[0:05] Mayor Jim Michalski: good afternoon everyone like to call the regular meeting of the Moose Lake city council to order we'll start with the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge Allegiance to the flag of the United States of America to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for [0:38] all. Approval of the agenda, we do have a couple of additions on there: K will be resolution 25.22 and that has to deal with the squad car tablets, and L will be First National Bank Arena Daktronics sign. Are there any other additions? If not, is there a motion to approve the agenda? Is there a second? All in favor? All opposed? Carried. Consent agenda: we have the minutes [1:24] from the regular city council meeting January 8th, 2025; minutes from the special city council meeting January 29th, 2025; the Financial reports and City accounts payable January 2025; city financial statement January 2025; and the liquor store profit and loss statement for January 2025. Any questions or comments on those? Is there a second? [2:03] Council Member: Second. [2:05] Mayor Jim Michalski: All in favor? Opposed? Carried. Public comment: this time is reserved for comment from the public on matters not [2:11] listed on the agenda. Please keep your comments to 3 minutes. Not seeing any. Department reports: first we have the Carlton County Sheriff's Office. [2:33] Carlton County Sheriff Representative: good afternoon I'll start with the activity report and then on behalf of Sheriff Lake we're proud to introduce the next contract Deputy from Moose Lake, Deputy Hernandez. I'll have him come up here shortly. So as far as the activity for January of 2025: handled 109 calls for service within the city of Moose Lake. The contract deputies completed 23 extra Patrol details, 28 traffic stops, 20 business checks, one Community engagement, eight other public assists, and three paper services. Responded to 16 calls for services and two assists. The other County deputies did four extra patrol details, 15 traffic stops, one business [3:19] check, three paper services, 13 Stone Guard Patrol checks. The other deputies handled 32 calls for service in addition to assisting other agencies and medical in the City of Moose Lake. Total 109 calls for service. Any questions about the activity? I guess so. With that, I'll have Deputy Hernandez come up. He worked a year or so in our jail and then started his field training as a deputy in October. We completed that mid-January. He started down here January 25th. So with that, we have two deputies working the contract. They are on opposite sides of the schedule so we have a deputy scheduled in town at one shift—either [4:05] a night shift or a day shift depending on the schedule each day now. And then we will be looking at starting our next hiring process hopefully here in the next few weeks to have the other as well. Okay, thank you. [4:25] Deputy Jordan Hernandez: hello I'm Deputy Jordan Hernandez. I started with the Sheriff's Office on the road for four months. I look forward to serving the small community of Moose Lake and hopefully protecting and serving everybody. Trying to reach out to people and talk to them, getting out of my comfort zone a little. Are there any questions you guys have for me? [4:55] Mayor Jim Michalski: No, welcome to Moose Lake. It's a pleasure. [5:01] Deputy Jordan Hernandez: thank you. [5:03] Mayor Jim Michalski: thank you. Next we have City Superintendent Phil Entner. [5:08] Phil Entner: Mayor, members of council, Administrator Owens. Busy month here; season starting to pick up. We all know that nobody likes that. We're still down a guy, that's tough going but it is what it is. We'll start in the water department: month of January distributed 4.8 million gallons of drinking water. I'm going to hope everyone listens to this and I would recommend everyone look at the City of Moose Lake Frozen Water and Sewer policy. If you don't understand it, call me. I will stay late, I will meet you early, I will meet you on the weekend, I don't care. Frozen water lines are awful, no one likes them. We have multiple ways to mitigate that. We do have some services that are starting to freeze up; we have some that we prevented by running. We've got [5:54] that water running to enable those services from freezing. We have some that we didn't catch soon enough that froze; they've been thawed out and they're back up in service. It is the responsibility of the property owner to monitor their own water temperature. So when you call Public Works and the water isn't running, we're going to help you, but we're not going to do everything for you. It's not the city's responsibility to make sure your water doesn't freeze. So I would refer everyone to go back to the policy and look at it. Please call me, call Public Works, call the office, email me, whatever you have to do. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, is that what it's called? In that same right, yeah. Okay, so then [6:41] going to the sewer fund/the sewer department: 10.3 million gallons of waste collected the month of January. We will be starting our sanitary sewer cleaning program here in the next three weeks to a month when the temps warm up. About 30,000 feet of pipe will be cleaned internally. Just in the house with just the crews we have and the equipment we have, that's a savings of almost $60,000 instead of contracting that work. Which is good because we definitely don't have the money to do that. Treatment facility: I'll be down in St. Cloud at the Minnesota Rural Water trade show looking for other opportunities we can utilize at the wastewater facility as far as trying to gain more capacity—that’s definitely our number one [7:26] goal. Street department: last two months we've been doing a lot of right-of-way clearing. With the snow being on the ground, that's shut down now. We have enough snow we can't get through the ditches, we can't get through the right-of-ways. But now snow and ice removal equipment—we've had some equipment issues. We're working through them; I think the last piece of equipment got back on the road today and we had four pieces