As an expert transcriptionist, I have reviewed the transcript and cross-referenced the dialogue with the provided city officials list and the situational context (such as the mention of "tomorrow's election day" and specific project names). Note: Several names mentioned by the Mayor (Councilmembers Folch, Vaughn, Brooks, Fox, and Brax) were not included in your initial list, but based on the dialogue, they are active members of the Council during this session. I have used the correct spellings for staff members based on your provided list (e.g., Wietecha, Hinzman, Stempski). *** [0:00] **Mayor Mary Fasbender:** here we do have a quorum with council member Lund absent tonight we have a certification of a certification of appreciation for the Planning Commission commissioner Kyle Romans and John Hinzman. [0:06] **John Hinzman:** thank you mayor City Council Members it's always a pleasure of mine to recognize the service of individuals in the city that serve under commissions the commissions that we have Planning Commission hedra park and rec Public Safety and others provide guidance for the city council of making the decisions and enacting the policies that we have with the Planning Commission the role that we have is looking at development how development rules within ordinances and land use and also the different developments that come in from site plans for new buildings and restaurants to new neighborhoods and tonight we recognize the service of Kyle Romans who was a outgoing planning commissioner Kyle served on the commission for three years last serving as the vice president of the commission itself he brought together a great aptitude from his background in environmental sciences and being able to take that in review of some of these plats during Kyle's tenure the city had some tremendous growth we had a lot of new subdivisions that came forward for new houses and development and Kyle helped to shape and guide that with the help of the city council during his tenure there was probably you know four or 500 units that were added to the city and so when Kyle looks around here and and he can see the improvements that he helped shape he unfortunately for us Kyle technically is leaving the city of Hastings its limits itself moving into an adjoining Township still part of the Hastings Community you'll probably still see him around but unfortunately not able to serve any for any time more as the commissioner for planning so I wanted to recognize Cal for his service tonight and Kyle is here we have a certificate to present to him if he wants to come forward. [2:13] **Mayor Mary Fasbender:** [Applause] sure yes. [2:41] **John Hinzman:** children I gotta make sure everybody stands there are you all ready okay exactly and yeah. [3:13] **Mayor Mary Fasbender:** all right tonight we have a MnDOT Highway 316 project wrap-up and Ryan Stempski will be here to introduce our MnDOT representative. [3:22] **Ryan Stempski:** thank you mayor members of the council um yeah the reason we asked MnDOT to come here tonight is I think in the Hastings Community we've heard a lot about 316 in the last couple years I know my phones rang a lot about this project this was a long project it was a long process it involved a study that had a lot of public Outreach it involved a long search for funding it involved along construction season with pretty dramatic detouring and and uh in the sorts we had a ribbon cutting and we had some additional improvements in major punchless items on the project so it that's a that's a that's a deep breath before saying all that but um that was a long project it really was and so I wanted to with all the comments that I've received and the councils received um we wanted to invite MnDOT here to just bring us back to the beginning a little bit talk about what were the goals of the project were they accomplished where do we sit today um what things do we have to look forward to and so we just wanted to have a little bit of a wrap up and and uh give the council a chance to answer ask some questions and get those questions answered tonight um I'd ask that we have Bryant do a full presentation bring us kind of back to the beginning walk us through this process let him know where MnDOT thinks we're at um you know and and one of the things to think about why did the state invest millions of dollars here in Hastings and so I think it's important to recognize that and understand that ask our questions at the end I did ask our chamber president to come and speak a little bit about our Industrial Park comments and so you'll hear some of that after the presentation as well and with that I'm going to turn it over to Bryant I will say Bryant on this project even though it hasn't gone perfect and all in all elements we've learned some things we've improved in some areas Brian always answers the phone he always takes on the hard issues with the city he's an advocate for us he takes it back to MnDOT what the city of Hastings is saying and he shares those comments and and he and that's about all you can ask in a good partner and so I honestly can say that on 316 he has done that so with that Brian look forward to your presentation. [5:41] **Bryant Fisek:** all right thank you all right hello mayor members of the council thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak to you I'm Bryant Fisek I'm the MnDOT Metro District South area engineer so representing mainly Dakota County and as an extension the city of Hastings and uh I really appreciate the opportunity to come back to you and speak about this project and I'm just gonna you know cut to the chase at least for MnDOT's point of view we do think it's a successful project I mean just right off the bat I will say um I'm happy with where it's at I'm happy with how it's you know bumps along the road obviously I can confirm that my phone did ring lots of times as well I talked to many of you I talked to Residents um but we're at the end here and I'm happy with where we are at so the first thing I have for you is just a quick video here side by side take about a minute or so sped up video and I will apologize it is rough these are literally two drone videos I put together for us I'm trying to get our Communications Department to make something fancier but uh on the left side we've got pre-construction on the right side we've got the post Construction and you can just see the differences I mean this this was a major change significant for everybody we added elements that are different I'm a two-lane divided road is not something you see very often anywhere in Minnesota compact roundabouts another element that you don't see very often there's only a handful of areas across the rest of the state so I just wanted to again point that out as as you watch the video here this has been a significant change and with any change it does take some time to adjust and there are people still