[0:12] Mary Fasbender: Time being seven o'clock, I call the Hastings City Council meeting to order. Please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance. [0:24] Mary Fasbender: ...of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. Welcome, and let the roll reflect we do have a quorum with the absence of Councilmember Lund tonight. We recognize our new employees and our promotions, and we'll start with the introduction of Community Development. Welcome, John Hinzman. [1:11] John Hinzman: Thank you, Mayor, City Council members. We've had a lot of changes and growth that's been occurring within Community Development over the last couple of weeks, including today. So, I've got the great honor to be able to welcome a few people that you know who are now in different positions, and then a few new people that have started, and two of those starting actually today. Community Development is involved with city planning, economic development, building inspection—essentially anything that is planned or built or constructed, we're involved in some measure. And so tonight, we want to recognize two individuals for their achievements within the department itself. I want to thank and congratulate Lani Jones, who is now joining us as a permit technician. Now, Lani is no stranger to City Hall here; she's been working at the receptionist desk since 2022. During that time, she's always been one to take on new duties. One of those was helping us out during some really tough periods we had with permit volume last year, and her interest, her knowledge, and her skill level in diving into that role we recognized, and our building official Travis, in particular, saw that she would make a very good candidate for permit technician and to bring her on in that category. So she's done that; she's been helping us out there, growing in that position, a great asset to the department. It's one of those type of individuals when she's at the front desk, she's a welcoming face to everyone, and will continue to do so. So I want to welcome Lani—I don't think that she's here tonight—as she moves along to a new position. [2:44] John Hinzman: The other one that I have is Alana Siebenaler. Alana has been serving in the city for about five years or so, had a couple of different moves. She started out as permit technician, we had a promotion over last year to a senior permit technician. At this time, we thought that Alana would make a really great candidate for a building inspector position because she really learned well the ins and outs of the code, and she's got a background in construction with her past in helping out her husband's company. And when we had a position opening up, she applied for it, interviewed well, and we're looking forward to her transition into this new position. So Alana has been serving with us, like I said, for about five years, excellent customer service, and she enjoys volunteering at her son's school, camping, and watching her boys participate in their sports and activities. So Alana is always a warm, welcoming figure within the department, and we welcome her continued advancement and assistance to us in the roles that she has. And I don't think Alana is here tonight either, but we thank Alana for all that she has done. [3:30] John Hinzman: And now we move on to a couple of new positions here that have started. Now, first of all, welcome Maddie Swanson. Maddie, come on up here. Maddie is joining us as our Community Development intern this summer. So we've had this program the last couple of years. Maddie joins us from Hamline University, where she just finished up her junior year. I have to get this right: she's studying Public Health Sciences, Environmental Sciences, and Public Policy. She's one that's not busy at all. She just got done serving a term as the student body internal president at Hamline, so she had a lot of great organizational leadership experience there, and then she also plays lacrosse at the university as well. So she's very active, come into this role has been a great sponge, she's learned everything, taken a lot of great responsibilities on. We're looking so forward to her continuing on over the summer here. She's really become the face now of our Makers Market, the program that we had last year; she's taken that on and really ran with it. So I really appreciate her ability to take on that role and looking forward to her contributions as the summer moves on. So thank you, Maddie. [5:02] John Hinzman: And then Mr. Menke—Alex, come on up here. Alex has been with us for, I don't know, 11 hours; so he joined us at 8:00 AM this morning. He is our new Economic Development Coordinator, and I couldn't be more pleased to say that this is such a great, important position within the city. We needed someone in this position that can maintain great relationships with business owners, have a great insight and networking out to other individuals for new projects that come up here, and also be a wealth of great new ideas. And I think Alex is going to take charge and do really well in that role. Alex just graduated from the University of Minnesota with an Urban Planning degree, his master's degree there, worked the last year and a half at the City of Shoreview helping them out in planning and economic development. I would say that Alex is a "recovered" mechanical engineer—I'm not sure if that's a correct term or not—but he had a first life here graduating with a bachelor's degree in Mechanical and Biomedical Engineering and spent four years working in various roles in that and decided he had the bug to go back to school to go to planning, got his degree, and is coming to us today. So as you know, this is a very important position for us. We're looking so forward to Alex joining us. Alex and his wife Katie and their dog Kramer reside in South Minneapolis, and he's looking forward to getting involved and knowing you all. So let's welcome Alex tonight. [6:34] John Hinzman: Thank you. And Alex isn't the only new person who started today; we also had another building inspector that started. We have Tanya Edmondson—this was her first day of employment as well. She's serving as one of our building inspectors in the building department. So as you know, a lot of permits have come in, a lot of volume. We were gracious enough to have the fortune of adding another position there. Tanya's got some great experience, a long-standing career in construction across many different aspects and leadership in construction management. So she knows code compliance, interpretation of codes, and talking to Travis today, she's really hitting the ground running on that one. When she's not here, she enjoys fishing with her husband, gardening, and creating a home at their beautiful hobby farm outside of town. So I want to congratulate Tanya and welcome her to the city. I don't think that Tanya is here tonight either, so we will welcome her. Thank you. Now I could turn it over to the Chief here. [7:20] Kyle Linscheid: Thank you, John. Never easy following up after John goes, I'm just letting you know that. Such a good job. So Mayor Fasbender, Councilmembers, and city leaders, thank you for this opportunity. Last year we put in for a Community Service Officer and that was approved. So we have, for the first time that I can remember and anyone else at the police department, we have our first Community Service Officer. So Sean Glancy, why don't you come on up here with me? So Sean grew up just across the river in Cottage Grove, graduated from East Ridge High School. He received his bachelor's degree in Psychology from Minnesota State Mankato, and he just began his law enforcement certificate classes through Metro State—I think today was your first day? Okay, thanks for coming in. Sean enjoys watching hockey and football in his spare time, and he's a big supporter of Minnesota and Boston teams, but we're not going to hold that against him. So we're very excited to have Sean on our team. He's our first Community Service Officer, like I mentioned. I have heard rumors that we've had one in the past, but I can't confirm that. Sean will assist in support function with running vehicles for service, bringing evidence to various locations for analysis, and assisting the patrol division with a number of tasks like sitting on toes, doing ride-alongs, things of that nature. So please assist me in welcoming Community Service Officer Sean Glancy to the HPD family. [Applause] [8:52] Kyle Linscheid: And I also have the honor of introducing to Hastings new police officer Carter Gorny. We're going to also administer the oath of office tonight. Before Carter comes up, he actually replaced Chief Bryan Schafer's position—not that we can replace Chief Bryan Schafer; if he's listening, that's not our intent—but it did take us a year to find the right person, and Carter is the right person. So Carter, why don't you come on up here? Carter grew up with his family in Minot, North Dakota, and once again, we won't hold that against you. He graduated from North Dakota State University with a degree in Natural Resources. I also have it on good authority that you're on the track team? Sprinter? Yep. Okay, we have to make sure everyone in the community is aware of that. Carter served as a Community Service Officer for the Anoka County Sheriff's Department and he was also a licensed peace officer with the Red Wing Police Department prior to accepting a position with the City of Hastings. So this position is especially important to me since this is my first police officer hire—so no pressure, but I know you'll do great. So we are now going to do the oath of office. Your good friend John Jameson, who I believe is here—John, why don't you come up here as well? So one of the most well-known symbols of policing is the badge. Although the badge's actual weight is minimal, the responsibilities that come along with wearing the badge are enormous. Those who wear it carry a responsibility to do what is right and just for the people and visitors of Hastings. This symbol is one that every officer for the Hastings Police Department wears with pride. Tonight the badge will be pinned on Officer Gorny by his good friend John Jameson. So prior to that, I'm going to be kind and I'm going to let you read along with me, okay? So hold on to that and I want you to raise your right hand, repeat after me. I, Carter Gorny... [11:09] Carter Gorny: I, Carter Gorny... [11:09] Kyle Linscheid: ...do solemnly affirm that I will support the Constitution of the United States of America... [11:09] Carter Gorny: ...do solemnly affirm that I will support the Constitution of the United States of America... [11:09] Kyle Linscheid: ...the Constitution of the State of Minnesota, the ordinances of the City of Hastings... [11:09] Carter Gorny: ...the Constitution of the State of Minnesota, the ordinances of the City of Hastings... [11:09] Kyle Linscheid: ...and that I will faithfully discharge the duties of a police officer for the City of Hastings... [11:09] Carter Gorny: ...and that I will faithfully discharge the duties of a police officer for the City of Hastings... [11:09] Kyle Linscheid: ...Counties of Dakota and Washington, State of Minnesota, according to the best of my judgment and ability. [11:09] Carter Gorny: ...Counties of Dakota and Washington, State of Minnesota, according to the best of my judgment and ability. [11:09] Kyle Linscheid: On my honor, I will never betray my badge... [11:09] Carter Gorny: On my honor, I will never betray my badge... [11:09] Kyle Linscheid: ...my integrity, my character, or the public trust. [11:09] Carter Gorny: ...my integrity, my character, or the public trust. [11:09] Kyle Linscheid: I will always have the courage to hold myself and others accountable for our actions. [11:09] Carter Gorny: I will always have the courage to hold myself and others accountable for our actions. [11:09] Kyle Linscheid: I will always uphold the Constitution, my community, and the agency I serve. [11:09] Carter Gorny: I will always uphold the Constitution, my community, and the agency I serve. [12:24] Kyle Linscheid: All right. John, are you ready? All right, please welcome him. [Applause] [12:59] Mary Fasbender: Come here, go ahead. Thank you, Chief. Council, if we could step forward for a photo with the group. Congratulations. [14:15] Mary Fasbender: That's always an exciting meeting for our community when we have promotions and new employees. So tonight we will be doing two proclamations. The first one we will be doing is for the LGBTQ Pride Month, the second one will be for Make Music Day. And tonight we will have Councilmember Haus start for the information. [14:15] Angie Haus: Thank you, your honor. Whereas we affirm our common beliefs, aspirations, and commitments to ensure that Hastings is a safe and caring community for all persons; and whereas the City of Hastings is committed to fostering acceptance of all of its residents and preventing discrimination, social stigma, and harassment based on sexual orientation or gender identity; and whereas the City Council has adopted a set of strategic priorities that includes ensuring diversity, equity, and inclusion in all city processes and operations and helping to make Hastings a welcoming community for all; and whereas the City of Hastings recognizes the importance of building protective factors for LGBTQ+ youth in our community; and whereas the City of Hastings appreciates the work done by IDEA Hastings and by Thrive to advocate for diversity, equity during this month and throughout the year; and whereas we recognize that there is still more work to be done to ensure our LGBTQ family members, friends, and neighbors are treated equitably and with dignity; and now therefore be it resolved that I, Mayor Mary Fasbender, and the Hastings City Council, hereby declare the month of June 2023 as LGBTQ+ Pride Month in