on over the weekend so it was tough going. But we'll get there. So you'll see some expenditures come through for some of that. Cemeteries are shut down for the year, Campground shut down for the year, Parks and Gardens are all shut down for the year. The Arena: the compressors are working pretty good, they're still working out some bugs. Working on connecting that SCADA system that was installed at the arena to the Hockey Association for that [8:14] and working on a couple of grant things with Raenee the City Gardener; there should be some more we'll be talking about in March. Other than that, that's all I have for right now. Any questions? [8:30] Mayor Jim Michalski: Thank you. Liquor store report. [8:35] Liquor Store Manager: good afternoon city council, Mayor Michalski, Administrator Owens. Things are going well down at the liquor store. Next entertainment we have is a band called Up North Smoke, they'll be in on March 15th. We are currently looking for different quotes and options for condensers for our cooler; they are failing. Right now they're okay but they're going to fail at some point [9:00] here. We're looking at dishwasher options, that continues to have problems for us. Ryan and I have been going back and forth with Brenda from the MMBA about some quarterly inventory counts, a different type of procedure. I believe I talked about this last month, but where we don't have to close the store on January 1st and do one huge inventory and be closed all day on what would be a normal profitable day for us. They would be having quarterly counts and we would just do categories of liquor throughout the year. This is done at other municipalities, so we're just learning about it and getting procedures done. I've already checked with auditors and as long as we have some approved procedures they said good to go; they've seen it [9:46] too. And then we had a spot check from the Minnesota Office of Cannabis. They came down; we had an employee working there, he did great. I talked to Garrett Larson who did the spot check on us; he said we passed with flying colors. There was one thing of note: they pulled one item from our shelves because it didn't have the proper barcode on it. When he looked up the company, it also wasn't correctly labeled on their website either. So that was pulled and Bernick’s was notified because Bernick’s is the one that sold it to us. And that's the proper way to do that through the proper channels. So you can read through that, but it's not a very pretty report to look at. Any questions? [10:31] Council Member: Was this a surprise check? [10:35] Liquor Store Manager: You bet. [10:36] Council Member: Good you were ready. [10:37] Mayor Jim Michalski: thank you. Next we have the Technology/Library Department. [10:41] Ryan McKeon: yeah IT wise, we also were paid a visit by the League of Minnesota Cities for their cyber security loss prevention—gentleman named Garrett Johnson. It'll be a report that we'll follow up with next month on how that went, but it all went great. He has sent me a lot of suggestions but we passed with flying colors on that as well. I've been updating our phishing campaigns and our trainings that go out every now and then, so be wary of phishing [11:24] emails. Let's see... assisting the arena with a new online monitoring system for the new compressors that are down there. We're just navigating that and hope to have that up, and that'll help with efficiency down there and if there's a problem they'll be alerted to it right away. Any questions IT wise? All right. [11:52] Laura (Library Director): all right good evening members of the council and the administrator. So it's been a quiet winter so far. I think the cold temperatures have been keeping people inside. So we didn't have as many people signed up for our winter reading program this year but we did have a good amount. Several adults signed up as well, so we had a good participation with that. I have started work on our annual report, so I've been starting to put the numbers all together for that and I should be done by the end of the month. Since I've learned how to do it well in my process, I'll get it in well before the due date of April. We did have more visitors; looking at the visitor count from 2024 [12:40] compared to 2023, it's about a thousand more people that came in. So it's always nice to see that we're getting more people from our community coming into the library. And in the library itself, we have been shifting things around a little bit. We now have display cases for our new easy reader books and our juvenile books so people can just come in and see the covers of the new items that are out. With more visibility and accessibility, they can go off the shelves quite a bit faster. Also in our library for tax season, we do have the federal 1040 and 1040 SR forms for free at our library with the instruction booklets [13:26] included. So any member of the community—don't even have to have a library card—you can come in and get the tax forms. We do have the contact number for Minnesota state forms if you want to call and have them delivered to your house. We can also print the Minnesota forms for you from the library; we can just pull those up for any member. All right. And for our Library Board, Emily Hedman sadly has resigned from the library board so we do have another opening. We will be accepting letters of interest from the local community, anyone who's interested in becoming part of the library board and supporting our community. All right, any questions on the state of the [14:13] library? Thank you. Um, one more item to bring up is a request to attend the annual conference for the American Library Association. Every so often I do attend training to continue my education as a librarian and there's always lots of good programs, librarians networking and creating wonderful solutions to connect with the community a lot better. The next annual conference is going to be in Philadelphia in the end of June. My Library Board is excited about the possibility of me going and attending and learning a ton more to bring back to our community. [15:02] Ellissa