This transcript has been processed to identify speakers based on the provided list of city officials and the context of the dialogue. Note: Phonetic errors in the original transcript (e.g., "Guessme" for Jeppesen, "Lindale/Lindell" for Nobach) have been corrected to match the official names provided. *** **[4:52] Mayor Matt Montgomery:** Thank you. Call to order City Council meeting for Tuesday, May 2nd, 2023. If I could get a roll call, please. **City Clerk Sara Peer:** [Roll Call] Jeppesen, here. Johnson, here. Kronenberger, here. Nobach, here. Montgomery, here. **Mayor Matt Montgomery:** If we could all rise for the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States, one nation under God, indivisible with liberty and justice. Thank you. **[5:35] Mayor Matt Montgomery:** I would entertain a motion to approve tonight's agenda. **Council Member Chris Nobach:** So moved. **Mayor Matt Montgomery:** Motion by Nobach. **Council Member Chad Johnson:** Second. **Mayor Matt Montgomery:** Second by Johnson. Any further discussion? All those in favor say aye. (Aye). Opposed nay? Carries. Public input—before I read the little spiel, we do have a lot of people signed up tonight. Please try to be aware—I'll try to keep tabs on the three minutes—but just be aware of your time because we do have a lot of people talking tonight. Public input is intended to afford the public an opportunity to address concerns to the City Council. The 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 and must provide their name, address, and the topic they **[6:22]** intend to address. Comments must be on topic, respectful, pertinent to City business, and adhere to the applicable data privacy rules. Any speaker that violates these rules will be asked to sit down and if the speaker refuses to comply they may be removed from the meeting. Speakers shall not address topics that are the subject of a public hearing. All such comments shall be made at the public hearing. 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. First person is... Roger, what's the last name? Roger, the floor is yours. **[7:28] Roger Gutrons:** For the sake of time, my name is Roger Gutrons and I'm located at 1300 West Minnesota Street. For the purpose of time, I'm handing out—if you wouldn't mind, I appreciate it—my questions which hopefully will be addressed after we or before we leave tonight. I'm a retired banker, Vietnam veteran. I'm not necessarily in favor of the racetrack, if that's to be allowed and discussed at this time or later, but I commend the Fair Board for trying to get another event in, whether it's the go-kart or possibly horse racing. **[8:13]** My question is, I along with a lot of our neighbors were not aware of what was going on until we read the City article. From what I'm understanding, several of the council members were not made aware either. Is this a done deal? If so, when— **Mayor Matt Montgomery:** I'm going to pause you right there, Roger. Normally this is not a question and answer session, but we will have our own discussion on the agenda tonight. Just to set the table clear before we get to our discussion: this is technically not a city issue; this is a Fair Board issue. And so when you say the information that we didn't know—we found out about the **[8:59]** same as the general public via social media about a month ago. **Roger Gutrons:** Okay, technical as well. I appreciate it, we're all learning here. I would ask the City Council—and I respect what you're doing and welcome to the new members—I almost ran last year but I'm too old. But you're never too old. How much do you do your due diligence on any and all topics? How much do you know now and how much do you rely on your elected officials? I don't care, with all respect, Mr. Mayor—which I respect that all of you do—but do you trust all of the words that your City Administrator says or your Attorney? I'm not negating or being disrespectful, I'm just **[9:46]** questioning. Just like all of us who have signed petitions or not because they didn't want to show their face here, we have questions. And that's all I ask is to be answered. If it's a done deal then... yeah. So you're saying, Mr. Mayor, it does not fall under the purview of the City Council at this point in time? **Mayor Matt Montgomery:** Nothing has been brought on our agenda by the Fair Board, no. **Roger Gutrons:** So you're saying it's not a done deal? **Mayor Matt Montgomery:** To your knowledge, that is a question that I can't answer. You'd have to ask the Fair Board or the Fair President, Greg Kurtz. **Roger Gutrons:** Well, what was it that you and—not singling you out—what was it that you and your City Administrator **[10:33]** signed back in November with the Fair Board relative to—it's online, I believe, I was not allowed to print it out. **City Administrator Jon Radermacher:** That would be the agreement to the land exchange. **Roger Gutrons:** Last November? Okay. But if I can address your City Administrator: what was that relevant to? The land exchange? Is that relevant to the racetrack? **City Administrator Jon Radermacher:** It had nothing to do with it. It was Hannah's Bend Park. **Roger Gutrons:** Okay. When was the person who's going to create the new endeavor—the City of Cannon Falls can use an awful lot of new businesses. I've served on several EDA committees, **[11:20]** I always research. But point being, are we then going to be having a public hearing or what has to happen in order for us to have and request a public hearing? Does the Fair Board have to come to you? **Mayor Matt Montgomery:** Those are all questions that will probably be brought up in our discussion tonight. **Roger Gutrons:** I appreciate it. Thank you. **Mayor Matt Montgomery:** Thanks, Roger. Next up, is it Brian Douglas? **[11:51] Brian Douglas:** I'm at 1124 Minnesota Street West. I don't... after what he said, I guess everything I need to do is talk to the Fair Board. But the one question I do have is: what is the relationship between the City Council and the Fair Board? I mean, is there anything... does the Fair Board—and here's what I'm hearing through the grapevine—that the Fair Board basically can carte blanche do anything they want? The city has no control over that? They could put in five racetracks if they wanted to because this Ag Society thing supposedly controls the whole state as far as the fair is concerned? I'm just asking if that is the case, if the City Council really has no control over it. Because where the racetrack is, I'm thinking it's going to be in city limits. Do you **[12:39]** have any control over that? **Mayor Matt Montgomery:** We'll deal with that in the discussion. **Brian Douglas:** Okay, that's what I needed. Thank you. **Mayor Matt Montgomery:** Thank you. Carmen Douglas. **[13:25] Carmen Douglas:** Hi, I'm Carmen Douglas. I'm at 1124 Minnesota Street West. I have signed petitions. Do you want those or not? **Mayor Matt Montgomery:** We'll take