adjusting to it but I'll come back to my statement I view this as a successful project all the way around as I try to make use so there we go all right so a little bit of History this kind of predates my time here but we started out with MnDOT coming forward and saying we're going to do a million overlay by the way we did a speed study we want to up the speed limit on here I wanted wanted to post it at 40 miles an hour I will stay the city did not like that option came back to MnDOT said no we need to do something different and so that's where I will give my predecessor a lot of credit Molly Klein I think she really took this to Heart came back to MnDOT we had lots of discussions back and forth and what we ended up doing was splitting what was this bigger project into two pieces so we have the northern peace and Hastings and then the the rest of it to the South heading down to that South Junction was 61. and it was this this upper Junction that we we took that step back and said we need to we need to reevaluate what are we doing here what's what is the right answer what should we do here and so with that we hired a consultant they provided some analysis they also helped us with public engagement and you can see on this chart here just different ways that we went out and we tried and I think we did engage with the community engaged Council and just really tried to listen and understand what is going on in the court or what do what do we want as a community out here and the four key items we have on this one the highest ones access safety more pedestrian bicycle access and slowing the vehicle speed so those were the four key ones that we heard and the the ones that we come back to and said okay now that we've heard that how can we craft this chord or how can we make this different to address those issues and so this is a layout view that you've seen before but it really shows what we what we heard and then we tried to put those project features into it compact around about Center median Trails better Crossings uh new pavement drainage you know updated signing lighting we tried to put all this in to reflect what we heard and answer uh provide solutions to those issues and uh I'll say again this was a I thought this was good collaboration between our agencies we again we tried to listen we tried to reflect on what we heard and put that into our designs here so one element I do want to note in particular the compact roundabout is something we've heard a lot about and why did we choose compact roundabouts we went with the roundabouts because they are safer they just they're flat out safer they do improve operations they uh uh the slow speeds I mean there's elements whether it's a compact or a regular roundabout they do provide those benefits and that is a major reason why we have them on this corridor another reason we went with Compact and you can kind of see it here we have the outlines of some of the buildings in there but it's the size and we wanted to make sure we minimized if not eliminated the taking of property I mean that was a key aspect on this Corridor and that's a key reason for the compact roundabouts if we went to that bigger size we would be impacting the homes and businesses along the corridor and that's something we wanted to make sure we stayed away from which again led us to this this option all right so then we moved into our Construction and when we originally thought about construction on this one we had planned for a two-year construction season with full detours and everything and that was another thing we we had discussions back and forth and said we really got to try to shorten this that's a long time for anybody to be dealing with it and so we worked on it and we did try to get all the major Construction in that first year so we closed it in may we reopened it in November and about a year ago and uh got most of those elements done and again there were some bumps along the way but I will Echo what Ryan said I think we had that great communication and collaboration back and forth and when those issues came up we were able to talk through them and figure out okay what can we do how can we improve what's out there how do we try to avoid making the mistakes again as we go to the next phase in the next phase so then when we finished up we had that opening and then one of the things we did while we were waiting to finish up some of the final elements there were some final striping to go out there we did again tried to listen we talked with the chamber we talked with other people and two major elements we changed that are shown here is at 31st we did not anticipate or we did not expect some of the heavy truck usage there we we were expecting more of that on spiral and so just recognizing that like hey we we can't leave that here the way it's being used so you can see hated to do it but you can see the new uh blacktop the new curb in the one corner there where we opened that up and we made it better for trucks same thing we we have to improve this we can't leave it even though we dislike to rip out new stuff we just had to make it useful for what was there we had to reflect how it was being used the other one with the full roundabout shown with the yellow in the middle that was just a reflection of uh updating the striping as we got to take a look at it uh the center island is concrete and we thought that was going to provide a very good contrast between the bituminous concrete bituminous that color we thought was going to be there it was not we came back and said we got to make this better so we can get better compliance around the roundabout and as part of that I will say we have done some preliminary checks since that striping went in we've seen 98 percent or better so 49 out of 50 Vehicles they're doing it the right way they're going around they're slowing down and taking that circular route so that has been a again in my view a very good ad and another example of just trying to make sure what we leave is the best we can so then kind of getting to the current status here and taking us back to what were those goals what we wanted to improve the access and for us that's how how do people access the highway how are their vehicles getting it onto and off of the highway and I I think it has improved this is anecdotally based on my time out there after the project but I don't see the backups on the side streets that there were before traffic flow seems to be better and even though with the median there you have to turn right and take a U-turn in some instances it's still faster than what it was before when you were waiting on the side street waiting to take a left for the safety aspect of it it is a little too soon to evaluate but you know again anecdotally with the flow with the center median I would expect the safety to increase like we had hoped uh Trails more pedestrian more bicycle activity I've seen