This transcript features **Mayor Matt Montgomery** presiding over the meeting, with budget presentations by **Neil** (identified as the outgoing financial lead/interim administrator), and reports from the City Council and City Attorney **Shelley Ryan**. [0:28] **[Silence/Background Noise]** [2:44] **Mayor Matt Montgomery:** Call to order City of Cannon Falls City Council meeting for Tuesday, December 3rd, 2024. If I could get a roll call, please. [2:50] **City Clerk Sara Peer:** Guesmi? **Council Member Chris Nobach:** Here. **City Clerk Sara Peer:** Jeppesen? **Council Member Ryan Jeppesen:** Here. **City Clerk Sara Peer:** Johnson? **Council Member Chad Johnson:** Here. **City Clerk Sara Peer:** Kronenberger? **Council Member Laura Kronenberger:** Here. **City Clerk Sara Peer:** Lindell? **Council Member Derek Lindell:** Here. **City Clerk Sara Peer:** Montgomery? **Mayor Matt Montgomery:** Here. Please rise for the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. [3:20] **Mayor Matt Montgomery:** If I can get a motion to approve tonight's agenda. **Council Member Derek Lindell:** So moved. **Mayor Matt Montgomery:** Motion from Lindell. **Council Member Chad Johnson:** Second. **Mayor Matt Montgomery:** Second by Johnson. All those in favor? **Council Members:** Aye. **Mayor Matt Montgomery:** Opposed? Carries. Gets us to public input. Public input is intended to afford the public an opportunity to address concerns to the City Council. Public input will be no longer than 30 minutes in total length and each speaker will have no more than three minutes to speak. Speakers may address topics relevant to the governance of the city. Speakers must sign up in advance, must provide their name, address, and the topic they intend to address. Comments must be on topic, respectful, pertinent to city business, and adhere to applicable data privacy rules. Any speaker that violates these rules will be asked to sit down. If the speaker refuses to comply, they may be removed from the building. Speakers shall not address topics that are the subject of a public hearing. All such comments shall be made at the public hearing. The City Council will not generally act on issues raised by the public input but may choose to schedule consideration of the item on a future agenda. Leading off, Aaron McMahon. [4:23] **Aaron McMahon:** Hi, I'm Aaron McMahon, 612 Hoffman Street, Cannon Falls. Derek Lindell, you're my favorite favorite council person. Hi. Um, so I want to ask the Council, and I know you can't answer, if you know what a paper tiger is. I'm going to tell you what the definition is because there's a guy in the audience who calls me a Karen every week and he might not know. It refers to something or someone that claims to be powerful but is actually ineffectual and unable to withstand a challenge. That's how I feel the City Council is right now. You're just a big old paper tiger and the Fair's got a big old match. My summer was ruined and I don't want to have any more summers ruined. I don't think you should be negotiating with the Fair. The Fair should have a cease and desist. If I might bring another animal or two into it: you're putting the cart before the horse negotiating with the Fair. What you should be doing is getting your ordinances in order and just figure out how to enforce those. Because right now, what these guys are waiting to do is to have you amend the zone. And might I add, I understand that the zoning is going to be specific to the Fair and start with an F, and I suggest you call it "FU" because that's what they've been doing to the citizens of this town and the Council. Alright? And we've just had it. This can't go on unless you start enforcing things. What they're going to do is they're going to get their zoning replaced with F-whatever, and then they're going to ask for a conditional use permit, and then they're going to just bring in the cars and the noisy whatevers—drones, snowmobiles—and they're going to race them however, whenever they want because nobody's going to enforce the ordinances, okay? And they know that. And they also know that they can't make any money unless they bring in the big cars and the noisy cars. So it's time to do something and it's time to be serious about it. Enough negotiating. Thank you. [6:44] **Mayor Matt Montgomery:** Thank you. Next up, Kurt Bisel. [6:46] **Kurt Bisel:** Thank you for listening again, Council. Kurt Bisel, 1231 West Minnesota Street. Um, I'm just going to kind of restate what I wrote down here. Let's see if I can get this... there we go. Okay. Residents on the west side have been patiently waiting for the appropriate time to be taken to eliminate the track, which was illegally developed within the city limits of Cannon Falls. Three weeks ago, the City Attorney presented options which could be taken by the Council depending upon what the outcomes might be. Based upon the