the City of Hastings. [15:47] Mary Fasbender: Thank you, Council. Moving forward, Make Music Day Proclamation starting with Councilmember Pemble. [16:34] Dave Pemble: Whereas the City of Hastings has declared Wednesday, June 21st, as Make Music Day; and whereas this is the seventh year the City of Hastings Parks and Recreation Department has celebrated Make Music Day; Make Music Day is a free celebration of music around the world on June 21st beginning in 1982 in France and is now held on the same day each year in more than 1,000 cities in 120 countries; and whereas the purpose of Make Music Day is to encourage and invite Hastings residents and visitors to celebrate by enjoying free performances, cultivating civic pride and a sense of community; and whereas Make Music Day 2023 will be held from 7:00 AM to 9:00 PM at Hastings City Hall, Roadside Park, Oliver's Grove Park, and Levee Park, and the full schedule can be found on the City of Hastings webpage and social media platforms; and whereas in the case of inclement weather, Make Music Day will be held at the Hastings Civic Arena; and whereas local and metro area bands and soloists will donate their performance and volunteers will donate their time to help provide sound support and MC at each location; the City of Hastings is appreciative of these civic-minded performers and volunteers to help make this event possible; and now therefore be it resolved that I, Mayor Mary Fasbender, and the Hastings City Council, hereby declare June 21st, 2023, as Make Music Day in Hastings, Minnesota. [18:09] Mary Fasbender: Thank you, Council. At this time, councilmembers, are there any corrections to the minutes or the workshop from the regular meeting on May 15th? Okay. Comments from the audience? At this time, we will take comments from the audience—live comments or via Zoom. Anyone wishing to speak to the Council may step up to the podium and state their name and address and tell us your comments. [18:56] Morgan: Hello, my name is Morgan. My address—you said? I live on 416 7th Street West. And I'm just here because I wanted to speak on the proposed moratorium on the cannabis and cannabinoid products. So I am a brewer and I make beer, but also recently we've been able to make low-dose hemp-derived THC products. And a lot of my colleagues in the industry have had a lot of success in this new industry, and I just wanted to throw it out there and say that I think it would be pretty harmful to the city in general, but especially me being that I'm a brewer and not being able to compete in that industry if there was a moratorium on it. I just don't think it would be very good for me or the city because I think it would deter new businesses from coming here as well as it would be really harmful to businesses that are already here in terms of being able to compete with their peers in their industry. Moreover, at some point we're going to have to be allowed to get licenses anyway, so this moratorium is kind of just kicking the can down the road in a sense because the city eventually is not going to be able to prevent us from having a license once the regulatory system is in place. So putting another moratorium in place, which we've already had, will just kind of kick that can further down the road for me personally. That would mean like another year where I cannot make these products and these people are all getting further ahead in what they're able to do and I'm falling behind because I can't compete with them. Also, it's a big money maker for breweries; it's 0.3% active THC, so it's really not that much. Yeah, I just want to be able to compete with my peers in the industry and have a fair chance to do that. So I just wanted to say I don't support the moratorium, and that's part of it. Thanks for listening. [21:15] Mary Fasbender: Thank you, Morgan. Anyone else wish to speak to the Council at this time? No one on Zoom. Okay. Councilmembers, are there any items to be considered? Council, I would accept a motion to accept the consent agenda. Councilmember Leifeld, Councilmember Pemble. All those in favor of the motion, state by saying aye. [Ayes] Opposed to that motion, state by saying nay. And that motion prevails. Tonight we have a resolution in an issuance of sales of the GEO bonds, series 2023A, and we have Dan... and we will have Tammy from Northland give us a little update of the good news. Great news. [22:01] Tammy Amdahl: Good evening, Mayor, City Council. Tammy Amdahl with Northland Securities, serving as advisor to the city on the sale of the General Obligation Bond Series 2023A. The bonds are being issued to finance the 2023 street improvements and utility improvements. Yes, it is a great day and great results for the City of Hastings. We took bids this morning on behalf of the city. There were eight bids received. The low bid was from TD Securities out of New York. And before I get into the results of the sale, which were very competitive and good for Hastings, I also want to note as part of the process of selling bonds—and the reason the rates were so good—is that the city, when you issue General Obligation bonds, has historically sought a rating on those bonds. And this was no different, that the city went through that process, but this was different this time because the rating was increased to Double A Plus. And that is a big deal in Minnesota. I checked the stats here of the cities that S&P (Standard & Poor's) rates in Minnesota; less than 15% of those cities hold that Double A Plus rating. So congratulations to Hastings. I'm going to speak to the amount and then I'll speak to the savings as a result of that rating. The final bid came in at a true interest cost, which takes into account the underwriters' purchase price, at 3.06%. And they bid the bonds with premium, and premium simply means they are paying more than the face value to get the coupons on the bonds. That premium was used to reduce the principal amount of bonds being issued. So the final par amount will be 4,095,000. In the council packet last week, there was a resolution that had blanks because we didn't know that final amount until this morning, and that's a reduction of what was otherwise planned to be about 4.5 million dollars. With respect to that change in rating, we had some really good comparative sales today to estimate for you what difference that Double A Plus, or one notch above, made. Over the life of the bonds, it was approximately forty thousand dollars. And that is an estimate, but a good estimate given the amount of activity in the market today. Specifically, Standard & Poor's, in raising the city's rating one notch, pointed to two specific things that I think is important for the Council and for the public to hear. They pointed to the strength of the city's financial management, including long-term financial management planning, and raised that category one notch, which was very helpful, as well as the city's strong economic performance and indicators. Often I get asked when there's great news like that, "Well, what about the next time in a rating?" And the next highest would be that Triple A category, which is the highest category. Really, it will depend on the continued growth in the community and development and those economic factors, because you've now checked the other box with respect to the strength—very strong financial management. So kudos to the city and to the staff on that recognition with respect to that rating. So with that, Mayor, City Council, there is a resolution before you and that resolution will award the sale of the bonds to TD Securities. So with that, Mayor, Council, happy to answer any questions that you may have for me. [25:06] Mary Fasbender: Tammy, any questions? Councilmember Fox. [25:06] Jen Fox: Thank you very much for the good news. It is, you know, we hate to have to take out significant amounts of debt for our Capital Improvement projects, but it's necessary. And we have been lucky the last few years where we've had good bond sales, and so thank you for the good news. With that, your honor, I'll make a motion to adopt the resolution approving the issuance and sale of the general obligation bonds to finance the 2023 neighborhood project. [25:52] Mary Fasbender: Second by Councilmember Leifeld. Additional discussion, Council? All those in favor of the motion, state by saying aye. [Ayes] Opposed to that motion, state by saying nay. Great, and that motion prevails. Thanks, Tammy. Today we have a public hearing for the sale of property at Spiral Boulevard and Glendale Road, and we welcome John Hinzman again. [26:39] John Hinzman: Thank you, Mayor. Let me pull up the presentation here a little bit to give you an idea of what exactly we're looking at. Mayor and Council, we're asking tonight for you to hold a public hearing for the disposition of land. This is a piece of property that we own, part of a larger 20-acre parcel located near Glendale Road and Spiral Boulevard. So generally speaking, this is Glendale Heights, the industrial part to the west. Spiral Boulevard comes down the hill and as it comes down the hill across our parcel, it divides it into two sections: one that's about three and a half acres, one that's less than about 17 acres or so. The northern part of the property is adjacent to this parcel in yellow, which is just under 20 acres and owned privately by Mr. Rick Reese. And Reese has approached us in the potential purchase of the area in red, which would be the area between Spiral Boulevard and his property. He seeks to be able to have a driveway access, which presently exists across our property into his property here, and then also to subdivide the property into another lot. The property itself is zoned Agriculture; there is a 10-acre minimum lot size requirement. The property as it sits presently right now is just under that 20 acres to provide for two 10-acre lots, so this would allow him to meet those requirements. He also would propose to plat the boundaries of Spiral Boulevard. So Spiral Boulevard, as it sits right now, just kind of wanders across the property with no definition; it would be very helpful for us to have it within a defined right-of-way, and as the purchase of this property would move forward, one of the conditions would be for him to plat the right-of-way for us. So that would be certainly an advantage to us. Also taking a look at the disposition of the property and the sales price, what he is offering to us is comparable to what he purchased the property to the north for, so we do believe that's a fair market condition that exists. We're going to have further actions for you pertaining to the sale of the property coming up at the next council meeting, but we do have a public hearing tonight. So action we have before you tonight, Council, is to open the public hearing, close the public hearing tonight, take any comment related to disposition of the property. One of the requirements that we have with disposition—it comes under our City Charter—so it says that any time that we are looking to sell a property, we have to file established findings that the public interest requires the property to be disposed of. So the public hearing is part of making those findings. Those findings will be in a resolution for sale, which will come before you on the 26th, as well as the agreement for sale of the property as well. At this time, I can stand for any questions, and if you don't have any questions for me, you can feel free to open the public hearing. Thank you. [29:47] Mary Fasbender: Thank you, John. Public hearing. Anyone wish to speak to the Council on the public hearing for the sale of the property? No one on Zoom, no one in the audience. At this time, I will close the public hearing, and we'll see you on the 26th. [29:47] John Hinzman: We'll see you on the 26th. Okay, thank you, Mayor. [29:47] Mary Fasbender: Thanks, John. We also tonight have a resolution to award a contract for the 2023 sanitary sewer lining program. For this item, we have an introduction by Public Works Director, Ryan Stempski. [30:33] Ryan Stempski: All right, we'll just go right into it. So every odd year we do a sewer lining program to stay on top of our aging sanitary sewer system. And this year we took bids in April on that program. Bids actually did come in a little bit higher than we typically have been getting—the cost of petroleum products and just the market that we're in, this isn't surprising; this is a specialized one-product market. So we were just under 10% over what we had historically been getting in the program. We also had added the 2023 neighborhood project; we have some lining pockets in that program, plus during our televising activities, there was some emergency lining along Highway 61 that we do need to get addressed with the program. So we compiled these all together for economies of scale and to try to get more contractors interested. We did receive four bids, and our low bidder is Musson Brothers. They've done a lot of work in Hastings, they do a great job, they're very responsive, good at what they do. And to Tammy's presentation earlier, somebody has got to use those great bond rates and I'm there to put them to use. But we do have a total project cost of $559,602.50, compiling some of the neighborhood funds and some of the additional bonding that we had already anticipated for above and beyond our budgeted sewer lining program amount. So with that, staff is recommending approval of the resolution in your packets tonight, which is approving the contract to Musson Brothers. In there, there's also a map of the nearly five thousand feet of lining that we'll be doing with the program this year. I'll stand for any questions. [32:52] Mary Fasbender: Thank you, Ryan. Council, any questions? Okay, then I would accept a motion to approve the resolution receiving bids and awarding contract for Project 2023-2, 