Based on the context provided for the City of Cannon Falls, here is the transcribed townhall meeting with speaker identifications. [0:49] **Mayor Matt Montgomery:** Thank you. Same thing, yeah, Ziegler's a name, Caterpillar, but I have full attention there. Council meeting for Tuesday, October 3rd, 2023. If I could get a roll call, please? [0:55] **City Clerk Sara Peer:** Yes. Mayor [Montgomery]? Here. Jeppesen? Here. Johnson? Here. Kronenberger? Here. Lindell? [Nobach?] Montgomery? Here. [1:05] **Mayor Matt Montgomery:** Please rise for the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all. Yeah, if I can get a motion to approve tonight's agenda? [1:36] **Council Member Lisa Zimmerman:** So moved. [1:38] **Mayor Matt Montgomery:** I got a motion from Lisa. [1:39] **Council Member Diane Johnson:** Second. [1:40] **Mayor Matt Montgomery:** Second from Diane. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? Carries. That leads us to public input. Public input is intended to afford the public an opportunity to address concerns to the city council. The public input will be no longer than 30 minutes in total length. Each speaker will have no more than three minutes to speak. Speakers may address topics relevant to the governance of the city. Speakers must sign up in advance, must provide their name, address, and the topic they intend to address. Comments must be on topic, respectful, pertinent to City business, and adhere to the applicable data privacy rules. Any speaker that violates these rules will be asked to sit down. If the speaker refuses to comply, they may be removed from the meeting. Speakers shall not address topics that are the subject of a public hearing. All such comments shall be made at the public hearing. The city council will not generally act on issues raised by the public input but may choose to schedule consideration of the item on a future agenda. First up tonight, I'm sorry, I can't—I don't recognize the name—but uh, to speak about the wastewater treatment plant. [2:50] **Robert Moffett:** Okay. Hi, I'm Robert Moffett. And uh, just wondering, uh, what uh, odor prevention do you have in in place at the wastewater treatment plant? [3:01] **Mayor Matt Montgomery:** This is just a reminder, public input is not usually a conversation of question and answer. It's just the issue gets brought up. So if you have questions for Public Works after the meeting's done, you can talk to our Public Works Director. [3:08] **Robert Moffett:** Is there something in place for the odor control? We can talk after the meeting? You can't talk right now? Nope? Are you afraid to talk about it? [3:18] **Mayor Matt Montgomery:** That's what public input is for, sir. We'll bring up an issue that we can— [3:22] **Robert Moffett:** Okay, I'll put it this way: this place needs a—some—something in control of the odor at the wastewater treatment plant. They can't be letting the fans go and letting that go all over the city. That odor, sewer water... there's companies that make stuff that you can have an order on there like, one for instance, is BioAir System, where they uh, take the—they enclose all the vats and tanks and everything. It's all enclosed and it goes into a tank where there's microorganisms that eat all that up. And then when they release the air out of it, it doesn't have the smell with it. Not to mention that having that odor, that means that fecal matter is floating around in the air. And what are they gauging their COVID nowadays? Wastewater treatment. Wastewater—that's how they make their mark on how much COVID there is on. So if you're letting that out in the air, you're just letting COVID loose out in the air. So I believe something has to be done about it. So okay, I guess nobody talks to you. [4:41] **Mayor Matt Montgomery:** Judd, you want to handle that one after the meeting? Thank you. Uh, Babel Gorman to talk about Hardwood Estates. [4:51] **Babel Gorman:** Good evening. Tonight on your agenda there's uh, the Hardwood Estates. And from what I can tell, it's basically being funded by public money and we're dipping into the Municipal Reserve Fund—anybody know what that is?