a look at it. Absolutely. Thank you. **Carmen Douglas:** That was my husband that was just here. We moved here and it hasn't even been two years; we moved in in June to Minnesota Street. Cannon Falls allows me to be a little bit closer to my mom and halfway between my kids who are in the cities. So we've spent the last couple years updating our house and our yard to make it more comfortable for family entertaining and retirement. We were aware of what happens over the Fourth of July down there on the fairgrounds, and that's fine. It's the Fourth of July; everybody has a lot of fun. On March 29th, we were made aware of a Facebook posting by the gentleman that's wanting to rent this space from the fairgrounds or Fair Board. It was a video of obviously the fairgrounds and he's going to put this racetrack in. We were pretty surprised. Didn't hear about it. My neighbor is Jan Fenner; she's been here for a long time. **[14:12]** She knows a lot of people and she knows what's going on in town mostly. So I asked her if she had heard about it. Nope, she hadn't heard about it. She called a couple people; nobody had heard about it. So a few of us—Roger, a couple of other people—decided, okay, so we'll just start collecting some names to see who's for and who's against, mostly the people in our neighborhood on the west side who are closest to the fairgrounds. So we've only had a week, and what that represents is a few of the people. Many people who stated that they were against having the racetrack there were afraid to sign. There were a lot of people that weren't home. We did leave information for them to contact us if they wanted to sign. I did have somebody just come to the **[14:59]** garage just as we were pulling out who signed. So a couple weeks later—well first we called the paper to see if they'd heard about this and nobody at the paper had heard about it. Then we called City Hall. We were supposed to talk to somebody in Economic Development; it turns out that that person had left, so we didn't have a return call. Two weeks later the paper is in the story and that's when everything kind of blew up and we decided we would try and gather these signatures of the people in the neighborhood. So what we have tonight, like I said, is just what we've gathered over the week. We don't believe that it belongs in city **[15:45]** limits. Those of us that live on Minnesota Street are close, really close. And the biggest problem is the noise. If anybody says they're going to let this go in and then bring one of those decibel meters up, that's a subjective measurement. What's loud to one person is not loud to somebody else. I don't think we can go by that. There is decreased in property values—I've already talked to a realtor—and the dirt. You know how windy it's been? I've noticed it's pretty windy in Cannon Falls a lot because we're out here away from big buildings, obviously, and all that dirt is going to be coming right in our houses. And the policing of **[16:31]** the extra traffic. But mostly it's the noise. I mean one weekend over the Fourth of July you can handle—everyone's celebrating. You're going to do this every Saturday night from April to September? And that's what this guy said—that's the plan, to eventually have it April through September. I also looked online at the Raceway in Tulsa, Oklahoma. The aerial view of that—there are no houses anywhere around that racetrack. I mean, this just doesn't make sense to any of us why they're doing this. So we would like you to reconsider. We hope that the Fair Board will allow some of us to come to some of their meetings so that we can maybe compromise on this if **[17:18]** they're going to absolutely have to go through this, but we're hoping maybe there can be another way they can make some money besides a racetrack. Thank you. **Mayor Matt Montgomery:** Thank you. Next we've got Carole Lee Stock. **[17:43] Carole Lee Stock:** My name is Carole Lee Stock and I live at 104 Northwest Court, which is just across the river. First of all, if I could get some sort of clarification about where this is going to be on the fairgrounds? No one seems to know exactly what spot it is. **Mayor Matt Montgomery:** I believe it's inside, kind of in the middle of the existing horse track, is what I was told. **Carole Lee Stock:** That's what they said in their first video as well? Yeah, inside. But then I think according to the paper from last week or two weeks ago, that that wasn't going to work. **[18:28]** Okay. Well, I just wanted to point out one thing. If I remember correctly, the city has a noise ordinance that's probably been on the books for 40, 50 years maybe. And the other question—well I guess I can wait to ask—but are the people proposing this here tonight? The Fair Board or the guy who's building this? **Mayor Matt Montgomery:** We will get to that. **Carole Lee Stock:** Okay, I'll just hold off then until then. Thank you. **[19:24] Mayor Matt Montgomery:** Sarah, do you mind checking to see if there's... I've got two more. I've got Babel Gorman and Kevin... was it Kevin? Is Kevin here? Kevin Winker? Yeah, your turn. **[20:08] Kevin Winker:** Hi, Kevin Winker, 110 Evergreen Drive East. Totally unrelated to the race—we were talking potholes. Yeah, so when it rains, I have ducks landing in the potholes. They think they're ponds, it’s crazy. We need to do something. I invite any one of you up here, except Ryan [Jeppesen], to come over to my neighborhood because he's got a one-ton—he's going to hit his head on the roof and he knows that. But we got to get something done. Every year you come out and you put some tar in there—yeah, great for two or three weeks. That's like putting a band-aid on a bullet hole. It doesn't work. It needs to be mill and overlaid like you did across the street two years ago, which that street was only 20 years old. Mine's 50 years old. I watched them build the street in 1974. It **[20:54]** needs to be fixed. Thank you. **Mayor Matt Montgomery:** Thank you. And Mr. O'Gorman talking Public Works? **[20:54] Mr. O'Gorman:** Oh yes, for something totally different yet. Last Wednesday I got an agenda for the Public Works meeting. On that agenda, it said "approval of minutes from the previous meeting." When I came to the Public Works meeting, there was no such thing on the agenda. So I don't know how it magically disappeared, but the thing with the swimming pool showed up. I'm interested in those minutes and I'm concerned that now the meeting's gone by, so you didn't approve the minutes. I'm wondering when they do **[21:39]** get approved and how I get a copy of them. Thank you. **Mayor Matt Montgomery:** Nancy, we did find your sheet. **[21:57] Nancy Busian:** My name is Nancy Busian. I live at 648 Union Court and I am without question the closest building to the fairgrounds. We are just across the fence on the north end. We've watched the horse races go by our house. We tolerate the fair; we love the fair. It's not