it out there I'm sure you have all too just there are more people traveling on those Trails they are feeling safer they're feeling better crossing the road I've seen you know younger kids out there so yeah I would say the trails uh that ad has been very good for multimodal access and then when we talk about slowing the vehicle speeds what I have on here is the 85th percentile which is some preliminary numbers we got so pre-construction low 40s miles per hour post construction we've seen about 40 miles an hour again not where we want it yet I will point out that these numbers were before that final striping got in so we will take some more numbers and hopefully that will still come down as as everything has finally been implemented here and then this construction project is wrapped up but there are some other things that are going to go on there just to the south of the project limits here south the total there is some drainage that we need to renew we need to rework the ditches replace a culvert under Michael and that'll help there was some ponding that unfortunately came in that area again this will work to clean that up that'll happen in early spring 2023 we do have the larger project that will go the rest of the way down 316 that's not coming till 25 26 and the other one in the middle I just have the cover sheet from the corridor study that was completed before Construction I am planning on leading a study as a follow-up to provide more than anecdotes but really look at the corridor again go back to what we did in the previous study duplicate some of that with the new Corridor that we have and then really be able to come back with hard numbers and say okay here were the goals we've measured it we've gone back and looked at it again here's what we think or here's what the numbers tell us about whether we've accomplished them or not so again done with construction but there's still activity on 316 that will be going forward with and I think with that those were the quick elements that I had um. [18:28] **Christy Hammond (Chamber President):** all right thank you mayor and Council um so like Bryant had mentioned the chamber came along a little bit later in the planning process so typically when it comes to infrastructure planning um we're a pro-growth organization so we're going to support infrastructure projects that are going to improve our community I think um and and our role is really to make sure that our businesses have the information that they know of the opportunities to provide feedback and to ensure that they are showing up to those public meetings and providing that feedback we got a little bit more involved with this project when we heard from some of our Industrial Park business owners that said I'm just really concerned about the mini roundabouts because they're not they're very new to Minnesota and we're concerned about our semi trucks getting in and out with ease and the um load shifting going up and over because you cannot go around these roundabouts with going without going up and over the lip so that's where we reached out to um our public works department who set up multiple meetings with MnDOT and the industrial park businesses at that point I think the project had been decided on so there was a lot of convincing that it was going to work and there was mutual respect between MnDOT and the businesses because our business owners knew that they're not Traffic Engineers and they needed to trust that to meet these four goals this was going to be the best plan and I think MnDOT really wanted that feedback along the way once construction started so we had multiple meetings the plan stayed and then once it was released we heard from our chamber members that some of the challenges they had they were concerned about came to fruition and so um what we did is we worked with a local trucking company solid staging Jeremy koshik is the owner and he and I went out and he had a drone um or I'm sorry a he had a video we took videos um and that was very willing to to look at these videos to see where the challenge points were um and then we came up with I think six areas that could really use Improvement to make sure that our truck traffic was getting in with ease it was safe there was it was safely being accessed and that they weren't having to continue to replace tires and um equipment which they were having to do on a weekly basis so uh MnDOT was they they were successful in doing that and that's what that second phase was we called out the 31st Street where that needed to be widened and I think that they did more than what we had even asked for um and then we we called out the concrete being colored because we that was something the example that we had been given was from St James I think that's the only other community in the state correct me if I'm wrong that has that many roundabouts okay so that was the example that we were given and um during that process I will to MnDOT's credits say that they gave us all of the contact information at St James so I reached out to a few trucking companies there and their feedback was um you know it um it's better than what we thought it was going to be however we needed to stay engaged throughout the the whole time because it's so new to Minnesota so they they made adjustments in St James like the um height of the lip and coloring the concrete and all of that so um so yeah so at the end of the day I will say that MnDOT was was a good partner and I think if there's anything that we as a community can learn from this experience um it's that communication is key and um to make sure that we are communicating to our residents into our businesses um over communicating I would say um and then also just knowing that feedback is important and and that we do it seems that we do have a good partner in MnDOT and and um if we can provide them with examples of where uh we feel improvements uh are reasonable it seems like they were willing to listen so that's my ramble but I'm happy to answer any questions thank you. [22:25] **Mayor Mary Fasbender:** thank you Christy. Discussion? Councilmember Vaughn. [22:31] **Councilmember Vaughn:** thank you your honor this question is for Bryant. You're correct, one of the number one—almost the only call I ever took, or a lot of calls—was about safety. That's why I think it was important to do that. But we built a community around a state highway and we have some County Roads so my question to you is, your words "avoiding mistakes," how do we how do we build the future of Hastings so we don't run into... we literally had residential streets going on to a state highway. That's probably not ideal, probably what you don't want to see. Are we making the right steps as you got out by Tuttle, whether you actually went one entrance into a neighborhood mentality, or should we just keep residential off of a state highway and use commercial? I don't need the