2023 Sanitary Sewer Lining Program. [32:52] Dave Pemble: So moved. [32:52] Mary Fasbender: [Seconded]. Any discussion? All those in favor of the motion, state by saying aye. [Ayes] Opposed to that motion, state by saying nay. And that motion prevails. Thank you, Ryan. We also have a resolution awarding contract for the Roadside Park Tennis and Pickleball Court Reconstruction Project, and welcome Director Chris Jenkins. [33:38] Chris Jenkins: Thank you, Mayor and Council. Yes, tonight we're asking for Council to accept the bids and award the contract to Bituminous Roadways Incorporated to reconstruct the Roadside tennis courts and pickleball courts. Just so folks are familiar, we currently have six tennis courts there; three of them are striped for pickleball. This project will keep three tennis courts and turn three of them into eight dedicated pickleball courts, in similar fashion to what you see in other communities with individual courts fenced, which is highly, highly desired by the pickleball community—it keeps play continuous instead of tripping over everybody else's pickleballs that wander into your court. So with that, we did receive six bids and they ranged between $393,333 and $607,600, I believe. Bituminous Roadways is the low responsive, responsible bidder, and we have worked with them plenty in the past and they are a very good contractor and we enjoy working with them. So with that, I can stand for any questions. [34:25] Lisa Leifeld: Thank you, Chris. I played in the women's tennis league years ago, and we've been having this conversation for a really long time with the tennis leagues in town and the schools. This is awesome. And it's one of those cases where it's like, it almost paid off that we waited, because pickleball is such a huge, huge thing right now and it's going to continue to be. And for anyone who's not familiar with it, it's just bringing so many more individuals into activity, right? It's designed to work really well as we age; tennis is a little bit more, you know, harder on our bodies. So I'm super excited that this is finally coming along. And I know there will be people in the community here like, "Well, that doesn't make any sense, what are we doing?" This is an awesome location. We've had some great events there, and like I said, I saw what, since like 1937 those courts have been there? So I just think it's really exciting. And it is one of those things that when you come into the community, that's just such a beautiful area to drive by and you see McNamara Field and you see the courts, and I just love it. So super excited for this, Chris. Great job. [34:25] Chris Jenkins: Me too, thank you. [35:58] Mary Fasbender: Councilmember Leifeld. Councilmember Fox. [35:58] Jen Fox: Thank you, your honor. Thank you, Chris. I'm very excited about this as well. I want to go backward a year and remember that this was originally brought to us as a Community Investment Fund project, and we committed to working through this restoration, this change from there. And I just want to highlight your hard work with the CIF and the pickleball community has been so great in supporting this project as well. So I would like to move to approve this. [36:44] Mary Fasbender: Thank you, Councilmember Fox. And a second by Councilmember Leifeld. Additional discussion? All those in favor of the motion, state by saying aye. [Ayes] Opposed to that motion, state by saying nay. Thank you, you are approved. [36:44] Chris Jenkins: I'll have good news to pass out to pickleball. Thank you, Director. Yes, they'll be excited. [36:44] Mary Fasbender: Tonight we have a presentation by Bryant Ficek from MnDOT. He will be giving us an update on our Highway 61 project. Welcome, Bryant. [37:29] Bryant Ficek: All right. Mayor, Councilmembers, thank you for having me again, and thank you for allowing me to talk about our 61 study. I promise to be a little shorter than our last time. We're not going to go through the whole thing, but there are some important improvements, important adjustments to talk about, and I think it's really important to share that. And then we also want to go into the next steps, because it's not going to end with us closing the study; we need to keep this momentum moving. So just kind of stepping back, make sure we're all on the same page: we are talking about our Highway 61 study from 4th Street to 36th. The reason for this was to provide that comprehensive evaluation and determine a vision for the corridor. So essentially, with a construction project coming up by MnDOT that is just a pavement preservation, we wanted to take that additional step and say, what can we do better? What are the issues out here? What should we be looking for when we move towards construction? A little tip of the hat to the city for their past work on what they have done in this area, because we were really able to build on that. As you can see, our districts for the corridor listed down there came from you. The people movement plan was really good in providing just some of that background of how we were missing those opportunities—where are the crossings, how is this structured as a barrier as opposed to an amenity—and then also just helping us move along to identify that we want bike routes on parallel routes, not on 61, so we're not trying to squeeze everything into the limited right-of-way we have, but again provide for those crossings. The 2040 Comp Plan again provided another opportunity, another idea for us to look at a backage road at the south end of the project, so connecting things to 23rd and providing for businesses to move around in that area off of the highway, which helps MnDOT out for sure as we're trying to move that traffic through. And then the Vermillion Street Corridor, again with the ideas thinking of a signal at either 17th or 18th—that was identified in that plan as well as a roundabout at 316. So again, I just wanted to give that tip of the hat to the city for all that work that went into it before we got here and providing those ideas and stuff for us to build on. [39:48] Bryant Ficek: Our project process was really divided into three phases. This phase one was essentially our listening phase, finding out... obviously I do not live here, so I needed to come into the community, we needed to dive into the data, and we needed to listen to what people said. And so that's where we really dug into it to try to find what are the issues, what does the community want for this corridor, and what should we be looking at. Our phase two was then building off of phase one, putting that into ideas and how can we solve those issues that we found. What are different solutions that we can bring forward? And we did create a number of different concepts and then ended with a presentation and more engagement as to what do people think of these concepts coming up. For each of those four areas, we had a number of alternatives that people could look at, comment on, and give us feedback as to how they might work here. And then finally for this phase three, that's where we took the comments from phase two, wrapped it all in, did our reviews and analysis, and came up with what we determined was the best alternative. And that was our last open house, the last time I was up here when we presented on that, which we called our funding alternative of what we wanted to move forward. Just an important thing to note: we had engagement throughout those. I'm going to talk a little bit more about it, but I think it's just important to note that we really tried to provide for that engagement throughout, and there was just essential for each part as we went to the community and said first listen, and then come back and here's ideas, take it back, and now here's where we're at. [41:21] Bryant Ficek: So what we found from that phase one when we dove into it: the first one is just the safety data, and I've flagged the critical crash index. And so that is a calculation where we look at crashes on the corridor, we look at the volume of traffic, and we boil that down into numbers. And anything above one is something we flag as statistically significant, meaning there are more crashes out here than we would expect that would be reasonable for this type of corridor. So that just tells us we do have an issue out here in terms of safety and we needed to look into that closer. The crash cost is then applying MnDOT numbers to it, and so just every year those crashes are costing about 4 million in terms of property damage, time lost for severe injuries, and just trying to put a number on that, which is tough obviously. But it helps us trying to put that into perspective of how much we're losing because of the safety issues out here. The table on the right is mobility, and for today, or when we took those counts last year, we put that into our simulation. We also did travel time runs of our own just to figure out how long does it take to get from one end of the corridor to the other. What are we looking at today? And it's not bad today, but it's right at that edge. So it's about four or five minutes to travel from one end to the other, but when we look at growth to 2040 as traffic continues to increase and we get redevelopment in the area, that's when we have that problem—particularly for that southbound direction that I flagged there. We go from about five minutes to about 22 if we do nothing. That congestion will build and grow, and we will have major problems. So those were the ones that we found. [43:40] Bryant Ficek: The ones on the bottom are public issues of what we heard, and key items were the vehicle speeds—particularly southbound coming off the bridge, people gain speed. We do have some changeable message or the dynamic speed displays out there, but what else can we do to try to help slow vehicles down? So that was one public issue. Crossings was brought up quite a bit—just being able to physically cross the street. Where are those opportunities to get from one side to the other for people who live on one side and want to go to a business on the other, or just to a friend's house, wherever that might be? The third one there is a picture from our traffic simulation, but this again is a public issue that was brought up: the traffic flow. It overlaps with our mobility data, but it also talks about people just trying to enter or exit Highway 61 from the side streets—so how do they move about on and off of the highway? And then last one: the aesthetics. We want to make it more than a highway; it shouldn't be something that people just go through. It needs to be a place, it needs to have that recognition that people are in Hastings. You come here, you want to be here, and the highway is a part of it. So those were the public issues and then the other issues we found through our data. [44:28] Bryant Ficek: All right. So again, not putting the whole layout here, but taking those issues and then in terms of what we propose to do about them: for safety, we're looking to reduce conflicts and better manage those conflicts where they exist. So for safety, just like it says up there, we're looking at access management, how we control traffic at intersections, and then sidewalks and trails, particularly at the south end where there's nothing out there today; proposing them is going to help people walk or bike to get around. Mobility: our two bullet points there are signal and geometric improvements, and that is where we looked at where do we need to add infrastructure for vehicle movements. Right turn lanes—particularly I'll point out that southbound right turn lane to 55—it's inadequate today, we need to make that better. Same thing I heard a lot about getting tricked as you head towards the County Road; there's a parking bay there and people will pull over thinking it's a right turn lane, but it's not. And that's where we wanted to... we need to put that right turn lane in to make that movement go. Vehicle speeds: what we're looking at for that issue is trying to make the corridor somewhat feel a little more confined, and that's where we looked at eliminating parking along there, what other things we could do with striping, different signing—there's some different things that we looked at again to talk to that issue of trying to control those speeds and make it a slower corridor as they come through. For the crossings, again that access management helps us out to eliminate the driveways; there's less conflicts with vehicles as people are just walking along Highway 61. And then where we have those crossings, we wanted to put in the wider medians for a refuge island so that when you are crossing, you only have to do one direction at a time. You're not looking for a gap in both directions; cross one side at a time, get in the middle, get your break, now you look the other way and go. For traffic flow, we know we will need some signal improvements in terms of timing, making sure those are operating as efficiently as possible. And then we also looked at some of the intersection controls—again at the south end, we have proposed some roundabouts, all to make that work better to be able to facilitate people again on and off the highway as well as those moving through. And then with our community enhancements, we identified different spots where we have placemaking opportunities where we can provide more art if wanted, benches, whatever it might be. We'll have more discussions on that later. Also carrying forward either the lighting or the herringbone pattern, again trying to take that sense of place from either downtown or other areas and blend that into the corridor. [47:33] Bryant Ficek: One thing that is not on here specifically but obviously a big deal is the wall at Todd Field. We spent a lot of time evaluating that, first trying to figure out what is its condition today, and then looking at it in terms of these issues: safety