—for the tune of 1.1 million dollars, and a couple hundred thousand out of the general fund. And since you people represent the taxpayers, I'm hoping that maybe somebody will discuss some of this and to when the money's coming back. Because from what I can gather, it's going to be reinvested and reinvested. And Steve, you mentioned about Leon Anders investing in our community—how would you like to invest in a community with your own money, only to be in competition with the city and the free giveaways and like the free money? And by free, I mean it's interest-free, or so we think. So there is a cost to all of that money, and somebody's picking up the tab. Now I know that you're thinking that, well, we're going to have affordable lots. At whose expense? The taxpayers, because they're the ones that are funding this when generally those of us that do develop land go to a bank or use our own money. And when you talk to Steve about investing in the community, this isn't the first time it's been done for years around here. Back after in the early 2000s, there were people that invested and the lots are still sitting up there, and you gave them away again—they've been given away like three times, okay? And it costs money to do this and it's a gamble. So now you're gambling with the taxpayers' money. And just for a little footnote, I invested in your Industrial Park to the tune of about a third of a million dollars back in like '02-'03, only to have the city turn around and start giving property away two years later. And that's my fear here is that this isn't the end of the public participation. There's WHAC and SAC fees that you may give away as you did at Keller Bartman, and it goes on and on and on. So it's not a level playing field when Mr. Anders comes in and develops his property with his own money versus the city doing it with the taxpayers' money. So please, at least discuss the possibility of return on investment, if you know what that is. [8:03] **Mayor Matt Montgomery:** Moving on to the consent agenda. Consent agenda items may be adopted under one motion as presented or may be removed for discussion and resolution as Council business. Item A: Just and correct claims for the accounting period that ended on September 28th. Item B: Meeting minutes for the September 19th city council meeting. Item C: Resolution 2704 accepting a speed trailer donation from Goodhue County Sheriff's Office. Item D: Resolution 2705 accepting a monetary donation of three thousand one hundred twenty dollars from the family of Marilyn Flom to the Parks Department. Item E: Introduction/first reading of Ordinance 398, an ordinance of the city of Cannon Falls, Minnesota, authorizing the sale of property. Item F: Second reading and adoption of Ordinance 397, an ordinance of the city of Cannon Falls, Minnesota, amending city code 152.355 relating to signs. Item G: Approval of new tobacco license for Speedway. Item H: Approval of pay request number one for the Third Street lift station. Is there anything that the council would like to pull down? [9:17] **Council Member Diane Johnson:** Item A. [9:20] **Mayor Matt Montgomery:** Okay. Anything else from the council? Hearing nothing, I would accept a motion to approve the consent agenda. [9:26] **Council Member Steve Nordin:** Motion. [9:27] **Mayor Matt Montgomery:** Motion from Steve. Do I have a second? [9:29] **Council Member Diane Johnson:** Second. [9:30] **Mayor Matt Montgomery:** All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? That carries, approving our consent agenda. For Council business then, we'll move the just and correct claims to Item A and then we'll move Resolution 2706 to B. So Diane? [9:48] **Council Member Diane Johnson:** Item A, 3 on 235 Economic Development—it says "Night Berry Title, $450." Is that for the um, property order by the bridge? [10:13] **City Administrator Jon Radermacher:** I can answer that. Um, so when we did the title work for splitting the Steiner Carson property, we had to do a title search on that. And so we paid Night Berry and then Carson's son actually is paying us—they paid us back. So I don't know if that'll come in as a line item showing that Carson is—we don't get rid of reimbursing, right? So anyway, but that's what that—that's what that line item would be. [10:41] **Council Member Diane Johnson:** Okay, thank you. And one more on page four, fund 41470s, 72nd Avenue Way preliminary. Is that um, when we talk about that project, we haven't actually seen bids or anything on it, correct? [11:03] **Mayor Matt Montgomery:** So this is just the preliminary of what needs to be done on that gravel road. Okay? You approved a bill to move forward with that, right? We haven't seen anything other—that we haven't actually seen anything yet. We're going to begin in the process at the next council meeting. [11:21] **Council Member Diane Johnson:** Okay, thank you. That's all I had. [11:24] **Mayor Matt Montgomery:** Okay. Without further discussion, I would entertain a motion to approve Item A, the just and correct claims from the accounting period. [11:32] **Council Member [Derek]:** So moved. [11:33] **Mayor Matt Montgomery:** Motion from Derek. Do I have a second from Diane? [11:41] **Council Member Diane Johnson:** Second. [11:42] **Mayor Matt Montgomery:** All right. All those in favor? Opposed? Carries. Moves us on to Item B, Resolution 2706, receiving bids and awarding contract for Hardwood Estates second subdivision. Neil or Laura, who would like to start? [12:02] **Community Development