Owens: just to provide a little bit more information, Laura had brought forward the training request to me. We were able to have some really great dialogue; we looked at the library budget to look to see where there could be monies available. As part of our discussion, there has not been a training and instruction line item within the library budget thus far. I just think that the request has never been made. It would be my recommendation that we do have a training and instruction budget for the library director in order to be able to take advantage of some of these opportunities. We did review the last time that Laura attended a training, which was 2021, so it's been a couple of years. Our dialogue discussed that this [15:49] type of opportunity may only be possible every so often, every few years. It's been a couple of years in itself, so we were discussing it with the Library Board. The Library Board did make a recommendation that she'd be able to attend. The Library Board has discussed utilizing book sale money from the library book sale which last year netted about $4,000 in order to be able to cover some of these expenses. So I definitely feel like it's something that we can do from a fiscal standpoint and I absolutely support the request from a growth and development opportunity standpoint as well. [16:36] Mayor Jim Michalski: Any questions from the council? Anybody? What you're looking at that total, $2,200, correct? And we have discussed that that may be on the high side of things when we've looked at different opportunities or different line items within that. But looking for approval of the amount for the training. [17:03] Council Member: Motion to make that motion. [17:05] Mayor Jim Michalski: Is there a second? [17:08] Council Member: Second. [17:10] Mayor Jim Michalski: Further discussion? Hearing none, everybody in favor? Opposed? Motion [17:21] carried. Next, Ellissa, can you pull that mic closer to you and facing you because they can't hear online. Next we have the City Engineer report. [17:34] Ellissa Owens: Oh yeah, so in the packet, Council received two different sets of meeting minutes. The first was from a January 10th coordination meeting with MSOP. The second was from the monthly update meeting. I will touch base on just a couple of items here pertinent to the monthly update meeting. We've got some really exciting news: under the MPCA grant application section, section three, letter A, the city was notified that we have received a $658,000 [18:09] grant from the MPCA relevant to a DOC trunk sewer lining project that we have submitted. So we are now working in coordination with the city engineers in the background regarding completing the necessary paperwork in order to accept that grant. Another thing that we're working with the city engineers on is that we will be creating some type of communication to go to our local legislator. Right now we have submitted a $3 million project to the state for a city lining project that would line all of the city sewer infrastructure. An exciting component would be that we could utilize the $658,000 grant as part of our $1.5 [18:58] million match. So we absolutely want our legislators to have that information and to just kind of bolster our position as far as being able to come up with our portion of that project request. So really exciting news. We're going to continue to work through that in the background. Our city engineers have been excellent to work with and we're really excited about that. In addition, you'll see under section four regarding the school property development, the city has been meeting with the County EDA Director. And the County EDA Director has been also coordinating with our Moose Lake EDA. One update that I have to share with Council is that the Carlton County EDA plans to [19:43] contribute $125,000 to the waterline extension for phase one of the residential development. So between the city's contribution and the County EDA's contribution, the waterline extension will be paid for in order to start and break ground this spring yet. So really exciting news. We're going to continue to collaborate. We're now working with the County EDA Director on some other items and I will update Council as I have more information. But we are now seeking funding for infrastructure opportunities for phase two or and/or three of the development. So working through that, I'm really happy to have [20:29] collaboration. Are there any other questions regarding that meeting minutes from the engineer report? [20:39] Mayor Jim Michalski: Thank you. Next we have Chamber of Commerce update. [20:45] Ellissa Owens: so today we have Michelle Anderson; she is the executive director of the Chamber and she'll provide the update. [21:00] Michelle Anderson: okay thank you. Just wanted to share we have some new board members: Kari Karakan with Pine County, Mark Gutierrez from Minnesota Soil and Health Conservation, Haley Smith, Denise Burov with State Farm Insurance and she's also our secretary, and Judy Oie with Oie Art Gallery. Our president is Penny Gatle, past president Sean Adams, [21:17] Donna Kirk is our vice chair and Dan Corbell is our Treasurer. Currently we are working on our annual visitor guide and we've expanded the event section in it; actually we have some Library events in their annual events this year. We were awarded an $8,000 Explore Minnesota tourism grant and it is a refundable grant so we need to spend it to get it refunded and it should and all has to be spent on events and marketing. So we're excited for that. And we're also excited to share upcoming event dates: July 3rd is the Kiddie Parade at 10:00 a.m. and we're moving it to the Moose Lake City Park this year. July 4th is on a Friday and we look forward to a busy weekend and we will [22:04] again ask for a military flyover of the parade. Agate Days festivities are July 19th and 20th and one big change this year is the Chamber of Commerce is taking over the Stampede and we're excited to take part of that. We've always helped with it but this year we will fully be responsible for it. Root Fest is August 19th at 5:00 p.m. On that same