and mobility and what needs to be done there. And that's where we came to the recommendation of needing to move the wall. So not only to—it's going to sound weird—but not only to try to save it in essence, because there is no long-term maintenance for that; it is going to slowly deteriorate over time. So it needs to be improved from that aspect, but then that also provides us room for these improvements like that right turn lane, like a full-size sidewalk so people can adequately walk in that area. The last bullet on here is just aging public utilities. This is one again, nod to the city: if we're going to do all these improvements on the road, great time for the city to get out there and do their utilities at the same time. So that is the overall summary of the vision we had. [49:06] Bryant Ficek: So getting back to engagement: I'm proud of our engagement on this one. I think we as a team, and then in partnership with the city, I think our engagement was really good on this one. So we did have our three public meetings; they were both in-person and virtual. Before the meetings happened, we tried to get word out as much as possible—lots of postcards, lots of social media interaction, we had radio announcements, occasionally we did some interviews for that. We had the changeable message sign out here to announce those. Did our best to get the word out about the meetings, and I think that showed in the responses that we got. So lots of attendance, particularly on this last meeting. Over 850 official comments received. And those are beyond the talking we did at the public meetings; those are ones that people actually took the time to either write down at the meeting or submit online. Again, great back and forth there. Had our Council meetings obviously, we had a booth at RiverTown Days last year. Door knocking is an aspect that sometimes gets overlooked, but our team went out there a couple times just walking up and down the corridor, stopping at every business. If there were people there willing to talk, they did so; if they weren't, they had information that they could drop off. Again, just trying to get that word out about what we were doing and the plans for it. And then just our conversations with the business associations and the School District. [50:39] Bryant Ficek: So that covers what you already know, or at least a lot of it and what we've done. And so now what I want to go into is since that meeting, since our last Council meeting, we did have that open house and what we followed up from there is looking through the official meeting comments—we had about 160 of them. And so it was going through those comments as well as the notes we took from the meeting, and just how does that impact what we had? What are those comments saying—good ones, bad ones—and there were definitely some that brought up some interesting points for us to think about. The second bullet point down here is I think the most important one here is just that continued engagement. And so the map below just shows about a dozen stars where we, I and my team, followed up with businesses or residents and had that one-on-one meetings or a couple times it was a group—whomever it was, it was those direct contacts to then go and talk with them, listen to their issues, explain our point of view, and just see where that led. And sometimes that caused us to go back and reanalyze some things; other times they may not have been happy with us, but they understood our position and what we were trying to do. And so those were the follow-ups from there. We did follow up with the School District as well and presenting that plan to them. But after all those comments, after those discussions, we took that information back and we didn't just stick with what we had; we reevaluated and thought okay, where does it make sense for us to look at this again? What points have they brought up that are important for us to look at and potentially change before we finalize the study? And so that's what I will go through next. [52:57] Bryant Ficek: In our four areas, we'll start with the downtown area. The first one: so originally, again thinking of vehicle speeds, we did not have this southbound right turn lane; we were thinking we could take that away, we would narrow the corridor up, that would provide that visual cue for people coming down and again help with speeds. But through the comments, through looking at it again, this connection to 3rd Street is a key way to get to the downtown area. And instead of taking that right turn away, we need to highlight it more. And so that right turn came back in here, and then we went back to what we're looking at in terms of signing—are there going to be ways that again we can make that more known, direct people that way, get them down to downtown area better? So that was definitely a key item that has changed. The second bullet point on there: the downtown parking area. We heard that a bunch from a few of the businesses. When we take away parking, what are they going to do? Where are those opportunities going to be? And as much as I would not want to park on 61—and I don't—there are people who still do that and they go to those businesses there, and we don't want to leave them without that parking. And this is where the city stepped up, and they are looking for other local, same-block opportunities. So this is where our partnership is going to come into play again, looking for those opportunities where they can park, and we can come back to those businesses and say yes, we may remove it from 61, but here is a spot that we can go to. [54:29] Bryant Ficek: In the Midtown area, we had a number of changes as well. The first one on there: so 10th Street, we originally had that as a T-intersection—we were going to cut off that west side completely. And through comments, through some of the residents and others in the area, talking with the School District as well, we went back to reevaluate that and determined that it would be better for this to be a one-way to the west. So if you're northbound on 61, you can still turn in that area, or southbound you can take that right turn; you would not be able to go eastbound. It would be a one-way only. Where this helps the School District out is we could still close that, reverse the direction of the flow for the school buses that come through, and they would be able to use that much as they do today and go through that area. So it helps from our flow—general flow—it actually helped in this 10th and 55 area in terms of the operations, and then it helps with the School Districts and their current operations as well. So that was a win-win change for everyone; everyone seemed to appreciate that one. [56:02] Bryant Ficek: The other changes come around the 12th Avenue or from 55 to 14th. And so the first one is with the DQ and the Dunkin' Donuts mall there: to make room for that northbound left turn lane, we needed to extend that. There's a lot of traffic that goes that way; it's not possible for us to put in dual lefts, so we need to extend the single left that we have. And we had originally made all those driveways right-in, right-out, and we had a long discussion about what is that travel pattern then, what have we done to those businesses in terms of people trying to get to that area. And as we looked at it, it was much too far—they would have had to go down to 15th, loop back around, and then head back northbound to get to those driveways. It ends up being like eight or nine blocks, and nobody's going to do that. So that was a good point for them that was bringing it to our attention of what we were doing to that travel path. Went back, reevaluated it, and we were able to open up that southbound left turn so to the south driveway of the Dunkin', they now have that entrance and they'll be able to go in that way. We've talked with the property owner there; they will be able to restripe that to change that flow, that will work better with their drive-through, and then they already have a cross-easement with the Dairy Queen—their one driveway is on Dairy Queen property. So we'll be able to go back in based on that and look at okay, can they come through on the back side to get to the Dairy Queen? So we're helping both of those businesses out by this change. [58:34] Bryant Ficek: So the other one on the west side then: looking at that mall area again. Lots of right-ins, right-outs, and recognizing that we needed to do better just in terms of getting people into that parking lot. And so this is where we opened up kind of opposite the southbound left, and to the other side we now have that northbound left to get into the mall area. So opening that up for them allows again looking at the travel patterns: how are people going to get there? We've now opened up that area that can get them in. The other thing we talked about was 12th Street. With the plan, without that direct access to 12th, that would be an opportunity for the city to vacate that back to the mall. They could use that for parking, that could be a right-in, right-out entrance, and then as they look at their overall plan, they can now emphasize where that left turn comes in, have directions, get them to either side of the mall. Again, looking at it from the mall angle, they now have that direct access in, and then they can use their internal flow restriping to get through—making adjustments to help them get into the property and still maintain our safety and mobility goals. Our left turn lane to 55 is still lengthened, and we are still able to create some of those right-in, right-outs, move some of those conflicts and manage them better. The last change on this one was for House of Wine, Duff's Meats. We had a meeting with them, and originally we were looking at closing one other access, leaving one open, and they would have their left-in and right-in, right-out at the one entrance. And talking with them about how their trucks move through there—how do they get deliveries, where do they come in and out—and through those conversations and then going back and reevaluating, what I'm circling there in red is an entrance only that allows those trucks to turn in, go right to the back where the loading docks are. So again, them bringing up how their trucks move, us taking that back, reevaluating, trying to figure out how we could do it—we were able to come up with a compromise position that still allows for their movements and protects our mobility and safety goals. [1:00:52] Bryant Ficek: Moving on to the Vermillion area: had a long discussion, long reevaluation about 16th Street. We originally closed the median there, turning that into a right-in, right-out. And this was another one where we met with Merchants Bank and talked about how their customers come in, how their clients move in and out, and what does that mean specifically for them. And one thing that they pointed out on this one is just if you do not turn at 15th and you continue south, and if you don't have that left turn, you're going to move back—you might turn at 17th, but you don't have the full grid system here. So now you're coming back to 15th. Do they know to turn in early or use the alley? How do they get into that area? So looking at that travel pattern, we recognize that okay, not ideal obviously from their standpoint, took it back, reanalyzed it, and came up with the conclusion that we would be able to allow this in. It doesn't significantly impact our safety and mobility goals, provides them a better option than what we had before. For Ardent Mills, very cool place, I'm glad we had that meeting out there—I recommend anyone getting out there. We are closing their direct access to 61; that was part of our plan here. We went out and met with them, talked about their operations, how are their trucks moving back and forth. They were appreciative of the potential signal at 18th as part of this plan, but our original talk was well, with their operations, they would still like that direct access. By the end of the meeting, what we had got to is that we can still close those, and they need to look at their own operations and then we can figure out how to better work with them for access to 18th. So this was a spot where we really did not want to bend on this one—we want those direct accesses closed—but we have the opportunity to look at 18th and to help them out that way. That might mean a new access, that might mean a different way to come off of 18th; they're still in the process of figuring that out and we will continue to work with them on that. But again, a very good discussion that we'll see where that leads us. And then the last one, just the frontage road concept: had some meetings with businesses in this area and I think the main thing here is we're just showing the concept. So the idea is to have this backage road, frontage road, and that connection to 23rd. Where that exactly lies—should it be pushed farther east, should it come up closer—those are all details that we can figure out later. And that was again good discussions that we had with some of the businesses in that area to let them know that what we have drawn here is not in stone; it's the idea that we're trying to get across that we want to create this road for your access and help people get around outside of the highway. [1:03:59] Bryant Ficek: All right. The last update: so in the South Town area, we are recommending the roundabout for this one. It does have the dual lanes and you can see on the picture getting really close to these homes in this area. And moving forward with the roundabout, we would not want those homes there. It's a tough conversation to have with anybody, but we specifically went out there, we left letters—specific letters—to talk to them and then was able to follow up with two out of the three there, directly talk about the plan, let them know what's coming