City Attorney's research, it was of her professional opinion the Fair Board was not an Agricultural Society, but rather a Fair Association. This research should have never been placed upon the city but rather, as mentioned, should have been the responsibility of the Fair Board. Why did they not even pursue this further? Discussion led to the opinions of the council members. It was disheartening to hear several members mention they did not want a track within city limits, but maybe we can negotiate terms with the Fair Board. What about the residents of the community? Have you not been listening to what we are saying or experiencing? Are we no longer able to see the forest through the trees? This track was constructed illegally. Due diligence and responsibilities of the Fair Board was never performed. Now we have a for-profit organization coming into our community only to destroy the right to enjoyment of the residents on the west side and beyond. Would the outcome of the track have been different knowing the Fair Board wasn't an Agricultural Society in the first place? I have to believe the Council would have backed the Planning Commission's recommendation not to, and yet now we're going back again to the Planning Commission for something else. I don't know why. You already know what they said. Why is it even up for negotiation? This year our taxes continue to go up. We accept this knowing it supports our community and the municipalities within. Where is the city's support for its residents? Have you forgotten where your commitments lie? The burden from the illegal steps taken has now been placed upon the residents on the west side. Look around you. How many have been up on the west side to experience what we do? This may be a rhetorical question, but I want you to ask that: how many here have been up there? How can you compromise without knowing what we experience? You have a responsibility, no matter how difficult, to do what's in the best interests of the residents themselves, and that's the tough part because I don't think you're doing that right now. I don't know why, it doesn't make sense. We are the number one priority here, and how many people have been negotiating with us or talking to us on the west side in your negotiations of this possible zoning ordinance? We haven't heard anything. But there's negotiations going on and we haven't heard anything other than the fact that there's discussion being made. You're talking about just limiting micro sprints—do you know what other cars sound like and how much noise they make? You're only listening to what the Fair Board's telling you, and you know what that happened—what that got you two years ago. We'd like a little representation. Thank you. [10:27] **Mayor Matt Montgomery:** Thank you. Last one tonight, Jim Hoffman. [10:29] **Jim Hoffman:** Hi, Jim Hoffman, 917 Park Street West. Thank you for the opportunity to speak this evening. I want to speak about something that's been frustrating me since the last City Council meeting. Council Member Johnson commented that our ordinances have no teeth. Other council members agreed, along with the City Attorney. I couldn't agree more; they have no teeth. We don't even enforce the simplest ones, at least the way they're written. To my knowledge, we don't enforce any of them. If we did, maybe we wouldn't have unresolved issues concerning things like fences, parking, fireworks, junk cars, excessive noise. We have ordinances for all these things yet we never seem to enforce any of them. We used to enforce them; what's changed? At the last meeting, the blame for the change fell on the County Attorney. This isn't an acceptable response to me and it shouldn't be to this body. If you're looking for an example how we used to enforce ordinances not all that long ago: if you had an unlicensed car at your residence, you either licensed it, moved it inside, or got rid of it, and it was the Police Department that showed up to give you a citation if you didn't. That was very effective. I don't know how things are handled now, and all I'm saying is we need to be held accountable, and we will not be accountable if there is no ordinance enforcement. On December 9th, we're going to do another—ahead of another public hearing in front of the Planning Commission. This hearing is considering zoning amendments relating to racetracks/racing as conditional uses that would apply to the Fairgrounds along with any conditional use there could be conditions and other ordinances associated as well. Will these new ordinances have no teeth as well? I don't know why we would add more things that we can't or won't enforce. We need to figure out how to make our ordinances enforceable again, or do we just continue the way things are—doing whatever, whenever you want with little and no consequences? And I really do look forward to December 9th to find out if the Fair Board is an