answer today, I'm kind of saying it for the future of as we build up Hastings. We have a lot of state and County Roads to our community and it seems to create a little bit of anxiety because that's not 1950 anymore where we used to just be this humble little town we would pull out, no big deal. Today I think we're moving a lot of traffic through here and I think we need to find... maybe it's our comprehensive plan that's going to talk more to if we're going to build around a state or a county road we need to do this or we need to have this more in our attention so I don't need an answer I just want to bring it to my to your attention I think we are building around State highways and I hope that we don't make mistakes in the future so we don't have to adjust. [24:02] **Bryant Fisek:** I to somewhat answer the question I will say we're always trying to learn and we're always trying to get better I mean we we deal with multimodal now where we didn't 20 30 years ago so we're constantly trying to get better at what we do but more to the point of your question what I would say is uh feel free to lean on us I can I can help arrange meetings with our Traffic Engineers with our planning department as this stuff comes up we're more than happy to meet with you and discuss and give you our thoughts and again as we have done on this project try to move forward together and collaborate and figure out what's best for both agencies. [24:55] **Councilmember Folch:** thank you your honor. Thank you Bryant for the overview. I was really uh anxious about the results of the project and I did take the time in August to go door to door and talk to many of the residents that were along the corridor there and so most folks were happy about the improvements because they themselves you know understood that it was a lot safer you know going along the the neighborhood and such um and and I'm super happy that you took the time to paint the roundabouts because I heard a lot of them of the residents complain about how just regular passenger vehicles were passing straight through the roundabout rather than taking the time to go around it as intended and so I hope that you continue to monitor that situation you would hope that the painting would would get folks to comply with the law but it seems that there's some individuals out there you know that I see fit you know to continue going straight through it um I've had folks tell me that they've had the worst near misses because they were anticipating that they themselves were going to go around and then somebody just goes straight through and so I'm anxious to see what the accident uh the crash data looks like you know after it's been in place for a couple of years because you know the whole purpose of the roundabouts is that actually statistically crashes go up but they are just fender bender property damage only crashes for the most part but I think what's unique about this is that these individuals who are cutting straight through they pose such a significant threat that you're having a very strange perhaps T-Bone kind of like impact again you know depending on where folks are going through and so I'm just anxious about that and so I just hope that we continue to monitor that our law enforcement uh I know that you know you get better compliance when you have a cop car sitting there but if there's anything that we can do to be creative to monitor for that situation and uh and I don't know what more it is that you could do you know other than putting rumble strips or something you know uh down the middle to get folks on not to not to drive through if they're not a commercial vehicle I would love to see when the 316 is com complete and it's fully open again all the way down you know again to Highway 61 on the Southern Edge um just to really to have an update on also the the commercial vehicle counts as they're going through because we're really hoping that that was one of the things that the roundabouts would do is discourage folks from coming down 316 and and going through the residential neighborhoods I've heard some folks um Grumble about on the Wisconsin side that they're actually seeing increased commercial activity going on the other side of the river as a result and I'm not sure if that's because of the construction that's going on 316 right now but that's okay with me if commercial vehicles want to stick on the Wisconsin side of the road so uh I hope to see you you know come back maybe in a year or so and provide you know an update so that folks really have a thorough understanding of all the benefits because you know change is hard and it's stressful and and so thank you for being patient and I agree that you and Molly have done a really wonderful job as Ryan had indicated of listening and trying your best to make accommodations not only for the business Community but also for residences they've had requests such as I had passed on to Ryan one of the other issues that I was hearing about was the quality of the grass that was put down in the ditches that there was a lot of weeds and that was out of control so thanks for asking the contractor to go back through and put through another weed killer application and such and so that all helps a lot with our calming the anxiety of the of the residents along the way so thanks again. [28:38] **Councilmember Lisa Leifeld:** thanks your honor. You know I think part of it too Bryant is a learning curve I talked to a good friend of mine who lives out in Tuttle, very intelligent woman travel South a lot because that's the way she works doesn't really encounter any roundabouts whatsoever she was visiting with me a few weeks ago at the bank and complaining about people driving over them and I just don't understand what that's that lip and whatever so we had a conversation and she didn't even realize that the reason for that was so the trucks could go through she didn't understand the purpose behind it I explained it and she was like I know I'm not the only one who doesn't know this you know so I just found it so interesting you know because until you get used to them I think it's not so much complying with the law as it is oh shoot this is something different than I'm used to and the majority of our traffic is coming through town right it's not the neighborhood traffic that's jamming it up but I just think a lot of it is you know I know we talked a lot about coloring I was hoping it was going to be terracotta I liked the yellow it's fine but I know in the beginning when we all talked about this the color we were looking for in the center was terracotta to match to match the the theme in the city but that's definitely how but I really think a lot of it is just that learning curve you know everyone just needs I think you said you know changes you know change can be hard it's it's confusing and I think we're getting there you know and I think once people get