forward. We haven't made any changes to what we have proposed here, but I just wanted to point out that we had those extra discussions, try to get them prepared for, hey, this is coming forward just be aware. I don't want to be knocking on your door in two years and have it be a surprise. So we did our best to make sure that those residents know what's coming forward and know what our proposal is here. And they were good conversations too; they were again understanding of our point of view, understanding of the need for change in this area, and somewhat supportive even if it does directly impact them of what we're doing. [1:06:01] Bryant Ficek: So this is just a graph that we've had before just to show where we are. We are getting towards the end, trying to finalize this month our study—the Vision Plan and the study. And then that next box is moving into the scoping and funding opportunities, and then we continue down the line towards that 2027 construction. The important thing again I'll point out is just the public engagement—I think it has been really good to this point, and as the arrow shows, we plan to keep it going. So we will continue working with the chamber, business associations, continue working with the School District as we fill out the plans as we move forward with those different things. But we are in that transition now of trying to wrap up the study, close that portion, and then move into our next phase. So what that means in terms of next steps here—which will pretty much cover us for the rest of this year—finalize the report. Like I just said, we do have identified some costs on there: approximately 25 million; if you add on the city utilities it's another 5 million, and then some of those community space enhancements would be on top of that that could be included with the plan or come separately. MnDOT does have about 10 million already programmed for this project and there will be cost-share through our policy, but that's one of the next steps I will get to is just going for those funding opportunities. One thing I will point out is we have extended our consultants' contract—we just sent that out to him today to sign—for two aspects. The first one is a corridor simulation. Some of you might remember that from 316—it was very helpful then, so we added it onto this one. So we'll be able to get that corridor simulation, show what's going to happen; that'll help us with our engagement as we move forward. The second part of that contract is for assistance on funding opportunities. And one of the reasons we're coming here tonight is those opportunities are right around the door; they're coming up here quickly. So we have three listed here that we've identified for sure: State Bonding Request that Ryan will get to later but that's due this month, I believe; Safe Streets for All, that application has a due date in July; and then the Rural Surface Transportation Grant—that one hasn't been announced yet but we're kind of expecting it any day at this point. So right away we've got stuff coming out the door. We wanted that assistance from our consultant to make sure we're prepared for it. And from my point of view, I don't particularly care whether it's MnDOT applying for it or the city applying for it; I want to continue moving forward in that partnership to find the funding for this project and again make it as best we can. And then the last bullet point on there is just updating some internal stuff for MnDOT, making sure that everything we have here is also reflected in our internal documents, our internal plans for the project, and keep that going forward. All right. So with that, that's the end of my presentation. Again, I want to thank everyone again for your help and assistance as we move through, and if there are any questions, I am more than happy to answer them. Thank you. [1:09:06] Lisa Leifeld: Thank you, your honor. Bryant, that was awesome. Thank you. I've been surprisingly getting a lot of questions about this project, and every question I had you answered, except for that roundabout that we're talking about. Are we talking like a full-size roundabout here? Like a big, full-size roundabout, right? [1:09:52] Bryant Ficek: Yes, so what's showing on there... another question in this... the green is the big normal mound that you see on the full-sized ones. You would not be able to see all the way across, you have to go around it. [1:09:52] Lisa Leifeld: Got it. [1:09:52] Bryant Ficek: We have one at 316, we proposed another one at 36th. Okay, so that would be the other one that is a part of the plan. Again, full-size, single-lane, yes. [1:10:37] Jen Fox: Thank you, your honor. I would really like to thank you for being so engaged with our business community and thank you for incorporating, or keeping I should say, that right turn lane down into the downtown. I know for a long time they had been hoping that we could get a big blue sign up, you know, that says "Go Downtown," and so thank you, thank you, thank you for that and working with them. Also in the Midtown section, my biggest concern was just the comments that you're beginning to say about the intersection at 18th Street with Ardent Mills. And you didn't commit yourself to a controlled intersection there at 18th Street with a signal, and so... did I hear you right? So you're not at this time planning to put a controlled intersection at 18th Street? [1:11:23] Bryant Ficek: We're proposing a signal there. [1:11:23] Jen Fox: You are? Okay, good, because it was gonna have a lot of heartburn. [1:11:23] Bryant Ficek: Okay. So there are some steps we have to do for MnDOT in order to... there's additional reports we have to do, we have to show them our justification, we'll probably have to do more counts. But as part of this vision, there's a signal at 18. [1:11:43] Jen Fox: Terrific. And then as you go up on the other side of the Vermillion River, like where the Applebee's is and such, and so that's also a really bad trouble spot where folks can't get across. And so could you just talk about that for a moment? So you're going to put in a divided lane so that folks can't take... they can't take a left turn? So they're going to go like... how do they turn around? Because already that's like a huge challenge in that Midtown section there. Am I in the right area? [1:12:30] Bryant Ficek: Yeah, so you are. And you know what, I can't remember off the top of my head what the names of the streets are there. So 21st... where the median opens is 23rd, and then right-in, right-out at 24th, and then 25th is open again. [1:13:15] Jen Fox: Terrific. And then so how are... like at this point if you were... I know you can't tell where the Applebee's is, but like if you're in the upper right corner? Yes, there, exactly. Oftentimes like you need to already take... if you wanted to go northbound you have to actually take a right turn and like sometimes you gotta go all the way down to the Ice Arena over there and turn around to come back. And so how are you proposing that folks flow through this area if they need to go... [1:13:15] Bryant Ficek: So if you're coming from the Applebee's, the idea would be to come on... and I'm forgetting the name of the street now... [1:13:15] Mary Fasbender: Cannon. [1:13:15] Bryant Ficek: Cannon, thank you. Cannon. And you could come back to 23rd. So similar to how we've done others in downtown where we had right-in, right-out at like on some of those public streets, we're trying to do the same thing here to consolidate some of the movements into one area and put them... [1:13:15] Jen Fox: Would that be a controlled intersection then at 23rd? [1:13:15] Bryant Ficek: So at 23rd, we've talked about this: we're proposing a signal there. I will say this one might be a little harder to justify, so we're still proposing it, we want to move forward with it. But again, as we continue with the process, it might be a little harder for me to push that one through. But it is in this plan. [1:14:02] Jen Fox: Okay. All right, well thank you for that. I guess you would have to go up to the roundabout that would eventually be there and then do the roundabout and come back down otherwise, if it wasn't a controlled intersection. That would be an option as well. Okay, wonderful. Thank you, I appreciate the entirety andness on this, I really do. [1:14:02] Angie Haus: One question I had was on the south side of town on the roundabout. There are a few houses that we had mentioned before... yes, the few houses that feel affected there. Is there any planned or way that those houses could be saved, by chance, in that spot? Or the structure themselves—like moving the structure, taking the house and moving it? [1:14:49] Bryant Ficek: So with this plan, no. Unfortunately, it's... well one, you're awful close—we are moving the road up. I mean, there's not much distance between the road and their house; I don't know that you would want to live there in the first place. But then having that driveway in there with the volume coming through here, it's just not a situation we want. So if we were going to, with this plan, if we're going to take the right-of-way there because we need right-of-way—we don't have enough room—it would be a total take and it would be better for them and for the project. [1:15:37] Angie Haus: Bryant, along that same line, as long as you're on it, do you assist in helping purchase their homes or is that solely on them? [1:15:37] Bryant Ficek: No, so it would be for the project. So MnDOT would be the ones to facilitate that and move forward, and we have a right-of-way group that does that. We are well in advance of their process, so there's nothing to do right now, but like I said, we didn't want this to be a surprise so we tried to make sure to get out in front of it, let them know and just make sure they're aware of the proposal. [1:15:37] Angie Haus: Thank you. [1:16:23] Dave Pemble: Bryant, going to the 36th Street roundabout and looking to the south there, traffic comes in at a good 60 miles an hour right now northbound. What kind of information, signage—what are we going to do at the south end of town as people are approaching this roundabout at a pretty fast pace? You know, we need to get them to say "slow down" and drastically slow down, because here's a roundabout right here. [1:17:10] Bryant Ficek: And so we don't have designs yet; design will come in the next stage. But what I can say on that, what we'd be looking to do is change the dynamic as people are coming up. So as you're driving northbound, you're in a rural area—you have wide shoulders, lots of right-of-way. We would transition that to an urban section, so start bringing that in. You'd have the curbs, we'd have an island—splitter island, striping—confine those lanes. All to try to develop all these indications to people that you are entering a different area. And then, much to the point of an earlier question, you would be able to see the roundabout ahead because we would have it full-sized with the mound on there that you would see well in advance, along with the signing then to slow you down. So we're thinking of it as more of a gateway into the city that you would see well in advance. The character would change from rural wide-open to urban, a little more confined. You are in the city now, slow down. [1:17:57] Dave Pemble: I guess the point I was trying to make is the city limits are so close to 36th Street there in that location that there's not a lot of, I'll say, coast down time without some real notification and some highlighting that this is going to change. And I hear what you're saying about creating an urban setting and then pull everything in, but that's going to have to be done considerably out from that intersection is what I'm trying to make sure... [1:18:44] Bryant Ficek: And I agree with you, and that's where again I can't tell you specifically what that distance is, but having worked with our geometric design group, they specifically look at stuff like that and how far back do we need to carry it to set that in motion. [1:18:44] Dave Pemble: Thank you. [1:18:44] Jen Fox: Thank you, your honor. I'm going to bring us back to Midtown. I have heard a few concerns from residents about 9th Street. I mean, I think turning 10th Street into westbound only would solve some of that concern, because the concern is that 9th Street then becomes a "highway," right, that cuts over to 55. So I just wanted to thank you for that amendment and also just clarify: do you believe that this one-way going western only... I didn't want to get it wrong... will alleviate that stress on 9th Street? [1:19:31] Bryant Ficek: Yes, and that was one of the reasons we heard those comments as well. And so that was one of the reasons we took a look at the area in trying to think of the overall travel patterns: where are people going to go? How are they going to move through this area? As we reevaluated it, that's where it made sense to us to... we need to open this back up as part of that. [1:20:17] Jen Fox: Thank you. I really value your engagement with our community. Thank you. [1:20:17] Jen Fox: One last question about Todd Field there now that you have it, and so I heard you say that it needs to be completely rebuilt, right, because it's falling and all of that. And so are you going to actually move the wall in a little bit then so that you can actually create a better bright lane? [1:21:03] Bryant Ficek: There's two instances... I don't have that graphic here, but the wall today is almost at a 45-degree angle. By simply straightening it up, we gain about four feet, four and a half feet. We still need a little bit more, so it'll probably come into the field two or three feet—I don't have the final distance yet, again that'll be fully determined as we move through. But that was a major discussion with the School District, obviously, and those couple extra feet