day again we will be asking for space in the parking lot of the Moose Lake Municipal. Our Nine and Dine golf is July 25th and the Moose Lake Triathlon is August 9th and we are looking to expand that event this year too to get some more participants and make it more of a festive area. New this year we will host a bingo [22:50] on August 23rd at the Barnum Municipal in their Event Center. Our events have been growing and we are grateful to support all of our local communities. Any questions? [23:02] Mayor Jim Michalski: Lots going on. Thank you. [23:05] Michelle Anderson: thank you. [23:06] Mayor Jim Michalski: Next we have previously discussed business: the Moose Lake Water and Light Commission electric utility waiver update. [23:14] Ellissa Owens: so I provided some materials in the council packet regarding a January 30th meeting where City administrative staff did attend the Commission meeting. The city was able to provide the Commission with an update on where we're at with the residential development [23:36] and so some of those items were included in the packet as well. We also provided an update to the Commission regarding the electric utility waiver that has been established between the two entities. We're able to generate reporting information for their review regarding the city's expenditures for 2023 and 2024 pertinent to the development. The agreement has been that the city utilized the $180,000 worth of savings towards the residential development and so we were able to substantiate that for the Commission. In addition, the Commission looked at the verbiage in previous motions, so I did incorporate the meeting minutes from April 16th of 2024 [24:22] and then again the January 30th meeting. Essentially what was established was that the Commission made a motion to continue with the three-year commitment to waive electric utility fees for the city. If the phase three urban development doesn't occur before the end of the three years, any unspent monies from the $540,000 commitment would be returned. Just wanted to provide Council an update; we don't foresee any issues with that. I think the Commission just wanted to make sure that our commitment stands—that we'll be utilizing the monies over the course of the next 3 years for that project and that project only. So it was a good collaborative meeting. The motion [25:08] essentially highlights our continued work with the Commission, and so we're really thankful for that and we'll continue to be accountable and transparent with what we're doing on our end. [25:21] Mayor Jim Michalski: Any questions or comments? Moving on to new business, we have the Carlton County Riders ATV [25:36] Club. [25:37] Ellissa Owens: so in the council packet, the city council received an email from Mr. Greg Zimmerman who is in attendance tonight. In addition, there was a map that was provided and just a little bit of background: we did discuss this request with the City Engineers. SEH is actually coordinating with the Carlton County ATV riders as well—not our particular working group but a branch of as well—so we have a little bit of connection on the backside as well. [26:14] Eric Siggy: so this is Greg Zimmerman; Greg Zimmerman is our Trail coordinator. I'm the president of the Carlton County Riders ATV Club, my name is Eric Siggy. So I kind of wanted to maybe step back just a little bit since [26:21] there's already been some conversation regarding the subject but it's been a few years since I've addressed this group and I see there's some new faces and people here so I want to kind of touch on a little bit of history here real quick. Since I've been here last I've been actually awarded two state awards for Safety Instructor of the Year for ATV youth. I've actually received two national recognitions: one from NOHVCC, which is the National Off-Highway Vehicle Conservation Council, and I was also awarded a helmet from the Ride Safe organization which I worked with in Barnum on September 23 for the Ride [27:06] Safe event there where we talked to like 1,900 area students here. I'm also on the ATV Minnesota State Safety Committee. Quick history on Moose Lake specific: back during COVID, I started the Moose Lake Area ATV Management Group which I worked directly with Darren on—he was a huge advocate. That was kind of during when the sport was exploding; everybody was going outside. Worked with him on doing some projects around the community here; we kind of identified some areas that needed some kind of special attention. Some of those things include the Soo Pits reroute to get the machines away from the old County 8 [27:52] and the people that live along that route. We had some landfill boundaries put up for the abandoned landfill; people were driving in there, myself included, I had no idea that's what that area was until after I got involved here. Let's see... we improved the Cross Town Trail behind the Holiday, put in some crossings there, worked with the Evergreen PAC, the local club here in town, and got some of those things completed. All of those projects were successful. One other area that we identified was this bridge that crosses the Moose Horn as kind of being a safety issue number one. Statistically 2/3 of the ATV fatalities [28:38] are within a roadway; actually in 2024 it was 74%. So this is kind of a big deal. I think about the two-way traffic on the shoulder of the road there; it's been working up until this point but like I say, statistically somebody's going to die there—I mean that's kind of the reality of it. That's a state highway. You end up—I imagine myself driving South in town past the hockey shelter and I would have headlights coming at me with the wheeler on this side and then Northbound traffic—it's just real kind of sketchy. So trying to search out ways to get across that river. Our first move is to get a plan. I'm not an [29:26] engineer or a biologist, so that kind of leaves me in a position to where I need to hire somebody to do a feasibility study and to design us a crossing of that river, and that's kind of where SEH comes into play. That company has done a lot of other bridges for the ATV