This transcript has been processed to identify speakers based on the provided list of city officials and the contextual cues within the dialogue. [2:30] Mary Fasbender: Ready Lindsey? [2:49] >> [clears throat] [2:55] Mary Fasbender: The time being 7:00, I call the City Council meeting to order. Please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge [clears throat] 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. [3:27] Mary Fasbender: Welcome, and let the roll reflect that we do have a quorum with the absence of council member Leifeld. Tonight, I would like to introduce our mayor for the day, Vivian Swanson. And Vivian wrote an essay that she will be reading along with 11 other essay applicants, and you'll hear why I chose her as the winning essay. [3:59] Vivian Swanson: Hi, my name is Vivian Swanson. I live in Hastings, I'm 10 years old, and I go to McAuliffe Elementary, and I love to dance. If I were mayor for a day, I would make a Hastings Kindness Day day. I would make sure that the police, hospital, and the fire department were all set, and tell them to practice each and every week. I would also have a place open 24 hours for people to free dance. If I were mayor for a day, I would [have] Hastings Kindness Day on September 1st, where I would encourage people to do something kind for someone. I would also have people put flowers by the bridge, so that when people come, they feel welcome, and the bridge would look super pretty. If I were mayor for a day, I would also see if the 911 crew is all set and ready, and I would tell them to practice each week. Since I like dance, another thing I would do is have a dance place open 24 hours, where everyone could pay $5 per person, and they could go and free dance. It could be where people let out their wiggles, and where they felt welcome. As you can see, I would be very excited and busy to serve as a mayor for a day. I would do my best to help my community. [5:17] Mary Fasbender: Wonderful. [applause] Vivian has shadowed me for, well, half a day. We picked her up at school, and we visited a couple of the departments, and then came to saw um City Hall. We had a workshop earlier on our Parks and Rec Department, which she was very enthusiastic about, and she loves the city. She had numerous questions throughout the day, and she was very aggressively responsible for this beautiful essay, and her parents should be very proud. So, thank you. If council, we would step forward, and we'll give Vivian a certification of recognition, and we'll have our picture taken. [7:30] Mary Fasbender: That's always a fun day for us, right? And by the way, Vivian is fourth grade, 10 years old as she said, but amazing. So, comments from the audience. At this time, we will hear comments from the audience. Um if you would like to speak to the council, please step to the podium, state your name and your address. Sorry. First, could we have approval of minutes? I'm sorry. Council? Okay, first and second by Vihrachoff and Haus. All those in favor, say I. Council: I. [8:05] Mary Fasbender: Opposed to that, or say no. And that prevails. Okay, now comments from the audience. All right, we're ready. [8:24] Aaron Dean: Thank you. Can I walk up right here? No, podium, please. State your name and your address. Hi, my name's Aaron Dean. I'm a construction lawyer with Spencer Fane. I live in Bloomington, Minnesota, but my address in downtown Minneapolis is 100 5th Street, Suite 2500, Minneapolis, Minnesota. Um I'm here to address item 10C on the agenda. It relates to the property, the Hastings Creamery. Yeah, that's the subject of a long-standing dispute, of which I have not been involved at all. My involvement in this dispute has been for 1 week. I'm replacing my law firm partner because he broke his leg, and needed someone to be here. I also represent Lloyd's Construction Services, and Ms. Mayor, and the city attorney, and the community development director have all received a copy of the signed contract between the owner of the real property and Lloyd's Construction for just under 411,000. Ms. Mayor, I sent it to you just shortly before the City Council meeting began. There are some alternates that can increase the cost of that, but the bottom line is that Lloyd's Construction Services and the owner, Mr. Merch, too, are hopeful that work can begin on April 15th, and end in 60 days, and be completed by June 15th. Of course, we live in Minnesota, and [clears throat] the weather has to cooperate. We had great weather last couple days, but coming up, we're having another snowstorm, and we need to have the temperature at an average degree of 40° at night, so we have constant water access in order to control any dust or debris during the demolition process. Lloyd's Construction Services is one of the one or two top hazardous materials and demolition contractors in the state of Minnesota and has done substantially larger projects than this one. I'm involved because I'm the one who referred Lloyd's Construction Services to the project owner. I know that this has been a long time coming. I know that there was prior management problems with the city and prior management was removed. I know that the certificate of occupancy was revoked in August of 2023. I know there was a fire in September 2023. I know there's been all sorts of problems that have occurred over the last 2 and 1/2 years. I had zero to do with all of those problems. I am the janitor helping to get this mess cleaned up. That is it. And um I know that the city council will be considering a resolution and an order to require that the property be cleaned up by June 15th. I want to tell you in advance that we are going to contest that just to preserve our rights. Not that the work does not have to be done. I don't know whether Lloyd's can finish in 60 days. They are hopeful. I don't want that objection to be construed as being uncooperative or to not agree that the work needs to be done. I want you to understand that on a construction project like this, it's going to be pretty nasty and there may be unknown conditions below ground. There might be tanks. There might be much more hazardous materials than are anticipated. Only a Braun report, B-R-A-U-N, from 2024 was provided to the contractor. So, the contractor has limited knowledge and information in order to proceed. The reason I say all of that is if this takes 90 days or 120 days to complete, it's not because the owner is being uncooperative or because the contractor is incompetent. It means it's a very sophisticated project and requires a lot of caution. And the um when you're disposing of asbestos-containing materials, you have limited landfills that they can go to and they're going to go to the Bolander landfill. You have a lot slower work that's being performed and Lloyd's is one of the most cautious and one of the most experienced demolition contractors in the state of Minnesota. So, the right contractor was found and please just be patient if it takes longer than 60 days. No one is interested in dragging their feet. Um I'm as interested as everyone else for this long, sordid, tormented ordeal be over for the citizens, for the city council, for the mayor, for all of the city staff, and for that site to be cleaned up and everything on that site disposed of properly. So, I anticipate that the city council will unanimously approve the resolution and the order under chapter 463. Please understand that after today, the owner, 3D LLC, will object to that order without being objectionable and without trying to cause more delays. We just don't know it will take more than 60 days to complete the work. It's all weather dependent and all dependent on not having unknown conditions discovered. I'm happy to answer any questions, if there are any questions, um but I hope this is the last time that you ever hear from me as a construction lawyer. And I hope that this project goes very well and that we're done in early June. If those things happen, we will all be happy. But if they don't happen, it does not mean that the contractor was incompetent or that the owner is uncooperative. [13:52] Mary Fasbender: Thank you. Thank you for your comments. Anyone else wish to speak to the council at this time? Okay. Council, any items to be considered? Okay. And consent agenda. At this time, Council, I would accept a motion to approve the consent agenda. Council member Pemble. And second by Council member Lawrence. Any discussion, Council? All those in favor of the motion, state by saying I. Council: I. [14:31] Mary Fasbender: Opposed that motion, state by saying nay. And that motion prevails. Tonight, under awarding of contracts, we have an approval for a new sidewalk cafe license for Hugafol on 214 Second Street East. And for this item, we have an introduction by our community development director, John Hinzman. [14:59] John Hinzman: Well, I'm here in city council. I wasn't prepared to speak tonight, but I can introduce a little bit of the project here. It's a sidewalk cafe project, I believe. They're in the process of opening up downtown and we did have a review by city staff of the project itself and I don't think we received any comments back significantly from the staff. We're supportive of the issuance of it. And I guess I can stand for any questions. [15:29] Mary Fasbender: And John, we will also hold a public hearing as well. [15:29] John Hinzman: Yeah, we'll have a public hearing. Okay. [15:29] Mary Fasbender: Thank you. Council, I will first have the public hearing and after that then we will have discussion. Anyone wish to—or actually, first I'll open the public hearing. Anyone wish to speak to the sidewalk cafe new license for downtown? Looks like no one. No one on Zoom. I will close the public hearing. Now [clears throat] open discussion for Council. Council member Vihrachoff. [15:59] DawnMarie Vihrachoff: Thank you, Your Honor. Sorry to put you on the spot here, John, but I am just wondering if you have any sense of an opening date or if you've heard anything from the owners. We have lots of people that are excited downtown. [16:24] John Hinzman: Understood and uh no, I do not, Council member, have an opening date for it. I know they've been working continuously for some time at taking, you know, doing it at their own pace, but I'm unsure what the opening date would be. [16:24] DawnMarie Vihrachoff: Hopefully the sidewalk cafe license is a good indicator. [16:24] John Hinzman: I would hope the same. [16:24] DawnMarie Vihrachoff: Thank you, Your Honor. [16:24] Mary Fasbender: Thank you, John. Council member Vihrachoff, any other questions Council? Okay, with that, Council, I would accept a motion to approve the sidewalk cafe license for Hugafol at 214 Street Second Street East Hastings. [16:46] Angie Haus: So moved. [16:46] Mary Fasbender: Council member Haus. First. [16:46] Dave Pemble: Second. [16:46] Mary Fasbender: And second by Council member Pemble. Any discussion, Council? All those in favor of the motion, state by saying I. Council: I. [17:03] Mary Fasbender: Opposed to that motion, state by saying nay. And that motion prevails. Tonight, we have a motion to accept a quote and authorize signature of contract for corrective asphalt materials for