they thought would be fine. Thinking again about all the other aspects of making sure we move the scoreboard—you know, that would be part of the project then—and as well as the historical aspects of the wall. Do we take the tunnel entrance and does that become part of the new wall through things like that that we can do as well as making sure we have a little bit higher net so that nobody's kicking onto the highway. [1:21:48] Jen Fox: Okay. All right. And then in the end, does MnDOT continue to have ownership? Was there ever any discussion about turning over the wall so that it's actually owned by the School District? [1:22:34] Bryant Ficek: I don't know that the School District would want it and I don't think MnDOT wants the School District to have it. Right now the right-of-way line is about on the halfway point of the wall, and I think we've each been pointing at each other as to, well, it's yours to handle. So as part of this project, we would clarify that, move the right-of-way line and make sure that it is MnDOT's to maintain because it's holding up our highway, so that it is ours. [1:22:34] Jen Fox: And you'll have a sidewalk then there? [1:22:34] Bryant Ficek: We'll have a sidewalk. Because I've heard them in the past that during the winter time... and we've been trying to be a little bit more vigilant about upholding our snow removal policies, and that particular spot is kind of a point of contention because it's technically owned by MnDOT and so it's not owned by the city, and so it's not for the city to clean that sidewalk then, it's for MnDOT to clean that sidewalk. And so I just would like to raise that issue because when we have a lot of snowfall, that particular corner of Highway 55 becomes kind of hard to traverse for pedestrians. And so if you're going to own it, then I would ask that you maintain it then. And I know that's not within your purview, but for that to be brought up and for a conversation with internally within your staff... [1:23:20] Bryant Ficek: There will be more conversation as we move forward about maintenance and everything because, as it stands for the moment, usually MnDOT has an agreement with the cities and puts that back to the cities to do. We just... we don't have equipment to do that. If it stays that way as we move forward, we'll find out if we... as part of our negotiations if we figure out something else that could go too. So there will definitely be agreements about how that is maintained and particularly about snow clearance. [1:23:20] Jen Fox: Okay, wonderful. Thank you. [1:24:05] Jen Fox: Your honor, I would like to move the resolution to support the recommended project scope for improvements to Highway 61. [1:24:05] Mary Fasbender: Thank you, Councilmember Fox. Second? [Seconded]. New discussion, Council? [1:24:05] Dave Pemble: Bryant, I'd like to ask one question: in the 10th Street westbound, how wide of a roadway are we talking about? Narrowing—are we just going to cut the roadway in half and say it's 10 foot or 12 foot wide going westbound? [1:24:51] Bryant Ficek: I would envision that it would be narrowed. We're not just going to turn it into one-way. In terms of the actual width, I think that is up for debate and we will have those conversations and figure that out together. [1:24:51] Dave Pemble: Because the question I pose is the historic wall that comes down around from Eddy Street on both sides there and how that would be affected... depending on where the roadway is, will that historic wall have to be dealt with? Or is there going to be a sidewalk in there between the historic wall and where the new road exists? [1:25:39] Bryant Ficek: The two things I would say about that is when we deal with the wall that's along 61, that may have tails that go around the corner, so we will have to figure that out. But in terms of how 10th Street is, I would envision that moving further away from the wall. Just thinking about where traffic goes when they're going westbound, they're on that north side of the road. So again, don't know exactly what the width would be, but would envision the south curb moving north, creating more space. [1:26:00] Dan Wietecha: Bryant, I met with the Chair of our Arts and Culture Commission this morning coincidentally. Certainly appreciative of some of the aesthetics, attention to several placemaking nodes throughout there, but I know they would be very appreciative of being within the scope of the project and some of the planning sooner rather than later or after the projects. I just wanted to voice support for including that earlier in the project. [1:26:48] Bryant Ficek: Yeah, absolutely. Thank you. [1:26:48] Mary Fasbender: There is a motion, and all those in favor of the motion, state by saying aye. [Ayes] Opposed to that motion, state by saying nay. That motion prevails. Once again, Bryant, thank you for your engagement with our businesses along with Christy and Ryan, and I was fortunate to go on some of those calls and I think businesses appreciated it and I think it's it's good exposure for our community to see that we do work well together. [1:26:48] Bryant Ficek: I agree. Thank you very much. [1:26:48] Mary Fasbender: Thanks. It's under Parks and Rec. We have a Veterans Athletic Complex and the Hastings Civic Arena planning studies. Welcome Mr. Jenkins again. [1:27:34] Chris Jenkins: Well thanks for having me back, I appreciate it. Mayor and Council, thank you again. Tonight asking Council to support and approve two planning processes: one, as you mentioned, for Vets Athletic Complex redevelopment and expansion; and the other for a re-envisioning plan at the Ice Arena, updating that facility, bringing it into the current times and how it's able to serve our community for the next 30 to 50 years. In your packet there's a lot of information about both of these. What we're proposing is to engage with ISG Inc., a very well-respected and very experienced consulting firm that we're currently working with on a couple of different things, in two planning processes: one for Vets with a total price of about fifty-eight thousand dollars, and one for the Hastings Civic Arena with a, again, a not-to-exceed price of twenty-eight thousand dollars. These planning processes really look at the needs and the facilities and the footprints and start to develop those plans of what can be done in the future. What are future projects that we could do to enhance these facilities? The Arena is already an economic driver for the City of Hastings; when we have tournaments there, a lot of folks come spend money in our community. And that facility is 1974 and 1998, so it's time. And Vets Athletic Complex needs to be redeveloped to be able to centralize our competitive athletic facilities and really truly make that an economic development, economic impact facility for the City of Hastings. Beyond that, in the future, with further design and engineering, we come to what the actual project would look like. Out of this plan we'll get some opinions of probable costs or engineers' estimates for what those phases could look like in each individual planning project. But as you get into where they actually put everything into a CAD design and you're putting the bolts where they're supposed to go in the building and you're putting the irrigation pipe in the ground where it's supposed to go—there's different planning processes for that. So this really is the first step in the process, and to be able to get to stage two, we need to be able to do this. So what I would recommend is engage with ISG in 2023 for the Vets planning process, and then engage with ISG in 2024 as part of our budget process for the Ice Arena. Staff capacity is a big part of that, and timing of some of the other projects that are involved currently. So that's my proposal. Council certainly can change that up; we can flip it and start the Arena in '23 and Vets in '24, you can do them both in '23, we can do them both in '24. My recommendation again is Vets in '23—that would be using park dedication funding—and in '24 do the Arena, and that would just be a standard budget process item. So with that, I can stand for any questions. [1:30:34] Jen Fox: Thank you, your honor. Chris, thank you for providing some of the detail of these studies and such. And so when I was looking at both for the Civic Arena, you have a package A and then package B, and then the same for the Vets Park. And so my question is this: so the package A is the scoping of the project, doing the needs assessment and working with stakeholders, and then the second package would be the actual systems design and such. And so I was wondering... so in both instances when it talks about the package A doing the needs assessment, it says that it would be working with the city project manager and minimal key stakeholders involvement only. And so could you please speak to that a little bit about why would we have minimal key stakeholders involvement only for both? [1:32:07] Chris Jenkins: So the key stakeholders for the Ice Arena are going to be the High School, the Hastings Hockey Association, Riverblade Skating School—the major folks that use that facility along with our staff. This isn't the full-blown go out into the community and ask everybody. If we want to do that, we can add that on—it does come with a price. But the folks that use that facility and visit many, many other facilities as a hockey parent or a skating parent, they have all of those ideas. So the board from Hastings hockey boosters, the coaches from the High School, some of the youth coaches would be involved in that process. [1:32:52] Jen Fox: Okay. I would just like to make sure that there's the three hockey associations: there's the boosters for the boys in High School, and then there's the Hockey Association for boys, and then there's the girls' associations—to make sure that all three of them are properly engaged in that process. And so I just wanted to point that out so that the girls don't get missed. [1:32:52] Chris Jenkins: They're our biggest customers, so we will make sure that they are. [1:33:38] Jen Fox: I know, and you have wonderful, beautiful daughters and so I know that you wouldn't miss them, but I have to say it out loud. Very athletic ones at that. Okay, great. And so as I have mentioned in the past, I really feel very strongly that if we're going to be doing the renovations in 2024 for the ice rink, that we should be engaging with stakeholders presently so that we're moving forward more comprehensively into the future and having a plan for how it is that we're going to do that design work. We most clearly do not have money to do anything about Vets Park in 2024 when we're going to have to take out a major investment—probably will have to bond for the renovations at the ice rink. And so I would make a strong proposal for reversing your order and having the stakeholder engagement first with the Ice Arena as we're moving now into making those facility upgrades into 2024. And because we already need to do many of the things that you have here in your package B where we need to do the review of systems (mechanical, plumbing, electrical, structural, technology), we need to do design and engineering and all of the sub-reports that are within that, and then the permitting, the bidding and the construction administration. So rather than having two goes at it, it's much more cost-effective and efficient to do planning up front in engagement with stakeholders and then move forward. And we've talked about possibly doing a phased approach, right, where we do the refrigeration for sure in the West rink now and then we look at what do we do about the East roof, the roofing and over the lobby and such? Particularly if we want to do changes to the lobby, now would be the time to do that. You wouldn't want to put a new roof over the lobby and then expand it, right? I mean that would just be silly. And so I just... I would make a motion to promote that we do the ice rink stakeholder engagement survey in 2023 and then do the Vets Park in 2024 for planning in 2025. You know, we had also had conversations about perhaps in the future we would bring to the community the option of an additional sales tax to help pay for some of the improvements that we would like to have made at Vets Park and the trails and such. And I think that it's not going to be feasible for us to try to move forward with that plan in the next legislative year because of issues that we as a Council haven't had the opportunity to talk about at the end of the legislative session this last year, which was just a couple weeks ago. In the House, they tabled all of the sales tax bills; the person who was chairing that said she wanted to have a side group to investigate further those issues. And in the Senate as well, I think that they were tabled as well. And so it's probably not going to be feasible for us to bring forward a sales tax initiative in the next year or two. And so that would be a perfect time for us then in 2024 to really get our arms around what do we want to do with Vets Park, and then looking forward like in 2025-2026, then maybe then it would be feasible to bring something forward to the community and ask for a sales tax at that time. We just know we have to deal with the ice rink now, and we hope to deal with Vets Park and making that a greater facility for our community into the future. [1:37:30] Chris Jenkins: Thank you, Councilmember Fox. And to be clear, what's proposing here is package A for both of them. I wanted to show you what package B was, and those are completely unknown costs other than a percentage of what the construction cost would be. So package A is what we're talking about and looking at it—yes, for future projects we need to get the plan done, figure out financing, need to plan for what project's next. [1:38:18] Dave Pemble: Chris, you know when