I gave you guys so much credit after our joint meeting. I'm like it it's it'd be like having a whole bunch of employees and they just keep trying to please you, but they've never been told you know what's asked of them. So, I think it would be beneficial for us as a council to really examine some of these things so we can help the parks board out to focus on really things that that we all can get our arms wrapped around and I I think it would be beneficial for us to meet first. Yeah. So, that could be I mean I don't have a preference on if or when like you know like meeting again. Yeah. I wanted found out Jesse. We haven't scheduled anything, but do you think it should be after we have more workshops regarding the budget to be like, well, okay, so here's what we decided we want to allocate in addition before we like say here's some priorities for parks and open spaces and then we're like kind of having to backpedal if we don't do X, Y, and Z with that budget or Well, I'd also like to talk about the amenities down at the new Lost Lake Commons. I think I think we as a council have never had a discussion about it. It's just presented to us. Everything we've uh agreed upon so far. I think we've all been in agreement on, but a lot of it like the hammocks and and the art walk. I I I'd like to see the feedback the artwalk got. I I just think we as a council need it's a $2.2 2 million park that we have had zero conversation as a council about. But for council member Herrick's point like to when to schedule that other meeting like just based on timing for everything. Should it be you know a lot later in the year or should it be soon? I mean I like I wanted it tonight until I found out Mayor Holt wasn't going to be here and nobody brought it up anyway. it wasn't going to happen. But soon, I think in line with your comment about I mean, we've got a big park that we need some answers on and some direction to get the parks, you know, open spaces group. Um, you know, we're talking about a lot of money and I've heard a lot of feedback from a lot of residents saying, "What?" Yeah. You know, they're shocked at the amount of money it's going to cost to do that. So, I think we have some accountability and responsibility to be able to document what these costs are. Did we ever get bids back on the on that? We're actually coming to the parks commission meeting on Thursday to kind of talk through the feedback and then we're going to get into finalizing bids. So I don't have the bid bids for what the new park for phase two of the Lost Lake Commons and and what does that bid include? So that'll be um putting the concrete in where there's where's the gravel now um and then doing the rest of the kind of the concrete around the the performance area, the low low area by the lake, the where the stuff are now. Yeah. Where the bricks are. I feel like we need to talk about some before it just gets Is there a better place to have the performance area that makes I I just feel like we have had zero um communication about this other than we've been looking at the plans, but every time we've asked you like, you know, the hammock cooks, well, how much are they? and you go, "Well, nothing's been decided." That leaves my brain thinking, "We all still have a lot to talk about." Say, "We've got it pretty closely nailed down." And I'd say we can share that and maybe we I don't know if a workshop would be the best. I would like to see a I really want to see it too. I would like more clarity around the cost for this initiative. I kind of want to speak to a couple of those when I get to my update thing, but I can wait until Did you add more stuff? No, I think I'm in agreement with Miss Mcne. Um, yeah, we've I think we need to provide direction. Um, the community is starting to clamor, you know, what's going on, when's it going to be done, what's it going to cost, you know, what's the hold up, you know, so on and so forth. Well, there there's always been a budget for it. It's just the details on what we're buying with the budget. Yeah, it's the details. That's the right word. But but we've known generally. Mhm. Um, so I guess what I wanted to I don't really have much to add, but one of the the one thing I did want to talk about was the budget a little bit, but this would be a big part of it. And then um so we have a finance committee workshop next Tuesday. Okay. Right. Well, that's a a meeting of the finance committee with staff. Yep. We have a planned finance or a planned workshop with the council before the meeting on the 24th. Yes. Okay. So then like at that point I kind of wanted to do I feel like this isn't you know it's never a one workshop thing with the budget but like that was at the top of my mind as we go look through like different departments was you know to have a workshop right away after we meet to get everyone on the same page and like you said it's not like we talk about the budget like two months after it's been worked on or whatever. giving a budget workshop. Um, one of the things that I keep thinking about is every year our liquor store is making more and more money and so that that money has been allocated towards special projects in the past. Do we need to maybe rethink how we allocate that resource? um you know could um yeah I mean this I mean it it it amazes me um you know it's kind of significant to me it is and I think it's we're making maybe we should be worried about the amount of alcohol being consumed it's down tough times but you know part of that was to pick apart and assess like phase two and phase three and just decide together if it's like is um this part of phase two a priority for us? Can we do without it? Do we definitely want it? Do we want it to be different? And then lay that out. But that's just one like little part of the city budget. But but but that's a big deal. But the visual part is the concept for me. It's like the next thing people are going to talk about is like the seating timeline because those people have not as Matt said at the last council meeting, they're not getting paid until it looks a certain way. But it'd be cool if they