community up north and work with Jason Chop, and we've been throwing names around over here already today. So we know a lot of the same people. My intent is to apply for Step Zero from the grant-in-aid process. That money comes from a dedicated account in the state that is funded by the user and our license plate tab money goes into that account. So we would apply for that Step Zero to be able to hire SEH to [30:11] give us a feasibility and build us a plan on what that bridge would look like. Once we have a plan and a cost estimate, we can apply for funds from the ATV dedicated account, which we intend to continue to work with SEH on that. This is our direction forward kind of from the DNR; we met with Mary, Parks and Trails here in town—that was kind of the direction she gave us to go. Also with our sponsor from the County, that was pretty informative. So basically we're here to ask support from the city and the community on this crossing improvement over the Moose Horn River in Moose Lake. Is there any questions for me or Greg? [30:58] Council Member: Any questions? I think it's a good idea to get them off the bridge. [31:02] Eric Siggy: If we get them off the bridge. Well, it's a state highway for one thing, first and foremost, so that is against state law for one. However, it's a key connector to bring machines into town from the south. I mean I get it—I made the comment at one of the meetings, like, do we seriously need a separate bridge for every mode of transportation across that river? But with the Willard Munger being a federal grant paid for through his organization, that's kind of off the books. And so the state highway is [31:46] also off the books, which leads us to needing a crossing. So that's where I'm at. [31:51] Mayor Jim Michalski: Okay, thank you. [31:53] Eric Siggy: Okay, thank you. [31:54] Mayor Jim Michalski: Next we have Short Elliott Hendrickson (SEH). Tyler, for update water or storage capacity. [32:05] Tyler (SEH): thank you Mayor Michalski and members of the Council. It's good to see you all again. I'm going to give a little bit of a background just bring everybody up to speed. Moose Lake treats its wastewater through an outdoor pond [32:31] system. It's actually the second largest pond system in the state. And back in 2018 I think it was brought up for us to start looking into capacity with different Campground expansion, Sand Lake Resort—I don't know how far back that went—but different development new connection needs and wondering what our capacity is at. So back in 2018 we ran our first capacity memo which had a hydraulic capacity: we were at 95% capacity with our hydraulic, so our flow into the ponds, and 87% of our organic capacity at the [33:19] ponds at that time. Which is a big red flag. The MPCA regulates the permit for the city and usually at 80% is when it kind of triggers them looking closer at the city's pond system. So at that high of a level of capacity, if the city wanted to develop an area of town or whatnot, they might be denied allowing new connections to the system because of risk of overflow, that kind of thing. So we started thinking about ways that we can increase the amount of capacity within the system. A few options: one [34:05] is going to a treatment plant, which is very expensive—multi-millions of dollars to get constructed and installed. Expanding the pond system, which is highly unlikely because the city's pond system is already the second largest; taking more green space up for a pond system is not ideal in MPCA's eyes. So then we looked at alternate options of reducing the amount of flow into the system. Obviously you still have the same amount of connections; everybody's connected to the system, you can't just cut people off and increase capacity that way. But looking at inflow and infiltration (I&I) where groundwater and water from manholes or whatnot enters into the system—which is, so [34:52] you're treating runoff water basically and spending money on it. Reducing that, and so we started looking at sewer lining projects. And so back in 2020 I believe it was our first sewer lining project that the city had budgeted for, and then continuing that for the five consecutive years, just wrapping up the current one this year in 2024. So we have the big thing from the I&I report, or not I&I report, pond capacity report: we have come down in our hydraulic capacity from 2018 at 95% to calendar year 2024, which came in at 82.8%, which is a large reduction, getting [35:40] very close to that 80% threshold where they watch us. I have no concern if the city were to request new connections at this point and need a permit for those because we've proven that five-year track record of reducing that amount. And you're continuing to budget for those improvements as far as I understand. The organic loading on the other hand: it started out at 87%, we got it down to 71% at one point, and it's starting to rise back up a little bit. That's, to my best knowledge, due to as you reduce the amount of flow into the system, which dilutes the system, [36:27] as you reduce that, that concentration gets higher with the solids. So that's why you're probably seeing that rise. Or it could be also due to—you never know what somebody's putting down the drain; it might be just increase from solids down the drain that people are flushing down the toilets or whatnot. So overall very good news. You know, looking at roughly 12% reduction over the past five or seven years there. Keep up the good work there. In the memo, [37:13] page three, figure one—if you have that in front of you—that's just a good graphical representation of that decrease that you're seeing. So those I&I projects that you're completing are working. Very [37:25] good. Other items to note with the memo: so on page four, table three, the capacity summary, the calculations come out to be that your new household equivalent of remaining flow capacity in the system is 353 connections or 353 household equivalents. And from last year you were at 285, so a large increase there in number of connections. The household equivalent of remaining organic capacity: you were at [38:00] 442 and last year was 555. So that's where you saw that change in the dilution of that system. And then at the bottom of that same page, it shows those percentages that I already told you about for the calendar year 2024 capacity. We also added into the memo future planning. So knowledge from City Administrator Owens she passed along: the City Council had reserved 10,000 gallons per day of flow for the Moose Lake Housing Development that's being planned right now. So we [38:45] added that in there and then also reserved 1,300 gallons per day of anticipated flow from the Sand Lake Resort. So that is also in here as well. And then like City Administrator Owens mentioned, the MPCA grant that the city was awarded is a very big deal. In table four on page five, you can see that the DOC and MSOP are currently, over this current review period, 47% of the total flow going to the ponds in the city. So by lining that 15-inch line that feeds those facilities, [39:31] which has been signified as the worst potential pipe for I&I within the city right now, reducing that could drastically improve the capacity within the system. So be eager to get that project going and done. I think that's about all I have on the pond capacity. I guess if you have any questions for me I can take them. [39:57] Council Member: We were putting in some kind of bugs in the ponds. How does that play into this? [40:11] Phil Entner: Not at all. The bugs take care of the sludge that's already in the pond. This is taking care of natural groundwater getting into the collection system. [40:19] Council Member: And then for the future lining [40:19] projects, how often are we going to be able to do a lining project? Is that... are we still going to be able to continue to do that yearly or is that going to... [40:24] Ellissa Owens: so we currently have in the 2025 budget we have a sewer lining project established within that. A couple of different components will weigh in. We are potentially looking at a mag meter installation project as being on the docket. We have a $73,000 match as far as the $658,000 grant award is concerned, so that could play into the next couple years of planning as well and could take the place of an upcoming project. [41:06] However, the equivalent of that project is about five years worth of sewer lining, so that's very significant for the $73,000 contribution for that. And then there'll be some determinations made based on whether or not the city is able to secure any funding from the state for a massive project, yup, for the bonding the $3 million ask for bonding to line all of the sewer infrastructure in the city. So we have a couple of different things at hand here. The plan has been, from an administrative perspective when we did our rate study, building in the capacity to do some type of sewer infrastructure project on an annual basis. So the rate study has a line [41:51] item in it of about $100,000 up to about $130,000 I believe on an annual basis. From a fiscal planning standpoint, that has been incorporated for Council. [42:15] Phil Entner: Council, on page four of that memo if you want to pull it back open, the top of it shows TSS sample report results. Going back to the organic loading and how the organic loading is seen to be creeping up—which it should—but I believe, correct me if I'm wrong, I think it's creeping up a little faster based on these first two results that we got, the 1/26/24 and 5/7/24. Average strength or average reading [42:37] of that TSS should be around 300. So 910 and 1,125 would be... is this better Rory? Yeah it is, perfect. One thing I just want to point out here: those samples on 1/26 and 5/7, we call those "hot samples." Those are quarterly influence samples that we take; they're a 4-hour long sample that we take that represents the last 90 to 120 days by the flow. Nothing that you guys did, I'm just saying that's the data that we have to report. [43:20] Tyler (SEH): I know, but what I'm saying is I think next year when we do this I think we're going to see that loading coming down, actually. I think it's kind of... I don't want it to scare anybody off. [43:32] Phil Entner: No you're right, I totally forgot to mention that as part of that increase in loading—it's due to [43:41] those high samples. It could be something happened during the sampling time that it just got measured slightly off and caused that to be high. So those are definitely outliers from what we're normally seeing. So unless you start seeing that over and over again, then it's something to pay attention to. But I imagine those are going to go away and back to normal, especially when they fall off the second half of the year—300—because they're three and four times higher than they normally would be. [44:12] Tyler (SEH): Yeah, because our... when we initially looked at this data I called Phil and I was like, "did you do something changing with your sampling?" because... no you didn't believe me. It's just it doesn't seem normal or fit in what we should be seeing. However, they are reported to the state and those are the numbers we have to use. I'm just [44:27] saying I think we'll see that number decrease moving forward. Yes, so thank you. [44:38] Mayor Jim Michalski: Any other questions? Thank you Tyler. Good job. Next we have Resolution 25.20: the resolution adopting a Data Practices Policy and appointing a Responsible Authority. [44:48] Ryan McKeon: all right I'm back up. Yeah, there's quite a bit to digest here. You have Exhibit A (Policy for Request from the Public), Exhibit B (Policy for Request from the Data Subject), and Exhibit C (Policy [45:13] for Ensuring the Security of Not Public Data). I think it's fair only to mention a few things that are in here a little bit and give a little overview. For starters, there's a new data request form that's in there. So if this policy is approved, this it would now require all requesters to use this form to submit a data request and staff will start requiring citizens to do so. If a citizen does not use this form, they have not properly submitted a data request; thus we are not obligated to respond at that point. It