through a safe winter I think we'll see a lot of you know not a nice jobs it looks like it's going to be a little bit more convenient for pushing snow off the road I just see some things that I think the residents on there are going to be like okay this is making more sense so I think you guys did an excellent job and the only call I took was the size of the roundabouts and you guys are the experts so good job thank you. [30:40] **Mayor Mary Fasbender:** thank you councilmember Leifeld. Councilmember Brooks. [30:45] **Councilmember Brooks:** so I want to just add my thanks but also say we uh building official Travis Dunn and I were at a stem panel for the high school and the topic of roundabouts came up with the high school students which was hilarious um but we had many Engineers on the panel who explained some of the reasons for roundabouts what the purpose of them is and what their function was and I think a lot of the students left having a greater understanding of the purpose of roundabouts but it did show me something that when something is talked about in the house all the kids pick up on it because we did talk about roundabouts for far too long so this has been a big topic of conversation as you've probably already gathered as you've taken a lot of calls and so thank you for your diligence in resolving some of the things that have come up and just the communication and and the partnership we appreciate it very much thank you. [31:33] **Mayor Mary Fasbender:** thank you councilmember Brooks. Councilmember Fox. [31:36] **Councilmember Fox:** thank you your honor. No brag but I have driven a 26 foot box truck through the roundabouts that was fall and it went really well so but um all seriousness thank you for coming back to us again it's always great to see you um one of the comments that I've received recently from constituents is that they're really grateful to have the path um to to walk and bike on that's safe and it's well placed so there's a little bit of feedback for you today I also want to thank Christy with the chamber and Bryant for being such and Ryan for being such great communicators to our business Community you really heard them when things were not going quite as well as we had hoped so thank you all for for actually being there and listening I know that meant a great deal to the those in in the industry thank you. [32:38] **Mayor Mary Fasbender:** council member Fox I'll reiterate the same thing. Christy, thank you for advocating for the businesses because I I know you took a lot of phone calls and Ryan took many phone calls as we did and that's why you know it's important for our Council to be educated so we can pass that information on to constituents you know this is the reason why we have these roundabouts this is how they're designed so for us to be educated on it too is really important so appreciate you coming back and giving a wrap up meeting and we'll be going through it again in a few more years with another project that we will yes thank you all right thank you very much. [33:17] **Mayor Mary Fasbender:** okay council members are there any corrections to the minutes from the regular meeting on October 17th okay council members uh for public comments we will have public comments at this time and for public comments you may use the raised hand feature on Zoom or if you'd like to speak to the council at this time you may step to the podium state your name and address and give us your comments is there anyone at this time who'd like to speak to council okay and no one on Zoom. [34:04] **Mayor Mary Fasbender:** all right council members are there any Council items to be considered okay and Council I would accept a motion to approve the consent agenda councilmember Folch and council member Fox discussion Council all those in favor of the Motion state by saying I I opposed to that Motion state by saying nay and the motion prevails. [34:21] **Mayor Mary Fasbender:** In-tech Plastics at a thousand Spiral Boulevard for this item we have an introduction by community development director John Hinzman and I do see we have a couple of Representatives in the audience from in Tech John welcome again. [34:37] **John Hinzman:** thank you mayor city council members on the subject of Highway 316 and Industrial Park development we're pleased to bring you Lex chapter here in growth and development within the city here as you know Intec Plastics has been a valuable member of the city for many years we've recently approved a site plan application for them to expand their 120 000 square foot building by an additional sixty thousand square feet along with that coming with 40 some good paying jobs and also assistance that we had from our state Partners what we have before us tonight is a portion of that project which is the acquisition of this 3.1 acre parcel Intec is located here off of Spiral Boulevard and this parcel is located just north of Cranky Ape in the water tower owned by the city uh in Tech is seeking to acquire this property for a couple of different reasons one of which is to provide for storm water drainage which cannot be completely accommodated within their parcel their parcel extension would go something like this with a parking area over here leading to no space for storm water drainage on site so the price piece of property is necessary for that action what we have before us tonight relating to that is a couple of different things first of all is a business subsidy the business subsidy in this property is because the price of the property the value of the property and the price that we're selling the property is is different and at such an extent that state law requires us to hold a public hearing on that which we've advertised and we'll be holding tonight on that when we look at a public subsidy for a property we're looking at here is evaluation of a property here which we have at about two hundred eight thousand dollars and we're selling the this for three dollars to assist with the with the property here and the growth and development when we do this we take a look at our business subsidy criteria which has been established by hedra we look at different items to see if this is something that meets the criteria if these are not present then we would not Grant to the subsidy we look at here is the increasing of the tax base the creation of high quality jobs and enhancing the economic stability on this property this is a good project for the city brings a lot of great jobs to the industrial park frankly one of our larger Industrial Park expansions that we've had in some time and this would also provide the impetus for intact to grow even further in the future if they so desire beyond what they're doing here so we do have that public hearing subsidy tonight for you to consider the other one is a resolution which approves a couple of items one is the basic sub business subsidy agreement and