Ag Association or an Ag Society. Thank you. [12:50] **Mayor Matt Montgomery:** Thanks, Jim. Alright, that gets us on to the public hearing. The 2025 final budget and levy public hearing. So right now, I will open up the public hearing. So if anybody would like to come up and speak regarding the 2025 final budget and levies, call number one to the microphone... call number two... third and final chance if you'd like to talk about the 2025 budget. Alright, hearing none, we will close the public hearing and Neil, I'll hand it over to you. [13:31] **Neil (Finance/Interim Admin):** Thank you. I'll just give you a brief sum because nothing has changed since the preliminary. And which, the only thing before the preliminary budget was approved that you added was $2,500 to the Chamber donation. That was the only thing that changed. So in going over once again, you've got to remember once the preliminary is approved, you've got to stay the same or lower it—you can't increase it. So, this is a public hearing; no action will be taken tonight. The resolution to approve this will be on the next meeting. So where are we going? Let's just start at the top. The final levy for 2025 will be $3,584,090, which equals a 4.32% increase from last year. What did we get for revenues? That's a $148,435 increase. Local Government Aid was very slim this year; it was $16,361. And we reduced the investment interest a little bit down to $30,000. So what are we doing on major expenses? We decreased the bonds that we carry by about $1,100. Capital Equipment increase of $33,970—I'll touch a little bit on that later here, it's something that really needs to be looked at throughout the next several years. We did a $2,000 increase in Municipal Reserve. Now, the Municipal Reserve increase and budget line item is for reconstruction projects. Remember we had that discussion on reconstruction projects: who pays for the sewer, who pays for the water, who pays for the storm? The Municipal Reserve that we have is $450,000, but that pays for the new streets, the curb and gutter, and the restoration. So that's a piece of that puzzle that we put together over the last five years. And you know, as inflation has really hit us hard, I think that we need to keep looking at that one and keep tweaking that one up, because streets and curb and gutter are not going to get any cheaper. Now, if you want to continue to do that program that we put together over the last five years, a lot of the stuff has got to keep going up. You know, the sewer fund pays for the sewer pipes, the water fund pays for the water pipes, the storm fee that you guys pay every month pays for the storm water pipes. And when you put it all together, that creates a reconstruction project. You add all four of them and you have a reconstruction project. Now everything that you did in projects last year was all paid in cash. We had saved the money, we made them investments. And it's kind of funny, but I just looked—I don't remember if it was the 2016 bond that we did or the 2018, I guess it really doesn't matter, but it was a $2 or $3 million bond. It was $1.3 million in interest over the 20 years. Now you do a project every other year, right? If you stick with this and you do a project every year—do the engineering one year, do the construction the next year—that means you've got 10 projects going on in that 20-year span. How many millions is that? You've got to think in millions on what that does; it's a big number. You could use that money for a lot of stuff, but the thing is you've got to keep up. And if you don't keep up with inflation, this thing's going to fall completely apart. So just a heads up that it would sure be nice to see in 10 years that you still are paying for $2-3 million projects every other year and say, "Wow, we just saved $5 million in interest on this," or whatever the number might be. So enough bandwagon. One of the other things that we really should talk about, and I brought it up at the preliminary, is how the ambulance is out of whack. And I've been having conversations with Tim and, you know, $120,000—it's not our fault. It's the lack of payment from the state; they've got to pick up the slack. When Medicare doesn't take—or Federal or whatever, it's a federal program—when they don't pay what we ask them to pay, which, what do we get? 30-40%? It doesn't pay the bills. We've got to figure out how we're going to close that gap. Yeah, the state, they did give us a grant last year to cover for 2025, but where are we going to go from there? It'll be Jon's job to guide you guys through this for next year. It's $120,000; where are you going to fill that in? We're covered this year, but it's something that needs to be talked about. And not just in the city of Cannon Falls. You know, the ambulance has got a big service area; I think everybody should participate that's in that service area. You