a big deal. But my question is: I have seen nothing in the City Zoning that allows a racetrack. And some of that's come up before, but I think at the very least the city has a right to set some limits. There's stuff out on Facebook that this man is planning on racing anything and everything that comes to him, 24 hours a day, seven days a week basically. That may not be what he's **[22:45]** saying, but this is the time to put some limits on what they can do. Even Saturday night would be too much, but at least it's not... and if it's small cars that's better than great big truck cars. But I sure wish I knew who these people were. It seems to be very hush-hush. And I'm speaking as a former writer for the Beacon for 20 years—this should have been in the paper a long time ago. I find fault with the people that are running the paper; they don't pay any attention to anything that's going on around here. People have a right to know. Thank you. **Mayor Matt Montgomery:** Thank you, Nancy. Gentlemen, I'm just going to let you know the discussion is in City Business so there won't be any public input back **[23:31]** and forth. So if you guys would like to speak, the time is now. **Ferlin Miller:** I'll give a few answers to the couple of things that were brought up if you would like that to be during public input. Absolutely, just to address a couple of things. **Mayor Matt Montgomery:** Perfect. If you don't mind sharing your name. **[23:51] Ferlin Miller:** Ferlin Miller, part of the Fair Board. First of all, the kart track would be inside the horse track on the north end, right behind the back grandstands. That's where it's going to be. It'll be a seventh-of-a-mile go-kart track, pretty small. There's never been talk about anything full-size racing other than go-karts—kids, a few adults. That's what it's about. We're talking 13 races throughout the whole season, probably **[24:16]** Saturday nights. Not every Saturday night; probably breaks down to maybe every other at most. And it's open for anybody that wants to come meet with the Fair Board to sit down and talk. We're wide open to it. Our meetings are the third Monday at seven o'clock at the fairgrounds, right in the office building. There will be portions where if we know you're coming you can be there; when we get into financials, obviously you can't be part of that, that's the Fair Board. Cannon Valley Fair Board has a website and everybody that's on the Fair Board—there's phone numbers. Anybody can reach out. Everybody's got a phone, **[25:02]** everybody looks on the website. So any questions—I'll be here for a little bit, I'll meet you outside and talk—but everybody's open to come talk to us at any time. Thank you. **Mayor Matt Montgomery:** Thank you. Because tonight is obviously a fairly new topic, I will leave public input open if there's anybody else. Just say your name and the floor is yours. We've got a couple minutes. **[25:02] Roger Tittle:** Roger Tittle, 1218 Minnesota Street West. Kind of here on the same topic. I'm just wondering what kind of hours they were planning on running? You know, like **[25:48]** how many days a year? What size motors? Are they going to be muffled or open headers? You know, just that all makes a difference on the noise. You know, like it was brought up with the dust—on that end, the wind does come out of the north quite a bit and it's going to be blowing it into a lot of the houses. My house does butt right up to the holding pond by the fairgrounds, so I'll be getting a brunt of that. So, thank you. **Mayor Matt Montgomery:** Thank you. If you would like to speak... perfect. Thank you. **[26:34] Jenny Hildebrandt:** My name is Jenny Hildebrandt. I live at 1121 West State Street. I'm not directly on Minnesota Street—I don't butt up to the fair property—but I am the next street over. We do enjoy hearing the fairgrounds during the Fourth of July weekend; we enjoy the excitement and the festivities. I will offer that I've been trying really hard to be fair. As passionate as we are about this being our homes—which is really all we can control these days—I struggle with hearing people who aren't going to be directly impacted saying "you're exaggerating it, it's not going to be that big of a deal." However, I did have the opportunity to speak with Ferlin Miller; he brought me down to the fairgrounds and gave me a tour of it. I am still opposed to this, and he's aware of that, **[27:20]** but he has thrown an olive branch out to have the discussions. He has told us that the Fair Board will maintain control of any agreement and that the gentleman who is bringing his finances and everything into the organization is aware that there is risk involved. And so I would just offer that we maintain our composure and our fairness. We understand that I don't think anything was done to offend or hurt any of us, but now that it's been brought forward, I would hope that the Fair Board would listen to these concerns because these are our homes and we are very passionate about it. So, thank you. **Mayor Matt Montgomery:** Thank you. **[28:10] Jeff Stewart:** Jeff Stewart. I'm proposing to put the track in. To be honest, we've worked at the fairgrounds since last fall talking about it, trying to figure out a way to do it. The racing will be mostly Friday nights—or sorry, Saturday nights. Occasional two-day weekend; we usually try to do a special in the spring or the fall. We've had questions about the CCs—everything is muffled. Our plan is to put a self-imposed time limit on it; we would not go past 10 o'clock at night unless it was a special event, but try to wrap up racing no later than 10:00. **[28:49]** Probably start around six at night. 95% of the classes I don't believe you'll hear up on top of the hill. There's probably three classes that you'll probably hear more so than the others. We're not trying to hide it from anyone—that's why we're here. As far as the dust control goes, we water the heck out of the track and there will probably be no dust from the racetrack itself. If that's a concern, we'd probably shut the races down and water the track. So the dust concern—I don't think that's a concern. I respect everyone who lives in the neighborhood around the fair, but I also believe we **[29:34]** have a lot of great things to bring to the City of Cannon Falls. The youth around here needs something to do. It's cheap entertainment—five dollars to get in the gate, five and under free. It's going to be something that you can bring the whole family to for twenty or twenty-five dollars. Where are you going to go anywhere else and do that for four hours on a Saturday night? I live in Welch; there's nothing around here. I've been doing this for 15 years with my kids. It's a great thing—the family bonding, the relationships that you make. Every town that a racetrack is in, they have a great relationship with the town. The town supports it; it's a great thing for the town businesses. I've talked to many