the purchase agreement itself the business subsidy agreement basically takes the valuation difference puts the form of a forgivable loan both those items have a couple of of items which are similar between them one is a performance clause which states that the improvements would need to be constructed by December 31st of 2023 and they would need to occupy the property be in business there for at least 10 years there's also averter Clause that's included within that that would allow the city to reclaim the land if the performance measures were not met on that so before us we have the two actions for Council consideration tonight one is to open the public hearing to consider the public the business subsidy and then the action on the resolution after that as mayor mentioned we do have representatives in Tech here if you have any questions for them I can stand for questions at this time or you may open the public hearing thank you. [38:23] **Mayor Mary Fasbender:** thank you John. At this time I'll open the public hearing. Is there anyone in the audience that would like to speak to us on the In-Tech project? Is there anyone on Zoom? No one on Zoom. [38:31] **Mayor Mary Fasbender:** I will close the public hearing and Council discussion. Any questions Council? Okay if not then I would accept a motion to approve a resolution approving the sale of property to In-tech Plastics LLC for storm water improvements and approving the related purchase agreement and business subsidy agreement council member Folch and council member Fox any discussion Council okay all doesn't favor the Motion state by saying aye I opposed to that Motion state by saying nay and that motion prevails thank you thank you John. [39:24] **Mayor Mary Fasbender:** number two we have Foth commercial recycling study and for this item we have City administrator Dan Wietecha. [39:36] **Dan Wietecha:** thank you mayor. The history on this goes back boy I think to 2020 with some of the initial discussions but we uh short version we received some Grant dollars from Dakota County uh fortunate is being used in some other Solid Waste pieces but discussion at the utilities committee this spring was wanting to do a study and you have some baseline numbers on how Recycling and waste is currently handled but the discussion was residential subsequently in talking with Dakota County environmental resources department they basically said we've got some pretty reasonable data on residential already what would really be helpful is if we were to instead do a study on the commercial side and they had some particular industries that they felt were higher priorities than some others and helped us develop what would be a rough scope for what that study might entail but the purpose really is a matter of looking at commercial businesses and seeing learning about current practices uh establishing some of that Baseline data and knowing quantities or percentages that are being recycled or appropriately and I think most importantly identifying some opportunities for improvement and sort of the poster example I I use for the the type of a piece that might be learned and used for improvement is uh maybe hypothetically maybe we would find that uh small businesses are making an effort to recycle they've got a bin in the back room they put their their papers their cardboard their their cans into into that Ben tie off the plastic bag and toss the plastic bag full of recyclings into the the dumpster the county is going to find out in the study hey wait a minute we don't want those plastic bags and here's a place that we can educate people and businesses that are trying to do the right thing on how they can improve their their uh their process so that's plus an example of the type of thing that might be learned in the study and if it turns out people aren't doing plastic bags we don't need to misdirect our resources or education and can look at what what is more appropriate um uh anyways took that rough outline of what the study would entail talked with several consulting firms based off of their responsiveness the the timelines they would look at in recommending that we work with Foth infrastructure and environment their proposal is set as a not to exceed fifty thousand dollars so it is within budget the other piece that I think is important to note is the county Grant dollars do have a December 31st 22 so coming up in a month and a half year deadline the counties acknowledged and one I think they're just excited about the study but they've acknowledged that this timeline would complete in 23 but if we're getting a firm under contract and starting the project here in late 22 they're okay with with that time frame with that I can certainly take any questions thank you. [43:18] **Mayor Mary Fasbender:** thank you Dan any questions Council? Councilmember Folch. [43:21] **Councilmember Folch:** thank your honor uh this study was actually something that I had uh requested that we bring forward and I'm excited to see that it has evolved into being something that can help the commercial businesses within the community at first I had thought it made a lot of sense to do uh residential and I'm surprised to hear that the county actually does have good data already on Hastings it all ties back to the County's plan they have a master plan for the county and how they want to move forward in one of the major goals is to substantially increase Recycling and diversion from materials going into landfills and so that's you know you don't know if you're moving in the right direction if you don't have Benchmark metrics first and so that's why I was hoping that we could use the incentive Grant funds that we had received from Dakota County for this purpose so that we can track our progress into the future and so um it just the one thing that as I was reading it over I was just really hoping that there would be some emphasis a little bit more placed on Organics and potential for uh you know into the future if there could be any use for you know that I know Dakota County that's it's on their radar and they've been trying to have some residential voluntary composting done but I was really hoping that if that's some feedback that you could bring back is that piece of how it is that we could work with businesses to do better in Organics composting as well so thank you Dan I think it's really exciting and thanks for moving that forward and thanks to the county for their partnership in making these it was a 145 000 if I remember correctly for the for the city of Hastings to use for our best practices in uh in Solid Waste Management with in partnership with Tennis Sanitation and so I was hoping that we would continue to see that incentive funding into the future but you know besides being able to do this comp study we're also using it to purchase new trash bins for the downtown area that have compactors built into them and