know, it'd be a shame to have—as they did in a neighboring town—to have an ambulance and they do a contract with a local hospital, and in that agreement they said they'd keep the ambulance in town but then drive it to Rochester every day. That just isn't right. You don't want that. You need your ambulance service. So that's got to get worked on. There's a lot of work to do there. I think there's a lot of people that should come to the table and have that discussion because it's very important. You can't run a deficit forever. Another thing I was just going to touch about is keeping up with inflation. You know, we put in another $30,900 this year into Capital Equipment. That's just a little drop when you think about all of the equipment—the ambulances, the fire, the police, the Public Works. And you look around and all that steel that's got to get paid for and replaced. You're going to have to keep moving that up. If you do it every year, we might catch up. And in the future, you can't levy your way out of it in one year, but you still got to go and keep that increasing over time. It's nice to be able to—I look back in the files and we're actually still paying for a rescue that we bonded for. When I first got here, we had borrowed money for a street sweeper. We can't do that. $88,000 in interest for that rescue truck—you shouldn't be doing that. You should be putting that money away and taking care of business in that way. That $88,000 will buy you two squad cars, right? So, I knew I was going to talk a lot about the future because I'm not going to be here after the first of the year and Jon's going to take over. And I'm going to leave it at that. Numbers are numbers; you can go through them. You know what's going on; they haven't changed from the preliminary. But it's nice to give you a future forecast on how things are going to look and some thoughts. I know there's a few of you are going to be missing, but I know there's a couple of them that are out here in the audience that are going to be sitting in the chairs up here for the next budget cycle. So I guess I'll leave it at that. Got any questions? I'll take them. [22:10] **Mayor Matt Montgomery:** Questions? Comments? Anything that people noticed in the budget that they had a question about? Hearing none, I would entertain a motion to approve the 2025 final budget information only—this was just the public hearing. Next meeting you'll get a resolution stating the numbers. **Neil:** Got it. **Mayor Matt Montgomery:** Thank you, Matt. Thanks, Neil. That gets us to our consent agenda. The consent agenda items may be adopted under one motion as presented or may be removed for discussion and resolution as Council business. Item A: Just and correct claims accounting period ending November 25th, 2024. Item B: Meeting minutes for November 12th, 2024 City Council meeting. Item C: Resolution 2792 authorizing bank signatures. Item D: Resolution 2793 adopting the Goodhue County 2024 Hazard Mitigation Plan. Item E: Approve 2025 contracted police services rate. Item F: Approve disposal of unclaimed and abandoned bicycles. Item G: Approve disposal of metal collected for the Police Department. And Item H: Approve track escrow agreement. Is there anything the Council would like to pull down and make Council business? **Council Member Diane Johnson:** H. **Mayor Matt Montgomery:** H will become Council business. Anything else from the Council? Hearing none, I would entertain a motion to approve tonight's consent agenda. **Council Member Ryan Jeppesen:** So moved. **Mayor Matt Montgomery:** Motion from Jeppesen. **Council Member Steve Grot:** Second. **Mayor Matt Montgomery:** Second from Grot. All those in favor? **Council Members:** Aye. **Mayor Matt Montgomery:** Opposed? Carries. Gets us to our Council business. Item A: The Fire Department pension increase. And Chief Miller is missing but, Furland, if you're here in place... [23:46] **Assistant Fire Chief Furland:** So I got put in here as the B Squad. Work with me, last-minute deal. Just to talk about the Relief Association and our pensions. We go to call volume—it kind of bases on like we're talking with ambulance too. I mean back in 2020 we ran 353 calls; '21, 445 calls; '22, 457 calls; '23 up to 579; and 567 to this date of this year. So the Relief Association board met in October to discuss the pension improvement. The pension is currently overfunded. Five years ago, the board, with recommendation of our investors and support of the fire department membership, would like to raise our yearly service credit from $2,700 a year to $3,000. Now some of that comes from... now we get a state aid check of $70,000 versus $40,000 prior. So that's what we're here for: to see if we get an increase in that from—under a recommendation—go from $2,700 to $3,000. Any questions or comments from the Council for Furland or for Neil? **Neil:** I did verify the