also provides a clear structure for staff and the public to make it clear when a data request is submitted so staff can know the timelines, and this will help us [45:58] avoid situations where there's outstanding verbal requests out there. There's a template for invoicing, that's pretty self-explanatory. There are some informed consent forms; this is used when an individual requests the city to release private data—to protect the city, provide clear authorization, that kind of stuff. There's copy retrieval cost instructions, which is self-explanatory on that one. There is a data inventory template in there; essentially what that is is a reference for employees to know who has access to certain data—that's all that form is. And then lastly I guess I would just say, [46:45] adopting these policies essentially... all they are are instructions for both staff and the requester on how this works: how to request data, how the city will respond when we get requested, and the details based on whether or not they're requesting data on themselves or another topic or another person. So it's essentially what they are. [47:11] Ellissa Owens: I think we probably need a motion for each one, probably. So the resolution covers the policy in its entirety; we've provided the different components of it, but by approving the resolution it then gives the authority for the city staff to then implement all the processes that are aligned within. [47:34] Mayor Jim Michalski: Questions? Comments? No? [47:45] Council Member: I'll make a motion that we accept resolution 25.20. [47:49] Mayor Jim Michalski: Is there a second? [47:50] Council Member: I'll second. [47:52] Mayor Jim Michalski: Any further discussion? Through our attorneys? [47:56] Ellissa Owens: Absolutely. Did I get everything right guys? Yup, sounded great. [48:06] Mayor Jim Michalski: All right, that's all I... any other comments or questions? All in favor? Opposed? Carried. Thank you. Next we have Carlton County Animal Rescue LG220 application for exempt permit. [48:19] Ellissa Owens: Oh yes, the city received a [48:20] request from the Carlton County Animal Rescue regarding a Bingo event at the Historical Society. [48:41] Mayor Jim Michalski: Questions? Comments? Motion? [48:43] Council Member: Motion to approve. [48:44] Mayor Jim Michalski: Is there a second? [48:45] Council Member: Second. [48:46] Mayor Jim Michalski: Any further discussion? All favor? Opposed? Carried. Next we have the Comm S Rooftop unit replacement bids. [48:57] Phil Entner: Yeah, so in 2025 the city budgeted to replace the last rooftop unit on the top of this building. In your packet on page 137 I believe you'll find the first quote, 138 you'll find the second quote. First quote is for $16,500 for Region Electrical Mechanical and the second quote is for $13,250 from D Heating. [49:33] Mayor Jim Michalski: Are they the same units? [49:34] Phil Entner: Yes. [49:35] Mayor Jim Michalski: Are they the same units that are up there already? [49:38] Phil Entner: No, can't get those ones anymore—that was 20 years ago. [49:42] Mayor Jim Michalski: No, from what we've been replacing? [49:43] Phil Entner: No, these will... they're individual units. So we have seven little furnaces on top of our roof that keep this entire building going. [49:58] Council Member: You turn him on, is it cold in here? No, so seven's not enough is what she said. I'll make a motion that we go with the lower bid for $13,250. [50:15] Mayor Jim Michalski: Is there a second? [50:16] Council Member: Second. [50:17] Mayor Jim Michalski: Any further discussion? All in favor say aye. Opposed? Carried. Next we have the Planning Commission vacancy appointment. [50:35] Ellissa Owens: Oh yes, the city received a letter of interest from Jan Ashmore regarding serving on the Planning Commission. I did incorporate that into the packet. Looking for a motion from Council to approve her appointment. [50:46] Council Member: I'll make that motion. [50:48] Mayor Jim Michalski: Is there a second? [50:49] Council Member: I'll second. [50:50] Mayor Jim Michalski: Any further comments? All in favor? Opposed? [50:54] Carried. Next we have the Moose Lake HRA board appointment. [51:04] Ellissa Owens: Yes, so in the packet the council received a letter of interest from Kurt Yort regarding filling the HRA board appointment. Again, just looking for a formal motion from Council to approve. This will actually complete all of our annual appointments for 2025. [51:17] Council Member: I'll make that motion. [51:19] Mayor Jim Michalski: Is there a second? [51:20] Council Member: Second. [51:21] Mayor Jim Michalski: Any further discussion? All in favor? Opposed? Carried. League of Minnesota Cities Liability Coverage Waiver. [51:36] Ellissa Owens: Yes, so the city council has reviewed this waiver on an annual basis as part of our Property and [51:43] Casualty Insurance renewal. The recommendation has been from the city's insurance agent that we do not waive the monetary limits on Municipal Tort liability. Just looking for formal approval from Council; I will complete the waiver and submit it with our renewal. [52:10] Council Member: Motion to approve. [52:12] Mayor Jim Michalski: Is there a second? [52:13] Council Member: Second. [52:14] Mayor Jim Michalski: Any further discussion? There none, all in favor? Opposed? Carried. Westburg Eydie's 2024 audit engagement letter. [52:27] Ellissa Owens: Westburg Eydie is the audit firm that the city utilized for the 2023 audit. We have received an engagement letter—a separate letter for the city, one for the HRA, and one for the Water and Light Commission to engage in the 2024 audit—and that engagement letter is what council received in the agenda packet. [52:50] Mayor Jim Michalski: Did you like using them? I know that Water and Light did. [52:54] Ellissa Owens: Yeah, absolutely. We had a really positive experience. [52:56] Mayor Jim Michalski: Is there a motion to approve? [52:57] Council Member: I'll make that motion. [52:59] Mayor Jim Michalski: Is there a second? [53:00] Council Member: Second. [53:01] Mayor Jim Michalski: Any further comments? All in favor? Opposed? Carried. Next