the 2026 pavement preservation project. And for this item, we have with us our assistant city engineer, Cody Mathisen [Transcribed as John Caven]. Welcome, John. [17:23] John Caven: Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Council. Pavement management. Um the goal, as we know, is to to build a road and hopefully have it last as long as we possibly can. There's many tools in the toolbox to do so. The tool that we're talking about today is seal coat. For decades, chip seals were the industry standard. A chip seal is basically oil and rock that's applied to the road with the effort of hoping that that lasts a long time. A few years back, we put a pause on the program because we were starting to see stripping on the upper layer of the surface. So, during that pause, we started talking with other cities to see what they're doing. We're researching products and also looking at demos from contractors. After careful research, we'd like to try a new product—it's called Reclamite. It's by Corrective Asphalt Materials. As you can see in the photo here, it's basically an oil that gets applied. In about 10 or 15 minutes, the product cures and then sand is put on top. The purpose of the sand is unlike seal coat where the sand just basically laps up any remaining oil that's sitting on top and then the next day it's swept off. So, unlike a chip seal, where the chip seal serves as a sacrificial layer that's applied over the top surface of the roadway, which ultimately then trapped the water underneath, this product penetrates the surface of the roadway, which slows down the degradation process. It slows down the oxidation and drying out process of the surface. So, a resident can expect, who's on the project, can expect a letter in the mail just requesting no parking 7:00 to 7:00. The process itself takes about 30 minutes to do with the oil and then letting it cure and then applying the sand. And then once the sand is down, then vehicles are ready to drive on it. It will be swept off on the very next day. So, we received a quote for 30,000. The price is competitive with what surrounding cities are seeing. And so, the goal that we've are recommending is to apply this in early newly paved locations in development. We can use the development escrow, the pavement preservation escrow to pay for it. Um and it would be these locations: the Heritage Ridge development, the Villas at Pleasant, the Cobblestone Court and South Oaks Fourth. So with that I can stand for any questions. [20:25] Mary Fasbender: Thank you, John. Any questions, Council? Council member Haus. [20:25] Angie Haus: Thank you. Thank you so much for the presentation, John. I have quite a few questions. With a new product, can you speak to the environmentally friendliness of this product? [20:41] John Caven: Yes. It's not any worse than the chip seal product itself. They do have extensive literature on the product and everybody out there is going to claim it's environmentally friendly. It's oil. Oil's oil. Um so from that perspective, the goal would be to keep it confined, not going down the storm sewer, letting it run. So that needs to stay on the road surface. And from the demonstration that I saw, I wasn't concerned. It's really not going to run off the street. They do a good job with it. [21:14] Angie Haus: Okay. Is there any concern of any pets being around that product then? [21:14] John Caven: Actually, I was very impressed with the type of oil this is. The chip seal oil was very sticky. If you think paving, you're on the right track with what that is. This product, it really didn't have that tackiness to it. So in a way it's almost better than what we've been doing in the past. [21:14] Angie Haus: Um and then a few other questions I have is what streets are you guys wanting to continue this on after these main streets? Are there any specific areas that you guys are wanting to target more so? [21:14] John Caven: Yeah, that's a great question. I would say if this year goes really well, we could see ourselves doing future reconstructs. So the year after a road is reconstructed, we'd try to protect that surface and we could roll it into a continual program. [22:06] Angie Haus: Perfect. And last question I have is do you know any other towns that currently use this product? [22:06] John Caven: Yes. Like the closest one to us is Woodbury. There is a list of about 10 or 15 and it's starting to grow. So we're not early and we're not late. We're right in the middle of what the metro area cities are experiencing. So everybody's kind of in that searching process. So I'd say we're right in the middle. [22:30] Angie Haus: Perfect. Thank you. [22:30] Mary Fasbender: Thank you, Council member Haus. Council member Pemble. [22:30] Dave Pemble: refresh me. What did you say the dollar value would cost for this for this chunk of— [22:30] John Caven: It'd be approximately 30,000. [22:30] Dave Pemble: And when you say that the next day or 24 hours after it's swept, it's drivable, is that what you said? [22:30] John Caven: It's actually drivable as soon as the sand is down. So it would be within 20 minutes, 30 minutes. [22:30] Dave Pemble: Okay, that was my biggest question. Yes, I thought you said something about 24 hours before and so we want to be able to have our residents be able to get back in and out of their properties. And that to me was as long as you know, we advance and try and find a better product than what we've been using for decades, I'm in. I think this is a good idea. [22:30] Mary Fasbender: Okay. Thank you, Council member Pemble. Any other discussion, Council? If not, I would accept a motion for the quote and authorization for signature of contract from Corrective Asphalt Materials for the 2026 pavement preservation project. Council member Vihrachoff with a first move and Council member Pemble with a second. Any discussion? All those in favor of the motion state by saying I. Council: I. [23:50] Mary Fasbender: Opposed to that motion state by saying nay. And that motion prevails. Thank you, John. [23:50] John Caven: Thank you. [23:50] Mary Fasbender: Tonight under public works, we have an adopt to adopt the County State Aid Highway 42 corridor improvements. And for this item we have a presentation by Dakota County project manager Joel Morneau and or Commissioner Slavik. Welcome. [24:25] Mike Slavik: Well, good evening, Mayor, Council members. Mike Slavik, Dakota County District 1 Commissioner. Before I introduce our project manager for this project, Joel Morneau, I wanted to just go and give a little bit of a background on a couple things related to the history of this project as it actually started. We started talking about doing some revamps to this project back in 2016. Those who lived on the street for many years know that this project was reconstructed in 1997. And typically we don't do another reconstruct or really enhancements on a road for about 50 plus years. So the fact that we're kind of coming at a point now, it is a little bit unique in the county process. But in 2016, of comments related to speed and pedestrian safety, particularly between Riverdale and Pleasant Drive and just as the popularity of the Mississippi River Greenway, we were seeing more and more bikes and pedestrians trying to cross County Road 42 and Nina Drive Road as well as we've just continued to see speeds be very high and fast as you're coming from a 55 mile rural county road into the city limits here. And though the flashing speed signs have helped some, there was concerns that we needed to find ways to find measures to calm the traffic as we went through this. So in 2016, May 7th of 2016, we met at the library in the morning. About just under 50 residents as well as the director of transportation and myself met to kind of talk about what could be done if anything. At that point it wasn't time for a mill and overlay. The project wasn't anywhere near a 50 year reconstruct, but we did know that this was becoming a growing concern. At that point the County Road 42, the rural section was just in the design phase. So if you may recall that had no shoulders, steep ditches and it was to the point actually where at that time Sheriff Leslie was not willing to go in and do patrol and speed patrol on that road because it was so unsafe. Every time they were pulling over somebody for speeding, they actually ran into a number of squad cars that got run into over the years. So they said this road needs to be a priority for safety that has safe shoulders so that we can do a little bit more of enforcement on the rural portion in Nina Drive Township. So at that point the road was under construction and that was kind of just to see what that did. And we continued in 2018, 2019 to just go and figure out what would be ways to address traffic calming measures to slow down traffic as well as the pedestrian safety. So what happened in that part in there under Council member Fox, we had the group kind of reconvened in the post-COVID world time to just kind of figure out what could be done. Some of you were involved in on the council at that point there where we ended up doing a feasibility study to go and determine what are some ideas that could actually go and be proposed. 2024 corridor study was done that went and determined a couple different things. One of the big ones in there was that to cross—we had determined where a trail would make sense, but to cross one side of 42 to the other, there really needs to be a kind of a mid-crossing as opposed to Pleasant Drive for it to be able to get to the Greenway where the Greenway entrance to go to the switchback down to Lock and Dam Road would really be a safer way to do that to address some other traffic calming measures throughout the whole corridor as well as some safety on the roads issues just to give a note that this road would not be up to county standards. If we would be building this road today, this is not how we would be building County Road 42 / Nina Drive Road / Second Street. So on that part in there, we were able to do that evaluation and then as we did that, we started with public engagement. We met with the public in the very beginning of the stage in January 2024. We presented some early findings and design in April, the spring of 2024. And then most recently in December of this past year was kind of the design process. At that part there, I should note that the city council and the county board did authorize to kind of move forward in some of these steps. So we've gotten to a point of a 90 plus percent design of potential road improvements for safety and pedestrian safety and traffic calming. So that has been the process of where we have been going through thus far to get to this point in here. The proposal is about a $3 million project and as you're well aware, most of what we have is either 100% paid for by the county or a 15% cost share with our local partners. So looking I think as we have seen in the past, the potential project is roughly $300,000 to the city as well as 2.7 million to the county. Couple things that I want to make note separate from just the historical background and that is just the uniqueness of Hastings when it comes to county roads. There is about 420 plus miles