numbers and they are correct, so I'm all in. **Mayor Matt Montgomery:** Alright. Discussions or questions? **Council Member Derek Lindell:** No, that's in their budget. **Mayor Matt Montgomery:** Yeah, deal, they got it covered. Does that require any action from us? **Council Member Derek Lindell:** I'll make a motion to approve the pension increase. **Mayor Matt Montgomery:** Motion from Lindell. **Council Member Chris Nobach:** Second. **Mayor Matt Montgomery:** Second from Guesmi [Nobach]. All those in favor? **Council Members:** Aye. **Mayor Matt Montgomery:** Opposed? Carries. Thank you. **Assistant Fire Chief Furland:** Thank you. [25:54] **Mayor Matt Montgomery:** Gets us to Item B: Approve the track escrow agreement. Diane, you pulled it down. **Council Member Diane Johnson:** And I have no problem with the escrow agreement per se. And I realize that this is not city-owned land at this point. But I do—and I know I asked at the meeting—what financial commitment they're going to want from us to build this building that, once they build it, will actually not have an occupant. And I just want to reaffirm my opposition for us giving them any financial handouts for this project. I don't... and I mean, this covers us for this stage, but just going forward to make sure it doesn't sneak up on us through a back door. **Mayor Matt Montgomery:** Any questions you have for Neil or just the statement? **Council Member Diane Johnson:** Just statement. **Mayor Matt Montgomery:** Okay. Any response? Okay. With that said, are there any other questions or discussion from the Council? Hearing none, I would seek a motion to approve the track escrow agreement. **Council Member Ryan Jeppesen:** So moved. **Mayor Matt Montgomery:** Motion from Jeppesen. **Council Member Laura Kronenberger:** Second. **Mayor Matt Montgomery:** Second from Laura. All those in favor? **Council Members:** Aye. **Mayor Matt Montgomery:** Opposed? Carries. That gets us to our reports. Chamber of Commerce—Maggie is not here, but I heard it was a great Deck The Falls. I don't know if Father Christmas was there this year or not. I don't know, was he? Oh, okay. Alright. See if you got the costume out again. Joint Powers Trail Board—did you guys meet? **Council Member:** We did. We zoomed. Must have been a good one, obviously. I should remember... shoot. I need to take better notes or bring them with. That would have helped. Right before Thanksgiving? Yeah. They're just still working. It was like a half-hour Zoom. **Mayor Matt Montgomery:** It's alright. Alright, we'll go around the horn. Laura, if you have anything. [27:46] **Council Member Laura Kronenberger:** I just wanted to give an update for Hardwood Estates. Two of the models are fully completed. Five lots are under construction for three single-family homes and then a set of twin homes. We've got four lots that are under contract and one that's in some tough negotiations right now, I guess with the builder, not with us. But anyway, so we've got some good progress. Had another really good conversation with someone today. So that's kind of all I have regarding that. But I just want to take an opportunity also to thank council member Lindell, Guesmi, and Grot for your support, service, and just what you've done in the past few years that you've been on. So I just appreciate it. And Neil as well, so in case he tries to sneak out of the next meeting or something, I just wanted to say what a great mentor he's been to me. And we've really moved a lot of dirt in the last four and a half years. So, and that's also thanks to your support as well. So thank you to Neil and all of you. [28:44] **Mayor Matt Montgomery:** Thanks, Laura. You've been busy. If there's anything that you'd like to update... **City Administrator Jon Radermacher:** Just a brief update on some stuff. One, we have some significantly cold weather coming tomorrow—some major wind chills, subzero temperatures. So make sure you check on your loved ones, especially if individuals are struggling. Remember to bundle up when you're out in the cold, etc. Next, as the Assistant Fire Chief [Furland] said, he's the B Squad; I'm the C Squad. As you can tell, we've been extremely busy. Hats off to our neighboring communities for their support. We had a significant response from not only Goodhue County agencies, but Dakota County really came up to the plate in the middle of the night sending a significant amount of resources. So hats off to all them, hats off to our Fire Department. They're out there still working as we speak. And we hope for a positive outcome hopefully soon. That's all I have. **Mayor Matt Montgomery:** Thank you. Sara? Shelley? [29:56] **City Attorney Shelley Ryan:** I just have a brief update on the Fair Association situation. After the Council meeting and your thorough discussion, staff and I communicated and decided on a plan of action. I reached out