of them; they're excited to get it in here. **[30:21]** I do see the drawbacks with the noise, but you're talking a race averages two and a half minutes. So for two and a half minutes you have a noise, and after that you might have five, six, seven minutes in between. I bet you during a four-hour night of racing, between intermission and stuff, you probably have an hour and a half of race engines going. So if you want to put it in perspective, we're not going to be running for four hours straight. You can all shake your heads, but it's not the truth. We're not going to go big cars; that was never the intention. There's a lot of misinformation out there. Never were we intended for big cars, ever. It's always been about our youngest class; it’s five years of age. **[31:06]** So if you have a grandchild or a kid that wants to get into it, or you want to be a grandpa or grandma that wants to race... it is a family-friendly environment that everyone—I mean not everyone, there's going to be people that don't—but you should be able to get behind it. You want your fair to be around? They need to have revenue. It's a good way for them to have revenue and support the fairgrounds itself. We obviously will work with everyone, not against everyone. That's what they've been doing as a Fair Board, trying to talk to people. My phone number's out there. I have had no one call me and ask me any questions about what the concerns are. Not once have I had a phone call. If I wanted to hide it, I wouldn't have done an interview with the Beacon. It's not a bad thing. I hope that **[31:52]** everyone just understands we're really not trying to do anything shady. I do believe that everyone that comes will enjoy it. It's a fun thing and I think our town and this area needs it for the youth, to give them something to do instead of getting in trouble. You can get into it relatively cheap. I believe that with discussions it can go and we can keep all parties involved happy. Thank you for your time. **Mayor Matt Montgomery:** Thank you. Real quick, last one—we've got about two minutes. **[32:38] Marcy French:** My name is Marcy French. I live on 420 First Street Southwest. I've just heard a lot of talk about noise and dust, but I haven't heard anybody address environmental concerns. Go-kart racing, race car racing... yep, it's been around forever, but we've got a planet that's also not going to be around forever unless we harness some of this. I think a study should be done on what is the environmental impact of go-kart racing or this type of racing. I'm just going to throw that out there. Thank you. **[33:27] Mayor Matt Montgomery:** We will close public input and move to item six, our public hearing. So, the Resolution 2682 certifying unpaid utility charges be collected with taxes. We will open the public hearing. Is anybody here tonight to talk about certifying unpaid utility charges? Second call for the public hearing, Resolution 2682. Third and final call for the public hearing, Resolution 2682, unpaid utility charges being collected by taxes. Not hearing any, I will close the public hearing and look for a motion to approve from the Council. **Council Member Chad Johnson:** Motion. **Council Member Ryan Jeppesen:** Second. **Mayor Matt Montgomery:** Motion by Johnson, second by Jeppesen. Any further discussion? All those in favor say aye. (Aye). Opposed nay? It carries. That moves us to the consent agenda. Consent agenda items may be adopted under one motion as presented or may be removed for discussion and resolution as Council business. Item A: Claims for the period ending April 27, 2023. Item B: Meeting minutes for April 18, 2023. Item C: Second reading and adoption of Ordinance 393, an interim ordinance establishing a moratorium within the city of land use and subdivision applications for residential treatment facilities. Item D: Summer and fall event street closures. Item E: Hire of Jackson Hanson to the Police Department. Item F: Police officer promotion. Item G: Approving the hiring of a part-time paramedic. Are there any items that the Council would like to see pulled down? **[34:59] Mayor Matt Montgomery:** Hearing none, I'd take a motion to approve. **Council Member Lisa Zimmerman:** So moved. **Council Member Ryan Jeppesen:** I'll second it. **Mayor Matt Montgomery:** Motion from Zimmerman, second from Jeppesen. Any further discussion? Those in favor say aye. (Aye). Opposed nay? Motion carries. Moving on to Council Business, Item A: Zoning Administrator position / interim CEDA contract. Jon? **[35:47] City Administrator Jon Radermacher:** Yeah, we had two department heads leave us here about a month or so ago. The Zoning Administrator seems rather difficult to get applications for; we've received one application. The application is an ungraduated college person that's looking for a job. So staff and I were talking about how the Zoning Administrator position was put together and what Diane had done in the past. Her previous job was Administrative Assistant/License and Permit Technician. In essence, what she did is she did the licensing and the permits and helped with the zoning. What we would like to see is maybe taking that step back. It reduces the **[36:35]** qualifications of the position and maybe we'll open up a wider group of candidates. This position does not have to have a college degree to meet the requirements. It starts on Grade 6, where the Zoning Admin was a Grade 9 on the scale. I think the whole Council should have this discussion—it does have an impact on where we're going. In the interim time, I did talk to Ron Ziegler from CEDA and asked him if he had anybody that could help us out. We're heading into construction season; things are very **[37:22]** busy as we speak. I think two days a week is what I would like to see. It's 60 bucks an hour. It would help the rest of the staff with us heading into the construction season—permits are flying in every day and zoning questions and fences. It's getting to be a lot of trips up and down the steps. My concern is budget season is right around the corner, and doing Public Works Director, Zoning Administrator, and my job is going to collide here pretty quick. So I'd like to have a little bit of help with the help of CEDA **[38:09]** at least a couple days a week to answer the questions, to talk about fences, setbacks, etc. The action in front of us tonight is to approve the agreement with CEDA at that rate. Drops the Zoning Administrator back to the Licensing Tech to fill that office. I think we will get some more applicants—we've only had one in six weeks. It's rough out there. And if I remember, Diane started as a Licensing Tech. **Council Member Diane Johnson:** If we choose to go with the Licensing Tech, would the hope be that they would eventually learn the zoning stuff and kind of do what Diane did? **City Administrator Jon Radermacher:** Correct, eventually. **Council Member Diane Johnson:** Okay, so we won't have to have