of county road throughout all of Dakota County. All the major cities have often times four to eight times as many miles of county road than Hastings has. Hastings being an older community has state roads that still go through this, but however, there's only about 6 miles of county road in the city of Hastings compared to my largest city in District 1 of Farmington is almost 30 miles of county road. And with that, you see pedestrian large 8-ft trails on both sides. You see no bypass lanes in a metro area or in a urban area, you see only turn lanes that go with that. The reality is that county roads move a lot of traffic. They are though they're in residential areas and that is part of it. You see a lot of traffic that is moved on a county road compared to a local city road. And I think that that's just kind of one of those unique parts of this. The reason why we put a trail as opposed to a sidewalk on our county roads is because often times dictated by the state and speed limits, they're 45 miles an hour or above even in city limits. Think of if you go to Eagan which has many miles of county road. Many of those roads there are not 30 miles an hour as county road and that is just kind of part of the requirements with a county state aid road which this also is. So that makes it a little bit more challenging in how things are done in here and why it was a larger priority to go in and make some investments even though the road is not seen a full reconstruction with that. I think I'll also note just a couple things... you know, the challenges—you would not see bypass lanes within an urban section anymore in a county state aid road and that has been—we heard initially why you heard so many of the conversation that happened about a month ago related to Boulevard trees. And it's my understanding that the trees that would be at the cemetery would be honestly have about another 30 plus years of life left from the about roughly 70 years old. However, to be able to make pedestrian safety or excuse me, traffic safety with turn lanes in that as you'll hear from Joe, that is kind of some of those steps in there. I will make note that one of the things that the council and mayor you asked for was to go and get confirmation and work with the cemetery board to get them on record for their position related to the trees—and not to give a spoiler of Joe, but the cemetery board has come back and actually support of removing those trees on the condition that new trees are put in the place. Joe will talk a little bit more of the type of tree that they're talking with that part there and that's outside from a number of issues that though they are may have 30 plus years of life, you never know what a wind storm might do and that puts a lot of liability onto the cemetery as well as that is an aging old wall and the root system on there can actually have some impact there. So at the end of the day, the cemetery board did come and give their position that the trees do make some sense in there. So you had a couple other things that you asked as a council to go and have county staff give some better explanation on and I know we have some neighbors that will probably have some comments as well with this on here, but I want to just go and introduce once again, Joel Morneau is the project manager for this project and he's going to do much more of the emphasis on the reasons and the decision making on why a couple things: why the location of the trail was put at a certain spot, why the need for three lane sections, further comment on the Boulevard trees and then also talk about the project from River all the way down to downtown and what that may have an impact. As you recall, the operations committee initially had a conversation related to restricting parking. And I think that you know, Joe will add some further comments on that, but outside of the that design, I think that can still be a conversation related to the parking because it is a mill and overlay from River all the way to downtown which means the asphalt and the curb everything stays the same and that's a matter of painting and markings and that's not where we are at today. Today it's really more to moving forward for that ultimate design and the joint powers agreement to get the parts that will be new and added safety and also added traffic calming measures. So with that mayor and council members, I'm going to let Joe have the show and go from there. So thank you much. [34:00] Joel Morneau: Thank you, Mike. Thank you, Commissioner Slavik. Thank you, Mayor Fasbender and council members for having me back here. Um as Commissioner Slavik noted, one of the things we want to talk about here is the consideration of parking restrictions on 2nd Street near downtown and what I'll do just in the interest of everyone in the audience here is go to the end here just where I had a slide and I can cover that first and leave it up to the council as far as if we need any discussion on this topic. So again, River Street down to downtown, this is just going to be a mill and overlay and you know, we'll be looking at restriping to help restrict some of the speeds and given that we don't have any trail and not really a good prospect for one in the now or in the future, we're looking at allowing bicycle use of those shoulders. So coming down the hill, we're going to stripe that fog line closer in so we have about 4 and 1/2 ft of usable shoulder for bicyclists if they for those that want to go down 2nd Street here. So that's typical and that would be in each direction. So that's typically a sufficient width. What we wanted to consider when we were taking this approach was any possibility of restricting parking on these three blocks. So this is from Forest to Eddy Streets and that would provide a little bit of a safer facility and we did come to the or rather John Caven had brought up the topic at the September operations committee meeting just for discussion and my what was relayed to me was that there was some interest as far as looking at that as a possibility. One thing I just want to bring up as far as the county's practice and parking restrictions on our county system is that we don't enact any changes to parking rules and regulations without city consent on any change. So our position I think where we stand today is that we would look for that direction from the operations committee and the council on that action. If it's whatever direction it is, we'll—we can adapt as far as the project and see what other alternatives there are. So I can—if everyone's good, I can return to the first part of the rest of the presentation here one moment. So again, just revisiting some of the key issues is what I want to go over tonight and again, that's the decision-making process on the trail going back to the corridor study and through the design process and then again, a review of the three lane section from 1st Street to the hospital entrances as well being being where we had the most questions here. And then just to reiterate as well, vehicle speeds is a priority here and then ensuring safe bicycle facilities as Commissioner Slavik noted, County Road 42 is not really up to county standards in that respect and then again, pavement maintenance where we're right at that time where we'd be pursuing an overlay. With the trail location during the 2024 corridor study, we had kind of taken a square one approach as far as how we wanted to build a trail here and our county approach is to have trail facilities on both sides of the roadway. One is that it's easier to access, it limits crossings. That's just a safer approach and we also of course recognize that there's a more of a recreational purpose here on 42 the Greenway than you typically see elsewhere within the county highway system. Taking that square one approach, we did look at the north side and understood just from our evaluation, but also with public involvement, the significant concern as far as residential impacts. There's the 14 houses there on the western end of town here where trail would cross over the driveways. And that would restrict their the use of their yard even that part of your yard that's in the right of way, but also restrict use of their driveways as well cuz we'd be coming further back. Our facility would look at—it'd have 5-ft Boulevard, 10-ft trail and then a 2-ft clear zone. So we're coming 17 ft off of the back of the curb. And restricting that would restrict where residents would be able to park and use their driveways to a pretty significant degree in this areas. Another consideration with the cemetery—even in the corridor study, we had reviewed the potential of a left turn lane at at least 1st Street at that point in time. And understood one that there would be tree impacts, but also between the left turn lane and a trail facility and kind of the the hard limits of the cemetery that both would not be feasible. Arriving at a decision to just pursue trail on the south side here. Um, again, there's fewer impacts here where we're largely within the right-of-way. Our expectation is that as far as easements and temporary easements for construction they'll be pretty light. There's—so in the lot areas we'll be just be reconstructing over either trail or sidewalk. Um, again, uh given given that it's on the south side there is better access given that's where the majority of residents are. Um, and then with access to the Mississippi River Greenway we're able to kind of control the points of crossing a little more easily there to protected crossings with curb extensions, striping, and lighting. So that's another benefit, you know, whereas if you had had another trail on the north side people may be more inclined just to cross whenever they come up to Ninninger Road here. You know, the drawback of course is that there wouldn't um, you know, for those houses on the north side there would be no easy direct access to a trail but they were there would be um, coming you know, coming up on um, near Riverdale with the Mississippi River Greenway would be the closest point of access. Um, one of the things just to touch on as well just you know, from the county perspective is that you know, we there there again we recognize there's a significant recreational use um, in this area with the Greenway um, and with with city facilities but we do take into consideration more um, just a kind of a you know, a matter of access with residents as well and understanding that there's still a you know, a transportation purpose to fulfill here as well as far as people walking to school, walking to work—I know there's the hospital here—but um, so making sure that you know, it's a kind of a more full picture of the objectives going on to meet here. Um, but still from a recreational standpoint there is the designated 10-mile and 3-mile trail here for the city. Um, we do you know, see this project as helping to complete that 3-mile trail um, with trail on the south side with with protected crossings as well and then also giving access to the to the the 10-mile trail and even um, providing another alternative. I don't know if that's a 8-mile trail that you or 8-mile loop you can make on the south with this trail but that gives um, residents