so it'll be a nice provision for the downtown and increase singing tourism and such so thanks. [45:40] **Mayor Mary Fasbender:** thank you councilmember Folch. Any other discussion Council? Okay I would accept a motion to approve the master agreement and project agreement for services for Foth infrastructure and environment to conduct a 22-23 commercial waste characterization study councilmember Folch and council member Brooks. Additional discussion Council? All those in favor of the Motion state by saying I I opposed to that motion stay by saying nay and that motion prevails. [46:21] **Mayor Mary Fasbender:** thanks Dan. Under Community Development tonight we have a resolution site plan for therapy Ops at 1312 South Frontage Road John. [46:33] **John Hinzman:** thank you mayor City Council Members this is the site we're looking at here northwest corner of South Frontage Road Westview Drive got AutoZone to the north of it a auto detect to the west of it the proposal is for a 2 300 square foot therapy building by Continuum companies on behalf of therapy Ops would be located here we had our Planning Commission review this on October 24th they did recommend approval on this in a 6-0 vote very limited discussion no one spoke for or against the item during the meeting history of the site site's been open for development for about 20 years we've had some various proposals for it that haven't come to fruition we're pleased to see something come forward here so internalize the site would be connecting to Eternal accesses that have been planned over the last 20 years buildings located something like this uh landscaping around the building this is kind of what the building would look like itself so we're pleased to see this come forward here and can stand for any questions that you might have thank you. [47:48] **Mayor Mary Fasbender:** thank you John any discussion Council? Okay no discussion except emotion then to approve a resolution of the city council of city of Hastings granting site plan approval at 1312 South Frontage Road council member Leifeld and council member Fox new discussion Council all those in favor of the Motion state by saying aye I opposed to that Motion state by saying nay okay that motion prevails thank you thank you John. [48:33] **Mayor Mary Fasbender:** uh under Administration we have Fire Relief Association a resolution opting to join the Statewide volunteer firefighter plan Dan you may begin. [48:43] **Dan Wietecha:** thank you mayor although there's a single resolution there's actually two pieces uh that make up that resolution one is the financial management of the pension plan for our on-call firefighters and the other is the benefit level for for that pension um uh back in February uh the Fire Relief Association uh at their annual meeting they had discussion with uh the financial advisor that they've used for many years for handling the Investments of that pension fund Colleen Hartman and she advised that she will be retiring and that they would need to figure out a different way to handle their financial investments and and advice for that and quite frankly the the discussion at the time was looking at joining the Statewide pension fund and handling that Administration over to the state uh in the meantime get set for a little bit because there were some changes going through the legislature that are behind the scenes and don't quite impact uh what's before us but it's part of why we're months later before we're seeing something that was discussed in February anyways the the recommendation from the relief Association stance that they they think that they would be well represented having the funds administered at the state level that does mean some changes to the plan design mostly around the vesting period also looking at full years rather than prorated years for months of service or partial years it does have some other pieces with uh fire firefighters in a similar Planet another city that might relocate here and join this one there's some some portability that that fits well but essentially it's a matter of uh having uh sound Professional Management uh and uh quite frankly uh less expensive and some less paperwork than we've had handling it independently ourselves or working with our own advisor uh so the first part is that Administration piece uh the second piece is uh the amount of the uh the defined benefit pension uh which currently uh is at seven thousand dollars per year of service uh the recommendation is to raise it to eleven thousand dollars uh per year and that really comes from a couple of meetings that the finance committee had uh the past few weeks and the math behind it I should have prepped and shown this on a chart essentially if you look at the increase year over year of potential payout whether it's a matter of everybody's a year older and so there's another year of service whether it's a matter of increasing some number of eligible firefighters there's an increased potential payout that gets compared to or can be compared to and really that's that's what the finance committee came down to can be compared to what we anticipate for annual financial assistance from the state of Minnesota we get money by Statute that is to be used for firefighter pension and essentially trying to get those two numbers uh the The increased amount of of um uh potential payment by the city uh as well as the uh the amount of state aid trying to get those in balance and and similar to each other and uh mathematically that's where the eleven thousand dollar figure comes from uh and uh the the piece to it is if we were low if we currently at seven thousand if we kept it at seven or increased it to eight thousand dollars and said we're good we wouldn't be fully utilizing that state aid for pension we'd be using it to build that that bank account and really the question is it's not required but is that the intent of that that Aid uh to build bank or to be using it for pension and similarly if we went over instead of 11 000 if we said let's do twelve or thirteen thousand in that case it puts the city at risk that if the Investments uh don't pan out well then we're going to come up short because the state aid wasn't enough to cover that that potential payout so really that's trying to get them in Balance uh the finance committee very much liked having a benchmark to work towards uh it answers questions for future years whether it's a year from now or two or three years from now hey here's what we we try to match to it isn't uh just a matter of what what are people's Comfort level for a funding decision so that's the two parts that make up that resolution uh setting that benefit level at eleven thousand dollars per year of service and also very important joining the the Statewide plan with that I can certainly take any questions thank you. [54:43] **Mayor Mary Fasbender:** thank you Dan Council any