CEDA forever? **City Administrator Jon Radermacher:** No. As soon as we fill the seat, get the position up and running, it's just an interim two days a week. **Mayor Matt Montgomery:** And I believe we had discussion on this before too. We said that this is the type of job where every city has its own quirks, so learning and growing within the system can be almost even more advantageous than somebody who graduated with a degree and came here thinking this is how things should be. **[39:41]** You have to learn basically on the ground running here in the city anyway. **City Administrator Jon Radermacher:** Yeah, you get a broad look at zoning, but every zoning book is different and every city is different. Diane knew that book like the back of her hand; it was a tough loss when she left, but now we've got to find somebody else to fill that position and start learning the book. **Council Member Ryan Jeppesen:** I have no problem with this proposal. This is thinking as we go forward—I guess I would like to know a bit **[40:26]** more about how we structure the administrative tasks. You know, what people are doing, what roles... because in reading all Council minutes, I noticed at one point we had an Assistant City Administrator/Finance person. I noticed over the years things changed, and I would like as a member of the Council to kind of have an understanding of how it's structured now. What are the various job positions? Might there be a more effective way we could put things together as long as we're in this hiring process? **Mayor Matt Montgomery:** Any other questions or discussion regarding the Zoning Tech/Admin and the interim **[41:13]** agreement with CEDA? Can we do it under one motion, please? **Council Member Ryan Jeppesen:** I make a motion to approve the advertisement for Administrative License Tech and also contract with CEDA for the two days a week, sixty dollars an hour. **Council Member Laura Kronenberger:** Second. **Mayor Matt Montgomery:** Motion from Council Member Jeppesen, second from Ms. Kronenberger. Any further discussion? All those in favor? (Aye). Opposed? Carries. Moves us along to Item B: Swimming pool parking lot reconstruction. Bill? **[41:59] City Engineer Bill Angerman:** Thank you, Mayor. Jon has a memo in the packet concerning the swimming pool. So what we are asking the City Council is authorization to move forward to receive competitive quotes to redo the parking lot. For council members that were here last year, this was one of our projects we had considered. Ultimately it was decided to delay a year primarily because it's in such bad shape that it could only get worse; it wasn't going to cost us more because the fix would change. Basically, what this project would do is we would reclaim or grind up all the pavement and then we would basically use that to form a new base and then we'd put four inches of new asphalt over the top. If the Council approves this, the quotes will be received and brought back to the council meeting on May 15th for consideration. It would be after the pool closes, so we would restrict the start date until after August 21st. It's basically going to be a September paving project. **Council Member Diane Johnson:** On the picture, there's that one little green spot... what was that? **City Engineer Bill Angerman:** That's the haul-off spot. City staff will haul off any excess of the grindings or reclaim material and then we'll use that. Something like that, we always want to let the contractor know so it's clear that they don't have to haul it away, because then they'll raise their prices. But eventually, it will be paved. They grind up all the asphalt, re-spread it, and then leftover they'll put in that green area for staff to haul away. Then they'll smooth it out and pave it. **Council Member Laura Kronenberger:** Can I just ask one more quick question? Is this the only one that we're gonna do then this year? I know we delayed it to this year, but with only 30,000 [estimate], is that impacting anybody else or any other projects? **City Administrator Jon Radermacher:** Well, that's an estimate. I think we better wait and see where the bid comes in at. **[44:16]** The estimate is 170,000, but as you'll find out in the next agenda item, things don't always seem what they are. **Council Member Laura Kronenberger:** I was just wondering if we had already planned that this was the only one we were doing. **Mayor Matt Montgomery:** Yeah, it was scheduled for last year. We didn't have enough money to do it last year. Since the County Road going south out of town got done, we did Park [Street] instead because we had to pay for some of that sidewalk removal. Well, that pool parking lot has been in rough shape for a few years, so **[45:02]** I don't think we can kick this can down the road any further. With that said, I would entertain a motion to approve. **Council Member Chad Johnson:** Motioned. **Council Member Laura Kronenberger:** I'm seconding it. **Mayor Matt Montgomery:** Motion by Johnson, second by Kronenberger. Any further discussion? All those in favor say aye. (Aye). Opposed nay? It carries. Moves us to Item C: Resolution 2683 receiving bids and awarding contract for the Third Street lift station and Force main. Bill? **[45:48] City Engineer Bill Angerman:** Thank you, Mayor. So we did receive bids on April 27th. In your packet is the bid tabulation. As previously mentioned, the cost estimate for this was seven hundred thousand dollars and the low bid was 899,000—quite a bit more. When bids come in high, we talk to the suppliers to see if there was any uncertainty in the plans. The next low bidder was only two thousand dollars more, so we had good competition. There's no red flags there; all the discussions we've had were regarding materials. Materials were significantly higher. We were aware of this, so some things we discussed with the council and staff was what can we do to try to help that. We did extend the completion date to give more time for equipment, and we were told that did lower prices; without doing that, we would have paid even more. **[46:35]** The main items that were really more expensive were the pipe—the PVC pipe. Again, this is a replacement of the sewer bridge, so we're going to directional drill a pipe under the river. As the pipe prices and the structures themselves—this is a lift station, a large concrete structure—the concrete and plastic costs are what other contractors are telling us. We looked at whether we could eliminate some of the project or re-bid it. Well, there's really nothing to eliminate; we're putting a pipe under the river and building a lift station, so that's not really a choice. Could we re-bid it? Right now, with the amount of inflation we've been seeing in construction, if we **[47:20]** re-bid this project or waited, we would just pay more at that time. So unfortunately, it's a higher price, but the prices are what they are. We are recommending awarding the