another option there for from a recreational standpoint. Um, so from here I just want to talk a little bit more about the three-lane section and kind of what the the reasoning was from the corridor study through the design process here as far as adding in these turn lanes. During the corridor study we did evaluate or take counts for traffic volumes throughout the full corridor generally doing those at the intersection and this would be taken over the course of 24 hours but then have that broken into 15-minute increments which gives us a very good view of basically how Second Street and Ninninger Road function throughout the day. What we saw in this area was that there's significant activity both for through traffic as well as left turns in particularly in the morning at First Street. So we are able to tell that for about a 30-minute period throughout the day the or 30-minute period in the morning that left turns outnumber through traffic so there's a kind of a real mix between where people are going and being able to pull those movements apart with a turn lane is a safer practice here given those high volumes going into the hospital at First Street. At the hospital you see a similar pattern not quite the same number of not the quite the same volume of vehicles but you see in the morning a rush going to that main entrance as well. But even throughout the day we still see a significant share of the traffic going through this area making left turns and again put it—putting those onto an a turn lane is easier for managing traffic but also for safety. Um, in an earlier discussion as well with the hospital they they were interested in seeing a dedicated left turn or having movements basically disaggregate which they are now with the bypass lane. If we bring a left turn lane and have that through lane that um, provides effectively the same thing but um, a little bit more safely. Um, so last time I was here I provided a few kind of basic cross sections and what we had done is made of a little bit more of a presentable little more understandable graphic here of what the roadway would look like with um, post construction. So what I have here is kind of the current plan design. This is within the 30-mile-an-hour zone and we have three lanes at 10 and 1/2 ft, 5 and 1/2 ft shoulder, and where where that leaves and that would require reconstruction of that north edge moving that curb out and and performing a full full construction on on that north end. Where that puts us in relation to the trees is about 4 and 1/2 ft away from the center of those trees. So it would get pretty close. Given the construction needs here with a full construction we're going down 3 and 1/2 ft we would certainly be running into to roots there and and causing significant disruption to the trees likely likely killing them um, in most cases. Um, and then showing an alternative kind of that was discussed um, at a staff level to see if there's a option here for looking at preserving the trees. This shows basically the same 30-mile-an-hour area without a shoulder on that north side. So we have a 12-ft lane that includes the gutter. There's no 5-ft shoulder there. This—we still need to reconstruct that curb and put it out but this gives us a little bit more space about 4 more feet from the trees and it's still I'd say at that point with it being a full construction it's still an open question as to whether we strike any roots here cause any damage to these trees. Going out to the 45-mile-an-hour zone—so this is the transition is right about at the the senior home. The difference here is that we need to have at 45 miles an hour 12-ft lanes instead of 10 and 1/2 ft—keeping all of the other dimensions of the roadway the same this puts us even closer to the trees out there. And again would would likely mean removing if—killing it—the trees or if we choose not to remove. And then looking at an option with no shoulder. If we have no shoulder on just one side that doesn't do too much here. So this graphic shows what happens if we remove shoulder on both sides and in this scenario we would have a little over 11 ft from the trees that provides more space. Uh one thing I want to stress as far as just from a design standpoint for the roadway and the shoulders—for roadway operations it does serve quite a few purposes. As I noted before we're going to have the shoulders wide enough to allow for bicycle use understanding the recreational uses out here and bicyclists and that some are going to continue to use the shoulder if they're able and comfortable to, and that's still generally safe. So we without the shoulders we lose that ability. Shoulders also provide some snow storage if you get a particularly heavier winter and snow piles up and you run out of space and this provides a little bit of a margin of error from that perspective and then also with emergency vehicles having a little bit of extra width as far as pulling off the road or for other other needs like if law enforcement needs to pull over a vehicle that provides a safer situation as well. Again with the alternative, we don't have that little margin of error for snow plow operations and it's a more dangerous situation if people still decide to use the you know, bicycle on the roadway and not the trail and what we believe is that in most cases here we would still need to remove a majority of trees. So with that, I know we've covered the the park construction. We take questions on those here in a moment but just looking kind of out for the rest of this year um, one thing for our project schedule that's going to be needed in the not too distant future is a joint powers agreement to proceed with our project. The key thing here is right-of-way acquisition. So our process for right-of-way acquisition we assume about a 12-month process that assumes kind of worst case scenarios where you get a condemnation but it's what we build our—not that we're headed for that but it's just something we build into our schedule to make sure that we're prepared to bid when we want to bid construction. The design process itself is fairly far along where we call 60% design and we expect to complete that probably by the end of this summer and then finish the acquisition of easements end of 2026 start of 2027 and that would put us into position to bid construction and then complete the project in 2027. So again on these topics or others I'm happy to stand for any any questions or clarifications. [50:31] Dave Pemble: Joe, can we—let's I've got a couple three questions but one of them is let's go back and talk about the speed. I know there was a speed study and I know the city's been out there checking speeds too. So can you just review that for the folks here? [50:53] Joel Morneau: Council member Pemble, the last speed study, formal speed study that was completed out here was in 1999 on the west end of the corridor. The east end closer downtown it was done in 1973. So it's been quite a while. What the speed study is something that's done in conjunction with MnDOT and that's basically an evaluation of the speed limit and they'll evaluate and they'll recommend and set a speed limit based on what they see for volumes for design of the facility. What we're—typically if we're going to do a speed study and get MnDOT involved what we would do is do it after a project so that we can evaluate post construction conditions and understand at that point what might be the correct speed limit here. I'll note as far as with the corridor study in 2024 we had along with those traffic counts I noted we had also reviewed and taken some readings of speed coming into town also closer into town as well. In broad terms what we found was—the—what we see is kind of the top end—the top 15% of travel speeds it's a little bit more than you want to see and that we have designed for. If you compare it to the entirety of our system and other places and other cities it doesn't show up too much worse than what we see elsewhere. Understanding especially maybe at the edge of town as you come around past Riverdale that's probably 10 miles an hour more—I'd say that's the the biggest area of concern. [52:48] Dave Pemble: Okay. Secondly on that can you be more clear about bypass lanes versus three lanes? Please. I think there's a lot of question there by some of folks here. [53:09] Joel Morneau: and I might—John had the foresight to bring up a map here. I'll see if I can zoom in on one of the bypass lanes. So out there today this one here is at Madison and Nininger. Throughout much of the corridor of course it's two lanes. There's several places here that we have a bypass when we come to an intersection presuming—allowing people to go past is if a vehicle is left turning left. That's generally not an accepted design. This was put to put in in 1997. So what the alternative—well on the west end of what we're proposing to do again is eliminate the bypass at Madison and Monroe. What we're again going to be doing between First Street and the main hospital entrance is basically push out the curb and on the outside that's going to be a continuous through lane on the outside. The median is going to be a painted median—not a raised—and that's going to have the left turn lane. So that's from a visibility standpoint for the intersections and vehicles on the intersecting streets that's going to be a safer condition and then also lowers rear end chances as well. So that's the difference here—it's going to be just a continuous outside lane through right about here where we where you do see a bypass lane again that will be incorporated into kind of that new design where it's just the through lane on the outside. [54:51] Dave Pemble: But the point I wanted to get across is that instead of the lane of traffic switching around by bypass you're going to have that center section for left turns or right turn lanes to make that work. Correct. Um the next thing is the—well the tree replacement I think now that the cemetery is bought for that they're just wanting to deal with you directly about what type of replacement tree those 36 replacement trees are going to be. They're very particular about that. They'll be getting ahold of you. The chunk of the the trail piece once that's put in that's not the homeowner's responsibility to take care of anymore. That's going to be roll over to the parks department from what I had heard at our last meeting. Is that still correct? [56:06] Joel Morneau: Um so for our trail facilities um the kind of practice it's a little different different here because we have one stretch on the south side here coming into town to the Mississippi River Greenway and that's designated as part of the Mississippi River Greenway and the county would today perform snow clearing on there and would continue in the future as well. From the Greenway south to to River Street—and I believe this is about a 400 foot stretch—that would be with our policies it would be the city that perform the snow clearing there. [56:47] Dave Pemble: And the last item I wanted discuss is uh when John came to us and on your behalf at the operations committee meeting it was like okay your predecessor did not indicate any parking restrictions at all downtown. And