you're talking about package A and both of those, and I look at it and say, you know, both of those properties have been very well used over the time that they've been part of the city and we need to start addressing those things. And in order to do that, we have to have a starting point, and that starting point is a study to find out what we can do and what it will cost us. And so I would be very supportive of moving the study process forward for both programs. [1:39:04] Mary Fasbender: Chris, I guess I have a question: is one more involved with staff than the other? If we have so many projects going on in our Parks Department as we do, I want to be mindful of what your team can deal with. [1:39:04] Chris Jenkins: Actually, I think each of these processes is going to have staff involvement in a variety of different ways. I couldn't tell you that one is going to require more staff time than the other; it may just be different staff. Certainly I'll be involved with them, but our Arena Manager and facility supervisor, our sports and rec and programming folks—those types of delegations would happen. But yeah, we do kick off the trail wayfinding signage study tomorrow. [1:40:16] Jen Fox: Thank you. I'll make a motion to move ahead with the Ice Rink study in 2023 and the Vets Park complex study in 2024. [1:40:16] Mary Fasbender: Second? [1:40:16] Jen Fox: [Seconded by Councilmember Haus]. [1:40:16] Mary Fasbender: New discussion, Council? Okay. All those in favor of that motion, stay by saying aye. [Ayes] Opposed to that motion, state by saying nay. [Nays] Motion prevails. Very good, thank you. Thank you, Director. Under Community Development, we have a resolution for a transfer of property in the industrial park for HEDRA: 3000 Lightbourn Court. Thank you again, John. [1:41:03] John Hinzman: Thank you, Mayor, City Council members. So actually before you tonight is the transfer of the property, as the Mayor denoted here. This is a one-acre property that's located in Lightbourn Court. Lightbourn Court is the cul-de-sac north of 31st Street that has this mini-storage place on it as well as Solid State. So there's two vacant properties that we own there. They've been a challenge to sell because they're smaller in size, a little bit secluded. We do have an offer to purchase one of the properties from Greg Lowe, who is looking to operate about a six-thousand-square-foot repair garage within the property itself. The property, as you know, is owned by the City of Hastings, however HEDRA is involved in reviewing land sales within the economic development realm, certainly within the industrial park. And then HEDRA also has special provisions under EDA statutes that allow them to have a clawback provision on the property if things are not built, which the City Council does not have. That being said, what we're asking tonight is for you to transfer the property—the one acre—from the city to HEDRA. At that point, HEDRA is scheduled to hold a public hearing coming up on June 15th to consider the sale of the property and then to look at the purchase agreement for sale of the property as well. Action by the City Council will be in the future here pertaining to land entitlements when the property comes forward; property will require special use permit review and site plan approval, so we'll have the Planning Commission review that in the future as well as City Council approval. Both of those would be preconditions of the sale of the property itself. With the property, the sale would be at a market price here at about $2.15 per square foot, which would generate about ninety-three thousand dollars in revenue for sale of that property. So again tonight, asking for your support in adopting the resolution approving the transfer of property from city to HEDRA, and I can stand for any questions. [1:43:22] Jen Fox: Thank you, John, for your presentation. And I'll make a motion to transfer that parcel of land over to HEDRA for the sale. [1:43:22] Mary Fasbender: Second? [1:43:22] Angie Haus: [Seconded]. [1:43:22] Mary Fasbender: Discussion, Council? Okay. All those in favor of the motion, state by saying aye. [Ayes] Opposed to that motion, state by saying nay. And that motion prevails. Thank you, John. Tonight we also have a resolution for the State Bonding. For this item we will have an introduction by City Administrator, Dan Wietecha. [1:44:07] Dan Wietecha: Thank you. Actually, we recommend three resolutions, but I think you can pick them all up in a single motion if so inclined. As alluded to earlier in the Highway 61 presentation, some of these grant or funding opportunities that we might seek are coming up really fast. The application deadline is actually June 16th, so about a week out to forward projects that we might want included in the state's 2024 capital bonding process. We've got three projects we propose, and consistent with the state's expectations, these are ranked. So these are also in the order that we recommend them in terms of priority. We're ranking at least first is the Civic Arena refrigeration and roof, which we discussed a couple of weeks ago, wanting to move that process forward essentially with or without the state, but it'd be very nice if they could pick up half of it. It is about a four and a half million dollar project. This is the refrigeration upgrades, the West rink roof, as well as the solar array on the West rink roof as discussed a couple of weeks ago. It deliberately does not include the roof over the locker rooms and the lobby; it leaves that piece separate, recognizing that there may be a phased approach for future enhancements beyond just a roof with those areas, so leaving that for future pieces. Other two pieces to note with the Civic Arena: one, this resolution, consistent with an expectation, a request—it's not a requirement of the state bonding, but they certainly like to see 50% match—we're potentially doing 100% of it; we proposed we would certainly cover 50%. The other piece wanting to be up front about—and we're meeting with legal and engineers later this week—is basically a design-build process through a piece of state statute that, for any energy efficiency project, allows a bit more control over that process rather than just a typical bid process. That helps with the control of the design for the project, but we want to be clear with that up front since it's probably not what the state bonding projects typically see. [1:46:28] Dan Wietecha: The second project is our expectations for PFAS treatment as well as the associated raw water piping. Our estimate for the six wells where preliminary design has basically three treatment facilities between those six wells—I think it also picks up the potential for a future well and piped into it also—is almost 62 million dollars. That's a budget-buster however you look at it. I have noted that even if we were asking for money—not a loan—but even if we had a zero-percent loan, principal payments only, spread it out over 20 years, we would be more than doubling our water rates just for the PFAS treatment—not how do you operate and manage it, not how do you maintain the existing system, not addressing inflation. We really are going to need help with this one. We're looking at a variety of funding sources. In this particular case, one of those funding sources is Senator Seeberger and Representative Hudella have indicated that they will introduce legislation next session to fund this directly. But politically it helps—sort of a belt-and-suspenders approach—to also have it in the State Bonding Request. So really this one is more of a political move rather than an actual application, but it's sort of that belt-and-suspenders piece. Other piece wanting to be up front is in this one, we are not proposing a 50% match; we're really asking for the complete funding. That said, we're looking at other funding sources beyond just this, but we don't want to let this pass by. [1:48:48] Dan Wietecha: The third one you should be pretty familiar with: Highway 61. As Bryant indicated earlier this evening, it's about a 30-million-dollar project. MnDOT currently has 10 million dollars allocated towards it, meaning there's still 20 million to come up with, and that includes the city's utility upgrades underneath it. So we're not missing out on the city portion of it. It is a '27 project. We're not really looking—if we could get it lined up it'd be great—but we're not really looking for funding next year. But as we've seen on a number of these capital projects, it's helpful to apply once or twice or even three times before the funding comes through. So this application again is more of a political approach, getting it out there in front of the legislature ahead of the actual need for the funding. So those are the three projects, and with that I can certainly stand for any questions. If it's a little extra technical, I've got Public Works and Parks and MnDOT and other representatives that can back me up, but recommend approval of those three resolutions please. Thank you. [1:49:35] Jen Fox: Thank you, your honor. I think it's critically important to apply for state funding on these projects and you've put together a great request. And thank you. We've had extensive conversation about each of these issues and conversation more so about the challenge of financing them, so I think this is a great start to answering that question. So I would like to make a motion to approve the three resolutions for the required applications for state bonding. [1:51:08] Mary Fasbender: Thank you, Councilmember Fox. And second by Councilmember Haus. Additional discussion? All those in favor of the motion, state by saying aye. [Ayes] Opposed to that motion, state by saying nay. And that motion prevails. Interim Ordinance of cannabis and cannabinoids. Dan, you may continue. [1:51:08] Dan Wietecha: Thank you. A week ago, the state passed massive—it's like two or three hundred pages of tiny fine-point print—new law legalizing adult-use marijuana. And there's a lot of nuances and quirks to it, and a lot of just a lot of material to read. And so really my recommendation, my request is: best we can, can we hit time-out and say give us six months? Maybe if you do it quicker we can shorten it, if we need more time we might ask to lengthen it. But can we have time to see how this 300-page law impacts—consistent where it's inconsistent—with our existing ordinances for zoning and licensing of cannabis businesses as well as the lower-dose THC businesses? It's not trying to stymy business or put anybody out; I recognize it would have a temporary impact while we have a chance to look at that. But really it's a matter of trying to understand what the new law says and how it interacts with what we have currently and trying to make it easier for everybody if we have some clear understanding to it. I do recognize that at least for the cannabis business portion of it, the new law requires that there would be a public hearing if you were under interim ordinance. So tonight really is just the first reading and scheduling of the public hearing. We would have the hearing and the second reading at our next meeting on the 26th. I can take questions. I would certainly defer questions also to legal counsel if so appropriate. [1:53:29] Lisa Leifeld: Thank you. We've had a lot of conversations about this, and I don't generally like to go against what staff recommends, and I certainly respect the time and effort that staff puts into these sort of conversations. But I would respectfully disagree with a recommendation. I will use Morgan, who presented some information to us—I will use the term "kicking the can down the street," and I think that's what this is. We're in no different position than anybody in the state, and I think we've done our due-diligence in waiting around to see what the state's going to do. I think we need to move forward to this, and at this point I think it would have a negative impact on business growth in the community as well as existing businesses' ability to thrive on something. And as indicated, for those who want to Google it and want to figure it out, it's 0.3% of active THC when we're talking, you know, in beverages. So I just really feel like at this point we'd be doing an injustice to the community if we said, "Hey yeah, you know what? Six more months." I just don't want to put everybody any further behind than they already are in the process. So respectfully, I would vote against a motion that would support this. [1:54:15] Dave Pemble: In listening to the discussion and trying to understand... what is everybody else doing? Are we just letting it slide and seeing how the chips fall? Or are communities saying, "Wait a minute, we need to re-look at this and figure out how what we have planned for this ordinance... how that state law is going to change all these things?" It's like okay, how do we... are we catching up or do we need to get a good handle on where we're going and then say move the ordinance forward? I'd like an answer please. [1:55:47] City Attorney: Your honor, members of the Council and Councilmember Pemble. This has been a bit of an adventure, and it is 320 pages of the legislation. I actually have it on my laptop because I'm referring to it all the time to try to figure out who gets to do what when and where. The problem is that if we do nothing, our ordinances both in licensing and zoning contain inconsistencies with the state law. There are portions of it... while all of the licensing ordinance is completely moot because we cannot license these uses at all, we can only register them. So our licensing ordinance is out the window, it's unenforceable. The zoning provisions have a lot of language in it that is inconsistent with the state law. They've added new definitions—we don't have those definitions in our code. They have new uses that I had never heard