contract to A1 Excavating. The statute says a city can basically only look at if a contractor is responsive and responsible; they fit those criteria. We've done work with them before. So the recommendation **[48:06]** then is to pass the resolution awarding the contract. **Council Member Ryan Jeppesen:** I'll throw something out there. I know that Maple Grove isn't Cannon Falls, but we do talk about local. Maple Grove is Minnesota; Bloomer, Wisconsin is a different state. I think two thousand dollars is a lot, but when you're talking about nine hundred thousand, two thousand isn't a lot. Would we ever want to consider doing local since that's kind of what we always talk about? **City Engineer Bill Angerman:** If I could—you are not allowed to do that by State Statute. You have to take the low bid. You cannot consider that in a public bid format. **[49:05]** Unfortunately. **Council Member Ryan Jeppesen:** Now this could vary quite a bit depending on the drilling, correct? **City Engineer Bill Angerman:** Well, that's one of the things we talked about. Whenever you're drilling under the river, there is some risk with that. This is what's called a unit price contract, but we did set it up so that the drilling under the river is what we call "plan quantity" or "lump sum." They get a fixed amount to drill it under the river, so there are no surprises. You never guarantee anything when you're drilling under a river, but **[49:51]** that "P" on the sheet means plan quantity, which means they can't change the quantity. **Mayor Matt Montgomery:** Anything else from the Council? Hearing nothing, I would entertain a motion to approve Resolution 2683. **Council Member Chris Nobach:** So moved. **Council Member Ryan Jeppesen:** Second. **Mayor Matt Montgomery:** Motion by Nobach, second by Jeppesen. Any further discussion? Those in favor aye. (Aye). Opposed? Carries. That leads us to Item D: The Fairgrounds racetrack discussion. Jon, I'll lead this one off. I just want to say thank you to everybody tonight. In public input, everybody was very civil, everybody made really good points. Just to try to clear the air here: it is put on our agenda just as discussion. There is no **[50:48]** action that we are taking here tonight. There's nothing for us; it is not our project. We are not giving it a thumbs up or a thumbs down; we are just discussing it and what it does to our community. At this point in time, nothing still official business has been brought in other than the newspaper article and the Facebook post—that's how we learned about it. I don't know if any information has been shared with any other council members that you'd like to share tonight, but I think for tonight's purpose, it's just a discussion of where we're at. Maybe some legalities can be shared tonight to shed some light on the subject for us. Shelley, if there's anything that you would like to start off with? The **[51:33]** question was asked by a resident: are they "carte blanche"? Can they do what they like? I believe the Ag Society has been brought up multiple times. If there's anything that you could share with us as a Council, that'd be wonderful. **City Attorney Shelley Ryan:** Thank you. Fair Associations and Fairgrounds are unique under Minnesota statutes. The way they intersect with local government regulation is different from anything you guys have probably seen. As you know, the Minnesota State Fair is a big deal and has its own chapter in Minnesota statutes; it's treated as almost a governmental entity in and of itself. It can make ordinances; it governs its **[52:21]** own property. This is not that, but it shares some similarities. Fair associations and county fairgrounds are more common. My understanding is this is not a County Fair. A fair association can be organized by more than one county; it can also be organized by individuals. We don't know sitting here today how it was formed; we're making the presumption it is properly formed as a governed entity under Minnesota Statute Chapter 38. Within that, I think most pertinent to us and local regulation is that the way the authority of the Fair Board exists, sometimes it coexists with City Authority, and sometimes it overrides City Authority. This area of law is not very well developed case law-wise. There are some cases mostly dealing with money appropriations. There are some Attorney General opinions—I've got one very pertinent from **[53:43]** 1951, but it is the only thing out there. I think there are some bright lines here and then some vagueness. The first bright line for you guys is that during the Fair itself—Fair Days, which I understand are just around the 4th of July—the Fair Board has complete jurisdiction and control over their property. That means that local ordinances—according to that Attorney General opinion—during fairs, the legislature intended for the Agricultural Society **[54:29]** to control and have jurisdiction over the grounds to the exclusion of municipal regulation. So that's the Fair itself. The other bright line is that all year long, Fair Association land and buildings are exempt **[55:18]** from zoning, building, and other ordinances as needed for Fair purposes. Zoning for sure all year long. That makes sense—if they want to build a new building for showing sheep or cattle, they can put the structures close, exempt from setbacks. So zoning you cannot enforce against a Fair Association. I do think it's an open question about whether the city can enforce against the Fair Association other ordinances throughout the year on non-Fair days for non-zoning issues. It's an open question. And another step removed is you have a private company that purports to want to lease land from the Fair Association. **[56:50]** In that Attorney General opinion, they make the point that if they lease the grounds out at a time other than when there was a County Fair, it would be necessary for the operator—the non-Fairgrounds operator—to comply with the requirements of city regulations. So I think there's a good foundation to say the city does have some regulatory authority over a non-Fair Association operator on non-Fair days. **[57:37]** But again, the days of the Fair are off-limits; it’s a bright line. Zoning is off-limits. So we can't say a racetrack is not permissible under zoning and deny anything. You also cannot require a license or a permit certainly from the Fair Association itself. You may be able to require it of an operator. There's some room in here, but you've got to be careful of how you and whether you do anything proactively. Again, there's nothing on the table for you to enact or approve today. **Mayor Matt Montgomery:** Any questions or concerns? Are you aware of any city restrictions or ordinances that would be relevant to this? **City Attorney Shelley Ryan:** Well, noise and nuisance. You think about uses—**[59:11]** can you prevent a use? Probably not. Can you regulate the use under certain ordinances as long as they're