when we had our operations committee meeting and John says well they're looking to do both sides for this three blocks and I'm going we can't do that. I really personally you know yes after thinking about some safety aspects I know that probably the smarter thing is to do some. But I just wanted be pointed out to folks that originally that was not part of the plan. And that it was added in. [57:38] Joel Morneau: Council member Pemble, that is correct. It was something that once we kind of figured out an approach here for the the section from River down to downtown and we knew we were going to have restripe to make those shoulders more bikeable. That was a consideration that was brought up there. So you are correct that was first brought up I would say August of last year as a potential change here. [57:47] Dave Pemble: Thank you. [57:47] Mary Fasbender: Thank you Council member Pemble. Council member Haus. [57:57] Angie Haus: Thank you honor. Hi John thank you so much for presenting again. John—pardon me. I appreciate for taking your time to come to speak with us. And a few questions I have very similar to Council member Pemble is with the parking restrictions on the downtown area on Second Street. With that being said does the county when they make changes to these plans contact at home businesses in regards to their concerns cuz there are a few at home businesses that utilize that parking space ample in front of Second Street and Binding Streets that would be taken away it looks like from Forest Street downwards down towards the main heart of downtown. And so I was wondering how that works first. [59:15] Joel Morneau: So for this specific issue we did not contact. So any local businesses I know that it was a concern and there was a general concern raised I think at that initial operations committee meeting. That's something that as far as our process we can consider again—you know my expectation with this process is that we're going to understand all the impacts here. We need to maybe understand too as well the benefits of the benefits for bicycles and see if there's still the possibility for I think coexistence and still expecting a reasonably safe bicycle facility as well. So there's maybe a closer look we can do there. Um but as far as coming to a community consensus here, you know, we'd work with, you know, first with John, but also with the operations committee as far as hearing those concerns, but certainly we can discuss that with the business owners as well. Um as far as specific ones I don't know—we weren't aware of any. [1:00:05] Angie Haus: Perfect. Thank you. No, I appreciate that. Um is there any way that the process and plan can move forward without um removing any parking spaces from Second Street from Forest Street onward down? Um with the original proposed plan that was without restricting that? [1:01:08] Joel Morneau: Yeah, I think it's possible—we need to have a closer look again. There's—I wouldn't say there is a hard and fast rule as far as what works here, what doesn't. Um we could—as far as, you know, understanding the the spacing and then, you know, again removing in that removing in the tightening up the traveling lane to allow this we may find that there's enough you know, enough space there. Um I know just from my own experience, you know, looking at various points of the day, it's not you know, there's use, but not heavy use, so that might make it a little bit easier for the bicyclists as well. So, that again um you know, we'll we'll do a little bit of more work to come to a recommendation, but again, the county is not going to unilaterally act on this. It's not our practice. [1:01:08] Angie Haus: Perfect. Thank you. And then I just wanted to confirm um with the tree removal, how many trees will be removed? And then um if the county has a specific um would it be placed along that boulevard area back behind the fencing, or would it be more towards the cemetery inside of the cemetery for them? [1:01:42] Joel Morneau: Council member Haus, the the number of trees is 23. Um they're all the the all the hackberry trees along that line. Um so those you know, we would you know, if if we remove them, we would look at replanting within the boulevard. Um you know, there's a few I'll get back to the presentation here in those graphics, but you'll see that—and this is this is kind of, you know, further east on the in in that section, you know, we still have the 4 and 1/2 ft here or 4.7. There's about another 5 or so ft back to the fence. Um we would look to plant trees in there. Um as far as that process in selecting a tree, um you know, we would I'd cooperate with, you know, John and and staff and get get input on kind of a desired species and we'll have the cemetery weigh in here—the from the county perspective the the need here given that it's fairly close to the the roadway is restricting the the species as with respect to diameter. So, typically what we would want in a situation like this is not much more than 5 in—and again, that's just mainly for a hazard for a roadway traffic as far as a strike if 18 in is—I didn't mention it earlier but earlier, but of course that's a pretty serious thing to strike at even 30 mph. So, we'll want something that um even though there's no record of crashes out here with the trees um something that we want to address now and make sure it's a safe safe design. [1:03:18] Angie Haus: Perfect. Thank you. I appreciate your time um and I appreciate your commitment to this project cuz I know it's been a lot to go through, so I really do. Um but yeah, I would have move forward with the project if there is parking still allowable on that Second Street. I know that's been a big thing for a lot of our residents. Thank you. [1:03:18] Mary Fasbender: Thank you, Council member Haus. Council member Beck. [1:03:38] Mya Beck: Hi Joe. Um was the first time this was brought to like a public open house for opinion in December, or was there a previous open house before that? [1:03:38] Joel Morneau: Council member Beck, there there were two open houses in the with a corridor study—January and April of 2024. Um you know, I understand what went on there. That that was done under the previous Brice, the previous project manager. Um so at that point in time we had some fairly concrete ideas of what we wanted to do. The design process hasn't and begun, but as far as pedestrian needs, opportunities for, you know, helping to reduce speeds, um those those things were addressed. We didn't roll out a halfway completed design like we did back in December, though. [1:04:22] Mya Beck: Okay. And then on the tree topic, I understand the safety concerns of removing 23 trees. I'm not going to argue that point. Um I'm still concerned on why the city is going to be paying 15% to remove the trees on your road project. [1:04:52] Joel Morneau: Correct. So, that the basis for that cost share in this in this situation, it's it's part of—falls in the category basically modernization. So, the the removal of trees is made necessary by implementing the left turn lanes, constructing those while keeping the keeping the other dimensions of the roadway the same. So, anything related to that work is 15%. That's a necessity to make that happen. Um what I'll what I can say as far as tree removals um what I've seen on current and recent projects for for tree removal costs is about 300 to 350 dollars per tree. Um and that's for a mature tree. So, if for 23 trees, we're looking at the neighborhood of 8,000 dollars total for just tree removal. 15% of that I think is something like 1,200 dollars. So, as far as, you know, getting it down isolating just the the tree removal costs, it's not not huge. Um the replanting it falls under an aesthetics policy, which is 50/50 and tree plantings, you know, these days go for 7 to 800 depending on on the size and species. [1:06:08] Mya Beck: Okay. Because I know Dan mentioned that last time you gave the presentation on the 50/50 as well. So, that was my next question and that's the still the explanation is it's aesthetics. [1:06:08] Joel Morneau: Correct. [1:06:08] Mya Beck: Okay. Thank you. [1:06:08] Mary Fasbender: Thank you, Council member Beck. Council member Vihrachoff. [1:06:40] DawnMarie Vihrachoff: Thank you, Your Honor. Thank you for being here again tonight. Thank you for answering questions. Thank you, Commissioner Slavik. Um there's been a lot of back and forth on this. There's been a lot of concerned neighbor—and we all... [discussion regarding pedestrian friendly study and black access]... What hearing from other there's a like a some that a lot of black access and pedestrian friendly—you know, the study and how it all works. But in work that was that—that's on board. That's the next steps afterwards. So, for addressing what we do in this case... you know, how the the process... conceivably have the the you know, some development just outside of town at the—in in a church township where the um there may be some changes to the to the intersection out there at Lock Boulevard and there might be some opportunities to um you know, to to to enact some more speed control design elements out there. So, I would I would—I'd say we'd want to you know, exhaust those possibilities first um and then look at a speed study probably near the end of our process. [1:10:07] Tim Lawrence: Thank you, Your Honor. Joe and Commissioner, thank you for what you guys do for our um trail system and everything. Again, my concerns—I brought it up last time. Again, my concern is from First into downtown. I just can't fathom we spend millions of dollars to get people on the Mississippi Greenway. Why are we trying to push people onto Second Street? Um I've lived here 40-plus years, my entire life. And I've probably never seen zero people parked on Second Street from Forest into downtown. And I think it just it's going to be a huge hardship to people to say, "Hey, you can no longer park here." especially the people on the north side of Second Street cuz there is no parking for them on their on their properties. You know, it just—it's a cliff. It goes down into Lake Rebecca. So, um I just I I don't understand why they're trying to push—like Yes, I get it all the way to First. Everything you're doing to First 100% on board. From First into downtown, it just doesn't make any sense. Like you could have First kind of start your to get people onto the Greenway to go you know, west onto the Greenway whatever get into downtown. Um I you know, and obviously I'm picking out of thin air, but I don't know if I've ever seen a bicyclist on Second Street because it is already so narrow to begin with. You know, the sidewalks are—but again, bicyclists don't like to ride on sidewalks cuz bicyclists belong on streets. Um but again, I just I don't understand. So, I just again wanted to put it out there just so everybody heard. Thank you. [1:11:40] Mary Fasbender: Thank you, Councilmember Lawrence. Do you have a reply to or no? [1:12:02] Joel Morneau: Oh, sorry. Um yeah, Councilmember Lawrence, as far as you know, the the approach here even um you know, even if we were to construct trail you know, right up our sidewalk or trail right up against the curb on the south side