discussion? Councilmember Folch. [54:46] **Councilmember Folch:** thank your honor I was on the finance committee as well that had the conversations we met twice and uh and I think we are all really happy to be able to try to at least meet the request of the fire Association originally they had requested that we increased the defined benefit amount from seven thousand to fifteen thousand dollars and uh and although we would have loved to have been able to you know to to help in in that capacity uh upon further review and recommendation that was brought forward there was a balancing act so to speak that best practices uh follow uh whereas you try to find a sweet spot where you're balancing that uh that state aid payout and Payton I guess I should say and uh and then the the benefit contribution levels and so um we're hoping that the eleven thousand dollars uh you know the increase from seven thousand to eleven thousand dollars you know hopefully you know uh it helps a great deal uh the the job market right now for firefighters uh is super tight out there and uh and so uh personally I'm really hoping that that gives a tool also you know to the fire department to be able to do more Recruitment and retainment of uh of Staff uh since it has been clear the last few years that we really do need to prioritize the fire department making sure that we're doing whatever we can to help strengthen it build it um in you know into the future and so I'm I'm really pleased I thought we had really good discussions about it and I was thankful for the representatives from the fire department that joined us to help us you know understand uh perspectives of the of the department and uh and so I I I'm pleased how about you chair Vaughn thank you. [56:40] **Mayor Mary Fasbender:** thank you. [56:43] **Councilmember Vaughn:** thank you I think it's all been well covered and I think it's um it's one tool that we can assist these volunteers to help our paid on call to to serve the community it's we still got to do more we hope this helps recruit to get some colleagues so they don't have to stress them out so much but what I really like to hear from the um moving to the PERA to take care of their um for this part of their retirement fund was I like to hear that their leadership said they're going to still continue what they do for the community they're going to start a non-profit they'll still have their fundraisers they'll still do scholarships so they're still going to do their relief good work that they do in the community not only taking care of us as residents but they give back to the community that's going to continue and that was really important to hear from our leadership that that will continue so appreciate everything you guys do please pass it on to your colleagues and um with that your honor I'm going to make a motion to approve what's in front of us thank you. [57:51] **Mayor Mary Fasbender:** thank you councilmember Vaughn. A second? With council member Folch. Additional discussion? Councilmember Brax. [57:53] **Councilmember Brax:** I have one question um and this is just because I was involved in some of the previous conversations around the pension plan and one thing that was always up for discussion and seemed to be a point of angst was who is backing who the guarantor was of the liabilities of the fund so does that mean that in switching this to PERA, PERA is the guarantor or is the city still the guarantor of those liabilities? [58:04] **Mayor Mary Fasbender:** go ahead councilmember Vaughn. [58:06] **Councilmember Vaughn:** it is still the cities but I think what was important on the committee's standpoint was that that Benchmark knowing that this number can go up but it can't go down but working with their leadership we knew that's why we came to that number 11 000 the numbers are getting that Benchmark and we'll be able to evaluate it's going to be easier on the next finance committee if we stay with these benchmarks because we can watch how the state aid comes in and make sure it comes to that Benchmark level so we can make decisions But ultimately yeah it's a benefit that we as a city try to help these volunteers get that level there is a little bit of a liability here but we think we got the Benchmark figured out that we don't have to worry and have those stressful meetings that we always had on the ask so we think we have set it up for the future for the next finance committee to make it a fairly simple decision thank you for that explanation. [59:02] **Mayor Mary Fasbender:** well I want to thank council member Fox and councilmember Folch and Vaughn for I think you had a couple meetings to discuss this and I think it's important to our Fire Relief too so thank you there's a motion on the table all those a favor of the motion stay by saying aye aye opposed to that motion stay by saying they and that motion prevails. [59:34] **Mayor Mary Fasbender:** okay Council any announcements nope I have a few oh city offices will be closed Friday November 11th in recognition of Veterans Day Veterans Day dinner at the VFW Saturday night November 12th five to six is social six o'clock is dinner and seven o'clock is the program if you're looking for ways to give back to the community this holiday season the Hastings Police Department is a now drop site for the 75th Toys for Tots campaign through December 18th during regular business hours the police department will be collecting brand new unwrapped toys such as books board games arts and crafts projects and gifts for children for all the Twin Cities we have a two series part fentanyl poisoning and why I should care series the first date is 11 10 and the second date is 12 1 and that is being held at our savior's church at 6 30 PM there is more on the United Way website or Facebook page there is a town hall discussion Tony Jurgens will be hosting on homeless and this will be Wednesday November 16th 7 to 8 30 here at City Hall and it is live streamed on hctv the panel would consist of Hastings PD Hastings Family Services Allied Supportive Services and Dakota County Sheriff Department meetings coming forward Wednesday November 9th 6 PM Arts task force Thursday November 10th 6 PM hedra Monday November 14th 7 PM Planning Commission Tuesday November 15th 7 PM Heritage preservation commission Thursday November 19th 6 30 Public Safety advisory commission and Monday November 21st 7 PM regular city council meeting I would accept a motion for adjourn to adjourn nobody wants to adjourn councilmember Folch and council member Brax. [1:01:58] **Councilmember Folch:** no I just wanted to add one last thing oh sure that tomorrow's election day we forgot to talk about that is it let's just make sure we remind folks to get out to vote polls open at 7 00 a.m they close at 8pm in case you didn't know in case you missed it yeah thanks. [1:02:12] **Mayor Mary Fasbender:** yes thank you and councilmember Brax.