not zoning? Probably to some extent. And those are going to be your targeted nuisance-type ordinances. **Council Member Chris Nobach:** I don't want to... we can't do much ourselves, but I think the public opinion from the residents up above the track—they really got to discuss it with the Fair Board itself and voice their concerns. I did watch videos of these guys going around the tracks and I think the announcer was the worst part. I mean, if you're going to be sitting out on your deck and you hear a guy yelling about "Bobby just got passed by little Joey" louder than heck, and it was all above the noise of the motors themselves. Whether you're being annoyed by engines or some guy screaming over a loudspeaker **[1:00:42]** for a few hours every Saturday night, it might get kind of annoying up there. And Marcy talked about the atmosphere or the depleted oxygen from all the fumes. I did get two phone calls with that same concern—they were concerned just as much with the fumes as they were with the dust. They said they tolerated the stuff around the Fourth of July because it's a celebration. **Council Member Ryan Jeppesen:** I had several people come to me about the noise. They're concerned about noise; they're concerned about dust. They came down to the store to talk to me about that. They don't want to have to have their Saturday afternoon or evening ruined by noise, and we don't know how loud it's going to be. **[1:02:16]** Is there a way to check that? Can we... I know one of the people who spoke said the decibel thing is not really what they're looking for, but you have to be able to measure it somehow. I think we can work together and figure it out. Maybe it's every other Saturday, but you don't want to limit them from profit either. It's tricky. **Mayor Matt Montgomery:** I agree. I think this is very tricky. I'm more frustrated with the process in general because when people feel blindsided—as do I, as does the Council—when it's something posted on social media that's never been discussed in a public forum... I can't speak for them, I'm not a Fair Board member, but it never made it to the light of the community until that Facebook post a month ago. There's been no collaboration. I'm getting the feel that this is like a "yeah, we feel like doing it so we're going to do it." I feel like there hasn't been any talk to the community to get their input or a study that says the decibel level is going to be "X" when conditions are like this. And who are the racers? Is that going to be people competing from the community? Because when you say it's a cheap form of entertainment, I don't think those karts are very cheap. There's thousands of dollars involved with trailers, toy haulers... how many people are going to be participating from the community? **[1:04:33]** I support Motorsports, I support Athletics. But the location and the community reception is questionable at best. I'll just share my opinion—I actually grew up in a town that had a go-kart track and a racetrack right next to each other. **Council Member Chris Nobach:** Would that be Alexandria? **Mayor Matt Montgomery:** Yep. We had the dirt track and the go-karts Friday night and full late-model race cars Saturday. I could hear the racetrack from my house—I didn't live as close as the houses that are by our racetrack here, so it's not really apples-to-apples. We could hear it, but it wasn't... I lived several miles away. But it was a blast, especially as a teenager; everybody would go meet their friends down there. But I certainly understand people's concerns that live by there. I mean, I can hear the highway from my house now, so I get it. **Council Member Diane Johnson:** I agree, Matt. I do feel like we're all blindsided on this. I think we got so carried away with the land exchange with Hannah's Bend Park and the Fair Board that **[1:06:04]** that's the only thing I've thought of for the Fair Board, as well as being excited about July coming. I wish—and I realize the Fair Board is an entity that I really don't understand, and I know they don't have to have public meetings as do the rest of us—but I wish there had been more open communication, especially with the west side residents. Having those kind of discussions before we come up and say "it's a done deal" and you don't get to do anything—you really do get to the point where then you want to get angry, and that's really not what we want. And if this is billed as a family event, I know the kids in our house can't be up until 10 o'clock on a Saturday night. I'm a little concerned about the hours, but there again, I direct that concern to the members of the Fair Board who will have the decision. **[1:07:40]** If the city chose to try to do something, we're kind of in a gray area where we have no real guarantee that we could do anything. We don't want to waste Fair Board money or City money hiring lawyers to fight out a case where the city probably is going to lose anyway. I would just encourage the Fair Board to be incredibly open to hearing from all of the folks on the west side. **Council Member Laura Kronenberger:** With the people using the space, would they need a conditional use license? **City Attorney Shelley Ryan:** A conditional use would be more in the nature of a zoning regulation which, again, I think we'd be hard-pressed to enforce against them. Maybe some form of licensure, but that would be probably the extent of it. **Council Member Ryan Jeppesen:** I do agree with everyone. When things like this—people just hear about it all of a sudden—you always assume the worst. I think us having this tonight, even though this isn't really a city thing, I think just giving everyone the chance to talk was great. Ferlin and Jeff are here; I'm sure they'll stick around after the meeting and take questions. **[1:09:11]** The Fair does have other things in the off-season—I know they run a derby, I think Memorial weekend or maybe Labor Day. They do some horse races. It's not unprecedented for them to run non-fair events. **Mayor Matt Montgomery:** Along that same point, the citizen concerns are very valid. But if this is being run by a private entity leasing space and then being governed by the Fair Board, is the city a partner in this in any way? Are we responsible for assistance, whether it be our EMTs, our Fire Department, our gear? Is there anything that they need from us? Because that hasn't been asked yet. But those are questions that we can have in discussion afterwards. **[1:10:45] Mayor Matt Montgomery:** Anything else, Council? All right, we'll move on from Item D. That gets us to reports. Maggie is not here for Chamber of Commerce, so we will start around the horn this way. Jon, is there anything you would like to bring up? **City Administrator Jon Radermacher:** Just real brief. We just completed our week of audit last week, so yay. We can take a deep breath; it was a big one. And that will come forth to you guys at the beginning of June. **Mayor