there. Um what that what that requires is basically regrading yards on the hillside pretty far back into from that trail. So, where the impact if we went down that path for designing would be complete regrades of some people's yards. Um the alternative is retaining walls which—that's a cost that escalates typically tends to escalate really quickly if we put in a few hundred feet of retaining wall. Um and then on top of that, there's driveways. Just having a look through there, there's a few driveways that would have to get regraded to where they wouldn't—quite possibly wouldn't be usable. Um there's another one in a little bit closer into downtown where it's a short driveway that might not be usable as far as space to park. So, from an engineering standpoint, you're out of good options and then the bad options are really expensive or in this case probably too impactful to pursue a trail on that south side. Um so, that that's the kind of where we're left with this. And again, um given that it's not a broader construction at that area, the approach is to have that as a shoulder facility. So, it's—I think it's just a—it doesn't fit with the scale of the project. It's just too impactful and I think as far as properties—property owners, it would be too much to bear in that instance. [1:13:42] Tim Lawrence: Yeah, and I'm not saying to put a trail there. It's not wide enough. Again, it would impact way too many people. I'm just saying they're wasting money, resources, whatever for the county, for the city, whoever it is to even do anything on that road from First to downtown because then you're hardship for no parking on that road. Yeah. The hardship of you know, and if First there—First you can get in get into the neighborhoods over there um to get yourself into downtown or like I said, you have a beautiful Greenway. Me and my family use it all the time. People should use the Greenway to get into downtown, get out of downtown. Whatever. That's my point. I'm not saying putting a—that would be ridiculous in my opinion, but that's what I'm trying to get at. Thank you. [1:14:19] Mary Fasbender: Thank you, Councilmember Lawrence. Well, Joe Commissioner, thank you again for being here two times presenting, being mindful and making the minimal changes that you have. I think you've listened to what our concerns were. But I do want to give—there are people here in the audience that I told them that after your update, after our discussion, if they have any additional questions, I'd like for them to be able to speak at this time. Please step to the podium and state your name and your address. Thank you. [1:15:11] DawnMarie Vihrachoff: Can I just make a quick comment, Mayor? Thank you for that. I—That's kind of what the three of us were thinking, too. [1:15:11] John Phelps: My name is John Phelps. I live at 301 Second Street West. It's right in the three areas where they were talking about taking out the parking. And I know the parking is real important to the people down at the in downtown, the business and whatnot. A lot of cars are down there, the car shows. We sit on the deck and we'll watch cars come in. And when when they go to leave car show, we'll say, "What do you think it's going to be? 20 seconds? A minute?" Usually we we bet on it. There's seldom 2 minutes go by before it's filled up. It's real common to have the whole street filled up. A lot of people that park their cars there regularly that don't have driveways actually pull their cars around and in back and let other people park during those times. When when that's you know, it's—with safety, there's a lot of stuff there, but when people are parking I don't see the the problems of the the traffic. People don't go by there fast. We don't have a lot of accidents. Parking is premium and it's it's really needed and is important. When it comes to safety in the area, when there's nobody parked on that side of the street and it's done people do drive a little bit fast and we see a lot of accidents. My granddaughter, when she comes over, says, "We're not having spaghetti again, are we?" Cuz it's a known thing that when we have spaghetti, there's a bang, we go out, we look at the thing, we look at the cameras, see all the the cars smashed up. Airbags have saved lives there. We have seen some terrible accidents at that intersection because people are driving fast and the airbags save lives. If if you put a bike trail there—and there's a lot of bikes down there—the bikes don't have airbags. I don't want to see that happen. So, I'd like to see the parking stay. It's needed a lot. And more bikes there? Have them go down by the river, some other way, but that could could be potentially bad from the accidents I've seen. So, otherwise I don't have anything more for that. Thank you. [1:17:49] Mary Fasbender: Thank you for your comments. [1:17:57] John Macheska: Hi, my name's John Macheska. I live at 401 Second Street West, Hastings. Um fifth generation in the city. Um my concern is here today is a lot of this was not told a couple months ago when we went to the YMCA and had this discussion and I asked a lot of people there. I said this whole thing safety and I said, "How many accidents have happened? How many people have been hurt?" And they could not provide the data. I live on Second Street. I love the historic part of it. Go around, you know? Why are we taking the old historic and putting a bike path down a huge steep hill? It's—I just want to plead my case to you guys that it's just—I think it's dangerous and you guys have this beautiful path that goes down by the dam that attracts everyone and you know, I don't want to say it's going to make our neighborhood ugly by any means, but um you know, I just I just feel like it's not going to stop there. It's going to keep going. And then they're going to take my boulevard and you know what, at where do you draw the line, you know? So, um I'd like to pass my house onto my kid one day and keep it the way it's been since 1855. So, you know, I appreciate you guys, councilmen, councilwomen, mayor, you know, if you guys could respect the people that live right there and um you know, we need the parking. I have a small lot. It's one of the oldest houses in Hastings but I need that parking for when family comes and they come to Hastings and like, "Wow, I love this neighborhood. I love the downtown." Like, "Oh, yeah, you got to park 10 blocks away, you know?" So, um just for everyone that respects that, I thank you guys for thinking of us and that's all I just wanted to say. So, thank you, mayor. Thank you, council men and women. [1:19:29] Mary Fasbender: Thank you for your comments, John. [1:20:01] Joel Morneau: Mayor Fasbender, council members, I'm just just one thing I want to clarify with respect to the design. I think there is—and maybe again go back to the Google Maps here. Here's our proposed design and our and what we're planning for for trail from the edge of town or actually back up to Lock Boulevard. And it's going to be a continuous trail down to River Street. What we're proposing to do once we're at River Street, since there's not adequate space for constructing a trail, is we're going to restripe with our mill and overlay. What that's going to do is allow for use of bicycles on that shoulder for use of bicycles. So, what won't be happening here is any change for trail behind the curb, but it's just going to be a shoulder at the curb. The curbs themselves from River Street down to 61 won't be changing. So, as far as property impacts, you're not going to see that with this project. There are a couple of changes with with the the pedestrian crossings at Ashland and Eddie and Spring here, where we're going to be bringing out the curb to provide a shorter pedestrian crossing, but that won't come back in in into yards. So, that's that's what we're looking at here. Um again, the kind of the one one of the things again that that was issue was just the potential of restricting parking in this stretch from Forest to the east to make that a little bit safer for those bicyclists in the shoulders, but again, that's still an open question to be resolved here with the city and county. [1:21:48] Fred Wile: My name is Fred Wile. I live at the Pringle House, 413 Second Street West. And uh I've got multiple issues that I've found with this and I I number one is the parking. Because the downtown business historical area really needs to be combined and joined with the residential on Second Street. So, you have more of a comprehensive area that shows the history of Hastings, not just the businesses, but the residences as well. And for that, we need to have parking. There's a walking tour that's been in existence for the last, what, 50 years? And so, where do people park when they go on the walking tour? You're going to want to park by the houses or downtown or maybe you're going to, you know, make a loop and have lunch and come back through. Um I have a business out of my home, which has been registered with the city since probably 2013, 14. And so, people park on Second Street, bring their clock into my house, I do the repair work and when they come to pick up, they have to load up. It's the safest way to come and enter my business is off of Second Street. Most of my customers are elderly. So, they're 50 years old up to 90, near dust. Um it's—it's going to be far safer them for safer for them to park on the south side of Second than to have to try to cross Second Street because it does get pretty busy with traffic. And with traffic, let's talk about the fire department. That's a frequent flyer route for them guys to run up to the hospital and and for um transports from the hospital to other areas. Bike path, I think, you know, it it would become a duplication of what we already have down by the river corridor. And you know, in in the in economic times as we have where we need to be concerned about money, I I think we need to look at what we're spending. Um the way this was presented to me, my understanding from that December meeting at the YMCA is that in my area, this was just going to be mill and overlay. There was going to be no change in parking. No bike path was discussed. And then this suddenly comes up now. Which you know, I I—I think either there's a communication problem or there's a hidden agenda going on. So, with that, I would say I wouldn't support this the way it is. If you wanted to break it into segments and say support the western segment and maybe revisit something on the eastern side and get these details worked out, that might be a more viable suggestion, I think, at this time. Because I think everybody does have concerns related to the width of the street and the parking. Thank you. [1:25:19] Mary Fasbender: Thank you, Fred. [1:26:03] Jenny Gustafson: Hi, everybody. My name is Jenny Gustafson and I live at 1328 Lincoln Lane. Um I feel I have a lot of very similar viewpoints to um what was already brought up, but I just want to reiterate a few other things. Um number one is we're going past the hospital. So, we've got two entrances to Alina Health and then another entrance that will go to the clinic. So, those are going to be areas where you've got people coming and going and I