to the Fair Association attorneys and I believe we are making some positive steps moving forward, beneficial to both sides. We are working towards a negotiated solution. The threshold issue was the racing of the loudest cars, the micro sprints. Some of the comments were "racing maybe, but just not the noise." So, their request back is that they do want to come under one zoning district. Currently, they're split between two, so we have an opportunity to do some cleanup in terms of our zoning map—getting things put in place sort of fresh and new. So what we've done is we're going to present to the Planning Commission next week an ordinance amending the zoning code to create a new zoning district that will be structured like your other zoning districts—to have permitted uses, permitted accessory uses, and conditional uses. And we're working with the Fair Association to be mindful of how they use their property so that we can capture the Fair itself for those few days that it has the Fair. Then there are uses that will be presented for other permitted uses during other times of the year—maybe for shows; there's some demolition derbies that occur on holidays. These are just examples. So we're going to try to incorporate and encapsulate everything that is about the relationship. The accessory uses will deal with things such as parking—there may be some concerns of parking we want to address, but also allow the Fair Association, as they currently do, to do some RV storage through the year, through the winter, passive use. So to make sure we're mindful of those types of things. And then of course the conditional use will be the racing. And we're really drilling down into that to understand the noise levels... and they've been very cooperative with us in giving us information very quickly so that we can work through these issues and present something to the Planning Commission that's not only comprehensive but can be enforced through the permitting process and address all of the issues talked about over these past months. So again, the plan is to present our draft to the Planning Commission next Monday and then, however that goes, it would come back to the Council the following week for our first reading. **Mayor Matt Montgomery:** Will we get it wrapped up this year? **City Attorney Shelley Ryan:** That's the plan. And we're certainly moving that direction. And again, cooperation from the Association has helped out a lot. So we'll hopefully have all of our questions answered by next Monday. Fingers crossed. **Mayor Matt Montgomery:** If we have the first reading on the next council meeting, December 17th, would we just schedule a special meeting for the second reading before the calendar year turns over? **City Attorney Shelley Ryan:** You can do that, yes. We have time to do that. It would be the 30th, I think, what we looked at, but we can still do that. **Mayor Matt Montgomery:** Any other questions from the Council? Alright. Neil? [33:36] **Neil:** Thank you, Shelley. Yeah, it's kind of funny but when you hear the Police talk and the Fire talk and how vital that funding is... and I'm just going to reiterate your task for next year on keeping these things very active and very proactive. It's kind of important. That's all I got. Thanks. **Mayor Matt Montgomery:** Alright. Laura? **Council Member Laura Kronenberger:** I'm good. **Mayor Matt Montgomery:** Lisa? **Council Member Lisa Zimmerman:** Nothing tonight. **Mayor Matt Montgomery:** Ryan? **Council Member Ryan Jeppesen:** Good. **Mayor Matt Montgomery:** Derek? **Council Member Derek Lindell:** If Chief McCormick were here, he would remind us about the winter parking ordinances. If it looks like snow's coming, get off the road so the Public Works crew can plow. That's about it. **Mayor Matt Montgomery:** Yeah, and remind people to shovel. I went out and did it because some of my neighbors did it—sidewalk looks great, some didn't. And I know we're going to get the 40s in the weekend, but try to get rid of it within 24 hours if you can; I believe that is the ordinance or the code. Diane? **Council Member Diane Johnson:** A special hats off to Police, Fire, and all the related groups that are still working to find the missing person. It's incredible how much personnel has been out there and will continue until our neighbor is found. **Mayor Matt Montgomery:** Steve? **Council Member Steve Grot:** Nothing. Hope everybody had a wonderful Thanksgiving. **Mayor Matt Montgomery:** Moving ahead to the holidays. Like we said, Planning, then Council, and maybe a special meeting, so we will be in touch. Alright, I'll take a motion to adjourn. **Council Member Lisa Zimmerman:** So moved. **Council Member Diane Johnson:** Second. **Mayor Matt Montgomery:** Motion from Lisa, second from Diane. All those in favor? **Council Members:** Aye. **Mayor Matt Montgomery:** We're done. Thank you everybody.