Matt Montgomery:** Bill, anything else you'd like to add? **City Engineer Bill Angerman:** Nothing additional, unless there are questions. **Council Member Ryan Jeppesen:** I have a question for Bill. We approved that lift station tonight and the bid came in way over. Do you see that as **[1:11:30]** a trend going down the road, that everything is going to be way over what our estimates are going to be? **City Engineer Bill Angerman:** I'm not sure how to answer that. The trend obviously is... do I expect prices to go down? No. What I'm hoping is that because this is a two-phase project, we will re-price things now that we're still trying to acquire land. We will re-estimate that because **[1:12:15]** ultimately we got to make sure Jon is helping get enough financing in place. We will have a new estimate for the second portion once the land's procured. But I think this trend of high prices is unfortunately here to stay. **Council Member Laura Kronenberger:** I am actually going to just give you a little update from Maggie at the Chamber. Jim Boo, the developer for the Veterans Memorial Park, will be speaking at the Chamber breakfast on May 10th. They will have a ribbon-cutting ceremony on May 14th that is open to the public. And then **[1:13:01]** they will have a Fun Fest on June 1st on Mill Street as well. From an EDA perspective, Jon and I did have an opportunity to tour the Cannonball Apartments on Friday—so that was pretty exciting. They're coming along and still on track to be done by November. Andy Bartman and Bob Keller will be speaking at the Chamber breakfast in June and should have the 3D renderings up. And then just a couple other aside things: we did have a new boutique open up on the corner, Swan and Bauer. It's got gifts, women's clothing, men's clothing. And then Ginger Bauer also purchased the building on the corner that used to be the Chamber and the barbershop, so she doubled her sales floor. I just really commend our shop owners for continuing to be **[1:14:34]** brick-and-mortar downtown shops in this economic time. **Lieutenant Berg (Police Department):** Thank you, Mayor and Council, for approving the police officer promotion and the new hire. That definitely helps our department. Unfortunately, we're still one down and we have had exactly zero applicants in the last two weeks. So if anybody knows a cop that wants to come to a small town, we stay busy. [Laughter]. **Mayor Matt Montgomery:** Shelley, anything else? **City Attorney Shelley Ryan:** Thank you, no. **Mayor Matt Montgomery:** Jon? **[1:15:20] City Administrator Jon Radermacher:** Yeah, just a couple things. Touching base on what Bill said about the land we have to acquire: we do have a purchase agreement with one landowner and we're waiting for approval from the bank that should be coming in 30 days or so. We did get signed off on the Third Street Townhome easement, so we should be in pretty good shape for this particular project. The other project—we're still waiting for the gentleman to come back from vacation so we can continue negotiations. Just a comment to the gentleman that talked about Evergreen: that reconstruction project is in the queue. It's not a mill and overlay; it's a complete tear-out of all the pipes. But that's in the queue. We don't know if it'll be the next one or the one after, but we've definitely got it on the radar. **Mayor Matt Montgomery:** The Joint Powers Trail Board met on April 25th. Lisa? **[1:17:14] Council Member Lisa Zimmerman:** Most of the conversation was around a grant that they're trying to apply for. It's almost a million dollars to redo the entire trail. We decided to request half because you have to have a local matching... 25 percent matching. So we decided to cut back on it so then it was only going to be like 600,000 or something like that. We thought it was a better financial choice. It would get repaved and widened—it has to be widened because the state says it has to be 10 feet and it's 8 now. And a couple of bridges. **Mayor Matt Montgomery:** Public Works Commission, April 27th. **Council Member Chris Nobach:** I can take it. We just had two things: that was the swimming pool parking lot and then we met with an applicant... Jon, did we ever get an answer? (He backed out). Okay, we met with an applicant who evidently backed out. **Mayor Matt Montgomery:** Anything else? Derek? Diane? **Council Member Diane Johnson:** I'd just like to thank everybody who came out Saturday to the Fire Department's breakfast. It was great fun crawling around all the engines. **Council Member Steve Nordin:** Nothing. **Council Member Laura Kronenberger:** I'm good. **Council Member Lisa Zimmerman:** Steve and I are working on the police wage negotiation contracts. We're working on the negotiations and hopefully, we'll come to a good agreement which will help us get more police in town and retain them. **[1:19:33] City Administrator Jon Radermacher:** One of the things that we had a discussion about at negotiations is doing a city-wide pay study. We've got three contracts that we've got to negotiate this year and the requests are coming in quite high. The negotiating committee decided to ask the Council to approve a pay study, which gets us some guidance on where other municipalities are at. And also, if we raise wages on the police officers, how does that affect our pay equity? You have to be careful that you don't go out of compliance. So I will be bringing forward an estimate from a firm that will do that for us. **[1:21:06] Mayor Matt Montgomery:** Before we go, I just want to say I think this is our first council meeting since that fire happened at the apartment building out on [Highway] 17 there. The actions from our EMS staff, our Fire Department, and our Police Department in concert together was phenomenal. I have talked to a lot of people about that and the words "heroism" and "hero"... they say this is the stuff you don't see very often. The response time was off the charts—I think it was seven minutes from the call to extracting people from a burning building. **[1:21:51]** Police Chief McCormick is not here tonight, but when I talked to him, he said he had an EMS member that he had to hold back while they were breaking out the window to try to get in. Those actions and the stories being told... that fire was fought from the inside. Everything that was done... I know that the results aren't what we all wished for, but the effort from our people was absolutely phenomenal and I just want to say thank you. Those are the kind of situations that we don't want to see very often, but when they do happen and we have that response, it shows how valuable you guys are to the community. With that said, I would take a motion to adjourn. **Council Member Steve Nordin:** So moved. **Council Member Diane Johnson:** Second. **Mayor Matt Montgomery:** Motion from Steve, second from Diane. All those in favor aye. (Aye). Opposed? Thank you, everybody. We're adjourned.