of these words before—a "mezzo business," a "micro business"—that they have definitions for based on size of the crop growth. Well, we didn't anticipate those kinds of uses would come forward in the legislation, so we don't account for them in our ordinances. We have a restriction specifically in zoning that says that no adult-use cannabinoid or cannabis product may contain more than 0.3% of THC. That in and of itself is a moratorium because we are more restrictive than state law, because state law says adult-use cannabis is 0.3% or more. So our ordinance restricts it to under 0.3% THC in order to be legal in the City of Hastings. State law says we can't prohibit adult-use cannabis. I don't know what to do with that language in our ordinance; I don't know if it's enforceable or not. I'm willing to gamble on it if the Council chooses not to adopt a moratorium—I would say that's fine, then nobody gets to sell anything more than an edible in the City of Hastings because that's what our ordinance says. But it leaves that room for interpretation, and I don't like that uncomfortable position. I would rather be consistent with state law. You put a lot of time and effort into figuring out where we want these uses to go based on the old law; we need to update it for the new one. And so nobody's in a position to be behind today because our implementation for our licensing was July 1st. Nobody's applied for one yet. We have the existing five probably that are still selling edibles that were doing so before we adopted our moratorium, so they got to continue to do that. The first time it puts them in a pause... they can continue to do what they're doing. But nobody else gets to come in until we get to figure out exactly what the legislature did, implement it appropriately. We have certain regulations that we have to follow with registration that we will have to completely, as I said, modify what we call the licensing ordinance. So I support a moratorium. I think we could get it done more quickly, but certainly six months gives us the wiggle room because it could be six months or sooner as soon as we adopt something. I already actually have people working on... the three cities that I represent have all adopted ordinances on this, and so I already have somebody working on: tell me where the inconsistencies are, tell me what we have to fix. So I'm putting together that spreadsheet right now based on what I know of the state law. But it just gives us time to figure it out and implement it appropriately. I don't think another three months or six months is going to harm any existing business, I really don't. Thank you. [1:59:39] Dan Wietecha: Just a quick add to the comment there about the length of the moratorium: if Council enacts as proposed, I'm anticipating that that study would be done in-house—staff, particularly legal—not sent to PSAC (Public Safety Advisory Commission)... pretty sure what they did before... not sent to the Public Safety Committee, but trying to streamline it and let's get through this quicker. It's more of a review for consistency; it's not let's survey the community and the businesses and come up with new ideas. It really is trying to make the ordinances consistent. The point I'm trying to make here is it's trying to do this quickly; it's not sending it to committee and prolonging the study more than it needs to be. [2:00:25] Dave Pemble: Counselor, I guess my question would be what would happen if left as is right now and we're working through it? Right, the ordinance is what it is right now, but we know there's going to be changes to it. How would that affect the ability of a new business to come in right now or the ability of an existing business to expand? What would be the effect right now the way it's written, because we do know there's changes coming? We have to do that—I'm just trying to decide why a moratorium, why we're pausing everything while we fix it. We do need to fix it, right? [2:01:10] City Attorney: The biggest rationale that I have and reason for doing a moratorium is that, unlike licensing, zoning has a grandfathering provision automatically in state law. And so if we don't update our code to be consistent with the law and somebody wants to come in and do something for a micro business or a mezzo business—again, which we did not anticipate being a word—in a zoning district that we can't anticipate because we don't have a use for it, they can do that. And then they get to continue to do that because we would be adopting our ordinances after they became an existing business, and so they're grandfathered in. That's my biggest concern—I like thoughtful planning, I like you to know what's coming because you decided on it, as opposed to somebody sort of sneaking in the back door and then being allowed to do it because state law lets them. So I think this just gives us time to hit the pause button to make sure we know exactly where everybody's going to go, where you want them to go, as opposed to them being able to just come in because we didn't know about that particular use in that particular spot. That would be my biggest argument for zoning—has special grandfathering rights. Licensing does not have that, but our licensing ordinance is completely ineffective, so that's not helpful. Thank you. [2:02:42] Angie Haus: Thank you, Counselor. I'd like to echo Councilmember Leifeld's moment there as well and I'd like to also say I respectfully disagree. I think we should not have a moratorium on this. It does affect businesses; there are already businesses like breweries who are using cannabis in their drinks and it is expanding their business. There are other cities that are already doing that and they're pushing the boundaries and they're getting further. I think that it keeps other businesses behind in our city and I disagree with that that it won't hurt businesses currently, because it already does hurt businesses currently with the ordinance that we have in place. So respectfully, I just disagree. Thank you. [2:03:28] Jen Fox: Thank you, your honor. I think an important point... I too have been paying attention to the 320 pages for all of the legislative session. I think it's a long... it's a lot to digest. But once the Office of Cannabis Management is up and running and licenses are being issued, the city is not allowed to not grant a license. So at some point that's going to conflict with the way we're processing things. I mean, we're not... like you mentioned, Counselor, we're not getting hundreds of requests right now. But I think part of the way that we're going to see more action on those requests is by the cost that's associated with the fees and the licensing fees that are associated with the legislation compared to what we have in place right now. So I... I mentioned this earlier to staff just so it's not a surprise, but I'm not in support of a moratorium either. I think one reason is these regulations right now are making business complicated and challenging, and we're seeing it send retail business out of town already. So like we said, there aren't hundreds of businesses who are trying to make business here right now, and part of the reason is the fee. And that is personal, from people that have talked to me about it. So those are my two cents. Thank you. [2:05:01] Lisa Leifeld: Thank you, honor. I was going to add that... thank you, Councilmember Fox, for bringing up that new office that's being put in place, and that there is a time period that's associated with... as they figure out the fine details about how the regulations are going to move forward and such. And so I'm not sure what the timelines are for that, but just from the interviews that I had heard through media, it sounded like that it's going to be months; it wasn't going to be like a couple of weeks, it was going to be months for them to get their ducks in a row as well. And so I think that there is time. And I know that the League of Minnesota Cities is working on this issue as well to provide advisement to cities. And I would like for us to take another look at the ordinance, because when the ordinances came forward, I wasn't present due to illness at one of the votes, and that was to restrict the cannabis from being incorporated into on-sale liquor establishments—I would have voted against that restriction. And then at the next meeting where we finalized what the fees were, I know another one of the councilmembers was not present that would have voted to probably reduce that as well. And so I think that we should be taking a hard look at what our fees are that are associated with this so that it's not making it such a high hurdle for local establishments to be able to engage. Just as a liquor establishment would in getting a liquor license, I don't think that we should be treating this that much differently to keep our businesses locally from being able to engage what is legally lawful now within the state of Minnesota. So I agree with the other councilmembers that I'm not in favor of a moratorium at this point either. Thanks. [2:07:24] Mary Fasbender: So Counselor, say this goes through tonight with a moratorium—what will the work be from your and from staff? I mean, is it creating a lot more work once the laws are changed? Then do we have to go back and... [2:08:10] City Attorney: Your honor, that's a good point. We will do this work regardless whether it happens with the moratorium or without, because our ordinances are inconsistent with the state law. And as far as fees, we have to cap our fees at $500 or half of whatever the state's charging, so we won't be able to charge near what the current licensing fee is. Fees will be completely irrelevant once we again bring our ordinances up to date. [2:09:41] Mary Fasbender: Thank you. If that's it for discussion, I look for a motion... clarification only need the motion if you're doing first reading. Okay, so if there's a desire not to... just fizzle without a motion. Okay. Looks like no other comments, we will move on. Thank you. Okay. At this time then we have a resolution to approve the liquor license renewal for Spiral Brewery for the 2023-24 licensing period. Dan, you may continue. [2:09:41] Dan Wietecha: Under other circumstances, this is something that we would typically have in the consent agenda, and actually the collection of other liquor license renewals for the '23-'24 period were actually in the consent agenda this evening. But recognizing that that can create some difficulties for Councilmember Fox being owner or principal of the Spiral Brewery, we pulled it out separate so it's easier for her to abstain than that when other items on the agenda... staff recommends its approval. [2:10:27] Jen Fox: Thank you. I'll make a motion to approve the liquor license renewal for Spiral Brewery for the 2023-2024 licensing period. [2:10:27] Mary Fasbender: Second by Councilmember Haus. Discussion? All those in favor of the motion, state by saying aye. [Ayes] Opposed to that motion, state by saying nay. Motion prevails with an abstaining vote from Councilmember Fox. Councilmembers, any announcements? Okay. I have a few. Tomorrow, Tuesday, June 6th, join us for the summer kickoff to our 2023 Levee Park events: live music, Raptor show with Carpenter's Nature Center, bounce house, climbing wall, face painting, caricatures, balloon artists and more. All ages are welcome, and this is a free event. City offices will be closed Monday, June 19th, in observance of Juneteenth. Summer Rec program at Levee Park. Thursday, June 8th, the first music night at Levee Park—Music in the Park: 22nd Row, which is a tribute to Elton John, supported by Ruth and George Doffing Charitable Fund. Wednesday, June 14th is Story Time in the Park—Colors is the name of the story, and it's recommended for ages seven and under, a partnership with Pleasant Hill Library. Thursday, June 15th, Music in the Park with Capital Sons, supported by Ruth and George Doffing Charitable Fund. Friday, June 16th is Movies in the Park with Minions: Rise of Gru, sponsored by Ardent Mills. Monday, June 12th, Pleasant Hill Library has a Summer Discovery kickoff party to celebrate the start of summer reading with ice cream and activities—learn all about honeybees in the pollinator garden and enjoy the music by steel drum band. The city's Park and Recreation and Police Departments are partnering with Hastings Prescott Area Council to serve up for youth in Hastings the Rec+Art+Police program, which offers free activities, treats and giveaways this summer. The first event is Wednesday, June 14th from 1:00 to 2:00 at Levee Park with a mural, DJ, and contests—recommended for elementary and middle schoolers; supported by SC Toys, Country Financial, Hastings Lions Club, Hastings Family Service and Community Ed. Makers Way Alley Market will be at Levee Park on Thursday, June 15th—support area makers and artisans within our historic downtown and Riverfront Park by shopping at their market. Wednesday, June 21st, Make Music Day with 17 performers over 12 hours at four locations—bring a blanket or a chair, enjoy live music from talented musicians at Hastings parks. Meetings coming up: Monday, June 12th, 7:00 PM Finance Committee; Monday, June 12th, Planning Commission; Wednesday, June 14th, 6:00 PM Arts and Culture Commission; Thursday, June 15th, 6:00 PM HEDRA; Tuesday, June 20th, 7:00 PM Heritage Preservation Commission; Wednesday, June 21st, 6:00 PM Parks and Recreation Commission. Monday, June 26th, the Planning Commission meeting has been canceled and City Council 2024 Budget Workshop at 5:30 with a regular City Council meeting at 7:00 PM. There is a lot going on. I would accept a motion to adjourn. [2:14:17] Mary Fasbender: Councilmember Pemble and Councilmember Leifeld. All those in favor of the motion, state by saying aye. [Ayes] Opposed to that motion, state by saying nay. [Meeting Adjourned]