just have the concern about safety for our pedestrians, bikers, people that will be going in and out of those areas, are they going to respect the trail that would be very very busy going past Alina Health? Um also, be aware we have ambulances that will be going up and down Ninninger. So, with increased pedestrians, um I just want to make sure safety is a key factor for us in planning for this. Um also, it just kind of seems weird when Lisa Leifeldt was asking questions the first time you were here, she phrased it really really appropriately. She said, "So, we're going past the hospital and we've got this 10-ft wide bike path. And then we get to River Street, does it? And then we cross over at that site and then we get to the other side of street and it's going to be a sidewalk. Is that still what it's going to be, a sidewalk going from that location to downtown?" So, we're not going to widen it. It's going to be a—the width of a sidewalk still? [1:27:21] Joel Morneau: Correct. The sidewalk on the north side will still be there. There's, you know, part of the design right now is having a protected crossing off just a little bit to the west of Grove Street. [1:27:40] Jenny Gustafson: Okay. So, we're not widening the sidewalk. It's just going to be a sidewalk still. Okay. So, that just it seems kind of weird, but also, the location of where we're going to have people cross Ninninger, it's just a little alarming because you're going to be coming up and over a hill and there's going to be the the cross over Ninninger, but if you come from the other direction, there's going to be that tight curve. Once again, I'm just concerned about safety. Like, we don't want anybody to get injured or hurt or run over. Um but it's just kind of alarming that you've got those two changes to the road there that I think we definitely need to consider for safety. Last but not least, um I would just like to ask, what are we doing about safety at the intersection of would that be Spring Street, Lock and Dam Road, and Ninninger? So, that's the road that would take you down to Lock and Dam. Um that's a very busy intersection already. I think many of us can attest to how dangerous it already is, especially at popular events such as River Town Days or other times when we have a lot of traffic and people downtown. Um we have tourists that come to town, they want to check out the Lock and Dam. We have trucks pulling boats that want to be able to access the boat ramp. What are we going to do to make sure that um potentially increased pedestrians, bikers are going to be safe in that area in addition to the bikers that are already on that bike path by the confluence. Um in combination with the road traffic, um big rigs, i.e. the boaters that are wanting to launch at the boat launch. I had heard once upon a time that there was a potential of the curb being kicked out, but are people still going to be able to turn into the Lock and Dam Road? [1:29:35] Joel Morneau: Yeah, that's what I was going to ask about. Um, we—with this project um she's correct—we're going to look at a curb extension there at Spring Street. Um just again the purpose is to shorten that crossing distance as you're crossing Second Street. Um something we can evaluate is making sure that that design is still able to accommodate turning movements for specific vehicles and semi-trailers as well. So that's something we're able to evaluate in our design—believe it should still be adequate. If we find a concern there though we can refine our design as far as being able to allow turning movements and making sure there's enough room there. So that's something we can take into consideration. [1:30:22] Jenny Gustafson: Okay. Um and then another question. Uh there's the area at Madison where eastbound traffic on Winona Manor currently has the capability to take a right-hand turn into Madison because there's a turn lane. Will that turn lane stay or is that one going to be removed? [1:31:20] Joel Morneau: So the current design um does have that one being removed at Madison. Um part of that approach is again to narrow the roadway and to help control speeds from a design perspective. What we looked at when we took traffic counts was that throughout the day as far as the volume of traffic and the volume of turns there was small. It was a couple an hour or thereabouts. So that's typically not enough to warrant a right turn lane and our decision is that from a safety perspective there's likely more benefit there to look at a slower design than providing that right turn lane where we shouldn't—we're trying to avoid risking—there hasn't been a real record of crashes there as well just from our early analysis of crashes. [1:31:54] Jenny Gustafson: So the concern for myself and my neighbors in that area is if traffic is going to be going at 45 miles an hour on that road, it's kind of nice for us to be able to utilize that turn lane that currently is there. So I guess our ask would be if the speed is not going to be reduced, from a safety perspective we would definitely like to have that turn lane still there. Um and I guess what is your magic number when you say low volume of turns? Like if we're focused on development and whatnot, like what at what point would you say we can keep it in the plan? [1:32:35] Joel Morneau: Given and I pause—I don't have the specific number to that intersection—but what I would expect given that you have that neighborhood well established is that we wouldn't see any—there's not a prospect of expansion—is that we wouldn't see higher volumes in the future. Um that's something I can take another look at but from our first look at things we don't think that's going to likely change in the future. [1:33:11] Jenny Gustafson: And I guess I would just like to reiterate what Tim Lawrence had said. We've invested a lot of money into the Greenway Trail. I think we should continue to and maybe it would be wiser for us to utilize the Greenway Trail versus this change that we're we've been presented with. Thank you. [1:33:31] Mary Fasbender: Thank you, Jenny. Anyone else wish to speak to the council? Okay, council any other discussion? Oh. Can I wrap up? Commissioner? [1:33:41] Mike Slavik: Yes. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Mayor I guess. Um so I just wanted a couple things just to wrap up with that. I would agree with many of the conversations that have been been said throughout all of this part in here um in that you know just wanted to continue with the clarification that river to downtown doesn't change the road. It changes as proposed the parking but the road does not—it's a matter of striping and that is at the discretion of the city. Uh city council you have that discretion. Many of these things here it is a county road and ultimately if you choose to partner on this on here it's building a road up to county standards. That being said the parking is one of those things that has a local control for discretion on that part in there. So if some of your conversation that you choose to enter into a joint powers agreement and move this project forward um that is at your discretion if you say that you could—frankly you could go and stripe the road exactly how it is with the current lanes as they are, have parking on all sides and do everything up to that point as it is. And I think that the reason why there is a 8-ft paved trail from frankly river to the west is partially because that's where your speeds are higher than 30 miles an hour. When you are under 30 you think of a residential street that's when you can have your 5-ft sidewalk but because you can go on the shoulder, you can go down the road, you can also go and walk and have to step off the boulevard. But when you get into higher speeds which county roads are higher speeds, you need to be able to be able to push that baby in a stroller or walk that dog and also have somebody go the other direction and you can't do that on a sidewalk and that is—if you look at where the speeds are 45 versus where they have become 30, that is kind of the reason why you see a trail in that part there and I fully agree with council member Lawrence. I think I said this when the discussion was happening in the first place that we have an amazing 10-mile loop—8 miles of it are county Greenway. The county has put the investment into 8 of that 10 miles in that part in there. The county maintains both the Vermillion River Greenway and the Mississippi River Greenway and it's about using as many people to go and do that part in there and that's the reason why the bump outs are kind of in the middle of Winona Manor Road to be able to connect the trail on the south side to the river Greenway and I think that continuing to drive that is really where the focus should be on that part in there. Frankly if I as a biker as somebody who grew up only a couple blocks away from Second Street I can tell you that um if I was going to go down downtown—I'm not going to go down busy Second Street. I'm going to go down Third Street if I want to where there's not as much traffic and I think that's where those who know and want to get to downtown from the top of the hill, they're going to use one of the alternative roads in there that has less traffic. They're not going—So those who are in that part in there I really believe continuing to drive to the Mississippi River Greenway is the right approach in there and we need to make sure that people are crossing that road as safe as possible. So I guess my point on this is just to reiterate to the public that river to the east doesn't actually change but for markings if that is the wishes of the council and I think parts of that can continue to go on there but you do have your discretion as your joint powers agreement to go and say—operations was only three of the seven of you and as the seven of you you collectively would like to maintain parking for whatever reasons you do have that right. So at the—certainly in your hands but I wanted at least do some clarification and pass it back to you. [1:37:23] Mary Fasbender: Thank you, Commissioner. Thank you, Commissioner. Council member Haus. [1:37:40] Angie Haus: Thank you. Thank you so much for clarifying that. I really appreciate your time with that just because I think that clears up a lot for us here as well. So thank you. [1:37:40] Mary Fasbender: Any other discussion, council? Council member Vihrachoff? [1:37:40] DawnMarie Vihrachoff: Nothing? No. I'm going out on a limb here, Mayor. What if I made a motion to go ahead and adopt the corridor improvements but take out the parking restriction conversation so that that can be taken up by Operations Committee and full council—a bigger discussion going forward. And I'm really thankful to the neighbors and the homeowners that were here tonight and frankly I'd want to hear more from them, too. Is it possible that we could move forward? Would that be a good compromise for homeowners, for the council, and for the county as well? [1:38:19] Mary Fasbender: Well, we can follow your motion if someone else— [1:38:19] Angie Haus: Let's have a vote. Okay. I just want to clarify that would remove no parking throughout Second Street, correct? On from Forest down? [1:38:37] DawnMarie