Specialist Laura Qualey:** I can start. Bill can explain the uh, the bids. We opened the bids uh, um on September 27th. Uh, the low bid was Albrightson Excavating at one million 245,857 dollars and 20 cents. Um, there was actually 18 bidders, which was kind of remarkable. We've never seen—as Bill stated in his career, he's never seen that many bidders. We had a lot of—had a lot of competition. So as you could see in the—in the bid tab. Um, I don't know if Bill, you got anything else to add to that? [12:47] **City Engineer Bill Angerman:** Um, that's probably the only thing I would add, Mayor and Council, is the cost opinion was one million 450,000, so about 200,000 under our estimate. Which is—it seems like about the first time we've bid a job in the last couple years we've come under. Uh, one of the things we ask ourselves is why? Why are we under? And that—everyone was there, a lot of people on there, so there's a lot of people underbid, or I'm sorry, under the estimate. And what we've been told by people is this was a very good construction year, meaning it was dry. A lot of people finished their work; they finish their work early. So there are a lot of people working for fall or winter work. So oftentimes when we come into the fall, people are still scrambling to finish last year's jobs. So—so they're actually anticipating they will start work this winter. It's kind of rare to have a winter project, but the conditions are right. So uh, from a cost perspective, I think us, our staff, we're super pleased with the bids. So that's—that's—it's really good. [13:51] **Mayor Matt Montgomery:** Great. Questions, discussion from the council? [13:56] **Council Member Diane Johnson:** Well, if there's nobody else, go for it. Okay. Um, in—in the 2020 audit report, I found lots of different funds. I did not find anything called the um, uh Municipal Reserve. Is that actually just part of the general fund? [14:14] **City Administrator Jon Radermacher:** No, that was started when I got here. [14:17] **Council Member Diane Johnson:** What—how much money is actually in there? I mean, because I couldn't find how much was in there. [14:23] **City Administrator Jon Radermacher:** Well, shouldn't that have been in the audit? Well, I don't know. Um, but every year you approve 430,000 for that. It is for construction projects. Um, that's how—when I got here—that I managed to put things together. We slimmed down the city and we uh, as you can recall, we're starting to pay for projects instead of bonding, and that's how we're doing it. Um, we—we were fortunate enough to have the PFA uh, bond fall off of the sewer. So the sewer can—that was about a million dollars. The water had, I believe, 365,000 dollar bond fall off a year or two ago also. With the combination of all them funds, we pay cash for uh, these projects, such as Bill's second phase or our—our second phase of the reconstruction project. The sewer fund, which would have paid a million dollars this year for um, a bond payment three years ago or two years ago, are now going to pay cash for that lift station and river crossing because that was about 800,000. So timing was right to put together a good system and uh, that's how uh, that's how we're doing it. [15:59] **Council Member Diane Johnson:** So—so how much actually is in the Municipal Reserve right now? [16:05] **City Administrator Jon Radermacher:** With the transfer for this year, 1.2 or so. [16:10] **Council Member Diane Johnson:** Right. So this will pretty much wipe that out? [16:14] **City Administrator Jon Radermacher:** Yeah, and then next year there will be another 430,000 that you already approved. [16:21] **Council Member Diane Johnson:** Um, so then I know that the Third Street Bridge Cannon Street projects originally was estimated a little over 1.2 million and you thought that might actually go up. And there's only um, like 264 have assessed things, and so where is that? I mean, you said the lift station's coming out of the storm water fund? [16:51] **City Administrator Jon Radermacher:** Sewer—Sewer fund. [16:52] **Council Member Diane Johnson:** Well, which—I think they call disposal fund then on the audit? [16:56] **City Administrator Jon Radermacher:** Well, it's—you can, yeah, it's—that's what I was trying to guess on what they meant in the audit. Yeah. [17:02] **Council Member Diane Johnson:** And because as at the end of the year that was 876, so that's going to kind of wipe that out then. But every year um, put money in? [17:15] **City Administrator Jon Radermacher:** Absolutely. [17:16] **Council Member Diane Johnson:** And where is the money then going to come for the Cannon Street um, third and fourth street? [17:21] **City Administrator Jon Radermacher:** So a portion will come out of the sewer, a portion of it will come out of the water, whatever is allocated