could get seated like I think they seated. It has been done. So it's it's starting to come through. Okay. So that's like, you know, we have that phase done and then move on to two and three, but I mean this is pretty it's only two weeks away. We can talk about everything that we just talked about. But that was important to me, too. So I think we'll definitely spend a solid amount of time on that part of the So your initial meeting is on the 17th because the park budget is phase two and three are the budget, but it doesn't mean that it's exactly that. I mean, well, and as you said, it doesn't have to spend it either, right? You said that at our workshop with the parks. Yeah. Maybe we don't know what art we need yet. Maybe we don't do that. We have two or three right now. We wait or So, when's the workshop with the council? So, we have the finance committee meeting the 17th to prepare for that workshop on the 17th. And that'll just be um the finance committee meeting, but the following week before the council meeting, we'll do the workshop at 5 here. And that's June 24th. Yep. That's what I was trying. Okay. That's what I was trying to get at. June 24th. But I think we can get, you know, some stuff done that day, but we have to just decide what's you know like the most important and then you know whether it's water or lost Lake Commons or there's other big stuff. The Lost Lake Commons is just part of it. But right, you know, we'll be we'll have we'll be talking about it pretty quick. Well, maybe that does make sense to go through all the budgets and where we can allocate funds and then following I didn't realize you were having that meeting. Following that meeting on the 24th, maybe we can get together and have a group on parks and then we can set a time aside to meet with parks meeting. Yeah. So we can actually be clear on what can we accomplish and what can what do we have in the budget? Yeah. So yeah, maybe we can get that worked out because I know we have to do a special notice and all that fun stuff so many days ahead. So Oh yeah, we want to try to get that all timed out. Yeah, maybe when you meet Jason. I mean I didn't have anything else. I just wanted to communicate that the you know we have the the finance committee meeting and then budget workshop is just two weeks away. So, okay. Okay. Yeah. What time would that be? Sorry. 5. Okay. So, we'll have only an hour. And then I um I'm really happy to hear it was seated. That was actually on my list and I was like, I'm just going to buff them again. But no, it looks it's looking good. Cool. Was there anything else done down there besides the seating or was that kind of just all that needed to get done? I think they raed up a little bit, but that was really it. There are some cracked panels that need to be replaced yet. We're not rushing them, but that that'll need to be redone later. Okay, awesome. Um that prominade is the coolest part of that whole area. I just love that. So pretty, wide, and it really helps the trail, you know, Andrew's trail. It's just really nice. Agreed. All right. Well, I don't have anything else. Um anything else? Uh item number 11, you guys. Oh, was that me? That's you. That's y'all. I was just I'm only just going to add a little bit on the budget thing. So, we're I think part of the reason why we're moving ahead with this particular um workshop is sort of in response to some of these questions that have come up because there we have a pretty well worn path on how the budget comes to be every year. Um, I just had it in front of me, but Noah passed out his assignments to everybody last week about the dates for when all the department heads need to have their budgets pulled together. And so that's more of a July thing. And then, of course, we'll come back for a bigger presentation to the council ahead of our statutory requirements for the preliminary budget and levy um in September. So, I think we're just sort of getting a little bit ahead of it this year. Um, because there's a lot of moving parts, but we're still the goal would be to still stick with our uh long-term financial management plan, which did address the liquor store, and we did reassign the funds on that a little bit more towards water coming into 2025. Um, but one of the things Ellers did sort of uh push was that this is not it's not the the steady uh um pipeline of money like a levy is where every year we can set it and we know that's what we're going to get. You know, if people suddenly stop drinking alcohol, of course, then that would that would dry up, so to speak. So, um, but that's one of the things that'll be discussed too is just what financial um tools we have at our disposal to be able to how how much is parks going to get off of the um town homes in um on commerce the new development. That is a really good question because we get a percentage of that development. I don't think it's a percentage, but it's it's in the code that there's a certain amount of money per acre that goes to park. It's a green space type of thing. We I can get that for you. So, that's something that we we never had in futuristic budgets, projections for that fee for that development. And and then there'd be one for um old um shoreline if he comes back, right? Any new development has to has to pay for fees, right? So see there is money coming otherwise I I don't think I have anything there the special session um took place there's no local projects in it. Um I'm going to provide a little bit more of an update to you all uh directly and ahead of our July water meeting because that's pretty pertinent to the to this. But um sounds like a couple different grant programs were funded a little bit more in the PFA and we are fundable. So more to come is really just the the answer on that. But otherwise that's all I be able to get a lot more done on other stuff after 24 workshop. Yeah. Okay. Anything else from anybody? All right. If there's no further discussion, I would take a motion to adjurnn. I'd like to make a motion to adjurnn, please. We have a motion. Can I get a second? A second. All those in favor? I I opposed. Adjourn.