we go to K, Resolution 25.22. [53:13] Ellissa Owens: So the city has been working with the Carlton County Sheriff's office regarding a couple of surplus squad tablets that were in the city's possession following the transition to a law enforcement services agreement with the County. The Sheriff's Office informed the city that there was another public entity that utilizes that same type of tablet and could utilize the surplus equipment. They did provide me with a connection and I contacted the Superior Police Department; they were very interested in getting the equipment. I then engaged with the City Attorneys regarding drafting the resolution to approve the donation from one public entity to another—that is what the council is now reviewing. I've also included a bill of sale [54:02] which, by approving the resolution that's provided to council, subsequently approves the bill of sale as well. So we will execute a bill of sale with them, and there's also a document that they will execute that essentially accepts the surplus equipment. The dollar value associated with this transaction would be zero; per statute there's not a requirement that any money be transferred for this type of surplus donation. So it would be the city providing the equipment to the Superior Police Department without monies transferred. Any questions? [54:47] Council Member: The County's not able to use the equipment, in other words? [54:50] Ellissa Owens: Correct. [54:51] Council Member: I'll make a motion that we approve resolution 25.22. [54:57] Mayor Jim Michalski: Is there a second? [54:58] Council Member: Second. [54:59] Mayor Jim Michalski: Any further discussion? Hearing none, all in favor? Opposed? Motion Carried. Next go to L, the First National Bank Arena Daktronics sign. [55:18] Ryan McKeon: yes, so a couple months back we entered into our community partnership with First National Bank; they named the Arena First National Bank Arena. Everything's doing great. Samantha from First National Bank is on the Park Board actually—she's the chair now, congratulations to her. Part of the agreement was that we were [55:35] going to get a new sign for out there. Really from my standpoint, the IT side, I just wanted it to be a Daktronics, which is a very long proven quality digital board that can be out there; everyone uses these things. So from that standpoint, that's what we wanted. We wanted a little bit bigger, 5x10, so that's what they did. And then the really the rest of this stuff was more so in their ballpark: all of the components around the digital part, so the First National Bank logo and arena name. So they decided on Scenic Sign Group—you'll see that in there—and they went with the option two which is just all that's printed for you. So their expense would be all of the cabinet sign stuff, the display mounted on the building. The Daktronics part is our part, which is the $43,124. Essentially, because it's coming from Daktronics, they're all going to be about the same price. So for our part of it, their part will change drastically but this is the design that they wanted. So they would prefer to go to Scenic Sign Group. They then went by their board at First National Bank, they approved it, and it actually went before the Park Board also and they recommended that the Council move forward with this choice from them. They have paid their first payment of $60,000 to the Arena, so that's moving forward and it's been a great collaboration. So I guess what we're looking for is a final approval to also go with the Park Board and their department at First National Bank and go with the Scenic Sign Group for the digital sign. [57:50] Mayor Jim Michalski: I do have one question: who will be responsible, or is it the Arena people that put the information on the [57:54] card? [57:55] Ryan McKeon: That'll fall under me. [57:57] Mayor Jim Michalski: Okay yeah, great question. Any other questions? Motions? [58:08] Council Member: The size of the sign—there's no issue with that as far as the ordinance or anything like that? [58:14] Ryan McKeon: Because it doesn't take up much of the circumference, the Daktronics won't be much bigger and they'll still have to go through the building official for everything that's going to be around it and all that stuff; make sure it can hold it, all that good stuff. [58:34] Mayor Jim Michalski: Any other questions? Motion to approve? [58:38] Council Member: I'll make a motion that we approve the Scenic Sign... you want the amount in there? $43,124? [58:50] Mayor Jim Michalski: Is there a second? [58:51] Council Member: Second. [58:52] Mayor Jim Michalski: Any further discussion? All in favor? Carried. We're all excited to get this going. [59:05] Ellissa Owens: In the meantime, we're changing collateral out there to emphasize the new name of the arena and we'll probably have some kind of grand opening when the sign's going to go up and we'll make it a big spectacle. [59:18] Council Member: My question is when do you think this will... will it be spring or... [59:22] Ryan McKeon: With these guys I'm not sure what their lead time is; I'm going to [59:26] guess late spring, so probably before Agate Days. So I'll just keep everyone in the loop. [59:36] Mayor Jim Michalski: Thank you. Right, thanks. Next we have J, the MLWSSD request for arbitration discussion. And with that, the City Council of the city of Moose Lake will meet in closed session pursuant to the statute section 13D.05 subdivision 3B due to threatened litigation and demand for arbitration to engage in performance of [1:00:14] arbitration. The meeting will take place in the council chambers of the community center at 313 Elm Avenue. Following the closed session, the Council will reconvene in an open session pursuant to the posted agenda for that date and time and during such open session summarize its conclusion to make any [1:00:43] motions. Is there a motion to close? [1:00:44] Council Member: We have a motion to close the regular city council meeting. [1:00:47] Mayor Jim Michalski: Is there a second? [1:00:48] Council Member: Second. [1:00:49] Mayor Jim Michalski: All in favor? Opposed? Carried.