to it. A portion will come out of the storm water fund. We have—there's about 800,000 in the storm water fund, give or take. Now, I'm—I'm rounding numbers uh, to the point where I don't have them in front of me, right? [17:45] **Council Member Diane Johnson:** 658 at the end of the year. [17:47] **City Administrator Jon Radermacher:** Yeah, and I think there's 700 and closer to 800,000 in there right now. So um, I don't know what the—I just asked Bill here last week to send me an engineer's estimate on the project of where the money is going to be allocated: sewer, water, storm water, streets, curb and gutter. So I'm working on that, but we'll have enough to cover that also. [18:24] **Council Member Diane Johnson:** And then assuming that at 72nd Avenue Way—if I keep getting that straight right—I mean, it is a gravel road right now. So technically we can't have a development leading off of a gravel road. Are we going to have to get that finished before we start on the other one? [18:41] **City Administrator Jon Radermacher:** To kind of—they'll probably go simultaneously. And I would imagine the contractor that bid this project that we're talking about um, probably will bid this one pretty hard that's coming up that we're going to talk about at the next meeting. [18:59] **Council Member Diane Johnson:** Do we have any guess to mention how much the—the street part of the 72nd is going to be? [19:07] **City Engineer Bill Angerman:** Yes, I don't have it in front of me. The probably the key thing on 72nd Avenue Way is all those improvements are eligible to be 100 percent assessed. So when I say eligible, meaning we haven't come to the city council yet for you to provide direction on how much you want to have assessed, but all—all that would be eligible to be completely at the homeowner's cost. [19:35] **City Administrator Jon Radermacher:** There will be a philosophical discussion that we're going to have in two weeks about how much should go to them, should the pity—should the city pick up some? And actually we'll be going to the finance committee before that to discuss this. So when we come to the council in two weeks, uh, we'll have a recommendation from the finance committee. [19:55] **Council Member Diane Johnson:** Okay. Because I still look at that and thinking most of those—five of those houses went up in the last couple years. How did we ever allow them to build a house on a gravel road? I don't know. Because I want to talk to previous councils to say—because it had to go through the—get a permit. I don't know. That's... yeah. Um, my whole fear on this whole thing is um, this was a huge chunk of money. I know we supposedly have the money on hand to do it and do the remaining part of the Third Street bridge and Cannon Street. It does appear though that that's going to severely hamper—I mean, as I ride around town, I do know there's a part of me that wants to say, you know, the East Side got their streets all nicely done, the West Side got their streets nicely done, and the North Side—you know, Viking Avenue, Evergreen—those streets are really in need of an upgrade. And I don't know what our schedule is for street repair, but we do have some that really need to be worked. That alley behind the post office is atrocious. [21:14] **Public Works Director Jed Petersen:** That's on the list for next year. We put that on the list for next year. [21:18] **Council Member Diane Johnson:** Do we have enough money? [21:20] **Public Works Director Jed Petersen:** We do two to three alleys a year. [21:23] **Council Member Diane Johnson:** Okay. Um, and when are the rest of the streets on the agenda? [21:28] **Mayor Matt Montgomery:** I know—do we have other questions that are regarding Hardwood Estates? Because this seems more like finance and road project questions for the future, which are fine, but we're talking about Hardwood Estates and receiving the bids and awarding that contract, of which we got—which is financial. What can we stay on that subject? [21:52] **Council Member Diane Johnson:** Okay. These are all—these are all finance questions and they're all good. [21:58] **Mayor Matt Montgomery:** Yeah, but they're not pertaining to the project that we have on our agenda. [22:03] **Council Member Diane Johnson:** Then I'll just sum up by saying I'm not comfortable with using taxpayers' dollars to fund it um, when I think there are other projects that are more needed for our city. Then I'm done. [22:21] **Mayor Matt Montgomery:** Any other questions or comments from the council or discussion? Hearing none, I would entertain a motion to approve Resolution 2706 receiving the bids and awarding the contract for Hardwood Estates second subdivision. [22:36] **Council Member Lisa Zimmerman:** So moved. [22:38] **Mayor Matt Montgomery:** From Lisa. [22:39] **Council Member Steve Nordin:** Second. [22:40] **Mayor Matt Montgomery:** Second from Steve. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? Do we need to do a roll call vote or was that a—three, two... three or two? I—I didn't—I'm sorry, I didn't hear Laura. [22:56] **Council Member Laura Kronenberger:** Aye. [22:58] **Mayor Matt Montgomery:** Okay, so it was a 4-2 vote for the record. All right, it's approved. Uh, moving us on to reports. Chamber of Commerce is not present. Joint Powers Trail Board—if anybody would like to speak on that? [23:18] **Council Member [Derek]:** Um, they put out their 2022 annual report. Um, I don't know, was that a pre-report or was that the final? [23:25] **City Clerk Sara Peer:** That was the final. [23:26] **Council Member [Derek]:** Okay. Um, they're looking to get a water fountain replaced on the trail. Scott's looking how to finance it. And they're going to remove some buckthorn. [23:36] **Mayor Matt Montgomery:** Yeah. Are they going to do that with chemical or with goats? [23:41] **Council Member [Derek]:** Neither. It was um, a machine. [23:44] **Mayor Matt Montgomery:** And cool. Yeah. Awesome. I know, I was hoping—I was hoping for goats too. Give some people on the trail something to look at as they go, right? As they go along... goat. Anything else from the Joint Powers Trail board? Okay. EDA—our item was here and if you'd like to add anything, but it was the resolution that we just approved. So all right. Department heads? Jed, anything you'd like to bring up? [24:14] **Public Works Director Jed Petersen:** Yes. Um, next week starting October 9th, uh, Public Works is going to start flushing hydrants. I'll probably spend the next two to three weeks flushing hydrants. So if you do end up with a little bit of uh, yellow water, it's—that's the reason why. Okay? Um, our uh, streets and parks have installed two new signs, one at Eastside Park and one at Riverside Park. They look amazing. And they're working on the third sign, which is more for the trailhead. But over there in the park, that corner of the parking lot by the—the pay station for the—the trails... the pool parking lot, we were hoping was going to get paved last week. Due to the rain, it's been pushed off to either later this Friday or first of next week. So... and then my last uh, thing I want to mention is they have finally bored through underneath the river for the sewer line. They ran into a few different issues, but they finally got through it and they're most likely going to pull pipe tomorrow. So they will be blocking off uh, Water Street for up to four hours while they pull that pipe through and under the river. So that's all I have. [25:39] **Mayor Matt Montgomery:** Regarding the pool, uh, today there was an event at the fairgrounds. There were people parking there. They were told that it was graded and stuff, so it was okay with no damage or anything? [25:48] **Public Works Director Jed Petersen:** Okay. Or it helps with compaction. [25:51] **Mayor Matt Montgomery:** Okay, good to know. Thank you. Bill, anything you'd like to add? [25:56] **City Engineer Bill Angerman:** As we mentioned, 72nd Avenue Way—that feasibility report will come to the council meeting uh, in two weeks. And then the only other item is the John Birch Park wall project will be initiated or starting. We'll actually hold our staff and Friends of John Birch Park kickoff meeting next week. [26:15] **Mayor Matt Montgomery:** Great. Awesome. Uh, Laura, anything you'd like to add? Chief? [26:22] **Police Chief Jeff McCormick:** So tomorrow morning the school is doing Walk to School Day. So if you live uh, to the north of state uh, you may see just some disruption. If you use Hoffman from First to Fourth again, you'd see some disruption along there, but just be—please be patient. The kids move pretty fast, at least at the beginning. Oh yeah. But it's a good time for uh, for the kids, the teachers, parents, and staff that uh, join in on that. So tomorrow uh, Jeremy and myself will be assisting with traffic control. And they always bring flaggers and stuff too. So that's all I have. [27:07] **Mayor Matt Montgomery:** Great. Thank you, Chief. Sara, anything you'd like to add? Neil, you good? Laura, anything you'd like to bring up? Lisa? Ryan? Nope. Derek? Diane? [27:26] **Council Member Diane Johnson:** Any twins? There you go, there you go. 2004—lots changed since then. I can't. [Laughter] [27:38] **Mayor Matt Montgomery:** Steve, anything you'd like to add? All right, uh, I've got nothing as well. So thank you, everybody. Uh, I would take a motion to adjourn. [27:49] **Council Member Steve Nordin:** Motion. [27:50] **Council Member Lisa Zimmerman:** Second. [27:51] **Mayor Matt Montgomery:** Motion by Steve, second by Lisa. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? We are adjourned. Thank you, everybody.