Vihrachoff: Thank you. Okay. That would be my— [1:38:37] Mya Beck: There is a motion on the table. Council member Beck, second that motion. [1:38:37] Mary Fasbender: New discussion, council. Council member Lawrence. [1:38:57] Tim Lawrence: So just to clarify—no restrictions on Second Street for parking. Is what we're just saying. We can make those decisions. [1:39:21] DawnMarie Vihrachoff: Yeah, that's what—but that's what you're trying to say. TBD. When you say no no it just gets confusing. Sorry, I didn't mean to do a double negative there. What I'm saying is that I want that to be a conversation that the council has and frankly I really want to hear from council member Leifeld. She was—felt really really strongly about this and I'd really like her opinion as well. That would give us a chance to talk to some more homeowners, make sure that we are honoring their wishes in the best that way that we can but also I think striking a good compromise—thanking the county for everything that they've put into this—years of work, millions of dollars and continuing the parts of the project that I think everybody up here is incredibly supportive of. [1:39:40] Mary Fasbender: Thank you council member Vihrachoff. There is a first and second. All those in favor of that motion state by saying I. Council: I. [1:39:57] Mary Fasbender: Opposed to that motion state by saying nay. And that motion prevails. Thank you commissioner and thank you Joe again. All right. Under community development we have a resolution order to demolition and remove hazardous building—the Hastings Creamery site at 1701 Vermillion Street and for this item we will have a presentation by our city attorney Cynthia Kirchhoff. Welcome Cynthia. [1:40:19] Cynthia Kirchhoff: Thank you mayor council. So this matter is relating to the Creamery site. The request here is for the council to take action on declaring it or determining that's a hazardous building. And the reason I'm here is because there's legal requirements for doing that. Otherwise John would do the presentation. I don't think so. So this property is located at 1701 Vermillion Street. Before I get into the facts of the case I just want to give you a very brief overview of the legal requirements for declaring a hazardous building. The city council has the authority to declare a building a hazardous building and you're given that authority under chapter 463 state Minnesota statutes. There's a process that the city council has to follow in order to declare a building hazardous. One of the first things that we have to do—and that's in your packet—is a memo from the building official saying the building has problems so it's hazardous—a public safety issue and they want the council to take action on having either the property owner fix it or demolish it. The next step is for the council to adopt the order. That's required by state law and there's a draft order in your packet. Once the order has been approved by the council it's served on the property owner. That's required by state law. They have 20 days to respond to that. They can—and I'll get into this a little bit later—but if they don't respond—and some property owners don't respond—then there's a faster track for asking a judge to allow the city to demolish the building or fix it and then assess the cost of that work against the property. So the city would get paid back that way. Just a few facts on this property. It's a—you you know more than way more than I do on this. I just became introduced to this a couple weeks ago. It's owned by 3D LLC. It's a vacant commercial building. The CEO was revoked on the property in 2023 and following that a fire took place on the property and I do have some fabulous pictures in my presentation. I didn't take them but it's just showing the the tremendous fire that happened on the property. The city and the property owner and the property owner's attorney have communicated about the cleanup on this property for probably a couple years since the fire happened—asking—going back and forth trying to determine how the property was going to be cleaned up and the timing for that. The staff inspected at the interior of the property in November of last year. And I have some pictures showing what the interior looks like. Here's a couple of screenshots of a video from YouTube from channel 4 of the fire. You can see the fire trucks putting out the fire on the top picture and the bottom picture is a shot of the top of the roof of the building that's no longer there. I found some fascinating pictures on Dakota County GIS. This is an aerial picture from 2023 and you can see there's a roof on the building. And then in 2025 you can see there's damage from the fire. I just thought that was really great picture to show you what the difference is cuz obviously we can't get a picture of the roof of the building so. In that during that November 5th inspection the staff took pictures of the interior and as you can see the roof of the building is collapsing and there's equipment and debris inside the building. Here's another picture of the roof collapsing. Just thought those are really good pictures to show show the council and the public as to what the building looks like. So the resolution and order in your packet—the purpose of that is to lay out findings that the council is making findings that the building is hazardous. The property owner has not made—no efforts to clean up. The building on the property is not secured and therefore the building is hazardous mostly because of the fire. So in that order there is a deadline that the property owner has to clean up the property. That means they demolish the building and remove the building that's been demolished and the deadline that's proposed in that order is a June 15th of 2026. As I mentioned earlier in my presentation the order after it's—if it's approved by the council tonight—has to be served on the property owner. They under state law have the ability to answer that order. If they don't answer within 20 days then what happens is the city can ask a judge to declare them in default and then ask the judge to allow the city to remove the building and then assess the cost but that can't be done till the end of the period that they have to clean up the property. If the property owner does answer the order—files an answer within 20 days—then it's a contested case—it's like a civil lawsuit. So the real question action tonight is a motion to approve the resolution order that's in the packet authorizing or ordering the property owner to demolish and remove the hazardous building from the property. And I'm happy to answer any questions. [1:46:22] Mary Fasbender: Thank you counselor. Any questions council? Yes no. Okay. [1:46:45] Dave Pemble: Thank you madam mayor. I'd like to move that resolution resolution move forward in this instance having so many folks since the fire come and complain that why isn't something being done? It's like the property owners ignored and did not follow through with the concerns that needed to be evaluated. I know that there's issues about insurance and all those other things and who did what and whatever but to not get any real step moving forward to see a resolution to getting this taken care of before we get to this point we have to move ahead with this and I fully understand what sir you said at the beginning of the meeting about contesting the order but I think we as a city and elected members to the council here shall and must move ahead with this resolution. Thank you. [1:48:01] Mary Fasbender: Thank you for the motion council member Pemble and council member House. [1:48:01] Angie Haus: Thank you. I'd like to second that. I'd also like to ask a quick question to our attorney as well. So can you go into a little bit of depth on how often we have reached out about this property to have um a cleanup completed and demolition completed. Can you go on a little bit of depth with that please? [1:48:36] Cynthia Kirchhoff: Mayor would I be able to defer that question to staff? [1:48:36] Mary Fasbender: You may. [1:48:36] John Hinzman: Council member House—over the 2 and 1/2 years since the fire has occurred I have been at least in monthly contact with the owner's attorney Mr. Ledin on this one. He's been good to work with however the insurance company has made a delay in things and we are all seeking this to be cleaned up. So we have had numerous conversations with the owner's attorney on this one. [1:49:03] Angie Haus: Thank you so much and I'm sorry to put you on the spot there. Thank you. [1:49:03] Mary Fasbender: Thank you John. Thank you, Council member House. Council member Vihrachoff. [1:49:03] DawnMarie Vihrachoff: A comment, your honor? Is that okay? [1:49:03] Mary Fasbender: You may. [1:49:03] DawnMarie Vihrachoff: Thank you. Thank you, Council member Pemble. Thank you, Council member House. I completely agree. I appreciate you coming here tonight, sir. I appreciate the position that you're put in by being hired as legal counsel for this, but this has been years of the community being frankly at risk from the environmental potential hazards of this, the the eyesore, the the homeowners that live around there. Just—there's so many so many issues to this. I just—this has to get done sooner than later, and while I want to play nice in the sandbox, we've got to move forward on this. This has to be cleaned up, and it was due yesterday. [1:49:59] Mary Fasbender: Thank you, Council member Vihrachoff. With that, there is a motion and a second. No other discussion? All those in favor of the motion, state by saying I. Council: I. [1:50:15] Mary Fasbender: All those opposed to that motion, state by saying nay. And that motion prevails. Thank you, Council. Council, any announcements? Okay, I do have a few. This weekend was School Resource Officer Appreciation Day. Thank you to our officers Freeman and Dohmeier. We greatly appreciate their care, [clears throat] guidance, and service for our students. The Hastings Downtown Business Association is hosting its annual Frozen Mulligan, where you can play a nine-hole mini golf course in downtown businesses this Saturday, February 21st. Dakota County Historical Society and Building Remembrance for Reconciliation will host an update and a Q&A on a Hastings Black Heritage Trail at 5:30 p.m. Tuesday, February 24th at the Tilden Community Center. 2026 Community Investment Fund applications are now being accepted. First deadline is March 2nd. Happy birthday in Costa Rica to Council member Leifeld tomorrow. Um Public Safety Advisory Commission meeting, Thursday, February 19th, 6:30 p.m. Monday, February 23rd, 7:00 p.m. Administrative Committee and 7:00 p.m. Planning Commission meeting. Tuesday, February 24th, 5:30 Public Safety Committee meeting. Wednesday, February 25th, 7:00 p.m. Parks and Recreation Commission. Monday, March 2nd, 5:30 p.m. Council We do have a workshop with a 7:00 p.m. regular City Council meeting. With that, I would ask for an adjournment. Council member Pemble and Council member Lawrence. No discussion. All those in favor of the motion, state by saying I. Council: I. [1:52:16] Mary Fasbender: All those opposed to that motion, state by saying nay. We are adjourned.